AzerTag, Azerbaijan
March 22 2004
EUROPEAN UNION WANTS TO PLAY POSITIVE ROLE IN SETTLEMENT OF
ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN, NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN ILHAM ALIYEV RECEIVES EU SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE FOR SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
[March 22, 2004, 22:18:57]
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received a
delegation led by European Union’s Special Representative for the
Southern Caucasus Heiki Talvitie at the Presidential Place, March 22.
Welcoming the guests sincerely, Head of State Ilham Aliyev expressed
satisfaction with deepening the cooperation between the European
Union and Azerbaijan. He pointed out that the policy of integration
into the European structures is a strategic choice of Azerbaijan, and
the country would be dedicated to this policy in future. `The joint
programs the European Union and Azerbaijan have been implementing for
the last years, and those to be realized in the future let us say
that we will be closer to each other’ the President said.
President Ilham Aliyev touched upon his meetings during the recent
conference in Bratislava describing that with European Union’s
Commissioner Gunter Verheugen as positive.
The Head of State noted he was pleased with the fact that the
European Union lately attached special attention to settlement of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He described the
initial steps taken as promising. `We welcome these steps, and we
would like the European Union to be more actively engaged in this
problem.’
Pointing out the unwillingness of the Armenian Armed forces to
release the occupied territories, President Ilham Aliyev said
Azerbaijan’s position was that the conflict could be settled only on
the base of the international legal norms, and expressed hope that
the international community would approach the issue exactly from
this standpoint.
President Ilham Aliyev also pointed out other important issues of
mutual interest: `I think the beginning of the dialogue on energy
sphere is very important fact, and we are ready for that,’ he said.
Mr. Ilham Aliyev especially emphasized that in a few years Azerbaijan
would turn into very important country for European consumers.
Turning back to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh, the Head of State mentioned that it threatened
stability in the region and impeded regional cooperation and
integration of the Southern Caucasus countries into the European
family. `I hope the international community will express its fair
stance in relation to this issue, and the problem will be finally
solved,’ President Ilham Aliyev concluded.
Having thanked the President of Azerbaijan for the sincere meeting,
Mr. Heiki Talvitie let him know that he had visited the grave of
nationwide leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev. `His bright memory
will live in our hearts forever,’ he said.
The EU’s Special Representative noted that the President Ilham
Aliyev’s Program of Social and Economic Development of the country
had aroused keen interest in Europe.
Touching upon Azerbaijan-European Union relationship, the guest
pointed out the significance of President Ilham Aliyev’s meeting with
EU Commissioner in Bratislava.
Speaking of settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr. Heiki Talvitie said that his mandate included
rendering assistance to Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Minsk group, and
that he would be actively involved in the process. `I believe the
European Union is able to play its positive role in the problem’s
resolution,’ he stressed.
***
Present at the meeting were Head of Azerbaijan delegation to the
European Union, Ambassador Arif Mamadov, Ambassador of Germany in
Baku Klaus Grevlich and other officials.

