'Homeland,' Obama’s Show

The award winning TV show does little to alleviate the myths and misconceptions about Arabs and Muslims, writes author.

"That American shows are now equal-opportunity offenders in their racism against internal and external others is hardly news, but that the first black American president is a fan of them should be," writes Massad [EPA]

The story of Arabs and Muslims and the Western and especially the American media has been told too many times before. The history of representations of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood films, in television programs, on network news, or in major and minor American print media has been studied, analysed, criticised, and defended in books, research papers, and media commentary for decades. This also applies to the more virulent Israeli Jewish racist representations of Arabs and Muslims, not only in the Israeli media, school curricula, and all cultural artifacts that Israeli Jewish society produces, but also by actual and ongoing Israeli Jewish policies towards Arabs inside and outside Israel. Just as Israeli racist representations of Arabs are a reflection of an overall Israeli Jewish structural racism that pervades every aspect of Israeli Jewish society, American media racism is also just a branch of a larger American racism and racialism on which much of American culture, history, and national identity is based. Still, this need not sway the casual observer from analyzing the dynamism of white American nationalist fantasies about their internal and external racial others as represented in the news media or in televised fiction. If in the 1970s, American children were taught on the American children’s TV program “Sesame Street” that the word “danger” connotes “Arabs” by showing a drawing of an Arab with a headdress next to the word, a more recent and very popular American program titled “Homeland” hardly deviates from this formula, except to add that Arabs are so dangerous that even all-American White men can be corrupted by them and become equally dangerous to America. That “Homeland” (broadcast on the Showtime cable channel) is an American adaptation of an Israeli series titledHatufim (Hostages) that airs on Israeli television station Channel 2 will surprise no one. In September 2012, the show’s Israeli creator Gideon Raff, who also works on the American series, accepted the award for best writing for a drama series for “Homeland” at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards along with the show’s American producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. Indeed “Homeland” itself won the award for the best drama series at the Emmy’s.

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The Show

The show is so popular that President Barack Obama himself is a big fan. Obama told People Magazine in December 2011 that “Homeland” was one of his favourite shows. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Obama “requested and received” four sets of “Homeland” Season 1 DVDs from Showtime (the Clintons, unsurprisingly, are also reportedly big fans). Indeed in March 2012, the show’s British star Damian Lewis was invited to the White House for a dinner honouring British Prime Minister David Cameron and had an intimate tête-a-tête with Obama about the show’s plans for its second season, which began to air in the US four weeks ago. A major advertising campaign for the show has been in full swing. New Yorkers can spot large billboards and posters on New York city buses, in addition to other advertising venues, a strategy that is paying off handsomely.

“Homeland” tells the story of Nick Brody, a white American marine (played by Damian Lewis), captured and held prisoner by the Taliban and Al-Qaida until American forces freed him after eight years of captivity. The CIA team monitoring Al-Qaida from Langley, Virginia, is represented by three top figures: the African-American David Estes, the Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, the American Jew Saul Berenson who is unsurprisingly the CIA’s Middle-East Division Chief, and the white Christian American Carrie Mathison, the female star of the show, who is a CIA intelligence officer assigned to the Counterterrorism Center.

The racialist structure of the show is reflective of American and Israeli fantasies of anti-Muslim American multiculturalism. The African American Estes is divorced and his former wife married an American Jew. She and their children converted to Judaism. He has also had a dalliance with his colleague Carrie that went awry. The Jewish Berenson is married to an Indian Hindu “brown” woman (perhaps cementing the Indian Hindu-Israeli Jewish rightwing alliance against Arabs and Muslims in the minds of the scriptwriters). On the first season of the show, cross racial romance seems to have also infected the character of a white rich American woman who fell in love with a “brown” mild-mannered Saudi professor at a US university and conscripted him in the service of Al-Qaida, which leads to his ultimate death and her imprisonment, though not before the Jewish Berenson tells her how much he identifies with her as two white people who fell in love with brown people. 

Lest we think that America’s racial order is not questioned, “Homeland” does register some of America’s limitations in the realm of racial tolerance. In the land of slavery and apartheid, it was not the African American Estes who is compelled to tell us of his traumas on account of white American racism against blacks, but rather the Jewish Berenson who remembers the anti-Jewish sentiment he experienced growing up in small town USA. After all, America has a black President now, while it only had one Jewish vice-presidential candidate historically. Indeed, Estes, unlike his two white colleagues, hardly has an inner life to explore at all. 

The gender representation is also remarkable for its commitment to 1970s white American feminism by featuring a leading strong white female character as the star of the show (which Hollywood began to champion since the filmAlien in the late 1970s) and its equal commitment to sexist representations of white women as hysterics, or at least in Carrie’s case, for suffering from America’s most fashionable commercialised psychiatric ailment of the decade: bipolar disorder (an “ailment” that succeeded clinical depression as the most fashionable American psychiatric disorder in the preceding decade).

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The Plot

The story of the show is about how the liberated white American marine has been “turned” by Al-Qaida and now works for them. We are of course offered a touching Stockholm syndrome explanation as to why Brody now hates his own government. Brody was captured along with his marine buddy, the African-American Tom Walker. Part of Brody’s torture was to beat Walker to death and to dig his grave. During his captivity Brody converts to Islam as a spiritual escape (though when he is shown praying his pronunciation of Arabic words –“al-rakhman al-rakhim” instead of “al-rahman al-rahim” seems to have an Israeli Ashkenazi, even a Benjamin Netanyahu, accent and not a typical American one—one can safely presume that Israeli Ashkenazi Jews are the accent tutors on the show).

