“…to the Shores of Tripoli…”
If the deconstruction of the political frame, based on that of the Roman Republic, that is to say, the reduction of an elite Senate to one reduced to a second chamber of the common people, marks [...]
Syria – An American Tragedy
On Day One the U.S. Secretary of State, a man who never uses ten words if a hundred will do, announces before the world the decision of his Commander-in-Chief – for this is the correct name of an [...]
Democracy – The Hidden Rule of The Drone Operator
Cicero wrote: ‘People think I have lost my senses if I speak on politics as I ought, and a powerless prisoner if I say nothing.’ Nicolas Werth, the great chronicler of Stalin’s murdered millions, [...]
Syria – The World’s Fever Chart
Helpless, though we certainly are as individuals before the sordid slaughter of the Shi’a family dictator’s fight for survival in Syria – it does not mean that we can not learn from it about the [...]
‘Egypt. To Whom The Bell Tolls…’
Of course we are appalled at the massacre of a country’s citizens by its own military. We must step back from the frenzied scene of ‘breaking news’ and its dismal commentators. These events are [...]
Technique as Religion
A few years ago I was asked to give the Keynote Address at the Second Islamic Countries Conference on Statistical Sciences held in Malaysia. On receiving my text the Saudis at the Conference, [...]
The End of The Beginning
Luciano Canfora, the great Italian political philosopher and classicist, has given us an important definition: “What one calls a dictator is never one who rules alone, (Alleinherrscher), he is at [...]
Towards Awakening
‘It may be that the leading characteristic of barbarism is not violence or insecurity but historical amnesia, the imprisonment of mankind’s ancient self within a two-dimensional present, the [...]
Brazil Red – The Global Civil War
(Photo taken by Jodi Hilton for http://www.lefigaro.fr/lefigaromagazine/) ‘In these times of ours…’ So began Dickens’ final masterpiece ‘Our Mutual Friend’, the last in his life-series of [...]
The Post-Doctrinal Vatican
The Catholic Church since its inception has functioned as an after-life. Crudely constructed of old Roman myths it claimed the birth of the Saviour as a winter festival, and his death and rising [...]
Assad in End-Game
As the Assad regime goes into terminal rictus one is still reluctant to make a move, however, a matter of grave importance demands our attention. Syria has become a lake of blood, but only the [...]
Qatar, Timbuktu, and an Arab Rescue
The blessed relief of Timbuktu and the tragedy of the destruction of its great library faces us with the issue of the abysmal failure of the pseudo-salafi monotheist and anti-Islamic movement of [...]
Jack White, a Medicine for Egypt
This is a journey to begin the New Year. Our journey begins with Schiller’s Ode to Joy, which became the lyric of Beethoven’s sublime Ninth Symphony. It opens with the famous lines: Freude, [...]