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Grow Your Business Technology
7 Tech Tools Every Administrative Assistant Should Use
By Mona Bushnell, Staff December 13, 2017 05:19 pm EST
FlamingoImages / Getty Images
If you're an administrative assistant, you're pretty much the Swiss army knife of your workplace. Odds are, people expect you to take flawless minutes during meetings, schedule and plan events, stay on top of hundreds of emails, share information with the office and generally keep a million details in your mind at any given moment. Thankfully, the days of memos and Rolodexes are behind us. Now, there are dozens of excellent tools out there that can make your daily life a lot easier.
These are our 7 favorite tech products for administrative assistants, and most are free.
Manage social media: HootSuite
These days, many administrative assistants, especially those employed in SMBs, are responsible for maintaining social media accounts. Of course, doing that on top of all the other organizational tasks that need to happen can be daunting, and, as a result, SMB social media often suffers. Enter HootSuite, a social media management platform that allows you to create and save social media posts, and then set them on a timer.
Within HootSuite, you can manage your company's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts without toggling back and forth from your personal account to the corporate account, which can be a recipe for disaster.
There are analytics built into HootSuite, so you can track how successful campaigns have been and measure customer engagement. HootSuite offers a free trial, but even their Pro subscription is affordable ($19 a month with 10 social profiles supported).
Get Meeting Availability: When is Good
When is Good has been a mainstay of assistants for some time now, and even though the design leaves a lot to be desired, it still gets the job done. Planning a meeting with dozens of executives and board members can be nearly impossible when you don't have access to everyone's availability.
With When is Good, you create a free account and then select potential meeting times that work for your executive; you can choose as many or as few choices as possible. Then, you email a link from When is Good to all invitees. When they click the link, they'll see the availability you've selected, and click on the times and days that work for them. Once everyone has responded (which you can easily track) you can visit your results page and see which times worked for the most people.
Start to finish, When is Good is a timesaver and a major stress saver when it comes to scheduling meetings with busy professionals, and it's totally free.
Share travel itineraries and directions: TripIt
If you're tasked with managing travel for one or more executives, you're already familiar with how complicated it is to share updates on itineraries and keep everyone on the same page. TripIt is a free app that's compatible with all mobile devices (and integrates with Concur), and it does all the difficult communication for you.
Once you make accommodations, TripIt automatically creates a mobile itinerary for the individual, and you can maintain multiple itineraries for different people at the same time. If you forward all of the travel confirmation emails (hotel, car, flight) to the TripIt app, it automatically organizes them in one place, which means you and the person you're planning the trip for have easy access to all the travel information.
You can even add directions to a TripIt itinerary, so the exec your planning for can open TripIt and not only see all their flight and hotel info but also directions from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the conference center, etc.
You can sign up for TripIt for free, but there are also paid versions available.
Manage your emails: Followup.cc
Staying on top of the avalanche of emails you receive daily is much easier when you use Followup.cc. This incredible timesaving extension integrates with your inbox and makes it possible to set timed reminders on each email.
You can add an auto follow-up email, send emails at a specified date and time, track emails and receive live notifications when emails have been opened, or set follow-up times for future dates/times.
With Followup.cc, an email thread will never slip through the cracks again; in fact, this tool is great for PR and sales people, event coordinators and any other professional who conducts lots of business via email. Folowup.cc is $18 a month for the entry-level subscription, but you can try it for free.
Take notes and record audio: AudioNote 2
If you're the minutes master of your office, but you're tired of your wrists cramping during marathon meetings, give AudioNote 2 a try. This free app is used by professionals and students alike, and it's fantastic for capturing rapid-fire conversations during meetings.
AudioNote 2 allows you to take notes the way you usually do, and then link them with recorded audio clips. This app automatically cuts out long pauses when no one is talking, reduces atmospheric noise and makes it easy to pause or stop recording. You can take notes with a keypad or a stylus and even integrate PDF slides directly into your notes.
You can export your notes (complete with embedded media) to a file sharing platform like Dropbox or iCloud, or you can email them. AudioNote 2 is free and the Pro subscription is $6.99 a year.
Share files: Dropbox
Dropbox is a great file sharing option for administrative assistants at SMBs and startups because there's a free version, it works across all operating systems, and it's reliable.
If you're in a position where you're frequently sharing files with people outside your company, like clients or contract workers, Dropbox is a good option because, odds are, the individuals you're sharing with already know how it works.
There is a free version of Dropbox available (called Dropbox Basic), but if the business you're working for starts to outgrow Basic, you can always upgrade to Standard ($12.50 per user, per month) or Advanced ($20 per user, per month).
Manage contacts: Zoho CRM
If part of your job as an assistant includes managing client contacts, now is the time to ditch your Excel spreadsheet and upgrade to a product that's intended for tracking leads and storing customer information.
Zoho CRM is built for teams, and it seamlessly integrates with other commonly used products, such as Google apps, WordPress, MailChimp and, of course, the entire Zoho suite. Zoho CRM works across all mobile devices and makes updating client information, tracking sales and communicating easier; in fact, you can even message other Zoho CRM users within the app.
There is a free version of Zoho CRM available (for up to 10 users), which is great if you're in the position of convincing others at your company that a solution, (and a most affordable CRM at that) will save time and reduce confusion, but there's also a paid version. The Standard subscription starts at $12 per user per month (billed annually) and the Professional version costs $20 per user per month (billed annually).
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From Beirut to the Beltway
American. Lebanese. Human being.
A refugee many times
Once a refugee, you never stop feeling like one. Deep down the fear of losing your home, belongings, and worse, loved ones, feels real. It threatens your existence as a human being. It threatens to break your cherished family apart and destroy your basic sense of safety.
