Burma moves forward

The Burmese government has released 651 prisoners, amongst whom are political prisoners detained since 1988.

Although this release is to be welcomed, it has to be remembered that there are probably many more political prisoners that continue to languish in jail. Estimates based on disappearances of activists and official reports of past detentions place the number of possible detainees at between 1000 to 1500. The Association of Political Prisoners in Burma has estimated that more than 1500 prisoners have been detained for political reasons.

This release of prisoners is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the Burmese government will continue down the road to democracy by releasing all of its political prisoners.

Meanwhile, I read something that was said by the US President that I couldn't help but be amused about. He was referring to a telephone conversation that he had with Aung San Suu Kyi when he was in Indonesia 2 months ago:

"In Indonesia, I spoke about the flickers of progress that were emerging in Burma. Today, that light burns a bit brighter, as prisoners are reunited with their families and people can see a democratic path forward,"

I couldn't help but think to myself... and one day that light will burn even brighter and reach America's backyard and set the men at Guantanamo free (or at least let them have their day in a court of law). The hypocrisy of Obama is mind-boggling and downright ugly. What am I talking about? This is, after all, the Nobel Peace Prize winner that bombs babies and buries them under the banner of collateral damage.

Your Ad Here

Israelis Look to Obama for peace

It is often the case that one perceives a monolithic Israeli perspective as presented by AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States. What is particularly ironic is that the press in Israel itself represents a broad spectrum of views and perspectives that one does not usually get to see through the filter of the global mainstream media.

I found the following article rather interesting for its analysis of the liberal perspective of the Israeli press.

Israelis Look For Hope In Washington
Mark Leon Goldberg - May 18, 2009 - 11:25am

Diplomacy
As it happens, I am in Israel this week. And in Israel, all eyes are on Washington, D.C. as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Obama White House for the first time. The meeting, however, has the potential to be somewhat awkward the Israeli Prime Minister has yet to endorse the "two state" solution.

Scanning the Israeli press today it is stricking to see the degree to which Israelis are depending on Obama to press Netanyahu to once and for all endorse a two-state solution. For a good chunk of the Israeli body politic, all hope lies with Obama. Ha'aretz has a three-fer of editorials today which all reinforce this same point.

The lead editorial in Ha'Aretz advises Bibi to "say 'yes' to Obama:"

Now Netanyahu must show he can set aside his ideological opposition to dividing the country and support for expanding settlements and, for the good of the state, strengthen relations with the United States and advance the peace process with the Palestinians and the Arab states.

The Israeli public expects him to adjust his political stances to international reality.

Gideon Levy calls for a "political U-turn by the prime minister," and see's the American president as Israel's "final hope."

Obama is the final hope: Only if he throws his entire weight into the process will anything in the Middle East start moving. Any American president could have long ago brought about substantial progress, first and foremost ending the intolerable Israeli occupation. But Obama's predecessors shrank from the task, preferring to yield to the Jewish and Christian lobbies and to engage in masquerades of negotiations leading nowhere.

And Zvi Bar'el says an endorsement of a two state solution


As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lands in Washington Sunday, he brings a valuable gift for U.S. President Barack Obama: new U.S. legitimacy in the Middle East. If Netanyahu says the right password at the White House gates - "two states for two peoples" - Obama will have his first Israeli political achievement. Then there will be no escaping attributing this ideological compromise to American pressure on Israel.

Bottom line: A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, President Obama

Reactions from CNN panel as they witness history

Restoration of America

I posted the following on the Soulcast blog on 18 August 2006 and it was titled: "Why I admire America". Today with the historic election of Barack Obama as President, I feel compelled to repost it here:

I am not an American. I am probably one of millions of people around this planet seething with anger about American foreign policy and what it has done and what it is doing to the rest of the world. I express negative views about the Bush administration's policies. I oppose the so-called "war on terror" used as a cover for domination of oil resources in the middle east. etc. etc. etc.

An American listening to me might easily assume that I have a lot of disdain for the USA and Americans. But, I'll let you in on a secret.

I love all the great and glorious ideals of freedom and liberty that America stands for... those ideals that are enshrined in its constitution. As someone living in a country where freedom of speech, freedom expression and freedom of assembly have been practically wiped off the public domain (driving most of us into the last frontier of the internet), I have always admired Americans and their ideals. And I guess, that is why it has pained me to witness the gradual erosion of those rights and ideals in the USA since 9/11. If the PATRITOT ACT, guantanamo, domestic surveillance under inherent executive powers and such other assortment of legal and extra-legal measures are utilised to destroy rights in the very place that I looked up to as the beacon of liberty, then what can we say about the future for the rest of us living in repressive societies of varying degrees.

Like the rats migrating to America believing that there are no cats in America (a la American Tail), those of us in other parts of the world have lived under the impression that America is truly a land of the free. The post-9/11 USA looks terrifyingly like an Orwellian nightmare.

But, amidst all of the gloom of the last few years, here is again another reason why I love America......

A Federal Judge has ruled that the NSA wiretapping authorised by the President under supposedly inherent powers is illegal. This is what she said:
“We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent power’ must derive from that Constitution.” “The Government appears to argue here that …. because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.”

Ultimately, even when the Executive appears to assume excessive powers, there is enough sanity and independance within the Judiciary to ensure that the Constitution and the rule of law are not usurped.

Thank God for the sane voices. Long live liberty.

That was posted two years ago as I saw a glimmer of hope in the Supreme Court repudiation of the Bush enchroachment on civil liberties. Today, I hope that the Obama Presidency would usher in a return to America's core constitutional values and by doing so restore that great nation to its rightful status as the beacon of liberty.

The 44th President of the United States of America

The scenes are euphoric. The moment is historic. A man of partial African origin has become the President-elect of the most powerful nation on this planet. At this point I think the following words of Martin Luther King are apt:

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

The Long Ride

The First African slaves were introduced into what is today the United States in the year 1619.

In 1641, Massachusetts legalised slavery.

In 1808, the American Congress abolished the slave trade.

In 1865, slavery was abolished

In 1868, Afican Americans received full citizenship

In 1870, African men received the right to vote

In 1909, the NAACP was formed

In 1948, the US Army was desegregated

In 1963, the famous speech by Martin Luther King... 'I have a dream' (one of my personal favourites)

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act

In 1968, to quote from U2.... Early morning, April 4th... A shot rings out in the Memphis sky... Free at last... they took your life. They could not take your pride...
Martin Luther King was assassinated.

40 years later... In 2008, Barack Obama has become the presumptive Presidential nominee for a major political party.

History is sometimes very poetic... It is exactly 200 years since the slave trade was abolished. The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for the 28th of August. That is the 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous 'I have a dream' speech. Barack Obama will be officially accepting the Democratic Party's nomination.

Well... I watch in awe as history sculpts another poetic page.