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Imam khomeini in contemporary islamic history

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Imam Khomeini in contemporary Islamic history

This month, to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Imam Khomeini, Crescent International and Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur, have published a book of essays on the Imam’s life and thought.  Here we present an abridged version of the introduction to that volume, written by former Crescent editor IQBAL SIDDIQUI.

Imam Ruhullah Musawi al-Khomeini (September 24, 1902 to June 3, 1989) is among those iconic figures of history about whom everybody thinks they know much more than they actually do. His name and image, and a few basic facts about his life and work, are so familiar, so instantly recognisable, that any deeper consideration of his life and work seems superfluous. And yet he is in fact one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented figures of recent history. This is because the40and impressions people have of him are largely those generated and promoted by the West-dominated international media, for which he became a hate-figure after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1978–79. In the Muslim world, moreover, enemies of the Islamic Revolution, and of political Islam generally, have not only adopted the West’s negative image of him, but have further added the sectarian label of “Shi‘i” to try to neutralise his influence on Islamic movements and activists there.

 

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Death squads andUSdemocracy

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Death squads and US democracy

The revelation that the CIA initiated a covert program, apparently involving assassinations, and kept it secret from the US Congress on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney marks a deepening of the crisis in the American state apparatus and an indication of the degeneration of democratic processes within the US.

Last April, under the pressure of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama was compelled to make public a series of previously classified memos issued by the Bush Justice Department which authorized acts of torture in chilling detail. The administration attempted to portray the public airing of these documents exposing crimes of the Bush administration as a signal of the new “openness” and “transparency” of the Obama White House.

At the same time, the White House made it clear that it had no intention of holding anyone accountable for these crimes, with Obama making a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia to reassure those who supervised and carried out much of the torture that he meant them no harm.

Burying the crimes of the Bush administration in the past, however, has proven impossible, not only because of their grave character, but also because much of what was done has yet to be fully exposed and many of the same methods are continuing under Obama.

The way in which this latest revelation has emerged is highly revealing. It has come to the surface as a result of Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, briefing congressional intelligence committees on the matter. The CIA director went to Congress to give the briefings on June 23—the day after he himself became aware of the secret program and ordered it terminated.

The Obama appointee supposedly in charge of America’s spy agency became aware of this operation only four months after assuming his post.

The implications are clear. The CIA maintained the secrecy ordered by Cheney even after the latter had left office, and continued to conceal the existence and nature of the covert operation not only from Congress, but from the Obama administration itself.

The exact nature of the secret program has yet to be made public either by the CIA or those members of Congress briefed by Panetta.

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Youths attacked and run over in Palestine by iof

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IOF jeep runs over youth, 30 Israelis gang up over Palestinian

IOF soldiers used their jeep to deliberately run over a Palestinian youth in Qalqilia city called Khaled Dughmesh before arresting him, witnesses reported.

They said that the 21-year-old youth, who hails from Jibla village southeast of Qalqilia city, was moderately wounded in the incident.

The witnesses pointed out that Dughmesh was driving a cart when the army jeep hit the cart

In another atrocity, around 30 Israelis ganged up on a Palestinian young man in Karmiel city on Saturday and turned his car upside down.

Arab press in the 1948 occupied areas said that Hazem Jabran, 22, from the Rame town near Safad city, was waiting in his car for his sister when the group of fanatic Israelis approached him and smashed his car’s window shields wounding him in the left leg before turning it over.

The fanatics then started punching the youth while shouting "death to the Arabs" and when his sister arrived she screamed for help and finally a police car arrived to the scene and took him to a nearby hospital before he filed an official complaint with the police, the Panet website and Panorama newspaper reported.

 * Source: Palestine-Info Centre
 

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