This is an interesting article....
How a better Middle East would look
By Ralph Peters
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
Blood Border
A Poem ...
Ya Ali!
Maulana Rumi in the Mathnawi (Nicholson translation, pg. 509) says:
For this reason the Prophet, who labored with the utmost zeal (in devotion) applied the name “protector” (mawla) to himself and to Ali
He said, “My cousin Ali is the protector and friend of every one who is under my protection.”
Who is the “protector”? He that sets you free and removes the fetters of servitude from your feet
Since prophethood is the guide to freedom, freedom is bestowed on true believers by the prophets.
Rejoice, O community of true believers: show yourselves to be “free” as the cypress and lily.
But, like the garden, at every moment give unspoken thanks to the Water.
The cypresses and green orchard mutely thank the water (that nourishes them) and show (silent) gratitude for the justice of Spring
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