Nomad and the Olive Branch

Book Review: "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 9 Jun 2020 13:12:00 +0300

Jared Diamond is sort of a rock star in the sphere of biogeography (and science in general depending on your perspective). He is more a doom-sayer than a soothe-sayer, a prophet warning of the destruction of society and mankind as a whole. His magnum opus and prophetic text "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" has received accolades from a variety of sources, the least of which was the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. Having read that book myself, I came into his lesser-known essay "The Third Chimpanzee" with the expectation that it would be entertaining and enlightening at the same time. Gladly, I was not disappointed, but a glaring issue exists that I will address later.

The first book published by Jared Diamond, "The Third Chimpanzee" explores the progression of human evolution in four parts. In the first, he explores the biological premises of our relationship to two other primate species, the common and pygmy chimpanzees (now called bonobos). This is followed by his exploration of sexual selection as practiced by human beings and how it is mirrored in primates and other animal species, highlighting the relative uniquities of parent-child relationships among Homo sapiens and cross-cultural similarities and differences in parenthood and child-rearing. Part three's premise is to highlight that our language, the use of art, and technology all circle back to sexual selection (picking mates). Part 4 imparts on the book with a grim look at how humans have adopted conquest in addition to genocide and murder as a theme of expansion, and also brings to bear interesting yet frightening examples of the same in the animal kingdom. He finally concludes the 19-chapter-long book with a look at how desertification and environmental change ring the alarm bells of extinction. The last two parts of the book are further expanded on in future works: part 4 is a prelude to "Guns, Germs, and Steel", while part 5 an introduction to his 2005 best-seller "Collapse" (which I also read but found rather difficult to follow compared to the former).

Now, what do I think of "The Third Chimpanzee"? Honestly, I liked the book. Jared Diamond, as obscure his source material may be, does his utmost to bring to personal relevance these issues by offering examples both from his personal travels and his studies. The language of the book is witty and he injects humor at appropriate times (so appropriate that it evokes a collective "Ha!" in the psyche of those who find his material all too familiar). He covers a large scope of material without going too deep into the subject matter at the time, which may be seen as a shortcoming to some, but evidently more than makes up for it in later works mentioned above. In terms of style, he appears to follow a logical progression, but the transition between part 3 and part 4 - two starkly contrasting topics - was as smooth as a pot-hole-ridden road in Edmonton's spring after a long and harsh winter. Emphasis on competition and selection would have helped in the larger scheme of things.

Regardless of my nitpicking, the book is a must-read for those who are interested in humanity's future and survival. It must be taken into account that we humans are unique among the species in that we recognize the trajectory of our evolution and can, through our advanced physiology and psychology, guide it for the better. And then I remember that the same species that currently dominate the planet also gave us Donald Trump.

Writing Style - 4.5/5

Content - 5/5

Overall - 4.5/5

On "Leviathan", by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (Part 1: On Man)

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Wed, 20 May 2020 00:09:00 +0300

Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, is a veritable juggernaut (pun intended) of a book. It is Hobbes' magnum opus, having been circulated widely by the turn of the 17th and 18th Centuries at a time when England was plunged into civil war. Rather than rebel against the new political order (a war crime according to Hobbes which I will revisit later in this post), Hobbes' central thesis is to submit to the absolute authority of an established commonwealth (preferably, in Hobbes' point of view, a "Christian" one), which he compares to the overwhelming biblical sea monster, the Leviathan. Having just finished reading it, I would like to convey my thoughts on his central themes in as short a post as allowed by the breadth of the knowledge he passed on with this read. For this post, I will stick to part 1 (On Man), and deal with the subsequent parts of the book in later posts.

Summary of Part 1: He starts his book outlining the nature of man and self. He argues that dreams and reasonings are but the physical manifestations of the inner workings of the brain, the former being a "train of thoughts unguided" and the latter being a "train of thoughts regulated". He then establishes "Good" and "Evil" as subjective notions based on what one desires or distastes in. From there, he talks about knowledge of fact and consequence, two distinct entities of which the latter exhibits more relevance to his central thesis on submitting to absolute civil and ecclesiastical authority, and from that knowledge stems behavior: the "perpetual and restless desire of power after power... that ceases only in Death" and "desire of ease and... delight [which] disposes men to obey a common power".

Bringing this together, Hobbes describes man as an animal in a constant state of war with its own species, asserting that their natural state is one that is "restless and competitive". From this premise, he argues that social contracts are the penultimate methods to keep these base desires and natural impulses in check. He reasserts his belief in the subjectivity of good versus evil in the concepts of justice and injustice: they are only relevant in societies that practice law and by extension justice (the execution of law). Since religion itself was a historical means to legitimize power and the establishment of civilization (itself an act of violence against Man's impulses and desires), Hobbes argues that religious societies would be prototypically ideal as bedrocks for social contracts and civil/ecclesiastical commonwealths, otherwise, as Hobbes argues, the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". This was the central motive that spurred Hobbes to write Leviathan: to bring order to the chaos of man.

To conclude Part 1, Hobbes establishes a set of what he calls "Natural Laws", centering on the premise of upholding social contracts and their doing away with the unguided horrors and worse natures of man's actions: murder, vengeance, pride, arrogance, and selfishness, to name a few. He argues the premise of Natural Laws to be descended from the Ten Commandments God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Within the confines of the laws established by such a commonwealth, Hobbes argues that people are free to do as they wish.

Thoughts on Part 1: The beginning of the book basically centers around establishing the need for creating a commonwealth to allow for the flourishing of human life. The establishment of good and evil as subjective notions are necessary to justify whatever the commonwealth desires, and since the rule of one absolute leader or tyrant is the law, whatever he/she deems as good and evil therefore becomes law. While the civilization of (wo)man and his/her submission to Natural Law is the sine qua non for the modern nation-state, what Hobbes, I think, fails to capture is that evil may sometimes land in the hands of the solitary leader, who in turn exercises his/her own form of violence - itself an evil that may be deemed "necessary" - to bring a semblance of order to the commonwealth. There is also the assumption that the worse natures of man's actions as described above - vices, mainly - are qualities inherent in man and not the ruler. While the submission of the monarch himself/herself to Natural Law is not required in Hobbes's world, the use and abuse of power become justified so long as all in the commonwealth are adherent to the social contract. Why, then, is this unacceptable to many in the modern world?

Besides concepts such as the separation of powers (executive, judiciary, and legislative), what Hobbes also fails to account for in the sense of the modern city-state are the stratifications of economic power and the abuse of such fiscal ability (i.e. corruption). This is especially important in the wake of nations that are both developing and developed: the layering of the proletariat and bourgeoisie groups creates tensions that hamper economic progress and the evening-out of economic disparities. Such tension breeds conflict in today's largely capitalist environment, and also means the rich get richer and the poor languish by the millions. The centralization of wealth also leads to the centralization of influence and power, thus leading to its abuse among many members of those who supposedly follow the laws set forth by their nation-states.

Putting that aside, however, keep in mind that Hobbes wrote this book years and decades before the effervescence of the Renaissance when definitions of the modern nation-state were advanced by thinkers such as Voltaire and became widely accepted gradually throughout the course of time. Hobbes's premise follows that of religion and civilization as abhorrent yet necessary tools for the benefit of mankind in the realm of a commonwealth. The alternative - at least in the perspective of his time - would be chaos, and the life of man would be fraught with insecurities, vice, and untimely deaths. Suffice it to say, I disagree with his notions that good/evil are subjective, as there are - at least from the perspective of a person who believes in a religion - objective vices that lead to loss of human life and property regardless of who carries it out, and there are actions that promote the preservation of human life and property, again regardless of who carries it out.

I will comment on parts 2, 3, and 4 in future posts. Thank you for reading.

References

1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Penguin Classics)

2. SparkNotes - Leviathan

3. Leviathan Chapter Summaries

Book Review: "No Logo" by Naomi Klein

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Thu, 2 Apr 2020 15:04:00 +0300

It is easy in today's world to be lost in a fascination with - as Alexis de Tocqueville put it - "magical names [and] ideas". He may have been the world's first brand prophet, for, in today's world of cutthroat capitalism, it is not enough to simply make a product and sell it, as is often argued, but also to produce a brand: a name, logo, and idea seeped into the thoughts of consumers worldwide. The brand does not become just anything and everything. It becomes the only thing. The fanatical fervor displayed by such branders, argues Canadian journalist and activist Naomi Klein, rivals that of extremist terrorists who supposedly follow the Muslim faith. Indeed, names like Nike, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, McDonald's, and Wal-Mart have become more than just entries in the Fortune 500, but have adopted cultures of their own that seek to invade and influence the nascent minds of children everywhere, breeding the next generation of blind-faith consumers and believers of the so-called "free market", an idea as laughable as the notion of "benevolent colonization".

Speaking of Naomi Klein, I just finished reading her magnum opus, "No Logo". A tour de force against corporate manufacture of consumer culture and unabetted capitalism, "No Logo" captured more than just my rapt attention: it captures the spirit of anti-consumerism and socialism in today's unfettered marketplace. The book's premise is split into several sections, each discussing an aspect of brand-centered economics that has earned the rightful ire of millions if not billions worldwide. It starts off by exploring how brands become successful, with missions that appear to go beyond the purpose of merely selling products. It then delves into the less desirable notions of third-world labor in so-called "export production zones", a euphemism for mass exploitation if there ever was one. Other aspects covered by the book also include false advertising, the pervasiveness of consumer culture in sports and schools, the problem with mergers, and the ephemeral side of middle-class freelancing in the space of today's upper-class dominion over wealth and market shares. The book then ends with the eponymous "No Logo" series of chapters, expositing solutions and reactions to consumer culture and the companies behind these brands.

The book itself is over 450 pages long, including the Afterword in the 10th Anniversary Edition. The copy I have has text that is a little small to read, so eyestrain was a factor in my long-reading sessions. However, I have nothing else but praise for the book. Through its detailed exposition on the shameless campaigns carried out by brands against not only consumers in the middle and lower classes, but also against third-world developing nations and their people, it has opened my eyes even more to the dystopian raison d'etre of big-name companies and their quest to dominate the global market. This alone has reshaped my view of brands and the products they sell, indeed forcing me to be more inquisitive of their sources and how these products are made. While the book itself reads more like narrative after narrative, Klein injects her own views in a convincing and appealing yet also non-confrontational manner, instead focusing her qualms against the brands and logos that are ever so prevalent in today's world. She also applies sociological theories such as the alienation of one from the process of production, where people - especially those in third-world sweatshops and factories - are made to feel like nothing more than cogs in gears, or extensions of the machines that provide their livelihoods. While the book does indeed promote those theories, it does not read like Karl Marx's "Das Kapital", instead citing sources extensively and documenting personal experiences.

What of the style of writing? The style of writing is easy to follow most if not all the time. The book does a wonderful job transitioning between chapters and summing up points made earlier, tying - for example - Nike's hypocrisy on brand mission in the face of its growing sweatshop scandals. The content has already been mentioned above, and is par excellence bar none. Overall, I recommend this book because it really can shape one's views and perspectives.

Style - 5/5

Content - 5/5

Overall - 5/5

Book Review: "Saladin" by John Man

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 13:25:00 +0300

Saladin. The name echoes heroism, chivalry, and magnanimity. The legend has become larger than life and is loved or at least respected even by his enemies and detractors. I picked this book up, interested in the chance to review what probably was an Orientalist critique of the man himself, but I was surprised by John Man's even-handedness and fairness in covering this historic figure. Having read snippets of Saladin's life in The Crusade through Arab Eyes by Lebanese-French historian Amine Maalouf, I found both an admiring and critical viewpoint in Man's approach.

The book itself comprises just over 340 pages, but it is, as many reviews have stated, "fast-paced" and "thrilling". The language is easy to follow, and the book itself is quite a page-turner for a history-themed work. The book starts by framing the historical context in which Saladin was a part of, namely that of the early 3 Crusader Wars. The book then talks of Saladin's early life, under the shadows of his mentors Shirkuh and Nur-ad-Din, the latter also an exemplar of justice and fairness. As Saladin steps out of these shadows, we are treated to an expose on how he got his name (Saladin is not his real name) and how he lived up to his title. He consolidated power as a shrewd sultan and a master tactician both on and off the battlefields, right up to and including his ultimate goal: the re-conquest of Jerusalem. Following his declining health and eventual death, John Man ties the book together with a chapter on his qualities and enduring, yet nearly-forgotten (surprisingly), legacy.

What of the book itself? The writing style is very layman-like, but in some cases, it almost reaches a nearly-unprofessional level with cliches and metaphors abounding. Yet, it is still enjoyable to read. The content of the story is, as mentioned above, fair towards Saladin's virtues and his rare vices (as a statesman, not a human being). What I wish Man did in the beginning of his book was outline his own perspective and framework as a historian (i.e. why write about Saladin, especially in the context of a non-Muslim and potentially Orientalist historian?). He also made a couple of claims in the book that were demonstrably false: for example, Islam was by and large spread by trade, not by the sword. However, he more than makes up for this in the detail of his sources and the play-by-play of Saladin's major life achievements.

Overall, I would recommend this book, but take it with a grain of salt. If you're looking for a more Arab perspective on Saladin and the Crusades, then I would recommend The Crusades through Arab Eyes by Amine Maalouf. Otherwise, if you're just looking for a biography of Saladin, this would be just one source of it.

Style - 4/5

Content - 4/5

Overall - 4/5

صلاح الدين الأيوبي. يكرر الاسم البطولة والبطولة والشهامة. أصبحت الأسطورة أكبر من الحياة وهي محبوبه أو محترمة على الأقل حتى من قبل أعدائه ومنتقديه. التقطت هذا الكتاب ، مهتمًا بفرصة مراجعة ما ربما كان نقدًا مستشرقًا للرجل نفسه ، لكنني فوجئت بتوازن وإنصاف جون مان في تغطية هذا الرقم التاريخي. بعد أن قرأت مقتطفات من حياة صلاح الدين في الحروب الصليبية من خلال عيون عربية للمؤرخ اللبناني الفرنسي أمين معلوف ، وجدت وجهة نظر نقدية ومثيرة للإعجاب في نهج الإنسان.

يحتوي الكتاب نفسه على ما يزيد قليلاً عن 340 صفحة ، ولكنه ، كما ذكر العديد من المراجعات ، "سريع الخطى" و "مثير". من السهل متابعة اللغة ، والكتاب نفسه هو بمثابة صفحة تحول إلى عمل بموضوع التاريخ. يبدأ الكتاب بتأطير السياق التاريخي الذي كان صلاح الدين جزءًا منه ، أي سياق الحروب الصليبية الثلاث المبكرة. ثم يتحدث الكتاب عن حياة صلاح الدين المبكرة ، تحت ظلال معلمه شركوه ونور الدين ، وهذا الأخير أيضًا نموذج للعدالة والإنصاف. بينما يخرج صلاح الدين من هذه الظلال ، يتم التعامل مع كشف عن كيفية حصوله على اسمه (صلاح الدين ليس اسمه الحقيقي) وكيف ارتقى إلى لقبه. عزز السلطة كسلطان داهية وخبير تكتيكي داخل وخارج ساحات المعارك ، وصولاً إلى هدفه النهائي: إعادة فتح القدس. بعد تدهور حالته الصحية وموته في نهاية المطاف ، يربط جون مان الكتاب مع فصل حول صفاته وإرثه الذي لا يزال شبه منسي (بشكل مثير للدهشة).

ماذا عن الكتاب نفسه؟ يشبه أسلوب الكتابة الشخص العادي جدًا ، ولكن في بعض الحالات ، يكاد يصل إلى مستوى غير احترافي تقريبًا حيث تكثر الكليشيهات والاستعارات. ومع ذلك ، ما زالت ممتعة للقراءة. محتوى القصة ، كما ذكر أعلاه ، عادل تجاه فضائل صلاح الدين ورذائله النادرة (كرجل دولة ، وليس كإنسان). ما كنت أتمنى أن يفعله الإنسان في بداية كتابه هو تحديد وجهة نظره وإطاره الخاص كمؤرخ (أي لماذا الكتابة عن صلاح الدين الأيوبي ، خاصة في سياق غير مسلم ومؤرخ مستشرق؟). كما قدم ادعاءات في الكتاب كانت خاطئة بشكل واضح: على سبيل المثال ، كان الإسلام منتشرًا على نطاق واسع عن طريق التجارة ، وليس بالسيف. ومع ذلك ، فهو أكثر من يعوض عن ذلك في تفاصيل مصادره واللعب بلعب إنجازات صلاح الدين الرئيسية في الحياة.

بشكل عام ، أود أن أوصي بهذا الكتاب ، لكن أخذه مع حبة ملح. إذا كنت تبحث عن منظور عربي أكثر حول صلاح الدين الصليبي والحروب الصليبية ، فإنني أوصي بالحروب الصليبية من خلال عيون عربية بواسطة أمين معلوف. خلاف ذلك ، إذا كنت تبحث فقط عن سيرة صلاح الدين ، سيكون هذا مصدرًا واحدًا فقط.

Book Review: "Fields of Blood" by Karen Armstrong

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 12:13:00 +0300

I have to admit, the book cover and the catchy title (and the rather edgy subtitle) drew me to buy this book out of impulse. Okay, maybe not completely out of impulse. After having read her previous book "A History of God", I have been fascinated with the works of Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun turned atheist scholar of religion. Her previous work centered on the 3 Abrahamic faiths in a layman-like fashion of historical narration, focusing first on the Creation story of Adam and Eve right up to the humble beginnings of the Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) pivotal role in the initiation and spread of Islam. Being a former Catholic nun, Armstrong's works have an Abrahamic bias to them. However, this book - which delivers on its promise - tells of the history of violence in general and frames this history against the backdrop of the rise and fall of religions the world over. While I would generally say that spoilers abound, this is moot in light of the book's nonfictional paradigm.

Karen Armstrong's central thesis is that religions and the mythos surrounding them were framed in the evolution of human societies from troupes of hunter-gatherers to bulwarks and fortresses of civilization "in relative seas of barbarity and corruption" at any given time save for the modern era. She starts the book with the notion that civilization itself is a form of violence against the reptilian impulses of our paleocortical and archicortical functions, and is the product of our neocortical evolution. She makes the case that civilization has waged war against itself and others for its very survival, from the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians right up to the early Indian and Chinese emperors and warlords. Interestingly, she provides evidence that the more totalitarian governments and politics of those eras tended to follow more monotheistic and by extension more intolerant practices. Indeed, these fanatical monotheisms would sprout in the form of Judaism and Islam later, the latter developing a sense of spiritual tolerance towards other "People of the Book" and other religionists.

In Europe, the rise of secularism following the Crusades would prove to be just as fanatical as the Crusades themselves, with ardent theorists the likes of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke making arguments for separation of the church and the state. Interestingly enough, as mentioned earlier, Armstrong turns the notion of "religious violence" on its head by pointing out that much of the modern era's violence stemmed from people with more secular rather than religious ideas and with the same fanatical fervor found in the classic Crusaders of old or the "jihadis" of the modern era. This, obviously, brings the book to a close, with a solution found in becoming closer to the more enduring tenets of tolerance and pluralism found in world religions.

