Friday 29th of March 2024

the king and I...

saudi love

It's time to straighten her hair... Truth is being enslaved by opulence and disdain. She will be raped at the merci of fairness, which died long ago or never existed — and killed in the morning, to the glory of an absent-minded god. As the king of the Saudis, the most powerful nation on earth, visits Indonesia without a single observation from its closest neighbour, in an opulence unmatched by Airforce One or anyone else in the known universe, the air smells like old rose water mixed with despotic desperate petrol fumes in search of dollars. The Arabian nights were never about fairies and genies but about about slavery, gold, rape and death to the infidels in deceit, while smooching to the brotherhood of saracens.



LONDON — You could call it bling diplomacy.

As part of a monthlong tour in Asia to promote economic ties, King Salman of Saudi Arabia arrived in Indonesia on Wednesday to great fanfare, accompanied, the news media said, by a retinue with a net worth in the billions of dollars, including about 1,500 people, among them 25 high-ranking princes, 10 ministers and more than 100 security personnel.

They arrived in six Boeing passenger jets and one Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a military transport aircraft carrying 506 tons of cargo, two Mercedes-Benz S600 limousines and two electric elevators for the king’s personal use. An Indonesian freight company told the Antara news agency that it employed 572 workers just to deal with the delegation’s luggage. The king, 81, used a golden-hued escalator to descend from a jet painted with the words “God Bless You.”

Pageantry is hardly unusual for any royal family, even less so for the Saudis, who are famously extravagant spenders even as their citizens are struggling under a government austerity program. Details about his entourage made headlines around the world, and appeared to overshadow the purpose of his trip.

But the size and pomp of the king’s entourage may indicate efforts to strengthen trade ties with Asia at a time of falling oil prices, experts said: A demonstration of wealth can be a show of power. It involves “stroking egos and putting on a show: The Saudis are in town,” said Peter Salisbury, a research fellow at Chatham House in London. “When that number of people show up, it creates a stir. It’s symbolism.”

There’s also an economic benefit to a visit by a delegation that is bigger and more opulent than average, Mr. Salisbury said, as the visitors are likely to splurge on dinners, shopping, luxury villas in Bali and other extravagances. (“I wonder if King Salman and his 620-strong entourage will sample the delights of hedonistic Kuta?” a Twitter user asked, referring to a beach on Bali famous for its alcohol-drenched night life. It was unclear whether the person was being sarcastic.)

read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/world/middleeast/saudi-king-indonesia-wealth.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

 

Kuta? This brought back memory of my lost poem:

The Cruel Curse of a Kuta Killed

Oh brothers and sisters in pain, pray needlessly for the souls of terrorists
Because Happy Joe died too soon fazed by the enormity of his deed
To cast a centuries-old cruel curse on his executioners’ terror creed
And on all those who wage war in the name of peace

For the enemy is oft the brothers we betrayed or did not love
Yet the pain in Joe’s dying heart cursed those bombers’ souls
Twenty generations and five hundred years, forever to be foul
Never to be invited by Vishnu, Allah nor to a Holy Trinity’s trove

Not even evil nor devil will their souls ever see,
As forever lost they are now destined for oblivion
In a cruel curse lasting for five hundred years and twenty generations
A damning centuries-old curse on these executioners’ souls
And on all those who wage war in the name of peace

So listen carefully, you the great leaders of the world,
You the Palestinian suicide bombers and you the Jewish soldiers
So too the thirty thousand-feet collateral damage bombers
Listen carefully, you the terrorists of Al Qaeda and you the JI lord
Fundamentalist who kills to despise others’ life, clean or unclean
Anyone who murder children in the name of peace and mothers in war
Or fathers, brothers, sisters and anyone else to be happily seen,
Your soul will never ever be invited to the eternal banquet,
Your soul forever lost as if you never lived for time to forget,
Your fate to be worst than burdened by an original sin

Too strong the curse of Happy Joe the Kuta killed
Unmoveably cast for your soul to be forever cruelly killed
Yet the doomed fate of your children and their children can be redeemed
If you pray for forgiveness and stop your deadly deeds

Smile givingly and be happy to redeem your mortal life’s aspect,
So your humble humanity can take greater care of this fragile planet
Since you now chose not kill to live forever in proper peace
You’re on the way to heed the too Cruel Curse of a Kuta Killed

Then only your family spirits to be saved by your relentless regrets
In this world where you do not have to love but just respect
As you shall not kill anyone to live forever in proper peace
T’is the only way to heed the Cruel Curse of a Kuta Killed.

 

By Gus Leonisky, October 2005...

conflicting interpretations...

Abdullah Saeed is the Foundation Chair of the Sultan of Oman Endowed Chair in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is also Director of the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne and Director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies. His most recent book is Reading the Qur'an in the Twenty-First Century: A Contextualist Approach.

The words of the Qur'an and hadith contain rich resources for supporting the democratic order.

If Muslims are to embrace modernity, including life in a pluralistic, democratic society, without abandoning their faith, they must take up the argument for religious liberty that is embedded in their history and that stands at the centre of their most sacred texts.

