Highlander in the British countryside & at Buckingham palace

Last Friday I decided to take up a friend’s invitation and visit their family in the English countryside for an Easter experience. I must say it was very enjoyable as the weather was warm and sunny for a few days and yours truly had wonderful walks and fresh air galore. Witness these grubby boots


What could be more fun than great company, delicious food, gorgeous weather, and exciting conversation with old friends and interesting ones with their kids? My favourite part of the whole trip was guess what? Watching the Harry Potter DVDs with the kids. That was awesome, as funnily enough I never had time for that before; now I’m a Potter fan, and can hardly wait for the next release. It got colder by Sunday but hey, we had all the Easter chocolate eggs to eat and it was nice to watch the kids searching for their eggs in the garden and the house. Running around with the huge family dog and the bunny pets was an absolutely invigorating time plus a chance to shed a few of the pounds acquired with all those chocolates. Isn't that pastoral scene enchanting ?


By Tuesday I was in London, I took this opportunity to brush up on my tourism. On top of my list was the British Museum, I only managed to visit half of it in one day.


Of course we begun our trip with the Egyptian section (yes the mummies). Since we went there with no plans and no idea what to do it was an adventure to just stroll from room to room with no specific chronology. My favourite objects were the gold chunky jewelry and especially the Celtic and near- east ones. Both reminded me so much of Libyan traditional jewelry. I think I’ll visit the second half another time. I spent a lot of time in the city, and have fallen in love with London, probably because I have not seen its seedier places but hey who needs to see that? I’ll just enjoy the good stuff, so I finally got to see Buckingham Palace,


the House of Parliament, Saint James Park, 10 downing street (was hoping for a glimpse of Tony Blair),Big Ben & Westminster Abbey where many people were praying for the Pope.



I walked from there to London Eye and the Aquarium and we had waffles with chocolate at a cute little stall.

And kept walking on Queensway till the Millenium Bridge, ok by then I was dead tired as we’d been on our feet for 6 hours and still had to walk back home. I’ve decided to take London in small portions whenever I happen to visit here. Interestingly while I was there, I passed by Zimbabwe House yesterday and was able to capture these pre-election activists.


Also I enjoyed these protest placards opposite the House of Parliament.

My favourite being this one :)NO COMMENT


But the following is my masterpiece I think I may even get a prize for thise photo shoot don't you think ? I loved it..



This was my ‘fun’ week in brief. I’m rested, my mind is clearer and hopefuly ready to post about more serious stuff, next stop will be the Bulgarian nurses case. Keep tuned.
PS note to Alan ;) yes eventually I’ll come to Scotland too !

Fun stories ?

The detox is over, I can tell you it was difficult not to be tempted and blog or check email, the inbox is overflowing. It was an interesting longish weekend full of surprises . But that is not for publishing. On the other hand I discovered that someone is so keen to understand my ramblings that they went to the trouble of translating some posts- yes yes - ( nodding my head up and down) check it out here 'from the rock' in Spanish De la roca sounds already nicer ;) . I'm honestly flattered thank you unknown reader. I was contemplating stopping the blog but when I saw this I thought that maybe it was still worth it to blog, plus Robert of Wired Temples has also argued against it hmm , maybe I should set up a vote ?
Anyway today I would like to remember Salampax who had inspired me, Raed who got really excited about the idea of a Libyan blog , Zeyad from Healing Iraq who convinced me to go public with his skillful persuasion and actually launched my site around this time last year( thanks Zeyad may you always be safe)- by the way he's blogging again everybody ! And last but not least is Iraqi Spirit who kept encouraging me despite my frustrations ( my thoughts are with you ). There is one more person in the shadows, he knows who he is :) , I salute you my friend : do you think your 'little student' is growing up finally ?( you can answer by email ).

While I'm at it I'm glad to note that I found some more blogs from Libya , yippee , Alea, teaches English in Tripoli and has set up a blog for her students to interact in, go check the level of English of these students, wow I'm impressed, these will all be potential bloggers ;) . It's fun, with photos of Libya, of the Yathreb school , of Alea and her class, read their homework etc.. now if only our non-Arab friends could learn to write and speak Arabic just as quickly and as good as these Libyan kids...(sigh). Another teacher is blogging bilingually here at permanent movement watch and read her diary and see her kids and other Libyan kids & their friends just in ordinary normal life to get the feel of Libya . Salah El Din at Unfettered Swallows is a student in Oklahoma, his blog is artistic and metaphysical and he's got some lovely photos from his trip to Japan as well. A big welcome to the blogosphere to all of them. I'll keep on adding more when I stumble on them.

Now for a little bit of pimpin' as Magdee from Rosetta Stones would say, Jonathan at The Heed Heeb thinks I'm 'intriguing' & remind him of Salampax , thanks Jonathan, because folks he has a great versatile blog. He is interested in Africa, in the Middle-East in America, and in Israel of course since he's Jewish. His blog is packed with information as Jonathan is obviously well cultured and has an analytical mind;)

Update: I would like to apologise to my NUMBER ONE fan Alan Kennedy who should have been in this list as he has never failed to make a graceful comment on this blog . SORRY :( and who when he does not comment I feel disapointed . Alan is a fellow blogger from Scotland,if I'm correct he is also a science graduate. Through reading his posts you can find his wide interests, which always have a humanitarian angle, but most of all I think he wants to know about the Middle-East because he participates on most of the bloggers forum. Alan is also learning/or speaks Spanish. So ladies and gentlemen
I give you AK Land :)

Update Two 25/3/05: HAPPY EASTER to ALL of you !

Spring is in the air: the first daisies ?



I'm taking a few days detox from internet and blogging, I'll meet some friends and be a real person again ;) not just a virtual Highlander. Please feel free to comment and discuss about your addiction or non addiction to internet or any other subject or even prepare something you've always meant to ask me. Maybe after this little break I'll be more refreshed to tackle your questions. Have a wonderful time!
signing off Highlander

Replies to your comments

Whilst browsing through the archive I noticed that some readers have left comments months after I've posted. Well I hadn't realised this and so I tried to answer most of you today. Please go to your relevant comment and check my reply. Thank you for your visit. :)

UPDATE 15/3/05

Sandmonkey is putting down his foot ;) regarding comments section,. That was a nice rant; made a lot of sense. I'm replying here because I can't access your comments section either, Blogger is doing crazy things again! So just to clarify a few points I am Libyan ( told you that many times on your blog ;) - & yes like you I LOVE Lebanon also, basically we agree on many points.

More Libyan and Libya related blogs!

Khadija is an American married to a Libyan guy! You will definetely enjoy her humourous take on the Libyan society. Libya's population is so small that I have probably run into her on many occasions . Khadija has been blogging since September.You can see her views on plumbimg in Libya , the adventure with the kids and cat and hubby...some great photos of her travelling around the country etc..: "Mustafa went out to find the perfect sheep for Eid. Eid is gonna be on Thursday, and we've been getting ready. They always jack the prices of the sheep up this time of year 'cause they know you've got to buy one. So Mustafa's been grumbling about things (he'll never admit to be grumbling about the sheep - just takes it out in other ways)."

Tripoli Girl , is a Libyan teenager, she's Khadijja's daughter, go cheer her on and help her improve her English ( as her mum wishes) , though I think her English sounds very good to me, welcome Tripoli Girl you're our future.


Shireen is a Malaysian girl who lived in Libya in the 80's , she can never forget it and her one obsession is going back for a visit as soon as possible... I give you The Gurlie...you can ask her about her thoughts on Libya too I'm sure she would love to share...plus she's a football fan or at least she loves a football player..:)


At Discarded Lies [ who has cool blog ] I came accross this article by Peter Wilkinson of the New York Times who travelled to Libya a few months ago ....Here are excerpts or just click on the link for the whole report.

''TRIPOLI?'' said the British Airways agent at Heathrow Airport near London, searching my passport for the hard-to-obtain visa. ''God help you.''
It's difficult to think of a place, in our 21st century, left to pioneer. For Americans, right now, that would be Libya, a complicated and confounding land on the North African coast, opened in February after 23 years of a travel ban tighter than Cuba's.

