Fw: prof olukotun's coloum
ayo_ol...@yahoo.com
Cornelius Hamelberg
After all the forecasts of economic doom and gloom, today's good news is that FTSE 100 hits 10-month high as Mark Carney signals Bank of England will cut interest rates after Brexit
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.From: Ibini Olaide <ibini_...@yahoo.com>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 05:37:37 +0000 (UTC)
Kenneth Harrow
Maybe maybe. Today Britain, formerly 5th largest economy in the world, has slipped behind france. As fallen behind the frogs, thanks to their idiocy. The pound is 133, not 150. That counts a lot when you have to buy things from abroad.
Ftse isn’t everything.
But that’s not the real thing: the break-up was an attack on cosmopolitanism, in favor of both isolationism and racism. That’s what I mourn.
ken
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 8:14 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Fw: prof olukotun's coloum
After all the forecasts of economic doom and gloom, today's good news is that FTSE 100 hits 10-month high as Mark Carney signals Bank of England will cut interest rates after Brexit
On Friday, 1 July 2016 01:48:21 UTC+2, ayo_ol...@yahoo.com wrote:
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
From: Ibini Olaide <ibini_...@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 05:37:37 +0000 (UTC)
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Professor Harrow,
It's Brexit. The people have spoken. I cannot understand how you could be so angry! And calling names too! “Idiots!” “ racists and bigots!”, “dumb to think there will be no repercussions” - in short, “ It's the economy stupid!” ?
Joining the EU was not a marriage vow of “for better or worse, in sickness or in health , till death do us part” was it?
Well, here's the Farage -Cameron debate in full - although I would still like to spare you the pain of watching it, even retroactively , if you should think that it's painful (torture) – like water-boarding...
What's even more ridiculous is the idea that the EU is about to strip the EU of English as one of their official languages ! Anyway our English Language will continue as one of the bonds that keeps the Commonwealth in a loving embrace., and they ( the EU) cannot strip the global community of the English Language, thank God!
Londoners are cosmopolitans even if you mourn the alleged death of cosmopolitanism; and yet the Lord Mayor of London rejects that idea of London becoming a city state
The British Isles have always been separated from Europe ( “the continent”) by the Channel and not unexpectedly mass immigration breaching Calais ( another border post) had been the most recent flashpoint for months! ( Btw – I think that it's a WW2 hangover and that the deeper psychological roots to the divorce -especially in the older generation is that the Brits have never wanted to belong to a club in which the Germans are the economic powerhouse and lording it over everybody
Now the EU authorities are insisting on “The free movement of people” as part of the package that enables the UK ( still the UK) to co-operate with other nationals in science research…
Where is your sympathy?
Empathy?
With the £ pound Sterling down ( temporarily) everybody will soon be importing from the UK, since it's cheaper to do so. Saville Row suits from the Oxford Street New Year Sales etc after the Xmas bonanza!
Shalom!
Over here, we know how our bread is buttered. For better or for worse, we're still hanging in there.
Cornelius
On Friday, 1 July 2016 06:49:43 UTC+2, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
Maybe maybe. Today Britain, formerly 5th largest economy in the world, has slipped behind france. As fallen behind the frogs, thanks to their idiocy. The pound is 133, not 150. That counts a lot when you have to buy things from abroad.
Ftse isn’t everything.
But that’s not the real thing: the break-up was an attack on cosmopolitanism, in favor of both isolationism and racism. That’s what I mourn.
ken
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2016 at 8:14 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Fw: prof olukotun's coloum
After all the forecasts of economic doom and gloom, today's good news is that FTSE 100 hits 10-month high as Mark Carney signals Bank of England will cut interest rates after Brexit
On Friday, 1 July 2016 01:48:21 UTC+2, ayo_ol...@yahoo.com wrote:
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
From: Ibini Olaide <ibini_...@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 05:37:37 +0000 (UTC)
ReplyTo: "ibini_...@yahoo.com" <ibini_...@yahoo.com>
Subject: prof olukotun's coloum
BREXIT TAKEAWAYS FOR NIGERIA
AYO OLUKOTUN
"The backtracking by Mr Johnson (former Mayor of London) and his allies has exposed the venality and cynicism of their campaign- unfortunately for Britain, far too late"
New York Times Editorial. June 28, 2016.
