Slideshow: Cherry Season in Aleppo — The Struggle For Normalcy Amid Civil War

Foreign Policy has another great but sobering slideshow, this time showcasing the plight of Syria’s beleaguered civilians, namely those in its largest and most contested cities, Aleppo. While we’ve heard much about the back-and-forth between the various warring factions, as usual, the fate of those in the middle is somewhat understated (which in some sense is to be expected, given that they’re passive elements in the grand scheme of the war, at least for the time being).

The article’s introduction puts it pretty well:

Aleppo has been under siege for over nine months — ever since the Free Syrian Army (FSA) stormed the city limits in mid-July. More than 94,000have died throughout Syria, and close to 11,000 have died in Aleppo alone. While the international community dawdles and deliberates, while each side fights for the survival of its reality, civilians here must grapple with the fact that their old lives are gone and their future lives are unknown, and that life must somehow go on between now and then.

So people adapt and cope. The blasts of mortars and artillery fire blend into the background, the threat of snipers becomes a reality to grit your teeth through as you walk home, and dark humor seeps into the daily milieu, calming nerves with a white-knuckled laughter that holds tears at bay. Groceries must be bought, money must be made, bellies must be filled, and days must have some sort of meaning.

The reality of a civilian in war is that life must be risked in order to live. Day-to-day acts can become small feats of rebellion. Risking sniper fire on the walk to work becomes not only a testament to human resilience and our ability to adapt, but sometimes a statement: You can take my life, but you can’t take my choice to live it.

I hope this vicious bloodletting ends soon, and to the benefit of the Syrian people. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely for now: the intractable nature of this grinding war of attrition, as well as the growing sectarianism, makes it difficult to imagine that even a relatively pacified Syria will be stable for long.

Pakistan’s Artsy and Psychedelic Trucks

It’s always refreshing to hear something nice coming out of Pakistan for a change. Far too often, these culturally-rich countries only enter into our national psyche through tragedies or negative events — war, natural disaster, terrorism, and the like. But even the most seemingly blighted nations in the world offer much depth and beauty, often in the most unexpected places.

Case in point: check out this Foreign Policy slideshow displaying Pakistan’s uniquely flamboyant trucks, and the skilled and courageous people who drive them.

The creaking trucks that ply Pakistan’s treacherous highways form a vibrant tapestry in the country’s often bleak and rugged landscape. Showcasing the Pakistani tradition of painting vehicles elaborately, the trucks are covered with everything from detailed arabesques and Urdu calligraphy to portraits of Pakistani pop icons — or some combination of all three. Often, drivers hang chains of bells from their vehicles’ bumpers, giving them their common English name: “jingle trucks.”

Due to the way the article is formated, I can’t copy and past a sample of photos to share here, but I can share some of the pictures I’ve found on the web. These mobile works of art need to be seen to believed.

The article offers an explanation for this interesting and unique practice:

Last fall, Matthieu Aikins rode one such truck, a 1993 Nissan cargo hauler with a decorated cabin, along the U.S. and NATO supply route into Afghanistan — a journey he chronicles in his new Foreign Policy ebook: Bird of Chaman, Flower of the Khyber. (The title refers to Urdu writing painted on the truck’s mud flaps.) Starting in the port city of Karachi and then winding through Pakistan and its borderlands all the way to Kabul, Aikins observed countless example of these rolling canvases. While painted trucks are also found across Indonesia, the Philippines, and much of Latin America, the practice is at its most flamboyant in Pakistan. The origins of Pakistani truck art are unclear, but the first trucks driven in the country, when it was still part of British India, were Bedfords, imported after World War I. Over time these simple, stalwart machines were affixed with wooden prows and bumpers that grew increasingly lavish, as Aikins writes. Today, some drivers spend thousands of dollars adorning their vehicles.

Noting the lack of commercial logic to all this fanfare, Aikins suggests the tradition may have other, more spiritual roots. One theory, he says, is that the art might stem from the Sufi practice of decorating holy sites as “a way of accumulating spiritual blessings.” Durriya Kazi, a Pakistani artist and professor, told Aikins: “The idea is, if we don’t honor the truck, it won’t give back to us.” For a taste of Aikins’ colorful — and dangerous — journey, check out these images depicting some of Pakistan’s more colorful tankers — and read his new book, available here.

