The Skeptic الشكاك

49 ????? ????

Egypt fans celebrate in the streets of Cairo after Egypt won the African Nations Cup final soccer match between Egypt and Ivory Coast at the Cairo International Stadium in Egypt Friday, Feb. 10, 2006. Photo: (AP Photo/Nasser Nouri)

48 Cartoons Stupidity

Let me first say categorically that the cartoons at issue are odious. The editor who commissioned them deserved to have been fired.

But these protests must stop. I was astonished to hear this was still an issue. I’m flummoxed that things have escalated to this point. Five people died protesting the cartoons in Afghanistan yesterday. The BBC is reporting fresh clashes there today. Others have died in Somalia, Indonesia, and Lebanon (in this last case, they were killed when setting fire to the Danish Embassy from the inside, as if any further proof were needed of their stupidity). Worse, the mobs in Beirut stoned shops, houses, and cars in a Maronite neighborhood, raising the specter of renewed tensions there. Al-Jazeera has been doing its best to douse the conflagration with water in its reporting, repeatedly dispelling rumors that a Maronite church had been torched. Nobody wants to see the fragile peace in Beirut fall apart over something so silly.

What’s the problem? A stupid, vile tabloid owned by an Egyptian crook on the lam in a tiny country in the northern reaches of Europe publishes vile, stupid cartoons depicting the prophet with a bomb on his head? And so protesters take to the streets, and, to protest the depiction of Islam as a violent and suicidal religion, commit acts of violence and kill themselves in the process? Good going. Yep, you sure showed them.

And what are you asking for? For the government of Denmark to apologize and to close the paper? This isn’t Al-Ahram. The government of Denmark had nothing to do with these cartoons. And thank God the government of Denmark isn’t in the habit of closing newspapers.

Be smart, people. Everyone’s always complaining that crafty Jewish lobbyists are controlling the West and the western media. These crafty lobbyists don’t protest cartoons published in Arab newspapers showing Jews drinking babies’ blood by going out in the street to drink some babies’ blood. Why not take a page from their playbook?

I got this open letter from a Syrian colleage via email the day after the embassies in Damascus were torched. I reproduce it here:

Dear Albrecht,

Please accept my apologies for the barbarian attacks against the Norwegian and Danish embassy in Damascus. I feel very sorry for the acts of that Islamic raid in Damascus. I assure you that these criminals do not consider themselves as Syrians, their only identity is Islam, and therefore, they have no respect to Syria or any other state in the world.

I present my apologies to you personally, and to every Norwegian and Danish person in the civilized world.

Please keep your struggle and support for the freedom of speech, this is the best way to confront the Islamic terrorist movements in the whole world.

And wait, it gets better. According to the Daily Star, those idiots in Beirut didn’t even succeed in destroying the Danish Embassy. They just wrecked some Lebanese businesses:

Danish Consulate sustains only limited damage
Lower floors completely wrecked
By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Black, burnt and broken, the “Tabaris 812” building that housed the Danish Consulate, stands as proof of the fury of thousands of protesting Muslims in Lebanon, but ironically, the consulate survived the torching.

“The Danish Consulate stands untouched,” said Alexander Vasdekis, the property manager for the 10-storey building in Achrafieh.

Inside the once luxurious building, walls are charred, with floors covered in ashes, twisted metal and shattered glass.

But that was the scene up to the third floor of the building, with the fourth onwards only coated in smoke and dirt without any serious damage.

“It is a mess on the lower floors, with over $18 million in damages,” said Vasdekis, who is allowing the owners and employees of the 27 companies housed in the “Tabaris 812” building to visit the premises using the fire escape stairs.

“It is sad, as the protesters in the end just hurt themselves, as most of the companies here were Lebanese,” said Vasdekis, as he passed by the burned out escalators in the center of the ground floor of the building.

Some of the major companies include Bank Lati, LOTO, Management House, Jedeco, Team/Young & Rubicam, Intermarket, Asdaa, and MediaH, the offices of the last four companies have “been completely destroyed.”

“They don’t exist anymore, all that is left are ashes,” said Talal Makdessi to The Daily Star. Makdessi is the CEO of four of the companies that perished in the fire as they were located on the first and second floors.

Makdessi estimated about $1.5 million in losses, but the financial damages are not “the biggest problem.”

“We can always open new offices, it is no problem. But given what happened, who now has the confidence to reinvest?” he said.

