Middle East

Sex and the City 2

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, and on occasion, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.

SATC was always only about a certain type of woman, despite attempts to make Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte into everywoman. But the friendships between the protagonists felt universal. And as cartoonish as the individual characters could be, I saw pieces of them in the women around me, if not in myself.

Then I got older. So have the characters in SATC, but the franchise’s male creators aren’t quite sure what to do with women over forty. And so they have taken four flawed but generally likable women and made them repugnant.

Charlotte’s chirpy childishness—always a little icky—seems gross coming from a twice-married woman with two children. Carrie’s self-centered flakiness and drama-whoring is exhausting. Samantha and Miranda are unrecognizable—Sam having gone from an independent woman in charge of her sexuality to a desperate caricature fighting to hold on to her youth (Note: Chris Noth, who plays Mr. Big, is two years older than Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha. Interesting that Samantha is portrayed as fading, while Big still gets to be…well…Mr. Big) while Miranda quits her job because the new partner at the firm is a sexist jerk. No fight. She simply gives up, which seems completely out of character.

SATC was never as feminist as it was made out to be, but now it seems as un-empowering and pandering as a those pink “girl” computers by Dell. And when the fearsome foursome arrive in the Middle East, privilege, racism, and ignorance meet in an unholy trifecta. Here is what we learn:

All you need to know about Arab countries, you have already learned in Aladdin. If you have a Jewish married name, do not use it on a trip to Abu Dhabi. In an Arab country, be sure to wear expensive clothing reminiscent of the aforementioned cartoon. (Two words: gold harem pants.) Arab men are either frightening crazy-eyed religious fundamentalists or hot menservants. (By the way, it is not at all creepy to accept the services of said hot, brown menservants, and if one such manservant is gay... jackpot! Two new accessories for the price of one! Refer to him as Paula Abdul.)

No woman ever follows the tenets of Islam by choice; all women who wear abaya or niqab are oppressed and secretly want to be white, wealthy, American women who wear revealing couture. Arab women who are not oppressed may be bellydancers in Western-style nightclubs. It is feminist to travel to Muslim countries and expose yourself, simulate fellatio on a hookah, grab a man’s penis in a restaurant, and possibly have sex on a public beach. If you are trying to communicate in an Arab country and cannot find the right words, saying “lalalalalala” will get your point across.

Now, I am sure there are those who will say that I am thinking too deeply about a movie that is meant to be a bit of fluff. For you, I will share that SATC 2’s problems are not all about the portrayal of women, privilege, race or religion. Before any of those things pricked my nerves, I was already sighing at the films stilted dialogue, awkward group dynamic, hackneyed situations, and corny jokes that beg for a sitcom laugh track. And then there was the spectacle of seeing Liza Minelli performing “Single Ladies.” Yes, Liza with a “z” sings Beyonce with a “B.”

Excerpted from What Tami Said

Written by: Tamara Winfrey Harris, June 4th 2010

Masculine Identity in the Fiction of the Arab East Since 1967

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Samira Aghacy

Syracuse University Press

It is widely acknowledged that limited gender constructs and highly patriarchal social structures, the kind that are prevalent in the Middle East, are often harmful to women. Across the spectrum of thought and knowledge—from columnists like New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff to 2010 Time 100’s Reem Al Numery—we have all become familiar with how harmful the effects of male-centric, male-dominant societies can be to women.

The questions then become: How do these constructs effect men? How does the amplification of the importance of men as a group effect men as individuals? Are the gender constructs and societal norms that are so often harmful to women exclusively beneficial to men, or does some harm come to men as well?

In Masculine Identity in the Fiction of the Arab East Since 1967, Samira Aghacy attempts to answer these questions. While her analysis focuses on fiction, there is no denying that the truth is often found in what has been imagined. The stories constructed simplify the present being experienced, often making it less personal and more manageable. By surveying the fiction written in what she calls the "Arab East" (Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq) after the various wars of 1967 (the Six-Day War with Israel, the state breakdown in Lebanon, etc.) caused a nadir in the region, Aghacy brings to the fore men’s vision of their constructs.

