By
New Age Islam Edit Desk
20 March
2021
• Why
Is Atatürk Still So Dear To Turks?
By
Guven Sak
•
Shamima Begum and the Conditionality of British Citizenship
By
Fatima Rajina
• As
The Resistance-Axis Crumbles Is Assad Leaving The Door Open For Peace With Israel?
By
Hanin Ghaddar
•
Foreign Interference Plagues Iraq 20 Years after US Invasion
By
Sinem Cengiz
•
Syria’s Medical Workers Are Still Fighting for Justice
By
Houssam Al-Nahhas
-----
Why Is
Atatürk Still So Dear To Turks?
By Guven
Sak
March 20
2021
Kemal Atatürk
----
The British
and French naval forces launched a campaign against the Turkish positions in
the Dardanelles on March 18, 1915. They failed. The date has been drilled deep
inside my head since childhood. On every March 18, my grandfather Ömer Kemal,
may God rest his soul, use to start the day by asking all of us the
significance of the date.
Later,
perhaps budging to sarcastic remarks around the breakfast table, he would put
reading material on the table. It was something like a sheet of paper from the
calendar with basic information on the Dardanelles. He was trying to share a
part of himself too big to fit into young heads – the immense pain of an empire
lost, gratitude for what was salvaged from it.
Why was
March 18 so significant for our little family? My grandfather was one of the
Turkish soldiers in the Dardanelles in 1915. He was forever proud to have been
there. He was born around the turn of the century in Ottoman Silistra,
present-day Bulgaria. Remember that the Ottoman Empire was European from the start
– Bosnia became part of the empire before the Anatolian town of Kayseri.
My
grandfather’s world began to crumble with the Balkan wars in 1910-1912. He was
drafted at an early age and fought on the eastern front against the Russians
and was later sent to the Dardanelles in 1915. After that, he was stationed in
Palestine, where he fought the British and became a prisoner of war in Egypt.
He was released and returned to Bursa, my hometown, around the early 1920s. By
that time, he had spent more than 10 years fighting and moving around, and for
what? The empire he defended fell apart in the end.
Have you
read Eugene Rogan’s “The Fall of the Ottomans”? Rogan went to Gallipoli because
his granduncle, Lance Corporal John McDonald, was killed there. McDonald was born
in Perth, Scotland, and died in Gallipoli on June 28, 1915. At the beginning of
the book, Rogan writes, “While my great uncle’s unit had suffered 1,400
casualties and British losses reached 3,800, as many as 14,000 Ottomans fell
dead at Gully Ravine… All the books I read … treated the terrible waste of
British life on the day my great granduncle died. None of the English sources
had mentioned the Turkish war dead. It was sobering to realize that the number
of bereaved Turkish families would have surpassed the number of those grieving
in Scotland.” That revelation gave us the book.
It must
indeed have been very similar for Turkish soldiers. When my grandfather was
fighting in the Dardanelles, his uncle was killed right beside him. He was just
a kid at the time. A year before, he saw his younger brother, who was being
treated for a gunshot wound, on his way to the Eastern front. That was the last
time they saw each other. They said their farewells one last time in a
long-forgotten place, at a long-forgotten time.
So why is
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk so dear to our hearts in Turkey? It’s because he gave us
reason to be proud of after a long string of defeat, and people don’t forget
that, not for generations. Together with a handful of open-minded officers of
the cosmopolitan empire, he led the Turks in building a new homeland.
That pride
is felt across formerly Ottoman lands, mind you. It was that same pride that
led Amin Malouf’s grandfather to announce that he would be to name his new baby
boy, Kemal, as his wife was expecting in 1921. However, his wife gave birth to
a baby girl, yet the stubborn Lebanese has not changed his decision and named
the baby girl Kemal.
My
grandfather was engaged to my grandmother in Bursa (ancient Prusa) around the
same time when Malouf’s aunt was born. At that time, Izmir (ancient Smyrna) was
still under Greek occupation. All were sons and daughters of the Empire, but
they no longer knew what kind of country they would raise their children in.
