In 2005, Hugh Miles moved to Cairo to work as a freelance journalist, and fell in love with a doctor. They decided to get married. There was just one problem: the Koran forbids marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men (Muslim men, on the other hand, can marry outside the faith, so long as the woman in question is either Christian or Jewish). Miles, therefore, decided to convert to Islam, and in this month’s Prospect he writes an entertaining account of the process. Readers may be surprised by how simple becoming a Muslim is, at least at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo (elsewhere it is more arduous). Little evidence of any religious commitment is required, and the whole thing takes less than two hours. The piece is based on the final chapter of Miles’s new book, Playing Cards in Cairo, an account of his year in Egypt (published by Abacus).
Monthly Archive for March, 2008
With the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq upon us, we thought it an appropriate time to revisit the story of Iraq’s WMD, the phantom biological and chemical weapons that provided the rationale for going to war.
In the new issue of Prospect, our assistant editor Tom Chatfield tells the story of the WMD diehards—the true believers who have not yet given up hope of convincing the world that Saddam Hussein oversaw a substantial WMD programme. This is a story of Russian and Syrian conspiracy, of underwater weapons bunkers, of midnight convoys of trucks transporting WMD over international borders.
But it is also a story of the dangers of overreaction. While the WMD conspiracists are almost certainly wrong—Chatfield spent hours in correspondence and discussion with three of the most prominent, and found little evidence to corroborate their claims—we must be careful to avoid slipping into the belief that WMD do not continue to pose a serious threat to international peace and security. While Saddam, it turns out, did not have any WMD to speak of, there is ample evidence that he intended to resume his biological and chemical weapons programmes at some point. Meanwhile, in the middle east and elsewhere, nuclear proliferation remains a grave concern. The story of the AQ Khan network shows how a clandestine group can help the development of nuclear weapons in other countries, including rogue states like North Korea, and while Iran seems to have ceased pursuing nuclear weapons for now, it continues to enrich uranium that could be used for a bomb in future.
A further dangerous consequence of the Iraqi WMD debacle is the weakening of public faith in intelligence services. In a world of terrorist threats, rogue states and WMD proliferation, intelligence will become an increasingly vital element of security policy. We must not let the failures of our intelligence agencies over Iraq—and possibly the misguided uses to which their intelligence was put—destroy our belief in the importance of their vigilance.
From the horse’s mouth, so to speak. This is how the Scottish Parliament begins its Scots language information section:
Walcome til the Scottish Pairlament wabsite
We want tae mak siccar that as mony folk as can is able tae find oot aboot whit the Scottish Pairlament dis and whit wey it warks. We hae producit information anent the Pairlament in a reenge o different leids tae help ye tae find oot mair.
This section o wir wabsite introduces ye til the information that is tae haun on wir wabsite in Scots…
I’m sure Robbie Burns would be more than delighted…
To mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the April issue of Prospect, out next week, features an in-depth look at the issue of WMDs, whose shadowy existence played such a large role in the build-up to war. Our own Tom Chatfield meets the die-hards who continue to insist that there is evidence that at the time of invasion, Saddam had a significant stockpile of WMD which was surreptitiously removed to Syria when the US-led coalition attacked.
In the meantime, why not revisit some of Prospect’s coverage of Iraq over the past five years? An exhaustive list of our Iraq articles can be found here. Pieces of particular interest—not all of which are available to non-subscribers—include:
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt—of Israel lobby fame—argue against war in March 2003 on the grounds that Saddam was “eminently deterrable.”
Alex Renton, in June 2003, looking ahead to the long-term social breakdown that he predicted many parts of the country would face as a result of the invasion and occupation.
Hassan M Fattah on the difficulties of setting up an independent newspaper in post-Saddam Iraq.
Jo Tatchell on Saddam the romantic novelist and the unjustly neglected topic of “dic[tator]-lit”.
Our foreign editor Bartle Bull’s dispatches from Iraq. In October 2003, he prophesised the coming of Shia Iraq. In June 2005, after several weeks embedded with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, he explained why this ragtag group of Shia militants were essential to the democratic future of Iraq. And last October, he argued that despite the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, the coalition’s pre-war aims had largely been accomplished and that Iraq was well on the way to becoming a stable middle eastern democracy.
Rory Stewart spent ten months in 2004 as deputy governor of two provinces in southern Iraq. In November 2005 he explained how his vision of a tolerant, modern society disintegrated amid increasing violence and pressure from Shia militants.
