generalspeaking

World Heritage, Venerated, Destroyed

"Assad wants it, because if he can take Aleppo, he'll have the northern capital. He'll have all the cities. Then the rebels are just a bunch of hillbillies. They will be marginal, and he will close in on them in time."
"Aleppo has become the real epicentre of this struggle. And it's likely to remain an open sore."
"If we want to look at camels as the ships of the desert, those caravans and camels radiated out of Arabia and around this giant desert, and they landed in these port cities -- whether they were Aleppo and Damascus, Hama or Homs."
"Aleppo was the pinnacle, the acme, in this Levantine Arab culture -- of fine cuisine; of great poets; literature; the souk; all these Ottoman houses with great courtyards, amazing mosaics and worked wood. All the layers of history are recorded in Aleppo. And now the souk has been burnt. Many of the Ottoman homes have been destroyed. That history that had been layered like a palimpsest has been scraped clean. I think we're seeing the brutal levelling of Aleppo. For all the reasons that Aleppo was the great cosmopolitan centre, it is also going to be the well of despond."
Joshua Landis, director, Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma

"Aleppo was a great Syrian city, but not of it, nor of Anatolia, nor of Mesopotamia. There the races, creeds and tongues of the Ottoman Empire met and knew one another in a spirit of compromise."
"It was typical of Aleppo that in it, while yet Mohammedan feeling ran high, more fellowship should rule between Christian and Mohammedan, Armenian, Arab, Turk, Kurd and Jew, than in perhaps any other great city in the Ottoman Empire."
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

"Religion was never an issue. We went to the same schools, jobs, everything. There was really no discrimination. Most friends in Syria are Christian people. I'm Muslim."
"Once you are chased out of your house with your family and children, there's no logic to what you can do. And of course the opportunists, they come and prey on these people and give them money."
"On top of that, the government starts bombing the countryside around the cities, whether it's Aleppo or Damascus."
"[Aleppo no longer belongs to people living there] It's in the hands of militias -- whether government militias or opposition militias. Everybody thinks they're on the right side, and whoever pays a salary dictates on a group what to do and what to say."
Hassan, 75, Aleppine doctor in exile

A city of history, of great antiquity, a city that saw merchant traffic of the Silk Road, that witnessed and was the locus of invasion, it was also where ethnic, tribal people and their cultures and their commerce intersected and merged. Aleppo saw the Crusaders march into the Middle East, it was immersed in the Byzantine era, and it fell  to the Mongol invasion. Its ancient streets ran with the blood of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants in 1260 when Mongols ran amok, slaughtering.

As though to challenge the memory and barbaric record of the past when a tower of Aleppine skulls was built as a memento of Tamerlane passing through, the current humanity-debased tyrant of Syria sought methods as depraved and brutal as his predecessors millennia ago, to wreak havoc on the population and to destroy -- as none others ever managed for they had no warplanes and barrel bombs -- the ancient city and its ancient relics of the past.

The Agha Jeq mosque was hit by bombardments and extensively damaged. This photo was published on January 12 2016

Doctors and children and women have been targets most latterly as bombs have been dropped to target no fewer than six hospitals. Once-comfortable neighbourhoods have been reduced to choking rubble. The city that was once the economic commercial hub of the country and its most populous and diverse has been divided by two barbaric camps; that of the Alawite Shia regime of Bashar al-Assad and the equally terrorist Sunni groups including the al-Nusra front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Neighbouring Turkey is surreptitiously supplying the Sunni groups with weaponry. A further division represents the Kurds, loyal to their vision of a Kurdish homeland, since under both the Sunnis and the Shiites they have been disadvantaged and oppressed. Aleppo is part of the fabled Biblical-era land of desert and Bedouin -- tribal and clan adversaries -- leading to Anatolia, fondly viewed as the Fertile Crescent from the Nile River Valley to Mesopotamia.

Considered to be one of the most venerable continually lived-in cities it rose to prominence from the 16th Century under Ottoman rule and trade with the Christian states of Europe. After World War II, survivors of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey, sought haven in Aleppo, living among Assyrian Christians, together comprising a good proportion of the city's inhabitants. An ordered acceptance prevailed among the religious and ethnic communities.

Aleppo spurned the rebellion against Assad's regime. The residents of Aleppo were for the most part comfortable as they were with scant interference from the regime which portrayed itself as protecting minorities even as it oppressed the Sunni majority of its population. The rebel militias exerted themselves to convince the people of Aleppo to join their backlash against the regime, to little avail. Until revolutionaries from Homs came to Aleppo, changing the city's dynamics and attitudes toward the regime.

The once-ethnic-rich city of tolerance and historic magnificence has been reduced to a shadow of its former presence. The city that straddled frontiers  and became a gathering place historically to the present, was a place where cultures intersected and accommodated themselves. With the advent of Muslim exceptionalism leading to a reinstatement of Islam's original emphasis on conquest and power, and the irredentist appeal of conflict alongside ancient sectarian antagonisms, Syria has imploded.