The World’s Most and Least Racially-Tolerant Countries

A map of the world’s most and least racially-tolerant countries. Read the methodology of the study, and its conclusion, here. The analysis was as follows:

• Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America. The only real exceptions were oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.

• India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant.In only three of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians, 51.4 percent of Jordanians and an astonishingly high 71.8 percent of Hong Kongers and 71.7 percent of Bangladeshis.

• Wide, interesting variation across Europe. Immigration and national identity are big, touchy issues in much of Europe, where racial make-ups are changing. Though you might expect the richer, better-educated Western European nations to be more tolerant than those in Eastern Europe, that’s not exactly the case. France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they didn’t want a neighbor of another race. Former Soviet states such as Belarus and Latvia scored as more tolerant than much of Europe. Many in the Balkans, perhaps after years of ethnicity-tinged wars, expressed lower racial tolerance.

• The Middle East not so tolerant. Immigration is also a big issue in this region, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which often absorb economic migrants from poorer neighbors.

• Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries. Nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where many racial groups often jockey for influence and have complicated histories with one another, showed more skepticism of diversity. This was also true, to a lesser extent, in China and Kyrgyzstan. There were similar trends in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

• South Korea, not very tolerant, is an outlier. Although the country is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically homogenous – all trends that appear to coincide with racial tolerance – more than one in three South Koreans said they do not want a neighbor of a different race. This may have to do with Korea’s particular view of its own racial-national identity as unique – studied by scholars such as B.R. Myers – and with the influx of Southeast Asian neighbors and the nation’s long-held tensions with Japan.

• Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier. Although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch.

Note that there are many caveats to keep in mind: for example, different societies have different perceptions of race (certain social, religious, and sectarian groups may be perceived unfavorably as distinct races) or may have no concept of race at all. Similarly, there is a difference between actually liking someone of a certain race, and being willing to live near them. Many national surveys from these countries will reveal strong racist attitudes in conjunction with a begrudging ability to tolerate said races.

A Tale of Two Humanitarian Educators

Interestingly, one of these stories takes place in India, and the other in Pakistan, each being reported on within months of each other. Regardless of their location, selfless and innovative ideas like these help give me hope in humanity. I’m short on time, so I’ll let the pictures and their captions speak for themselves. Click the images to link to their original sources (Washington Post and NPR, respectively).

A makeshift school set up under a bridge in New Delhi, India. Run by shop owner Rajesh Kumar, the over 50 students, ages 4 to 14, study everything from basic reading and writing to mathematical concepts like the Pythagorean Theorem. The students sit on foam mats just yards away from an excrement pit, and are taught for over 2 hours.

After decades abroad Saeed Malik (left) returned to his native Pakistan to rectify the poor education system. He remembered talking to a group of boys, 9 to 16 years old, and finding that the majority wanted to be freedom fighters and die as martyrs, because they had nothing else to live for. “And I felt, in what way can we bring these kids back to the beauty of life, to the beauty of future, to be of value to fellow mankind and to themselves and to the country,” he says. “And I started thinking in what way can we help the children.” Malik felt books were the way to broaden children’s minds, to introduce them to a whole world of subjects, and to help build tolerance for others. But he discovered that virtually none of the public schools in and around Islamabad had libraries. Through donations from the UN and private individuals, he founded the Bright Star Mobile Library, which now serves about 2,500 children, providing a range of books in Urdu and English.

We need more stories like this to be known, especially to balance out all the cynicism and negativity that typically captures our attention (and subsequently make up the bulk of our news). Even a flicker of light in the darkness is something to be cherished.

Number 1 Gun Runner

In constant 1990 U.S. dollars. Source: 2012 SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

In a recent report for International Studies Quarterly, political scientists Paul Midford and Indra de Soysa looked at U.S. and Chinese arms transfers to Africa from 1989 to 2006, using data collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. They found no statistical correlation between China and the types of regimes it supplied with weapons, while U.S. arms shipments were slightly negatively correlated with democracy. In plain English, China actually turned out to be less likely to sell weapons to dictators than America was.

