Migration

Over the last few years there has been a great deal of media coverage involving Iran, but the only issues being discussed often follow stories about nuclear deterrence or support for terrorism outside of the country. Like many stories coming out of the Middle East, the issues surrounding the people of the region is often overshadowed for more sensationalized stories which turn the region into more of a weekly soap opera than a serious discussion of human rights and foreign policy. With a lack of proper media coverage and a misunderstanding of the region, the attention given may do more to hurt the people living there than helping them.

As discussed in the April blogpost “Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: Forgotten or Never Acknowledged?” Minority groups in the region are often not acknowledged in the dialogue surrounding the Middle East. The result of this, as mentioned in the previous article, is that many of the communities like the Jewish ones from Arab and Persian lands, have been mostly dismantled after thousands of prosperous years and relegated to history books. Only in the last 10 years has the existence and legitimacy of those small communities been acknowledged, far too late for media coverage or policy to change the outcome of past persecution.

In the modern world, the lack of media coverage of a community under stress in the Middle East could possibly result in a similar outcome of persecution. One example of a community that mirrors those of the past is that of the Baha’i community of Iran. With little media coverage and knowledge of the Baha’i in Iran by the international community, Persian Baha’i struggle to become part of the narrative of the discussion of the region, often struggling to maintain themselves in silence.

The reality of the Baha’i is that since the creation of the faith, there has been a lack of equality and rights for the community in Iran over its existence. While being the largest religious minority in Iran, numbering 350,000 followers, they were often considered as apostates of the state religion and subject to discrimination and persecution by the local government. In most cases, media coverage of the community has come only briefly after a tragedy, allowing for continuous and persistent threats to become the mainstay of being part of the Baha’i community in Iran. Government persecution of this religious minority often is recycled over history via Apostate laws, accusations of anti-state activities and associations with foreign elements, and continuous monitoring of community and community leaders leading to unpublicized tragedies in many forms. One clear example of this repeat of history was the open discrimination in the early 80’s after the Iranian Revolution. In 1980-81 the arrest and the execution of the leaders of the Baha’i religious and community leaders took place. The council, named the National Spiritual Assembly, were collected and imprisoned and eventually murdered by the government. This trend continued against members of the community and any other “political” dissidents in Iran since that time. Since then, little coverage of this issue has taken place in Western and Eastern media.

With the US election dialogue from the last two years sparingly debating Iran’s nuclear policy, there has been little attention given to any of the people of Iran by political leaders or the mainstream media. In some smaller media however, there were concerns raised about state sponsored media in Iran promoting the monitoring and suppression of minorities in the country in which they live. In 2006, Former Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who commanded UN forces in Rwanda issued a statement from his office warning of possible implications of state sponsored repression of the Baha’i in Iran. He stated in a September 26th 2006 news release that:

 “My experience in Rwanda and with other conflicts tells me that the world had better pay close attention whenever a country’s media begin to spread hate propaganda against one particular group,”

Dallaire was right to raise concerns, as many of the Baha’i have not only been monitored by the government in the last few years with increased intensity, but national media and official policy have set to place the community in a negative light. The end result was a partial repeat of 1980-81, when a member of the Baha’i National Spiritual Assembly was arrested in March 2008, followed by 6 more members being arrested at the end of May 2008. They are currently being held in prison in Iran.

While the arrests have taken place and human rights in Iran continue to degrade further, there have been some responses by world leaders on behalf of the 7 arrested Baha’i leaders. The US State Department as well as the Presidency of the EU have condemned the actions. As well, human rights groups have issued their condemnations, with some coverage from CNN and mainstream media mentioning the issue at the end of May as well. Despite these small efforts, there has been no real pressure on Iran or its leaders to release the Baha’i leaders from their arbitrary sentences. Despite having false accusations placed against them, even as far as accusing them of working with Israeli Zionists, there has been no concrete display of action or noticeable protests over the issue by anyone who could influence the Iranian government.