Aghacy emphasizes her identification with a view of the world that sees masculinity as operating independently of men, at times. Thus, men can be victims of masculine societal norms. In this light, the archetypes Aghacy finds in the literature are both abusers and abused, those who inflict and enforce societal norms of masculinity unto others and those who are the Others. The writings she examined also use male stereotypes to make judgments about their societies. According to Aghacy, in a story a dysfunctional male may represent a dysfunctional state, an oppressive male can represent an oppressive state, etc.

Viewing the world through a feminist lens, it is easy to forget the effect of repressive structures on men. Masculinity, which so often limits women, can also limit men, and often profoundly so. While the experience is in no way comparable, patriarchal structures are torturous in a distinct way for all members of the patriarchy.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, May 19th 2010

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth M. Cuno, Manisha Desai

Syracuse University Press

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia makes available twelve essays that were presented, in earlier forms, at the 2004 symposium of the same title, which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The essays, edited by Kenneth M. Cuno and Manisha Desai, include analysis of eleven nation-states from Morocco to Bangladesh. With thirty-one pages of works cited, this is a valuable reference on an increasingly critical topic. Major themes include the impact of colonialism and postcolonial struggles with national identity; religious politics, and in particular religion’s impact on family law; and international standards, as outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and related conventions, versus nationalist efforts for self-determination without perceived pressures from outside.

The issues dealt with in these essays are complex, and I am wary of oversimplifying any of them. In the discussion of the role of colonialism, one idea that emerges is that colonial patriarchies interact with local patriarchies, creating hybrid forms that become sites of negotiation and contestation. Another idea that recurs is the interplay of religion, local custom, and the state, three venues for regulating behavior and establishing social mores. In practice, as contributor Shelley Feldman points out in her discussion of Bangladesh, this means that constitutional reform alone is insufficient to create change, because it will not (necessarily, or sufficiently) impact local customs and religious laws.

Taken together, the analyses shed light on one another. The reader can see commonalities among the nations in these interrelated regions, as well as critical differences that make each locality’s challenges unique. It becomes apparent that, as the editors point out in the introduction, “neither nationalism nor elite women’s feminism guarantees the ‘liberation’ of women.” Thankfully, these discussions also highlight many ways in which women are actors, participating in many ways, from liberatory habits of daily life to transnational feminist organizations.

Written by: Lisa Rand, May 11th 2010

Veiled Voices

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:34:00 +0000

Directed by Brigid Maher

Typecast Releasing

When people think of Muslim leaders they rarely envision women; however, many women are have made their mark as religious leaders in Islam. Veiled Voices presents the lives of three such women, allowing them to tell their own stories filled with struggle, triumph, and irony.

The film centers on Ghina Hammoud from Lebanon, Huda Al-Habash from Syria, and Dr. Su’ad Saleh from Egypt. Each woman is making waves in her country as she carves out milestones in faith and society. These women are teachers who get their messages of Islam and women’s strength across through lectures, television appearances, one-on-one lessons, and living their lives as examples to others.

The film begins with the women telling about their past, how they become religious leaders, and what they believe makes them who they are. Next, we get to see them in action as they talk to students and speak on television. The film concludes by looking at the next generation, the daughters of the women.

The interviews with the women's daughters and husbands were important because it shows how equality within the home is very valuable. All of the women demand the men in their lives support their passion and refuse to settle for anything less. This is evident in Ghina’s standing up to family and societal pressure to divorce an abusive husband. The decision and its outcomes weren't easy, but it is apparent that this was the right decision for her.

The film shows how institutional sexism prevents speedy social evolution. One example in the film is when Sheikh Tantawi, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, says it would be fine for a woman to be appointed as a mufti, a Muslim scholar trained to interpret Islamic law, so long as she is qualified through education and practice. However, it is revealed that when Dr. Su’as Saleh submitted an application, she only received one vote from an all-male panel. It is wonderful to celebrate these strong women making a difference in the Islamic world, but there is much progress to be made and it is important that the film highlighted the outright sexism these women face.

There wasn’t much discussion in the film about these women's thoughts on oppression and violence done to women in the name of Islam and based on misogynist interpretations of Sharia. Many people see this as a human rights abuse, and I would have liked to hear what these women think about these interpretations and the outcries to stop these violent acts. The personal stories of these Muslim women are inspiring, and their determination to be positive role models is clear. Veiled Voices is a good start to a conversation by and about women in Islam to change misconceptions held about the role of women in the religion.

