A Horseman Stopping at a Bedouin Camp, Giulio Rosati , 1858 – 1917
Not So Swift Boat Apostasy
In this American presidential campaign just about every possible prejudice has been let out of the soap box and it’s not even June. There was a Mormon, but Mighty Mitt dropped the ball when he was kicked in the polls by a Baptist preacher who plays the guitar. There is, though many wish we could see “was”, a woman who had already decorated the White House and whose husband would in turn (pun fully intended) be the first former president-spouse, not to mention the first admitted philanderer to get a second chance to serve tea on Pennsylvania Avenue. And there is a Black man, whose Kenyan father’s skin color seems to trump his white Kansan mother’s nurturing. And, by the way, he has a name that rhymes with Osama. And don’t forget that his father was born a Muslim. If this were American Gladiators, the battle would be simple indeed: White Naval hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton and answers to the call of Maverick vs. the young Chicago machine Black Muslim who, in the words of George Bush the Elder, kicked some — (rhymes with crass, which it is) in the primary (no matter how the folks in the backwoods down in the WV hills vote today).
So it’s full steam ahead for the mean-spitted Swift (and I don’t mean Jonathan) Boaters. Yesterday’s New York Times allowed one of the piratical advisors of John McCain a forum to broadside Obama. This was Edward N. Luttwak, whose overtly rhetorical and inadvertently satirical “President Apostate?” landed like an unexploded shell on the crowded stacked deck of media-hardened pundits. Luttwak takes his sly secular cue from the Left Behind armageddonites, viewing Arabs and Iranians as part of the Gog and Magog crowd out to destroy Israel. For those who love the plot of a clash of civilizations leading to a real-time nuclear armageddon, Luttwak obliges with a medievally-minded attack on Obama’s personal faith. Continue reading Not So Swift Boat Apostasy
Hezbollah.. The Ugliest Picture
By Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq alawsat, 11/05/2008
Exposing falsehoods and uncovering deception; it is indeed true that a picture is worth a thousand words.
In his speech after the coup on Lebanon and its infrastructure, Hassan Nasrallah claimed that millions of dollars were spent in an effort to defame him and distort the image of the “divine party.” However it was the actions of his party that exposed the armed resistance lie and the falsehood of Hassan Nasrallah’s enthusiasm for Lebanon and the unity of its composition.
How horrible were the images carried by international news agencies, which showed Hezbollah’s gunmen and Amal forces stomping and burning pictures of the late Rafik Hariri, and then replacing them with a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
No less hideous were the images of handcuffed and blindfolded pro-government Lebanese citizens paraded in front of “Al Manar” cameras, the television channel that propagates Iran and Hezbollah venom. Moreover the images came across as if these were Israeli captives fallen in the hands of Hassan Nasrallah and not fellow Lebanese brought together by one homeland, of which the most important guarantee is that everyone has the right to live. Continue reading Hezbollah.. The Ugliest Picture
STAND UP for Muslims Comics
America at a Crossroads, PBS, May 11, 2008
It’s an age-old American tradition: immigrant groups take up comedy to fight against discrimination. One path to understanding is to make people laugh. Now Muslim-Americans have come forward to help dismantle the stereotypes and hatred that have surged since September 11, 2001.
STAND UP: Muslim American Comics Come of Age is the story of five comedians: Ahmed Ahmed, Tissa Hami, Dean Obeidallah, Azhar Usman and Maysoon Zayid.
Tissa Hami
Each of these artists felt the aftershock of 9/11 personally. At a time when people of Middle Eastern origin were advised to lay low, they all chose to stand up — and tell jokes. This film explores how they are responding to 9/11, each in a different way, but all using humor to define who they are.
