Lest we forget: Bygone lights shining on our dark present
NOVANEWS
Mohamed El-Doufani* writes:
Nostalgia is often based on myths or an idealised vision of the past and, as such, is rarely a helpful illuminator of the present or guide to the future.
But occasionally one stumbles upon hard evidence of days long forgotten in the Arab world, or blurred and distorted by dysfunctional, primitive traditions and/or the venomous ideas of malicious forces among us, which shine a light on the darkness in which we currently live.
The photographs below are snippets of the Arab world as it was once upon a time.
Compare and contrast with scenes from, for example, contemporary Egypt with its ubiquitous hijab and its variants – a Jewish tradition rooted in Judaism and propagated by Islamists – or Libya with its bearded, gun-toting hoodlums and louts, and it ...