Skip to main content

WHAT ALEPPO IS


“What is Aleppo?” asked third party libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson on nationwide US television. And everyone who is aware of the horrendous human drama unfolding in Syria gasped and wrote him off as too ignorant to run for dogcatcher let alone president of the most powerful nation on earth and leader of the Western world.
US Presidential candidate Gary Johnson
Devastated by the Syrian War over the course of the past five years, Aleppo will very likely be, for all intents and purposes, leveled within the next two months, under constant air attacks by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and those of his Russian ally and overlord Vladimir Putin. While many may know where Aleppo lies in the bitter war between Assad and nationalist rebels and in the proxy wars of regional and worldwide rivals, fewer know what Aleppo means in terms of world history and culture.
Possibly in existence since as far back as the 6th millennium before the Christian era, it has been inhabited as a city since at least the 3rd millennium BC and was a noted commercial and military center throughout history up to World War I. Its longevity can be attributed to its strategic location as a trading post at the mid-point between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). It was also one of the principal points of interest on the legendary Silk Road, an ancient network of international trade routes that connected East and West and wended their way from China to the Mediterranean Sea.
Aleppo before the war
The ancient city’s decline in power first came with the building of the Suez Canal in the mid-19th century, which diverted trade to sea routes instead of overland. The fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent carving up of the Middle Eastern region by the victors of World War I saw the northern part of the city’s sphere of influence ceded to Turkey, along with its rail connections with Iraq. In the World War II era the city’s access to the sea was also ceded to Turkey and it became, for all intents and purposes, isolated.
Aleppo today
The positive result of this isolation was that its extraordinary wealth of history and culture—historic landmarks, Medieval architecture and traditional Muslim heritage—was well preserve and lovingly restored. Five years before the Syrian War began, Aleppo was named the “Capital of Islamic Culture 2006”.
World leaders have stood by and watched as this ancient gem has been razed to the ground or, in some cases, have actively participated in its destruction, while turning deaf ears to the cries of its people who have become martyrs to worldwide indifference and sectorial interests.
What is Aleppo? A symbol. A tragic loss for Syria, for global culture and history, for the world at large, and for the cause of peace.   



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MILTON FRIEDMAN: A CONSERVATIVE VOICE FOR FREE MONEY FOR ALL

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman, who died in 2006 at the age of 94, was for decades considered, a leading US economist, who garnered worldwide renown. Winner of the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his many achievements, Friedman criticized traditional Keynesian economics as “naïve” and reinterpreted many of the economic theories broadly accepted up to his era. He was an outspoken free market capitalist who acted as an honored adviser to emblematically ultra-conservative world leaders such as US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and his theories on such key areas as monetary policy, privatization and deregulation exercised a major influence on the governing policies of many Western governments and multilateral organizations in the 1980s and ‘90s. Such a staunch conservative would seem like an unlikely academic to go to in search of backing for the controversial idea of giving spending money away to every person and family, no strin
Post a Comment
Read more

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME—INTRODUCTION TO A CONTROVERSY WHOSE DAY IS COMING

For some time now, the warning signs have been clear to anyone studying the evolution of free-market economies worldwide. Job creation is not keeping pace with job attrition and demographic expansion. The tendency is toward a world with ever more people and ever fewer jobs. While most politicians and world leaders praise the technological revolution that has served up extraordinary advances to billions the world over, the dwindling sources of legitimate employment belie optimism for the average individual’s future work possibilities. Among possible solutions, one of the most salient is the controversial idea of some sort of basic “allowance” to ensure coverage of people’s personal needs. But this is an idea that is still in its infancy, while its practical application may be more urgently required than is generally presumed. In Western capitalist society there has long been a conservative idea that the capitalist makes money through investment and that the worker makes a living wi
1 comment
Read more

A CASTRO BY ANY OTHER NAME...

Although many Western observers are already showing optimism over the semi-retirement of Raúl Castro and the rise to office of the previously obscure Miguel Díaz Canel, what just happened in Cuba is not a regime change. In fact, for the moment, it appears that very little will change in that island nation, including the severe restriction of human and civil rights with which Cubans have been living for the past six decades. Miguel Díaz Canel While it is true that Díaz Canel is the first person other than Fidel and Raúl Castro in nearly 60 years to ostensibly take charge of the country, he was handpicked by Raúl to ensure the continuation of a Castro dynasty that has been ensconced in power since the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. He has garnered Castro's favor by eschewing personal power quests and adhering to the regime’s main political and economic lines in his most recent post as the country’s First Vice-President, after long years as a grassroots regime champion
Post a Comment
Read more