Mshari Al-Zaydi writes in Asharq Alawsat about how tourists dollars are disappearing from countries riven by Arab Spring. In choosing to avoid areas of political conflict, often accompanied by violence in the streets, tourists end up depriving local economies of major sources of income. Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria – and now spilling over into Lebanon – depend heavily on tourists, not only for their direct spending, but also for the thousands of jobs they sustain. The politics of the region may be getting sorted out, but there is a very real cost being paid while the politicians argue.
The death of Arab tourism
Mshari al-ZaydiOne of the common features that can be seen in Egypt, Tunisia and Lebanon, and perhaps also Syria to a large extent, is that tourism is viewed as a major resource for the national economy.
Another common feature of these countries is the fact that they are experiencing tremors, or rather political and security earthquakes, which means that tourists have fled and there is now a drought in the tourism market; a sector where security is considered an essential requirement rather than a complimentary condition.
Last week was a wretched one for tourists and tourism inside Lebanon, and even outside of it for some Lebanese.
After the unrest in Tripoli and Beirut, the imprisonment of an Islamic activist hailing from Tripoli, the death of a Sunni sheikh, and what was reported about a Qatari national being arrested in the midst of the security tensions there, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait all issued warnings to their citizens about the danger of the security situation in Lebanon, which constitutes a painful blow to the Lebanese tourism market as we enter the summer.
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An example of what’s keeping tourists away is provided by this article from Al-Arabiya:
In it’s “On Faith” section, The Washington Post runs a piece by Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. She questions the tactics used by Mona Eltahawy in addressing gender inequalities in the Arab Muslim world, finding that in addition to being too sharp, those tactics miss their target. Declaring intellectual war on Islam or Arab culture simply will not win adherents in the region and offer no useful advice to foreign governments concerned about women’s right.
Instead, Mogahed suggests, attention needs to be paid to overall development and overall respect for human rights. Only when there is a substantive change in people’s perceptions of justice and equality and respect for rights can special attention be carved out for women. It’s an interesting piece, worth reading.
Does Mona Eltahawy’s approach hurt women?
Dalia MogahedMona Eltahawy’s Foreign Policy cover story “Why Do They Hate Us” triggered an avalanche of passionate responses. But few have addressed how her arguments impact indigenous Arab women’s rights activists or the article’s primary audience– how American policy makers– can best support the cause of gender justice in the Middle East.
Eltahawy draws attention to crimes committed against women in the Middle East that should outrage us all. Unfortunately, rather than discuss the complex social, economic and political dimensions of these issues (see Max Fisher’s useful analysis), she offers the radically original notion that Arab men, and by extension Middle Eastern culture and even “moderate” interpretations of Islam, are backwards and barbaric.
Well-meaning fans of the piece applaud what they see as Eltahawy’s courage for raising public awareness of Arab women’s struggles.
Critics question not the crimes Eltahawy describes but the causes she assigns, namely Islam and Arab culture’s inherent “hate” for women, alleging that her analysis is not only pedestrian but panders to prejudice.
The real danger however is that Eltahawy’s narrative harms the very cause she claims to champion. Conflating women’s rights advocacy with Arab inferiority or Islam bashing doesn’t empower the champions of change, it aids their enemies.
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In his column for Saudi Arabia’s pan-Arabic Asharq Alawsat, Ali Ibrahim makes an important point with direct application to those involved in ‘Arab Spring’. How winners of elections behave is important, of course, but equally important is how losers and their supporters behave. He uses the electoral defeat of French President Sarkozy as his launching pad. Sarkozy lost to François Hollande in a relatively close election: Hollande receiving 52% of the votes to Sarkozy’s 48%. That means that nearly half of the French population did not vote for Hollande. Nevertheless, they accept the defeat of their candidate and do not take to the streets or to their guns. They acknowledge that their candidate did not win the votes of a majority and they will have to do better next time around.
Surely, the defeated are not happy. They will complain. They will find fault in much that the Hollande government does. There will be editorials and screeds decrying the shift in politics and perhaps the economy. But they accept – peacefully and without violence – that they did not win.
How you lose is as important to democracy as how you win.
To the people of the Arab Spring, consider France!
Ali IbrahimThe speeches of the defeated French President and his newly elected replacement provide an eloquent lesson in the art of practicing political democracy. Following the announcement of the election results which were not in his favor, Nicolas Sarkozy – who is something of a rarity as a French president who failed to win a second presidential term – addressed his audience and supporters, in all humility, conceding defeat and saying: “I have not succeeded…I carry full responsibility for this defeat”. He added that France’s new president had come to power through popular democratic choice and that the French people must be patriotic and united behind him. He finished his speech congratulating his victorious opponent and calling on his supporters to respect the winner, pointing out that the political situation would be different now.
