Defining the local literary scene with Yahya Talib
Published Date: November 21, 2008 By Hussain Al-Qatari
Arabic literature is going through a transitional phase, what with the emergence of a genre of popular fiction and the attention of the West in translations of Arabic works. The new genre of Arabic pop-fiction became especially apparent with the publication of female Saudi author Rajaa Al-Sanea’s controversial novel Banat Al-Riyadh (translated into English and published by Penguin under the title ‘Girls of Riyadh’). Together with the works of Alaa Al-Aswani (The Yacoubian Building, and Chicago) these works made evident the existence of Arabic pop-lit in the bookstores of the region after being dominated by translations of English pop-lit with works of authors like Danielle Steele, Stephen King and James Patterson. As the new genre appears, new problems of censorship arise. Al-Aswani’s books were banned in Kuwait, for example, causing a sudden and abrupt shut-down of Kuwait’s one and only Virgin Megastore. Al-Aswani’s novels were accused of featuring taboo issues that touch upon the red lines of religion and sexuality. Away from censorship and its prejudice, a number of individuals foster a passion for Arabic literature, reading it and studying its aesthetic value. Kuwait Times interviewed Yahya Talib, a writer and comparative literature scholar to talk about the literary scene in Kuwait and the beauty of Arabic literature and language.
KT: How would you define the local literary scene?Talib: There is a literary scene, but is it popular? I would say no. there is a literary scene but it is confined to the ‘reading’ public in Kuwait and the Gulf region, which is very small in comparison with other Arab countries. So there isn’t much to be sought after in terms of the creation of a pop literature scene in the Gulf area except among colloquial poetry. In that, you will find a very active scene; for here, people memorize, love and adore these poets, their poems are often quoted and used as song lyrics. In my opinion, I personally consider that to be related and is a natural legitimate child of Arabic lit, since it is written in a dialect derived from the Classical language, in addition to the fact that the poetry itself takes themes, ideas, ideals, techniques, rhyme, rhythm from Arabic poetry. If you’re talking about Arabic literature in general, then you will be able to find not as much of a scene as the European and American pop-culture. The European writers have a very huge fan base for books. Writers there publish 10,000 copies, while here an Arab young writer prints 1000 copies, and, mind you, there isn’t usually a second print. However, this is just to talk about the Gulf region. In the Arab world in general, you have better reception for literature as the cultural literary community/scene is centuries old in cities like Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus and many other cities and (as problematic as the term is) cultural ‘centers’. These city-dwelling communities are established, and education has been widespread among its people for centuries and that would, in time, create a larger cultural and literary community (perhaps relatively speaking) than those communities in the Gulf region.
KT: What about the ‘city-dwelling community’ in Kuwait?Talib: It’s very recent, though I’m very optimistic. Kuwait and other Gulf countries were poverty-stricken, semi-tribal unrecognized communities up until mid-20th Century . After the oil-boom of the 50s, the literary and cultural scene started to expand and mostly in Kuwait (Al-Arabi magazine in 1958, the Writers Association and the Formative Arts Society and other cultural societies were all established in the 50s and 60s). But with that oil-boom came consumer-culture and the age of Globalization followed, thus stopping the regular slow process of the creation of a strong culturally informed public. However, literature is slowly seeping into the popular culture. People are getting to slowly learn about local literary figures. If you ask any Kuwaiti about who Layla Al-Othman is, quite a large number will tell you that they’re familiar with the name because of the controversial haze that surrounds her name. We have a culture that seeks controversy. These writers may not represent the real literary scene in Kuwait, which has its own characteristics and themes. It is developing regardless of these obstacles if I may call them so.
KT: When they write, how controversial are they? Do they, for instance, cross the red lines of religion?Talib: Yes, some writers do tackle such issues. They cross the red line very much. Some of them actually choose to provoke censorship in Kuwait, by presenting their works to be censored, while others don’t.
KT: How do they go around censorship?Talib: If you’re a writer trying to publish a book, wanting to sell it in local bookstores and press houses in Kuwait, you will have to get the approval of the Ministry of Information. This means that the Ministry will (most likely) censor your work. However, you only need to do that if you’re publishing to sell here.Now, there are writers who intentionally do that. They present their work to the Ministry to be censored, and they anticipate a ban. I actually know a writer who, in a very recent interview, has actually bluntly and proudly mentioned ‘My book was banned.’ These writers spark a controversy around their work in order to gain big sales. Thus, the banning of books became a marketing tactic through which writers gain big sales.
