Undertrykkelsen i Danmark rammer også DIG

Du synes måske, du har det godt her i Danmark; at du lever i et frit samfund, hvor alle kan få lov at gøre som de vil, hvis bare de overholder loven og lader andre være i fred.

Måske har du hørt om, at Danmark er et land, hvor uskyldige mennesker kan sidde fængslede i månedsvis, helt uden at de er mistænkt for at have gjort noget som helst galt, og uden hensyn til, om de er gravide eller ofre for vold eller voldtægt.

Men du er jo ikke hverken asylsøger eller fremmed, og så gælder det ikke. Eller gør det?

På Adventures and Japes undersøger den britiske skolelærer TackiestOnes, hvor sikker du egentlig kan være på, at den slags ikke rammer netop dig.

Hun begynder med at citere en artikel, der forklarer, at i Danmark kan torturofre tvinges til at tage antidepressiva, også selv om de ikke virker og tværtimod gør ondt værre. Landets jobcentre har sågar tiltaget sig magten til at påtvinge sådanne mennesker antidepressiv, også selv om deres læge direkte fraråder det.

TackiestOnes forklarer:

The Danish school system spends more money per pupil than any other, you might have heard. But did you know that the education system is so good that anyone can prescribe medication? All employees of the borough council in Denmark have the right to say which drugs you should receive, what the dosage should be and for how long you should be on the drugs. What a wonderful country! If a worker in a Job Club is a bit unsure about which drugs would be best, they can ask a doctor but the doctor is not required to see the patient.
As everyone is so well qualified in medicine here, the patient is not allowed to refuse.

House / Playing Doctor

The Caseworker will see you now

Men okay, siger du – jeg er ikke torturoffer, bliver ikke bedt om at møde på jobcentret og er i det hele taget ved godt helbred, uafhængig og fri.

Skipping

We don’t have to deal with the kommune!

Bortset fra, at det ikke kun er flygtninge og torturofre, der kan tvinges til at tage antidepressiva, som ikke virker og uanset, om lægen fraråder dem eller ej – det er alle, som risikerer på et eller andet tidspunkt af deres liv at få en depression samtidig med, at de er nødt til at søge økonomisk hjælp af en eller anden slags. Vi ved det godt – det kunne ikke ske for dig.

You are correct. The chances that you will fall on hard times and continue to stay in the country are indeed low. It will, as you have noticed, probably not affect you. Maybe your children. But not you. Probably. Depression is really rare, right? Especially in countries with nine-month-long winters, the likes of which you have never experienced… Especially not in countries where outsiders find it hard to build a support network….

Let’s just for a second consider what it all means, what the big context is.

The Danish State is huge, it is the biggest employer and it touches every aspect of your life. The minister for employment, the social workers, the case workers in the Job Club, the office workers in the borough council and so on, they all have enormous power.

If they decide, just POOF, one day decide that the best treatment for depression is antidepressants then it becomes so. Even if they only help a minority of people. Even if the side effects can be so bad that they drive people to suicide. Even if the drugs they force you to take, eat away a huge proportion of your benefits cheque. Even if your own doctor and an entire group of specialists say the drugs are not advisable in your particular case, you can still be forced to take them.

Men … det påvirker jo stadig kun nassere, siger du. Ikke folk, der overholder reglerne, passer deres arbejde, betaler deres skat. Og altså ikke bliver deprimerede. Ikke folk som dig. Og du har måske ret. Med mindre, du altså går hen og bliver skilt. Hvis du bliver skilt og ender med at være den, der tager sig af børnene, erhverver kommunen sig herved ret til at overvåge dig dag og nat uden hensyn til, hvad loven siger – det kunne jo være, at de herved kunne finde selv det spinkleste grundlag for at tage børnetilskudet fra dig.

Måske du vil finde, at det ikke altid er morsomt at leve i et socialistisk paradis.