Although the broad thrust of the Qur'an and hadith supports religious liberty, many parts of these texts can be, and traditionally have been, interpreted as denying it.

One example is a qur'anic verse that deals with the question of the jizyah, a tax on non-Muslims:

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." (9:29)

The Prophet reportedly sometimes demands the death penalty for apostasy, the most obvious example of this being the hadith, "Whoever changes his religion, kill him" (Bukhari, Sahih, 9, 84, hadith 57).


Such problematic texts are outweighed by the bulk of the texts and instruction provided by the two most important authorities in Islam, the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad's actual practice. Both are remarkably supportive of the idea of individual and personal religious freedom.

 

------------------------

Outweight? Problematic? Yes it's time for ALL THE SCOLARS of Islam to make sure the idea of individual and personal religious freedom is enshrined in the teachings, even freedom outside the framework of Islam, and this includes the FREEDOM FOR WOMEN to be what they want to be. This also includes protecting the rights of Christians in Arabic countries. This is what Assad has been actually doing, but the Sunni kind has been trying to change this status quo with the help of the Saudis. And this attack on Christians abroad, an attack supported by the previous US administration supporting the strict religious code of the Saudis, was what actually got Trump elected... Believe it or not...

Gus is a fierce atheist and resents religions of all kind, but respects freedom in religion and freedom of religion, AS LONG AS RELIGIONS do not kill curiosity outside religious beliefs and do not impose temporal penalties or people who act outside the religious framework.

Interstingly, as well as alcohol, coffee was to be banned by Islamic clerics for being a drug...

laundering billions...

WASHINGTON: A US State Department report released on Friday labelled the Altaf Khanani group as a money laundering organisation and accused it of laundering billions of dollars for organised crime and terrorist outfits. 

US Assistant Secretary of State for Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William R. Brownfield told a briefing in Washington that the State Department had delivered its 32nd International Narcotics Control Strategy Report to Congress on Wednesday. “It is, however, the first time that we are discussing and rolling this report out before the media in nine years,” he added. 

In its section on Pakistan, the report notes: “The Altaf Khanani money laundering organisation (Khanani MLO) is based in Pakistan. The group, which was designated a transnational organised crime group by the United States in November 2015, facilitates illicit money movement between, among others, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), United States, UK, Canada, and Australia.”

read more:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1318333/khanani-group-launders-billions-of-dol...

dirty work...

Agents of the Saudi Arabian government are using US veterans as pawns in a scheme to gut a new law clearing a path for 9/11 families to sue the kingdom for its alleged role in the attacks, several vets complained in interviews with The Post.

“I joined the Marine Corps as a direct result of 9/11, so to be wined and dined by the very people I joined to fight against, that was sickening,” said Timothy Cord, who served as a Marine sergeant in Iraq.

Vets say the Saudi scam involves soliciting them to go on all-expenses-paid trips to Washington — including lodging at the posh new Trump hotel near the White House — to help pressure lawmakers into amending the recently passed bill, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA).

Trip organizers Qorvis MSLGROUP, however, are allegedly failing to disclose to participants that the Saudi government is funding the trips through some 75 paid foreign agents it’s hired across the US to oppose the law, which passed unanimously in September.

Vets complain they’re not only being misled but openly lied to. During one recent trip, an organizer denied any “Saudi involvement” in sponsoring the trip, even though federal filings show the organizer has a $100,000 contract with the Saudis and is a registered foreign agent for the kingdom.

In their recruiting pitch to vets, the Saudi lobbyists, who pose as veteran advocates, claim that JASTA exposes them as well as “150,000 [US] military personnel stationed in over 150 countries” to “retaliatory lawsuits” in foreign courts — even though international law experts note that JASTA deals only with the immunity of foreign states, and poses little if any risk to individuals.

Vets felt shock and anger when they found out they were duped into doing “the Saudis’ dirty work,” as one put it.

read more:

http://nypost.com/2017/03/05/vets-say-they-were-duped-into-helping-saudi...

awakening, two weeks too late...

The Saudis have been pressing for the tripling of the size of their Wahhabist university in Indonesia, which offers free tuition, and it is expected that Jakarta, reluctantly, will agree.

In the face of the Saudis' relentless, pernicious proselytising, what has Australia done? Cut its aid funding for Indonesian schools and more than halved the number of scholarships it offers to Indonesians to study in Australia. 

Canberra needs to do a lot more than just revisit these cuts. Together with like-minded nations, it should work with the Indonesian government and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to put together a ong-term program to help Jakarta fund quality schools and universities. 

That would be a golden escalator that would actually do some good for Indonesia.

So that it doesn't need to depend on Saudi money and the fundamentalist Islam that comes with it. 

If this sounds a bit ambitious, like the postwar Marshall Plan that rebuilt a shattered Europe, it should be. 

Indonesia is one of the Islamic world's greatest success stories. To leave its future to the influence of Riyadh would put our biggest neighbour in the hands of one of the Islamic world's most dangerous dead-ends.

Read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/saudi-arabian-king-salmans-nineday-trip-to...