MRN

The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Sudan the changes across the landsCape here would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Jeffery Gettleman

(source: New York Times)

The rebel groups that started the war in Darfur in 2003, catalyzing a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, almost seem to have gone into hibernation. So, too, have the infamous janjaweed, the marauding bandits who raped, killed and terrorized countless civilians.

And this planting season, for the first time since 2003, United Nations officials say that tens of thousands of farmers who had been seeking refuge in squalid displaced persons camps returned to their villages to plant crops, a journey many Darfurians would have considered suicide until recently.

Mubarak dances for the puppeteer

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Iqbal Jassat

(source: Voice Of The Cape Online)

As the media focus fades away from Egypt and the unprecedented brawl that occurred in the streets of Cairo, it is likely that the world will yet again be treated to Mubarak’s routine antics at Sharm al-Sheikh.The Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh often serves as the setting for Mubarak to distract global attention from his political failures. It is here that he usually appears in a fake mask to don the appearance of a "peace-maker", ostensibly to pursue "peace" on behalf of the Occupied Palestinians.

To add further mockery he usually has Mahmoud Abbas in tow to keep nodding his head in approval. Of course the seat on his right is usually reserved for whichever butcher in Israel may have been elected leader of the colonial-settler state.

And peeping over his shoulder will be the incumbent US Secretary of State, ensuring that the American puppet does not stray from the carefully worded pro-Israeli script. After all, the script would be prepared by a bunch of neo-conners or their hangers-on who share the view most recently expressed by New York’s Ed Koch, that Muslims are terrorists.

Answering helen thomas on why they want to harm us

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Ray McGovern

(source: www.truthout.org)

Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day.

After Obama briefly addressed L’Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote “must do better” on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas to break through the vapid remarks about channeling “intelligence streams,” fixing “no-fly” lists, deploying “behavior detection officers,” and buying more body-imaging scanners.

Israels crisis

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Philip Weiss

(source: mondoweiss.net)

Just back from Israel/Palestine, the overwhelming sense I carry away is that the present state cannot last. Just how it goes down I have no idea. But conditions are so obviously discriminatory, and the knowledge of these conditions now so widespread– among the Christian pilgrims in my Jerusalem guesthouse, among European leaders, and now too among the Israeli elite and American left–that the situation is reminiscent of the delegitimizing of communism in the 70s and 80s. The period of apartheid struggle that Ehud Olmert warned of two years ago is upon us. So too his warning of possible “national suicide."

The surprise for me is that the indifference of American Jews to this injustice is more than matched by that of the mass of Israelis: They live inside the bubble of their opinion that Israeli society is fair. So this trip has left me pretty depressed, even as it has renewed my sense of ethnocentric purpose: I will do what I can to bring the American Jewish community into the world conversation about the reality of Israel/Palestine.