Democracy and media, while never in perfect balance, cannot live as separate entities. Freedom of Speech, and the responsible use of media to effect this human right is the only freedom that allows for other rights to be achieved and to be maintained. Without Freedom of Speech, we can see that Freedom of Religion and Political Assembly cannot exist on their own, and can be easily extinguished when debate is repressed or ignored. In the example of Iran, media misplaced, or not effectively used can do as much harm to a society as it can help it, promoting or repressing liberty and equality. Democracy, as discussed by Guillermo O’Donnell is not simply voting, but is a combination of institutions and rights, including media to be free of state control, and in a free society, openly discuss persecution of minorities in addition to nuclear policy and international relations. It is not only a right, but a duty to address these arrests for not only one community in Iran, but for society as a whole.

The Mezze plate, if unknown to readers is a mix of different appetizers of various Middle Eastern foods, often combined together in a mix of powerful flavours and textures. Food in the region is often like its people, a combination of tastes that while creating a wonderful mix of culture and language also can create indigestion in some cases. The following is a mix of issues that have charged the region and its people abroad in the last week, often celebrating victory in conflict and enraging further problems.

-Israel at 60: Last week was the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence as a sovereign nation. At the same time, for many Palestinians it was the remembrance of the Naquba, or ”Catastrophe” of the migration of many from their original homes and towns upon the creation of the new state of Israel. Festivities took place in Israel and among Israelis and Jewish communities all around the world. In 1948, the State of Israel was created as a home for the Jewish people after the mass genocide of the European Jewish community and pogroms of Eastern Jews bringing many into the newly formed nation. While 1.5 million Israeli-Arabs live inside Israel and are a part of Israel society with full legal rights, legal challenges for increased rights for Israel’s Arab minority, Palestinians and even some Jewish people with Eastern roots push the system to promote a better equality among the multicultural Jewish State. Separate from the systemic stresses faced in the Israeli context, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are embroiled in a Hot Peace between Fatah and Hamas who periodically debate and often fight for power and control of a future state of Palestine. While some movements for peace between Israel and Fatah in the West Bank have started to produce results, rocket attacks coming in from Gaza leaves little chance for change despite the best and very last minute efforts of Carter or Bush. Unknown to most outside Israel, the conflict in 2006 did not produce the release of Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped by Hamas at the time. The continued attacks and retaliations, blockades, increased poverty and the maintained hostage taking of Shalit will not help produce any peace in Israel anytime soon and will give more support for creating more walls between the various people in the region.

-Muslim Immigrants to Europe: In a Foreign Policy Association Religion and Politics blog post by one of our charming and intelligent bloggers, Karin Esposito, the integration of Muslims into European society is discussed on her posting: Integrating Immigrant Communities. Karin points out in refer to author Olivier Roy, that after 9/11, the French immigrant riots and the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh there is a feeling that assimilation and multiculturalism was a failure in the European context. In reference to a HRW report in Immigration in the Netherlands, she points out that tests sent to the home countries of many immigrants may act as indirect discrimination, targeting specific immigrant groups even before they come into the country as detailed in the report. The challenge is far from being resolved, as a new way to view integration will likely have to be created to promote any dialogue between communities, preferably without the use of Cartoons.

-Beirut the next Baghdad?: In a May 18th New York Times article and among media worldwide, the issue of sectarian violence taking charge over the fragile democracy that exists in Lebanon is becoming a great concern to the region. After Hizbollah attacks against Sunni citizens, media and political parties put the Lebanese government and the often targeted and assassinated Hariri family into the spotlight again, Lebanon may be approaching a large conflict between its Shi’a and Sunni communities. Like in Iraq, indiscriminant violence by one community over the other has lead to the declaration of blood feuds among Lebanon’s communities. In the Middle East the extremity of violence often intentionally created humiliation and dishonour to many proud groups and cultures which can only be met by delicate diplomacy or outright revenge and conflict. While the international community often focused its attention on the Israel-Lebanon conflict in 2006, attention and understanding of the divisions now taking place needs to have the attention it deserves to avoid an all out civil war in Lebanon.

Since the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of refugees in countries throughout the Middle East left or were forced to leave without a Pound or a Franc from lands where they had lived in since biblical times. What is often not addressed in English language media or worldwide as a whole, is that many of these people were Jewish communities which were slowly destroyed for political, cultural and religious reasons in the 20th century. Many of these communities eventually inherited the fate of the Jewish Community in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, leaving towns and villages where their cultures and communities thrived for generations for new destinations abroad, slowly losing their heritage and homes to satisfy the desires of the political majority. While not all countries in the Middle East treated their Jewish communities with severe contempt and some communities were given some equality in their respective societies, the majority of Jewish people who had lived for thousands of years in the Middle East were forced to leave for Europe, the Americas the new state of Israel and even Asia.

