Bernard-Henri Lévy, Kant and the Platypus

Don’t get me wrong but I find the embarrassment being heaped on the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy for his part-reliance on a fictional philosopher’s expose of Immanuel Kant’s sex life as a basis to attack the philosophical work of Kant in general as being both ironic and somewhat delicious.

Sephardic, Algerian, corporate millionaire, student activist, bon-vivant, French avant-garde philosopher, sartorial, narcissistic, social commentator, socialite, journalist, movie director (Le Jour et la Nuit – panned by the critics for tacky erotisism mainly invoving his wife Arielle Dombasle, and for hastening the demise of Alan Delon’s career), blogger, etc. etc.

Lévy, or simply BHL as he prefers to be known, is a difficult animal – like the platypus – to fully categorize.

Some of BHL’s work is brilliant, some trite. What is the truth?

In Umberto Eco’s wonderful book, Kant and the Platypus, Eco dissects science’s efforts to fully categorize the truth about the platypus yet concludes by restating Kant’s reasoning that ‘empirical concepts can never fully exhaust all their determinations’.

This is true for all of us.

Kant is a genius.

BHL? Perhaps he really is a new genus of platypus.

Eco put it more succinctly: ‘Kant knew nothing about the platypus, and that should not worry us, but if the platypus is to solve its own identity crisis, it ought to know something about Kant.’

Further Info:

http://filmsdefrance.com/FDF_Le_jour_et_la_nuit.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-france-levy12-2010feb12,0,3541326.story

Alphabetic Philosoup – D

An occasional blog;

an alphabetical abracadabra of language musings.

Doctor Dawkins,

Darwin’s discerning dissuasive disciple,

dismissing delusory dystopian distortion,

dispassionately debunks Deism’s divine determination;

demanding daring, deontic debate.

.

Izibongo

The Izibongo of Blackeen Barna

I read in one sitting recently the political/historical book Invictus by John Carlin, republished under this name to tie in with the film based on the book starring Morgan Freeman but previously published under the title Playing with the Enemy. The last book I read in one sitting was also coincidently set in Africa. It was Blood River by Tim Butcher, a harrowing travelogue that retraced Stanley’s mapping of the Congo River in 1874. Both books have in common the fact that their authors were seasoned journalists; Butcher the Daily Telegraph’s East African and Carlin the Independent’s South African correspondents respectively. Whereas Blood River left you with the taste of all that was evil in the world, Invictus is a homage to all that is possibly great, in the shape of Nelson Mandela.

I heard a radio interview with Carlin and he said that he has been accused of ignoring his journalistic instincts and writing a hagiography of Mandela, a biography of sainthood as it were. He went on to say that he makes no apologies for this and that Mandela was the only person in his experience deserving of such an accolade.

Having read the book I disagree somewhat. It is not a hagiography ( a very Byzantine invention) but an izibongo, a very African praise song for Nelson Mandela. Izibongo praise poetry is generally perceived as being part of the Zulu tradition but equally they form part of the Xhosa tradition, from which Mandela springs in the Madiba clan. The main difference, according to Oppert, is that Xhosa poets are prepared to improvise whereas Zulu poets are rigid in their formulaic rendition.

This also sums up the character of Nelson Mandela who was prepared to both improvise and compromise, for the sake of a peaceful transition to a new South Africa.

These musings on ‘praise songs’ transported me back a few years to a temporary South African phase of my own when I conducted research on one Osman Tisani, known in this area where I live as Blackeen Barna, with a view to writing a play.

The play was to be called the Izibongo of Blackeen Barna.

Why the interest?

Well there are a number of strands of research, all of which were equally fascinating to me and probably interfered with the discipline of distilling a play from it, which are worth explaining a little.

Osman Tisani a Zulu boy arrived in Galway docks from South Africa about 1903 ( the first scene of the play was having him sitting in the docks on top of his luggage waiting) and was taken into the home of Marcus Lynch in Barna House.

Marcus Lynch was the scion of a branch of one of the most famous tribes of Galway, the Lynches. The Lynches were of Anglo-Norman stock and were established in Galway since 1226. Where Barna House is now was originally an O’Halloran castle. The O’Halloran clan (from Ó’ hAllmhuráin, the stranger from beyond the sea), a subordinate clan of the O’Flahertys who had been pushed across the Corrib by the Norman de Burgos, had taken the land around Barna from the O’Heynes and held it until November 1628 when the Lynches obtained it in settlement of a debt.

The senior male Lynches of Barna House were called in successive generations Nicholas or Marcus. Marcus Lynch appears on the title deed of my own house. He was born in 1839 and married Blanche, daughter of Count Julius Marylski of Leuczyca, Poland in1867. The couple first met at the races in Longchamp, France. Indeed Marcus must have been a serious gambler on the horses as at one point the deeds of the land where our house stands comes into the ownership of the bank run by the 1st Baron Rothschild in Paris. Anyway to return to the story they were to have five children. The firstborn Nicholas was born in April 1868 and then there were three girls who all subsequently became nuns, and another boy who died in infancy.

Nicholas Lynch was educated at Clongowes College and then joined the Army. He served as a Captain in the West African Frontier Force, patrolling in the Muri Mountains in 1898 before leaving with General Woodgate for South Africa and becoming part of his command, as a Captain in the South Lancashire Regiment. The first action they encountered was the disastrous attempt to take Spion Kop (Spy Hill). Although the South Lancashire’s only supplied two companies to that action they lost a disproportionate amount of officers and men.

