al-Shabaab's version of spelling bee
I keep meaning to do a post about Arabs, but found that I've been working on enough games to talk about that rather than boring politics. But something has got my attention, and I find it hard not to take a whack at it at every corner. This is not new, it actually happened awhile back, but was brought to my attention through an internet forum.
Al-Shabaab is one of the latest militant groups in Somalia, that country that you probably hear about in the news a lot, but usually about pirates. Further down south of the country is where most of the hotbed politics goes on, and the coalition of Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam has seemingly been disbanded since this event was recorded and just as I predicted these former allies are now fighting each other because in reality the moment they were forced to work together on something they couldn't; a town that they were controlling together became the first battleground in yet another episode of the 18 year civil war.
Al-Shabaab has been keen to keep the population, which is relatively moderate religiously under their control. Regular stoning have seemingly been the prime focus, including a 13 year old rape victim, and a couple of which the pregnant woman has been allowed to give birth before she herself is stoned as her partner has already been. One of the less violent acts has to be their interpretation of the ever so popular "Spelling Bee", in the form of Quran recitation. Under an armed (and masked) guard, children were promoted to show off their knowledge. The prize? Food, ammo clips and grenades. You can see the footage here (I don't believe there is anything particularly disturbing in this footage so it should be safe for all ages):
http://blip.tv/file/2867534/
As a Muslim, a Briton, I have to ask myself: Why oh why, now that Southern Somalia is being dominated by an actual Al-Qaeda affiliated organisation, are we not doing anything about it? The United States happily bombed the Islamic Courts Union when it tried to make up for the lack of Government, when it didn't even support things such as stoning (which is Unislamic anyway, but that is another post for another time), and these cases of whipping that is becoming so common; and even publicly stated they weren't affiliated with Al-Qaeda... hunted down murderers (including those that murdered a Nun), started building local government filling up pot holes, stopping people from carrying guns and tolling people for use of the few roads that were still in a workable condition.
This organisation that was so bad that the US had to intervene, ended up being integrated with the Transitional Government (that's the people we the West are backing btw) within months after its collapse, and one of its leaders is now the recognised President of the country. Now an actual, serious threat to human life appears, and the best we have done is the US sent a few crates of weapons and left the Transitional Government to it. The African Union troops, like usual have done nothing because its too tied up in legal disputes over its mandate to actually take part in anything. They can't even fire their weapons unless directly attacked, so have to sit and watch while people are beaten in the street and rival rebel forces have shoot-outs. In Sudan, the most useful thing they have managed to do was change their green berries to blue UN ones when that became a UN mission. Back in Somalia, they control individual streets in the capital, not even the entire city.
But it keeps on going, not only have al-Shabaab been stoning children to death, they've been checking Women's breasts and beating men for not having beards as recorded by this news piece:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1220864/ Whipped-wearing-deceptive-bra-Hardline-Islamists-Somalia-pub licly-flog-women-sharia-crackdown.html
So when are we going to sort Somalia out? When a more moderate militant group has taken charge again? I question whether the gutless people who are against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the kind of people who prevent us intervening in other countries too. We have adapted, wrongly to a form of Isolationism in which people are left to die when we could quite easily improve things. Our politicians have twisted their opinions to suit the ignorant public who don't understand how war works in order to protect their seats, which has in effect caused the anti-war movement to grow. How many more children will be stoned to death before we stop it?
Al-Shabaab is one of the latest militant groups in Somalia, that country that you probably hear about in the news a lot, but usually about pirates. Further down south of the country is where most of the hotbed politics goes on, and the coalition of Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam has seemingly been disbanded since this event was recorded and just as I predicted these former allies are now fighting each other because in reality the moment they were forced to work together on something they couldn't; a town that they were controlling together became the first battleground in yet another episode of the 18 year civil war.
Al-Shabaab has been keen to keep the population, which is relatively moderate religiously under their control. Regular stoning have seemingly been the prime focus, including a 13 year old rape victim, and a couple of which the pregnant woman has been allowed to give birth before she herself is stoned as her partner has already been. One of the less violent acts has to be their interpretation of the ever so popular "Spelling Bee", in the form of Quran recitation. Under an armed (and masked) guard, children were promoted to show off their knowledge. The prize? Food, ammo clips and grenades. You can see the footage here (I don't believe there is anything particularly disturbing in this footage so it should be safe for all ages):
http://blip.tv/file/2867534/
As a Muslim, a Briton, I have to ask myself: Why oh why, now that Southern Somalia is being dominated by an actual Al-Qaeda affiliated organisation, are we not doing anything about it? The United States happily bombed the Islamic Courts Union when it tried to make up for the lack of Government, when it didn't even support things such as stoning (which is Unislamic anyway, but that is another post for another time), and these cases of whipping that is becoming so common; and even publicly stated they weren't affiliated with Al-Qaeda... hunted down murderers (including those that murdered a Nun), started building local government filling up pot holes, stopping people from carrying guns and tolling people for use of the few roads that were still in a workable condition.
This organisation that was so bad that the US had to intervene, ended up being integrated with the Transitional Government (that's the people we the West are backing btw) within months after its collapse, and one of its leaders is now the recognised President of the country. Now an actual, serious threat to human life appears, and the best we have done is the US sent a few crates of weapons and left the Transitional Government to it. The African Union troops, like usual have done nothing because its too tied up in legal disputes over its mandate to actually take part in anything. They can't even fire their weapons unless directly attacked, so have to sit and watch while people are beaten in the street and rival rebel forces have shoot-outs. In Sudan, the most useful thing they have managed to do was change their green berries to blue UN ones when that became a UN mission. Back in Somalia, they control individual streets in the capital, not even the entire city.
But it keeps on going, not only have al-Shabaab been stoning children to death, they've been checking Women's breasts and beating men for not having beards as recorded by this news piece:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1220864/ Whipped-wearing-deceptive-bra-Hardline-Islamists-Somalia-pub licly-flog-women-sharia-crackdown.html
So when are we going to sort Somalia out? When a more moderate militant group has taken charge again? I question whether the gutless people who are against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the kind of people who prevent us intervening in other countries too. We have adapted, wrongly to a form of Isolationism in which people are left to die when we could quite easily improve things. Our politicians have twisted their opinions to suit the ignorant public who don't understand how war works in order to protect their seats, which has in effect caused the anti-war movement to grow. How many more children will be stoned to death before we stop it?
Posted by Acebloke on Thursday, November 19, 2009 04:56PM
- 0 comments
(link)
/
Keywords:
personal,
rant,
politics
