Why the US doesn’t talk to Iran? During the past decade or so, Iran has offered a number of times to negotiate with the US without ever getting a positive response. American foreign policy decisions, in Arabia, are not driven by national interests; they are driven by the narrow minded special interests and are represented by the wrong-headed military-security and the BLOODY JEW American Israel Public Affairs Committee forces. They perceive international peace and stability in Arabia as detrimental to their interests.

The unrelenting diplomatic and geopolitical standoff between Iran and the United States is often blamed on the Iranian government for its “confrontational” foreign policies, or its “unwillingness” to enter into dialogue with the United States. Little known, however, is that during the past decade or so, Iran has offered a number of times to negotiate with the US without ever getting a positive response.

The best-known effort at dialogue, which came to be known as Iran’s “grand bargain” proposal, was made in May 2003. The two-page proposal for a broad Iran-US understanding, covering all issues of mutual concern, was transmitted to the US State Department through the Swiss did the State Department not respond to Iran’s negotiating offer, but, as reporter Gareth Porter pointed out, it “rebuked the Swiss ambassador for having passed on the offer”.

Since then, Iran has made a number of other efforts at negotiation, the latest of which was made by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad ahead of last week’s trip to the United States to attend the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Regrettably, once again the US ignored Ahmadinejad’s overture of meeting with President Barack Obama during his UN visit.

The question is why? Why have successive US administrations been reluctant to enter into a conflict-resolution dialogue with Iran, which could clearly be in the national interests of the United States?

The answer, in a nutshell, is that US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is driven not so much by broad national interests as they are by narrow but powerful special interests – interests that seem to prefer war and militarism to peace and international understanding. These are the nefarious interests that are vested in military industries and related “security” businesses, notoriously known as the military-industrial complex. These beneficiaries of war dividends would not be able to justify their lion’s share of our tax dollars without “external enemies” or “threats to our national interests.”

Taking a large share of the national treasury was not a difficult act to perform during the Cold War era because the pretext for continued increases in military spending – the “communist threat” – seemed to lie conveniently at hand. Justification of increased military spending in the post-Cold War period, however, has prompted the military-security interests to be more creative in inventing (or manufacturing, if necessary) “new sources of danger to US interests”.

When the collapse of the Soviet system and the subsequent discussions of “peace dividends” in the United States threatened the interests of the military-industrial conglomerates, their representatives invented “new threats to US interests” and successfully substituted them for the “threat of communism” of the Cold War. These “new, post-Cold War sources of threat” are said to stem from the so-called “rogue states”, “global terrorism” and “Islamic fundamentalism.” Demonization of Iran and/or Ahmadinejad can be better understood in this context.

Now, it may be argued that if beneficiaries of war-dividends need external enemies to justify their unfair share of national treasury, why Iran? Why of all places is Iran targeted as such an enemy? Isn’t there something wrong with the Iranian government and/or Ahmadinejad’s policies in challenging the world’s superpower knowing that this would be a case of David challenging Goliath, that it would cause diplomatic pressure, military threats and economic sanctions on Iran?

These are the kind of questions that the “Greens” and other critics of Ahmadinejad’s government ask, rhetorical questions that tend to blame Iran for the economic sanctions and military threats against that country – in effect, blaming the victim for the crimes of the perpetrator. Labeling Ahmadinejad’s policies as “rash”, “adventurous” and “confrontational,” Mir Hossein Mousavi and other leaders of the “Greens” frequently blame those polices for external military and economic pressures on Iran.

Accordingly, they seek “understanding” and “accommodation” with the US and its allies, presumably including Israel, to achieve political and economic stability. While, prima facie, this sounds like a reasonable argument, it suffers from a number of shortcomings.

To begin with, it is a disingenuous and obfuscationist argument. Military threats and economic sanctions against Iran did not start with Ahmadinejad’s presidency; they have been imposed on Iran for more than 30 years, essentially as punishment for its 1979 revolution that ended the imperial US influence over its economic, political and military affairs. It is true that the sanctions have been steadily escalated, significantly intensified in recent months. But that is not because Ahmadinejad occasionally lashes out at imperialist/Zionist policies in the region; it is rather because Iran has refused to give in to the imperialistic dictates of the US and its allies.

Second, it is naive to think that US imperialism would be swayed by gentle or polite language to lift economic sanctions or remove military threats against Iran. During his two terms in office (eight years), former president Mohammad Khatami frequently spoke of a “dialogue of civilizations”, counterposing it to the US neo-conservatives’ “clash of civilizations”. This was effectively begging the Unites States for dialogue and diplomatic rapprochement, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Why?

