Monthly Archives: July 2013

British Secular Muslims reject Mehdi Hasan’s obfuscation of Wahhabi Deobandi terrorism

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Religion

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I will add British Secular Muslims to the sidebar here and otherwise note the difficulty involved in redrawing conflict lines along intellectual edges. Nonetheless . . . .

admin's avatarBritish Secular Muslims

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Also cross-posted at LUBP

British Secular Muslims reject apologist and obfuscating stance of British journalist Mehdi Hasan on global terrorism by Wahhabi Deobandi Islamists.

Mehdi Hasan is a presenter of Al Jazeera Television and a political editor of UK version of The Huffington Post. British Secular Muslims are worried that a journalist and opinion maker of his stature

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Malala’s Sweet Tough 16th

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Thanks to Al Jazeera:

In less than 20 minutes, Malala Yousafzai has done what few to none of Pakistan’s politicians have ever done: pushed Pakistan to the forefront of ethical and moral progress in the world.

Additional Reference

A World at School.  “The text of Malala Yousafzai’s speech at the United Nations.”  Transcript.  July 12, 2013.

Ellick, Adam B.  “Class Dismissed: Malala’s Story.”  Video.  (Back Story).  The New York Times, October 9, 2012.

Imam, Zainab.  “Malala and the lague of extraordinary Pakistani women.”  The Express Tribune, July 13, 2013:

But on July 12, when a young Pakistani woman wowed the entire world by her simple yet powerful views, I let go of trying to look logically at the other view — I saw the tear that fell out of Malala’s mother’s eye and I felt what had caused it. Malala’s mother, purported to be a CIA agent, was crying because the little girl who she had carried in her womb for nine months and nurtured for 15 years was finally able to speak with her characteristic vigour after surviving a bullet to her head.

Johnston, Ian.  “Malala Yousafzai: Being shot by Taliban made me stronger.”  NBC News, July 12, 2013.

Plank, Elizabeth.  “9 Best Quotes From Malala’s United Nations Speech.” Policymic, July 12, 2013.

Reuters.  “Pakistan’s Malala celebrates 16th birthday with emotional U.N. speech (1:32), July 12, 2013.

Spiegal Online Staff.  “Girl Rising: Malala Fires Up a New Generation.”  Spiegal Online, July 12, 2013.

The Globe and Mail.  “‘They thought that the bullet would silence us’: Malala addresses UN Youth Assembly.”  July 12, 2013.

Syria Impression – The Look of It Online

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Syria

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The look of Syria online is a mess, of course, with the stickiest part becoming the internecine war between rebel forces, one part Islamic moderates, so intimated in coverage, intent on deposing President Bashir al-Assad with help from Saudi Arabia in complex alignment with the west, the other part Jihadists of, roughly, the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” determined to make Syria but a stepping stone in the establishment of a global caliphate.

Throughout the Islamic Small Wars, the collapse of physical fronts, literally physical boundaries, margins, and fixed front lines keep the encounters and road blocks moving around the landscape, which today, so damaged, in places so depopulated, in others so ad hoc and weirdly organized, I would call painted with the fragments of a new frontier.

Still, Assad’s state remains where it has so far managed to remain.

From Al-Akhbar English:

Visitors to Damascus will find that they are not the only ones rediscovering the city. The capital’s own residents are reacquainting themselves with its neighborhoods and geography, trying to keep up morale in the face of a deepening crisis.

Zaraket, Maha.  “Damascus: The Military Geography of Normalcy.”  Al-Akhbar English, July 12, 2013.

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Who knows what to think as regards Syria’s fate somewhere between its brutal and disingenuous dictatorship, its seemingly well intended base of rebels willing to support a secular civil democracy, and its AQ-type rovers far gone on their own trip but also powerful in their agility, arms, and ruthlessness in the field?

As I type, I do wonder about “news aggregation” — so here is the snapshot of what I drifted through in information this morning — and I also wonder how long before those of us scanning war reportage from our computers start hooking into live feeds.

Twitter’s coming close, but what I read, of course, is what you read coming off AP, BBC, CNN, Reuters, and other feeds.