Written by: Andrea Hance, April 3rd 2010

Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Arto der Haroutunian

The Experiment

The late Arto der Haroutunian first published this book in 1983 when how-to's for vegetarian cooking—let alone for Middle Eastern vegetarian cooking—were relatively rare in the U.S. Ahead of his time, der Haroutunian's tome of some 250 recipes laid dormant and out of print for 20 years. This new reissue is the first time the book has been available in North America.

As a vegetarian, lover of Middle Eastern food, and cooking newbie, I was thrilled to get my hands on this book. As an added bonus, many of the recipes are vegan, or can be easily tailored to be vegan. I resolved to make half a dozen recipes before reviewing this book, some more than once. After doing so, I've decided that I have a love/hate relationship with said book. My partner, who is an engineer, put it this way: “There is so little instruction that if this was a booklet that came with something you bought at IKEA, it would say, 'Assemble your furniture.'”

Translation: it's assumed that you have as much culinary knowledge as the author. For someone like me—who did not own a set of pots and pans until receiving them as a wedding gift—this made crafting recipes a bit difficult. The recipes don't make any mention of this when referring to the type tools needed—“place mixture in a baking dish”—you're left light on specifics. What kind of baking dish? Pyrex? Stainless? Deep? Shallow?

Some of the baking times were also way off; had I not checked on the potato eggeh, for instance, we might have had a fire in the oven. Ditto with my first try at pita bread: the book forbids you to open the oven before the rounds have baked for 10 minutes, but in my oven that made them a bit tough and crunchy on top. (On my second attempt, baking them for seven minutes, they turned out soft, yummy, and addictive.)

That said, many of the difficulties I encountered could be placed squarely on the shoulders of the American publisher. They failed to take into consideration the fact that flour available for purchase in the U.S. (the cook is simply instructed to use “all-purpose flour”) varies from flour available in the Middle East and the U.K. (the author lived in both places during his lifetime). I seriously doubt the rishta (homemade pasta) was supposed to have the doughy taste that it did; coming up with pasta that tasted like pasta required some research on my part, and the use of semolina flour.

The publisher also did not think to include metric conversion for those of us on this side of the Atlantic; my partner was standing by with a calculator and table, lest I guess wrong and blow up the bread. Lastly, with no photographs—other than the very phallic-looking eggplants on the cover—it was visually disappointing and looked like a textbook.

Despite these disappointments, with a little tinkering, we came up with some delicious homemade food. Other points in the book's favor: all of the ingredients are relatively easy to come by, and don't require a chef's talent to make. Just some patience and experimentation is required.

Written by: M.L. Madison, February 4th 2010

I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:30:00 +0000

By Shoshana Johnson

Simon & Schuster

I was working in my college dining hall when I first caught wind of Jessica Lynch’s capture back in 2003. As I scraped steam trays, I compared our situations. She is a brave soldier somewhere in the sands of Iraq. I am a pansy who spent her days in purgatorial peace in the tundra of upstate New York. I didn’t know—many people didn’t know—that five other soldiers, including Shoshana Johnson, the first African-American female prisoner of war, were also being held. I’m Still Standing, recounts the capture and twenty-two-day imprisonment of Johnson and four male co-prisoners at the dawn of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Johnson is many things: an army cook, a survivor, a mother, and a brave woman who endured great hardship for her nation. She is not a professional writer, though, and it shows. Writing this book has undoubtedly been therapeutic for her, and it gave her a platform to tell the world her story, but as a reader I found myself desiring deeper contemplations on her experience than what she provided. We get a play-by-play, and I wanted a reflection.

This book presents several potentially riveting subjects, such as how the military portrays itself for the media, the ethics of keeping prisoners, the perception of the Iraqi people, and the experience of a female soldier. Being an American female solider serving in the Middle East seems like a particular double-whammy, since women remain a minority in the military and many countries in the Middle East traditionally treat women in a way many Westerners find unacceptable.

