Brian Whitaker's blog, March 2010

Fady Hassan Baoum, a member of the opposition Socialist Party's poliburo was sentenced to five years for "inciting violence and hatred with the aim of undermining national unity".

Hussein Muthana al Akil, a professor at Aden University, was sentenced to three years for publishing “false information and inciting an armed disobedience and committing crimes aimed at harming national unity as well as abusing the president of the republic”. He was said to have written that “the northern occupation forces are looting the oil of the south”.

On Sunday, Qassim Askar Jubran, a former Yemeni ambassador to Mauritania, was jailed for five years for "inciting an armed disobedience and committing crimes aimed at harming national unity".

Last week, Ahmed Bamualem, a former MP, was sentenced to 10 years in jail and Ali al Saadi, a retired military general, was jailed for 15 months.

Meanwhile, protests continue in the south. More than 30 people were reportedly injured and 60 arrested in Lahej on Saturday at the funeral of Saif Ali Sa’eed who was killed during a separatist demonstration on March 11.

The funeral apears not to have been completed: the Yemen Times says the security forces made mourners return Sa'eed's body to the morturary at Al-Nasr Public Hospital. The paper adds that a doctor and technician at the hospital were arrested "to prevent them from treating the injured protesters".

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 31 March 2010. Comment

Saudi prince's drugs arrest

A Saudi prince was arrested for possession of cocaine last week during a "routine search" of passengers at Beirut airport. He was said to be carrying 16.3 grams of the drug, worth around $1,600.

The 51-year-old prince, who was identified only by his initials – YBAA – reportedly said the cocaine was for his own use and he had "got it from a friend who is currently in Saudi Arabia".

Following a diplomatic flap involving the Saudi embassy he was released on bail – which for all practical purposes means he will not be prosecuted but may have to stay away from Lebanon for a while.

The "BAA" part of his initials is presumably short for "bin Abdul Aziz", indicating that he is one of the many grandsons or great-grandsons of Saudi Arabia's first king.

Saudi Arabia itself has some of the world's most draconian anti-drug laws – at least where non-royals are concerned. Foreigners arriving at Saudi airports are presented with an immigration card which warns, in red ink, that the penalty for drug trafficking is death. Over the years, dozens if not hundreds have been executed in the kingdom for drug offences, most of them foreigners.

However, the attitude towards princes who get involved in drugs seems to be more relaxed.

Three years ago, another Saudi prince – Nayef bin Fawaz al-Shaalan, a grandson of the first king and son-in-law of the deputy defence minister – was convicted in his absence by a French court and sentenced to 10 years in jail, plus a $100 million fine, in connection with smuggling two tons of cocaine from Colombia to Paris. He was said to have used his diplomatic status and a Boeing 727 jet belonging to the Saudi royal family to transport the drugs.

He was also indicted in the United States on charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Neither France nor the US was able to extradite him from Saudi Arabia. The prince protested his innocence and said he had been cleared of wrongdoing by the Saudi authorities.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 30 March 2010. Comment

Middle East bookshelf: the final list

Today, I'm making the final selections in our list of 10 books that explain the Middle East for people unfamiliar with the region. Aided by suggestions from readers of this blog, we have so far covered history, literature, Islam and Arab society and politics.

When choosing Philip Hitti's History of the Arabs for the history section, I mentioned that it does not discuss the conflict with Israel, so we need a book to fill that gap. From a very wide field, I'm opting for The Iron Wall (2000) by Avi Shlaim. One reader's review on Amazon describes it as "By far, the best account of the Arab-Israeli conflict", and I agree – though there are some hostile reviews on Amazon too. Shlaim is one of the "new historians" who challenged the traditional Zionist interpretations of Israel's history. There are extracts from the book here, plus reviews from the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent and Reviews in History.

I have contemplated adding Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) to the list. This was one of the titles suggested by Robert Fisk in
his article which triggered this selection exercise. Orientalism has certainly been very influential in academic discussion of western policies towards the Middle East, particularly in the field of postcolonial studies, but I have decided not to include it in the list of 10. While I do feel the book said a lot of things that needed to be said back in 1978, I'm more doubtful about its value today. Newcomers to the Middle East would probably do better to familiarise themselves with the subsequent debate than to plough through the book itself.

In the hope that first-time visitors to the Middle East will venture beyond the local burger bars and pizza joints, I said earlier that I would like to include a book about the region's food.

I'm going to propose The New Book of Middle Eastern Food (1985) by Claudia Roden, which is the most popular one at amazon.com. It includes some interesting general discussion of food and eating habits, as well as a huge number of recipes. However, the British (Penguin) edition does not have the usual colour photographs associated with recipes books (I don't know about the American edition). Another option, which I like the sound of but haven't seen, is Middle Eastern Cookbook (2007) by Maria Khalife, a Lebanese celebrity chef.

Visitors to the region also need to behave with a degree of cultural sensitivity so as not to cause unintended offence. A lot of the "practical guides" to Arab etiquette are fairly crude but I'd recommend Understanding the Arab Culture (2008) by Jehad al-Omari, which is more skilfully done; it's aware of the dangers of stereotyping and over-simplification.

Last week, I discussed a number of novels that might be included in the list. I said I would like to include two but didn't make a final choice at the time. As mentioned earlier, I'm not judging the books on literary merit but on what they reveal about about life in the Middle East today.