You might also find, to your surprise, that your facebook is printed out, that the shoes outside your front door are noted, that the cars that visit your house are logged. You might find that as a result of this, you may be denied something you should be allowed or forced to do something. You might have your children taken off you.Fun fact, if your children are not in daycare and they are “behind” in their Danish language development, they can be forced into daycare. If you refuse, your family can be “investigated”. If you were planning on staying home past six months after your baby’s birth, think again. Even if you do not have a job to go to, you will be told to send your children to daycare around the six months mark so they can learn how to “socialise”.

creepy babies at childcare

Alt sammen i Danmark, verdens bedste land –  det socialistiske paradis, hvor få har for meget og færre for lidt, og hvor vi alle finder sammen omkring vores “hygge”, som er et ord, der ikke findes på nogen andre sprog, bortset fra norsk, svensk, hollandsk, engelsk og sikkert mange andre sprog.

Ret skal være ret, det særegne, socialrealistiske mareridt, som vi i Danmark påtvinger samfundets svageste borgere, findes nok ikke helt magen til nogen steder. Og gud ske lov for det.

Link: Should I move to Denmark: Denmark is a Socialist Paradise.

Yemen: Massakre gav bagslag

Det er i hvert fald en rimelig tolkning. Flere højtstående officerer er nu gået over til demonstranterne og kræver at diktatoren Saleh går af:

in the streets of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, rival tanks were ranged against each other after three senior army commanders announced that they backed the protesters.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gabool al Mutawakil, a youth activist, said: “We are now in the middle of two militaries – one that has joined the protesters and one that is under the authority of president Saleh. There is fear of civil war, but we are insisting on having a peaceful revolution.”

Earlier Major General Ali Mohsen Saleh, the head of the north western military zone and the head of the first armoured division, announced his support for the protesters.

Brigadier Hameed Al Koshebi, the head of brigade 310 in the Omran area, Brigadier Mohammed Ali Mohsen, who heads the eastern division, Brigadier Nasser Eljahori, the head of brigade 121, and General Ali Abdullaha Aliewa, an adviser to the Yemeni supreme leader of the army also deserted the president.

Saleh, den næste arabiske eks-diktator i rækken. Måske der bliver til en hel kalender? Januar Ben Ali, februar Mubarak, marts og april – ja, hvem ved. Måske året kan sluttes af med Saudi-Arabiens kong Abdullahs fald i november eller december, skarpt fulgt af Qatar og De Forenede Arabiske Emirater. Lige for øjeblikket ser det sort ud på mange måder, men billedet kan nå at vende adskillige gange i de kommende måneder.

Demo in support of Bahrain, Copenhagen 18.3.2001

“Situationen i den arabiske verden er nu, at i kølvandet af alt det, som skete i Egypten, har folket fået nok. Folket har fået nok af undertrykkelse, og nu siger de stop. Dette er ikke en religiøs kamp. Det her handler rent og skært om basisfriheder: Frihed, rettighed og lighed til alt!”

Via Fatima Al-Hashimi.

Krigsherren Obama

Via 3arabawy.

I mellemtiden rammer As’ad Abukhalil hovedet på sømmet:

The charade of overthrowing regimes and invading countries in the name of democracy was a bloody farce in the case of Bush era. They now don’t need to do that. They can just jump on the case where they see a potential for a real democratic change and then guarantee the installation of a puppet regime without having “boots on the ground”, as Obama kept warning in White House meetings. They bomb and kill and manage to maintain a high tone of moral uprightness while the puppet Arab League puts its ugly stamp to make it look like an Arab affair.

A useful idiot is needed, of course, and Mustafa `Abdul-Al-Jalil is perfect for the role and he has been so chummy with Saudi propaganda as of late. Obama has modified Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: not only maintaining the occupations but guaranteeing long-term presence in both countries. He has also started a war in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen where the US is a major force in the war there.