During my younger years, my family frequently found itself on the run from terrorists, self-declared liberators and war mongers. With every new outbreak of war in Lebanon, we packed our bags in the little time we had, and fled. North, south, east, by sea, by air— we tried all paths available. We traveled near and far. Time, money and availability of shelter decided our destinations. Sometimes we left precious things behind that we then lost forever. Sometimes we left people behind that we then lost forever. After every exodus, we lost parts of ourselves that we never got back.
Losing your home rips you to shreds. You spend long years afterwards searching for lost pieces of your life's once complete puzzle. What you recover doesn't always fit together, or has been chewed up and mangled by forces beyond your control. So you learn to live incompletely, and you aspire to forming a different picture to become the backdrop of your continued existence.
As a refugee, you experience loneliness and alienation. The harshness of your situation forever changes you and alters your worldview. The temporary shelter, whether it's a different country or village, never replaces your home. But what stops you from falling off the human cliff and abandoning humanity and its values, and what keeps your heart warm in the vast coldness that is displacement, is often an act of kindness.
In every stop as a refugee, I experienced acts of kindness by distant relatives and sometimes complete strangers. Some were inhabitants of different nations who opened their homes or simply showed me compassion. Some were dwellers of different cultures and religions who did not fear diversity. To me, they demonstrated that the borders that separate us human beings are artificial, and that at the end of the day, we are all the same. Raised under the same conditions, we might still vary, not by virtue of where we were born, but because of the genes that make us members of the same human family. We all have the same potential and the ability to make choices. And one choice we can make is to show kindness to others.
Showing kindness towards refugees is not synonymous with giving up or sharing your home. It does not imply that you should sacrifice your security for someone else's. It is not an invitation to the destruction of your national values, whatever they may be. It is an acknowledgement of your humanity, of the belief that all humans are born equal, and that all have the right to a dignified life. Centuries of scientific and cultural advancement have given us tools to become better towards one another, and better understand what it means to be human.
Kindness does not have to be material. You can be kind in your heart and still choose to do nothing. No one is asking you to give up your job or your home. But refugees are asking for a compassionate stance, a recognition of their potential as human beings who have had the misfortune of being born in places where basic rights are luxuries.
I have seen plenty of wars to last me several lifetimes. But I have also seen kindness by people from various countries, cultures and religions. This kindness kept my hope for a better tomorrow alive. This hope fed my belief that that one day I will find the opportunity to give the best of me, and that I will rise after so many falls.
I am now in my 40s, happily settled with a family of my own in a quiet and peaceful suburb, full of life and potential for my children to grow up kind and enlightened human beings. I have found and assembled a new puzzle. Along the way, I made difficult choices. I had to make sacrifices and accept new realities. I had to adapt in order to survive and realize my potential. I love my adopted nation more than I loved my birth country, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Had people here closed doors in my face because of my national origin or religion, I would not be here today.
The same fear continues to lurk inside. For that, I take nothing for granted, and unlike some, I do not feel entitled. Because I experienced loss, I am a better fighter than many. I didn't need to have been born here to understand the values that made this nation. I breathe them and appreciate them every day of the week, every hour of the day. And I am confident that many other refugees, if given the opportunity, will be the good citizens every nation needs.
Watching hundreds of thousands fleeing butchers and zealots looks all too familiar. My heart breaks when someone, instead of offering compassion, chooses to blame them for an imagined horror that can only befall if, like the people who ejected them, we act inhumanely. It is too late for the child who washed up on the shore. But it is not too late for the kid who made it alive, full of potential to adapt and evolve into an antidote to the bigotry and fundamentalism he fled. Leaving them to fester in pain and resentment is a much bigger threat not only to our national security, but to our humanity.
Update: This is what happens when the night comes.
On naming the enemy: Is Obama failing the labeling game?
Because it's easy, everyone's favorite sport is often second-guessing US foreign policy and the Obama administration. These days, it's over semantics. How do we label ISIS (or ISIL)? Are they "Islamic terrorists"? Are they "Islamists"? Or are they just violent extremists?
This labeling dilemma is causing much anguish, mostly among pundits of Western origin and/or leanings. In much of the Arabic speaking world, where people are most impacted by ISIS thuggery and violence, it was settled: piss off ISIS and use the pejorative Daesh.
But here, in the West, the removal of Islam from labels used by the Obama White House and the Department of State has turned into a political and journalistic crisis (see this article by Thomas Friedman, "Say It Like it Is"). After all, what would a news report look like without an adjective or a label to qualify this or that group? How else would "experts" be able to simplify matters to an audience they believe should be dumbed down and told to perceive things in binary fashion?
The Obama administration decided early on to deny violent groups that butcher in the name of religion any religious legitimacy. These groups may get it from their "warped" religious interpretations, but they ain't getting it from this White House. So they have been relegated to the realm of "violent extremist" fringe groups that do not represent an otherwise "peaceful" religion.
Some disagree. They would rather see a connection made to Islam. Anything else is "denial".
But this president has declared, as many presidents before him, including George W. Bush, that his beef is not with Islam. While Bush initially had allowed himself to use labels such as "Islamo-fascism", Obama built on the progression of the later years of the Bush foreign policy and took religion completely out of it.
To understand this position, read this 2008 paper by Rashad Hussain, the new head of the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications.
First, rather than characterizing counterterrorism efforts as "freedom and democracy versus terrorist ideology," policymakers should instead frame the battle of ideas as a conflict between terrorist elements in the Muslim world and Islam.
Second, policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as "Islamic terrorism" and "Islamic extremist." They should replace such terminology with more specific and descriptive terms such as "Al-Qaeda terrorism."
