Unspeakable Love: Notes to Chapter 3
1. Discussion of Arab news media in this chapter excludes news broadcasts because of the difficulty of monitoring radio and television. Anecdotal evidence is that state-run channels ignore homosexuality entirely (even when, as happened in the Egyptian “Queen Boat” case, newspapers covered the story extensively).
2. http://english.aljazeera.net/english/. The search covered approximately a 12-month period since the website began operating in 2003.
3. Sonnini, C S : Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, p 161. Quoted by Hopwood, Derek: Sexual encounters in the Middle East: the British, the French and the Arabs. Ithaca Press, 1999, Reading, UK. p 175.
4. Sherley, Thomas: A discours of the Turks. Quoted by Hopwood, op cit, p 175.
5. Hopwood, op cit, p 175.
6. The term “Sotadic” derives from the name of Sotades, a Greek poet of the third century BCE, who composed homoerotic verses. Although Burton insisted that the boundaries of this Sotadic Zone were not racial but geographical and climatic, Stephen Murray notes: “The covert geographical specification seems to be ‘south of Christendom’ … which is to say more cultural than climatic. Burton’s frequent forays into comparative religion bolster this interpretation of his zone.” (Murray, Stephen: ‘Some nineteenth century reports of Islamic homosexualities’ in Murray, Stephen and Roscoe, Will: Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature. New York University Press, New York, 1997. p 212.
7. Quoted by Murray, op cit, pp 212-214.
8. It was first published privately in 1886 as a “Terminal Essay” at the end of his 10-volume translation of the Arabian Nights. Although some homosexuality figures in the Arabian Nights stories, there was no need for Burton to provide a lengthy survey of practices by way of explanation. It seems likely that he wanted to write about the subject and used the Arabian Nights as a pretext for doing so.
9. Murray, op cit, pp 216-217
10. Said, Edward: Orientalism. Routledge, 1978.
11. Lagrange, Frédéric: ‘Male Homosexuality in Modern Arabic Literature’ in Ghoussoub, Mai and Emma Sinclair-Webb. Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East. Saqi Books, London, 2000. pp 169-198. As this appears to be the only detailed study of homosexuality in modern Arabic literature, it is cited extensively in the dicussion that follows.
12. Lagrange, op cit. p 187.
13. Ibrahim, Sun’allah. Sharaf. Dar al-Hilal, Cairo. 1997. Cited by Lagrange, op cit. p 189.
14. Ghitani, Gamal al-. Risalat al-basa’ir fi al-masa’ir. Madbuli, Cairo, 1991. Cited by Lagrange, op cit. pp 187-188.
15. Choukri, Mohamed; Bowles, Paul (translator). For Bread Alone. Saqi Books, London. 1993. pp 78-79.
16. Cited by al-Ahram Weekly in a press review. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/659/pr1.htm Golda Meir was Israeli prime minister at the time.
17. al-Musawwar, May 18, 2001. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, p 40.
18. al-Masa’, May 15, 2001. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, note 126, p 39.
19. The imagery of disease and infection may have been partly intended as an allusion to HIV/AIDS.
20. al-Ahram al-Arabi, August 25, 2001. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, note 134, p 40.
21. Bowd, Gavin: ‘New Labour, new lovers?’. al-Ahram Weekly, November 19, 1998. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/404/in2.htm
22. There are a few notable exceptions to this, such as the Jordan Times’ campaign against “honour” killing of women.
23. Bradley, John: ‘Saudi gays flaunt new freedoms.’ Independent, February 29, 2004. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article70138.ece. Such activities are said to be widespread in the kingdom’s sexually-segregated schools system. Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Ghaith, the head of the religious police, seemed reluctant to take the matter further. “This perversion is found in all countries,” he told Okaz. “The number [of homosexuals] here is small ...”
24. ‘Journalists convicted for gay report.’ al-Jazeera, May 18, 2004. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6EC117CC-3078-4D78-9751-A9F824BAF3ED.htm; ‘Court sentence bans journalists from writing.’ Yemen Times, May 20, 2004.
25. al-Wafd, January 20, 2002. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, note 183, p 55.
26. ‘Al-Osboa met his ex-wife and his neighbours: the text of the Beheira perverts organisation ringleader’s confession,’ Al-Osboa, January 28, 2002. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, note 184, p 55.
