For the past year or so the mainstream has been going hell for leather to bring back the nineties, and whereas the underground has referenced the early 1990’s for quite some time, the masses have only just caught up. Like anything that becomes popular, this aesthetic is now being moulded and transformed by the powers that be to favour certain people and certain ideas. When the mainstream media gets their filthy hands on something, you can bet your tie-dyed arse they’ll corrupt the shit out of it, and when it comes to the nineties, the people in charge are now hard at work to glaze over the bad, promote the good, and ignore anything but popular-culture-approved events.
If you watched Channel 4‘s propaganda show “The 90s: Ten Years That Changed The World” last month, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that white men from Manchester reinvented the fucking wheel. The show was basically a timeline of mainstream shite, brimming with overrated twats like Damien Hirst, Kate Moss, Princess Diana, Tony Blair, and the Spice Girls. The show was like some middle-class dullard’s wet-dream; it was very selective, very blinkered, very discriminatory, and very “Pop”. If you watch shows like these, you’ll go around thinking Oasis and Blur ruled music back then, you’ll think that British people were free and anarchic… wasn’t it great that we took E’s, went to raves, and finally got rid of the Conservatives? In reality the powers that be probably pitted lame acts like Oasis and Blur against each other just to see who could garner the most fans, the winner (or more accurately loser) would then publicly back Tony B-Liar and their fans would blindly vote for him… and what great things Labour did for Britain in the years that followed. My point is that if the noughties was the hellish decade we all know it was, it was the nineties that gave birth to it, and if you tot-up all the days that resembled the rose-coloured nineties they show you today, it would add up to a few weeks… if that.
Most other mainstream retrospectives of the nineties aren’t much better. Whether televisual or in print, they usually jump straight to Kurt Cobain (simply because he died) but they miss out Eddie Vedder, they suck-up to Notorious Big and Tupac (because they died too) but ignore the Wu-Tang Clan and the Boot Camp Clik. It’s almost as if these pop culture obsessives have cobbled together their personal highlights and left out everything from the underground. On top of that, they usually divert your attention away from any event that was unfavourable; they act like the entire decade was all peace, love, and happiness, like the second Summer Of Love lasted for ten years. C’mon, we all know that isn’t true.
I mean let’s not forget the first Gulf War with all its Smart Bombs and endless mentions of Desert Storm, let’s not forget the first World Trade Center Bombing and our introduction to Bin Laden. You think Islamophobia was rife in the noughties? Various reports first blamed Islam after the Oklahoma Bombings, I guess they were looking to demonise Muslims back then too, just look at all the Action movies made around that time; “True Lies”, “The Siege”, “Executive Decision”. The latter half of the nineties led perfectly to 9/11 and a second President Bush. And while I’m on the subject of politics, going from John Major to Tony Blair here in the UK made no difference whatsoever, in fact having a supposed left-wing Government in the nineties led to the worst right-wing decisions in the decade that followed.
The nineties also saw some strange reactions by the sheep-like public to certain events. There was the weird mass-hysteria that infected the world after Lady Diana’s death, if you tuned into the news in 1997 you could see random people balling their eyes out at the death of someone they’d never even met. There was also the strange reaction to the most famous case of Police brutality; Rodney King was a prime example of racism against African Americans by the Police and white America in general, but whereas recently we had the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” protest, back then the brutal beating of King led to the L.A. Riots, and despite protests against the Police being the initial intention, Asian businesses began to be targeted and looted. Whether this was a few isolated events, it showed that the nineties weren’t all positive, and it confirmed that every section of society more often than not made the wrong decisions.
Looking beyond all the Western problems, there were also many wars and conflicts taking place around the world, hell, Apartheid was still going until 1994. So it’s quite annoying when you see people in the British media acting like the nineties was a time of no conflict, I mean it wasn’t all sweetness and light if you were Rwandan, Chechen, Bosnian, a Muslim Serbian, or Croatian for example. Just because some Labour-voting, Madchester-loving, middle-class guy dressed in a shell-suit clutching a bottle of Hooch was having a good time, it doesn’t mean everybody else was.
