Caledoniyyan Time-Out

As an impoverished newly-dubbed doctor I must scrape together an income to sate the powers that be from a variety of sources, notably through the proof-reading and copy-editing of doctoral theses and publication manuscripts.

This week, I have a mammoth commission to finish in four days, which leaves so little eye-energy to post; after just four hours today my eyes feel like sandpapered Rubik’s cubes.

Fear not, however, dear readers, for a veritable flood of curmudgeonly inanities shall once more flood this way after the weekend.

Until then, adieu!

[Image via: sansanparrots]

Two Men and the Face of War

Since the conflict in Georgia commenced, a steady flow of profound and startling images have emerged from the country.

Since this morning, I have been unable to tear my eyes from the following image, pictured on the front page of The Sunday Times News Review:

For sure, the size of this does not do it justice, since the News Review edition occupies the whole enormous page, but still, it is war photography at its most evocative.

For minutes at a time I gaze at the expressions of the two Georgian men pictured beneath the militiaman: the terrified bewilderment of the man in the shirt as it contrasts with his cohort, whose knowing fear is so poignantly captured in his eyes.

The anonymity of the militiaman - just a fatigue-sporting arm with a rifle - renders the unknown threat ominous and hulking.

The protective arm slung around his friend, or family member, the body language - are they about to run or have they been flung on the kerb? - all combine to make this an incredible, telling, and emotional image of war.

Dmitry Beliakov, thank you for taking the risk and showing the face of war.

PhotoHunt 123: Colorful

This weekend’s entry is represented by the Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków, Poland:

Built in the fourteenth century at the behest of Casimir III, further additions were made during the reign of Jogaila and Jadwiga of Poland, including the Hen’s Foot (Kurza Stopka), the Danish, Jordanka, Lubranka, Sandomierska, Tęczyńska, Szlachecka, Złodziejska and Panieńska towers.

Despite being built during the 14th century, Wawel Hill, where the castle rests, has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Age, fifty thousand years ago.

Initially a centre of trade, crafts and local farming, the movement of people down the Hill was followed by the assumption of formal residence by the rulers of Poland.

In the 16th century the castle underwent a makeover, as King Sigismund I the Old (Zygmunt I) and his wife called upon the most renowned native and foreign artists, including Italian architects, sculptors, and German decorators, to revamp their residence in the Renaissance style.

It was to prove a sagacious venture and, as is testament today, the gleaming domes and sweeping archways prove breath-taking amongst the luscious green parkland.

It is little wonder then, that Wawel Castle became the paragon of stately residence in Central and Eastern Europe, and was subsequently lauded as a model throughout the region.

The Bikini Olympics 2008

As much as criticism has mounted in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to be fair, it has been mostly directed at China’s deplorable human rights record, rather than the esteemed sporting affair.

However, for the Islamic lecturer and Saudi author, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid, the Olympics are less about testing humankind’s endurance, than staging an event in which “no exposure of women’s private parts on a global scale could make Satan happier”.

The well-known Al-Munajid is a frequent feature on Saudi TV channels and has previously worked in Washington, D.C. at the Saudi Embassy Islamic Affairs Department, before he was stripped of his diplomatic credentials.

Al-Munajid is no novice when it comes to the call for sports-related fatwas: in a January 2005 interview, he said that soccer games “reveal nakedness,” adding that women must not exercise in public because they wear “tight fitting, short” outfits to do so, and also that women are forbidden from participating in the Olympics.

(Is it only me who thinks of Persepolis at this point?!)

 

Al-Munajid also discussed, in a July 2007 interview, how Western “beasts” use public toilets and wear colored underwear “to conceal all that filth.”

Truly, he seems a delectable gentleman and should I ever hold a dinner party, I would indubitably place his seating card next to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

I digress, however; in an interview conducted by Al-Majd TV on 10 August, 2008, Al-Munajid was highly critical of the Beijing Olympics, which he called the “bikini Olympics,” referring to them as “satanic.”

Below are a few snippets from his recent diatribe; to view the clip, click here:

Muhammad Al-Munajid: “How come modern sports – especially women’s sports – involve the exposure of private parts? It is well known that the Olympics – both in the past and the upcoming games… the world’s worst display of women’s clothing is the women’s Olympics. No exposure of women’s private parts on a global scale could make Satan happier than Olympic games that include women’s sports.”
  
Interviewer: “And in a scandalous manner…”
  
Muhammad Al-Munajid: “Yes. It is an enormous Satanic issue. Many people nowadays watch sports rather than participate in them.”
  
Interviewer: “And this is a problem…”
  
Muhammad Al-Munajid: “If only they would run or move their bodies a little… All they do is sit and watch the sports channels. Some fathers come to me and ask if it is permitted to hook up just to the sports channels. It is for the kids, they say. There is pressure. Football leads to temptation. It is not an innocent sport. 

