Author: issandr

Links November 18th to November 19th

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 18th through November 19th:

Links November 17th to November 18th

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 17th through November 18th:

Big books

This week, I’ve come across two newly published overviews of Arab culture–one dealing with literature and one dealing with contemporary art. This is a long post looking at reviews of both. 

“A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature”  (published by Saqi books) is reviewed in the Al Ahram Weekly by Denys Johnson-Davies. The book is by David Tresilian, a literature professor who has lived in Cairo and written for the Weekly, and has been at the American University in Paris since 1999, in the English and Comparative Literature Department (he does not appear to be a specialist in Arabic literature). Color me cynical, but given that Tresilian has a relationship with the Weekly and that his book highlights many authors that Johnson-Davies himself has translated, I’m not surprised the review is a positive one. 

While several books have been written that seek to give the ordinary reader a background to the Arabic novels that are being made available today in English translation, none does the task better and more entertainingly than David Tresilian’s A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature.

I found the review interesting, mostly for the insight it gives into the thoughts of one of the most established and prolific translators of Arabic literature. Continue reading Big books

Links for November 17th

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 17th:

Links November 14th to November 16th

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 14th through November 16th:

Iraq documentary focused on female soldiers

I should have posted this on Veteran’s Day, this past week. It’s a review I recently wrote of a documentary about US service women in Iraq. The special team was called “Team Lioness” (they don’t seem to have had any inkling of the implications of “lioness” in Arabic) and used to interact with Iraqi civilians in situations in which women were needed. It’s a pretty good film, and one more reminder of how much Iraq (remember Iraq? Now that the election is over..) has cost. Although I think we need to always remember that it’s cost Iraqis way more than it’s cost our country.

Let them grope cake

Mama Suzanne says this harassment stuff is all made up:

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak has played down allegations of rampant sexual harassment in her country, accusing the media, and implicitly Islamist militants, of exaggerating the reports.

“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday quoted the wife of President Hosni Mubarak as saying in remarks aired on Thursday by Al-Arabiya television.

The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) released a survey earlier this year showing that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Egypt are sexually harassed.

“This gives the impression that the streets in Egypt are not safe. That is not true… The media have exaggerated,” Mubarak said.

“Maybe one, two or even 10 incidents occurred. Egypt is home to 80 million people. We can’t talk of a phenomenon. Maybe a few scatterbrained youths are behind this crime.

“And maybe some people wanted to make it seem as though the streets of Egypt are not safe so girls and women stay at home. This could be their agenda,” she said in a reference to Islamist militants.

Of course, in her own experience, when she goes out on the street in her motorcode surrounded by bodyguards and soldiers, no one EVER gropes her. So it must apply to all other women in Egypt.

Links for November 14th

Links from my del.icio.us account for November 14th:

Sinai’s bedouins have had enough

Since the 2004 attack on the Taba Hilton and the subsequent massive round-up of Sinai bedouins by Egypt’s security apparatus, the situation of Sinai’s bedouin population has gone from bad to worse. Already a marginalized group that has been even more left by the wayside by the government than Nile Valley Egyptians, Sinai bedouins have had to endure humiliating police abuse, detention without trial, and countless other abuses. Living in a poor area of the country under direct military rule, seeing the development of luxury resorts like Sharm al-Sheikh without reaping much of the profits they generate, some have even turned to remember the days of Israeli occupation of Sinai as a golden age. What worse indictment of the Mubarak era, for a president whose great claim is that he was the man who recovered Sinai, that a year or so ago young bedouins staged a symbolic march to the Israeli border? Now, as Egypt collaborates with Israel and the US to close down the smuggling tunnels to Gaza (one of the main sources of income in Eastern Sinai), they turn against the state. The signs have been coming for a while: is any of this a surprise?

Also see:

Three Bedouins Killed In Police Clashes
Armed Clashes Between Security And Tarabeen Tribe In Sinai Detain 25 Officers And Soldiers For Hours

For background and root causes see the International Crisis Group report Egypt’s Sinai Question.