I also said earlier that I was trying to choose a list of books that reflect the region as a whole, rather than individual countries – but this is difficult in the case of novels because they tend to be set in a specific location. Anyway, I have opted for Alaa al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building (originally published in 2002) as my first choice.

Sonallah Ibrahim's 1992 novel, Zaat, is a tempting second choice but, since that is also set in Egypt, I'm opting for The Consequences of Love (2008) instead. Written by Eritrean-born Sulaiman Addonia, it's set in Saudi Arabia.

That completes the list of 10 books, which you can view on a separate web page here. Many thanks to the readers who contributed ideas. Recognising that a lot of good books have had to be left out, I'm hoping to supplement this basic regional list over the next few weeks with recommendations for other books relating to specific Arab countries – so keep the suggestions coming.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 29 March 2010. Comment

Yemeni girl, 12, granted divorce

Twelve-year-old Sally al-Sahabi was granted a divorce from her 26-year-old husband by a Yemeni court yesterday. The decision is seen as a boost for campaigners against child marriage – an issue on which the Yemeni parliament is expected to vote shortly.

There is currently no law in Yemen protecting children against early marriage. The law does forbid married couples from having sex before the age of 15 but it is not enforced, according to a lawyer who has taken on a number of child bride cases. Child brides also have no legal right to seek a divorce until they are 15.

Sally al-Sahabi won her case only because her husband agreed to the divorce under threat of imprisonment. She had earlier
reported her husband and her father to the police, accusing them of falsifying the marriage certificate. They allegedly claimed she was 15 at the time of marriage, when in reality she was only ten.

One of the barriers to preventing child marriages in Yemen is establishing the true age of the people concerned. In 2007, according to Unicef, almost 40% of births in the country were not registered.

The issue of child marriage has also come to prominence in Saudi Arabia as a result of several cases involving girls marriage to men much older than themselves. In the latest development there, a prominent cleric, Sheikh Abd al-Mohsin al-Obaikan – who is also an adviser to the royal court – has declared his support for a campaign by Sayidaty magazine to set a minimum age for marriage.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 28 March 2010. Comment

Gaza hairdressers carry on snipping

At the beginning of this month, the Hamas authorities in Gaza announced a ban on male hairdressers attending to women's hair. Three weeks later, though, they show no sign of trying to enforce it.

Five hairdressers are thought to be affected and have been seeking legal advice. A report in The National suggests Hamas announced the ban because it is under pressure from local jihadi groups to prove its Islamist credentials.

Even if Hamas is hesitant about enforcement, it also seems reluctant to stop religious militants from taking matters into their own hands. One hairdresser interviewed by The National says his shop has been attacked twice with firebombs since 2007 but the Hamas-controlled police never investigated the attacks or offered him protection.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 28 March 2010. Comment

Middle East bookshelf: society and politics

Our list of 10 books that explain the Middle East for people unfamiliar with the region is taking shape. So far, aided by suggestions from readers of this blog, we have covered history, literature and Islam. Today I want to add two more titles – about Arab politics and society.

Hisham Sharabi's Neopatriarchy (1988) was proposed by a reader. Sharabi (1927-2005) was one of the first modern Arab writers to develop a critique of his own society, drawing on the ideas of Marx and Freud. His work shocked many Arabs when it appeared and is still banned in some countries. Reading Neopatriarchy for the first time a couple of years ago, though, I found it rather dated and its use of Marxist terminology tends to jar these days. So I'm going to rule out Neopatriarchy. It's also outrageously priced on amazon.com at $60, though you can get it more cheaply secondhand or at amazon.co.uk.

Two more recent books are Halim Barakat's The Arab World: Society, Culture and State (1993) and Nazih Ayubi's Over-stating the Arab State (1995). It's hard to choose between them, though some might find Ayubi's book heavy going: it has been described as magisterial and a tour de force.

Barakat focuses more on society and culture that Ayubi, and less on the state and politics. There are good reasons for this:

"Authoritarianism is not merely an attribute of the political system. Interpersonal and social relationships ar also characterised by authoritarian tendencies." [p175]

Ayubi, meanwhile, explores the nature of Arab states in great detail and, over the course of 500 pages, makes a very important point. He explains the apparent paradox of states that behave as if they were strong – with an insatiable urge to control their citizens – when in many respects they are actually very weak. Arab regimes may legislate and regulate endlessly but their desire for control is often not matched by an ability to exercise it. Though they may succeed in keeping a lid on open dissent, though they may establish large armies and security forces and employ vast bureaucracies, their ability to effect change and influence the behaviour of their citizens is far more limited than it looks.

This is something that often puzzles visitors to the region. How is it, for example, that the Egyptian government can arrest opposition acitvists in their hundreds and interfere endlessly with civil society organisations but is unable – despite the existence of various laws – to persuade citizens to wear seat belts in their cars or stop mutilating their daughters' genitals?

With the aforementioned reservations about readability, I'm going to opt for Ayubi over Barakat because in terms of content I think it's the more impressive book, as well as being ground-breaking in many ways.

For the second soc-pol title, I wanted to choose something about gender and sexuality but, hopefully, nothing too predictable. There's a lot of feminist writing about the Middle East, and some can be found in Progressive Muslims, a book I chose earlier for the Islam section.