The strength of the book is that it covers the breadth of the history of violence in human circles without going too unnecessarily deep in the historical narratives. This also brings the book down a notch given the sheer head-crushing amount of information it delivers. The book is approximately 400 pages long (at least the edition I have) and is rich with text. However, the mountain of information is loosely connected between its chapters, as this book profers the style of a historical narrative rather than an opinionated piece, which it transforms into near the end. Except for historians of religion, this book is meant to be read once, but nonetheless must be read by all those even remotely interested in the history of human violence. Armstrong's divestment from the original layman-like formula is to be praised for reaching out to intellectuals and laypeople alike, and not alienating one or the other. That being said, the style of writing is not easy to follow, but the content more than makes up for it.

Another elephant in the room is Armstrong's pre-atheist Catholic background and how it shapes her perspective on Islam. Out of curiosity, I looked deeper into the sources she used for her chapter on Islam and violence, and she cites a majority of Orientalist sources. Rarely did she cite verses from the Koran or excerpts from the Hadith, the traditions and sayings of the Prophet (PBUH). I wish that scholars like Armstrong will be more inclusive of these Islamic sources and not delve into the same tired debunked "72 virgins" argument that those who ascribe to the Lesser Jihad purportedly fight for.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It certainly provides food for thought long after the last page is read and the book is closed.

Writing Style - 3.5/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

يجب أن أعترف ، غلاف الكتاب والعنوان الجذاب (والعنوان الفرعي الحاد إلى حد ما) جذبني لشراء هذا الكتاب بدافع من الاندفاع. حسنًا ، ربما لا يكون هذا خارج الاندفاع تمامًا. بعد أن قرأت كتابها السابق "تاريخ الله" ، فتنت بأعمال كارين أرمسترونغ ، الراهبة الكاثوليكية السابقة التي تحولت إلى عالم دين ملحد. تركز عملها السابق على الديانات الإبراهيمية الثلاثة بأسلوب يشبه الفرد العادي في السرد التاريخي ، مع التركيز أولاً على قصة خلق آدم وحواء حتى البدايات المتواضعة للدور المحوري للنبي محمد (صلى الله عليه وسلم) في بدء وانتشار دين الاسلام. كونها راهبة كاثوليكية سابقة ، فإن أعمال أرمسترونغ لها تحيز أبراهيمي لها. ومع ذلك ، فإن هذا الكتاب - الذي يفي بوعده - يحكي تاريخ العنف بشكل عام ويضع هذا التاريخ على خلفية صعود وسقوط الأديان في جميع أنحاء العالم. بينما أقول بشكل عام أن المفسدين غزيرون ، فإن هذا أمر غير موضوعي في ضوء نموذج الكتاب غير الخيالي.

أطروحة كارين أرمسترونغ المركزية هي أن الأديان والأساطير المحيطة بهم قد تم تأطيرها في تطور المجتمعات البشرية من مجموعات من الصيادين-الجامعين إلى الحصون والحصون الحضارية "في البحار النسبية من الهمجية والفساد" في أي وقت معين باستثناء العصر الحديث . لقد بدأت الكتاب بفكرة أن الحضارة نفسها هي شكل من أشكال العنف ضد الدوافع الزاحفة لوظائفنا القشرية المخية والقصرية ، وهي نتاج تطورنا القشري الجديد. وتؤكد أن الحضارة قد شنت الحرب على نفسها وعلى الآخرين من أجل بقائها ، من السومريين القدماء والمصريين حتى الأباطرة وأمراء الحرب الهنود والصينيين الأوائل. ومن المثير للاهتمام أنها تقدم دليلاً على أن الحكومات والسياسات الأكثر شمولية في تلك العصور تميل إلى اتباع المزيد من التوحيد ، وبالتالي إلى ممارسات أكثر تعصبًا. في الواقع ، سوف تنبثق هذه التوحيد المتعصب في شكل اليهودية والإسلام في وقت لاحق ، وهذا الأخير يطور شعورًا بالتسامح الروحي تجاه "أهل الكتاب" وغيرهم من المتدينين.

في أوروبا ، سيثبت صعود العلمانية بعد الحروب الصليبية أنه متعصب تمامًا مثل الحروب الصليبية نفسها ، مع المنظرين المتحمسين أمثال توماس هوبز وجون لوك الذين يقدمون الحجج لفصل الكنيسة عن الدولة. ومن المثير للاهتمام ، كما ذكرنا سابقًا ، أن ارمسترونغ يحول فكرة "العنف الديني" رأساً على عقب بالإشارة إلى أن الكثير من عنف العصر الحديث ينبع من أشخاص لديهم أفكار أكثر علمانية وليس دينية وبنفس الحماس المتعصب الموجود في الصليبيين الكلاسيكيين. القديم أو "الجهاديين" في العصر الحديث. ومن الواضح أن هذا يقترب من نهاية الكتاب ، مع إيجاد حل في الاقتراب من مبادئ التسامح والتعددية الأكثر ديمومة الموجودة في الأديان العالمية.

تكمن قوة الكتاب في أنه يغطي اتساع تاريخ العنف في الأوساط البشرية دون التعمق العميق في الروايات التاريخية. ويؤدي هذا أيضًا إلى خفض مستوى الكتاب نظرًا إلى الكم الهائل من المعلومات التي يقدمها. يبلغ طول الكتاب حوالي 400 صفحة (على الأقل الإصدار الذي أملكه) وهو غني بالنص. ومع ذلك ، فإن جبل المعلومات يرتبط ارتباطًا وثيقًا بين فصوله ، حيث يوضح هذا الكتاب أسلوب السرد التاريخي بدلاً من قطعة رأي ، والتي يتحول إلى نهاية قريبة. باستثناء مؤرخي الدين ، من المفترض أن يقرأ هذا الكتاب مرة واحدة ، ولكن مع ذلك يجب أن يقرأه جميع أولئك المهتمين عن بُعد بتاريخ العنف البشري. إن تجريد أرمسترونغ من الصيغة الأصلية الشبيهة بالعلماني يجب الإشادة به للتواصل مع المثقفين والعلمانيين على حد سواء ، وعدم إبعاد أحدهم أو الآخر. ومع ذلك ، فإن أسلوب الكتابة ليس من السهل اتباعه ، ولكن المحتوى أكثر من أن يعوض عنه.

فيل آخر في الغرفة هو خلفية أرمسترونغ الكاثوليكية قبل الإلحاد وكيف تشكل منظورها للإسلام. بدافع الفضول ، نظرت بعمق في المصادر التي استخدمتها في فصلها عن الإسلام والعنف ، وهي تستشهد بغالبية المصادر الاستشراقية. ونادرا ما استشهدت بآيات من القرآن أو مقتطفات من الحديث الشريف من أقوال الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم. أتمنى أن يكون العلماء مثل أرمسترونغ أكثر شمولاً من هذه المصادر الإسلامية وألا يتعمقوا في نفس حجة "72 من العذارى" المزعجة التي يزعم أن أولئك الذين ينسبون إلى الجهاد الصغرى يقاتلون من أجلها.

بشكل عام ، أود أن أوصي بهذا الكتاب. من المؤكد أنه يوفر طعامًا للتفكير بعد وقت طويل من قراءة الصفحة الأخيرة وإغلاق الكتاب.

Book Review: "God: A Human History" by Reza Aslan

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 13:35:00 +0300

Reza Aslan is one of those intellectuals notorious for their uncompromising stance, bluntness, and, to a certain degree, political incorrectness. It comes to no surprise, then, that his latest publication, God: A Human History, reflects his headstrong approach in the sphere of all things religion and spirituality. However, despite Aslan's misgivings, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read and indeed a most enlightening one. While his previous book, Beyond Fundamentalism, explored the notion of a "cosmic war" of ideologies against a backdrop of globalization, God: A Human History instead looks at how religion came to be from a more scientific standpoint, coming to a conclusion based on his own personal experiences with faith and belief.

The book starts with Aslan's recounting of his conversion to Christianity and subsequent reversion to Islam, followed by a revelation of his newly adopted pantheistic approach to which he returns to near the end of the book. As the title says, he starts with how the concept of God began in the form of animistic beliefs, or beliefs in the existence of spirits in both living and non-living things. Incorporating scientific theories such as Darwinism and Freud's examinations of the human psyche, he provides a concise explanation of how religion became advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint to early civilizations, and how belief in animism gradually evolved into belief in humanized polytheistic pantheons and, subsequently, monotheism (which, apparently, is historically linked to the more "intolerant" regimes and empires). He also distinguishes how the human experience throughout the centuries also shaped the conceptions of God in the three Abrahamic religions. Finally, he wraps the book up with a rather startling conclusion that must be read to be believed.

As I hinted above, the book is actually a brief read, with approximately 170 pages of text succeeded by about 100+ pages of glossaries, indices, and references. As one of the reviews on the book cover states, Aslan is truly "a master storyteller", with a writing style that is easy to follow and full of transitions that segue to the next chapter or two. The pacing of the book is healthy in that he spends adequate time covering the different epochs of the evolution of religion. However, that being said, there are several points that he doesn't explore in detail. For example, his chapter on Islam spends half the time covering Islam's early evolution and follows it with more exposition on Sufism, rather than discussing the lesser-known but still vitally important philosophical schools of thought that emerged in Islam's early days such as the Mutazilites and the Asharites (the latter for which he throws a sentence as an afterthought), and gives less attention to the Mazahibs. Still, the transition to Sufism in the second-last chapter of the book was necessary for his explanation of his new pantheistic approach in the last chapter, as he claims that "God is All".

To be honest, I still think we have not grasped the nature of God, who I believe falls more towards the concept of Mysterium Tremendum. The book itself is an important read for those who are interested, and I still think it's an excellent read for its brevity.

Style - 5/5
Content - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

رضا أصلان هو واحد من هؤلاء المثقفين سيئي السمعة بسبب موقفهم الذي لا هوادة فيه ، والصراحة ، والخطأ السياسي إلى حد ما. ليس من المفاجئ إذن أن نشره الأخير ، الله: تاريخ بشري ، يعكس مقاربته القوية في مجال كل ما هو الدين والروحانية. ومع ذلك ، على الرغم من مخاوف اصلان ، إلا أن هذا الكتاب هو قراءة ممتعة تمامًا ، بل وأكثرها إفادة. في حين أن كتابه السابق ، "ما وراء الأصولية" ، استكشف فكرة "الحرب الكونية" للإيديولوجيات على خلفية العولمة ، فإن الله: تاريخ بشري ينظر بدلاً من ذلك إلى الكيفية التي جاء بها الدين من وجهة نظر أكثر علمية ، ويصل إلى استنتاج قائم على تجاربه الشخصية مع الإيمان والمعتقد.

يبدأ الكتاب برواية أصلان عن تحوله إلى المسيحية ورجوعه بعد ذلك إلى الإسلام ، يليه الكشف عن نهجه الوحدوي المعتمد حديثًا والذي يعود إليه قرب نهاية الكتاب. كما يقول العنوان ، يبدأ كيف بدأ مفهوم الله في شكل معتقدات حيوية ، أو معتقدات في وجود الأرواح في كل من الكائنات الحية وغير الحية. دمج النظريات العلمية مثل الداروينية وفحوصات فرويد عن النفس البشرية ، يقدم شرحًا موجزًا عن كيف أصبح الدين مفيدًا من وجهة نظر تطورية إلى الحضارات المبكرة ، وكيف تطور الإيمان بالروحانية تدريجيًا إلى إيمان في الآلهة متعددة الآلهة إنسانية ، وبعد ذلك ، التوحيد (والتي ، على ما يبدو ، مرتبطة تاريخيا بأنظمة وإمبراطوريات "غير متسامحة"). يميز أيضًا كيف شكلت التجربة البشرية على مر القرون أيضًا تصورات الله في الديانات الإبراهيمية الثلاثة. أخيرًا ، يختتم الكتاب باستنتاج مذهل إلى حد ما يجب قراءته ليؤمن به.

كما أشرت أعلاه ، فإن الكتاب في الواقع عبارة عن قراءة مختصرة ، حيث نجحت حوالي 170 صفحة من النص بحوالي 100 صفحة من المسارد والمؤشرات والمراجع. كما يقول أحد المراجعات على غلاف الكتاب ، فإن أصلان هو بالفعل "راوي قصص رئيسي" ، بأسلوب كتابة يسهل متابعته ومليء بالتحولات التي تنتقل إلى الفصل أو الفصلين التاليين. إن سرعة الكتاب صحية لأنه يقضي وقتًا كافيًا في تغطية المراحل المختلفة لتطور الدين. ومع ذلك ، هناك العديد من النقاط التي لم يستكشفها بالتفصيل. على سبيل المثال ، يقضي فصله عن الإسلام نصف الوقت في تغطية التطور المبكر للإسلام ويتبعه بمزيد من العرض على الصوفية ، بدلاً من مناقشة المدارس الفكرية الفلسفية الأقل شهرة والتي لا تزال مهمة للغاية والتي ظهرت في الأيام الأولى للإسلام مثل المطزليين و الأشوريون (هذا الأخير الذي ألقى عليه عقوبة في مرحلة لاحقة) ، ويولي اهتمامًا أقل للمزاحبين. ومع ذلك ، كان الانتقال إلى الصوفية في الفصل الثاني والأخير من الكتاب ضروريًا لتفسيره لنهجه الوحدوي الجديد في الفصل الأخير ، حيث يدعي أن "الله هو كل شيء".

Book Series Review: Battletech's Twilight of the Clans

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 13:05:00 +0300

I have a confession to make: I love Jordan Weisman's BattleTech series. To make a long story short, it's like Game of Thrones but deeper, in space, and filled with giant walking machines of destruction. My first exposure was in 1995. I was 9 years old when we got our first home personal computer, a Toshiba model that came with the video game MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat. The game enthralled me and my then 7-year-old brother at the time with its deep lore and fast-paced strategic combat, and the soundtrack wasn't bad to boot (here's a sample). Since then, I bought almost every game in the series, up to and including the recent BattleTech game by Hairbrained Schemes. It wasn't until my university years, interestingly enough, that I heard about the BattleTech novels, specifically the Twilight of the Clans series. With the "infinite" resources of the internet at my disposal (thank you, Amazon and eBay, though I have some stern words for you, Amazon, given your recent kerfuffle with Palestinians living in the West Bank), I was able to secure (like) new copies of the entire 8-book series, from "Exodus Road" to "Falcon Rising". I just recently finished the series, and my full review follows.

However, let me entertain you with a quick (not really) summary of the already complex story-line. In the future, mankind develops faster-than-light travel and quickly colonizes a large region of space which later becomes known as the Inner Sphere. However, due to the paucity of faster-than-light communication (emphasis on the distinction), the resulting Inner Sphere dissolves into feudal states, the major ones being the opulent Lyran Commonwealth (ruled by House Steiner), the draconian (pun not intended) Draconis Combine (House Kurita), the liberty-loving Federated Suns (House Davion), the capricious Capellan Confederation (House Liao), the disorganized Free Worlds League (House Marik), and the ancient Terran Hegemony (House Cameron). The latter group brought all the royal houses together and formed an interstellar union called (drumroll) the Star League. During centuries of peace and prosperity, terrible war machines called BattleMechs (seen on the covers of the books) were created to enforce and keep the peace between the nations.

However, not everyone was happy with the Star League's increasingly iron-fisted approach to ruling, most notoriously adopted by First Lord Richard Cameron, the 4th man to sit on the throne of the Star League. He was assassinated by an ambitious man, Stefan Amaris the Usurper, who in turn was killed by Aleksandr Kerensky (no, not THAT Aleksander Kerensky), the leader of the Star League Defense Forces (i.e. the Star League's standing army). Disgusted with the politics of the bickering houses of the Inner Sphere, he initiated the Exodus, taking the majority of the Star League army and vanishing from known space. For the next few centuries, up to the 31st Century, the rest of the houses fought and squabbled with each other for territory and power. It wasn't until 3050 that the Inner Sphere would again unite to face a terrible threat: the invasion of the Clans, a technologically superior force of genetically-engineered humans who are later discovered to be the descendants of Kerensky's Star League army that left centuries earlier. After repelling a vicious assault by the clans, the combined might of several regiments from the Inner Sphere decided that the best defense was an aggressive offense, and so departed the Inner Sphere to fight the Clans on their home turf and end their threat once and for all. This is the period of the series that I will review today.

The first book of the series was written by series veteran Blaine Lee Pardoe. Its premise focuses on a disillusioned warrior of Clan Smoke Jaguar who defects to the Inner Sphere and provides them with a map of the eponymous Exodus Road, the path to the Clan Space Capital World of Strana Mechty. The book's main characters, Star Captain Trent and Judith Faber, are compellingly life-like, and they follow believable character arcs. The story's writing style takes into account those readers who may be unfamiliar with BattleTech lore as a whole, and the plot advances at a steady pace. This, in my opinion, is the third-best book of the series: a story of betrayal and redemption woven into one gritty and suspenseful epic.

Style - 4/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

The second book, Grave Covenant, which I think is the second-best in the series, is written by science fiction veteran Michael Stackpole, who in my opinion is one of the best science fiction writers out there. It follows the plot of "Exodus Road" as the Inner Sphere reforms the Star League and musters its military might to go after the aforementioned Clan Smoke Jaguar, notorious for its vicious streak during the initial Clan invasion. Although the story lacks descriptors of physical combat, it is rife with political intrigue, diplomacy, and deception. Philosophical and political arguments abound between the characters, and the stage is set for later books in the series. The writing style is easy to follow, and the plot is page-turning and absorbing at the same time.

Style - 4.5/5
Content - 5/5
Overall - 4.5/5

The third book, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired, but I blame its pacing. The Hunters follows the story of Task Force Serpent, one of the two military arms of the Inner Sphere sent in to annihilate Clan Smoke Jaguar. With both 'Mech and Space combat featured heavily and a story of political espionage and subterfuge woven in the middle, the book itself appears rather lost in direction, and the aforementioned pacing is slow with a bit of a jerky quality to it, advancing the plot in several jumps. That being said, this is Thomas Gressman's first foray into the BattleTech universe, and it is at best an average read: not bad, but not great.

Style - 3/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 3.5/5

The fourth book in the series, Freebirth, takes a rather divergent route from the abovementioned storyline. Written by series veteran Robert Thurston, this book follows the escapades of Clan Jade Falcon warrior Horse, a "freeborn" (i.e. naturally conceived and birthed) warrior who is captured by the "trueborns" (genetically engineered, vat-born, bred for battle) warriors of Clan Smoke Jaguar. His master is a rather drunken sot of a character revived from the first novel in the series. Horse tries his best to leave his state of bondage, but that would mean violating all that the Clans hold sacred: their laws and traditions. The book is a segue to another book later in the series, Falcon Rising (the better of the two Thurston books in this series, in my opinion), and takes the meaning of the word "Twilight" in its more figurative sense: the end of something that heralds the beginning of another (see Falcon Rising). The style is easy to follow but the pacing is as slow as a mech walking on one leg. The book later falls flat on its face with quickly resolved plot points and a character arc that also misses the mark.

Style - 4/5
Content - 3/5
Overall - 3.5/5

The fifth book of the series, and the second in the BT series by Thomas Gressman, Sword and Fire deals with the continuation of Task Force Serpent as they move to capture the Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress. Space naval and ground combat abound, with the resolution of a mystery plot found in Gressman's previous entry in the series (see above). This is the better of the 3 Gressman books in the series, namely because its pacing is much steadier, and the character arcs are more believable and relatable. What the book suffers from is how much Gressman owes the story to its clunky predecessor, a "thriving-in-the-shadow-of" analogy if there ever was one.

