Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts

30 April 2025

2025 Sarajevo

Looking towards the old town, and the surrounding hills
Looking towards the old town and the surrounding hills

Up on the observation deck, a watery sun above me.  I can pick out landmarks of the old town.  And see how utterly vulnerable it was to snipers…  Air slightly hazy, maybe smoke.  Car horns rise from below – they are used a lot here.  Also striking how people will park anywhere – even worse than in Italy.  Actually, looking towards the airport, pretty clear the haze is fumes.  The air not too healthy, I suspect.  The tower good and stable – I’ve not felt any swaying…. The railway below looks rusty and dilapidated – a bit like those in Tbilisi and Chisinau.  I love these views from high places.
Black metal shutters in Svrzo's house
Black metal shutters in Svrzo's house 

 Amazing black window shutters made of metal – bronze? - they look like 3D versions of Rothko’s paintings, rich rectangles hanging in space more literally than in the pix.  Overall, the minimalist vibe plus the use of wood has a distinctly Japanese feel. A big panel of thick planks can be folded down to close the staircase leading to the internal courtyard.  As well as the beauty of the workmanship, what is striking about this place is the scale: room after room, all gorgeously appointed.  Amazingly, I had the place entirely to myself.  Also in the museums, this morning, no more than five other people.

A short trip to Sarajevo, a uniquely Muslim and European city where some of the most tragic events of recent times took place.

15 August 2006

Saudi Censorship, Saudi Wisdom

Larry Sanger has a useful round-up of stories that are mostly related to Wikipedia. Among them is one that I'd not seen. It's an in-depth investigation into the inconsistent way the Saudi authorities have been blocking Wikipedia. Obviously they find themselves in something of a quandary: there's lot of good content here that they would like to let users access, but there's also material that they are not so happy with.

It turns out that the article provides a solution to this problem:

"The young generation is not fully aware or conscious of the smart tactics some Westerners use to convince people of their views about Islam," said Al-Gain. "It’s the KACST’s or the CITC’s responsibility to make these links accessible to scholars and Islamic educators so that they study, analyze and respond to them. In fact, the KACST or the CITC must alert Muslim scholars to the existence of such links for further research and examination to attack the devious misconceptions that offend Islam."

Admittedly, this is not the most positive way of putting things, but I think the underlying argument is right. In other words, the best defence against things that challenge your views is not to bury your head in the sand and hope that they will go away, but to confront the problem directly, and come up with a good defence.

Call it the innoculation strategy: you don't try to avoid catching something - which is probably impossible - but you do take the precaution of protecting yourself against its effects by training the immune system to deal with it.