Archive for Maghreb

Protest and Pessimism in the Maghreb

Posted by: Ion | September 10th, 2007 · 7:08 PM

The left-leaning (if allegedly nonpartisan) 501(c)(3) group Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), has taken exception to our reposting from June, of SnappedShot’s enormously amusing Islamic Rage Boy project. AID notes that there seems little interest on our part by contrast, in heartening nationwide demonstrations in Algeria to protest Al Qaeda’s brutal terrorist operations there.

The weekend protests staged mostly by Muslim women, had some of the better chants you’ll read this year:

The crowd, which was made up mainly of women, chanted slogans such as “Terrorists are not Muslims” and “the Algerian people reject terrorism and support President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
(BBC via Americans for Informed Democracy)

This peaceful popular revolt is coming on the heels of the revelation that Al Qaeda is in acute crisis in North Africa, following the surrender of Benmessaoud Abdelkader, a key zonal emir of Al Qaeda (formerly of the notorious GSPC). Under debriefing by Algerian authorities, Abdelkader portrayed an encouragingly chaotic situation within the organization, perhaps conditioned by the July death of Sid Ali Rachid, the mastermind of AQ’s more spectacular attacks on the Bouteflika government.

In this context, AID was using us in a general and cynical rebuke of conservative (or at least anti-salafi) blogs and their zeal for pillorying the fanaticism of Rage Boy, at the expense of a more sympathetic Muslim majority (the extraneous component of the Rage boy’s unfair argument). But since I first read about the demonstration on Gateway Pundit and it’s thereby making the rounds on the rightblogs (and as customarily is being largely ignored by the Left, in its obsession with domestic politics), the point is more than a little unfair.

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Dark Visions of an Islamic Future

Posted by: Ion | May 10th, 2007 · 2:08 PM

In 2005, when Orb republished George Alec Effinger’s classic and increasingly relevant cyberpunk Budayeen trilogy, the publisher commissioned Hawaii based concept artist Craig Mullins to paint an original cover for each volume. It was an inspired choice. Mullins had done matte painting on movies (Apollo 13) and concept design work on games (Age of Empires III). Craig’s rich Syd Mead-like electric stylizations, create a truly enigmatic future ummah in street scene, which is well worth a look here.

First some context. The books depict a grim future, where the West has fallen and is without confidence in its unified culture. Something that seemed silly in 1989, when the first book was published, but thanks to the turn of events, the slow demographic fall of Europe to Islam and the work of Mark Steyn, Bruce Bawer, Daniel Pipes and others, has become a common idea. In Effinger’s Budayeen stories, Islam remains vigorous, devoutly believed by even criminals and thus has once again become the ascendant civilization on the Earth.

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Review: The Devil Came on Horseback by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace

Posted by: Ion | May 7th, 2007 · 11:09 AM

The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace
(Public Affairs, 230 pages, market price: $16.47)

Two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius observed in his Meditations, that it was absurdly wrong that man’s spirit so often surrenders before his body has begun to. There are few occasions where that sad reality is as true as in Darfur, where systematic genocide by the Government of Sudan (GOS) was dismissed as inevitable, hopeless, or irrelevant by the world long before even the most minimal efforts had been made to confront or stop it. The international community’s body was strong, but its spirit was hollow.

But what has been largely true of international politics, was not true of everyone. In 2004, a young man named Brian Steidle was hired by the African Union as an international observer in their mission to document enforcement of the then tentative ceasefire agreement in the war in Darfur. This book is a product of his experiences there, as that ceasefire (never genuinely observed by Sudan), collapses and open violence spreads.

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India’s Irregular Terror Front

Posted by: Ion | April 12th, 2007 · 8:26 PM

A statement, released by India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Al Qaeda’s bombing in Algiers:

“Terrorism is a heinous crime and cannot be condoned in any form. The international community should cooperate closely to counter terrorism everywhere with renewed resolve and total firmness”
(DailyIndia)

It’s a pleasant sentiment. We’re ready whenever Dr. Singh is, to isolate the world’s largest financier of terrorism. Unfortunately, he seems to have other plans at present.

It only took five years or so for statements of this sort to acquire the force and resolve of Indian opposition to hunger in Africa. The rejuvenation of action from the subcontinental behemoth must be a priority. Their position on Iran and other terror states is untenable and enormously damaging to any containment strategy.

If the United States were to legitimately exercise her enormous trade power with Delhi to effectuate change, there’s little doubt the Indians would persist. If State wants a backdoor diplomatic vehicle to Tehran and Damascus, for Pete’s sake use Azerbaijan, which has been begging for the job for years.

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Crescent Against A Shy Cross

Posted by: Ion | March 30th, 2007 · 8:46 PM

As you read this, the Saudi government is building mosques in the United Kingdom. How many Christian churches is the United Kingdom building in Saudi Arabia? The answer is obvious enough to inspire a smirk. Yet what are the costs for a nation in denying a religious war exists and choosing instead to wage it exclusively on secular political grounds (if at all)? Well, the costs are mosques are built in London and no churches are built in Riyadh. This will have consequences whether we acknowledge them or not.

Consider the political power of inverting this argument for a moment too. The Saudi government prohibits the importation of the Holy Bible into its country, it would react with fury should someone propose the construction of a large Christian church in its capital, despite that it spreads its own religion everywhere in the world. But it would be furious above all not in the name of Allah, but because you would be suddenly and finally fighting it on its own terms. That is, instead of conceding it the spiritual battlefield wholesale and declaring you’re fighting its political institutions alone (a meaningless distinction in a theocratic monarchy), you’d be striking at the heart of its political dream for the world.

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Qaddafi bones up on his Green Book

Posted by: Ion | March 6th, 2007 · 1:50 PM

OrDoesItExplode has a photograph of Qaddafi debating Benjamin Barber and Anthony Giddens, which we discussed here. Explode’s comment: “the shots of Qaddafi reading up on his own book of drivel are quite hilarious…”

If you’ve ever read any portion of the Green Book -which is a largely unintelligible mish-mash of borrowed Marxist and Nasserite Arab Nationalist slop- you can forgive Qaddafi his lack of knowledge about it. Even to the Libyan populace, which is force fed it everyday, the Jamahiriya doctrine probably makes so little intrinsic sense, that it requires constant re-consultation.

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Libya After Qaddafi

Posted by: Ion | March 3rd, 2007 · 10:25 PM

Libyan autocrat Muammar al-Qaddafi, has suggested of late that he may be redundant to Libya’s future. While this isn’t quite as groundbreaking as has been portrayed -Qaddaffi’s Jumahiriya ideology theoretically requires no head of state- it does put into a new context the recent changes that have been taking place relative to Libya and the rest of the world and the ambitions of both the West and the Islamists (particularly Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) for control of the Maghreb.

Presently, the full title of Qaddafi’s Libya is: “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” The “Jamahiriya” is a term invented by Qaddafi to describe his concept for a new Islamic “democracy,” one without elections. In practice, this has meant a closed society under military dictatorship. However, while political control remains firmly in the grip of the dictator, Libya has begun to open up on broader fronts.

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The Descending Cloak of Silence: The predicament of the Arab blogger

Posted by: Ion | February 19th, 2007 · 8:09 PM

The antipathy toward the Web from the conservative authoritarian regimes of the Arab world is well known. For the Arab blogger, exposure to restricted access, police surveillance, intimidation and even arrest and torture are the preconditions for posting.

But as bad as things have been, we seem to be passing into a deeper freeze, as the blogger causes célèbres continue multiplying at a truly alarming rate. And of course, as dissident Arab sites keep abruptly turning into 404s.

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