Gareth Stansfield, in May 2006, said that the only way to resolve the chaos into which Iraq had descended was to introduce radical three-way federalism.
Kim Sengupta, in September 2007, related the tragic tale of one middle-class Baghdad family caught up in Iraq’s descent into violent anomie.
Nibras Kazimi wrote a monthly Iraq column for Prospect throughout 2007. You can find them all here.
Credit where it’s due. According to reports, Gordon Brown has today agreed to meet the Dalai Lama in the UK in May, after talking to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. “The Premier told me that subject to two things that the Dalai Lama has already said - that he does not support the total independence of Tibet and that he renounces violence - that he would be prepared to enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama,” Mr Brown said. According to the Telegraph, The Dalai Lama said last Sunday that he would resign as spiritual leader of the Tibetan government in exile if the violence by Tibetans continues: “If things become out of control then my only option is to completely resign,” he told reporters at his Indian base in Dharamsala. He added: “Even if 1,000 Tibetans sacrificed their life [this would be] not much help”. “Please help stop violence from Chinese side and also from the Tibetan side.” Aides later explained that he would only renounce his political status as leader of the government in exile and would remain the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. So no need for a summit meeting round at our offices after all. What a relief.
Two days after I posted our modest proposal that Gordon Brown meet the Dalai Lama, Buddhist eco-capitalist Steve Varon and his very lovely partner, Beth, happened to drop by the Prospect potala on a brief visit to London from New York. He’s a remarkable man with a vision (in fact, he literally had a vision) that the Dalai Lama should be invited to carry the Olympic torch on a part of its journey to Beijing. I think it’s a great wheeze (so will the Dalai Lama if he has to carry the flame up Mount Everest). Steve has produced a video, which is well worth watching. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to see the deeper logic of Steve’s suggestion. Pass it on (like the torch).
The last few weeks have been a terrific time for BBC4. Having bought ‘Mad Men’, one of the most interesting new American drama imports, they have built a series of interesting documentaries around it on Sunday nights. Now Janice Hadlow has commissioned one of the cleverest drama ideas for years — a series of short dramas about some of the most popular figures of 1960s comedy and entertainment and has again built a set of evenings of clever programming around them. This is exactly what BBC 4 for meant for and confirms its place as the smart channel on British television.
The drama series began with last night’s hour-long drama about the story of the actors behind ‘Steptoe and Son’, ‘The Curse of Steptoe’ (BBC4, March 19). David Barrie’s documentary, ‘When Steptoe Met Son’ (Channel 4, 2002) already told much of the story of the off-screen relationship between Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Bramble, culminating in their disastrous tour of Australia in 1977. The cleverness of Brian Fillis’s drama is that it captures the sense of entrapment and failure in the relationship between the actors and connects it to the relationship between the Steptoes in the BBC series. Corbett and Bramble were tied to each other just as Harold and Albert were. They just couldn’t get away. And Fillis weaves both of these claustrophobic relationships in and out of the stories of the actors themselves. Phil Davis plays Bramble as a heavy-drinking old-time actor, something of dandy and a deeply sad and lonely figure, unable to find any joy in his homosexuality. Jason Isaacs plays Corbett as a frustrated actor, torn between ‘proper’ acting, playing Shakespeare on stage, and TV work which brings in the money and paid for Corbett’s town house in St. John’s Wood and holidays in the South of France. In between, trapped between the two increasingly bitter actors, are the writers, Galton and Simpson, who had managed to escape from the tyranny of writing for Tony Hancock (1954-61) only to end up just as trapped by these difficult actors. All four men are shackled to each other like convicts in a chain gang, producing one of the great TV comedies, which ran for eight series from 1962-65 and then from 1970-74. Perhaps the key words in the play come from Corbett early on, when he’s just read the first script for what was intended to be a one-off comedy, part of ‘Comedy Playhouse’ (1962). ‘It’s practically Beckett,’ he says, ‘Bloody tragic.’
Continue reading ‘Steptoe and Son’
With his unerring eye for trouble, Christopher Hitchens was already writing about Obama’s relationship with the Rev Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago 2 1/2 months ago (”Identity Crisis”, Slate, 7.1.08 — see Hitchens’ own website, http://www.hitchensweb.com/).
