EGYPT: holidays extras ((updated version):

bombed or shot down tourist airplane; bullets fired at tourist bus; attackers with knifes in Red Sea beach hotel…

References: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35268713

Of course the iconic silhouette of Egypt could be replace by that of Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, Mali… except for the pyramids.

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Exclusive mass-mobility for the affluent (a relative economic term, a lower middle class person can be “rich” elsewhere) always had it’s side-effects. The targetting of tourists is not an ISIS invention, it is a constant since the beginning of organised leisure travel. Mass-media combined with the new form of low-fare mass-travel do give it another dimension. What it lays bare as well is the economic structures of countries under attack, the problem of their (growing) dependancy on tourism, the social-economic division in the tourists countries themselves, those that profit, those that suffer. The impact on culture, habitat and environment geared to produce short-term profits.

We may well also consider reflecting on what makes up the demand & supply of the tourist industry. How dissatisfied are those mass-tourists with their local environment and life…. why it is that they like to play ‘king’ elsewhere, while abiding with their social status at home. Is the last thing not a deep structural meaning of the whole phenomenon of tourism, or is there also a genuine interest in how people live elseweher? The luxury “high security” (sic) ghettos of our days, which most of the mass-destination tourist resorts are, answer the last question.

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If there is a vision on tourism of those who are trying to establish a new caliphate under the reign of ISIS-leaders is not clear to me, or it must be a special tour to the remaining debris of historical monuments blasted and looted by the troops of the new caliphate.

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This brings to mind the observation that many of ‘historical monuments’ have been erected on the fundaments of preceding cultures, religions and reigns, with the reuse of older materials in newqer constructions. The academic term for this is ‘spolia’. Examples are the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jeruzalem (an almagate of building materials originating from times of Judaism, Roman rule, Crusaders ending up as a mosque under Umayyad Caliphs in the 7th century), the Cathedral and/or Mosque of Cordoba (starting off as a Roman temple for the god Janus, turned into an early Christian church by the Visigoths in the 6th century, changed into a great mosque by the exiled muslim rulers from damuscus the Umayyafs in the 8th century and becoming a christian church once more after teh Reconquista of Islam Spain in 1236). The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was at first a Greek Orthodox cathedral, until it’s reconstruction as a mosque by Sultan Mehmed II in 1453.

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Now Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) with their declaration of a new caliphate see temselves treading in the footsteps of other great Muslim conquerors, one of the most famous being the beforementioned Sultan Mehmed II, who as far as destruction of historical monuments of infidels go, did the opposite… he just recycled a Byzantine christian cathadral into a mosque. Would that mean that The Hagia Sophia (now a Turkish state museum) will become the future destination for a new form of caiphate tourism of the ‘umah’ travelling en masse to Istanbul…. The excerpt form a recent article on how some Turks see their realtionship to ISIS explains this idea…

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Al-Monitor, a well established Middle East news source, published an article on November the 14th 2014 under the header”Turks increasingly sympathetic to Islamic State”, from which I take the following quotation:

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“The caliphate is not a recent issue for some Muslims in Turkey. A global Islamic organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was established in 1953 and has branches in 50 countries, has been openly calling for a caliphate. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Mahmut Kar, the head of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s media relations in Turkey, explained in detail not only how his organization views IS’ decision to declare a caliphate but also its own struggle for a caliphate.

Kar said, “[Hizb ut-Tahrir] was established in 1960 in Turkey and when we started speaking about the caliphate in 1967 it was the first time the word had been brought back into Turkish public space since 1924. Once the idea of a caliphate was out in the open again, Islamist movements in line with the Muslim Brotherhood started emerging in Turkey.”

