Leo Americanus

"The Gathering"

2010-09-19T14:14:00.000+03:00

From "The Gathering" by Anne Enright

“And what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone loses someone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like such a massive waste of energy – and we all do it, all the people beetling along between the white lines, merging, converging, overtaking. We each love someone, even though they will die. And we keep loving them, even when they are not there to love any more. And there is no logic or use to any of this, that I can see.”

“I look at the people queuing at the till [in Gatwick], and I wonder are they going home, or are they going far away from the people they love. There are no other journeys.”

Trofeo - Sevilla

2010-09-19T14:12:00.001+03:00

The golden evening light spilling over the top of the ring and scattering across the golden dirt of the ring. The taunts, the crowd, the trumpets, the bells on the horses. Then it is all over, and the tightness pent up in the ring bursts slow motion out of the opened doors. The cars, life going on down the wide boulevard stir the air as you move out, drawn to gaze toward the river and down the tree-lined street. You drink in the open air, turn left, then are sucked back down the narrow streets, toward the heart of the city. You walk toward the promise of the night and the hope of the heartfelt flamenco of true gitans. At the end of the lane, before you disappear from the sight of the open boulevard and the river and the cleanness that comes with it, you stop. Cinco Jotas is in front of you, warm and inviting, but after seeing the manliness of the corrida, you turn to the right and enter the clean, spartan bar with the open doors and the zinc counter tops and order dos canas. You can taste a bit of the metal in the amber beer from the tap and the keg. The men in the bar smile and nod and do what has been done for years beyond memory. You look at the pictures covering the wall of the drama that has passed across the street. Maybe one more as the cloak of night begins to fall. You nod your goodnight to the bartender, step out, and stop on the busy corner. You look left once more, past the ring, across the open boulevard, and to the river. Then you swiftly pivot right, moving with purpose down the narrow alleys into the night.

Thank You Suburban

2010-08-25T22:34:00.002+03:00

I just checked Suburban's Other Oman blog for the first time in a while to find that she has moved from Oman. It has been quite some time since I've lived there, but I think of the place a lot, especially lately. It is a beautiful land, great for families, and quite an adventure. One night a few months ago, I got a glimpse of it from over 20,000 feet above gliding by in the night. Maybe some day I'll go back to live there. But, I have many other places I want to see too. Since leaving Oman, I've done a bit of traveling, but not as much as I would have liked. The highlight was probably getting to Sevilla, Spain in May of this year. It was wonderful to smell the sun-warmed scent of dried grass in Spain, then to walk that historic city on a hot Sunday afternoon. Maybe I will try to update this blog a bit more frequently.

Oman-India Air Force Exercises at Thumrait

2009-10-15T07:02:00.003+03:00

The Omani and Indian Air Forces are conducting a bilateral exercise out of the Omani base at Thumrait in the south of the country. The focus of the exercise is anti-piracy operations and will include Omani F-16s and Jaguars, Indian Jaguars and an Indian IL-78 tanker. An Indian officer stated that his pilots would be training in low flying. Having seen an Omani pilot do some of the lowest flying imaginable when he came in for the break maneuver at an airbase in the country at less than 5 feet, I'd say the Indians are in for some competition on the low flying bit. They should remember, though, that the record for lowest maneuver can only be tied, not exceeded.

Story here.

Oman Links to Terrorism in India

2009-03-08T04:26:00.003+03:00

A news report from Indian Express claims that a Keralan based in Muscat since 2001 was recently arrested and extradited to Bangalore for his involvement in financing the July 25 bomb attacks in Bangalore. The report states that the 25-year-old Sarfaraz Nawaz is a member of a Lashkar-e-Toiba cell. Furthermore:

Apart from financing the Bangalore blasts to the tune of Rs 3.25 lakh, Nawaz is a part of a LeT module that was plotting attacks on key scientists in India, Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidari said. “In December 2008, Nawaz along with Jasim and Ali (both members of LeT) discussed some plan to attack some prominent scientists of India and some other important personalities,” he said.
Sources said Jasim and Ali, an Omani national, were together responsible for funding the the journey of 26/11 Mumbai attack accused Fahim Ansari to Pakistan for Terror training.

Talking Back to the Prince

2009-02-20T07:30:00.002+03:00

The fallout from Oman's win over Saudi is still being talked about.

Crowne Plaza in Sohar

2009-02-12T18:34:00.004+03:00

A glistening new Crowne Plaza hotel was opened in Sohar. It looks quite inviting and Sohar's beaches are relatively attractive, but I wonder if there will be enough tourist traffic through the area, especially with the current downturn, to keep the place open. It really isn't ideally positioned as a base for exploring the interior and if you're just going for the beach, isn't Salalah a better bet? It is a good stop off between Dubai and Muscat for people wanting to get away from either city. But will that keep the place running? If anyone knows what else they're doing to attract people to Sohar, please comment.

Oldest Animal Life Found in Oman

2009-02-05T06:48:00.004+03:00

The Guardian reports on an upcoming article in the journal Nature:

The oldest chemical traces of animal life on Earth have been discovered in ancient rock formations in Oman.
Scientists found evidence for primitive sponges dating back at least 635m years, long before the sudden diversification of multicellular life in the Cambrian explosion around 530m years ago – which paved the way for all the major groups of animals 100m years later.

These were found in the South Oman Salt Basin by a researcher from the University of California Riverside.

فوز عمان في كأس بطولة الخليج

2009-01-24T06:47:00.003+03:00

مبروك

American Consulate in Dubai Closed for Security Reasons

2009-01-22T07:26:00.002+03:00

AFP reported that the American Consulate in Dubai was closed on 20 January due to security concerns based on information provided by the Dubai authorities.

This is certainly not good news for a city that is branding itself as a worldwide destination for tourism and business. They have built it, but if people get skittish about terrorism, they won't come. Add this bad news to the raft of other negative reporting about Dubai's general financial woes, and I think the brand may be in for some serious trouble.

Another Stunning PR Move From Saudi

2009-01-17T19:15:00.003+03:00

In another brilliant work of public relations magic, Saudi Arabia's top mufti made the following statement regarding child marriage:

It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks quoted Wednesday in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."
...
In December, Saudi judge Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man. The judge rejected a petition from the girl's mother, whose lawyer said the marriage was arranged by her father to settle a debt with "a close friend." The judge required the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.

This isn't really about religion. It is about the pathetic men that say they speak for religion in Saudi Arabia. They are cavemen, stuck in the eighth century. More than that, I think that they are deliberately provocative in order to prove to themselves or whoever that "Islam" is independent from the pressures of the west and they basically can do whatever they want, damn the criticisms. This guy is a joke. He even looks like a joke right out of Tash ma Tash. The problem is that he and people like him are creating more jokes of men to take their place as the supposed voice of Islam in the Kingdom. Until their power can be broken, stupidity will continue to reign in Saudi.

Story and image from CNN.

Saudi Films

2009-01-15T17:25:00.002+03:00

Washington Post reports today on Saudi filmmakers and their plight. The religious goons in the country have suceeded in having movies banned since the 1980s because they are "evil." I love the subject of the film that leads the story.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Aspiring Saudi filmmaker Mohammed al-Khalif is having a hard time finding a leading woman for his short film, "Garbage Bag." Partly, it is because Saudi Arabia does not allow unrelated men and women to mingle and has no movie theaters or film schools, and no culture of actors or acting.
And partly, it's the subject matter.
"Garbage Bag" is about a woman stuck in a public restroom because her abaya, the black cloak women in Saudi Arabia must wear in public, has been stolen. After an agonizing night in the restroom, she fashions an abaya out of a black garbage bag and walks out.
"It's almost impossible to find a woman to act in a movie and even harder to find someone willing to wear a garbage bag as an abaya," said Khalif, a 23-year-old graduate student who sports a goatee and white-rimmed glasses. "My intent is not to insult the abaya, but to use film to ask why it has become such a shackle for Saudi women."

Nakheel Tower in Dubai Put on Hold

2009-01-15T05:52:00.003+03:00

Big news today that a planned skyscraper in Dubai to be built by Nakheel has been put on hold for 12 months. This tower, planned to be the world's tallest, is a new start. Emaar's Burj Dubai, which is currently the world's tallest building, is still under construction. Work there has not been halted. Financial woes and slipping credit ratings have been cited as the cause of the delay. Perhaps the economic crisis will make Dubai reconsider the serious overcapacity situation it is creating in its real estate sector.

Omanjima

2009-01-08T05:33:00.003+03:00

Had to repost this from the Muscatis. Very interesting iconography.

Oman's 2009 Budget

2009-01-04T21:36:00.002+03:00

The Oman Daily Observer announced the specifics of Oman's 2009 budget. The country anticipates running a larger deficit this year due to an approximately 11% increase in expenditures on the previous year and anticipated lower oil revenues (planned at $45/barrel). Increases come in much needed areas, such as education, healthcare, and road infrastructure according to the Observer. Below are some details. RO x 2.6 = US dollars.

[T]he educational sector accounts for 36 per cent at RO 791 million, i.e. an increase of RO 81 million (or 11 per cent) over the approved budget for the year 2008. Similarly, the health sector accounts for 12 per cent or RO 271 million of the total civil ministries’ expenditure, showing an increase by RO 43 million (19 per cent) over the 2008 allocations. Allocations for the development budget stand at RO 800 million, showing an increase of 10 per cent over the 2008 budget. These allocations are set to cover the ongoing as well as new projects listed in the Seventh Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) under the different sectors. RO 18 million has been allocated to subsidise the interest on development and housing loans provided by the Development Bank, the commercial banks and Oman Housing Bank to the beneficiaries.

Where are My Mary Janes?

2009-01-04T05:17:00.002+03:00

Para usted, mi amigo... No Zegna suit yet, but a pair of Canali trousers... and found a pair of Zegna trousers on sale a few days after Christmas. We're working our way there.

Jack glances at the Men’s Dept., sighs and gives Kate a nod. She takes off with the kids...and then he sees it...
...the Zegna section. He’s drawn to the neat rows of beautiful suits like a moth to the light... He approaches the rack, pulls out a dark green suit, gently touching the soft wool.
SALESMAN (O.S.) It’s perfect for your frame...
Jack turns and sees a SALESMAN standing behind him.
SALESMAN Would you like to try it on?

CUT TO: 63 INT. MACY’S MEN’S DEPT. - A LITTLE LATER
Jack, at a mirror wearing the Zegna suit. It is perfect for his frame. The color is spectacular, the line is dazzling. Jack looks in the mirror, shutting everything else out... it’s like he’s seeing his old self...
KATE (O.S.) You look amazing in that suit...
Jack snaps out of his trance. He sees Kate standing behind him, Annie and Josh happily playing a few feet away.
KATE I mean...wow...off the charts great.
JACK It’s an unbelievable thing. Wearing this suit actually makes me feel like a better person. (taking one final look) I’m gonna buy it...
Kate raises an eyebrow, then looks at the price tag.
KATE $2,400?! Are you out of your mind?
JACK (pointing to Annie’s new Mary Janes) She got those shoes... KATE Those shoes were twenty-five dollars. C’mon, take it off. We’ll go to the food court and get one of those funnel cakes you like.
Jack looks at her...it’s a moment of decision.
JACK No.
Kate looks at Jack, a little surprised.
KATE No?
JACK Do you have any idea what my life is like?
KATE Excuse me?
JACK I wake up in the morning covered in dog saliva...I drop the kids off, spend eight hours selling tires retail...retail, Kate.
Kate just stands here, aghast...
JACK (CONT’D) I pick up the kids, walk the dog, which by the way, carries the added bonus of carting away her monstrous crap...I play with the kids, take out the garbage, get six hours of sleep if I’m lucky, and then it starts all over again...and why is it that I always have to drive everyone everywhere? I spend practically my entire day in that slow as hell mini-van listening to Raffi tapes and trying to figure out how the cup holders work...I’m sick of it. KATE Really.
JACK What’s in it for me? Where are my Mary Janes?

I'm Glad They Picked This Family

2009-01-02T11:05:00.005+03:00

I was saddened to hear that a Muslim family was taken off a flight from DC to Orlando for what sounds like some totally paranoid and overzealous complaints by passengers. I highly doubt that the family of a tax attorney, U.S. citizen, and his friend a Library of Congress attorney, who happen to be Muslim, were doing anything to warrant being pulled off the plane. The CNN account states that what freaked passengers out is that the family was discussing where the safest place is to sit on a plane. I've had this discussion myself with people before, on a U.S. carrier.

The reason why I say I'm glad they picked this family, though, is because instead of ranting and raving like lunatics about the issue, they spoke intelligently and reservedly. They should be an example, both for those who think all Muslims are psychos and for the Muslims who do their best to uphold the stereotype.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

"We are proud Americans," Sahin [his sister-in-law] said. "You know we decided to have our children and raise them here. We can very easily go anywhere we want in the world, but you know we love it here and we're not going to go away, no matter what."

كل سنة وانتم بخير

2009-01-01T08:09:00.009+03:00

Happy New Year to everyone. Arab political cartoons are always good for cheer when the new year rolls around, so I've included a few below.

From Asharq al-Awsat (The man's jacket says "Middle East")

From Annahar (Lebanon): "The year of national mending."

Another from Annahar: "The Newborn." The bubbles over the zeros say something to the literal effect of "By God, let them live." There's some grammatical complexity in the way the verb is written and it may be an idiomatic phrase that carries some other specific meaning. (Arabic readers please comment).

Al-Quds (Jerusalem): Both of the next two are from this paper.

Al-Watan: Muscat, Oman. The man's jacket says "Palestine"

Random Christmas Scene

2008-12-25T07:49:00.000+03:00

The clock reads, “11:17.” Kate is already in bed as Jack walks in.

KATE (looking up from her book) Hey...

Jack approaches her, sitting on the bed...

JACK These last weeks, Kate, I know that I’ve done some...some unusual things. Kate nods.

KATE It’s been interesting, that’s for sure.

JACK But I’ve done some good things too, haven’t I?

KATE You’ve been Jack Campbell. And that’s always a good thing... She kisses him on the cheek. He takes her arms in his hands and looks her in the eyes.

JACK I need you to remember me, Kate. How I am right now, right this very moment. I need you to put that image in your heart and keep it with you, no matter what happens.

KATE Are you okay, Jack?

JACK Please, just promise me you’ll do that. You have to promise, Kate. Because if you don’t, then it’s like it never happened and I don’t think I could live with that.

She’s a bit confused but she couldn’t be more in love with him.

KATE I promise, Jack...

JACK Promise me again...

KATE I promise. Come to bed, honey.

Jack stands up, heading toward the door.

JACK Soon...

Arab Flight Attendants

2008-12-23T08:09:00.003+03:00

Monday's New York Times ran an article about Etihad's trailblazing female Arab flight attendants.

The article gushes about how states like Abu Dhabi offering "freedoms and opportunities nearly unimaginable elsewhere in the Middle East," but the catch is that the Emirates are offering these opportunities for other Arabs' daughters, not their own. All of the flight attendants mentioned in the article are from other, poorer places like Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The Emirates are the cradle of sociological change for other Arab expats, but Emirati families remain staunchly conservative in most cases. They can be because they have the money to be. One wonders if the Emirates are fostering positive change that will eventually come around to their own country or simply causing problems for other societies.

Some highlights:

Flight attendants have become the public face of the new mobility for some young Arab women, just as they were the face of new freedoms for women in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

...
In the midst of an Islamic revival across the Arab world that is largely being led by young people, gulf states like Abu Dhabi — which offer freedoms and opportunities nearly unimaginable elsewhere in the Middle East — have become an unlikely place of refuge for some young Arab women. And many say that the experience of living independently and working hard for high salaries has forever changed their ambitions and their beliefs about themselves, though it can also lead to a painful sense of alienation from their home countries and their families.
...
Despite the increasing numbers of women moving to the gulf countries, the labor migration patterns of the last 20 years have left the Emirates with a male-female ratio that is more skewed than anywhere else in the world; in the 15-to-64 age group, there are more than 2.7 men for every woman.
...
For many families, allowing a daughter to work, much less to travel overseas unaccompanied, may call her virtue into question and threaten her marriage prospects. Yet this culture is changing, said Musa Shteiwi, a sociologist at Jordan University in Amman. “We’re noticing more and more single women going to the gulf these days,” he said. “It’s still not exactly common, but over the last four or five years it’s become quite an observable phenomenon.”
...
Young women whose work in the gulf supports an extended family often find, to their surprise and chagrin, that work has made them unsuitable for life within that family.
“A very good Syrian friend of mine decided to resign from the airline and go back home,” the Egyptian flight attendant said. “But she can’t tolerate living in a family house anymore. Her parents love her brother and put him first, and she’s never allowed out alone, even if it’s just to go and have a coffee.”
“It becomes very difficult to go home again,” she said.

Censorship in Oman

2008-12-22T08:12:00.003+03:00

An Omani blogger posted the below comments today. The original Arabic can be found here.