Atatürk led the War of Independence that gave shape to the new nation and
recast the Ottoman state in Republican form. He made us proud once again in the
community of nations.
It must all
have happened with mesmerizing speed. How do you control the dissolution of a
vast empire stretched across three continents? Uncounted soldiers moved from
one front to the other, trying to hold on to pieces of land.
They were
fighting the tides of history, with wave after wave remorselessly crashing down
on them. Strangely enough, they did not entirely fail, which I think is the
meaning of the First World War to us in Turkey. We were lucky to come away with
our own country in the end, thanks to a handful of open-minded officers of the
cosmopolitan empire and Atatürk leading them. Ömer Kemal was a lucky man, and so
is his grandson.
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/guven-sak/why-is-ataturk-still-so-dear-to-turks-163283
-----
Shamima
Begum and the Conditionality of British Citizenship
By
Fatima Rajina
19 Mar 2021
On February
26, the United Kingdom’s highest court ruled Shamima Begum, a 21-year-old woman
of Bangladeshi descent who was stripped of her British citizenship after
travelling to Syria to join ISIL (ISIS), should not be allowed to return to the
country to challenge the decision.
The ruling
made headlines across the world, as millions have been following Begum’s tragic
story closely since she ran away from her East London home aged just 15 and
travelled to Syria with two of her friends. It also brought to the surface the
anxieties long felt by members of my community, British Bangladeshis.
East London
is home to the largest Bangladeshi community outside of Bangladesh. This is
where Shamima Begum was born, raised and attended school until she decided to
travel to Syria in 2015. After spending several years in Syria, Begum was
“found” by a Times journalist in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019.
The Times’s
so-called “discovery” started a nationwide discussion about whether she should
be allowed to return home to Britain. Then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid, however,
cut this conversation short by swiftly announcing the government’s intention to
strip her of her British citizenship. Javid justified this decision in legal
terms by claiming that Begum “holds Bangladeshi citizenship” by descent through
her parents. Begum at the time of the revocation was 19 and was eligible for
Bangladeshi citizenship, but she would have had to claim it by 21. The state
minister of foreign affairs of Bangladesh, Shahriar Alam, asserted in a
statement to the British media just days after Javid’s announcement that Begum
was not a citizen of Bangladesh and would be denied entry to the country.
Begum and
her lawyers appealed against the decision to revoke her British citizenship and
asked for her to be allowed to return to the country to make her case. Three
Court of Appeal judges ruled in the summer of 2020 that she should indeed be
allowed back into the UK to challenge the revocation. However, the case was
then taken to the Supreme Court, and it ruled last month that while Begum does
have a right to challenge the decision, she should do so from outside Britain
due to “security concerns”.
The
decision to revoke Begum’s citizenship demonstrated how racialised bodies are
always in a limbo state in Britain. It made it clear to us that we are all on
the margins of this nation. That the state can revoke our citizenship at a whim
and our British passports do not necessarily guarantee us access to British
justice.
The British
state’s treatment of Begum confirmed our worst fears and forced us to ask ourselves
some very difficult questions. Can the British state take away our passports if
we commit an indiscretion? Are we too “foreign” or “brown” to be tried in
British courts? If the state decides we committed an “unforgivable” crime, can
it just ship us back to Bangladesh?
These are,
of course, not new questions or fears. We have long been aware that our status
in Britain is precarious. As influential writer and activist Ambalavaner
Sivanandan aptly put it back in 2006: “We wear our passports on our faces.”
Always the
‘other’
Revocation
of Begum’s citizenship highlights how racialised communities are defined by
hyphenated identities, such as British-Bangladeshi, in this country.
The latter
part – Bangladeshi – serves to show where one actually stands within the racial
hierarchisation of communities in this country. The prefix “British” is only
added to signal temporary decorum – it can swiftly be removed if and when the
person steps out of line.