Style - 4/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

Following Gressman's second-best entry in the series is his best. Shadows of War wraps up the plot points of Sword and Fire and sets the stage for probably the best BattleTech novel to date: Prince of Havoc. It depicts the horrors of war in a stark, gruesome manner. The style is easy to follow, the pacing is steady up until the end, with plot twists that get resolved in the next novel. I would go so far as saying that this is the fourth-best book in the series.

Style - 4/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

If there is one book in the entirety of this 8-book series that should be read by any fan of the BT universe, this would be it. It takes the best of all the above and winds them in a fast-moving, pulse-pounding plot. It has it all: 'Mech combat, politics, diplomacy, intrigue, and deception. And it does so wonderfully in a span of just over 200 pages. While loaded with characters and depth, there are some points that do feel diluted if you haven't read the previous novels, especially Stackpole's previous entry in this series, Grave Covenant. The book itself marks the end of the battle with the Clans, and signals the beginning of troubles brewing at home in the Inner Sphere. The star of the show is clearly Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, as the titular Prince of Havoc. He has survived one tribulation only to encounter another, and his character is shaped around these tribulations. This is clearly the best book in the series, and one that shouldn't be missed as it represents a turning point in the relationship between the Clans and the Inner Sphere in the larger scheme of the BattleTech universe.

Style - 5/5
Content - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

While the main plot point of the Twilight of the Clans series was concluded in the previous entry in the series (Prince of Havoc), this book throws the Clanners a bone. Falcon Rising is the better of Thurston's two books in the series namely because it takes the tattered remains of Freebirth's plot and crafts a story akin to that of a phoenix reborn. The story follows MechWarrior Diana, a proud freebirth Clan Jade Falcon warrior, as she fights for recognition and acceptance by her fellow trueborn clanners. She rises over adversity and steels herself for a larger conflict brewing between her Clan and Clan Steel Viper, a thorn (or fang) in the side of the Jade Falcons. The stakes are higher, and although the pace is marred by exposition in the first half of the book, it kicks off well afterwards and wraps the story in a conclusion that is relatable and satisfying as it brews a tale of triumph over trials and grievances.

Style - 4/5
Content - 4/5
Overall - 5/5

And that, fellow reader, is my ramshackle review of the Twilight of the Clans series. What follows is my ranking of the books in order of preference. While I recommend reading it in order if you are interested in the Battletech lore in general, I would recommend sticking with Prince of Havoc on its own if you're in a rush.

1. Prince of Havoc by Michael Stackpole
2. Grave Covenant by Michael Stackpole
3. Exodus Road by Blaine Lee Pardoe
4. Shadows of War by Thomas Gressman
5. Falcon Rising by Robert Thurston
6. Sword and Fire by Thomas Gressman
7. Freebirth by Robert Thurston
8. The Hunters by Thomas Gressman

Salaam

What Needs to be Said about the Gaza Massacre

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Thu, 24 May 2018 08:26:00 +0300

It has been a tumultuous week that has passed. Ever since seeing the soul-crushing news of 61 (SIXTY ONE) Palestinians murdered as they were protesting their rights to be free from the open-air prison of Gaza, I've been sick to my stomach and heartbroken. The blood of my brothers and sisters spilt over the sands of the Gaza Strip ran aplenty as if it were cheap. Men, women, children, journalists, and medical personnel were slaughtered in cold blood with live ammunition from guns fired by Israeli terrorist soldiers hundreds of yards away overlooking the "border".

What did the shameful Western media do about it? CNN claims "dozens die at the border". The NYT published multiple sham propaganda attempts disguised as "opinion pieces" blaming the Palestinians for their deaths, even going as far as to dehumanize them and negate their suffering. Even the BBC had the gall to call them "clashes". "Clashes"?! It was a massacre! Murder in cold blood! Disgracefully, other stories were instead posted on the front page that don't deserve mention in this post (see for yourself, if you're so inclined) because doing so would lessen the significance of this issue. The Western MSM continues to this day to vilify the Palestinians in any way shape or form. Pukes and vituperators the likes of Thomas Friedman and Shmuel Rosner spout lies and racist talking points to sell papers and minimize Palestinian humanity and suffering.

Through the media, spokespeople, and politicians it has bought with its influence and coin, Israel has shown on multiple occasions its true face: an occupying power that does not seek peace with the occupied. Its supporters have displayed time and time again their true colors as well: vile racism, vituperation, religious extremism based on erroneously interpreted religious texts, and flat-out nationalism, supremacism, and fascism. Much have called the Palestinians "terrorists", "radicals", and "extremists". Much have dehumanized even the children to the point that their lives are made worthless in the face of Israeli bullets, bombs, grenades, and missiles.

Even worse, the propaganda line that "Hamas soldiers were killed" is not only odiously repetitious, but also plainly false. The interviewee on Palestine Television asked a hypothetical if 50 of the protestors were from Hamas, not stating whether they were from Hamas. Moreover, Yahya Sinwar, one of Hamas's top leaders, stated that the people, not Hamas, gave up armed struggle and in its stead chose peaceful protest. But let's just say that this propaganda point is true: what gives Israel, an occupying power, the right to gun down political opponents? What right does it give them to kill journalists, paramedics, and children? None.

Now, what needs to be said about this? I think there is something on the minds of many people around the world who have condemned time and time again Israel's atrocities against the Palestinian people as well as its policies of wanton destruction based on hate, racism, and apartheid. Is it that "Israel is an apartheid state"? Or... "Israel is a fascist state"? Those words are not enough to convey the truth about the horrors of occupation and genocide. They don't illustrate the dire importance of opposing this longstanding crime against humanity, a crime sanctioned by the hypocritical American imperialist exceptionalism and the puppet leaders who follow suit. No. This is what needs to be said.

Israel is a fascist, apartheid state.

Why? Because, from a historical perspective, the fascists lost. The apartheid supporters lost. And they will, in the face of the brave Palestinian populace. Palestine will be free.

ا الذي يجب قوله عن مذبحة غزة؟

لقد كان أسبوعًا صاخبًا قد مر. منذ رؤية أخبار مقتل 61 شخصًا (سيكس تو وان) التي قُتل فيها الفلسطينيون وهم يحتجون على حقوقهم في التحرر من سجن غزة في الهواء الطلق ، كنت مريضًا في معدتي وفقدان القلب. إن دماء إخوتي وأخواتي التي امتدت على رمال قطاع غزة كانت تنفد كما لو كانت رخيصة. وذُكر رجال ونساء وأطفال وصحفيون وعاملون طبيون بدم بارد بالذخيرة الحية من البنادق التي أطلقها جنود الإرهاب الإسرائيليون على بعد مئات الياردات المطلة على "الحدود".ما الذي فعلته وسائل الإعلام الغربية المشينة حيال ذلك؟ وتزعم شبكة CNN "أن العشرات يموتون على الحدود". نشرت صحيفة نيويورك تايمز العديد من محاولات الدعاية الخفية المقنعة كـ "قطع رأي" تلوم الفلسطينيين على وفاتهم ، بل ذهبت إلى درجة تجريدهم من إنسانيتهم وإبطال معاناتهم. حتى أن هيئة الإذاعة البريطانية (BBC) كانت تمتلك المرارة لتطلق عليها "صدامات". "اشتباكات" ؟! لقد كانت مجزرة! القتل بدم بارد! بشكل خزي ، تم نشر قصص أخرى بدلاً من ذلك على الصفحة الأولى التي لا تستحق الذكر في هذا المنشور (انظر بنفسك ، إذا كنت تميل إلى ذلك) لأن القيام بذلك يقلل من أهمية هذه المسألة. ويستمر سوق مسقط للأوراق المالية الغربي حتى يومنا هذا في تشويه صورة الفلسطينيين بأي شكل أو شكل. فالمدافعون والناشطون هم أمثال توماس فريدمان وشمويل روزنر يوقعون ويكشفون عن نقاط عنصرية لبيع الصحف والتقليل من الإنسانية الفلسطينية والمعاناة.

من خلال وسائل الإعلام والمتحدثين والسياسيين الذين اشترتهم من خلال نفوذها وعمالتها ، أظهرت إسرائيل في مناسبات عديدة وجهها الحقيقي: قوة محتلة لا تسعى للسلام مع المحتل. لقد عرض مؤيدوها مرارًا وتكرارًا ألوانهم الحقيقية أيضًا: العنصرية الدنيئة ، والتطرف ، والتطرف الديني المستند إلى النصوص الدينية التي تم تفسيرها عن طريق الخطأ ، والقومية المستبدة ، والتفوق ، والفاشية. لقد أطلق الكثير على الفلسطينيين اسم "الإرهابيين" و "المتطرفين" و "المتطرفين". لقد جرد الكثير من الناس حتى الأطفال لدرجة أن حياتهم أصبحت عديمة القيمة في مواجهة الرصاص الإسرائيلي والقنابل والقنابل اليدوية والصواريخ.والأسوأ من ذلك ، أن خط الدعاية الذي يقول إن "مقتل جنود حماس" ليس تكرارًا بغيضًا فحسب ، بل كاذبًا أيضًا. سأل المقابلة في التلفزيون الفلسطيني افتراضية إذا كان 50 من المتظاهرين من حماس ، ولم يذكروا ما إذا كانوا من حماس. علاوة على ذلك ، صرح يحيى سينوار ، أحد كبار قادة حماس ، بأن الناس ، وليس حماس ، تخلوا عن الكفاح المسلح ، وبدلاً من ذلك اختاروا الاحتجاج السلمي. لكن دعنا نقول فقط إن هذه النقطة الدعائية صحيحة: ما الذي يمنح إسرائيل ، قوة احتلال ، الحق في قتل المعارضين السياسيين؟ ما هو الحق الذي يعطيهم لقتل الصحفيين والمساعدين الطبيين والأطفال؟ لا شيء.

الآن ، ما الذي يجب قوله عن هذا؟ أعتقد أن هناك شيئًا في أذهان كثير من الناس حول العالم الذين أدانوا مرارا وتكرارا الفظائع الإسرائيلية ضد الشعب الفلسطيني وسياساته من التدمير العشوائي القائم على الكراهية والعنصرية والفصل العنصري. هل هي "إسرائيل دولة أبرتهايد"؟ أو ... "إسرائيل دولة فاشية"؟ هذه الكلمات ليست كافية لنقل الحقيقة عن أهوال الاحتلال والإبادة الجماعية. إنها لا توضح الأهمية البالغة لمعارضة هذه الجريمة العنيفة ضد الإنسانية ، وهي جريمة يعاقب عليها الاستثناء الإمبريالي الأمريكي المنافق وقادة الدمى الذين يتبعونهم. لا. هذا ما يجب قوله.

إسرائيل دولة فاشية وأبارتهايد.

لماذا ا؟ لأنه ، من منظور تاريخي ، خسر الفاشيون. خسر أنصار الفصل العنصري. وسوف يواجهون ، في مواجهة الشعب الفلسطيني الشجاع. فلسطين سوف تكون حرة

Arab Disunity: a Case of Masks Coming Off

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 06:04:00 +0300

It was supposed to be one flag, a flag that united Arabs of different origins, backgrounds, cultures, religions, and ethnicities into one common cause for rebellion, freedom, and self-determination. The flag depicted represents the flag of the initial Arab revolt in World War 1, the "war to end all wars". While it may have ended for some, it did not end for the Arabs, especially those now in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria let alone the entire Middle East, now ruled by despots and tyrants willing to lick the boots of the same colonial powers that divvied up and shattered the unity of Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa. Make no mistake: this is not a hearkening back to "the old days" or a call for open rebellion or revolt, but rather a thorough and damning examination into the state that we Arabs are in today. With the occupation of Palestine, the invasion of Iraq, the massacre of innocents in Syria, the bombardment of Lebanon not too forgotten in recent memory, the disastrous Saudi-led invasion of Yemen, and now the shameful blockade of Qatar by its long-standing allies and neighbors, I can not stay silent over this collective malaise that plagues Arab societies today, the same malady, I think, that paved the way for such catastrophes to occur. So, what's wrong with the Arab world? Why is it fragmented, disunited, and without a clear path towards progress, peace, and full independence? Why are the neocolonial chains still yoked around the necks of those in power? Know that to love something truly is to be able to question it, to criticize it, and to find a solution.

Let's start with some basic history, namely from the early pre-Islamic days right up to and including the Ottoman Empire's rise. Long before the advent of Islam, the Arabs were wandering, warring, and ravaging tribes that practiced barbaric rituals such as female infanticide and honor killings, as well as the constant petty squabbles that kept them from unifying into a formidable force. They did not practice the sciences or the philosophies. The flipside was their history of generosity and their long-standing tradition of eloquent poetry (Subhani, The Message). This is to say that the so-called age of Jahiliyyah (Arabic for "state of ignorance") was not so backward, but was nothing compared to what was to follow. With the advent of Islam came a rising power in the East that could challenge the greatest empires of that day from Persia to Rome (Khan Academy, "The Golden Age of Islam"). Advances were made in almost all of the scientific and artistic fields, and educational institutions were touted as the greatest of their time (Falagas et al., 2006). However, with the spread of Arab tribes from the western coasts of Iberia to as far as China came the petty squabbles of Arab tribesmen. To paraphrase a movie quote, an empire that breaks apart from within is more doomed than an empire that falls to its enemies, and thus followed the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, which - as I have mentioned in my review of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades through Arab Eyes - changed the nature of Middle Eastern politics forever. Politicians shifted their priorities, neglecting the people for personal gain and favor from invading armies such as those of the Holy Roman Empire. Caliphates crumbled under the pressure of such squabbles, and the last vestiges of pan-Islamism, the mercurial Ottomans, rose to power, squashing Arabs and other "minor civilizations" at that time under their jackboots of oppression.

We shift gears towards more modern history. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the colonial powers came the fall of religious governance and the rise of secularism, a surge which was evident as early as the scheming governors of the Middle East during the early Crusades (Reynolds, 1996). However, what shaped the Middle East today, the Arab Revolt of World War I, was ironically its most formative dissolution: the creation of the nation-states we know now as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar, all which formed in the next 30-50 years following WWI. While these nation states were formed on arbitrary lines, the tribesmen and local cultures within the nation-states themselves asserted their own independence, and the conflicts suppressed by Islam resurged in the form of - for example - the enmity between the Saud and Hashemite clans (Wilson in Khalidi, 1991). The subsequent years were no kinder, from the Catastrophe that befell the Palestinians to the brutal French slaughtering of Algerians during their revolution, from the so-called Arab-Israeli wars to the rise of dictatorial and despotic regimes (Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 2013).

Nevertheless, no treatise on modern Arab history can go without the rise and fall of pan-Arab nationalism we used to know. Prominent figures such as Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who called for a more unified front against Western political influence and Israel yet whose popularity fell victim to his hatred towards Islamists; and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who saw the inherent danger in undue American and British influence in the Middle East and perished for it (Alkhorayef, 2008). With the rise of Saddam Hussein, the West saw for the umpteenth time in Middle Eastern leaders willing collaborators for schemes of exploitation and trade deals unfair to the people of the Middle East. To rub more salt in the wound, Abdel-Nasser's successors, Sadat and - after his assassination - Mubarak paid more heed to the demands of Western powers, going insofar as to side with Israel, which has hitherto taken the role of the main political enemy of Palestinians let alone all Arabs. The Lebanese Civil War, itself a tragedy for all sides involved but - I think - mainly for the Lebanese and Palestinian people, dragged on for years, and it wasn't until the Taif Agreement that all Arab sides stopped the war and focused on rebuilding Lebanon (Krayem, 1997), only to see it nearly crumble under Israeli bombardment again in 2006. The so-called "Second Gulf War", which involved the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq saw the disunity of Arab governments fully realized (Malanzchuk, 1991).

The race towards maximum entropy edges closer and closer to its conclusion, but are the days we are seeing unfold before us ringing the death knell of the Arab nations as we know them let alone the sense of Arab unity that preceded it? We can really go on ad nauseum about the constant occupation of Palestine and Israeli incursions into Gaza and the West Bank; the Invasion of Iraq and the literal rape and murder of its people by invading Western forces for the sake of resources and oil; and the invasion of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations. Interestingly, the so-called "Arab Spring" was supposed to be the one hope in recent history the Arab people had of actually governing themselves and deposing the undue influence of Western-friendly dictatorships. With the start of Tunisia roiling itself into Libya (which ended in Gadhafi's death, a sign of the continuing tribalism that was to ensue) and Egypt (which returned to Square One in less than a year with the imposition of the buffoon Al-Sisi), all seemed to be going in the favor of the Arab people who were tired of corrupt and impotent governance, especially since real economic gains were nowhere to be seen by the people of these countries. However, the boulder that is the Arab Spring stopped rolling in the Gulf countries and Syria, whose civil war has dragged on endlessly and resulted in the largest mass exodus of refugees in recent history and the creation of a horrifying humanitarian crisis (Bhardwaj in WUIR, 2012). To make matters worse, insurgent and terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and - worse - Da'esh (under no circumstances are they Islamic) have taken advantage of the looming circumstances to only sow more death and chaos in the wake of these events.

It is not only the intervention of outside powers that have affected the Arab psyche, but also that of the corrupt leaders who rule them. Nonetheless, a mind that is set on the basics of survival can not change a nation unless it changes itself. That is to say that many Arabs know what the problem is in their leaders, but most choose to do absolutely nothing about it. Survival becomes the priority in their lives because the massive influx of wealth fills the coffers of the kings, presidents, and their royal families, and the rest of the country is left to fend for itself in the light of absent public services and decent education that would promote a substantial middle class, an ingredient necessary for representation. Instead, the majority of these nations suffer in squalor and destitution. With the massive wealth these nations have lined up for themselves, the masses do not share in the fruits of their own labors, instead stimulating a stagnant economy akin to flogging a deceased equine. We are led to believe the lies of the media, allowing old rivalries and tribalism to re-surface and fester in the wounds inflicted by history.

Now, in light of the latest UN General Assembly, the masks are coming off. More and more apparent is the subservience of our regimes to Western foreign policy and the Zionist agenda. It has been present for some time, but now the declarations are made public. Ever since the UAE paramedics relayed information to Israel during its slaughter of Gazans, ambassadors of the nation are now making business deals. The farce that is the blockade of Qatar has evolved - no, devolved - into petty squabbles and finger-pointing accusations of "terrorism" when the reality appears to be all about the money. The Twitter feeds on prominent websites like Al Jazeera are being filled with the musings of non-Qatari mindless government slaves and whores rattling the cages of a lone peninsular nation. More and more Arab nations are cozying up to the Israeli occupation, insofar as having that cretin Al-Sisi go up to the UNGA stage and declare support for Israel. The Bahraini royals have also warmed up to the occupiers under the pretense of "religious tolerance". The anti-Iranian agenda (granted, I, too, stand against the foreign influence of Iran as I do that of the U.S., Israel, and Russia as well as other European countries) has taken an ugly turn. Alliances have shifted regarding the Syrian war, and little to none of the Arab nations - little to none - have come out to accept the efflux of refugees from Syria. But the inanity and insanity of it all is reserved to social media, and how younger Arabs are using it as a tool to divide, not unite, the varying Arabs. It is disgusting, and shames me to my core to the extent that the label "Arab" doesn't hold the honor and dignity that it did in the past. Nonetheless, I cling to hope that the Arabs will one day unite and push the scourge of foreign intervention away from its shores.

