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Joining this thread, thanks for all the good info guys.
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Feb 20, 2011 06:20
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I just want to say I appreciate everybody who's keeping this thread updated. Well done.
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Feb 23, 2011 12:55
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platzapS posted:People are the best sometimes This is awesome, both of the links are gold.
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Feb 24, 2011 11:38
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Brown Moses you're the man.schadenfraud posted:I heard again from my friend in Libya, pretty much confirming the female mercenaries stories and 'they just shoot at anyone.' Hey man, I hope your friend and his family stay safe. Thanks for bringing us this perspective, والله معهم.
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Feb 24, 2011 15:06
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Patter Song posted:After Libya (which I would've said was impossible a few weeks ago), I'm not writing off anything, but I highly doubt we'll see a major rising in any of the Gulf States apart from the ongoing one in Bahrain. (No, despite being on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is not a Gulf State) A lot of people in Syria are proud of the way Bashar Al-Assad is "standing up to America" and stuff. Also poverty is relatively low (compared to, say, Egypt), and food is pretty cheap (i.e. well-subsidized). When I was there a few months ago there didn't seem to be much heart for regime change except among certain Muslim activist groups who chafe a bit at the official secularist ideology of the Bacath Party. It's worth considering too that Al-Assad is an educated, charming, and competent character, much more like Saif Gaddafi (or at least, like he used to be) than the big old crazy Colonel. Of course, I would have never pegged Libya to explode like this either, so there's that.
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Feb 25, 2011 03:36
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Brown Moses posted:More from Tripoli, wish I understood arabic: From a quick glance at the #libya and #tripoli hashtags, it looks like actual information is largely in English. Most of the Arabic tweets were well-wishers and condemnations of Gaddafi and stuff.
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Feb 25, 2011 15:09
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Man I've got a really bad case of the eff-fives right now.
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Feb 25, 2011 15:39
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So uh, what all happened in Tripoli? It's 1 a.m. there right now.
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Feb 26, 2011 00:06
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Anonymous is stupid, people are stupid for thinking they play any part in this sort of stuff.
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Feb 28, 2011 02:02
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That's just a map of the region generally recognized as Kurdistan, not a state as such.
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Mar 1, 2011 21:35
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Apology posted:~*BIG BUT INTERESTING DERAIL ABOUT TRANSLATIONS AHEAD, READ IF YOU WANT*~ Dialect differences wouldn't really factor into text translation, since people only ever write in the formal dialect (you sometimes see local dialects being written down in works of fiction or on like, social networking sites, but never in news outlets). It's also significant that vowels aren't typically written in Arabic, so you can have several words that look identical on the page but have different meanings – the word for "scholar" and for "world" are both written عالم, for example, though they're pronounced differently – so this requires an ability to analyze context, which is complicated.
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Mar 6, 2011 04:10
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Brown Moses posted:Outside of Libya it seems like Syria is joining in the fun: All I've read about Syria says there was a small demonstration (about 40 people) on Friday, which was broken up, then a slightly larger one on Saturday that was also broken up. No reports of violence, though a couple of people have been arrested. If Syria knows what's good for it, it will choose to be restrained in its reaction to whatever protests materialized. So far there have been 3, as I recall, and no one has died or been gravely injured. Bashar al-Assad is both a) more popular and b) more canny than Ben Ali or Mubarak, so I think it's possible he may choose to liberalize a little bit (for example, the recent un-blocking of Facebook) in response to protests rather than clamp down and risk creating the conditions for a true revolt. I don't see an Egypt or Tunisia-style revolt happening in Syria right now, all things considered, but of course, I would have said that about Libya a couple months ago, so there's that.
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Mar 18, 2011 16:28
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According to Twitter the protesters have torched the Baath Party headquarters in Daraa. Twitter though, so take that as you will.quote:iyad_elbaghdadi Baath Party headquarters torched in Syrian city of Daraa. #Syria Based on what I've been reading, al-Assad has been spinning the violence as an overreaction on the part of the local governor. They've also made a couple smaller concessions – freeing kids who put up pro-democracy graffiti, for example – so they seem like they're trying to head off any major flare-ups. Then there's stuff like this: quote:Khatibmo Eyewitnesses say Deraa is no longer under the control of Syrian authorities, Please confirm. #syria So who loving knows. Kenning fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Mar 20, 2011 |
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Mar 20, 2011 20:55
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Warcabbit posted:Of course, what has to be done now is that the Egyptians need to get a fatwah that voting to their best interests, not as the Muslim Brotherhood say, is the right way, according to Allah. Get it out now, fast, and before the Muslim Brotherhood cook the actual elections. I don't think you know how fatwas work. A fatwa may be issued by literally anyone. In general fatawa are issued by scholars in response to a specific question someone has asked them to rule on. Once the fatwa has been issued it is expected that the person who asked the question will follow the ruling, but a fatwa is only considered binding on its issuer. If a fatwa is issued and becomes the consensus of the scholars of the time it may be used in Islamic legal proceedings in a way similar to the way precedent is used in common law, i.e. as one element (but not the sole element) in determining the outcome of a case. Essentially, there's no such thing as "getting out a fatwa." Even if Shaykh al-Azhar were to say something about not listening to the Muslim Brothers, all it means is that he shouldn't listen to the Muslim Brothers, and that other people know that he thinks that. Also you're too scared of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Mar 22, 2011 00:38
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Orkiec posted:Also, this is a bit irrelevant to the current conversation, but I remember seeing a Youtube video from Tahrir Square posted way back in this thread. They would say a verse and then say something along the lines of HA HA HA. Can anybody relink this? This is from pages back, but here you go.