Because US policy toward Iran (or any other country, for that matter) is based on an imperialistic agenda that consists of a series of demands or expectations, not on diplomatic decorum, or the type of language its leaders use. These include Iran’s giving up its lawful and legitimate right to civilian nuclear technology, opening up its public domain and/or state-owned industries to debt-leveraging and privatization schemes of the predatory finance capital of the West, as well as its compliance with US-Israeli geopolitical designs in the Middle East.

It is not unreasonable to argue that once Iran allowed US input, or meddling, into such issues of national sovereignty, it would find itself on a slippery slope, the bottom of which would be giving up its independence. The US would not be satisfied until Iran became another “ally” in the Middle East, more or less like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the like.

It is ironic that Green leaders such as Mousavi, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami blame Ahmadinejad for the hostile imperialist policies toward Iran. For, as mentioned above, US imperialism showed its most venomous hostility toward Iran during the presidency of Khatami while he was vigorously pursuing a path of friendship with the US.

While Khatami was promoting his “dialogue of civilizations” and taking conciliatory steps to befriend the US, including cooperation in the overthrow of the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan, the US labeled Iran as a member of the “axis of evil”, along with Iraq and North Korea. This demonization was then used as a propaganda tool to intensify economic sanctions and justify calls for “regime change” in Iran.

In the face of Khatami’s conciliatory gestures toward the US, many Iranians were so outraged by its unfair and provocative attitude toward Iran that they began to question the wisdom of Khatami’s policy of trying to appease the US. It is now widely believed that the frustration of many Iranians with Khatami’s (one-sided) policy of dialogue with the US played a major role in the defeat of his reformist allies in both the 2003 parliamentary elections and the 2005 presidential election.

By the same token, it also played a major role in the rise of Ahmadinejad to Iran’s presidency, as he forcefully criticized the reformists’ attitude toward US imperialism as naive, arguing that negotiation with the US must be based on mutual respect, not at the expense of Iran’s sovereignty. (See Iran’s Greens deserted Asia Times Online, June 16, 2010.)

In its drive to provoke, destabilize and (ultimately) change the Iranian government to its liking, the US finds a steadfast ally in Israel. There is an unspoken, de facto alliance between the US military-industrial complex and militant Zionist forces – an alliance that might be called the military-industrial-security-Zionist alliance.

More than anything else, the alliance is based on a convergence of interests on militarism and war in the Middle East, especially against Iran; as Iran is the only country in the region that systematically and unflinchingly exposes both the imperialist schemes of Western powers and expansionist designs of radical Zionism.

Just as the powerful beneficiaries of war dividends view international peace and stability as inimical to their business interests, so too the hardline Zionist proponents of “greater Israel” perceive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors as perilous to their goal of gaining control over the “Promised Land”.

The reason for this fear of peace is that, according to a number of United Nations resolutions, peace would mean Israel’s return to its pre-1967 borders, that is, withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But because proponents of “greater Israel” are unwilling to withdraw from these territories, they are fearful of peace and genuine dialogue with their Arab neighbors – hence, their continued disregard for UN resolutions and their systematic efforts at sabotaging peace negotiations.

So, the answer to the question “why is Iran targeted?” boils down to this: because Iran has broken the mold, so to speak, of a pattern of imperialist domination in the Middle East (and beyond). Iran’s only “sin” (from the viewpoint of imperialist powers) is that it tries to be an independent, sovereign nation. All other alleged “offenses”, such as pursuit of nuclear weapons or support for terrorism, have proven by now to be harebrained excuses that are designed to punish Iran for trying to exercise its national rights as a sovereign country.

Under the influence of hawkish neo-conservative pressure groups (representing the interests of the military-industrial-Zionist forces) the US has cornered itself into a position in which it is afraid of talking to Iran because if it does, all of its long-standing accusations against that country would be automatically exposed.

It is worth noting that while the powerful special interests that are vested in the military-security capital benefit from (and therefore tend to advocate) war and military adventures in the Middle East, the broader, but less-cohesive, interests that are vested in civilian, or non-military, capital tend to incur losses in global markets as a result of such military adventures.

Militaristic American foreign policy is viewed by international consumers as a significant negative. Representatives of the broad-based civilian industries are aware of the negative economic consequences of the militarization of US foreign policy. And that’s why leading non-military business/trade associations such as The National Foreign Trade Council and USA*Engage (a coalition of nearly 800 small and large businesses, agriculture groups and trade associations working to seek alternatives to the proliferation of aggressive US foreign policy actions) have expressed disappointment at the recently expanded US sanctions against Iran on the grounds that such sanctions would significantly undermine US national interests.