Western enthusiasm for intervention in Libya has never even been explained: why the hundreds of deaths in Egypt or Tunisia did not warrant any condemnation (the State Department did manage to condemn the protesters in Egypt, lest we forget too soon)? Israel manages to kill far more than Qadhdhafi and in shorter periods of time, and we never encounter the “humanitarian” impulse of Western governments there.

Civile i Libyen: Nej tak til vestlige bomber

Som Politiken skriver:

Et halvt døgn efter at de første krigsfly fløj ind over Libyen, er mange lokale allerede godt trætte af angrebet.

Det fortæller øjenvidner til en række internationale nyhedsmedier, efter at Frankrig, USA og Storbritannien natten igennem har kastet bomber og granater ned mod mål i det nordafrikanske land.

En af de utilfredse Tripoli-borgere er ’Sami’, der til The Guardians udsendte giver luft til de stærke anti-amerikanske følelser, der hersker i Libyen og resten af regionen.»Folk er trænet til denne slags konfrontation. Vi blev også bombet af USA i 1986. Disse folk har en agenda: De vil ruinere Libyen og trække landet ned«, siger ’Sami’.

I Twitter-universet – hvor der også er masser af USA-kritiske røster fra libyere – vælger ’OnlyOneLibya’ en modsat tilgang. Som han skriver:

»Jeg vil blot minde det libyske folk om, at luftangreb ikke fjerner Gaddafi. Vi er selv nødt til at gøre det. Libyen må rejse sig!«

I The Independent udstiller Robert Fisk de vestlige regeringers moralske fallit ved at spørge sig selv, om man mon ville være lige så hurtig til at blande sig i et lignende opgør i Mauritanien eller Elfenbenskysten – og påpeger, at de oprørere i Benghazi, der i dag vifter med franske flag,  meget hurtigt kan rette gå hen og rette geværerne mod de vestlige styrker:

Why not, when Gaddafi tells the people of Benghazi that “we will come, ‘zenga, zenga’ (alley by alley), house by house, room by room.” Surely this is a humanitarian intervention that really, really, really is a good idea. After all, there will be no “boots on the ground”.Of course, if this revolution was being violently suppressed in, say, Mauritania, I don’t think we would be demanding no-fly zones. Nor in Ivory Coast, come to think of it. Nor anywhere else in Africa that didn’t have oil, gas or mineral deposits or wasn’t of importance in our protection of Israel, the latter being the real reason we care so much about Egypt.

So here are a few things that could go wrong, a sidelong glance at those bats still nestling in the glistening, dank interior of their box. Suppose Gaddafi clings on in Tripoli and the British and French and Americans shoot down all his aircraft, blow up all his airfields, assault his armour and missile batteries and he simply doesn’t fade away. I noticed on Thursday how, just before the UN vote, the Pentagon started briefing journalists on the dangers of the whole affair; that it could take “days” just to set up a no-fly zone.

Then there is the trickery and knavery of Gaddafi himself. We saw it yesterday when his Foreign Minister announced a ceasefire and an end to “military operations” knowing full well, of course, that a Nato force committed to regime-change would not accept it, thus allowing Gaddafi to present himself as a peace-loving Arab leader who is the victim of Western aggression: Omar Mukhtar Lives Again.

Libya is not Egypt. Again, Gaddafi is a fruitcake and, given his weird performance with his Green Book on the balcony of his bombed-out house, he probably does occasionally chew carpets as well.Then there’s the danger of things “going wrong” on our side, the bombs that hit civilians, the Nato aircraft which might be shot down or crash in Gaddafi territory, the sudden suspicion among the “rebels”/”Libyan people”/democracy protesters that the West, after all, has ulterior purposes in its aid. And there’s one boring, universal rule about all this: the second you employ your weapons against another government, however righteously, the thing begins to unspool. After all, the same “rebels” who were expressing their fury at French indifference on Thursday morning were waving French flags in Benghazi on Thursday night. Long live America. Until…

Jeg forstår godt dem, der mener, der kan være bedre at gøre noget, og at selv om en aktion ikke er perfekt, kan den godt være bedre end ingenting. Jeg kan bare ikke se noget som helst tegn på, at den igangværende vestlige aktion mod Libyen ikke er værre end ingenting. Jeg håber meget, jeg tager fejl, men de fleste vil give mig ret i, at Vesten ikke har nogen god track record i området. Bortset fra, da vores flyveforbud og heroiske indsats i øvrigt reddede indbyggerne i Srebrenica fra massakren. Eller hvad det nu var, de gjorde.