National Review Online
March 22 2004
Carnage in Kosovo
Where’s the Western resolve?
By Nikolas K. Gvosdev
The world should be watching Kosovo, but it probably isn’t. In the
United States, many believe that the dispatch of additional forces to
the troubled province of Kosovo “solved” the crisis. The problem is,
the damage to NATO’s credibility has already been done – and is
worsening by the day. The alliance that for 50 years was prepared to
spit in Joe Stalin’s eye is frightened to death by rampaging ethnic
cleansers.
The whole premise of the American-led intervention in 1999 was that
the Western Alliance could stop ethnic cleansing “at the heart of
Europe” and bring the conditions necessary for the creation of a
peaceful, multiethnic society. It was an embarrassment, of course,
that in the first weeks of NATO’s deployment nearly 100 Serbian
Orthodox holy sites were destroyed and some two-thirds of the
province’s Serb population (along with other non-Albanian ethnic
groups) were ethnically cleansed. But the line adopted in Washington,
London, Berlin, and Paris was that once NATO was firmly in control of
Kosovo these outrages would cease. The Serbs who remained in the
province took the West at its word.
The latest outbreak of violence, which in a three-day period has
already left 25 churches and monasteries – including UNESCO-protected
sites – in ruins and made nearly 4,000 people homeless took place
under the noses of 18,000 international peacekeepers and exposes the
hollowness of Western guarantees. No one should have been caught by
surprise. “It was planned in advance,” said Derek Chappell, the
U.N.’s Kosovo Mission spokesman. Another put it more forcefully:
“This is planned, coordinated, one-way violence from the Albanians
against the Serbs. It is spreading and has been brewing for the past
week…. Wherever there is a Serbian population there is Albanian
action against them.” International officials have used the terms
“pogrom” and “Kristallnacht” to describe the violence against the
Serbs.
And yet, even in the last few weeks, the NATO mission in Kosovo has
been touted as an example of successful peacekeeping. Over the last
year, proposals have been advanced for deploying NATO forces to keep
the peace in other sensitive areas in the Balkans and the Greater
Middle East such as Moldova and Georgia, among the two communities in
Cyprus, and between Israel and the Palestinians once a settlement is
reached. After the events of this past week, does anyone believe that
others will trust NATO promises?
Two sad lessons have been communicated. The first is that NATO
countries have placed such a high value on “no-casualty” missions
that aggressive and effective peacekeeping – including disarming
militias, hunting down war criminals and combating organized crime
and terrorist groups – takes a back seat to “not stirring things up.”
Even if the deployment of additional U.S. and British forces this
week to Kosovo calms things down, we simply return to the pre-March
2004 status quo.
The second is that ethnic cleansing still works as a strategy,
despite all the West’s moralizing. Throughout the region, there has
been a clear logic at work: When an ethnic community that forms an
overall minority in a country wants to purse self-determination, it
finds it useful to establish itself as the absolute majority in the
territory in question. The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Abkhaz,
and the Turkish Cypriots all found it politically expedient to push
out residents of the titular majority (Azeris, Georgians, Greek
Cypriots, respectively) to bolster their case for separation.
Kosovo was supposed to be different. Then-president Clinton and Prime
Minister Blair stated that the West had to draw the line and stop
this cycle of violence. The immense power of the Western Alliance was
to be deployed to first reverse the expulsion of the Kosovo Albanians
by Slobodan Milosevic, and then to make members of all Kosovo
communities feel safe and secure, so as to construct civil society
and lay the foundations for democracy. The whole justification for
ending actual Serbian jurisdiction over Kosovo and placing it in the
hands of an international authority backed by NATO firepower was to
prevent any further ethnic cleansing.
And now you find that many of the same people who pushed for
intervention in 1999 are arguing that, regretfully, the only solution
is to push for an independent Kosovo. Yet the attempt to advance a
political agenda through the use of violence and terror tactics
should be of particular concern to the West. Apparently NATO, the
grand alliance prepared to stop the forces of the Soviet Union from
overwhelming Western Europe, is unable to prevent mobs from
frustrating the West’s stated desire to ensure that ethnic cleansing
will not be legitimized.
The Bush administration can throw up its hands and do nothing – and,
in so doing, kiss goodbye to any hope of solving the area’s other
protracted conflicts. Or, it can take action to make a reality the
declaration made on Friday by Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage and Foreign Minister of Serbia and Montenegro Goran
Svilanovic that “no party can be allowed to profit or advance a
political agenda through violence.”
And it is essential that the West not abandon its commitment to
“standards before status” with regard to Kosovo. Aid and assistance
must be made conditional upon a fundamental improvement of the
security of the non-Albanian population. As far as the reality on the
ground is concerned, we are back to June 1999: We need to start from
scratch in how we approach the province’s governance. The failures of
the past five years do not provide a workable foundation for further
progress.
It may be that the ultimate solution to Kosovo is cantonization
between an Albanian and a Serbian entity (with extraterritorial
supervision for Orthodox sites in an Albanian zone). But that should
come about through negotiation and compromise, not murder and arson.
In Iraq and in Kosovo and elsewhere, the United States has made
promises about providing peace and security. Extremists and
terrorists everywhere are challenging America’s commitment to seeing
its promises through. And others are watching to see how our resolve
holds up.
– Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a senior fellow for strategic studies at the
Nixon Center

