Agrégateur de flux

Le Secrétaire général de l'ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a pris connaissance vendredi de l'arrivée à Djibouti, dans la journée, du ministre des Affaires étrangères du Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, et a salué l'annonce de la libération de quatre prisonniers djiboutiens par les autorités érythréennes.

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

March 17, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – Survival International (SI)‚ a global movement for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples has lodged complaint against an Italian giant construction company, Salini, over impacts of one of Ethiopia mega projects, the Gilgel Gibe III hydro power plant it has built.

The US$1.5 billion Gibe III project dam is expected to generate 1870 MW of electricity.

Survival said it has reported the Italian engineering giant Salini to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) over the rights impacts to communities in Ethiopia and Kenya.

It also stressed that the construction of the controversial dam in Ethiopia's Omo River cuts off the Omo River's regular flooding‚ over which 100‚000 people rely on to water their crops and livestock and a further 100,000 depend on indirectly.

It said the dam project will eventually destroy the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in Ethiopia and Kenya.

“Up to half a million people face starvation as a result of the dam Salini has constructed on the Omo River,” Survival said in a statement it issued on Monday.

According to experts, the dam project threatens Lake Turkana – the world's largest permanent desert lake – and disaster for the 300,000 people from tribes living along its shores.

Survival said Salini did not seek the consent of local people before building the dam, but claimed that an “artificial flood release” would compensate them for their losses. However, this promised flood never came and thousands of people now face starvation.

According to Survival, the region is one of the most important sites in early human evolution‚ and an area of exceptional biodiversity‚ with two World Heritage Sites and five national parks.

“The head of Kenya's conservation agency said last week that the dam is unleashing “one of the worst environmental disasters you can imagine.”

Stephen Corry of Survival international said “Salini has ignored crucial evidence‚ made false promises and ridden roughshod over the rights of hundreds of thousands of people.”

"Thousands are now facing starvation because Italy's largest contractor‚ and one of its best known companies‚ didn't think human rights were worth its time,” he said.

He said the real consequences of the Ethiopian government's devastating policies for its country's 'development'‚ which were “shamefully supported by western aid agencies like the UK's DFID and USAID”‚ are plain for all to see.

Stealing people's land and causing massive environmental destruction, he added, is not progress; it is a death sentence for tribal peoples.

Ethiopia has been facing massive protests from a number of international rights groups and environmental campaigners over the construction of the Gibe III dam project.

Groups like the International Rivers, Friends of Lake Turkana, The Oakland Institute, and other groups argued that no inclusive Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was made ahead of the construction and extensively campaigned for halt of the project.

According to the groups, Gibe III like those Gibe I and II diverts the flow of the Omo River in Ethiopia, which feeds 90% of Lake Turkana in Kenya and endangers the lake and tens of thousands of people from 17 ethnic groups who live in the Lower Omo Valley.

Despite huge pressure, Ethiopia however recently completed the Gibe which is the country's second largest hydro power plant after the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam; the horn of Africa's nation is building along the Nile River.

Gibe III, a 610 meter-long and 243 meter high roller-compacted concrete dam has power generation capacity of 1,870 Megawatt.

Ethiopia has dismissed allegations that its dam projects will cause environmental damage to populations in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Previously, Addis Ababa however said claims released by the rights groups are bogus. It further accused them of working for the interest of their western alleys.

(ST)

March 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM/JUBA) - A Sudanese presidential aide Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid on Thursday warned that his government may close the border with South Sudan if Juba continues its support to rebel groups in Darfur and the Two Areas.

Sudanese military personnel inspect the belongings of South Sudanese on the Sudanese border on 18 April 2014 (Photo: Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

Following a meeting between President Omer al-Bashir with the head of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel, Hamid told reporters that the meeting touched on the continued support that Juba provides to Sudanese rebels groups.

"If the South Sudan does not stop supporting the insurgency we will have to take action to protect the country, even if it led to the closure of the border again," he said, adding "We are waiting for the implementation of the Cooperation Agreements signed with the South Sudan since 2012, so there will be no security problems between the two countries."

The renewal of accusations comes after reports in Khartoum about meetings in Juba between senior South Sudanese officials and SPLM-N leadership to discuss the needs of the Sudanese rebels who are facing a large scale military campaign in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.

Last January, President Omer al-Bashir announced the opening of border with South Sudan for the first time since its secession in July 2011. Also it reduced oil transportation fees and decided to open river transport with the South Sudan.

According to the official news agency SUNA, the governor of White Nile state Abdel Hamid Kasha on Wednesday called for the withdrawal of the South Sudanese troops from the border with Sudan, adding that the presence of the SPLA soldiers hinders Khartoum's decision to open the border.

Kasha made his statement during a meeting with an American diplomat from the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan who visited the border state where are the camps of South Sudanese refugees.

In a statement he issued on 26 January, President Salva Kiir instructed to withdraw South Sudan army units on the border with Sudan, to "at least five miles south of our common borders of 1st January 1956, in accordance with our commitment to the terms of The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 with Khartoum”.

SPLA TROOPS ARE AT 1 KM

However the top command of the South Sudanese army on Thursday denied the accusations of failing to implement the presidential order.

“That order has been complied with long time ago. Our forces have been withdrawn more than 1 kilometre away from the common border with Sudan but they want us to go beyond that, which has security concerns,” South Sudanese presidential advisor on security affairs, Tut Gatluak, told Sudan Tribune on Thursday when asked to comment on the matter.

Gatluak said the government was concerned that “negative and hostile” rebel forces could take advantage of movement away from the common border and may use the area for activities which may compromise security between the two countries.

The new deputy chief of general staff for finance and administration, Lieutenant General James Ajonga Mawut Ajonga, also confirmed that government forces have complied with the order after the army's chief of general staff, Paul Malong Awan, sent out to all units at the border with Sudan to act in compliance with the order of the president.

“In the army, there is a culture of command, order and comply, which is the guiding doctrine world over for the military. When the office of the commander in chief issued the directives, the chief of general staff received it and acted immediately. He issued instructions to all the units and our troops at the common border with Sudan and they complied,” said Ajonga.

Sudan closed its border with the South Sudan in June 2011, one month before the formal declaration of independence.

At the time, the decision intervened days after the start of a rebellion in the South Kordofan by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N). Khartoum accused Juba of supporting the former members of the ruling party in South Sudan.

(ST)

Le débat qui a opposé Patrice Talon à Lionel Zinsou suscite beaucoup de réactions dans la sphère béninoise. Après la réaction de Jacques Ayadji, nous vous proposons celle d'Edgard Guidibi publiée sur les réseaux sociaux. Lire son intervention.

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Patrice Talon vient de remporter haut la main le face à face de cette nuit. Ce n'est qu'un avant-goût de ce qui va se passer le dimanche 20 mars 2016. Le sort en est jeté, Patrice Talon, nouveau Président de la République.

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L’ancien chef rebelle s’est rendu à Brazzaville, pour la première fois depuis une décennie pour soutenir ses amis de l’opposition Congo: 9 candidatures approuvées Congo : faible affluence au référendum Congo-Brazza : manifestation suspendue

Très attendu, le face-à-face Lionel Zinsou-Patrice Talon, les deux finalistes au second tour de la présidentielle 2016 qui a lieu dimanche 20 mars prochain, s’est tenu effectivement tenu dans la soirée d’hier. Décryptage commenté !

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Mehrere Parteien wollen die Zuwanderungsfrage mit einem Inländervorrang lösen. Das kann vieles heissen – aber nicht unbedingt das, was man bisher darunter verstanden hat.

Le groupe britannique Rolls-Royce a réussi un très joli coup en parvenant à vendre sa turbine à gaz MT30 pour le futur bâtiment de projection de la marine italienne. Une surprise puisque les bâtiments de la marina militare dotés de TG adoptaient jusqu’ici, fort logiquement, la LM 2500 de General Electric fabriquée sous licence par le groupe italien Avio. On se rappelle d’ailleurs que cette machine avait été imposée par Rome au moment de la conception des frégates franco-italiennes du type FREMM, alors que la MT30, plus récente et puissante, avait la préférence la préférence de Paris.

• Lire la suite de La marine italienne choisit des turbines MT30 pour son futur LHD

La présence d’un sous-marin russe dans le golfe de Gascogne, révélée la semaine dernière par le Nouvel Observateur, a été abondamment relayée par la presse française. Sans grande précision sur l’affaire puisque, c’est historiquement l’usage, la Marine nationale ne communique jamais sur les détections sous-marines que ses unités sont amenées à réaliser. Cela, pour des questions notamment tactiques.  

La thèse du SNLE exclue d’entrée de jeu

• Lire la suite de Sous-marin russe dans le golfe de Gascogne : Qu’en est-il ?