“It isn’t that China is there to do good; they’re pursuing their national interest,” Midford says. “But we didn’t find any evidence that they’re trying to spread a ‘Beijing consensus’ or promote regimes that are specifically autocratic.”

The report focuses on Africa, but similar human rights concerns have been raised about U.S. weapons transfers to Persian Gulf autocracies such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, which collectively helped drive a more than 300 percent jump in U.S. arms sales in 2011 amid rising tensions with Iran.

Midford emphasizes that the report is not meant to suggest the United States prefers to sell weapons to dictators. “The U.S. is choosing to support autocrats based on a geopolitical rationale,” Midford says, “as is China.”

Source: Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy.

Prostitution

Reblogged from News on Modern Day Slavery:

Victor Jara

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile.

A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe.

Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government.

Shortly after the Chilean coup of September 11, 1973 and the ascension of US-backed Augusto Pinochet, he was arrested. In the hours and days that followed, Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken, as were his ribs. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of “Venceremos” (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition.[6] After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 16, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue where 44 bullets were found in his body.

The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice worldwide.

On December 3, 2009, a massive funeral took place in the “Galpón Víctor Jara” across from “Plaza Brazil”. Jara’s remains were honoured by thousands. His remains were re-buried in the same place he was buried in 1973. On December 28, 2012 a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in the murder of Victor Jara.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Everything You Know About the World is a Lie

As a geography enthusiast and self-proclaimed citizen of the world, I have a distinct love of maps, especially those of our planet. It’s hard to pin down exactly what I like about maps — I simply enjoy their aesthetic beauty, in much the same way that one marvels at the inexplicable beauty of art, music, or the natural world (to that end, I have a massive antique-looking map that I paid to have framed, which is placed prominently in my bedroom and which I marvel at every day).

Whatever the case may be, there’s certainly a widespread tendency, perhaps even an intuition, to view maps as utilitarian tools, and to thus treat them as a given. A map, like any tool, is something we assume to be functional and easily accessible, especially in a world of a mass travel and instant information.

In other words, rarely do we question the precision or validity of a map, especially within the classrooms in which we typically first encounter them. Few people look at a map with a critical eye, because, after all, a map is merely a projection of the world; and the world is obviously a real place that we have figured out with great precision, thanks to ubiquitous and advanced satellites and other advanced instruments.

Well, as with most things in life, it’s not that simple. Take for example, the following map, which is perhaps the most commonly encountered one the US.

This familiar classroom staple (at least last I checked) is called Mercator projection. Devised by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, it was developed specifically to assist in sea travels, which is the main reason why it’s been distorted to accommodate the imaginary lines used for navigation. This makes sense, as the first maps of the world were drawn up during the European Age of Exploration, when sea travel was both the main reason and means for mapping the world.

So setting aside the fact that most people don’t realize that this map is terribly inaccurate in its spatial arrangement, how inaccurate is it exactly? Well consider some of the following, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• Greenland takes as much space on the map as Africa, when in reality Africa’s area is 14 times greater and Greenland’s is comparable to Algeria’s alone.
• Alaska takes as much area on the map as Brazil, when Brazil’s area is nearly five times that of Alaska.
• Finland appears with a greater north-south extent than India, although latter’s is greater.
• Antarctica appears as the biggest continent in the world, although it is actually the 5th largest in terms of area.

For this reason, cartographers universally agree that the Mercator projection is ill-suited as a general reference map, although it remains in use for nautical travel. However, this over 500-year-old projection is still ubiquitous across schools and offices, often without the disclaimer about its context and accuracy. Note, I was fortunate to have been informed of its inaccuracy in class (which blew my little mind), although an alternative hadn’t been offered.

Furthermore, a variation of the Mercator has been adopted by nearly all the major online street mapping services (including Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, and others), not only because it’s familiar, but also because it is apparently well-suited as an interactive world map that can be zoomed seamlessly without much distortion, thanks to Mercator’s emphasis on conformality (e.g. preserving the angles and lines at the obvious expense of landmass and arrangement.

