Month: August 2006

The world’s biggest Quran

Interesting story from Syria in the WSJ (look out for a rash of Syria stories as the international press corps exist Lebanon):

DAMASCUS, Syria — During prayers in his neighborhood mosque, Moktaz Obeyeed used to elbow his way through the big, crowded hall to pick up a small copy of the Quran. How great would it be, he thought one day, if you could just lift your eyes and read the holy book from anywhere in the mosque, without bothering other worshippers? He had a vision of giant pages of the Quran covering the walls.

Since that day nearly 10 years ago, Mr. Obeyeed says he has sunk all his savings into bringing his dream of a huge Quran to life. He’s deferred buying a new house despite his wife’s pleas, and tapped an international network of 58 calligraphers to handwrite 120 pages of the holy book — each page measuring six-feet, eight inches high and three-feet, four inches wide.

The size would make it among the world’s largest Qurans. But what really sets it apart is the sheer number of artists involved. Mr. Obeyeed’s calligraphers are scattered across 17 countries, including all of the Middle East’s hot spots: Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. That has complicated an already difficult undertaking; a Lebanese calligrapher, for instance, recently couldn’t be reached for 10 days, prompting a frantic search.

Former Egyptian diplomat in Israel assaulted by his brother

The former head of the Egyptian consulate in Eilat was almost killed by his younger brother three weeks ago, according to Al-Masr Al-Youm, after the latter accused him of “treason” and being an “infidel” for assuming a diplomatic post in Israel.

The paper ran an interview with Consul Hassan Eissa, 70, who said his one-year-younger brother, Ali, is religious and related by marriage to Sheikh Omar Abdel Kafi. Ali, who’s apparently some company manager, accused his diplomat brother on a number of occasions of being an “infidel” for accepting to represent Mubarak’s regime in Israel. Finally Ali tried to overrun him by his car in front of the Shooting Club in Dokki three weeks ago.

Golia: Making resistance work

Maria Golia, author of Cairo: City of Sand, wonders in this latest dispatch why two years of street protests have achieved so little and rallied so few — a question on many of our minds.

Egyptians surely rank amongst the most patient and non-confrontational of peoples. But every now and then they get fed up and explode. It happened in 1952 as a result of colonial tensions coupled with the inaction of an opulent monarchy. While King Farouk feted his son’s birthday, enraged mobs stormed the streets of downtown Cairo, laying them to waste. It happened again in 1977, when Sadat raised the price of bread, misjudging his grip on a disillusioned populace, triggering nationwide riots that forced him to back down. When will it happen again?

Continue reading Golia: Making resistance work

Saudi woman ecstatic over permission to ‘marry out’

From Arab News, quoting the Saudi Al-Madinah

Saudi Woman Ecstatic Over Permission to ‘Marry Out’
Arab News

MAKKAH, 15 August 2006 — A court here ruled in favor of a Saudi woman seeking to marry a non-Saudi, causing the forty-something woman to emit thrilling cries of bliss that echoed through the chamber, the daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday. The woman, who had been petitioning the court to permit her to get married to a non-Saudi, was so ecstatic at the decision that she not only screamed in joy but also jumped about embracing her relatives. In Saudi Arabia it can be very difficult for Saudi women to marry non-Saudis, which, to some Saudi women, is a very unfortunate thing — especially to older Saudi women who live in a society where many men taken on younger second wives, or divorce their older wives, often viewing older women as “expired goods.�

Paulin Kuanzambi

A day or two before we left Morocco, I went to say goodbye to Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee in Morocco who now works with AFVIC (Amis et Familles des Victimes de l’Immigration Clandestine, “Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Migration”). Paulin had been great help to me in some stories I did for The World on migration in Morocco.

Paulin was out and I didn’t get to say goodbye. As I just found out, he had been entrapped into a meeting with members of the Moroccan secret service, who posed as journalists, then kidnapped him and another activist and drove them to the border with Algeria. You can a letter from AFVIC (in French) about it it after the jump.

This will be the fourth time that Paulin–who’s been officially recognized as a refugee by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees–is illegally kicked out of Morocco. The secret service agents took his money, hit him and his companion, and then showed them pictures of recent refugee sit-ins in front of the Moroccan office of UNHCR (see previous post on Arabist) and asked questions about the people involved.

I find it incredibly disturbing that the agents posed as journalists–then we wonder why refugees are often leery of the press!

I don’t understand why the Moroccan government–while hosting international conferences on migrants and their “rights”–treats a few thousand refugees on its soil like seditious criminals.

I also don’t understand why UNHCR seems so utterly incapable of fulfilling its mandate and protecting the people it has recognized as refugees. Unless the UNHCR office in Rabat–as the one in Cairo–has little sympathy for refugees who advocate for their rights (I was told that during a recent refugee sit-in, it was the UNHCR office itself that called the Moroccan police).
Continue reading Paulin Kuanzambi

Israeli soul-searching

When I saw this lead to a Washington Post article this morning, I was momentarily confused:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday acknowledged mistakes in the war against Hezbollah as the Israeli government confronted widespread criticism and political recriminations over the conflict.

“There have been failings and shortcomings,” Olmert, with deep circles under his eyes and a haggard look on his face, told a special session of the Israeli parliament. “We need to examine ourselves in all aspects and all areas. We will not sweep anything under the table, we will not hide anything. We must ensure that next time things will be done better.”

The article said that Israel was engaged in “national soul-searching.” For a moment, I thought they meant over the damage done to a neighboring country, the high civilian casualties. Silly me. Israeli society is engaged in “national soul-searching” over why they weren’t more successful in wiping out Hezbullah. Everyone’s souls are completely at peace regarding all those dead Lebanese.

And Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.

I have to stop

The New York Times’ coverage of the Lebanon war is a scab I can’t stop picking.

The latest, from Steven Erlanger, is as dumb-founding as always.

Written entirely from the strategic viewpoint of the Israeli government, this “news analysis” posits that the ceasefire depends on the Lebanese blaming Hezbullah for the damage the Israelis have done. If the Lebanese don’t turn on Hezbullah, and the UN doesn’t disarm the group, Israel will be forced to reinvade.

Erlanger ends with the following paragraph:

The Lebanese war also raises even more serious questions, suggests Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, about the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel respected the international border with Lebanon as verified by the United Nations, and it was Hezbollah that violated the border. “If international borders mean nothing,� Mr. Feldman asked, “why should the Israeli public support a withdrawal from the West Bank to create a Palestinian state?�

Preserving the idea of a two-state solution is one reason Mr. Olmert went to war, Mr. Feldman said. And it is one reason the Security Council acted as strongly as it did to defend the integrity of the international border and mandate an expanded United Nations force to protect it. But whether Israelis will trust those guarantees is yet another open question.

I must be dreaming. Israel is now the upholder of international borders? Israel invaded Lebanon to help further its plans to give the Palestinians a state? Did Mr. Erlanger ask Mr. Feldman about the many borders that Israel has crossed or erased? Did he point out that according to UN observers Israelis have crossed the Lebanese border about 10 times more often than Hezbullah has? Did he ask him if pounding Gaza as well as Lebanon is part of Israel’s hopes to establish a Palestinian state?

How can a New York Times reporter not only let an interviewee get away unchallenged with statements such as these, but go on to print them? The only answer I can find is: because the reporter is a propagandist.