As we toured Tripoli's medina, a brief walk from the hotel, I was struck by how refreshingly tranquil it was. This was not your typical Middle Eastern souk, a riotous, rattling, sputtering engine of commerce and emotion. A few children set off firecrackers in the street. Cascades of sparks poured from a metalworking shop, where men smoked silently from hookahs. But there were no hordes to elbow, no hard sell, no streams of beggars, as there are in Cairo.
''I've traveled all over the world and I've never been so frustrated or had such an excruciating planning process for a trip,'' said Alexandra Watkins, a copywriter from San Francisco. Nonetheless, she is among the hundreds of Americans who are signing up for group tours to Libya.


Looks like Peter had fun, unlike Michael J. Totten about whom Khadijja says : " The pictures on his blog are interesting, but beware! He's a bit negative and not so accurate in his facts about Libya. God alone knows what kind of tour guide this guy had!"

'Trigger happy ' in Baghdad, one too many..

Intriguing Questions 6 March 2005 ( from Arabnews website)

Was the killing by US troops of an Italian security chief and the wounding of the Italian journalist he had helped release hours earlier an unfortunate tragedy? Or was it something more sinister? Either way, Washington has some tough questions to answer. American military sources in Baghdad maintain that the car carrying journalist Giuliana Sgrena and three Italian intelligence officials, including the slain officer, failed to react to repeated instructions to stop at a roadblock just outside the capital’s airport. It seems extraordinary that Italian intelligence professionals who had just rescued the journalist would have been insensitive to the requirements of a security check and the risks of ignoring it.
One possible explanation for the attack on the car carrying the Italians is that trigger-happy US troops, terrified of car bombers, fired the minute they suspected the vehicle was a danger to them. It only takes one nervous soldier to shoot a single bullet and a whole unit then shares the panic and opens up on a target. If this is what happened, then it is a demonstration of the indiscipline and poor training of US soldiers which has in the past resulted in a number of similar attacks, including the slaying of the Iraqi occupants of a car rushing a pregnant woman to a maternity hospital.
The odiously named “friendly fire” has characterized the US military performance in Iraq to the fury of Washington’s allies, not least the British whose troops have discovered that however “friendly,” it can prove as deadly as the unfriendly variety.
There is, however, the more sinister explanation which is that the Americans wanted Sgrena dead. A senior correspondent for the Communist daily, Il Manifesto in Rome, the journalist has been no friend of the US invasion and occupation. US troops have killed journalists before. Two cameramen, a Ukrainian and a Spaniard, were slain in April 2003 when a US shell was fired into the Palestine Hotel, a known base of international journalists opposite the Baghdad Sheraton. Earlier an Al-Jazeera correspondent was killed when the TV station’s local office was struck by a US missile.
The American military has not taken kindly to foreign journalists who refuse to involve themselves in America’s well-oiled media-relations machine. When Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb. 4, other journalists were told by US officials that the event highlighted the danger of working outside their Green Zone-focused loop. There was also apparently grim satisfaction that a journalist who was so opposed to US policy should have become a victim of the insurgents. The conclusion of the sinister explanation must therefore be that the Americans were settling the score with a foreign commentator whose published views infuriated them. Yet it seems incredible that even the American military could be this crass.
In Italy, the incident is provoking a renewed outcry against further Italian involvement in Iraq. An anguished Berlusconi reportedly made an extremely angry phone call to President Bush and was promised that that incident would be fully investigated. The journalists group Reporters Sans Frontiers is demanding, however, that an independent inquiry be mounted by the UN since the group fears that, as with the Palestine Hotel deaths, the US will again exonerate its trigger-happy troops.


Any ideas on that or is it really just an accident?

'Islamic culture: An easy scapegoat'

I permitted myself to post the whole article by Soumayya Ghannoushi who is a researcher in the history of ideas at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London; in the hope that you will read it to the end. This is what many people from that area [Middle East] think (not neccessarily my opinion), to reach them and show them the sincerety of the West and Bush's plans in meddling in their affairs you may have to consider a 'different' approach then villifying their religion, humiliating them at every turn and destroying their homeland by continuous interventions.; so that eventually they can turn to their own projects of reformation and democratisation with all that it entitles.
Ok enough blabbering here is the article .

"Ever since the monumental day of 11 September 2001, the world has been inundated by stale cliches and dim-witted myths, poorly disguised as honest academic research and free, objective journalism.
In this great hyperbole, the world appears broken into two opposite trenches: a sphere of freedom, morality and civility, confronted by its antithesis: an enslaved barbaric realm that encapsulates all that "we" are not.
The far-stretching lands of Islam loom largely in this bleak uncivilised sphere. If the modern West is dynamic, the world of Islam is stagnant. If it is governed democratically and honours self-ownership, Islam is plagued by a despotism that crushes the individual altogether out of existence. If it is rigorously rational, the world of Islam is the embodiment of raving instincts and wild emotionalism.
This discourse, which derives its roots from the tradition of Orientalism responsible for rearticulating and institutionalising the enormous arsenal of mediaeval Christian terms, narratives, images and myths about Islam and its world, had been severely undermined by the waves of Third World national liberation movements and the ever-growing tradition of post-colonial studies which question the essentialism and readymade models asserting the uniqueness and cultural purity of the West as opposed to the East's backwardness and stagnation.

With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith.
What had 30 years ago been cause for embarrassment and disrepute, was once again restored to normality, even respectability. Muslims thus found themselves the object of incessant condemnation and vilification.
When it comes to the subject of Islam and Muslims, even the most elementary requirements of responsible objective scientific research could be dispensed withWhile not even the weak, marginalised Muslim minorities in the West were spared, the world powers that reign over the destiny of the Middle East and the greater part of the Muslim hemisphere assumed the role of the innocent victim of "Islamic aggression", who bore no responsibility whatever for the tragic crises of the region, from war, chaos and occupation to economic backwardness and political despotism.
Even those of little if any knowledge of Islam and its intensely complex historical condition, movements and traditions now entered the unrestricted open market of Islam.
When it comes to the subject of Islam and Muslims, even the most elementary requirements of responsible objective scientific research could be dispensed with.
We have thus become used to seeing parts of Quranic verses extricated from their contexts and combined with other fragments to distort the general meaning, to hearing Quranic verses confused with sayings of the prophet and talk of otherworldly punishment and reward represented as rules determining treatment of non-believers in this world.
And daily we bear witness to the hideous spectacle of ignorance, arrogance and prejudice parading freely across the larger part of the countless analyses, columns and articles on Islam and its world that stretch across pages and pages of newspapers, glossy magazines and academic reviews.

The 19th century European travellers' distant detached observations of the strange ways of the Muslim other, the Christian missionary, colonial administrator and military generals' representations of the remote world of Islam, are now replaced by ones by journalists, Islamologists and so-called experts.
The distorted and confused conception of the Islamic faith and historical experience these hold finds its roots in three elements essentially. First, a recycled Christian memory of Islam that remained active even in the era of secularisation.
The mediaeval Christian view of Islam as a deviant heretical creed continues to survive within a "secularised" framework. For although Christian theology has lost the vanguard role it had enjoyed during the Middle Ages, its content has been largely stripped of its transcendental character and rearticulated within a modern essentialist philosophy.
Secondly, the shift in the balance of power in favour of the modern west and emergence of an international order that gave the upper hand to the European powers over the rest of the globe, mainly in the south Mediterranean hemisphere. And, finally, the deep crises and high level of political disintegration that accompanied the accelerated decline of the Ottoman Empire and, since the beginning of the 19th century, came to characterise the whole Muslim world.
These three interconnected factors gave the modern west leave to silence Islam's voice and impose itself as the unique power of logos, of understanding, revealing, categorising and modulating Islam and its societies.

Since culture is an easy target, readymade postulates and categories are constantly invoked to explain all the ills plaguing the Muslim world. And it is precisely through this gate that thinkers with little acquaintance with Islam have engaged in a polemical discourse on Islam overwhelmed with superficiality, generalisation and distortion.
But beyond the superficial cultural explanations behind which hide western elites and decision makers, how can we make sense of the crises that dominate the scene in the Muslim world in general and the Arab region in particular? Could we dissociate the current condition of this sensitive part of the globe from its active near past, from the colonial policies and foreign interventions that still dictate much of its fate?
Could we separate the region's situation from the mammoth structure of a world order governed by great powers headed by the American giant, which reign over the destinies of the people of the Middle East?
If we are to gain insight into the grave phenomena emerging in the Islamic world, we must begin by freeing ourselves of the blind, naive essentialism characteristic of a great many analyses of the problem, which seek theological explanations for highly complex historical phenomena.
The intensely intricate nature of the Islamic socio-political situation marked by striking contradictions and strong tensions is better understood when viewed within the context of the waves of Western imperialist expansion, of the crises of the post-colonial state and the reality of social deprivation, economic dependence and decadent educational systems unable to fill the vacuum generated by the erosion of traditional learning centres, along with the marginalisation of the Muslim masses from the political system.

