Learn about Freya Stark: "As an explorer, Stark was an acute observer, and a connoisseur of people."

Photo credit: The Idle Woman blog.

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town, is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”

This quote by Freya Stark appeared recently in The Economist. With much embarrassment, it occurred to me that while the name sounded familiar, I actually knew nothing at all about her.

So, I've been reading. When there is time, I hope to read one of Stark's books. Until then, this essay is a good introduction.

EAST IS WEST: Freya Stark’s travels in Arabia, by Claudia Roth Pierpont (The New Yorker; 2011)

Although the British had ordered their wives and daughters out of Baghdad, there were nineteen women among the crowds who found shelter in the British Embassy, in late April, 1941, soon after the Iraqi government went over to the Germans. A pro-Nazi coup had occurred a few weeks earlier, in relative calm, but an increase in anti-British hostility and the sudden appearance of armed Iraqi soldiers had brought tensions in the city to an intolerable level, especially since the British—heavily engaged in Libya and Greece—had few reinforcements to spare. The Iraqi Army had already surrounded the nearby Royal Air Force base when, at dawn on May 3rd, the well-known explorer Freya Stark raced through the deserted streets, arriving just in time to make it through the Embassy’s side door.

The main gates had been locked; sandbags and barbed wire were frantically being placed within; and a mountain of documents was burning in the courtyard. The Persian gardeners, however, continued to water the flowering verbena and, as days and then weeks went by, kept the lawn (despite the number of people sleeping on it) brilliantly green. Living quarters were uncomfortable, with some three hundred and fifty people enduring intense heat, sniper fire, and the not so distant thud of bombs as British planes attempted to retake the airfield. News over the wireless was grim. Yet there was no end of attempts to cheer the trapped and frightened population. One night, there was a lecture, given by Stark; another night, there was a concert. (As a bonus, a cache of rifles was discovered in the grand piano.) Basic provisions were allowed in daily, and Stark, adept at chatting up the Iraqi guards who monitored the prisoners’ fate, boldly requested a quantity of soap and face powder for the women. The extra packages were duly delivered. This small victory for Western womanhood was marred, however, by the policeman at the gate, who remarked that he couldn’t imagine how the harem could think about such things, since they were all to be murdered in a few days.

Freya Stark had come to prominence a few years earlier, with the publication of her first book, “The Valleys of the Assassins” (1934), a study in Islamic history and geography related with the excitement of an adventure story. The book was a popular hit, as were two books that she wrote, along similar lines, soon thereafter—“The Southern Gates of Arabia” (1936) and “A Winter in Arabia” (1940). All these books were about the contemporary Arab world as well. Stark had travelled through Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Yemen at a time when national borders retained a fictive quality, and no one could be sure what political or cultural forces would prevail. British power, just beginning to show the strains of its extended glory, still held firm regional sway—although Stark’s more dangerous explorations were conducted in spite of its warnings and behind its imperial back.

Stark could talk her way into any situation and, most of the time, out again, in a remarkable number of languages. She had just talked her way back to Baghdad from Tehran, when, hellbent on safety among her friends and colleagues in the Baghdad Embassy, she was stopped by Iraqi police at the frontier. All British citizens were barred from proceeding further, and she was officially in custody; others, she learned, had been put in prison camps. Yet she cajoled the station attendant into bringing her tea and her police guard into sharing it, and informed the guard of the sheer impossibility of staying on without a ladies’ maid. Surely he could see her problem and wished to be civilized? His people were not, after all, Germans. And the policeman—no longer guarding a prisoner but protecting a lady—put her on the next train to Baghdad. “The great and almost only comfort about being a woman,” Stark reflected, in a maxim that encompasses many such events in her illustrious career, “is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.”