Welcome to the Middle East's Darkest Age. It's only going to get worse.

الفلسفة العربية: حالة من الأقنعة الموقوفة

كان من المفترض أن يكون علم واحد، علم أن العرب المتحدين من أصول مختلفة، خلفيات، ثقافات، ديانات، وعرقيات في قضية واحدة مشتركة للتمرد والحرية وتقرير المصير. العلم المرسوم يمثل علم الثورة العربية الأولى في الحرب العالمية الأولى، "الحرب لإنهاء جميع الحروب". في حين أنه قد يكون قد انتهى للبعض، فإنه لم ينتهي للعرب، وخاصة تلك الموجودة الآن في فلسطين والعراق وسوريا ناهيك عن الشرق الأوسط بأكمله، التي يحكمها الآن الطغاة والطغاة الراغبين في لعق الأحذية من القوى الاستعمارية نفسها التي وحطمت وحدة العرب في الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا. لا نخطئ: هذه ليست عودة إلى "الأيام القديمة" أو الدعوة إلى تمرد مفتوح أو تمرد، بل دراسة شاملة ومملة في الدولة التي نحن العرب فيها اليوم. مع احتلال فلسطين وغزو العراق ومذبحة الأبرياء في سوريا، فإن قصف لبنان لم ينس أيضا في الذاكرة الأخيرة، والغزو الكارثي الذي قادته السعودية لليمن، والآن الحصار المخزي لقطر من قبل منذ فترة طويلة فإنني لا أستطيع أن أبقى صامتا على هذا الضيق الجماعي الذي يعصف بالمجتمعات العربية اليوم، وهو نفس المراضة التي أعتقد أنها مهدت الطريق لمثل هذه الكوارث. إذن، ما هو الخطأ في العالم العربي؟ لماذا هي مجزأة، ومنتزعة، وبدون مسار واضح نحو التقدم والسلام والاستقلال الكامل؟ ولماذا لا تزال سلاسل الاستعمارية الجديدة تنزع حول أعناق من هم في السلطة؟ أعرف أن الحب شيء حقا هو أن تكون قادرة على التشكيك فيه، لانتقاده، وإيجاد حل.

دعونا نبدأ ببعض التاريخ الأساسي، أي من الأيام المبكرة قبل الإسلام وصولا إلى ارتفاع الإمبراطورية العثمانية. قبل زمن طويل من ظهور الإسلام، كان العرب يتجولون، ويمارسون القبائل، ويدمرون القبائل التي تمارس الطقوس الهمجية مثل قتل الإناث والقتل الشرف، فضلا عن الخلافات الصغيرة المستمرة التي أبقتهم من التوحيد إلى قوة هائلة. لم يمارسوا العلوم أو الفلسفات. الوجه هو تاريخهم من الكرم وتقاليدهم منذ فترة طويلة من الشعر بليغ (سوبهاني، الرسالة). وهذا يعني أن ما يسمى عصر الجاهلية (العربية ل "حالة الجهل") لم يكن متخلفا جدا، ولكن لم يكن شيئا مقارنة بما كان يتبع. مع ظهور الإسلام جاء قوة صاعدة في الشرق التي يمكن أن تتحدى أكبر الإمبراطوريات في ذلك اليوم من بلاد فارس إلى روما (أكاديمية خان، "العصر الذهبي للإسلام"). وقد تم إحراز تقدم في جميع المجاالت العلمية والفنية تقريبا، وكانت المؤسسات التعليمية توصف بأنها أعظم وقتها) فالاجاس إت آل.، 2006 (. ومع ذلك، مع انتشار القبائل العربية من السواحل الغربية من الإيبيرية إلى ما جاءت الصين صراعات صغيرة من رجال القبائل العربية. ولإعادة صياغة الاقتباس السينمائي، فإن الإمبراطورية التي تفكك من الداخل هي أكثر محكوما من الإمبراطورية التي تقع على أعدائها، وبالتالي تتبع محاكم التفتيش الإسبانية والحروب الصليبية، والتي - كما ذكرت في استعراضي للحرب الصليبية أمين معلوف من خلال العيون العربية - غيرت طبيعة السياسة في الشرق الأوسط إلى الأبد. تحول السياسيون أولوياتهم، وإهمال الشعب لتحقيق مكاسب شخصية وصالح من الجيوش الغازية مثل تلك التي من الإمبراطورية الرومانية المقدسة. فالخلافات تنهار تحت ضغط مثل هذه الخلافات، وآخر بقايا من الإسلاميين، والعثمانيين الزئبقيين، ارتفع إلى السلطة، وسحق العرب وغيرها من "الحضارات الصغيرة" في ذلك الوقت تحت وطأة قمعهم.

ننتقل التروس نحو التاريخ أكثر حداثة. مع سقوط الإمبراطورية العثمانية وصعود القوى الاستعمارية جاء سقوط الحكم الديني وصعود العلمانية، وهي موجة كانت واضحة في وقت مبكر من حكام الشرق الأوسط الذين كانوا يخططون خلال الحروب الصليبية الأولى (رينولدز، 1996) . ومع ذلك، فإن ما شكل الشرق الأوسط اليوم، الثورة العربية في الحرب العالمية الأولى، كان من السخرية أكثر حل لها تشكيلا: إنشاء الدول القومية التي نعرفها الآن كالمملكة العربية السعودية والكويت والعراق وسوريا وفلسطين والأردن ولبنان، واليمن، والإمارات العربية المتحدة، والبحرين، وقطر، وكلها تشكلت في السنوات الثلاثين إلى الخمسين القادمة بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى. في حين أن هذه الدول القومية تشكلت على خطوط تعسفية، فإن رجال القبائل والثقافات المحلية داخل الدول القومية نفسها أكدوا استقلالهم، والصراعات التي قمعها الإسلام تجددت في شكل - العداء بين العشائر السعودية والهاشمية (على سبيل المثال، ويلسون إن خاليدي، 1991). في السنوات اللاحقة لم تكن طيبة، من الكارثة التي حلت الفلسطينيين بالذبح الوحشي الفرنسي للجزائريين خلال ثورتهم، من ما يسمى بالحروب العربية الإسرائيلية إلى صعود الأنظمة الديكتاتورية والاستبدادية (الحوراني، تاريخ العرب الشعوب، 2013).

ومع ذلك، لا توجد أطروحة حول التاريخ العربي الحديث يمكن أن تذهب دون صعود وهبوط القومية العربية التي كنا نعرفها. شخصيات بارزة مثل جمال عبد الناصر الذي دعا إلى جبهة أكثر توحدا ضد النفوذ السياسي الغربي وإسرائيل التي كانت شعبيتها ضحية لكراهية الإسلاميين، والملك فيصل في المملكة العربية السعودية، الذي رأى الخطر الكامن في النفوذ الأمريكي والبريطاني غير المبرر في الشرق الأوسط، وقد هلك (الخريف، 2008). مع صعود صدام حسين، شهد الغرب للمرة الأولى في قادة الشرق الأوسط الراغبين في التعاون لمخططات الاستغلال والصفقات التجارية غير العادلة لشعب الشرق الأوسط. لفرك المزيد من الملح في الجرح، خلفاء عبد الناصر، السادات، وبعد اغتياله - تولي مبارك المزيد من الاهتمام لمطالب القوى الغربية، الذهاب إلى جانب جنبا إلى جنب مع إسرائيل، التي اتخذت حتى الآن دور العدو السياسي الرئيسي من الفلسطينيين ناهيك عن كل العرب. الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية، وهي مأساة لكافة الأطراف المعنية، ولكن - أعتقد - أساسا للشعبين اللبناني والفلسطيني، استغرقت لسنوات، ولم يكن حتى اتفاق الطائف أن جميع الأطراف العربية أوقفت الحرب وركزت على إعادة البناء لبنان) كرايم، 1997 (، فقط لرؤيتها تكاد تنهار تحت القصف اإلسرائيلي مرة أخرى في عام 2006. وقد وصفت ما يسمى ب "حرب الخليج الثانية"، التي شملت غزو الكويت من قبل العراق، انقسامات الحكومات العربية بشكل كامل) مالانزشوك، 1991 ).

السباق نحو أقصى حواف الإنتروبيا أقرب وأقرب إلى استنتاجه، ولكن هي الأيام التي نشهد تتكشف أمامنا رنين قاتل الموت من الدول العربية كما نعرفها ناهيك عن الشعور بالوحدة العربية التي سبقت ذلك؟ ويمكننا أن نخوض غثيان عن الاحتلال المستمر لفلسطين وعمليات التوغل الإسرائيلية في غزة والضفة الغربية؛ وغزو العراق، والاغتصاب الحرفي وقتل شعبه بغزو القوات الغربية من أجل الموارد والنفط؛ وغزو اليمن من قبل المملكة العربية السعودية ودول الخليج الأخرى. ومن المثير للاهتمام أن ما يسمى ب "الربيع العربي" كان من المفترض أن يكون الأمل في التاريخ الحديث للشعب العربي هو الذي يحكم نفسه بنفسه ويخلص التأثير غير المبرر للدكتاتوريات الصديقة للغرب. مع بداية تونس نفسها في ليبيا (التي انتهت بموت القذافي، علامة على استمرار القبلية التي كانت ستترتب على ذلك) ومصر (التي عادت إلى الساحة الأولى في أقل من عام بفرض العرش السيسي) ، يبدو أنها تسير في صالح الشعب العربي الذي كان متعبا من الحكم الفاسد والعاجز، خاصة وأن المكاسب الاقتصادية الحقيقية لا يمكن أن ينظر إليها شعب هذه البلدان. ومع ذلك، فإن الصخرة التي هي الربيع العربي توقفت عن التدحرج في دول الخليج وسوريا، التي استمرت حربها الأهلية على ما لا نهاية وأدت إلى أكبر نزوح جماعي للاجئين في التاريخ الحديث وخلق أزمة إنسانية مروعة (بهاردواج في ووير، 2012). ومما يزيد الأمور سوءا أن الجماعات المتمردة والإرهابية مثل القاعدة، والأسوأ - داعش (تحت أي ظرف من الظروف هم إسلاميون) قد استفادوا من الظروف التي تلوح في الأفق لمجرد زرع المزيد من الموت والفوضى في أعقاب هذه الأحداث.

ليس فقط تدخل القوى الخارجية التي أثرت على النفس العربية، ولكن أيضا من القادة الفاسدين الذين يحكمونهم. ومع ذلك، فإن العقل الذي يتم تعيينه على أساسيات البقاء على قيد الحياة لا يمكن أن يغير أمة ما لم تتغير نفسها. وهذا يعني أن الكثير من العرب يعرفون ما هي المشكلة في قادتهم، ولكن معظمهم يختارون أن يفعلوا شيئا مطلقا حيال ذلك. ويصبح البقاء على قيد الحياة الأولوية في حياتهم لأن التدفق الهائل للثروة يملأ خزائن الملوك والرؤساء وأسرهم المالكة، ويترك باقي البلد أن يدافع عن نفسه في ضوء غياب الخدمات العامة والتعليم اللائق من شأنه أن يعزز طبقة متوسطة كبيرة، وهو عنصر ضروري للتمثيل. وبدلا من ذلك، تعاني غالبية هذه الدول من البؤس والعوز. مع الثروة الهائلة التي تصطفها هذه الدول لنفسها، الجماهير لا تشارك في ثمار عملهم، بدلا من تحفيز الاقتصاد الراكدة أقرب إلى جلد الخيول المتوفى. نحن يقودنا إلى الاعتقاد أكاذيب وسائل الإعلام، والسماح للمنافسات القديمة والقبلية لإعادة سطح وتفاقم في الجروح التي تسببها التاريخ.

والآن، وفي ضوء آخر الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة، تنطلق الأقنعة. والظاهر أكثر فأكثر هو خضوع أنظمتنا للسياسة الخارجية الغربية والأجندة الصهيونية. لقد كان موجودا لبعض الوقت، ولكن الآن يتم الإعلان عن الإعلانات العامة. ومنذ أن قام المسعفون الإماراتيون بنقل المعلومات إلى إسرائيل أثناء ذبحهم لسكان غزة، فإن سفراء الأمة يقومون الآن بصفقات تجارية. المهزلة التي هي حصار قطر تطورت - لا، انتقلت - إلى صراعات صغيرة وتوجيه الاتهام بالإصبع "الإرهاب" عندما يبدو أن الواقع هو كل شيء عن المال. تويتر يغذي على مواقع بارزة مثل الجزيرة يتم ملؤها مع عبيد غير القطريين الحكومة عديمة الذهن والعاهرات غرق أقفاص من شبه الجزيرة شبه الجزيرة. المزيد والمزيد من الدول العربية مريحة إلى حد ما للاحتلال الإسرائيلي، من حيث أن كريتين السيسي ترتفع إلى مرحلة الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة وتعلن الدعم لإسرائيل. كما قام الحكام البحرينيون بتصعيد المحتلين تحت مظلة "التسامح الديني". إن الأجندة المناهضة لإيران (التي منحتها أنا أيضا ضد النفوذ الأجنبي لإيران كما فعلت الولايات المتحدة وإسرائيل وروسيا، فضلا عن الدول الأوروبية الأخرى) اتخذت منعطفا قبيحا. وتحولت التحالفات في ما يتعلق بالحرب السورية، ولم يخرج سوى القليل من الدول العربية - لا شيء ولا شيء - إلى قبول تدفق اللاجئين من سوريا. لكن الجنون والجنون من كل شيء محجوز لوسائل التواصل الاجتماعي، وكيف يستخدمها العرب الأصغر سنا كأداة لتقسيم العرب، لا توحيدهم. إنه أمر مثير للاشمئزاز، ويؤلمني إلى نهايتي إلى حد أن التسمية "العربية" لا تحترم الشرف والكرامة التي فعلتها في الماضي. ومع ذلك، فإنني أتمنى أن يتحد العرب يوما ما وأن يدفعوا آفة التدخل الأجنبي بعيدا عن شواطئها.

مرحبا بكم في أرقى عمر في الشرق الأوسط. انها سوف تزداد سوءا فقط.

Salaam

The "Fake News" Fiasco

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 21:10:00 +0300

There really is no such thing as bad publicity let alone checks and balances against those who promote it. However, there is such a thing as intellectual dishonesty, and such ignorance is a pox on how we conduct our affairs, and it is this same ignorance that prevents us from seeing the world through a more objective lens. Nevertheless, that humans operate the media and our sources of information only adds to the subjectivity, and there is an increasing and frightening authoritarian trend to dismiss all efforts of objectivity even from within the media sources themselves. Now, more than ever, do we need a strong and objective press, even in the face of all these allegations of "fake news", a dumbed-down, infantile, thuggish, and inane accusation lobbed to dismiss all objective yet negative depictions of certain asinine, incompetent, and unscrupulous politicians. To put things in perspective,

Kant spoke of noumenal and phenomenal realities, reality impervious to our subjective experiencing of it and reality as we subjectively perceive it. It seems clear that at this millennial moment, we have lost any awareness of or concern for what lies outside our phenomenal realities. This state of affairs is having a troubling effect on established journalism ... Political affiliation doesn’t matter when [media outlets] are viewed as offering conspiratorial reportage. And yet politics is precisely the point at which we must observe to what our phenomenal realities have brought us. It remains a hyperreal through which we nonetheless must find our way to a mutually shared perception of a reality that “promotes the general Welfare.” (Natoli, CounterPunch)

"Fake news" is no laughing matter. What we are witnessing is the unravelling of the modern tropes that supposedly make democracy the greatest form of governance on this planet, among them a free and educated press that informs (and keeps informed) the masses. Undermining that institution leads to tyranny and oppression of free thought. To paraphrase an infamous dictator, "if a lie is told often enough, it becomes the truth", and all a politician or person in power needs to do is keep repeating the lies that got them to office. No lie is safe, and all lies are dangerous, none more so than openly rebuking the Truth. The failures of politicians in doing their jobs are masked by stories of "success" and "glory", and the exaggeration of their mandate to govern is inked in every newspaper of the land.

Instead of real, objective news, the authoritarians promote so-called "alternative facts", a euphemism for blatant lies and ignorance. There have even been cases where outright lies that contradict statistical analyses and conclusions are facts because the politicians "believe them to be true". This senseless demagoguery does nothing but enable those who live on the fringes of society to thrive in such a setting, emerging out of the woodwork like cockroaches having a field day on a Raid-free kitchenette. One such group of racist, bigoted, and backward-thinking ignoramuses is the self-described "alt-right", a blatant euphemism for outright Nazis and fascists, and we've seen them gain prominence in certain countries the world over as a result of this enabling by our "role model" politicians to cuss at the so-called "fake news" media that seeks to expose them for the hateful beings that they are.

Speaking of which, hate is not the only things that are used to rile up a populace away from the weaknesses of our politicians, but rather are ways - just like in democracy - to persecute certain minorities and stave the masses from overthrowing their failing masters, who hold on to power on golden chairs under the ever-hanging Sword of Damocles. Even in the face of a persistent press, some news outlets (including, sadly, the BBC) have gone on the defense or even succumbed to the political pressure, instead posting about trivialities and non-newsworthy segments, and even going as far as to pander to the rabid public who have branded "MSM" as their enemy. One such case, published in the New York Times, even alludes to how the public are - through social media - reporting irresponsibly about certain items that may not be true (Maheshwari, NYT).

We must remain objective and ever-vigilant. It is not that those who fail to learn from history and are doomed to repeat it that we should watch out for, but rather those who learn from history and succeed in repeating it that we should be mindful of. In today's age of modern technology and the dissemination of knowledge and facts, there is absolutely no excuse for ignorance. Where love connects us, hate can not be given free rein. The best of jihads, as I said earlier, is to speak the truth in the face of a most brutal tyrant, and to yell louder than those who promote the "fake news" label and instead dive for "alternative facts" in the solace of their cell phones and tweet-storms is only the beginning of change. To call out the failures of botched bombings, mass murders, and scapegoating only sparks the fires that allow us to stamp out this "fake news" fiasco out for good.

