Getting it Right!

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

Getting the right to vote is not a guarantor of anything, except a peaceful transfer of power. Women will not necessarily vote for women, and the best candidate in character and message do not necessarily win. Elections are above all about organization. Kuwaiti elections have been a mixed bag, reformist candidates won, but so did Islamist candidates, while not a single female candidate got elected, despite the fact that women were voting for the very first time in Kuwait history. All in all though, another important step on the path of democratization was just taken in Kuwait, but there is still much to learn.

A few thoughts on modernity

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

Many if not most of the main problems facing us in the region and hindering the process of change and modernization therein are psychological in nature. One such problem is the inability of our people to reconcile themselves with the necessity of making that crossover from the traditional to the modern. Instead, most seem to believe that they can keep one leg in each world thus maximizing their benefit, that is, they think that they can avail themselves of all those advantages that modernity has to offer while holding on as hard as they can to traditional values. Continue reading “A few thoughts on modernity” →

The Mill of Blackmail!

ME Transparent site is emerging as a source of some hardcore intelligence information with regard to the current situation in Syria. I am not sure who the sources are, but they seem pretty informed and pretty close to the regime. Transparent’s latestreportson Syria inform us that: one, the empty building near the national TV station that reportedly “came under attack” by a terrorist Islamist cell a few weeks ago, was actually a secret prison, known among the Syrian intelligence officers as the Tahouneh or the Mill, but it quite possible that the people who got killed were no attackers, but inmates, and that the attack was staged. Continue reading →

A Tale of Mayhem Foretold II!

Dr. Radwan Ziadeh, my dear colleague and good friend and one of the main figures behind the Damascus Declaration and the more recent Damascus-Beirut Declaration has recently been slapped with atravel ban on account of his continuous involvement in civil society activities around the region and the world. Continue reading →