As an explorer, Stark could claim no major discoveries, but her acute observations and her surveying skills had earned her professional respect and, for cartographic contributions, a Royal Geographical Society award. She had located unmarked villages and unsuspected mountains, taken compass bearings and photographs. Once, she had re-situated an entire misplaced mountain range to the correct side of a valley. But this was not why people read her books then, or why they continue to read them now. Stark did not even reliably make it to her intended goals: the routes—usually travelled by camel or donkey—were astonishingly harsh, malaria was rife, and a host of other ailments took their toll. Yet for Stark, despite the bitter disappointment of being beaten to a destination, the cliché that the journey is more important than the goal was irrefutably true. She was a vivid describer of scenes and landscapes. More, she was a connoisseur of people: she knew how to draw them out and listened closely when they spoke. Today, one may be able to gain more scholarly and updated history from other authors. Bernard Lewis’s “The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam” covers much of the same material as Stark’s first book (and its subtitle is guaranteed to catch the modern eye), but it would be a mistake to think that she has been replaced.

Readers of Stark’s reissued works—Modern Library offers the two earliest books, and I. B. Tauris is in the midst of publishing nine others—will find a writer who endows everyone in her field of vision with the heightened interest that she felt herself. Peasants, Bedouins, tribal leaders, guides, soldiers, and slaves make up a society that is both impossibly strange and palpably near, in the simple and not so simple human sense. Stark was not an objective observer—how could she have been?—but, far more sophisticated than the surveying tools she carried, she was a finely calibrated recording instrument in a land that was just awakening to the changes being wrought by paved roads, nation-states, and oil ...

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: What's the difference between a Gyro and a Shawarma?

They're all Döner Kebap to me, but Mike Sajaja has a better answer.

People always ask what is the difference between a Gyro and a Shawarma?

Invented in Turkey in the 18th or 19th century, the doner kebab, meaning “rotating grilled meat.” came into existence. When the same concept was introduced to Greece, the locals named it “gyros,” the Greek word for “turning.” Likewise, when it spread through the Middle East, it was called “shawarma,” an Arabic word for “turning.”

So now you know. No matter what you call it, it is one of the best, and most popular, foods on the planet. Get yours at Aladdin's today.

For a tad more depth, visit Plated.

The gyro and the shawarma are two staples of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cuisine that have gone mainstream in the United States. But even though some gyro-producing companies can make enough meat to crank out 600,000 sandwiches a day, we often don’t inquire about what goes into either of these dishes. However, we at Plated like to uncover every technique and mystery food has to offer, so we’re about to reveal what’s actually wrapped up in that pita.

Earlier in the year, longtime Louisville-based food writer Robin Garr stopped by Aladdin's and filed a favorable report in LEO.

I was still jonesing for labneh, so went for the full plate, an $8 appetizer. The thick, creamy white cheese reminded me of quality whole-milk ricotta in texture, but its yogurt base added a tangy high note to the sweet dairy flavor. It was spooned onto a shallow dish and generously topped with fruity greenish olive oil, with a single black olive for garnish,

I usually say ho-hum hummus, but Aladdin’s version ($7) may rank as the best I have ever had. Remarkably creamy and smooth, it boasts a rich tahini-to-chickpea ratio, and I’m fine with that. Both apps came with plenty of excellent, thick and fluffy pitas.

Finally, in the local chain newspaper, Danielle Grady explains Aladdin's recent addition of a store in the space next door.

Aladdin's new corner market stocked with homemade favorites

NEW ALBANY — Before Mike Sajaja and his family opened Aladdin’s Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Cuisine in New Albany five years ago, many residents in the area hadn’t heard of labneh or foule mudamas or kibbeh.

Now, they know what it is, Mike says with a pinch of pride in his voice. But with that, came a problem: His customers wanted their eastern favorites for themselves. In their cabinets.

Sajaja’s long-time-coming solution? A corner store and juice bar stocked with all the homemade, signature items that Aladdin’s fans love, located right next to the New Albany restaurant in its Underground Station, 37 Bank St., home.

The miniature/a> market opened last week, and the Sajajas are slowly stocking it with new items. The natural juice bar will open within the next couple weeks (if not before, Mike said) ...

"The End of the Sublime Porte" and other recommended documentaries at Deutsche Welle.

Deutsche Welle is Germany's public international broadcaster. The DW archives are a treasure trove of viewing (in English) for history, geography and world news junkies like me.