ITAR-TASS, Russia
March 22 2004
UNESCO urges world forces to restore peace in Balkans

MOSCOW, March 22 (Itar-Tass) – UNESCO urges world political and
public circles to take energetic measures to restore peace in the
Balkans.
President of the World Armenian Congress Ara Abramyan said on Monday
UNESCO will do its best to restore peace and tolerance in the
Balkans.
`UNESCO is deeply concerned about the escalation of violence in
Kosovo and inter-ethnic hostility, in particular the destruction of
religious and historical monuments under UNESCO special protection,’
Abramyan said.

Daily Telegraph, UK
March 21 2004

What masons share with the mafia
Why is it that some groups seem to do well in business while others
fail to make economic progress? In many parts of the world,
particular minorities dominate commerce, and often form a political
elite too. Is it culture, religion or history that gives them the
upper hand? Or simply a supreme self-confidence bred from past
success?

In many cases, capital, education and connections are sufficient to
give certain ethnic minorities the necessary advantages. In Brazil,
which has the worst distribution of wealth in the world, less than
0.01 per cent of the population owns the vast majority of the land
and controls the levers of power.
These whites effectively operate economic rule over a peasant
population – most of whom are descendants of slaves. A strong sense
of inferiority and lack of resources prevent the common masses in
Brazil from making real progress.
Similarly, in the Philippines the ethnic Chinese make up less than 1
per cent of the population but control a large proportion of the
country’s assets. They have worked hard, helped each other, learned
how to borrow and raise investment, and how to influence political
decisions. They intermarry and have retained a somewhat separate
culture.
There is a similar concentration of wealth among the Chinese in
Indonesia, and the pattern is repeated to a lesser extent in
Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The same phenomenon of an economically dominant minority occurs in
other countries: Indians in Kenya, Lebanese in Sierra Leone and
Gambia, and whites in South Africa. In some cases, immigrant
entrepreneurs have settled, developed successful enterprises and
gradually overwhelmed local competition.
In others, certain tribes have inherited the fruits of colonialism
and racist political systems. Such profoundly imbalanced societies
are fundamentally unstable and can suffer damaging class warfare.
The rapid spread of democracy and globalisation has only exaggerated
the discrepancies between such ethnic groups. The rule of Winner
Takes All tends to apply in such developing economies. This can lead
to a backlash from the disenfranchised majority, as has happened in
Zimbabwe against the white farmers, and against the Chinese minority
in Indonesia.
In both cases the ethnic violence and destruction of property have
dramatically increased poverty and failed to solve the problem of
inequality.
Of course there are networks that try to use their advantages in
every society – be they masons, old Etonians or the mafia. Such is
human nature. But in a democracy the most successful elites do not
form a closed organisation: they integrate with the majority and
share the fruits of progress.
Such policies can be imposed, as with the black economic empowerment
rules in South Africa. Or the “weaker” majority can be
institutionally protected, as they are in Malaysia.
But such solutions only work properly with huge investment in
education for the poor. And some analysts maintain that
entrepreneurial instincts cannot be taught – they are simply
ingrained in some civilisations and not others.
Moreover, the track record of affirmative action programmes is mixed
at best – rather like punitive taxation on the rich.
Perhaps intensive research into what makes ruling elites rise to the
top would yield useful lessons in trying to help the disadvantaged.
Why, for example, have Lebanese, Jewish and Armenian diasporas spread
all over the capitalist world and done so well? Hard work, good
credit and a strong family structure have helped – but there must be
more.
And why did the Ugandan Asians who arrived in Britain after Idi Amin
ejected them in the 1970s prosper, when some other immigrants have
not? These are difficult but important questions, which need answers
if dangerous inequalities are to be addressed.
Of course each winning culture will have its own formulas, but there
must be common features across these groups. Why do Koreans – around
0.1 per cent of New York’s population – dominate the neighbourhood
retail trade there? It cannot just be luck.
More serious work needs to be done to discover the secrets of
entrepreneurial groups, so that their techniques can be copied among
the less well off. Such efforts might go some way towards rebalancing
the odds between the winners and losers in the game of global
capitalism.
– Luke Johnson is chairman of Channel 4 and Signature Restaurants

