#alali

ALALI, a village of gigantic women in the heart of the impregnable Great Thorn Forest, Africa.

The village is reached through a narrow sandstone gorge eroded by the elements into the capricious architecture of a dream, with grotesque domes set among miniature rocks. Half a mile from the entrance of the gorge is a circular amphitheatre, its precipitous walls pierced with numerous caves.

Alali society is entirely dominated by women. Because the women cannot admire the males over whom they hold dominion they cannot love them either, and they treat them with brutality and contempt. Girls are suckled for only a few months and then cast away to look out for their own food. Boys are kept penned up until they reach the age of fifteen or seventeen and are then chased into the forest. There they become legal quarry and can be hunted by any members of the tribe, including their own mothers. Older males are killed with bludgeons, kept as slaves or used for mirthless procreation.

(Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Ant Men, New York, 1924)

Text from The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, updated and expanded edition by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi (Harcourt Brace & Company, 2000)

Minister Al-Ali to restructure State Security apparatus

KUWAIT CITY, March 20: After the Court of Appeals turned down the verdict of the Criminal Court and sentenced two State Security officers identified only as N.T. and F.S. to seven years imprisonment with hard labor and dismissal from office, the State Security apparatus was hit by a storm, reports Al-Seyassah daily. The Criminal Court had earlier found the two men not guilty and released them and the Public Prosecution took the case to the Court of Appeals. The State Security officers were charged with misappropriating important documents pertaining to the Financial Intelligence Unit, illegally entering the computer room of the apparatus and having access to sensitive, information and data. In this context, senior sources told the daily, Minister of Interior Sheikh Thamer Al-Ali has transferred a number of senior officers in the State Security Agency to the Ministry’s office and replaced them with other second row officials, indicating this step is being carried out in full cooperation and coordination with the head of the State Security, Major General Salem Al-Nawwaf, based on an extensive study and comprehensive reports submitted by Al-Nawwaf.

Minister of Interior Sheikh Thamer Al-Ali

Process The sources indicated Minister Al-Ali is in the process of compiling a list of the names of officers holding the rank of Colonel who will be promoted to the rank of Brigadier and those holding the rank of Brigadier to Major-General for the approval of the cabinet, provided that new blood will be pumped into the security sectors during the coming period.

The sources said after the recent events that resulted from the leak of information, and after the verification, the minister decided that a large number of former senior officials should be referred to the Ministry’s office and a number of lower rank officers should be promoted particularly those whose records are clean to assume senior positions, except for one colonel who remains who remains at the State Security.

The sources stated that Minister Al-Ali has asked Major General Salem Al-Nawwaf to reconsider the structure of the apparatus and to remove all those related to previous events from high ranks to reactivate the role of the apparatus and restore its prestige away from any suspicions. The sources indicated that the same directives also stipulate the development of new and comprehensive perceptions to deal with developments on the external and internal arenas and distancing the security role from any interference by any parties that try to impede it from carrying out its responsibilities.

Planned The sources indicated that the changes that have been made and those that are planned in the next stage will affect all old leaders and those with high ranks without exception in preparation for the launch of the process of rebuilding the apparatus on new professional, scientific and skillful foundations and eradicating many of the perceptions that dominated during the last period.

The sources emphasized that the train of change will not stop at the State Security but will continue to advance to include most sectors including criminal investigations and service departments. The sources admitted that the State Security Apparatus deviated from its course in the recent period and from the national role entrusted to it in fortifying and protecting the security of the country and its various institutions which allowed some of its affiliates to abuse their authority in spying on some citizens, stressing that it cannot be allowed to fall to the level of the practices of similar agencies in repressive states and republics of fear.

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