Apr

21

Noise Pollution

Filed Under culture, links, Egypt | Leave a Comment

Michael Slackman is one of the better journalists covering Egypt.  He manages to capture some of the absurd realities which make Cairo one the most fascinating cities in the world, and his latest article in the NYT delves into the abundance of noise which is characteristic of the city:

While noise is never cited as a reason for the spasms of violence, it is a silent enemy that makes the pressures of life that much harder to cope with, people on the streets here said.

“The noise bothers me, and I know it bothers people,” said Abdel Khaleq, driver of a battered black and white taxi as he paused from honking his horn to stop for passengers.

“So why do you do it?” he was asked.

“Well, to tell you I’m here,” he said. “There is no such thing as logic in this country.”

And then he drove off, honking.

Apr

13

Casualty of War

Filed Under culture, links, U.S, Iraq | Leave a Comment

Iraq National Library and ArchivesWe hear so often of the casualties of the Iraq war, mainly in its human toll.  Yet Iraqi society and culture at large has suffered tremendously as well, one instance of which was the looting of the Iraqi National Library and Archives 5 years ago:

The sacking of the library that began April 11, 2003, was a bad one. The current Director of Iraq’s National Library and Archive, Dr. Saad Eskander, estimates that over three days, as many as “60 percent of the Ottoman and Royal Hashemite era documents were lost as well as the bulk of the Ba’ath era documents…. [and] approximately 25 percent of the book collections were looted or burned.” Other Iraqi manuscript collections and university libraries suffered similar fates.

Since then, Iraqis have once again tried to rebuild their library. The occupying powers have played along, but like so much about the Iraq War, their effort has been marked by ineptitude, hypocrisy and a cruel disregard for Iraqi people and culture.