Middle East

… in FY08 (fiscal years in the US government are from October to October). This is a big increase from the 1600 that were resettled here in FY 07.

Daughters of Iraq is a program run in the model of the Sons of Iraq, insurgents-cum-policemen that have been instrumental in minimizing violence throughout the country. The DoI program is a response to the rise in female suicide bombers in the country. The Monitor has an interesting piece on the women who have taken on this task, and the ways that it has challenged accepted gender roles, et cetera. Conflict and war present all sorts of obstacles to maintaining the status quo and gender norms are, in many cases, one of the casualties.

I have one small (ok, not small) criticism of the treatment of female suicide bombers in this article. One of the major issues of the war on terror is defining our terms: who, exactly, is the enemy in this war? The framing is frequently vague and as a result, the cohort of possible opponents is constantly expanding. (Moustafa Bayoumi’s book articulates the struggle of one group that has been unwittingly included in the opposition camp, young Arab Americans). Here, the author describes the motivations of female suicide bombers in the following terms:

While the motives of each bomber varies, US military officials say most female suicide bombers share at least one of the following characteristics or circumstances: dishonor through sexual indiscretion, loss of a family member and a desire for revenge, desire to attain heroic status, inability to produce children, or an interest in demonstrating gender equality.

Ok, their data is their data, and I am sure that this isn’t fabricated. But an inability to produce children? An interest in demonstrating gender equality? As a motivation for terrorism? Please, be a little more discerning in the way you frame these issues. Try not to include barren women and feminists in the “threat” category with so little acknowledgment of how complex these issues really are.

Bobby Ghosh has a piece in Time magazine celebrating the eradication of jihad from Saudi Arabia. I am inclined to think it’s a little short-sighted. His evidence of the decline of Islamic extremism is, primarily, the relative absence of police checkpoints in the city of Riyadh. His treatment of the human rights violations that go along with the Saudi’s aggressive crackdown on terrorism is cursory:

How did the Saudis do it? They used a combination of brute force and subtle persuasion. Few details are available on the crackdown on terrorist groups, because the authorities here don’t much like talking about it. So it’s a fair guess that many of the means they used wouldn’t pass any Western human rights test. Riyadhis speak in whispers about midnight raids, arrests, torture and summary executions.

He acknowledges at the end that there may still be an extremist presence in the country. But there seems to be no connection, at least in Ghosh’s rendering, between human rights violations and extremism. Perhaps a sentence on the ways that the so-called crackdown may have negative consequences would have been … helpful.

Moustafa Bayoumi, professor at Brooklyn College, published a book this year called How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America. It follows the stories of seven young Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn in the wake of 9/11 to illustrate their conflicted relationships with their country of residence. It was excerpted in New York Magazine last month; the story of Rasha and her family, jailed for three months on immigration charges, is upsetting at the very least. I haven’t yet read the book, but it comes highly recommended. (Thanks to Ebtihal for that).

Bayoumi’s explicit parallel between his work and W.E.B. Dubois’ The Souls of Black Folk has been a minor sensation, as books go - you can, for example, join the Facebook group. Clearly it has resonance for a group beyond its subjects; the consequences for America will likely be far-reaching as well. In an interview at Salon.com, Bayoumi points out the following:

The Gulf as a whole and Dubai in particular have an allure to this younger generation for many complicated reasons. One of which is there seems to be a growing hostility to all things Muslim in the United States. They think if they go to the Gulf they can escape a lot of that. Then there’s the role of globalization. Dubai is now seen as a hot spot — it’s where the action is. It’s interesting to me because this earlier generation, his father’s generation, believed that about the United States. They could come to the United States and fulfill all of their potential. Now, in a lot of ways, their children feel that way about a place like Dubai.

On this blog, I try to point out the cultural and business news coming out of the Gulf because it isn’t just Arab-Americans that see the Gulf as an emerging cultural and business center. It’s a fascinating area of growth that provides a sort of counter-point to other Middle East news about wars and terrorism. The combination of that growth and America’s conflicted relationship with globalization and … other politics will have interesting consequences. It would be nice to hear a little more about these ideas from the Presidential candidates. Unfortunately, they are too busy quibbling over cliches.