Moyen-Orient, Amérique du nord, Océanie… Les perspectives à l’exportation de la nouvelle frégate de premier rang française sont relancées grâce à la nouvelle version de la FREMM. Dévoilée pour la première fois fin 2012, à l’occasion du salon Euronaval, la FREMM Extended Range, dotée d’une mâture intégrée, devient aujourd’hui un produit beaucoup plus concret. Le ministère français de la Défense a en effet, en 2014, donné son feu vert aux équipes tricolores de Thales pour développer le Sea Fire 500.

• Lire la suite de DCNS mise sur la FREMM à mâture intégrée pour l’export

C’est ce jeudi que le transport de chalands de débarquement brésilien Bahia, ancien Siroco de la Marine nationale, doit quitter Toulon pour rejoindre Rio de Janeiro. Retiré prématurément du service au sein de la flotte française suite à la réduction du format de la force amphibie, restreinte aux trois BPC du type Mistral, le TCD a été vendu pour un montant de 80 millions d’euros. Le contrat comprend également la cession d’une batellerie composée du chaland de débarquement d’infanterie et de chars Hallebarde, ainsi que deux chalands de transport de matériel.

• Lire la suite de L’ex-Siroco en partance pour le Brésil

L’hydrogène sera sans doute l'un des combustibles du futur : plus propre, moins cher, disponible partout, ses avantages ont déjà suscité l’intérêt de nombreux industriels. Dès 2010, un programme européen, baptisé IDEALHY (Integrated Design for Efficient Advanced Liquefaction of Hydrogen), a réuni universitaires et industriels avec comme idée de travailler sur un process de liquéfaction de l’hydrogène viable et économe en énergie.

• Lire la suite de Kawasaki et Shell veulent transporter de l'hydrogène liquéfié

Le roulier Hoegh Osaka est resté échoué 19 jours dans le Solent en janvier 2015. Le voiturier de 180 mètres de long, avec 1450 voitures à son bord,  avait pris une très forte gîte juste après son appareillage de Southampton, alors qu’il faisait route vers Bremerhaven. Cette gîte de 40 degrés avait provoqué un important ripage de cargaison, dont des engins de chantier qui ont ouvert des brèches dans la coque. Le roulier avait été échoué par précaution sur le banc de West Bramble.

• Lire la suite de Hoegh Osaka : Un problème de stabilité dès l’appareillage

Après quelques péripéties, notamment médiatiques, le préjudice écologique va être inscrit dans le code civil. Une nouvelle version de l’article 2 bis de la loi Biodiversité a en effet été votée mardi 15 mars. Celle-ci va modifier l’article 1386 en y ajoutant un nouveau régime de responsabilité qui prévoit que « toute personne qui cause un préjudice écologique est tenue de le réparer » (article 1386-19).

• Lire la suite de Le préjudice écologique va entrer dans le code civil

En provenance du port algérien de Bejaia, le Lidia, un gros vraquier de 180 mètres de long pour 28 mètres de large, s’est apparemment brièvement échoué hier soir alors qu’il remontait la Loire vers Nantes. Peu avant 22 heures, le navire a touché selon des témoins le bord du fleuve, au niveau de Basse-Indre. Les trois remorqueurs l’assistant dans son transit, les VB Ouragan, VB Pouliguen et Guérande, sont alors intervenus pour le sortir de cette mauvaise passe. Une heure plus tard, la proue du Lidia se remettait dans l’axe du fleuve et le convoi progressait de nouveau vers Nantes.

• Lire la suite de Un gros vraquier s’échoue brièvement en Loire

C’est un ouvrage impressionnant qui prend forme à La Seyne-sur-Mer, où l’assemblage de la nouvelle grue destinée aux bassins Vauban, dans la base navale de Toulon, a débuté il y a quelques semaines. Commandé en 2014 à la société Joseph Paris SA, ce nouvel outillage, qui pourra soulever des charges de 120 tonnes à 47 mètres, est constitué d’éléments fabriqués dans différents sites en Europe. Les premiers sont arrivés fin 2015, ce qui a permis de débuter l’assemblage de la base de la grue.

• Lire la suite de Toulon : La nouvelle grue des bassins Vauban en cours de montage

La compagnie française espère confirmer prochainement la commande de quatre nouveaux navires. Pour l’heure, ce projet, annoncée mardi, fait seulement l’objet d’une lettre d’intention avec le groupe italien Fincantieri, qui a réalisé les quatre précédentes unités de Ponant, Le Boréal, L’Austral, Le Soléal et Le Lyrial, livrées entre 2010 et 2015 par le chantier d’Ancône.