As for François Hollande, France’s President-elect, he did not forget in the euphoria of his victory speech to pay tribute, despite the boos of his supporters, to his defeated rival Sarkozy, who had led the country for 5 years, and as such deserves, according to Hollande, all due respect.
Between the winner and loser of the French presidential election was a difference in terms of votes of less than 4 percent; around 18 million voted in favor of Hollande and 16.9 million voted in favor of Sarkozy. Yet the 16.9 million will not oppose this election result, nor will the 2.1 million who cast blank or spoiled ballots; nobody will object to Hollande being their president for the next five years, even if they disagree with him.
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Ever since Edward Said’s rant on Orientalism, the word has carried a purely negative connotation. Despite Said’s flawed understanding of it and his reporting on it tendentious and intellectually suspect, the book has served to color opinions in both the East and the West.
Saudi magazine Majalla reports on an Egyptian collector of Orientalist art, Shafik Gabr, who points to how much Orientalism was a two-way street, with information, opinion, and observations flowing back and forth between the observer and the observed. Gabr is particularly interested in what Orientalist art has to teach the Orient about itself. The article is interesting and worth reading in full.
The Orientalist Connector
As world attention is still riveted with the ‘Arab Spring’, how is cultural dialogue between East and West faring? With a monograph of his collection due to be published this year, Shafik Gabr speaks to Juliet Highet about the significance of the Orientalists on the Arab world today
Juliet HighetEgyptian collector of Orientalist art, Shafik Gabr, believes that Orientalism embodies a dynamic and continuing dialogue between East and West. “The Middle East has always been a crossroads between these worlds,” he says. “We owe the Orientalists a great debt, because although much of what they painted lives on today in our streets and villages, we constantly need to be reminded of the richness and value of our culture. For many years we Arabs did not reconcile ourselves to Orientalism. Now, from those paintings we’re getting to know about our own traditions.”
Orientalist art buyers, many of them ‘Orientals’ themselves, are aware that it is much more than a repository of pictorial memories, precious as those are. As the region invests in museums, art institutions and art education, Orientalism is increasingly perceived as a valuable part of the region’s heritage.
… “I see Orientalists as ‘Early Globalists’, who brought the Arab world to the West and really contributed to mutual understanding. They were bridge-builders.” Gabr tells me. He too has been building bridges all his life. “I have always felt that a greater dialogue and therefore empathy between peoples are very worthwhile objectives, and I have done that in business, society and even across nations. The concept of bridge-building is the basis of my fascination with the Orientalist genre, which embodies a true respect between our cultures. Far from ‘colonising’ their subjects, these artists actively bridged the Oriental and Occidental worlds.”
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The international trend of body piercing has hit Saudi Arabia, Al-Arabiya TV reports. Most see it as ‘blind emulation’ of foreign culture, but some see it as signs of discontent on the part of the women being pierced. Whether it is rebelling against parents and social expectations, or simply asserting individuality, the practice has raise concerns. This is very much a female issue, though: Saudi males are not getting pierced.
Pierced ears are the norm for Saudi women: one would be hard-put to find little girls without it. But other piercings, particularly on the face, are another matter. Tattoos, though forbidden in Islam, have a long history and tradition within Bedouin culture; piercings, particularly nose piercings, do as well. But this isn’t that. It’s clearly a cultural import, but one whose meaning is modified by those having it done.
Body piercing trend rises among Saudi women
Al ArabiyaSeveral trends seen as imported from Western cultures have invaded Saudi Arabia and encouraged women to seek change through them. While clothes and accessories seem like the most traditional influences, piercing is the latest and most outrageous fashion among Saudi women.
Piercing the lips, tongue and navel are the most popular with Saudi women, reported the Saudi edition of al-Hayat newspaper.
According to the paper, Saudi girls differ on the piercing trend. Some do not think this trend makes the girl more beautiful and in fact argue that it makes her look ugly. Some go as far as considering a girl who pierces any part of her face unfeminine. Several men agree with this point of view and say that they never get attracted to girls with piercings.
Others argue that piercing adds to their beauty and makes them look different.
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Saudi weekly magazine Majalla runs a story on the Salafist war against arts and culture in Egypt. Not only are actors and directors being arrested for supposed ‘crimes against Islam’, but the hard-line conservatives are also calling for bans on the books of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz and the covering of statues of the pharaohs in wax. At least they’re not calling for them to be destroyed or the Pyramids torn down.