Another digression. In that same action Nicholas Lynch of Barna would have been in the company of fellow tribesmen from the Connaught Rangers; opposing him, fighting with the Boers, were a number of members of MacBride’s Irish Brigade: waiting at the bottom of the Kop with stretchers to carry away the wounded, having been given permission for the first time to function under fire, was Mhatma Ghandi and his Indian Ambulance Corps and he would have encountered, acting as the courier from the battle to headquarters, Winston Churchill.

The Dead at Spion Kop

The action at Spion Kop was to reverberate down to this day. In the memory of the steep banked summit packed with dying men the equally steep spectator terracing at one end of many football grounds, most famously at Liverpool’s Anfield, are known as the Kop.

Anyway Nicholas Lynch was to survive Spion Kop only to die of enteric fever in the No 4. Hospital on the Mooi River on 13 November 1900. Well not quite the main field hospital, as the officers had appropriated a local hotel and turned it into their own infirmary separate from the ranks. The British forces lost more men to disease than gunfire in the Boer Wars.

Three years later Nicholas’ native servant or ‘boy’ was, for whatever reason, to turn up in Galway docks.

Why I wondered? I needed to know.

The Lynch lands around Barna had been divided up, following Marcus’ death – there is a photograph of him being waked on the front steps of the house, sitting ‘dead-still’ with his sister at his shoulder. People obviously came up the driveway, paid their respects to the sitting but deceased Marcus and walked on! This was going to be another scene in the play – by the Land Commissioners.

I travelled up all the boreens of Barna to talk to some of the older farmers on these plots of allocated land. These men would have been the sons of those who got the land from the Land Commissioners. Some were helpful but some were highly suspicious of my enquiries into Osman Tisani.

Lynch Mausoleum

Barna Church, Co. Galway.

I learnt from these contacts that Osman was 14 when he arrived in Galway; when he was brought by Marcus for his first day at school all the other children jumped out the window at seeing a black man; he was small but had a skill as a thatcher but had to be taught how to thatch the Connemara way; he became a good handballer and Marcus Lynch erected the handball alley that still stands across from Barna Church for him; he had a terrible temper and one farmer remembered his own father lifting the angry Osman and sitting him down on the hot range to shut him up; in later years he wore dapper white suits and fell in love with a local girl who promptly emigrated to Canada… and so on.

They all could recount these stories but no one could tell me how he suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth!

Some say he went mad. Fully expecting to inherit the Barna House on the death of Marcus this ambition was blocked by the remainder of the family. Some say he ended up in either Ballinasloe or Loughrea asylums. I checked. There are no records available. The mass graves that most inmates are buried in are unmarked. The end went dead.

Was he killed I wondered?

Why did he expect to inherit Barna?

Why did he come to Galway at all?

The 1911 census provided a clue. Osman is listed along with Marcus, his sister Margaret and four others as being residents in Barna House. He is recorded as being able to read and write in English. His place of birth is recorded as …..Tim Buc Too. This was hardly a mistake of information. Marcus Lynch was a justice of the peace and an exact man. Timbuckto is in Mali, not Natal in South Africa. Osman Tisani was not a Zulu!

The only explanation I could think of, was that Osman Tisani was rescued as a child from slavers operating from the interior near Timbuckto across Nigeria and the Gold Coast by Nicholas Lynch when serving in the West African Frontier Force. When Nicholas Lynch died at the Mooi River Tisani had no place to return to, just to Nicholas’ home in Barna and that these arrangements must have been put in place before he died.

This discovery interrupted the plan of my play. An Izibongo for Blackeen Barna, would be pointless if his spirit would not understand its nature. The final act of the play was to be in the asylum with Tisani dying from TB. I had commissioned a lovely lady called Nompumelole to write the izibongo for me. He would be looking out the window and this song would filter through, African drums, then silence.

Here is the Izibongo Praisesong for Osman Tisani, the lost boy of this parish:

IN REMEMBRANCE OF AN UNKNOWN WARRIOR

AUTHOR: NOMPUMELO (SELINA) FALENTSINI

Tiso, Mshengu ka Shabalala.
Ludonga luka Mavuso.
Sidwaba sithi singabangcwaba,
Size nomlandakazi.
Size nomlandakazi.

Tiso, Mshengu – mfo ka Shabalala.
Son of Afrika!
Son of um-Afrika.
Phantsi lee kwa – Zulu Natala.
From the land of Senangakhona ka Jamba.
The Land of Shaka ka Senzangakhona.
And the land of Mzilikazi and Cetshwayo.
A son from the land of the brave.
A son from the land of the brave.

Many amongst your people may not have known you.
And many may not have heard about you.
But to us, you are a true warrior of a different hew.
Uyilembe elenga amanye amalembe ngokukhalipha.
Ulibhubesi elabhodla obala,
Kwafa izitsha, zaba wubuchobololo.
Kwafa izitsha, zaba wubuchobololo

Tiso, mfana ka Shabalala.
Nogalela angadinwa.
Nkonyana yangakithi, eyagibela.
Imbhongolo ilibangise e-Irelanda.

I hear the Roar of an African Lion!
I hear an African Warrior shouting!
Coming right from the land of the Irish.
Calling to mother Afrika.
To welcome him home.
To welcome him home.


