Category Archives: Ethics

Omar Dewachi on Iraq

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Iraq, Iraq War

Omar Dewachi, an anthropologist who was an Iraqi physician during the Gulf War, has published an article from his forthcoming book, which is entitled “When Wounds Travel: Ecologies of War and Healthcare East of the Mediterranean”.

Here is the start of the article. To read the whole article, click here.

A call from the surgical residence in the outpatient clinic informing us of a new admission to the ward. “It is a burn case,” he warns, “Najwa Abdul Hadi, female, in her early 30s, transferred from a local hospital with burn injuries covering nearly 90% of her body following the explosion of a cooking gas container at her home.” Mohammed and I, the two junior doctors on the floor, rushed to the other side of the ward, impatiently waiting at the service elevators to receive our new admission. Only days into our surgery rotation on the second floor of Baghdad Teaching Hospital—Iraq’s largest referral hospital and medical complex—we had finished medical school a month earlier, in May 1997. This was our first job as “real” doctors. Unlike Mohammed who had studied medicine at another med school, I had spent the past 6 years of my training in this teaching medical complex, and was familiar with the ins and outs of the hospital. Still, this was a new terrain for me. No longer a student, this night was my first time “on call”, and I was getting a bit anxious.

For many of us who lived through the first Gulf war, the sight of a burnt body became a doppelgänger of that war. One such doppelgänger was the charred body of one Iraqi soldier in the carnage of tanks which littered what became known as the “Highway of Death”—where the retreating convoys of thousands of Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait were attacked by the US military with Depleted Uranium (DU) weaponry. DU was developed in the US during the Cold War era and experimented with for the first time in real combat during the 1991 Iraq War. It was designed to burn through thick metal surfaces, namely tanks and fortified armored vehicles. The artillery tips burn through the thick alloy, incinerating them inside and out upon impact.

Another image of that war, which I witnessed for myself, was the silhouette of two skeletal remains fossilized into the concrete walls inside the famous Amiriya Shelter, where 408 people were killed with so-called bunker busting, “smart bombs.” US pilots nicknamed them “the hammer” for their massively destructive capabilities and wide-ranging blast radii. I visited the Amiriya shelter in 1991 after the cessation of the bombing campaign. I remember thinking that it was a blessing that those in the bunker did not suffer for long. It was more merciful and dignified to die on the spot than to endure the effects of surviving such brutalization. 

Bulldozing Islamic Jeddah

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Development, Ethics, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi
mid-19th century view of Jeddah from Richard Burton’s travelogue

The current de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, MBS, has promoted a major development scheme entitled Vision 2030. This time, instead of sending henchmen with cleavers, he is authorizing imported Western bulldozers to basically turn the older parts of the historic port of Jeddah into a wannabe Dubai. As noted in a recent article on Qantara:

“Currently, the areas most affected by the destruction are those to the south and east of the old city, the Balad, parts of which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites. Prior to evacuation, between 10,000 and 50,000 people lived in each of these neighbourhoods. That means tens of thousands are likely to lose their homes. Estimates circulated by dissidents and demolition critics range from hundreds of thousands to one million."

The port of Jeddah has been the main stopping point for Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca for almost fifteen hundred years. It is described by early geographers in detail, given the amount of travelers who passed through. For the modern kingdom, however, history means nothing and can be erased by the whims of the super rich. This continues the destructive Wahhabi impulse that sacked Kerbala in 1802, as described below by ‘Uthman b. Abd Allah b. Bishr (d. 1872) in his Unwan al-Majd fi Tarikh Najd (Mecca, 1930):

“In the year 1802, Ibn Sa’ud made for Karbala with his victorious army, famous pedigree horses, all the settled people and Bedouin of Najd, the people of Janub, Hijaz, Tihama and others…The Muslims [i.e. the Wahhabis] surrounded Karbala and took it by storm. They killed most of the people in the houses and the markets. They destroyed the dome above al-Husayn’s grave. They took away everything they saw in the shrine and near it, including the coverlet decorated with emeralds, sapphires and pearls which covered the grave. They took away everything they found in the town—possessions, arms, clothes, fabric, gold, silver, and precious books. One cannot even enumerate the spoils! They stayed there for just one morning and left after midday, taking away all the possessions. Nearly 2000 people were killed in Karbala.”

