Zanyi Barakat- Part II

In my Zayni Barakat paper I compared Zayni's enormous responsibilities and duties to the situation going on in the West Bank and Gaza Strip today. At times in the book, Zanyi abused his power a little bit, being more forceful and aggressive when he didn't need to be. I am comparing this to the conflict between the Palestinian's and Israeli's. In my comparison, the Palestinian's are the people of Cairo and the Israeli's are Zayni. Not all the people and associates of Zanyi agree with his decisions for the city. Yet they have little say in the matter. Palestinian's have been forced from their native land and drove into a corner. Like the people of Cairo, Palestinian's have little room for freedom. As a result, Palestinian's have been forced to take violent action. Is their action justified?

Zanyi Barakat- Part I

In class today we discussed our reactions to the book Zanyi Barakat. I really enjoyed reading it. I found it a nice change of reading to the normal textbooks I have from other classes. What most intrigued me about the book is Zanyi's desire for total take over. My reaction was that Zayni wanted total power so badly that he would use any means possible to achieve it. This is what I believed caused him to send out spies. He wanted to know everything going on in the streets and homes of the people. He also might have felt a little weary and worried about the possibility of assassination what also added to the reason he had spies in the field.

Slavery

In class we compared slavery in the Ottoman Empire to slavery in the United States during the colonial era. I believe its fair to say that the conditons of slavery were very different. Slaves in the Ottoman Era were not treated brudally like what we know about the slaves in the colonies. In that sense I feel the Janissary slaves were a bit better off.

8 year old Marriage

In today's news, a 8 year old girl is married off to a 47 year old man in Saudi Arabia. The extreme marriage deal was a result by the young girls father, who sold her daughter off to resolve his debt problem. According to CNN and Saudi Arabian Human Rights organization, these arranged marriages occur very often and girls as young as 10 are married off. According to Human Rights commissioner Turki Al Sudieri, organized marriages are perfectly legal. In addition, the highest Saudi religious authority the Grand Mufti, approves the organized marriages, making the effort to change the law almost impossible. What is your take on this situation in SA? How does anti-organized marriage groups combat this problem?

Here's a thought...

With fighting increasing in Israeli and Palestine why doesn't The United States take a more active role to instill peace? The United States military bombarded right into Iraq after the September 11th attacks. Today, peace is restored in Iraq so do you see similar actions taken in Israeli and Palestine? To think that thousands of Palestinians are being killed from Israeli rockets and military arms that we have financed. Would there be less blood shed and possible future peace if American troops entered these conflict areas?