Turkish Blues

So, how did things deteriorate with Turkey this quickly. The cozy love affair between the Turks and the West (particularly the US) has ended with calls from the US to recognize the genocide of the Armenians during the first half of the twentieth century. There has been an implicit understanding between the US and Turkey that Turkey will help the US in everywhich way as long as the US doesn't bring up the topic of the Armenian genocide. A similar agreement exists between Turkey and Israel in which Israel will never talk about the genocide as long as Turkey takes a favorable stance towards the Hebrew state. So, what happened now? Life has been rocky ever since Recep Tayeb Erdogan became PM of Turkey. This step was perceived by the West as an awkward turn in Turkish politics. The bringing of a religious Muslim party to the front of Turkish politics was frowned upon by the West although Erdogan and his party demonstrated more warmth towards the West and a great desire to conform to the EU standard in order to enter into Europe as soon as possible. Again, Turkey gained the animosity of the West when Erdogan nominated Abdullah Gul, foreign minister, to the presidency. Protestors took to the street in what reminded us of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. However, the will of the voters was evident in the elections and Gul was elected to the presidency. Shortly after, the US media began bringing up the subject of the Armenian genocide. Now, I'm not against recognizing the Armenian genocide for what it really is, the slaughtering of thousands of Armenians and other minorities by the dying Ottoman Empire. But what I wonder at is the timing of the event. Why now when the event is nearly a century old? Why now when Armenians everywhere were rallying every year, begging the world to hear them out, to recognize their plight? It doesn't take much brains to see that the US and West want something from Turkey, what exactly is not clear yet, more collaboration perhaps, more compliance? However, Turkey has one of two options: either acknowledge the Armenian genocide and accept the repurcutions, or, what seems more probable, give in to the West. The latter seems more probable especially with the Kurdish situation fomenting now in the south. Turkey has ventured into the Iraqi north in order to quell the Kurdish rebels. However, it has been surprised by an attack that claimed the life of 9 of its soldiers. Surprise or coincidence?

The Corruption of the House of Saud

This is something you don't hear about often; in the mainstream media at least. The reason is mentioned in Said Aburish's new expose of the house of Saud: The Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia controls most of the media outlets in the Arab world, even those published in European capitals such as London and Paris. The house of Saud have used their petrodollars to control what gets published and anything that offends them in the least gets censored. Even the Saudi controlled Al Hayat sometimes gets censored. I remember once I discovered that the second page of the newspaper was missing (I still don't know what the story was that offended the royal family). Unfortunately, the book is not without its shortcomings. It reads like a personal account; it's as if you are having a conversation with the author and he is trying to convince you of his ideas. There are numerous typos in the book and there are no footnotes or in-text citations but rather a bibliography at the end. Of course, the lack of material and the secrecy enveloping the house of Saud doesn't help an author who decides to tackle that subject and the material I have read on the corruption of the Saudi royal family usually reads like a fairytale. However, it is undeniable that a huge cover-up is in process everytime the Saudi royal family is involved. The roots of all this can almost always be traced back to the priceless commodity, oil.

I hope that more material gets published on the corruption that is racking Saudi Arabia and that opposition to the house of Saud rises before it is too late and before the US sees it in its best interest to change the regime itself like it did in Iraq.

Doctors of Death?

Another page from the dark reign of Al Qaddafi. Once portrayed as a blood-thirsty tyrant, now that Al Qaddafi has made peace with the US, he is no longer the monster of yesterday but an example to emulated by other leaders. In the meanwhile he continues to rule his people and lead them into the dark ages. Unfortunately, to cover up his failures as a leader, other people have to pay the price. The much debated issue that has recently emerged is the case of the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who were accused of transfusing blood contaminated with the HIV virus to Libyan children. Of course, the case is just an excuse for the less-than-average sanitary conditions in hospitals and for the lax regulations applied to blood supplies in Libya. But this is not my point. I was reading today in the newspapers that the five Bulgarian nurses most probably will not be executed after all of Europe threatened Libya with sanctions if they go on with their plans. However, no mention was made of the Palestinian doctor. Most probably, he will be made an example to others who 'threaten the security of the glorious Libyan people and the glorious nation of Libya'. And who is to save the Palestinian doctor from his fate? He has no nation to speak of...

Opposition in Lebanon

Two days ago, I was watching CNN’s coverage of the situation in Lebanon, in order to see how the situation was portrayed in the Western media. On Friday, the opposition had taken to the streets in order to demand a wider representation in the government or the resignation of the PM, Fouad El Seniora and his government. The opposition constituted the mostily Shiite Hizbollah and Amal alongside the mostly Maronite Free Patriotic Movement, who follow Michel Aoun and other smaller factions, such as the People’s Movement (Commoners), who follow the former MP Najah Wakim. However, according to CNN, the movement represented a Shiite coup against the Sunni leadership. It is strange how CNN just ignored what constitutes around 70% of the Lebanese Christians. But CNN’s stance is understandable and has been standard procedure for most American media outlets. More and more frequently, these outlets portray current events in the Middle East as a Shiite uprising against the mostly Sunni leadership in Arab countries. Thus, it can win the hearts of the Sunnis and assure that Arab leaders won’t take a neutral stance, or more dangerously, take the side of the insurgency. It is also not a secret that years of negligence and outright abuse of the large Shiite population in the Arab world has led us to this situation and made possible the playing of one sect against the other. In Saudi Arabia, Shiites constitute around 20% of the population. However, the government acts as it they are not there and won’t admit as to how many Shiites are in Saudi Arabia. When the Israelis were pounding Lebanon this summer, the Saudis took a stance against Hizbollah, calling their actions foolish and an uncalculated adventure. When Shiites demonstrated against Israeli aggression, some were imprisoned, allegedly for displaying pictures of the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. In Iraq, and even prior to the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988), Shiites were considered as second-rate citizens and many were dislocated from their homes. Many had to move to the more developed Sunni areas to work. After the war started, many were considered as traitors and Irani sympathizers and many others were stigmatized. In Lebanon, and after the murder of Rafiq Hariri in February of 2005, many Shiites were dubbed as traitors and accused of sympathizing with Syria and Iran. Until now, many sect leaders like Jumblat, who is the leader of the Socialist Progressive Movement, keeps hinting that Hizbollah want to convert Lebanon into an Irani state. These remarks don’t go down well with the Shiite population especially since they are a majority of the Lebanese population. Development in Shiite sections of the city is usually inferior to that in other regions, especially Christian areas. War has divided the country and Beirut into areas based on sect. And any casual observer can immediately sense the difference between Shiite, Sunni, and Christian areas. The government has long neglected Shiite areas such as the southern suburb of Beirut thus giving such movements as Hizbollah more power as they strived to replace the government in these areas.