(…)

He (Mahmut Kar tj.) emphasized that for the “ordinary” Muslim and non-Muslim the association of the caliphate with IS has been detrimental. “As the world is leery of IS violence, the caliphate is now associated with blood,” Kar said. Yet, for those who had been living with the dream of revival of the caliphate, IS could be a promise.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/11/turkey-growing-support-for-isis-caliphate.html#

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Even when ISIS blasts away the Haia Sophia because of its christian origins, it may well become a destination for another  – growing – part of tourist ondustry: ‘disaster toruism’ also called ‘dark tourism’. Apart from the Great Chinese Wall (which has the skeletons of generations of enslaved labourers in its fundaments) despotism draws great crowds, be it the Nazi KZ’s, the Gulag, or the Red Khmer execution fields….

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POW – DAVID BOWIE – Prisoner Of Worship

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 Roulette democracy in France once again…

… the departmental/region elections of December 2015 with it’s rise of the Front National in the first round and the media-demise of the same party in the second round, whereas the Front National gained 800.000 votes in the second round, and the Socialist Front gained just over 200.000 votes the second time.

What we see is a an election system that strives for a contest between two major parties, neglecting all other shades and colours of opinion. It is used for the presidential elections, as well as for de departmental ones. It dates back to what some call the ‘legal coup-d’état’ of the Fifth Republic by general De Gaulle in 1958. This changed a more full parliamentary system with a system with more central power executed by the president. It was triggered by the crisis France found itself in with the Algerian War and internal political strive, at the edge what some called ‘a civil war’. The aim of the Fifth Republic was ‘majority rule’, throwing out all ideas of more party coalitions, of proportional representation, of government by any form of consensus.

I will not explain here the vicissitudes of the so called binomial electoral system, it suffices to know that it has been implemented recently by countries trying to get out of a history of dictatorship like Chile and Poland. A system that may be of use during an initial period, but which – over longer time – hampers the very thing it claims to implement: parliamentary democracy.

This morning I was driven to make this info-graphic as I could not make good sense of all the comments, statistics and incomplete electoral maps I was presented with (both in French and English language newspapers).

On my mind was the first round of these elections – that also served as a test of the popularity or unpopularity of the sitting government of the ‘socialists party’ lead by François Hollande. As was to be expected the first round saw a great gain of the non-governing opposition under Marie Le Pen, her niece and some even more far right parties associated.

Next was a week of state propaganda against the Front Nationale… even while this party (if we like it or not) became in the first round the third political force in the country, nearing the socialist bloc in number of individual votes. Le Pen was not even invited to sit at the desk of the national/state television news after her success (imagine the reversed situation…). Everything was mobilised during one week to prepare for the second round with plenty of (state) media-space for the anti Le Pen camp and see, the Front Nationale did not loose votes, they gained 800.000 or so. Now the bad surprise of this semi-dictatorial system of binomial elections made it that the Front National (as a third political force in France) did not come back in any of the combined-departments/regions. The ‘bi’ polar system eliminates major players on the field.

What to think about such a system? What about the electoral force… how they can have any direct influence in such an abominable system?

It suffices to check out who did give their mandate for this new political departmental region constellation. It appears that roughly 50% of the electorate did NOT vote and half a million in the first round and three quarter of a million in the second round decided to give a blank vote.

So is all this ‘representational government’? It is not. Even when one dislikes or abhores the Front Nationale, one should keep up minimal standards of democratic respect for those playing in the election games.

Now the rules of the election games’ themselves should cone up for scrutiny. As it is now with the binomial system (*)  I give it the name:

ROULETTE DEMOCRACY — rien ne va plus.
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statistical date source: Élections régionales françaises de 2015
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élections_régionales_françaises_de_2015

(*) A useful introduction to the impact of ‘two rounds’ voting and the ‘binomial election system’ is on the site of ACE-electoral knowledge network: http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/onePage

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A SYRIAN SEVASTOPOL?
Allied Forces including France and soon Britain (again) together with Turkey on a battlefield not far from the southern border of what became Russian territory by annexation in by the end of the 18th century: the Crimea.