While I would agree with the blogger that personal freedoms in Oman are incredibly circumscribed, the situation is not as bleak as it would seem to some reading her comments. It seemed to me when I was in Oman that many Omanis were unconcerned about the lack of freedoms as long as development continued to progress, the Sultan continued to be an enlightened leader, and the country continued to hold onto its identity, pride, and peace. I know some Omanis find the restrictions stifling, but it is nothing like the situation in Saudi Arabia, for instance. That being said, Oman and the rest of the Gulf states are going to have to deal with increasing pushback against their draconian policies on personal liberties and public criticism in general. It will be interesting to see how it is done. The Sultanate cannot afford for it to be done wrong.

In Oman, forms of expression are subject to censorship and those who speak out face threats and abuse. There is no freedom of expression or of the press. There are no basic public rights. Demonstrations are prohibited. The establishment of newspapers requires a political decision from the Council of Ministers headed by Sultan Qaboos. These papers are subject to monitoring and censorship prior to their publication. The formation of civil society organizations is subject to a backward (not sure if this means backward as in archaic or retroactive) law and is only permitted with a security agreement that guarantees control over the organization.

In this year, 2008, the Omani blogging (tadween) movement was born on the internet. Despite its young age and the small number of bloggers, they have become wanted and hunted. The situation worsens when the identity of the blogger becomes known and he writes under his true name. This is what has afflicted the Omani blogger Hamad al-Gheithi who was forced by internal security to change some of the topics of his blog. Under this pressure, the blogging movement, which is still in its
infancy, may be aborted for good. This confirms the justice and validity of the option of anonymity for some Omani bloggers, and I am the first among them.

The security establishment, with its various but unified arms, has taken up following the writing on the internet in interactive forums and blogs. Participants in these outlets are constantly and systematically subjected to various forms of aggression against their personal and public freedoms, from fixed trials, to direct threats, to prohibition from writing, to damage to their interests and livelihoods. The Omani people are held hostage by the security establishment that rules the country and rides roughshod over the laws and institutions which are generally for show and ineffective in the truth of the matter, partly or fully.

Oh conscience, oh world: You have all of what the blogger, the artist Hamad al-Gheithi wrote and breathed in his blog until he became a target of police intimidation. So, world, bear witness.

Adulation.com

2008-12-15T04:29:00.002+03:00

Anyone know who or what agency put together the new website http://www.oman-qaboos.net/?

It is a slick new homage to the Sultan. Tons of pictures, but not a whole lot of information.

The Video

2008-12-15T01:10:00.000+03:00

The Sport of Shoe Throwing

2008-12-15T01:01:00.003+03:00

President Bush made a surprise appearance in Baghdad today. At a news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an Iraqi in the audience threw both shoes at Bush. This is a favorite Iraqi insult that combines the shame of having things thrown at you with "unclean" aspect of the shoe and the sole of the foot.

I'm not sure if I'm more surprised by the Iraqi's impressive accuracy, Bush's quick duck, or the fact that Nouri al-Maliki was basically unsurprised by the whole affair and managed to nonchalantly block the second shoe-jectile with his hand.

Sickening

2008-12-07T19:45:00.002+03:00

Washington Post reports on "Iraqi Women, Fighting for a Voice."

Some excerpts below. The one that stands out most comes first:

Rashid has received numerous death threats. In an e-mail, someone threatened to rape her for being un-Islamic.
...

Hawjin Hama Rashid, a feisty journalist in bluejeans and a frilly blouse, had come to the morgue in this Kurdish city to research tribal killings of women. "A week doesn't pass without at least 10," the morgue director said, showing Rashid pictures of corpses on his computer screen.
First, a bloated, pummeled face.
Next, a red, shapeless, charred body. "Raped, then burned," the director said.
Then, another face, eyes half-closed, stab wounds below her neck.
...
From the southern port city of Basra to bustling Irbil in northern Iraq, Iraqi activists are trying to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists and tribal chieftains who have insisted that women wear the veil, prevented girls from receiving education and sanctioned killings of women accused of besmirching their family's honor.
...
"Without changing the way society thinks, changing laws on paper is useless," Rashid said.
...
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, satellite television, cellphones and Internet access have deepened the West's imprint on the relatively stable Kurdish region of Iraq, known as Kurdistan. Today, many urban women wear Western clothes and eschew Islamic head scarves. Women make up more than a quarter of the regional parliament.
...
In the first six months of this year, 206 women were killed in Kurdistan, 150 of them burned to death. The killings were up 30 percent from the previous six months, according to the Kurdish regional government's Human Rights Ministry. Activists say many honor crimes go unreported or are portrayed as accidents. They also say that some women have immolated themselves out of despair.
...
"We're still suffering from the past," said Jinan Q. Ali, the minister of women's affairs in the Kurdish regional government. "You can't say the government and police are not doing their job. To transfer a society from a violent one to a peaceful one won't happen suddenly."
...
Last year, Saud also visited morgues to tabulate the number of women killed in Basra for a report to Iraq's parliament. She found 150 victims. She said she had known three of them: Maysoon was killed with her brother, both shot five times in the head for being Christians; gunmen killed Lubna for walking a little too close to her fiance; Sabah was murdered in a market for not wearing a head scarf.
...
Saud shakes hands with men in public. She refuses to wear a head scarf, which she views as a symbol of submission. She wears a shawl only because her family fears for her life. But she is careful not to anger the religious conservatives who rule Basra.
...
Anwar Indalel Shubbar, a local government official with the ultra-religious Fadhila Party said that women are entering "illegal relationships" if they have premarital sex and that honor killings are sanctioned by tribal laws.
"Our religion rejects the honor killings, but we can't stop the habits and traditions we have inherited," Shubbar said. She said she favors the imposition of Islamic law.
...
Even the biggest victory of Iraqi women is bittersweet: A quarter of all seats in Iraq's parliament are constitutionally required to be filled by women. But out of 25 committees, only two are led by women. And most female lawmakers belong to the ruling religious parties. "It's all abayas and female mullahs," Saud said.
...
A day after her visit to the morgue in Irbil, Rashid interviewed a pale 17-year-old inside a women's prison. Eyes clouding with tears, the teenager recounted her romance with a young man. Her relatives had accused her of dishonoring her family and tribe; her brother had tried to kill her to restore that honor. She had taken refuge here, behind walls topped with barbed wire.
A few days earlier, her father had offered to forgive her -- if she became the second wife of a relative old enough to be her grandfather. She refused.
"I know my family will kill me if I go back home," she told Rashid.

Port Sultan Qaboos on Local News

2008-12-03T17:44:00.003+03:00

I was watching my local news this morning (in America), not really paying attention, then looked up to see a sign in Arabic and English. It was for Port Sultan Qaboos. The story was about the attempted hijacking of M/S Nautica, which is in port in Muttrah now. The story included some views of the port and the hills between Muttrah and Muscat. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the ignorants who might misidentify the country with the hijacking) Oman was not mentioned in the story or even in the text around the images.

Condemnation

2008-12-03T08:20:00.002+03:00

In a perfect example of the sort of opprobrium I was calling for in my last post, Muslims in Mumbai have refused to allow the terrorists killed in the November attack to be buried in Muslim cemeteries on the grounds that they are not Muslims because they killed innocent civilians, according to the BBC. They have even threatened to come out in the streets to protest any move to force their burial in Muslim cemeteries. Perhaps if dead terrorists in other parts of the world received this sort of treatment rather than a welcome as martyrs, then fewer people would be aching to blow themselves up or set off bombs in crowded marketplaces full of innocent people. Some might argue that "your terrorist is my freedom fighter" and I agree that the line is blurred in some circumstances, but the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians can only be labeled as terror and murder. I applaud the Muslims of Mumbai for taking a stand against those who purport to be murdering in the name of their religion. People around the world could take a lesson from this that no one needs to be "fighting for God." In an aside, these "mujahideen" reportedly brought with them stocks of alcohol to steel themselves during the lengthy siege they anticipated.

More on Acid Throwing

2008-12-02T17:42:00.003+03:00

The New York Times posted this video the other day about acid throwing attacks in Pakistan. It's worth a look. Once again, where is the Islamic outrage at this barbarism amongst their own? The threat, the stereotype, the phobias, the fear, the hatred is all manufactured by such barbaric acts within the ummah.

Arabic with Latin/English Letters

2008-11-30T09:08:00.003+03:00

I've noticed in a number of bi-lingual blogs that there's an increasingly popular method for writing Arabic with Latin/English letters. For example: "AsSlamu 3alaikum ." I can usually figure out the system, but I came across a post recently that was in heavy Egyptian dialect and was using "2" and I just couldn't put it together. Can anyone post a comment with a translation of the lettering system or a link to one? For example 3 = ع and 7 = خ ? Right?

And, secondly, why are so many people using this system? It would seem to me that if you are a native Arabic speaker, you would be more comfortable typing Arabic with Arabic letters. Is it that people are learning how to type English in schools, or does it have something to do with phones and texting and all? Please post a comment to enlighten me.

An Eye for an Eye

2008-11-29T07:21:00.004+03:00

An Islamic court in Iran has sentenced a man to be blinded by acid, according to a BBC headline. The sentence comes in retribution for the man's blinding by acid of a woman who refused his hand in marriage. Part of me feels that he is getting what he deserves for being such an impetuous psycho, but still... There seems to be something wrong about a state court using blinding by acid as a penalty for anything.

Blinding/disfiguring by acid seems to be relatively popular in the Arab and Islamic world. I've read of quite a few cases of it in various states in the region. I wonder what the psychology is behind that.

Gaza

2008-11-28T20:32:00.005+03:00

More from Elias Khouri's "Bab al-Shams."

"Gaza was struck by the great catastrophe (النكبة الكبرى) after the War of 1948 when it was transformed into a city of refugees. The city was filled by tens of thousands of the displaced who had been expelled from their regions by the Israeli Army. There were no Gazans left in Gaza. Gaza melted in a sea of refugees and became the first truly Palestinian place. There, the Palestinians realized that they weren't simply groups belonging to different regions and villages, but one people, born of tragedy. And, thus, Gaza became the most important font of politics in modern Palestinian history. The Communist movement was strong there. The Muslim Brotherhood grew there as well. From the camps and neighborhoods of Gaza sprung the first cells of the Fatah movement. And in the Seventies, the Popular Front, led by a legendary man called "Guevara of Gaza," ruled the city at night and beset the city with ambushes and fighters. And it was there that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were established. And so it goes..."

Name this Family

2008-11-28T19:42:00.002+03:00

Who can name this family? Probaby won't fit with most common conceptions.

More on Rawan

2008-11-28T08:33:00.004+03:00

Some details from the Arabic article linked below about the Saudi girl, Rawan, age 21. Evidently the story was originally reported by the Saudi paper, "al-Watan." I find it strange that Saudi actually sometimes has a much freer press than Oman or some of the other Gulf countries, despite its breathtaking backwardness in other ways.

She fell down the stairs in her home where she lives with her widowed mother and six younger sisters, suffering a double fracture to her pelvis, as well as breaking her leg and her ankle (? كعب قدم). This happened on the seventh day of Ramadhan.

She was taken by ambulance to the nearest emergency room (which, very unfortunately was a private hospital, Arfan Private Hospital in Jeddah), where the doctor demanded 4000 riyal before performing her examination. The family was able to gather the money, but several days later, a representative of the hospital's accounting department informed Rawan's mother that 10,000 riyals was needed to perform the operations required. The mother gathered 9000 riyal and rushed back to the hospital to pay so her daughter could get the operation, but hospital staff refused to perform it until the last 1000 riyal was paid. The mother said that the doctor's excuse was that the girl had her period, so the operation was halted. Sounds Saudi logical to me.

Ten days into the affair, a good Samaritan (well, not literally) paid the outstanding amount and Rawan finally got her surgery. Rawan told reporters that her mother and sisters have been afraid to visit her over the last three weeks because they might be arrested at the hospital due to the outstanding bills. Rawan also says that the hospital has threatened to release a medical report saying that the fall was actually a suicide attempt. The hospital in Jeddah has refused her food, clean clothes, and cut off phone calls for the past forty days, leaving her to feel like a prisoner. She was still being held in the hospital at the beginning of this week. I'll update if I find out any new information.

Private hospitals and their unscrupulous practices are a growing problem in Saudi. The influential comedy "Tash Ma Tash" did a hilarious and damning episode about them a few seasons ago. It looks like their portrait of greed and incompetence was true.

Another Heartwarming Story from Wonderful Saudi Arabia

2008-11-27T22:17:00.004+03:00

From the country where people patrol the streets to protect Islamic virtue with clubs, a 21-year old woman is being held, essentially as a prisoner in a hospital in Jeddah because her widowed mother is incapable of paying the bill. You can find more details here in English and the original article in Arabic here at arabianbusiness.com. I haven't read the whole article in Arabic, as I've got some other stuff to do, but I've read enough to see that the English blog version seems to be accurate. Arabian Business is a professional news outlet and is trustworthy as far as I know, so this isn't just some blog-perpetuated rumor.

Of the details I read in the Arabic article, this whole story started in the holy month of Ramadhan, when Muslims are supposed to be at the height of their generosity. I guess someone forgot that. The girl slipped and fell in her home, requiring surgery, which the doctor refused to perform because (a) the family was 1000 riyals short on the payment or (b) she had her period, which was his stated excuse. Either way, he deserves to be thrown down a flight of stairs and left to bleed in pain himself. I'll try to post some more details later translated from the original story in Arabic. Suffice it to say that this is a symptom of a country where leaders focus the populace's attention on things like perceived slights to Islam and absurd concepts of Islamic virtue, while people in positions of power piss all over the true principles of the religion on a daily basis. When will the mobs in the streets start blaming themselves and their leaders for the state they're in instead of getting foamy-mouth mad about cartoons and teddy bears? Maybe when they realize that the people in power are deflecting the anger away from their own shortcomings and toward outsiders.

Thanks to Muscati for the point on his "Shared Items."

Who Holds the Key?

2008-11-26T07:14:00.004+03:00

This quote is from Elias Khouri's "Bab al-Shams."

"This is their problem and not ours," said Nahela, meaning that it was the Israelis' problem and not the Palestinians'. "They don't want us to forget our language and our religion because they don't want us to become like them."
Younis didn't understand what she meant and began talking about the need for children to be linked to their history and traditions and how this link could only be perpetuated through language. He spoke many words, mixing among them literature, religion, everything.

"Listen, man, and try to understand. You don't know anything. Try to listen to things as I say them, not as you imagine them in your head. I said to you that this is their problem… the Jews' problem. We can't abandon our language because they don't want that. They want us to stay Arab, not to assimilate. Don't fear. They are a closed sectarian society. Even if we wanted to assimilate, they would never allow it."

"When you told me of Nahela's theory about the language, my father, I thought of Issa who wanted to collect the keys of all the homes in Andalusia. I wanted to say then that we don't understad the fundamental difference between our situation and theirs. The Castillians did not persecute the Arab Muslims and the Jews simply by chasing them out of the land. For, although their campaign of expulsion was wide and effective, it is impossible to drive everyone out. The Castillians imposed their religion and their language on the Andalusians. Thus, their victory was final. Andalusia became a part of Spain and the matter was closed. As for us, our keys aren't the keys of the stolen homes. Our key is the Arabic language. Israel does not want us to assimilate and become Israelis. They don't want to impose their religion and their language upon us. The expulsion came in 1948, but it was not complete. They hold our keys. We do not."

Busy

2008-11-22T05:50:00.003+03:00

Sorry. Tons of stuff to blog about. Tons of other stuff I have to get done. I'm busy and the forecast is for increasingly busy for the near future. Anyway, I miss blogging, I miss having the time to blog, I miss traveling a ton, and I miss being in the Middle East in a love hate sort of way.

Anyway, my only contribution is this link to a BASE jump from the Burj Dubai. http://current.com/items/89546563/world_record_base_jump.htm

I love the fact that these guys are speaking two different languages, but each understands teh other.

Now for Something Completely Different

2008-10-25T05:42:00.003+03:00

I'll post this sentence in Arabic, copied directly from an Arabic website. I'd like to get some feedback from some Arabs (i.e. is this true/do you agree), then I'll open the subject to everyone...

حاتم الطائي وقصة فرسه يعلمها الكثير وربما ما قد لا يعلموه ان حاتم الطائي اشهر كرام العرب كان في عصر الجاهلية قبل الاسلام وكان مسيحيا .

Reply to OIUS's Comments on My Previous Post

2008-10-25T05:38:00.001+03:00

OIUS-I appreciate your comments 99.9% of the time, but please don't be an unthinking populist. Your country has placed significant interests in tourism and you cannot ignore that. As I said, the GCC summit is very important, but so is the reputation of the country and its businesses. The read this gets in the West is "we can dishonor guarantees at the whim of the government." This is a serious impediment not only to tourism, but also to international investment. If your country is to benefit from foreign tourism and investment as it aims to, people's attitude cannot be "yeah, f- you guys." The attitude of "they'll keep coming" is what will lead to the downfall of the tourist and investment development model of the Gulf in general. They'll keep coming until they realize that guarantees are not guarantees. This is not the hospitality of Hatim al-Taiee. When did he say, yeah, f-u, I changed my mind? I understand that situations change, but this needs to be explained and sincere sympathy must be shown for PR's sake at least.

