Wat achtergrondinformatie over:
FOLKERT JENSMA
Journalist en jurist Folkert Jensma (1957) werkt sinds 1985 voor NRC Handelsblad op de terreinen bestuur, justitie, politiek en Europa. Hij schreef over de Europese eenwording door de verdragen van Schengen in 1985 en van Maastricht in 1992. Vanuit Brussel beschreef hij de voorbereiding van de euro, de dood van koning Boudewijn en de desintegratie van Joegoslavië. Als hoofdredacteur, tot 2006, was hij mee verantwoordelijk voor de introductie van nrc.next, de bijlage Opinie & Debat, het magazine M en de introductie van Europa- en Wetenschapspagina's in de dagkrant. Sindsdien schrijft hij als commentator de juridische hoofdartikelen en achtergrondstukken in de NRC-kranten en op de site.
Jensma schreef onlangs voor zijn krant het volgende:
‘Heinekenrellen’, een beter etiket voor Haren
In het rapport-Cohen worden de 108 arrestanten helemaal nageplozen. Het is werkende of schoolgaande jeugd, op mbo-niveau. Volgens de politie „gewone Hollandse jongens en meisjes”, allemaal uit de streek.
Nu is ‘gewoon’ een ingewikkeld criterium. Ik keek nogal op van hun trackrecord. Meer dan de helft was eerder in contact geweest met de politie wegens overlast in groepsverband. Vooral vernielingen, graffiti, openbaar drinken en blowen. Feitelijk kwamen bij de meeste arrestanten ‘politiecontacten’ voor, maar dan voor lichte delicten (belediging, geen licht op de fiets, geen ID). Of wat de politie ‘opgroeigedrag van adolescenten’ noemt...
Als de samenleving overmatige alcoholconsumptie niet onder controle brengt, dan zullen zulke rellen dus blijven voorkomen. Die harde en duidelijke conclusie is volgens mij niet goed gehoord. Ook als de burgemeester en de politie hun zaken wél op orde hebben. Dus als ze de tv-satellietwagens wél op tijd wegsturen, de opruiers op Facebook wél tijdig platleggen met een maatregel, zoals in Schiedam. Als ze wel de politietactiek, inzet en uitrusting op orde hebben, wel voor afleiding en verzorging van het publiek hebben gezorgd.
Kortom, al die gezond verstanddingen doen, waar ze voor betaald worden. Dan nog is het gezag hulpeloos tegen een dronken feestmenigte. Op zomaar een kruispunt. Dat is de echte les van de Heinekenrellen in Haren.
Nu moet u weten dat deze zelfde 'Jensma van augustus 1996 tot september 2006 hoofdredacteur van NRC Handelsblad [was].'
Onder zijn verantwoordelijkheid adviseerde op 20 maart 2003, de dag dat de illegale inval in Irak begon, het NRC, ik citeer:
Nu de oorlog is begonnen, moeten president Bush en premier Blair worden gesteund. Die steun kan niet blijven steken in verbale vrijblijvendheid. Dat betekent dus politieke steun - en als het moet ook militaire.
Bekend is dat deze Amerikaanse agressieoorlog met de leugen begon dat
Saddam Hussein's armoury of chemical weapons is on standby for use within 45 minutes, Tony Blair's dossier revealed today. The Iraqi leader has 20 missiles which could reach British military bases in Cyprus, as well as Israel and Nato members Greece and Turkey. He has also been seeking to buy uranium from Africa for use in nuclear weapons. Those are the key charges in a 14-point "dossier of death" finally published by the Government today.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-139703/Just-45-minutes-attack.html#ixzz2P97Tx6uB
De NRC heeft zich nooit verontschuldigd voor het feit dat de krant adviseerde het internationaal recht te schenden en daardoor mede verantwoordelijk is voor de vele honderdduizenden gedode Irakese burgers, 2,5 miljoen Irakese vluchtelingen, van wie nog een miljoen in het buitenland leeft, en voor het opbreken van Irak in etnisch gezuiverde gebieden. En nog steeds meent Folkert Jensma dat hij als jurist, intellectueel en journalist andere burgers de maat kan nemen. Dat is kennelijk gewoon in Nederland. Om hem in dit verband zelf te citeren:
Nu is ‘gewoon’ een ingewikkeld criterium. Ik keek nogal op van hun trackrecord.