The downing of a Russian airplane by the Turkish today may be seen as a step toward another Russian heroic stand a new Sevastopol?
Russians defending what all imperial nations like to call the mother or fatherland. Thus in the 19th century the French, British, Ottomans and Sardinians laid a siege to Sevastopol in the years 1854-55, so did the troops of the Third Reich in 1941-42. In both cases the Russian troops supported by most of – except the authochton Crimean Tartars – the local population, held heroically out for a long time, in the end losing these prolonged and murderous battles. Sevastopol thus became a symbol of Russians defending their values from Tsarist led Orthodox Christianism to Bolshevist led nationalism and beyond, with the new mix of Russion nationalism, corporate state system and revived Orthodox Church values under Putin.
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The Crimean War saw the unholy alliance of Western European empires with the Ottoman Empire against what they saw as ‘a threat of Tsarist Orthodox Christian Russia. The Middle East War of today again has such an alliance in the form of NATO with the new Ottomans, the last under the new strong man of Turkey Erdogan, shooting down a Russian war plane.
NO MORE SEVASTOPOL can be read from Putin’s eyes.
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Where can we situate that ‘new Sevastopol’ of the 21st century?
In Syria, the Russian naval base at Tartus leased from the (socialist) Syrian Ba’at party of the Assad dynasty since 1971. It is very close to Turkey. It gives Russia a free access to the whole of the Mediterranean waters, without being forced to go through the Turkish controlled Bosporus.
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EU/USA and NATO have been destabilising the Southern part of Russia by discarding the Cold War entente for a Hot War future scenario. Russian’s long involvement in Syria is strategic. So is it’s actual alliance with the Assad regime. The downing of a Russian war plane (over Turkish territory) is a step toward an unwanted war, that reminds of the disasters of the Crimean War in the mid of the 19th century.
Historic battles lost tend to become mythical references of nationalist history.
There was a lack of any anti-warmongers movement during the Crimean War of the 19th century, even when many Russians, Turks, Brits and Frenchmen, African troops, died in battle and of disease.
We seem to have very little real size opposition against what I like to call from now on THE MIDDLE EAST WAR… time to change that.
NO MORE SEVASTOPOL!

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dedicated to all who think that aerial bombardment is the right answer to ISIS terrorism

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Holy lands and Jerusalems have multiplied over millennia and the urge to go out conquer and subject them has not diminished.

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This is the ‘appartement de repli’ (safe house) of a group of terrorists linked to the Paris attacks besieged on November the 18th by a police force of over one hundred.
A large scale picture, taken at night, of a corner house of Rue du Corbillon and Rue de la République in Saint-Denis, Paris metropolitan area, published in the Washington Post (printed edition and on their web-site).
Why?

Because alleged terrorists who might relate to the horrendous attacks in Paris on friday the 13th of November had hidden themselves in this building so a spokesman for the French justice system told the press after a siege of over one hour, starting at four o’clock in the morning.

Would a picture of such a downtrodden sad housing facade ever have reached the front pages of the world press if it was not for this spectacular incident? It would not.

We see four floors of the facade of the dilapidated house with flood lights directed at it. Some windows have lights on, others are dark. on the third visible floor the the last window at the right is dark and the window panes are gone, the next one has some lights on showing us a ravage with what seems to be of a smashed ceiling. The outer walls around these two windows are pocked by the impact of bullets or other projectiles.

What happened inside? What we are told is – as mostly in such cases – partial and contradictory (there was mentioning in an official statement of a woman with a bomb-belt that had exploded herself, which was later retracted by the same source). (1)
We know, even can hear and see it on amateur videos posted on Youtube, that not less than 5000 rounds of shots were fired. How many by the assailed persons in the building and how many by the police, we do not know. The traces left on the wall show more than just bullets from a pistol.

How come that these terrorists sought refuge in such a non-strategic bastion, as this corner house? Four satellite dishes can be counted in the picture, maybe more that fell down during the exchange of fire explosives. Which satellite they were pointed at, to which stations they tuned? Are houses with such a disk inhabited by people who have direct linkages to regions of the world that can not be accessed by regular cable radio & television systems? Living ‘here’ physically and living ‘there’ electronically at the same time.

