Having read a recent missive from “Media Alert Transmission Hub Advanced Broadcast Application” (MATHABA)* on the subject of its having documented a revisionist conference in Sydney on the subject of 9/11;
having bugger-all response to a previous post on this issue;
having a few hours to kill, maim and torture;
I thought I might as well scribble a little more on local neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth’s media outlet of choice: mathaba.net.
To begin with, mathaba.net founder Adam (Musa) King apparently used to be known as Louis Istvan Szondy, having changed his name in 1990. In terms of the political perspective which he brings to mathaba.net — and which might explain why fascists such as Welf Herfurth and other anti-Semites are included among its few dozen correspondents — in 2003 King (Szondy) won a libel case against The Sunday Telegraph, which accused him of being a terrorist and accomplice of al-Qaeda. An extract from the text of a subsequent failed appeal (May 18, 2004) by the Telegraph (against some parts of the decision in favour of Szondy) provides the context for these libellous allegations:
It appears that the defendants’ [that is, the Telegraph‘s] interest in the claimant [that is, King/Szondy] was aroused when the police visited their offices on Friday 19th October 2001 (shortly after the destruction by terrorists of the World Trade Centre in New York) and accidentally left there a list of the names of 24 people into whom the Anti-Terrorist Branch was conducting an official investigation. Most of the names on the list were obviously Islamic, but the list contained the name of “Adam Moussa” and at least one other person with an English sounding name.
On the following Sunday, 21st October, the defendants published in the Sunday Telegraph the first of the two articles of which complaint is made in this action. It was headed “Two white suspects in Bin Laden probe” and it read as follows:
“Detectives are investigating two white people in Britain who they suspect of aiding Osama bin Laden’s terror network.
Secret Scotland Yard documents, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, name two men – one of whom is understood to be a computer expert – as assisting al-Qaeda’s network in this country. It is the first time since September 11 that white non-Muslims have been accused of involvement in Islamic extremism.
The documents reveal that a special unit has been established at the Yard to carry out ‘Operation Full Circle’, to monitor the two white men and 22 other suspects. All are being investigated to establish whether they have committed terrorist offences.
The Sunday Telegraph cannot name the two for legal and operational reasons.
One of the two white men on the list, the computer expert, is believed to have assisted bin Laden operatives with website activities. He is named in the document as also being linked to Francis Etim, who has been charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Etim, who lived in Greenwich, south-east London, was born in Britain and converted to Islam at marriage and changed his name to Sulayman Zain-Ul-Abidin.
Also on the list is a white man with a French name. Little is known of him, except that he has adopted several aliases. He is believed to be wanted in connection with Algerian plots to attack France.”
(For further discussion of the legal and political ramifications of the King case, see Jessica Hodgson, ‘Newpapers falling prey to legal eagles’, The Observer, September 28, 2003.)
Prior to mathaba.net, Szondy was also responsible for establishing the International Green Charter. In other words, Szondy was once an advocate on behalf of the ideas contained in “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution” / “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Arab Libyan Popular and Socialist Jamahirya” Muammar al-Gaddafi’s 1975 magnum opus the three-volume Green Book. In fact, Szondy remains a fan; as recently as June 2007, he describes the contents of the Book as constituting “the scientific and natural historical principles of the Third Universal Theory, the truth” (‘Founder of Green Charter International Calls For Serious Study of The Green Book’, mathaba.net, June 2007).
But what exactly is the International Green Charter?
Inspired by the Proclamation of the Great Green Charter for Human Rights on 12th June, 1988, the first Human Rights Charter to be issued by the people gathered in popular congresses, signalling the end of the era of the republics and the dawn of the era of the masses, as well as a new advancement in the definition of human rights;
Motivated by the Green Book, a guide for the total deliverance from the power of individuals, classes, clans, tribes or parties, and the path towards the establishment of a civil society where all human beings are free and equal in the exercise of power and in the possession of wealth and arms;
Convinced that the rights of Man, vicegerent of God on earth, cannot be the gift of a person nor exist in societies where exploitation and tyranny are practised, and can only be achieved by the victory of the people over their oppressors and the disappearance of regimes which annihilate freedom;
Et cetera et cetera et cetera.