The Jihad videos from the field that show up with “0” views are a little different: those could be flying on to the web by phone or laptop at close to real time, but how to vet them without getting further into those labyrinths?

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Live Leak.  “Deranged dictator assad orders more of Syria’s capital destroyed: (July 12th, ’13).  Videos.

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The Free Syrian Army commander, stocky, bearded, dressed in camouflage, oozed menace and seethed with righteous anger.

We were speaking about the biggest jihadi group in Syria, the Nusra Front, who had kidnapped his brother.

BBC.  “Syrian rebel fighters’ civil war within a civil war.”  July 12, 2013.

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“We will not let them get away with it because they want to target us,” a senior FSA commander said on condition of anonymity after members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant killed Kamal Hamami on Thursday.

“We are going to wipe the floor with them,” he said.

Reuters.  “New Front Opens in Syria as Rebels Say Al-Qaida Attack Means War.”  VOA, July 12, 2013.

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“One has to concentrate on their strongholds and on their dwellings and their infrastructure. If (Alawites) continue living as they’re doing in peace and safety while wedded to the regime they will not be affected. They will not think of abandoning Assad,” said Islamist Sheikh Anas Ayrout.

Oweis, Khaled Yacoub.  “Syrian rebel sheikh calls for war on Assad’s Alawite heartland.”  Al Arabiya, July 10, 2013.

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Published June 7, 2013:

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Since then I’ve spent – I don’t know, many, many times, always undercover, clandestinely, always alone [in Syria]. I don’t keep count, but I was basically spending a week of every month in my home base, Beirut, and the rest of the time I was on the road, in Syria and Turkey.

I don’t use fixers, I don’t use translators. I don’t have anybody giving me tips. It’s just me.

Leigh, Karen.  “One on One: Rania Abouzeid, Journalist.”  Syria Deeply, July 12, 2013.

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In north-eastern Syria, al-Nusra finds itself in command of massive silos of wheat, factories, oil and gas fields, fleets of looted government cars and a huge weapons arsenal.

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith.  “Syria’s al-Nusra Front – ruthless, organised, and taking control.”  The Guardian, July 10, 2013.

I referenced the above a day or two ago.  Basically, the greater the chaos introduced to the field, the greater the potential for the armed and ruthless to impose their will in patches, a condition not much different than that familiar to Somalis since Said Barre’s step-down and the ensuing anarchy and conflict latent in the motivations of powers left on the land.

Additional Reference

Free Syria Media Hub

Syria – Note – Manipulating Hearts and Minds

11 Thursday Jul 2013

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“Go and ask the people in the streets whether there a liberated town or city anywhere in Syria that is ruled as efficiently as this one,” he boasted. “There is electricity, water and bread and security. Inshallah, this will be the nucleus of a new Syrian Islamic caliphate!”

Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith.  “Syria’s al-Nusra Front — ruthless, organised, and taking control.” The Guardian, July 10, 2013.

“Out, out, out, the (Islamic) State (of Iraq and Syria) must get out,” protesters shouted at a rally in the northern town of Manbij this week, referring to an Al-Qaeda front group.
The video of the demonstration is one of many showing how civilians and mainstream rebel fighters alike are turning against the more hardline Islamist factions.

Assif, Serene. “Syria jihadists lose support as abuses mount.” Fox News, July 22, 2013.

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Every story that has appeal, whether fact or fiction, has a moral center, and the writer who can tease it out fast has got a hooked reader.

This is about where we started with the Syrian revolt — a little more than two years ago, a sorry fact reflected in the statement, “1300 people have been killed since the protests began”):

Then almost two years and 90,000 corpses later, we get to the guy intent on frightening his foes in the medieval way (well, take it back to ancient Greece or earlier) by carving out a man’s chest cavity, grabbing an organ, and taking a bite or appearing so (see Paul Wood’s “Face-to-face with Abu Sakkar, Syria’s ‘heart-eating cannibal’,” BBC, July 3, 2013).

At the moment, thereabouts, Arab and Russian media seem to be playing “hot potato” over who has got the chemical weapons, whose side is more brutal, and whose side is more deserving in regard to winning one for modernity.

