يا قاتل الأطفال يا مهدم الحياة والديار

"Arab Spring", Poetry, Yemen


عبدالعزيز المقالح: ذهبت مثلما أتيت ملعون المساء والنهار .. يا قاتل الأطفال يا مهدم الحياة والديار

Yemen Press, Saturday, 24 September, 2011

ذهبت مثلما أتيت ملعون المساء والنهار…
أيامك الطوال عار..
وعهدك القصير عار..
أكبر منك نملة..
أشهر منك ريشة على جدار..
يا أمسنا الذبيح..
يا فأرنا القبيح..
يا قاتل الأطفال يا مهدم الحياة والديار..
ظننت أنك الإله .. أننا العبيد..
تفعل ما تريد..
تعبث في مصائر العباد..
فخانك الظن وخانك الرشاد..
أصبحت كومة من الرماد..
تنام في انفراد..
تصحو على انفراد..
تسألك الريح ، يسألك الجماد..
ماذا صنعت قل ..
ماذا صنعت للبلاد؟,,
ماذا تركت من ذكرى على ضميرها ومن أمجاد؟..
لا شيء يا صغير..
لا شيء غير لعبة المزاد..
رفاقك القرًاد والقوًاد..
وعاصف الفساد..
ماذا تركت للذين يقرأون؟..
ماذا سيكتب الأطفال عنك حين يكبرون؟..
سيكتبون .. مر من هنا منتفخا..
فأر صغير يرتدي ثوب مغامر جلاد..

Is 4 million enough to get the point?

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Salih returns to Yemen, but probably not the best public relations to photograph him in front of an exit sign

In a move that took almost everyone by surprise, Ali Abdullah Salih returned to Yemen Friday from his recuperation stay in neighboring Saudi Arabia. It is not clear which Ali Abdullah Salih returned. Is it the one who has promised at least four times to abide by a GCC-brokered sweetheart deal that would give him immunity if he agrees to step down? Is it the Ali Abdullah Salih who was badly burned and almost killed in a bomb explosion last June and was considered unlikely to ever return to Yemen? Is it the father who cannot control his succession-mongering son and relatives from trying to kill off any possible opponents to their eventual takeover? Is it the Ali Abdullah Salih who has survived dancing on the heads of snakes for over three decades? Could it even be Ali Abdullah Salih the peacemaker, calling for negotiations?

In a way it does not really matter. Yesterday it is estimated that some 4 million Yemenis took to the streets all over Yemen protesting his regime and any attempt to perpetuate it. To be sure there are still some supporters, but the overwhelming majority of Yemenis have demonstrated, quite literally, that it is time the Arab Spring blossom into a new political system in Yemen. Meanwhile, it seems all the sides jostling for power are more interested in self promotion than love of their country. The cowardly attacks of the Republican Guard on the protesters will only make these regimists all the more hated. The battle for Sanaa is bringing life to a grinding halt in the capital city and taking the life of far too many innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. All of Yemen is suffering. Continue reading Is 4 million enough to get the point? →

Are you Whiggish?

Books You Should Read, Ethics, Scholars, Teaching Resources


[One of my favorite works on the philosophy of history is Herbert Butterfield’s prescient 1931 The Whig Interpretation of History. While most people today probably have no clue what a “Whig” is, his reflections on how we look at and write about history are as relevant today as when he wrote them eight decades ago. The whole text is available online, but I provide some excerpts from the Introduction here to whet your appetite.]

1. INTRODUCTION

It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud, and by his exposures and his verdicts, his satire and his moral indignation, can punish unrighteousness, avenge the injured or reward the innocent. One may be forgiven for not being too happy about any division of mankind into good and evil, progressive and reactionary, black and white; and it is not clear that moral indignation is not a dispersion of one’s energies to the great confusion of one’s judgement. There can be no complaint against the historian who personally and privately has his preferences and antipathies, and who as a human being merely has a fancy to take part in the game that he is describing; it is pleasant to see him give way to his prejudices and take them emotionally, so that they splash into colour as he writes; provided that when he steps in this way into the arena he recognizes that he is stepping into a world of partial judgements and purely personal appreciations and does not imagine that he is speaking ex cathedra. But if the historian can rear himself up like a god and judge, or stand as the official avenger of the crimes of the past, then one can require that he shall be still more godlike and regard himself rather as the reconciler than as the avenger; taking it that his aim is to achieve the understanding of the men and parties and causes of the past, and that in this understanding, if it can be complete, all things will ultimately be reconciled. It seems to be assumed that in history we can have something more than the private points of view of particular historian; that there are “verdicts of history” and that history itself, considered impersonally, has something to say to men. Continue reading Are you Whiggish? →

America at Risk!

Film and Video, Islamophobia 101, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism Issue, YouTube Watch


I find myself finally in agreement with a slogan coined by the effervescent Newt Gingrich: America is at risk. But unlike the fear-mongering in his DVD (buy a copy to share with fellow Islamophobes at an afternoon Tea Party hate session), he himself and his shameless self-promotion are what put that which America stands for at greatest risk. The political opportunists (and anyone who is polling as appallingly low as Newt in the polls is an opportunist extraordinaire) have always stretched and even obliterated reality to suit their egos and their dreamed-for political fortune (in more ways than the ideological). There are terrorists in the world; some of them happen to be Muslim; most have grievances that have little to do with religious principles. The suicide bomber who screams Allahu Akbar is not a substitute for the devout Muslim who faithfully follows the pillars and values of his or her religion and who remembers that first and foremost Allah is merciful and compassionate (bi-ism-allah-ar-rahman-al-rahim). The Catholic mob which sawed Huguenots in half in France a few centuries ago, and so revolted Voltaire, is hardly created in the image of the Jesus of the Gospels. The risk to America is not from any military power or futile terrorist plot, but from the demise of the values that made America a beacon of freedom rather than a superpower flexing its muscles globally.