Sultan Billed as Grinch by Telegraph

2008-10-25T01:48:00.002+03:00

The Telegraph ran the story "Sultan Ruins Christmas in Oman" today, regarding the slide of the Gulf Cooperation Council summit from late-November to the holiday timeframe. The Royal Diwan sent out notice to the leading hotels that Christmas bookings must be cleared out for the summit attendees, evidently leading to some disgruntled British holiday travelers. Unfortunately, the article was mute on why the summit was slid. While I can understand the traveler's anger, Oman's hosting of the GCC summit is no trivial matter. Oman needs to get the reasons for this change out into the presses in order to mitigate the bad PR and its effect on the tourism industry. I haven't had a chance to research the reason for the slide. Any insight?

More on Arab Women

2008-10-23T07:31:00.003+03:00

Octavia Nasr of CNN gave a report on women in the Arab media, arguing that the stereotypes of women seen in Arab soap operas do not square with their growing place in society.

Her report

A YouTube video posted by Jordan's Queen Rania on what Arab women are really up to.

Instead of Worrying About Girls in Bikinis

2008-10-22T06:16:00.002+03:00

Perhaps "Ahmedino" from Oman Community Blog should worry about people like those below instead of girls in bikinis bringing "eib" upon not only Omanis, but Muslims everywhere. For the full background, read the story at CNN as hyperlinked in the previous sentence.

Besides the accusation that Kambakhsh disrupted class with his questions, prosecutors also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on the paper.
In January, a lower court sentenced him to death in a trial critics have called flawed in part because Kambakhsh had no lawyer representing him. Muslim clerics welcomed that court's decision and public demonstrations were held against the journalism student because of perceptions he had violated the tenets of Islam.

Now, of course, many will point out that these are excesses of the U.S. installed and backed regime. Yes, true. I will not defend the mess that America's foreign policies have caused. Yet, the bottom line is that mind-boggling levels of intolerance, ignorance, and acquiescence predated American intervention in the region. These things are in no way characteristic of the broad sweep of Islamic history. So why are they so prevalent today? Why are bikinis such an issue when journalists are being sentenced to death for suggesting women should have equal rights so nearby? Maybe because people have taken to insane levels of reactionary feeling and unthinking fundamentalism completely inconsistent with the original facts of the religion?

Check This Out

2008-10-22T05:03:00.001+03:00

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26244448367

Facebooks of the mindbogglingly rich and famous.

Comments, Comments

2008-10-22T04:18:00.002+03:00

It seems I've been busier making comments on other blogs as of late than I have been on posting here. For your reading enjoyment (See the comments):

http://omancommunityblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/representing-oman.html

http://muscatconfidential.blogspot.com/2008/10/your-chance-to-vote-in-us-elections.html

http://muscatconfidential.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-from-land-of-freedom-of-speech.html

And you must absolutely visit GoRemy. For the sensitive types, you may be offended, but this guy's got to be an Arab himself. In any case, he's hilarious if you have any humor. Humorless wonders, don't go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMqTKA8BxvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nizt2oEtHl8

Update

2008-10-21T02:14:00.002+03:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I shall grant Undercover Dragon's request (vaguely) by saying that I have moved back to the U.S. for now. I am living on the West Coast, but have traveled across country a few times in the past months. I'll be working in the States for a while, but I'm already looking at potential plans to Oman, or at least the region in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, it looks like I may be taking a business trip to the other side of Asia before long, but unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of the U.S. for an adventure around Christmas time as I'd hoped.

Of note, while running today, I was listening to an al-Jazeera podcast of the Itijah al-Muakas show from July 29th about the Gulf Arab identity. I'll try to get some notes blogged about it before long, but it was a very interesting back and forth between two Arab intellectuals about whether the Gulf Arab identity is dying, or whether it is simply progressing in a world of globalization. If you understand Arabic and are interested in the Gulf, I recommend you take a listen. Some of the commentary was very interesting and the one gentleman's counterpoint to the "Gulf identity is dying" argument was excellent. He pointed out that, if you go to almost any major city in the world today, people are wearing the same kind of clothes, eating at the same restaurants, ila akheerihi (etc.). It isn't that the Gulf identity is dying (well, I guess it is in a way, but in this it is no different than any other identity), but it is that the Gulf identity lives on, subsumed into a more globalized milieu. If you look at it this way, I guess you could say that, far from being a dying culture, the Gulf is holding on to core cultural markers more tightly than most. The problem is, people in other regions seem to be more comfortable with the direction their culture is taking. In the Gulf, identity and culture is a constant topic of acrimonious debate.

Les Fleurs

2008-10-01T04:07:00.004+03:00

I just finished watching the excellent French film "Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran," for which Omar Sherif won the 2004 Cesar Award (the French Oscar) and the Venice Film Festival Award, both for Best Actor. Sherif plays an older Muslim Turk (Ibrahim) who owns a small grocery in Paris who befriends and eventually adopts a young Jewish boy. While this plot line will make a lot of people roll their eyes, there is something more to be enjoyed behind it.

Many Muslims would find Ibrahim to be a less-than-ideal Muslim. He is a Sufi who drinks on occasion and may dabble in other things some would find distasteful. Yet these subtle flaws round out a beautiful character who neither judges nor preaches, but teaches the young boy everything good he knows about life. He spreads all that is good about his faith without ever going farther into religion than saying, "I know what is in my Quran." He never scolds or condescends. He sets no unlivable rules, he never tries to cast shame. He teaches the boy, Moises (to Ibrahim, "Momo") to find what is beautiful in life, in giving, and in forgiving.

We see Moises enter a mosque with Ibrahim, but we never see him pray or convert. The "religion" does not gain another member who has gone from the wrong team to the right team. But Moises conversion is complete nonetheless. He does not become a Muslim, but he learns how to be a good person.

If only more people were like Ibrahim. And in this, I am not speaking solely about Muslims. I mean all the people who live their lives trying to feel like they have one up on everyone else through their religion, whether they have the "right" religion and others are wrong, or if they simply make themselves feel self-important among their co-religionists through false piety. If they focused less on rules, formulae, and words; focused on what is good in life and in people and what we should all universally strive for and less on who has the right Book and who has insulted whom and whose sites are holier and who is permitted in them and who is not, I think they would all be much closer to the God they pretend to serve.

As Ibrahim says, "All rivers flow into the same sea."

Back to Basics in Saudi for Ramadan

2008-09-27T17:29:00.003+03:00

Fazia Saleh Ambah writes in today's Washington Post that many young Saudis are turning to self-sacrifice (in a good way) and charity works to get back to the real meaning of Ramadan. Some of this shift is attributed to a "cool" young preacher named Ahmed al-Shugairi. In my opinion, the best thing for places like Saudi are educated and modern young lay-preachers who encourage young people to practice their religion in an intelligent and involved way, rather than an unthinking and archaic way. By using Islam to stress civic and personal responsibility, such preachers can make far more change in a society like Saudi than any other means of public diplomacy or education.

Like many Saudis, Jiddawi used to mark the Muslim holy month by shopping, eating lavishly and watching television until the wee hours. Then she slept, sometimes all day until sunset prayers signaled the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.
"That's what everyone did, but that's not really fasting," said Jiddawi, 28, a bank teller. "Fasting is about feeling your hunger, getting close to God and helping the poor."

In Saudi Arabia, one of the world's wealthiest Muslim countries, some people have started to criticize how many here observe Ramadan by essentially turning day into night to make fasting easier. Work and school hours have been shortened, shops stay open until right before dawn, and doctors and dentists offer appointments until 2 a.m.
But Jiddawi and many other young Saudis are trying to revive the holy month's original spirit of sacrifice and giving by volunteering during the day, attending religious lectures at night and spending more time reflecting on their faith. ...

The trend has partly been inspired by Ahmad al-Shugairi, a popular young preacher who for the past couple of years has been speaking out against the excesses of Ramadan. ...

Some young Saudis viewed a more puritanical interpretation of Islam as "cool," said Ali Ghazzawi, 22, a clinical pharmacology student. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, which were carried out mainly by Saudis, many gained a more moderate and spiritual understanding of the faith, and "now preachers in jeans, like Shugairi, are Muslim cool," Ghazzawi said.
"Spirituality is not about abstaining from food or performing physical prayers. It's about a closer connection to God. It's about intentions," he said.
"Are you doing this to perform a set of movements you are meant to do, or are
you doing it for God?" ...

For Jiddawi, the shift came after she became a fan of Shugairi. His nightly TV program, the most popular religious show among young people, encourages viewers to focus on their civic duties as part of their religion and to become more productive members of society. Several of his shows this year have stressed a need to watch less television, eat less, shop less.

Shugairi started a Ramadan campaign to get young Muslims to do 1 million good deeds this month, such as feeding a hungry family, donating clothes or buying medicine for someone in need.
"He's one of us. He speaks the language of my generation. He's not judgmental and he wasn't always as religious as he is now, so he understands," Jiddawi said.

Freedom and Responsibility

2008-09-22T17:18:00.003+03:00

Michael Slackman published another article today in the New York Times on social issues in the Arab world. This one is about Dubai and the freedoms young Arabs have there. Some of the comments lead me to wonder about the effects of freedom or lack thereof on personal initiative.

In "freedom," I mean two things. There is the freedom from government restrictions or coercion, which in large part exists in Dubai on many, but not all, issues. But more importantly, the Arabs Slackman talks about are socially free. They are expats living outside of the social networks, norms, and pressures that guide them in their more conservative, often rural, or poor urban homes.

I wonder if there is any sociological research on the effect of restrictive and guiding societal pressures on personal initiative and responsibility? Just from the statements in the article, I would be interested to see if one could correlate higher levels of personal initiative and responsibility to a lower level of group determination of actions and decisions. That is, if your family decides everything for you, are you more likely to have little initiative to carry out those decisions and to feel less responsibility for your actions? If this correlation could be demonstrated, it might explain some behaviors in the Arab world, especially those attributed to the "inshallah" mentality.

From the article: (I've bolded key phrases)

In his old life in Cairo, Rami Galal knew his place and his fate: to become a maintenance man in a hotel, just like his father. But here, in glittering, manic Dubai, he is confronting the unsettling freedom to make his own choices.

Here Mr. Galal, 24, drinks beer almost every night and considers a young Russian prostitute his girlfriend. But he also makes it to work every morning, not something he could say when he lived back in Egypt. Everything is up to him, everything: what meals he eats, whether he goes to the mosque or a bar, who his friends are.
“I was more religious in Egypt,” Mr. Galal said, taking a drag from yet another of his ever-burning Marlboros. “It is moving too fast here. In Egypt there is more time, they have more control over you. It’s hard here. I hope to stop drinking beer; I know it’s wrong. In Egypt, people keep you in check. Here, no one keeps you in check.”

But I wonder, how long has Rami been in Dubai? Will he learn that he can keep himself in check and stop drinking beer? Is this a life lesson that will give him greater self-control and self-reliance in the future? He seems to blame his fault on the lack of societal pressure, absolving himself of some degree of responsibility. Can he step beyond that and take full self-responsibility given enough time away from his society?

According to Slackman, this freedom cuts both ways in Dubai. You're free to be less religious, but also free to be more religious. I'd caution his optimism in the first sentence. He notes elsewhere that Dubai is unique demographically, with a huge proportion of expats. I think that and the development model, more than the level of economic growth, have made Dubai somewhat unique. But it is true that other Arab countries could become more socially free in the future.

Dubai is, in some ways, a vision of what the rest of the Arab world could become — if it offered comparable economic opportunity, insistence on following the law and tolerance for cultural diversity. In this environment, religion is not something young men turn to because it fills a void or because they are bowing to a collective demand. That, in turn, creates an atmosphere that is open not only to those inclined to a less observant way of life, but also to those who are more religious. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria, a man with a long beard is often treated as an Islamist — and sometimes denied work. Not here in Dubai.
“Here, I can practice my religion in a natural and free way because it is a Muslim country and I can also achieve my ambition at work,” said Ahmed Kassab, 30, an electrical engineer from Zagazig Egypt, who wears a long dark beard and has a prayer mark on his forehead. “People here judge the person based
on productivity more than what he looks like. It’s different in Egypt, of
course.”

Perhaps the most important effect of economic prosperity in the Gulf in places like Dubai could be the diffusion of social freedoms through the cadre of Arab expats that come to work and will eventually return to their home countries, some as successful businessmen.

Dubai offers another prescription for promoting moderation. It offers a chance to lead a modern life in an Arab Islamic country. Mr. Abu Zanad raised his beer high, almost in a toast, and said he liked being able to walk through a mall and still hear the call to prayer.
“We like that it’s free and it still has Arab heritage,” he said “It’s not
religion, it’s the culture, the Middle Eastern culture.”
“The Arabs have a future here,” said his best friend, Bilal Hamdan. “Where are we going to go back to? Egypt? Jordan? This is the future.”

In Dubai, there is the prospect of improvement. Greater salaries, better jobs. This reduces the amount of frustration felt by the Arab expats.

“This is not for us, the sheiks live here,” Mr. Galal said as the car passed the Marina. But there was no anger or envy in his voice, as there would be if he were in Egypt, where when he sees wealth he knows that it is beyond his reach. When Mr. Galal came to Dubai his salary was 2,000 dirhams a month, or about $550.
“I wish I can make 40,000 a month,” he said with a dreamy smile. “When I first came here I was hoping for 5,000, now I make 5 and I want 10, and I will start making 10 in a month. Salaries here increase.”

Furthermore, the mixing pot of cultures in Dubai has an effect on Arab expats' view of their own identity.

In fact, the mix of nationalities has made Mr. Galal redefine himself — not predominantly as Muslim but as Egyptian. Asked if he feels more comfortable with
a Pakistani who is Muslim or an Egyptian who is Christian, he replied automatically: “The Egyptian.”

Yet, it seems that some of the Arab expats in Dubai are caught between two worlds. Rami felt as if he was "suffocating" in Dubai and went home for a month to spend Ramadan with family and friends. He no longer fit neatly in to his Egyptian world either.

“My friends are all stuck at a certain limit, that’s as far as they can go,” Mr. Galal said after three weeks at home. “Nothing is new here. Nothing is happening. My friends feel like I changed. They say money changed me.”

Rami, who had been engaged before he left for Dubai, broke off the engagement as well.

A year in Dubai changed his view of marriage. “You are looking for someone to spend your whole future with,” Mr. Galal said. “I want to go back and have fun. My future is there, in Dubai.”

Sopranos Anthropology

2008-09-21T09:43:00.004+03:00

Meadow Soprano -
"You talk about these guys like it's an anthropology class. But the truth is, they bring certain modes of conflict resolution from all the way back in the old country, from the poverty of the Mezzogiorno, where all higher authority was corrupt." Season 5, episode 9

Tribes, gangs, mafia. It's all the same.

If I'm Being Honest...

2008-09-18T05:22:00.004+03:00

If I'm being honest, there's a whole lot of people in the world I cannot stand. You are likely to be offended by what I have to say below, but keep reading, because if you are offended, I also insult those who you hate. If I want to start with the offensive, I hold a great disdain for those in the Arab world who live their lives blaming all their woes on the West, coming up with a thousand and one excuses for their culture's short-comings, and pretending to be rabidly devout Muslims when they are offended, but living their life according to their whim when no one is looking. Honestly, I respect Islam, but I think that Islam is currently a fad for many people who wear it like pegged jeans in the 50s or 80s but could give a shit less in the grand scheme of things.

And that brings us to my opinion on the Western crusaders. There is a huge class of people who love to talk about God's mission in the West, but couldn't find Iraq on a map, much less Gilead or Galilee. To me, the people who believe their God is bigger than Allah are the exact same as the Takfiris who they hate so much. If only we could lock all these "mission from God" assholes up in a room somewhere and let them kill each other, we'd be in a much better place. The only "mission from God" in recent history that I can think of that I respect is the Blues Brothers' mission to get money to keep the convent open.

What brings out this rant? I was very saddened to hear about today's suicide bomb attack against the American Embassy in Yemen. I'd be saddened no matter who the victims were, but I think the results particularly highlight the stupidity of the whole "clash of cultures." The following quotes are from the Time account linked above.

