the news in arabic

While watching al-Jazeera’s exclusive interview with Muqtada al-Sadr (his first televised appearance in about a year) on YouTube, I scrolled down to read the comments. We all know anonymous commenting on YouTube empowers assholes to be bigger assholes and I don’t want to provide a platform for the hatred and prejudice that some people espouse (since these people are usually a minority), but I do want to highlight how sectarian tensions have manifested themselves on YouTube.

Here is the comment from YouTube user “TruthDaTruth” which prompted further investigation:

dirty filthy muqtada the aeroplane of sadri is worthless

The YouTube user “TruthDaTruth” obviously typed his original Arabic into a bad online translator which resulted in “al-Tiyyar al-Sadri” or the Sadr Current/Wing being translated into the “aeroplane of sadri.” In Arabic, “tiyyar” literally means current, like an air or water current, but it used to mean political currents as well. So, the “aeroplane of Sadr” is literally the “Sadr current.”

Anyways — I checked out the guy’s profile and there is an interesting mix of insults and compliments being hurled at TruthDaTruth. (It appears possible that TruthDaTruth is Sunni and harbors some resentment toward Shi’a, but I, nor any of the commenters, know this person’s true identity.)

The comment breakdown:

1) Insults from Shi’a or supporters of Shi’a who do not appreciate his Shi’a bashing.

saudi wahabi lozer,,, saudi wahabi lozer to hell with zarkawi el zarbawi haha and to hell with bin laden bin monkeys hahahaha

2) Insults from individuals who are anti-Muslim and not discriminating between sects.

fuck you, why u named after a Christian rapper u dumb fucked up muslim hahahaha go suck off ya imam u faggot ass bitch

you muslim prick. if you fuckers didnt fly planes into the twin towers there wouldnt be wars all over the shit muslim countries…..

Internet as “Real” Speech

I think that many of us define certain Internet spaces as a “community” of sorts. We post videos, photos, and journals on the Internet and many times, people respond. The purpose of this post is to show how certain types of Internet communities are host to some very negative and racist ideas and how they do not serve any constructive purpose whatsoever. I think we have to ask how these Internet “communities” translate into “real” life — but at the same time — I think this question is problematic since the Internet is becoming more integrated into our everyday lives. By this, I mean that the “anonymous commenter” may appear to be a faceless, distant Internet user, but in many societies where the Internet is pervasive, the speech that is made online may just as well have been made face-to-face. Speech made on the internet is “real” speech and should be treated as a tangible phenomenon and not something that exists in some “digital” world of little consequence.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Emir of Qatar.

No Shows: King of Jordan Abdallah II, President of Yemen Ali abd al-Salah, King of Saudi Arabia Abdallah bin abd al-Aziz, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Sultan of Oman, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the King of Morocco, and Lebanon.

Shows: Eleven Arab leaders including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Algeria, the Emir of Qatar, and some other dudes. Eighteen leaders were present at last year’s summit in Riyadh.

Summit Time!

Algerian President Abdalaziz Boutflika and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. One is short; the other is tall!

Double-chin twins! Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and head of the Arab League Amr Moussa.

Double-chins for everyone! Qaddhafi looks fat!

Assad intimidates Palestinian President Abbas by grabbing his bicep. Hot!

I am calling men fat because this label is normally disproportionately saved for women.

Information and Photos from al-Jazeera and al-Thawra.

(Image from the NY Times.)

More gems from the travel writing section of the NY Times. This time, we travel to the new Middle East hot-spot — Khasab, Oman! The landscape looks like Utah, the ladies are mysterious, and it’s in a country you’ve never heard of before! But before I go further: Orientalist Cliche Count — GO!

an Arabian land

oil-rich

Omani women in flowing black head scarves

Ok, not too many this time, but the article is only 500 words.

Not to repeat myself, but what separates orientalist descriptions of a place from legitimate descriptions of a place? I mean, if there are Omani women wearing flowing black head scarves, then what should prevent us from describing this? Context. Travel writing is all about the “exotic” and the “unique” or “edgy.” Women cease to be human in this type of writing; they are objects of the orientalist’s attention. We have to ask why the author chose to point out this observation out of all other possible observations.

