The matter of the Black Banners and Benghazi

November 9th, 2011 by Charles Cameron

The excitable (Richard Landes calls them “roosters”) will tend to overstate the current of apocalyptic enthusiasm, because it’s exciting — because they will in fact by the very nature of apocalyptic expectation be what Landes terms “semiotically aroused”.  The cautious (Landes calls them “owls”) on the other hand, will understate the current, because it seems jejeune or hysterical (compare, in the west, the way we mock the old guy with tattered coat and “end is nigh” banner).

So our analysis (and our reading of any materials concerning apocalyptic expectation, including my own posts here on ZP) needs to be alert, but not excited.  Neither overstating, nor overlooking, a matter of considerable significance.

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Posted in al qaida, Apocalyptic, Arab Spring, arab world, Charles Cameron, islamist, Mahdist, non-state actors, propaganda, psychology, Religion, Uncategorized | 4 comments

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  1. J.ScottShipman:

    November 10th, 2011 at 12:24 am

    Hi Charles,
    .
    Your illustration is the cover for Charles Hill’s Trial of a Thousand Years. Seems Hill is finding something of a home here:))

  2. Charles Cameron:

    November 10th, 2011 at 2:53 am

    Hi Scott:
    .
    And yes, that’s probably where I first saw it.  But then again, it’s also on the cover of Winston Churchill’s The River War, Philip Warner’s Dervish, and Michael Asher’s Khartoum…
    .
    Apparently, it’s by Robert Talbot Kelly.

  3. J.ScottShipman:

    November 10th, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Hi Charles,
    .
    My copy of The River War doesn’t have a dust jacket and I don’t have/haven’t read the other two—thanks for the source.

  4. Lexington Green:

    November 10th, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    The painting is called, most awesomely, The Flight of the Khalifa after his Defeat at the Battle of Omdurman.  Robert Talbot Kelly is a new minor artistic deity for the pantheon.