The Casbah

Somebody asked me the other day, "Abu, I don't exactly understand the theme of your blog. What is it?"

Of course, I grinned with pleasure and that burning desire to hit the ball out of the park with my astute and rehearsed answer. There are few things I enjoy as much as blogging The Casbah: "So" I replied, "the theme of The Casbah is basically something I experienced that has been translated into an intellectual metaphor." Let me explain:

In the summer of 2007, I went to volunteer at a Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus, Palestine. The people who were in charge of our volunteership, the people in charge of the camp, assigned us a high-rise apartment that overlooked the old city of Nablus, or as some of the locals call it, "the casbah." We would sit on the porch of this brash, bricked apartment complex and gaze out at the mystic glow of this seemingly ancient Casbah. So sitting on this porch, we would watch the guerrilla's of the casbah fight the conventional Israeli Army in a seemingly sick and endless game of cat and mouse. It was one hell of an experience; something I will never forget.

As for the metaphor part of my response, I have taken this experience on the West Bank and recycled its paradigm to fit the theme of my blog. Blogging The Casbah: We are intellectual insurgents’ for peace and justice and protectors of the old city. We bring a non-conventional approach to knowledge and understanding that taps into a wisdom that is as old as the Biblical Samarian women who once offered water to Jesus at Jacobs Well in Nablus. We rebel against the conventional norms of mainstream analysis that are all-too-often see on CNN, BBC or any other form of corporate nonsense and bombardment. We are not paid, not influenced and not told what to, or what not to... blog about. We are truly free to reflect and protect THIS Casbah from the greater forces that continuously roam at its gates.

I hoped this helped readership... Welcome to The Casbah.


PS- Read this piece I wrote if you have not already. (It has been published by Ma'an, the largest Palestinian news agency on the West Bank, the Santa Barbara Independent and of course, The Casbah.)

The Rooster adds: "Abu Guerrilla brought me here to The Casbah in order to fill a part of this idea realm. Check out my profile to see what I bring to this Old Digital City we call The Casbah. I like to think that we here can make logical choices and analysis of the topics we feel need to be discussed first and foremost. The Guerrillas that roam this Casbah use our collective education and experience, gained over years of studying and wandering the world visiting places most do not dare to brave, to make sure we write with an honest truth about the facts and its respective impact. Sometimes we even offer advice, yes, we moonlight as sages of the digital age."