Members of
racialised communities are expected to continuously prove that they are worthy
of British citizenship. Begum’s case clearly demonstrates that for those of us
with hyphenated identities, citizenship is conditional, and the country we call
home can easily banish us if we commit a perceived indiscretion.
This is not
an issue that only affects the British-Bangladeshi community. In Britain, one’s
racial, ethnic and religious heritage, not their passport, determines their
citizenship and place in the country.
Following
the revocation of Begum’s citizenship, some argued that she should have been
allowed to keep her passport because she was born in Britain. But this is also
a dangerous argument that perpetuates the idea that there are different levels
of British citizenship. Yes, she was born in the UK. But even if she was not,
it should not have made any difference. The state’s racism needs to be fought
without creating new conditions to determine who has the right to be in the
country.
The
Windrush generation, the immigrants from Caribbean countries who arrived in the
UK after World War II to address labour shortages, is another racialised group
that the state tried to purge from Britain. As they faced unlawful deportation
orders, many argued they should be allowed to stay in the country because “they
came here to help us rebuild Britain”. Such arguments, however, are
counterproductive as they attempt to make these immigrants’ citizenship rights
conditional to their contributions and servility to the state. After all,
British citizens who are white are never asked to be servile to the state or
make substantial contributions to the nation to hold on to their passports and
remain in the country.
It is
impossible to deny that the legacies of colonialism shape and frame Britain’s
racialised citizens’ lives, especially those who have roots in former colonies.
Irrespective of where they were born or how much they contributed to British
society, racialised citizens are seen as “others” whose presence in Britain is
merely tolerated and whose most basic rights can be denied at will.
Britain’s
continued attempt to dump Begum on Bangladesh, a country she had never stepped
foot in, came as no surprise. This act was possible only because of who Begum
was and the most obvious fact that she is a British Bangladeshi Muslim. The
lesson we can take away from Shamima Begum’s case is that it represents the
institutional racism endemic within the British state.
The ordeal
of Shamima Begum should not shock anyone. In Britain, there is a two-tier
system of citizenship, and those of us who exist in racialised bodies are being
reminded that we never truly belong to this country we call home on a daily
basis.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/3/19/shamima-begum-british-citizenship
-----
As The
Resistance-Axis Crumbles Is Assad Leaving The Door Open For Peace With Israel?
By Hanin
Ghaddar
20 March
2021
Last week,
Israel agreed to finance a supply of Russian-made COVID-19 vaccine to Damascus,
to secure the release of one of their citizens being held in Syria. According
to media reports, Russia was paid $1.2 million, who then mediated the deal to
send Sputnik V vaccines to the Assad regime.
The Israeli
national could have been released easily in a prisoner exchange. It begs the
question: Why didn’t they do this instead?
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Israel has
been bombing Iranian military bases successfully, and it could target the
Syrian regime, a strategy it hasn’t followed.
Could
Israel realize there might be an opportunity, and a relatively cheap and
riskless one, to send Assad vaccines? In the volatile history between the two
countries, if Assad is serious about starting to collaborate with his
traditional enemies it could become a watershed moment. The question remains:
Maybe he needs to be put to the test, and will the vaccine shipment do this?
What does
Assad want, but what does he need?
Before the
Israeli civilian-vaccine deal was made, media reports suggested secret meetings
between Israeli and Syrian officials had happened in Cyprus, and in Russian
military bases in Syria. All were organized and mediated by Russia, the reports
claimed.
Russia had
three goals in mind: to sell its vaccine; strengthen the power base in Syria by
allowing the regime to maintain a level of popular support with a vaccine
rollout, and to secure a connection between Israel and Syria, with eventual
peace an option.
Iran will
continue to oppose any peace prospects in Syria, but Putin might disagree: An
inflated Iranian presence in Syria will eat away at Russia’s foothold in the
region, its power, and will hamper international diplomacy efforts that he is
championing – or at least pretending to.
As for
Assad, this is not the first time he has shown an interest to build peace with
Israel. He needs Iran’s help, and he understands that he would have been ousted
a long time ago without it, along with Russian military support.
