Nature, one of the world’s most respected scientific magazines, has a special on Islam and science. There’s tons of interesting stuff, from the attitude of Islamist parties to scientific research to the neglect of scientific funding in most Islamic countries.
Tag: culture
IMA funding under threat
There is a looming financial crisis at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, according to this Le Monde report. Arab states are supposed to be funding 40% of its budget, which keeps running a deficit, but they often push for something in exchange (exhibitions for Qadhafi’s son or insignificant Kuwaiti artists) and have been running late with payments. Just like the help they always promise the Palestinians.
Still, funding something like the IMA would probably get more diplomatic bang for the buck for France than its recently launched 24-hour news station. At less than 25 million euros a year for about one million visitors annually, a great library and bookshop, and some of the best exhibitions in Paris (not to mention a Jean Nouvel building that became an instant Paris landmark with its photo-reactive diaphragm windows), it’s a steal.
Hairy relations
Our good friend Dr. Zahi is furious, of course, but the attempted sale of some hair of Ramsees II. by the son of a French archaeologist has led to serious diplomatic trouble between Egypt and France.
A French postman who tried to sell online what he claimed were strands of hair from the mummy of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II was being held by police yesterday. Jean-Michel Diebolt, 50, was arrested at his home in Grenoble after he placed an advertisement on a website offering strands of hair and tiny fragments of the funeral cloth from the 3,200 year-old mummy for €2,000 (£1,300). He claimed to have obtained the pieces from his late father, a researcher who had been part of a French team which analysed the mummy in the 1970s.
Here’s the revenge? Nine French nationals were arrested during the past week-end in Egypt on charges of planning terrorist attacks in the region.
Pyramids made out of concrete
I’m used to hearing that ancient Egyptians invented nearly everything: beer, paper, ink, sails, multi-dimensional Stargates. Now it seems they may have also invented concrete.
Of course Zahi disagrees. Or at least he will until he reveals it on his next National Geographic Explorer special.
Qawliya
YouTube has this great video of the Saddam era’s greatest qawliya dancers (gypsy girls spinning their long hair) entertaining top regime figures. Cheesy but fascinating.
Truth in advertising
Must-read Anthony Shadid story on a new ad campaign satirizing sectarianism in Lebanon.
Lebanese political graffiti
Politics through Beirut’s street art. Or make your own online.
Baheyya on Ismail Sabri Abdallah
It’s about two weeks old, but Baheyya has written a beautiful portrait of the recently deceased Marxist intellectual and public servant (in the best sense of the term) Ismail Sabri Abdullah.
I wish Baheyya would write more these days, but then again things are so much more depressing than they were last year. I can’t blame her for hibernating.
Update: Al Ahram Weekly also has pieces on Abdullah here and here.
Farouk Hosni, the accidental martyr
Conversations at Thanksgiving dinner last night (mostly Egyptians of various religions) generally went like this: “I would have never thought I’d say this, but we need to help out Farouk Hosni.” One suggestion was to circulate a petition along the lines of “Farouk Hosni is a scumbag, but…” Among this extremely liberal crowd, the attack on Hosni is seen as an attack on secular values and the ability to speak your mind out. Among a certain segment of Egyptian society (in this case it was more artists and writers rather than wealthy people) the thoughts that Farouk Hosni expressed in his honey-drizzled comments to al-Masri al-Youm (“women are like delicate flowers that must be admired,” etc…) are self-evident. Egypt has gone through a surge of conservatism in the past two decades and many people from this milieu feel almost betrayed by their country. What Hosni said out loud is routinely uttered sotto voce. But I wonder if some frank dialogue might not be more useful than the delicate, elaborate scaffolding of white lies that most people generally hide being when discussing this type of issue.
The turkey was delicious.
(Background on the Farouk Hosni affair here.)
Top Jew in Kazakhstan
Top Kazakh Rabbi: In My Country There’s No Problem
In the fictional version of Kazakhstan in the hit movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the only Jews in the country are larger-than-life caricatures that get trotted out for a ceremonial “Running of the Jew.”
In the real Kazakhstan, the top rabbi, Menachem Mendel Gershowitz, has never been forced to run anywhere. In fact, Gershowitz said, Kazakhs frequently treat him like royalty.
“One time, I spoke with a Kazakh businessman,” Gershowitz told the Forward. “He asked me: ‘Tell me, Bush is Jewish also, yes? Clinton is Jewish?’ They think the opposite — not that Jewish is strange, but that Jewish is the whole world.”
Read on, very funny.