In the course of reliving my 1987 travel experiences in Sarajevo and Mostar (now independent Bosnia-Herzegovina), I watched this excellent documentary, which offers uncommonly clear context about the Ottoman Turks and what happened in Europe and the Middle East when the empire disappeared. It's highly recommended.

The End of the Sublime Porte: Part 1 - Multi-ethnic States in the Ottoman Empire

The End of the Sublime Porte: Part 2 - Crumbling Middle East

For 600 years, the Ottoman Empire was a superpower. This two-part documentary tells the story of how this vast empire vanished in less than a century.

The Ottoman Empire extended across three continents and the seven seas. Over the hundred years from Greek independence in 1830 to the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, the Ottoman Empire withdrew from Europe for good after a presence in the Balkans lasting almost 500 years. The shared past is often downplayed by national historians, but the Balkan states are strongly influenced by the complexities of Christian, Muslim and Jewish peoples living together, says Mark Mazower from Columbia University. It was more of a ‘side by side’ existence based on the Ottoman Empire’s "millet” system, where non-Muslims enjoyed the protection of the sultan but had to pay special taxes in return. Over the course of the 19th century, the region’s religious identities slowly became clear national ones; people now saw themselves as Serbs, Greeks, Armenians and Bulgarians. This rising nationalism, along with attempts by the major European powers to get their hands on the region’s resources and the inability of the Ottoman Empire to implement reforms, brought about the end of Ottoman rule in Europe. Using rare picture and film footage and with contributions by international historians, this two-part documentary analyses the last century of the Ottoman Empire and tries to understand its demise.

Now more than ever: "US Military Should Get Out of the Middle East."

Hama Rules, 1982.

It isn't minimizing the horror of chemical weapons to offer a reminder that there is a thing called Assad-Vu in Syria: they've all been here before.

1982 Hama massacre

I've been around for 12 presidents (yes, a few months of Eisenhower, too), split between seven Republicans and five Democrats, and while they may seem to have little in common, most have seemed quite willing to bomb things. This might constitute something of a trend.

Journalist Phillip M. Bailey‏ won last night's local Internet with this:

Now we get to watch #Dems and #GOP switch their positions on #Syria airstrikes.

Yep.

US Military Should Get Out of the Middle East, by Jeffrey D. Sachs (Common Dreams)

It’s time to end US military engagements in the Middle East. Drones, special operations, CIA arms supplies, military advisers, aerial bombings — the whole nine yards. Over and done with. That might seem impossible in the face of ISIS, terrorism, Iranian ballistic missiles, and other US security interests, but a military withdrawal from the Middle East is by far the safest path for the United States and the region. That approach has instructive historical precedents.

America has been no different from other imperial powers in finding itself ensnared repeatedly in costly, bloody, and eventually futile overseas wars. From the Roman empire till today, the issue is not whether an imperial army can defeat a local one. It usually can, just as the United States did quickly in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The issue is whether it gains anything by doing so. Following such a “victory,” the imperial power faces unending heavy costs in terms of policing, political instability, guerrilla war, and terrorist blowback.

Terrorism is a frequent consequence of imperial wars and imperial rule. Local populations are unable to defeat the imperial powers, so they impose high costs through terror instead.

Gyros, Shawarma and Tabbouleh in New Albany? Yes, and Turkish coffee, too.

I haven't yet had the chance to have coffee or a sandwich, but check out Aladdin Cafe at 111 W. Market. It's two doors down from the Firestone.

ON THE AVENUES: Bloody eternal holy Jerusalem, the book.

ON THE AVENUES: Bloody eternal holy Jerusalem, the book.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

If you knew all that I knew, my poor Jerusalem

You'd see the truth, but you close your eyes

But you close your eyes

While you live your troubles are many, poor Jerusalem

To conquer death you only have to die

You only have to die

-- Jesus, in Jesus Christ Superstar, lyrics by Tim Rice

A few weeks ago, just as I was reading the final chapters of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s compelling Jerusalem: The Biography, Secretary of State John Kerry was wrapping a visit to the secular Muslim republic of Turkey, where he urged rapprochement with Israel following what the Guardian newspaper called yet another “Zionism row.”

If it seems as though you’ve been hearing this refrain your entire life, it’s only because you have.

