2002 - QeRN

Mock tribunal to try Bush for crimes in Afghanistan

From the archive (2002): a Japanese citizens’ mock tribunal — civil society improvising accountability where formal institutions would not act.

Identity: Dialogue

Open Letter in Response to Salman Rushdie

From the archive (2002): answering Rushdie with pity, not outrage — measured response as the dividend of scholarly confidence.

Archive: Pakistan

An American Overreach? by Imran Wyne

From the archive (2002): an original QeRN essay asking whether American power had overreached — the view from the Global South, written as the debate was live.

Archive: Pakistan

Treaty of 1931 & Amal Kasi's funeral

From the archive (2002): Aimal Kasi’s funeral and the Treaty of 1931 — the particular detail that archives preserve and summaries erase.

Archive: Iraq

A Modest Proposal: Let Iran "Liberate" Iraq by NOAM CHOMSKY

From the archive (2002): Chomsky’s satirical inversion of the Iraq war logic — the case tested by argument before events tested it.

Self-Reliance: Technology

Arabic, Urdu and Farsi Localization of Open-Source Software

From the archive (2002): the call to localise open-source software into Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi — an argument that now applies verbatim to open AI models.

Archive: War on Terror

The Social Wars (courtesy Le Monde Diplomatique)

From the archive (2002): Ramonet in Le Monde Diplomatique — the era’s real wars were social, not civilisational; the framing that predicted more, preserved.

Identity: Community

Islam attracts Rwanda survivors (courtesy MSNBC)

RUHENGERI, Rwanda, Sept. 23 – The villagers with their forest green head wraps and forest green Korans arrived at the mosque on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a lecture for new converts. There was one main topic: jihad. THEY FOUND their seats and flipped to the right page. Hands flew in

Self-Reliance: Economics

Foreign Investors Turning Cautious on Spending in U.S.

From the archive (2002): foreign capital cooling on the US — capital flows as sentiment with a settlement date, and the case for foundations that don’t depend on them.

Archive: Geopolitics

S. Africa Buries Remains of 'Sarah'

From the archive (2002): Sarah Baartman buried at last — dignity restored through decades of institutional persistence.

Institutions: International Order

U.S. Ties Military Aid to Peacekeepers' Immunity

From the archive (2002): aid conditioned on ICC immunity — a precise record of how international institutions are weakened by leverage, not argument.

Self-Reliance: Technology

MS Windows, the FBI and Open Source

A 2002 QeRN piece on the FBI's 'Magic Lantern', Windows backdoors and open source — an early version of what is now the AI-sovereignty argument.

Archive: War on Terror

Assassination of Leaders who did good for their Nations

From the archive (2002): a catalogue of deposed and assassinated developmental leaders — and the lesson that leadership without institutional depth does not survive its enemies.

Archive: Palestine

Israeli Army Chief to Punish Conscientious Objectors

From the archive (2002): Israeli reservists refusing service and the army’s response — conscience exercised inside an institution, preserved as part of the record.

Self-Reliance: Economics

Picket Outside The Waldorf , Barbara Garson

The WEF (World Economic Forum is meeting at the Waldorf in New York from Jan 31 to Feb 5. Barbara Garson adds some perspective on why some decisions made there will force other people to drink unhealthy water. I own shares in a few companies that are members of the

Theology: Comparative Religion

american frustration

From the archive (2002): the raw anger of the Guantanamo moment — kept as a record, alongside the lesson that patient institutional work outperformed it.

Self-Reliance: Technology

Debian Operating System

From the archive (2002): recommending Debian — community-governed software a community can read and trust. The logic now extends to open AI.

Identity: Islamophobia

Documentary: Mulla Umer, Amir-ul-Momineen

From the archive (2002): watching an ARY documentary on Mullah Omar critically — the seed of what, institutionalised, becomes media literacy.

Institutions: Governance

Hampshire College Condemns War

From the archive (2002): Hampshire College’s all-community vote against the war — a small institution using its proper forms to speak, a case study in institutional voice.

Institutions: Civil Society

Federal Bureau of Intimidation

From the archive (2002): Zinn on the FBI — know your history, keep your records, mind your rights; institutional self-defence that transfers.

Knowledge: Media Literacy

Some penetrating thoughts

Some thoughts: 1. Islam is about living in peace with nature and with each other but it demands maintaining peace too eg by confronting oppression since there is no universal peace till there is oppression. 2. Capitalism has no cause and no programme, communism had a cause but very corrupt

Archive: Afghanistan

The Slaughterhouse of Herat

From the archive (2002): Christina Lamb at the Herat camps — what the war meant at ground level, reported by someone who went.

Archive: Afghanistan

Russia re-occupies Afgh - Margolis

From the archive (2002): Margolis on Russia’s quiet gains in Afghanistan — great-power analysis that asks who benefits, not who announces.

Knowledge: Scholarship

Profiling of the sublime kind !

From the archive (2002): Duke declines Aga Khan University students — profiling in its polite, procedural form, kept as primary evidence.