In the late hours of May 1, US President Barack Obama went on the air to break the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing in Pakistan. While he did not give much detail about the operational side of the attack, he did “thank” the Pakistanis for their “cooperation” in the operation that was carried out on a “compound in Abbottabad”, home to the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul (just outside Abbottabad).
Tens of thousands of people blocked the road between Peshawar and the Pakistan-Afghan border post of Torkham on April 23 and 24. The call to block the road was issued by Imran Khan, leader of Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI, or Pakistan Justice Movement) in protest over the indiscriminate US drone attacks that have killed hundreds of people in the last year alone.
The people of Egypt are gradually waking up to the reality that it is one thing to drive a dictator out, even one that has been around for as long as Hosni Mubarak — 30 years — and quite a different matter to change the political system and the culture of entitlement that has grown within it. There are many constituencies that have unfairly benefitted under the old system; they are not likely to give up their privileged positions so easily, Mubarak or not.
In October 2010, the ruling regime in Azerbaijan banned hijab in public schools and revived an unprecedented socio-political activism of the Islamic movement. The mobilization is not only domestic, but also international. For the first time an international conference on an Islamic issue in Azerbaijan was organized.
In recent years rapid rapprochement has occurred between Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) political triumph in Turkey, and Bashar Assad’s succession of his father, were a series of events that brought these countries together.
The release of Raymond Davis on March 16 has dismayed most Pakistanis who felt the American was guilty of murder and should have been dealt with according to the law of Pakistan. Instead, what this confirms yet again is the craven attitude of the government in its dealings with the US.
This past winter, American troops murdered even more Afghan civilians than in previous years. And true to form, they routinely claim the attacks were aimed at militants and that no civilians were killed.
In characteristic arrogance, the Saudi regime sent in its army backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers to the tiny island of Bahrain on March 13 to crush the people’s movement for freedom and dignity. Some 2,000 troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) including 1,000 Saudis were rushed to Bahrain to attack protesters that had peacefully rallied in Manama’s Pearl Square for a month.
While Muslims in the Islamic East and North Africa were going through great turmoil, in February, the Muslims of Turkey lost one of their greatest leaders. Professor Necmeddin Erbakan had been in hospital since early January for various problems and he finally died on February 27 of cardiac and respiratory failure at the age of 85.
More than a year after the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak, Egyptians are faced with a curious dilemma that is both promising as well as frustrating. It is promising because the military regime has been forced to bring forward the date of presidential elections to May.
Last December, an agreement for the pipeline from Turkmenistan to India, via Afghanistan and Pakistan was signed without fanfare or publicity despite its immense significance.
The centre of Luton, a large town 30 miles north of London, lay empty on February 5. This was unusual for a Saturday afternoon, as one would have expected the usual hustle and bustle of shoppers and families frequenting parks and markets in the town centre. Instead, it was like a ghost town. Shops were closed and people remained indoors. The only presence on the streets was that of 1,000 police officers who were waiting to steward a scheduled demonstration by the far right anti-Muslim fascist organization, the English Defence League (EDL).
The Raymond Davis Affair is just the latest in a series of incidents in the past few months (Salman Taseer assassination is another) that threatens to widen antipathy between Pakistan’s westoxicated neo-liberal ruling and business class on the one hand and the majority of unrepresented Muslim people on the other into a bona fide overthrow of the existing feudal political order.
The winds of change sweeping the Islamic East have reached the shores of the tiny island state of Bahrain as well. The ruling Khalifa family resorted to brute force to terrorize peaceful protesters in the capital Manama’s Pearl Square on February 18 that resulted in the deaths of five protesters and left hundreds injured. The city’s Salmaniya Hospital was overwhelmed as the dead and wounded were brought in. Distraught relatives rushed to the hospital turning it into a new venue for protests.
The Palestinian issue has been virtually stalemated since before Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008–2009, with Hamas, the most popular and legitimate Palestinian leadership bottled up in the besieged and densely populated Gaza, and the West Bank under the increasingly repressive rule of Mahmood Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA).
The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer on January 4 at the hands of his own bodyguard has exposed the numerous fault lines criss-crossing the social fabric of Pakistani society over the blasphemy law. It has pushed the country toward two extremes drowning out rational and knowledge-based discussion.
Last month’s events have confirmed, yet again, with striking clarity how deeply polarized the Pakistani society is. The killing of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab Province, by his own bodyguard on January 4 has scared the living daylights out of the already cowardly rulers.
It is now widely expected that Yemen’s current unrest will lead to secession and not merely to the flight of its president, as has happened in Tunisia. The background to this situation is that the Republic of Yemen was born in May 22, 1990, when the two states of North and South Yemen merged after several clashes that led eventually to negotiations and a commitment to unity.
Barring some unforeseen problems, South Sudan will hold its referendum on January 9, 2011 and almost certainly secede from the North. The largest country in Africa would have been dealt a terrible blow whose consequences will reverberate for decades.
Even as US-Zionist agents were attacking ‘Ashura ceremonies in Pakistan and Iran, in Turkey something remarkable was taking place. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s appearance at an ‘Ashura commemoration ceremony of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom sent a powerful message of Muslim unity.