Either way, I’ve got a bigger problem with this piece: luxury hotels.

Khasab’s center is free of souvenir shops, but that may change. In July, Oman Air doubled its weekly flights from Muscat, the capital, from two to four. Luxury hotels are under discussion for Khasab’s main port, near a restored 17th-century Portuguese fort that now houses a museum.

When a town like Khasab becomes a tourist stop, a sad fate awaits.

In other Oman news, Cheney met with Oman’s leader Qaboos.

(Image from AFP.)

Terry Atlas, the author of the article “6 Signs the U.S. May Be Headed to Headed to War with Iran,” says this about Cheney’s visit to Oman:

Cheney, who is seen as a leading hawk on Iran, is going on what is described as a Mideast trip to try to give a boost to stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But he has also scheduled two other stops: One, Oman, is a key military ally and logistics hub for military operations in the Persian Gulf. It also faces Iran across the narrow, vital Strait of Hormuz, the vulnerable oil transit chokepoint into and out of the Persian Gulf that Iran has threatened to blockade in the event of war. Cheney is also going to Saudi Arabia, whose support would be sought before any military action given its ability to increase oil supplies if Iran’s oil is cut off. Back in March 2002, Cheney made a high-profile Mideast trip to Saudi Arabia and other nations that officials said at the time was about diplomacy toward Iraq and not war, which began a year later.

U.S. News and World Report via Informed Comment.

(Image from the NY Times.)

In order to portray a society as “foreign” or an individual as an “other,” you must cast their customs, rituals, or even daily activities as something exotic or peculiar. This entry in the “Riyadh Journal” from the NY Times typifies the practice of creating an other.

This time of year, when the weather here is still cool and comfortable and the flowering plants and shrubs are everywhere, how better to spend a day than to be out in the desert with beautiful camels?

To be sure, the untrained eye [read: Western, --ed] might find it hard to appreciate such beauty. But here, camel aesthetics can be evaluated according to a series of precise and exacting standards.

“It’s just like judging a beautiful girl,” said Fowzan al-Madr, a camel breeder from the Kharj region southeast of Riyadh. “You look for big eyes, long lashes and a long neck — maybe 39 or 40 inches.”

As he spoke, Mr. Madr was surveying the offerings at Saudi Arabia’s largest camel market, on the outskirts of Riyadh. The souq al-jamal, as the market is called in Arabic, sprawls over the open desert for so many acres that it is handy to have a car to drive from pen to pen.

The article labels camel contests as “camel beauty pageants” (a term which I am sure is not directly translated from Arabic). The author has chosen to portray a camel contest as something bizarre by elaborating on the comparisons between females and camels — perhaps the author is also trying to imply that Arabs treat their camels better than women.

Either way, if the author had visited the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo — which has several contests that judge steers, goats, and pigs based on their appearance — I doubt that the coverage would’ve been so suggestive.

“See this one?” he asked, pointing to a white female camel with long eyelashes and a calm gaze. “She isn’t married yet, this one. She’s still a virgin. Look at the black eyes, the soft fur. The fur is trimmed so it’s short and clean, just like a girl going to a party.”

Suddenly, Mr. Shammari grabbed the white camel’s chin and kissed it square on the mouth. “When you get to know the camels, you feel love for them. My camels are like my children, my family.”

Security has improved. Security has improved. Security has improved.

The surge was successful. The surge was successful. The surge was successful.

Five years in Iraq and the network triumvirate — ABC, NBC, CBS — has produced special segments to commemorate the day.

ABC News brings us “Iraq 5 Years Later: Where Things Stand” which presents a pretty optimistic portrait of the current security situation in Iraq. The anchor announces that “security is a bright spot” in Iraq and attributes this success to the troop surge.

Interestingly, they have an interview with a female from Fallujah who says that the security situation is a “million times” better than a year ago. Of course the security situation is better in FALLUJAH from a year ago since that city saw some of the worst fighting in Iraq and now that the violence has lessened — even a little bit — the security situation has improved. Ask someone in Baghdad about the security situation and I do not believe the answer would be as optimistic.