Hvor er FN-resolutionerne for at beskytte civilbefolkningen i Bahrain?

Eller Yemen, for den sags skyld. Hykleriet har spist dem: Yemen har ingen olie, og det er vores allierede Saudi-Arabien der har invaderet Bahrain. Og Bahrain har heller ikke selv noget olie. Så det taler vi ikke om, som Tom Scocca skriver i Slate:

The helpful thing, if you’re overwhelmed by so much news going on at once, is that Bahrain is roughly the same story as Libya—only instead of pro-democracy protesters being murdered by a terrorist-sponsoring monster of a dictator who has been on America’s enemies list for ages, the pro-democracy protesters are being murdered by a government that is America’s very own dear ally. And where Qaddafi brought in foreign mercenaries for support, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain brought in troops from our even more vital ally, Saudi Arabia.

So basically, take all those proud feelings about the United States standing up for freedom and human rights in Libya and turn them inside out, and vomit into them. That’s Bahrain.

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are the same rotten royalist dictatorships they’ve always been. And they’ve been on our side. The helicopters over the square were reportedly American-made Cobras, because the Royal Bahraini Air Force flies what we sell them; the rifles on the ground are American M16s. Freedom and democracy are what we talk about. Values are what we do.

Så, som Scocca skriver – tag al snakken om demokrati og menneskerettigheder og bræk dig på dem; så ved du, hvad alle de gode ord om demokrati og menneskerettigheder og beskyttelse af civilbefolkningen i Lbyen er værd.

Link: Would a No-Fly Zone Over America Save the Democracy Movement in Bahrain?

Også på Boing Boing.

“Humanitær aktion” mod Libyen er et blålys – virkeligheden er krig som i Irak

Hvis man tror, at den forestående militære aktion mod Libyen handler om at håndhæve en “no-fly-zone” som humanitær støtte til oprørerne i Benghazi, er man godt naiv.

Blækket er næppe tørt på den FN-resolution, der eksplicit ikke tillader besættelse eller landkrig, før Lars Løkke Rasmussen fortæller danskerne, at det bliver en lang krig, det her:

“Vi har et ønske om, at det ikke skal være for en meget lang periode, men vi kan ikke give nogle garantier,” sagde statsminister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Om krigen vil vare i uger, måneder eller år, ville statsministeren ikke give et bud på.

Også udenrigsministeren påpegede, at krigen kan blive lang.

“Der er tale om en langvarig proces, og aktionen er ikke overstået på kort tid,” sagde hun.

Man taler ikke om “den humanitære aktion”. Man taler ikke om “flyveforbud”. Man taler om krig, og igen – det er muligt, at oprørerne i Libyen tror, at det handler om at redde dem fra en kommende humanitær katastrofe. Men inden længe vil det, hvis ikke krigen bliver standset, være de vestlige soldater, som forårsager den humanitære katastrofe, mens landets olie triller ud tønde for tønde – præcis, som det hver på sin måde er gået i Afghanistan og Irak.

Man mærker allerede, hvordan vestmagterne reagerer med ærgrelse, når Gaddafi har erklæret våbenhvile og dermed fjernet hele grundlaget for aktionen. Han “har én chance“, tordner Obama, og man aner allerede kimen til det “vi angriber da bare alligevel”, der var en realitet i 2003, da man angreb Irak. Historiens gang vil forhåbentlig vise, at jeg tager fejl, men for mig at se handler det her kun om én ting, og det har intet med humanitære hensyn at gøre: Det handler om at få en bid af kagen, før det er for sent.