Are we not all doing that in our saturated electronic environment by means of the internet? One does perceive sometimes city areas where such satellite dishes have grown into a forest of information reflectors, also indicating a neighbourhood with many recent migrants. Is that due to the lack of normal public access to television stations from home countries of big part of the (former migrant) population? We may need to reconsider the content management of our public television networks, to give more space to those with a migrant background, instead of raging about “needed integration.” That would be a deep structural change needed in our society, to make these satellite-dish forests redundant. When we non-migrant integrate more that would send a positive message.

We see several windows open, some show parts of a staircase. Is it to air the corridors from battle gasses pumped in?
Imagine the fear of the neighbours, who most probably had no knowledge of one of the apartments used as a safe-house for terrorists. On what information did the police act? Consider the bad chance of a mistake made in intelligence gathering.

Now what kind of terrorists are this who in their flight end up in such an apartment block? Is that proof of a high-level international network? It seems all very clumsy to me. Is this clumsiness, this lack of professional conspiracy to commit violence part of a larger strategy? (2)

I mean that someone clever has come to the insight that building a whole network – even by using a system of dispersed secret cells who do not know about each other – is an outdated concept. It is sufficient to pass on a general call to commit violent acts on non precise targets at no precise moments in time. Basing this method on the fact that it is not to difficult to get access to weapons and explosives, that some explosives can even be produced in a home laboratory or acquired indirectly through contacts within the building or mining industry (dynamite or similar type of explosives).

It may well be the case and that explains the great fear that did strike the conglomerate of state security systems. This combination of destructive acts based on a willingness for self-destruction do not fit the routines, strategies and tactics of state security organisations, of regular police control and all that comes with it.

A Washington Post article of November the 21. quotes an anti-terrorism specialist who sees it different:

“For such an attack, involving so many people, it must have been decided near the highest level,” said Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence official who heads the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. The Islamic State’s military operation, whose senior leaders include numerous former military officials from Iraq, “would never let someone below them direct a strategic operation.”

It is a known fact that officials tend to see all that what is a threat to the reigning system as a mirror image of the system they are part of, the system they believe in. Hence this ‘top down vision’ of Claude Moniquet. He sees a vertical line of command directly from ISIS in Syria. This analysis also supports the ‘revenge aerial bombardments’ that are presented to us as ‘legal self-defence’ targets (in spite of the fact that according to international law and the ‘charter’ (chapter 7) of the United Nations these bombings are not-legal).

I do not claim that my view of the danger of the unpredictability of ‘grass root terrorism’ is correct in this particular case, but the opposite can not be proven either. The amateur and clumsiness aspect can be supported by the cases of the shooting on French army personal and Jewish civilians in Toulouse and Montauban in 2012 (by Mohammed Merah) and the attacks on the Jewish Historical Museum in Brussels in 2014 (by Mehdi Nemmouche), remain open to multiple interpretations and ambiguity, ranging from ‘jihadism’ and ‘anti-semitism’ to ‘tribalism’ and ‘insanity’.

Consider also an article in Le Monde about the same siege in Saint Denis of November 18., concluding:

“…rudimentary logistics with neither a safe-house nor a support provider: one seems here to be far away from classical urban warfare.” (2)

The walls of this apartment building must have heard enough during the few days or hours when this group of terrorists stayed there. (We may say that they were not longer ‘alleged terrorists’, as they did fire back to the police, there was an explosion, though we can not know for sure (yet) what they had done before or were really planning to do). A justice spokesman has told the press an act on Charles de Gaulle Airport was on their agenda.

What else could these walls tell? What about the regular lives of all those living around there? What about the person who let these terrorist group in, what did he/she know? This last thing we might get to know soon. It always takes several days more than the ‘latest news’ to be sufficiently informed on such matters.

There is a pattern in the social strata of this new generation of terrorists. This means that there is also a pattern in the habitat where these people – who so easily sacrifice the lives of others and their own – live. When I have understood it well the places where they were born, lived and died are identical in social status. (3) In the case of the ‘safe-house’ of Saint Denis that house failed its function utterly.

