Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Global - Lethal Young Men

Italics mine:

"So here’s a word of advice from a Sri Lankan to our big neighbour. Don’t go down the path we have taken. Don’t be tempted to sacrifice the freedom of another for your own safety. Be smarter than us. Look within and find the disease that is causing this fever called terrorism. For now, your terrorists seem to be ad hoc groups of lethal young men." [1]

"Underdog," the writer, after relaying the statement for the "Deccan Mujahideen, ""Muslims in India should not be persecuted. We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" [2] segues back to the 2002 riots in Gujarat in which "790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed, 223 people were reported missing and 2,500 were injured" [3, 4], but makes no mention of the firestarting "Godhra train burning" [5], in which Hindu pilgrims, among others, were burned alive by a mob of Muslims some 500 strong ("In September 2008 the Nanavati Commission confirmed that the attack on the train was pre-planned by a Muslim mob. The report claims that Hassan Lalu had thrown burning objects into the train and 140 litres of petrol had been used to put the train on fire, adding stones were thrown on passengers by the mob to stop them from fleeing")[5, 6].

Bad blood and vendetta--no one doubts it: who has got it--that's another question and more contemporary in light of a rapidly evolving international culture.

The victims of the recent attacks in Mumbai were not of the same cultural zeitgeist as those who killed them.

In fact, few, if any, would have thought themselves at war with Islam or, even if Muslim themselves, otherwise involved with the Islamic Small Wars in other than a purely existentialist manner.

Leave it to young men (and a passel of old ones) to believe into being a theater larger than themselves.

Among the unintended effects of Al Qaeda-type transnational terrorism may be the stimulation of an equally transnational counterrevolution.

While terrorists seek to unify Islam beneath the medieval umbrella of a caliphate, what they seem to be accomplishing instead is the coalescence of many classes and peoples into a brave, coherent, and favorable international melange intent on preserving for posterity each separable cultural endowment and heritage.

In Pakistan, seemingly a most conservative Muslim-majority state, the terrorists have succeeded in making poltical bridging a clear and imperative part of the nation's contemporary leadership agenda.

Seventy years ago, perhaps less, traditional enemies would have tricked the attack on Mumbai into the massing of armies: this time around, "lethal young men", political hooligans, if you will, are more likely than the state to draw the pointed finger. Late this November 2008, Pakistan's President Zardari announced a "no first strike" nuclear war policy as regards India [7], essentially ratcheting down the rhetoric of enmity, a considerable reversal of the nation's past policy and a promise of what's coming for those who would exclude from compassion and consideration all of the world's others but their own narrow-minded cults.

The attacks in Mumbai, as with so many of the kind throughout Pakistan's tribal regions and its own agony at Lal Masjid, have underscored the remarkable notion that most states, however constructed, are not inherently enemies but rather close allies in the evolution of civil development and economics, environmental and humanitarian ventures, and social justice and religious freedom both.

In Mumbai, the terrorists made it possible to witness the spectacle of Indian commandos storming the Rohr Chabad Center, an enclave for an orthodox Jewish organization, Chabad-Lubavitch, to repel attackers.

The commandos arrived late to find six dead [8, 9, 10], including a New York rabbi and his wife (a two-year-old son was rescued by a fleeing worker), but they arrived nonetheless to risk their lives on behalf of innocents without care or reference to family identification, religious affiliation, or state citizenship.

"The Chabad-Lubavitch leadership in New York urged people around the world to do good deeds in memory of the Holtzbergs and all those who perished in the attacks." [10]

From Pakistan to Somalia, we know who is suffering (by city or village or district; by the name of a family, clan, or tribe; perhaps by some sectarian denomination): we seem much less certain about who is fighting, but more often than not, and especially with such vainglorious Columbine-like fireworks, we may find ourselves returning time and again to "lethal young men".

Appearing in The Wall Street Journal, excerpt from a partial translation of the complaint of the "Deccan Mujahideen":

"This attack is a reaction to those actions that Hindus have been carrying out since 1947. There would be no actions now, only reactions. … And it will continue till we take revenge for every injustice done to us. … It will continue till we take back all our seized states …" [11]

As noted elsewhere in my blog, there's confusion having, in English, to do with tense: what defines the present, past, and future?

What is it that eventually consigns a vendetta to history or to the province of a backward and isolated mountain people like the "Hatfields and the McCoys"?

Whatever it may be, it's not in evidence among so many well-inducted but essentially self-annointed Islamic youth shock groups, ages 16 to 24 years old, thereabouts, out to "take revenge for every injustice done to us."

Awesome, I guess.

Wikipedia has relayed doubts about the existence of the group and authenticity of the communication [12].