At some point during his capture, the Al-Qaida leader, a man named Abu Nazir (sometimes pronounced by different characters as Abu Nasir though it is most likely Abu Nadhir), puts him in charge of educating his 10 year-old son who is strangely named “Aisa,” which is not an Arabic name at all and is most likely an Israeli corruption of the common Arabic name ‘Isa, meaning “Jesus”! Indeed, as Abu Nazir is the major Bin Ladenesque villain on the show, the producers should have spent an extra $100 to have an Arab consultant tell them that the name of “Abu Nazir” itself means “father of Nazir,” Nazir being his eldest son, so that they would refrain from making the elementary and laughable mistake of referring to “Abu” as his first name and “Nazir” as his last name! Lest you think Israeli anti-Palestinianism is absent from the show, the second season’s first episode reveals to us that Abu Nazir is indeed Palestinian! 

While Brody was becoming close to the young Aisa, a drone attack secretly ordered by Vice-President Walden (even the US President apparently did not know about it!) kills 83 children, including Aisa, who was on his way to school or more precisely “Madrassa.” Heartbroken, Brody digs out his body from under the rubble and helps prepare his burial with Abu Nazir. Walden goes on television and denies that any such attack took place. Having to confront his government’s war crimes and denials “turns” Brody into an Al-Qaida man. Upon his return home, Brody rejoins his all-American nuclear family –wife, daughter, and son. His wife is played by the Brazilian actress Morena Baccarin who looks suspiciously brown, but nonetheless is presented as white! Baccarin’s roles on previous TV shows have mostly been in science fiction, presumably due to her “alien” looks.

Here one wonders what Obama must be thinking while watching the show as he himself had ordered the murder of the 16-year-old US-born teenager Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki by a drone attack two weeks after having ordered the murder of his American father who had not been charged with any crime. 

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Preparing Americans for an Attack on Iran

The second season opens with Goebbels-like propaganda. While Vice-President Walden asks Brody to become his Vice-Presidential running mate in the upcoming elections, we are told in the opening scene by a TV newscaster that Israel had already bombed five of Iran’s nuclear facilities with US support. The Iranian claim of 3000 casualties as a result of the raid is called a “gross exaggeration.” When the Palestinian Al-Qaida contact, Roya Hammad, tells Brody of the 3000 dead civilians in Iran, he even tells her “everybody knows those numbers are bullshit.” “Homeland’s” preparation of the American public for the ramifications of a US-supported attack on Iran is not just fictional. According to TV Guide, when Damien Lewis was at the White House, he “did sort of joke with [Obama] that the creators of the show had asked him to give us a heads up on any foreign policy moves so that we could just stay current with Season 2. And he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I’ll be sure to do that.’” While this might have been a joke, the propaganda role “Homeland” wishes to play on behalf of a potential US–supported Israeli bombing of Iran is not. 

Indeed the plot of the new season is quite incredible. In light of the fictional Israeli bombing, it seems the virulently anti-Shiite and anti-Iran Al-Qaida is now plotting with the Shiite Lebanese group Hizbullah to attack America in revenge for the Israeli bombing of Iran. It is in this context that Carrie goes to Beirut in brown disguise to meet Berenson and her abused Hizbullah female contact (the Beirut scenes were reportedly shot in Israel). Lest too many objections be raised against the show as too racist by having Carrie go to Beirut in brownface, only Carrie’s blond hair is dyed brown and her blue eyes are covered up with brown contact lenses but her white skin, thankfully, remains intact. Beirut’s nouveaux-riches who spent billions of dollars (of the Lebanese people’s money) making the city look like a fun and modern western city are surely outraged that their city is depicted like some poor remote Afghani village. Indeed the multi-billion dollar Rafiq Hariri Airport looks more like a bus stop in war-ravaged rural Iraq than a modern airport. More recently, Lebanese tourism minister Fadi Abboud told the Associated Press that he is so upset about the portrayal of Beirut on the show that he is considering a lawsuit. 

Still, it seems Hezbollah operatives, who are represented as in control of the airport (!), are so well trained in anti-Semitism, that they recognise Berenson as “Jewish” based solely on his last name and ask him to confirm their finding: “Jewish, yes?” A victimized look appears on his face momentarily and is quickly replaced by strength and determination as he asserts in response: “American!” 

Homeland’s plot is hardly original. Its story is borrowed from the world of fiction and reality. While the plot resembles that of the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate, and the anxiety about the enemy within, the drone attacks that kill hundreds of innocent children (and hundreds more innocent adult civilians) have been a real Obama specialty for years, extending from Pakistan to Afghanistan and Yemen. In that, perhaps Obama does see the show as something he can identify with personally. Since autobiography is what informs Obama’s taste in television shows, as a half-black president who always reminded the (white) public that he was raised by his white mother and her family, one can safely bet that his favorite television shows growing up must have been “Different Strokes” and “Webster.” That American shows are now equal-opportunity offenders in their racism against internal and external others is hardly news, but that the first black American president is a fan of them should be.

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American Fantasies of Race and Sex

The time of the show seems to be the ongoing present with some discrepancies from actual American life. On the one hand, the CIA team is outflanked by the American Vice-President who seems to be a Dick Cheney figure (though he is named Walden, which sounds suspiciously closer to Biden than Cheney!), while the US President is fully absent from the show, neither named nor shown. In some ways, the African-American Estes, seems to be the stand-in for Obama, at least as far as racial semiotics are concerned. Indeed, as we saw, Obama is not absent at all from the extra-screen hype about the show.

The racist representation of Arabs is so exponential, even for American television (and this is clearly the manifest effect of the Israeli Jewish identity of the show) that one does not know where to begin. It seems all Arab men have multiple wives so much so that a Washington-based Saudi diplomat and Al-Qaida contact (Mansour al-Zahrani) who is married to three wives and has ten children is declared by the Jewish Berenson to be “gay” on account of his frequenting a gay bath house in DC “every Thursday” (Al-Zahrani is shown to be making out with a black man at the bath house in CIA-obtained video footage). Just like American whiteness, which is always completely pure that only one drop of black blood makes an American black, American heterosexuality is equally pure, so much so that a once-a-week homosexual experience renders a man married to three women (and presumably has heterosexual sex with them for the rest of the week) “gay”!  Clearly Arab society is so horrific that it forces gay men not only to marry one woman, but three! 

