Accordingly, let Slogger City be partially/congratulated for partially/admitting that its "Iraq" press summaries come almost exclusively from the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust -- today starring Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Al-Quds al-‘Arabí, and Al-Hayát. Material actually printed under the yoke of Crawford has far less chance of being summararized or summatorialized. (As always, there is a picture of the front page of The Times of Bazzázístán, whether from the New Baghdad version or the Estuary Arabic version, but this is decoration, not information.)
To come clear is especially admirable considering that the economic rationale of Slogger City is to sell secret insider information about "Iraq" to mercenary corporations and perhaps even the occasional demented investor. Here at El Chipo de Silicio, where by definition nobody would ever dream of paying a counterfeit dirham for such stuff, there is no need to wonder whether the sloggers in fact possess any wares to sell corresponding to their advertisements. For that matter, the summators may take their pay checks without worrying about that subtle point either.
Today's summator does, exceptionally, look one of his AAPT gift horses in the mouth and make a couple of dental remarks.
Iraqi/Arab Papers Wednesday: Shrine Politics Government Arrests "Plotters" in the South By AMER MOHSEN Commenting on the recent bombings of Shi'a and Sunni shrines in Iraq, Al-Sharq al-Awsat’s Rasheed al-Khayyun penned a fascinating article discussing the history and politics behind the tearing-down of revered shrines. One important element that al-Khayyun alludes to –- and which was mostly missing from the analysis of Western journalists –- is that extremist Wahhabi groups may have religious reasons to attack Iraqi shrines, aside from their general anti-Shi'ism, and al-Qa'ida’s political motives (in terms of mobilizing and radicalizing Iraqi Sunnis by inciting sectarian strife). Wahhabism is one of the fiercest Salafi sects in its opposition to icons of all kinds. The building of shrines to commemorate dead religious figures is seen as akin to idolatry by the Wahhabi faith. Many of the homes and graves of the Muslim prophet and his companions were carelessly torn down in Mecca and Medina to make way for the building of highrises, since such historical buildings are considered to have no religious significance, and their preservation for their perceived religious value is sternly frowned upon. The departing kings of Wahhabi-dominated Saudi Arabia are traditionally buried unceremoniously in unmarked graves. Al-Khayyun reminds us that the Shi'a shrines in Iraq, housing the graves of the Imams, were equally threatened over two centuries ago, when southern Iraq experienced repeated raids by the Wahhabi armies, originating from Najd (a region in today’s Saudi Arabia) and expanding northward into Iraq’s hinterland, starting from the 18th century all the way into the 1920s. One of the objectives of the iconoclastic Wahhabis was to seize and destroy the revered shrines of Karbala and Najaf. The last such raid occurred in 1922, al-Khayyun says, and resulted in a Sunni-Shi'a conference in Baghdad, in which Sunni clerics announced that they would defend the holy shrines of 'Ali and Husain. It should be noted that not only Shi'a shrines fell victim to al-Qa'ida’s bombs, several Sunni and Sufi temples were also targeted by the extremist group. The destruction of al-Qadiriya shrine last month was a major calamity for millions of Sufis around the world, who witnessed the grave of the revered Sheikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani turned into rubble. It is also noticeable that Rasheed al-Khayyun refrained from using the term “Wahhabi” throughout the article, and referred to the armies of Ibn Wahhab as “the Ikhwan.” Khayyun writes for Saudi-owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat, in which any criticism of the Saudi regime or the Wahhabi sect is virtually forbidden. |
The Great Cardboard Kingdom is indeed slightly at odds with the rest of the Sunnintern on this point. It would be silly to discuss whether its First Estaters "really" belong to the Wahhábiyya or not, or darkly hint that les altesses royales are trying to conceal something discreditable when they dodge the label. Enough to the discredit of the Baní Sa‘úd is unconcealed already, no need to stretch verbal points in quest of more.