What sadness to consider while at the same time being abhorred by the savage nature of the terrorist attacks related to this group.

I focus now on this black hole where was once a window, in the bullet puckered and cracked wall. Imagine the last thoughts of those been killed in this battle. Was there anything left of ‘the cause’ for which they had chosen to fight? Or had their choice to put their own life at risk, taken over as ‘a cause’ in itself? These questions remain open.

There is failure in understanding these wasted lives. It all ends in the black hole of what once was a window on the world from a house, in a street, in the Parisian suburb Saint Denis, however inglorious this direct view, there was a wide world of other opportunities beyond, which have now all vanished in this black hole.

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(1) Trois terroristes sont morts dans l’assaut. Un homme (initialement présenté comme une femme), retranché dans l’appartement, qui a activé son gilet explosif, et un autre, touché par des projectiles et des grenades, dont les analyses ont ensuite conclu qu’il s’agissait d’Abdelhamid Abaaoud, instigateur présumé des attaques du 13 novembre. Après deux morts annoncées, les fragments d’un troisième corps, celui d’une femme, a été découvert dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi. (three terrorists died in the assault. One man (initially presented as a woman), that hat withdrawn into the apartment, had triggered his bomb-vest, and another hit by projectiles and grenades, of whom analysis have concluded to be Abdelhamid Abaaoud, presumed instigator of the attacks of November the 13th. After these two deaths had been announced a third corpse, that of a woman, has been found in the night of thursday to friday.)
http://www.lemonde.fr/attaques-a-paris/article/2015/11/18/assaut-a-saint-denis-ce-qu-on-sait-ce-qu-on-ignore_4812399_4809495.html

More sensational press agencies and news channels did make up their fantasy of a young ‘kamikaze woman’ like in the Daily Mirror with this long summing up header:

EXCLUSIVE: Extraordinary selfie of terror mastermind’s cousin shows girl blown up in Saint-Denis siege who never read the Koran, liked to drink and smoke and had a reputation for having lots of boyfriends

• Hasna Ait Boulahcen, 26, was killed by a suicide bomber during siege
• Screamed ‘Help me!’ before blast in which her head flew through window
• She was described by friends as an ‘extrovert’, and booze-loving party girl
• Neighbour said she smoked and ‘went around with lots of different guys’
• Her nickname was ‘The Cowgirl’ as she liked to wear big cowboy hats
  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325180/Two-fingers-world-Pictured-Europe-s-female-suicide-bomber-booze-loving-extrovert-nicknamed-Cowgirl-love-big-hats.html

 (Many newspaper are still similar fantasy stories without correcting their the mistake )

(2) Le Monde had an article on this aspect of the Saint Denis siege ending with this conclusion:

Une logistique rudimentaire, sans appartement de repli, ni équipes en support : on paraît loin d’une guérilla urbaine classique.(rudimentary logistics with neither a safe-house nor a support provider: one seems here to be far away from classical urban warfare).
http://www.lemonde.fr/attaques-a-paris/article/2015/11/21/hasna-ait-boulahcen-entre-vodka-et-niqab_4814800_4809495.html#farA7dRgooQVXSPQ.99

(3) See my images & notes on other similar examples:

– 4/6/2014: “The crime of Mehdi Nemmouche his Maison/Prison & the structural evil of French society”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/14344535364

– 11/1/2015: “”Je Suis Charlie” The I AM has turned into I FOLLOW – protest canalised”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/16067193958

– 19/1/2015: “Carceral University of France: courses in hate & breeding ground for terrorists”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/16315233801

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Nederland vocht al eens een oorlog tegen moslim-opstandelingen in den Oost…. tijdens de bloedige Atjeh-oorlogen op het einde van de 19e tot aan het begin van de 20e eeuw. Echter, bij De Volkskrant ontbreekt – zoals zo vaak – ieder historisch besef en zij legt haar lezers middels een enkel druk op een web-site knopje de vraag voor of Nederland ditmaal ook weer opstandige moslims dient te bombarderen.