al-Gaddafi, incidentally, is awesome. In addition to being Libya’s head of state and an inspiration to Szondy, Muammar has a bodyguard composed entirely of chicks. They wear blue uniforms, have black belts in karate, and were most recently seen in France when al-G popped in to visit fellow Brotherly Leader Monsieur Sarkozy (Ian Sparks, ‘Five planes, a camel, a tent and 30 female virgin bodyguards… Libyan leader Gaddafi arrives in Paris with his entourage’, The Daily Mail, December 11, 2007).
On a spotterly note, during the 1980s the Libyan Gub’mint sponsored visits to Libya by members of the Trotskyist SWP (now known as the DSP) under the auspices of a local neo-Nazi turned Islamic convert named Robert Pash (see Raiders of the Left Ark, January 13, 2006). According to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, NYU Press, 2002, p.292) in the late 1970s Pash was the Australian contact for the US-based Aryan Nations, and also distroed KKK propaganda. In the ’80s, Pash distroed al-Gaddafi’s Green Book, and later helped establish the Australian People’s Congress, an organisation which I first encountered via newspaper advertisements around the time of the first Gulf War.
At one point in 1987, according to The Australia/Israel Review (April 10–May 1, 1998):
…then Hawke Minister Clyde Holding revealed to Parliament that Pash’s outfit advocated the “biological integrity of the white race through a complete geographic and political separation of the races and thus the maintenance of international white unity”. Holding told Parliament that Pash was an “anti-Semitic right wing racist political loony in the tradition of Goebbels and Hitler,” and then tabled Queensland Police reports which showed that Mr Pash had been under investigation following death threats to Queensland’s Jewish community by the organisation, The Sword of Islam, for which of course Mr Pash was the spokesman.
Curiously, in April 1987, Libya hosted the second conference of its World Center Against Imperialism, Zionism and Racism (MATABA), in Tripoli. Pash led an Australian delegation which included, notoriously, Aboriginal activists Michael Mansell (‘Desperate Times’, ABC Message Stick, May 14, 2004) and Yaluritja Clarrie Isaacs.
In the ’90s, Pash popped up as the “Australian Association for the Study of the Juche Idea”; this being another term for the state ideology of North Korea / Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). It was in this capacity that in 1998 ‘Rashid Robert Pash’ was given the opportunity to tour the country of the illustrious Korean President Kim Il Sung and the Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il.
As for mathaba.net, as a result of his recent reconciliation with the Jewish-dominated Western powers — the UK and the US in particular, but including, of course, France’s Sarkozy — al-Gaddafi has broken poor little Szondy’s heart. This is why al-Gaddafi is regularly criticised by mathaba.net, while the contents of his little Green Book — and its strange amalgam of pan-Arabism, Islam and state socialism — remains an attractive property for the likes of Louis. And, of course, Herfurth & Co..
For further discussion on ‘Third Positionism’, see Chip Berlet, Racial Nationalism, the Third Position and Ethnoviolence (Including a Discussion of Possible Connections Between Militant Islamic Fundamentalists and the U.S. Extreme Right); on the Green Book and its diminishing funding and influence, see teh Interwebs, especially Craig S. Smith, ‘In Libya, pages fade in once-touted Green Book’, International Herald Tribune, January 5, 2005, which documents the manner in which the Gaddafi regime no longer plows dinars into promoting The Leader’s vision, and why folks like Pash turned to Juche thought for (financial) sustenance (“Tucked away in a whitewashed, Italian-colonial building set in a quiet compound on the edge of Tripoli, the largely forgotten World Center for Green Book Studies is looking for a little respect…”); The Washington Post has just published (March 29, 2008) an editorial, ‘Not Quite Free’, on Gaddafi, Libya and its relations with Western powers which is worth reading (“The turning point came in 2003, when Mr. Gaddafi renounced terrorism and agreed to dismantle his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. At the time, many attributed Mr. Gaddafi’s shift to his fear of meeting the same fate as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. It also reflected his desire to lure U.S. and other Western companies to redevelop Libya’s vast oil reserves.”).
