federal gifts, french burqas
Libya’s Qaddafi gave Condi Rice $212,000 in Gifts, including a diamond ring – the annual state department report on foreign gifts to federal employees listed that Qaddafi’s “darling African” received, among other things, a locket with a picture of him inside of it and a diamond ring.
That must be where all of Libya’s oil money is going….
Sarkozy’s Rejection of the Burqa Will Only Further Marginalize Muslims – Now, Sarkozy is attempting to institute a ban on wearing a burqa/abaya/niqab in public in France. Sabria Jawhar, the author of this article, defensively states:
For the record, I wear the abaya and niqab in Saudi Arabia. I wear the abaya and niqab because it’s my choice. Contrary to popular Western myth, the abaya is not forced on women in Saudi Arabia. As an Islamic country, women are only required to cover the details of their body. While I am living abroad I wear a different style and color hijab that is conducive to the environment I live in. I choose not to wear the common black abaya in the United Kingdom for my own personal reasons that are nobody’s business but my own. But if I ever decide to put on the abaya and niqab the way I do in Saudi Arabia that also is my own business.
Wrong, Sabria. The abaya and niqab are forced in Saudi Arabia, even if not physically by one’s husband, then by peer-pressure, society, the government, the religious police, the essentially anti-women government. Don’t insult yourself by claiming it’s your choice. If it is, wouldn’t you wear the abaya and niqab in Western countries, having arrived by your own personal logic at the same conclusion about how you dress?
She asks, rhetorically and sarcastically: “Because, really, who in their right mind would wear such a thing?” Bingo.
And she confuses pleated skirts worn by Catholic school girls as “religious clothing.”
qaddafi in italy
Does this man look like any kind of official, diplomat, politician, or otherwise international figure? Much less a “brother leader” or “glorious guide” or however he styles himself these days?
Unfolding his circus tent as usual in the park of the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, Qaddafi (recently having become the world’s longest reigning dictator) upheld a declaration of friendship with Italy, in which Italy apologized for having colonized Libya (which then was but an Ottoman province), massacred thousands of Libyans, and force-implanted colonists on what it called its “Quarta Sponda,” the Fourth Shore.
As nice as a symbolic gesture such as that may seem, it is empty and almost offensive to the history of Libya and the memory of the Libyan resistance. By the act of Sylvio Berlusconi apologizing and Qaddafi accepting his apology, both assume responsibility for the act, the Italian as colonizer/oppressor, the Libyan as victim/resistor/patriot, and so forth. Both were hardly born, and had nothing to do the (de)colonization or subsequent creation of the Kingdom of Libya by the UN. By Qaddafi assuming the role of resistor/victim, he insults the memory of the Libyans who actually did fight and die, for he himself has oppressed the freedoms and made difficult the lives of modern Libyans nearly as well as the Italian occupiers did at the beginning of the century. It is needless to say that Berlusconi then assumes the role of Mussolini (or the brutal Rodolfo Graziani if he prefers), with whom he doubtless doesn’t want to be compared.
But I’m not saying that symbolic gestures, or apologies, should never be made. I’m just pointing out that they should be done right, because, after all, they are symbolic and not real. Is Berlusconi apologizing to the people of Libya, since Qaddafi had no part in the affairs of the colony? Is a crook making a symbolic gesture to a dictator even meaningful?
If you want to read up more, check out these links:
Italy: Libya pay-off for ‘colonial mistakes’
La visite de Mouammar Kaddafi en Italie a frôlé l’incident diplomatique
Mouammar Kaddafi à Rome pour une visite historique
Colonisation : la Libye et l’Italie font la paix
accordion of wood and glass
James Stewart, of calculus textbook fame, recently completed his $24 million house in Toronto, its design supposedly inspired by integral signs. Check out this slideshow and article at the wall street journal’s website.
Regarding his reason for building such an expensive house, reportedly costing nearly all of his career savings and investments, he said
“My books and my house are my twin legacies…If I hadn’t commissioned this house, I’m not sure what I would spend the money on.”
Nice houses are nice. But he was completely unable to think of anything good on which to spend $24 million. If he wasn’t Canadian, I would say “typical uninformed apathetic materialist American.” I think there exist thousands of charities, foundations, and social/economic/health/peace/human rights projects that could have used even $500. Way to be a good human being, James Stewart.
saddam’s palaces
Just because it was Saddam Hussein’s palace does not mean that the construction was any good:
[well it seems that the relevant pictures has been removed from the photographer's site. if you've been to egypt, you can imagine what i'm talking about]
It’s exactly the same as the extremely poor construction used for major buildings in Egypt (which probably doesn’t enforce any kind of construction standards or regulations if it even has them), consisting of sand, homemade cement, and might-as-well-have-been-homemade bricks covered by nice layer of disguising paint or sheathing. The palaces look nice and pretty (actually garish and waaay too marbly) on the outside, while inside the walls is a mush of dust, sand, and probably dead things.
The funny thing is that the buildings constructed by the French and British colonialists close to 100 years ago are of higher quality and are more stable than those constructed in the past decade. Go to Cairo and see for yourself; a hammer-blow won’t knock them down.
You’d think a wealthy-as-the-saudis dictator like Saddam Hussein would have been able to afford some solid constructioneers and wall-builders. You’d also think a major country like Egypt would have the types of engineers and professionals that can build good buildings. Alas, in Iraq’s case all that oil money probably went to the army and chemical weapons, while all of the US’s aid to Egypt goes to building more prisons and torture-cells.
[The above picture comes from a beautiful photography series (entitled "Breach") on the current uses of Saddam's palaces by Richard Mosse.]
the future shah of iran
28 June 2009 at 12:45 pm (asides and comments, world leaders)
From the New York Times Magazine, an interview with Reza Pahlavi (eternal prince-in-waiting of the kingdom of Iran, or somesuch):
I attended a lecture by Reza Pahlavi himself earlier this spring. To his credit, he very aptly analyzed American-Iranian relations and American-Mideast colonialism. But the audience of a few hundred Iranians both old and young called for him to assert himself as rightful ruler and adulated him with all sorts of titles and honorifics. It was pretty obvious that he was leader-in-exile of Iranian shah-supporters who left during the Revolution. He insisted that it wasn’t about him then, too. But when you were about to be freaking king of a whole country, could it ever not really be about you? I don’t think he could ever convince me that he wants only freedom and justice for his people and has completely forgotten his royal status, money, power, cars, and gaudy military uniforms.
Go royalists. More on why kingdoms are a good thing later.
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