The Commonwealth Club , an established public affairs forum located in San Francisco, has presented the US (through broadcasts on National Public Radio and XM Radio, among other outlets) with the widest range of speakers and ideas of any organization I have yet come across, from Bill Clinton and Bill Gates to unheard-of activists working on water rights, the direction of Russia’s future, or the effect of blogs on mainstream media, among hundreds of other speakers and issues.
Every week my local NPR station airs the Commonwealth Club’s speakers, discussions, and Q&A sessions. Last week I heard an excellent speech by Imad Moustapha , Syria’s current ambassador to the US, on America’s relations with the Middle East — Syria in particular — and how those relations have changed during the Bush administration.
This isn’t a political blog, so if you want to know what he said, you can listen for yourself (requires RealPlayer). But Moustapha is more than just a diplomat; he’s the former Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Damascus, and Secretary General of the Arab School on Science and Technology, among other academic activities. He’s also an accomplished writer, covering many political issues but also bringing Syrian culture — books, music, and art — to the attention of a wider audience.
Moustapha’s blog (rather unimaginatively but usefully titled “Weblog of a Syrian Diplomat in America”) not only covers his encounters and experience of life in diplomatic Washington, D.C., but also has some fantastic posts on Syrian artists, complete with images of their work. He also writes book reviews, including an interesting one about his rediscovery of the 7th-century Syrian poet Labid. (Side note: I’ve tried to find more information on Labid, but it was pretty scarce, the most comprehensive being on a website called Islam Watch, a site run by ex-Muslims and dedicated to deconstructing information about Islam.)
Like the best personal blogs, Ambassador Moustapha’s is thoughtful, cultured, and informative. Would that all diplomats were the same.