Even for us westerners, the 1990’s was in reality not some sort of magical, relaxed, peaceful, super-artistic decade they show you today. Let’s not forget, this was the time that The Offspring was singing “I’m Pretty Fly For A Whiteguy” at the same time as the media was hailing Eminem as the greatest Rapper of all time (without any sense of irony). Turning on your TV and you’d be confronted with shit like “Jerry Springer” or “Crocodile Hunter”, on the other side there was the craptastic “Power Rangers”, during the ad break there was that Budweiser Ad with a group of cunts yelling “Whassup?!!!”. Go to the cinema there was the overrated “American Beauty”… oh look how beautiful that plastic bag looks blowing in the breeze… not! Turn on the radio and there was novelty shite like “Macarena” and “Mambo Number 5” playing, either that or there was Robbie Williams straining his nuts trying to sing “Angels” in tune. Switching channels was pointless since ‘N Sync, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, Take That, and the frigging Spice Girls were playing on loop everywhere. Hey, listen… “Things Can Only Get Better” by D:Ream is playing, I’m so glad we voted for Tony Blair, he’s really gonna turn this country around.
So let’s stop sucking off the entire decade as though it was some sort of utopia. The same decade that brought us the Stone Roses and Joe Bloggs also brought us Steps and Kappa. For every Naughty By Nature there was a Limp Bizkit, for every “X Files” there was a “Dawson’s Creek”, and let’s not forget the horrific “Big Brother”. Of course there was some great stuff going on, there were great TV Shows like “Seinfeld” and the aforementioned “X-Files”, there were some fantastic shows from the eighties like “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and “Quantum Leap” still going strong. Cartoon Network had “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Cow And Chicken”, Nickelodeon had “Kenan And Kel”, MTV still played actual music, there was “Yo! MTV Raps”, The Source Magazine was still respected, and there were great albums like “36 Chambers”. When it came to films there were some completely original ones like “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show”, there were great Action movies like “Terminator 2”, “Die Hard With A Vengeance”, and “Speed”. There were great comedies like “Home Alone”, “Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey”, and “Friday” and there were great thrillers like “Se7en” and “Silence Of The Lambs”. In fashion there was PNB, Antonio Ansaldi, Stüssy, there were baggy jeans, Timberland boots, and of course there were great arcade games like “Mortal Kombat”, “Street Fighter II”, and “Killer Instinct”. But of course this is a tiny fraction of what was created over the whole decade, and if you listed all the films, all the albums, all the TV shows, and all the products you’d realise that the nineties as well as any other period in history wasn’t perfect; anybody who tells you different is lying, they’re giving you an idealised and highly selective history.
So fuck the nineties, and fuck anybody that says anything different. Thanks to the mainstream, the majority of it was filled with utter bullshit, just like every other decade in history.
Look Without Your Rose-Tinted Spectacles.
Categories: Artwork, Life, Politics, Style And Fashion
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH...? 
Exactly! People are literally looking at the 90s with rose-tinted glasses. Thanks to 90s we now have an influx of wack pop groups from the Backstreet Boyz, Westlife, Take That, all the way to the Spice Girls. Backstreets Boys and the Spice Girls were the parents of Little Mix and One Direction.
The 90s also had an influx of novelty songs. Has everyone forgotten about Vanilla Ice? Ma$e, along with Puff Daddy, was topping the charts with his corny rhymes. 90s also gave birth to the awful Batman films, Adam Sandler would become popular, and there were the overrated films Forrest Gump and Titanic. The same decade that gave us Law and Order and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air also gave us Everybody Loves Raymund.
Every decade has its good and shitty parts and yet the media is presenting a one-sided view of the 80s and 90s.
Recently Nickelodeon made a channel called The Splat which only has shows from the 90s due to demand from 90s kids. Smh the 90s are over!! Get over it!! I’m a 2000s kid, but do you see me begging to have the 2000s back? Sure my childhood innocence had prevented me from seeing the horrific parts like 9/11, The War on Terror, and Reality TV, but at least I knew that you shouldn’t live in the past otherwise you’re hurting the future, but what future do we have? There were great shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, Jimmy Neutron, Avatar The Last Airbender, What’s with Andy, The Chappelle’s Show; but I’m not calling this a great decade. There was crap like Jersey Shore, Big Brother, Zoey 101, Little Britain, and X factor. But people never see the bad parts of the 90s and are obsessed with the decade. Because 90s nostalgia, this decade has become a remake of the 80s and 90s. Just look at Pro Era or the aforementioned nickelodeon 90s channel. Hollywood are obsessed with remaking or rebooting movies from the 80s and 90s. The only good movie remake or reboot in this decade was Dredd. The rest are ranging from average to shit. Madonna is overrated and Jeremih is copying Tina Turner and Marvin Gaye. Speaking of Marvin Gaye, his name was put in the mud by mediocre singers Charlie Puth and Megan Trainor for their trash song. We have got a rich dick- sucking Tory government in the UK for another 5 years. There could be another Bush in the White House or worse it could be Donald Trump. It hasn’t changed much since the 90s and yet it is praised as this brilliant utopia of a decade. This trend of fetishing the 90s has to end, otherwise we will never progress. 20 years from now, people will be like “This generation sucks!!! Wish I grew up in the 2010s!!!” This decade will be held as the greatest decade ever and the cycle continues.
