The Colbert Report takes on the Fox News and other Rupert Murdoch organs that immediately started reporting that the Norway massacre looked like a “Muslim” terrorist act… I guess we can now rename the WSJ the Up-against-the-Wall-Street-Talking-Jumble where distorted news is only a twitter away.
A manifesto for a Muslim-free Europe, an Infidel-free Middle East
by Imran Khan, Al Jazeera, July 24, 2011
I have just finished reading a terrifying document. It’s called 2083: A European declaration of Independence.
It’s full of advice for the budding Christian martyr. Handy tips on how to build bombs and make poisons; on how to use video games to hone your shooting skills.
I came across it on a far right website.
At 1511 pages long it’s a work of extreme prejudice – against Muslims predominantly.
Ultimately, the author wants a Muslim-free Europe.
The author’s name is Andrew Berwick. He datelines the document London 2011. He spent 3 years of his life writing it and clearly believes, with a passion, every single word.
The Norwegian media claim this document is written by Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect behind the brutal attacks in Norway.
At the end of the book are pictures of Breivik himself, dressed as a blond haired and blue eyed hero of the Knights Templar.
Christian crusaders, the book suggests, have returned and are alive, well and living in London.
His last diary entry is dated 22 July 2011. There seems to be little doubt that Berwick is Breivik.
I have covered extremists of all hues for a decade now. What worries me about this document is the parallels that exist between this and another document found in a Manchester, United kingdom flat in 2005.
That document was dubbed the ‘al-Qaeda military manual’. It has a similar theme to the 2083 document – An infidel-free Middle East; Handy tips on bomb making, etc. Continue reading Dueling Manifestos
A century ago Yemen was still very much a terra incognita for Europeans and Americans. The British controlled the port of Aden, but few individuals were allowed to travel up through the highlands to visit the realm of the Zaydi imam. One of the few was Samuel Zwemer, an American missionary who spent several years in Yemen and other parts of Arabia. His desire to convert Arabs to Christianity seeps through his description, but the photographs published in his Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country, written with his daughter Amy, are valuable documentation. I attach below a chapter on a trip he made up to Sanaa a century ago. The photographs will follow in a future post. For an earlier post on Zwemer, click here.
From Pamela Geller to Anders Behring Breivik — how Islamophobia turned deadly in Norway
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, July 23, 2011
When terrorism has a white face it invariably gets marginalized in the popular narrative. The lone wolf, the outsider, the sociopath — in many cases these portraits of misanthropic, isolated individuals who turn to violence are quite accurate.
The Oslo killings, however, should be seen in a different light since there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that the perpetrator of this atrocity, even if it turns out he was acting alone, was very much part of a political movement — a movement whose leading ideologues regularly appear on Fox News and have high public profiles.
Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian man widely assumed to be responsible for the mass murder that took place in Oslo yesterday, is being referred to as a Christian fundamentalist in many press reports. Continue reading From Pamela Geller to Anders Behring Breivik
Bonfils, ca. 1870. Negative inscribed: “278. Jerusalem. Mosquee d’Omar.”
by Salim Tamari, Al-Shabaka Policy Brief, July 11, 2011
Overview
Even before the crusades, Jerusalem has had an enchanting hold on people’s imagination. Visitors imposed their aspirations, inner anguish, and dreams on what they saw as an eternal sacred city, whereas the worldly city was at great variance and often in contradiction with these imageries. Indeed, this vision of the city of God has always been in contrast with the living physicality of the city. As revealed in the leaked “Palestine Papers,†this view of the metaphoric Jerusalem has been adopted in the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka policy advisor Salim Tamari examines the historical origins of the sacrilization of Jerusalem and how it has obscured changes on the ground affecting the city’s current state and its future. He argues that proposals for the future of Jerusalem ignore the fact that at its core the conflict over the city is a case of colonial subjugation which must be addressed and resolved equitably.
Jerusalem and the “Palestine Papersâ€
The “Palestine Papers†revealed that Jerusalem occupied a central position in the implicit agreements between President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.1 They demonstrate that the PA has moved considerably from positions held at and since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. Previous Palestinian and Arab positions on Jerusalem were based on UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 242, passed after the June 1967 War. The resolution considers East Jerusalem occupied territory and its status no different from that of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, or the Syrian Golan Heights. Moreover, the “land for peace†arrangement that is at the heart of UNSC 242 also applies to occupied East Jerusalem.
From the official Palestinian perspective, the PLO’s approval of the two-state formula in 1988 “resolved†the status of Jerusalem as the capital of two states — Israel and the prospective Palestinian state. Jerusalem at this stage became the subject of a seemingly symmetrical formula of reciprocal political arrangements. West Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel, and East Jerusalem would be the capital of the Palestinian state.
However, with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Jerusalem was deferred to final status negotiations, along with borders, settlements, and refugees. During the second stage of negotiations, in the late 1990s, the focus shifted to Jerusalem’s “special status.†This status emanated from its sacred character, the presence of the holy basin, and the interests of other parties, including Jordan, the broader Islamic world, the Europeans, and the Vatican. This removed negotiations over Jerusalem from an issue that could be addressed simply within the rubric of UNSC 242, that is, restoring the territories to their status before the war. Continue reading The Future of Jerusalem: Sacred Space or Open City?
With the virtual flood of book digitalization online quite a few obscure books are now available online either at archive.org or through Google. I recently came across a gem: a translation of a high school Arabic text used in Aden by the British at the start of the 20th century. The title page is shown above. The text has translations into English of classical Arabic texts, including fables, anecdotes and travel accounts. The full text can be downloaded as a pdf here. I include an anecdote about Salah al-Din below. Continue reading Gems of Arabic Literature #1: Wise Words
By George Nicolas El-Hage
Poetry and art are twins. Both are the offspring of suffering and joy. Gibran translated Blake’s “Innocence and Experience” into a “Tear and a Smile.” Nevertheless, the unending drama of human existence unfolds itself in the pages of both men. Only the elected and gifted soul is capable of creativity, of reading the world differently, and of rebelling against evil clothed in a lamb’s garment. Art knows no boundaries. It transcends all national limits and is only satisfied with the universal. There, time and place lose their ability to imprison the artist in a closed cell. The inspired poet becomes a winged soul floating over life, embracing the infinite. It is in the midst of this vast expanse where the responsibility of the artist becomes eternal and his mission turns holy that we can speak of Kahlil Gibran and William Blake together. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Gibran Kahlil Gibran: A Timeless and Universal Vision
The beach in Tangier, 2008; photograph by Daniel Martin Varisco