So what’s the alternative? Well, there are several, the best known of which is the Gall-Peters Projection, developed in 1855 and 1973 by two separate individuals:

As you can see, this map shows proportions and sizes much more realistically, with quite the dramatic difference: Africa, for example, is actually twice the size of the US (although Antarctica still looks bigger than it should be). Recall the list of inaccuracies I listed earlier.

Accuracy isn’t the only issue, however: believe it or not, there are political implications to these projections as well: the Mercator map is viewed as being biased towards the mostly wealthy and Westernized Northern Hemisphere, portraying it as bigger and more geographically-central than the predominantly poorer South. To most human minds, the size of something does seem to correlate with its perceived significance (especially to children), and the smallness of already-marginalized parts of the world could be seen as perpetuating this issue (this issue was amusingly featured in an episode of the West Wing, which was probably the first time many people even became aware of its existence).

In any case, the Gall-Peters projection is hardly the only contender — indeed, it’s the subject of much controversy (well, at least among cartographers). The increasingly popular Mollwiede projection, developed in 1805 and popularized in 1857, adds a pseudo-cylindrical shape to the projection developed by Gall-Peters. Then there is the Robinson projection, a personal favorite of mine, and the projection used for the cherished world map in my room. It was devised by Arthur Robinson in 1963 as a compromise between conformality (represented by Mercator) and spatial accuracy (as seen in Gall-Peters), and was adopted by the National Geographic Society for general purpose maps…at least until 1998, when the NGS decided to switch over to the Winkel tripel projection.

The Robinson and Winkel tripel projections, respectively.

Indeed, there are literally dozens of different map projections spanning a variety of types, properties, purposes, and intentions. A personal favorite of my friend, fellow blogger, and geography buff Alex, who writes for Scribbles and Rants, is the Dymaxion or Fuller map. This unusual specimen projects the world onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions, thus displaying Earth’s continents as “one island,” or nearly contiguous land masses. The arrangement heavily disrupts the map in order to preserve shapes and sizes. See for yourself:

Strange but ecumenical.

Ultimately, there really is no such thing as the perfect map, given that each projection is attempting to transplant something that is roughly-spherical into a two-dimensional space. Something will always be lost, which is why most cartographers make a point of warning that rectangular maps shouldn’t be relied upon as an accurate representation of Earth.

In fact, a couple of a decades ago, a number of geographic organizations adopted the following resolution:

WHEREAS, the earth is round with a coordinate system composed entirely of circles, and

WHEREAS, flat world maps are more useful than globe maps, but flattening the globe surface necessarily greatly changes the appearance of Earth’s features and coordinate systems, and

WHEREAS, world maps have a powerful and lasting effect on people’s impressions of the shapes and sizes of lands and seas, their arrangement, and the nature of the coordinate system, and

WHEREAS, frequently seeing a greatly distorted map tends to make it “look right,”

THEREFORE, we strongly urge book and map publishers, the media and government agencies to cease using rectangular world maps for general purposes or artistic displays. Such maps promote serious, erroneous conceptions by severely distorting large sections of the world, by showing the round Earth as having straight edges and sharp corners, by representing most distances and direct routes incorrectly, and by portraying the circular coordinate system as a squared grid. The most widely displayed rectangular world map is the Mercator (in fact a navigational diagram devised for nautical charts), but other rectangular world maps proposed as replacements for the Mercator also display a greatly distorted image of the spherical Earth.

In short, everything you know about the world is a lie. Don’t trust what the maps tell you!

Jokes aside, it’s fascinating  how much goes into something as seemingly mundane and taken-for-granted as maps. I suppose the same can be said of many disciplines and developments. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying such maps should be discarded or banned — it’s all about being cognizant of their flaws and peculiarities. As I noted at the start of the post, there is still something very beautiful about the portrayal of the world.

Happy Norwuz!

Norwuz is Farsi for “The New Day,” and marks the start of the Persian New Year. This major event is celebrated by tens of millions of Iranian peoples all over the world (namely in Central and South Asia, Northwestern China, the Middle-East, and the Balkans). It’s one of the world’s most ancient holidays, and it’s one of the few pre-Islamic traditions still widely practiced in Iran.

