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Mon, 21 Apr 2025 18:22:33 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP, post #19620229
/all
Query: why is zerosugar so knowledge about the Middle East?
No idea
Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:21:13 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #13754847
Lets just say that another lifetime ago, I knew somebody there and spent some time in the Sunni city of Tripoli,
Lebanon amongst Muslim Brotherhood fanatics. Please just know, Tripoli is not all of Lebanon and neither is Beirut. In fact, I spent so little time in Beirut.
The best cities in Lebanon are Jounieh, Batroun, and Byblos. Likewise, nice to go in the mountains and explore Baalbak. The road to Baalbak can be tricky
though.
All the same, while in Lebanon, I was driving through Jabal Mohsen. I was sooooo young at the time and knew zero about Syria. Many of my studies in
International Relations focused on Latin America. There was a picture of an old man everywhere in Jabal Mohsen. The old man did not look like my western
stereotype of what a Levantine person should like. I assumed he was some English or French ambassador who was perhaps good to the people. I asked my host who
the old man was and he told me it was the old Syrian president Hafez al Assad and told me that his son Bashar was now president. My host informed me the area we
were driving through was occupied by people from the sect of this father and son. A group called the Alawite. I asked the host about the Alawite, but the host
informed me they are a secret group who do not accept converts and that even amongst them only a select few are taught the religion. I became fascinated with
the Alawite after that and other groups like the Druze. I learned all I could googling on my blackberry at the time. I also started to study old "orientalist"
writings that were accessible to me like those of the Jesuit Belgian Henri Lammens and the English explorer Wilfred Thesiger. Thesiger was somewhat of an anti
Italian bigot and a colonialist himself despite denouncing Italian colonialists (who some do not consider to have truly been colonialists given the short length
of time in Africa compared to the British and French), but Thesiger is a great writer.
Something also sort of triggered me when I was driving towards Casino du Liban and in Cyprus. I felt like I was a spy in a Bond film or something.
Years later this crazy super rich Shia Kuwaiti man accused me of being a spy when he was impressed that I knew who Yasser Habib, this crazy online sheikh was.
Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:27:59 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #16209213
One of the most interesting parts of my studies led me to discovering the Murshidi sect. At the time when the host
informed me of the Alawite, he (a very intolerant devout Sunni man) claimed the Alawite had a holiday called "hiding day."
During this day, everybody gets into a dark closet and who touches who first has to have sex with that person whether they are a relative or old or young. I was
shocked. I tried to search online, but found nothing.
Years later, I was speaking with an Alawite man and asked him about hiding day. He laughed and said thats the Murshidi not them. The Murshidi are an Alawite
offshoot group started by a man named Salman al Murshid. Think of them as sort of a cult. Murshid himself was a favorite of the French colonialists.
This period in my life was a long time ago though and in my more recent years found myself more interested in western history and culture, although I still have
an interest in advocacy for groups such as the Alawite who have absolutely nobody to speak for them now, so its up to us westerners to call for protections for
them and hopefully one day an Alawite state along the coast.
Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:31:58 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #15407162
Whats happening in Syria now to the Alawite is truly an attempted genocide and its shameful that celebs like Angelina
Jolie will speak about Gaza and talk about human rights, but ignore whats happening to the Alawite and other religious minorities in a post Assad Syria. They
ignore it because these crimes are being committed by the rebels many of these leftist celebs supported when they called for Assad's removal. The biggest myth
is that there were moderate rebels. You also saw that article from weeks ago about all the Uyghur nut jobs in Syria now.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/culture/actress-angelina-jolie-reiterates-support-for-gaza/3543781
Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:33:05 -0700
whiteguyinchina from private IP
Reply #11721806
Hiding day - would not
Thanks for sharing, interesting
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