Focus on Syria Project sees some ignored in crosshairs of war

Arab Spring

FOS sheds light on humanitarian situation, suffering of some civilians

Excerpt, editing, end comment by Carolyn Bennett

Stories and news on the humanitarian crisis in Syria ─ this is some of what Focus on Syria has to say about itself and its motives.

WHY, WHEN

Because “two years after the start of the Syrian crisis, the international public is not yet informed enough about the gravity of the conflict and its devastating impact on Syrian society and the life of the people,” FOS steps in to help. Media “have reported on political and military events in Syria but little attention has been given to the humanitarian situation and the sufferings of civilians.”

In contrast with wars of the past, “civil societies of the world have been mobilized only in a marginal way.”

 

WHO, WHAT, WHERE

“An independent initiative of world citizens deeply worried about the human disaster and feeling solidarity with all the different components of the Syrian people” forms the rationale for establishing the Focus on Syria Project (headquarters unclear: England, France, Middle East Diaspora)

Focus on Syria Project
Damascus 

Their goal is “to contribute to putting the Syrian crisis ─ and particularly its humanitarian consequences ─ on the agenda of international public opinion.” To meet with Syrians in need, listen to their stories, document their situation, publish and spread information; raise awareness and mobilize.

Focus on Syria comprises a network of journalists, photographers, and aid workers “engaged in their field work on the Syrian crisis; and other people with a specific interest on Syria and its current situation.”

Others join the network by sharing and publishing their material on the crisis and contributing their efforts in raising awareness among other people. Others join by supporting organizations that provide assistance to the Syrians.

Refugees Kenya

Refugees Somalia

REFUGEES

Refugees Yemen

Displaced
Tormented in
Palestine

Regional Refugees
Syria, Lebanon
Jordan, Egypt,
Iran,  Iraq, Turkey

Beyond Syria: 2011 – present

U

prisings (initiated without Western interference)

Syrian rally for dialogue

SYRIA

The Syrian civil war or Syrian uprising or Syrian crisis ─ begun on March 15, 2011 with popular demonstrations becoming nationwide by April 2011 ─ is an ongoing armed conflict between forces loyal to the government and protesters demanding the end of the dominant party that has ruled since 1963 and the resignation of the country’s president whose family has held the presidency since 1971. These demonstrations were part of the wider Middle Eastern protest movement known as the Arab Spring.

Clashes with police Protesters in Bahrain
run for cover

BAHRAIN

The  uprising in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain also begun in 2011 is a sustained campaign of civil resistance, a series of demonstrations, demanding greater political freedom and equality for the majority Shia population and an end the monarchy of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The Bahrain uprising is part of the revolutionary wave of protests in the Middle East and North Africa following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia. [Bahrain is home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the U.S. government sides with the oppressive monarchy, family dynasty, against the struggle of the people of Bahrain]

YEMEN

Yemenis protest
their government and
U.S. drone attacks

Simultaneous with Tunisia and Egypt’s revolution, the Yemeni uprising, also begun in 2011, is an ongoing demonstration against unemployment, economic conditions, and corruption including their government’s proposals to modify Yemen’s constitution; and demands for the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. [The U.S. sides an oppressive government and drone attacks the people.]

ARAB SPRING

"Awakening"

The “Arab Spring,” begun on December 18, 2010, is a term given to a revolutionary wave of nonviolent and violent demonstrations and protests; riots and civil wars in the Arab world.

Uprisings so far have left rulers out of power in Tunisia, Egypt (twice), Libya, and Yemen.

Civil uprisings continue in Bahrain and Syria.

Major protests have broken out in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan.

Minor protests have occurred in Mauritania (on the Atlantic coast of Africa forming geographic and cultural bridge between the North African Maghrib ─ including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia ─ and the westernmost portion of Sub-Saharan Africa); Oman (southeastern coast of Arabian Peninsula); Saudi Arabia; Djibouti (northeast coast of Horn of Africa); Western Sahara (territory occupying an extensive desert Atlantic-coastal area of northwest Africa); and Palestine/Palestinian Authority (eastern Mediterranean region comprising parts of modern Israel and Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West/ PLO is governing body of “emerging” Palestinian autonomous regions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip)

Outside the Arab world there have been protests by the Arab minority in Iranian Khuzestan (southwestern Iran bordering Iraq on the west, April 2011); border clashes in Israel (May 2011); and conflict involving weapons and Tuareg fighters returning from the Libyan civil war into Mali; and sectarian clashes in Lebanon described as spillover violence from the Syrian uprising, and regional Arab Spring.