NBC Nightly News produced the segment “Iraq: 5 Years Later” which is more like an interview with their super good-looking bureau chief who says his five years reporting from Iraq has been “quite a ride.” Insightful. The whole segment essentially rotates around the question: “So, what’s it like being in Iraq, like, were you scared when the U.S. shocked and awed Baghdad?”

The report is equally optimistic by reporting the “dramatic reduction in violence” in Iraq and attributes this to the surge. Oh, and guess what? If you don’t support the war on Iraq, the troops hate you.

CBS News (sans Katie Couric) has reached many of the same conclusions as NBC and ABC with their segment “Iraq: 5 Years Later,” namely that there has been a reduction in violence and this reduction in violence is due to the troop surge. I do not believe these conclusions are accurate, but the CBS report is of a vastly higher quality and seems more realistic than the two other broadcasts since it acknowledges that Iraqis are suffering from unemployment, lack of water and electricity, and they do not want to live under a foreign military occupation. It is also noteworthy that both the anchor and correspondent are females — in contrast with the other male-dominated broadcasts.

The NY Times is now offering Arabic-language translations of some of its articles which I think is a good decision, but reading the Times’s articles in Arabic have made me realize the biases which are embedded in the Times’s reporting. (I am not saying Arabic-language news sources are un-biased, it is just that many times, I agree with the biases of the Arabic reporting.)

This Times article on how young Iraqis are becoming skeptical of religious leaders was made available in Arabic. Here are a few observations from my readings of the original English-language article and the Arabic translation:

1. The English language article refers to the “American liberation” of Iraq in 2003. The Arabic article translates this directly as “al-tahrir al-amriki.” No respectable Arabic-language news source would ever call the American invasion of Iraq a “liberation.” The only Arabic-language station that would use the term “liberation” would be al-Hurra, which is funded by the U.S. to pump out news on how much of a democracy Iraq is becoming.
2. When the English-language article mentions an individual who is “Sunni” or “Shiite” it is almost always prefaced with an adjective. For example, this man is a “moderate Shiite” or this person is a “religious Sunni.” The Arabic translation uses the same terminology, but it is awkward, but it seems out of place in the context of this article. It is not uncommon for Arabic-language news sources to label a group “mutatarif” or extremist, but it is normally relevant to the subject matter. If there is ever an article which deals with religious leaders or Iraqi citizens, then it would be rare to see the person’s sect prefaced with an adjective.

The English-language article uses the following descriptors:

a moderate Sunni cleric

a moderate Shiite sheik

a moderate Shiite cleric

a secular Shiite

militant Shiite cleric

a moderate cleric

a non-religious Shiite

From the Times’s article, we are not given any definition on what it means to be a “moderate” Sunni or Shiite. Do “moderate” Muslims support the occupation? Do “moderate” Muslims encourage females to wear hijab?

To call someone a moderate in this context is beyond ridiculous and far from informative and I can only assume that the author (or editor) has other motives when they attach these labels onto individuals. Specifically, these buzz-words are used so that readers can discriminate between good Muslims and bad Muslims. The Times’s definition of “moderate” seems to equate with “reasonable” or “logical,” but it is also the Times’s way of identifying who the U.S. has publicly identified as a non-threat to U.S. interests.

Furthermore, the whole premise of the article is shaky.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

I am sure that there are many young Iraqis who have rejected public religious figures, but 40 interviews can not be indicative of any huge trend. It seems like the reporter knew exactly the type of article she had in mind and then set out to get filler quotes.

Israel has officially boycotted al-Jazeera. The Israeli foreign ministry has announced that it will deny al-Jazeera reporters interviews with government officials and entrance visas. This Israeli government said this decision is the result of al-Jazeera’s “biased” (muhayza) reporting of the events in Gaza. Al-Jazeera reports that some observers say this is another step in the Israeli media war against Palestinians.