Third, the United States should seek to build a broad and diverse coalition of partners, not limited to those who advocate Western-style democracy, and avoid creating a dichotomy between freedom and Islamic society. Such a coalition should incorporate those who may have political differences, so long as they reject terrorism.
This is much more than the "denial" that some accuse the administration of perpetrating against the world. It's a communication strategy. Or strategic communications. It does not necessarily signify that the president does not understand the depth of the problem. But that there is more at stake in the counterterrorism effort than "naming" things.
Is ISIS connected to Islam? Sure. It's a violent takfiri jihadist offshoot that blends several flavors of Salafism, Wahhabism and Islamism. Does this make them "Islamic extremism"?
That is not the point.
If your aim is to counter the ISIS narrative, what benefit do you gain by lumping murderers with all their estranged relatives? If your aim is to counter recruiting, you cannot prejudge and predict the actions of a person based on the predicted future path of his/her beliefs. But most importantly, you cannot label violent groups with the adjective they most cherish. You will lose the communication battle before you start dropping leaflets and bombs.
People in government and outside often whine about ISIS allegedly dominating the social media landscape. The communication strategy here is to reduce those killers to their essence: not Muslims who have strayed the path, but criminals who kill more Muslims than help any. This is not a bad strategy. After all, you are not only going up against ISIS, but also millions of opinions held by "peaceful" Muslims that ISIS is part of a US-Israeli led conspiracy against Islam. Taking Islam out of the "battle of ideas" might not restore sanity to Arab and Islamic discourse or "reform" the religion, but it at least won't play by the rules of the maniacal extremists.
US "partners" in the region are seemingly doing the same, by openly calling ISIS Daesh and trying, through their state-funded religious scholars, to delegitimize the self-appointed caliph. Is there a degree of denial and incompetence there? Are they partly to blame for this mess? Of course. But their problem is a deep rooted one and an issue that we here in the US can certainly decry, but that is ultimately outside the scope of Obama's counterterrorism strategy.
Obama has always sought to not go it alone. This has not always worked, of course, because interests do not always align and not all countries share the same sense of urgency. In this case, where the US role is great, the administration likely views it as foolish to pitch the battle against a movement of Islam that has roots in many of the same countries that the US needs to count on as war allies. Soon, we might have soldiers on the ground. These soldiers will have to work and rely on Arab soldiers, many are Muslim, and might even have Islamist or Salafist leanings. This may be why ISIS can never be completely uprooted. A long lasting "victory" is not a goal that can be achieved without serious political and religious reform undertaken by people in the region. The US jumping ahead of everyone else and launching their own simplistic labeling initiative certainly won't help.
Some pundits tend to perceive what does not agree with their line of thinking as misguided or uninformed. In some cases they are right. In this case, I would caution against the hubris that is eating up the discussion.
Take Maajid Nawaz, someone whose opinions and experience I respect. His position is that we should distinguish between "Islam" and "Islamism". He defines the latter as the "desire to impose" the former.
Nawaz called on Obama to make that distinction in public. Anything less, he argued, would amount to obfuscation and people continuing to confuse the religion with the extremist "Islamist" elements.
I don't think things are quite as clear cut as Nawaz wants Obama to state them, and for that, adopting them as US public policy is problematic on many levels.
First, to lump all Islamists into one category, and not counting other currents that influence violent extremism such as Salafism, Wahhabism and their offshoots, is simplistic and dangerous. Nawaz is proposing an oversimplification that will paint a large number of people with one brush, and —if adopted as a communication policy— will alienate more people and potentially curtail reform within those very Islamist movements.
While I personally would not want to live under any kind of religion-based rule, it would be awfully presumptuous of me to impose my secular preferences upon people that might not want it.
That said, I think Nawaz, as a former Islamist, should continue with his campaign to bring awareness to people in his country of origin and other parts of the world about the dangers of extremism. But, and as I postulated above, I think it would be very misguided for the US president, in this current campaign, to follow this advice. I don't think Obama's alleged failure of naming Islamism is contributing to most people (in the West) confusing the extremist ideology with Islam. The last thing this president needs is gaining more enemies, or giving the non- violent Islamists more reasons to take up arms against the US.
But let's say Obama issued a statement identifying the enemy as "Islamic extremism" or as Nawaz says, "Islamism".
You have many Arab partner nations and religious authorities saying that ISIS is "un-Islamic". Why would the US feel the need to contradict its allies and issue a determination that ISIS is indeed, Islamic in nature? Religious labeling is a dangerous game, and it can cause more division abroad and at home, not to mention ignore facts about the religion itself that very few understand. Labels will not help you win a war that is partly fought through news reports and social media.
Similarly, if we simply identify them as Islamists, I really doubt that this administration will be able to explain this indefensible distinction. Islamism is not an all-inclusive term, and you cannot lump all extremists or heterodox elements under that label. It is not equivalent to Salafism, Wahhabism and the takfiri-jihadists types. As I mentioned above, ISIS is not a purely Islamist group, though some of its genealogy can be traced to Islamism. If you must define it, it is al-Qaeda on steroids, which itself is a blend of Abdallah Azzam's Salafism, Bin Laden's Wahhabism, and al-Zawahiri's Islamism. As AUB Professor Ahmad Moussalli wrote about al-Qaeda in 2009:
They represent the transformation of rather different contradictory Islamic trends into radical takfiri jihadism. Al-Qaida could only partially be understood as a production of the failure of moderate Islamism, official Wahhabism, and conservative Salafism in their established forms today along with Islamic traditionalism to bring about serious positive changes in the Muslim world's political systems and way of life. Furthermore, takfiri jihadism has created a new front in the Muslim world's encounters with the West. However, part of this front lies within the Muslim world itself, namely, the current political regimes, both religious and secular.