• Lire la suite de Ponant : Reste à confirmer la commande des nouveaux navires

Le Team Jolokia, basé au pôle Course au large de Lorient, se lance le défi de participer à la transatlantique Québec Saint-Malo face à des équipes de marins professionnels. L'équipage, composé de personnes handicapées et valides, de séniors et juniors, de personnes de nationalité française ou étrangère, de personnes issues de tous les milieux sociaux va naviguer ensemble pour « ré-enchanter la diversité ».

• Lire la suite de Un financement participatif pour l’« équipage de la diversité » de Jolokia

Throughout the last couple of centuries, the way foreign authors, both novelists and scholars, have portrayed Afghans has had an impact on how Afghanistan itself is perceived. One such writer, a bestseller in his day, although now less well known, is the 1920s-30s fantasy and adventure writer, Robert E Howard. His novels stand out, says Fabrizio Foschini, for the author’s fascination with Afghans and their land as the embodiment of “a harsh, violent and forbidding environment which shaped true men.”

All foreigners remember the literature that influenced them when they were first becoming acquainted with Afghanistan, from Kipling’s Arithmetic on the Frontier – the “ten-rupee jezail” poem – and his novel Kim to some more or less recent travelogues and scholarly monographs. For those outside Europe, there have been other literary works as well (see our previous dispatch here). Since 1979 when Afghanistan hit the headlines, and during subsequent foreign military interventions, ‘Afghan literature’ has largely been standardised throughout the world. For today’s would-be specialists, virtually every single piece of colonial literature on Afghanistan has been reprinted and published.

How about those who had the good fortune of visiting Afghanistan when it was at peace, between the 1950s and 1970s – the many Americans who happened to come, whether they were expat engineers and teachers or simply travellers? What were they likely to have read about the country they were visiting? The usual staple of Victorian officers’ tales and diplomats’ accounts, which were the average European visitor’s introduction to the country? Possibly, but other reads were also available, including Afghan stories by one of the foremost contributors to the best-selling, American, pulp fiction magazine, Weird Tales – Robert E Howard. (1) The creator of famous standards of fantasy fiction and horror stories, such as Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, Howard frequently used Middle Eastern and Central Asian settings for his short stories. From these stories, his predilection for Afghanistan and the Afghans is quite apparent. (2)

The perfect cradle for heroes

So why Afghanistan? Howard was a keen reader of historical novels and geographic explorations. What probably got him interested in what he termed the “outlands of the world”, stretching between Central Asia and India, was their seclusion, and preservation from the type of civilisation –modern, 20th century Western – he despised the most. According to Howard, the world could best be understood by a notion of: ‘the more civilised, the more dull’. He considered the ‘savage Afghan highlanders’ natural born heroes. For him, Afghans as a race were, by birth, endowed with all those qualities that Howard’s Americans – or, less frequently, British – heroes had only acquired because they were outstanding individuals, either through the resurgence of some ancient blood flowing through their veins or through painstaking exercise and experience of life in the wild. (3)

Let us take Francis Xavier Gordon, alias El Borak, the most famous and frequent protagonist of Howard’s tales set between Constantinople and Benares. When not riding across hills on the trail of some villain, he lived in Kabul with his ‘family’ of trusted Afghan helpers. This stern and upright Texan adventurer simply could not feel at home anywhere other than Afghanistan. According to Howard, Afghanistan was a blank spot on the world map, a non-colonised space constantly at the centre of intrigues between international powers and mysterious sects, where an oriental despot ruled freely, far from the tight grasp and stultifying rules of democracy and where fierce tribes roamed and feuded among themselves, free from the control of that very despot. The country provided a Howardian hero a real and contemporary environment in which to exist and act. Early 20th century Afghanistan was, for Howard, a country for real men and real adventure. Its idealised Afghan type satisfied Howard’s need for reckless yet honour-bound characters.

In fact, if Howard’s El Borak stories (and those centred around a few other protagonists) read like a catwalk of eastern nationalities – especially those with exotic resonance and potential for stereotyped rendering, thus featuring Sikhs, Mongols, Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Druze, Yezidis, Turkmen, Kirghiz, Uzbeks and Persians, often appearing all together on stage – Afghans seemed to hold a special place in the heart of the writer and that of his heroes, appearing regularly as the latters’ sidekicks.

