Egypt’s revolution for democracy seems to be sliding back to a Military dictatorship

Over the last few weeks ten of thousands of Egyptians and opposition parties have been protesting against former Brotherhood member and now President Mohammed Morsi, who on November 22, announced a decree giving himself sweeping powers, including oversight over the judiciary. All these powers were written into a new constitution, which will be put to a referendum on the 15^th December. Although, since last Sunday, the President has annulled some of the sweeping powers including the oversight over the judiciary, but many still stand.

Furthermore, the Army has been given increased authority toarrest protesters and to protect state institutions, meaning that police powers have further decreased with the military taking over much of the security in Cairo.

In my opinion it seems that Egypt may slide back to military rule because of the new authority for the military to arrest civilians. This may further occur if the constitutional referendum goes a head on the 15^th of December, where the new constitution will likely gain a majority supporting the document including the new powers for the President. If this does happen as predicted, the opposition will probably step up its protests against the President Morsi and his ruling Freedom and Justice Party, which could bring further violent divisions between the Islamic Brotherhood supporters and the more moderate sections of society. With increased violence on the streets and political divisions could force the military to step in once more to solve the issue and retake control of Egypt.

For the hundreds of Egyptians killed in the 2011 revolution and the people still fighting for democracy, I hope that a solution to the crises can be found and Egypt can rebuild after decades of dictatorship. 

Obama Wins second term

In the last few hours the United States of America voted Barack Obama for another four year term as President. He has passed the the magic number of 270 electoral college votes, even though the final count has not finished. It looks like Obama will win quite convincingly, which underscores how much the American voters distrust Mitt Romney and his conservative policies.

I am glad that Obama has won a second term. From my understanding of American politics and society, an individual President needs at least two terms to make an impact in terms of change and prosperity.

Although many Americans critisised Obama on the economic situation in the US, I think that he has done as good as a job as anyone else would have, given the mess that was past to him from the Bush administration. The economy seems to be improving with a lowering of the unemployment rate over the last few months.

Obama over the last four years has achieved some good steps for change including withdrawing American troops from Iraq, has put in place a planned timetable for withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan by 2014 and has produced a health care policy that so many past Presidents have failed to achieve.

Lets hope Obama over the next four years can bring America out of its economic down turn and achieve more remarkable change for the US.     

     

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals on Education have been unrealistic

The other day, I read an interesting news article by the BBC discussing the issue of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on education and if these goals will be achieved by 2015.

Back in 2000, international leaders pledged that all children in the world would receive a primary education by 2015, but a recent report published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) state that the goal will not be achievable by 2015.

Although the report argues that the amount of children receiving a basic primary education has increased since 2000, this has only happened in some parts of the world and not all. There are large parts of Africa that have seen no major increase in children receiving primary education.

Like all ideas, enthusiasm was there at the beginning, but as time passes, the will of the people achieving a conclusion fades over time (these people been the world leaders, and even us as global citizens). 

Perhaps, the goal of achieving universal primary education in 15 years was a little ambitious, and as history has shown, grand expectations take more then 15 years to achieve. Just look at the development of most industrial nations, it took more then a couple of decades to go from poverty to industrial powerhouses.

Funding and good governance seems to be the main problem in reaching the MDG on education. As the BBC article mentions, world leaders have been preoccupied with recent economic down turn and fighting terrorism, rather then increasing funding for global education. Also, a lack of good governance in many parts of the world has undermined much of the achievements so far. The persistence of war and corruption in especially Africa has prevented further efforts to achieve the goals setout by world leaders in 2000.

I think that we can provide universal primary education in the near future, but we need to be realistic on the time frame and the challengers ahead. There is no use for governments promising large amounts of money, without securing a framework to deal with issues such as good governance, peace and security, and global cooperation. 

What is going on with our politicians in Canberra?

Every week it seems that the Parliament house has become a school ground for bullying and personal attacks. Over the last few months, if not since Julia Gillard and Tony Abbot became the leaders of their parties, personal attacks have taken over debate, instead of issues that matter to most Australians.

Parliamentary sittings are becoming the soap opera that is Home and Away and Neighbours.

Last week, in light of the resignation of the House of Representatives Speaker Peter Slipper, who has been accused of sexual assault, by one of his male staff, the Parliament became a place where both Gillard and Abbot once again contrived to personal attacks. This time in a speech to Parliament, Gillard accused Abbot of sexism and of been a misogynist.

Although, I do agree with Gillard that Abbot does have a history of sexist comments and actions that where mentioned in her speech, I do think that all of these personal attacks by both parties need to come to an end. All sides of politics should be debating real issues facing the nation, rather then petty political point scoring that we have witnessed over the last few months.

