বৃহস্পতিবার, ২১ মার্চ, ২০১৩

 Ramadan Reflects Struggle For Democracy In Muslim World

By shipon
July 20, 2012 6:21 AM EDT

Thousands of Egyptians gather in Tahrir Square after Mohamed Morsi is declared the nation's first democratically elected president on Sunday, June 24. In a nationally televised speech, the longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood promised to represent all Egyptians.
As the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins, the Islamic world will have much to reflect upon this year. In Syria, a civil war looms if it hasn't already arrived. In Egypt, a fledgling democracy is being tested. In Afghanistan, a war led by the United States is coming to a dubious end.

For more than 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, from Mecca to Manhattan, Ramadan is a period of spiritual contemplation and renewal through fasting, prayer and abstinence, but it cannot be separated from the complex realities of the physical world.

"Ramadan is about freeing yourself from your wants, but there is also the purpose of making you aware of the less fortunate," said Safaa Zarzour, general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America, an advocacy group for Muslims in the U.S. "Some of us can withhold [from eating] food, but others do not have that option."

In the U.S., where Muslims of all backgrounds have been born or immigrated to, some from areas ravaged by conflict, there is a unique platform from which to view the diverse expressions of faith throughout the Islamic world, particularly during a time of great transition that is perhaps best characterized by the recent wave of popular democratic uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East known as the Arab Spring.

Zarzour emphasized the parallel between observance of Ramadan through pursuing freedom from physical desires and the overall struggle for freedom from oppression in many parts of the Islamic world.

"They are very connected and should not be divorced from each other," he said. "What's happening now, especially in Syria, there are people with no food, some eating the leaves off trees. It makes Ramadan very real for all of us."

Indeed, Syrians will have a very different experience of the holy month, as violence continues to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis there, while President Bashar al-Assad desperately clings to power.

"There is no illusion about how difficult and painful this will be," Zarzour said of the 14-month ongoing conflict in Syria in which over 9,000 lives are estimated to have been lost. "But there is also no illusion about the people's determination to fight for their freedom."

While events like in Syria and elsewhere in the world have heightened awareness of the meaning of Ramadan for Muslims in America, they have also changed perceptions of Islam for many non-Muslims, as well.

Zarzour spoke of the Arab Spring as dismantling the prejudiced concept of Arab exceptionalism, a belief that people in the Muslim and Arab world are inherently predisposed to accepting oppression.

"Those people long for democracy just as anybody else," he said.
Cyrus McGoldrick, civil rights manager at the U.S.-based Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations, echoed Zarzour's sentiment.

"I think that the Arab Spring humanized Islam and Muslims for many Americans, as people realized that we want the same rights and sovereignty and dignity that all human beings expect," McGoldrick wrote in an email.
"We are at our best when we have true solidarity with all people struggling for justice, moving beyond the dividing lines of nationality, ethnicity, language, class and sect," he added.

Israel to crush Palestinian uprising

Big News Network.com
Sunday 20th February, 2011
Until now the U.S. has been but a sideshow in the in the upheavel sweeping across the Middle East.
A major risk for the U.S. has been whether the anger and frustration that has inspired the protests that have been unleashed in several Mideast and North African nations would spill over to the U.S. So far that has not been the case.

Then on Friday the U.S. went to the United Nations after spending a week trying to get the Palestinian Authority to back down on a resolution it was promoting which described Israel’s settlement activity as illegal. The U.S. government, through its Congress, which many around the world perceive to be controlled by Israel, reportedly even threatened to end funding to the Palestinians if they did not back down on the vote. Other countries were approached by the U.S. to vote against the resolution, or at the very least to abstain. None agreed. All fourteen states voted for the resolution, leaving the U.S. as a lone voice, wondering how it has become so out of touch with the rest of the world, in having to use its power of veto to stifle the international community.

"It did so at a time when winds of change are blowing in the Middle East. A promise of change was heard from America, but instead, it continued with its automatic responses and its blind support of Israel's settlement building," wrote Israeli journalist Gideon Levy in the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz. "This is not an America that will be able to change its standing among the peoples of the region. And Israel, an international pariah, once again found itself supported only by America," Levy wrote.

The veto has received little mainstream press but is a major talking point in Arab countries.

Largely sponsored by Arab nations the veto has caused outrage. Governments under pressure from uprisings in neighbouring countries are however not responding to the anger of their populations against the U.S.