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Mar 22, 2011 21:55
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cioxx posted:I know it's unpopular to be a utilitarian when it comes to matters of war, but I am on the side of less suffering and even less conflicts. cioxx posted:Expansion to where? cioxx posted:Throwing a shitfit and ducking the question isn't helping your argument. It's a simple "yes" or "no" question. Goddamn you're stupid. The primary issue is that the benefits gained by attacking a civilian installation like a state-run TV station that everybody already knows is bullshit are essentially nil compared to the damage it would do to global opinion of the military operation. Also, your whole "What if we could save a thousand people by just waterboarding one baby?!?" line of reasoning is retarded. Morality isn't measured arithmetically. edit: Also, what the gently caress? We definitely didn't drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to save Japanese lives, let's be real. Kenning fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Mar 23, 2011 |
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Mar 23, 2011 06:40
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kingturnip posted:Frankly, it doesn't help that the loudest voices in US media seem (to this foreigner, at least) to be the most frothy-mouthed. Could Obama have made the case more clearly? Probably, but the people who're jumping up and down, screaming that he's being stupid, liberal, war-mongering, Muslim or gay would still be screaming those things anyway, because they're children. And that's what children do - scream until someone pays attention to them. Don't worry, you seem to have a pretty good sense of American media.
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Mar 23, 2011 14:20
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Vir posted:For English language news stations in the Arabic speaking world, you might be correct, but I think the BCC and the US networks are less biased than Al Jazeera. I've heard that the Al Jazeera English is top-notch reporting, similar to the international edition of CNN, while Al Jazeera Arabic is more like domestic CNN, i.e. well-meaning, but a bit of a rag at times.
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Mar 24, 2011 01:33
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#syria on Twitter is relatively quiet so far, seems to be a mix between people rooting for a big blowup who mostly seem to be out of the country (i.e. "you must stand up for your rights" or whatever), and people in-country who seem cautiously excited about lifting emergency law. I guess we'll see as Friday continues though.
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Mar 25, 2011 08:46
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Actually, Beirut has the closest thing to a "gay scene" in the Arab world, so.
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Apr 13, 2011 13:19
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Jut posted:Sultan? He's probably thinking about the gay prince of Oman.
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Apr 15, 2011 03:35
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Bashar al-Assad has announced that emergency law will be lifted next week. We'll see.
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Apr 17, 2011 11:33
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BCR posted:In the past they leveled a town called Hama and killed 20,000 when the Muslim Brotherhood challenged the Syrian government. The government is likely to do everything to keep in power. They're Alawites and a minority in Syria and minority's aren't popular in the Middle East. Going against Israel was their main justification of being in power. If they can't contain the rebellions conventionally, I can see them using chemical weapons. Oh hush. There's no evidence of any sectarian aspect to the Syria situation. You don't know anything.
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Apr 26, 2011 04:37
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Paradox Personified posted:That's supposed to be against the rules, naming your daughter Aisha... How'd he get away with it, or he just doesn't care? Man people have some weird ideas about Islam.
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Apr 28, 2011 01:37
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There are virtually no Shia in Libya.
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Apr 28, 2011 01:44
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Chronojam posted:Can anybody who understands Arabic confirm that off the stream? A quick glance over Al Jazeera Arabic doesn't yield anything about Tripoli.
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May 10, 2011 00:39
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Pajser posted:Can we take some comfort, that this poo poo is not going to last forever? Right? That would have deeply undermined the absolutist stance the Saudi state requires in order to ensure an acquiescent populace. They don't have religious police in Saudi to ensure that everybody stays moral, they have religious police to create a situation of learned helplessness among the population so that their fundamentally very weak state can continue to extract mineral wealth and win foreign aid to the benefit of the Saudi royal family. They pair that with the occasional fistful of cash thrown at average Saudis as a small carrot to go along with their huge stick. The Saudi government is the worst, and I'm really sorry to hear about that poo poo, Al-Saqr.