If the attack had gone according to plan, it would have killed or wounded countless U.S. diplomats in the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, within a week of the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Yet it didn't. These savage animals who imagine that they speak for Islam succeeded only in killing their countrymen, or at least, their co-religionists. And for the hillbilly Americans and the pseudo-intellectual Americans who pretend they are better than everyone else, but are really the same as the hillbillies and the Takfiri scum that they hate so much, it is important to note that the heroes in this thing were not the brave American Marines that we so often think of guarding American Embassies (although brave Marines were there had the first line of defense failed). Please read the below quotes and realize that foreigners volunteer to guard American embassies all over the world. Imagine a non-American volunteering to be a guard outside the target that is the American Embassy in Yemen. Or any number of other countries. Americans should realize that the foreigners so many disdain may be the suicide bombers, but they are also the first line of defense against those same foreign attackers. Very few of the people who work inside the fortresses that are American Embassies have ever known the danger that their local guards face. Those that have realize that the real heroes at American Embassies abroad are the local guard forces.

The bravery and quick reaction of Yemeni security forces foiled what appeared to be a daring attempt to storm the embassy compound and kill everyone inside. No Americans were among the victims of the thwarted attack. ...

The second vehicle raced past the carnage toward the embassy's front gate. Firing grenades and automatic weapons, the militants engaged Yemeni guards in a
20-minute battle, but failed to penetrate the compound before all were killed. Yemeni officials said the casualties included six guards, six militants and four
civilian bystanders.

Oman's Research Council Calls for PhD Programs

2008-09-13T05:20:00.003+03:00

Khaleej Times reports that Oman's Research Council has called for Oman to quickly implement PhD programs in order to improve the country's research capabilities. It seems that the major impetus behind this is to better link academic capabilities to Petroleum Development Oman's needs.

It is critical that a country's educational institutions and its educational infrastructure are linked so that the educational pipeline is creating a product that is employable and offers needed capabilities to industry. The linkage of PhD programs in Oman to PDO's needs is therefore beneficial. However, I do not know that the rest of Oman's higher education system is in good enough shape to really make the leap to this level. Are Oman's baccalaureate and masters degree programs well-developed, linked to the economy's needs, and producing capable graduates? If so, then the logical next step is to the PhD level. However, if these levels are not in order, I fear that a leap to the PhD level will not meet industry's needs and will end up as an irrelevant diploma mill. I think that the institutions have to be in pretty good order to attract the expertise needed for a faculty capable of producing meaningful PhD diplomas, and the associated research. Can anyone comment on this?

More Saudi Savagery

2008-09-13T05:06:00.003+03:00

Another gem from Saudi's religious authorities:

Speaking about the debauchery shown on satellite TV channels, Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan offered the following measured response based on an obviously peaceful interpretation of Islam.

"There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them," said the sheikh.
"It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties."

I know that this man is not the voice of Islam and does not represent all Muslims, but those in the Muslim world who are offended by Western assertions that Islam is a religion of hate and violence must take issue with authorities like "Sheikh" Luhaydan, before spitting back at Western critics. The man is a savage. He and those like him are the ones who are a threat to Islam, not the Western commentators whose critiques are fueled by statements like the one above.

Saudi Fashion Police

2008-09-11T16:26:00.004+03:00

An article in today's Washington Post tells the story of Saudi fashion designer Yahya al-Bishri. Bishri studied fashion abroad, for which he was cut off by his father. He then tried to spruce up Saudi fashion by creating decorated robes and cloaks. This was met with a storm of criticism and frequent raids by the former criminals and thugs that call themselves the Religious Police or Mutawaeen in Saudi.

"Many people were shocked that I was developing the thobe, which is considered the national costume. I was accused of trying to destroy our culture, of promoting homosexuality and of trying to make men resemble women," he said.

He returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 and opened a small boutique on a quiet side street in Jiddah. The religious police, or mutawa, raided his shop half a dozen times, accusing him of violating a ban on the mingling of unrelated men and women. His fashion design magazines were confiscated or torn up in airport customs, and the mannequins he tried to import were destroyed or thrown out because of a religious ban on statues.

Bishri's break came when then Crown Prince Abdullah called him in 1997 to ask about his designs. Bishri explained that he was not tampering with a white robe that had been worn with Saudis since time immemorial. Like many other things in the Middle East, a relatively new phenomenon, the white thobe, had become in the period of a few decades something that people jealously guarded as established and timeless tradition. Bishri educated Abdullah, who became one of his customers, creating a breakthrough for Bishri.

Bishri said Abdullah asked him why there was a storm of criticism about his work. "I showed him the book and the coats worn by his father. I explained that the forbidding white we wear now was not part of our tradition but something new to society, something that dated back only three or four decades."
In the 1960s, he said, the kingdom's new oil wealth resulted in a more modern country and a less harsh lifestyle. White robes, which reflect heat, became more practical and easier to keep clean, he said.
"When people started wearing the thobe, everybody was convinced it was part of our culture. But our fathers did not always dress like that," Bishri said. "I was looking for how we dressed in the past because I knew we had no material and no clothes industry here, only what we imported."

I think this story, like others, shows that much of the unthinking conservatism in the region is not created by some innate and long-standing ascetic tradition, but comes more from a modern phenomenon of jealousy, bigotry, and cultural siege that is often driven by an ignorance of one's own history and traditions. A great deal of the "tradition," "custom," and "religious practice" pushed by the radicals are actually new inventions or bid'a, which in itself is considered haram by them. But they operate by one set of rules and expect everyone else to operate by another. To me, people like Bishri and other peaceful mavericks are the true heroes of the region, whose story needs to be spread

Paranoid Conspiracy Theories

2008-09-10T00:10:00.003+03:00

More from NYT's Michael Slackman in Cairo today, this time about 9/11 conspiracy theories and general mistrust of the U.S. government in the Arab world. I've personally heard many of the arguments he refers to. I think my favorite is that no Jews died in the 9/11 attacks so it must have been a Mossad operation. A representative proportion of the victims of the 9/11 attack were Jewish. What is more, Osama Bin Laden openly took credit for the attack. Yet, many in the Arab world still insist that this was the work of the U.S. or Israel, not an Arab.

"Look, I don’t believe what your governments and press say. It just can’t be true,” said Ahmed Issab, 26, a Syrian engineer who lives and works in the United Arab Emirates. “Why would they tell the truth? I think the U.S. organized this so that they had an excuse to invade Iraq for the oil.”

One of the things that strikes me about Arab conspiracy theories is that the Arabs expounding these theories often demean Arabs in their argumentation. I've heard a number that say something to the effect that al-Qaeda, or Iraqi insurgents, or Arabs in general aren't sophisticated enough to pull off what they are accused of pulling off. So it must be Mossad or the U.S. I just don't know how to view this "aw shucks, we're just simple peace-loving people who could never do something like that" line.

Again and again, people said they simply did not believe that a group of Arabs — like themselves — could possibly have waged such a successful operation against a superpower like the United States.

The problem with these theories comes when one is trying to find some middle ground to begin a dialogue. "Look, I know that the U.S. has done a lot of things that were wrong, but you have to admit that people have wronged America too. Let's try to each admit that there is culpability on both sides and then talk about how to fix it." "No, you don't understand, America made all of this up so that it can ______ (destroy Islam, take Iraq's oil, humiliate us, control the world, kill Arabs, take Morocco's resources ??!??, what?)." Part of the reason why spitting mad psychos go out and protest about teddy bears named Mohammed, looking to tear someone limb from limb is because they believe they and theirs have never done any wrong and everyone is out to get them.

Why? Why the conspiracies and paranoia? The sense of siege? A bit reason behind it is that Arab governments have used this ploy since right around 1948 to explain away all of their shortcomings. Conspiracy theories are the perfect explanation for almost any woe, neatly shifting the blame to outside forces and their shadowy conspirators inside the country with virtually no burden of proof. Internal unrest? Corruption? Government ineptitude? Military defeats? It can all be explained by conspiracies and blamed on the Zionists or imperialists. Think that you have information that disproves said conspiracy? "That's what they want you to believe." Year after year, Arab governments and their media mouthpieces have pushed such ideas and they have stuck.

So when faced with this wall of disbelief, how can U.S. public diplomacy ever succeed in winning hearts and minds? I don't think that it can, because those who will believe our public diplomacy are already convinced. Those that aren't convinced will never believe a word out of our mouths. The only way we can change perceptions is through a long term demonstration of results, not words, and, more importantly, the spread of more moderate perceptions from those in the region who can see both sides to those who cannot. Really, the hearts and minds can only be won from within the region, not through U.S. public diplomacy. Another major element of this is the state of the media in the Arab world. The level of self-censorship and paranoia is still high in many Arabic news sources. The growth of alternate media sources through satellite and the internet is helping to provide different perspectives, but it will take years to bring some out of their comfortable world of victimization and conspiracy and into a broader, more balanced worldview that can see culpability on more than one side of any argument.

Wishful Thinking

2008-09-09T00:48:00.002+03:00

Sunday's New York Times ran a piece by Michael Kimmelman entitled "Watching 'Friends' in Gaza: Culture as a Moderating Force." While the online version was more appropriately subtitled "A Culture Clash," I found the article's vague suggestion that the popularity of Western culture was somehow a moderating force to be naive and misleading.

First, if one looks at the pictures that accompany the article (look at how the people at Roots are dressed, the table settings, and the landscaping) and some of the descriptions of where he is talking to people ("The club, a private retreat amid garbage and ruins was a whitewashed of bougainvillea..."), you can see that he's not hanging around the average, ordinary Gazan. He's hanging around with relatively wealth Gazans who choose to go to private clubs and trendy cafes like Roots. This is a skewed sample.

Second, just because people like to escape in Western culture, doesn't mean they become any more endeared to Western policies. The problem that the West and especially the U.S. has in the Middle East is not that Arabs hate Americans or American culture. They (mostly) don't. They hate U.S. policy. With a passion. American culture won't moderate that.

And in a third point, related to the second, people get what they want out of cultural products. For those that love the U.S. or the West, they may already be fairly moderate toward even Western policy and find more to love and long for in Western cultural products. For others, they still might like the Western cultural products, but they can still pick out supporting evidence for their worldview. I met a teen selling pirated American DVDs in Casablanca. After about two hours of him telling me how bad the U.S. was, how it was controlled by Jews, no Jews died in 9/11, everything is a conspiracy and everyone is out to destroy Islam, etc., I told him that not everything is a conspiracy. Not everyone is out to get them. Many people in America want to do good. He said, I know, but even you Americans do not trust your own government, so why should we? I watch your movies, I know your culture and all your movies prove that you believe the government is controlled by a small group of men who are conspiring to control the world. He started pointing out movies that had this sort of plot line on the table next to us and there, of course, were quite a few. So, don't think that our culture will inevitably break down walls. People take what they want and their worldview is often unchanged.

Arab Pop Music Underworld

2008-09-04T07:11:00.003+03:00

A major scandal is making headlines in the Arabic press and even making its way into the U.S. media. Lebanese pop diva Suzanne Tamim was murdered in July in a Dubai hotel. Yesterday, a prominent Egyptian businessman and member of parliament under the ruling National "Democratic" Party was arrested for contracting her murder. Hisham Talaat Mustafa reportedly paid $2 million for the murder of the star, with whom Hisham was romantically involved. He faces potential death by hanging or a life sentence if convicted under Egyptian law. You can read the details of the case here and here and in Arabic here, here, and here.

While female singers have been taken advantage of by rich men the world 'round, I cannot help but feel that there is a special misogyny that surrounds men of power in the Middle East. Alaa al-Aswani's novel "The Yacoubian Building" paints a pretty damning picture of this kind of man in Egypt. The sad thing is that there is a line of thinking that perpetuates such acts. Men cannot be expected to control themselves, so it is up to women to cover themselves and it is up to their families to protect them. If something happens to the woman, it is her fault and her family's fault for not keeping her from such a compromising situation. This is nonsense. Once men are held to greater account, much of the paranoid "protection" of women can be dispensed with because society will have generalized the norms that keep most men around the world from acting like animals. There will always be some exceptions, but the culture cannot go on allowing men to act like total savages while forcing the burden of civility upon the women. The problems of the current situation in some areas are made evident by the prosecution of rape victims in Saudi for being with a non-related male and such. The mindset even creeps into the thoughts of an Arab journalist, quoted in the LA Times article. Look at the words/phrases I've bolded and see the underlying thought process. While this man is not justifying the killing or anything of the sort, his words seem to shift a good deal of the moral burden into Suzanne's court.

Suzanne's whole life was a tragedy. She comes from a conservative Beiruti family which was totally against her singing in public. But she had a great voice and she was obsessed about singing. So she defied her society and decided to enter the world of music. . . . She was a beautiful woman. Her beauty maybe was a curse because she would turn men totally obsessed about her.

See in this last sentence how she is the actor (in a grammatical sense) "turning" men obsessed, rather than irresponsible, power-drunk, rich, greedy slobs making themselves obsessed over another plaything they could get their greasy, filthy hands on.

Migration Policy, Networks, and Path Dependency

2008-09-02T20:09:00.003+03:00

Quick quote from an Economist blog post about migration, derived from a Eurostat report on migration.

Abundant research tells us that migrants follow networks. Once you have 10,000 from nation X, the next 10,000 will also be from there. (In Britain’s most recent wave, X was Poland.) Abundant research also shows us that some migrant communities never integrate. So here’s the conclusion. Nations who are going to need millions of foreign workers should start today building critical masses of migrants from nations they think will fit in most easily.
Aide mémoire to ministers: You are going to need more hands. The early birds will get to chose where these hands come from.

More on Locals in the Workforce

2008-08-31T07:21:00.004+03:00

A comment on one of my previous posts stated that one problem in getting locals into the workforce was that local bosses do not want to hire them. There could be a number of reasons for this and many of them have been discussed here. However, in reading an older EmiratesEconomist post, I found myself wondering if bosses are loathe to hire locals because locals are harder to hold accountable institutionally and legally than foreigners. Why hire a local that you can't hold legally accountable or even fire in some cases when you can have a foreigner by the, um, passport?

Turkey: East, West, or Turkish

2008-08-29T05:31:00.005+03:00

Disclaimer: This is a bit of a ramble, but I don't have the time to edit it properly. Hopefully the idea comes through regardless.

The NYT's Baghdad Bureau Blog just posted an Iraqi woman's take on Turkey. The title asks, is it east or west? The verdict isn't completely clear, but it appears that she thinks it is west and it seems like she likes it.

Before I went to Turkey I thought it was an Oriental country. After I arrived, and even though I’ve never been in Europe, I felt I was in a European world.
It is not like the Orient I know: the clean streets, the fancy and high buildings, what people were wearing, the number of Turkish women with such a modern way of wearing the hijab, lovers kissing each other openly in the streets.

She notes the number of mosques, and the Japanese tourists in shorts that are allowed to enter them. The alcohol bars, the happy tourists, the electricity, the clean streets, the clean tram and tunnels. She likens it to what she's seen on TV of France or even America.

What is interesting, though, is that she is talking about Istanbul, which isn't really "Turkey" in toto. Istanbul is quite different from Ankara. They are both quite different from the little villages that lie outside them. And all of that is different from the far-flung reaches that border on Iran, Iraq, Syria. Languages change, people change, loyalties change. One Turk in Istanbul told me that the Turkish identity is "fake." He was not a Kurd, but he said that the Kurds were the only ones who had a "real" identity. I think what he meant is that Turkishness is a constructed identity, made up of many groups of people and the purest of those at this point are the Kurds. What is sure is that within the Turkish identity and the Turkish state there are a wide variety of different regions, groups, and feelings, of which, Istanbul is the most European. It is in Europe after all. I really loved the city. It is an amazing cosmopolitan area, full of amazing history and culture and modern life at the same time, in a way that no city in the Middle East seemed to be able to capture, in my opinion.

Another thing that I found to be very interesting in both Istanbul and Ankara was the amount of modern cultural forms. There were a lot of bookstores, filled with books in Turkish, both original and translated. It was very hard to find a book in English, even in the most modern malls. Also, I saw young students carrying books, instrument cases, art portfolios everywhere. It really was refreshing. Some might say that Turks have given up their true culture to try to emulate the West.

I think that they have created their own modern and enduring culture by coming to their own terms with the rest of the world. For me, the most striking thing was language. The range of books, magazines, movies, TV shows, etc available in Turkish were far greater than what I found in Arabic in the Arab world. And there are far more Arabs than Turks. It seems to me that Arab cultures that have tried to refuse interaction with the rest of the world are in danger of extinction. Witness the perpetual articles about identity in the Gulf (and I don't mean articles by Westerners, but the Arabic language articles that are always in the papers and in magazines like al-Majella). If you do not modernize your culture, people will go to other modern cultures to get what they want. They'll watch movies, listen to music, read books, speak, etc, in English, French, whatever language. They'll walk around museums in their own country about their own heritage, explaining exhibits to their children in English (which is obviously not their native language). They will slowly lose their culture because people are refusing to allow it to adapt. By accepting cultural change, the culture stays fresh and pliable, as does the language.