When the well-primed news media talk about reform in Saudi Arabia, it is worth noting that reform has a long way to go, given the roots of its blood-soaked Wahhabi past. It will take more than letting women drive at the same time that women who protest are jailed, basic human rights in the kingdom are ignored, and heads are still chopped off in public. Even the chopping up of a journalist who dared to call out the corruption is now ignored, because of the profit for a family which defies the morality of the country’s own Prophet. As long as the Saudi regime buys Western military supplies, they are given free rein to use them, resulting in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster in Yemen, with thousands dead and more dying every day, and fueling the sectarian divide between the Saudis and Iran.

There is a saying that blood is thicker than water, but it seems that for the Saudi elite it is oil which is thicker than either blood or water. They have plenty of oil, have shed lots of blood and are desperate for water. All this leads to an economic domino effect: the world craves oil, oil revenues fuel a family wealth fund which spreads an intolerant interpretation of Islam worldwide, and then much of the oil revenues come back to oil-hungry countries who sell weapons to the Saudis.

Imagine if Greece leveled the Parthenon for a shopping mall and Italy replaced the Colloseum with a football field. In a sense that has already happened to Mecca and Medina. Welcome to Saudi Arabia in 2030…

Lament for Yemen

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Poetry, Sanaa, Yemen

Lament for Yemen

Yemen,
your body lies crushed
beneath the rubble that was the home
where you were born
your blood floods the land
breaks the terraced slopes
where sorghum supplied every need
your breath is a raging wind,
a last gasp in the swirling dust
but despite all odds you cling to life
you sing, you dance, you will not be denied.

Sanaa,
your towering buildings bow down
in prayer for the dead
the saila swells with your tears
Bab al-Yemen closes its eyes
blind as dark nights more dense
than locusts devouring all they see
but as the bombs slash the sky
hope shines through the alabaster
carved by your grandfathers’ hardened hands.

Yemen,
your past is like no other
your present is not of your doing
no matter how many bombs fall
how many families mourn
how long the world ignores you.
The smile of one of your children
will outlast all the vain kings in their palaces.
Your future will not be denied.

Daniel Martin Varisco, February, 2022

[Words can no longer describe the suffering inflicted on the people of Yemen; the damage is beyond comprehension, where only poetry can dare to speak.]

Who Owns the Holy Land?

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Israel, Palestine, Travel

As another year draws to a close, it is hard not to think in larger terms of the course of the last century. The world has seen two world wars and far too many atrocities to think of our technological and commercially driven age as golden. But in it all there has been humor. The American writer Mark Twain was a humorist with political insight. His greatest books belong to the century before, from the mother of all Holy Land travelogues, Innocents Abroad, to Huckleberry Finn and his adventurous friend Tom Sawyer. Surely one of the greatest humorists ever, Mark Twain did more than tell funny stories. His work survives in part because it uses humor to remind us of the unfairness and unwavering mundaneness of life.

In Tom Sawyer Abroad Twain offers a vivid critique of the kind of Orientalism that Edward Said rightly views as a style for dominating the Orient. Tom is not the ugly American abroad but the naive traveler finding out that the world has problems beyond flooding of the Mississippi. One of the more poignant passages goes straight to the core of the contemporary political crisis over Palestine. Who owns the Holy Land? The dialogue, as is often the case in Twain’s homespun rendering, speaks for itself:

Continue reading Who Owns the Holy Land? →

Water and Summer Heat in Alexandria

Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Egypt, Ethics, Travel
Stanley Bridge, Alexandria (© el-Sayed el-Aswad)

After one year of being forced to stay indoors (April ?2020 to May 2021) due to the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Egyptians from different parts of Egypt flocked to Alexandria, “the bride of the Mediterranean ‘arus al-bahr al-abiyad,” as they call it, seeking a fresh, cool breeze and access to the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Tensions have arisen between people’s personal experiences and official narratives concerning many different issues including critical access to water. Two issues related to the use of water are discussed here: one relates to the public access of the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea; the other concerns the supply of drinking water. In general, this issue relates to the fact that Egypt faces economic challenges attributable to mounting poverty, population growth, high inflation, increasing unemployment-particularly among young people, water shortage, decline in agriculture and food supply, and corruption.