Defying the sombre predictions of the bookmakers and the dire warnings of global financial institutions and world leaders, the United Kingdom, in a historic referendum last week voted to opt out of the European Union. As known, the political and economic fall-outs of what is still an unfolding debacle has been momentous. They include the resignation of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who will however hang on as lameduck until October, financial tremors travelling well beyond the United Kingdom as the Pound dropped to its lowest level in 30 years, and unprecedented national soul searching in the wake of what has been termed a national nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, analysts are examining the statistics of voting capturing divisions between London which voted to stay in the EU and the rest of the country which voted to dump it, between England which overwhelmingly voted to exit and Scotland as well as Northern Ireland which opted for the EU, between the younger population which cast their lot with the Union and the older strata which voted for britain to go it alone.
But overshadowing all these and the ominous possibilities of the break up of the UK, many are raising the troubling question of how a country reputed for its conservatism and prudence got itself into what Roger Cohen, Op-ed writer with the New York Times describes as "a collosal leap in the dark". One of the possible answers pregnant with lessons for younger democracies like Nigeria is indicated by the opening quote, sourced from the editorial opinion of wednesday in the New York Times regarding the role of politicians such as Boris Johnson, London's former mayor and Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party.
These politicians, one of whom may well be the next Prime Minister, riding on tabloid sensationalism fed the voting population with exaggerations and outright lies from which they are now hastily backtracking. For example, Johnson in the heat of the campaign, claimed that Brexit will save the money which he put at 350million pounds a week that Britain paid to the EU and spend it on the National Health Insurance Scheme and other social services. It turned out that the actual value of Britain's contribution is 150million pounds a week. Johnson and Farage have since denied making such claims. What is the lesson here? Electorates in Nigeria and elsewhere should be extremely wary of the inflated and exaggerated rhetoric of politicians who can easily eat their words and promises when trouble or disaster strikes. Here in Nigeria, the jury is still out concerning what and what the ruling All Progressive Congress promised to do for the Nigerian electorate. The result of this is a predictable crisis of rising expectations, which even if the economy were up and running could not be fulfilled. Hence, Brexit teaches us to scrutinize and interrogate our politicians and political parties regarding the promises they load us with when hunting for our votes.
The other lesson our political class can draw from Brexit is the ease and civility with which Cameron bowed out of office as a matter of principle, having staked his career on a referendum which a more thoughtful politician could have avoided. Cameron could have invented a thousand and one excuses to hang on to office but as Anthony Akinola observed in The Punch (June 27, 2016), resignations on principle are very much a part of British political culture. If our struggling democracy must overcome its arrested growth, our politicians must elevate political practice to the point where they will not employ do or die battles to gain or to remain in office. Nigerian politics is today a far cry from what it was when Chief Obafemi Awolowo voluntarily resigned from the apex civilian postion of the Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council under the Military government of General Yakubu Gowon. Nigeria is waiting for the advent of the beautiful ones who will reclaim the moral high ground for our retarded political culture.
The British media considering their descent to degraded discourse, filled with racial slurs and hysteria concerning immigrants cannot escape blame.This is at least one ocassion when the media were absent from their assigned roles as the nation's educator and inspirational storehouse of edifying ideas.The Nigerian media, which by the way harbour an increasing share of thoughtful professionals and opinion moulders should draw a lesson from the scandalously low ebb to which the British media cascaded. They should do this with the awareness that the Nigerian media which are older than the Nigerian state have often acted as arbiters in times of national crises. Of course, they had their ignoble moments as well, such as when they became the unabashed megaphones of rival political gladiators but overall, the media, the quality media especially have often acted as agenda setters and moral compasses for a nation often adrift. That is the way to go at a time when Nigeria faces an existential battle for her very soul.
There is importantly the issue of renegotiating Nigeria through the holding of referendums even if, as in the case of Spain and Italy, they are not legally binding. In the wake of Brexit, several commentators have raised the question whether our democracy should not include the holding of referendums on such matters as the right of our nationalities to determine their future. Such persons pointing to the example of Scotland which, although voted in 2014 to stay in the UK, is currently contemplating the holding of another referendum which will allow it to go it alone and become a part of the European Union as her citizens indicated last week. The argument here is that the consent of citizens in a multinational union cannot be taken for granted but should be constantly renewed and sought. This view is in consonance with that of Professor Wole Soyinka who argued in The Punch on wednesday that Nigeria's sovereignity is not cast in stone and iron but is eminently negotiable. Of course, there are doubts whether, given the current state of our elections we can pull off referendums without the usual hitches, violence and inconclusiveness. That however is not a good enough reason not to try.