The situation is further complicated by American foreign policies in the Middle East, its backing of Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land and shameful military occupation of Iraq, which according to the most modest estimate available, has resulted in the deaths of over one hundred thousand Iraqis and wrought havoc in the country's infrastructure.
The countless innocent Iraqi lives it wrecks and the enormous American resources it devours (a colossal $240 million) are in the eyes of the architects of this latest of America's colonial ventures, justified by the underlying aim: imposing military dominance over this country, thereby laying hands over its enormous oil fields and subduing the entire strategic Arab region to American hegemony fully.
Only the terminally naive and politically blind may, indeed, be duped by the heroic rhetoric of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq and the region. If anything, the US is widely regarded by the majority in the Middle East as a crucial obstacle in their struggle for freedom from oppression.
It is interesting that the most despotic states in the Middle East region are those who have the closest ties with the US and its Western allies. One, indeed, may legitimately ask if such totalitarianism is the product of Islam, or whether it is the creation of Western policies themselves.

It is to the West's hegemonic self-engrossed policies and bleak historical record in the region that we should turn if we are to understand the causes of the great turmoil shaking Muslim societies to their very depths.
Indeed, much to the horror of the journalists and intellectuals acting as the "enlightened missionaries" of new colonialism, it is America's statesmen, generals and moneymen that hold the key to our search for the origins of "Islamic" fanaticism and extremism, not the texts of the Quran or the tradition of Islam's Prophet as they never tire of repeating.
And even if we chose to accept Bush and Blair's rhetoric that places the "enlightened free world" above and in opposition to the rest of humanity staggering under the weight of fanaticism and extremism and if we were to see bin Laden and al-Zarqawi as the natural product of an Islamic culture in need of remoulding through educational reforms, we would still be faced with the following question:
What of the expressions of fanaticism in the Western "free" world itself? Where are we to classify yesterday's brutal totalitarianisms of the likes of Nazism, fascism and Stalinism and today's ascending extreme political right?

Could Le Pen of France, Jorg Haider of Austria or the deceased Dutch rightwing politician Pim Fortuyn be described as by products of the mighty western modernity and its sublime cultural values?
If that is the case, then a process of cultural reform would seem to be even more urgently needed in the west, since unlike the elements emerging from the shadowy impoverished and powerless Muslim world, these rising forces have at the service of their fanaticism, once in power, a staggeringly potent military machine that threatens to bring death and destruction to much of the globe.
Once more, the keys to world peace and stability it seems are in the hands of the "enlightened free world", not in the realm of darkness and decadence that stretches across the rest of the globe; in Washington and London not in Baghdad and Gaza."

Tel Aviv blast

Whilst I deplore the tragic death of the nightclub revelers I can't help but think who would benefit from this latest blast. I had to read the whole article so please do so as well and see if we come to the same conclusion. If not please correct me or convince me otherwise, I am sincerely open to suggestions, because this bombing does not make sense.

Here is a sample: 'Israel has already announced it is freezing plans to hand over control of five West Bank towns to Palestinian security forces, which had been promised after the 8 February summit in Egypt. '

My armchair analysis: even though the suicide bomber was Palestinian, I would not put it past the Israelis, 2 birds for one stone, always look who gains most. They gain, by continuing to blame Syria and preparing the audience for a retaliatory air raid and by changing their mind about pulling out of West Bank which is unpopular with settlers and also they can keep saying 'oh we want peace but it's the Arabs who don't'. Sounds far fetched? No that's how dealings in the ME are - no direct line , that would be too easy.

Essential reading on Syria

Please read on ....

But, apart from these red lines, its interest is to befriend Lebanon, not to bully it. President Bashar Assad is facing as grave a crisis in Lebanon as the ones his father, the late President Hafiz Assad, dealt with successfully in 1976, when Syria first marched into Lebanon to protect the Christians, and in 1982, when Israel invaded the country.

Footsteps in the snow



I've been exposed to one of the coldest weeks in the UK this winter (which means I'm in the UK now for those who are interested), so the photo above is my contribution to this lot here. I will make the most of it as this is not a familiar site in Libya ( though it does exeptionally snow in Libya sometimes). Yippee ...signing off to go and walk in this fairytale world.

Of life in Syria

I had drafted this memo on August 25th 2004 as part of my travel series and always meant to post it , well maybe now is the right time to do so. Some news maybe outdated, but I don't feel like editing. Here I go, I look forward to your impressions.

I have found the Syrians to be resourceful people, I don’t think the US sanctions are a good idea as it does not really affect their life directly only makes it harder to purchase some very specific items and also it antagonizes the ordinary populace which cannot grasp what is it they are punished for.

For as long as I know Syria had been under some kind of sanction or the other, either self imposed or imposed by outside forces. This has thought the Syrian people to rely on themselves. You should see the cars that run in the streets ,some dating back to the 30’s..instead of being relegated to the museums they are actually functioning excellently and to this day being sold at exorbitant prices. I was happy to notice that lately car import has started to be permitted but 700 000 SL ( 1$= 50 SL) for a tiny Daewoo is just too much and unaffordable by the average employee whose basic salary is approximately 100 – 125 US$. YES believe it or not and he/she has to raise a family on that! Thank God Syria does not need to import food products otherwise people would starve.

The Syrians love life and you will see them in restaurants cafes, gardens, nightclubs, beaches, picnic areas, markets, family gatherings and everywhere in public places …
You will find all the dress styles, from the traditional clothes, the hyper western stuff or even very conservative dress….

The Syrians still like to store food supplies as in old times when there were no refrigerators; this is an annual ritual where seasonal fruits or vegetables are processed in a special manner to be kept for a long time. They make delicious jams and marmalade, homemade cheese, tomato paste, dried aubergines and wine leaves, lemon juice etc… all ready to be used when needed.

The negative part is the rampant corruption of many civil servants, I understand they do this to increase their ridiculous wages but it does not reflect well on the country image and makes way for abuses of people’s rights, although I did notice lately that there was a hotline to which you could report any officer or civil servant suspected of bribery .

As I said, Syria is very hospitable to its Arab brothers and the living proof of this is the thousands of Iraqis which have flocked to it this summer and which have actually caused a rise in the property market prices by buying and renting houses and offices there. Iraqis have become a familiar site in hundreds of public places there.

The other people who were made most welcome are the Palestinian refugees since 1948.
They first arrived and were installed in camps but these camps are nowadays actual cities and buildings and schools etc.. Palestinians in Syria have been treated just like any Syrian, they go to their schools, they are employed in the civil services or elsewhere and the same rules apply to them. In fact they may fare better than the Syrians because they also get special help from the UN, in education, allocation of extra food etc…They are even granted Syrian passports and ID and are allowed to own property in Syria. The only difference is that on their passport it is written Syrian- Palestinian so that their nationality is not lost forever and to guarantee their right of return if they want to the Palestinian (otherwise known as Israel) homeland either when it becomes independent or when the Israeli-Palestinians conflict is resolved. I think that this is a very fair deal because they have lived in Syria since 1948, also they are not allowed their own militias, police or arms or whatever like in Lebanon not to threaten the sovereignty of Syria. And frankly I think that is fine as well, as they should not have that in Syria - their host country- not to repeat the disastrous Lebanon situation of having a state within a state. We all remember ( I hope) how that ended and how precarious is now the Palestinian’s fate in the Lebanese refugee camps. Lebanon does not grant Palestinians the Lebanese nationality by the way!

While I was in Syria and Jordan I met some people who actually witnessed the fall of Baghdad, and the battle of the ex- Sadam airport. I hope that one day sooner rather than later many truths will see the light just like the atrocities in Abu Ghraib came out….What I would like to say is that we are not aware of the whole picture really and neither is the media, that's why the internet and blogs is so good.