Exactly.
Noooo not the nineties 😢 Lol I’m an old sentimental lady so bear with me…or not but I have to say that while it’s true that a lot of shitty music and movies came out during the 90s as well – there were also a lot of alternatives to all that. Ever since the 00s I felt like we didn’t have even that anymore – just the mainstream crap.
During the 90s you could actually turn a music channel on and it was actually music – videos, live performances, interviews with the musicians etc…as opppsed to mostly reality shows on what supppsed to be the music channels during the 00s.
It was easier to tolerate the existence of Backstreet Boys and the likes when we also had the Stone Roses, Massive Attack etc etc. Britney Spears would crap out “Oooh baby baby” then Skin from Skunk Anansie would belt out “Weak as I am” – and life was good again (at least for me). What I’m trying to say is that every shitty tune was countered by some amazing music. Now we don’t have even that, sadly.
May be it’s not as much the era that some of us are nostalgic for – it’s us ourselves during that era, the way we were. There was so much hope for the future during that time, dreaming about and looking forward to adulthood for those of us who were teens during that time. Then the adulthood came and of course it was nothing like we dreamed about. It was shit.
But yeah, I’m noticing this trend to “bring the 90s back” – so far they only managed to bring back the crop top but I’ll be fucked if we wore it like that during the 90s – shirt ending and pants beginning under the tits, creating an unflattering pitiful silhouette that you see now everywhere whenever you leave the house.
Agreed on the rose glasses comment as well – everything seems a lot better than it actually was when you reminisce 20 yrs later. For instance I couldn’t stand Oasis during the height of their fame – I used to find them simplistic and repetitive. The other day I heard “Live Forever” and almost cried. Then again – I’m old and sentimental, I’d probably have a good cry to Spice Girls too these days 😂
Sorry Didi – The the birth of reality TV happened in 1992 with The Real World. Any questions?
To be fair, Didi did say “as opposed to mostly reality shows on what [was] supposed to be the music channels during the 00s”. It was during that time/decade that reality television overtook music on MTV.
Reality Television by the way, goes way back before the 1990s. As far back as the 1970s there were reality shows like “Living In The Past” and “The Family”. “The Real World” might have been one of the most well known reality shows but it definitely wasn’t the first.
Good article here. You revealed that the 90s was not good. Examples you gave were very great. Blur and Limp Bizkit hurt respectively their music genres. Though I have to ask one question now. What was so bad about Crocodile Hunter? I mean that show introduced me to environmentalism, a great philosophy. Comparing it to Springer was unusual. Gandhi who introduced the idea of racial equality was an environmentalist himself. Caring about the environment and other races goes hand in hand. Racists like Natasha Leggero are harmful to society. My background is a Middle Eastern atheist. You could have included more about the drama in the Middle East back then. Facts about the Middle East in the 90s.
Iraq, may 1990: Saddam Hussein convenes an Arab summit in Baghdad during which he declares “Greater Israel” to be the common enemy and promises money to the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber
Israel, may 1990: With funding from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Abu Abbas’ PLF (now based in Baghdad) attempts to land six boats on Israel’s Nizanim beach
Lebanon, october 1990: the last Christian leader to fight Syria and the Muslims in Lebanon, general Michel Aoun, surrenders to Syria (after a battle that killed 700 Christians), and the civil war ends (40,000 people have died in 16 years)
Jordan, 1991: Mohammed Nazzal, a Jordan-based leader of Hamas, with the help of Osama bin Laden terrorists, unleashes a campaign of terrorist bombings and assassinations aimed at toppling the regime of King Hussein
Lebanon, december 1991: the last American hostage is freed from Lebanon
Jordan, 1991: One of the founders of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, settles in Jordan
Egypt, 1992: extremists launch a campaign aimed at ousting president Hosni Mubarak, that will kill 1,100 people in five years
Lebanon, february 1992: Israeli agents kill Hezbollah’s leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi
Argentina, march 1992: A bomb (sponsored by Iran and Hezbollah) against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires kills 85 people
Lebaonon, 1992: Israel assassinated the leader of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi, and Hassan Nasrallah becomes the new leader of Hezbollah
Egypt, 1993: scores of Islamic militants are hanged by Mubarak’s regime
Egypt, august 1993: Islamic terrorists try to assassinate two ministers in three months