Considering that it's such a male-orientated and male-dominated society, surprisingly little has been written about Arab perceptions of masculinity. To my mind, this is a big omission: if you want to understand the society you must also try to understand the "male role" and how Arab men view themselves.

So, my second choice is a bit of a quirky one: Imagined Masculinities (2000) – a collection of essays edited by Mai Ghoussoub and Emma Sinclair-Webb (reviewed here), which also touches on Turkey and Israel.

That's seven books so far, assuming the inclusion of two novels. I'm almost certain one of the novels will be The Yacoubian Building but I'm still dithering about the other one. Next time, I'll add three more books to complete the list.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 March 2010. Comment

Middle East bookshelf: Islam

Continuing our effort to compile a list of 10 books that introduce new readers to the Middle East, I think there's room for two about Islam. Obviously there are a lot to choose from and Islam stretches far wider than the Middle East – though, as I said earlier, it plays such a central role in the region that it must be included.

The development of Islam is already covered in our history section, so we don't need a separate book about that. Some readers might like to explore the historical interactions between Muslims and Europeans a bit further. For that, I'd suggest Mongomery Watt's A History of Islamic Spain (1965), plus Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1989) – though I'm not including them in the list of 10.

Narrowing down the choice to focus on contemporary Islam, I think we need something about Islamic extremism because of its topicality. Again, there are many options, but I'm going to choose The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global by Fawaz Gerges (2005). The book is about jihadist politics – an aspect not much covered in the media – and internal debates about whether to concentrate on changing the Muslim world or attacking the west.

I feel that the second book ought to expose readers to the existence of more liberal Islamic points of view and so, from the opposite end of the spectrum, I've chosen Progressive Muslims: on Justice, Gender and Pluralism (2003), edited by Omid Safi.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 26 March 2010. Comment

Yemen frees two journalists

Mohammed al-Maqaleh (Maqalih), editor-in-chief of Aleshteraki, the Yemen Socialist Party's website was released from arbitrary detention yesterday on "health and humanitarian" grounds.

Maqalih was abducted by armed and masked men last September and it was several months before the Yemeni authorities admittted they were holding him. He is thought to have been detained because of his critical reporting of the Houthi conflict in northern Yemen.

Hisham Bashraheel, proprietor of the banned Aden-based daily, al-Ayyam, was released on Wednesday. He was arrested in January after security forces besieged his paper's offices. His two sons are still in jail but are expected to be released in the next few days.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 26 March 2010. Comment

Harassment in Tunisia

Human Rights Watch had a spot of bother earlier this week over a press conference in Tunisia to introduce its latest report on the regime's harassment of critics:

"On March 22, the Minister for Communications, Oussama Romdhani, told Human Rights Watch that the government did not want the news conference to proceed. Officials from the ministries of Interior and Justice said that they would not allow it to proceed because it 'tarnishes the image of Tunisia and is one-sided and biased'. Some journalists received phone calls from the authorities that the Human Rights Watch event was forbidden.

"Several hotels in Tunis that had previously offered Human Rights Watch rates for a room for the briefing withdrew those offers. A hotel suite booked by Human Rights Watch on March 23 was flooded three hours after the Human Rights Watch staff checked in ... and the hotel was unable to offer Human Rights Watch another room. As a result, the event was moved to the offices of a Tunis law firm.

"Plainclothes police officers on foot, on motorcycles, and in cars have openly and regularly followed Human Rights Watch staff as they moved about Tunis. At least six plainclothes security agents patrolled the street outside the downtown law office and recorded the licence plate numbers of cars parked nearby."

This was a pretty stupid way to behave, because it only lends credence to the key argument in HRW's report – that “when Tunisia releases political prisoners, it ensures that life resembles a larger prison defined by surveillance, threats, and a cocktail of restrictions.”

A much smarter approach – especially since the Tunisian authorities are claiming the report is wrong – would have been to let the press conference go ahead unmolested, as the Libyans did earlier this year (much to their credit).

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 25 March 2010. Comment

Not much blog for your buck

"Government names most influential 'pro-Islamic' bloggers" was the headline on yesterday's story about a new report from the [British] Home Office's counter-terrorism information unit, RICU. So, they've been rumbled at last, you might think.

But look more closely and you'll find that the man identified in the report as Britain's third most influential "pro-Islamic" blogger is actually an atheist based in the United States ... Read more at Comment is free.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 25 March 2010. Comment

Child marriage law stymied?

Demonstrations continue in Yemen over the hotly contested issue of child marriage. Yesterday, it was the turn of campaigners for a minimum age to gather outside the parliament building.

Roughly half of all girls in Yemen are married before the age of 18 – many of them before they have even reached their teens. Poor families, especially in the rural areas, seek to marry off their daughters as early as possible in order to collect a dowry.

The government is proposing to set a minimum age limit of 17 for females and 18 for males and a final decision is expected next month.

The issue came to the fore as a result of two high-profile cases: that of a 10-year-old girl who succeeded in divorcing her 30-year-old husband, and that of a 12-year-old girl who died during childbirth. Girls under the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their twenties, and child brides tend to drop out of school before completing their studies.

Objections to banning child marriage come mainly from traditiionalists and the more extreme religious elements. A group of Yemen clerics, including Abdul Majid al-Zindani (founder of al-Imaan university and a prominent figure in the opposition Islah party) have issued a statement saying that "fixing the age of marriage is an act that contradicts the precepts of Islam".

