Writing condolence letters is difficult – how can you get across in words the feelings of loss and sympathy which often seem a little too big for the sheet of writing-paper? The Emperor Susenyos of Abyssinia didn’t do badly, writing of the death of the Jesuit Father Pedro Paez: ‘Were this paper to be the … More Gathering Up Spilt Waters
In the case of Fnideq, with its extraordinary density of young terrorist recruits (see my last post) I find myself mulling not just over propaganda, but over contagion, and wonder if the tools of epidemiology might not be as useful to understand it as radicalization theory. I don’t of course mean by this simply the glib image of ‘radical Islam’ as … More Herd Immunity and e-pidemics
When you are building a state you need women. Without them, the state is bunch of warriors who, however heroic, ferocious and bloody, and however magnificent their whiskers, will eventually get killed, grow old, go home. Without women there can be no state because there is no permanence, no real settlement, no homes, no children. … More Electronic Sabine Women
At the very end of 2013 Patrick Cockburn was asked by his editor to nominate a Middle Eastern ‘Man of the Year.’ He named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a name that did not resonate much except with a small number of Western specialists – and a growing number of Iraqis and Syrians. In January al-Baghdadi’s troops … More A Heavily-armed Mediæval Hyperlink
Martin Rose 