Labels: Civil War, Islamism Crisis Politics, Political Realities, Shiite, Sunni, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Monday, May 09, 2016

Feeding The Afflicted

"Everybody says it is going to get much worse in Syria and that has implications there and here. There is very much a sense that even if there is a government change in Syria, this is a long-term issue. The real concern is not the numbers today, but the potential numbers.
"As a rule of thumb, we like to have funding three months in advance because, if you have that, you can bring commodities in by ship, which is cheaper.
"Unless there is a game changer like a NATO intervention, it looks like we are in this for the long haul. We have so many different scenarios for the day after the war ends. There will be internal conflicts. Unfinished business. There will be no social or economic structure, so it will not be safe to go back, especially if you are on the losing side."
Jonathan Campbell, World Food Program supervisor, Jordan

It seems somehow inconceivable that an original protest that morphed gradually into a two-year-long civil war can be spoken of as simply a prelude to an even more grievous human tragedy. That irrespective of whether the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad regains sufficient power and authority to resume dictatorial rule over all of Syria, or the opposition Sunni majority collective, that includes al-Qaeda-inspired foreign Islamists, 'win', the anguish of mass bloodshed is destined to continue.

So much of the cities of Damascus and Aleppo have had their suburban infrastructure destroyed. The hundreds of thousands of refugees from the cities and the besieged towns that have flooded in to refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon will have little to return to, if they will be enabled eventually to return to their country of origin. So many have died at the hands of the regime's war machine, and as victims of the Syrian Free Army as well.

People in crisis, having lost everything they own and value, escaping with their lives from a death zone are understandably traumatized, morally demoralized. Depending on the auspices of the United Nations food program to keep themselves from starvation is not guaranteed to make for contentment. Living in damp, crowded conditions with no privacy, in tents or trailers insufficiently heated against the cold, where children come down with fevers makes people cranky.

They look askance if the pita bread they receive hasn't the weight and dimensions of those they are familiar with, produced by the bakeries they're familiar with. Bread is the mainstay for the displaced of Syria who already face malnutrition and starvation conditions and whose shortened tempers account for the food riots that take place in the camps.

French, Moroccan and Italian makeshift field hospitals have sprung up and expand to accommodate new refugees streaming across the Syrian border toward its neighbours whose capacity to absorb their entry is strained and worrying. Not quite worrying in the same way as the slop-over from artillery fire, though. The UN's World Food Program now distributes 19 tons of bread daily, and increasing steadily. It is the steady increase that is increasingly worrying.

Through appeals to the international community, $1.5-billion has been raised to deal with the results of the civil war. "We never get ahead. We are always catching up" explained Tamer Kirolos, country director for Jordan for Save the Children, assisting tens of thousands of children in the Zaatari refugee camp not far from the Syrian city of Daraa; close enough to hear the bombardments of artillery there.

What is being offered to the refugees represents small comfort in preserving lives, and perhaps even hope for the future. What is assailing Jordan is the weight of the expense in caring for these hundreds of thousands that have spilled over their border, and the challenge of maintaining order and safety for those very same refugees.  Jordanian security forces are called upon daily to deal with food riots during WFP distributions.

"Whatever the mood or tensions, we have to deliver. It is not an easy environment", explained Mr. Campbell, who knows quite a bit about the challenges of chaotic conditions during war from his previous assignments in Congo, Kosovo, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Algeria and Egypt. 

Describing his role as that of a professional beggar, Mr. Campbell noted to Canadian journalist Matthew Fischer that Canada ranks third in the Syrian refugee donation stable. "Be proud of what you've done, but be prepared to do more."  Everyone, particularly the refugees would like to know, how much more?

Labels: Conflict, Human Fallibility, Human Relations, Human Rights, Islamism, Islamism Crisis Politics, Jordan, Revolution, Societal Failures, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, February 19, 2013

France's Fabius says Africa 'must' send troops to Mali 

BBC News online - 19 January 2013
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France had been obliged to send in troops "very, very rapidly otherwise there would be no more Mali".

But he has told a meeting in the Ivory Coast that the deployment of African soldiers is now a priority.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara also called for more support for Mali.

He said "the hour has come for a broader commitment by the major powers and more countries and organisations... to show greater solidarity with France and Africa in the total and multi-faceted war against terrorism in Mali".

France's Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday that 2,000 troops were now on the ground in Mali, and the final total could top the 2,500 originally pledged.

The troops will stay in Mali for as long as necessary "to defeat terrorism" in West Africa, President Francois Hollande has said.

Islamist fighters on Friday withdrew from two towns in central Mali following French air strikes.
Officials say the Islamists have now left the southern town of Diabaly, which they took on Monday, while Mali's army has also recaptured Konna, which was seized by rebels triggering the French intervention.

Laurent Fabius said upon his arrival in the Ivorian capital Abidjan that it was time for the African nations to take over "as soon as possible".

"France was obliged to intervene very, very rapidly, otherwise there would have been no more Mali," he was quoted by the Agence France Presse as saying.
Mr Fabius also confirmed that France would lead a European mission next month to help train and rebuild the Malian army.

He has urged Africa's international partners to help with logistical and financial support and said a donors' meeting in Addis Ababa at the end of the month would be crucial in addressing the needs of Mali and the region, the BBC's Thomas Fessy reports from Abidjan.

The first 100 troops of an African force - from Togo and Nigeria - landed in Mali's capital, Bamako, on Thursday.

They are being deployed under a UN Security Council resolution.

The original UN-backed strategy to reclaim northern Mali from Islamist rebels had France - among other Western powers - providing logistical support to an African-led force, adds our correspondent, but it is now clear that French troops will remain at the frontline of operations.

Nigeria will lead the West African force, with Chad, Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo also sending soldiers.

Nigeria says it will increase its forces to 1,200.

Chad has confirmed it will send 2,000 soldiers and it may also contribute its air force, considered one of the most effective on the continent.

The battle for Mali

Labels: Africa, Conflict, Controversy, France, Islamism Crisis Politics

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 20, 2013