KT: What about the banned works? What issues do they tackle from your readings of works of writers?Talib: Religious, mainly. And some works tackle sexual issues. Some writers do that very bluntly – this is from my literary critical point of view as a reader – they do tackle these issues only to provoke people and censorship. Some of them aren’t even literary, it is sometimes stripped from all its literary values and is plain direct writing: I hate this, I hate that, etc. Not that I am supporting censorship. On the contrary, I fight censorship and self-censorship as well. What I personally am against is the production of literature for the sole purpose of defying censorship. Literature to those writers thus becomes a counter-action; their works in result become didactic, blunt, unsubtle, and naively ‘angry’. And to draw an example, one of the books published last year and that was banned is, in my literary opinion, not worthy of any mention as it didactically instructs people against the establishment - be it religious or social (an act which is in itself not one that I am against). But that it is done in that counter-literature form that it becomes devoid of any literary value. A simple search on the Net would prove that all the reviews discuss the book as one that is banned. So it is a discussion of the ban, not of the book. It is not literature, it is the act of censorship being read by the controversy-seeking simple-minded reader.
KT: Moving on to a different subject, why is there in our region a bigger market for literature in the English language rather than in the Arabic?Talib: There are a lot of factors that contribute to this problem – I consider it a big problem, personally. Speaking as a Comp Lit student, I am shocked everyday to see that some people are completely oblivious to the literary scene not only in Kuwait, but to the whole Arab region. The majority knows – and mind you, this only comes from Western media – Naguib Mahfouz. Do they know—as big a name, as important a writer as– Abdulrahman Munif? Or Yousif Edris? Taha Hussein? Poets like Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis – these are poets that were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But do they know about them? I am talking about the Gulf region here. If you go to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, or Iraq, there is a relatively bigger number of people who are familiar with such writers.But in our region, education has failed to bring students any closer to their culture and literature. They see it as being oppressive and restrictive to their idea of freedom. They believe as a result that Arabic literature must be in parallel to the image they have in mind.
KT: A great majority believes that the educational system in government schools is insufficient for teaching Arabic literature. What is your personal take on that?Talib: If you study in a public school, the material that you study in Arabic courses is usually very classical, very mild, and its only purpose is not as much to introduce literature as it is to introduce Arabic language. That is why a lot of the Arabic courses always focuses not on the literary merit of the text, but on the grammar. Private schools, on the other hand, don’t even have a good Arabic course curriculum whatsoever. People fail in their Arabic courses and can still graduate from school with diplomas. So you end up having high school graduates who study English literature and become scholars afterwards, and they go abroad representing, mind you, Kuwait and the Arab world. When they go to the US or to Europe for grad school, they are considered Arab students. But when asked by scholars abroad, do they know how to speak about their own culture? Would they answer a simple question as: ‘Name three novelists from the Arab world’? I must say this is a real shame. Not only do these people misrepresent literature in the Arab world, but they add up to the stereotype of us.
KT: How do you think we can overcome this problem?Talib: You cannot overcome this unless people themselves are interested in literature and culture and know and appreciate its value. I personally graduated from a public school, but like many people, I grew up in a family of readers. It’s all about loving books and loving reading. So it all depends on the person themselves and their family. If you choose to know a culture, you will learn about it whether you are educated about it or not. All you need to do is read. The problem is that people who are Arabs disregard their own literature. Do they assume that among the 200 million Arabic speakers, none of them can produce literature good enough to compete with the translated literature that they read? Arabic has a very profound literary presence, especially in the form of poetry. Therefore, when in the early 20th century the Arabs were introduced to modernist techniques in writing poetry (free verse, prose poetry and such) from the West, they excelled in their imagery using the very same techniques they borrowed from the West. Arabic literature is 15 centuries old, and is time-honored and cannot be simply disregarded because it cannot compete with popular-fiction published and marketed by large corporations around the world.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Dear Readers: As you may know, some European countries are debating the idea of banning burqas and even head scarves. The article below, reproduced from the New York Times, examines the issue from a philosophical question. I agree with this author.
