Harry's Place

Still, I wouldn’t want to be left alone in a room with Muammar Gaddafi and a hatchet. Would you?

Not if you were wearing a beautiful ensemble that he one would kill for.

But of course al-Bashir hasn’t committed any crime.

He’s only sent good Arab Muslims on a mission to enslave and rape racially inferior (= black) Muslims in Darfur. That’s all right, and has been ever since M*h*mm*d, who did, and encouraged, the same sort of thing. See the K*r*n, passim.

Gaddafi is what Brian Clough would be if he had had an arsenal of chemical weapons.

I’ve always been a bit mystified how, why, if Gaddafi abjures all titles (as he is on the record as saying he does) – except “Colonel”, obviously, he keeps adding new honorifics for himself – what was the latest “King of the kings of Africa” or something, I think but there are others, too.

Oh, and reading the press releases from their state news agency, Jana (I once knew a beautiful Czech girl of that name, *sigh*) – is like going back to the days of Hodxaite Albania, all “Brother Leader of the Revolution said this to Brother Leader of the Revolution etc”

I do recall one press release from them that said (I think this would have been in the spring of 2002) “The Decision of the Republic of Niger to sever diplomatic ties with the Zionist Entity will be written in the annals of history”.

As I was, personally, in charge of writing the Annals of History (or at least a reputable and noteworthy Anglophone part of them, relied upon by people and institutions of stature) with regards to contemporary political and foreign relations of Niger at that time (and it was not even as if the ZE had an embassy in Niger, anyway. Possibly there could have been dodgy nuclear trading between the two countries, I don’t know – that definitely was not on the public record, but I suppose it would be foolish and naive to rule it out), well, i made my editorial decision, and proved Gadaffi wrong. Coverage of that, really probably rather trivial decision didn’t make the annals of history that I had any responsiblity for (fact that I am relating this to you seven years later notwithstanding).

It’d be good to think this part of the world might have markedly better leaders in 20 years time, say, than it does now, even if it is difficult to foresee how that might come about (as, of course, any change needs to come from within, not external imposition or aggression). Strange how the Middle East (incl. North Africa) was more or less the one bit of the world (well, I suppose, some bits of East Asia, too) that was more or less unaffected by the end of the cold war, in terms of political and societal organization.

At least Gaddafy’s line of dodgy regimes he former bankrolled (above all Charles Taylor’s Liberia) are now past. That’s one positive.

As I was, personally, in charge of writing the Annals of History (or at least a reputable and noteworthy Anglophone part of them…

You see, this is why – no matter whatever weird and disturbing nonsense about gays, or the Tridentine Mass you come up with – you’ll always be an ornament to this site!

Oh thank you dear boy. Domine non sum dignus.

“Arab League” how about worlds least democratic forum or some such. Quite joke a “representative” bodies go.

At Monday’s opening session he called the king a British product and an American ally

Ha! How ironic…

Gaddafi is an Arab supremacist and racist who bears part of the responsibility for the Darfur genocide. Hopefully, the ICC will get round to indicting him one day…

Still, I wouldn’t want to be left alone in a room with Muammar Gaddafi and a hatchet. Would you?

Depends. Am I holding the hatchet?

And where can I get some quicklime, cement and a shovel.

MAH

Unlikely, lad. BTW are you still Head Supremo for the Southern Eastern European Area for the Henry Jackson fools?

Still, I wouldn’t want to be left alone in a room with Muammar Gaddafi and a hatchet. Would you?

I wouldn’t worry. He is known for his swishing dresses and would probably trip over the hem while lunging to ‘grab’ you.

Forget about the hatchet.

Is Gaddafi the world’s longest running dictator now Castro has retired?

OT: HP might want to follow-up on “Government moves to isolate Muslim Council of Britain with cash for mosques” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6004850.ece (no govt contact with MCB anywhere)

Apologies: “It is understood that even some of the MCB’s supporters within Government, including David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, have now turned their backs on the organisation” Whoda thunk they were MCB supporters?

OT I had a talk with a friend of mine who converted to Islam and spent years studying the Koran (he dropped it afterwards)…

He basically said that while traditional Islam what is in the Koran etc. is not good, it’s no where near as hostile as its modern variants. There is a difference between the status of Christians, of Jew and of infidels in Islam or is supposed to be – and in recent times Muslims have decided that we’re all infidels.

Of course as an agnostic, I’d be classified as an infidel anyway. Maybe in classical Islam we should be hated and attacked because we are secular, not because we have Christian and Jewish backgrounds… But for instance the Saudis seem to be pushing a line where all Jews are considered infidels and the Iranians pushing a line where all Americans and western countries are.

