The suburban frontline

"The house right across the street was hit. It's not like World War II but it's a long term, ongoing kind of action that is causing a lot of insecurity and tension and anxiety. So people are traumatised even though there's no colossal damage ... of course [there's] the bombs that Israel sends to Gaza. But that doesn't change the fact that you can't find one person in Sderot who's not been traumatised in one way or another by this endless conflict."

I recently visited Sderot, the Israeli town one kilometre from Gaza that is routinely targeted in rocket attacks. You can read the entire report here.

Racism for the mainstream

The vilification of Islam, particularly in the West, has developed into something of a pseudo-intellectual industry.

My first piece for Online Opinion has just been posted here.

Israel at 60

Locked into the mantra of preserving its Jewish character, Israel refuses to comprehend the extent to which it has forsaken the memory of the oppressed for the fruits of the oppressor.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel. Here is my take on what Israel represents in the 21st century.

But they're Arab!

"She told me, 'I don't want anyone to know you're Arab. I don't want anyone to know I rented the flat out to Arabs.' I told her, 'I'm not going to hide my identity.' She said, 'No, no you don't have to hide.' I said, 'Okay, I want to put my name on the door.' She said, 'No, no, not that.'"

NewMatilda.com has commissioned weekly pieces while I'm in Israel and Palestine over the next two months. Click this link to read my first entry.

First, define democracy

Lost in the contrived debate over whether Islam is compatible with democracy is a far more important set of questions: what does democracy mean to different societies - not just Westerners or Muslims, but to the Chinese, Tibetans and so on?

Does it matter that no Western government offered material support to the people of Pakistan as they sought to depose their dictator over the past several years?

Should we recall that it was Western countries that overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1950s?

The debate also avoids any appraisal of the malaise in Western democracies. One only has to look at the frivolity of the US presidential race, where candidates are criticised for their lack of tenpin bowling skills, to appreciate that something is wrong. In our own country democracy has often been reduced to a shallow exhibition of personalities.

Rather than insist that Muslims prove their worth in Western eyes, it would be more productive if we in the West took a good look at our own democracies.

Mustafa Qadri, Sydney

(Published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 April 2008)

Will new Pakistan PM challenge US agenda?

That is a question I ask in my most recent piece on Pakistan, published today in NewMatilda.com:

On the afternoon of Tuesday 25 March, Yousaf Raza Gilani was sworn in as Pakistan's 26th Prime Minister.

The ceremony was noteworthy for a number of reasons. For one, Gilani took his oath from President Musharraf, the same man who had him jailed on corruption charges seven years earlier. Gilani spent the next five years in prison for his troubles. Now Gilani's coalition government is very publicly seeking to remove Musharraf from office.

Musharraf meltdown

My latest piece, on Musharraf's clamp down on dissent in Pakistan, has been published in this week's NewMatilda.com:

Perhaps inspired by his counterparts in Burma, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has proceeded to clamp down on political dissent like never before. What began as a knee jerk reaction to increasing disenchantment with his regime has spiraled towards ever more draconian measures that have completely erased any remaining claim Musharraf may have to being called a moderate.

The full article is available here.