“To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child.” —Cicero What is best for the Kurds: Islam or Nationalism? That question gnawed at me as I read, Islam and Competing Nationalisms in the Middle East, 1876-1926, a scholarly book by Kamal Soleimani analyzing the place of faith and identity in the politics… Continue reading
September 18, 2016 “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” –Mother Teresa Acclaimed Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran, who commands an astonishing two million Twitter fans on her cutting-edge microblogging universe, is her country’s most popular columnist. Kurds should probe her sensational new book, Turkey, the… Continue reading
August 30, 2016 In the unadulterated barbarism called the Islamic State, you are allowed to shop for cucumbers and tomatoes, but you are not permitted to place them in the same bag. That’s because the noun cucumber is masculine in Arabic, and the noun tomato is feminine. Thus, the “morality police” of vegetables in the… Continue reading
August 21, 2016 Mr. Engel is chief foreign correspondent for NBC News. He has become a household name in America regarding news from the Middle East. Thinking that I could learn something interesting from his new book, I ordered my copy, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East. I was… Continue reading
August 14, 2016 When I first signed up for a Political Science class in college, I took a course on American Government. I wanted to know about the party of Abraham Lincoln and that of Harry Truman. But our cynical professor curtly tossed out an expression that I had never heard before: “Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”… Continue reading
August 11, 2016 “Impious Mars rages through the world: Just as when the chariots stream from the starting gates, Add to their speed each lap, and the charioteer tugging vainly at the bridles, Is dragged on by the horses, the chariot not responding to the reins.” Thus did Virgil’s poem Georgics describe the aftershock of… Continue reading
July 1, 2016 The ancient Prophet Ezekiel said the Lord plunked him down in a valley “full of dry bones” and asked him, “Can these bones live?” If the dry bones of dead Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad could live, they would surely be shouting at his son above the din of the shocking suicidal attacks… Continue reading
June 23, 2016 “Anything is better than lies and deceit!” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Is there no limit to the pool of deceit that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan won’t dive into—and pop up lying even worse? His latest devious dip into the make-believe world came in an op-ed piece he penned for Bloomberg… Continue reading
June 9, 2016 Summer is upon us and if you are looking for a good book to read make sure it is Ataturk by Lord Kinross. Although old, it is refreshingly “new,” that is, if you subscribe to the human events as cyclical in nature or as a French proverb puts it, “The more things… Continue reading
“Democracy is like a bus ride. Once I get to my stop; I get off.” Recep Tayyip Erdogan Kani Xulam May 18, 2016 The Kurds and the Turks were not supposed to fight one another this year. High-level peace talks last year were so promising that a Mandela- style house-arrest was being considered for imprisoned… Continue reading