Egyptian artists note that these are actions and ideas proposed by Salafists, but also note that the ‘more modern, more moderate’ Muslim Brotherhood says nothing about them, only claiming to ‘support culture’. Today’s Egypt is a far cry from the expansive cultural environments of its past, even as recently as the 1960s.
Islamists on Art
Ati MetwalyWhen Asran Mansour, a Salafi lawyer, filed a case against Adel Imam, renowned Egyptian actor, for “defaming Islam” in his films, no one expected that the verdict issued on 24 April 2012, by Judge Mohamed Abdel Aty would sentence Imam to three-months hard labor and a fine. Though the case was dropped on 26 April afternoon, the news outraged Egypt’s artists and equally angered international supporters of freedom of expression and creativity.
Adel Imam’s case is one of the many indications that Islamists are implementing limits on culture and freedom of expression. Also on trial with Imam were directors Nader Galal, Sherif Arafa, and Mohamed Fadel, and writers Wahid Hamed and Lenin El-Ramly, who faced the same charges of “defaming Islam.” Their cases were also dropped on 26 April.
The arts and culture scene will not be silent regarding Imam’s sentence—just as it will not remain passive when challenged by many other limitations posed on culture. The fight against such religious-based censorship is expected to be a long and painful one for all of Egypt’s creative minds.
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On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Cunard Line’s White Star Line’s Titanic, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV, in a three-part story, calls to our attention the fact that among those who perished in the disaster were Arabs. They came mostly from Lebanon, but one also from Egypt.
The story of the forgotten Arab victims of the Titanic,
told 100 years laterOne hundred years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic, considered the worst disaster the seas have ever witnessed in the twentieth century. In the middle of the extensive coverage this shocking event has received, hardly anything has been mentioned about the Arab passengers that perished on the ship.
In addition to the list of victims which reveals all the Arabs who died in the tragedy were Lebanese except one Egyptian, the proof of Arab presence on the ship was evident in the 1997 blockbuster movie directed by James Cameron.
In the film “Titanic,” an Arabic speaking mother is heard urging her daughter to hurry when she ship starts to sink. The Lebanese accent with which she says “Come! Come!” in Arabic shows her roots.
Her husband replies, also with a Lebanese accent, “Wait! Let me see what we can do,” while panicking in one of the third class corridors. Behind the Lebanese family appears the film’s protagonist Leonardo Di Caprio, also an inmate of the third class, running with Kate Winslet in tow.
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Part Two of the series tells us that there were over 80 Arabs aboard. While most died, not all did.
An op-ed piece in Arab News discusses how Saudi Arabia seems to have a two-track system of justice. There’s one for the common people and another, more lenient one, for those with influence (wasta). The writer compares the treatment meted out so far to Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi journalist and twitterer and a respected cleric, Dr. Mohammed Alarefe. Both made remarks that many considered disparaging of Islam. One made an apology but sits in jail awaiting trial; the other made his apology and is moving on with his life.
Now, the incidents aren’t exactly parallel. Kashgari, when realizing he made a mistake, fled. Alarefe was prompt in his apology and clarification. That does distinguish them and may serve to justify different reactions. Still, the mistakes the two made were within the same category and should, in an ideally fair world, receive similar punishments, or none.
Double standard and social justice
MOHAMMED ALSAIFA couple of days ago, I read a joke on Twitter that indicated the presence of two superpower armies in the world right now. The first is the high-tech modernized army of the United States of America. The second is the loyal and dedicated Twitter followers of Dr. Mohammed Alarefe.
Alarefe is a well-know public and media figure. He is famous for representing the new and young conservatives in Saudi Arabia. His presence on social media made a new record last month when his Twitter followers exceeded one million, making him the first Saudi to break that margin.
As much as the joke of Alarefe’s army was funny, it was also touching on a new media commotion regarding a statement by Alarefe where he gave some false information about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in one of his programs, which seems to have offended many of his Muslim viewers.
Although Alarefe submitted an official apology regarding the incident, some people still think that he shouldn’t be let off this easily; bringing attention to the ongoing case of Hamza Kashgari, the young Saudi poet who was arrested two months ago for writing socially unacceptable tweets about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Many comments and Twitter hashtags of writers and intellectuals addressed the issue wondering if the same statement came from a person other than Alarefe, someone labeled as a Liberal or from a different sect, would the reaction of people have been the same.
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I had the chance to watch the film ‘Arabia: IMAX’ last night. For those with a Netflix streaming account, it’s now posted. For others, the film may still be difficult to find. I note it is available for purchase as a Blu-Ray DVD, however.
