situation in Iran

is now critical.

The sun sets in Iran.

State army, IRGC, police, Baseej (with Arab-speaking Hezbollah/Hamas - unconfirmed) in open, violent confrontation with the protestors in Tehran. Tehran is not alone; citizens face government-sanctioned violence in Tabriz, Mashad, Shriaz, Isfahan and Ahwaz.

Protestors aren't their mincing words. No more talk of votes, only 'Death to the Diktator', Margh bar Khamenei, Margh bar dictator! An outright rejection of Khamenei and the regime. Live ammunition, tear gas being fired into the crowd. Non-protestors are also beaten and shot at; everything in the streets is a target. Helicopters are reportedly dropping chemicals/acid [unverified] on the crowd.

European embassies have opened their doors to take in the injured. Hospitals are traps.

Mousavi rallies the crowd and speaks. He is among the people, "We all go back to God!" [enna lellah va enna elayhe rajeoon] "I am prepared for death; I am prepared for matyrdom." Reports say that he is moving from street to street, speaking to the people. He declares the results of 10th Presidential Election null and void.

This is a pivotal moment in history. Of that I am sure. The Islamic Republic will not come out of this crisis whole. This escalation of events is irreversible; everything is now on the line for Iran.

I may be an atheist, but for today, the Iranian people are in my prayers.

We who stand in solidarity with the Iranian people - we are all Iranian.

----
The mainstream news is struggling to remain relevant, get breaking news off

#iranelection
Andrew Sullivan
Huffington Post

The world is watching.

all hell is

breaking loose.

Electricity cut in major cities. State army, not IRGC is making its presence known, both within Tehran and out. Basij in plain-clothes everywhere. Journalists are all trapped in their offices. Twitter is being monitored; disinformation is being spread from within by domestic intelligence. On that note, there are wild rumours about five thousand Lebanese Hezbollah fighters amidst the crowd, shipped in in plain-clothes. It is a fantastic claim, but not entirely unplausible.

This is a regime that finally has a greater fear of its own people than of any American or Israeli weapon.

a follow-up

of sorts to my last post.

The British press has had a field day.

Some interesting tidbits that didn't make the main outlets:

- Queen gets annoyed with Il Cavaliere.
- Queen gets touchy with Michelle.
- Queen's companion apparently not as gaffe-less as initially thought.
- Quentin Letts outdoes himself in this piece on the Portugese water dog.

NB: I have sunken to such depths as to have taken to trawling the Daily Mail.

Lastly, things were not quite what they seemed behind the scenes at the summit. (ABC)

If true, I'm impressed.

am following

events at the G20.

Sarkozy tickles me. He cuts a comical figure - the big little man trying too hard at being Summit Villain.

And if the presidential motorcade cannot fit Downing Street, one immediately knows that it has got to be American.

Gordon's not on first name terms with Barack anymore; good move. Still as eager as a caffeinated seal though, and putting up a passably fine show. There is breath in him yet.

Give him credit for trying; at least he does. Sarah looks like a fish out of water beside Michelle. Frigid. Cold. Dead.

Tea and biscuits with the Queen. Looking good in pink, Your Majesty. Prince Philip refrained from making any gaffes. Must have been sedated.

Finally, chuckled at Diamond Geezer's April 1st coverage of the protests.

some quick thoughts

on the Mumbai incident.

- Lashkar-e-Toiba has always been thought of as a project of the ISI's. Recent evidence and pointed fingers suggest cooperation between the ISI and al-Qaeda as well. If either terrorist organisation is shown to be involved, there will be quite a big diplomatic brouhaha.

- If a conflict, or if the potential for conflict arises between India and Pakistan, Pakistani troops would be redirected to the Indian border. Pressure against the Taliban and allied foreign fighters on the western border will diminish significantly. Taliban/Qaeda supporters in the NWFP will stand to gain. Whether or not the Taliban has support the support of elements in the ISI or Pakistani army is moot; it would be free to maneuver throughout the region.

- Could the attacks then have been orchestrated by supporters of the Taliban/Qaeda within the ISI or Pakistani military? If so could this also have the effect of forcing the US to rein in its strikes into Pakistan, so as not to been seen as setting an example for India?