Johnson had many experiences during her ordeal that are unique to a female solider. When her gender was discovered by her captors, they stopped beating her while the beating of male soldiers continued. Johnson was held in a different room separate from her male co-prisoners for several days, and she hints about feeling ignored by the men. Later, after telling her captors that she was not married, some began to say that she should marry an Iraqi man, a comment she feared was not a joke. At one point a cloth was tossed over her body to conceal her exposed skin and she was told, “This is Iraq.” After her rescue, she found that many people assumed she was raped in captivity.

Many scenes are ripe with poignancy, but I feel she ran over them in an attempt to remember everything, and gave herself no room to meditate on what it meant. It seems every time a chance to explore subjects in depth was presented, the author merely skims the surface and moves on. I recall a quote from writer Lucy Grealy, who was asked how she remembered the details of her childhood that resulted in her book Autobiography of a Face. She replied, “I didn’t remember it. I wrote it.” Indeed, nonfiction writing needs to have that organic quality to it.

After Johnson’s rescue and return, the book morphs into a defense against accusations she says were piled upon her by the Army and the media. Many lines are unveiled attempts to send personal messages to people in her life, such as an old lover. That can be done in a private, rather than in a national publication.

Despite the limitations of the book, this soldier endured hardships, and I thank her for having the courage to fight for the nation and to tell her story.

Written by: Kelly Palka Gallagher, January 18th 2010

The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0000

By Barry Sanders

AK Press

The Green Zone takes two very big issues of the moment—global warming and the wars in the Middle East—and seeks to illustrate the correlations between the two. Everyone knows something about the horribleness of both topics individually, but most people, including myself, never really put the two together, so I was excited to learn what this book had to offer.

Right off the bat, one of the weaknesses is that the book spends an awful lot of time on what seems to be exposition: there is a preface, a foreword, and finally, an introduction—all of which spell out the gist of the book—before we get to the actual content. The Green Zone presents heavy questions that (according to Sanders) even the Pentagon has no answers for, such as how many military bases America has all over the world, how many Iraqi and Afghani civilians lost their lives since America’s occupation, and how many people will continue to suffer long after America pulls out of the two countries because of the various ways their environment has been polluted since the first Gulf War.

As compelling Sander's case is, he unfortunately goes off on tangents throughout the book, which detract from the point he is attempting to make. One minute he’ll be discussing the Gulf War, then the modern day ice caps, and then off to some other topic with little to no transition between them all. This gets confusing, especially when so many numbers and new terms are introduced.

The middle of the book is the most coherent, and seems to be where Sanders has the most passion in discussing the different ways the American military pollutes and endangers Iraq, Afghanistan, and even its own people. This was a hard book to read, in terms of both subject matter and delivery; however I still consider it a must read.

Written by: Jen Klee, September 14th 2009

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:59:00 +0000

By Neil MacFarquhar

PublicAffairs

The brash leather-clad sex columnist who hosts her own television show, The Biography of Love, is:

a) a Parisian whose show airs in France b) an American whose show airs in the U.S. c) a Kuwaiti whose show is broadcast throughout the Middle East

The surprising answer is C. But sex educator Fawzia Dorai is only one of the unexpected and colorful agents of Middle Eastern change profiled in The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday. A Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, MacFarquhar grew up in Libya, the son of an American oil company employee. With both an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective, MacFarquehar has crafted a rare work. Traveling from Iran to Morocco and points in between, he interviews activists, celebrities, renegades and politicians about the region’s potential for change. The answers are as astonishing as finding the words “Hizbollah” and “Happy Birthday” in the same sentence.

Westerners tend to view the Middle East monolithically, as a vast expanse of violence and extremism. But, as MacFarquhar illustrates, the region consists of competing philosophies and contradictions. For every cleric who believes that politics should serve Islam, there is another who would twist Islam to serve politics. For every activist who would cement society into strict adherence to Islamic law, there is another who believes that Islamic ideals of justice and dignity are more consistent with an open society. The United States’ missteps, MacFarquhar believes, result from failing to recognize the nuanced difference between Western-style democracy and the ways in which Islam’s humanistic values could be used to advance tolerance and pluralism.

Don’t just take MacFarquhar’s word for it. The people he profiles make these points in their own riveting ways. Fawzia Dorai cites ancient Islamic texts on sexuality in support of her frank talks to the public. A Lebanese television chef rockets to stardom by blending American and Middle Eastern cuisine. A Bahraini journalist refuses to bow to censors who hate her bold calls for reform. The book is full of such innovators, stunning in their courage: poets, professors, singers, farmers.