The government has a huge majority in parliament and could easily push the law through if it chose to do so. But is it fearful of alienating key elements of Yemen's highly traditional society and being labelled "godless" by the Islah party.

There are hints of a compromise in which 17/18 would be set as the minimum age, but with no penalties for infringement – which would basically render the law inoperative from the start. Even if the law goes through with penalties attached, though, it is still likely to be disregarded in many parts of the country.

Changing attitudes towards child marriage in Yemen is going to be a long, slow process but at least the issue is now getting publicly debated. An article in the Yemen Times, for example, challenges some of the familiar religious arguments about setting a minimum age.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 24 March 2010. Comment

Middle East bookshelf: fiction

Continuing our search for 10 books that provide a well-rounded introduction to the Middle East, let's turn to fiction. The choice here is partly determined by what's available in translation, and the British Council helpfully provides a list of current titles (including a small amount of poetry).

I ought to start by mentioning the late Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab winner of a Nobel prize for literature. There are plenty of his books to choose from, but new readers might start with the Cairo Trilogy (1956-57) or Children of the Alley (also known as Children of Gebelawi) which continues to annoy Islamists on the grounds of its alleged blasphemy.

Another contender in the World Literature class is Abdelrahman Munif whose Cities of Salt trilogy (1984) was described by Edward Said as "The only serious work of fiction that tries to show the effect of oil, Americans and the local oligarchy on a Gulf country."

Readers who want a taste of classical Arabic literature could start with Robert Irwin's collection, Night & Horses & the Desert; for examples of modern writing, there's Denys Johnson-Davies's collection of short stories, Under the Naked Sky (2004).

What I am looking for here, though, is not necessarily great literature but fiction that gives a flavour of the Middle East today. One obvious choice is The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany. Originally published in 2002, it's hugely popular in the region and also the top-selling Arabic novel on Amazon. It's very accessible – a kind of literary soap opera set in Cairo – and it tackles a lot of contemporary issues that are relevant to other Arab countries besides Egypt.

I'm also tempted by Sonallah Ibrahim's 1992 novel, Zaat (reviewed here and here).

I'd also like to suggest a couple of novels originally written in English. One is Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005) by Moroccan-born Laila Lalami, on the topical theme of migration. The other is The Consequences of Love (2008) – a first novel by Eritrean-born Sulaiman Addonia (reviewed here and here). Ostensibly it's a love story but that is just the framework for a searing indictment of the Saudi system, as viewed from the male underclass of expatriate workers. Addonia shows the realities of everyday life in the kingdom in shocking detail. Although there are plenty of books written by women that criticise the gender segregation, this is the only one I'm aware of that does it through a man's eyes.

I'm not going to make a final choice of fiction today. I'd like to include at least two examples among the list of 10 but I'm not sure how much room there will be after making selections in the other categories. In the meantime, readers are welcome to email me with any further recommendations.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 24 March 2010. Comment

Egypt clamps down on NGOs

The Egyptian government, which only last month assured the UN that it would facilitate civil society activities and the ability of non-governmental organisations to act freely, now appears to be clamping down on NGOs in a big way.

Forty-one local organisations have condemned moves to rush through a new law to regulate NGOs ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections. The draft law, variously described as "fascist" and "draconian", would "institute unprecedented control over civil society worse than the crackdown that followed the July 1952 revolution which nationalised political, partisan, syndicate and civic action," they say in a statement issued yesterday.

The Mubarak regime, like most Arab governments, seeks to keep a lid on civil society activity and harness it in the service of the regime. Egypt's current restrictions in this area were heavily criticised by Human Rights Watch in a report three years ago.

The latest proposals seem likely to make matters worse, rather than better. "Some articles of the new bill aim to limit the activities of human rights organisations or shut them down completely by criminalising all forms of unregistered civic organisation," the objectors say.

According to a leaked draft of the bill, all civic activity will be supervised by the semi-governmental General Federation of Civic Associations and regional NGO federations, thus allowing "various arbitrary interventions" by the authorities.

"Those seeking to establish NGOs under this bill must submit their papers to the appropriate regional federation for approval before being referred to the administrative body, which, after consulting with the security apparatus, can refuse to register the NGO," the statement says.

"Under the bill, the Ministry [of Social Solidarity] maintains the legal right to prohibit or withdraw the licence from any association, to usurp the prerogatives of the association’s founders, members and its elected boards to establish or change the articles of incorporation, and to determine the administration of its daily affairs and meeting forms. The law also maintains provisions that give the executive authority over NGOs’ collection of donations or their receipt of foreign funds ..."

The bill also prohibits NGOs from adopting legal forms other than associations, such as civil companies (even though Egyptian civil law currently permits this). Currently, registering as companies is one of the devices used by NGOs (in Egypt and other Arab countries) to get round the many restrictions imposed on them if they register as associations. The draft says that the Minister of Social Solidarity will have the right to suspend the activities of any NGOs that do not comply.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 23 March 2010. Comment

Coq au vin, Dubai style

The authorities in Dubai have been getting themselves into a bit of a muddle over chefs who like to add a dash of alcohol to their recipes.

The Falafel Mafia blog notes that cooking with alcohol was declared illegal in 2003. But there was little or no effort to enforce the ban until last week, when a letter sent to hotels warned: “Use of alcohol in preparation and cooking of food is strictly prohibited. Display and sale of food products containing alcohol as an ingredient is strictly prohibited.”