Media in Gulf countries such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman in fact have largely ignored the story of the veto. The same states are providing few details of the uprising in neighbouring state Bahrain, probably fearing the unrest there could become contagious.

The Palestinians themselves however are calling for a “Day of Rage” for next Friday to protest the U.S. veto. Heading the call is Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, which governs Gaza, has joined with Abbas’s Fatah in denouncing the U.S. veto.

An Arab parliamentarian in Israel’s Knesset (Parliament) Ibrahim Sarsour on Saturday accused U.S. President Barack Obama of betraying the Palestinians and the Arab would, and said “he should go to Hell.”. In a letter to Abbas, Sarsour said Obama had surrenderd to Israel to which he is “blind biased,” and accused Obama of putting undue pressure and making threats to the Palestinian leadership. “After the exposure of lies from the US, we must say frankly to Obama: You no longer scare us and you can go to hell,” Sarsour wrote.

“Obama cannot be trusted. We knew his promises were lies. The time has come to spit in the face of the Americans,” he said.

Sarsour condemned Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, and Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who he described as “American agents in the Middle East.”

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night, Sarsour said all Israelis should be upset with how Obama has handled the Middle East conflict. He said the UN decision was bad for Israel in the long run, because it would mislead Israelis into thinking that there was not a consensus that the settlements violate international law and are an obstacle to peace.

“We had hope in Obama but his unwavering defense of Israel has left him in an unexplainable coma when it comes to the peace process,” he said. “He gave into threats from Jews in Congress and stopped seeking true peace, so we have no choice but to tell him that he is no longer wanted in the Middle East and that he can go to hell.”

Jewish members of the Knesset however were happy about the veto “I welcome his veto and I hope that it will be the start of a new, pro-Israel Obama for the first time since he took office, though I have my doubts,” Likud MK Danny Danon was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as saying.

Scores of protesters meantime demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. They carried banners saying “Veto settlements, vote justice,” “Stop US-supported occupaction,” and “UN,US, its time for B.D.S. (boycott, divestment, sanctions against Israel). One of the demonstrators Ronnie Barkan told The Jerusalem Post the protest is part of “a new campaign pointing a finger at the US complicity in Israeli crimes.”

Barkan called the veto “just a continuation of the same policies of the US, which are going against the consensus of world opinion and civil society protests against Israeli actions. The veto clearly shows how utterly complicit the US is in funding and supporting Israeli crimes and shows again that Israeli apartheid is an American-Israeli project.”

Israel meantime has been concerned for some weeks uprisings elsewhere in the region could occur in the West Bank. Israel has not bee a source of the anger inspiring protesters in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or Bahrain, although to a minor degree some focus has been on U.S. support for regimes in these countries (tacit-support in the case of Libya).

The Israeli military in fact has been building rapid-response forces and idetifying vantage points in the Palestinian territories “that could be used to contain such protests.”

“The IDF’s Central Command assesses that the Palestinians could resort to so-called non-violent resistance, on a scale previously unknown to Israel, in the absence of peace negotiations,” a report published this week in The Jerusalem Post said.

“While there is deemed to be some possibility that such demonstrations will take place in the near future in the spirit of Egypt, Tunisia and Iran, a senior officer said it was more likely that the Palestinian Authority would prevent this from happening until after elections in September.”

“One senior officer said commanders were discussing ways to counter and contain large demonstrations launched simultaneously in different parts of the West Bank,” The Jerusalem Post article said.

“We are preparing different responses for different scenarios to think about what we will do if there are, for example, thirty marches of several thousand people each,” the officer said. “This is something we have yet to encounter.”

The Israeli military, possibly in the light of the attack by Naval commandos on the Turkish-flottila heading to Gaza last year, admits it does not know how it would respond to multiple protests across the territories “and contain the protests which could lead to a high number of casualties.” As a result of this the military says it is mentally preparing its soldiers on how they should respond.

Israel says it has been “keeping a close eye,” on the Palestinians in recent weeks since the events in Egypt “to ensure the violence does not spread to the West Bank.”

The Jerusalem Post report said the IDF was concerned “the PA could allow and even possibly encourage citizens to launch so-called non-violent resistance."