As an alternative however, it is suggested that President Muhammadu Buhari listens to the increasingly vehement opinions of our elder statesmen who are suggesting the revalidation of our besieged federalism through revisiting the key recommendations of the 2014 national conference. As Soyinka put it in The Punch on wednesday " The confab report that came under jonathan is even more superior to the one I participated in as a member of PRONACO..The recommendations strike me as workable, practical and infact, as answering some of the anxieties of this nation". Without doubt therefore, one of our takeaways from Brexit is to address the resentments of the constituent parts and nationalities that make up Nigeria, using as basis the major resolutions and recommendations of the 2014 National Conference.
Kenneth Harrow
Dear Cornelius
The people have spoken. Are we supposed to say amen, no matter what? All the reports I have read on this vote indicate that a very strong component of the vote was based on anti-immigrant sentiment, and with it racism, xenophobia. I didn’t invent the idea of a bigoted campaign. The use of nazi era posters with masses “invading” were a sign of the level of bigotry. Why do you want to defend this? I didn’t invent the notion that young people want to be part of a cosmopolitan universe: that’s how the voted.
I agree that the e.u. should be criticized, but the arguments used against it were wrong. It didn’t harm the people in the countryside, according to multiple reports; it wasn’t undemocratic, despite the propaganda. Surely you’ve seen all those reports. I would criticize it for using austerity politics that wrecked Greece and spain. That wasn’t the case in the u.k.
It was a vote by people on the right who hate foreigners. Why would you want to accept that as a good thing?
O O
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Professor Harrow,
As you must very well know, there is no way anyone is going to get a black ass like mine to accept or defend Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Xenophobia or that particular, old Caucasian American disease known as Negrophobia - no way. ( About the latter I should like to recommend William Faulkner's Pantaloon in Black - to the not so conscientious White Brethren & the Klan.
I'm not defending any of them or anyone but I do understand what's happening: that anti-immigration sentiments contributed handsomely to the success of Brexit - i-e. A large number of people want to see fewer Poles and other East Europeans – basically economic refugees (whose countries of origin are not very welcoming to foreigners), migrating to the UK in large numbers and because ( so I'm told) they are prepared to work way below the minimum wage – they thereby displace / replace a lot of Brits who as a result find themselves out of work ( I*M told it's for the same reasons that African Americans despise certain African migrants in New York - they are prepared to work for slave wages…)
There is a debate going on in Poland right now about letting immigrants into their country. There are similar tensions in Sweden where 160, 000 refugees arrived last year , mostly from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq - but they are not yet a competing or competitive workforce or yet accused of building more mosques or taking our women etc. (and of course the Swedish government has been yapping a lot that the UK and other EU countries such as Poland and Hungary should contribute their own fair share when it comes to solving the world's refugee problems, by taking more refugees in, be the refugees Jews or Muslims or non-believers
It is a reasonable and understandable reaction from the British working class , even if you want to call it racism . Indeed, I can imagine how some of the racists feel about the fact that the parents of the Lord Mayor of London, are Muslim immigrants from Pakistan. Some of them must be asking, are there no English men around and what the hell is going on?
And yes, I am familiar with Irving Howe's World of Our Fathers
The Swedish papers are awash with Brexit page 5 of today's DN features Chris Patten's A British Tragedy in One Act - and I though of you & Porter when I read it this morning; the folks over here are a little traumatised by Britain’s' exit ( we have so much a common an the UK is our closest ally when we're not dancing with Angela Merkel that is)
At this point the late Colonel al-Gaddafi comes to mind; he it was who extended the invitation to Israel to join the Arab League. Now imagine if this had happened and given the “ free movement of people” imperative it would have been only a matter of time before Israel would be facing the much feared demographic nightmare and some of the nationalist sentiments would certainly prevail and I'm sure that the Israel-exiters from the Arab League - what some of them would equate with Nazi Germany - would prevail - and you can call them rebels against cosmopolitanism, racists, bigots, idiots but their decision would make absolute sense to me.
This evening little Wales is taking on Belgium and I'm supporting Wales of course but mindful that my Better Half's distinguished father is of Walloon stock.
May the best man win.
From the inter-rail universe
Shabbat Shalom.