Many things are easier said than done, and this is one case where the issue is far too complex to be reduced into a labeling or naming problem. We are living in treacherous times, and who knows, this might lead to the awakening that the region needs. In the meantime, we do ourselves a great favor by not saying and doing "stupid stuff" that can backfire on us all. After all, what works in London or Washington, DC, does not work in Amman or Riyadh.
The dilemma of "mainstream clerics"
Hassan Hassan, on the roots of ISIS ideology that very few care to admit:
Islamic traditions are filled with stories of mercy and tolerance. But it is not enough to tell these stories in isolation from other dark chapters in Islamic history that feed groups such as Isis. Isis uses these stories, combined with ideas and concepts accepted by the mainstream, as part of an ideology and a political project in the making. Muslim clerics speak in the realm of theory; Isis practises through stories and action.
I would add two things. First, there's a problem of context, or lack thereof. These "stories" lack any historical or political context, and are always told to prove the supposed timelessness of the religion. The second thing is historical accuracy. There is little evidence that these stories actually happened, much less date back to the early Islam era.
As an example of clerics engaging in self-serving denial, here is a statement coming from the "moderate" Al-Azhar.
Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's most prestigious center of learning, has called for the killing and crucifixion of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), expressing outrage over their murder of a Jordanian pilot...
Head of al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayib, expressed his "strong dismay at this cowardly act".
This "requires the punishment mentioned in the Koran for these corrupt oppressors who fight against God and his prophet: killing, crucifixion or chopping of the limbs."
"Islam forbids killing of the innocent human soul... It forbids mutilating the human soul by burning or in any other way even during wars against an enemy that attacks you," Tayib added in a statement.
The contradictions above are telling. If the Qur'an really calls for "killing, crucifixion and chopping" of "corrupt oppressors", can you really fault ISIS for putting that into practice? Can you make an argument against it without examining the text critically and placing it in a proper context?
"Mainstream" Muslim clerics can't have it both ways. They can't reserve brutality for those they deem as oppressors, because that's what got us here in the first place. At the end, they're only justifying the continuance of this ideology, and they're no different from clerics used by ISIS to justify murder and savagery. Note how loud these mainstream clerics became after the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, and how reticent they had been before. It could not be more evident that they are more concerned with furthering the interests of the ruler than inoculating the masses against this brand of savagery.
Posted at 09:33 AM in ISIS, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
One billion dollars to "confront extremism"
Saudi Arabia is reportedly spending $1 billion to "confront extremism" in Lebanon, putting former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in charge of overseeing the effort. In a sign of convergence of regional interests, Hariri made a triumphant return to the country he abandoned years ago, carrying with him Saudi money to fight a new enemy: extremism. Now believing to be immune against Iranian and Syrian threats, Hariri has been charged to act like a Sunni moderate leader to counter the rise of extremist Sunnis, be they local or regional.
As Lebanese Sunnis engage in memory loss, and turn a blind eye to the past failures of Hariri to lead by example, we see the Saudis engaging in the same type of denial, albeit about the religious foundation of groups like ISIS.
A case in point is the statement by the Saudi Mufti about extremist groups.
حذر مفتي عام السعودية عبدالعزيز آل الشيخ من التساهل في جرائم القتل، مؤكدا أن الجماعات المتطرفة التي تدعي الإسلام، هدفها الإفساد في الأرض، وأنها أدوات في أيدي أجهزة مخابرات عالمية.
Saudi Mufti Abdelaziz Al Sheikh warned against leniency towards murder crimes, confirming that extremist groups that claim Islam as a religion aim to spread corruption on earth, and that they are tools of global intelligence agencies.
So when ISIS beheads and kills and spreads "virtue" in a fashion not dissimilar to how it is done in parts of Saudi Arabia, they are acting on orders from intelligence agencies?
Arguing the absurdity of this logic is a waste of time. Sadly, this mufti is only propagating a wide held belief that these Islamists must not be inspired by anything local. It's the same denial that has been destroying the fabric of this region for centuries.
One billion dollars is not going to do anything long lasting, not in Lebanon, not anywhere else, as long as people in the region do not admit to themselves that they are, at least partly, to blame. Just like Hariri needs to live up to the "moderate" image by actually practicing moderation towards other sects, Saudis and Muslims everywhere need to accept that there is a reason these crimes are taking on this sectarian and religious dimension. Denial is not a river anywhere. It's the refusal to critically examine beliefs that have remained unquestioned for far too long.
Posted at 09:14 AM in ISIS | Permalink | Comments (1)
Arabs, Israelis and the tragedy of Arab denial
You want to know the difference between Israelis and Arabs? Israelis might be fierce with their actions and reactions, but you cannot say they aren't people with a strong sense of loyalty to their own people: One common history, one religion and a strong sense of shared fate. There might be political diversity within Israel, as well as criticism of how the IDF conducts its business, but there is no denying that Israelis win by just being themselves. Brutal or not.
Arabs, meanwhile, cannot compete. This is because Arabs, simply, do not exist, unless you define "Arab" as a statement against the 1948 "Nakba" or as some (failed) attempt to de-Islamize politics and make room for the minorities that invested in the Arab project. Millions have spent decades pretending that there is an Arab identity, only to get dictators who killed their own people while parading that very supposedly sacred identity. And please do not blame the "West". Arabs were unable to defeat Israel not just because they were militarily weaker or lacked Western support, but because there is no such thing as Arab or even Muslim identity. How do you expect the West to support something that does not exist and that turns against itself at the drop of a hat? The Israelis are powered by a strong sense of nationalism, whereas "Arabs" are still largely tribal. The only reason they didn't languish in the dustbin of history was because of Islam, which too many Arabic speakers do not really understand. The religion came and became a formula for an empire, built on other empires, borrowing from other traditions and evolving. Until it got stuck in a time warp, and the only thing that remained was that warrior-like spirit that currently powers those ISIS orcs. Where Christians eventually learned how to balance religion with nation building, and Jews maneuvered their way to their promised land, Arabs refused to surrender to the wisdom of time and learn from their own history.