In my humble opinion, unless women are FORCED by law or otherwise coerced to wear coverings, the veil/burqa debate is a non-issue. There is nothing in a headscarf or long robe that automatically turns a woman into a submissive, simpering creature. Laws and customs that keep women from education, jobs and other forms of public participation and private expression are the problem, not the clothes a woman wears.
The part in this debate that I find most laughable is the argument that covering the body is somehow degrading to women, that it turns them into an object. Really? And wearing four-inch heels, mini-skirts, tight jeans and cleavage-revealing clothing is not about sexual objectication? Do women really think they are free from sexual objectification when they "choose" to dress this way? Nussbaum makes another strong point in her article below--that western women who bemoan the objectivation of women in Muslim culture and happy enough to go under the knife to make their bodies conform to a "liberated" idea of women's bodies.
If I understand correctly, the original idea of covering women's hairs and bodies is to reduce the objectivation of women, so that people do not obsess over a woman's appearance. I rather like that idea, although I don't think it actually works. (Women in the countries I visited simply put more effort into painting their faces and wearing glamorous accessories.)
My point--can we talk about something more substantive than scarves and robes?
July 11, 2010, 5:35 pm — Updated: 10:59 pm -->
Veiled Threats?
By MARTHA NUSSBAUM
Erin Schell
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
Tags:
descrimination, equality, Human Rights, Islam, muslim veiling, philosophy, religion, women
In Spain earlier this month, the Catalonian assembly narrowly rejected a proposed ban on the Muslim burqa in all public places — reversing a vote the week before in the country’s upper house of parliament supporting a ban. Similar proposals may soon become national law in France and Belgium. Even the headscarf often causes trouble. In France, girls may not wear it in school. In Germany (as in parts of Belgium and the Netherlands) some regions forbid public school teachers to wear it on the job, although nuns and priests are permitted to teach in full habit. What does political philosophy have to say about these developments? As it turns out, a long philosophical and legal tradition has reflected about similar matters.
What is it to treat people with equal respect in areas touching on religious belief and observance?
Let’s start with an assumption that is widely shared: that all human beings are equal bearers of human dignity. It is widely agreed that government must treat that dignity with equal respect. But what is it to treat people with equal respect in areas touching on religious belief and observance?We now add a further premise: that the faculty with which people search for life’s ultimate meaning — frequently called “conscience” ─ is a very important part of people, closely related to their dignity. And we add one further premise, which we might call the vulnerability premise: this faculty can be seriously damaged by bad worldly conditions. It can be stopped from becoming active, and it can even be violated or damaged within. (The first sort of damage, which the 17th-century American philosopher Roger Williams compared to imprisonment, happens when people are prevented from outward observances required by their beliefs. The second sort, which Williams called “soul rape,” occurs when people are forced to affirm convictions that they may not hold, or to give assent to orthodoxies they don’t support.)
The vulnerability premise shows us that giving equal respect to conscience requires tailoring worldly conditions so as to protect both freedom of belief and freedom of expression and practice. Thus the framers of the United States Constitution concluded that protecting equal rights of conscience requires “free exercise” for all on a basis of equality. What does that really mean, and what limits might reasonably be placed upon religious activities in a pluralistic society? The philosophical architects of our legal tradition could easily see that when peace and safety are at stake, or the equal rights of others, some reasonable limits might be imposed on what people do in the name of religion. But they grasped after a deeper and more principled rationale for these limits and protections.
Here the philosophical tradition splits. One strand, associated with another 17-century English philosopher, John Locke, holds that protecting equal liberty of conscience requires only two things: laws that do not penalize religious belief, and laws that are non-discriminatory about practices, applying the same laws to all in matters touching on religious activities. An example of a discriminatory law, said Locke, would be one making it illegal to speak Latin in a Church, but not restricting the use of Latin in schools. Obviously, the point of such a law would be to persecute Roman Catholics. But if a law is not persecutory in this way, it may stand, even though it may incidentally impose burdens on some religious activities more than on others. If people find that their conscience will not permit them to obey a certain law (regarding military service, say, or work days), they had better follow their conscience, says Locke, but they will have to pay the legal penalty. A modern Lockean case, decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1993, concerned an ordinance passed by the city of Hialeah, Fla., which made “ritual animal sacrifice” illegal, but permitted the usual ways of killing animals for food. The Court, invalidating the law, reasoned that it was a deliberate form of persecution directed at Santeria worshippers.