Consider this. I found it very difficult to converse with most people in Turkey because those not directly involved in tourism can do everything they need in Turkish. In the Middle East, there is almost no need for foreigners to speak Arabic because nearly everyone (especially in the Gulf) speaks English. This is not because they are more cosmopolitan than the Turks, but because they have to. It saddened me to see an older Omani gentleman having to use a picture menu in a fast food restaurant in his own country because he didn't speak English and the server didn't speak Arabic.

Flipping through the channels in my hotel in Turkey, nothing but a few international news channels were in English. Everything else, to include SpongeBob Squarepants, was in Turkish. In the Arab world, non-Arabic programs are almost always subtitled, not dubbed. If you want modern, non-religious literature in the Arab world, you have few choices. Major non-religious bookstores are at least 75% English.

In the Middle East, I did not see students with art portfolios or musical instruments. It was rare outside of a few places near universities in Jordan (in my experience) to see students carrying around a stack of books. Concert halls are rare. Museums are sub-par. To me, this is where Turkey has it right and the Arab world has it wrong (with some exceptions and some new attempts to correct it). Modern high culture is critical to maintaining identity and pride, in my estimation. And the Arab world has very little modern high culture, and even less modern high culture that is accessible to their people, rather than just a stunt to attract foreign tourism and investment.

Dubai Bubble?

2008-08-26T01:08:00.003+03:00

An article, originally from the Wall Street Journal and re-posted here takes a look at Dubai's "hot market" in real estate, fears of speculation, and attempts to put a brake on the speculators who are "flipping" properties there. The intense speculation has led not only to quick rises in real estate prices, but may have also enticed developers to create a supply in excess of demand. After visiting the place several times, I refuse to believe that the current level of building in Dubai has already outstripped long-term demand in many areas. I just don't think Dubai will draw the people that speculators are betting on. I think many are in for quite a surprise there. The glittering veneer is already beginning to look a bit faded and worn, so to speak. From the article:

Cracks are starting to show in Dubai's well-crafted and glitzy property-marketing machine. Flipping properties has reached such a feverish pace, driving up prices, that Dubai's Real Estate Regulatory Authority is looking at measures to crack down on the practice, which involves quickly reselling property at a profit. Meantime, a series of legal tussles and property-related scandals have rocked investor confidence, and analysts are forecasting that property prices, which have risen sharply in a matter of months, could tumble by as much as 10 percent, hurt by oversupply. "Many challenges have begun to surface, mainly the prospect of oversupply," said
Bashar Al Natour, a Dubai-based analyst at ratings company Fitch Ratings.

Oman in the Washington Post

2008-08-26T00:56:00.003+03:00

Today's Washington Post ran an article about Gulf countries steering jobs to citizens and the online article featured a picture of City Center's Starbucks. After the picture of a familiar place caught my eye, I read on:

Coffee shop manager Lalit Jadeja groaned as white-robed Omani officials swooped down on his Filipina cashier at one of the largest shopping malls in this Persian Gulf kingdom. It was the Omanization squad. ...
But economists and other analysts say the programs have made little difference so far. In some cases, as in hiring quotas for citizens, government efforts have angered employers who say the campaigns have fostered a sense of job entitlement among local young people. ...
The Middle East has the world's highest percentage of young people -- 30 percent of its population -- and the highest percentage of unemployed youths -- 25 percent.

The article goes on to quote one Arab professor from the UAE as saying that these youngsters can be opportunities or "ticking time bombs." The article also notes an aversion to private sector work in some countries.

Specific to Oman:

Even in Oman, one of the less affluent Gulf countries, oil profits are wiping out a culture of hard work.
In the middle of the desert, for example, an Indian stood alone near his home in a cargo crate. The man, wearing floppy leather sandals, a plaid shirt and a fuzzy pink towel, is one of the Gulf's new pool of subcontracted camel-herders -- tending camels for a Bedouin family that had retreated to air-conditioned comfort on a government-provided plot of land, several Omanis explained.

Perhaps this is another problem -- many youths, despite hard work, intelligence, and dedication, cannot get their dream jobs without "wasta." (See "The Yacoubian Building" or 3mara Yaqubi for an Egyptian story about wasta and career frustration gone terribly wrong)

From the article:

At the coffee shop in Muscat, Oman's capital, Jadeja flipped through the country's labor code in his cubbyhole of an office. He cited legal codes allowing Omanis generous leaves for studies, pilgrimages, funerals and other benefits.
Jadeja complained about a hiring quota that he said was compelling some employers to give young Omanis paychecks to stay home, just to have them on the payroll.
Behind the coffee shop's front counter, Rashdi bin Mohammed, a 21-year-old Omani, spoke sadly of trading his dream of becoming a pilot for a job serving lattes.
Bin Mohammed rejected the only public-sector jobs -- policeman or soldier -- he said were available to him as an Omani without "wasta," or connections. He said he shrugged off the looks and comments from friends who would rather keep accepting money from their parents than take an entry-level job.
"They just don't have the will to strive, to better themselves," he said.

Oman and the End of Easy Oil

2008-08-24T17:45:00.003+03:00

The Washington Post recently reported on Oman's turn to enhanced recovery techniques to get at its remaining oil. Without enhanced recovery, experts say only ten more years of oil are available in Oman. With it, perhaps forty years' worth. In any case, the techniques are quite costly, which is fine with the current, high price of oil. Yet, as the article says, diversification is ever-more important.

Oman's oil production peaked at 840,000 barrels per day in 2000 and has fallen to a low of 561,000 bpd in 2007.

Etihad Aircraft Loss

2008-08-22T22:55:00.004+03:00

Late last year, Etihad lost a brand new A340 with zero hours of airtime when the Abu Dhabi Aviation Technologies crew sent to ground test it ran it through a wall. The story and all the pictures can be found here. Highly recommended reading.

The ADAT crew taxied the A340-600 to the run-up area. Then they took all four engines to takeoff power with a virtually empty aircraft. Not having read the run-up manuals, they had no clue just how light an empty A340-600 really is. The takeoff warning horn was blaring away in the cockpit because they had all 4 engines at full power. The aircraft computers thought they were trying to takeoff but it had not been configured properly (flaps/slats, etc.) Then one of the ADAT crew decided to pull the circuit breaker on the Ground Proximity Sensor to silence the alarm.This fools the aircraft into thinking it is in the air.The computers automatically released all the brakes and set the aircraft rocketing forward. The ADAT crew had no idea that this is a safety feature so that pilots can't land with the brakes on. Not one member of the seven-man Arab crew was smart enough to throttle back the engines from their max power setting, so the $80 million brand-new aircraft crashed into a blast barrier, totaling it.

Israelis Laugh, Arabs Ban

2008-08-20T03:29:00.003+03:00

Adam Sandler (hardly one to be taken seriously) is making headlines because his latest movie "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," looks like it is going to be banned across the Middle East. The movie is being panned by reviewers, but is a big hit in Israel. Israelis, in my limited experience can be incredibly arrogant (and they love to admit this), but they know when and when not to take things too seriously. Adam Sandler comedies really have to fall in the second category almost every time.

In contrast, Arab states are making headlines by banning the movie, which its creators insist is "equal opportunity" in its offensiveness. Yet another instance in which the region plays into the stereotype to which it objects. This isn't the only movie the region has made headlines for banning. A Bollywood film has likewise been banned in the last week in UAE.

(Note: see the "headlines" link for a picture of Adam Sandler as a Mossad agent turned New York hairdresser to get an idea of just how harmlessly stupid the movie is.)

How to Get a Gulf Citizenship

2008-08-20T02:32:00.003+03:00

Buy property? No
Spend years working for a local company and have a flawless civic record? No
Work as an engineer for an oil company? No
Convert to Islam? No
Help a state university get its first international accreditation? No (You can't even get a raise equal to inflation, evidently)

Be a really strong Bulgarian weightlifter, a Uruguayan footballer, a Chinese chess phenom? Yes
Be a Kenyan runner? Yes, until you compete in Israel

Who wouldn't take a million dollars to change their name and citizenship and become a star athlete?

I can only shake my head and say that I'm not surprised. Culturally pure unless we really want a new toy or some money.

Culture

2008-08-17T06:22:00.004+03:00

Culture is a hot topic for everyone operating outside their own borders, from business professionals to diplomats to soldiers. Unfortunately, the attempt to understand others too often means a turn to something like "The Arab Mind," a book that not only simplifies a huge set of people into a single typology, but also does so with the most ridiculous of sets of evidence, logical tools, and conclusions. At the other end of the spectrum, culture means making sure that you never offend anyone, all the while excusing their every fault. This often takes the form of seminars conducted by well-meaning people with bigger hearts than brains talking about how wonderful a given people are and telling all about how to act dainty around them and to uphold cultural norms that even most of them have given to breaking in recent years. Personally, I think that such sensitivity seminars are bullshit conducted by bullshitters who have nothing better to do. The bottom line is that (a) if, regardless of specific cultural norms, you treat a people like decent human beings and keep your word, they'll respect you for that to a degree and (b) if your interests and actions run contrary to theirs, no amount of etiquette in the world is going to keep them from opposing you at the best or trying to kill you at the worst. This is not to say that an attempt to understand culture is bullshit, but that culture-as-etiquette-classes is bullshit.

Professionals operating internationally do not have the luxury to partake in fallacies of prejudice or sympathy. They must avoid over-simplification, but they must not make excuses. They must look for the underlying logic, realizing that some very few actions have no logic, most have a logic that can be understood if you dig deep enough, and some have a logic that is real, but will never be understood by an outsider.

Clifford Geertz, the late preeminent anthropologist, had some excellent insights on this in his collection of essays, The Interpretation of Cultures. I think that he would agree that professionals need to strive to see through the other's eyes, not to focus on aesthetics.

What... most prevents those of us who grew up [in other cultures] from grasping what people are up to is not ignorance as to how cognition works... as a lack of familiarity with the imaginative universe within which their acts are signs.

He goes on to warn:

The danger that cultural analysis... will lose touch with the hard surfaces of life -- with the political, economic, stratificatory realities within which men are everywhere contained -- and with the biological and physical necessities on which those surfaces rest, is an ever-present one. The only defense against it, and thus, turning cultural analysis into a kind of sociological aestheticism, is to train such analysis on such realities and such necessities in the first place.

Israeli Lessons Derived from Russia-Georgia Conflict

2008-08-16T06:13:00.004+03:00

One Israeli think tank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, published an analysis of the implications of the conflict in Georgia for the Middle East, and specifically Israel. I don't know anything about this center's history and credibility, but they list a number of Israeli generals and defense officials who have recently published papers with them. They seem to be fairly hawkish, but I have no insight on their influence. The report, The Russian-Georgian War: Implications for the Middle East by Ariel Cohen, drew several interesting conclusions, most of which seem to me to be pretty strategically sound, given Israel's world-view, position, and the nature of popular support for activist policies and strategies. That being said, the conclusions are also somewhat scary for the region and for the U.S., as the debacle in Georgia, which has highlighted our inability to help our Georgian allies in a meaningful way, may concurrently be further eroding our already fragile influence in the Middle East. It seems to have convinced at least this Israeli analyst that Israel is even more alone in a realist, self-help world, meaning that American levers on Israeli policy may be shortening significantly, especially once Olmert leaves office and a hawk (probably) replaces him. The report's conclusions:

Watch Out for the Bear - and Other Beasts! Russian continental power is on the rise. Israel should understand it and not provoke Moscow unnecessarily, while defending its own national security interests staunchly. Small states need to treat nuclear armed great powers with respect. Provoking a militarily strong adversary, such as Iran, is worthwhile only if you are confident of victory, and even then there may be bitter surprises. Just ask Saakashvili.
Strategic Self-Reliance. U.S. expressions of support of the kind provided to Georgia - short of an explicit mutual defense pact - may or may not result in military assistance if/when Israel is under attack, especially when the attacker has an effective deterrent, such as nuclear arms deliverable against U.S. targets. In the future, such an attacker could be Iran or an Arab country armed with atomic weapons. Israel can and should rely on its own deterrent - a massive survivable second-strike capability.

Intelligence Failure. U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis on the Russian threat to Georgia failed. So did U.S. military assistance to Georgia, worth around $2 billion over the last 15 years. This is something to remember when looking at recent American intelligence assessments of the Iranian nuclear threat or the unsuccessful training of Palestinian Authority security forces against Hamas. Both are deeply flawed. There is no substitute for high-quality human intelligence.

Air Power Is Not Sufficient. Russia used air, armor, the Black Sea Fleet,
special forces, and allied militias. Clausewitzian lessons still apply: the use of overwhelming force in the war's center of gravity by implementing a combined air-land-sea operation may be twentieth century, but it does work. Israel should have been taught this lesson after the last war with Hizbullah.
Surprise and Speed of Operations Still Matter - as they have for the four thousand years of the recorded history of warfare. To be successful, wars have to have limited and achievable goals. Russia achieved most of its goals between Friday and Monday, while the world, including President George W. Bush, was busy watching the Olympics and parliaments were on vacation.

Do Not Cringe - within reason - from taking military casualties and inflicting overwhelming military and civilian casualties at a level unacceptable to the enemy. Georgia lost some 100-200 soldiers and effectively capitulated. A tougher enemy, like the Japanese or the Germans, or even Hizbullah, could well suffer a proportionally higher rate of casualties and keep on fighting.

Information and Psychological Warfare Is Paramount. So is cyber-security. It looks like the Russians conducted repeated denial of service attacks against Georgia (and in 2007 against Estonia), shutting down key websites. Russia was ready with accusations and footage of alleged Georgian atrocities in South Ossetia, shifting the information operation playing field from "aggressor-victim" to "saving Ossetian civilians from barbaric Georgians." These operations also matter domestically, to shore up support and boost morale at home.

Cold War Redux

2008-08-16T02:56:00.002+03:00

It is pathetic that a number of people around the globe seem to be eager to start a new Cold War. It is almost like a staring contest between former high school linebackers who are now fat and out of shape and stand to hurt themselves more than each other. In one of the most dangerous statements so far, the Russian Army's deputy chief of staff, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, has warned that Poland's cooperation with the U.S. has opened it up to a strike, possibly even a nuclear strike, according to the Times.

For those who think that bad things could never happen in this "new world order," the New York Times' Paul Krugman gives them pause with an op-ed about globalism's failure a century ago. While the next great power war may not be right around the corner, it looks like "The End of History" ain't here yet.

Smack Smackdown in UAE

2008-08-13T01:27:00.002+03:00

Sharjah police, in cooperation with their bros in Dubai, busted a smuggling ring in possession of a whopping 200 kilos of pure heroin with a reported street value of $11 million, said to be the largest ever bust in the region. The story is at ABC News Australia.

By comparison, according to the U.S. Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, UAE authorities seized only 242 kg of smack from 2006 to August 2007. The report acknowledges that the UAE is a transhipment country for narcotics, due to its proximity to producing countries like Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, its long coastline, and its porous borders. Is this a signal of increased policing efforts, more effective efforts, and/or an increasingly bold set of smugglers?

Killings By Those With No Honor or Humanity

2008-08-12T02:19:00.003+03:00

See this video from CNN on "honor killings" in England.

The people behind these killing are misogynistic savages without honor or humanity. I generally think life imprisonment is a better punishment than death, but these peoples' world-view is so warped that they would probably enjoy the opportunity to turn other imbecilic criminals to their twisted pseudo-religion and culture.

Surely, I do not believe that these people represent the whole of Islam or of any given culture, but in their arrogant and ignorant actions, they themselves dishonor Islam and their home culture. Those who nominally share their religion and culture must speak and act out against their acts of dishonor. Those who can stand idly by at such actions are savages themselves. Masses come to the streets, goaded by the government to be sure, to protest the naming of a teddy bear or the scribbling of cartoons. They scream and rant, wild-eyed and frothy-mouthed. Where is the outrage at honor killings, stonings, beheadings, and the like?

And we wonder...

2008-08-11T14:06:00.003+03:00

A dubiously astounding statistic from Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times in an op-ed entitled "Make Diplomacy, Not War."

The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.

Arab Economics and Politics

2008-08-02T19:57:00.002+03:00

I found this passage to be very helpful in framing some of my thoughts.

From Marcus Noland and Howard Pack, The Arab Economies in a Changing World, (Washington DC: Peterson Institute, 2007):

"Across the region there is a tendency to rely on centralized regulatory intervention to facilitate the creation of economic rents and their channeling to politically preferred groups. By implication, cross-border economic integration, whether globally or regionally, is discouraged: Opening up would imply a loss of control and the concomitant ability to rig the local market to the benefit of regime supporters. All of this militates against a vibrant private sector that could promote increased productivity, employment, and growth. This combination of political illegitimacy and policy intervention makes it difficult for these economies to liberalize: Reform and the erosion of rents could undermine the very basis for political loyalty."

Can Anyone Take Saudi Arabia Seriously?