Now. following discussions with leading chefs, municipality officials say this was just a "misunderstanding". Apparently, it's OK after all to serve alcohol-laced dishes so long as they are clearly labelled as such on the menu and are "segregated" from other food.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 23 March 2010. Comment

Middle East bookself: history

Last week I invited readers of this blog to help with a project that looks simple but is actually rather difficult: to compile a list of 10 books that would provide a well-rounded introduction to the Middle East for people who are unfamiliar with the region.

After setting out some parameters and receiving quite a lot of
recommendations, I think it’s time to choose the first book: a general history.

Working through the shortlist in order of appearance, we start with Philip Hitti’s History of the Arabs, first published in 1937 after 10 years in the writing. It’s long (more than 800 pages) but elegantly written and very readable. Its strengths are that it delves into pre-Islamic history as well as the birth of Islam and it’s not just a chronicle of caliphs and conflicts: along the way it also discusses Arab society, intellectual life, architecture, science and so on. The main drawbacks are that it stops at the Second World War and reflects some of the attitudes that were prevalent in the first half of the 20th century.

A History of the Arab Peoples, by Albert Hourani (1991), starts later – at the time of the Prophet – and ends later, with the aftermath of the 1967 war. It’s generally considered less readable than Hitti’s work. Hourani’s book was reviewed unfavourably by Daniel Pipes in the Wall Street Journal (though it should be pointed out that Pipes himself is a controversial figure).

A couple of years ago The Moor Next Door blog compared Hitti and Hourani, and came out quite strongly in Hitti’s favour.

Three others worth considering are A History of the Modern Middle East by William Cleveland (2004), The Modern Middle East: a History, by James Gelvin (2005) and The Arabs, by Eugene Rogan, which was published last year.

Rogan’s book, which covers only 500 years or so, was reviewed briefly in Foreign Affairs and in more detail in the Guardian and the Telegraph. The Angry Arab was very uncomplimentary about it.

Among readers of this blog, Gabriel Miland recommends Rogan's book "for its up-to-dateness, its accessible style – but most of all for its insights into Middle Eastern perceptions of the west", and Elias Muhanna describes it as "very readable" and "as good a place as any for a new reader to get their feet wet".

Obviously, no single history book is going to suit all readers for all purposes, so it’s advisable to weigh up the pros and cons of each before buying. On balance, though, my own preference would be for Hitti, bearing in mind that it leaves a gap in the second half of the 20th century which would have to be filled by other means.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 23 March 2010. Comment

Yemen debates child marriage

Yemen is in the throes of a heated political battle over a law that would ban child marriage. Viewed from afar, this is as much of a no-brainer as the American debate about health care. And yet, as in the US, the forces of resistance are strong.

Yesterday, supporters of child marriage took to the streets of Sana'a, carrying what they said was a petition with a million signatures.

Child marriage is very common in Yemen and, according to a study cited by The National, the average age of marriage for girls in the coastal provinces of Hodeidah and Hadramout is eight years, though in urban areas the average age is 15. This is one reason why a large number of girls drop out of school.

The proposed law would set a minimum marriage age of 17 for females and 18 for males.

Quotes from some of yesterday's demonstrators, reported in The National, highlight the difficulty of changing traditional attitudes:

“We will not allow this [draft] law to be passed. This is against our religion that has not set an age for marriage. They want to impose western values on us and we cannot accept that.”
“Marriage is a kind of protection for young people. We do not want our daughters to be like those girls in America who produce children without fathers.”
“It is not true that underage marriage is harmful but it has been scientifically proved to be healthy.” [In fact, it hasn't been proved at all. Girls under the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their twenties.]

The other side had their say in February when a demonstration which included more than 1,000 children called on parliament to speed up the process of setting a minimum age.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 March 2010. Comment

Did the neocons get anything right?

Were the American neocons right about anything? If so, what?

Writing for Foreign Policy earlier this month, Stephen Cook (of the Council on Foreign Relations) argued that they were wrong about Iraq but right about Syria, Iran and democracy:

"The neocons' perspective on the nature of the Syrian and Iranian regimes [was] largely accurate, and their forceful advocacy of democracy and freedom in the Middle East may have grated on many, but it did much to advance those causes in a region once described as 'democracy's desert'."

Now, Gregory Gause (of Vermont University) has responded, arguing that they were wrong about those things too.

Coincidentally, Juan Cole has some sharp words about American efforts to spread democracy in the region.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 March 2010. Comment

Misery of the housemaids (5)

A 30-year-old Sri Lankan maid, Ambagla Mudian Silage, has jumped to her death from an employment on the fourth floor of a building in Jal el Dib, Lebanon.

Suicides by domestic workers are common in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East but usually occur at the home of the employer. In January, two Nepalese women fell from another employment office on the third floor of Salibi tower in Jisr el Basha. One died; the other was injured.

The Ethiopian Suicides blog, which reports on the treatment of foreign domestic workers in Lebanon, comments: "This is a worrying pattern, especially in light of the apparent unaccountability of employment offices bringing maids to Lebanon."

Another maid – this time a Bangladeshi – is in hospital under police guard with a broken back after reportedly falling down stairs while trying to escape from her employer in Baalbek. She has had an operation which both her employer and an insurance company are refusing to pay for. Her employer has accused her of theft. Al-Akhbar newspaper has more details (in Arabic).