Hmm.

now that the US has had its fun

...it's Ayman al-Zawahiri's turn to play the race card!

So it seems. The news broke two days ago, and here are some samples of coverage by major players in the Western media.

Reuters | Guardian | WaPo | Time

Couple of observations here.

It seems that the Western media is milking Zawahiri's remark for more than it is worth, and taking it entirely out of context. Abid al-bayt is an abusive term. Certainly. It is dirty and derogatory; 'house slave' - abid translates literally as 'slave'. It was an obvious expression of scorn and ridicule. That much is true.

WaPo speculates that the remark will lead to al-Qaeda's alienation of rising Islamist movements in African countries, most of which include nations in the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. Maybe, maybe not. The Western media seems bent on misleading the public - Zawahiri had chosen to express his solidarity for blacks and Africans in general, and the media has conveniently forgotten this. After all, al-Qaeda maintains a diverse, multinational front; in principle, at least.

My point is - 'abid al-bayt' was specifically directed at Obama, and nowhere else, not once, did Zawahiri express his contempt for blacks; he did quite the opposite. Moreover, it may simply have been a parallel to Malcolm X's original choice of words. On top of that, despite its waning influence in the Middle East, al-Qaeda enjoys a certain amount of leverage in the Africa.

Be as that may, dark-skinned people and individuals of African lineage are commonly held in contempt around the Arabian Peninsula. Ethnic Arabs are particularly guilty of such prejudice.

Of course, the racial divisions in the region and beyond are messier than a primary school potluck. For example:

- Having had their experiences with foreign mujahideen during the Soviet invasion, the Pashtun maliks in Afghanistan would conclude that the Africans are no better than Arab dogs.

- The Persians and Tajiks in the area would join in to have a hearty go at the Arabs (not the Africans, who they have little experience with), but not before spitting on the Pashtuns - and only if the Tajiks are Shi'a, not Sunni.

- The Bedouins (fuck off, you, "I and my brothers against my cousins, I and my brothers and my cousins against the world" we're rather happy being belligerent and miserable, thank you very much) and the long-suffering Kurds aside, the Arabs (we're shifting westwards) are happily flipping their fingers at everyone around them. One would think that they've stopped caring. Why bother when you're building fantasy cities and cashing in on trillions of oil dollars? But while you're at it, I suppose you could ship Africans in by the boatful. Cheap labour + reassertion of class consciousness/racial hierachy = handy feel-good trick.

- The Egyptians? (Zawahiri's one, but the following cannot be assumed of him, of course.) They're simply keeping to the historical status quo. Were the ancient Nubians not conquered by the Kushites and the Egyptians?

Ah, the Middle East. It is a shambles.

Egypt! allow me to go off on a tangent. This hasn't anything to do with Zawahiri, but I'll finish this post with a couple of other observations.

Egypt has always been an outsider; it has always been the odd bastard child-with-spots on the block. One ought to notice that Egypt is not 'truly' African. At best, it is geographically African, but culturally Middle-Eastern. Geopolitically, it is neither - or both. That is why it was always deemed as an important front by the CIA. It was a commonly held belief that one could control both Africa and the Middle East, by means of manipulating a yielding Egypt. Of course, Sadat notwithstanding, they got Nasser, who was only too eager to spit in their eye.


- National Geographic

Egypt's awkwardness has its roots in antiquity.

Barring the original Egyptian dynasties, it never once had a distinct identity. It was ruled by the Greco-Hellenistic-Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty (all the way till the Cleopetra came along) before the Romans and the Byzantine-Romans, after which the Arabs rushed in in one fell swoop. Egypt ended its ride by gaining independence, but not before yielding to the French and the Brit-Ottoman-Mamluks.

Choice quotes from Wiki.

- When Egypt fell under a series of foreign occupations after 343 BC, each left an indelible mark on the country's cultural landscape (you don't say).

- Three chief ideologies came to head: ethno-territorial Egyptian nationalism, secular Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism, and Islamism.

- Arab nationalism reached a peak under Nasser but was once again relegated under Sadat; meanwhile, the ideology espoused by Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood is present in small segments of the lower-middle strata of Egyptian society.

Hardly a settled country.