Shameless Sibling Promotion

So for the second post in a row, my sister makes an appearance.

Check out this cool merch she designed to remind you just how terrifying Sarah Palin really is.

Busta Rhymes' Orientalism [updated]

My sister pointed me towards Busta Rhymes' newest (and most hilarious?) song, "Arab Money," off the soon to be released CD, BOMB (Back on My Bulls**t):



Busta makes some interesting points not only about our dependence on foreign oil, but on the role of petrol-dollars in the current financial crisis. But more importantly, could this song be the first fruits of a cross-pollination of American consumerism (which has reached its highest stage in the Baconator) and Gulf consumerism (which may have reached its highest stage in the diamond-studded LCD TV)?

Busta Rhymes: my new favorite orientalist!

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I recommend you check out the lyrics.

Oh, and There's this War Too

This video is a truly fascinating look into the functioning of the Taliban in Afghanistan.





(From Prisoner of Starvation by way of 3arabawy)

War, What War?

So in case you missed it because you were freaking out about that massive financial crisis that the rest of the blogosphere seems to be really interested in, Iraq finally reached a deal on a provincial elections law! (This in the same week that they reached a deal with Shell Oil and tied for second on the Transparency International list of most corrupt countries.)

Iraqologist over at Abu Muquwama (perhalps the best blog period?) has a great post on how the elections will actually work and some fo the problems that may arise. (And as an explanation for the abreviations: PTB=Powers that Be and PTA=Powers that Arent. These come from another great post here.)

Back to Work, Back to Blogging

FINALLY! A new post. And while i still have some things to write about from my most recent trip to the ME (like the hooded tank-tops which are all the rage with young men in the West Bank nowadays), this blog is a bout take a radical turn.

Over the next several months, as I immerse myself in my thesis work and in trying to find a way to go back to the ME after graduation, I plan on blogging mostly about this process. One of the main things I'd like to do, is to compile useful resources for other students trying to do work in Islamic or Middle East studies or seeking to move to the ME.

I already have some stuff I've been thinking about to post on. But for now I actually am going to do some work.

Time to Drink the Nile Water

According to reports in the Egytian media, Saudi Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, owner of the Grand Hyatt Cairo (which I actually think is the best Hotel in Cairo, if for no other reason than their gym and lobby), poured roughly $1.5m worth of alcohol into the Nile. The whole process, which took place at the back part of the hotel (which takes up most of a small island in the Nile), was observed by a "small committee." I wonder if there was crying.

Some worry that the decision by the Sheikh to no longer sell alcohol may endanger the Hotel's "five-star" rating. Another member of the management said:

“This is one of the things a foreigner would look for at a five-star hotel. As a foreigner, you know, you might need a beer when you have lunch.”

Funny thing is, I think the foreigners most upset about it would be the Saudis.

More importantly, does the ban effect the Hard Rock? LE100 wings and Heineken just isn't the same without the beer.

The Situation in Lebanon

So I've been following the goings on in Beirut and trying to make sense of exactly whats going on. Honestly I can't say I know that much about the situation, or Lebanon in general, but these are the news sources that I have found useful:

By far the best coverage (with virtually up-to-the-minute updates) is Naharnet.

The CS Monitor has good coverage as well here and here(maybe because they actually have foreign bureaus). Their coverage is especially useful for understanding how this started.

As you will recall, Lebanon was the site of political unrest this fall over electing the government. Read a brief summary here.

A Couple of Useful Maps

Over the past couple of weeks I've been bemoaning the fact that I don't really understand the human and political geography of the Middle East well enough. So I thought I would get a couple of maps that I could study to work out some of the more hot-button issues. Namely 1) The religious distribution of the region, and 2) The location of oil and gas in the region.

So far, I've found these two maps to be incredibly helpful. See for yourself.

Religious distribution in the ME (by way of SIPA's Gulf/2000 project):


And this map with petroleum and natural gas sites and infrastructure in the ME (by way of the Global Education Project):


Enjoy. We'll have a quiz on Monday.

Neil Young, Meet the Middle East

I stumbled across this fantastic Egyptian protest song over at 3arabawy. He has been blogging a lot about the recent labor unrest in Mahalla, which is also interesting (yes, he has quite the leftist bent).

Anyway, the title of the song, which is in Egyptian Coloquial Arabic, is "Build Your Palaces." I'll work on a translation when I have some time. For now enjoy.

Learning From the Best?

I was perusing Abu Aardvark's recent post about Egypt's crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of municipal elections (a crackdown that has been going on pretty much since the MB won 88 seats (roughly 20%) in 2005. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this but this is the first time I have heard about Ikhwanweb, the official English-language site of the Egyptian MB.

The site is interesting enough, but by far the most striking thing about is that they appear to have lifted the entire site design directly from the old BBC:





I'll try to have something a little more meaningful soon.

Partying Like It's 2002!

Tonight, as I was practicing my favorite pastime, procrastinating on the internet, something very odd happened.

As usual, I started at bbcnews.com, having read all the articles that looked interesting earlier today, I continued on to their Middle East section, which has apparently entered a time-warp to that glorious period in history known as BEFORE IRAQ (b.i. for short).

Thats right according to the BBC, the Middle East is only on July 8, 2002:


Hurry people there's still time! According to this article, even Louis Farakhan is in on the game:


I wonder how this is going to turn out...

Update 1:14am April 2: Oh, thats how it turns out:

Back in the Game and Deeply Horrified

I've decided to experiment with making blog posts more often...and much shorter (update: the whole short thing didn't really work out). We'll see how long I keep this up for but it's something I've been meaning to do for a while.

And nothing gets me in the mood to blog like the Dutch saying or doing inflammatory things about the Muslim world.

On Saturday, the video-hosting site LiveLeak posted, and then took down, and then posted Geert Wilders's new 17min film which portrays Islam as an inherently violent religion bent on taking over the world and destroying the Netherlands. LiveLeak's statement regarding their on-again-off-again-on-again hosting of the film reads:

On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film "fitna" from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don't consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.

To me, the film is so utterly offensive and its problems so obvious--though less offensive and problematic than expected!--that in the end, it is just boring and unnecessarily gruesome (note the the film does contain numerous gratuitously violent images).

You can judge for yourself:

What I'm much more interested in is the response the film is getting. Al Jazeera English has had surprisingly little commentary on the film, and the only denouncement of the film they report came from Iran. Over at Harvard Law, the Middle East Strategy blog had some interesting predictions about the tumult (or "fitna," heyhey, Arabic puns!) likely to ensue from the release of the film. But there has been little sign of rioting and uproar across the Muslim world.

Perhaps Basra has kept the media busy, but it is also important to remember that the (first) Jyllands-Posten Danish cartoon incident did not flare up until February 2006, four months after the cartoons were first published (see this BBC article which has a helpful time-line midway down), and flared up again several times since.

Maybe things will be different this time around. Maybe state leaders in the Muslim world, rather than using the film as short-term political capital to incite pro-government (or at least anti-West) riots--thus vindicating the film's message--will use this as an opportunity to teach Westerners something real about Islam as a religion and a culture.

As Abdul Sabour Chahin, a professor at Cairo University and a significant religious leader told the Gulf News:

The West knows very little about Islam and its principles. So the best way to reverse the so-called Islamophobia is to enter into a dynamic dialogue with the West.

My only complaint: no need for the "so-called," it's just plain, old-fashioned hate.