Segacs’s World I Know

And in Spain, a shocking victory for terrorism that could have disastrous ramifications, as the Socialist party swept to power, ousting the centrist Popular Party who, before the Madrid terrorist attacks, was virtually assured of victory:

Spain’s opposition Socialists have swept to power in a sensational election upset sparked by popular anger over the government’s handling of a suspected al Qaeda attack on commuter trains that killed 200 people.

Voters ousted the center-right Popular Party (PP), which until Thursday’s coordinated attacks had looked certain to win a third consecutive term in power in Sunday’s poll.

Spain’s next prime minister will be 43-year-old Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has criticized outgoing premier Jose Maria Aznar for his unswerving support for the United States and has threatened to pull out 1,300 Spanish troops from Iraq

[ . . . ]

Controversy over the government’s handling of the bombing of four commuter trains three days before the election clearly helped swing the election Zapatero’s way.

“The government has paid the price for its involvement in the war in Iraq, for Aznar’s relationship with (U.S. President George) W. Bush and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair. The vote has been a reaction to this,” said Carlos Berzosa, rector of Madrid’s Complutense University.

Incredible.

This is a much, much bigger story than many people even realize. It is a sweeping victory for terrorism. Damian agrees:

If the Spanish people have ousted their government because of a major terrorist attack, I really fear we’ll see an attack on the scale of 9/11 in the United States before the Presidential election. If the people of the West are going to blame their leaders for terror instead of the people actually committing the attacks, why wouldn’t Al-Qaida try it again?

That’s the thing. They will try it again. And again. And again. As long as people keep reacting out of fear, and keep supporting the notion that they somehow deserve to be attacked for standing up for what’s right, we will see victory after victory for terrorism. Al Qua’eda must be throwing a big party tonight.

But where is the world’s conscience? Where does this end? Will any country, any democracy, any government or people have the courage to stand up to the terrorists rather than capitulating to them?

Another day of terror in Israel, with a double-suicide bombing in Ashdod that killed ten people and wounded two dozen more:

The blasts were heard around the busy hour of 5 p.m.. The first bomber blew himself up inside the port, police said, and the second bombing took place four minutes later outside the facility. The first bomber asked a young boy where he could get a glass of water. The boy, whose father was reportedly killed in the attack, pointed towards a structure, where the bomber then exploded. Rescue services spokesman Yerucham Mendola said “some of the victims were thrown a long distance” by the blasts.

What is there left to say? What words of mourning, horror, or dismay can I possibly find that haven’t been said dozens of times before?

And how to make the world understand the kind of support that the terror networks enjoy among the general Palestinian population? How do you make people understand that it’s not just an isolated few extremists, but a movement that has won over the hearts and minds of the average Palestinian on the street? How to make them understand that we have no partner for peace? Maybe by reporting things like this:

Hearing news of the attack, Palestinians took to the streets in the Jenin and Jabalaya refugee camps to celebrate. Drivers honked the horns of their cars as gunmen fired into the air to express their joy. Others distributed sweets to passersby, hailing the suicide bombers, and calling on all Palestinian groups to step up their “resistance operations against the Israeli enemy.”

When will they understand that you can’t negotiate with people whose only desire is to see you dead?

Update: Maybe a picture will speak a thousand words (via LGF):

Palestinians shout slogans as they cheer after two suicide bombers from the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza blew themselves up in the Israeli port of Ashdod Sunday March 14, 1004 in Gaza city. Sunday's bombing killed 11 Israelis and wounded 18. The Islamic militant group Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group with ties to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed joint responsibility (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Today was the annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade here in Montreal. And I must say that, despite the slightly chilly weather and our disturbing inability to find green antlers, it was a blast!

Throngs of people turned out, all wearing green, to come together to celebrate one of the few events in Montreal that isn’t political, and thus can be enjoyed by everyone. After all, beer is very inclusive.

It seemed just about everyone had a float, from the advertisers to the boroughs. PM Paul Martin was greeted with a lukewarm response from the crowd, and a flurry of action from the TV cameras, when he passed by. The radio stations all had floats, the queen and princess received a lot of enthusiastic cheering… actually, pretty much everyone received enthusiastic cheering – from us, that is. And a very drunk, rather large woman wearing a “kiss me, I’m Irish” t-shirt managed to hug and kiss more people than I could count.

