Seven Course Words from a Fat American

January 30, 2008 – 5:50 pm

This poem speaks to stereotypes of Americans. We happen to think that the “fat” stereotype is particularly pertinent these days, especially in the Arab world. And yet, we bet you that your mouth will water by the time you are done reading. Go on. Prove us wrong.

Pay special attention to what’s going on in the poem. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill culinary fantasies. *wink*

Anyway, we think Sim Stafford is brilliant (look for more of his writing on GlobalComment), and hope you will enjoy.

- The AC Team.

I lust for: paella washed down with sake,
Flakey baklava layered with kraut,
Cranberry sauce as dip for souvlaki,
Another of soy for blackened jerk trout;

Mangoes with kimchi, vegemite vodka,
A steamy yam borscht, a well-pressed Cuban,
A Tahitian Treat, a deep-fried latke,
Crêpe Suzette, a tangy dim sum Reuben;

Frankfurter kebabs with Bavarian creams,
Stuffed between crispy frog legs au gratin,
Black Forest samosas with collard greens,
Kangaroo ziti baked fluffy as cotton; Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature | Comments (1)

Politics, Leadership, and the Muslim Woman

January 25, 2008 – 7:47 pm

Do Muslim women have a right to be political leaders?

The answer is yes.

Furthermore, there is no time to waste when it comes to exercising this essential right.

In “Women’s roles take divergent paths in First and Third Worlds”, Rosa Brooks quotes Francis Fukuyama’s article titled “Women and the Evolution of World Politics,” which debates that “a truly matriarchal world would be less prone to conflict and more cooperative than the one we now inhabit” although “masculine policies will still be essential even in a feminized world.”

Brooks takes Fukuyama’s point a step further to state that because of the increasing female infanticide in Asia, Asian men are in “surplus” and “unless we take the changing demographics of gender as seriously as we take other emerging global trends such as weapons proliferation and climate change the future could be as dangerous as a cage full of Fukuyama’s furious male chimpanzees.”

Interestingly, Islam in the 21st Century has been reduced to a dangerous cage full of furious men not because of demographics of gender but because of the patriarchs of our society and community, people such as Abubakar Ahmad Gada, the author of Political Irrelevance of Women in Islam.

Gada’s basic premise is the hadith in which the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) had said, “A nation which placed its affairs in the hands of a woman shall never prosper.” Sanusi wrote an informative article, “Women and Political Leadership in Muslim Thought,” which sheds light on the relevance of the hadith to preceding events and circumstances under which the Prophet (pbuh) had said that.

However, many Muslims read the hadith in isolation and insist that a nation led by a woman will not have Allah’s blessings.

History suggests otherwise. The sun never set on the British Empire under the rule of Queen Victoria; Russia flourished under Catherine the Great; and Spain was ‘Christened’ under Queen Isabella and her Spanish Inquisition. India prospered under the premiership of Indira Ghandi, and Golda Meir defeated Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Where women leaders have prospered, they have failed greatly too. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in islam, muslim women, religion | Comments (5)

Gaza: So where is Bono anyway?

January 22, 2008 – 8:09 am

The news all over the world are blaring about the ongoing debacle in Gaza: a million people suffering collective punishment with no power in the dead of winter. There are reports of hospital patients dying preventable deaths in their beds. The latest update is that Israel will allow “some food” into the blockaded area. Hamas leadership, meanwhile, is grandstanding.

I’m not one of those people who believes that Israel out to be destroyed, “pushed out into the sea,” or whatever. But I do believe that Israel needs to take steps toward change. This has to do with the fact that I see a real problem with the way that this nation’s leaders have conducted themselves in the region. I see a further problem with most American politicians’ blind support for practically anything Israeli politicians say or do. Of course, anything other than blind support may quickly earn you the title of anti-Semite and/or terrorist supporter (now, now, I don’t think that anti-Semitism is not a serious issue, but the way in which it gets invoked in regards to the present conflict does make it seem as though some folk have decided to hijack the cause against it). Don’t like what’s happening in Gaza today, for example? Keep your trap shut, you just might get smeared.

