This is a new trick! Why is there no electricity? I have been to that electrical house, Lawrence. There are three big machines. He means generators. So! One of them is burning. They are of an incredible size, but helpless. It is so of all machines. Let them burn. What need of telephones?
-Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Inter-tribal squabbling in the Damascus City Hall after having been taken from the Turks by the Arabs, October 1, 1918
Last Sunday, the insurgents siezed control of Kunduz, which was in shambles after weeks of fighting. Power lines were down. The civil servants who could fix those problems were hiding at home, terrified of the Taliban.
-New York Times, August 15, 2021
We approached the Nile off the Wadi al-Milk under an old power line which spooked the camels and Mustapha’s was caught in a half-downed wire and took off on the run dragging a long length behind him. His saddle girth slipped and he rolled off, safely. I doubt that Dongola’s lights or telephones relied on that line. But if either did, I wonder if the people of Damascus and one hundred years later the people of Kunduz also lost their power and phones because some Khawaja’s camel got tripped on the outskirts of town.