Furthermore, if in 2013 you were as old as Methuselah, the same observation would hold true, extending past the point in the 19th century when Zionism was conceived as an organized movement, further backwards for more than a millennium, long before there was Islam to be referenced as an antagonist, and leaving Hittites and Romans in the historical dust. It ends approximately where it began, with the dinosaurs – but let’s leave the Creation Museum out of it.

This “row” seems to have existed forever, always preceded by numerous others too numerous to recall, and as Montefiore aptly posits, the epicenter inevitably remains Jerusalem, every bit as much the “eternal city” in actual fact as Rome touts itself on postcards.

Having one holy city per major world religion seems reasonable enough, witness the Vatican, but having one otherwise mundane municipality declared unreservedly holy for a whopping three Abrahamic faiths, all at once, poses certain logistical challenges quite apart from the tendency of each to devolve into more sects and subdivisions than the Internet has Obama conspiracies.

Montefiore attempts to unravel these competing claims, in the process mapping Jerusalem by the square meter, because this might be the only way to determine whose temple was built atop the ruins of the shrine that came before it. There are hills and tunnels. There are hidden watercourses beneath the rubble, and buzzards flying in formation above them – lots and lots of buzzards, because the bloodshed in this holiest of places is perhaps the most constant presence of all.

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As numerous historians and affiliated scholars have accurately noted, mankind’s traceable presence includes so few periods of actual peace on earth that those rare times when wars have not been raging are far more noteworthy than long, predictable centuries reeking of violence, destruction and pestilence. So it would seem that surviving records of Jerusalem as a city were written for little other reason than documenting the sheer scale and depravity of incessant and ceaseless bedlam.

The story is nothing if not repetitive: Five short minutes of serenity, to be followed by invasions, sieges, starvation, surrender, pillage, torture, rapes, executions, depopulation… and then, after five more brief moments of rebuilding and frantic, perhaps even voluntary copulation to enable new mouths to feed, a fresh cast of potential victims mounts the next assault. The pattern is repeated again and again to the present day – actually, to the 1967 war and the military victory of the Israelis over a dysfunctional coalition of Arabs, which is where Montefiore’s epic history finally stops.

And yet … there is another essential stage in these looping, endless, sadistic cycles of murder; it’s the part where the respective sides – native and invader, overlord and stable boy, soldier and charwoman – never fail to petition their gods to assist in the most holy task of all, that of liquefying their enemies, who also request the helpful benevolence of their deities.

For most of my adult life, my reaction to this tableau has been somewhat uniform: What possible value might there be in any religious doctrine springing from constant localized bestiality in this tiny slice of a very large planet, particularly after flawed writs are transplanted to far-flung corners of the globe among peoples with their own traditions of spiritual impairment?

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At this juncture, the typical local yokel in New Albany nods, takes a deep drag off his unfiltered Chesterfield, glances across Pearl Street at the grandiose, evolving, and lavishly expensive edifice of Caesar’s Folly, and mumbles, “Them people been fighting each other forever. It’s in the Bible. It’s in their blood. Nothing we can do about it ‘cept let ‘em kill each other.”

It’s hard to disagree with such unlettered sentiments when the pure historical narrative provides so little substance to dispute them.

However, let’s not permit my cynical paganism to detract from the considerable merits of Montefiore’s recounting of the life and times of Jerusalem. In terms of my normal reading fare, this book was a departure. Jerusalem has never been a bucket list type of place for me, and as I’ve demonstrated, the various pieties (if any) attached to the city are meaningless in my personal lexicon.

It is a fascinating read, just the same. Passages describing mankind’s latently peaceful, cooperative, poetic side, as managing somehow to poke through the propensity of the species to aggression and cruelty, provide at least some hope amid the rampant terror. Yes, plenty of ordinary humans (and some Americans, too) have been able to rest in the shade of a venerable olive tree, smell the fragrance of flowers, and contemplate the eternal. Some have felt the motivation of scripture, while others have been as atheistic as my cats.

Either way, what then compels them to rise from prayer and ignite pressure cooker bombs is a mystery to me, as it has been to others, in a lamentation that predates so very much … even Jerusalem itself.