27. Human Rights Watch, op cit. p 60.
28. The main exception is Lebanon, where this sort of discussion has taken place in some newspapers and on at least one TV programme.
29. Liang, Lilian: ‘Hiding themselves in the crowd.’ Published at http://www.metimes.com/issue99-33/eg/egypt_gay_underground.htm but no longer available.
30. ‘Gay Muslims come out in San Francisco parade.’ Published at http://www.metimes.com/2K1/issue2001-26/reg/gay_muslims_come.htm but no longer available.
31. ‘The manufacture of perversion.’ Al-Ahram al-Arabi, August 22, 2001. Cited by Human Rights Watch, op cit, note 391, pp 107-8.
32. A man dressed as a woman, operating one of the rides at a fairground in Agadir, was pointed out to the author by a Moroccan who said “They usually have one at these places”.
33. Katz, Mark: ‘Assessing the political stability of Oman’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol 8, No. 3. September 2004. http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2004/issue3/jv8n3a1.html
34. Ammon, Richard: ‘The Accidental Informant’, March 2002. http://www.globalgayz.com/g-malaysia.html.
35. ‘Mattress shown in Anwar trial’, BBC, December 15, 1998 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/235255.stm; ‘Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim set free’, BBC, September 2, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3619790.stm
36. Afary, Janet and Anderson, Kevin: Foucault and the Iranian revolution: gender and the seductions of Islam, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005. p 161.
37. For an account of homosexuality in classical literature see: Rowson, Everett: ‘Middle Eastern Literature: Arabic’. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/mid_e_lit_arabic.html
38. Lagrange, op cit. p 175.
39. ibid. pp 174-175.
40. Cited by Lagrange, op cit. p 173. Tifashi’s work, Nuzhat al-albab fi ma la yujad fi kitab, was re-published in Arabic, edited by Jamal Jum’a (Riyad el-Rayyes Books, London, 1992) and a partial English translation, from a French translation, was published as The Delight of Hearts or What You Will Not Find in Any Other Book (Gay Sunshine Press, San Francisco, 1988).
41. Lagrange, op cit. p 174.
42. Lagrange (op cit. pp 171-172) cites an exception to this in Yusuf Idris’s short story, Hadithat sharaf (A matter of honour, 1957): “At night [Gharib] couldn’t stand sleeping at home and would prefer the tall heap of hay in the village barn. He used to bury himself in it, fondling his thighs and his chest, talking with his friends about girls, of whom they knew nothing [ . . .] There was something strange in Gharib, absent in most men. Perhaps it was his excess of manliness, or something else … A woman simply had to see his neck, or the string of his saroual when he was working to start choking as if she had seen a naked man.”
43. Mamdouh, Alia: ‘Presence of the absent man’ in Under the Naked Sky: short stories from the Arab world selected and translated by Denys Johnson-Davies, Saqi Books, London, 2001. pp 223-233. Another of Mamdouh’s works – Mothballs (Habbat al-Naftalin), Garnet, Reading, UK, 1996 – includes a lesbian scene between the narrator’s two aunts.
44. Abdulhamid, Ammar: Menstruation. Saqi Books, London, 2001. pp 46-47.
45. ibid. p 51.
46. ibid. p 101.
47. Ghafari, Iman al-: ‘Is there a lesbian identity in the Arab culture?’ Al-Raida (Lebanese American University, Beirut) Vol XX, no 99, fall 2002/2003. pp 86-90.
48. Shaykh, Hanan al-: Misk al-Ghazal. Dar el-Adab, Beirut, 1996 (second edition). Published in English as Women of Sand and Myrrh, translated by Catherine Cobham. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990.
49. Ghafari, op cit.
50. Mansour, Elham: Ana Hiya Anti (“I Am You”). Riad el-Rayyes, Beirut. 2000
51. Matar, Nabil: ‘Homosexuality in the early novels of Nageeb Mahfouz’, Journal of Homosexuality, Vol 26 (4), 1994, pp 77-90. Matar’s paper explores the historical development of Mahfouz’s views on homosexuality through his novels.
52. Lagrange, op cit. pp 191-192. Quoted from an interview between Lagrange and Mahfouz, August 8, 1998.
53. Moroccan Slave can be read in English at: http://inside.bard.edu/academic/division/langlit/flcl/capstonecourse/writers/images/moroccanslave.pdf
54. Aswani, Alaa al-: The Yacoubian Building. Translated by Humphrey Davies. American University in Cairo Press, Cairo. 2004. pp 74-75.