While I do not have an IMAX screen in my home, I was able to see it clearly enough on my computer screen. I’m sure I lost a lot of the impact that size itself brings; not having a plethora of speakers, I’m sure I lost something in the sound department as well.
The film was absolutely beautiful. Photography, whether of the cities of Riyadh and Jeddah or the vast landscapes was terrific. Underwater along the reefs of the Red Sea or from the air over some of the deserts, the film certainly showed Saudi Arabia to its best. Scenes of Mecca and the Haj were excellent. The use of different sorts of animations didn’t do the film any great favors, though. They often seemed gratuitous, there for their own sake and not doing much to move the story along or inform the viewer.
I was less thrilled with the content of the film. It came across as a rah-rah piece, full of hope and promise for a potentially new Golden Age of Arabia. The problems of Arabia were never discussed and barely alluded to. The aerial photography of King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) was good and the first to show the huge expanse of the campus. There were scenes of students walking around or standing talking, but nothing on the work the university is doing. We’re left with having to take the narrator’s word on its importance and potential.
I found the way the film defined the two previous Golden Ages of Arabia a bit off-putting. The first claim, that the Nabatean led the first Golden Age, squeaks in, I thought. Mada’in Saleh, the southern city of the Nabatean Kingdom is in Saudi Arabia. The second Golden Age, though, the one that brought forth the flowering of Arab science and philosophy took place in Baghdad. Arguably, Baghdad is in ‘Arabia’, but the focus of the film was on the peninsula, not Mesopotamia. It felt like the film was claiming credit for the accomplishments of a neighbor.
Disappointing, too, was the short shrift given to the Eastern Province. There’s nothing on Dammam, Al-Khobar, or Al-Khafji; nothing on the Gulf. The only references are to the discovery and exploitation of oil.
The film, all 45-minutes of it, was entertaining and opulent in its photography. But it was, at heart, a travelogue.
Looking for signs of effectiveness of the Arab League? Keep looking.
Retired Saudi Navy Commodore Abdulateef Al-Mulhim, in his Arab News column, looks at the 67-year history of the Arab League and is hard pressed to find anything positive to write about. Lots of rhetoric, lots of bombast, but the League has done exactly nothing to improve the lot of the Arabs it claims to represent.
About the only positive he can find is that instead of 67 annual summits, the organization has only met 23 times. That limits the damage.
Baghdad summit and the faraway dreams
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIMIf the Arab leaders held a summit conference annually after the establishment of the Arab League in 1945, then, the Baghdad Arab summit which was held on March 29, 2012, would have been number 67. But, the Baghdad summit, which was held last week is only the 23rd. The question is, what did the Arabs gain from these summits?
The first official Arab summit was held in Cairo on Jan. 13, 1964. Only politics were discussed at the summit. The discussions ranged from the diversion of the water flow of the Jordanian river, the establishment of the PLO, the set-up of unified military command headed by Egypt and many other issues. There were no discussions in the first Arab summit about education, health care, trade agreements or highway systems connecting different Arab countries. There was nothing for the simple Arab citizen.
After the 1964 summit, it was decided to have annual summit meetings to be attended by all Arab leaders. But, every single Arab summit was only held after an obstacle or a crisis facing the Arab world. The most notable summits were held in Khartoum in 1967, Baghdad in 1978 and again in Baghdad in 1990. The Khartoum summit was held after the 1967 war. And the 1978 Baghdad summit held after President Anwar Al-Sadat of Egypt went ahead with the peace agreement with Israel. As for the 1990 Baghdad summit, it took place just before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. All the other summits were management by crisis conferences. But, do the Arab masses take the Arab summits seriously and did these conferences accomplish any unity among the Arab countries?
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Identity, including cultural identity, is tied up with what went before, that is, history. All around the world, on all sorts of topics, groups use or seek to use history to define themselves, their cultures, morals, and worth. We see it in India, where members of the Hindutva movement seek to rewrite Indian textbooks to highlight – or perhaps amplify – to role of early Hindus in the cultural and political development of the subcontinent. We see it in the US, where traditional histories are overturned by revisionist histories, themselves subject to overturn by later scholars. Japanese history books have been the subject of battles over issues as disparate as the behavior of the Japanese Army in WWII and the cultural borrowings from China that led to Japanese civilization. We saw it in Saudi Arabia where certain members of religious groups fought (and, honestly, continue to fight) about exploration of and recognition of the Kingdom’s pre-Islamic history and culture.