The feeling of the Syrians towards the war on Iraq and its occupation? They are delighted that Saddam is gone, but like the rest of us they wish to see the back of the US army ASAP. The ordinary person is very much aware that America’s reasons were not altruistic, he/she is powerless to do anything about it at the moment, but threatening Syria( or Iran for that matter) is not a good idea either because it does not send the right message to the man on the street , it just makes it more obvious that America does not really care about bringing democracy to the Middle-East, as it states , nor about liberating the people there but only about itself and its safety and economy. This may not be what I think, but this is what it looks like to the masses. The war has brought them less safety because of the border with Iraq through which all kinds of persona non-grata are smuggled, in addition to unwanted goods and which the supposedly American occupying forces who were manning it during the war and after it couldn’t care less what was going on. I’m sorry to shock you people but some of your soldiers and officers took as low as 20$ bills to look the other way. I don’t really blame them, they have to survive in hostile territory so why even care about a country or people which are not their own. Plus many of these people are not so well off that’s why they signed up for the army didn’t they? So honestly I don’t have a grudge towards them, this is war. In fact I would like to thank whatever patrol was there in the winter of 2003 and who was compassionate enough to give a bag of ice to be used to lower the temperature of a baby who has a special place in my heart stranded in the Iraqi-Syrian no-man’s land. Thank you guys, you probably saved his life!

When I arrived in Syria it was end of school time. One thing I noticed was that the school uniforms had changed, from the khaki green used for girls and boys since secondary school for everybody, to grey and peacock blue suits . Blue for 7th-9th grade, and grey 10-12th grade. The going joke was that the state had a surplus of this material in it’s textile factories and wanted to sell it, but the true reason ( the going local rumour ) was that when Colin Powell visited Syria in 2003 he made a remark to the effect that 'was all the population of Syrian youths in the army?', to which he got the reply that 'no the school uniforms where standard khaki military green'. Immediately after his visit all the school uniforms were changed. Though this may not be true and I think it is hilarious but this is the attitude I hate, the servility WHY? Who cares ? America will not bomb the Syrians just because the schoolchildren wear combat greens would it ? I mean all teenagers around the world love to wear surplus army clothes, camouflage trousers and skirts and T-Shirts and they think its super fashionable. Needless to say that this change has added a strain on the pockets of the average citizen and the students are not happy because the guys think they look sissy and the girls like the gas cylinders which are the exact same blue in Syria ….

Nightmare prophecy realised? I hope not

A few days ago I voiced concern at my recurrent nightmare...I was horrified this morning to wake up to the news of the massive explosion in Beirut, which injured hundreds (photos here) and killed Rafiq Hariri ( ex - PM) among others . I am just hoping this is the end of the story..Folks whenever I have this dream horrible things happen. I certainly don't want another civil war in Lebanon, nor a war in Syria because people have started to point accusatory fingers there ( see the comments here). I am very very angry at this and hope the culprits are found because I cannot see a clear reason yet for what happened today. This is not the work of your usual terrorist. I sincerely hope that the nightmare ends here. Rest in Peace Hariri and all the others who died today and have not been named , may God bring patience and healing to their families.

Rating attractiveness

Interesting I was reading this article on the BBC Men with feminine faces will be luckier in love as most women are attracted to them rather than masculine men, Liverpool University scientists say . This guy may have a point I admit.
Now my idea of a purely physical attractive man are these two specimens below. I am not talking about other factors which can influence a girl's choice like intelligence, wit, education, culture , love etc...so don't bash me ok ;) I wonder what these choices say about me? lost between the East & the West, can you notice any similarities or is it all the fault of Valentine's Day ?

Islamic mythical hero



Brad Pitt in Troy

Charles Camilla : perfectly tuned body language ..shows they've been in love for so long. My opinion, he should never have married Diana in the firstplace.
Highlander

Welcoming the Year of the Rooster AND the 1426 Hejira (Islamic Calendar)

Yesterday, I was spoiled for choice of goodies, somehow the Chinese New Year and the Islamic Calendar have coincided and we have two simultaneous causes for celebrations, so happy new year to all my Chinese friends out there and Kul Sana wa entom tayebin to all the Muslim ones and vice versa. Today is the 1st of Muharram in the Islamic calendar, the first day of the year 1426, calculated since the Prophet Mohammed emigrated to Medina. The celebration/ commemoration of Ashura (depending on where you live) will be on the 10th of Muharram, check last year's post here . I can't believe the year has gone by so fast. Hoping it heralds better news than 1425.

Muharram is the First Month of the Islamic Calendar

To Be Chalabi, or Not To Be

A friend emailed me a link to an article which I can only call a ' how to be another chalabi for dummies manual' just substitute the names and places et voila ( thanks ZH), great reading!

So, you're an Arab exile. You've prospered in the United States. You've got lots of influential neocon friends. And now you want to overthrow the .....

Nightmares revisited

I woke up pretty shaken this morning , my recurrent nightmare is back after almost 2 years, to the extent that I thought it had gone. Well it's taunting me back with its horrible scary head, I can taste the same fear, the smell of battleground and hear the voices of my dead or injured People ...another bloodbath in the Middle-East, this time its not Iraq, and it's not Palestine. I hope I'm wrong, especially that there has been some encouraging news of a truce to be announced between Israel and Palestine. I can't seem to find any comfort anywhere..

The results are out

Congratulations to all the winners of the Best Arab Blog Award and thanks to Haitam and Mahmood for setting it up , I discovered so many Arab blogs that I never heard about. Great work guys!

Libya plans to begin a new economic era

I got this link via Wired Temples and found it interesting.

The plans also call for relying on advice and assistance from international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Libya hopes to place resident advisers from those institutions in the central bank,

I mean all these prospective changes seem encouraging and interesting. But I'm having one objection, why the IMF and the World Bank? I'm not an economist here but if I understand my Globalization course 101 well, then wherever these two institutions go the country falls into a debt deficit and can never catch up. I don't object at their presence as eminent consultants on investments and profit making but nothing else. I hope the governement does not make the irreversible mistake of taking anything from them. Libya has hardly any external debt to speak of so this is absolutely not the time to start any silly adventure.

Tragic accident on Tripoli highway!

Tripoli highway 31-01-05


Was flooded with emails today from friends back in Libya regarding a car accident in Tripoli. Well we are used to fatal car accident on a daily basis there ( so what's new?) but this one was more gruesome to the extent it warranted the attention of the news and all these emails...
A 25 car pile up occured yesterday on the Tripoli highway coinciding with rush hour time from the University of El-fateh. A leaking oil tanker hit a small car and all hell broke loose. An acquaintance said that at least 11 of the cars were a wrecked carbonized mass. So far the news about the fatalities are conflicting.The police sources on this Libyan website have mentioned 2 deaths and 7 severe injuries reported in hospital, but eyewitnesses and myself are contesting that . Eyewitnesses say that until last night at 19.00 hrs the death toll was 6 while 25 cars were burnt, one of them being a microbus for 25 people, usually used as cheap transport by students. In fact one of the eyewitnesses upon seeing that bus, rushed over to the university to see if his sister was safe, it turns out she had taken a 5 minutes earlier bus. Tragically a whole family who was travelling in the small car that was hit first by the tanker has been wiped out. This first car caught fire then the fire followed the trail of oil which had leaked on the highway, lit the unsuspecting other cars ablaze. The photo that I have posted is not clea, as it was probably taken by a mobile phone from a safe distance, but you can judge yourself the catastrophe. It is indeed a very sad accident not only because of the human aspect but also because in Libya the population is so small and everybody knows someone who was at least affected whether directly or indirectly by it. Another friend doctor at the central hospital in Tripoli said that ambulances from many Tripoli hospitals had been dispatched to the scene.
I'm very angry because the Tripoli 'circular' highway is literally a death trap; if even a tiny accident happens traffic will be held up for kilometres because it is sealed off in the middle and there are no side alley were help can come from swiftly. If I'm really in a hurry I don't take the highway because I'm afraid to be delayed by an accident. We Libyans are raving lunatics when it comes to driving, speed is our intoxicting agent. I admit that I've been guilty of that as well on many occasions. My father said that it was all the fault of a rubbish collection truck which kept swerving towards the oil tanker.
I was so worried that I contacted all my friends and family to check on their safety, thank God all are fine but I am so sorry for those who did not make it. May they rest in Peace.

