Retsopgør og krig

Peter Andreas fortæller den måbende omverden om Danmarks heroiske indsats før og ikke mindst efter 2. Verdenskrig:

21,800 persons were detained by The Resistance. Not the actual Nazi soldiers since they were protected by what was later known as The Geneva Convention and transported safely back to their respective Bundesländer. The detainees were those who had already been named ‘traitors’, Landssvigere, most of them because their names were on a secret list called The Central Records, Centralkartoteket, produced by The Resistance during the final years of the occupation.[…] Historians estimate that three times as many Danes were killed by Danes in the first five days after Liberation Day than Danes killed by Nazis during the five years of occupation.

On June 1st, 1945 some sort of civilisation kicked in with the event of the so-called Judicial Battle, Retsopgøret. Technically speaking it was a set of laws called The Collaborationist Laws, but their level of civilisation was so-so, since it is one of the pillars of a civilized justice system that you cannot be punished for deeds that weren’t illegal at the time you did them – a principle the lawmakers disregarded due to ‘extraordinary circumstances’ and made The Collaborationist Laws retroactive. It was now made a crime, punishable by death in some cases, to do exactly what the Danish Government had obliged its citizens to do 5 years earlier: co-operate with the Nazi occupational forces.

The Judicial Battle was fought with little honour. 13,500 people were found guilty. 10,000 were imprisoned, 3,000 for 3 years or more, 66 for life. 103 were sentenced to death out of which 46 were actually executed, the last in 1950.

Almost all those punished were ‘the little fish’. A woman owning a laundry in the small town of Esbjerg got 6 months in prison for pressing Nazi uniforms from the nearby barracks. Two huge construction companies that had made millions by using concentration camp prisoners as slave labour in Germany, Lithuania and Poland got away scot-free. And the owner of the Danish Industrial Syndicate, The Rifle Syndicate in daily speech, who had made even more millions by producing and selling weapons to the Nazis had absolutely nothing coming to him. Except of course a sole concession for all Danish oil production in the North Sea that the company still holds today.

Appalled? Don’t be. The worst is yet to come:

During the last months of WW2, millions of German civilians were fleeing from the horrors of the war. 244,500 came to Denmark – wounded from air raids, malnourished and sick from dysentery, typhoid and starvation. They were all interned in camps ringed with barbed wire because of the ‘danger’ of them sliding into general Danish population making it difficult to deport them again when things had cooled down, so they had little or no access to food or fresh water. When the authorities asked the Danish Doctor’s Association for help in March 1945 the only answer was a short note: “Considering the present conditions of the country it is not the Association’s belief that it can offer any relief assistance to the German refugees.” No more, no less.

From January to December 1945 13,493 people died of diseases that could have been cured. 7,746 were children.

Peter Andreas trækker en tråd til Anders Fogh Rasmussens lidt besynderlige kritik af samarbejdspolitikken og den krig, der i disse år atter føres i Danmark, nemlig om “danske værdier”. Læs endelig det hele.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir og Afghanistan

HuT demo London


 

Jeg følte ikke den ringeste trang til at deltage i gårsdagens nazi-, regerings- og Dansk Folkeparti-støttede demonstrationer mod Hizb-ut-Tahrirs møde i Det Kongelige Biblioteks “Sorte Diamant”, men ville (hvis ikke jeg havde opholdt mig i Århus) måske snarere have deltaget i selve mødet for at høre, hvad de havde at sige.

I stedet nøjedes jeg med at følge arrangementet live på deres hjemmeside khilafah.dk, og det inspirerede mig til en række kommentarer på Twitter.

Det overordnede indtryk af arrangementet er, at det var meget velforberedt, og foreningens PR-afdeling havde gjort et glimrende arbejde med at vække folks interesse for mødet – der er nok mangen en forening med et tilsvarende lavt medlemstal, der kun kan drømme om en så massiv mediereklame for deres arrangementer, som Hizb-ut-Tahrir her fik foræret af deres såkaldte modstandere.

Selve arrangementet var delt i to, først en dokumentarfilm og en række oplæg fra panelet om krigen i Afghanistan, herefter en noget kortere debat-del, hvor det var muligt at stille spørgsmål.

Mit overordnede indtryk er som sagt, at der var tale om et særdeles velforberedt arrangement, og oplæggene bar præg af stor intelligens og viden om baggrunden for krigen i Afghanistan. Deres analyser af krigens årsager og resultater, og deres lammende kritik af det nuværende korrupte styre i Afghanistan og de grusomme krigsherrer, som det i vid udstrækning hviler på, var både berettiget og præcis. Og det er fuldstændig korrekt at gøre opmærksom på, at civile, og det er både mænd, kvinder og børn, lemlæstes og myrdes af vestlige soldater i en krig, der kan virke komplet udsigts- og formålsløs.