The price
of Iran making key decisions in Syria has become too high, with his support
base unhappy.
As the
Syrian economy crumbles, in parallel with neighboring Lebanon, the discontent
is expected to increase. Assad needs a way out, but he cannot confront the
Iranians. Despite his condemnation of Israeli bombings of Iranian bases in
Syria, privately Assad may view favorable relations with Israel appealing.
Israel is
trying to block Iran’s presence and power in Syria, and has been successful.
Assad is vulnerable without Iran’s protection. Would an Israeli-Russian
coalition offer the same support, allowing him to retain power?
Assad knows
that he can’t maintain any public support if the economy is collapsing, and as
COVID-19 cases climb it’s clear he needs serious financial and medical health
support. Neither Russia nor Iran can provide this. Israel – on the other hand –
can assist. By paying for the vaccines (which Putin refused to provide for
free), perhaps Israel will offer financial aid.
Time to
give Assad an ultimatum
The vaccine
deal has secured Assad around 150,000 doses, according to Israeli media. This
might help him tighten the small circle around him, and protect the regime from
imminent collapse.
Assad has
kept the door open to welcome the Israelis for a very long time, but has so far
halted any real progress. He has been successful in giving the impression that
he is interested in peace, but hasn’t made practical steps in this direction.
Accepting to meet with Israelis, and talking about peace is one thing, but
getting results is something completely different.
It is time
for Israel to tackle his approach, and find out if he will defy Iran’s
decisions for Syria. Assad should not be allowed back to the Arab League, for
example without concrete steps for peace.
Iran knows
this and is in denial. Their rhetoric about defending Syria, and the idea of
the country being part of the resistance axis will collapse if admitting that
Assad is talking to the Israelis. In a way, Iran hasn’t got to a point of
feeling the threat because the Assad regime hasn’t made any clear moves of peace
with Israel.
The fissure
in the resistance axis is now apparent, and will eventually crack. Nothing
breaks alliances and shatters rhetoric more than financial difficulties. When
the countries that Iran controls – from Yemen to Lebanon, through to Syria –
are crumbling under economic crises, the resistance narrative will eventually
become meaningless.
This is the
perfect moment to put Assad to the test. If he cannot make concrete, and
practical steps toward fulfilling his peace promises, his regime will collapse.
Israel should not protect Assad any longer if their meetings, talks, and deals,
are only benefiting him and his Russian allies, and indirectly Iran. If he
fails the test, he should be treated as part of the resistance axis, and
treated accordingly.
https://english.alarabiya.net/views/2021/03/01/As-the-Resistance-Axis-crumbles-is-Assad-leaving-the-door-open-for-peace-with-Israel-
-----
Foreign
Interference Plagues Iraq 20 Years after US Invasion
By Sinem
Cengiz
March 19,
2021
Eighteen
years ago on Friday, then-President George W. Bush announced that US forces had
begun a military operation in Iraq, vowing to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction and end the rule of Saddam Hussein. In the years since, more than
4,700 American and allied troops have been killed, along with more than 100,000
Iraqi civilians.
On Monday,
seven rockets targeted an Iraqi air base housing US troops north of Baghdad —
the latest in a string of attacks that Washington routinely blames on
Iran-linked factions. There have been many attacks on American personnel since
President Joe Biden took office in January, including a Feb. 15 attack on the
northern Iraqi city of Irbil, which killed a civilian contractor with the
US-led military coalition and wounded six others, including a US service
member.
NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last month said that the military alliance
would expand its security training mission in Iraq. NATO’s decision to expand
its footprint in Iraq came on the heels of the deadly rocket attack in Irbil.
Iran has a
long record of proxies attacking its rivals in order to create a degree of
plausible deniability. Tehran has thus denied any role in any of the latest
attacks. Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the UN that claims it was
involved were “completely baseless and lacking legal credibility.”