By the way, to the very understanding woman standing in front of us listening to us act completely drunk while still completely sober, thanks for being such a good sport.

It’s been more than a day since the horrible bombing in Madrid that killed over 200 people who happened to have been unfortunate enough to have been taking a commuter train yesterday… and I’m only posting about it now. For the most part, I’ve been observing the story with an odd sort of detachment – a sense that this is stuff for the major news outlets, and that I don’t really have anything particular to add to the coverage. Not that the blogosphere’s been quiet on the story, mind you. Just the opposite. Damian has some thoughts on the finger-pointing going on for responsibility (ETA? Al Qua’eda? Someone else?) and a very telling picture. LGF reports, among other things, a subtle shift in language used by the media. Imshin has the bizarre rationalization of why the Islamist terrorists would consider Spain a “legitimate” target, and also some poignant words of caution for everyone in the world who thinks terrorism is someone else’s problem. There’s lots more, of course.

But it wasn’t until I read what Lair had posted, that I really felt that someone had managed to put my thoughts into words:

I wake up early, I check a few headlines, and I read about some boom-booms.

Want to know what my first thought was?

“Thank God they weren’t in Israel.”

You don’t see the United Nations creating agencies and commissions and special assemblies concerning the “Basque Occupied Territories.” Where’s Kofi’s statement demanding that Spain return to the bargaining table with the ETA? Where’s the global shunning of Spain’s legitimate government while welcoming the Socialists meeting with the ETA as distinguished guests, potential partners with which to write Madrid Conventions calling for a new land-for-peace territorial surrender?

I have yet to hear the European Union demand the granting of a Basque state (or the acceptance of credentials of a “Basque Observer Permanent Mission”), or President Bush declaring that he’s come up with a Roadmap for them. Mexico and Venezuela are too busy propping up their corrupt crypto-democratic regimes to pay for arms smuggling into Spain with their oil revenues.

Where’s the separate telephone codes? Where’s the top-level two-letter Internet country code? Where’s the cheese-flavored chips with the ETA leaders face on them?

Instead, the battle cry is unanimous: kill the ETA. Obliterate the ETA. Protect Spain’s sovereignty.

Feh.

I certainly don’t want to belittle the tragedy that has occurred. But whether or not it was the ETA (and it’s looking less and less likely), Lair’s point is a good one: why is it only terrorism when it happens somewhere outside of Israel?

Then I saw this headline:

Millions of grieving Spaniards poured into the streets crying “cowards” and “killers” on Friday as Basque separatist group ETA denied responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed nearly 200 people.

As darkness fell, two million in Madrid alone joined a mass protest, whistling, banging drums, carrying black crosses or candles, and waving placards saying “No More Killing.”

I’m heartened to see millions marching against terrorism in Spain. But where are the millions marching in Israel? Where are the millions of Palestinians taking to the streets marching against terrorism? Where are the millions marching in Europe for the over three years of incessant terror that Israel has been facing? In North America? Anywhere?

The annual audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada has echoed the disturbing worldwide trend of a rise in antisemitic incidents – 584 in 2003, up 27% since last year and 119% since 1999. B’nai Brith has also pointed out what the EU tried so hard to keep quiet: that the source of many of these incidents is young Arabs and Muslims:

Issuing its 22nd annual “audit” of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada, B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights took the unprecedented step of naming Arabs and Muslims generally as perpetrators of incidents.

“We’ve been able to identify 30 probable Arab perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada in 2003,” said Stephen Scheinberg, a Concordia University history professor who is the League’s national chairperson.

“We’re not saying all Arabs and Muslims are implicated, not at all,” he told reporters at a Montreal news conference.

“But we are saying a small minority have brought these ideas with them” from the Arab world, he added, and “have been worked up” and “propagandized” by what they hear in Internet chat rooms and on Al-Jazeera broadcasts.

“And it’s caused some real problems for the Jewish communities,” Scheinberg said.