Music band in Libya ..

It seems that a US rock band "the heavenly states' has started a short tour in Libya, well I'm not sure about how famous or good these people are because I'm more of a fan or Gun's & Roses, Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden,Steve Vai etc.. , so I'd appreciate if any of the readers could give me some info .

The only western concert I ever attended in Libya was in 2003, it was a German group, and it was held at the Sabratha ruins. I still have the photos stashed somewhere so if I find them I 'll put one up in my update.

update 8/2/05

Well it seems they won't be singing there yet : " Brisbane music manager Eugene Bari has failed in his bid to bring rock 'n' roll to Libya, after a visa mix-up scuttled a tour by US indie band the Heavenly States.The Heavenly States, a Californian band, arrived in Libya on February 1 to play three concerts. The fact that the band's lyrics have a dose of rhetoric criticising US President Bush was not officially mentioned as a possible reason behind the cancellation of the the concerts. [ABC]"

African blogroll and other places I like

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that many Africans were blogging from my beloved continent ( after all I'm African too ) check out this quite extensive list with relevant links. Hope you will enjoy another aspect of the blogging world.

On another note I made friends with a Maltese blogger ( * me waving to Robert*), since I love Malta very much, ladies and gentlemen I give you a 'window' on Malta : WIRED TEMPLES.

Many emailed me that they could not find the link to vote on the Arab Blog Awards, well obviously it was because I only linked to the site per se and not the voting section - as you probably noticed I did not canvass for votes . But if you are really interested than why not? here it is
* best Arab ( English)
* best every day life
* best politics

oh boy blogging has become an addiction, better go to sleep now.

'Iraqi forces' committing abuse

"The people of Iraq were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell."

"The Iraqi interim government is not keeping its promises to honour and respect basic human rights.

"Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees." courtesy of BBC.com

I guess it's back to business,nothing has really changed. And since the coalition/occupation forces did not turn up to be much better in terms of ethics, sadly the Iraqi forces have no better role model to follow.

Food for thought #2 (2005)

'We have to recognize once and for all that people do not think as we command them to think or as it would suit us for them to think; that the truth is not the monopoly of any particular group or profession; and that, when the illuminating rays of truth touch anyone in any corner of the world, the event alters the geometry of all that was known before. And the clever people are those who keep a close eye on where these rays are appearing or disapearing; who can distinguish between brightness and darkness ; and who do not lock themselves into darkness forever by shutting their eyes. '

Abdolkrim Soroush Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge p.9

Eid Adha Mabrouk Everybody

Today is the 2nd day of the Eid al-Adha. This feast is the most important one in the Islamic world. If they are not performing Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca than the majority of Muslims will sacrifice a sheep on the first day and distribute most of it to the poor people. But the Eid is also very much a family day. Muslims go in the morning to the special Eid prayer and when it ends they return home in processions chanting Allahu Akbar ( God is Great!). Every Eid that I hear this song I feel a weird flashback as if I was back in Arabia at the time of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and that I was taking part in the procession which entered Mecca victoriously. After the prayers, the families who are making a sacrifice in honour of the Jewish Prophet Abraham who was ordered to prove his faith by sacrificing his own son and who was saved from doing this at the last minute by God...This is a holiday all over the Muslim World, it usually lasts from 4 to 10 days (lucky them) depending on which country you live in. In Libya it is 4 days. It is fun also because we make barbecues and there is a general air of picnic. In the afternoon/evening families visit each other from the closest to the most remote cousins of the tribe ; no one is left out. Neighbours also visit each other and send greetings. Families lso visit the graves of their loved ones and pray for them. This season should better be spent in a Muslim country/or environment.

However the Eid is only the culmination of the period of the pilgrimage or Hajj as stated above. I was going to write about it in detail , but I found that the BBC have done an accurate story so I'll leave you to check it out step by step here and learn a little bit more about the Muslim culture, while I go talk to my family online since I'm missing the whole fun this year.
Have fun everyone with the 'glaiya', '3usban' and all the goodies.. gosh I'm salivating.

'They' just shot her parents



18th of January - Iraq: this kid and her siblings were orphaned courtesy of the US army at a checkpoint, just in time for the Eid al-Adha (the most important Muslim feast - more on that later). I guess 'they' have made a lifelong friend...and don't let me get started on the abuse/torture photos again. Go watch the whole sequence here on BBC ..warning it is graphic for the faint of heart.

Best Arab Blogs Award nominee ? cool



I was reading Kuwait Unplugged as usual, when I noticed that he mentioned being nominated for Best Arab Blogs Awards in several categories, and he really deserves it ! Best Arab Blogs Award was set up by Mahmood a blogger from Bahrein at Mahmood's den this guy rocks. Anyway I went to the link to vote for Zaydoun of Kuwait Unplugged ( voting started yeserday) and I was pleasantly surprised to find that yours truly has been nominated as well in 3 categories for best Arabic (English) blog, best everyday life blog and best politics blogs. I wish to thank the anomymous person who nominated my blog : THANK YOU that was so sweet of you.I wish I knew who you are, didn't think people would notice my ramblings ;)

Now for anyone reading here, if you have the time go and enjoy Zaydoun , Mahmood and the Best Arab Blogs Awards websites, you will find links to lots of interesting subjects and countries.

Personaly I am going to vote for Kuwait Unplugged and Riverbend from Baghdad Burning , and if it was not too late I would have nominated O, from the Iraqispirit .

Boots & Trains in London

Apologies to all who have sent email and to whom I have not replied :)
Haven’t been near a PC since Thursday, not that I miss it ! It’s such a relief to put away all this for a couple of days.
Anyway I was in London for a long weekend, Friday was nice and sunny but then the temperature dropped overnight. I enjoyed myself thoroughly browsing the wonderful bookshops there but also window-shopping on ‘highstreet’, where else but Oxford street?
Things are ridiculously expensive in the UK but even more so in London.
My most mundane activity was looking for a pair of black leather boots. The joke of the day was that if I could not find my dream boots in Oxford street or Harrods then, we would have to fly to Italy specifically. Well I found superb boots, unfortunately another woman was wearing them. Being me I just walked up to her and asked: “ where did you get these boots they are fabulous?” I think she must have been shocked, as this is not typical British behaviour ;).

If you have the time the underground can be great fun, just buy a day pass and off you go riding all day long from on place to another. Mind you watch out for the zones, and remember not to fold that ticket in your pocket, I had the most embarrassing moments at the gate each time.
Anyway London was ‘cool’ but I still prefer Beirut.
It’s 3:30 am now and I can’t sleep as my routine has been disrupted so might as well blog. We went out to dinner with some dear friends and they knew I had to leave on the same day. Yours truly had previously inquired about trains departing from London to ‘X’ and was informed that there was one EVERY hour, so I was cool and confident, but what the information desk staff omitted to mention was that there were no trains in the evening anymore on weekends only coaches . So what do you do at 10.00 pm at the railway station, when your friends have gone back home and you can’t find a ride to your next destination ? Honestly I felt like crying, because no matter how independent some of us are, we Libyan or Arab women are very spoiled, there will always be someone to carry your bag, if you talk to people on the street they will be friendly and protective and though the station was pretty full I started having bad scenarios in my head, not forgetting that I was going to be late for ‘X’. Well if I wanted to leave London that night there was only one way, get a coach. That’s not my cup of tea, it was something I was trying to avoid, plus Victoria Station was not near. Now the underground did not seem so friendly anymore....was getting kind of empty. To cut a story short, I got to Victoria station and managed to secure a place on a very crowded coach to X, it seems everyone was leaving London on Saturday night? Of course when I arrived at X a few hours later, sleepy and frumpy, there were no more taxis at the coach station so I had to ring my best friend to come for me after all. Well what are friends for? will post this then go giggle with her a bit about our school days.