على أخبار وهمية

هناك حقا لا شيء مثل الدعاية السيئة ناهيك عن الشيكات والتوازنات ضد أولئك الذين يروج لها. ومع ذلك، هناك شيء من قبيل خيانة الأمانة الفكرية، وهذا الجهل هو جدري على كيفية إجراء شؤوننا، وهذا هو الجهل نفسه الذي يمنعنا من رؤية العالم من خلال عدسة أكثر موضوعية. ومع ذلك، فإن البشر يعملون وسائل الإعلام ومصادر المعلومات لدينا يضيف فقط إلى الذاتية، وهناك اتجاه استبدادي متزايد ومخيف لرفض كل الجهود الموضوعية حتى من داخل وسائل الإعلام نفسها. الآن، أكثر من أي وقت مضى، نحن بحاجة إلى صحافة قوية وموضوعية، حتى في مواجهة كل هذه الادعاءات "الأخبار المزيفة"، اتهمت باهتة، طفولي، ثوجيش، وإينان الاتهام لرفض كل صور موضوعية لكنها سلبية من بعض الأسينين، غير كفء، والسياسيين عديمي الضمير. لوضع الأمور في المنظور،

وكان كانط يتحدث عن حقائق نومينالية وظاهرة، واقع منيع لتجربتنا الذاتية له والواقع كما نتصوره بشكل ذاتي. ويبدو واضحا أنه في هذه اللحظة الألفية، فقدنا أي وعي أو قلق لما يقع خارج واقعنا الهائل. هذا الوضع له تأثير مقلق على الصحافة القائمة ... الانتماء السياسي لا يهم عندما ينظر إلى [وسائل الإعلام] على أنها تقدم ريبورتاج التآمر. ومع ذلك، فالسياسة هي بالضبط النقطة التي يجب أن نلاحظ بها ما جلبته لنا حقائقنا الهائلة. إلا أنه لا يزال أمرا مفرطا يجب علينا من خلاله أن نجد طريقنا إلى تصور مشترك للواقع الذي "يعزز الرفاهية العامة" (ناتولي، كونتيربونش)

"أخبار وهمية" ليست مسألة يضحك. إن ما نشهده هو تفكك الحبال الحديثة التي يفترض أنها تجعل الديمقراطية أكبر شكل من أشكال الحكم على هذا الكوكب، ومن بينها صحافة حرة ومثقفة تطلع الجماهير (وتبقيها على علم). إن تقويض تلك المؤسسة يؤدي إلى طغيان وقمع الفكر الحر. لإعادة صياغة ديكتاتور سيء السمعة، "إذا قيل لكذبة في كثير من الأحيان بما فيه الكفاية، يصبح حقيقة"، وكل سياسي أو شخص في السلطة يحتاج إلى القيام به هو الحفاظ على تكرار الأكاذيب التي حصلت على مناصبهم. لا كذبة آمنة، وكل الأكاذيب خطرة، لا شيء أكثر من أن ينكر صراحة الحقيقة. إن إخفاقات السياسيين في القيام بوظائفهم محجوبون بقصص "النجاح" و "المجد"، والمبالغة في ولايتهم للحكم يتم توقيعها في كل صحيفة من صفحات الأرض.

وبدلا من الأخبار الحقيقية والموضوعية، يروج أصحاب البلاغات لما يسمى ب "الحقائق البديلة"، وهي عبارة عن كناية عن الأكاذيب السافرة والجهل. بل كانت هناك حالات حيث الأكاذيب الصريحة التي تتعارض مع التحليلات الإحصائية والاستنتاجات هي حقائق لأن السياسيين "يعتقدون أن تكون صحيحة". هذا الديماغوجية لا معنى لها لا يفعل شيئا سوى تمكين أولئك الذين يعيشون على هامش المجتمع لتزدهر في مثل هذا الإعداد، والناشئة من الخشب مثل الصراصير وجود يوم الحقل على مطبخ خالية من غارة. واحدة من هذه المجموعة من المجاهدين العنصريين، المتجولين، والمفكرين التفكير هو وصف النفس "اليمين المتطرف"، والتلميح الصارخ للنازيين الصريح والفاشيين، ولقد رأينا لهم كسب أهمية في بعض البلدان في جميع أنحاء العالم نتيجة من هذا تمكين من قبل السياسيين "نموذجا" لاقناع في ما يسمى وسائل الإعلام "وهمية الأخبار" التي تسعى إلى فضح لهم للكائنات البغيضة أنهم.

إن الكراهية ليست هي الأشياء الوحيدة التي تستخدم لتطهير السكان بعيدا عن نقاط الضعف في سياسيينا، بل هي طرق - مثلما هو الحال في الديمقراطية - لإضطهاد بعض الأقليات وحشد الجماهير من الإطاحة بأسيادهم الفاشلين، الذي يحمل على السلطة على الكراسي الذهبية تحت سيف معلق باستمرار من داموكليس. حتى في مواجهة الصحافة المستمرة، بعض وسائل الأنباء (بما في ذلك للأسف، بي بي سي) ذهبت على الدفاع أو حتى استسلم للضغط السياسي، بدلا من ذلك نشر عن أوجه التفاؤل وشرائح غير جديرة بالاهتمام، وحتى الذهاب إلى ما يصل إلى تهدئة للجمهور الرافضين الذين وصفوا "مسم" كعدو لهم. إن إحدى هذه الحالات، التي نشرت في صحيفة نيويورك تايمز، تشير إلى كيفية قيام الجمهور - من خلال وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي - بالإبلاغ بشكل غير مسؤول عن بعض العناصر التي قد لا تكون صحيحة (ماهيشواري، نيويورك تايمز).

ويجب أن نبقى موضوعيين ومتيقظين. فليس أولئك الذين يفشلون في التعلم من التاريخ ويكادون أن يكرروا أنه ينبغي لنا أن نراقبهم، بل أولئك الذين يتعلمون من التاريخ وننجحوا في تكرارها التي ينبغي أن نضعها في اعتبارنا. في عصر اليوم من التكنولوجيا الحديثة ونشر المعرفة والحقائق، ليس هناك أي عذر على الإطلاق للجهل. حيث الحب يربطنا، لا يمكن أن تعطى الكراهية العنان. أفضل من جهادس، كما قلت في وقت سابق، هو أن أتكلم الحقيقة في مواجهة الطاغية الأكثر وحشية، وأن يصيح بصوت أعلى من أولئك الذين يروجون "وهمية الأخبار" التسمية، وبدلا من الغوص ل "حقائق بديلة" في العزاء من وهواتفهم الخلوية وعواصف التغريد ليست سوى بداية التغيير. إن استدعاء إخفاقات التفجيرات المدمرة، والقتل الجماعي، وكبش الفداء لا يثير سوى الحرائق التي تسمح لنا بالقضاء على هذه الفاشلة "المزيفة" من أجل الخير.

Salaam

Why Palestine is Still the Issue, by John Pilger

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 21:08:00 +0300

Photo by Gigi Ibrahim | CC BY 2.0

When I first went to Palestine as a young reporter in the 1960s, I stayed on a kibbutz. The people I met were hard-working, spirited and called themselves socialists. I liked them.

One evening at dinner, I asked about the silhouettes of people in the far distance, beyond our perimeter.

“Arabs”, they said, “nomads”. The words were almost spat out. Israel, they said, meaning Palestine, had been mostly wasteland and one of the great feats of the Zionist enterprise was to turn the desert green.

They gave as an example their crop of Jaffa oranges, which was exported to the rest of the world. What a triumph against the odds of nature and humanity’s neglect.

It was the first lie. Most of the orange groves and vineyards belonged to Palestinians who had been tilling the soil and exporting oranges and grapes to Europe since the eighteenth century. The former Palestinian town of Jaffa was known by its previous inhabitants as “the place of sad oranges”.

On the kibbutz, the word “Palestinian” was never used. Why, I asked. The answer was a troubled silence.

All over the colonised world, the true sovereignty of indigenous people is feared by those who can never quite cover the fact, and the crime, that they live on stolen land.

Denying people’s humanity is the next step – as the Jewish people know only too well. Defiling people’s dignity and culture and pride follows as logically as violence.

In Ramallah, following an invasion of the West Bank by the late Ariel Sharon in 2002, I walked through streets of crushed cars and demolished houses, to the Palestinian Cultural Centre. Until that morning, Israeli soldiers had camped there.

I was met by the centre’s director, the novelist, Liana Badr, whose original manuscripts lay scattered and torn across the floor. The hard drive containing her fiction, and a library of plays and poetry had been taken by Israeli soldiers. Almost everything was smashed, and defiled.

Not a single book survived with all its pages; not a single master tape from one of the best collections of Palestinian cinema.

The soldiers had urinated and defecated on the floors, on desks, on embroideries and works of art. They had smeared faeces on children’s paintings and written – in shit – “Born to kill”.

Liana Badr had tears in her eyes, but she was unbowed. She said, “We will make it right again.”
What enrages those who colonise and occupy, steal and oppress, vandalise and defile is the victims’ refusal to comply. And this is the tribute we all should pay the Palestinians. They refuse to comply. They go on. They wait – until they fight again. And they do so even when those governing them collaborate with their oppressors.

In the midst of the 2014 Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer never stopped reporting. He and his family were stricken; he queued for food and water and carried it through the rubble. When I phoned him, I could hear the bombs outside his door. He refused to comply.

Mohammed’s reports, illustrated by his graphic photographs, were a model of professional journalism that shamed the compliant and craven reporting of the so-called mainstream in Britain and the United States. The BBC notion of objectivity – amplifying the myths and lies of authority, a practice of which it is proud – is shamed every day by the likes of Mohamed Omer.

For more than 40 years, I have recorded the refusal of the people of Palestine to comply with their oppressors: Israel, the United States, Britain, the European Union.

Since 2008, Britain alone has granted licences for export to Israel of arms and missiles, drones and sniper rifles, worth £434 million.

Those who have stood up to this, without weapons, those who have refused to comply, are among Palestinians I have been privileged to know:

My friend, the late Mohammed Jarella, who toiled for the United Nations agency UNRWA, in 1967 showed me a Palestinian refugee camp for the first time. It was a bitter winter’s day and schoolchildren shook with the cold. “One day …” he would say. “One day …”

Mustafa Barghouti, whose eloquence remains undimmed, who described the tolerance that existed in Palestine among Jews, Muslims and Christians until, as he told me, “the Zionists wanted a state at the expense of the Palestinians.”

Dr. Mona El-Farra, a physician in Gaza, whose passion was raising money for plastic surgery for children disfigured by Israeli bullets and shrapnel. Her hospital was flattened by Israeli bombs in 2014.

Dr. Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist, whose clinics for children in Gaza — children sent almost mad by Israeli violence — were oases of civilization.

Fatima and Nasser are a couple whose home stood in a village near Jerusalem designated “Zone A and B”, meaning that the land was declared for Jews only. Their parents had lived there; their grandparents had lived there. Today, the bulldozers are laying roads for Jews only, protected by laws for Jews only.

It was past midnight when Fatima went into labour with their second child. The baby was premature; and when they arrived at a checkpoint with the hospital in view, the young Israeli soldier said they needed another document.

Fatima was bleeding badly. The soldier laughed and Imitated her moans and told them, “Go home”. The baby was born there in a truck. It was blue with cold and soon, without care, died from exposure. The baby’s name was Sultan.

For Palestinians, these will be familiar stories. The question is: why are they not familiar in London and Washington, Brussels and Sydney?

In Syria, a recent liberal cause — a George Clooney cause — is bankrolled handsomely in Britain and the United States, even though the beneficiaries, the so-called rebels, are dominated by jihadist fanatics, the product of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the destruction of modern Libya.
And yet, the longest occupation and resistance in modern times is not recognized. When the United Nations suddenly stirs and defines Israel as an apartheid state, as it did this year, there is outrage – not against a state whose “core purpose” is racism but against a UN commission that dared break the silence.

“Palestine,” said Nelson Mandela, “is the greatest moral issue of our time.”

Why is this truth suppressed, day after day, month after month, year after year?

On Israel – the apartheid state, guilty of a crime against humanity and of more international law-breaking than any other– the silence persists among those who know and whose job it is to keep the record straight.

On Israel, so much journalism is intimidated and controlled by a groupthink that demands silence on Palestine while honourable journalism has become dissidence: a metaphoric underground.

A single word – “conflict” – enables this silence. “The Arab-Israeli conflict”, intone the robots at their tele-prompters. When a veteran BBC reporter, a man who knows the truth, refers to “two narratives”, the moral contortion is complete.

There is no conflict, no two narratives, with their moral fulcrum. There is a military occupation enforced by a nuclear-armed power backed by the greatest military power on earth; and there is an epic injustice.

The word “occupation” may be banned, deleted from the dictionary. But the memory of historical truth cannot be banned: of the systemic expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. “Plan D” the Israelis called it in 1948.

The Israeli historian Benny Morris describes how David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was asked by one of his generals: “What shall we do with the Arabs?”

The prime minister, wrote Morris, “made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand”. “Expel them!” he said.

Seventy years later, this crime is suppressed in the intellectual and political culture of the West. Or it is debatable, or merely controversial. Highly-paid journalists and eagerly accept Israeli government trips, hospitality and flattery, then are truculent in their protestations of independence. The term, “useful idiots”, was coined for them.

In 2011, I was struck by the ease with which one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists, Ian McEwan, a man bathed in the glow of bourgeois enlightenment, accepted the Jerusalem Prize for literature in the apartheid state.

Would McEwan have gone to Sun City in apartheid South Africa? They gave prizes there, too, all expenses paid. McEwan justified his action with weasel words about the independence of “civil society”.

Propaganda – of the kind McEwan delivered, with its token slap on the wrists for his delighted hosts – is a weapon for the oppressors of Palestine. Like sugar, it insinuates almost everything today.
Understanding and deconstructing state and cultural propaganda is our most critical task. We are being frog-marched into a second cold war, whose eventual aim is to subdue and balkanise Russia and intimidate China.

When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke privately for more than two hours at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, apparently about the need not to go to war with each other, the most vociferous objectors were those who have commandeered liberalism, such as the Zionist political writer of the Guardian.

“No wonder Putin was smiling in Hamburg,” wrote Jonathan Freedland. “He knows he has succeeded in his chief objective: he has made America weak again.” Cue the hissing for Evil Vlad.

These propagandists have never known war but they love the imperial game of war. What Ian McEwan calls “civil society” has become a rich source of related propaganda.

Take a term often used by the guardians of civil society — “human rights”. Like another noble concept, “democracy”, “human rights” has been all but emptied of its meaning and purpose.

Like “peace process” and “road map”, human rights in Palestine have been hijacked by Western governments and the corporate NGOs they fund and which claim a quixotic moral authority.

So when Israel is called upon by governments and NGOs to “respect human rights” in Palestine, nothing happens, because they all know there is nothing to fear; nothing will change.

Mark the silence of the European Union, which accommodates Israel while refusing to maintain its commitments to the people of Gaza — such as keeping the lifeline of the Rafah border crossing open: a measure it agreed to as part of its role in the cessation of fighting in 2014. A seaport for Gaza – agreed by Brussels in 2014 – has been abandoned.

The UN commission I have referred to – its full name is the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia — described Israel as, and I quote, “designed for the core purpose” of racial discrimination.

Millions understand this. What the governments in London, Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv cannot control is that humanity at street level is changing perhaps as never before.
People everywhere are stirring and are more aware, in my view, than ever before. Some are already in open revolt. The atrocity of Grenfell Tower in London has brought communities together in a vibrant almost national resistance.

Thanks to a people’s campaign, the judiciary is today examining the evidence of a possible prosecution of Tony Blair for war crimes. Even if this fails, it is a crucial development, dismantling yet another barrier between the public and its recognition of the voracious nature of the crimes of state power – the systemic disregard for humanity perpetrated in Iraq, in Grenfell Tower, in Palestine. Those are the dots waiting to be joined.

For most of the 21^st century, the fraud of corporate power posing as democracy has depended on the propaganda of distraction: largely on a cult of “me-ism” designed to disorientate our sense of looking out for others, of acting together, of social justice and internationalism.

Class, gender and race were wrenched apart. The personal became the political and the media the message. The promotion of bourgeois privilege was presented as “progressive” politics. It wasn’t. It never is. It is the promotion of privilege, and power.

Among young people, internationalism has found a vast new audience. Look at the support for Jeremy Corbyn and the reception the G20 circus in Hamburg received. By understanding the truth and imperatives of internationalism, and rejecting colonialism, we understand the struggle of Palestine.

Mandela put it this way: “We know only too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

At the heart of the Middle East is the historic injustice in Palestine. Until that is resolved, and Palestinians have their freedom and homeland, and Israelis are Palestinians equality before the law, there will be no peace in the region, or perhaps anywhere.

What Mandela was saying is that freedom itself is precarious while powerful governments can deny justice to others, terrorise others, imprison and kill others, in our name. Israel certainly understands the threat that one day it might have to be normal.

That is why its ambassador to Britain is Mark Regev, well known to journalists as a professional propagandist, and why the “huge bluff” of charges of anti-Semitism, as Ilan Pappe called it, was allowed to contort the Labour Party and undermine Jeremy Corbyn as leader. The point is, it did not succeed.

Events are moving quickly now. The remarkable Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) is succeeding, day by day; cities and towns, trade unions and student bodies are endorsing it. The British government’s attempt to restrict local councils from enforcing BDS has failed in the courts.

These are not straws in the wind. When the Palestinians rise again, as they will, they may not succeed at first — but they will eventually if we understand that they are us, and we are them.

This is an abridged version of John Pilger’s address to the Palestinian Expo in London on 8 July, 2017

Book Review: "The Crusade through Arab Eyes" by Amin Maalouf

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Thu, 6 Jul 2017 05:43:00 +0300

The bulk of modern history regarding the Crusades has an unashamedly Western slant to it. Even a cursory search of the word "crusade" on Amazon Books reveals a plethora of books written by authors from the U.K., the U.S., and elsewhere in the Western world, but a severe (emphasis) paucity of books from a more Arab perspective. One book that stands out is Amin Maalouf's "The Crusades through Arab Eyes", a book I believe is much-needed given the overall bias inherent in the gestalt of Western history books on this topic. The gold standard for history on the Crusades is currently the "The Oxford History of the Crusades", another book I will review in the not-so-distant future (and expect comparisons to this book given that I have completed reading it). The too-long-didn't-read version of this review is the following: if you're interested in history, buy it, read it, and keep it. Nevertheless, my full review follows.

For those who are unawares of this author (including myself at one point), Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-French author who was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived the majority of his life in France. He wrote for the national Lebanese newspaper Al-Nahar and published many books, receiving awards for a handful. His magnum opus is The Crusades through Arab Eyes, published in the mid-1980's. He is known for other works of both fiction and non-fiction such as Samarkand, In the Name of Identity, and Balthasar's Odyssey, all of which I have not read but look forward to reading them someday given the quality of writing and content in the book I am reviewing today.

Speaking of writing and content, which I will get into in a minute, I would first like to entertain readers with a quick summary of the book, so spoiler warning ahead. The first few chapters of the book set the tone for the political climate that was the staging ground for the First Crusade. The Muslim City States were nothing more than petty sanctums squabbling for wealth and land, with leaders who have diverted from religious to secular . He relates the stories of political leaders who have made overtures to the invading armies for the sake of their own political and material goals. More importantly, he emphasizes the gains and losses of the city states in facing this Crusade, talking about those who were both sympathizers and opponents of the invading Christian armies. The overall tone in the first half of the book is poignant, echoing parallels with the modern-day Arab states such as Iraq and Egypt as well as their complacency with their Western "allies" (more like "masters" but I digress). He relates to us the horrors and slaughter the Muslims, Jews, and Arab Christians endured at the hands of those who were seen as "liberators" by those who sympathized with the West, at that time consisting of the Holy Roman Empire and its constituent nations. This is later replaced with hope and strength for the Muslims, with a rise in both intellectual, spiritual, and finally physical resistance against the would-be conquerors, up to and including Saladin, the Mongol invasion, and finally the expulsion of the last vestiges of Crusaders from the shores of Palestine.

