Category Archives: Countries

Traveling Light in Arabia

Animals, camels, Travel, Yemen

[Note: the following list of items for light camping in Arabia is provided by G. Wyman Bury for the early part of the 20th century.]

CAMP EQUIPMENT
Try to do without a tent. Arabs hate pitching tents after a long day’s march, and seldom pitch them well. They draw fire and afford no protection, while preventing your own observation; they also betray the site of your camp to bad characters and casual callers on the look out for supper.

BEDDING
Avoid Wolseley valises or anything with pleats and folds, which become the permanent abiding places of parasitic insects.
‘Blankets.’ One each for the men. A few extra for convalescents or invalided men. Two for yourself.
‘Pillows.’ Carry your spare clothes in a green canvas sack. Continue reading Traveling Light in Arabia →

The Wind and the Whirlwind

Egypt, Orientalism, Poetry


Wilfrid Scawen Blunt on Pharaoh, drawn by Lady Anne Blunt

[Note: The following poem was written by Blunt in response to the British occupation of Egypt in the late 19th century, but its words are apt for the present occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan today.]

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

I have a thing to say. But how to say it?
I have a cause to plead. But to what ears?
How shall I move a world by lamentation,
A world which heeded not a Nation’s tears?

How shall I speak of justice to the aggressors,
Of right to Kings whose rights include all wrong,
Of truth to Statecraft, true but in deceiving,
Of peace to Prelates, pity to the Strong?

Where shall I find a hearing? In high places?
The voice of havock drowns the voice of good.
On the throne’s steps? The elders of the nation
Rise in their ranks and call aloud for blood. Continue reading The Wind and the Whirlwind →

Tuareg Blues

Anthropology/Sociology, Environment, Mali


[Tuareg man serving tea; photo by Jane Greenhalgh for NPR.]

“Climate Connections” on today’s NPR website has a slideshow and brief article on recent changes in Tuareg lifestyle in southern Mali. Known as the “Blue Men” of the desert (for their indigo clothing) and serving as a prime ethnographic example of a society where the men (rather than the women) veil, life for the Tuareg is undergoing rapid change. In this case it is prolonged drought that has served as the main impetus for change. The slide feature is well worth a look.

The Little Rebellion that Was

Huthis, Qatar, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


[Illustration: Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar, left; bombed out buildings in northern Yemeni town of Sa‘da in 2004 fighting, center; Husayn al-Houthi, right.]

In September, 2004, Yemen’s military captured and killed a Zaydi cleric in the northern part of their country. His name was Husayn al-Houthi and he is alleged to have started a rebellion with a strong anti-American thrust. Although claims were made that he was trying to revive the Zaydi imamate (which was toppled in 1962 in the revolution that formed a republic in North Yemen), such an al-Qaeda clone conspiracy theory are exaggerated. Nevertheless, his followers carried on a regional rebellion, lately under the leadership of his son Abd al-Malik, and as a result thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians have died and tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced. It is not surprising that you may not have seen much about the fighting in the media. Indeed it has been a little rebellion compared to events in Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, and it certainly did not threaten the ruling government’s overall hold on the country. But it was certainly a big deal in Yemen. And now, with mediation by the Emir of Qatar, it appears that there will be an end to the armed conflict. Details are provided in today’s Yemen Observer.

Al-Houthi rebels descend the mountains, lay down their weapons

Written By: Nasser Arrabyee
Yemen Observer, Jun 30, 2007

Al-Houthi rebels have come down from the mountains of northern Yemen to put down their weapons and return home, as instructed by a Qatari-brokered agreement to end the five-month war between them and the government troops, said mediators Thursday. Continue reading The Little Rebellion that Was →

Wavell in Yemen: “Of Fire and Sword”

Travel, Yemen


Market in Lahj, southern Yemen

[Note: Arthur John Byng Wavell (1882-1916) was a British soldier and adventurer who traveled in disguise to Mecca in 1908 and went on to Yemen in 1911 to witness fighting between the Zaydi imam’s troops and the Ottoman Turks. This account was originally published in 1912.]

The events in that country [Yemen] are worthy of a chapter in the history of these prosaic days. The counter-currents of human interest and activity that run up and down the Red Sea, linking the civilizations of the East and West, leave undisturbed this backwater. Western Europe knows little and cares less about what goes on there. Continue reading Wavell in Yemen: “Of Fire and Sword” →

History in Century Hindsight

Islamophobia, Orientalism, Turkey

How will the history of the world be written in another century? I am glad I will not be around to find out, although I suspect future historians will look at the post-9/11 operations at home on the patriot front and abroad with patriot missiles as a low point in America’s future past. We can always look back and see how history was written a century ago. Here is a passage from a popular “History of the World” by John Clarke Ridpath, who penned it near the end of the 19th century. Although dated in its racial and ethnocentric overtones, it is refreshing to see some critical assessment on Western stereotypes at work as well. As an exercise, read the excerpt below to sort out the prejudice from the attempt, even if not up to present-day standards, to be less rather than more subjective.

Some allowance, however, must be made for the judgment which the Western peoples have passed upon the Turks. There is no denying the fact that a part of this judgment is prejudiced. The Aryan races have always shown a disposition to reject and contemn those usages with which they themselves are unfamiliar. They have done so. Not because the usages in question have contradicted the laws of right reason, the interests of the state, of the principles of morality, but simply because such facts have been strange, unfamiliar. The intolerance of the Western people in this respect has been as severe and inexcusable as many of the usages which they have contemned and despised. Continue reading History in Century Hindsight →

Wavell in Mecca: On Javan Muslims

Indonesia, Islamic Rituals, Saudi Arabia


[Note: Arthur John Byng Wavell (1882-1916) was a British soldier and adventurer who traveled in disguise to Mecca in 1908 and went on to Yemen in 1911 to witness fighting between the Zaydi imam’s troops and the Ottoman Turks. This account was originally published in 1912.]

Among all the pilgrims of different races daily pouring in [to Mecca on the hajj], I was most struck by the Javanese. In appearance and manners they seem not unlike the Japanese. They have the same acquisitive and imitative temperament, are intensely curious regarding everything new to them, and quick to adopt any fresh idea that may seem to them an improvement on what has gone before. In this they stand in strong contrast to the Arabs, and in fact to most Eastern peoples, whose extreme conservatism is what really hinders their progress. But while the Japanese have seemingly agreed to take England as their model, the Javanese endeavor to turn themselves into Arabs. The first thing they do on arriving is to attire themselves in the local costume – which, by the way, does not suit them at all. I am told that there are so many people wearing Arab dress in Java that a stranger might fancy himself in the Hedjaz. Continue reading Wavell in Mecca: On Javan Muslims →

You, Beirut and the Children

Lebanon, Poetry


Illustration: “Red Anemone,” by Diana Cornelissen

By George N. El-Hage
Columbia University

As the leaves of October,
I scatter myself over your blazing inferno;
Your divine and succulent body
From its forbidden summits
Down to its ravenous depth and fertile valleys.

As a summer cloud bearing spring,
I shower gentle kisses upon your flushed lips
Whose color gives the rose its crimson
Whose benevolent banks are a bed of red anemones. Continue reading You, Beirut and the Children →