Author: TonyGosling
Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2013 9:14 pm (GMT 0)
I always suspected Owen Jones was a shill - now he's proved it
Suppressing the Truth on Syria: Mother Agnes Mariam and Britain’s Self Proclaimed “Antiwar Movement”
By William Boardman - Global Research, November 27, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/suppressing-the-truth-on-syria-mother-agnes-mariam-and-britains-self-proclaimed-antiwar-movement/5359556
Here’s what it looks like when a respected reporter tweets about his blackmail note to an established anti-war organization regarding the organization’s upcoming conference in a tweet on November 15:
The reporter is Jeremy Scahill, who was booked as the keynote speaker and to show his film “Dirty Wars” (based on his book “Dirty Wars”) at the November 30 International Anti-War Conference in London, put on by Stop the War Coalition (STWuk), which was first organized in 2001 in opposition to an American attack on Iraq. More than 12 years later, the coalition notes dryly on its webpage for the conference, “We need more effective anti war resistance internationally. This conference is a chance to analyse, build links and lay plans.”
Scahill’s threat to boycott the conference soon became moot the following day, when the dreaded Mother Agnes withdrew from participation. Her letter read, in part:
“It has come to my attention that my participation in your conference has become a matter of serious contention, even prompting some other speakers to consider withdrawing. This is apparently due to a campaign of cruel and unsubstantiated accusations which seek to work against my efforts and those of the Musalaha (Reconciliation) Initiative in Syria.
“The basis of our work toward peace is reconciliation and forgiveness. This means extending an olive branch to some who may initially refuse it, and accepting an olive branch from others who are despised, even by our friends….
“Some may feel that an injustice will be done if I speak at your conference. Others may think that injustice will be done if I do not. Because my participation in your conference may be used by some to distract from your valuable efforts towards peace, non-violence and reconciliation, I believe it best to withdraw from participation.”
Why did Stop the War invitation to nun working to stop war raise objections?
Push comes to shove, and Mother Agnes is an apparent pushover. She’s also not flogging a movie. And the abuse she’s suffered online was as real as the pressure on Scahilll and others to have nothing to do with her. It’s hard to find any evidence that Mother Agnes has committed anything worse than what others consider thought-crimes and politically incorrect observations, some of which are actually correct.
Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross is a Carmelite nun and mother superior of the Monastery of James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria, which has a community of three monks and twelve nuns. Born in Lebanon in a refugee camp 61 years ago, she is Palestinian on her father’s side and has worked in Syria for about 20 years. She is the spokesperson for the Catholic Information Center in Beirut, where the Musalaha Initiative also has its office. Mother Agnes became a nun at 19, after several years in the late 1960s as a self-styled “hippie,” traveling to Europe, India and Tibet. Unlike others with an equally public profile, Mother Agnes has no Wikipedia page.
In June 2012, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire praised Mother Agnes as a peacemaker:
“In her community her voice has been clear, pure and loud. And it should be so in the West. Like many people in Syria she has been placed in life threatening situations, but for the sake of peace she has chosen to risk her own existence for the safety and security of others. She has spoken out against the lack of truth in our media regarding Syria and about the terror and chaos which a ‘third force’ seems to be spreading across the country. Her words confront and challenge us because they do not mirror the picture of events in Syria we have built up in our minds over many months of reading our newspapers and watching the news on our televisions. Much of the terror has been imported, we learn from her. She can tell us about the thousands of Christian refugees, forced to flee their homes by an imported Islamist extreme.”
What makes her controversial to people around Stop the War Coalition is their perception of her as a supporter of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Clear reasoning behind this perception is hard to come by. The reality for Christians in Syria is that their choice of friends is limited: the government represses them along with everyone else, but some rebel groups have taken to massacring Christians. With rebel groups numbering 1,000 or more, none is likely to be a reliable protector.
Mother Agnes’s heretical view of the Damascus chemical attack
In August 2013, when the world learned of the still murky chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, Mother Agnes questioned the prevailing western view that the Assad government carried out the attack. She prepared a 50-page report questioning the authenticity of videos of the aftermath and submitted her findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council. As the New York Times of September 21 reported:
“When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, wanted to bolster his argument that rebels had carried out the poison gas attacks near Damascus on Aug. 21, he pointed to the work of a 61-year-old Lebanese-born nun who had concluded that the horrifying videos showing hundreds of dead and choking victims, including many children, had been fabricated ahead of time to provide a pretext for foreign intervention.
“’Mr. Lavrov is an intelligent person,’ said the nun, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, with a wide smile in a recent interview in this Lebanese mountain town. ‘He will never stick his name to someone who is saying stupidities.’”
Taking a position on the chemical attacks that is supportive of the Assad government has led to intensified criticism of Mother Agnes as an Assad pawn. French reporters have written a book accusing her of conspiring with the government to kill another French reporter in 2012. She has sued the authors for libel.