Though it has origins in the ancient Zoroastrian religion — with which it is still associated – Norwuz has come to be celebrated by a variety of cultures and faiths that adhere to the Iranian calendar, which recognizes the start of the new year on the day of the vernal equinox, when the Earth’s axis is “straight,” tilting neither away or toward the sun. Given the diversity of the cultures that celebrate it, the festivities can be incredibly variable.

Indeed, Nowruz incorporates just about every element we could imagine from our Western holidays: feasting, fireworks, the exchanging of gifts, thanksgiving, costuming, spring cleaning, spending time with loved ones, and even something akin to trick-or-treating.

Perhaps the most iconic custom associated with Norwuz — and the one maintained by all the different cultures that celebrate it –is the Haft-Seen. Also known as the “Seven S’s, this is a traditional table setting comprising seven symbolic items that  are meant to represent the elements of life. In Zoroastrianism, they also corresponded to “immortal divinities,” or angels (it’s believed that the concept of angels first emerged in this faith, and came to influence Christianity and Islam). These items, and their significance, include:

• Sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish – symbolizing rebirth
• Samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ - symbolizing affluence
• Senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree – symbolizing love
• Sīr - garlic - symbolizing medicine
• Sīb - apples - symbolizing beauty and health
• Somaq - sumac berries – symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
• Serkeh - vinegar - symbolizing age and patience

In addition to these core values and concepts are many others that are typically included:

• Sonbol - Hyacinth (plant)
• Sekkeh - Coins - representative of wealth
• Traditional Iranian pastries such as baghlava, toot, naan-nokhodchi
• Aajeel - dried nuts, berries and raisins
• Lit candles (enlightenment and happiness)
• A mirror (symbolizing cleanness and honesty)
• Decorated eggs, sometimes one for each member of the family (fertility)
• A bowl of water with goldfish (life within life, and the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving). As an essential object of the Nowruz table, the goldfish is also “very ancient and meaningful,” and has deep connection to Zoroastrianism.
• Rosewater, believed to have magical cleansing powers
• The national colors of a given country, for a patriotic touch
• A holy book, such as the Avesta, Qur’an,or Kitáb-i-Aqdas and/or a poetry book (almost always either the Shahnameh or the Divan of Hafiz)

Below are some examples of Norwuz table that incorporates all the main objects — and then some. Given the sheer variety of items, and the ability to personalize the arrangement, no one Norwuz table looks exactly the same way. See if you can identify the major components.

Back when I worked at a pet store, I used to receive a lot Iranian customers in a short span of time who were looking to purchase some goldfish for Nowruz, which is how I first learned about the  the holiday. It’s definitely one of the most delightful and colorful holidays I’ve ever read up on, and I highly encourage you all to learn more about it, and there are far more interesting traditions and concepts  that I simply don’t have the time to cover. Needless to say, it’s also a nice change of pace to read something pleasant about Iran.

I wish all of my Iranian readers out there a Happy Norwuz! Feel free to weigh in with your own personal accounts or information.

A Timeline of the Iraq War

Unbeknowst to most Americans, today is the 10th anniversary of the launching of the Iraq War. In recognition of this sober and increasingly forgotten observance, ThinkProgress has published a great timeline of the Iraq War that recounts all of the details of this understated conflict from beginning to end (including its somber consequences).

It’s remarkable how far removed most of us are from that conflict, even a decade later. Even I’ve had to remind myself that it was going on, and technically still lingers in some form or another (as it likely will for some time). Of course, the same amnesia and apathy does not apply to the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who took part (or their families), and especially to the millions of Iraqis who have been killed, maimed, traumatized, and exiled by the subsequent breakdown in society. Needless to say, the social, economic, and political consequences will likely remain both sides of this conflict for generations (albeit in different ways and degrees).

But given that it’s a busy day at work, I’ll keep my own musings brief. Please feel free to share your own reactions, thoughts, and opinions. At the very least, try to (re)familiarize yourself with this dangerously misunderstood and forgotten war.