Fieldnotes on Humanity

I have never seen this in my life until now. A group of men - who don't look to be students because they look in their 40s and 50s - just arrived in the coffee shop with their own thermos and cookies. I watched them carefully because they are sitting next to me. From their accent, I can tell that they are not from the Gulf. Surprisingly, only two of them bought coffee, the rest didn't. They even brought their own cups and sugar. I can't fathom the depth of this contradiction. It is a fascinating social and cultural paradox to see this mingling odds from two different world. I asked myself whether people in the Middle East and North Africa take their food out to the restaurants and coffee shops to eat? I don't think so and I don't know it. This is an odd thing that I saw this evening at this coffee shop. I am a regular coffee shop camper, especially in the evening because the library is closed at night. I also go to the coffee shop because I find my solace in dr...

In his introduction in The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, Vartan Gregorian, mentions a quote from Mohammed Ali’s book, A New Guide to Afghanistan, as follows: “No country comparable to Afghanistan in size and no people approaching the Afghans in historical interest and importance have received so little consideration at the hands of modern writers as have Afghanistan and the Afghans.” For its importance and its relevance, Gregorian, puts this quote, contextually, in the 19th century of Afghanistan in which he argues that Afghanistan, for the most part, was culturally isolated, and protected as a parochial region in the Muslim world. That is one of the reasons that Afghanistan remained an unknown region to the rest of the world. He then draws a bigger picture by putting Afghanistan in the colonial frame; Gregorian says that causality of this “isolationism” and “parochialism,” relates to the fact that Afghanistan never undergone of a period of direct, and intensive European coloni...