I have not padded the Gingrich Productions empire by buying his “Citizens United” (but only the right, White kind of citizens) DVD, but I did take a look at the slick (I am tempted to leave the letter “l” out of that last word) trailer. Continue reading America at Risk! →

History of Islamic Cartography Online

Environment, Islamic History, Islamic Sciences, Islamic Texts, Maps, Miniatures, Teaching Resources


Al-Idrisi’s map of the world, 1154 CE

A very useful volume on Islamic cartography is now online. Below is the table of contents, each chapter available in pdf.

Volume Two, Book One
Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies
Edited by J. B. Harley and David Woodward

Volume 1

Front Matter
Gallery of Color Illustrations (Plates 1–24)
Gallery of Color Illustrations (Plates 25–40)

Preface
J. B. Harley and David Woodward

Part One – Islamic Cartography

Chapter 1. Introduction to Islamic Maps
Ahmet T. Karamustafa

Chapter 2. Celestial Mapping
Emilie Savage-Smith

Chapter 3. Cosmographical Diagrams
Ahmet T. Karamustafa

Early Geographical Mapping

Chapter 4. The Beginnings of a Cartographic Tradition
Gerald R. Tibbetts Continue reading History of Islamic Cartography Online →

A plot against all the Yemen people

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Yemen


One of the victims in Sanaa

The protests against the regime of Ali Abdullah Salih have persevered in Yemen for some nine months with no end in sight that does not result in the past tense of “Irhal” for Salih. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Yemeni citizens have joined the protest, some living in tents in a makeshift Freedom Triangle. For the most part, given the length and extent of the protests, there has been no violence from the protesters and limited attacks on them. The times that troops loyal to Salih have fired on protesters have only encouraged more protests. But the past couple of days have become ugly. As reported today, at least 21 have been killed a day after 26 were shot dead in Sanaa. Here is the report in Al Jazeera:

According to reports, Monday’s deaths occurred as snipers fired upon passers-by and peaceful protesters demonstrating at Change Square.

“Help me, oh my God look at his slaughter!” said the father of a boy who died from a gunshot wound to the head.

“We were just in the car on Hayel Street (near the fighting). I stepped out to get some food and left my two boys in the car and I heard the older one scream. The little one was shot straight through the head.”

The clashes came as protesters tried to push further into territory held by government forces after extending their camp overnight.

The opposition had earlier vowed to press ahead with demonstrations despite Sunday’s crackdown.

A freelance journalist stationed in Yemen, told Al Jazeera, “Everything points to more protest”.

Meanwhile, Abdu al-Janadi, Yemen’s deputy information minister, rejected accusations that the regime had planned attacks on the protesters and accused what he described as “unknown assailants” of carrying out the acts.

“This attack was prepared so as to kill as many people as they could. … This is a plot against all the Yemeni people,” al-Janadi told a British television station.

A boy sitting in his car as his father is getting food. All deaths in this situation are to be condemned, because all could be avoided if the greed of political foes did not rule out the honorable virtue of compassion. But there is something about the killing of innocent bystanders, whether intentional or not, that galvanizes the moment. The perpetrators are not “unknown assailants,” but clearly individuals told to do all in their power to sabotage the transition to a new government. Their names do not matter because their motives are so clear. Continue reading A plot against all the Yemen people →

Lively action at the Dead Sea

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Art, Israel, Photography

Palestine and Israel are back in the news. As Abbas prepares to request recognition for Palestine from the U.N. and Israelis themselves stage protests following the “Arab Spring,” the installation (sans clothing) photographer Spencer Tunick has returned to the legendary site of Sodom and Gomorrah to unclothe the political tensions in the area. I think he is on to something by having his subjects take everything off. Forget about turning swords into plowshares, just strip and dive in. And here is one part of the region where you are guaranteed not to sink.

Montesquieu, St. Augustine and Libya

Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Libya


Photograph by Murad Sezer/Reuters

A Man of God and Technology, Trying to Steady Libya
By ANNE BARNARD, The New York Times, September 16, 2011

Tripoli, Libya

AREF NAYED was sipping cappuccino in the soaring marble lobby of the Corinthia Hotel near Tripoli’s seafront, quoting Montesquieu on law and Augustine on forgiveness in a conversation that had begun with earthier subjects, like the challenges of restoring Libya’s water supply and counting its dead.

He held forth on how Bedouin poetry shaped a moderate Islam in Libya, and he was just starting to explain the relevance to Libyan politics of the mathematical theory of complexity — it had to do with something called “flocking phenomena” — when his cellphone rang.

“I have to take this,” he said, glancing at the number. “Somebody wants to surrender.”

An associate of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the deposed Libyan leader, wanted safety guarantees before turning himself in. Mr. Nayed wanted to make it happen, and not just because fostering reconciliation is one of his many jobs for Libya’s de facto government.

He is also a Muslim theologian who, in addition to running a technology business, spent his time before the Libyan rebellion writing erudite papers arguing that compassion is the paramount value in Islam, that pious Muslims can thrive within a liberal secular state and that even the most righteous ones should adopt a “humble recognition” of their own fallibility.

Now, as the Transitional National Council’s coordinator of a Libyan stabilization team being asked to solve problems like fuel shortages and human rights abuses, he suddenly finds himself in an ideal laboratory to test his signature theological propositions — and to try to make them government policy.

“I don’t think there should be a witch hunt, purges or cleansings,” he said Monday at the hotel cafe, adding that those who committed crimes under Colonel Qaddafi should be tried. “Any time you deal with human beings with that kind of terminology, you end up with unfairness and persecution.” Continue reading Montesquieu, St. Augustine and Libya →