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 22 2004
RUSSIAN, BELARUSSIAN MPS TO MONITOR ELECTIONS IN GEORGIA
MOSCOW, March 22, 2004. (RIA Novosti). Russian and Belarussian MPs
will observe the parliamentary elections in Georgia on March 28,
executive secretary of the Parliamentary Assembly of Russia-Belarus
Union Vladimir Aksenov told journalists on Monday.
According to him, delegations of the Parliamentary Assembly used to
observe presidential and parliamentary elections in Yugoslavia,
Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia.
MPs successfully cooperated with observers from the CIS, OSCE, PACE
and the Council of Europe, Mr. Aksenov noted.
In his words, the results of the parliamentary elections in Georgia
held on November 2, 2003 were acknowledged invalid.

Daily Times, Pakistan
March 21 2004

Economic factors in Pakistan Movement
– Ishtiaq Ahmed
In the final stages of the Partition drama, large sections of the
Muslim community had been successfully mobilised in favour of the
argument that the creation of Pakistan would bring them economic
relief and prosperity
Most serious research on the Pakistan movement shows that neither the
primordialist standpoint, which views the creation of Pakistan simply
as the culmination of a natural process of mutual hostility and
rejection between Hindus and Muslims, nor the instrumentalist
approach, which attributes the establishment of the country to the
skilful manipulation of emotive symbols by the leaders of the Muslim
League in their competition for power with their counterparts in the
Congress Party, is satisfactory.
Rather, the peculiar materialist factors that obtained from the 1920s
onwards played a crucial role in fomenting group competitiveness
which became intense and fierce over time. It is a common observance
that competition among communities for power, resources and jobs
almost invariably leads to an emphasis on differences and cleavages
rather than commonalities. Matters are aggravated in the absence of a
strong state authority, or, much worse, when the state machinery
itself adopts a partisan role. This is exactly what happened in the
last few months before the division of India.
Consequently, the factors contributing to the economic backwardness
of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent are complex in both structural
as well as cultural terms. We notice a dramatic decline in the
fortunes of the Muslim aristocracy during the colonial period; from a
privileged group, they made the transition to a relatively less
developed and depressed one. For example, during the Mughal period,
86 per cent of the imperial services were manned by Muslims – 70 per
cent by the foreign-born and their descendants and 16 per cent by the
much larger group of indigenous converts (Naureen Talha, Economic
Factors in the Making of Pakistan 1921-1947, Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
However, the Muslims did not use their dominance over state power to
establish a strong productive sector. Even state finances remained
primarily dependent on conquest or revenue from land. It is
interesting to note that the revenue department of the Mughals was
managed mostly by Hindus; Raja Todar Mal’s revenue system lasted
until the time of the British takeover.
A similar situation obtained in the Ottoman Empire. Trade and
commerce were almost entirely in the hands of the Armenian, Greek,
Jews and other non-Muslim millets. The Quranic aversion to usury was
extended to all subsequent developments in banking.
However, it should be noted that the British were not particularly
hostile to Indian Muslims, except for the years immediately after the
1857 Uprising. Most British administrators favoured an even-handed
treatment of the Hindus and Muslims. In fact from the beginning of
the 20th century, colonial policy even favoured some sort of quota
system enabling Muslims to gain greater representation in educational