Palestine, september 1993: following secret negotiations in Oslo, the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Arafat sign an agreement to start a peace process (Israel recognizes the PLO and the PLO recognizes Israel)
Palestine, february 1994: A jewish extremist kills 29 Muslims in a Hebron mosque
Israel, april 1994: first Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel
Palestine, may 1994: The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are turned over by Israel to the Palestinian Authority under the command of Yassir Arafat, who is, de facto, recognized as the leader of the future Palestinian state
Israel, october 1994: Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement begin a series of suicide terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, including 22 people in october 1994, 19 people in january 1995, 58 people in 1996, 24 people in 1997 (mostly suicide bombings)
Sudan, october 1994: Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (“Carlos the Jackal”) is arrested in Sudan by French agents and jailed in France
Palestine, november 1994: Arafat’s police clashes with Hamas rioters
Palestine, 1995: Fatah security chief in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, arrests hundreds of members of Hamas
Jordan, december 1994: Hamas terrorists that plotted to overthrow King Hussein are executed
Malta, october 1995: Fathi Shqaqi, founder of the Islamic Jihad, is assassinated by Israeli agents, possibly with the collaboration of the PLO, and is replaced by Ramadan Shalah whose base is in Syria
Israel, november 1995: Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish fundamentalist
Palestine, january 1996: Hamas’ engineer of suicide bombing vests Yehiya Ayyash is assassinated by Israel
Israel, february 1996: Four suicide bombings in nine days from Hamas kill kill 59 Israelis
Palestine, march 1996: Arafat cracks down on Hamas, whose terrorists are trying to derail the peace process
Israel, april 1996: Israel launches Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon that displaces 400,000 Lebanese and kills more than 100 civilians, including 102 women and children killed in the bombing of the Kana refugee center run by the United Nations
Israel, may 1996: Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party defeats Shimon Peres in the national elections
Israel, august 1996: Israel lifts all restrictions on settlement building in the West Bank
Jordan, march 1997: A Jordanian soldier kills seven Israeli schoolgirls
Israel, march 1997: Benjamin Netanyahu authorizes a Jewish settlement at Har Homa, that cuts off Palestinians of Jerusalem from Betlehem, and a few days later a suicide bomber kills three people in a Tel Aviv cafe
Israel, july 1997: Two suicide bombers kill 16 people at the Mahane Yehuda market
Israel, september 1996: 80 Palestinian protesters die in clashes with Israeli police on a tunnel opened by Israel under the mosque of Jerusalem
Jordan, september 1997: An Israeli team fails to assassinate one of the founders of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, and has to release Hamas’ spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin in exchange for Jordan to release its secret agents
Palestine, october 1997: upset by a failed assassination attempt by Israeli secret agents against Hamas’ leader in Jordan (Khaled Mishal), that threatens the peace treaty between the two countries, Jordan’s King Hussein demands and obtains the release of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Palestine, 1997: Mohammed Dalan, the leader of Fatah in Gaza, is accused of having ammassed a personal fortune by stealing from levied taxes
Palestine, december 1998: USA president Clinton lands at Gaza’s new internatinal airport, the first USA president to visit Palestine
Jordan, february 1999: King Hussein of Jordan dies and is succeeded by his son Abdullah
Israel, may 1999: Ehud Barak campaigns on a peace platform and is elected prime minister of Israel
Jordan, august 1999: Jordan expels Khaled Mashal/ Meshaal, one of the foundes of Hamas
Iraq, may 1990: Saddam Hussein convenes an Arab summit in Baghdad during which he declares “Greater Israel” to be the common enemy and promises money to the family of every Palestinian suicide bomber
Egypt, july 1990: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq accuses Kuwait of stealing its oil and waging a financial war
Iraq, august 1990: Iraqi troops invade Kuwait
Saudi Arabia, august 1990: King Fahd calls for US protection against Saddam Hussein
Iraq, january 1991: George Bush, president of the USA, leads an international coalition that attacks Iraq from all sides and liberates Kuwait
Britain, 1991: Ayad Allawi founds the Iraqi National Accord with defectors of the Iraqi army
Iraq, february 1991: The US-led coalition stops short of reaching Bagdad and leaves Saddam Hussein in power but controlling only the central part of Iraq (the southern and northern part are off-limits to Iraqi planes in order to protect the shiite and kurdish minorities)
Iraq, may 1991: USA president George Bush authorizes plans to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq
Iraq, may 1992: Fouad Masoum is elected leader of the regional Kurdish government, which controls northern Iraq and is de facto independent from Saddam Hussein
Austria, june 1992: Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi organizes the Iraqi National Congress in Vienna to overthrow Saddam Hussein
Kuwait, Apr 1993: Iraqi agents attempt to assassinate former president George Bush during a visit to Kuwait
Iran, march 1995: A USA-founded coalition of Chalabi’s militia, Iraqi general Wafiq al-Samarrai and Talabani’s Kurdish militia start a rebellion in northern Iraq but are stopped by Barzani’s Kurdish militia and Turkish troops
Iran, may 1997: Mohammad Khatami, a moderate, is elected president with 67% of the popular vote
Iraq, february 1998: military confrontation between Saddam Hussein and the United States after Iraq halts all work by United Nations arms inspectors
Yemen, mid 1994: during the civil war between communists and democratic forces, president Ali Saleh enjoys the support of Islah (Islamic Reform Party), an offshoot of the Hashed tribes in northern Yemen headed by radical Sheikh Abdul Mejid Az Zindani
Jordan, 1995: The CIA sets up operations in Jordan to overthrow Saddam Hussein with the complicity of Jordan, and infiltrates dozens of spies inside Iraq
Iraq, 1995: A bomb kills 28 people at the headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress in the northern Iraqi region under USA protection
Iraq, june 1996: Saddam Hussein orders the arrest, torture and execution of more than 100 secret agents of the Iraqi National Accord in Iraq who are preparing to overthrow him
Iraq, august 1996: Saddam Hussein launches an attack on Kurdistans’ capital Erbil requested by Kurdish leader Barzani and his rival Talabani has to abandon the city
Iraq, december 1998: the U.S. and the U.K. bomb Iraq because Iraq is not allowing United Nations inspectors to resume their job, and Clinton authorizes a program to overthrow Saddam Hussein (“As long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region and the world”)
Iran, august 1999: pro-democracy riots in Iran, following the arrest of pro-democracy intellectuals and the closure of newspapers by ultraconservative ayatollah Khameini
Pakistan, 1990: Pakistani mullahs (clerics) preach Deobandism (a 19th century branch of Sunni Islam) among the Afghans living as refugees in Pakistan. Scores of them become “taliban” (literally “students”) of Islamic seminaries in the Islamic schools of Pakistan (the “madrasah”). One such talib is Mulla Umar, enrolled at a Karachi seminary run by the JUI party.
Saudi Arabia, 1991: Osama bin Laden protests the use of Saudi Arabia by American troops and denounces the royal Saudi family as traitors of Islam
Saudi Arabia, 1991: Saudi Arabia expels Osama bin Laden for his anti-government stance
Sudan, 1991: Osama bin Laden finds shelter in Sudan, under the protection of the Islamic government of Hassan al Tourabi, sets up headquarters for Al Qaeda in Khartoum and contributes to construction and agricultural projects
Afghanistan, april 1992: mujahidin guerrillas led by general Ahmad Shah Masood/Masoud dislodge the communist regime from Kabul, but civil war erupts between his “Northern Alliance” and other warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Afghanistan, 1993: mujahedin factions form a coalition and create a multi-ethnic government led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, but almost immediately internal fighting erupts among the various militias
Afghanistan, Jan 1993: Hikmetyar’s militias, supported by Pakistan, lay siege to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul
Britain, 1994: Osama bin Laden travels to London under a Saudi passport and establishes London as the political and financial headquarter of al-Quaeda organization (his international coalition of terrorists, the Jihad Committee, runs the Islamic Information Observatory Center and the Advisory and Reformation Body, both based in London), while his financial resources are administered by lawyers in Switzerland
Pakistan, 1994: Pakistan helps the Taliban, Afghan fighters bred in the madrassas of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, launch an invasion of Kandahar in Afghanistan from Pakistan
Afghanistan, late 1994: funded by wealthy Saudi families close to ultraconservative Wahhabism, the Taliban emerge as a Messianic movement with the mission to restore peace in Afghanistan, establish law and order, disarm the population, and impose sharia (Islamic law)
Pakistan, 1994: The JUI party becomes a recruiter of Pakistani and foreign students to fight for the Taliban (an estimated 100,000 Pakistanis will fight in Afghanistan in the next six years)
Pakistan, february 1995: Pakistan arrests the terrorist responsible for the World Trade Center bomb (Ramzi Yousef), who was living in a house owned by Osama bin Laden
Sudan, may 1996: under pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia, Sudan expels Osama bin Laden
Afghanistan, september 1996: the Taliban militia (mainly ethnic Pushtun) dislodges the mujahedin government from Kabul and installs one of the most fundamentalistic Muslim governments in the world, while the remaining troops of Shah Masood retreat to the north and form the Northern Alliance
