Boggle!
"With his first column for this paper, my new colleague, Osama bin Laden, reminds us how rarely today's commentators attempt to take the long view. Leaving aside our regular references to the emperor who made his horse a consul, and the occasional, hazy deployment of Walter Bagehot, most journalists clearly feel that too much dwelling on the past will sound either schoolmasterish, or show-offy, or both at the same time.No such scruples beset Mr Bin Laden, who this week compared Arab rulers who cooperate with the Americans with "our forefathers, the Ghassanids". Perhaps sensing that parts of his audience may not be au fait with these forefathers - whom I now understand to have been an ancient, pre-Islamic tribe living in what are today's Jordan and southern Syria - he supplied the following gloss: "Their leaders' concern was to be appointed kings and officers for the Romans in order to safeguard the interests of the Romans by killing their brothers, the peninsula's Arabs. Such is the case of the new Ghassanids, the Arab rulers. Muslims, if you do not punish them for their sins in Jerusalem and Iraq, they will defeat you. They will also rob you of the land of the two holy places.""
(Catherine Bennett, "My fellow columnist, Osama ",
The Guardian, Thursday January 8, 2004)
The Guardian, Thursday January 8, 2004)
Not sure she's entirely right about this - these guys are still pretty peeved about 1066, and what about this? - New York, mark I in New England, ditto, just NE of Constantinople. Given by a grateful Byzantine empire to the English Varangian guard (refugees from 1066 and all that).
Would be quite awkward if we asked for it back. The Varangians are actually rather fun - the Byzantines were quite chuffed to make contact with a bit of the old Roman empire in the west - think Star Ship Enterprise finds long-lost colony of Earth - and don't seem to have quite realised that it was under new management.
You can hear what Byzantine music sounded like here, including a lament for the fall of Constantinople.
Would be quite awkward if we asked for it back. The Varangians are actually rather fun - the Byzantines were quite chuffed to make contact with a bit of the old Roman empire in the west - think Star Ship Enterprise finds long-lost colony of Earth - and don't seem to have quite realised that it was under new management.
You can hear what Byzantine music sounded like here, including a lament for the fall of Constantinople.
posted by Brituncula @ 4:27 AM
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