Rosebud in English 
The Battle of Qusayr: End of ‘Resistance Glory’ and ‘Brotherly Bonds’(1)
by Elie Chalala. Leaving the city of Qusayr in ruins, Hezbollah and the Assadist army revived memories of the debris of other battered cities: the destruction of Guernica, for instance, in the 1937 Spanish Civil War as well as the destruction of the Vietnamese city Huế in 1968—the Siege of Huế was one of the… Read More ›
Horrors on the Syrian Coast: Sectarianism, Savagery, and Silence
by Elie Chalala. After watching and reading coverage of Assad’s Shabiha massacre of more than 360 people in Banias, Ras al-Nabeh, and the village of Bayda, and after comments by some people who apparently enjoyed hearing the news, I felt all the more saddened. As the killers paraded and humiliated their victims before pro-Assad sympathetic… Read More ›
The Arab Spring Hasn’t Bloomed Yet… But Hegel’s “Philosophy of History” Says it Will!
by Elie Chalala. Those bemoaning the death of the Arab Spring must read what Hashem Saleh has to say. Unlike the apologists for Arab dictatorships who are reading the Arab revolts from ideological and political perspectives, Saleh is analyzing the Arab Spring from a philosophical perspective, according to Karam al-Helou. Those nostalgic for the reigns… Read More ›
Lettera dalla Siria. Storia della piccola rifugiata Raghad e del suo “gambetto” di basilico.
di Najat Abdul Samad. Raghad era magra e il suo aspetto era fragile come la stanza che era diventata una nuova casa per lei, per la madre, i sei fratelli e la famiglia dello zio. La sua esilità somigliava a quella del gambetto di basilico che si portò dietro nel campo dei rifugiati. La madre… Read More ›
Culture of the Abyss: New generation of Lebanese politicians reveals further decline in quality of leadership
by Elie Chalala. Hussam Itani, former editor of the opinion pages of As Safir and currently a columnist for Al Hayat, has always distinguished himself with his daring and unapologetic opinions. Equally important is the intellectual appeal of his newspaper columns. The latest by this Lebanese columnist is “The Culture of the Bottomless Abyss” (Al… Read More ›
Your Silence is Killing Us
by Elie Chalala. “Your Silence is Killing Us” was the slogan put forth by the peaceful Syrian opposition on one of its many Fridays. It has become a sort of tradition to give a different name to each Friday the protestors demonstrate against the Assad regime. This title was also used in an article by… Read More ›
ON ETRUSCAN LANGUAGE
an essay in English by Massimo Pittau. In the last 70 years, in Italy, with regard to Etruscan language, several and authentic linguistic “obviousnesses” have been ignored, neglected and contradicted. Namely, some very simple and even obvious procedures and methods, that are usually applied every day in the study of any language, belonging to any… Read More ›
Exclusive – An interview with Italian linguist Massimo Pittau: from his correspondence with Max Leopold Wagner to the days of Mussolini. And on democratic Italy in the hands of the “great thieves”.
by Rina Brundu. Massimo Pittau is a Sardinian “eccellenza”. A linguist, a scholar of Etruscan, Sardinian and protosardinian languages, he was born in Nùoro (a small town in central-eastern Sardinia), in 1921. A graduate in Humanistic Sciences and Philosophy, he has been for several decades lecturer of Sardinian Linguistics, Glottology and General Linguistics at the… Read More ›
The Children’s Revolution: Youth and the Syrian Rebellion
by Farag Bayrakdar. It’s okay to cry a little for Syria and her people.And it’s also okay to believe freedom is near. The tsunami of Tunisian revolution toppled Arab dictatorships. Although Husni Mubarak believed Egypt would be immune to the fate of Ben Ali’s Tunisia, he soon was overthrown. Gaddhafi, Africa’s self-proclaimed “King of Kings,”… Read More ›
COMMON SENSE AND SCIENCE
di Michele Marsonet. 1. Are there two images of man in the world? It has often been said in the context of contemporary philosophy that the scientific world-view is fated to replace the view of the world provided by common sense. It may be argued, however, that common sense holds a sort of methodological… Read More ›
Prison: Geography of Despotism
By Hala Muhammad Prison: A Geography of Despotism without a Place in the Nation A picture of a wood stove warms hearts. The gas stove in the picture has an odor. The prisoner never drew a stove on the prison walls or on the screeching iron gates. The geography of the prison is coldness and… Read More ›
MINERS: from South Africa, to Sardinia, to Kentucky, organised labor can make a difference so says son of a miner, raised in a coal camp. And a poem.
by Rina Brundu. Miners work is never done. And once finished, if they don’t die from it, they can get killed while trying to secure it. This was the case for the 34 miners shot dead by police last month in South Africa. The brutal episode better known as the Marikana massacre, during which 78… Read More ›
A Rosebud Exclusive: Samia Yusuf Omar’s Italian dream. An interview with Teresa Krug of Al Jazeera.
