Ottoman vestiges in Greece, a Times article and slideshow. I really want to see Greece, and much of Eastern Europe, preferably by train. (I'm fascinated by that huge chunk of Europe between Prague and Kazan, Tallinn and Athens; had I not made South Asia my regional focus, it would have been somewhere within that part of the world in its place.) This article explores a little corner of Greece, Hellenic Thrace, and makes it out to be fascinating and, as the pictures prove, beautiful. Check out this wonderful picture, of Greek Muslim girls playing volleyball (I love the supposed contradiction -- they're muhajjiba (headscarved), and the Greek flag, with its big cross, stands just above them):
A little corner of a Greco-Muslim world long since erased in the violent population exchanges and wars of the 19th and 20th centuries. For a great read on that period and its disappearance, check out Columbia's own Dr. Mark Mazower, author of Salonica, City of Ghosts. For anyone traveling to the region, I recommend it is a must-read. It provides a context, color and history that modern-day nationalisms have brutally erased. (The loss of Turks in Greece, as well as ethnically Greek Muslim populations in modern Greece, Crete, Rhodes and the like, is paralleled by Egypt's explusion of Greeks and Italians. Everybody lost, even the "winners").
Elsewhere, a post on the Uyghurs as losers. This blog, just discovered via Talk Islam, contains a number of excellent articles on Iran, Central Asia and the like. Readers have asked for other sources on the ongoing suppression of democracy in Iran; I would suggest iPouya (the former Rebel Radio) as one powerful source.
Otherwise, Avari is coming down with a cold. This blog feels it, too. We are both under blankets (it's okay, we're mahram.)
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