I was trying to think of an historical parallel for the way the Arab Muslim nations interact (I think they are all in effect Muslim meets bar possibly Lebanon which may have some Christian reps from time to time) .

I am reminded a little of the Western imperialist nations between the Napoleonic Wars and the first World War. Although they all cordially detested each other, they were prepared to co-operate, and at a deep level something bound them together: the warped vision of imperialism, the right of mighty Western nations, under a cloak of Christianity, to muscle in on the rest of the world and exploit it as much as possible. It was a dirty game, they all had dirty hands and they were all in the business together.

Something similar with Arab Muslims I feel – they all subscribe to the supremacy of Islam and the concomitant supremacy of Arab culture. They all have an interest in doing down non-Muslim powers, wiping Israel off the face of the Earth (whether quickly or slowly), and maintaining the grip of the Mullahs on their people. They all have the same highly paranoid orientation to the rest of the world.

They are all in the same dirty business.

Yet, as I said in my post here on the 2007 darfur london demo, I was intrigued to hear Daoud Abdullah as one of the speakers at the demo, demanding that the Arab League, among other international orgs, recognise and act against what he openly called the genocide in Darfur.

Erm, field.
NOT quite true.
Britain was the first to get rid of the slave-trade.
Do you know why the “Great Trek” occurred?
Because of “British oppression” of the Afrikaaners – who WERE NOT ALLOWED to keep “Kaffirs” (THERE’S a good arabic word) as slaves any more – it had been much frowned-on, even before then.
Quite large parts of the British Empire were acquired by accident, or because something so horrible was happening, that we felt obliged to interfere.
Uganda, Burma and Gold Coast are cases in point.
This is NOT to say that bad things didn’t happen as well, please note ….

Josh -apparantly the main printer and exporter of copies of the Koran is Saudi Arabia. Because a lot of the world’s muslims don’t speak or read the original arabic, these copies come with translations and footnotes which apparantly give a Saudi-style view of the text which the more naive could actually presume to be part of the original writings.

An interestimg muslim historical parallel I tried to get over recently was about an Iraqi complaining about American Torturers sticking as bare wire up an Iraqi’s rectum and calling it Macaroni! The Iraqi attack on Kuwait , the raping of school girls and the drilling of holes in Kuwaiti skulls is just muslim brotherhood soon forgotten!!!!

You left out the best quote.

Col Gaddafi, the current Africa Union chairman, insisted he be allowed to speak, saying: “I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level.”

I had a German friend who used to work for the Libyan embassy in Bonn in the late 1990s. She had some Arabic, and her job was to put into polished German Arabic documents sent from Libya to Germany.

One day she got this letter to translate that went on and on and on using colourful emotive extreme poetic abstract language and not getting to any point, and she thought, ‘Who is this idiot?’, scrolled quickly down to the bottom of the page, and saw it was signed: ‘Gaddafi’.

So what did she do? She cut out all the guff.

So I asked her, ‘Don’t you think you did your own country some disservice by making Gaddafi look like a reasonable human being?’

And she said, ‘No, because what he was actually asking for was quite reasonable and completely minor’.

But in such ‘editorialising’ by junior figures are governments misled as to to who they are actually dealing with.

Gaddafi is an Arab supremacist and racist who bears part of the responsibility for the Darfur genocide. Hopefully, the ICC will get round to indicting him one day…

Except that he is not an Arab but a Berber.. The ignorance is astounding!

He’s only sent good Arab Muslims on a mission to enslave and rape racially inferior (= black) Muslims in Darfur. That’s all right, and has been ever since M*h*mm*d, who did, and encouraged, the same sort of thing. See the K*r*n, passim.

Bashir is an Arab too??
Seriously DavidT, where do some of these commenters come from….. outer space??

Well Arabs are defined as much by language as race. That’s my understanding, anyway.

A great deal is made by Arab speakers of the great beauty of their language and its miraculous powers. It is of course the language of God…

Arabic is an interesting language. Rather like Welsh or Irish.

Rastalion:
Bashir considers himself an Arab, yes. As do all the ruling class of Khartoum.
If they self identify thus, who are you to gainsay them- I live in London, not outer space and I have personal experience of this- how much personal experience do you have, in your smug inner space redoubt?
Just a couple of examples:
At one Darfur meeting in London, there were men in Arab dress with signs picketing Darfur rallies, saying Israel is guilty of the real genocide, and then in the meeting after James Smith of Aegis Trust has shown a film of the atrocities, one of the picketers announced himself as a proud Arab, before saying it is all lies and accusing Smith of fabricating the film.

And I collaborate with someone from the ruling elite who is now helping Darfuris, who has wept at recounting some of the things he has witnessed, saying he is ashamed to be an Arab. He of course has nothing to be ashamed of and is a very brave man.

But still it would seem that some people are more Arab than others. The Darfuris (black African Muslims) are less ‘Arab’ than Bashir, though it is patently obvious from his racial appearance that he is no Semite but of a mixed Arab-African race.

On another thread someone suggested that the real ethnic divide was not religious or racial but economic – a comptetiton between nomadic pastoralists and settled farmers.

It’s perfectly possible to be a supremacist and racist for a nationality to which one does not oneself belong. Look at Stalin.

On another thread someone suggested a comptetiton between nomadic pastoralists and settled farmers.
We have hashed this out repeatedly. On possibly the same thread, I quoted chapter and verse that the racial constructs date back to who were (and still are)the slaves and who were(and still are) the slave owners in Sudan.

“Gaddafi is an Arab supremacist and racist who bears part of the responsibility for the Darfur genocide.”

How so?

Thanks for this note ami. I’m not as up to speed on this as you, but I’m just querying that Bashir obviously has some African blood and is not a pure Arab, which suggests to me that there are other issues involved in definition of ‘Arab’ besides language and race (in the strictest sense). I.e. Gaddafi being a Berber.

‘Except that he is not an Arab but a Berber.. The ignorance is astounding!’

Oh yes – a bit like saying that Hitler couldn’t have been a German nationalist, because he was an Austrian. Or that Radovan Karadzic couldn’t have been a Serb nationalist, because he was Montenegrin. Or that Arabs can’t be anti-Semitic, because they are themselves Semitic.

On Gaddafi and the Berbers, see the following:

http://liosliath.com/blog/2007/09/01/imazighen-of-libya-facing-the-gaddafi-regime-by-m-bouba/comment-page-1/

So Gaddafi persecutes Berbers therefor he isn’t one? What is the definition of ‘Arab’? Is it a self-definition? If you feel you are an Arab therefore you are? Does it depend on who asks? Help appreciated.

Mike S: His philosophy of pan Islamism, pan Arabism encouraged the schisms.
Read Eric Reeves site for the history. Reeves writes recently:

“Libya’s Muamar Gadaffi, dismayingly the new President of the African Union, has for decades fomented violence on both sides of the Darfur/Chad border. He poisoned the atmosphere at Sirte early on, and gained instant notoriety for suggesting that the Darfur genocide was “a quarrel over a camel.”
ttp://www.sudanreeves.org/Article234.html

.Is Gaddafi the world’s longest running dictator now Castro has retired?

Fairly sure that El Hadj ex-Bernard Omar Bongo Odimba (or whatever he is calling himself this year) outpaces him by some way, as did Gnassingbe Eyadema, before he died and his son took over.

Oh yes – a bit like saying that Hitler couldn’t have been a German nationalist, because he was an Austrian

Gadaffi’s gaffs aside, Berbers do have a look that is distinctive from Arabs. They are the indigenous inhabitants of N. Africa and tend to be of a lighter complexion with lighter hair and eyes. They’ve a much more relaxed attitdue towards Islam’s diktats, as well, and are avid beer-drinkers.

Those hailing from the Kabylie ( spelling?) region of Algeria, for example, look distinct from Arabs and can often be quite blond.

And of the some 20,000 N. African converts from Islam to Christinaity, about 90% are Berber

We might not make distinctions, but the Arabs certainly do. In Algeria teaching the Berber language is illegal, and during the blood-soaked 1990s, Kabylie recieved particular attention on the part of algerian Islamists.

I guess the only thing remotely, residually Berber about Gadaffi is his weakness for curvy, purvy female guards.

Give the tyrant his due!

Sadly the UN and the Arab league are becoming indistinguishable.

Nick: I’ve long advocated that the UN should move its headquarters to somewhere more in line with its mission, say, Madagascar, or Tanzania, or Sana. That way, the current headquarters building can be used as a large vertical red light district thus solving one of New York’s chronic problems, getting sex without annoying neighbors. It’s the very definition of win-win.

If they self identify thus, who are you to gainsay them- I live in London, not outer space and I have personal experience of this- how much personal experience do you have, in your smug inner space redoubt?

What about having lived in Sudan for over two years?? And just for the record, there is no smugness on my part.