It will be a far cry for the U.S. if it is called to respond to peaceful protests in the Palestinian territories being crushed by the Israeli army, when it has described (albeit belatedly) the manner in which protesters “braved” the Egyptian regime, and how their victory was a triumph for the Egyptian people and the world.

Arab lion roaring again

(Op-ed) shipon
Sunday 13th February, 2011
“Just listen to that roar,” urged a CNN correspondent in Egypt, as thousands of Egyptian protesters charged, fists pumped, against hundreds of armed Egyptian security forces.

What a roar it was, indeed. The protests have shown the world that Arabs are capable of much more than merely being pitiable statistics of unemployment and illiteracy, or powerless subjects of ‘moderate’ but ‘strong’ leaders (an acronym for friendly dictators).

The times are changing, and British MP George Galloway’s comment about the Arab lion roaring again seems truer by the day. The Egyptians have revolted in style, and their revolution will go down in history books with such adjectives as “great”, “noble” and “historic”.

Truth be told, Arabs have had their fair share of conjured ‘revolutions’. Arab regimes have always been generous in how they ascribed the loaded term to their military coups or other stunts designed to impress or intimidate the masses. Any modern history of the Arab world will reveal an abundant use of the term ‘thawra’ – revolution. The label has been useful, for those who dared criticize a regime, or demanded basic rights (such as food) could then be dubbed enemies of whatever make-belief revolution the men in power championed. Innumerable Arab political prisoners were designated ‘a’da’ al-thawra’ – enemies of the revolution – and they paid a heavy price for their ‘crimes’. In Egypt alone, rough estimates put the current number of political prisoners (from different ideological backgrounds) at 20,000. The figure must be much larger now that the new enemies of the revolution – i.e. most of the Egyptian population – have dared demand freedoms, rights, democracy, and the biggest taboo of all: social justice

If there is any revolution deserving of the name, it is this one. Thanks to Egypt, people the world over have been forced to re-think their previous idea of “Arabs”. Even many of us who insisted that the future of the Middle East could only be decided by the people themselves had eventually started to lose hope. We were told our words were redundant, sentimental, and, at best, an opportunity for poetic reflection, but not realpolitik. Now we know we have been right all along. Egypt is the clearest possible manifestation of the truth of people shaping their own history - not just in the Middle East, but anywhere.
The spontaneous popular revolution in Egypt was a most befitting uplift to the collective humiliation that Arabs have felt for so many years, but even more acutely since the US invasion and utter violation of Iraq.

“It became almost a burden being an Arab”, a caller told Al Jazeera. Looking “Middle Eastern” became sufficient grounds for suspicion in international airports. It was not considered entirely racist to ask such questions as “Are Arabs capable of achieving democracy?” In fact, heated media discussions emanated from the type of questions that pondered what Arabs were – or rather, were not capable of achieving. Every war against the Arabs was done in the name of “bringing” something to people who seemed impeded by their own collective failures. In one of my first political science classes at the University of Washington, years ago, the professor told us that we would be “examining the Middle East, which consists of strong governments and weak peoples.” With the exception of Israel, of course.

The media has long repeated the mantra that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy. Combined with serious doubts regarding the Arabs’ readiness for democracy, the conclusion offered is: Israel carries similar values to the US, the West, the First World, the civilized hemisphere, and the Arabs epitomize all the ailments of the world. It matters little that Arab regimes were made ‘powerful’ by the backing of their western benefactors, or that oppression – in the name of fighting the enemies of peace and progress – was urged, financed and orchestrated with western interests in mind. The fact that the bullets and canister teargas that killed and wounded numerous Egyptians had the following words inscribed on it in Arabic: ‘suni’a fi al-wilayat al-mutahida al-amrikyia’ – Made in the United States – was also deemed entirely irrelevant to any discussion on how and why Egyptians were being suppressed or why the Arab Lion must never find its roar.

“The much-feted Mossad was taken by surprise,” wrote Uri Avnery. The CIA was too, although US lawmakers are trying to determine “whether the CIA and other spy agencies failed to give President Obama adequate warning of the unfolding crisis in Egypt” (as reported by Greg Miller in the Washington Post, February 4). Senator Dianne Feinstein who heads the Intelligence Committee, accused the intelligence community of ‘lacking” performance. The CIA should have monitored Facebook more closely, she suggested.

