BlachanLab
Mo3jam ( معجم ) is a user-generated dictionary of colloquial Arabic.
Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images into a single pleasant and easy-to-use interface.
The word Shahi is Saudi Arabic for tea!
Qur'an Verses is an Islamic application on Facebook that allows the user to browse and search the Qur'an in many languages, explore explanations and exegeses, and listen to various beautiful recitations of the Islamic holy text.
Created in the summer of 2007, it is the most highly used Qur'anic application on Facebook.
4 CommentsWe’re doing our part to help the economy.
That’s according to new research out of the University of Melbourne, which found that Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) improves productivity by giving internet-centric workers a chance to refocus their minds between tasks. The increase is startling; workers who spend as much as 20 percent of their office time leisure browsing actually get more work done than workers who don’t.
5 CommentsThe ICRC’s confidential report on the treatment of detainees by the Bush administration is now available here.
The report’s myriad sections are a who’s who of infringements upon human dignity, with such gems as “Suffocation by water”, “Beating and kicking”, “Beatings by use of a collar”, “Prolonged nudity” and “Sleep deprivation”.
An excellent summary of some of the contents of the report are available here in an article by Mark Danner. His work on uncovering the shameful history of torture under George W. Bush cannot be understated. His assessment makes for fascinating and frightening reading.
An excerpt:
One works the imagination trying to picture what it was like in this otherworldly place: blackness in place of vision. Silence—or “sometimes” loud music—in place of sounds of life. Shackles, together sometimes with gloves, in place of the chance to reach, touch, feel. One senses metal on wrist and ankle, cotton against eyes, cloth across face, shit and piss against skin. On “some occasions detainees were transported lying flat on the floor of the plane…with their hands cuffed behind their backs,” causing them “severe pain and discomfort,” as they were moved from one unknown location to another.
And several Arab nations were complicit in the torture of detainees.
Shame on us.
No CommentsLast week, a TV row on Egyptian television between a columnist for the state-run Al Gomhouriya newspaper and a leader of Egypt’s Baha’i movement turned ugly, after the columnist apparently said the leader “should be killed”. Several residents at the village of Al Shuraniya, which was dubbed by one of the show’s guests as being “full of Baha’is”, burned down several Baha’i houses in the area.
“It was so painful to see all the children scared. It would have been better to have died than to have watched that,” said Abdul Bassit, Mr Ela’s brother, whose house was destroyed during the riots last Sunday night. “The police were there, but they were just watching. They didn’t take any of the kind of action that you would expect from police. This incident was such proof of ignorance and barbarism I couldn’t believe it was happening.”
The development is alarming but hardly surprising. It’s the result of the indifference of a government that allows the promotion of hate crime on television without repercussions, and which has considerably worsened the conditions of a minority that leaving religious affiliation “blank” on identification documents is hailed as progress.
Hatred of Baha’is is widespread because of poorly informed conspiracy theories alleging that they receive funding from Zionist entities, in addition to the fact that many Muslims consider them apostates because of their religious beliefs. Comments on an article about the fires on the website of Egypt’s Al Dostor opposition paper betrayed a lack of sympathy for the Baha’is, with one commenter likening the struggle to Islamic battles after the death of the Prophet launched against tribes that rescinded Islam.
Another commenter, claiming to be a moderate, said:
I’m against extremism in everything, but this Baha’i ideology is against all religious teachings and it’s essential to remove this destructive ideology from Egyptian society.
The xenophobia is palpable.
On another level, the Muslim Brotherhood ought to denounce hate incitement against the Baha’is to make the point that they’re capable of governing minorities while protecting freedom of religion for all.
No CommentsIt looks like the police “visibility” campaign succeeded in limiting the scope of today’s strikes. They were deployed in large numbers ahead of the protests, according to this BBC report.
Al Arabiya reiterates that the strike “fizzled out”:
Dozens of activists, students and members of the banned Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested, though there were no reports of mass arrests. A police crackdown over the weekend resulted in at least 30 arrests, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
No CommentsMore from Obama’s Turkey statements, as posted on The Atlantic:
But I also want to be clear that America’s relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al Qaeda. Far from it. We seek broad engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, bridge misunderstanding, and seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. And we will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better — including my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country — I know, because I am one of them.
The narrative of mutual respect is a powerful one. It’s a message Obama has espoused in his interview with Al Arabiya, and at various other venues. Last week he said at the G20 that the US was a peer among nations, and that he would listen, not dictate.
I have to say it’s gripping rhetoric. Many of the slights perceived in the last few years by the Arab and Islamic world were about encroaching on dignity – the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, expanding Israeli settlements, cartoons insulting to the Prophet Muhammad. It destroys the basis of rhetoric chastising America for its arrogant foreign policy, whose face was George W. Bush.
Mr. Obama, keep tearing down this wall.
No Comments No Comments
NATO agreed to appoint Anders Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, as secretary general, replacing the outgoing, splendidly named Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
Here’s the AP’s story.
You might remember Mr. Rasmussen as being Denmark’s PM who refused to apologize on behalf of media outlets that published the infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
No CommentsPresident Obama’s charm offensive continues as he attempts to woo the Muslim world in a visit to Ankara:
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not – and will never be — at war with Islam,” Obama said in remarks delivered in Ankara. “In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject but also to strengthen opportunities for all people.”
It’s a welcome change from Bush’s crusade gaffe. More news from Turkey after the jump.
No CommentsMore from Haaretz, by journalist Wafa Amr, pointing out Arab fears about a worsening refugee situation, and how the ultimate solution might be one monolithic state:
Jordan, where some 60 percent of the population is of Palestinian origin, is worried about the prospects of internal instability if Netanyahu fails to restart a political process with the Palestinians that will lead to statehood. Jordanians genuinely fear the revival of Israeli calls to transform the small kingdom into an alternative homeland for the Palestinians.
Egypt, mediating between Israel and Hamas for the release of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, and between the Palestinian factions to end rivalries and divisions, is also disturbed. The last thing Egypt wants is to end up with responsibility for Gaza if Israel pushes the Hamas-run coastal strip into its arms.
…
Palestinians believe the world can now see for itself that a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu, which does not support a two-state solution, might well bring about the option that neither Palestinians nor Israelis want: the one-state solution. The dissolution of the Palestinian Authority by further losing credibility would amount to admitting the bankruptcy of the negotiations path.
While I’m sure Netanyahu’s coalition is bad news, there’s a certain cognitive dissonance to labeling as doves the perpetrators of the assault on Gaza, whose inability to curb West Bank settlements continued to stretch Palestinian Authority credibility to the breaking point.
It’s cliched and one-dimensional to completely conflate Likud and Kadima though, which is a tendency permeating a lot of op-eds and newspaper reports recently. Let’s see how long it’ll be before US patience, if it ever does, wears thin.
No CommentsInsane foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s appointment by Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t take long to spark controversy. His remarks at his swearing in ceremony set the tone of what will probably be an obstructionist stance in terms of peace with the Palestinians. Lieberman kicked off by rejecting last year’s Annapolis peace process in favor of 2002’s Road Map for Peace, which essentially requires the Israeli government to do, well, nothing until Hamas is dismantled. Israeli columnists are not impressed.
Akiva Eldar, in a pretend letter by a diplomat writing from the Israeli embassy in Utopia, where he alludes to the United States:
Yesterday my eldest grandson called and asked what I would do when the man who wants to get rid of our Arab citizens comes for a visit.
What do I tell him? That I’m just doing my job? When I think that my deputy, a young Arab diplomat, will have to host Lieberman, I get the chills. I asked him, jokingly of course, if he has signed the loyalty-to-the-State-of-Israel form already. I don’t envy our guys in Cairo, who have to explain how their peace-loving state appointed to a top diplomatic post a man who threatened to bomb the Aswan Dam and cursed the Egyptian president to hell.
The Middle East staffers in Utopia’s foreign ministry are not suckers. They are fed up with sending millions of dollars to the Middle East every year. The economic crisis is palpable here, too, and already some politicians and commentators are asking why their taxpayers should foot the bill of Israeli occupation. One official reminded me that the entire “donor states” matter is not philanthropy but an instrument to advance the peace process. He suggested that I make it clear to my superiors that if Netanyahu intends to gamble on the Iranian card and endlessly extend the negotiations with the Palestinians, we will have to pay the teachers’ and doctors’ salaries in the West Bank.