Yet US foreign policy decisions, especially in the Middle East, seem to be driven not so much by broad national interests as they are by narrow (but powerful) special interests, not so much by “peace dividends” as they are by “war dividends”. These powerful special interests, represented largely by the military-security and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee forces, tend to perceive international peace and stability, especially in the Middle East, as detrimental to their interests.

Ismael Hossein-zadeh, author of the The Political Economy of US Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), teaches economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

Karla Hansen, director-producer of Silent Screams, is a social worker and peace activist from Des Moines, Iowa.

Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LI30Ak02.html

Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich: Drone strategy may fuel al-Qa’ida desire for revenge. Prime among the targets have been the Haqqani network, a father-and-son-led outfit described by Western intelligence agencies as the most potent threat to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. The group is closely aligned with al-Qa’ida and the Afghan Taliban. It also has a relationship with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and yet exerts influence over the Pakistani Taliban. Western security sources do not believe the latest terror plan involving European cities could have been the work of the Haqqanis although Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, told the BBC that the plot could be the clans’ response to sustained US aerial bombardment. “They don’t understand why they are under attack and they intend to take revenge,” he said. The group is now headed by the young, hot-headed commander, Sirajuddin Haqqani, but remains symbolically under the control of his septuagenarian father, Jalaluddin Haqqani,who rose as a mujahedin leader much favoured by the US in the 1980s. He was lavishly supported by the CIA and was once described by Texan Congressman Charlie Wilson as “goodness personified”. From their base in North Waziristan, the Haqqanis have launched spectacular and vicious attacks on both Western troops and high profile targets in Kabul including an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Haqqanis are believed to have introduced suicide bombing to Afghanistan, a tactic not seen there before.

Drone attacks operated by the CIA and the targeting of suspected militants in northern Pakistan have intensified over the past month even though officials in Islamabad deny that the upsurge is linked to a specific terror plot. There have been at least 21 strikes in September, a monthly record, as the Obama administration aims to widen the scope to take in both high and low-ranking militants. It was claimed this week that a senior al-Qa’ida figure, identified as Sheikh al-Fateh, was killed in a strike last Saturday.T

his month’s strikes are said to have killed more than 100 people in the country’s remote tribal areas many of them, inevitably will have been civilians.

Some analysts believe that the upsurge in strikes, more than twice the monthly average reflects ongoing US efforts to try and maintain pressure on al-Qa’ida and Taliban militants ahead of a review of Afghan strategy later this year. Having set in motion the timetable for its eventual departure from Afghanistan, the US is more aware than ever of its limited ability to force the Pakistani military to move against militants it considers national assets. “It’s also part of a longer game,” said Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan security research unit at the University of Bradford. “Even after the US pulls out of Afghanistan there will still be a need for pressure on al-Qa’ida.”

The strikes, some involving multiple drones in co-ordinated attacks, have largely focused on the wild tribal region of North Waziristan, considered a safe haven for both al-Qa’ida, Taliban and associated militants. Prime among the targets have been the Haqqani network, a father-and-son-led outfit described by Western intelligence agencies as the most potent threat to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. The group is closely aligned with al-Qa’ida and the Afghan Taliban. It also has a relationship with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and yet exerts influence over the Pakistani Taliban. Western security sources do not believe the latest terror plan involving European cities could have been the work of the Haqqanis although Robert Baer, a former CIA officer, told the BBC that the plot could be the clans’ response to sustained US aerial bombardment. “They don’t understand why they are under attack and they intend to take revenge,” he said.

The group is now headed by the young, hot-headed commander, Sirajuddin Haqqani, but remains symbolically under the control of his septuagenarian father, Jalaluddin Haqqani,who rose as a mujahedin leader much favoured by the US in the 1980s. He was lavishly supported by the CIA and was once described by Texan Congressman Charlie Wilson as “goodness personified”.

From their base in North Waziristan, the Haqqanis have launched spectacular and vicious attacks on both Western troops and high profile targets in Kabul including an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Haqqanis are believed to have introduced suicide bombing to Afghanistan, a tactic not seen there before.

The Haqqanis’ friendship with Osama Bin Laden was demonstrated in 1986, when they allowed the Saudi millionaire to erect his own militant base, known as the Lion’s Den, in Haqqani-controlled territory.

 Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-buncombe-and-omar-waraich-drone-strategy-may-fuel-alqaida-desire-for-revenge-2093495.html

‘Slavery’ uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe. Exclusive: EJF find conditions including incarceration, violence, and confinement on board for months or even years. Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa. Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group. The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water. Its photographs and film of the areas in which the crews were working and sleeping show quarters with ceilings less than a metre high where the men cannot stand up. Temperatures in the fish holds on some vessels where men were being required to sort, process and pack fish for lucrative European and Asian markets were 40 to 45 degrees, with no ventilation, On some vessels the crews of up to 200 had little access to clean drinking water. Western “civilisation” is a nice idea, isn’t it?