Cornelius
Kenneth Harrow
Dear Cornelius
I understand the sentiments of the anti-immigration crowd worried about jobs, even if their worries might not actually reflect the economic realities. However, the worries you expressed seemed to me to be focused on the arab immigrants. It is all immigrants, together, whose rights and values should be considered. I don’t think jewish or black refugees, today or yesterday, merited any more rights to asylum than the Syrians of today. Further, I don’t agree that the economic structures that cost, say, autoworkers their jobs in Michigan are best served by ending outsourcing or immigration. Just terms of employment, here and abroad, yes. We all should campaign for that. But I can’t help but imagine myself defending my grandparents in immigrating to the states, and I have zero belief that the issue of legal or illegal is pertinent. All of us should have fundamental right to immigrate.
Lastly, Cornelius, really, the understandable desire of workers to defend their jobs can’t be separated from the high percentage of sentiments expressing hatred of immigrants, of foreigners, of black or brown people, of muslims, etc. you can’t deny that; the two issues are linked, and all the rhetoric of the campaigns based on fear have linked horrific stories and propaganda about the evils of the immigrants with thedangers to the jobs. Fearmongering, ultimately the weapon of the far right, of the fascists of yesterday.
Right now the ugliest side of this is east Europe, countries like hungary and as you said Poland, a country that sent millions to Ireland and then the u.k. under the EU. Now what? They want to keep their countries pure, to keep out people who are different.
Well, jews are different. We should be the first to understand what it means when countries choose either to keep us out, or to purify themselves of us.
We are no more privileged than arab refugees. They need help, and shouldn’t be denied it. Finally, the numbers have started to shift over now to black Africans who are predominant in seeking passage from Libya. Their rights are our rights, and vice versa.
ayo_ol...@yahoo.com
My position here, allow me to indulge a view of mine based on my own understanding of the timeless relevance of Yoruba Ifa to all existence, is that of the instructive ever-present 'place of peace at the centre of the most violent storms' that intrepid sailors ate known to avow.
There can be nothing sacrosanct in the views of any one Nobel Laureate or any number of media, intellectual, constitutional, or other luminary-opportunists compared to the time-tested truth and applications of age-old wisdom. There is no smoke without fire we are told, but seldom, if ever, does does the rabble-rousing outpouring of many an opinion-leader (look at brexit) show the ulterior-motive fire and Piper-funder that ignites its speech of smoke. At a one and only time in Nigeria's 100-year history that CORRUPTION is being fought head-on it is sheer reflex for patriarchs of corruption to seek all lofty, bizarre, populist, improbable, amazing-as-grace means and ends to cast the cleansing process asunder.
There can be no greater or more momentous re-negotiation of Nigeria's being, future or destiny than ongoing war on corruption. Any other diversionary negotiation would merely canonize and beatify our already imperial majesties of corruption for life-governance of whatever new-fangled structures may emerge.
Odu Ifa Ogbeyeku tells us:
"Let us not propel our life in haste.
Let us not in distraction covet affluence.
Let us not devalue the respectable in us with anger.
When we arrive a place of peace
Let us pause, contemplate the future and consider the consequences of our actions.
These reveal Ifa for Olabude (Well-being Is Nigh) Son of Otinba.
One whom the rabble diminishes
But whom God Almighty alone increases and multiplies."
FO
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Professor Harrow,
Many thanks for your exposition and your prescriptive ideals which I think are heart-warming and ought to be widely circulated both in the United Kingdom and in EU countries that are or will soon be prospective candidates for referendums about exiting the EU. And of course over there in the Mighty States about to be made great again should Trump have his way and prevail over “Crooked Hillary” in November.
For over a decade now my son has been drumming it into my ears that “ No one is illegal”- no – not one - and that no one is an alien, which noble sentiment in and of itself does not explain why Mr. Trump wants to build the Great Wall of China along the US-Mexican border. Of course the John Lennon idealists are free to imagine that borders no longer exist: “It’s easy if you try” a little more difficult to swim the Channel or to Land’s End from Tripoli which is situated at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea
I should like to remind us all that EU countries are signatories to a number of conventions, including the European Convention on Human Rights and other European Agreements all of which protect the rights of European citizens including rights to a minimum wage which at this stage varies from country to country. This morning’s SvD has a three- page article entitled “ Det fattiga England ångrar inte ´brexit” (The poor people of England do not regret Brexit) – with a focus on Great Yarmouth, a coastal town in which seven out of ten people voted to leave the EU because of their disaffection and not because of any alleged Johnsonian & Farage & Hove mass deception. The first two sentences in that article translate:” Seven out of ten people in Great Yarmouth voted Brexit and on the coastal city streets you will not find many who regret the outcome. Instead, they are seething with anger at politicians and at immigrants” N. B. Anger, not hatred.
