America

Not a good way to begin the new year.

 

KHARTOUM, Sudan - An American diplomat and his driver were shot to death Tuesday in the Sudanese capital, the U.S. Embassy said, a day after a joint African Union-United Nations force took over peacekeeping in Sudan’s Darfur region.

It was not known if the attack had a political motive or was a random crime.

Darfur, far to the west, is engulfed in violence. But the Sudanese capital and its surroundings rarely see political violence or attacks by Islamic militants.

John Granville (shown in the picture above) worked for USAID. Apparently the shooter waited early before dawn for the driver to pick up the diplomat and then made the move. The incident took place at about 4AM.

I spent the last two hours or so delving into the reports and Sudanese opinions concerning this story. Opposition parties are already using the incident as a stick to beat al-Bashir’s ruling NCP. Furthermore, at the moment there are many speculations over who did it and why. Bla bla bla, this an isolated incident. Bla bla bla, this is defintely al-Qaeda’s doing. Bla bla bla, their car got caught up in the middle of a fight unfortunately.

Even the details of where John was shot are inaccurate.

First we have this:

he was hit by five bullets in the head, neck and chest, the statement said.

And then we have this:

the American was shot five times in the hand, shoulder and stomach.

Wonderful!

The local authorities and the US embassy have begun investigations.

Sudanese authorities are expressing their regret over Tuesday’s deadly shooting of a U.S. diplomat in the capital of Khartoum.

Really? So first you stir anti-Western sentiments using the state media to deflect attention away from local issues and then you express regret? I’m not sure I get it but hey what do I know? I’m just a dumb 21 year old Sudanese kid.

The timing of the attack is interesting and may provide some clues.

The shooting happened one day after a joint United Nations-African Union force took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur.

On Monday, President Bush signed legislation allowing U.S. state and local governments to divest from Sudan because of the Darfur situation.

Indeed, Bush signed the Sudan divestment bill.

Personally, I smell al-Qaeda’s and their like-minded friends’ stink all over this but I think it’s best to wait and see. Meanwhile, I’m glad that Sudanese have been vocal in their condemnation. There are two general sentiments expressed. The first is “no matter what our differences are, this should never be the way to settle them” and the second is “this man was a guest in our country who must have been treated as such”. Nobody wants this to become a trend.

On a related note, shouldn’t we get a prize for being the African country with the highest number of gigantic crappy headlines for 2007 or something? Because seriously, we deserve one!

I discovered this excellent documentary by accident while watching stuff on YouTube. It affirms what I already knew.

As China gets bigger, it will need increasing amounts of energy to fuel its growth. That’s where Africa comes in. Sure, investment is great but the “no strings attached” manner in which China is conducting things is what heavily bothers me.

Watch the documentary for more. This is part 1 of 7:

Here are the rest:

• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

The first time I read about “The Taqwacores” was in Sandmonkey’s blog. Later on he’d tell me about a video he watched of the bands crashing an ISNA show (ISNA = Islamic Society of North America). “A band of Canadian Pakistani lesbians?! At an ISNA event?! No way!” was my reaction. He giggled… and he was right!

Read about the whole spectacle here. The article is UNMISSABLE!

The last part when they start smashing their guitars is hilarious! Rock on!

I know, I know, the title of this post sounds like an advertisement. Well, it is! Erm, kind of. Hell, you can consider this an endorsement. Why? Because I’m a huge fan of the “modification” I’m going to tell you about.

Mike is a friend of mine. He’s from Wisconsin. Met him a few months ago at a party and immediately liked him his invention.

He’s the co-founding brain behind…

a shisha like no other, a hookah that satisfies and makes you smile…

Say Hello to The HoboHookah

It’s the result of discovering the joy of shisha in Wisconsin, becoming a huge fan of hookah smoking by the time he was living for seven months in Egypt and then deciding to reinvent the whole thing after significant research. It’s known as “the first modern American hookah“.

I believe some Middle Easterners will not like the hobohookah and will consider it some kind of cultural rape. Worse still, they may even call it American imperialism. As for me, I like it. I love seeing this kind of cultural fusion and creativity. Plus, I enjoy my regular dose of shisha fruit flavors and the wonderful “vitamins” they contain, only now I consume them with style.

There have been many mixed signals coming from the US in regards to matters on Sudan and Darfur. Those gave me some serious headaches and after much thinking it occurred to me that there are struggles within the US government regarding what the exact policy towards Sudan should be.

Today I came across the following from Sudan Tribune:

• Divided US administration takes a toll on Bush special envoy to Sudan

The special envoy is none other than Andrew Natsios. He resigned. I know. Surprise of the century.

Natsios has a thorough understanding of the conflict from many angles. I praised him for that but he certainly did raise my eyebrows with his remark about Darfur not being a case of genocide anymore, which basically contradicts what Bush says.

According to Darfur activist John Prendergast the new envoy Williamson is a “heavyweight”:

“If given the opportunity to work directly for and with President Bush, and not get entangled in the staff-level internecine turf wars, he has a real chance of making a difference in Sudan,” said John Prendergast, a former Clinton administration Africa expert who described Williamson as a “heavyweight diplomat.”

Some Darfurian rebel groups are already starting to call for greater US involvement after Natsios’s resignation.

It will be interesting to watch if and how an updated US policy towards Sudan will emerge.

It might seem odd to many (especially Muslims), but I am deeply intrigued by Ayn Rand. Up until recently, I only knew small bits of information about her and the views she espoused. Lately though, I find myself getting acquainted better and the more I read, the more I’m fascinated.

The woman was tough and confidently outspoken. In this video she makes a number of solid points.

Her words left me wondering though.

As a Muslim I have trouble accepting human reason purely and solely as my guiding compass. Our intellect isn’t perfect. Reducing our existence within the elaborate order of our universe to mere coincidence seems far-fetched to me. I don’t believe it’s all some random accident.

In comes revelation. In too (and along with it) come numerous questions and hence the need to use human intellect in order to attempt to answer those questions - some of which are highly troublesome. Many get answered. A few others - Free Will Vs Predestination for example - have no intellectually satisfying answers. In comes faith.

The Question is, on which do we rely more, faith or reason? By default the answer to me is most definitely reason but that may change sometimes depending on what exactly we’re discussing. I however certainly prefer to rely on reason more than faith. One thing is for sure though, I don’t exclusively subscribe to either one or the other and I’m definitely not in favor of faith being the dominant factor in matters of the state.

Let’s do this and that because God said so? Hmm… No thanks. I prefer a strict system of Shura in place resulting in a representative democracy. Of course it would be completely useless if the majority relied excessively on faith anyway and there were no constitutional limits to protect peoples’ rights.

The aforementioned is related to ideas of mine written in a previous post:

What constitutes knowledge and what doesn’t to a particular society? In the West there is a higher emphasis on empiricism rather than revelation. In the Muslim world, the emphasis is instead generally on revelation.

Epistemology (let alone Islamic Epistemology) can be both fun and a headache.

I don’t believe I’ll ever reach a satisfying answer to the Free Will Vs Predestination issue. Philosophers have wondered about it and debated it for thousands of years to no true avail. I don’t expect to have better luck (ah, don’t even get me started about the idea of luck).

I have two choices. Give up. Or have faith.

I choose a third option. To have faith while I simultaneously delve deeper in hopeful pursuit of satisfying answers and “aha” moments.

And for now… Some Ayn Rand.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way I’m loving it. Why? Simple. Because it’s pissing off Hamas and the Iranian regime.

I watched the speeches a while ago. Both Abbas and Olmert delivered theirs eloquently. It’s highly evident that the speeches were very carefully crafted since delivering them is like walking in a minefield. One wrong sentence and a damaging explosion could be set off.

Overall, I liked what was said and while there is surely a lot of skepticism, this is a significant event which I’m happy to witness taking place.

Olmert is going to have a hard time convincing the Israeli right-wing that East Jerusalem will go to the Palestinians while Abbas is going to have a headache telling his people there will be no right of return for the refugees. Undoubtedly, those two are the hot core issues.

If anything, this conference has succeeded in isolating Hamas and the Iranian regime further. Clever.

What do you think? Consider this an open thread on the conference.

Bin Gregory Vs Umar Lee. What an extremely interesting read!

And its reasons. I love the guy. He’s so entertaining in presidential debates. Oh and he has very unique views on Darfur too.

Check them out here. I love the commentary he provides:

LTC Michael told me more than once that the Muslims reached out to him to protect the Christians from al Qaeda. Real Muslims here are quick to say that al Qaeda members are not true Muslims.

… The interpreter “Ice,” pictured here with members of the congregation outside St John’s after mass, grew up in this neighborhood. His family is Christian and St. John’s is their church. I asked Ice if the Muslims treat the Christians poorly in Iraq, and he said what other Iraqi Christians and Muslims have also told me: an unequivocal “No.” Ice said they had no problems at all until al Qaeda instigated friction between people.

It’s too bad that a huge portion of the American Right continues to insist “Islam is an evil death cult”. I prefer the other camp, the one which actually gets it. Islam and its interpretation is as monolith as we Muslims ourselves are. You’ve got the “Islamic Left” - progressive Muslims, secular Muslims, Sufis etc. - and you’ve got the “Islamic Right” - Wahhabis, Salafis etc. Yup, that’s pretty damn monolith I say.

Discovered via Iraq.DailyVoices.com:

Long live Iraq’s true freedom fighters!!

UPDATE:

I wrote this six months ago in a post that pissed off some people:

If, I repeat if, order and security is back and if Iraqis start seeing peace, prosperity and justice in the coming years, then I believe Bush will go down in history as a liberator. If that doesn’t happen, then he will forever be remembered as an evil warmonger and will go down in history as one of the worst presidents in modern times.

Now read what the BBC has to say. Yes, the BBC! Me is happy and cautiously hopeful.

This cracked me up so badly!

… it occurred to me that Democrats really don’t need to do anything. All liberals need to do is sit back and watch while the whole Republican government resigns after it’s discovered that they’re all actually gay.

That makes at least three this year. Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Richard Curtis. Am I missing someone?

Am I the only one finding this hilarious?

Me, me, me, I know why, I know why, please let me answer.

Ehm ehm, it’s a conspiracy. Shhhhh!!

Yes, it is. Apparently the tobacco and alcohol lobbyists are the ones behind the lies and propaganda exaggerating the dangers of the relatively harmless drug and making it seem similar to the very dangerous ones such as cocain, heroin, ecstacy and meth. Plus these greedy lobbyists know very well that if marijuana gets legalized, their profits will come diving down like a crazy World War II Kamikaze.

Okay fine, let’s get serious. Yes, there is some truth to the aforementioned but are there other reasons? Why is it illegal? No, not in Sudan. There even alcohol is illegal. After all it’s a majority Muslim country and most Muslims want no alcohol or marijuana (for the record I don’t smoke weed or drink alcohol but I do enjoy shisha).

I’m talking about America. Alcohol is super abundant here and it’s legal but weed isn’t. Why? I mean scientific research shows that both substances - unlike other hardcore drugs - are relatively the same in terms of harmful effects. Some even say alcohol is more harmful than weed. In mainstream American culture, alcohol is a part of most adult social gatherings (just like it is in many other places in the world). Why is the attitude towards marijuana different and why is it illegal? 

So, besides the tobacco and alcohol lobbyists, what are the reasons? Maybe economic ones are also part of the answer. The “underground” economy is worth billions in various American states, especially California. Legalization will mean bye bye to all that money.

Any other reasons?

Just a random question that popped into my head after stumbling on a Facebook cause calling for the legalization of marijuana.

Oh and in case you didn’t know, Elephant presidential candidate Ron Paul basically supports its legalization. He thinks it will free more time for cops to go running after the real criminals instead of catching non-violent people who use it recreationally. Those who oppose him have begun calling him the Pot Candidate.

I first came across the story while reading TechCrunch. It turns out China isn’t just stealing Google’s traffic but also the traffic of other Western search engines!

See TechCrunch’s new post on the issue for the details.

Yaaay to China’s wonderful regime! It has just declared cyber war on America. Best of all they’re using American technology to steal the traffic. Apparently they’re pissed off by Bush’s move to award the Dalai Lama.