30/4 – 2/5/11 AFTER the book launch at the Park Hotel, we sell out of Surfing behind the Wall. It’s an encouraging sign. My friend Iskander takes me to visit the tomb of Habib Nuh al-‘Attas, the famous saint of Singapore. His tomb, once atop a hill, now nestles against[…]

THAT night I give a talk at the Park Hotel in Singapore hosted by the Arab Network Society. They’re organised, and the room is full of people, including diplomats from the Middle East. Before my presentation, I quote from Surat ul-Hujjarat in the Qur’an where God created us into tribes[…]

Saturday 27th April: Cape Malay book found in Singapore On Saturday morning I meet with Dr Chandra Muzaffer, director of the NGO JUST (the International Movement for a Just World). He’s a softly-spoken man in a wheel-chair. Once in the opposition political frame, he’s since beaten a retreat from the[…]

Perfect harmony after the Surfing behind the Wall book tour…Chinese tea in a beautiful garden.

25/4/12 Arrive in KL. It’s overcast and rainy. Ponderous clouds hang black in the sky. After a hot Cape summer the humidity is bearable. Meet up with Dr Yasin from Fajr Symphony, co-sponsor together with Dome Publications and the Kaaf Trust. It’s been a long flight, but it’s good to[…]

ROBERT FISK of The Independent is not known for mincing his words. Having lived in Lebanon for most of his adult life, and having covered almost every Middle East conflict for the last 40 years, Syria’s complex role in the region is well-known to him. Ruled with an iron fist[…]

THE 10,000 year-old centre of Amman – modernised by the Makkan Sharif, King ‘Abdullah I, after the colonial dissection of the Middle East in 1917 – is Jordan’s bustling capital. Once straddling seven hills, it now encompasses more than 20 as its grey urban sprawl envelops the countryside. It’s only[…]

THE stinging rebuke of our education system by Dr Mamphele Ramphele, former UCT vice-chancellor and struggle veteran, during her address at the sixth annual Solomon Mahlungu lecture at the University of Johannesburg is a timely reminder that all is not well in education. Her widely reported remark that the state[…]

IT is a truism that earlier generations were more sensitive than us to their natural environment. A cloudburst, for example, was a much weightier event than a whorl on a satellite image, or the opening of an umbrella on a wet pavement. It is a truism too, that 21st century[…]