December 14, 2023
Sermon From A Wizard
By Syed Rifaquat Ali
India's hegemony in World Cup hockey is unceremoniously over. India had won gold medals in Field hockey in summer Olympics in 1928,1932, 1936, 1948, 1952 1956, 1964 and 1980.
Thereafter, the slide began and India is now struggling in international competitions, including the World Cup. With the introduction of Astro-turf, European teams are calling the shots and India and Pakistan are left far behind.
On a synthetic surface, the Indian team is finding it difficult to cope with the lightning pace of the European teams which thrive on hit and run hockey, bereft of skill work and traditional play.
India has the answer to counter European teams in order to regain ascendancy in field hockey. Hockey wizard the late Dhyan Chand provides the answer in an exclusive interview he gave to this correspondent wherein he talks elaborately about the vital cog in the wheel: goalkeeping.
Think of the German football team without Oliver Kahn. The IHF tends to overlook the importance of goalkeeping. This apathy on the part of IHF has proved disastrous for the Indian hockey team which takes a beating in almost every international meeting. The goalkeeper is key person in the team.
The brilliance of the other members of the team will come to nought if the team does not have the right man under the bar. His mistakes cannot be covered by anyone else as he is the last of the defenders.
The essential attributes of good goalkeeping are ------ (a) courage (b) physical fitness (c) ability to kick with either foot (d) keen eyesight and anticipation (e) capacity to make quick decision (f) skill at stopping the ball (g) ability to hit well. A goalkeeper aught to have supple movements and nimble feet.
A good goalkeeper should never have stiff limbs.It is desirable that a goalkeeoer should play soccer during off season so that he gets into the habit of making good kicks when required.
Keen eyesight and anticipation are absolutely essential for goalkeeping. A good goalkeeper must possess a .keen sense of anticipation and judgement to thwart the moves of opponent players.
To understand how various moves are developed, a good goalkeeper should play occasionally in the forward line during practice games.
A goalkeeper must know the art and skill of stopping the ball and clearing it. It is seen that the inside-left makes an attempt to score a goal without push or scoop. If the goalkeeper covers the right end of the post with stick in his right hand, and the left hand is free, it is easy for him to stop with his left hand.
When a corner is taken, the goakeeper should take one step forward towards the spot from where the hit will be taken, thereby narrowing down the angle for the striker.
Though modern hockey on synthetic surface has much changed since the days of Dhyan Chand era, the fundamentals as portrayed by Dhyan Chand are still relevant. The Indian hockey coaches should give a thought to the observations made by the hockey wizard.
Syed Rifaquat Ali is JoA correspondent in Sydney
BRICS: Russia & South Africa Ditch US Dollar in $265M Oil Deal
By Joshua Ramos
In a continuation of the bloc’s overarching de-dollarization efforts, BRICS members Russia and South Africa had ditched the US Dollar in a landmark $265 oil deal. Indeed, reports have stated that the former tabbed Russian bank, Gazprombank as the preferred investor for the massive gas refinery contract.
Although the specific currency utilized in the agreement has not been specified, the bank’s placement under US sanctions denotes its likelihood in local currencies. Moreover, the alliance has sought greater engagement with Russian financial institutions following the implementation of those sanctions.
For much of the last several months, the BRICS alliance has made de-dollarization a focal point of its policies. Specifically, the bloc has consistently sought to champion and promote the use of local currencies. Amid Russian sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, such developments have become necessary.
Now, the bloc has seemingly furthered that plan. Indeed, BRICS mainstays South Africa and Russia have agreed to ditch the US dollar in a landmark $265 million oil deal. Moreover, the former has selected Russia’s Gazprombank as its partner in a new gas refinery agreement. Reports indicate that the bank was selected from a pool of 20 bidders after 19 were disqualified on a technicality.
https://watcher.guru/news/brics-russia-south-africa-ditch-us-dollar-in-265m-oil-deal
Countercurrent - December 14, 2023
‘Let It Be a Tale’: On Refaat Alareer and the Martyrdom of the Gaza Intellectual
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
What is taking place in Gaza is meant for the history books: an epic tale of a small nation under a long, brutal siege for many years, facing one of the greatest military powers in the world. And yet, it refuses to be defeated.
Not even the legendary tenacity of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ characters can be compared to the heroism of Gazans, living over a tiny stretch of land while subsisting on the precipice of calamity, even long before the Israeli genocide.
But if Gaza has already beenﾠdeclared uninhabitable by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as early as 2020, how is it able to cope with everything that took place since then, particularly the grueling and unprecedented Israeli war, starting on October 7?
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,”ﾠsaid Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9. In fact, Israel carried out far greater war crimes than the choking of 2.3 million people.
“No place is safe, not even hospitals and schools,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on X on November 11. Things have become far worse since that statement was made.
And, because Gazans refused to leave their homeland, the 365 sq kilometers – approx. 141 sq miles – turned into a hunting ground of human beings, who were killed in every way imaginable. Those who did not die under the rubble of their homes or were gunned down by attack helicopters while attempting to escape from one region to another, are now dying from disease and hunger.
Not a single category of Palestinians has been spared this horrible fate: the children, the women, the educators, the doctors and medics, the rescuers, even the artists and the poets. Each one of these groups has an ever-growing list of names, updated daily.
Fully aware of the extent of its war crimes in Gaza, Israel has systematically targeted Gaza’s storytellers – its journalists and their families, the bloggers, the intellectuals and even the social media influencers.