A lesson in security studies: Frankfurt airport January 2005

The best part when you are stuck at an airport for a couple of hours and you don't feel like reading a book or eating the silly nuts at the lounge is guess what ? shopping yay :)
Well I was looking for some interesting shopping some days ago to pass the time and maybe get a few good deals ( you never know with duty free). Shopping I thought was a pretty inoffensive activity. But it seems not anymore, I was surprised that all travellers were prevented from going into section B of the airport for a restricted amout of time. Why do you think? easy , because the frontiers of the United States fight against 'terror' (the new buzz word) has moved to European airports and the restriction of the freedom of other travellers. Yes, actually because there was a flight to the US in section B it has been cordoned off and passengers were prevented from approaching that area. Now if you happen to have a flight departing from one of the gates in that area expect to be asked to come back after the US flight has taken off , unless your plane was leaving more or less at the same time, then it 's another story. However, I did not see any other signs for flights in that section all gates were empty except the flight to the US. Cool those passenger had almost quarter of the airport to themselves . I wonder how much the airport is loosing in sales in that section ?
It must be a terrible pressure that because the US had done a lax job of guarding its own airports it expext EU allies to do the job for her and everybody else to be inconvenienced. But then hey that's a very good security procedure .

Food for thought #1 for 2005

'The " expansion" of Western society or of internatinal society was achieved through the subjugation, plunder, and in some cases massacre, of colonial societies'. Fred Halliday , 1994 (p.62)

Lest we ever forget...any thoughts?

In case you were wondering how I spent New Year’s Eve

You would be surprised to know that it had more in common with Iraq than with partying. So about 8 PM that night just as the whole family was settling in for a quiet night of watching a nice movie on Channel 2 and enjoying pancakes with honey and nice cup of green tea..it started raining. Well that’s not a problem you would say- or is it ? Actually it is, if the rain increases in intensity and is accompanied by thunder. So we had us a beautiful thunderstorm. The lightning struck the electricity pole and of course no more electricity or light etc… which means no more TV, but also no more heating and no more water since our water supply in the house depends on the automatic pump system. When the heaters are off, the temperature in our houses drops at an alarming rate ( house are not really built to cope with extreme cold). So we’re there freezing (it’s -5 degrees outside) in the dark, listening to the sound of thunder ‘explosions’ outside. Nice scenario eh? But that was not all, we had to put up with the howling wind with a gale force of I don’ know how much , but which was frightening enough to have put in my cousin’s head ( who was staying over at our house that night) the grim notion that a tsunami is coming to the Tripoli shores as well ( we live a 100 metres from the beach). She actually suggested that we go sleep on the roof ?!? what in this cold ? no way, let the tsunami come …

10:30 am January 1st 2005
Damage assessment:

2 dead telephone lines struck by lighting
2 very dead telephones
1 UPS struck by lightning (thank God it as not the PC)
1 fried scanner as well
1 fried digital satellite receiver
1 very traumatized cat :)
Me with the flu :(

Could have been worse, thank god we are all alive. No Tsunami and no War.
Let me mention that this has been an extremely cold winter in Libya and in other North African countries and in the Middle-East, just to know how cold it was it even snowed in the Gulf states !

Happy New Year 2005 & the Da Vinci Code


I really hope this won't be an empty phrase because 2004 has not been a very happy one, what with the atrocities in Iraq & Palestine which have become such an ordinary occurance in our daily life, sprinkled with the occasional bomb exploded here & there in the world, and the depressing reelection of GWB and Howard, the ethnic clashes in Holland, the racism in France and the silence in Darfur, the Ivory coast, Chechnya, the Iran earthquake , the Morocco earthquake and so much more that I can't remember but the end of the year is also very sad with the devastating Tsunami toll...I'm not going to ask you to contribute aid , because I'm sure many of you have already done so.

I'm back in Tripoli folks, but my epic travels have not ended yet ;)

On a lighter tone I'd like to say that I'm glad I got to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown before 2004 is over . Absolutely fascinating, I hope to buy his whole lot. Preoccupation with world affairs sometimes makes one forget that there are other things in life, one of them is to enjoy reading a good book !

In Libya it is not part of the tradition to celebrate the New Year, so the city is quiet. However, it has recently become fashionable to send each other sms or emails in that context, the mobile has not stopped ringing with these text messages. It's -3 degrees Celcius here today ( about 26 Farhenheit), which is cold by any means. It has just started to rain so I hope it gets a little bit warmer because there are just so many clothes one can wear...

I'm not going to make any promises or resolutions anymore, life is so precarious that it gets more and more difficult to keep them, but I will TRY to answer your new/recent questions to the best of my ability in a reasonably short time ( does that sound too much like lawyers stuff? ;) ).

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey and hope you enjoyed the Christmas message from Syria.

Signing off for this year ...

Merry Christmas from Damascus

Many Syrians love to decorate their houses from the outside for Christmas and it's a magical sight at night as I thought I was taken to a fairytale land . Look at the two photos below aren't they glorious?

For those 'hottie' fans you will find the promised photo of the belly dancer whose performance I very much enjoyed in Egypt.

Then there is a photo of some school girls which I took at the Old Citadel in Cairo, you can see that Arab school girls look like any other school girls all over the world, despite wearing a scarf you can notice that they are having loads of fun actually. They thought I was a foreign tourist and approached me innocently to talk to me .. they were so sweet and polite.

There is also last but not least a photo of old Amman as you leave the city, taken from the taxi while we were driving past.

Christmas decoration- Syria

Another beautifully decorated house in Damascus



Belly dancer - Cairo- Nile cruise december 2004



Egyptian high school girls on an outing at the citadel of Mohamed Ali ( Cairo Dec 2004)






Old Amman- December 2004


Highlander

Stuck in the ME

Well that should teach me to travel in Christmas time, I can't get a flight back to homebase and I'm therefore missing all my other connections. Actually I don't know why I thought that Christmas flights would not be busy in Syria? all flight are full and I'm waitlisted ...and the weather is tooooooooo cold over here . Just got back from Amman ( a special message to those I have not had the time to send emails or text messages to , but hey you know my mobile so just drop a line ;) ) . I am simply too tired, and there is too much going on.

I'm 'almost' back ;)

I apologize to those who cared for this long disappearing act, sometimes things happen to us and we do not feel like doing anything ( and that includes blogging ) , and no I won't be able to share with you what happened, apart the being ill section perhaps ...
Anyway I'm having a sense of deja vu and you probably would as well when you read that for the last two weeks I've been moving through three continents, Europe, Africa and now Asia....UK, Libya, Egypt, Syria ( now) and next week Jordan. I just got in in from Cairo 3 days ago, would you be surprised that I'm actually tired of going to Egypt? though I loved the belly dancer at the dinner I went to ( have nice photos too - a hottie;)) . Was there during that OPEC meeting, and now I'm in Syria after the latest international Israeli terrorist attack has occurred. The mood here ? Life goes on ....the weather is extremely cold , and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Christmas decorations on many balconies here. Syria has a percentage of Syrian orthodox Christians and the citizens love to decorate their terraces for the festive seasons..I'll try to take some photographs but I doubt my camera is that good for night shots. So I still have plenty to share, just hope I can get back on track ! Hang in there...

Yasser Arafat 1929-2004
Highlander

The Israelis and Mr. Bush have no excuses left not to negotiate peace terms, their main 'obstacle' has been duly removed. So we get to watch how sincere they are now .

Update Sunday 14th November: 'Libya pays tribute to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who passed away Thursday Morning. The Secretariat of the General Peoples Committee declared three-days of mourning, lowering the Green Flag to mid mast, and cancelling all programmes and celeberation manifestations across Libya including Eid al-Fiter celebrations. [JANA]'

Who will win the US election ? I DEMAND TO VOTE TOO !!!!

Well I've already posted my opinion about the whole subject, but I received an email from a dear friend of mind this morning with a new twist to the plot.
I would like to share it with you :)

Kerry is the favoured candidate by the Zionist lobby as he would be under their control just to become president. Bush does not need them anymore as he would not be seeking a new term regardless of whether he wins or not this time .
If you noticed Bush has actually abandoned his democratisation programme for the Middle-East as a means to dry up the sources of terror. This plan it is worth noting has caused terrible pain to Israel.

So here I am wishing I could vote in the US elections, I would VOTE BUSH, do you know why ? because it will twarth the Zionists a little and because of a proverb which says to the effect that : 'the enemy that you know is better than the one you still have to learn about .....'

Moral of the day , they are both bad , it's dumb and dumber out there, but at least we won't have Kerry trying any histrionics on us...we got used to Bush.

On another note: why ? how come Bin Ladin has conveniently emerged just on time for the elections?