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To fill out that last statement a bit, I may note an RT blog said today, “M16 warning: ‘Catastrophe’ if chemical weapons fall into Al-Qaeda hands” (RT, July 11, 2013).

Back in April, however, the story seemed to have been running in the other direction.  Al Jazeera’s header (April 26, 2013): “Suspicion grows over Syria chemical weapons: UK prime minister backs US spy agencies’ assessment that Damascus likely to have used sarin gas against civilians.”

Again, come forward on the latest toss of the hot potato:

Moscow now appears to have conclusive evidence that it is the rebels who are guilty of the March chemical attack in Aleppo which killed dozens of Syrians. This comes as the United States continues to put the blame on the Assad government. However, Corbyn says that any such proof may not bring the Syrian conflict any closer to a resolution.

RT.  “Hard evidence of chemical weapons use ‘does not solve Syrian issue’.”  Op-ed and interview with Jeremy Corbyn, MP, British Labour Party, July 11, 2013.

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The “moral center” in Syria’s unfolding tragedy revolves around barbarism and cruelty, fascism and totalitarianism, and then among those holding up the cash and sending in the weapons, some effort to prove more likely to be kind when the tide turns their way.  While Qatari and NATO interests have pointed their fingers at the Assad regime and its chemical weapons stores, Russia, presumably sided with Assad — but it’s hard to tell with the quiet exit that has left Tartus abandoned —  and tolerant about Iran, points back at rebel chemists (see, for example, “Syria rebels made own sarin gas, says Russia,” Al Jazeera, July 10, 2013).

In earlier days, the same would have had a perfect villain in Maher al-Assad — I think there’s still on the web a video of him allegedly shooting across a street into a crowd of passersby (found it)  — but his presence has been dimmed in the theater, and in his place one may find grand Syrian defense recruiting videos composed in the old muscular Soviet way (the video that ends this post may say more about that than I will here).

In and around Syria, those who may pretend their hands are clean must know that brutality loses, the tyrannical will not be tolerated, and the cruel will not go unpunished.

Anti-Assad footage published today:

The next opens with a title slate claiming, “Syrian women had no choice but to carry weapons and train on using them to defend themselves and families from the Wahhabi Sex Jihadists, they joined the National Defense Forces.”

Enjoy the music!

Additional Reference

Wheeler, William.  “Why the World’s ‘Responsibility to Protect” Extends to Libya But Not Syria.”  Pulitzer Center, April 12, 2012.

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BackChannels – New Feature – Frequently Cited or Recommended Reading

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in Journal

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We’ll see how the new section crowds up, but it will be a relief to me to have one page to which to link when I mention, say, Dan Everett and why he matters in the realm of “conflict, culture, language, and psychology.”

Also added this morning:

“Lee Smith’s Comment on ‘Media Warfare” in the Middle East”

“On Being a War Journalist — Francesca Borri in Syria – 7/1/2013”

I also got the content of “Coins and Terms” on to separate pages, the better to introduce more of the same, but different.

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Updating “Coins and Terms” – “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy”

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology

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I’ve managed to set up like an Oxford don without a field, an institution, or tenure. For narcissism in my own quarter, that’s pretty good and equally awful, but there may be a positive social consequence in having become so loose a cannon: for a while, I’ve had combined academic backgrounds (“English Language and Literature”; “Outdoor Recreation Resources Management” — social psychology related to “discretionary time” and the back-country; “Creative Writing” – AKA “A Life With a Lot of Books”) suited to looking over conflicts with some unique intellectual experiences and tools working in the background as well as an environment that is my own narcissistic bubble, advanced home theater, capacious library, and all.

It gets a little silly (and scary) starving at this, and I / we have encountered in political scribbling the Out-There-With-Tin-Foil-Hats form of scribes on missions, and God forbid whatever I may impart should boot me into that company.  Nonetheless, with “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” I’ve taken quite a leap, one that latches bipolar and narcissistic personality disorders together, loosely, and hauls that assembly out of psychology, which is concerned with the life of the individual mind, and into politics, which would seem concerned with what some minds manage to do to others.

