Thoughts on the Uprisings in North Africa and Middle East?
- Thread starter 2-0-Sixx
- Start date
Tribal warfare is an example of between-group competition. Tribal warfare with nuclear weapons is an example of between-group competition that can kill the whole species.
It is highly relevant, that's why I brought it up in this thread. The Malthusian nightmare in which most Arab countries find themselves is a direct result of the influence religion has on people there. And it is also a the major reason for the unrest and revolts. If that's not relevant, then what is?
I listed several necessary conditions, if not all of them are not met, you end up with Thomas Aquinas and the likes.
It is highly relevant, that's why I brought it up in this thread. The Malthusian nightmare in which most Arab countries find themselves is a direct result of the influence religion has on people there. And it is also a the major reason for the unrest and revolts. If that's not relevant, then what is?
I listed several necessary conditions, if not all of them are not met, you end up with Thomas Aquinas and the likes.
I think you are wrong.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12603320
The US defence department says it is repositioning forces in the Libya region as the West weighs potential intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.
The Pentagon said it was moving forces to "provide for that flexibility once decisions are made".
The US already has a significant presence close to Libya, with several bases in southern Italy.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said US forces could be used for delivering humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told reporters in Washington the US was "actively and seriously" considering establishing a no-fly zone and was in talks with Nato and other potential military partners.
'Contingency plans'
Repositioned US forces could be used to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Col Gaddafi's aircraft attacking opposition supporters, BBC correspondents say.
"We have planners working various contingency plans, and I think it's safe to say as part of that we're repositioning forces to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made," Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan said.
The BBC's Andrew North, in Washington, says the Pentagon's announcement seems partly designed to send a message to Col Gaddafi.
It is still not clear if there will be sufficient support at the United Nations Security Council for a no-fly zone, our correspondent says.
US commanders could turn to the USS Enterprise, currently in the Red Sea, as well as the amphibious ship the USS Kearsarge, which has a fleet of helicopters and about 2,000 Marines aboard, AFP news agency reported.
In addition, the US maintains a large naval air station in Sigonella, Sicily, less than an hour's flight from Libya.
Mrs Clinton said on Monday that the US was leaving all its options on the table in dealing with Libya.
Although she did not discuss military options, Mrs Clinton said that as long as Col Gaddafi remained in power the US would consider a range of options against Libya's rulers.
"Through their actions, they have lost the legitimacy to govern. And the people of Libya have made themselves clear: it is time for Gaddafi to go - now, without further violence or delay," she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Western nations were looking at setting up a humanitarian "corridor" in neighbouring Tunisia or Egypt to help refugees.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12603320
The US defence department says it is repositioning forces in the Libya region as the West weighs potential intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.
The Pentagon said it was moving forces to "provide for that flexibility once decisions are made".
The US already has a significant presence close to Libya, with several bases in southern Italy.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said US forces could be used for delivering humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told reporters in Washington the US was "actively and seriously" considering establishing a no-fly zone and was in talks with Nato and other potential military partners.
'Contingency plans'
Repositioned US forces could be used to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Col Gaddafi's aircraft attacking opposition supporters, BBC correspondents say.
"We have planners working various contingency plans, and I think it's safe to say as part of that we're repositioning forces to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made," Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan said.
The BBC's Andrew North, in Washington, says the Pentagon's announcement seems partly designed to send a message to Col Gaddafi.
It is still not clear if there will be sufficient support at the United Nations Security Council for a no-fly zone, our correspondent says.
US commanders could turn to the USS Enterprise, currently in the Red Sea, as well as the amphibious ship the USS Kearsarge, which has a fleet of helicopters and about 2,000 Marines aboard, AFP news agency reported.
In addition, the US maintains a large naval air station in Sigonella, Sicily, less than an hour's flight from Libya.
Mrs Clinton said on Monday that the US was leaving all its options on the table in dealing with Libya.
Although she did not discuss military options, Mrs Clinton said that as long as Col Gaddafi remained in power the US would consider a range of options against Libya's rulers.
"Through their actions, they have lost the legitimacy to govern. And the people of Libya have made themselves clear: it is time for Gaddafi to go - now, without further violence or delay," she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Western nations were looking at setting up a humanitarian "corridor" in neighbouring Tunisia or Egypt to help refugees.
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I am not going to waste much time here because I don't feel that you really even responded to my post and you certainly did so selectively at best.
Let me make this really simple.
You are argued that belief in God was not an evolved survival strategy for 2 reasons:
1) Because it improves fitness between groups and not the species as a whole.
2) Because it is detrimental to our species.
Now my response to you which you seem to have dodges was
1) Whether or not it improves fitness between specific groups of people or the species as a whole is irrelevant to it's classification as an evolved survival strategy.
I have no idea where you came up with this notion that a survival strategy that plays out within specific groups is somehow not still a survival strategy.
That is like saying an apple is not a fruit.
2) Being detrimental to our species has no bearing on whether it is an evolved survival strategy. The strategies we still rely on today were built to maximize our ancestor's survival thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years ago.
No argument some of those have become detrimental to us in the world today. (sugar consumption again)
However, again, whether or not the strategy is detrimental in today's world is irrelevant to the fact it is a survival strategy.
Let me make this really simple.
You are argued that belief in God was not an evolved survival strategy for 2 reasons:
1) Because it improves fitness between groups and not the species as a whole.
2) Because it is detrimental to our species.
Now my response to you which you seem to have dodges was
1) Whether or not it improves fitness between specific groups of people or the species as a whole is irrelevant to it's classification as an evolved survival strategy.
I have no idea where you came up with this notion that a survival strategy that plays out within specific groups is somehow not still a survival strategy.
That is like saying an apple is not a fruit.
2) Being detrimental to our species has no bearing on whether it is an evolved survival strategy. The strategies we still rely on today were built to maximize our ancestor's survival thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years ago.
No argument some of those have become detrimental to us in the world today. (sugar consumption again)
However, again, whether or not the strategy is detrimental in today's world is irrelevant to the fact it is a survival strategy.
I don't think you really understand how evolution works and it is partly my fault for sticking with your "survival strategy" terminology, which is actually highly inaccurate, but I didn't want to throw off the discussion in a completely different direction. So let me clarify
There is no such thing as "survival strategy", if you use that term literally, you are guilty in falling into the teleological trap of seeing evolution as a directed, semi-conscious, semi-Lamarckian process. In reality things don't work like that, certain traits benefit the survival of the organisms that have them, other traits get fixed for no particular reason, just by chance, and yet others enforce their fixation without much direct benefit for the population, but sometimes they can be somewhat beneficial too. Transposable elements (which you can think of as genetic viruses, some of them actually are viruses) provide a wide range of situations where things get fixed this way.
Religion has a lot of similarities to viruses because it can propagate itself by virtue of its characteristics, you know them - it teaches it has the absolute truth, it actively teaches against other religions, against atheism and against any form of dissent, threatening you with eternal damnation if you sway off the right path, it gets very efficiently propagated through indoctrination of children at an early age, etc.
In the same time, because of the magnitude of its influence over populations, it becomes a selectable trait for those populations on the group level. And it can be selected on its own, through its characteristics. The major reason for the success of Christianity was that it was quickly recognized, first by Roman emperors, and later by various pagan rules who adopted it over the centuries, that it was a very good tool for keeping populations in subordination. So it was selected for over other religions based on that. But this can go too far, as certain religions make people too complacent and easy to subjugate, So if another tribe/culture with a highly aggressive religion that helps build social cohesion and makes people give their all in battle, that culture can easily take over other cultures and tribes. As happened with Islam in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In such a case, religion becomes an adaptive trait for that group, so in a sense, you can talk of it as an "survival strategy".
But, that doesn't change the fact that, because religions invariably teach some absurd bullshit about the way the world works, people's inadequate understanding of the world around them, and the religion that causes it is highly maladaptive.
There is no such thing as "survival strategy", if you use that term literally, you are guilty in falling into the teleological trap of seeing evolution as a directed, semi-conscious, semi-Lamarckian process. In reality things don't work like that, certain traits benefit the survival of the organisms that have them, other traits get fixed for no particular reason, just by chance, and yet others enforce their fixation without much direct benefit for the population, but sometimes they can be somewhat beneficial too. Transposable elements (which you can think of as genetic viruses, some of them actually are viruses) provide a wide range of situations where things get fixed this way.