The odds are daunting, as a discussion of fatwas makes clear. Fatwas are clerical rulings and range from pronouncements about jihad (clerics disagree whether the concept condones violence) to decisions banning dogs (which prompt black market dog sales). The clergy is as diverse as the population it serves. Some are fundamentalist, others more liberal. Some are better trained. Some have political agendas.

To add to the complexity, fatwas are not always binding. A layman who doesn’t like a fatwa can look for one that’s more favorable. Sometimes this is a good thing. One woman’s imam ruled that she could unveil at work, but only if she suckled her male colleague, making him her surrogate child. (The ensuing outrage resulted in the fatwa’s reversal.) The proliferation of competing decrees hampers reform by preventing clear definitions of what an Islamic society should look like.

Women activists figure prominently. To MacFarquhar, their status is not simply about gender politics, but about how it reflects on society as a whole. A government using religion as an instrument of oppression affects women in kind. A more pluralistic regime, such as Lebanon’s, offers all citizens more freedom. Bahrain, a mixed bag of tolerance and fundamentalism, allows women to drive, but only if fully veiled. As long as tools of change such as freedom of speech and assembly are discouraged, egalitarianism remains elusive.

MacFarquhar seamlessly blends his knowledge of Middle Eastern history, religion, politics, and culture in The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday. The experience feels like spending time with a very smart and connected buddy who has pulled you aside to share secrets, insights and anecdotes that you won’t hear anywhere else.

Written by: T. Tamara Weinstein, August 31st 2009

The Freak of Araby

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:47:00 +0000

By Sir Richard Bishop

Drag City

The Freak of Araby reminds me of my ten days in Turkey last year, touring around with an Istanbul native who is also one of my dearest friends, crammed into whizzing taxicabs and smoky pubs in which pseudo-mariachi bands crowded around our tables to encourage merriment. At midnight, we would stalk the city’s all-night, open-air diners in search of kebab and twice-baked potatoes. When something local wasn’t playing over the loudspeakers, it was a Turkish Shakira on a flat screen TV, showing a surprising amount of skin. East meets West, and in that context, I really preferred the former.

Sir Richard Bishop is an electric guitar master, and with his ensemble cast on bass and a variety of drums, his latest album is part homage, part bold move forward. Roughly half of the songs on The Freak of Araby are covers, though one would have to have a fairly well-rounded knowledge of Middle Eastern and North African music to distinguish between the remakes and the originals. Half-Lebanese, but of Detroit origins, Bishop has released a number of solo albums but is also well known for his previous near-three decades with Sun City Girls.

Bishop is at once a gypsy and a contained, methodical musician. While a six-minute song like “Sidi Mansour” takes time to devolve into its own little jam session, tracks like “Barbary” clock in under three minutes and never deviate from a predetermined end point. The album’s cover art—a lounging woman with one breast fully exposed—leaves a bit to be desired, but maybe you’re the type to buy a digital copy of the album anyway. This one is worth the purchase.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, August 10th 2009

Breaking Poems

admin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:44:00 +0000

By Suheir Hammad

Cypher Books

In her third book of poetry, award-winning Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad explores the resilience of women’s bodies across borders in a fluid set of poems entitled Breaking Poems. Hammad embraces life at the border, refusing to translate her identity to fit a bounded-identity construct of what it means to be Palestinian or American. She uses a diasporic language, blending anglicized Palestinian Arabic with English. She fuses cultures, dropping names of inspirational figures like Umm Kulthum, Fairuz, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin.

Exploring the theme that wars are fought on women’s bodies, Hammad writes, “in gaza still flesh is ashed/wa smoked wa denied/a women’s chest caves in/smoke escapes legs.” (Wa means "and" in Arabic). In fact, the violence in Gaza is a constant topic in her poetry, summoning us to act and react as she evokes images of exploded bodies, rubble in place of homes, and empty stomachs. She connects the experiences of women in New Orleans to Gaza, capturing the resilience of women’s bodies as they encounter multiple forms of violence.