The trawlers have mostly been identified engaging in pirate fishing off west Africa. Photograph: EJF

Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.

Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.

The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.

The EJF found hi-tech vessels operating without appropriate licences in fishing exclusion zones off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea over the last four years. The ships involved all carried EU numbers, indicating that they were licensed to import to Europe having theoretically passed strict hygiene standards.

The ships are crewed by untrained, illiterate workers housed in dismally unsafe and unhygienic living conditions Link to this video

“We didn’t set out to look at human rights but rather to tackle the illegal fishing that’s decimating fish stocks, but having been on board we have seen conditions that unquestionably meet the UN official definition of forced labour or modern-day slavery,” EJF investigator Duncan Copeland said. A report on the abuses is published by the foundation today.

Its photographs and film of the areas in which the crews were working and sleeping show quarters with ceilings less than a metre high where the men cannot stand up. Temperatures in the fish holds on some vessels where men were being required to sort, process and pack fish for lucrative European and Asian markets were 40 to 45 degrees, with no ventilation, On some vessels the crews of up to 200 had little access to clean drinking water.

The trawlers have mostly been identified engaging in pirate fishing off west Africa. Many of the men on board have been recruited from the area around the Senegalese capital, Dakar. Others have been recruited from rural areas of Asia, including China and Vietnam, by agents.

According to a recent estimate illegal fishing accounts for between 13% and 31% of total catches worldwide each year, but accurate figures are hard to come by.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/sep/30/slavery-trawlers-europe

Hyperactive children may suffer from genetic disorder, says study. Report claims ADHD could be more of a neurodevelopmental condition than a behavioural problem. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) find it hard to concentrate and can be wild and uncontrollable both at home and at school. Controversy has raged around the drug most widely used to calm such children, Ritalin, which is of the amphetamine family. In the US, such drugs became popular among families who wanted their lively (non-ADHD) boys to do better in class, while in the UK they were tagged chemical coshes. Meanwhile, parents have often tacitly been blamed for lack of discipline or giving their children a sugar and additive-laden diet. Too often, people dismiss ADHD as being down to bad parenting or poor diet. As a clinician, it was clear to me that this was unlikely to be the case. Now we can say with confidence that ADHD is a genetic disease and that the brains of children with this condition develop differently to those of other children.” One in 50 children is affected by ADHD, and while it used to be thought that they grow out of it, many continue to have problems in adult life.A genetic link has been suggested for some time, but not proven. Past investigations have shown that ADHD is more likely in a child who has a parent that suffers from the disorder, and that if one twin has ADHD, the other twin has a 75% chance of also having it. But the study has found the first direct evidence by analysing DNA samples from 366 children diagnosed with ADHD, aged five to 17, and 1,047 children without the condition. They found the children with ADHD were more likely to have certain small segments of DNA either duplicated or missing than the other children. Although this finding was limited to 16% of all the children with ADHD, they say it is highly likely the rest have other genetic variants that have not yet been identified.

Parents of hyperactive children should not be blamed for failing to bring up their offspring properly, according to scientists who today publish evidence that the condition is genetic.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) find it hard to concentrate and can be wild and uncontrollable both at home and at school. Controversy has raged around the drug most widely used to calm such children, Ritalin, which is of the amphetamine family. In the US, such drugs became popular among families who wanted their lively (non-ADHD) boys to do better in class, while in the UK they were tagged chemical coshes. Meanwhile, parents have often tacitly been blamed for lack of discipline or giving their children a sugar and additive-laden diet.

But today the furore around ADHD moves into a different space. Researchers, funded not by drug companies but by the Wellcome Trust and other bodies, are publishing the results of a study which for the first time identifies genetic changes in children diagnosed with ADHD.

And the particular DNA markers they found are in the same area of the brain as genetic variants linked to autism and schizophrenia. That means, say the authors of the paper in the Lancet, that ADHD would be better classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder than a behavioural problem.

“We hope that these findings will help overcome the stigma associated with ADHD,” said Professor Anita Thapar from the MRC Centre in Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics at Cardiff University, one of the authors.

“Too often, people dismiss ADHD as being down to bad parenting or poor diet. As a clinician, it was clear to me that this was unlikely to be the case. Now we can say with confidence that ADHD is a genetic disease and that the brains of children with this condition develop differently to those of other children.”