The Saudi diplomat who was threatened by Carrie of being outed to his government, parents, wives, and children, was unrelenting and dared Carrie to expose him, even on CNN. He refused to cooperate until Carrie threatened to pull his favourite daughter out of Yale University and deport her, making sure she would not be able to go to any American or European university and that she would be forced “to go back to Saudi Arabia and get fat and wear a burkah for the rest of her miserable life.” This Oedipal dynamic seems important for the scriptwriters as we will see. 

Representations of Arab women are also noteworthy. In the second season an Arab woman is presented as a CIA operative and is identified as the abused “second wife” of a Hezbollah leader. Aside from the colonial white feminist Carrie who recruited (and of course saved) the abused Hezbollah woman, we were introduced in the first season to the wife of a local DC imam who also collaborates with Carrie, but this time out of love for her husband who seems to be surprisingly unabusive. Another secular-looking and -acting, highly-educated, and British-accented woman, who is Brody’s secret DC contact with Al-Qa’ida, turns out to be a Palestinian named Roya Hammad. A major journalist, Hammad seems relentless in her pursuit of Al-Qaida’s goals. We are even told that her family and Abu Nazir’s “have been close since 1947. They were refugees from Palestine together!” 

Concern about what Arab and Muslim men do to “their” women is paramount on the show’s scriptwriters’ minds. When Brody’s wife finds out he had converted to Islam, she throws the English translation of the Quran on the floor (very astutely done by the show’s producers who seem to think that only the Arabic Qur’an should not be desecrated) and asks in horror how he could have converted to a religion whose adherents would “stone” his daughter “to death in a soccer stadium” if they found out she was having sex with her boyfriend. 

On the most recent episode of season two, the Jewish Berenson declares in the context of searching for Brody’s Al-Qaida contact among hundreds of people that: “We prioritize. First the dark skinned ones” should be watched. When a white colleague objects that this is “straight up racial profiling,” Berenson responds that it is “actual profiling. Most Al-Qaida operatives are going to be Middle Eastern or African.” This is being said while the main Al-Qaida CIA target on the show is a white marine. The African-American Estes and Obama stand-in expectedly offers no protests to the Jewish Berenson. He just says “OK!”

The plot of the first season is a classic revenge story where Abu Nazir and Brody seek to kill the Vice President and all those who assisted him in the drone attack. As the story unravels, Brody learns that his marine buddy the African-American Tom Walker whom he was forced to kill was in fact alive (it seems part of Brody’s torture was to make him believe he killed his friend when in fact he did not) and was part of the Abu Nazir operation to kill the Vice-President. Brody, who strapped himself with explosives in order to kill the Vice-President, is overcome with Oedipal emotions when his daughter calls him a split second before he blows everyone up, at which points he aborts the mission. Such is the working of Oedipus! 

In the tradition of racist American horror films, where the black man must be killed first, Tom Walker, whom we saw beaten to death in the first episodes of the show by Brody, has another confrontation with Brody after the operation is aborted. Brody shoots him in the head this time killing him for good. This is perhaps the most amazing development on the show, namely, the racist fantasy that a white American man gets to kill the same black man, not once but twice! The plot changes at the end of the season wherein Brody’s mission was now to infiltrate the American government and try to influence lawmakers as an elected Congressman. This is the same fantasy that real-life US politicians and candidates push when they claim that Muslims are engaged in a “creeping” or “stealth” “jihad” to takeover the US from within and impose sharia law on it. The nonexistent “threat” is deemed so great that two dozen US states have “anti-Sharia” bills enacted or passing through their legislatures.

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Poll finds fresh increase in US racism

Associated Press poll says anti-black sentiment has grown since Barack Obama's historic election victory in 2008.

 Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the US elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll has found.

Released on Saturday, the AP poll used a combination of explicit and implicit questions about race and found that prejudice has increased slightly since 2008.

The study, conducted online by GfK Custom Research under the supervision of AP’s polling unit, included interviews with 1,071 adults between August and September 2012. 

"As much as we'd hope the impact of race would decline over time ... it appears the impact of anti-black sentiment on voting is about the same as it was four years ago" - Jon Krosnick, Stanford University

In all, 51 per cent of those polled expressed explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey.

When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 per cent, up from 49 per cent during the last presidential election.

In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.

"As much as we'd hope the impact of race would decline over time ... it appears the impact of anti-black sentiment on voting is about the same as it was four years ago,'' said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University professor who worked with AP to develop the survey.

'False idea'

Most Americans expressed anti-Hispanic sentiments, too. In an AP survey done in 2011, 52 per cent of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes. That figure rose to 57 per cent in the implicit test.

Experts on race said they were not surprised by the findings.

"We have this false idea that there is uniformity in progress and that things change in one big step. That is not the way history has worked,'' said Jelani Cobb, director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut.

"When we've seen progress, we've also seen backlash.''

Obama himself has tread cautiously on the subject of race, but many African-Americans have talked openly about perceived antagonism toward them since Obama took office.

As evidence, they point to events involving police brutality or cite bumper stickers, cartoons and protest posters that mock the president as a lion or a monkey, or lynch him in effigy.

"Part of it is growing polarisation within American society,'' Fredrick Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, said.

Anti-black sentiment

The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one political group. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 per cent among Republicans compared with 32 per cent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties.

That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 per cent of Democrats and 64 per cent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 per cent).

In-depth coverage of the US presidential election

Obama faced a similar situation in 2008, the survey then found. The Associated Press developed the surveys to measure sensitive racial views in several ways and repeated those studies several times between 2008 and 2012.

The explicit racism measures asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements about black and Hispanic people.

In addition, the surveys asked how well respondents thought certain words, such as "friendly'' "hardworking", "violent" and "lazy", described blacks, whites and Hispanics.

The same respondents were also administered a survey designed to measure implicit racism, in which a photo of a black, Hispanic or white male flashed on the screen before a neutral image of a Chinese character.