But you can't blame them, for they don't exist. Let's just admit it. This region is a bunch of tribes of various sizes. A tribal leader one day tried to unify and lead his people to a new land based on beautifully written yet very ambiguous scripture. And as with all empires, it eventually crumbled. There was a sorry attempt to mimic Western nation state building, which failed because you can't take a bunch of people with no allegiance to anything but their tribe and a religion that refuses to evolve, and expect them to create something unifying in purpose.
More than 1500 years later, "Arabs" ended up with two things to show for themselves: continuous outrage at the Jews--powered by a never-ending sense of infallibility and self-pity-- and continuous tribal warfare in the name of religion. Those Arabs right now lambast Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, while largely ignoring the astoundingly evil actions of a few lunatics continuing the conflicts of old. And when they do "see" ISIS, they incredulously convince themselves that it is part of an Israeli/CIA plot, or some similar nonsense.
The sooner some of those allegedly enlightened and educated Arabs accept this fact about what they are, and quit the hypocrisy of only seeing things through the prism of the "Arab"/Israeli struggle, the more likely that maybe, just maybe, this region will one day allow itself to resemble a colony of human beings. Or a bunch of them.
ISIS, Islam and the human soul
Twitter dwellers were treated recently to a YouTube video of ISIS virtue and vice inspectors ("Hisba") roaming the streets of areas under their control in Syria, lecturing shop owners about mannequins and Friday prayers, preaching morality the way they understand it, and then bulldozing Shia shrines.
The ISIS Hisba crew did that while quoting verses from the Qur'an and hadiths, projecting an image they believe to be righteous and virtuous. The masked fear on the faces of some shop owners was inescapable, and the deserted stands in the market—described as a sign of citizens obeying alleged Islamic rules by going to prayer instead of selling products — unintentionally conjured up images of poor sellers being forced to abandon their source of livelihood to pray at the altar of the new rulers. Of course nowhere in the video are we told of the fate of those citizens who violate the new rules, except that they are referred to some court.
Interestingly (though not surprisingly), the narrative ISIS was advancing there was not about saving people from the oppression of the Assad regime. No. It was about combatting alleged idolaters and polytheists, and the ones who worship and pray at shrines—the likes of the "Rafidah" (the Shias). It was about putting Sunnis on the right path by decapitating mannequins lest they become idols and demolishing any grave that is not level with the ground. ISIS has taken it upon itself to spread its own version of Islamic enlightenment.
The conviction with which ISIS members act is striking. Underneath it all is a fundamental misuse of the very religion they preach, and an inability to understand religious texts as products of their time. The contextual vacuum in which they and unfortunately many other Muslims place the Qur'an underlies this behavior. As with many other Muslims, they were instructed to view the Qur'an outside its historical context. But unlike many Muslims living peacefully, they were also injected with the fundamentalist venom.
A critical reading of the Qur'an reveals what they missed. Like other religious texts, many of the Qur'an's verses were directed at fence sitters and at the enemies of the new religion at the time. In other words: it spoke to the people of a particular time. It tried to find common ground with Jews and Christians, but also self-define as a distinct new religion. This explains why the Baqarah Sura, for example, contains so many snippets that are rooted in Judeo-Christian traditions, inheriting and progressing the narrative by making room for the latest Abrahamic faith, and justifying its existence by drawing on perceived transgressions of the past, and offering solutions for the predicament of the time.
This is sadly lost on many Muslims, moderates and extremists, who were raised to view the entirety of the Qur'an as a prescriptive text outside time and space, despite evidence to the contrary. Never mind that many so-called modern Islamic societies have failed to adopt and sustain good and prosperous lifestyles solely based on restrictive interpretations of the religion. Even at its peak, the Islamic civilization in its various branches produced advances and innovations in the arts and sciences that would not have been possible had they strictly followed the ways of ISIS or al-Qaeda. ISIS followers cannot boast that Islam is the religion of development and enlightenment and concurrently project an image befitting the worshippers of darkness and ignorance.
Contrary to what some ISIS followers believe, Islam was never a monolithic body of texts and traditions, out of which deviants branched out. While it could have originated against a backdrop of polytheism, it took its distinct forms as a result of interactions between the desert Arabs and the Christians and Jews who inhabited the regions Arabs invaded and who lent the conquerors religious and cultural concepts little known to desert dwellers. As hard as this might be to accept by some, you see that influence in everything from Islamic art to religious and legal texts. Believing that it all came at once to one mortal man, who then uttered enough quotes and provided enough supporting behavior to make up an entire body of Islamic law is neither logical nor historically accurate. In fact, there are those who contend that Islamic law came first, followed by the Traditions or Hadiths. Regardless, the rulers and scholars of the new conquered territories came up with much of what makes Islam what it is today, including the various Traditions. In other words, Islam was not born in the full light of history. It was not born in its current shape and form, with prescriptions to wage wars and stand in the face of cultural evolution. It evolved from contemporaneous cultural and religious ingredients. There is no such thing as "mainstream" Islam, from which sects branched out. All the sects we see today came about as different followers of the new religion struggled to find meaning and rules that best suited their interests and the interests of the forces that nurtured and nourished them, or that persecuted them.
Understanding that is key towards allowing the religion to remain suited to this world and allowing Muslims to flourish in their own societies.