The Syrian uprising started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but soon turned violent. Mother Agnes accuses the West of fomenting the violence to create a pretext for military intervention and re-ordering Syria. In November 2011, she wrote an open letter to President Assad, challenging the government over its treatment of hospital patients and prisoners, as reported in Vatican Insider in November 2011:
“Dear Mr. President, I have lived and worked in Syria since 1994, and I have learned to esteem the unique position Syria holds in the world of culture and of religions. But I am shocked to learn from Amnesty International that in the hospitals run by the government the wounded suffer discrimination and maltreatment because of their ideology. And I am saddened to find that, in the prisons, there are people there who have never been tried in court, or even accused of anything…. I ask for a serious inquiry into the hospitals and prisons, under the supervision of the International Red Cross, together with the creation of a committee to accelerate the exercise of justice.”
In late October, Mother Agnes, through the Musalaha Initiative, was involved in establishing a cease-fire and evacuating some 5,400 civilians from Moadamiya, a rebel-held city near Damascus.
Mother Agnes is currently on a six-week speaking tour in North America, largely ignored by most media. In Cleveland on November 14, she received a special peace award from the mayor, a congressman, and a senator. The tour ends December 4.
Jeremy Scahill has yet to explain his own behaviour, but columnist Neil Clark, writing for Russia Today, blames “liberal hawks and neo-cons” for silencing the nun because:
“Mother Agnes’ testimony reveals that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is a sham – that in Syria, the western countries and their regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, are on the same side as the extremist Islamic terror groups that we are told are our greatest enemies.”
Quote:
Catholic Worker invites Mother Agnes of Syria to Speak after she is "No Platformed" by StWC
Ciaron | 20.11.2013 10:19 | Anti-militarism | Repression | Terror War | London
The Catholic Worker, a small anarchist pacifist community in Harringay London has extended an invitation to Mother Agnes to address its members on a two day retreat next week. Mother Agnes was recently pressured to withdraw from addressing the Stop the War Coalition meeting in London on Nov 30th.
The Harringay group is part of the larger Catholic Worker movement founded by Dorothy Day in New York City in 1933 during the Great Depression. There are over 200 autonomous communities mostly in the United States, but also in Oxford, Rickmansworth & London. Dorothy Day, an anarchist suffragette who converted to Catholicism, has recently been put forward for canonisation by the American bishops.
The Harringay group offers hospitality to destitute refugees fleeing wars and persecution in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere. The group is also active in nonviolent resistance to war preparations, many of its members have served time in prison for such nonviolent direct actions. The group has also played a significant role in solidarity for imprisoned whisltleblower Chelsea (formerly) Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.
A longstanding member of the London group Ciaron O'Reilly was recently arrested trying to blockade the limousine of U.S. Vice President John Kerry. O'Reilly stated:
"The Catholic Worker has always had a strong position on free expression, often not shared by the authoritarian and moderate left.
"Free expression is very dear to us and it doesn't look good when privileged activists from imperial nations like Britain and the U.S. bully a Palestinian nun offstage. 'No platforming' is a form of authoritarian censorship and in this instance we find ourselves echoing Winston Churchill that 'Jaw jaw is better than war, war!'
"I myself, for example, have been physically attacked twice in the past month for expressing an opinion on the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden & Chelsea Manning.
"How can 'Stop the War' on the one hand host speakers from the pro-war Labour Party while on the other failing to defend Mother Agnes' right to share her views about what our governments are doing to the Syrian people by fuelling a proxy war. The war in Syria that seems to be escalating and expanding by the day across the Middle East. We note the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut in recent days and fear that this proxy war in Syria is a prelude to an eventual full scale attack on Iran.
"We want to learn more about the situation in Syria from the varied voices of those who live there. We have been disappointed for a long time in Stop the War's lack of solidarity and abandonment of Manning, Assange & nonviolent resisters generally - both military and civilian. 'Stop the War' seems to have mutated into a financial life support system for a small Trotskyist group servicing the Labour Party. It is frightening that the anti-war movement in Britain is so corrupt and deflated on the eve of an expanded war over the Middle East.
"I have never been too timid to 'share a platform' with anyone, so I can't understand why these people are scared of sharing a platform with Mother Agnes.
"I have shared platforms with Ulster Unionist Jeffrey Donaldson, Monseigneur Alker a senior chaplain of the British army, former members of the I.R.A. former members of the British S.A.S. and even members of Stop the War - this of course does not mean I agree with their perspectives or their beliefs. We have had initial feedback that Mother Agnes will try to fit us into her busy schedule and visit us while we are on our Catholic Worker retreat this Monday.
Ciaron
- Homepage: www.londoncatholicworker.org
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