Yemen Bashing Needs a Reality Check

Anthropology/Sociology, Journalism and Media, Yemen

Most Americans know little about the country of Yemen, located beneath (geographically and metaphorically for many foreign policy makers) America’s oil-friendly ally Saudi Arabia. I have been going to Yemen since 1978, when I lived for over a year as an ethnographer in a highland tribal village northwest of the capital Sanaa. Since that time my academic career has focused largely on the history and culture of Yemen. I edited a bulletin (Yemen Update) devoted to all aspects of Yemeni Studies for a decade, and I have returned frequently as researcher and development consultant. Over the years there have been very few news articles about Yemen by American correspondents. The few that have appeared are generally so full of stereotypes and misinformation that I often turn the paper aside in disgust. The major 3-part article begun last weekend (Dec. 18, 19, 20) by David Finkel on a democracy development project in Yemen for the Washington Post is sadly yet another ignorant and dangerous posting that needs a reality check. Continue reading Yemen Bashing Needs a Reality Check →

Patriots Act while Politicians Talk

Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

The current politicized fracas over the renewal of the Patriot Act has reached the boiling point. A filibuster in the senate seeks to draw attention to provisions in the current bill that many Americans see as a stealth attack on civil liberties. The President and his surrogates insist that they have a right to act outside the law in order to respond to new threats of terrorism. Meanwhile the spin doctors in all media outlets are doing their job at dizzying speed. The seasonal message of “Peace on Earth,” routine as we come to expect it, has been drowned out in the past few days by finger pointing and alibi giving. Beyond the posturing on both sides of the congressional aisle and in the White House over the merits of the Patriot Act, we need someone to read the Riot Act to government officials who are more interested in justifying the Iraq War than saving the lives that mount up daily. Continue reading Patriots Act while Politicians Talk →

Rendition unto Seizure rather than Render unto God

Terrorism Issue

“The United States and many other countries are waging a war against terrorism.”

This is the battle cry announced today to the media by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just before leaving on a diplomatic salvage salvo to Europe. If indeed we are to view recent attacks against U.S. and Western interests worldwide as a “war,” then it is an ongoing war with no real beginning and no predictable end. The Gospels remind us that there will be wars and rumors of wars, but another constant in human history has been the human potential for atrocities. Such potential is today labeled as “terrorism” when it flaunts regard for human rights and the Geneva Convention wisdom of how to wage war cleanly. But Rice is not going to Germany and France to sell war bonds; she has to explain why the United States has substituted the basic American value of civil liberty with an eye-for-an-eye counter-terrorism that comes dangerously close to combating terrorism with yet another form of terrorism. Continue reading Rendition unto Seizure rather than Render unto God →

What Went On

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Islamic History

 

Having just returned from the annual conference of MESA (Middle East Studies Association) in Washington, D.C., my eyes are still glazed from all the new titles in the book exhibits. I doubt there was a major publisher represented that did not have a new offering with “Jihad,” “Post 9/11,” “Islamism” or just plain “Terrorism” on prominent display. The pundits are having a field day, embedded journalist and intrepid academics alike. The greatest volume of texts by a single author went to Bernard Lewis, who had so many titles on display at the Oxford booth that this reputable forum might be in danger of becoming the Oxford-Lewis University Press. Several books back, not that the content varies much, Lewis hit the market right after 9/11 with his What Went Wrong?,a typical Lewisite (following the common media usage of Shiite) rehash lamenting the fact “they” are not as curious about “us” as “we” are about “them.” There are many valuable books now available that counter this iconic neocon imagination of the Middle East. But one book that I fear may be lost in the constant shuffle of new titles is historian Richard Bulliet’s The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2004).

Continue reading What Went On →

A Reporter’s Shiite, but a Historian’s Shi’a

Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

null

If the Muslim World fit the blurred binary vision of columnist Thomas Friedman, the problems of the Middle East could easily be reduced to a choice of words that start with the letter s. In his Wednesday, November 16, 2005 op-ed piece in The New York Times, Mr. Friedman beseeches a silent Sunni majority to ask the question, “why anyone?” He correctly notes that “Suicide bombs taint the heart of Islam.” Given ongoing suicide bombing inside and outside liberated-and-now-occupied Iraq, we are reminded, “‘Here’s Ahmed – he blew up 52 Muslims at a wedding.’ ‘Here’s Muhammad – he blew up 25 Shiites at a funeral.'” Tell us ‘taint so’ Ahmed. Tell Muhammad’s children that Abu just went straight to hell. “So why don’t more people in the Sunni world speak out against the Sunni Arabs doing this?” he asks, not really expecting an answer. Continue reading A Reporter’s Shiite, but a Historian’s Shi’a →

Wrong Flag, Mr. Speaker

Iraq War

When a tough ex-marine says our military strategy in Iraq is flawed, it is worth standing at attention. Today Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania joined other Democrats and a clear majority of the American people in courageously calling for the President and his neoconclave to stop waving the red flag of bull in front of Iraqis and Americans alike. “There’s a difference between supporting the troops and continuing to support a failed policy,” observed this conservative veteran legislator. “It’s up to the president to clearly define the goals and objectives of what constitutes success in Iraq. The American people deserve this. Even more important, the troops deserve to hear what the policy is.” Continue reading Wrong Flag, Mr. Speaker →

Human Waist

Jordan, Terrorism Issue

The picture that flashed around the media world this morning was of a Muslim woman opening her abaya to reveal a midriff fixed with a failed explosive device. It was also one of those rare tabloid days when both the New York Post and Daily News ran the same exploitative headline: “Dressed to Kill.” American audiences are more used to seeing an “Oriental” woman dressed to thrill, a belly dancer or an odalisque. Muslim women are enjoined in the Quran to be modest and cover their adornments. But it is hard to imagine that such advice from above covers an incendiary device rather than the body parts that immodest men look to for vice. Continue reading Human Waist →

The Last Halloween Remake in Amman

Film and Video, Terrorism Issue

In 1978 Hollywood released Halloween. It was destined to become a cult classic with more cinematic lives than Star Wars. This was a ghoulish film about imaginable terror in an unimaginable way. A psychotic murderer named Michael Myers gets loose and reaks mindless havoc. Later he stalks the character of Jamie Lee Curtis in a hospital. In yet another sequel it takes back-to-back films to be thwarted in a plot to kill his seven year old niece. Next, the niece is kidnapped and raped by evil druids, then the shape of Michael returns again to stalk his favorite victim’s son. The finale, ominously subtitled Resurrection, has a group of college kids streamed into cyberspace as they try to escape the killer’s haunted house.

What does all this have to do with the current spate of suicide bombings in Jordan and Iraq? Continue reading The Last Halloween Remake in Amman →