Religion has a lot of similarities to viruses because it can propagate itself by virtue of its characteristics, you know them - it teaches it has the absolute truth, it actively teaches against other religions, against atheism and against any form of dissent, threatening you with eternal damnation if you sway off the right path, it gets very efficiently propagated through indoctrination of children at an early age, etc.
In the same time, because of the magnitude of its influence over populations, it becomes a selectable trait for those populations on the group level. And it can be selected on its own, through its characteristics. The major reason for the success of Christianity was that it was quickly recognized, first by Roman emperors, and later by various pagan rules who adopted it over the centuries, that it was a very good tool for keeping populations in subordination. So it was selected for over other religions based on that. But this can go too far, as certain religions make people too complacent and easy to subjugate, So if another tribe/culture with a highly aggressive religion that helps build social cohesion and makes people give their all in battle, that culture can easily take over other cultures and tribes. As happened with Islam in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In such a case, religion becomes an adaptive trait for that group, so in a sense, you can talk of it as an "survival strategy".
But, that doesn't change the fact that, because religions invariably teach some absurd bullshit about the way the world works, people's inadequate understanding of the world around them, and the religion that causes it is highly maladaptive.
you my friend speak solely from an ethnocentric perspective.
you have very deeply rooted self-acceptance issues, and deny or suppress as you may, but that shit is blatantly limiting your comprehension of any bigger picture.
try as you may to continue to identify your own self-hatred with the "other" and try as you may to spend your life trying to fix "them" but trust when i say that your conflict with the "outside" world is actually a self-expression of your own relationship with yourself.
you have very deeply rooted self-acceptance issues, and deny or suppress as you may, but that shit is blatantly limiting your comprehension of any bigger picture.
try as you may to continue to identify your own self-hatred with the "other" and try as you may to spend your life trying to fix "them" but trust when i say that your conflict with the "outside" world is actually a self-expression of your own relationship with yourself.
No I really do understand evolution and I think as this discussion progresses, it is becoming increasingly apparent that you don't understand evolution.
Let me explain how what we are discussing works in the context of evolution as simply as possible.
A long time ago our ancestors (well maybe not yours - MRCA notwithstanding lol) developed the capacity and a tendency to recognize the concept of God/Religion/Higherpower/Etc.
Those that developed this characteristic were (for many of the reasons YOU listed earlier in this thread) more likely to survive and pass on their genes (those genes with a predisposition for "religious" belief) to their offspring.
Those that were not, were at a competitive disadvantage and were less successful as passing on their genes to the next generation.
Fast forward to today and you have a species where belief in God/Religion/Higher Power/etc is as innate as our desire to consume sugar.
To be perfectly honest with you ThaG, you are very smart and highly educated on some subjects but I don't know where you get off with this attitude that you are "our" teacher and that you have been sent here by a some higher power on a mission to educated us lol - highly probably for some of the reasons that SeriouslyThug has listed preceding this post.
However, there are as many subjects in which you certainly are not the preeminent authority on this particular forum, so I think the attitude is unnecessary and very often offensive.
But you have thrown the discussion off because now it seems we are arguing the semantics of "survival strategy" rather than whether or not belief in religion is an evolutionarily derived survival strategy.
Yes there is. Having studied evolutionary psychology for years and read dozens of books on the subject, I can tell you with great assurance that the term is used in the field.
A quick goggle search of the term brings up many instances of such.
Only a layman to the field would think that the term implied any type of conscious or semi-conscious process.
A survival strategy is simple an evolved characteristic that increases the odds of survival for those with the particular characteristic through natural sexual.
The tail feathers of the male peacock is an example of a sexual dimorphism that is an evolved mating strategy to increase the odds of sexual selection for those birds with the largest tail feather.
However, no one would argue that the peacock made a conscious or even semi-conscious decision to grow his tail feathers larger than his competitors.
In the same way, no one here is arguing that humans consciously choose to become religious because they knew it would help them survive. To even suggest that was implied is ridiculous.
The rest of your post is irrelevant to our discussion and in my guess a futile attempt to change the scope of the discussion.
Christianity could not have been exploited by the Roman emperors if the tendency to believe in religion was not already a part of our species.
Let me explain how what we are discussing works in the context of evolution as simply as possible.
A long time ago our ancestors (well maybe not yours - MRCA notwithstanding lol) developed the capacity and a tendency to recognize the concept of God/Religion/Higherpower/Etc.
Those that developed this characteristic were (for many of the reasons YOU listed earlier in this thread) more likely to survive and pass on their genes (those genes with a predisposition for "religious" belief) to their offspring.
Those that were not, were at a competitive disadvantage and were less successful as passing on their genes to the next generation.
Fast forward to today and you have a species where belief in God/Religion/Higher Power/etc is as innate as our desire to consume sugar.
To be perfectly honest with you ThaG, you are very smart and highly educated on some subjects but I don't know where you get off with this attitude that you are "our" teacher and that you have been sent here by a some higher power on a mission to educated us lol - highly probably for some of the reasons that SeriouslyThug has listed preceding this post.
However, there are as many subjects in which you certainly are not the preeminent authority on this particular forum, so I think the attitude is unnecessary and very often offensive.
But you have thrown the discussion off because now it seems we are arguing the semantics of "survival strategy" rather than whether or not belief in religion is an evolutionarily derived survival strategy.
Yes there is. Having studied evolutionary psychology for years and read dozens of books on the subject, I can tell you with great assurance that the term is used in the field.
A quick goggle search of the term brings up many instances of such.
Only a layman to the field would think that the term implied any type of conscious or semi-conscious process.
A survival strategy is simple an evolved characteristic that increases the odds of survival for those with the particular characteristic through natural sexual.
The tail feathers of the male peacock is an example of a sexual dimorphism that is an evolved mating strategy to increase the odds of sexual selection for those birds with the largest tail feather.
However, no one would argue that the peacock made a conscious or even semi-conscious decision to grow his tail feathers larger than his competitors.
In the same way, no one here is arguing that humans consciously choose to become religious because they knew it would help them survive. To even suggest that was implied is ridiculous.
The rest of your post is irrelevant to our discussion and in my guess a futile attempt to change the scope of the discussion.
Christianity could not have been exploited by the Roman emperors if the tendency to believe in religion was not already a part of our species.
Incorrect. There hadn't been any people without religion for thens of thousands of years. There hasn't really been a competition between people with religion and people without religion. That's where the "religion as adaptation" idea fails
False. Nobody has ever told me "There is no God" and nobody has ever told me "There is God", and the latter is in fact more likely not to be true of the two. Yet I was a convinced atheist when I was 6. Why is that and how does it fit with the "religion is innate" story? The human mind is predisposed to religions because religions feed off its cognitive deficiencies. But that doesn't mean that if there is no religion around to infect the mind, the mind will be religious.
That explains a lot. The problem with evolutionary psychology is that the majority of it is basically pseudoscience (not all of it and not the discipline itself, just the way most people practice it) and that's precisely because of the kind of thinking I was warning against above. Many evolutionary psychologists tend to think of evolution in purely adaptive terms (if a trait exists, then it must have been selected) and often they steer off towards an almost Lamarckian version of evolution that has nothing to do with reality.
The reason for that is that they have no studied enough molecular biology and the mechanisms of molecular evolution. Once you get a grasp of those, you get a very different understanding of evolution. The problem is that there are no popular books on molecular evolution (I am not saying you are studying it from popular books) because it is an esoteric subject with lots of complicated math while evolutionary psychology tends to be easily explainable in terms people can understand so it is a lot more popular and the misunderstanding of the evolutionary process that comes out of those circles becomes more and more widespread.
That's not what I am arguing, I don't think you understood what I said.
It is very relevant and it was the majority of it but you decided to ignore it, so be it.
False. Nobody has ever told me "There is no God" and nobody has ever told me "There is God", and the latter is in fact more likely not to be true of the two. Yet I was a convinced atheist when I was 6. Why is that and how does it fit with the "religion is innate" story? The human mind is predisposed to religions because religions feed off its cognitive deficiencies. But that doesn't mean that if there is no religion around to infect the mind, the mind will be religious.
That explains a lot. The problem with evolutionary psychology is that the majority of it is basically pseudoscience (not all of it and not the discipline itself, just the way most people practice it) and that's precisely because of the kind of thinking I was warning against above. Many evolutionary psychologists tend to think of evolution in purely adaptive terms (if a trait exists, then it must have been selected) and often they steer off towards an almost Lamarckian version of evolution that has nothing to do with reality.
