That Libyan Metaphor on my Mind. Smoking the Peace Pipe in Tripoli, 1996, Free & independent...

On the occasion of the criminal aggression against Libya, we offer a founding text of The Sacred Narghile site, launched 1999.

The source is: Cafes, Hookahs and Conversation.  Rive, Universita del Mediterraneo (Rome), n°5, 1997 : pp. 47-53 (note: English version by Italian translator, not by the author).

Many readers will remember its universally famous beginning: “Although it is a familiar object for a billion people in the world, the four hundred year old hookah seems struck by a strange silence. Most encyclopaedias overlook [...].

 

In Libya, last year [that is: 1996, Folks!], at night fall, a walk around the part of the capital awash in the orange glow of magnificent street lamps, was a constant temptation to linger awhile in a good-natured atmosphere. Under tall palm trees, right in the middle of a colourful crowd of young men and women, of whole families and old men the waiters of an open air restaurant could be seen rushing between the crowded tables and the kitchen. After the meal, those who ordered a hookah that was already set up at their table would be provided with a kursy (pipe bowl, in clay or in metal, depending on whether the hookah was an arguila or a shisha) full of apple-flavoured mo'essel (tobacco aromatised with molasses).

Sometimes, the waiter would alternate this with the distribution of new live embers for burning the tobacco. Freedom Square, located in the city centre, is where during the daytime taxis for Tobruk, Benghazi, Cairo or Tunis wait far a full load before leaving. Their cosmopolitan customers assemble at the coffee house on the esplanade. There many of them order a hookah full of their favourite tobacco, chosen from the wide range of mo'essel brands on offer, mainly imported from neighbouring Egypt, It is also quite usual far customers to bring their own tobacco.

[...].

NEW (MAY 2011):Independent Scientific Journal (Jamahiriya) Publishes Debunking Critique (in green color!) of HOOKAH Totalitarian Science


CONCLUSIONS

Libya, like hookah, is a metaphor. The war on the former is based on huge hoaxes (bombing of civilians, ““African” mercenaries”, etc.) that have now been exposed (browse this site) just like similar mega lies about the latter (1 hookah = 20 to 900 cigarettes).

RELEVANT READINGS

Yves Traynard. Tripoli d’Afrique. Revue Qantara, Paris, IMA, n°29, Automne 1998, pp. 66-39.

Yves Traynard. The Shisha Ban. Etudiant solidaire 2007 (24 Jul)

http://ytjournal.blogspot.com/2007/07/shisha-ban.html

Left: Café de la Médina : 3 fumeurs de chicha (Tripoli – Libye)(copyright: Yves Traynard)

>> Some objective articles covering the war against Libya:

JULIEN SALINGUE et HENRI MALER. Les mots de la guerre au service de la guerre ? Lexique médiatique de la guerre de Libye

http://www.mondialisation.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24108

Julie LEVESQUE. Libye : Les médias et la propagande en faveur de la rébellion

http://www.mondialisation.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24095

CENTRE FOR GLOBAL RESEARCH

http://www.globalresearch.ca

CENTRE DE RECHERCHE SUR LA MONDIALISATION

http://mondialisation.ca

MICHEL COLLON

http://www.michelcollon.info/Ecartee-du-jeu-l-Union-africaine.html

URUKNET (INFORMATION FROM THE MIDDLE EAST)

http://www.uruknet.info

LE GRAND SOIR

http://www.legrandsoir.info/Libye-je-me-refuse-a-hurler-avec-les-loups.html

PIERRE PICCININ

http://pierre.piccinin-publications.over-blog.com/

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YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there!

Shisha Charcoal & the Carcinogenic ««Waterpipe»»™ Millionaire Experts of the US-American University of Beirut

The ««waterpipe»»™ Experts of the US-American University of Beirut have begun to spend their « pocket money » (the trifling sum of ca. 3 million dollars of public (taxpayer) money « donated » by the US antismoking prohibitionist Establishment for more biased politicized studies against what they have stratgically termed (in a voluntarily reductionist functionalist nominalist way): ««Waterpipe»»™ (warcode).

Their last study « demonstrates that charcoal products contain significant quantities of carcinogenic PAH” “even before they are lit"(please don't laugh !), so they haven’t been compelled to resort to their’ devilish biased smoking machine (browse this site for more info on the latter)…

Elizabeth SEPETDJIAN, Najat SALIBA, Alan SHIHADEH: Carcinogenic PAH in waterpipe charcoal products. Food Chem Toxicol. 2010 Aug 28. [Epub ahead of print]

A full critique of this stuff will be published in the right place and moment…

In the meantime, and for your info, the Publication Bias (the voluntary action, among antismoking researchers in particular, of not citing previous similar studies because of their anteriority or their “negative” results) is striking. They also refrained from citing a highly relevant German antismoking study that has been exposed:

Unethical German Gas Chamber Study Published in the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal

Some of you, folks, will object that everybody already knows that barbecue eating also entails health risks, no ? So, there’s nothing new under the sun. More, the high scaring figures are absolutely not reflected, so far, in studies led on carcinogens detected in the human body of human shisha smokers.

What is more criminal from a public health (not the "public health" of antismoking activists) standpoint, is that they offer absolutely nothing to help shisha smokers (considered by antismokers as criminals). Indeed, even regarding charcoal, there are so many ways to smoke in a healthier way (harm reduction options) but these prohibitionist hygienist people are stubborn and stuck to a global agenda serving the economic interests of the pharmaceutical industry (nicotine gums, pills, inhalers, Chantix, etc.) which , in a way or another, funds them:

See the recent fundraising paper of Wasim Maziak, Alan Shihadeh’s colleague and co-author of the WHO flawed report:

The Global Epidemic of Waterpipe Smoking. Addictive Behaviors 2010 (August)

Come on, send now your millions of dollars to Wasim Maziak. Poor man ! From year 2002, he has only succeeded in winning a job at the University of Memphis (they say salaries are better that in Syria there).

HIGHLY RELEVANT

> Alan SHIHADEH is the main author of the WHO flawed highly politicized report on ““waterpipe”” smoking, «peer-reviewed» by his Globalink friends of WHO TobReg : Jack Henningfield, a great name funded by the pharmaceutical industry, among others.

So, unsurprising, the antismoking authors « suggest that public health agencies following TobReg’s recommendations should therefore move to regulate smoked charcoal products alongside tobacco”.

Please understand the word “regulate” as “progressive ban” in line with the Prohibition agenda set by the so-called FCTC (Framework Convention for Tobacco Control) cooked by Globalink fanatics. See HERE how the Globalink vicious circle :

> SHIHADEH is also the expert interviewed by Action on Smoking and Health to support the United Kingdom Ban (July 2007):

ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). ““Shisha 200 times worse than a cigarette” say Middle East experts””. 27 March 2007 (prepared by Martin Dockrell)(accessed 13 June, 2008) [based, among others, on an interview with Wasim Maziak and Alan Shihadeh]

Sub-heading: “Three leading experts from across the Middle East have warned that excluding “shisha bars” when England goes smokefree on July 1 could worsen the grave inequalities in health that already affect ethnic minorities.”

You're telling me, you pharisaic self-righteous hypocrites !

> Read also Waterpipegate and Climategate

YOU ARE NOT ON THE HOME PAGE of the OBSERVATORY on HOOKAH OR HEALTH (Narghile, "Waterpipe"™, Health, Risks, Dangers, Diseases, Tar, Nicotine, Cancer). CLICK HERE to go there!