Makdessi expressed anger over what happened and said: “They came with flame throwers, how was that a religious protest?”He added that the protesters had tried to create a sectarian division.

Makdessi also mentioned that there were cameras inside the building that recorded “the people that looted and burned.”

“This information is in the government’s hands, and so if they don’t do anything about it, I will consider the government as an accomplice in this crime,” he said.

Bank Lati was also completely destroyed, as it was located on the ground floor and the floor above it, with piles of glass and charred documents covering its floors, along with a caved in roof.

“Even the skeletons of the computers are gone, which makes me believe that they were stolen,” said Joseph Lati, who was inspecting the premises for any items to salvage.

Lati estimated about $4 million in losses, but said that clients should not be worried, as all “critical information, data and belongings are safe.”

“We put everything in a safe that can survive an atomic bomb,” said Lati, ” because we didn’t trust the state to keep the building safe.”

Clients can access their accounts through the other branches of the company, added Lati, “and we are giving out chocolate too,” he laughed.

At the same time, the Lebanese Army Command released an official statement urging citizens with “complaints about attacks on their property with proper documents” to come to an office that will open on the first floor of the Samaha Building in Fouad Shehab Avenue, near the Sofil Center.

The office will be open from February 7 until the February 12, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, officials from the Austrian Embassy, thanked the Lebanese government for “trying their best.”

“There has only been material damage, and no damage to life,” said Manfred E. Moritsch, deputy consular of the Austrian Embassy that is located on the eighth floor of the building.

“We were lucky that nothing happened to our embassy, just few signs of attempted break in such as scratches and stone marks on the bullet proof door,” said Moritsch, who also added that the Austrian Embassy will move to an office in the EU mission in Gemmayzeh for the time being.

“I just hope this event will be the last damage resulting from the cartoons,” he said.

[tags]Middle East, cartoons, protests[/tags]

47 Jill Carroll

We spent several days together here in Cairo last summer, wandering the City of the Dead with a mutual friend who bounces between Cairo and Baghdad, then meeting for Indian food in Mohandisseen, for fish downtown. She talks incredibly fast. Intelligently, honestly, perceptively. We hit it off. But I wasn’t able to match her forthrightness or answer her probing questions and so a distance and a reserve crept into our last conversation.

She spoke passionately about her love for the Iraqi people. She said she felt the Iraqis deserved special consideration for all they’d been through. She spoke passionately about the suffering Iraqis have endured for so long, about how she wanted people outside the country to understand that, just a little. She said she wanted to write a story about how a suicide bombing tears apart a family. We talked about how Margaret Hassan really got to us both. Since then, I haven’t wanted to look too closely at anyone abducted in Iraq. And so it’s taken me all these weeks to realize this is the same Jill (And Jill, when you read this, I hope you’ll laugh at my idiocy—may it be soon).

[tags]Iraq[/tags]

46 Google China Search Comparison

Kudos to the OpenNet Initiative for putting together a fantastic tool that lets you compare search results from Google.com and the now famously censored Google.cn. Check out their sample searches in English and Chinese, and analysis from geniuses Ethan Zuckerman, Nart Villeneuve, and Rebecca MacKinnon.
[tags]Google, China, Censorship, Internet[/tags]

45 (Southern) Sudanese Government Fact-Finding Mission to Egypt

Apparently this hasn’t hit the wires yet, but I heard last night, and a friend in contact with SPLM types confirms, that the southern Sudanese government intends to send a high-level fact-finding mission to Cairo to investigate what the opposition press and the bloggers here have dubbed “The Mohandisseen Massacre.” The mission will reportedly be led by Nyal Denk, Sudanese minister for regional cooperation and a former candidate for foreign minister, and will include roughly 15 investigators, among them doctors and policemen. The mission will treat Moustapha Mahmoud Square as a crime scene. Al-Jazeera reported last night that they may call for prosecutions, but a friend who called Denk last night said he would not confirm that, only that they would investigate what had happened and determine whether prosecutions were necessary.

The really fascinating thing about this is that the SPLM is now, thanks to the power-sharing agreement, the government of Sudan. This has the potential to seriously complicate the close relationship between Egypt and Sudan.

UPDATE: AFP is reporting, based on a SUNA story, that the mission is only a delegation to ask the Egyptians to investigate the incident. What’s really going on?

[tags]Sudan, Egypt, Sudanese Refugees, SPLM, Human Rights[/tags]

I'm Reading: