Walid the blasphemer

Walid the blasphemer embarrasses Palestine

For months he was one of the most hated internet users in the Muslim world. His Facebook page, which went by the name Ana Allah ("I am God"), was full of blasphemous sallies and barefaced arguments in favour of apostasy. But when the mystery poster was arrested at the start of the month, to everyone's surprise he turned out to be a shy young barber from Qalqilya, a small town in the West Bank.

Two very useful English words that don't exist in French...

Delphine Autret, a Meribel-based translator, has emailed Culturissima the following humorous take on why English language is littered with so many French words... we particularly enjoyed the last paragraph.

It’s magnifical!

Further proof, if proof were needed, of two self-evident facts from the world of translation, namely:

i. translators are a waste of money because anyone can translate;

ii. every French man or woman that the Good Lord has so graciously bequeathed to us speaks perfect English.

Or maybe not...

Ebrahim Hamidi is 18 years old and is going to be hanged

This article first appeared in Le Monde; it was translated from the French by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter, on behalf of an American client.

After Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, recently condemned to death by stoning for committing adultery, Iran is refusing to backtrack with the sentencing to hang of a young man suspected of being homosexual.  

Ebrahim Hamidi is eighteen and is going to die. Ebrahim’s country, Iran, has found him guilty of an abominable crime: he is alleged to be homosexual. And so he must die. Because Tehran's judges are eager to hand over to the executioner a man suspected of sleeping in the same bed as his fellow man. 

This prospect alone, so contrary to the very notion of humanity, would be enough to horrify us, and we can only imagine the terror in which Iranian homosexuals live, obliged to be silent, to lie and to deny their identity.  

The charges are said to have been fabricated following a trivial quarrel; the accusations made up by fellow detainees in return for promises about being released; and Ebrahim's confession extracted under torture.

During Ebrahim's trial, the defendant did not have the right to any form of legal representation. And the verdict itself was delivered by a magistrate who based his decision on a special procedure known as “judge’s knowledge”, which allows for subjective judicial rulings when no formal proof exists.    

In a spectacular new development in July, Ebrahim Hamidi’s alleged victim admitted that he had made a false accusation under pressure from his parents. You might have thought that such a retraction would have led to the sentence being quashed. Far from it. Ebrahim Hamidi is still guilty of a "crime" that he has not committed. Is he homosexual or not? It makes no difference. He has to die.  

Ebrahim Hamidi a 18 ans et il va être pendu

Après Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, condamnée à la lapidation pour adultère, l'Iran persiste et signe en condamnant à la pendaison un jeune homme soupçonné d'homosexualité.

Ebrahim Hamidi a 18 ans et il va mourir. Dans son pays, l'Iran, il a été reconnu coupable d'un crime abominé: Ebrahim Hamidi serait homosexuel. Donc il doit mourir. Car les juges de Téhéran n'hésitent pas à livrer au bourreau l'homme soupçonné de dormir dans le même lit que son semblable.

Cette seule perspective suffirait à nous horrifier, tant elle est contraire à la notion même d'humanité et nous laisse imaginer la terreur dans laquelle vivent les homosexuels iraniens, obligés de se taire, de mentir, de nier leur identité.

L'accusation aurait été montée de toutes pièces à la suite d'une rixe banale, les dénonciations faites par des emprisonnés l'auraient été au prix de promesses de remise en liberté, les aveux d'Ebrahim extorqués sous la torture.

Au cours de son procès, l'accusé n'a pas eu droit à la moindre représentation légale. Quant au verdict, il a été prononcé par un magistrat qui s'en est remis à son propre jugement, procédure utilisée lorsqu'il n'existe pas de preuve formelle.

Au mois de juillet, en un rebondissement spectaculaire, la "victime" présumée d'Ebrahim Hamidi a reconnu avoir porté contre lui de fausses accusations sous la pression de ses parents. On pourrait croire que cette rétractation aurait entraîné l'annulation de la sentence. Pas du tout. Ebrahim Hamidi est toujours coupable, d'un "crime" qu'il n'a pas commis. Est-il homosexuel ou non ? Qu'importe. Il doit mourir.

Turkey eats dirt

Café Babel, "the first multilingual European current affairs magazine", has just published a translation by Culturissima's David Winter (written by Tania Gisselbrecht) that draws worldwide attention to the rigging of football matches in Turkey.

What on earth has stung Turkey into action? For more than a month now a new broom has been sweeping clean not just the streets of Istanbul but also the country's football and armed forces. But who’s wielding the broom? And what "rubbish" are they trying to get rid of? Worthwhile questions to ask because it’s clear the idea did not come from "Mr Clean".

On July 3 the Turkish judicial authorities disclosed that they are investigating a series of rigged matches involving Turkey's most prestigious football clubs. Official phone tapping has led to search warrants being issued and a succession of highly publicised arrests, police interrogations and detentions. The tally to date, based on 19 matches that have allegedly been rigged, stands at almost 80 arrests with 31 people held in custody. 

With football being a veritable religion for Turks, it is not hard to imagine the shock waves that the announcement has set off. There are even rumours that the government stalled before deciding to reveal the details of a scandal that could have had an influence on June's general election. Although the league winners Fenerbahçe - whose chairman, Aziz Yıldırım, was arrested on the very day that the investigation officially opened - seem to be at the heart of the storm, the zealous authorities have not spared other big clubs, including Beşiktaş, fifth in the league and winners of the national cup competition, and Trabzonspor. 

Fenerbahçe have not been slow in seeing the hand of the "police state" behind the highly unusual investigations – an overtly political accusation levelled by the club's chairman that has generated contradictory and often far-fetched rumours amongst supporters: it is a campaign to replace the chairman with an ally of the government or the real target of the affair is prime minister Erdoğan, a well-known supporter of the Canaries and a member of the club's governing body. It is worth remarking, though, that Erdoğan has welcomed the current "purification process". 

So, is it political manoeuvring or a genuine attempt to clean up a sport that only last year was shaken by a murky illegal betting affair? The baffling wait-and-see approach adopted by the Turkish Football Association does not bode well. Apart from deciding to postpone the start of the league season by a month, the association has not taken any action against any of the individuals who have been charged or any of the clubs cited in the dossier. Indeed, several websites specialising in sports news are suggesting that, if it ends up being proven that the association has deliberately dragged its feet, the national team could be excluded from Euro 2012.

In a communiqué released on July 12, UEFA did not rule out the possibility of excluding Turkish clubs from European competition if the Turkish authorities end up by confirming the facts. There was a new twist on August 24 when, to everyone's surprise, the Turkish Football Association announced that it was excluding Fenerbahçe from the Champions League. This decision, which amounted to a tacit acknowledgement of the club's guilt, left many observers feeling sceptical: how could the association, which up till then had used the alleged lack of evidence as an excuse to justify their inaction, suddenly take such a radical measure? 

Everything points to the hand of UEFA. After the chief legal counsel for integrity and regulatory affairs made a surprise visit to Istanbul, UEFA laid down a clear ultimatum: if Fenerbahçe did not withdraw from the European competition or if the Turkish Football Association failed to exclude them, then UEFA would mount a disciplinary investigation and sanction the association. 

The question to be asked now is: will the other clubs that have been tainted by the scandal also pay the price for UEFA's zero tolerance policy regarding match rigging? Given the scale of the investigations, which are based on a recent law that targets organised crime, supporters are in no doubt that convictions will follow. It remains to be seen whether legal sanctions will only be taken against the individuals charged or whether they will include the clubs as well. If it is only the former, as many football lovers fear, then the show of force will miss its stated object: to wipe out the corruption that is endemic in Turkish football. There again, sweeping things under the carpet always has been an art.

Libya after Gaddafi: Europe’s Iraq?

Café Babel, "the first multilingual European current affairs magazine", has just published a translation by Culturissima's David Winter that draws timely comparisons between post-Gaddafi Libya and post-Saddam Iraq.

Libya after Gaddafi: Europe’s Iraq?

The post-Gaddafi era is taking shape around the National Transition Council, which is currently in control of Tripoli. Uncertainty about the future is already taking hold though, with fears that Libya could become a new Iraq. This time it is up to Europe to avoid repeating the post-Saddam disaster.

The Iraq experience has left its mark. The triumphalism which was the order of the day amongst US hawks immediately after Saddam Hussein’s fall has this time round been replaced with caution: there is no question of repeating the mistakes of Mesopotamia in the southern Mediterranean. Barack Obama, anxious to avoid being seen as the "worthy" successor to Bush Junior, has hammered home a clear reminder in all his speeches that "Libya is no Iraq".

It is difficult to disagree. Whereas eight years ago the Americans intervened (almost) unilaterally in their rush towards Baghdad, their intervention in Libya has been much more subtle. This time an international coalition - originally European and American and later with the gradual and grudging support of Arab countries, Russia and China - has come into play under the mandate of the United Nations... the same UN that in 2003 could only watch US military action helplessly from the side-lines.

Exit the crudely assembled case about weapons of mass destruction. Exit the arrogance and ignorance of an international community largely opposed to the intervention. Eight years later, Obama has abandoned the Bush way of doing things and the United States has kept a fairly low profile, accounting for "only" 27% of all NATO’s air-strikes. Instead, "old Europe" has more or less taken over.

Their war, their victory

In particular, Great Britain, France and Italy have assumed the burden of intervening and assisting the rebels in order to protect the civilian population in accordance with resolution 1973 of the UN security council. Their operations have been on a larger scale than expected, particularly as concerns aerial intervention and the supply of weapons, to the extent that they have at times been in danger of going beyond the UN framework. Nevertheless, the overall idea has not changed: NATO should not be on the front line.

The determining factor in the fall of Gaddafi was the successive rebellions of tribes

In an article for Slate.fr, Fred Kaplan, former war correspondent of the Boston Globe, writes of the Libyan rebels: "It was their war, and it will soon be their victory, not ours". While the West has supplied the drones, missiles and automatic weapons and has almost certainly trained part of the rebel forces, the determining factor in the fall of the Gaddafi regime was actually the successive rebellions of various tribes. According to Patrick Haimzadeh, a former French diplomat stationed in Libya, it was the actions of the Zintan clan (named after the eponymous town) that brought about Gaddafi’s overthrow.

Libya: a failure in European political policy?

However, France, Great Britain and Italy, having served as a particularly substantial auxiliary force, have run the risk of seeing Tripoli take on the appearance of a second Baghdad. This is not just because Libya is an economic wasteland, but also because the national transition council is an unknown political force. The European countries are going to be obliged to take on the leadership that they have assumed for seven months and avoid making the same mistakes as the United States in Iraq. In particular, they will have to take into account the importance of Libyan tribalism and local realities.

Yet is Europe really ready to meet the political challenge of Libya? Nothing could be less certain. While it is true that London, Paris and Rome have been the most active participants in Libya, the old continent remains divided. Half of NATO's members, including countries such as Poland and Germany, refused to take part in the intervention. "The sad reality", AFP quotes one former European diplomat as saying, "is that the idea of Europe as a political and strategic concept has been entirely missing". Although bitter, this is not necessarily a final assessment. The European union clearly has the chance to bring hoped-for multilateral success that will be based, we can hope, on the interests of the Libyan people rather than multi-national oil companies, as was too often the case in the Iraqi desert. The stakes are high – both for Libya and, beyond her shores, for Europe.

"Madame Africa" unites Algeria and France

The basilica of Notre Dame d'Afrique, towering above the Mediterranean on the heights of the Bologhine district of Algiers, welcomed a small but unusual crowd on Monday.

Algerian dignitaries, European ambassadors and political leaders from Marseilles found themselves in the same pews as they celebrated the restoration, after three years of work, of the Christian edifice erected in 1872.  Until recently a symbol of French colonisation, the basilica is now one of the most visited sites in the Algerian capital.

"It's a chef d'oeuvre" said the delighted archbishop of Algiers, the Jordanian-born Ghaleb Bader, "a chef d'oeuvre that demonstrates the understanding and collaboration that exists between the authorities and the Church as well as between the religions and peoples on the two sides of the Mediterranean".