But there can be no telling when a nation revolts. Most of the chanting multitudes have no Facebook accounts. They don’t tweet either. In Tahrir Square, a man with a moustache, dark skin and handsome features carried a cardboard sign on which he had written, rather hurriedly: “I want to eat. My monthly salary is 267 (Egyptian) pounds – approx $45 – and I have four children.”
Others want to breathe the air of freedom. Others still want justice. Dignity. Equality. Democracy. Hope. How can such values be measured, or safeguarded against?

There is a very popular word in Egypt - al-Sabr. It means patience. But noone could predict when the patience would run out. Arab and Egyptian intellectuals didn’t see it coming, and even the country’s opposition parties were caught by surprise. Everyone tried to catch up as millions -of long-oppressed Egyptians erupted in astounding unison: hurriya, hurriya, adalah igtimayyia – freedom, freedom, social justice.

Just when we were told that a religious strife was about to engulf Egypt, and that the people were subdued to the point that there was no hope, millions of brave Egyptians declared a revolution that brought Muslims and Christians together. The courage and the bravery they displayed is enough to restore our faith in the world - in the human race, and in ourselves. Those who are still wondering if Arabs are capable of this or that need not ponder anymore. Just listen to them roar, and you will find the answer.

Lying Nick Clegg is the whore of Westminster

by Tony Parsons, [Daily Mirror] 11/12/2010

NOT long after becoming President, Barack Obama was reminded that he had promised his daughters a dog once he was in the White House.

“Campaign promise,” said Obama, dismissing the promise of a dog with a wave of his hand.

And it was funny because the joke acknowledged the way that all politicians promise you one thing and then deliver something else.

Obama’s quip measured the gap between what politicians want to do and what they are capable of doing in the real world.

Politicians all say one thing and then do another. This is inevitable. They are caught between the way they would like the world to be and the way that it really is – a degree of hypocrisy comes with the job.

But what Nick Clegg has done is something else.

There is a difference between compromise and stinking ­hypocrisy. There is a difference between being a reluctant realist and a shameless liar.

Clegg has got it the wrong way round. He says that he would have kept his promise to abolish “unfair” tuition fees if the Lib Dems had won the general election.

But can’t he see the bloody obvious? One of the reasons he is in a Coalition government is precisely because of the promises he made when he was campaigning. Many voters thought you actually meant what you were saying, Nick!

Politicians are forced to manage the art of the possible. That is why, as a breed, they are so widely despised.

They are destined to ­disappoint because ­concessions, negotiations and compromise are what they do for a living.

But Nick Clegg is something else.

Never in the history of political hypocrisy has a party leader so brazenly said one thing and then done exactly the opposite.

That is not compromise. That is not the real world intruding on idealism. That is lying through your pearly whites.

That is whoring your principles, your party and your supporters for a photo opportunity in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street. That is selling all your party believes in down the river for the sake of a fleeting taste of power.



Home News Columnists Tony Parsons Lying Nick Clegg is the whore of Westminster
by Tony Parsons, Daily Mirror 11/12/2010


NOT long after becoming President, Barack Obama was reminded that he had promised his daughters a dog once he was in the White House.

“Campaign promise,” said Obama, dismissing the promise of a dog with a wave of his hand.

And it was funny because the joke acknowledged the way that all politicians promise you one thing and then deliver something else.

Obama’s quip measured the gap between what politicians want to do and what they are capable of doing in the real world.

Politicians all say one thing and then do another. This is inevitable. They are caught between the way they would like the world to be and the way that it really is – a degree of hypocrisy comes with the job.

But what Nick Clegg has done is something else.

There is a difference between compromise and stinking ­hypocrisy. There is a difference between being a reluctant realist and a shameless liar.

Clegg has got it the wrong way round. He says that he would have kept his promise to abolish “unfair” tuition fees if the Lib Dems had won the general election.

But can’t he see the bloody obvious? One of the reasons he is in a Coalition government is precisely because of the promises he made when he was campaigning. Many voters thought you actually meant what you were saying, Nick!

Politicians are forced to manage the art of the possible. That is why, as a breed, they are so widely despised.

They are destined to ­disappoint because ­concessions, negotiations and compromise are what they do for a living.

But Nick Clegg is something else.

Never in the history of political hypocrisy has a party leader so brazenly said one thing and then done exactly the opposite.

That is not compromise. That is not the real world intruding on idealism. That is lying through your pearly whites.

