Monthly Archives: February 2013

Those Priceless Sumerians

February 10, 2013Archaeology and Antiquities, Iraqdvarisco

One of my favorite books of all time is Samuel Noah Kramer’s History Begins at Sumer. In my youth I was fascinated with the Sumerians. I have a paperback copy of C. Leonard Wooley’s The Sumerians, published by Norton in 1965 and also his Excavations at Ur, an Apollo Edition also from 1965. The first Woolley book set me back $1.75 back then and the second was a whopping $1.95. All three cost me less than a five-dollar bill. A few days ago I received an email from Routledge announcing a new book called The Sumerian World spread out in some 688 pages. Pagewise this is about the same as all three of the books mentioned above. It looks like a fine book and I only wish I was a millionaire so I could afford it. The price for this new tome is $220 for the hardback (the e-book is not yet announced).

I do understand the nature of inflation, but going from $5 to $220 in a little less than five decades strikes me as over the top for printed books. If I asked my librarian to order this book, I suspect the laughter would continue for at least several minutes. I am not sure how many millionaires out there have a profound interest in the Sumerians, but surely the price is no object for any of them. But somewhere there may be a 14-year old kid, like me in 1965, with a developing interest in the Sumerians or some other ancient people. I suspect he or she will have to stick with Kramer and Woolley and that is a shame. Brilliant and useful as those books are, we do know more about the Sumerians now than when these books were written (which was before 1965 in fact). But here is some good news: Wooley’s original 1929 Ur of the Chaldees is available free online at archive.org, as is a copy online of Kramer’s book.

But let’s allow Sir Woolley the last word, indeed the last words of his The Sumerians:

The military conquests of the Sumerians, the art and crafts which they raised to so high a level, their social organization, and their conceptions of morality, even of religion, are not an isolated phenomenon, an archaeological curiosity; it is as part of our own substance that they claim our study, and in so far as they win our admiration we praise our spiritual forebears.

Digital Heroes: Video Games and Identity Construction in Iran

February 9, 2013Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, CyberOrient, Irantabsir

The Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center of The Graduate Center at CUNY announces a lecture by Vit Sisler (Charles University) entitled Digital Heroes: Video Games and Identity Construction in Iran. This will be held February 11, 2013 from 6:30 PM TO 8:30 PM in Rom 9204 of The Graduate Center. For more information, click here. Admission is free.

Abstract:
Video games are a popular leisure time activity for a substantial part of Iranian youth. At the same time, most games on the Iranian market are of US, European, or Japanese origin. Unsurprisingly, the Iranian authorities are concerned about the negative influence of such games on Iranian youth. Therefore, they established the National Foundation of Computer Games in Tehran in 2006 in order to subsidize development of games in Iran, conceived in accordance with Iranian and Islamic values. Consequently, a variety of independent producers have become involved in this emerging industry. The lecture analyzes contemporary Iranian video games and explores the ways in which they communicate different concepts of identity. Essentially, whereas the Iranian government perceives games as a new semiotic language of the youth and utilizes them to promote Islamic values and foster national pride, many independent producers maneuver within the and around stateâ€™s interests, presenting instead their own, oftentimes quite different ideas. Therefore, the resulting concepts of identity are achieved through sensitive negotiations between the demands, funding and restrictions of the Islamic state and the visions and engagement of private entrepreneurs.

Vit Sisler is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. His research deals with the problematic of contemporary Islamic law, the relation between Islam and digital media, normative frameworks in cyberspace, and the topic of educational and political video games. Vit Sisler was a visiting Fulbright scholar at Northwestern University in 2008-2009. He is also a managing editor of CyberOrient, a peer reviewed journal founded by the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association.

Abdessadeq Chekara

February 8, 2013Morocco, Music and Dance, YouTube Watch

by Anouar Majid, Tingitana

The late Abdessadeq Chekara, the Andalusian singer and violin virtuoso from Tetouan, close to my native city of Tangier, almost singlehandedly embodied the rich Moorish musical heritage that united Spain and parts of Morocco over the centuries. His son, Jalal, is working hard and creatively to keep his legacy alive, but I have never seen anything approaching the power of this performance, including Tom Cohen and Rabbi Haim Louk, with the participation of Alfonso Cid, which took place in November 2011 in Montreal. Tom Cohen and Rabbi Louk are doing a heroic job introducing the world to Moroccan culture and its musical traditions. In all the shows I have watched on YouTube, Mr. Cohen is always light on his feet and playful with his orchestra and audiences, while Rabbi Louk is invariably joyful and utterly moving with his heavenly voiceâ€”the perfect image of a religious man who celebrates the beauty of life. The rabbiâ€™s patriotism and loyalty for Morocco are unmatched. Just listen to this performance of another Chekara song, warning his fellow Moroccans to watch out for ill wishers and preserve their precious legacyâ€”a legacy that has been enriched by the countryâ€™s small but vibrant and enormously creative Jewish community.

Drone Strikes

February 7, 2013"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Terrorism Issue, Yemendvarisco

New America Foundation says that US drone attacks in Yemen have risen from 18 in 2011 to 53 in 2012 [Reuters]

[Drones are now at the top of the news cycle. This commentary was originally published in the January online edition of Anthropology News.]

