Comments on: About Qunfuz

By: Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:15:49 +0000

Ali, I am referring to charas. I took the amusing title ‘Chitrali cigarette’ from my friend Mohammed Hanif, who uses it in his novel “A Case of Exploding mangoes”.

By: Ali

Ali — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:16:52 +0000

Hi Robin
I just read your essay, ”Why isn’t it exploding’, in October-December 2012 issue of Critical Muslim. I like to think of it as a cool shade of Chinar (Oriental plane) in the scorching sun of negativity that goes around, masquerading as scholarship, about Pakistan. You mention ‘Chitrali cigarettes’ on two ocassions: p. 33 and 34. I am from Chitral and, as far as I know, we don’t have any cigarette factory in Chitral. Are you referring to the bhang/charas (weed?) produced in Chitral and smuggled to the urban areas of Pakistan or there is an actual cigarette brand named Chitrali?

By: Yassin-Kassab: After two years of conflict, London would be as extreme as Homs « Middle East LDN

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:39:15 +0000

[...] Yassin-Kassab, a journalist who also wrote The Road to Damascus and is a prominent blogger, said he was disappointed in the attitudes of journalists who dismissed the Syrian rebels as [...]

By: Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:14:09 +0000

thank you, Baba

By: Culture Under Fire – part of REEL: Syria festival « Syria Through the Looking Glass

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:41:10 +0000

[...] Ratta joined Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, Syrian novellist Manhal Al-Saraj, British Syrian author Robin Yassin-Kassab, and cultural resistance specialist Steve Chandra Savale. Another Syrian novellist, Mamdouh Azzam, [...]

By: Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:07:33 +0000

Don’t apologise! But there was no consensus. The US didn’t really want to get involved. Neither did Germany. Qatar (not a NATO power) is definitely involved. In the UN, Russia and China are against. I consider myself to be ‘of the left’, whatever that means, but I am disturbed by the blanket thinking of some leftists who see ‘imperialist consensus’ where there is none, who say ‘it’s just like Iraq’ although the Iraqis were ignored when they rose against Saddam in 91, who fail to notice that the imperialist west has just lost two wars and doesn’t have either the appetite or the capacity for an occupation of Libya. It can still be profitably debated, however, how much support the revolution lost inside Libya when it sought help from outside, and to what extent the future has been compromised by British and French involvement. Unfortunately, I don’t see any happy end for Libya. But I’m still glad Qaddafi was stopped from forcing his way into Benghazi and Misrata.

By: levi9909

levi9909 — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:14:40 +0000

maybe i overstated the case, apols if so

By: Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:46:09 +0000

If there was NATO/UN consensus I missed it.

By: levi9909

levi9909 — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:40:12 +0000

Thanks for that Robin. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment but it’s most welcome.

Re intervention, I didn’t know what the flip to think when the whole thing kicked off in Libya so I was grateful for Marqusee’s article. At the level of gut feeling (plus empirical evidence) I just feel that NATO/UN consensus is usually wrong.

Anyway, I’m now subscribed and I look forward to our online paths crossing in future.

By: Robin Yassin-Kassab

Robin Yassin-Kassab — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:13:14 +0000

Hello Mark. I like your blog a lot. I know that others have subscribed to my blog, but i’m not sure how. One day I’ll work out how to add a search bar.

As for Libya, it’s an ugly situation. I can’t see how it would have been any better without the intervention. I’m against bombing Tripoli – that exceeds the UN mandate and probably galvanises Qaddafi’s supporters. I wish the Arabs were in a position to intervene, but they’re not. I think that having Qaddafi win back in March by slaughtering the Libyans would have been a disaster not only for Libya but for Syria and the rest of the Arab world too. By now, there is I think a good argument for winding down the intervention. The playing field is more even than it was at the start (Misrata has been liberated for a start, and the Western mountains are no longer under siege), and if qaddafi doesn’t go soon there must be negotiations.

I don’t support humanitarian intervention as a principle, and from a British perspective the intervention is probably overall a bad thing. I was thinking from an Arab perspective and I wasn’t thinking on general principle. I make no apologies for that. Every case, and every moment, is different.