The reason for that is that they have no studied enough molecular biology and the mechanisms of molecular evolution. Once you get a grasp of those, you get a very different understanding of evolution. The problem is that there are no popular books on molecular evolution (I am not saying you are studying it from popular books) because it is an esoteric subject with lots of complicated math while evolutionary psychology tends to be easily explainable in terms people can understand so it is a lot more popular and the misunderstanding of the evolutionary process that comes out of those circles becomes more and more widespread.
That's not what I am arguing, I don't think you understood what I said.
It is very relevant and it was the majority of it but you decided to ignore it, so be it.
No you don't. If you did you wouldn't make statements such as "The human mind is predisposed to religions because religions feed off its cognitive deficiencies." First you need to learn what predisposition actually means, then when you do, you need to understand the differences between correlation and causation.
Did you guys know about this? Watch this news clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncgsS0FDWg
The Russians are saying there were no attacks on the citizens with jets/bombers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncgsS0FDWg
The Russians are saying there were no attacks on the citizens with jets/bombers.
Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
by Gerald A. Perreira
The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. The struggle “is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa.” The so-called Black African “mercenaries” are misnamed. “As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed” which are part of the Libyan armed forces.
Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
by Gerald A. Perreira
“The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia.”
Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?
For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.
News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us – each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.
“Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.”
The first question is: Is the revolt taking place in Libya fuelled by a concern over economic issues such as poverty and unemployment as the media would have us believe? Let us examine the facts.
Under the revolutionary leadership of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has attained the highest standard of living in Africa. In 2007, in an article which appeared in the African Executive Magazine, Norah Owaraga noted that Libya, “unlike other oil producing countries such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, utilized the revenue from its oil to develop its country. The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa, falling in the category of countries with a GNP per capita of between USD 2,200 and 6,000.”
This is all the more remarkable when we consider that in 1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the world. According to the World Bank, the per capita income was less than $50 a year - even lower than India. Today, all Libyans own their own homes and cars. Two Fleet Street journalists, David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, who are by no means supporters of the Libyan revolution, had this to say:
“The young people are well dressed, well fed and well educated. Libyans now earn more per capita than the British. The disparity in annual incomes... is smaller than in most countries. Libya's wealth has been fairly spread throughout society. Every Libyan gets free, and often excellent, education, medical and health services. New colleges and hospitals are impressive by any international standard. All Libyans have a house or a flat, a car and most have televisions, video recorders and telephones. Compared with most citizens of the Third World countries, and with many in the First World, Libyans have it very good indeed.” (Source: Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution)
Large scale housing construction has taken place right across the country. Every citizen has been given a decent house or apartment to live in rent-free. In Qaddafi’s Green Book it states: “The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others.” This dictum has now become a reality for the Libyan people.
Large scale agricultural projects have been implemented in an effort to “make the desert bloom” and achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Any Libyan who wants to become a farmer is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, some livestock and seed.
“The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa.”
Today, Libya can boast one of the finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of all charges. The fact is that the Libyan revolution has achieved such a high standard of living for its people that they import labor from other parts of the world to do the jobs that the unemployed Libyans refuse to do. Libya has been called by many observers inside and out, “a nation of shop keepers.” It is part of the Libyan Arab psyche to own your own small business and this type of small scale private enterprise flourishes in Libya. We can draw on many examples of Libyans with young sons who expressed the idea that it would be shameful for the family if these same young men were to seek menial work and instead preferred for them to remain at home supported by the extended family.
No system is perfect, and Libya is no exception. They suffered nine years of economic sanctions and this caused huge problems for the Libyan economy. Also, there is nowhere on planet earth that has escaped the monumental crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. It has impacted everywhere – even on post revolutionary societies that have rejected “free market” capitalism. However, what we are saying is that severe economic injustice is not at the heart of this conflict. So then, what is?
A Battle for Africa
The battle that is being waged in Libya is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa and want to ally themselves instead with the EU and look toward Europe and the Arab World for Libya's future.
One of Muammar Qaddafi's most controversial and difficult moves in the eyes of many Libyans was his championing of Africa and his determined drive to unite Africa with one currency, one army and a shared vision regarding the true independence and liberation of the entire continent. He has contributed large amounts of his time and energy and large sums of money to this project and like Kwame Nkrumah, he has paid a high price.
Many of the Libyan people did not approve of this move. They wanted their leader to look towards Europe. Of course, Libya has extensive investments and commercial ties with Europe but the Libyans know that Qaddafi’s heart is in Africa.
Many years ago, Qaddafi told a large gathering, which included Libyans and revolutionaries from many parts of the world, that the Black Africans were the true owners of Libya long before the Arab incursion into North Africa, and that Libyans need to acknowledge and pay tribute to their ancient African roots. He ended by saying, as is proclaimed in his Green Book, that “the Black race shall prevail throughout the world.” This is not what many Libyans wanted to hear. As with all fair skinned Arabs, prejudice against Black Africans is endemic.
Brother Leader, Guide of the Revolution and King of Kings are some of the titles that have been bestowed on Qaddafi by Africans. Only last month Qaddafi called for the creation of a Secretariat of traditional African Chiefs and Kings, with whom he has excellent ties, to co-ordinate efforts to build African unity at the grassroots level throughout the continent, a bottom up approach, as opposed to trying to build unity at the government/state level, an approach which has failed the African unification project since the days of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. This bottom up approach is widely supported by many Pan Africanists worldwide.
African Mercenaries or Freedom Fighters?
In the past week, the phrase “African mercenaries” has been repeated over and over by the media and the selected Libyan citizens they choose to speak to have, as one commentator put it, “spat the word ‘African’ with a venomous hatred.”
The media has assumed, without any research or understanding of the situation because they are refusing to give any air time to pro-Qaddafi forces, that the many Africans in military uniform fighting alongside the pro-Qaddafi Libyan forces are mercenaries. However, it is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars and this assumption is based solely on the usual racist and contemptuous view of Black Africans.
Actually, in truth, there are people all over Africa and the African Diaspora who support and respect Muammar Qaddafi as a result of his invaluable contribution to the worldwide struggle for African emancipation.
“It is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars.”
Over the past two decades, thousands of Africans from all over the continent were provided with education, work and military training – many of them coming from liberation movements. As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed. These battalions saw themselves as a part of the Libyan revolution, and took it upon themselves to defend the revolution against attacks from within its borders or outside.
These are the Africans who are fighting to defend Qaddafi and the gains of the Libyan revolution to their death if need be. It is not unlike what happened when internationalist battalions came to the aid of the revolutionary forces against Franco's fascist forces in Spain.
Malian political analyst, Adam Thiam, notes that “thousands of Tuaregs who were enrolled in the Islamic Legion established by the Libyan revolution remained in Libya and they are enrolled in the Libyan security forces.”
African Migrants under Attack
As African fighters from Chad, Niger, Mali, Ghana, Kenya and Southern Sudan (it should be noted that Libya supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army under John Garang in their war of liberation against Arab hegemonists in Khartoum, while all other Arab leaders backed the Khartoum regime) fight to defend this African revolution, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered as a result of their perceived support for Qaddafi.
One Turkish construction worker described a massacre: “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Qaddafi. The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”
This is a far cry from what is being portrayed in the media as “peaceful protesters” being set upon by pro-Qaddafi forces. In fact, footage of the Benghazi revolt shows men with machetes, AK 47s and RPGs. In the Green Book, Qaddafi argues for the transfer of all power, wealth and arms directly into the hands of the people themselves. No one can deny that the Libyan populace is heavily armed. This is part of Qaddafi's philosophy of arms not being monopolised by any section of the society, including the armed forces. It must be said that it is not usual practice for tyrants and dictators to arm their population.
Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe, where they are met with racism, more poverty, violence at the hands of extreme right wing groups and in many cases death, when the un-seaworthy boats they travel in sink.
“Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe.”
Moved by their plight, a conference was held in Libya in January this year, to address their needs and concerns. More than 500 delegates and speakers from around the world attended the conference titled “A Decent Life in Europe or a Welcome Return to Africa.”
“We should live in Europe with decency and dignity,” Qaddafi told participants. “We need a good relationship with Europe not a relationship of master and slave. There should be a strong relationship between Africa and Europe. Our presence should be strong, tangible and good. It’s up to you as the Africans in the Diaspora. We have to continue more and more until the unity of Africa is achieved.
From now on, by the will of God, I will assign teams to search, investigate and liaise with the Africans in Europe and to check their situations...this is my duty and role towards the sons of Africa; I am a soldier for Africa. I am here for you and I work for you; therefore, I will not leave you and I will follow up on your conditions.”
