The whipping up of mass hysteria over the safety of Overseas Filipino Workers in the Middle East continues in the Philippines with Migrante, the non-governmental organization that deals with migrant worker rights, adding its voice to the shrill cacophony of doomsayers.
In several earnest press releases that it has sent out to the media, Migrante keeps insisting that all of the 1.4 million OFWs currently in the Middle East are in grave danger because of the backlash that will come after the United States takes military action against Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Migrante estimates that there are 200 undocumented Filipinos in Afghanistan, with 600 Filipinos, mostly Islamic studies scholars, in Pakistan, and 500 Filipinos working in Iran. There are only 77 Filipinos in Iraq and 12,000 in Libya. The majority of OFWs, 800,000, are of course in Saudi Arabia, and I hardly think that they will be bombed by either the US or Afghanistan.
“All in all, the impending war which drew the instant support of President Macapagal-Arroyo, puts the lives of about 1.4 million OFWs in the Middle East in real and present danger,” claims Migrante. “This dire situation will bring relentless anxiety and distress to 7 million OFW relatives and dependents here at home.”
Unfortunately, the families of OFWs are already experiencing anxiety over the safety and well-being of loved ones in the Middle East because of the irresponsible tabloid journalism of some newspapers and TV news shows in the Philippines. These have been calling for the immediate repatriation of OFWs in this region, an operation that the Philippine government can ill afford, let execute alone.
Philippine diplomats rightly point out that there is no need at this moment for mass repatriation of OFWs, and that during the Gulf War the majority of OFWs decided to stay put in the region rather than return home to unemployment. Military transport planes deployed during the Gulf War to ferry Filipinos home returned to Manila half-empty.
The truth is that most OFWs realize that they are relatively safe in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, and suddenly returning home to a flaccid economy is more dangerous that staying here! After all, taking the minimal risk of staying here and continuing to make a decent salary is a thousand more times preferable to rushing home to unemployment and diminished means, wouldn’t most of you agree?
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CNN’s crypto-fascism
I WAS WATCHING my daily dose of CNN’s “War Against Terrorism” coverage on Wednesday morning when I was startled by a report that tried to put a historical spin on current efforts to curb certain civil liberties in the US in the fight against terrorism.
Colleen McEdwards, an anchor that I had previously liked, introduced the segment with a huge smile on her face, and ended it with an idiotic smile that made it seem like she was delivering a piece of upbeat news!
The segment was worthy of a government-controlled TV station of a semi-repressive country, not of the supposedly independent media giant CNN, operating in a country that prides itself on its press freedom. In discussing current proposals to allow the Immigration and Naturalization Service to summarily deport any foreigner it deems to be a danger to US security, the report tried to put it into historical perspective by reminding viewers that the US suspended civil rights for foreigners in 1798, and that President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus — a writ ordering a person in custody to be brought before a court and for authorities to justify the detention — during the Civil War. Whether this was supposed to comfort us now, I really don’t know. What I do know is that it failed miserably, making CNN look like a crude propaganda instrument of the hawks in the Bush administration. It was crypto-fascism at its best!
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The man of the hour
US SECRETARY of State Colin Powell is really the man of the hour in the current US crisis. He has proved once again to be the voice of moderation in the Bush administration, the voice of reason that has held back the hawks from egging Bush on to bomb Afghanistan indiscriminately.
According to a Newsweek report, it was Powell, along with National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who prevailed in convincing President George W. Bush that building a coalition of nations to fight terrorism was so important and vital for America to remain on higher moral ground. So far Powell’s message has prevailed, but it’s scary to ponder for just how long will the hawks be contained.
Other Americans are also to be commended for their sophisticated and sensitive understanding of the underlying causes for the US being attacked in such a horrific way. I really believe that the US has evolved tremendously in the last 10 years in its understanding of Islam and Arab countries. Unfortunately, as many American journalists have pointed out, most notably on the news website Salon.com, far too few Americans are actually studying Arabic and Islamic Studies at universities. Although American Muslims are increasingly getting their message across to the wider American public, it must still battle an entrenched pro-Zionist viewpoint that many Americans still hold as a result of decades of pro-Israeli propaganda in the US.
The American Muslim community should seize this historic opportunity to use their numerical superiority, 7 million American Muslims versus 6 million American Jews, to make permanent inroads into American public opinion.
They must show that Muslims can live peacefully side-by-side with Christians and Jews. That Islam is a religion of peace, and that the attack on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon is not the beginning of a clash of civilizations, but an abhorrent act that is not at all typical of Islam or its followers.