Awu!, ahamba amabhungu
Kwasala izalukazi.
Mhlaba ndini uyafihla!
Mhlaba ndini awudeli!
Mhlaba ndini awusuthi!
Mhlaba ndini awusuthi!

Young men have died,
Leaving behind old sickly women.
Earth you swallow!
Earth you are never satisfied!
Earth you are never full!
Earth you are never full.

Tiso, mfana wangakithi.
Uyohala unathi njalo.
Nakuso sona les’sigaba,
Sokuvuselelwa kwe-Afrika.
Size sibonane futhi!
Size sibonane futhi!

Interestingly there is also an izibongo for the Lynches of Barna written during famine times

Loinseach Bhearna / Lynch of Barna

Déanfar droichead óir ar Pholl na hOistre fós
Le h-airgead as pócaí an mháistir,
Beidh arm seasta i gcóir ag tíocht ag déanamh spóirt
Ag amharc ar an óigfhear álainn.

Ó fíon is puins go leor bhéas againn ansiúd ar bórd,
Seo sláinte fear dhá ól trí ráithe;
Seod séan ar an oighre óg nach scarfaidh leis go deo,
Mar beidh buaidh Chonnachta ag Loinseach Bhearnan.

Ó tá loingis ag an Loinseach a rinneadh ins an tír seo
As fíor-scoth na gcrainnte a d’fhás dhó;
Réiteófar an cabhlach cruinn i bhfoirm cheart ‘s i gcaoi –
Is beidh a ngunnaí ar a dtaobh ag lámhach.

Ó, nach mór an spóirt sa tír nuair a bhéas an cabhaltach linn,
Barr a gcuid seolta faoi shíoda geala bána,
Agus tiocfaidh anall an rí nuair a bhéas an cabhlach cruinn
‘S beidh sonas agus aoibhneas i mBeárnain.

Ach céard a dhéanfas muid ansiúd, má théann sé choíche anonn?
Titfidh an dúiche uilig faoi smúit mar gheall air;
Gabhfaidh na meacha féin ó dhiúl a gcuid meala le teann cumhaidh,
Is na héanlaith – titfidh a gclúmhach le fánaidh.

Ó, tá iníon Rí na Gréige ag fáil bháis le cumha ina dhéidh,
Is níor chodail a súil néal le ráithe
Is gurb éard dúirt briathra a béil gurb aingeal é féin
A bhí i gcomhluadar Mhic Dé na nGrásta.

Ó, Loingseach álainn óg a bhfuil diamonds ós do chomhair,
Go bhfuil iasc ar chuile chuan mar gheall tú.
Ó, is ghlaise liom do shúil ná an drúcht ar maidin chiúin
‘Sé do shamhail bláth na n-úll sa ngáirdin.

A bridge of gold will be built across Poll na hOistre yet, with silver from the master’s pockets; a standing force, ready for sport, will be gazing on the beautiful young man.

With plenty of wine and punch on board – here’s a health to the drinkers! May it be a good omen for the young heir, and Connacht’s victory belong to Lynch of Barna.

Lynch has ships that were made in this country out of the very best timber that ever grew. The fleet will be assembled in good order, with guns firing from their flanks.

Oh, won’t it be great sport for the country when the ships are here, with topsails of bright white silk! The king himself will come when the fleet is gathered together, and it will be a time of happiness and beauty in Barna.

But what will we do if he ever leaves us? The whole district will fall under a dark cloud. Under the weight of sorrow even the bees will cease making honey, and the birds will cast their feathers in the wind.

The King of Greece’s daughter is dying with longing for him, and she hasn’t slept a wink for three months. She said he was an angel who was keeping company with the Son of the God of Graces.

Oh, fabulous young man, celebrated with diamonds, there are fish in every harbour as you promised. Your eye is as clear as the dew on a quiet morning, you are like the apple-blossom in the garden.



Size Sibonnane futhi!

Until we meet each other again.

Man-o-Pause and Bicycle Clips

I recently came across a quirky blog called Cycle Chick from Copenhagen, dedicated to an advocacy of all things bicycle but particularly extolling the virtues of girls in high heels pedalling along the boulevards of cities around the world. What about men?

Over the past 15 years or so I’ve noticed a trend, where the cohorts of my male medical colleagues who are reaching the age of 45 or 46 suddenly turn to bicycles for their physical outlet both as individuals but also as part of a group dynamic. The bike is bought after much thought about construction, gear ratios, and brake specifications. The riding gear, for dry or wet conditions, with or with out Tour de France logos, are carefully chosen and as a final flourish, with the selection of a moulded racing helmet, man becomes gladiator.

Is this decision on the part of many of my male colleagues to return to the saddle a symptom of what is perceived to be a mid-life crisis? A return to the carefree days of their youth, when the bicycle took them away at speed from the watchful eyes of their parents, to meet up, race and be with their mates. Only now it is an acceptable escape from their spouses and partners, promoting the concept of cycling as an aerodynamic sporting pursuit as being excellent for their long-term health – and a diversion safer than other forms of male ‘man-o-pausal’ expression!

In the quiet moments however individual thoughts turn to Lance Armstrong’s testicular cancer, their own prostates and a choice of saddle. Do they go for the padded seat without the traditional perineal pressurising (a.k.a. crotch-crushing) protruding nose or decide to pad up. They will know that some urologists have blamed the traditional hard-saddle nose with cycling-related erectile dysfunction and impotence (see References below).