That is whoring your principles, your party and your supporters for a photo opportunity in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street. That is selling all your party believes in down the river for the sake of a fleeting taste of power.

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That is telling the electorate that campaign promises are just a con to get you to place your cross on the ballot paper.

The yawning abyss between Clegg’s words and deeds imply that our democracy is a sick joke, and that every politician in the land will promise you anything, and then hump you and dump you for a ­chauffeured limo and a good seat in the House of Commons.

It is difficult to see how the Lib Dems, let alone Nick Clegg, can ever recover from this betrayal of everything they pretended to believe in.

Some say that the student protests will change nothing. They are ­probably right.

But that does not mean that it is wrong to protest.

When I was a child, students rioted outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square, protesting against the war in Vietnam.

Did that stop one Vietnamese village from being burned by napalm? No.

When I was a young man, I was there with anti-Nazi protestors when the National Front goose-stepped through Lewisham.

Did that stop racism in this country? ­Unfortunately not.

The students on the streets of London are unlikely to change ConDem policy to annihilate social mobility in this country.

But that is no reason to curl up and die.

Many of those students will have believed Nick Clegg when he batted his eyelashes and ­promised to abolish unfair tuition fees.

Now he is holding David Cameron’s coat while he robs bright working class kids of their future.

It is impossible to see how this can be written off as mere political compromise. It is impossible to see how this can be forgiven or forgotten.

In the end Barack Obama’s daughters got their dog. But Nick Clegg has sold those students a pup.

They are right to be mad as hell.

 Blood of innocents on Tony Blair’s grasping hands
[http://www.mirror.co.uk/] By Tony Parsons 4/09/2010

There is something rotten at the heart of British ­politics and it can be traced directly back to Tony Blair.

In fairness, the gurning old Bible-basher was not the first politician to lie through his broken teeth and to feather his own nest. But he is without doubt the first British politician to make well over £20million while doing do.

Every time a greedy little backbench MP fiddles his expenses, he has the hot breath of Tony Blair on his neck – Blair, who treated Parliament as a stepping stone to wealth beyond imagination.

And every time a politician opens his mealy mouth and you sincerely doubt if he is telling the truth, he is in the pernicious shadow of Tony Blair – who sent this nation to war on the basis of a lie.

Personally, I’ve had the Blair versus Brown feud up the back of my eyeballs. Who cares? They are two failed politicians who have shuffled from the stage of public life.

What matters is the state that one of them has left our democracy in. And thanks to Blair, that democracy is permanently damaged.

Our distrust of politicians.

Our faith in what they tell us.

Our belief that they can make a difference.

Our conviction that we are a free nation.

Our confidence that our fighting men and women will never be asked to risk life and limbs for no good reason.

All that went right out with Blair. As did the peaceful multi-racial Britain that we knew before he came along and drove divisions of hate between communities that will last for generations.

The bombs of 7/7. The seething hatred that exists in sections of the Muslim community towards the host nation. And, yes, the antipathy that many people in this country now feel towards Muslims.

All that is the fault of Blair, and his servile following of Uncle Sam, and the mountain of burned bodies that he and George Bush created in Iraq. 100,000 dead in Iraq? Blair’s accountants can’t tell us.

Like Thatcher before him, Blair did such terrible damage to this country that it can never be quite the same again.

Thatcher ran down traditional industry, destroyed entire communities, ravaged the old British working class itself.

But Blair did something even worse. Democracy itself is in terminal decline after he lied to ­Parliament, his party and the nation so that he could play best supporting actor to America’s crusades.

Now he wants to be an envoy for peace in the Middle East. That is like getting Hitler to organise a Bar Mitzvah.

I don’t care about Blair’s playground spats with Brown. I don’t care if he favours Ed, David or Doris Miliband. I don’t care what he thinks about Lord Prezza of Hutt getting his pie belly on top of a poor old slapper when lights went out at the Commons.

What matters is that there are boys who will be in wheelchairs for the rest of their days because of Tony Blair. That there are Iraqi children with no arms and legs because of Tony Blair. That there are mothers who will never see their sons, and young wives who are now widows, and there are small children who will grow up without ever knowing their fathers – all thanks to Tony Blair and his selfish, vainglorious, vaunting ambition.

The fact that the terrible pressures of office were so great that he sometimes had half a bottle of Californian Chardonnay with his dinner doesn’t matter.