Our world, whether we like it or not, has evolved into a world where we have treaties, international laws and relations, and nation states built on principles that many human beings have come to appreciate. Islamist groups cannot view the world through the lens of the Middle Ages. Neither can these groups appoint themselves guardians of any people from any sect, claiming to act as their defenders as a pretext to impose illegitimate interpretations of what it means to be Muslim.
For that, an ISIS member has no business telling anyone, Muslim or otherwise, how to live. They can't declare themselves prophets or messengers, claiming knowledge of matters that are strictly between the soul and its lord.
Assad regime threatens... aid convoys
The mighty Assad regime warned the UNSC that it reserves the right to "retaliate" against any humanitarian aid convoys that enter areas under the control of the opposition without its permission.
حذرت الحكومة السورية مجلس الأمن الدولي التابع للأمم المتحدة من أن توصيل المساعدات الانسانية عبر حدودها الى المناطق الخاضعة لسيطرة المعارضة بدون موافقتها سيشكل اعتداء مشيرة الى أنها سيكون لها الحق في الرد على دخول القافلات.
وبينما تناقش الدول صاحبة حق النقض (الفيتو) في مجلس الامن وهي بريطانيا وفرنسا والصين وروسيا مشروع قانون لإتاحة دخول المزيد من المساعدات وزعت سوريا على أعضاء المجلس الخمسة عشر رسالة من عشرات المحامين السوريين والعرب.
The Assad regime is trying way too hard to pretend it cares about Syria's sovereignty. With no military victory in sight, despite Hizbullah's intervention, all it can do is threaten humanitarian convoys and watch parts of the country get swallowed by ISIS orcs that to this day, the regime complains about but doesn't really battle.
Nasrallah blames Lebanese state, panders to base
Nasrallah went all out defending Hizbullah's intervention in Syria today, vowing a "long battle" and telling the Syrian opposition that they will not succeed in toppling the Assad regime militarily.
Most strikingly, he blamed the militia's intervention in Qusayr on the Lebanese state's alleged failure to protect Lebanese in Syria. This is the same excuse Hizbullah officials are using to placate their grieving supporters in funerals of fighters killed while fighting other Arabs in Syria.
So once again, Nasrallah justifies his actions by blaming it on a weak Lebanese state, which, ironically, his group is responsible for weakening. This is a confirmation of Hizbullah's policies: By ensuring the state's institutions are weak, its foreign policy prisoner of Syria and Iran, and by denying democracy from taking its course, Hizbullah can continue to exist as a regional militia that allows itself to intervene military on behalf of Iran in any local, regional or world conflict.
But if the above is a shameless admission of guilt, it's also a desperate attempt to placate their troops and their families, by pandering to long held beliefs of government neglect and Sunni disregard for Shia religious sensitivities.
Nasrallah in his speech not only defined the US, Israel, the Arab League and the Syrian opposition as enemies, but also added the Lebanese state, which he said failed to protect Shias living in Syria and to bring back Shia abductees. He is indirectly telling his followers that their actions in Syria are not dissimilar to kidnapping Israeli soldiers and starting a war over Lebanese prisoners held in Israel.
This being an existential battle for Hizbullah, which is possibly facing growing resentment from many Shias losing their sons in a jihad they did not subscribe to, Nasrallah reverted to the good old scapegoat technique. It's the Shias vs. the rest, and "everyone else but us is to blame for our misery", which in this case, is self-inflicted. But that's not something Nasrallah will admit, though one hopes some Lebanese Shias will finally get.
Hizbullah's Syrian jihad and the irony of it all
Foreign Policy article misses the mark on Iranian Syrian relations
Interesting article about the rise and fall of Imad Mughniyeh. But I question the sources responsible for the part below. Mark Perry tried to paint a complex Syrian/Iranian relationship. I get things weren't rosey during Hafez's reign. But after the 2005 Hariri assassination, the Hizbullah war of 2006 and the 2007 Syrian-sponsored Fateh al-Islam war on Lebanon, the following is really hard to swallow:
Relations soured further after the 2006 Lebanon war. Facing domestic economic pressures as a result of U.S.-imposed sanctions, the Syrian president pursued deeper ties with the West -- over Iranian objections. "I want to make this clear: Syria views itself as a Mediterranean country," Imad Moustapha, then Syria's ambassador to the United States, pointedly told me in 2007. "We look west -- not east. We look to America for leadership." The statement, shocking at the time, reflected Syria's desire to normalize relations with Washington -- a fact that discomfited Tehran.
Hezbollah had its own problems with Damascus. Movement leaders were bitter about Syria's February 2007 decision to open a communications channel with Israel through Turkey, and with Assad's decision to send the Sunni Islamist militants of Fatah al-Islam into the Lebanese city of Tripoli, where they sparked a bitter conflict in a Palestinian refugee camp in May 2007 that claimed hundreds of lives. Syria's move in Tripoli roiled Hezbollah leaders, who accused Assad of purposely attempting to destabilize the Lebanese government -- at their expense. "We know who's responsible for Tripoli, even if you and your journalist friends don't," a Hezbollah official told me at the time.
Ties between Damascus and Hezbollah reached a low point that September when Israeli jets bombed Syria's clandestine nuclear reactor under construction in the country's north and Assad's regime refused to respond militarily. In private, a senior Hezbollah leader with whom I spoke accused Syria of "flirting with the Zionists."
Yeah, no.
The Hariri assassination in 2005 ushered in a new era in the region: the complete transformation of the Assad regime into an Iranian satellite. Quoting Imad Mustapha is no evidence to the contrary.
Hizbullah bitter about Fatah al-Islam because it "destabilized" the Lebanese government "at their expense"?