[...]
  
“Wrestling involves the exposure of women’s private parts. Even the promotion of the competitions is done by scantily clad women. This is done at the beginning of the match, in the middle, and at the end, or so I hear… the matches are promoted by half-naked women.
  
[...]
  
“Beijing or not… I call it Bikini, anyway… because they are likely to display women in the worst possible way in these ‘Bikini’ Olympic games.
  
[...]
  
“What women wear in the Olympic games are among the worst clothes possible. The inventions of Satan, with regard to the exposure of the body in gymnastics, in swimming, in whatever, in tennis… Women have never gotten naked for sports like they do in the Olympics. It is aired to billions of people worldwide. The problem is not just with the spectators who are present. The whole thing is aired on TV…”
  
Interviewer: “And maybe the men’s clothing is more modest than the women’s…”
  
Muhammad Al-Munajid: “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. It is definite.”

I love the disclaiming ”or so I hear”, while on a completely different tangent, the Interviewer seems oblivious to the concept of objectivity and clearly sees his role as an opportunity to stoke the fervid Al-Munajid into a frenzy.

As for Al-Munajid’s claim that the men’s outfits are more modest than the women, I have but two words from yesteryear that any woman raised in the 1990s will comprehend: Linford Christie.

Boy, was that a rude awakening to the male form…

[Image: Getty Images, Polish Volleyball Team]

Whither the E.U.? Europe’s Silence and Georgia’s Plea

As the conflict in Georgia progresses, the limitations of the European Union’s condemnation is tangible - even Dick Cheney weighed in earlier this week with words of admonishment.

It seems that the E.U. is embroiled in that age-old tussle between humanity and energy resources and is reluctant to express outright opinion.

The emotional plea issued yesterday by the Georgian ambassador, Salome Samadashvili, for a stronger E.U. response powerfully exhibited the urgency:

We hope the international community will move to some kind of action to protect our statehood. Either we find a way to respond to it together or we have to also live with the decision that we will face a different world tomorrow. The situation is deteriorating faster than a proper response can be orchestrated … as we speak the Russians act. [Source]

While the E.U. has since issued a call for an immediate cease-fire, the war between Russia and Georgia is proving to be Europe’s biggest diplomatic test since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq five years ago.

The question remains however, once the conflict ends, can NATO accession negotiations continue in the light of the recent mithering and minimal action?

Poetry Corner N° 3: Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

In honour of the great Palestinian poet and writer, Mahmoud Darwish, who died today following a complex heart operation in the United States.

I Belong There

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.

I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, and a prison cell

with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.

I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon,

a bird’s sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.

I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.

I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to

her mother.

And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.

To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.

I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a

single word: Home.

[Translated by Carolyn Forché and Munir Akash]

A New Kind of Peace: South Ossetia

Hot on the heels of President Bush’s “new democracy”, is President Medvedev’s new brand of “peace”, which involves the killing of hundreds of civilians in the South Ossetia region of Georgia.

While the conflict has long been neglected by the global media, discord has been brewing in region since the early nineties when South Ossetia sought to break away from the newly independent Georgia.

In 2004, the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili pledged to recover the lost territories, but in 2006 South Ossetians voted overwhelmingly for independence in an unofficial referendum.

The desire for independence dates back to the thirteenth century when the Ossetians were driven southwards by the Mongol invasions into the Caucasus mountains that throng the border of Georgia.

A distinct ethnic group originating from the Russian plains south of the Don River, South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.

While ethnic Georgians are a minority in the region on South Ossetia, the state of Georgia rejects even the name, South Ossetia, preferring to call it by the ancient name of Samachablo, or Tskhinvali, after its main city.

Nevertheless, Georgia doubtless wishes to contain its conflicts through the use of its own military, and the admission last month by Russia that it has flown jets over South Ossetia has only increased Georgian ire.

Far from perceiving it as a peace mission, Georgia believed that Russia was commencing a military build-up – suspicions that were, as it transpires, well-founded.

After a brief cease-fire on 7 August, Russia sent in columns of armour and troops and fighting erupted with Georgian forces in and around Tskhinvali.

Which brings us to today, as Russian jets bomb the central Georgian town of Gori, and Russia maintains its troops have “liberated” Tskhinvali.

Quite how liberated the citizens of Tskhinvali feel today, is a question that needs not an answer; suffice to say that the troubles have been brewing for so long that a resolution is not readily in sight.

Meanwhile, the irony that both parties are ‘fighting for peace’ is not entirely lost: it is hard to discern whether Medvedev is taking the proverbial or merely needs a lesson in PR from his American contemporary.

[Image via: BBC, cabiria8]

PhotoHunt 122: Dark

While today’s PhotoHunt theme is Dark, the story accompanying this image is quite the opposite, and reaffirms the belief that miracles can, and do, occur.