One in 50 children is affected by ADHD, and while it used to be thought that they grow out of it, many continue to have problems in adult life.A genetic link has been suggested for some time, but not proven. Past investigations have shown that ADHD is more likely in a child who has a parent that suffers from the disorder, and that if one twin has ADHD, the other twin has a 75% chance of also having it.

But the study has found the first direct evidence by analysing DNA samples from 366 children diagnosed with ADHD, aged five to 17, and 1,047 children without the condition. They found the children with ADHD were more likely to have certain small segments of DNA either duplicated or missing than the other children. Although this finding was limited to 16% of all the children with ADHD, they say it is highly likely the rest have other genetic variants that have not yet been identified.

The researchers point out that they have not found a single gene that is responsible for the condition, and environmental circumstances will also be part of the picture – although as yet they do not know what those are. “ADHD is a very complex disorder which will have a number of different causes. A number of different genetic factors will be involved along with other, non-genetic factors,” said Dr Kate Langley, another of the authors.

The findings will not be used for diagnosing ADHD, they add, but they result in new treatments. The stimulant drugs most commonly used to control the symptoms have been around since the 1950s.ADHD support groups warmly welcomed the findings, which they said would make life easier for families.

“This is indeed extremely welcome news of clear evidence to confirm that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is indeed a brain development disorder with closer links to autism than was previously thought,” said Simon Hensby of Adders, an online information organisation.

“I hope this will be a welcome relief to the many families who have to face criticism and ridicule on a daily basis, when trying to explain the behaviour of their ADHD child. I hope also that many adults with ADHD will feel much better knowing that their condition wasn’t something to do with their upbringing or diet.

“Extremely low self esteem is probably the biggest common factor in those diagnosed with ADHD, both children and adults. Now we can point to proof that it is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Let us hope that this leads to a better understanding and treatment for children and adult sufferers alike.”

Sheena Crankson, who has been diagnosed with ADHD herself and whose 13-year-old son Jesse has the condition, said that people blamed her all the time. “So many parents will have been told it’s them, for years, in spite of the fact that your child is struggling and their self-esteem is going down and down and your self-esteem is too,” she said.

Crankson, who lives in New Maldon, Greater London, once took her son to an NHS sleep and behaviour clinic, even though, she said, “we should have been upstairs talking to the psychiatrist about ADHD”. The nurse she saw “said I think most of it is your fault”. Crankson added: “I felt worse by the time they’d finished than when I went in.”

She is trying to get her son, who also has other problems, a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder because, she said, ADHD is not taken seriously enough.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/30/hyperactive-children-genetic-disorder-study

Sarfraz Manzoor: My family said they would boycott my wedding. My mother and siblings were angry that I had fallen in love with a non-Muslim white woman. Then came a phone call . . . I shared my doubts with Bridget and she listened carefully before pointing out that I was talking rubbish. “You were born into a fully Pakistani family and look how you turned out,” she said; and for all my traditional upbringing I had still grown into a reasonably well-integrated and westernised adult. She also noted that my father, who had died in 1995, had, in his own way, been a pioneer: the only one in his family to leave Pakistan for Britain. Was it so wrong to be have found someone I cared about, and who cared about me? The more I listened, the more Bridget began to make sense. If she, as a white, nominally Christian Scottish woman, was not agonising about being with a brown, vaguely Muslim British Pakistani man, why was I so nervous about being with her?

Sarfraz Mansoor’s wedding at Islington Town Hall Photograph: Felix Clay for the GuardianIt was like a scene from a film, the way we met. A blazing Sunday in June, two summers ago. Hereford train station. I was heading back to London from the Hay festival, and the train was about to leave. I leapt out of the taxi, raced on board and took the nearest seat in the carriage. It was then I glimpsed her, sitting opposite me reading a paperback copy of Mary Barton. As the train trundled through the English countryside my gaze kept flicking back to the woman with the wild green eyes and golden hair.

She smiled, and we started talking. Her name was Bridget, and she was a 30-year-old speech and language therapist living in London. It was easy to talk to her – she was engaging, entertaining and, thankfully, she did not work in the media. When she revealed she was learning Hindi, that sealed it. As the train pulled into Paddington I told Bridget I wanted more than a brief encounter; I gave her my number and two days later she got in touch.

I assumed Bridget would be nothing more than an uncomplicated distraction. Growing up in a working-class Pakistani Muslim family, I had been raised to expect an arranged marriage. I was the second youngest of four children and both my brother and older sister had had them. When we were teenagers in the 80s, my best friend Amolak and I would prowl the Arndale Centre in Luton and debate whether it would ever be possible to satisfy both our families and our hearts. I had grown up knowing that few things would disappoint my family more than my having a white girlfriend. Marrying one was unthinkable – beyond the pale – and so by my 30s I was set on trying to find someone who would tick both boxes: British enough for me and Pakistani enough for my family.

