From Husain Haqqani’s “Why Muslims always blame the West“, International Herald Tribune, October 16, 2004:

“The Palestinian issue and the pre-emptive war in Iraq have undoubtedly accentuated anti-Western sentiment among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia. But the conduct and rhetoric of Muslim leaders and their failure to address the stagnation of their societies has also fueled the tensions between Islam and the West. Relations between Muslims and the West will continue to deteriorate unless the internal crisis of the Muslim world is also addressed.

“…Instead of hard analysis, which thrives only in a free society, Muslims are generally brought up on propaganda, which is often state-sponsored. This propaganda usually focuses on Muslim humiliation at the hands of others instead of acknowledging the flaws of Muslim leaders and societies. The focus on external enemies causes Muslims to admire power rather than ideas. Warriors, and not scholars or inventors, are generally the heroes of common people. In this simplistic “us vs. them” worldview, both Musharraf and bin Laden are warriors against external enemies.

“…Ironically, a cult of the warrior has defined the Muslim worldview throughout the period of Muslim decline. Muslims have had few victories in the last two centuries, but their admiration for the proverbial sword and spear has only increased. …The Muslim cult of the warrior explains also the relatively muted response in the Muslim world to atrocities committed by fellow Muslims.

“While the Muslim world’s obsession with military power encourages violent attempts to “restore” Muslim honor, the real reasons for Muslim humiliation and backwardness continue to multiply. …Ironically, Western governments have consistently tried to deal with one manifestation of the cult of the warrior – terrorism – by building up Muslim strongmen who are just another manifestation of the same phenomenon.”

(more…)

A few months after the completion of Land Rover’s Drive Around the World expedition (for which I served as writer-in-residence during the North and South America legs), Mobil One has put together a couple of test advertisements using expedition footage. And, while I had mixed feelings about traveling with a film crew (something I’ll comment on later), it’s fun to see expedition outtakes on the screen. Trip organizer Nick Baggarly gives the narration; the ad touting Mobil One’s advantages in cold weather can be found here, and a commercial featuring the dust resistant qualities of Mobil’s motor oil can be found here.

To see the latest Drive Around the World promo video (which includes a bit of narration from yours truly), click here.

“Everywhere you go, the sky is the same color.”
–Persian saying

The Australian Financial Review recently dedicated an issue to musings about the future, calling on various pundits, futurists, and consultants to predict life in the year 2020. I served as a panelist for “The Road Less Traveled” (posted in the previous entry) — a story that predicts the state of “elite” travel in the year 2020. Lonely Planet global travel editor Don George and Geographic Expeditions president Jim Sano also weighed in.

One of my more potentially controversial predictions was that Iraq will be a mass tourism draw in the year 2020. This might sound a tad optimistic, but I made the prediction on the basis of Iraq’s appeal as a historical and cultural destination. What becomes of the security situation in Iraq, of course, is too soon to tell.

The full text of my 2020 “elite” travel prediction is as follows:

“I think that one only need to look at the past to judge the direction elite travel is heading. In the past, elite travelers have distinguished themselves by either spending more money, spending more time, or by taking more risks than mass tourists. Of these three categories, money is the easiest to predict, since wealthy travelers will always be able to buy a kind of exclusivity that is not available to the masses. This could mean heli-skiing in Antarctica, or cruising on the newest and most expensive ships and yachts, or it could mean flitting off to exclusive resorts in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean or the South Pacific — or even the coast of Africa or the Indian Ocean Rim or the high Andes (or wherever).

“Another factor that influences elite travel is danger, and this is a constantly fluctuating factor. Cambodia, for example, used to be an edgy destination for elite adventure travelers, though now it has given over to mass tourism. Afghanistan was a major way-station of the hippie trail, but it was off-limits for years, and is just now re-emerging as an edgy destination. Iraq is an example of a place that will soon transition from “off-limits” to “edgy” — though I’d wager that by 2020 it will be a mass tourism destination. Colombia is another place that may well safe for mass tourists in 2020. Of course, by that year, a completely different region of the world could be dangerous — and that is what will attract this phylum of travelers.

“The final category of elite travel is those who have a wealth of time with which to travel — and, as I say in my book Vagabonding, one need not be rich to do this. If you have six months to six years in which to travel, the prejudices of travel-fashion need not dictate your destination. This is because anyone who has gone vagabonding knows that a little time and patience in your travels allows you to get away from the madding crowd by simple serendipity and location-based intelligence. The Champs-Elysees of Paris might resemble a strip mall, but a one-month sojourn a few neighborhoods over, in the 11th arrondisement, will give you a perspective on Paris that most tourists would miss. Similarly, Phuket, Thailand might be morphing into a tourist theme-park, but a slow wander up the Andaman Sea or Gulf of Thailand coast will reveal beach communities that retain their Thai character. And, while Everest base-camp will continue to attract more and more rubberneckers, the true vagabonder only need travel to a different part of Nepal or Tibet to have amazing mountains all to themselves. As Walt Whitman said, “those pocketless of a dime can purchase the pick of the earth” — and this is still true, especially for those who are willing to invest time instead of money in their effort to see the best the world has to offer.”

“One only has to look at the past to judge the direction

While browsing a bookstore in Florida last week, I was startled to discover that my old college friend Gina Ochsner has just published a new collection of short stories, entitled People I Wanted to Be. Released by Houghton Mifflin (with the implication that a novel comes next), this new book is a followup to her 2002 collection, The Necessary Grace to Fall. “In this offbeat, affecting follow-up to her debut collection,” writes Publisher’s Weekly, “Ochsner assembles a host of oddballs whose touchingly resilient hopes and small leaps of faith fly in the face of almost certain disappointment. Ochsner knows that vindication and inspiration often come from unlikely places, and she can capture this contradiction gorgeously in a gesture.”

People I Wanted to Be includes a tale called “The Fractious South“, which I was similarly startled to discover in The New Yorker last summer.

An online interview with Gina, in regard to her new book, can be found here.

The following comes from the “Readings” section in the May 2005 issue of Harper’s:

From Russian Customs for Finns, a guidebook published in 2003 by the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce, which withdrew it in January after com