2008-08-01T21:24:00.003+03:00

Saudi Arabia is building massive economic and industrial cities in an effort to bring its economy into the 21st century. The King announced a project to create a world-class university with the aim of attracting renowned intellectuals from around the world. Yet, the state continues to allow troglodytes acting in the "name" of religion to show just how backward some Saudis want the place to be.

In the latest move, the governor of Riyadh, acting in coordination with the religious police (the hay'a or mutawa'een, many of whom are criminals who got off early for "finding" the true path of Islam while in jail), has banned the purchase of cats and dogs, as well as walking said animals in public. A FoxNews story is linked here, but it is available in a number of local and international sources. My question is: will the religious thugs behead the offending animals?

The biggest challenge for Saudi and many other states is progressing economically and politically while battling the cave-dwellers in their own populations who use religion to promote ignorance and their own power.

Culture and the Queue

2008-07-30T17:37:00.002+03:00

As pissed off as I get about certain things in the Middle East, this post from Emirates Economist regarding a recent article in Abu Dhabi's The National, reminds me that perceptions of politeness and rudeness are often cultural in nature and, therefore what I perceive as an act so rude as to deserve a beating, people from another culture may not even think twice about. Here's a quote from the article:

...queuing, in its many forms, is alien to the UAE, says Dr Alnajjar [Syrian origin, worked and studied in US for a long time, so has both ME and Western perspective]. This does not mean the country is rude. On the contrary, he says, the UAE, especially Emiratis and Asian workers, are scrupulously polite. But there are sharp differences between the Gulf perception of politeness and the West.“Every society has its own ideas on what is polite,” he says. “In the UK, it is polite to ask a lady on a date. Here it is not. In the UK, it is polite to say to a lady, ‘You are beautiful’. Here it is not. If you go to a man’s house and invite his daughter out, he might kill you.“In the UK, people will eat in front of you. Here, it is impolite not to offer food if you are eating.”

There are any number of examples here to illustrate the point, however, I think that some cultural phenomena are fine, while others (such as jumping queue and the other associated behaviors) are damaging economically, socially, and politically. These behaviors, at root, show a cultural propensity not to obey the rules of society, whether those be unwritten societal norms or actual laws. This is a cultural phenomenon that the Middle East and other developing regions must overcome in order to reach their full potential. If everyone (to a degree) respects the rule of law, the societies will lose some of the wasteful practices that hold back efficient production in general, and generally piss a lot of people off. Some of this is a question of public education, but it also takes enforcement. People obey speed limits when they are forced to by police or radar. People stay in queue because employees will not serve line-jumpers and (in New Jersey and other similar places) you'll get your ass kicked by a pipefitter or teamster if you try it. But in order for this enforcement to work, the individual needs to know why he was corrected for his behavior.

Oman Visa Restrictions

2008-07-29T17:56:00.003+03:00

Economic Times of the India Times reports that the Omani Ministry of Manpower announced that it has stopped the issuance of visas for foreign laborers in a number of fields to work in Oman. These include tailoring, cleaning, import/export, electronic repair, textiles, and others. Existing visas will be renewed however.

In a questionable claim, a ministry official asserted "There is plenty of local talent but there's very little space available for them." I'd say there are plenty of Omanis available to do many of these jobs, but little existing talent in the fields. There will need to be a lengthy period of apprenticeship to transfer the existing knowledge from the expat workforce to Omanis in fields like tailoring and other skilled crafts.

The article also contained some statistics that back up some of my former assertions about the nature of the work force in Oman. According to Ministry statistics, Omanis fill 86 percent of jobs in most government sector departments. Yet in the private sector, Omanis rose from a paltry 14.7 percent in the 90s to only 16.8 percent in 2000. Undoubtedly the figure has risen in the eight years since, but the figure is still far too low for a country that is looking to create a sustainable post-oil economy.

Beyond stopping the influx of foreign laborers, Oman will have to wage a campaign to change attitudes toward these professions (especially cleaning and garbage removal), to ensure Omanis are taking advantage of the educational opportunities available to prepare them for these sectors, and to ensure that employers and current workers in the fields have an intelligent plan for apprenticeship and transfer of knowledge. Otherwise, the decision will die a quiet death of non-enforcement when employers realize that they cannot live with its provisions.

Once the Jinn is out of the Bottle...

2008-07-18T04:48:00.004+03:00

Dubai has recently cracked down on "lewd" behavior that is contrary to the city-state's morals. See the UAE Community Blog for a set of links to news articles.

But once the proverbial jinn is out of the bottle, can it be stuffed back in? Dubai wants to sell itself as a world tourism and business destination. In becoming what almost everyone describes as Las Vegas without casinos, though, Dubai has also sold its soul to a degree. It may be a bit late to correct course to try to be a "conservative" tourism and business destination.

Oman's slow, but steady and staid course may look a lot more intelligent in coming years. Financial Times reports:

Oman is developing itself as an upmarket tourist destination with a focus on culture and adventure, as distinct from the more commercial offerings of its immediate neighbours, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. ...
Salim al-Mamari, director general of tourism promotion, says Oman has taken a "different approach" to tourism development. "We are paying attention to maintaining our identity. We are not into mass tourism. We are looking for responsible tourism, meaning those who can help me maintain Oman as it is."

One has to respect Oman and Omanis for telling it like it is, avoiding soul-selling greed, and aiming for a development model that they can live with for the long term...

Economics, Capitalism, and Political Development

2008-07-17T05:04:00.005+03:00

For those who are interested, one of the Economist's blogs is having a "summer book club" discussion of Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom.

As reported by the Gulf News and linked by Emirates Economist, Abu Dhabi, of all places, is having serious fuel shortages these days.

Washington Post reports on Saudi Arabia's plan for a post-oil economy. Major problems are that education is still poor and Saudi manufactures are extremely few.

These are all related. How? I don't really have the time to go into great detail, but the bottom line is that Gulf states have massive economic resources in their hands due to the riches beneath their soils. These states have been able to extract these resources with relatively little effort and development. The knowledge and expertise for this industry was rented, leased, bought, contracted, however you want to look at it, from developed economies. The technical know-how, the instruments, and the educated citizens were bought, brought to Arabia, and turned to at extracting oil. This came at quite a profit to the oil companies and their employees, but also to the state governments themselves. But, critically, in this jump to prosperity, the ruling elites were never forced to build a state: educated citizenry, capable institutions, far-reaching infrastructure, heavy industrial base, and the rule of law and sense of national identity that binds all of these things together.

Like the communist economic system, this state-centric economic system is showing signs of wear and tear as the Abu Dhabi story points out. An oil rich Emirate cannot supply its own citizens with gas because there is no incentive for companies to do so at unfavorable terms. Gulf states are realizing this, and are moving toward greater degrees of privatization, are attempting to improve infrastructure, and are revamping educational curricula. Yet, some of the most important aspects of state-building, the involvement and investment of the citizens, unified under a national identity and respect for the rule of law as enforced by the government, is lacking. This will be a major challenge in the coming years. How do Gulf rulers change their societies to create post-oil economies that employ citizens in a meaningful way and provide them and their government with a powerful income source without giving up the social provisions, price supports, and other handouts upon which they have based their legitimacy? And once citizens are more educated and involved, can the ruling elites keep the tight grip on the press and other levers of power that they now have?

The Gulf over the coming years will be a real-time laboratory in state-building as they attempt to jump to economic prominence that it took other countries centuries to create. While this project is starting with the economy, there is likely to be a great deal of spill-over into the political realm, which is a main topic of Friedman's book. If the Gulf is successful in creating a post-oil economy capable of maintaining some degree of the income it enjoyed from oil, the political sphere is likely to look quite different than it does today.

Attitudes About Work and Expats

2008-07-13T17:36:00.006+03:00

I have gotten myself into an argument about foreign workers in the Gulf, and specifically Oman, with a commenter on the Muscat Confidential blog. See the comments for this post.

I have very little respect for some Omanis' (and other Gulf Arabs') attitude of "if you don't like it, just get out." The reason why I have this lack of respect is because, while nearly every country is dependent on foreign labor to some extent, the dependence on foreign labor in the Gulf is nearly complete. These rapidly expanding economies surely need a larger than normal portion of foreign labor due to their small populations and high growth rates. This is normal. What is not normal are cultural attitudes toward work.

My final days in Oman give a good example of what I am talking about. The moving crew that boxed, wrapped, and carried my goods out of my place were from a number of Asian nations. They were very professional, hard-working, and congenial. I was far more satisfied with the work they did than I have been with any of the experiences I had moving around America. When it came time for them to crate all my goods on trucks, the obligatory Omani driver came out with a truck. At least in Oman, unlike a number of other Gulf countries, jobs like taxi and truck driving, and some non-labor intensive service jobs are done by Omanis in an attempt to decrease reliance on foreign labor. Yet, when the driver showed up to the house (and I had similar experiences in other situations with Omani truck drivers, so this is not a unique instance) he did not partake in any of the labor. He quickly realized that it was too hot outside for him to stand idly by, watching the foreign laborers carrying heavy boxes under the sun, so he asked if he could come inside and sit on my couch while they worked. So he sat there in his immaculate white dishdasha, text messaging on his cell phone while the rest of the crew toiled away.

Every once in a while I'd go from my tidying up inside to check on the progress outside and to take the workers some juice and water. Most of the time the Omani driver was on the couch, but twice I found him correcting something he didn't like about how the foreign laborers were working in the terms and tone one would use with a child. Of course, the workers had to stand and take his abuse in the most deferential of manners.

I cannot respect people who imagine that their culture and heritage makes them so much better than others that they cannot lower themselves to hard work. In this, I do not mean to say that all Arabs or all Omanis fall into this categorization, but I mean to say that I do not respect those who imagine themselves to be too good to work like others, whether those others are expat laborers or managers. Perhaps my thinking is skewed or I have an undue cultural bias, but to me, this mindset seems to be the most breathtaking sort of arrogance, and an incredible twist of logic coming from a people whose recent ancestors eked a living out of the harshest of environments through incredibly hard work.

The driver in question told me how hard it was to make enough money to live on these days as he sat idle on the couch while a dozen foreigners worked away. Imagine this. If each Omani driver took active part in the labor of moving boxes, or assembling deliveries, or whatever else the three foreigners packed in the cab with him do, instead of sitting idle while they do the work that is beneath him, the companies could do without one of those foreigners. With one less foreigner to pay (because the driver was now doing his job), they could afford to pay that driver more. Companies would be more productive and Omani drivers would be making more.

In the U.S., the driver of a delivery or moving truck works just as hard as the others. Often he or she is more experienced and is the supervisor, but a supervisor that works in lifting, moving, assembling, etc. There is no free ride. When I've been moved within the U.S., the driver of the moving truck has often been the owner of the tractor-trailer rig, which is an asset well in excess of $100,000. These driver-owners have been among the hardest working movers I've witnessed, sweating with the day laborers in order to raise their productivity and their profit. They are not making money while sitting idle.

Someday, the drivers and other workers in Oman and around the Gulf will have to realize that their culture and heritage do not truly excuse them from hard work. In fact, they should be proud of the hard lives their ancestors led and should resolve to do some hard work themselves, in the interest of improving their own lot and that of their country. When the majority start working as hard as the expats, I will have much more respect for the attitude "like it or leave it."

Dubai Resident Visas

2008-07-09T16:22:00.005+03:00

This story from the UAE Community Blog is a perfect example of the difficulties cities like Dubai are going to face in trying to be a world-class tourist and business destinations without having first developed rational institutions and a public educated and invested in the process of modernization. Current confusion on visa rules threatens to shut out some expats who have bought property but cannot get resident visas.

Stories like this should give pause to anyone who thinks that Dubai is on the fast track to first-class status as a business or tourism center. Once the glitter of the big buildings and opulent development wears off, one must realize that you cannot trust the government and the citizens to provide you with a safe, stable, predictable, and amenable work and living environment over the long term. Until attitudes and institutions change, these bases of first-class business and tourism centers cannot be guaranteed in Dubai. Things can still change overnight there, and speculators stand to lose their shirt if the wind shifts.

Following the Rules

2008-06-27T14:46:00.004+03:00

A post today on The New York Times' Baghdad Bureau blog caught my attention. An Iraqi reporter, Suadad al-Salhy was invited to visit America and wrote about her observations. If her attempt at journalism had been mirrored by a similarly illogical American going to Iraq for the first time, the political correctness police would be all over the New York Times.

In America everybody obeys the law, they do not consider doing anything else. They stand in line when they need to buy something. They obey road instructions, cross the street in the determined area, pay their taxes, and so on, much more than in my country.

By comparison many American soldiers in Iraq have no idea about our laws. Often it seems that they do whatever they want, the same minute. When I ask Americans about this, they say that American soldiers will submit to the rules when they go back to their country. But when they deal with Iraqi people they don’t seem to think about anything. They don’t seem to realize what will happen when they shoot Iraqis or put their sons in jail. Many American soldiers in Iraq don’t seem to stop and ask themselves the rules they needs to know to control their actions. ...

First, arrogance and disregard for laws by American troops is not something that Suadad made up. There are numerous reports and stories about U.S. troops breaking laws and generally acting poorly. So it is real. Yet, shooting Iraqis and putting their sons in jail is often required because those Iraqis aren't following Suadad's rules and laws themselves. I know this is simplistic, but if Iraqis would follow their own rules, laws, and religious teachings, the American soldiers would be at home following their own laws by now. And Americans seem to "do whatever they want, the same minute" but Arabs don't? That's a bit of a stretch for me.

I can’t understand how Americans are so nice over there, and many of their soldiers are bullies and aggressive.

Hmm. Maybe they are bullies and aggressive because people all around them want to kill them, but no one is wearing uniforms so they never know who the enemy is. What about the Mahdi Army? The Badr Organization? The various Sunni insurgent groups? They are not bullies and aggressive?

I am veiled. To get from Iraq to America I had to fly from Baghdad to Jordan to Britain to Washington. There were difficulties at Heathrow and Dulles airports. I faced problems everywhere with security. Every time they asked me to take off my jacket. I refused, and I told the rest of my group that if they insisted I would rather go back to Iraq. So the security guards would send me off to do more searches, X-rays or be searched by women.

Again, I cannot understand this mentality. I respect her right to be veiled, but she needs to respect other people's right to get on an aircraft on which every passenger has been thoroughly security screened. I have to take my jacket, belt, and shoes off every time I go through security at U.S. airports. Why shouldn't she? Why is this an affront to her? She did not "face problems" everywhere she went, she caused them by her own behavior. I would be willing to bet that if a white woman of the same age repeatedly refused to take off her jacket, the screeners would be inclined to call the police to have her arrested for non-compliance.

Near the end, she discusses how she was again scrutinized at the UN building in New York. I have some empathy with her situation there, because she reports that other women went through without taking their jacket off, but she was subject to a more thorough search. I am sure that this would be extremely frustrating and humiliating. On the other hand, the image of Muslims in the West, as biased and over-generalizing as it may be, was not created out of thin air. When was the last time an American walked into a public building and blew him or herself up? When was the last time an Iraqi did so? So, I empathize with this woman being treated like a potential terrorist when she is not, but at the same time, until the Muslim community completely and clearly exorcizes the violent extremists from their midst, they can expect to face a level of suspicion and hostility. It is human nature.

The Saudi Minister of Labor as a Waiter

2008-06-25T08:26:00.002+03:00

I had to repost this picture from the Saudi Jeans blog because it speaks to some of my recent posts on labor. The Saudi Minister of Labor had a photo op at a new Fuddruckers in Jeddah and extolled the virtues of working. Saudi, much more than the other Gulf states, needs to convince its people to take jobs like these because it has a much higher population to take care of than, say, Qatar or the Emirates.

According to Saudi Jeans, "The minister criticized those who look down on some jobs saying they do not understand the spirit of Quran." The minister's bio is here.

I especially liked one of the comments to the post:

Having a terrible job while you’re young is a rite of passage. My parents insisted that I work in a pharmacy or a restaurant or the like so that I would learn to treat everyone politely and not to get upset when someone was unreasonably harsh with me. With that being said, do you think the minister has ever held such a job himself? =P

A Crack of Light in the Press

2008-06-24T09:35:00.003+03:00

Abu Dhabi's new daily, The National, seems to be a refreshing new idea. A paper with actual journalism. I found a recent article by Fawaz Gerges to be a refreshing read coming out of the region, even in an English paper. In it, he discusses the traditionally interpreted meanings and bases of jihad and how al-Qaeda's project to radically reinterpret these tenets has failed, producing a backlash in the Arab world against their senseless violence. Even so, his comments require some adjustment, especially for those in the West who would think he is wholly accurate about opportunities at hand.

Al Qa'eda has lost Muslim minds because it has failed in its attempt to radically redefine jihad and gain acceptance of indiscriminate violence in the name of Islam. A number of recent opinion surveys confirm that an overwhelming majority of Muslims are not merely unsympathetic to the ideology of bin Laden and his followers - they place direct blame at his feet for the harm he has caused to the image of Islam and the damage his movement has wrought within Muslim societies.

Another comment is interesting, but I think needs a little nuance. I don't have time to look up the Gallup poll right now, but I will either post a comment or a second post with the info. I think that, while very few people think the attacks of 9/11 were completely justified, there are a lot of people who were happy to see America's nose bloodied, maybe just not in such a horrific way. I think there is a middle answer between Gerges' assertion that the attacks have very little support and the common Western notion that a vast majority supported it.

Gallup conducted tens of thousands of hourlong, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations between 2001 and 2007, and found that only 7 per cent of respondents believed the September 11 attacks were "completely" justified. Contrary to the perception in the West that the actions of al Qa'eda enjoy wide support in the Muslim world, 90 per cent of respondents condemned the killings on religious and humanitarian grounds.
Despite the real and potent challenges to al Qa'eda and its ideology evident in these debates, they have not received the attention they deserve. The West has failed, by and large, to understand the critical distinctions in Muslim opinion on these matters, and to forge policies to address the legitimate grievances of many Muslims - foremost among them the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq.

Gerges goes on to talk about the distinction between AQ and resistance to occupation. Yes, there is a distinction. Some of the resisters are fighting occupation. Americans would do the same. Just look at the movie (I know it's a movie) Red Dawn. Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze were insurgents and they were heroes. But there's a difference between guys like that, and the guys who are doing the same thing in Iraq, etc, and the thugs who man sectarian death squads, bomb civilians, and so on. And furthermore, people try to argue against the American definition of Hamas and Hizbollah as terrorist groups, saying that they're political parties. Well, if they were really just political parties, then why did their militias mount what were basically armed coups, albeit stopping short of toppling the government, in Gaza and Lebanon? They did not increase their power by political means, they maneuvered into political power through terror. Yes, they had some electoral successes before that, but the bottom line is that they are armed groups, seeking political power through any means available.

Here's Gerges on the subject:

While al Qa'eda's "jihad" is clearly regarded by most Arabs and Muslims as terrorism, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iraqi groups that employ violence in the service of what is seen as resistance to foreign occupation are considered legitimate. Muslims still regard the defence of besieged or occupied territories as honourable examples of jihad. It is not the violence per se that is the issue. Rather, the question is, What is the justification for taking up arms?

Gerges, calling for the U.S. to moderate its policies to take advantages of changes in support for AQ and their like, says: "In most of the Muslim world, the US is admired for its democracy and freedoms."

I'm not so sure. I hear a lot of people throwing freedom and democracy back in the U.S.'s face. America's democracy and freedom at home is questioned, and its attempts to promote the same in the region are thoroughly discredited among many. So, I don't know that his statement is true here.

In closing, Gerges says:

There is more than a glimmer of hope: the fact that al Qa'eda has been marginalised and discredited, not by military force but by exegetes using sound theological arguments is encouraging. It should make us appreciate that it is the articulation of ideas - not military force - that will defeat those who would engage in terrorism.

I agree that ideas are important, but at the same time, I think that refutation of AQ does not equal an opening for rapprochement between the U.S. and the Muslim world. I think that the issues and wounds go much beyond AQ and support for AQ. See this Brookings Institution poll for an idea of the depth of the problem. AQ is, and always has been a marginal phenomenon. There needs to be a much deeper change in public opinions for the U.S. to have an opening. Much of this needs to come from changes in U.S. policy, but it also needs time for views in the Muslim world to change.

It is great to see this discussion in a regional paper. Unfortunately, I do not know of any plans to launch an Arabic language twin of this ambitious new project. It is sorely needed.

More Press Idiocy

2008-06-21T23:21:00.003+03:00

I got a pointer to another glowing example of Gulf media shortly after I wrote my last post. I don't know what to call this genre. In my last post, I typed Arab press, but I really was talking about the English papers in the Arab world. English Arab press? Arab English press? The English press that is sometimes poorly translated from Arabic and at other times is terrified of biting the hand that feeds it? The doormat? What do you call it? Incidentally, for those of you who want something translated into any language, my odds are on a native speaker of the translated-into language. I can understand English mi'a bil-mi'a as it is my native language. If you ask me to translate an English article into Arabic, I can do it, but it won't be spotless. Now, with Arabic, I cannot understand it mi'a bil-mi'a, but if you give me just a dictionary in most cases, or a dictionary and an Arab in a few cases like literature or especially flowery or idiomatic wording, I can translate any Arabic piece into an English piece that will never be second guessed as to whether it was originally written in English by a native. It makes sense. Native speaker should do the writing. Even if you have an Arab translate it into English, then a native English speaker check it, or vice versa, this should be the standard for journalism. Also, many Western press sources are good at translating Arab quotes, but others translate it word for word, accidentally or purposely making the interviewed person sound like an illiterate. Not good.

In any case, after my ramble, here is the article in question: "So a drunk guy in a bar says to another drunk guy." Start of a joke? Maybe. The Gulf News reports that the recent UK terror alert for UAE was caused by two Arab drunks at a hotel bar.

One drunk man told the other in jest: "If someone wants to scare all these
people and make them run away, just say there is a bomb. A belt bomb will kill
hundreds of them."

I'm not sure which is more surprising: the lack of creativity in this story or the fact that they admit that there were two drunk Arabs in Abu Dhabi. Perhaps the "drunk Arabs" causing the terror alert is true, but I'd be willing to bet a year's pay that it isn't. Other stories I've read recently said that there is "no threat" of a terrorist attack in the UAE. NO threat? None? Please. Like I said in my last post, COMPLETE denial is COMPLETELY unbelievable. It only worked for Stalin because he backed it up with killing everyone.

I can't think of another adjective, so I'll say that the regional press must get beyond this CHILDISHNESS before it expects to have a real voice in changing anyone's perspective.

Human Trafficking in the Press

2008-06-21T21:18:00.003+03:00

A good bit of debate has been going around Oman's blogging community (here and here) regarding the recent U.S. State Department Human Trafficking Report, which labeled Oman as Tier 3 (the worst of 3 tiers) for the second year running. The validity of this rating, or lack thereof, has been batted back and forth as can be seen at the two posts linked above. What I want to address here is the reaction by public officials and the press, which was actually the original issue in Undercover Dragon's post.

If Oman (press, politicians, people) wants to criticize the legitimacy of the rating, fine. If they want to question the U.S.'s right to level such a charge, whether in terms of national sovereignty or in terms of moral standing, fine. But the sad thing is that the Omani press and public officials could have gained credibility by saying, "Yes, there are SOME problems in Oman, but they are very slight in comparison to other Tier 3 countries and we are working very hard to fix them. Therefore, we feel that the U.S. report is innacurate and misleading." Take that theme and run with it. You can even play on a variation, and admit that there is a slight problem, but that the U.S. was purposely misleading to attain political goal X. I assure you, though, that high-level political operators have much more important machinations to occupy themselves with than this report that made little impact anywhere but Oman.

Instead, the latest gem from the Omani press in the Times of Oman, goes to quote an American, an Indian, a Dutch, and a Fillipino, all of whom deny the validity of the report out of hand. Several go on about how Oman is a free, fair, and tolerant place. Who cares? Is the report about freedom and tolerance or about the few people who traffick humans and the fact that Oman has not made sufficient attempts to stop them? So, the writer needs to tailor her questions and steer her interviewees more to the point.

Then there is this whopper:

“Human trafficking? There is nothing like that over here. The report is
extremely biased and unjustified, to say the least,” says Josie, a Dutch
national who has been living in Muscat for the last 10 years. “The rules are
very strict here and no one is allowed to come and go without proper
documentation. That being the case, I can confidently say there is absolutely no
trafficking of any sort happening here.”

Really? I've been here a bit less than 10 years, but I know that "Josie" is either lying, or she spends all day at the Left Bank or some other high end place sozzling and never gets beyond some high-end expat circles. Alternatively, perhaps she is one of those expats who has some sort of Stockholm syndrome where they want to be more Omani than the Omanis (or whatever other country they happen to be in). For those who have followed the debates at MuscatConfidential and Blue-Chi, Balqis falls into this category.

To someone who already believes that Oman is squeaky clean, of course this is very soothing, but to the many who believe that there is a problem and think that Oman deserved Tier 3, this does nothing to change their minds. Now, if you told me "yes, there is a problem" then went on to explain why it is not as bad as the U.S. says and then gave me examples of how Oman is fighting it and how the U.S. report is overstated, I'd have to moderate my position. But if you say, "There is no problem whatsoever," I know you are lying.

Now, for those who question the U.S.'s right to do this, I have a few comments. First, the U.S. needs to realize that many of its policies, especially with regard to the War on Terror, impeach its credibility in cases like this. I recognize that. But, why does the U.S. make reports like this? Part of the reason is because people in the U.S. truly feel that the country is an "exceptional" beacon of freedom and want to spread that freedom. Question the politicians and policies all you want, but I am telling you that Americans truly want to spread freedom. The other part is because activists and victims from all over the world lobby the U.S., as the world's greatest power, to use that power to good. The U.S. didn't come with these reports to humiliate people. Someone who either was a victim of human trafficking, or saw it first-hand started spreading the word, then some activist group got involved and pressured Congress members, etc. until a law was passed requiring this report, in the hopes that it would force nations to take steps to stop these practices. So, you have to understand this wasn't some report Bush dreamed up to humiliate Oman.

Finally, here are a few links to reports or articles from the U.S. about human trafficking in our own country. While we don't give ourselves a rating, we do criticize and evaluate and try to improve. Americans never trust answers like the Times of Oman gives, so American journalists try to give both sides of the story, those who say there is no problem, and those who say there is. Then, with the weight of quotes and facts, the reader is left to decide what the truth is. If the reader is given only one side, he or she is left to think that the writer is covering something up.

Look at the below links from the U.S. government and press about trafficking in the U.S. The U.S. has a big problem with human trafficking too. Probably a lot bigger than Oman's in some ways. Yet, the U.S. admits the problem and has stern measures in place to deal with it, and actively investigates and prosecutes it.

After reading the below links, consider whether the Arab press will ever get beyond catering to those who are already convinced by striking a middle tone that may win the unconvinced over to their side. As it is, they are verbally mastrubating each other in a closed circle. Evidently they don't want anyone else to join in.

U.S. Department of Education factsheet that states that human trafficking has been reported in all 50 U.S. states and Washington DC.

A newspaper article about Louisiana kids being sold for sex. (Americans trafficking Americans)

Newspaper article about a (Hispanic) American couple who lured Hispanics from Latin America with promises of good pay then forcing them into work.

Department of Health and Human Services factsheet that states that around 15,000 persons are trafficked across U.S. borders annually.

Bias, Asabiyah, and Oman's Three Monkeys

2008-06-19T14:35:00.003+03:00

The recent Human Trafficking Report labeling Oman as an unchanged Tier-3 country has caused some back-and-forth on Oman's blogs. There are links to the right under "Interesting Posts." Interestingly, an unrelated blogger, EmiratesEconomist recently posted a quote from the Overcoming Bias blog (which I can't get to open for some reason): "being more aware of biases makes us more willing to assume that others' biases, and not ours, are responsible for our disagreement."

So, while highly educated people should be more aware of biases, they could just as easily turn that knowledge about biases around to assume that the other person's bias is the root of disagreement. I think this works both ways in the recent debate. And how would Ibn Khaldun's concept of "asabiyah" or in-group solidarity play into this quote about biases?

Roman History

2008-06-16T16:37:00.002+03:00

"Before the destruction of Carthage, the people and the Senate of Rome together governed the Republic peacefully and with moderation. But when the minds of the people were relieved of that dread, wantonness and arrogance naturally arose, vices which are fostered by prosperity."

Gaius Sallustus Crispus - 1st century BC

Quoted after David Levering Lewis, God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (He quoted it after another, obscure book).

Militias: A Problem Beyond Iraq and Lebanon

2008-06-13T17:24:00.003+03:00

Militias are a major problem in Iraq and Lebanon, where the state is too weak to police many areas. Therefore, militias become the "guardians" of neighborhoods, providing everything from security to social services. These services come at a price, as the militias often take their cut in the way of protection payments and organized crime. In Iraq, forces like the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgent groups, beyond their attacks on U.S. troops and other groups in Iraq, provided local militia "services." With the rise of the Awakening groups, local forces recruited to provide security across Iraq, it would seem that the scourge of the militias should be over. Yet, in a similar story in Brazil, local militias that organized to chase out drug gangs have become as much of a scourge as the drug gangs, even torturing a group of undercover investigative reporters.

The phenomenon goes beyond Brazil. I'm sure I could find a host of other developing countries where militias offer protection in turn for payments and criminal enterprises, but one need only look to the U.S. to find that many street gangs organize themselves as neighborhood protectors. The excellent book "Islands in the Street" by Martin Jankowski, a sociologist who lived with gangs as his field research, details how many gangs are organized as local defense forces in areas where policing is light or non-existent. These gangs are tied into social organizations of the older generation, many of whom were gang members when younger. Beyond keeping other criminals off their turf, many gangs help around the neighborhood and even do what could be considered as social services, dispute negotiation, etc. Jankowski's findings stemmed from observation of a cross-section of gangs, including Latino, Puerto Rican, African-American, and Irish gangs on the East and West Coast.

Wush az-zubda? What is the point? Local defense militias are increasingly common across the world in areas where policing is light. Even when citizens organize to keep the likes of drug dealers or insurgents out of their area, the potential for criminal abuses is high. Perhaps increased interest in community policing by security officials and analysts is in order.

Oman in a Recent Study of Public Good Attitudes

2008-06-12T14:51:00.004+03:00

Emirates Economist posted commentary and quotes regarding a Wall Street Journal article about cooperation and free-loading in a public good simulation game. Economists and sociologists set up experiments like this to test how people cooperate or defect in situations regarding public goods. I.E. do people contribute to the public good in these scenarios or free-load?

In the study, researchers found that basic responses were fairly similar across 16 countries surveyed, but differences appeared when subjects were allowed to punish free-loaders.

Among students in the U.S., Switzerland, China and the U.K., those identified as freeloaders most often took their punishment as a spur to contribute more generously. But in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Russia, the freeloaders more often struck back, retaliating against those who punished them, even against those who had given most to everyone's benefit. It was akin to rapping the knuckles of the helping hand.

In cases where policymakers are seeking cooperation, such as improving road safety, protecting the environment, etc., do such attitudes cripple their efforts? And what about the guy who drives like a psycho, but gets even more psycho when people confront him?

MEMRI Fodder

2008-06-12T06:10:00.004+03:00

In a recent post, Abbas Hawazin, an Iraqi living in Amman commented on the material available at MEMRI.

You won't see this on MEMRI, Amidst all the gay-bashing, hypocritical, sex-obsessed, honor-killing, helplessly fanatic, anti-semitic, horribly depressing 7th century Middle East where children shows diligently instruct children to decimate people of the Jewish religion, and unfortuantely for Mister Ghost and his ilk, people do act like normal funloving human beings sometimes. [GASP!] This innocent, nonsensical Egyptian song a la Lewis Carrol had a major effect on the weirder parts of my feeble young boy's brain. I realized today that it means absolutely nothing, and its rhythms are probably the worst ever made, that's why it's so fun...

I in no way think, like some, that this is representative of all Arabs and I appreciate Abbas posting the innocent side of things that come out of the Arab world. Yet, the MEMRI fodder is what I was talking about in a recent debate below. The Arab media provides an outlet for the lowest of the low and this does immeasurable damage to the Arab image in the world and significantly weakens public sympathy for Arab desires and policies in the West. This directly impacts Arab states' ability to achieve their foreign policy goals.

NYT Story Too Bizarre to Pass Up

2008-06-11T17:28:00.003+03:00

The New York Times ran a story today about the growing number of Muslim women in Europe that are having hymenoplasty, a cosmetic surgery procedure to restore the illusion of virginity. Unfortunately, the web article does not show what page it was printed on, but it was prominent enough to make their daily email newsletter.

A woman interviewed for the story attributed the rupture of her membrane to a horse riding accident. She decided to have the hymenoplasty procedure when she was unable to obtain a certificate of virginity for her upcoming wedding, after hearing about a recent French court case in which a divorce was granted because the bride was not a virgin as was promised. This has reportedly pushed many Muslim women to have the procedure.

In one passage, an Italian director of a film that makes light of the subject comments about how these women can integrate into European society well, but cannot resist their culture on this matter. In one case in the article, a couple decided to share the costs of the surgery in order to placate conservative parents. I can only hope that people who had to go to these lengths will be a liberalizing influence for their children and for people around them in the future.

Second, for the cases that are not cooperation between partners, I can't help but wonder what such deception does to a marriage psychologically. Of course, there is plenty of deception going into many marriages around the world, but this deception usually doesn't come with certificated physical evidence to back it up.

Finally, while Westerners might want to smugly look down at this practice, we should take a look at one sentence of the article and take a second to think:

"The issue has been particularly charged in France, where a renewed and fierce debate has occurred about a prejudice that was supposed to have been buried with the country’s sexual revolution 40 years ago: the importance of a woman’s virginity."