In Metn, north-east of Beirut, police are looking for a Filipina maid who fled her employer, allegedly after stealing $5,000 and ID papers from the house. The Ethiopian Suicides blog
points out:

"When a maid runs away from her employer's house, the police station is unable to act because there's no law criminalising runaway maids. So the police station officer tells the Lebanese employer to say that she stole money. This is a possibility in this case."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 21 March 2010. Comment

Migrants captured alive

Egyptian border guards managed to arrest seven African migrants yesterday without killing any of them. Since January 2008 more than 60 people have died at the hands of border guards while trying to cross illegally into Israel.

Earlier this month Navi Pillay, the United Nation's top human rights official, accused Egypt of operating a shoot-to-kill policy. "I know of no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appear to have been deliberately killed in this way by government forces," she said.

Yesterday, the guards reportedly fired warning shots at four Ehtiopians before arresting them. Three Eritreans were also captured alive.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 21 March 2010. Comment

A Middle East bookshelf (1)

Following my blog post yesterday, several readers have already come up with titles for inclusion on a "Middle East bookshelf". Many thanks to those who contributed, and please keep the ideas coming. The search, as I explained yesterday, is for 10 books that would give a good general introduction to the region for those who are unfamiliar with it.

Hopefully, we'll get there in due course but it's going to involve some difficult choices, so I think we should start with a longer list and whittle it down, as they do with book prizes.

First, though, a word about the types of book I'd like to see represented in the final list.

There are a lot of excellent books about individual Middle Eastern countries but since we're trying to give a picture of the region as a whole I think country-specific books should be excluded from the final list of 10. They could form a supplementary list, so don't let that put you off making suggestions. Israel/Palestine may be an exception here because that particular conflict is so deeply embedded in the region's politics. Even so, I doubt there will be room for more than one or two Israel/Palestine titles in the final list.

Looking at the likely shape of the final list, I think it should include one general history and two or three books about contemporary society and politics. Among the latter, George Weyman nominates Hisham Sharabi's Neopatriarchy ("A bit academic, and not fresh off the press – but nevertheless a devastating critique of the structure of power in Arab countries"). I'm tempted to add Nazih Ayubi's Overstating the Arab State but, again, it's quite a heavy read.

It would also be good to see gender issues and human rights represented somewhere in the list. In the social field, the impact of new technology might be worth considering too: Voices of the New Arab Public by Marc Lynch, for example. Elias Muhanna tried a bit of flattery by suggesting my own book, What's Really Wrong with the Middle East ("for a different perspective on the real problems facing the region") but in the light of what it says about wasta, nepotism, etc, I think it should be disqualified from inclusion here.

Considering the centrality of religion in the Middle East, the list ought to include something about Islam. There may be no need for a history of Islam if that is covered in the general history book but there are several other genres of writing about Islam to consider. One is about Islam as a religion – what Muslims believe, how they pray, what happens on the hajj, etc. Then there are vast numbers of books about political Islam and jihadism, plus a third category representing Islamic currents of a more liberal kind – books such as Progressive Muslims (edited by Omid Safi) or Islam and the Secular State by Abdullahi an-Na'im.

Should the list include any of the old classic-romantic traveller's tales? Daryl Barker suggests Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands. Robert Fisk, in the article that prompted this exercise, recommended T E Lawrence and, for a bit of gender balance, we should probably mention Freya Stark too. These were part of my own introduction to the Middle East (as I imagine they were for many other westerners) and I enjoyed them at the time. But I seriously doubt their relevance today and, unless someone persuades me otherwise, I'm not going to treat them as required reading.

However, I'm not averse to including one Middle East travel book if it's reasonably modern and not limited to a single country. Jonathan Raban's Arabia Through the Looking Glass is one that comes to mind. It's 30 years old, though, but at least the author is still alive. Can anyone suggest something a bit more up to date?

I said yesterday that I would like the list to include some fiction. This serves two purposes. The first is to expose newcomers to at least one example of Arabic Literature (with a capital L). The second purpose is that novels (even if they are only literature with a small L) can give a very useful picture of daily life in the Middle East, in a way that non-fiction books rarely can.

In the capital L category, the late Naguib Mahfouz gets an automatic nomination, since he's the only Arab winner of a Nobel prize for literature, but I'm also inclined to nominate Abdelrahman Munif for his trilogy, Cities of Salt.

Turning to literature with a smaller L (and no offence meant to the authors), I'd like to suggest the following novels which are fairly recent and give an interesting picture of Arab life: Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami, Suleiman Addonia's little-known The Consequences of Love, and of course the highly popular The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al-Aswani.

Arab writing tends to be heavily laden with seriousness and tragedy but it would be nice to have one good example of Arab humour. An added difficulty here, of course, is that jokes don't necessarily translate well into other languages but I do have a suggestion. I'm cheating a bit because it's actually a stage play, though available in book form. It's Tawfiq al-Hakim's Fate of a Cockroach – a delicious satire that also reflects the way Arabs mock those with pretensions of grandeur.

Finally – and working on the assumption that the 10-book list is for people who may be making their first trip to the Middle East – there are three other items I would like to include.

One is a book on Islamic art and architecture. Anyone who spends more than five minutes in an Arab country is bound to come across it, and a basic introduction would be useful.