With the communications point-of-origin traced to Russia; with the language used consisting of Hindi and Urdu; with confessions associating arrested terrorists with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which Wiki says is based in Lahore, Pakistan [13]: well, then, let the names and locations change, as they will: still--"lethal young men."

Some old men may be lethal too, but most in the international arena would seem to be bonding over defense from "lethal young men".

Where old men have failed, from Bajaur Agency in Pakistan to Mogadishu and the Shabelle River region of Somalia: lost children, lands, and homes; refugee camps; disease and famine.

One might say a few words about lost freedoms also--to become educated; to watch a soccer match on television; to listen to folk music on a cassette deck: such things may seem less important than life and death, but they are life too--our dreams, expressions, and ideas: God made us to make them.

It may be too late to save Mogadishu, too soon to make a new call on Beirut, but I am certain Islamabad and Mumbai, Washington, D.C. and London, Jerusalem and Cairo, even Dubai and Riyadh, representing Islamic kingdoms, will swim around the pools of blood left by "lethal young men" in Mumbai and mopped up by older ones more careful of the living, and those men are good, as only God may know, down through the marrow of their bones.

Cited Reference

1. Underdog. "Is India reaping a harvest of hatred sown by Indians? We have seen it all before-a Sri Lankan perspective." Groundviews, November 28, 2008: http://www.groundviews.org/2008/11/28/is-india-reaping-a-harvest-of-hatred-sown-by-indians-we-have-seen-it-all-before-a-sri-lankan-perspective/

2. Boulet, Chris. "Mumbai attacks: Who are the Deccan Mujahideen?" National Post, November 27, 2008: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/11/27/mumbai-attacks-who-are-the-deccan-mujahideen.aspx

3. Wikipedia. "Gujarat": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat

4. "Gujarat riot death toll revealed". BBC News, May 11, 2005: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm

5. Wikipedia. "Godhra train burning": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godhra_Train_Burning

6. NDTV Correspondent. "Godhra case: Nanavati panel gives clean chit to Modi." NDTV.com, September 25, 2008: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080066669&ch=9/25/2008%203:22:00%20PM

7. Loudon, Bruce. "Asif Ali Zardari delights Indian with 'no first strike' policy." The Australian, November 25, 2008: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24699817-2703,00.html

8. Nessman, Ravi. "Indian forces end Mumbai siege." Boston.com, The Boston Globe, November 28, 2008: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/11/28/india_pakistan_elements_behind_mumbai_attacks/

9. Nessman, Ravi. "Hostages said dead in Mumbai Jewish center." Associated Press, November 29, 2008: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hz0C0SXcxgP0NxzlqGA_EI57FBkQD94O0D1G0

10. Runyan, Joshua. "Funeral Preparations for Chabad House Victims Under Way." Chabad.org, November 30, 2008: http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/775065/jewish/Funeral-Preparations-Under-Way.htm

11. Pokharel, Krishna (Translator). "Translation of Message from 'Deccan Mujahideen'". The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2008: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122790731776065137.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

12. Wikipedia. "Deccan Mujahideen": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Mujahideen

13. Wikipedia. "Lashkar-e-Toiba": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Taiba

Other Reference

Bright, Arthur. "India: Who are the militants who attacked Mumbai?" The Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 2008: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1128/p99s01-duts.html

British Friends of Zaka: http://www.zaka.org.uk/

# # #

India - Mumbai - Over for Now

Ten sites attacked; 84 dead; 200 wounded.  According to CNN, the state has established control of affected sites.

This was my first use of CNN "real time" feed: http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1 -- of course, it is on to something else already.

Also close to present:

http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Weather.aspx?location=INXX0087

http://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_IN.aspx?city=Mumbai

I don't think I will ever take for granted the stunning speed of news access, point-to-point in real time wherever there's machinery or personnel transmitting from on site.

There will be plenty of reports for reference on Mumbai's night of terror, 11/26-27/2008, but there's something to viewing it with minimum delay.  Last night's attacks were designed to get attention--iconic hotels, a popular restaurant, a hospital, etc., but I would venture by far that most militant actions are intended to alter cultural and political landscapes of interest directly, memorably perhaps, but with not much fuss--that is the nature of assassinations and small raids, the intimidating note, the short beating.

# # #

Somalia - Guns and Refugees

Source: che10967. "Irtokte Gun market in Mogadishu, Somalia." YouTube, June 26, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_wZMYY_PM

Source: russellwyllie. "Somalia- Ugandan Peacekeepers and 8000 Civilian Deaths." YouTube, November 17, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27rOBdZ31h4

I'll leave it to readers to search YouTube for "Somalia Jihadi".

