Persiflage & Paroxysm

It was almost one hundred years ago to the day (June 28) that the crown prince of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Bosnian-Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip. This act of aggression by an individual belonging to a small group was enough to push the whole of Europe over the edge into industrial-scale war where machine guns, some of the heaviest caliber artillery ever used and poison gas shared the battlefield with horses and sabers. It must have been a surreal landscape, one that film makers have ever since sought to replicate when retelling the story of the repetitive, murderous misery of trench warfare, if only for the sheer impact such images have on audiences.   To mark the occasion, the point at which Western civilization was placed on hold and replaced with the insane logic of total war, I purchased the DVD box set of ‘Fall of Eagles’, the BBC historical drama that follows the steady decay and collapse of three European empires: the G...

Human beings were not created equal, all men (and women) were not created equal, that is the biggest lie of the American revolution inspired by Masonic gibberish about universal brotherhood. Trust me, we are as unequal as we can be. Just line up any random group of people naked and look at them and you'll know. Just try to have an intelligent conversation with anyone and within the first five minutes you can size up their mental capacity and intellectual suppleness. We are not equal, and States, revolutionary ones in particular, have no business making such pronouncements. This, I suspect, is one reason why the Americans have been viewed with little regard by the 'European Club' up until World War Two when American industry succeeded in saving Europe from Hitler unstoppable war machine.

"The world has shown a limited capacity to prevent conflicts and to find a timely solution for them," it might have been something that the League of Nations press office released in the 1930s in the face of mounting German aggression, but it wasn't, it was something that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said recently in response to the human catastrophe in both Iraq and Syria. "Today, we not only have an absence of a global governance system, but we have sort of an unclear sense of power in the world," Guterres told reporters in Beirut recently, as reported by the Associated Press. Well, at least the defunct and utterly ineffectual U.N. is finally admitting what is obvious to everyone! "An unclear sense of power in the world", describes it all in a nutshell. Power is shifting, in our region it's shifting away from major State actors and towards non State actors unencumbered by requirements to abide by the rule of law ...

Different time, different place, similar revolutionary crisis - 1914, Europe, war leading to Bolshevik revolution - 2014, Middle East, Arab Spring wars leading to Takfeeri revolution. A history buff's humble analysis can be an over simplistic, panoramic, squint-eyed view of the present seen through the lens of the past, but just occasionally we hit the nail right on the head! The crisis in Iraq is bringing this revolutionary crisis into sharp focus. Arab people's are innocents when it comes to revolution and are often ignorant of the devastating impact of revolution, whether that revolution is inspired by a political and social impetus or by political religious fervour. Our peoples' eagerness to embrace the street protestors as the great, energetic force of renewal while ignoring the more extremist elements that are far more successful, is a reflection of our own lack of experience with revolution and our naïveté in a sense. There is so much that is similar between Aut...

Istanbul is a great city, it has everything to make your holiday truly exceptional provided you don't look or act too much like a tourist. There is little more I can say about the city that hasn't been said before only to say that walking around is the best way I found to discover those places tour operators don't necessarily take you to or if they did they don't give you the chance to linger and enjoy the place. Tour operators are on a schedule, it is a business for them, their pace is not leisurely and keeping your tour guide within eye shot is a challenge. What's the rush! Indeed. This was not my first visit to Istanbul, but unlike my last trip which was for business, this trip was with friends and we had a packed schedule. It was exhausting especially for the older members of our group. But it was a good experience and I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, which places to visit again and which ones to avoid, where to linger longer and discover ...

This is a scandal: in a country that bills itself as the banker of choice to the oil rich Gulfies and Lebanese expatriates the hardest thing to do is rent a safety deposit box at a Lebanese bank. This news just in: No safety deposit boxes available in Lebanon! Well, I may exaggerate a little for effect and to get you to keep reading, but I’ve asked around, believe me. When you ask for a box to rent, the incredulous looks you get from bank staff as they size you up based on how you’re dressed and the expensive or not so expensive watch you happen to be wearing, makes my stomach turn. I hope the Lebanese Government taxes banks to within an inch of their over indulgent lives, it couldn’t happen to a more nauseatingly parochial industry. I started with the Alpha banks, and, as anyone would, with the bank at which I have an account, “sorry, no availability”, was the reply. I next tried a bank at which a close friend works, “I wish I could help,” my friend said, “but we don’t have...

I get an ear ache whenever I listen to the news, in fact my soul cries out 'enough!' when I listen to the ever loud, ever accusatory tone of the Lebanese populace on the TV news protesting against, decrying or demanding one thing or another. There is always someone to blame, someone deserving of condemnation and insults, people seem to see fault in everyone but in themselves. I see this meanness in practice in living colour every day on the roads. The road rage, the bullying, the utter disregard for other road users all of which has been steadily getting worse the closer we get to the FIFA World Cup and as the vacuum in the top job, the presidency, drags on, and as the economic pressures increase. People seem to lack any self control. Of course this is not news, just watch the Lebanese put on the feed bag on any given Sunday at any one of the popular weekend eateries and you can see that gluttony and self indulgence is a common affliction of this nation. I can't see a ...