FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Zanzibar Chest Chronicles Continues


p.197  Hartley describe Somali gangs blowtorching down the statues of Somalia national heroes such as Ahmed Gran and Sayyīd Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan.  Click on the names for more information on these two gents.  He describes the atmosphere of destruction in Mogadishu as ‘electric’, further describing it as a “dionysian orgy of destruction.”

p.198  At checkpoints, civilians would have to describe their clan family trees: The genealogies tumbled back generation after generation to a founding ancestor.  It was like a DNA helix, or a fingerprint or an encyclopedia of peace treaties…”  One guy who belongs to the ‘wrong’ clan is summarily shot. 

p.199  The british officers who had been stationed in Somalia had called it the “Furthest Shag of the Never-Never land.” 

p.200  In  the 14th century, Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta described a flourishing port where hundreds of camels were killed everyday.  Even after their conversion to Islam the interior clans/nomads remained wild and superstitious. 

No comments:

Post a Comment