The Error in the War on Terror

In 1978 I arrived in the Yemen Arab Republic to begin 18 months ethnographic fieldwork. At the time North Yemen, as it was called, was in full development mode. A protracted civil war after the fall of the traditional Zaydi imamate had ended only a decade before. Aid was pouring in from the United Nations, the United States, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Russia and mainland China as the country was in the throes of building itself up by its sandalstraps. Once settled in my field site, the beautiful spring-fed highland valley of al-Ahjur, I could not help but notice that just about everyone was armed, many with kalashnikovs. This was a tribal area, where the central government exercised little control, but I never felt safer in my life.

I felt safe because as a foreigner I was protected under tribal customary law. At this time the United States was well liked, often in contrast to the atheist communists of the Soviet Union who supported the socialist regime in South Yemen. This was before any hint of terrorism, before the Iran hostage affair and long before al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden had just turned 21 and was still in college. In this tribal area there was an honor code, exemplified by the Yemeni term qabyala, that required protection of unarmed guests, as it did women and children. In 2004, on a return visit to the valley, I found myself in the difficult situation of explaining why I did not support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. One of my Yemeni friends noted that he used to think that America was different, but now he believed that the U.S. president was as bad as his own, Ali Abdullah Salih. Continue reading Drone Strikes →

iOrientalism: Fooling around with Arab princesses

February 6, 2013Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, YouTube Watchdvarisco

The late Edward Said lamented the biased representation of the “Oriental” in his influential Orientalism, published 35 years ago. Most of the scholarly and voyeuristic tomes he critiqued are rarely read these days, although his intellectual nemesis Bernard Lewis is well represented in your local Barnes and Noble bookstore (in part thanks to a desire for selling books rather than seriously vetting them by some of the editors at Oxford University Press). Few students of the Middle East or Islamic studies these days have ever heard of Lord Cromer or William Muir or Raphael Patai, let alone would read and be influenced by their aged volumes. The ugly ethnocentrism, racism and sexism that once could be found in the broad (far too broad) discourse labeled “Orientalism” is still quite evident, although moreso in the media, political punditry on the right and rantings of career Islamophobes than by serious scholars. But we are now in the digital age and iOrientalism is now propelled through Facebook, Twitter and Youtube via iphones, ipods and their technological clones.

One Youtube video that recently appeared on a Youtube search that had nothing to do with the subject I was searching is a mock video-game fight between three hefty-bosomed and bursting-at-the-bra-straps Arab princesses and a swarthy Mike Tysonish evil guy. This appears to be a promo for Poser Pro Animation rather than a cultural statement per se. The three Arab princesses are so scantily clad that it is more the tile-glazed architecture and palm trees that orientalize than the costume or look. Of the three kung-fu trained ladies, one has red hair, one is a blond and the other is wearing what looks to me like the kind of aviator helmet worn by Amelia Earhart in the 1930s. The bully wears a leather waist band, but otherwise the shaft he was endowed with by nature is visible to the three princesses, but not to those of us viewing the video. Ironically, this parallels Said’s choice of the GÃ©rÃ´me’s painting that graced the cover of the original paperback of Orientalism: this features a naked boy with a snake wrapped around him and a group of grizzled Walnetto perverts staring at his organ, while we voyeuristic viewers can only see the glistening buttocks of the youth. Continue reading iOrientalism: Fooling around with Arab princesses →

Sex in the Muslim City

February 5, 2013"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Egypt, Gender and Sexualitytabsir

by Carlin Romano, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 14, 2013

Is it possible all those young men clashing in the streets of Cairo and Damascus aren’t getting enough?

Democracy? No, I mean that other thing people seek and are willing to die for.

Talk of the “Arab Spring” now forms a clichÃ©d part of pundit chatter in America, with plays on “Arab Winter” and “Arab Fall” depending on the politics of the speaker and the troubled country dissolving at the moment. But few talking heads know enough about Arab culture to tie the massive Mideast street actions we’ve seen to matters behind surface politics. And those background matters include the state of Arab marriage, the tension between so-called Western norms and Islamic pieties, and the suppressed sexuality among Arab youth who face financial and theological obstacles to fulfilling their desires.

Is it tasteless to mix somber stuff like political rebellion with sub-rosa lust and denial? Could be it’s truthful rather than tasteless.

Thank you, then, Shereen El Fekiâ€”Cambridge-educated immunologist, former science writer for The Economist, current vice chair of the U.N.’s Global Commission on HIV and Lawâ€”for adventuring beyond the headlines in Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, forthcoming from Pantheon Books. It’s a trenchant exploration of the uncertainties filling the humble abodes that Tahrir Square demonstrators go home to. A truthful book may not set you free when you’ve suffered under centuries of misguided interpretations of Islam and sex, but one prays that El Feki gets an Arabic edition.

In the West, her blunt examination of sex and its attendant practices and paraphernaliaâ€”topics include vibrators, Viagra, virginity codes, marital rape, and homophobiaâ€”would hardly raise an eyebrow. We Westerners live now in a Fifty Shades world, a publishing culture in which Naomi Wolf’s Vagina gets reviewed on the front page of The New York Times Book Review by former ballerina Toni Bentleyâ€”she of The Surrender (a title meant to evoke the offering of another body part)â€”and one hopes the kids aren’t watching. Continue reading Sex in the Muslim City →