Anti-Semitism being what it is in Europe, and habitually viewing much of international politics from a very pro-Israel perspective ( how it relates to, concerns or impacts on Israel) I have always been worried and even suspicious about the notion of the EU having a collective foreign policy - based on some kind of majority votes passed in Brussels and that’s why I was encouraged by Cameron saying that the UK is needed in the EU to stand up for Israel
As Farage said in his victory speech, "I make one prediction this morning: The United Kingdom will not be the last member state to leave the European Union.” Who’s next? Maybe Nexit (The Netherlands) or France aided by Islamic terrorism and the fear of EURABIA. Only Time will tell. There’s this four- page feature article in this morning’s DN featuring the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders’ dire prediction that, ” "Brexit is just the beginning. The EU is about to fall " and another columnist who also predicts that “2017 will be a truly fateful year for Europe” As a frequent visitor to Europe, I’m sure that even in France you can begin to smell the coffee…
The rest of what I have to say is inspired by this Sabbath’s Torah portion Shelach //Numbers 13: 1- 15: 41 in which we learn that the Almighty does not deny people their freedom of choice – and that’s why, “Hashem spoke to Moses, saying, "Send forth men, if you please, and let them spy out the land of Canaan that I give to the Children of Israel; one man each from his father's tribe shall you send, every one a leader among them. Moses sent them forth from the Wilderness of Paran at Hashem’s command; they were distinguished men; heads of the children of Israel were they”
And unfortunately, they came back with ill-report about the Promised Land and some fearmongering etc.---quite unrelated to the fear-mongering - not always unjustified - that characterized the Brexit campaign and here I’m thinking of the wee bit about Turkey - that Turkey was about to join the EU and implanting terror in the hearts of the Brexiters that Turks were going to be immigrating to the British Isles in great masses, taking their jobs , maybe Islamising their culture a little further and so on, when in fact Turkey doesn’t even seem to be that interested in joining an EU that’s now falling apart…
One final little word about the holy cow known as the EU (core fragments of the resurrected Holy Roman Empire) which from my point of view maybe doesn’t deserve all the reverence that it is being given. It was not founded on Torah principles, it has not entered into a covenant with Hashem, and I’m being brief here, in fact it is dominated by replacement theology of the sort that to some extent (in no small measure) contributed to the Holocaust. It is the same replacement theology that is at the root of Christian eschatology from which some of Islamic eschatology derives (a couple of days ago I encountered some Jehovah’s Witness who told me that they do not operate under Mosaic Law. I asked her who abrogated the Laws of Moses and she told me, “Jesus”…
Yesterday it was Wales 3- Belgium 1
One of the things I like about football and sports generally is that it fosters respect for rules….
Last word: Marvin Gaye: Everybody needs love
Cornelius
On Friday, 1 July 2016 16:17:07 UTC+2, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
Kenneth Harrow
Dear Cornelius
This is a complicated answer you wrote. When people are angry at foreigners they often abuse them, often mistreat them, often justify doing bad things to them, not treating them as equals. You quote this week’s torah portion. It says, “For the citizen among the Israelites and for the stranger who resides among them—you shall have one ritual for anyone who acts in error.”
More than one portion says that, treat the stranger like yourself.
Not all portions say the same thing, I know. But for today’s sensibilities treating foreigners like ourselves is one goal, one ideal.
It is an ideal hated by farange, le pen, trump. They won’t make anything great, any more than the Third Reich lasted a thousand years. They will destroy people’s ability to live together and work together.
It is already happening here, in this country, with more attacks on foreigners, with more hatred for muslims or Mexicans.
Trump represents the greatest threat to American democracy ever.
Cornelius Hamelberg
More about the anger : We need morality to beat this hurricane of anger says Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ...
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Ken,
There's nothing that you have said so far that's dis-agreeable – to love the stranger - as Jews were once strangers (in Egypt), although it could be difficult to love people who you suspect of wanting to blow you up either in Paris, London, New York or Maiduguri - in order to establish their Islamic State - a province of their dream of a Worldwide Caliphate.
At least in the United States people don't ask you each and every day, “ Where do you come from ?” just because you have curly hair , or maybe because you looks dark and fearful. And if you give them your Stockholm address they enquire, “ But I mean originally.”
Maybe the Church is at least partly complicit in this new tide of Xenophobia by not preaching more vigorously against it and dispelling the suspicion that some refugees are but part of a Trojan Horse fifth column ready to rise up against the indigenous population, when the time comes/ when the time is ripe. Silence, they say, means consent.
