Danger In other news, Danger are getting ready to launch their HipTop handheld. This combines the features of a Blackberry - email on the go - with a cellphone. The industrial design looks slicker than either the Blackberry or the Palm. But Danger, which is venture-backed, looks small as a company. I don't want to get caught out again with stillborn hardware.#
Yes, this is about Islam Enough of all these statements by Tony Blair that this is not about Islam. Enough, too, of blaming all the troubles of the Middle East on outside forces, primarily the US. The westerners who believe that are just political masochists; the Arabs who believe that have no self-respect or sense of responsibility. They are still cringing, 40 years after most of the countries in the region achieved independence, from western colonial power. Western responsibility has expired. It is time these countries grew up: their people need to take responsibility for their own hopeless governments, and their political leaderships have to take responsibility for the creation of a bitter and frustrated urban mob. Thankfully, the politically correct respect for Islam as an ancient and tolerant religion is giving way to some unvarnished analysis. Here's an excellent article by Salman Rushdie on the Islamic world's own responsibility for the current conflict. Salman Rushdie: Yes, This Is About Islam Andrew Sullivan: This is a religious war#
thursday, november 1
Canon PowerShot S110 This digital camera is *really* tiny and unobtrusive. But - and there is always a but - it relies on a USB interface rather than a faster i.Link cable. Damn.#
War fatigue I have to confess to a degree of war fatigue. I really can't be bothered any more to give the anti-war left a hard time. They are marginal enough. And all too often, the discussion spirals into convolutions of war liberals defending their right to lambast the pacifists who complain they are being criticized for their criticism, while the rest of the world looks on with bemusement, or just ignores the squabbling of the western intelligentsia. I am sure there is some purpose to all this discussion, but I am tired of it. Above all, so much of the discussion is ill-informed. I had a conversation yesterday with a friend who believes that the United States is reaping the death and destruction it has sown over the last fifty years. This was a conclusion about arrived at without, apparently, any knowledge of Osama bin Laden's public statements. She did not think his publicly stated motives were relevant. It is hard to engage with people for whom facts are an afterthought to argument. So, I am giving by pacificist-bashing a rest. I'm still interested in the facts, and the whole clash-of-civilizations debate, but I am swearing off the oped pages of the Guardian, and conversations with certain people. You know who you are. And, as proof of my good intentions, a post below about a cool new Sony laptop. Nothing controversial about that.#
Sony PCG-SRX7 This is what I'd like for Christmas, please. A lightweight Sony laptop with built in 802.11b aerial. Now, if it only had a reflective LCD screen like the new NEC.#
Postcard from North Africa Well, I wasn't as diligent as I had planned in posting from North Africa. The keyboards were all mixed up and, in any case, I was on holiday. But I did talk lots of politics, and we did go inland, away from the main tourist zones. And, herewith, some observations. 1. They drink a lot. To be sure, Tunisia is more liberal than most Arab countries, and the majority of people still don't drink, but those that drink, do so with conviction. Every major town has a bar, usually serving the local Celtia beer, and nothing else, and it is full of glassy-eyed drinkers, and smoke. Conclusions: the Arab world is less monolithic than we imagine. There are things about western culture - alcohol and sexual liberation - that are attractive, and often repellent, at the same time. 2. It's always someone else's fault. This seems to be a theme, both of everyday dealings in a country such as Tunisia, and in the political dialogue. If a bus is late, or a scuba tank is faulty, or a hotel room is filthy, no one will ever take responsibility. It is always someone else's fault. Same with politics. The shortage of water in the Sahara oases? Ah, that is the fault of France, the colonial power, which bequeathed the irrigation systems. The dictatorial regime, in Tunisia and other countries? Ah, that's the United States, which props up dictatatorships, and squelches democratic sentiment. The attack on the twin towers? The Israelis, of course. Yes, the Arab street does really believe that particular myth. 3. It is not surprising that the average person in the Arab world is frustrated. Even in Tunisia, with one of the most successful economies in the region, the wage for a waiter or laborer is only 250 dinars per month, less than $200. There are few jobs for the ever growing number of university graduates. Those that exist are allocated according to connections. Support for the dictator, Ben Ali, is widely assumed to be a precondition of success. It is hard for a man to marry unless he has a good income. Most of the frustrated underemployed just hang out in cafes all day. I have more respect for those that try to overturn their governments, even if they are Islamic fundamentalists. 4. My conclusion: the West must withdraw support for the authoritarian regimes that govern most of the Middle East, even if that risks disorder. Not as part of an ethical foreign policy, but because it is only way that these countries will mature economically and politically. It is only by allowing the fundamentalists to take power, as they have in Iran, that people will learn that sharia law is not the answer to all modern problems. It is only by making independent choices, even bad choices, that Middle Eastern countries will shake off this debilitating post-colonial assumption that it is always someone else's fault. And it is only by the removal of the stifling kleptocracies in Tunisia and other countries that ordinary people will have some productive outlet for their energies.#
