From sweetervin at hotmail.com Mon Oct 1 08:40:53 2001 From: sweetervin at hotmail.com (ervin) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 14:40:53 +0200 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: juve qe kujtoni te jeni kushedi se kush e merreni me gjera kote,te pakten nganjehere bejeni ndonje ge per se mbari...!!!!une jam perpjekur te gjej ndonje adrese te atyre ministrave (TE NDYRE)te cilet bejne kaq shume propagande e u drejtohen studenteve te cilet studiojne jashte shtetit.,,,na ftojne te kthehemi ne atdhe pasiqe te kemi kryer shkollen,te japim kontributin tone shqiperise...etj,etj...por me sa mend (0000) me cfare fytyre ata na kerkojne nje gje te tille???!!!eshte e vertete dhe une jam dakort qe te jap kontributin tim vendit tim (te cilin ATA) po e cojne drejt shkaterrimit,por nuk jam krejsisht i bindur te bej nje gje te tille???!!!...ne kete rast nuk kam asnje shfajtesim por ne te njejtin moment nuk kam edhe asnje arsye ce me con te bej nje gje te tille...sepse shteti im i cili nuk me mbron te drejtat e mia jashte shetit,(qe me duket nje kerkese themelore dhe elementare),nuk me jep asnje ndihme ekonomike,dhe ne si pasoje jemi te detyruar te bejme cfaredo punesh dhe ne te njejten kohe jemi te trajtuar sikurse kafshet mos edhe me keq,,e shumu e shume gjera te tjera te cilat eshte e kote ti permend sepse dihen nga te gjithe (shume mire)..,,ia me kerkon qe une ti jap kontributin tim mbasi jam shkaterruar fizikisht,moralisht,dhe kam arritur te kaloj te gjthe pengesat pa kurrfare ndihme....!!!!????kurre nuk do te ndolli nje gje e tille dhe une do te luftoj me te gjitha forcat e mia per kete,derikur ky shtet(I NDYRE)te beje ndonje hap perpara mbi kete ceshtje... Po ju kerkoj juve , pa e ditur se kush jeni dhe cfare beni qe te ngreni zerin mbi kete ceshtje kaq te rendesishme.... nepermjet ndonje organizate,apo forumi studentor.... JU UROJ PUNE TE MBARE.... E.N. Itali -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From albboschurch at juno.com Mon Oct 1 08:52:24 2001 From: albboschurch at juno.com (albboschurch at juno.com) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 08:52:24 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Dorchester Heights Prayer Message-ID: <20011001.090449.-154975.6.albboschurch@juno.com> A Prayer on Dorchester Heights Candlelight Ceremony of the People of South Boston September 30, 2001 [ It's a windy evening as we hold slender candles of hope and light. It reminds of a Chinese saying that: "When the wind blows out a candle, it means your prayer has been heard." ] God, our heavenly Father, Who cares about our earth and suffers with all its people: Your creation and the work of your own hands. We gather to remember our compatriots: innocent folks who lost their lives in an instant: from the air on ill-fated planes, while performing heroic deeds of self-sacrifice, in rescuing others beneath fallen stones. Strengthen those who comfort the bereaved, consoling the injured and heal those who hurt, by guiding the conflicted and reassuring the confused; Renew for us the awareness that violence commited in the name of religion is a crime against humanity and an affront to You, Our God. Grant us stamina to withstand all tests and tragedies, give us resolve to know what is good and what is evil, not only in others but in our own natures; not only in obvious calamities, but in deeds that are less visible Help us to overcome our personal impediments, flaws and sins and rise above the inclination to blame the innocent many for the sins of a misguided few; Guide us with care and caution to expunge the sinister and restore that which is saintly, in others and in ourselves; Enable us to transform hatred into love; fear into compassion; revenge into justice; anger into discipline; retribution into rededication. Grant discernment to those who lead, safety to those who defend, perspective to those who govern and endurance to those who live and labor with trust in the dawn of each new day. O God, be merciful and kind, so that lamentable atrocity will not make us fall into the same dark sins as those who have done us harm; and to not lose sight of that which is holy and good and true. In the kiln of calamity, let us arise as a phoenix from the flames to become righteous in thought and in deed, in mind and in heart, in action and in belief. Amen. Very Rev. Arthur E.Liolin [ Note: By American resolve at the promontory on Dorchester Heights in 1776, the British were compelled to evacuate Boston. ] ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 1 14:18:33 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 11:18:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: Kokkalis Program October Events Message-ID: <20011001181833.25578.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone with Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Kokkalis_Program at ksg.harvard.edu Subject: Kokkalis Program October Events Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 12:02:32 -0400 Size: 2769 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 1 15:48:36 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 12:48:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Koha Jone - koment - 30 shtator 2001 Message-ID: <20011001194836.80102.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> Ministri Angjeli: "Hallexhi" para zgjedhjeve dhe kapedan pas zgjedhjes Nje nga ministrat biznesmene e qe shquhet per ortakeri me disa pronare apo bashkebotues me median eshte ministri i Financave, Anastas Angjeli, i cili per fatin e tij te mire (dhe per fatin tone te keq) ka qelluar te jete edhe pronar i madh. Pervec ketij fati qe i ka mbire ne dere qe pas arrestimit te liderit te PS-se, Nano, ne korrik 1993, ai mbart brenda vetes edhe nje aftesi prej aktori qe do ta kishte zili edhe rektori i Akademise se Arteve, Kastriot Caushi. Ne momentet qe ka "termete politike" ai ndien si miu se ku duhet te futet, pra, gjen vrimen me te sigurte dhe natyrisht qe ka ushqim sa per kaluar "termeti". Pas kesaj Angjeli, duke qene nje grek i shqiptarizuar ne menyre perfekte, e di se cfare duhet te beje kur shikon se shefi i tij nuk e ka me ne qejf apo kur ndien se atij po i rreshqet kemba drejt gremines. Ne rastin e fundit, ai nxiton t'i jape doren per ta hedhur sa me poshte gremines, duke lare kesisoj ndergjegjen e perkundur te tij e per t'ia dhene krejt "te paster" shefit te ri qe pritet te ngjitet ne kupole pas atij qe renkon ne gremine. Para cdo furtune apo sezoni zgjedhor ai eshte njeriu me i dashur ne Shqiperi: te lajkaton, te ngjitet si rrodhja pas brekeve derisa ulet ne poltronin qe ka aspiruar. Pas kesaj ai ndryshon metode, njeh dhe respekton vetem ate qe e quan biznesmen dhe qe i vjen me cante ne dore, shfryn ndaj te vobekteve, pa harruar se duhet te perulet para te medhenjve qe ia kane fatin ne dore. Ne gjuhen e financave quhet "manovrues ekselent" dhe nuk dihet se c'fut apo c'nxjerr nga thesi i parave te shtetit. Dihet se vetem parate nuk i mungojne. Edhe kur nuk ka ne arken e madhe te shtetit, ben si ben dhe shet ndonje pjese te majme te ketij shteti andej prej nga ka origjinen helene dhe vecse buzeqesh ne ekrane te televizioneve, a thua se parate i ka gjetur ne mes te rruges. Ne te vertete ai eshte jo vetem ministri i Thesarit te nje vendi, porse edhe ministri i Planifikimit te Shtetit, pra, vete firmos e vete vulos, taman si lala kros. Nderkohe qe duhej te ishte krejt ndryshe; ai ose te bente planifikimin e parave te shtetit, pra, ne nje fare menyre kontrollin se ku shkojne, dhe dikush tjeter te hapte kasaforten e shtetit. Ministri Angjeli eshte si puna e atij hajdutit ne perrallen e arushit qe vete eshte edhe roje, edhe hajduti. Kur mbushej arka e fisit, arushi i perralles e pergjysmonte duke mbushur nje arke te tijen; ndersa kur arka e tij mbushej plot e perplot, nxitonte per te mbushur arken e fisit. Dhe keshtu ne pambarim, porse fisi nje dite mbeti jo vetem pa para, por edhe pa arken bosh! 9/30/2001 ? Koha Jone 2000 All Rights reserved --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone with Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From kruja at fas.harvard.edu Mon Oct 1 16:57:51 2001 From: kruja at fas.harvard.edu (eriola) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 16:57:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] What the hell is that???!!! superstition In-Reply-To: Message-ID: ok.. i'm a little lost. I looked @ the picture and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. maybe someone can explain what I should've seen, but didn't. On Sun, 30 Sep 2001, Xhuliana Agolli wrote: > ----------- ALBSA-Info Mailing List --------- > - ALBSA Web Site: http://www.albstudent.com/albsa - > > Hey, if you could pass that 'discovery' for yours and start selling pictures > of it, claiming that the WTC towers were possessed by alien spirits, you > could make lots of money, as most Americans have a tendency for finding > answers in 'evidence' that is not necessarily supported by reason. This way, > not only could the collapse of the towers be justified, but it might also > lessen some Americans' intense anger and need to avenge "those > responsible"--to quote GWB--even if it means killing 10, 20, 100 thousand > starving, innocent people. > > > >From: Endri Leno > >To: albsa-info at alb-net.com > >Subject: [ALBSA-Info] What the hell is that???!!! > >Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 06:57:12 -0700 (PDT) > > > >Has anyone seen this picture? > > > >__________________________________________________ > >Do You Yahoo!? > >Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > >Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com > ><< wtfisthat.jpg >> > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > _______________________________________________________ > ALBSA-Info mailing list: ALBSA-Info at alb-net.com > http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/albsa-info > From agron at rcn.com Mon Oct 1 18:56:54 2001 From: agron at rcn.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 18:56:54 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fw: Imam Ismail to Pres. Bush Message-ID: <000b01c14acc$5d903440$881806d1@law.harvard.edu> Subject: Imam Ismail to Pres. Bush ALBANIAN ISLAMIC CENTER 19775 HARPER AVENUE HARPER WOODS, MI 48225 September 28, 2001 The Hon. George W. Bush The White House Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Bush: The Albanian American Muslim community strongly condemns the terrorist attacks on the United States, and we grieve for the victims of this senseless tragedy. The horrific acts of violence committed on September 11, 2001 constitute a form of injustice not tolerated by Islam. Islam calls for the faithful to follow a path of peace and compassion. But those who have perpetrated the evil attacks on America have chosen to follow a path of violence and hatred that is blasphemous to Islam The majority of Albanians are of the Islamic faith. We ask of fellow Muslims throughout the world to remember that it was the United States that rescued Albanian Muslims from ethnic cleansing in Kosova and intervened once again on behalf of Albanian Muslims in their fight for equality in Macedonia. We will be forever grateful to the United States for coming to the aid of our Albanian brothers and sisters in the Balkans. Respectfully, Imam Vehbi Ismail Religious Leader of Albanian Muslims In the US and Canada -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From Vivezaj at PJI.COM Tue Oct 2 17:25:41 2001 From: Vivezaj at PJI.COM (Ivezaj, Viktor) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 17:25:41 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] KLA & Bin Ladin? Message-ID: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso5.html From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 2 21:28:03 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 18:28:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Gazeta Shqiptare - Shkolla e pare shqipe ne Lume Message-ID: <20011003012803.68341.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> AKTUALITET Luma feston 90-vjetorin e shkoll?s s? par? shqipe KUKES Edhe nj? jav?, dhe fshati Kolesjan, feston 90 vjetorin e hapjes s? shkoll?s s? par? n? zon?n verilindore t? Shqip?ris?. M? 14 tetor t? 1911, me ndihm?n e patriot?ve dhe atdhetar?ve kuksian?, u arrit hapja e k?saj shkolle, e cila sh?rbeu p?r formimin e brezave n? vite. Kolesjani ?sht? nj? fshat i shquar n? krahin?n e Lum?s dhe t? gjith? Shqip?rin? e Veriut, n? ?do koh?, n? luft?n kund?r pushtuesve osman? dhe m? von? n? luft?n kund?r pushtuesve serbo-sllav?. Si nj? nd?r figurat m? t? p?rmendura n? krahinin e Lum?s, por gjithashtu dhe matan?, n? Kosov?, ?sht? Islam Spahia, emri dhe kontributi i t? cilit ?sht? i lidhur ngusht? me hapjen e k?saj shkolle. Veprimtaria e tij, si prij?s i krahin?s s? Lum?s, ka qen? e lidhur ngusht? dhe me prij?sat e tjer? t? Kosov?s, Dibr?s, Tetov?s e m? gjer?. I ndikuar direkt nga idet? e Isa Boletinit, Hasan Prishtin?s, Bajram Currit, ai e quajti nj? domosdoshm?ri shkollimin n? gjuh? shqipe t? f?mij?ve t? Lum?s. p?r t? arritur q?llimin e tij, ai i d?rgoi bijt? e tij n? shkolla, ku t? m?sonin dhe arsimoheshin dhe gjuh?n shqipe t'ia m?sonin n? breza lumian?ve. Dhe do t? ishte djali i tij, Riza Spahia, ai q? do t? shkollohej p?r gjuh? shqipe n? Prizren dhe do t? hapte m? 14 tetor n? Kolesjan shkoll?n e par? shqipe. Pas mbarimit t? shkoll?s n? Prizren, Rizai frekuenton dhe nj? kurs pedagogjik n? Shkup dhe m? 1910 em?rohet n? mejtepin e Kolesjanit n? Lum?. Dhe vendosm?ria e tij n? m?simin e gjuh?s shqipe n? mejtepin turk, b?ri q? mal?sor?t e Lum?s, m? 14 tetor t? 1911 t? kthenin mejtepin n? shkoll?n e par? shqipe. N? k?t? shkoll? m?sonin f?mij?t nga Luma, Ceremi e Zhuri, nd?rsa nat?n m?sonin t? rriturit, si dhe luft?tar?t e maleve. Prandaj dhe k?saj shkolle iu vu emrin "Shkoll? ka?ake". --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone with Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 2 21:30:01 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 18:30:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Marko Bocari - Gazeta Shqiptare, 3 tetor 2001 Message-ID: <20011003013001.48732.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> SPECIALE Marko Bo?ari krenaria e ?am?ris? Historia e pasuesit t? Ali Pash? Tepelen?s q? luftoi osman?t N? tok?n e bekuar, t? bukur e t? begat? t? ?am?ris?, q? p?rfshin pjes?n m? t? bukur e m? t? pasur t? Shqip?ris? s? jugut, e cila n? lasht?si quhej Thesproti, q? nga koha e "Pellazg?ve Hyjnor?" si i ka quajtur Homeri vend?sit e saj dhe "t? mbir? nga dheu", si ka th?n? p?r ta Hesoidi, nga gjiri i popullit kan? dal?, n? t? gjith? koh?t, burra trima sypatrembur, t? guximsh?m dhe fisnik?, t? cil?t me veprat q? kan? kryer me p?rkushtim p?r lirin? e popullit t? vet, jan? shquar edhe n? luftrat q? kan? b?r? p?r ?lirimin e popujve t? tjer?. Ata si yje t? shk?lqyer, ndri?ojn? historin? e lavdishme t? popullit t? ?am?ris?, jan? lisa me rr?nj? t? thella n? tok?n e zemr?n e popullit t? saj, se lufta e tyre liridash?se i ka p?rjet?suar dhe koha i ka shenjt?ruar si edhe lisat e "Dodon?s Thesprote", si e ka quajtur Eskili Orakullin e famsh?m t? lasht?sis?, i cili ekzistonte shum? koh? m? p?rpara se t? ngrihej Orakulli i Delfit. Nj? nga yjet q? do t? shk?lqej? p?rgjithmon? n? historin? e ?am?ris?, ?sht? ?ami i famsh?m Marko Bo?ari, hero nga m? t? shquarit e kryengritjes greke t? viteve 1821-1829, i cili luftoi trim?risht n? krye t? luft?tar?ve shqiptar?, p?r mbrojtjen e nj?r?s nga qendrat m? t? r?nd?sishme t? kryengritjes, Mesolongin, duke u b?r? me heroizmin e tij figur? e madhe historike. Marko Bo?ari u lind n? Sul m? 1790 n? familjen e Ki?o Bo?arit. Xhaxhai i tij Not Bo?ari ishte nga kapedan?t m? t? d?gjuar t? Sulit dhe t? kryengritjes greke. Suli ?sht? nj? krahin? malore e trev?s s? ?am?ris?. Suljot?t ishin ?am?r, t? cil?t p?r ti shp?tuar barbarizmave dhe skllav?ris? Osmane, u shp?rngul?n nga fshatrat e tyre t? ?am?ris? gjat? viteve 1500-1600 dhe u vendos?n n? Sul s?bashku me familjet e tyre ku krijuan fshatra me emra shqip si Qafa, Avarik etj. Studiuesi anglez V.M.Lik thot?: "Suljot?t jan? nj? far? e ?am?ris?, nj?ra prej t? kat?r deg?ve t? Shqip?ris?". Kurse Finlai ka shkruar:"Suljot?t jan? prej tre ndarjeve t? tosk?ve". Q? Suljot?t ishin ?am?r dhe shum? trima e thon? shum? studiues. "Kam par? granatier?t krenar? t? Napolonit dhe kam njohur rojet angleze plot hijeshi-thot? Pekio-por Suljot?t ua kalonin si t? par?ve dhe t? dyt?ve". Suljot?t nuk pranonin t? huaj n? krahin?n e tyre. Edhe dh?ndru?t q? donin t? banonin n? Sul duhet t? ishin ?am?r dhe trima, thon? studiuesit. Ata ishin t? m?suar q? n? f?mini me v?shtir?sit? e jet?s dhe si djemt? dhe vajzat aft?soheshin n? p?rdorimin e arm?ve p?r t? qen? t? gatsh?m t? mbronin lirin? dhe pavar?sin? n? malet e tyre t? egra "t?r? shm?benj e dh?mb?", si? thoshin Suljot?t. Turqit ua kishin frik?n Suljot?ve dhe i luftuan eg?rsisht, por ata rezistuan dhe treguan akte heroizmi p?or mbrojtjen e liris?, duke patur kurdoher? ndihm?n e pakursyer t? fshatrave t? ?am?ris?, me t? cil?t lidhjet e tyre ishin vllaz?rore, pavar?sisht nga ndryshimi i fes? i nj? pjese t? ?am?ve. Suljoti i d?gjuar Foto Xhavella ishte b?r? vllam me kapetanin e njohur dhe luft?tarin e shquar kund?r Osman?ve Islam Pronjon nga Paramithia. Suljot?t nuk dinin fare greqisht - "Gjuha q? ata p?rdornin- thot? studiuesi Ciampolini- ishte ajo e Shqip?ris?, e dialektit t? ?am?ris? ku p?rdoret gl e kl". Marko Bo?ari filloi t? m?sonte greqisht n? Korfuz ku hartoi dhe nj? fjalor m? 1494 fjal? shqip dhe 1701 fjal? greqisht. K?t? fjalor Markua e hartoi n? 1809 n? pranin? e Konsullit t? P?rgjithsh?m Francez n? Janin?, Pukevilit, i cili k?t? fjalor ia dhuroi Bibliotek?s Komb?tare t? Parisit po at? vit. Sipas Bukevilit fjalori u shkrua t?r?sisht nga dora e t? riut 19 vje?ar, Marko Bo?arit, n?n diktimin e babait, Ki#o Bo?arit (1764-1813), Noti Bo?arit (1759-1841) dhe vjehrit, Kristo Kallogjeri nga Preveza. Fjalori p?rb?het nga 119 faqe. Fjalori u hartua p?r t? ndihmuar Suljot?t, q? jetonin n? Shtat? Ishujt e Jonit, pas shp?rnguljes nga Suli, n? marr?dh?niet e tyre me grek?t si dhe nj? mjet politik p?r afrimin e grek?ve me shqiptar?t. Fjalori i Marko Bo?arit ka r?nd?si t? ve?ant? p?r gjuh?sin? shqiptare se shpreh shum? element? t? ?am?rishtes arkaike q? ishte gjuha e Sulit. Mbi baz?n e fjalorit t? Markos Pukevili hartoi nj? glosar fr?ngjisht-shqip. Por Marko Bo?ari u shqua si udh?heq?s i lavdish?m n? luft?n e parreshtur kund?r Osman?ve dhe pas vdekjes s? Ali Pash?s n? oborrin e t? cilit ai ishte edukuar p?r p?rvet?simin e artit ushtarak bashk? me Odise Andrucin e Gjergj Karaiskaqin. "Pashai i Janin?s, ishte pararend?si i revolucionit grek" thot? U. Miler. Kurse S. Aravantinu shkruan "Ideja e rim?k?mbjes komb?tare nuk do t? zhvillohej dhe as do p?rparonte me t? till? shpejt?si, n? qoft? se nuk do t? gjente truall veprimi kaq t? begat? dhe t? p?rgatitur nga duart e Aliut". Tek Marko Bo?ari g?rshetoheshin fisnik?ria dhe heroizmi. Ishte i matur, i guximsh?m dhe fjal?pak. Ali Pasha i ?monte cil?sit? e Markos. Esht? th?n? se n? nj? rast q? ngrinin lart Kost?n, v?llan? e Markos, Aliu u tha: Jo, jo, ai atje q? nuk flet do t? haj? shum? turq dhe tregoi Markon. Karaiskaqi ka th?n?: "Markua ?sht? zem?rluan, rrall? n?na lind si ai"- A. Guda thot? se fjal?t e Markos t? mbushnin me besim dhe sjellja e tij me simpathi. Marko Bo?ari ?sht? nj?ri nga udh?heq?sit heroik? t? kryengritjes grek? t? cil?s ai brenda nj? koh? t? shkurt?r i solli sh?rbime t? m?dha. Krahas Suljot?ve, n? ndihm? t? kryengritjes greke, ku nj? pjes? e madhe e kryengrit?sve dhe e udh?heq?sve ishin Arvanit? (Shqiptar?), shkuan mij?ra luft?tar? nga ?am?ria si dhe Himarjot?, Delvinjot?, Gjirokastrit?, Tepelenas, P?rmetar? dhe nga vise t? tjera t? Shqip?ris?. Ndihm? t? madhe dhan? edhe ushtar?t shqiptar? t? mobilizuar n? ushtrin? Osmane, t? cil?t u vllaz?ruan dhe ndihmuan n? ?do rast kryengrit?sit. "Karakteri i shqiptar?ve- thot? K. Vamvas-ka di?ka t? lart? fisnike. Kurse K. Biri thekson:"T? kujtojm? se fara e tyre dhe figurat m? t? shquara n? kryengritjen greke... nj? Xhavell?, nj? Mjaul, nj? Marko Bo?ar, nj? Bubulin?, nj? Ali Pash?". Dhe m? tej shton:"P?rsa i takon trim?ris?, kryelart?sis? karakterit, k?to jan? cil?si t? njohura p?r shqiptar?t, t? njohura edhe nga ata, t? cil?t nuk ushqenin simpathi p?r ta". Marko Bo?ari ishte udh?heq?si i lavdish?m i mbrojtjes s? Mesolongjit. Pas heqjes s? rrethimit Marko u caktua komandant ushtarak i Greqis? per?ndimore dhe nj?koh?sisht Qeveria i d?rgoi dhe diplom?n e Komandantit t? P?rgjithsh?m. Me k?t? rast Marko mbajti nj? fjalim n? gjuh?n shqipe. Por trimi dhe udh?heq?si i lavdish?m ra n? luft? n? 9 gusht 1923 n? Karpenis, n? mbrojtje t? Mesolongjit. Trupin e tij e varros?n me shum? nderime n? Mesolongj. Populli shqiptar i k?ndon k?tij biri t? madh:"Ngreu Marko trim?ria/ngreu t? th?rret Greqia/t? vij? Marko Shqip?ria. Dhe me k?ng? e ka p?rjet?suar figur?n e tij:"Mesolongj t? thon?/Ku e ke Marko Sulon?/pse s'del si? e kish zakon?. Figura e Markos dhe vdekja e tij heroike ishte b?r? e njohur n? gjith? Evrop?n. Mbi varrin e Heroit kish mbajtur nj? fjalim rr?nqeth?s poeti i madh anglez, Bajroni. Shkrimtar? e gazetar? t? njohur shkruan p?r t?. Mbi t? gjith? u shqua Viktor Hygoi, i cili shkroi p?r Marko Bo?arin dhe n? veprat e tij vazhdoi t? mos e ndaj? nga Bajroni dhe ta krahasoj? me heronjt? m? t? p?rmendur t? historis?. "Mes luft?tar?sh, pllakosur, qytetin d?gjoj/Klithma z?rash "O bij t? Bo?arit, mbroji,/Nga kjo hordhi shpirtrob?rish, grek?t e pafat "O hije, t? shenjta, Bo?ar, Josif, Kanar/P?r Termopilat tuaj mbetet karakoll/Ju p?r to s'kursyet gjakun e kulluar". Marko Bo?ari tek Hygoi ?sht? lavdia e Mesolongjit, mbrojt?si i liris? dhe i qytet?rimit, figur? e madhe historike. Dhe poeti vazhdon:"Greqia, Athina"/Sparta, Leonidha, Bo?ari, Demosteni/Kanari, gjys?m per?ndi, nga lavdia ndritur...". Viktor Hygoi e endos Marko Bo?arin jo vet?m krahas Leonidh?s, mbrojt?sit t? Termopileve, por edhe krahas luft?tarit t? madh Polak p?r liri Kastjushkos, Bajronit dhe Xhavell?s dhe shpreh bindjen se hakmarrja e popullit e frym?zuar nga Bo?ari ?sht? e af?rt. "Para k?mb?ve t? fatit kaq t? madh/Patritur Bo?ariu do t? sulmoj? sall?n,/Do t? ngrihet m? k?mb? Bajroni, poeti hero,/Xhavella i xhindosur nga fitorja e xhelat?ve,/mbi t? do t? ngrihen, ashp?r t? q?lojn?". Adhurimi i Viktor Hygoit p?r Marko Bo?arin, ?sht? adhurim p?r gj?n? m? t? shenjt? lirin? p?r t? cil?n luftoi e ra heroi. Q? t? dy luft?tari i shquar Marko Bo?ari nga Shqip?ria dhe poeti i madh Bajroni, nga Anglia, me vepr?n e tyre, nuk ishin vet?m bij t? popujve q? u p?rkisnin, por edhe t? popujve t? bot?s. Jonuz Ku?uku --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone with Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From Fdcleis at aol.com Wed Oct 3 14:37:53 2001 From: Fdcleis at aol.com (Fdcleis at aol.com) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:37:53 EDT Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NEW BOOK ON KOSOVO Message-ID: <30.1bb06f8d.28ecb501@aol.com> No Place Like Home Echoes from Kosovo By Melanie Friend Current Events/Photography CONTACT: Fr?d?rique Delacoste In the U.S: (415) 575-4700 or FDCLEIS at aol.com Publication Dates: November 1, 2001 in U.S. November 15, 2001 in the U.K. "The power of No Place Like Home doesn?t come from obviously shocking pictures; the shock is the realization that these suddenly-changed and cancelled lives were once so like our own." ? GRANTA Midnight Editions is pleased to announce publication of No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo. Through 75 color photographs and 50 accompanying personal testimonies, No Place Like Home offers an extraordinary insight into how history is lived by ordinary citizens. How do people persist with the chores of daily life, knowing that at any time their villages, or even their own homes, may be targeted for terror? How do they survive the murder of entire families? Or the hope of ever finding loved ones who have disappeared? How do they live in the landscapes where massacres took place?and reconcile the thirst for revenge with the need for peace of mind? These questions, which can be asked in the aftermath of any act of violence, are the subject of No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo. British photojournalist Melanie Friend has covered the Balkans since 1989. Well before Kosovo began to make headlines, she was gripped by the region, whose autonomy was revoked by the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that same year. Friend became familiar with the tactics of the Serbian police, who spread fear through the predominantly Albanian Muslim population. Her visits were brief, often subject to surveillance and film confiscation. "Everyone had a story to tell, but it wasn?t always easy to find publishable newspaper photographs," Friend writes in the introduction to No Place Like Home. "Repression was hidden, dramatic visual images rare. Police frequently cordoned off whole villages in the aftermath of police raids and beatings. How could you visually represent fear and repression in picturesque villages where roadblocks and surveillance of foreigners? movements made it impossible to witness such events? I wanted to try a different strategy from straightforward photojournalism. I began photographing the rooms and gardens where police raids had taken place." Friend conducted taped interviews with the inhabitants of those rooms and gardens. In 1999, when thousands of Kosovo Albanians fled large-scale reprisals and killings of civilians by the Serbian police and paramilitaries in the wake of the NATO bombings, Friend traveled to Macedonia and interviewed refugees. "I knew I could not photograph nameless people crying as they streamed across the border on tractors, as in so many newspaper images I had seen. These pictures may have been necessary, but I could not bring myself to take them," she writes. Instead, Friend took dignified studio-style portraits of refugees. Later, when the refugees returned to Kosovo, she sought out and re-interviewed all the people she had met in the refugee camps in Macedonia. In some cases, she had only the name of a village for an address. She visited massacre sites in Recak, Lubizhde, and Celine, where Albanian survivors walked with her through beautiful landscapes, now haunted by the memories of those who were killed there. She also interviewed Serbs, Roma, Turks, and other minorities, who, fearing revenge killings, did not wish to be photographed for publication. Melanie Friend?s photographs and interviews span the past decade and offer a profound and original look at repression, war and its aftermath, and their effect on the lives of ordinary citizens. No Place Like Home not only "shows us the human particularity that lies within phrases such as ?ethnic conflict? and ?civil war? " (Ian Jack, Granta), "it enriches our knowledge of Kosovo and inspires deeper reflection about the wider Balkans"(Gabriel Partos, BBC World Service). ADVANCE PRAISE FOR NO PLACE LIKE HOME "Melanie Friend?s remarkable photographs and interviews show us the human particularity that lies within phrases such as ?ethnic conflict? and ?civil war? ? and help us understand how communal hatred and savagery can break out of (and into) the most peaceful field, the most ordinary living room, and what happens after it does. The power of her book doesn?t come from obviously shocking pictures; the shock is the realization that these suddenly-changed and cancelled lives were once so like our own." ? Ian Jack, GRANTA "Melanie Friend?s volume of photographs and accompanying personal testimonies provides an extraordinary insight into Kosovo?s turbulent recent history through the eyes of its ordinary people. Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Turks and Kosovo?s other ethnic communities tell their stories of suffering, flight, resistance, intolerance and comradeship against the backdrop of an often hostile political and social environment. The understated, even restrained imagery - portraits, homes and landscapes - is in sharp contrast with the atrocities chronicled by the victims or their close relatives and friends. It is a book that enriches our knowledge of Kosovo and inspires deeper reflection about the wider Balkans."?Gabriel Partos, BBC WORLD SERVICE "These are not war photographs in the way we would expect, but calm statements of witness, filled with a pathos which even the best of photojournalism could not hope to convey ." ? Val Williams, Curator, THE HASSELBLAD CENTER Melanie Friend?s work has appeared in NEWSWEEK, THE GUARDIAN, THE INDEPENDENT, GRANTA, and MARIE CLAIRE among other publications. Her photographs of Kosovo have been exhibited at Camerawork, the National Portrait Gallery in London, The Houston Center for Photography, and are currently showing at the Hasselblad Center in Sweden. She lives in London. NO PLACE LIKE HOME: ECHOES FROM KOSOVO by Melanie Friend Current Events/Photography 75 Color Photos, 10x11, 160 pages, Midnight Editions. ISBN 1-57344-119-8 U.S. Price: $39.95 U.K. Price: 30 Pounds Sterling TO ORDER IN U.S. CALL 1-800-780-2279 or email:fdcleis at aol.com TO ORDER IN U.K. CALL 020-8829-3000 or email: orders at turnaround-uk.com From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 3 22:27:06 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 19:27:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Koha Jone per raportimet e gazetareve greke ne Shqiperi - 3.10.01 Message-ID: <20011004022706.17188.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> Si me bene gazetaret greke, ushtar te Bin Ladenit Ndricim Nero/ Braho Llapi nga Gjirokastra ngeli i pataksur ndersa ndiqte lajmet ne stacionin televiziv grek ANT1 (lexohet antena). Nuk ishte aspak halucinacion viziv dhe as degjimor. Pamja ne ekran ishte plotesisht e tij. Por ajo qe hoqi cdo lloj dyshimi ishin fjalet e gazetarit: "Ky person eshte nje nga njerezit e rekrutuar te Bin Ladenit ne Shqiperi. Eshte nga Gjirokastra. Ka milituar ne grupet terroriste gjate luftes ne Kosove. Quhet Braho Llapi. Aktualisht punon ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar". "Keta me siguri jane cmendur", foli me vete ai, ndersa pas tij gruaja kishte kapur koken me duar. Nuk eshte aspak triller, por nje histori e vertete e gatuar nga gazetare te lajthitur te shtetit fqinj. Braho Llapi ekziston me te vertete. Ai punon ekonomist ne degen e SHIK-ut ne Gjirokaster, ose e thene ndryshe eshte magaziner aty prej 6 vjetesh. I mbushur me merzitje deri ne fyt, ai perpiqet ta fshehe gjendjen e stresuar me me nje humor te zi. "Une ushtar i Bin Ladenit?!. Une ne Kosove?! Une terrorist?! Si thua mund te kem qene ndonjehere ne Amerike? Per kete duhet pyetur ndonje gazetar i ANT 1". Te shkretin Braho e ka zene halli dhe c'eshte me e keqja, shihet me dyshim nga nje pjese e miqve te tij. Por, me ne fund, duket se i ka dhene karar kesaj historie tek merr rrugen drejt kryeqytetit per t'u takuar me Avokatin e Popullit. Do te hedhi ne gjyq ANT1 per shpifje. Mbase ky do te jete nje nga gjyqet me te bujshme dhe emri i Brahos do te mbetet ne histori. TRAZIRAT E MARSIT, FILLESA E HISTORISE ABSURDE 45 vjecari Braho Llapi u ngrit heret per te shkuar ne pune mengjesin e 11 marsit te vitit 1997. Dy dite me pare ishte bastisur divizioni "Laberia" ne Gerhot dhe qarkullonin zera se do te digjej godina e SHIK-ut. Parandjenja nuk e genjeu tek dalloi nga larg tymin ne godinen dykateshe qe ndodhej ne hyrjen jugore te qytetit vetem disa metra nga rruga nacionale. Godines i kishin vene flaken qe ne oren 5 te mengjesit, por fillimisht e kishin plackitur. Materialetme te rendesishme kishin shpetuar, pasi dy dite me pare i kishin cuar ne ruajtje ne Divizionin "Laberia". Sipas nje ish-oficeri te SHIk-ut, arkat me dokumente nuk ishin pikasur nga plackitesit qe me shume e kishin mendjen per ndonje thes me oriz e miell apo per ndonje pushke a automatik. "Te nesermen ne shkuam ne divizion dhe i gjetem arkat te paprekura me perjashtim te njeres qe vetem sa ishte zbrazur nga ndonje plackites qe nuk ka ditur shkrim e kendim", tha ishoficeri. Keshtu qe nga godina e SHIK-ut plackitesit perfituan vetem disa mobilje te vjeteruara dhe ndonje arme te harruar pasi gjithe armatimi ishte shperndare sipas listave te prefektures. Ne zyren e drejtorit te SHIK-ut ndodhej kasaforta dhe brenda saj gjendeshin disa dokumenta pa rendesi, mes te cilave edhe nje fotografi me te gjitha te dhenat e magazinierit Llapi. Per fat te keq kasaforta e rende u shperthye me lehtesi, pasi ndoshta nga nxitimi apo ndonje arsye tjeter, drejtori i atehershem e kishte mbyllur vetem me njerin nga te kater celesat. Fotografia e Brahos ju shit nje gazetari te ANT-1 qe nuk ishte aspak i mendimit ta ruante ne arkiv. SHNDERRIMI I MAGAZINERIT NE SUPERTRAFIKANT DHE TERRORIST Para se te shpallej terrorist nga gazetari i ANT 1, ne shtator te ketij viti, magazinieri Llapi kishte pushtuar per disa dite me radhe ekranin e stacionit grek qe ne korrik te vitit 1997. "Atehere akuzohesha per kontrabande te naftes. "Gazetari grek qe me eshte ngjitur pas si semundje e keqe, me cilesonte supertrafikant qe kontrolloja cdo afere te paligjshme ne Piken e Kakavijes", tregon Llapi. Ceshte me e cuditshmja, ata tregonin edhe targat e boteve te naftes qe une kisha futur ne Shqiperi nga Greqia. Gazetari manjak grek (ai nuk ja di emrin) kishte tjerrur nje histori te tere duke bashkangjitur emrin e Llapit me dokumentacionin e vjedhur ne Kakavije dhe qe jo rastesisht i kishin rene ne dore atij. Llapi shprehet se "atehere nuk e vrava shume mendjen, pasi mendova se mund te ishte thjesht ndonje ngaterrese. Pastaj, shteti nuk e kishte marre ende veten pas trazirave te ndodhura ne mars dhe nuk ma kishte kush oreksin te merrej me hallin tim". Shumica e njerezve qe tek pamja e shfaqur e Llapit nga stacioni televiziv grek njohu magazinierin e urte dhe te ndershem e percolli me humor kete lajm te cuditshem. "Une nuk kam qene asnjehere ne Greqi dhe c'eshte me e bukura, vetem dy here kam shkelur ne Piken e Kakavijes. Ne te dy keto raste, kam dale te pres vellain", rrefen Llapi. 4 vjet me vone ne shtator te ketij viti ose rreth 15 dite me pare, fotografia e magazinierit shfaqet serish nga stacioni televiz ANT 1. Kete here "bosi i kontrabandes se naftes" na shfaqet si terrorist. "Ky person eshte nje nga njerezit e rekrutuar te Bin Ladenit ne Shqiperi. Eshte nga Gjirokastra. Ka milituar ne grupet terroriste gjate luftes ne Kosove. Quhet Braho Llapi. Aktualisht punon ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar". Vellai i tij Shkelqimi qe ndodhet ne kryeqytetin grek prej 6 vjetesh mbeti edhe ai i shokuar kur dalloi ne ekranin e ANT1 portretin e vellait. Ai i telefonoi menjehere stacionit televiziv grek, por askush nuk pranoi ta sqaronte dhe si per inat te tij pamja e Llapit u shfaq ne te gjitha edicionet e mevonshme te lajmeve. CESHTJA TEK AVOKATI I POPULLIT, LLAPI KERKON DEMSHPERBLIM "Mendoj se ka ardhur momenti qe une te reagoj. Duhet te bej dicka per te cnjollosur veten nga kjo padrejtesi. Nese nuk veproj keshtu, atehere do me duhet te suportoj te tjera trillime de te mbaj ne shpine te tjera epitete mbase me te renda akoma", thote Llapi. Kerkoj ndihmen e shtetit, pasi nuk jam vetem une i akuzuari dhe i fyeri". Braho mendon se "gjerat duhet te shkojne ne vendin e vet, pasi nuk ka se si te ndodhe ndryshe". Ai beson se drejtesia do te zgjidhe gjithcka dhe se pas kesaj miqte e tij nuk do ta shohin me venger. GAZETARET GREKE NE TRAZIRAT E _97 Ngjarjet e marsit te vitit '97 gjeten pasqyrim te gjere ne te gjitha kanalet televizive te botes por me afer ngjarjeve kane qene gazetaret e shtetit fqinj, Greqise. Ne jug hasje me dhjetra gazetare greke qe qarkullon te shoqeruar me badigarde te armatosur me armet e grabitura ne depot e ushtrise shqiptare. Nje taksixhi nga Gjirokastra ka shoqeruar gati ne te gjithe qytetet e jugut gazetarin e ANT-1 Vasilis Hitos. Taksisti tregon se Hitua arrinte gjithmone ne kohe per cdo ngjarje te ndodhur. Me ka bere pershtypje kur shkuam ne Korce vetem pak minuta para fillimit te trazirave". Gazetaret greke te vendosur ne Jug nuk flinin ne Shqiperi. Darka ata i gjente gjithmone ne Janine ose ne ndonje qytet tjeter kufitar. "Cdo mengjes e merrja Hiton ne Kakavije dhe aty me tregonte se per ku do te niseshim. Vetem njehere fjetem ne hotel "Cajupi" ne Gjirokaster, por te nesermen iken te tmerruar nga pleshtat dhe morrat. Telefonin e mbyllte, pasi ne rastin me te keq kishte frike mos u binte ne dore grabitesve dhe keshtu zbuloheshin numrat e telefonit te bashkepunetoreve te tij ne Shqiperi". Kronikat e gazetareve greke gjate trazirave te _97-es ne Shqiperi ishin nga me te plotat dhe me te guximshmet. Kjo per arsye te afrimimitetit te tyre me lideret e komiteteve te shpetimit. Keta te fundit e shfrytezuan ne jo pak raste televizionin grek si mjetin me efikas per te lajmeruar pushtimin e institucioneve te shtetit te papranuar prej tyre. 24 ore me pare ne mars te _97-es, stacioni televiziv MEGA lajmeroi "renien" e Prmetit, ndersa shperthimi i depove me lende eksplozive ne ish-repartin e Kordhoces u shfaq i plote nga i njejti kanal. Gazetaret greke ishin te gjithe te pajisur me radio nderlidhese, pasi ne thellesi te vendit nuk funksiononte sherbimi i telefonit celular, me perjashtim te Sarandes dhe pjeses kufitare te rrethit te Gjirokastres. Materiale shume te rendesishme rane atehere ne doren e tyre ne shkembim te shumave qesharake. Pervec demeve qe i kane sjelle shtetit ne ndonje rast ato kane shkaktuar edhe drama tek ndonje individ i vecante i ingranuar ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar. 10/3/2001 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 3 22:27:30 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 19:27:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Koha Jone per raportimet e gazetareve greke ne Shqiperi - 3.10.01 Message-ID: <20011004022730.84563.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> Si me bene gazetaret greke, ushtar te Bin Ladenit Ndricim Nero/ Braho Llapi nga Gjirokastra ngeli i pataksur ndersa ndiqte lajmet ne stacionin televiziv grek ANT1 (lexohet antena). Nuk ishte aspak halucinacion viziv dhe as degjimor. Pamja ne ekran ishte plotesisht e tij. Por ajo qe hoqi cdo lloj dyshimi ishin fjalet e gazetarit: "Ky person eshte nje nga njerezit e rekrutuar te Bin Ladenit ne Shqiperi. Eshte nga Gjirokastra. Ka milituar ne grupet terroriste gjate luftes ne Kosove. Quhet Braho Llapi. Aktualisht punon ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar". "Keta me siguri jane cmendur", foli me vete ai, ndersa pas tij gruaja kishte kapur koken me duar. Nuk eshte aspak triller, por nje histori e vertete e gatuar nga gazetare te lajthitur te shtetit fqinj. Braho Llapi ekziston me te vertete. Ai punon ekonomist ne degen e SHIK-ut ne Gjirokaster, ose e thene ndryshe eshte magaziner aty prej 6 vjetesh. I mbushur me merzitje deri ne fyt, ai perpiqet ta fshehe gjendjen e stresuar me me nje humor te zi. "Une ushtar i Bin Ladenit?!. Une ne Kosove?! Une terrorist?! Si thua mund te kem qene ndonjehere ne Amerike? Per kete duhet pyetur ndonje gazetar i ANT 1". Te shkretin Braho e ka zene halli dhe c'eshte me e keqja, shihet me dyshim nga nje pjese e miqve te tij. Por, me ne fund, duket se i ka dhene karar kesaj historie tek merr rrugen drejt kryeqytetit per t'u takuar me Avokatin e Popullit. Do te hedhi ne gjyq ANT1 per shpifje. Mbase ky do te jete nje nga gjyqet me te bujshme dhe emri i Brahos do te mbetet ne histori. TRAZIRAT E MARSIT, FILLESA E HISTORISE ABSURDE 45 vjecari Braho Llapi u ngrit heret per te shkuar ne pune mengjesin e 11 marsit te vitit 1997. Dy dite me pare ishte bastisur divizioni "Laberia" ne Gerhot dhe qarkullonin zera se do te digjej godina e SHIK-ut. Parandjenja nuk e genjeu tek dalloi nga larg tymin ne godinen dykateshe qe ndodhej ne hyrjen jugore te qytetit vetem disa metra nga rruga nacionale. Godines i kishin vene flaken qe ne oren 5 te mengjesit, por fillimisht e kishin plackitur. Materialetme te rendesishme kishin shpetuar, pasi dy dite me pare i kishin cuar ne ruajtje ne Divizionin "Laberia". Sipas nje ish-oficeri te SHIk-ut, arkat me dokumente nuk ishin pikasur nga plackitesit qe me shume e kishin mendjen per ndonje thes me oriz e miell apo per ndonje pushke a automatik. "Te nesermen ne shkuam ne divizion dhe i gjetem arkat te paprekura me perjashtim te njeres qe vetem sa ishte zbrazur nga ndonje plackites qe nuk ka ditur shkrim e kendim", tha ishoficeri. Keshtu qe nga godina e SHIK-ut plackitesit perfituan vetem disa mobilje te vjeteruara dhe ndonje arme te harruar pasi gjithe armatimi ishte shperndare sipas listave te prefektures. Ne zyren e drejtorit te SHIK-ut ndodhej kasaforta dhe brenda saj gjendeshin disa dokumenta pa rendesi, mes te cilave edhe nje fotografi me te gjitha te dhenat e magazinierit Llapi. Per fat te keq kasaforta e rende u shperthye me lehtesi, pasi ndoshta nga nxitimi apo ndonje arsye tjeter, drejtori i atehershem e kishte mbyllur vetem me njerin nga te kater celesat. Fotografia e Brahos ju shit nje gazetari te ANT-1 qe nuk ishte aspak i mendimit ta ruante ne arkiv. SHNDERRIMI I MAGAZINERIT NE SUPERTRAFIKANT DHE TERRORIST Para se te shpallej terrorist nga gazetari i ANT 1, ne shtator te ketij viti, magazinieri Llapi kishte pushtuar per disa dite me radhe ekranin e stacionit grek qe ne korrik te vitit 1997. "Atehere akuzohesha per kontrabande te naftes. "Gazetari grek qe me eshte ngjitur pas si semundje e keqe, me cilesonte supertrafikant qe kontrolloja cdo afere te paligjshme ne Piken e Kakavijes", tregon Llapi. Ceshte me e cuditshmja, ata tregonin edhe targat e boteve te naftes qe une kisha futur ne Shqiperi nga Greqia. Gazetari manjak grek (ai nuk ja di emrin) kishte tjerrur nje histori te tere duke bashkangjitur emrin e Llapit me dokumentacionin e vjedhur ne Kakavije dhe qe jo rastesisht i kishin rene ne dore atij. Llapi shprehet se "atehere nuk e vrava shume mendjen, pasi mendova se mund te ishte thjesht ndonje ngaterrese. Pastaj, shteti nuk e kishte marre ende veten pas trazirave te ndodhura ne mars dhe nuk ma kishte kush oreksin te merrej me hallin tim". Shumica e njerezve qe tek pamja e shfaqur e Llapit nga stacioni televiziv grek njohu magazinierin e urte dhe te ndershem e percolli me humor kete lajm te cuditshem. "Une nuk kam qene asnjehere ne Greqi dhe c'eshte me e bukura, vetem dy here kam shkelur ne Piken e Kakavijes. Ne te dy keto raste, kam dale te pres vellain", rrefen Llapi. 4 vjet me vone ne shtator te ketij viti ose rreth 15 dite me pare, fotografia e magazinierit shfaqet serish nga stacioni televiz ANT 1. Kete here "bosi i kontrabandes se naftes" na shfaqet si terrorist. "Ky person eshte nje nga njerezit e rekrutuar te Bin Ladenit ne Shqiperi. Eshte nga Gjirokastra. Ka milituar ne grupet terroriste gjate luftes ne Kosove. Quhet Braho Llapi. Aktualisht punon ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar". Vellai i tij Shkelqimi qe ndodhet ne kryeqytetin grek prej 6 vjetesh mbeti edhe ai i shokuar kur dalloi ne ekranin e ANT1 portretin e vellait. Ai i telefonoi menjehere stacionit televiziv grek, por askush nuk pranoi ta sqaronte dhe si per inat te tij pamja e Llapit u shfaq ne te gjitha edicionet e mevonshme te lajmeve. CESHTJA TEK AVOKATI I POPULLIT, LLAPI KERKON DEMSHPERBLIM "Mendoj se ka ardhur momenti qe une te reagoj. Duhet te bej dicka per te cnjollosur veten nga kjo padrejtesi. Nese nuk veproj keshtu, atehere do me duhet te suportoj te tjera trillime de te mbaj ne shpine te tjera epitete mbase me te renda akoma", thote Llapi. Kerkoj ndihmen e shtetit, pasi nuk jam vetem une i akuzuari dhe i fyeri". Braho mendon se "gjerat duhet te shkojne ne vendin e vet, pasi nuk ka se si te ndodhe ndryshe". Ai beson se drejtesia do te zgjidhe gjithcka dhe se pas kesaj miqte e tij nuk do ta shohin me venger. GAZETARET GREKE NE TRAZIRAT E _97 Ngjarjet e marsit te vitit '97 gjeten pasqyrim te gjere ne te gjitha kanalet televizive te botes por me afer ngjarjeve kane qene gazetaret e shtetit fqinj, Greqise. Ne jug hasje me dhjetra gazetare greke qe qarkullon te shoqeruar me badigarde te armatosur me armet e grabitura ne depot e ushtrise shqiptare. Nje taksixhi nga Gjirokastra ka shoqeruar gati ne te gjithe qytetet e jugut gazetarin e ANT-1 Vasilis Hitos. Taksisti tregon se Hitua arrinte gjithmone ne kohe per cdo ngjarje te ndodhur. Me ka bere pershtypje kur shkuam ne Korce vetem pak minuta para fillimit te trazirave". Gazetaret greke te vendosur ne Jug nuk flinin ne Shqiperi. Darka ata i gjente gjithmone ne Janine ose ne ndonje qytet tjeter kufitar. "Cdo mengjes e merrja Hiton ne Kakavije dhe aty me tregonte se per ku do te niseshim. Vetem njehere fjetem ne hotel "Cajupi" ne Gjirokaster, por te nesermen iken te tmerruar nga pleshtat dhe morrat. Telefonin e mbyllte, pasi ne rastin me te keq kishte frike mos u binte ne dore grabitesve dhe keshtu zbuloheshin numrat e telefonit te bashkepunetoreve te tij ne Shqiperi". Kronikat e gazetareve greke gjate trazirave te _97-es ne Shqiperi ishin nga me te plotat dhe me te guximshmet. Kjo per arsye te afrimimitetit te tyre me lideret e komiteteve te shpetimit. Keta te fundit e shfrytezuan ne jo pak raste televizionin grek si mjetin me efikas per te lajmeruar pushtimin e institucioneve te shtetit te papranuar prej tyre. 24 ore me pare ne mars te _97-es, stacioni televiziv MEGA lajmeroi "renien" e Prmetit, ndersa shperthimi i depove me lende eksplozive ne ish-repartin e Kordhoces u shfaq i plote nga i njejti kanal. Gazetaret greke ishin te gjithe te pajisur me radio nderlidhese, pasi ne thellesi te vendit nuk funksiononte sherbimi i telefonit celular, me perjashtim te Sarandes dhe pjeses kufitare te rrethit te Gjirokastres. Materiale shume te rendesishme rane atehere ne doren e tyre ne shkembim te shumave qesharake. Pervec demeve qe i kane sjelle shtetit ne ndonje rast ato kane shkaktuar edhe drama tek ndonje individ i vecante i ingranuar ne sherbimin e fshehte shqiptar. 10/3/2001 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 3 22:35:43 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 19:35:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Konica dhe Koloneli Tomson - Koha Jone Message-ID: <20011004023543.22850.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> [input] --> -->Fjala e z. Faik beg Konica ne qivur te Thomsonit Ministri i Brendshem m'u lut ne emer te tij, te flisja perpara ketij varri, dhe kete nder, te themi te trishtuar, e pranova ne emer te Qeverise Princerore per t'i dhene lamtumiren e fundit heroit holandez qe gjithe Shqiperia po e qan. Koloneli Tomson sapo ka mbushur gjashte muaj qe kish ardhur ne Shqiperi se bashku me oficere te tjere holandeze per te vendosur pak rregull ne kete vend te mjere. Komploti i Beqirit nxori menjehere ne reliev karakterin burreror, mendjen largpamese dhe shqetesimin e Tomsonit. Eshte e njohur gjakftohtesia e tij e mrekullueshme kur shkoi ne anijen qe kishin derguar komplotistet dhe i carmatosi nje nga nje dhe me nje gjest sa madheror aq dhe shperfilles hodhi ne det bomben qe e gjeti tek njeri nder ta dhe si ai pastaj i coi menjehere para gjyqit ushtarak. Keto episode te bujshme ne fillimet e shtetit tone te ri ndezen imagjinaten e popullit, dhe emri i Tomsonit shpejt behet legjendar ne kasollet tona. Nje episod me i dhimbshem, disa muaj me pas, e larteson shkelqimin e ketij emri dhe e rrit me shume admirimin dhe dashurine qe Tomsoni kishte ne Shqiperi. Sapo kryengritja shpertheu ne Shijak dhe ne Kavaje, nga te gjitha anet therrisnin: "Ku eshte Tomsoni"? Dhe disa dite me pas, shkruhej me gezim: "Tomsoni arriti, gjithcka do te veje mire". Besimi i pergjithshem ishte plotesisht i perligjur. Tomsoni me te mberritur ne Durres iu fut punes. Dhe nderkohe qe ai kerkonte te zbulonte doren misterioze qe kishte ndezur luften civile dhe ate qe i frynte zjarrit, ai organizoi nje levizje te pergjithshme e destinuar per te rrethuar rebelet nga te gjitha anet, dhe per te asgjesuar me nje goditje forcat dhe shpresat e tyre te kota. Eh! Ndertuesi heroik nuk do ta shihte fundin e vepres qe kishte projektuar. Te habitur nga nje sulm rrufe qe gati e vuri Durresin ne duart e rebeleve, koloneli Tomson e shpetoi situaten, fale gatishmerise se heroizmit te tij. Por Shqiperia qe ishte mesuar ta donte si mbrojtesin e saj te madh te rendit publik, tani e qan si nje martir te lirise se saj. Tomsoni vdiq ne fushen e lavdise. Mirenjohja jone, Veneve te Uleta qe na e derguan, admirimi yne popullit qe lind te tille heronj. Tomsoni ishte shume i kenaqur nga besimi i Princit, Sovranit tone te madherishem. Populli shqiptar e donte me nje dhembshuri te thelle. Edhe vete kundershtaret ishin te detyruar ta vleresonin. Qendrimi i tij i shkurter ne Shqiperi ka lene nje gjurme te ndritshme, qe do te na shkelqeje ne rrugen tone te detyres. Shembulli i tij do te rroje gjithmone ne zemrat tona dhe ne historine tone, si nje monument me i perjetshem se bronzi. E perktheu nga frengjishtja: Teuta Hoxha == [input] --> -->Vrasja e Tomsonit, atentat oksidentalizmit te Shqiperise "Koloneli Tomson, bashke me disa krere te vullnetareve, ishte ne Gazhane ku kontrollonte luften. Nje kavajas kalon tinzisht nga Ura e Dajlanit e neper det i afohet Gazhanes, fshihet prapa nje shkoze dhe qe andej qellon dhe vret Tomsonin. Mbas atij, ai vret dhe Ajdin Dragen, te vellane e Nexhipi Drages... Por nje xhandar kurveleshas e dikton kavajsin dhe midis dy paleve fillon nje duel qitjesh i cili merr fund me vrasjen e kavajsit. (Sejfi Vllamasi; "Ballafaqime politike ne Shqiperi" Tirane 1995. f.68) Nga Nasho Jorgaqi Te pakte jane ata te huaj qe kane dhene jeten per ceshtjen shqiptare e akoma me te rralle jane ata qe kane mbetur qofte dhe si episode teper domethenes ne analet e historise sone. Pa dyshim, ketyre te fundit, vendi i nderit i takon kolonelit holandez Tomson. I derguar nga Fuqite e Medha ne fillimet e ndertimit te shtetit te ri shqiptar, ky ushtarak i talentuar dhe njeri me ndergjegje te larte qytetare, u vu teresisht ne sherbim te organizimit te forcave shqiptare te rendit dhe ne mbrojtje te shtetit deri ne vetemohim. Ai eshte kthyer ne shembull lapidar, qe sjell edhe ne kohen tone nje mesazh aktual. Vdekja heroike e kolonel Tomsonit ndodhi ne nje vit te mbrapshte te historise shqiptare, kur ne vend kish shperthyer anarkia dhe elementet fondamentaliste orvateshin ta kthenin Shqiperine prapa. Por forcat patriotike, sado te percara e te befasuara, iu kundervune me cdo cmim dhe arriten t'i mposhtnin armiqte e perparimit. Jo rastesisht ne krah dhe ne krye te tyre luftoi dhe dha jeten koloneli Tomson. Dhe merr nje kuptim simbolik, qe gjaku i heroit holandez u trazua me gjakun shqiptar ne mbrojtje te progresit. Nje deshmi e kohes na e tregon kete: "Koloneli Tomson, bashke me disa krere te vullnetareve, ishte ne Gazhane ku kontrollonte luften. Nje kavajas kalon tinzisht nga Ura e Dajlanit e neper det i afohet Gazhanes, fshihet prapa nje shkoze dhe qe andej qellon dhe vret Tomsonin. Mbas atij, ai vret edhe Ajdin Dragen, te vellane e Nexhipi Drages... Por nje xhandar kurveleshas e dikton kavajsin dhe midis dy paleve fillon nje duel qitjesh, i cili merr fund me vrasjen e kavajsit. (Sejfi Vllamasi; "Ballafaqime politike ne Shqiperi" Tirane 1995. f.68) Vdekja e kolonel Tomsonit ishte nje humbje e rende, po ne te njejten kohe, vetemohimi tij, beri pershtypje te thelle te shqiptaret dhe u shnderrua ne nje mesim per ta. Shtypi i dites dhe kujtimet e bashkekohesve na japin nje pasqyre te sakte te jehones se madhe qe pati kjo ngjarje e paprecedent. Me rastin e percjelljes per ne vendlindje te trupit te kolonel Tomsonit, ne Durres, kryeqyteti aso kohe i Shqiperise, u organizua ne qershor 1914 nje ceremoni mortore ne prani te princ Vidit dhe te elites politike dhe intelektuale te kohes. Faik Konica ishte nder te paret qe kish arritur ne atdhe per t'i dhene mbeshtetje shtetit te ri. Sado qe ai nuk mori ndonje post shteteror, njihej si nje nga lideret politike, qe punoi per nje orientim perendimor te atdheut te tij. Vrasja e kolonel Tomsonit ishte nje atentat qe i behej perpjekjeve per oksidentalizimin e vendit. Faik Konica, si nje nga shtyllat e kesaj politike, ne fjalimin qe do te mbante para martirit te rene ne krye te detyres, do te behej interpret i mendimit me te perparuar shqiptar. Ky fakt dihej, por nuk njihej teksti i fjalimit. Fatmiresisht, ate patem fat ta gjejme ne numrat e koleksionit te rralle te revistes "Zana", qe dilte aso kohe e Durres. Fjalimi i botuar ne numrin e gushtit te vitit 1914 eshte nga faqet me te bukura te oratorise se kursyer te Faik Konices. Duke e shqiptuar me nje frengjishte ekspresive dhe elegante, sic dinte vetem ai, do te shprehte dhimbjen dhe mirenjohjen e shqiptareve ndaj mikut te huaj qe dha jeten per lirine e tyre. Ai do te skaliste portretin burreror te Tomsonit, karakterin e forte, mendjen largpamese, gjakftohtesine, ndjenjen e larte te detyres dhe mbi te gjitha devocionin per nje vend te vogel, sic ishte Shqiperia e sapozgjuar nga roberia disashekullore. Te Tomsoni, ai shikonte "mbrojtesin e madh te rendit publik" per te cilin kish nevoje aq shume vendi, i pushtuar nga anarkia. Fjala e Faik Konices per kolonel Tomsonin, na vjen nga kohe disi te ndjeshme te historise sone. Me shume se sa nje dokument, ai eshte nje mesazh kuptimplote qe ka c'i thote shoqerise sone edhe ne stadin e sotem. SOT --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 3 22:57:52 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 19:57:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Ancient scriptures discovered in Albania are in danger Message-ID: <20011004025752.89258.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> AKTUALITET Rruga zbulon qytetin antik Gjat? punimeve t? rrug?s Quk?s - Qaf?-Than? LIBRAZHD Deri n? fillimin e k?saj jave n? Qaf?-Than? t? rrethit t? Librazhdit dihej q? gjendej nj? shpell?-kish?, por q? e gjith? zona ka qen? nj? qytez? e madhe, k?t? askush nuk e pati th?n? ndonj?her?. Rast?sisht pun?tor?t e nj? firme shqiptare q? punojn? n? nj? gurore t? firm?s turke "Mak-Jol", e cila po rikonstrukton segmentin rrugor Quk?s-Dogan? (Qaf?-Than?), kan? zbuluar ekzistenc?n e nj? qyteze ilire. Firma shqiptare "Adi", n?nkontraktore e "Mak-Jol", e ka ngritur kantierin e saj t? pun?s n? af?rsi t? rrug?s nacionale Tiran?-Kor??, n? vendin e quajtur Qaf?-Than?. N? hap?sir?n ku kryen punimet, kjo firm? ?sht? nj? shk?mb gjigant n? lart?si rreth 950 metra mbi nivelin e detit, ku ekziston nj? shpell? qindravje?are n? brend?si t? s? cil?s jan? vizatuar piktura shum?ngjyr?she me mozaik? t? ndrysh?m dhe mbishkrime t? panum?rta. N? af?rsi t? shpell?s, para pak muajsh ?sht? ngritur nj? gurore e cila furnizon me materiale firm?n turke "Mak Jol". Nga g?rmimet e b?ra rreth masivit shk?mbor, pun?tor?t e ekskavator?ve kan? ndeshur n? gjurm?t e nj? vendbanimi t? hersh?m i cili, me sa duket, mund t'i takoj? koh?s s? ilir?ve. N? thell?sit? e n?ntok?s s? g?rmuar pun?tor?t kan? gjetur en? t? ndryshme prej balte, copa tjegullash, mbeturina t? ndryshme q? tregojn? p?r gjurm? qytet?rimi, si dhe pllaka t? d?mtuara guri me mbishkrime. K?to zbulime t? rast?sishme me karakter arkeologjik duhet t? vler?sohen nga epigrafia, shkenca q? merret me mbishkrime n? gjuh? e alfabete t? ndryshme, q? nuk p?rdoren m? sot. Por t? vetmit q? nuk jan? par? ende n? ato an?, jan? arkeolog?t. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. Yahoo! by Phone. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From e_dusha at hotmail.com Thu Oct 4 12:45:47 2001 From: e_dusha at hotmail.com (e_dusha at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 12:45:47 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Greek anti-americanism Message-ID: Ne pergjigje te artikullit te djeshem te Kathimerini dhe te kesaj levizje sllavo-helenike per te lidhur ceshtjen shqiptare me bin Ladenin dhe terrorrizmin..... This was posted on BBC today..... By Helena Smith in Athens The assault on America, and the prospect of US military reprisals, is tormenting Greece in a way that, once more, highlights the country's uneasy relationship with the West. As the Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou makes an official visit to the US - reassuring Washington of Athens' unstinting support in the fight against terrorism, and touring the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center - his compatriots are expressing their own views by holding rowdy "anti-war" rallies across Greece. >From the northern port city of Salonika to the southern island of Crete, protestors are participating in demonstrations that have increasingly turned into fervent displays of anti-Americanism. Not long after the September 11th attack, some 30,000 Greek soccer fans, attending a Uefa match against Scotland in Athens, jeered through the moment's silence held in honour of the terror victims. The Scots looked on aghast as they then tried to burn the Stars and Stripes in the stands. Fervent protest Organized by the powerful Greek Communist Party (KKE), the protests come less than two years after Greeks expressed similar opposition to Nato's bombing campaign against their co-religionists in Serbia. With the demonstrators frequently shouting "down with Bush, the killer", analysts say the protests are even more strident than they were in 1999. "America will use the excuse of a military reaction to settle all its old scores with poor, third world countries. We must try and stop it", said Kostas Kazakos Greece's leading stage actor addressing one such rally in Athens. Successive opinion polls have showed the Greeks to be, by far, the least sympathetic of all Euro-Alliance nations to post-attack America. They have also been the least willing to take action against countries harbouring terrorists. A poll published in Wednesday's authoritative Athenian newspaper Ta Nea noted that as many as 75% of those Greeks voting for centrist or leftist parties were "anti-American" and opposed to the superpower retaliating against the attack, fearing the quest for justice could turn into one of revenge. Around 58.3% of those who supported right-wing parties were also "anti-American." Echoing a view first expressed by Archbishop Christodoulos, the country's spiritual leader, most said Uncle Sam was now paying the price for Washington's misguided policies, and other sins of the past. In trying to explain the opposition, analysts point to the Greeks' delicate geo-political position as citizens of a Christian buffer state, at the crossroads of the east and west. Historical roots But the Greeks also cite America's support for the ruthless military regime that ruled them between 1967 and 1974 as the root cause of their reaction. In addition, they say, Washington is guilty of "double-standards". The Greeks believe the US has failed to pressure NATO ally Turkey to remove some 35,000 Turkish troops from Cyprus, 27 years after Ankara invaded and seized the island's northern third in response to an Athens engineered coup. The demonstrations, and intense media criticism of US policies in the wake of the suicide bombings, has outraged classics buffs, dyed-in-the wool philhellenes and Greeks living abroad. "What have we done to the Greeks to deserve such antipathy?" Professor Stephen Miller, one of America's most eminent classical archaeologists, railed in a letter published in the the Greek daily Kathimerini. Greek-Americans, who lobby tirelessly on Athens' behalf in Washington, have also been unable to contain their rage. Some have even said they will be canceling plans to attend the 2004 Olympics in the Greek capital. "We condemn and reject the shameless and baseless insults and blatant slander of fellow Greeks in the motherland," snapped the Federation of Greek Associations of Greater New York in a blistering statement. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From BreakingNews at CNN.COM Thu Oct 4 11:08:02 2001 From: BreakingNews at CNN.COM (BreakingNews at CNN.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:08:02 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CNN Breaking News Message-ID: <200110041508.LAA25732@freedonia.turner.com> BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com -- Russian plane may have been accidentally shot down during Ukrainian military exercise, U.S. sources tell CNN. Watch CNN or log on to CNN.com/AOL Keyword: CNN for the latest news. ********************************************************************** Watch CNN for the latest developments in America's New War including morning updates with Paula Zahn and an in-depth special each weeknight at 10 p.m. ET with Aaron Brown ********************************************************************** To UNSUBSCRIBE or SUBSCRIBE to any CNN E-MAIL service visit: http://www.CNN.com/EMAIL (c) 2001 Cable News Network, Inc. An AOL Time Warner Company CNN Interactive email id:25700110802253280 From kruja at fas.harvard.edu Thu Oct 4 15:42:07 2001 From: kruja at fas.harvard.edu (eriola) Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 15:42:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] read me Message-ID: someone subscribed albsa to CNN breaking news. can you please unsubscribe? we're getting a lot unwanted e-mail from CNN, plus since messages are normally reviewed once a day, it's no longer "breaking news" when if it is delievered. thank you. From naac at naac.org Thu Oct 4 19:22:28 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council) Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 19:22:28 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NAAC Letter to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Message-ID: <007b01c14d2b$70db7e90$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 Tel: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org _____________________________________ For Your Information October 3, 2001 The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator: We are writing to you regarding your recent comments where you cited America's defense of "Muslims" in Kosova as evidence that the US is not at war with Islam. While we agree with the latter part of your statement, we would like to point out that Albanians see themselves first and foremost as Albanians. In Kosova and worldwide, there are Albanians who are Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim. Therefore, Albanians do not identify themselves with any religion but by their ethnicity. America went to war to save all of the people of Kosova, and ultimately the people of Serbia as well, from the genocidal policies of Slobodan Milosevic, without regard to religion. Similarly, our war now against terrorists has nothing to do whatsoever with religion. Our own tolerant practices here at home and our military and humanitarian efforts abroad more than prove that point. We continue to greatly appreciate your strong support of freedom and justice in the Balkans and throughout the world. The over 200,000 Albanian-Americans in New York are proud to have you as their senator. We stand ready to assist you and our government in whatever way necessary to end the threat of terrorism on our soil and to bring to justice those murderers who committed the heinous acts violence on September 11th. Sincerely, Ilir Zherka President -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From naac at naac.org Fri Oct 5 16:51:45 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 16:51:45 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] FYI-Letter to NAAC Message-ID: <006c01c14ddf$8dc55490$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 Tel: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ____________________________________________ For Your Information Dear Friends, We would like to share with you a letter we received from a member of our community expressing his oppinions on how NAAC's work benefits Albanians in the US and the Balkans and urging Albanian-American organizations to work together for the common good of our community. I nderuar z. Zherka, m? ndjeni q? shfryt?zoj emrin tuaj t' i drejtohem t?r? K?shillit Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan, mir?po m? lejoni t'ju b?j me dije q? n? fillim se k?t? e b?j p?r arsye formale, ngase ju jeni presidenti i tij, dhe p?r arsyen se jam i bindur se duke ju drejtuar juve i drejtohem nj?rit nd?r aktivist?t m? t? gjithansh?m t? organizat?s suaj. I nderuar z. Zherka, p?rpara se t? filloj t? p?rcjell p?rkrahjen time dhe disa mendime p?r K?shillin Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan dua t' ju b?j me dije se poashtu si p?r menyr?n e adresimit edhe p?r p?rcaktimin tim t' ju drejtohem me nj? let?r t? hapur kam dy arsye. E para- disa shkrime n? Internet dhe fjal? aty-k?tu t? cilat tentojn? q? nj? pjes? t? an?tar?sis? suaj ta baltosin me thashetheme dhe bile, n? raste ekstreme, edhe ta kualifikojn? si komuniste (!). Dhe e dyta- obligimi im t' ju p?rcjell amanetin e vazhdimit t? pun?s derisa t? realizohet ?ndrra e mija bashkluft?tar?ve t? mi t? U?K-s? q? ran? t? shohin kombin shqiptar t? lir? dhe n? paqe. Ju lus q? t? m? kuptoni drejt dhe faktin tim t? t? qenit luft?tar i U?K-s? t' mos e merrni si nj? ngritje t? flamurit t? meritave t? shok?ve t? mi dhe m? s?pakut t? miat. Ju lus juve dhe lexuesin potencial t? k?saj letre, (e ceka m? lart se kjo ?sht? nj? let?r e hapur dhe mund ta shp?rndani edhe p?r an?tar?sin? tuaj edhe p?r opinionin), q? kjo let?r t' mos keqp?rdoret, por t? merret si nj? thirrje p?r bashkveprim dhe bashkpunim. Para s? gjithash d?shiroj t? filloj me arsyen e par?, at? t? p?rlloqitjes dhe kualifikimit t? disa an?tar?ve t? K?shillit Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan dhe n? disa raste madje edhe si komunist?(!). ?sht? nj? arsye dhe nj? insinuat?, q?, sipas mendimit tim, tregon shum? p?r esenc?n e problemit t? mosbashkpunimit dhe divergjencave t? shumta nd?rshqiptare. ?sht? nj? ??shtje, q? automatikisht detyron t? kthehesh te e kaluara jon? dhe, q?, menj?her?, m? lejon t? shpreh mendimin tim decidiv se komunizmi ka qen? murtaja m? e r?nd? q? kombi yn? megjithat? arriti ta mbijetoj?. Mendim ky, i cili, shpresoj, nuk do t'i jep material opozuesit t? mundsh?m t? mendimeve t? mia t? m? qes? edhe mua n? taborrin e nj?jt? t? diskualifikimeve si ato ndaj juve. Ne, shqiptar?t, kemi pasur dhe ende, pak m? leht?sisht, kemi fatin ( nuk them as t? mir? as t? keq ) t? kemi qen? dhe ende t? jemi n? nj? pozit? gjeografike ku shpesh her? ?sht? dhe vazhdon t? nd?rthuret kufiri i dy pllakave tektonike nd?r m? t? m?dhat? t? civilizimeve njer?zore- Orientit dhe Oksidentit. Koha e deritashme historike kryesisht ka qene e ashp?r me ne dhe zhvillimet e ngjarjeve gati gjithmon? kan? qen? n? disfavorin ton?. Sidoqoft?, p?rkund?r k?saj vrazhd?sie, e cila zakonisht i p?rcjell t? gjitha grupet e vogla njer?zore, shqiptar?t arrit?n t? mbijetojn? dhe kur ishin para ose krejt af?r finalizimit t? tyre si komb i formuar, tragjedia m? e madhe ndodhi dhe komunist?t mor?n fatin ton? n? dor?. Pas pes?dhjet? vitesh shkat?rrimesh dhe gati ?b?rjeje historike, kombi shqiptar arriti t? ?lirohet, por jo edhe t? krijoj? nj? sistem t? qart? t? t? trajtuarit t? kaluar?s dhe nj? sistem t? qart? t? drejtimit q? do t? merrte. Mendimi im gjeneral pse ndodhi k?shtu ?sht? shum? i thjesht?: p?rcaktimi jon? gjithmon? ka qen?, ashtu si? vazhdon t? jet?, bota p?rendimore, mir?po faktor?t e fuqis? dhe injoranca e nj? pjese t? shqiptar?ve, q? historikisht n? kontinuitet bashkpunuan me k?ta faktor? p?r fatin ton? t? keq na rreshtuan n? an?n e Orientit dhe Lindjes komuniste. K?shtu shqiptar?t t? ndar?, pa nj? tradit? historike t? vet?dijes komb?tare dhe qytetare plot?sisht t? qart? dhe t? ravij?zuar, nj? dit?, le t? pranohet sinqerisht, u zgjuan dhe filluan t? shohin se ?ndrra e tyre ishte m? af?r se kurr? t? realizohej, dhe si ndodh zakonisht n? t? k?tilla raste, ata p?r nj? koh?, e cila vazhdon me trende prapakthyese t? koh?paskohshme edhe sot, t? pam?suar me k?t?, sikur u shtang?n. Natyrisht, kur progresi shtanget, regresi hidhet n? valle dhe mundohet t? marr? kryet e valles. Kjo ndodhi edhe me shqiptar?t dhe me shkel?sit e tyre nga vet? soji jon? t? koh?ve m? t? fundit, respektivisht me komunist?t shqiptar? n? trojet tona etnike. Ata, duke pas? pasur mund?si m? t? m?dha t? njohin bot?n, t? marrin edukim m? t? lart? dhe t? m?sojn? t?r? dreqnit? e manipulimit t? pushtetit dhe t? njer?zve, p?r nj? cast, t? ngaz?llyer, filluan t? shohin ardhjen e dit?s s? tyre edhe nj? here dhe duke ndier ende dhimbjen q? u kishte shkaktuar goditja furioze e zgjimit komb?tar n? t?r? hap?sir?n komb?tare dhe tronditja e trendeve t? reja historike, vendos?n q? k?saj radhe t? punojn? me metoda t? tjera t? n?ndheshme dhe deri diku ia arrit?n q?llimit. Kjo, m? duket mua, ?sht? nj? fakt i cili q?ndron i ftoht? dhe mosp?rfill?s mbi gjendjen e sotme t? kombit shqiptar. ?sht? nj? fakt, i cili padyshim se ?sht? i dhimbsh?m, por un? nuk besoj se jo edhe i fuqish?m mjaft sa t? na ndal? nga dalja n? rrug?n e liris? dhe prosperitetit. Pra kontinualiteti historik ?sht? i till? ?far? ?sht? dhe p?rkund?r dhimbjeve, padrejt?sive dhe prapambeturis? q? ka shkaktuar, sipas mendimit tim, ai megjithat?, sot, nuk do t? guxonte t? na ndalte t? ecim p?rpara. Por, n? t? nj?jt?n koh?, n?se nuk nxjerrim m?simet nga e kaluara dhe nuk e konfrontojm? at? me projektet e t? ardhmes, koha q? po vjen p?r shqiptar?t si njer?z nuk t? l? t? jesh i pabrenga. Sido q? t? jet?, shfryt?zoj rastin t? b?j t? njohur se jam plot?sisht i vet?dijsh?m q? forma e shkrimit t? letrave ?sht? nj? form? q? shtyen n? p?rdorimin e nj? gjuhe t? ngarkuar, e cila mund t? manipuloj? me emocionin e lexuesit dhe t? largoj v?mendjen e tij nga shkarjet faktike dhe argumentative, prandaj dua te ndalem te disa nga p?rfaq?suesit, nd?r m? eminent?t e K?shillit Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan, sot, dhe t? cil?t disa i njoh edhe personalisht, e mbase mund t'i quaj edhe miq, dhe disa q? u njihet veprimtaria edhe patriotike edhe konkrete p?r shqiptar?t. Poashtu, n? rast se kjo mund t? fus? n? ndonj? konfuzion, dua bot?risht t? them se miq?sia dhe simpatia nuk kam lejuar kurr? t? m? influencojne q? t? mos kritikoj ose p?rkrah si miqt? ashtu edhe kontribuesit e ??shtjes shqiptare. Komuniteti shqiptaro amerikan deri me r?nien e komunizmit ?sht? ushqyer me pjestar? t? rinj nga tokat tona etnike kryesisht me individ? dhe familje t? t?ra q? u detyruan t? l?n? vatrat e tyre mu p?r shkak t? mospajtimit dhe kund?rshtimit t? tyre me komunizmin. Gjeneratat e para, p?rpara val?s s? t? ikurve nga komunizmi, t? vendosur n? demokracin? amerikane t? fundshekullit XIX-t? ose t? fillimshekullit t? XX-t?, besim dhe angazhim t? vet?m kan? pasur formimin e kombit dhe shtetit shqiptar. N?se merret kjo rjedh? historike si bazament gjeneral, kujtoj se jo shum? v?shtir?, mund t? vihet te konkluzioni se nuk ?sht? e mundur q? shumica, gati absolute, e komunitetit shqiptaro amerikan mund t? kundrohet nga cilido k?nd n? lidhje me ?far?do qoft? komunizmi apo lloji tjet?r t? ngjash?m ideologjik shum? fatkeq p?r shqiptar?t. N? harmoni me k?t?, ?sht? diletante, qesharake dhe joserioze q? udh?heq?s dhe aktivist? t? K?shillit Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan t? venerohen n? k?t? hije. Si mund t? quheni komunist i ri, i sot?m ose i djesh?m, ju z. Zherka, bir i nj? emigranti patriot dhe i ikur nga komunizmi, bir i nj? emigranti q? t?r? jet?n e vet ia ka dedikuar shqiptar?ve, dhe nj?koh?sisht ish pjestar i administrat?s amerikane, shetit m? antikomunist n? bot?? Si mund t? hidhet n? uj?ra t? tilla nj? shqiptar i kalibrit t? Ekrem Bardh?s, njeri i cili me aft?sit? e tij arriti t'i ik? ferrit komunist shqiptar dhe n? SHBA t? krijoj? principat?n e tij t? prosperitetit personal, familjar dhe n? fund t? kontriboj? aq shum? duke u b?r? botuesi i nj? gazete meritore si Illyria? Si ?sht? e mundur q? njer?z intelektual e me kualitete shkencore si Dr. Sami Repishti, Dr. George Nashe ose Drita Ivanaj t? quhen t? k?till? apo t? atill?, q? ?do dit? t? jet?s s? tyre e kalojn? duke menduar dhe b?r? di?ka p?r shqiptar?t? Si ?sht? e mundur q? yje t? biznesit amerikan si Richard Lukaj, ose v?llez?rit Kolaj, ose Tush Nikollaj, ose Cafo Boga, ose Ilirjan Rusi, ose Dino Erbeli, ose Bruno Selimaj, ose shpresat e reja si Stefan Kochi, Etrita Ibroci apo Vjollca Prroni dhe me, siguri, qindra t? tjer? aktivist? t? quhen komunist?? Kur t? gjith? operojn? dhe sukseset e tyre i kan? arritur dhe vazhdojn? t'i realizojn? n? tok?n e liris? dhe demokracis? amerikane? E kam betonuar qart? n? fillim se un? shpresoj shum? fuqish?m q? letra ime nuk do t? keqp?rdoret, por m? duket se ?sht? e r?nd?sishme q? te inicohen debate publike konstruktive dhe kur flasim duhet t? rrim? shtremb?r dhe t? flasim drejt, dhe ?'?sht? edhe m? e r?nd?sishme duhet t? pyesim- ?' kemi b?r? ose ?'b?jm? ne vet?? Sipas mendimit tim sa i p?rket p?rkat?sis? dhe identitetit komb?tar kjo vet?dije mund t? jet? dy llojesh. Ajo mund t? jet? atdhedashuri intuitive, pra e ngulitur n? vet?dijen ton? t? p?rgjithshme nga e v?rteta e ekzistimit t? saj si nj? fakt p?rkund?r ndoshta tentimit ta m?njanojm?, dhe atdhedashuri e vet?dijshme, e pranuar si karakterstik? e personalitetit t? nj? njeriu. Kjo ??shtje ?sht? shum? e thell? dhe prandaj nuk do t? ndalem t? diskutoj p?r t? m? shum?, mir?po q? t? b?j q?llimin tim m? t? kthjell?t po marr si shembull dy gjigant? t? kultur?s njer?zore: Sokrati dhe Johann Wolfgang Goethe, nj?ri filozof dhe tjetri nj? nd?r poet?t m? erudite t? bot?s. Sokrati thoshte se nuk ishte as athinas, as grek, por qytetar i bot?s. Goethe deklaronte t? nj?jt?n gj?, duke m?njanuar identitetin e tij gjerman p?r at? njer?zor universal. Mir?po as nj?ri e as tjetri nuk l?shuan vendlindjen e tyre dhe nuk krijuan n? gjuh? tjera p?rpos t? tyreve. ?far? dua t? them me k?t?? N? fakt, me k?t?, dua t? them se shqiptar?t shpesh her? jan? t? prir? t? mendojn? se duke iu larguar identitetit arrijn? t? b?hen qytetar? t? atdheut tone t? p?rbashk?t- bot?s s? t?r?. Porse n? qoft? se bota ?sht? atdheu i madh i ?do njeriu t? men?ur, si thoshte Goethe dhe si me shumbullin e tij i kontribonte p?rmir?simit t? k?tij atdheu nga atdheu i tij i vog?l, Gjermania, edhe ne, duke qen? produkt i kushteve specifike, mund t? kontribojm? m? shum? duke u p?rqendruar n? nj? kultur?, gjuh? ose regjion dhe pse kjo do t? duhej t? ishte di?ka m?katare?! Bota ?sht? e pasur pik?risht p?r shkak t? diversitetit t? saj dhe p?rgjegj?sive dhe t? drejtave respketive q? ?do komponent? e k?tij diversiteti i ka ose i tenton. N? k?t? drejtim un? e shoh edhe pun?n dhe kontributin e K?shillit Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan dhe derisa ai vazhdon t? q?ndroj? n? k?ta binar? do ta p?rkrah deri n? fund. K?shilli Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan u themelua me 1996, plot 100 vjet pas institucionit kulturo- historik shqiptar "Albania" t? Faik Konic?s. E v?rteta e hidhur ?sht? se edhe sot disa gj?ra tonat jan? si n? koh?n e Konic?s, k?tij madh?shtori t? historis? son?. Trojet prej nga njer?zit shqiptar? vijn? ende jan? jostabile, ende jan? t? pazhvilluara, ende jan? n? konflikte. Ende nevojitin ndihma p?r f?mij?, p?r viktima t? luftrave, p?r t? d?buar, p?r t? demoralizuar, p?r shpres?humbur, por edhe p?r besues se e ardhmja do t? b?het m? e mire p?r t? gjith?. Un? mendoj se K?shilli Kombetar Shqiptaro Amerikan, dhe jo vet?m ky, ka kontribuar nj? pjes? t? madhe q? gj?rat t? p?rmir?sohen. Un? mendoj se kjo organizat? ka potencialin e nj? ?erdheje q? mund t? jap? produkte shum? lukrative p?r t? ardhmen dhe duke p?rve??suar posa??risht profesionalitetin e saj dhe t? an?tar?ve t? saj do t? duhej t? p?rkrahej dhe ndihmohet nga ?do njeri. Mu ashtu si? duhet t? p?rkrahen dhe ndihmohen edhe organizatat e tjera t? komunitetit. Nuk dua t? hyj n? rreshtim t? aktiviteteve t? shumta t? K?shillit Kom?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan sepse mendoj se ato nevojisin nj? hap?sir? t? madhe qe fillon me ndihm?n p?r f?mij?t, k?to krijesa m? delikatet dhe t? pastrat, dhe zgjerohet deri te ndihma e formimit t? kuadrove t? reja nga tokat tona. P?rpara se t? vie te fundi i k?saj letre dhe te p?rshkrimi i amanetit t? d?shmor?ve t? U?K-s?, k?saj krijese t? madhe t? p?rpjekjeve tona p?r liri, paqe dhe p?rparim, d?shiroj t? potencoj edhe nj? argument t? r?nd?sish?m. Un? mendoj se duke kualifikuar patriot?t dhe kontribuesit e ??shtjes shqiptare si komunist? ose duke i dekurajuar ata p?rmes diskualifikimeve kuturu njeriu m? s? shumti ?on uj? pik?risht n? mullirin e pakic?s s? zez? komuniste dhe antishqiptare, e cila, duhet ta pranojm?, se diku-diku ?sht? etabluar e fuqishme dhe me dinak?ri luan loj?n m? t? zez? t? ndalimit t? shkuarjes p?rpara t? shqiptar?ve. Mir?po un? pyes: A nuk ?sht? kjo edhe nj? arsye m? shum? q? t? bashkohemi? Gjithashtu, un? mendoj se rruga e vetme q? na ka mbetur ?sht? rruga e nj? konzensusi komb?tar i cili mund t? arrihet vet?m perms pun?s s? madhe, konkrete dhe t? sinqert?. N? zhvillimet shoq?rore nganj?her? ?sht? e pamundur t? vazhdohet rruga e barazimit t? krimit me d?nimin. Ky rreth vicioz duhet t? k?putet dhe njer?zit duhet t? shikojn? kah e ardhmja. Fatkeq?sisht nganj?her? d?nimi i vet?m t? cilin kriminel?t e fuqis? pushtetore e marrin ?sht? d?nimi nga historia. ?sht? mendimi im se K?shilli Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan nuk mund t? izolohet nga rrjedhat n? trojet shqiptare dhe por ai edhe nuk mund t? p?rcaktoj? ato direkt. Me k?t? rast dua t? marr si shembull reagimin e nj? shqiptari ndaj nj? interviste tuaj?n n? kanalin nacional PBS ku ju fol?t me fjal?t m? t? mira p?r Shqip?rin?. A thua ?far? ka dashur ky person kur ju sulmoi juve p?r k?t?? Q? ju t? filloni t? shani Shqip?rin? p?r shkak t? disa dallkauk?ve? Q? t? frik?soni investor?t potencial? Q? p?r inat t? vjehrr?s t? vrisnit krijes?n tone- Shqip?rin?? I nderuar z. Zherka, T? gjith? bashkluft?tar?t e mi dit?t q? i kemi kaluar n? frontin e luft?s i kemi pasur m? t? lehta sepse e kemi ditur se n? SHBA kemi shqiptar?t tjer? q? luftonin si ne vet?m se n? nj? front tjet?r. T? gjith? e kemi ditur se fitorja arrihet duke bashkrenditur aktivitetet dhe pun?n. Merreni pa rezerve p?rkrahjen time n? emrin edhe t? atyre q? ran? se t? gjith? qen? t? vet?dijsh?m se pas luft?s q? t? ruhet fitorja do t? nevojitet dija dhe profesionaliteti. K?shilli Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan ?sht? n? rrug? t? drejt? dhe i posedon t? dyja k?to- edhe dijen edhe profesionalitetin. Poashtu dua t' ju p?rkujtoj se p?rpos k?tyre keni edhe p?rgjegj?si q? t? b?ni gjith?ka p?r t? mir?n e shqiptar?ve. K?tu n? SHBA duhet q? komuniteti t? ket? nj? z? q? kumbon ku duhet dhe duhet q? sa m? shpejt? t'i dalloj? matrapaz?t dhe profesionist?t dhe gjithashtu duhet q? sa m? shpejt? t? ndaloj? humbjen e energjis? me nj?ri-tjetrin dhe ta orientoj? at? n? drejtim t? p?rpjekjeve t? p?rbashk?ta n? t? mir? t? nje?zve ton?. Sa i p?rket trojeve tona dhe institucioneve atje ?sht? n? dor?n e shqiptar?ve q? t? zgjedhin dhe t? mbajn? n? shpin? njer?z q? ata ose i legjitimojn? ose i lejojn? q? n? m?nyr? jolegjitime t? vetlegjitimohen. K?shilli Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan ?sht? nj? organizat? formale e para e komunitetit ton? n? SHBA. Mendoj se organizata primare tradicionale kemi pasur dhe kemi mjaft. ?far? na duhet sot jan? organizata q? b?jn? pun? dhe jo fjal?. ?far? na duhet sot jan? individ? q? n?se shohin se di?ka nuk shkon n? rregull nuk flasin por inkuadrohen dhe n?se e nevojshme ndihmojn? q? t? metat t? p?rmir?sohen. K?tu dua t' ju p?rkujtoj gjith? atyre q? prodhojn? fjal? n? vend t? konstruktivizmit se po t? merrnim nga nj? dollar p?r ?do fjal? q? shkruhet n? em?r t? kriticizmit, Shoqata Atlantiku, organizata e ish ushtar?ve t? Batalionit Atlantiku, nuk do t? kishte d?rguar n? Akademin? Ushtarake The Citadel vet?m dy kadet?, por s?pakut dhjet? si fjala bie Kroacia. Dhe sigurisht se edhe K?shilli Komb?tar Shqiptaro Amerikan do t? kishte b?r? shum? m? shum?. M? duket se ka ardhur koha q? t? pushojm? d?rd?llitjet sepse do t? b?hemi qesharak? dhe historia do t? na d?noj? p?r ?do vones? dhe krijim t? vonesave. Ju uroj pun? t? mbar? dhe shpreh besim t? madh se ardhm?ria ?sht? n? an?n tuaj. Ju lus q? t? vazhdoni pun?n dhe natyrisht t? afroni sa m? shum? aktivist?. PUNONI BASHK? P?R SHQIP?RIN?! Ky ?sht? amaneti i shok?ve t? mi t? vrar? p?r t? nj?jt?n ??shtje p?r t? cil?n ata dhan? jetrat e tyre, p?r t? nj?jt?n ??shtje p?r t? cil?n ju punoni dhe p?r t? nj?jten ??shtje p?r t? cil?n angazhohen ose pretendojn? t? angazhohen edhe ata q? kritikojn? dhe diskualifikojn?. Komuniteti shqiptaro amerikan, jam i bindur, do t? dij? t? b?het me njer?zit q? p?rfaq?sojn? interesat e tij dhe t? bashkatdhetar?ve t? tyre. Suksese! Sinqerisht i juaji, Uk Lushi -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From naac at naac.org Fri Oct 5 19:11:31 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 19:11:31 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NAAC Michigan Chapter is Formed - Levin, Bonior, and Walker to Attend Clark Dinner Message-ID: <00eb01c14df3$1f749410$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 Telephone: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: October 4, 2001 Contact: Sokol Shtylla (202) 466-6900 Press Release NAAC Michigan Chapter is Formed Levin, Bonior, and Walker to Attend Clark Dinner Washington DC, October 4, 2001 - The National Albanian American Council issued the following statement announcing the creation of the Michigan Chapter of the organization and officials attending dinner honoring General Wesley Clark in Michigan. The National Albanian American Council is proud to announce the formation of its Michigan Chapter. Organized by a group of long-standing supporters of NAAC and activists of the Albanian-American community, the Chapter will play a significant leadership role in Michigan and nationwide. "The Michigan Chapter will allow more members of our community to work through NAAC to better the lives of people in the Balkans and here in the U.S.," said Richard Lukaj, Chairman of the NAAC Board of Trustees. "Furthermore, the creation of the Michigan Chapter attests to the fact that NAAC is a growing organization with considerable community support." The NAAC Michigan Chapter will be led by a group of successful lawyers, businessmen, academics, and professionals who have long played an active role among the Albanian-American community of Michigan. The Board of Directors will include Paul Lulgjuraj, Chairman, Prenke Ivezaj, Vice-Chairman, Rudy Laze, Treasurer, Luke Palushaj, Secretary, Fatmir Ademi, Ekrem Bardha, Gjevalin Gegaj, Gjergj Gjetaj, Tom Gjokaj, Gjergj Ivezaj, Ndua Ivezaj, Rrok Lulgjuraj, Agron Rumi, Shaban Semsedini, and Safet Stafaj. Thanking the Board of Directors for selecting him as a Chairman, Palok Lulgjuraj expressed the Chapter's goal of bringing the community together to make a difference for the Albanian people. "We look forward to working with NAAC and with the other chapters in strengthening the voice of Albanians throughout the U.S.," said Lulgjuraj. The first event organized by the Michigan Chapter will be a dinner honoring General Wesley Clark, the NATO Commander who led the war for the liberation of Kosova in 1999. Joining Albanian-Americans in honoring General Clark will also be Senator Carl Levin, Congressman David Bonior, and Ambassador William Walker. The dinner will take place Friday, October 12, at the Royalty House in Warren, Michigan. The National Albanian American Council ("NAAC") is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for Albanians and promoting peace and economic development in the Balkans by fostering democratic policy, promoting respect for human rights, and conducting educational and developmental programs. The following are short biographies of the Board of Directors of the NAAC Michigan Chapter: Palok Lulgjuraj, Chairman, earned his BA in History and Political Science and Law Degree in from the Univeristy of Detroit. Mr. Lulgjuraj is an Attorney at Law and is admitted to practice law in the state of Michigan, the U.S. District Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Lulgjuraj has been involved with NAAC over the last couple of years. Dr. Prenke Ivezaj, Vice-Chairman, earned his BA from the University of Prishtina. After immigrating to the U.S., Dr. Ivezaj attended the Eastern Michigan University, where he received Masters of Arts followed by a secondary teaching certificate in science and social studies. He continued his studies at Wayne State University and received a Bilingual Endorsement and Ed.D in Curriculum and Instruction. He currently administers, teaches, coordinates, and develops new ideas that are suitable and achievable for Farmington Public School. Rudy Laze, Treasurer, is a member of the American Institute of Architects. He has been a successful architect in Albania and in the U.S. Mr. Laze earned a Masters in Architecture at Lawrence Technical University in Southfield, Michigan in 1999. He currently works for Spucky and Vitale Architects in Royal Oak, Michigan. Mr. Laze has been a member of NAAC since May 2000. Luke Palushaj, Secretary, came to the U.S 30 years ago. Mr. Palushaj is a Senior Art Director at Campbell Eweld Advertising. He has received several national awards in art and design. Mr. Palushaj earned Bachelor's degree from the Center for Creative Studies, College of Art and Design in Detroit. He is an active member of the Albanian community in Detroit. Fatmir Ademi is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University where received his BA in Business Management. He has been a successful businessman and owner of several restaurants and bars in the Detroit area. Mr. Ademi has been a member of NAAC for over three years now. He is also on the Board of the Teqe Baktashiane in Detroit and a member of the Albanian American National Organization. Ekrem Bardha is a prominent leader of the Albanian-American community. He was one of the Co-Founders of NAAC and has served as Vice-President for the organization. Mr. Bardha is a successful entrepreneur. He is also the owner and publisher of Illyria, a leading newspaper of the Albanian-American community. Gjevalin Gegaj is one of the first members of the Board of Trustees of NAAC. He is a successful businessman and long time activist in the Albanian-American community. Gjergj Gjetaj received his Law Degree in Prishtina and worked as a public administration official for 18 years Kosova. In December 1995, Mr. Gjetaj came as a refugee to the U.S. and has recently received political asylum. He is a restaurant owner in Detroit. Tom Gjokaj was born in Tuz, Podgorica and came to the United States in 1983. He is the owner of a painting company in Michigan. Mr. Gjikaj has been a member of NAAC for the past 5 years. He has been a member of the Democratic League for 10 years and is supportive of the Kosovar independence movement, and a great activist in the Detroit Albanian community. Gjergj Ivezaj is the owner of a painting company and a successful businessman in the community. He earned his BA in History from the University of Prishtina. Mr. Ivezaj has been member of LDK (Democratic League of Kosova) since 1990 and President of the LDK Detroit chapter since 1996 till present. He has been member of NAAC for the past two years. Ndua Ivezaj was born in Malesia, Montenegro and immigrated to the United States at the age of 2. He graduated from Oakland University with a degree in Computer Engineering in 1986. Mr. Ivezaj worked as an engineer for General Motors for 10 years and has been a Senior Systems engineer for Daimler Chrysler for the last 4 years. He has been an active member of the Albanian community since 1984. Rrok Lulgjuraj is a successful real estate businessman in Michigan. He has been active in the Albanian Community in Detroit for the past ten years. Agron Rumi graduated from the University of Tirana with a BA in Oil and Gas Research. Mr. Rumi was very active in Albanian politics until he moved to the United States a year ago. He is now an active member of the Albanian-American community in Michigan. Shaban Semsedini is a professor at Hamtramck High School. He has been a member of LDK since 1990. Mr. Semsedini is also the President of the Teqe Bekteshiane in Michigan. He has been a member of NAAC for the past two years. Mr. Semsedini received his BA in English from the University of Prishtina and his MA in English in Detroit. He is an active member of the Albanian community in Detroit. Safet Stafaj is a graduate of the Police Academy in Tirana. Afterwards, he received his Law Degree from the University of Tirana. Mr. Stafaj was Director of the General Police Department in Tirana from 1992 till 1994. From 1994 till 1997 he served as the Albanian Ambassador to Turkey. He came to the United States in 1997. ### -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From agron at rcn.com Fri Oct 5 21:05:09 2001 From: agron at rcn.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 21:05:09 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] US-Albania Extradition Treaty in Effect Message-ID: <000a01c14e02$f2175100$111806d1@law.harvard.edu> Daily News (New York) October 5, 2001, Friday SPORTS FINAL REPLATE EDITION NEWS; Pg. 44 '33 PACT HELPS U.S. NAB SLAY SUSPECT BY BARBARA ROSS DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Authorities dusted off a long-forgotten extradition treaty to nab an Albanian wanted in the 1997 murder of a college student in the East Village. Bernando Martinaj, 24, the prime suspect in the fatal stabbing of Bojan Radulovic, a student at New York Institute of Technology, was ordered held without bail yesterday after he was returned to the U.S. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Martinaj was extradited under terms of a 1933 agreement signed with Albania during the administration of then-President Franklin Roosevelt. Officials said Radulovic, a 25-year-old Long Islander, was in a Third Ave. bar with friends when one of his pals bumped into Martinaj, who was partying there with his own group. Words were exchanged as the two groups left the bar and headed to a pizza parlor on Third Ave. near 12th St. As Martinaj left the pizzeria, officials said, he drew a knife and stabbed Radulovic as well as a friend who came to Radulovic's aid. Radulovic died of his wounds. The second victim survived. NYPD Detective Peter Salerno said Martinaj, who had been living with his family in Brooklyn, was quickly identified by a witness, but he vanished after the stabbing. Martinaj fled first to New Jersey, then to Connecticut and San Diego before landing in his native Albania, Salerno said. Interpol, the international police agency, found Martinaj late last year, after he was arrested in Albania on charges of possessing drugs, ammunition and forged documents. Martinaj's father, Sadik, said his son is innocent and that prosecutors are using the wrong name. He said his son's real name is Bernard Martini. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 7 18:58:28 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2001 16:58:28 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] envirez-vous Message-ID: I think this is a particularly apt prose poem at THIS TIME for most global-villagers(or at anytime--for me). ---- Charles Baudelaire Envirez-Vous Il faut etre toujours ivre. Tout est la: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos epaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans treve. Mais de quoi? De vin, de poesie ou de vertu, a votre guise. Mais envirez-vous. Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fosse, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous reveillez, l'ivresse deja diminuee ou disparue, demandez au vent, a la vague, a l'etoile, a l'oiseau, a l'horloge, a tout ce qui fuit, a tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; ete le vent, la vague, l'etoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vour repondont:<> ----- Get Drunk! One should always be drunk. It is all there: it is the only question. So as not to feel the horrible burden of Time that breaks your shoulders and bows you down to the ground, you should get drunk unceasingly. But with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the gloomy solitude of your room, you are waking up, drunkenness already diminished or missing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will respond: "It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without ceasing! With wine, with poetry or with virture, as you please. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From mentor at alb-net.com Sun Oct 7 14:34:32 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 14:34:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] [AMCC-News] Macedonians accused of war crimes: Call for Hague to investigate role of hardline interior minister Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>> PLEASE READ & DISTRIBUTE FURTHER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human Rights Violations in Macedonia http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/humanrights.htm Macedonian police brutality, abuse and massacres http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/abuse_violence.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- 'The pan-European group wants the tribunal to investigate Mr Boskovski for "grave violations of the Geneva convention, violations of the laws governing wars and crimes against humanity".' 'ECHAC says the police, army and paramilitary groups have been using the war with the NLA as an excuse to launch a systematic campaign to force ethnic Albanians out of the country.' 'At the same time harassment of Albanians around Macedonia was stepped up, with kidnappings, killings and torture, it claims. It says the campaign reached its peak when a majority of ethnic Albanian civilians were driven out of the southern town of Manastir and their homes and businesses damaged.' http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,564266,00.html Macedonians accused of war crimes Call for Hague to investigate role of hardline interior minister Giles Tremlett in Madrid and Nick Wood Saturday October 6, 2001 The Guardian The Hague tribunal will next week be sent a list of alleged war crimes committed by the Macedonian army and police, accompanied by a request that it investigate the hardline interior minister, Ljube Boskovski. The chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, will receive at least two dozen eyewitness accounts of alleged killings, kidnappings, torture and the systematic destruction of mosques gathered by the European Council of Humanity, Action and Cooperation (ECHAC), which carried out similar work in Kosovo and East Timor. The pan-European group wants the tribunal to investigate Mr Boskovski for "grave violations of the Geneva convention, violations of the laws governing wars and crimes against humanity". The allegations surfaced as Mr Boskovski comes under criticism from former fighters of the recently disbanded National Liberation Army (NLA) for the failure of the government in Skopje to abide by an August peace deal to end six months of conflict. Macedonian security forces pulled back from positions close to the old frontline with the NLA yesterday, amid fierce international criticism. Parliament has failed to ratify the deal or to provide an amnesty for NLA fighters, as promised. Ratification is already 12 days behind schedule, and there appears little chance of most MPs finding the time, or inclination, to pass such a measure soon. The EU external affairs commissioner, Chris Patten, visited Skopje this week to rebuke the Macedonian regime and announced that a donors' conference scheduled for October 15 was being postponed. While alleged NLA crimes received coverage earlier this year, the ECHAC report contains the first claims of widespread abuses by the army and police. Human Rights Watch, a US group, has also denounced the killing of six ethnic Albanian civilians in Ljuboten, five miles north of Skopje, days before the ceasefire was signed. Western officials have said that an amnesty will allow indictments from the Hague to be brought against members of the Macedonian security forces and the NLA. "If peace in Macedonia is going to endure, the perpetrators of serious violations on both sides must be brought to justice," said Elizabeth Andersen, the executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. ECHAC says the police, army and paramilitary groups have been using the war with the NLA as an excuse to launch a systematic campaign to force ethnic Albanians out of the country. "An ample campaign was carried out aimed at varying the ethnic composition of the republic of Macedonia," the group says, adding that during May and June there was a deliberate policy of shelling civilian targets in the north. At the same time harassment of Albanians around Macedonia was stepped up, with kidnappings, killings and torture, it claims. It says the campaign reached its peak when a majority of ethnic Albanian civilians were driven out of the southern town of Manastir and their homes and businesses damaged. Although ECHAC claims Mr Boskovski was behind the campaigns, in collusion with senior defence ministry officials, it has provided little concrete evidence. It is appealing to the tribunal to demand documents about meetings and communications from the interior ministry that could show what was going on. ECHAC says it will produce a second collection of eyewitness accounts alleging abuse and crimes by the NLA. It says that its teams in the area in July and August received five times as many complaints from ethnic Albanians as from ethnic Slavs. Human Rights Watch has investigated several cases of erious NLA abuses. In June NLA forces detained and tortured eight elderly ethnic Slav civilians from the village of Matejce, and subjected them to mock executions. On August 7 the NLA allegedly kidnapped three road workers, who were severely beaten and sexually abused for several hours. There have also been claims of kidnappings, expulsion of civilians and destruction of Orthodox Christian sites by the NLA. ? ISMAIL MEIDANI said police in Skopje took away his friend, Metush Ajetit, on June 1. "Three days later they threw his body out on to the street from a car. The autopsy showed that he had been tortured to death. There were horrible marks on the body." ? Farmer LUAN KODRA said two planes and several helicopters appeared above his village of Lisec on June 27. "There were no NLA people in the village. But they started to bomb and machine-gun us. Adem Veliu, Ymer Veliu, Dorina Elezi and Alban Daci died because of the bombs." ? Student ERDI SHAMETI, from Matec, said police took away seven of his friends and tortured them on May 21. He said police claimed falsely to have found arms in their car. "They were beaten for three days with truncheons and burned with cigarettes." ? Captain ARBEN NEZIRI, an army officer from Skopje, said he was taken away from his home by interior ministry police on June 10 and tortured. "They want to clean Albanians out of the army and police completely." ? AGIM PJAZITIT, from Radushe, said three of his relatives and a friend were arrested and accused of belonging to the NLA. They were not allowed to see a lawyer. One saw a relative. "He said that the ministry of interior police's claims that they had admitted being terrorists were false and had come after they had been submitted to terrible tortures (beatings with truncheons, use of electrodes, burns)." ? BESA GJINALI, a housewife from Batince, said that her neighbour Mijazi Ibishi, a factory worker, disappeared on June 16. "We all know it was the police. They have been threatening us for months. They want us to leave our houses and go." ________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list visit: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 7 22:42:19 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 22:42:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: On Video, bin Laden Lashes Out at U.S. Message-ID: <20011008024219.3A1EE58A4D@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. On Video, bin Laden Lashes Out at U.S. October 7, 2001 By DAVID STOUT Osama bin Laden was shown on television this afternoon, declaring that "America is full of fear" and will never be safe and secure until Palestinians feel safe and secure. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/international/07CND-OSAM.html?ex=1003508939&ei=1&en=83f1d2d8b940db19 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From jetkoti at hotmail.com Mon Oct 8 01:34:12 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 22:34:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Britain's Bill of Particulars: 'Planned and Carried Out the Atrocities' Message-ID: <20011008053412.7175C15C27@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Britain's Bill of Particulars: 'Planned and Carried Out the Atrocities' October 5, 2001 Following is the text of the report issued from Britain on the terror attacks on Sept. 11, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/05/international/05ETEX.html?ex=1003519252&ei=1&en=f2ebb0fac2fb54e8 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From KBejko at MFS.com Mon Oct 8 12:13:19 2001 From: KBejko at MFS.com (Bejko, Kreshnik) Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:13:19 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] If you have $400 to spare Message-ID: <0555B6986D9BD411843B00E00900000418B266@perseus.mfs.com> For a measly 400 bucks The Economist professes to give you a glimpse of what's to follow the strikes on Afghanistan. Ominously it gives the Musharraf regime in Pakistan, the only Muslim member of the Global Nuclear Family, a 50/50 chance of survival. Here's the executive summary of The Economist report appropriately titeled: The New World Disorder Ever since the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11th, the world has been struggling to adjust to a new reality. The last time international calculations faced change on anything like this scale was when the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989. Then the first President George Bush optimistically declared a 'new world order'. The 'end of history' was proclaimed, with fundamental political and economic arguments supposedly settled for good. Such illusions now lie buried in the rubble of the World Trade Centre. The world is struggling to understand the minds and motives behind international networks of terrorism and the conditions that feed them. And another President George Bush has the task of tackling a suddenly dangerous and unstable global landscape, a new world disorder. Calculations, not to mention events, are moving rapidly. History, far from ending, seems to have speeded up. This briefing is designed to help you keep pace. Drawing on the Economist Intelligence Unit?s unrivalled network of country specialists, it offers over 70 pages of informed analysis on the consequences of the 'war on terrorism' region by region and country by country. It helps you to identify the (often surprising) new alliances that are emerging in the wake of the attacks, as well as the points of tension that are likely to create problems. It provides insight into the calculations of political leaders, and into the new risks of doing business around the world. And it explains the rise of militant Islam, providing a guide to the main groups in the Middle East. Here are just a few of the sample findings of this wide-ranging report: * On the US military response The likeliest (and least risky) military response is a carefully targeted campaign confined to Afghanistan, with the aim of flushing out Osama bin Laden and achieving the capitulation or defeat of Afghanistan?s Taliban regime. But even such a limited campaign would involve significant risks: failure to achieve its objectives, a splintering of the alliance against terrorism as civilian lives are lost, instability in neighbouring?and nuclear?Pakistan. Pakistan?s leader, General Pervez Musharraf, is given only a 50% chance of surviving in power. * On the countries most affected The current outbreak of political unity in the US will come under strain as the 2002 election season approaches. The new government in Indonesia, the world?s most populous Muslim country, must now cope with rising Islamist ferment as well a perilously fragile economy. Russia, in return for co-operating with the US, will feel it now has a free hand in Chechnya (as well as many other new opportunities). Saudi Arabia will attempt to repeat its Gulf War balancing act between loyalty to the US and its role as the heartland of Islam. For EU countries, the anti-terrorism imperative will greatly intensify hitherto half-hearted police and judicial co-operation. * On the operating conditions for businesses around the world Cost-trimming?already under way before September 11th?will acquire a new intensity as global growth splutters. Staff security and safety procedures will rise to the top of the management agenda. Decisions on office location and business travel will have a new security dimension. Risk management and disaster-recovery policies will need to be re-evaluated, and the length of supply chains reassessed. From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Tue Oct 9 19:55:35 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 17:55:35 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Guardian:"It's war--but it doesn't have to be dirty" Message-ID: <000a01c1511d$e44827c0$6628a8c0@sjcsf.edu> It's war - but it doesn't have to be dirty Michael Ignatieff Guardian Monday October 1, 2001 After the initial shock of September 11, it seemed reasonable to argue that terrorism must be understood, like war, as the rational pursuit of political objectives by other means. But September 11 was not politics by other means. There were no demands, and there never will be. No one took political responsibility for the act, and no one ever will. This was a deed committed without any expectation of attaining a political objective. Which is not to say that the terrorists were deficient in political calculation. They appear to have calculated with great exactness. They would have known that no sovereign state can change its policies in response to such an assault on its military and its civilian population. They are certain to have anticipated the ensuing response: full diplomatic, political and military pursuit. All the decent-minded proposals of recent days - that America must repent of its imperial hubris, rethink its support of the corrupt Saudis, re-evaluate its policy towards Israel, do public penance for the injustice of a global economy and rain money and food on the poor and starving peoples of the globe - all these thoughts the terrorists would understand as yet another sign of the incapacity of their enemies to understand what they are really up against. What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism. The nihilism of their means - the indifference to human costs - takes their actions not only out of the realm of politics, but even out of the realm of war itself. The apocalyptic nature of their goals makes it absurd to believe they are making political demands at all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably sinful and unjust world. Terror does not express a politics, but a metaphysics, a desire to give ultimate meaning to time and history through ever-escalating acts of violence which culminate in a final battle between good and evil. People serving such exalted goals are not interested in mere politics. Those honest souls who believe the terrorists' hatreds must be understood, and that what they hate must be changed so that they will hate no more, do not understand terrorists. For to them, what is evil cannot change: it can only be extirpated. They know this clearly enough. It is we who do not seem to understand it. Islam is not the only religion of peace to have been hijacked by monstrous impersonators pretending that their rage and their nihilism find warrant in holy books. Nor is apocalyptic nihilism an exclusively religious phenomenon. A purely secular variant of apocalyptic nihilism began coursing through Russian history in the 1860s. Dostoyevsky and Turgenev saw it in the young people around them and tried to warn Europe of its dangers. But the warnings were in vain. The liberator tsar was struck down in St Petersburg in 1881, and apocalyptic nihilism celebrated its first triumph, but not its last. In the 20th century, the same apocalyptic nihilism - this time in the form of an all-consuming hatred of bourgeois society - drew recruits to both fascism and communism. Liberal democratic Europe discovered in the 30s that such movements cannot be reasoned with. They can only be fought. We have no reason to suppose it will be any different this time. It is important to insist on the apocalyptic content and the nihilistic moral meaning of these events because so many good people persist in believing that the attacks were a cry from the heart of an unjust world, an indictment, wrong in moral form, but right in content, of the injustice of American power. Some even go so far as to claim that America's guilt deprives it of the right to strike back. The mistake is to construe an act of annihilating nihilism as an act of politics, and to believe that there is an appropriately conciliatory response. Of course, American policy contains errors, and the world is full of injustice, and some of this injustice might be remedied, in part, if America changed some of its policies. But it is an adolescent fantasy to assign the injustice of the world to a single address. It is also an indulgence to enjoy the freedoms of western societies while blaming these societies for the world's evils. A guilty conscience can make idiots of us all. The idiocy is to assume that the terrorists represent anybody other than their own criminal designs. One reason why this story is without consolation is that there is no possible political response to apocalyptic nihilism. There is nothing that America can do which will appease the hatreds that have led to this insane massacre. Since the politics of reason cannot defeat apocalyptic nihilism, we must fight. Force is legitimate to the degree that it is discriminate, and to the degree that it is discriminate, it is just. A war against nihilism invites us to be nihilistic. The temptation must be refused. A war against terror is bound to be a dirty war. How does a democracy keep its hands clean? The British and the Spanish have preserved their democracy, while living with terror. They have much to teach the Americans: above all, executive and legislative control of security forces and secret operations. The Americans have their own experience of the 60s and 70s - covert operations in foreign countries that lost America much moral and political credit. The question is whether the controls put in place after these experiences in the 70s will prove robust enough to keep the war against terror clean. There will be those who will ask why it should be clean. Why does a state under attack from enemies without mercy have an obligation to be either just or merciful? What restraints in war properly apply to an enemy who observes none? The Geneva Convention and the American laws of armed conflict were written with warriors in mind, not criminals. These laws of conduct are premised on reciprocity. But what reciprocity is called for when facing an enemy who does not respect reciprocity? We owe them nothing other than the mercy that all human life has a right to claim. But we owe ourselves much more. We retain obligations in combat even when those we fight do not reciprocate. The obligations we owe are to ourselves alone, to the moral identity that gives justice to the cause. The combatants who will wage this war in our name will have to live with what they do. To execute the innocent, to visit death on civilians, even to torture the guilty, would haunt those who serve in our name. For that reason alone, a war against terror must be discriminate, proportional and restrained. . Michael Ignatieff is Carr professor of human rights at the Kennedy school of government, Harvard University. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Tue Oct 9 20:00:07 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 20:00:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: For Israel's Sake Message-ID: <20011010000007.2715C58A4E@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. For Israel's Sake October 6, 2001 By ANTHONY LEWIS The Middle East peace initiative that President Bush was planning before Sept. 11 is desperately needed now. It would help the international struggle against terrorism. But more important, it is the only hope of ending the ratcheting cycle of violence that afflicts Israel and the Palestinians. One thing must be understood first. Our support for Israel was not the major factor in Osama bin Laden's decision to strike at America. His hatred goes far beyond any particular policy. Prof. Michael Ignatieff of Harvard put it well this week in The Guardian, London. "What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism . . .," he wrote. "It is absurd to believe they [the terrorists] are making political demands at all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably sinful and unjust world." American policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict does negatively affect public attitudes in the Arab world toward the coalition's antiterrorism effort. Even in the pro-Western Persian Gulf states, Warren Hoge of The New York Times reported this week, there is a "general dismay about perceived American tolerance of violence against the Palestinians." A minister of the United Arab Emirates said that if Israeli killings of Palestinians continued, "most of us will certainly have to reconsider our role in the coalition." But for me the tragedy is the unraveling of all the past efforts for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is tragic because this need not be a situation of apocalyptic nihilism. The conflict is susceptible of political solution. But on both sides today the leadership lacks the domestic political support needed to make a deal. The costs are terrible. Think of our ally, Israel. Week after week its people, innocent civilians, are killed by Palestinian bombers and gunmen. And the government's policy answer - to respond with punishing military attacks - is demonstrably a failure. The policy not only fails to make the Israeli public more secure; it arouses more anti-Israel violence. This week two Hamas gunmen raided a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli tanks shelled a town, killing six Palestinians - who may have had nothing to do with the raid - and bulldozers destroyed Palestinian farmland. The result: more funerals, more deprivation, more rage. Then, yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuked the United States for seeking Arab support for the coalition against terrorism. And a few hours later he sent tanks, troops and helicopters against Palestinians in Hebron, killing at least five. Mr. Sharon's coalition government has been beset by right-wing demands for ever stronger military action. I thought Mr. Sharon, for all his past acts of provocation and brutality, understood that more and more force could not assure Israelis a tranquil life. That may not be so. The Israeli government always blames Yasir Arafat for acts of terrorism. But it is a fantasy to believe that the leader of a non-state, beset by antagonistic factions and his people's desperation, can exercise that kind of control. When he arrested four teenage militants recently, angry mobs surrounded the compound where they were held. The single Israeli action that would most effectively reduce Palestinian desperation and militancy would be a halt to building of settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza. That process of colonization has gone right on through all the talk of peace and cease-fires. A Peace Now survey just completed shows that in the last four months 10 new settlements were established. Some 6,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip take up 20 percent of the territory, with one million Palestinians crammed into the rest. Those settlements, provoking burning resentment, are flashpoints for violence. It would be logical - and a powerful symbol - to abandon them. But Mr. Sharon would do that only if the United States put heavy pressure on him - and he could use that as an excuse with the far right. The Bush administration has been saying that it will go ahead with its initiative only if and when violence stops. But that won't work; the violence will not stop unless we act. The most effective way to ease the violence is for America to come forward with a plan that would make Israelis and Palestinians begin to believe, again, in a political cure for their traumas. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/opinion/06LEWI.html?ex=1003672007&ei=1&en=57bcbe293691ba6e HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From agron at rcn.com Tue Oct 9 22:10:14 2001 From: agron at rcn.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 22:10:14 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Kosova - Afghanistan Parallels - The Independent Message-ID: <001501c15130$b30035a0$111806d1@law.harvard.edu> The Independent (London) October 10, 2001, Wednesday First Edition; COMMENT; Pg. 5 WHY OUR GROUND TROOPS HAVE TO INVADE AFGHANISTAN Lawrence Freedman IT IS now clear that the air campaign in Afghanistan cannot last more than a few days before the commanders run out of targets. The bombing was never going to be decisive, which is why the focus is now switching to the next and much more difficult stage - the ground war. The limited scope of the air war can be illustrated by a comparison with the Kosovo conflict. During the initial weeks, in addition to cruise missiles, Nato used about 500 aircraft, flying just under 300 sorties per day. The numbers were raised significantly before the attacks made much impression on either Slobodan Milosevic's will or the Serb oppression of Kosovar Albanians. The first night's strikes against Afghanistan, in contrast, saw some 31 targets attacked, using only 15 aircraft in attack sorties plus 15 cruise missiles, supported by 20 aircraft. Until the final assessments are in, the Pentagon will not want to pronounce the minimal Taliban air defences and air force (at most 30 aircraft) destroyed or the complete degradation of the Taliban command and control facilities. None the less, further attacks will soon risk doing no more than rearranging the sand, or, even worse, catching the wrong targets, as may already have happened with some UN workers. Neither Washington nor London has claimed that the strategic objectives can be achieved by air attacks against a political system that is crude and rugged in its infrastructure. As Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, has observed, they will not "rock the Taliban back on their heels". Although, in Kosovo, ground attacks had been explicitly ruled out at the start of hostilities, this was recognised as an error. The critical ground force was provided not by Nato but by the Kosovo Liberation Army. As they drew Serb forces into the open, they rendered them vulnerable to Nato aircraft. In this case the KLA role is being played by the Northern Alliance (NA). It has been reported that up to 15,000 troops are close to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, facing the main thrust of the NA offensive, with a similar number guarding Kabul. There are possibly another 30,000 fighters elsewhere, some under the control of fickle warlords who might change loyalties, especially if the NA makes progress. Integrated with the Taliban forces are hundreds of the few thousand non-Afghan graduates of the al- Qa'ida camps. If the Taliban leave these forces where they are, they could be in for a battering from American aircraft. Once the aircraft are able to operate in daylight, Taliban trenches and artillery pieces will be easily picked out. After a few days of this sort of treatment, the Taliban might be unable to resist an NA offensive. Rather than face this, a strategic decision may be made to retreat to the mountains. That would mean relinquishing political control of the country in return for an opportunity to repeat the successful battle against Soviet occupation. Any decision in Kabul to stand and fight may require bin Laden to put more of his fighters into the defence. This would probably be greeted with relief by the coalition who do not relish the thought of having to mount protracted special-forces operations to smoke out the terrorists, especially if they were joined by large numbers of Taliban fighters. At one level, the current strategy promises an early success if it sees the Taliban in flight and the NA triumphant in Kabul. At another level, it ties the coalition too closely to the NA and its agenda, just as the Kosovo campaign did to the KLA, leading to misgivings elsewhere in the region, especially Pakistan. Furthermore, unless it performs considerably better than it did when last in power in the mid-1990s, the NA may not attract the loyalties of Afghans and may soon face the old problem of holding only cities and roads while swathes of the country are occupied by hostile fighters. This is why the coalition should aim to get its own forces into Afghanistan in substantial numbers over and above the special forces deployed for individual operations. The best way to accomplish this would be to capture an airstrip in a convenient, defensible location and use it to ferry in troops. Unlike Kosovo, preparations appear to be advanced, with elements of the 101st Airborne Division being prepared to follow the 1,000 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division already en route to Uzbekistan. This would release the coalition from appearing as simply the air arm of the NA. At the same time, Britain and other allies, including France and Germany, are ready to add several thousand each of their troops to give the "invasion" a truly international appearance. Such a military presence on the ground would strengthen the coalition's political hand during deliberations to form the post-Taliban regime. To hasten that day they might be able to move to cut off any obvious lines of retreat and, to the extent that all else fails, a base will have been established for protracted counter-guerrilla operations. The author is Professor of War Studies, King's College, London -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 9 22:25:52 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 19:25:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Greek View on September 11 Attack - To Vima Message-ID: <20011010022552.37743.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> The Greek Paradox (Recations to the 11 September Events) [R. Someritis, To Vima, 25-9-01] To Vima 25-09-2001 The Greek Paradox Kazakos' people's court can reach its decision as of now. By Richardos Someritis Everything written below I've either heard or read. It's about September 11th. Since limited space precludes my quoting actual passages, I've confined myself to a brief mention of the various "concepts" being spread about these days - and to some minimal comments. "Concept" number 1: September 11th is generally a work of the Jews (who previously organized their own holocaust) and the American "hawks." The aspiration of the former is to be able to slaughter, unimpaired, all Arabs; the aspiration of the latter is the imposition of a "global junta." This "viewpoint" is expressed by our own ultra-rightists, while members of the far left with access to the Greek conservative arena have written about the "global junta". Such a view would presume that the "Jews" sacrificed several million of their own in order to play the victim, and that the Americans did away with several thousand Americans in order to subjugate us -especially us- the proud, unconquerable Greeks. "Concept" number 2, which has both elements in common with number 1 as well as joint supporters: Bin Laden is the brainchild of American propaganda. The proof: President Bush did not immediately turn over the pertinent file to our suspicious compatriots in order to convince them otherwise. So, if Bin Laden - a former CIA agent to boot - is the "brainchild," then who was it who organized the evil deed? Why, the evil Americans, of course - for oil. With evidence like this, Kazakos' people's court (there's nothing for it - it will be held) can reach its decision as of now. "Concept" number 3: September 11th is the response of "the oppressed peoples to American imperialism." This concept is also proffered by some of the advocates of concepts 1 and 2. After all, contradictions are of no consequence - this is a dialectic we're having. Some of these people do rush to condemn the act, but their main indictment concerns the victim, who is held responsible for everything including whatever occurred as the result of unanimous UN decisions (e.g. in Iraq). There are still others who don't even condemn the act. But they do condemn, a priori and without knowing what, any American reaction. "Concept" number 4: we are not at risk from terrorism but from the "war" against terrorism. This "concept" is being bellowed by many recent democrats who believe everyone else is amenable to dictatorships. They say that every antiterrorist measure comes in conflict with human rights. Terrorism, it would seem, is one of these rights. There are yet other "concepts" being bandied about. What are they designed to do? Obviously: to save Bin Laden; to isolate the Greek government, which has another point of view; to provide political and ideological cover for terrorism in Greece and elsewhere; to enable certain middle-aged and ostentatiously well-to-do persons to feel younger and revolutionary. Of course, similar views have also been expressed for various reasons in other countries, even in the U.S. itself. And fortunately: they are blocking the one-way streets. The dangerous "Greek paradox" is the generalized acceptance and support of these views by so many public officials. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 9 22:35:33 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 19:35:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] BBC on September 11 Reactions Message-ID: <20011010023533.39302.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> BBC: Greek allegiances tested Thursday, 4 October, 2001, 07:57 GMT 08:57 UK Greek allegiances testedhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1578000/1578090.stm By Helena Smith in Athens The assault on America, and the prospect of US military reprisals, istormenting Greece in a way that, once more, highlights the country's uneasyrelationship with the West. As the Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou makes an official visit tothe US - reassuring Washington of Athens' unstinting support in the fightagainst terrorism, and touring the smouldering ruins of the World TradeCenter - his compatriots are expressing their own views by holding rowdy"anti-war" rallies across Greece. From the northern port city of Salonika to the southern island of Crete,protestors are participating in demonstrations that have increasinglyturned into fervent displays of anti-Americanism. Not long after the September 11th attack, some 30,000 Greek soccer fans,attending a Uefa match against Scotland in Athens, jeered through themoment's silence held in honour of the terror victims. The Scots looked on aghast as they then tried to burn the Stars and Stripesin the stands. Fervent protest Organized by the powerful Greek Communist Party (KKE), the protests comeless than two years after Greeks expressed similar opposition to Nato'sbombing campaign against their co-religionists in Serbia. With the demonstrators frequently shouting "down with Bush, the killer",analysts say the protests are even more strident than they were in 1999. "America will use the excuse of a military reaction to settle all its oldscores with poor, third world countries. We must try and stop it", saidKostas Kazakos Greece's leading stage actor addressing one such rally inAthens. Successive opinion polls have showed the Greeks to be, by far, the leastsympathetic of all Euro-Alliance nations to post-attack America. They have also been the least willing to take action against countriesharbouring terrorists. A poll published in Wednesday's authoritative Athenian newspaper Ta Neanoted that as many as 75% of those Greeks voting for centrist or leftistparties were "anti-American" and opposed to the superpower retaliatingagainst the attack, fearing the quest for justice could turn into one ofrevenge. Around 58.3% of those who supported right-wing parties were also"anti-American." Echoing a view first expressed by Archbishop Christodoulos, the country'sspiritual leader, most said Uncle Sam was now paying the price forWashington's misguided policies, and other sins of the past. In trying to explain the opposition, analysts point to the Greeks' delicategeo-political position as citizens of a Christian buffer state, at thecrossroads of the east and west. Historical roots But the Greeks also cite America's support for the ruthless military regimethat ruled them between 1967 and 1974 as the root cause of their reaction. In addition, they say, Washington is guilty of "double-standards". TheGreeks believe the US has failed to pressure Nato ally Turkey to removesome 35,000 Turkish troops from Cyprus, 27 years after Ankara invaded andseized the island's northern third in response to an Athens engineered coup. The demonstrations, and intense media criticism of US policies in the wakeof the suicide bombings, has outraged classics buffs, dyed-in-the woolphilhellenes and Greeks living abroad. "What have we done to the Greeks to deserve such antipathy?" ProfessorStephen Miller, one of America's most eminent classical archaeologists,railed in a letter published in the the Greek daily Kathimerini. Greek-Americans, who lobby tirelessly on Athens' behalf in Washington, havealso been unable to contain their rage. Some have even said they will be cancelling plans to attend the 2004Olympics in the Greek capital. "We condemn and reject the shameless and baseless insults and blatantslander of fellow Greeks in the motherland," snapped the Federation ofGreek Associations of Greater New York in a blistering statement. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From mehollim at hotmail.com Wed Oct 10 09:51:53 2001 From: mehollim at hotmail.com (Mimoza Meholli) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:51:53 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [nisjobs] CRS Macedonia Pos Message-ID: >Organization: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) >Position Title: Regional Advisor, Monitoring and Evaluation >Requisition Number: I01090 >Location: Skopje, Macedonia > > >Primary Responsibilities: > >Lead CRS Europe Regional efforts to design and implement a >comprehensive and meaningful monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system for >key program areas of education, microfinance, civil society and >peace-building. Lead efforts to establish M&E systems to improve >internal management and performance and increase capacity to provide >relevant information to donors. Design and implement trainings on >systems and methods to ensure understanding, compliance and conformance. >Serve as primary contact on regional M&E methodology within CRS and >with donors, partners and other agencies. Create and manage regional >peer learning and project review group. Design innovative M&E tools and >indicators that address "output" and "issues" based programming. > >MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS: > >-Masters Degree in related field or International Development with >significant applied experience in International Relief and Development >-5 or more years in development and relief work in the field ; Balkan / >Central / Eastern Europe preferred >- Excellent English ; French/Spanish/Portugese preferred ; Regional >language a plus >-Strong communication skills (written and verbal) with abiltiy to >transfer knowledge in informal and formal settings >- Ability to work cooperatively with local organizations, partners and >other agencies >-Thorough knowledge of principles and processes of M&E as applied to >relief and development (both quantitative and qualitative). >-Familiarity with US Government donor reporting expectations and trends >-Able to work effectively under pressure and able to engage and motivate >individuals not under direct supervisory control >-Willingness to travel (approximately 30%) > > >If interested please send CV, cover letter (state position title and >requisition number), and contact information to: > >G. Budrejko, HR >CRS >P.O. Box 882 posta 2 >1000 Skopje Macedonia > >Fax: 389 - 2- 144-145 >e-mail: gbudrejko at catholicrelief.org.mk > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From mehollim at hotmail.com Wed Oct 10 09:55:44 2001 From: mehollim at hotmail.com (Mimoza Meholli) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:55:44 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] A War Against Whom? Message-ID: >A War Against Whom? > >By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. >Minaret of Freedom Institute > >27/09/2001 > >It appears that we have entered a war. I wish to >evaluate both President George W. Bush's actions since >September 11th and those of the American Muslim >community. I realize that wartime is a dangerous time >to risk offending parties in such precarious >positions, but I am more afraid of offending Allah. > >The good news is that for the most part Mr. Bush has >handled the situation well. He has understood the fine >line he needs to walk between assuring the American >people as a whole that effective action will be taken >and the American Muslim community that he wants them >united with the rest of America, on his side in his >decision to treat the September 11th horrors as an act >of war rather than as a criminal offense. > >And American Muslims, have on the whole, reacted well, >sharing in the grief of our non-Muslim neighbors (as >well as our own: there may have been hundreds of >Muslims killed that day) and offering to help with >funds and blood donations. > >Yet I am disappointed in both parties. In Mr. Bush, >for his absurd assertion in his address to Congress >that the motivation of the terrorists was a hatred of >freedom and democracy, and disappointment in American >Muslims who, in their understandable reluctance to >believe that Muslims would do such an evil act have >given credence to every absurd rumor to come out over >the Internet or backyard fence. > >Muslims must condemn Osama bin Laden's calls for the >murder of civilians whether or not he was involved in >planning or funding the attacks on the World Trade >Center and the Pentagon. At the same time, Mr. Bush >should stop evading the fact that the motivation for >bin Laden's ire is not freedom and democracy (however >he might feel about those issues) but disastrous >American interventionist foreign policies. America has >not been a sleeping giant, but a sleepwalking >superpower blundering across the world stage making >enemies without understanding why. > >Even if bin Laden was not behind the September >carnage, a declaration of war against him is logical. >After all, he declared war on the United States in >February of 1998. His signature appears on a fax sent >to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi of a directive >that specified "crimes and sins committed by the >Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his >messenger, and Muslims" and on the basis that struggle >"is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the >Muslim countries" that therefore "to kill the >Americans and their allies - civilians and military - >is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it >in any country in which it is possible to do it, in >order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy >Mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies >to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and >unable to threaten any Muslim" (Bin Laden, et al. >1998). If someone knows that bin Laden has repudiated >this fax, they should produce the evidence now, >otherwise it is a top priority for American Muslims to >denounce it, and him. > >The fact that a man trains people to kill and tells >them it is okay to use the techniques they learn >against the innocent (and then gives a prayer of >thanks when he hears that someone has done just that) >is sufficient cause to consider him a terrorist. As >Muslims we are obligated to use the same standard of >justice with regard to bin Laden as with regard to >Ariel Sharon. This is what the Qur'an means when it >says: "O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice >as witnesses to God even as against yourselves or your >parents or your kin and whether it be [against] rich >or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the >lusts [of your hearts] lest ye swerve and if ye >distort (justice) or decline to do justice verily God >is well-acquainted with all that ye do" (4:135). > >As for Mr. Bush, if he is sincere in his desire to >avoid a demonization of Islam, then why in his address >to Congress did he say that the terrorists were >motivated by a hatred of democracy and freedom? Bin >Laden, whom he accuses, never once criticized >democracy or freedom in his directive of February >1998. He denounced the presence of American troops in >the land of the two holy mosques. He denounced >American embargoes and bombings that have killed so >many Iraqis. He denounced American support of the >illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. The U.S. >actions bin Laden criticized are distorted perversions >of democracy and outright abominations against >freedom, no less than the bombing of the World Trade >Center was a distortion of jihad (struggle) and an >abomination against the peace and justice commanded in >the Qur'an. > >Mr. Bush has made it clear that he is not out after >only one man, nor even just his network of presumed >collaborators, but also those who "harbor him". What >this means is that when someone commits a criminal or >violent act against a community and another community >gives protection to that man, refusing to extradite >him to those he has injured that the injured community >has the right to retaliate against the community that >protects him. Revenge is not only an ancient lust, it >is a modern one as well. Napoleon promised to kill ten >of the enemy for every one of his killed. The >difference between retaliation in the Napoleonic code >and qisas (the law of equality) in Islamic law is that >the Qur'an strictly limits retaliation. One for one >and like for like. In this limitation says the Qur'an >"there is [a saving of] life to you O ye men of >understanding! That ye may restrain yourselves" >(2:179). > >Against whom have we gone to war? Is it Mr. Bush's >intention to restrain himself, to give measure for >measure, or perhaps less, until the conspirators are >turned over so that the guilty may be punished and the >innocent left alone? Or shall he expand his war to >Sudan, Iraq, even Iran as some Zionists have demanded, >or even worse? Does he aim to remind the exiled Saudi >who was so happy to see six thousand civilians killed >in fifteen minutes that America is the country that >once killed tens of thousands of civilians in fifteen >seconds (at Hiroshima)? > >Bin Laden calls his incitement against America a >"fatwa" and Americans sing "God Bless America" as they >stand on the brink of the slaughter of Afghanis. It >would be wise to remember how often both sides of a >war have insisted that God was on their side. Truly >godly people know that the important question is: Are >we on God's side? Whether Mr. Bush chooses a >proportioned and narrowly targeted action or a broad >retaliation in Afghanistan, and later elsewhere in the >Muslim world, will demonstrate whether or not he is on >God's side, as will whether he continues the material >support of the slaughter of non-combatants with >American weapons by Israelis. > >As I reflect on these things, one thought keeps >returning to my consciousness. A glorious act of jihad >(struggle in the way of God) took place on September >11th. It was not the provocative murder of innocent >civilians by the embittered terrorists. It was the >brave fight by the passengers on the plane from >Pittsburgh that successfully foiled the conspirators >from attacking one more target and who knows how many >more innocent lives. They could have had no motive >other than to please God, for their death was a >virtual certainty. But unlike the hijackers, the >passengers' purpose was to save life, not to destroy >it. Of this Allah, the Exalted and Glorified, has >truly said: "We ordained ? that ? if anyone saved a >life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole >people" (5:32). > > >References > >Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Laden, Ayman >al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir >Hamzah, and Fazlul Rahman (signatories), "Text of >World Islamic Front's Statement Urging Jihad Against >Jews and Crusaders" - Al-Quds al-'Arabi, English >translation by Emergency Response and Research >Institute, Chicago (9/24/2001). > > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just >$8.95/month. >http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Wed Oct 10 10:50:00 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 08:50:00 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fw: Security Watch: Wednesday, 10 October 2001 Message-ID: <000b01c1519a$d69580a0$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Security Watch" To: "Security Watch Mailing List" Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 12:41 AM Subject: Security Watch: Wednesday, 10 October 2001 > ISN Security Watch - Your daily security check on the > Partnership for Peace region. For our full news service > visit our website, http://www.isn.ethz.ch > _________________________________________________________ > > -Afghan rebels not ready to rule, says Russia > -Macedonia grants NLA amnesty > -Pakistan invites India to anti-terrorist talks > -Abkhazia accuses Georgia of air raid > -Arms sales reflect terrorism fears > -Russia settles Czech debt > -OPEC looking at supply cuts > -Greece may cancel war games > _________________________________________________________ > > > Afghan rebels not ready to rule, says Russia > > Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday it > would be folly to try to impose its allies in the Northern > Alliance as Afghanistan's new rulers if the Taliban are > ousted by US-led military strikes. Speaking after talks > with his visiting British counterpart Geoff Hoon, Ivanov > said Moscow's bitter experience during the ill-fated 1979- > 89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan had taught it that > only a broadly based coalition would work. Moscow has been > supplying arms to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance for > years but has agreed to step up deliveries as part of a > US-led global coalition against terrorism. Ivanov said > the Northern Alliance was the military arm of the > internationally recognized government of Afghanistan > ousted by the Taliban, but opposed the Alliance coming to > power alone. "Through our own painful experience, we know > that to bring someone to power from outside Afghanistan > is absolutely pointless and has no chance of success," > he said. "The question of creating Afghanistan's > political future should be resolved by the Afghans > themselves, naturally taking into account the ethnic > composition of the population living there," he said. > The Northern Alliance is based mainly on ethnic Tajiks > and Uzbeks and other minorities, while the majority > Pashtu, the country's traditional rulers, mostly back the > Taliban movement that controls around 95 per cent of the > country. Hoon said it was premature to talk of a Northern > Alliance government. "The military action in Afghanistan > has only just begun, and whilst it is important that we > think about the longer-term future for Afghanistan, it's > perhaps too soon to speculate what kind of government > might emerge." London wanted a broadly based government > that did not condone or support terrorism, he said. Hoon > declined to exclude Taliban from any new coalition but > said there would be "no place for any organization that > supports or condones terrorism." (Reuters) > > > > Macedonia grants NLA amnesty > > Macedonia's government decreed an amnesty for disarmed > ethnic Albanian guerrillas on Tuesday, honoring a key > part of a peace accord and helping pave the way for > the reintegration of rebel-inhabited territory. > However, a second step needed to sustain the peace > pact - legislation to improve the civil rights of > minority Albanians - remains on hold over Skopje's > demand for the release of 12 Macedonians said to have > been abducted by guerrillas. The amnesty came in the > form of a cabinet proclamation endorsing a statement > of intent by President Boris Trajkovski made at the > time of the August 13 peace deal to pardon rebels who > voluntarily demobilized. "This statement obligates all > state institutions to take measures to respect it > (amnesty)," said Labor and Social Affairs Minister > Bedredin Ibrahimi, a minority Albanian in the > coalition cabinet. "We as a government have accepted > Trajkovski's statement. The amnesty represents > political will and it deserves our support," said > deputy Prime Minister Xhevded Nusufi, another ethnic > Albanian. "The effect of the amnesty must be felt > from today. From today...(former) National Liberation > Army members can feel free in their movement and we can > start the process of returning people to their homes." > Western envoys guiding the implementation of the peace > accord had warned that neither Macedonian refugees nor > state organs could return to rebel-inhabited territory > without provoking violence unless an amnesty was in > place. Macedonian government leaders are anxious to > have security forces re-enter guerrilla zones as soon > as possible to demonstrate to constituents that state > sovereignty is being restored over territory overrun > by the insurgents. There was no immediate comment > from majority Macedonian ministers after the cabinet > session, a reflection of the amnesty's unpopularity > among most Macedonians. But Macedonian aides to > Trajkovski had said an amnesty would be declared on > Tuesday after weeks of delay caused by nationalist > hardliners in the awkward ruling coalition who > objected to the peace pact. The general pardon would > free former guerrillas from fear of arrest or > persecution. But the threat of vengeance from rogue > police reservists or paramilitaries remains. NLA > insurgents handed weapons to NATO and disbanded last > month. But parliament balked at passing amnesty > legislation for fear of a popular backlash before > elections in January, forcing the government to step > in. The Western-brokered peace settlement aims to > defuse the fifth ethnic conflict in the region of > old communist Yugoslavia since 1991 and improve > prospects for democracy, stability and prosperity > across the Balkans. (Reuters) > > > > Pakistan invites India to anti-terrorist talks > > Pakistan suggested on Tuesday a visit to the country > by Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh "as soon as > possible" if Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was > unable to come soon. Pakistani military ruler General > Pervez Musharraf had renewed an invitation to Vajpayee > for a visit to Islamabad when the two leaders talked on > telephone on Monday to discuss possible cooperation > against terrorism. "If there is difficulty that he > (Vajpayee) cannot come soon, then perhaps the foreign > minister can visit as soon as possible," Pakistan > Foreign Ministry's additional secretary, Aziz Kan, said. > Meanwhile in the capital Islamabad, the military > government on Tuesday ordered the army to set up bunkers > of sandbags at key installations in the capital, a day > after anti-US violence erupted in several cities. > Soldiers armed with automatic rifles stood on guard > inside the bunkers, which were reinforced on the interior > with bricks and concrete and put up at all entrances to > the diplomatic enclave that houses the US embassy. > Islamabad's television station and several other > government buildings were also fortified, including > the parliament building. Small army units were deployed > at all intersections in the city, each equipped with a > wireless set. Officials had no comment on the deployment > of such a large number of troops in the capital, which > was calm on Monday while pro-Taliban protesters rampaged > in the southwestern city of Quetta and in the > northwestern city of Peshawar. Such bunkers have never > been set up in Islamabad, a city purpose-built as the > capital in the 1960s and among the most peaceful in > volatile Pakistan. Residents said they had never seen > such tight security in the city, which saw the burning > of US embassy in 1979 and a siege by tens of thousands > of Shia Muslims in the 1980s that ended without > violence. UN officials say the government has assured > them that it will provide complete security to all UN > installations and offices in Pakistan after an angry > crowd on Monday partially burnt the building of the UN > Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Quetta, near the border > with Afghanistan. All UN international and local staff > had been ordered to stay home on Monday, the first > working day following overnight US-led strikes against > Afghanistan. Staff were also asked to stay at home on > Tuesday. Washington has promised to hunt down > suspected mastermind Osama bin Laden and his associates > and punish his protectors, the Afghanistan's ruling > Taliban movement. The Taliban have struck a defiant > pose, vowing to defend and fight back US attacks and > have consistently refused to surrender bin Laden, > considered by Washington the main suspect behind > deadly September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. > (Reuters) > > > > Abkhazia accuses Georgia of air raid > > Abkhazia accused Georgia of launching early morning air > raids on Tuesday in the area where a UN helicopter was > shot down by a missile from unidentified ground forces > a day earlier killing all on board. Georgia's border > guards said in a statement that unidentified helicopters > and planes had attacked villages in the Kodori gorge > between former Soviet Georgia and its breakaway Abkhazia > region but denied its forces were involved. The > helicopter, on a UN monitoring mission, was shot down > on Monday, killing all nine on board - five UN observers, > three Ukrainian crew and a local Abkhazian interpreter. > The guards' statement said the aircraft seen on Tuesday > had flown north, away from Georgia, towards Abkhazia's > border with Russia. Abkhazia Vice President Valery > Arshba said the aircraft had attacked Abkhazian military > units in the area, killing one soldier and wounding > three others. "It is absolutely not true (that Georgian > forces were involved)," a Georgian Defense Ministry > spokesman said. But Sergei Shamba, foreign minister of > the self-styled republic, blamed Georgia. "Those were > Georgian planes. What other planes could they have been? > Not American ones, that's for sure," he said. Kodori > Gorge, located between Abkhazia and Georgia, remains > outside the control of the Georgian government. > Abkhazian officials say Georgian guerrillas and Chechen > rebel groups are operating there. UN observers are > deployed on the separation line between Georgia and > Abkhazia, which declared independence from Tbilisi in > 1991. Abkhazian forces backed by mercenaries from > Russia's north Caucasus region drove out Georgian > government forces in 1993 after a war that cost 10'000 > lives. Abkhazia, which borders Russia to its north, is > not recognized by any state. An aide to Russia's > President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was "increasingly > concerned" about the events. (Reuters) > > > > Arms sales reflect terrorism fears > > Officials from Russia's top arms exporter, attending a > defense industry show in Malaysia on Tuesday, said they > foresaw customers changing their shopping lists > following the 11 September attacks on the US. The > officials from state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport > attending an air show on Malaysia's Langkawi Island, > said they expected governments' future requirements > would reflect an increased emphasis on counter-terrorism > and internal security. "The change in criteria will > reflect their priorities in importing weapons," said > Victor Komardin, deputy chief of Rosoboronexport and > leader of the 500-strong Russian private sector > delegation to the regional trade show. Malaysian Prime > Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in an opening address to the > Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace > Exhibition, also said future shows would probably focus > less on conventional military hardware. He said the > exhibitions would probably feature more surveillance > technology, and new developments like remote controls > for aircrafts and systems to detect poisonous chemicals. > Russian officials said they were trying to supply > advanced fighters to Malaysia and South Korea and were > also in talks with Indonesia. Russia is seeking new > markets as it tries to boost flagging military sales. > Exports stood at US$3 billion last year, well below its > target of US$6-7 billion. With limited domestic sales, > the Russian defense industry will have trouble > supporting its two primary fighter aircraft > manufacturers, MiG and Sukhoi, over the coming years, > according to western analysts. A Sukhoi spokesman said > in Langkawi the company was bidding to sell Su-30MK > fighters to Malaysia and Su-35 to South Korea. "We are > also talking to Indonesia," said Sukhoi spokesman > Iouri Chervakov. (Reuters) > > > > Russia settles Czech debt > > The Czech Republic and Russia have agreed on settlement > of Russia's debt from the Soviet Union era on Monday, in > a deal which could set a precedent for Russia's debt > talks with other former Communist countries. Russian > Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said after meeting Czech > Prime Minister Milos Zeman that the Czech Republic would > forgive Russia part of the US$3.6 billion debt and > spread out the payments of the rest. "The part of the > debt which we were due to pay a long time ago will be > lowered, and the rest will be restructured until the year > 2020," he said. Czech Deputy Finance Minister Ladislav > Zelinka said the Czechs agreed to sell a US$2.5 billion > portion of the debt to a private company, Falkon > Capital, for slightly over 20 billion crowns (US$547 > million). The remaining part of the debt will be paid > between now and 2020 in cash, goods and into a guarantee > fund for Czech exports to Russia. The Czech Republic, a > successor to former Soviet Union's satellite > Czechoslovakia, is not a member of the Paris Club of > Russia's sovereign creditors. Zelinka said Falkon > Capital, a little-known company, would pay its dues to > the Czech government by the end of this year. In > Moscow, a Finance Ministry source said the Czech debt > constitutes a large part of the US$14 billion debt to > COMECON states, but declined to give an exact breakdown > as much of the debt had not been verified or reconciled. > Russia's total foreign debt burden is around US$140 > billion. (Reuters) > > > > OPEC looking at supply cuts > > Momentum is building within OPEC for a supply cut of > 700'000 to one million barrels per day to boost sagging > oil prices, but the timing for any reduction has not > been decided, a Gulf source said on Tuesday. "There is > a movement (in OPEC) for a cut," the Gulf source said, > adding that oil ministers were in the midst of > consultations. "Consensus is starting to build for a > reduction of between 700'000 barrels per day (bpd) to > one million bpd." The Organization of the Petroleum > Exporting Countries wants to keep oil around its target > price of US$25 a barrel for a reference basket of its > seven crude oils. But fears of recession have knocked > 25 per cent off oil prices since the 11 September > attacks on the United States, pushing OPEC's basket > price down to below US$20 a barrel. The Gulf source said > the timing of a potential output curb, which would be > the cartel's fourth this year, was unclear. "There are > some who want to cut now and others who want to wait > until the US retaliation against Afghanistan is over," > he said. The oil cartel chose not to activate its > automatic price band mechanism, which stipulates that > OPEC cut output if its reference price says below US$22 > for 10 consecutive trading days - a point reached on > Friday. The Gulf source said agreement had not been > reached on whether to involve key Non-OPEC producers in > any OPEC output action. Some members fear losing market > share to rival non-OPEC producers whose output, hoisted > by two years of lofty prices, has been rising. But a > hastily-arranged meeting between major OPEC and non-OPEC > oil producers set for Sunday in Madrid was postponed due > to scheduling snags. OPEC delegates said it was not > clear when the meeting - which was to include Saudi > Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Algeria and non-OPEC's Mexico > and Russia - would be rescheduled. However strategic > analysts Stratfor doubt OPEC's ability to implement a > production cut, arguing that global recession, robust > oil supplies and the refusal of non-OPEC states to cut > production will sabotage any attempt to shore up prices > in the next six months. Stratfor suggest that this will > lead to cheap energy, higher energy security and a > quick degradation in the economies of OPEC members, most > of which depend on oil for up 90 percent of export > earnings. (Reuters, Stratfor) > > > > Greece may cancel war games > > Greece said on Tuesday it was considering delaying its > annual joint military exercises with Cyprus as a result > of the US raids on Afghanistan. "It's an issue that we > will face jointly with the Cyprus government," > government spokesman Dimitris Reppas said. The air and > sea war games which are codenamed Nikiforos in Greece > and Toxotis in Cyprus were scheduled to be held > between 15 and 20 October. Turkey matches the exercise > with its own in the region at the same time, usually > causing tension with traditional foe Greece. The two > NATO allies have long been at odds over territorial > and minority rights in Cyprus, which Turkey invaded in > 1974. A self-declared Turkish Cypriot state in the north > of the divided island is recognized only by Ankara. > (Reuters) > > _________________________________________________________ > > INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY NETWORK - ISN > Your one-stop information network for global security > http://www.isn.ethz.ch > > To unsubscribe from the list, send a message to > isn-daily-news at sipo.gess.ethz.ch with "Unsubscribe" (no > quotes) in the subject. Your record will be permanently > removed from our database. > > We welcome your feedback at isn-daily-news at sipo.gess.ethz.ch > From agron at rcn.com Wed Oct 10 18:38:27 2001 From: agron at rcn.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 18:38:27 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Bugajski per Koha Jone Message-ID: <001101c151dc$47ac1740$111806d1@law.harvard.edu> Bugajski: "Fushata antishqiptare synon diskretitimin e SHBA-se ne Ballkan" Nga SHBA, Keida Kostreci - Qarqe me peshe ne hartimin e politikave strategjike te Uashingtonit mendojne se akuzat e pabazuara per lidhje me terrorizmin ndaj Shqiperise dhe shqiptareve, duhen konsideruar si dezinformacion i qellimshem qe minon perpjekjet e SHBA-se per te zhdukur terrorizmin, ndersa thone se qendrimi i shkelqyer i shqiptareve pas sulmeve ne SHBA do te mbahet mend gjate ne kryeqytetin amerikan. Janusz Bugajski, Drejtor i Projektit per Evropen Juglindore ne Qendren per Studime Strategjike dhe Nderkombetare (CSIS), me baze ne Uashington, ka sqaruar ne nje interviste ekskluzive per "KJ", se pse fushatat dezinformuese te disa vendeve ballkanike jane ne dem te perpjekjeve te SHBA ne lufte kunder terrorizmit dhe ka thene se ato jane perpjekje te tyre per te fshehur deshtimet e brendshme. Ai gjithashtu ka sugjeruar se cili duhet te jete roli i vendeve te Ballkanit ne kete moment kur vemendja e Komunitetit Nderkombetar eshte drejtuar nga lufta globale kunder terroristeve. "Per fat te keq, disa lidere politike ne rajon i kane akuzuar padrejtesisht shqiptaret si terroriste, sepse kjo eshte e lerverdisshme per te larguar vemendjen nga deshtimet e vete atyre per te kontrolluar radikalizmin dhe kriminalitetin e vendeve te tyre", eshte shprehur Bugajski, duke komentuar fushaten e koheve te fundit te ndermarre kryesisht nga Greqia, Serbia dhe Maqedonia ndaj Shqiperise dhe shqiptareve ne rajon. Por ai ben te qarte se nocioni qe shqiptaret jane "fondamentaliste" konsiderohet ne Uashington sigurisht si nje fabrikim. "Autoret e fushatave te tilla dezinformuese po shihen gjithmone e me shume si oportuniste qe kerkojne t'i terheqin vemendjen Amerikes nga misioni i saj per te crrenjosur terrorizmin nderkombetar", tha Bugajski, nje studiues i njohur i problemeve te Evropes Lindore, te politikes etnike dhe shoqerive te Botes se Trete. Ne vijim te nje paralajmerimi qe ka bere qe heret pas perplasjes se avioneve te rrembyer ne Qendren Nderkombetare te Tregtise, ne Pentagon dhe ne Pensilvani, Bugajski u ka sugjeruar vendeve ballkanike te mos manipulojne situaten e krijuar. "Shtetet e Ballkanit duhet te jene te kujdesshme dhe te mos manipulojne kercenimin e terrorizmit nderkombetar per t'u perpjekur te nxjerrin avantazhe ne kurriz te fqinjeve te tyre. Pervec rastit kur jane te provuara, akuzat provokative te lidhjeve te supozuara mes disa aktivisteve ne rajon dhe rrjetit te Bin Laden duhet te konsiderohen si dezinformacion i qellimshem qe, ne te vertete, minon perpjekjet e Shteteve te Bashkuara per te crrenjosur murtajen e terrorizmit te organizuar", ka thene ai me tej per "KJ". CSIS eshte nje qender private studimesh nderkombetare e krijuar kater dekada me pare qe u ka ofruar liderve nderkombetare shpjegime strategjike per ceshtje globale aktuale dhe ne sfaqje e siper, si edhe me zgjidhje politike per to. Studiuesit e saj i paraqesin analizat e tyre per ceshtje strategjike shume shpesh ne Kongresin Amerikan dhe tek anetare dhe komisione te vecanta te tij, duke sugjeruar qendrime te lidhura me politiken nderkombetare. Vete Bugajski ka marre pjese ne seanca te tilla, kur eshte bere fjale per probleme te Evropes Juglindore. Ai jo vetem hedh poshte ne intervisten e tij akuzat ndaj shqiptareve, por shpreh vleresimin e Uashingtonit per qendrimin e mbajtur prej tyre ndaj sulmeve. "Shqiptaret ne Shqiperi, Kosove dhe kudo tjeter kane mbajtur nje qendrim te shkelqyer ne mbeshtetje te Shteteve te Bashkuara. Kjo ishte e dukshme jo vetem ne deklaratat qeveritare, por edhe ne veprimet dhe shprehjet e qytetareve te zakonshem. Nje mbeshtetje e tille do te kujtohet dhe vleresohet gjate nga Uashingtoni", tha ai. Shqiperia eshte shprehur me ane te nje deklarate te mirutuar ne Parlament ne mbeshtetje te SHBA dhe eshte angazhuar per te punuar ne luften kunder terrorizmit. Nje prove e angazhimit te saj, eshte fakti qe ajo ve ne dispozicion te gjithe hapesiren e saj, ajrore, detare dhe tokesore ne sherbim te qellimit global te luftes kunder terrorizmit. Nderkohe qe te gjitha keto veprime flasin per pozicionin e qarte te Shqiperise ne koalicionin anti-terror, analisti amerikan mendon se eshte e qarte qe fushata antishqiptare ka per qellim qe te minimizoje pozicionin dhe aspiratat e popullsise shqiptare ne Evropen Juglindore. "Ajo (fushata) synonte gjithashtu qe te diskreditonte misionet e NATO-s dhe lidershipin amerikan, ndersa shkonte ne ndihme te Rusise ne perpjekjet e saj per te rifituar influence ne rajon", tha ai me tej. Bugajski nuk mohon se ka patur perpjekje per nguljen e bazave fondamentaliste ne Shqiperi, ashtu si edhe ne Bosnje dhe Kosove, por thote se ato kane deshtuar. "Disa interesa politike ne Lindjen e Mesme u perpoqen te ngulnin baza fondamentaliste ne vende si Bosnja, Kosova dhe Shqiperia. Por perpjekjet e tyre nuk gjeten nje terren pjellor", shprehet ai. Bugajski radhit edhe nje sere qendrimesh qe vendet e Ballkanit duhet te adaptojne, jo vetem si ndihme direkte ne luften kunder terrorizmit, por edhe per te bere te mundur qe te evitohen problemet ne kete pjese te globit, gje qe gjithashtu do te perbente nje lehtesim per SHBA. Ai u shpreh se Qeverite e Ballkanit dhe te gjithe lojtaret kryesore politike duhet te gjejne pika bashkepunimi ne nje numer fushash si ndertimi i institucioneve, bashkepunimi ekonomik, lufta kunder krimit, te drejtat e minoriteteve dhe kufizimi i radikalizmit politik, ideologjik dhe fetar. "Iniciativa te tilla do te ndihmojne ne ftohjen e "pikave te nxehta" ne Ballkan. Kjo eshte thelbesore me qellim qe vemendja amerikane te mos hiqet nga lufta me e gjere kunder vrasesve nderkombetare", tha ai per "KJ". Bugajski nuk ka munguar te shprehe indinjaten e tij per protestat e grekeve ne Athine kunder aksionit ushtarak amerikan, pas sulmeve terroriste. Behet fjale per demonstrimin e rreth 5 mije veteve ne fund te shtatorit para Ambasades Amerikane ne Athine, ku demonstruesit, aktiviste te anti-globalizmit dhe grupe te mbeshtetura nga Partia Komuniste greke, kerkuan qe Greqia te refuzonte te merrte pjese ne aksione ushtarake kunder Afganistanit dhe disa prej tyre leshuan slogane anti-amerikane. Bugajski i permbledh demonstrime te tilla me nje fjale: "Te turpshme". "Dikush mund te pyese veten, se si do te reagonte Greqia nese Lojrat e ardhshme Olimpike ne Athine do te shkaterroheshin nga nje sulm terrorist vrases qe te shkaktonte mijera te vdekur dhe te sakatuar. Jam i sigurt qe ne nje fatkeqesi te tille, Amerika do te ishte e para ne rresht per te ndihmuar qeverine dhe popullin grek per t'u shkuar pas fajtoreve. I gjithe populli grek duhet te perpiqet te beje dallimin mes miqve dhe armiqve." Ne nje artikull te koheve te fundit, ju keni paralajmeruar vendet e Ballkanit te jene te kujdesshem ne trajtimin e ceshtjeve qe kane te bejne me terrorizmin, pas sulmeve ne Shtetet e Bashkuara. A mund te flisni me me shume detaje per kete problem? -Shtetet e Ballkanit duhet te jene te kujdesshme dhe te mos manipulojne kercenimin e terrorizmit nderkombetar per t'u perpjekur te nxjerrin avantazhe ne kurriz te fqinjeve te tyre. Pervec rastit kur jane te provuara, akuzat provokative te lidhjeve te supozuara mes disa aktivisteve ne rajon dhe rrjetit te Bin Laden duhet te konsiderohen si dezinformacion i qellimshem qe ne te vertete minon perpjekjet e Shteteve te Bashkuara per te crrenjosur murtajen e terrorizmit te organizuar. Nga ana tjeter, qeverite e Ballkanit duhet te bashkepunojne plotesisht ne luften kunder terrorizmit dhe te ndihmojne Shtetet e Bashkuara dhe NATO-n me cdo menyre te mundshme. Ne fund te fundit, kjo eshte ne te mire te gjithkujt. Si do ta percaktonit pozicionin e marre nga Shqiperia dhe shqiptaret, pas sulmeve? -Shqiptaret ne Shqiperi, Kosove dhe kudo tjeter kane mbajtur nje qendrim te shkelqyer ne mbeshtetje te Shteteve te Bashkuara. Kjo ishte e dukshme jo vetem ne deklaratat qeveritare, por edhe ne veprimet dhe shprehjet e qytetareve te zakonshem. Nje mbeshtetje e tille do te kujtohet dhe vleresohet gjate nga Uashingtoni. Ne betejen e gjate qe shtrihet perpara, mbeshtetja me fjale duhet te kthehet ne aksione konkrete ne disa fusha: lufta ndaj krimit, veprimtaria e inteligjences, depertimi ne bazat militante, e keshtu me radhe. A e konsideroni Shqiperine me te rrezikshme se vende te tjera te Evropes, persa i takon pranise se fondamentalisteve? -Fanatizmi fetar nuk eshte nje fenomen me peshe kudo ne Ballkan. Disa interesa politike ne Lindjen e Mesme u perpoqen te ngulnin baza fondamentaliste ne vende si Bosnja, Kosova dhe Shqiperia. Por, perpjekjet e tyre nuk gjeten nje terren pjellor. Megjithate, lidhjet mes terroristeve dhe krimineleve duhet te monitorohen gjeresisht dhe te shkulen nga rrenjet, sepse te dy fenomenet jane nje kercenim per demokracine dhe sigurine. Ne kete kuptim, Shqiperia duhet te eliminoje "fondamentalistet kriminale" te saj, te cilet, ne fund te fundit, bejne lojen e terroristeve anti-amerikane. Cili eshte komenti juaj per fushaten qe disa vende fqinje me Shqiperine, si Greqia, Serbia dhe Maqedonia kane ndermarre kohet e fundit, duke e paraqitur Shqiperine si nje "fole" terroristesh dhe shqiptaret si mbeshtetes te fondamentalizmit? -Per fat te keq, disa lidere politike ne rajon i kane akuzuar padrejtesisht shqiptaret si terroriste sepse kjo eshte e leverdisshme per te larguar vemendjen nga deshtimet e vete atyre per te kontrolluar radikalizmin dhe kriminalitetin e vendeve te tyre. Nocioni qe shqiptaret jane "fondamentaliste" konsiderohet ne Uasington sigurisht si nje fabrikim. Autoret e fushatave te tilla dezinformuese po shihen gjithmone e me shume si oportuniste qe kerkojne t'i terheqin vemendjen Amerikes nga misioni i saj per te crrenjosur terrorizmin nderkombetar. A mendoni se keto qendrime kane si synim qe te hedhin poshte kerkesat e shqiptareve per me shume te drejta ne Maqedoni, si edhe arsyet e luftes kunder regjimit te Milloshevicit ne Kosove? -Eshte e qarte qe fushata antishqiptare ka per qellim qe te minimizoje pozicionin dhe aspiratat e popullsise shqiptare ne Evropen Juglindore. Ajo synonte gjithashtu qe te diskretitonte misionet e NATO-s dhe lidershipin amerikan, ndersa shkonte ne ndihme te Rusise ne perpjekjet e saj per te rifituar influence ne rajon. Pas ngjarjeve te fundit, a duhet pare nen nje kendveshtrim tjeter vendimi i administrates se Klintonit per te mbeshtetur luften e shqiptareve te Kosoves, ne 1999? -Nuk besoj. Administrata e Klintonit mbeshteti te drejta te plota per shqiptaret ne Kosove dhe kerkoi qe te eliminonte terroristin kryesor te shtetit, Milloshevic. Askush ne administraten e Bushit nuk e ka kundershtuar ne pergjithesi kete qendrim. Zhvillimet e fundit nuk e kane ndryshuar ekuacionin. A mendoni qe Shteteve te Bashkuara u duhet te jene te pranishem ne Ballkan (sic jane ato ne Bosnje, Kosove dhe Maqedoni), edhe per te mbledhur informacion per aktivitetet terroriste, si pjese e fushates globale ne kete drejtim? Shtetet e Bashkuara kane nevoje per nje prani afatgjate ne pika te ndryshme me probleme ne Bote, jo vetem per te mbledhur informacion per terrorizmin, por per te mos lejuar asnje territor qe te behet strehe per terrorizmin. Ne kete kuptim, ngritja e institucioneve te besueshme dhe qeverive autoritare dhe te ligjshme eshte esenciale ne fushaten e "parandalimit te terrorizmit". Cfare duhet te bejne vendet e Ballkanit qe te permbushin nevojen e sa me pak pikave te nxehta ne bote? Qeverite e Ballkanit dhe te gjithe lojtaret kryesore politike duhet te gjejne pika bashkkepunimi ne nje numer fushash si ndertimi i institucioneve, bashkepunimi ekonomik, lufta kunder krimit, te drejtat e minoriteteve dhe kufizimi i radikalizmit politik, ideologjik dhe fetar. Iniciativa te tilla do te ndihmojne ne ftohjen e "pikave te nxehta" ne Ballkan. Kjo eshte thelbesore me qellim qe vemendja amerikane te mos hiqet nga lufta me e gjere kunder vrasesve nderkombetare. Cili eshte komenti juaj per protestat e koheve te fundit ne Greqi, kunder aksionit te armatosur amerikan kunder terrorizmit? Me nje fjale: te turpshme. Dikush mund te pyese veten, se si do te reagonte Greqia nese Lojerat e ardhshme Olimpike ne Athine do te shkaterroheshin nga nje sulm terrorist vrases qe te shkaktonte mijera te vdekur dhe te sakatuar. Jam i sigurt qe ne nje fatkeqesi te tille, Amerika do te ishte e para ne rresht per te ndihmuar qeverine dhe popullin grek per t'u shkuar pas fajtoreve. I gjithe populli grek duhet te perpiqet te beje dallimin mes miqve dhe armiqve. Senatorja Hillary Clinton eshte shprehur ne nje interviste te koheve te fundit se dy luftrat e fundit amerikane ne Bosnje dhe ne Kosove, u bene per te mbrojtur myslimanet. Cili eshte komenti juaj per kete thenie? Nderhyrjet amerikane si ne Bonje edhe ne Kosove, u bene me qellim qe t'u jepej fund luftrave qe kishin si shenjester vende me shumice myslimane. Amerika nuk diskriminon ne baze te besimit fetar, por diskriminon mes fajtoresh dhe te pafajshmish dhe eshte ne krahun e te pafajshmit. 10/10/2001 -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 10 20:20:03 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 17:20:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fellowships for Research in Germany Message-ID: <20011011002003.45823.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] Fellowships for Research in Germany Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:23:06 +0200 Size: 8212 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 11 08:34:35 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 05:34:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfA: Kokkalis Program at Harvard Announces Fellowships for Southeast European Students Pursuing Degrees in Public Policy/Administration Message-ID: <20011011123435.9169.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfA: Kokkalis Program at Harvard Announces Fellowships for Southeast European Students Pursuing Degrees in Public Policy/Administration Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 11:03:36 +0200 Size: 12404 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 11 09:00:49 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 06:00:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Jobs Message-ID: <20011011130049.38686.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> N? 68/2001 / A1/A2/A3 / Closing date: 19 October 2001 Two long-term temporary posts of Scientific Administrative Officers (Grade A1/A2/A3)European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) 10 August 2001 In accordance with Article 8 of Rule 821 laying down the conditions of recruitment and employment of temporary staff, notice is hereby given of the above vacancy. The duties attaching to the vacant post and the qualifications required of candidates are set out below. Applicants must be nationals of a member state of the Council of Europe. The successful candidate will initially be appointed on a two-year contract. This contract may be renewed. Under its equal opportunities policy, the Council of Europe is aiming to achieve parity in the number of women and men employed in each category and grade. The successful candidate will be appointed at grade A1 or A2, depending on age and experience. The person appointed will work in Strasbourg. Duties Under the authority of the Director responsible for the European Department for the Quality Medicines and the Head of the Certification Unit, the post holder will be responsible for the following: ? Examining the acceptability of and participating in the assessment of the dossiers for applying to a certifcate of similarity for which he/she is responsible ; ? Preparing and sending the necessary correspondence ; ? Liaising with EDQM administrators responsible for monographs and with appointed experts at sessions for the assessment of dossiers ; ? Participation in the elaboration of a database for the management of dossiers. Qualifications, professional experience, knowledge, skills and language proficiency ? Good university degree in pharmacy or chemistry or biology or an equivalent qualification ; ? Appropriate professional experience in dealing with dossiers for applications for marketing authorisation of medicines, either in a licensing authority or in the pharmaceutical or chemical industry ; ? Knowledge of monographs of the European Pharmacopoeia and of European legislation on medicines ; ? Very good knowledge of one of the official languages (English) and good knowledge of the other ; knowledge of other European languages desirable. Other relevant competencies ? analytical skills; ? ability to draft clearly and concisely and to work rapidly under pressure; ? sense of responsibility and initiative; ? flair for human relations; ? discretion and ability to work in a team in a multicultural environment; ? adaptability; ? aptitude for using computer facilities. Applications Applications must reach by 19 October 2001 Directorate of Human Resources (Recruitment Office), COUNCIL OF EUROPE F- 67075 Strasbourg Cedex France fax: 33 3 88 41 27 10 e-mail: Recruitment at coe.int, and be submitted in the form of: an official application form available on the Council of Europe?s recruitment website (http://www.coe.fr/jobs), or a detailed CV including the Vacancy Notice number, date of birth, nationality(ies), postal address and e-mail address (if applicable), telephone number, education and training, work experience and language skills. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 11 14:00:02 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 12:00:02 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Mbi Gjakmarrjen/On Feuds Message-ID: New York Times Magazine December 26, 1999, Sunday The Curse Of Blood and Vengeance By Scott Anderson By conservative estimate, at least 200 people witnessed the murder of Shtjefen Lamthi in Shkoder, the northernmost city of Albania, early on the afternoon of Aug. 3, 1998. The 43-year-old farmer was walking south along Zyhdi Lahi Street, one of the main thoroughfares of the Rus marketplace in downtown Shkoder, his hands weighted down with plastic bags filled with his day's purchases. Just in front of a small tobacco kiosk at the northwest corner of Rus Square, a burly man who looked to be in his mid-30's suddenly stepped into Lamthi's path, brought up a Kalashnikov assault rifle, shot him 21 times and walked away. None of the witnesses came forward to identify the killer. Instead, a wall of silence immediately descended. Today, 16 months later, Lamthi's murder remains officially unsolved, despite the fact that almost everyone knows exactly who killed him. A strange event, but not in Albania. Albania was largely forgotten during the war in Bosnia, and only talked of indirectly during the war in Kosovo, as those driven out of the province by the Serbs were of Albanian descent. But the tiny nation of 3.5 million, tucked between the former Yugoslavia and Greece on the Adriatic coast, was high among the concerns for the Balkans at the beginning of this decade. Intent on transforming the poorest land in Europe into a free-market economy, on building a democracy atop the ashes of one of the world's most repressive Communist dictatorships, Western nations poured untold millions in aid into Albania in the early 1990's. For a time, all seemed to go well -- and then it all blew apart. Today, Albania is an economic ruin, its government is largely theoretical and the frequency of murders like that of Shtjefen Lamthi makes it one of the deadliest ''at peace'' nations on earth. What is it about the Balkans that so defeats all efforts to calm them? In searching for an answer, observers have naturally focused their greatest attention on the succession of conflicts that have torn apart the former Yugoslavia. And in so doing, they have tended to conclude that the Balkans are singularly riven by centuries-old ethnic and religious hatreds -- that these are people, or better, groups of people, who simply can't live together. ''Ethnic cleansing'' and concentration camps are strong evidence of this assessment. And yet from my own travels through the Balkans over the past two decades, I've never found that explanation wholly convincing. How, for example, to reconcile the ''centuries of hate'' with the historical cosmopolitanism of places like Sarajevo and Belgrade? How to account for the high degree of intermarriage in cities between ''enemy'' groups like the Muslims and Orthodox Christians? What to make of a man like Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader whose genocidal pogroms against Muslims have earned him an indictment for war crimes, but who once routinely treated Muslim patients in his psychiatric practice and, by all accounts, got along with them very well? And how does this theory explain Albania, a corner of the Balkans that, despite its mix of Christians and Muslims, is relatively free of ethnic or religious tensions, but where people still die violently in appalling numbers? I have come to believe that a key ingredient of the Balkan poison -- perhaps the key ingredient -- is a different kind of schism, one that largely disappeared from the rest of Europe a half-century ago: that between urban and rural, between village and city. In contrast to all but the most isolated pockets elsewhere in Europe, the gulf of experience between the city and the village in the Balkans represents an awful chasm. The cities of Sarajevo and Belgrade are -- or were, until only yesterday -- emblems of European sophistication and cultural fusion. The typical Balkan village, on the other hand, has always been a hard and pitiless place, one where ancient feuds are nursed and passed on for generations, where change and outside influence is deeply mistrusted. What's more, so ingrained is the Balkan village's medieval code of honor and loyalty -- and this is true for Muslim and Christian villages alike -- that even many of those who have escaped its grip and become city dwellers seem to return to its thrall in moments of crisis. This was true, I think, of Radovan Karadzic, a university-educated psychiatrist -- a Modern Man -- who grew up in a tiny mountain hamlet so grim and remote that it essentially consisted of his own extended family. Only slightly larger was the home village of Karadzic's military commander -- and fellow indicted war criminal -- Gen. Ratko Mladic. Indeed, when looking at the backgrounds of those most responsible for the Balkan slaughters of this decade, including both Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman, who died earlier this month, you can't help noticing that all of them came from villages or small towns. When crisis came -- and the economic stagnation and political fracturing that befell Yugoslavia in the 1980's was surely a crisis -- it was to the primitive laws and passions of the village that these men reverted. This past autumn, I set out to explore the nature of the Balkan village -- its codes and violent means of enforcing them. I chose to avoid the recognized battlefields of Bosnia and Kosovo and to journey instead to a corner of the Balkans that is officially at peace, but where the ancient ethos of the village has now resurfaced to deadly effect: northern Albania. The story of how Shtjefen Lamthi came to die in the streets of Shkoder, of who killed him and why, affords a glimpse into a world where old offenses are never forgotten, where no easy mechanism exists to break a murderous cycle of vengeance. In a different part of Europe, Shkoder would be a tourist resort. A city of some 80,000 in northernmost Albania, it spreads gracefully over the plains beside Lake Shkoder, surrounded on all sides by rugged mountains. On its southern edge, a great medieval castle overlooks the confluence of the Kiri and Drin Rivers, the country beyond giving over to wheat fields and forest. Rather than a tourist resort, though, Shkoder today is pretty much a ruin, its lake thoroughly polluted, most of its old factories crumbled to dust, the rows of drab high-rise apartments on its outskirts seemingly ready to follow suit. Most of all, Shkoder suffers under the reputation of being one of the most dangerous places in a very dangerous country. Testament to the level of violence in Shkoder is that the junior prosecutor assigned to solving Shtjefen Lamthi's murder has trouble recalling much about the crime. At the moment, he is juggling some two dozen criminal cases, almost all of them murders, and the killing of Lamthi in the summer of 1998 is basically ancient history to him, the details growing indistinct. ''It did have one unusual aspect,'' he finally offered, when I sat and talked with him in a quiet cafe about 100 yards from where the killing took place. ''To do it in public like that, with so many witnesses, that is not normal. It means the killer wanted to send a message.'' As for what that message might be, the prosecutor was unwilling to even hazard a guess. On at least two points, there is no dispute: the end of Shtjefen Lamthi came very quickly and was very ugly. Before Lamthi had time to react, he was felled by several shots to the chest; his attacker then stood over him on the sidewalk and emptied the 30-bullet Kalashnikov clip into his body. When the firing finally stopped, the killer calmly slipped the assault rifle into a plastic bag and went on his way. Brazen even by the standards of Shkoder, the murder in Rus Square seemed to underscore just how deeply a climate of mayhem had taken hold in Albania, and how little Shtjefen's killer had to worry about consequences. When the police arrived at the murder scene, they simply loaded his body for the trip to the morgue, not even bothering to question any potential eyewitnesses to the attack. A young girl who had been wounded in the fusillade of bullets was taken home rather than to a hospital, her parents apparently wanting no association with the event. Even Shtjefen's brothers, who had accompanied him into Shkoder that day, were tight-lipped. When they came to the morgue to collect his body, they professed to have absolutely no idea who might want their brother dead. ''That's how it works in Albania,'' the junior prosecutor said that afternoon in the cafe. ''No one talks.'' Albania has never registered very high in the average American's consciousness -- and for good reason. For 40 years following the end of the Second World War, the small mountainous country was hermetically sealed from the outside world by its Communist strongman, Enver Hoxha, its inhabitants existing in an isolation rivaled by only that of North Korea. What news did filter out tended to fit neatly into the ''News of the Weird'' column: the hundreds of thousands of tiny concrete bunkers -- Hoxha's mushrooms'' -- being built to repel some phantom foreign invasion; the fact that in the entire country there were only 700 television sets and 400 cars, all in the hands of the state. With the end of Communism, the world saw fleeting images, but they still tended to be odd and decidedly un-European: impoverished Albanians crammed shoulder to shoulder on rusting freighters pulling up on Italian beaches in the early 1990's, gunmen and looters taking to the streets in 1997 after vast pyramid schemes had bankrupted the economy. For such a small country -- roughly the size of Maryland -- Albania has very large problems. Along with being the poorest nation in Europe, it suffers the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy. With virtually all its Communist-era factories in ruins, it has an unemployment rate well over 30 percent. It is also an environmental disaster zone, without a single waste-treatment plant in operation, and with huge tracts of the countryside now little more than toxic waste sites as a result of Hoxha's reliance on heavy industry. Two years ago, both the national economy and the government collapsed, and looting was rampant. A special target of the looters was the police and army arsenals conveniently located outside nearly every town, so that Albania was suddenly awash in high-powered weaponry. Ever since, the central government in the capital, Tirana, has struggled to re-establish its legitimacy and some semblance of order. While that campaign has had some success in Tirana, it has had little in the countryside. With whole towns controlled by heavily-armed smuggling mafias or mini-warlords, and ambushes frequent, travelers race to be off the roads before nightfall. In the northern district of Tropoje, several relief workers have been murdered by bandits, and the humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders, has had so many of its vehicles stolen that it has won the local nickname Doctors Without Cars. The rise of organized and semiorganized crime is not the whole story, however. In fact, it has served to mask a deeper, darker truth about Albania. Communism never actually modernized Albania, but merely put the old ways, the village ways, in a kind of deep freeze -- much as Tito did in Yugoslavia following World War II. The collapse of the state and the national economy has led many Albanians to once again openly embrace the traditional laws and loyalties of the village. These are spelled out in the kanun (pronounced ka-NOON), a book of rules and oaths. By the dictates of the kanun -- there are actually several versions, most of which came into being centuries ago -- one's primary allegiance is to clan and community, not to the state. In accordance with this allegiance, taking revenge in order to defend the honor of one's family is not only permissible but also a sacred duty. Of course, unlike medieval times, now that duty can be carried out with modern weaponry like assault rifles. The most enduring of the kanuns, and also the most severe, was that formulated by a 15th-century nobleman named Leke Dukagjini. For centuries, the horrifically bloody vendettas sparked by his kanun in the northern mountains of Albania was the stuff of Balkan legend, until the practice was largely stamped out during the country's Communist era. Now, with the flood of weapons into the streets following the 1997 crisis, his edicts have been resurrected to deadly effect, claiming lives all across Albania. Dukagjini's base of power was a narrow rugged valley in northern Albania that now bears his name; not coincidentally, the Dukagjin Valley was also the original home of Shtjefen Lamthi and of the man who killed him. That man's name is Leka Rrushkadoli, and on Aug. 3, 1998, he stalked Shtjefen through the Rus marketplace to take revenge for an incident that had occurred 13 years earlier in their home village, Thethi, 50 miles northeast of Shkoder. That incident began with an overturned dinner table. But in murdering Shtjefen Lamthi, Leka Rrushkadoli had set into motion one of the trickier tenets of the Dukagjini kanun. By atoning one blood debt he had given birth to a new one. Now it was his family's turn to be hunted, the Lamthi family's turn to take vengeance. Nestled in the uppermost reaches of the Dukagjin region, the vale of Thethi is imbued with a mournful kind of beauty, its spectacular setting tinged with a claustrophobic, end-of-the earth feel. Closed on all sides by sheer limestone cliffs of several thousand feet and cut through by a glacial blue river, its 500 or 600 inhabitants -mostly subsistence farmers and shepherds -- receive only a few hours of sunlight a day, and for centuries their only way out was the narrow river gorge cutting south into the rest of the Dukagjin Valley. Today, a rugged and rarely used dirt track leads over the mountains to connect Thethi with Shkoder, three hours away. So isolated and poor was the Dukagjin that the Islamic Ottomans who ruled Albania for 400 years barely bothered with it. As a result its inhabitants, mostly Catholic, lived out an existence little changed from medieval times. And rather than submit to any concepts of Ottoman or Western law, they continued to govern themselves according to the Dukagjini kanun. At the south end of the Thethi vale is a reminder of the kanun's power, a three-story stone tower known as a kula. In old times, the males of a family involved in a blood feud would gather in a kula to await a peace settlement or to learn the terms of the vendetta, a wait that could last months or even years. Testament to the frequency of such feuds is that at one time nearly every Dukagjini family had a kula. While today most of the kulas are gone, the mentality that they represent is not. At the northern end of the valley, a narrow path leads over open fields to three stone houses. One belongs to Leka Rrushkadoli, the killer of Shtjefen Lamthi. Since the murder, his house has sat empty. Just up the slope from Leka's house is that of his 35-year-old cousin, Martin. Martin and I sat on his stone terrace one afternoon, eating olives and sipping raki, the homemade Albanian version of grappa, as his half-naked children scrambled about in the warm sunshine. But every few moments Martin turned to glance down the path. Caught in the act, he gave an embarrassed smile. ''Even sitting here,'' he explained, ''sometimes it makes me nervous.'' He grabbed the arm of his youngest child, a 3-year-old boy. ''Even this one, he has to worry, because after all this time we still don't know the terms of the blood.'' Since the murder in Rus Square, Martin and all the other males of the extended Rrushkadoli family -- some 50 just in the Thethi environs -- have been ''locked,'' confined to their houses as they wait for the Lamthi's to take their revenge. In that time, Martin has barely left his tiny patch of land; when he does, he always carries his Kalashnikov assault rifle with him. ''We are all afraid, just waiting for the peace to be done or. . . . '' He glanced down the path again. ''Well, if they come for me and I kill them first, then I am free. By the kanun, they can't come for me a second time.'' Taking in the limited view from the terrace -- a few fields and then the enclosing wall of cliffs -- I tried to imagine what it would be like to stare at that, and little else, for more than a year. When I brought this up with Martin, he seemed puzzled. ''It's dull,'' he finally managed, ''but I am luckier than most. My relatives in Shkoder, they can't even go outside their houses.'' Despite a life that amounts to a form of captivity, one in which death may be just around the corner, he has no anger toward Leka. ''Leka had to do it to restore the family honor,'' he said. ''He had no choice.'' More than a mere set of laws, the kanun of Leke Dukagjini is a meticulous blueprint governing all aspects of communal life, with rules set in place for everything from how to bury the dead and conduct a proper wedding to what happens when one person's bee swarm ventures onto another's property. Even in the settlement of simple disputes, the logic can, at times, be elusive. If, for example, a neighbor's pig is marauding your property, it can be killed so long as it is not wearing a verze, or restraining collar; if it is wearing a verze -- which presumably should have kept it from wandering off in the first place -- and you kill it, the pig's owner has to be compensated. But it is in the area of criminal law where matters become the most exacting -- and the most exotic. At its core, the kanun is all about defending one's honor, since ''a man who is dishonored is considered dead.'' While lesser offenses to one's honor can be settled through apologies or gift-giving, higher offenses mandate the taking of blood. By the dictates of the kanun, a murder is the ultimate affront to a family's honor, the family existing in a limbo state of disgrace, essentially ''owned'' by the killer, until they ''take their blood back'' -- and the most respectable way to do that is to kill the killer. Of course, once this is done, it means the other family is in disgrace and needs to take its blood back. If it sounds like a recipe for slaughter, it gets worse. Since the kanun of Leke Dukagjini was not written down until the beginning of this century, its precepts were passed down orally -- which meant they mutated. In the original edicts, for example, only the actual murderer was targeted in a ''blood,'' or a kanun-sanctioned vendetta, but those parameters gradually expanded over time to include all his male relatives. In some villages, certain crimes were judged so heinous that they mandated a 2-for-1 or even 3-for-1 payback. A result was bloods that ranged over entire regions and for generations -- the longest reportedly lasted 240 years -- and left scores dead. They also had a devastating economic impact. Since a home could never be invaded in order to carry out a blood, the males of an entire extended family on the wrong side of a feud could spend years ''locked'' inside their houses or kulas. It was not until the rise of Enver Hoxha and his particularly vicious brand of Communism in 1945 that the cycle of vendetta in northern Albania began to be broken. In his fanatical pursuit of transforming the nation into a Red beacon, Hoxha immediately set about crushing anyone or anything he deemed counterrevolutionary -- and he took special aim at the kanun. In the Dukagjin, the kulas were razed and the authority of village elders subsumed by party commissars. For those caught in possession of a book of kanun, the sentence could be years of hard labor in the prison camps and the banishment of their families to the opposite end of the country. An especially ghoulish end was said to await those found guilty of committing a blood killing; according to folklore, Hoxha ordered the killers to be buried alive in the coffins of their victims. Not surprisingly, overt adherence to the kanun all but disappeared in the Dukagjin during the long Communist era. But the kanun was not eradicated. It survived quietly, beneath the Communist state, and it was a collision of these two forces -- the laws of the village and those of the state -- that ultimately set the Lamthis and Rrushkadolis of Thethi at war with each other. Six miles north of Shkoder is a grim patch of wind-swept farmland, remarkable only for the rounded tops of a half-dozen old bunkers of the Hoxha era rising out of the earth. Just beyond is a decrepit, three-room farmhouse held together with wood scraps and plastic sheeting. For eight years, this has been home to Shtjefen Lamthi's older brother, Preka Lamthi, his wife, and their three daughters and two sons. Preka Lamthi, 52, has the unmistakable air of a mean drunk, the sort who can slide from macho joviality to offended rage in a flash -- and on the day I visited, Preka had been drinking a lot. As we sat in his dingy living room, he brought out a bottle of homemade raki and filled the shot glasses he had set before us. He began with a rambling, 15-minute disquisition on the evils of Communism, the horrors inflicted on Albania during Hoxha's rule. Then he suddenly stopped, raised his raki glass and waited until I raised mine. ''When the Communists came to Thethi,'' he said slowly, in broken English, ''I was the first person they asked to join the party. I didn't have to join. It was not required.'' He broke into a mirthless grin. ''I joined.'' In the next instant, the grin was gone, replaced by anger. ''And what do I have for my years of service?'' he sneered. ''This place. One cow, seven sheep, two pigs. That is all. I swear to you, that is all. That is what serving Hoxha gave me.'' In the collective memory of his people, Enver Hoxha lives on as a malignant ghost. From the end of World War II until his death, in 1985, he ruled Albania with all the capricious cruelty of a Stalin, combined with the paranoid xenophobia of North Korea's Kim Il Sung. For the slightest sign of disobedience to the Great Leader, an Albanian could be denounced as an enemy of the state and sent to one of the country's myriad prison camps; given the all pervasive security apparatus and the handing out of medals to schoolchildren who detected subversive tendencies in their parents, Hoxha was assured a steady supply of victims. Maintaining this ''workers' paradise'' required constant vigilance against all taint from the outside. The few Albanians allowed to possess radios or televisions, mostly the party elite, were constantly watched by the secret police; those found to have rigged homemade aerials to pick up transmissions from nearby Italy were sent to the gulags. In the 1970's, even as the horse-drawn cart remained the chief source of transportation in his impoverished nation, the Great Leader embarked on a fantastically expensive project to ring Albania with his reinforced concrete bunkers, not stopping until some half-million of his ''mushrooms'' dotted the landscape. Perhaps most crucially of all, his rigid control of internal migration ensured that Albania remained a largely village society. But of course, there is really no such thing as one-man rule; like despots everywhere, Hoxha sat atop a great pyramid of capos, each level of the pyramid lording its power over those below and at the mercy of those above. In the village of Thethi, Hoxha's man was Preka Lamthi. First recruited into the party as a teenager in the 1960's, Preka steadily rose through the ranks until he was named the secretary general for the Thethi region in the late 1970's. As such, he was one of the most powerful men in the Dukagjin, with virtual life-and-death control over everyone else. To the Rrushkadoli family, a clear sign of Preka's omnipotence was what occurred inside his house on the night of Jan. 13, 1985. Both the Lamthi and Rrushkadoli clans had been in the Thethi area for centuries -- in fact, given the degree of intermarriage over the years, it was difficult to determine where one family ended and the other began -- and one of Preka's closest friends since childhood was a neighbor named Noue Rrushkadoli. As men, and as fellow members of the Communist Party, the two frequently got together in the evenings to socialize, which usually meant playing cards over glasses of raki. So was the plan on the night of Jan. 13, 1985, when Noue dropped by the Lamthi house in Thethi; already gathered in the living room was Preka, his younger brother, Shtjefen, and two or three other men. While accounts differ on specifics, all agree that a lot of drinking ensued. ''For a time,'' Preka recalled, ''everything was fine, all having a good time. But then Noue lost his temper over something -- and he had a bad temper when drinking.'' According to Preka, the argument culminated in Noue's overturning the dining-room table, one of the gravest insults that can be committed in an Albanian home. When Preka ordered him from the house, Noue instead went for his knife, stabbing Shtjefen six times before being overpowered. Then, either there in the living room or in the corridor leading to the front door, someone stabbed Noue once in the chest. The blow hit his heart and he fell dead. ''It was all a stupid, tragic thing,'' Preka says, ''because Noue was a good friend of mine. But you have to say he brought his end on himself by taking up the knife.'' The authorities agreed. At an official inquest into the incident, a tribunal ruled that whoever struck the death blow -- it was never determined which of the men in the room stabbed Noue -- had acted in self-defense, and the case was dropped. Dropped but not forgotten. To Noue Rrushkadoli's two teenage sons, Leka and Angelo, then 19 and 16 respectively, Preka Lamthi had escaped justice because of his high position in the Communist Party. Even more to the point, he had violated one of the most solemn covenants of the kanun. ''The house of the Albanian belongs to God and the guest'' reads the kanun of Dukagjini, and so sacred is this notion of hospitality that a homeowner is expected to lay down his life for it. For the woman of the house, says the kanun, churlish behavior toward a guest deserves the same punishment as adultery: a cut locket of hair for a first offense, a bullet in the back for a second. There have even been cases of killers finding protection in the homes of their victims, for, as the kanun states, ''If a guest enters your house, even though he may be in blood with you, you must say to him, 'Welcome!' '' While Preka Lamthi had clearly failed to maintain these high standards, to Noue Rrushkadoli's two sons that wasn't the half of it. By officiating over the death of their father inside the Lamthi house, Preka had committed a crime explicitly listed in Chapter 157 of the kanun as mandating the ''fire-torch and ax'' punishments: ''If someone commits these crimes, he is executed by the village, his family is fined, his house is burned, his trees are cut down, his garden and vineyards are destroyed, and his survivors are expelled from the country with their belongings.'' If the Rrushkadoli brothers couldn't restore their family's honor so long as Preka was the Communist Party boss in Thethi, they were willing to wait. In 1988, with Hoxha dead three years and the Communist apparatus in Albania disintegrating, Leka made his first strike. Ambushing Preka in a Thethi lane, he managed to stab him several times before being pulled away. According to Preka, it was his first indication that the Rrushkadoli boys considered themselves ''in blood'' with him. ''And that is not the way of the kanun,'' he told me. ''You must inform the other side immediately that a blood exists. I had gone to their father's funeral, I had shaken their hands, so to attack me years later, this was a violation of the kanun.'' Not seriously injured in the attack, Preka declined to press charges against Leka. For the next several years the two families maintained a wary vigil -- even as the society around them came apart at the seams. When Communism finally collapsed in 1991, it was as if Albania had awakened from a 46-year slumber. For the first time, Albanians saw both the cruel hoax they had lived in Hoxha's ''paradise,'' and the comparatively fantastic wealth of their capitalist neighbors. Almost overnight, the face of the country changed. Tens of thousands of young men streamed for the borders, becoming the new ''guest labor'' of the continent, while mountain villagers who had been barred from moving in Hoxha's day poured down into Tirana and the coastal towns. With land ownership and free enterprise having been banned for nearly a half-century, everywhere a mad scramble was on to stake a claim or start a business. Amid the tumult, backwaters like Thethi quickly emptied out -- and among the first to leave that isolated village was the Lamthi family. By late 1992, nearly all the extended clan, including Preka and his five brothers, had gone over the mountains to resettle on the wind-swept plains north of Shkoder. If no longer enjoying the relative privilege they had known with Preka as party boss in Thethi, the six Lamthi brothers were at least able to get by on their Shkoder farmsteads. Gradually, with the Albanian economy coming to life under a succession of nominally democratic governments, they could even afford a few simple pleasures: radios, televisions, a battered old Mercedes for running errands into town. As for the old blood feud with the Rrushkadolis, most of the brothers barely gave it a thought. ''We would watch if someone approached the house,'' Preka said, ''maybe look around a bit when we went into town, but nothing more than that. It was a new time, so those things were over.'' Life slowly improved for the Rrushkadoli boys, too. In 1996, they also abandoned Thethi, moving together into a small apartment on a back street of Shkoder. If the living quarters were cramped -- both Leka and Angelo were now married -- they were earning enough from short-term jobs to keep things together and at least imagine a better future. The feud with the Lamthis, now living six miles away, seemed all but forgotten to Leka and Angelo as well. For all, the brighter future ended very abruptly in early 1997, when Albania was felled by one of the most outlandish financial swindles the world has ever seen. By the mid-1990's, so-called investment banks had begun popping up in Albania and promising remarkable returns on client's deposits, often 200 percent to 300 percent annually. With little understanding of how capitalism actually worked, and with the Albanian government doing little to monitor the banks, Albanians began selling everything they had to cash in on the gold rush. As the deposits grew, so did the competition among the ''banks''; by late 1996, several were advertising returns of 40 percent per month. In truth, the investment opportunities were nothing more than pyramid schemes, and when they started to collapse in February 1997, Albania exploded into violence. The riots seemed to release a collective rage that had been held back since Hoxha's time, and the mobs turned their wrath on any symbol of authority they could find: police barracks, town halls, even the old state-run factories. They also turned their attention to the weapons arsenals that Hoxha had built outside almost every town. By the time the government was brought down and more than 6,000 mostly Italian peacekeeping troops arrived in April of that year, Albania had been transformed into a very scary place; there were now an estimated 650,000 modern weapons, mostly Kalashnikov assault rifles, in the hands of people largely ungoverned, destitute and steeped in the notions of blood and vengeance. One person that the collapse deeply affected was Leka Rrushkadoli. Now 35 and unemployed with a young son to care for, he seemed to remember suddenly his old blood feud from the Dukagjin. Buying a Kalashnikov assault rifle in the Shkoder market, he set out to find one of the Lamthi brothers. The first one to cross his path, on the early afternoon of Aug. 3, 1998, was Shtjefen. Of course, the 1997 crash had also profoundly altered the Lamthi family's lot in life, leaving them little incentive to ignore the ''in blood'' demands placed on them by the kanun for the murder of one of their own. Llesh Prela clearly subscribes to the best-defense-is-a-good-offense theory. A ''cousin'' of Leka Rrushkadoli, in the elastic way that term is used in the Dukagjin, the 71-year-old shepherd has made a number of preparations around his little stone house in the back reaches of Thethi should one of the Lamthis come calling. When asked what those preparations consist of, the elfin old man smiled mischievously. ''Well,'' he said through an interpreter, ''all of us who are related to Leka have guns in our houses, of course, but maybe we also have them buried in the fields for when we are working. Maybe some of us have grenades, even rocket launchers. The situation in Thethi today requires it.'' For seven months after the killing of Shtjefen Lamthi, Llesh Prela never left his property. He now feels emboldened enough to venture a little farther afield, usually to visit with other Rrushkadoli relatives in Thethi who are similarly ''locked.'' With evident amusement he told of a cousin who lived in Canada for 10 years, but who returned to Albania the previous summer. ''Bad luck,'' he laughed, ''because now he is locked, too.'' The Lamthi-Rrushkadoli blood feud is, in fact, just one of two currently taking place in Thethi. The other is so bizarre that Mark Shyti, a wizened man who fixed his age at ''about 80,'' can barely bring himself to speak of it. ''It is within one family,'' he whispered with incredulity, ''one set of cousins against another. This is something I've never heard of before, against everything in the kanun.'' This blood is such a disgrace and blot on Thethi's reputation that the old man became fretful at the mere suggestion of my meeting the family. ''But these people are very low,'' he said, ''not worthy of being spoken to. It could cause problems for you.'' The implication was that my own status as a privileged guest in the valley would suffer should I pursue the matter. As a lifelong resident of the Dukagjin, Shyti has tremendous experience with bloods; he estimated that, in this region of some 13,000 inhabitants, there have been at least 200 blood killings in his lifetime. ''Very many when I was young,'' he said, ''then very few during the dictatorship. Now it has come back again, and new ones are starting all the time.'' As one of the elders of Thethi, Shyti is occasionally called upon to mediate in local disputes and, with luck, forge a peaceful resolution. He also represents a vital bridge over the Hoxha interregnum, drawing on his knowledge of earlier bloods to set precedents -- and limits -- for those occurring now. Late into one night, we sat with half a dozen other men in the living room of his son's home as he described noteworthy bloods of the past and their legalistic peculiarities. The conversation eventually turned to a very recent incident, one that revealed both the complexity of the kanun and the slipperiness with which it can be applied. Six days earlier, a married couple from the Dukagjin had been stopped on the road to Shkoder by four bandits. The woman had a pistol hidden in her purse and, when the bandits' attention was diverted, used it to shoot two of them dead; the other two bandits then returned fire, killing her and wounding her husband before fleeing. For the next half-hour, Shyti was silent as the other men in the room offered theories as to where the blood lies in this case. Most eventually decided that the dead woman's family -- that is, her father and brothers -- should now take revenge against the families of the two surviving bandits, until Shyti raised a dissenting finger. ''By the kanun,'' he intoned, ''banditry is permissible if it is to feed one's hungry children. If that can be proved in this case, then it is the families of the dead bandits who have a blood with the woman's family, because it was she who started the shooting.'' The others in the room nodded solemnly at this pronouncement, but I couldn't recall ever having come across the ''hungry children'' clause in the kanun. When I politely pointed this out, the old man shrugged and said, ''It is a local interpretation.'' Before setting out for Shkoder, Albanian journalists in Tirana had warned me of a city under virtual siege, its streets cleared by early afternoon, the nights given over to shootouts between local mafias and the mountain clansmen who have come down in recent years and brought their blood feuds with them. The reality was not nearly so dire. Shkoder residents this past autumn didn't begin to head indoors until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and an elite, well-armed police battalion trained by the Italians was manning roadblocks on the edge of town, conducting spot checks of travelers from behind black ski masks. The heavy police presence was clearly having an effect; as the United Nations noted about Shkoder in one of its weekly security reports: ''The situation is calm, with only two reported murders on the 19 Oct.'' One of those responsible for Shkoder's incremental return to civility is a dapper 41-year-old man named Emin Spahia. A former hospital barber, Spahia is now the general secretary of the All-Nation Reconciliation Mission, a grass-roots organization dedicated to ending the blood feuds in Albania through mediation. This is no simple task, since arranging a peace can take years of negotiations with the warring families and then, if a peace is achieved, a mass gathering of all the extended relatives must be organized for a ceremony. ''You must get them all to gather for the ceremony,'' Emin Spahia told me. ''Otherwise, someone can decide they are not bound by the peace, and the blood will start again.'' Spahia came to his current vocation after his own family was involved in a blood. In 1987, his uncle was killed in a dispute with a neighboring family, and five years later his cousin took revenge. While the feud was eventually settled, Spahia spent eight months ''locked,'' long enough to persuade him never to be involved in another blood and to work toward ending others. By his account his work has been remarkably successful. With virtually no outside funds (the Soros Foundation did donate a computer and two-way radio system this year), he and his mediators -- usually elderly men respected in their communities -- have met with more than 2,000 Albanian families ''in conflict'' in the past two years. In the process, they have managed to head off some 350 disputes before they reached the killing stage -- even divorces and car accidents can spark bloods -- and brought an end to more than 600 active feuds. As Spahia proudly pointed out, that translates into more than 10,000 people being freed of their ''locked'' status, including more than 1,000 children now able to return to school. At the same time, with an estimated 2,700 feuds still active in Albania and more starting up every day, Spahia suspects he won't be out of a job any time soon. ''Most of these go back to the land ownership disputes of '91,'' he said, referring to the national scramble for property after the collapse of Communism, ''but then when all the guns came out in the '97 crisis, that's when the killing really started. The big problem now is a lack of government, so it keeps spreading. Before, the Dukagjini kanun was only in the north, but since '97 you are seeing it in Tirana, in the south, even in other countries.'' According to Emin Spahia and others, there have been several cases of Albanian emigres in the United States and Western Europe being killed as a result of homeland feuds; there have also been cases of emigres returning to Albania in order to take revenge. By coincidence, the headquarters of the All-Nation Reconciliation Mission -- a windowless second-floor cubicle donated by a local merchant -- is a mere 40 feet from the spot where Leka Rrushkadoli gunned down Shtjefen Lamthi. That blood feud is one that Spahia and his mediators have been trying to end. Over the past year, the general secretary has paid a number of visits to the Lamthis on their farmsteads north of town, as well as to many of the Rrushkadolis who are ''locked'' in Shkoder. ''I'm optimistic about ending this one,'' Emin Spahia said, ''because the Lamthis seem ready to negotiate. The big obstacle, though, is Leka. His relatives are still too nervous to arrange a meeting with him, and until we speak, it's very difficult to negotiate a peace.'' When I mentioned that I'd heard Leka was living as a fugitive in the hills above Thethi, Spahia smiled. ''Yes,'' he said, ''that is what families like to say in these situations, but it is possible that he is still here in Shkoder.'' That night an intermediary with extensive contacts in the ''locked'' community of Shkoder led a rambling tour through the town's deserted back streets. It turned out that Shkoder's ''locked'' inhabitants, estimated to number about 1,500, maintain an informal network among themselves; after knocking on the doors of half a dozen homes, and staring down the barrels of several guns, we were directed to an address near downtown. After a brief discussion with a woman at the building's entrance, we were told to come back in the morning, that someone who might know Leka's whereabouts would meet with us. The metal door opened a few inches, and a heavily-built man quickly looked me up and down. I noticed he had worried eyes and was very pale. After a moment, he pushed the door open and ushered me inside, into a tiny living room adorned with old family photographs and Catholic icons. As we sat, the man continued to study me, seeming both timid and wary. ''I am Leka,'' he said finally. A few minutes later, we were joined by Angelo, Leka's younger brother. He, too, was very pale, but he had used his 14 months of house imprisonment to learn rudimentary English from a textbook. For the next hour, Leka matter-of-factly explained why he killed Shtjefen Lamthi, starting with how his father came to die in Preka's house 13 years before. Interestingly, his account of that first death differed very little from Preka's, and he readily acknowledged that his father had escalated the argument by going for his knife. When I suggested that this act made his father more culpable in the tragedy, and the Lamthis less so, Leka simply shrugged. ''That doesn't matter in the kanun,'' he replied. ''By the kanun, the very worst crime is to kill someone inside your house, no matter the circumstances or how it started.'' ''That's right,'' Angelo chimed in. ''For this, the Lamthis should have left Thethi. By the kanun, Preka should have been executed, his house destroyed and all his family made to leave the valley and never show their faces again.'' Leka nodded. ''But we didn't ask for that. All we wanted was for Preka to come to us and ask for our forgiveness. But he was the big party boss for the district, he knew he couldn't be touched, so he treated it like nothing. For 13 years we waited for him to come to us, and finally I could not wait any longer.'' Throughout the brothers' tale ran a deep current of animosity for Preka. For Shtjefen, on the other hand, there seemed no rancor and even a measure of sympathy; after all, both Leka and Angelo recognized that he was the first victim in the whole case, stabbed by their drunken, knife-wielding father. It prompted me to ask an obvious question. ''Rather than kill Shtjefen, why didn't you wait for the chance to kill Preka?'' Leka pondered. ''But it made no difference'' he said eventually. ''By the kanun, any of the Lamthis were equal, just so long as one of them paid. I saw Shtjefen first, so he paid.'' What the Rrushkadoli brothers wanted now was a peace settlement with the Lamthis so that they could venture out their apartment door and return to the world. The score has been evened at one death apiece and, as Emin Spahia had earlier pointed out to me, it is always easier to broker peace when the score is tied. Except this blood feud doesn't quite have a tie score, as Angelo reminded his brother: ''There is still the time you stabbed Preka in Thethi.'' ''That's right,'' Leka conceded. ''That will have to be negotiated.'' Later, when I told Emin Spahia of my meeting with Leka, he was pleased. ''This means he is trusting now,'' Spahia said, ''maybe even a bit desperate for it all to end. I'm very confident that we will have a peace here very soon.'' He may be right, but I can't say I share his confidence. I remember sitting across from Preka Lamthi, his look of feigned amazement when I asked about the ongoing blood feud between him and the Rrushkadolis. ''Blood? But we have no blood with them. That is all in the past now.'' At that, his two grown sons had exchanged sly glances and smirked. I also remember what the Rrushkadoli brothers said as I left them. Perhaps emboldened by the presence of a visitor, they had stepped across their apartment threshold to stand on the landing and gaze out at the sunlit street. ''The Lamthis should give us peace now,'' Angelo said, ''because technically they still owe us. We are not asking for anything more but, by the terms of the kanun, for killing our father inside their house, they owe us three deaths.'' ''That's right,'' Leka had nodded, blinking furiously against the sunlight he had barely glimpsed in 14 months. ''Three of theirs.'' _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From admin at albstudent.com Thu Oct 11 15:15:52 2001 From: admin at albstudent.com (Admin@ AlbStudent) Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 12:15:52 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Kenga Magjike 2001 Message-ID: <200110111915.f9BJFqC05389@mail21.bigmailbox.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Fri Oct 12 02:50:53 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 00:50:53 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <000a01c152ea$3d1202e0$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> No brother of mine In the only interview given by a member of the Bin Laden family since September 11, Osama's US-based brother Abdullah talks to Marcella Bombardieri Friday October 12, 2001 The Guardian The woman behind the counter at Starbucks was crying. Between sobs, she said something about a plane, something about the World Trade Centre. The man grabbed his tall latte and rushed back to his apartment, turning on the television just before the second plane crashed into the second tower. For a while, the nightmare of September 11 was the same for him as it was for so many others in the United States. He was anxious about his friends in New York. He wondered how anyone could harm so many people. It was only when that name surfaced on television, the name of the suspected terrorist behind the attacks, that Abdullah Mohammed Binladin began to understand that he was not all right, and that his life was about to change for ever. "I felt sad, that this is a tragedy for humanity," says Binladin, who has lived in Cambridge, Massachussetts, for much of the past decade, earning a master's and doctorate from Harvard Law School. "And I felt that this is a tragedy for our family. How will people look at our family? Our name is being hijacked." At 35, Binladin (the spelling is that used by most of the family) is among the youngest of 54 children born to the numerous wives of the late Mohammed Bin-Awad Binladin. Only 50 of those children are still with the family. Three have died. One is the accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, whom the family disowned in 1994. "It is my understanding that in the early 90s the family repeatedly reached out and made attempts to plead with Osama to moderate his views," Abdullah says. "After these attempts failed, there was a reluctant but unanimous consensus that Osama should be disowned." All 11 of the other Binladin relatives in the Boston area - Abdullah's nieces and nephews - boarded a chartered Saudi jet and fled from the US on September 19. Abdullah stayed behind. His life since has become almost unrecognisable: the man who loved jogging along the river has avoided any interactions with strangers who could "hear the name and get angry or upset or horrified". He has stopped using his credit card and suspended his hobby of flying single-engine planes, for fear of the reactions he might get. "I've tried to keep a low profile and use cash as much as possible," he says. Abdullah's apartment is tastefully appointed but unexceptional, apart from the large, framed photograph in the living room. Taken sometime in the 60s, it shows Abdullah's father, Mohammed, standing beside King Faisal, as the Saudi ruler points into the distance. Under Faisal, Saudi Arabia built up its infrastructure, connecting vast stretches of desert through complicated highway and dam projects. Looking at this photo today, the king's confidence in Binladin is palpable. "My father didn't know how to read or write, but God blessed him with a wonderful memory," says Abdullah. "And he was a great visionary." After Mohammed died in a plane crash in 1967, control of the family business passed to his son Salem, and then to another son, Bakr, when Salem also perished in a plane crash in 1988. It is unclear how many wives Mohammed Binladin had. Abdullah and Osama are technically half-brothers. Abdullah grew up in a villa with his mother in Jiddah, and attended a government school. It was the norm in a large polygamous family for children to live with their mothers. (Such practices have gone out of style, and Abdullah's brothers, with the exception of Osama, each have only one wife. Abdullah is single.) While Abdullah says it was his own desire to study law, the head of the Binladen family monitors the choices made by each member, especially with an eye toward protecting the business. "Bakr, I think, decides everything physically possible - who you marry, where you work in the business, what you study," says Frank Vogel, director of the Islamic Legal Studies Programme at Harvard Law School. The last time Abdullah saw Osama was in 1988, at their brother Salem's funeral. By that time, Osama had already strayed far from the yoke of the family business. "He had been living most of the time in Afghanistan," says Abdullah. "I personally didn't know him very well." Osama had spent much of that decade raising money for, and then participating in, the fight by Muslims to repel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. There is every indication that he received the support of the family in this cause, which was a popular one in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Muslim world. When Osama returned to the family home base of Jiddah, riding high after the retreat of the Soviets in Afghanistan, tensions between him and his siblings came to the boil. He began to denounce the Saudi regime as oppressive and hypocritical. Then came the build-up to the Gulf war, which changed so much in Saudi Arabia. Iraq's effortless toppling of Kuwait had the Saudi ruling family so worried that it reversed the kingdom's longstanding policy of not allowing a foreign military force, even an ally such as the United States, on its soil. That decision opened a ferocious faultline between Osama and the family business. The Binladin Group got many of the contracts to build military support facilities for the US forces - but Osama saw the arrival of US troops as an unforgivable abdication by the Saudi royal family of its most sacred obligation: protecting the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed, and Islam, from crusading outsiders. Osama's attack on Saudi King Fahd was stunning, considering the family's long and close association with the royal family. The Saudi government forced him into exile in 1991, and the family renounced him. From his outpost in the Sudan, Osama intensified his campaign against the Saudi government, and in 1994, it stripped him of his citizenship and his family disowned him. "It is a big family," Abdullah says. "There is a black sheep in every big family." When Abdullah visited Boston in 1990, he already had a law degree from King Saud University in Riyadh, and he was looking for a place to advance his studies. The Binladins now have close links with Harvard - they have made a $1m donation to the school of design there. They have also funded another fellowship programme at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. And every year, the Saudi Binladin Group donates tens of thousands of dollars to the Middle East Policy Council, which helps train educators in Middle East and Islamic studies. "The main idea is really to further the understanding between western and Islamic cultures, at least to bridge the gap," says Abdullah about the family's charitable goals. But as Osama's profile as a terrorist grew with the bombings of US embassies in Africa in 1998 and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, the Binladins found it more difficult to conduct business around the world and in Boston. The problems have accelerated dramatically since September 11. Several western companies have ended their joint ventures with the Binladin Group, though they have said the decisions were not related to the terrorist attacks. And there has been considerable speculation in the press that some members of the enormous Binladin family continue to have contact with Osama, a charge the family flatly rejects. "I totally support my family's statement that expressed condolences and deepest sympathy for the victims of the attack and unequivocally denounced and condemned the attacks and all those behind them," Abdullah says. "I also affirm that the Binladin family and the Saudi Binladin Group have no relationship whatsoever with Osama or any of his activities. He shares no legal or beneficial interests with them or their assets or properties, and he is not directly or indirectly funded by them." ? Boston Globe -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Fri Oct 12 03:14:30 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 01:14:30 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Francis Fukuyama: "the west has won" Message-ID: <001501c152ed$89bb12f0$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Hey, if you guys (including you, av) don't want me to send you articles like this in the future just let me know. Because I've never asked for permission to email you whatever I read that I find worth being read by others as well. The west has won Radical Islam can't beat democracy and capitalism. We're still at the end of history Francis Fukuyama Thursday October 11, 2001 The Guardian A stream of commentators have been asserting that the tragedy of September 11 proves that I was utterly wrong to have said more than a decade ago that we had reached the end of history. It is, on the face of it, insulting to the memory of those who died to declare that this unprecedented attack did not rise to the level of a historical event. But the way in which I used the word history was different: it referred to the progress over the centuries toward modernity, characterised by institutions like democracy and capitalism. My observation, made in 1989 on the eve of the collapse of communism, was that this evolutionary process did seem to be bringing ever larger parts of the world toward modernity. And if we looked beyond liberal democracy and markets, there was nothing else towards which we could expect to evolve; hence the end of history. While there were retrograde areas that resisted that process, it was hard to find a viable alternative civilisation that people actually wanted to live in after the discrediting of socialism, monarchy, fascism and other types of authoritarianism. This view has been challenged by many people, and perhaps most articulately by Samuel Huntington. He argued that rather than progressing toward a single global system, the world remained mired in a "clash of civilisations" in which six or seven major cultural groups would co-exist without converging and constitute the new fracture lines of global conflict. Since the successful attack on the centre of global capitalism was evidently perpetrated by Islamic extremists unhappy with the very existence of western civilisation, observers have been handicapping the Huntington "clash" view over my own "end of history" hypothesis. I believe that in the end I remain right: modernity is a very powerful freight train that will not be derailed by recent events, however painful. Democracy and free markets will continue to expand as the dominant organising principles for much of the world. But it is worthwhile thinking about what the true scope of the present challenge is. Modernity has a cultural basis. Liberal democracy and free markets do not work everywhere. They work best in societies with certain values whose origins may not be entirely rational. It is not an accident that modern liberal democracy emerged first in the Christian west, since the universalism of democratic rights can be seen as a secular form of Christian universalism. The central question raised by Huntington is whether institutions of modernity will work only in the west, or whether there is something broader in their appeal that will allow them to make headway elsewhere. I believe there is. The proof lies in the progress that democracy and free markets have made in regions such as east Asia, Latin America, orthodox Europe, south Asia and even Africa. Proof lies also in the millions of developing world immigrants who vote with their feet every year to live in western societies. The flow of people moving in the opposite direction, and the number who want to blow up what they can of the west, is by contrast negligible. But there does seem to be something about Islam, or at least the fundamentalist versions of Islam that have been dominant in recent years, that makes Muslim societies particularly resistant to modernity. Of all contemporary cultural systems, the Islamic world has the fewest democracies (Turkey alone qualifies), and contains no countries that have made the transition to developed nation status in the manner of South Korea or Singapore. There are plenty of non-western people who prefer the economic part of modernity and hope to have it without having to accept democracy as well. There are others who like both the economic and political versions of modernity, but just can't figure out how to make it happen. For them, transition to western-style modernity may be long and painful. But there are no insuperable cultural barriers to prevent them from getting there, and they constitute about four-fifths of the world's people. Islam, by contrast, is the only cultural system that seems regularly to produce people like Osama bin Laden or the Taliban who reject modernity lock, stock and barrel. This raises the question of how representative such people are of the larger Muslim community, and whether this rejection is somehow inherent in Islam. For if the rejectionists are more than a lunatic fringe, then Huntington is right that we are in for a protracted conflict made dangerous by virtue of their technological empowerment. The answer that politicians east and west have been putting out since September 11 is that those sympathetic with the terrorists are a "tiny minority" of Muslims, and that the vast majority are appalled by what happened. It is important to say this to prevent all Muslims from becoming targets of hatred. The problem is that hatred of America and what it stands for are clearly much more widespread. Certainly the group of people willing to go on suicide missions against the US is tiny. But sympathy may be manifest in nothing more than initial feelings of schadenfreude at the sight of the collapsing towers, a sense of satisfaction that the US was getting what it deserved, to be followed by pro forma expressions of disapproval. By this standard, sympathy for the terrorists is characteristic of much more than a "tiny minority"of Muslims, extending from the middle classes in countries like Egypt to immigrants in the west. This broader dislike and hatred would seem to represent something much deeper than mere opposition to American policies like support for Israel or the Iraq embargo, encompassing a hatred of the underlying society. After all, many people around the world, including many Americans, disagree with US policies, but this does not send them into paroxysms of anger and violence. Nor is it necessarily a matter of ignorance about the quality of life in the west. The suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta was a well-educated man from a well-to-do Egyptian family who lived and studied in the US for years. Perhaps the hatred is born out of a resentment of western success and Muslim failure. But rather than psychologise the Muslim world, it makes more sense to ask whether radical Islam constitutes a serious alternative to western liberal democracy. (Radical Islam has virtually no appeal in the contemporary world apart from those who are culturally Islamic to begin with.) For Muslims themselves, political Islam has proved much more appealing in the abstract than in reality. After 23 years of rule by fundamentalist clerics, most Iranians, especially the young, would like to live in a far more liberal society. Afghans who have experienced Taliban rule feel much the same. Anti-American hatred does not translate into a viable political program for Muslim societies to follow. We remain at the end of history because there is only one system that will continue to dominate world politics, that of the liberal-democratic west. This does not imply a world free from conflict, nor the disappearance of culture. But the struggle we face is not the clash of several distinct and equal cultures fighting amongst one another like the great powers of 19th-century Europe. The clash consists of a series of rearguard actions from societies whose traditional existence is indeed threatened by modernisation. The strength of the backlash reflects the severity of this threat. But time is on the side of modernity, and I see no lack of US will to prevail. . Reprinted with permission of the Wall Street Journal, 2001. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. . Francis Fukuyama is professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and author of The End of History and the Last Man -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Fri Oct 12 13:35:34 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 11:35:34 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <001501c15344$4ca86370$6828a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Giacometti Retrospective NYToday Pick, Museum An exhibition of sculptures, drawings and paintings by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66). The show will include nearly 200 works from 1919 to 1965. Giacometti shows us how to see from a sculptural point of view. A sculpture needs an armature the way a body needs its skeleton. Perhaps everything has an armature, thought being built around a kind of wire in the mind. Giacometti's use of armature was conventional until you understand that several bronzes were born from the clay on one twisted metal rod. After working for a day, a week or maybe a month, he would reach a point of satisfaction. Down the hall from his studio, his brother Diego worked as a furniture maker. Diego would take a plaster mold of the clay original and then use the mold to make a plaster duplicate while Giacometti returned to working on the clay original. At a certain point, Diego would make another mold and later another and perhaps another and another. The sculpture was in flux, and the plasters became a way to see it in time. Giacometti wasn't interested in the fact that the plasters froze the form but in the way the play of light on the surface of the plaster gave him alternative positions from which to view his work. I think this process is beautiful and can serve as an entrance into the work itself. It's so physical yet ephemerally spread out in time, like a thought growing in the mind. Adapted from Thinking of Sculpture as Shaped by Space, The Times, 10/07/01. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10/11/01-01/08/02 $12 Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) Midtown West 11 W. 53d St. New York, NY (212) 708-9480 -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 13 09:03:46 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 06:03:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Events: Between the Lines - Alleys of Balkan Identity, Berlin, 12-13.10.2001 Message-ID: <20011013130346.39141.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] Events: Between the Lines - Alleys of Balkan Identity, Berlin, 12-13.10.2001 Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 19:42:45 +0200 Size: 9924 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 13 09:05:09 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 06:05:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfA: ELTE-UNESCO Minority Studies Program (Budapest) Message-ID: <20011013130509.39223.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfA: ELTE-UNESCO Minority Studies Program (Budapest) Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:40:57 +0200 Size: 9669 URL: From SKochi at eventzero.com Sat Oct 13 20:03:03 2001 From: SKochi at eventzero.com (Kochi, Stefan) Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 20:03:03 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Flag Day 2001 / Nov 28 2001 / Anthony's Pier 4 Boston Message-ID: Please find attached the details for celebrating the Flag Day 2001. Bashkangjitur jane detajet per festimin e dites se flamurit 2001 ne Boston. Faleminderit, Stefan Kochi -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FlagDay2001.doc Type: application/msword Size: 32768 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FlagDay 2001.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 36114 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 14 14:26:26 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 11:26:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: The God of a Diverse People Message-ID: <20011014182626.B814415C27@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. The God of a Diverse People October 14, 2001 By ALAN WOLFE BOSTON?These events have split the whole world into two camps: the camp of belief and the camp of disbelief," Osama bin Laden said in his speech televised on the day America started bombing Afghanistan. And he left no doubt about the beliefs to which those in the first camp must adhere. "There is only one God," Mr. bin Laden told his listeners. "And I declare that there is no prophet but Muhammad." Osama bin Laden's words are chilling, not only because they threaten further terrorism, but also because they echo themes that have run through America's own religious history. At the same time, his rant is oddly reassuring, for the contrast between his zealotry and our measured response reminds us of how far we have come since the days when Protestant triumphalism reigned in this country. The Puritans who landed in Massachusetts, fleeing from religious intolerance, were anything but tolerant themselves. They saw infidels all around them, even among other Christians who did not share all of their theological convictions. As the Salem witchcraft trials showed, the Puritans could be as unbending and cruel in their interpretation of what the Lord required as any Taliban court. Because it stressed the notion of a covenant, Puritanism eventually made its peace with individualism. And because, unlike Islam in so many contemporary settings, Puritanism had to accommodate to a democratic society, it lost its harshness in the quest for popularity. Still, the notion that Americans were destined by their faith in a specifically Protestant God to fill their own land and to exercise their influence abroad lasted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. "Christianity is the only possible religion for the American people, and with Christianity are bound up all our hopes for the future," the German-born scholar Philip Schaff told the American Historical Association in 1888. Josiah Strong's influential book "Our Country," published three years before Schaff's speech, asked the United States to carry out its duty to "Christianize" the world. And the Christianity they had in mind was Protestant Christianity. The first war to come along after their pronouncements, the Spanish- American War, was justified by many Protestant leaders because it was fought against Catholic Spain. Even after Catholics and Jews were accepted into American life, our political leaders still invoked religious language that Protestants could interpret as their own. An American as liberal as Henry Wallace could say, in his 1944 book "Faith of Our Fighters," that democracy was "the only form of government which harmonizes fully with the principles of the Bible." America remains a decidedly religious society, but it is now religious in a very different way. To be sure, religious fundamentalists have prominent political presence even now. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, for example, are not averse to invoking a language of crusade in the political arena. But neither Mr. Falwell nor Mr. Robertson is president; George W. Bush is. And Mr. Bush has done a brilliant job of not permitting Osama bin Laden to define the terms of the conflict. The more we think that what is at stake is a clash of civilizations, the more like our enemy we become. By insisting that we are not at war with Islam, Mr. Bush deprives Mr. bin Laden of the religious battle he so intensely desires. It is not only President Bush who has kept his viewpoint balanced; it is also the American people. A country whose single largest religious denomination is Catholicism can no longer feel comfortable fighting for Protestant principles. Indeed America is no longer Judeo-Christian, the term of art we developed, after the Holocaust, to include Jews. Even "Abrahamic," a term invented to include Muslims along with Christians and Jews, excludes Buddhists and Sikhs. There is no single God for whom this ever more diverse society could enter a war. And it is not just our religious diversity that makes our religious experience different from our Puritan past; whatever their particular beliefs, Americans tend to practice their faith in distinctly modern ways. Many Americans, including many evangelical Christians, strongly support the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. (Conservative opposition to President Bush's faith-based initiative shows that this support is not just a liberal position.) Our cultural temperament may also help inoculate us against a stringent religious fundamentalism. We are too optimistic in our beliefs to find Satan lurking behind every rock. There are, of course, American believers who evangelize, persuaded that those who do not believe as they do are destined for hell. Yet there are far more who believe that whatever their own path to God, other people will choose different paths that deserve respect. Surveys routinely show that more than 90 percent of Americans believe in God. Our culture celebrates religious belief and provides it enormous freedom in the private sphere. But our constitutional system of government - by separating belief from politics - tempers this impulse when it interferes with governance and the making of laws. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden wage war against us because they embrace religious governance in the political sphere while allowing individuals no religious choice. That use of religion has resulted in a totalitarian society that cannot countenance any deviation. The war now going on between Americans and the forces of Osama bin Laden is not between belief and nonbelief. It is instead about two different ways of believing, only one of which allows for individual conscience and freedom. The refusal of the other to make that allowance is what makes terrorism against nonbelievers possible. Alan Wolfe is professor of political science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/opinion/14WOLF.html?ex=1004083986&ei=1&en=a3755e452f29ee2a HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Sun Oct 14 15:31:39 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 13:31:39 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <001101c154e6$d950ffa0$6c28a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Pershendetje, Une kam disa jave qe po mendoj se do t'ishte shume e dobishme dhe interesante--per arsye disa prej te cilave edhe nuk mund te parashikohen :-)--qe studentet shqiptare neper ShBA te mblidheshin dikur sebashku per te kaluar nje mbremje ne nje restorant diku. Ideja ime eshte qe kjo gje te ndodhe andej nga mesi a fundi i Dhjetorit ne NYC ose Boston, kur shume studente duhet jene me pushime shkolle, dhe ku ata si une do te kene mundesi te kthehen prane te afermeve (dhe miqve qe i duan shume). Une do vazhdoj te perpiqem per te kontaktuar studente te tjere te interesuar ne NY, Boston dhe vende te tjera, por, nderkohe, nqs ju jeni te interesuar te merrni pjese ne kete eveniment te mundshem, apo edhe te me ndihmoni ne realizimin e kesaj ideje (sidomos nqs ju ndodheni ne NY ose Boston personalisht), ju lutem te me dergoni nje mesazh ne posten time elektronike (xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu). Dhe nqs ju njihni studente te tjere te interesuar, ju lutem njoftojini edhe ata qe nje ide e ketille eshte duke u harbuar ne mendjet e disave, dhe se realizimi i saj varet direkt prej tyre (studentave qe do te duan dhe kene mundesi per te marre pjese). Miqesisht, Xhuliana Agolli -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From Gazhebo at aol.com Mon Oct 15 12:11:17 2001 From: Gazhebo at aol.com (Gazhebo at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 12:11:17 EDT Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Rumors of War Message-ID: <82.118234f0.28fc64a5@aol.com> If you check out http://www.snopes2.com/ and choose "Rumors of War", you will find information on the various rumors coming out of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America. From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 15 14:18:20 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 11:18:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfA: Young Leaders of Change, Pristina, 12-16.11.2001 Message-ID: <20011015181820.61420.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfA: Young Leaders of Change, Pristina, 12-16.11.2001 Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 11:05:19 +0200 Size: 9677 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 15 14:20:27 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 11:20:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfP: The European Union's Eastern Enlargement: Surveying the Social and Economic Divides, Toronto, 7-10.2.2001 Message-ID: <20011015182027.29988.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Deadline is today Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfP: The European Union's Eastern Enlargement: Surveying the Social and Economic Divides, Toronto, 7-10.2.2001 Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 18:55:46 +0200 Size: 11364 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 15 14:25:26 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 11:25:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfP: Nationalities Affairs Message-ID: <20011015182526.30951.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfP: Nationalities Affairs Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 10:45:09 +0200 Size: 6506 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 16 14:57:29 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 11:57:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: Heading Off Terrorism in the Balkans Message-ID: <20011016185729.11569.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Drita A. Ivanaj" Subject: Heading Off Terrorism in the Balkans Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:30:51 -0400 Size: 11713 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 16 16:39:16 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 13:39:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: Kultura dhe parajsa e horrave Message-ID: <20011016203916.33926.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "FORUM" Subject: Kultura dhe parajsa e horrave Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 20:15:20 +0200 Size: 6164 URL: From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Oct 17 10:11:36 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 10:11:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] [AMCC-News] Macedonian President Threatens Talks Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>> PLEASE READ & DISTRIBUTE FURTHER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human Rights Violations in Macedonia http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/humanrights.htm Macedonian police brutality, abuse and massacres http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/abuse_violence.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Trajkovski's role in the process is pivotal, as the president is the only figure with enough stature to act as a go-between among factions of the majority Macedonians and ethnic Albanians." "But some also blame Trajkovski for the delay in passing the legislation. The law calls for the president to review all 15 amendments and pass them on to parliament ahead of any vote to make them law." "Instead of presenting parliament with the 15 amendments, for enactment as a package deal as called for by the ethnic Albanians, Trajkovski has only given them nine." http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011016/wl/macedonia_3.html Tuesday October 16 6:34 PM ET Macedonian President Threatens Talks By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Macedonia's president threatened to pull out of peace talks Tuesday unless lawmakers stop stalling on a Western-engineered accord meant to upgrade ethnic Albanian rights. Under the August accord, ethnic Albanian rebels agreed to stop fighting and handed in more than 4,000 weapons to NATO in exchange for constitutional amendments granting the large ethnic Albanian minority greater rights. The weapons were turned over by Sept. 26, but parliament has failed to enact the amendments. Tuesday, President Boris Trajkovski condemned ``certain groups of deputies'' for ``continuing to block'' crucial constitutional amendments that are part of the August peace agreement. ``If these unacceptable efforts go on, I shall consider them a form of dictate and will have to reconsider my role'' in the peace process, Trajkovski said in a letter to parliament without elaborating. Trajkovski's role in the process is pivotal, as the president is the only figure with enough stature to act as a go-between among factions of the majority Macedonians and ethnic Albanians. If Trajkovski backs out of the peace process, the country could again be plunged into disarray. But some also blame Trajkovski for the delay in passing the legislation. The law calls for the president to review all 15 amendments and pass them on to parliament ahead of any vote to make them law. Instead of presenting parliament with the 15 amendments, for enactment as a package deal as called for by the ethnic Albanians, Trajkovski has only given them nine. Ethnic Albanian deputies have boycotted key parliament meetings, fearing a ploy by the Macedonians to introduce changes in some of the amendments, particularly one that would make all ethnic groups equal under the law. Zamir Dika, an ethnic Albanian deputy, said that Trajkovski's actions were ``unacceptable'' and the ethnic Albanian deputies will only return to parliament once all amendments are on the table. NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson and Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, were expected in Skopje on Thursday. Officials in Brussels said the two would talk with Macedonian leaders about pushing through the amendments as a package deal. Also Tuesday, Macedonia's parliament postponed a debate on whether the peace deal should be put to a nationwide referendum, a move that the West has warned would sink the peace process. ________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list visit: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news From jetkoti at hotmail.com Wed Oct 17 10:49:28 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 10:49:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: 22 in Daschle Office Reported to Test Positive for Anthrax Message-ID: <20011017144928.A7E8B58A4D@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. 22 in Daschle Office Reported to Test Positive for Anthrax October 17, 2001 By DAVID JOHNSTON and ALISON MITCHELL WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 - Government officials said today that nearly two dozen people in the office of the Senate majority leader had tested positive for exposure to anthrax. In response to the news, House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert said this morning that the House of Representatives would shut down after today's business and would be in recess until Tuesday to allow authorities to sweep the Capitol for anthrax contamination. Mr. Hastert also confirmed that 22 employees in the Capitol Hill office of Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader, had contracted anthrax. The Associated Press, which broke the news of the positive test results, said that all of those affected were taking the antibiotic Cipro. Government officials said on Tuesday that the anthrax mailed to Mr. Dashchle's office was pure and highly refined, consisting of particles so tiny that they could spread through the air without detection. The officials said the potent grade of highly concentrated anthrax found in the letter could have been made by an expert capable of producing large amounts of it, although it is not yet known who may have manufactured or purchased the anthrax sent to the senator. The letter, which was opened on Monday morning in Mr. Daschle's office, bore strong similarities in language and handwriting to the one sent to the NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw in New York, and appeared to have been composed by the same person. Officials stopped short of explicitly linking the attacks to international terrorism, but the gravity of the threat instantly transformed the investigation into a major national security concern. "We were told it was a very strong form of anthrax, a very potent form of anthrax which clearly was produced by someone who knew what he or she was doing," Mr. Daschle said after a briefing for senators by the F.B.I. and an Army epidemiologist. He said that the sample that had been mailed to him "had a fairly significant degree of concentration of spores." Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine said the strain was "very refined, very pure." Heightened concern over the purity and concentration of the anthrax came as a knowledgeable Congressional official said that there had been some intelligence warnings last week that packages would be sent to important places and people. President Bush was scheduled to fly to California today, a one-day stop on his way to an economic summit in China. White House officials said that the trip was still on "as of now," and that Mr. Bush was waiting for final test results on the anthrax found in the Senate. His trip could be curtailed if necessary, the officials said. Former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, Mr. Bush's new chief of domestic security, met at the White House with senior federal law enforcement and health officials on Tuesday. In an interview with Mr. Brokaw on the NBC Nightly News, Mr. Ridge called the threat of bioterrorism "the No. 1 priority this week and for the weeks ahead," and suggested it was time to build up supplies of smallpox vaccine and resume vaccinations of children that stopped three decades ago. The initial findings from an Army medical laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., came as the police at the Capitol shut down a full 8-story wing of the office building where the letter was found, including the suites of 12 senators with the same ventilation system. Hundreds of people who so much as passed through the corridors near Mr. Daschle's office were being tested and treated. A senior government official said Tuesday night that the anthrax in Mr. Daschle's office was "very highly refined, very small anthrax" and was "the kind that will give you pulmonary anthrax." Officials said they had not yet determined whether the anthrax which had infected the son of an ABC News producer in New York was the same as that sent to Mr. Daschle. They said the material sent to Mr. Brokaw was very similar to the kind of Anthrax that killed a photo editor at American Media Inc., a tabloid publisher in Florida. The German drug company that makes the antibiotic Cipro said on Tuesday that it was tripling production of the drug as public fears about anthrax mount. But Bayer A.G., the maker of Cipro, acknowledged that even that increase may not be sufficient to meet demand. Cipro is the only drug approved to treat inhaled anthrax, and on Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said the government wanted to increase the national stockpile of emergency drugs to have enough to treat 12 million people for 60 days, six times the current stockpile. Much remained unclear, including above all who might be responsible for the letters sent to the Senate and NBC, or what links they had to other cases of anthrax exposure in the last two weeks. A senior government official said that laboratory tests had not matched the anthrax samples in the two letters, but that he expected they would prove to be the same. Investigators were trying to determine whether the two letters were related to other possible anthrax exposures across the country. Both letters were handwritten in block letters on the envelopes, copies of which were released on Tuesday by the F.B.I. They were unsigned and contained no salutation, the senior official said, and both contained a generalized threat and did not appear to target the addressees. The official said that the letters contained phrases like "Death to America," "You're going to die" and "Allah is great." Investigators did not conclude that the reference to Allah meant that the letter writer was an Islamic extremist, or linked to Osama bin Laden, the official said. But officials refused to rule out any possible motive for the letters. Lieut. Dan Nichols of the Capitol police called the shutdown of part of the Hart Senate Office Building "a precautionary measure only" and said that security workers planned "extensive testing" of the ventilation system. The air conditioning and ventilation in that section of the building was shut off about a half hour after Mr. Daschle's aide found the package on Monday morning, according to lawmakers. The White House communications director, Dan Bartlett, said Tuesday night that the president would have no comment until investigators "have a conclusive finding" about the samples taken from the Senate. "We take all these cases involving anthrax very seriously," Mr. Bartlett said. "We will wait for a conclusive test." He said Mr. Bush did not attend the meeting with Mr. Ridge on Tuesday afternoon, and was still planning his trip to China. "Right now, his itinerary hasn't changed," he said. "The president is confident in the federal agencies that have been responding to this. What do you want him to do? Hunker down? We're waiting for the tests and investigations to take place." Dr. John Eisold, the attending physician at the Capitol, said that several hundred people would be screened and given antibiotics while they awaited the results of testing. He said that officials wanted to "draw up the net as widely as possible and err on the conservative side and test and treat." Officials noted repeatedly that only the letter had so far tested positive for anthrax and that it was too early to have results from nasal swab testing. At a news conference, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, said that threats of attacks against the United States had not diminished since last week, when his office issued a warning that there was a possibility of another attack on America in the coming days. Mr. Mueller said the alert would continue in effect in part because of the anthrax exposure cases. "Quite obviously," he said, "the incidents of anthrax exposures in the last couple of days warrant such a continued state of alert." Still, Mr. Mueller did not say he believed the anthrax outbreak was the attack warned of in intelligence information received last week. A wave of anthrax hoaxes has burdened the F.B.I., which has struggled to keep pace with the growing threat. Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Tuesday that people who perpetrate such hoaxes face federal prosecution. He announced the indictment of a man in Connecticut who was responsible for one such threat and now faces the possibility of five years in prison and fines of up to $3 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/national/18CND-ANTH.html?ex=1004330168&ei=1&en=545bd58976814e6f HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From e_dusha at hotmail.com Wed Oct 17 18:10:45 2001 From: e_dusha at hotmail.com (e_dusha at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 18:10:45 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: FW: The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 - Student Case Study Competition Message-ID: >> > > > > The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 - Student Case Study > > > > Competition > > > > > > > > WUS Austria, WUS Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Higher > > > > Education Support Program > > > > of the Open Society Institute present the Balkan > > > > Case Challenge 2001. > > > > > > > > We are looking for exceptional students with > > > > excellent skills and academic > > > > performance to take part in this valuable event to > > > > be held in Sarajevo (BiH) > > > > from November 29 to December 2, 2001. Those > > > > interested must be on the verge > > > > of completing their social science studies, > > > > specifically within the next > > > > eighteen months. If students meet our > > > > qualifications, they will be invited > > > > to participate in the Balkan Case Challenge 2001. > > > > > > > > Here they will have the opportunity to meet South > > > > East Europe's leaders of > > > > today and tomorrow for a four day event, challenging > > > > them to put theory into > > > > action. Join your colleagues from Southeast Europe > > > > and take advantage of the > > > > learning and teamwork that the Balkan Case Challenge > > > > 2001 provides. > > > > > > > > Three options are available for participation: a Law > > > > Moot Court, a Business > > > > case study competition and a Model United Nations. > > > > The jury will consist of experts from the > > > > universities and the international > > > > community as well as local and international > > > > companies. > > > > > > > > English will be the official language during the > > > > entire competition. > > > > > > > > All costs, including accommodation, travel and food, > > > > will be covered by the > > > > organization and its sponsors, among them being the > > > > Austrian Rectors > > > > Conference, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Foreign > > > > Affairs, the Bled > > > > School of Management, PTT BiH, Lijnovici, Coca-Cola > > > > and the Southeast > > > > Enterprise Development Program (SEED). > > > > > > > > Those interested must meet the following > > > > requirements: > > > > > > > > 1) be Students of Economics, Law or Political > > > > Science, > > > > 2) be on the verge of completing their studies > > > > (i.e. within the next > > > > eighteen months) > > > > 3) study in one of the stability pact countries > > > > Albania, Bosnia and > > > > Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania > > > > and Yugoslavia (Serbia, > > > > Montenegro and Kosov@). T > > > > > > > > The application deadline is November 5, 2001. > > > > > > > > Information on the event, as well as about the > > > > application procedure, is > > > > available on the event's web-site, > > > > > > > > http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge > > > > > > > > > > > > For any further information please refer to > > > > balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > THE BALKAN CASE CHALLENGE 2001 > > > > STUDENT CASE STUDY COMPETITION > > > > WUS AUSTRIA, Sarajevo Office > > > > Academic Cooperation Center ACCESS > > > > Zmaja od Bosne bb > > > > BiH - 71000 Sarajevo > > > > Tel. +387 / 33 / 650 871 > > > > Fax. +387 / 33 / 200 070 > > > > Email: balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org > > > > http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From kruja at fas.harvard.edu Wed Oct 17 20:13:11 2001 From: kruja at fas.harvard.edu (eriola) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 20:13:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Cell phones in Japan. - A LIFESTYLE SHIFT (fwd) Message-ID: A LIFESTYLE SHIFT One afternoon in a department store in Tokyo, Akiko was panic-stricken. She had left her cellular phone at home. The 21-year-old student Akiko, didn't notice she had forgotten her phone--which doubles as her watch--until, she wondered what time it was and searched her bag for the gadget. She looked for a public phone to call her mother. When she finally found one, she couldn't remember her home number. "For a moment I was horrified," she recalled later. "I didn't need to memorize my home number because I had entered it into my phone, along with more than 50 other important phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I got really scared at the thought of losing my cell phone." Cell phones have changed the life style of people in Japan. All modes of information and communication -- from directories and games to Internet connections fast enough to download audio and video files, to snap and send photos and to hold teleconferences--all can be concentrated into a tiny piece of hardware, a cell phone. More and more people are becoming like Akiko! They neither wear a watch nor carry any type of reminders or note books - just their cell phone. A survey of 5,000 men and women revealed that about half of them said they no longer decided beforehand on meeting times or places because they had cell phones. Even when they run late for appointments, they feel they are still in control of the situation by phoning ahead. Source -- Yomiuri Newspaper 2001/07/21 _______________________________________________ 201-interns mailing list 201-interns at merl.com http://tobi.merl.com/mailman/listinfo/201-interns From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 00:38:51 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 00:38:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Campuses Split Over Afghanistan Message-ID: <20011018043851.BA1DA58A51@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Campuses Split Over Afghanistan October 15, 2001 By JODI WILGOREN ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 12 - The Eugene V. Debs cooperative house here on the University of Michigan campus is a house divided. A flowered sheet hangs over the porch, painted with a huge peace symbol, the message "No More Dead" and a picture of a bomb with a red line through it. Inside, the long- haired students who gather nightly over vats of vegetarian food all want peace. But some wonder if it is possible without bombs and body bags. "If we don't drop bombs, there's still no peace," said Beth Nagalski, a junior, one of 21 students who share the house filled with raggedy couches and mismatched dishes. "This doesn't seem right," Jen Dombrowski, a junior from Grand Rapids, Mich., said of the airstrikes in Afghanistan, "but what else can we do?" The dissension here, in a left-leaning house on the liberal Michigan campus, reflects the quandary facing the fledgling antiwar movement that has been sprouting at colleges and universities across the country since Sept. 11. While there have been scores of fervent rallies on more than 100 campuses, they have been staged by small bands of committed organizers, veterans of the labor struggles and affirmative action battles of recent years, and in many cases have faced strong opposition, even among leftists who previously sympathized with their causes. The peace movement - students here and around the nation are reluctant even to use the word "antiwar" - has benefited from the wave of student protests that culminated in the antiglobalization demonstrations in Seattle and Genoa, Italy, and student sit-ins for higher wages for Harvard's lowest-paid workers. Many of the new organizers are leaders of those previous campaigns and are linking the war on terrorism to racism at home and imperialism abroad, issues that they have been rallying about for years. "This attracts people who already had some sort of grudge before this," said Michael Frazer, a graduate student at Princeton, where the Princeton Peace Network's chants of "One world, no war" have been matched by the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism's flag-waving and a cappella patriotic songs. "There is this love of the 60's on the part of these activists," Mr. Frazer said. Even at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where students helped coordinate a "national day of action" with rallies on Sept. 20, only a few dozen students participated in a classroom walkout last Monday, the day after the bombing began. "This ambivalence is definitely there," said Robert Loevy, a political science professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs who studies social protest. Still, here in the birthplace of the antiwar teach-in, and at other prominent colleges, seeds of protest might yet blossom. In the current climate, many students are shunning slogans and signs in favor of educational leaflets and teach-ins about nonviolence as a philosophy and about Islam and Afghanistan. They are focusing on racial profiling - scores of non-Muslim women here have donned head scarves on Fridays in solidarity with those who have faced discrimination - rather than the more complex questions about United States foreign policy. "No one can say, `Make love, not war,' " said Lara Jirmanus, who participated in the sit-ins before graduating from Harvard last spring, and who has helped coordinate antiwar activities this fall. "It's not like you want war and we want peace. Who wants war? What we're saying is that this isn't going to work, to go and attack more people." Here at Michigan, advocacy organizations quickly morphed into peace groups. (Students here, as at Berkeley and Princeton, are teaming up with left-leaning professors, though far fewer than in the Vietnam era, and perennial protesters from their communities.) "Being American does not mean blindly supporting the American government," said Fadi Kiblawi, 20, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian who went to high school in St. Louis and is among the peace group leaders. "It means using your civil rights to say what you think America should be." Instead of bombing targets in Afghanistan, these students suggest prosecuting Osama bin Laden and other terrorism suspects through an international war tribunal. They fault the United States sanctions against Iraq and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Western economic policies throughout the third world, for inciting anti-American hatred. Even if few civilians are killed by allied bombs, they say, the action will create millions more Afghan refugees. "There are institutions in place that can bring justice in a way that is not retaliation," said Jackie Bray, 19, a sophomore from Ridgewood, N.J. "The idea of wiping out every terrorist across the world is very appealing, but it's not very realistic." The Michigan Daily - Tom Hayden, author of the Port Huron statement and founder of Students for a Democratic Society, was once its editor - has been critical of the military campaign, but a divided Michigan Student Assembly passed a pro- war resolution on Tuesday. For every co-op house with a peace banner there is a fraternity with a flag hanging from its window. At each antiwar gathering, a handful of counterdemonstrators show up with flags and soon swell to a modest crowd. "Instead of being a conservative organization with these conservative views, we've all of a sudden become the hub of patriotism on campus," said Peter Apel, a senior, whose Young Americans for Freedom chapter has been coordinating the pro-war protests. Many on the 38,000-student campus are preoccupied with midterm exams, not military policy. The Diag, the crossroads of the Ann Arbor campus, was decorated this week with banners advertising Homecoming 2001, National Coming Out Day, and "All Nations, Campus Ministry." In the center of the Diag, young men tossed a lacrosse ball, part of a 100-hour fund-raising marathon (they are donating 10 percent of the proceeds to New York firefighters). "We stayed out of it, just trying to stay in the middle," said Jason Hall, a sophomore, referring to the dueling antiwar and pro-war rallies as he played catch in the rain on Thursday night. "This campus is so active. Everything's a huge deal around here." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/education/15ANTI.html?ex=1004379931&ei=1&en=c97d81ced3c529d9 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 00:46:17 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 00:46:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Who Made the Anthrax? Message-ID: <20011018044617.3C0F558A51@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Who Made the Anthrax? October 18, 2001 By RICHARD BUTLER Let's call it what it is: Sending mail laced with anthrax is an act of terrorism. Terrorists aim to cause terror, and in this they have succeeded, up to a point. The run on Cipro at pharmacies demonstrates that. If they also aim to use biological weapons to kill on a large scale, they have not succeeded - not yet. To ensure their failure we need to act fast, following a largely scientific path. At the end of that path the politics of responding to this form of terrorism will enter the picture. It will be a dark picture if it is discovered that the anthrax spread in the United States was supplied by a state. We need first to determine what kind of anthrax was in the mailings. Was it basic material fermented in some basement? Or was it more sophisticated, weapons-grade anthrax, which could only have been made by skilled people in possession of expensive equipment? The findings from the office of Senator Tom Daschle, although they are still quite tentative, may suggest the latter. That would be serious. When we know the answer to this first technical question, we can move to the second: Who has the requisite know-how and equipment? This may position us to achieve what is essential - to find out who is mailing the anthrax and stop them, and to deal with their source of anthrax if they did not themselves make it. Given the apparent quality of the anthrax mailed to the Senate, the candidate list for an answer to the second question is small. High-quality anthrax was made by the United States, Russia, Britain and a few other cold war participants. The consequence of this is that there is a pool of scientists out there who have the know-how. Their continuing access to the equipment used to make weapons-grade anthrax, however, is a matter of much less certainty. All those countries signed the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, pledging to get out of the biological weapons business and destroy their existing stocks. It seems that all of them acted accordingly - except Russia, which continued a sizable clandestine biological weapons program, including work on anthrax, until 1990. Iraq also signed the 1972 convention. But at President Saddam Hussein's direction, Iraq embarked on a substantial biological weapons program, in which anthrax production had the leading role. As the leader from 1997 to 1999 of the United Nations effort to remove Mr. Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, I found one rule of thumb to have merit: The vigor with which Iraq conspired to defeat any given step toward arms control was a good indicator of how interested Mr. Hussein was in the weapons system at issue. I concluded that biological weapons are closest to President Hussein's heart because it was in this area that his resistance to our work reached its height. He seemed to think killing with germs has a lot to recommend it. Iraq had problems in refining its crude anthrax to the more potent, longer-living form of dry, small particles. Saddam Hussein's regime spent millions of dollars on the necessary equipment. Because of his resistance to our arms control program, we never knew precisely what he had achieved. But we know he loaded anthrax into shells, bombs and missile warheads. Iraq has not been visited by international weapons inspectors for the past three years. It is impossible to know what further steps Mr. Hussein has taken, but all the signs are that he has remained in the bioweapons business. If the scientific path leads to Iraq as the supporter of the anthrax used by the terrorist mailers in the United States, no one should be surprised. Meetings between Mohamed Atta, who is thought to have been an organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks, and an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in June 2000 may have been an occasion on which anthrax was provided to Mr. Atta. There have also been reports of meetings between senior Iraqi intelligence officials and members of Al Qaeda. The possibility of a Russian origin for the anthrax also needs to be investigated because of the scale of Russia's past program and the collapse of large portions of its weapons laboratories. It is not clear what has happened to the biological materials it made. Criminal groups have attempted to sell Russian nuclear materials. Could the same be true of biological materials and bioweapons know-how? We need the facts. The politics will then follow. Richard Butler is ambassador in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the forthcoming "Fatal Choice: Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Missile Defense." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/opinion/18BUTL.html?ex=1004380377&ei=1&en=ef4fa58b57cce236 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 01:16:12 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 05:16:12 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] For your attention Message-ID: <20011018051612.1F50D635@mullet.gul3.gnl> xa spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it. To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Bin Laden letters order US massacre Followers in London told to acquire weapons of mass destruction to counter American action in Iraq and Saudi Arabia Philip Willan in Rome and Nick Hopkins Wednesday October 17 2001 The Guardian Letters allegedly written by Osama bin Laden to his supporters in London called on members of his al-Qaida network to acquire weapons of mass destruction and urged them to "kill, fight, create traps and destroy" Americans. In the correspondence, Bin Laden refers to the US sanctions on Iraq as the "worst international terrorism" and said it was the "sacred duty of Muslims" to drive out American forces from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. If the letters, published yesterday by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, are genuine, they give an insight into the way Bin Laden guides and incites his followers, and underline that his fundamental objective is to purge western powers from the oil rich resources of his Saudi homeland. The letters were supposedly seized by Scotland Yard during an investigation to find Bin Laden followers in Britain who may have had knowledge of, or involvement in, the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The inquiry led to the arrest in September 1998 of three men - Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdul Bary and Ibrahim Hussein Eidarous - who are currently appealing against extradition to the US where they would face charges relating to the attacks. Their case will be heard in the House of Lords on Monday. Last night, Akhtar Raja, a lawyer acting for Fawwaz, said he was "very, very sceptical" about the authenticity of the letters, saying that they were inconsistent with other documents known to have come from Bin Laden. The letters were published yesterday following the start of a court hearing in Turin which involves a suspected Bin Laden terrorist, Ibrahim Mahmdouh Ellaban. He was arrested as a result of the Scotland Yard investigation Operation Challenge. During the inquiry, detectives found references to Ellaban in an address book owned by a suspected terrorist in London. Scotland Yard also recovered about 1,350 documents, including the four letters, from offices in north-west London that were used by Fawwaz, Abdul Bary and Eidarous, La Repubblica claimed. The newspaper said that the three men were involved in an organisation called the Association for the Defence of the Egyptian People and stated that the documents - some of which were on floppy disks - were handed to the Italian police by Scotland Yard. The letters and other papers were presented as evidence during an appeal case for Ellaban, who was arrested two years ago for possession of weapons, including an Uzi machine gun with a silencer, and was subsequently sentenced to five years' imprisonment. In the earliest letter, dated August 23 1996, Bin Laden describes how he has evaded international authorities by fleeing to mountains in Afghanistan. "They have hunted me in Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, but thanks to Allah a secure base has been founded on the peaks of the Hindu Kush." He says the "greatest disaster that the Muslims have suffered since the death of the Prophet is the occupation of the land of the two sacred mosques... by the Christian armies of the Americans and their allies". In another letter, dated April 16 1998, Bin Laden says: "America carries out the worst international terrorism. Is it not terrible terrorism that America is carrying out in Iraq on children, women and the old, having condemned them to hunger?" The call to his followers to acquire weapons of mass destruction is justified in a letter dated May 1998. "Without these arms, Muslims would be without protection in the face of the 200 nuclear warheads of Israel and the arms of total destruction amassed in the Christian countries commanded by America and Great Britain." Mr Raja insisted yesterday that the documents published in Italy had to be "treated with extreme caution". He said the language used was not consistent with other documents known to have come from Bin Laden. Though the letters are supposed to have been handed over to the Italian police by Scotland Yard, they are not part of the evidence that is being relied on in the extradition hearings involving Fawwaz, said Mr Raja. "These letters would have been at the forefront [of the case], yet I have not seen them before. They do not feature in the extradition proceedings brought by the US against [Fawwaz] and, as I understand it, the other two men. "I have not seen documents of this nature before... I am very, very sceptical about these letters." Extracts from the letters allegedly written by Osama bin Laden August 23 1996 "The greatest disaster that the Muslims have suffered since the death of the Prophet is the occupation of the land of the two sacred mosques, the land of the Ka'ba and the Qibla, by the Christian armies of the Americans and their allies. They have hunted me in Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, but thanks to Allah a secure base has been founded on the peaks of the Hindu Kush, which witnessed the destruction of the greatest atheist army on Earth to the cry "Allah is great". The Americans have imposed their policies on the production of oil on the basis of their economic interests. The people of the two mosques have been deprived of its sustenance. It is necessary to concentrate our efforts to kill, fight, create traps, to destroy the intruders until their defeat... Muslims should avoid internal wars... to avoid the destruction of the oil. We appeal to our brothers to exclude from the war the wealth of the Islamic nation which is about to arise. Our terrorism against you who occupy our land in arms is our duty. You are like a serpent that enters a man's house and then the man kills it. He who allows you to move around his land with your arms while you enjoy peace and security is a coward... You have the problem of how to convince soldiers to fight, we have to convince our young men to wait for their moment to fight." April 16 1998 "The United States have announced their decision to add the Islamic government of Afghanistan to the list of countries that support terrorism, opening the way for the punishments considered necessary by American laws and policies around the world. This decision is for us a certificate of good conduct for the government of the Taliban and it acquits them of the accusation of being followers or agents of America. The fact that the... Taliban offered aid to Osama bin Laden has saved them from the accusation of being agents of America. The American decision also has an amusing political aspect, since it implies the recognition on the part of the US government of the existence of the Taliban government, cited in the list as a country and not as a terrorist organisation. The American accusations against states, groups or individuals of being terrorists have neither value nor credibility. It's well known that they affect any nation, group or individual who opposes their imperialistic policy or their desire to expand. America carries out the worst international terrorism. Is it not terrible terrorism that America is carrying out in Iraq on children, women and the old, having condemned them to hunger? Is it not clear the aid that America gives to Zionist terrorists in Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere, terrorists who even open the bellies of pregnant women, break the bones of children and decapitate old men? Accusations of terrorism made by America against any group lose their value outside the US. Compliments to the Taliban government." May 7 1998 "May Allah be praised, the revealer of the truth and all who spread it, the destroyers of falsehood and the false. May the peace and blessing of Allah be on our Prophet Mohammed who said: "Drive out the polytheists from the Arabic peninsula." The response of the Muslim nation to the American invasion of the holy places is active, increases and deepens, expands and spreads. The latest example is the fatwa pronounced by the Afghan intellectuals which establishes the duty to expel American forces from the Arabic peninsula and the land of the holy places. They agree that the responsibility for this expulsion rests on the entire Muslim nation and not just on the people of the Arabic peninsula. Furthermore, they declare jihad against the Americans. God Almighty has opposed the conspiracy carried out by the Saudi regime and by those who support it... God has revealed the truth of this situation many times through those who were thrown into prison. The interest of the Muslim nation in this question is growing... both within and without the Arabic peninsula. Muslims do not approve the American military presence nor that of any other force belonging to an infidel country." May 29 1998 "A great happiness filled the hearts of Muslims when Pakistan exploded five nuclear devices in response to the Indians. We congratulate the entire Islamic nation and Pakistan in particular because for the first time Muslims possess a nuclear weapon. ...The countries of the unbelievers are no longer able to limit the influence of the Islamic nation upon it. We thank God because the Pakistani people did not give in to American deceit. It is well known that the US government exerted great pressure to prevent Pakistan from possessing nuclear arms. Although India is the only recognised enemy in the region, in reality the true enemies are the Christian and Jewish allies led by the US who occupy Saudi Arabia, and Israel which violates our holy places. All Muslims will be beside the Pakistanis with all their forces, their men and money. We invite Muslim brothers to imitate Pakistan... [to possess] nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And any agreement on the end of the spread of nuclear weapons must not halt them, since the enemy does not, and without these arms Muslims would be without protection in the face of the 200 nuclear warheads of Israel and the arms of total destruction amassed in the Christian countries commanded by America and Great Britain. It is the duty of Muslims to strengthen themselves to strike fear into the enemy of God." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 18 08:18:26 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 05:18:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfA: The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 Message-ID: <20011018121826.27103.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> "Thomas M. Klein" wrote: The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 ? Student Case Study Competition WUS Austria, WUS Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute present the Balkan Case Challenge 2001. The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 is a student competition for students throughout Southeast Europe. Countries/Regions in focus are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. The event will take place in Sarajevo from November 29 to December 2, 2001. Selected students will form teams which will compete against one other. Three ?cases? will be put forward; one for students from the Law Faculties (The Law Moot Court Competition), one mainly for students from the faculties of economics and business administration (The Business Case Competition) and a special conference for political science students - a Model United Nations. English will be the official language during the entire competition. Participation in the event is free of charge. All expenses (travel, accommodation, meals and material) will be covered by the Challenge organization. In order to apply for participation in this outstanding event, students are asked to study the Web Page carefully. Applications are available for download on the Web Page. We are looking for exceptional students with excellent skills and academic performance to take part in this valuable and informative event. Those interested must be on the verge of completing their social science studies, specifically within the next eighteen months. If students meet our qualifications, they will be invited to participate in the Balkan Case Challenge 2001. Here they will have the opportunity to meet South East Europe's leaders of today and tomorrow for a four day event, challenging them to put theory into action. Discussion, teamwork and critical analysis will go hand and hand with career outlooks offered at the companies' presentations. Join your colleagues from Southeast Europe and take advantage of the learning and teamwork that the Balkan Case Challenge 2001 provides. http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge For any further information please refer to balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org Register by November 5, 2001 _________________________________________________________________ THE BALKAN CASE CHALLENGE 2001 STUDENT CASE STUDY COMPETITION WUS AUSTRIA, Sarajevo Office Academic Cooperation Center ACCESS Zmaja od Bosne bb BiH - 71000 Sarajevo Tel. +387 / 33 / 650 871 Fax. +387 / 33 / 200 070 Email: balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge _______________________________________________ Balkan Academic News Post Messages to: balkans at yahoogroups.com Contact Owner at: fbieber at yahoo.com Subscribe: balkans-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: balkans-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Homepage: http://www.seep.ceu.hu/balkans/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 18 09:11:25 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 06:11:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Albanian Art Message-ID: <20011018131125.40593.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/archive.asp?doc={D18ADAFC-6957-451F-9988-B6A602DC64BA}&width=800&height=572&agt=explorer&ver=4&svr=4 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 11:05:17 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 11:05:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: On Death Row, China's Source of Transplants Message-ID: <20011018150517.30ECD58A4E@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. I found this to be extremely disturbing jetkoti at hotmail.com On Death Row, China's Source of Transplants October 18, 2001 By CRAIG S. SMITH SHANGHAI, Oct. 17 - Sitting in a dimly lit Russian hotel room last month, Huang Peng, a Chinese prison official who had fled across the border just hours before, spoke matter-of-factly about the supply of human organs for the vast majority of transplants in China. "Executed convicts are basically the only source for transplants," Mr. Huang said, explaining how hospitals and government detention centers work with courts to coordinate the killing with life-saving operations so that organs are transplanted fresh from the condemned. The practice is so common and demand for organs so pressing that few checks exist to ensure that the executed are even dead before their organs are removed. One Chinese doctor claims to have witnessed the removal of a prisoner's kidneys while the man was still breathing. The Chinese government denies involuntary harvesting organs. But credible and detailed accounts from Mr. Huang and others interviewed sketched the outlines of a vast system in which kidneys, livers, lungs, corneas and other organs are stripped from executed prisoners and then transplanted into wealthy patients in operations that bring Chinese hospitals tens of millions of dollars a year. There were more than 5,000 reported kidney transplants last year in China, where such an operation costs about $6,000 for Chinese residents - a tenth of the price in the United States. Foreigners are charged anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000. Mr. Huang did not have a direct hand in turning prisoners into unwilling donors, but he worked with people who did. He said the practice was common knowledge among people in the police and the penal system of Liaoning Province, where until last month he was an official at the province's largest penitentiary, Shenyang No. 2 Prison. He left China because he feared arrest for his role in falsifying documents to help another person leave the country. He is now in Russia hoping to find a safe haven in the West. While there is no evidence that the high number of death sentences handed down by Chinese courts are linked to the high demand for organs, the organ supply is growing. China executes more prisoners each year than all other countries combined, and by some estimates 10,000 people will be put to death this year as the government pursues one of its most intense crackdowns on crime in the last 25 years. Many of those who die and become unwitting donors may be innocent, human rights groups say, because they are convicted after hurried trials based on confessions extracted under torture. Families are rarely told that their loved ones' organs may be removed, and prisoners are not asked for their consent, Mr. Huang says. Voluntary donations are rare in China, because of a lack of public education about organ donations as well as traditional beliefs that say the body must be kept whole after death. "Definitely, there is no family willing to have their loved ones' organs taken," Mr. Huang said. "And there is no such thing as a prisoner who volunteers." Once organs have been removed after an execution, the body is cremated immediately, before the family has a chance to see what has been done. That is what appears to have happened to Zhao Wei and Wan Qichao, executed in the central Chinese province of Henan in August 1999 for the murder of Mr. Zhao's estranged wife 10 months earlier. Mr. Zhao's mother, a frail white- haired woman with horn-rimmed glasses and an educated air, said court officials had visited both families and asked for consent to use their sons' organs, but that the families had refused. The executions took place months later without warning. "It was like a knock on my head," Mr. Zhao's mother wrote later of the shock when a friend called to say he had just seen her son in the back of a truck bound for the execution ground. "How could it be that I wasn't notified?" Lu De'an, a friend of the condemned men, rushed to the execution ground on a sidecar motorcycle with his wife and saw Mr. Zhao's body and Mr. Wei's being loaded into a white van. A third body was put into an ambulance. Both vehicles had white paper covering their license plates, Mr. Lu said. He drove alongside the ambulance and van as they crept toward the local crematory. He could not see into the ambulance or the van's side windows, which were covered. But through the van driver's window he could see men and women wearing surgical gloves working in the back. "I didn't know what they were doing," he said, recalling the scene in an interview this month. "I saw one man, stripped to the waist and pulling off surgical gloves. His face was big and swarthy and sweating profusely, and the driver gave him a towel to wipe the sweat away." Later, when Mr. Lu returned to a spot on the road where he had seen things being thrown from the van, he found bloody cotton wool, an empty box of surgical gloves and several empty plastic bags. His wife gave him a tissue to pick up one of the bags. It was labeled "kidney preservative fluid." "Now I know their kidneys were taken," Mr. Lu said. The prison official, Mr. Huang, says that families of the condemned are often asked in advance whether they want to claim their family member's body after the execution, but that many decline because they are told that they would have to pay large fees. That makes the harvesting legal under central government rules that allow organs to be taken from executed prisoners whose bodies are not claimed. Military and paramilitary hospitals dominate the harvesting and transplanting, because they have close ties to the prosecutors and court officials who supervise executions. The hospitals obtain the organs almost free, usually by paying court officials a nominal sum, and charge thousands of dollars per transplant. It is a boom industry. The number of transplant operations has soared in the last decade, and modern new transplant centers have opened around the country. One center established earlier this year in Hang zhou, south of Shanghai, specializes in multiple organ transplants for individual patients. Less attention is given to the procurement side of the equation. China has never developed clear guidelines for determining brain death, and in the rush to remove healthy organs from executed prisoners, all standards are often ignored. Wang Guoqi, a former Chinese paramilitary doctor who gave his account to American Congressional investigators in June, said he had twice attended executions at which kidneys were cut out before the condemned donor stopped breathing. While his accounts come from the early and mid-1990's, there is no evidence that China has taken any steps to reform the system. Standing outside the restaurant at a New Jersey mall where he works as a sushi chef these days, Mr. Wang spoke nervously in August of the dozen executions he had attended and the dozens more times he had visited crematories to collect prisoners' skin for grafts. In Tianjin, a major port southeast of Beijing, an official from the High Court would notify the hospital of pending executions, and Mr. Wang said he would go to the court and pay the official 300 yuan, or about $45, for each cadaver. He said he had collected blood samples from condemned prisoners at Xiaoxiguan Prison in Tianjin to find suitable donors for waiting kidney patients. The prisoners did not know the purpose of the blood sampling, he said. On at least one occasion Mr. Wang went to death row before an execution to give a condemned donor an injection of the anticoagulant heparin, which is necessary to procure transplantable organs. The prisoner was told it was a tranquilizer. Timing was everything, Mr. Wang said, because the quality of kidneys, in particular, degrades quickly after the heart stops beating. He and others were supposed to move the body into a waiting ambulance within 15 seconds after an execution, which was almost always performed with a gunshot to the back of the head. The kidneys were to be extracted within two minutes and soaked in ice- cooled, 0.9 percent saline solution. The operating room would then be telephoned and told to start anesthesia on the transplant patient, and the kidneys would be rushed to the hospital under police escort. After eyes or other organs were taken out, Mr. Wang, who worked as a burn specialist at the General Brigade Hospital of Tianjin's People's Armed Police, would go to work skinning the corpse. "We cut the skin from the upper limbs, the lower limbs, the chest and the back," Mr. Wang said. "Skin on the head, neck, hands and feet was generally discarded." In August 1990, Mr. Wang said, he watched as a court bailiff and a prison guard "half carried, half pulled," a condemned man shackled in handcuffs and leg irons from the bed of a truck toward his execution site on a hillock surrounded by barbed wire outside of Tianjin. Another bailiff raised a semiautomatic pistol to the back of the prisoner's head and pulled the trigger. Mr. Wang and a colleague rushed the body on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, where, as the doctors began cutting into the abdomen, he heard one of them say, "Look, the heart's still jumping, and the guy's still breathing." On another occasion, in October 1995, Mr. Wang attended an execution in Luannan, a small town about three hours from Tianjin, at which the executed man wriggled on the ground after being shot. He was carried anyway into the ambulance, where Mr. Wang watched as the man's kidneys were removed while he was still breathing. China's government has denounced Mr. Wang as a fraud. But his identity and educational credentials have been confirmed, and some people in Luannan recalled the October 1995 execution as he described it. "I remember - a lot of people went to watch," said a woman surnamed Yue at a small teahouse near Luannan's Public Security Bureau. "It was a big event here." American transplant doctors who have reviewed Mr. Wang's account find it credible, and similar accounts suggest that the incidents may not have been unusual. In an article carried on the People's Daily Web site earlier this year, one prosecutor said four men from a hospital in Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province, had rushed to take a condemned man's body before he was dead. The head of the execution team insisted on shooting the prisoner again before releasing his body. The reporter who wrote the article has since been fired and barred from working in the news media. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/international/asia/18ORGA.html?ex=1004417517&ei=1&en=4237121bf8417f3a HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 18 15:48:32 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 12:48:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Jobs at Council of Europe Message-ID: <20011018194832.80818.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> N? 68/2001 / A1/A2/A3 / Closing date: 19 October 2001 Two long-term temporary posts of Scientific Administrative Officers (Grade A1/A2/A3)European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) 10 August 2001 In accordance with Article 8 of Rule 821 laying down the conditions of recruitment and employment of temporary staff, notice is hereby given of the above vacancy. The duties attaching to the vacant post and the qualifications required of candidates are set out below. Applicants must be nationals of a member state of the Council of Europe. The successful candidate will initially be appointed on a two-year contract. This contract may be renewed. Under its equal opportunities policy, the Council of Europe is aiming to achieve parity in the number of women and men employed in each category and grade. The successful candidate will be appointed at grade A1 or A2, depending on age and experience. The person appointed will work in Strasbourg. Duties Under the authority of the Director responsible for the European Department for the Quality Medicines and the Head of the Certification Unit, the post holder will be responsible for the following: ? Examining the acceptability of and participating in the assessment of the dossiers for applying to a certifcate of similarity for which he/she is responsible ; ? Preparing and sending the necessary correspondence ; ? Liaising with EDQM administrators responsible for monographs and with appointed experts at sessions for the assessment of dossiers ; ? Participation in the elaboration of a database for the management of dossiers. Qualifications, professional experience, knowledge, skills and language proficiency ? Good university degree in pharmacy or chemistry or biology or an equivalent qualification ; ? Appropriate professional experience in dealing with dossiers for applications for marketing authorisation of medicines, either in a licensing authority or in the pharmaceutical or chemical industry ; ? Knowledge of monographs of the European Pharmacopoeia and of European legislation on medicines ; ? Very good knowledge of one of the official languages (English) and good knowledge of the other ; knowledge of other European languages desirable. Other relevant competencies ? analytical skills; ? ability to draft clearly and concisely and to work rapidly under pressure; ? sense of responsibility and initiative; ? flair for human relations; ? discretion and ability to work in a team in a multicultural environment; ? adaptability; ? aptitude for using computer facilities. Applications Applications must reach by 19 October 2001 Directorate of Human Resources (Recruitment Office), COUNCIL OF EUROPE F- 67075 Strasbourg Cedex France fax: 33 3 88 41 27 10 e-mail: Recruitment at coe.int, and be submitted in the form of: an official application form available on the Council of Europe?s recruitment website (http://www.coe.fr/jobs), or a detailed CV including the Vacancy Notice number, date of birth, nationality(ies), postal address and e-mail address (if applicable), telephone number, education and training, work experience and language skills. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 18 16:38:41 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 14:38:41 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: E-newsletter of October 18, 2001 Message-ID: >From: Katherine Bourdonnay >Subject: E-newsletter of October 18, 2001 >Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 12:23:22 -0400 > >Educate your member of Congress! > >The United States House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution >(H. Con. Res. 248) on a vote of 404 to 0 (with 10 voting present), >expressing the "sense of the Congress" that public schools may post "God >Bless America" signs as a show of support for the nation. > >It is time for YOU to call your U.S. Representative and educate him or her >about that essential American concept of the separation of church and >state. > > >To find out who your Representative is and to get a phone number, visit >www.house.gov. Please call or write after the House reconvenes on >October 23rd. > >----------------------------------- > >Here is a feature story from Investor's Business Daily, in which Paul Kurtz >is quoted, that you should find of interest. > >Thursday, September 27, 2001 > >Behind Radical Muslim Discontent: >Economic Failure Of Modern Islam >By Peter Benesh > >A great swath of humanity 1.3 billion people, or one-fifth of the world's >population lives in countries where Islam is the dominant or state >religion. >Most are poor. > >They're less educated than Westerners. They live shorter lives. Infant >mortality is higher. > >By any measure, modern Islam is an economic failure. Most Islamic countries >are locked in a struggle between a glorious past and a grim present. Angry >militants blame the U.S. and Europe for this. > >Scholars see a pattern based as much on psychology as theology. Radical >Muslims blame their poverty on those with more wealth. Those who have >wealth >must be taking it away from those who have less. > >Once Dominant > >Islam once dominated the world at least the world centered on the >Mediterranean and its trade routes. Cordoba and Granada in Spain were >ancient centers of Islamic learning, symbols of prosperity and influence. > >But that was 1,000 years ago. The Moors lost Spain to the Christians in >1492. Today, Moroccans, Algerians and Tunisians sneak into Europe by boat >to >find opportunities. > >The Ottoman Empire, rooted in what is now Turkey, once reached Vienna, >Austria. The last vestige of Ottoman rule in Europe - in the Balkans - >ended >80 years ago. Its vestiges sparked the Balkan wars of the last decade. > >How did a civilization that gave the world its numeric system, >transliterated Aristotle and opened trade routes to the Orient wind up in >such an economic mess despite its vast riches of resources? > >Basic Disconnect > >The answer lies in a brew of royalty, psychology, history, myth and >theology, scholars say. > >Muslims are unable to reconcile a basic disconnect, says professor Akbar >Ahmed of American University in Washington, D.C. > >"They say to themselves: 'We are not poor people. We have oil. We have >resources. Why is it being mismanaged? Why are our leaders not able to >organize our lives so we can live as good human beings and good Muslims?'" >he said. > >One answer lies in the myth of their lost glory, he says. > >"Muslims have a feeling of having achieved so much over 1,000 years, up to >the period of European colonization in the 19th and early 20th centuries. >They expected they would take off and achieve something," Ahmed said. >Instead, the Muslim world is falling behind. > >A root problem is that most of the wealth is in the hands of royalty or >dictators, Ahmed says. "There is prosperity for some. The standard of >living >there can rank with European countries. But it's all clustered at the top." > >That's a key cause of anger, he says. "A radical in the Muslim world is >attacking primarily his own establishment," Ahmed said. > >"Fundamentalists identify their own corrupt governments with the West. They >say to themselves, 'We have crooks ruling us and behind them you have the >Western powers,' " he said. > >Reformation Wanted > >Economic misery is also a product of ignorance, says Paul Kurtz, emeritus >professor of philosophy at State University of New York in Buffalo. > >"Islam needs a reformation, a renaissance. Islam desperately needs to come >into the modern world," he said. "Islam is based on developments in the >seventh and eighth centuries. It is based on nomadic and agricultural >civilizations. Fundamentalist forces want to return to that era. For them, >religion becomes the be-all and end-all," Kurtz said. > >In 46 Islamic countries, those who want to modernize are at odds with >fundamentalists, he says. > >"The economic hardships they suffer result from inadequate education. >Unless >they develop science, technology and expand university curricula to include >all subjects and allow freedom of inquiry, they'll find it difficult to >advance," he said. > >"Look at Egypt. The population is growing by leaps and bounds. The >government would like to modernize, but fears the mobs spurred by the >fundamentalists," he said. > >A key factor is the union of theology and government, he says. "There's no >separation of mosque and state except in Turkey, which became secular in >1923. But even there the military is always on guard against Islamic >fundamentalists," he said. > >Militant Islamists are driven by a vision of their faith that goes back >almost 1,500 years, Kurtz says. "Thirty years after Mohammed (570-632) >died, >his followers took Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Within 80 years they had >reached both the Atlantic and the Indian oceans." > >Missionary Zeal > >"Now it's a missionary religion. The principle of jihad is that, in the >name >of Allah, you can kill anything that endangers Islam," Kurtz said. > >A chance for economic improvement in Islamic countries rests with the >children of Muslim families in the West, Kurtz says. > >"With 7 million Muslims in France, 3 million in Germany and 7 million in >the >U.S., I hope their kids who go on to university will find enlightenment and >take their knowledge back," he said. > >It's not a certain thing, he says. "Some of the second generation are >breaking away, but some are going back to Islam." > >The oil sheiks proclaim their wealth as a benefit from God, says John Voll, >professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. >That belief sustains an elite and hinders development, he says. > >Whose Oil Is It? > >"The elite see oil as God's gift of prosperity to the royal families in >Saudi Arabia and the (United Arab) Emirates. They claim it is Islamic to >keep that wealth to themselves because God gave them the stuff," he said. > >"Muslims have a sense that something went wrong. They have tried to do >something about it. There was a century of reform in the 19th and early >20th >century," he said. > >He cited Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) and Gamel Abdel Nasser (1918-1970). >Ataturk, Turkey's first president after the Ottoman Empire's fall, >separated >mosque and state. > >Nasser deposed Egypt's monarchy and seized the Suez Canal. His bid to >launch >a union of Arab states failed. > >At Your Own Peril > >Modernizing an Islamic country is risky. Radicals killed Egyptian President >Anwar Sadat on Oct. 6, 1981, for his efforts. > >"They tried to do something, but what they tried to do didn't do them much >good," Voll said. By the 1970s people in the Islamic world saw that they >had >failed, he says. "They felt they had been defeated by the West." > >How did they make that leap? > >"They tried radical socialist and Marxist ideology. That didn't work," Voll >said. "Then they tried hard-nosed entrepreneurial reform. That didn't work. >So they thought maybe they were wrong to try copying the West." > >"They learned it wasn't about just copying technology but also ways of >thinking," Voll said. > >"This drove the intellectuals to say, 'Maybe we are weak because we copy >somebody else. Let's go back to our roots,' " Voll said. > >That led to a universal human tendency - blaming others for their own >misfortunes, Voll says. "European and American imperialism became the >scapegoat," he said. And the shift to fundamentalism only made matters >worse. > >"Conservative religious rigidity, whether indigenous tribal, old-fashioned >Christian or Muslim have been hindrances to economic development," he said. > >The Malaysian Example > >One Islamic country is different, he says. That's Malaysia. But it's far >from the Middle East and has a long history of trade. > >"Embedded in the concept of a traditional Islamic society in Southeast Asia >is a cosmopolitan tolerance and pluralism," he said. > >Malaysia is building an economy based on technology and education. Why is >Malaysia not a model for the rest of the Islamic world? > >"Malaysia is viewed by Muslims throughout the Islamic world as interesting >but marginal," Voll said. There's no one to tell all Muslims to follow >Malaysia's example. > >Islam is vague, Voll says. "It has no papacy and no church. It has mullahs >who issue fatwas (edicts), but no formal institution to define what Islam >means or says." > >Why Are We Behind? > >The Muslim countries of the Middle East are shackled by their view of >history, says Jere Bacharach, professor of international studies at the >University of Washington, Seattle. > >"Arabic-speaking Muslims believe God revealed his final truth in Arabic. >Their influence once stretched from Spain to Central Asia. They said to >themselves, 'Clearly God favored us,'" Bacharach said. > >"Now they ask, 'Why are we so far behind?' The reason, they say, is, 'We >don't have the faith of our founders. If we go back to the values of the >founders, we will have the glory we once had.' > >"Of course, they cannot go back to the early 700s," he said. > >------------------------------ > >Reprinted with permission from Investor's Business Daily ? 2001 Investor's >Business Daily, Inc. The content contained in this presentation and all >affiliates of this company are not endorsed, reviewed by or affiliated with >Investor's Business Daily. For more information on Investor's Business >Daily >please visit www.investors.com . > >* * * * * > >Chicago Tribune Column Quotes Humanist Manifesto > >We all know how difficult it has been to get any coverage in the media for >our philosophy in the aftermath of the tragedy of September 11th. >Therefore, when we do get a nod from a journalist it is worth calling it to >everyone's attention. > >In the October 13th issue of the Chicago Tribune, columnist Eric Zorn >chastised the City Manager of Ringgold, Georgia, who had decided to post >framed copies of the 10 Commandments and the Lord's Prayer next to an empty >frame for those who believe in nothing. > >Zorn wrote," I'd like to inform Mr. McMillon that just because someone >doesn't believe in God - his or someone else's - doesn't mean he believes >in >'nothing.'" Zorn then went on to quote extensively from the Humanist >Manifestos. "You may not agree with them, but you can't call them >nothing." > >To read the entire article, please go to www.chicagotribune.com and see >Columnists, Zorn, recent articles. > > ------------------------ > > > Historic International Humanist Conference Held in Africa > > Ibadan, Nigeria (October 15, 2001)-The Nigerian Humanist >Movement hosted the first international humanist conference in sub-Saharan >Africa from October 8-10, 2001. The theme of the conference was "Science, >Humanism, and the African Renaissance." It was held at the University of >Ibadan, Nigeria's premier university. Humanist scholars, writers, and >activists from Nigeria, Uganda, and the U.S. were in attendance. > > The conference opened with the students choral group from >the Mayflower school, one of the leading secondary schools in Nigeria. The >school was founded by the late Tai Solarin, a major humanitarian, social >critic, and secular humanist activist. Following the choral group was an >amazing dance performance by the Osogbo Cultural Ensemble. > > Sheila Solarin, the widow of the late educator and the >proprietress of Mayflower, is the matron of the Nigerian Humanist Movement. >She delivered the inaugural speech. She discussed the benefits of embracing >a human-centered life stance. "I am free to make my own decisions. I do not >need to say, 'it is the will of Allah,' or 'we must leave everything in the >hands of God.' I have only to assess the circumstances and make my mind up >as to what is right to do and go ahead with doing it," she said. > > Wole Soyinka, the first Black writer to win a Nobel Prize >for literature, could not attend the conference. But he submitted a lengthy >letter in support of the movement and its aims. He bemoaned the religious >violence between Muslims and Christians that is now plaguing Nigeria. The >author maintained that religion and government must be separate if peace is >to come to Nigeria. > > Other papers presented include the following: > >* "Superstition and Health," by Adewumi Adeoye, M.D. >* "Dispelling Superstitious Beliefs in African Philosophy," by Dr. >George U. Ukagba >* "Combating Superstition in Artificial Human Reproduction," by Peter >F. Omonzelele >* "Biotechnology and the Fight against Hunger in Africa," by Dr. Sanya >Olutogun > > Many humanist groups exist in Nigeria and other African >nations. They provide non-religious people with an attractive alternative >to >religion. "There is a strong hunger for humanism in Nigeria," said Leo >Igwe, >the charismatic and eloquent Secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement. >"The people are tired of religious extremism." > > Many in attendance were very enthusiastic. The Nigerian >Humanist Movement will publish some of the papers from the conference in a >book. They will host a national conference in December, and a Nigerian >humanist group has promised to host the next international conference next >year at the University of Benin. > > The Council for Secular Humanism and African Americans for >Humanism (AAH) sponsored the conference. The Buffalo, New York based groups >have had close contacts with African-based humanists since 1988. The >council >publishes Free Inquiry magazine and the AAH Examiner quarterly newsletter. > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From naac at naac.org Thu Oct 18 18:18:01 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council - NAAC) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 18:18:01 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Hands of Hope Announces World Trade Center Relief Fund Message-ID: <00bb01c15823$6649d960$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 Telephone: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ______________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: October 18, 2001 Contact: Sokol Shtylla (202) 466-6900 PRESS RELEASE NAAC's Hands of Hope Campaign Sets up World Trade Center Relief Fund New York, NY, October 18, 2001: The National Albanian American Council (NAAC) issued the following statement to announce the Hands of Hope Campaign WTC Relief Fund. In response to the horrendous attacks on The World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, the National Albanian American Council's Hands of Hope Campaign has set up the WTC Relief Fund. The Hands Of Hope WTC Relief Fund will accept contributions from corporations, organizations and individuals who wish to provide their support to the families of the WTC victims. NAAC strongly condemns the recent terrorist acts on the United States and extends its unwavering support to the families of the victims. "In the aftermath of recent tragedies in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, we extend our thoughts and prayers to the thousands of families that have been affected. We mourn the loss of our fellow Americans and grieve for their families. We will always remember the images of compassion, courage and strength with which the American people and their leaders have handled the tragic consequences of the recent terrorist attacks on America. These acts of bravery, sacrifice, and selflessness represent the best of humanity," said NAAC Chairman, Richard Lukaj. Across the world, millions of ethnic Albanians mourn in solidarity with us here in the U.S. who have had our liberties threatened. Our dedication to the U.S. is strong, unconditional, and unwavering. We will never forget how the American people came to our aid when our liberties were also threatened in the Balkans. NAAC urges all Americans to come together and support the WTC Relief Fund. Please make checks payable to Hands of Hope - WTC Relief Fund and mail them to: The National Albanian American Council, 481 8th Avenue, Suite 922, New York, NY 10001. All contributions are 100% tax-deductible as Hands of Hope is a division of NAAC, which is a 501(c) 3 organization. All donations to the WTC Relief Fund will go directly to the families who have been affected by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. To learn more about NAAC's Hands of Hope Campaign, please visit the Internet website at www.handofhope.org, or call the campaign office directly at (212) 213-9789. The National Albanian American Council ("NAAC") is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for Albanians and promoting peace and economic development in the Balkans by fostering democratic policy, promoting respect for human rights, and conducting educational and developmental programs. ### -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 13:46:15 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 10:46:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Book Review by Isa Blumi Message-ID: <20011019174615.13015.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Balkan Academic Book Review 26/2001 _______________________________________ Robert Elsie, A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture.London: Hurst & Company (published in the USA by NYU Press), 2001. 357 pp., 45.00 GBP, ISBN 1-85065-570-7 (Hardcover). Reviewed by Isa Blumi (New York University), Email: ngapeja at rocketmail.com _______________________________________ Order the book from Amazon Homepage of the Publisher _______________________________________ Robert Elsie has been a prolific and dedicated scholar of Albanian culture and literature for many years now. Author and editor of a number of books and articles on Kosovar and Albanian culture, his work has consistently demonstrated a professional as well as sympathetic attachment to a culture and people that has received little attention under such terms. Elsie's latest work, clearly a culmination of years of research and writing, is a fine indication of Elsie's legitimate place in mainstream academia. There are not many Robert Elsie's in the world who have dedicated the time and energy to appreciate Albanians' place in the history of the Balkans and indeed, the cultural pantheon of Western Civilization. Elsie encyclopedic work has done a great service to a moribund field and should be a part of anyone's collection who is interested in Balkan culture. I sincerely hope this book can bring the attention the subject deserves. What is key about this work is that Elsie has demonstrated the important link Albanian culture provides between assumed polar "civilizations"-Islamic and Christian-and I would hope this kind of fruitful cultural synthesis will now be more appreciated by colleagues from Greece, Serbia and elsewhere. The book explores the themes, phrases and words that are prominent in Albanian cultural history and Elsie has organized their presentation alphabetically, much like an encyclopedia would. It seeks to provide easy access to the few scholars who may come across these terms during the course of their work. For this reason, it is an easy-to-read reference work that serves its limited function. For those of us, on the other hand, who spend our time defining meaning as opposed to simply describing it, this book may be hard to read from beginning to end. I do not think Elsie intended it to be read in such a manner, which is a shame, for there is some very interesting material here. I am therefore a bit perplexed (or is the sentiment disappointment?) as to why Elsie elected to organize this mass of information in such a way. It is a strange concept for me, this "dictionary." I wish I could simply let this slide, but I feel Elsie may have missed a golden opportunity here. Much of the material Elsie has collected, as the author himself notes, are of such obscure and a rarely frequented nature that it is quite unlikely that owners of this book would use it other than the way Elsie has organized it. While some phrases and terms may indeed pop up in one's exploration of things Albanian, the function of this work should not solely be seen as a reference for a few novices. The format, again, is not conducive to more general reading which is a shame as the book would be much more accessible to a wider audience if Elsie considered presenting this complicated diversity as a narrative that explicitly argues for the subject's permanent integration into Balkan cultural and social history. It is precisely here that Elsie could have really made a contribution to firmly asserting a place for Albania's multiplicity of cultures in the Balkans. As it stands, the terms and phrases are symbolically and functionally deemed external to a social relevance that many readers in the Balkans undoubtedly sense. There is a general tendency among non-Albanian researchers who work on Albanian topics to render exotic Albanian cultural idiosyncrasies, a habit Robert Elsie is largely successful at avoiding in other works. Unfortunately, this book does just that: render exotic the practices and beliefs Elsie is cataloguing here when they should be forcing us to, instead of isolating Albanians, rather see them as daily practices that have their own geneologies which link Albanians with the world around them. In sum, the unequal time and space dedicated to the hundreds of terms has a way of (unintentionally) marginalizing the intrinsic value of these phenomenon and rendering exotic those who may still hold dear some of the notions in the book. As an encyclopedia/dictionary, Elsie has, I am afraid, reinforced the diminished place of Albania on the academic imagination. The material put together in this "dictionary" clearly points to Albania's cultural integrative quality, even if it is not spelled out explicitly. There are occasions when Elsie identifies the shared cultural heritage between Greek, Latin and Slav cultures. Alas, not enough is done to reinforce this notion as the format and even, at times, the manner in which Elsie "defines" the terms, reinforces the sense that we really are looking at an alien, odd and marginal part of humanity. My suggestion to Elsie, and if not he, someone with his linguistic skills and scholarly curiosity, to situate these 260 pages of terms and phrases in the larger Balkan context. Elsie has done all the hard work here, the bibliography is a gold mine (good luck in finding the material in any one library) and he has done so in a manner that truly spans the many sectarian and periodic divides of Albanian history. His treatment of Albanian Sufism is particularly good and I believe the book is the first in any language to link the disparate orders in such a way historically that actually does justice to its complexity and importance to Balkan culture. Elsie had already in other publications demonstrated his expertise in Catholic saint worship and does a fine job of explaining both Albanian Catholic and Orthodox traditional idiom within the larger Balkan context. The material is all here, it just needs a theoretically sophisticated scholar to fuse the details within a narrative that specifically seeks to demonstrate both a persistent dynamism that suggests transformation, adaptation and integration as well as Albania's vastly under-appreciated role in a larger Balkan and indeed Mediterranean context. It is also a shame this book is so prohibitively expensive as every library that is worth its claim as a storage house of knowledge should have a copy. In spite of the exorbitant price tag, the publishers and in particular its editors did a poor job of editing the book, leaving behind some careless typographical errors and sloppy transcription of Ottoman/Arabic terms. The "soft g" and the hard I in Turkish look awful in the book. Also, I think Elsie could do well to switch fonts because stylistically, the font used here, (it seems to be the same in all of his other publications), is inappropriate for such an empirical masterpiece. Lastly, while the publishers did not invest enough time to making this "dictionary" the best it could possibly be, I must commend them for accepting Elsie's book. I sincerely hope this book finds more readers than Elsie's other books, which have been ignored despite their exceptional intellectual and scholarly worth. It is one of those truly obnoxious realities of publishing and scholarship that some truly talented scholars remain unappreciated because their topics of expertise remain "peripheral." Elsie's work, if not obvious, is at least implicitly, of great historical and theoretical value. Again, he has done the difficult work, now it is time that someone out there take his material to the next level of familiarity and help redefine the impressions so many have of the Balkans and its assumed uni-dimensional and segregated cultural heritage. _________________________________________ This an earlier book reviews are available at: www.seep.ceu.hu/balkans _________________________________________ ? 2001 Balkan Academic News. This review may be distributed and reproduced electronically, if credit is given to Balkan Academic News and the author. For permission for re-printing, contact Balkan Academic News. Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT _______________________________________________ Balkan Academic News Post Messages to: balkans at yahoogroups.com Contact Owner at: fbieber at yahoo.com Subscribe: balkans-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: balkans-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Homepage: http://www.seep.ceu.hu/balkans/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 14:01:42 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 11:01:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] The Guardian Message-ID: <20011019180142.25036.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> The Guardian (London) October 19, 2001 Guardian Foreign Pages, Pg. 19 French major faces trial for leaking war plan to Serbs Stuart Jeffries in Paris A former French intelligence officer was yesterday ordered to stand trial for passing top-secret documents to the Serbs giving details of Nato's planned air strikes shortly before the war over Kosovo. Pierre-Henri Bunel, 48, faces 15 years in jail if he is convicted at a special military court of treason for leaking plans for bombing raids on Yugoslavia to a Serbian diplomat while he was working at Nato headquarters in Brussels in 1998. But in a statement, a lawyer for the ex-major said that his client had acted on behalf of the French secret service. "What he did was not an act of treason. His actions were sponsored by a French service," Eric Najsztat said. He refused to give more details. Mr Bunel was arrested in Paris in October 1998 on suspicion of leaking allied attack plans at a time when Nato was preparing for an attack on Kosovo. He was accused of providing the Serbs with top-secret documents giving Nato's bombing targets. Those air strikes were averted, but the alliance went ahead with its Kosovo campaign the next year. He was accused of attending four meetings between July and October 1998 at which he gave substantial, sensitive information, including operational orders, flight plans and target lists, to a colonel in the Serbian army intelligence service, Jovan Milanovic. At the time of these meetings, Mr Bunel was the head of the personal staff of a senior military adviser to Nato, General Pierre Wiroth, and had access to classified information. A few months before Mr Bunel was arrested, US officials complained that Nato had had to scrap a secret 1997 plan to arrest the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for alleged war crimes, because of fears that a French army major might have tipped him off. After Mr Bunel was released from detention at La Sante prison in 1999, he wrote a book called War Crimes at Nato, in which he claimed to be a victim of manipulation by the French secret service. He also set up a website to try to clear his name. In it, he wrote: "I passed documents on to get certain key messages across. They were that France would take part in the conflict (in Kosovo), that the five principal Nato countries had agreed to strike Yugoslavia, and that if (Slobodan) Milosevic did not withdraw his troops, the carnage would be terrible. "I admit passing on information classified 'secret' to a Serb agent," he said on the site. "But this was confidential information, not top secret. I never passed on flight plans or operational orders." He said he had acted because "it is nonsensical to undertake a military action if it does not correspond to a political solution". Having been detained without trial, Mr Bunel was released when the investigation passed from civilian judges to a military tribunal, which has spent the past two years compiling evidence against him. He resigned from the army in 1999. A previously distinguished intelligence officer, Mr Bunel had worked as an English and Arab interpreter during the Gulf war, later serving as an intelligence officer in Bosnia in 1996, for which he was awarded the Legion d'honneur. He will stand trial at a special military court in Paris on December 11 and 12. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 14:05:03 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 11:05:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Event in DC Message-ID: <20011019180503.1097.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> October 19, 2001 DISCUSSION - U.S. INSTITUTE FOR PEACE (USIP) U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) holds a discussion on "Confronting Organized Crime and Terrorism: Recent Lessons from Kosovo." Location: USIP, 2nd Floor Conference Room, 1200 17th Street NW, Washington, DC -- October 19, 2001 Participant: Michael Hartman, international public prosecutor, United Nations Mission in Kosovo; Colette Rausch, Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in Kosovo Contact: Burt Edwards, 202-429-3878 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 14:15:16 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 11:15:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Film on Kosova in DC - Washington Post Message-ID: <20011019181516.27701.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> COMMON GROUND FILM FESTIVAL -- "Just a Little Red Dot," Friday at 6. "Regret To Inform: A Journey in Search of Truth," Friday at 6:45. "Forbidden Marriages in the Holy Land," Saturday at 2. "Peace of Mind: Coexistence Through the Eyes of Palestinian and Israeli Teens," Saturday at 3:15. "Rain 1949," Saturday at 4:15. "Zegota," Sunday at 2. "Prelude to Kosovo," Sunday at 2:30. Ward Building, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. 202/777-2215. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Fri Oct 19 15:46:03 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:46:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Lahuta e Malcise - GSH Message-ID: <20011019194603.69719.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> KULTURE Reshat Arbana reciton "Lahut?n" n? kaset? TIRANE Z?ri i aktorit Reshat Arbana duke interpretuar "Lahut?n e Malcis" ?sht? in?izuar n? nj? kaset?. Kjo kaset? shoq?ron botimin e fundit t? kryevepr?s s? Fisht?s. 16000 vargjet e "Lahut?s s? Malcis" jan? p?rmbledhur n? 4000 vargjet m? t? zgjedhura t? tij. Botimi i fundit ?sht? p?rgatitur p?r moshat e ndryshme, me theks gjimnazet, nga Sht?pia Botuese e Librit Shkollor. P?rgatitja e saj ?sht? b?r? nga Tonin ?obani dhe ?sht? plot?suar me sh?nime filologjike nga Tef Topalli. "Esht? prekur gjuha origjinale e Fisht?s, por ajo ?sht? p?rshtatur p?r gjuh?n e sotme. Gjithsesi, atje ku nuk ka qen? e mundur, ?sht? b?r? nj? shpjegim filologjik nga Topalli", thot? ?obani. E ve?anta e k?tij botimi q?ndron n? faktin se, kjo do t? ?el? serin? e p?rshtatjeve t? tjera. Pra, figurat m? t? shquara t? let?rsis? shqiptare do t? vijn? p?rmes z?rit t? artist?ve m? t? njohur shqiptar?. Ende sot ?sht? i gjall? interpretimi brilant i aktorit Naim Frash?ri p?r poem?n "Bag?ti e Bujq?si" dhe i aktor?ve t? tjer?: Pjet?r Gjoka, Prokop Mima, Kadri Roshi, etj. Ajo q? kan? menduar njer?zit e k?saj sht?pie botuese ?sht? q? t? pajisin botimet klasike shqiptare edhe me kaseta apo CD, ku jan? t? recituara pjes?t nga artist? shqiptar?. E filluar me artistin Reshat Arbana p?r vepr?n e Gjergj Fisht?s, kolana do t? vazhdoj? edhe me pjes? me artist? t? tjer?. P?r k?t? p?rshtatje t? "Lahut?s s? Malcis" ?sht? menduar q? pjes?t e reduktuara do t? z?vend?sohen me shpjegime n? tekst, t? cilat do t? ruajn? uniformitetin e pjes?s si nj? t? t?r?. "Ky botim do t'i jap? mund?si njer?zve t? ndrysh?m, q? t? afrohen vet? n? botimet origjinale t? k?tyre titan?ve t? let?rsis? son?", kan? th?n? organizator?t e tyre. Reshat Arbana ?sht? nj? nga aktor?t m? t? njohur t? artit shqiptar n? 30 vitet e fundit. Mjafton emri i tij, p?r t'i siguruar sukses nj? vepre. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 20 09:09:09 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 06:09:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Book Review: Campbell, The Road to Kosovo. Reviewed by Leon Malazogu Message-ID: <20011020130909.34008.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] Book Review: Campbell, The Road to Kosovo. Reviewed by Leon Malazogu Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 20:46:55 +0200 Size: 20083 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 20 20:58:12 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:58:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Koha Jone Message-ID: <20011021005812.94859.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> [input] --> -->Manastiri "Dyzet shenjtoret" i Sarandes i doli...pronari Sa per dijeni: Manastiri "Dyzet Shenjtoret", i Sarandes, eshte ndertuar ne shekullin e 18-te, mbi nje toke, prone te dyzet pronareve, te cilet, ne menyre krejt te pavarur e, ne te njejten nate (12 gusht, 1792), shikuan kete enderr: Sikur nje mal i madh sa Tomorri, filloi te rrotullohej si guri i mullirit te blojes se drithrave. Boshti i rrotes, prej gur mokre, sikur ishte prej ari dhe, gjate rrotullimit te gurit, prej ujit te dhesit, qe binte mbi rrote, ne folene e zgavres, shperndaheshin shkendija, prej te cilave dilte nje ze i qarte, permes te cilit, thuhej: "Ngrehu o pronar dhe thirr me ze te larte shoket e tu, bashkepronare dhe, thuaju se mbi token e juve te dyzeteve, do te ngrihet nje manastir i madh i besimit ortodoks. Frymezuesi per fillimin e ndertimit do te jete nje misionar i ndritur i Patriarkanes Ekumenike te Stambollit, i quajturi Agathokli Kajmenaqis, mitropolit i Trapezundes, bamires pakufi, per te gjithe nevojtaret e kesaj bote. Juve, do t'u takoje nje e nga nje, do te biseoje me ju, sepse, secili pronar i Sarandarit (Dyzeteshes), ka degjuar te njejtin ze, qe perhapej si jehone". Te nesermen, sarandaret, me vrap shkuan njeri te tjetri dhe u mblodhen koke me koke per te treguar te njejten enderr, qe u kishte kallur daten per faktin se duhej sakrifikuar prona e tyre e shenjte (ashtu sic ishte shenjteruar) per nje qellim te shenjte. Misionari Agathoklis Kajmenaqis, hipur mbi nje kale te bardhe e te zbukuruar me shale e sixhade te punuara ne Eubeas, mberriti ne fshatin e vogel te asaj kohe (ku sot eshte qyteti i Sarandes) te quajturin Hrisos, buze detit, ku ngriheshin shkembinj thepa-thepa. Qarkoria e derguar nga Patriarkana Ekumenike e Stambollit, kishte mberritur ne Hrisos trei dite para ardhjes se mitropolitit Agathoklis Kajmenaqis, qe kishte te veshur nje perlerine te zeze prej mendafshi kinez, nje kamillaf ne koke me nje kryq te kuq ne mes, nje pitrail te varur ne qafe, i cili i shkonte gjer ne fund te kembeve, dhe, mbi te, nje kryq floriri goxha te madh e me peshe te rende. Sikur t'ju kishte peshperitur atjeqofti ne vesh, te dyzet pronaret e tokes, te gjithe u takuan me mitropolitin ne vendin, ku do te ngrihej manastiri, po ne ate ore e ne te dite (tri dite pas mberritjes se qarkores q- mbante numrin 1072). Te dyzet pronaret, kishin midis tyre mytesarifin e Serese, qe e kishte ne ngsarkim te zone me ere portokallesh. U sollen ustallaret nga viset e "Dhjete ishujve" (nga Poros), Straqinas, Lesbos, Othonusis, Kerkyras etj) dhe, per ndertimin e manastirit, filloi puna deorde (me shpejtesi). Pas nje kohe, prej plot 36 mujash, u ngrit sinaja e manastirit "Ajios Sarandas". U pajis me te gjitha ato qe kerkonte nje manastir, nder te tjera, edhe me nje kishe te sperinose, aty perbri. Erdhen tri misionare (nje prift e tri murgj) si dhe 5 murngesha nga Manastiri i Kakomese. Meshen e pare te perurimit te manastirit e beri prifti i shquar grek i Janines Harallambis Kallokathiqis, natyrisht, ne gjuhen e Odiseut. Lexuesi i ketij materiali, te mbaje nje gje parasysh: ne kadastren e kohes (prane pashallekut te Trikalles), figuronin te dyzet pronaret e tokes, mbi te cilen u ngrit aq i bukur manastiri "Dyzet Shenjtoret". Te dyzetet, u shpallen shenjtore nga Patriarkana e Stambollit, Ekumenikja, qe luan vetem rolet "shpirterore" dhe asgje tjeter. Tridhjeteenente, prej bamiresve altruiste, qe dhuruan token per ndertimin e manastirit, nuk kishin trashegimtare, vetem njeri, i dyzeti, kishte nje djale, qe ne ate kohe studionte per teologji ne jerusalem. Sa mbaroi manastiri, para se te behej "Bekimi i Perurimit", me leckat e shenjta, u be edhe shlyerja e regjistrimeve ne kadaster dhe kalimi i manastirit ne prone te Shqiperise, por...ah, ky por, i shtatedhjeti trashegimtar (djali i atij qe studionte per teologji ne Jerusalem, kishte nje peme gjenealogjike shume te pasur dhe, per cudi, nuk iu fshi pronesia, se aty, ne kadaster punonte nje miku i babait te tij, qe me marifet, e la pronar) doli ne drite. Vitet kaluan si uji qe rrjedh nga mali poshte ne lume. Erdhi nje dite qe ne Shqiperi u shfaq ne horizont fantazma "Prone". I shtatedhjeti trashegimtar (brezpasbrezi) ishte Petro Lluka Vurgu (lindur e rritur ne Greqi), qe njihet si Petros Llukanis Vurgaqis, siguroi dokumente te "rregullta" nga arkivi dhe kadastra, mbi bazen e te cilave perfitoi me ligjin qe s'e luan... topi te drejten e pronesise absolute mbi "Manastirin Dyzetshenjtoret" te Sarandes. E uruan edhe pushtetaret qe ta trashegoje se, nje shembull i tille pronesie, eshte edhe ne vende te tjera, ku prona eshte e shenjte, por nuk e le rehat...shejtani, si atjeqofti. Thoma Comora --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 20 21:20:50 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 18:20:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] LA Times Message-ID: <20011021012050.48364.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> Los Angeles Times October 20, 2001 Saturday Home Edition California; Part 2; Page 3; Metro Desk Los Angeles; ; Suspect Indicted in Child Porn Case; Crime: A U.S. citizen is accused of bringing three Albanian boys to L.A. on a pretext of providing them health care. BYLINE: From a Times Staff Writer BODY: A 53-year-old man who brought three Albanian boys into the country, ostensibly to provide medical care, was indicted Friday on child pornography charges, authorities said. Peter Martin Ebel, a U.S. citizen with no known permanent residence, was arrested about a month after he and the boys arrived at Los Angeles International Airport, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney. He is being held without bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. Neither Ebel nor his lawyer could be reached for comment late Friday. "He had this persona of philanthropy and providing care on a free basis for children," Mrozek said. The children were 8, 13, and 15 years old. The youngest and oldest children apparently did need minor medical care, Mrozek said. Ebel said the 13-year-old was to act as a translator, Mrozek said. Ebel, who also uses the names Edward Alan Scott and James Congdon, was arrested Oct. 5 after an investigation by the U.S. Customs Service. Ebel had been on a Customs "watch list" for people entering the country, Mrozek said. Child pornography was found in his possession, and photographs retrieved may point to one of the children having been used for pornographic purposes, Mrozek said. The 13- and 15-year-old boys have been reunited with their parents in Albania. The 8-year-old boy's mother came to Los Angeles and he will receive treatment at UCLA Medical Center, Mrozek said. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sat Oct 20 21:30:51 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 18:30:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Kostunica to Bush Message-ID: <20011021013051.49005.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> Yugoslav leader complains to Bush about position of Serbs in Kosovo Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in English 1814 gmt 19 Oct 01 Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has sent a letter to US President Bush expressing concern that the rights of Serbs in Kosovo, as guaranteed by UN Security Council Resolution 1244, have not been implemented. He said Serbs were unlikely to vote in the 11 November elections in Kosovo "unless urgent and radical action is taken". "Terror rules the province. In such circumstances, elections appear nearly absurd," Kostunica warned, adding that his government had drawn up a draft declaration concerning the joint implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution. The following is the text of a report in English by Yugoslav state news agency Tanjug: Belgrade, 19 October: Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica addressed Friday 19 October a letter to his US counterpart George Bush, thanking him for his felicitations on the first anniversary of peaceful democratic changes in Yugoslavia, and expressing his concern over the non-compliance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 as regards Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo. The following is the official translation of the letter. "I would like to thank you most sincerely for your congratulations on the anniversary of the beginning of democratic changes in my country. I have deliberately used the word "beginning", fully aware how much we have yet to do. However, we have already achieved what matters most - the process of democratic transformation is now irreversible. "I very much appreciate the fact that you did not forget such an important date in our history despite the momentous challenges the US is facing. The horrific crime of 11 September did not only shake America, it shook and changed the world. "I would also like to assure you that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as a country that encountered the evil of terrorism long ago and has experienced it firsthand ever since, will be more than glad to engage in the international struggle against terrorism within the United Nations system. I sincerely hope that the world organization will establish an adequate institutional mechanism for that struggle. I believe you will agree that the United Nations, i.e., a collective security system based on the UN Charter, can provide the most appropriate framework for a relentless struggle against this contemporary plague. "To tell the truth, there is room for improvement in the UN modes of work and activities. Here I am referring primarily to Kosovo and the UN presence in that part of Yugoslav territory. It is with regret that I conclude that the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 has not been implemented in so far as Serbs and other non-Albanian citizens are concerned, in terms of their security, the return of the exiled and the search for the missing. Unless urgent and radical action is taken, I am afraid that worldwide calls upon the Serbs to take part in the 17 November election will be almost in vain. Having said this, I would like to note the following: the Serbs participated in the registration of voters en masse, responding primarily to my appeal and the invitation of the highest church dignitary, Patriarch Pavle. Unfortunately, despite that clearly demonstrated good will, UNMIK UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo has done practically nothing to improve their position (mere 126 of 226,000 displaced persons are included in UNMIK"s repatriation programme). Every single Kosovo Albanian party campaigns on the platform of future independence, in direct contravention of Resolution 1244 and even Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Hans Haekkerup's constitutional framework for provisional self-government. The security situation is worse every day, men and women are killed as they till their fields, while freedom of movement is restricted and exists only in Serb enclaves. Terror rules the province. In such circumstances, elections appear nearly absurd. "In a bid to do everything to bring the situation in Kosovo to a semblance of normality, we have prepared a draft declaration concerning joint implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which should be endorsed by the SRSG and a Special Representative of the Federal Government and the Government of the Republic of Serbia. The document confirms the fundamental principles of the Resolution 1244 and sets up a framework for cooperation between UNMIK and Kfor Kosovo Force on one side, and Yugoslav state organs on the other. The document also reaffirms the obligations set forth in the Resolution that relate to security and human rights, the safe return of all refugees and displaced persons, protection and reconstruction of cultural sites, and it also puts forward proposals on institutional cooperation between UNMIK, Kfor and Yugoslav state bodies in the fields of security, judiciary, education, health care and social welfare, information and media, local self-government and public property management. The goal is to protect the rights and interests of the citizens of Serb nationality and of other non-Albanian nationalities, proceeding from two principles stipulated by the Resolution - the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and substantial autonomy for Kosovo that is to be achieved through provisional institutions. This declaration does not strive to replace the constitutional framework but to complement it, in order to ensure better protection for Serb and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo-Metohija. I do hope that the United Nations and Hans Haekkerup as special representative of the secretary-general will realize how important it is that they support the document. "I hope you understand that I write this letter with deep concern for the stability of my country as well as the region. The danger of terrorism in the Balkans in clear and present. Instability only (?accrues) it." --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 21 05:00:19 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 05:00:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Condemnation Without Absolutes Message-ID: <20011021090019.E66FE58A4E@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Condemnation Without Absolutes October 15, 2001 BY STANLEY FISH CHICAGO -- During the interval between the terrorist attacks and the United States response, a reporter called to ask me if the events of Sept. 11 meant the end of postmodernist relativism. It seemed bizarre that events so serious would be linked causally with a rarefied form of academic talk. But in the days that followed, a growing number of commentators played serious variations on the same theme: that the ideas foisted upon us by postmodern intellectuals have weakened the country's resolve. The problem, according to the critics, is that since postmodernists deny the possibility of describing matters of fact objectively, they leave us with no firm basis for either condemning the terrorist attacks or fighting back. Not so. Postmodernism maintains only that there can be no independent standard for determining which of many rival interpretations of an event is the true one. The only thing postmodern thought argues against is the hope of justifying our response to the attacks in universal terms that would be persuasive to everyone, including our enemies. Invoking the abstract notions of justice and truth to support our cause wouldn't be effective anyway because our adversaries lay claim to the same language. (No one declares himself to be an apostle of injustice.) Instead, we can and should invoke the particular lived values that unite us and inform the institutions we cherish and wish to defend. At times like these, the nation rightly falls back on the record of aspiration and accomplishment that makes up our collective understanding of what we live for. That understanding is sufficient, and far from undermining its sufficiency, postmodern thought tells us that we have grounds enough for action and justified condemnation in the democratic ideals we embrace, without grasping for the empty rhetoric of universal absolutes to which all subscribe but which all define differently. But of course it's not really postmodernism that people are bothered by. It's the idea that our adversaries have emerged not from some primordial darkness, but from a history that has equipped them with reasons and motives and even with a perverted version of some virtues. Bill Maher, Dinesh D'Souza and Susan Sontag have gotten into trouble by pointing out that "cowardly" is not the word to describe men who sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe in. Ms. Sontag grants them courage, which she is careful to say is a "morally neutral" term, a quality someone can display in the performance of a bad act. (Milton's Satan is the best literary example.) You don't condone that act because you describe it accurately. In fact, you put yourself in a better position to respond to it by taking its true measure. Making the enemy smaller than he is blinds us to the danger he presents and gives him the advantage that comes along with having been underestimated. That is why what Edward Said has called "false universals" should be rejected: they stand in the way of useful thinking. How many times have we heard these new mantras: "We have seen the face of evil"; "these are irrational madmen"; "we are at war against international terrorism." Each is at once inaccurate and unhelpful. We have not seen the face of evil; we have seen the face of an enemy who comes at us with a full roster of grievances, goals and strategies. If we reduce that enemy to "evil," we conjure up a shape- shifting demon, a wild-card moral anarchist beyond our comprehension and therefore beyond the reach of any counterstrategies. The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational." Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them. The better course is to think of these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its goal is our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that rationality, we might have a better chance of figuring out what its adherents will do next and preventing it. And "international terrorism" does not adequately describe what we are up against. Terrorism is the name of a style of warfare in service of a cause. It is the cause, and the passions informing it, that confront us. Focusing on something called international terrorism - detached from any specific purposeful agenda - only confuses matters. This should have been evident when President Vladimir Putin of Russia insisted that any war against international terrorism must have as one of its objectives victory against the rebels in Chechnya. When Reuters decided to be careful about using the word "terrorism" because, according to its news director, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, castigated what he saw as one more instance of cultural relativism. But Reuters is simply recognizing how unhelpful the word is, because it prevents us from making distinctions that would allow us to get a better picture of where we are and what we might do. If you think of yourself as the target of terrorism with a capital T, your opponent is everywhere and nowhere. But if you think of yourself as the target of a terrorist who comes from somewhere, even if he operates internationally, you can at least try to anticipate his future assaults. ? Is this the end of relativism? If by relativism one means a cast of mind that renders you unable to prefer your own convictions to those of your adversary, then relativism could hardly end because it never began. Our convictions are by definition preferred; that's what makes them our convictions. Relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger. But if by relativism one means the practice of putting yourself in your adversary's shoes, not in order to wear them as your own but in order to have some understanding (far short of approval) of why someone else might want to wear them, then relativism will not and should not end, because it is simply another name for serious thought. Stanley Fish, dean of the college of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author, most recently, of "How Milton Works." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html?ex=1004654819&ei=1&en=73895e46ed15fe8f HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From kruja at fas.harvard.edu Sun Oct 21 16:53:19 2001 From: kruja at fas.harvard.edu (eriola) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 16:53:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CNN & Reuters deny false video claims (fwd) Message-ID: CNN statement about false claim it used old video Brazilian university statement says no fact to original claim ************************** September 20, 2001 Posted: 4:02 PM EDT (2002 GMT) (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/cnn.statement/index.html) (CNN asks that you copy and e-mail this statement to whomever asks about it.) There is absolutely no truth to the information that is now distributed on the Internet that CNN used 10-year-old video when showing the celebrating of some Palestinians in East Jerusalem after the terror attacks in the U.S. The video was shot that day by a Reuters camera crew. CNN is a client of Reuters and like other clients, received the video and broadcast it. Reuters officials have publicly made the facts clear as well. The allegation is false. The source of the allegation has withdrawn it and apologized. It was started by a Brazilian student who now says he immediately posted a correction once he knew the information was not true. This is the statement by his university -- UNICAMP -- Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil. Again, please read this -- and copy it -- and send it to anyone you know who may have the false information. Thank you. OFFICIAL STATEMENT by Universidad de Campinas-Brasil 17/09/01 UNICAMP (Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil) would like to announce that it has no knowledge of a videotape from 1991, whose images supposedly aired on CNN showing Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks in the U.S. The tape was supposedly from 1991, and there were rumors that the images were passed off as current. This information was later denied, as soon as it proved false, by Mrcio A. V. Carvalho, a student at UNICAMP. He approached the administration today, 17.09.2001, to clarify the following: -- the information he got, verbally, was that a professor from another institution (not from UNICAMP) had the tape; -- he sent the information to a discussion group e-mail list; -- many people from this list were interested in the subject and requested more details; -- he again contacted the person who first gave him the information and the person denied having the tape; -- the student immediately sent out a note clarifying what happened to the people from his e-mail list. The original message, however, was distributed all over the world, often with many distortions, including a falsified by-line article from the student. He affirms that a hacker attacked his domain. Several E-mails have been sent on his behalf and those dating from 15.09.2001 should be ignored. Among the distortions is the fact that UNICAMP would be analyzing the tape, which is absolutely false. The administration considers this alert definitive and will be careful to avoid new rumors. ******************************************************************* Reuters statement on false claim it used old video September 20, 2001 Posted: 4:04 PM EDT (2004 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/reuters.statement/index.html ********************** Reuters rejects as utterly baseless an allegation being circulated by e-mail and the Internet claiming that it circulated 10-year-old videotape to illustrate Palestinians celebrating in the wake of the September 11 tragedies in the United States. Reuters welcomes a statement by the Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil (UNICAMP), one of whose students was the author of the original e-mail, setting the record straight. The videotape in question was shot in East Jerusalem by a Reuters camera crew on September 11 in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the United States. The footage was broadcast by CNN and other subscribers to the Reuters video news service. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This message is a private communication between members of the Leverett community and may not be quoted outside this list without consent of the author. For a full set of policies, and instructions for how to unsubscribe, see: -> http://leverett.harvard.edu/policies/open.html From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 21 23:58:18 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 20:58:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: A Rousing Rock Show for a Wounded City Message-ID: <20011022035818.653D615C27@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. A Rousing Rock Show for a Wounded City October 21, 2001 By JAYSON BLAIR A virtual "Who's Who" of the entertainment industry took the stage last night at Madison Square Garden for the "Concert for New York," a benefit to raise money to rebuild Lower Manhattan and help relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack. The benefit was expected to be the most successful charity event in history, surpassing last month's $125 million post-attack telethon. It had light and serious moments. The crowd cheered as Bon Jovi sang "Dead Or Alive," one of his hit songs from the 1980's and a phrase that President Bush has used in reference to the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attack, Osama bin Laden. Mick Jagger used a vulgar term to explain why it was best not to get into a fight with New York. A short film by Woody Allen included jokes envisioning the Port Authority attempting to move out of New York and Mayor Giuliani getting a house on Fire Island with his rival the Rev. Al Sharpton. It also had a man complaining that the police had taken his drugs to fight anthrax and that Starbucks had opened a coffee shop in Afghanistan. There were somber segments as well, as when Gov. George E. Pataki praised rescue workers and honored the dead. "Since that tragic moment on Sept. 11, our nation has been exposed to evil, an unprecedented evil that was supposed to paralyze America," Governor Pataki said. "We haven't been. We are stronger as a people and a country." He added: "Fear provoked by evil is destined to always fall when confronted by courage in the face of terror." Tickets for the show cost between $250 and $1,000 each, and a telephone number for donations ran across the screen as the show was broadcast on VH1. Musical performers included Paul McCartney, The Who, Bon Jovi, Bono and Edge of U2, David Bowie, Elton John, Destiny's Child, the Backstreet Boys, Mr. Jagger, John Mellencamp, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Melissa Etheridge, Macy Gray, Marc Anthony, Five For Fighting, Goo Goo Dolls and Jay-Z. Janet Jackson performed through a remote satellite connection from Pittsburgh. An equally impressive list of Hollywood stars appeared, from Spike Lee to Harrison Ford. Guests included more than 5,000 firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers. They, in fact, received more cheers than any of the performers, who often made jokes as they introduced others. Mr. Bowie kicked off the benefit with an emotional rendition of Paul Simon's "America" and then followed it with "Heroes." The crowd cheered at several references to the suspected mastermind of the attack, Osama bin Laden. Just as crowds have returned to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, people were clamoring to get into the Garden last night. Those angling to find scalpers, some of whom were selling $250 tickets for $1,000, were young and old, all shades of color and of various backgrounds. But most who were looking for scalped tickets were sorely disappointed. Some of the show's levity was seen as a sign of how much things have changed since Sept. 11. Just a little more than a month ago, in the initial days after the attack, Madison Square Garden was the subject of speculation about a possible terrorist attack and it was evacuated more than once because of bomb threats. But the crowd last night did not seem at the least bit tense. "I just want to say something to all the celebrities who have stayed away from New York," Howard Stern, the comedian and radio talk show host, said at one interlude during the concert. "I say shame on you. Come back to New York." As Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani took the stage, he said, "Thank you',' as the crowd chanted "Rudy, Rudy." "Since the attacks of Sept. 11, Americans and New Yorkers have united as never before," Mr. Giuliani said. He added, "Our enemies should not mistake the fact that even as they see us cry and mourn for those who are lost, we are stronger and tougher, and ready to defend ourselves as never before." During another memorable moment, former President Bill Clinton, holding the hat of Deputy Fire Chief Ray Downey, who helped rescuers at the Oklahoma City bombing and died at the World Trade Center, remarked on how Mr. bin Laden and his advisers are reputed to watch Americans on television. "I hope they saw this tonight," Mr. Clinton said. "Because they thought America was about money and power and that if they took down the World Trade Center we would collapse." "But we are not about mountains of money and towers of steel. But we are about mountains of courage and hearts of steel." He then introduced James Taylor, who sang his 1970's hit "Fire and Rain," with its mournful lyrics that Mr. Taylor has said are about the death of a friend, desperation in trying to get through a tough time, and recuperation. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/nyregion/21GARD.html?ex=1004723098&ei=1&en=23040fe6b9bad337 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 21:43:48 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 18:43:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Event on Kosova at Georgetown Message-ID: <20011022014348.29421.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> October 22, 2001 LECTURE - GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Georgetown University hosts a lecture on "Democracy and the Future of Kosovo." Georgetown University, 311 White Gravenor, 37th and O Streets NW, Washington, DC -- October 22, 2001 PARTICIPANTS: Alan Gashi, senior adviser to the president of Kosovo RSVP requested, 202-687-5576 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 21:48:55 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 18:48:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Book Review by N. Malcolm Message-ID: <20011022014855.65136.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) October 21, 2001, Sunday Ordinary people in the front line The Second World War - its causes, history and participants - is just too big a subject to fit into a short book, says Noel Malcolm By NOEL MALCOLM The Second World War: A People's History by Joanna Bourke Oxford, pounds 14.99, 270 pp pounds 12.99 ( pounds 1.99 p&p) 0870 155 7222 JOANNA BOURKE 's last book, An Intimate History of Killing, tried to answer a fascinating and apparently simple question: how is it that ordinary people, when taken from their peace-time jobs and turned into soldiers, can be induced to break the most basic taboo of civilised life, and kill other people? The question may sound so elementary that it hardly needs to be put. Yet the range of possible answers is bewilderingly large: discipline, fear, patriotism, group-loyalty, ideology, the de-humanisng of the enemy, and so on. And so long as we lack an overall answer to this question, there will surely be something missing at the centre of our understanding of modern warfare. So, in a bold and sudden move, this social historian (now Professor of History at Birkbeck College, London) had sent in her arguments to capture the heartlands of modern military history. The Old Guard of military historians closed ranks, and laid down a withering fire of scorn and contempt. Not being a member of any military-historical formation myself (apart from occasional forays as a Balkan irregular), I found the passion with which they dismissed her book rather perplexing. Perhaps her feminist concern with topics such as "masculinity" had something to do with it. But the book itself was, I thought, lucid, penetrating, and impressively well-researched. Nor was I the only person to think so: it went on to win both the Wolfson Prize and the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History. And now here comes the follow-up book. The task Prof Bourke has set herself here is less original, but in many ways more difficult: to distil the entire history of the Second World War into one short account (the text fills only 225 pages, and the war itself ends on page 184), and to present it in a way that puts the experiences of ordinary people in the foreground. Hence the subtitle: "A People's History". Some historians, faced with the task of summarising six years of world-wide conflict in such a short space, might have picked out one theme as the key to final victory: mastery in the intelligence war, for example, or superiority in the basic economics of arms-production. Joanna Bourke touches from time to time on both of these topics, but never really judges their importance to the eventual outcome. She does in fact seem quite uninterested in the economics of the war, despite all the modern research on this topic. And the interaction of economic concerns and strategic ones is also underplayed: Hitler's geostrategic interest in the Middle East is passed over, and the whole war in North Africa is therefore dismissed by her as a "sideshow". What about her special concern, the experience of "ordinary people"? This is a recurrent theme in the book, but hardly a unifying one - the nature of the experience involved is just too various for that. Quotations from letters, diaries and memoirs are scattered here and there: infantry soldiers, concentration camp inmates, a child in Tokyo, the mother of a bomber pilot in Massachusetts. All are well-chosen, and some - such as the letters written by an anonymous woman in the ghetto of Tarnopol, in Galicia - are utterly heart-breaking. But in the end they serve only as illustrations, little human-interest interludes in a larger narrative that can carry on without them. For the most part, therefore, the ordinary people in this story are on the receiving end, either the victims or the instruments of policies imposed from above. Just occasionally does this "people's history" become the history of a "people's war", in the traditional (mainly Left-wing) sense of a military effort being driven by a political agenda from below. Some so-called "national liberation struggles" qualify: thus both Tito and the Greek Communist partisans are given rather starry-eyed treatment here. Readers may also baulk at the respectful treatment given to those Asians who collaborated with the Japanese against British or Dutch colonial rule. And there is a whiff of moral equivalentism in the discussion of European and Japanese "imperialism" in south-east Asia, which the statistics that Prof Bourke herself furnishes (for example, the 3.7 million Indonesians killed in four years of Japanese rule) surely belie. Overall, however, this book is not in the grip of a political agenda; nor is it trying to push through any radical new "take" on the war. If anything, it suffers from too much non-committal detachment, not too little: there are just too many issues on which Prof Bourke is content to declare that "some historians say this, while others say that". So, on the most painful issue of all, she writes: "Some historians argue that Hitler and other senior Nazis made a deliberate decision to kill the Jews and then carried out the plan. Other historians believe that the Holocaust was the result of an unintentional radicalisation process within the chaotic Nazi state." And her own opinion? "In practice, these views are not mutually incompatible." This is not very helpful. Yes, it is possible to imagine both a deliberate plan and an unintentional process going on at the same time, at different levels; but one would like a historian to say which, in the end, was the more decisive in producing the final outcome. Perhaps the task Joanna Bourke set herself here was just too great. She has brought to it talents which many other historians might envy: an impressive geographical range, a fine eye for human detail and a real clarity of expression. The result is not a bad book, but, coming in the wake of that truly original Intimate History of Killing, it is a disappointing one. Noel Malcolm's books include 'Kosovo: A Short History' and 'Bosnia: A Short History'. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 22:15:12 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 19:15:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Shkaterrohet Bregdeti i Himares - Koha Jone Message-ID: <20011022021512.50024.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> -->Kush e shet Shqiperine? Nga Xhemal Mato* /Ka mbi 6 dite perseri nje anije ka filluar te vjedhe reren e bregdetit te Jonit per ta shitur ne Greqi. Te gjithe banoret e Himares dhe te fshatrave perreth, e quajne "anija greke", ndonese asnje nuk e di se cili eshte pronari i vertete. Cdo dite ajo akustohet perballe gjiut te Gjipese, ne jug te Dhermiut per te gerryer nga fundi i detit reren me te mire te bregdetit te Himares. Gjiu dhe kanioni i Gjipese jane cilesuar si nje nga bukurite natyrore me te bukura te gjithe Detit Mesdhe dhe eshte diskutuar disa here nga ambientalistet tane te shpallet monument natyre per tu mbrojtur me ligj. Mali ketu eshte care mbi 100 meter thelle dhe ka krijuar ne bregdet nje plazh te vogel ranor mes shkembinjve. Kete vere ketu erdhen shume turiste te huaj dhe shqiptare sa per te kaluar nje dite dhe per te bere disa fotografi. Ne veren e vitit 1999, nje anije e nje pronari shqiptar filloi te grabise reren e gjiut te Gjipese per ta shitur ne Greqi. U fol se ajo kishte nxjerre dhe lejet perkatese per kete lloj biznesi si nga pushteti dhe nga Agjensia Kombetare e Mjedisit. Por kembengulja e banoreve perreth dhe lufta e pergjithshme e te gjitha mediave beri qe kjo grabitje te nderpritej duke mos nxjerre mbeshtetesit qe fshiheshin pas saj. Si rezultat, gropave te medha qe u krijuan nen uje nga marrja e reres, deti gjate dimrit terhoqi reren nga plazhi dhe shkaktoi daljen e shkembinjve ne zonen ku me pare pushuesit shtiheshin ne rere. Ne kete menyre u rrezikua plazhi i bukur i Gjipese, i vetmi ne kete zone shkembore. Kete radhe grabitesit filluan grabitjen ne vjeshte kur ne bregdetin e Himares s'ka pushues te shumte per ta bere buje dhe neper fshatrat e rivieres kane ngelur vetem plakat shamizeza. Megjithate, konflikti ka plasur perseri midis banoreve te paket dhe "anijes greke". Ja si e treguan ngjarjen dy banore te fshatit Vuno, Taqua dhe Lavdoshi: "Kur pame se erdhi perseri nje anije e ngjashme me ate te dy viteve me pare per marjen e reres nga fundi i detit, te gjithe burrat e fshatit Vuno u mblodhen prane bregdetit, perballe anijes qe ishte rreth 100 larg dhe protestuan me ze te larte. Por anija s'donte tia dinte dhe vazhdonte te merrte rere me kovat e saj sa nje shtepi. Atehere njeri nga burrat vajti mori ciften dhe filloi te gjuaje drejt tyre. Vetem atehere anija u detyrua te largohet drejt Himares. Po ate dite vajtem dhe u ankuam ne policin` e Himares. Por per cudi policia nuk u muar me "anijen greke" por erdhi ne fshat per te arrestuar ate qe kishte qelluar me arme. Natyrisht ne se treguam ate. Diten tjeter anija erdhi perseri ne Gjiun e Gjipese por kete radhe kishte marre ne bordin e saj edhe nje polic. Perseri ne u mblodhem ne breg dhe reaguam me te gjitha menyrat. Kete radhe ajo u largua pasi kishte mbushur barkun me reren tone. Diten tjeter anija filloi te vinte ne gji vetem naten. Ne vajtem perseri ne Himare per tu ankuar ne Bashki dhe per cudi Kryetari i Bashkise nuk kishte dijeni fare per aktivitetin e kesaj anije. Atehere ne Himarte u hap llafi se anija greke mbrohet nga nje qeveritar i larte ne Tirane. Kjo eshte historia. Anija vazhdon te marre reren tone cdo nate dhe e shet ne Greqi per te thithur sa me shume turiste atje se te ne turizmin e ka marre lumi". Pothuajse te njejten histori treguan dhe Jorgua, Bashkimi dhe banore te tjere te Bregut. Por me e cuditshmja eshte pohimi i disa specialisteve te mjedisit qe thone se "Agjensi Kombetare e Mjedisit" para disa muajsh jua ka dhene lejen kesaj anije qe te ushtroje kete lloj biznesi "ta shese reren e Shqiperise ne Greqi" *Kryetar i Shoqates "Masmedia dhe Mjedisi" 10/21/2001 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 22:20:03 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 19:20:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Reportazh per Shqiptaret ne Greqi Message-ID: <20011022022003.76834.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> Sunday, October 21, 2001 Mirembrema Mireseerdhet ne Koha Jone --> -->--> Designed by Suad Barbullushi --> [input] --> -->Shqiptaret ne Greqi: duam shkolla shqip Nga Greqia Zenepe Luka/ Teksa shkon e kthehesh nga shteti fqinj Greqia, nuk ndjehesh aspak vetem. Ne kufi, dhe me pas ne cdo qytet qe do te shkelWsh deri edhe ne Ishull, te rrethojne njerez qe flasin gjuhen e nenes. Kudo gjen shqiptare ne rruge, ne lokale luksoze, neper burgje. Ata jane punetore te nderuar, pronare lokalesh, shkrimtare, artiste qe mbushin orkestrat greke, jane sportiste qe i kane ngritur lart emrin Greqise, megjithese ne dej u rrjedh gjak shqiptari. Jane gjysem milioni shqiptare qe jetojne, punojne ne token helene, duke percjelle ndjenjat e vellazerimit te popujve. Ne Greqi nuk ndjehesh ne toke te huaj, aty ka shqiptare te hershem, arvanitas dhe te 10 vjeteve me pare qe se bashku ngrejn lart emrin e Arberise. Ne Kakavije, kur shqiptaret qendrojne ne radhe pa thene nje fjale, ne pritje per te marre vulen Ne ate dite mes tetori, ne Kakavije prisnin te pakten 300 shqiptare ne radhe per te marre vulen, e per te nisur me tej udh-_ gjate, qe deri ne Athine shenon 700 km. Te ben pershtypje qe rrine per ore te tera pa thene edhe nje fjale te vetme. Rasti i vetem qe beri buje ishte, ai i Hamdi Elmazit nga Patosi. Kur e moren vesh se cfare i kishte ndodhur, vargu filloi te tundej dhe dikush te shprehte zemerimin hapur. Ai flet ne diktofonin e "KJ", se kishte 4 nete qe flinte aty ne kufi dhe dogana greke nuk i jepte vulen. "Me humbi karta jeshile kur isha ne Shqiperi. U pajisa me nje vendim dhe me pas zyra e punes ne Greqi gjithcka qe i duhej doganes greke. Gjithcka eshte ne rregull, por kryenecesia e doganierit me bllokoi ketu me grua e dy vajzat. Kam 8 vjet qe punoj andej e gjithmone kam pare punen time", flet ai dhe syte i mbushen me lot. Vajzat Irma dhe Rovena, jane ne vitin e dyte ne gjimnaz. E para thote se do te behem kengetare popullore, kurse tjetra i ka dhene kara per tu bere avokate, vetem per te mbrojtur te drejtat e shqiptareve ne Greqi. Ne kete konfuzion qe u be padashur, prane diktofonit u afrua nje grua. Quhej Refie Jazaj, ishte nga lagja centrale ne Vlore, por kishte 12 vjet qe punonte e jetonte ne Athine familjarisht. Erdha ne Vlore se mu ca zemra nga malli, i kam te gjithe njerezit atje, por ja cti besh hallit qe na con larg, dhe pas ketyre fjaleve asaj i mblidhen lotet ne gropezen e mjekerres qe i dridhet. Por duket se diktofoni i gazetarit, ne kete rast beri pune. Kryedoganieri grek keshillon se nuk duhet te marre intervista neper rruge, aq me teper ketu ku punohet dhe pas kesaj thirri sa kishte ne koke emrin e kryefamiljarit nga Patosi, levizi syzet nga vendi, kerciti vulen mbi dokumentat e tij dhe perplasi sportelin. Ndersa shqiptari puthi diktofonin dhe iku vetetimthi drejt Athines me mjetin e tij. Tek sheshi i Omonias, ku preket dhimbja dhe malli i emigranteve Nuk ka vend me te pershtatshem se sa sheshi i Omonias, per te takuar e biseduar me bashkekombesit e tu. Ata rrethojne kiosken qe shet gazetat shqiptare, lexojne me ze te larte titujt e tyre bombastike, pastaj qendrojne te heshtur me duar ne xhepa, duke medituar. Sapo marrin vesh qe ke ardhur nga Shqiperia, te rrethojne, pyesin si vene punet, por edhe nervozohen qe i ka harruar shteti i tyre. Nuk mungojne edhe ata qe te zene nga krahu te shqetesuar, duke u ankuar per ambasaden, per gjuhen qe nuk po mesohet nga femijet. Perpara kesaj situate kur te gjithe duan te flasin, je i detyruar te heshtesh dhe vetem te rregjistrosh me diktofon, cili te jep tabllone e nje proteste ne gjuhen shqipe, ne zemer te Athines. Heno Deraj eshte nga Laci, baba i 6 femijve dhe shpreh ate qe duan ta thone te gjithe si ne kor se jemi ne vend te huaj, jemi pa dinjitetin e shqiptarit dhe kjo eshte thelbesore, te tjerat nuk na duhen. Mos ka ardhur koha te ktheheni ne vendin tuaj, ku eshte edhe dinjiteti?.. e pyesim. Por pergjigjen e japin shume zera. Ku te vime, atje nuk ka drita, uje.. Metush Mehmeti nga Fieri shpreh nervozizmin e tij, se perse nuk interesohet shteti qe femijet tane te mesojne historine e gjuhen shqipe qofte edhe nje ore ne dite. "Femijet tane, ngre zerin ai, po marrin te vertete vetem ate qe u thote dhaskali grek, e vlerat e kombit kane mbetur vetem ne duart e prinderve per tua trasmetuar femijeve, packa se nuk kane kohe e rropaten duke punuar 16 ore". "Ne,- thote ai,- dhe pushton me krahe grumbullin e madh te refugjateve, i ngjajme tufes se deleve te leshuar pa bari". Ne kete grumbull eshte edhe Lefter Marto,kreu i konfederates per refugjatet ne Greqi, qe me shume se cilido ju qendron prane. Ai ngre shqetesimin se ekzistojne tarifa te larta per kryerjen e dokumentacionit ne Ambasaden shqiptare ne Athine, se ne raste te vecanta ka shfjaqje korrupsioni. Po keto thenie te tij mbeshteten edhe nga te tjere. Po ne kete shesh meson se familje te tera jane pa pune, sikurse te gezon fakti qe tashme emigrantet shqiptare jane legalizuar dhe se jane qindra qe kane blere apartamente dhe jetojne njesoj si greket. Gjithcka vjen duke u rregulluar, edhe pa pune nuk kemi mbetur, por si t'ia besh mallit per njerezit, per vendin tend, shprehet Gazmir Dema nga Burreli, si tia bejme? Kjo pyetje e tij, qe mbeti pa pergjigje, na preku te gjitheve. Pas dy ore qendrimi sebashku, ata lane sheshin Omonia dhe u shperndane si zogjte, dikush ne pune, te tjere neper familje, ku presin femijet per te cuar pagen e dites. Aty, ne ate shesh preket dhimbja dhe malli i emigranteve, qe menjehere deperton ne qenien tende dhe te krijohet nje ndjesi e vecante. Neper Ahine tek lokalet e shqiptareve. Nisim me Klubin Laberia Ne kryeqytetin grek ka dhjetra lokale qe kane emrat e qyteteve apo krahinave nga vijne emigrantet qe jane bere pronare te tyre. Laberia eshte shkruar me germa te medha dhe pronari i tij eshte Luan Kaci nga Vlora. Ai rri mbushur plot me vlonjate, qe jane si mize lisi ketu ne Athine. Perballe tij edhe nje lokal tjeter qe ka pronare vajzen nga Vlora, Albanen, vajzen e Teki Gjolikut, por qe eshte martuar me nje shkodran e ka lindur dy femije, Denis e Serxhio. Aty sherben edhe i vellai, qe na thote se e ka marre malli te haje mish te pjekur nga Llogaraja, por edhe mjalte nga Kuci. Nje nate me pare aty ishin grumbulluar 50 vlonjate, ja ashtu kot si dite pushimi qe ishte dhe ia kishin shtruar vence me kenge labe. "U cmallem, -thote Albana,- qe pervec te tjerash e dallon edhe emri se eshte shqiptare. Me tej shohim nje berberane, ku punon mjeshtri shqiptar me emrin Timo. Mesuam se atij i kercet kurrizi nga puna, pasi jo vetem shqiptaret, por edhe shume greke qethen tek ai. Disa metra me larg, nje tjeter lokal me emrin Narta, me tutje, Leskoviku, Lushnja, Korca... Gjysma e qyteteve te Shqiperise ishin aty ne zemer te Athines. Pse pronare te lokaleve, jane bij te tyre dhe eshte e pamundur te harrosh vendin tend. Kjo eshte deshmi e gjalle e lidhjes me vendlindjen. Ambasadori shqiptar ne Athine, Kastriot Robo, na dergon tek nje selenicar, ne Pire, Lili Jarazi, quhej ai. Ai kishte marre me qera nje taverrne, per te cilin ishin bere xheloze greket. Kishte punesuar aty vjehrrin e vjehrren, vellane, nusen, por kishte edhe greke e italiane. Gjithcka shkonte shume mire dhe Lili mburrej me kete, pasi sic thote ai, kemi sjelle ketu krenarine shqiptare. "Kam ikur qysh me 1992,- thote ai,- dhe kam punuar edhe 16 ore si hamall. Tani qe kam kete lokal luksoz, vura ne vend krenarine e shqiptarit. Ata gatuajne mrekullisht me duart e tyre dhe ishte kjo aresyeja qe klientela shtohej nga dita ne dite. Ndersa synonte qe te gatuante edhe gjellet specifike shqiptare, qysh nga fasulja deri tek tava e baltes. Teksa largohemi prej tij me gezimin qe na pushtoi, ndalemi disa caste perpara godines se Teatrit Popullor publik te Pireut, qe te mahnit me arkitekturen e stilit grek. Te gjithe e kane mesuar faktin se aty, ne Teatrin e Pireut ka qene sufler, i madhi Fan Noli Ne burgjet greke, 1955 shqiptare, ose 1/3 e te gjithe te burgosurve Te burgosurit jane pjesa me e dhimshme e emigranteve shqiptare. Sekretari i dyte i Ambasades Shqiptare ne Athine, Andi Mahilaj, na njeh me punen qe eshte bere per tju ardhur ne ndihme shtetasve, ndersa na shqetesojne shifrat e larta te te denuarve. Ne te 27 burgjet greke, vuajne denimin plot 1955 shqiptare, nder ta jane 49 femra, 109 te mitur dhe mosha e tyre varion nga 15 deri ne 55 vjec. Krimet e kryera nga shqiptaret jane trafik droge, qe zene pjesen me te madhe, por edhe krime ndaj personit nga grabitja e deri ne vrasje. Disa dite me pare u kap edhe nje grup i madh falsifikatoresh, aty ne afersi te selise se Ambasades. Ishin 10 vete qe u arrestuan nga policia greke dhe ju gjeten si prova materiale vula te falsifikuara te ambasades, te Ministrise se jashtme Greke pasaporta shqiptare, certifikata te falsifikuara, 70 patenta nderkombetare etj etj. Ata kishin abuzuar ne kohen e pikut te punes qe behej per legalizimin e emigrante duke percjelle edhe imazhin e keq te Ambasades. Lidhur me njerezit e burgjeve, ku nje pjese e mire eshte denuar me 25 vjet deri edhe me burg te perjetshem. Ambasada ka vendosur kontaktet e saj. Madje sikurse shprehet ambasadori Robo, konsujt shkojne ne te gjitha burgjet per te kontaktuar, marrin pjese edhe ne gjyqe dhe nuk jane te rralla rastet kur vete drejtesia greke ka pranuar se eshte bere padrejtesi sikurse ishte rasti i nje te riu ne Selanik, qe u lirua menjehere. "Jane te dyja anet e medaljes, edhe numuri i madh i te denuarve, por edhe denimi i ashper qe aplikohet per shqiptaret", thote Mahilaj. Ne burgun e Koridholes, fare prane Athines, vuajne denimin 386 shqiptare. Autoritetet e burgut u treguan te sjellshem ne komunikim, por edhe te burgosurit nuk kishin ndonje verejtje per ta. Aty mesuam historine e Mentor Menkshit, emigranitit te ardhur nga Cerma e Lushnjes. Ai ishte nder djemte me te mire qe punonte ne Alqidhe prej 7 vjetesh, por nje dite e pesoi. "Isha me mjetin tim,- thote ai,- kur me del perpara nje shqiptar e me thote. Merre kete porosi e coje tek ai lokali. Merre se ndryshe do te vras ty dhe prinderit e tu qe i njoh mire. E mora, sapo eca 100 metra, me zuri policia, ne qeske kishte pasur 5 kg kanabis, qe mua do te me kushtoje jeten", thote ai dhe qan si femije. Aty ka ardhur per ta takuar edhe motra e vetme, Ledi, nje vajze e bukurr qe prek me ngasherimin e saj edhe policet greke. Gjithe kjo ushtri te burgosurish, qe ze nje te treten e te burgosurve, eshte pjesa me e dhimshme e atij gjysem milion emigrantesh shqiptare qe punojne e jeton ne Greqi. Ne spitalin e Athines, ku Elida, vajza e policit nga Lushnja, pret kembet e drunjta. Ne spitalet greke ka shume shqiptare qe kurohen sipas kontratave midis shteteve. Nje pjese e mire bejne dializen e veshkave, ka edhe semundje te renda, por rasti i Elida Shulit, ishte pika me e dhimshme, qe prek edhe gurin. Historia e dhimshme e policit Idriz Shuli, te cilit i u vu bomba me 4 korrik ne shtepi, ka mbushur me dhimbje jo vetem spitalin e femijve te Athines. Ne dhomen nr, 5. mbi nje krevat rri shtrire mbi krevat e mbuluar nga lotet e te emes Elida Shuli. Kjo vajze e bukur si yll, me nje intelekt tej moshes, eshte mbuluar me letrat e shoqeve, te mesueses dhe mytet ne lote. Asaj i u prene te dy kembet nga gjuri e poshte dhe pret qe shteti shqiptar ti bleja kembet prej druri ne Gjermani. Nena e saj, Dallandyshja, qe e ka femije te vetem e ka te veshtire te kujtoje tragjedine e asaj dite, kur i vendosen tritol ne ballkon e ne dere, per shkak se burri i saj ishte polic. Gjithcka u shkaterrua, por dhimbja e familjes eshte prerja e kembeve te vajzes. Ia dime per nder Arta Dades, deputetes, qe na ndihmoi te vijme deri ketu dhe te shpetojme jeten e vajzes, ndersa po vonohen kembet e Elides. "Ta shoh edhe njehere qe te ece dhe te vdes", ngasherehet ajo. Elida na lexon me ze te larte letren qe i ka derguar mesuesja nga Lushnja Tatjana Shtamo. "Harroje gjithcka ndodhi, e keshillon ajo, quaje si nje enderr te keqe, une e di qe ti je vajze e zgjuar dhe me kurajo". Po Elida ze fytyren me duart e vogla dhe pyet: Si ta harroj mesuese, po kembet? Po momenti me i dhimbshem, qe na preku te gjitheve ishte kur lexoi letren e shoqes se banges Ela Nezirit. "Une do te kujtoj sa te kem jeten, i thoshte ajo dhe pres te vish, se me plasi malli". Nga diktofoni i "KJ" Elida donte te pershendeste mesuesen shoket e shoqet e klases, komshijen dhe vajzat e saj me te cilat eshte rritur dhe qe tani kane shkuar ne Durres, dhe i lutet xhaxhi kryeministrit qe te dergoje te hollat qeveria dhe asaj ti vijne kembet e drunjta. "Une s'kam cti bej atij qe na vuri tritolin e me mori kembet, por i lutem Zotit te me marre hakun", thote vogelushja, qe perseri mbulon syte e qan. Elida Shuli. dhimbja qe ahpon si piskame cdo zemer q e e sheh. Ajo nuk ecen me, leviz me nje karroce dhe fotot qe ka bere me pare, i ruan si gjene me te shtrenjte. Ne Ishullin e Ebuies, Alkidha, ku operon kirurgu vlonjat Ne ishullin e Evies, ka shume shqiptare qe punojne e jetojne. Ai eshte i dyti pas Kretes dhe ka nje gjatesi prej 180 km e gjeresia shkon deri 50 km. Qyteti ne zemren e tij, eshte Alkidha, qe ka 110 mije banore, aq sa Vlora. Ka dy ura, e vjetra eshte 40 metra e gjate dhe hapet e mbyllet sa here kalojne vaporret nen uje per ne Selanik e gjetke. Prej 5 vjetesh eshte bere ura e re e larte, ku vaporrat kalojne lirshem. Karakteristike eshte levizja e ujrave qe nderrojne drejtimin cdo 6 ore dhe te jep pershtypjen e nje lumi te rrembyeshem. Aty takuam kirurgun nga Vlora, doktorin e shkencave, Odise Papa. Ate e njohin greke e shqiptare aty. Ai tregon kalvarin e peripecive kur erdhi per here te pare ne Alkidhe, i ndihmuar nga profesori Dhimiter Gloras. Me perpjekjet e tij njohu diplomen, specializimin si kirurg dhe arriti te behej doktor i shkencave aty, mes kirurgeve greke dhe te operonte njesh me ata. Per gjate 10 vjeteve ai ka kryer aty 726 operacione nga me te veshtirat, te shkalleve me me te larte ku futet edhe laboraskopia. Por ska pak muaj qe kirurgu Odise Papa ka ardhur ne Vlore, eshte shef i pavionit te Kirurgjise. Alkidha dhe Vlora, jane njesoj te dashura per mua. Nje dite do te marr edhe gruan, mjeken pediatre Sofie dhe femijet e do te jetoj ne vendlindje. E rendesishme eshte qe te cosh ne vendin tend ate qe mungon dhe tju sherbesh bashkeqytetareve te ty. Me stafin e tij, ne sallen e re e aparaturat moderne qe kane ardhur ne Vlore, Odise Papa po kryen operacionet qe bente ne Alkidhe, qe behen nga kirurge te botes. Duke u kthyer drejt vendit tend, ndjehesh e mbushur me mbresa, qe shpalosin jeten e vrullshme te baskekombesve te tu, por edhe dhimbjen qe mbart fjala e rende refugjat. Ndoshta do te jete e afert dita, qe ky gjysem milion shqiptare te kthehen e te bejne vendin e tyre dhe qe te mos i bluaj malli, duhet te nxitojne: Shqiperine do ta bejne shqiptaret. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From phronesis20 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 23:16:02 2001 From: phronesis20 at yahoo.com (phronesis20 at yahoo.com) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 03:16:02 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] For your attention Message-ID: <20011022031602.2EB115AB@mullet.gul3.gnl> xa spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it. To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk By George! Don't beat about the Bush Simon Hoggart Friday October 19 2001 The Guardian I did a turn at the Cheltenham Literary Festival last weekend with my old friend and colleague Steve Bell, who made the point that it was (and I paraphrase) our stern and bounden duty to continue depicting George Bush as a dimwit even if he is fighting a war. I know this view does not obtain in the United States, which makes it all the more urgent for us to keep that flag waving above the battlements here. After all, he wasn't even elected president by the American people. I was pleased to see him being thoroughly and unfairly roasted in the new ITV political cartoon show, 2DTV. This "found poem" has been whizzing round the internet. It's a selection of genuine remarks made by Bush, arranged for aesthetic purposes by Richard Thompson of the Washington Post, and it has a fine, aethereal ring too. Some of the pungent images remind me slightly of The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock. Its random title is Make The Pie Higher. This is still a dangerous world It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses Rarely is the question asked Is our children learning? Will the highways of the Internet become more few? How many hands have I shaked? They misunderestimate me I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity I know that the human being and the fish can co-exist Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream Put food on your family! Knock down the tollbooth! Vulcanize society! Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher! · I don't greatly care for the disc jockey Sara Cox; like most Radio 1 dee-jays she seems to provide only an endless stream of meaningless blether. It's like being forced to listen into some endless mobile phone conversation. But nobody deserves to have their naked body plastered all over a national newspaper, as she was in the Sunday People this week. She and her new husband were honeymooning in the Seychelles. Clearly she didn't mind being spotted in the buff by fellow-holiday makers, but that's her choice. It doesn't give the paper any right to show the rest of her off to its million or so readers. What really made me gag was the little black rectangle they'd imposed on the top of her legs, as if it would be outrageous to offend respectable readers by showing them what pubic hair looks like, but quite all right to show the rest of Ms Cox naked to anyone who cares to look. · The weird logic of privatisation has led to a new phenomenon - half-empty trains now whizz past waiting passengers in an attempt to catch up with the timetable. It happened in Blackpool last week when the Virgin service to London was 40 minutes late. They told anyone who needed to get off before Euston to change at Preston, and ran the train non-stop (well, non-stop at stations; there was plenty of crawling along, and we still arrived 40 minutes late). Anyone who wanted to go from, say, Warrington to Milton Keynes just had to wait a lot longer. Our commuter service did the same thing the other day. Our train was already 10 minutes late. Finally it arrived, almost empty. It slowed down and then cruelly accelerated without stopping. We were told to wait for the next train, already 10 minutes late itself, so ... oh, you can't be bothered with the details. I'm sure it's more convenient for the train operators, and it may help some people at the other end. But why does it never cross their minds that the hundreds of people who would like to catch a train have things to do as well? Why is our time regarded as beneath their consideration? · My favourite article so far about the crisis appeared in the Telegraph this week. It was in Style Notebook by Alexandra Shulman. Those poor darlings in the world of haute couture, or whatever they call it now, have had a terrible time. There they were at New York fashion week when the bombers struck. Then a rumour went round that the US embassy in Paris was under siege and all flights to Milan had been cancelled. Thank heavens, they made it to Milan and were all seated for the Armani show, when they heard the urban myth about the helpful Arab who returns a favour by saying "steer clear of London this week" - and actually believed it. More panic! All Eurostar tickets cancelled! "It was when we were in Paris waiting for the Dries van Noten show that news broke that bombing in Afghanistan had begun. Anxiety about how to get home reached a feverish pitch." (What? Home to Afghanistan?) But, she concludes: "Life and fashion must go on, and I draw your attention to the question of shoes with ankle straps, a new trend for this autumn ..." The style seemed familiar, and then I remembered: it's AbFab, a world in which reality intrudes so rarely that nobody knows how to cope when it does. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited From phronesis20 at yahoo.com Sun Oct 21 23:23:31 2001 From: phronesis20 at yahoo.com (phronesis20 at yahoo.com) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 03:23:31 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] For your attention Message-ID: <20011022032331.3A5F95AF@mullet.gul3.gnl> xa spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it. To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk Modernising tendency Sam Fleischacker Friday October 19 2001 The Guardian It is commonly said that Osama bin Laden represents a medieval worldview. If only! What is most dangerous about his brand of radical Islam derives from something peculiarly modern in it. In Islam, as well as Judaism and Christianity, the Middle Ages saw the highest development of the notion that faith and reason can go together. For medieval philosophers, faith could enhance one's understanding of the secular world, and secular understanding could deepen faith. The existence and nature of God, for instance, could be ascertained by reason. A great deal of morality could also be determined without faith, and this view of morality - as largely independent of faith - was, later, to be of great importance to the development of liberal politics. One consequence of this viewpoint was a moral constraint on the interpretation of revealed texts. Many medieval thinkers held that if the holy scriptures - of any faith - seem to contradict what reason tells us God must be like, then the scriptures need to be reinterpreted. God has given us scriptures, but God has also given us reason; so reason can serve as a guide to what the scriptures mean. Thus, if God can have no bodily parts, then references to "God's hand" must be metaphorical. Similarly, if a good God, to whom each human being is precious, could not possibly desire the death of many innocent human beings, then we cannot accept the apparent meaning of passages in scriptures that approve of mass killing. Of course, ordinary believers were not necessarily inclined to follow this programme for ensuring that revelation coheres with a reasonable morality. But they received what education they had from clerics trained to bring revelation and reason together. Religion, therefore, managed to be a force of restraint on bloodshed and cruelty through much of the medieval world - and especially in the Muslim world. It is a modern thought that faith is antagonistic to reason. Scientific reasoning does not sit easily with the presuppositions of any religion, and the work of Enlightenment philosophers made the belief in God appear irrational. One response to that was, of course, to become an atheist. But another, initiated by the German philosopher JG Hamann, and made famous by Kierkegaard, was to affirm that religion is irrational, but then to say, "So what? The greatness of faith lies precisely in its triumph over reason." This is the doctrine that religious believers who encounter modern science affirm today. They can reject all the good reasons modern thought gives them against their belief in God, or against the truth of their sacred text, since faith has nothing to do with reason. Unreasonable parts of scripture can thus command faith just as much as reasonable ones do. Neither scientific nor moral reason need be a guide: if scripture says God has a hand, then God has a hand; if scripture says God wants you to kill unbelievers, then God wants you to kill unbelievers. As it happens, this extremely anti-rational type of faith distorts the doctrines of Hamann and Kierkegaard, the latter of whom, especially, was concerned to bring a rational ethic into some kind of harmony with religion. But the anti-rational attitude is appealing precisely in its extreme form to many young people who, at some point, face a sharp dichotomy between a traditional faith and what they get taught in biology, history or philosophy classes. By construing reason as utterly separate from faith, they can insulate their traditional beliefs from the devastating challenges posed by modern thought. It is easy to imagine Mohammed Atta, at Hamburg University, encountering the dichotomy between faith and modern reason, and turning to a form of Islam untempered by any rational morality. But if so, Atta, like many others, followed a path first laid out in the modern west. And, unfortunately, we in the west do not offer much of an alternative to that path, for those who are religiously inclined. We have reasonable atheists, religious believers who take pride in being unreasonable, and a very few people who make feeble gestures in the direction of a religion that one could adhere to without losing either one's scientific or one's moral mind. One step towards preventing future Mohammed Attas - and his kin in the uglier extremes of Judaism and Christianity - would be to replace these feeble gestures with a renewal of the honorable medieval attempt to reconcile revelation and reason. · Sam Fleischacker is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois. Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited From jetkoti at hotmail.com Mon Oct 22 02:18:41 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 23:18:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: The Rifle and the Veil Message-ID: <20011022061841.AA9AD15C28@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. The Rifle and the Veil October 19, 2001 By JAN GOODWIN and JESSICA NEUWIRTH Anyone who has paid attention to the situation of women in Afghanistan should not have been surprised to learn that the Taliban are complicit in terrorism. When radical Muslim movements are on the rise, women are the canaries in the mines. The very visible repression of forced veiling and loss of hard-won freedoms coexists naturally with a general disrespect for human rights. This repression of women is not about religion; it is a political tool for achieving and consolidating power. Sher Abbas Stanakzai, then the Taliban regime's deputy foreign minister, admitted as much in a 1997 interview. "Our current restrictions of women are necessary in order to bring the Afghan people under control," he said. "We need these restrictions until people learn to obey the Taliban." In the same way that many Islamic extremist crusades use the oppression of women to help them gain control over wider populations, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden are now employing the tactics of terrorism to gain control. The Taliban did not start the oppression of Afghan women, nor have they been its only practitioners. In 1989, Arab militants working with the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union based in Peshawar, Pakistan - and helping to finance the resistance fighters - issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, stating that Afghan women would be killed if they worked for humanitarian organizations. At that time, a third of the Afghan population of 15 million were displaced from their homes, and many were heavily dependent on humanitarian groups for food and other necessities. Among the 3.5 million of these refugees who were then living in Pakistan, many were war widows supporting their families by working for the aid groups. After the fatwa, Afghan women going to work were shot at and several were murdered. Some international aid groups promptly stopped employing Afghan women, and though many women were infuriated, most complied after being intimidated by the violent attacks. Soon afterward, another edict in Peshawar forbade Afghan women to "walk with pride" or walk in the middle of the street and said they must wear the hijab, the Arab black head and body covering and half-face veil. Again, most women felt they had no choice but to comply. In 1990, a fatwa from Afghan leaders in Peshawar decreed that women should not attend schools or become educated, and that if they did, the Islamic movement would meet with failure. The document measured 2 feet by 3 feet to accommodate the signatures of about 200 mullahs and political leaders representing the majority of the seven main mujahedeen parties of Afghanistan. The leading school for Afghan girls in Peshawar, where many Afghan refugees still lived, was sprayed with Kalashnikov gunfire. It closed for months, and its principal was forced into hiding. When an alliance of mujahedeen groups took over in Kabul in 1992, it forced women out of news broadcasting and government ministry jobs and required them to wear veils. But it was the Taliban who institutionalized the total oppression of women after Kabul fell to them four years later, and who required the total coverage of the now familiar burqa. Now, as Afghans, Pakistanis and Americans look to the future of Afghanistan, most plans call for a broad-based new government giving representation to all of Afghanistan's ethnic groups and major political parties, including the Taliban. No one, however, has called for the participation of women, even though women, after many years of war, now almost certainly make up the majority of the adult Afghan population. Afghan women gradually gained rights in the first decades of the 20th century. Women helped write their country's Constitution in 1964. They served in parliament and the cabinet and were diplomats, academics, professionals, judges and even army generals. All of this happened well before the Soviets arrived in 1979, with their much-touted claim of liberating Afghan women. Many of the forces now opposing the Taliban include signatories of the later fatwas that deprived Afghan women of their rights. History is repeating itself. Any political process that moves forward without the representation and participation of women will undermine any chances that the principles of democracy and human rights will take hold in Afghanistan. It will be the first clue that little has changed. Jan Goodwin is author of "Price of Honor," a book on women and Islamic extremism. Jessica Neuwirth is president of Equality Now, an international women's rights group. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/opinion/19GOOD.html?ex=1004731521&ei=1&en=dff2a08957caa98c HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From phronesis20 at yahoo.com Mon Oct 22 00:56:30 2001 From: phronesis20 at yahoo.com (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 21:56:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Fwd: GoAbroad.com Newsletter Message-ID: <20011022045630.63853.qmail@web20703.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: GoAbroad.com Newsletter Subject: GoAbroad.com Newsletter Date: no date Size: 24906 URL: From WARN at unhcr.ch Mon Oct 22 03:41:56 2001 From: WARN at unhcr.ch (Elizabeth Warn) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 09:41:56 +0200 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] ALBSA-Info digest, Vol 1 #663 - 6 msgs -Reply Message-ID: An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From admin at albstudent.com Mon Oct 22 09:59:00 2001 From: admin at albstudent.com (Admin@ AlbStudent) Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 06:59:00 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Artikull interesant Message-ID: <200110221359.f9MDx0f31355@mail7.bigmailbox.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com Tue Oct 23 05:47:06 2001 From: armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com (armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 02:47:06 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] KOMUNIKATË (LEGJITIME) NR. 11 ( AKSH ) Message-ID: <200110230947.f9N9l6623352@mailserver1.hushmail.com> ARMATA KOMB?TARE SHQIPTARE SHTABI SUPREM /DOKUMENTE PUBLIKE DOSJA Nr. 5 Prot. Nr. 21-10/001-2 Dib?r-Tiran?-Prishtin?, 21 Tetor 2001 KOMUNIKAT? (LEGJITIME) NR. 11 Nj?sitet e armatosura t? Armat?s Komb?tare Shqiptare (AKSH), n? mes t? 20 dhe 21. Tetorit 2001, zhvilluan me sukses aksionin gueril mbi nj?sin? e blinduar t? policis? ultranacionaliste sllavo-maqedonase n? af?rsi t? lokaliteteve shqiptare Mate? dhe Nakushtak, n? IRJM, te pika e quajtur "Mulliri", me ?`rast armikut iu shkaktuan humbje t? konsideruara fizike dhe materialo-teknike. Pak dit? m? par?, k?to nj?si policore, m? par? struktura paramilitare ultranacionaliste, u p?rpoq?n pa sukses t? arrestojn? disa kuadro t? larta t? AKSH-s? me rekomandimin e strukturave t? shitura t? U?K-s?, t? cilat kund?rshtuan paraqitjen dhe veprimin e strukturave tona t? armatosura n? at? zon?, duke qen? n? bashk?punim t? thell? me qeverin? dhe policin? sllavo-maqedone. Gjat? k?tij tentim-arrestimi, strukturat mercenare shqipfol?se, e d?shmuan mir?filli se bashk?punojn? hapur me regjimin e IRJM-s?, OSBE-n? dhe THM-n?, n? d?min e ??shtjes komb?tare. Ato kishin mbledhur rreth vetes disa kriminel? ordiner?, t? cil?t, p?rpos shpiunazhit dhe prostitucionit t? detyruar t? vajzave tona, merren hapur me kontraband?. Na habit fakti se n? mesin e tyre vepronte edhe nj? kuad?r i lart? i U?K-s?, ish- "politikan" i lart? i PDSH-s?, t? cilit, nuk i erdhi turp t`u prij? bandave policore q? n? ora pes? t? m?ngjesit, p?r t? z?n? strukturat e armatosura t? AKSH-s?. Atij dhe t? tjer?ve si ai, ua b?jm? me dije se ?do p?ll?mb? e tok?s shqiptare ?sht? tok? e jona legjitime dhe se AKSH-ja dhe strukturat tjera komb?tare nuk i pranojn? tradh?tit? e tyre t? paguara me djers?n dhe gjakun e baballar?ve tan?; t? n?nave, motrave dhe t? v?llez?rve t? pafajsh?m! AKSH-ja, nuk do t`i l? as nj? p?ll?mb? t? tok?s shqiptare n?n thundr?n e ultrashovinizmit maqedonas dhe as n?n shqelmat e pist? t? larove tjer? shqipfol?s, q? tok?n dhe ??shtjen shqiptare i kan? b?r? pla?k? tregu! Tentim-arrsetimi i kuadrove dhe strukturave tona ushtarake, ishte vep?r e ndyr? (dhe e pasukseshme) e atyre q? kan? shkelur me vet?dije mbi gjakun e d?shmor?ve; q? kan? tradh?tuar idealin e liris? dhe ??shtjen e shenjt? komb?tare! K?tyre tradh?tar?ve ua b?jm? me dije se strukturat tona veprojn? n? t?r?sin? e tok?s shqiptare dhe jan? tejet legjitime p?r mbrojtjen e tyre! I paralajm?rojm?, q? tjera her? t? mos i shohim n? t? nj?jt?n vij? me armikun, sepse nuk do t`i kursejm?! Nj?herit, pushtuesve sllavo-maqedonas, q? din? t? marrin paturp?sisht n?p?r k?mb? nderin dhe lirin? e shqiptarit; q? kan? ardhur n? pushtet dhe mbahen me ndihm?n e tradh?tis? s? paguar shqipfol?se; q? g?zojn? durimin dhe miradin? e t? huajve n? t? gjitha makinacionet antishqiptare, ua b?jm? me dije se tokat shqiptare t? Lugin?s s? Vardarit, politikisht t? em?ruara si Ilirid?, nuk jan? trofe gjahu dhe as poligon i shfrimit t? ndjenjave shoviniste ultranacionaliste sllave. K?to troje, jan? trojet tona legjitime, m? t? lashta se vet? maqedonasit, dhe tradicionalisht t? banuara me shumic? shqiptare. Ato jan? pjes? integrale e t?r?sis? tok?sore t? tok?s shqiptare dhe nuk i takojn? Maqedonis? artificiale, t? nd?rtuar n? kurrizin shqiptar?ve. Ato jan? pjes? e pandar? e Shqip?ris? natyrale, t? aneksuara me dhun? e t? ndara poashtu me dhun? nga trungu i Atdheut. Ato, duhet t`i kthehen shtetit am? Shqip?ris?, apo rajonit autonom t? Kosov?s, e cila, poashtu duhet t`i bashkangjitet Shqip?ris?. Kombi shqiptar nuk ka asnj? interes t? mbaj? e t? rikrijoj? bashk?si t? tilla artificiale dominuese, si IRJM dhe RFJ. Strukturat ushtarako-policore maqedonase i paralajm?rojm? q? t? mos gabojn? t? futen n? tok?n shqiptare, sepse do t? ndeshen keqas me goditjet e reja ?lirimtare t? AKSH-s? dhe nuk do t? gj?jn? asnj? minut? qet?si, deri n? shkat?rrimin definitiv. N? an?n tjet?r, d?shmojm? se trojet shqiptare n? IRJM nuk jan? poligone ku shovinizmi maqedonas mund t? zhvilloj? ?do lloj ekperimentesh shfaros?se dhe t? diskriminimit permanent. Shqiptari ?sht? n? gjendje t? mbroj? dhe t? fitoj? t? drejtat e veta, qoft? edhe me gjakun e bijve m? t? mir?. Dhe, n?se ky shoviniz?m ultranacionalist ka paguar disa shtresa t? njohura tradh?tar?sh q? t? keqp?rdorin besimin e popullit t? tyre dhe t? manipulojn? nj? luft? t? nxitur e t? p?rfunduar p?r llogari t? armikut komb?tar e t? krijes?s bastarde me emrin "Maqedoni", le ta din? fare mir? se Armata Komb?tare Shqiptare nuk e ka pranuar asnj?her? k?t? krijes? armike dhe nuk e njeh fare marr?veshjen tradh?tare t? Ohrit. Atyre dhe bot?s p?rparimtare, ua b?jm? me dije se ?do kufi i toleranc?s nd?retnike ka kaluar dhe se shqiptari nuk ?sht? i gatsh?m t? viktimizoj? t? drejtat e tij legjitime e t? patjet?rsuara, p?r hir? t? nj? "koegzistence paq?sore" t? paqen?; t? pamundshme dhe t? parealizueshme, me armiqt? e tij! Prandaj, AKSH-ja nuk e njeh IRJM-n? dhe ?do tratativ? p?r mbajtjen e m?tutjeshme t? regjionit kompakt gjeografik autokton shqiptar brenda "sovranitetit" artificial t? saj, e konsideron cenim t? liris?, t? integritetit komb?tar shqiptar dhe t? s? drejt?s legjitime t? shk?putjes e t? kthimit n? gjirin e shtetit am?-Shqip?ris?, me t? cil?n kufizohet. Bota duhet t? kuptoj? m? n? fund se IRJM-ja ?sht? krijes? artificiale dhe pa prespektiv?, dhe se ajo nuk mund t? mbijetoj? n? d?min e etnis? autoktone shqiptare. Vet? em?rtimi i saj nuk ?sht? adekuat. Maqedonia e vjet?r n?nkupton nj? shtet antik ku shqiptar?t e p?rb?nin forc?n kryesore shtet?rore. Maqedonia sllave, asnj?her? nuk ka ekzistuar. Ajo nuk mund t? mbahet me investimet e kota euro-p?r?ndimore!... Armata Komb?tare Shqiptare (AKSH) u b?n thirrje t? gjith? shqiptar?ve atdhetar?, nga t? gjitha trojet shqiptare, ve?an?risht atyre nga regjioni i Lugin?s s? Vardarit, t? mos n?nshtrohen n?n shovinizmin nacionalist sllavo-maqedonas; t? ndihmojn? struktur?n ?lirimtare t? AKSH-s?; dhe t? mobilizohen n? luft?n e pakompromis p?r liri! AKSH-ja ?sht? armat? e tyre; ?sht? armat? komb?tare ?lirimtare dhe vepron p?r t? drejtat e tyre legjitime. Populli i shum?vuajtur shqiptar i k?tyre trojeve, duhet t? ndihmoj? armat?n e tij! Ata nuk duhet t? bien viktim? e propagand?s mercenare t? ish-lider?ve t? U?K-s?, q? tradh?toi popullat?n vendase dhe kusht?zon mbetjen e k?saj treve vitale n?n dominimin sllavo-ortodoks pushtues, p?rshkak se ?sht? paguar prej tyre t? sabotoj? e t? tradh?toj? luft?n ?lirimtare! Asnj? shpjegim, pos tradh?tis? s? kulluar e t? q?llimt?, nuk ka ngritja dhe shuarja e nj? ushtrie "?lirimtare-komb?tare", t? b?r? me djers?n dhe gjakun e kombit shqiptar, e cila, n? vend se t? ?liroj? territorin etnik shqiptar, p?rpiqet t? siguroj? e t? vulos? sovranitetin shtet?ror e t? paqen? t? shtetit armik- Maqedonis? sllave! Si e till?, „lufta“ e U?K-s?, ishte "luft?" mercenar?sh, dhe dallon diametralisht me luft?n e v?rtet? ?lirimtare t? AKSH-s?!... Lufta e AKSH-s?, ?sht? luft? ?lirimtare popullore! Lufta e AKSH-s?, ?sht? luft? e shenjt? dhe mbrojt?se! Ajo ?sht? luft? p?r nj? kauz? t? drejt?, dhe patjet?r do t? fitoj?! Rroft? populli shqiptar dhe t? drejtat e tij legjitime! Rroft? kombi i bashkuar shqiptar! Rroft? AKSH-ja! Vdekje tradh?tis?! JA VDEKJE-JA LIRI! P?r Shtabin Suprem t? AKSH-s?, Shefi i Shtabit, Hekuran Asllani, Gjeneral Kolonel From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 23 07:38:08 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 04:38:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] On Minorities in the Balkans Message-ID: <20011023113808.8489.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> From: Greek Helsinki Monitor Date: Thu Oct 18, 2001 5:45 pm Subject: Media Freedoms and Minorities in Greece and in the Balkans Greek Helsinki Monitor Home of Macedonian Culture Rainbow - Organization of the Macedonian Minority in Greece Minority Rights Group - Greece _____________________________ PRESS RELEASE 19 October 2001 TOPIC: MEDIA FREEDOM AND MINORITIES IN GREECE AND IN THE BALKANS Our organizations support the recommendations below on greater freedom of movement in the Balkans, and welcome their endorsement by the Southeast Europe Media Organization (SEEMO) Print Media Committee and its commitment to help implement them. However, they believe that the conference during which these recommendations were elaborated is unfortunately a negative example. Dealing with "Borders and Minorities in Balkans", the speakers' list included leaders of the minority parties -and government coalition partners- in Albania (Greek party), Bulgaria (Turkish), Kosovo/FRY (Serb) and Macedonia (Albanian), but no minority representative from Greece -seat of the conference- not even either one of the two government party deputies from the Turkish minority. We also noticed the absence of any representative from the region's largest and most persecuted minority, the Roma. Moreover, NGOs working on minority rights from Bulgaria, Macedonia and Turkey were represented, but their Greek counterparts were not; instead, authors of notorious anti-minority publications -one belonging also to a nationalist organization in Greece- were among the speakers. In fact, our organizations were informed about the conference after it was held, from media coverage. This case is not isolated, but typical of all meetings on minorities organized in Greece by state institutions, mainstream media and NGOs close to the state, including -with one exception- all meetings (co-)organized by the Council of Europe. Minorities themselves and minority rights NGOs are hardly ever invited to attend -let alone speak at- such meetings. While there are hardly any other contacts, let alone discussions, between minorities and the authorities. On the contrary, as the official Greek policy is that Greece has no national minorities, those who advocate the opposite are to be isolated and, occasionally, attacked if not slandered. At the same time, all Greek media mention these minorities rarely, almost always only to attack them (see "Minorities and Media in Greece" at: http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/countries/greece/mrg-g_03_08_01.doc). Therefore, international participation to such meetings only helps perpetuate and legitimize this attitude. We hope that, in the future, the signatories of the recommendations below (which, interestingly, makes no references to minorities, although drafted in a meeting about them), in light of the above information, will contribute to help change Greece's intolerance towards minorities. ______________________________________ SEEMO PRINT MEDIA COMMITTEE PRESS RELEASE Vienna, 17 October 2001 Journalists from the Balkan region request greater freedom of movement At the conference on "Borders and Minorities in Balkans", held on 6 October 2001 in Thessaloniki, under the auspices of the Greek newspaper "Makedonia", several important recommendations have been adopted, which were presented to the governments of the Balkan region. Participants attending the conference agreed to appeal to the governments in the region to take the necessary measures to facilitate the free flow of information, ideas and people across national borders within the Balkan region. Specifically, it was requested: - to make borders as much as possible open for free exchange of ideas and information; - to allow the circulation of all regional printed media within the Balkan region; - to allow journalists and scholars to exercise their profession without hindrance by ensuring that if there is a need to obtain visas, these are provided rapidly and without bureaucratic interference. Furthermore, participants in the conference recommended that the governments and the local NGOs promote a regular and organized exchange of young people, especially students, thus offering the possibility to learn from and about each other. Finally, professional journalist organizations were requested to foster discussions among journalists from the Balkan region about issues of interest for the region. Leading journalists and editors from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, FR Yugoslavia (including Kosovo), Greece, Macedonia and Turkey participated in Thessaloniki conference. The SEEMO Print Media Committee supports the above mentioned recommendations and will use all necessary instruments to facilitate the free flow of information, ideas and people across national borders within South East Europe Radomir Licina SEEMO Coordinator for Print Media ______________________________________________________________________________ SEEMO is a regional network of editors, media executives and leading journalists from newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, internet, new media and news agencies in the South Eastern European Region. Contact: SEEMO, Spiegelgasse 2 / 29, 1010 Vienna (AUSTRIA), Tel: (+ 43 1) 513 39 40, Fax: (+43 1) 512 90 15, www.seemo.at --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From KBejko at MFS.com Tue Oct 23 11:25:40 2001 From: KBejko at MFS.com (Bejko, Kreshnik) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 11:25:40 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] WSJ: Is Greece a Western nation? Message-ID: <0555B6986D9BD411843B00E00900000418B286@perseus.mfs.com> Is Greece a Western Nation? By Takis Michas. Mr. Michas's book "The Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia during the 1990s" will be published in the spring of 2002 (A & M University Press). ATHENS -- The Greek political class, to its great embarrassment, is finally reaping the fruits of the anti-Americanism it has tolerated -- and occasionally promoted -- over the last 20 years. According to opinion polls, Greece is the only NATO and European Union member state in which, following the tragedy of September 11, the majority of the population expressed feelings of dislike for the United States and disagreed with the Alliance's decision to attack the Taliban. In a poll published in a Greek newspaper a few days after the tragic events of September 11, only 18.9% of the respondents said that they had positive feelings about the United States and its inhabitants. A separate poll revealed that 25% of respondents said they felt "satisfied," and believed that "justice had been served." Moreover, 30% of respondents said that the attacks were a justified reaction to U.S. policies. Only 10% of respondents agreed with the view that Greece should cooperate militarily with its NATO partners in a possible campaign against states harboring terrorism. Takis Kafetzis, the political analyst who supervised the poll, claims that in reality over 40% of the respondents felt pleasure with what happened. "The fact that they did not say so was simply due to the fact that they felt that they had to somehow control their responses." Greece, he says, simply does not share Western values and perceptions. Political and Military Sins The view that somehow American was to blame for the terrorist attack dominated public discourse from the start. In learning about the terrorist attack, the immensely popular Archbishop Christodoulos of the Greek Orthodox Church stated that the terrorist act was the result of the "injustice and inequality" that pervades the world. The media, too, joined in the fray. As ASS Press reported, television broadcasting in Greece was consumed by discussions "over whether America brought this event upon itself for perceived political and military sins." Not long thereafter, the Center for New Policy Pavlos Bakoyannis -- named after the Greek terrorists' most prominent victim -- invited the citizens of Athens to participate in a memorial service for the victims of terrorist attacks. Only about 500 people turned up. By contrast, the next day nearly 5,000 people participated in a communist-led demonstration against the U.S. denouncing the CIA for its role in the terrorist acts. Meanwhile, allegations that the Jews were responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks were so prominent in sections of the Greek media that the Israeli Embassy took the unprecedented step of denouncing those allegations as constituting "criminal, racist, anti-Semitic propaganda resembling that of the Nazis." But perhaps the most outrageous incident happened during a soccer match between a Greek and a Scotland club on Sept. 13. Fans of the Greek soccer club tried to burn the American flag before the start of the game and booed during a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States. "What went on in Athens disgusted me," the coach of the Scotland team said in a statement to the Associated Press. "What badly disappointed me was that there was no effort made by anyone, the police included, to do anything about it. I could not believe such anti-American feeling in a European country." According to Richardos Someritis, a writer of the daily To Vima, the four main ideas that dominate Greek folk explanations of the terrorist attack are: That it was an act of the Jews, who wanted to promote their own interests. That Osama bin Laden is the creation of CIA propaganda. That the terrorist act is part of the struggle of the repressed against U.S. imperialism. That Greece is not threatened by terrorism but by the fight against terrorism. Such views seem to have more in common with public opinion in Cairo or Damascus than in Berlin or Rome. Where do they spring from? Since at least the mid-1970s, the perception that has dominated the political left is that Greek national aspirations required a break with the U.S. and its policies. Thus, throughout the 1980s, the governing Pasok socialist party under Andreas Papandreou made it a cardinal point to antagonize Western and especially American governments. It supported the Jaruzelski dictatorship in Poland, refused to condemn the suppression of dissidents in the Soviet Union and the 1983 shoot-down of a Korean airliner, harbored organizations perceived as terrorist in the West, and opposed the Reagan administration's deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. Then too, following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the anti-American narrative came to be adopted by the political right. According to recent polls, over 50% of Greek conservatives dislike the U.S. Much of this owes to events in the Balkans over the last decade. American policies in Bosnia and Kosovo were widely seen as aiming to destroy Eastern Orthodoxy itself. Feeble attempts by the present government of Costas Simitis to lessen the identification of church and state in Greece were immediately attacked as being directed by the "Jewish lobby" in Washington, while the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic -- celebrated all over the world -- was seen as a sinister CIA plot. Today Greek nationalism, encompassing large sections of all political parties, has become identical with anti-Americanism. Such attitudes are not going unnoticed, both in the Western news media and especially by the large and influential Greek-American community in the U.S. In an avalanche of letters to the English language edition of the Greek daily Kathimerini Greek-Americans expressed their outrage at the behavior of their ethnic cousins. Greece had reached "the bottom of the swamp," wrote one. "It is truly shameful" wrote another, "that the mainstream press of a civilized nation would find ways to justify the terrorist attack on innocent civilians." But perhaps the strongest emotional reaction to the events in Greece came from Stephen Miller, a professor of classical archeology at Berkeley. After pointing out that considerable archeological work in Greece was carried out by private donations of American citizens, he questioned whether this flow of funds would continue as donors became aware of Greek responses. "After the attempted U.S. flag burning, after the anti-American editorials in so many Athenian newspapers . . . how can I approach those American donors and ask them to continue support of the work? How can I ask them to take money and contribute it to a place where Americans are hated?" Virulent anti-Americanism The leaders of Greece's two main parties expressed their grief for the terrorist attack and pledged their support for U.S. attempts to fight terrorism. Nevertheless, as the polls show their ability to influence public opinion is minimal. Having for so many years tolerated attacks by their colleagues against U.S. policies on terrorism, economic globalization, the Balkans, human rights and so forth, they now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to argue against the (Balkan) version of tiersmondisme that constitutes Greece's dominant ideology. Throughout the last decade not a single major Greek political figure had the will, the courage or the inclination to challenge the populist anti-Americanism promoted on a daily basis by the vast majority of the Greek media. If today they feel embarrassed by the views of their compatriots they have only themselves to blame. -- From The Wall Street Journal Europe From deti at ont.com Tue Oct 23 17:15:34 2001 From: deti at ont.com (Etel H.) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 14:15:34 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] kerkese per liber! Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20011023141534.00693968@pop3.norton.antivirus> Ju lutem mund te me ndihmoni me sugjerime per ndonje liber te koheve te fundit qe analizon Konfliktet Etnike ne Ballkan? Etel H. From naac at naac.org Tue Oct 23 15:30:23 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council - NAAC) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 15:30:23 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Senator Corzine Honorary Co-Chair of NAAC Message-ID: <00c001c15bf9$6a5eb320$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 481 8th Avenue, Suite 922, New York, NY 10001 Telephone: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: October 23, 2001 Contact: Sokol Shtylla (202) 466-6900 PRESS RELEASE Senator Jon Corzine Joins NAAC as an Honorary Co-Chair Washington DC, October 23, 2001 - The National Albanian American Council issued the following statement announcing Senator Corzine as an Honorary Co-Chair of the organization. Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey has joined the National Albanian American Council as an Honorary Co-Chair. Senator Corzine, who was recently elected to the US Senate, is a member of the Joint Economic Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, Budget, and the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Before being elected to the Senate, Mr. Corzine served as co-chairman and co-chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs. "We are pleased to welcome Senator Corzine to our organization as an Honorary Co-Chair," said Richard Lukaj, Chairman of NAAC. "We look forward to continuing our partnership with the Senator on issues that are important to Albanian-Americans such as the implementation of the peace agreement in Macedonia, as well as achieving independence for Kosova, economic and social development in Albania, and equal rights for Albanians in Serbia and Montenegro." Senator Corzine joins Congressmen Eliot Engel, Peter King, and Mark Kirk, and Congresswoman Sue Kelly, as Honorary Co-Chairs of the National Albanian American Council. The National Albanian American Council ("NAAC") is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for Albanians and promoting peace and economic development in the Balkans by fostering democratic policy, promoting respect for human rights, and conducting educational and developmental programs. ### -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 23 15:44:35 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 12:44:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] SFCG: Event on Kosova at Georgetown Message-ID: <20011023194435.38285.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> Search for Common Ground Upcoming Event: The Independent International Commission on Kosovo Presents: The Kosovo Report Friday, November 2, from 10-12 pm Georgetown University--Copley Formal Lounge Justice Richard Goldstone of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Carl Tham, secretary-general of the Olof Palme International Center in Stockholm, co-chairs of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, are returning to Washington to present the Addendum to the Independent International Commission's Kosovo Report. They will be joined by Commission member Mary Kaldor of the London School of Economics. The situation in Kosovo has changed dramatically since the report was issued in October 2000. The ouster of the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, the outbreak of violence in Macedonia, and the promise of the upcoming elections in Kosovo have prompted the Commission to issue a response. The Commission will present its Addendum to the original report at the November 2 event. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo was initiated by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson in an effort to provide an independent and comprehensive analysis of the Kosovo war. The Kosovo Report was the result of a 12-month study by a prestigious collection of individuals, including the chair and co-chair and 11 independent commission members. The Kosovo Commission examined key developments at each stage of the Kosovo war. The report focused on the origins of the Kosovo crisis, the diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, the role of the United Nations, and NATO's decision to intervene militarily. Directions: If you are taking a taxi or parking off campus, enter the Georgetown Campus at 37th Street and O. Turn right on the diagonal brick path across the lawn. At the red square, the building on the left is Copley Formal Lounge. If you are parking on campus, use the University entrance at Canal or Prospect Streets. Follow the driveway/access road past the large construction site (the tennis courts are on the left). The driveway leads to Lot T. Please mention to the parking attendant that you are attending the Balkans Forum, co-sponsored by Georgetown's Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies. The flat rate is $5. Exit the parking lot on the side of the red brick Intercultural Center (ICC). Take the path between the ICC building (on the left) and the Jesuit Cemetary. At the end of the building, walk up the brick stairs. The Copley Formal Lounge is on the right. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 23 21:56:47 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:56:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Ligji grek per marrjen e shtetesise Message-ID: <20011024015647.27207.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> 24 Tetor 2001 POLITIKE Sa e leht? t? b?hesh grek Ligji: Mjafton nj? certifikat? pag?zimi Procedura e marrjes s? shtet?sis? p?r "homogjen?t" o K?rkesa parashtrohet n? konsullat? o B?rja e nj? deklarate p?r n?nshtet?sin? n? pranin? e konsullit dhe dy qytetar?ve grek? si d?shmimtar? o Paraqitja e kopjes s? pasaport?s o Dor?zimi i nj? certifikate lindjeje ose pag?zimi o D?shmi penaliteti e l?shuar nga shteti ku banon o Cil?simin si homogjen e shqyrton komiteti trean?tar?sh q? p?rb?het nga konsulli dhe dy qytetar? grek? o Komiteti mund t? vler?soj? ?far?dolloj faktesh q? parashtron i interesuari p?r t? v?rtetuar cil?simin si homogjen Parlamenti helen ka aprovuar ligjin sipas t? cilit minoritar?t grek? n? Shqip?ri mund t? marrin shtet?sin? greke. Procedurat jan? aq liberale sa lihet shteg p?r abuzimin q? t? p?rfshij? dhe ata emigrant? shqiptar? q? kan? nd?rruar emrin. Mjafton nj? certifikat? pag?zimi dhe mund t? marr?sh pasaport? greke, ky ?sht? thelbi i procedur?s q? parashikohet n? ligjin q? ?sht? aprovuar s? fundi n? Greqi. Homogjen?t, (k?shtu p?rcaktohen n? k?t? ligj minoritar?t grek? n? Shqip?ri) mjafton t? paraqiten n? nj? konsullat? me nj? k?rkes?, nj? d?shmi penaliteti dhe nj? certifikat? dhe gjith?ka ?sht? fare e thjesht?. Ky ligj mund t? kthehet n? nj? "kal? troje" p?r shtetin shqiptar. Hileja e tij q?ndron te fakti, se anashkalohen dokumentet e shtetit shqiptar, shtetas t? t? cilit jan? dhe "homogjen?t". Nga kat?r dokumente q? duhen gjithsej p?r t'u paraqitur para nj? komisioni t? p?rb?r? nga konsulli dhe dy shtetas grek?, vet?m nj? ?sht? ai q? e p?rcakton komb?sin?. Ky dokument ?sht? certifikata. Tre t? tjerat jan? thjesht nj? formalitet. N? pik?n "c" t? nenit 63 parashikohet se "homogjeni" mund t? paraqes? dhe certifikat? pag?zimi n? vend t? dokumentit t? zyr?s s? Gjendjes Civile. Pra p?r t'u b?r? shtetas grek mjafton nj? d?shmi nga cilado kish? e Greqis? apo qoft? dhe e Shqip?ris?. Dihet tashm? se p?r shkak t? mbijetes?s nj? num?r shum? i madh emigrant?sh shqiptar? n? Greqi kan? ndryshuar emrin dhe fen?. Madje shum? prej k?tyre t? fundit kan? deklaruar se jan? me origjin? nga minoriteti grek n? Shqip?ri, pavar?sisht se mund t? mos ken? pasur asnj? lloj lidhjeje t? till?. Shkurt, zbatimi i k?tij ligji krijon mund?sin? p?r t? rritur n? m?nyr? artificiale numrin e grek?ve n? Shqip?ri. Athina p?r k?t? gj? po shfryt?zon dy element?, nevoj?n ekonomike t? shqiptar?ve p?r t? emigruar, si dhe faktin q? ?sht? an?tare e Bashkimit Evropian e b?n pjes? n? hap?sir?n "Shengen". Pra me nj? pasaport? greke mund t? udh?tosh pa viz? thuajse n? krejt Evrop?n. Kjo ?sht? shum? tunduese p?r shtetasit e nj? vendi, t? cil?t detyrohen t? emigrojn?. T? drejtat e saj evropiane Athina po i p?rdor n? m?nyr? ballkanike. Aprovimi i k?tij ligji p?rkon n? koh? me periudh?n kur u krye procesi i regjistrimit t? popullsis? n? Shqip?ri. Drejtues t? minoritetit grek k?mb?ngulin q? n? pyet?sor t? p?rfshihen dhe dy pika: p?rkat?sia etnike dhe ajo fetare. Kund?rshtimi i tyre u shua krejt papritur. Aprovimi i k?tij ligji n? Athin? duket se ?sht? shkaku i t?rheqjes s? tyre. Marrja dhe l?nia e nj? shtet?sie ?sht? pa dyshim nj? e drejt? kushtetuese n? t? gjitha vendet demokratike. Por mjetet ligjore q? po p?rdor Greqia dhe, mbi t? gjitha, ajo q? pritet t? ndodh? m? pas, p?rb?jn? shkaqe p?r f?rkime t? mundshme mes Tiran?s dhe Athin?s. Numri i an?tar?ve t? minoritetit grek n? Shqip?ri dhe, duke u bazuar te kjo shif?r, k?rkesat e tyre ndaj shtetit shqiptar kan? shaktuar gjithmon? mosmarr?veshje. Athina k?mb?ngul se n? Shqip?ri ka 300 mij? "homogjen?", nd?rsa shifrat zyrtare n? Shqip?ri flasin p?r rreth 70 mij?. Duke p?rdorur karremin e dh?nies s? pasaport?s, Athina synon t? b?j? vet? nj? regjistrim t? tyre. Por procedura q? p?rdor duket e dyshimt?, n?se kihet parasysh se, sipas k?tij ligji, p?r t? v?rtetuar komb?sin? greke mjafton nj? certifikat? nga cilado kish? e Greqis?. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 23 21:58:31 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:58:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Kurse anglishteje ne Kavaje Message-ID: <20011024015831.99406.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> AKTUALITET Kisha hap kurse falas p?r anglishten KAVAJE Kisha orthodokse e qytetit t? Kavaj?s ka vendosur t'i vij? n? ndihm? t? rinjve kavajas. P?r k?t? q?llim njer?zit e fes? kan? gjetur nj? m?nyr? shum? origjinale. Ata kan? vendosur t? hapin kurse t? gjuh?s angleze me an? t? t? cil?ve do t'u vijn? n? ndihm?. K?to kurse do t? jen? falas, p?r t? gjith? ata q? kan? d?shir? t? m?sojn? gjuh?n e huaj m? shum? t? p?rdorshme n? vendin ton? dhe n? vende t? tjera t? Europ?s. K?to kurse do t? jen? jo vet?m p?r nivelin fillestar, por edhe p?r ata t? rinj t? cil?t kan? dijenit? e para t? k?saj gjuhe. Pra kurset jan? ndar? n? nivele t? ndryshme dhe n? orare t? ndryshme. Kjo nuk ?sht? hera e par? kur njer?zit e fes?, si orthodokse, ashtu edhe myslimane, ofrojn? ndihm?n e tyre p?r t? rinjt? me an? t? organizimit t? kurseve t? ndryshme apo me forma t? tjera ndihmash. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From albboschurch at juno.com Wed Oct 24 04:14:49 2001 From: albboschurch at juno.com (albboschurch at juno.com) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 04:14:49 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Per Nder dhe Kujtim te Imam Isa Hoxha Message-ID: <20011024.053332.-185439.4.albboschurch@juno.com> Per Imam Isa Hoxha Si At shpirteror, i ndjeri Imam Isa Hoxha ka lene nje vend te zbrazur ne zemrat e familjes se tij dhe te besimtareve myslimane ne rrethin e Nju Jorkut e ne mbare Ameriken. Por ai ka lene si trashegim nje jete kushtuar Perendise me plot vepra te vyera e te mbushura me shembuj te bekuar. Imam Isa ishte vertet nje bari i mire: serioz ne sjellje dhe ne detyren e tij si udheheqes fetar, i qarte dhe i thelle e me ndjenja kombetare. Per me teper ai kishte nje zemer te paster, ndergjegje te cilter, mendime dhe shprehje te urta dhe nje fryme mikpritese te ngrohte. Jane te shumte ata dhe ato qe e deshen si njeri: dhe ne mes atyre admiruesve jam edhe une. I perjetshem qofte kujtimi i tij! At Artur Liolin Boston ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. From naac at naac.org Wed Oct 24 11:00:18 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council - NAAC) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 11:00:18 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Congresswoman Kelly Honorary Co-Chair of NAAC Message-ID: <00a301c15c9c$cbf10b30$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 481 8th Avenue, Suite 922, New York, NY 10001 Telephone: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: October 24, 2001 Contact: Sokol Shtylla (202) 466-6900 PRESS RELEASE Congresswoman Sue Kelly Joins NAAC as an Honorary Co-Chair Washington DC, October 24, 2001 - The National Albanian American Council issued the following statement announcing Congresswoman Kelly as an Honorary Co-Chair. Congresswoman Sue Kelly of New York has joined the National Albanian American Council as an Honorary Co-Chair. Over the years Congresswoman Kelly has worked closely with NAAC as an active member of the Congressional Albanian Issues Caucus. In 1999 she traveled with members of NAAC to France and met with Albanian representatives at the Rambouillet Peace Conference. Congresswoman Kelly was a firm supporter of the US-led military action to liberate Kosova from Milosevic's tyranny and spoke on numerous occasions on the floor of the House urging the American effort to help the people of Kosova in their fight for basic human rights and freedom. During the crisis in Macedonia, members of NAAC joined Congresswoman Kelly in a meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell. Together they urged the US government to remain involved in the peace process and to demonstrate leadership in order to guarantee a lasting peace in Macedonia. Shortly after that meeting, Ambassador James Pardew was appointed as the US Envoy to the peace talks in Macedonia. "It has been an honor to work with Congresswoman Kelly. Over the years she has shown true commitment to and leadership on Albanian issues," said Richard Lukaj, Chairman of NAAC. "It is with great pleasure that we welcome her as an Honorary Co-Chair of our organization. We look forward to further strengthening our joint efforts to bring lasting peace to the Balkans," concluded Lukaj. Congresswoman Kelly currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Congressional Albanian Issues Caucus. She joins Senator Jon Corzine and Congressmen Eliot Engel, Peter King, and Mark Kirk as Honorary Co-Chairs of the National Albanian American Council. The National Albanian American Council ("NAAC") is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advocating for Albanians and promoting peace and economic development in the Balkans by fostering democratic policy, promoting respect for human rights, and conducting educational and developmental programs. ### -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From admin at albstudent.com Wed Oct 24 12:03:16 2001 From: admin at albstudent.com (Admin@ AlbStudent) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:03:16 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Celtics Tickets Message-ID: <200110241603.f9OG3GQ03100@mail1.bigmailbox.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From KBejko at MFS.com Wed Oct 24 12:37:28 2001 From: KBejko at MFS.com (Bejko, Kreshnik) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:37:28 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Virgina Wolf:1906 Albanian Athens? Message-ID: <0555B6986D9BD411843B00E00900000418B28A@perseus.mfs.com> Athens, 16 September 1906 It is worth quoting briefly here Virginia Woolf's description of Athens, and one can not escape the feeling that 16 september 1906 comes perilously close in time to James Joyce's own Ulysses Bloom's Day.. Woolf gives a realistic if slight elitist account of the Greek capital, a city having at that time a conspicuous Albanian presence: "The poorer people of Athens - & all the people seem poor- have a pleasant habit of longing up here in the evening, when their work is done; just as we stroll in our parks. They sit about on classic marble, chatting & knitting; but they do not vulgarise the place as we Tourists must do; but rather make it human and familiar. The people of Athens are, of course, no more Athenian than I am. They do not understand the Greek of the age of Pericles - when I speak it. Not are their features more classic than their speech: the Turk and the Albanian & Franks - it seems- have produced a common type enough. It is dark and dusky, small of stature, & not very well grown. It is true that the streets are dignified by the presence of many rustics, in their Albanian dress; the men wear thick white coats, kilts, much pleated; & long gaiters. But this you may see written in a dozen guide books. I have seen no native women; & indeed you see very few women. The streets are crowded with men drinking & smoking in the open air, even, in the country, sleeping beneath the wall; but the women keep within. You generally see them leading children, or looking from an upper window, where, presumably, they work. But the mind has no difficulty in making brigands." From mehollim at hotmail.com Wed Oct 24 20:35:17 2001 From: mehollim at hotmail.com (Mimoza Meholli) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 20:35:17 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: Dear friends, One question that the corporate news media has hardly asked at all about the tragedy of Sept. 11 is the question "why?" Mostly they have been satisfied with President Bush's statement in his address to the nation that the terrorists envied us because we are a bastion of freedom and democracy in the world. Unfortunately, the truth is quite dramatically different from this self-serving propaganda designed to put the nation on a war footing. The two very interesting articles below briefly examine the history of US dealings with the Taliban of Afghanistan. The first article deals with the period of the Soviet invasion of that tragic country. Would you be surprised to find that in US's paranoia over Communist Russia the US played a major role in creating the Taliban as a fighting force? So the first article below documents. The second article deals with the continued US embrace of the Taliban after the Russians withdrew in defeat, in spite of the fact that it was known that they were a brutal fundamentalist group that was committing horrible atrocities against the people of Afghanistan, especially women. Would you be surprised to find out that the reason was oil? So the second article documents. Read the last two paragraphs of the second article. They were written in 1998 and are almost prophetic - only the US didn't get burned by losing the pipeline. We got September 11th. I can't help but wonder how much the oil question lies in the background of the thinking and planning of the military-industrial complex that now rules in Washington and the Pentagon. MIMOZA New "Anti-Terrorist" Alliance: Same Old Mistakes By Stanley Heller (The author is a Jewish-American who has chaired the Middle East Crisis Committee of New Haven since 1982.) After Pearl Harbor, there were formal investigations into what went wrong, culminating in a full Congressional investigation. After the 9/11 disaster we deserve no less. Since 1979, US policy toward Afghanistan and Islamic fundamentalists has been a series of disastrous schemes to utilize those reactionary forces. There must be an accounting because the same dubious "realism" is at work again in Washington. The documentary evidence about CIA and government support for fundamentalism must be brought out into the open. The strain of virulent fundamentalism in Afghanistan was merely a regional problem until U.S. administrations funded, armed and trained it into a sophisticated force. Jimmy Carter started it all with his hysterical response to the cruel Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. In his state of the union address on January 21, 1980 he said, "The implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could pose the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War. ". In truth, however terrible the war was in remote Afghanistan, it was of no strategic importance to the United States. Yet our presidents jumped in enthusiastically. Ahmed Rashid's book "Taliban" estimates that well over $4 billion dollars worth of weapons, supplies and equipment was sent over to the fundamentalists during the Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations. The Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI), a division of the Zia ul Haq military dictatorship, was the conduit of the aid. It trained the mujahadeen and "Arab-Afghans" in all the dirty tricks that have come back to haunt us. The American people were lied to about whom we were helping. Ronald Reagan in his proclamation of March 21, 1983 stated, "The resistance of the Afghan freedom fighters is an example to all the world of the invincibility of the ideals we in this country hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence." Freedom fighters indeed. They were out to set up a totalitarian society as our CIA knew full well. Whenever they took over a town they would make it a practice of murdering school teachers because of their "wicked" practice of teaching girls in schools. It's not as if the terrible potential of fundamentalism was a surprise. Khomeini's Iran was in its worst in those years. All this was ignored because of Cold War obsessions. Short term gain. Outrageously this continued even after the Soviet Union was in the dust. The Taliban take-over of Afghanistan was welcomed by the Clinton's State Department. The New York Times reported on December 12, 1996, "From early on, American diplomats in Islamabad had made regular visits to Kandahar to see Taliban leaders. In briefings for reporters, the diplomats cited what they saw as positive aspects of the Taliban, which they listed as a capacity to end the war in Afghanistan and its promises to put an end to the use of Afghanistan as a base for narcotics trafficking and international terrorism." The same short-term thinking that made fundamentalism into a world force is now the logic cobbling together a friendly "Islamic" alliance of tyrants (Uzbekistan), fundamentalists (the Afghan "Northern Alliance", Saudi Arabia) and military dictators (Pakistan). To stop Bin Laden's terrorism and to avoid future Bin Ladens it's obviously necessary to win over the Islamic countries. Yet what's crucial is to win over the people in those countries not a group of newly "anti-terrorist" Moslem despots. You don't win over the people when you ally with the dictators and corrupt regimes that victimize them. You don't win over the people when you stop the food going to millions of starving Afghans. You don't win over the people with blind support of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians. The Congressional leaders who investigated Pearl Harbor were granted full subpoena power. Witnesses testified under oath. We need such a committee today to ask hard questions about where we've been and where we're going. We need them to call witnesses outside the old boy network, and instead get testimony from journalists and writers who are not afraid to criticize error. The President has sent American troops into harms way to repair one foreign policy catastrophe. Let's think hard about what we're doing before we set the stage for another. Follow the Oil Trail - Mess in Afghanistan Partly Our Government's Fault By William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service, August 24, 1998 We must face the fact that if President Clinton is right about who bombed our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the action came in part as the result of the muddled actions of our own government. The story is worthy of a Tom Clancy novel. It is no secret, especially in the region, that the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have been supporting the fundamentalist Taliban in their war for control of Afghanistan for some time. The U.S. has never openly acknowledged this connection, but it has been confirmed by both intelligence sources and charitable institutions in Pakistan. Given U.S. rhetoric regarding the Middle East, the Taliban would seem to be strange partners. They are a brutal fundamentalist group that has conducted a cultural scorched-earth policy for Afghanistan. They have committed atrocities against their enemies and their own citizens -- according to extensive documentation. So why would the United States support them? Middle Easterners understand. As the ancient saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In Afghanistan the dominant ethnic groups are the Pushtuns, who spill over the border into Pakistan, and the Tajiks, whose language is a form of Persian. The Pushtun Taliban have virtually eliminated their Tajik opposition, which had been heavily supported by Iran. And so, according to this line of reasoning, the United States -- as an enemy of Iran -- must be a friend of the Taliban. But this does not fully explain why the United States would support such a group -- or for that matter why Pakistan, itself a fundamentalist Islamic state, would risk the wrath of Tehran's religious government. The answer to this part of the question has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity -- but only with the economics of oil. To the north of Afghanistan is one of the world's wealthiest oil fields, on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian Sea in republics formed since the breakup of the Soviet Union (see PNS article by Thomas Goltz on Caspian Oil Sweepstakes). Here, U.S. oil companies are involved in a boom larger than any in the last 40 years in this region. Untold wealth is at stake -- but it depends on getting the oil out of the landlocked region through a warm water port. The simplest and cheapest route is through Iran. This route is favored by all oil companies, because it involves building a short pipeline and then transshipping the oil through the existing Iranian network. The U.S. government has such antipathy to Iran that it is willing to do anything to prevent this. An alternate route would go through Afghanistan and Pakistan -- but this would require securing the agreement of the powers-that-be in Afghanistan. >From the U.S. standpoint, the way to deny Iran everything is for the anti-Iranian Taliban to win in Afghanistan and agree to the pipeline through their territory. The Pakistanis would also benefit from this arrangement -- which is why they are willing to defy the Iranians. Enter Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of the United States living in Afghanistan. His forces could see that the Taliban would eventually end up in the American camp. Thus his bombing of U.S. Embassies in East Africa (there are none in Afghanistan) was accompanied by a message calling for Americans to get out of "Islamic countries." By this he meant specifically Afghanistan. The U.S. response was to bomb bin Laden's outposts while carefully noting that his forces were "not supported by any state." This statement is an attempt to rescue the Taliban relationship, while sending Taliban leaders the message that they must ditch bin Laden. American missiles also took out a factory in the Sudan, but that was only a smokescreen. Now matters are really in a mess. Iran has actually issued a statement supporting the U.S. actions. The Taliban are angry, and American citizens across the globe are now the targets of the most fanatical of Islamic militants. The U.S. may even lose control of the pipeline. Every time the United States attempts one of these slick back-door deals, U.S. citizens get burned. Our foreign policy community never seems to learn that religion and ideology are as strong a force in this region as money or guns. We underestimate these factors every time, and this gets us in trouble every time. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From jetkoti at hotmail.com Wed Oct 24 20:27:30 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 17:27:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism Message-ID: <20011025002730.30B7D15C27@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism October 21, 2001 By PETER MAASS Emroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the cylinders, tearing out pistons, dislodging screws and bolts and throwing the metal entrails into a pile that will be sold for scrap. He is 21 and has been doing this sort of work for 10 years, 12 hours a day, six days a week, earning $1.25 a day. His hands and arms are gnarled works of body art, stained a rich black like fresh asphalt and ribboned with scars. As dusk falls on Cinema Road, where Emroz works in a shop that is so poor it has no name or sign, he rolls up his sleeve and asks me to put my finger along a bulge on his forearm; it feels as hard as iron. It is iron, a stretch of pipe he drove into his body by mistake. He cannot afford to pay a doctor to take it out. ''I've had it for three years,'' he says. He opens his left palm and places two fingers alongside what looks like a crease, then pulls apart the crease to reveal a two-inch gash that runs an inch deep. I hadn't noticed it because the raw flesh was covered with grease, like the rest of his palm and arm. The wound is two years old. ''We work like donkeys,'' Emroz says. ''That's what our life is like. It is the life of animals.'' Javaid Khan watched with apprehension. Javaid, who is 17, began chopping up engines three months ago, when he dropped out of school because he could no longer pay the fees. He is new at this work, so he earns just $2.50 a week. His hands and arms have not yet been mauled, but it will happen. A hospital is nearby, and Javaid wishes he could be one of the clean-cut medical sales reps he sees in the neighborhood. ''I do not have the education,'' he acknowledges. ''It makes me sad to think about it.'' There is much sadness on Cinema Road, so named because of the movie theaters at the bottom of the street. A few feet from the shop where Javaid works, children who don't know their ages (they look 5 or 6) sift through the scraps of the scrap merchants; one of them squats on the ground and pounds the remains of a light socket, hoping to find a morsel of tin or copper. A few dozen yards farther down the road, boys who might be 10 or 11 clean out goat intestines that have been discarded by a slaughterhouse; the intestines, once dried, can be turned into ersatz leather. The boys reek of offal. If you want to understand why the world no longer feels terribly safe, you would do well to stroll down Cinema Road. You would hear the chants of the muezzin, the shouts of peddlers selling bruised bananas, the heavings of buses so overloaded that passengers ride on roofs and the cries of mutilated beggars pleading for a few rupees. You would taste curry and dust on your tongue at the same moment, and you would feel heat and energy in the air; at night, you would hear gunfire. The sights and sounds would make you think you had walked into a third-world ''Blade Runner,'' exhilarating and grotesque. And all around, you would notice young men for whom life is abuse. The population of Peshawar reflects the population of Pakistan as a whole -- 63 percent are under the age of 25. To varying degrees, that holds true for the Middle East, too; everywhere you look in Cairo or Amman or Gaza or Baghdad or Damascus or Tehran, you see young men. You need not visit these cities to know this; just look closely at the crowds in a protest or funeral; the faces are young, very young. And they are very angry. Television often distorts matters, and that's the case with the crowd scenes. Most young men in Pakistan are not burning effigies of President Bush or fighting riot police. Their anger is only loosely articulated, often because they are struggling to survive and cannot afford the luxury of taking an afternoon off to join a demonstration. But the young men you see on television and the ones you don't see belong to the same deprived generation. They live where globalization is not working or not working well enough. They believe, or can be led to believe, that America -- or their pro-America government, if they live under one -- is to blame for their misery. Many are adrift, cut off from their social foundations. Perhaps they moved into the city from dying villages, or were driven there by war or famine. There is no going back for them, yet in the city there is not much going forward; the movement tends to be downward. As they fall, they grab hold of whatever they can, and sometimes it is the violent ideas of religious extremists. Peshawar, one of the oldest cities in Asia, was conquered by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, and the Sikhs and the Afghans, and, in the 19th century, the British. The conquering ceased when Pakistan was born in 1947, but the city remained the gateway to the Khyber Pass and to Afghanistan. That was a curse, because 22 years ago Afghanistan entered an era of warfare that has yet to end. Nearly half of Peshawar's two million inhabitants are refugees, most of them living in camps that are several degrees below squalid. The local economy revolves around smuggling -- of guns and ammunition, of VCR's and televisions, of heroin and hashish. Aziz ul Rahman is a product of Peshawar. He is 18, a vocational-school dropout. He has a job at a tire shop, where he works in the mornings. In the afternoons he studies the Koran at a madrassah, or religious school. The one he attends is of the extreme variety, as most are these days. I meet him at a protest, in the Khyber Bazaar, that was organized by a pro-Taliban religious party. ''The American leaders are very cruel to Muslims, so that is why I am taking part in the demonstration today,'' he says, politely, as we stand in a shaded alley to get out of the noise and heat. ''I hear that the Americans are not doing anything good in Palestine or Bosnia or Chechnya. They are being cruel to Muslims.'' In the background, the speaker of the moment is inciting the crowd against Pakistan's military regime, which is backing Washington's anti-terror campaign. ''The generals are stupid,'' he shouts. Then, like a rock star inviting crowd participation, he calls out, ''Generals!'' and the crowd roars back, ''Stupid!'' They are quick learners. Aziz wants to get back to the demo, so we part ways after a half-hour. He did not fall into religious extremism by choice; his preferred path, of becoming an engineer, was closed off by poverty. This is common in Pakistan. Poor families do their best to send a son to school, but in the end they cannot manage. The son will get a backbreaking job of some sort or, in some cases, keep the donkey's life at bay by enrolling at a madrassah, most of which offer free tuition, room and board. And that's where they learn that it is honorable to blow yourself up amid a crowd of infidels and that the greatest glory in life is to die in a jihad. Politically-engaged youths are a minority, the tip of the iceberg. They are the ones whose anger you see, whose danger you sense. But the upset of Peshawar's youth is manifested in many ways; in, for example, visits to graveyards, where, among the newly dead and the long-dead, they sit on bamboo mats and sing about their despair as they smoke hashish. The Pinza Piran cemetery is a shrine of sorts, holding the remains of five famous elders. If you wish to pay your respects, you take off your shoes and walk into a tiled yard, where tinsel hangs from trees and incense burns next to the burial mounds. You say a prayer, give a few rupees to beggars as you leave and walk across the dirt road to a large yard from which musky smoke is issuing. Nearly 100 men lounge around, most of them in their late teens or 20's, though some are in their 40's and 50's. They sit in groups of four or five, passing around cigarettes spiked with Afghan hash. Some share pipes, known as chilum, which resemble small hookahs, and their bowls are filled with chunks of hash that throw off smoke and flames like a campfire. A man sitting near me says, ''You have your bars, we have ours.'' Unless someone is singing, there is little noise. Some of the youths are too drugged to do more than slump against a tree. Others, emaciated looking, are lying down, glassy-eyed; these are the heroin addicts, wasting toward death. There is a man with a tame bird on his shoulder and another with dreadlocks, which are rare in Pakistan. The best hash, known as tirra, costs about 35 cents for 10 grams. Smoking hashish is against the law, but because Islam does not condemn hash as strongly and explicitly as alcohol, it has become the drug of choice. There is nothing secretive about the activities at Pinza Piran; the police ignore it, especially if 50 rupees (about 80 cents) are slipped into their palms when they nose around. I sit next to a youth, Malik, who says he is a student at a technical college. He also says that he is forming his own political party, that he has 450 followers across the country and that he is in discussions with Saudis who might provide financial support. He pulls a two-inch thick set of worn business cards from his pocket; evidence, he says, of his network of contacts. He is stoned and perhaps mad, but he echoes public opinion when I ask why he wants to become a politician: ''Because all of our leaders are corrupt, and we have to get rid of them.'' Usually someone is playing the rabab, a traditional stringed instrument, and someone is singing, usually a plaintive song about an aching love. There are no women at these gatherings, as the women of Peshawar tend to spend their lives at home, donning a burqa if they venture outside. That is why posters of the uncovered faces of Indian starlets draw eager stares from men as they pass by on the street. The segregation of the sexes is deeply ingrained, but it's not easy to live with, as the lyrics of one love song I heard indicated: ''Show me your face/Show me your face/Where are you?/Where are you?'' In the many circles of hell that exist for young men in Pakistan, the lowest is found at Dabaray Ghara, on the outskirts of Peshawar. It is an expanse of pits, dug out of the sunbaked earth, in which several thousand men, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, make bricks. It is the hardest of labor because it takes place outdoors, no matter how hot or cold, pays next to nothing and is, literally, backbreaking. You see children as young as 4 or 5 in the pits, except they are not playing. They are making bricks. There are few men beyond the age of 30 or so. Horses carry bricks from one pit to another, and they do so without being led; they walk back and forth on dusty paths, too tired or too hopeless to imagine trotting away to freedom. It is the humans, though, who suffer the most. Bakhtiar Khan began working in the pits when he was 10. He is now 25 or 26. He isn't sure, because nobody keeps close track; time passes, that is all. He works from 5 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, making 1,000 bricks a day, six days a week, earning a few dollars a week. He is thin, he wears no shirt or shoes and he cannot believe a foreigner is asking about his life. ''Life is cruel,'' he says. ''You can see for yourself. You wear nice clothes and are healthy. But look at us. We have no clothes to wear and we are not healthy. Your question is amazing.'' The situation is worse than it appears, because the youths at Dabaray Ghara carry an invisible burden. They don't earn enough to live on, so they must borrow, especially when there is a wedding or funeral. They borrow from the men who own the pits, but the interest rates are so high, and their wages so low, that they have no hope of paying back the loans. Bakhtiar and his friends are only vaguely aware that they are indentured slaves. They are illiterate, and the world of politics is beyond their grasp. In a sense, this is encouraging, because they have no time for polemics or protests. Yet it is discouraging too, because they can be led to rally behind any person or idea that promises to improve their lot. ''I don't have the knowledge to blame a government,'' Bakhtiar says, as a dozen work mates gather around, squatting in the bottom of a pit. ''I don't know about politics, but for our problems, I blame the world community. All humans should be equal, but we are not. You ask me who is to blame. You find out who is to blame.'' He is not without hunches. ''We arrived from Afghanistan 15 years ago. Since then I blame America, because it used to support us, but now it leaves us in a place like this. So if someone is fighting a jihad against America, I would support them. But if America is willing to help us, we support that, too.'' In Peshawar, even the lucky are damned. Ihsan u-Din is enrolled at a civil engineering college. Before that, he attended a private school. His brothers and sisters are enrolled in school, too, thanks to their father's steady income. Ihsan speaks good English, and he has the ultimate luxury in Pakistan -- pocket money, which is why I ran into him at a video parlor. Ihsan is in the first year of a five-year engineering program. Compared with Emroz and the brick makers, and most youths here, Ihsan has it good. But there's a catch. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Even with a degree, it's very hard to get an engineering job. You need connections and money. Ihsan's family doesn't have enough of either. ''It is a game of money,'' he explains. ''Even if you are a good engineer, you will not get a positive response when you apply, unless you pay. This has been the truth for 20 years. It hasn't changed.'' Did I say there was a catch to his life? Actually, there are two. The second one is this: Ihsan's father is in the United Arab Emirates, where he works as a taxi driver earning infinitely more than he could in Pakistan. He sends money to his family so that his children can eat well and go to school. But Ihsan's father does not earn enough money to buy a plane ticket home once a year, or once every two years -- or hardly ever. ''I have not seen my father for eight years,'' Ihsan said. ''Is that right? He sends pictures and calls. But we don't want calls. We want to see him. That is the problem of my country. My father is far from me.'' They might not be separated for long. Ihsan is thinking of leaving school and joining his father in the U.A.E., where he can drive a taxi, if he's lucky. That's the best he can hope for -- not to work in his country as an engineer but to drive a cab in a foreign land. It may not be the U.A.E. ''America is such a fine place,'' Ihsan says. Haroon Bilour has the answers. a lawyer who serves on the town council, Bilour reels off statistics like a computer spitting out mathematical equations. Nearly half of the city is without running water. Away from the main roads, which are in horrible shape, there are few paved roads. The majority of the city's inhabitants live below the poverty level. They have run their miserable infrastructure right into the ground. ''Peshawar has suffered rather than benefited from globalization,'' Bilour says, sitting on a couch in his office. He has bolted the door, because the flow of assistants and colleagues and needy citizens cannot be halted otherwise. ''No aid package or special package of any kind has been provided by the world at large, or by the government of Pakistan. This is a very sorry state.'' For Bilour, the answer to Peshawar's problems comes down to one issue: schools. Building them and ensuring that parents can afford to enroll their children. Not counting refugees, only 52 percent of the city's school-age children attend school, and of those, nearly one-third attend madrassahs. If the city had the infrastructure to encourage investment and create jobs, and if it had more schools to neutralize the madrassahs, youths might not be tempted to spend their days chanting ''Death to America.'' But Bilour is a realist. He knows how reluctant politicians in the West are to lower tariffs, ease quotas or raise foreign aid, even though, currently, foreign aid accounts for only a tiny fraction of government spending. He also knows that the government in Islamabad is unlikely to be much help; corruption is endemic, and a large portion of state revenues go into military spending. So as the United States begins fighting a war that has Afghanistan as its target, Bilour, whose city is the traditional gateway to Afghanistan, is not in a joyous mood. ''We are not against our territory being used for the war against terrorism,'' he says. ''We fear only that Peshawar will be ignored again. We are petrified that we will have to shelter more refugees, that there will be more bomb blasts here and that we will have no help from the world community. If we are again asked to make sacrifices for the West, we must be able to show our young generation that we can get schools and hospitals and a properly developed city.'' Pause. ''I am not hopeful.'' Peter Maass is the author of ''Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,'' his memoir of the conflict in Bosnia. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/magazine/21PESHAWAR.html?ex=1004969650&ei=1&en=08355f61c4dc5e4f HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From jetkoti at hotmail.com Wed Oct 24 17:49:50 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 17:49:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism Message-ID: <20011024214950.1C62658A4E@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. kur deshiroj te ndergjegjesohem per disa gjera...ndoshta edhe te derdh disa lote, une lexoj. lexoj filozofi, letersi, histori, apo artikuj si ky me poshte, dhe papritur realizoj vuajtjen makabre te miljona gjallesave si une, qe marrin fryme dhe mendojne, enderrojne dhe dashurojne, e ne te njejten kohe gjithashtu realizoj se sa me fat eshte ky trupi im qe zakonisht do vetem te ankohet pikerisht sepse nuk kryen asnje lloj mundimi fizik. Dhe me vjen ndot nga vetja per faktin qe nuk jam dot ne gjendje ta kem parasysh me shpesh kete Padrejtesi te Zotit--te shumices. jetkoti at hotmail.com Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism October 21, 2001 By PETER MAASS Emroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the cylinders, tearing out pistons, dislodging screws and bolts and throwing the metal entrails into a pile that will be sold for scrap. He is 21 and has been doing this sort of work for 10 years, 12 hours a day, six days a week, earning $1.25 a day. His hands and arms are gnarled works of body art, stained a rich black like fresh asphalt and ribboned with scars. As dusk falls on Cinema Road, where Emroz works in a shop that is so poor it has no name or sign, he rolls up his sleeve and asks me to put my finger along a bulge on his forearm; it feels as hard as iron. It is iron, a stretch of pipe he drove into his body by mistake. He cannot afford to pay a doctor to take it out. ''I've had it for three years,'' he says. He opens his left palm and places two fingers alongside what looks like a crease, then pulls apart the crease to reveal a two-inch gash that runs an inch deep. I hadn't noticed it because the raw flesh was covered with grease, like the rest of his palm and arm. The wound is two years old. ''We work like donkeys,'' Emroz says. ''That's what our life is like. It is the life of animals.'' Javaid Khan watched with apprehension. Javaid, who is 17, began chopping up engines three months ago, when he dropped out of school because he could no longer pay the fees. He is new at this work, so he earns just $2.50 a week. His hands and arms have not yet been mauled, but it will happen. A hospital is nearby, and Javaid wishes he could be one of the clean-cut medical sales reps he sees in the neighborhood. ''I do not have the education,'' he acknowledges. ''It makes me sad to think about it.'' There is much sadness on Cinema Road, so named because of the movie theaters at the bottom of the street. A few feet from the shop where Javaid works, children who don't know their ages (they look 5 or 6) sift through the scraps of the scrap merchants; one of them squats on the ground and pounds the remains of a light socket, hoping to find a morsel of tin or copper. A few dozen yards farther down the road, boys who might be 10 or 11 clean out goat intestines that have been discarded by a slaughterhouse; the intestines, once dried, can be turned into ersatz leather. The boys reek of offal. If you want to understand why the world no longer feels terribly safe, you would do well to stroll down Cinema Road. You would hear the chants of the muezzin, the shouts of peddlers selling bruised bananas, the heavings of buses so overloaded that passengers ride on roofs and the cries of mutilated beggars pleading for a few rupees. You would taste curry and dust on your tongue at the same moment, and you would feel heat and energy in the air; at night, you would hear gunfire. The sights and sounds would make you think you had walked into a third-world ''Blade Runner,'' exhilarating and grotesque. And all around, you would notice young men for whom life is abuse. The population of Peshawar reflects the population of Pakistan as a whole -- 63 percent are under the age of 25. To varying degrees, that holds true for the Middle East, too; everywhere you look in Cairo or Amman or Gaza or Baghdad or Damascus or Tehran, you see young men. You need not visit these cities to know this; just look closely at the crowds in a protest or funeral; the faces are young, very young. And they are very angry. Television often distorts matters, and that's the case with the crowd scenes. Most young men in Pakistan are not burning effigies of President Bush or fighting riot police. Their anger is only loosely articulated, often because they are struggling to survive and cannot afford the luxury of taking an afternoon off to join a demonstration. But the young men you see on television and the ones you don't see belong to the same deprived generation. They live where globalization is not working or not working well enough. They believe, or can be led to believe, that America -- or their pro-America government, if they live under one -- is to blame for their misery. Many are adrift, cut off from their social foundations. Perhaps they moved into the city from dying villages, or were driven there by war or famine. There is no going back for them, yet in the city there is not much going forward; the movement tends to be downward. As they fall, they grab hold of whatever they can, and sometimes it is the violent ideas of religious extremists. Peshawar, one of the oldest cities in Asia, was conquered by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, and the Sikhs and the Afghans, and, in the 19th century, the British. The conquering ceased when Pakistan was born in 1947, but the city remained the gateway to the Khyber Pass and to Afghanistan. That was a curse, because 22 years ago Afghanistan entered an era of warfare that has yet to end. Nearly half of Peshawar's two million inhabitants are refugees, most of them living in camps that are several degrees below squalid. The local economy revolves around smuggling -- of guns and ammunition, of VCR's and televisions, of heroin and hashish. Aziz ul Rahman is a product of Peshawar. He is 18, a vocational-school dropout. He has a job at a tire shop, where he works in the mornings. In the afternoons he studies the Koran at a madrassah, or religious school. The one he attends is of the extreme variety, as most are these days. I meet him at a protest, in the Khyber Bazaar, that was organized by a pro-Taliban religious party. ''The American leaders are very cruel to Muslims, so that is why I am taking part in the demonstration today,'' he says, politely, as we stand in a shaded alley to get out of the noise and heat. ''I hear that the Americans are not doing anything good in Palestine or Bosnia or Chechnya. They are being cruel to Muslims.'' In the background, the speaker of the moment is inciting the crowd against Pakistan's military regime, which is backing Washington's anti-terror campaign. ''The generals are stupid,'' he shouts. Then, like a rock star inviting crowd participation, he calls out, ''Generals!'' and the crowd roars back, ''Stupid!'' They are quick learners. Aziz wants to get back to the demo, so we part ways after a half-hour. He did not fall into religious extremism by choice; his preferred path, of becoming an engineer, was closed off by poverty. This is common in Pakistan. Poor families do their best to send a son to school, but in the end they cannot manage. The son will get a backbreaking job of some sort or, in some cases, keep the donkey's life at bay by enrolling at a madrassah, most of which offer free tuition, room and board. And that's where they learn that it is honorable to blow yourself up amid a crowd of infidels and that the greatest glory in life is to die in a jihad. Politically-engaged youths are a minority, the tip of the iceberg. They are the ones whose anger you see, whose danger you sense. But the upset of Peshawar's youth is manifested in many ways; in, for example, visits to graveyards, where, among the newly dead and the long-dead, they sit on bamboo mats and sing about their despair as they smoke hashish. The Pinza Piran cemetery is a shrine of sorts, holding the remains of five famous elders. If you wish to pay your respects, you take off your shoes and walk into a tiled yard, where tinsel hangs from trees and incense burns next to the burial mounds. You say a prayer, give a few rupees to beggars as you leave and walk across the dirt road to a large yard from which musky smoke is issuing. Nearly 100 men lounge around, most of them in their late teens or 20's, though some are in their 40's and 50's. They sit in groups of four or five, passing around cigarettes spiked with Afghan hash. Some share pipes, known as chilum, which resemble small hookahs, and their bowls are filled with chunks of hash that throw off smoke and flames like a campfire. A man sitting near me says, ''You have your bars, we have ours.'' Unless someone is singing, there is little noise. Some of the youths are too drugged to do more than slump against a tree. Others, emaciated looking, are lying down, glassy-eyed; these are the heroin addicts, wasting toward death. There is a man with a tame bird on his shoulder and another with dreadlocks, which are rare in Pakistan. The best hash, known as tirra, costs about 35 cents for 10 grams. Smoking hashish is against the law, but because Islam does not condemn hash as strongly and explicitly as alcohol, it has become the drug of choice. There is nothing secretive about the activities at Pinza Piran; the police ignore it, especially if 50 rupees (about 80 cents) are slipped into their palms when they nose around. I sit next to a youth, Malik, who says he is a student at a technical college. He also says that he is forming his own political party, that he has 450 followers across the country and that he is in discussions with Saudis who might provide financial support. He pulls a two-inch thick set of worn business cards from his pocket; evidence, he says, of his network of contacts. He is stoned and perhaps mad, but he echoes public opinion when I ask why he wants to become a politician: ''Because all of our leaders are corrupt, and we have to get rid of them.'' Usually someone is playing the rabab, a traditional stringed instrument, and someone is singing, usually a plaintive song about an aching love. There are no women at these gatherings, as the women of Peshawar tend to spend their lives at home, donning a burqa if they venture outside. That is why posters of the uncovered faces of Indian starlets draw eager stares from men as they pass by on the street. The segregation of the sexes is deeply ingrained, but it's not easy to live with, as the lyrics of one love song I heard indicated: ''Show me your face/Show me your face/Where are you?/Where are you?'' In the many circles of hell that exist for young men in Pakistan, the lowest is found at Dabaray Ghara, on the outskirts of Peshawar. It is an expanse of pits, dug out of the sunbaked earth, in which several thousand men, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, make bricks. It is the hardest of labor because it takes place outdoors, no matter how hot or cold, pays next to nothing and is, literally, backbreaking. You see children as young as 4 or 5 in the pits, except they are not playing. They are making bricks. There are few men beyond the age of 30 or so. Horses carry bricks from one pit to another, and they do so without being led; they walk back and forth on dusty paths, too tired or too hopeless to imagine trotting away to freedom. It is the humans, though, who suffer the most. Bakhtiar Khan began working in the pits when he was 10. He is now 25 or 26. He isn't sure, because nobody keeps close track; time passes, that is all. He works from 5 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, making 1,000 bricks a day, six days a week, earning a few dollars a week. He is thin, he wears no shirt or shoes and he cannot believe a foreigner is asking about his life. ''Life is cruel,'' he says. ''You can see for yourself. You wear nice clothes and are healthy. But look at us. We have no clothes to wear and we are not healthy. Your question is amazing.'' The situation is worse than it appears, because the youths at Dabaray Ghara carry an invisible burden. They don't earn enough to live on, so they must borrow, especially when there is a wedding or funeral. They borrow from the men who own the pits, but the interest rates are so high, and their wages so low, that they have no hope of paying back the loans. Bakhtiar and his friends are only vaguely aware that they are indentured slaves. They are illiterate, and the world of politics is beyond their grasp. In a sense, this is encouraging, because they have no time for polemics or protests. Yet it is discouraging too, because they can be led to rally behind any person or idea that promises to improve their lot. ''I don't have the knowledge to blame a government,'' Bakhtiar says, as a dozen work mates gather around, squatting in the bottom of a pit. ''I don't know about politics, but for our problems, I blame the world community. All humans should be equal, but we are not. You ask me who is to blame. You find out who is to blame.'' He is not without hunches. ''We arrived from Afghanistan 15 years ago. Since then I blame America, because it used to support us, but now it leaves us in a place like this. So if someone is fighting a jihad against America, I would support them. But if America is willing to help us, we support that, too.'' In Peshawar, even the lucky are damned. Ihsan u-Din is enrolled at a civil engineering college. Before that, he attended a private school. His brothers and sisters are enrolled in school, too, thanks to their father's steady income. Ihsan speaks good English, and he has the ultimate luxury in Pakistan -- pocket money, which is why I ran into him at a video parlor. Ihsan is in the first year of a five-year engineering program. Compared with Emroz and the brick makers, and most youths here, Ihsan has it good. But there's a catch. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Even with a degree, it's very hard to get an engineering job. You need connections and money. Ihsan's family doesn't have enough of either. ''It is a game of money,'' he explains. ''Even if you are a good engineer, you will not get a positive response when you apply, unless you pay. This has been the truth for 20 years. It hasn't changed.'' Did I say there was a catch to his life? Actually, there are two. The second one is this: Ihsan's father is in the United Arab Emirates, where he works as a taxi driver earning infinitely more than he could in Pakistan. He sends money to his family so that his children can eat well and go to school. But Ihsan's father does not earn enough money to buy a plane ticket home once a year, or once every two years -- or hardly ever. ''I have not seen my father for eight years,'' Ihsan said. ''Is that right? He sends pictures and calls. But we don't want calls. We want to see him. That is the problem of my country. My father is far from me.'' They might not be separated for long. Ihsan is thinking of leaving school and joining his father in the U.A.E., where he can drive a taxi, if he's lucky. That's the best he can hope for -- not to work in his country as an engineer but to drive a cab in a foreign land. It may not be the U.A.E. ''America is such a fine place,'' Ihsan says. Haroon Bilour has the answers. a lawyer who serves on the town council, Bilour reels off statistics like a computer spitting out mathematical equations. Nearly half of the city is without running water. Away from the main roads, which are in horrible shape, there are few paved roads. The majority of the city's inhabitants live below the poverty level. They have run their miserable infrastructure right into the ground. ''Peshawar has suffered rather than benefited from globalization,'' Bilour says, sitting on a couch in his office. He has bolted the door, because the flow of assistants and colleagues and needy citizens cannot be halted otherwise. ''No aid package or special package of any kind has been provided by the world at large, or by the government of Pakistan. This is a very sorry state.'' For Bilour, the answer to Peshawar's problems comes down to one issue: schools. Building them and ensuring that parents can afford to enroll their children. Not counting refugees, only 52 percent of the city's school-age children attend school, and of those, nearly one-third attend madrassahs. If the city had the infrastructure to encourage investment and create jobs, and if it had more schools to neutralize the madrassahs, youths might not be tempted to spend their days chanting ''Death to America.'' But Bilour is a realist. He knows how reluctant politicians in the West are to lower tariffs, ease quotas or raise foreign aid, even though, currently, foreign aid accounts for only a tiny fraction of government spending. He also knows that the government in Islamabad is unlikely to be much help; corruption is endemic, and a large portion of state revenues go into military spending. So as the United States begins fighting a war that has Afghanistan as its target, Bilour, whose city is the traditional gateway to Afghanistan, is not in a joyous mood. ''We are not against our territory being used for the war against terrorism,'' he says. ''We fear only that Peshawar will be ignored again. We are petrified that we will have to shelter more refugees, that there will be more bomb blasts here and that we will have no help from the world community. If we are again asked to make sacrifices for the West, we must be able to show our young generation that we can get schools and hospitals and a properly developed city.'' Pause. ''I am not hopeful.'' Peter Maass is the author of ''Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,'' his memoir of the conflict in Bosnia. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/magazine/21PESHAWAR.html?ex=1004960190&ei=1&en=888ad22805e1cc47 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 25 12:07:22 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 12:07:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Jihad's Women Message-ID: <20011025160722.C254A58A4D@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Jihad's Women October 21, 2001 By LYNSEY ADDARIO In some of the larger cities in Pakistan, like Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, many women work, go to the movies, eat at McDonald's, wear pants and otherwise live a modern, Western-influenced life. But in certain areas, particularly in the Northwest Frontier Province, which abuts Afghanistan, many girls and young women spend much of their time in one of the more than 100 religious schools, or madrassahs, for women. (There are about 10,000 madrassahs for boys and men throughout Pakistan.) Here they are steeped in Islamic fundamentalism -- reading and reciting the Koran many hours a day and learning Arabic grammar and pronunciation. At some of these madrassahs, like Jamia Khadijatul-Kubra-Lil-Binat, immersion is complete; students, who tend to come from poor or lower-middle-class families, board during the week and leave only on weekends to visit their homes. These madrassahs instill a religious ideology that is at the heart of the jihad now being waged against the United States. Girls as young as 5 and women as old as 65 attend madrassah. But generally, when a student turns 15 or 16, she weds in an arranged marriage and leaves school to start having babies. She spends almost all her time inside the home taking care of her children, praying and reading the Koran. If she leaves the house, she must do so fully covered. These photographs were taken in and around two madrassahs in Peshawar in the Northwest Frontier Province, just before the United States began bombing Afghanistan. Lynsey Addario is a photographer based in Mexico City.