🙂

The purpose of a “coined term” in language is to help solve a problem, but the intention, in keeping with Heisenberg’s Principle, may also change or manipulate its target environment, so that, say, “People of the Book” or “believers” or “kafir” create characterizing labels to which others, perhaps disorganized previously, may bind their own self-concepts.  Such labels then become social bins and channels as well as discriminators, and if they are attractive or appear to work (those two characteristics are not the same!), the “coins” become a part of the music of the mind that is language.

A cautionary and negative term, “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” may not only influence how one sees some powerful figures but how the same may see themselves.

If it takes, there’s no going back to a time before its introduction.

From the section “Coins and Terms” (found on this blog’s navigation bar), I’m moving each to its own page, and after this one will not be so verbose in getting to the point.

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Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy

The term derives from Bipolar Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder by way of common features having to do with grandiose delusion, messianic motivation, and resistance to criticism and clinical insight; it is intended for political and social science application.

Within the phrase, “facsimile” serves to separate the concept from psychology and related interest in individual mind and the experience of it and emphasis instead semblance in a way that serves interest in leaders and their administrative and management methods.

I’ve chosen “bipolar” for the cognitive style signaled by language behavior — in black and white thinking, the too sharp delineation between “winners” and “losers”, “believers” and “evildoers”, and so on — and the atmosphere encouraged by it.  In psychology proper, of course, “bipolar disorder” finds anchorage in observations having to do with individual mood and sleep patterns and difficulties associated with them.  In politics, energetic and erratic “mania” may or may not be present at any given point, but grandiose delusions and intents most certainly are as are most other facets of the disorder: however, the complex weaves into political and social life as “sympathetic feeling” across the political actor’s field of influence.

Would the term do just as well as “Facsimile Narcissistic Political Sociopathy”?

Probably.

For sure, the graduate classes are welcome to kick it around some.

“Political” needs no explication.  It’s simply the application area for the term.

“Sociopathy” would seem a coin within a coin, but I prefer the invention to alternatives, for what we’re addressing amounts to sociopath behavior as encountered in contemporary politics by way of comparatively ruthless personalities.  Cats like Paul Biya and Robert Mugabe — the “low hanging fruit” of fair examples of common dictators — show little evidence of caring about the common suffering of the constituent humanity within their bailiwicks.  These are about their own excessive glorification, and each has found ways, between the command of armies and unbridled access to state treasuries and various income streams, of sustaining themselves in power.

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Crossing the Syrian Border

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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I’m glad someone’s out there — and she’s brave!

JC's avatarSweden and the Middle East Views

In a time of peace and normality, the border between Syria and Lebanon is like any other border: queues are busy, rules are neglected, bored military officials are stamping passports in between smoking and drinking endless cups of tea. Now everything is different. And as the road to the airport is not safe, crossing the Lebanese border by land is the only safe alternative for leaving the country, making an otherwise sheltered humanitarian aid worker like me left to mingle with the Syrians that are trying to get out.

The border on the road between Damascus and Beirut is still controlled, heavily controlled, with new checkpoints every few minutes before reaching the border office. Outside the office cars are parked everywhere and masses of people are moving with their plastic bags and children, the chaos mirroring the domestic collapse. Many internal refugees are now dirt-poor, without money for bus or…

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Syria – Of Refugees and Bloody Optimists

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Described by some foreign relief officials as a ‘”five-star camp”, the Emirati-funded operation is a study in contrasts with Zaatari, the chaotic, sprawling UN-run camp that is home to 120,000 and is described as Jordan’s fifth-largest city.

Reed, John.  “‘Five-star’ refugee camp illustrates Gulf’s growing role in Syria.”  Financial Times, July 1, 2013.

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Jordanian soldiers in riot gear try to keep order in a crowd desperate to get back to Syria. More than 9,000 headed home in June, according to the official Jordanian count.

Amos, Deborah.  “Reversing Direction, Some Syrian Refugees Now Head Home.”  Parallels, NPR, July 8, 2013.

Deborah Amos reports Jordan as hosting today 500,000 Syrian refugees.