Afghanistan, 1996: Hikmetyar is defeated by the Taliban and goes into exile in Iran
Afghanistan, february 1997: the Taliban reject an American request to deliver Osama bin Laden to American authorities in exchange for international recognition
Afghanistan, 1997: as they establish control over most of the country, the Taliban, led by the one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar, create a regime characterized by the massacre of ethnic minorities, by collaboration with drug traffickers (that turn Afghanistan into the largest market for heroin), public executions and amputations, a ban on women and girls going to school or having a job, restrictions on the access of women to health care, and the outlawing of television, film and popular music
Afghanistan, 1997: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia recognize the Taleban government, but the rest of the world including the United Nations continues to recognize the government in exile of Rabbani that supports the multi-ethnic Northern Alliance in the north of the country led by Shah Masood
Afghanistan, 1997: Taliban-inspired groups carry out sabotage inside Iran
Afghanistan, 1997: Iran and Uzbekistan lend military support to the Northern Alliance, largely drawn from Afghanistan’s ethnic Tajiks and Hazaras
Afghanistan, 1998: Osama bin Laden helps the Taliban capture the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif from the Northern Alliance
Afghanistan, february 1998: Osama bin Laden announces the creation of the “International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders”, an international alliance of terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihadand the Pakistan-based Harakat al-Ansar, and Muhammad Atif (aka Subhi Abu Sitta, aka Abu Hafs Al Masri) is named commander of their military operations
Afghanistan, 1998: the Taliban overrun much of northern Afghanistan, pushing the Northern Alliance into the northeast
Afghanistan, 1998: the Taliban execute nine Iranian diplomats in Mazar and Iran threatens to invade Afghanistan
Afghanistan, 1999: the United Nations impose sanctions against the Taliban to force them to hand over Osama bin Laden for trial
Aghanistan, 1999: the population of Afghanistan is estimated at 18 million, down from 1990’s 24 million, while millions live in exile in Pakistan and Iran
Afghanistan, 1999: Afghanistan’s production of opium doubles in 1999 (three times more opium than the rest of the world put together), making the Taliban the largest heroin producer in the world
Pakistan, 1990: Hafiz Muhammad Saeed founds Lashkar-e-Taiba to fight in Afghanistan with help from Pakistan’s secret services
Pakistan, 1990: Shiite militants assassinate the founder of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi
India, march 1993: Bombs set by Islamic fundamentalists destroys the Bombay stock exchange and other buildings, killing 257 people
Pakistan, 1993: Pakistan’s secret services help Islamic fighters form the terrorist group Harkat-ul-Ansar, based in Kashmir
Pakistan, october 1993: Islamic fundamentalists form Harakat al-Ansar, a militant group based in Pakistan whose mission is to liberate Kashmir from Indian occupation
India, february 1994: India arrests Harkat’s leaders Maulana Masood Azhar and Sajjad Afghani
Pakistan, 1994: Pakistan helps the Taliban, Afghan fighters bred in the madrassas of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, launch an invasion of Kandahar in Afghanistan from Pakistan
India, august-november 1994: Muslim separatists plant bombs in Kashmir, killing dozens
India, july 1995: Islamic fundamentalists kidnap and later kill five western tourists i Kashmir (linked to Harakat al-Ansar, a militant group based in Pakistan that is led by Fazlur Rehman Khalil)
Pakistan, 1996: Riaz Basra breaks away from Sipah-e-Sahaba and founds the Sunni Islamic movement Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose main target are Shiites
Pakistan, 1996: Youstol Dispage dies
Pakistan, 1998: pro-Taliban parties are a major influence in northwester provinces of Pakistan, where they follow the Taliban in banning television and videos, forcing women to wear the veil, imposing sharia punishments (such as stoning and amputation) and massacring shiites (massacres mainly conducted by extremist fringes of the JUI party)
Pakistan, october 1999: reacting to widespread disgust for political corruption, general Pervez Musharraf seizes power in Pakistan with a coup
India, december 1999: Kashmiri militants of Harkat supported by Pakistan’s secret services hijack an Indian airplane and hold 160 passengers hostages until India releases Harkat’s leaders Maulana Masood Azhar and Sajjad Afghani
Turkey, march 1995: Turkey invades northern Iraq to fight the kurdish insurgency
Turkey, 1998: dozens killed in wave of bombings and attacks by the PKK
Turkey, february 1999: elite Turkish forces capture PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Kenya