In response
to the recent attacks, Biden ordered an airstrike on facilities in eastern
Syria, near the border with Iraq, which the US claimed were used by Iran-backed
militias. According to a report last week, these Tehran-backed Iraqi
paramilitaries agreed to stop attacks against US forces in Iraq on the
condition that Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi formally demands an
American withdrawal.
The 2003
invasion of Iraq was the most controversial regional incident of recent times.
With much of its state apparatus having been destroyed in the past two decades,
Iraq is going through a period of instability and foreign intervention. The
recent US military drawdown in Iraq is reshaping political dynamics not only in
Baghdad, but also in the broader Middle East. The vacuum created by this
withdrawal is expected to be filled by several actors. The intervention of
these actors adds a new burden to Iraq and the Iraqi people, while weakening
the current government’s efforts to gradually restore the country’s role and
status.
The Middle
East order that had been in place since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 evolved
further following the Arab uprisings that swept the region at the beginning of
the last decade. With these uprisings, Iraq has once again emerged as a
regional spot where diverse interests both align and conflict. The country has
been caught between several external actors — such as Iran, Turkey and the US —
that are perceived as seeking regional hegemony. Each of these countries has
its allies in Iraq.
Both Iran
and the US continue to control state policy, with each side having established
some proxy institutions within the Iraqi state, which is now divided between
the Iranian and the American spheres of influence. While Washington is
influential in the official structure, Tehran has intervened through unofficial
institutions.
Iran and
Turkey both share borders with Iraq and they are rapidly becoming the most
influential external actors in the country. Tehran views Iraq as a focal point
through which to shuffle relations in the region and the security architecture
of the Gulf. Iran’s expansionist Iraqi policy has, since 2003, caused alarm in
the US, the Arab world and, to some extent, Turkey.
Ankara also
intervenes in Iraq. It carries out military operations against Kurdish
militants in the north. From the Turkish perspective, the American intervention
in Iraq and its aftermath worsened Turkey’s security problem. An important
aspect of Turkey’s security approach is ingraining the NATO mission in Iraq
with an anti-Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) theme. As the number of NATO
personnel in Iraq increases, Turkey will likely expand its presence in the
mission.
Then there
are the European actors, which aim to reduce Iraq’s dependence on the US and
Iran. However, further foreign meddling in Iraq may worsen the country’s
economic, security and political situation, which will have a negative impact
on European interests in areas such as counterterrorism and migration. A number
of European countries also have military deployments in Iraq as part of the
anti-Daesh coalition and are concerned about the protection of their forces.
Thus, the
US invasion of Iraq did not solve a regional problem, but rather created a larger
ground for foreign intervention, further destabilizing the country and the
region for the next two decades.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1828381
----
Syria’s
Medical Workers Are Still Fighting for Justice
By
Houssam Al-Nahhas
19 Mar 2021
Every day when
I wake up, I think about August 18, 2012 – the day I finally saw the sun after
weeks in captivity.
For the
“crime” of providing healthcare to injured protesters, the Syrian government
imprisoned and tortured me at the Military Intelligence Directorate in Aleppo
for 17 days. It felt like I was stuck in a cemetery for the living dead – all
we could do was breathe, and scream.
I was
released only after being forced to sign a pledge to not deliver health
services to the government’s perceived adversaries. When I took my first breath
under the bright sun as a free man, however, I made another pledge – that I
would not only provide healthcare without discrimination, but also document the
Syrian government’s heinous crimes against all civilians, including healthcare
workers. And to this day, I am driven by this commitment.
A decade of
persecution
This month
marks the 10th anniversary of the Syrian conflict. For a decade, my country
endured unconscionable atrocities committed with impunity. Since March 2011,
the Syrian government has consistently confronted the voices calling for
freedom, democracy and social justice with various brutal means of suppression.
In its relentless efforts to stifle dissent, the regime also targeted medical
professionals, like myself, who dared to provide healthcare to anti-government
protesters.
In the
early days of the uprising, healthcare professionals formed several underground
medical groups to help the civilians who were under attack by the government
and in desperate need of healthcare. I was also part of one such group, “Noor
Alhayat” (The light of life).