Believe it or not, al-Jazeera, as well as al-Manar, are widely available on satellite tv inside Israel. The article did not say if the boycott would affect access to the channel inside Israel.

A 17-year-old American traveled to Egypt for a year-long exchange program where he stayed with a family of Coptic Christians and claimed that they withheld food from him. Over the course of a year (correction: 6 months), he dropped down to 97 pounds. This is, of course, a story being spread in the English-language media under the above headline as well as, “Emaciated in Egypt: Exchange gone wrong.” Click here for the story and the pictures.

The student’s story seems legit and it does appear that the host family did not provide all the food they should have, but does this constitute “starvation”? It’s slightly ridiculous, but I only posted it because the host father’s reaction to charges of “starving the boy” is priceless. He said:

“The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people,” Hanna said.

I think most people that stay in the Middle East for a year come back practically obese. Plus, a shawarma in Egypt costs about 75 cents! Eating a meal of meat covered in sheep fat is kind of a solution to starvation, no? Markets are also plentiful. And besides, the student’s diet doesn’t seem tantamount to starvation.

He said he never got breakfast and his first food of the day usually was a small piece of bread with cucumbers and cheese that he would take to school for lunch. There was a late-afternoon dinner consisting of beans, vegetables and sometimes fish, and a snack of bread later in the evening.

Late-afternoon? Beans and vegetables, but only sometimes fish? The horror!

This man –

is not this man –

but some media institutions and “terrorism experts” can’t tell the difference between Abbas al-Musawi (top photo) and Hassan Nasrallah (bottom photo).

Musawi was the second secretary general of Hezbullah and Nasrallah is the current secretary general.

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism might have a better shot at preventing “terrorism” if they could actually identify the supposed terrorists. Their information page on Hassan Nasrallah labels the poster below as a “poster of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah,” but it is actually Ragheb al-Harb on the left and Musawi on the right.

The group took the above image from PBS who also erroneously labeled Musawi as Nasrallah, but it seems PBS is a repeat offender. In this web-version of a FrontLine documentary from 2004, the poster below of Musawi is labeled again as Nasrallah. They have had four years to correct this error!

Cartoon which reads “Gaza” from al-Quds al-Arabi.

Al-Jazeera

Al-Jazeera reports that 49 Palestinian youths were arrested by Israeli forces while peacefully protesting the blockade on Gaza near the border crossing at Beit Hanoun (also known Erez). Eye witnesses said that several of the youths moved toward the crossing after the demonstrations ended. The Israeli forces were put in a state of alert (halat te’heb) because the area near the crossing is considered a military zone. The al-Jazeera correspondent said that the Israelis used bullets and tear gas on the demonstrators.

An organizer of the demonstration said that the protest was a message to the world that the Palestinians cannot live under the blockade any longer. Sami abu Zahri, a Hamas spokesperson, said that the protest showed that the Gaza Strip is becoming a time bomb waiting to explode if the blockade is not lifted immediately.

NY Times

The lede is decent enough:

Several thousand Palestinians, many of them schoolchildren bused in from their classes, joined peaceful protests in the Gaza Strip along sections of the border with Israel for several hours on Monday. . .

But, wait! The Palestinians still couldn’t pull it off!

But the turnout, estimated at about 5,000, was far smaller than had been expected. . . 

And then they got violent!

After the main protest ended, a group of Palestinian youths rioted at the crossing, throwing stones. When they tried to cross, Israeli troops fired shots into the air, an army spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army rules.

And tucked in the middle of the article is the actual story:

The spokeswoman said 49 Palestinians had been arrested.

And another jab!

Despite the low numbers, the main organizer of the protest, Jamal el-Khoudary, declared the event a success. 

Image of the protest from al-Jazeera.

Here is an image I scanned from Dorfman and Mattelart’s 1971 out-of-print book “How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic.” The above strip depicts the “Aridians” or Disney’s comic-book version of Arabs. Here is an excerpt from the book (parentheses are included in the actual text):

Moby Duck and Donald, captured by the Aridians (Arabs), start to blow soap bubbles, with which the natives are enchanted. “Ha, ha. They break when you catch them. Hee, hee.” Ali Ben-Goli, the chief says “it’s real magic. My people are laughing like children. They cannot imagine how it works.”