Now I have to say I never went around inspecting my colleagues bikes to see who was a ‘hard’ man but possibly impotent. Or who were those who were ‘padded’ but still performing. But I do wonder on occasions; on those rare days when I have nothing else to wonder about or sometimes, as a flash of spokes and lycra go whizzing by, I momentarily question 'Should I again?' (Truth be told about three summers ago I did get back on the bike on a glorious day and cycled to Spiddal and back. The next time I ventured out it rained for the entire journey and thus my phase lasted about two days.)

This intense mid-life cycling ‘perineal pressure’ phase for the majority of my colleagues appears to last for about two to three years and then fades out (or is washed out by Irish rain and terrible secondary roads) with a return to running, golf, tennis, drinking, normal function.

For some individuals however mid-life cycling becomes a way of existing. A way of believing in themselves: the lower the gear ratio the greater the penetration of being. Forget padded seats. These boyos have bicycle clips as body art adornments for greater satisfaction.

References:

HERSHFIELD, N. B. Pedaller’s penis. Can. Med. Assoc. J. 128:366 – 367, 1983.

JEONG, S. J., K. PARK, J. D. MOON, and S. B. RYU. Bicycle saddle shape affects penile blood flow. Int. J. Impot. Res. 14:513–517, 2002.

MARCEAU, L., K. KLEINMAN, I. GOLDSTEIN, and J. MCKINLAY. Does bicycling contribute to the risk of erectile dysfunction? Results from the Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS). Int. J. Impot. Res. 13:298 –302, 2001.

SCHWARZER, U., W. WIEGAND, A. BIN-SALEH, et al. Genital numbness and impotence rate in long distance cyclists. J. Urol. 161(Suppl.):178, 1999.

SCHWARZER, U., F. SOMMER, T. KLOTZ, C. CREMER, and U. EN- GELMANN. Cycling and penile oxygen pressure: the type of saddle matters. Eur. Urol. 41:139 – 43, 2002.

Alphabetic Philosoup – C

An occasional blog;

an alphabetical abracadabra of language musings.

Chomsky’s Cartesians contend,

conjuring Canaanite culture’s concise cuneiform conversion,

‘Cant columns cannot cope carrying capitals.’

.

Random Events –The Devil's Number

I do not get to the gym as often as I’d like and because there are significant ‘epochs’ between my attendances it is like a dead man walking as I approach the Lifefitness.Inc Elliptical cross-trainer. I aim for a 45 minute session (40 active and 5 cool down period), type in my weight while looking away, select the intensity level – basing this decision on the time of day, the lunar cycle, the colour of the leotard the ‘young one’ on the next machine is wearing, anything but a reality – and then press the random button.

I like the uncertainty notion of having to respond to a sequence of random events dictated by an inanimate machine. A series of troughs and peaks spread out over 40 minutes. Yet in time you see patterns. The machine is determined to punish you in the third quarter, the intensity and demand on your fitness at its most stretched.

You pick indices to survive. The 10 minute quarters, the distance in kilometers travelled, the circuits completed. Everybody is different. A colleague at work the other morning, a serious long distance runner, says he spells out in his head the signage that he passes or sees. For me on the elliptical death ride the most important sign that end to my torment is nigh is the approach of the Devil’s Number – 6.66 km. From there it is down hill to an average – for those of you who might be nosey about a 53 year-old’s capabilities – of 7.5km travelled, 1850 meters climbed and 550 calories burnt.

The Devil’s Number originates in John’s Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. Written about 90 C.E. it states:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

In all likelihood the number of the ‘beast’ referred to is probably not the Devil but most likely the perceived devil incarnate of Domitian, the Roman Emperor at the time the Book of Revelation was written, and a man detested by Christians, Jews and Greeks alike for his persecutions. The number 666 is derived by counting the Greek numeral-letter equivalents (The numerology 'science' of gematria) of his coin inscriptions. When Hebrew gematria is applied the number 666 can be derived from the Aramaic version of the Emperor Nero’s name, another ‘beast’ of a man who endeared himself to his subjects!

You would imagine that this type of superstitious politico-religious cryptography would have no impact in the modern world. But it is not the case. About ten years ago Armenia introduced social welfare identity cards. A highly orthodox traditional society the debate about their introduction did not concentrate on the civil liberty aspect but centered on those cards, which might incorporate the Devil’s Number of 666 in the card identity numbers. The debate reached parliament and a solution was reached where those responsible for the introduction had to design computer programmes where the sequence 666 would be edited out.

I remember asking a friend of mine who was involved in the fraught negotiations concerning the cards introduction, when on a visit there in 2001, was there any problem with the sequence 999? He asked me what I meant? Well I said, a bit of 'devilment' rising in me, if when you showed your identity card if it was presented with the orientation to the giver rather than the receiver then the receiver would see the sequence 666 standing out. He said ‘Don’t go there. We have enough issues.’

I always wondered subsequently whether this possibility enforced the development of a distinct transfer etiquette on peoples’ card-handing-over behaviour in Armenia.

Like I said. I like randomness and the potential for chaos. Even if I am gasping for air!

Alphabetic Philosoup – B

An occasional blog,

an alphabetical abracadabra of language musings.

Becalmed beyond Babel's boreal breakwaters Being becomes bellicose.

.

Alphabetic Philosoup – A

An occasional blog ,

an alphabetical abracadabra of language musings.

An ancient anonymous astronomer analysing axial astral

altitudes – apogees, aphelion, azimuths – amongst astrolabes

and almagests announces aphoristically,

‘Aah! Aardvarks abreast annihilate ants after all’.

.

Avatars and Exits

I went with my daughter to see Avatar on Sunday evening. I bought the tickets and she the sweets and ice cream. A fair deal! The movie was worth seeing albeit about a half-an-hour too long.

James Cameron, the director, was determined that every cent he spent on the graphics depicting tame flying reptiles dropping precipitously with their umbilically – called shahaylu, the bond – attached riders from cliff faces would be seen.

Despite the expense about every section of American society from religious fundamentalists to gung-ho neocons will be pissed off at some point by the story. In particular the private security firm employed to be protective for the ‘skypeoples’ mining colony – for the rare mineral Unoptanium sic! – are depicted as becoming aggressively and murderously pro-active and immediately Blackwater USA – now renamed Xe after a year of internal searching it seems – and Iraq spring to mind.

For the religious the chief scientific antagonist to the military boys is a Dr Grace Augustine. There is nothing north african or confessional about this girl. The forest glade sex scene (aka Braveheart) is abbreviated for the 12A audience yet somehow the whole controversy of avatar sex on the internet, particularly in the gaming Second Life system where teenage kids construct their avatars with detachable and oversized penises, is alluded to. Wow. All bases covered then.

And product placement too. Oh yes even in 3D. The Dick Cheney character, administrator Parker Selfridge, uses Titleist golfballs while plotting the destruction of the forest peoples. Not a Nike in sight then. Where is Tiger when you need him? Into the Woods with the rest of the cat people I suspect!

The feline connection in the construct of the central characters of Avatar, the omaticaya clan, is interesting in that the fourth avatar of Vishnu’s incarnation in the Hindu cosmology is Narasimha, the half lion-half man incarnation known for his ‘divine anger’ and as the great protector.

The movie is finally and indeed entirely an ode to James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, the integrated single organism structure of our planet named after the Greek mother goddess of the earth. (Also it must be noted the name of an internet avatar community) It ends a little too predictably or with the need for an optimistic feelgood goaway now message. Jake the central human character, the ‘dreamwalker’ or ‘avatar driver’ depending on perspective, in one of the last lines of the movie says :

The forest will heal, and so will the

hearts of the People. New life keeps the

energy flowing, like the breath of the

world.

I'm not so sure!

The 3-D effects are reasonable although the glasses distributed allowed in too much glare. We were sitting near the exit and the green box exit sign kept intruding on my peripheral vision. All I could think of was Xe instead of Exit and the how the Iraqi community was exposed to rape, murder and torture by these Blackwater ‘security’ personnel. Blackwater were/are Avatars for the neo-con agenda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

Galway Winter

Going Nowhere Fast

Going Fast Nowhere

Morning Walk

The Front Garden

High Dudgeon and Dungeons in Dubai

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai,

Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,

How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp,

Abode his Hour or two and went his way.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khyyám

Translator: Edward Fitzgerald

In my blog of 7 Dec 2009 I mentioned that Abu Dhabi controls most of the oil wealth in the UAE and it was hoped would come to the aid of the economic implosion in Dubai. I also expressed concerns that given the history of disputes between the al-falasi – to which the al Maktoums of Dubai belong – and the al-falahi – to which the al-Nahayn of Abu Dhabi belong – that it was uncertain whether Abu Dhabi would be rushing into help and if they did what would fully satisfy an al-falahi sense of superiority.

(The al-falasi and al-falahi are both sections of the Bani Yas tribe of the Liwa Oasis but who have their origins in Yemen, and who relate their geneology back to ‘Adnan, descendant of Kedar, son of Ishmael, son of Abraham.)

Now we know and it is high dudgeon in Dubai.

The Burj Dubai, the highest building in the world at 828m (2716) was opened this week and unexpectedly Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the al-falasi renamed the tower Burj Khalifa (Pearl of the Successor) in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the al-falahi leader of Abu Dhabi (who possible unaware of this impending honour did not bother to turn up to the opening ceremony) .

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan

Imagine the joy in al-falahi hearts! The junior al-falasi tribal breakaway group in Dubai, who have been lording it for years, finally put in their places. Every Night and Day, as Omar Khayyam would have it, the al-falasi will see the tallest needle in their world piercing the sky of their hearts. High Dudgeon indeed!

Omar Khayyam's Cubic Equation Solution

As an aside Omar Khayyam was a brilliant mathematician and without his approach to the solution of ‘cubic equations’ the Burj could not possibly have been built.

As another aside no one is quite sure of the origins of the word ‘dudgeon’ which is used to imply a sense of extreme indignation but in a strange twist of sound and circumstance, to me it equates in the Burj’s case to 'dungeon'.

High above the street the multi-millionaire owners of the Armani designed apartments will never have to leave the building.

Rihla (Journey 11): Austria – Salzburg Smoking Settee

Rihla (The Journey) – was the short title of a 14th Century (1355) book written in Fez by the Islamic legal scholar Ibn Jazayy al-Kalbi of Granada who recorded and then transcribed the dictated travelogue of the Tangerian Ibn Battuta. The book’s full title was A Gift to Those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling and somehow the title of Ibn Jazayy's book captures the ethos of many of the city and country journeys I have been lucky to take in past years.

This rihla is about Salzburg, Austria.

Salzburg in the Snow,

Jan 2, 2010

Another blog. Catch up time.

I am a pipe smoker and probably the only non-secretive smoker amongst my medical peer group. When I qualified about 15-20% of medical graduates still smoked but that proportion has decreased with information and occupational exposure to the effects of smoking to about 1%. In continuing to smoke it is not that I lack insight but it is the direct result of an addictive personality and having no desire whatsoever to discontinue.

Anyway, marginalised as I am (and probably deserve to be) on social occasions to dark, wet and windy exterior ‘lazaretto’ outposts in the alleyways and sheebeens of this world I now take pleasure – real pleasure – in finding places – restaurants, bars, airports etc – which provide smoking facilities without an overbearing sense of compromise.

A River of Cloud in the Gastein Valley

above

Salzburg, Austria

Imagine my joy!

It is January 2, twenty ten (according to a BBC missive) I am in Salzburg Airport, down from the mountains in a snowstorm, the plane is running two hours late and I venture outside to smoke. Earlier in the day I had seen the house where Mozart was born between the throngs of shoppers on Getreidegasse, walked through the Mirabelle garden where Maria von Trapp had walked and where the fountain scene from the Sound of Music was filmed, and pondered on the Doppler effect (His seminal paper was beautifully entitled :On the coloured light of the binary stars and some other stars of the heavens) of Christian Doppler, a Salzburger, as I dodged the shoppers. I had also found quietness wandering through the 13th Century Hospital for the poor of Salzburg built into the cliff space, marvelled at the baroque splendour of the roof of the Cathedral and how it reminded me of some of the best of Ottoman roofs, wondered at the power of the city’s medieval Prince-Archbishops and the expulsion of Salzburg’s Jews and Protestants in different eras on winter days such as these and then, while looking at a weird skeleton installation in the crypt below the Cathedral – with its blank wall slabs ready for the headstones of future dead archbishops – getting really annoyed at knowing that a medieval law on blasphemy was being signed into law in Ireland at this very time.

A Skeleton Installation in The Crypt beneath

Salzburg Cathedral!!

(Irish Blasphemy Law sprung to mind)

Back to my smoke. In front of the terminal building there are a series of light-blue ironwork benches with gleaming steel-blue ashtrays attached at either end. It is dark and the snow flurries are blowing in. I sit down.

And …. There are cushions provided!

It is no longer a lounger for the desperate. It has become a settee for the sated.

Have a great twenty ten, whatever that is.

The Speed of Darkness

The picture above is of the two necessities carried in a Toyota landcruiser when traversing the Ramlat as Sab’atyn desert in Yemen in March 2006: the Kalashnikov rifle of our Bedouin driver/guide to dissuade potential kidnappers and the greatest essential, water.

Yemen, unfortunately, is at the forefront of all the news bulletins again … American and British embassies closing down because of fears of a terrorist attack by al-Qaida, despite what the Yemeni government claimed was a ‘successful’ pre-emptive air-strike execution of 30 Al-Qaida operatives at Shebwa on the 24 December.

In Yemen Al-Qaeda has found a fertile ground for its agenda. The establishment of training camps (akin to those established to train IRA and Baader-Meinhof terrorists in Libya and Syria in the 1970’s) in the inaccessible highlands and desert wadis to train willing ‘martyrs’ like the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is possible because of that inaccessibility but also because of tribal sympathy and protection. Most of these tribal groups are already in constant dispute with central government and in particular Al-Qaida has fermented and financially supported the political unrest by Houthi separatists in the north. As a result American financial support, to counteract this threat, for the training and equipping of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s armed forces has increased exponentially over the past four years from less than $11 million in 2006 to a projected $70 million in 2010.

To what avail?

Unlike the training of IRA and Baader-Meinhof terrorists in the ‘70’s in prosecuting their version of jihad al- Qaida are not willing to indulge any other philosophy or rationale other than their own. Indeed the jihad of al-Qaida has become its own self-contained belief system and radicalisation (martyrdom) its articles of faith. It is prepared, on any slim pretext of support for or by ‘Western’ influences, to exterminate fellow Muslims within the House of Islam.

Al-Qaida has a parasitic essence, weakening an already impoverished host (for now Yemen, but soon Somalia, and most likely Mauritania) and then departing for richer pickings elsewhere once the damage has been done. It knows only of the speed of darkness!

Further Information:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/28/al-qaida-us-yemen-attack

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Yultide Greetings

To Madeleine in Australia, Fateme and Amir in Iran, Michael and Penny in Bangladesh, Tom in Denmark, Mary in Paris, Peter in Abaco, Karen in Galway, Brian in Cork, Maureen in Tipperary, to all readers everywhere of the blog, I want to thank you for your interest and your comments over the year and would like to wish you and your families peace and, in this season of re-birth, every best wish for 2010.

I am not a religious person. Faith-neutral is probably the best description, with neither an avowal nor denial of any particular belief or non-belief agenda. That said the Christmas periods of my childhood were happy ones and although suffused with the religious environment that prevailed in Ireland in the late 50’s and early 60’s, for some reason the time of year, then and now, had and has a cadence rooted in a seasonal rebirth and nature.

It has always been cause for celebration, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. The Grianstad an Gheimhridh or midwinter solstice of our Proto-Celtic ancestors, the Shab-e Yalda of Mithraic Persia, the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, of the Romans – all originally dated for December 25 in the old Julian calendar (Julius Caesar circa 42 BCE, but shifted backwards to December 21 by four days with the newer and more astronomically accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582 CE) – the Christmas Day of early Christianity in the Western Rite (9 months from the more agreed upon conception day, and a date rather than a day maintained by the Gregorian adjustment), and for me the fascination of the Teutonic Jul or Yuletide.

My childhood nightmares and dreams fuelled by Viking sagas, the Brothers Grimm, of deep forests and elves, and giants and dwarfs … and my mother’s Yultide log (Christbrand, Tréfoir).

Every year about this time three small logs of Yew (the bark thick and tactile) would be delivered to the house, would then be wrapped in ivy, layered on top with a snow of icing sugar (or Plaster of Paris), and studded with berried Holly. Into the centre of the log would be placed a candle and the logs positioned carefully in the centre of the two fire mantelpieces in the house (one was always given away as a traditional present). It would be lit on Christmas Eve.

Yew, Ivy and Holly the very evergreen, very pre-Christian plants.

When Iseult (Esyllt) the Irish princess won the right to be with Tristan, her Cornish lover, she sang:

Three trees are good in nature:


the holly, the ivy, and the yew, 


which keep their leaves throughout their lives:


I am Trystan's as long as he lives!

May all that is good in nature watch over all of you and your families in the days ahead and the coming year.

Further Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Solstice

Goodbye Rory

Shortly after posting my last blog about the death of Ramin Pourandarjani I received a text informing me that a friend, Dr Rory O'Connor had passed away peacefully, in the care of his family, in the early hours of the morning. Rory tragically succumbed to a rapidly progressive neurological disease. I called over to see Rory last weekend. Although he was unable to articulate properly we still managed to have a conversation, by way of exclusion tactics and the use of his eyelids. He had borne the ravages of his illness with both fortitude and bravery and my thoughts at this time are with his wife and two young children.

Rory was one of of life's gentlemen, a good colleague and a good man. He will be sorely missed.

Safe onward journey, Rory.

Month’s Mind – The Torture and Death of an Iranian Doctor

Dr Ramin Pourandarjani and a torture sculpture by

Ahad Hossein in the Azerbayjan Museum

of his home city of Tabriz, Iran.

In your thoughts please remember the life and death of Ramin Pourandarjani, and for his grieving family.

On November 10, 2009 Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, a 26 year-old junior doctor from Tabriz, died in mysterious circumstances in the health unit attached to Tehran’s central prison. The authorities first said the causation was a heart attack, then they said poison and then finally suicide. Ramin was coming to the end of his compulsory military service and was about to emigrate to Germany to take up a fellowship in his chosen speciality. He had everything to live for and yet the authorities claimed he had committed suicide.

Ramin Pourandarjani’s life had been in dire jeopardy. In an earlier posting at the notorious Kahrizak prison facility he had looked after the detainees who had been moved there after being arrested during the street disturbances which followed the very disputed Iran elections in June 2009. Mohsen Ruholami Najafabadi was one of those beaten to death in the prison by the guards and the young Dr. Pourandarjani was brave enough, despite threats to his life, to issue a death certificate to that effect.

He later gave verbal and documentary evidence confirming this report to the Iranian parliamentary committee investigating the deaths in custody in Kahrizak prison and information coming out Tehran say that prior to giving that evidence he had been detained and threatened by Acting Chief of Tehran Police Brigadier Gen Ahmed Reza Radan, the man responsible for the Kahrizak facility. Radan was to call the torture and deaths at Kahrizak a ‘minor incident’.

A ‘minor incident’! The characteristic diminutive dismissal by someone who is pathologically evil. History teaches us nothing. Time and time again, in every society, in every era, sociopathic monsters are initially given power because of their ‘unique’ talents and willingness to suppress dissent to that society. That gift of power then reinforces the messianic pathology that courses through their veins. In years to come, when he is brought before the International Criminal court, Radan will protest as all monsters protest: ‘Who me? Just doing my duty judge. I rather be ringing chicken necks and doting on my grandchildren.’

Radan will be the reason the Islamic Republic of Iran will fail. Too late for the very courageous doctor-poet Ramin Pourandarjani! Please remember him.

Brig Gen Ahmed Reza Radan and a torture sculpture by

Ahad Hossein in the Azerbayjan Museum, Tabriz, Iran.

On a more positive note the Censorship Research Centre in San Francisco, USA (and I hope to God they are as genuine as they seem and not a CIA-fronted organisation) is developing specifically for Iran an internet communication tool that can bypass the blockade the Iranian authorities presently exert. The below is taken directly from the home page of their website:

“Haystack is a new program designed to provide unfiltered internet access to the people of Iran. The software package is compatible with Windows, Mac and Unix systems, and specifically targets the Iranian government’s web filtering mechanisms.

Haystack is not an ordinary proxy system. It employs a sophisticated mathematical formula to hide users’ real Internet traffic inside a continuous stream of innocuous-looking requests. In addition to providing anonymity, Haystack uses strong cryptography, ensuring that even if users’ traffic is detected, it cannot be read. Trying to find and decipher our users’ traffic amidst all the other traffic on the web really is like trying to find a needle in the proverbial Haystack.

Once installed Haystack will provide completely uncensored access to the internet from Iran while simultaneously protecting the user’s identity. No more Facebook blocks, no more government warning pages when you try to load Twitter or access news sites -- just unfiltered Internet.”

http://www.haystacknetwork.com/

http://thereport.amnesty.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/iran

Trucial Troubles – The Sheikhs are Sitting

Dubai Creek 1946 and 2006.