The respondents were then asked to rate their feelings toward the Chinese character.

Previous research has shown that people transfer their feelings about the photo onto the character, allowing researchers to measure racist feelings even if a respondent does not acknowledge them.

Results from those questions were analysed with poll takers' ages, partisan beliefs, views on Obama and Romney and other factors, which allowed researchers to predict the likelihood that people would vote for either candidate.

Those models were then used to estimate the net impact of each factor on the candidates' support.

Previous studies have shown that poll takers are more likely to share unpopular attitudes when they are filling out a survey using a computer, rather than speaking with an interviewer.

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Not guilty plea filed for Philippines' Arroyo

Judge acts on ex-president's behalf after she refuses to enter plea on charges of misusing $8.8m in state lottery funds.

If found guilty, Arroyo and her co-accused could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment [EPA]

A Philippine court has entered a not-guilty plea for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the former president, on charges she misused $8.8m in state lottery funds in the third corruption case against her. Arroyo, seated in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace at the court in Manila on Monday, refused to enter a plea and prompted the judge to record a not guilty on her behalf. Nine other people, mostly former officials of the state lottery agency, are also charged in the case. They allegedly conspired with Arroyo during her last years in office to divert public funds for her personal gain. Arroyo is suffering from a neck ailment, and police brought her to the anti-corruption court from a military hospital. She was admitted days before the court served the arrest warrant against her on plunder charges early this month and ordered her confined under guard. If found guilty, they could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Arroyo's lawyers say the witnesses against her had no personal knowledge of the transactions of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. Arroyo's contention Arroyo said that she was wrongly prosecuted for crimes she did not commit, denying any involvement in the alleged misuse of funds of the PCSO during her presidency. They have appealed to the supreme court to have the case dismissed. Arroyo finished her tumultuous nine-year term in 2010. Since then, she has been separately charged with vote fraud and in another corruption case but posted bail. She had already spent eight months under hospital arrest before she was discharged in June. Arroyo has accused her successor, Benigno Aquino III, of pursuing a political vendetta. Al Jazeera's Jamela Alindogan, reporting from outside the court in Manila, said:  "Arroyo is seen as the most unpopular president in current history. Her successor Benigno Aquino III has vowed to make her face justice." Aquino was overwhelmingly elected on a promise to rid the Philippines of corruption and has vowed to prosecute Arroyo and her inner circle, blaming them for stealing money for personal gain and for a culture of impunity in which corrupt practices flourished. The government has already denied Arroyo's request to seek medical treatment abroad, saying she may not return to face the charges.

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Ongoing clashes end Syria's failed truce

Activists say at least 100 people died on Sunday amid clashes in Damascus suburbs, Aleppo, Idlib and other places.

After the failed Eid al-Adha holiday ceasefire, envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will return to the UN in November [AFP]

Syrian fighter jets have bombarded a rebel stronghold on the edge of the capital, on the final day of an attempted truce that has been shattered by air raids and fighting between the two sides, opposition activists say. They said jets on Monday targeted Harat al-Shwam, a residential neighbourhood east of Damascus which President Bashar al-Assad's forces had tried to storm, encountering stiff resistance. Activists also reported air raids in Damascus and other areas of the country on Sunday, undermining a UN-brokered truce that was supposed to last at least till the end of the Eid al-Adha holiday. Air raids, clashes and car bombings claimed at least 100 lives during the day, opposition sources said. The ceasefire was violated almost as soon as it was agreed, and both rebels and government troops have initiated firefights since the four-day holiday began at sunset on October 25. Syria has banned most international media from operating in the country, making it difficult for Al Jazeera to verify reports from activists and authorities. Aleppo fighting Explosions, mortar attacks and gunfire have been heard throughout Aleppo, the country's second-largest city, where neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble as a result of the months-long struggle there. In the northwestern Idlib province, the attacks killed at least 16 people on Sunday, including seven children and five women, an activist group said. "The ceasefire is practically over. Damascus has been under brutal air raids since day one and hundreds of people have been arrested," Fawaz Tello, an opposition campaigner, told the Reuters news agency. Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy whose job it is to negotiate between the opposition and Assad, has not commented on the apparent failure of the ceasefire he announced. He is to go to the UN Security Council in November with new proposals to push for talks, diplomats said. He was in Russia for talks with Sergey Lavrov, foreign minister, on Monday and will head to China later this week to discuss the crisis. Rebels kidnap journalist Regime forces and rebels had agreed to a call by Brahimi to lay down their arms but reserved the right to respond to attacks. Fierce fighting erupted after a short lull, and each side accused each other of breaching the ceasefire. State news agency SANA said "armed terrorist groups" had attacked checkpoints and planted explosive devices in several cities. Rebels have also kidnapped a Lebanese journalist operating in the contested north of the country for making reports the fighters deemed unhelpful to their cause. In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria In a video released on Sunday, Fida Itani said he was in good health but being held under house arrest by the "Northern Storm Brigade". The rebel group's Facebook page said Itani's work was "not compatible with the revolution" and that he would be held for "a short time". The opposition claims at least 32,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March last year. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to neighbouring countries. As winter approaches, life will get worse for displaced families inside Syria and refugees filling up temporary camps in border areas in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. Valerie Amos, the UN's chief humanitarian relief officer, has said that up to three million Syrians have been affected by the crisis. In a statement released last week, she called on all parties to stop targeting civilians and said "ordinary women, men and children ... suffer from the indiscriminate use of explosive weapons like cluster munitions".