Italian occupation 101

Today, 26 of October coincides with the anniversary of what the Libyans call the Black Day’, on this day in 1911 the Italian fascist invaders shipped thousands of Libyan men, women and children to some small and remote Italian islands. No one knows anything about their fate! Up to this very day, the Italian authorities have refused to furnish the full list of these Libyan victims to the Government and People of Libya. Libya holds an annual Day of Mourning.

So I think it is time for a little history lesson and a reply to another of your questions:

17. How would you describe Libya's relationship with Italy? From my point-of-view, it looks like it's quite sound. Can I assume that Italy's colonial past was less abhorrent than that of many other colonizing countries?

All occupation is abhorrent and the Italian one was not an exception: almost one million Libyans died during the Italian occupation from 1911 to 1944!
Like most of the peoples of the Third World, the Libyans have suffered, and are still suffering, great injustices from the Western powers. The history of the Libyan people is a history of blood, tears and broken bones. The people of Libya have been terrorised and victimised for many decades by the various European powers. With the tacit approval of the British and French governments, Italy declared war on Libya on September 12, 1911, under the excuse that the Ottoman Turks — who were then ruling Libya were subject to insults and maltreatment for which they were in danger! On September 17, 1911, the Italians invaded Tripoli and Benghazi. The Italians expected that their invasion of Libya would be easily accomplished. But, to their horror, their aggression was courageously and strongly resisted by the Libyan people. For 20 terrible years Arab Libyan resistance fighters and guerrillas fought against Italian fascists with sweat and blood. The courage of the Libyan martyrs was epitomised by a very old man Sheikh Omar al Mukhtar. A true hero.


Omar Mukhtar upon his capture in September 1931.
Highlander


Omar Mukhtar, the 'fierce and frightening warrior on his way to the gallows'. notice the chains and the escort- what does it remind you of?
Highlander



The Italian aggression and terrorism against Libya was extremely brutal. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were killed. Their homes were burnt down, their crops destroyed, their wells filled with cement, and copies of their Koran stepped upon. Many women were raped. Thousands of other Libyans were detained in concentration camps in the hot desert. Their properties were confiscated. Others perished under the most repressive conditions. Furthermore, the Italians, had laid about 170,000 landmines all over the country. These landmines have killed and are continuing to kill and maim many Libyans. Italy has refused to furnish maps showing where these landmines were laid. When Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, was carrying on his terrorism against the Libyan people, he was highly praised by British, French and American politicians, business leaders and the press.

*For instance, on a visit to Mussolini in 1927, Winston Churchill told journalists that Italian fascism “has rendered a service to the whole world.”
'Inarguably, throughout the whole of the 1920s, Mussolini was an enormously popular man in Italy and abroad, with all except perhaps the most inveterate leftists. An American writer puts it as follows:
Postwar [First World War] Italy ... was a sewer of corruption and degeneracy. In this quagmire Fascism appeared like a gust of fresh air, a tempest-like purgation of all that was defiled, leveled, fetid. Based on the invigorating instincts of nationalist idealism, Fascism "was the opposite of wild ideas, of lawlessness, of injustice, of cowardice, of treason, of crime, of class warfare, of special privilege; and it represented square-dealing, patriotism and common sense." As for Mussolini, "there has never been a word uttered against his absolute sincerity and honesty. Whatever the cause on which he embarked, he proved to be a natural-born leader and a gluttonous worker." Under Mussolini's dynamic leadership, the brave Blackshirts made short shrift of the radicals, restored the rights of property, and purged the country of self-seeking politicians who thrive on corruption endemic to mass democracy." [30]If the Italian Duce was so popular in the 1920s that he received the accolades of the Saturday Evening Post [31] and the American Legion [32], and the highest praises of British and American establishment figures such as Winston Churchill [33] and Ambassador Richard Washburn Child, [34]

[30] John P. Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 17. Diggins' quotations in the cited paragraph come from the writings of an American Mussolini enthusiast of the 1920s, Kenneth L. Roberts.
[31] Ibid., p. 27.
[32] Ibid., p. 206. Mussolini was officially invited to attend the San Francisco Legion Convention of 1923 (he declined) and some years later was made an honorary member of the American Legion by a delegation of Legionnaires visiting Rome. The Duce received the delegation in his palace and was awarded a membership badge by the delighted American visitors.
[33] In an interview published in the London Times, January 21, 1927, immediately after a visit by Churchill to Mussolini, the future British Prime Minister said: "If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you [Mussolini] from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism." See Luigi Villari, Italian Foreign Policy Under Mussolini (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1956), p. 43.
[34] The United States Ambassador to Italy in the '20s, Child dubbed Mussolini "the Spartan genius," ghostwrote an "autobiography" of Mussolini for publication in America, and perpetually extolled the Italian leader in the most extravagant terms. Diggins, p. 27.

*In 1933 American President Franklin Roosevelt himself termed Mussolini “that admirable Italian gentleman.”


Libya’s relationship with Italy has been and is very cordial though. Libyans love to go to Italy. But the Italians have been smarter ex-colonialists than other countries and that is why they are less resented nowadays. In the 80s and 90s, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi repeatedly demanded reparations from Italy for the colonial period:

“ Italy perpetrated historical crimes against the peaceful Libyan Arab people, the people who did not know Italy, and who did not harbour any ill will against Italy. It was Italy that surprised the Libyans with its fleets and cannons, and attacked the Libyans in their homes, set up the gallows, killed thousands of martyrs, and acted unjustly and most aggressively.

“An invasion without justification, and sacrifices without reason... It is impossible that we forget 35 years of colonization, and it is impossible that we forget them, and we will never forget 700,000 martyrs... and those who were executed because they defended Libya.”

Italy replied that it had settled all obligations in a payment worth $6.7m in 1956. And in 1998, the Italian and Libyan governments signed an agreement ending the conflict [the Italy-Libya statement]. Italy apologised for deporting unknown thousands of Libyans to barren islands in southern Italy, where many died from disease, famine and bad weather.

It is worth mentioning that Italy imports oil and natural gas from Libya.

This was the list of Libyan demands:

a-Italy should acknowledge its historical crimes against the people of Libya
b-Furnish all details about the thousands of Libyans forcibly exiled onto some Italian islands
c-Furnish maps showing where thousands of Italian landmines were laid in Libya
d-Pay full compensation to the families of all victims of Italian terrorism
e-Return all historical treasures and artifacts stolen from Libya

Public hangings of Libyan resistance fighters.




"In September, 1930, security forces in the Birka district of Benghazi discovered that a citizen named Muhammed El-Haddad, a prominent Benghazi citizen and merchant, was cooperating with the rebels... Through him, supplies and weapons were reaching them. He offered the rebels hospitality and all the supplies they needed. On the day and time appointed, a special tribunal was convened and sentenced the father and son to death by hanging in the middle of his estates and right in front of the masses. These latter were made to attend the execution by the Italian authorities.." - Italian General Graziani
Highlander

Aguila concentration camps in Libya




“We proclaim to the people of Libya that, owing to the acts committed by the white Abadila tribe, namely secretly helping five fighting men to reach the rebel areas after having furnished them with arms and supplies, and in order to punish this tribe of 80 tents, all its old people, adults and children are to be removed to the Uqayla [concentration] camp, and their property to be confiscated, so that the tribe can serve as an example to anyone who might contemplate a similar act, as his punishment will be more severe.” — Decree of the Special Italian Tribunal
Highlander

Tripoli Coast
Highlander

If you enjoyed this photo of Tripoli ...there are more here please have a look I took them recently .

Food for thought

I'm going to intercept this blog from time to time with what I think are relevant/interesting quotes from authors I have read.
So here is the second one folks.

• 'We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign policies will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful'

• 'How often have statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended making it worse? And how often have they sought one goal and ended by achieving something they neither expected nor desired?'

• 'The demonological approach to foreign policy strenghtens another pathological tendency, which is the refusal to acknowledge and cope effectively with threatening reality'

Hans J. Morgenthau- Kenneth W. Thompson

My two pence about the US presidential elections and its effect on the ME (warning long post so for the faint of heart abstain from reading)

I must give credit to my friend W. in California who explained to me all these intricacies and what I have quoted from his emails is in ‘ ----- ‘ form.

Sometime in August I started following the run up to the presidential elections.