centres and government employment.
But by and large mainstream Muslims were reluctant to adopt the
modern English-language based education. It was only after Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan and his band of reformers made strong and persistent pleas
for change in attitudes that the Muslim community began establishing
schools and colleges. However, the head-start enjoyed by the Hindus
and Sikhs meant that they dominated the capitalist economy as well as
education and government employment.
But, the situation was not bleak for Muslims in all the state
sectors. In fact in some services Muslims were overly represented.
For example in Punjab and Sindh some 70 per cent of the police force
was Muslim. Also on an overall basis, there was a Muslim
preponderance in the police in many other provinces. In UP, Muslims
constituted 50 per cent of the police force even when they were
barely 13-15 per cent of the total population of that province. In
the army too Muslims were overly represented, especially from the
Punjab and NWFP, from where most recruitment of north-western India
took place.
It is well-known that after the Union Party came to power in Punjab,
Muslim representation in civilian government services increased
sharply. Similarly in Sindh and the North Western Frontier Province
Muslim representation increased from the 1930 onwards although
non-Muslims were still ahead of them.
But in so far as the productive economy is concerned, orthodox Sunnis
as well as Ithna Ashari Shias remained opposed to capitalism-oriented
commerce, trade and industry. It was mainly the sectarian and ethnic
minorities of Ismaili and Bohra Shias as well as Sunni Memons –
converts from Hindu trading castes of the coastal areas of western
India – who adapted to the requirements of the emerging capitalist
economy.
In the Punjab, Chinioti sheikhs, recent converts from various Khatri
and Arora castes, also ventured into modern business. Later Kashmiri
Muslims also took to production because as economic migrants they
were neither owners of land nor agricultural workers. They settled in
the main towns of Punjab and specialised in the shawl trade, while
some of them took to small-scale production of other goods.
It is interesting to note that as regards government jobs and
admission to educational centres, Hindus emphasised merit while
Muslims demanded a share in proportion to their ratio of the total
population of India. However, after the Lahore Resolution of March
23, 1940 the Muslim League did not aim simply at `concessions from
the government or the Hindu majority under the appellation of a
minority but as a nation, distinct and different from the Hindus,
which deserved a country of their own.’ (Naureen Talha, Economic
Factors in the Making of Pakistan 1921-1947)
Several committees and commissions were set up by the Muslim League
to make proposals for economic reconstruction and reform. Muslim
entrepreneurs (mainly from the minor sects and ethnic groups) became
very active in supporting the demand for Pakistan and some of them
shifted their headquarters to Karachi before independence in 1947.
In the final stages of the Partition drama, large sections of the
Muslim community had been successfully mobilised in favour of the
argument that the creation of Pakistan would bring them economic
relief and prosperity as well as an escape from the indignities of
the caste system. That hope has been only partially realised as
economic inequalities continue to be reproduced on a massive scale
within the Muslim community, while caste-type oppression is practised
by `respectable Muslims’ against so-called kammis (artisans)
primarily in the rural areas and untouchability by everyone against
Pakistani Dalits; an anonymous category in public debates.
The author is an associate professor of Political Science at
Stockholm University. He is the author of two books. His email
address is [email protected]

Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
March 21 2004

Can you spare 12 bucks for the library?
Peg Meier, Star Tribune
Margaret Howes raised the magic question:
“What if everyone in Minneapolis chipped in to support the library?
How much would it take?”
Good question, thought library director Kit Hadley, and reached for
her calculator. She divided the expected $4.5 million in state-budget
cuts by the Minneapolis population of 382,000.
“Twelve dollars,” she announced, rather stunned that the figure was
so low. “About $12 a person.”
A grass-roots movement sprang from Howes’ simple question last
summer. She was at a public meeting when the library board was
seeking comments on its financial struggles. What to do? Close
libraries? Keep all open but cut hours? Slash the staff? Stop buying
books?
Hmmmm. Maybe get lots and lots of people to donate a little money?
The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library took on what became
known as the “$12 Campaign.” The organization made posters and fliers
to distribute in the libraries. It sent out appeals. It invited
patrons to “do their part by making a gift to keep the libraries
strong.”
The Friends were on to something, they soon realized. In the first
month, more than $27,000 came in.
Now, more than 1,600 contributors have joined the movement, donating
$66,000 to support the library system’s operating budget. About a
fourth of the donors send an even $12. The rest send more. (At least
one person sent less. See below.) The Friends, a nonprofit group,
cover all the administrative costs. Contributions helped save the
library’s Homework Helper Program and Summer Reader Program, two
long-standing efforts for kids. By shifting these programs to the $12
Campaign, the library was able to put more of its money into hours
and staffing.
While every $12 is appreciated, Hadley said, library people have been
especially touched by several contributions.
The most important thing
Margaret Howes, 76, the generator of the idea for the $12 Campaign,
grew up during the Depression: “We moved around a lot, but we always
had libraries to go to. My parents took me. I took my two children.
They take their seven children. As far as I’m concerned, libraries
are the most important things for cities to have.”
Howes, a retired office worker at Dayton’s, always has been a big
reader. She loves science fiction and has written a sci-fi novel.
Sci-fi people love to read and aren’t shy, she says, so at every
convention that she attends she hands out the library’s bright-yellow
appeals that say: “Can you help?”
She also passes out fliers at her apartment building, her church,
bookstores, her grocery stores and at Minneapolis Ragstock, where she
buys some of her clothes. Why bother to promote the library?
“Heavens,” she said. “It’s awful to have library hours cut. Libraries
are essential to a civilized society.”
Read to me
On the third Wednesday of each month, Katie McGinley reads to
preschool kids at People Serving People, a family shelter in downtown
Minneapolis. Her volunteer work is part of the Read-to-Me program
sponsored by the Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library. She has
three young children of her own to read to, and she enjoys sharing
their favorite stories with other youngsters.
“The library is such an integral part of the community that we wanted
to help somehow,” said McGinley, who’s a stay-at-home mom in
Minneapolis and frequent user of their neighborhood library. She and
her husband, Tim, a mortgage banker, found another way to help the
library. They sent a generous check.
Everybody chips in
“Aaaghhhh,” said 11-year-old Marielle Foster when she saw a sign on a
lamp post last summer saying that some Minneapolis libraries were
likely to be closed. That included the Linden Hills branch, which she
describes as “my personal favorite. It has a nice home-away-from-home
atmosphere.”
“What can I do?” wondered Marielle. She already had been raising
money for UNICEF, so she figured she had some applicable skills.
She and her 4-year-old brother, Lucas, went house-to-house in their
neighborhood to ask for contributions. She hit up her dad for pocket
change. She enforced the family rule that anyone who swears in the
house has to chip in a quarter. She talked her brother Sam, 9, into a
donation. When she turned in her quart Mason jar to the Friends of
the Minneapolis Public Library, it contained $151.45.
“I personally am a fanatic reader,” said Marielle. “It’s nice knowing
I could help.”
A family affair
Mary Oakley sent the library a check for $42. Here’s how she arrived
at the figure:
She and her two daughters, Elsa, 18, and Claire, 16, love to read and
go to various libraries a few times a week. That was worth three $12
contributions. Her architect husband, Steve, visits a library only
every three or four weeks and just recently has begun to enjoy
reading fiction. Mary thought that was worth a $6 donation. And their
son, Martin, 14, “would prefer a pointed stick in the eye to a
library visit,” she wrote in a note with her check. “So I’ll go with
$42 for now.”
Not just acting
Vhannes Koujanian is an Armenian who was born 46 years ago in Beirut,
Lebanon. The Armenian community tried to keep its culture alive there
through music, literature, visual arts and theater. He was acting on
stage by age 7. But there was no such thing as public libraries.
He moved to Paris, then Bloomington, Ind., 24 years ago and to
Minneapolis 12 years ago. He loves libraries and calls them knowledge
banks. “I care about literature — words,” he said, “and one way to
get them is in libraries. Libraries are not only beautiful. They are
essential.”
To pay the bills, Koujanian is a commercial painter. To make his soul
leap, he does theater. So what could he do to help the libraries? He
remembers thinking, “Maybe there are others like me who love theater
and want to keep the libraries open.”
He and Sophie Breer (they were married Saturday) run a little group
called the Northeast Actors Theater Company. They and 27 cast members
volunteered their time and talents to put on six shows of “The
Madwoman of Chaillot” in November at the Edison High School
auditorium. They suggested a contribution of $10 from adults and $5
from seniors.Students were admitted free. Every dollar was donated to
the library. That was $2,700, enough to cover the $12 Campaign for
225 people.
A long way to go
“The $12 Campaign got rolling in late July, after the Library Board
made its decision to keep all libraries open. The power of the $12
Campaign was to put these overwhelming cuts in human perspective and
to give individuals the opportunity to participate in a solution.
“We are still a long way from even adequate library service in
Minneapolis, but every day more people are organizing to support our
libraries. The $12 Campaign is just the beginning of a very broadly
based, city-wide movement to support a library system that fulfills
its mission of linking people to the transforming power of
knowledge.”
— Colin Hamilton, executive director, Friends of the Minneapolis
Public Library
To contribute $12 to the operating budget of the Minneapolis Public
Library, see or write to the Friends of
the Minneapolis Public Library at 250 Marquette Av., #400,
Minneapolis MN, 55421. The Friends phone number is 612-630-6174.
Checks should be made out to Friends of the Minneapolis Public
Library.

