Iraq: 52 Killed In Retaliation For Quran-Burnings In US
Maliki Announces Gain in Parliament as Baghdad mourns Church Massacre
By Juan Cole
November 02, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Iraq's security problems
continue to be severe, if not generally crippling the way they were in 2006,
as underlined by Sunday's guerrilla takeover of a Baghdad church and the
subsequent deaths of dozens when the terrorists detonated suicide belts
during a government rescue attempt on Monday. The al-Qaeda operatives who
took hostages said that they were taking revenge for Qur'an-burnings by
churches in the United States. Religious bigotry is the gift that keeps on
giving.
The vacuum at the top has had an impact on somewhat worsening security,
since Iraq still just has a caretaker government 8 months after the March 7,
2010, election (a record in modern history for Westminster style
parliaments, which often get 'hung' but never for this long).
There may be some movement, however, toward the formation of a government.
The massacre at the Baghdad church, and the attempt of Saudi Arabia to offer
its good offices in the formation of a government, seems to have convinced a
small Shiite party to play ball with Nuri al-Maliki. I saw al-Maliki, the
incumbent and leading candidate to form the new government, on Aljazeera,
announcing that he was in the last stages of putting together a viable
ruling coalition. The Islamic Virtue Party, or Fadila, has announced that it
will support al-Maliki for Prime Minister. He needs 163 seats out of 325. He
has the support of his own State of Law coalition of Shiite parties, led by
Da'wa, which has 89 seats. He also is supported, after Iran applied
pressure, by Muqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters hold about 39 seats. And by
the Badr Organization, the political wing of the Shiite militia trained by
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which has to have 8 seats. The Islamic
Virtue Party, a splinter of the Sadr movement that follows Ayatollah
Muhammad Ya'qubi, has 6 seats. That comes to at least 142 by my count, more
if some Shiite independents within the Shiite fundamentalist National Iraqi
Alliance swing around to him.
Obviously, al-Maliki still needs a little over 20 seats to have a majority.
But he is closer to that number than any other candidate, and, indeed, I
think it is now the case that no one else could hope to form a government.
If al-Maliki can gain the entire National Iraqi Alliance, with its 70 seats,
he would have 159 and could probably pick up the other 4 fairly easily at
that point. But it is likely he would not need to deal with small parties to
find that support, because the Kurdistan Alliance would step in to back him,
as its leaders have already suggested, if he gets that close to forming a
government (the Kurds want a place at the table in Baghdad).
Much depends now on the decisions made by cleric Ammar al-Hakim of the
Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, an NAI component that has vehemently
resisted al-Maliki. But even more important are the Kurds, and what
al-Maliki is willing to offer them (they want a referendum held in Kirkuk
about its accession to the Kurdistan federation in the north of the country,
a referendum they likely would win, but which threatens violence from Arabs
and Turkmen.)
Meanwhile, Baghdad mourned the some 58 Christians killed in one of Baghdad's
most prominent churches when Sunni Muslim militants took the congregation
hostage after a failed attempt on the Iraqi stock exchange. An Iraqi
government swat team went in for a rescue, but the guerrillas turned out to
be suicide bombers who detonated their payloads inside the church. Iraqi
Christians are complaining bitterly that the government mishandled the
rescue.
***
October 28, 2010
Media Contact: Ami Motevalli
William Grant Still Arts Center
2520 S.Westview St ( Just No. of Adams Bl., 3 short blks. E. of La Brea)
323.734.1165
ami.motevalli@lacity.org
The William Grant Still Arts Center
Presents
From Freedom Rides to Black Power; SNCC's Radicalization of the
Movement - a Panel Discussion
Please join us on Saturday November 6, 2010 at 2 pm for a panel and
discussion featuring local members of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee. The panel will include Shaka Bogolani, Ayuko
Babu, Bobbie Hodges-Betts and moderated by Lamont Yakey. Discussion
will pan from experiential history to the effect SNCC had on radical
strategy.
The Panel discussion is part of the Exhibition "Hell No, We Wont Go!
50 years of SNCC"
Hell No, We Won't Go! 50 Years of SNCC at the William Grant Still Arts
Center, is a visual survey of 50 years of struggle in the civil rights
movement to run from October 1 - December 18, 2010. The exhibit will
feature photographs, posters, magazines, memos and other archival
material of the work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(/'snik/). There will be a particular look at the activities of SNCC
in Los Angeles, including a focus on Imam Jamil Al-Amin aka H. Rap
Brown. and the work of the Student Non- Violent Coordinating
Committee.
SNCC , was a seminal civil rights organization, started in 1960.
Initially lead by Ella Baker in student meetings at Shaw University,
SNCC grew in to a large organization and movement who staged sit-ins,
voter registration drives and "Freedom Rides". One of the principal
organizers for SNCC, Willie Ricks coined the term "Black Power" which
was popularized in a speech by SNCC chairman Stokely Charmichael. Over
the next decade, civil rights activism moved beyond lunch counter
sit-ins. In this violently changing political climate, SNCC struggled
to define its purpose as it fought white oppression. Out of SNCC came
some of today's black leaders, such as Angela Davis, former
Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis, Bernice
Reagan and Sweet Honey and the Rock and NAACP chairman Julian Bond.
Historian Howard Zinn was also once a member of SNCC. Together with
hundreds of other students, they left a lasting impact on American
history.
School tours and study guides available upon request. For additional
information call (323) 734-1165 or email ami.motevalli@lacity.org .
The William Grant Still Arts Center is a facility of the City of Los
Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, located at 2520 S.Westview St.
Los Angeles, exhibit hours Tuesday through Saturday 12n-5p.
PROGRAM EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
Hell No, We Won't Go! 50 years of SNCC
Dates:
October 1 - December 18, 2010
Times:
Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Events:
Panel Discussion with Ayuko Babu, Shaka Bogolani and Bobbie
Hodges-Betts, Moderated by Lamont Yakey
November 6, 2010, 2-4 pm
Film Screening
Footage of H Rap Brown / Imam Jamil,
James Forman, Willie "Mukasa" Ricks, Kwame Ture,
and excerpts from Eyes on the Prize etc...
November 10, 2010 - 6 - 8:30
November 17, 2010 - 6-8:30 (Imam Jamil Al-Amin Screenings)
Discussion on the movement today, lead by Byron Perez
December 1, 2010
Location:
William Grant Still Arts Center
2520 South West View Street
Los Angeles, CA 90016
Cost:
Free
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