Whatever you find, however, do keep in mind, side-by-side-by-side, the unholy delta formed of plentiful arms (to hold us, my dears), the self-appointed emmisaries of God (to scold us, my darlings, and that according to themselves), and the misery of refugees (to foreshadow a future ushered in by jihadi, warlords, weakened politicians and their administrations, and also, perhaps, distracted armies).

# # #

Somalia - Almost Conventional Force

"1- The journalists are ordered when they are preparing a reports about Kismaayo administration not say the Islamic opposition Groups against the TFG and the Ethiopian Troops staying in Somalia but to say the Islamic administration of Kismaayo.2- 2-the Journalists are ordered to register the Islamic administration of Kismaayo so as to receive media recognition.3- The Journalists are ordered to present accurate reports when they are preparing News about the region4- The administration will supervise how the media works in the region." [1]

While piracy off the coast of Puntland grabs the world's headlines, the Shabaab, initiated in 2006 and functioning then as a multi-celled youth-defined insurgency and now as a conventional spearhead moving north-northeast from Kismaayo in Juba Hoose to, and holding it this minute, Marka (or Merca) in Shabelle Hoose, just one hour's conventional drive south from Mogadishu, has again claimed for hardline control a strategic stretch of Indian Ocean coastline.

While the lost, in my opinion, try to link piracy directly to the Shabaab, an ideological extension of Al Qaeda, plain news witness spells a true story: not only has the Transitional Federal Government been unable to expel the "Islamists" from Somalia, the very same have through assassination and street fighting made their way up from Kismayo to rule about 300 miles of coastal territory, the extension of which directly north into the countryside may be unknown.

A far better examiner than I, Nick Grace, writing for Bill Roggio's The Long War Journal, provides a synopsis of the state of affairs up to Friday, November 21, 2008 [2]. A fine story, the international policy challenge may be evident in its lead:

"The United States applied financial and travel sanctions on three top leaders of Al Shabaab, the Islamist insurgency that is consolidating territory in south and central Somalia, as the process of the group's official integration with al Qaeda appears to be underway. The sanctions target Shabaab founder and emir Ahmed Abdi Aw Mohamed, recruiter Issa Osman Issa, and spokesman and military commander Sheikh Abu Mukhtar Robow."

Whisky tango foxtrot, indeed.

Sanctions?

The firm Shariat law laid down by Mohamed Issa and Robow may with impunity now organize population from the Kenya border to well within 60 miles of Mogadishu.

For flavor, one may add this from Grace:

"Public lashings are now commonplace and earlier this month a 13-year old rape victim was stoned to death as punishment for adultery. Shabaab forces overran Merka, a strategic port 90 km south of Mogadishu, on Nov. 12 and are reportedly amassing fighters and moving freely 18 km from the capital city." [2]

Voice of America reporter Howard Lesser, quoting Somali-born University of Minnesota professor Abdi Samatar, notes that Ethiopian troops, still 5,000 strong in the country, have moved into Afgoye (Afgooye), a main crossroads of a town northwest of Mogadishu. Viewed as a triangle with Marka defining the southern tip, Afgooye would define the northern point with Mogadishu the third 90-degree east.

Coastal population and development--this from a quick glance at a Google map--have filled in the triangle, providing plenty of lanes, roads, and coastal zone for moving the fighting into Mogadishu, especially from the southwest.

In business and war and possibly journalism too, "going where they ain't" makes for fair strategy.

The day after the Shabaab took Merca, The New York Times reported its presence in Elasha Biyaha, "11 miles southwest of Mogadishu." [6]

In the NYT piece filed by Jeffrey Gettleman, this note may spell the future as government-allied forces flee before the Shabaab: "The Shabab commanders are fighting to turn Somalia into an Islamic state and they often impose strict Islamic law in their zones of control. On Thursday, residents said the newly arrived clerics in Merca announced that all shops from now on would be closed during prayer time." [6]

For Wahabbi hardliners, this a pretty good situation: Saudi Arabia, with one tanker, the Sirius Star, [7] under pirate control, predictably picks up the energies of allied forces engaged to suppress piracy in the region while darker forces, the Shabaab in solidarity, essentially, with Al Qaeda, which recapitulates the Wahabbi philosophy as a Salafist anachronism within its Sunni context, threatens to pick up an entire state.

In that militant infighting produces its own obstacles, the Shabaab and the Islamic Courts Union, the latter routed out of Mogadishu barely two years ago, have not always read off of the same page but then again would seem born of the same camp: their collusion in administration, which would seem unavoidable, may relieve President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's Transitional Federal Government of its relevance, or the last semblance of it.

