A Tale of Three Bin Ladens

A year of juggling school and two jobs and other first world problems, a short and phenomenal stopover in Montreal, and all of a sudden I was back in the old country: touching down at Dubai’s ever-growing airport. My dad picked me up at the arrivals lounge, and after telling...

13, 13, 2011 6

Whom to trust?

On a hot (it was always hot) afternoon between classes I was walking through the campus cafeteria to a pizza joint. Next thing I knew I was being ushered in to listen to a lady in a smart red suit from the Canadian embassy liaison talk about why I and...

9, 09, 2011 1

The Dharma of Radicals

Dharma: I had planned to throw a concise definition on here about the word, but really, I don’t think it can be defined very easily. It has something to do with leading a flourishing life that is of virtue, the conscience and being just (and thanks to post-modernism all of...

17, 17, 2010 1

Stories from the Gulf

I’ve had a short two weeks in the Gulf of Oman, shuttling between a couple of cities, including of course the old hang-out area known as Dubai. After getting lost a bunch of times in the new suburban neighbourhood my parents moved to, I took a look around and saw/heard...

14, 14, 2010 1

Resisting Homogenization: At Home and On the Streets

The past few weeks have been trying on a number of accounts. Watching good friends getting beaten up and arrested by cops, watching a war machine in propaganda mode after murdering activists bringing aid to Gaza, and (on the positive side) seeing for the first time in Vancouver a massed...

19, 19, 2010 Comments Off

Mossad Plays Ocean's 26

On 19 January, as the people of Dubai marvelled at the very rare instance of rain in the city, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was being given muscle relaxant before being smothered. His assassins were 26 operatives that were using fake passports to get around the city. The operation took place...

17, 17, 2010 Comments Off

Cows in tunnels

This is a complicated post. This post is about the old colonial policy about divide and rule and how it impacted the world over centuries and continues to do so to this day. This post is about the fallout from the colonial masters, the tatters of cultures they left behind...

11, 11, 2010 Comments Off

Personifying Friendship and Terror

The man on the left is Jalaluddin Haqqani. He was aided back in the 80s by the CIA in his battles with the Soviets in Afghanistan. He even helped form the post-war government back then. He visited the Reagan White House, and was claimed to be “goodness personified” by Charlie...

5, 05, 2010 1

Drowning sheikhs

A bit less than a month ago, a rather special man sat on a flight back from London. He was more than a bit dejected. The European leaders that had flocked to his side had just wagged their fingers at him for the billions his little city owed their nations....

17, 17, 2009 Comments Off

The Technocrats of India

I was meandering through a shop a few months ago – one of those hipster places that sells things that make you feel like you’re not really buying but sharing whatever the hell it is that’s caught your eye. My friend, who was similarly meandering about pointed to someone and...

7, 07, 2009 Comments Off