Jakob Steiner
Looking for trust – in the wrong place.
The Western media, especially after Mullah Abdul Ghani Akhund and some other high-up Talibans where pinned down by ISI/CIA, are trying to understand the ISI and the Pakistani army again. When news of Ghani’s arrest broke, the first reaction was “yeah, finally they do what we want”, only to be immediately followed by “I am sure they are tricking us again” (claiming that the ISI captured him in Karachi making sure he could be kept in their custody and wouldn’t be interrogated by ISAF/CIA at Bagram, Penetta yesterday requested a transfer there)
SufiLore #5 – Mathematics of War
Some truely interesting material circles around a recent research paper published in Nature that got some criticism around – maths and conflict. I am fascinated by it since these are tools we commonly use in our field (especially for Hydrology) and I really wouldn’t have thought about applying it in conflict studies. So basically I have no clue about joining these two topics and am myself just about to dive into the topic.
SufiLore #4 – Pakistan has a Rock scene?
It’s quite old by now, and wasn’t picked up for more than 3 articles really, but for a glimpse the Western media was as if they had discovered something new (which it wasn’t): PakRock. It’s worth documenting the videos at least.
[Article/Video] Pakistan Rock against the West by Adam B. Ellick
In my opinion he chose examples [...]
SufiLore #3 – Database
In an attempt to shorten my delicious list – some databases I have recently stumbled over:
The Guantanamo “Suicides” – The other front forgotten
Not everyone who is involved in this matter views it from a political perspective, of course. General Al-Zahrani grieves for his son, but at the end of a lengthy interview he paused and his thoughts turned elsewhere. “The truth is what matters,” he said. “They practiced every form of torture on my son and on many others as well. What was the result? What facts did they find? They found nothing. They learned nothing. They accomplished nothing.”
Semantics of Terror
On “how or rather who to be a terrorist” – as Greenwald puts it himself: All of this would be an interesting though not terribly important semantic matter if not for the fact that the term Terrorist plays a central role in our political debates.
Read his opinion here.
Plight of Islam in the Modern World – Egypt of the Muslim Brothers compared to post 9/11 Pakistan
While Pakistan in the first decade of the 21st century may be very different to Egypt in the high time of the Muslim Brothers (1930s – 1950s), there are some striking resemblances concerning modernity and religion and how the conflict between these two terms has influenced society or in reverse was shaped by it. In this paper some of these similarities are portrayed. While Hassan al-Banna stood for a defense of the (Muslim) East against the West based on reasoning coming from the Quran, Sunna and Sufism and trying to find a non-violent consensus, his movement is remembered as radically conservative and an intellectual base for today’s leaders of terroristic activity. Similarly an underlying intellectual development in Pakistan is disregarded over the rising violent outbreaks in the name of religion.
heer ranjha or terror, taliban and totay – where is Pakistan’s cinema?
I just returned from the cinema watching Boz Salkyn, a Kyrgyz movie – a simple story about bride-kidnapping, love and the Kyrgyz people. It has some Heer Ranja aspects. It’s emotional, completely a-political without the aim to critizice society, the state or question religion
Quest for the European Perspective – III
The earlier quests here and here.
Thomas Ruttig has translated an Interview with Bernt Glatzer who was an ethnologist with focus on Afghanistan. The interview is on the role ethnologists may be able to play in COIN.
SufiLore #2 – The Regional Perspective
I was reading today’s DieZeit articles on Afghanistan, in particular the current discussions in Germany going on over the air strike on petrol trucks in Kunduz and wondering how here in Central Europe the war in Afghanistan is primarily a war over our morale. As McChrystal has suggested we are leading a completely people-centred COIN [...]
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