Similar ideas about virginity and marriage are not that far gone from the West. While many in the West encourage chastity until marriage, the issue is no longer the subject of certificates or other proof. My understanding is that many cultures had similar practices (such as the showing of the sheet) until recently. I don't have time to research it, so if someone has knowledge of such practices in Europe, please comment. In any case, norms and values that are seen as archaic to many in the West were common in their own families only a generation or two back.

I'll give the last word to the vice president of the Islamic Center in Lille, France where the wedding was held for couple whose marriage was annulled over her non-virgin status:
“The man is the biggest of all the donkeys. Even if the woman was no longer a virgin, he had no right to expose her honor. This is not what Islam teaches. It teaches forgiveness.”

Youth Bulge and Unemployment

2008-06-10T14:04:00.005+03:00

The Financial Times published a report about the youth bulge and unemployment in the Arab world. One part was particularly troubling to me:

The higher rates of annual growth – more than 5 per cent region-wide but nearly double digits in some Gulf states – have started to generate jobs, with regional unemployment estimated to have dropped to about 12.7 per cent. Yet anxiety over youth unemployment remains the most nagging concern as experts find that new jobs are going to foreign workers in the thriving construction industry or tend to be in the informal sector, leading to seasonal rather than sustainable employment.
“There is a boom in the region and youth unemployment is benefiting but the kinds of jobs created, especially in non-Gulf countries, are not necessarily the kind of jobs we need,” says Tarik Yousef, dean of the Dubai School of Government and an expert on youth employment. “They are low-paying jobs, without long-term contract, without social mobility, for people in the non-formal private sector, and in sectors not high on technology.” This job creation, he says, does not fit into the aspirations of typical youth in the region, whose idea of economic security is a well-paid overnment job with tenure and social mobility.

I cannot understand, when unemployment rates are well over 10 percent, why construction and other sectors are unacceptable. I look at the poor construction workers and understand why no one would really want to do it especially in this heat, but the South Asians are breaking their backs to make a better live for someone, whether themselves or families back home. But when I go to restaurants, stores, etc. and see that expats are brought in even to man the window at the McDonald's drive through, I cannot understand the logic. This is a taboo that must be broken (and it is, little by little in some areas) if the Gulf is ever to prepare itself for life after oil and gas.

There is a place for Gulf tradesmen in the construction industry. Gulf waiters at classy restaurants. Gulf managers at fast food places. This will not only help to ease the youth unemployment problems, but will also prepare young workers for better jobs down the road. I'm not a laborer now, but I worked as a laborer during college, as well as in the service industry. I learned just how hard "hard work" can be, and I also learned what it is like to be treated poorly by arrogant customers. Both lessons served me well and the overall experiences prepared me to do well when I started a career later.

Will there be a day when the glistening new industrial cities being put together in Saudi by S. Asian labor will be manned by Saudi factory workers? There must be if the state is to survive the end of oil.

I'll close with a quote from one of Bahrain's ministers (I can't remember if it was Min. of Labor or another portfolio). He was quoted in Sharq al-Awsat and some of the local Bahraini press a few months ago (as I remember it):
"A lord in England washes his own car on Saturday, but Gulf Arab calls for a foreign worker to bring him a glass of water sitting ten feet away."

How can this taboo be broken? Or must another solution be found for employment? Please comment.

SUV Parking Update

2008-06-10T13:44:00.003+03:00

I returned to City Center recently. It seems that the small white car drivers of Oman, driven mad with jealousy over the special treatment afforded to SUV drivers by mall authorities, have conspired to block the SUV parking spot (and half of the aisle) with their Carrefour trollies.

Oman's Ministry of Sports

2008-06-10T13:38:00.004+03:00

I noticed this sign recently at Markaz al-Bahja, a local shopping mall. There is a similar version in Arabic on the other side of the rotunda. The sign announces a summer sports program run by Oman's Ministry of Sports. I've read a number of analyses about places like Saudi Arabia, where young men are extremely frustrated because they have nothing to do and no outlets like sports. Youth often turn to other activities, such as chasing girls around in cars trying to flash their mobile number or "drifting" in which they skid and slide around the roads in small, tuned import cars.

Oman is quite different. Single, young men can go to malls with no problem (Saudi single young males are often prohibited from entering the mall), there are movie theaters, and a host of other activities. Still, I found the offering of sports programs as an incentive to "stay off the roads" (according to the sign) to be an excellent initiative.

Can the Recent Increases in Food Prices Actually be a Good Thing?

2008-06-10T13:05:00.003+03:00

The Financial Times recently reported about Abu Dhabi's plan to invest in agriculture in the developing world. There are other stories out there of a similar nature. So, could the rise in food prices actually be a good thing?

The food system seems to be broken. American policies with regard to using corn to produce ethanol most likely have a distorting effect, but there are more general problems. Populations continue to grow, but critically they are also growing wealthier. In some developing countries, people are eating significant quantities of meat for the first time. Because meat takes a significant amount of grain to grow and grain is already expensive, the price effect is magnified in meat products. The increasing consumption of meat also puts additional pressures on grain supplies.

Moreover, inefficient farming practices hurt productivity that could help the market to bear increasing demands and help to staunch rising prices to a degree. There are other inflationary pressures and transport costs are a factor as well, but there's no denying that the world could benefit from improved farming practices, both from a monetary aspect and an environmental aspect. For instance, poor irrigation methods waste water.

Take Morocco as an example. It has the same percentage of arable land as the United States and grows significant quantities of wheat and other products, but farms are often small holdings and archaic techniques are used. These techniques cannot be improved without modern equipment and infrastructure. So, the rise in food prices is encouraging investment in the sector. This investment may help to improve farming efficiency, thereby helping to improve harvests and reduce waste. The investment may force a move to larger, more industrial farms. This will undoubtedly cause some dislocation, as it has elsewhere in the world, but ultimately it may help to improve the country's economy overall and allow some people to move to more productive sectors if economic policies are integrated intelligently.

Tagged by Dragon

2008-06-06T15:44:00.003+03:00

I've been tagged by Undercover Dragon to post three sentences starting with sentence 5 of page 123 of the nearest book.

Here are my three sentences:

"It is laziness, our language is very lazy; we do not search for the names of things, we name them haphazardly and it is up to the listener to understand. The other has to know what you want to say in order to comprehend you; otherwise we are misunderstood.

This is the word I was searching for."

From "Bab al-Shams" by Elias Khoury. The speaker is talking about the Arabic language (the translation from the original Arabic is mine, but there's an English translation available from Humphrey Davies).

Deep Thoughts by Shantaram

2008-06-05T11:41:00.002+03:00

"When we act, even with the best of intentions, when we interfere with the world, we always risk a new disaster that mightn't be of our making, but that wouldn't occur without our action."

Suicide Bombing in Pakistan

2008-06-03T13:48:00.005+03:00

The Danish Embassy was attacked yesterday by a suicide bomber, killing eight and wounding twenty-four according to initial reports. There has not been a statement of responsiblity yet, but it is a relatively safe bet that the Embassy was targeted due to the decision by Danish newspapers to reprint offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

The sad thing, beyond the loss of life, is the logic that has led some people to perpetrate acts like this: "Some Westerners say that Islam is a backward and violent religion and have assaulted the character of our Prophet. In retaliation for this vile behavior of saying that we have a violent religion, I will blow up the Danish Embassy, myself, and a host of innocent bystanders, many of whom may be Muslim." Of course, this is a sick and twisted minority that in no way represents the vast community of Muslims and their interpretation of Islam. Yet, when such things happen, i.e. these senseless acts of violence, people do not pour into the streets in condemnation in the way that they condemned the original cartoons, or the movie "Fitna," or the teacher in Sudan who named a teddy bear "Mohammed." The Muslim community (the Ummah) must realize that the people who are doing the most damage to their religion are not the crack-pot Westerners like Geert Wilders, but the extremist Muslims who provide these critics with so much fuel. If there were no suicide bombers like the one in Pakistan, there would be much less criticism of Islam in the West. I know that the religion and how people choose to interpret it and use it politically are two very different things, but Muslims must rise up to defend their religion against the people within their community who corrupt it and tarnish its image as vocally, if not more vocally than they defend the religion against outside critics.

In my travels, I have talked to a large number of people from a variety of countries and backgrounds. Most have been kind and helpful. Many have engaged me in conversation about their religion, regional politics, and my country's foreign policy. All too often, when I have attempted to face this criticism by finding a middle ground where we can admit that both sides have faults and can do much, much more to improve relations, this middle ground is refused. One of my Arab Muslim friends told me that, even from within the community, when he advocates coming to this middle ground and condemning evils in the the Arab and Islamic world as vocally as the evils found in the West, he has often been shouted down and labeled as a traitor.

The rhetorical extremes taken by clerics and editorial commentators, the hate-filled and scholarship-light books and articles available, the spitting-angry demonstrations, and the violence that a minority perpetrate in the name of Islam are all far more damaging to the Ummah than any Western cartoon, or movie, or book could ever be. Why doesn't the Ummah condemn these things inside their community as loudly they do the silly outside influences that really do them no harm? Why do people play into the hands of critics by providing them with more hatred, vitriol, and violence?

Oil, Oil Everywhere

2008-05-30T07:24:00.004+03:00

WSJ reports that despite rising oil prices (57% last year), top oil exporters' shipments dropped by 2.5% last year and are expected to trend similarly this year. This is a major aspect behind the continued high oil prices.

There are several phenomena behind this drop in exports. First, is the declining outputs from aging fields in some countries. As oil fields age, it takes more effort and energy to extract it, slowing exports down. Second, investment in new fields and technology is slowing in some areas due to economic troubles and rising taxation on new developments. Third, increasing internal demand for oil in producing countries is eating into their exports.

In places like Saudi, UAE, and I'd imagine Oman, too, rising development and lower-than-expected natural gas supplies is making states eat into their oil exports in order to fuel their own needs. It probably doesn't help that, in many places, developments are audacious in their energy consumption and that energy subsidies encourage profligacy.

Add to this the commonly discussed rising demand from China and India, and its no wonder that oil prices are so high. While some commentators in other venues are saying that oil can't stay this high over the medium-term, an analyst quoted in the article stated, "The sense in the market is that peak oil is here and that things will only get worse, but the verdict is still out on that."

Peak oil is the not-so-magical point at which oil production begins to decline permanently as we head toward depletion of the resource. When this happens, there will have to be some major adjustments to nearly every aspect of economic and industrial life in the world.

I read Karl Polyani's The Great Transformation a while ago. It is a cheery little book. In it, Polyani argues that nineteenth-century civilization and the Hundred Years' Peace rested on the balance of power system, the international gold standard, the self-regulating market, and the liberal state. When the economic foundations of this system came crashing down, the political system that had been built to perpetuate them was thrown into upheaval in the form of the most destructive war the world had ever seen (World War II).

I haven't thought long and hard enough about this, but it seems to me that a lot of the same conditions are present today. Oil is not equivalent to the gold standard, but going off oil will be somewhat similar economically and will probably throw the global economic system into turmoil. Furthermore, while many of the developed states have created sustainable social protections against the self-regulating market in the wake of WWII, many developing nations face the same struggles as to whether labor is to be treated as a freely-traded commodity or not. Polyani argues that the differing types of social protections created by states in the beginning of the twentieth century was behind the World War. This argument is furthered by a huge book called The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt. I think that these phenomenon may come to a head as oil starts to run out. Could there be another great transformation ahead?

More on Currencies

2008-05-29T17:15:00.004+03:00

News Briefs Oman just posted an article about inflation, which mentioned the same indications I mentioned in an earlier post that the U.S. may be giving a subtle green light to currency revaluation in the Gulf.

A Gulf News article is quoted in the post as saying, "If any country is found to be a currency manipulator, it is required to hold talks with the US government." The GN article goes on to state that only one country, China, has been labeled a currency manipulator and that was fourteen years ago, but this is not mentioned in the NBO post. I think that the verbiage that a country is "required" to hold talks is a bit of an overstatement of the power of the U.S. The U.S. cannot require any country to hold talks against its will, unless there is some sort of treaty obligation. Also, dropping the quote out of the context of the GN article, which also references one provision of the law without providing its legal context, gives a false impression of the evil big brother U.S.

The quote references U.S. Public Law 100-148, "The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988." In section 3004, it states:

"The Secretary of the Treasury shall analyze on an annual basis the exchange rate policies of foreign countries, in consultation with the International Monetary Fund, and consider whether countries manipulate the rate of exchange between their currency and the United States dollar for purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustments or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade. If the Secretary considers that such manipulation is occurring with respect to countries that (1) have material global current account surpluses; and (2) have significant bilateral trade surpluses with the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury shall take action to initiate negotiations with such foreign countries on an expedited basis, in the International Monetary Fund or bilaterally, for the purpose of ensuring that such countries regularly and promptly adjust the rate of exchange between their currencies and the United States dollar to permit effective balance of payments
adjustments and to eliminate the unfair advantage."

China, for comparison, has a significant bilateral trade surplus with the U.S.: $256 billion in 2007. Oman had a trade deficit of $18.4 million in 2007. UAE's trade deficit was $10 million. Saudi Arabia, due to its oil exports I imagine, had a trade surplus of $25 billion. Bahrain has a very small trade surplus. Therefore, the provisions of the U.S. law, which are not binding on the Gulf countries, do not even apply in the case of most GCC countries. I believe it would be extremely hard to label any GCC state as a currency manipulator in the case of a revaluation anyway. For instance, Kuwait does have a trade surplus of $1.6 billion, but it has already revalued its currency and has not gotten any wrist-slaps from the U.S.

So, I think that the U.S. was encouraging the Gulf countries to hold out on revaluation as long as they could, but the writing is on the wall at this point. And "encouraging" is probably a lot more accurate regarding U.S. power than "requiring." Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that the U.S. asked and the Gulf leaders decided to oblige up to a point. If anyone has any insights or corrections to my economic ramblings (I'm on thin ice with my economic knowledge here) please comment.

Rachel Ray, Terrorist Sympathizer

2008-05-29T16:09:00.004+03:00

In a piece of completely asinine news from the U.S., Rachel Ray has been accused of sympathizing with terrorists because she wore a black-and-white kaffiyeh as a scarf for a photo in a Dunkin Donuts ad. (The conservative whackos who got up in arms about that would really be up in arms to know that DD is coming to a crazy Arab country like Oman).

I'll refrain from naming the conservative ass who "broke" the story in a blog just because I do not want to help with her personal publicity, but she says that the traditional Palestinian kaffiyeh has come to symbolize Muslim extremism and terrorism. Now, I have absolutely no tolerance for the sick and twisted brands of extremism that come out of the Middle East, but in my opinion, all of these people are cut of the same cloth. Their ideologies, self-righteousness, polemics, paranoid conspiracy theories, etc. are all very similar, but they just serve different selfish goals. Of course, the "Islamic" terrorists use violence, but I really think that the difference is not the ideology, but the situation. If these American whackos had grown up in Palestine, they'd be sicko terrorists too.

So, what needs to happen, is someone needs to invent a biometric whacko scanner. We scan everyone and send all the people who scan positive as whackos from all over the world to a fenced off area in the desert somewhere about the size of Gaza and let them work their ideological differences out. It wouldn't create world peace, but it definitely would rid us of the more ridiculous rhetoric out there. (By the way, the use of the phrase "sons of pigs and monkeys" when referring to a whole category of people qualifies you for the trip.)

As for Americans, they need to wake up and condemn the stupidity of commentators like this. It is this sort of extremism that plays right into the hands of the enemy (by enemy, I mean the enemy who kills innocent people, who bullies his own, and who uses the flag of righteousness to cover up his own greed and power-lust, not everyone the enemy looks like). As for the rest of the world, they need to do the same. Clean up your own playpen and stop blaming other people for your own faults, then maybe everyone can work together to find amenable solutions for major problems. Its impossible to work issues out when whole groups of people refuse to condemn idiotic, polemical rhetoric that sounds like the logic of an elementary school bully who can't read.

Complimentary SUV Parking Spots

2008-05-27T16:40:00.003+03:00

I think its great that City Center has provided complimentary SUV parking spots in its garage. Its hard to see from this picture (the guy was getting in his car and I didn't want to cause any problems or have issues with getting the liscencse plate in the pic) but these nifty spots have enough room (about a shopping cart's width) to put the driver's side tires on pavement, with the other tires up on the curb. This allows people with big new SUVs to park right up near the entry doors, while also making sure their suspension is getting the exercise it needs.

American malls need to get on the ball and start offering these parking spots, as we all know that it would be the most intense off-roading experience most U.S. SUVs or trucks ever face.

Now, be sure not to put your shopping cart behind these SUVs, as the high ride and slight tilt mean that the driver won't be able to see it. Place the cart in its proper spot: behind the small white car a few spots down.