I also see a problem with any sort of blind support of the activities of the Palestinian leadership. Palestinian leadership has not been great. At all. The violence of various factions have not gotten Palestine anywhere. And Hamas in particular doesn’t know PR (among other things they clearly don’t know). I’ve often wondered if Hamas cares about the terrible present conditions and the people affected by them as much as they care about ideas. Now, it’s easy for me to talk smack about a group of folks that have been living under severe restrictions for many years. It’s easy for me to lecture Palestinians from the relative safety of my present home. Yet, a serious conflict requires serious solutions nonetheless.

Speaking of solutions, there is a variety of them on the table. Both Jews and Muslims have been busy trying to work things out. And yet, we rarely hear about progress and the possibility of progress. As Gaza shivers in winter, all we hear about is the seeming inevitability of conflict, suffering, and destruction. Many of us resign ourselves to it. We shift the paper aside, and shrug, and pour a cup of coffee, and listen to the latest round of grotesque Britney gossip, and go on with our day.

So here is my question: where the hell is Bono? Where is that multitude of glamorously somber celebrities to draw our glitter-hungry gaze to what’s happening, right now, right in this very moment, to the Gazans? To remind us to stop being so heartless, to speak out? Where is that topical MTV music video with passionately flailing guitars? That magazine cover? Don’t tell me they’ve got no clue as to what is going on over there.

Sure, people have their pet causes. They can’t be in ten different places at the same time. Private jet fuel doesn’t come cheap. And lots and lots of people besides Gazans are also suffering as I type this piece. I get that part. And yet it strikes me as particularly telling that Gaza, and the latest crisis that has the entire world’s attention, is being virtually ignored by people who make their living from getting attention.

Are the issues just too tough? The possibility of being labeled an anti-Semite, or, better yet, “a self-loathing Jew” (can’t speak for everyone, but many of my Jewish friends who have criticized Israel’s policies have gotten that label, and pretty forcefully too) just too daunting? Or is it the more radical subset of the Left that celebrities simply don’t want to get involved with (sometimes, I can’t say I blame them)? Is there such a thing as a “trendy” cause, and does Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, not conform to whatever requirements needed to be awarded such status?

So what’s going on here? Am I being silly in even asking such questions? Surely not. Bloggers for Palestine (and various non-profit organizations) clearly are paying attention to how media coverage and rhetoric play into the ongoing conflict.

And in today’s world, the cover of Vanity Fair can play as crucial a role as a statement from a top-level politician. So where is it?

Do most big celebrities and their handlers only really “care” about others for as long as it’s convenient to do so? Do these people just squeeze their publicist-approved activism in between the latest awards ceremony and waxing appointment, making sure it isn’t too complicated or difficult to talk about? Nothing personal against Bono and people like Bono (for the record: Bono does strike me as someone who, in fact, cares about the miserable state of our sorry little world), but you do have to wonder.

Is this the way it’s always going to go, for Gaza, for Palestine?

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in current affairs, palestine | Comments (11)

Russia, My Russia: Part IV

January 21, 2008 – 7:27 am

The previous parts of Husam’s travelogue are as follows: part I, II, and III. Enjoy.

The sun graced Moscow with its presence on my fourth day in town, and so I therefore decided to stay outdoors and visit the open-air memorial known as Park Pobedy (”pobeda” means “victory” in Russian).

This place commemorates what the Russians refer to as the Great Fatherland War, or what we call the Second World War.

The vast open passage to the memorial park is absolutely breathtaking:

There are rows and rows of water fountains gushing dramatically upward and a giant obelisque piercing the air, topped with sculptures of angels of peace.

There is the sense of beauty here, and violence; violence that remains in Russian memory.

Inside the park are various exhibitions showcasing tanks, fighter airplanes and jets, battleships, cannons and all types of heavy and light weaponry of the war. The exhibits are scattered beside ponds and forest groves. Here, fountains bristle with golden sunrays and falling leaves. Attached to all this are places of worship representing all three Abrahamic religions as a way to pay respect to the millions of different soldiers, those who joined hands during the defense of their shared Homeland.

Following this dramatic excursion, I went to the Kievsky Train Station and proceeded towards the house of Leo Tolstoy, a place not to be missed by literary buffs arriving in Moscow. I then crossed the river on a magnificent glass bridge and walked towards the famous Gorky Park (listen for a mention of it in the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change”).

Close by, there is another peculiar park, this one dedicated to fallen monuments. Some call it the “statue cemetery” as it also now home to many sculptures that were neglected or removed from their podiums after the fall of communism. This is a haunting (if not haunted) place.