On June 7,
2012, the regime arrested three medical students from our group. That day, an
officer from the security branch that arrested them called the mother of one of
the students and said, “You did not raise your kid well. We will teach him how
to behave.”
After 15
days, their bodies were returned to their families. They had blackened bruises
from beatings, extracted nails and teeth, broken limbs and bullets in their
heads.
With the
violent murder of my three young colleagues, the regime sent a clear message to
all healthcare workers in Syria: this will be your fate if you continue to
treat injured and sick protesters.
We received
the message, but refused to abandon our ethical duty to deliver healthcare to
those in need.
And for
this, we have been punished.
During the
10 years of conflict, hundreds of healthcare providers and medical students
have been unlawfully imprisoned by the Syrian government, many never heard from
again. At least 3,364 medical personnel in Syria are still detained or forcibly
disappeared. The Syrian government and its allies have also killed more than
900 medical professionals and they have deliberately bombed and shelled
hospitals. Since the onset of the conflict, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
has documented 595 attacks on health facilities in Syria. Approximately 90
percent of these attacks are attributed to the Syrian government and its
allies, including Russia. Even this is likely an undercount, as it is difficult
to document such cases.
The regime
specifically targeted medical workers because it knew that the Syrian people
would be unable to continue their fight for justice and freedom without the
support of healthcare professionals. When you kill a nurse or bomb a clinic,
you cut off care to an entire community.
One doctor
interviewed by my colleagues at Physicians for Human Rights reported that
during an interrogation, an officer told him: “You [doctors] are far more
dangerous than terrorists. We kill them, you bring them back.”
The Syrian
government also tortured countless healthcare providers for the sole purpose of
extracting information about their colleagues.
During my
detention, I, too, was tortured for information about my peers. The interrogator
forced me to lie on the ground and started beating my entire body. As he hit
me, he kept asking “Who are you working with? What are the names of the other
doctors in your group?”
His voice,
and his insistent questions about those health professionals I worked with,
continue to echo in my mind to this day.
Still
waiting for justice
Victims and
survivors of torture in Syria received a small measure of overdue justice in
February, when a German court convicted a former Syrian intelligence officer
for torture and crimes against humanity. This marked the first time ever that a
member of the Assad government has been tried and convicted for aiding crimes
against humanity.
With Russia
and China having blocked the United Nations Security Council from referring the
case of Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), some countries like
Germany are using “universal jurisdiction” and other similar laws to prosecute
the Syrian regime’s violations of international human rights law and war crimes
in domestic courts. This approach, however, likely won’t succeed in holding
high-level regime officials accountable for crimes committed under their
direction. The international community needs to take a united stance to ensure
those responsible for the worst atrocities of Syria’s conflict are brought to
justice.
Moreover,
thousands of Syrians continue to languish in the regime’s prisons to this day.
All efforts to deliver justice to the Syrian people should therefore prioritise
guaranteeing the release of all political detainees – including the doctors,
nurses and medical students who have been targeted only because they did their
jobs and provided care to those in need.
Medical
workers not only provide crucial care, but also play a vital role in
documenting human rights violations and war crimes. Physicians are front-line
witnesses: every doctor is a lens which can observe and record the smallest
details of the violence inflicted on the human body and mind. Syria’s health
professionals have documented countless atrocities over this appalling decade,
from the use of chemical weapons against civilians and the indiscriminate
bombing of residential neighbourhoods to the systematic targeting of the
country’s health infrastructure.
So far,
most of these crimes remain unpunished, and the perpetrators retain much power.
But we are patient. As doctors, as Syrians, we will continue to raise the
voices of victims and survivors. We will continue to pressure the international
community to take action and bring those responsible for the suffering of our
people to justice. We provided care, we witnessed, we documented, and we will
never forget.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/3/19/syrias-medical-workers-are-still-fighting-for-justice
------
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/middle-east-press-atatürk,-shamima/d/124584
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism