en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/545749 Comments by Suddha http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49832228 Haha, *delete post* Still relevant: Actually the real significance of the Safavids lies in their establishment of an assertively Shia Iranian ideology, which was asinine of me to leave out. Missing the forest for the trees, if you will. A matter of deep geopolitical importance resonating down the ages, methinks. Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:47:38 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49832228 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49740943 Oh - and if you know of a computer game where the Safavids play anything like a leading role, I'd be much obliged if you'd point me to it. :) I don't know if it'd be more fun to play as Ismail I or to pwn him... Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:06:24 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49740943 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49740735 On capitalism: since this is on "taking" ME classes, I figured I'd touch on student foibles only. Of course the good Professor W------ would never claim such a thing to have existed in thirteenth century Anatolia. However, undergraduate students with no real exposure to pre-modern history often graft capitalist analysis onto pre-capitalist ages. Saw this sort of thing not only in "Islamic Empires" but also in "Ancient Greece," where of course notions of capital and capitalism are even more problematic. Of course it's relatively easy to correct, so all's well that ends well and with a good prof. As to contemporary relevance of pre-modern history, I'm not sure why you bring it up in this context - after all, I'd say (as a historian) that the most interesting errors in historical perception occur when one grafts a modern worldview onto pre-modern subjects. And we were talking merely about foibles - or I was. If we were to discuss this, I'd have to cede ground on the Fatimids. I know little about them and have only looked at them cursorily. But the Safavids built much of Iran, including the port of Bandar-Abbas and Isfahan. Their cultural accomplishments remain a touchstone for people who care about Persian culture. They effectively broke Uzbek power in Central Asia and moved a good many Armenians around, both of which certainly shaped the landscape of Central and Near Asia. And they checked Ottoman expansion to the East. All important, modern-world-shaping phenomena. But, obviously, things that happened since the early 1700s are arguably more important than those earlier occurrences. Or at least they're easier to trace, track, and quantify. How's that for ambivalent historiography? Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:03:58 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49740735 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49601390 Haha, beautiful. From personal chagrined experience (but a history class) I would add: -Thirteenth-century "capitalism": not a useful or relevant construct. -Fatimids and Safavids: not as similar as you think. Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:05:47 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/12/some-tips-on-taking-a-class-on-middle-east-politics.html#IDComment49601390 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/10/at-the-ballot-box-trouble-is-brewing-for-hamas.html#IDComment41152063 Here's the thing about Hamas being a criminal gang, akin to the Italian mafia (did you know that the US used them to help cement power in Sicily immediately following the invasion of Europe's soft underbelly in WWII? I didn't 'til very recently - but 'tis true). Even if one accept this argument, that doesn't explain the international community's rejection of them. Let's scale up for a minute and look at other states which get considerable input from criminal gangs/networks, and which are accorded legitimacy by the international community: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, and Equatorial Guinea, just for four truly glaring examples. Now, these states, which are currently being run as for-profit entities by criminal cliques, which kill and torture people, etc. - similar to what you're accusing the looters and shooters, if you will, of Hamas of doing - have no problem with the international community doing business with them. Shit, they don't even have much trouble with irredentism, a la Russia in Georgia. What's the difference? Power. And money. The interests of the wider international community (or the G-8, or the G-20, or however you want to parse it). Putin, Karzai, Obiang, and Zardari are useful to those interests. Hamas is not. You can argue moral high ground, if you want, and I might even concede some of your points though by no means all. But I don't think it's useful to you to try to take the moral high ground vis-a-vis international recognition of Hamas. A winter metaphoric simile, since it's almost that time of year: the snow on that mountain is a heart as pure as the driven slush. Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:54:54 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/10/at-the-ballot-box-trouble-is-brewing-for-hamas.html#IDComment41152063 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37071544 Well I'm flattered to receive such a complement! *preen* As long as we all seek after truth and are intellectually honest, with ourselves and each other, I think we'll all be okay. (And I'm glad to hear that you don't seek to downplay the impact of domestic violence in the US. It's unfortunately a phenomenon that is still very much "underground" in terms of public perception.) What I think BCell is going for is the fact that problematic gender relations underlie this encounter and the encounters between victims and abusers in the US. That said, obviously these gender relations manifest themselves very very differently from place to place. This is based on not institutional factors - the rule of law is quite weak in Kashmir, whereas it's much less incentivized here for me to go kidnap a cute girl with some of my buddies. But it's also a function of cultural factors. Regard for women and their status as human beings is lower in some places than in others - or regard for women is manifested in different ways, to