By the summer of 2008 I was about to turn 37, and emerging from a three-year relationship with a British-Pakistani woman; the plan was for some no-strings fun before resuming the search for the elusive British-Pakistani Miss Right. Bridget was going to India for seven months that autumn; in the meantime she could be my blonde distraction. I kept telling myself that our relationship was doomed, but the more time we spent together the closer we became. Bridget shortened her trip to India to four months and I went out to spend the last six weeks with her. On returning home I felt certain I loved her but did not know how to respond to my feelings.

There were so many challenges. I was nervous about having mixed-race children and worried about my cultural heritage being lost rather than passed down. I also didn’t want to become the cliched middle-class ethnic minority who confirms his entry into the establishment by marrying white. Most importantly, I did not want to have to live with the scalding guilt of knowing I had let my family down.

I shared my doubts with Bridget and she listened carefully before pointing out that I was talking rubbish. “You were born into a fully Pakistani family and look how you turned out,” she said; and for all my traditional upbringing I had still grown into a reasonably well-integrated and westernised adult. She also noted that my father, who had died in 1995, had, in his own way, been a pioneer: the only one in his family to leave Pakistan for Britain. Was it so wrong to be have found someone I cared about, and who cared about me? The more I listened, the more Bridget began to make sense. If she, as a white, nominally Christian Scottish woman, was not agonising about being with a brown, vaguely Muslim British Pakistani man, why was I so nervous about being with her?

Bridget and I had been together seven months before I told my mother about us. I had been trying to soften her up with broad hints about how I didn’t think I would ever find a British-Pakistani woman who would be right for me. And then, one icy January afternoon, we were both sitting in her living room with a Pakistani soap opera on the television when my mother asked, “So who is this white girl you are seeing?” I thought about denying it all but decided on full disclosure. She seemed to take the news astonishingly well. She mentioned that it was essential Bridget convert to Islam but I carefully side-stepped that issue and instead pulled out photographs of my girlfriend in India riding elephants, making chapattis and generally acting almost Asian. My mother urged us to marry. “You’re not getting any younger,” she said. “Marry her before she changes her mind.”

I went back to London, told a delighted Bridget and we had a celebratory curry. Some months later I took her to Rome and it was there, under a full moon, that I asked her if she would consent to be my wife. When we returned to Britain I told my mother, and she agreed to attend the wedding. She mentioned again that it was crucial that Bridget convert to Islam and, again, I changed the subject.

Although my mother had seemed relaxed, when I spoke to my younger sister I discovered that this had been merely a front, and in fact she was deeply unhappy that I was marrying a non-Muslim. She was not sleeping and skipping meals. The rest of my family were equally opposed. Living in London it had been easy, surrounded by liberal-minded friends, to assume everyone thought like me. In Luton relationships like the one between Bridget and me were rare and dangerously radical. My brother and his wife live next door to my mother and younger sister (my older sister is relatively nearby, in Bedford). The world in which they exist is largely made up of other working-class Pakistani Muslims. How would they explain my marriage to the people they would run into at the halal butchers? When I came to Luton, I would be summoned to family meetings attended by my brother, his wife and their two children, along with my mother and younger sister.

It was not Bridget they blamed, but me: the fact it took a white woman to make me happy was evidence of how far I had strayed from who I once was. “There’s nothing Muslim or Pakistani about you,” my brother said. “You can write books about how much your family mean to you [he was referring to my childhood memoir, Greetings from Bury Park] but we know the truth. The only time you even think about Islam is when you are in the media pretending to be a Muslim.” Despite their fierce disapproval, my family would still be attending the wedding. It was important the family be represented, out of duty if not support.

Bridget and I set about planning our British Muslim/Scottish non-denominational sort-of-spiritual wedding. For the reception we chose the Garden Museum, a beautiful converted church in Lambeth, south London, that overlooked the Thames. With me being vaguely Muslim and Bridget vaguely Christian we toyed with hiring a klezmer band to play vaguely Jewish music, but in the end we constructed a playlist that included a generous sprinkling of Bollywood songs and 80s classics for me, and some more contemporary songs for Bridget. It was inevitable that alcohol would be served – Bridget is Scottish, after all – but the food would be halal and Pakistani.

In July Bridget and I went to Yorkshire for the wedding of Amolak and his white, Yorkshire-born girlfriend, Amanda Jane. Amolak had been dating her for more than five years but had only recently mustered the courage to reveal the relationship to his parents. His wedding was attended by his entire family and, during the evening disco, I watched as his elderly turban-wearing father took to the dancefloor, his arms draped over the shoulder of Amanda Jane’s father. I was delighted. Such are the strange symmetries within lives that Amolak and I were both getting married within five weeks of each other to kind-hearted blonde women from the north.