Joint committees of African migrants, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and international organizations present at the conference discussed the need to coordinate the implementation of many of the conference's recommendations.
Statements are appearing all over the internet from Africans who have a different view to that being perpetuated by those intent on discrediting Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution. One African commented:
“When I was growing up I first read a comic book of his revolution at the age of ten. Since then, as dictators came and went, Colonel Qaddafi has made an impression on me as a man who truly loves Africa! Libyans could complain that he spent their wealth on other Africans! But those Africans he helped put in power, built schools and mosques and brought in many forms of development showing that Africans can do for themselves. If those Africans would abandon him to be swallowed by Western Imperialism and their lies and just let him go as a dictator in the name of so-called democracy...if they could do that...they should receive the names and fate that the Western press gives our beloved leader. If there is any one person who was half as generous as he is, let them step forward.”
And another African comments:
“This man has been accused of many things and listening to the West who just recently were happy to accept his generous hospitality, you will think that he is worse than Hitler. The racism and contemptuous attitudes of Arabs towards Black Africans has made me a natural sceptic of any overtures from them to forge a closer link with Black Africa but Qaddafi was an exception.”
Opportunistic Revolt
This counter-revolutionary revolt caught everyone, including the Libyan authorities, by surprise. They knew what the media is not reporting: that unlike Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region, where there is tremendous poverty, unemployment and repressive pro-Western regimes, the Libyan dynamic was entirely different. However, an array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup and to advance their own agenda for the Libyan nation. Many of these former officials were the authors of, and covertly fuelled the anti-African pogrom in Libya a few years ago when many Africans lost their lives in street battles between Africans and Arab Libyans. This was a deliberate attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and to undermine his efforts in Africa.
Qaddafi has long been a thorn in the Islamists side. In his recent address to the Libyan people, broadcast from the ruins of the Bab al-Azizia compound bombed by Reagan in 1986, he asked the “bearded ones” in Benghazi and Jabal al Akhdar where they were when Reagan bombed his compound in Tripoli, killing hundreds of Libyans, including his daughter. He said they were hiding in their homes applauding the US and he vowed that he would never allow the country to be returned to the grip of them and their colonial masters.
Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for him to be tried in a court. One asks why are they calling for Qaddafi's blood? Why not Mubarak who closed the Rafah Border Crossing while the Israeli's slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza. Why not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair who are responsible for the murder of millions of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“An array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup.”
The answer is simple - because Qaddafi committed some “cardinal sins.” He dared to challenge their reactionary and feudal notions of Islam. He has upheld the idea that every Muslim is a ruler (Caliph) and does not need the Ulema to interpret the Quran for them. He has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so. Qaddafi has been called a Mujaddid (this term refers to a person who appears to revive Islam and to purge it of alien elements, restoring it to its authentic form) and he comes in the tradition of Jamaludeen Afghani and the late Iranian revolutionary, Ali Shariati.
Libya is a deeply traditional society, plagued with some outmoded and bankrupt ideas that continue to surface to this day. In many ways, Qaddafi has had to struggle against the same reactionary aspects of Arab culture and tradition that the holy prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was struggling against in 7th century Arabia – Arab supremacy/racism, supremacy of family and tribe, historical feuding tribe against tribe and the marginalisation of women. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.
These forces hate Qaddafi's revolutionary reading of the Quran. They foster an Islam concerned with outward trappings and mere religiosity, in the form of rituals, which at the same time is feudal and repressive, while rejecting the liberatory spirituality of Islam. While these so-called Islamists are opposed to Western occupation of Muslim lands, they have no concrete programmatic platform for meaningful socio-economic and political transformation to advance their societies beyond semi-feudal and capitalist systems which reinforce the most backward and reactionary ideas and traditions. Qaddafi's political philosophy, as outlined in the Green Book, rejects unfettered capitalism in all its manifestations, including the “State capitalism” of the former communist countries and the neo-liberal capitalist model that has been imposed at a global level. The idea that capitalism is not compatible with Islam and the Quran is not palatable to many Arabs and so-called Islamists because they hold onto the fallacious notion that business and trade is synonymous with capitalism.
Getting it Right
Whatever the mistakes made by Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution, its gains and its huge contribution to the struggle of oppressed peoples worldwide cannot and must not be ignored. Saif Qaddafi, when asked about the position of his father and family, said this battle is not about one man and his family, it is about Libya and the direction it will take.
That direction has always been controversial. In 1982, The World Mathaba was established in Libya. Mathaba means a gathering place for people with a common purpose. The World Mathaba brought together revolutionaries and freedom fighters from every corner of the globe to share ideas and develop their revolutionary knowledge. Many liberation groups throughout the world received education, training and support from Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution including ANC, AZAPO, PAC and BCM of Azania (South Africa), SWAPO of Namibia, MPLA of Angola, The Sandinistas of Nicaragua, The Polisario of the Sahara, the PLO, The Native American Movements throughout the Americas, The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan to name but a few. Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of the apartheid system owed much to Qaddafi and Libyan support. Mandela said that in the darkest moments of their struggle, when their backs were to the wall, it was Muammar Qaddafi who stood with them. The late African freedom fighter, Kwame Ture, referred to Qaddafi as “a diamond in a cesspool of African misleaders.”
“Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters.”
The hideous notion being perpetuated by the media and reactionary forces, inside and outside of Libya, that this is just another story of a bloated dictatorship that has run its course is mis-information and deliberate distortion. Whatever one’s opinions of Qaddafi the man, no one can deny his invaluable contribution to human emancipation and the universal truths outlined in his Green Book.
Progressive scholars in many parts of the world, including the West, have acclaimed The Green Book as an incisive critique of capitalism and the Western Parliamentary model of multi-party democracy. In addition, there is no denying that the system of direct democracy posited by Qaddafi in The Green Book offers an alternative model and solution for Africa and the Third World, where multi-party so-called democracy has been a dismal failure, resulting in poverty, ethnic and tribal conflict and chaos.
Every revolution, since the beginning of time, has defended itself against those who would want to roll back its gains. Europeans should look back into their own bloody history to see that this includes the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions. Marxists speak of Trotsky and Lenin’s brutal suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Red Army as being a “tragic necessity.”
Let's get it right: The battle in Libya is not about peaceful protestors versus an armed and hostile State. All sides are heavily armed and hostile. The battle being waged in Libya is essentially a battle between those who want to see a united and liberated Libya and Africa, free of neo-colonialism and neo-liberal capitalism and free to construct their own system of governance compatible with the African and Arab personalities and cultures and those who find this entire notion repugnant. And both sides are willing to pay the ultimate price to defend their positions.
Make no mistake, if Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution are defeated by this opportunistic conglomerate of reactionaries and racists, then progressive forces worldwide and the Pan African project will suffer a huge defeat and set back.
Gerald A. Perreira has lived in Libya for many years and was an executive member of the World Mathaba. He can be contacted at [email protected]
http://blackagendareport.com/content/libya-getting-it-right-revolutionary-pan-african-perspective
by Gerald A. Perreira
The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. The struggle “is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa.” The so-called Black African “mercenaries” are misnamed. “As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed” which are part of the Libyan armed forces.
Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective
by Gerald A. Perreira
“The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia.”
Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?
For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.
News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us – each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.
“Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.”
The first question is: Is the revolt taking place in Libya fuelled by a concern over economic issues such as poverty and unemployment as the media would have us believe? Let us examine the facts.
Under the revolutionary leadership of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has attained the highest standard of living in Africa. In 2007, in an article which appeared in the African Executive Magazine, Norah Owaraga noted that Libya, “unlike other oil producing countries such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, utilized the revenue from its oil to develop its country. The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa, falling in the category of countries with a GNP per capita of between USD 2,200 and 6,000.”
This is all the more remarkable when we consider that in 1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the world. According to the World Bank, the per capita income was less than $50 a year - even lower than India. Today, all Libyans own their own homes and cars. Two Fleet Street journalists, David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, who are by no means supporters of the Libyan revolution, had this to say:
“The young people are well dressed, well fed and well educated. Libyans now earn more per capita than the British. The disparity in annual incomes... is smaller than in most countries. Libya's wealth has been fairly spread throughout society. Every Libyan gets free, and often excellent, education, medical and health services. New colleges and hospitals are impressive by any international standard. All Libyans have a house or a flat, a car and most have televisions, video recorders and telephones. Compared with most citizens of the Third World countries, and with many in the First World, Libyans have it very good indeed.” (Source: Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution)
Large scale housing construction has taken place right across the country. Every citizen has been given a decent house or apartment to live in rent-free. In Qaddafi’s Green Book it states: “The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others.” This dictum has now become a reality for the Libyan people.