Without delving too deeply into Howard’s racial (and often borderline racist) categorisations that seem to have led him to think of Indo-European Afghans as the most natural allies for his white heroes, it is safer to interpret his choice as based on the ‘heroic’ nature of Afghanistan and its inhabitants. In many ways, the everlasting ‘Frontier in the East’ seems to have made up for the loss of Howard’s own frontier, America’s Old West, with its inhabitants being ascribed all the manly virtues and values that he believed characterised the American frontiersmen, pioneers and Indians alike, values that Howard considered forsaken, much to his chagrin, by 20th century Americans. As Howard would have it: “Man’s treachery is balanced by man’s loyalty, at least in the barbaric hills where civilised sophistry has not crept in with its cult of time-serving.”

The characters: heroes, sidekicks and villains

Howard’s white heroes in Afghanistan do not just go native. Rather, in Howard’s world they are already ‘native’ on the inside, through some pristine genetic heritage. Once in their new setting they become almost more native than the locals themselves. They are often characterised as being close to the landscape in which they live, with actions that are driven by a vital force derived in part from their essence, in part from the environment they inhabit. Indeed, adjectives like “primordial,” “instinctive” and “elemental” are among the most recurrent in Howard’s writing.

What of the real ‘natives,’ then? Allies or opponents as ascribed by circumstance or opportunity: sometimes sworn friends, occasionally cruel foes, one feels that the Afghans are inherently close to Howard’s Yankee heroes – whose physical qualities and mindsets were often likened to those of the Afghans, especially in the case of El Borak Gordon. The only major difference that Gordon displays, in comparison to his Afghan friends, is that they are sometimes affected by that “invincible Oriental characteristic” – fatalism – while he is always in control of what happens.

Although treated sympathetically, most Afghan characters in El Borak’s adventures are stereotyped to the point of being dull masks. That is at least true for his followers: his right hand, a burly and redoubtable Afridi warrior named Yar Ali Shah, hides behind grumpy remarks his almost motherly concern for Gordon’s welfare; the other members of the retinue just display their lethal efficiency and pride in serving their legendary chief and are for the rest mainly concerned with their family feuds and honour. Only a few are given some individual characterisation, like one Khoda Khan, who would even become the hero of a separate adventure by Howard, Names in the Black Book, an unlikely detective story set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where the Afghan warrior annihilates a sect of Mongolian gangsters led by a diabolical super-villain very much like Fu Manchu.

Occasionally, it is the unlikely allies that El Borak makes along the path of Howard’s short but convoluted plots that offer more complex psychological portraits. Such is the case of Alafdal, a portly Waziri outlaw who idly dreams of becoming the ruler of Rub el Harami, a bandit town somewhere in the middle of the wasteland between Kabul and Herat, but lacks the determination to live his ambition – until he meets El Borak and becomes involved in his plans. This makes his dream come true, albeit only fleetingly, but ultimately causes his downfall and death. When El Borak admits feeling regret for the trouble he caused, Alafdal remarks, with dignity, that this single moment of glory has been worth all the rest.

As for the foes, they are mostly foreigners: satanic European adventurers with dreams of empire-building who, for their own purposes, stir the locals’ religious fanaticism and lust for plunder. They, in fact, tend to typically be eastern Europeans: a Magyar called Hunyadi, ironically bearing the name of the saviour of Vienna from the Ottoman siege of 1683, appears as a renegade leading an army of Turkish criminals; Konaszevski, a Cossack, is acting as the mastermind of the revival of the Assassins’ sect with a view to influencing the Great Game. When Afghans are the foes, their motives are generally more reasonable: tribal feuds or personal revenge and hatred of El Borak or the other Howardian heroes.

This second type of opponent is featured in the plot that underlies one of Howard’s best El Borak stories: Hawk of the Hills. No sectarian thugs or spies here; rather, two conflicting Afghan tribes resorting to an array of tactics, alliances and levers to get the best of their opponents. The result is a gritty, convincingly modern rendering of an Afghan armed dispute, craftily narrated through the eyes of an external observer, a British political agent sent to mediate, who instead ends up caught in the machinations of rival factions.

The geographical and historical setting

Where did Howard get his knowledge of the region? He did not go to Afghanistan. His readings surely went beyond King of the Khyber Rifles by fellow adventure writer Talbot Mundy, though this was certainly one of his chief sources of inspiration. His reliance on British colonial sources is apparent by his familiarity with the names of the Pashtun tribes living just beyond the Durand Line; he is much less precise or varied when it comes to groups living inside Afghanistan itself.