The Wind Towers of yore replaced by the Air-conditioned towers of now.

John, my neighbour, committed suicide earlier this year, driven to despair by the failure of his property investment in Dubai, it was a tragic portent of the now general implosion of the ‘fantasia’ that exists there with both Dubai World and the private investment arm of the ruling al-Maktoum’s family seeking delay on the repayment of 40-70 billion dollars worth of debt.

When Wilfred Thesiger travelled throughout the southern Arabian peninsula in the 1940’s he was a guest of Sheikh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahyan the future iconic ruler of Abu Dhabi and from 1971 of the United Arab Emirates, at the oasis town of Al Ain/Buraimi. In the mornings a servant would come and inform Thesiger that Sheikh Zayid was ‘sitting’ or in audience, receiving visitors and resolving disputes. At the time the disputes centered mainly around the camel stealing activities of the tribe of the Bani Kitab, and indeed much time was spent adjudicating on the relative merits of the batina, banat farha, or banat al hamra breeds of camels as to whether they were worth stealing back or not.

Times, if not the economic importance of appropriate decision making, have changed on the Trucial Coast. The Sheikhs of the Emirates are now going to have to decide how or whether they will, or can, bail out the enormous debt that Dubai World and the Al Maktouum ruling family investment vehicles have wracked up. Abu Dhabi controls most of the oil wealth and given disputes between the al-falasi – to which the al Maktoums of Dubai belong – and the al-falahi – to which the al-Nahayn of Abu Dhabi belong – sections of the Bani Yas tribe that resulted in a war in 1947 and continued after the amalgamation in 1971 it is uncertain whether Abu Dhabi will be rushing into help. I suspect ‘sitting’ will be the only action we will see, until any settlement extracted fully satisfies an al-falahi sense of superiority.

The UAE is a federation of seven states that has its origin in the General Peace Treaty that Great Britain entered into with 12 signatory sheikhs in January 1820 in order to suppress piracy on this part of the Arabian penninsula that was then known as the Pirate Coast. The initial treaty was further supplemented by the Maritime Truce of 1835 and the Perpetual Maritime Truce of 1853, when additional efforts were made to suppress slavery, and finally the 1892 treaty. After the United Kingdom withdrew its protectorate status in 1971 Bahrain and Qatar went their separate ways and six of the emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, and Fujairah) formed the UAE in December 1971 (to be joined later by Ras al-Khaimah – the pirate state that originally precipitated the Royal Navy reprisals and the 1820 Treaty – in 1972)

Of interest in the original treaty Great Britain insisted that the signatory sheikhdoms should include in their maritime flags the colour white to show that they were allies:

"In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate! Praise be to God, who hath ordained peace to be a blessing to his creatures! There is established a lasting peace between the British Government and the Arab tribes, who are parties to the contract, on the following conditions:

Art. 3. The friendly Arabs shall carry, by land and by sea, a red flag, with or without letters in it, at their option; and this shall be in a border of white, the breadth of the white in the border being equal to the breadth of the red, as represented in the margin, the whole forming the flag known in the British Navy by the title of 'White pierced Red'; and this shall be the flag of the friendly Arabs, and they shall use it, and no other."

All of the current individual emirati flags as well as the federation flag still include the ‘white’ demand.

John, my neighbour’s tragic involvement was not the first from the west of Ireland. Indeed the history of the transition from a camel-stealing, and pirate-raiding based economy to the excess of now was precipitated in the main by the oil and gas exploration licences granted to the D’Arcy Exploration Company by the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi in 1931. William Knox D’Arcy was the son of an Irish solicitor from the D’Arcy family of Gorteen, Co. Mayo. He made his first fortune in Austalian gold and then nearly exhausted this fortune exploring for oil in Persia. The D’Arcy Exploration Company on its last financial legs found oil just in time in May 1908. The Anglo-Persian Oil company was formed with D’Arcy Exploration and was then later incorporated into what became British Petroleum. Knox D’Arcy had made his second fortune and died in 1917, not that well liked. His first wife Ella, whom he had divorced, contributed, with Kipling, Conan Doyle and others, a short story called Irremediable to an 1893 book called Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages.

D’Arcy Exploration went on however. In March 1955, D'Arcy Exploration Limited building on the 1931 concessions was granted "the sole and exclusive right to explore for, drill for, develop, product, transport and dispose of oil within an area of the seabed and subsoil lying beneath the high seas of the Arabian Gulf contiguous to the territorial waters of Abu Dhabi, and which had been proclaimed on the 10th of June 1949 to fall within the jurisdiction of the Ruler of Abu Dhabi". The total area of the Concession was 30,370 square kilometers and had a validity of 65 years. The first large offshore oil field was found at Umm Shaif in 1959.

Trucial Oil and the Original UAE Emirs

Oil and gas began to flow, and in the slipstream, fantastic prosperity, development and air-conditioned and desalinated greed. The hopes of individuals and investors destroyed, lured by the bright-light ‘opportunities’ that we as a society are continuously attracted to. And now in the UAE there is an enormous economic vacuum and in that dangerous vacuum will flower a resurgence of angry anti-western Islamic al-Qaeda fundamentalist opposition.

The Sheikhs are not sitting they are sh**ing!

Proposed Ethiad Building in Dubai

Will the sun rise again?