In 2007, and the years before and after, Hizbullah wasted no effort to destabilize and undermine the Lebanese government. It culminated in an invasion and occupation of downtown Beirut. Just hit this blog's archives.
Hizbullah cared about two things: its weapons, and role as "resistance". Was Nasrallah pissed off Assad did not respond after the Israeli strike?
He did respond: through Hizbullah.
Posted at 11:16 PM in Bashar's War on Lebanon, Hizbullah vs state | Permalink | Comments (0)
Much to their chagrin, Hizbullah's jihad culture is no longer giving them "divine victory", but sprouting Arab enemies.
Not far from where they once fought the Israeli occupiers, a pseudo Sheikh and Nasrallah wannabe declared it was the religious duty of every "Muslim" (read: every Sunni) to enter into Syria to wage jihad, and help them "defend" Syrians against Hizbullah's own jihad there.
Hizbullah might not think much of this challenger. But the irony should not be lost on anyone. "Defense" has always been the name of their game. They had branded themselves as a "resistance" engaged in "defending" against enemies from a different creed.
The events in Syria have reduced them into their essence: a militia taking orders from another state and selling them as "jihad".
One wonders if it had entered their calculations that one day, this "jihad" will backfire. That the very people they claimed to defend against the far enemy would rise against them, using the same method.
And one wonders if, when they lent a hand to al-Qaeda in the 1990s, to help them find their legs as they fought a common enemy, they thought that this very force will one day revert to seeing them as nothing but "rafidah".
As the Assad regime implodes, so is the concept of jihad. And as the Arab spring slowly shows Arabs in Egypt and Tunisia that theocracy is the way backward, not forward, the people of the Levant, with a little help from Jabhat al-Nusra, Hizbullah and their copycats, will begin to see jihad for what it's always been: a destructive force that catapults them backward.
In 2006, a singer called Julia Boutros turned a Nasrallah speech into a music video showing children morphing into fighters.
Those fighters are now dying in Syria, fighting other Arabs.
This must not have been the future Julia and Nasrallah had envisioned. But it is the result of the jihad and death culture they popularized.
That Hizbullah is getting a taste of its own medicine. That Iran is having to explain how it could both harbor al-Qaeda at home and fight them abroad. That the Assad regime, which spent decades cultivating and nourishing extremists to use as cards against their foes, is now having to hide in the very holes it once buried people in, for fear of getting blown up to pieces. That all this is happening is very, very ironic.
The other irony is Lebanon's role in all of this. The country, it seems, is turning from a stage for world conflicts, into a player in an inter-jihadist conflict, fielding fighters and weapons to feed warring parties.
It's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. But, and in many ways, it's "jihad" blowing up in the faces of those who thought it could deliver them a better future.
Tough times are ahead. But as comedian Bassem Youssef said, "theocracy is like measles, you need to get it once to get immunity for life".
Posted at 09:13 PM in Hizbullah | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
"Motivated by religion"
Boston holds a special place in my heart. For a long time, I called it my earthly heaven. It's where I matured intellectually and emotionally, and where I started to shed my faith in man-made religion.
You will never see me defend religion on this blog, especially not Islam, the religion with which I grew up. Religions, in my opinion, deserve to be deconstructed and treated as man-made constructs, put in the context of history and never, ever, allowed to transpose values from a day long gone, to the present.
Watching the media coverage of the Boston bombings was painful at times. Not only because this is my home city in so many ways, but because of phrases like "motivated by religion" thrown around like the answer to age old questions about what motivates violence.
The two brothers were Muslim. They watched extremist videos. Therefore, they were motivated by Islam to blow up a child watching marathoners.
Such reductionist logic is especially hard to bear by someone, though divorced from the daily practice of religion, was raised to use religion as a force to be "good" to one's family and neighbors, and as a guide to surviving the demands of traditional society. Back when my relatives loosely inflicted religious deterrents on me, I was never told that I should harm people. Even when I got caught in the middle of a sectarian war, I don't think I ever thought the reason Christians were kidnapping my relatives, or Muslims bombing Christian neighborhoods, was because they differed on how Jesus was crucified.
My point is: I learned, early on, to pin it on the people reading the book, not the book itself.
This might not be the view of the majority of people, who like to categorize others by the religious views they hold, and judge them according to how they understand those views, which sometimes contradict their own. This applies to both sides of this unfortunate "conflict". You have Islamist extremists thinking they are doing God a favor by justifying murder using his alleged words. And you got people on the other side with their selective reading of history, blinded by their perceived intellectual advancement, ready to blame an entire religion for the fault of the few who lack non-religious justification for essentially man-inspired evil.
Blaming the Boston bombs on "religious motivation" only reinforces the ideas of the attackers. They espoused views that innocent civilians can be killed because they belonged to an evil nationality, or creed. So when we lump them with millions of others who have seen comparable tragedies, but who otherwise are peaceful, we prove the following true: that this world is nothing but tribes of differing faiths, and that thousands of years of technological advancement and sophisticated communications did little to erase human prejudice.
When even The Huffington Post, a publication representing both the best and worst of online media, sees no shame in advancing "motivated by religion" explanations, it becomes apparent that this so called global village is failing to support a universal set of values. And this could be because technology, instead of helping us empathize with each other, has turned us into lazy individuals who allow one man's reading of the book to dominate our understanding of what it means to be human.
Posted at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
The other delusion
Michael Young's latest editorial, "The Obama Delusion", on the US President's alleged unresponsiveness to events in the Middle East, Syria in particular, is one of many penned by Young and others recently, criticizing the US's supposed failure to "lead" in the region.
I am not going to defend US foreign policy here. I do, however, take issue with the campaign to paint the US as inactive, uninterested, or "amoral".
