Dialogue, or Negotiations?

A Heretic’s Log: A series of philosophical essays written between September 20, 2002 and July 15, 2004.

What does it mean to be patriotic these days? To love a given homeland? To have national belonging? Perhaps even a faith? Conversely, what does it mean to renege and betray? Or, more interestingly, to have a national or confessional enemy?

Indeed, what do any of these things mean these days, when borders, physical and mental, seem more foolish and macabre than they have ever been before? When no more mysteries seem to be left in the world? Or, to be more exact, when Science has managed to demystify the Unknown, and Technology has overcome Distance?[1] Continue reading “Dialogue, or Negotiations?” →

Manifest Destiny Manifest Terror: The World in the Grips of Victimary and Triumphalist Mentalities

A Heretic’s Log: A series of philosophical essays written between September 20, 2002 and July 15, 2004.

The source of future troubles for the world, troubles that can indeed threaten the very continuity of modern civilization, no matter how one defines it: Western, Christian, Secular, or simply human, is not terrorism per se, and is not simply the resentment that the people of the underdeveloped world harbor towards more developed countries, as some do indeed assert. Nor does it squarely lie in the triumphalist attitude exhibited by the peoples and governments of the developed countries – in that sense of hubris that imbues all of their actions and modes of address vis-à-vis everything “other.” Continue reading “Manifest Destiny Manifest Terror: The World in the Grips of Victimary and Triumphalist Mentalities” →

Going underground

By Richard Woffenden

Ammar Abdulhamid’s debut novel creates an image of a Syrian underworld

Set in contemporary Damascus, Ammar Abdulhamid’s debut novel is going to upset people. Its title, Menstruation, leaves readers in no doubt that Abdulhamid is not about to pull any punches when it comes to taboo subjects. Clearly a reaction to repression in itself, the novel looks at the effect of conservative values on society, particularly the young. Continue reading “Going underground” →