For those watching from the west, the discomfitting relationship between the Saudi state and its above-board interests seen side by side with the reviled Al Qaeda and its seemingly renegade missions makes for a tough diplomatic nut. Somalia, long an unquestionably Islamic state, may become through the AQ-oriented Shabaab and Islamic Courts Union a further Arabicized one as well one returned to 7th Century administrative rule.

___

Cited Reference

1. Sojra. "Al-shabaab Group continues media transgressions in coastal town of Kismaayo in southern Somalia." Kabissa, September 20, 2008: http://www.kabissa.org/blog/al-shabaab-group-continues-media-transgressions-coastal-town-kismaayo-southern-somalia

2. Grace, Nick. "Shabaab Leader Sanctioned as Zawahiri Responds to Group's Oath of Loyalty." The Long War Journal, November 21, 2008: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/11/shabaab_leader_sanct.php

3. Lesser, Howard. "Somali Militias Near Outskirts of Mogadishu." Voice of America, VOA.com, November 18, 2008: http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-11-18-voa5.cfm

4. Google Maps. "Mogadishu": http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&g=Mogadishu&layer=x&ll=1.754792,44.831772&spn=0.527781,0.408554&t=h&z=11

5. Shabelle Media Network. "Somalia: Merca Town 'Under Alshabab Control." AllAfrica.com, November 12, 2008: http://allafrica.com/stories/200811120340.html

6. Gettleman, Jeffrey. "Islamists Continue Advance Through Somalia." The New York Times, November 13, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/world/africa/14somalia.html?_r=1

7. Worth, Robert F. "Pirates seize Saudi tanker off Kenya." International Herald Tribune, November 18, 2008: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/18/africa/18pirates.php

Other Reference

Intellicast Weather. "Kismanyo, Somalia": http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Weather.aspx?location=SOXX0001

United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Cartographic Section. "Somalia". Map No. 3690, Rev. 7, January 2007: http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/somalia.pdf

Wikipedia. "Salafi": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi

Somalia - Hoofers - Next!

"Islamist insurgents whipped 32 people in Somalia on Saturday after arresting them for taking part in a traditional dance in rebel-held territory south of the capital Mogadishu." [1]

Lists of "Taliban rules" are various on the Internet and seem, at least at a short glance, to more reflect the author's stuck pig, as it were, than a general and simple list of a dozen or more statements for keeping one's head, also hands and feet, sometimes merely dignity. For example, here's the first dozen from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA):

1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.

2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.

4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.

5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries.)

6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.

7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.

8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).

10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).

11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.

12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

After listing another 17 such rules, the RAWA.org site goes on to note a few unpleasant restrictions applied to men and women both. Here are the first four of 17 listed with the end-note "and so on" after that:

- Banned listening to music, not only for women but men as well.

- Banned the watching of movies, television and videos, for everyone.

- Banned celebrating the traditional new year (Nowroz) on March 21. The Taliban has proclaimed the holiday un-Islamic.

- Disavowed Labor Day (May 1st), because it is deemed a "communist" holiday.

In his book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, author Khaled Hosseini recreates through fiction the business of getting out the word on right behavior through truck-mounted loudspeakers and written flyers, on one of which one would find the following:

Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:

All citizens my pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and you are caught doing something other, you wil be beaten.

All men will grow their beards. The correct length is at least one clenched fist beneath the chin. If you do not abide by this, you will be beaten.

All boys will wear turbans. Boys in grade one through six will wear black turbans, higher grades will wear white. All boys will wear Islamic clothes. Shirt collars will be buttoned.

Singing is forbidden.

Dancing is forbidden.

Playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kite flying are forbidden.

Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures are forbidden.

If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will be killed.

In the book [3], Hosseini's list continues for a length greater than the one transcribed here.

One could point to the mountain of rules and regulations involved in the administration of the United States, or as well the vast libraries of its courts and law schools, and not find in them the crushing equal of these simple edicts.

Where God has given boys and girls the gifts of expression--voice, dance, music, poetry--the Islamists, believing themselves gods as emissaries, would seem to want none of it, at least for none but themselves who would seem to write and appear in videos handily enough.

At this point, much of the world knows that dramatic or joyous individualism may be the lesser target of a global caliphate, for suppression of a culture's arts and letters makes way for irrevocable and unrecoverable cultural annihilation. Not only the dancers were whipped for dancing in Somalia on November 15, 2008: the Islamists whipped away also a crucial part of the whole of tribal existence and cultural legacy.

---

Reference

1. Sheikh, Abdi. "Islamist rebels whip 32 dancers in Somalia." Reuters AlertNet, November 15, 2008: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LE750803.htm

2. RAWA.org. "Some of the restrictions imposed by Taliban on women in Afghanistan": http://www.rawa.org/rules.htm

3. Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. P. 247-9. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.

