A friend sent these photographs of Sanaa, but I do not know the name of the photographer.
Category Archives: Countries
Rediscovering the Uncovering of King Tut
bottom right, Car used to transport Lord Carnarvon to and from Tut’s tomb in the 1920s
Conspiracy theorists and Hollywood movie moguls love King Tut. Take a young boy who becomes Pharaoh at age 9, only rules for a decade, marries his sister, and whose long forgotten tomb with gold aplenty is discovered in full media light in the Roaring 20s … and what do you have: an Ancient Egyptian prequel to Star Wars. Add to it a curse like “Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the king” and there is even more mummy stardust. But the curse has it wrong; it should have read “Profit shall come on swift wings to him who distributes as many pieces as possible about the king.” Millions of people worldwide have read about King Tut, stood in line to see the major exhibitions and come under the spell of the glittering gold. I remember the long lines outside the Met in 1976, the emptiness on descending tourist-style into King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Hidden Kings, and the less than spectacular ambiance of Tut’s remains in Cairo’s old museum.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to rediscover Tut in the exhibit still running at the Discovery Times Square Exhibition. But hurry, if you are in New York, because Tut moves on to another set of paying admirers after January 17. Continue reading Rediscovering the Uncovering of King Tut
Afghan Trucks 2
In a previous blog entry, I mentioned a photographic book by Jean-Charles Blanc on Afghan Trucks. In addition to legendary and technological themes, in this pre-Taliban world there was an interest in women as well, at least among truck drivers and those who appreciated truck driven art. Here is what the Introduction to the text says about the female image unveiled:
Occasionally another motif appears amongst these tablaux: that of women – a rare and daring theme for this Islamic society where tradition is so carefully guarded. they are depicted in the form of sensual, Felliniesque, sulphurous-eyed vamps whose looks are inspired from Indian statuary – the flesh of Marilyn and Sophia draped in Oriental clothing, and with just a few puffs of hashish their colored images spring to life …
to be continued
Loving Yemen
Yemen is not quite the desert journalists dream up
The journalistic war talk on terror took a sidestep over the past week or so as commentators sought to tweak the Wikileaks for all they could be imagined to be worth. Here was cable-ready proof that diplomats do not believe exactly what they say in public, that rulers are not always stable and “secret” communication may be secret for a reason. Ah, yes, diplomats with no clothing. But now it’s back to Al Qaeda. In a recent commentary for The Christian Science Monitor, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, Walter Rodgers, weighs in on Al Qaeda in Yemen.
The result is a prime example of run-of-the-treadmill sinthetic (spelling intended) reportage. All the right people are quoted, those who actually know something about Yemen. This includes a former ambassador, Barbara Bodine, a historian, Bernard Haykel and a young political scientist, Gregory Johnsen. Each is granted a short quote, although the reader has no idea what the full context of each comment was. So Ambassador Bodine at some point said “The issue is geography,” which clearly needs explanation. Unfortunately Rodgers flunks his geography lesson. Yemen is not “nearly all mountainous desert.” The only true desert areas in Yemen are along the coast and entering the Arabian desert, not in the mountain valleys and plateaus.
The journalist’s geographical blunders are equaled by his historical ignorance. Continue reading Loving Yemen
Bin Who? Bin Laden?
Two protracted wars drag on as the so-called “War on Terror” seems to be winding down in theory. In another year our hunt for the infamous Osama Bin Laden will be almost a decade old. The detour into Iraq, toppling a brutal dictator and ensuring a far more Iran-friendly government in Iraq, is reaching a deadened end, if you do not count the numerous advisors who will remain in and out of uniform. Then there is Afghanistan, which was the bane of the Brits in the 19th century, the Soviets in the 20th century and most probably the Americans and NATO in the 21st century. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives later the reason the United States originally got involved in the region, specifically to capture Bin Laden and bring him to justice, remains unfulfilled. Whether cooling his heels in a Pakistani border cave or a Swat safe house, the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 bombing is still out there somewhere.
Imagine if Bin Laden could be captured? Well, if you read German, you have a guide. While in Vienna earlier this fall I picked up a copy of Bin Laden Enthüllt, a comic book by Mohamed Sifaoui and Philippe Vercovici (Frankfurt: Eichborn, 2009). Continue reading Bin Who? Bin Laden?
Building Southern Sudan
Building southern Sudan through promotion of our history and culture
Dr. Jok Madut Jok, New Sudan Vision, October 15, 2010
(New York) – To be a nation means having a citizenry that takes pride in citizenship in “South Sudan†first and in tribal citizenship second. Such a nation can no longer assume that shared interests alone will continue to unite us. So far, our struggle to wrestle our freedom from the grips of the Khartoum-based successive governments has been the most unifying force for South Sudan. Now that this struggle has seen some success, what will unite us is the desire to build a strong nation together, and such a nation will need a shared identity. Such a shared identity will need to be harnessed, it needs to be politically constructed, and it is our task to forge it.
To this end, I envision my task as undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage as joining a collective effort with the minister, the staff of the ministry and other branches of GOSS to set a policy for constructing our nation’s identity.
A solution begins with the correct identification of the nature of the problem. The most significant enemy of South Sudan’s cohesion, national loyalty and the citizens’ pride in their nation will be a growing sense of exclusion from the national platform, media, government programs and access to services. Any citizen who will feel excluded will never develop that important sense of pride in his/her nation. A starting point to addressing the feeling of exclusion is to state the obvious, that South Sudan belongs to all South Sudanese; it does not belong to any ethnic, religious or political group. Continue reading Building Southern Sudan
Me and the Feminists
By Mona Eltahawy, The Jerusalem Report, November 24, 2010
I was 23 years old and I was interviewing an Egyptian feminist who had just taken over as editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine of the cooking-and-fashion variety, which she had vowed to turn into the go-to magazine for women’s rights.
I was excited to meet her because she was one of the real-life feminists that my recently returned-to-Egypt self loved to meet to help me turn theory into action. Ever since I’d discovered feminist journals on the bookshelves at my university in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the age of 19, I’d devoured all I could of the theory.
I had returned to Egypt at 21 hungry to put it into action. My first encounter with those essays was nothing short of terrifying. That’s how you know what you need – it scares the hell out of you because it encourages you to jump but you don’t know if you’ll ever land. Religious conservatism was suffocating me in Saudi Arabia and I was losing my mind. I didn’t care about landing. I was overdue for a jump.
So returning to Egypt at 21 after 14 years away was a chance to water that seed of feminism with the sustenance of real-life women who embodied it. I looked for them everywhere I could. Many of the older women practically adopted me, inviting me to their meetings, sending me their latest reports and alerting me ahead of important conferences they were holding. Continue reading Me and the Feminists
Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #9
Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 12
The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I conclude the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). What better way than with maps. Here then is Palestine in all its cartographic glory.