While Palestinians insist that their collective pain – and resistance – must be televised, Israel is doing everything in its power to eliminate the storytellers.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a statement on December 6 that 75 Palestinian Journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since the beginning of the war.
The above number does not include many citizen journalists and writers who do not necessarily operate in an official capacity. It also does not include members of their families, like theﾠfamily of journalist Wael al-Dahdouh or theﾠfamily of Moamen Al Sharafi.
Aware that their intellectuals are targets for Israel, Gazans have, for years, attempted to produce yet more storytellers. In 2015, a group of young journalists and studentsﾠformed a group they called ‘We Are Not Numbers’. “We Are Not Numbers tells the stories behind the numbers of Palestinians in the news and advocates for their human rights”, WANNﾠdescribed itself.
A co-founder of the group, Professor Refaat Alareer, is a beloved Palestinian educator from Gaza. A young intellectual, whose brilliance is only matched by his kindness, Alareer believed that the story of Palestine, Gaza in particular, should be told by the Palestinians themselves, whose relationship to the Palestinian discourse cannot be marginal.
“As Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and tell her stories. For Palestine,” Alareerﾠwrote in his contribution in the volume ‘Light in Gaza: Writing Born of Fire’.
He edited several books, including ‘Gaza Writes Back’ and ‘Gaza Unsilenced’, which also allowed him to take the message of other Palestinian intellectuals in Gaza to the rest of the world.
“Sometimes a homeland becomes a tale. We love the story because it is about our homeland and we love our homeland even more because of the story,” heﾠwrote in ‘Gaza Writes Back’.
Alareer reportedlyﾠrefused to leave northern Gaza, even after Israel had managed to isolate it from the rest of the Strip, subjecting it to countless massacres.
As if aware of the fate awaiting him, Alareer tweeted this line, along with a poem he had penned: “If I must die, let it be a tale.”
On December 7, the writers’ collective, We Are Not Numbers, declared that their beloved founder, Refaat Alareer, wasﾠkilled in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza.
Alareer was not the only member of the collective who was killed by Israel. On October 14,ﾠYousef Dawas and on November 24,ﾠMohammed Zaher Hammo, were killed, with members of their families, in Israeli strikes on various parts of the Gaza Strip.
In one of the workshops I did with the group, prior to the war, Yousef Dawas stood out, and not only because of his unusually long hair, but because of his clever and pointed questions.
He wanted to tell the stories of ordinary Gazans, so that other ordinary people around the world can appreciate the everyday struggle of the Palestinian people, their righteous quest for justice and their hope for a better future.
These storytellers were all killed by Israel, with the hope that the stories will die with them. But Israel will fail because the collective story is bigger than all of us. A nation that has produced the likes of Ghassan Kanafani, Basil al-Araj and Refaat Alareer will always produce great intellectuals, who will serve the historic role of telling the story of Palestine and her liberation.
This is the last poem shared by Alareer.
“If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze—
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself—
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.”
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
Countercurrent - December 14, 2023
Never Forget: Rachel Aliene Corrie
by Gary Steven Corseri
Rachel Aliene Corrie (April 10, 1979 – March 16, 2003) was an American peace activist and a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement. She was crushed to death while trying to stop an Israeli Defense Forces armored bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah, in the occupied Gaza Strip. This poem is dedicated to her, in memoriam.)
Barely a woman, twenty three years old–
Soft, vulnerable…. Surely, the Monster
Will stop in its tracks!
She steels her will,
Thinks of the tank in Tiananmen Square–
One little man stopping a tank!
Surely,
They will perceive her love-resolve:
To die in a great cause is to mortar–
Not martyr–the Cause!
She must not die!
Cannot break her parents’ hearts–
Back home! (She sees them now!)
If only they knew
How she had grown!
They would understand…
This other love that held her now
In place, this love of home and place,
And the Other,
Of the faces, the voices, the laughter…
Olive groves and sun-scented skin;
The love she’d found for dispossessed:
Children, fathers, mothers–also of her,
Belonging to her, because
Everyone suffering was One.
It was hard to explain… but the Monster
Truck was coming now–remorseless Caterpillar,
Sci-fi bulldozer to scoop her up!
It would stop in its tracks!
Because a man drove it!
A man who would see her,
In her orange jacket
Like a bumble bee!
He would see she had to
Do it—stand there in its way
(Though its iron mouth gaped,
Though its hard lips snarled.)
To save their houses, olive groves… to save
Herself! And these other selves–part of her
And part of the one who drove the Monster
Closer now, with droning, cacophonous,
Tank-like clanking,
And the sun burning its panes like eyes.
Surely
It must stop, if she steels her will, is resolute,
Peers in his eyes… surely… then… understand…
He will–the suffering… the children… why she stood
In its way–
Barely a woman, bones against
The iron tread, encircling,
Winding, crushing, crackling,
Bursting in sunburst light,
In the dying light,
For the sake of all.
(for Rachel Corrie; first published at Transcend Media Service, 2017)
Gary Steven Corseri has taught in US public schools and prisons, and at US and Japanese universities. His prose and poems have appeared at Countercurrents, Counterpunch, Village Voice, The New York Times, Redbook Magazine, and hundreds of other periodicals and websites. His dramas have been produced on Atlanta-PBS and elsewhere, and he has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum. His books include novels, and the poetry volume, “Random Descent” (Anhinga Press). He can be contacted at garyscorseri@gmail.com.
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