All posts by tabsir

The al-Ahmar Family: Who’s who

"Arab Spring", Yemen


Sadiq al-Ahmar and Ali Abdullah Salih before the shelling started

by Gregory Johnsen, Waq al-Waq, June 3

The news is coming fast and furious out of Sanaa. Not much is known for certain and it will likely be a while before we have all the details, but here is the broad outline:

Today, following Friday Prayers, forces loyal to President Salih opened shelling directed in the general direction of Hamid al-Ahmar’s house in the wealthy Sanaa suburb of Hadda.

Making things more complicated is the fact that Ali Muhsin, the defected general and head of the 1st Armored Division, is Hamid’s next door neighbor. And given how inaccurate Yemeni troops can be at lobbying shells towards a target it is unclear which one of the two enemies of Salih they were aiming at. Maybe both.

Shortly after that two shells hit the mosque inside the presidential palace, reportedly wounding a number of top officials – although the information at this point is mostly contradictory rumors, so I’ll hold off speculating on the identities of the injured.

What I would like to do, instead, is to give a quick run down of the al-Ahmar family, particularly the four eldest. Continue reading The al-Ahmar Family: Who’s who →

Ali Abdullah Salih wounded

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Yemen


Reports just coming out of Yemen indicate that President Ali Abdullah Salih was wounded today in an attack on his compound in Sanaa. After the attack he was apparently treated for injuries. He later issued an audio statement which can be heard here. Both the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament were said to have been injured. The attack happened with major demonstrations after a funeral for those recently killed in violence. More details are available at the BBC and Al Jazeera. For more details in Arabic, click here.


map showing areas of conflict in Sanaa

These ‘virginity tests’ will spark Egypt’s next revolution

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Gender and Sexuality


Egyptian women protest in Tahrir Square, Cairo. A general has admitted that women detained during protests in the square a month after Mubarak’s overthrow had been subjected to ‘virginity tests’. Photograph: Tara Todras-Whitehill/AP

by Mona Eltahawy, The Guardian, June 2, 2011

There’s a thin line between sex and politics, and it is nonsense to keep repeating the mantra that Egypt’s revolution “wasn’t about gender”. What revolution worth its salt can be fuelled by demands of freedom and dignity and not have gender nestled in its beating heart – especially in a country replete with misogyny, religious fundamentalism (of both the Islamic and Christian kind) and which for 60 years has chafed under a hybrid of military-police rule?

If the “it wasn’t about gender” mantra is stuck on repeat so that we don’t scare the boys away, then let them remember the state screwed them too, literally – ask political prisoners, and remember the condoms and Viagra found when protesters stormed state security headquarters. Continue reading These ‘virginity tests’ will spark Egypt’s next revolution →

With Marechaux in Yemen

Photography, Yemen

The news out of Yemen continues to be dismal. There are reports of several thousand Hashid tribesmen arriving at the gates of Sanaa. The day-to-day nightmare continues. Such ugliness in such a beautiful country. The scenes of blood-soaked bodies are available on several Arabic websites, but our thoughts must also be with those who live. Here are two pictures from the superb French photographers, Pascal and Marie Maréchaux.



Old World Travel 90 years on: #1 The Sahara

Algeria, Environment, Libya, Orientalism, Photography, Tunisia


Exactly 90 years ago in 1921 a four-volume set of encyclopedia-like human interest books was published as The Human Interest Library: Visualized Knowledge by Midland Press in Chicago. All four volumes ended up in my family’s library, but my favorite is the fourth volume entitled Old World Travelogues. Here is how the volume begins:

It was a saying of Lord Bacon that “History maketh one wise.” Perhaps this is not universally true, but one can scarcely traverse the history and geography of the Old World with its deeds of heroism, picturesque scenes and peoples, splendid buildings, or hallowed places, without having become wiser and better, as well as having enjoyed many an hour of keen pleasure. With the most interesting of guides, we visit splendid cities, historic rivers of scenic beauty or castle-lined banks; monument-covered battle-fields, or the haunts of poets and cavaliers.


The image above is at the head of the article on “The Sahara and its Inhabitants” (pp. 95-103). If this history is intended to make the reader wiser, it is a bleak premise indeed. Here is how the desert is represented:

The desert is a dreary, monotonous place, life there has a great sameness, there is little physical work to be done, little cooking is required and there is little to engage the attention of men. Continue reading Old World Travel 90 years on: #1 The Sahara →