Dissident Voice, United States
March 22 2004
Sating the Monster

by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

Part of the year we live in a small farming community in New Zealand,
where each summer the locals get together for a sports day. In a
paddock backed by the impenetrable Kaweka Ranges, kids gallop their
horses round barrels and dog racing consists of a dead possum tied to
the back of Ute, driven at speed across the paddock with farm dogs in
hot pursuit. While the women slap home grown BBQ sausages into white
bread, men discuss the recent floods and our neighbors decide it’s
the perfect time to try to convert us.
`I can’t wait to see Mel Gibson’s, the Passion,’ the home-schooling
wife and mother says two seconds after we’re introduced. Her husband,
a born-again minister with a flock in Napier nods quietly. I ask her
why.
`Because,’ she lowers her voice, `it’s the truth.’
`Really?’ I know my inflection is rising.
`Oh yes, it shows clearly who was responsible for Jesus’ death.’
Usually people either like or dislike a particular film. But this one
is different. For believers in the literal interpretation of the
bible, the movie version of the last hours of Jesus’ life represents
something far more than actors acting and it’s certainly not two
hours of escapism, instead this film represents validation for their
beliefs and nothing short of the word of God.
But aren’t they missing something here? This is not a rent in the
fabric of time, a documentary or even a docudrama. It’s a movie, a
version of historical events, true only in the sense that Oliver
Stone’s Vietnam War film, Platoon, is true.
Speaking in the New Yorker recently, early Christian historian and
author of The Gnostic Gospels and The Origin of Satan, Elaine Pagels
explains when Christians read the Gospels as historical acts, they
will say what Mel Gibson says: that this is the truth, this is our
faith. But the film ignores the spin the gospel writers were
pressured to put on their works.
Putting it into context she explains how the gospel writers were
oppressed Jews trying to sell a new religion. The gospels, she says,
were not intended as history but as preaching, as religious
propaganda to win followers for the teachings of Christ.
Pagels also calls into question Gibson’s portrayal of Pilate as
benign and says it’s a narrative device to make the Jews appear more
malignant. She says the film is full of the preposterous dialectic of
bad Jews and good Romans. And she points out that when the Temple
police arrest Jesus, Mary Magdalene turns to the Romans as if they
were the policemen on the block, benign protectors of the public
order. `But the very idea of a Jewish woman turning to Roman soldiers
for help is ridiculous.’
And while New York Times arts editor Frank Rich describes the film as
Jew baiting, in an interview in Readers Digest, Gibson, a member of a
Catholic extremist group carefully skirted the issue of the Holocaust
by folding it into the general fog and loss of the WWII. Of course
the son is not responsible for his father’s sins, but Gibson has made
no move to distance himself from Gibson senior’s vicious Holocaust
denial.
Certainly in places like Denver, Colorado, the subtle anti-Semitic
message of this film is getting through with The Lovingway United
Pentecostal Church posting a huge marquee reading “Jews Killed the
Lord Jesus.’
But if there is message besides anti-Semitism in this film it is that
violence and brutality are part of human nature. Rich calls the film
a jamboree of bloody beefcake … constructed like a porn movie,
replete with slo-mo climaxes and pounding music for the money shots.’
While writer Christopher Hitchens called it a homoerotic “exercise in
lurid sadomasochism” for those who “like seeing handsome young men
stripped and flayed alive over a long period of time.”
So when a born-again type uses this film to tell you about God’s
love, it might be useful to remember that this love comes with ravens
to peck out your eyes if you blaspheme, extreme torture, blood and
gore and a hoard of baying, big nosed Jews (in contrast to the Jewish
Jesus’ petit white bread one.)
This movie with its utter glorification of the agonies humans can
inflict on each other reveals the bloodlust that lurks in the heart
of man. It is this that fuels our inhumanity to each other and that’s
why this film is such a big hit. And it is this that allows us to
ignore the reality of the pogroms that have decimated Jews for
centuries, fueled the Crusades and the Holocaust, the genocide of
numerous ethnic groups from Armenians and Gypsies to Native
Americans. And it is this bloodlust that allows us to ignore the
10,000 Iraqi’s killed since the invasion of their country, and the
demonizing of present day Muslims.
And who killed Jesus? According to my neighbor we all did. `Not just
the Jews,’ she says and sighs deeply as if she has been divested of a
great weight, this burden of truth. The Passion; a story of love, of
one mans sacrifice? Or an anti-Semitic gore fest to temporarily sate
the monster in each of us?
Barbara Sumner Burstyn is a freelance writer who commutes between
Montreal, Quebec and The Hawkes Bay in New Zealand. She writes a
weekly column for the New Zealand Herald (), and
has contributed to a wide range of media. She can be reached at:
[email protected]. Visit her website to read more of her work:
© 2004 Barbara Sumner Burstyn