Large scale agricultural projects have been implemented in an effort to “make the desert bloom” and achieve self-sufficiency in food production. Any Libyan who wants to become a farmer is given free use of land, a house, farm equipment, some livestock and seed.
“The standard of living of the people of Libya is one of the highest in Africa.”
Today, Libya can boast one of the finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of all charges. The fact is that the Libyan revolution has achieved such a high standard of living for its people that they import labor from other parts of the world to do the jobs that the unemployed Libyans refuse to do. Libya has been called by many observers inside and out, “a nation of shop keepers.” It is part of the Libyan Arab psyche to own your own small business and this type of small scale private enterprise flourishes in Libya. We can draw on many examples of Libyans with young sons who expressed the idea that it would be shameful for the family if these same young men were to seek menial work and instead preferred for them to remain at home supported by the extended family.
No system is perfect, and Libya is no exception. They suffered nine years of economic sanctions and this caused huge problems for the Libyan economy. Also, there is nowhere on planet earth that has escaped the monumental crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. It has impacted everywhere – even on post revolutionary societies that have rejected “free market” capitalism. However, what we are saying is that severe economic injustice is not at the heart of this conflict. So then, what is?
A Battle for Africa
The battle that is being waged in Libya is fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject Qaddafi's vision of Libya as part of a united Africa and want to ally themselves instead with the EU and look toward Europe and the Arab World for Libya's future.
One of Muammar Qaddafi's most controversial and difficult moves in the eyes of many Libyans was his championing of Africa and his determined drive to unite Africa with one currency, one army and a shared vision regarding the true independence and liberation of the entire continent. He has contributed large amounts of his time and energy and large sums of money to this project and like Kwame Nkrumah, he has paid a high price.
Many of the Libyan people did not approve of this move. They wanted their leader to look towards Europe. Of course, Libya has extensive investments and commercial ties with Europe but the Libyans know that Qaddafi’s heart is in Africa.
Many years ago, Qaddafi told a large gathering, which included Libyans and revolutionaries from many parts of the world, that the Black Africans were the true owners of Libya long before the Arab incursion into North Africa, and that Libyans need to acknowledge and pay tribute to their ancient African roots. He ended by saying, as is proclaimed in his Green Book, that “the Black race shall prevail throughout the world.” This is not what many Libyans wanted to hear. As with all fair skinned Arabs, prejudice against Black Africans is endemic.
Brother Leader, Guide of the Revolution and King of Kings are some of the titles that have been bestowed on Qaddafi by Africans. Only last month Qaddafi called for the creation of a Secretariat of traditional African Chiefs and Kings, with whom he has excellent ties, to co-ordinate efforts to build African unity at the grassroots level throughout the continent, a bottom up approach, as opposed to trying to build unity at the government/state level, an approach which has failed the African unification project since the days of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. This bottom up approach is widely supported by many Pan Africanists worldwide.
African Mercenaries or Freedom Fighters?
In the past week, the phrase “African mercenaries” has been repeated over and over by the media and the selected Libyan citizens they choose to speak to have, as one commentator put it, “spat the word ‘African’ with a venomous hatred.”
The media has assumed, without any research or understanding of the situation because they are refusing to give any air time to pro-Qaddafi forces, that the many Africans in military uniform fighting alongside the pro-Qaddafi Libyan forces are mercenaries. However, it is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars and this assumption is based solely on the usual racist and contemptuous view of Black Africans.
Actually, in truth, there are people all over Africa and the African Diaspora who support and respect Muammar Qaddafi as a result of his invaluable contribution to the worldwide struggle for African emancipation.
“It is a myth that the Africans fighting to defend the Jamahiriya and Muammar Qaddafi are mercenaries being paid a few dollars.”
Over the past two decades, thousands of Africans from all over the continent were provided with education, work and military training – many of them coming from liberation movements. As a result of Libya's support for liberation movements throughout Africa and the world, international battalions were formed. These battalions saw themselves as a part of the Libyan revolution, and took it upon themselves to defend the revolution against attacks from within its borders or outside.
These are the Africans who are fighting to defend Qaddafi and the gains of the Libyan revolution to their death if need be. It is not unlike what happened when internationalist battalions came to the aid of the revolutionary forces against Franco's fascist forces in Spain.
Malian political analyst, Adam Thiam, notes that “thousands of Tuaregs who were enrolled in the Islamic Legion established by the Libyan revolution remained in Libya and they are enrolled in the Libyan security forces.”
African Migrants under Attack
As African fighters from Chad, Niger, Mali, Ghana, Kenya and Southern Sudan (it should be noted that Libya supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army under John Garang in their war of liberation against Arab hegemonists in Khartoum, while all other Arab leaders backed the Khartoum regime) fight to defend this African revolution, a million African refugees and thousands of African migrant workers stand the risk of being murdered as a result of their perceived support for Qaddafi.
One Turkish construction worker described a massacre: “We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Qaddafi. The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”
This is a far cry from what is being portrayed in the media as “peaceful protesters” being set upon by pro-Qaddafi forces. In fact, footage of the Benghazi revolt shows men with machetes, AK 47s and RPGs. In the Green Book, Qaddafi argues for the transfer of all power, wealth and arms directly into the hands of the people themselves. No one can deny that the Libyan populace is heavily armed. This is part of Qaddafi's philosophy of arms not being monopolised by any section of the society, including the armed forces. It must be said that it is not usual practice for tyrants and dictators to arm their population.
Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe, where they are met with racism, more poverty, violence at the hands of extreme right wing groups and in many cases death, when the un-seaworthy boats they travel in sink.
“Qaddafi has also been very vocal regarding the plight of Africans who migrate to Europe.”
Moved by their plight, a conference was held in Libya in January this year, to address their needs and concerns. More than 500 delegates and speakers from around the world attended the conference titled “A Decent Life in Europe or a Welcome Return to Africa.”
“We should live in Europe with decency and dignity,” Qaddafi told participants. “We need a good relationship with Europe not a relationship of master and slave. There should be a strong relationship between Africa and Europe. Our presence should be strong, tangible and good. It’s up to you as the Africans in the Diaspora. We have to continue more and more until the unity of Africa is achieved.
From now on, by the will of God, I will assign teams to search, investigate and liaise with the Africans in Europe and to check their situations...this is my duty and role towards the sons of Africa; I am a soldier for Africa. I am here for you and I work for you; therefore, I will not leave you and I will follow up on your conditions.”
Joint committees of African migrants, the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union and international organizations present at the conference discussed the need to coordinate the implementation of many of the conference's recommendations.
Statements are appearing all over the internet from Africans who have a different view to that being perpetuated by those intent on discrediting Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution. One African commented:
“When I was growing up I first read a comic book of his revolution at the age of ten. Since then, as dictators came and went, Colonel Qaddafi has made an impression on me as a man who truly loves Africa! Libyans could complain that he spent their wealth on other Africans! But those Africans he helped put in power, built schools and mosques and brought in many forms of development showing that Africans can do for themselves. If those Africans would abandon him to be swallowed by Western Imperialism and their lies and just let him go as a dictator in the name of so-called democracy...if they could do that...they should receive the names and fate that the Western press gives our beloved leader. If there is any one person who was half as generous as he is, let them step forward.”
And another African comments:
“This man has been accused of many things and listening to the West who just recently were happy to accept his generous hospitality, you will think that he is worse than Hitler. The racism and contemptuous attitudes of Arabs towards Black Africans has made me a natural sceptic of any overtures from them to forge a closer link with Black Africa but Qaddafi was an exception.”
Opportunistic Revolt
This counter-revolutionary revolt caught everyone, including the Libyan authorities, by surprise. They knew what the media is not reporting: that unlike Egypt and Tunisia and other countries in the region, where there is tremendous poverty, unemployment and repressive pro-Western regimes, the Libyan dynamic was entirely different. However, an array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup and to advance their own agenda for the Libyan nation. Many of these former officials were the authors of, and covertly fuelled the anti-African pogrom in Libya a few years ago when many Africans lost their lives in street battles between Africans and Arab Libyans. This was a deliberate attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and to undermine his efforts in Africa.