What matters is that we see right through him. What matters is that he is aware that millions of his countrymen believe every penny of his £20m-plus is stained with the blood of the innocents he crippled and killed.

Without sucking up to America, without building a bonfire of British servicemen for Uncle Sam, Blair would have been just another ex-PM – John Major without the charisma.

 

Gaza is a "prison camp", says British Prime Minister

By MAHMET GUL -27.07.10
shipon2010ctg@hotmail.com

"Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp". -David Cameron.
David Cameron has appealed to the Israeli Government to allow the free flow of humanitarian goods and people in and out of the Palestinian territory.

The UK prime minister, on Tuesday won plaudits in Ankara after attacking Israel for turning Gaza into a “prison camp” and hailing a “golden age” in Britain’s relations with Turkey, in spite of differences over Iran.

The prime minister went on to defend his depiction of Gaza as a “prison camp”, in remarks that will be cheered in Turkey but test the patience of Israel.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, commended Mr Cameron’s honesty, and compared Israel’s attack on Turkish pro-Gaza activists to Somali piracy, saying the world should not be “silent spectators” to this “oppression”.

Turning to the rift between Israel and Ankara over raid on a Gaza aid flotilla in which nine Turkish nationals were killed, Mr Cameron stopped short of backing Ankara’s demands for compensation and a full international inquiry.

However in his strongest language yet on the blockade on Gaza, Mr Cameron said: “Gaza can not and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”

“I know that Gaza has led to real strains in Turkey’s relationship with Israel,” Mr Cameron added. “But Turkey is a friend of Israel and I urge Turkey – and Israel – not to give up on that friendship.”

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President Ahmadinejad calls for 'new, just world order'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for a new world order based on justice and respect where all nations play equal roles in global management.

Addressing a meeting of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) in Tehran on Monday, the president said decades-long hatred, wars, and economic crises plaguing the world are the result of the current unjust world order.

"We need a new order, wherein all nations and governments can equally play a role in world management. Everyone should play an active role in the management of world [affairs]," the Iranian chief executive said, echoing calls he made during his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September.

"Today, it has become clear that the order stemming from materialist ideology has failed both in theory and in practice," he added.

Ahmadinejad added that Asian countries have "more responsibility," since they can tap into their vast resources, manpower, as well as culture.

"This is what the world greatly needs," he added.

Created in June 2002, the ACD is a body which aims to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level.

The 31-member body was founded originally by 18 states but expanded to include all current members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council.

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Blair's troops charity "Blood Money"

[Daily Mirror] 17.08.10
Tony Blair was yesterday accused of trying to "wash the blood from his hands" after he promised to give all the money from his memoirs to injured soldiers.
The former Prime Minister said the £4.6million advance for his book, A Journey, would go to a Royal British Legion centre for wounded troops. But critics said the gesture would not "buy" him forgiveness for taking Britain into the Iraq War.

Mr Blair's memoirs will be published next month and there will be a signing ceremony at Waterstone's flagship bookshop in London.

His office said the advance and any royalties made from the £25 book would be handed to the planned £12million Battle Back Challenge Centre, which will help rehabilitate soldiers.

The spokesman said Mr Blair had made the approach to the Legion and there were "no strings attached" such as naming the centre after him.

Mr Blair's surprise announcement comes after a string of negative stories about his autobiography.

The security bill for the signing ceremony will reportedly cost the taxpayer £100,000.

The ex-PM has also been criticised for producing a special £150 edition for the American market.

The Stop the War Coalition said: "Blair's decision to give the money made from his memoirs to the British Legion is welcome if it means that some of those who have suffered as a direct consequence of his criminal wars will benefit. But no proportion of Tony Blair's massive and ill-gotten fortune can buy him innocence or forgiveness.

"He took this country to war on a series of lies against the best legal advice and in defiance of majority opinion.

"The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in the pointless death of hundreds of British soldiers and hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. No amount of money will wash their blood from his hands."

And Peter Brierley, whose son L Cpl Shaun Brierley was killed in Iraq, also called the gift "blood money". He told the BBC: "This gift, or donation, is an absolutely fantastic thing, but it doesn't alter my aim that one day we will see Tony Blair in court for the crimes he committed."

Mr Blair is not expected to struggle without the £4.6million advance. Since stepping down in 2007 he has amassed a fortune of at least £20million.


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