ArmenPress
March 22 2004
ARMENIA, SIERRA LEONE ESTABLISH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
NEW YORK, MARCH 22, ARMENPRESS: Permanent Representatives of
Armenia and Sierra Leone to the UN, Armen Martirosian and Joe Robert
Pemagbi signed on March 19 a memorandum on the establishment of
diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Armenian foreign affairs ministry said the two men discussed after
the signing ceremony possibilities for developing bilateral contacts,
singling out education, culture and diamond processing as areas with
such a potential.

Central Asian and Southern Caucasus Freedom of Expression Network
(CASCFEN), Azerbaijan
March 22 2004
The law ”On freedom of information” is democratic only externally
kavkaz.memo.ru – The law “On freedom of information” of the Republic
of Armenia is democratic only externally, actually there are no some
important elements in it necessary for development of democracy. On
March 20 at the session of the round table on the theme “Reforms of
the legislation on mass media of Armenia and its conformity to the
European standards” has declared about this the Minister of Justice
of Armenia David Arutyunyan.
As he said, the law “On freedom of information” is imperfect, as it
has many contradictions, including the name of the document. It is
natural, that the law has caused negative reaction of a society. As
minister has explained, the right of citizens of Armenia on getting
and distribution of the information is fixed in the article 24 of the
Constitution of Armenia. Meanwhile the name of the new law “On
freedom of information” assumes only freedom of reception of the
information, and is spoken nothing about its distribution. “The
discussed question is not deprived political nuances, therefore
arrival to the certain result for us is especially important”, has
noted D.Arutyunyan.
As minister assures, the purpose of the state is maintenance of
original freedom of information. “The law should be finished, that it
would not be only declarative, but also working”, David Arutyunyan
has noted. With this purpose the Ministry of Justice of Armenia has
addressed in the Armenian representations of OSCE and USAID with the
request for granting the help as an expert for studying the
legislation of mass media of Armenia.
D.Arutyunyan does not deny that the legislative field of Armenia is
rather inconsistent. After declaration the independence of the
country in the legislation of Armenia it was totaled by 70 thousand
legal acts semi-centennial and more prescription. After clarification
of a legislative field from 70 thousand remained only 30 legal acts
which demand additional study.
Translated from Russian by CASCFEN.