Gaining the support of Arab leaders and the sympathy of the Sunni population will help the Americans in Iraq since portraying the opposition to the US forces and its puppet government in Iraq as mostly Shiites with dreams of autonomy will demonize the resistance in Iraq in the eyes of the Arab world. Indeed, Hizbollah’s excursion into Israel this summer has been linked to the resistance in Iraq and to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It is a pity to see the some media outlets in the Arab world reflecting the American views and many residents in the Arab world buying into this story, thus creating a rift between Sunnis and Shiites and a potential of civil war everywhere. Calling Shiites traitors whenever they voice their opinions has got to stop. The opposition has legitimate claims in Lebanon now since they form around or even more than 50% of the population and thus require more representation in the government.

9/11

I just received an email ennumerating the coincidences between the 9/11 attacks on the US. It had the usual thing about how all the number added up to 11 and such. However, what most attracted my attention was the following verse which the author claims to be from the Holy Quran: "For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced: for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah and there was peace." The author even claims that this is the 9th verse of the 11th chapter of the Quran. I have read the entire Quran and this verse is nowhere in it. Adding up number and trying to find connections may be a nice passtime for some but when it comes to creating whole verses of a holy book, this becomes dangerous and misleading.

BiH

I Returned to Beirut last week. I had been incarcerated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna I Hercegovina (BiH)) for 2 months because of the ongoing war in Lebanon. In these two months I had forgotten what I hated about Beirut and more generally, Lebanon. Gone were the annoying sounds of honking cars every hour of the day. Gone were the infernal traffic jams, the car fumes, the stifling heat and humidity. Gone was the inferiority complex that every Lebanese suffers from and which makes him/her want to buy the latest car or phone, or both. Tranquility and peace at last! Of course, there remains the language barrier to overcome. Here, in BiH, only recently are people trying to learn English to facilitate their interaction with foreigners. The first two words I learned were Dobar Dan, ‘good day’. But I learned that I could that I could just as well say ‘Assalamu ‘aleikum’: the official greeting of Islam, and gotten a favorable response. To say your farewells, you could just say: ‘Allahimanet’ a perversion of the Arabic phrase for: ‘God be with you’. Or you could just settle for the common ‘Ciao’. Here, paradise is not the heaven we know but ordinary tomatoes: the word that sounds like the English word ‘paradise’ is spelled paradajz. I learned how to count from one to ten but that did not help me when I needed directions to my uncle’s house since he lived at 19 Hasana Bibera street. I later learned that nineteen is devetneset in Bosnian. Another pitfall for foreigners is the difference between the languages of the states of the former Yugoslavia. In Serbian, bread is ‘Hleb’ but in Croatian and Bosnian it is ‘Hljeb’. Also, most Bosnians use other names for their varieties of bread and thus saying to a baker that you želim kupiti hljeb, might just draw blank stares. The food is real cheap. It might be cheaper to eat out than to prepare food in your house. Börek and sausages are the most commonly consumed foods. Cafes and the bistros in downtown Sarajevo are always full at every hour of the day. Bosnians consume huge amounts of coffee (kafa) and smoke a lot. One popular way of drinking coffee is dunking sugar (šečer) cubes in coffee and eating them, although I haven’t seen that in my current visit.
In the end, I left BiH to go back to Lebanon with plenty of enjoyable memories. I haven’t said everything I have to say on Bosnia to keep this short. I will come back to it soon.
So, remember: this is not a closed country which still resides in the Middle Ages but a rapidly developing country with roots in the past. Coffee comes in a čaša (derived from Ca’s, a cup in Arabic), an airplane is an ‘avion’ (like in French). To invite someone in you can say ‘borjum’ (taken from Turkish) or ‘zvolte’. Ciao.

Lebanese Politicians

Lebanese politicians, particularly those of the so-called February 14 and March 14 coalitions always object that the Syrians used to and indeed still are interfering with every aspect of Lebanese sovereignty, especially with the selection of members of the cabinet. They whine that no one could be elected for a position as minister or MP without Syrian consent. But when a member of the coalition who used to be an MP or minister before February 14th, 2005 is asked if the Syrians supported him to get to his position, he indignantly replied in the negative. His party supported him for his position. Knowing that most of the government was formed from people who are now in the coalition, that means that the Syrians had no say in the selection of ministers or MPs. The other alternative is that they are all liars and they just are used to ‘ride the wave’.