Many videos on youtube speak about Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring events. This channel based in Qatar has been accused by many as being a collaborator with ‘foreign agents’ working to destabilize the region and serve the interests of foreign powers. I am posting here a specimen of such videos which I chose because it speaks specifically about what Al Jazeera’s plans are for Algeria:
The clip is from a Continue reading
So Gaddafi’s dead, and with his death ends the reign of three North African dictators. I won’t talk of the way he’s been killed or on whether he’ll be buried or not. Useless details if you ask me. What is important is the way the situation will evolve in Libya. I of course wish the best for the Libyan people but I must say I am not convinced at all the Libyans will be free in an independent state given the conditions of Gaddafi’s regime fall. I obviously mean the NATO and its Arab lackeys’ military intervention and the influence they have in the ill-conceived NTC’s Libya. Many share this opinion but many make the mistake of calling Gaddafi a martyr and his military resistance. I neither mourn nor celebrate Gaddafi’s death. The fact I do not like the NATO military intervention doesn’t make me forget who the Guide was. A similar feeling was created among the public (and I mean the Algerian public) after Saddam’s execution.
The topic of this post is not only about Libya. It’s on one of the reasons why I do not like the NTC and their likes, the perception of treason. The so-called Arab Spring, which started in winter and has yet to reach an end after three seasons, did raise this point. Who are the people leading the movements/uprisings/revolutions? Where did they train? What are their relations with foreign governmental and non-governmental organisations? Are they patriots or traitors?
These are not my words!
This week two men declared many of their Muslim fellows were not Muslim anymore.
One of them is a Saudi scholar, Sheikh Al Barrak, who followed a certain logic to eventually reach the conclusion that whoever denies that men/women mixing is religiously illegal (haram) must be considered as an apostate and should be killed. This topic is a serious and complex jurisprudence matter, and specialists disagree over it; so I won’t discuss it here. As we know the vocabulary is important, so the full text in the original language can be found on his web site.
The second case has nothing to do with the first one despite them being grouped in this post.
The second man is new to the Islamic jurisprudence. He probably ignores a lot in this field but his ignorance didn’t prevent him from declaring the apostasy of many Muslims. Thank God he didn’t call for their killing. This man is the Libyan president Mouammar Gaddafi. In the video below he declares djihad on Switzerland and says that any Muslim who doesn’t boycott this country is an enemy of Allah.
The Libyan/Swiss relations faced a first crisis in 2008 when the Swiss police jailed the Colonel’s son (Hannibal) for two days. At that time, Gaddafi decided to remove all his money from the Swiss banks, and the Swiss authorities had no choice but to apologize. More recently, the Swiss government decided to deny the visa for many Libyan citizens (leaders). This angered the Colonel who retaliated with a visa ban for all the European citizens. At that point, the European Union tried to fix things as it seems nobody wants to anger Gaddafi, and Algeria said it supported Libya in its “battle”.
But now, he took the opportunity of Almawlid, and used the excuses of the recent Swiss referendum, to declare djihad on Switzerland. I wonder who would follow him there!
The 14th ordinary session of the assembly of the African Union which took place between 25/01 and 02/02 in Addis Ababa reminded me of the interesting positions of the Arab states leaders in the African rulers longevity ranking.
We can indeed find three of them in the top 10 with Libyan Muammar Gaddafi (1st), Egyptian Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. And if we consider the Algerian ruling system specificity (same people behind a changeable president) and the Moroccan monarchy (with different kings) we can safely add them to this top 10 list.
These regimes are still in power despite the will and hopes of their populations, and the means they use to stay in charge have little to do with democracy. But for some reason, these rulers always seek legitimacy arguments. I bet it is because they feel for their peoples and want to ease the pain their presence created and nourishes. And by providing such ingredients to the populations, they help them feel better and happily accept to follow these leaders they never chose. Such arguments could even have the surprising effect of turning parts of the populations into genuine supporters of these leaders.
Therefore, I decided to organise a sort of contest of the best legitimacy arguments. I must warn you though, I don’t know much about the internal affairs of most of these states, so it’s not advised to take the results too seriously. Continue reading