Med mindre altså krigens formål har meget mere at gøre med storpolitiske skaktræk samt olie og naturgas og rørledninger til disse ting end med afghanernes velbefindende. Og hvis det sidste er rigtigt, kan vi vel alle blive enige om, at så har Danmark intet at gøre i denne krig.

Det er også korrekt, at hvis afghanske borgere, lokalområder eller stammer oplever at blive invaderet af fremmede, fjendtlige soldater, så har de ret til at forsvare sig mod disse soldater. Det siger sig selv, og er ganske rigtigt også det argument, som vi i dag bruger til at forsvare den danske modstandsbevægelse (som af datidens medier og politikere netop  blev beskrevet og betragtet som kriminelle terrorister).

Denne del af Hizb-ut-Tahrirs oplæg fremstod som en intelligent, veltilrettelagt analyse med mange pointer, som må være særdeles smertefulde for tilhængere af krigen i Afghanistan. Deres egne forslag til løsning af konflikten var imidlertid ikke specielt overbevisende – det kunne, om noget, give associationer til den revolutionære venstrefløjs revolutionsplaner i 70erne, der nok var funderet i al mulig marxistisk teori og udtænkt til punkt og prikke på det intellektuelle plan, men som ikke ville have haft skyggen af en chance i praksis.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir mener, at alle krigshandlinger i Afghanistan skal indstilles omgående, fra alle sider (de opfordrer altså ikke til angreb på danske eller andre soldater dernede, som det er blevet påstået). Herefter skal det afghanske folk have lov til at vælge en kalif, og denne kalif skal ligesom de fire første kaliffer i Medina regere med folkets opbakning og efter folkets ønsker, idet han holdes på plads og kontrolleres af et uafhængigt domstolsvæsen. Kvinder har fuld stemmeret, og det enkelte individs rettigheder skal sikres. Hvis de vestlige magter nægter at trække sig ud, skal Pakistan udstede et ultimatum om, at de selv vil rykke ind og etablere dette kalifat. Kalifatet vil nu udnævne landets olie og gas til at være samfundets ejendom, og i stedet for at fore den afghanske “præsident” Hamid Karzais og families schweiziske bank-konti vil kaliffen bruge pengene på at udvikle og industrialisere landet til gavn for alle.

Så smuk denne vision end kan være,  er det ikke særligt overbevisende, at det er det, der faktisk ville ske, hvis de vestlige tropper trak sig ud. Al Hizb-ut-Tahrirs tale om “det afghanske folk” kan ikke skjule, at Afghanistan faktisk er et meget fragmenteret land med mange etniske grupper, som aldrig har haft nogen særligt stærkt centralmagt – eller nogen klar forestilling om at være ét “afghansk folk”, for den sags skyld.

Den smertefuldt præcise analyse af krigens ulykker blev altså fulgt op af en rent teoretisk og utopisk løsning, der i praksis (og desværre) ikke har gang på jord.

To spørgere satte i særlig grad fokus på netop det aspekt. En afghaner rejste sig og gjorde opmærksom på, at Afghanistan p.t. har valgt “det onde” – krigsførende, kolonialistisk kapitalisme, som han selv udtrykte det – for at undgå “det ondeste”, nemlig den fundamentalistiske fanatisme, som Taleban repræsenterer. Han beskyldte Hizb-ut-Tahrir for ikke at kende nok til forholdene i Afghanistan og spurgte, hvilken organisation, en eventuel afghansk frihedskæmper kunne eller skulle slutte sig til.

Panelets svar afslørede, at  Hizb-ut-Tahrirs forsvar for modstandskampen er rent teoretisk og principielt – de har ikke som sådan nogen reelt eksisterende modstandsgrupper i Afghanistan, som de støtter og anbefaler.

En kvinde, efter lokalkendskabet at dømme med pakistansk baggrund (hvilket dog var umuligt at afgøre ud fra hendes aldeles flydende danske) gjorde tilsvarende opmærksom på, at deres forslag om, at Pakistan skulle gå ind i konflikten og stille et ultimatum til USA, er fuldstændig urealistisk: Pakistans regering er for det første i lommen på USA, for det andet har den ikke engang fuld kontrol over sit eget territorium, og for det tredje kunne en sådan handling udløse en international krig, som ingen ville vinde.

