Category Archives: Countries

Enough! Damn this continued violence

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Iraq, Islamophobia, Libya, Pakistan, Syria, Terrorism Issue, Tunisia


Up to 600 worshipers had attended the service and were leaving to receive free food being distributed on the lawn outside when two explosions ripped through the crowd. Photograph by Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press

Enough blood has been shed in the past few days to make any sane person question how anyone could possibly justify such cold-blooded and senseless attacks on innocent people. The poison gas in Syria is bad enough, but now we hear that the Somali Shabab have decided to kill shoppers in a Nairobi mall rather than play Captain Hook off the East African coast and now at least 78 Pakistani Christians are killed in a blast at a historic church. This is the ugly side of religion. More than a hijacking of Islam, this is dragging the faith that produced great scholars like Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali into the sewer. To say that the Prophet Muhammad would have condoned this kind of indiscriminate murder is as absurd as the medieval Crusader claim that Jesus would bless the slaughter of Jews and Muslims. But at least the crusades ended several centuries ago.

Muslims killing fellow Muslims or Muslims targeting Christians for death are both equally insane acts. Every day the death toll rises in Iraq and Syria, as though we have returned to the days of the Mongols and Mamluks. Continue reading Enough! Damn this continued violence →

T. S. Eliot’s Influence Upon Salah Abdel-Sabour, #1

Egypt, Languages, Literature, Poetry


Salah Abdel-Sabour, left; T. S. Eliot, right

T. S. Eliot’s Influence Upon Salah Abdel-Sabour

By George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D.

The degree of influence of the Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot, on the Egypto-Arabic poet and dramatist, Salah Abdel-Sabour, has not yet been vastly explored. In this article, I shall not only attempt to compare the two poets in a more enlightened perspective, but I shall also probe the fundamental methodology governing a general comparative study. My approach includes the following:

1. A Valid Comparative Study and the Importance of Comparative Literature
2. Traditional Arabic Poetry
3. Why T.S. Eliot?
4. A Brief Summary of Eliot’s Background
5. A Brief Summary of Abdel Sabour’s Background
6. A Practical and Comparative Analysis of One of Sabour’s Poems
7. Abdel Sabour’s Departure from Traditional Arabic Poetry
8. A Brief Comparison between Two Plays
9. Conclusion

1. A Valid Comparative Study and the Importance of Comparative Literature

A fruitful and acceptable treatment of a subject which discusses the influence of one poet upon another must not stop at the limits of a shallow consideration of the most obvious similarities of forms, meanings, and techniques. It must go to the depths to consider the various elements that concern the sources of similarities, as well as the differences, in the light of the cultural backgrounds of the two poets. For example, a comparative study between Corneille and Racine, Wordsworth and Coleridge, and Sabour and Mahmoud Darwish would not be valid for each pair of these poets or writers belongs to the same culture and submits to the same political and social atmospheres.

Comparative Literature is neither a literary comparison nor a mere translation of a foreign literature. It is, as Jean-Marie Carre says, a study of the international and spiritual relations between men and cultures. A meaningful comparative study requires two artists belonging to remote cultures, yet dealing with the same literary genre. The comparativist, thereby, investigates the major differences existing between the environments which produced habits, customs, and verbalization of thought. Again, it appears necessary to investigate the spiritual and material factors which establish the concepts of every culture. It is also necessary to determine the degree of understanding each poet has of his own literary tradition and to ascertain the extent to which his cultural heritage pervades his poetry. The political, religious, economical, and linguistic elements are important factors to be considered. Continue reading T. S. Eliot’s Influence Upon Salah Abdel-Sabour, #1 →

Make love and make war?

"Arab Spring", Arabic Cartoons, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media, Syria, Terrorism Issue, Tunisia


A number of Tunisian girls who had travelled to Syria for “sexual jihad” have returned home pregnant, the government says

Newspapers love a juicy story line. What could be more apt for tabloid sensationalism than one that combines multiple sex partners and jihad fighters? The Telegraph (no one seems to have informed the management that telegraphs are a bit on the ancient side these days) has come up with the following headline ‘Sex Jihad raging in Syria, claims minister” for its September 20th edition. Here are the lead paragraphs…

Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage “sex jihad” by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.

“They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100” militants, the minister told members of the National Constituent Assembly on Thursday.

“After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of ‘jihad al-nikah’ – (sexual holy war, in Arabic) – they come home pregnant,” Ben Jeddou told the MPs.

He did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.

Jihad al-nikah, permitting extramarital sexual relations with multiple partners, is considered by some hardline Sunni Muslim Salafists as a legitimate form of holy war.

The minister also did not say how many Tunisian women were thought to have gone to Syria for such a purpose, although media reports have said hundreds have done so.

Here is a new twist that might actually revolutionize the way jihad is being waged by the most militant crazies. Continue reading Make love and make war? →

CyberOrient, Latest Issue Online

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Environment, Iran, Islamophobia, Terrorism Issue

The latest issue of CyberOrient is available online.

Articles

Online and Offline Continuities, Community and Agency on the Internet
Jon W. Anderson
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8355

The Earth Is Your Mosque (and Everyone Else’s Too): Online Muslim
Environmentalism and Interfaith Collaboration in UK and Singapore
Lisa Siobhan Irving
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8336

Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations
of Islam on WikiIslam.net
Daniel Enstedt and Göran Larsson
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8459

Comments

Digital Images and Visions of Jihad: Virtual Orientalism and the
Distorted Lens of Technology
Raymond Pun
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8391

Reviews

Review: Arabités numériques. Le printemps du Web arabe
Luboš Kropáček
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8352

Review: Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age. The 2009
Presidential Election Uprising in Iran
Zuzana Krihova
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8386

Review: iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. Islamic Civilization
and Muslim Networks
Vit Sisler
http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8385

Athletic dopes

Archaeology and Antiquities, Plants, Turkey


Mandrake (gr. ΜΑΝΔΡΑΓΟΡΑ, in capital letters). Folio 90 from the Naples Dioscurides, a 7th century manuscript of Dioscurides De Materia Medica (Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, Cod. Gr. 1).