Many Jewish people from Arab lands settled in France where Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan Jews could speak French and integrate into society. Jewish people from Iraq and other former British colonies settled in London and the United States, even making it as far as China and Singapore. Many settled in Latin America as well, with Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi Jews creating communities in Brazil and Argentina and many Turkish and Syrian Jews settling in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and even Cuba. In one community in Havana alone, an entire village with all their religious texts and chattels from their original town in Turkey were transplanted into Cuba in the early 1900s. They moved to live in the US Protectorate at the time of Cuba, which spoke Spanish, similar to the dialect of Ladino they inherited from their ancestors who escaped from Spain to live in Turkey, Italy, France and Greece. In 1948, half of Israel’s population alone was made of Jewish people who came from Arab, Persian, Central Asian and Turkish lands. These refugees were often forced to leave their birthplace and all their funds and land built up upon generations in order to arrive poor and homeless in Israel and abroad. While these people often had a difficult time in their birth countries and in Israel upon arrival, their situation has only been given some slight attention in the last 10 years. Almost none of their original communities exist today; making Jewish culture from Arab lands some of the oldest decimated cultures to have been lost to the world in the last 100 years.

Some slight progress has been made in addressing the issue of Jews from Arab and other Middle Eastern lands. On April 1st 2008, the U.S. Congress passed House Resolution 185, which grants first-time-ever recognition to Jewish refugees from Arab countries. For the first time those hundreds of thousands of refugees and emigrants who lost their homes and were turned into poverty were recognised 60 years later as being not simply a forgotten people. US Rep. Ros-Lehtinen made a statement saying:

“Far fewer people are aware of the injustice faced by Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. Many Jews saw their communities, which had existed vibrantly for centuries systematically dismantled. They lost their resources, their homes, and their heritage sites, fleeing in the face of persecution, pogroms, revolutions and brutal dictatorships.”

With many smaller cultures in the Middle East facing persecution in the last 50 to 100 years, the first steps to addressing refugees beyond those well known refugee groups are beginning to take place. Beyond those Jews from Arab lands, other groups such as Zoroastrians, Armenians, Kurdish, Bah’ai, Assyrians, Christians, recent Iraqis and various other oppressed groups and political refugees need to be acknowledged. After 60 years of unknown suffering, this small group of people are finally able to reconcile their history and future as a recognized people and culture in the world community.

The British government is committing GBP 70 million to bolster the confidence of Muslim women, in an effort to shield them from becoming targets of radicalization. Hazel Blears, Communities Secretary in the Brown government announced that the funds would go toward supporting “assertiveness” training, communication and mediation skills. The courses are part of a wider initiative to get members of the Muslim community to actively participate in public life. Officials hope that empowering women will lead to increased visibility of positive role models while insulating a vulnerable part of the community against radical rhetoric and extremist tendancies. Mentoring programs, leadership training and management skills are to show women alternatives to their more traditional role within the Muslim social construct, government representatives hope. They argue that this new initiative reflects a growing desire by Muslim women to play a greater role in British society and to work toward changing the generalized suspicions that remain following terrorist activity in the country.

Muslim groups, meanwhile, are accusing the government of dividing the community. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The government at first wanted our imams to act as spies on young British Muslims and now they seem to want Muslim women to do the same.”

German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, suggests that the government decision in favor of additional funds for adult education comes in response to two widely-publicized cases of differential treatment of Muslim women by the authorities. Aisha Azmi, 24, was fired from her job as an elementary school teacher after refusing to remove her headscarf. School officials had argued that children could not learn the English language from a teacher with a veiled face. Azmi’s lawyer has taken the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Samina Malik, meanwhile, branded herself as an “lyrical terrorist” was the first woman to be convicted under the controversial UK Terrorism Act. Supporters have criticised the verdict, based on contacts she had and internet poetry posted to radical web pages as a “wrong signal to Muslims” demonstrating that a judicial double standard is at work in the UK.

For more on this story, see the BBC, The Telegraph and The Times.