Category Archives: Libya

Old World Travel 90 years on: #2 The Simoon and Mirage

Algeria, Environment, Libya, Orientalism, Orientalist Art, Photography, Tunisia


Exactly 90 years ago a four-volume set of encyclopedia-like human interest books was published as The Human Interest Library: Visualized Knowledge by Midland Press in Chicago. In a previous post I commented on its thoroughly “Orientalist” flavor. Not only was the Sahara portrayed as a barren landscape with people who have nothing to do, but the only winds of change are violent storms summed up in the Anglicized “simoon.” Above is an image from the frontispiece to volume 2 in the series and entitled “The Dreaded Simoon – The Scourge of the Desert”. I have not been able to find the name of the artist, which is clearly pre-1921. The caption reads: “The fury of the simoon is like the blast of a furnace. Winged with the whirlwind. and charioted with thunder, it blasts everything in its course. It has the appearance of a train of fire whose murky smoke fills the whole wide expanse of the desert.”

Here is the text describing “The Scourge of the Desert” (Vol. 4, p. 97):

As the color plate shows, the simoon, described by writers, must have presented a majestic and awe-inspiring spectacle. Continue reading Old World Travel 90 years on: #2 The Simoon and Mirage →

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 →

Pornographic War Gazing: Why We Don’t Look Away

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Bible and Holy Land, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Libya


[This commentary was origially published in Religion Dispatches, April 12, 2011.]

When it comes to grabbing attention bad news is the best news. Whether selling war or natural disaster or a fugitive serial killer, the competitive edge goes to the media outlet that can scoop the most violence, brutality or sheer inhumanity in an event.

The most recent news cycle of political protests started out on a hopeful note. As the spirit of frustrated youthful protest spread at tweet speed to dictatorial regimes and elitist monarchies, journalists flocked to North Africa and the modern day Holy Land. Live coverage has shifted from country to country, depending in large part on where the most violence is erupting. Yet, as much as the story may be promoted as one of hope and liberation, the hook is all about devastation. Continue reading Pornographic War Gazing: Why We Don’t Look Away →

Weapons of Mass Arm Twist Dealing

"Arab Spring", Books You Should Read, Libya, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue

As millions of dollars worth of U.S. and NATO military weapons are now raining down on the millions of dollars worth of weapons in Libyan leader Qaddafi’s recently expanded arsenal, there is a scenario that must make all the arms manufacturers of the world unite in smugness. Over a month ago Der Spiegel ran an article with the following news:

Helicopters from Italy, communication technology from Germany: When the arms embargo against Libya was lifted in 2004, the country’s dictator Moammar Gadhafi went on a shopping spree in the European Union. Now he is using those weapons against his own people — to the EU’s shame… According to an EU report, European Union member states provided the dictator with defense equipment worth €344 million ($474 million) in 2009 alone.

It must be a bit easier to destroy Qaddafi’s military machine, since the ones now destroying it are the ones responsible for creating it. One used to hear the fatalistic mantra: the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. It seems that the EU and NATO have replaced the Lord these days. I am not in any way defending Qaddafi, a brutal maniac who has plundered Libya for over four decades. Nor am I convinced one way or the other if the no-fly-in-the ointment strategy will work. But I recall the poignant words of author Jean Makdisi in her brilliant Beirut Fragments (Persea Books, 1990, p. 45):

“I ponder, for the ten thousandth time since this damnable war began, on the happiness of the manufacturers and salesmen of arms and ammunition. Every roar, whistle, and crash translates itself in my mind to the sound of a cash register, the tinkle of champagne glasses, and the hum of conversation at a very expensive restaurant somewhere. The glisten of shrapnel, the smoke billowing out of someone’s ruined home, the rumble of the big guns, are all echoed in my imagination as the glitter of jewelry, the smoke of cigars lazily puffed out of appreciative lips, and the rolling of drums for a hip-swinging, carefree dance. The screams of a terrified, burning child become the laughter of those who reap the gains of this havoc.”

Racing from Dubai to Tripoli

"Arab Spring", Animals, Ethics, Libya, United Arab Emirates


Top: Victorie Pisa from Japan, ridden by Mirco Demuro, middle, crosses the finish line of $ 10,000,000 Dubai World Cup race, the world’s richest horse race, followed by 2nd place Transcend , right, from Japan and 3rd place Monterosso from Great Britain, 2nd right. (The Associated Press); bottom:Libyan rebels on top of a captured tank

As I write this, the media are reporting major advances of the Libyan resistance to Qaddafi, supported in large part by the surgical air strikes of the U.S. and NATO aircraft. Qaddafi has bunkered down, vowing to fight until his last drop of blood, but as the race to Tripoli proceeds, more and more defections from his military are inevitable. It is hard to predict when this will end. In general I think most ruthless dictators are cowards at heart, which is why they need such massive security to perpetuate their narcissistic hold on power. But Qaddafi is deluded enough to go down with guns blazing, like Errol Flynn in Custer’s Last Stand.


