Return of the Caliphate

If white is the colour
of mourning in Andalusia,
it is a proper custom.

Look at me, I dress myself in the white
of white hair in mourning for youth.

Abu l-Hasan al-Husri

An abiding dream for many Muslims is the return of the Caliphate, a united Islam as a world center of power and culture. Setting aside the fevered fundamentalist fantasies of the deranged and dispossessed, it certainly appears that a united Middle East is the only way that Moslems can stand up to the powerful West. A fragmented and backwards Middle East, trust fund oil states of money but no influence, do not represent or value their subject peoples and as a result those peoples are held in little worth by the rest of the world.

Models for the twenty-first century Caliphate are not hard to find, such as the neighbouring European Union, with its loose federalist structure and its freedom or thought and association. Or perhaps the tighter political structure of the Great Satan itself. Or a look back to the enlightened poet-princes of Al Andalus, whose benign Islamic rule in Spain served as a lonely beacon of light in the Europe of the Dark Ages.

Fallujah in Pictures

For those in the red states that think democracy is obtainable at the end of a gun, check out the powerful Fallujah in Pictures blog at:
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

A different country

Precious Cargo, Memphis

Due to the vagaries of construction site schedules and the demands of a client, I was in the red (Memphis, Tennessee) on Black Wednesday, the day John Kerry conceded.

Since then I have been reading analysis after analyses, in an attempt to understand how or why America went for the little guy. The analyses contradict each other with aplomb; in fact it's a safe bet that Americans had many reasons for casting their votes, not all of them synchronous, many of them contradictory. It will take a four-year unfolding / unravelling of events for these same Americans to judge whether they made a wize choice.

As I have quieted my voice in shock and awe for two weeks, avoiding the siren charms of the dimensionless space that is this great blogosphere, I feel that it's time to add my own contribution to the cacaphony of commentary. I'm reaching for, but failing to grasp, the great unifying theme that can tie up the straying red, white and blue threads into some neat package of punditry that explains all to everyone, or at the very least to me, myself, I.

But this I can say. You Americans who voted for George Bush as your President sent a message to us non-Americans who cohabit with you in our shared home, the planet earth. The message is simple and clear: we don't need you, we don't want you.

We have heard and understood you.

So back to Memphis and the "Precious Cargo" restaurant at 381 North Main Street, pictured above. Having half an hour to eat before my meeting, I selected a black-owned establishment, to fill my belly with catfish and fries, and more importantly to avoid the need to pass pleasantries back and forth with the victorious good ol' boys. Fortunately, I got a lot more than that. The politically-active proprietress (alas I've forgotten her name) filled me in on the Memphis scene, talked eloquently of ongoing racial polarization, failed attempts at urban regeneration, a sapping of the African-American political will in the city since it hosted the assassination of Dr. King. This woman's will however was magnificently unsapped: the restaurant hosts acid-jazz, hip-hop and reggae concerts, poetry readings, and the night before was the venue for a victory party for a candidate for the Memphis school board: a little victory snatched from the mighty jaws of our collective defeat.

Do ye ken John Peel?

An elegy for the late, great English DJ, penned by David Stoner, our senior correspondent in Barcelona.

A few days ago, while ambling up the Rambla, I was whisked away back in time to a moment in the late seventies - I presume it was then. I was boarding-school schoolboy as we all were in those days. On one particular cold evening in November - rather like today, I suppose - I was sitting at a large solid wooden table in a Tudor-style house in a quintessential village a stone's throw from the town of Cambridge. It was half-term, you see, and this Laurie Lee-like world is where I would go on leave. It seemed to be colder in those days. That was probably because this was East Anglia and the North Sea freezing fog would wash in over the estuaries and endlessly flat sugerbeet-smelling farmland chilling you to the bones. Neither the cold nor the smell would ever leave you in peace. Unless, however, you were in that cottage home which did indeed provide a cosy retreat form the autumnal elements and boarding school.

More often than not, especially between the hours of ten and twelve, evenings were spent around that wooden table reading and listening to a large radio; the type made of metal and wood displaying an exotic array of large cities among the numbers on the dial: London, Bombay, Moscow, Buenos Aires, New York ... One particular evening while dreaming about such cosmopolitan destinations, a voice came over the airwaves interrupting my train of thought. To this day I have never forgotten what it said and have always had difficulty communicating how much it meant to me, and probably to countless others of my generation. It said ten magical words, and I am sure that when you read them you will know what I am talking about. It went like this: "And for no particular reason, 'Tommy Gun' by The Clash ..."

From our Financial Correspondent

The Stock Market is predicting a Kerry win.

The market was down 45 points a minute ago - that indicates a Kerry win. We should see a 1% drop in the market if he wins or conversely a 1% rise if Bush wins. Interestingly enough, when a Democrat beats an incumbent, we would see, based on history, a 73% gain in the next 4 years vs. around 17% if a Republican wins re-election. So if you an evil, money grubbing Republican, you should vote Kerry.

Our financial and Mid-West Correspondents are one and the same: none other than Mike McDaneld. Many thanks for the observations.

From our Mid-West correspondent

Just got back from the polls. It was packed. Never seen it like that. I would say that's bad news for Bush.

If the big MO goes for Kerry it could be all over for Bush.

St Louis, Missouri, 11:03 EST

VOTE KERRY

Don't vote Bush