Rehima, 35, kissing her son Osama. Rehima, the wife of a powerful member of Jamaat-i-Islami, one of the most prominent fundamentalist groups in Pakistan, is a supervisor at Jamia Khadijatul-Kubra-Lil-Binat madrassah. Most of the students and teachers at this religious boarding school are the children and wives of Jamaat-i-Islami members. This photo was taken in Rehima's home, across the street from the school in Peshawar. ''I named my son Osama because I want to make him a mujahid. Right now there is war, but he is a child. When he is a young man, there might be war again, and I will prepare him for that war. In the name of God, I will sacrifice my son, and I don't care if he is my most beloved thing. For all of my six sons, I wanted them to be mujahedeen. If they get killed it is nothing. This world is very short. I myself want to be a mujahid. What will I do in this world? I could be in heaven, have a weekly meeting with God. "Jihad is when you are attacked, you attack back. This is God's wish. We are not afraid. I am already asking my husband if I can go to Kashmir and train to fight. I will suicide bomb. If there are 20 to 30 non-Muslims, there I will commit martyrdom. If America attacks, we will put our hands on the throats of Americans and kill them.''
Mehreen Zair, 9, far left in white, during a Koran-reading session at the Mohamadia Mujadadia Izhar-ul-Koran madrassah, a day school. "If America attacks, we will do jihad. I don't know how, but we will do it together."
Shafia Salaam, 16 (in black), at a celebration for a 13-year-old girl, at right, who has memorized the Koran at Jamia Khadijatul-Kubra-Lil-Binat madrassah. Shafia is an Afghan refugee who has been living in Pakistan for more than a decade. "I have seen images in the newspapers of what happened in America, and I feel it was not good. But perhaps God punished America for the wrongs she is doing in other countries, like Palestine and Kashmir. If the Americans attack us, we will fight. Non-Muslims are our enemy according to the Koran, so Americans are our enemy. We hate America. "I believe in jihad. I will do whatever I can do. If I am provided the opportunity to get weapons, I will use them."
Shumailia Kiran, 12, center, learning the first five chapters of the Koran at the Mohamadia Mujadadia Izhar-ul-Koran madrassah. "Osama is not involved because he is a Muslim, and Muslims are not capable of such a terrorist act. He is a mujahid and is supposed to fight on the path of God."
Munaza Kanwam, 10, at her Koran ceremony at the Mohamadia Mujadadia Izhar-ul-Koran madrassah. "I am very happy. I feel like a bride. My father gave me a 20-gram gold set, my grandmother has sewn my clothes and my hair band, and my mother has sewn me two new suits. I have received a lot of gifts. I think Osama is a great man, and he is fighting America." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/magazine/21WOMEN.html?ex=1005026042&ei=1&en=5d25b3417834c5d3 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Thu Oct 25 12:26:52 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:26:52 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Guys, this article from KLAN is absolutely hilarious Message-ID: <000a01c15d71$db70b990$6d28a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Dy zezake nga Dibra Nje ngjarje qe po ben buje ne gjithe boten franceze te basketbollit. Dy amerikane me ngjyre kane zbarkuar ne Paris duke u betuar se jane shqiptare. Si deshmi, nga nje pasaporte te rregullt me shqiponje. Nga Parisi, Marin Haxhimihali Pak jave me pare, nje punonjes i zyres konsullore te ambasades shqiptare ne Paris nuk u besoi syve teksa nisi lexonte nje faks te ardhur nga federata franceze e basketbollit. Nje faks qe i kalonte kufijte e se magjinueshmes. Aty kerkohej te vertetohej nenshtesia shqiptare per dy basketbolliste amerikane qe per here te pare do te luanin ne kampionatin profesionist francez. Per me teper faksit i ishin bashkangjitur edhe fotokopjet e pasaportave te dy amerikaneve - teknikisht te rregullta - te cilat ishin leshuar nga komisariati i policise Diber. Ajo qe kishte terhequr vemendjen e zyrtareve te federates franceze te basketbollit ishte fakti se te dy basketbollistet ishin zezake. Per kete arsye federata i drejtohej Ambasades se Shqiperise ne Paris per te shmangur cdo dyshim lidhur me origjinen e lojtareve perpara fillimit te sezonit. Historia ishte teper intriguese per ta lene ne heshtje. Zedhenesi i federates franceze te basketbollit, Ren?, nje burre rondokop rreth te pesedhjetave thote se megjithe njohurite e tij modeste ne gjeografi dhe histori, ai e ka te qarte se numri i banoreve me ngjyre ne vendet e Ballkanit e rrjedhimisht dhe ne Shqiperi eshte shume i paket, per te mos thene zero. Madje i shtyre nga kjo ceshtje Reneja gjate javeve te fundit ka shfletuar me shume atlase dhe manuale per Ballkanin sesa gjate gjithe jetes se tij. Ai megjithate, nuk harron te tregoje nje faks te nisur nga s'dihet se kush, i cili edhe pse s'ka asnje vule zyrtare pohon nenshtetesine shqiptare te dy amerikaneve. "Ne nuk kemi asgje ndaj ketyre djemve, por preferojme tu dalim gjerave perpara qe pa filluar sezoni, per te mos rene ne poziten e kolegeve tane te futbollit", thote zedhenesi i federates. Ne fakt vitin e kaluar per shkak te lojtareve me pasaporta false, kampionati francez i futbollit per pak sa nuk u anullua dhe per perfundimin e tij te rregullt u deshen disa vendime gjyqesore. Si rrjedhoje e ketyre vendimeve ekipe si Saint Etienne apo Toulouse u zbriten perkatesisht ne kategorine e dyte dhe te trete per shkak se kishin aktivizuar lojtare te huaj me pasaporta false. Dukuria duket se u shfaq kete vit edhe ne basketboll, por me nje te vecante. Per here te pare FIBA sivjet ka hequr cdo kufizim per aktivizimin e lojtareve europiane. Pra, ndryshe nga futbolli ku njihet vetem rregulla e ashtuquajtur Bosman, ne basketboll mund te aktivizohen lirisht dy kategori lojtaresh: shtetas te vendeve te Bashkimit Europian (Bosman A) si dhe te pjeses tjeter te Europes (Bosman B). Zbatimi i ketyre rregullave ka sjelle nje tejngopje te ekipeve franceze me lojtare jugosllave, sllovene, kroate, apo nga ish-republikat sovjetike. Gjithsej ne 16 ekipet e liges se pare aktivizohen lojtare nga 36 vende. Tani ne France cdo ekip basketbolli ka te drejte te aktivizoje nga dy amerikane dhe nje numer te pakufizuar europianesh. Per kete arsye, nese nje amerikan eshte i afte te provoje nje shtetesi tjeter, ai i jep klubit mundesi ta aktivizoje si joamerikan, duke mos e tejkaluar kuoten. Drejtuesve te federates franceze u linden dyshime kur pane keta dy amerikane me ngjyre te mbanin ne duar pasaporta shqiptare, prandaj iu drejtuan ambasades shqiptare per verifikim. Shume e veshtire te gjenden ne Paris dy "amerikano-dibranet", Jason Forrestal dhe Marques Bragg. I pari pasi nje heshtjeje te plote u largua nga ekipi i tij Vichy. Tjetri, i blere nga Gravelines (vendi i 8-te ne kampionatin e kaluar), bente be e rrufe se nenshtetesine shqiptare e kishte "trashegim" nga gjysherit. Madje ai pretendonte se te dy gjysherit e tij ishin shqiptare, packa se ai nuk ishte ne gjendje te kujtonte "vendlindjen" e tyre. Sipas zyrtarit te federates, Bragg nuk di asnje fjale shqip e as ka shkelur ndonjehere ne Shqiperi. Ambasada shqiptare e vene ne hall ia ka percjelle fotokopjet e te dyja pasaportave ministrise sone te rendit. Pergjigjja lakonike e Tiranes nuk vonoi: "Keto pasaporta nuk jane nxjerre nga komisariati i Dibres". Asnje sqarim i metejshem per faktin se teknikisht pasaportat e amerikaneve ishin "te rregullta", pra ato nuk permbajne asnje korrigjim apo fallsifikim. Tashme kampionati filloi dhe ne dy ndeshjet e para Bragg nuk eshte aktivizuar. Federata i ka lene atij nje afat tjeter per te provuar nenshtetesine shqiptare. Gravelines ka dashur te distancohet nga kjo histori duke paralajmeruar se ne rast se Bragg nuk do te sjelle provat e nenshtetesise se tij mund te shkohet deri ne zgjidhjen e kontrates. Fejtoni i basketbollistit qe shqiptare ka vetem pashaporten ende nuk ka perfunduar, por pervec konfirmimit te thate te mosnjohjes se shtetesise se dy amerikaneve, pritet qe Tirana te reagoje me fort per te vene ne vend dinjitetin e saj te neperkembur ne menyre kaq qesharake. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Thu Oct 25 15:29:13 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 12:29:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism Message-ID: <20011025192913.4E3F215C28@email4.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism October 21, 2001 By PETER MAASS Emroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the cylinders, tearing out pistons, dislodging screws and bolts and throwing the metal entrails into a pile that will be sold for scrap. He is 21 and has been doing this sort of work for 10 years, 12 hours a day, six days a week, earning $1.25 a day. His hands and arms are gnarled works of body art, stained a rich black like fresh asphalt and ribboned with scars. As dusk falls on Cinema Road, where Emroz works in a shop that is so poor it has no name or sign, he rolls up his sleeve and asks me to put my finger along a bulge on his forearm; it feels as hard as iron. It is iron, a stretch of pipe he drove into his body by mistake. He cannot afford to pay a doctor to take it out. ''I've had it for three years,'' he says. He opens his left palm and places two fingers alongside what looks like a crease, then pulls apart the crease to reveal a two-inch gash that runs an inch deep. I hadn't noticed it because the raw flesh was covered with grease, like the rest of his palm and arm. The wound is two years old. ''We work like donkeys,'' Emroz says. ''That's what our life is like. It is the life of animals.'' Javaid Khan watched with apprehension. Javaid, who is 17, began chopping up engines three months ago, when he dropped out of school because he could no longer pay the fees. He is new at this work, so he earns just $2.50 a week. His hands and arms have not yet been mauled, but it will happen. A hospital is nearby, and Javaid wishes he could be one of the clean-cut medical sales reps he sees in the neighborhood. ''I do not have the education,'' he acknowledges. ''It makes me sad to think about it.'' There is much sadness on Cinema Road, so named because of the movie theaters at the bottom of the street. A few feet from the shop where Javaid works, children who don't know their ages (they look 5 or 6) sift through the scraps of the scrap merchants; one of them squats on the ground and pounds the remains of a light socket, hoping to find a morsel of tin or copper. A few dozen yards farther down the road, boys who might be 10 or 11 clean out goat intestines that have been discarded by a slaughterhouse; the intestines, once dried, can be turned into ersatz leather. The boys reek of offal. If you want to understand why the world no longer feels terribly safe, you would do well to stroll down Cinema Road. You would hear the chants of the muezzin, the shouts of peddlers selling bruised bananas, the heavings of buses so overloaded that passengers ride on roofs and the cries of mutilated beggars pleading for a few rupees. You would taste curry and dust on your tongue at the same moment, and you would feel heat and energy in the air; at night, you would hear gunfire. The sights and sounds would make you think you had walked into a third-world ''Blade Runner,'' exhilarating and grotesque. And all around, you would notice young men for whom life is abuse. The population of Peshawar reflects the population of Pakistan as a whole -- 63 percent are under the age of 25. To varying degrees, that holds true for the Middle East, too; everywhere you look in Cairo or Amman or Gaza or Baghdad or Damascus or Tehran, you see young men. You need not visit these cities to know this; just look closely at the crowds in a protest or funeral; the faces are young, very young. And they are very angry. Television often distorts matters, and that's the case with the crowd scenes. Most young men in Pakistan are not burning effigies of President Bush or fighting riot police. Their anger is only loosely articulated, often because they are struggling to survive and cannot afford the luxury of taking an afternoon off to join a demonstration. But the young men you see on television and the ones you don't see belong to the same deprived generation. They live where globalization is not working or not working well enough. They believe, or can be led to believe, that America -- or their pro-America government, if they live under one -- is to blame for their misery. Many are adrift, cut off from their social foundations. Perhaps they moved into the city from dying villages, or were driven there by war or famine. There is no going back for them, yet in the city there is not much going forward; the movement tends to be downward. As they fall, they grab hold of whatever they can, and sometimes it is the violent ideas of religious extremists. Peshawar, one of the oldest cities in Asia, was conquered by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, and the Sikhs and the Afghans, and, in the 19th century, the British. The conquering ceased when Pakistan was born in 1947, but the city remained the gateway to the Khyber Pass and to Afghanistan. That was a curse, because 22 years ago Afghanistan entered an era of warfare that has yet to end. Nearly half of Peshawar's two million inhabitants are refugees, most of them living in camps that are several degrees below squalid. The local economy revolves around smuggling -- of guns and ammunition, of VCR's and televisions, of heroin and hashish. Aziz ul Rahman is a product of Peshawar. He is 18, a vocational-school dropout. He has a job at a tire shop, where he works in the mornings. In the afternoons he studies the Koran at a madrassah, or religious school. The one he attends is of the extreme variety, as most are these days. I meet him at a protest, in the Khyber Bazaar, that was organized by a pro-Taliban religious party. ''The American leaders are very cruel to Muslims, so that is why I am taking part in the demonstration today,'' he says, politely, as we stand in a shaded alley to get out of the noise and heat. ''I hear that the Americans are not doing anything good in Palestine or Bosnia or Chechnya. They are being cruel to Muslims.'' In the background, the speaker of the moment is inciting the crowd against Pakistan's military regime, which is backing Washington's anti-terror campaign. ''The generals are stupid,'' he shouts. Then, like a rock star inviting crowd participation, he calls out, ''Generals!'' and the crowd roars back, ''Stupid!'' They are quick learners. Aziz wants to get back to the demo, so we part ways after a half-hour. He did not fall into religious extremism by choice; his preferred path, of becoming an engineer, was closed off by poverty. This is common in Pakistan. Poor families do their best to send a son to school, but in the end they cannot manage. The son will get a backbreaking job of some sort or, in some cases, keep the donkey's life at bay by enrolling at a madrassah, most of which offer free tuition, room and board. And that's where they learn that it is honorable to blow yourself up amid a crowd of infidels and that the greatest glory in life is to die in a jihad. Politically-engaged youths are a minority, the tip of the iceberg. They are the ones whose anger you see, whose danger you sense. But the upset of Peshawar's youth is manifested in many ways; in, for example, visits to graveyards, where, among the newly dead and the long-dead, they sit on bamboo mats and sing about their despair as they smoke hashish. The Pinza Piran cemetery is a shrine of sorts, holding the remains of five famous elders. If you wish to pay your respects, you take off your shoes and walk into a tiled yard, where tinsel hangs from trees and incense burns next to the burial mounds. You say a prayer, give a few rupees to beggars as you leave and walk across the dirt road to a large yard from which musky smoke is issuing. Nearly 100 men lounge around, most of them in their late teens or 20's, though some are in their 40's and 50's. They sit in groups of four or five, passing around cigarettes spiked with Afghan hash. Some share pipes, known as chilum, which resemble small hookahs, and their bowls are filled with chunks of hash that throw off smoke and flames like a campfire. A man sitting near me says, ''You have your bars, we have ours.'' Unless someone is singing, there is little noise. Some of the youths are too drugged to do more than slump against a tree. Others, emaciated looking, are lying down, glassy-eyed; these are the heroin addicts, wasting toward death. There is a man with a tame bird on his shoulder and another with dreadlocks, which are rare in Pakistan. The best hash, known as tirra, costs about 35 cents for 10 grams. Smoking hashish is against the law, but because Islam does not condemn hash as strongly and explicitly as alcohol, it has become the drug of choice. There is nothing secretive about the activities at Pinza Piran; the police ignore it, especially if 50 rupees (about 80 cents) are slipped into their palms when they nose around. I sit next to a youth, Malik, who says he is a student at a technical college. He also says that he is forming his own political party, that he has 450 followers across the country and that he is in discussions with Saudis who might provide financial support. He pulls a two-inch thick set of worn business cards from his pocket; evidence, he says, of his network of contacts. He is stoned and perhaps mad, but he echoes public opinion when I ask why he wants to become a politician: ''Because all of our leaders are corrupt, and we have to get rid of them.'' Usually someone is playing the rabab, a traditional stringed instrument, and someone is singing, usually a plaintive song about an aching love. There are no women at these gatherings, as the women of Peshawar tend to spend their lives at home, donning a burqa if they venture outside. That is why posters of the uncovered faces of Indian starlets draw eager stares from men as they pass by on the street. The segregation of the sexes is deeply ingrained, but it's not easy to live with, as the lyrics of one love song I heard indicated: ''Show me your face/Show me your face/Where are you?/Where are you?'' In the many circles of hell that exist for young men in Pakistan, the lowest is found at Dabaray Ghara, on the outskirts of Peshawar. It is an expanse of pits, dug out of the sunbaked earth, in which several thousand men, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, make bricks. It is the hardest of labor because it takes place outdoors, no matter how hot or cold, pays next to nothing and is, literally, backbreaking. You see children as young as 4 or 5 in the pits, except they are not playing. They are making bricks. There are few men beyond the age of 30 or so. Horses carry bricks from one pit to another, and they do so without being led; they walk back and forth on dusty paths, too tired or too hopeless to imagine trotting away to freedom. It is the humans, though, who suffer the most. Bakhtiar Khan began working in the pits when he was 10. He is now 25 or 26. He isn't sure, because nobody keeps close track; time passes, that is all. He works from 5 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, making 1,000 bricks a day, six days a week, earning a few dollars a week. He is thin, he wears no shirt or shoes and he cannot believe a foreigner is asking about his life. ''Life is cruel,'' he says. ''You can see for yourself. You wear nice clothes and are healthy. But look at us. We have no clothes to wear and we are not healthy. Your question is amazing.'' The situation is worse than it appears, because the youths at Dabaray Ghara carry an invisible burden. They don't earn enough to live on, so they must borrow, especially when there is a wedding or funeral. They borrow from the men who own the pits, but the interest rates are so high, and their wages so low, that they have no hope of paying back the loans. Bakhtiar and his friends are only vaguely aware that they are indentured slaves. They are illiterate, and the world of politics is beyond their grasp. In a sense, this is encouraging, because they have no time for polemics or protests. Yet it is discouraging too, because they can be led to rally behind any person or idea that promises to improve their lot. ''I don't have the knowledge to blame a government,'' Bakhtiar says, as a dozen work mates gather around, squatting in the bottom of a pit. ''I don't know about politics, but for our problems, I blame the world community. All humans should be equal, but we are not. You ask me who is to blame. You find out who is to blame.'' He is not without hunches. ''We arrived from Afghanistan 15 years ago. Since then I blame America, because it used to support us, but now it leaves us in a place like this. So if someone is fighting a jihad against America, I would support them. But if America is willing to help us, we support that, too.'' In Peshawar, even the lucky are damned. Ihsan u-Din is enrolled at a civil engineering college. Before that, he attended a private school. His brothers and sisters are enrolled in school, too, thanks to their father's steady income. Ihsan speaks good English, and he has the ultimate luxury in Pakistan -- pocket money, which is why I ran into him at a video parlor. Ihsan is in the first year of a five-year engineering program. Compared with Emroz and the brick makers, and most youths here, Ihsan has it good. But there's a catch. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Even with a degree, it's very hard to get an engineering job. You need connections and money. Ihsan's family doesn't have enough of either. ''It is a game of money,'' he explains. ''Even if you are a good engineer, you will not get a positive response when you apply, unless you pay. This has been the truth for 20 years. It hasn't changed.'' Did I say there was a catch to his life? Actually, there are two. The second one is this: Ihsan's father is in the United Arab Emirates, where he works as a taxi driver earning infinitely more than he could in Pakistan. He sends money to his family so that his children can eat well and go to school. But Ihsan's father does not earn enough money to buy a plane ticket home once a year, or once every two years -- or hardly ever. ''I have not seen my father for eight years,'' Ihsan said. ''Is that right? He sends pictures and calls. But we don't want calls. We want to see him. That is the problem of my country. My father is far from me.'' They might not be separated for long. Ihsan is thinking of leaving school and joining his father in the U.A.E., where he can drive a taxi, if he's lucky. That's the best he can hope for -- not to work in his country as an engineer but to drive a cab in a foreign land. It may not be the U.A.E. ''America is such a fine place,'' Ihsan says. Haroon Bilour has the answers. a lawyer who serves on the town council, Bilour reels off statistics like a computer spitting out mathematical equations. Nearly half of the city is without running water. Away from the main roads, which are in horrible shape, there are few paved roads. The majority of the city's inhabitants live below the poverty level. They have run their miserable infrastructure right into the ground. ''Peshawar has suffered rather than benefited from globalization,'' Bilour says, sitting on a couch in his office. He has bolted the door, because the flow of assistants and colleagues and needy citizens cannot be halted otherwise. ''No aid package or special package of any kind has been provided by the world at large, or by the government of Pakistan. This is a very sorry state.'' For Bilour, the answer to Peshawar's problems comes down to one issue: schools. Building them and ensuring that parents can afford to enroll their children. Not counting refugees, only 52 percent of the city's school-age children attend school, and of those, nearly one-third attend madrassahs. If the city had the infrastructure to encourage investment and create jobs, and if it had more schools to neutralize the madrassahs, youths might not be tempted to spend their days chanting ''Death to America.'' But Bilour is a realist. He knows how reluctant politicians in the West are to lower tariffs, ease quotas or raise foreign aid, even though, currently, foreign aid accounts for only a tiny fraction of government spending. He also knows that the government in Islamabad is unlikely to be much help; corruption is endemic, and a large portion of state revenues go into military spending. So as the United States begins fighting a war that has Afghanistan as its target, Bilour, whose city is the traditional gateway to Afghanistan, is not in a joyous mood. ''We are not against our territory being used for the war against terrorism,'' he says. ''We fear only that Peshawar will be ignored again. We are petrified that we will have to shelter more refugees, that there will be more bomb blasts here and that we will have no help from the world community. If we are again asked to make sacrifices for the West, we must be able to show our young generation that we can get schools and hospitals and a properly developed city.'' Pause. ''I am not hopeful.'' Peter Maass is the author of ''Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,'' his memoir of the conflict in Bosnia. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/magazine/21PESHAWAR.html?ex=1005038153&ei=1&en=2e789a08012b0195 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Thu Oct 25 12:54:08 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:54:08 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <000b01c15d75$aa976590$6d28a8c0@sjcsf.edu> October 21, 2001 Why Peshawar's Youth are Tinder for Islamic Extremism By PETER MAASS mroz Khan destroys for a living. He dismantles car engines, slicing them open with a sledgehammer and a crooked chisel, prying apart the cylinders, tearing out pistons, dislodging screws and bolts and throwing the metal entrails into a pile that will be sold for scrap. He is 21 and has been doing this sort of work for 10 years, 12 hours a day, six days a week, earning $1.25 a day. His hands and arms are gnarled works of body art, stained a rich black like fresh asphalt and ribboned with scars. As dusk falls on Cinema Road, where Emroz works in a shop that is so poor it has no name or sign, he rolls up his sleeve and asks me to put my finger along a bulge on his forearm; it feels as hard as iron. It is iron, a stretch of pipe he drove into his body by mistake. He cannot afford to pay a doctor to take it out. ''I've had it for three years,'' he says. He opens his left palm and places two fingers alongside what looks like a crease, then pulls apart the crease to reveal a two-inch gash that runs an inch deep. I hadn't noticed it because the raw flesh was covered with grease, like the rest of his palm and arm. The wound is two years old. ''We work like donkeys,'' Emroz says. ''That's what our life is like. It is the life of animals.'' Javaid Khan watched with apprehension. Javaid, who is 17, began chopping up engines three months ago, when he dropped out of school because he could no longer pay the fees. He is new at this work, so he earns just $2.50 a week. His hands and arms have not yet been mauled, but it will happen. A hospital is nearby, and Javaid wishes he could be one of the clean-cut medical sales reps he sees in the neighborhood. ''I do not have the education,'' he acknowledges. ''It makes me sad to think about it.'' There is much sadness on Cinema Road, so named because of the movie theaters at the bottom of the street. A few feet from the shop where Javaid works, children who don't know their ages (they look 5 or 6) sift through the scraps of the scrap merchants; one of them squats on the ground and pounds the remains of a light socket, hoping to find a morsel of tin or copper. A few dozen yards farther down the road, boys who might be 10 or 11 clean out goat intestines that have been discarded by a slaughterhouse; the intestines, once dried, can be turned into ersatz leather. The boys reek of offal. If you want to understand why the world no longer feels terribly safe, you would do well to stroll down Cinema Road. You would hear the chants of the muezzin, the shouts of peddlers selling bruised bananas, the heavings of buses so overloaded that passengers ride on roofs and the cries of mutilated beggars pleading for a few rupees. You would taste curry and dust on your tongue at the same moment, and you would feel heat and energy in the air; at night, you would hear gunfire. The sights and sounds would make you think you had walked into a third-world ''Blade Runner,'' exhilarating and grotesque. And all around, you would notice young men for whom life is abuse. The population of Peshawar reflects the population of Pakistan as a whole -- 63 percent are under the age of 25. To varying degrees, that holds true for the Middle East, too; everywhere you look in Cairo or Amman or Gaza or Baghdad or Damascus or Tehran, you see young men. You need not visit these cities to know this; just look closely at the crowds in a protest or funeral; the faces are young, very young. And they are very angry. Television often distorts matters, and that's the case with the crowd scenes. Most young men in Pakistan are not burning effigies of President Bush or fighting riot police. Their anger is only loosely articulated, often because they are struggling to survive and cannot afford the luxury of taking an afternoon off to join a demonstration. But the young men you see on television and the ones you don't see belong to the same deprived generation. They live where globalization is not working or not working well enough. They believe, or can be led to believe, that America -- or their pro-America government, if they live under one -- is to blame for their misery. Many are adrift, cut off from their social foundations. Perhaps they moved into the city from dying villages, or were driven there by war or famine. There is no going back for them, yet in the city there is not much going forward; the movement tends to be downward. As they fall, they grab hold of whatever they can, and sometimes it is the violent ideas of religious extremists. eshawar, one of the oldest cities in Asia, was conquered by Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, and the Sikhs and the Afghans, and, in the 19th century, the British. The conquering ceased when Pakistan was born in 1947, but the city remained the gateway to the Khyber Pass and to Afghanistan. That was a curse, because 22 years ago Afghanistan entered an era of warfare that has yet to end. Nearly half of Peshawar's two million inhabitants are refugees, most of them living in camps that are several degrees below squalid. The local economy revolves around smuggling -- of guns and ammunition, of VCR's and televisions, of heroin and hashish. Aziz ul Rahman is a product of Peshawar. He is 18, a vocational-school dropout. He has a job at a tire shop, where he works in the mornings. In the afternoons he studies the Koran at a madrassah, or religious school. The one he attends is of the extreme variety, as most are these days. I meet him at a protest, in the Khyber Bazaar, that was organized by a pro-Taliban religious party. ''The American leaders are very cruel to Muslims, so that is why I am taking part in the demonstration today,'' he says, politely, as we stand in a shaded alley to get out of the noise and heat. ''I hear that the Americans are not doing anything good in Palestine or Bosnia or Chechnya. They are being cruel to Muslims.'' In the background, the speaker of the moment is inciting the crowd against Pakistan's military regime, which is backing Washington's anti-terror campaign. ''The generals are stupid,'' he shouts. Then, like a rock star inviting crowd participation, he calls out, ''Generals!'' and the crowd roars back, ''Stupid!'' They are quick learners. Aziz wants to get back to the demo, so we part ways after a half-hour. He did not fall into religious extremism by choice; his preferred path, of becoming an engineer, was closed off by poverty. This is common in Pakistan. Poor families do their best to send a son to school, but in the end they cannot manage. The son will get a backbreaking job of some sort or, in some cases, keep the donkey's life at bay by enrolling at a madrassah, most of which offer free tuition, room and board. And that's where they learn that it is honorable to blow yourself up amid a crowd of infidels and that the greatest glory in life is to die in a jihad. Politically-engaged youths are a minority, the tip of the iceberg. They are the ones whose anger you see, whose danger you sense. But the upset of Peshawar's youth is manifested in many ways; in, for example, visits to graveyards, where, among the newly dead and the long-dead, they sit on bamboo mats and sing about their despair as they smoke hashish. The Pinza Piran cemetery is a shrine of sorts, holding the remains of five famous elders. If you wish to pay your respects, you take off your shoes and walk into a tiled yard, where tinsel hangs from trees and incense burns next to the burial mounds. You say a prayer, give a few rupees to beggars as you leave and walk across the dirt road to a large yard from which musky smoke is issuing. Nearly 100 men lounge around, most of them in their late teens or 20's, though some are in their 40's and 50's. They sit in groups of four or five, passing around cigarettes spiked with Afghan hash. Some share pipes, known as chilum, which resemble small hookahs, and their bowls are filled with chunks of hash that throw off smoke and flames like a campfire. A man sitting near me says, ''You have your bars, we have ours.'' Unless someone is singing, there is little noise. Some of the youths are too drugged to do more than slump against a tree. Others, emaciated looking, are lying down, glassy-eyed; these are the heroin addicts, wasting toward death. There is a man with a tame bird on his shoulder and another with dreadlocks, which are rare in Pakistan. The best hash, known as tirra, costs about 35 cents for 10 grams. Smoking hashish is against the law, but because Islam does not condemn hash as strongly and explicitly as alcohol, it has become the drug of choice. There is nothing secretive about the activities at Pinza Piran; the police ignore it, especially if 50 rupees (about 80 cents) are slipped into their palms when they nose around. I sit next to a youth, Malik, who says he is a student at a technical college. He also says that he is forming his own political party, that he has 450 followers across the country and that he is in discussions with Saudis who might provide financial support. He pulls a two-inch thick set of worn business cards from his pocket; evidence, he says, of his network of contacts. He is stoned and perhaps mad, but he echoes public opinion when I ask why he wants to become a politician: ''Because all of our leaders are corrupt, and we have to get rid of them.'' Usually someone is playing the rabab, a traditional stringed instrument, and someone is singing, usually a plaintive song about an aching love. There are no women at these gatherings, as the women of Peshawar tend to spend their lives at home, donning a burqa if they venture outside. That is why posters of the uncovered faces of Indian starlets draw eager stares from men as they pass by on the street. The segregation of the sexes is deeply ingrained, but it's not easy to live with, as the lyrics of one love song I heard indicated: ''Show me your face/Show me your face/Where are you?/Where are you?'' In the many circles of hell that exist for young men in Pakistan, the lowest is found at Dabaray Ghara, on the outskirts of Peshawar. It is an expanse of pits, dug out of the sunbaked earth, in which several thousand men, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, make bricks. It is the hardest of labor because it takes place outdoors, no matter how hot or cold, pays next to nothing and is, literally, backbreaking. You see children as young as 4 or 5 in the pits, except they are not playing. They are making bricks. There are few men beyond the age of 30 or so. Horses carry bricks from one pit to another, and they do so without being led; they walk back and forth on dusty paths, too tired or too hopeless to imagine trotting away to freedom. It is the humans, though, who suffer the most. Bakhtiar Khan began working in the pits when he was 10. He is now 25 or 26. He isn't sure, because nobody keeps close track; time passes, that is all. He works from 5 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon, making 1,000 bricks a day, six days a week, earning a few dollars a week. He is thin, he wears no shirt or shoes and he cannot believe a foreigner is asking about his life. ''Life is cruel,'' he says. ''You can see for yourself. You wear nice clothes and are healthy. But look at us. We have no clothes to wear and we are not healthy. Your question is amazing.'' The situation is worse than it appears, because the youths at Dabaray Ghara carry an invisible burden. They don't earn enough to live on, so they must borrow, especially when there is a wedding or funeral. They borrow from the men who own the pits, but the interest rates are so high, and their wages so low, that they have no hope of paying back the loans. Bakhtiar and his friends are only vaguely aware that they are indentured slaves. They are illiterate, and the world of politics is beyond their grasp. In a sense, this is encouraging, because they have no time for polemics or protests. Yet it is discouraging too, because they can be led to rally behind any person or idea that promises to improve their lot. ''I don't have the knowledge to blame a government,'' Bakhtiar says, as a dozen work mates gather around, squatting in the bottom of a pit. ''I don't know about politics, but for our problems, I blame the world community. All humans should be equal, but we are not. You ask me who is to blame. You find out who is to blame.'' He is not without hunches. ''We arrived from Afghanistan 15 years ago. Since then I blame America, because it used to support us, but now it leaves us in a place like this. So if someone is fighting a jihad against America, I would support them. But if America is willing to help us, we support that, too.'' In Peshawar, even the lucky are damned. Ihsan u-Din is enrolled at a civil engineering college. Before that, he attended a private school. His brothers and sisters are enrolled in school, too, thanks to their father's steady income. Ihsan speaks good English, and he has the ultimate luxury in Pakistan -- pocket money, which is why I ran into him at a video parlor. Ihsan is in the first year of a five-year engineering program. Compared with Emroz and the brick makers, and most youths here, Ihsan has it good. But there's a catch. Pakistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Even with a degree, it's very hard to get an engineering job. You need connections and money. Ihsan's family doesn't have enough of either. ''It is a game of money,'' he explains. ''Even if you are a good engineer, you will not get a positive response when you apply, unless you pay. This has been the truth for 20 years. It hasn't changed.'' Did I say there was a catch to his life? Actually, there are two. The second one is this: Ihsan's father is in the United Arab Emirates, where he works as a taxi driver earning infinitely more than he could in Pakistan. He sends money to his family so that his children can eat well and go to school. But Ihsan's father does not earn enough money to buy a plane ticket home once a year, or once every two years -- or hardly ever. ''I have not seen my father for eight years,'' Ihsan said. ''Is that right? He sends pictures and calls. But we don't want calls. We want to see him. That is the problem of my country. My father is far from me.'' They might not be separated for long. Ihsan is thinking of leaving school and joining his father in the U.A.E., where he can drive a taxi, if he's lucky. That's the best he can hope for -- not to work in his country as an engineer but to drive a cab in a foreign land. It may not be the U.A.E. ''America is such a fine place,'' Ihsan says. aroon Bilour has the answers. a lawyer who serves on the town council, Bilour reels off statistics like a computer spitting out mathematical equations. Nearly half of the city is without running water. Away from the main roads, which are in horrible shape, there are few paved roads. The majority of the city's inhabitants live below the poverty level. They have run their miserable infrastructure right into the ground. ''Peshawar has suffered rather than benefited from globalization,'' Bilour says, sitting on a couch in his office. He has bolted the door, because the flow of assistants and colleagues and needy citizens cannot be halted otherwise. ''No aid package or special package of any kind has been provided by the world at large, or by the government of Pakistan. This is a very sorry state.'' For Bilour, the answer to Peshawar's problems comes down to one issue: schools. Building them and ensuring that parents can afford to enroll their children. Not counting refugees, only 52 percent of the city's school-age children attend school, and of those, nearly one-third attend madrassahs. If the city had the infrastructure to encourage investment and create jobs, and if it had more schools to neutralize the madrassahs, youths might not be tempted to spend their days chanting ''Death to America.'' But Bilour is a realist. He knows how reluctant politicians in the West are to lower tariffs, ease quotas or raise foreign aid, even though, currently, foreign aid accounts for only a tiny fraction of government spending. He also knows that the government in Islamabad is unlikely to be much help; corruption is endemic, and a large portion of state revenues go into military spending. So as the United States begins fighting a war that has Afghanistan as its target, Bilour, whose city is the traditional gateway to Afghanistan, is not in a joyous mood. ''We are not against our territory being used for the war against terrorism,'' he says. ''We fear only that Peshawar will be ignored again. We are petrified that we will have to shelter more refugees, that there will be more bomb blasts here and that we will have no help from the world community. If we are again asked to make sacrifices for the West, we must be able to show our young generation that we can get schools and hospitals and a properly developed city.'' Pause. ''I am not hopeful.'' Peter Maass is the author of ''Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War,'' his memoir of the conflict in Bosnia. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: printlogo.gif Type: image/gif Size: 2391 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: e.gif Type: image/gif Size: 191 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: freetrade-140.gif Type: image/gif Size: 19995 bytes Desc: not available URL: From albboschurch at juno.com Thu Oct 25 13:34:43 2001 From: albboschurch at juno.com (Albanian Orthodox Church) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 13:34:43 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Per Nder dhe Kujtim te Imam Isa Hoxha [ prej At Artur Liolin ] Message-ID: <20011025.135436.-166127.7.albboschurch@juno.com> Per Imam Isa Hoxha Si At shpirteror, i ndjeri Imam Isa Hoxha ka lene nje vend te zbrazur ne zemrat e familjes se tij dhe te besimtareve myslimane ne rrethin e Nju Jorkut e ne mbare Ameriken. Por ai ka lene si trashegim nje jete kushtuar Perendise me plot vepra te vyera e te mbushura me shembuj te bekuar. Imam Isa ishte vertet nje bari i mire: serioz ne sjellje dhe ne detyren e tij si udheheqes fetar, i qarte dhe i thelle e me ndjenja kombetare. Per me teper ai kishte nje zemer te paster, ndergjegje te cilter, mendime dhe shprehje te urta dhe nje fryme mikpritese te ngrohte. Jane te shumte ata dhe ato qe e deshen si njeri: dhe ne mes atyre admiruesve jam edhe une. I perjetshem qofte kujtimi i tij! At Artur Liolin Boston ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. From armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com Thu Oct 25 14:50:36 2001 From: armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com (armata_kombetare_shqiptare at hushmail.com) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 11:50:36 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] KOMUNIKATË (LEGJITIME) NR. 12 ( AKSH ) Message-ID: <200110251850.f9PIoak24737@mailserver1.hushmail.com> ARMATA KOMB?TARE SHQIPTARE SHTABI SUPREM /DOKUMENTE PUBLIKE DOSJA Nr. 5 Prot. Nr. 25-10/001-3 Dib?r-Tiran?-Prishtin?, 25 Tetor 2001 P?r hir? t? informimit t? drejt? t? opinionit t? gj?r? publik, l?shon k?t?: KOMUNIKAT? (LEGJITIME) NR. 12 Nj?sitet e armatosura t? Armat?s Komb?tare Shqiptare (AKSH), n? mbr?mjen e 22 Tetorit 2001, zhvilluan (pa pasoja n? njer?z nga asnj?ra an?) aksionin gueril mbi Stacionin policor t? komun?s s? Tearc?s, me ?’rast u godit edhe nd?rtesa e Kuvendit t? Komunal q? ndodhet n? t? nj?jtin kompleks, para s? cil?s nj? grup policor-ushtarak sllavo-maqedonas po e festonin "marrjen n?n kontroll" t? k?tij territori nga ana e ushtris? dhe policis? maqedonase, s? bashku me bashk?pun?tor?t e tyre shqipfol?s. Ne ua b?jm? me dije se kthimi i t? ashtuquajtur?s "polici e p?rzier" n? zonat me popullat? shumic? shqiptare, p?r Armat?n Komb?tare Shqiptare (AKSH), jo vet?m q? ?sht? i papranuesh?m, por ky „kthim“ vler?sohet me t? drejt? si ripushtim i territorit etnik shqiptar, n?p?r duart e tradh?tar?ve shqipfol?s dhe me p?lqimin e t? huajve, t? cil?t, asnj? t? drejt? legjitime t? marrin n?p?r k?mb? nderin dhe dinjitetin e kombit dhe t? trojeve autoktone shqiptare, nuk e kan?. P?r AKSH-n?, t? gjitha aktet demagogjike t? okupator?ve sllavo-maqedonas dhe t? bashk?pun?tor?ve t? tyre shqipfol?s jan? akte t? papranueshme; duke p?rfshir? edhe "marr?veshjen" tradh?tare t? Ohrit, n? d?min e etnis? dhe t? trojeve shqiptare t? lugin?s s? Vardarit; si? jan? t? papranueshme demagogjit? e vazhdura publike t? tradh?tar?ve t? kalibrit Thaqi, Xhaferri, Ymeri, Ahmeti me kompanit? e tyre banditeske, t? cil?t, vet?m p?r t? mashtruar opinionin shqiptar deklarojn? se do t? "rezistojn?", n?se ?sht? e nevojshme, sipas tyre, edhe me arm? n? dor?, p?r t? drejtat e shqiptar?ve autokton?. Ata, jo vet?m q? nuk kan? "rezistuar" por kan? b?r? ?mos q? lufta e drejt? e etnikumit shqiptar, t? mobilizuar n? strukturat e U?K-s? t? d?shtoj?; q? ajo t? ?’orientohet politikisht dhe t? p?rfundoj? me kapitullim ushtarak dhe ?armatosjen p?rfundimtare, rezultat i t? cil?s ?sht? m? n? fund "marr?veshja" e Ohrit, q? tash muaj me radh? po minohet. Veprimtaria e k?tyre shqipfol?sve ?sht? d?shmuar si veprimtari tradh?tare, antishqiptare dhe kollaboracioniste, dhe "marr?veshja" q? kan? n?shkruar ata, ?sht? vet?m nj? akt i paturpsh?m i tradh?tis? dhe i bashk?punimit t? hapur me nacional-shovinizmin maqedonas t? VMRO-s? dhe DPMNE-s?, n? kuptimin e finalizimit t? s? cil?s u fut p?rs?ri toka shqiptare e Ilirid?s n?n "kontroll" t? policis? dhe ushtris? sllavo-maqedonase. Ne ua b?jm? me dije t? gjith? atyre se kjo tok? jo vet?m q? nuk do t? jet? n?n kotrollin e tyre, por ata do ta ken? t? pamundur q?ndrimin dhe se goditjet tona nuk do t’i kursejm? deri n? ?lirimin definitiv dhe shk?putjen nga "shteti" artificial i tradh?tis?. AKSH-jua nuk e pranon IRJM-n?, dhe ate e konsideron okupatore klasike. Futja e tyre n? k?to zona, erdhi si rezultat i subvesionit ajror propagandistik, t? mbiquajtur "Dhelpra e kuq?rremt?". Sjellja e bandave t? reja pushtuese, ?sht? e padurueshme p?r popullat?n vendase, q? ka shpresuar t? pakt?n n? mir?kuptimin e instancave t? jashtme nd?rkomb?tare. K?to instanca, edhe n? trojet shqiptare t? Ilirid?s, sikurse n? Kosov? dhe n? Kosov?n Lindore, fatkeq?sisht po veprojn? gjithnj? e m? tep?r si mb?shtet?s t? elaborateve shoviniste antishqiptare sllave, gj? kjo q? bie ndesh me t? gjitha p?rcaktimet e tyre verbale demokratike dhe humanitare. N? k?t? vij? ?sht? edhe shpallja dhe njohja e t? ashtuquajturit Universitet i Europ?s Juglindore t? Tetov?s (UEJT), si kund?rshti e dhunshme e Universitetit Shqiptar t? Tetov?s n? Re?ic? t? Vog?l, i cili, vite me radh? pret zyrtarizimin dhe njohjen nga ana e pushtetit nacionalist sllavo-maqedonas. Imponimi i strukturave t? huaja me nj? universitet tjet?r n? t? nj?jtin vend, ?sht? poashtu nj? akt antishqiptar. N? t? nj?jt?n vij? d?shmohet edhe Universiteti serb n? Mitrovic? t? Kosov?s. Habitemi si ka mund?si t? krijohen k?so "universitetesh" t? dhunshme, duke u shkelur brutalisht k?rkesat dhe t? drejtat legjitime t? shqiptar?ve. K?to akte nuk d?shmojn? orientimin e drejt? t? faktor?ve nd?rkomb?tare, prandaj nuk mund t? pranohen nga ana jon?, si? nuk do t? pranohen asnj?her? rikthimet pushtuese n? trojet shqiptare t? pushteteve sllave, n? asnj? nga tokat shqiptare q? sot figurojn? brenda ndarjeve t? vjetra administrative!... Armata Komb?tare Shqiptare u b?n thirrje t? gjith? shqiptar?ve atdhetar?, nga t? gjitha trojet shqiptare, ve?an?risht atyre nga regjioni i Lugin?s s? Vardarit, t? mos n?nshtrohen kurrsesi n?n shovinizmin sllavo-maqedonas; t? ndihmojn? struktur?n ?lirimtare t? AKSH-s?; dhe t? mobilizohen n? luft?n e pakompromis p?r liri! AKSH-ja ?sht? armat? komb?tare ?lirimtare dhe vepron p?r t? drejtat e tyre legjitime. Populli i shum?vuajtur shqiptar i k?tyre trojeve, duhet t? ndihmoj? armat?n e tij! Ata nuk duhet t? bien viktim? e propagand?s mercenare t? ish-lider?ve t? U?K-s?, q? tradh?toi popullat?n vendase dhe kusht?zon mbetjen e k?saj treve vitale n?n dominimin sllavo-maqedonas pushtues, p?rshkak se ?sht? paguar prej tyre t? sabotoj? e t? tradh?toj? t? gjitha p?rpjekjet ?lirimtare t? popullit t? vet! Krijesa t? dilla, nuk kan? gjak t? past?rt shqiptar n? damar?! Ish-luft?tar?t atdhetar? t? U?K-s? s? tradh?tuar, nuk duhet t? mashtrohen nga porollat demagogjike t? tyre! Ata, i kan? t? hapura dyrt t? mobilizohen n? radh?t e AKSH-s?, sepse si U?K, asnj?her? nuk do t? mund t? mobilizohen n? luft? p?r liri!... Ne konfirmojm? bot?risht se AKSH-ja nuk do t? pajtohet asnj?her? me ripushtimet sllave t? tok?s shqiptare, dhe se do t? luftoj? deri n? ?lirimin definitiv t? tyre dhe bashkimin me shtetin-am?, Shqip?rin?, pa marr? parasysh si do t? sillet faktori i shitur politik. Lufta e AKSH-s?, ?sht? luft? e drejt? dhe ?lirimtare! Ajo, patjet?r do t? fitoj?!... Rroft? populli shqiptar dhe t? drejtat e tij legjitime! Rroft? kombi i bashkuar shqiptar! Rroft? AKSH-ja! Vdekje tradh?tis?! JA VDEKJE-JA LIRI! P?r Shtabin Suprem t? AKSH-s?, Shefi i Shtabit, Hekuran Asllani, Gjeneral Kolonel From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 25 17:06:01 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 14:06:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] A book to remember - ADN Message-ID: <20011025210601.1423.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> Kosovo?s Crisis Book Recalls Past Times TIRANA - The first publication with documents on 1999 Kosovo refugees? crisis was promoted on Wednesday in the premises of the Tirana International Hotel where senior Albanian and foreign personalities were present. ?What happens when it happens??, co-authored by John Acree and Kastriot Islami, and published by the Canadian Peacekeeping Press, outlines one of the most remarkable pages in the refugees? history and the extraordinary attempts of the Albanian government and people without which the crisis should not be overcome --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 25 19:43:14 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:43:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Deutche Welle - sipas Korrierit Message-ID: <20011025234314.27708.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> Pasaportat greke, "kal troje" per shtetin shqiptar Pasaportat greke, "kal troje" per shtetin shqiptar ATHINE - Parlamenti grek ka aprovuar ligjin, sipas te cilit minoritaret greke ne Shqiperi mund te marrin shtetesine greke. Procedurat jane mjaft liberale dhe ekziston mundesia per abuzime per te perfshire edhe emigrante shqiptare te cilet kane nderruar emrin. "Nje certifikate pagezimi eshte e mjaftueshme dhe mund te marresh nje pasaporte greke", ky eshte thelbi i procedures qe parashikohet ne ligjin e aprovuar kohet e fundit ne Greqi. Per personat qe kerkojne shtetesine greke eshte e mjaftueshme te paraqiten ne nje konsullate me nje kerkese, nje deshmi penaliteti dhe nje certifikate. Por ky ligj mund te kthehet ne nje "kal troje" per shtetin shqiptar. Dojce Vele --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Thu Oct 25 19:45:50 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:45:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Korrieri - 25 tetor 2001 Message-ID: <20011025234550.28223.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> ");document.write(date + " " + lmonth + " ");document.write(year + "");// End -->25 Tetor 2001 SHBA: Si do jete ushtria shqiptare me 2010 SHBA: Si do jete ushtria shqiptare me 2010 Nje projekt i Ministrise se Mbrojtjes dhe Pentagonit parashikon nje ushtri me te paket ne numer, por me cilesore. Plani dhjetevjecar i ristrukturimit qe do te pershtase Forcat e Armatosura me mjedisin e ri te sigurise kombetare e rajonale Elton METAJ TIRANE - SHBA kane hartuar nje projekt per ristrukturimin e Forcave te Armatosura te Shqiperise. Nje projekt qe jep skicen sesi do te jete ushtria shqiptare deri ne vitin 2010. Burime nga Ministria e Mbrojtjes sqarojne per "Korrieri" se rekomandimet e projektit jane bazuar mbi argumenta objektive e analize te thelle te gjithe faktoreve perberes ne procesin e zhvillimit te mekanizmave dhe sistemit kombetar te sigurise e mbrojtjes se vendit. "Projekti perben bazen e nje reforme te plote legjislative, ekzekutive e ushtarake", shprehen burime ushtarake. Projekti, i hartuar nga Ministria shqiptare e Mbrojtjes dhe Pentagoni, bazohet ne resurset reale qe Shqiperia mund te vendose ne dispozicion te mbrojtjes. Gjithashtu, nje shtylle tjeter e ketij dokumenti do te jene edhe misionet qe duhet te permbushin Forcat e Armatosura ne mjedisin e ri te sigurise kombetare dhe rajonale. Ne kete kuader, roli i Forcave te Armatosura merr nje kuptim te ri nisur nga rreziqet transnacionale me karakter joushtarak. Te tilla, sipas ekperteve ushtarake, permenden, fenomenet e terrorizmit nderkombetar dhe rajonal, krimi i organizuar, sabotazhi, trafiqet e paligjshme, mundesia e bllokimit te resurseve te perbashketa vitale per kombin dhe deri mundesia e trafikimit tranzit neper Shqiperi te materialeve me perberes te demtimit masiv. Fatkeqesite e ndryshme natyrore e industriale perbejne gjithashtu nje rrezik te konsiderueshem per Shqiperine, i cili eshte e ndjeshme ndaj fatkeqesive natyrore si termete, permbytje, zjarre masive, si dhe fatkeqesive industriale te llojeve te ndryshme. "Qellimi kryesor i mbajtjes dhe ristrukturimit te Forcave te Armatosura eshte mbrojtja me cdo kusht e interesave jetesore te vendit dhe popullit shqiptar kur ato vihen ne rrezik", shprehen burime ushtarake. Duke shtuar se nje tjeter synim i mbajtjes se tyre eshte edhe perfshirja ne nje game te gjere misionesh jo tipike luftarake, por kryesisht te natyres se mbrojtjes se jetes e pasurise se vendit e te shtetasve nga fatkeqesite natyrore, industriale e njerezore, si dhe ne veprimtari te mbeshtetjes se rendit kushtetues e te ushtrimit te shtetit ligjor. Nderkohe, ne mbrojtjen e vendit fuqia ushtarake do te mbetet elementi kryesor. Por, Forcat e Armatosura do te veprojne ne sinergji me instrumentat e tjere te fuqise se shtetit, si ato politike, diplomatike, ekonomike, ligjore, socialpsikologjik e informativ per mbrojtjen e interesave kombetare. Sipas dokumentit te hartuar nga specialistet amerikane, Shqiperia do te zhvilloje kapacitete ushtarake me te vogla, por me cilesore, duke u bazuar ne konceptin e profesionalizimit. Zhvillimi i tyre do te jete nen konceptin "pak dhe sakte", duke kompensuar sasine me cilesine. Ky koncept i mbrojtjes do te mbeshtetet ne mbrojtjen e zhdervjellte, forcat e reagimit te shpejte dhe ne konceptin "Task Force". Ndersa, rendesi do t'u kushtohet edhe operacioneve te perbashketa. "Kombinimi i te gjitha llojeve te ketyre forcave duhet te zhvillohet nga Doktrina e Perbashket e Forcave te Armatosura", sqarojne burimets. Bazuar ne vleresimin e mjedisit strategjik dhe mundesite e vendit, Forcat e Armatosura te Shqiperise do te zhvillojne nje force tradicionale afatmesme, me nje force aktive ne kohe paqeje prej 14-16 mije vete nga 31 mije vete, qe eshte forca e autorizuar. Struktura e Forcave te Armatosura * Shtabi i pergjithshem do te vazhdoje te konsolidohet si Shtab i bashkuar per te planizuar, koordinuar e drejtuar operacione te perbashketa te forcave. Ai do te ndertohet sipas linjave te vendeve te NATO- s. Ai do te kete varesi direkte vetem asetet strategjike qe jane nje Baze e Mbrojtjes Civile, nje Batalion te Zbulimit elektronik, nje batalion Komunikimi, nje batalion te Shtabit, si dhe disa njesi administrative. * Forcat Tokesore, si force kryesore, do te kene ne kohe paqe nje force profesioniste rreth 6000 vete, te perbere nga nje Brigade Kembesorie te Mekanizuar te Reagimit te Shpejte me batalione te tipit "Task Force", si dhe nje Batalion te Operacioneve Speciale, nje Brigade Xhenjere dhe nje Batalion te Policise Ushtarake. Kjo force do te shtohet ne kohe lufte me 6 Brigada Kembesorie Rezerve. * Forcat Ajrore do te fokusohen me prioritet ne zhvillimet e kapaciteteve me krahe rrotullues (helikoptere) ne mbeshtetje te Forcave te Reagimit te Shpejte, mbrojtjen kunderajrore dhe vezhgimin e hapesires ajrore. Ato do te kene nje force te kohes se paqes rreth 1600 vete, duke perfshire nje Skuadron Helikopteresh shumeperdorimesh , nje Brigade te Mbrojtjes Ajrore, dy Baza Ajrore, nje batalion te Vezhgimit te Hapesires Ajrore, si dhe disa nenreparte mbeshtetese. * Forcat Detare do te fokusohen ne zhvillimin e nje flote te rojes bregdetare per ushtrimin e ligjshmerise ne det, ne perputhje me strategjine e sigurimit kombetar. Forcat detare me rreth 1600 vete do te operojne ne dy baza detare aktive. Ato do te zhvillojne me mjete te rojes bregdetare, silurues, dragamine dhe anije mbeshtetese. Vemendje do t'i kushtohet zhvillimit te Sistemit te Vrojtimit te Hapesires Detare per monitorimin e panderprere te hapesires tone detare, nje batalion mirembajtjeje (logjistike), nje kompani hidrografike dhe nje kompani komunikimi. Personeli i Forcave Detare duhet te konsistoje ne rreth 1600 vete. ===Sherbimi detyrueshem drejt fundit Sherbimi detyrueshem drejt fundit Sherbimit te detyrueshem ushtarak do t'i vije fundi. Dokumenti, ku eshte skicuar ushtria shqiptare e vitit 2010, parashikon qe ligji universal mbi sherbimin e detyrueshem ushtarak te amendohet. Nje vendim qe rrjedh nga fakti se burimet aktuale njerezore te Shqiperise i tejkalojne disa here kerkesat per rekrute te sherbimit te detyrueshem. Projekti synon planizimin e nje sistemi rekrutimi te barabarte mbi baza perzgjedhje te rekruteve per alternativen aktuale te sherbimit aktiv te njehershem apo te sherbimit ne rezerve, ne periudha kohe te caktuara. Neser, prezantimi i projektit Ministria e Mbrojtjes do te organizoje neser nje Konference me teme "Transformimi i Forcave te Armatosura, objektiv strategjik i 10 vjecarit 2001-2010". Ne kuader te procesit te ristrukturimit te Forcave te Armatosura, ne kete konference do te prezantohet edhe projekti perkates i hartuar ne bashkepunim me specialistet e Departamentit amerikan te Mbrojtjes. Konferenca njeditore, ne te cilen pritet te diskutoje edhe kryeministri Ilir Meta, anetare te kabinetit dhe ambasadori amerikan, pritet te jape sugjerime per pika te vecanta te projektit. ==== Sherbimi ushtarak profesionist, ja objektivat e reja Sherbimi ushtarak profesionist, ja objektivat e reja Forcat rezerviste do te jene forcat kryesore per te perballuar nje agresion te mundshem ndaj Shqiperise. "Vendosja e tyre si prezence e perparuar do te gjeneroje resurse kombetare te medha ne mbeshtetje vendimtare te forcave te kohes se paqes", sqarojne ushtarake te larte. Ne kohe paqeje, njesite rezerve do te kene nje personel kuader te mjaftueshem ushtarako-civil per organizim, stervitje e mirembajtje. Nderkohe, rreziqet dhe kercenimet jotradicionale do te perballohen me zhvillimin dhe konsolidimin e Forcave Speciale. Strategjia e zhvillimit te ushtrise parashikon krijimin e forcave te operacioneve speciale te trajnuara, krahas detyrave me karakter luftarak, edhe per detyra te vecanta te orientuara per mbrojtjen e rendit kushtetues dhe ushtrimin e ligjshmerise ne toke, ajer e det. Por, nuk do te mbetet prapa edhe mbrojtja civile. "Strategjia ushtarake do te mbeshtese forcimin e strukturave, zhvillimin e koncepteve e trajnimin e forcave per te mbrojtur e lehtesuar popullin nga pasojat e fatkeqesive natyrore, industriale apo te shkaktuara nga njeriu", shprehen burime ushtarake. Fature shtese per forcat e specializuara Fature shtese per forcat e specializuara Dokumenti i ri i zhvillimit te Forcave te Armatosura te Shqiperise do te shoqerohet edhe me nje fature financiare. Nje fature qe parashikohet te rritet nga viti ne vit, ne menyre proporcionale me rritjen e Prodhimit te Brendshem Bruto. "Forcat profesioniste qe do te zhvillohen nen kete projeket kerkojne shpenzime me te medha se forcat aktuale te sherbimit te detyrueshem", sqaron nje nga ushtaraket hartues te dokumentit. Sipas tij, ajo qe i dallon keto lloj forcash eshte niveli i aftesise profesionale, i cili do te permiresohet ndjeshem. Forcat e Armatosura kerkojne nje kontrate 10 vjecare me shtetin, duke kerkuar edhe rritjen e buxhetit aktual prej 105 milione dollare. Kjo mbeshtetje do te parashikohet ne dokumentin e Strategjise Ushtarake Kombetare, qe do t'i kaloje legjislativit ne mars 2002. Mbeshtetja financiare do te shoqerohet me nje reduktim te sasise se forcave, e cila vleresohet nga specialistet si e vetmja rruge per te zhvilluar nje force profesioniste te motivuar per t'i sherbyer shtetit. === --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Fri Oct 26 01:34:21 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 23:34:21 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] apology Message-ID: Hi, I would just like to apologize to everyone for having sent the same article (at least)four times. I thought it conveyed very powerful messages--besides being informative--and wanted to share it with you. But the New York Times web site seemed to be experiencing some technical difficulties at the time, and, so...well, you know the rest. regards, xha _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Fri Oct 26 03:21:18 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 01:21:18 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] An ancient woman philosopher: Hipparchia (the Cynic) Message-ID: <000f01c15dee$d120ec80$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> The Life of Hipparchia Diogenes Laertius Book VI. 96-98 Translation and notes copyright 1997 by Celia Luschnig All rights reserved. Hipparchia, the sister of Metrocles,(1) was also captivated by philosophical discourse. Sister and brother were natives of Maroneia.(2) She fell in love with Crates, his words and his way of life, and took no interest in any of the men who wanted to marry her, not their wealth, not their family connections, not their good looks.(3) Crates was everything to her. It went so far that she threatened her parents with suicide if she could not be married to him. Her parents begged him to make her see reason, and Crates did everything he could. Finally when he was unable to convince her, he rose from his seat and threw off his clothes right in front of her. "Here," he announced, "is your husband-to-be, and this is all he owns: base your decision on this!" He wanted her to know that she would not be his partner unless she shared his way of life. The girl made her choice and taking up the same style of dress as his she made the rounds with her husband, consorted with him in public, (4) and went out to dinner with him. Once she had gone to Lysimachus' house for a symposium, and while there she confounded Theodorus, nicknamed the Atheist, by positing the following argument: If it is not wrong for Theodorus to do a particular act, then it is not wrong for Hipparchia to do it. If Theodorus slaps himself he does nothing wrong, therefore if Hipparchia slaps Theodorus she does nothing wrong either. He had no answer to this, and he tried to pull up her cloak.(5) But Hipparchia refused to be bullied and did not panic like a woman. And when he said to her: "Is this the woman 'who left her carding combs beside her loom'?"(6) "Yes, Theodorus," she replied, "it is I. But do you think I have made a bad decision if instead of wasting my time at the loom I have used it for my education?" These are among the numerous sayings of the woman philosopher. Notes: a.. Metrocles, in the previous section (VI.94), was introduced as "brother of Hipparchia." He too became a Cynic and disciple of Crates. Crates was a Theban Cynic philosopher whose dates are 368/5-288/5. b.. A large town on the Thracian coast. c.. The Cynics despised wealth and high birth. Crates himself was so far from handsome that people made fun of him when they saw him doing his exercises (D.L. VI.91). d.. This may well mean that they had sex in public. For the sexual practices of Diogenes the Cynic see D.L. VI.69, VI.46, and VI.72. He is said to have practiced "everything in public, both the works of Demeter and those of Aphrodite" (69) and he was criticized not only for publicly masturbating but also for eating in the agora. When Pasicles, the son of Hipparchia and Crates, came of age (after leaving his ephebic training), Crates himself took him to the house of a prostitute and told him, "this is what your father's wedding was like" (D.L. VI.88). Although the climactic third example of Hipparchia's outrageous behavior, going out to dinner, might seem pale beside the former breach of public decency, it leads to the final anecdote. On the other hand, since the same word meaning "be with" is used of the relationship between philosopher and pupils and of that between sexual partners, I prefer to leave the various possibilities for interpretation open. e.. A rather rude gesture, since he meant to expose her. Cf. D.L. VI.46, where Diogenes the Cynic refused to answer a question put to him by a flashily dressed teenager unless he lifted his cloak to show whether he was male or female. See also D.L. II.116, Theophrastus, Characters 11.1.2, Diodorus Siculus I.83. f.. Appropriating Euripides, Bacchae 1236. In the play the line is spoken by Agave when she boasts of her prowess as a hunter, before realizing that the prey is her own son. The quotation rounds out the hunting image with which the chapter begins: "she was captivated," that is, "hunted" or "caught." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Permission is hereby granted to distribute for classroom use, provided that both the translator and Diotima are identified in any such use. Other uses not authorized in writing by the translator or in accord with fair use policy are expressly prohibited. Please notify the translator (luschnig at uidaho.edu) as a courtesy if you are distributing this work to your students. Return to Diotima Location: http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/gender.html -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: diotopban.gif Type: image/gif Size: 6605 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Venus.GIF Type: image/gif Size: 5178 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mehollim at hotmail.com Fri Oct 26 08:46:27 2001 From: mehollim at hotmail.com (Mimoza Meholli) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 08:46:27 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Student Case Competition / Law Moot Court / Model United Nations - Balkan Case Challenge 2001 Message-ID: >From: "Thomas M. Klein" >United Nations - Balkan Case Challenge 2001 >The Balkan Case Challenge 2001 ? Student Case Study Competition > > >WUS Austria, WUS Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Higher Education Support >Program >of the Open Society Institute present the Balkan Case Challenge 2001. > >We are looking for exceptional students with excellent skills and academic >performance to take part in this valuable event to be held in Sarajevo >(BiH) >from November 29 to December 2, 2001. Those interested must be on the verge >of completing their social science studies, specifically within the next >eighteen months. If students meet our qualifications, they will be invited >to participate in the Balkan Case Challenge 2001. > >Here they will have the opportunity to meet South East Europe's leaders of >today and tomorrow for a four day event, challenging them to put theory >into >action. Join your colleagues from Southeast Europe and take advantage of >the >learning and teamwork that the Balkan Case Challenge 2001 provides. > >Three options are available for participation: a Law Moot Court > , a >Business Case Study Competition > and a >Model United Nations > . >The jury will consist of experts from the universities and the >international >community as well as local and international companies. > >English will be the official language during the entire competition. > >All costs, including accommodation, travel and food, will be covered by the >organization and its sponsors, among them being the Austrian Rectors >Conference , the Austrian Federal Ministry for >Foreign Affairs , the Bled School of >Management , PTT BiH , >Lijanovici > , Coca-Cola and >the >Southeast Enterprise Development Program >(SEED). > >Those interested must meet the following requirements: > >1) be Students of Economics, Law or Political Science, >2) be on the verge of completing their studies (i.e. within the next >eighteen months) >3) study in one of the stability pact countries Albania, Bosnia and >Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Yugoslavia (Serbia, >Montenegro and Kosov@) or being citizens of one of the mentioned countries > >The new application deadline is November 12, 2001. > >Information on the event, as well as about the application procedure, is >available on the event?s web-site, > >http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge > > >For any further information please refer to >balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org >_________________________________________________________________ > > > >THE BALKAN CASE CHALLENGE 2001 >STUDENT CASE STUDY COMPETITION >WUS AUSTRIA, Sarajevo Office >Academic Cooperation Center ACCESS >Zmaja od Bosne bb >BiH - 71000 Sarajevo >Tel. +387 / 33 / 650 871 >Fax. +387 / 33 / 200 070 >Email: balkanchallenge at wus-austria.org >http://www.wus-austria.org/balkanchallenge > > > >[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > >------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> >Protect your servers with 128-bit SSL encryption! Grab your copy of >VeriSign's FREE guide: "Securing Your Website for business" Get it Now! >http://us.click.yahoo.com/M.WTOC/m1FDAA/cosFAA/s0DolB/TM >---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> > >__________________________________________________________________ >This is the NIS jobs list developed by Craig Zelizer and sponsored >by the Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT), a non-profit >organization dedicated to transforming conflicts and building peace at the >community, national, and international levels. If you use >this list, please consider a tax free donation to support the list's >maintenance/development and ACT's worldwide conflict transformation >activities at http://www.conflicttransformation.org/supportact.shtml >For questions on list management please first consult the yahoo help desk >at groups.yahoo.com and if needed contact the list owner at >nisjobs-owner at yahoogroups.com >_________________________________________________________________ > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From admin at albstudent.com Fri Oct 26 09:46:53 2001 From: admin at albstudent.com (Admin@ AlbStudent) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 06:46:53 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Celtics Tickets Message-ID: <200110261346.f9QDkr632462@mail11.bigmailbox.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available URL: From KBejko at MFS.com Fri Oct 26 13:10:48 2001 From: KBejko at MFS.com (Bejko, Kreshnik) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:10:48 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] For the sake of self-examination Message-ID: <0555B6986D9BD411843B00E00900000418B295@perseus.mfs.com> http://www.omda.bg/imir/studies/alb_comm2.html From albboschurch at juno.com Fri Oct 26 17:02:20 2001 From: albboschurch at juno.com (albboschurch at juno.com) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:02:20 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Ordination in Philadelphia Message-ID: <20011026.170334.-490535.3.albboschurch@juno.com> Ordination of Rev Stephen Stefani Highlights Annual Assembly Philadelphia - The Rev Deacon Stephen P. Stefani was ordained to the Holy Diaconate on October 20, 2001, during the Annual Assembly of the Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese. His Beatitude, Metropolitan Theodosius, Archbishop of Washington, D.C. presided at the Hierarchal Liturgy held at St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church, host for this year's gathering of clergy and lay leaders. Reverend Deacon Stefani is a well-known personage active as officer in numerous church, fraternal and civic organizations representing the Albanian-American community at large. A respected educator, he has served as acolyte, chanter and sub-deacon for many years as well as counsellor to the Albanian Orthodox Youth Council. His late parents, Philip and Liza Stefani arrived in the U.S. from Vithkuq and Qafzezi, Albania. Both were active faithful, having received special awards from the Albanian Archdiocese, in honor of their long time service. Rev. Deacon Stefani is assigned to his home parish of St. John Chrysostom in Philadelphia to assist in numerous liturgical and pastoral programs. ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. From naac at naac.org Fri Oct 26 17:39:28 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council - NAAC) Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:39:28 -0400 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] We'll Never Forget Message-ID: <00c601c15e67$1ba5aed0$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 481 8th Avenue, Suite 922, New York, NY 10001 Tel: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org ___________________________________________ For Your Information Dear Friends, On Thursday, October 25, 2001, the National Albanian American Council ran the "We'll Never Forget" ad in The Washington Post to express the support of the Albanian people from around the world for the victims and the families of the September 11th tragic events. We wanted to share a copy of the ad with you and have attached it to this message. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: We'll never forget.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 16772 bytes Desc: not available URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 28 09:37:24 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 06:37:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Council of Europe on Minorities Message-ID: <20011028143724.70722.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> COE & RFE/RL: VENICE COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION ON HUNGARIAN STATUS LAW AND REACTIONS IN HUNGARY AND ROMANIA VENICE COMMISSION754a(2001)Venice Commission report on preferential treatment of national minoritiesby their kin-Statehttp://press.coe.int/cp/2001/754a(2001).htm Strasbourg, 23.10.2001 - At the request of the Romanian and HungarianGovernments, the Council of Europe Commission for Democracy Through Law(Venice Commission) has just made public a report concerning thepreferential treatment of national minorities by their kin-State.The report examines a recent practice in a number of European States oftaking unilateral legislative or administrative measures conferring onpersons belonging to their kin-minorities abroad certain preferences andassistance. These measures range from scholarships and training forteachers to travelling benefits and exemption from permits of stay. Certainkin-States issue documents proving the national background of the holderand the latter's entitlement to the preferential treatment and assistance.The questions raised by this practice have been subject to heated debateswithin different international organisations such as the Council of Europe,the European Union and the OSCE. The report of the Venice Commission is thefirst to address the question with a view to issuing guidelines whichStates are expected to follow in this field.The Commission has found that the adoption by kin-States of such unilateralmeasures is legitimate. However, the principles of territorial sovereigntyof States, respect of agreements in force, friendly relations amongstStates and human rights and fundamental freedoms must be upheld.The States concerned are expected to amend their practice on a number ofpoints. In particular, they will have to avoid taking measures withextraterritorial effects without prior consent of the affected countries,unless such consent can be assumed in the light of an international customor such measures are authorised under a bilateral treaty. When such treatyexists, it must be enforced and interpreted in good faith, and unilateralmeasures on kin-minorities should not touch upon areas excluded by the treaty.Documents issued by kin-states may only certify the entitlement to thebenefits provided for under the law. Preferential treatment may be grantedin the fields of culture and education and , under exceptionalcircumstances, in other fields, as long as it pursues a legitimate aim andis proportionate.The full text of the report will appear shortly on the Commission's website: www.venice.coe.int/ Press ContactPhilippe Potentini, Council of Europe Press ServiceTel. +33 3 88 41 28 95 - Fax. +33 3 88 41 27 90E-mail: PressUnit at c...RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC___________________________________________________________RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 200, Part II, 22 October 2001MARTONYI REACTS TO VENICE COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION ON STATUSLAW. Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi said on 19 October in Venice thatHungary is content that the Venice Commission of EU experts hasconcluded that other European countries also have legislation aimed atencouraging ties with kinfolk living in neighboring countries, Mediafaxreported. Martonyi emphasized that the commission considers legislationaimed at encouraging minorities to preserve their national identity as"positive" and that states have the right to approve such legislation.He said the commission's recommendations (see Romanian item below) willenable the sides to consult on the implementation on the Status Law inHungary, adding that the "interpretation of the recommendations can, ofcourse, be still divergent," but the consultations should help "closegaps." Martonyi also said it has never been the Hungarian intention tohave the Status Law apply elsewhere than in Hungary proper. MSROMANIA HAILS 'VICTORY' OVER VENICE COMMISSIONRECOMMENDATIONS. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and Foreign MinisterMircea Geoana on 19 and 20 October said the recommendations of theVenice Commission of EU experts have vindicated the Romanian positionover the Status Law passed by the Hungarian parliament earlier thisyear. The nonbinding recommendations said that, while legislationencouraging ties with kinfolk in neighboring countries and intended topreserve their national identity is "positive," no state can "transferjurisdiction" over a part of its territory to another state, nor canlegislation affecting national minorities living abroad be implementedwithout the acquiescence of the state in question. It also said that astate whose citizens are members of national minorities must assumeresponsibility for those minorities' welfare. The commission also saidthat minority organizations in neighboring countries cannot fulfilltasks that are the prerogative of the state by definition, such asissuing identification documents. It said such documents can be issuedby consulates in the neighboring country, but in order to avoiddiscrimination must not specify ethnic origin. MSRADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC___________________________________________________________RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 201, Part II, 23 October 2001HUNGARY HAS NO INTENTION OF RENOUNCING STATUS LAW. Foreign Ministry State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth told Hungarian radio on 22 October that Budapest has no reason to renounce the implementation of the Status Law, Mediafax reported. Nemeth said the Council of Europe's Venice Commission "positively" evaluated the law and that "not even Romania can possibly doubt that" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 October 2001). He said Romania "celebrated victory just because it would otherwise be very difficult to convince domestic public opinion" that negotiations must now start with Hungary on the law's implementation. He said Romanian Premier Adrian Nastase has been invited to visit Hungary and "if he does not harbor the intention to amplify the conflict, he is welcome any time in Budapest -- the sooner, the better." Nemeth said Hungary forwarded proposals a few weeks earlier to Romania regarding the Status Law, but has not received a response. "If Romania does not want to discuss the matter, we shall consider that it has accepted our proposals and go ahead with the implementation," Nemeth said. MSRADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC___________________________________________________________RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 203, Part II, 25 October 2001OFFICIAL REJECTS ROMANIAN PROPOSAL FOR HUNGARIAN ID CARDS.Hungarian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabor Horvath on 24 October saidmembership in the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR)cannot be the equivalent of membership in the Hungarian minority,"Mediafax" reported, quoting a BBC report. Rejecting Romanian PrimeMinister Adrian Nastase's recent proposal (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 24October 2001), Horvath said the Hungarian Status Law will not be appliedon ethnic criteria, but will be based on individuals' declaration oftheir Hungarian identity. The number of Romanian citizens of Hungariannationality is much larger than the number of those who are members ofthe UDMR, Horvath concluded. MSZHUNGARIAN PARTY IN ROMANIA AGREES TO NASTASE'S SUGGESTION ONSTATUS LAW. The Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania (UDMR)agrees with the proposal made by Premier Nastase that UDMR party cardsshould be used to register members of Romania's Hungarian nationalminority for the purpose of meeting Status Law conditions, UDMR ChairmanBela Marko told journalists on 24 October. Marko said Nastase'ssuggestion "would simplify procedure" for implementing the Status Law,RFE/RL's Bucharest bureau reported. He also said the suggestion may leadto "reaching consensus" over the law between Bucharest and Budapest.However, Marko was criticized from within the UDMR's own ranks the sameday. UDMR Honorary Chairman Bishop Laszlo Toekes said Nastase's proposalis "unacceptable," and the UDMR leadership should have rejected it, asnot all members of the Hungarian minority in Romania are also members ofthe UDMR. He added that the proposal is reminiscent of the communistera, "when membership of the Communist Party" carried with it somespecial benefits, Mediafax reported. The proposal was also dismissed byUDMR Deputy Konya Hamar Sandor and by PNL Chairman Stoica, who saidNastase is "sacrificing national interests on the altar of partyinterests," as well as by officials in Hungary itself (see Hungarianitem above). MSRADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC___________________________________________________________RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 204, Part II, 26 October 2001HUNGARIAN PREMIER CLAIMS TRIUMPH OVER STATUS LAW. In a speech to leaders of Hungary's parliamentary parties and those of ethnic Hungarian organizations abroad attending the Hungarian Standing Conference in Budapest, Viktor Orban said on 25 October that the recent recommendations by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe vindicate the Hungarian position on the Status Law. "It was a victory for Hungarian foreign policy that the commission recognized the protection of ethnic minorities by the mother country as a positive trend in European law," he said. Orban also said he sees no obstacles to making the Hungarian Status Law a joint success of Hungary and its neighboring countries, and said Budapest wants to continue consultations on implementing the law. Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy discussed ways of extending the government's economic investment and development program, the Szechenyi Plan, across its borders, "Magyar Hirlap" reported. MSZROMANIAN PREMIER SAYS HE WILL PROPOSE TO BUDAPEST A 'PACKAGE DEAL' ON STATUS LAW. Adrian Nastase said on 26 October that the Venice Commission recommendations "by and large" confirmed that the Romanian positions on the Hungarian Status Law are just, and he emphasized that the commission concluded that the preservation of rights safeguarding national minorities' culture and identity can by no means be extended to the economic realm, Romanian radio reported. He said that he intends to propose to Hungary a "package formula" that will take into account "the basic philosophy" of the recommendations. The previous day, Nastase detailed his plan: the elimination from the Hungarian-Romanian accord of the stipulation limiting the number of Romanians who can work in Hungary to 8,000; involving Hungarian consulates in Romania in the issuance of ID cards attesting to membership of the Hungarian national minority on the basis of a recommendation from the Hungarian Democratic Federation of Romania; and allowing any Romanian citizen who wishes to study in Hungary at the state's expense to do so. MS --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 28 09:39:44 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 06:39:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] UN Guide on Minorities Message-ID: <20011028143944.537.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> United Nations Guide for Minorities United Nations Guide for MinoritiesLaunched on 1 September 2001, 10:30Durban Exhibition Centre, South Africa http://www.unhchr.ch/html/racism/01-minoritiesguide.htmlThe contents of the Guide, in Word format, are as follows: Part I Core documentsThe text of the 1992 UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging toNational or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities The final text of the Commentary to the UN Declaration on Minorities by Mr.Asbjorn Eide, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on MinoritiesPart II PamphletsPamphlet No. 1: Minorities, the United Nations and Regional Mechanisms Pamphlet No. 2: The UN Working Group on MinoritiesPamphlet No. 3: The Charter-based system of the UN Pamphlet No. 4: Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Complaint MechanismsPamphlet No. 5: Protection of Minority Rights in the Inter-American HumanRights System Pamphlet No. 6: Minority Rights under the African Charter on Human andPeoples' RightsPamphlet No. 7: Minority Rights under the European Convention on Human Rights Pamphlet No. 8: The Council of Europe's Framework Convention for theProtection of National Minorities Pamphlet No. 9: The High Commissioner on National Minorities of theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in EuropePamphlet No. 10: Minorities and ILOPamphlet No. 11: The Protection of the Rights of Minorities and UNESCOPamphlet No. 12: Protection of Refugees who belong to minorities: The UNHigh Commissioner for Refugees Pamphlet No. 13: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment's Development Assistance Committee (DAC)Pamphlet No. 14: The European Union: Human Rights and the fight againstDiscrimination Part III AnnexesAnnex I of Pamphlet No. 1: Listing of web-sitesSee also:Minorities menu at OHCHR Parallel Events related to Minorities United Nations Guide for Indigenous Peoples Prepared by the World Conference Secretariat ? Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Switzerland, 1996 - 2001 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From jetkoti at hotmail.com Sun Oct 28 12:26:55 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:26:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: 'Half a Life': Postcolonial Studies Message-ID: <20011028172655.C69B658A4D@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. 'Half a Life': Postcolonial Studies October 28, 2001 By MICHAEL GORRA THE later years of a writer's career are often a reprise of the first, a final version of the concerns and questions that shaped his earliest books. Hemingway went fishing once more and Evelyn Waugh made Basil Seal ride again; Goethe in his 80's finished the ''Faust'' he had begun in his 20's. For V. S. Naipaul, such a last act would seem to have begun early, in the very middle of middle age. Virtually all his work since the 1984 ''Prologue to an Autobiography'' has burnished the shield of his own myth, revisiting the scenes of his earlier travels, recapitulating the story of how he stepped from colonial Trinidad into the history of English literature. He has told that tale so often that even he must have felt the need for a new kind of curtain call, and now, at just short of 70, he might well have found it. With the curious palimpsest of ''Half a Life,'' V. S. Naipaul has again begun to write novels. But as a form, the novel is dead. Or so this year's Nobel laureate himself has said, telling interviewers that it exists today only as a commercial ''extravaganza,'' claiming that he can ''no longer understand why it is important to write or read invented stories.'' And uncharitable critics, of whom he has always had many, have linked those statements to Naipaul's own reluctance, after ''A Bend in the River,'' to write another one himself. Two of his intervening books have been called novels, but nobody outside a marketing department has ever found that an adequate description of either ''The Enigma of Arrival'' or ''A Way in the World.'' Those first-person flirtations with the borders of genre may include elements of fiction, but they owe much more to autobiography and the essay; they are ''novels'' only in the cant sense in which the word is now used to describe any long work of imaginative prose. Naipaul has suggested that such books -- and ''The Enigma of Arrival'' stands with his greatest -- obviated his need for the disguise of ''a character who roughly has my background,'' who could carry his voice and experience. ''Half a Life'' has such a character, and one can only speculate as to why Naipaul has returned to the form he once discarded. For, on closer inspection, this new book isn't as different from his other, less clearly fictional late work as it first seems: it too comes so marked by the pentimenti of his earlier books that it's hard to imagine what someone new to him might make of it. ''Half a Life'' is built like a sandwich, with the first-person narrations of the Chandrans, father and son, serving to hold a third-person filling in place. The book opens in a newly independent India with the nameless father's attempt to answer his son Willie's questions. ''Why is my middle name Somerset?'' the boy asks one day, and his father answers ''without joy'' that the child is named for ''a great English writer.'' And so he begins to explain: ''It took a long time. The story changed as Willie grew up.'' In one version, the father is ''doing penance'' and living under a ''vow of silence''; in a later one, the vow is a pose, a pretense of holiness designed to stave off a charge of corruption. Whatever its motive, that silence attracts the attention of a touring Somerset Maugham; it seems almost impossible to pick apart the laminated irony in that choice of a ''great'' writer. And eventually, Willie's father says, ''foreign critics began to see in me the spiritual source of 'The Razor's Edge.' '' But the book's popularity imprisons him in what had been a temporary role, and when his story is over his son simply says, ''I despise you.'' The father's narrative is both the briefest and the freshest section of ''Half a Life,'' written with a compressed eloquence for which understatement seems too weak a word. Still, anyone familiar with Naipaul's work will recognize the Chandrans' situation as a bitter echo of certain moments in his early comic fiction, will understand the fraught relations between father and son in particular as a grim revision of ''A House for Mr. Biswas.'' That sense of something heard before dominates the book's next section, a third-person chronicle of Willie's immigrant adventures in the lonely London of the 1950's. For in Britain Willie soon begins to put together a sequence of short stories, tales placed against the ''vague'' background of ''a palace with domes and turrets, a secretariat'' as well as ''a hermitage with an unreliable holy man.'' The work comes quickly, too quickly, and its emotions are faked, lifted from the climactic moments of Hollywood films like ''High Sierra.'' Both the simplified background and the speed with which Willie writes do, however, recall Naipaul's description of his own work on the stories that became ''Miguel Street.'' And so does the reference to ''High Sierra,'' starring Humphrey Bogart -- whose name Naipaul lifted for one of that early book's most memorable characters. This buried reference to his other work makes the character seem like an alternate version of Naipaul's own past, and suggests once more how precarious a start he had, how easily he might have failed. Perhaps what has drawn him back to the novel is just that chance to test out the other ways in which a character with ''roughly . . . my background'' might have developed. Naipaul is surely entitled to that self-referentiality, one more common to poets than novelists; nevertheless, that aspect of ''Half a Life'' will remain unavailable to anyone who hasn't steeped himself in Naipaul's earlier accounts of this period -- though maybe that inaccessibility wouldn't matter if the rest of Willie's London experience were handled with the rich, suggestive detail of ''The Enigma of Arrival.'' Willie becomes ''part of the special, passing bohemian-immigrant life'' of a city in which people like him are ''still new and exotic.'' Yet Naipaul's depiction of that world seems oddly secondhand, marked by disjointed vignettes and social history crammed into set speeches. In one such speech a publisher makes a tiny mistake in summarizing Thackeray's ''Vanity Fair.'' Is that the subtlest of ways to make us distrust the character or -- one hardly dares ask -- is the author himself in error? The novel's much stronger last section moves back into the first person, only this time it's Willie's turn to offer an apologia. He has talent but no sense of vocation. His one book leads not to a literary career but to an ''international'' marriage and his subsequent move to colonial Africa, where his wife, Ana, owns a plantation in Portuguese-controlled Mozambique. Once more Naipaul appears to be wandering through the scenes of his own career. The place is recognizably the same as the East African highlands of his Booker Prize-winning ''In a Free State,'' or rather, seen with the same degree of conscious abstraction, an entire continent conjured out of a few details: ''the fantastic rock cones, the straight asphalt road and the Africans walking.'' Yet this Africa lacks the terror of the one Naipaul had earlier described. It has its politics and guerrilla movements, but everything seems muted, even washed out. Gradually, one realizes that Naipaul is trying something different, that his interest lies in the dailiness of this late colonial world, not its postimperial crises. And in the book's last moments a narrative that has seemed to meander pulls suddenly tight, giving ''Half a Life'' an interest that lies beyond its relation to Naipaul's other work. It wouldn't be fair to quote the words, but the novel's concluding sentences both lend its title an extra point and make Willie's story dovetail with his father's. The very fissures in its structure, its change from voice to voice, transform ''Half a Life'' into a meditation on the difficulties of building a coherent self, suggesting that there is always an unrealized and true self that remains separate from the conditions under which we live. Once Willie comes, in his 40's, to understand that, the book just stops: a novel both sawed off and finished, half a life but with no promise of any more to come. Naipaul underplays that conclusion, and yet it seems as disquieting as anything he has ever written, a moment that suggests the almost invisible care with which, at its best, this book is made. His terse prose works, as always, to imply a world in a phrase: an Indian professor tests ''our knowledge of his notes,'' and in Africa, Ana and her neighbors have inherited their friends along with the estate. (''We all came with the land.'') In a preface to a 1983 edition of ''A House for Mr. Biswas,'' Naipaul wrote that he had ''no higher literary ambition than to write a piece of comedy that might complement or match this early book.'' ''Half a Life'' is too patchy for that. But it is good to have him writing novels once more, the newest act in the career of a writer who has never quite repeated himself no matter how often he's relied on the same few songs. Michael Gorra is the author of ''After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie.'' He teaches English at Smith College. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/28/books/review/28GORRAT.html?ex=1005290015&ei=1&en=2ef5b64239af8752 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 28 21:25:35 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 18:25:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Love Story Message-ID: <20011029022535.22215.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> The New York Times October 28, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final WEDDING: VOWS; Nancy O'Neill and Phillip Van Horn By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE WHEN the bombs stopped falling in Kosovo in the summer of 1999, Nancy Taylor O'Neill went to work. As a deputy public affairs officer for the State Department, she helped the province get back on its feet, creating a network of local radio stations, establishing Internet centers to help entrepreneurs and doing advance work for visiting dignitaries as they tried to rebuild the war-torn region. Among the visitors was President Bill Clinton, who arrived in Pristina just before Thanksgiving to call for reconciliation between the Serbs and Albanians and to boost the morale of American troops. This was his last stop on a frenetic 10-day sweep of southeastern Europe, and when Mr. Clinton's plane finally lifted off from Camp Bondsteel, the exhausted foreign service workers on the ground celebrated with a "wheels up" party. It was at that party that Phillip James Van Horn, now 34, an officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency who was setting up the first defense attache office in Kosovo, met Ms. O'Neill, now 29. "I thought, 'Wow,' " he said. "She's gorgeous, she's the smartest person I know and she's wicked funny." She thought the same thing. "I was sitting on a windowsill and he introduced himself," she said. "I thought, 'Oh, he's adorable.' " Her friend, Lori McLean, did some quick reconnaissance, transmitting from Ms. O'Neill the words Mr. Van Horn yearned to hear: "Yeah, I'd go out with him." Their romance took off, aided by the primitive nature of their surroundings. Running water was scarce, electricity intermittent, privacy nonexistent and mud everywhere. Without power, there was little home cooking, so everyone flocked to bars at night and made their own entertainment. "It was one of those experiences where everything is so intense and you're working around the clock every day and you love the people you're with because they're so dedicated and adventurous," Ms. O'Neill said. "If you can have a great time with somebody in Kosovo, you know it will work." Life consisted of darting among the ruins in armored vehicles, talking on hand-held radios and speaking in code to dodge the spies. Ms. O'Neill's code name was "Xena," as in warrior princess, and Mr. Van Horn's was "Chogi 5," based on a Thai term meaning someone who attends to someone else. Given Kosovo's lack of amenities, Mr. Van Horn's romantic gestures took considerable forethought. For example, Kosovo had no florists, so he arranged for their compound's routine delivery of supplies to include two dozen long-stemmed red roses for Ms. O'Neill on Valentine's Day. With the change in administrations in January 2001, Ms. O'Neill was back in Washington and out of a job. Mr. Van Horn stayed with her while awaiting his next assignment, which turned out to be in The Hague, where the two now live. Ms. O'Neill shuttles back and forth from The Hague to Kazakhstan on behalf of an international oil consortium, and has begun mulling the possibility of helping to rebuild Afghanistan when the fighting ends. ("I love post-conflict situations," she said.) Only days after President Bush's inauguration, Mr. Van Horn decided to propose. "We hadn't talked about marriage, but I knew it was the right thing to do," he said. He picked out a sapphire and diamond ring and hid it in one of her notebooks. The bulge in the notebook caught her eye. They were married on Oct. 20 at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Washington, where her mother was married in 1970 and her grandmother in 1945. They held a luncheon reception at the nearby Sulgrave Club. Heath Quinn, Mr. Van Horn's best man, said that Mr. Van Horn had always lived a charmed life, and that finding Ms. O'Neill in a war zone was further evidence. "He could walk through a mud puddle and find a dollar stuck to his shoe," Mr. Quinn said. As he raised a glass of Champagne for a toast, Mr. Van Horn was well aware of his outrageous fortune. "If I could," he said, "I would toast myself." http://www.nytimes.com GRAPHIC: Photos: WASHINGTON, OCT. 20 -- The best man toasts the couple at the reception at the Sulgrave Club, top. Above, the maid of honor helps the bride with her train. (Photographs by Leslie E. Kossoff) --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 28 21:29:21 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 18:29:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] New Book Message-ID: <20011029022921.37362.qmail@web11502.mail.yahoo.com> EVENT: BOOK LAUNCH - WOODROW WILSON CENTER (WWC) SUBJECT: Woodrow Wilson Center (WWC) presents a book launch and reception for "Limits of Law Prerogatives of Power: Intervention After Kosovo." LOCATION: WWC, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Joseph H. And Claire Flum Auditorium, Sixth Floor, Washington, DC -- November 1, 2001 PARTICIPANTS: Michael Glennon, fellow, WWC, and law professor, University of California, Davis --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Sun Oct 28 22:14:55 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 20:14:55 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] some very interesting web sites Message-ID: <000a01c16027$e25002d0$6f28a8c0@sjcsf.edu> http://www.counterpunch.org/links.html -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From mentor at alb-net.com Mon Oct 29 00:19:38 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 00:19:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] [Kcc-News] In-Depth [HRW] Report Documents Milosevic Crimes: New Statistics Show Direction from Belgrade (fwd) Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> READ & DISTRIBUTE FURTHER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosova Crisis Center (KCC) News Network: http://www.alb-net.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/kosovo1026.htm In-Depth Report Documents Milosevic Crimes New Statistics Show Direction from Belgrade "This report implicates the former leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia in numerous atrocities. The 1999 Kosovo campaign was clearly coordinated from the top, and some of these people still hold important positions today." Elizabeth Andersen Executive Director Europe and Central Asia division (Pristina, Kosovo, October 26, 2001) Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his inner circle of political and military leaders are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo, Human Rights Watch said today, three days before Milosevic's next hearing at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The 593-page report released today, "Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo," uses innovative statistical methods and comprehensive field research to document the torture, killings, rapes, and forced expulsions committed by forces under Milosevic's command against Kosovar Albanians between March 24 and June 12, 1999, the period of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia. More than 600 victims and witnesses of atrocities were interviewed for the report. "This report implicates the former leadership of Serbia and Yugoslavia in numerous atrocities," said Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "The 1999 Kosovo campaign was clearly coordinated from the top, and some of these people still hold important positions today." War crimes committed by Serbian and Yugoslav security forces did not occur in isolation, the Human Rights Watch report says. Three chapters of the report document abuses committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, which abducted and murdered civilians during and after the war, as well as violations by NATO, which failed to minimize civilian casualties during its bombing of Yugoslavia. A background chapter analyzes Kosovo's recent history and the international community's failure to stop what is dubbed a "predictable conflict." "For a decade the international community tolerated human rights abuses in Kosovo in the name of regional stability," Andersen said. "This report stresses the importance of promoting human rights before a conflict erupts, as well as accountability for past abuses to halt the cycle of violence." "Under Orders" breaks new ground in the depth and breadth of its documentation, including detailed case studies of dozens of villages, a statistical analysis of the abuses, photographs of perpetrators, a strategic overview of the Belgrade government's offensive, and the organizational structure of the Serbian police and Yugoslav army, both controlled by Milosevic. A statistical analysis of executions in Kosovo, prepared in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), reveals the coordinated nature of the offensive. Three distinct waves of killings suggest the executions were not the result of random violence by government forces. Rather, "they were carefully planned and implemented operations that fit into the [Belgrade] government's strategic aims," the report concludes. Witness and survivor testimonies in village after village describe how Serbian and Yugoslav troops systematically burned homes, looted businesses, expelled civilians, and murdered those suspected of participating in or harboring the KLA, including some women and children. At some sites, witnesses reported that bodies were removed to conceal the crimes. This cover-up was apparently confirmed in 2001, when seven mass graves were discovered in Serbia proper containing the bodies of Kosovar Albanians. Rape and sexual violence were also components of the campaign, the report says, used to terrorize the civilian population, extort money from families, and push people to flee their homes. Human Rights Watch documented ninety-six cases of rape and sexual assault in Kosovo, although the total number of sexual assaults is certainly much higher. Human Rights Watch has urged the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to include rape charges in the indictment against Milosevic. A chapter entitled "Forces of the Conflict" details the various government troops involved in the conflict, as well as key members of the KLA. Important commanders in the Serbian police and Yugoslav Army, all listed in organizational diagrams, include: Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, former Chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff Col. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, former head of the Yugoslav Army's Third Army Maj. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, former head of the Third Army's Pristina Corps Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Col. Gen. Radomir Markovic, former head of Serbia's state security service (SDB) Col. Sreten Lukic, former head of Serbian police in Kosovo Col. Gen. Vlastimir Djordjevic, former head of Serbia's public security service (RJB) Lt. Gen. Obrad Stevanovic, former head of Serbia's police department Despite his direct involvement in the 1999 campaign, Nebojsa Pavkovic is currently chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff. Sreten Lukic is currently chief of public security in the Serbian police. Ojdanic and Stojiljkovic, both indicted by the ICTY for crimes in Kosovo, are still at large, as are two other Kosovo-related indictees, Nikola Sainovic, former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, and Milan Milutinovic, still the President of Serbia. The report also documents violations by NATO and the KLA. NATO bombs killed approximately 500 Yugoslav civilians between March and June 1999, and NATO did not take adequate steps to minimize this number, the report concludes. NATO's use of cluster bombs, although halted in the course of the conflict, is also criticized in the report. Human Rights Watch also charged the KLA with committing serious abuses in 1998, in the course of fighting that led up to the NATO bombing. KLA abuses during this period included abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state. Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals. As many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since NATO bombing ceased on June 12, 1999. Criminal gangs or vengeful individuals may have been involved in some incidents since the war, but KLA members are clearly responsible for many of these crimes. By late-2000 more than 210,000 Serbs had fled Kosovo; most of them left in the first six weeks of the NATO deployment. Those who remain are concentrated in mono-ethnic enclaves. The international community's slow response after the bombing campaign is partially to blame for the post-war violence, the report concludes. The United Nations and NATO failed to take decisive action from the outset to curb the forced displacement and killings of Kosovo's non-ethnic Albanian population, which set a precedent for the post-war period. Two years after the war, a functioning judiciary system has not been established and an atmosphere of impunity persists. The report welcomes Milosevic's April 2001 arrest and his subsequent transfer to the ICTY. But Human Rights Watch urged further action by the Serbian authorities and the international community to hold accountable all those responsible for crimes committed during the war in Kosovo, as well as during the wars in other parts of the former Yugoslavia. "Holding Milosevic accountable is a first step," Andersen said. "But he is only one on a long list." The report "Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo" is available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/. The release, the table of contents, and the executive summary are available in Albanian at http://www.hrw.org/albanian/kosovo2001/kosovo1026-alb.htm and in The release, table of contents, and executive summary are available in Serbian at http://www.hrw.org/serbian/kosovo2001/kosovo1026-serbian.htm For more information on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, please see: Key documents on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at http://www.hrw.org/europe/fry.php Kosovo: Focus on Human Rights (HRW Focus Page) at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/index.shtml ________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list visit: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/kcc-news From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 29 08:00:57 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 05:00:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Events on SEE Message-ID: <20011029130057.74794.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] Events on SEE Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 22:01:00 +0100 Size: 16742 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 29 08:01:34 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 05:01:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] CfA: Kokkalis Fellowship Program, Harvard University Message-ID: <20011029130134.74936.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] CfA: Kokkalis Fellowship Program, Harvard University Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 22:03:07 +0100 Size: 11307 URL: From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 29 19:09:46 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:09:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Book Review: Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, Reviewed by Besnik Pula Message-ID: <20011030000946.11706.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Note: forwarded message attached. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Florian Bieber Subject: [balkans] Book Review: Clark, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, Reviewed by Besnik Pula Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 10:22:49 +0100 Size: 28910 URL: From jetkoti at hotmail.com Mon Oct 29 14:47:53 2001 From: jetkoti at hotmail.com (jetkoti at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 14:47:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: Shame in the House Message-ID: <20011029194753.5C42658A4D@email5.lga2.nytimes.com> This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by jetkoti at hotmail.com. Shame in the House October 29, 2001 By BOB HERBERT Ask not what your country can do for you . . ." It has been 40 years since John F. Kennedy, standing hatless and coatless in the bitter cold of a snow- covered capital, delivered the lines that turned out to be the most stirring and most famous of his presidency. If you listened closely last week, you could hear an echo of that moment on the Senate floor. On Wednesday morning, in an address to his colleagues, Senator Edward M. Kennedy said: "Now we have seen, perhaps more clearly than ever before in our lives, how we are all in this together - how if even one of us is hurting, all of us hurt. Our first thoughts on September 11 were about others, not ourselves." Senator Kennedy, now 69 years old, spoke movingly of the acts of extraordinary bravery and selflessness exhibited by Americans both at home and abroad in this sudden war against terrorism. And he called on the nation as a whole to adopt that spirit of selflessness as the new standard "by which we measure everything we do." "The standard is clear," he said. "To seek what is right for our country, and not just for ourselves." He said it is essential that Americans not "strive for private advantage in a time of national need." Not everyone is listening. Senator Kennedy's speech was, specifically, a call for fairness and common decency as Congress moves ahead with its effort to help revive an economy that was faltering before Sept. 11, and has since been thrown into very serious trouble by terrorism and war. But last week, as the House narrowly passed its version of an economic stimulus package, the dominant motive at work appeared once again to be greed. The Republicans who control the House thumbed their noses at the ordinary Americans who will absorb the brunt of the economic downturn and shamelessly gift- wrapped yet another bundle of tax cuts for the very well-to-do. In Senator Kennedy's words, the House proposal, which contains more than $100 billion in tax cuts for corporations and individuals, "merely repackages old, partisan, unfair, permanent tax breaks - which were rejected by Congress last spring - under the new label of economic stimulus. The American people deserve better." With Americans fighting and dying both at home and abroad, we are understandably in a season of patriotism. That patriotism should not be soiled by wartime profiteering. The House package is a breathtaking example of cynicism and chutzpah. The bill's primary author, Representative Bill Thomas, a Republican from California, piously proclaimed that there is an urgent need to help businesses because they are the nation's employers. "They're the hardware store," he said, "the diner down the street, the gas station on the corner." And then you look closely at the legislation and find that it overwhelmingly favors the giant corporations, with tax breaks approaching $1.4 billion for I.B.M., more than $800 million for General Motors and $670 million for General Electric. It's a stimulus package in name only because the Americans who are the most strapped - the consumers who would take any relief that they received and immediately pump it right back into the economy - get the least. The package has very little to do with economic recovery. It's about using the shield of war and economic hard times as a cover for the perpetual task of funneling government largesse to the very rich. Nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts were passed just a few months ago, but that was not enough. True greed knows no bounds. The political analyst Kevin Phillips, in a commentary on National Public Radio, said: "Neither house of Congress has ever passed this kind of major tax bill in wartime, and no one in the House assumes that the Senate will accept it in whole. But the more extreme the House bill, the further that will drag the eventual compromise in that same inexcusable direction. The only real solution is a public outcry, tens of millions of pointing fingers and voices saying, `Shame.' " Forty years after the inauguration of President Kennedy, the most favored and least needy among us are proving themselves to be masterful at finding what their country can do for them.? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/opinion/29HERB.html?ex=1005384873&ei=1&en=6eb94ac4d058e0cf HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 29 20:28:02 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:28:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Shekulli, 30 tetor 2001 Message-ID: <20011030012802.77868.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> Me ligjin e ri t? parlamentit grek liberalizohen procedurat e dh?nies s? shtet?sis? p?r shtetasit e huaj. Sipas nenit 42 t? ligjit, k?rkesa mund t'i paraqitet edhe nj? konsulli grek n? nj? shtet tjet?r N?nshtet?sia greke,leht?sohen procedurat TIRAN? - Parlamenti grek ka miratuar dit?t e fundit nj? ligj q? e b?n mjaft t? leht? marrjen e n?nshtet?sis? greke nga shtetasit e huaj. Kjo duket e leht? jo vet?m p?r shtetasit shqiptar? me origjin? greke, por edhe p?r emigrant?t shqiptar? q? ndodhen n? Greqi dhe q?, p?r arsye ekonomike, kan? ndryshuar n? mas? t? madhe emrat, duke i kthyer n? ortodoks?. Nj? lajm i till? u b? i ditur n? Shqip?ri, p?rmes radios gjermane "Deutsche Velle". Dispozitat mbi marrjen e n?nshtet?sis? gjenden n? ligjin nr. 2910/2.2.2001, t? titulluar "Mbi hyrjen dhe q?ndrimin n? Greqi t? shtetasve t? huaj. Dh?nia e n?nshtet?sis?", por m? s? shumti t? njohur me emrin e reduktuar "Ligji p?r emigracionin", t? miratuar nga parlamenti grek n? prill t? k?tij viti. Neni 63 i ligjit p?rcakton k?rkesat p?r marrjen e n?nshtet?sis? nga homogjen?t q? banojn? jasht? shtetit. Ata fillimisht paraqesin k?rkes?n te konsulli grek i vendbanimit t? t? interesuarit, i cili ia kalon Ministris? s? Brendshme, Administrat?s Publike dhe Decentralizimit (MBAPD), bashk? me nj? raport t? vetin. Bashk? me k?rkes?n, dor?zohen edhe dokumentet e m?poshtme: deklarat? p?r marrjen e n?nshtet?sis?, e cila b?het n? prani t? konsullit dhe dy shtetasve grek? si d?shmitar?, kopje t? pasaport?s apo dokumenti tjet?r udh?timi, q?, po t? mos jen? t? shkruara n? alfabetin latin, duhet t? dor?zohen t? p?rkthyera n? greqisht, certifikat? lindjeje apo pag?zimi, d?shmi penaliteti t? autoriteteve t? shtetit t? vet. Sh?rbimi i MBAPD-s?, pasi shqyrton dokumentet e homogjenit dhe mendimin e Ministris? s? Rendit Publik p?r ??shtje q? kan? t? b?jn? me rendin dhe sigurimin publik, i propozon ministrit t? Brendsh?m pranimin ose jo t? k?rkes?s p?r marrjen e n?nshtet?sis?. Neni 42 Nd?rsa neni 42 thot? se, me dekret presidencial, q? l?shohet me propozim t? Ministris? s? Brendshme, asaj t? Jashtme, t? Rendit Publik dhe Mbrojtjes, mund t? ndalohet q?ndrimi apo vendosja e shtetasve t? huaj n? zona t? ndryshme gjeografike t? Greqis?. K?t? jurist?t tan? e komentojn? me faktin se kjo nuk ka t? b?j? vet?m me kujdesin e shtetit p?r zona ushtarake apo vendndodhje t? institucioneve me karakter strategjik etj. Ata mendojn? se ajo ka t? b?j? me mohimin e s? drejt?s s? emigrant?ve p?r t'u vendosur n? zona problematike p?r shtetin grek, si? jan? zona e ?am?ris? p?r emigrant? nga Shqip?ria ose ishujt n? af?rsi t? Turqis? p?r emigrant? nga Turqia. Neni 53 i ligjit parashikon sanksione shum? t? r?nda si ndaj pun?marr?sit, emigrantit t? paligjsh?m, ashtu edhe ndaj pun?dh?n?sit, shtetas grek. Duke pasur parasysh q? n? Greqi numri i emigrant?ve shqiptar? q? kan? k?rkuar legalizim ?sht? rreth 200 mij?, jurist?t vler?sojn? se af?rsisht po kaq do t? mbeten ilegal?. Kjo tregon se, n? rastin e zbatimit me konseguenc? t? k?tij ligji, pritet q? n? nj? t? ardhme t? af?rt t? kemi nj? fluks t? madh emigrant?sh q? do t? kthehen nga Greqia. N? rast se zbatimi i k?tij ligji do t? neglizhohet si edhe m? par?, ky kontigjent i madh emigrat?sh do t? mund t? shfryt?zohet edhe n? t? ardhmen si mjet presioni ndaj qeveris? shqiptare n? momente t? caktuara zhvillimesh. Q?llimi Nga ana tjet?r, jurist?t komentojn? se, n? kushtet aktuale, marrja e shtet?sis? greke nga shtetasit shqiptar? (qofshin minoritar? grek? apo jo) do t? thot? p?rfitim i shum? t? drejtave q? qytetar?t e tjer? shqiptar? nuk i g?zojn?. Dhe pik?risht, duke pasur parasysh k?to, jurist? thon? se pretendimet greke p?r nj? num?r t? minoritetit grek n? Shqip?ri shum? her? m? t? madh se ai i deklaruar nga shteti shqiptar, pretendimet greke p?r shtrirjen territoriale t? minoritetit grek n? Shqip?ri n? zona t? Himar?s, P?rmetit, Kor??s etj., politika diferencuese n?p?rmjet favorizimeve q? iu b?n? disa pjes?ve t? popullsis? shqiptare, si: himariot?ve, vlleh?ve dhe n? p?rgjith?si t? krishter?ve ortodoks?, diverisoni i deritanish?m i strukturave shtet?rore greke dhe i organizatave t? ndryshme shoviniste p?r p?rpunimin psikologjik n? radh?t e k?tij kontigjenti popullsie, sipas jurist?ve shqiptar?, grek?t k?rkojn? q?, p?rve? minoritar?ve grek?, t? deklarohen me komb?si greke edhe shum? shqiptar? m? banim n? Greqi apo n? Shqip?ri. Jurist?t e shohin me shqet?sim k?t? ligj t? ri t? miratuar nga parlamenti grek, pasi, sipas tyre, dh?nia e shtet?sis? greke n? m?nyr? masive shtetasve shqiptar? me banim n? Shqip?ri, mb?shtetja financiare e diferencuar e tyre apo investimet kryesisht n? disa zona, n? klim?n e evropianizimit t? rajonit ton? mund t? realizojn? transformime graduale n? d?m t? popullsis? dhe trojeve jugore, si vijim i p?rpjekjeve shoviniste n? kushte t? reja. Dhe p?r k?to arsye, jurist?t shqiptar? shikon? q?ndrime politike t? pritshme t? Greqis? ndaj vendit ton? e ve?an?risht p?r problemet q? kan? t? b?jn? me minoritetin. Zyrtarisht, qeverit? greke jan? shprehur se interesi i tyre ?sht? q? minoriteti grek n? Shqip?ri duhet t? q?ndroj? n? tokat e tij e t? mos e braktis? at?. N? k?t? drejtim ka nd?rmarr? edhe mjaft masa. Por deri tani nuk kan? qen? t? efektshme. Megjith?se Ministria e Jashtme Shqiptare ?sht? njohur me k?t? ligj t? ri, komenti i saj ?sht? se miratimi i nj? ligji t? ri nga parlamenti grek ?sht? ??shtje e brendshme e shtetit q? e nxjerr at? dhe nuk mund t? nd?rhyhet n? problemet e tyre. Procedurat p?r t? marr? n?nshtet?sin? K?rkesa p?r marrjen e n?nshtet?sis? nga homogjen?t q? banojn? jasht? shtetit, paraqitet te konsulli grek i vendbanimit t? t? interesuarit, i cili ia kalon Ministris? s? Brendshme, Administrat?s Publike dhe Decentralizimit (MBAPD), bashk? me nj? raport t? vetin. Bashk? me k?rkes?n, dor?zohen edhe dokumentet e m?poshtme: a - Deklarat? p?r marrjen e n?nshtet?sis?, e cila b?het n? prani t? konsullit dhe dy shtetasve grek? si d?shmitar?. b - Kopje e pasaport?s apo ?do dokumenti tjet?r udh?timi, q?, po t? mos jen? t? shkruara n? alfabetin latin, duhet t? dor?zohen t? p?rkthyera n? greqisht. c - Certifikat? lindjeje apo pag?zimi. d - D?shmi penaliteti t? autoriteteve t? shtetit t? vet. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Mon Oct 29 20:48:17 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:48:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] HRW Report and reactions Message-ID: <20011030014817.80707.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> Below are some reactions to the HRW report on Kosova, which can be found at:http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/kosovo1026.htm =========== The Calgary Sun October 29, 2001 Monday, Final Edition News; Pg. 28 REPORT IRKS YUGOSLAV CHIEF AP BELGRADE, Yugoslavia BODY: Yugoslavia's top general denounced as "idiotic ranting" a report by a U.S. human rights group that accuses him of a leading role in the systematic killings of thousands of ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo conflict, a news agency reported yesterday. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic called the report "unfounded gossip and calculations," the work of people "who suffer from an inferiority complex," the private FoNet news agency reported. Human Rights Watch says it has collected detailed evidence to prove that the deaths of up to 10,000 ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo conflict were part of a carefully planned campaign of terror engineered by former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and his associates. The group's 593-page report -- Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo -- was released Friday. The report said the "extent and the systematic nature" of the killings leave no doubt that Serbian and Yugoslav leaders were aware of them, "despite their public denials." It singled out three officials who still hold important positions in Yugoslavia: Pavkovic, the army's chief of staff; Sreten Lukic, a senior Serb police official; and Milan Milutinovic, the president of the Serbia. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 30 07:09:04 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 04:09:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Wes Clark Article Message-ID: <20011030120904.93184.qmail@web11508.mail.yahoo.com> THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) October 30, 2001, Tuesday Pg. 22 High command is no place for those who need consensus Gen Wesley Clark, Nato commander in the Kosovo conflict, says politicians and the military will always disagree on how to fight a modern war By Wesley Clark War, as the French prime minister Georges Clemenceau is said to have observed during the First World War, is far too serious to be left to the generals. Generals must obey their political leaders. But the reality is far more complex. In Nato's air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, the politicians' voices were at times conflicting and hesitant. Not until the Washington summit in late April 1999, more than a month into the campaign, were the heads of government able to agree Nato's precise objectives. And never was there a clear and full consensus on the measures and timing for strategic escalation beyond the air campaign if Slobodan Milosevic should fail to accept Nato's conditions. It fell to military leaders to push relentlessly - and sometimes unpopularly - for the escalations of tactics and means which would eventually bring Milosevic's concessions. But the political leaders also found the military frustrating. There were continuing instances of civilian injuries, the locations of Serb leaders were not known, and even the Milosevic regime's "centre of gravity" was in dispute. Each issue carried so much political impact that resolving it could not be left to the generals. Television coverage of the bombing, and the frequent press briefings, were political events, and occasional errors of the military briefers carried political consequences. In modern war, there is no sharp dividing line between the matters that diplomats and politicians handle and the activities of the senior military. Consequently, there is a rough-and-tumble, push-and-shove quality within the chain of command which is seldom understood outside the inner circles. Commanders' backgrounds, competence and motivations are often questioned. Decisions are second-guessed, or reviewed before execution. Authorities are withheld. Subordinates are encouraged to give their own opinions, often at variance with the official command view. High command in war is no place for those who need consensus. The American-British campaign against the Taliban - although spared the complications of operating within a formal alliance structure such as Nato's - will also have to deal with a range of controversial and difficult issues. While the Nato campaign was beset by the problems of targeting the use of Apache helicopters and the possible commitment of ground forces, the war against terror will have to face not only these, but also additional problems. How should operations be conducted best to disrupt al-Qa'eda and seize or eliminate Osama bin Laden? How can the coalition of interests between the US-UK and Pakistan be sustained, with rising tensions in Pakistan as the military operations in Afghanistan continue? What can be done to isolate the Taliban and al-Qa'eda from reinforcement and resupply? How much risk should be taken to accelerate the campaign? Should the military effort be slowed to enable development of a post-Taliban governmental structure? How can other Islamic nations be induced to play a more active and constructive role? And what of Iraq and its endless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction? The campaign against terror has been a difficult military as well as geostrategic problem. Cruise missile strikes, available within hours, had been tried in August 1998 with little result. A major land invasion, such as the Soviets sustained for almost a decade, was virtually out of the question - too slow and not likely to be fully successful. An extended air campaign alone was already recognised as inadequate. Diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement and economic pressures also had important roles to play. And so a hybrid military option emerged, consisting of a sustained air campaign supplemented by ground operations executed by special operations forces, leading to the elimination of the Taliban and the support it was providing to al-Qa'eda, and ultimately exposing the terrorist network to precision attack from the air and the ground. So far as the public can ascertain, there have been no lucky breaks thus far. Bin Laden hasn't been taken out, nor has the Taliban collapsed. But by reasonable standards, the operation has gone well so far. The military operations appear well planned and well executed, despite the inevitable injuries of innocent civilians. But it has a long way to go. And during the course of the campaign, adaptations of the plan will doubtless emerge. Greater diplomatic efforts and deeper engagement with the UN will probably occur. New dangers may appear more salient, such as a possible nuclear threat from terrorists. And all of this is likely to be accompanied, even from within this comparatively disciplined US Administration, by rumours of displeasure or hints of internal disagreements. Differences of opinion may give rise to concerns about competence. But it would be a mistake for the public to lose confidence; nor is it necessary for the Administration to project a mantle of consensus when really tough issues remain to be resolved. Some degree of public discussion of the issues is likely to be useful in building public support and understanding, but the need for privacy in governmental decision-making has to be respected. This is perhaps the most important political-military struggle in American history and probably the most complex. Time is going to be required to bring the diplomacy into play, to track the funding trail and to conduct ground reconnaissance. It may take dozens of fruitless searches before the al-Qa'eda headquarters are found. But if the public is asked for patience in the absence of insider knowledge, it has a right to expect those in the know to face up to the problems of waging this campaign. However private the proceedings may be, the results will eventually be public. As one business leader said to me during the Kosovo campaign: "We don't know everything you're doing, and we don't need to. We expect you guys to do your jobs." And those expectations must be met. [PS]Features: [ES] --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 30 07:15:13 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 04:15:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Changing Stability Pact Message-ID: <20011030121513.58109.qmail@web11501.mail.yahoo.com> Financial Times (London) October 30, 2001, Tuesday London Edition 1 EUROPE; Pg. 12 EU in wrangle on Balkans stability pact By JUDY DEMPSEY DATELINE: LUXEMBOURG BODY: The future of the Stability Pact for south-eastern Europe became embroiled in a political struggle among European Union foreign ministers yesterday as member states argued over political and economic control of the pact. The issue was raised in a letter signed jointly by Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy chief, and Chris Patten, external affairs commissioner. It recommended three things: the pact should continue to operate in the same way with the same resources; it should be refocused to take account of changes since June 1999 when it was established; or it should be wound up. Though vague in details, the letter has managed to pit member states and institutions against each other at a time when they are seeking a successor to Bodo Hombach, the former senior German politician. His contract as the pact's special co-ordinator ends next month, by which time member states will have to resolve their differences. These centre on countries such as Germany which has been defending the stability pact's present status, while Britain instead wants to draw the pact closer to the Commission and brought under the control of senior civil servants in Mr Patten's commission. Germany, anxious to defend Mr Homach's record, is backed by Austria and Greece to keep the pact as it is. However, they want it to consider the huge security issues in the Balkans such as arms smuggling and drugs and human trafficking. The neutrals are divided - although there is a sense it would be impossible to bring the pact under the commission since it is politically and financially backed by Washington. The post's resources are provided by the EU council which covers salary, office and travel costs of the co-ordinator. The commission provides office and travel costs of his staff. There is also the question of managing Euros 2.4bn (Dollars 2.14bn) worth of projects announced last week by the European Investment Bank, the Commission, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other government agencies. These are supervised by the co-ordinator. Critics of the pact's progress so far, which include the World Bank, argue that the pact must change its focus from rebuilding infrastructure and start to channel resources into building civil institutions. In particular they want the pact to focus on judicial reform, rule of law and anti-corruption measures. Mr Hombach was chosen to run the pact in 1999, when Germany, backed by 28 states, including the US, Japan and Canada, and the main financial bodies, backed a programme to foster stability and regional co-operation in the Balkans after the Kosovo war. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From naac at naac.org Tue Oct 30 17:13:00 2001 From: naac at naac.org (National Albanian American Council - NAAC) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:13:00 -0500 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Interview with Janusz Bugajski Message-ID: <00a501c16190$abaaffe0$0301010a@sokol> National Albanian American Council 1700 K Street, N.W., Suite 1201, Washington, DC 20006 481 8th Avenue, Suite 922, New York, NY 10001 Tel: (202) 466-6900 Fax: (202) 466-5593 Web: www.naac.org Email: naac at naac.org _________________________________________________ For Your Information Dear Friends, We wanted to share with you an interview that Janusz Bugajski, Director of the Eastern Europe Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, gave to the Albanian daily Koha Jone. Bugajski: 'The anti-Albanian campaign aims at discrediting the US in the Balkans' October 11, 2001 Interview by Keida Kostreci, Koha Jone 1. In a recent article, you have warned for the Balkans to be careful in their approach of the terrorism issues, in the aftermath of the attacks in the US. Could you be more specific on this topic? Balkan states must be careful not to manipulate the threat of international terrorism to try and gain advantages over their neighbors. Unless proven, provocative accusations of alleged ties between some activists in the region and the Bin Laden network should be viewed as deliberate disinformation that actually undermines US efforts to eradicate the scourge of organized terrorism. On the other hand, Balkan governments must cooperate fully in the struggle against terrorism and assist the U.S. and NATO in every conceivable way. Ultimately, this is to everyone's advantage. 2. How would you characterize the position taken from Albania and Albanians, after the attacks? Albanians in Albania, Kosova, and elsewhere have taken a stellar position in support of the United States. This was visible not only in government statements but in the actions and expressions of ordinary citizens. Such support will long be remembered and appreciated by Washington. In the long struggle ahead, verbal support must turn into concrete actions in several areas: crime fighting, intelligence work, penetration of militant cells, and so on. 3. Would you consider Albania more risky than other countries in Europe, regarding the presence of fundamentalists? Religious fanaticism is not a significant phenomenon anywhere in the Balkans. Certain political interests in the Middle East tried to plant fundamentalist cells in places such as Bosnia, Kosova, and Albania. But their efforts did not fall on fertile ground. Nevertheless, the links between terrorists and criminals need to be comprehensively monitored and severed as both phenomena are a threat to democracy and security. In this respect Albania must eliminate its "criminal fundamentalists" who ultimately play into the hands of anti-American terrorists. 4. Which would be your comment on the campaign that some of Albania's neighboring countries, such as Greece, Serbia and Macedonia, have recently undertaken, in order to present Albania as a terrorists' "nest" and Albanians as supporters of fundamentalism? Unfortunately, certain political leaders in the region have deliberately scapegoated Albanians as terrorists because this conveniently shifts attention from their own failures to control domestic radicalism and criminality. The notion that Albanians are "fundamentalists" is clearly seen in Washington as a forgery. The authors of such disinformation campaigns are increasingly viewed as opportunists who seek to distract America from its mission to eradicate international terrorism. 5. Do you think these positions aim at dismissing the Albanians' claims for more rights in Macedonia and also the reasons of fighting against the Milosevic regime in Kosovo? Clearly, the anti-Albanian campaign is intended to diminish the position and aspirations of the Albanian population throughout South East Europe. It is also aimed at discrediting the NATO missions and American leadership while assisting Russia in its efforts to regain influence in the region. 6. Is the decision of the Clinton administration in 1999, to support the war of Albanians in Kosovo, to be seen under a different approach, after the recent developments? I don't think so. The Clinton administration supported full rights for the Albanians in Kosova and sought to eliminate the chief state terrorist, Milosevic. No one in the Bush administration has seriously opposed this approach. Recent developments have not changed the equation. 7. Do you think that the US needs a presence in the Balkans (such as the ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia), also to gather necessary information on terrorism activities, as part of the global campaign with this regard? The US needs a long-term presence in several global trouble spots not only to gain information on terrorism but to prevent any territory from becoming a haven for terrorists. In this respect, the construction of credible institutions and authoritative and legitimate governments is essential in the campaign of " terrorism prevention." 8. What the Balkans ought to do in order to comply with the need of as less as possible conflict hot spots in the world? Balkan governments and all major political players need to find points of collaboration in a number of areas such as institution building, economic cooperation, crime fighting, minority rights, and the marginalization of political, ideological, and religious radicalism. Such initiatives will help to cool down the Balkan "hot spot." This is essential in order not to distract American attention away from the broader struggle against international assassins and murderers. 9. How would you comment on recent protests in Greece against US military actions against terrorism? In one word: shameful. One wonders where Greece will turn if the upcoming Olympic Games in Athens were shattered by a murderous terrorist attack that left thousands dead and mutilated. I am certain that in such a disaster America would be first in line to assist the Greek government and population in hunting down the culprits. All Greek people should try to distinguish between friends and enemies. 10. Sen. Hillary Clinton has said in a recent interview at CBS's Late Show with David Letterman that the two last US wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, were to protect the Muslims. Do you have any comment on that? The US interventions in both Bosnia and Kosova were designed to end wars that were targeting nations in which the majority are Muslims. America does not discriminate according to religion but it discriminates between the guilty and the innocent and it supports the innocent. ### -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Tue Oct 30 20:55:20 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:55:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] On Albanian Students in Greece Message-ID: <20011031015520.46593.qmail@web11504.mail.yahoo.com> Macedonian Press Agency [01] "THOSE WHO PARTICIPATE IN OUR EDUCATION ARE GREEKS"Athens, 30 October 2001 (12:01 UTC+2) Those who participate in our education are Greeks. This was the phrase with which government spokesperson answered the reporters, after the problems arising from the question on whether certain children from Albania, excelling in school, should be allowed to bear the Greek flag in the school parades on national holidays, an honor typically bestowed to the student with the highest grade in the school. Mr. Protopapas mentioned that the government considers the issue solved and referred to the relative legislature and circular of the Ministry of Education. He also added that if these children feel proud to bear the Greek flag, he could not understand who it was that would stop them and why. The Minister of Press mentioned that many eminent philhellenes who helped Greece's struggles for independence, served philosophy, thought and our culture, have deservingly held up the Greek flag in the past. They thought like Greeks, acted like Greeks, spoke Greek and were participants in Greek education, he said characteristically, and added: When a child is an excellent student of a Greek school and it feels that it is an honor for him to bear the Greek flag, we should be the last to place obstacles in front of it. The government spokesperson surmised by saying that we cannot and must not in any case become a society with gray areas and characteristically pointed out: You cannot accept someone to work for your business for 8 years, and then not let his child function in a school. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From KBejko at MFS.com Wed Oct 31 12:10:02 2001 From: KBejko at MFS.com (Bejko, Kreshnik) Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 12:10:02 -0500 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Interesting Greek Comment Message-ID: <0555B6986D9BD411843B00E00900000418B2AE@perseus.mfs.com> [04] "THOSE WHO PARTICIPATE IN OUR EDUCATION ARE GREEKS" "Those who participate in our education are Greeks". This was the phrase with which government spokesperson answered the reporters, after the problems arising from the question on whether certain children from Albania excelling in school, should be allow ed to carry the Greek flag in the school parades on national holidays, an honor typically bestowed to the student with the highest grade in the school. Mr. Protopapas mentioned that the government considers the issue solved and referred to the relative legislature and circular of the Ministry of Education. He also added that if these children feel proud to bear the Greek flag, he could not understand wh o it was that would stop them and why. The Minister of Press mentioned that many eminent philhellenes who helped Greece's struggles for independence, served philosophy, thought and our culture, have deservingly held up the Greek flag in the past. "They thought like Greeks, acted like Greeks, spoke Greek and were participants in Greek education", he said characteristically, and added: "When a child is an excellent student of a Greek school and it feels that it is an honor for him to bear the Greek flag, we should be the last to place obstacles in front of it". The government spokesperson surmised by saying that we cannot and must not in any case become a society with "gray areas" and characteristically pointed out: "You cannot accept someone to work for your business for 8 years, and then not let his child fun ction in a school". From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 31 22:50:15 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:50:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Kadare per politiken ne Shqiperi - Gazeta Shqiptare 1.11.2001 Message-ID: <20011101035015.77931.qmail@web11505.mail.yahoo.com> POLITIKE Kadare: Politika injorante "Disa u p?rfshin? n? rrethana t? dyshimta" Ismail Kadare p?rdor nota t? ashpra ndaj politikan?ve shqiptar?. "Politikan?t shqiptar? duan t? japin p?rshtypjen se jan? kinse t? qytet?ruar por nj? pjes? e tyre jan? fare injorant?". K?shtu i cil?soi dje p?rfaq?suesit e lart? t? politik?s, shkrimtari i madh shqiptar gjat? nj? takimi q? pati me nx?n?sit e nj? shkolle private t? kryeqytetit. Duke b?r? nj? radiografi t? fjalimeve dhe ligj?ratave t? tyre, Kadare tha se "disa prej tyre kan? hyr? n? politik? n? rrethana t? rast?sishme ose t? dyshimta", prandaj sipas tij q?ndrimi i tyre n? drejtimin e problemeve politike dhe sociale nuk sjell asnj? risi pozitive. N? k?t? drejtim ai t?rhoqi edhe v?mendjen e gazetar?ve p?r t? mos r?n? n? kurthin e mediokritetit t? k?tyre politikan?ve. Duke folur p?r nivelin e kultur?s s? popullit shqiptar n? p?rgjith?si, Kadare tha se "ky nivel ?sht? mbi at? t? politik?s dhe kjo gj? nuk ndodh n? vende t? tjera t? bot?s". M? tej Kadare e komentoi mendimin e tij duke th?n? se "po t? d?gjosh njer?zit n? deklaratat apo diskutimet e tyre t? p?rditshme, ata kan? nj? mendim shum? m? t? kthjell?t politik n? krahasim me vet? politikan?t". Duke g?rmuar n? shkaqet e k?saj dukurie Kadare n?nvizoi se "?sht? nj? klas? politike e dal? jo n? baz? t? sistemeve demokratike, ku vlerat i nxjerr jeta n? m?nyr? harmonioze, por kan? dal? nga rrethana disi t? papritura, nervoze dhe disa her? t? dyshimta". Pra sipas tij "jan? futur n? politik? p?r fat t? keq qindra njer?z q? nuk kan? pasur as pregatitje, as moral as arsye dhe m? pas kan? ngecur n? politik?". P?rve? k?saj ai shtoi se "ka edhe arsye t? tjera m? dramatike dhe imoraliteti i politik?s shqiptare ?sht? ende i dyshimt?". Ambasador?t "Nuk ndodh n? asnj? vend tjet?r q? ambasador?t dhe diplomat?t pas mbarimit t? detyrave dhe mandatit t? largohen nga vendi i tyre". K?shtu e cil?soi Kadare veprimin e p?rs?ritur gjat? k?tij dhjet?vje?ari nga ana e shum? diplomat?ve shqiptar?, t? cil?t pas mbarimit t? detyrimeve shtet?rore nuk jan? rikthyer m? n? Shqip?ri. K?t? gj?, Kadare e cil?soi si "imoralitet". Madje ai shkoi m? tej duke akuzuar edhe Ministrin? e Pun?ve t? Jash?me si t? ambjentuar me k?t? imoralitet politik. "M? e keqja ?sht? se shteti shqiptar e ka toleruar k?t? gj? nd?rkoh? q? asnj? shtet n? bot? nuk e toleron k?t? turp", tha ai. Duke e v?n? theksin mbi k?t? dukuri, Kadare tha se "ky ?sht? turp p?r nj? shtet dhe p?r fat t? keq Shqip?ria ?sht? n? ball? t? k?tij turpi". Sipas Kadares?, "diplomacia ka kontrat? besnik?rie t? detyrueshme me shtetin dhe ikja e diplomat?ve ?sht? dezertim, ?sht? posht?rsi dhe pabesi". Dje, shkrimtari Ismail Kadare ka gjetur rastin e p?rshtatsh?m t? shpreh? nj? pjes? t? pak?naq?sis? s? tij, ndaj klas?s politike shqiptare. Ashtu si? ka b?r? edhe n? librin "Ra ky mort e u pam?", Kadare ?sht? shprehur kund?r mediokritetit dhe absurditetit q? mbizot?ron n? nj? pjes? t? zhvillimeve politike shqiptare. Apel N? deklarat?n e djeshme, Kadare i b?ri thirrje popullit shqiptar t? shpreh? mosbesim t? hapur ndaj modelimeve t? politik?s s? sotme q? sipas tij nuk ?sht? gj? tjet?r ve?se karrikaturizim i reales. Nga ana tjet?r ai i b?ri apel p?rfaq?suesve t? politik?s shqiptare q? t'i japin fund grindjeve dhe m?rive me njeri tjetrin dhe t? orientojn? kombin shqiptar p?r t? sh?ruar plag?t dhe p?r t? treguar vlerat reale t? tij. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From aalibali at yahoo.com Wed Oct 31 23:04:02 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 20:04:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Dr. Brovina on NYT Message-ID: <20011101040402.5179.qmail@web11503.mail.yahoo.com> The New York Times October 31, 2001, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final Section A; Page 15; Column 1; Editorial Desk Will Serbs Take A Chance in Kosovo? By Flora Brovina; Flora Brovina, a pediatrician and poet, is president of the Albanian Women's League of Kosovo and a candidate for president of Kosovo. PRISTINA, Kosovo More than two years after air strikes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ended the harrowing of Kosovo by Slobodan Milosevic, Kosovo's Serbs remain beset by anxieties. Perhaps half of all Kosovo's Serbs have left for fear of retribution. Hundreds remain missing and unaccounted for. Half of the Serbs still in Kosovo live in small, fortified enclaves where they feel safe only thanks to the presence of NATO troops. Many Serbs cite these conditions, and the fear of Kosovar independence, as reasons for not voting, on Nov. 17, in the first free general elections Kosovo has ever had. But they are seeing the world upside down. These elections are the great opportunity for them, as they are for us, Kosovo's Albanians. As the first anniversary of my early release from a Serbian prison approaches -- I was convicted of terrorism -- I am hoping to become president of Kosovo Province as the candidate of the Democratic Party of Kosovo. As part of this election, I would like to challenge Serbia to a duel: not to see who is quicker on the draw, but to see who will be faster in building democracy. I believe Kosovars have good reason to feel optimistic about our chances. Since being freed, one of the most heartening things I witnessed in Kosovo was the gracious acceptance of defeat after last year's municipal elections by my party and the Alliance for Kosovo's Future. (The Kosovo Democratic Alliance prevailed.) I heard former fighters say words of which any statesman could be proud: No one lost, Kosovo won. Many former armed fighters are in my party. They knew they had not prepared well for the elections. Perhaps more important, many had lived in Europe and North America and knew firsthand the beauty of a system in which power is transferred peacefully. Now the people of Kosovo must redouble their efforts in fashioning a democracy. For Kosovo Albanians, the biggest challenge will be to renew contact with those we associate with years of suffering -- most of all, the Serbs. No measure of Kosovo's maturity will be as important as our ability to ensure that all our people can live in peace and dignity. No group can do this hard work alone; our Serbian neighbors must summon the courage to meet us halfway. The simplest and most constructive step would be for Kosovo's Serbs, who boycotted the last elections, to participate on Nov. 17. They have many justified fears. But our fears cannot guide us now; there are too many of them, and they are too common. Everyone in Kosovo knows what it is like to live in fear. Thousands of Kosovo Albanians remain missing, and some 250 are still in Serbian prisons. After 19 months in one of those prisons, I know what it is like to dread tomorrow. I also know that tomorrow comes anyway. The only way forward is forward. Many of Kosovo's Serbs fear that voting would give the Assembly a legitimacy that the Albanian majority would use to carry Kosovo to independence. No one can know what the future holds, and it is true that many, many Kosovars cherish the desire for independence. Most international observers, and most observers in Belgrade, admit at least in private that Belgrade's authority will never return to Kosovo. A boycott would not change this reality. On the contrary, by appearing intransigent, Serbs may well make it easier for Albanians and the international community to ignore them. But if Serbs do vote in sufficient numbers, they may well elect the second or third biggest party in the Assembly. The Albanian vote is divided among three major parties; the Serb vote is aggressively sought by just one party. Beyond that, the Serb minority is already guaranteed, by regulation, 10 Assembly seats. If Serbs vote, they could win an unprecedented opportunity to air their grievances and make their arguments, both to other residents of Kosovo and to the international community. The hard truth is that Kosovo Serbs have just two options: to vote and take a hand in shaping their destiny or to mark their hopelessness by beginning a slow political decline. I hope for Kosovo's sake that they will take the gamble of democracy. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Sat Oct 20 02:34:56 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 00:34:56 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] NYTimes Photos Message-ID: <000b01c15931$568411d0$6728a8c0@sjcsf.edu> The number of refugees coming across the Afghanistan border into Quetta, Pakistan, are increasing as the U.S. bombardment continues. A bomb dropped during U.S. air strikes on Thursday left a huge crater in Kabul, Afghanistan. One child was killed and four others were wounded in the attack, witnesses said, while five members of one family and a woman were killed in two other raids. Afghan children in Khwaja-Bahauddin, a town in the Takhar province of northern Afghansitan on Thursday. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="18bomb.9.jpg") segment of about 26,362 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="18bomb.5.jpg") segment of about 53,953 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="18bomb.4.jpg") segment of about 41,698 bytes. ] From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Mon Oct 8 13:04:11 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 11:04:11 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <000b01c1501b$41cabfb0$6b28a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Dozens of addicts light up nightly in caves at a cemetery outside Quetta, Pakistan, where few of the estimated 12,000 opium smokers can afford the $8-a-month cost of food and medicine at the city's 25-bed rehabilitation center. For the drug addicts in downtown Quetta, Pakistan, life boils down to the next dose of opium. A young man, incoherent after inhaling opium, as a syringe dangled from his friend's arm in downtown Quetta. Mooruddin Aki's arms were chopped off by the Taliban for smoking opium in an Afghan school; the 18-year-old now begs on the streets of Quetta. Vincent Laforet/New York Times -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="07opiu.1.jpg") segment of about 27,049 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="07opiu.2.jpg") segment of about 52,591 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="07opiu.4.jpg") segment of about 67,426 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="07opiu.5.jpg") segment of about 31,200 bytes. ] From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Wed Oct 3 04:39:42 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 02:39:42 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] some (very funny) philosophy comics and jokes Message-ID: <003101c14be6$f3c04570$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> Note to Albsa members: I'm aware these are not necessarily appropriate things to post on this list service, but I think these are very funny (and intelligent) jokes I compiled from some online philosophy sources, and am confident they will be enjoyed even if some slight philosphical background may be needed in certain cases. xha ----------------------------------- Philosophize and cut Bait "Y'know, I alawys wondered what folks do with one of their degress..." Living next door to a philosopher A future epistemologist Philosophy Dept. Louie notes an ambiguity of 'good' Affirmative Action (this one is absolutely hilarious) The mind-body problem Leroy ponders induction in the morning Ambiguity:Nothing is better than Loretta's pie False Cause: post hoc ergo propter hoc "Sometimes, if you stare at back door hard enough, your supper comes out early.." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A renowned philosopher was held in high regard by his driver, who listened in awe at every speech while his boss would easily answer questions about morality and ethics. Then one day the driver approached the philosopher and asked if he was willing to switch roles for the evening's lecture. The philosopher agreed and, for a while, the driver handled himself remarkably well. When it came time for questions from the guests, a woman in the back asked, "Is the epistemological view of the universe still valid in an existentialist world?" "That is an extremely simple question," he responded. "So simple, in fact, that even my driver could answer that, which is exactly what he will do." --------------------------- -------------------------- If metaphysics is being qua being; and if epistomology is knowing qua knowing; then metaphilosophy must be... qua qua qua. --------------------------- What's the difference between a philosopher and an engineer? About 50,000 a year. ------------- How philosophers do it... Philosophers do it deeper. Philosophers do it a posteriori. Philosophers do it conceptually. Philosophers do it for pure reasons. Philosophers do it with their minds. Philosophers think about doing it. Philosophers wonder why they did it. --------------------------------------------------------- Dear Doctor Rude, I think I understand what a "platonic kiss" is, but could you explain to me the difference between the following kisses? 1.. Aristotelian kiss 2.. Hegelian kiss 3.. Wittgensteinian kiss 4.. Godelian kiss Signed, Flummoxed in Florida Dear Flummoxed, That's a very good question; nowadays most sex education courses focus on secondary and tertiary sources, so much so that few people really get exposed to the classics in this field any more. I'll try to make a brief but clear summary of some of these important types of kisses: Aristotelian kiss a kiss performed using techniques gained solely from theoretical speculation untainted by any experiential data by one who feels that the latter is irrelevant anyway. Hegelian kiss dialiptical technique in which the kiss incorporates its own antithikiss, forming a synthekiss. Wittgensteinian kiss the important thing about this type of kiss is that it refers only to the symbol (our internal mental representation we associate with the experience of the kiss--which must necessarilly also be differentiated from the act itself for obvious reasons and which need not be by any means the same or even similar for the different people experiencing the act) rather than the act itself and, as such, one must be careful not to make unwarranted generalizations about the act itself or the experience thereof based merely on our manipulation of the symbology therefor. Godelian kiss a kiss that takes an extraordinarilly long time, yet leaves you unable to decide whether you've been kissed or not. This is by no means an exhaustive list--here are some more of the classic kisses: Socratic kiss really a Platonic kiss, but it's claimed to be the Socratic technique so it'll sound more authoritative; however, compared to most strictly Platonic kisses, Socratic kisses wander around a lot more and cover more ground. Kantian kiss a kiss that, eschewing inferior "phenomenal" contact, is performed entirely on the superior "noumenal" plane; though you don't actually feel it at all, you are, nonetheless, free to declare it the best kiss you've ever given or received. Kafkaesque kiss a kiss that starts out feeling like it's about to transform you but ends up just bugging you. Sartrean kiss a kiss that you worry yourself to death about even though it really doesn't matter anyway. Russell-Whiteheadian kiss a formal kiss in which each lip and tongue movement is rigorously and completely defined, even though it ends up seeming incomplete somehow. Hertzsprung-Russellian kiss Oh, Be A Fine Girl/Guy, Kiss Me. Pythagorean kiss a kiss given by someone who has developed some new and wonderful techniques but refuses to use them on anyone for fear that others would find out about them and copy them. Cartesian kiss a particularly well-planned and coordinated movement: "I think, therefore, I aim." In general, a kiss does not count as Cartesian unless it is applied with enough force to remove all doubt that one has been kissed. (cf. Polar kiss, a more well-rounded movement involving greater nose-to-nose contact, but colder overall.) Heisenbergian kiss a hard-to-define kiss--the more it moves you, the less sure you are of where the kiss was; the more energy it has, the more trouble you have figuring out how long it lasted. Extreme versions of this type of kiss are known as "virtual kisses" because the level of uncertainty is so high that you're not quite sure if you were kissed or not. Virtual kisses have the advantage, however, that you need not have anyone else in the room with you to enjoy them. Nietzscheian kiss "she/he who does not kiss you, makes your lust stronger." Epimenidian kiss a kiss given by someone who does not kiss. Grouchoic kiss a kiss given by someone who will only kiss those who would not kiss him or her. Harpoic kiss shut up and kiss me. Zenoian kiss your lips approach, closer and closer, but never actually touch. Procrustean kiss suffice it to say that it is a technique that, once you've experienced it, you'll never forget it, especially when applied to areas of the anatomy other than the lips. - Doctor Rude -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="philbait.jpg") segment of about 29,094 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="phlneigh.jpg") segment of about 83,002 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="undpants.jpg") segment of about 38,910 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="phildept.jpg") segment of about 26,230 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="gooddog1.jpg") segment of about 41,083 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="gooddog2.jpg") segment of about 31,264 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="affirma.jpg") segment of about 64,677 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="mindbody.jpg") segment of about 39,451 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="allpants.jpg") segment of about 31,990 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="nobetter.jpg") segment of about 44,398 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/JPEG (Name="snoopy.jpg") segment of about 39,894 bytes. ] -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/GIF (Name="finalexam.gif") segment of about 13,287 bytes. ] From aalibali at yahoo.com Sun Oct 28 09:52:12 2001 From: aalibali at yahoo.com (Agron Alibali) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 06:52:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Religious freedoms in Albania, Greece and Macedonia Message-ID: <20011028145212.89172.qmail@web11507.mail.yahoo.com> International Religious Freedom Report Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor October 2001 Albania: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/index.cfm?docid=5757 Bosnia-Herzegovina: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/index.cfm?docid=5570 Bulgaria: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/index.cfm?docid=5578 Croatia: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/index.cfm?docid=5608 _______________________________________ Albania International Religious Freedom Report Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor October 2001 The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report, and government policy continued to contribute to the generally free practice of religion. The generally amicable relationship among the religions in society contributed to religious freedom. The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights. Section I. Religious Demography The country has a total land area of 11,100 square miles, and its population is approximately 3,490,000. It has a largely homogeneous ethnic population, consisting of Ghegs in the north and Tosks in the south. The southern part of the country has ethnic Greek communities estimated at 3 percent of the population. Other small minorities include the Roma, Egyptian people (an ethnic group similar to the Roma but which does not speak the Roma language), Vlachs, Macedonians, and Chams. The majority of citizens are secular in orientation after decades of rigidly enforced atheism under the Communist regime, which ended in 1990. In spite of this secularism, most citizens traditionally associate themselves with a religious group. Albanians of Muslim background make up the largest traditional religious group (roughly 65 to 70 percent of the population) and are divided into two communities: those associated with a moderate form of Sunni Islam and those associated with the Bektashi school (a particularly liberal form of Shi'a Sufism). The country is the world center of the Bektashi school, which moved from Turkey to Albania in 1925 after the revolution of Ataturk. Bektashis are concentrated mainly in central and southern regions of the country and claim that 45 percent of the country's Muslims belong to their school. The Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania (referred to as Orthodox) and the Roman Catholic Church are the other large denominations. An estimated 20 to 30 percent of the population belong to communities that are traditionally Albanian Orthodox, and 10 percent are associated with Roman Catholicism. The Orthodox Church became independent from Constantinople's authority in 1929 but was not recognized as autocephalous, or independent, until 1937. The Church's 1954 statute states that all its archbishops must be of Albanian citizenship. However, the current archbishop is a Greek citizen, because there are no Albanian clerics who meet the Orthodox requirement that higher clergy must be celibate. The Muslims are concentrated mostly in the middle of the country and somewhat in the south; the Orthodox are concentrated mainly in the south, and Catholics in the north of the country; however, this division is not strict. The Greek minority, concentrated in the south, belongs to the Orthodox Church. There are no data available on active participation in formal religious services, but unofficial sources state that 30 to 40 percent of the population practice a religion. Foreign clergy, including Muslim clerics, Christian and Baha'i missionaries, members of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and many others freely carry out religious activities. According to updated data provided by the State Committee on Cults during the reporting period, there are 12 different Muslim societies and groups with some 60 to 70 representatives in the country. There are 50 Christian societies and groups and more than 1,100 missionaries representing Christian or Baha'i organizations. The largest foreign missionary groups are American, British, Italian, Greek, and Arab. Section II. Status of Religious Freedom Legal/Policy Framework The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. According to the 1998 Constitution, there is no official religion and all religions are equal. However, the predominant religious communities (Muslim, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic) function as juridical persons and enjoy a greater social recognition and status based on their historical presence in the country. All registered religious groups have the right to hold bank accounts and to own property and buildings. Official holidays include religious holidays from all three predominant faiths. Religious movements--with the exception of the three de facto recognized religions--can acquire the official status of a juridical person only by registering under the Law on Associations, which recognizes the status of a nonprofit association irrespective of whether the organization has a cultural, recreational, religious, or humanitarian character. The Government does not require registration or licensing of religious groups; however, the State Committee on Cults, founded in September 1999, is currently registering all foreign religious organizations. No groups reported difficulties registering during the period covered by this report. The State Committee on Cults, created by executive decision and based on the Constitution, is charged with regulating the relations between the State and religious communities. The Committee recognizes the equality of religious communities and respects their independence. The Committee works to protect freedom of religion and to promote interreligious development, cooperation, and understanding. It organized seminars in December 2000 and February 2001 to discuss religious tolerance. The Committee claims that registration facilitates the granting of residence permits by police to foreign employees of various religious organizations; however, some foreign religious organizations have complained that obtaining registration has not made gaining residence permits any less cumbersome administratively. There is no law or regulation that forces religious organizations to register with the Committee. There is no law on religious communities, although one is mandated by the new Constitution. Most religious communities recognize the need for such a law to clarify their rights and responsibilities and relationship to the Government. The Committee has shown a willingness to act as a mechanism for creation and passage of such a law; however, no movement on the issue was made during the period covered by this report. Restrictions on Religious Freedom The country is a secular state and religion is not taught in public schools. According to official figures, there are 29 religious schools in the country with approximately 2,745 students. The State Committee on Cults has the right to approve the curricula of religious schools. Students are not allowed to demonstrate their religious affiliations in public schools. In one recent case, the Government prohibited three female students from wearing headscarves in a public school. No restriction is imposed on families regarding the way they raise their children with respect to religious practices. In 1967 the Communists banned all religious practices and expropriated the property of the established Islamic, Orthodox, and Catholic Churches. The Government has not yet returned all the properties and religious objects under its control that were confiscated under the Communist regime. In cases where religious buildings were returned, the Government often failed to return the land that surrounds the buildings, sometimes due to redevelopment claims by private individuals who began farming it or using it for other purposes. The Government does not have the resources to compensate churches adequately for the extensive damage many religious properties suffered. Although it recently recovered some confiscated property, including one large parcel of land near Tirana's main square, the Orthodox Church has complained that it had difficulty in recovering some religious icons for restoration and safekeeping. The Albanian Evangelical Alliance, an association of more than 100 Protestant churches throughout the country, complained that it encountered administrative obstacles to building churches, accessing the media, and receiving exemptions from customs duties. The growing evangelical community continues to seek official recognition and participation in the religious affairs section of the Council of Ministers. There were no reports of religious detainees or prisoners. Forced Religious Conversion There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States. Section III. Societal Attitudes Relations among the various religious groups are generally amicable, and tolerance is widespread. Society is largely secular. Intermarriage among religious groups is extremely common. There are amicable relations between the three main religions in the country, and religious communities take pride in the tolerance and understanding that prevails among them. The Archbishop of the country's Orthodox Church has noted incidents in which the Orthodox and their churches or other buildings have been the targets of vandalism. However, he concluded that the problem was largely due to the country's weak public order. There were no new incidents of vandalism reported during the period covered by this report. Members of the ethnic Greek minority as well as ethnic Albanian and Greek members of the Orthodox Church left the country in large numbers between 1990 and 1991, with another large exodus between 1997 and 1998 because of the lack of security and poor economic prospects. Ethnic Greek Albanians, among others, continue to leave the country in search of employment and/or permanent residence elsewhere. Section IV. U.S. Government Policy The U.S. Government has numerous initiatives to foster the development of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the country, and to further religious freedom and tolerance. The U.S. Embassy periodically has urged the Government to return church lands to the denominations that lost them under Communist rule. Embassy officers, including the Ambassador, meet frequently (both in formal office calls and at representational events) with the heads of the major religious communities in the country. The U.S. Embassy has been active in urging tolerance and moderation on the part of the Government's Committee on Cults. Greece International Religious Freedom Report Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor October 2001 The Constitution establishes the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (Greek Orthodoxy) as the "prevailing" religion, but also provides for the right of all citizens to practice the religion of their choice; however, while the Government generally respects this right, non-Orthodox groups sometimes face administrative obstacles or encounter legal restrictions on religious practice. The Constitution prohibits proselytizing and stipulates that no rite of worship may disturb public order or offend moral principles. Overall, leaders of minority religions noted a general improvement in government tolerance during the period covered by this report, citing fewer detentions for proselytizing; the conscientious objector law; and an effective, well-run Ombudsman's office, which successfully handled an increasing number of cases. The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom. Greeks tend to link religious affiliation very closely to ethnicity. In the minds of many Greeks, an ethnic Greek is also Orthodox Christian. Non-Orthodox citizens have complained of being treated with suspicion or told that they were not truly Greek when they revealed their religious affiliation. The Government's decision in the summer of 2000 to remove a notation of religious affiliation on national identity cards sparked a national debate, which is still continuing, on the role of the Church in Greek society. The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights. U.S. Embassy officers meet regularly with working-level officials responsible for religious affairs in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education and Religious Affairs. Officers from the U.S. Embassy and the Consulate General in Thessaloniki also meet regularly with representatives of various religious groups, including the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic communities. Section I. Religious Demography The country has a total land area of 81,934.74 square miles and its population is approximately 10.9 million. Approximately 94 to 97 percent of the population identify themselves at least nominally with the Greek Orthodox faith. There are approximately 500,000 to 800,000 Old Calendarists throughout the country. With the exception of the Muslim community (some of whose rights and privileges as well as related government obligations are covered by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne), the Government does not keep statistics on the size of religious groups; and the 2001 census did not ask for religious affiliation. Ethnic Greeks account for a sizeable percentage of most non-Orthodox religions. The balance of the population is composed of Muslims (officially estimated at 98,000, though some Muslims claim up to 130,000 to 140,000 countrywide); accurate figures for other religious groups are not available. Members of Jehovah's Witnesses are estimated at 50,000; Catholics at 50,000; Protestants, including evangelicals, at 30,000; Jews at 5,000; and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) at 300. Scientologists claim 12,000 members, a figure observers believe to be high. The Jewish community numbers approximately 5,000 adherents; the majority are Greek citizens and live in the Athens and Thessaloniki regions. Approximately 250 members of the Baha'i Faith are scattered throughout the country, the majority of whom are Greek citizens of non-Greek ethnicity. There are also small populations of Anglicans, Baptists, and nondenominational Christians. There is no official or unofficial estimate of atheists. The majority of noncitizen residents are not Greek Orthodox. The largest of these groups is the Albanians (approximately 700,000 including legal and illegal residents); of them, a few are Orthodox and Roman Catholics, but the majority are nonreligious. Greek Catholics reside particularly in Athens and on the islands of Syros, Tinos, Naxos, and Corfu, as well as in the cities of Thessaloniki and Patras. Immigrants from the Philippines and Poland also practice Catholicism. The Bishop of Athens heads the Roman Catholic Holy Synod. Some religious groups, such as the evangelicals and Jehovah's Witnesses, consist almost entirely of ethnic Greeks. Other groups, such as the Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints and Anglicans, consist of an approximately equal number of ethnic Greeks and non-Greeks. The Muslim population, concentrated in western Thrace with small communities in Rhodes, Kos, and Athens, is composed mainly of ethnic Turks but also includes Pomaks and Roma. Scientologists, most of whom are located in the Athens area, practice their faith through a registered nonprofit philosophical organization. Foreign Missionary groups are active in the country, including Protestants and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the latter states that it has approximately 80 missionaries in the country each year, for approximately 2-year terms. Section II: Status of Religious Freedom Legal/Policy Framework The Constitution establishes the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ (Greek Orthodoxy) as the prevailing religion, but also provides for the right of all citizens to practice the religion of their choice; however, while the Government generally respects this right, non-Orthodox groups sometimes face administrative obstacles, or encounter legal restrictions on religious practice. The Constitution prohibits proselytizing and stipulates that no rite of worship may disturb public order or offend moral principles. The Orthodox Church wields significant political and economic influence. The Government, under the direction of the Ministry of Education and Religion, provides some financial support by, for example, paying for the salaries and religious training of clergy, and financing the construction and maintenance of Orthodox Church buildings. The Orthodox Church and the Jewish and Muslim religions are the only groups considered by law to be a "legal person of public law." Other religions are considered "legal persons of private law." In practice the primary distinction is that the establishment of "houses of prayer" of religions other than the Orthodox Church, Judaism, or Islam is regulated by the general provisions of the Civil Code regarding corporations. For example, these religions cannot, as religious entities, own property; the property must belong to a specifically created legal entity rather than to the church itself. In practice this places an additional legal and administrative burden on non-Orthodox religious community organizations, although in most cases this process has been handled routinely. Members of minority religious groups that are classified as private entities also cannot be represented in court as religious entities and cannot will or inherit property as a religious entity. In July 1999, the Parliament passed a law extending legal recognition to Catholic churches and related entities established prior to 1946. By virtue of the Orthodox Church's status as the "prevailing" religion, the Government recognizes the Orthodox Church's cannon law (the official statutes of the Church). However, the Catholic Church unsuccessfully has sought government recognition of its canon law since 1999. Two laws from the 1930's require recognized or "known" religious groups to obtain "house of prayer" permits from the Ministry of Education and Religion in order to open houses of worship. By law the Ministry may base its decision to issue permits on the opinion of the local Orthodox bishop. No formal mechanism exists to gain recognition as a known religion, but Ministry officials state that they no longer obtain the opinion of the local Orthodox bishop when considering house of prayer permit applications. According to the Ministry's officials, applications for additional houses of prayer are numerous and are approved routinely; however, in October 2000 the Ministry denied the Scientologists of Greece their application for recognition and a house of prayer permit on the grounds that Scientology "is not a religion." The only recent application for recognition as a known religion at the Ministry was submitted in February 2000 by the Scientologists of Greece. Although the deadline mandated by law for processing the applications is 3 months, it took the Ministry until October 2000 to decide that it would not recognize the Scientologist community as an "official" religion. The Church of Scientology appealed the decision with the Council of State in December 2000 and the case will be heard in December 2001. Leaders of some non-Orthodox religious groups claimed that all taxes on religious organizations were discriminatory, even those that the Orthodox Church has to pay, since the Government subsidizes the Orthodox Church, while other groups are self-supporting. The Government also pays the salaries of the two official Muslim religious leaders ("muftis") in western Thrace and provides them with official vehicles. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which is still in force, gives Muslims in western Thrace the right to maintain social and charitable organizations ("wakfs") and provides for muftis (Islamic judges and religious leaders with limited civic responsibilities) to render religious judicial services. The Treaty of Lausanne provides that the Muslim minority has the right to Turkish-language education, with a reciprocal entitlement for the Greek minority in Istanbul (now reduced to approximately 3,000 persons). Western Thrace has both Koranic and secular Turkish-language schools. In the past, government disputes with Turkey over teachers and textbooks had caused these secular schools serious problems in obtaining faculty and teaching materials in sufficient number and quality; however, this is no longer a problem. In January 2000, 19 new Turkish-language textbooks approved jointly by the Governments of Greece and Turkey were distributed in the schools, the first such distribution since 1974. There were no complaints during the period covered by this report that the Government tried to prevent Turkish teachers (who serve under a 1952 reciprocal educational protocol) from performing their duties. Approximately 8,000 Muslim children attended Turkish-language public schools and an additional 150 attended two bilingual middle schools with a religious curriculum. Approximately 600 Muslim students attended Turkish-language secondary schools, and approximately 1,600 Muslim students attended Greek-language secondary schools. Some Muslims, especially in western Thrace, reportedly attended high school in Turkey; places in Turkish language secondary schools are no longer assigned by lottery, as the number of those wanting to attend has been less than the places available. In 1999 the Government instituted a European Union-funded program for teaching Greek as a second language to Muslim children, primarily in the Greek-language schools, to improve their academic performance and chances of obtaining post-secondary education in Greece. Government incentives encourage Muslim and Christian educators to reside and teach in isolated villages. However, in August 1999, the Ministry of Education reformed the hiring system for teachers, which previously was based on seniority and prior service as a temporary teacher. As a result, Christian educators lost the incentive to reside and teach temporarily in isolated and border villages, which in the past secured priority in hiring. However, teachers and civil servants in border areas continue to receive a special allowance and pay lower taxes. The law permits the Minister of Education to give special consideration to Muslims for admission to universities and technical institutes. The law requires universities and technical institutes to set aside places for Muslim students each year. Restrictions on Religious Freedom On October 17, 2000, the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs rejected the application of the Scientologists of Greece for recognition and a house of prayer permit on the grounds that Scientology "is not a religion." The Scientologists had reapplied for a house of prayer permit in late February 2000 in a step toward gaining recognition as a religion. According to the president of the Greek Scientologists, the group chose previously to register as a philosophical organization because legal counsel advised that the Government would not recognize Scientology as a religion. The Scientologists appealed the ministry decision with the Council of State and the case is scheduled to be heard in December 2001. Minority religious groups have requested that the Government abolish laws regulating house of prayer permits, which are required in order to open houses of worship. Many provisions of these laws are not applied in practice, but local police still have the authority to bring minority churches to court that operate or build places of worship without a permit. On December 12, 2000, in Thessaloniki, 16 churches charged with operating without a house of prayer permit were acquitted. Several religious denominations reported difficulties in dealing with the authorities on a variety of administrative matters. Privileges and legal prerogatives granted to the Greek Orthodox Church are not extended routinely to other recognized religions. The non-Greek Orthodox churches must make separate and lengthy applications to government authorities on such matters as gaining permission to move places of worship to larger facilities. In contrast Greek Orthodox officials have an institutionalized link between the church hierarchy and the Ministry of Education and Religion to handle administrative matters. Non-Orthodox citizens have claimed that they face career limits within the military, police, and fire-fighting forces, and the civil service, due to their religions. In the military, generally only members of the Greek Orthodox faith become officers, leading some members of other faiths to declare themselves Orthodox. Few Muslim officers have advanced to the rank of reserve officer, and there were reports of pressure exerted on Greek Orthodox military personnel not to marry in the religious ceremony of their non-Orthodox partner, lest they be passed over for promotion. The percentage of Muslims employed in the public sector and in state-owned industries and corporations is disproportionately lower than the percentage of Muslims in the population, which many observers claim is due to the Greek language barrier, not to religious discrimination. In Xanthi and Komotini, while Muslims hold seats on the prefectural and town councils, there are no Muslims among regular employees of the prefecture. Muslims in western Thrace claim that they are hired only for lower level, part-time work. According to the Government, lack of fluency in written and spoken Greek and the need for university degrees for high-level positions limit the number of Muslims eligible for government jobs. Economically, the Muslim minority in Thrace lags behind the rest of the population. Since 1998, there have been no claims of discriminatory denial of Muslim applications for business licenses, tractor ownership, or property construction. In fact, Muslims and Christians in Thrace commended the Government for the basic public services (electricity, water, and telephone) provided to Muslim villages in recent years. Unlike in the past, there were no reports during the period covered by this report of assertions by Muslim leaders that the Government routinely withheld permission from Muslims seeking to change their legal residence, which determines where they vote, from rural to urban communities within western Thrace or from elsewhere in Greece to Thrace. Several religious denominations, including foreign Protestants and Mormons, reported difficulty in renewing the visas of their non-European Union citizen ministers because the Government does not have a distinct religious workers' visa category. As part of new obligations under the Schengen Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, all non-European Union citizens face a more restrictive visa and residence regime than they did in the past. By the end of the period covered by this report, no progress had been made on issuing visas for foreign clergy to perform their religious work in Greece. The approximately 10,000 member Muslim community in Athens (composed primarily of economic migrants from Thrace, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq) is without its own mosque or any state-appointed cleric to officiate at various religious functions, including funerals. Members of the Muslim community often transport their deceased back to Thrace for religious burials. In June 2000, the Parliament approved a bill allowing construction of the first Islamic cultural center and mosque in the Athens area; however, construction had not started by the end of the period covered by this report. According to official sources, a total of 287 mosques operate freely in western Thrace and on the islands of Rhodes and Kos. Differences remain within the Muslim community and between segments of the community and the Government over the means of selecting muftis. Under a 1991 law, the Government appointed two muftis and one assistant mufti, all residents in Thrace. The appointments to 10-year terms were based on the recommendations of a committee of Muslim notables selected by the Government. The Government argued that it must appoint the muftis, because in addition to religious duties, they perform judicial functions in many civil and domestic matters under Muslim religious law, for which the State pays them. In January 2001, the mufti from Komotini was re-appointed for another 10-year term and in May 2001 the mufti from Xanthi also was re-appointed. Some Muslims accept the authority of the two government-appointed muftis; other Muslims, backed by Turkey, have "elected" two muftis to serve their communities (although there is no established procedure or practice for "election"). The Government has prosecuted "elected" muftis for usurping authority. Controversy between the Muslim community and the Government also continued over the management and self-government of the "wakfs" (Muslim charitable organizations), particularly in regards to the appointment of officials as well as the degree and type of administrative control. A 1980 law placed the administration of the wakfs in the hands of the appointed muftis and their representatives. In response to objections from some Muslims that this arrangement weakened the financial autonomy of the wakfs and violated the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, a 1996 presidential decree put the wakfs under the administration of a committee for 3 years as an interim measure pending resolution of outstanding problems. The interim period was extended in 1999. At the end of the period covered by this report, the Government was preparing a draft bill that would permit Muslims to elect their own administrative committee for each municipality. In the past, Muslim activists have complained that the Government regularly lodges tax liens against the wakfs, although they are tax-free foundations in theory. Under a national land and property registry law that came into full effect in January 1999, the wakfs, along with all property holders, must register all of their property with the Government. The law permits the Government to seize any property that the owners are not able to document; there are built-in reporting and appeals procedures. The wakfs were established in 1560; however, due to the destruction of files during the two world wars, the wakfs are unable to document ownership of much of their property. They have not registered the property, so they cannot pay assessed taxes. The Government had not sought to enforce either the assessments or the registration requirement by the end of the period covered by this report. Evangelical parishes are located throughout the country. Members of missionary faiths report having difficulties with harassment and police detention due to anti-proselytizing laws. Church officials express concern that anti-proselytizing laws remain on the books, although such laws no longer hinder their ministering to the poor and to children. During the period covered by this report, there were no further assertions that the municipality in Thessaloniki and in some villages refused to record the conversion of former Orthodox believers to other religions. In the summer of 2000, the Government decided to remove the notation of religious affiliation on national identity cards. This decision sparked a national debate, which is still continuing, on the role of the Church in Greek society. In January 1998, a law providing an alternative form of mandatory national service for conscientious objectors (for religious and ideological reasons) took effect. It provides that conscientious objectors may work in state hospitals or municipal services for 36 months, in lieu of mandatory military service. Conscientious objector groups generally characterized the legislation as a "positive first step" but criticized the 36-month alternative service term, which is double the regular 18-month period of military service. Since January 1998, all members of Jehovah's Witnesses (both clergy and laymen) who wished to submit applications for alternative nonmilitary service have been permitted to do so. There were 18 religiously based conscientious objector cases still pending resolution at the end of the reporting period. These cases pertain to individuals who were in the process of contesting a prison term for refusing to serve in the military and whose cases were not covered by the 1998 law. A 1939 law prohibits the functioning of private schools in buildings owned by non-Orthodox religious foundations; however, this law is not enforced in practice. Religious instruction in Orthodoxy in public, primary, and secondary schools is mandatory for all Greek Orthodox students. Non-Orthodox students are exempt from this requirement. However, members of Jehovah's Witnesses have reported some instances of discrimination related to attendance at religious education classes or other celebrations of religious or nationalistic character. Members of the Muslim community in Athens are lobbying for Islamic religious instruction for their children. The neighborhood schools offer no alternative supervision for the children during the period of religious instruction. The community has complained that this forces the parents to have their children attend Orthodox religious instruction by default. In Thessaloniki in late 1999, the Government Tax Office refused to recognize the Jehovah Witnesses as a non-profit association (Evangelicals and Baha'is are considered non-profit associations) and imposed an inheritance tax for property willed to them. The groups appealed the decision in 2000; the Court of Appeals wrote off the imposed tax in April 2001. Abuses of Freedom of Religion Church leaders report that their permanent members (nonmissionaries) do not encounter discriminatory treatment. However, police occasionally detained Mormons and members of Jehovah's Witnesses (on average once every 2 weeks) after receiving complaints that the individuals were engaged in proselytizing. In most cases, these individuals were held for several hours at a police station and then released with no charges filed. Many reported that they were not allowed to call their lawyers and that they were abused verbally by police officers for their religious beliefs. There were no proselytizing-related court cases during the period covered by this report. Some Muslims accept the authority of the two Government-appointed muftis; other Muslims, backed by Turkey, have "elected" two muftis to serve their communities. The Government has convicted one of the elected muftis 14 times in 5 years for usurping the authority of the official mufti. All of the respective sentences remained suspended pending appeal at the end of the period covered by this report. The other elected mufti, who was convicted in 1991 of usurping the authority of the official mufti, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. In December 1999, the court ruled that the conviction violated his freedom of religion and self-expression, but it did not rule on the question of his legal status as mufti. There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees apart from the problems of temporary police detention experienced by Mormons and members of Jehovah's Witnesses. Forced Religious Conversion There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States. Improvements in Freedom of Religion Overall, leaders of minority religions noted a general improvement in government tolerance during the period covered by this report, citing fewer detentions for proselytizing, the conscientious objector law, and an effective, well-run Ombudsman's office, which successfully handled an increasing number of cases related to religious freedom. Section III. Societal Attitudes Greeks tend to link religious affiliation very closely to ethnicity. Many attribute the preservation of Greek national identity to the actions of the Greek Orthodox Church during approximately 400 years of Ottoman rule and the subsequent nation building period. The Church wields significant social, political, and economic influence, and it owns a considerable, although undetermined, amount of property. In the minds of many Greeks, an ethnic Greek is also an Orthodox Christian. Non-Orthodox citizens have complained of being treated with suspicion or told that they were not truly Greek when they revealed their religious affiliation. Members of minority faiths have reported incidents of societal discrimination, such as local bishops warning parishioners not to visit clergy or members of minority faiths and neighbors, and requesting that the police arrest missionaries for proselytizing. However, with the exception of the Muslim minority of western Thrace, most members of minority faiths consider themselves satisfactorily integrated into society. Organized official interaction between religious communities is infrequent. Some non-Orthodox religious communities believe that they have been unable to communicate with officials of the Orthodox Church and claim that the attitude of the Orthodox Church toward their faiths has increased social intolerance toward their religions. The Orthodox Church has issued a list of practices and religious groups, including members of Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelical Protestants, Scientologists, Mormons, Baha'is, and others, which it believes to be sacrilegious. Officials of the Orthodox Church have acknowledged that they refuse to enter into dialog with religious groups considered harmful to Greek Orthodox worshipers; church leaders instruct Orthodox Greeks to shun members of these faiths. In October 1999, a rededication of a synagogue in Hania, Crete as a house of prayer and a cultural center was marred by public criticism of the event by the regional governor. However, the Minister of National Education and Religion, and other government and Greek Orthodox officials, lent their support to the rededication. A new Jewish museum opened in Thessaloniki in early March 2001 and was officially inaugurated by the Jewish community in Thessaloniki and the Greek authorities in May 2001. A temporary Anne Frank exhibition was displayed in Thessaloniki in April 2001. Conservative Orthodox clerics protested Pope John Paul II's May 4 to 5, 2001, visit to the country; however, the Government distanced itself from these extremists, as did Archbishop Christodoulos and most members of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Government's decision in 2000 to remove religious affiliation from national identity cards led to a national debate. The issue led Archbishop Christodoulos to organize religious protest rallies in Thessaloniki and Athens in June 2000. Both demonstrations drew over 100,000 supporters. Archbishop Christodoulos vociferously criticized the Government and launched a campaign to collect signatures to petition the Government to allow religious affiliation as an option on national identity cards. The Orthodox Church alleges that it has collected 3 million signatures. In March 2001, Archbishop Christodoulos blamed "the Jews" for the government's decision to remove notation of religious affiliation on national identity cards. The Government distanced itself from Christodoulos' statement. In April 2001, vandals desecrated the Jewish Cemetery of Trikala. Section IV. U.S. Government Policy The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights. Embassy officers meet regularly with working-level officials responsible for religious affairs in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education and Religious Affairs. The Ambassador and Political Counselor discussed religious freedom with senior government officials and religious leaders. The U.S. Embassy also regularly discusses religious freedom issues in contacts with other government officials, including mayors, regional leaders, and Members of Parliament. Officers from the Embassy and the Consulate General in Thessaloniki meet regularly with representatives of various religious groups, including the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic communities. In March 2001, in the first visit by a U.S. Ambassador to Thrace in 34 years, the Ambassador met with leaders of the Muslim and Christian communities. The U.S. Embassy investigates every complaint of religious discrimination brought to its attention. Employees of the U.S. Embassy's consular section have helped Bible Baptist clergy get permission to visit all prisoners, not only those of the Baptist faith. The consular section also has actively followed issues relating to religious workers' visas and property taxes. The U.S. Embassy and Consulate promote and support initiatives related to religious freedom. For example, Embassy staff has gathered leaders of the religious minority groups in Athens together for representational dinners. Participants noted the uniqueness and the value of such gatherings in Greece. The Ambassador has been an open supporter of the Jewish Museum and the Jewish community in general. During an official visit to Rhodes, he visited the Jewish and Muslim communities. In April 2001, the Consul General and the Deputy Chief of Mission attended the opening of the Anne Frank exhibition displayed in Thessaloniki. The Ambassador and embassy officials regularly visit religious sites throughout the country, invite representatives of all faiths to social events, and meet with individuals of all faiths. _________________________________________ Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of International Religious Freedom Report Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor October 2001 The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. There was no overall change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report; however, beginning in early spring of 2001, an armed conflict began between the Government and armed ethnic Albanian extremists. While religion has not been a focus of the conflict, both sides have occasionally targeted religious buildings due to the linkage between religion and ethnicity in the country. The law places some limits on religious practice by restricting the establishments of places of worship and restricting where contributions may be made. In 2000 both government policy and the generally amicable relationship among the various religious communities contributed to the free practice of religion. However, the religious communities often reflect an ethnic identity as well, and during 2001 societal tensions increased. The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government in the context of its overall dialog and policy of promoting human rights. Section I. Religious Demography The country has a total area of 9,781 square miles and its population is approximately 2 million. The country has three major religions. Nominally, about 66 percent of the population are Macedonian Orthodox, about 30 percent are Muslim, about 1 percent are Roman Catholic, and about 3 percent are of other faiths (largely various Protestant denominations). There is also a small Jewish community in Skopje. Numerous foreign missionaries are active and represent a very wide range of faiths. Many of these missionaries enter the country in connection with other work, often charitable or medical. Several Protestant missionary groups and Jehovah's Witnesses are active. Religious participation tends to focus on major holidays or life cycle events. Section II. Status of Religious Freedom Legal/Policy Framework The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. However, the law places some limits on religious practices including the establishment of places of worship and the collection of contributions. Despite the specific mention of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the Constitution, that Church does not have official status. The constitutional provision for religious freedom is refined further in the 1997 Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups. This law designates the Macedonian Orthodox Church, the Islamic community, and the Roman Catholic Church as religious communities, and all other religions as religious groups. However, there is no legal differentiation between religious communities and groups. In early 1999, the Constitutional Court struck down several provisions of the 1997 law, and in practice the remaining provisions of the law are not enforced consistently. A committee has been formed to draft a new law. The Government requires that religious groups be registered. The 1997 Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups contained a number of specific requirements for the registration of religious groups that were struck down by the Constitutional Court in early 1999. Consequently, there was considerable confusion over which procedures still applied, and several foreign religious bodies experienced delays in their efforts to register. During the period covered by this report, the process remained slow and cumbersome. In practice, religious groups need to register to obtain permits to build churches, and to request visas for foreigners and other permits from the Government. During 2000 several international Protestant churches were granted legal registration, and several others were at some stage in the process as of the end of the period covered by this report. One Islamic group withdrew its 1998 application for registration but continues to operate openly without taking further steps toward legal registration. The Government has not taken any enforcement actions against the group. The Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups also requires that foreign nationals carrying out religious work and religious rites be registered with the Government's Commission on Relations with the Religious Communities. The Government does not actively monitor new groups or advise the public on them. Restrictions on Religious Freedom The Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups places some restrictions on the establishment of places of worship. It provides that religious rites and religious activities "shall take place at churches, mosques, and other temples, and in gardens that are parts of those facilities, at cemeteries, and at other facilities of the religious group." Provision is made for holding services in other places, provided that a permit is obtained at least 15 days in advance. No permit or permission is required to perform religious rites in a private home. The law also states that religious activities "shall not violate the public peace and order, and shall not disrespect the religious feelings and other freedoms and rights" of persons who are not members of that particular religion. The Government does not actively enforce most of these provisions of the law but acts upon complaints when they are received. Several registered Protestant groups have been unable to obtain building permits for new church facilities due to normal bureaucratic complications that affect all new construction. Churches and mosques often are built without the appropriate building permits. The Government has not taken any actions against religious buildings that lack proper construction permits. The Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups also places some limitations on the collection of contributions by restricting them only to places where religious rites and activities are conducted. Children below the age of 10 years may not receive religious instruction without the permission of their parents or guardians. The 1997 Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups specifically allows for foreign citizens to carry out religious activities, but only at the request of a registered religious body. Because many evangelical Christian missionaries wish to conduct religious activities that are aimed at the creation of new groups of believers, rather than at operating through existing churches, some foreign missionaries have chosen to disregard this portion of the law. This approach has on occasion led to difficulties for those missionaries, as the authorities have questioned their actual reasons for entering the country, usually on tourist visas. During the period covered by this report, several missionaries with improper immigration status were able to obtain religious worker visas. Several applications still were pending in June 2001. The issue of restitution of previously state-owned religious properties has not been resolved fully. Many churches and mosques had extensive grounds or other properties that were expropriated by the Communist regime. Virtually all churches and mosques have been returned to the ownership of the appropriate religious community, but that is not the case for many of the other properties. Often the claims are complicated by the fact that the seized properties have changed hands many times or have been developed. In view of the country's very limited financial resources, it is unlikely that religious communities can expect to regain much from the expropriated properties. Abuses of Religious Freedom During the anti-Albanian riots in June 2001 in Bitola, during which rioters vandalized the village mosque (see Section III), local police reportedly did not take any actions to stop the attacks. According to nongovernmental observers, some witnesses claimed that a few police officers allegedly participated in the riots. The riots broke out after several Bitola police officers were killed by ethnic Albanian extremists. [P1] There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees. Forced Religious Conversion There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the Government's refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States. Section III. Societal Attitudes In 2000 both government policy and the generally amicable relationship among the various religious communities contributed to the free practice of religion. However, the religious communities often reflect an ethnic identity as well, and during 2001 societal tensions increased. During the period covered by this report, there has been an ongoing armed conflict between the Government and armed ethnic Albanian extremists. While religion has not been a focus of the conflict, both sides have occasionally targeted religious buildings due to the linkage between religion and ethnicity in the country. The religious communities in the country often reflect an ethnic identity as well. Specifically, most Muslims are ethnic Albanians, while virtually all Macedonian Orthodox believers are ethnic Macedonians. Societal discrimination is more likely to be based upon ethnic bias than upon religious prejudice. During the period covered by this report, there were two significant anti-Albanian riots in Bitola, in April and June, which displayed anti-Muslim attitudes. In June 2001, rioters vandalized the Bitola mosque, breaking windows, setting fire to the mosque interior, and breaking open several graves. Rioters also sprayed swastikas and anti-Albanian graffiti on the mosque. In the fall of 2000, local skinheads desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Bitola. The city government, in a gesture of tolerance, agreed to pay to repair the damage. The leaders of the long-established Orthodox, Muslim, and Roman Catholic communities have better connections within the Government than do the leaders of new churches, and there were some indications of an effort by the established religions to use that influence to shut out newcomers. Section IV. U.S. Government Policy During the period covered by this report, the U.S. Embassy initiated an extensive dialog with the Government's Commission on Relations with the Religious Communities, the office charged with the implementation of the Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups. This contact was sought after several American missionaries advised the Embassy that they were having difficulties in their efforts to register their organizations or workers. The Embassy also intervened successfully to help seven U.S. missionaries to regularize their status in the country. The missionaries had encountered bureaucratic obstruction in their attempts to obtain religious worker visas. The leaders of the various religious communities in the country, as well as the head of the Commission on Religious Communities and Religious Groups, met with the Ambassador on several occasions during the period covered by this report. _________________________________ --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Sun Oct 28 11:54:21 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 09:54:21 -0700 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] Noam Chomsky: The New War Against Terror Message-ID: <000f01c15fd1$31a9cde0$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> copied & pasted without permission from http://www.counterpunch.com The New War Against Terror By Noam Chomsky [Transcribed from audio recorded during Chomsky's talk at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT] Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher]. I just got orders that I'm supposed to be here, not there. Well the last talk I gave at this forum was on a light pleasant topic. It was about how humans are an endangered species and given the nature of their institutions they are likely to destroy themselves in a fairly short time. So this time there is a little relief and we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on terror. Unfortunately, the world keeps coming up with things that make it more and more horrible as we proceed. I'm going to assume 2 conditions for this talk. The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That is that the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most devastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war. The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that our goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes whether they are against us or against someone else. If you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will not be addressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of questions arise, closely related ones, which merit a good deal of thought. The 5 Questions One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening right now? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The 2nd has to do with the very common assumption that what happened on September 11 is a historic event, one which will change history. I tend to agree with that. I think it's true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking is exactly why? The 3rd question has to do with the title, The War Against Terrorism. Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely what is terrorism? The 4th question which is narrower but important has to do with the origins of the crimes of September 11th. And the 5th question that I want to talk a little about is what policy options there are in fighting this war against terrorism and dealing with the situations that led to it. I'll say a few things about each. Glad to go beyond in discussion and don't hesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that come to my mind as prominent but you may easily and plausibly have other choices. 1. What's Happening Right Now? Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the New York Times [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times there are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation. That was true actually before September 11th. They were surviving on international aid. On September 16th, the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States demanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As far as I could determine there was no reaction in the United States or for that matter in Europe. I was on national radio all over Europe the next day. There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my knowledge to the demand to impose massive starvation on millions of people. The threat of military strikes right after September.....around that time forced the removal of international aid workers that crippled the assistance programs. Actually, I am quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees reaching Pakistan after arduous journeys from AF are describing scenes of desperation and fear at home as the threat of American led military attacks turns their long running misery into a potential catastrophe. The country was on a lifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an evacuated aid worker, in the New York Times Magazine. The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by far, were able to resume after 3 weeks in early October, they began to resume at a lower level, resume food shipments. They don't have international aid workers within, so the distribution system is hampered. That was suspended as soon as the bombing began. They then resumed but at a lower pace while aid agencies leveled scathing condemnations of US airdrops, condemning them as propaganda tools which are probably doing more harm than good. That happens to be quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to continue. After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back page inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote, but with bombs falling the delivery rate is down to * of what is needed. Casual comment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the bombing to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm aware that was unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAM and Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can't find a report in the New York Times. There was a line in the Boston Globe, hidden in a story about another topic, Kashmir. Silent Genocide Well we could easily go on....but all of that....first of all indicates to us what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next couple of weeks....very casually with no comment, no particular thought about it, that's just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the rest of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you read the Irish press or the press in Scotland...that close, reactions are very different. Well that's what's happening now. What's happening now is very much under our control. We can do a lot to affect what's happening. And that's roughly it. 2. Why was it a Historic Event? National Territory Attacked Alright let's turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting for the moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4 million people, not Taliban of course, their victims. Let's go back...turn to the question of the historic event that took place on September 11th. As I said, I think that's correct. It was a historic event. Not unfortunately because of its scale, unpleasant to think about, but in terms of the scale it's not that unusual. I did say it's the worst...probably the worst instant human toll of any crime. And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately. Nevertheless, it's a historic event because there was a change. The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That's new. Radically new. So, take US history. The last time that the national territory of the United States was under attack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the British burned down Washington in 1814. There have been many...it was common to bring up Pearl Harbor but that's not a good analogy. The Japanese, what ever you think about it, the Japanese bombed military bases in 2 US colonies not the national territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants in not a very pretty way. This is the national territory that's been attacked on a large scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique. During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or mostly exterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions of people, conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region, Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines, killing several 100,000 Filipinos in the process. Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I don't have to describe. But it was always killing someone else, the fighting was somewhere else, it was others who were getting slaughtered. Not here. Not the national territory. Europe In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because its history is even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot of Europe, basically. For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people all over the world. That's how they conquered the world, not by handing out candy to babies. During this period, Europe did suffer murderous wars, but that was European killers murdering one another. The main sport of Europe for hundreds of years was slaughtering one another. The only reason that it came to an end in 1945, was....it had nothing to do with Democracy or not making war with each other and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the fact that everyone understood that the next time they play the game it was going to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including us, had developed such massive weapons of destruction that that game just have to be over. And it goes back hundreds of years. In the 17th century, about probably 40% of the entire population of Germany was wiped out in one war. But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans slaughtering each other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere. The Congo didn't attack Belgium, India didn't attack England, Algeria didn't attack France. It's uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small in scale, certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us were doing to the rest of the world. This is the first change. The first time that the guns have been pointed the other way. And in my opinion that's probably why you see such different reactions on the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have noticed, incidentally, in many interviews on both sides, national radio on both sides. The world looks very different depending on whether you are holding the lash or whether you are being whipped by it for hundreds of years, very different. So I think the shock and surprise in Europe and its offshoots, like here, is very understandable. It is a historic event but regrettably not in scale, in something else and a reason why the rest of the world...most of the rest of the world looks at it quite differently. Not lacking sympathy for the victims of the atrocity or being horrified by them, that's almost uniform, but viewing it from a different perspective. Something we might want to understand. 3. What is the War Against Terrorism? Well, let's go to the third question, 'What is the war against terrorism?' and a side question, 'What's terrorism?'. The war against terrorism has been described in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is spread by barbarians, by "depraved opponents of civilization itself." That's a feeling that I share. The words I'm quoting, however, happen to be from 20 years ago. Those are...that's President Reagan and his Secretary of State. The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war against international terrorism would be the core of our foreign policy....describing it in terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And it was the core of our foreign policy. The Reagan administration responded to this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the world, primarily....well, partly nearby, but not only there. I won't run through the record, you're all educated people, so I'm sure you learned about it in High School. [crowd laughter] Reagan--US War Against Nicaragua But I'll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we might as well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme but uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial because of the judgments of the highest international authorities the International Court of Justice, the World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at least among people who have some minimal concern for international law, human rights, justice and other things like that. And now I'll leave you an exercise. You can estimate the size of that category by simply asking how often this uncontroversial case has been mentioned in the commentary of the last month. And it's a particularly relevant one, not only because it is uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to how a law abiding state would respond to...did respond in fact to international terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even more extreme than the events of September 11th. I'm talking about the Reagan-US war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery. Nicaragua's Response Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond by setting off bombs in Washington. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting a case, they had no problem putting together evidence. The World Court accepted their case, ruled in their favor, ordered the...condemned what they called the "unlawful use of force," which is another word for international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United States to terminate the crime and to pay massive reparations. The United States, of course, dismissed the court judgment with total contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then went to the UN Security Council which considered a resolution calling on all states to observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyone understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands as the only state on record which has both been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on states to observe international law. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there is technically no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto. It passed a similar resolution with only the United States, Israel, and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time the United States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to observing international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn't do anything lawful. It tried all the measures. They don't work in a world that is ruled by force. This case is uncontroversial but it's by no means the most extreme. We gain a lot of insight into our own culture and society and what's happening now by asking 'how much we know about all this? How much we talk about it? How much you learn about it in school? How much it's all over the front pages?' And this is only the beginning. The United States responded to the World Court and the Security Council by immediately escalating the war very quickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war were also changed. For the first time there were official orders given...official orders to the terrorist army to attack what are called "soft targets," meaning undefended civilian targets, and to keep away from the Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the United States had total control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army was supplied with advanced communication equipment, it wasn't a guerilla army in the normal sense and could get instructions about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces so they could attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and so on...soft targets with impunity. Those were the official orders. What was the Reaction Here? What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it. The policy was regarded as sensible by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley who represents the left in mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which he said that we shouldn't be too quick to criticize this policy as Human Rights Watch had just done. He said a "sensible policy" must "meet the test of cost benefit analysis" -- that is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of "the amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that democracy will emerge at the other end." Democracy as the US understands the term, which is graphically illustrated in the surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that the United States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis and to pursue the project if it passes their tests. And it did pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed to superpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the success of the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So I'll quote Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success of the methods adopted: "to wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves," with a cost to us that is "minimal," and leaving the victims "with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms," and thus providing the US candidate with a "winning issue": "ending the impoverishment of the people of Nicaragua." The New York Times had a headline saying "Americans United in Joy" at this outcome. Terrorism Works--Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One is the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usually works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error to say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like other means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as terror. Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way. So pick the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They were protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And like other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were carrying out counter terror. Furthermore, the United States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the US army did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in Europe. First I should say that the US picked them up and began carrying them out itself, often against the same targets, the former resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods published interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were inefficiently carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do this right, you did that right, but those methods with the advice of Wermacht officers who were brought over here became the manuals of counter insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict, as it is called, and are the manuals, and are the procedures that are being used. So it's not just that the Nazis did it. It's that it was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders of western civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do it themselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of those who are against 'us' whoever 'us' happens to be. And if you can find a historical exception to that, I'd be interested in seeing it. Nature of our Culture--How We Regard Terrorism Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our high culture, is the way in which all of this is regarded. One way it's regarded is just suppressing it. So almost nobody has ever heard of it. And the power of American propaganda and doctrine is so strong that even among the victims it's barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people in Argentina, you have to remind them. Oh, yeah, that happened, we forgot about it. It's deeply suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can be very powerful in ideological and other terms. The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism is the reaction to the idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself. Actually I went through this in some detail with database searches and that sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing in mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might have that right. And that fact was exploited by the Reagan administration and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of you who were around in that time will remember that they periodically floated rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets from Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. The hawks said, 'ok, let's bomb 'em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's see if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let's bomb them. Because they are a threat to the United States.' Why, incidentally were they getting MIGs. Well they tried to get jet planes from European countries but the United States put pressure on its allies so that it wouldn't send them means of defense because they wanted them to turn to the Russians. That's good for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat to us. Remember, they were just 2 days march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a national emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of Nicaragua. And it stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get arms from the Russians. Why would they want jet planes? Well, for the reasons I already mentioned. The United States had total control over their airspace, was over flying it and using that to provide instructions to the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without running into the army that might defend them. Everyone knew that that was the reason. They are not going to use their jet planes for anything else. But the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend its airspace against a superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to attack undefended civilian targets, that was considered in the United States as outrageous and uniformly so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically list them. I don't suggest that you take my word for this. Have a look. That includes our own senators, incidentally. Honduras--The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the United Nations Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right now. The US has just appointed an ambassador to the United Nations to lead the war against terrorism a couple weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is John Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in the fiefdom, which is what it is, of Honduras in the early 1980's. There was a little fuss made about the fact that he must have been aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale murders and other atrocities that were being carried out by the security forces in Honduras that we were supporting. But that's a small part of it. As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his government was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador to lead the war against terror. Another small experiment you can do is check and see what the reaction was to this. Well, I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself. Now that tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a lot about ourselves. After the United States took over the country again under the conditions that were so graphically described by the press, the country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980's, but it has totally collapsed since in every respect just about. Economically it has declined sharply since the US take over, democratically and in every other respect. It's now the second poorest country in the Hemisphere. I should say....I'm not going to talk about it, but I mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial case. If you look at the other states in the region, the state terror was far more extreme and it again traces back to Washington and that's by no means all. US & UK Backed South African Attacks It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During the Reagan years alone, South African attacks, backed by the United States and Britain, US/UK-backed South African attacks against the neighboring countries killed about a million and a half people and left 60 billion dollars in damage and countries destroyed. And if we go around the world, we can add more examples. Now that was the first war against terror of which I've given a small sample. Are we supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of think that that might be relevant? After all it's not exactly ancient history. Well, evidently not as you can tell by looking at the current discussion of the war on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month. Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere. What's the poorest country? Well that's of course Haiti which also happens to be the victim of most US intervention in the 20th century by a long shot. We left it totally devastated. It's the poorest country. Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the 20th century. It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with Guatemala. They interchange every year or two as to who's the second poorest. And they also vie as to who is the leading target of US military intervention. We're supposed to think that all of this is some sort of accident. That is has nothing to do with anything that happened in history. Maybe. Colombia and Turkey The worst human rights violator in the 1990's is Colombia, by a long shot. It's also the, by far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the 1990's maintaining the terror and human rights violations. In 1999, Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, that is excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And that tells us a lot more about the war on terror right now, in fact. Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you take a look at the flow of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It's strategically placed, a member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow to Turkey went up very sharply in 1984. It didn't have anything to do with the cold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it stayed high from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the lead by Colombia. What happened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major terrorist war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that's when US aid went up, military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks, military training, and so on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalated through the 1990's. Aid followed it. The peak year was 1997. In 1997, US military aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period 1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period, which is an indication of how much the cold war has affected policy. And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees. Some of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens of thousands of people killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way more than Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the United States was providing 80% of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked as it usually does when carried out by its major agents, mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of course counter-terror, but as I said, that's universal, it worked. Therefore Turkey was replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its terrorist war. And therefore had to move into first place as recipient of US arms. Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this was taking place right in the midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation on the part of Western intellectuals which probably has no counterpart in history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years ago. Massive self-adulation about how for the first time in history we are so magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values; dedicated to ending inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that, and so-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't tolerate atrocities right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated over and over. Only within the borders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate much worse atrocities but contribute to them. Another insight into Western civilization and our own, is how often was this brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it's instructive. It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carry this off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't think you could do this in a totalitarian state. Turkey is Very Grateful And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that Turkey would join the coalition against terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact, he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing to do. And he explained why. He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively to our own, in his words "counter-terrorist" war, that is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror. Other countries helped a little, but they stayed back. The United States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically and decisively and was able to do so because of the silence, servility might be the right word, of the educated classes who could easily find out about it. It's a free country after all. You can read human rights reports. You can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to contribute to the atrocities and Turkey is very happy, they owe us a debt of gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as during the war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using its F-16's which we supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same planes against its own population up until the time when it finally succeeded in crushing internal terror as they called it. And as usual, as always, resistance does include terror. Its true of the American Revolution. That's true of every case I know. Just as its true that those who have a monopoly of violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror. The Coalition--Including Algeria, Russia, China, and Indonesia Now that's pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that is now being organized to fight the war against terror. And it's very interesting to see how that coalition is being described. So have a look at this morning's Christian Science Monitor. That's a good newspaper. One of the best international newspapers, with real coverage of the world. The lead story, the front-page story, is about how the United States, you know people used to dislike the United States but now they are beginning to respect it, and they are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war against terror. And the prime example, well in fact the only serious example, the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria is very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person who wrote the article is an expert on Africa. He must know that Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by defectors from the Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in England and so on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst terrorist states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the war. That shows how popular we are getting. And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror it tells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia which is delighted to have the United States support its murderous terrorist war in Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the background. China is joining enthusiastically. It's delighted to have support for the atrocities it's carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslim secessionists. Turkey, as I mentioned, is very happy with the war against terror. They are experts. Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US support for atrocities it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we can run through the list, the list of the states that have joined the coalition against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in common. They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And they happen to be led by the world champion. What is Terrorism? Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have been assuming we understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen to be some easy answers to this. There is an official definition. You can find it in the US code or in US army manuals. A brief statement of it taken from a US army manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain political or religious ideological goals through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That's terrorism. That's a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable to accept that. The problem is that it can't be accepted because if you accept that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the consequences I have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at the UN to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the Nobel prize the other day, you will notice he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting time on this and really get down to it. But there's a problem. If you use the official definition of terrorism in the comprehensive treaty you are going to get completely the wrong results. So that can't be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you take a look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is official US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of what I just read. In fact, Low Intensity Conflict is just another name for terrorism. That's why all countries, as far as I know, call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actual definitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't have all the wrong consequences. Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution Condemning Terrorism? There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December 1987, at the peak of the first war on terrorism, that's when the furor over the plague was peaking. The United Nations General Assembly passed a very strong resolution against terrorism, condemning the plague in the strongest terms, calling on every state to fight against it in every possible way. It passed unanimously. One country, Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the usual two, United States and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote against a major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty much the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which says that nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of people struggling against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other states, states outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can't accept that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time was because of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially called an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It was called the African National Congress. They were a terrorist force officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and we certainly couldn't support actions by a terrorist group struggling against a racist regime. That would be impossible. And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied territories, now going into its 35th year. Supported primarily by the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement for 30 years now, still is. And you can't have that. There is another one at the time. Israel was occupying Southern Lebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist force, Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we can't allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is one that we support so therefore the US and Israel had to vote against the major UN resolution on terrorism. And I mentioned before that a US vote against...is essentially a veto. Which is only half the story. It also vetoes it from history. So none of this was every reported and none of it appeared in the annals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so on, nothing that I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the wrong people holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions and the scholarship and so on so that you come out with the right conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship and honorable journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are hampering the effort to develop a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have an academic conference or something to try to see if we can figure out a way of defining terrorism so that it comes out with just the right answers, not the wrong answers. That won't be easy. 4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime? Well, let's drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the origins of the September 11 crimes? Here we have to make a distinction between 2 categories which shouldn't be run together. One is the actual agents of the crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at least sympathy, sometimes support that they appeal to even among people who very much oppose the criminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things. Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are not really clear. The United States either is unable or unwilling to provide any evidence, any meaningful evidence. There was a sort of a play a week or two ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to present it. I don't exactly know what the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as though it's holding back on some secret evidence that it can't reveal or that Tony Blair could strike proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the PR [public relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was in serious circles considered so absurd that it was barely even mentioned. So the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of the more serious papers had a small story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out that there was not much evidence and then they quoted some high US official as saying that it didn't matter whether there was any evidence because they were going to do it anyway. So why bother with the evidence? The more ideological press, like the New York Times and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the Wall Street Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at the so-called evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's true. It is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought you could do better than that without any intelligence service [audience laughter]. In fact, remember this was after weeks of the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence services of the western world working overtime trying to put something together. And it was a prima facie, it was a very strong case even before you had anything. And it ended up about where it started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it is true. So let's assume that, it looked obvious the first day, still does, that the actual perpetrators come from the radical Islamic, here called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they were involved or not nobody knows. It doesn't really matter much. Where did they come from? That's the background, those networks. Well, where do they come from? We know all about that. Nobody knows about that better than the CIA because it helped organize them and it nurtured them for a long time. They were brought together in the 1980's actually by the CIA and its associates elsewhere: Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China was involved, they may have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978. The idea was to try to harass the Russians, the common enemy. According to President Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979. Do you remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support for the mojahedin fighting against the government began 6 months earlier. He is very proud of that. He says we drew the Russians into, in his words, an Afghan trap, by supporting the mojahedin, getting them to invade, getting them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary army. Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best killers they could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from around North Africa, Saudi Arabia....anywhere they could find them. They were often called the Afghanis but many of them, like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA and its friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling the truth or not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he is apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. But maybe it's true. We'll know someday if the documents are ever released. Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in doubt that the US was organizing the Afghanis and this massive military force to try to cause the Russians maximal trouble. It was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to fight the Russian invasion. But the US intervention was not helping the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much more. The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians to withdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably delayed their withdrawal because they were trying to get out of it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw. Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming, and training were pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no secret. One of the first acts was in 1981 when they assassinated the President of Egypt, who was one of the most enthusiastic of their creators. In 1983, one suicide bomber, who may or may not have been connected, it's pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one suicide bomber drove the US army-military out of Lebanon. And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilize them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. They were clear very about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn, they simply turned elsewhere. Since then they have been fighting in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South East Asia, North Africa, all over the place. The Are Telling Us What They Think They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants to silence the one free television channel in the Arab world because it's broadcasting a whole range of things from Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US is now joining the repressive regimes of the Arab world that try to shut it up. But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden says, it's worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews by leading Western reporters, if you don't want to listen to his own voice, Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for a long time. He's not the only one but maybe he is the most eloquent. It's not only consistent over a long time, it is consistent with their actions. So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime enemy is what they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal regimes of the Arab world and when the say that they get quite a resonance in the region. They also want to defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamist governments. That's where they lose the people of the region. But up till then, they are with them. From their point of view, even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world, I suppose, short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot, even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at that point, they get very little support, but up until that point they get plenty of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate the Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in Russia as they had been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia, not just in Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there they are defending Muslims against a Russian invasion. Same with all the other places I mentioned. From their point of view, they are defending the Muslims against the infidels. And they are very clear about it and that is what they have been doing. Why did they turn against the United States? Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do with what they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is way more important. That's the home of the holiest sites of Islam. And that is when their activities turned against the Unites States. If you recall, in 1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, but not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up the UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think there were others on the list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed for that, finally, among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had been brought into the United States over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if you want to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent picture. It's described in words. It's revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no reason not to take it seriously. That's the first category, the likely perpetrators. Category 2: What about the reservoir of support? What about the reservoir of support? Well, it's not hard to find out what that is. One of the good things that has happened since September 11 is that some of the press and some of the discussion has begun to open up to some of these things. The best one to my knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which right away began to run, within a couple of days, serious reports, searching serious reports, on the reasons why the people of the region, even though they hate bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless support him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as one said. Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying public opinion. They are surveying the opinion of their friends: bankers, professionals, international lawyers, businessmen tied to the United States, people who they interview in MacDonalds restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. That's the people they are interviewing because they want to find out what their attitudes are. And their attitudes are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the United States because of its support of authoritarian and brutal regimes; its intervention to block any move towards democracy; its intervention to stop economic development; its policies of devastating the civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if we prefer not to, that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin Laden brings that up constantly, and they know it even if we don't want to. And of course their support for the Israeli military occupation which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has been providing the overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic support for it, and still does. And they know that and they don't like it. Especially when that is paired with US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which is getting destroyed. Ok, those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden gives those reasons, people recognize it and support it. Now that's not the way people here like to think about it, at least educated liberal opinion. They like the following line which has been all over the press, mostly from left liberals, incidentally. I have not done a real study but I think right wing opinion has generally been more honest. But if you look at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed they ran by Ronald Steel, serious left liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This is the same day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the survey on why they hate us. So he says "They hate us because we champion a new world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and democracy that should be the norm everywhere." That's why they hate us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions of bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look, we hate you because you are blocking democracy, you are preventing economic development, you are supporting brutal regimes, terrorist regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.' A couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained that the terrorist seek only "apocalyptic nihilism," nothing more and nothing we do matters. The only consequence of our actions, he says, that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for Arabs to join in the coalition's anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do is irrelevant. Well, you know, that's got the advantage of being sort of comforting. It makes you feel good about yourself, and how wonderful you are. It enables us to evade the consequences of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One is it is at total variance with everything we know. And another defect is that it is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of violence. If you want to live with your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us because they're opposed to globalization, that's why they killed Sadat 20 years ago, and fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. And these are all people who are in the midst of ... corporate globalization but if you want to believe that, yeh...comforting. And it is a great way to make sure that violence escalates. That's tribal violence. You did something to me, I'll do something worse to you. I don't care what the reasons are. We just keep going that way. And that's a way to do it. Pretty much straight, left-liberal opinion. 5. What are the Policy Options? What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow policy option from the beginning was to follow the advice of really far out radicals like the Pope [audience laughter]. The Vatican immediately said look it's a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of crime, you try to find the perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You don't kill innocent civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy who did it is probably in the neighborhood across the street, I don't go out with an assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. That's not the way you deal with crime, whether it's a small crime like this one or really massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, even worse ones and others in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In fact, I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state, that's why presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of course, it didn't get anywhere because it was running up against a power that wouldn't allow lawful procedures to be followed. But if the United States tried to pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact, everyone would applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents. IRA Bombs in London When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is pretty serious business, Britain could have, apart from the fact that it was unfeasible, let's put that aside, one possible response would have been to destroy Boston which is the source of most of the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast. Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what they did. You know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial; and look for the reasons. Because these things don't come out of nowhere. They come from something. Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or anything else. There's reasons. And usually if you look at the reasons, some of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate. And that's the way to deal with it. There are many such examples. But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of international institutions. So it can't go to them. It has rejected the jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court. It is powerful enough to set up a new court if it wants so that wouldn't stop anything. But there is a problem with any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any kind of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking about it on television. And that's very hard. It may be impossible to find. Leaderless Resistance You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves. Nobody knows this better than the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchic networks. They follow a principle that is called Leaderless Resistance. That's the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right terrorists in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance. You have small groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody else. There is a kind of general background of assumptions and then you do it. Actually people in the anti war movement are very familiar with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If you assume correctly that whatever group you are in is being penetrated by the FBI, when something serious is happening, you don't do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know and trust, an affinity group and then it doesn't get penetrated. That's one of the reasons why the FBI has never been able to figure out what's going on in any of the popular movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They can't. That's leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks are extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible that they just don't know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't involved, that's entirely possible. In fact, it's pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a cave in Afghanistan, who doesn't even have a radio or a telephone could have planned a highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are it's part of the background. You know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups. Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence. Establishing Credibility And the US doesn't want to present evidence because it wants to be able to do it, to act without evidence. That's a crucial part of the reaction. You will notice that the US did not ask for Security Council authorization which they probably could have gotten this time, not for pretty reasons, but because the other permanent members of the Security Council are also terrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition against what they call terror, namely in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn't going to veto, they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Council authorization but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because it follows a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it was explicit in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much further and that is that we have the right to act unilaterally. We don't want international authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore we don't want it. We don't care about evidence. We don't care about negotiation. We don't care about treaties. We are the strongest guy around; the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization is a bad thing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name for it in the technical literature. It's called establishing credibility. You have to establish credibility. That's an important factor in many policies. It was the official reason given for the war in the Balkans and the most plausible reason. You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He'll explain to you what credibility means. And it's the same in international affairs, except it's talked about in universities using big words, and that sort of thing. But it's basically the same principle. And it makes sense. And it usually works. The main historian who has written about this in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called Coercion, Capital, and European States. He points out that violence has been the leading principle of Europe for hundreds of years and the reason is because it works. You know, it's very reasonable. It almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance of violence and a culture of violence behind it. So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all problems in pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you'd really open some very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. And they are responding in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and outlandish in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It's a sign of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if somebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow. We wouldn't ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter]. Haiti In fact it is easy to prove that. We don't have to make up cases. So for example, for the last several years, Haiti has been requesting the United States to extradite Emmanuel Constant. He is a major killer. He is one of the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe 4000 or 5000 people in the years in the mid 1990's, under the military junta, which incidentally was being, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations contrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought to trial and sentenced in Haiti and they are asking the United States to turn him over. Well, I mean do your own research. See how much discussion there has been of that. Actually Haiti renewed the request a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't even mentioned. Why should we turn over a convicted killer who was largely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of years ago. In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe he'll say that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true. We don't want to open that door. And he is not he only one. Costa Rica I mean, for the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic prize, has been trying to get the United States to hand over a John Hull, a US land owner in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist crimes. He was using his land, they claim with good evidence as a base for the US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial conclusion, remember. There is the World Court and Security Council behind it. So they have been trying to get the United States to hand him over. Hear about that one? No. They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder, John Hamilton. Paid compensation, offered compensation. The US refused. Turned his land over into a national park because his land was also being used as a base for the US attack against Nicaragua. Costa Rica was punished for that one. They were punished by withholding aid. We don't accept that kind of insubordination from allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to questions about extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that can't be done. Reactions in Afghanistan Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal, the initial rhetoric was for a massive assault which would kill many people visibly and also an attack on other countries in the region. Well the Bush administration wisely backed off from that. They were being told by every foreign leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose, their own intelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing they could possibly do. It would simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin Laden all over the region. That's exactly what he wants. And it would be extremely harmful to their own interests. So they backed off that one. And they are turning to what I described earlier which is a kind of silent genocide. It's a.... well, I already said what I think about it. I don't think anything more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do the arithmetic. A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered, but it has been sensible all along, and it is being raised, called for by expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal leaders internally, is for a UN initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans out of it, totally. These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country out in the last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should provide massive reparations. But that's their only role. A UN initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that would try to construct something from the wreckage. It's conceivable that that could work, with plenty of support and no interference. If the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. We have a historical record on that one. You will notice that the name of this operation....remember that at first it was going to be a Crusade but they backed off that because PR (public relations) agents told them that that wouldn't work [audience laughter]. And then it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR agents said, wait a minute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that wouldn't work. And then it was changed to enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody has yet pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To endure means to suffer. [audience laughter]. And a there are plenty of people around the world who have endured what we call freedom. Again, fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so nobody has yet pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another problem to deal with. But if we can back off enough so that some more or less independent agency, maybe the UN, maybe credible NGO's (non governmental organizations) can take the lead in trying to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty of assistance and we owe it to them. Them maybe something would come out. Beyond that, there are other problems. An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it. There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can't discuss. Well we ought to make it possible to discuss it. So that's one easy way to reduce the level of terror. Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That has effects. We're seeing some of these effects now. September 11th is one. Rethink it. Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support. Exactly what the bankers, lawyers and so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. On the streets it's much more bitter, as you can imagine. That's possible. You know, those policies aren't graven in stone. And further more there are opportunities. It's hard to find many rays of light in the last couple of weeks but one of them is that there is an increased openness. Lots of issues are open for discussion, even in elite circles, certainly among the general public, that were not a couple of weeks ago. That's dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today can run a very good article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Strip...there has been a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journal...that's change. And among the general public, I think there is much more openness and willingness to think about things that were under the rug and so on. These are opportunities and they should be used, at least by people who accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and terror, including potential threats that are extremely severe and could make even September 11th pale into insignificance. Thanks. Noam Chomsky's new book, 9/11, is available in e-book format and in print from Seven Stories Press. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed -------------- next part -------------- [ The following attachment was DELETED when this message was saved: ] [ A Image/GIF (Name="chomsky.gif") segment of about 25,146 bytes. ] From xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu Mon Oct 22 00:02:39 2001 From: xagolli at stumail.sjcsf.edu (Xhuliana Agolli) Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 22:02:39 -0600 Subject: [ALBSA-Info] (no subject) Message-ID: <000a01c15aae$68473130$6528a8c0@sjcsf.edu> I was reading a short article about Afghan women's lack of rights in the NY Times a while ago--which I already posted to the list--and was reminded of Mill's essay on women written some 130 years ago. I think it is very much worth reading or re-reading it. There are some slight mistakes in this on-line version (typos, words left out,etc), but it shouldn't represent a problem. xha -------- Back to Modern History SourceBook Modern History Sourcebook: John Stuart Mill: The Subjection of Women -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER I The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of one sex to the other--is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken, show how arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my convictions. The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses instability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, worse it fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old. And there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of those which gather round and protect old institutions and custom, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress the great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off. In every respect the burthen is hard on those who attack an almost universal opinion. They must be very fortunate well as unusually capable if they obtain a hearing at all. They have more difficulty in obtaining a trial, than any other litigants have in getting a verdict. If they do extort a hearing, they are subjected to a set of logical requirements totally different from those exacted from other people. In all other cases, burthen of proof is supposed to lie with the affirmative. If a person is charged with a murder, it rests with those who accuse him to give proof of his guilt, not with himself to prove his innocence. If there is a difference of opinion about the reality of an alleged historical event, in which the feelings of men general are not much interested, as the Siege of Troy example, those who maintain that the event took place expected to produce their proofs, before those who take the other side can be required to say anything; and at no time these required to do more than show that the evidence produced by the others is of no value. Again, in practical matters, the burthen of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction or prohibition either any limitation of the general freedom of human action or any disqualification or disparity of privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, as compared with others. The a priori presumption is in favour of freedom and impartiality. It is held that there should be no restraint not required by I general good, and that the law should be no respecter of persons but should treat all alike, save where dissimilarity of treatment is required by positive reasons, either of justice or of policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will the benefit be allowed to those who maintain the opinion I profess. It is useless me to say that those who maintain the doctrine that men ha a right to command and women are under an obligation obey, or that men are fit for government and women unfit, on the affirmative side of the question, and that they are bound to show positive evidence for the assertions, or submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing for me to say that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege rightly allow to men, having the double presumption against them that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless their success be such as to exclude all doubt, the judgment ought to against them. These would be thought good pleas in any common case; but they will not be thought so in this instance. Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expected not only to answer all that has ever been said bye who take the other side of the question, but to imagine that could be said by them--to find them in reasons, as I as answer all I find: and besides refuting all arguments for the affirmative, I shall be called upon for invincible positive arguments to prove a negative. And even if I could do all and leave the opposite party with a host of unanswered arguments against them, and not a single unrefuted one on side, I should be thought to have done little; for a cause supported on the one hand by universal usage, and on the r by so great a preponderance of popular sentiment, is supposed to have a presumption in its favour, superior to any conviction which an appeal to reason has power to produce in intellects but those of a high class. I do not mention these difficulties to complain of them; first, use it would be useless; they are inseparable from having to contend through people's understandings against the hostility their feelings and practical tendencies: and truly the understandings of the majority of mankind would need to be much better cultivated than has ever yet been the case, before they be asked to place such reliance in their own power of estimating arguments, as to give up practical principles in which have been born and bred and which are the basis of much existing order of the world, at the first argumentative attack which they are not capable of logically resisting. I do not therefore quarrel with them for having too little faith in argument, but for having too much faith in custom and the general feeling. It is one of the characteristic prejudices of the ion of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, to d to the unreasoning elements in human nature the infallibility which the eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to the reasoning elements. For the apotheosis of Reason we have substituted that of Instinct; and we call thing instinct which we find in ourselves and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. This idolatry, infinitely more degrading than the other, and the most pernicious e false worships of the present day, of all of which it is the main support, will probably hold its ground until it way before a sound psychology laying bare the real root of much that is bowed down to as the intention of Nature and ordinance of God. As regards the present question, I am going to accept the unfavourable conditions which the prejudice assigns to me. I consent that established custom, and the general feelings, should be deemed conclusive against me, unless that custom and feeling from age to age can be shown to have owed their existence to other causes than their soundness, and to have derived their power from the worse rather than the better parts of human nature. I am willing that judgment should go against me, unless I can show that my judge has been tampered with. The concession is not so great as it might appear; for to prove this, is by far the easiest portion of my task. The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presumption that it is, or at all events once was, conducive to laudable ends. This is the case, when the practice was first adopted, or afterwards kept up, as a means to such ends, and was grounded on experience of the mode in which they could be most effectually attained. If the authority of men over women, when first established, had been the result of a conscientious comparison between different modes of constituting the government of society; if, after trying various other modes of social organisation--the government of women over men, equality between the two, and such mixed and divided modes of government as might be invented--it had been decided, on the testimony of experience, that the mode in which women are wholly under the rule of men, having no share at all in public concerns, and each in private being under the legal obligation of obedience to the man with whom she has associated her destiny, was the arrangement most conducive to the happiness and well-being of both; its general adoption might then be fairly thought to be some evidence that, at the time when it was adopted, it was the best: though even then the considerations which recommended it may, like so many other primeval social facts of the greatest importance, have subsequently, in the course of ages, ceased to exist. But the state of the case is in every respect the reverse of this. In the first place, the opinion in favour of the present system, which entirely subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other: so that experience, in the sense in which it is vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict. And in the second place, the adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of humanity or the good order of society. It arose simply from the fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every woman owing to the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage to some man. Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognising the relations they find already existing between individuals. They convert what was a mere physical fact into a legal right, give it the sanction of society, and principally aim at the substitution of public and organised means of asserting and protecting these rights, instead of the irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength. Those who had already been compelled to obedience became in this manner legally bound to it. Slavery, from be inn a mere affair of force between the master and the slave, became regularised and a matter of compact among the masters, who, binding themselves to one another for common protection, guaranteed by their collective strength the private possessions of each, including his slaves. In early times, the great majority of the male sex were slaves, as well as the whole of the female. And many ages elapsed, some of them ages of high cultivation, before any thinker was bold enough to question the rightfulness, and the absolute social necessity, either of the one slavery or of the other. By degrees such thinkers did arise; and (the general progress of society assisting) the slavery of the male sex has, in all the countries of Christian Europe at least (though, in one of them, only within the last few years) been at length abolished, and that of the female sex has been gradually changed into a milder form of dependence. But this dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency--it is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all human relations more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity. It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin. No presumption in its favour, therefore, can be drawn from the fact of its existence. The only such presumption which it could be supposed to have, must be grounded on its having lasted till now, when so many other things which came down from the same odious source have been done away with. And this, indeed, is what makes it strange to ordinary ears, to hear it asserted that the inequality of rights between men and women has no other source than the law of the strongest. That this statement should have the effect of a paradox, is in some respects creditable to the progress of civilisation, and the improvement of the moral sentiments of mankind. We now live--that is to say, one or two of the most advanced nations of the world now live--in a state in which the law of the strongest seems to be entirely abandoned as the regulating principle of the world's affairs: nobody professes it, and, as regards most of the relations between human beings, nobody is permitted to practise it. When anyone succeeds in doing so, it is under cover of some pretext which gives him the semblance of having some general social interest on his side. This being the ostensible state of things, people flatter themselves that the rule of mere force is ended; that the law of the strongest cannot be the reason of existence of anything which has remained in full operation down to the present time. However any of our present institutions may have begun, it can only, they think, have been preserved to this period of advanced civilisation by a well-grounded feeling of its adaptation to human nature, and conduciveness to the general good. They do not understand the great vitality and durability of institutions which place right on the side of might; how intensely they are clung to; how the good as well as the bad propensities and sentiments of those who have power in their hands, become identified with retaining it; how slowly these bad institutions give way, one at a time, the weakest first. beginning with those which are least interwoven with the daily habits of life;and how very rarely those who have obtained legal power because they first had physical, have ever lost their hold of it until the physical power had passed over to the other side. Such shifting of the physical force not having taken place in the case of women; this fact, combined with all the peculiar and characteristic features of the particular case, made it certain from the first that this branch of the system of right founded on might, though softened in its most atrocious features at an earlier period than several of the others, would be the very last to disappear. It was inevitable that this one case of a social relation grounded on force, would survive through generations of institutions grounded on equal justice, an almost solitary exception to the general character of their laws and customs; but which, so long as it does not proclaim its own origin, and as discussion has not brought out its true character, is not felt to jar with modern civilisation, any more than domestic slavery among the Greeks jarred with their notion of themselves as a free people. The truth is, that people of the present and the last two or three generations have lost all practical sense of the primitive condition of humanity; and only the few who have studied history accurately, or have much frequented the parts of the world occupied by the living representatives of ages long past, are able to form any mental picture of what society then was. People are not aware how entirely, informer ages, the law of superior strength was the rule of life; how publicly and openly it was avowed, I do not say cynically or shamelessly--for these words imply a feeling that there was something in it to be ashamed of, and no such notion could find a place in the faculties of any person in those ages, except a philosopher or a saint. History gives a cruel experience of human nature, in showing how exactly the regard due to the life, possessions, and entire earthly happiness of any class of persons, was measured by what they had the power of enforcing; how all who made any resistance to authorities that had arms in their hands, however dreadful might be the provocation, had not only the law of force but all other laws, and all the notions of social obligation against them; and in the eyes of those whom they resisted, were not only guilty of crime, but of the worst of all crimes, deserving the most cruel chastisement which human beings could inflict. The first small vestige of a feeling of obligation in a superior to acknowledge any right in inferiors, began when he had been induced, for convenience, to make some promise to them. Though these promises, even when sanctioned by the most solemn oaths, were for many ages revoked or violated on the most trifling provocation or temptation, it is probably that this, except by persons of still worse than the average morality, was seldom done without some twinges of conscience. The ancient republics, being mostly grounded from the first upon some kind of mutual con;pact, or at any rate formed by an union of persons not very unequal in strength, afforded, in consequence, the first instance of a portion of human relations fenced round, and placed under the dominion of another law than that of force. And though the original law of force remained in full operation between them and their slaves, and also (except so far as limited by express compact) between a commonwealth and its subjects, or other independent commonwealths; the banishment of that primitive law even from so narrow a field, commenced the regeneration of human nature, by giving birth to sentiments of which experience soon demonstrated the immense value even for material interests, and which thence forward only required to be enlarged, not created. Though slaves were no part of the commonwealth, it was in the free states that slaves were first felt to have rights as human beings. The Stoics were, I believe, the first (except so far as the Jewish law constitutes an exception) who taught as a part of morality that men were bound by moral obligations to their slaves. No one, after Christianity became ascendant, could ever again have been a stranger to this belief, in theory; nor, after the rise of the Catholic Church, was it ever without persons to stand up for it. Yet to enforce it was the most arduous task which Christianity ever had to perform. For more thana thousand years the Church kept up the contest, with hardly any perceptible success. It was not for want of power over men's minds. Its power was prodigious. It could make kings and nobles resign their most valued possessions to enrich the Church. It could make thousands in the prime of life and the height of worldly advantages, shut themselves up in convents to work out their salvation by poverty, fasting, and prayer. It could send hundreds of thousands across land and sea, Europe and Asia, to give their lives for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. It could make kings relinquish wives who were the object of their passionate attachment, because the Church declared that they were within the seventh (by our calculation the fourteenth) degree of relationship. All this it did; but it could not make men fight less with one another, nor tyrannise less cruelly over the serfs, and when they were able, over burgesses. It could not make them renounce either of the applications of force; force militant, or force triumphant. This they could never be induced to do until they were themselves in their turn compelled by superior force. Only by the growing power of kings was an end put to fighting except between kings, or competitors for kingship; only by the growth of a wealthy and warlike bourgeoisie in the fortified towns, and of a plebeian infantry which proved more powerful in the field than the undisciplined chivalry, was the insolent tyranny of the nobles over the bourgeoisie and peasantry brought within some bounds. It was persisted in not only until, but long after, the oppressed had obtained a power enabling them often to take conspicuous vengeance; and on the Continent much of it continued to the time of the French Revolution, though in England the earlier and better organisation of the democratic classes put an end to it sooner, by establishing equal laws and free national institutions. If people are mostly so little aware how completely, during the greater part of the duration of our species, the law of force was the avowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a special and exceptional consequence of peculiar ties---and from how very recent a date it is that the affairs of society in general have been even pretended to be regulated according to any moral law; as little do people remember or consider, how institutions and customs which never had any ground but the law of force, last on into ages and states of general opinion which never would have permitted their first establishment. Less than forty years ago, Englishmen might still by law hold human beings in bondage as saleable property: within the present century they might kidnap them and carry them off, and work them literally to death. This absolutely extreme case of the law of force, condemned by those who can tolerate almost every other form of arbitrary power, and which, of all others presents features the most revolting to the feelings of all who look at it from an impartial position, was the law of civilised and Christian England within the memory of persons now living: and in one half of Anglo-Saxon America three or four years ago, not only did slavery exist, but the slave-trade, and the breeding of slaves expressly for it, was a general practice between slave states. Yet not only was there a greater strength of sentiment against it, but, in England at least, a less amount either of feeling or of interest in favour of it, than of any other of the customary abuses of force: for its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised; and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence. So extreme an instance makes it almost superfluous to refer to any other: but consider the long duration of absolute monarchy. In England at present it is the almost universal conviction that military despotism is a case of the law of force, having no other origin or justification. Yet in all the great nations of Europe except England it either still exists, or has only just ceased to exist, and has even now a strong party favourable to it in all ranks of the people, especially among persons of station and consequence. Such is the power of an established system, even when far from universal; when not only in almost every period of history there have been great and well-known examples of the contrary system, but these have almost invariably been afforded by the most illustrious and most prosperous communities. In this case, too, the possessor of the undue power, the person directly interested in it, is only one person, while those who are subject to it and suffer from it are literally all the rest. The yoke is naturally and necessarily humiliating to all persons, except the one who is on the throne, together with, at most, the one who expects to succeed to it. How different are these cases from that of the power of men over women! I am not now prejudging the question-of its justifiableness. I am showing how vastly more permanent it could not but be, even if not justifiable, than these other dominations which have nevertheless lasted down to our own time. Whatever gratification of pride there is in the possession of power, and whatever personal interest in its exercise, is in this case not confined to a limited class, but common to the whole male sex. Instead of being, to most of its supporters) a thing desirable chiefly in the abstract, or, like the political ends usually contended for by factions, of little private importance to any but the leaders; it comes home to the person and hearth of every male head of a family, and of everyone who looks forward to being so. The clodhopper exercises, oris to exercise, his share of the power equally with the highest nobleman. And the case is that in which the desire of power is the strongest: for everyone who desires power, desires it most over those who are nearest to him, with whom his life is passed, with whom he has most concerns in common and in whom any independence of his authority is oftenest likely to interfere with his individual preferences. If, in the other cases specified, powers manifestly grounded only on force, and having so much less to support them, are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of, much more must it be so with this, even if it rests on no better foundation than those. We must consider, too, that the possessors of the power have facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to prevent any uprising against it. Every one of the subjects lives under the very eye, and almost, it may be said, in the hands, of one of the masters in closer intimacy with him than with any of her fellow-subjects; with no means of combining against him, no power of even locally over mastering him, and, on the other hand, with the strongest motives for seeking his favour and avoiding to give him offence. In struggles for political emancipation, everybody knows how often its champions are bought off by bribes, or daunted by terrors. In the case of women, each individual of the subject-class is in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined. In setting up the standard of resistance, a large number of the leaders, and still more of the followers, must make an almost complete sacrifice of the pleasures or the alleviations of their own individual lot. If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the those who are kept down by it, this has. I have not yet shown that it is a wrong system: but everyone who is capable of thinking on the subject must see that even if it is, it was certain to outlast all other forms of unjust authority. And when some of the grossest of the other forms still exist in many civilised countries, and have only recently been got rid of in others, it would be strange if that which is so much the deepest rooted had yet been perceptibly shaken anywhere. There is more reason to wonder that the protests and testimonies against it should have been so numerous and so weighty as they are. Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between the government of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I have adduced in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and the effect of mere usurpation, while it on the contrary is natural. But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? There was a time when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. No less an intellect, and one which contributed no less to the progress of human thought, than Aristotle, held this opinion without doubt or misgiving; and rested it on the same premises on which the same assertion in regard to the dominion of men over women is usually based, namely that there are different natures among mankind, free natures, and slave natures; that the Greeks were of a free nature, the barbarian races of Thracians and Asiatics of a slave nature. But why need I go back to Aristotle? Did not the slave-owners of the Southern United States maintain the same doctrine, with all the fanaticism with which men ding to the theories that justify their passions and legitimate their personal interests? Did they not call heaven and earth to witness that the dominion of the white man over the black is natural, that the black race is by nature incapable of freedom, and marked out for slavery? some even going so far as to say that the freedom of manual labourers is an unnatural order of things anywhere. Again, the theorists of absolute monarchy have always affirmed it to be the only natural form of government; issuing from the patriarchal, which was the primitive and spontaneous form of society, framed on the model of the paternal, which is anterior to society itself, and, as they contend, the most natural authority of all. Nay, for that matter, the law of force itself, to those who could not plead any other has always seemed the most natural of all grounds for the exercise of authority. Conquering races hold it to be Nature's own dictate that the conquered should obey the conquerors, or as they euphoniously paraphrase it, that the feebler and more unwarlike races should submit to the braver and manlier. The smallest acquaintance with human life in the middle ages, shows how supremely natural the dominion of the feudal nobility overmen of low condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, of a person of the inferior class claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over them. It hardly seemed less so to the class held in subjection. The emancipated serfs and burgesses, even in their most vigorous struggles, never made any pretension to a share of authority; they only demanded more or less of limitation to the power of tyrannising over them. So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural. But how entirely, even in this case, the feeling is dependent on custom, appears by ample experience. Nothing so much astonishes the people of distant parts of the world, when they first learn anything about England, as to be told that it is under a queen; the thing seems to them so unnatural as to be almost incredible. To Englishmen this does not seem in the least degree unnatural, because they are used to it; but they do feel it unnatural that women should be soldiers or Members of Parliament. In the feudal ages, on the contrary, war and politics were not thought unnatural to women, because not unusual; it seemed natural that women of the privileged classes should be of manly character, inferior in nothing but bodily strength to their husbands and fathers. The independence of women seemed rather less unnatural to the Greeks than to other ancients, on account of the fabulous Amazons (whom they believed to be historical), and the partial example afforded by the Spartan women; who, though no less subordinate by law than in other Greek states, were more free in fact, and being trained to bodily exercises in the same manner with men, gave ample proof that they were not naturally disqualified for them. There can be little doubt that Spartan experience suggested to Plato, among many other of his doctrines, t of the social and political equality of the two sexes. But, it will be said, the rule of men over women differs from all these others in not being a rule a rule of force: it is accepted voluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. In the first place, a great number of women do not accept it. Ever since there have been women able to make their sentiments known by their writings (the only mode of publicity which society permits to them), an increasing number of them have recorded protests against their present social condition: and recently many thousands of them, headed by the most eminent women known to the public, have petitioned Parliament for their admission to the Parliamentary Suffrage The claim of women to be educated as solidly, and in the same branches of knowledge, as men, is urged with growing intensity, and with a great prospect of success; while the demand for their admission into professions and occupations hitherto closed against them, becomes every year more urgent. Though there are not in this country, as there are in the United States, periodical conventions and an organised party to agitate for the Rights of Women, there is a numerous and active society organised and managed by women, for the more limited object of obtaining the political franchise. Nor is it only in our own country and in America that women are beginning to protest, more or less collectively, against the disabilities under which they labour. France, and Italy, and Switzerland, and Russia now afford examples of the same thing. How many more women there are who silently cherish similar aspirations, no one can possibly know; but there are abundant tokens how many would cherish them, were they not so strenuously taught to repress them as contrary to the proprieties of their sex. It must be remembered, also, that no enslaved class ever asked for complete liberty at once. When Simon de Montfort called the deputies of the commons to sit for the first time in Parliament, did any of them dream of demanding that an assembly, elected by their constituents)should make and destroy ministries, and dictate to the king in affairs of State ? No such thought entered into the imagination of the most ambitious of them. The nobility had already these pretensions; the commons pretended to nothing but to be exempt from arbitrary taxation, and from the gross individual oppression of the king's officers. It is a political law of nature that those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin by complaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exercise. There is never any want of women who complain of ill-usage by their husbands. There would be infinitely more, if complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the ill-usage. It is this which frustrates all attempts to maintain the power but protect the woman against its abuses. In no other case (except that of a child) is the person who has been proved judicially to have suffered an injury, replaced under the physical power of the culprit who inflicted it. Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme and protracted cases of bodily ill-usage, hardly ever dare avail themselves of the laws made for their protection: and if, in a moment of irrepressible indignation, or by the interference of neighbours, they are induced to do so, their whole effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they can, and to beg off their tyrant from his merited chastisement. All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of other. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have - - those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together three things -- first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes; secondly, the wife's entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through him, it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character. And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been so sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it? If it had been made the object of the life of every young plebeian to find personal favour in the eyes of some patrician, of every young serf with some seigneur; if domestication with him, and a share of his personal affections, had been held out as the prize which they all should look out for, the most gifted and aspiring being able to reckon on the most desirable prizes; and if, when this prize had been obtained, they had been shut out by a wall of brass from all interests not centring in him, all feelings and desires but those which he shared or inculcated; would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at this day as men and women are? and would not all but a thinker here and there, have believed the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature? The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show that custom, however universal it may be, affords in this case no presumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of the arrangements which place women in social and political subjection to men. But I may go farther, and maintain that the course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human society, afford not only no presumption in favour of this system of inequality of rights, but a strong one against it; and that, so far as the whole course of human improvement up to the time, the whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on the subject, it is, that this relic of the past is discordant with the future, and must necessarily disappear. For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world-the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the would be infinitely more, if complaint were not the greatest of all provocatives to a repetition and increase of the ill-usage. It is this which frustrates all attempts to maintain the power but protect the woman against its abuses. In no other case (except that of a child) is the person who has been proved judicially to have suffered an injury, replaced under the physical power of the culprit who inflicted it. Accordingly wives, even in the most extreme and protracted cases of bodily ill-usage, hardly ever dare avail themselves of the laws made for their protection: and if, in a moment of irrepressible indignation, or by the interference of neighbours, they are induced to do so, their whole effort afterwards is to disclose as little as they can, and to beg off their tyrant from his merited chastisement. All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of . men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite. They have therefore put everything in practice to enslave their minds. The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear; either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force of education to effect their purpose. All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women, and all the current sentimentalities that it is their nature, to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections. And by their affections are meant the only ones they are allowed to have--those to the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man. When we put together three things--first, the natural attraction between opposite sexes; secondly, the wife's entire dependence on the husband, every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will; and lastly, that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through him, it would be a miracle if the object of being attractive to men had not become the polar star of feminine education and formation of character. And, this great means of influence over the minds of women having been acquired, an instinct of selfishness made men avail themselves of it to the utmost as a means of holding women in subjection, by representing to them meekness, submissiveness, and resignation of all individual will into the hands of a man, as an essential part of sexual attractiveness. Can it be doubted that any of the other yokes which mankind have succeeded in breaking, would have subsisted till now if the same means had existed, and had been so sedulously used, to bow down their minds to it? If it had been made the object of the life of every young plebeian to find personal favour in the eyes of some patrician, of every young serf with some seigneur; if domestication with him, and a share of his personal affections, had been held out as the prize which they all should look out for, the most gifted and aspiring being able to reckon on the most desirable prizes; and if, when this prize had been obtained, they had been shut out by a wall of brass from all interests not centring in him, all feelings and desires but those which he shared or inculcated; would not serfs and seigneurs, plebeians and patricians, have been as broadly distinguished at this day as men and women are? and would not all but a thinker here and there, have believed the distinction to be a fundamental and unalterable fact in human nature? The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show that custom, however universal it may be, affords in this case no presumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of the arrangements which place women in social and political subjection to men. But I may go farther, and maintain that the course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human society, afford not only no presumption in favour of this system of inequality of rights, but a strong one against it; and that, so far as the whole course of human improvement up to the time, the whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on the subject, it is, that this relic of the past is discordant with the future, and must necessarily disappear. For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world-the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable. Human society of old was constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a fixed social position, and were mostly kept in it by law, or interdicted from any means by which they could emerge from it. As some men are born white and others black, so some were born slaves and others freemen and citizens; some were born patricians, others plebeians; some were born feudal nobles, others commoners and roturiers. A slave or serf could never make himself free, nor, except by the will of his master, become so. In most European countries it was not till towards the close of the middle ages, and as a consequence of the growth of regal power, that commoners could be ennobled. Even among nobles, the eldest son was born the exclusive heir to the paternal possessions, and a long time elapsed before it was fully established that the father could disinherit him. Among the industrious classes, only those who were born members of a guild, or were admitted into it by its members, could lawfully practise their calling within its local limits; and nobody could practise any calling deemed important, in any but the legal manner--by processes authoritatively prescribed. Manufacturers have stood in the pillory for presuming to carry on their business by new and improved methods. In modern Europe, and most in those parts of it which have participated most largely in all other modern improvements, diametrically opposite doctrines now prevail. Law and government do not undertake to prescribe by whom any social or industrial operation shall or shall not be conducted, or what modes of conducting them shall be lawful. These things are left to the unfettered choice of individuals. Even the laws which required that workmen should serve an apprenticeship, have in this country been repealed: there being ample assurance that in all cases in which an apprenticeship is necessary, its necessity will suffice to enforce it. The old theory was, that the least possible should be left to the choice of the individual agent; that all he had to do should, as far as practicable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. Left to himself he was sure to go wrong. The modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience, is, that things in which the individual is the person directly interested, never go right but as they are left to his own discretion; and that any regulation of them by authority, except to protect the rights of others, is sure to be mischievous. This conclusion slowly arrived at, and not adopted until almost every possible application of the contrary theory had been made with disastrous result, now (in the industrial department) prevails universally in the most advanced countries, almost universally in all that have pretensions to any sort of advancement. It is not that all processes are supposed to be equally good, or all persons to be equally qualified for everything; but that freedom of individual choice is now known to be the only thing which procures the adoption of the best processes, and throws each operation into the hands of those who are best qualified for it. Nobody thinks it necessary to make a law that only a strong-armed man shall be a blacksmith. Freedom and competition suffice to make blacksmiths strong-armed men, because the weak armed can earn more by engaging in occupations for which they are more fit. In consonance with this doctrine, it is felt to be an overstepping of the proper bounds of authority to fix beforehand, on some general presumption, that certain persons are not fit to do certain things. It is now thoroughly known and admitted that if some such presumptions exist, no such presumption is infallible. Even if it be well grounded in a majority of cases, which it is very likely not to be, there will be a minority of exceptional cases in which it does not hold: and in those it is both an injustice to the individuals, and a detriment to society, to place barriers in the way of their using their faculties for their own benefit and for that of others. In the cases, on the other hand, in which the unfitness is real, the ordinary motives of human conduct will on the whole suffice to prevent the incompetent person from making, or from persisting in, the attempt. If this general principle of social and economical science is not true; if individuals, with such help as they can derive from the opinion of those who know them, are not better judges than the law and the government, of their own capacities and vocation; the world cannot too soon abandon this principle, and return to the old system of regulations and disabilities. But if the principle is true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person's position through all life--shall interdict people from all the more elevated social positions, and from all, except a few, respectable occupations. Even were we to admit the utmost that is ever pretended a to the superior fitness of men for all the functions now reserve to them, the same argument applies which forbids a legal qualification for Members of Parliament. If only once in a dozen years the conditions of eligibility exclude a fit person, there is a real loss, while the exclusion of thousands of unfit persons is no gain; for if the constitution of the electoral body disposes them to choose unfit persons, there are always plenty of such persons to choose from. In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unrestricted latitude of choice: and any limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent. At present, in the more improved countries, the disabilities of women are the only case, save one, in which laws and institutions take persons at their birth, and ordain that they shall never in all their lives be allowed to compete for certain things. The one exception is that of royalty. Persons still are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the course of hereditary succession, attain it. All other dignities and social advantages are open to the whole male sex: many indeed are only attainable by wealth, but wealth may be striven for by anyone, and is actually obtained by many men of the very humblest origin. The difficulties, to the majority, are indeed insuperable without the aid of fortunate accidents; but no male human being is under any legal ban: neither law nor opinion superadd artificial obstacles to the natural ones. Royalty, as I have said, is excepted: but in this case everyone feels it to be an exception--an anomaly in the modern world, in marked opposition to its customs and principles, and to be justified only by extraordinary special expediences, which, though individuals and nations differ in estimating their weight, unquestionably do in fact exist. But in this exceptional case, in which a high social function is, for important reasons, bestowed on birth instead of being put up to competition, all free nations contrive to adhere in substance to the principle from which they nominally derogate; for they circumscribe this high function by conditions avowedly intended to prevent the person to whom it ostensibly belongs from really performing it; while the person by whom it is performed, the responsible minister, does obtain the post by a competition from which no full-grown citizen of the male sex is legally excluded. The disabilities, therefore, to which women are subject from the mere fact of their birth, are the solitary examples of the kind in modern legislation. In no instance except this, which comprehends half the human race, are the higher social functions closed against anyone by a fatality of birth which no exertions, and no change of circumstances, can overcome; for even religious disabilities (besides that in England and in Europe they have practically almost ceased to exist) do not close any career to the disqualified person in case of conversion. The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamental law; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thing of most universal interest; as if a gigantic dolmen, or a vast temple of Jupiter Olympius, occupied the site of St. Paul's and received daily worship, while the surrounding Christian churches were only resorted to on fasts and festivals. This entire discrepancy between one social fact and all those which accompany it, and the radical opposition between its nature and the progressive movement which is the boast of the modern world, and which has successively swept away everything else of an analogous character, surely affords, to a conscientious observer of human tendencies, serious matter for reflection. It raises a prima facie presumption on the unfavourable side, far outweighing any which custom and usage could in such circumstances create on the favourable;and should at least suffice to make this, like the choice between republicanism and royalty, a balanced question. The least that can be demanded is, that the question should not be considered as prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, but open to discussion on its merits, as a question of justice and expediency: the decision on this, as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind, depending on what an enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show to be most advantageous to humanity in general, without distinction of sex. And the discussion must be a real discussion, descending to foundations, and not resting satisfied with vague and general assertions. It will not do, for instance to assert in general terms, that the experience of mankind has pronounced in favour of the existing system. Experience cannot possibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has only been experience of one. If it be said that the doctrine of the equality of the sexes rests only on theory, it must be remembered that the contrary doctrine also has only theory to rest upon. All that is proved in its favour by direct experience, is that mankind have been able to exist under it, and to attain the degree of improvement and prosperity which we now see; but whether that prosperity has been attained sooner, or is now greater, than it would have been under the other system, experience does not say. on the other hand, experience does say, that every step in improvement has been so invariably accompanied by a step made in raising the social position of women, that historians and philosophers have been led to adopt their elevation or debasement as on the whole the surest test and most correct measure of the civilisation of a people or an age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself prove that the assimilation must goon to complete equality; but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case. Neither does it avail anything to say that the nature of the two sexes adapts them to their present functions and position, and renders these appropriate to them. Standing on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the human mind, I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively known about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing--the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others. It may be asserted without scruple, that no other class of dependents have had their character so entirely distorted from its natural proportions by their relation with their masters; for, if conquered and slave races have been, in some respects, more forcibly repressed, whatever in them has not been crushed down by an iron heel has generally been let alone, and if left with any liberty of development, it has developed itself according to its own laws; but in the case of women, a hot-house and stove cultivation has always been carried on of some of the capabilities of their nature, for the benefit and pleasure of their masters Then, because certain products of the general vital force sprout luxuriantly and reach a great development in this heated atmosphere and under this active nurture and watering, while other shoots from the same root, which are left outside in the wintry air, with ice purposely heaped all round them, have a stunted growth, and some are burnt off with fire and disappear; men, with that inability to recognise their own work which distinguishes the unanalytic mind, indolently believe that the tree grows of itself in the way they have made it grow, and that it would die if one half of it were not kept in a vapour bath and the other half in the snow. Of all difficulties which impede the progress of thought, and the formation of well-grounded opinions on life and social arrangements, the greatest is now the unspeakable ignorance and inattention of mankind in respect to the influences which form human character. Whatever any portion of the human species now are, or seem to be, such, it is supposed, they have a natural tendency to be: even when the most elementary knowledge of the circumstances in which they have been placed, clearly points out the causes that made them what they are. Because a cottier deeply in arrears to his landlord is not industrious, there are people who think that the Irish are naturally idle. Because constitutions can be overthrown when the authorities appointed to execute them turn their arms against them, there are people who think the French incapable of free government. Because the Greeks cheated the Turks, and the Turks only plundered the Greeks, there are persons who think that the Turks are naturally more sincere: and because women, as is often said, care nothing about politics except their personalities, it is supposed that the general good is naturally less interesting to women than to men. History, which is now so much better understood than formerly, teaches another lesson: if only by showing the extraordinary susceptibility of human nature to external influences, and the extreme variableness of those of its manifestations which are supposed to be most universal and uniform. But in history, as in travelling, men usually see only what they already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study. Hence, in regard to that most difficult question, what are the natural differences between the two sexes--a subject on which it is impossible in the present state of society to obtain complete and correct knowledge--while almost everybody dogmatises upon it, almost all neglect and make light of the only means by which any partial insight can be obtained into it. This is, an analytic study of the most important department of psychology, the laws of the influence of circumstances on character. For, however great and apparently ineradicable the moral and intellectual differences between men and women might be, the evidence of there being natural differences could only be negative. Those only could be inferred to be natural which could not possibly be artificial--the residuum, after deducting every characteristic of either sex which can admit of being explained from education or external circumstances. The profoundest knowledge of the laws of the formation of character is indispensable to entitle anyone to affirm even that there is any difference, much more what the difference is, between the two sexes considered as moral and rational beings; and since no one, as yet, has that knowledge (for there is hardly any subject which, in proportion to its importance, has been so little studied), no one is thus far entitled to any positive opinion on the subject. Conjectures are all that can at present be made;conjectures more or less probable, according as more or less authorised by such knowledge as we yet have of the laws of psychology, as applied to the formation of character. Even the preliminary knowledge, what the differences between the sexes now are, apart from all question as to how they are made what they are, is still in the crudest and most' incomplete state. Medical practitioners and physiologists have ascertained, to some extent, the differences in bodily constitution; and this is an important element to the psychologist: but hardly any medical practitioner is a psychologist. Respecting the mental characteristics of women; their observations are of no more worth than those of common men. It is a subject on which nothing final can be known, so long as those who alone can really know it, women themselves, have given but little testimony, and that little, mostly suborned. It is easy to know stupid women. Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person's notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties. It is only a man here and there who has any tolerable knowledge of the character even of the women of his own family. I do not mean, of their capabilities; these nobody knows, not even themselves, because most of them have never been called out. I mean their actually existing thoughts and feelings. Many a man think she perfectly understands women, because he has had amatory relations with several, perhaps with many of them. If he is a good observer, and his experience extends to quality as well as quantity, he may have learnt something of one narrow department of their nature--an important department, no doubt. But of all the rest of it, few persons are generally more ignorant, because there are few from whom it is so carefully hidden. The most favourable case which a man can generally have for studying the character of a woman, is that of his own wife: for the opportunities are greater, and the cases of complete sympathy not so unspeakably rare. And in fact, this is the source from which any knowledge worth having on the subject has, I believe, generally come. But most men have not had the opportunity of studying in this way more than a single case: accordingly one can, to an almost laughable degree, infer what a man's wife is like, from his opinions about women in general. To make even this one case yield any result, the woman must be worth knowing, and the man not only a competent judge, but of a character so sympathetic in itself, and so well adapted to hers, that he can either read her mind by sympathetic intuition, or has nothing in himself which makes her shy of disclosing it, Hardly anything, I believe, can be more rare than this conjunction. It often happens that there is the most complete unity of feeling and community of interests as to all external things, yet the one has as little admission into the internal life of the other as if they were common acquaintance. Even with true affection, authority on the one side and subordination on the other prevent perfect confidence. Though nothing may be intentionally withheld, much is not shown. In the analogous relation of parent and child, the corresponding phenomenon must have been in the observation of everyone. As between father and son, how many are the cases in which the father, in spite of real affection on both sides, obviously to all the world does not know, nor suspect, parts of the son's character familiar to his companions and equals. The truth is, that the position of looking up to another is extremely unpropitious to complete sincerity and openness with him. The fear of losing ground in his opinion or in his feelings is so strong, that even in an upright character, there is an unconscious tendency to show only the best side, or the side which, though not the best, is that which he most likes to see: and it may be confidently said that thorough knowledge of one another hardly ever exists, but between persons who, besides being intimates, are equals. How much more true, then, must all this be, when the one is not only under the authority of the other, but has it inculcated on her as a duty to reckon everything else subordinate to his comfort and pleasure, and to let him neither see nor feel anything coming from her, except what is agreeable to him. All these difficulties stand in the way of a man's obtaining any thorough knowledge even of the one woman whom alone, in general, he has sufficient opportunity of studying. When we further consider that to understand one woman is not necessarily to understand any other woman; that even if he could study many women of one rank, or of one country, he would not thereby understand women of other ranks or countries; and even if he did, they are still only the women of a single period of history; we may safely assert that the knowledge which men can acquire of women, even as they have been and are, without reference to what they might be, is wretchedly imperfect and superficial, and always will be so, until women themselves have told all that they have to tell. And this time has not come; nor will it come otherwise than gradually. It is but of yesterday that women have either been qualified by literary accomplishments or permitted by society, to tell anything to the general public. As yet very few of them dare tell anything, which men, on whom their literary success depends, are unwilling to hear. Let us remember in what manner, up to a very recent time, the expression, even by a male author, of uncustomary opinions, or what are deemed eccentric feelings, usually was, and in some degree still is, received; and we may form some faint conception under what impediments a woman, who is brought up to think custom and opinion her sovereign rule, attempts to express in books anything drawn from the depths of her own nature. The greatest woman who has left writings behind her sufficient to give her an eminent rank in the literature of her country, thought it necessary to prefix as a motto to her boldest work, " Un homme peut braver l'opinion; une femme doit s'y soumettre." [1] The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to men. In the case of unmarried women, much of it seems only intended to increase their chance of a husband. Many, both married and unmarried, overstep the mark, and inculcate a servility beyond what is desired or relished by any man, except the very vulgarest. But this is not so often the L case as, even at a quite late period, it still was. Literary women I are becoming more free-spoken, and more willing to express their real sentiments. Unfortunately, in this country especially, they are themselves such artificial products, that their sentiments are compounded of a small element of individual observation and consciousness, and a very large one of acquired associations. This will be less and less the case, but it will remain true to a great extent, as long as social institutions do not admit the same free development of originality in women which is possible to men. When that time comes, and not before, we shall see, and not merely hear, as much as it is necessary to know of the nature of women, and the adaptation of other things to it. I have dwelt so much on the difficulties which at present obstruct any real knowledge by men of the true nature of women, because in this as in so many other things "opinio copiae inter maximas causas inopiae est"; and there is little chance of reasonable thinking on the matter while people flatter themselves that they perfectly understand a subject of which most men know absolutely nothing, and of which it is at present impossible that any man, or all men taken together, should have knowledge which can qualify them to lay down the law to women as to what is, or is not, their vocation. Happily, no such knowledge is necessary for any practical purpose connected with the position of women is relation to society and life. For, according to all the principles involved in modern society, the question rests with women themselves--to be decided by their own experience, and by the use of their own faculties. There are no means of finding what either one person or many can do, but by trying--and no means by which anyone else can discover for them what it is for their happiness to do or leave undone. One thing we may be certain of--that what is contrary to women's nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving their nature free play. The anxiety of mankind to interfere in behalf of nature, for fear lest nature should not succeed m effecting its purpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude. What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing. What they can do, but not so well as the men who are their competitors, competition suffices to exclude them from; since nobody asks for protective duties and bounties in favour of women; it is only asked that the present bounties and protective duties in favour of men should be recalled. If women have a greater natural inclination for somethings than for others, there is no need of laws or social inculcation to make the majority of them do the former in preference to the latter. Whatever women's services are most wanted for, the free play of competition will hold out the strongest inducements to them to undertake. And, as the words imply, they are most wanted for the things for which they are most fit; by the apportionment of which to them, the collective faculties of the two sexes can be applied on the whole with the greatest sum of valuable result. The general opinion of men is supposed to be, that the natural vocation of a woman is that of a wife and mother. I say, is supposed to be, because, judging from acts--from the whole of the present constitution of society--one might infer that their opinion was the direct contrary. They might be supposed to think that the alleged natural vocation of women was of all things the most repugnant to their nature; insomuch that if they are free to do anything else--if any other means of living or occupation of their time and faculties, is open, which has any chance of appearing desirable to them- there will not be enough of them who will be willing to accept the condition said to be natural to them. If this is the real opinion of men in general, it would be well that it should be spoken out. I should like to hear somebody openly enunciating the doctrine (it is already implied in much that is written on the subJect)- It is necessary to society that women should marry and produce children. They will not do so unless they are compelled. Therefore it is necessary to compel them. " The merits of the case would then be clearly defined. It would be exactly that of the slave-holders of South Carolina and Louisiana. " It is necessary that cotton and sugar should be grown. White men cannot produce them. Negroes will not, for any wages which we choose to give. Ergo they must be compelled. " An illustration still closer to the point is that of impressment. Sailors must absolutely be had to defend the country. It often happens that they will not voluntarily enlist. Therefore there must be the power of forcing them. How often has this logic been used!and, but for one flaw in it, without doubt it would have been successful up to this day. But lt is open to the retort-- First pay the sailors the honest value of their labour. When you have made it as well worth their while to serve you, as to work for other employers, you will have no more difficulty than others have in obtaining their services. To this there is no logical answer except"I will not": and as people are now not only ashamed, but are not desirous, to rob the labourer of his hire, impressment is no longer advocated. Those who attempt to force women into marriage by closing all other doors against them, lay themselves open to a similar retort. If they mean what they say, their opinion must evidently be, that men do not render the married condition so desirable to women, as to induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is not a sign of one's thinking the boon one offers very attractive, when one allows only Hobson's choice, "that or none. " And here, I believe, is the clue to the feelings of those men, who have a real antipathy to the equal freedom of women. I believe they are afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think that anyone in reality has that apprehension; but lest they should insist that marriage should be on equal conditions; lest all women of spirit and capacity should prefer doing almost anything else, not in their own eyes degrading, rather than marry, when marrying is giving themselves a master, and a master too of all their earthly possessions. And truly, if this consequence were necessarily incident to marriage, I think that the apprehension would be very well founded. I agree in thinking it probable that few women, capable of anything else, would, unless under an irresistible entrainement, rendering them for the time insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot, when any other means were open to them of filling a conventionally honourable place in life: and if men are determined that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are quite right, in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They never should have been allowed to receive a literary education. Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element: and it was wrong to bring women up with any acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of a domestic servant. NOTES [1] Title-page of Mme de Stael's Delphine. CHAPTER II It will be well to commence the detailed discussion of the subject by the particular branch of it to which the course of our observations has led us: the conditions which the laws of this and all other countries annex to the marriage contract. Marriage being the destination appointed by society for women, the prospect they are brought up to, and the object which it is intended should be sought by all of them, except those who are too little attractive to be chosen by any man as his companion; one might have supposed that everything would have been done to make this condition as eligible to them as possible, that they might have no cause to regret being denied the option of any other. Society, however, both in this, and, at first, in all other cases, has preferred to attain its object by foul rather than fair means: but this is the only case in which it has substantially persisted in them even to the present day. Originally women were taken by force, or regularly sold by their father to the husband. Until a late period in European history, the father had the power to dispose of his daughter in marriage at his own will and pleasure, without any regard to hers. The Church, indeed, was so far faithful to a better morality as to require a formal "yes" from the woman at the marriage ceremony; but there was nothing to show that the consent was other than compulsory; and it was practically impossible for the girl to refuse compliance if the father persevered, except perhaps when she might obtain the protection of religion by a determined resolution to take monastic vows. After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law. For a long time he could repudiate her, but she had no corresponding power in regard to him. By the old laws of England, the husband was called the lord of the wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign, inasmuch that the murder of a man by his wife was called treason (petty as distinguished from high treason), and was more cruelly avenged than was usually the case with high treason, for the penalty was burning to death. Because these various enormities have fallen into disuse (for most of them were never formally abolished, or not until they had long ceased to be practised) men suppose that all is now as it should be in regard to the marriage contract; and we are continually told that civilisation and Christianity have restored to the woman her just rights. Meanwhile the wife is the actual bond servant of her husband: no less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so called. She vows a livelong obedience to him at the altar, and is held to it all through her life by law. Casuists may say that the obligation of obedience stops short of participation in crime, but it certainly extends to everything else. She can do no act whatever but by his permission, at least tacit. She can acquire no property but for him; the instant it becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes ipso facto his. In this respect the wife's position under the common law of England is worse than that-of slaves in the laws of many countries: by the Roman law, for example, a slave might have his peculium, which to a certain extent the law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use. The higher classes in this country have given an analogous advantage to their women, through special contracts setting aside the law, by conditions of pin-money, etc. : since parental feeling being stronger with fathers than the class feeling of their own sex, a father generally prefers his own daughter to a son-in-law who is a stranger to him. By means of settlements, the rich usually contrive to withdraw the whole or part of the inherited property of the wife from the absolute control of the husband: but they do not succeed in keeping it under her own control; the utmost they can do only prevents the husband from squandering it, at the same time debarring the rightful owner from its use. The property itself is out of the reach of both; and as to the income derived from it, the form of settlement most favourable to the wife (that called "to her separate use") only precludes the husband from receiving it instead of her: it must pass through her hands, but if he takes it from her by personal violence as soon as she receives it, he can neither be punished, nor compelled to restitution. This is the amount of the protection which, under the laws of this country, the most powerful nobleman can give to his own daughter as respects her husband. In the immense majority of cases there is no settlement: and the absorption of all rights, all property, as well as all freedom of action, is complete. The two are called " one person in law, " for the purpose of inferring that whatever is hers is his, but the parallel inference is never drawn that whatever is his is hers; the maxim is not applied against the man, except to make him responsible to third parties for her acts, as a master is for the acts of his slaves or of his cattle. I am far from pretending that wives are in general no better treated than slaves; but no slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is. Hardly any slave, except one immediately attached to the master's person, is a slave at all hours and all minutes; in general he has, like a soldier, his fixed task, and when it is done, or when he is off duty, he disposes, within certain limits, of his own time, and has a family life into which the master rarely intrudes. "Uncle Tom " under his first master had his own life in his "cabin, " almost as much as any man whose work takes him away from home, is able to have in his own family. But it cannot be so with the wife. Above all, a female slave has (in Christian countries) an admitted right, and is considered under a moral obligation, to refuse to her master the last familiarity. Not so the wife: however brutal a tyrant she may unfortunately be chained to--though she may know that he hates her, though it may be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though she may feel it impossible not to loathe him--he can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations. While she is held in this worst description of slavery as to her own person, what is her position in regard to the children in whom she and her master have a joint interest? They are by law his children. He alone has any legal rights over them. Not one act can she do towards or in relation to them, except by delegation from him. Even after he is dead she is not their legal guardian, unless he by will has made her so. He could even send them away from her, and deprive her of the means of seeing or corresponding with them, until this power was in some degree restricted by Serjeant Talfourd's Act. This is her legal state. And from this state she has no means of withdrawing herself. If she leaves her husband, she can take nothing with her, neither her children nor anything which is rightfully her own. If he chooses, he can compel her to return, by law, or by physical force; or he may content himself with seizing for his own use anything which she may earn, or which may be given to her by her relations. It is only legal separation by a decree of a court of justice, which entitles her to live apart, without being forced back into the custody of an exasperated jailer--or which empowers her to apply any earnings to her own use, without fear that a man whom perhaps she has not seen for twenty years will pounce upon her some day and carry all off. This legal separation, until lately, the courts of justice would only give at an expense which made it inaccessible to anyone out of the higher ranks. Even now it is only given in cases of desertion, or of the extreme of cruelty; and yet complaints are made every day that it is granted too easily. Surely, if a woman is denied any lot in life but that of being the personal body-servant of a despot, and is dependent for everything upon the chance of finding one who may be disposed to make a favourite of her instead of merely a drudge, it is a very cruel aggravation of her fate that she should be allowed to try this chance only once. The natural sequel and corollary from this state of things would be, that since her all in life depends upon obtaining a good master, she should be allowed to change again and again until she finds one. I am not saying that she ought to be allowed this privilege. That is a totally different consideration. The question of divorce, in the sense involving liberty of remarriage, is one into which it is foreign to my purpose to enter. All I now say is, that to those to whom nothing but servitude is allowed, the free choice of servitude is the only, though a most insufficient, alleviation. Its refusal completes the assimilation of the wife to the slave--and the slave under not the mildest form of slavery: for in some slave codes the slave could, under certain circumstances of ill usage, legally compel the master to sell him. But no amount of ill usage, without adultery superadded, will in England free a wife from her tormentor. I have no desire to exaggerate, nor does the case stand in any need of exaggeration. I have described the wife's legal position, not her actual treatment. The laws of most countries are far worse than the people who execute them, and many of them are only able to remain laws by being seldom or never carried into effect. If married life were all that it might be expected to be, looking to the laws alone, society would be a hell upon earth. Happily there are both feelings and interests which in many men exclude, and in most, greatly temper, the impulses and propensities which lead to tyranny: and of those feelings, the tie which connects a man with his wife affords, in a normal state of things, incomparably the strongest example. The only tie which at all approaches to it. that between him and his children, tends, in all save exceptional cases, to strengthen, instead of conflicting with, the first. Because this is true; because men in general do not inflict, nor women suffer, all the misery which could be inflicted and suffered if the full power of tyranny with which the man is legally invested were acted on; the defenders of the existing form of the institution think that all its iniquity is justified, and that any complaint is merely quarrelling with the evil which is the price paid for every great good. But the mitigations in practice, which are compatible with maintaining in full legal force this or any other kind of tyranny, instead of being any apology for despotism, only serve to prove what power human nature possesses of reacting against the vilest institutions, and with what vitality the seeds of good as well as those of evil in human character diffuse and propagate themselves. Not a word can be said for despotism in the family which cannot be said for political despotism. Every absolute king does not sit at his window to enjoy the groans of his tortured subjects, nor strips them of their last rag and turns them out to shiver in the road The despotism of Louis XVI was not the despotism of Philippe le Bel, or of Nadir Shah, or of Caligula; but it was bad enough to justify the French Revolution, and to palliate even its horrors. If an appeal be made to the intense attachments which exist between wives and their husbands, exactly as much may be said of domestic slavery. It was quite an ordinary fact in Greece and Rome for slaves to submit to death by torture rather than betray their masters. In the proscriptions of the Roman civil wars it was remarked that wives and slaves were heroically faithful, sons very commonly treacherous. Yet we know how cruelly many Romans treated their slaves. But in truth these intense individual feelings nowhere rise to such a luxuriant height as under the most atrocious institutions. It IS part of the irony of life, that the strongest feelings of devoted gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible, are called forth in human beings towards those who, having the power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily refrain from using that power. How great a place in most men this sentiment fills, even in religious devotion, it would be cruel to inquire. We daily see how much their gratitude to Heaven appears to be stimulated by the contemplation of fellow-creatures to whom God has not been so merciful as he has to themselves. Whether the institution to be defended is slavery, political absolutism, or the absolutism of the head of a family, we are always expected to judge of it from its best instances; and we are presented with pictures of loving exercise of authority on one side, loving submission to it on the other--superior wisdom ordering all things for the greatest good of the dependents, and surrounded by their smiles and benedictions. All this would be very much to the purpose if anyone pretended that there are no such things as goodmen. Who doubts that there may be great goodness, and great happiness, and great affection, under the absolute government of a good man? Meanwhile, laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad. Marriage is not an institution designed fora select few. Men are not required, as a preliminary to the marriage ceremony, to prove by testimonials that they are fit to be trusted with the exercise of absolute power. The tie of affection and obligation to a wife and children is very strong with those whose general social feelings are strong, and with many who are little sensible to any other social ties; but there are all degrees of sensibility and insensibility to it, as there are all grades of goodness and wickedness in men, down to those whom no ties will bind, and on whom society has no action but through its ultima ratio, the penalties of the law. In every grade of this descending scale are men to whom are committed all the legal powers of a husband. The vilest malefactor has some wretched woman tied to him, against whom he can commit any atrocity except killing her, and, if tolerably cautious, can do that without much danger of the legal penalty. And how many thousands are there among the lowest classes in every country, who, without being in a legal sense malefactors in any other respect, because in every other quarter their aggressions meet with resistance, indulge the utmost habitual excesses of bodily violence towards the unhappy wife, who alone, at least of grown persons, can neither repel nor escape from their brutality; and towards whom the excess of dependence inspires their mean and savage natures, not with a generous forbearance, and a point of honour to behave well to one whose lot in life is trusted entirely to their kindness, but on the contrary with a notion that the law has delivered her to them as their thing, to be used at their pleasure, and that they are not expected to practise the consideration towards her which is required from them towards everybody else. The law, which till lately left even these atrocious extremes of domestic oppression practically unpunished, has within these few years made some feeble attempts to repress them. But its attempts have done little, and cannot be expected to do much, because it is contrary to reason and experience to suppose that there can be any real check to brutality, consistent with leaving the victim still in the power of the executioner. Until a conviction for personal violence, or at all events a repetition of it after a first conviction, entitles the woman ipso facto to a divorce, or at least to a judicial separation, the attempt to repress these "aggravated assaults " by legal penalties will break down for want of a prosecutor, or for want of a witness. When we consider how vast is the number of men, in any great country, who are little higher than brutes, and that this never prevents them from being able, through the law of marriage, to obtain a victim, the breadth and depth of human misery caused in this shape alone by the abuse of the institution swells to something appalling. Yet these are only the extreme cases. They are the lowest abysses, but there is a sad succession of depth after depth before reaching them. In domestic as in political tyranny, the case of absolute monsters chiefly illustrates the institution by showing that there is scarcely any horror which may not occur under it if the despot pleases, and thus setting in a strong light what must be the terrible frequency of things only a little less atrocious. Absolute fiends are as rare as angels, perhaps rarer: ferocious savages, with occasional touches of humanity, are however very frequent: and in the wide interval which separates these from any worthy representatives of the human species, how many are the forms and gradations of animalism and selfishness, often under an outward varnish of civilisation and even cultivation, living at peace with the law, maintaining a creditable appearance to all who are not under their power, yet sufficient often to make the lives of all who are so, a torment and a burthen to them ! It would be tiresome to repeat the commonplaces about the unfitness of men in general for power, which, after the political discussions of centuries, everyone knows by heart, were it not that hardly anyone thinks of applying these maxims to the case in which above all others they are applicable, that of power, not placed in the hands of a man here and there, but offered to every adult male, down to the basest and most ferocious. It is not because a man is not known to have broken any of the Ten Commandments, or because he maintains a respectable character in his dealings with those whom he cannot compel to have intercourse with him, or because he does not fly out into violent bursts of ill-temper against those who are not obliged to bear with him, that it is possible to surmise of what sort his conduct will be in the unrestraint of home. Even the commonest men reserve the violent, the sulky, the undisguisedly selfish side of their character for those who have no power to withstand it. The relation of superiors to dependents is the nursery of these vices of character, which, wherever else they exist, are an overflowing from that source. A man who is morose or violent to his equals, is sure to be one who has lived among inferiors, whom he could frighten or worry into submission. If the family in its best forms is, as it is often said to be, a school of sympathy, tenderness, and loving forgetfulness of self, it is still oftener, as respects its chief, a school of wilfulness, overbearingness, unbounded selfish indulgence, and a double-dyed and idealised selfishness, of which sacrifice itself is only a particular form: the care for the wife and children being only care for them as parts of the man's own interests and belongings, and their individual happiness being immolated in every shape to his smallest preferences. What better is to be looked for under the existing form of the institution? We know that the bad propensities of human nature are only kept within bounds when they are allowed no scope for their indulgence. We know that from impulse and habit, when not from deliberate purpose, almost everyone to whom others yield, goes on encroaching upon them, until a point is reached at which they are compelled to resist. Such being the common tendency of human nature; the almost unlimited power which present social institutions give to the man over at least one human being-- the one with whom he resides, and whom he has always present -- this power seeks out and evokes the latent germs of selfishness in the remotest corners of his nature--fans its faintest sparks and smouldering embers--offers to him a licence for the indulgence of those points of his original character which in all other relations he would have found it necessary to repress and conceal, and the repression of which would in time have become a second nature. I know that there is another side to the question. I grant that the wife, if she cannot effectually resist, can at least retaliate; she, too, can make the man's life extremely uncomfortable, and by that power is able to carry many points which she ought, and many which she ought not, to prevail in. But this instrument of self-protection--which may be called the power of the scold, or the shrewish sanction--has the fatal defect, that it avails most against the least tyrannical superiors, and in favour of the least deserving dependents. It is the weapon of irritable and self-willed women; of those who would make the worst use of power if they themselves had it, and who generally turn this power to a bad use. The amiable cannot use such an instrument, the high minded disdain it. And on the other hand, the husbands against whom it is used most effectively are the gentler and more inoffensive; those who cannot be induced, even by provocation, to resort to any very harsh exercise of authority. The wife's power of being disagreeable generally only establishes a counter-tyranny, and makes victims in their turn chiefly of those husbands who are least inclined to be tyrants. What is it, then, which really tempers the corrupting effects of the power, and makes it compatible with such amount of good as we actually see? Mere feminine blandishments. though of great effect in individual instances, have very little effect in modifying the general tendencies of the situation; for their power only lasts while the woman is young and attractive, often only while her charm is new, and not dimmed by familiarity; and on many men they have not much influence at any time. The real mitigating causes are, the personal affection which is the growth of time in so far as the man's nature is susceptible of it and the woman's character sufficiently congenial with his to excite it; their common interests as regards the children, and their general community of interest as concerns third persons(to which however there are very great limitations); the real importance of the wife to his daily comforts and enjoyments, and the value he consequently attaches to her on his personal account, which, in a man capable of feeling for others, lays the foundation of caring for her on her own; and lastly, the influence naturally acquired over almost all human beings by those near to their persons (if not actually disagreeable to them): who, both by their direct entreaties, and by the insensible contagion of their feelings and dispositions, are often able, unless counteracted by some equally strong personal influence, to obtain a degree of command over the conduct of the superior, altogether excessive and unreasonable. Through these various means, the wife frequently exercises even too much power over the man; she is able to affect his conduct in things in which she may not be qualified to influence it for good--in which her influence may be not only unenlightened, but employed on the morally wrong side; and in which he would act better if left to his own prompting. But neither in the affairs of families nor in those of states is power a compensation for the loss of freedom. Her power often gives her what she has no right to, but does not enable her to assert her own rights. A Sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom she tyrannises; but the desirable thing would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave. By entirely sinking her own existence in her husband; by having no will (or persuading him that she has no will) but his, in anything which regards their joint relation, and by making it the business of her life to work upon his sentiments, a wife may gratify herself by influencing, and very probably perverting, his conduct, in those of his external relations which she has never qualified herself to judge of, or in which she is herself wholly influenced by some personal or other partiality or prejudice. Accordingly, as things now are, those who act most kindly to their wives, are quite as often made worse, as better, by the wife's influence, in respect to all interests extending beyond the family. She is taught that she has no business with things out of that sphere; and accordingly she seldom has any honest and conscientious opinion on them; and therefore hardly ever meddles with them for any legitimate purpose, but generally for an interested one. She neither knows nor cares which is the right side in politics, but she knows what will bring in money or invitations, give her husband a title, her son a place, or her daughter a good marriage. But how, it will be asked, can any society exist without government? In a family, as in a state, some one person must be the ultimate ruler. Who shall decide when married people differ in opinion? Both cannot have their way, yet a decision one way or the other must be come to. It is not true that in all voluntary association between two people, one of them must be absolute master: still less that the law must determine which of them it shall be. The most frequent case of voluntary association, next to marriage, is partnership in business: and it is not found or thought necessary to enact that in every partnership, one partner shall have entire control over the concern, and the others shall be bound to obey his orders. No one would enter into partnership on terms which would subject him to the responsibilities of a principal, with only the powers and privileges of a clerk or agent. If the law dealt with other contracts as it does with marriage, it would ordain that one partner should administer the common business as if it was his private concern; that the others should have only delegated powers; and that this one should be designated by some general presumption of law, for example as being the eldest. The law never does this: nor does experience show it to be necessary that any theoretical inequality of power should exist between the partners, or that the partnership should have any other conditions than what they may themselves appoint by their articles of agreement. Yet it might seem that the exclusive power might be conceded with less danger to the rights and interests of the inferior, in the case of partnership than in that of marriage, since he is free to cancel the power by withdrawing from the connexion. The wife has no such power, and even if she had, it is almost always desirable that she should try all measures before resorting to it. It is quite true that things which have to be decided everyday, and cannot adjust themselves gradually, or wait for a compromise, ought to depend on one will; one person must have their sole control. But it does not follow that this should always be the same person. The natural arrangement is a division of powers between the two; each being absolute in the executive branch of their own department, and any change of system and principle requiring the consent of both. The division neither can nor should be pre-established by the law, since it must depend on individual capacities and suitabilities. If the two persons chose, they might pre-appoint it by the marriage contract, as pecuniary arrangements are now often pre-appointed. There would seldom be any difficulty in deciding such things by mutual consent, unless the marriage was one of those unhappy ones in which all other things, as well as this, become subjects of bickering and dispute. The division of rights would naturally follow the division of duties and functions; and that is already made by consent, or at all events not by law, but by general custom, modified and modifiable at the pleasure of the persons concerned. The real practical decision of affairs, to whichever may be given the legal authority, will greatly depend, as it even now does, upon comparative qualifications. The mere fact that he is usually the eldest, will in most cases give the preponderance to the man; at least until they both attain a time of life at which the difference in their years is of no importance. There will naturally also be a more potential voice on the side, whichever it is, that brings the means of support. Inequality from this source does not depend on the law of marriage, but on the general conditions of human society, as now constituted. The influence of mental superiority, either general or special, and of superior decision of character, will necessarily tell for much. It always does so at present. And this fact shows how little foundation there is for the apprehension that the powers and responsibilities of partners in life (as of partners in business), cannot be satisfactorily apportioned by agreement between themselves. They always are so apportioned, except in cases in which the marriage institution is a failure. Things never come to an issue of downright power on one side, and obedience on the other, except where the connexion altogether has been a mistake, and it would be a blessing to both parties to be relieved from it. Some may say that the very thing by which an amicable settlement of differences becomes possible, is the power of legal compulsion known to be in reserve; as people submit to an arbitration because there is a court of law in the background, which they know that they can be forced to obey. But to make the cases parallel, we must suppose that the rule of the court of law was, not to try the cause, but to give judgment always for the same side, suppose the defendant. If so, the amenability to it would be a motive with the plaintiff to agree to almost any arbitration, but it would be just the reverse with the defendant. The despotic power which the law gives to the husband may be a reason to make the wife assent to any compromise by which power is practically shared between the two, but it cannot be the reason why the husband does. That there is always among decently conducted people a practical compromise, though one of them at least is under no physical or moral necessity of making it, shows that the natural motives which lead to a voluntary adjustment of the united life of two persons in a manner acceptable to both, do on the whole, excepting unfavourable cases, prevail. The matter is certainly not improved by laying down as an ordinance of law, that the superstructure of free government shall be raised upon a legal basis of despotism on one side and subjection on the other, and that every concession which the despot makes may, at his mere pleasure, and without any warning, be recalled. Besides that no freedom is worth much when held on so precarious a tenure, its conditions are not likely to be the most equitable when the law throws so prodigious a weight into one scale; when the adjustment rests between two persons one of whom is declared to be entitled to everything, the other not only entitled to nothing except during the good pleasure of the first, but under the strongest moral and religious obligation not to rebel under any excess of oppression. A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say, that husbands indeed are willing to be reasonable, and to make fair concessions to their partners without being compelled to it, but that wives are not: that if allowed any rights of their own, they will acknowledge no rights at all in anyone else, and never will yield in anything, unless they can be compelled, by the man's mere authority, to yield in everything. This would have been said by many persons some generations ago, when satires on women were in vogue, and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being what men made them. But it will be said by no one now who is worth replying to. It is not the doctrine of the present day that women are less susceptible of good feeling, and consideration for those with whom they are united by the strongest ties, than men are. On the contrary, we are perpetually told that women are better than men, by those who are totally opposed to treating them as if they were as good; so that the saying has passed into a piece of tiresome cant, intended to put a complimentary face upon an injury, and resembling those celebrations of royal clemency which, according to Gulliver, the king of Lilliput always prefixed to his most sanguinary decrees. If women are better than men in anything, it surely is in individual self-sacrifice for those of their own family. But I lay little stress on this, so long as they are universally taught that they are born and created for self-sacrifice. I believe that equality of rights would abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the present artificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman would not be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the other hand, men would be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than at present, because they would no longer be taught to worship their own will as such a grand thing that it is actually the law for another rational being. There is nothing which men so easily learn as this self-worship: all privileged persons, and all privileged classes, have had it. The more we descend in the scale of humanity, the intenser it is; and most of all in those who are not, and can never expect to be, raised above anyone except an unfortunate wife and children. The honourable exceptions are proportionally fewer than in the case of almost any other human infirmity. Philosophy and religion, instead of keeping it in check, are generally suborned to defend it; and nothing controls it but that practical feeling of the equality of human beings, which is the theory of Christianity, but which Christianity will never practically teach, while it sanctions institutions grounded on an arbitrary preference of one human being over another. There are, no doubt, women, as there are men, whom equality of consideration will not satisfy; with whom there is no peace while any will or wish is regarded but their own. Such persons are a proper subject for the law of divorce. They are only fit to live alone, and no human beings ought to be compelled to associate their lives with them. But the legal subordination tends to make such characters among women more, rather than less, frequent. If the man exerts his whole power, the woman is of course crushed: but if she is treated with indulgence, and permitted to assume power, there is no rule to set limits to her encroachments. The law, not determining her rights, but theoretically allowing her none at all, practically declares that the measure of what she has a right to, is what she can contrive to get. The equality of married persons before the law, is not only the sole mode in which that particular relation can be made consistent with justice to both sides, and conducive to the happiness of both, but it is the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind, in any high sense, a school of moral cultivation. Though the truth may not be felt or generally acknowledged for generations to come, the only school of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals. The moral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from the law of force, and is adapted almost solely to the relations which force creates. In the less advanced states of society, people hardly recognise any relation with their equals. To be an equal is to be an enemy. Society, from its highest place to its lowest, is one long chain, or rather ladder, where every individual is either above or below his nearest neighbour, and wherever he does not command he must obey. Existing moralities, accordingly, are mainly fitted to a relation of command and obedience. Yet command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state. Already in modern life, and more and more as it progressively improves, command and obedience become exceptional facts in life, equal association its general rule. The morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearance and protection of the strong. How much longer is one form of society and life to content itself with the morality made for another ? We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice. Whenever, in former ages, any approach has been made to society in equality, Justice has asserted its claims as the foundation of virtue. It was thus in the free republics of antiquity. But even in the best of these, the equals were limited to the free male citizens; slaves, women, and the unenfranchised residents were under the law of force. The joint influence of Roman civilisation and of Christianity obliterated these distinctions, and in theory (if only partially in practice) declared the claims of the human being, as such, to be paramount to those of sex, class, or social position. The barriers which had begun to be levelled were raised again by the northern conquests; and the whole of modern history consists of the slow process by which they have since been wearing away. We are entering into an order of things in which justice will again be the primary virtue; grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympathetic association; having its root no longer in the instinct of equals for self protection, but in a cultivated sympathy between them; and no one being now left out, but an equal measure being extended to all. It is no novelty that mankind do not distinctly foresee their own changes, and that their sentiments are adapted to past, not to coming ages. To see the futurity of the species has always been the privilege of the intellectual elite, or of those who have learnt from them; to have the feelings of that futurity has been the distinction, and usually the martyrdom, of a still rarer elite. Institutions, books, education, society, all go on training human beings for the old, long after the new has come; much more when it is only coming. But the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freely concede to everyone else; regarding command of any kind as an exceptional necessity, and in all cases a temporary one; and preferring, whenever possible, the society of those with whom leading and following can be alternate and reciprocal. To these virtues, nothing in life as at present constituted gives cultivation by exercise. The family is a school of despotism, in which the virtues of despotism, but also its vices, are largely nourished. Citizenship, in free countries, is partly a school of society in equality; but citizenship fills only a small place in modern life, and does not come near the daily habits or inmost sentiments. The family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom. It is sure to be a sufficient one of everything else. It will always be a school of obedience for the children, of command for the parents. What is needed is, that it should be a school of sympathy in equality, of living together in love, without power on one side or obedience on the other. This it ought to be between the parents. It would then be an exercise of those virtues which each requires to fit them for all other association, and a model to the children of the feelings and conduct which their temporary training by means of obedience is designed to render habitual, and therefore natural, to them. The moral training of mankind will never be adapted to the conditions of the life for which all other human progress is a preparation, until they practise in the family the same moral rule which is adapted to the normal constitution of human society. Any sentiment of freedom which can exist in a man whose nearest and dearest intimacies, are with those of whom he is absolute master, is not the genuine or Christian love of freedom, but, what the love of freedom generally was in the ancients and in the middle ages---an intense feeling of the dignity and importance of his own personality; making him disdain a yoke for himself, of which he has no abhorrence whatever in the abstract, but which he is abundantly ready to impose on others for his own interest or glorification. I readily admit (and it is the very foundation of my hopes) that numbers of married people even under the present law (in the higher classes of England probably a great majority), live in the spirit of a just law of equality. Laws never would be improved, if there were not numerous persons whose moral sentiments are better than the existing laws. Such persons ought to support the principles here advocated; of which the only object is to make all other married couples similar to what these are now. But persons even of considerable moral worth, unless they are also thinkers, are very ready to believe that laws or practices, the evils of which they have not personally experienced, do not produce any evils, but (if seeming to be generally approved of) probably do good, and that it is wrong to object to them. It would, however, be a great mistake in such married people to suppose, because the legal conditions of the tie which unites them do not occur to their thoughts once in a twelve month, and because they live and feel in all respects as if they were legally equals, that the same is the case with all other married couples, wherever the husband is not a notorious ruffian. To suppose this, would be to show equal ignorance of human nature and of fact. The less fit a man is for the possession of power--the less likely to be allowed to exercise it over any person with that person's voluntary consent--the more does he hug himself in the consciousness of the power the law gives him, exact its legal rights to the utmost point which custom (the custom of men like himself) will tolerate, and take pleasure in using the power, merely to enliven the agreeable sense of possessing it. What is more; in the most naturally brutal and morally uneducated part of the lower classes, the legal slavery of the woman, and something in the merely physical subjection to their will as an instrument, causes them to feel a sort of disrespect and contempt towards their own wife which they do not feel towards any other woman, or any other human being, with whom they come in contact; and which makes her seem to them an appropriate subject for any kind of indignity. Let an acute observer of the signs of feeling, who has the requisite opportunities, judge for himself whether this is not the case: and if he finds that it is, let him not wonder at any amount of disgust and indignation that can be felt against institutions which lead naturally to this depraved state of the human mind. We shall be told, perhaps, that religion imposes the duty of obedience; as every established fact which is too bad to admit of any other defence, is always presented to us as an injunction of religion. The Church, it is very true, enjoins it in her formularies, but it would be difficult to derive any such injunction from Christianity. We are told that St. Paul said, "Wives, obey your husbands": but he also said, "Slaves, obey your masters. " It was not St. Paul's business, nor was it consistent with his object, the propagation of Christianity, to incite anyone to rebellion against existing laws. The Apostle's acceptance of all social institutions as he found them, is no more to be construed as a disapproval of attempts to improve them at the proper time, than his declaration, "The powers that be are ordained of God, " gives his sanction to military despotism, and to that alone, as the Christian form of political government, or commands passive obedience to it. To pretend that Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms of government and society, and protect them against change, is to reduce it to the level of Islamism or of Brahminism. It is precisely because Christianity has not done this, that it has been the religion of the progressive portion of mankind, and Islamism, Brahminism, etc. have been those of the stationary portions; or rather (for there is no such thing as a really stationary society) of the declining portions. There have been abundance of people, in all ages of Christianity, who tried to make it something of the same kind; to convert us into a sort of Christian Mussulmans, with the Bible for a Koran, prohibiting all improvement: and great has been their power, and many have had to sacrifice their lives in resisting them. But they have been resisted, and the resistance has made us what we are, and will yet make us what we are to be. After what has been said respecting the obligation of obedience, it is almost superfluous to say anything concerning the more special point included in the general one--a woman's right to her own property; for I need not hope that this treatise can make any impression upon those who need anything to convince them that a woman's inheritance or gains ought to be as much her own after marriage as before. The rule is simple: whatever would be the husband's or wife's if they were not married, should be under their exclusive control during marriage; which need not interfere with the power to tie up property by settlement, in order to preserve it for children. Some people are sentimentally shocked at the idea of a separate interest in money matters as inconsistent with the ideal fusion of two lives into one. For my own part, I am one of the strongest supporters of community of goods, when resulting from an entire unity of feeling in the owners, which makes all things common between them. But I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine, that what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and I should prefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, though I were myself the person to profit by it. This particular injustice and oppression to women, which is, to common apprehensions, more obvious than all the rest, admits of remedy without interfering with any other mischiefs: and there can belittle doubt that it will be one of the earliest remedied. Already, in many of the new and several of the old States of the American Confederation, provisions have been inserted even in the written Constitutions, securing to women equality of rights in this respect: and thereby improving materially the position, in the marriage relation, of those women at least who have property, by leaving them one instrument of power which they have not signed away; and preventing also the scandalous abuse of the marriage institution, which is perpetrated when a man entraps a girl into marrying him without a settlement, for the sole purpose of getting possession of her money. When the support of the family depends, not on property, but on earnings, the common arrangement, by which the man earns the income and the wife superintends the domestic expenditure, seems to me in general the most suitable division of labour between the two persons. If, in addition to the physical suffering of bearing children, and the whole responsibility of their care and education in early years, the wife undertakes the careful and economical application of the husband's earnings to the general comfort of the family; she takes not only her fair share, but usually the larger share, of the bodily and mental exertion required by their joint existence. If she undertakes any additional portion, it seldom relieves her from this, but only prevents her from performing it properly. The care which she is herself disabled from taking of the children and the household, nobody else takes; those of the children who do not die, grow up as they best can, and the management of the household is likely to be so bad, as even in point of economy to be a great drawback from the value of the wife's earnings. In another wise just state of things, it is not, therefore, I think, a desirable custom, that the wife should contribute by her labour to the income of the family. In an unjust state of things, her doing so may be useful to her, by making her of more value in the eyes of the man who is legally her master; but, on the other hand, it enables him still farther to abuse his power, by forcing her to work, and leaving the support of the family to her exertions, while he spends most of his time in drinking and idleness. The power of earning is essential to the dignity of a woman, if she has not independent property. But if marriage were an equal contract, not implying the obligation of obedience; if the connexion were no longer enforced to the oppression of those to whom it is purely a mischief, but a separation, on just terms (I do not now speak of a divorce), could be obtained by any woman who was morally entitled to it; and if she would then find all honourable employments as freely open to her as to men; it would not be necessary for her protection, that during marriage she should make this particular use of her faculties. Like a man when he chooses a profession, so, when a woman marries, it may in general be understood that she makes choice of the management of a household, and the bringing up of a family, as the first call upon her exertions, during as many years of her life as may be required for the purpose; and that she renounces, not all other objects and occupations, but all which are not consistent with the requirements of this. The actual exercise, in a habitual or systematic manner, of outdoor occupations, or such as cannot be carried on at home, would by this principle be practically interdicted to the greater number of married women. But the utmost latitude ought to exist for the adaptation of general rules to individual suitabilities; and there ought to be nothing to prevent faculties exceptionally adapted to any other pursuit, from obeying their vocation notwithstanding marriage: due provision being made for supplying otherwise any falling-short which might become inevitable, in her full performance of the ordinary functions of mistress of a family. These things, if once opinion were rightly directed on the subject, might with perfect safety be left to be regulated by opinion, without any interference of law. CHAPTER III On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate no difficulty in convincing anyone who has gone with me on the subject of the equality of women in the family. I believe that their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal. Were it not for-that, I think that almost everyone, in the existing state of opinion in politics and political economy, would admit the injustice of excluding half the human race from the greater number of lucrative occupations, and from almost all high social functions; ordaining from their birth either that they are not, and cannot by any possibility become, fit for employments which are legally open to the stupidest and basest of the other sex, or else that however fit they may be, those employments shall be interdicted to them, in order to be preserved for the exclusive benefit of males. In the last two centuries, when (which was seldom the case) any reason beyond the mere existence of the fact was thought to be required to justify the disabilities of women, people seldom assigned as a reason their inferior mental capacity; which, in times when there was a real trial of personal faculties (from which all women were not excluded) in the struggles of public life, no one really believed in. The reason given in those days was not women's unfitness, but the interest of society, by which was meant the interest of men: just as the raison d 'etat, meaning the convenience of the government, and the support of existing authority, was deemed a sufficient explanation and excuse for the most flagitious crimes. In the present day, power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good: accordingly, when anything is forbidden to women, it is thought necessary to say, and desirable to believe, that they are incapable of doing it, and that they depart from their real path of success and happiness when they aspire to it. But to make this reason plausible (I do not say valid), those by whom it is urged must be prepared to carry it to a much greater length than anyone ventures to do in the face of present experience. It is not sufficient to maintain that women on the average are less gifted then men on the average, with certain of the higher mental faculties, or that a smaller number of women than of men are fit for occupations and functions of the highest intellectual character. It is necessary to maintain that no women at all are fit for them, and that the most eminent women arc inferior in mental faculties to the most mediocre of the men on whom those functions at present devolve. For if the performance of the function is decided either by competition, or by any mode of choice which secures regard to the public interest, there needs be no apprehension that any important employments will fall into the hands of women inferior to average men, or to the average of their male competitors. The only result would be that there would be fewer women than men in such employments; a result certain to happen in any case, if only from the preference always likely to be felt by the majority of women for the one vocation in which there is nobody to compete with them. Now, the most determined depreciator of women will not venture to deny, that when we add the experience of recent times to that of ages past, women, and not a few merely, but many women, have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps without a single exception, which is done by men, and of doing it successfully and creditably. The utmost that can be said is, that there arc many things which none of them have succeeded in doing as well as they have been done by some men--many in which they have not reached the very highest rank. But there are extremely few, dependent only on mental faculties, in which they have not attained the rank next to the highest. Is not this enough, and much more than enough, to make it a tyranny to them, and a detriment to society, that they should not be allowed to compete with men for the exercise of these functions ? Is it not a mere truism to say, that such functions are often filled by men far less fit for them than numbers of women, and who would be beaten by women in any fair field of competition? What difference does it make that there may be men somewhere, fully employed about other things, who may be still better qualified for the things in question than these women? Does not this take place in all competitions? Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person? Are we so certain of always finding a man made to our hands for any duty or function of social importance which falls vacant, that we lose nothing by putting a ban upon one half of mankind, and refusing beforehand to make their faculties available, however distinguished they may be? And even if we could do without them, would it be consistent with justice to refuse to them their fair share of honour and distinction, or to deny to them the equal moral right of all human beings to choose their occupation (short of injury to others) according to their own preferences, at their own risk? Nor is the injustice confined to them: it is shared by those who are in a position to benefit by their services. To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not be advocates, or shall not be Members of Parliament, is to injure not them only, but all who employ physicians or advocates, or elect Members of Parliament, and who are deprived of the stimulating effect of greater competition on the exertions of the competitors, as well as restricted to a narrower range of individual choice. It will perhaps be sufficient if I confine myself, in the details of my argument, to functions of a public nature: since, if I am successful as to those, it probably will be readily granted that women should be admissible to all other occupations to which it is at all material whether they are admitted or not. And here let me begin by marking out one function, broadly distinguished from all others, their right to which is entirely independent of any question which can be raised concerning their faculties. I mean the suffrage, both parliamentary and municipal. The right to share in the choice of those who are to exercise a public trust, is altogether a distinct thing from that of competing for the trust itself. If no one could vote for a Member of Parliament who was not fit to be a candidate, the government would be a narrow oligarchy indeed. To have a voice in choosing those by whom one is to be governed, is a means of self-protection due to everyone, though he were to remain for ever excluded from the function of governing: and that women are considered fit to have such a choice, may be presumed from the fact, that the law already gives it to women in the most important of all cases to themselves: for the choice of the man who is to govern a woman to the end of life, is always supposed to be voluntarily made by herself. In the case of election to public trusts, it is the business of constitutional law to surround the right of suffrage with all needful securities and limitations; but whatever securities are sufficient in the case of the male sex, no others need be required in the case of women. Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same. The majority of the women of any class are not likely to differ in political opinion from the majority of the men of the same class, unless the question be one in which the interests of women, as such, are in some way involved; and if they are so, women require the suffrage, as their guarantee of just and equal consideration. This ought to be obvious even to those who coincide in no other of the doctrines for which I contend. Even if every woman were a wife, and if every wife ought to be a slave, all the more would these slaves stand in need of legal protection: and we know what legal protection the slaves have, where the laws are made by their masters. With regard to the fitness of women, not only to participate in elections, but themselves to hold offices or practise professions involving important public responsibilities; I have already observed that this consideration is not essential to the practical question in dispute: since any woman, who succeeds n an open profession, proves by that very fact that she is qualified for it. And in the case of public offices, if the political system of the country is such as to exclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women: while if it is not, there is no additional evil in the fact that the unfit persons whom it admits may be either women or men. As long therefore as it is acknowledged that even a few women may be fit for these duties, the laws which shut the door on those exceptions cannot bc justified by any opinion which can be held respecting the capacities of women in general. But, though this last consideration is not essential, it is far from being irrelevant. An unprejudiced view of it gives additional strength to the arguments against the disabilities of women, and reinforces them by high considerations of practical utility. Let us first make entire abstraction of all psychological considerations tending to show, that any of the mental differences supposed to exist between women and men are but the natural effect of the differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate no radical difference, far less radical inferiority, of nature. Let us consider women only as they already are, or as they are known to have been; and the capacities which they have already practically shown. What they have done, that at least, if nothing else, it is proved that they can do. When we consider how sedulously they are all trained away from, instead of being trained towards, any of the occupations or objects reserved for men, it is evident that I am taking a very humble ground for them, when I rest their case on what they have actually achieved. For, in this case, negative evidence is worth little,-while any positive evidence is conclusive. It cannot be inferred to be impossible that a woman should be a Homer, or an Aristotle, or a Michael Angelo, or a Beethoven, because no woman has yet actually produced works comparable to theirs in any of those lines of excellence. This negative fact at most leaves the question uncertain, and open to psychological discussion. But it is quite certain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth, or a Deborah, or a Joan of Arc, since this is not inference, but fact. Now it is a curious consideration, that the only things which the existing law excludes women from doing, are the things which they have proved that they are able to do. There is no law to prevent a woman from having written all the plays of Shakespeare, or composed all the operas of Mozart. But Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, had they not inherited the throne, could not have been entrusted with the smallest of the political duties, of which the former showed herself equal to the greatest. If anything conclusive could be inferred from experience, without psychological analysis, it would be that the things which women are not allowed to do are the very ones for which they are peculiarly qualified; since their vocation for government has made its way, and become conspicuous, through the very few opportunities which have been given; while in the lines of distinction which apparently were freely open to them, they have by no means so eminently distinguished themselves. We know how small a number of reigning queens history presents, in comparison with that of kings. of this smaller number a far larger proportion have shown talents for rule; though many of them have occupied the throne in difficult periods. It is remarkable, too, that they have, in a great number of instances, been distinguished by merits the most opposite to the imaginary and conventional character of women: they have been as much remarked for the firmness and vigour of their rule, as for its intelligence. When, to queens and empresses, we add regents, and viceroys of provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to a great length.[1] This fact is so undeniable, that someone, long ago, tried to retort the argument, and turned the admitted truth into an additional insult, by saying that queens are better than kings, because under kings women govern, but under queens, men. It may seem a waste of reasoning to argue against a bad joke; but such things do affect people's minds; and I have heard men quote this saying, with an air as if they thought that there was something in it. At any rate, it will serve as anything, else for a starting-point in discussion. I say, then, that it is not true that under kings, women govern. Such cases are entirely exceptional: and weak kings have quite as often governed ill through the influence of male favourites, as of female. When a king is governed by a woman merely through his amatory propensities, good government is not probable, though even then there are exceptions. But French history counts two kings who have voluntarily given the direction of affairs during many years, the one to his mother, the other to his sister: one of them, Charles VIII, was a mere boy, but in doing so he followed the intentions of his father Louis XI, the ablest monarch of his age. The other, Saint Louis, was the best, and one of the most vigorous rulers, since the time of Charlemagne. Both these princesses ruled in a manner hardly equalled by any prince among their contemporaries. The Emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic prince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in his service as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of all sovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two princesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands, and kept one or other of them in that post during his whole life (they were afterwards succeeded by a third). Both ruled very successfully, and one of them, Margaret of Austria, as one of the ablest politicians of the age. So much for one side of the question. Now as to the other. When it is said that under queens men govern, is the same meaning to be understood as when kings are said to be governed by women ? Is it meant that queens choose as their instruments of government, the associates of their personal pleasures? The case is rare even with those who are as unscrupulous on the latter point as Catherine II: and it is not in these cases that the good government, alleged to arise from male influence, is to be found. If it be true, then, that the administration is in the hands of better men under a queen than under an average king, it must be that queens have a superior capacity for choosing them; and women must be better qualified than men both for the position of sovereign, and for that of chief minister; for the principal business of a Prime Minister is not to govern in person, but to find the fittest persons to conduct every department of public affairs. The more rapid insight into character, which is one of the admitted points of superiority in women over men, must certainly make them, with anything like parity of qualifications in other respects, more apt than men in that choice of instruments, which is nearly the most important business of everyone who has to do with governing mankind. Even the unprincipled Catherine de Medici could feel the value of a Chancellor de l'Hopital. But it is also true that most great queens have been great by their own talents for government, and have been well served precisely for that reason. They retained the supreme direction of affairs in their own hands: and if they listened to good advisers, they gave by that fact the strongest proof that their judgment fitted them for dealing with the great questions of government. Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greater functions of politics, are incapable of qualifying themselves for the less? Is there any reason in the nature of things, that the wives and sisters of princes should, whenever called on, be found as competent as the princes themselves to their business, but that the wives and sisters of statesmen, and administrators, and directors of companies, and managers of public institutions, should be unable to do what is done by their brothers and husbands? The real reason is plain enough; it is that princesses, being more raised above the generality of men by their rank than placed below them by their sex, have never been taught that it was improper for them to concern themselves with politics; but have been allowed to feel the liberal interest natural to any cultivated human being, in the great transactions which took place around them, and in which they might be called on to take a part. The ladies of reigning families are the only women who are allowed the same range of interests and freedom of development as men; and it is precisely in their case that there is not found to be any inferiority. Exactly where and in proportion as women's capacities for government have been tried, in that proportion have they been found adequate. This fact is in accordance with the best general conclusions which the world's imperfect experience seems as yet to suggest, concerning the peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, as women have hitherto been. I do not say, as they will continue to be; for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption in anyone to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot be, by natural constitution. They have always hitherto been kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural a state, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted and disguised; and no one can safely pronounce that if women's nature were left to choose its direction as freely as men's, and if no artificial bent were attempted to be given to it except that required by the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike, there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference at all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves. I shall presently show, that even the least contestable of the differences which now exist, are such as may very well have been produced merely by circumstances, without any difference of natural capacity. But, looking at women as they are known in experience, it may be said of them, with more truth than belongs to most other generalisations on the subject, that the general bent of their talents is towards the practical. This statement is conformable to all the public history of women, in the present and the past. It is no less borne out by common and daily experience. Let us consider the special nature of the mental capacities most characteristic of a woman of talent. They are all of a kind which fits them for practice, and makes them tend towards it. What is meant by a woman's capacity of intuitive perception? It means, a rapid and correct insight into present fact. It has nothing to do with general principles. Nobody ever perceived a scientific law of nature by intuition, nor arrived at a general rule of duty or prudence by it. These are results of slow and careful collection and comparison of experience; and neither the men nor the women. of intuition usually shine in this department, unless, indeed, the experience necessary is such as they can acquire by themselves. For what is called their intuitive sagacity makes them peculiarly apt in gathering such general truths as can be collected from their individual means of observation. When, consequently, they chance to be as well provided as men are with the results of other people's experience, by reading and education (I use the word chance advisedly, for, in respect to the knowledge that tends to fit them for the greater concerns of life, the only educated women are the self-educated) they are better furnished than men in general with the essential requisites of skilful and successful practice. Men who have been much taught, are apt to be deficient in the sense of present fact; they do not see, in the facts which they are called upon to deal with, what is really there, but what they have been taught to expect. This is seldom the case with women of any ability. Their capacity of "intuition" preserves them from it. With equality of experience and of general faculties, a woman usually sees much more than a man of what is immediately before her. Now this sensibility to the present, is the main quality on which the capacity for practice, as distinguished from theory, depends. To discover general principles, belongs to the speculative faculty: to discern and discriminate the particular cases in which they are and are not applicable, constitutes practical talent: and for this, women as they now are have a peculiar aptitude. I admit that there can be no good practice without principles, and that the predominant place which quickness of observation holds among a woman's faculties, makes her particularly apt to build overhasty generalisations upon her own observation; though at the same time no less ready in rectifying those generalisations, as her observation takes a wider range. But the corrective to this defect, is access to the experience of the human race; general knowledge--exactly the thing which education can best supply. A woman's mistakes are specifically those of a clever self-educated man, who often sees what men trained in routine do not see, but falls into errors for want of knowing things which have long been known. Of course he has acquired much of the pre-existing knowledge, or he could not have got on at all; but what he knows of it he has picked up in fragments and at random, as women do. But this gravitation of women's minds to the present, to the real, to actual fact, while in its exclusiveness it is a source of errors, is also a most useful counteractive of the contrary error. The principal and most characteristic aberration of speculative minds as such, consists precisely in the deficiency of this lively perception and ever-present sense of objective fact. For want of this, they often not only overlook the contradiction which outward facts oppose to their theories, but lose sight of the legitimate purpose of speculation altogether, and let their speculative faculties go astray into regions not peopled with real beings, animate or inanimate, even idealised, but with personified shadows created by the illusions of metaphysics or by the mere entanglement of words, and think these shadows the proper objects of the highest, the most transcendant, philosophy. Hardly anything can be of greater value to a man of theory and speculation who employs himself not in collecting materials of knowledge by observation, but in working them up by processes of thought into comprehensive truths of science and laws of conduct, than to carry on his speculations in the companionship, and under the criticism, of a really superior woman. There is nothing comparable to it for keeping his thoughts within the limits of real things, and the actual facts of nature. A woman seldom runs wild after an abstraction. The habitual direction of her mind to dealing with things as individuals rather than in groups, and (what is closely connected with it) her more lively interest in the present feelings of persons, which makes her consider first of all, in anything which claims to be applied to practice, in what manner persons will be affected by it-- these two things make her extremely unlikely to put faith in any speculation which loses sight of individuals, and deals with things as if they existed for the benefit of some imaginary entity, some mere creation of the mind, not resolvable into the feelings of living beings. Women's thoughts are thus as useful in giving reality to those of thinking men, as men's thoughts in giving width and largeness to those of women. In depth, as distinguished from breadth, I greatly doubt if even now, women, compared with men, are at any disadvantage. If the existing mental characteristics of women are thus valuable even in aid of speculation, they are still more important, when speculation has done its work, for carrying out the results of speculation into practice. For the reasons already given, women are comparatively unlikely to fall into the common error of men, that of sticking to their rules in a case whose specialities either take it out of the class to which the rules are applicable, or require a special adaptation of them. Let us now consider another of the admitted superiorities of clever women, greater quickness of apprehension. Is not this preeminently a quality which fits a person for practice ? In action, everything continually depends upon deciding promptly. In speculation, nothing does. A mere thinker can wait, can take time to consider, can collect additional evidence; he is not obliged to complete his philosophy at once, lest the opportunity should go by. The power of drawing the best conclusion possible from insufficient data is not indeed useless in philosophy; the construction of a provisional hypothesis consistent with all known facts is often the needful basis for further inquiry. But this faculty is rather serviceable in philosophy, than the main qualification for it: and, for the auxiliary as well as for the main operation, the philosopher can allow himself any time he pleases. He is in no need of the capacity of doing rapidly what he does; what he rather needs is patience, to work on slowly until imperfect lights have become perfect, and a conjecture has ripened into a theorem. For those, on the contrary, whose business is with the fugitive and perishable--with individual facts, not kinds of facts--rapidity of thought is a qualification next only in importance to the power of thought itself. He who has not his faculties under immediate command, in the contingencies of action, might as well not have them at all. He may be fit to criticise, but he is not fit to act. Now it is in this that women, and the men who are most like women, confessedly excel. The other sort of man, however pre-eminent may be his faculties, arrives slowly at complete command of them: rapidity of judgment and promptitude of judicious action, even in the things he knows best, are the gradual and late result of strenuous effort grown into habit. It will be said, perhaps, that the greater nervous susceptibility of women is a disqualification for practice, in anything but domestic life, by rendering them mobile, changeable, too vehemently under the influence of the moment, incapable of dogged perseverance, unequal and uncertain in the power of using their faculties. I think that these phrases sum up the greater part of the objections commonly made to the fitness of women for the higher class of serious business. Much of all this is the mere overflow of nervous energy run to waste, and would cease when the energy was directed to a definite end. Much is also the result of conscious or unconscious cultivation; as we see by the almost total disappearance of "hysterics" and fainting-fits, since they have gone out of fashion. Moreover, when people are brought up, like many women of the higher classes (though less so in our own country than any other), a kind of hot-house plants, shielded from the wholesome vicissitudes of air and temperature, and untrained in any of the occupations and exercises which give stimulus and development to the circulatory and muscular system, while their nervous system, especially in its emotional department, is kept in unnaturally active play; it is no wonder if those of them who do not die of consumption, grow up with constitutions liable to derangement from slight causes, both internal and external, and without stamina to support any task, physical or mental, requiring continuity of effort. But women brought up to work for their livelihood show none of these morbid characteristics, unless indeed they are chained to an excess of sedentary work in confined and unhealthy rooms. Women who in their early years have shared in the healthful physical education and bodily freedom of their brothers, and who obtain a sufficiency of pure air and exercise in after-life, very rarely have any excessive susceptibility of nerves which can disqualify them for active pursuits. There is indeed a certain proportion of persons, in both sexes, in whom an unusual degree of nervous sensibility is constitutional, and of so marked a character as to be the feature of their organisation which exercises the greatest influence over the whole character of the vital phenomena. This constitution, like other physical conformations, is hereditary, and is transmitted to sons as well as daughters; but it is possible, and probable, that the nervous temperament (as it is called) is inherited by a greater number of women than of men. We will assume this as a fact: and let me then ask, are men of nervous temperament found to be unfit for the duties and pursuits usually followed by men? If not, why should women of the same temperament be unfit for them? The peculiarities of the temperament are, no doubt, within certain limits, an obstacle to success in some employments, though an aid to it in others. But when the occupation is suitable to the temperament, and sometimes even when it is unsuitable, the most brilliant examples of success are continually given by the men of high nervous sensibility. They are distinguished in their practical manifestations chiefly by this, that being susceptible of a higher degree of excitement than those of another physical constitution, their powers when excited differ more than in the case of other people, from those shown in their ordinary state: they are raised, as it were, above themselves, and do things with ease which they are wholly incapable of at other times. But this lofty excitement is not, except in weak bodily constitutions, a mere flash, which passes away immediately, leaving no permanent traces, and incompatible with persistent and steady pursuit of an object. It is the character of the nervous temperament to be capable of sustained excitement, holding out through long-continued efforts. It is what is meant by spirit. It is what makes the high-bred racehorse run without slackening speed till he drops down dead. It is what has enabled so many delicate women to maintain the most sublime constancy not only at the stake, but through a long preliminary succession of mental and bodily tortures. It is evident that people of this temperament are particularly apt for what may be called the executive department of the leadership of mankind. They are the material of great orators, great preachers, impressive diffusers of moral influences. Their constitution might be deemed less favourable to the qualities required from a statesman in the cabinet, or from a judge. It would be so, if the consequence necessarily followed that because people are excitable they must always be in a state of excitement. But this is wholly a question of training. Strong feeling is the instrument and element of strong self-control: but it requires to be cultivated in that direction. When it is, it forms not the heroes of impulse only, but those also of self-conquest. History and experience prove that the most passionate characters are the most fanatically rigid in their feelings of duty, when their passion has been trained to act in that direction. The judge who gives a just decision in a case where his feelings are intensely interested on the other side, derives from that same strength of feeling the determined sense of the obligation of justice, which enables him to achieve this victory over himself. The capability of that lofty enthusiasm which takes the human being out of his every-day character, reacts upon the daily character itself. His aspirations and powers when he is in this exceptional state, become the type with which he compares, and by which he estimates, his sentiments and proceedings at other times: and his habitual purposes assume a character moulded by and assimilated to the moments of lofty excitement, although those, from the physical nature of a human being, can only be transient. Experience of races, as well as of individuals, does not show those of excitable temperament to be less fit, on the average, either for speculation or practice, than the more unexcitable. The French, and the Italians, are undoubtedly by nature more nervously excitable than the Teutonic races, and, compared at least with the English, they have a much greater habitual and daily emotional life: but have they been less great in science, in public business, in legal and judicial eminence, or in war? There is abundant evidence that the Greeks were of old, as their descendants and successors still are, one of the most excitable of the races of mankind. It is superfluous to ask, what among the achievements of men they did not excel in. The Romans, probably, as an equally southern people, had the same original temperament: but the stern character of their national discipline, like that of the Spartans, made them an example of the opposite type of national character; the greater strength of their natural feelings being chiefly apparent in the intensity which the same original temperament made it possible to give to the artificial. If these cases exemplify what a naturally excitable people may be made, the Irish Celts afford one of the aptest examples of what they are when left to themselves; (if those can be said to be left to themselves who have been for centuries under the indirect influence of bad government, and the direct training of a Catholic hierarchy and of a sincere belief in the Catholic religion). The Irish character must be considered, therefore, as an unfavourable case: yet, whenever the circumstances of the individual have been at all favourable, what people have shown greater capacity for the most varied and multifarious individual eminence? Like the French compared with the English, the Irish with the Swiss, the Greeks or Italians compared with the German races, so women compared with men may be found, on the average, to do the same things with some variety in the particular kind of excellence. But, that they would do them fully as well on the whole, if their education and cultivation were adapted to correcting instead of aggravating the infirmities incident to their temperament, I see not the smallest reason to doubt. Supposing it, however, to be true that women's minds are by nature more mobile than those of men, less capable of persisting long in the same continuous effort, more fitted for dividing their faculties among many things than for travelling in any one path to the highest point which can be reached by it: this may be true of women as they now are (though not without great and numerous exceptions), and may account for their having remained behind the highest order of men in precisely the things in which this absorption of the whole mind in one set of ideas and occupations may seem to be most requisite. Still, this difference is one which can only affect the kind of excellence, not the excellence itself, or its practical worth: and it remains to be shown whether this exclusive working of a part of the mind, this absorption of the whole thinking faculty in a single subject, and concentration of it on a single work, is the normal and healthful condition of the human faculties, even for speculative uses. I believe that what is gained in special development by this concentration, is lost in the capacity of the mind for the other purposes of life; and even in abstract thought, it is my decided opinion that the mind does more by frequently returning to a difficult problem, than by sticking to it without interruption. For the purposes, at all events, of practice, from its highest to its humblest departments, the capacity of passing promptly from one subject of consideration to another, without letting the active spring of the intellect run down between the two, is a power far more valuable; and this power women pre-eminently possess, by virtue of the very mobility of which they are accused. They perhaps have it from nature, but they certainly have it by training and education; for nearly the whole of the occupations of women consist in the management of small but multitudinous details, on each of which the mind cannot dwell even for a minute, but must pass on to other things, and if anything requires longer thought, must steal time at odd moments for thinking of it. The capacity indeed which women show for doing their thinking in circumstances and at times which almost any man would make an excuse to himself for not attempting it, has often been noticed: and a woman's mind, though it may be occupied only with small things, can hardly ever permit its elf to be vacant, as a man's so often is when not engaged in what he chooses to consider the business of his life. The business of a woman's ordinary life is things in general, and can as little cease to go on as the world to go round. But (it is said) there is anatomical evidence of the superior mental capacity of men compared with women: they have a larger brain. I reply, that in the first place the fact itself is doubtful. It is by no means established that the brain of a woman is smaller than that of a man. If it is inferred merely because a woman's bodily frame generally is of less dimensions than a man's, this criterion would lead to strange consequences. A tall and large-boned man must on this showing be wonderfully superior in intelligence to a small man, and an elephant or a whale must prodigiously excel mankind. The size of the brain in human beings, anatomists say, varies much less than the size of the body, or even of the head, and the one cannot be at all inferred from the other. It is certain that some women have as large a brain as any man. It is within my knowledge that a man who had weighed many human brains, said that the heaviest he knew of, heavier even than Cuvier's (the heaviest previously recorded), was that of a woman. Next, I must observe that the precise relation which exists between the brain and the intellectual powers is not yet well understood, but is a subject of great dispute. That there is a very close relation we cannot doubt. The brain is certainly the material organ of thought and feeling: and (making abstraction of the great unsettled controversy respecting the appropriation of different parts of the brain to different mental faculties) I admit that it would be an anomaly, and an exception to all we know of the general laws of life and organisation, if the size of the organ were wholly indifferent to the function; if no accession of power were derived from the great magnitude of the instrument. But the exception and the anomaly would be fully as great if the organ exercised influence by its magnitude only. In all the more delicate operations of nature--of which those of the animated creation are the most delicate, and those of the nervous system by far the most delicate of these--differences in the effect depend as much on differences of quality in the physical agents, as on their quantity: and if the quality of an instrument is to be tested by the nicety and delicacy of the work it can do, the indications point to a greater average fineness of quality in the brain and nervous system of women than of men. Dismissing abstract difference of quality, a thing difficult to verify, the efficiency of an organ is known to depend not solely on its size but on its activity: and of this we have an approximate measure in the energy with which the blood circulates through it, both the stimulus and the reparative force being mainly dependent on the circulation. It would not be surprising-- it is indeed an hypothesis which accords well with the differences actually observed between the mental operations of the two sexes--if men on the average should have the advantage in the size of the brain, and women in activity of cerebral circulation. The results which conjecture, founded on analogy, would lead us to expect from this difference of organisation, would correspond to some of those which we most commonly see. In the first place, the mental operations of men might be expected to be slower. They would neither be so prompt as women in thinking, nor so quick to feel. Large bodies take more time to get into full action. on the other hand, when once got thoroughly into play, men's brain would bear more work. It would be more persistent in the line first taken; it would have more difficulty in changing from one mode of action to another, but, in the one thing it was doing, it could go on longer without loss of power or sense of fatigue. And do we not find that the things in which men most excel women are those which require most plodding and long hammering at a single thought, while women do best what must be done rapidly ? A woman's brain is sooner fatigued, sooner exhausted; but given the degree of exhaustion, we should expect to find that it would recover itself sooner. I repeat that this speculation is entirely hypothetical; it pretends to no more than to suggest a line of inquiry. I have before repudiated the notion of its being yet certainly known that there is any natural difference at all in the average strength or direction of the mental capacities of the two sexes, much less what that difference is. Nor is it possible that this should be known, so long as the psychological laws of the formation of character have been so little studied, even in a general way, and in the particular case never scientifically applied at all; so long as the most obvious external causes of difference of character are habitually disregarded--left unnoticed by the observer, and looked down upon with a kind of supercilious contempt by the prevalent schools both of natural history and of mental philosophy: who, whether they look for the source of what mainly distinguishes human beings from one another, in the world of matter or in that of spirit, agree in running down those who prefer to explain these differences by the different relations of human beings to society and life. To so ridiculous an extent are the notions formed of the nature of women, mere empirical generalisations, framed, without philosophy or analysis, upon the first instances which present themselves, that the popular idea of it is different in different countries, according as the opinions and social circumstances of the country have given to the women living in it any speciality of development or non-development. An oriental thinks that women are by nature peculiarly voluptuous; see the violent abuse of them on this ground in Hindoo writings. An Englishman usually thinks that they are by nature cold. The sayings about women's fickleness are mostly of French origin; from the famous distich of Francis the First, upward and downward. In England it is a common remark, how much more constant women are than men. Inconstancy has been longer reckoned discreditable to a woman, in England than in France; and Englishwomen are besides, in their inmost nature, much more subdued to opinion. It may be remarked by the way, that Englishmen are in peculiarly unfavourable circumstances for attempting to judge what is or is not natural, not merely to women, but to men, or to human beings altogether, at least if they have only English experience to go upon: because there is no place where human nature shows so little of its original lineaments. Both in a good and a bad sense, the English are farther from a state of nature than any other modern people. They are, more than any other people, a product of civilisation and discipline. England is the country in which social discipline has most succeeded, not so much in conquering, as in suppressing, whatever is liable to conflict with it. The English, more than any other people, not only act but feel according to rule. In other countries, the taught opinion, or the requirement of society, may be the stronger power, but the promptings of the individual nature are always visible under it, and often resisting it: rule may be stronger than nature, but nature is still there. In England, rule has to a great degree substituted itself for nature. The greater part of life is carried on, not by following inclination under the control of rule, but by having no inclination but that of following a rule. Now this has its good side doubtless, though it has also a wretchedly bad one; but it must render an Englishman peculiarly ill-qualified to pass a judgment on the original tendencies of human nature from his own experience. The errors to which observers elsewhere are liable on the subject, are of a different character. An Englishman is ignorant respecting human nature, a Frenchman is prejudiced. An Englishman's errors are negative, a Frenchman's positive. An Englishman fancies that things do not exist, because he never sees them; a Frenchman thinks they must always and necessarily exist, because he does see them. An Englishman does not know nature, because he has had no opportunity of observing it; a Frenchman generally knows a great deal of it, but often mistakes it, because he has only seen it sophisticated and distorted. For the artificial state superinduced by society disguises the natural tendencies of the thing which is the subject of observation, in two different ways: by extinguishing the nature, or by transforming it. In the one case there is but a starved residuum of nature remaining to be studied; in the other case there is much, but it may have expanded in any direction rather than that in which it would spontaneously grow. I have-said that it cannot now be known how much of the existing mental differences between men and women is natural and how much artificial; whether there are any natural differences at all; or, supposing all artificial causes of difference to be withdrawn, what natural character would be revealed I am not about to attempt what I have pronounced impossible: but doubt does not forbid conjecture, and where certainty is unattainable, there may yet be the means of arriving at some degree of probability. The first point, the origin of the differences actually observed, is the one most accessible to speculation; and I shall attempt to approach it, by the only path by which it can be reached; by tracing the mental consequences of external influences. We cannot isolate a human being from the circumstances of his condition, so as to ascertain experimentally what he would have been by nature. but we can consider what he is, and what his circumstances have been, and whether the one would have been capable of producing the other. Let us take, then, the only marked case which observation affords, of apparent inferiority of women to men, if we except the merely physical one of bodily strength. No production in philosophy, science, or art, entitled to the first rank, has been the work of a woman. Is there any mode of accounting for this, without supposing that women are naturally incapable of producing them? In the first place, we may fairly question whether experience has afforded sufficient grounds for an induction. It is scarcely three generations since women, saving very rare exceptions have begun to try their capacity in philosophy, science, or art. It is only in the present generation that their attempts have been at all numerous; and they are even now extremely few, everywhere but in England and France. It is a relevant question, whether a mind possessing the requisites of first rate eminence in speculation or creative art could have been expected, on the mere calculation of chances, to turn up during that lapse of time, among the women whose tastes and personal position admitted of their devoting themselves to these pursuits In all things which there has yet been time for--in all but the very highest grades in the scale of excellence, especially in the department in which they have been longest engaged, literature (both prose and poetry)--women have done quite as much, have obtained fully as high prizes and as many of them, as could be expected from the length of time and the number of competitors. If we go back to the earlier period when very few women made the attempt, yet some of those few made it with distinguished success. The Greeks always accounted Sappho among their great poets; and we may well suppose that Myrtis, said to have been the teacher of Pindar, and Corinna, who five times bore away from him the prize of poetry, must at least have had sufficient merit to admit of being compared with that great name. Aspasia did not leave any philosophical writings; but it is an admitted fact that Socrates resorted to her for instruction, and avowed himself to have obtained it. If we consider the works of women in modem times, and contrast them with those of men, either in the literary or the artistic department, such inferiority as may be observed resolves itself essentially into one thing: but that is a most material one; deficiency of originality. Not total deficiency; for every production of mind which is of any substantive value, has an originality of its own--is a conception of the mind itself, not a copy of something else. Thoughts original, in the sense of being unborrowed--of being derived from the thinker's own observations or intellectual processes--are abundant in the writings of women. But they have not yet produced any of those great and luminous new ideas which form an era in thought, nor those fundamentally new conceptions in art, which open a vista of possible effects not before thought of, and found a new school. Their compositions are mostly grounded on the existing fund of thought, and their creations do-not deviate widely from existing types. This is the sort of inferiority which their works manifest: for in point of execution, in the detailed application of thought, and the perfection of style, there is no inferiority. Our best novelists in point of composition, and of the management of detail, have mostly been women; and there is not in all modern literature a more eloquent vehicle of thought than the style of Madame de Stael, nor, as a specimen of purely artistic excellence, anything superior to the prose of Madame Sand, whose style acts upon the nervous system like a symphony of Haydn or Mozart. High originality of conception is, as I have said, what is chiefly wanting. And now to examine if there is any manner in which this deficiency can be accounted for. Let us remember, then, so far as regards mere thought, that during all that period in the world's existence, and in the progress of cultivation, in which great and fruitful new truths I could be arrived at by mere force of genius, with little precious study and accumulation of knowledge--during all that time women did not concern themselves with speculation at all. From the days of Hypatia to those of the Reformation, the illustrious Heloisa is almost the only woman to whom any such achievement might have been possible; and we know not how great a capacity of speculation in her may have been lost to mankind by the misfortunes of her life. Never since any considerable number of women have began to cultivate serious thought, has originality been possible on easy terms. Nearly all the thoughts which can be reached by mere strength of original faculties, have long since been arrived at; and originality, in any high sense of the word, is now scarcely ever attained but by minds which have undergone elaborate discipline, and are deeply versed in the results of previous thinking. It is Mr. Maurice, I think, who has remarked on the present age, that its most original thinkers are those who have known most thoroughly what had been thought by their; predecessors: and this will always henceforth be the case. Every fresh stone in the edifice has now to be placed on the top of so many others, that a long process of climbing, and of carrying up materials, has to be gone through by whoever aspires to take a share in the present stage of the work. How many women are there who have gone through any such process ? Mrs. Somerville, alone perhaps of women, knows as much of mathematics as is now needful for making any considerable mathematical discovery: is it any proof of inferiority in women, that she has not happened to be one of the two or three persons who in her lifetime have associated their names with some striking advancement of the science? Two women, since political economy has been made a science, have known enough of it to write usefully on the subject: of how many of the innumerable men who have written on it during the same time, is it possible with truth to say more? If no woman has hitherto been a great historian, what woman has had the necessary erudition? If no woman is a great philologist, what woman has studied Sanscrit and Slavonic, the Gothic of Ulphila and the Persic of the Zendavesta? Even in practical matters we all know what is the value of the originality of untaught geniuses. It means, inventing over again in its rudimentary form something already invented and improved upon by many successive inventors. When women have had the preparation which all men now require to be eminently original, it will be time enough to begin judging by experience of their capacity for originality. It no doubt often happens that a person, who has not widely and accurately studied the thoughts of others on a subject, has by natural sagacity a happy intuition, which he can suggest, but cannot prove, which yet when matured may be an important addition to knowledge: but even then, no justice can be done to it until some other person, who does possess the previous acquirements, takes it in hand, tests it, gives it a scientific or practical form, and fits it into its place among the existing truths of philosophy or science. Is it supposed that such felicitous thoughts do not occur to women? They occur by hundreds to every woman of intellect. But they are mostly lost, for want of a husband or friend who has the other knowledge which can enable him to estimate them properly and bring them before the world: and even when they are brought before it, they generally appear as his ideas, not their real author's. Who can tell how many of the most original thoughts put forth by male writers, belong to a woman by suggestion, to themselves only by verifying and working out ? If I may judge by my own case, a very large proportion indeed. If we turn from pure speculation to literature in the narrow sense of the term, and the fine arts, there is.a very obvious reason why women's literature is, in its general conception and in its main features, an imitation of men's. Why is the Roman literature, as critics proclaim to satiety, not original, but an imitation of the Greek ? Simply because the Greeks came first. If women lived in a different country from men, and had never read any of their writings, they would have had a literature of their own. As it is, they have not created one, because they found a highly advanced literature already created. If there had been no suspension of the knowledge of antiquity, or if the Renaissance had occurred before the Gothic cathedrals were built, they never would have been built. We see that, in France and Italy, imitation of the ancient literature stopped the original development even after it had commenced. All women who write are pupils of the great male writers. A painter's early pictures, even if he be a Raffaello, are undistinguishable in style from those of his master. Even a Mozart does not display his powerful originality in his earliest pieces. What years are to a gifted individual, generations are to a mass. If women's literature is destined to have a different collective character from that of men, depending on any difference of natural tendencies, much longer time is necessary than has yet elapsed, before it can emancipate itself from the influence of accepted models, and guide itself by its own impulses. But if, as I believe, there will not prove to be any natural tendencies common to women, and distinguishing their genius from that of men, yet every individual writer among them has her individual tendencies, which at present are still subdued by the influence of precedent and example: and it will require generations more, before their individuality is sufficiently developed to make head against that influence. It is in the fine arts, properly so called, that the prima facie evidence of inferior original powers in women at first sight appears the strongest: since opinion (it may be said) does not exclude them from these, but rather encourages them, and their education, instead of passing over this department, is in the affluent classes mainly composed of it. Yet in this line of exertion they have fallen still more short than in many others, of the highest eminence attained by men. This shortcoming, however, needs no other explanation than the familiar fact, more universally true in the fine arts than in anything else; the vast superiority of professional persons over amateurs. Women in the educated classes are almost universally taught more or less of some branch or other of the fine arts, but not that they may gain their living or their social consequence by it. Women artists are all amateurs. The exceptions are only of the kind which confirm the general truth. Women. are taught music, I but not for the purpose of composing, only of executing it: and accordingly it is only as composers, that men, in music, are superior to women. The only one of the fine arts which women do follow, to any extent, as a profession, and an occupation for life, is the histrionic; and in that they are confessedly equal, if not superior, to men. To make the comparison fair, it should be made between the productions of women in any branch of art, and those of men not following it as a profession. In musical composition, for example, women surely have produced fully as good things as have ever been produced by male amateurs. There are now a few women, a very few, who practise painting as a profession, and these are already beginning to show quite as much talent as could be expected. Even male painters (pace Mr. Ruskin) have not made any very remarkable figure these last centuries, and it will be long before they do so. The reason why the old painters were so greatly superior to the modern, is that a greatly superior class of men applied themselves to the art. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Italian painters were the most accomplished men of their age. The greatest of them were men of encyclopaedical acquirements and powers, like the great men of Greece. But in their times fine art was, to men's feelings and conceptions, among the grandest things in which a human being could excel; and by it men were made,- what only political or military distinction now makes them, the companions of sovereigns, and the equals of the highest nobility. In the present age, men of anything like similar calibre find something more-important to do, for their own fame and the uses of the modern world, than painting: and it is only now and then that a Reynolds or a Turner (of whose relative rank among eminent men I do not pretend to an opinion) applies himself to that art. Music belongs to a different order of things: it does not require the same general powers of mind, but seems more dependent on a natural gift: and it may be thought surprising that no one of the great musical composers has been a woman. But even this natural gift, to be made available for great creations, requires study, and professional devotion to the pursuit. The only countries which have produced first-rate composers, even of the male sex, are Germany and Italy-- countries in which, both in point of special and of general cultivation, women have remained far behind France and England, being generally (it may be said without exaggeration) very little educated, and having scarcely cultivated at all any of the higher faculties of mind. And in those countries the men who are acquainted with the principles of musical composition must be counted by hundreds, or more probably by thousands, the women barely by scores: so that here again, on the doctrine of averages, we cannot reasonably expect to see more than one eminent woman to fifty eminent men; and the last three centuries have not produced fifty eminent male composers either in Germany or in Italy. There are other reasons, besides those which we have now given, that help to explain why women remain behind men, even in the pursuits which are open to both. For one thing, very few women have time for them. This may seem a paradox; it is an undoubted social fact. The time and thoughts of every woman have to satisfy great previous demands on them for things practical. There is, first, the superintendence of the family and the domestic expenditure, which occupies at least one woman in every family, generally the one of mature years and acquired experience; unless the family is so rich as to admit of delegating that task to hired agency, and submitting to all the waste and malversation inseparable from that mode of conducting it. The superintendence of a household, even when not in other respects laborious, is extremely onerous to the thoughts; it requires incessant vigilance, an eye which no detail escapes, and presents questions for consideration and solution, foreseen and unforeseen, at every hour of the day, from which the person responsible for them can hardly ever shake herself free. If a woman is of a rank and circumstances which relieve her in a measure from these cares, she has still devolving on her the management for the whole family of its intercourse with others -- of what is called society, and the less the call made on her by the former duty, the greater is always the development of the latter: the dinner parties, concerts, evening parties, morning visits, letter-writing, and all that goes with them. All this is over and above the engrossing duty which society imposes exclusively on women, of making themselves charming. A clever woman of the higher ranks finds nearly a sufficient employment of her talents in cultivating the graces of manner and the arts of conversation. To look only at the outward side of the subject: the great and continual exercise of thought which all women who attach any value to dressing well (I do not mean expensively, but with taste, and perception of natural and of artificial convenance) must bestow upon their own dress, perhaps also upon that of their daughters, would alone go a great way towards achieving respectable results in art, or science, or literature, and does actually exhaust much of the time and mental power they might have to spare for either.[2] If it were possible that all this number of little practical interests (which are made great to them) should leave them either much leisure, or much energy and freedom of mind, to be devoted to art or speculation, they must have a much greater original supply of active faculty than the vast majority of men. But this is not all. Independently of the regular offices of life which devolve upon a woman, she is expected to have her time and faculties always at the disposal of everybody. If a man has not a profession to exempt him from such demands, still, if he has a pursuit, he offends nobody by devoting his time to it; occupation is received as a valid excuse for his not answering to every casual demand which may be made on him. Are a woman's occupations, especially her chosen and voluntary ones, ever regarded as excusing her from any of what are termed the calls of society ? Scarcely are her most necessary and recognised duties allowed as an exemption. It requires an illness in the family, or something else out of the common way, to entitle her to give her own business the precedence over other people's amusement. She must always be at the beck and call of somebody, generally of everybody. If she has a study or a pursuit, she must snatch any short interval which accidentally occurs to be employed in it. A celebrated woman, in a work which I hope will some day be published, remarks truly that everything a woman does is done at odd times. Is it wonderful, then, if she does not attain the highest eminence in things which require consecutive attention, and the concentration on them of the chief interest of life ? Such is philosophy, and such, above all, is art, in which, besides the devotion of the thoughts and feelings, the hand also must be kept in constant exercises to attain high skill. There is another consideration to be added to all these. In the various arts and intellectual occupations, there is a degree of proficiency sufficient for living by it, and there is a higher degree on which depend the great productions which immortalise a name. To the attainment of the former, there are adequate motives in the case of all who follow the pursuit professionally: the other is hardly ever attained where there is not, or where there has not been at some period of life, an ardent desire of celebrity. Nothing less is commonly a sufficient stimulus to undergo the long and patient drudgery, which, in the case even of the greatest natural gifts, is absolutely required for great eminence in pursuits in which we already possess so many splendid memorials of the highest genius. Now, whether the cause be natural or artificial, women seldom have this eagerness for fame. Their ambition is generally confined within narrower bounds. The influence they seek is over those who immediately surround them. Their desire is to be liked, loved, or admired, by those whom they see with their eyes: and the proficiency in knowledge, arts, and accomplishments, which is sufficient for that, almost always contents them. This is a trait of character which cannot be left out of the account in judging of women as they are. I do not at all believe that it is inherent in women. It is only the natural result of their circumstances. The love of fame in men is encouraged by education and opinion: to " scorn delights and live laborious days " for its sake, is accounted the part of "noble minds," even if spoken of as their "last infirmity," and is stimulated by the access which fame gives to all objects of ambition, including even the favour of women; while to women themselves all these objects are closed, and the desire of fame itself considered daring and unfeminine. Besides, how could it be that a woman's interests should not be all concentrated upon the impressions made on those who come into her daily life, when society has ordained that all her duties should be to them, and has contrived that all her comforts should depend on them? The natural desire of consideration from our fellow-creatures is as strong in a woman as in a man; but society has so ordered things that public consideration is, in all ordinary cases, only attainable by her through the consideration of her husband or of her male relations, while her private consideration is forfeited by making herself individually prominent, or appearing in any other character than that of an appendage to men. Whoever is in the least capable of estimating the influence on the mind of the entire domestic and social position and the whole habit of a life, must easily recognise in that influence a complete explanation of nearly all the apparent differences between women and men, including the whole of those which imply any inferiority. As for moral differences, considered as distinguished from intellectual, the distinction commonly drawn is to the advantage of women. They are declared to be better than men; an empty compliment, which must provoke a bitter smile from every woman of spirit, since there is no other situation in life in which it is the established order, and considered quite natural and suitable, that the better should obey the worse. If this piece of idle talk is good for anything, it is only as an admission by men, of the corrupting influence of power; for that is certainly the only truth which the fact, if it be a fact, either proves or illustrates. And it is true that servitude, except when it actually brutalises, though corrupting to both, is less so to the slaves than to the slave-masters. It is wholesomer for the moral nature to be restrained, even by arbitrary power, than to be allowed to exercise arbitrary power without restraint. Women, it is said, seldomer fall under the penal law-- contribute a much smaller number of offenders to the criminal calendar, than men. I doubt not that the same thing may be said, with the same truth, of negro slaves. Those who are under the control of others cannot often commit crimes, unless at the command and for the purposes of their masters. I do not know a more signal instance of the blindness with which the world, including the herd of studious men, ignore and pass over all the influences of social circumstances, than their silly depreciation of the intellectual, and silly panegyrics on the moral, nature of women. The complimentary dictum about women's superior moral goodness may be allowed to pair off with the disparaging one respecting their greater liability to moral bias. Women, we are told, are not capable of resisting their personal partialities: their judgment in grave affairs is warped by their sympathies and antipathies. Assuming it to be so, it is still to be proved that women are oftener misled by their personal feelings than men by their personal interests. The chief difference would seem in that case to be, that men are led from the course of duty and the public interest by their regard for themselves, women (not being allowed to have private interests of their own) by their regard for somebody else. It is also to be considered, that all the education which women receive from society inculcates on them the feeling that the individuals connected with them are the only ones to whom they owe any duty --the only ones whose interest they are called upon to care for; while, as far as education is concerned, they are left strangers even to the elementary ideas which are presupposed in any intelligent regard for larger interests or higher moral objects. The complaint against them resolves itself merely into this, that they fulfil only too faithfully the sole duty which they are taught, and almost the only one which they are permitted to practise. The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them, that any arguments against the prerogative of sex are likely to be little attended to by the generality, as long as they are able to say to themselves that women do not complain of it. That fact certainly enables men to retain the unjust privilege some time longer; but does not render it less unjust. Exactly the same thing may be said of the women in the harem of an oriental: they do not complain of not being allowed the freedom of European women. They think our women insufferably bold and unfeminine. How rarely it is that even men complain of the general order of society; and how much rarer still would such complaint be, if they did not know of any different order existing anywhere else. Women do not complain of the general lot of women; or rather they do, for plaintive elegies on it are very common in the writings of women, and were still more so as long as the lamentations could not be suspected of having any practical object. Their complaints are like the complaints which men make of the general unsatisfactoriness of human life; they are not meant to imply blame, or to plead for any change. But though women do not complain of the power of husbands, each complains of her own husband, or of the husbands of her friends. It is the same in all other cases of servitude, at least in the commencement of the emancipatory movement. The serfs did not at first complain of the power of their lords, but only of their tyranny. The commons began by claiming a few municipal privileges; they next asked an exemption for themselves from being taxed without their own consent; but they would at that time have thought it a great presumption to claim any share in the king's sovereign authority. The case of women is now the only case in which to rebel against established rules is still looked upon with the same eyes as was formerly a subject's claim to the I right of rebelling against his king. A woman who joins in any movement which her husband disapproves, makes herself a martyr, without even being able to be an apostle, for the husband can legally put a stop to her apostleship. Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation of women, until men in considerable number are prepared to join with them in the undertaking. NOTES [1] Especially is this true if we take into consideration Asia as well as Europe. If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically governed; if order is preserved without oppression; if cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous, in three cases out of four that principalityis under a woman's rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have collected from a long knowledge of Hindoo governments. There are many such instances: for though, by Hindoo institutions, a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir; and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through the effect of inactivity and sensual excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family except from behind a curtain, that they do not read, and if they did there is no book in their languages which ca give them the smallest instruction on political affairs; the example they afford of the natural capacity of women for government is very striking. [2] "It appears to be the same right turn of mind which enables a man to acquire the truth, or just idea of what is right, in the ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It has still the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a smaller circle. --To illustrate this by fashion of dress, in which there is allowed to be a good or bad taste. The component parts of dress are continually changing from great to little, from short to long; but the general form still remains; it is still the same general dress which is comparatively fixed , though on a very slender foundation; but it is on this which fashion must rest. He who invents with the most success, or dresses in the best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity employed to greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, or have formed the same correct taste, in the highest labours of art." -- Sir Joshua Reynold's Discourses, Disc. vii. CHAPTER IV There remains a question, not of less importance than those already discussed, and which will be asked the most importunately by those opponents whose conviction is somewhat shaken on the main point. What good are we to expect from the changes proposed in our customs and institutions? Would mankind be at all better off if women were free? If not, why disturb their minds, and attempt to make a social revolution in the name of an abstract right? It is hardly to be expected that this question will be asked in respect to the change proposed in the condition of women in marriage. The sufferings, immoralities, evils of all sorts, produced in innumerable cases by the subjection of individual women to individual men, are far too terrible to be overlooked. Unthinking or uncandid persons, counting those cases alone which are extreme, or which attain publicity, may say that the evils are exceptional; but no one can be blind to their existence, nor, in many cases, to their intensity. And it is perfectly obvious that the abuse of the power cannot be very much checked while the power remains. It is a power given, or offered, not to good men, or to decently respectable men, but to all men; the most brutal, and the most criminal. There is no check but that of opinion, and such men are in general within the reach of no opinion but that of men like themselves. If such men did not brutally tyrannise over the one human being whom the law compels to bear everything from them, society must already have reached a paradisiacal state. There could be no need any longer of laws to curb men's vicious propensities. Astraea must not only have returned to earth, but the heart of the worst man must have become her temple. The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human being, in the hope forsooth that this other will use the power solely for the good of the person subjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house. It is not, therefore, on this part of the subject, that the question is likely to be asked, Cui bono ~ We may be told that the evil would outweigh the good, but the reality of the good admits of no dispute. In regard, however, to the larger question, the removal of women's disabilities--their recognition as the equals of men in all that belongs to citizenship--the opening to them of all honourable employments, and of the training and education which qualifies for those employments--there are many persons for whom it is not enough that the inequality has no just or legitimate defence; they require to be told what express advantage would be obtained by abolishing it. To which let me first answer, the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice. The vast amount of this gain to human nature, it is hardly possible, by any explanation or illustration, to place in a stronger light than it is placed by the bare statement, to anyone who attaches a moral meaning to words. All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, which exist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive their principal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. Think what it is to a boy, to grow up to manhood in the belief that without any merit or any exertion of his own, though he may be the most frivolous and empty or the most ignorant and stolid of mankind, by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race: including probably some whose real superiority to himself he has daily or hourly occasion to feel; but even if in his whole conduct he habitually follows a woman's guidance, still, if he is a fool, she thinks that of course she is not, and cannot be, equal in ability and judgment to himself; and if he is not a fool, he does worse--he sees that she is superior to him, and believes that, notwithstanding her superiority, he is entitled to command and she is bound to obey. What must be the effect on his character, of this lesson ? And men of the cultivated classes are often not aware how deeply it sinks into the immense majority of male minds. For, among right-feeling and wellbred people, the inequality is kept as much as possible out of sight; above all, out of sight of the children. As much obedience is required from boys to their mother as to their father: they are not permitted to domineer over their sisters, nor are they accustomed to see these postponed to them, but the contrary; the compensations of the chivalrous feeling being made prominent, while the servitude which requires them is kept in the background. Well brought-up youths in the higher classes thus often escape the bad influences of the situation in their early years, and only experience them when, arrived at manhood, they fall under the dominion of facts as they really exist. Such people are little aware, when a boy is differently brought up, how early the notion of his inherent superiority to a girl arises in his mind; how it grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength; how it is inoculated by one schoolboy upon another; how early the youth thinks himself superior to his mother, owing her perhaps forbearance, but no-real respect; ana how sublime and sultan-like a sense of superiority he feels, above all, over the woman whom he honours by admitting her to a partnership of his life. Is it imagined that all this does not pervert the whole manner of existence of the man, both as an individual and as a social being? It is an exact parallel to the feeling of a hereditary king that he is excellent above others by being born a king, or a noble by being born a noble. The relation between husband and wife is very like that between lord and vassal, except that the wife is held to more unlimited obedience than the vassal was. However the vassal's character may have been affected, for better and for worse, by his subordination, who can help seeing that the lord's was affected greatly for the worse? whether he was led to believe that his vassals were really superior to himself, or to feel that he was placed in command over people as good as himself, for no merits or labours of his own, but merely for having, as Figaro says, taken the trouble to be born. The self-worship of the monarch, or of the feudal superior, is matched by the self-worship of the male. Human beings do not grow up from childhood in the possession of unearned distinctions, without pluming themselves upon them. Those whom privileges not acquired by their merit, and which they feel to be disproportioned to it, inspire with additional humility, are always the few, and the best few. The rest are only inspired with pride, and the worst sort of pride, that which values itself upon accidental advantages, not of its own achieving. Above all, when the feeling of being raised above the whole of the other sex is combined with personal authority over one individual among them; the situation, if a school of conscientious and affectionate forbearance to those whose strongest points of character are conscience and affection, is to men of another quality a regularly constituted academy or gymnasium for training them in arrogance and overbearingness; which vices, if curbed by the certainty of resistance in their intercourse with other men, their equals, break out towards all who are in a position to be obliged to tolerate them, and often revenge themselves upon the unfortunate wife for the involuntary restraint which they are obliged to submit to elsewhere. The example afforded, and the education given to the sentiments, by laying the foundation of domestic existence upon a relation contradictory to the first principles of social justice must, from the very nature of man, have a perverting influence of such magnitude, that it is hardly possible with our present experience to raise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for the better as would be made by its removal. All that education and civilisation are doing to efface the influences on character of the law of force, and replace them by those of justice, remains merely on the surface, as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked. The principle of the modern movement in morals and politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do, constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to power and authority. If no authority, not in its nature temporary, were allowed to one human being over another, society would not be employed in building up propensities with one hand which it has to curb with the other. The child would really, for the first time in man's existence on earth, be trained in the way he should go, and when he was old there would be a chance that he would not depart from it. But so long as the right of the strong to power over the weak rules in the very heart of society, the attempt to make the equal right of the weak ~h~. principle of its outward actions will always be an uphill struggle; for the law of justice, which is also that of Christianity, will never get possession of men's inmost sentiments; they will be working against it, even when bending to it. The second benefit to be expected from giving to women the free use of their faculties, by leaving them the free choice of their employments, and opening to them the same field of occupation and the same prizes and encouragements as to other human beings, would be that of doubling the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity. Where there is now one person qualified to benefit mankind and promote the general improvement, as a public teacher, or an administrator of some branch of public or social affairs, there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority of any kind is at present everywhere so much below the demand; there is such a deficiency of persons competent to do excellently anything which it requires any considerable amount of ability to do; that the loss to the world, by refusing to make use of one half of the whole quantity of talent it possesses, is extremely serious. It is true that this amount of mental power is not totally lost. Much of it is employed, and would in any case be employed, in domestic management, and in the few other occupations open to women; and from the remainder indirect benefit is in many individual cases obtained, through the personal influence of individual women over individual men. But these benefits are partial; their range is extremely circumscribed; and if they must be admitted, on the one hand, as a deduction from the amount of fresh social power that would be acquired by giving freedom to one-half of the whole sum of human intellect, there must be added, on the other, the benefit of the stimulus that would be given to the intellect of men by the competition; or (to use a more true expression) by the necessity that would be imposed on them of deserving precedency before they could expect to obtain it. This great accession to the intellectual power of the species, and to the amount of intellect available for the good management of its affairs, would be obtained, partly, through the better and more complete intellectual education of women, which would then improve pari passu with that of men. Women in general would be brought up equally capable of understanding business, public affairs, and the higher matters of speculation, with men In the same class of society; and the select few of the one as well as of the other sex, who were qualified not only to comprehend what is done or thought by others, but to think or do something considerable themselves, would meet with the same facilities for improving and training their capacities in the one sex as in the other. In this way, the widening of the sphere of action for women would operate for good, by raising their education to the level of that of men, and making the one participate in all improvements made in the other. But independently of this, the mere breaking down of the barrier would of itself have an educational virtue of the highest worth. The mere getting rid of the idea that all the wider subjects of thought and action, all the things which are of general and not solely of private interest, are men's business, from which women are to be warned off--positively interdicted from most of it, coldly tolerated in the little which is allowed them--the mere consciousness a woman would then have of being a human being like any other, entitled to choose her pursuits, urged or invited by the same inducements as anyone else to interest herself in whatever is interesting to human beings, entitled to exert the share of influence on all human concerns which belongs to an individual opinion, whether she attempted actual participation in them or not--this alone would effect an immense expansion of the faculties of women, as well as enlargement of the range of their moral sentiments. Besides the addition to the amount of individual talent available for the conduct of human affairs, which certainly are not at present so abundantly provided in that respect that they can afford to dispense with one-half of what nature proffers; the opinion of women would then possess a more beneficial, rather than a greater, influence upon the general mass of human belief and sentiment. I say a more beneficial, rather than a greater influence; for the influence of women over the general tone of opinion has always, or at least from the earliest known period, been very considerable. The influence of mothers on the early character of their sons, and the desire of young men to recommend themselves to young women, have in all recorded times been important agencies in the formation of character, and have determined some of the chief steps in the progress of civilisation. Even in the Homeric age, [Greek word deleted] towards the [Greek phrase deleted] is an acknowledged and powerful motive of action in the great Hector. The moral influence of women has had two modes of operation. First, it has been a softening influence. Those who were most liable to be the victims of violence, have naturally tended as much as they could towards limiting its sphere and mitigating its excesses. Those who were not taught to fight, have naturally inclined in favour of any other mode of settling differences rather than that of fighting. In general, those who have been the greatest sufferers by the indulgence of selfish passion, have been the most earnest supporters of any moral law which offered a means of bridling passion. Women were powerfully instrumental in inducing the northern conquerors to adopt the creed of Christianity, a creed so much more favourable to women than any that preceded it. The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and of the Franks may be said to have been begun by the wives of Ethelbert and Clovis. The other mode in which the effect of women's opinion has been conspicuous, is by giving, a powerful stimulus to those qualities in men, which, not being themselves trained in, it was necessary for them that they should find in their protectors. Courage, and the military virtues generally, have at all times been greatly indebted to the desire which men felt of being admired by women: and the stimulus reaches far beyond this one class of eminent qualities, since, by a very natural effect of their position, the best passport to the admiration and favour of women has always been to be thought highly of by men. From the combination of the two kinds of moral influence thus exercised by women, arose the spirit of chivalry: the peculiarity ~,f which is, to aim at combining the highest standard of the warlike qualities with the cultivation of a totally different class of virtues--those of gentleness, generosity, and self-abnegation, towards the non-military and defenseless classes generally, and a special submission and worship directed towards women; who were distinguished from the other defenceless classes by the high rewards which they had it in their power voluntarily to bestow on those who endeavoured to earn their favour, instead of extorting their subjection. Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race; as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organised attempt by a most disorganised and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times. The chivalrous ideal is the acme of the influence of women's sentiments on the moral cultivation of mankind: and if women are to remain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly to be lamented that the chivalrous standard should have passed away, for it is the only one at all capable of mitigating the demoralising influences of that position. But the changes in the general state of the species rendered inevitable the substitution of a totally different ideal of morality for the chivalrous one. Chivalry was the attempt to infuse moral elements into a state of society in which everything depended for good o~ evil on individual prowess, under the softening influences of individual delicac