# # #

Islam - One Scholar

The Prophet of Islam (Peace be upon him and his family) said: "One Scholar is more powerful against the Devil than one thousand worshippers." [1]

***

The power of readers lies not in their ability to gather information, in their ordering and cataloguing capabilities, but in their gift to interpret, associate and transform their reading. For the Talmudic schools, as for those of Islam, a scholar can turn religious faith into an active power through the craft of reading, since the knowledge acquired through books is a gift from God. According to an early hadith, or Islamic tradition, "one scholar is more powerful against the Devil than a thousand worshippers." For these cultures of the Book, knowledge lies not in the accumulation of texts or information, nor in the object of the book itself, but in the experience rescued from the page and transformed again into experience, in the words reflected both in the outside world and in the reader's own being." [2]

***

One of the elemental features of madrassah education is what madrassah administrators now call "comparative religion." In practice, this involves comparing and contrasting one interpretive school vis-a-vis another, for example Sunni vs. Shia or Deobandi vs. Barelvi. It also involves radd, or refutation, whereby students learn to counter the arguments of a sectarian system and defend their own tradition's worldview.[3]

***

"Signatories to the letter said it is very clear that their (the teachers and supervisors to be recruited) educational qualification is not as expected for educating children with a broad mind.

"They said the project would curtail constitutional rights of children as the project would use worship places of a certain religion to teach children and children of other religion would not have access to those worship places." [4]

From the esteemed halls of the Ijtihad-level imam to the more humble civic ones of Bangladeshi parents, the matter of scholarship, whether for the young or the wisened, looms large, for the Islamic Small Wars, where they are fought for God and not the progeny of bandits and sadists, are neither military or political in their ultimate nature but rather vigorously intellectual and astoundingly poetic.

"One Scholar is more powerful against the Devil than one thousand worshipers."

The world may be in better shape than it knows, for today scholars reside among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in quality and numbers great enough to represent the energies of millions of worshippers against the Devil.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that horror in Islam--its daily roster of bombings, kidnappings, and murders--may be found in the willfully dishonest exploitation of language, the abuse of the world's magnificent library in its totality, the misappropriation of license, the adoption of denial as a way, and a naturally consequent, even addicted revel in self-indulgent mayhem.

Even in Bangladesh, among the world's poorest and most tender nations, 83 percent Muslim, 16 percent Hindu [5], modestly informed adults, so I may assume here, know the difference between a circumscribed madrassah education (and perhaps too its narrowed Wahabbi entrepreneurism) and a broad and generous introduction to the universe that may be experienced, explored, known, and shared, harmoniously, for the benefit of mankind worldwide and to the greater honor due God.

"Each community has its own direction to which it turns: race to do good deeds and wherever you are, God will bring you together." [6]

We are racing today.

May courage and heart be inspired by those who have been racing "to do good deeds" for years or decades.

"ArchNet is an international online community for architects, planners, urban designers, landscape architects, conservationists, and scholars, with a focus on Muslim cultures and civilisations." [7]

As part of its mission in Islam, ArchNet provides a terrific overview of its part of the possible in development and scholarship both: http://archnet.org/library/images/index.jsp?collection_id=23

For the want of a world working together rather than one at war, among many fine examples of cooperation and respect one will find in the ArchNet archive the Museum of Moroccan Judaism. [8]

For the photography by Micheline Jauson:

http://www.archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=5687&image_id=36624

Note the source for conveyance of the art work: Aga Khan Trust for Culture, part of an extraordinary institutional race in the realm of good-deed doing. [9]

"God knows those who spoil things and those who improve them." [10]

Few, if any, would surpass Aga Khan for invigorating and sustaining life and culture--many cultures, multiple legacies--throughout Islam.

Where the evils of ignorance, poverty, and war darken the soul, charity and philanthropy may chase away that darkness.

Trust God to make a clear path of tangled communications: my journey to this post started with notification of journalist Nadene Ghouri's visit to the Serene Hotel in Swat Valley, Pakistan.

"It feels like one of the most beautiful and magical places on earth," wrote Ghouri, "But it's also extremely dangerous as Pakistani security forces take on Islamic extremists." [11]

Ghouri spent time in November 2008 as the 50-room luxury hotel's only guest.

It turns out Aga Khan owns the Sarena in Swat and maintains it as if it were the sunniest of days in peacetime--and perhaps it is that, for within the Islamic Small Wars, every inch affected, the twinned characteristics of cancer and diabetes--creeping, debilitating, deadly, and deadening wherever the action goes--cannot be overlooked.

However, whether with Iraq striving to recover from ruin, Somalia suffering renewed subjugation in its southern quarter, or Pakistan fending off those among its own who would suffocate the mass of its many people and cities beneath a dark cloak indeed, contemporary life races on around the misery.