“It’s only a secret passed from generation to generation,” says Moby, “I will reveal it if you give us our freedom.” (Civilization is presented as something incomprehensible, to be administered by foreigners.) The chief, in amazement, exclaims, “Freedom? That’s not all I’ll give you . . .” The Arabs consent to their own despoilation. “We have jewels, but they are of no use to us. They don’t make you laugh like magic bubbles.” While Donald sneers “poor simpleton,” Moby hands over the Flip Flop detergent . . .

There they are in their desert tents, their caves, their once flourishing cities, their lonely islands, their forbidden fortresses and they can never leave them. Congealed in their past-historic, their needs defined in function of this past, these underdeveloped peoples are denied the right to build their own future.

Dorfman and Mattelart’s analysis of the role of the female in the Disney comics is equally interesting:

Since [the men] can never fully possess [the women], they are in constant fear of losing them. It is a compulsion of eternal frustration, of pleasure postponed for better domination. Women’s only retreat in a world where physical adventure, criticism, and even motherhood has been denied her, is into her own sterile sexuality. . . Her only raison d’etre is to become a sexual object, infinitely solicited and postponed. She is frozen on the threshold of satisfaction and repression among impotent people.

(Images of Saudi hotel room and tent from Conde Nast Traveler.)

It is not a surprise that travel magazines are one of the great perpetuators of Orientalism in the world. Travel articles, most notably from Conde Nast Traveler, continue to evoke images of Arab shaykhs living in luxury; majestic deserts; nomadic bedouins; massive oil fields; camels; and sexually tempting women.

It is nearly impossible to read an article on the Gulf without the inclusion of the adjectives “oil-rich” or “luxurious.” Here is a breakdown of the most commonly used depictions of Arabs (mostly Gulf states) in the crappy Western travel media magazines. Keep in mind that this is just a small sampling.

Arabs are lazy and engage in frivolous and incomprehensible activities!

From a 2006 Conde Nast article: At the Al Shahaniya racetrack, a half-hour’s drive into the shimmering desert outside Qatar’s capital, Doha, sheikhs parked in SUVs rev their engines and fiddle with remote controls. At the starting gun’s pop, cars and camels take off in a cloud of sand along the six-kilometer course, giving a busload of British and American tourists a fleeting glimpse of Qatar’s latest high-tech attraction: robot camel jockeys. The tourists giggle at this clash of modern and ancient worlds, at gangly beasts carrying toddler-sized electronic riders clad in a hodgepodge of racing silks, T-shirts, and baseball caps.

Arab women are secret-sluts!

“Gulf ladies wear very sexy outfits under those black things,” my guide whispers.

Arab governments are not just autocratic, they’re also incompetent!

Here is a description of the Crown Prince of the UAE from a 2005 Conde Nast article: “It is difficult to say what sort of government he runs—tribal democracy? nomadic aristocracy? compassionate autocracy?—but he differs from other omnipotent monarchs in that he is not an empire builder, he is an island builder.”

Non-Gulf Arab states are poor and suck!

From a 2006 Conde Nast article entitled “Arabian Nights,” the author writes: “Compared with the oil-rich U.A.E. Xanadu, Syria feels like Communist-era Albania.”

So, you are either on the fast-track to modernity or still lagging behind your oil-guzzling brothers.

In the same article, Dubai is described as such: “The city offers tranquillity, stability, security, and worldliness (to say nothing of golf and shopping) in a region not celebrated for these delights. The phones work. Alcohol is sold. ” Even with Dubai’s technological “advancement” — it will never live up to Western standards of quality.

Lastly, Arabs are not so smart and can be tricked!

From a 2007 Conde Nast article on Saudi Arabia: “Well,” Khalid said, as we wove through the sand between mounds of desert grass. “My family are the original Wahhabis. And those,” he pointed into the distance at something that to my eyes varied not at all from the sand, “are their tents.”