All protests have shared similar techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and rallies, as well as the effective use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship.

Given the vast reach of uprisings, conflicts, violent foreign interference, and the widespread suffering of people displaced inside and outside their countries and of refugees on both sides of the Mediterranean and across Asia, west to east, one wonders whether FOS (the so-called Focus on Syria organization) is actually concerned, especially as it does not disclose its central location; or it is merely another based-in-the-West “Friend of Syria” interference with selfishly sinister motives.   

Sources and notes

FOCUS ON SYRIA PROJECT, http://www.focusonsyria.org/the-project/

Wikipedia notes on uprisings

Wikipedia collage image of Arab Spring: Clockwise from top left: Protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo (Egypt); Demonstrators marching through Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis (Tunisia); Political dissidents in Sana’a (capital of Yemen); Protesters gathering in Pearl Roundabout in Manama (capital land largest city of Bahrain)  ); Mass Demonstration in Douma (Syria); Demonstrators in Bayda (Al-Bayda, south central Yemen town)

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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41-org letter to U.S. Congress stunt

Narrow domestic “concern” ignoring foreign affairs is irrational, careless

Except and comment by Carolyn Bennett

Forty-one nonprofits tell Members of Congress: “Stop manufactured crisis”

1.       AFL-CIO	2.       AIDS United	3.       American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
4.       American Federation of Teachers	5.       Campaign for America’s Future	6.       Caring Across Generations
7.       Center for Community Change	8.       Center for Effective Government	9.       Coalition on Human Needs
10.    Communications Workers of America	11.    Community Action Partnership	12.    Council for Opportunity in Education
13.    CourageCampaign.org	14.    Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund	15.    Fair Share
16.    Gamaliel	17.    Green For All	18.    Health Care for America Now
19.    International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)	20.    Jobs with Justice/American Rights at Work	21.    Leadership Center for the Common Good
22.    The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights	23.    MoveOn.org Civic Action	24.    NAACP
25.    National Coalition for the Homeless	26.    National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare	27.    National Employment Law Project
28.    National Fair Housing Alliance	29.    National Immigration Law Center	30.    National People’s Action
31.    National Women’s Law Center	32.    NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby	33.    Partnership for Working Families
34.    PolicyLink	35.    Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition	36.    Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
37.    Social Security Works	38.    United Steelworkers (USW)	39.    USAction
40.    Wider Opportunities for Women	41.    Working America

No mention
bought and sold

D

ear Members of Congress, the letter reads, “As we head into another series of manufactured budget crises,” 41 signing organizations “stand against those who want to hold our economy hostage in order to dictate the terms of debate [and] urge you to: 

End job-killing sequestration cuts

Protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security

Not mentioned:Endless budget taking
for U.S. wars

Defend core programs for those most at risk

Not mentioned: U.S. endless global wars

Eliminate all tax incentives for sending jobs overseas

At first glance this 41-org letter to Members of Congress seems like a good idea but it does not take much to realize that it is no more than a made-in-the-USA-headline-grabbing stunt.

A

 letter to Congress without a single syllable mentioning the United States’ manufactured crises overseas, its war making and provocative violence across the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere ─ cannot be taken seriously. Such a letter (read the full content at links below) must be seen for what it is: another stunt to match the usual pageantry that emanates from the nation’s capital.

U.S.-led War on Terror
Pakistanis' endless deaths

U.S.-led War on Terror
Americans' endless deaths

In my view, the deeply inept, corrupt and unprincipled actors and actions involved in U.S. domestic and foreign policies cannot be compartmentalized to protect narrow interests or issues. Such limited vision is both irrational and careless in a world of clearly interlocking concerns, problems, and realities.

WAR ABROAD CREATES WANT not only abroad but at home. Whether Kandahar or Kentucky, Washington or Waziristan, Tehran or Tennessee, Damascus or Delaware ─ hegemonic taking, oppressive, excessive taking creates scarcity, creates global crisis; and that includes domestic crisis.

Sources and notes

“Dear Congress – Stop this manufactured crisis,” September 29, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/29/326717/us-government-shutdown/

Also at Common Dreams, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/29

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Antiwar, equal rights: beyond dream to solidarity

150 years’ struggle amidst endless wars and global protests

Excerpt, minor editing by 

Carolyn Bennett

Maryland activist Steven Strauss reflects on present and parallels 50 years from Washington March.

