US ELECTIONS: COMI-TRAGEDY

Monday 15 October, 2012

US Elections: Comi-Tragedy

Hameed Abdul Karim 

For sheer entertainment and suspense there’s hardly anything to beat the US elections.  There are the tantrums and the hyperboles of the candidates that make you wonder if this is serious business or just another bout of fun and frolic. You will see supporters of both candidates cheering and whooping with every punch line either candidate makes. Makes you wonder if you are watching another Hollywood movie.

And for sure there is a Hollywood mix in it all. We had the ageing Clint Eastwood doing the talking to an empty chair, pretending he was talking to President Barack Obama. It went down well with Romney’s supporters. Makes you wonder if Eastwood is on the road to senility assuming he’s not already ‘made it’ there. Comedians had a field day with the Eastwood’s histrionics. After that show of theatrics he has been kept away from the circus. Maybe he has done his bit for the grand old party.

ISRAEL AND HOLY WRIT

                                                        

                       

                                                                     Thursday 4 October, 2012  

       Israel and Holy Writ

                   Hameed Abdul Karim

Ms. Maureen Seniviratne is one of the most prolific writers in the local press. She deals with topics of public interest quite extensively and naturally she is widely respected for her contributions.

But, running the risk of being irreverent, I am afraid her views of the ‘Holy Land’ under her article titled ‘Holy War’ appearing in Ceylon Today on Saturday 24 September are a tad bit   off the mark. For example, she eulogises the European Christian crusaders when she says ‘those who fought in these holy wars were blessed on earth and after death would enter a place reserved for them in heaven’. Such characterising of slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Muslims, Christian and Jews by the Christian crusaders is to ignore the savagery that went behind the conquest of ancient Palestine. One of the commanders had sent a note to the then pope bragging that they were now walking ankle deep in the blood of the heathens in the holy city of Jerusalem. Pope Urban II must have been delighted with the news because it was he who had directed his soldiers to Palestine to stop the infighting between Catholics that threatened his hold on power.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT'S OBAMA

         18 September, 2012


The Disappointment that's Obama 

Hameed Abdul Karim

When President Barack Obama’s election victory was announced virtually the whole world whooped in joy. Here, we thought, was a chance that the world would be a better place to live in, without the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and company pursuing their dangerous extreme right wing policies to bring the world to its knees and force us to worship the empire.

Obama came in like a breath of fresh air. Being an offspring of a mixed marriage with and a white mother, we thought he might have a deep understanding of the feelings of people of all races. His ‘Muslim’ heritage led Muslims to believe he might accommodate their feelings and especially, right the terrible wrongs his country had inflicted on the Palestinians.

SUPPORT PALESTINE - DEFEAT ZIONISM

Saturday 24 September, 2012

‘…..Support Palestine Defeat Zionism…’

Hameed Abdul Karim

Coming hard on the heels of the of the vilest of movies ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ and the subsequent blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the French magazine Charle Hebdo, there is this outrageous advertisement on New York busses carrying  a vicious racist message.   The ad reads “In Any War between the Civilised Man and the Savage, Support the Civilised Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad’. This spiteful ad made its debut in San Francisco on city busses. And now it’s in New York. The timing seems perfect considering the UN is having yet another of its talking shops.

The nice men and women of New York would think this might insult the delegates at the UN sessions. And they would be right because that’s the precise intent of the people behind this uncivilised advertisement when you consider the timing. Most of the delegates are indeed ‘savages’ or were referred to as such during the days when they were the ‘White Man’s Burden’.

SHEIKH AHMED DEEDAT

 Sheikh Ahmed Deedat - A Tribute

The voice and words of this scholar won’t fade away

Hameed Abdul Karim


The news of Sh. Ahmed Deedat’s demise did not come as a shock because in a way we were all expecting the inevitable, since he was ailing for well over eight years. But still there was a feeling of sorrow because this great man – this wonderful man – had entered into the lives and minds of Muslim kings, princes and scholars to the students and the average men and women alike with his charm and brilliant scholarship in comparative religion.

Never was the truism ‘walk with kings and still not lose the common touch’ more true than in the case of Sh. Ahmed Deedat. He would chew the fat with King Fahd one day and sip coffee with a Bedouin the next chatting away, with a child like eagerness to learn something new.

A 'MUSLIM' THING?

A ‘Muslim’ Thing?

Hameed Abdul Karim

'The media are the eyes and the ears of the people' 

When was the last time you read a piece in your favourite newspaper informing you of what’s going in Kashmir? Or about the malicious nature of Zionism which is the ideology of the Israeli occupiers of Palestine?

Never mind. We’ll come back to that in a while.

For now let’s celebrate the new found freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and rejoice with her as she basks in glory whilst world leaders fall over each other to shake her hand. She deserves every bit of accolade for her long and unfaltering and unwavering stand for freedom and justice for herself and her people against a tyrannical military junta.

'ISRAEL NOT GUILTY' - ISRAEL

‘Israel Not Guilty’ – Israel

Posted on September 1st, 2012

Hameed Abdul Karim

Nobody ever expected the Israeli court to convict or even hold the Israeli army, also known in Orwellian terms as ‘Israeli Defense Force’, culpable for the brutal murder of American activist Rachel Corrie in 2003.  But when judge Oded Gershon proclaimed, in the pompous way Israeli judges usually do when passing verdicts on gentiles, that Rachel Corrie’s death was her fault and that the driver of the Caterpillar bulldozer was in no way responsible since he couldn’t see her protesting on his way to demolish yet another Palestinian home in Gaza as ‘duty’ demanded.