Now let's get to the writing and content. The book is remarkably easy to read, and the style is befitting of an intellectual. An examination of the relationships is done as thoroughly as possible, with a logical flow of how the initial sedition on part of corrupt Muslim leaders gave way to the more united, more benevolent, and most celebrated personalities of Islamic history. The perspective shone on the Crusaders from Arab eyes, "barbarians" who held no notions of "civility" or even "personal hygeine".What is most important is Maalouf's portrayal of how ultimately human both the Muslim leaders and Crusaders really were: they had motives, ambitions, and views on what they deemed was best for themselves or for the general public in their city-states. Even more frightening, as I said earlier, are the parallels between the past and the present Middle East, and this certainly was the freshest of perspectives I have seen in my readings on the Crusades, whether online or offline.

That being said, there are a few weakness of this book. The first is that the author offers little to no insight by himself, but rather offers second-hand perspectives from historical personalities. While the latter is definitely more important, the former would be potentially more entertaining and would provide the book with a little more personality by showcasing the author's intellectual prowess. The second is that the book feels a little rushed near the end. Clearly, the author's focus was on the more troubling times the Muslims faced during the Crusades as opposed to their victories, but this may be overshadowed by the author's intention to rile up the reader's passions, sympathy, and empathy with those who feel like their lands have been invaded by a "less civilized" force, and those who wish to take advantage of said force's wealth and power. I do not think that Maalouf is a Maronite Christian lessens the importance or relevance to the book, but rather far from it: having an objective set of Arab eyes on Islamic historical sources strengthens its objectivity lest we get caught up in the spirit of injudicious "Jihad" and firebrand rhetoric that may be present in the writings of some Islamic scholars.

Nonetheless, no other book challenges our points of view on the Crusades and battles the sweeping generalizations we tend to make about the history of the Crusades. It is through ignorant paint-brushing, I believe, that we are doomed to repeat history, and history has the unfortunate tendency to repeat itself, often not for the better. Whether history is your interest or not, it is still important to learn about world-shaping events that have occurred in the past so we may promote more understanding and tolerance of people of other faiths and backgrounds in our collective search for peace, no matter how misguided we think others may be in that quest. I strongly (emphasis) recommend this book, and hope that more like it will come out to challenge our notions of the Crusades and bring further understanding into this topic.

مراجعة كتاب: الحروب الصليبية من خلال عيون عربية بواسطة أمين معلوف

الجزء الأكبر من التاريخ الحديث فيما يتعلق بالحرب الصليبية لديه مائل الغربية بلا خجل. حتى بحثا سريعا عن كلمة "حملة صليبية" على كتب أمازون تكشف عن عدد كبير من الكتب التي كتبها مؤلفون من المملكة المتحدة والولايات المتحدة وأماكن أخرى في العالم الغربي، ولكن قلة (التركيز) شديدة من الكتب من منظور عربي أكثر. ومن أبرز الكتب التي أعدها أمين معلوف "الحروب الصليبية من خلال عيون عربية"، وهو كتاب أرى أنه ضروري للغاية نظرا للتحيز العام الكامن في جشتالت كتب التاريخ الغربي حول هذا الموضوع. والمعيار الذهبي للتاريخ على الحروب الصليبية هو حاليا "تاريخ أكسفورد للحروب الصليبية"، وهو كتاب آخر سوف أراجعه في المستقبل غير البعيد (ونتوقع مقارنات لهذا الكتاب نظرا لأنني قد أكملت قراءته). النسخة الطويلة جدا التي لم تتم قراءتها من هذا الاستعراض هي التالية: إذا كنت مهتما بالتاريخ، وشرائه، وقراءتها، والاحتفاظ بها. ومع ذلك، فإن استعراضي الكامل يتبع.

بالنسبة لأولئك الذين لا يطلعون على هذا المؤلف (بما في ذلك نفسي في مرحلة ما)، أمين معلوف هو مؤلف لبناني فرنسي ولد في بيروت، لبنان، وعاش معظم حياته في فرنسا. كتب ل "النهار" اللبنانية اللبنانية ونشر العديد من الكتب، وتلقى الجوائز لحفنة. فظهوره الكبير هو الحروب الصليبية عبر العيون العربية، التي نشرت في منتصف الثمانينيات. وهو معروف عن أعمال أخرى من الخيال وغير الخيالي مثل سمرقند، في اسم الهوية، وأوديسي بالثازار، وكلها لم أقرأ ولكن نتطلع إلى قراءتها يوما ما نظرا لنوعية الكتابة والمحتوى في كتاب أنا أراجع اليوم.

يتحدث عن الكتابة والمحتوى، والتي سوف ندخل في دقيقة، وأود أولا أن ترفيه القراء مع ملخص سريع للكتاب، لذلك المفسد تحذير قبل. وقد وضعت الفصول القليلة الأولى من الكتاب لهجة المناخ السياسي الذي كان بمثابة نقطة انطلاق للحملة الصليبية الأولى. لم تكن دول املدينة املسلمة أكثر من مجرد املراحيض الصغيرة التي تتشاجر من أجل الثروة واألرض، مع القادة الذين تحولوا من الدين إلى العلمانية. وهو يروي قصص القادة السياسيين الذين قدموا تصريحات للجيوش الغازية من أجل أهدافهم السياسية والمادية. والأهم من ذلك أنه يؤكد على مكاسب وخسائر دول المدينة في مواجهة هذه الحملة الصليبية، ويتحدث عن أولئك الذين كانوا متعاطفين ومعارضين للجيوش المسيحية الغازية. إن النغمة الشاملة في النصف الأول من الكتاب مؤثرة، توازي التشابهات مع الدول العربية الحديثة مثل العراق ومصر، فضلا عن الرضا عن "حلفاءها" الغربيين (أشبه ب "الأساتذة"، لكنني أضغط). فهو يتعلق بنا بالأهوال وذبح المسلمين واليهود والمسيحيين العرب الذين عانوا على أيدي أولئك الذين اعتبروا "محررين" من قبل الذين تعاطفوا مع الغرب، في ذلك الوقت الذي يتألف من الإمبراطورية الرومانية المقدسة ودولها التأسيسية . بعد ذلك يتم استبدال ذلك بالأمل والقوة للمسلمين، مع ارتفاع في كل من الفكري والروحي، وأخيرا المقاومة الجسدية ضد الغزاة المحتملين، تصل إلى بما في ذلك صلاح الدين، والغزو المغولي، وأخيرا طرد آخر الأثار من الصليبيين من شواطئ فلسطين.

الآن دعونا الحصول على الكتابة والمحتوى. الكتاب سهل القراءة بشكل ملحوظ، والأسلوب هو يليق من الفكري. ويتم فحص العلاقات على أكمل وجه ممكن، مع تدفق منطقي لكيفية فتح الفتنة الأولى على جزء من الزعماء المسلمين الفاسدين الطريق لشخصيات أكثر توحدا وأكثر خيرة، وأكثرها شهرة في التاريخ الإسلامي. لقد ألقت وجهة النظر على الصليبيين من أعين العرب، "البرابرة" الذين لم يكن لديهم أي مفاهيم "للكياسة" أو حتى "الهجين الشخصي". ما هو الأكثر أهمية هو تصوير معلوف لكيفية الإنسان في نهاية المطاف على حد سواء القادة المسلمين والصليبيين في الحقيقة: كان لديهم والدوافع، والطموحات، والآراء حول ما يعتبرونه أفضل لأنفسهم أو لعامة الناس في دولهم المدن. والأكثر إثارة للخوف، كما قلت من قبل، هي أوجه التشابه بين الماضي والشرق الأوسط الحالي، وهذا بالتأكيد كان طازجة من وجهات النظر التي رأيت في قراءاتي على الحروب الصليبية، سواء على الانترنت أو غير متصل.

ومع ذلك، هناك عدد قليل من ضعف هذا الكتاب. الأول هو أن صاحب البلاغ لا يقدم سوى القليل من البصيرة من قبل نفسه، بل يقدم وجهات نظر من شخصيات تاريخية. في حين أن هذا الأخير هو بالتأكيد أكثر أهمية، الأول سيكون من المحتمل أن أكثر تسلية، وسوف توفر الكتاب مع شخصية أكثر قليلا من خلال عرض براعة المؤلف الفكرية. والثاني هو أن الكتاب يشعر قليلا هرع قرب نهاية. ومن الواضح أن تركيز المؤلف كان على الأوقات الأكثر إثارة للقلق التي واجهها المسلمون خلال الحروب الصليبية في مقابل انتصاراتهم، ولكن هذا قد يطغى عليه نية صاحب البلاغ لتعميق مشاعر القارئ والتعاطف والتعاطف مع أولئك الذين يشعرون بأن أراضيهم قد غزت من قبل قوة "أقل تحضرا"، وأولئك الذين يرغبون في الاستفادة من ثروة القوة والقوة. لا أعتقد أن معلوف مسيحيا مارونيا يخفف من أهمية الكتاب أو أهميته، بل بعيدا عنه: إن وجود مجموعة موضوعية من أعين العرب على المصادر التاريخية الإسلامية يعزز من موضوعيته خشية أن نكتظ بروح الحماس " الجهاد "والبلاغة التي قد تكون موجودة في كتابات بعض العلماء المسلمين.

ومع ذلك، لا كتاب آخر يتحدى وجهة نظرنا على الحروب الصليبية ومعارك التعميمات الكاسح نميل إلى جعل حول تاريخ الحروب الصليبية. فمن خلال الطلاء جاهل بالفرشاة، وأعتقد، أننا محكومون لتكرار التاريخ، والتاريخ لديه ميل مؤسف لتكرار نفسها، في كثير من الأحيان ليس للأفضل. ما إذا كان التاريخ هو اهتمامك أم لا، فإنه لا يزال من المهم معرفة المزيد عن تشكيل العالم الأحداث التي وقعت في الماضي حتى نتمكن من تعزيز المزيد من التفاهم والتسامح من الناس من الديانات والخلفيات الأخرى في البحث الجماعي عن السلام، بغض النظر عن كيفية مضللة نعتقد أن الآخرين قد يكونون في هذا المسعى. أنا بقوة (التركيز) يوصي هذا الكتاب، ونأمل أن أكثر مثل ذلك سوف يخرج لتحدي مفاهيمنا للحرب الصليبية وتحقيق المزيد من التفاهم في هذا الموضوع.

Salaam

Book Review: "Beyond Fundamentalism" by Reza Aslan

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Fri, 5 Aug 2016 20:01:00 +0300

I didn't know what to expect when reading a book composed by one of the most prominent Muslim intellectuals of the 21st Century. For a second, I thought I was gonna read a book about the traditional tropes of radicals in the 3 Abrahamic faiths being rooted in a minority of their respective followers. The shocking thesis of Reza Aslan portrayed in this book describes a much more endemic problem: the idea of a "cosmic war" between what each radical group perceives as "good" and "evil", and how that differs and at the same time finds common ground between the 3 faiths. The backdrop of globalization further emphasizes the de-nationalization of identity and the construction of a new identity that transcends geographical and racial boundaries, whether he talks of the radical groups such as Al Qaeda, the Christian right-wing extremists in the USA, or the Zionist settler groups in the West Bank. He asserts that such a history goes back to some of the earliest followers and scholars of each religion, with prominent figures such as the Zealots of early Judaism, the Crusading Kingdoms of Europe, and the Khawarij (or Kharijites) of the post-Righteous-Caliphs era.

That being said, what of the book? Even after reading this review by the Foreign Policy Journal, I thought it was the most convincing and thoughtful analysis on modern-day extremism that I have read in a while, moreso by looking at realistic and socioeconomic factors and less so by looking at what people portray as "misinterpretation of the religion". I always thought that the argument that "extremists are a minority because they twist the interpretation of the books to suit their own ends" was a weak argument, weaker so than actually looking at the fact that most of these extremists - whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim - haven't really engaged well in theological discussions about their religion let alone engage objectively in their own religiosity. The modern-day leaders of these groups, such as Bush Jr., Bin Laden, and the Kahanists, have paralleled the pasts of their own religions' turmoil (the Crusades between the Christians and Muslims, the resistance of the Jewish Zealots against the Roman Empire, and so on and so forth) to the present: the so-called "War on Terror" was in disguise a Crusade seen by Bush Jr. and a "Jihad" by Bin Laden, which in and of themselves are "cosmic wars".

With regards to the writing style, it is written in a way that is easy to read and understand. The content is well-cited with an abundance of glossary terms and references. Overall, the book is an excellent read. There were plenty of points I disagreed with, but the book is very relevant in this day and age, and is a must read for those interested in understanding the roots of extremism, especially as addressing the root causes of extremism is tantamount to reducing the widespread violence and bringing peace to people of all faiths and backgrounds.

Writing style - 5/5
Content - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

Salaam

Futility in End-of-Life Care: Why the Suffering of a Brain-Dead Patient Should Uneqivocally End

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Mon, 1 Aug 2016 20:43:00 +0300

You know the phrase "Cut off the head of the snake and the body dies"? I'm sure that applies to every living creature out there... except for maybe starfish because those guys don't even have heads. Anyways, I'm writing on this topic because I've come across countless cases where brain-dead patients are forced to suffer untreatable and progressive end-organ damage in a slow, agonizing death because family members and MPOA's cling to the delusional hope that, somehow, a brain that has been literally killed by anoxic injury will receive the same blessing Jesus gave to Saint Lazarus of Bethany and somehow flicker to life. Futility is defined by many scholars as a less than 1% chance of management success. One such scholar, Griffin Trotter, defined it as occurring in the following setting:

1. There is a goal
2. There is an action and activity aimed at achieving this goal
3. There is virtual certainty that the action will fail in achieving this goal

Take, for example, a patient who sustained massive, almost whole-brain cerebral edema due to continued, generalized, uncontrolled seizure activity. More importantly, think of the status-post cardiac arrest patient who was deprived of oxygen to the point that his entire brain stroked out and became edematous. The case to treat surgically is futile because although the surgery aims at reducing intracranial pressure by allowing the brain to expand outward as opposed to downward, the failure rate is high due to brainstem compression and subsequent respiratory failure which may have already happened in this setting of downward transtentorial herniation. Brain death is almost always present in such cases due to deprivation of oxygen and necessary nutrients.

Therefore, by definition, brain death is futile: there is no chance for recovery. However, many physicians have been unable to communicate the risks associated to the family involved. Such a landmark case involved one Jahi McMath, a 13-year-old who underwent a tonsillectomy in 2013 and suffered cardiac arrest, resulting in brain death. Per the San Francisco chronicle around that time,

The family of a 13-year-old girl who has been declared brain-dead has found a nursing home that will keep her on a breathing machine while relatives pray for a miracle, the family’s lawyer said Thursday. However, Children’s Hospital Oakland, where Jahi McMath underwent tonsil-removal surgery... and then suffered cardiac arrest, objected to the transfer and said it was not authorized by the judge who ordered the girl kept on a ventilator. After hospital physicians’ finding of brain death was confirmed by a court-appointed doctor, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo ruled Tuesday that the girl was legally deceased and that the hospital could discontinue medical care. But he extended... a restraining order requiring connection of the breathing apparatus. Jahi’s family contends she is still alive and spent Christmas at her bedside. Their lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said... that a nursing home has agreed to take her, and he is negotiating with Children’s Hospital and insurance companies to insert breathing and feeding tubes that would allow her to be moved… The hospital said it “does not believe that performing surgical procedures on the body of a deceased person is an appropriate medical practice.” [1]

It is the delusion of false hope in "miracles" that causes breakdown of understanding between those who believe in them and those who would rather hedge their bets on evidence-based medicine. Per the former party, the patient still has a slim chance of recovery. The latter party, however, believes - rightly so in 100% of brain dead cases, in my humble opinion - that the patient is now a cadaver who can't be resuscitated, a statement based on history, physical examination from multiple physicians, and electrophysiological data. Clearly, the evidence is on the side of the physicians, yet due to the lack of trust in the medical system and the lack of respect for the field, physicians are forced to yield their logic to the emotion of families still in denial over the fact that they, at that point in time, just lost a loved one. This, as one writer pointed out, prolongs the suffering of families as they watch their loved ones waste away on a ventilator.

Obviously, there are serious ethical and public health implications to maintaining such futile care. The suffering people go through when their body's major organs are deprived of their necessities to live is a mountain in the face of what a pregnant woman goes through when giving birth or what a man with a kidney stone suffers as a piece of calcium oxalate painfully weaves its way through his renal system. The idea of non-maleficence is thrown out the window when such suffering is allowed to continue. To make matters worse, a non-functioning brain means a slowly dying, non-functioning body which could potentially become a reservoir for all sorts of nasty superbugs and infectious diseases. Public health comes into play when a corpse in the ICU is literally fostering an environment that could worsen the outcomes of patients in the vicinity just on the virtue of being there. There was one patient I took care of who within days of admission grew a nasty bout of super-resistant Klebsiella sp. ESBL in his blood. This wouldn't have happened if care was withdrawn at the appropriate moment and the patient's body harvested for organ donations where appropriate, or sent to the morgue/cemetery and away from the hospital environment, where others are exposed to such unnecessary risk. Finally, on a less important note, expenses incurred by both the institution and the family are usually inexorable and only build up when futility prolongs the inevitable, and those are incurred as a result of damage control of all the above-mentioned parameters.

Anyways, that's all I have to say on the topic.

Salaam

The Real Apocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 00:49:00 +0300

It is not the most rosy topic, sure, but at least one group in every major era of history has come out with End-Times theological ramblings. From the Sumerians and Mayans to the terrorist groups and evangelical zealots of today, the Apocalypse has become a subject of controversy, satire, and foreboding. The Mahdis and Messiahs of prophecies passed on long ago are starting to look more and more wanting. Ultimately, it is the battle between "Good" and "Evil", "Order" and "Chaos", or what-have-you that will decide the fate of this world in the years to come. Wolves in sheepskin and other Anti-Christ-like figures have surfaced to the forefront of political discussion. Demons and Demon-worship have become topics of popular culture, even to the extent of glorification. Clerics espouse ideologies centered on hate and discord, at the same time warning of an impending slaughter that will spare no home, school, or hospital. Dishonesty is becoming the way of the world, and the Good Samaritan is vilified as one who has an ulterior motive. Even those who espouse "good deeds" and announcing it to the world seem to be in it for themselves more than anything. The news is abuzz with the victories of unscrupulous politicians, the continuing yet sadly unnoticeable massacres in failed city-states and countries, and the economic downturns and woes of the less privileged. Yes, we really are in for a world of hurt in the next few years, but what is the source of it? By extension, what is the process, this event, that we refer to as the Apocalypse?

It is the Apocalypse that is brewing within our bodies, our minds, and our souls.

Through the reading of stories, fables, myths, and anecdotes, one can find the relevant humanity inherent in them. The Apocalypse is one that tells the tales of unspeakable horrors, gibbering nightmares, demons disguised as angels, and bloodshed. It talks of the never-ending ultimate battle between that which is "Good" and of "Order" and that which is "Evil" and of "Chaos". These are forces that we don't just battle on the outside, but also on the inside. Our bodies are on the fight against sickness, our minds on the verge of insanity, and our souls on the brink of darkness. It's not the End of the World, but for you? You can see it from where you stand. You struggle to learn and fend off ignorance, to work and battle insecurity, to exercise and ward off sickness, and to love and stop the hate. Any of those could spell the difference between 4 more years or 4 more seconds. There is nothing more penultimate than the End, no matter what faith or lack thereof you ascribe to. These battles are represented by the many angels and demons we see within and without. The parables of old that speak of the struggle of the godly folk against the ungodly echo in the daily interactions of life. Life itself is a constant struggle that forges strength in one's soul as the weaknesses weasel their way out. The process of Evolution itself is a battle that sees the strongest and more fit as the ones able to survive.

