Militarisation

Fleeing home has come with an unexpected benefit - for the first time the girls are going to school.

Ten-year-old Aliya and eight-year-old Asma arrived at Jalozai refugee camp two weeks ago, after escaping a recent surge in hostilities between government forces and militants near the border with Afghanistan.

La guerre au Mali ne se limite pas à mettre fin au terrorisme ; c’est une lutte pour défendre une société tolérante et laïque.

Avant même que ne commence l’intervention française au Mali, 412 000 personnes avaient déjà quitté leurs maisons au nord du pays, fuyant la torture, les exécutions sommaires, le recrutement d’ enfants-soldats et la violence sexuelle envers les femmes aux mains des intégristes. A la fin de l’année dernière, en Algérie et dans le sud du Mali, j’ai interviewé des dizaines de maliens du nord, y compris nombre de ceux qui avaient fui récemment. Leurs témoignages confirment les horreurs que les radicaux islamistes, autoproclamés guerriers de dieu, ont fait subir à leurs communautés.

BEFORE the recent French intervention in Mali began, 412,000 people had already left their homes in the country’s north, fleeing torture, summary executions, recruitment of child soldiers and sexual violence against women at the hands of fundamentalist militants. Late last year, in Algeria and southern Mali, I interviewed dozens of Malians from the north, including many who had recently fled. Their testimonies confirmed the horrors that radical Islamists, self-proclaimed warriors of God, have inflicted on their communities.

كشفت صحيفة ُ الغارديان أن أكثرَ من مليون ِ أرملة ٍمِنْهن اربعُمئة ِ الف ٍ في العاصمة بغداد وحدِها هي مُحَصِلة ُ حروب ِ العراق والصراعات ِ الطائفية التي إجتاحت البلادَ خلال عام ِ الفين وستة .


In conversation with Jessica Horn, a leading Malian women’s rights activist identifies the roots of the crisis in Mali, and the opportunistic use of the crisis by Malian and international Islamic fundamentalists to gain a popular foothold in the north of the country


Jessica Horn: Were there any early warnings that this crisis would emerge? 

While building solidarity between activists in the U.S. and Iran can be a powerful way of supporting social justice movements in Iran, progressives and leftists who want to express solidarity with Iranians are challenged by a complicated geopolitical terrain. The U.S. government shrilly decries Iran’s nuclear power program and expands a long-standing sanctions regime on the one hand, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes inflammatory proclamations and harshly suppresses Iranian protesters and dissidents on the other. Solidarity activists are often caught between a rock and a hard place, and many choose what they believe are the “lesser evil” politics. In the case of Iran, this has meant aligning with a repressive state leader under the guise of “anti-imperialism” and “populism,” or supporting “targeted” sanctions.

I was recently part of a fact-finding delegation to Palestine organized by the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

Le 26 décembre 2011, la Syrie a connu sa journée la plus meurtrière depuis la mi-mars. Cent morts civils, selon l'Observatoire syrien des droits de l'homme. Le 29, malgré la présence dans le pays d'observateurs de la Ligue arabe, les forces de sécurité ont lancé des bombes à clous sur la foule rassemblée place de la Grande-Mosquée, à Douma. Le 31 décembre, plusieurs centaines de milliers de personnes ont pris à nouveau la rue dans tout le pays. Il y a eu plusieurs dizaines de morts. Il faut voir, sur les films amateurs d'Internet, les manifestants crier ensemble face aux soldats.

In the third week of December 2011, a confluence of political events profoundly affecting Iraqi and American women took place.

In that week, the remaining occupying US troops in Iraq were withdrawn, unceremoniously in a fortified concrete courtyard, with only a small band playing as the US flag was furled. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta avowed that the price was high, but the US invasion and occupation “gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq.” Iraq President Maliki did not attend.

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