The following image was captured at Qasr al-Azraq in Jordan, two years ago:

In the background is Sana, a Palestinian lady who assuaged my travel sickness for the duration of the desert tour with tales of utmost awe and tragedy.

In 1948 her family was compelled to flee Palestine, and while her father went to fight, her young mother fled to Egypt.

Despite clasping to the hope that her husband might one day find her and return, her hopes were dashed when she was informed that he had died in battle.

Inconsolable, she dedicated herself to raising her children and never re-married.

One day, several years later, she was sitting outside her house when a man rode past on a bicycle.

It was her husband.

Somehow, as is wont in wartime, the wrong identification had been given; yet fate ensured that on that day, in that town, in Egypt, at exactly that time, Sana’s father would ride past and be reunited with her mother.

While I have little doubt that my synopsis of the story does a vast disservice to the tragically beautiful manner in which Sana conveyed the tale, I believe this image reveals more than Sana.

The tale of Sana’s parents reaffirms the notion of hope and fate, and so too does it bring light into the darkness of life.

The Name of the Games? Blinkership and Censorship

When two British campaigners arrested in Beijing after staging a Free Tibet protest outside the Olympic Stadium touched down in Britain today, a debate began to rage through the British media.

The crux of the moral tussle has been thus: would such protests - which the Britons have avowed would be the first of many - draw the roving eye of the world’s media towards crucial issues that would otherwise pass unnoticed? Or are the demonstrations inappropriate and ruinous during an event that unites the world in sporting camaraderie?

Frankly, I find this debate utterly perplexing: one glance at China’s burgeoning record of human rights violations brings beads of horror to ones forehead and to venture that such antics should be swept aside - and to all intents and purposes a blind eye turned - in the name of sport is surely madness.

The boycott of sporting events is by no means a new phenomena: in 1972 the chairman of the United Nations Special Committee on Apartheid stated that the most effective action against South Africa’s discriminatory racial policies had been the world-wide sports boycott, while more recently in 2007 the development agency Caritas backed the call by 42 Australian Catholic bishops for Cricket Australia to cancel their tour of Zimbabwe.

The actions of Iain Thom, 24, who unfurled a banner reading “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet” after climbing a 120ft pylon, and Lucy Fairbrother, 23, who co-ordinated the protest on the ground, can be viewed as much needed reminders that the frivolities mask a darker side of China.

Greeted by cheering supporters at London City Airport after they were deported from China, Fairbrother, a graduate of Bristol University, remained unbowed after their arrest and deportation by Chinese police:

We are only a very small part of this campaign and the ongoing struggle. We will carry on fighting and there will be more protests during the Olympic Games. Despite what we have done the situation in Tibet is still dire. One of the reasons that we were there was that Tibetans couldn’t be there in our place. They were refused visas and if anyone in Tibet dared to protest, they would certainly be treated much more harshly and would face torture and imprisonment. [Source]

Thom, from Edinburgh, echoed his cohort’s sentiments:

We knew there were risks involved but the risks were nothing compared to the suffering Tibetans have endured. Security was tight but we walked up to the pole – and everything was done in a straightforward manner. We were arrested for disturbing public order and were later escorted to the airport. We wanted to make a call to world leaders and the Chinese government for meaningful change – this is a matter of basic human rights. It was definitely all worth it but expect there to be more. The job is not done but we feel like we have achieved something.

Fairbrother and Thom were arrested yesterday along with Tirian Mink, 32, from Portland, Oregon, and Phill Bartell, 34, from New Jersey, who unfurled a banner from a second pylon.

The protest conducted by the foursome has proved momentarily successful and that peaceful demonstrations can often be as attention grabbing as the more violent ones that fill the news.

Far from condemning such activists, admiration is in order - although it remains to be seen for how long the protests shall remain peaceful, both on the side of the Chinese authorities and the protesters.

Poetry Corner N° 2: Dalila al-Zaituni

At the risk of appearing utterly backwards and unappreciative of the arts in all their forms, and while I have long adored books of all genres, poetry has remained the last bastion of writing to prove elusive both in terms of writing, and reading.

Certainly, I can appreciate good poetry and gasp in all the right places, yet still not be entirely moved.

Until today that is, when I came across the following poem by the Tunisian poet, Dalila al-Zaituni, composed in 1982 and translated from French by miriam cooke.

As the sadness and emotion ooze from each word, al-Zaituni’s writing could wring tears from a statue:

My Life

My life is lack,
misery, pain,
hell, boredom
So why live?

My life is tears
and flames of a burning heart
The light of all candles has hid
Why a life of grief?

My life is anxiety,
ice and a winter night
and a slow death…extinction
Is there no mercy, O Time?

My life is a desert,
a fence…oppression
Where is the light, the day?

[Taken from: Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, by Margot Badran and miriam cooke, 2004.]