And on a final spotterly note, sometime anarchist and boy lover Hakim Bey (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson) recounts his experience addressing a conference in Libya on the subject of the Green Book in ‘Jihad Revisited’, June 5, 2004: “The conference in Tripoli turned out to be a curious circus of “lost causes,” including two anarchists from New York (we were cheered as heroes for defying the “travel ban”), countless African liberation fronts, the interesting French “New Right” philosopher Alain de Benoist and some Australian Red/Brown types, two charming Turkish Greens, a Slovenian anarchist, a clique of Parisian Maoists, etc., and a phalanx of hospitable Libyans, all fuelled by excessive coffee intake. A German doctor gave a paper on depleted uranium in Iraq, the first time most of us had heard of such a thing. A New Zealand delegate told horror stories about privatization of water; ditto…”
*Al Mathaba Al-Alamia
Al Mathaba (meaning center) is the Libyan center for anti-imperialist propaganda which has funded third world guerilla groups. The Anti-Imperialism Center (AIC) – also known as Mathaba – is used by Gaddafi to support terrorist networks and thus plays an important role in Gaddafi’s terrorism strategy.
Al-Mathaba was established in 1982 to support “liberation and revolutionary groups”, Al-Mathaba has sponsored a number of stridently anti-Western conferences in Tripoli. At the same time, its mission is to identify and recruit revolutionaries for ideological and military training in Libya. During their training in Libyans camps, individuals are selected for advanced training, including in weapons and explosives, and indoctrination. With representatives in many Libyan embassies worldwide, Al-Mathaba runs its own independent clandestine operations and disburses payments to terrorist, insurgent, and subversive groups.
As of 1992 Al-Mathaba was headed by Musa Kusa, a Gaddafi confidant who was also Libya’s Deputy Foreign Minister. As of late 1995 Musa Kusa was the head of the Libyan External Security Agency, and was also the head of Al Mathaba International.
Al Mathaba is more a concept than an organization. Its origins are Libyan and its objective anti-imperialist. Libya’s international activity is considerable. Some see it everywhere, behind every armed, or even radical, group. It was in 1982 that Libya took the initiative of organizing an international organization essentially based on the third world: Al Mathaba.
By calling the 3rd Al Mathaba Congress in August 2000, to mark the 30th anniversary of its revolution, with the participation of many representatives, particularly from Africa and Latin America, Libya no doubt hoped to affirm for itself an active international role, far beyond its small size. Judging by the level of participation, its plan was particularly well received, reflecting the high degree of sympathy Libya enjoys in the anti-imperialist world — the result of the continuity of its efforts over a period of time.
Once an organization that backed morally, financially and physically the liberation movements seeking to overthrow oppressive regimes — often times through armed struggle — Col. Gaddafi said that “after restructuring, (Mathaba) must confront the concept of globalization.”
Many heads of state were present: Sam Nujoma (Namibia), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Yoweri Kaguta Musaveni (Uganda), Blaise Campraore (Burkina Faso), Alpha Oumar Konare (Mali), Yahya Jammeh (Gambia), Idris Deby (Chad), Abdou Diouf (Senegal), and the President of Guinea Bissao. Progressive political forces, communists and revolutionaries were there as well: the Cuban CP, Shaffik Handal (FMLN, San Salvador), the Guatemalan URNG, Tomas Borge and Daniel Ortega of the FSLN (Nicaragua), Raul Reyes (FARC, Columbia), a personal representative of Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Lula, of the Brazilian Labour Party, Gladys Marin, General Secretary of the Chilean CP, Marina Arismendi, General Secretary of the Uruguayan CP. From Europe there was a very varied Italian delegation, with the Refoundation Communist Party in particular, and a Spanish delegation from the United Left (José Cabo) and from OSPAAAL.
~ ‘Gaddafi’s Intelligence and security Agencies in Brief’, justice4libya.com, [nd]
