Quote from Qana

I’ve recently started Robert Fisk’s book on the war in Lebanon, Pity the Nation – Lebanon at War, and for some reason I read the last chapter first. The chapter concerns the massacre in Qana in April 1996 when Israel bombed the UN compound there filled to the brink with Lebanese civilians. Fisk interviewed one of the survivors and starts the chapter with a quote from her account of the bombing.

A man was lying in two pieces. There was a woman who was pregnant and I could see the arm and leg of her unborn baby poking out of her stomach. There was a man who had shrapnel in his head. He was not dead but you could see a piece of metal in his neck, like he’d had his throat cut. He told his daughter to come to help him and lift him up. And I heard her say: ‘Wait a minute, I’m trying to put my brother together – he’s in two pieces.’ There was another brother holding a child in his arms. The child had no head…

106 civilians, most of them Shia Muslims, were killed that day. Israel claimed that they bombed the UN compound for 18 minutes due to a computer error. Israel originally repsonded to Hezbollah mortar fire close to the compound. Fisk offers a pretty detailed description of the massacre and his own experience in the book. A more detailed story of the aftermath (the UN investigation, Israeli excuses, etc) can be found in Odd Karsten Tveit’s book Krig og Diplomati: Oslo – Jerusalem 1978-1996.

The UN conclusion of the investigation was as follows:

While the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

At 11 am today it was exactly 90 years since the end of the war that was supposed to end all wars, namely the First World War. The war resulted, among other things, in the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Middle East as we know it today. The War to End All Wars lead to a Peace to End All Peace. In commemoration of the war I post this poem by John McCrae:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below…

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields…

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields…

Fesjå i Saudi-Arabia

I følgje denne artikkelen i The Independent er den dyraste og mest ettertrakta geita i verda den nejdiske geita. Det vil seie ei geit som kjem frå Nejd, ein region i Saudi-Arabia som landet har sitt opphav i og som eg for tida brukar mykje tid å lese og skrive om. Av den grunn var det interessant å lese om regionen sitt fantastiske geiterykte.

Det vart nemleg nyleg arrangert ei venleikstevling for geiter i Riyadh, hovudstaden i Saudi-Arabia. Tidlegare i år vart den velkjende tevlinga for mest tiltalande kamel halden nettopp her. Dimed blir Riyadh plassen ein vil dra til dersom ein vil skaffe seg ei nejdisk geit, men billige er dei ikkje. Ei av desse ettertrakta geitene kostar rundt £16.500, og det er ikkje medrekna frakt.

Dei aller fleste geitene i denne tevlinga stammar frå ein bestemt geitebukk, råtassen Burgan (som tyder ‘vulkan’). Burgan skal i følgje eigaren skilje seg ut frå dei andre geitebukkane og i tillegg vere historisk sidan han faktisk skal ha bidratt med å utvikle denne spesielle geiterasen frå Nejd. Vinnaren av tevlinga var Ibn Burgan, det vil seie ein av dei sikkert mange sønene hans. Burgan sjølv tok ikkje del i tevlinga sidan eigarane frykta at han skulle bli hardt ramma av det “vonde auget“.

Slike type fesjå for vakre dyr er likevel ikkje berre fryd og gammen. Førre november fordømde ein høgareståande islamsk autoritet i Saudi-Arabia kåringane av mest tiltalande kamelar. Han meinte at slike tevlingar var rett og slett vonde og dei som var med på slikt burde be om tilgjeving frå Gud.