Moreover, while its most luminous personalities have yet to forge a silver bullet, such as Aga Khan have learned or taught us much about healthy defenses, the healthiest of which may be humility before God and generous service to the the vast wonder of the human enterprise.

Three Aga Khan institutions strike me as particularly relevant in light of the Islamic Small Wars:

• The umbrella Aga Khan Development Network: http://www.akdn.org/default.asp

• The Aga Khan Trust for Culture: http://www.akdn.org/aktc

• The Global Centre for Pluralism: http://www.pluralism.ca/index.shtml

In this 50th year of Mawlana Hazar Imam's Imamat, as Aga Khan's name and position are known to his people, one may hope the goodness inherent in honest scholarship, diverse and open societies, and generous and great vision will stall the rigidly arrogant and vain, also monothematic and monomaniacal, among those who would seem most in fear of what waits for them in each and every one of the world's libraries.

This comes from a recent building dedication speech by the Aga Khan. The words arrange the world a little bit while contributing quite to its more luminous qualities.

"The congregational space incorporated within the Ismaili Centre belongs to the historic category of jamatkhana, an institutional category that also serves a number of sister Sunni and Shia communities, in their respective contexts, in many parts of the world. Here, the Jamatkhana will be reserved for traditions and practices specific to the Shia Ismaili tariqah of Islam. The Centre on the other hand, will be a symbol of confluence between the spiritual and the secular in Islam." [12]

---

Reference

1. Ayatullah al-Uzma al-Hajj as-Sayyid 'Ali al-Husaini as-Seestani. Islamic-Laws.com: http://www.islamic-laws.com/marja/Ayatullahalseestani.htm

2. Manguel, Alberto. The Library at Night. P. 91. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

3. Fair, C. Christine. The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008.

4. Staff Correspondent. "Concern over mosque-based child education project." The Daily Star, November 7, 2008: http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=62273

5. Kwintessential. "Bangladesh": http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/bangladesh.html

6. Haleem, M.A.S., Translator. The Qur'an. P. 17, 2:146. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008.

7. ArchNet: http://www.archnet.org/lobby/

8. ArchNet Digital Library. "Museum of Moroccan Judaism": http://www.archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=4297

9. Aga Khan Trust for Culture: http://www.akdn.org/aktc

10. Haleem, M.A.S., Translator. The Qur'an. P. 25, 2:219. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2008.

11. Ghouri, Nadene. "The only guest in town's luxury hotel." BBC News, November 6, 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7708935.stm

12. Imam, Mawlana Hazar. "Speech At the Foundation Stone Laying Ceremony of The Ismaili Jamatkhana and Centre, Khorog Monday, 3 November 2008." Ismaili Mail: http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/speech-by-mawlana-hazar-imam-at-the-foundation-stone-laying-ceremony-of-the-ismaili-jamatkhana-and-centre-khorog-monday-3-november-2008/

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The Latest le Carré - A Most Wanted Man

Call A Most Wanted Man a rag to riches comedy, a romance, a spy story, and a pretty good and classically structured literary primer on being not always good nor always bad as it may relate both to the ways of the west and the ways of Islamic militants and those who help them.

For those following the Islamic Small Wars, being just a little bit bad these days synchs up pretty damn quick with the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocents.

In fact, I think the most central feature of "The War on Terror" is the way it shimmers. To the less initiated in Islamic thought, it's there and not, a possibility raised by a newspaper clipping from one of the world's less stable outposts and forgotten unless or until encountered always too fast, real, violent, and final.

Taking full advantage of the maxim, "The bad guy isn't bad all the time," le Carré works swiftly to produce a full court of sympathetic characters based in Hamburg--an uncertainly motivated on-the-lam and suffering Chechen son of a Russian father; a banker who has inherited some ill-gotten gains and seeks a good turn in moral fortune through the Chechen, whom he believes innocent of skulduggery; a tough broad, pretty too and into social justice, for the Chechen's lawyer and the banker's love interest; a  bevy of internally and internationally competing, cooperating, and divided spies, not all of whom know one another; and a "moderate" imam, much beloved of the German establishment and suggested mainstream majority Muslims, but who may not be above siphoning from charitable funds just that little bit of volatile grease appreciated by the Kalashnikov Shariat set.

The problems addressed by the novel turn out as twisting as any conveyed through the news, and worse, the solutions as varied and uncertain.

