ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ-ʜᴇᴀᴅᴇᴅ ᴘʀᴀɢᴍᴀᴛɪꜱᴛ || 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 || འབྲུག་
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The central Damascus bazaar, the Al-Hamidiyah Souq, tastefully festooned with Assad bunting. The souq is one of the ‘Great Bazaars’ of the Middle East, like Istanbul or Cairo. Always very busy during the day. Got told it was a ‘tourist trap’ even though Syria then had no tourists 
Luton was one of the towns earliest effected by large scale immigration. It’s against this background that Robinson’s EDL first emerged, the working class living on the frontlines of a changing Britain. My TLDR impression of Luton is that this change has now largely happened 
Another dimension, with the extra context of all the internet memes about Assad especially it was difficult not to find the imagery sometimes funny. Not to trivialise the situation but it was almost as if Assad was smiling, grinning, laughing, waving down at you wherever you went. The images sometimes had a certain playfulness to them, Assad was very rarely completely stern-faced, it often seemed like he had a little knowing twinkle in his eye. Unsure if that was intentional, if Assad deliberately wanted to project an image of being a ‘fun chill guy’. Probably not. But if he did it did half-work and not in a hugely quirked-up self-parody way, a little more muted but still ‘fun’ - the world’s first ‘ironic’ dictator. The imagery didn’t feel entirely OTT serious like in say North Korea, Turkmenistan etc. Again not to trivialise it and you know, this is all my speaking as an outsider, but this was a recurring thought I kept having - difficult not to ‘notice’
Everybody wants ‘The Utopia’ but sometimes getting to ‘Basically Fine’ is a challenge enough
DIDN’T IRELAND USE TO BE A SHITHOLE?
Saladin’s tomb is in a small mausoleum at the back of Damascus’ famous Umayyad Mosque, not really advertised. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you read about it beforehand. Mentioned to me casually, “oh yeah we’ve got Saladin out in the back if you want to go have a look” 
Actually Competent Politics - don’t see that often anymore 
It’s the Institutions stupid!
The French Social Contract - The Original ‘Le Contrat Social’ Meme 
Call it a kind of ‘Karen Nationalism’ or ‘Pantsuit Enforcing’ - hate the HR ladies all you want but their perennial societal role is as a piece of value-neutral norm-enforcing social technology, they are a weaponised longhouse waiting ready for the taking 
The ‘shiny’ Elizabeth Line makes London feel 20% wealthier than it actually is 
Remember the taxi driver telling me “you should be careful in Baalbek it’s very dangerous”. It didn’t seem very dangerous but he was very adamant about it. The reason he thought it was dangerous was because it was a Hezbollah-y Shia-y area. “They are all thieves and swindlers - and sometimes they blow people up”. That might even have been actually true but I was never ‘accosted’, even half-heartedly. Was told that some Hezbollah members ran tours taking tourists around Baalbek as a part-time job and then diverted part of that income towards Hezbollah. Sounds like a silly conspiracy-ish thing to say but again might have been true who knows, maybe they did need the money. If it was true though the Hezbollah operatives posing as touts weren’t doing a very good job, they were too busy milling and smoking and phone scrolling to take and use my tourist dollars to fund Fajr missiles to fire at Israel. He may have just meant that they were Shia and conflated the two, Shia Islam and Hezbollah apparently the same thing
In Beirut I recommend going to Gemmayzeh (Maronite Area) or Hamra (Liberal Muslim Area). Just ‘hit up the bars’ - the wine bars - and have a few drinks and people are pretty friendly so it is easy to start talking. As I say many of the kinds of people who go to these bars, use the dating apps etc are very educated and speak English - often very boheme, there will be very little in the way of a cultural gap between you and them
Previously talked about just how much Coca Cola is available for sale in some African Countries
Others are calling those who worry about ‘Somalification’ racist
The Hezbollah Theme Park is up in the mountains in Southern Lebanon and as you approach it you will drive through villages with lots of Hezbollah flags everywhere - pictures of Hezbollah and Iranian Leaders including Nasrallah, Khomeini, Soleimani etc. 
Shisha Bar. Note the chairs are all positioned outwards facing the road. Cafe culture as a ‘step-up’ from low level milling? You go and sit in a cafe and smoke hookah and you sit there for hours on end just looking out at the street to see what is happening and how the life is 
“It’s so insane that Fukuyama was right in the end just he was like four decades out from when History was actually going to end. What were we thinking with all that immigration? But like you iron out those contradictions in liberal democracy and turns out you’re basically fine” 