Erin Schell
Another tradition, associated with Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island and the author of copious writings on religious freedom, holds that protection for conscience must be stronger than this. This tradition reasons that laws in a democracy are always made by majorities and will naturally embody majority ideas of convenience. Even if such laws are not persecutory in intent, they may turn out to be very unfair to minorities. In cases in which such laws burden liberty of conscience ─ for example by requiring people to testify in court on their holy day, or to perform military service that their religion forbids, or to abstain from the use of a drug required in their sacred ceremony ─ this tradition held that a special exemption, called an “accommodation,” should be given to the minority believer.
Do the arguers really believe that domestic violence is a peculiarly Muslim problem? If they do, they are dead wrong.
On the whole, the accommodationist position has been dominant in U. S. law and public culture ─ ever since George Washington wrote a famous letter to the Quakers explaining that he would not require them to serve in the military because the “conscientious scruples of all men” deserve the greatest “delicacy and tenderness.” For a time, modern constitutional law in the U. S. applied an accommodationist standard, holding that government may not impose a “substantial burden” on a person’s “free exercise of religion” without a “compelling state interest” (of which peace and safety are obvious examples, though not the only ones). The landmark case articulating this principle concerned a woman, Adell Sherbert, who was a Seventh-Day Adventist and whose workplace introduced a sixth workday, Saturday. Fired because she refused to work on that day, she sought unemployment compensation from the state of South Carolina and was denied on the grounds that she had refused “suitable work.” The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor, arguing that the denial of benefits was like fining Mrs. Sherbert for her nonstandard practices: it was thus a denial of her equal freedom to worship in her own way. There was nothing wrong in principle with choosing Sunday as the day of rest, but there was something wrong with not accommodating Mrs. Sherbert’s special religious needs.
I believe that the accommodationist principle is more adequate than Locke’s principle, because it reaches subtle forms of discrimination that are ubiquitous in majoritarian democratic life. It has its problems, however. One (emphasized by Justice Scalia, when he turned our constitutional jurisprudence toward the Lockean standard in 1990) is that it is difficult for judges to administer. Creating exemptions to general laws on a case by case basis struck Scalia as too chaotic, and beyond the competence of the judiciary. The other problem is that the accommodationist position has typically favored religion and disfavored other reasons people may have for seeking an exemption to general laws. This is a thorny issue that requires lengthy discussion, for which there is no room here. But we don’t need it, because the recent European cases all involve discriminatory laws that fail to pass even the weaker Lockean test. Let’s focus on the burqa; arguments made there can be adapted to other cases.
Five arguments are commonly made in favor of proposed bans. Let’s see whether they treat all citizens with equal respect. First, it is argued that security requires people to show their faces when appearing in public places. A second, closely related, argument says that the kind of transparency and reciprocity proper to relations between citizens is impeded by covering part of the face.
What is wrong with both of these arguments is that they are applied inconsistently. It gets very cold in Chicago – as, indeed, in many parts of Europe. Along the streets we walk, hats pulled down over ears and brows, scarves wound tightly around noses and mouths. No problem of either transparency or security is thought to exist, nor are we forbidden to enter public buildings so insulated. Moreover, many beloved and trusted professionals cover their faces all year round: surgeons, dentists, (American) football players, skiers and skaters. What inspires fear and mistrust in Europe, clearly, is not covering per se, but Muslim covering.
A reasonable demand might be that a Muslim woman have a full face photo on her driver’s license or passport. With suitable protections for modesty during the photographic session, such a photo might possibly be required. However, we know by now that the face is a very bad identifier. At immigration checkpoints, eye-recognition and fingerprinting technologies have already replaced the photo. When these superior technologies spread to police on patrol and airport security lines, we can do away with the photo, hence with what remains of the first and second arguments.
A third argument, very prominent today, is that the burqa is a symbol of male domination that symbolizes the objectification of women (that they are being seen as mere objects). A Catalonian legislator recently called the burqa a “degrading prison.” The first thing we should say about this argument is that the people who make it typically don’t know much about Islam and would have a hard time saying what symbolizes what in that religion. But the more glaring flaw in the argument is that society is suffused with symbols of male supremacy that treat women as objects. Sex magazines, nude photos, tight jeans — all of these products, arguably, treat women as objects, as do so many aspects of our media culture. And what about the “degrading prison” of plastic surgery? Every time I undress in the locker room of my gym, I see women bearing the scars of liposuction, tummy tucks, breast implants. Isn’t much of this done in order to conform to a male norm of female beauty that casts women as sex objects? Proponents of the burqa ban do not propose to ban all these objectifying practices. Indeed, they often participate in them. And banning all such practices on a basis of equality would be an intolerable invasion of liberty. Once again, then, the opponents of the burqa are utterly inconsistent, betraying a fear of the different that is discriminatory and unworthy of a liberal democracy. The way to deal with sexism, in this case as in all, is by persuasion and example, not by removing liberty.