Also I believe that apart from Turkey, Lebanon , Jordan and Iran, some of the rich Muslim countries ought to be doing do a lot more to help their Muslim brothers and sisters , their children and the elderly who are suffering so acutely by taking them in as refugees.
Above all, in which ways are they contributing to ending the carnage and bloodshed in all the theatres of war in Muslim countries? Not even a ceasefire during the holy month of Ramadan.
The right wing take over of Austria will be entering the second round since the presidential results in that country have been nullified for a re-run with Norbert Hofer likely to win the run-off ( He says that Austria should stay in the EU but only on one condition…
Latest football score after full time and extra time, ( former war allies) Germany 1 Italy 1
After the shoot out ( penalties ) Germany 6 – Italy 5
Germany into the semi finals . World without end, Amen...
Kenneth Harrow
Hi cornelius
Maybe I am wrong, but isn’t the central conflict in the middle east between the Saudis, and their sunni allies, and the Iranians, ant their Shiite allies. The mix is also complicated by Israelis vs hamas, hizbellah and the Palestinians.
So, it doesn’t entirely make sense to me to ask those who are fomenting these conflicts to do more for the refugees. They are creating havoc, and it is totally naïve not to count the great powers, notably Russia and the U.S. as being central actors in this conflict. We might add to it the arab spring people hoping for a new age, and the older authoritarian powers, like those in Syria, Egypt, Libya, now also in turmoil.
You don’t like hearing me saying this, but the refugees generated by these conflicts are victims of all these forces who belief in might and power, not spirit (remember the hoftorah last week?), in resolving the issues. Might and power, not negotiation, much less compassion. Yes, Israel might be vulnerable to Palestinian attacks, but in fact, israel’s govt believes in might only and the massive victims of this are Palestinians. And now we can add to the pile of victims Syrians, Libyans, eritreans, and many others.
I believe we can’t separate the refugee question from those who generated it, and those with might and power, with guns and aircraft, are responsible.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Ken,
Many thanks for getting me to revisit the Haftorah this morning and to imbibe what you were referring to – at the very end of the Haftorah :
If
Zakat were to be put to better use to make a difference then it would
be used to care of the victims
of the on-going proxy wars and carnage in the Middle East, the
Shia taking care of their own and the Sunni taking care of their own,
in fact His Holiness the Pope & the Archbishop of Canterbury ,
the World Council of Churches plus
the Patriarch of Moscow and all
Russia &
the Bible Belt Americans also doing their fair share of saving
the children, in Jesus' name, Amen.
Of course we are talking about geopolitical interests : Divide and rule: Saudi Arabia supported the Shia in Yemen for forty years when it was in their interest to do so. The 4th batch of Crusaders never got to Jerusalem but ravaged Constantinople a Christian citadel instead.
Conflict News : Russia and Syria have no differences on who are considered terrorists in Syria (according to Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov ( TASS
About the forces who believe in might and power, not to mention Making America Great Again, I would have thought that the US would be accepting more Middle East refugees than the EU - after all it's the US that has been most militarily active and responsible producing refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq , endless drone warfare on Pakistan and utterly responsible for the masses pouring in to Europe through Libya…
Just as you said, “ we can’t separate the refugee question from those who generated it, and those with might and power, with guns and aircraft, are responsible.”
You're absolutely correct there!
Best Regards.
Cornelius
Kenneth Harrow
Dear Cornelius, the part of your message that most indicated the shamefulness of the u.s. is what I highlighted below. Truly scandalous. We’ve taken maybe 10,000 arab refugees, and Obama upped the number to 17,000.
Wow. The germans took a million! Never thought I’d be singing merkel’s praises; but between Germany and Sweden, the real “mensch” of the world have shown their colors
ken
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 8:13 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Fw: prof olukotun's coloum
About the forces who believe in might and power, not to mention Making America Great Again, I would have thought that the US would be accepting more Middle East refugees than the EU - after all it's the US that has been most militarily active and responsible producing refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq , endless drone warfare on Pakistan and utterly responsible for the masses pouring in to Europe through Libya…
Cornelius Hamelberg
As you say Angela Merkel a mensch now according young Brits dual citizenship
http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sabri+brothers+%3B+Habib&source=video&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiwjL3ku9rNAhWE2ywKHRhADWYQtwIIHTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dr2oD5_23gY4&usg=AFQjCNFQ9tLryZVJIcfmII4UGvsiGDJduA&sig2=1oH_mlKWyuMsR4QN2Yah9Q