'I became the profane pervert Arab blogger'

Salam Pax in the Guardian tells, very elegantly, the history of the phenomenon that is his weblog. This amazing little gem of a story does two things for me - it reinforces my lackadaisically mystical worldview, based on a subtle God-driven mix of meaningless coincidence, cosmic irony and unappreciated miracles, and it explains almost perfectly the addictive attraction of blogging itself:
"With blogs the web started talking to me in a much more personal way. Bits of news started having texture and most amazingly, these blogs talked with each other. That hyperlink to the next blog - I just couldn't stop clicking. And the best thing about it was that Mr Site Killer had absolutely no clue."

Salam Pax - and follow-up to 1968 all over again

The latest post at Where is Raed ? makes a nice follow-up to the issue of when and how should the coalition pull out of Iraq. I will quote him:
"Maybe we Iraqis did expect too much from the American invasion, we did hope there is going to be an easy way. Get rid of Saddam and have the Americans help us rebuild. I don't think like that anymore. I am starting to believe that the chaos we will go thru the next 5 or 10 years is part of the price we will *have* to pay to have our freedom. . . It is too painful to have to admit that the [burn it down to build it up] process is what we will have to go thru."
Iraq really is quite different from Vietnam. There were millions of Vietnamese fanatically loyal to Ho Chi Minh and he was never overthrown. The Americans made no pretense about rescuing a country from a tyrant or "nation-building" in Vietnam; there "our" single wrong-headed objective was to "save" a country from the evil ideology of communism, one they would never had embraced had the West not driven them into the arms of the feared and mistrusted Chinese by refusing to recognise or credit Ho's basic nationalist movement. Both Iraq and Vietnam had internal divisions and weaknesses that are a legacy of colonialism, but Iraq has more, and more dangerous, divisions, while Vietnam had more apparent weaknesses (having been a true colony, and ruthlessly exploited) although these "weaknesses" turned out to be what gave them the strength to defeat the West. And yes, I do believe Vietnam defeated the West, not just the US. So it is not so much that "we" "lost" Vietnam (which we never had) but that Vietnam defeated its oppressors one by one and finally, beat off the US. Vietnam did also go through terrible chaos after the departure of the US, but they came through it and are now a strong emerging economy and an accepted part of the international community.
Whew, what a rant. I am quite shagged out and will need a nap now. We impending grannies have to harbour our energy.

Power and Peril

I was directed to this column by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times by Salam Pax.
Speaking of whom, he has (in his own words) sold his soul to the devil. Bless.

Salam Pax Visits Saddam's Birthplace

Salam Pax's column in the Guardian today was about his visit to Tikrit, and to the actual village where Saddam was born, which apparently means "Twisted" in Arabic. One of many wonderful quotes:
"His actual birthplace is a small mud hut. It had fallen down and Saddam had it rebuilt in brick, then covered with mud. The funny thing is that there is an American army base right beside it and they had no idea what that "tool shed" was. They just told us that they have been here for a long time and nobody gave them that piece of information. Well, I bet there is a lot they are not telling you about."

Pax is back!

Big news in the "blogging community" - Salaam Pax is back. And with a backlog back to the day in March when he stopped posting, as the bombs started falling. His posts are routed via e-mail through a blogger in the West - but hey, you can read all about it yourself. Fascinating stuff - no particular political agenda, except survival, pride, curiosity and a very tolerant attitude, considering what he and his compatriots have just been through.