For lengthier and more expert reviews:

Freeman, John.  "Review: John le Carre's 'A Most Wanted Man' takes on the war on terror."  Tampabay.com, St. Petersburg Times, November 9, 2008: http://www.tampabay.com/features/books/article892284.ece

Furst, Alan.  "Out in the Cold."  The New York Times, October 11, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/books/review/Furst-t.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Mount, Harry.  "Review: A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré."  Telegraph, UK, September 20, 2008: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/21/bolec121.xml

Smith, John.  "A Most Wanted Man, by John le Carré: Misfires and misrule in the war of hearts and minds."  The Independent, September 26, 2008: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/a-most-wanted-man-by-john-le-carr-942643.html

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Afghanistan - The Mountains in Winter

"The main floor of the Afghanistan Meteorological Authority is filled with smashed equipment and charred sheets of paper, the remains of 100 years of weather records. In his office two floors up, Abdul Qadeer, head of the country's weather forecasting agency, explains that he is still reeling from the day in 1996 when Taliban decreed he could deliver today's weather, but not the forecast for tomorrow." [1]

That was then.

This is for Kabul, tomorrow [2]:

http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/40948.html

Ask any who know, however, whatever the forecast is, it's going to be early winter, cold, a bit on the desparate side for families that have lost their men at war, for others whose men are lost in unemployment, and for fighters holed up in camps and caves or dabbling in destruction wherever mutually engaged.

Misery knows many "perfect storms" but few, I think, may compare with destitution, the mountains in winter, and warfare.

Last year, more than 900 Afghanis died (some secondary sources peg the figure at 2,000) as a result of the "bitter cold and blizzards engulfing central and wesern Afghanistan . . . ." [3]

In addition, according to CNN / Asia, losses of sheep, goats, and cattle in Afghanistan were reported in February 2007 at 316,000 animals.

"Over the holidays the camp temperature hovered around 0 degrees and with a howling West wind it made for some interesting nights on the roof. The sun bleached mountains that once held the heat above the hundreds now lays grey and cold these long nights on guard mount. This however, has not entirely kept the guerrillas from launching a series of attacks all along the Eastern border with Pakistan and other places around the country." [5]

This year, Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Works will draw on about $2.5 million to keep the country's main and secondary roads open.

This year, also, the U.S. military has announced intentions to pursue enemy through the season.

The source quoted here and there, Major General Jeffery J. Schloesser, has noted that last spring's surge in violence was partly enabled by militants preparing stores of weapons during the winter. [8]

If the talk walks, it may defy the history of armies bogged down and degraded by freezing weather and snow, but then those--Germany in Russia, Napolean also--involved conventional forces on the move.

Raiders, like Cossacks, on both sides may work a different tale.

John Tiller's "Winter War" simulation draws on Finland's defense against an invading Soviet Army (1939) and finds in it a kind of Antietam, i.e., the battle whose character spells the nature of the start and end of a war. [9]

Advertising for the game mirrors what should be by now the familiar rhetoric of the Islamic Small Wars on every side in the field:

"Instead of the rapid Blitzkrieg type victory Stalin’s high command predicted, the ill-prepared and poorly led Soviet Army marched into a frozen, desolate meat-grinder, learning the meaning of “sisu”, a Finnish term that could be roughly translated as strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity."

The world may not be too certain about Al Qaeda or the Taliban "acting rationally in the face of adversity," but winters enforce a kind of discipline in the field different from the atmosphere of any other season.

If nothing else, as mystery writers know, "The bad guy isn't bad all the time," and the wise may do their arms collecting at home by the light of the dung fire while a comparative handful of the the crazy wicked set out to bleed the other and better fed snow leopards.

Moreover, and with the roads open and, possibly, weapons wrapped and strapped to the undercarriages of trucks, city-to-city assaults may take place with nary a fighter involved.

Speaking as an old winter backpacker myself, representative of a far more pleasant side of walking a few days in the snow, winter tells you when to camp, cook, eat, sleep, and step out of bag or tent to piss.

Winter tells you that continuous movement is a good heater and cold metal and numb fingers debilitating killers for sure--be quick with the stove and freeze dried lasagna, eat neither too early nor too late, stock plenty of tea, ease off toward bed time, which on any normal schedule does not come at 8 p.m., no matter how the hour may feel.

How I learned that lesson: out as an impromptu guest of the Scouts one winter overnight with an old yawner leading the pack--"Boys," he said, "It's been a long day. I'm turning in and suggest you do too"--and with that, not many hours later, I got to wake raring to strike my lean-to and make happy down the trail at the crack of midnight.

In peace, there's no more quiet a sleep than out in pine, but even from this cozy armchair, one may well imagine in different circumstance dwelling on the little noises that carry far in the crisp air and others muffled in the snowy dark.

To wrap this with the seriousness the situation deserves:

1. This will be the winter for winning hearts and minds with shelters and insulation (blankets and clothing), food and medical services, and -- I would draw on the growing Afghani Army -- proactive investigative and fast-reacting local security services.