Folkert Jensma, beste collega, ook 'ik keek nogal op van' niet zozeer hun 'trackrecord,' want een paar raddraaiers en enkele bebloede koppen en wat materiele schade is niets vergeleken bij de onvoorstelbare chaos en terreur van de westerse geweldplegers in Irak. Ik keek naar jouw 'trackrecord,' en eerlijk is eerlijk, iemand die in 2003 de terreur tegen Irak als volgt publiekelijk aanprees:
Die steun kan niet blijven steken in verbale vrijblijvendheid. Dat betekent dus politieke steun - en als het moet ook militaire,
dient een toontje lager te zingen. Hoe kan het, collega, dat jij grootschalige terreur in het buitenland steunt en je je maanden later nog steeds druk maakt over een binnenlands akkefietje. Hoe kan het dat iemand zoals jij die bloed aan zijn handen heeft, en als jurist wist dat de inval in Irak volstrekt illegaal was, je zo kan opwinden over iets kleins als Haren? Leg het ons uit. En Jensma, wanneer je je een momentje kunt losscheuren van het grote drama in Haren lees dit artikel dan even van een echte, dus kritische journalist naar aanleiding van de tiende verjaardag van het begin van de door jou gesteunde westerse terreur in Irak:
One of the better short pieces I've seen on the subject comes from -- of all people -- an actual Iraqi. Sami Ramadani, a dissident forced into exile by Saddam, has been one of the most insightful observers -- and vociferous opponents -- of the atrocities inflicted on his country by Western elites and their local collaborators (including, of course, for many decades, Saddam Hussein). From the Guardian:
Ten years on from the shock and awe of the 2003 Bush and Blair war – which followed 13 years of murderous sanctions, and 35 years of Saddamist dictatorship – my tormented land, once a cradle of civilisation, is staring into the abyss.
Wanton imperialist intervention and dictatorial rule have together been responsible for the deaths of more than a million people since 1991. And yet, according to both Tony Blair and the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the "price is worth it". Blair, whom most Iraqis regard as a war criminal, is given VIP treatment by a culpable media. Iraqis listen in disbelief when he says: "I feel responsibility but no regret for removing Saddam Hussein." (As if Saddam and his henchmen were simply whisked away, leaving the people to build a democratic state). It enrages us to see Blair build a business empire, capitalising on his role in piling up more Iraqi skulls than even Saddam managed.
As an exile, I was painfully aware of Saddam's crimes, which for me started with the disappearance from Baghdad's medical college of my dearest school friend, Hazim. The Iraqi people are fully aware, too, that Saddam committed all his major crimes while an ally of western powers. On the eve of the 2003 invasion I wrote this for the Guardian:
"In Iraq, the US record speaks for itself: it backed Saddam's party, the Ba'ath, to capture power in 1963, murdering thousands of socialists, communists and democrats; it backed the Ba'ath party in 1968 when Saddam was installed as vice-president; it helped him and the Shah of Iran in 1975 to crush the Kurdish nationalist movement; it increased its support for Saddam in 1979…helping him launch his war of aggression against Iran in 1980; it backed him throughout the horrific eight years of war (1980 to 1988), in which a million Iranians and Iraqis were slaughtered, in the full knowledge that he was using chemical weapons and gassing Kurds and Marsh Arabs; it encouraged him in 1990 to invade Kuwait…; it backed him in 1991 when Bush [senior] suddenly stopped the war, exactly 24 hours after the start of the great March uprising that engulfed the south and Iraqi Kurdistan…"
But when it was no longer in their interests to back him, the US and UK drowned Iraq in blood.
…We haven't even counted the dead yet, let alone the injured, displaced and traumatised. Countless thousands are still missing. Of the more than 4 million refugees, at least a million are yet to go back to their homeland, and there still about a million internal refugees. On an almost daily basis, explosions and shootings continue to kill the innocent. … Lack of electricity, clean water and other essential services continues to hit millions of impoverished and unemployed people, in one of the richest countries on the planet. Women and children pay the highest price. Women's rights, and human rights in general, are daily suppressed.