Breaking poems is also about breaking with old identity constructs. Hammad undergoes a personal transformation as she finds it impossible to fit into fixed and bounded notions of identity. Instead, she embraces border identities that are contradictory, fluid, and multi-sited. She refers to herself as “translinear me” and allows herself to exist simultaneously across time and space as a young girl in Deheisha to a woman in Beirut to a refugee in Brooklyn. “We lived there once my parents sisters and me,” she writes about Beirut. “I left my skin there still boiling.” Beginning to find home in change, Hammad writes:

sometimes I leave my body wa I leave my country wa my religion sometimes leaving is my religion.

Hammad also offers up the poem as the space for home, writing, “Poem is my body my language my country.” By exploring transnational and border identities, Hammad joins the ranks of women like Gloria Anzaldúa, Uma Narayan, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ella Shohat, and Nadine Naber.

Hammad’s poetry is never conventional; she plucks words that evoke the sensations of sight, smell, and touch. She induces feeling and meaning by convincing the reader that her words describe their memories. Nuanced and complex, breaking poems explores a new space in twenty-first century poetry.

Written by: Arwa Ibrahim, March 29th 2009

Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror

admin — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:58:00 +0000

By Nonie Darwish

Sentinel

An outstanding, courageous, and straight-from-the-heart book by a very remarkable woman, _Now They Call Me Infidel _gives an inside view of the sociopolitical and religious facets of Middle Eastern countries. Nonie Darwish is the daughter of Colonel Mustafa Hafaz, a high ranking Egyptian intelligence officer who was killed and hailed as a "Shahid," the highest honor bestowed on a Muslim that can be achieved by being killed during Jihad against the enemies of Islam. Darwish recounts her early experiences of being told outrageous lies, like Jewish rabbis kill Arab children to take their blood for baking cookies. She recalls being in schools filling the minds of the children with dread and terror when they hear the word "Jew" and being made to sing anti-Jewish poetry. Her education at school and her mosque bred fear, anger, and extreme intolerance towards other religions.

Darwish, who lived in Egypt for thirty years, explains that the major problem of the country is extreme poverty, which she feels is shielded in the cloak of religion. Her description of the mistreatment of Jews and other minorities (Coptic Christians, Armenians, etc.) is heart breaking. Jews were hung and branded as traitors, and they were forced to leave the country. She also identifies the Muslim marriage and divorce laws as oppressive to and fostering distrust between Muslim women, as the Islamic law allows a husband to have four wives. Darwish believes that religion is used by political and religious leaders to divert the attention from the other grave problems in Egypt.

After coming to United States, which she now considers to be her homeland, Darwish was astonished at the cultural gulf between U.S. and Egypt. She admired the way Americans accept different religious affiliations and this social equality made her ponder the degree to which Egyptian society oppressed and manipulated its citizens. She started questioning her upbringing, and the anti-Jewish propaganda she had been fed.

After 9/11, Nonnie thought it was her duty to speak out against religious fanaticism; she started to speak out and write against terrorism. Her point of view and non-defensive attitude earned her great appreciation from some, and she founded the website Arabs for Israel to provide a forum for Arabs and Muslims to express their support for Israel. On her tours, she was subjected to insults from Muslims who consider her a traitor, and many universities cancelled her presentations after Muslim students demanded that she not speak. She was shocked and embarrassed to find out that educated American Muslims think Israel should not exist and has become concerned that radical Muslim’s power is increasing in college campuses. Nonie Darwish's opinion on the problem of religious extremism is a must read.

Written by: Sunitha Jayan, May 22nd 2008

Stromata

admin — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 19:25:00 +0000

By Charlotte Martin

On Charlotte Martin's latest album, Stromata, the songstress presents her most experimental work to date. Stromata presents Martin's typically earnest and honest lyrics against a complex background of synthesizers and electronic beats. Her influences on the album are so varied - from techno to folk to Middle Eastern - that the album lacks a sense of cohesion. Martin is a classically-trained singer with a powerful voice that cuts to the core, but even her aggressive vocals get lost in overproduced techno-infused tracks like "Little Universe."