2. Field: invitations (stimulus) to fight could cover infiltration, and infiltration could well be as simple as conveying ordnance in nearly purloined fashion for use when the weather breaks.

The press in Maryland has been making much of the prison use of cell phone sniffing dogs [12], a low-tech innovation for a high tech problem; I would make much of looking under vehicles at checkpoints, tapping door frames, inspecting the hollows of steel bumpers, and so forth. Any technology solutions, low- or high-tech, that address the need for fast and thorough ground and air vehicle inspection could go far toward stalling stockpiling processes.

Reference

1. Perreaux, Les. "Weather forecasting, banned by Taliban, makes a comeback in Afghanistan." Fifty Crows: Social Change Photography, February 19, 2004: http://www.fiftycrows.org/photoessay/reeve/story4.php

2. Weather Underground. "Kabul, Afghanistan": http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/40948.html

3. Peikar, Farhad. "Deadly Afghan winter brings misery and destruction." CNN Asia, February 15, 2008: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/15/afghanistan.cold/index.html

4. About.com. "In Military History: winter weather." Search: http://militaryhistory.about.com/sitesearch.htm?terms=winter%20weather&SUName=militaryhistory&TopNode=99

5. Jedi. "Winter has set in . . . ." My War Stories, January 25, 2006: http://mywarstories.blogspot.com/2007/11/winter-has-set-in.html

6. IRIN. "Afghanistan: Severe winter causes more pneumonia child deaths." Via Payvand's Iran News, March 6, 2007: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/mar/1086.html

7. IRIN. "AFGHANISTAN: Government vows to keep roads open in winter." November 13, 2008: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81400

8. Smith, Herschel. "The Coming Winter Combat Between Taliban and U.S. Forces." Captain's Journal, September 28, 2008: http://www.captainsjournal.com/category/winter-operations/

9. Tiller, John. "Winter War: A John Tiller and HPS Simulations Game." Strategy Page, November 12, 2008: http://www.strategypage.com/strategypagegamestore/winter_war.asp

10. Savranskaya, Svetlana. "Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War: The Soviet Experience in Afghanistan: Russian Documents and Memoirs." The National Security Archive, October 9, 2001: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html

11. Ackerman, Spencer. "Taliban Ready to Make It a 'Hot Winter': Intelligence Shows Taliban Plans to Launch Offensive Amid Extreme Weather." The Washington Independent, September 23, 2008: http://washingtonindependent.com/6855/taliban-fighting-to-make-a-hot-winter-in-afghanistan

12. O'Brien, Terrence. "Cell-Phone-Sniffing Dogs Unleashed on Jails." Switched, July 16, 2008: http://www.switched.com/2008/07/16/cell-phone-sniffing-dogs-unleashed-on-jails/

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Pakistan - Balochistan Photographer Mohammad Ali Musa

Through photography, we see through each other's eyes.

That we do so should be as important today as Edward Steichen found it in 1955 with the development of the Museum of Modern Art's exhibit, "The Family of Man"  (referenced).

These days, of course, Internet-based photography communities daily recreate a family of mankind.

Some part of the global collection necessarily comes out of cities or regions characterized through the mainstream media as centers of conflict, development, or natural disaster.  This week, with earthquake news adding to its online portrait, Balochistan would seem to be sweeping those three dimensions.  However, there's a fourth side to the story--i.e., the overlooked normal and peaceful ways of day to day living removed from conflict, disaster, international business, and politics.

Alerted by eye-catching work at Photosig.com, Mohammad Ali Musa's interests have long struck me as broad, his picture-making sensibility always colorful and lively, and his craft well honed by years of experience.

As it seems to me a good thing to look on the peaceful side, really, the day to day look of the land and its people, in Balochistan, please enjoy what Muhammad Ali Musa has shared of his homeland for viewing in yours.

Photosig.com main portfolio page: http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=148198

Photo.Net Biography: http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=4301629

Trek Earth - Pakistan Collection: http://www.trekearth.com/members/mamcg/photos/Asia/Pakistan/

Reference

MoMA.org.  "Edward Steichen at The Family of Man, 1955."  http://www.moma.org/research/archives/highlights/06_1955.html

US Dept. of State.  "Travel Warning - Pakistan."  Bureau of Consular Affairs, October 1, 2008: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_930.html

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What is Democracy Doing to Us?

 

Democracy seems to be making us happy.

Instead of despair, renewed hope; in place of ruthless individualism, common cause; instead of arming to kill our brothers, we raise arms to cheer them on.

Photo Credit for "ObamaPalooza": Jeff Lynch, www.photoabuse.com, November 4, 2008.

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