Two weeks before my wedding day my phone rang. It was my brother telling me that my mother had changed her mind. The wedding would make her too uncomfortable; she simply could not accept her son marrying a non-Muslim, and she did not want to be the only one there distressed by the day. My mother had always insisted that she would not support any wedding unless Bridget converted but I had maintained that religious conversions are insulting unless they are genuine. Religion was far from the only issue; in choosing a white woman, I seemed to them to be saying that a Pakistani woman was not good enough. Both my brother and older sister now had teenage children: if they were to endorse my marriage to Bridget, how could they ensure their own children did not follow suit? My mother had wanted me to marry someone who could easily fit into the family, someone to keep her company, someone who was one of them.

As the day got closer I awoke every morning at three from traumatic dreams. In one, my brother and sisters appeared as ghosts; I could see them but knew they were dead and I was crying out to them saying, “Please don’t die! I don’t want you to be dead.” In another I was sharing a bed with my older brother, just as I had when I was a small boy, but this time we were adults. In the dream I howled with pain that the brother I had once worshipped was not willing to witness my wedding. I sat in the darkness, my heart pounding as Bridget slept silently at my side.

I spent the night before the wedding alone in my flat leafing through old photographs. I stared hard at the faces, and wondered how the ties that had bound us together had unravelled. The phone vibrated. A text from my younger sister. How was the wedding planning going? I told her I was distraught about my family.

As we continued texting I realised my sister wanted to attend the wedding. I rang her and she told me what had changed her mind. She had been listening to Walk Like a Man, a Bruce Springsteen song about a wedding that we both loved, and had been reduced to tears recalling how once we had been inseparable. I wanted to relate my nightmares, but found myself crying as I tried to describe them. I put the phone down. Once I had collected myself I called her again. “Let me talk to the others,” she said.

I awoke on the morning of my wedding day still not knowing whether my family would be there. There were three different seating plans, depending on what was decided. My wedding speech was still unwritten as that too would be influenced by who was in the audience. My sister rang. There had been a two-hour family conference the previous night. It had been decided that both my brother and older sister, as well as their respective families, were not coming. My mother would come with my younger sister. This, I knew, was only down to my younger sister’s persuasion, for which I will be for ever grateful. “Hurry up and get on that train,” I told her. “There’s less than two hours to the wedding.”

In the domed central chamber of Islington town hall, where the civil ceremony would take place, I stood waiting for the woman who would be my bride. Out of the corner of my left eye I could see my sister and mother. Throughout all the pain and sadness of dealing with my family, Bridget had supported me, and her family had been equally sensitive – their sadness at the prospect of my family missing the wedding coupled with a sense of powerlessness. And so it was especially moving to see Fran and Bob, Bridget’s mother and father, sitting quietly with them.

Jackie DeShannon’s When You Walk in the Room struck up, and slowly Bridget walked in dressed in an antique gold lace dress that made her look like a fairytale princess. The registrar spoke words I had written, Amolak did a reading of lyrics from a Bruce Springsteen song, Bridget and I made our vows and slid rings on each other’s fingers and, to a soundtrack of the Beatles’ All You Need is Love, we signed the papers that made us man and wife.

At the evening reception in the Garden Museum, the hall thrummed with warmth and affection. Fairy lights twinkled on the trees in the garden. Flowers arranged by Bridget’s mother adorned the banqueting tables, which were named after iconic albums. I sat on Born to Run, with my mother to my right. As she tucked into the egg curry and chicken jalfrezi, friends and Bridget’s relatives flocked to tell her how happy they were to see her.

My mother had said she and my sister would be leaving at the end of the meal. In fact they were there to hear the speeches so I could thank them publicly for turning up. They stayed until 1am: my sister danced to Lady Gaga, my mother talked in broken English to Bridget’s parents, and in basic Urdu to Bridget. At times during the evening I would stop and look on in wonder. It did not seem real. My white wife, my mother and me. All in the same room and smiling.

In fiction, characters go on journeys, they are changed by events. In real life characters often remain stubbornly immune; life-changing events can leave lives oddly unchanged. In many ways my relationship with Bridget resembled a movie – the chance meeting on the train, the wedding proposal in Rome, the turbulent will they/won’t they of my family’s attendance – but real life is not a movie. My brother and older sister stayed away on my wedding day. I truly believe that if they had come, they too would have been moved by the love and warmth that radiated through the day. I look back on their non-appearance not with anger, but great sadness for them and for me.