Svarene på disse og andre spørgsmål viste klart Hizb-ut-Tahrirs retoriske model, som hurtigt blev monoton: Taleren begynder venligt og sagligt med at redegøre for sammenhængen, som han selv ser den, fortsætter med at tale og dvæler ved vestmagternes forbrydelser og de korrupte islamiske regeringers tyveri og depravitet, og ender med at tale vredt og indtrængende om, hvordan disse forbrydelser skal stoppes. Svarene begyndte typisk med sagligt korrekte argumenter og oplysninger, men endte i en følelsesmæssig appel, der i sidste ende betyder: Kvinder og børn dør, og derfor har jeg ret – eller vil du måske, at kvinder og børn dør? Ganske politikeragtigt, i grunden.

Der er ingen tvivl om, at mødets arrangører er både engagerede og velmenende – men deres svar på de to kritiske spørgsmål, som jeg har refereret her, var ikke specielt overbevisende. Analysen af, hvad der er galt i Afghanistan, er egentlig god nok, men deres løsningsforslag kan umuligt omsættes i praksis.

Betyder det så, at Hizb-ut-Tahrir afslørede sig selv som lige så “farlige”, som moddemonstranterne forsøgte at gøre opmærksom på? Nej, ikke i mine øjne. Det er svært ikke at sympatisere bare en lille smule med deres mod og deres engagement i arbejdet mod de forbrydelser, der faktisk begås i Afghanistan. Det urealistiske i de konkrete planer minder mere end noget andet om 70ernes og 80ernes virkelighedsfjerne, men uskadelige universitetsmarxister, hvis revolutionsromantik kunne udfolde sig frit, ubesudlet af noget forsøg på faktisk at aktualisere den som virkelighed.

Og som med universitetsmarxisterne kunne man ønske, at de engagerede unge mennesker kom ind i kampen og bidrog til ting, der helt konkret kunne gøre livet bedre for folk i Afghanistan – frem for luftige planer, der forudsætter, at man først gennemfører en socialistisk revolution eller et kalifat, eller udskifter regimet i Pakistan. I den forstand var Hizb-ut-Tahrirs møde rigt på oplysning, analyser og spørgsmål, men fattigt på brugbare svar.

Se også: Afghanistan – drømmen og virkeligheden

Bagslag

Til dem, der mener, at alt er OK og Israel bare gør, hvad Israel nu må gøre, vil jeg citere Citizen:

Medmindre Israel kan godtgøre, at konvojen udgjorde en umiddelbar trussel mod staten Israels sikkerhed, alternativt befandt sig i israelsk territorialfarvand og gentagne gange havde nægtet at efterkomme ordrer fra den israelske flåde, så er det endog meget svært at se, hvordan angrebet ikke skulle være i strid med så godt som samtlige folkeretslige konventioner om international skibsfart.

Nuvel, Citizen er måske lidt moderat. Her er en israeler, der ikke spæger sine ord:

Gaza flotilla drives Israel into a sea of stupidity

The Israeli propaganda machine has reached new highs its hopeless frenzy. It has distributed menus from Gaza restaurants, along with false information. It embarrassed itself by entering a futile public relations battle, which it might have been better off never starting. They want to maintain the ineffective, illegal and unethical siege on Gaza and not let the “peace flotilla” dock off the Gaza coast?

We are all in the chorus saying there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We are all part of the chorus claiming the occupation of Gaza has ended, and that the flotilla is a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty – the cement is for building bunkers and the convoy is being funded by the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. The Israeli siege of Gaza will topple Hamas and free Gilad Shalit. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy, one of the most ridiculous of the propagandists, outdid himself when he unblinkingly proclaimed that the aid convoy headed toward Gaza was a violation of international law. Right. Exactly.

Five years ago, the noted Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who is a Jerusalem Prize laureate, after concluding his visit to Israel, said the Israeli occupation was approaching its grotesque phase. Over the weekend Vargas Llosa, who considers himself a friend of Israel, was present to see that that phase has since reached new heights of absurdity.

Og nu? Som modtræk til Israels angreb på nødhjælpskonvojen har Ægypten hævet blokaden og åbnet grænsen til Gaza:

Egypt opens Gaza border following IDF raid on aid flotilla

Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, letting Palestinians cross until further notice amid a storm of international criticism of Israel’s blockade of the enclave, officials in Egypt and Gaza said.

It is the only point on Gaza’s borders that is not fully controlled by Israel. Cairo, coordinating with Israel, has opened it only sparingly since Hamas Islamists, who are allied to Egypt’s opposition, seized control of Gaza three years ago.

Det forekommer rimeligt sikkert at konkludere, at uanset hvad, Israel har håbet på at opnå med denne aktion, er det ikke lykkedes for dem. Tværtimod. Og det er – midt i tragedien for de dræbte og deres familie – altid noget.

Hvorfor George W. Bush fortjente at få en sko i hovedet

Muntazer al-Zaidi, den irakiske journalist, der smed en sko i hovedet på USAs præsident George W. Bush, forsvarer sin handling i et indlæg i The Guardian:

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot. […]

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

Link: Why I threw the shoe

Den store løgn om Afghanistans ‘befrielse’

Forhenværende medlem af det afghanske parlament Malalai Joya, der på baggrund af sit virke som  poltiker er blevet kaldt “den modigste kvinde i Afghanistan“, skriver i dagens Guardian om den store løgn, som hun kalder det, om Vestens “befrielse” og “humanitære indsats” i Afghanistan:

In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament. Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade, and the so-called liberation a big lie. […]

On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US government

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili, as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, “the same donkey with a new saddle”.

Jamen, hvad så med ligestillingen og Afghanistans kvinder, som vi så ofte hører om. Gør vore soldater ikke en uvurderlig indsats for at også Afghanistans kvinder kan få en chance for at deltage i samfundet?

Ikke, hvis man skal tro Malalai Joya – om noget er de med til at gøre det hele værre:

Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.

Men er vi ikke nødt til at blive i Afghanistan for at redde afghanerne fra sig selv, for at undgå, at landet går til i en langvarig, opslidende borgerkrig?

I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don’t believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers’ money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.

What’s more, I don’t believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave Afghanistan will descend into civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.

Morale: Lad os få de danske, canadiske, britiske og amerikanske ud af Afghanistan og hjem hurtigst muligt. Indsatsen koster store tab og gør ikke for fem øre gavn for den afghanske befolkning. Det er galimatias at fortsætte.

Link: The big lie of Afghanistan

Åndebesættelse – candomblé og andre religioner

Neuroanthropology har en samling af filmoptagelser af folk i forskellige former for trance- eller besættelsestilstande. Herover: Den afro-amerikanske religion Candomblé, fra Brasilien.

Link: Trance Captured on Video (via Boing Boing)

Læs også:
Sydamerikas levende religioner

Åbent brev til Obama fra en kvinde i Israel

Obama, take away the pain in my stomach.

“Come, Obama. Come and save us from ourselves.And if that is what they mean when they say you are not a friend of Israel, then don’t be a friend. We already have friends who arm us and justify every horror we carry out and save us from the international courts. Be a truly true friend.”

Link: Obama, take away the pain in my stomach

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Hebron: Jødiske bosættere i pogrom mod indfødte palæstinensere

Ja, det er ikke mig, der kalder bosætternes vold mod de lokale palæstinensere for en “pogrom” – det er Israels premierminister Ehud Olmert.

Fra Sabbahs blog:

You may have heard brief blurbs about settler violence against Palestinians in Hebron. You may have even heard Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, call this violence “a pogrom in the worst sense of the word“, but to truly understand what’s going on in Hebron you have to see it yourself.

Go to: http://www.heb2.tv and you can see a new experimental TV station broadcasting from Hebron which uses mostly Palestinian home videos.

They do interviews with Israelis and Palestinians, and they let you see the footage that Palestinians have begun to take of settlers harassing and attacking them. The Palestinians have learned that although the settlers have no fear of reprisal from police or soldiers, they are afraid of the video cameras, because they don’t want people to see what they’re doing to Palestinians on a daily basis. So check out this TV station and watch the first few episodes, but be warned, it’s disturbing.

Vestbredden – det nye Vilde Vesten?

Ikke helt – i det Vilde Vesten blev hestetyve hængt, på Vestbredden bliver man idømt bøder for at klage over dem. I hvert fald hvis tyvene er israelske bosættere og ofret en arabisk bonde:

Palestinian farmerIsraeli horse rustlers have deprived a West Bank Palestinian farmer of his livelihood.

“While I was busy with one of my daughter’s engagements, settlers from the Efrat settlement came and stole my 1,600 dollar [USD] horse. This horse is my only means of income and I use it to plow people’s land,” Ibrahim Suleiman Muhammad Salah, a 45-year-old Palestinian farmer from Al-Khadr explained.

After the incident, Salah rushed to the Israeli police to complain and accuse the settlers of theft.

Salah says the police refused to listen to his claim, instead accusing him of “causing problems” at the station. In the end, he was forced to pay a fine of 1,000 Israeli shekels (250 US dollars).

Settlers have been trying to take over his land by planting trees, but Salah and his brothers removed them in front of Israeli troops, who menaced them with their guns.

He has been assaulted on numerous occasions by the Israelis and therefore appealed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad for help. Salah has also appealed to the Al-Khadr municipality other organizations after this recent incident, but all have ignored his case or refused to help him.

Link: Settler rustlers steal farmer’s horse