View from Madame Afrique

Each party has dug deep to finance the 5 million euros necessary for the project. The Algerian state, represented by the minister of religious affairs, the secretary general of the FLN (National Liberation Front) and the préfet of Algiers, has spent 560,000 euros, whilst the city of Marseilles, the département of the Bouches du Rhône and the region of Provence Alpes-Côte d'Azur contributed 360,000 euros each.  The European Union was responsible for one million euros and private companies from Algeria and France made up the remainder with smaller donations.

And the result is there for all to see. Weakened by the shock waves of the earthquake that struck Algeria on May 23, 2003,  "Madame Africa", as the basilica is called here, has had a facelift. The project was entrusted to the architect Xavier David and the French company Girard, who were responsible for the restoration of Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseilles, which is contemporaneous with its Algerian cousin.  Their work has enabled the basilica's pale pink dome and its exterior Hispano-Moresque mosaics to recover their former lustre.
  
Neither the past nor the present intervened to spoil the day, with the Algerian authorities playing the appeasement card, and no one considered lingering in front of the mosaics dedicated to the monks of Tibehirine in the basilica's right-hand apse.  It has been a long time now since other signs of the past have been banished, such as a family ex voto from 1921.  Though still clearly visible on the right of the naive, the addition of a small piece of marble means that the ex voto asks Notre Dame de l'Afrique to protect "the whole of Algeria" rather than "French Algeria". In an aside Father Bernard Lebfèvre, the basilica's rector, stressed that: "There are only the visible wounds left, everything else has healed over".

For several days now, at the other end of Algeria, another restoration work has been under way: the renovation of the basilica of St Augustine at Annaba.    


The above article originally appeared in French in Le Monde and was abridged and translated by Dr David Winter of Culturissima.

One way ticket, Cambridge to Florence

Letter from Italy by Philippe Ridet

"Historian, born in England, naturalised Italian" - this simple line from his biography made him in our eyes - how can I put it? - delectable. At a time when thousands of Italians dream of fleeing Rome for London, Milan for Paris and Bari for New York so that they can forget about Palermo and Silvio Berlusconi, there turns out to be a man, an Englishman to boot, who has undertaken the opposite journey. That was well worth an expedition to Florence, where he had set himself up.  Was he an eccentric? Someone who liked collecting passports? Did he have a lover? I had to go and find out...

Paul Ginsborg, sixty-five, has the discreet and gentle manners of a professor of contemporary Italian history (he is author of several books on the subject) and the unruffled delivery that makes taking notes easy. At the same time, he has kept an Englishman's taste for Shetland pullovers and a way of dissolving the Italian "r" sound to compensate for his inability to roll it as most foreigners do.

"I was a prof at Cambridge when, in 1992, the University of Florence offered me a chair", he explains in his apartment lined with books, situated two minutes from the Arno. "It was a radical choice but I've never regretted it".  He immersed himself in local life in Florence, quickly becoming a key figure in the first people-led anti-Berlusconi movements at the beginning of the decade. A Londoner, he was bowled over by Italy's charms. "I really do think that there is a gentleness in this country, a kindness towards people quite unlike anything in England.  Italy isn't haunted by dreams of grandeur and domination.  I've felt a greater lightness since I've been here".

So, do the English have a passion for Italy? Ginsborg explains: "The Garibaldi expedition aroused great sympathy on the other side of the Channel and England leant its support. That's how the Society for Italian Studies took shape, which has 200 members in London. The first biography of Garibaldi was written by his nurse, an English woman by the name of Jessie White-Mario".

But why take the plunge and become Italian? "Four years ago I started to think about the idea and I obtained Italian nationality in 2009. It's also a way of me giving something back to Italy". This episode is recounted at the start of a short but brilliant essay which has just been published by Ginsborg, Salviamo l'Italia.*  "Most of my friends were dumbstruck by the news of my naturalisation", he writes: "'But what prompted you to do that, and now of all times?' they asked. Some of them rushed to make sure that I had had the good sense to keep my English (sic) nationality. But the most caustic comment is still this one: "'From now on, Paul, you can join in with us when we say: I'm ashamed to be Italian!'"