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May 24, 2011 11:16
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A no fly zone wouldn't do much in Syria, the geography's too complicated. It's not Libya's single road on flat terrain on the coast.
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May 26, 2011 08:13
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Al-Saqr posted:You'd be surprised how many smart (or so I thought) people around here talk about discussing the womens driving with 'reason' and 'dialogue' rather than openly going and driving like that woman did. Also I had to hold myself from screaming and throwing my shoe in rage when my local imam talked about how womens driving is the gateway for an Iranian-Zionist-Westernized-Sexcapade conspiracy. That Sexcapade sounds like a blast, btw.
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May 31, 2011 08:31
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Amused to Death posted:I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to an organization actually at least covering the problem of rape in a region where to convict a rapist you often need multiple witnesses who have to be men. Just want to point out that this is a misunderstanding of Islamic law. You need four witnesses (who have literally witnessed the act) to prove a case of zina, or adultery (which is a crime for both parties). This is usually interpreted to mean that the (very) harsh punishment for zina is meant to be more of a public indecency thing rather than an issue of private morality. Rape is more complicated, and is often a sort of he said she said thing, so in the absence of overwhelming proof (especially before the advent of rape kits and DNA testing and stuff, i.e. most of Islamic history) both parties would just walk away from the situation because the court couldn't make a determination. The problem is that Saudi Arabia has such innovative (from a legal perspective) restrictions on the movement and associations of women that if a woman claims she was raped she is admitting that she was in the company of men who weren't her family, which is criminalized, so she'll get punished for that, and since rape can be difficult to determine (and you bet your rear end the loving Saudi authorities don't bend over backwards with their rape kits), the man often gets no punishment. This is where people get the idea that women are punished for being raped under Islamic law, when in fact the issue is that women are often punished in addition to being raped under Saudi law. They are the worst. لعن الله آل سعود In Pakistan after the introduction of elements of Islamic law into the colonial-era legal system they defined rape as zina bil-jabr or "adultery by force" which made proving rape require 4 witnesses in contrast to the historical standard of Islamic law, which relied on the woman's testimony. That's probably where the idea of witnesses to prove rape came from.
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Jun 3, 2011 23:26
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Paradox Personified posted:Can you school me on the alcohol/ al-kohol/kohl thing? I tried to trace it but Check it out.
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Jun 5, 2011 23:32
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Man that news about the Muslim Brothers and Wafd is weird. I definitely wouldn't have predicted that. I talked very briefly with a friend in Damascus just now. We mostly exchanged pleasantries but when I mentioned that I'm shopping around for some year-long Arabic programs he remarked that I probably wouldn't be studying in Syria. It's hard to have much of a conversation with people in the country since they're pretty cognizant of the regime's interest in peoples' conversations, but it seems like he's pretty aware of poo poo that's going on, and not happy about it. I'll probably talk with him again soonish – wanna make sure his family is alright – and I'll let you all know what he thinks, insofar as he's able to tell me.
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Jun 15, 2011 01:28
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My buddy in Syria linked an article (in Arabic) that claims Assad is going to dissolve the Baath party and start one of his own, tossing out all the old guard in the process and opening it up to the new ideas of the youth. I'm...skeptical.
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Jul 3, 2011 04:44
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Dr.Oblivious posted:I really can't help but physically cringe every time I hear something bad happening in Syria, I used to live in Damascus a little more than a decade ago.   I really hope nothing to crazy happens.
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Jul 13, 2011 07:45
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The main roads were p. much designed for tank/troop movement. It blows.CeeJee posted:Are women not allowed to attend such funeral demonstrations ? There are definitely women present, you can hear the ululation.
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Jul 16, 2011 22:01
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loving poo poo.
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Jul 31, 2011 09:28
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For the non-Arabic speakers out there, "ارحل" (irhal) means "Get out," and it's been very common on signs throughout the Arab Spring. That's sort of awesome to see it in Israel.
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Aug 7, 2011 03:57
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I don't like Anonymous, but that's pretty cool.
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Aug 8, 2011 06:17
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Walid Jumblatt is a total tool. Also it's pretty unsurprising that he's anti-Syria, since they killed his dad. Nobody actually takes Jumblatt too seriously as far as I can tell, although is true that the Druze tend to sort of be a wild card in Lebanese politics.
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Aug 9, 2011 01:00
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Yeah that's true. I wonder if Hezbollah's gonna stop blindly supporting the Assad regime any time soon. They've been pretty lovely during this whole thing. edit: Also, I really hope the trend of naming political movements after calendar dates is going to end soon.
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Aug 9, 2011 01:38
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