'Arab Spring': The chilly cruel winter reality of Arab racism and Islamic bigotry

Submitted by Paula (United States), Oct 23, 2011 at 06:31

'Arab Spring': The chilly cruel winter reality of Arab racism and Islamic bigotry

Not that ethnic racism and religious bigotry weren't rampant before the so-called "Arab spring" sprung about. But the intolerance tide seems to be only worsening, and without an Arab dictator to "hold" various factions together, vulnerability expand, risks rise.

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RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY:

As the D.B. pusts it: "Violence Against Egypt's Copts in an Intolerant Arab Spring.. The elephant in the room of the Arab Spring is now the mistreatment of minority communities—Christians and others—across the Arab world."

FPM asks: Hillary Clinton Promises to Save Egypt's Christians? ... the guise of the "Arab spring" and "people-power," all hailed and supported by the U.S.—worked for religious minorities in the Arab world?

In Feb. Diana West wrote: "Islamic bigotry kept under wraps in Egyptian uprising." Espercially at the brutalization and racist rape by Arab Muslim mob in Egypt of CBS journalist L. Logan (thinking she was Jewish) and the MSM silencing the story.

In May, the New York Times reported on the growing Islamic anti-Christian attacks: "Egypt's Christians Fear Violence as Changes Embolden Islamists." That "Coptic Christians, many of whom have felt less secure since Egypt's dictator stepped down, held a sit-in May 19 in Cairo."

Explaining: The revolution has empowered the majority but also opened new questions about the protection of minority rights like freedom of religion or expression as Islamist groups step forward to lay out their agendas and test their political might.
Adding:
Around the region, Christians are also closely watching events in Syria, where as in Egypt Christians and other minorities received the protection of a secular dictator, Bashar al-Assad, now facing his own popular uprising.

Z. Baumann, in a June article, asks about Christians: "Arab Spring's losers of revolution?"

Christian Persection monitor (Aug.) "Common Fear, Opposing Reactions Define Differences between Christians in Egypt and Syria." Later on, in that month: Egyptian Islamic Jihad Official: If We Come To Power We Will Launch Islamic Conquest To Instate Sharia and "Exterminate" Christians If They Cause Problems.

The Copts Association and Christian of Iraq said (Sep.) The Arab Spring and Christian Persecution... Throughout the region, Christians have been targeted by Muslim mobs ... that the Arab Spring is posing a threat to Christian minorities throughout the Middle East.

As the Arab Islamic mob (Sep.) attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, they were fustifiably described by a Western journalist. "They Were Animals." Still think, the Arab-Israeli conflict is about "land...?"

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ETHNIC RACISM

Introduction:
From a 2006 article in The Guardian: "The race taboo,": The existence of racist attitudes within Arab countries is often denied, resulting in scandalous displays of prejudice against certain ethnic groups. The Arab countries, mostly are in denial. The A to Z of ethnic and religious groups in the Middle East embraces Alawites, Armenians, Assyrians, Baha'is, Berbers, Chaldeans, Copts, Druzes, Ibadis, Ismailis, Jews, Kurds, Maronites, Sahrawis, Tuareq, Turkmen, Yazidis and Zaidis (by no means an exhaustive list), and yet serious discussion of ethnic/religious diversity and its place in society is a long-standing taboo. If the existence of non-Arab or non-Muslim groups is acknowledged at all, it is usually only to declare how wonderfully everyone gets along.

In April this year, indingenous group who suffer discrimination: Tunisia's Berbers test the limits of country's newfound freedoms

Probably most noted group of non-Arabs to suffer from Arab racism are blacks.

Already in March, Rebels execute black immigrants while forces kidnap others... Therefore the Arab racism of Libyan rebels constitute crimes against humanity.

From NER, March 10 "Arab Racism On Display In Libya."

From a Mar 5, 2011 "Black Africans Caught in Libyan Arab Racism" That Libyan rebels, overwhelmingly racist and anti-African...

The New York Times reported in September: "Libyans Turn Wrath on Dark-Skinned Migrants," That As rebel leaders pleaded with their fighters to avoid taking revenge against "brother Libyans," many rebels were turning their wrath against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, imprisoning hundreds for the crime of fighting as "mercenaries" for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi without any evidence except the color of their skin.
Explaining the scapefoating of black: Still, in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has become an article of faith among supporters of the Libyan rebels that African mercenaries pervaded the loyalists' ranks. And since Colonel Qaddafi's fall from power, the hunting down of people suspected of being mercenaries has become a major preoccupation.

Even the Arab-based Arab-biased al-Jazeera reported testimonies of "how race-based discrimination and violence, long an issue in Libya, had been inflamed by the war."

From the HuffingtonPost, September "The Great Taboo: Arab Racism," With the liberation of Libya come less happy reports from Amnesty and Physicians for Human Rights of rebels slaughtering scores of black Africans, believing they were all pro-Gaddafi mercenaries. While the dictator did hire some fighters from sub-Saharan Africa, the vast majority of black Africans in Libya are entirely innocent immigrants, one million of whom are guest workers.

Tarek Fatah (October) on "The future of the Arab Spring"

I'm very pessimistic about the Arab world... I think there will be far more chaos than Obama can manage. There's nothing there. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists have billions of dollars. The jean-clad, western secularists have to worry about their girlfriends, and their New York Yankee hats and every silly stuff, and Twitter and Facebook. While the real world is moving on. All these guys will come back to New York, and Boston, and Toronto and say, 'Oh, we went there for sabbatical and had fun in Cairo.' While the Muslim Brotherhood is deeply entrenched. Not a single black face in all of Arab Spring. What does it say to you? 20% of the Arab population is black, but you can't see a single black face. It's a completely racist movement. It says non-Arabs in the Arab Spring have no rights. IF you're Bangladeshi, Filipino, Indonesian…you have absolutely no rights. This is worse Apartheid. That's why Africans are fleeing Libya, dying in the Mediterranean, to get to Italy or to Israel.

On the plight of Africans in Arab Egypt, UNHCR (October) says no more resettlement for refugees from Libya in Egypt...‎ For the Africans now stranded in Egypt, Ali, a Somali refugee who has been waiting for nearly a decade to be relocated, he warns that there will be an upsurge in anti-Africanism and racism toward the refugees who are barred from work and education in the country.

Black activists in October decried: "Why The New York Times Ignored Libya Ethnic Cleansing‎... Not Genocide If "Our Team" Commits the Crime."

When a major newspaper supports so-called "rebels," even though the signs are abundant from the very beginning that they comprise sadistic killers, radical Islamists, and anti-Black racists, what does it do at the end of the day, when the evidence can't be hidden anymore that the so-called "liberators" are in fact genocidal killers?
[...] Complicity is widely shared. Not even the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama, has condemned the targeted killings of Black Libyans. Not a word of condemnation from Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, who is in Tripoli today. Nothing from United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and the ICC's Ocampo.

Carina Ray (Sep.): "Gaddafi and the Mercenary Myth‎." The mistreatment and murder of blacks by rebel forces in Libya is an extension of long-simmering anti-immigrant sentiments that are directed at sub-Saharan Africans. Xenophobia and racism are both at play here.

In that month: Persecution of Black Libyans draws international outcry‎ Workers World. They must protest the racist persecution of Black Libyans and all Africans and demand that it stop immediately.

A Sep. report: "Poverty Skyrockets in the World's Poorest Country Due to Racial Violence After Revolution in Neighboring Libya."

Niger is the poorest country in Africa and the world: Many of its people go hungry every day, many children die before their fifth birthday, and countless thousands have died in past famines. Now, it's getting much poorer, as black migrant workers from Niger are forced to leave neighboring Libya because of the color of their skin in the aftermath of the revolution there. Workers used to send money home to Niger from Libya, enabling impoverished family members to survive. But now these workers have been forced to leave Libya, where some black migrant workers were lynched, and many others have been rounded up and jailed in appalling conditions after being falsely accused of being mercenaries for the brutal, recently-ousted dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi...
Still, in a country with a long history of racist violence, it has become an article of faith among supporters of the Libyan rebels that African mercenaries...

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