by Rina Brundu. Today the Italian paper Corriere della Sera reported the death of the young Somalian sprinter Samia Yusuf Omar, as told by athlete and countryman Abdi Bile. Samia – who during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing “managed a personal record of 32.16 seconds in the 200 metre sprint event, with the crowd… Read More ›
On Arab Spring: A Father to the Point of Tears
by Faraj Beirqadar. I’m not sure whether I’ve been a success or a failure at being a father. In truth, my circumstances have not made it possible for me to delve… Read More ›
Arab Spring – Thirteen Hours of Interrogation
by Mohammed Ali Atassi. The morning of September 18th, Syrian director and film producer Omar Amirlay drove from his home in Damascus to Amman, Jordan. Four months earlier he had… Read More ›
Syria Open Sesame?
by Michael Teague. A spate of recent articles in The New York Times popularized the notion that Syria is “opening up” and that an effort is being made to somehow “liberalize” society. Considering the long… Read More ›
Dedicata alla mia Hama, città martoriata da Assad.
di Nancy Penrose. Hama è una città della Siria. È la città dove mi sono fermata durante un viaggio da Palmira ad Aleppo, dove ho fotografato le antiche ruote di legno che tagliano il curvilineo letto del fiume Oronte, dove il giorno prima c’era stata la festa dell’Eid al-Adha, dove l’attesa della celebrazione eccitava la… Read More ›
On digital journalism – Manifesto: journalists are born not made (Chapter 1)
by Rina Brundu. Ten years ago when I first created the phrase “giornalismo online” (online journalism), I remember running a search on the Internet and not finding a single entry on the subject. Yet, it seemed obvious to me! What was obvious? It was obvious that with the arrival of digital writing and, most of… Read More ›
The Issue of “Dialogue” in Islamic Culture
by Elie Chalala. “If you are a traditional Muslim you might be disturbed by parts of this book. But if you are an enlightened Muslim you will realize that dialogue is a characteristic of the modern age. There is no dialogue without difference and without the ability to tolerate different opinions. There is no use… Read More ›
Giornalismo online: FREE ROSSELLA URRU – LIBERATE ROSSELLA URRU! AND A POEM BY FAUSTO URRU.
by Rina Brundu. Rossella Urru is a sardinian girl who worked for the International Committee for the Development of Peoples (CISP) and who has been kidnapped in Algeria more then 4 months ago, on the 22nd of October 2011, by the Islamic Group Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya (Monotheist Movement for the Jihad in Western… Read More ›
Sulayman, Yazbeck, Muhammad: eroine del mondo arabo in rivolta, oltre il fascino femminile e il glamour.
di Alexandra Stanisic. Nel mezzo della rivoluzione siriana, Fadwa Sulayman ha attirato l’attenzione dei media arabi e mondiali. Le sue foto, le sue azioni, le sue dichiarazioni si trovano ovunque su Facebook, sulle tv via satellite, su youtube e su tutte le altre stazioni dei nuovi media. Questa attenzione ce l’ha presentata come uno straordinario personaggio… Read More ›
The Arab Spring – The Original Arab Revolution?
“Spring” Positions of Amin, Adonis Face Critical Scrutiny by Elie Chalala.I have read a sizable part of the literature on the Arab Spring, in addition to having watched scores of documentaries and what seems like hundreds of hours of news footage of this most unprecedented event in modern Arab history. In my Middle East politics… Read More ›
Silencing the singer
by Elie Chalala. A day after he had sang in protest in the square of his hometown, Ibrahim Kashoush was found dead, floating in the Orontes (Al Asi) River. The fate of Ibrahim Kashoush reflects the anger that has been driving Syrians in almost every corner of the country onto the streets and in front… Read More ›
Ghayath Mattar: ‘Rain Flower’ of Syria
by Elie Chalala. Everything I read about Ghayath Mattar confers an image of a young man who was a model activist in the ongoing Syrian Revolution. Ghayath was a pacifist and advocate of non-violence, states the Madrid-based Syrian exiled author Nawal al-Sibai, according to the website Aklam Hurra (Free Pens). She points out that Mattar’s… Read More ›
Iraqi Actor Jawad Shukraji on Childhood, Working Under Saddam and His Recent TV Series
by Rebecca Joubin When you think back on your childhood, what is the first thing that strikes you? I was born in Baghdad in 1951 near the shrine of Abdel Ghader al-Gaylani, a Sunni holy man. My mother was from Karbala and my father from Najaf. I was born Shii, yet I spent the early… Read More ›
An Italian Job (badly done!)
On Striscia la notizia entertaining journalistic approach… di Rina Brundu. More than one year ago, after reading TIME Magazine’s Italy’s Newspapers: Untrusted Sources by Stephan Faris, an article dealing with “his j’accuse concerning the untrustworthiness of the Italian press” I did not hesitate to give my full approval to its contents, to write myself on the subject (Wuthering Scribes)… Read More ›
Free Sakineh
Think of others by Mahmoud Darwish As you prepare your breakfast – think of others. Don’t forget to feed the pigeons. As you conduct your wars – think of others. Don’t forget those who want peace. As you pay your water bill – think of others. Think of those who only have clouds to drink… Read More ›
