اكتشاف تاريخي هام: الخلاف السنّي الشيعي مجرّد خدعة من العصر العباسي

مقالي الأسبوعي الساخر : اكتشاف تاريخي هام: الخلاف السنّي الشيعي مجرّد خدعة من العصر العباسي

The Angry Arab Interviews Himself About Syria

The Angry Arab has been conducting a series of interviews with journalists and analysts about the situation in Syria for a while now, asking questions that you would never see in the ‘mainstream media’ as he calls it. He had promised to interview himself at the end of the series, and we are lucky that he decided to allow us to publish this remarkable interview which sheds so much light on one of the most unusual Arab writers and commentators around today. It also gives a unique insight into the situation in Syria unlike anything you might read anywhere else. Here goes:

AA: It’s quite unusual for an analyst to interview themselves, don’t you think it’s a bit pretentious?

AA: You’re one to talk.

How The Phoenicians Gave Us Oil

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Sunni – Shiite Rivalry Revealed to be an Ancient Hoax

In a dramatic turnaround in the Middle East, it has been revealed this week that the so-called Sunni-Shiite rivalry is in fact an ancient hoax. The hoax appears to have been created by an eighth-century satirist who was generally regarded as a loser by his contemporaries.

Abu-Hayyan Zafer al-Ajayebbi, as he was known in his native Basra in modern Iraq, had penned a number of fake scrolls describing a deep Sunni-Shiite rivalry that were taken at face value by historians because he had not included a warning that the scrolls were works of satire. The sense of rivalry was passed down the generations uncritically and without proper regard to academic standards of source-checking.

ماذا حدث عندما أصبح لبنان بلداً غنياً بالنفط؟

مقالي الأسبوعي الساخر على موقع ناو ليبانون: ماذا حدث عندما أصبح لبنان بلداًغنياً بالنفط؟

The Dentist: Me and The Hunt for Imad Mughniyeh

In 1993 I used to live in Beirut, close to the southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s stronghold. In the spring of that year, I began to get a toothache so I decided to visit my dentist as in common in that part of the world. The dentist was connected to Hezbollah and was reported to be in charge of their top secret dental work, and he was both good and reasonably priced. But when I walked in that day, he wasn’t there and instead a stocky man wearing a baseball cap told me that he’s the dentist’s brother and although he wasn’t technically a dentist he was sitting in for his brother who was out on a carpet-buying emergency. I found that strange, but allowed him to treat my tooth, and he did an excellent job. Little did I know that this is Imad Mughniyeh, one of Hezbollah’s most notorious but completely unknown operatives. In fact, I still don’t know that until today.

But the late Mughniyeh was like that, a man of mystery and random appearances to fill in for other people in their shops despite being on the run from every western and Israeli intelligence agency and leading a life of complete secrecy. When I read Mark Perry’s article about him in Foreign Policy, I decided to write my own story about him, because it is as interesting and true as Perry’s. Future generations, and some of the previous ones, should hear this story.

 

What happened when Lebanon became an oil rich country

The discovery of off-shore natural gas and oil reserves in Lebanon is expected to have a significant impact on the country. The contracts for exploration work will be awarded shortly and production is expected within a few years. The estimates for the value of the reserves range from 150 to 450bn $US, which will be enough to settle Lebanon’s debts and leave the country swimming in cash. In order to determine what the precise impact of the oil wealth would be, we used a sophisticated computer model to simulate its economic and social impact and came up with the following results:

- The country will become rich, very rich. Given Lebanon’s traditional commitment to equalitarianism, the process will be run efficiently and the proceeds will be distributed equally among the Lebanese.

- The Lebanese, who are generally known for their simple and non-materialistic lifestyle, will be tempted to abandon their traditional asceticism but they will do that with typical classiness and good taste.

- Cooperation is a cornerstone of Lebanese society, and there are hardly any disagreements to be expected over the distribution and use of the oil wealth. The country’s democracy is also reinforced by informal network of inter-sect cooperation, which will ensure everything goes smoothly.

Those are the major headlines, which are quite reassuring. The model also predicted specific results listed below:

قانون جريء في لبنان للقضاء على الطائفية عبر إلغاء الطوائف

مقالي الأسبوعي على موقع ناو ليبانون: قانون جريء في لبنان للقضاء على الطائفية عبر إلغاء الطوائف   

Obama insists reaction to Boston bombs was ‘adequately hysterical’

In a speech delivered last night, US President Barack Obama responded vigorously to critique by his Republican opponents who accused him of not over-reacting enough to the Boston bombs. Obama denied the allegations and insisted that his administration has done its best to treat the attacks as an existential threat to the United States, highlighting its ‘serious commitment to overreacting in an adequately hysterical manner.’

Obama appeared to be agitated and far less composed than his usual self, but some commentators interpreted this as a deliberate attempt to look panicky and over-reacting. It is understood that Obama wants to avoid looking level-headed and calm at a time when there is so much pressure on him to show impulsiveness and a ‘let’s go get ‘em’ attitude. But in some quarters Obama’s failure to wear a cowboy hat has been interpreted as a signal that ‘his heart isn’t in it’.

Six English words you didn't know came from Arabic

Many English words are borrowed from Arabic. The BBC recently highlighted a few, such as cheque which comes from the saqq, cotton which comes from qutn, magazine which comes from makhzan and safari which comes from safar. There are however many more words borrowed from Arabic that few know about it, here are twelve of them:

Alarm: Many English words that start with 'al' come from Arabic, and alarm is one of them. It comes from the Arabic al-‘arm which is a device used by airline ground control to alert the police the presence of suspicious passengers. It was a wooden device usually placed in the lowered position, but when the operator saw someone they didn't like the look of, they would lift up, hence the phrase 'raise the alarm'.