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Centre-right evicted in Lithuania elections

Butkevicius cast his vote in Lithuania's capital Vilnius, in a poll which may herald change across Europe [Reuters]

Lithuania's left-wing and populist opposition are planning to form a coalition government after the austerity-weary Baltic state became the latest European nation to evict the centre-right at the ballot box. But in a move apparently blocking the three-party coalition plans, President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Monday she did not want the Labour Party to be in the new government after allegations of vote buying and tax evasion. Grybauskaite, who has the job of formally choosing a new prime minister, said that the party - the third biggest in parliament after the ballot - was not a suitable coalition candidate due to the allegations, which emerged after two rounds of voting. The tree parties won a combined 79 seats in the country's 141-member parliament in Sunday's vote. Algirdas Butkevicius, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, said: "We have agreed to form a three-party coalition, with the post of prime minister going to the Social Democrats, and to begin drawing up our government programme. "We don't have any points of disagreement." Leaders of the Social Democrats, the left-wing Labour party and right-wing Order and Justice movement begun informal coalition talks already after the left topped a first round of polling on October 14. Euro debate The alliance headed by Butkevicius has said it would aim to roll back many of the spending cuts imposed in the previous government's "austerity package", increasing the minimum wage, reforming the tax system and boosting investment - while being fiscally responsible and sticking to the outgoing government's budget deficit goals. During campaigning, the three parties said Lithuania should not rush to adopt Europe's single currency during the sovereign debt crisis. "I think we will have the euro in 2015 ... I am optimistic," Butkevicius told the Reuters news agency after polls closed. Lithuania's currency, the Litas, is already pegged at 3.45 to the euro. The final tallies for Sunday's vote were reported to be 38 seats for the Social Democrats, 30 for Labour and 11 for Order and Justice. The defeated Conservatives, who had been pushed into third place in the first round, made up some ground on Sunday, garnering a total of 32 seats in the 141-member legislature. "We are among the leading parties in parliament," underlined outgoing Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. In power since 2008, he paid the price for harsh spending cuts imposed as the nation was battered by one of the world's deepest recessions. The remaining seats were shared between the Conservatives' governing ally, the Liberal Movement, with 10 parliamentarians, an ethnic-Polish party with eight, and the new anti-corruption Way of Courage movement with seven. International relations Butkevicius said the new government would aim to use money from the European Union to create work and jobs as well as cut the use of gas, all of which is imported from Russia. Gas has been a key source of irritation in relations between the two countries as Kubilius' government forcefully pursued a policy of energy independence. That policy has involved suing Gazprom for what Lithuania said were unfairly high gas prices. "I think that relations between Lithuania and Russia will be better," Butkevicius said. He also said he wanted to boost energy independence in Lithuania, a former Soviet state, but planned to have wide consultations with Moscow to make sure government-level relations improved. "I think we have to create special government working groups from Lithuania and Russia to solve many problems," he said. He also backed the building of a new terminal to receive liquefied natural gas on Lithuania's western coast, aimed at competing with imports from Russia, but wanted some reforms to the funding of the facility. "We have to reduce the cost to the government in this project, using money from the private sector. I would like this project to be [a] regional project, together with Latvia and Estonia and using money from the EU," he said. With a 13 per cent jobless rate, the Baltic nation is one of the EU's poorest countries and the population has fallen below 3 million for the first time since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, as thousands leave to find work. Lithuania takes the EU's rotating presidency in the second half of 2013 and must repay a 1 billion euro bond in March, leading analysts to predict the new administration "will not lead to crazy economic policies". "They have their hands tied at the moment," Rokas Bancevicius, DNB economist, said.

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From Myanmar to Mecca

There are a set of rules and guidelines for those who perform the fifth pillar of Islam – the pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj as its called.

They include paying off any debts before embarking on the journey, abstaining from any sort of confrontation or argument, desisting from foul language, and wearing nothing more than two simple white cloths.

It is this that is arguably the most unifying aspect of Hajj. As millions of Muslims circuit the Kaaba, it is impossible to differentiate the rich from the poor, the educated from the illiterate, the prince from the pauper – each one of them is wearing the same type of cloth, each has shed their worldly belongings in submission to their lord.

In recognition that ultimately, when they stand before their lord, it is not their status in society, nor their bank balance or job title that matters. It is what is in their heart that is infinitely more meaningful.

But beneath these white garbs that unite the pilgrims, each has a story of their own. There are those who consider themselves fortunate to have found an open flight to get them to Mecca, and there are those who consider themselves lucky just to be alive.

Among the latter are pilgrims from Myanmar. Specifically from the province of Arakan, an area that has witnessed ethnic violence for decades.

Human rights groups say that the local Muslim population there has consistently come under attack by armed Buddhist groups, with government forces either assisting directly in these attacks, or indirectly by standing by as they took place.

Entire villages have been burnt to the ground, thousands have been expelled from their homes, and hundreds have been killed over the years.

The situation has got worse in recent months, with dozens of Rohingya Muslims being killed and several villages and townships burnt to ashes.

Thus it is no wonder that many Muslims from there consider themselves fortunate to be alive.

Imagine then how a Muslim from Rohingya, who survived the violence, escaped the conflict, and made it all the way to Islam's holiest site, feels?

I met up with one such person. Too scared to speak to me in front of his fellow countrymen, and even more petrified to be filmed, this pilgrim – who I will name Mohammad – narrated to me some of the most ghastly and horrific stories which he says took place in his village in Myanmar.

For him, the pilgrimage to Mecca means so much more than it does to those doing it in their bid to serve God.

For Mohammad, Hajj is the first time he has ever truly felt at peace. For him, Mecca is the only place he has felt safe.

On this pilgrimage, Mohammad found the true meaning of equality he tells me.

Up until now he only felt what it was like to be a second or third class Rohingyan Muslim in Myanmar, but here, in Mecca, he prays side by side with an Egyptian, who stands next to an Englishman, who kneels beside a German, who prostrates next to a South African, who holds his hands to the sky and prays for all humanity.

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Returning to an unsafe Syria

It may be hard to understand why some Syrians are choosing to return home when their country is still at war. After all, they fled seeking safety from the violence. But for Abu Omar, it is a choice he had to make even though it was a difficult one.

"We have two choices really - a slow death in exile or cheat death at home," he told me while we were sitting in his family's tent in a refugee camp on Turkey's border with Syria.

His five-month old grandchild, Taem, has been sick for days. Turkish authorities do provide medical assistance. But winter is around the corner. It will get cold and the tents won't be able to withstand the rain.

"We cannot live like this. I cry every single day. My sons stayed behind in our village. I miss them. I worry about them. I Worry about my country," Abu Omar explains.

There is a growing realisation among Syrian refugees that their life as refugees may last for a long time. The camp's residents have been here since the camp was set up six months ago.

"We thought we would be here for 20 days, a month at the most," Abu Omar's grandchild, Ahmed, told us. "No one thought we would be here six months later."

We heard these words time and time again while speaking to refugees in the camp. "You probably will see us here in 2016!" Mohammed said.

Many were relying on the support from the international community. The hope was for a no-fly zone to be enforced. That of course didn't happen.

Many of the refugees come from villages and towns where the armed opposition has been able to drive government forces out. But that freedom has made them targets of the state's superior firepower.

Abu Omar understands the dangers of returning. The threat of air strikes and artillery bombardment hasn't gone away. It is the danger of a prolonged conflict however that worries Abu Omar even more.

"This war needs to end quickly. If the situation continues, pockets of territory in Syria will become havens for terrorists. The conflict will affect neighbouring countries," he said.

It has affected Turkey. The presence of tens of thousands of mainly Sunni refugees in regions along the border populated by Turkish Alawites has raised tensions. The country already hosts more than 100,000 Syrians - and those are the ones registered in camps.

Thousands of others are stranded in border regions inside Syria waiting for Ankara to build new camps to accommodate them.

Turkey has had to carry a big burden and officials say they are providing the refugees with their basic needs. They are fed hot meals. There are field hospitals and if a patient's case is serious, they are taken to hospitals

While Abu Jimaah is thankful for the help, he still worries about the winter. "What will happen when heavy rain starts? There will be a flood here. Look at the tents," he said. That is why he is taking his family back.

"Is your village safe," I ask him. "No, but what should we do. I don't want to be here forever."

He didn't want us to reveal the name of his village. It is in Aleppo province and I know the area still comes under bombardment. There is still fear of the state.

And there is fear for the future. "What happens next is anyone's guess," Abu Jumaah said. "The war in Syria is heading to the unknown. The situation is getting worse, not better. It is worse than when we left."

That is why very few are packing their belongings and waiting for Turkish authorities to provide the buses to take them to the border. Those who are going back don't feel safe to do so.

Then why? "We are safe from the bombs here but death is easier than living here," Abu Omar said. Those who have made this choice seem to believe there is a reality in this war. And the reality is it is not ending any time soon.

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The story of a Syrian refugee

Mohamed al-Ezz in the Islahiyeh refugee camp [Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera]

Before becoming a journalist I did human rights work in the occupied West Bank. I first visited as a naïve 21-year-old with little knowledge of the Middle East, or really anywhere outside my hometown Chicago. 

During my travels through various refugee camps I was shocked learning how almost every single person I encountered had an unimaginable story to tell. 

One man served 25 years in an Israeli prison, another woman’s husband was killed leaving her to raise their five kids on her own, a young boy would fearlessly gather stones to throw at tanks invading his camp.  

The stories were endless. And the fact that I was unaware of them before I heard them myself is what drove me to become a journalist. I needed to record them so other people could also know.

I felt this same way walking through the Islahiyeh refugee camp in southern Turkey on Saturday.

Home to almost 8,000 Syrian refugees, the camp’s residents have, like Palestinians, endured the most horrific crimes before abandoning their homes in search of refuge. And as I work on a larger story on their plight, there is a story of one person in particular that I feel compelled to tell in full.

As we walked through Islahiyeh I waved to a man sitting at his cigarette stand outside a tent that I later learned he lives in with his family.

His face was covered in bandages and he responded warmly to my greeting so I approached him to say hello and wish him a speedy recovery for what I assumed was a war-related injury. It turned out my assumption was correct.

His name was Mohamed Ayman al-Ezz, and he’s a 43-year-old court reporter from Taftanaz, a part of Idlib province in northern Syria.

On April 4, during a Syrian army raid into Taftanaz against fighters from the Free Syrian Army, al-Ezz says he was taken from his home by the government troops.

He said the soldiers accused him of feeding the rebels inside his home, a charge he firmly denies.

“I wasn’t a fighter, I had nothing to do with the fighters, I was only a civilian,” he told me.  

He said the army detained him for a few hours before handing him over to six masked men he described as “shabiha,” the notorious pro-government militia.

He expected to be interrogated, but instead was taken to an empty home with three other local men who he knew quite well. Their hands were bound behind their backs. 

Al-Ezz said that one of the masked men standing only metres away took aim with an AK-47s and shot each one of the detainees with a single bullet to the head. Al-Ezz was the fourth to be shot.

He was eager to tell me the names of the other three men: Awad Abdel Kader, Ahmad Jaafar, and Eyad Ghonim. Al-Ezz estimated the ages of the first two men to be around 70 and 60 respectively, and Ghonim he said was only a few years younger than al-Ezz.

He told me that the masked men said very little to the detainees. Only to Jaafar, who had served time in prison accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, they asked, “didn’t you learn your lesson by now?”

Al-Ezz said when it was his turn the shooter pointed the gun at his face and asked, “What were you thinking trying to go against a government that has an entire army at its disposal?"

He doesn’t remember what happened after that, but he said people in the area later told him that from inside their homes they had seen the badly injured al-Ezz stumbling in the streets of Taftanaz before he fell down just 50 metres from his home. 

They went to his aid, but seeing him unconscious and his face completely disfigured from the bullet that entered under his left eye and exited under his left ear, they left him for dead covering his body with a sheet. He said it would’ve been too dangerous for them to do anything else as the army was still around and anyone in the street could be captured or killed.

When the army left late that night, al-Ezz’s wife went out searching for her husband and found a man covered in a sheet near their home. He was unconscious, but still breathing.

Because of the severe wound and the blood covering his entire face, she didn’t recognise her husband at first. But after taking the man inside she found al-Ezz’s identity card in his pocket and realised it was her husband.

Al-Ezz said that his wife and neighbours, knowing he needed urgent medical care, discussed what options they had to help him. The only medical centre in the area was a government hospital, and going there could be risky if they thought he was an FSA fighter or supporter of the opposition.

In the end they decided on the government hospital, and when they arrived they told staff that he had been shot by armed “terrorists,” the term often used by the government for the opposition forces.

After a three-hour investigation, al-Ezz said intelligence agents in the hospital found no evidence that he was connected to the FSA or opposition groups and so he was admitted for treatment and operated on soon after.

A week later, while still in the hospital recovering and awaiting additional treatment, al-Ezz said that local men he thinks had links to the shabiha visited him in the hospital. He suspected their visit was to investigate whether rumours were true or not that one of the four men that were supposed to have been executed days earlier had somehow survived.   

Almost immediately after they left he fled the hospital, fled Idlib, and fled Syria altogether coming to Turkey and arriving in the Islahiyeh camp where he remains today, six months later.

The entire left side of al-Ezz’s face is completely paralysed and he’s unable to close his left eye that he covers in bandages. He said that he still needs specialised treatment, including surgery, but that the procedures would cost tens of thousands of US dollars, money that he doesn’t have. 

And Mohamed Ayman al-Ezz was just one person in one refugee camp whose cigarette stand I happened to pass.

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Families of Doha mall fire victims seek trial

The parents of 13 children killed in a mall fire in Qatar last May are demanding the Gulf nation move ahead with a trial after repeated delays.

An open letter issued on Friday by the families complains bitterly about postponements. They also object to some defendants refusing to attend preliminary hearings.

The May 28 blaze at Villagio mall killed 19 people, including four child care workers and two firefighters, at a daycare facility owned by the daughter of Qatar's culture minister.

Qatari investigators have blamed faulty wiring for starting the fire, and cited shortcomings in safety planning by staff at the country's biggest mall.

The children were all members of Qatar's large expatriate community, including triplets from New Zealand and three Spanish siblings.

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Bahrain policeman dies from protest injuries

Heavy police presence and tear gas often prevent marches from getting started in the Gulf island kingdom [AP]

A Bahraini policeman has died from burns sustained in an April incident authorities described as a "terrorist act", the state news agency BNA said. BNA quoted a police director late on Thursday as saying the officer had died of "serious burns sustained as a result of a terrorist incident in the area of Karzakan on April 22, 2012". It said the man died abroad, where he was undergoing treatment, but gave no further details. On October 19, a 19-year-old policeman also died from injuries sustained when a home-made bomb exploded during clashes with protesters in the Shia village of Akar. Authorities say two policemen have been killed this month alone. Thirty-five people were killed in an uprising against the minority Sunni-led government, led by the country's Shia Muslim majority early in 2011, including five security personnel. The opposition says more than 45 other people have died in political violence since martial law ended in June 2011, a figure disputed by the government. According to the International Federation for Human Rights, a total of 80 people have been killed in Bahrain since the violence began. More than 1,500 policemen have also been wounded. Regular unrest and demonstrations have shaken Bahrain since it crushed popular protests last year, and the kingdom has come under strong criticism from international rights groups over the deadly crackdown. Shia complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing and education and say they are mistreated by government departments, the police and the army. Bahrain is a base for the US Fifth Fleet, which patrols oil shipping lanes in the Gulf region.

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Israel and Gazans in tit-for-tat attacks

Two loud explosions also shook Gaza City shortly after the attack that killed the Hamas gunman [Reuters]

Tensions remain high around Gaza after Israeli raids killed four Palestinians and two Thai workers were seriously wounded by rocket fire, with Israel's defence minister vowing to punish Hamas. Reports indicated that a tentative ceasefire was holding on Thursday morning, after the intervention of Egypt to help mediate between the two sides. The Israeli military said that no rockets had been fired from Gaza after 17:30 GMT on Wednesday. Israeli schools near the border were operating as normal, public radio said, after being closed for the day due to heavy rocket fire which began on Tuesday night and sparked a brief but deadly confrontation between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army. In Gaza, Palestinians officials also confirmed a quiet night without any air strikes. "The contacts Cairo made resulted in a verbal promise by Hamas to calm the situation down and Israel said it was monitoring calm on the ground and would refrain from attacks unless it was subject to rocket fire from Gaza," an official close to the talks told the Reuters news agency. Amos Gilad, an Israeli defence official, confirmed that Egypt had intervened to mediate a calming of tensions, but asserted that there was no direct agreement between Israel and Hamas. "It can be said categorically that there is no agreement with Hamas, there has never been and there will never be. ... The only thing that has been set and said is that there will be calm. We are not interested in an escalation," Gilad added. The latest violence began on Tuesday evening when Palestinian fighters fired six rockets at Israel shortly after a high-profile visit to the coastal enclave by the Qatari emir. Several hours later, Israeli aircraft killed two fighters from Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in northern Gaza, sparking more rocket fire. An early-morning raid near southern city of Rafah killed a third fighter from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), and later in the morning, a Hamas fighter hurt in the evening strikes died of his injuries, medics said. Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza City, said: "Four Palestinians killed in a day is spike in numbers, with the killings and also the rockets there is an increase in tension, things currently are really tense in Gaza as border crossings are also closed." The Israeli military said armed groups had fired 79 rockets and mortar shells over the border since midnight local time (22:00 GMT), injuring six, two of them seriously. Police said two Thai nationals were "seriously to critically wounded" while a third sustained light injuries. Fighters from Hamas and the PRC claimed responsibility for the rocket fire in a statement. Hamas accused Israel of stepping up air strikes in the Gaza Strip, a move it said was meant to convey Israeli anger over Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani's visit, and pledged to "continue to hold a gun ... until Palestine is liberated". "Hamas will receive its punishment for what has happened here," said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister. "No terror element responsible for causing damage in Israel, or to Israelis, will be spared," he said on a tour of the area around Gaza, hours after the two Thais were severely wounded and four others were lightly hurt by the rocket fire. Referring to "the battle against Hamas and other terrorist organisations," Barak said he hoped the military's targeting of armed groups would "calm them down." "If they cannot be calmed, and the rockets continue, then the IDF (military) will act," he said, noting that since the start of 2012, nearly 600 rockets and mortars had been fired at southern Israel. But he warned it was likely to be a long campaign. "The issue is far from over. The struggle has not come to an end and it will not come to an end here in the next week." An Israeli military statement said: "Israeli Air Forice aircraft targeted a rocket launching site in the northern Gaza Strip. In addition, tank shells were fired towards terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip. Hits were confirmed." Two loud explosions also shook Gaza City shortly after the attack that killed the Hamas gunman, but no casualties had been reported. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Israel "bears full responsibility for what happens to our people in Gaza." Robert Serry, the UN's peace envoy, deplored the escalation, calling on all parties to exercise utmost restraint. Blockade-busting bid Meanwhile, Israel on Wednesday expelled 15 international activists who had tried and failed to reach Gaza by boat at the weekend in a bid to breach the maritime blockade on the territories, a spokeswoman for Israel's immigration service said. "Fifteen foreign activists were expelled. Only two Norwegians are still in detention and awaiting expulsion," Sabine Hadad told the AFP news agency. There were 30 pro-Palestinian activists and parliamentarians on board the Finnish-flagged Estelle which was intercepted by the Israeli navy on Saturday in international waters some 38 nautical miles off the 45km-long Gaza Strip. Of that number, three were Israelis and 27 were foreign nationals. Ten were sent home on Sunday and Monday. Among those on board were 79-year-old Canadian and former lawmaker Jim Manly, as well as five members of parliament from Norway, Sweden, Spain and Greece. Israel says its blockade of the Gaza Strip is necessary to prevent weapons from entering the coastal territory, home to 1.6 million people.