Dream for justice and equality must go beyond fragile reforms; envision capitalism's replacement with the revolutionary integration of free people into a society that thrives not on [bigotry and racialism] ─ but on aid and human solidarity.

“

…Before the modern civil rights movement, political inequality was maintained through Jim Crow segregation according to race,” Steven Strauss recalls. “Economic discrimination in jobs, housing, education, and treatment by police and courts was [in America] the written and unwritten law of the land.”

Boston, Massachusetts
performs Jim Crow
1847 

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States [America] enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure (in law) racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a ‘separate but equal’ status for African Americans.

The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided for Anglo Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.

Lancaster, Ohio
makes its point
1938

De jure (in law) segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States.

Northern segregation was generally de facto (in fact, practice, custom), with patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.

Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated.

Durham, North Carolina
makes its point
1940

These Jim Crow Laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans with no pretense of equality.

State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [Wikipedia note]

50-year commemoration
Marchers on Washington, D.C.
August 28, 2013

“The civil rights movement formally eliminated political Jim Crow but not the capitalist economy,” Steven Strauss observes; therefore, to the present day, “deep economic inequities persist.”

Profit takers and limp labor block century-and-a-half struggle

“A

system rooted in supremacy of profit has historically been the brick wall blocking the political struggle for freedom. The post-Civil War Reconstruction program that strained to overcome monstrous consequences of slavery and the 1960s civil rights struggle hit that brick wall.

 

The 1963 March on Washington ─ shouting that liberation was yet a distant dream ─ was to the Reconstruction Era what the 2013 commemoration March on Washington was to the Civil Rights Movement: impassioned protests in the face of “inadequate progress in the pursuit of freedom.”

Big Labor is also stuck in backward ways.  Paralleling the 1963 era, Strauss says, the 2013 March on Washington found “limited mobilization of rank-and-file labor.”

What needs to happen, he says, is a sea change: “a U.S. labor movement” that launches a “full-out organization for full employment through public works programs and a reduction of the workweek to 30 hours without cutting pay”; a “revival of affirmative action policies to reverse generations of discrimination”; a “rebuilding of inner cities” by ensuring that corporations pay proper taxes, and a dislodging of the strangle hold imposed by the “war budget” of the Pentagon. 

Solidarity beyond the dream

“The dream for justice and equality,” Strauss says, “needs to go beyond fragile reforms and instead envision the replacement of capitalism with the revolutionary integration of free people into a society that thrives not on [bigotry and racialism] ─ but on aid and human solidarity.”

Sources and notes

“An unfinished revolution: 50 years after the March on Washington (Black America — Part III in a series)” by Steven Strauss, October 2013 Freedom Socialist, http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2581

Tens of thousands of spirited people, mostly African Americans, descended on the nation’s capital on August 24 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom ─ Dr. Martin Luther King’s epic ‘I have a dream’ speech still reverberating as were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawing segregation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 officially prohibiting voting discrimination.

Image:

Demonstrators gather in D.C. on August 28, 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Photo: Steven Strauss / FS

Steven Strauss is a political activist in Baltimore, Maryland, who attended the 2013 March in Washington in D.C.

Jim Crow brief, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

ANTIWAR MARCHES UK LAST WEEKEND IN SEPTEMBER 2013

Stop the War Coalition

International Anti-War Conference: U.S. and allies pushing for another war in the Middle East; attack on Syria could cause a conflagration across the region. Antiwar action and opinion is making its mark but pressure for Western military interventions is growing; Obama is sending more military resources to encircle China; and while the Middle East remains the U.S.’s main preoccupation, the West is ramping up its military presence on the African continent. This conference is a vital opportunity to analyze and debate the fast changing and dangerous situation and plan how best to step up opposition to the West’s imperial wars: International Anti-War Conference, Stop the War Coalition 30 November 2013, Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, London SW1P 3DW, 10 a.m.-5 p. m. http://www.stopwar.org.uk/events/international-antiwar-conference

Manchester demonstration: This Sunday 29 September tens of thousands will join the TUC march on the Tory Party conference in Manchester to defend the NHS and challenge austerity. Stop the War is organizing an anti-war block with CND on the demonstration. Here are five reasons why you should be there. The anti-war block will be assembling in block ‘J’ with the main demonstration at 11a.m., Sunday 29 September Liverpool Road, Manchester M3 4FP. Look out for the ‘cut war not welfare’ placards. “Why Stop the War is marching to the Tory Party Conference this Sunday, Chris Nineham 25 September 2013: “Five reasons to march to the Tory Party Conference this Sunday” http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/why-stop-the-war-is-marching-to-the-tory-party-conference-this-sunday