Even scarier is today's political scene, where corrupt politicians grow ever closer to the nuclear launch codes that could spell the end of humanity as we know it. While the largely indifferent masses huddle together with their smartphones and tablets, tempers flare as job markets around the world grow smaller, with people getting laid off as those at the top seek to maximize their fortunes and minimize their costs, giving in to their inner demons and exposing the vulnerable and less fortunate masses to the persuasions of radicals, charlatans, and other minions of the forces of evil and chaos (not that their so-called "superiors" are any better). Politicians can take advantage of these masses and rile them up against what they perceive to be "problems", divesting their interests away from their own get-rich-quick schemes and goals. True examples are seen in American politics today, such as that old supremacist bigot Donald Trump. Take for example his campaign to ban Muslims and call for a wall to be built on the Mexican border. Seeking the populace of disenfranchised Americans who feel like their jobs are being "taken away" from them (a subject for another time), he riles them up in a hurricane of fervor and fanaticism, seeking out the worst in humanity and literally summoning the inner demons swimming in their veins to the fore. We've all seen the results of his "rallies": violent mobs of deadbeats and bigots are emboldened further, sinking world public opinion of America back into the Dark Ages. Truly, it is a bleak picture if such an unscrupulous oaf such as Trump does indeed gain power.

Ultimately, it is the faith and sanity of the individual that makes all the difference. By being an example and not adding fuel to the fire, one can become a calming force in a storm of violence, hate, and unbridled anger. Yes, it is a tough fight that people go through, with dark thoughts swimming in the murky waters of common discourse. However, simply resisting these inclinations and holding on to faith - faith in humanity - will win the day. There are only so many facets to an individual, and each facet itself is on the tipping point, an edge if you will. It is an edge that gets narrower and more dangerous as the days go by.

So, in summation, the actual Apocalypse - at least what I believe - is years away, but is being hastened by many. The Real Apocalypse is an invisible war that is fought in the hearts and minds of many, the consummate battleground of those in power and those who seek it. You may have it easy or difficult, but you're all fighting this battle.

And I pray that you come out better for it.

Air Tax

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 06:13:00 +0300

I can't believe it has been ten years since I first started this website, and a lot has changed since then. My newfound apathy to everything economical and, these days, political can only go so far when I see something like "Daraprim prices soar to new heights" and "Volkswagen caught with its pants down modifying diesel fuel emission statistics from its automobiles". Dystopian literature has always conceived a future where every aspect of life, from body parts to the pollutants we breathe in, undergoes extensive commodification. Even Marx himself stated that capitalism in its current form would eventually be its own undoing, where the wealthy elite will consolidate power to the extent that the masses will have no viable alternative to living a life constantly in debt to their superiors other than to revolt against them.

One can argue that what Martin Shkreli, the smug-faced CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, did was immoral albeit not illegal [1]: he was within the bounds of New York State Law to increase the price on a drug that is used in exceptional cases to treat toxoplasmosis, a rare infection found in immunosuppressed situations encountered in patients with AIDS, organ transplants, certain leukemias, some medications, and other immune-compromised states. However, to pounce on an opportunity to milk money out of unborn babies who could potentially have serious congenital defects if left untreated; men and women with potentially severe neurologic sequelae of the disease; and others who have little choice but to use this drug is in itself a criminal act that exploits the dire suffering of the abovementioned groups for personal profit.

Sure, he wasn't the first (the examples of cycloserine and doxycycline also resound vociferously), as the pharmaceutical industry is notorious for its rather toxic competitive atmosphere and, by corollary, hostility towards nascent drug companies [2]; and I can see where Mr. Shkreli is coming from: he's the new kid on the block of Big Pharma, and he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Nonetheless, to exploit an old drug that has been widely available to many of those who suffer from toxoplasmosis by literally taking it away from their grasp is asking for widespread condemnation let alone bad publicity, and would destroy consumer confidence. The endless comparisons to Dr. Jonas Salk, who shared the polio vaccine to all on humanitarian grounds, highlights how low the level of "altruism" in today's day and age has stooped.

It is just disturbing that we have reached a point where money talks and walks all over the decision-making political scene. Issues such as health and accessibility to healthcare are subdivided further and further apart based on factors such as age, class, gender preference, and even race. There is no general consensus that health should be a society's first priority because instead of being comprised of a single humanity, society is now a pizza pie of lobbyists upon lobbyists upon lobbyists vying for attention and representation. Some pieces of the pie are unfortunately larger than others, and only by virtue of their following do they gain "importance".

So, what's my point? It's simple and complicated at the same time: there is little to no altruism in a system that encourages maximizing profits and minimizing costs, especially when the individual lives in a society that presses him/her to succeed through the enhancement of his/her own value on whatever market pool he/she is swimming in. All of this can be summed up in one word: ambition. We can't let unfettered capitalism take precedence, but neither can we let socialism off the hook as well: either system is governed by human beings with ambitions of power, and little to no checks and balances exist to rein them in exist in modern society to implement justice and equality for all.

Anyways, enough of my ranting for now... I'm off to bed...

Book Review: "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Jules Verne

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:20:00 +0300

While most of modern science fiction is associated with the latest in Hollywood spectacles (*cough*Star Wars*cough*), it's easy to forget about the roots of science fiction as a whole, which goes back as far as the late 19th Century. One of the most prolific writers in this genre was a Frenchman named Jules Verne, and his books 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth are the epitome of his storytelling expertise. This review will focus on the latter book as I have yet to read the former (though it is on my backlog of books).

The book is split into many chapters, so it makes for an easy read without dragging on and on until you reach a part you're sure you can place a bookmark on. While archaic, the style is simple and easy to follow without delving into big vocabulary and monologues. The characters, as few as they may be, are quirky and memorable, in particular Professor Otto Lidenbrock. The pace is just as intense and exciting from start to finish, and the conclusion of the book is just as satisfying. Granted, it stayed on the safe side in terms of mortality as the book was catered to most if not all age groups. However, the most provocative aspect of the book is the imagery it portrays. Without spoiling too much, all I can say is that you can expect both familiar and alien landscapes, flora and fauna from the depths of the Earth itself, and an air of anachronism as things of both the past and the present surface into the story.

All in all, Journey to the Center of the Earth is a masterpiece of early science fiction.

Writing: 5/5
Style: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

Salaam

Book Review: "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert Heinlein

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 11 May 2014 19:24:00 +0300

Critical reception for the titular novel has been fairly mixed. Although the book has been dubbed "the most famous science fiction novel" ever and has received the Hugo Award for best novel, the book was panned by many critics, such as NYT writer Orville Prescott, as a "disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism", so bad that "when a non-stop orgy is combined with a lot of preposterous chatter, it becomes unendurable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of readers". Despite the vitriol poured at the novel, it has become a cult classic. Named as one of the 88 books that "shaped America" by the Library of Congress, "Stranger..." has inspired much of the hippie subculture of the 60's and 70's.

Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", an allegory to the prophet Abraham, is about the "Man from Mars", Valentine Michael Smith ("Mike"), who visits Earth and goes through the human experience, an alien in the crudest sense of the word. The book itself is about 435 pages long, abridged from the original unedited version that was sold after Heinlein's death. It mixes science fiction with modern fantasy. Per the books summary, he comes to Earth to teach mankind "grokking, water-sharing, and love". The rest? I will leave to your leisure to look up or read. The book is interspersed with sparse scenes of action, a swathe of eroticism, and plenty of philosophical debates on politics, religion (especially religion), and humanism between its characters.

Speaking of characters, they are pretty fleshed out and have their own quirks and nuances that set them apart from each other, although this is diluted in much of the dialogue. The protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, is innocent, child-like, and inquisitive, but begins to develop more human-like attributes as he explores more of Earth and human society. Although he is relatively alien to human culture, he is one of the most believable protagonists of science fiction I have ever come across: he becomes more familiar with every turn of the page yet remains unique as an otherworldly being with abilities that defy human logic.

To be frank, I am more in favor of the book than against it. As a work of science fiction, it poses tough questions revolving around religion, existentialism, and humanism. The remainder of the characters, although bland at some parts, are still fleshed out enough to be endearing and humorous The ending of the book - which I will not spoil here - is unforgettable and haunting, not unlike the ending of The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, which I will review in the near future. That being said, the cons of the book include its at-times wordiness, unnecessary eroticism, and scenes that drag on and on with no visible endpoint. The story's focus is on the characters more than its settings, and its futuristic sci-fi theme is lost in the midst of discussions on spirituality and love.

All in all, a must-read for any science fiction fan.
Content - 4/5
Writing - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

Salaam

Book Review: "The Sprawl Trilogy" by William Gibson

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:20:00 +0300

Also dubbed the "Cyberspace" or "Matrix" trilogy, William Gibson's triad of far future dystopian techno-nightmare novels gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. The first title, Neuromancer, takes most of the credit, while the other two titles, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive flesh out the world and characters introduced in the first book and brings the trilogy to a close. In following with my previous reviews, my critiques will focus on style, content, and an overall "feel" of the story. Similar to my other novel series reviews, I will go over each novel one by one. However, for this review, I will begin with a sort of treatise on the man behind the books, American-Canadian (how about I just stick with North American?) author William Gibson, as well as an overall review with a summary.

To start off, William Gibson, the author, is one of the few writers to whom the word "prophetic" is a fitting description. Like Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley before him, he is attuned to changes in the social, political, and economic climate, and has tapped into the cultural mainstream to plot in his mind a predicted layout of what the future will look like. In the Sprawl Trilogy, it's bleak, dystopian, and gritty. He has written other books like the Bridge Trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru, and All of Tomorrow's Parties), which details in his words the birth of the future cyberspace (the Sprawl Trilogy lives right at its peak).

If you're an established science fiction fan, particularly of authors like Neal Stephenson and Dan Simmons, then this is an absolutely must-read. There are few writers out there who can engross you more in the journey they take you on than the destination they take you to. What distinguishes Gibson from the rest is his writing style: he doesn't just merely "show" you the world he portrays but forces you right into it. You'll see a lot of names of people and places being thrown around, some of which may not be familiar. The lives of the characters in his books are drawn out explicitly in a neo-noir style.

His first book, Neuromancer, is also his debut novel. It won the holy trinity of science fiction awards, the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards, for best science fiction novel the year it came out. The book has the feel and element of a heist story: many vested interests banding together to score big, multiple locales, and bits and bytes of romance, violence, and intrigue. However, it isn't your typical heist story: it vividly describes the potential future of the world wide web in a way that we have yet to experience! It serves as both a window into another world within our own, a dystopia so frighteningly convincing it could just be the world of tomorrow that people look forward to. One wouldn't know it from a pick-up read, but it's clear that the plot was the string that tied together its pages... and loosely if I might add. The book is the Genesis of the Cyberpunk genre - the prototype of its kind - and the subsequent term "cyberspace". In retrospect, movies like "The Matrix" series and video games like "Deus Ex" (as well as the most hardcore of some Japanese anime franchises) have borrowed heavily from Neuromancer: the "matrix" being the infrastructure of cyberspace, a satellite colony called "Zion"... the references are too myriad to name here. That this book is from 1984 is terrifying: the internet had yet to take its full, present form and many of the concepts in the book ring true to today's web world such as "jacking in" (logging in) and others. The book itself drips with content and style: reading the book is more like living in this 1980's-esque vision of the future, and the writing style, simply put, is one of the best I've seen. It really is, according to some reviewers, a "mind-bender of a read".
Content - 5/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

Count Zero, the second book in the series, mixes elements of the already-established cyberpunk, by then Gibson's brainchild, with elements of biopunk. He tells the story of how an ex-soldier plans to kidnap an executive who turns out to be a defector, with several plot twists along the way. Gibson drops the noir-esque elements from Neuromancer in favor of a descriptive style that is easier to take in. Unlike Neuromancer, Count Zero incorporates more side stories to flesh out the world. Having read the book once, I have to say I was not as impressed by this book as I was from the previous title. There were a few side stories interwoven with the main one, and the use of cyberspace is markedly reduced compared to Neuromancer, and only near the end do we get thrown into that godless man-made cityscape. The characters are well-rouned, sure, but the plot literally crawled, for both the side story and the main plot. The style of writing is still solid, but the content suffers a bit.
Content - 3/5
Style - 4/5
Overall - 3.5/5

While Count Zero included almost no characters from the first book (although corporations like Tessier-Ashpool and devices like the Ono-Sendai were present), Mona Lisa Overdrive draws from its predecessors to bring the trilogy to a close. The stakes are raised compared to the first two, and characters from both prequels are re-introduced, with new characters entering center stage: entertainers, mobsters, the Yakuza, and "phantom entities" within cyberspace. The 3rd book also sees a return of Gibson's noir-esque descriptions mixed with Count Zero's panache for keeping it simple. The names and places are both familiar and alien, and the descriptive writing almost gets you into some cyberspace dream sequence at times. Reviewers weren't kidding when they said that this is Gibson's "most absorbing book to date" (well, at the time, at least). Mona Lisa Overdrive's strength is the enigma it keeps you in: the lack of certainty the characters are presented with in their existence is organic and visceral to the extent of being terrifying at times, and the relationships between characters is amplified.
Content - 4/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 4/5

All in all, the Sprawl Trilogy was a superb journey unlike any other. The "noir prophet" of cyberspace has done work that has been underestimated in its prophetic value as more and more of us are engrossed into the ever-growing world of technology and cyberspace. It paints a grisly picture of what would become of us if we give in to the all-consuming power of technology. I think Neuromancer at least should be on everyone's reading list if not the others, but if you're willing to take a step further into what cyberspace could be, then this book is for you.

Salaam

Book Review: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:50:00 +0300

1984. Brave New World. These two literary works have re-defined the term "dystopia" at the turn of the 20th Century. However, another book, just as known and reputable, Fahrenheit 451, authored by one of the most creative writers America let alone the world has ever seen, has breathed life into this otherwise dank and dreary conception. The book is titled after "the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns." Unlike its older counterparts, it is shorter in length (about 160 pages) and is set in a world where intellectual thought is actively (and violently) suppressed and entertainment in all its forms is encouraged. The story follows Guy Montag, a "fireman" (I'll leave the word at that) who lives in this dark and gloomy future. Without spoiling too much, he gets caught in a series of events that unravel the flaws of his era.

Having read 1984 and excerpts of Brave New World, I am pleased to say that Bradbury's work, despite its relative brevity, surpasses its predecessors in its simple yet engrossing linguistic style (much to be said about mine in this post, yes?), ability to absorb you in its unrealistically real atmosphere, and character development. Themes such as intellectual progress, discourse as a form of power, and nihilism play prominent roles in this novel. What makes this book a must-read, however, is its frighteningly prophetic foretelling (at its time, at least) of our current global political climate, the dangers of globalization, the threat of mass culture, and - no, I think I'm going to stop spoiling it right there, because if you've wasted our time reading this review right now, then stop reading and get... this... book!

Content - 5/5

Style - 5/5

Overall - 5/5

Book Review: "The Dune Saga" by Frank Herbert

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 20:29:00 +0300

Touted as the "best-selling science fiction franchise of all time", the Dune chronicles is a space opera double-trilogy or hexology set in a future thousands of years from now, where artificial intelligence is shunned and the Imperium of all mankind in the galaxy lives by a single maxim: "Man can not be replaced." After an event known as the Butlerian Jihad ousted the alliance between man and machine (or rather the control of machines over men), humanity came under the control of feudal societies in a region of space known as the Landsraad. Three of these Houses - Atreides, Harkonnen, and Corrino - take center stage as the powers vying for control, with so-called neutral factions - the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild - aligning themselves with whosoever provides them with the geriatric spice Melange, a condiment that grants prescient powers to its wielders such as foresight to the Navigators of the Spacing Guild. The hexology as a whole is brilliantly set, with a writing style unique to Frank Herbert, one that bends the mind and warps one's view of the universe. While contemporary fiction takes us to another place on this world in around a similar era, Dune takes you to another planet in another universe in another time, and truly defines the word "escape".

Let's review the books one by one, shall we? WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Dune is the first title of the series and is undoubtedly Frank Herbert's magnum opus, itself having won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Science Fiction. Self-called "Science Fiction's Supreme Masterpiece", Dune is a story of love, intrigue, betrayal, and deceit, with themes of religion, environmentalism, economics, and politics woven into the mix. The plot is probably the fastest moving of all the Dune books, where the narrative literally crawls. The writing style emphasizes on the "show, don't tell" approach, although much "telling" happens in conversations between the characters. The content of the book is phenomenal: it literally transported me to a fantastic world in a future far from ours. What hit home for me was the dozen or so references to Islamic and Oriental Theology and Philosophy. The characters are well-developed to the extent that you can imagine them in front of you, and the story does an excellent job at describing the romance behind exploring an alien world and a foreign culture (that of the Fremen). The book's page-turning charm comes not from suspense or plot advancement, but from the beautifully woven universe in the main narrative. Philosophical quandaries abound, and musings on history and religion relate the story to our own experiences. If you can't read the entire series of Dune, the first book is a must as all others somehow depend on the first book and each other to obtain a grasp on the events that translate from book to book.
Content - 5/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

Dune: Messiah, the second book, details the rise and fall of Paul Atreides. Much shorter than the first book, the sequel serves primarily to kill off Paul, and in doing so has failed to fully captivate my attention. It does deal with some pretty heady and controversial material (the Holocaust, to name just one of them). The book serves to portray Paul's final days in power and we watch helplessly as it slips from his grasp in a span of just over 200 pages. If Dune raised the bar in science fiction, Dune: Messiah made it sink a little. The writing style is Herbert's usual flair, but the content seemed lacking, namely because of the brevity of the narrative. Dune: Messiah asks an important question: is Paul Atreides really a savior?
Content - 4/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 4/5

Children of Dune rerouted my doubts to praise. Herbert's third book in this series is a return to form, with the introduction of new characters and factions. If Dune: Messiah was The Empire Strikes Back, this is Return of the Jedi. The tone is darker than the second book, but its premise is one of victory rather than of defeat. It introduces us to the children of Muad'Dib, Leto II and Ghanima, who embark on a quest to purify the Imperial Throne for all of humanity. The style, as always, is top notch, and the political ramifications are felt directly in every single plot twist, of which several exist, right from the beginning. The return of several characters from the first book strengthen the narrative, tying us to how they have dealt with the great political sandstorm that they brewed and plotted.
Content - 4.5/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 4.5/5

God Emperor of Dune, contrary to its title, is the story about the tragic loss of Leto II's humanity, sacrificing it to become a human-sandworm hybrid, as part of his "Golden Path". His loneliness, longing for companionship, and pains in remembering the times of old (as all of his relatives and friends have passed on) ring sharp bells in this book. The narrative again crawls, and the characters are rather static in development. However, the usual philosophical and political undertones of the Dune universe resound in this book again, this time in different form. Where the first three books looked into what would become of a supposed savior and how power corrupts and attracts the corruptible, this book takes that a step further, where the main character yearns to escape the shackles of leadership. Questions of existence and human nature abound in this otherwise very reflective book.
Content - 4.5/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 4.5/5

Heretics of Dune is probably the worst of the lot, and the most underwhelming of the Dune series. As the fifth book in the series, it introduces a completely new cast of characters with minor relations to the previous characters in the Dune universe so far. Moreover, the Imperium of Mankind has fractured, and civilization has collapsed. The Lost Ones of the Scattering, an event that occurred as a result of Leto II's death, have returned to the known universe. However, new characters are not its shortcoming. The main problem I had with the book was the writing style: it suffered compared to the previous books. It doesn't live up to Herbert's best. Gone are most of the philosophical and political musings of the individual characters. Otherwise, the book was a very good addition to the series: the plot moved faster than one would expect from a Frank Herbert book, and the antagonists are visceral and terrifying.
Content - 4.5/5
Style - 4/5
Overall - 4/5

Chapterhouse: Dune represents a triumphant conclusion, undoubtedly Frank Herbert's second to his magnum opus, the first book of the series. This sixth book brings the plot unravelled in Heretics of Dune to an apocalyptic close, while integrating - in greater quantities than before - a device Herbert rarely used in his other books: humour. The planet of Arrakis, Dune, has been destroyed by the antagonists of the previous novel, and now they have their sights hunting for the homeworld of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, Chapterhouse. The story focuses on several characters and fleshes them out with a detail not unlike that which has been presented in the first book. Their relationships are on the center stage of the narrative, developing in unpredictable and surprising ways. The conclusion of the book, and the series, leaves off at a cliffhanger, leaving us to fill in the blanks. Nevertheless, Chapterhouse: Dune is a worthy end to the series.
Content - 5/5
Style - 5/5
Overall - 5/5

As a whole, the Dune saga is indeed a triumph of the human imagination. Nowhere in literature have I come across a universe as wondrous and mysterious as Dune... well, not yet, at least. The adventure and mysticism in this series waltzes valiantly with politics, religion, philosophy, environmentalism, economics, and other aspects of social science, art, and history. If you're a fan of "high-minded" science fiction, imaginative narratives, and fantastic adventures, this is a series that you do not want to miss.