Visitors also have to eat, so it's worth knowing something about Middle Eastern food. A good cookery book would come in handy as a guide to what's on offer, even if you don't plan to attempt any of the recipes yourself.

The last item is a book on Arab culture and etiquette. "How to avoid giving offence" – that sort of thing. Frankly, a lot of them are terrible and make me cringe. The best one I have come across is Understanding the Arab Culture by Jehad al-Omari. It's mainly intended for business people and is sub-titled "A practical cross-cultural guide to working in the Arab world".

In future posts I'll look at the various categories mentioned here in more detail and try to narrow down the list. In the meantime, I'm listing readers' suggestions here as they come in.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 20 March 2010. Comment

Middle East for beginners

Writing in the Independent, Robert Fisk says that several times a year he is asked by readers to recommend a list of books about the Middle East in English. "It's a tough one," he says – and indeed it is.

I've had similar requests myself and before giving an answer I like to find out what lies behind the question. Usually it comes from people who know little about the region but for reasons of travel, work, etc, want to familiarise themselves. So what we're looking for, really, is books that give a broad picture of the Middle East today, while acknowledging that you can't fully understand the present without knowing something about the past.

Fisk's article doesn't actually provide a list, though he mentions a small number of writers, including T E Lawrence, George Antonius (The Arab Awakening), David Hirst (The Gun and the Olive Branch), Benny Morris, Edward Said and the murdered Lebanese journalist, Samir Kassir.

This strikes me as a rather odd collection and, with the exception of Kassir, a very dated one. If you were to read those and nothing else, you wouldn't get much of a feel for what the contemporary Middle East is really like. The only one I would be tempted to include is Said's Orientalism – mainly because of its influence on subsequent debate.

Anyway, over the next few days, I'll try to come up with my own list of 10 books of the "new readers start here" variety, and I think it should include fiction as well as non-fiction. Readers of this blog are also welcome to chip in with their own suggestions.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 March 2010. Comment

Saudi writer accused of blasphemy

I'm intrigued by a cryptic report in Arab News today which says "a number of people" are seeking to have an unnamed Saudi writer prosecuted for blasphemy.

The "offence" was apparently committed on the American-run al-Hurra TV channel, in a programme presented by Nadeen Al-Badr.

The male Saudi writer allegedly "described a Hadith of the Prophet as barbaric".

The complainants are said to have presented the justice minister with "audio and visual evidence to prove their argument" and the Summary Court in Jeddah is reportedly looking into it.

Depending on who the writer is, and who is doing the complaining, this could either prove to be a damp squib or turn into something big. At the moment it's hard to tell, but any further information would be gratefully received.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 19 March 2010. Comment

Government bluster in Yemen

President Salih has now ordered the return of transmission equipment that the Yemeni authorities seized from the local offices of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV stations last week.

The equipment was seized on the grounds that it was "unauthorised", though nobody believed that was the real reason; the government was having a go at them because it didn't like their coverage of events in the south.

The president's decision came just a couple of days after his party, the General People's Congress, threatened to close down al-Jazeera's office in Sana'a altogether if it continued "to threaten Yemeni unity, instigate sedition, and ignite conflict and grudges". According to the Yemen Observer:

"A ruling party information source called on the channels’ executives to review their objectivity, credibility and commitment towards their professionalism. The source pointed out that if the channel went on pursuing the same approach following their protest addressing, Yemen might take steps to close the channel’s office, cancel the correspondents’ permit and ban al-Jazeera from working in Yemen in response to the desire of the Yemeni people who have voiced their protest and condemnation against al-Jazeera’s aligned attitude on the Yemeni issue."

Perhaps Salih thinks returning the equipment will make him look magnanimous, but it doesn't. Al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya are not as easily intimidated as the local newspapers. In the Middle East, they are heavyweight news organisations and it should have been obvious right from the start that seizing their equipment would cause a stink, as it has done.

All it achieved was to make the government look vindictive at a time when Yemen desperately needs international support. It also gives the impression that in the midst of of all the dire problems that Yemen faces the government's eye is well and truly off the ball.

It was a similar story in the Palestinian territories last year when Mahmoud Abbas "suspended" al-Jazeera for reporting allegations made at a news conference about the death of Yasser Arafat.

What these leaders don't seem to grasp is that the days of "reliable", easily controlled and subservient Arab media are fast disappearing and that increasingly they will be required to explain and justify their actions.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 18 March 2010. Comment

Abu Dhabi tackles domestic abuse

The National reports on the drafting of a new and much-needed law in Abu Dhabi to tackle domestic abuse. There's talk of jailing abusive husbands or banning them from their homes and also – perhaps more importantly – of preventing family members from dropping charges in cases of abuse. The latter is probably essential in order to make such a law effective.

Mohammed Tarawneh, a Jordanian judge who has been taking part in the discussions, says: “It is very common for family members to pressure the victims to drop their charges. Sadly, you find a father forcing his daughter to drop sexual harassment charges against her brother, although they’re both his children.”

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 18 March 2010. Comment

Murdoch, Israel and Avatar

Rupert Murdoch's purchase of a tiny (9%) stake in Rotana, the media empire run by the Saudi prince, Alwaleed bin Talal, has stirred up some predictable paranoia in Egypt. His move is viewed "not only with suspicion but as signalling the decline of Arab film and art heritage," according to Agence France Presse.