No self-respecting country in the world will look outwards without paying attention to its own interests. It is unrealistic of Lebanese, and others advocating a different policy approach, to expect this nation to "lead" or solve problems outside the scope of the national interest.
There is another kind of delusion rampant in some "expert" circles. The one that expects this nation to help people who will not help themselves, and who would rather wait for intervention, American or divine, to lift them and their people out of their own problems. The one that sees events through a defunct prism, in complete disregard for history and the realities of the world, where no one nation possesses a magic wand to cure wars and conflicts.
There are many priorities a leader inherits. Many decisions have to be made, and none of them are made in isolation of others. I would like to see pundits aiming their loaded words at more difficult targets, and to stop dreaming of the great wizard who in one flick of the wand, can change hearts and minds, and bring about peace outside the walls of his nation.
Let Mikati fall
As tempting as it is to lambast March 14 over their lack of imagination, critics of the movement's demands to bring down the Mikati government need to take a chill pill.
While there's some validity to the argument that the alliance is alienating past and potential allies, everyone needs to take a step back and look at the big picture.
There really is nothing left for March 14 to do except call for the downfall of this government and Najib Mikati in particular. The last thing Saad Hariri wants is for Mikati to consolidate his status as both a Sunni leader and a front for Hizbullah's various plots.
Those who believe Mikati could potentially be useful for March 14 miss the point. Mikati is a facade. He is an impotent figure who is serving to castrate Saad Hariri and eliminate any opposition to Hizbullah. He also serves to further weaken Hariri's standing on the Sunni street, which is already angry over the unchecked trespasses of Hizbullah.
Hizbullah moved the goal post a long time ago: First when they baited Aoun, and then when spooked Jumblatt out of March 14 and successfully installed Mikati as PM. Saad Hariri had to leave the country and watch as the Lebanese government slipped away from March 14's reach.
After al-Hassan's killing, Hariri's only security lifeline in the capital was eliminated, and indeed, any real security opposition to Hizbullah. Saad's chances of ever going back are minimal, and he is now officially reduced to an angry Twitter user.
Hariri's Twitter outburst last week was telling. He feels cornered and betrayed. Jumblatt has chosen to temporarily protect himself and his region by agreeing to keep Mikati afloat, and consequently Hizbullah's cover. It is one thing to be critical of the Assad regime, but another to up the ante against the militia that controls your livelihood. These are Lebanon's new rules post Mikati, and Jumblatt is a good player.
Hariri, on the other hand, has nothing to gain from keeping Mikati, especially after losing al-Hassan. We would be mistaken to believe that the current prime minister and the president can offer Hariri a way back into the country, or that any agreement with them could bolster his chances to stay politically relevant.
Look no further than Hizbullah's recent drone episode over Israel, which was admittedly used to spy on behalf of Iran. Here you have the Iranian-run militia continuing with its project without a single peep from the Mikati government. This confirms that Hizbullah sees this government, and the local politics that surround it, as conduits for their anti-Israel, pro-Iran agenda.
March 14 is undoubtedly in an extremely delicate position. They suddenly found themselves in a lose-lose situation. For that, their critics need to keep an eye on the bigger picture.
If the aim is to weaken Hizbullah's grip, then bringing down this government is by all means a step in the right direction, albeit not a complete one.
But if folks want to maintain the status quo and hope for a solution through the current cabinet, then here's the risk they have to consider: the cabinet or a Mikati-led variation of it will continue to provide an official Lebanese government cover for Hizbullah's operations outside the country, both in Syria and Israel.
I am inclined to side with March 14 on this one: Let Mikati fall. The anti-Hizbullah opposition and its supporters need a psychological victory, and the Iranian-led militia needs to be forced to recalculate.
Posted at 10:39 AM in Hizbullah vs state, March 14 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Aoun surrogate calls FBI "intelligence agency"
This is ignorance you voted for, Lebanese people.
Change and Reform bloc MP Simon Abi Ramia said on Saturday the US FBI team that arrived in Beirut earlier this week could have been in Lebanon before Internal Security Forces intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan was assassinated on October 19.
"The US intelligence agency, FBI, was present in Lebanon before Hassan was assassinated," the lawmaker told OTV. [Now Lebanon]
Not only is the FBI NOT an intelligence agency (that would be CIA), but Abi Ramia's insinuation that the FBI is useless or, if you want further interpret his remarks, played a role in the assassination, is just laughable, at a time his boss was caught on video threatning and predicting the death of the ISF official.
Lebanese interior minister predicts outcome of al-Hassan investigation
With speculation rife in the Lebanese media about who killed Wissam al-Hassan, the ISF released a statement saying that most of the reported information is inaccurate and urging the media not to publish information that could disrupt the course of the investigation and cause citizen confusion.
Tell this to the ISF's big boss, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel. According to Now Lebanon, here's what he said yesterday:
Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said on Wednesday that the preliminary outcome of the inquiry into the assassination of Internal Security Forces intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan could be inconclusive.
"It is possible that the leads reached in the investigation [are inconclusive]," Charbel told MTV.
"The judiciary are not excluding any possibility, including Israel's involvement or of those implicated in the case of ex-Information Minister Michel Samaha [who was arrested on charges of plotting terror attacks in Lebanon]," he added.
So instead of blaming the media, I suggest the ISF plug its own leaks, beginning with the minister, who is predicting that the investigation will fail and is listing Israel as a suspect. I mean if you're going to get candid with people, at least respect their intelligence and put matters in context, or just respect the investigation and speak when you have the facts.
This is, mind you, days after some judge who arrived at the scene shortly after the explosion declared that the blast completely destroyed the evidence.
I feel sorry for the FBI team that will travel to Lebanon to investigate. The only thing left for them to look at will be Charbel's crystal ball.
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