Of course this accusation is drawing an immediate flurry of criticism for B’nai Brith for “generalizing” – even though Scheinberg clearly accused a “small minority”. Also, there are some questions as to the legitimacy of these audits – were there really more incidents, or were there simply more people reporting them? And does B’nai Brith’s line of counting certain anti-Israel incidents as antisemitic fall in a different place than some other organization would draw it? We’re sure to hear all of this and more, as antisemitic groups launch their usual backlash against B’nai Brith.

Doesn’t change the fact that they’re simply daring to speak the non-politically-correct truth. And that Canada will need to face up to that truth if we’re going to improve the situation.

Why do the Israeli and Palestinian officials keep publicizing their meetings in advance? They might as well hand out engraved invitations to the terror groups to give them a time and place for their next attacks. Because to the terrorists, any form of diplomacy – no matter how small – is something that must be sabotaged. The only question is, who will be the next innocent victims?

Writer and journalist Irshad Manji gave a talk at McGill University last week, where she reportedly issued a challenge to the Concordia Muslim Students Association to join with Concordia Hillel in inviting her to speak there. MSA promptly turned her down:

“I challenge the Muslims and Arabs at Concordia to give proof of their love of democracy by inviting me to come speak and creating an open forum for debate and discussion,” said the 35-year-old Manji, who’s been labelled by The New York Times as “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare.”

When reached for a comment, the president of Concordia’s MSA, Ahmad Hussain, promptly declined Manji’s request for an invitation. “I don’t know why she didn’t extend the same invitation to MSA at McGill. It’s not fair and very provocative. She didn’t wait for the MSA.”

Hussain continued: “I think she’s angry with her experience with Islam. She’s a self-proclaimed scholar of the Koran and she doesn’t even read Arabic. Honestly, I think she’s looking for publicity. She’s quick and rash to judge and she’s not qualified. Her message is based on little more than rhetoric and personal anecdotes laden with speculations and generalizations. I’ve read many academics and journalists have dismissed her simply because the content of her message is unscholarly and unfounded as I’ve mentioned before. I think the only people who sponsor her speeches and hail her as “refreshing”, are those who already agree with her.”

Sounds like a lot of excuses to me. Could it be that MSA is afraid of Manji’s message?

Why does this somehow not surprise me?

This year, The Link would like to dedicate the International Women’s Day Issue to the memory of Zahra Kazemi and Rachel Corrie. While various Link members and staff may or may not have disagreed with the politics these two women held dear, we all agree the violent deaths they suffered in their non-violent opposition to human rights abuses was tragic, and a travesty of justice.

This as part of the Concordia paper’s special Women’s issue, which was, as they put it, produced by throwing “all those who identify as men out of the office and allows the women a Women Only Space to complete production of the paper”.

Paul Jané has the latest horror stories from Zimbabwe about brutal “training camps” that use gang-rape as a tool to indoctrinate youngsters to torture and kill. A BBC documentary got a chilling inside story reminiscent of their exposé on North Korean prison camps:

Debbie was taken to one of the so-called training camps for President Robert Mugabe’s Green Bombers youth brigades. That night the camp boys came into her dormitory. They locked the doors, then took it in turns to rape her. “The boys… told me: ‘If you cry, if you make a noise, we’ll beat you.’ ” The ordeal didn’t end there. Debbie said she was raped again – and again, every night for the next six months. She shared her blanket with an 11-year-old girl called Sitembile. The little girl would scream night after night as she too was raped.

The morning after being gang-raped for the first time, Debbie asked the camp commander for medical help. He told her not to complain and sent her on a 20km run. Like many of the other youths in the camp, she was often deprived of food for days at a time, and frequently beaten.

One day Debbie was caught trying to escape, and was sadistically punished. She was buried up to her neck in the ground. When she was dug out hours later she was made to roll in raw sewage. “The water, it was dirty,” she said. “My head was rolling inside.” The commanders then forced Debbie to eat her meal with the other inmates without being allowed to wash. “The commanders, they laughed,” she said.

Debbie, now 22, is understandably a deeply traumatised young woman. She fled to South Africa after speaking publicly about her experience in Zimbabwe. As a consequence, she now lives isolated and in hiding, in fear of Mugabe’s secret police. At least two Zimbabweans have been tortured, one to death, for telling the truth about the camps.

But Mugabe is Zimbabwe’s “democratically-elected” leader, right?