55. Aswani: op cit. p 180.
56. The book has several passages that might appal a gay western reader, such as “that miserable, unpleasant, mysterious, gloomy look that always haunts the faces of homosexuals” (p 37). Humphrey Davies, the translator of the English edition, pointed these out to Aswani, who was“seriously concerned that he might alienate a western audience with such language and … stressed that he hadn’t meant any disrespect or to hurt anyone’s feelings.” He suggested that Davies should feel free to omit them from the translation, though Davies did not, thinking that the contradictions were important. In the Arabic version, Aswani also uses the loaded term, shaadh (“queer”, “deviant”), as opposed to the neutral mithli (see Chapter 7). The explanation he gave to the translator for this was that mithli was unfamiliar to Egyptian readers. (Author’s correspondence with Davies, May 2005.) Nevertheless, gay Egyptians have generally reacted positively to the book.
57. Aswani: op cit. pp 133-134.
58. ‘Alaa El Aswani.’ Egypt Today, August 2004. http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1797
59. ‘Yusra fights corruption with Adel Imam’. Albawaba website, November 30, 2004 . http://www.albawaba.com/en/entertainment/178044
60. Barakat, Hoda: The Stone of Laughter. Translated by Sophie Bennett. Garnet Publishing, Reading, UK. 1994. pp 13-14. Originally published in Arabic as Hajar al-Dahik (Riad el-Rayyes Books, London, 1990).
61. Barakat: op cit. p 14.
62. Barakat: op cit. p 127.
63. Qur’an XII (Yusuf), 23-28.
64. Barakat: op cit. pp 127-128.
65. Author’s interview with Hoda Barakat in London, November 13, 2004.
66. Haddad, Mark. Interview with Hoda Barakat, Barra magazine (Helem, Beirut). Issue 1, June 2005.
67. ‘Lebanese group comes out with public battle for gay rights’. Agence France Presse, October 20, 2004. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=9412
68. Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) is regarded as one of the British cinema’s greatest stars. He was a matinee idol in the 1950s. With Victim, he became one of the first actors to play a gay role without making the character a “type”. Although this raised questions about his own sexuality, it established him as a serious actor. Among his many other roles was that of mode: line"Gustav von Aschenbach who develops an infatuation for a beautiful boy in Visconti’s 1971 film, Death in Venice. He lived for many years with his manager and friend, Tony Forwood. See: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001958/bio
69. For details of the film, and viewers’ comments on it, see Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055597/
70. Shafik, Viola: Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. American University in Cairo Press, 1998, p 10.
71. Shafik: op cit, p 15.
72. ‘Arab cinema: the early years’. Notes accompanying a season of Arab films shown by Channel Four television in Britain during the late 1980s. Reproduced at http://www.al-bab.com/arab/cinema/film1.htm
73. Menicucci, Garay: ‘Unlocking the Arab celluloid closet’. MERIP, Issue 206. http://www.merip.org/mer/mer206/egyfilm.htm. Because it has not been possible to view all the films mentioned in this section, particularly the older ones, some of the descriptions of their content rely on Menicucci’s article.
74. ‘Yousri Nasrallah: “Je suis contre la dictature majoritaire”.’Interview in French. L’Humanité, December 5, 2001. http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/2001-12-05/2001-12-05-254562
75. Originally a term for male transvestite dancers. Today it is commonly applied to the passive partner in homosexual intercourse and is often used as an insult to cast aspersions on a man’s masculinity.
76. Menicucci: op cit.
77. Shafik: op cit, p 34.
78. Shafik: op cit, p 34.
79. Chahine’s use of a male-male relationship as a metaphor for warm Soviet-Egyptian relations provides an interesting contrast to the negative use of such relationships as a metaphor for foeign exploitation.
80. ‘Arab Cinema: Youssef Chahine’. Notes accompanying a season of Arab films shown by Channel Four television in Britain during the late 1980s. Reproduced at http://www.al-bab.com/arab/cinema/film2.htm
81. Menicucci: op cit.
82. Shafik: op cit, p 186.
83. A reference to the Queen Boat case.
84. L’Humanité: op cit.