Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Interesting post on the ransom kidnappings going on in Iraq by Zeyad. Damn good reminder of the tribalism extant in the Arab World, particularly considering Iraq is supposed to be one of the countries where such things are relatively muted.
Another family in our neighbourhood took a much more aggressive stand. When contacted by the gang they informed them that they knew who they were, and that if their son was not returned to them by the next day without one hair touched on his body, the gang, their whole families, and their clan members would be mercilessly slaughtered. The gang hung up the phone. After a couple of hours they called again and said they would return the fellow and apologised for the inconvenience. The family told them that they were greatly offended by this behaviour, since they belonged to the powerful Sunni Azza tribe, and that the gang would better pay them for this disrespect an amount of $10,000. A little bargaining followed, and the son returned the next day with $5000 in his pocket...
It helps frame some of the context of today's savagery.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Arab Tribalism.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/1979
4 Comments
Leave a comment to: Arab Tribalism
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!
, p.44
It's stories like that that make me kiss the ground of the country I live in.
And how.
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0055_BC_WSJ--DoctoringHimself&&news&newsflash-financial
I'm with Bremer on this one: meet the savages with an "overwhelming" response. Mark Levin, my super-hero says, give 'em three days notice to get out, and those that remain - flatten 'em. Our history is full of examples of meeting our enemies with an overwhelming response. Now's the time to do that once again.