It's all a plot, apparently, "to thaw frosty Arab views of Israel".
"Murdoch will enter every Arab home to impose normalisation" of ties with Israel, Egyptian film critic Ola al-Shafei tells AFP, adding that it's "a defeat for the Arab film and art heritage".

Scriptwriter Osama Anwar Okasha is also quoted as saying that Murdoch's stake in Rotana is a "Trojan horse" designed to stealthily penetrate Arab culture.

Having once worked for Murdoch (and been sacked by him), I would be the last person to describe him as a benign influence. But let's keep this in proportion. Over the years, authoritarian regimes and religious fanatics have done far more damage to Arab films, art, media and culture in general than Murdoch is ever likely to do. And it's still going on. In an article yesterday, Jack Shenker described how Gulf money is allowing Egypt to churn out more films than in the past – though they have to conform to the "35 rules" of piety laid down by their financial backers.

Portraying Murdoch as a single-minded crusader for Israel on the basis of his Fox News channel and some newspapers in the United States really misses the point of what he is all about. His own views on most things (apart from sex) seem well to the political right but his only real interest is making money and to that end he does whatever he thinks will go down well in any particular market.

Unlike Fox News in the US, his Sky News channel in Britain is well respected and generally fair in its Middle East coverage. His daily papers in Britain, the Times and the Sun, are broadly pro-Israel but not stridently so. The Times reflects the attitudes of Britain's upper-middle classes while the Sun reflects those of the lower classes.

It was Murdoch's Sunday Times, incidentally, that first exposed Israel's nuclear weapons programme, thanks to Mordechai Vanunu (who was abducted and jailed by the Israelis as a result).

Murdoch's recent speech to the Abu Dhabi Media Summit (which I discussed last week) made a strong economic case for freedom of expression in the Middle East. Obviously he has business motives for saying that, but if he wants to use his own money to lure Arab governments away from the ludicrous restrictions they impose on the media, would it necessarily be such a bad thing?

The hysteria directed against Murdoch in Egypt is in striking contrast to the way Egyptians and other Arabs have taken to the American-made film, Avatar. Far from regarding it as a threat to their culture, many see it as a metaphor for their struggles. Palestinian demonstrators, for example, have made the connection by painting themselves blue.

Writing for Murdoch's Fox News website, James Pinkerton
described Avatar as "left-wing, anti-corporate and anti-imperialist". He wrote:

"There are even some indirect digs at George W Bush and Operation Iraqi Freedom. A left-leaning Hollywood movie: no surprise there. So Third Worlders will eat it up. The Iranians, for example, should love Avatar – if, of course, their government would let them see it, which surely won’t happen."

So who is the left-wing, anti-corporate, anti-imperialist mogul who, on the latest estimates, expects to make $400 million out of Avatar? Stand up, Rupert Murdoch!

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 17 March 2010. Comment

UPDATE, 18 March: For an alternative view, see Jeremy Salt's article, Murdoch's Kind of Arabs: Sleeping with the Enemy, in Palestine Chronicle.

More airstrikes in southern Yemen

Yemeni forces launched three more airstrikes said to be directed against al-Qaeda targets in Lawdar district of Abyan province yesterday.

There is no official word about casualties but Abbas al Assal, a spokesman for the separatist Southern Movement, said seven people were killed, "including ordinary Bedouin beekeepers".

Quoted in The National, he said: “These strikes did not target al-Qaeda. These attacks are targeting the Southern Movement and the people of the south at large.”

Meanwhile, two men killed in a similar airstrike in Abyan on Sunday were named as Jamil Naser Abdullah al-Anbari and Mohammed Ahmed al-Zerbah. They are said to have been on a motorcycle at the time. Some reports suggest they were not the only casualties. Anbari, 25, has been described as "the leader of al-Qaeda in southern Abyan".

It is difficult to ascertain whether these strikes in the south are really aimed at al-Qaeda or people active in the Southern Movement. In any case, the government is eager to tie the two together. The Southern Movement does have Islamist elements (as well as more secular ones) and its most prominent leader inside Yemen, Tariq al-Fadhli, was formerly a jihadist and friend of Osama bin Laden. However, the movement's other main figure, Ali Salim al-Baidh, who lives in exile, is a former leader of the Socialist Party which ruled South Yemen in its Marxist period before unification with the north.

Whatever the real motive behind the airstrikes, the effect of any civilian casualties is to compound the southerners' grievances. Last December, US-backed bombing in the south killed at least 42 innocent civilians – for which the Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security formally apologised in parliament earlier this month.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 16 March 2010. Comment

Baha'is face new struggle for ID cards

Members of Egypt's small Baha'i community are still having problems with the authorities over ID cards, despite a court ruling last year which supposedly resolved a five-year battle in their favour.

When the Egyptian government began introducing computerised ID cards, holders were forced to identify themselves as belonging to one of the three "heavenly" religions: Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Previously, under the manual system, Baha'is had often been able to persuade officials to leave the religion section blank, but the computerised system did not allow this and so cards were not issued to them.

Without ID cards, Baha'is effectively became non-citizens, unable to work legally, study beyond secondary school, vote, operate a bank account, obtain a driver's licence, buy and sell property, collect a pension, or travel.

In last year's court case, they won the right to have the religion section left blank. But according to the Bikya Misr website, the decision has only been implemented in the case of unmarried Baha'is. Those who are married, divorced or widowed are still unable to get their cards.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 16 March 2010. Comment

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