There I was able to get a very close look at the modern statue of Peter the Great commemorating one of his many feats (this one, I believe, is dedicated to his establishment of the Russian navy). Walking along the river, I reached a pedestrian-only area that leads to the prestigious Zamoskvoreche neighborhood and the famous Triyatkov Gallery. To reach the gallery I had to cross the river again over a small bridge, this one planted with metal trees bearing fruits that looked, to my eyes, like locks. I was initially bewildered by this. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in russia, society, travel | Comments (1)

Motorcycle Diaries Part XI

January 15, 2008 – 9:21 am

“It’s a crime, a crime against culture. They are destroying a holy place, a place that is of incalculable value to Sarajevo.”

With these distressed words, art expert Zoja Finci implored the late Bosnian President, Alija Izetbegovic, to save the Islamic relics of her beautiful city from destruction, despite the fact that she is Jewish herself. This was back in 1995, soon after the end of the Bosnian war, and she was referring to the Begova Mosque in Sarajevo, the largest Islamic monument – and arguably the most ornamented – in the former Yugoslavia. The vandals she was denouncing were not Serb militias, but none other than the Wahhabist hordes who traveled all the way to Bosnia to complete the destruction they started in Mecca.

As if the desecration of the graves of the Prophet’s wife and companions, and the complete demolition of every single remaining vestige of Islam in Mecca and Medina were not enough, the Wahhabist bulldozers set their eyes on Europe. Since 1995, a post-war crime of a different nature has been ongoing to erase the beauty of Islamic architecture in the Balkans under the guise of Islamic Aid.

You wouldn’t have thought for a minute that Wahhabis were particularly concerned with architecture to bother themselves with such expensive restoration efforts in far away lands, until you discover that their aim has nothing to do with restoration and everything to do with obliteration. All across the Balkans, even the slightly damaged structures were not repaired, although it would have been the easier thing to do, but were razed to the ground to be rebuilt from scratch in the ugliest form imaginable, and as far off from the original shape and design as humanly possible.

Then came the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, and the architectural vultures immediately went after the corpses there as well. Harvard University Fine Arts Librarian and expert on Balkan Islamic architecture, Andras Riedlmayer, goes so far in condemning the grotesque defiling of ancient mosques in the Balkans to pronouncing that “the Wahhabis, with their wealth and fanaticism, are a menace to heritage, in some ways more dangerous than the [Serb paramilitary] Chetniks, since about the latter, at least, no one harbors any illusions regarding their uncharitable intentions.”

One foreign expert described one of the architects involved whom he had interviewed (and who never practiced the profession) by saying that “his ideas for mosque design involve knockoffs of Saudi-modern shopping mall architecture with odd touches inspired by the décor of the Love Boat, including portholes! He is the very model of the modern zealot, narrow minded, arrogant, and so dumb he doesn’t even realize it.”

Centuries old Ottoman mosques, libraries, schools and graveyards were knocked down for no reason except to implement Wahabist doctrines attacking any semblance of architectural splendor by inventing sayings of the Prophet decreeing that the ornamentation of mosques or tombs is a crime in the eyes of God. Reidlmayer recalls that prior to the War in Kosovo, “when the Wahhabis took out sledgehammers and set about smashing the 17th century gravestones in the garden of Peja’s ancient Defterdar Mosque, angry local residents beat them up and chased them out of town. I was shown the damaged gravestones, beautifully carved with floral motifs and verses from Qur’an. That was in the late summer of 1998. Six months later, in the spring of 1999, Serb paramilitaries came and burned down the mosque. Unlike the fundamentalist missionaries, they were not interested in the gravestones.”

So why do these Wahhabist scavengers travel the globe to implement the uglification project, you may ask? Who ultimately benefits if our culture and civilization is made to look as ugly and primitive as possible in the eyes of the world? Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in entertainment, religion | Comments (1)

The Next Great War… With the Burqa

January 9, 2008 – 9:33 am

The burqa is quickly becoming the greatest foe of the Western society. But this tussle with the ‘Muslim woman’s attire’ is not new.

Rudyard Kipling, who was born and raised in India amongst Muslims who were the last Mogul kings, describes a boorka in his short story Beyond the Pale as an ‘evil-smelling’ garment ‘which cloaks a man as well as a woman.’ The main character, Trejago, dresses in a burqa to meet his Indian lover and symbolically throws it away at the end of the story.