Australia’s bid for seat in the United Nations Security Council

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minster Bob Carr was in New York attending the annual United Nation (UN) leaders meeting last week, where they have been trying to gain support from other nations for Australia’s bid for a temporary two year non-permanent seat on the United Nation Security Council (UNSC).

Australia is bidding for a seat against Luxembourg and Finland. Both these nations began their campaigns to gain a seat eight years before Australia, giving them a clear advantage in drumming up support from other countries. Both Gillard and Carr are not letting this advantage halt Australia’s own chances of winning, arguing that Australia has a good record when it comes to participation in the UN, with many successful contributions to Peacekeeping operations in the past.  

As usual in politics, the campaign has not been without a few critics. Opposition leader Tony Abbot  criticised the bid,saying that Ms Gillard should be in Jakarta talking to the Indonesian government about the more important issue of stopping the boats, rather then trying to bid for a costly UNSC seat. Abbot went further, saying that “Australia’s pursuit of the temporary seat was a waste of money and distorted the nation’s foreign policy priorities.”

Although the campaign to gain a temporary seat cost an estimated $55 million, in my opinion the money spent will be worth it. Australia has as much of a good chance of winning the seat as the two other bidding nations. Australia has a good UN record, with regular contributions to peacekeeping operations and campaigning on behalf of smaller nations in the international community. Furthermore a UNSC seat would give Australia influence in some of the major global decisions that could be in the national interest both in our economy and diplomatic relations (such as, a long term, internationally coordinated plan of how to "stop the boats").

We will need to wait until October 18th when all 198 member states cast a secret ballot to decide who gains the Security Council seats.  

All these protests will just fuel stereotypes further

Protests on the anti-Islamic film reached Sydney (Image source: Wiki Commons)

So the worldwide protest about a silly film has reached Sydney.

Following on from my previous post, I am amazed at how much outrage a poorly made anti-Islamic film can spire into so much destruction and hatred against the US and the west in general.

Most of the protests and violence has been against the United States (US), where in many North African, Middle Eastern and some Asian countries, thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets near the US embassies protesting against the anti-Islamic film. But this fury has extended to Sydney, Australia last Saturday,  when a few hundred mostly young Muslim men and some mothers and their children began a violent protest in anger over the film.

As I have already said in a post I wrote last week, that I do not support the message of the film that has inspired this global protest by the Muslim community, however I do condemn all the attacks against innocent individuals with no links to the film.

The violent protest last Saturday in Sydney, were not even aimed at the US, as the event happened no where near the US consulate.

The violence was perpetrated by a group of young Muslims, and many of the leaders of major Islamic organisationsin Sydney have since stated thatthe attacks are un-Islamic and are condoned by majority of Muslims.

In the past few days since the protest in Sydney, there have beenhundreds of hate letters been sent to the Islamic communities  by racistindividuals or groups. I think that this short of action is not helpful and inflames further hatred and bigotry in society. Revenge for certain past actions just recycles anger and violence.

An open letter written by Peter FitzSimons summed up the consequence of this action in Australia well: "the net result of such irresponsible, appalling action is to give ample fuel to every racist in the country to reinforce every bad stereotype they have ever had of <Muslims>, and that will affect badly the hundreds of thousands of other peaceful and law-abiding Islamic Australians?"

What needs to happen now is for all people of all faiths, to cooperate to stamp out religious bigotry and hatred, as to prevent further violence.       

Why all this Religious Hatred?

Image source:  http://thegoldguys.blogspot.com.au/

This week we have witnessed more  anti-American attacks in Benghazi, Libya and in Cairo, Egypt. The U.S Consulate was attacked by a group of people who stormed the compound  shooting at staff inside, which three U.S officials were killed including the Ambassador; a crowd in Cairo were protesting outside the U.S Embassy, but there are currently no reports of any casualties. 

The reported reasons for these attacks were in protest and outrage against a low budget film, Innocence of Muslims, which portrays prophet Muhammad in bad terms,emphasising him as been gay and a fraud. The film is claimed to be made by a man calling him self Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American living in the U.S, although this information has not yet been proven, as there has been no Sam Bacile found. In a  telephone  interview with the Wall Street Journal, he claimed Islam to be "a cancer."   

The film has outraged large sections of the world’s Muslim population, which is understandable as the film does offend the Islamic faith. If anyone ever makes an offensive film against the Christians, Buddhists, Hindu and other world religions, the rest of us would be equally furious.

Although I do not support the film and its portrayal in any way, but I think that the three US officials killed in Libya did not deserve to be targeted because of the action of one man or any other people involved in the production of the film.

What we need today and for the future is to be more culturally and religiously tolerant towards each other no matter what faith one practices. These recent incidents and past ones remind us of the stupidity of religious hatred that does not solve any problems, but just brings harm to the world.