Turkey, 1999: Abdullah Ocalan renounces violence, after a 15-year war that has claimed the lives of 27,000 Kurdish rebels, thousands of turkish soldiers, hundreds of Turkish civilians and unknown numbers of Kurdish civilians
Saudi Arabia, october 1990: Saudi Arabia, afraid that Saddam Hussein may turn against them after invading Kuwait, joins the U.S.-led coalition and for the first time ever allows troops of a non-Muslim country to deploy on its soil
Jordan, 1991: Al Zarqawi returns from Afghanistan, where he has fought against the Soviet Union
Italy, november 1991: Paulo Jose de Almeida Santos, a Portuguese Muslim, tries to assassinate the Afghan king in exile, Zahir Shah, on behalf of Al Qaeda
Jordan, 1992: Al Zarqawi is arrested for planning to overthrow the Jordanian government
Britain, 1992: Jamaican-born Muslim cleric Abdullah al-Faisal move to Britain and begins preaching at London’s Brixton mosque
Argentina, march 1992: a bomb by Imad Mughniyeh (Mugniyah) kills 29 people at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires
Egypt, september 1992: the extremist movement Gama’a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group) warns tourists not to enter the province of Qena, where most monuments are, and begins a terrorist campaign against tourists
USA, february 1993: Islamic terrorists, under the orders of Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, bomb the World Trade Center killing 6 people, the first major international terrorist attack on U. S. soil.
USA, 1993: the FBI suspects Ramzi Yousef, an Egyptian terrorist, of organizing the bombing of the World Trade Center and finds ties with a blind sheik in Jersey City named Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Egyptian group and Afghan war hero Wali Khan Amin Shah, a close ally of Osama bin Laden
Sudan, 1993: a senior Bin Laden associate negotiate the purchase of enriched South African uranium with the mediation of Sudanese officials
Somalia, october 1993: terrorists led by Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahri, new leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad that killed Sadat, and affiliated to Osama bin Laden , working in collaboration with Somali warlord Muhammed Farrah Aidid, trap American troops in Mogadishu, shoot down three helicopters and kill 18 American soldiers
Saudi Arabia, april 1994: Saudi Arabia strips Osama bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship
Argentina, july 1994: an anti-Israel bomb by Imad Mughniyeh (Mugniyah) kills 85 people in Buenos Aires
Algeria, december 1994: an Air France Airbus A300 is hijacked at Algiers airport by Islamic terrorists of the Group Islamic Army with the plan to blow it up over Paris, but the plane was stormed by French police in Marseille
Philippines, 1994: Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah, all three ex Afghan fighters working under Kuwait-born Al Qaeda terrorist and Youself’s uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, plan terrorist attacks (to blow up several civilian U.S. airplanes over the Pacific, to attack the CIA headquarters in the US with a plane loaded with explosives, to blow up two Boeing 747 airliners as they approached Hong Kong from different directions, and to blow up 11 US airliners simultaneously as they attempted to land at various American cities)
Pakistan, 1995: Youstol Dispage dies
Philippines, january 1995: Osama bin Laden terrorists led by Ramzi Youssef and his uncle Khalid Mohammed plan to assassinate the Pope during a visit in Manila
USA, february 1995: Pakistan and the FBI arrest Ramzi Yousef and uncover terrorist plans against the US, but his uncle Khalid Mohammed escapes to Afghanistan
Ethiopia, june 1995: Osama bin Laden terrorists try to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa during his official visit
Saudi Arabia, 1995: a bomb kills five American soldiers in the capital of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, june 1996: 19 USA soldiers killed in the bombing of the airforce barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (Khobar Towers), and evidence points towards Saudi terrorists supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Sudan, june 1996: Following the Khobar Towers attack, Sudan expels Osama bin Laden
Afghanistan, june 1996: Osama bin Laden returns to Afghanistan and is welcomed by the warlord of Jalalabad, Mullah Yunus Khalis, and starts recruiting the foreign Arab militants still in Afghanistan after the war against the Soviets, and hundreds of wanted terrorists from all over the world, creating the “055” brigade
Afghanistan, august 1996: Osama bin Laden calls for worldwide attacks on USA citizens, including civilians, while his commandos spread around the world, from Somalia to the USA, very few remaining in Afghanistan or Sudan
USA, 1996: USA-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki begins preaching at the
Afghanistan, march 1997: two bombs fail to kill Osama bin Laden but kill 50 people in Jalalabad, and Osama bin Laden moves to Kandahar, the Taliban’s stronghold (and site of its supreme leader, Mulla Omar)
Egypt, 1997: Muslim terrorists affiliated to Ayman al-Zawahiri attack foreigners in Cairo and Luxor, killing 62 people
Saudi Arabia, july 1997: Saudi police kills hundreds of Iranian fundamentalist pilgrims at Mecca’s Grand Mosque
Kenya & Tanzania, august 1998: Al Qaeda terrorists led by Fazul Abdullah Mohammed destroy the American embassies, killing 213 people in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania (very few Americans, many Muslims), the latter carried out by Ahmed Khalfan Gailani
USA, January 1998: Yousef is sentenced to 240 years for his role in the World Trade Center bombing
Pakistan, february 1998: Harakat ul-Mujahidin, led by Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who has contacts with Osama Bin Laden, calls for attacks against the US
Afghanistan, february 1998: Osama bin Laden announces the creation of the “International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders”, an international alliance of terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihadand the Pakistan-based Jamiat-ul-Ulema, and Muhammad Atif (aka Subhi Abu Sitta, aka Abu Hafs Al Masri) is named commander of their military operations
USA, 1998: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are named suspects in the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
Germany, 1998: Egyptian student Mohammed Atta and Yemeni terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh, who reports to Kuwaiti terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, become roommates in Hamburg, and Atta becomes the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist cell in Germany
Jordan, 1999: Al Zarqawi is released in an amnesty by the Jordanian government and flees to Afghanistan
Afghanistan, 1999: with the approval of Osama bin Laden, Kuwaiti terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, head of Al Qaeda’s military committee in Afghanistan, plans a terrorist attack inside the USA and assigns it to Yemeni terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh, who recruits a terrorist cell in Germany (his housemate Atta and others)
USA, 1999: London-based Egyptian-born radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri tries to establish a terrorist-training camp in Oregon, USA
India, october 1999: Osama bin Laden calls for a jihad against India over the disputed territory of Kashmir
Jordan, december 1999: Jordanian police arrests terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden planning attacks against western tourists
USA, december 1999: Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian terrorist with links to Afghanistan, tries to enter the US and bomb the Los Angeles airport
Afghanistan & Sudan, august 1998: the U.S. bombs Sudan for helping terrorists and Afghanistan’s camps where Osama bin Laden trains his militants
This is understandably long. Middle East actions in the 90s certainly had an impact on the world in the 21st century. Religious extremists are hurtful to almost everyone. If people stopped defining religion as their main goal in life and focused on important things, the ME would have been better. Jordan had Islamic extremists trying to overthrow their king. Hosni Mubarak, their then leader, got rid of many of them, but thanks to him being taken out of office, Egypt is worse off. Idiotic radicals bombed a Buenos Aires embassy becuase they thoguht their religion instructed them to hate Israel. Next, an Israeli guy got the so bright idea to kill innocent people at a mosque and another Israeli guy killed Yitzhak Rabin for a peace treaty. Even Arafat hated Hamas and knew their damage. Saddaam Hussein invaded Kuwait and hurt the Kurds that decade (I’m not sad he got executed at all). Operation Grapes of Wrath displaces 400,000 Lebanese and kills more than 100 this decade. Ben Nethayanhu, a bigger conservative then David Cameron, hurt peoples’ perception of Israel. Worst was bin Laden. I do think the US should have killed him for his attacks against both innocent US and Middle Eastern people. Pakistan govt decided to help a fucking terrorist group instead of its own people in 1993 just because of land. Overall, the Middle East chaos hurt the world. Had The Offspring and Lou Bega brought attention to these nations instead of producing dumb things, we would have been better off. True celebrities would care about the poor in the Middle East and tried to figure out solutions. First world leaders should have cared about helping those in the Middle East to find better, more humane leaders. Had they done so, then the Assads, Sadaam, Ayatollah Khameini, Al-Saud and Saleh would either been kicked out or reformed their domains. Back then our negotiators should have made them respect human rights and stop funding Islamic terrorists who lead to Islamophobia and fascism. So good job on this. You should spread your ideas to atheist forums because they need more people like you whistleblow society. I think u are atheist right. Please spread your website there. Can u locate me using this site since I remember u dissing the guy who pretended to be Dr. Dre and saying his location in your comment. What a moron he was. Very good job.
you forgot LEXX: S01 in 1997
great article man! now, could you please do the one on the 80s? thx