Enkel al het stellen van de vraag binnen een dagenlange buiten-proportionele overreactie van de media op de – overigens gruwelijke – moordaanslag in Parijs. Ik noem het reduceren tot een simpele Ja/Nee vraag over het al dan gewenst zijn van een een oorlogshandeling buiten enig mandaat van de Verenigde Naties, niets meer en minder dan OORLOGSHETZERIJ.

Was Van Heutsz ooit niet onze ‘nationale held’? Hoe lang duurde het totdat Provo symbolisch een stukje van zijn monument in Amsterdam Zuid opblies?

Rookbom bij het Van Heutsz-monument in Amsterdam (waarschijnlijk 1966/67; foto bijschrijft bij het Geheugen van Nederland zegt 1968, maar dat lijkt mij onjuist; foto uit collectie fotograaf Bert van Meerdonk bij het IISG/Amsterdam

Hoe lang duurde het dat op de Oosterbegraafplaats in Amsterdam de praaltombe van Van Heutsz die direct bij de uitgang van de Aula aldaar geplaatst was, verwijderd werd? Langzamerhand werden wij ons bewust van ons kwalijk koloniaal verleden.

En nu opnieuw in gevechtstuniek, niet met snelvuurgeweren en kanonnen maar dan hoog boven bewoonde gebieden, niet meer met de laarzen in het veld, gebieden die zo tot slachtveld gemaakt worden met bommen en raketten uit vliegtuigen? Wie worden er geraakt? Wat wordt er kapot gemaakt in Syrië? Sinds wanneer los je een groot en complex langlopend conflict op met luchtbombardementen?

Heeft zich iemand bij die krant zich rekenschap gegeven van hoe kwalijk deze mini-enquete is?

Moesten ooit niet die woeste en bloedzuchtige Atjehers een kopje kleiner gemaakt worden. Viel die koloniale oorlog niet onder de leuze “Daar werd iets groots verricht”?

Gaan wij dat nu weer in het ietsje minder Verre oosten, in het Midden Oosten herhalen?

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Als antwoord hier een bericht dat gisteren op Twitter circuleerde van een inwoner van wat nu het belangrijkste bombardementsdoelwit is.

zie plaat in Twitter context over wraak-bombardementen op Raqqa

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This is just one of many possible examples about non-intended victims of “just warfare dated November the 6th 2015:”
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“Air strikes by Russian warplanes on the Syrian city of Raqqa, which is controlled by the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria militant group, killed 42 people earlier this week, including 27 civilians, monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/11/06/Russia-bombs-Palmyra-eastern-Syria.html

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“A moment of silence for Paris attack victims echoes around the world”
Header of Mashable.com did get 667 shares on Facebook…. today

NOT EVEN SECONDS OF SILENCE OVER RAQQA.
“A moment of silence for Paris attack victims echoes around the world”
Header of Mashable.com 667 shares on Facebook…. today
we should be inquisitive always about aerial bombardments, there is hardly such thing as a pin pointed correct targeting without any collateral damage or victims… for a collateral victim of a so called ‘justified’ aerial attack it does not make any difference if the bomb was launched by the Assad troops, one of the opposing fractions, ISIS, the French. the Brit of the USA air force. The battlefield almost never is a separate spatial entity… it is part of human habitat. And… even when an ISIS stronghold has been hit, what about people around it, maybe family, kids, elderly… and in the end, when one is serious about a humanitarian stance, even the lives of ISIS soldiers do count…

This is just one of many possible examples about non-intended victims of “just warfare dated November the 6th 2015:”
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Air strikes by Russian warplanes on the Syrian city of Raqqa, which is controlled by the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria militant group, killed 42 people earlier this week, including 27 civilians, monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/11/06/Russia-bombs-Palmyra-eastern-Syria.html

Or just get aware of the consequences of aerial bombardment by reading one of the many campaigns by the United Nations against the use of high explosives in or near populated areas:

Explosive weapons in populated areas A total of 41,847 people were reported killed or injured by explosive weapons during 2014 When explosive weapons were used in populated areas 92% of the casualties were civilians From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Palestine, Syria to Ukraine and elsewhere, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is a major cause of civilian deaths, injuries and displacement.
http://www.unocha.org/what-we-do/explosive-weapons-populated-areas

ALJAZEERA of 17/11/2015 had this comment on the aerial bombing of Raqqa, showing how problematic aerial bombing always is. Locals need to fear all those who claim to be fighting there for the ‘right cause’:

‘Raqqa is devastated’ The Syrian activist in Raqqa said that in the past few days Russian air strikes had caused the most destruction. “Last week Russian air strikes destroyed one of the main bridges in the city in addition to the national hospital. Most hospitals in the city have been destroyed in Raqqa,” he said. “Russian air strikes have resulted in so much destruction. If these countries want to bomb the heartland of ISIL, they could have, but they still have not targeted the group’s most important bases. “This is what we do not understand. The targets bombed by French warplanes were mostly abandoned by ISIL fighters. French jets pound ISIL targets in Raqqa “The US, Russia and France are all bombing Syria. How many more countries want to bomb us? “Raqqa is devastated. Raqqa has endured the unbearable and we live in fear under ISIL’s dictatorship. “A lot of people fled the the city. In fact, most refugees heading to Europe are from Raqqa. That is how desperate they are to leave here. People are fed up here and just want to live normal lives. “Our lives are all under a threat. ISIL controls every aspect of our lives and we are not allowed to expose the truth.” Separately, the anti-ISIL group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered said on Sunday that overnight air strikes hit a stadium, a museum, several clinics, a hospital and a governmental building. The group told Al Jazeera that no civilians were hurt or injured in any of the latest French air strikes. “Of course we do not like to see people afraid of air strikes and explosions, but we support any actions that will take ISIL out of Raqqa,” the group said on its Twitter account. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said activists reported hearing explosions in Raqqa resulting from air strikes. The activists’ network said no civilian death toll has been recorded due to the strikes.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/syrians-insane-nights-french-bombing-151117052945111.html

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EIFFEL-TOWER & TRI-COLORE CAN BE NO SYMBOLS OF PEACE

I see popping up on Facebook and other social media this emotionalisation and sentimentalisation of a gruesome act, with a symbolism (the Eiffel-tower made the centre of the ‘peace symbol’) that prooves that those who make such a – well intended – gesture, understand neither the actual nor the historical meaning of the symbols they use.
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The Eiffeltower was made as a commemoration of the ‘Centenaire of the French Revolution’ combined with a World Fair in Paris. It stood for the colonial and imperial France of that time with it’s scramble for colonies in Asia and Africa. It is anything but a symbol of peace.
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Using this symbol seems also to deny the reality that the French governments (both Sarkozy and Hollande) that engaged in recent conflicts from Libya tot Syria and in African countries that belong to it’s old colonial empire, has seen no mass peace protests in the streets from the population against them, calling for other means than just advanced weapon systems to help solving conflicts. Also it seems to me that people using this new combined symbol are not aware of the aggressive weapon export role of France, showcasing their newest products on the military intervention battlefields of Africa and the Middle East (Dassault selling a whole bunch of Rafale fighter jets to Qatar recently, or Egypt buyingFrench Mistral helicopter-deck warships).
The Eiffel-tower stands both for Paris and for France as a symbol… for France as a state, France as a world-power, not for France as a nation of peace, or France as a “peace-maker”, or the French nation as a nation of victims… also just the French tri-colore as a symbolic gesture after the murderous attack, fails as well to have a critical differentiation between citizens and “their” government.

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Jan Pronk Wast Zijn Handen, a photo by Tjebbe van Tijen / Imaginary Museum Projects on Flickr.

tekst volgt, dit is een test exporteren vanuit Flickr naar WordPress 31/5/2013

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