These friends are going to be disappointed because the "new Italian" does not succumb to disparaging or excessively and unjustly criticising his adopted country. Amongst the plethora of books published to accompany the 150th anniversary of a unified Italy, Ginsborg's (which is steadily heading towards sales of 10,000) is distinguished by its objective, sometimes ironic and always stimulating, approach. Moving back and forth between the Risorgimento era and present-day Italy, Ginsborg tries to identify the essential elements of Italian society over the last 150 years, the rudiments which, in his opinion, would allow Italy to "save itself" and find an original voice that would secure its  place in the modern epoch. The historian has identified four elements: Italy's long tradition of self-rule in its cities; the predilection for Europe; the quest for equality; and "the importance of mitezza in its history as a social virtue".

Mitezza? Our bilingual dictionary suggests "kindness" or "gentleness" and we could add "bonhomie" if the word was not over-used and "pacifism" if it did not weigh so heavily. It might seem slightly surprising that such an idea, borrowed from the philosopher Norberto Bobbio, should spring up to support an analysis of contemporary Italy. Kind, the fascists under the command of Mussolini? Kind, the mafiosi? Kind, the men of Rosarno in Calabria who, in December 2009, shot at African immigrants as though they were rabbits? Kind, the politicians always so quick to insult their opponents?

But Paul Ginsborg is far from only being a gentle Englishman who has had his head turned by a political utopia. Although in love with Italy, he knows all about the obstacles and burdens that weigh it down: the Mafia, vote-catching, a Church that has too much power and... the weakness of the left, which drives him to despair. Whilst the country is left hanging following a political crisis of uncertain outcome, the politically committed historian is careful not to strike up the old refrain about the inevitable demise of the Berlusconi era.  "Even back in 2005 funeral orations were springing up in the press", he remembers. "Berlusconi is never more ready to fight than when his back is against the wall.  Everyone should remain wary".

Today Paul Ginsborg receives twenty-five requests a week to give lectures. At the beginning of the month he organised a conference on "Italy in the Time of Berlusconi" for the upper echelons of the Italian intelligentsia.  As a matter of  principle he rails: "And to think that it needed an Englishman to organise it!" There is a palpable feeling that the historian bemoans the amount of time taken eaten up by campaigning.

The professor has become a protagonist in a part of history that he only wanted to recount and it is now his turn to be caught up in the tritacarne or meat-mincer of Italian public life: Il Giornale, the daily newspaper belonging to the Berlusconi family, has devoted a vitriolic article to the book written by this son of "perfidious Albion".

* Let's Save Italy, published by Einaudi; no English translation available.


This article first appeared in Le Monde, November 29, 2010 and was translated by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter.

Europe's "Cities on the Edge" fight back

On January 1, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles, Istanbul becomes European Capital of Culture for 2010.  For five years these great ports, together with Bremen, Gdansk and Naples, have been trying to form a network of European cities "of ill repute". 

Marseilles: a "City on the Edge"?

They are the cities that love to be hated: rebellious and out of the ordinary, founded as ports but largely insular in outlook, they are cities of football and plunder.  But they are fighting back, turning to culture to help them on the road to recovery.  In 2010 Istanbul is European Capital of Culture, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles. Almost by chance these three multi-cultural cities, together with Naples, Bremen and Gdansk, have embarked on an adventure known as "Cities on the Edge", a support network of the “most hated cities in their own countries".

Were the first Europeans cannibals?

Culturissima is just back from a short trip to Spain, where we had the good fortune to visit the caves of Atapuerca. On our return to Paris we stumbled on the following article in the French newspaper Le Figaro, which has just been translated by Culturissima's David Winter.


A Spanish archaeologist claims that fossilised remains found in Atapuerca in Spain bear traces of cannibalism. Registered on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2000, Atapuerca is one of the largest archaeological sites in Europe.  


Fossilised remains found on the site of Atapuerca, thought to belong to the first Europeans, have revealed that pre-historic man was cannibalistic and enjoyed eating the flesh of children and teenagers. One of the co-ordinators of the Atapuerca project, José Maria Bermudez de Castro, told the French news agency AFP: "We now know that they practised cannibalism".