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Iraqi capital hit by fatal attacks

The days leading up to the annual Eid al-Adha holiday are often marked by a spike in violence [Reuters]

A series of attacks in Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad have killed eleven people, Iraqi officials say. The attacks, which also wounded 32 people and damaged nearby cars and houses, struck the adjoining northern areas of Shuala and Chikouk on Tuesday morning. The deadliest attack happened when four parked cars packed with explosives detonated simultaneously in Shuala, a police officer said. Another police officer said two mortar rounds landed in Chikouk, killing two people and wounding 10. An interior ministry official put the overall toll from the attacks at 11 dead. "We were sleeping, and my daughter and son were preparing to go to school when the bomb went off," said Abu Ali, the owner of the house in Shuala that was worst hit. "Thank God no one was in the kitchen, and no one in our family was badly hurt". The attacks came as Iraqis prepare to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Friday. The days leading up to the annual holiday are often marked by a spike in violence. Twelve people were killed in nationwide violence on Saturday, with the deadliest incident then also targeting a Shia area of north Baghdad.

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Jordan 'foils major al-Qaeda plot'

Two of the 11 men who allegedly planned to assassinate Western diplomats [Reuters]

Jordanian security services have foiled a plot by an al-Qaeda-linked cell to bomb its shopping centres and assassinate Western diplomats, the state news agency has announced. Security forces detained 11 Jordanian suspects in connection with the plot, which envisaged carrying out attacks in the capital Amman using smuggled weapons and explosives from Syria, according to security officials cited by television. Minister of Information Samih al-Maaytah said the arrests underscored the serious threat posed by radical "terror groups" seeking to undermine the kingdom's long tradition of stability. Jordan, which has held a peace treaty with Israel since 1994, enjoys close ties with Western intelligence agencies and has often been targeted by al-Qaeda and other armed groups. 'Mortars from Syria' "The group was able to devise new types of explosives to be used for the first time and planned to add TNT to increase their destructive impact" - Security source Despite taking in tens of thousands of refugees from the Syrian crisis, the alleged plot would be the first time the kingdom has been seriously threatened since the revolt broke out last year. The cell had targeted two major shopping centres in the capital and was planning a bombing campaign in the capital's affluent Abdoun neighbourhood, where many foreign embassies are located. A security source said the suspects had manufactured explosives "aimed at inflicting the heaviest losses possible". "The group was able to devise new types of explosives to be used for the first time and planned to add TNT to increase their destructive impact," said the source. The same security source said there was a crucial link with Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is battling to put down an uprising against his family's rule and has claimed the rebels are primarily extremist "terrorists". "Their plans included getting explosives and mortars from Syria," the security source told the Reuters news agency, saying the men had sought to strike at a time of regional upheaval when the country's security establishment is over stretched. 'Explosive belts' The authorities said they had seized large quantities of ammunition, machine guns and other items such as computers. Police in Jordan issued photos of those detained [Reuters] The men were training to use "suicide bombers using explosive belts and booby-trapped cars", said another security source. Maaytah told reporters that members of the group had spent some time in Syria, without saying when they had returned to Jordan. "This group arrived from Syria. They have been going in and out," said Maaytah, explaining that the case had been transferred to the state security prosecutor. Another security source said the cell had been fighting for "some period" alongside rebel groups in Syria. Jordan has in recent months arrested scores of hardline fundamentalists along its northern border with Syria as they were about to cross into the country to join jihadist groups fighting to overthrow Assad. If Jordan allows Assad's opponents to aid the armed uprising, Amman's security forces fear the Syrian government could retaliate by sending agents to carry out bomb attacks inside the country. Intercepted electronic mail showed that the cell had received advice from Iraqi-linked al-Qaeda explosives experts. Jordan regularly arrests "terror suspects" and puts them on trial in military courts that human rights groups say are illegal and lack proper legal safeguards. Many civic groups also say many of the cases are politically motivated. In 2005, al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings that ripped through luxury hotels in Jordan's capital killing dozens of people.

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