The day after the wedding I rang my mother. “Everyone was so friendly,” she enthused. “The food was so good too. I had a very nice time.” I don’t yet know whether my family will, in the end, come to love Bridget as I do. I know that on a recent Saturday evening my younger sister had a birthday meal to which she invited Bridget, and that the next day she and my mother came to London for afternoon tea with us in St James’s Park. I know that, when I asked my mother how she felt after the wedding and whether it had changed anything, she said simply, “The anger has gone.” And I know that once the anger has departed, there is always a hope that love and acceptance can take its place.

• Sarfraz Manzoor’s essay White Girls is featured in Granta 112: Pakistan, which is published this week.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/29/family-boycott-wedding-day

Apparently there are better Americans out there, we just don’t see them in the thicket, but they are there, hidden amongst the other kind. Perhaps the moderate Christians, like the moderate Muslims and Jews, need to speak up more often, otherwise their voices are not being heard. Christians pick up unburnt Qurans to show peace. Christian Organizations Pick Up Qur’ans That Were Scheduled to be Burned in Gainesville, Florida. Groups had the 225 Qur’ans, which weighed 200 pounds, shipped to Washington, D.C. By Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney,

The Christian Defense Coalition and the National Clergy Council had the Qur’ans sent to the nation’s capitol to ensure they would never be burned and to send a powerful message that Christians don’t hate Muslims and are praying for them. Both the Christian Defense Coalition and the National Clergy Council are based in Washington, D.C. Once the Qur’ans arrive in Washington, D.C. next week, the ministries will hold a news conference announcing their future plans with the Qur’ans.

The Christian Defense Coalition and the National Clergy Council also want to thank Rev. Terry Jones for not burning the Qur’ans.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, who flew down to Gainesville this week to pick up the Qur’ans and pray with Pastor Jones, states:

“By picking up the Qur’ans, and ensuring they will not be destroyed, we want to send a clear message that Christians love and are praying for our Muslim neighbors. It is important for the Christian community to build bridges to the Islamic world and share the heart of Christ.

“We also wanted to ensure that our sons and daughters who are faithfully serving in the military would be protected and that Christian workers, teachers and professionals who are serving Christ in Islamic countries would not be put at risk.”

Rev. Rob Schenck, President of the National Clergy Council, and who personally met and prayed with Pastor Jones last Friday, adds:

“The biggest challenge Christians face today is our relationship to Muslim people in the Islamic world. We need to prayerfully meet this challenge and learn to love our Muslim neighbors as Christ loves them. Securing the Qur’ans was a small step in that direction.”
Source: http://oregonfaithreport.com/2010/09/christians-pick-up-unburnt-qurans-to-show-peace/

Editor’s Note:

Thank you Lisa Twigg for bringing it to our attention. This is welcome news. Readers please see her request for contact. She can be contacted via this website. I can’t publish her email for obvious reasons.

Shireen Mazari on Western Journalists in Pakistan and The Leaders interview

“THE LEADERS” Interview with Shireen Mazari

General Musharraf’s reply to an Indian journalist’s idiotic question

An Afghan homeless boy sleeps on a street in Kabul under American Occupation. What happend to his father and mother, brothers and sisters, what happened to his home? It makes my heart cry tears of blood and you? Where is much touted Western Civilisation, drawing cartoons of Mohammed, burning Qurans and bombing poor, innocent, unarmed people around the world because they can’t fight back? Western civilisation is a nice idea; though quite unachieved in practice.

Expert Goes On Record: Bin Laden 9/11 Confession Is Bogus. Professor Bruce Lawrence, Duke University, a leading expert on Osama Bin Laden has officially gone on the record saying that he believes the so called “9/11 Confession” tape, released shortly after the attacks, is an outright fake that has been used by US intelligence agencies to deflect attention from “conspiracy theories” about 9/11. The “Confession” video, played ad infinitum in the wake of the attack on Afghanistan in December 2001, was magically found in a house in Jalalabad after anti-Taliban forces moved in. It featured a fat Osama laughing and joking about how he’d carried out 9/11. The video was also mistranslated in order to manipulate viewer opinion and featured “Bin Laden” praising two of the hijackers, only he got their names wrong. This Osama also uses the wrong hand to write with and wears gold rings, a practice totally in opposition to the Muslim faith. In June 2006, Muckraker Report investigative reporter Ed Haas contacted the FBI to ask why 9/11 was not specifically mentioned on Bin Laden’s wanted page on the FBI website. “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s most wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” The unintelligent people working at intelligence agencies must think that they can fool the world, well they obviously are the bigger fools.

See pictures here: http://infowars.net/articles/february2007/190207Osama_tape.htm