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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U.S. President lectures nations, is muted on greatest urgency facing planet ─ Naidoo

Climate change:  endless scarcity, endless conflict

Excerpt, minor edit by 

Carolyn Bennett

Greenpeace’s International Executive Director, South African-born Kumi Naidoo describes himself as an activist who is “passionately involved in liberation struggles,” who continues “to speak truth to power across the range of Greenpeace campaign activities around the globe,” and who is “dedicated to engagement, dialogue and change”, and the quest for “a green and peaceful planet for all the world’s inhabitants.” He appraises the United States world affairs model.

DO AS WE SAY DO

 “The approach of the United States [is], ‘do as we tell you to do … do as we say, not as we do’.

On torture, they (The United States) are signatories to the anti-torture conventions, but we’ve got waterboarding, we’ve got Guantanamo, we’ve got extraordinary rendition.

Kumi Naidoo 

On respecting human rights and not violating people’s privacy without their knowledge ─ people around the world are saying …, ‘we had so much optimism in Obama.’

“President Obama was saying, ‘yes we can, yes we can’; but, with all of this NSA spying, maybe he was saying, yes we scan, yes we scan, yes we scan.”

UNCONSCIONABLY IRRESPONSIBLE

Mute on climate change

Among the speeches in the 68th session debate of the UN General Assembly this week, the powerful U.S. President “hardly mentioned climate change,” Kumi Naidoo observed in interview today with Democracy Now.

“Even the CIA and Pentagon in a 2003 report … suggested that in the coming decades the biggest threat to peace, security, and stability would not come from conventional threats of terrorism …; but from the impact of climate change. 

UN General Assembly

“So if any heads of state, any political leaders are concerned about peace, security, and stability; then they should be using the platforms at the United Nations to talk about the biggest urgency this planet has ever faced.

“We are talking already of serious impact ─ particularly in the developing world.

“We are seeing lives being lost. The UN Secretary-General has pointed out that “the genocide in Darfur was certainly intensified and exacerbated because of conditions resulting from climate change.

Neighboring Lake Chad, one of the largest inland seas in the world ─ again, according to the Secretary-General ─ has largely shrunk to the size of a pond.

The Sahara Desert is marching from Senegal to the Sudan southwards at the rate of one mile a year. 

Triggering conflict was water scarcity, land scarcity together food scarcity.

“All this is happening as heads of state talk about interventions around chemical weapons ─ all of which are important ─ but the biggest threat to peace and security is already upon us: climate change and its growing intensity.”

 

It is therefore deeply disappointing that U.S. President Barack Obama “did not make this connection.”

Sources and notes

“As IPCC Warns of Climate Disaster, Will Scientific Consensus Spark Action on Global Warming?” September 26, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/26/as_ipcc_warns_of_climate_disaster

Kumi Naidoo

South African human rights activist Kumi Naidoo is Greenpeace’s International Executive Director (November 2009- ). Born in Durban, South Africa (1965), Naidoo became involved in anti-apartheid activities when he was 15 years old, resulting in his expulsion from high school. He was involved in neighborhood organizing, youth work in his community, and mass mobilizations against the apartheid regime. During the apartheid government, Naidoo was arrested several times and was charged for violating provisions against mass mobilization, civil disobedience and for violating the state of emergency. As a result of this he went underground before finally deciding to live in exile in England. During his exile he was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and earned a doctorate (D.Phil.) in political sociology.

He returned to South Africa in 1990 after the release of Nelson Mandela and led the adult literacy campaigns and voter education efforts; and was the founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO). From 1998 to 2008, Kumi Naidoo was Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer of Johannesburg-based Civicus: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. He was the founding chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

He describes himself as an activist who is “passionately involved in liberation struggles,” who continues “to speak truth to power across the range of Greenpeace campaign activities around the globe,” and who is “dedicated to engagement, dialogue and change”; and in pursuit of “a green and peaceful planet for all the world’s inhabitants.”

Currently he leads the Global Call for Climate Action (Tcktcktck.org), which brings together environmental, aid, religious and human rights groups, labor unions, scientists and others; and organizes mass demonstrations around climate negotiations.

Kumi Naidoo at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumi_Naidoo

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Kumi-Naidoo/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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