And what of democracy, supposedly the point of it all? The US-led occupying authorities nurtured a "political process" and a constitution designed to sow sectarian and ethnic discord. Having failed to crush the resistance to direct occupation, they resorted to divide-and-rule to keep their foothold in Iraq. Using torture, sectarian death squads and billions of dollars, the occupation has succeeded in weakening the social fabric and elevating a corrupt ruling class that gets richer by the day, salivating at the prospect of acquiring a bigger share of Iraq's natural resources, which are mostly mortgaged to foreign oil companies and construction firms.
Warring sectarian and ethnic forces, either allied to or fearing US influence, dominate the dysfunctional and corrupt Iraqi state institutions, but the US embassy in Baghdad – the biggest in the world – still calls the shots. Iraq is not really a sovereign state, languishing under the punitive Chapter VII of the UN charter.
Wanton imperialist intervention and dictatorial rule have together been responsible for the deaths of more than a million people since 1991. And yet, according to both Tony Blair and the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the "price is worth it". Blair, whom most Iraqis regard as a war criminal, is given VIP treatment by a culpable media. Iraqis listen in disbelief when he says: "I feel responsibility but no regret for removing Saddam Hussein." (As if Saddam and his henchmen were simply whisked away, leaving the people to build a democratic state). It enrages us to see Blair build a business empire, capitalising on his role in piling up more Iraqi skulls than even Saddam managed.
As an exile, I was painfully aware of Saddam's crimes, which for me started with the disappearance from Baghdad's medical college of my dearest school friend, Hazim. The Iraqi people are fully aware, too, that Saddam committed all his major crimes while an ally of western powers. On the eve of the 2003 invasion I wrote this for the Guardian:
"In Iraq, the US record speaks for itself: it backed Saddam's party, the Ba'ath, to capture power in 1963, murdering thousands of socialists, communists and democrats; it backed the Ba'ath party in 1968 when Saddam was installed as vice-president; it helped him and the Shah of Iran in 1975 to crush the Kurdish nationalist movement; it increased its support for Saddam in 1979…helping him launch his war of aggression against Iran in 1980; it backed him throughout the horrific eight years of war (1980 to 1988), in which a million Iranians and Iraqis were slaughtered, in the full knowledge that he was using chemical weapons and gassing Kurds and Marsh Arabs; it encouraged him in 1990 to invade Kuwait…; it backed him in 1991 when Bush [senior] suddenly stopped the war, exactly 24 hours after the start of the great March uprising that engulfed the south and Iraqi Kurdistan…"
But when it was no longer in their interests to back him, the US and UK drowned Iraq in blood.
…We haven't even counted the dead yet, let alone the injured, displaced and traumatised. Countless thousands are still missing. Of the more than 4 million refugees, at least a million are yet to go back to their homeland, and there still about a million internal refugees. On an almost daily basis, explosions and shootings continue to kill the innocent. … Lack of electricity, clean water and other essential services continues to hit millions of impoverished and unemployed people, in one of the richest countries on the planet. Women and children pay the highest price. Women's rights, and human rights in general, are daily suppressed.
And what of democracy, supposedly the point of it all? The US-led occupying authorities nurtured a "political process" and a constitution designed to sow sectarian and ethnic discord. Having failed to crush the resistance to direct occupation, they resorted to divide-and-rule to keep their foothold in Iraq. Using torture, sectarian death squads and billions of dollars, the occupation has succeeded in weakening the social fabric and elevating a corrupt ruling class that gets richer by the day, salivating at the prospect of acquiring a bigger share of Iraq's natural resources, which are mostly mortgaged to foreign oil companies and construction firms.
Warring sectarian and ethnic forces, either allied to or fearing US influence, dominate the dysfunctional and corrupt Iraqi state institutions, but the US embassy in Baghdad – the biggest in the world – still calls the shots. Iraq is not really a sovereign state, languishing under the punitive Chapter VII of the UN charter.
1 opmerking:
"When you critique the media and you say, look, here is what Anthony Lewis or somebody else is writing, they get very angry. They say, quite correctly, "nobody ever tells me what to write. I write anything I like. All this business about pressures and constraints is nonsense because I’m never under any pressure." Which is completely true, but the point is that they wouldn’t be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. The same is mostly true of university faculty in the more ideological disciplines. They have been through the socialization system."
Noam Chomsky, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream, 1997
Een reactie posten