STAND UP is the story of Ahmed’s battle to get beyond playing “Terrorist No. 4.” It’s about Obeidallah’s journey to discover his Arab heritage. It’s about Zayid’s resolve to turn being “a Palestinian Muslim woman virgin with cerebral palsy from New Jersey” into a career asset. It’s about Usman’s quest to become the Muslim comedy role model he himself never found. It’s about Hami’s determination to challenge American conceptions about Muslim women. Continue reading STAND UP for Muslims Comics
Mean Girls
Shhhhhhh!!! A rare opportunity to explore the intrigues of USA High School beckons. Quietly listen in, while Tiffany, Brittany, and Stephanie discuss the latest news (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3897414.ece):
Tiffany: “Did you hear what Bobby Malley did?”
Stephanie and Brittany, together: “No!”
Tiffany: “He works at International House of Pies on the weekend, and he delivered a pizza to Sammy Haniyeh’s party Saturday night.”
Brittany and Stephanie gasp. “Sammy Haniyeh? EWWWW!!”
Tiffany: “I know! He and his friends are so scruffy and obnoxious!”
Brittany: “What’s his problem? He’s always ragging on Zionsville High!”
Stephanie: “I heard it was because Zionsville beat his father’s team for the state championship in 1948.”
Brittany: “1948?? But that was, like, [pause]. . .a hundred years ago!” Continue reading Mean Girls
I Read It in the TLS
A very positive review of Daniel Martin Varisco’s recent book Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (University of Washington Press 2007), appears in this week’s issue of the prestigious Times Literary Supplement. In his examination of the evidence and logic of Edward Said’s argument in his classic book Orientalism, first published in 1978, Varisco provides an evenhanded exploration of the subject, thirty years on.
Aside from minor quibbles concerning Varisco’s tendency to pun (a common trait, regretfully, among scholars associated with the University of Chicago’s Anthropology Department), Robert Irwin, the Middle East editor of the TLS, praises the book’s careful research and insight. “Varisco’s book,” he concludes, referring in part to its magnificently detailed and informative footnotes, “makes for exhilarating reading.”
Given the tendency of right-wing pundits to claim that contemporary academe has fallen for Said hook, line, and sinker, what is one to make of a thoughtful and sensitive critique from within? Could it be that the field of contemporary Middle East Studies is no more homogenous and globally misguided than the field Said himself identified as “Orientalism”?
Yemen: Fighting in North Hampers Humanitarian Work
Yemeni soldiers patrolling in Saada, 150 miles north of the capital, Sana’a. A Yemeni Member of Parliament accused of being a leader of a deadly three-year uprising by the Zaidi minority in the northern mountains warned in remarks published on Feb. 25 that rebels might widen their campaign. (Photo: Khaled Fazaa / AFP-Getty Images)
Integrated Regional Information Networks, United Nations, May 6, 2007
The I.C.R.C. and Red Crescent came under attack in the Saada region of northern Yemen. (Photo: Afif Sarhan / IRIN)
A humanitarian aid convoy of the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.) and the Yemen Red Crescent Society came under heavy gunfire on May 2 in the governorate of Saada, north Yemen, the I.C.R.C. has reported.
The incident took place in al-Saifi area, 18 kilometers north of Saada city.
Fighting between government forces and followers of rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Saada governorate is still going on, causing thousands of people to leave their homes, said aid workers. Continue reading Yemen: Fighting in North Hampers Humanitarian Work
A Turkmen Dismantles Reminders of Old Ruler
Statue of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s former president, soon to be removed
by By DAVID L. STERN, The New York Times, May 5, 2008
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — A 246-foot tall, rocket ship-like monument to the late ruler of Turkmenistan, topped with a golden statue of himself that rotates to always face the sun, will be removed from the center of the Turkmen capital, state news media there have reported.
A decision by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to move the monument was his latest step in dismantling the personality cult of Saparmurat Niyazov, whose often bizarre decrees turned the isolated, energy-rich country into the punch line of a bad international joke.
The president had already reversed Mr. Niyazov’s order renaming the days of the week and months of the year in honor of himself and his family. He had also ended the bans on opera, ballet and the circus, which Mr. Niyazov had decreed un-Turkmen, and lifted restrictions on the Internet. Continue reading A Turkmen Dismantles Reminders of Old Ruler