Qaddafi has long been a thorn in the Islamists side. In his recent address to the Libyan people, broadcast from the ruins of the Bab al-Azizia compound bombed by Reagan in 1986, he asked the “bearded ones” in Benghazi and Jabal al Akhdar where they were when Reagan bombed his compound in Tripoli, killing hundreds of Libyans, including his daughter. He said they were hiding in their homes applauding the US and he vowed that he would never allow the country to be returned to the grip of them and their colonial masters.
Al Qaeda is in the Sahara on his borders and the International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling for him to be tried in a court. One asks why are they calling for Qaddafi's blood? Why not Mubarak who closed the Rafah Border Crossing while the Israeli's slaughtered the Palestinians in Gaza. Why not Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Blair who are responsible for the murder of millions of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“An array of opportunistic forces, ranging from so-called Islamists, Arab-Supremacists, including some of those who have recently defected from Qaddafi's inner circle, have used the events in neighbouring countries as a pretext to stage a coup.”
The answer is simple - because Qaddafi committed some “cardinal sins.” He dared to challenge their reactionary and feudal notions of Islam. He has upheld the idea that every Muslim is a ruler (Caliph) and does not need the Ulema to interpret the Quran for them. He has questioned the Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda from a Quranic/theological perspective and is one of the few political leaders equipped to do so. Qaddafi has been called a Mujaddid (this term refers to a person who appears to revive Islam and to purge it of alien elements, restoring it to its authentic form) and he comes in the tradition of Jamaludeen Afghani and the late Iranian revolutionary, Ali Shariati.
Libya is a deeply traditional society, plagued with some outmoded and bankrupt ideas that continue to surface to this day. In many ways, Qaddafi has had to struggle against the same reactionary aspects of Arab culture and tradition that the holy prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was struggling against in 7th century Arabia – Arab supremacy/racism, supremacy of family and tribe, historical feuding tribe against tribe and the marginalisation of women. Benghazi has always been at the heart of counter-revolution in Libya, fostering reactionary Islamic movements such as the Wahhabis and Salafists. It is these people who founded the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group based in Benghazi which allies itself with Al Qaeda and who have, over the years, been responsible for the assassination of leading members of the Libyan revolutionary committees.
These forces hate Qaddafi's revolutionary reading of the Quran. They foster an Islam concerned with outward trappings and mere religiosity, in the form of rituals, which at the same time is feudal and repressive, while rejecting the liberatory spirituality of Islam. While these so-called Islamists are opposed to Western occupation of Muslim lands, they have no concrete programmatic platform for meaningful socio-economic and political transformation to advance their societies beyond semi-feudal and capitalist systems which reinforce the most backward and reactionary ideas and traditions. Qaddafi's political philosophy, as outlined in the Green Book, rejects unfettered capitalism in all its manifestations, including the “State capitalism” of the former communist countries and the neo-liberal capitalist model that has been imposed at a global level. The idea that capitalism is not compatible with Islam and the Quran is not palatable to many Arabs and so-called Islamists because they hold onto the fallacious notion that business and trade is synonymous with capitalism.
Getting it Right
Whatever the mistakes made by Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution, its gains and its huge contribution to the struggle of oppressed peoples worldwide cannot and must not be ignored. Saif Qaddafi, when asked about the position of his father and family, said this battle is not about one man and his family, it is about Libya and the direction it will take.
That direction has always been controversial. In 1982, The World Mathaba was established in Libya. Mathaba means a gathering place for people with a common purpose. The World Mathaba brought together revolutionaries and freedom fighters from every corner of the globe to share ideas and develop their revolutionary knowledge. Many liberation groups throughout the world received education, training and support from Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution including ANC, AZAPO, PAC and BCM of Azania (South Africa), SWAPO of Namibia, MPLA of Angola, The Sandinistas of Nicaragua, The Polisario of the Sahara, the PLO, The Native American Movements throughout the Americas, The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan to name but a few. Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters, and insisted that the eventual collapse of the apartheid system owed much to Qaddafi and Libyan support. Mandela said that in the darkest moments of their struggle, when their backs were to the wall, it was Muammar Qaddafi who stood with them. The late African freedom fighter, Kwame Ture, referred to Qaddafi as “a diamond in a cesspool of African misleaders.”
“Nelson Mandela called Muammar Qaddafi one of this century’s greatest freedom fighters.”
The hideous notion being perpetuated by the media and reactionary forces, inside and outside of Libya, that this is just another story of a bloated dictatorship that has run its course is mis-information and deliberate distortion. Whatever one’s opinions of Qaddafi the man, no one can deny his invaluable contribution to human emancipation and the universal truths outlined in his Green Book.
Progressive scholars in many parts of the world, including the West, have acclaimed The Green Book as an incisive critique of capitalism and the Western Parliamentary model of multi-party democracy. In addition, there is no denying that the system of direct democracy posited by Qaddafi in The Green Book offers an alternative model and solution for Africa and the Third World, where multi-party so-called democracy has been a dismal failure, resulting in poverty, ethnic and tribal conflict and chaos.
Every revolution, since the beginning of time, has defended itself against those who would want to roll back its gains. Europeans should look back into their own bloody history to see that this includes the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions. Marxists speak of Trotsky and Lenin’s brutal suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Red Army as being a “tragic necessity.”
Let's get it right: The battle in Libya is not about peaceful protestors versus an armed and hostile State. All sides are heavily armed and hostile. The battle being waged in Libya is essentially a battle between those who want to see a united and liberated Libya and Africa, free of neo-colonialism and neo-liberal capitalism and free to construct their own system of governance compatible with the African and Arab personalities and cultures and those who find this entire notion repugnant. And both sides are willing to pay the ultimate price to defend their positions.
Make no mistake, if Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution are defeated by this opportunistic conglomerate of reactionaries and racists, then progressive forces worldwide and the Pan African project will suffer a huge defeat and set back.
Gerald A. Perreira has lived in Libya for many years and was an executive member of the World Mathaba. He can be contacted at [email protected]
http://blackagendareport.com/content/libya-getting-it-right-revolutionary-pan-african-perspective
World cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos
How was Libya doing under the rule of Gadaffi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.
Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.
People in Libya were rich. Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.
How does Libya get so rich? The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.
Like any country, Libya suffers from a government with corrupt bureaucrats that try to gain a bigger portion of the pie at the cost of everyone else. In response to this, Kadaffi called for the oil revenue to be distributed directly to the people, because in his opinion, the government was failing the people. However, unlike the article claims, Kadaffi is not the president of Libya. In fact he holds no official position in the government. This is the big mistake that people make. They claim that Kadaffi rules over Libya when in fact he doesn't, his position is more or less ceremonial. He should be compared to a founding father.
The true leader of Libya is an indirectly elected prime-minister. The current prime-minister is
Baghdadi Mahmudi. Calling Khadaffi the leader of Libya is comparable to calling Akihito the leader of Japan. Contrary to what your media is sketching, opinions in Libya vary. Some people support Gadaffi but want Mahmudi out. Others want both out. Many just want to live their life in peace. However, effort is taken to sketch the appearance of a popular revolt against the supposed leader of Libya, Gadaffi, when in fact he is just the architect of Libya's current political system, a mixture of pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islamic government.
Videos of Pro-Gaddafi protests are disappearing from Youtube as we speak. "Pro Gaddafi Anti Baghdadi Mahmudi demonstrations in" youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5fLGNg0sk is gone. "Pro Gaddafi protests in front of Libyan embassy London" youtube.com/watch?v=pRwv0Ac8qbc Is gone. Youtube deletes any video containing gore normally, except when it's from Libya. Apparently more traumatizing to it's viewers than chopped up bodies are Libyans who do not jump on the bandwagon and enter the streets to force Gadaffi out.
Are the protesters in Libya comparable to the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia? Not at all. The governments reaction is more violent, and obviously excessive violence is being used. However let us look for a moment at the actions of the protesters. The building of the the general people's congress, the parliament of Libya, was put on fire by angry protestors. This is comparable to protesters putting the United States Capitol on fire. Do you think that for even a moment the US government would sit idly by as protesters put the US capitol on fire?
The riots erupting now are not secular youth desiring change, or anything like we saw in Egypt and Tunisia. A group calling itself "Islamic Emirate of Barka", the former name of the North-Western part of Libya, has taken numerous hostages, and killed two policemen. This is not a recent development. On Friday, the 18th of February, the group stole 70 military vehicles after attacking a port and killing four soldiers. Unfortunately, a military colonel has joined the group and provided them with further weapons. The uprising started in the eastern city of Benghazi. The Italian foreign minister has raised his fears of an Islamic Emirate of Benghazi declaring itself independent.