Things did not look good for Mr. Bush then, and Mr. Kerry seemed to be ahead. So I thought that Mr. Bush’s only hope would be another major act against the USA ‘ or that cultural issues such as gay marriage etc.. work in his favour.’

Then I noticed that Kerry was courting the American/Arab Islamic vote and ‘he approached every constituency but unfortunately had nothing new or different to say especially regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’. I mean he cannot alienate Jewish voters either now can he? don’t know what new he could do or say about that matter. ‘So he will end up just sending a new USA envoy to the region to deal with that issue and that will amount to nothing. I say there isn’t much more he could do even if he wanted because what is the basis? There doesn’t seem to be any desire in Israel to move on a settlement-the wall seems very very popular with the Israeli public - and removing the wall would seem the most basic demand of the Palestinians at the moment – so I just don’t see where talks would start up again—Kerry or no Kerry. I mean Kerry might be more concerned than Bush about getting talks moving (Bush is almost totally unconcerned and never was very interested in getting talks going) but I don’t see where he would have anything to offer in talks except another envoy and what good does that do?’ In addition it isn’t even clear how much authority Mr. Arafat has now among his own people. Certainly in Gaza it looks like his authority is almost non existent.


‘On Iraq, again, hard to see where Kerry would do anything different. He isn’t really for pulling out. Of the presidential candidates only the third party candidate Ralph Nader (a Lebanese-American) an old radical lawyer from the 1960s is arguing for immediate withdrawal.’ Kerry and Bush pretty much agree [stay in Iraq for about another 5 years]. Kerry says he would bring in allies to help but doesn’t say how or who. All he can say is that the Europeans like him more.


Interesting however that Z. Brezsinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor back in the 1970s and the architect of the American support to Afghan resistance to the USSR in 1979 recently came out with a report strongly advising USA to normalize relations with Iran. ‘He said, that if USA is waiting for a radical liberal government to come to power before normalizing relations—then forget it: that isn’t going to happen and he has a point. So his point is normalize or don’t but don’t hinge it on a government you like coming to power in Tehran. He also points out that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq has had some unintended consequences chief among them is that the USA had erased the countervailing forces in the region against Iran: The Taliban and Saddam.’
Moreover, the likelihood of a Shiite control over Iraq is very high at some point which would also find some sympathy with Iran. Thus, on the whole the current situation benefits Iran. However, we have seen that Iran is also threatened because of its nuclear programme … ‘Only the USA counterbalances Iran now in the region and the USA can’t stay there forever—politically that just isn’t acceptable in USA and the Europeans aren’t rushing to help either. So his point was under those circumstances, better to come to terms. Now that is an innovative thing Mr.Kerry could do in the Middle East ie follow that sort of recommendation by Brezsinki’ (but I don’t count on it). The anger/distrust in USA toward Iran is still pretty strong and I don’t think he is a guy to take chances even though it would probably enhance USA security and probably stabilize the region a bit. But on the whole I don’t see a stable region for some time to come. Eventually the USA has to leave Iraq….and then the deluge.

One of the funniest or most pathetic things in the current election over the last couple of months is that the only war Mr.Kerry wanted to talk about is Vietnam! He was resting much of his case to be president on his war record in Vietnam. He mentioned it at every chance, rarely speaking of Iraq. It is surreal. There is an actual war underway and all he can do is talk about a war 30 years ago. I mean the way he goes on about it you would think the Vietnam War was still underway.

So far whoever is elected in the white house will never be able to alienate the Jewish .I think it all comes down to that in the end. I wish it were otherwise, but no that is a fact of life. What should the American public do not to be so dependant on the Jewish lobby , people or whatever ?To me it looks that everything is really going according to plan , and now they are all out to get Iran and Syria.

Kerry and Bush won’t differ at all on Israel. They never do, either because they really believe in it or for political purposes or both. In any case, just looked at objectively
I don’t see where there is any room for Kerry to do much more different in
Israel-Palestine without making some radical move and THAT WILL NOT happen.

We know for sure Bush has no interest in it and to extent if he does he is pro-Sharon and we know what that means. And anyway, looked at objectively I don’t see the basis on the ground for much change anyway. The Israelis aren’t in a mood for restarting talks and the Palestinians; they are increasingly involved in a de facto civil war. So who knows who really represents them now? Arafat? Hammas? The Israelis will probably just continue to impose a de facto settlement via the wall.


Of the presidential candidates only the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader has been willing to criticize USA relations with Israel and in fact he called USA a "puppet" of Israel but he won’t be on many ballots and in any case few people will even hear of him I guess. ‘But while the USA Jewish -Israel lobby excerpts a lot of power one can't lose sight of two things:
A. USA public is generally very sympathetic to Israel. Like it or not most Americans like Israel. Sure its attraction has diminished over the years but on the whole people tend to like Israel.
B. Americans on the whole don't like or trust Palestinians. They see them as unreasonable, terror inclined, etc.. Obviously that is just the opposite of general European views. And that is another element: just as in Cold War when Israelis and Palestinians were superpower footballs so they are now with USA vs. Europe.’

Maybe Kerry will initiate a rapprochement with Iran, but he did not strike me as very bright or charismatic. To get elected you have to be pretty dull in order to appeal to a lot of people. That is an irony of USA election. Right now, the sides are so close- about 45 to 45 percent decided that both Kerry and Bush have to appeal to a very small percentage of the voters who would swing the election…say about 5%. But these are the LEAST informed people who RARELY vote. That is why they are undecided! So both candidates have to appeal to people who are among the dumbest in the USA!

It’s time to realize that the big winner in the Iraq war and the overthrow of Saddam is Iran. Iran will basically exercise a huge degree of influence in Iraq and the USA can either go to war with Iran to stop that, which I hope isn’t going to happen (although you never know with Bush) and that only leaves the realistic course of normalizing with
Iran and trying to work out some kind of agreement for Iraq’s future and the future of the region since Iran will emerge as the regional superpower given that Bush has knocked of the Taliban and Saddam—two of Iran’s natural opponents—and given that Iran will almost certainly be a nuclear weapons power soon. ‘But making that kind of argument to USA public is tough.’ The US public (unlike those like you reading blogs etc..) does not go in for complicated and subtle foreign policy agreements. Everything has to be black or white and that is one of the big reasons Americans have never understood the Middle East since as we all know it is very muddles—nothing is black or white. Kerry’s view on Iran would be a big difference with Bush since Bush’s position as you know is regime change for Iran, isolate Iran, no normalization without regime change, whereas the emerging Kerry position although he hasn’t directly said anything about it, his position is regime change isn’t going to happen so be realistic and accept Teheran as it is. Oddly that seems to be the view of most Iranians: regime change just isn’t going to happen. But even if Kerry is elected he would still have to have a political base for a new Iran policy and I doubt he would find one. ‘Actually it would take some one like Bush to pull off normalization with Iran within the USA context of how things are done.’ I assume that the USA will just get frustrated and tired in Iraq in a few more months and the costs will begin to sink in to Americans as in the hundred billion area and USA will just leave let the country sink into another Lebanon of 10 or 20 year civil war and/or a break up of the country and/or let Iran assert de facto authority as a puppet state.

To sum it up Iraq looks bleak; Israel-Palestine looks really bleak; things are only looking good for Iran (and that’s debatable) I would say and maybe Pakistan. Pakistan is now America’s favorite Islamic country because it has had some success in rolling up OBL cells—although not OBL obviously—and is generally very cooperative with USA.

But let me tell you something, it does not matter really who wins, foreign policy will remain the same towards the Middle-East – Blind support for Israel and to hell with everybody else.

Food for thought

'The greatest barrier to the expansion of the zone of peace from the core is the perception within the periphery that this constitutes little more than the domination of one culture by another. These suspicions are well founded given that the peripheral states have consistently been the victims of 'Western intervention'.'

'Many wars were fought by states to achieve their mercantilist goals'

Scott Burchill (2001)

Another massacred wedding party ..

Boy does the US military love to disrupt wedding parties...it has become their trademark in Iraq and Aghanistan , I'm just speculating here but are they simply jealous that someone could be having a little fun in these warzones to forget the harsh reality so they keep 'reminding' them that 'hey people' don't get married it' aint over yet' or do they want the inhabitants to believe that the US discourages the marriage institution ;)