Salaam, from Saracen

Book Reviews: "Mass Effect: Revelation, Ascension, and Retribution" by Drew Karpyshyn

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0300

Few trilogies espouse a universe so encompassing, engrossing, engaging, and breathtaking as Mass Effect, a franchise that combines the best of classic space opera and traditional science fiction elements such as cyberpunk and Lovecraftian horror into one genre-defying masterpiece that draws influence from media greats such as Blade Runner, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Deus Ex. The trilogy was an absolute blast to play, with its story of memorable characters, beautiful locales, and myriad social, political, and religious themes. It is no surprise that it is deemed as one of the greatest if not the greatest science fiction franchise of our generation.

It comes to no surprise that a universe this big has other products. They already have an animated movie being released and have published several Dark Horse comics to date. While tie-in novels are considered supplementary and not stand-alones, this set of books deserves special mention for several reasons. First, the books are written by Drew Karpyshyn, lead writer of the main Mass Effect trilogy. Second, these books serve as stand-alone science fiction masterpieces in their own right: no background in the original trilogy is even necessary.

Revelation is about Captain David Anderson's investigation into the destruction of an AI research facility. The story is a fast-paced page-turning thriller that takes you from one character or planet to the next, and one plot point to the next, with several branching out and converging near the climax. The characters are written and developed well, with Saren's cold attitude towards humans explained in much greater detail than in Mass Effect 1. Interestingly enough, the book doesn't need one to be versed in the lore of the game trilogy: many of the themes, locations, characters, story elements, planets, species, and concepts are introduced de novo in this book. While Kahlee Sanders serves at best as a plot device, a missing piece of the puzzle that doesn't entirely fit, she has her own character developments that make her stand out as a heroine with a morally ambiguous past. This book outshines the other two books in the Karpyshyn novel trilogy, and its writing style, emphasis on "show, don't tell", and sheer intensity of suspense make it a true gem.

The second novel, Ascension, explores the modus operandi of Cerberus, a group briefly touched on in Mass Effect 1, and also delves further into the mysterious society of the quarians, an alien race shunned by all galactic races for the creation of a synthetic race of servants called the geth, who violently overthrew their masters and forced them into centuries of wandering through the stars as nomads. As a tie-in to Mass Effect 2, it brings back one of the characters from ME: Revelation, Kahlee Sanders, and sets her on a galaxy-wide chase, exposing the Macchiavellian brutality of one of the most sinister organizations ever conceived in science fiction: Cerberus, the pro-human, anti-alien black ops group. The climax, however, serves as icing on an otherwise relatively impoverished cake: the sense of scale is reduced compared to Revelation. However, the description of the bowels of the galaxy - Omega Station - is as gritty and grungy, and mirrors a Gibson-esque Sprawl or any other dystopian cyberpunk setting.

Finally, Retribution brings the novel trilogy to an effective close, concluding the novel series and tying it into the main plot of the game trilogy. Kahlee Sanders and Captain Anderson team up again to rescue Paul Grayson, an ex-Cerberus operative captured by the Illusive Man, the leader of Cerberus. They learn that Paul has been implanted with nanites salvaged from slaves of a synthetic-organic race of starships - yes, starships - known only as the Reapers, the primary antagonists of the original game. Without spoiling too much (I guess I just did), this book revisits the epic scale of Revelation and the page-turning suspense that made it so charismatic in its own right. All the story elements and plot details as well as explanatory elements are appropriately and cleverly included in a way that does not disturb the flow of the story.

Overall, this trilogy of books is a must-have even if you are not a fan of Mass Effect. The writer does an excellent job in mirroring the universe's influences and inspirations while maintaining his own style and presenting a series of stories that compare to the greats of science fiction.

Content: 4.5/5
Writing style: 4.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

Salaam, from Saracen

Book Review: "A History of the Arab Peoples" by Albert Hourani

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:21:00 +0300

This is the first post in a series of posts that deals with books I have read or come across. The first book to receive this treatment is "A History of the Arab Peoples" by the late Lebanese scholar Albert Hourani. I finished reading this book about a year ago and I remember feeling somewhat underwhelmed by its premise. The book serves as an excellent primer to Arabs at the advent of Islam, but falls short of giving us as detailed a history as possible about Arabs prior to the coming of the world's second largest religious group. It seems to run on the hypothesis that modern Arab history started with the coming of Islam, and that the Arabs have had no history prior to this. The same has been said of the Palestinians, who are accused of having no history prior to 1948. The presence of a people and the socio-political climate that governed them in the past is just as important as the one in the present. In fact, it can be argued that much of what we see in Arab society today pre-dates Islam.

However, that's not my only gripe with the book. Hourani dabbles more into the literary aspects of the development of Arab societies and seems to steer away from the sectarian and ideological divides that shaped Arab society in the past as well as that of today. He does an excellent job in giving us a non-Western and non-glorifying view of the Caliphates and the Ottoman Empire that arose after it, but rarely are figures such as Saladin and events such as the Crusades are mentioned. If that wasn't enough, the writing style didn't help either: the pages are text-heavy and boorish to the point that there aren't a lot of stand-out factoids that portray the Arabs in a different light.

As far as narratives on Arabic history go, this is one of the most objective that anyone who is unfamiliar with the subject can read into. It's still worth a shot, and much better than the Orientalist diatribes that are passed off as "history" that fill the bookshelves today (Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes come to mind). Still, it doesn't give us the pre-Islamic narrative that offers a fresh perspective on the Arab peoples.

This is my new attempt at a scoring system, so feedback is welcome:
* Content: 3.5/5
* Writing style: 3/5
* Overall: 3.5/5 (not an average of the above)

Salaam, from Saracen

Technology and Human Progress: How Fast Are We Really Evolving?

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 21:59:00 +0300

Ever since man invented the wheel, technology as a whole has advanced farther than any of us can ever fathom. The wheel became the cart and the cart became the chariot and the chariot became the carriage and the carriage became the car. The glider got an engine which took it to space. The brick oven started to run on electricity and not on gas. Not long after, it also got the power to emit microwave radiation and the chance to blow up bowls of spaghetti. The pen gave way to the typewriter, and ENIAC gave way to the laptop computer. Writing on stone was later inscribed on leaves, papyrus, paper, and the Word document. Indeed, it would seem that technology has become almost synonymous with human progress.

As much as some tried to use that technology to benefit the working man's daily life, much of it has been done for the sole purpose of ruining it altogether, and I'm not just talking about taxes and the mail delivery system. I'm talking about the other thing in life that is certain: death. While technology offers us strength, this strength also leads to dominance, and this power in the wrong hands inevitably leads to abuse. Our bare hands became even deadlier with the addition of stone tools, bows and arrows, spears, swords, crossbows, pikes, rifles, shotguns, pistols, (sub)machine guns, and bazookas. Horses were kept in the stable when tanks, howitzers, and gunboats rolled out of the production lines. What was once the humble hand grenade became the nuclear ICBM: from the burning of Rome to the fallout of Hiroshima. Torches that were once tossed into village huts inspired flamethrowers and Agent Orange.

The parables can go on and on, but technology is evidently a tool that can be shaped to become a metaphorical pen or sword. God said in the Koran, "[He (God)] taught Man what he did not know [96:5]". Indeed, God gave man a mind to contrive what he could never have done before. Too often is man enamored by what he creates that the basest of animal instincts, survival and dominance, dominate his mind, and all aspiration and motivation becomes secondary. This can lead to a decline in social and occupational capacity, in pursuit of an obsession with technology and a dry and non-genuine mode of communication that takes no emotion, body language, and other subtle cues of communication in the real world into account.

What have we become? Are we so deprived of stimulus that everything that is new and fresh must be experienced, leaving behind all the dull necessities of daily life? One Reverend Donald Campbell of the Church of Scotland warned of the dangers of such technology in light of his experience with his own followers on the world wide web, stressing that

One of the issues with the social networking sites is that people are friends with people they hardly know or don't know at all. There is a danger humanity is being dehumanised by this technology. If you get hooked into virtual technology and you start to reduce your amount of contact with human beings, and in the most extreme cases, you start never going out at all or interact, then that's an issue for that person as a human being, because are those virtual relationships the same as the ones in the real world? Well, I think quite obviously they're not. What effect does the virtual world have if they don't interact with the real world? There could be psychological impacts on a person, such as a loss of empathy for others.[1]

This comment came, according to the Scotland Herald article posted here, after recent research showed that kids are increasingly being hooked into technology in the form of computers, iPads, and smartphones.

Online communication has become one of the most advanced forms of technology in the last few years. John Grohol, CEO of Psych Central, has taken a more equivocal stance, saying that technology has had the advantage of keeping people in far-off places closer together, but

The flipside is that there’s the potential for people to rely too heavily on these technologies — almost as crutches — rather than engaging people in the traditional ways, such as going out face-to-face for a drink. They may say, ‘Oh I’m all caught up on your life through Twitter, so I don’t really need to try with catch up to you face-to-face.’ Or you could be out at dinner and one of the people at the table could be using their cell phone to text another person who’s not there or Twittering or something of that nature. While that allows us to really connect with people in our lives, it also can be a detriment to our traditional face-to-face relationships. It’s changing our social interactions with one another to varying degrees.[2]

I'm all too familiar with the bolded sort. Layne Hartsell, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea, agreed to the sentiment:

If we are to value human interaction — the old-fashioned kind, where we sit and talk over coffee or tea or where we can reach out and touch the other person — then being plugged in constantly diminishes our social lives,” Hartsell said. “Since people are spending more and more time on the computer or using their other electronic devices for any number of functions, I think many people are putting less value on human relations. Because time is not infinite, there will be trade-offs. The more time I spend on the computer, the less time I have for friends and family.

Hartsell furthermore states that this "plugging-in" is detrimentally affecting normal childhood development and has the potential to damage lives in an unforeseeable future.

When children play video games, it may help their eye-to-hand coordination, or they may be able to develop other skills. However, once those skills are developed, what is the purpose of the continued orientation of their lives around the online world? There is an addictive process going on, along with the observed fact of severe attention deficit and the craving for stimulus after continuous interaction with the screen. Children will and are becoming less capable of seeing or comprehending the world around them.

Even more alarming, according to Hartsell, is that children of today are further disconnecting themselves from what he calls "nature", the state of social interactions in the real world, and that parents, who he seems to hold a sense of blame for,

are unconcerned about nature, but they do not necessarily state it outright. Their children, on the other hand, feel comfortable enough to make such pronouncements without further consideration. Since many children’s lives today are centered around the online world, I am presuming that the disconnect is coming from the centerpiece of their lives

That centerpiece, of course, being the world of technology...

What Grohol, Campbell, and Hartsell said prior simply devolves to the use of technology and whether we are mature enough to handle it. As it expands, technology brings with it denizens of admirers, awestruck at its implications and abilities. These denizens die off as soon as something new comes along, and we feel that we live in a fast-developing world where technology is outgrowing the evolution of social interaction to the extent that it dictates it. In our alienation of ourselves and those around us, we have become nothing but drones of a society that prizes innovation in the material works of companies and brand names, and admonishes the immaterial value of its human members.

The cutting edge of technology is too mature for us to handle, as we have not reached a point where self-control and self-correction can account for the state of the human mind. Even Star Trek's Prime Directive,

As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation,

echoes the dire necessity of developing at a pace that mirrors our own progress.

Given this spiel, what should we do to avert the hypothetical, impending, or incumbent catastrophe (depending on your perspective)? If technological progress is an inevitability that should be welcomed, not shunned or eliminated, what can we do to prevent us from becoming nothing more than cogs on a gear? To limit technological progress and establish ground rules for keeping that progress in check would be difficult: it is in our desire to advance and evolve. The underlying issue that must be addressed is therefore its control on us. It is difficult sometimes to remember that we are men and not machines, and it is we who control machines and not the other way around. It's even more difficult when this helplessness is tied to a consumerist culture that demands our wallets be spilt for the latest and greatest.

Just a word of warning: this is not going to be easy. The allure of technology is undeniable: the ability to browse the WWW and access tons of informational resources within the reach of your fingertips, the car that comes with an audio auxiliary cable that allows you to plug in your MP3 player on the go, watching a World Cup match on a fully functional stereo surround and high-definition entertainment system in the comfort of your own home, and the latest desktop showcasing the latest speed and graphics to date.

I'm not saying that we should toss our laptops and go back to typewriters, but we shouldn't let technology make us forget who we are and what we strive to become in our own lives.

Salaam, from Saracen

Politics as an "Outflow of Culture": Unmasking Racism in today's Socioeconomic Scene

noreply@blogger.com (Nomad) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 03:44:00 +0300

A common yet grave fallacy is to assume that (the actions of) (part of) the infrastructure of a particular country at a particular time and place is derived from a singular cause, of which a metaphysical nature attributed to said cause would be even more so. That said, attributing (a perception of) (failed) politics as an "outflow" of a country's culture is in my honest opinion a crock of bull. I'm not denying that culture and politics are related: there clearly is a relationship between the two in the broader historical context. However, this reductionist outlook panders to more than your garden variety racism, itself being built on misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Why is that?

First of all, consider that politics and culture are mutually exclusive concepts, although their definitions may not appear to be so on the surface. Politics (according to the pseudo-omniscient Wikipedia [1])

is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of "social relations involving authority or power" and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.

On the other hand, culture [2]

is a term that has various meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

* Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture

* An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

* The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

Simple observation concludes that the meaning of the word "culture" is abstract, but it is commonly taken to be the last meaning on the list. In the vein of the meanings of these words, one can see that politics, being a system or process established by a particular collective, can arise from the "collective beliefs" of a group of people (i.e. their culture), and it is tempting - perhaps too tempting - to believe that it is the only factor. For example, one can probably surmise that since Saddam Hussein was the political face of Iraq, then Iraqi culture must have been sadistic, racist, and warmongering since Saddam tortured dissident subjects, gassed the Kurds in the early 90's, invaded Kuwait during the Second Gulf War, and ruled the country with an iron fist. People can also guess that Palestinians and Iranians are brutal because their regimes are brutal. The same can go for North Korea, China, Israel, and other countries with less reputable governments.

So, what's to stop us from believing that to be the case? On a simpler level, one can argue that Saddam's government was not democratic. Therefore, his actions were not the wishes of the Iraqi people, but rather his own and that of his Ba'ath party. An argument can be made against the Iraqi people for not standing up to Saddam, but such an argument would disregard cultural views on the libertarian/authoritarian axis as well as the sociopolitical disposition of the Iraqi people in facing such an ignominious threat. What if a large portion of the population preferred life that way, not having to worry about the higher tier aspirations of scheming politicians and their affairs, and live their lives with complete apathy towards the state and its policies? What if, unlike America, politics is not a major concern of the people of this developing nation? There is no detriment to having the affairs of a country being dictated by a handful of people as long as this process is guided in what benefits the country as a whole in the long term because or in spite of public opinion.

It is that last statement that undermines the legitimacy of the idea that a nation's politics is solely influenced by a nation's culture. In fact, that history's tyrants have had the power to even change or alter a country's practiced culture to reflect a political interest affirms the converse of the above statement. For example, personality cults have been one of the mainstays of contemporary politics in Turkmenistan, where the President has had unprecedented power to sway a people's view of life with haughty and ostentatious imagery [3]. The same can be said of some Middle Eastern nations and the old Soviet Russia, particularly where Stalin was involved. Antonio Gramsci, an Italian writer and political theorist, found that his study of what he referred to as "Cultural Hegemony"

leads to certain deﬁnitions of the concept of the state that is usually understood as a political society (or dictatorship, or coercive apparatus meant to mould the popular mass in accordance with the type of production and economy at a given moment) and not as a balance between the political society and the civil society (or the hegemony of a social group over the entire national society, exercised through the so-called private organisations, such as the church, the unions, the schools, etc.).” [4]

That is to say that the political apparatus as it exists today in many countries molds a nation's consensus independent of a nation's culture. Politicians are active human beings, as are the people of a nation. However, the sway of the former is influenced by circumstances surrounding the people (visionaries like Gamal Abdel Nasser and puppets like the Shah of Iran) and the ideas, local (such as, for example, Shari'a Law advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) or foreign (such as, for example, Marxism, which is embodied in Egypt by the Egyptian Community Party).

The relationship is more reductionist in the point of view of xenophobic, racist, and racial-centric discourses, a convenience to support a hammer that can fix any nail, let alone particular ones. Hitler's Nazi Germany is the prime example that comes to mind: a government that beats around every bush to demonize Jewish populations based on misconceptions of their culture, and extending this simplistic view to encompass every element of their sphere of existence, from their mannerisms to the way decisions are passed in Jewish societies. The same goes for Islamophobia, except that religion, not race, is the imagined fountain from which springs reductionist explanations for every aspect of a Muslim's behavior. These simplistic views fail to take into account the individuality of the human being and the circumstances that influence him or her, and continue to deny the other factors that shape an individual, including politics itself.

This post will conclude with two things. The first is a word of caution. It is tempting to subject everything one sees in a particular individual or group to an assumed parsimony, in essence denying their individuality and demeaning their experiences as human beings. The second is a question: do you think that attributing politics solely to culture... is legitimate?

Salaam, from Saracen