put a different spin on it. Of course when these two factors come together, the resulting dynamic is pretty problematic. Sat, 3 Oct 2009 20:19:49 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37071544 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37070084 Just to clarify: I do not agree that the Afghan Taliban and their foreign and criminal associates are responsible for the majority of violence against women in "Afghanistan." They are certainly responsible for a majority of civilian casualties. But I suspect that the vast majority of violence against women is carried out by everyday "Afghan" men who have no political or religious motivation for their contemptible actions. Sat, 3 Oct 2009 19:56:45 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37070084 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37052288 OH AND ONE MORE FUCKING QUIBBLE: I spent a little time volunteering at a battered women's shelter in a place I used to live. Please do not use the phrase "average domestic violence." I assume that you think domestic violence is an awful phenomenon. But you implicitly say that it is not - that it is a predetermined fact of life - when you use the term "average domestic violence." I don't think that's what you want to do. Let's try to keep in mind the power of language, since we're all spewing many many words out into the colossal content-ridden void of the internets. And insofar as those words determine your actions, they're to be taken seriously when you choose which to use. Sat, 3 Oct 2009 15:52:06 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37052288 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37051420 Man, so much for my resolution to stop commenting on blogs because it's a huge waste of time. This is going to probably drop into a void, but let's play the LSAT practice test game here real fast. So, "Islamofascists" (can you please find a different term? There are plenty of anti-Islamic words that would actually correspond to a real category) are responsible for roughly 70% of wartime civilian casualties in "Afghanistan." Fine, that's valid. And it's a lot of people, too, and some percentage of them are women. I'd suspect over half. But you cannot use that figure to claim that "Islamofascists" are responsible for the majority of violence against women. Since a lot of evidence (most spectacularly the travesty of the "no sex no food" law) suggests that structural and physical violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan. The impact of the Taliban eventually shrinks to irrelevance in this cesspool of female suffering, which continues regardless of whether their oppressors are unusual black-flag-of-Khorasan bearing drug-addled millennialist madmen, criminal networks, or the run-of-the-mill ol' Patriarchy. It's been going on a long time, and, I'm sad to say, will probably continue to go on. But back to the LSAT: you're taking one figure (wartime civilian casualties) and conflating it with another (violence against women). But analytically these categories are totally different. So, uh, skip ahead to the next question and work on that for a while. You can still wriggle out of this by claiming that all "Afghans" are Islamofascists. But then your whole larger argument is meaningless. Have fun advocated the propping-up of a Shariah state, oh Eagle-my-eagle! :-D Sat, 3 Oct 2009 15:46:09 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/afghan-girl-will-never-get-the-message.html#IDComment37051420 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/finding-islams-modernity.html#IDComment35732583 Eagle, are you WN? If you don't know what I'm talking about then you're not, but goodness, using BNP sources is a little risqué ain't it? Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:37:49 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/finding-islams-modernity.html#IDComment35732583 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/meet-ahmad-the-qassam-foot-solider.html#IDComment35732381 Hm. The Spiegel article is fascinating, but is irrelevant to your outlandish claims of an Islamo-Mexican axis (not that it's not an interesting conspiracy theory). Indeed, the article seems to indicate that: -Maya converts to Islam are staying where they are, because they're socio-economically better off than many of those around them and -Maya converts to Islam are not a hugely significant number and -They're syncretistic anyway (which fits well with the pattern of Maya adoption of foreign religions in general), and that's anathema to Salafism. So I don't think Mexlam is quite the threat to the US that you think it is. By the way: you do know that there are ALREADY PEOPLE LIVING IN THE SINAI PENINSULA, right? That would be one barrier to putting the Palestinians there. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:34:18 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/meet-ahmad-the-qassam-foot-solider.html#IDComment35732381 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/through-the-eyes-of-5000-children.html#IDComment35731660 Oh, and also - do you also support the right to self-determination and resistance of the First Peoples in the Americas? Of the Basques in Spain? Do you support the anti-white atrocities carried out all too frequently by blacks in South Africa, or the congealed racism that sees Peace Corps volunteers murdered in Gabon? Are you a big fan of the Catholic Irish wiping out the colonist Ulsterists? Would you support an Eskimo army driving those filthy Danes into the sea from which they came in Greenland, or the Ainu butchering their Japanese supplanters, or a Vedda state arising in the center of Sri Lanka? Because that's the upshot, whether you realize it or not, of your appeals to the longue durée, to the thousand-year intervals of a history of which you have an imperfect grasp, and to the "right to take back what is theirs." What about the Canaanites? Can you dig them up, put M-16s in their hands, and send them out among the Jews and Arabs to carve out their land of milk and honey again? Will you teach their skeleton children that glorious self-determined history? Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:21:34 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/through-the-eyes-of-5000-children.html#IDComment35731660 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/through-the-eyes-of-5000-children.html#IDComment35731115 Interestingly, Gaza was not part of the Kingdom (not state, states come along much later no matter what formulation you're using (and personally I prefer Tilly, if I have to go on record)) of Israel in the time period that you so eruditely establish. Rather it was part of Philistine territory, which remained independent and existed in a state of frequent hostility with Israel (not Judea I don't believe although I could be wrong and am not going to go through Samuel & Kings & Judges &c. right now for the sake of a blog comment) until being overrun by the Assyrians in 732 BC. Later on the Babylonians pwnt everyone in the region, etc. The only point at which Gaza was part of the Kingdom of Israel was under the Hasmonean kings (Herod's family), who in their later days were Roman clients - it's at this point in which we see the province of Palestine inserted into the Roman Empire. So you're off by about a thousand years. Does this detract from your larger point? Technically no, and neither does your problematic understanding of the word "state." But it does make you untrustworthy, pedagogically speaking, and I shan't nominate you to teach those children the true history of Gaza (née Philistia). Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:12:28 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/through-the-eyes-of-5000-children.html#IDComment35731115 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/im-with-stooopid.html#IDComment34883080 Your first two links are broken. If they're real, please fix or repost them. Thank you. Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:26:32 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/im-with-stooopid.html#IDComment34883080 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/do-you-see-what-i-see-2.html#IDComment32852139 A good observation - I think this is also an appropriate place to note, if only in passing, that the question of offensive/defensive stances is crucial to thinking about the security dilemma facing a soldier manning a checkpoint in a conflict in which suicide bombers are being employed. Everyone is a potential hostile. In such a situation, why would approach them in the first place unless necessary (and probably, as you correctly point out, not what happened here). Wed, 2 Sep 2009 04:19:45 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/do-you-see-what-i-see-2.html#IDComment32852139 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/do-you-see-what-i-see-2.html#IDComment32851564 I think that what's at issue here is whether or not it's valid to treat all Palestinian resisters as violent because some are. It's sortof like saying (since spurious comparisons never go out of season here) that the 1950s-1970s black civil rights movement in the US was not non-violent because of the tactics of the Black Panther Party (and, for that matter, the Weather Underground). (PC, I'm not trying to pick on you, per se: it would be equally ludicrous to claim that black agitation was totally nonviolent because of MLK, ignoring the Panthers and the WUO). The reality of dealing with broad resistance movements is that they're rarely black and white, but rather are composed of diverse groups and individuals. You can't say that MLK advocated violence because H. Rap Brown did. And you can't say that all Palestinian protesters/resisters are violent because some are. Creating a false monolith is unhelpful. Wed, 2 Sep 2009 04:12:25 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/do-you-see-what-i-see-2.html#IDComment32851564 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/dude-where-is-hassan.html#IDComment32850133 Thank you - this is the sort of informative and incisive testimonial journalism that helps make this blog worth reading. Blessings. Wed, 2 Sep 2009 03:51:27 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/09/dude-where-is-hassan.html#IDComment32850133 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/pakistanis-want-to-talk-and-taliban-leader-dead.html#IDComment31890515 Bhutto, may she rest in peace, was basically a fairly corrupt political boss prior to her expulsion from Pakistan in the late '90s . Yes, she was concerned with womens' issues, and she courageously raised the cry against Islamist militants, but she also had her considerable flaws (although I find it appealing to blame her husband, "Ten Percent" Zardari, for them): corruption and strong arm tactics in the political arena. The real tragedy of her death is that she had showed signs of having found her moment and changed for the better before being killed. Now Pakistan's got her thuggish, greedy, inept husband. Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:15:04 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/pakistanis-want-to-talk-and-taliban-leader-dead.html#IDComment31890515 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/pakistanis-want-to-talk-and-taliban-leader-dead.html#IDComment30348123 An interesting prospect that I'm picking up from the articles you've posted here, and from other reading on the subject, is a Mehsud vs. non-Mehsud struggle. That could certainly split militant strength - on the other hand, it could also make it more difficult to bring about a negotiated solution (more groups to bring to the table). Perhaps the best thing to hope for is a protracted struggle for outright dominance - it distracts militants from their objectives, delegitimizes them in the public eye (although their violence has certainly done that a fair amount in many places), but also ends up producing a (weakened) dominant player for a (hypotetically competent) Pakistani state to negotiate with/wipe out. But impossible to say at this point. Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:10:28 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/pakistanis-want-to-talk-and-taliban-leader-dead.html#IDComment30348123 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/update-on-veils-and-mini-skirts.html#IDComment29518337 Thank goodness - I have a deep-rooted phobia of offending people on the internet, only surpassed by my terror of the stealth jihad. Wed, 5 Aug 2009 08:18:19 +0000 http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/08/update-on-veils-and-mini-skirts.html#IDComment29518337