It is when Martin strips the background - and gets back to her On Your Shore roots - that she shines brightest. Tracks like "A Hopeless Attempt" and "Inch" have simpler melodies, which showcase her adept vocals and create a more intimate sound. At times her vocals echo those of Bjork and Tori Amos - fans of Amos' From the Choirgirl Hotel will appreciate the album's melancholic sound. Lyrically, Stromata is an intriguing and insightful examination of sexual desire and love, the "forbidden fruit" and "demons" she acknowledges in "Redeemed." One of Martin's greatest strengths in this album is her refreshing candor. In "Keep Me In Your Pocket" she asks her lover to "sink your teeth into the taste of me and squeeze hard/til you can feel me splitting and you want more." "The Dance" is a meditation on a relationships end, in which she decides she "better stop crying/hello and goodbying...you get your time and the other half's mine."

Stromata features some lyrical misfires; "Drip" being the worst offender with "can't train myself to hold back any longer/breath mint fornicator." Despite this transgression, however, the album is largely intriguing and insightful. With infectious hooks ("Four Walls") and lyrical gems ("Redeemed" and "The Dance"), Stromata is worth your attention.

Written by: Joanna Chlebus, July 22nd 2007

SoukSonik

admin — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:48:00 +0000

By Jef Stott

Six Degrees

After listening to the first 10 seconds of SoukSonic, I had no doubt that Jef Stott's work is strongly influenced by Middle Eastern music. According to his label's profile, Stott is a musical anthropologist who plays several traditional Middle Eastern string and percussion instruments. His anthropological training "inform[s] his sensibility about cultural relativism and issues of appropriation”--an intriguing statement since souk is Arabic for "marketplace."

The album is basically Middle Eastern-infused techno. It is at times too frenetic, as though Stott hit the fast forward button and liked the results. At other times, it almost strays into trance, though the tracks are too short and the tempo too fast.

Stott is an experienced producer, but SoukSonic eschews the full-bodied mellowness of the instruments and sounds as though it used a synthesized facsimile rather than the real thing. Overall, the EP is worth a listen, but not memorable enough to get into my favorites playlist with the possible exception of the infectious “Lamacet.”

Written by: Vita Foster, June 8th 2007

Zaatar Days, Henna Nights: Adventures, Dreams, and Destinations across the Middle East

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:14:00 +0000

By Maliha Masood

Seal Press

Pakistani-American Maliha Masood needed a change in her life. She resigns from her lackluster job, cashes in her savings and books a one-way ticket to Paris. While in Europe, her strong desire for adventure and self-discovery propels her to hop on a flight to Cairo, Egypt, but the journey does not stop there. In Zaatar Days, Henna Nights, Masood recounts the literal and metephorical journey she takes across the Middle East, living in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. She describes, with harrowing detail, her experiences riding Cairo's bustling subway system, floating in Jordan's Dead Sea, roaming around Damascus' old city, strolling down Beirut's posh commercial streets, praying in Aleppo's Great Mosque and laying in the sand of Turkey's Patara beach. Yet Masood is certainly not your average tourist. Instead of isolating herself in luxurious hotels while solely visiting popular sites, she forces herself to become immersed in the varying cultures by renting apartments in average neighborhoods in which she must communicate in order to survive.

Masood always finds room to write about the specifics. The reader cannot help but feel as if they are walking and sitting alongside her, smelling the various spices in the souq (Middle Eastern marketplace) and feeling the anxiety that comes when one cannot rely on language to haul themselves out of a sticky situation. While the details are important, Masood's profound insights are the jewels of this text. She struggles with the privilege of being a tourist, especially when she opens her eyes to the widespread poverty that often surrounds her. She elaborates on insider versus outsider tensions, religious versus cultural practices, language as a social bond and a barrier, Western ideas about the Middle East and vice-versa, among other things.

Ultimately, this text is a personal and spiritual quest in an attempt to transcend duality. As a Pakistani-American, Masood writes that “[duality] seems to be the thesis of my life,” and she often divides her identity into her Eastern and Western selves. However, her travels open her up to the possibility that we are all more alike than we assume, that perhaps we share common desires and hopes. The readers of Zaatar Days, Henna Nights will certainly come away with more than a tourists gaze of the Middle East. They will understand its vast variations, complexities, and subtleties in a way that only a person with both insider and outsider status (like Masood) is fortunate and brave enough to experience.

Written by: Arwa Ibrahim, April 13th 2007