The important aspect of both such ritual performances and transient events is that they circulate β whether as objects of culture or as subjects of debate β and through their trans-local circulation articulate a convergence of national identity and state territory. Both of these historical events are re-examined today through poetry, as well as through debate and material commemoration. Since , the Socotra Archipelago Conservation and Development Programme SCDP , which replaced the SBP, has been working with the local Environmental Protection Agency to manage conservation, promote environmental awareness, and improve the economic productivity in tourism and fishing.
And after a good life under the auspices of their state. And true guidance was replaced with disbelief and sin. Thrown to the ground in struggle with no protection for them. Yet the true depth of the despoliation is illustrated in the following lines:. How many of them both young virgin girls and widows. She [each woman] calls to her father when the barbarian approaches her. And the barbarian pursued what she had withheld [even] from him. And then the prayer for our lord the Prophet will be carried out.
Framed within the most respected Arab genealogy, this 9 th century call for external help against the foreign, immoral attacker becomes an allegory for all ages, reaching back to the earliest Muslim community and forward to the iniquities of the present day. And who can help those weak Muslims today in the eastern and western parts of the world whose sanctity is abused in every place in clear sight and hearing of the world?
This Christian menace is both enduring and widespread. These specific, historical events are thus not confined even within a prolonged diachronic framework, but rather can be used to illustrate a common Arab heritage and a continuing Christian or Western threat that extends both through time and across geographies. Instead, his aims are more limited and concrete. And who has the right to define or de scribe them?
More than thirty years later, the family members of the martyrs live in close quarters with the perpetrators and their offspring. I was never given the names of the perpetrators nor did I inquire after them. It is partly due to this former news blackout that this event is circulating, again through epistolary poetry, today.