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The UN says nearly 90,000 Syrians have registered with the High Commissioner for Refugees in Egypt.

But the actual number of Syrians who have sought refuge in Egypt is believed to be much higher, in part because the country did not require Syrians to have visas until this week.

AFP.    “Syrian refugees to Egypt facing restrictions following unrest.”  thejournal.ie., July 9, 2013.

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For Lebanon, UNHCR reports 503,724 registered refugees and an additional 84,071 awaiting registration (“Syria Regional Refugee Response: Lebanon”, viewed today).

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According to figures obtained by Kirisci from government sources, Turkey is currently hosting close to half a million Syrian refugees. As of mid-June, over 200,000 reside in one refugee camp, while nearly 290,000 live outside these camps. Around 100,000 internally placed Syrians are reported to be awaiting entry into Turkey.

Idiz, Semih.  “Turkey’s Syria Refugee Crisis.”  Turkey Pulse, Al Monitor, July 2, 2013.

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Also Monday, the newly elected head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba, told Reuters news agency he expects advanced weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia to reach rebel fighters soon, strengthening their military position.

VOA News.  “Syrian Fighting Intensifies, Rebels Expect Weapons.”  July 8, 2013.

The fall last week of President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt prompted a defiant Assad to proclaim the defeat of political Islam. The Brotherhood’s Syrian branch, already under pressure from more radical opposition groups, was dealt a psychological blow that comes on top of delays to promised supplies of weapons from Washington.

Reuters.  “Analysis: Confident Assad sees Syria tide turning.”  The Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013.

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Now there’s a picture.

Qatar and Company, heavily backing the Syrian Revolt (so far — Assad’s still in Damascus and his army is still fighting), have also plunged some money into producing a somewhat comfy, modern, and well administered model refugee camp for families (single men have to drift with the riffraff elsewhere) while remaining confident that some adjustment in the arms mix will hasten the end of the Reign of Assad.

Assad himself seems to remain a believer.

I have much, much less confidence in those confident that they will win . . . something.

Within Islam as al-Nusra and others may have it, “winning” will not lead to freedom but rather the imposition of their own sanguine tyranny.

For most involved in developing and sustaining the abysmal crisis in Syria, their history will not be written by “the winners” but rather by dowdy old historians poring over casualty figures, displacements, communique, rhetoric, bank transfers, arms shipments, manufacturer’s labels, newspaper clippings — or online ones like this one — and weighing within their independent souls the various causes and effects.

Some may stumble upon the role language has played in the nightmare, for Syria, perhaps more than in any corresponding contemporary conflict, points out a failing in language and mind by way of the beliefs and rhetoric driving toward so much suffering: that “content of mind” has had little to do with anyone’s day to day experience in living and the many challenges encountered, from making some money to attending to the happiness and security of children.

Instead, black and white thinking, extraordinary greed, unbridled egotism, and magical thinking all look away from the horror created by their possession or diminish the same — more than 90,000 dead, upwards of four million internally displaced or refugee — by way of language attending deflection of responsibility and the denial of the depth of the misery and depravity involved.

Is the good cause Alewite, Shiite, or Sunni?

Is it about cash in the till for a family and everyone else depending on that family be damned?

Is it about nobility?

What matter the purity of the white robes where the soles of the sandals remain  always wet with blood?

The civil war, noble cause, revolt, and revolution — all deeply anachronistic, anarchic, confused, disorganized, and disorganizing — will go on.

“Geneva in these circumstances is not possible. If we are going to go to Geneva we have to be strong on the ground, unlike the situation now, which is weak,” al-Jarba said July 7 after returning from the northern Syrian province of Idlib, where he met commanders of rebel brigades.

Huriyet Daily News.  “Saudi arms will arrive soon: Syria rebel chief.”  July 9, 2013.

Additional Reference

Reuters.  “Syrian opposition head expects advanced weapons to reach rebels.”  Al Arabiya, July 8, 2013.

O’Connor, Sean.  “Strategic SAM Deployment in Syria.”  Air Power Australia, January 2010; updated April 2012.

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