The American media took a little longer. Now they’ve found Wright they are not going to let go. He is straight from Fox TV’s central casting. Christmas has come early for the American Right. Obama did a good piece of damage limitation (turning Jon Stewart and other liberal well-wishers to soppy goo) . He did the only thing he could: turn the debate into one about whuite guilt and race in America and he did it with considerable seriousness and eloquence, high on five dollar words and low on specifics as is his wont. But this will only work for those who are backing him. For others, the speech was not a turning point. The Rev Wright and his Afrocentric theology will follow Obama to Denver and all the way through the presidential campaign (if he gets that far). The Republican columnists and TV pundits are all set.
Why did Hitchens get there first? Because he has no time for religion. He could sense trouble a mile off:
“Much or most of what Trinity United says is harmless and boring, rather like Gov. Mike Huckabee’s idiotic belief that his own success in Iowa is comparable to the “miracle” of the loaves and fishes, and the site offers a volume called Bad Girls of the Bible: Exploring Women of Questionable Virtue, which I have added to my cart, but nobody who wants to be taken seriously can possibly be associated with such a substandard and shade-oriented place.
All this easy talk about being a “uniter” and not a “divider” is piffle if people are talking out of both sides of their mouths. I have been droning on for months about how Mitt Romney needs to answer questions about the flat-out racist background of his own church, and about how Huckabee has shown in public that he does not even understand the first thing about a theory—the crucial theory of evolution by natural selection—in which he claims not to believe. Many Democrats are with me on this, but they go completely quiet when Sen. Obama chooses to give his allegiance to a crackpot church with a decidedly ethnic character.”
This is the point which John Gray completely missed in his long diatribe against Hitchens and fellow atheist writers like Dennett and Dawkins (The Guardian Review, March 15). The real problem with religion is that so many religious figures are drawn to hate and intolerance and division instead of understanding and compassion. They say things like ‘God damn America’. Obama can’t distance himself enough from this because he knows how much he depends on ministers like Wright, who have built up hugely popular congregations, to champion him come election time. So instead he talks about how Wright ’spoke to me about our obligations to love another, to care for the sick and lift up the poor, ‘ ‘who helped introduce me to my Christian faith’. McCain’s team, as you read this, are lining up the video clips of these words to run against Wright’s choicest quotes.
The tragedy is that Wright and the American Right are made for each other. Both will use God and religion to justify words of hate and intolerance. What was wise and brave in Obama’s speech will be forgotten and the fear is that this will leave a legacy of bitterness and resentment across much of Black America for years to come, long after the media herd have moved on and Jeremiah Wright is forgotten by everyone outside south Chicago.
It’s a sad day for fans of lavish romance movies, speculative science fiction, wacky dub reggae and frozen fish fingers. For in a bumper day for Death Pool players, March 18th has seen four celebrities—of admittedly varying levels of fame and attainment—pop their clogs.* The lives and deaths of Anthony Minghella and Arthur C Clarke will be widely discussed in the days to come, but spare a thought also for Mikey Campbell, aka Mikey Dread, a Jamaican broadcaster and singer who made his name on the radio show Dread at the Controls on the Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation. Before appointing Campbell in 1977, JBC had, astonishingly, shown no interest in reggae, the Jamaican music that was taking the world by storm. Campbell was best known for his zany radio shows, which incorporated a range of sound effects and special guests and, er, unorthodox broadcasting techniques, but I first encountered him on an obscure reggae compilation that featured his tune “Barber Saloon”—an amusing tale relating Campbell’s indignation at spotting a “natty dread” getting his locks shaven in a barbershop. Fans of expansive, experimental dub and roots reggae could do worse than get hold of The Prime of Mikey Dread: Massive Dub Cuts 1978-1992, which still stands up well today. Spare a thought also for John Hewer, the actor best known for playing Captain Birds Eye in the television commercials for over 30 years, who has died at the age of 86.
* Campbell and Hewer technically both died over the weekend, but I heard about their deaths today—and surely that’ll do for a blog post.
Although it’s not officially affiliated with the government, this rather sweet site dedicated to the Republic of Kosova (30 days old today!) seems to me to represent an intriguing development in international politics—internet diplomacy.
Taking it upon themselves to speak for their nation, the site’s organizers are running a real-time list of gratitude dedicated to those countries that have recognized the Republic and those who have indicated their intention to do so—as well as some handy facts and figures. Did you know that countries that formally recognize Kosova make up 66.39 per cent of the World’s Total nominal GDP?
In an age when what people find out at the click of a mouse has an intimate long-term relationship with what they believe to be true, this web-based scrapbook of a fledgling nation is doing its bit for Kosova’s legitimacy, and represents a real-time record of the process that will make or break the Republic. It may not change the world, or melt cold Russian hearts. But the message at the top of the page really is rather endearing…
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