Eller, som Al Jazeeras Marwan Bishara udtrykker det:

The overzealousness of certain Western powers like Britain, France and, as of late, the US, to interpret the resolution as an open-ended use of force, is worrisome. With their long history of interference and hegemony in the region, their political and strategic motivation remains dubious at best. Likewise, their rush to use air force individually or collectively could prove morally reprehensible – even if legally justified – if they further complicate the situation on the ground.

The onus is on these Western powers to prove that their next move and actions are based on a strictly humanitarian basis and are not meant as a down payment for longer-term interference in Libyan and regional affairs.

They need to demonstrate how their ‘change of heart’ from supporting the Gaddafi dictatorship over several years to condemning him as a war criminal and acting to topple him, is not motivated by more of the same narrow national and Western strategic interest.

Unfortunately, the Libyan dictator’s statements and actions (and his recent cynical and contradictory threats and appeals) have played into Western hands, making it impossible for Libyans, like Tunisians and Egyptians before them, to take matters into their own hands.

Those who abstained at the UN Security Council, including Germany, India and Brazil, wanted to co-operate in charting a brighter future for Libya, but are also suspicious of the overzealous French and British eagerness to jump into a Libyan quagmire with firepower.

Indeed they were. Indtil videre er invasionerne af såvel Irak som Afghanistan endt som rene, humanitære katastrofer. Vi burde ærligt talt have lært lektien, før vi drager ud på endnu et lille kolonialistisk eventyr.

Nej til militære indgreb i Libyen

Skal vi virkelig tro på, at de selv samme vestlige regeringer, som ikke engang kunne tage sig sammen til at vedtage et mildt rap over fingrene til Israel, da de for et par år siden begik krigsforbrydelser i Gaza, komplet med kemiske våben og overlagte drab på civile, nu bekymrer sig om den humanitære situation i Libyen?

Nej – når det vestlige angreb, som en FN-resolution nu har åbnet for, kommer, vil det kun handle om én ting: Økonomiske interesser.

Som Richard Seymour skriver på Lenin’s Tomb:

The best-case scenario is that people are killed to little avail, and the former regime elements in the transitional leadership have just diverted energies and initiative down a blind alley. I suppose you might object that the best-case scenario is that the air strikes exclusively kill the bad guys, turning the initiative in favour of the revolutionaries, allowing them to sieze power, build a liberal democratic state, and the cavalry heads home. And the band played, ‘Believe it if you like’. Look, I’d like to believe it. I’d also like to believe that Obama is a socialist, Hillary Clinton a feminist, and David Cameron a salesman for unsecured personal loans. But the occasions in which imperialism has directly assisted a revolutionary process are rather infrequent, wouldn’t you say? In fact, I suspect you’d be struggling if I asked you to name one.

I’m also afraid that all the talk about the inaction, delaying, dilly-dallying and procrastination of the ‘international community’, not to mention the demonology about Russia and China obstructing the good guys once again, has played straight into a very familiar war narrative. Just when you’ve uttered your last “but why won’t they DO something?”, just when you’re about to give up and lapse into foul depression, the good guys come to the rescue. It’s like 1941 all over again. There was never any doubt, as far as I’m concerned, that the US would support a no-fly zone if it could be suitably internationalized and involve support from the miserable dictatorships of the Arab League. And no one will be tasteless enough to point out that those very same states are currently butchering their populations with the arms and financial assistance of the imperial powers commanding this coalition of the willing. Because that would just be sour grapes.

Som sagt – jeg vil tro på vestmagternes (herunder Danmarks) humanitære hensigter, når de pålægger det israelske miltær flyveforbud over Gaza og Vestbredden, og når de taler åbent for demokrati i Saudi-Arabien. Indtil da kan talen om “humanitær intervention” aldrig blive andet end hykleri af værste skuffe.