“Fantastic!” I said, thinking that this was perhaps not the best time to tell him I was the grandson of two rabbis.

The LA Times published a short profile of Sayyid Fadlallah, the highest-ranking Shi’i cleric in Lebanon. The photo below ran next to the web-version of the story. Everyone knows that the open-mouth photo of a public figure is NEVER flattering, so I question why the LA Times chose to run a photo of Fadlallah where he looks like he’s about to sneeze or yell at somebody.

(AP)

The LA Times article is sympathetic to Fadlallah — or as sympathetic as a Western media outlet will allow — and doesn’t fall back on too many misconceptions, namely, that Fadlallah is the “spiritual leader” of Hezbullah. (Though the author does erroneously say that Fadlallah was “once” the group’s spiritual leader.) In fact, the author portrays Fadlullah’s relationship with Hezbullah as more of a competition. A quote from the article:

“There’s a real rivalry with Nasrallah, [the secretary general of Hezbullah] who has become both a military and religious leader,” Traboulsi said. “Many conservative Hezbollah clerics are reacting against Fadlallah’s rulings.”

I think it is a little hasty and probably inaccurate to portray the situation as a “rivalry” between Fadlallah and Nasrallah. Both figures occupy totally different roles in Lebanon — and I doubt that many people would argue that Nasrallah fashions himself as a religious leader. Fadlallah’s position as a widely-respected and followed marja has been solidified and there is nothing that either camp could gain by engaging in a competition.

But still, A.R. Norton’s book on Hezbullah actually states that the majority of Lebanese Shi’a follow Sistani, as opposed to Fadlallah, but this does not lessen Fadlallah’s impact.

Al-Quds al-Arabi reports on a “new massacre” committed by American forces on Iraqi civilians. Sources indicate that American airstrikes on the city of al-Mada’in, near Baghdad, killed 20 civilians — 17 were members of the ‘Abd al-Salim family. After the airstrikes, 50 Iraqis were arrested. I could not find this story in any English-language news source.

Furthermore, the US military announced that it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians south of Baghdad in Iskandiriya. The official statement said that the civilians were killed while US forces were targeting followers of al-Qaida in an airstrike. Unlike the story above, this was covered by a few English-language outlets, including CBS.

Here’s a great English-language article from the journal Arab Media & Society which details the decline of London as the hub for Pan-Arab dailies. The author, Najm Jarrah, argues that Arab media output in London is still high, but the rise of satellite television has offset production a bit.

I read the London-based (and now Saudi-owned) al-Hayat every day; I think it provides the highest-quality reporting and I enjoy reading Jihad al-Khazin’s columns. (It turns out, Khazin also has an English-language blog.) In order to get a copy of al-Hayat in Damascus, I had to get to the paper stand early because the paper was always sold out. The Syrian papers never sold out.

Jarrah offers this characterization of al-Hayat:

Al-Hayat has also undergone changes. The paper made good use of the advantages bestowed by a London location when it re-launched there in 1987, ten years after closing in Beirut. It was qualitatively a cut above any other Arab daily. It provided original worldwide reporting from an Arab perspective through a network of capable correspondents, while most of the competition relied principally on recycled agency material. . .

Today’s al-Hayat is not so distinctive. It still has strengths. But like Asharq al-Awsat, albeit to a lesser extent, Saudi influence has become more visible. Longstanding readers complain of a more conformist editorial approach and a general erosion of quality. The London base has ceased to be the asset it was.

Sometimes I find a somewhat reverent tone in al-Hayat toward Saudi leaders, and sometimes not-so-important Saudi-related stories get unnecessary front page attention, but overall, the articles provide in-depth information, especially in their Lebanese coverage.

Thanks to Jarrah’s description of al-Quds al-Arabi, I’ll have to check out more of their coverage. Al-Quds al-arabi is “the pan-Arab print media’s anti-establishment standard-bearer, it is reviled by detractors as demagogic and revered by fans for its courage and candor in criticizing Arab regimes and reporting unflattering news about them.”