Ancient sportsmen took doping too, findings show

AYDIN – Anadolu Agency, Hurriyet Daily News, September 13, 2013

A large number of Turkish and international athletes recently banned for doping might have been born just 2,000 years too late, according to new archaeological findings in the Aegean province of Aydın that suggest using performance-enhancing drugs in ancient Greece was not only permitted but celebrated.

Locals living in the ancient city of Magnesia produced potions from the mood-altering plant mandrake, researchers have said, noting that their involvement with the drug gave them pride of place.

“Part of the [local] stadium was allocated for people who came from the ancient city of Ephesus. It is also observed that some political groups as well as bakers, gardeners, bird sellers had combined tickets. A tablet shows the most important part of the stadium, which has a capacity of 60 persons, was spared for a group of people called ‘Mandragoreitoi,’” said Turkish Professor Orhan Bingöl, who is leading archaeological excavations at the site, located in Aydın’s present-day district of Gemencik, noting that the Mandragoreitoi produced mandrake, the genus of which is mandragora. “That indicates that doping was not a crime back then, but rather that those who produced that substance had a special place in society and were encouraged.” Continue reading Athletic dopes →

Up against a wall mural

Architecture, Contemporary Art, Iran, Jordan, Shi'a


Martyrdom is the inheritance of the Prophet and his family to their followers (translated title). Three-storey high mural located on Mudarris Freeway, Abbas-Abad, Tehran, Iran, Fotini Christia, photographer.

Harvard College Library site. Here are two examples.


“You athletes should follow Ali (peace be upon him)”, Fotini Christia, photographer,

Lebanon: Comments on “Communities of Suffering”

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Lebanon, Syria, Terrorism Issue

The artificial polarization of “communities of suffering”: when political violence paves the way to a common ground

by Estella Carpi

I still remember when the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, in the speech he held on occasion of the Martyr’s Day on 12th November 2012, used the term munafis (rival) to indicate the Lebanese opposition parties, instead of ‘adu (enemy), which is only used by the party to point to their enemy par excellence, the Zionist entity. This detail helps create a picture of the Lebanese political scenario of the last two years, in the constant attempt of local parties to maintain relative stability within the country’s boundaries, in spite of the aging bloodshed in neighbouring Syria.

In the currently increasing insecurity of life in Lebanon, community as an interpretation grid – and specifically the “belonging” to a given community – seems to be, again, a sine qua non of any understanding of local suffering, historical scars, and individual worldviews. Community, meant as a primordial notion, has always been used as a protective identity shelter in time of crisis: Lebanon constitutes the perfect historical case in point. As such, community is imagined by all of us as a comforting source for empathy and solidarity, particularly in the chronicity of a fragmented and flimsy state sovereignty. After the bombing in Dahiye – as the southern suburbs of Beirut are locally called – last 15th August, and in Tripoli, in North Lebanon, last 23rd August, all residents apparently have come to reshape two separate communities of suffering. Continue reading Lebanon: Comments on “Communities of Suffering” →

Of Missile Strikes and Moros

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Obama Administration, Syria, Terrorism Issue

In today’s New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff responds to critics of his support for targeted missile strikes on Assad’s regime to send a lesson about the use of poison gas. I agree with his opening comment that columny (whether by a columnist or not) is not a very useful way to think about a complex issue. There is indeed a lot of bluster, so much so that one might metaphorically call the debate over the use of a retaliatory strike on Syria poisoned from the start. For President Obama, drawing a red line in a public speech was bound to be seen as a red flag by the bullshit artists of the Tea Party anti-Obama-anything club. For Republicans who wore their hawkishness on their sleeves under Bush to criticize Obama for daring to apply American military power to a foreign conflict, the irony is very much the epitome of politically expedient hypocrisy. Then we have the normally peace-promoting liberals who want to make a principled statement about the horrific results of using chemical weapons. How could there be anything but contentious calumny?

American public and political outrage at Assad’s callous use of poison gas has a red line as well: virtually unanimous agreement on all sides that there shall be no American boots-on-the-ground. Given that the U.S. has an arsenal that makes that possible, as was evident in Kosovo and Libya, we can forge ahead with smug assurance that as long as our sophisticated missiles do not carry any Sarin gas we are on higher moral ground. There is an ethical dilemma here that transcends who you support in the civil war that is raging in Syria. In sheer numbers Assad’s forces have killed 1,000 times more with so-called “conventional” weapons than the lobbing of several canisters of gas at a Damascus neighborhood. Even if you believe that poison gas is so horrific that its use must be punished, then there is the obvious retort that the U.S. knew Assad had used poison gas earlier, as it knew Saddam used it against the Kurds and against Iranian troops. At best this is a case of situation ethics, where the ethical point only matters if the situation is politically expedient.

Also in today’s news on Al Jazeera is a report that Philippine troops are securing the southern port city of Zamboanga, where an estimated one hundred Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) guerrillas have taken a number of hostages in a failed attempt to take over city hall. Although the “Moros” are a nationalist movement, they are also a brand of Muslim extremists who kill fellow Muslims, like the current morass in Syria. I suspect that most Americans are unaware that the Philippines were once under the direct control of the United States, as part of the spoils of the Spanish American War. Continue reading Of Missile Strikes and Moros →