The Christian Bible, as well as the Jewish Tanakh write of the life of Moses in and his flight from ancient Egypt. Those who hold to Biblical inerrancy have to decide which of several Pharaohs, for instance, ruled at the time of Moses. Biblical scholarship suggests that there were two, but there’s no certainty as to identity. The Pharaohs are never named, so it comes down to interpreting vague and often conflicting comments and inferences. The Quran, equally inerrant, doesn’t name names, either. Inferences suggest several possibilities and ‘possibilities’ implies disagreement.
The newest Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, finds himself in the midst of the battle for history. Political groups trying to rise from the wreckage of ‘Arab Spring’ are making assertions about history and the Minister, according to this piece from Asharq Alawsat, is having to fight for the primacy of science over cultural modeling. Some in the Egyptian Salafist camp are making assertions that Ramses II was the Pharaoh of Exodus. They have some intellectual supporters (example), but that runs against what archeology finds. The question is still an open one, but it’s a question for which particular answers play particular roles in modern politics.
Egypt’s Antiquities Minister on the Pharaoh of the Exodus
Taha AliCairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs in Egypt, Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim, asserted that he would never allow the analysis of King Ramses II’s mummy to confirm whether or not he was the long-disputed Pharaoh of the Exodus. Ibrahim said: “What is being rumored in this context is utterly non-scientific and not founded on any sort of evidence”.
In an exclusive interview conducted with the minister in his Zamalek-based office in Cairo, Mohammed Ibrahim stated that Ramses II’s mummy had previously been flown to the French capital of Paris during the 1980s to analyze the water within it, and try to treat the artifact. “But to speak now of the mummy’s examination and analysis is a matter I can never allow because Ramses II is not the Pharaoh of the Exodus and we should not build upon wrong assumptions in the first place.”
Ibrahim cited evidence for his argument with verses from the Holy Quran and the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, especially the 14th Chapter. “The scenario and sequence of events clearly show that Ramses II could have never been the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Based on several given facts and not just one piece of information, inferences have been drawn concluding that the Pharaoh of the Exodus ruled toward the end of the 19th Dynasty. The facts confirm that Ramses II’s reign did not witness any state of unrest, contrary to what is widely known about the Pharaoh of the Exodus’s reign. Moreover, Ramses II’s rule was marked by power and construction. Hence, we can’t say that either Ramses II or his successor Merneptah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.”
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In his column for the Saudi-owned Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi takes a look at identity politics. He launches his piece with a discussion of Amin Maalouf’s 2009 Killer Identities (sold in the US under the title In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong
They are both right. By focusing on only one aspect of identity, individuals and groups forget that they are part of larger identity groups, ultimately, the group known as ‘mankind’. Forgetting that the person next to you is human, has the same rights as you do – including the right to be wrong – leads only to confrontation. ‘Identity’ is important; we cannot act without having a clear idea of who we are. But we have to acknowledge that we have multiple identities at all times. One can be, simultaneously, a member of an ethnic group, a member (or non-member) of a religious group, a citizen of a particular nation, a member of a particular culture or society , male or female, a parent, a child, a brother or sister, a neighbor, a worker, a member of a party, and so on. Each facet of identity has its own obligations, its own expectations. One of these group identities may be more important in a given time and circumstance than in another, but all of them continue to work simultaneously. No element goes away while we focus on another. By forgetting this, by allowing ourselves to be identified or to self-identify by only one facet of identity, we run very serious risks of both dehumanizing others and painting ourselves into corners.
Are these “killer identities”?
Mshari Al-ZaydiWill the prediction by the famous Lebanese-French Novelist Amin Maalouf – that we are embarking upon an era of wars between “killer identities” – turn out to be true?
“Killer Identities” is the title of a well-known book by Maalouf, a writer and intellectual who focusses on the religious, historical and social intricacies of the East.
Maalouf’s life itself embodies such intricacies. In a recent interview conducted by “Middle East online” with him in Dubai, on the sidelines of the Silver Jubilee of Al Owais Cultural Foundation, Maalouf explained how the multi-layered and complex climate he lived in has had a huge impact on him. Maalouf was born in Beirut; his mother was born in the Egyptian city of Tanta while his maternal grandmother was born in Adana, Turkey. Maalouf was mainly raised in Beirut but spent some of his childhood in Egypt. His mother’s family moved from Tanta to Cairo to live in the Heliopolis district, and up until the age of three, Maalouf spend most of his time residing in Heliopolis. Then he moved to Lebanon where he lived until 1975. He studied in Lebanon and upon graduating he worked in the field of journalism, contributing to the Lebanese daily newspaper “Al-Nahar”. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, he moved to France and continued his journalistic pursuits, working for “Economia” magazine and serving as editor-in-chief of “Jeune Afrique”.
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