Public beaches in Alexandria have been privatized as part of the government’s open-door policy, instigating discrimination and class problems. For example, the cheapest ticket mandated to get into a public beach area such as Miami or Sidi Bishr costs 25 Egyptians pounds per person. Such a price makes it difficult for a low-income family of six (with a resulting cost of 150 pounds) to go to and enjoy the beach. Rather, feeling excluded, they walk along the cement corniche, resting at various places along the coastal walkway, eating roasted corn or toasted seeds, and watching the more fortunate swim, socialize and play in the sands along the water’s edge.

Furthermore, there is an ever-growing problem pertaining to the increasingly high charges for the service of providing usable drinking and cleaning water to the citizens of the city. This problem can be exemplified by tensions expressed between a government official (GM) of a water company and an Alexandrian citizen (AC) as shown in a reconstructed dialogue between the two persons:

AC: (directing his speech to the GM) I am here to complain about the 4600 Egyptian pounds I paid to a meter reader (or collector from the water company). I had informed the collector that I had not used the water for 4 years as I had been out of country. My apartment was closed and nobody was there. I also told him that I had paid all water dues before traveling. But, he insisted that I should pay first, then, explain to the authorities that I had paid in advance. Here is the receipt of the payment. I would like you or the water company to reimburse me the 4600 pounds.
GM: (moving his right hand toward his mouth as if he were eating or swallowing something) There is no reimbursement as whatever enters the government’s tummy never comes back. You should have been careful. I mean, you should have refused receiving or paying the bill. You should have come here (to the water company) and complained before paying the dues as other people who had an experience like yours did.
AC: I do not understand. Do you have a specific procedure that I was not aware of?
GM: Yes. For example, a person, showing his passport as a proof for being out of Egypt for five years, complained that he was charged 6200 pounds for consuming the water that he did not use. He questioned the meter reader and did not pay the dues, but rather came to my office asking for an explanation. I told him that the passport could not be accepted as evidence as somebody else may have been living in the apartment and using the water. I advised him to bring a certificate from the Electric Company of his district showing that no electricity had been consumed in his apartment for the last 5 years. This person actually brought the certificate indicating no electricity was supplied to the apartment during this specific period of time. The water company was entitled not to waive the entire charge of 6200 pounds, as there were fees to be paid for the service, whether or not he used the water.
AC: Such a complicated bureaucratic procedure spoils our short visit to the city. My question is: On what basis does the water company charge people for water when they are away from their residences and not using the service?
GM: The charges are based on a reading of the water meters. But, in the case of a malfunction of the meter and/or absence of the customers, meter readers-collectors provide estimates of the charges.
AC: But the charges as shown in my case and the case of the person you just mentioned were very high despite both of us being outside of the country. I heard that the water company rewards meter readers based on the amount of money they collect. I mean more money they charge costumers more rewards they get.
GM: Yes, it is true.
AC: But this policy might contribute to the exaggeration of estimates made by meter readers in order to receive the rewards. How do you explain that?
GM: I cannot answer this question, as I did not designate this reward policy.

Frustrated at not being able to get his money back, the AC left the office. I was shocked by what I heard about the AC’s case as well as about this reward policy. Addressing this issue about one of the water companies in Alexandria, Wikipedia states that meter readers and collectors get rewards and “receive an incentive equal up to 30% of their salary for exceeding monthly targets.” Such a policy may benefit some employees, but hurts a lot of people. Other fair solutions or policies are needed.

el-Sayed el-Aswad