So where does this sudden uprising come from? The answer is that the same groups the US has been funding for decades are now taking their chance to gain control over the nation. A group recently arrested in Libya consisted of dozens of foreign nationals that were involved in numerous acts of looting and sabotage. The Libyan government could not rule out links to Israel.
Great Britain funded an Al Qaeda cell in Libya, in an attempt to assassinate Gadaffi. The main opposition group in Libya now is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. This opposition group is being funded by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, and French Intelligence. This group unified itself with other opposition groups, to become the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. It was this organization that called for the "Day of Rage" that plunged Libya into chaos on February 17 of this year.
It did this in Benghazi, a conservative city that has always been opposed to Gadaffi's rule. It should be noted that the National Front for the Salvation of Libya is well armed. In 1996 the group tried to unleash a revolution in the eastern part of Libya before. It used the Libyan National Army, the armed division of the NFSL to begin this failed uprising.
Why is the United States so opposed to Gadaffi? He is the main threat to US hegemony in Africa, because he attempts to unite the continent against the United States. This concept is called the United States of Africa. In fact, Gadaffi holds all sorts of ideas that are contrary to US interests. The man blames the United States government for the creation of HIV. He claims that Israel is behind the assasination of Martin Luther King and president John. F. Kennedy. He says that the 9/11 hijackers were trained in the US. He also urged Libyans to donate blood to Americans after 9/11. Khadaffi is also the last of a generation of moderate socialist pan-Arab revolutionaries that is still in power, after Nasser and Hussein have been eliminated, and Syria has aligned itself with Iran.
The United States and Israel however have no interest in a strong Arab world. In fact it seems that elementary to the plan is bringing Libya to its knees through chaos and anarchy. In late 2010, the United Kingdom was still propping up the Libyan government through lucrative arms sales. Nothing is a better guarantee to destroy Libya than a bloody civil war. The tribal system that is still strong in Libya is useful to exploit to generate such a war since Libya has historically been divided into various tribal groups.
This is also why the Libyan government responds by importing mercenaries. Tribal allegiances go before allegiance to the government, especially in Benghazi, and thus the central government has no control over the eastern part of the country anymore. The alternative to mercenaries is a conflict between the various ethnic groups. Gadaffi has tried for 41 years to make the country more homogeneous, but opposition groups funded by outside forced will take little more than a few days to put the country back into the 19th century, before the region was conquered and unified by Europeans. The violence is indeed excessive, but everyone seems to forget that the situation is not the same as in Tunis and Egypt. Tribal ties play a far greater role, and thus the conflict will unfortunately be bloodier.
Please remember at all times that the violent Libyan civil war unfolding now is not comparable to the revolutions seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Both of these revolutions involved peaceful protesters suffering from poverty, in opposition to their corrupt governments. The chaos in Libyan consists of a mixture of tribal conflicts, conflict over oil revenue (since most oil is in the east of the country), radical islamists opposed to Gadaffi's system of government, and outside destabilization by Western funded exile groups.
Gadaffi took control in a bloodless coup from a sick monarch away for medical treatment 41 years ago. His ideology is based on unification and he attempted to peacefully merge his country with Egypt and Syria. It would take a miracle for the violence unfolding now to lead to a single stable democratic government in Libya, with full control over the entire country. The country is more than twice the size of Pakistan, but with 6 million inhabitants. Endless deserts divide many of the cities in the nation. If anything we should ask ourselves how many more nations will be shattered into pieces in the coming months, as the world cheers.
http://davidrothscum.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-cheers-as-cia-plunges-libya-into.html
How was Libya doing under the rule of Gadaffi? How bad did the people have it? Were they oppressed as we now commonly accept as fact? Let us look at the facts for a moment.
Before the chaos erupted, Libya had a lower incarceration rate than the Czech republic. It ranked 61st. Libya had the lowest infant mortality rate of all of Africa. Libya had the highest life expectancy of all of Africa. Less than 5% of the population was undernourished. In response to the rising food prices around the world, the government of Libya abolished ALL taxes on food.
People in Libya were rich. Libya had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita of all of Africa. The government took care to ensure that everyone in the country shared in the wealth. Libya had the highest Human Development Index of any country on the continent. The wealth was distributed equally. In Libya, a lower percentage of people lived below the poverty line than in the Netherlands.
How does Libya get so rich? The answer is oil. The country has a lot of oil, and does not allow foreign corporations to steal the resources while the population starves, unlike countries like Nigeria, a country that is basically run by Shell.
Like any country, Libya suffers from a government with corrupt bureaucrats that try to gain a bigger portion of the pie at the cost of everyone else. In response to this, Kadaffi called for the oil revenue to be distributed directly to the people, because in his opinion, the government was failing the people. However, unlike the article claims, Kadaffi is not the president of Libya. In fact he holds no official position in the government. This is the big mistake that people make. They claim that Kadaffi rules over Libya when in fact he doesn't, his position is more or less ceremonial. He should be compared to a founding father.
The true leader of Libya is an indirectly elected prime-minister. The current prime-minister is
Baghdadi Mahmudi. Calling Khadaffi the leader of Libya is comparable to calling Akihito the leader of Japan. Contrary to what your media is sketching, opinions in Libya vary. Some people support Gadaffi but want Mahmudi out. Others want both out. Many just want to live their life in peace. However, effort is taken to sketch the appearance of a popular revolt against the supposed leader of Libya, Gadaffi, when in fact he is just the architect of Libya's current political system, a mixture of pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islamic government.
Videos of Pro-Gaddafi protests are disappearing from Youtube as we speak. "Pro Gaddafi Anti Baghdadi Mahmudi demonstrations in" youtube.com/watch?v=Ce5fLGNg0sk is gone. "Pro Gaddafi protests in front of Libyan embassy London" youtube.com/watch?v=pRwv0Ac8qbc Is gone. Youtube deletes any video containing gore normally, except when it's from Libya. Apparently more traumatizing to it's viewers than chopped up bodies are Libyans who do not jump on the bandwagon and enter the streets to force Gadaffi out.
Are the protesters in Libya comparable to the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia? Not at all. The governments reaction is more violent, and obviously excessive violence is being used. However let us look for a moment at the actions of the protesters. The building of the the general people's congress, the parliament of Libya, was put on fire by angry protestors. This is comparable to protesters putting the United States Capitol on fire. Do you think that for even a moment the US government would sit idly by as protesters put the US capitol on fire?
The riots erupting now are not secular youth desiring change, or anything like we saw in Egypt and Tunisia. A group calling itself "Islamic Emirate of Barka", the former name of the North-Western part of Libya, has taken numerous hostages, and killed two policemen. This is not a recent development. On Friday, the 18th of February, the group stole 70 military vehicles after attacking a port and killing four soldiers. Unfortunately, a military colonel has joined the group and provided them with further weapons. The uprising started in the eastern city of Benghazi. The Italian foreign minister has raised his fears of an Islamic Emirate of Benghazi declaring itself independent.
So where does this sudden uprising come from? The answer is that the same groups the US has been funding for decades are now taking their chance to gain control over the nation. A group recently arrested in Libya consisted of dozens of foreign nationals that were involved in numerous acts of looting and sabotage. The Libyan government could not rule out links to Israel.
Great Britain funded an Al Qaeda cell in Libya, in an attempt to assassinate Gadaffi. The main opposition group in Libya now is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. This opposition group is being funded by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, and French Intelligence. This group unified itself with other opposition groups, to become the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. It was this organization that called for the "Day of Rage" that plunged Libya into chaos on February 17 of this year.
It did this in Benghazi, a conservative city that has always been opposed to Gadaffi's rule. It should be noted that the National Front for the Salvation of Libya is well armed. In 1996 the group tried to unleash a revolution in the eastern part of Libya before. It used the Libyan National Army, the armed division of the NFSL to begin this failed uprising.
Why is the United States so opposed to Gadaffi? He is the main threat to US hegemony in Africa, because he attempts to unite the continent against the United States. This concept is called the United States of Africa. In fact, Gadaffi holds all sorts of ideas that are contrary to US interests. The man blames the United States government for the creation of HIV. He claims that Israel is behind the assasination of Martin Luther King and president John. F. Kennedy. He says that the 9/11 hijackers were trained in the US. He also urged Libyans to donate blood to Americans after 9/11. Khadaffi is also the last of a generation of moderate socialist pan-Arab revolutionaries that is still in power, after Nasser and Hussein have been eliminated, and Syria has aligned itself with Iran.