On the other hand, Mr. Bones, their attitude is not quite comparable to our own when Dr. Limbaugh barks and bellows against "the Democrat party." That noise is offensive only because the base and vile deliberately mean to give offense, as if they were Danish cartoonists or Sir Salman de la Verse Satanicke. No doubt those who subscribe to the Enthusiasm of Ibn al-Wahháb dislike the label because it seems to imply that their guru invented his characteristic stuff rather than discovered it. It does not help, of course, that the guru's own name for the stuff was al-’Islám. Al-’Ikhwán raises the same difficulty, one solved in a parallel English case by everybody understanding that whoever calls the Quakers "Friends" must be an enthusiast herself. Nobody sane pouts that one small crew of enthusiasts are insolently claiming a monopoly on amicitia. (Hmm ... if the Foxites had ever got control of a whole cardboard kingdom, would they have tried to banish the Q-word from it? Fortunately for wunnerful us, the First Estate was too debilitated to pull off any such trick as that even three centuries ago -- Foxism being part of the debilitation, obviously.)
As to M. Amer Mohsen, perhaps he only insists on Wahhábí to indicate that the "faith" in question is not his preferred brand of Enthusiasm, even as we might carefully say "ROMAN Catholic" to dissassociate ourselves personally from that species of Superstition. Actually, that "faith" business is even more problematical and interesting: can there be an insinuation that al-’Islám is the name of one Faith, and al-Wahhábiyya the name of a different one? M. Mohsen, however, probably does not think in English so well as to perform an advanced exercise like that.
Meanwhile as summator, he does not make clear whether anybody has seriously suggested that some iconoclastic Enthusiasm distinct from al-Qá‘ida is really killing people and blowing things up in Peaceful Freedumbia. The notion fits in with our own emphasis of how the neo-Iraqi TwentyPercenters have been smashed to smithereens -- here would be yet another smithereen. However, "fitting in with" is not evidential or probative.
| In other news, al-Hayat published further details pertaining to al-Maliki’s announcement yesterday that “elements connected to foreign intelligence” were arrested by the government. Al-Maliki made it clear that those arrested are linked to political parties that are “conspiring” against his government, a probable reference to a political front engineered by Iyad 'Allawi to challenge the current government. Iraqi “security sources” revealed to al-Hayat the identity of the men who were apprehended. According to the newspaper, the individuals in question are “tribal chiefs, notable figures and ex-officers in the Iraqi Army” originating from the province of Dhi Qar in southern Iraq. The men were arrested, the newspaper continued, “for their proven links to the intelligence services of an Arab state . . . and for supplying moral, material and logistical support for armed groups that operate in southern Iraq.” Clearly, al-Maliki intends these arrests to create a political scandal for the politicians who may be linked to the detained figures. The ultimate objective of the prime minister may be the discrediting of the political alliance that is currently being cemented against his cabinet. |
The Sunnintern, and therefore the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, may be divided about the wahhábiyya, but when it comes to distrusting and detesting poor M. al-Málikí, they are one pan-united monolith. Accordingly, any graduate of an American journalism school would have stuck in a couple of lines in favor of the current neorégime, even if they had to be specially solicited. M. Mohsen gives us an "on the other hand," but not of that type at all:
| On the other hand, al-Quds al-'Arabi published an op-ed by Harun Muhammad defending Arshad Zibari (a Kurdish member of the 'Allawi front), and attacking the two mainstream Kurdish leaders –- Barazani and Talabani -– for admonishing Zibari and his newly founded party. Zibari, who comes from a prominent Kurdish family, was a minister in Saddam’s administration. Talabani fiercely attacked him and Iyad 'Allawi (for bringing him into his front), and referred to the ex-minister as a “mule” (a name given to Kurds who were loyal to the Saddam regime and occasionally fought against the Kurdish Peshmerga). Muhammad wrote that the two Kurdish leaders “panicked” over Zibari’s re-entry into politics. The writer argued that the Kurdish leaders do not have the credibility to attack Zibari’s past and that of his Kurdish followers “who did not rebel against the Iraqi state . . . and did not serve foreign intelligence services, and did not conspire against their country and their people.” Muhammad went on to cite the numerous instances in which Talabani and Barazani struck deals with the Iraqi state, starting with Barazani’s father, Mustapha, who was “placed in a mansion in Baghdad” by 'Abd al-Kareem Qasim in 1958 (the author omitted to mention that Mustapha al-Barazani was placed under house arrest by Qasim) up to Barazani’s famous deal with Saddam in 1996. |
Here one detects a (slight) wedge between the Sunnintern, to which the Free Kurds technically belong, and the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, which does not much care about that. Even more interesting, though, is for an AAPT writer to throw stones at somebody else -- at anybody else in all the world -- for having made deals with Saddam.
"Interesting" is perhaps not the best word for that move. ("We have always been at war with Eastasia!")
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