Debate over the wisdom of U.S. involvement in the Libyan no-fly-plus zone has reached a level of feverish political overtones. Obama’s opponents, those lock-step GOP stalwarts who never challenged Bush when we foolishly entered into a ground war in Iraq, now seem concerned about the costs of tomahawk missiles (I suspect those senators with large arms manufacturers in their home states are biting their tongues as they speak). Winging it, a la Bush, is the American way in their mind and damn what any other civilized nation thinks. Actually forging a coalition with U.N. and some Arab country backing is heralded as weakness. Much of the debate swirling between the talking security expert heads is really an end-around around the end-game criticism. Continue reading Racing from Dubai to Tripoli →

Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain?

"Arab Spring", Libya

Bombs over Qaddafi’s Libya, Facebook in Yemen, and the list goes on: I am in an absorbing rather than communicating mood. There is a lot of fascinating material coming out, for example a CNN piece on social media in Yemen and the wreckage of an army column reported by Kareem Fahim on the New York Times today. and the breaking news, the always breaking news: “Yemen’s ambassador to the United Nations has resigned over the killing of 52 protesters calling for the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. “Abdullah Alsaidi has submitted his resignation to protest at the use of violence against demonstrators,” a Yemeni foreign ministry official said on Sunday.”

A “no fly” in the ointment

"Arab Spring", Libya


For days we have been watching the ebb and flow of frustration protests in Libya, echoing but not matching the overthrow of long-time despots in Tunis and Egypt, but seemingly less capable of driving the longest terminator of all into an exilic tent (though probably outside one of Berlusconi’s mansions rather than above a madrasa in Saudi Arabia). A week ago it looked like “rebel” forces might march on Tripoli; such was the rhetoric of liberation on the lips of those who took back the streets east and west of the capital and rattled the very tent pegs of the leader’s Tripoli holdout.

Last night, amidst reports of an escalating disaster alert at a Japanese nuclear reactor, the U.N. Security Council met to deal with Qaddadi, the colonel not known for fried chicken wings but with a distinct love of his female guard’s hidden charms. To no-fly or not to no-fly: that was the dramatic question debated. Would Russia and China resort to Cold War negativism or embrace pragmatic realpolitic and let French planes scramble to destroy the older planes the French probably supplied Qaddadi with at some point? Would international involvement lead to a land invasion? Another Iraq or Afghanistan? The pundits were all over the map. Many had their predictions; none of the crystal balls seemed very trustworthy. Continue reading A “no fly” in the ointment →

The Arab Spring

"Arab Spring", Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bahrain, Egypt, Ethics, Islamophobia 101, Libya, Orientalism, Tunisia, Yemen

By Rashid Khalidi, The Nation, March 21, 2011 and Institute for Palestine Studies, March 3, 2011

Suddenly, to be an Arab has become a good thing. People all over the Arab world feel a sense of pride in shaking off decades of cowed passivity under dictatorships that ruled with no deference to popular wishes. And it has become respectable in the West as well. Egypt is now thought of as an exciting and progressive place; its people’s expressions of solidarity are welcomed by demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin; and its bright young activists are seen as models for a new kind of twenty-first-century mobilization. Events in the Arab world are being covered by the Western media more extensively than ever before and are being talked about positively in a fashion that is unprecedented. Before, when anything Muslim or Middle Eastern or Arab was reported on, it was almost always with a heavy negative connotation. Now, during this Arab spring, this has ceased to be the case. An area that was a byword for political stagnation is witnessing a rapid transformation that has caught the attention of the world.

Three things should be said about this sea change in perceptions about Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners. The first is that it shows how superficial, and how false, were most Western media images of this region. Virtually all we heard about were the ubiquitous terrorists, the omnipresent bearded radicals and their veiled companions trying to impose Sharia and the corrupt, brutal despots who were the only option for control of such undesirables. In US government-speak, faithfully repeated by the mainstream media, most of that corruption and brutality was airbrushed out through the use of mendacious terms like “moderates” (i.e., those who do and say what we want). That locution, and the one used to denigrate the people of the region, “the Arab street,” should now be permanently retired. The second feature of this shift in perceptions is that it is very fragile. Even if all the Arab despots are overthrown, there is an enormous investment in the “us versus them” view of the region. This includes not only entire bureaucratic empires engaged in fighting the “war on terror,” not only the industries that supply this war and the battalions of contractors and consultants so generously rewarded for their services in it; it also includes a large ideological archipelago of faux expertise, with vast shoals of “terrorologists” deeply committed to propagating this caricature of the Middle East. These talking heads who pass for experts have ceaselessly affirmed that terrorists and Islamists are the only thing to look for or see. They are the ones who systematically taught Americans not to see the real Arab world: the unions, those with a commitment to the rule of law, the tech-savvy young people, the feminists, the artists and intellectuals, those with a reasonable knowledge of Western culture and values, the ordinary people who simply want decent opportunities and a voice in how they are governed. The “experts” taught us instead that this was a fanatical people, a people without dignity, a people that deserved its terrible American-supported rulers. Those with power and influence who hold these borderline-racist views are not going to change them quickly, if at all: for proof, one needs only a brief exposure to the sewer that is Fox News. Continue reading The Arab Spring →