References to the Great Game’s canons are inevitable throughout Howard’s vast production of Afghan stories. With a (most likely) unintended ironic twist, Kipling’s (and long before him, Elphinstone’s) comparison of the Afghan tribesmen with the Scottish Highlanders is repeated, only this time it is said by a British observer about the ‘Afghanised Yankee’ El Borak. Typical plot situations, like that of the intercepting of documents aimed at stirring a tribal revolt against the British (reminding one of the Silk Letter Conspiracy of 1916) or of rendezvous and duels in the middle of nowhere between western and eastern European rival agents (à la Burnes vs Vitkevic), are often reproduced.

Descriptions of the Afghan landscape tend to be instrumental in explaining how its harshness affects the minds and bodies of its inhabitants. These descriptions tend to be incredibly detailed, almost verbose. The rocks, boulders, defiles, caverns, crags and cracks of the Afghan Frontier are spatially positioned in the writing with such precision, as was often the case with Howard, that his aim seems to be to project his readers inside a three-dimensional reality, or to pave the way for future generations of role-players.

Recognisable historical characters are few. One is the Afghan amir to whom El Borak is said to act “as unofficial advisor, counsel, ambassador and secret service department.” As mentioned, Gordon’s adventures are set in the years immediately preceding the First World War, corresponding with the middle of the reign of Amir Habibullah (1901-1919). That the amir of El Borak’s stories is modelled on Habibullah can also be assumed by Howard’s statement that El Borak’s character was first developed when he was only ten years old, which would be around 1916. (4) As an informed reader, he will probably not have missed the demise of the Afghan king a few years later, and the suspicion that his murder had been caused by his pro-British stance. The amir in the story Three-Bladed Doom is qualified as a “friend of the English” and is further described (in Sons of the Hawk) as “wearing his European garments as if born to them, but with the sharp, restless eyes of a man who knows he is a pawn between powerful rivals.”

Howard’s Afghanistan of today

How should we read Howard’s stories now, against the background of an Afghanistan that different generations of more recent readers have got to know – that is, the post-1979, post-1992 and post-2001 country?

Of course, one can indulge in finding parallels between Howard’s mysterious sects of fanatics hidden in the no-man’s land between the territories of the amir and the British and the similarly international and secret organisations that found shelter and established their bases there in more recent times.

But more subtle and striking are hints, which Howard may have taken from British reports on the Frontier, of some age-old characteristics of conflict. He describes how ambitious leaders and feuding clans tried to inveigle the ruler of Kabul or even foreign powers into their petty conflicts; at the same time, the leaders and clans were being inflamed by the delivery of weapons by agents of those same foreign powers who were always interested in disrupting trade and tranquillity in each other’s realms. That sounds still – or, better, once again – a rather realistic sketch of actual events.

Finally, Howard’s idealisation of Afghanistan as a lawless land where everything is possible and where “Western warriors settle the destiny of the East between them” has taken a grim turn in the re-enactment made by a new class of adventurers. Arms and drugs smuggling, private militias loyal to foreign money and to their own list of scores to be settled, plenty of occasions to raise oneself above the crowd in murky ways and many more to suddenly fall and be trampled on – all could feature in a Howard tale as in nowadays Afghanistan. Maybe quite a few contemporaries – from the obscurest private contractor to Major Jim Gant – would fit the early twentieth century author’s stories, each living his own weird tale in an imagined, or just misrepresented, frontier.

 

(1) Weird Tales was America’s most influential pulp fiction magazine, active mainly between the 1920s and 1950s (with later incarnations). It has hosted – and frequently launched – authors of the calibre of HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch and even Tennessee Williams. Its influence on the development of genres such as horror or ghost stories, ‘swords and sorcery’ fantasy and science fiction in the 20th century has been considerable.

(2) Despite his short life (1906-1936) and writing span, Howard was a prolific writer. He wrote more than 400 stories of various lengths on subjects ranging from horrors close to his friend Lovecraft’s material, to vivid accounts of boxing matches. A recent anthology of Howard’s stories set in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East is now available: El Borak and other desert adventures (Del Rey, 2010). Containing a valuable essay about the “Gunslingers of the Wild East,” it offers some of Howard’s best ‘Eastern’ stories (others are available online). There are also dramatic black and white drawings – albeit with a lack of precision from the illustrator, who has portrayed all characters in Bedouin or Kurdish dress.

(3) Howard was strongly influenced by the racial theories developing in his time. He was always very specific about the racial roots and phenotypes of his main characters – usually portraying his protagonists as self-conscious breeds of ‘Black Irish’ (a term current at the time) and Scottish descent, not unlike the descent he claimed for himself.

(4) Howard probably started to develop the character of El Borak after reading King of the Khyber Rifles by Mundy, first published in 1916.