The United States and Israel however have no interest in a strong Arab world. In fact it seems that elementary to the plan is bringing Libya to its knees through chaos and anarchy. In late 2010, the United Kingdom was still propping up the Libyan government through lucrative arms sales. Nothing is a better guarantee to destroy Libya than a bloody civil war. The tribal system that is still strong in Libya is useful to exploit to generate such a war since Libya has historically been divided into various tribal groups.
This is also why the Libyan government responds by importing mercenaries. Tribal allegiances go before allegiance to the government, especially in Benghazi, and thus the central government has no control over the eastern part of the country anymore. The alternative to mercenaries is a conflict between the various ethnic groups. Gadaffi has tried for 41 years to make the country more homogeneous, but opposition groups funded by outside forced will take little more than a few days to put the country back into the 19th century, before the region was conquered and unified by Europeans. The violence is indeed excessive, but everyone seems to forget that the situation is not the same as in Tunis and Egypt. Tribal ties play a far greater role, and thus the conflict will unfortunately be bloodier.
Please remember at all times that the violent Libyan civil war unfolding now is not comparable to the revolutions seen in Tunisia and Egypt. Both of these revolutions involved peaceful protesters suffering from poverty, in opposition to their corrupt governments. The chaos in Libyan consists of a mixture of tribal conflicts, conflict over oil revenue (since most oil is in the east of the country), radical islamists opposed to Gadaffi's system of government, and outside destabilization by Western funded exile groups.
Gadaffi took control in a bloodless coup from a sick monarch away for medical treatment 41 years ago. His ideology is based on unification and he attempted to peacefully merge his country with Egypt and Syria. It would take a miracle for the violence unfolding now to lead to a single stable democratic government in Libya, with full control over the entire country. The country is more than twice the size of Pakistan, but with 6 million inhabitants. Endless deserts divide many of the cities in the nation. If anything we should ask ourselves how many more nations will be shattered into pieces in the coming months, as the world cheers.
http://davidrothscum.blogspot.com/2011/02/world-cheers-as-cia-plunges-libya-into.html
You've taken a position that is identical to the one you oppose, do you see that? The issue with your argument is that you take your position on the matter to be inherently true. You think you are right just as much as someone who adopts a religious belief system thinks they are right. And that isn't to say you aren't right, you are, because you believe you are, but there is no inherent right or wrong attached to the concept you are fighting against or propagating. Concepts and ideas are being piled on top of concepts and ideas and it gets quite messy. All positions that are attached to the said concept or paradigm are fundamentally the same.
You BELIEVE religion to be, whatever it is that you think it is. And this is something i don't think you would be able to admit to yourself being that you have mounted such an aggressive fight with your point of view. I'm sure you would say you "know" that you're right, based on said facts etc.. but the truth is that the facts are only what you make them. A fact in-and-of-itself, doesn't exist separate from your knowledge of it, and your knowledge will always be skewed to further a position or agenda you subscribe to on a gross or subtle level. Believing that religion is evil and fighting against it is just the same as believing it is good and fighting for it. Both are dualistic extremes mirroring each other, and both sides firmly believe their points of view are valid. You have to BELIEVE you're right on both sides of the matter. The feeling of being correct or right, that feeling inside you that is a burning feeling that makes you say what you say. Is the same right feeling those who follow a religion have in them. It gets to such a fundamental and engrained form that it makes "you" who you are. You say I believe this and that and that I am right. So what happens is you have a shitload of people running around thinking they are right and trying to convince everyone else of their positions to validate their own beliefs. Because the belief has no reality other than being a belief. The belief is nothing tangible you can touch or see or throw or bounce.. you can't show it to someone. You can say you back it up with evidence but again if someone doesn't want to believe that evidence then it has no power.
The poison that religion spreads in the mind of man is the adoption of a belief system to be real and have absolute authority. And from there the problem arises when many belief systems clash.. because naturally everyone thinks they are right. But if you don't believe in a religion you still believe it isn't true. An atheist is still a slave to a belief system. You have to believe whatever it is that you say about religion and to think that you're right and the other side is wrong is planting the same poisonous seed that religion has. This is the separation that creates the strife and wars. Not the religion itself. By taking a side and thinking you are right you've already lost. By fighting the religion you're no better than those involved in spreading their bullshit religion. You're playing the game and have taken the bait hook line and sinker. Ultimately it doesn't matter what you believe. You believe it. And you think you're right... so you'll mount your fight and you're no better than those who fight for christianity or whatever religion.
Heresy is right, there will never be an eradication of religion. The belief in those who attach to these belief systems is of monumental proportions and they believe it with all their being. Just as you believe they are fools with all your being. The poison is belief itself. The concept of religion is one that is come upon by the individual who then either chooses to believe the concept or disbelieve it. Disbelief being a subtle form of belief. The concept itself isn't dangerous because it has no power. Power is given to it by those with attachment or aversion to it. So you are feeding the fire of these religions by fighting against them. See them for what they are and live your life. Mankind cannot be saved. And doing away with religion will not save humanity from itself. The religion isn't the problem its the translation of the religion as a positive or negative thing in the mind of man and mistaking the translation for absolute truth. It is mankind's nature to do whatever it is that it does otherwise it wouldn't be happening. The want for power, the greed for material wealth and so on have created vast systems enslaving the minds of man. There is nothing to be done about it. Watch it happen like a movie, you are just as much a part of it as anyone. Don't fight religion. Spread awareness about the functioning of the human mind and it's relation to thought.
The issue is psychological not theological. There is no such thing as a true atheist.
You BELIEVE religion to be, whatever it is that you think it is. And this is something i don't think you would be able to admit to yourself being that you have mounted such an aggressive fight with your point of view. I'm sure you would say you "know" that you're right, based on said facts etc.. but the truth is that the facts are only what you make them. A fact in-and-of-itself, doesn't exist separate from your knowledge of it, and your knowledge will always be skewed to further a position or agenda you subscribe to on a gross or subtle level. Believing that religion is evil and fighting against it is just the same as believing it is good and fighting for it. Both are dualistic extremes mirroring each other, and both sides firmly believe their points of view are valid. You have to BELIEVE you're right on both sides of the matter. The feeling of being correct or right, that feeling inside you that is a burning feeling that makes you say what you say. Is the same right feeling those who follow a religion have in them. It gets to such a fundamental and engrained form that it makes "you" who you are. You say I believe this and that and that I am right. So what happens is you have a shitload of people running around thinking they are right and trying to convince everyone else of their positions to validate their own beliefs. Because the belief has no reality other than being a belief. The belief is nothing tangible you can touch or see or throw or bounce.. you can't show it to someone. You can say you back it up with evidence but again if someone doesn't want to believe that evidence then it has no power.
The poison that religion spreads in the mind of man is the adoption of a belief system to be real and have absolute authority. And from there the problem arises when many belief systems clash.. because naturally everyone thinks they are right. But if you don't believe in a religion you still believe it isn't true. An atheist is still a slave to a belief system. You have to believe whatever it is that you say about religion and to think that you're right and the other side is wrong is planting the same poisonous seed that religion has. This is the separation that creates the strife and wars. Not the religion itself. By taking a side and thinking you are right you've already lost. By fighting the religion you're no better than those involved in spreading their bullshit religion. You're playing the game and have taken the bait hook line and sinker. Ultimately it doesn't matter what you believe. You believe it. And you think you're right... so you'll mount your fight and you're no better than those who fight for christianity or whatever religion.
Heresy is right, there will never be an eradication of religion. The belief in those who attach to these belief systems is of monumental proportions and they believe it with all their being. Just as you believe they are fools with all your being. The poison is belief itself. The concept of religion is one that is come upon by the individual who then either chooses to believe the concept or disbelieve it. Disbelief being a subtle form of belief. The concept itself isn't dangerous because it has no power. Power is given to it by those with attachment or aversion to it. So you are feeding the fire of these religions by fighting against them. See them for what they are and live your life. Mankind cannot be saved. And doing away with religion will not save humanity from itself. The religion isn't the problem its the translation of the religion as a positive or negative thing in the mind of man and mistaking the translation for absolute truth. It is mankind's nature to do whatever it is that it does otherwise it wouldn't be happening. The want for power, the greed for material wealth and so on have created vast systems enslaving the minds of man. There is nothing to be done about it. Watch it happen like a movie, you are just as much a part of it as anyone. Don't fight religion. Spread awareness about the functioning of the human mind and it's relation to thought.
The issue is psychological not theological. There is no such thing as a true atheist.