The so-called polygamy bill, which would make it easier for a man to take a second (or third, or fourth) wife, was abandoned by the Iranian parliament. This comes after extended protesting by Iranian women, including the infamous Shirin Ebadi. Some of her colleagues were arrested and imprisoned earlier this month for voicing their opposition to the bill. It remains to be seen whether the fate of the bill will have an impact on their sentences.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace puts out a monthly newsletter with nuggets of analysis on the Middle East, and it’s always a treat. September’s issue is out today (in a new format!) so check it out. I am probably going to blog about the Kuwait article (Rentierism Revisited) tomorrow or Friday -  or maybe the one the Algerian election - the fun doesn’t stop - but there is plenty of other interesting stuff therein.

So Secretary Rice just completed a tour of North Africa, hitting Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. For obvious reasons her meetings with Muammar Qaddafi of Libya received a great deal of attention; click here for a little State Department commentary on Libya’s role in the international community since its diplomatic relations with the US have been restored.

It’s been interesting reading about and hearing Rice’s commentary on the new chapter this administration has opened up with Libya - “The United States has no permanent enemies” is one phrase that has been frequently quoted.  David Schenker (in the Weekly Standard) points out that Washington is setting a precedent for other state sponsors of terror to observe; you may not agree with most the analysis in here (I don’t, for example, share his horror that terrorism will be treated as crime rather than as war) but it is accurate that a precedent has been set, and being on the “State Sponsors of Terror” list is by no means a permanent status.

In short, I have no trouble visualizing Barack Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in just this pose -  although we all know Ahmadinejad would never wear that.

This NYT article sheds a little light on why in the world OPEC would cut production when oil prices are still over $100 a barrel. (The price of a barrel was $104 at close of NYMEX today).

Kalima, an initiative of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, announced its intention to make 8 new titles available, including John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Restored. Kalima aspires to make 100 new great works of other languages available in Arabic each year; their ambition is to rectify the current rate of translation of books into Arabic, which is one for every one million Arabs. (Wikipedia tells us that there are between 350 and 422 million Arabs in the world, so you can do the math).

Kalima also requests feedback from Americans on the novel that best embodies the spirit of our country. (The form has no question about your nationality, so I guess non-American lovers of American literature are also welcome to vote). I unoriginally, but sincerely, nominated the Great Gatsby, but easily might have chosen 10 other books. If you are inspired, post your choice in comments.

The Independent (UK) has a brief background on Kalima here. It’s important to look at this initiative as a piece of a broader campaign by Abu Dhabi to promote cultural development in literature, science, entertainment, history … and other things yet to come.

With respect to this initiative, I can hear an opposition argument forming in my head that perhaps the importing of foreign literature will stifle the growth of the local/native/national literary scene. I think that argument is, frankly, silly. The idea that a culture can reach a saturation point for books demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way that thought communities grow - wide exposure and greater stimulation can only be a good thing.

It will, of course, be curious to observe how Kalima navigates issues of censorship, internally and in their anticipated distribution centers.

(Picture is a the book cover of Kalima’s translation of Alan Greenspan’s book, The Age of Turbulence).

Mona Eltahawy has interviewed a series of Muslim Republicans and summarized their struggles this election cycle. In sum, it’s not a good scene; one doctor described it thus:

“I am truly having an identity crisis as a Muslim Republican. I really don’t want to abandon the party, but I really feel the party has abandoned me,” he said.

Eltahawy comes clean on her own party affiliation in this passage:

Despite an appearance by Bush at a mosque to show he didn’t hold all Muslims responsible [for the 9/11 attacks], his administration proceeds to do exactly this: use “secret evidence” and behave in ways that make me wonder if they were taking notes from the dictatorial regime I suffered in Egypt when I moved to the United States in 2000.

So, she clearly has her own thoughts on the Bush administration; her interviews, though, bear out the disenchantment of some Muslims with the Republican party over the last eight years. It remains to be seen what impact the Muslim vote will have in the 2008 election.