No matter how I personally feel about the burqa, I think it is not anyone’s right to ridicule the garment and its wearers.

Two articles against the burqa have left me speechless not because they are insensitive in tone but because of their writers’ innate lack of knowledge about the religion they seem to target with their vile words. One is by the Bangladeshi ex-Muslim Taslima Nasrin titled “Let’s Burn the Burqa” and the other is “Death Before Burkas” by Kyle-Anne Shiver.

There are two popular opinions on hijab by Muslims; one is that it is required in the Quran and the other opinion is that it is not required and only modesty is emphasized. Ms. Nasrin claims that Quran requires niqab because of “an individual’s personal reasons” and “since then millions of Muslim women all over the world have had to suffer it.” Nasrin suggests that women

    “should protest against this discrimination. They should proclaim a war against the wrongs and ill-treatment meted out to them for hundreds of years. They should snatch from the men their freedom and their rights. They should throw away this apparel of discrimination and burn their burqas.”

It was amusing to read Nasrin’s words because her knowledge about Islam, a religion she consciously abandoned, is extremely weak. A few examples: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, muslim women, religion | Comments (9)

Russia, My Russia: Part III

January 6, 2008 – 2:01 pm

Check out parts one and two of Husam’s travelogue.

I had a slow start on the third day of my Russian adventures, but did finally make it to the Moscow History Museum.

This place tells the story of human civilization through four million exhibits, spanning thousands of years from the Stone Age and on. The museum puts a lot of emphasis on the various peoples and cultures that comprise the Russian Federation.

For that matter, a stroll down any Moscow street can be a very informative ethnographic experience. Russian citizens’ backgrounds are extremely varied. My friend Renata for example has Russian (Slavic) and Tatar blood running through her veins, while other friend Dzera is half-Russian and half-Ossetian. On my trip, I met people of German, Baltic, Swami, and Central Asian heritage, among many others.

All of these ethnic groups and more are represented in the Museum. It was peculiar to see the personal belongings of past czars and church patriarchs next to shamanic tools and flint stone daggers, such contrast!

However, one of the exhibits that especially moved me was devoted to the late Imam Shamel of the Caucasus. There was his portrait in oil, as well as his personal dress and kamas (daggers) next to official letters handwritten and signed by him. To my astonishment, the language of these documents was Arabic and not Chechen, despite the fact that they were official written orders and directions to his followers and agents. The history of interaction between Russian and Arab cultures had never seemed more tangible to me as it did when I stood next to that exhibit. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in russia, society, travel | Comments (2)

Identity. Belonging. Who Are You Really?

January 3, 2008 – 6:48 am

Conversations on identity seem to take a complicated turn more often than not, and especially in my rowdy hood.

I recently got asked a bunch of questions by someone from a past life currently writing a book that includes a chapter on creativity, cinema, Palestinian and Arab independent production among other topics. After a few emails back and forth, the writer popped the question: “Do you mind if I include you in the chapter on Palestinian (as opposed to Jordanian) cinema?” I replied that that would not be true nor accurate to me personally and professionally and proceeded to dissect my life in an email back:

“I know that you’d like my answer to be the ideal story, but to tell you the truth, it’s not.

On identity - I am Jordanian. I never felt Palestinian nor can I relate to that part of me beyond the wider family meaning. It’s not how I grew up and the lifestyle I led allowed me to look way beyond borders of origin and just be a citizen of the world who happened to be from Jordan and from a family of Palestinian origin from Nablus. I did not grow up in a home that was Palestinian at all and did not receive that kind of awareness from my Jordanian-born father and Lebanese mother as we lived in 7 different countries around the world and I attended 8 schools during 12 years, speaking four languages and learning about the religions of the world through social studies and not ‘religion’ class.

My father was a politician and I hated politics - and still do. It’s not a strategic, conscious choice about being this or that, it’s who I am and what I am as a result of my life. And that may not be good news for your angle on Palestinian identity issue/unity/origins/rights, but it is my reality and works for me, end of story.

On film, you mention that I’m probably attracted to being Jordanian and not Palestinian from my professional perspective due to the pioneering position/entrepreneurial/being first – in truth, I could care less about all that. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in entertainment, science & technology, society | Comments (2)