Once again, there is a reasonable point to be made in this connection. When Turkey banned the veil long ago, there was a good reason in that specific context: because women who went unveiled were being subjected to harassment and violence. The ban protected a space for the choice to be unveiled, and was legitimate so long as women did not have that choice. We might think of this as a “substantial burden” justified (temporarily) by a “compelling state interest.” But in today’s Europe women can dress more or less as they please; there is no reason for the burden to religious liberty that the ban involves.
A fourth argument holds that women wear the burqa only because they are coerced. This is a rather implausible argument to make across the board, and it is typically made by people who have no idea what the circumstances of this or that individual woman are. We should reply that of course all forms of violence and physical coercion in the home are illegal already, and laws against domestic violence and abuse should be enforced much more zealously than they are. Do the arguers really believe that domestic violence is a peculiarly Muslim problem? If they do, they are dead wrong. According to the U. S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, intimate partner violence made up 20 percentof all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001. The National Violence Against Women Survey, cited on the B.J.S. Web site, reports that 52 percent of surveyed women said they were physically assaulted as a child by an adult caretaker and/or as an adult by any type of perpetrator. There is no evidence that Muslim families have a disproportionate amount of such violence. Indeed, given the strong association between domestic violence and the abuse of alcohol, it seems at least plausible that observant Muslim families will turn out to have less of it.
Related
More From The Stone
Read previous contributions to this series.
Go to All Posts »
Suppose there were evidence that the burqa was strongly associated, statistically, with violence against women. Could government could legitimately ban it on those grounds? The U. S. Supreme Court has held that nude dancing may be banned on account of its contingent association with crime, including crimes against women, but it is not clear that this holding was correct. College fraternities are very strongly associated with violence against women, and some universities have banned all or some fraternities as a result. But private institutions are entitled to make such regulations; a total governmental ban on the male drinking club (or on other places where men get drunk, such as soccer matches) would certainly be a bizarre restriction of associational liberty. What is most important, however, is that anyone proposing to ban the burqa must consider it together with these other cases, weigh the evidence, and take the consequences for their own cherished hobbies.
Societies are certainly entitled to insist that all women have a decent education and employment opportunities that give them exit options from any home situation they may dislike If people think that women only wear the burqa because of coercive pressure, let them create ample opportunities for them, at the same time enforce laws making primary and secondary education compulsory, and then see what women actually do.
Finally, I’ve heard the argument that the burqa is per se unhealthy, because it is hot and uncomfortable. (Not surprisingly, this argument is made in Spain.) This is perhaps the silliest of the arguments. Clothing that covers the body can be comfortable or uncomfortable, depending on the fabric. In India I typically wear a full salwaar kameez of cotton, because it is superbly comfortable, and full covering keeps dust off one’s limbs and at least diminishes the risk of skin cancer. It is surely far from clear that the amount of skin displayed in typical Spanish female dress would meet with a dermatologist’s approval. But more pointedly, would the arguer really seek to ban all uncomfortable and possibly unhealthy female clothing? Wouldn’t we have to begin with high heels, delicious as they are? But no, high heels are associated with majority norms (and are a major Spanish export), so they draw no ire.
All five arguments are discriminatory. We don’t even need to reach the delicate issue of religiously grounded accommodation to see that they are utterly unacceptable in a society committed to equal liberty. Equal respect for conscience requires us to reject them.
[For more on this issue, visit the Times Topics page on Muslim veiling.]
Martha Nussbaum teaches law, philosophy, and divinity at The University of Chicago. She is the author of several books, including “Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality” (2008) and “Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities” (2010).
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Dangerous Middle East
The students who made the light lunch below.
A little snack at the camel farm.
A light lunch at the Amideast office in Kuwait.
a little dessert after dinner at a Qatari home.
Dangerous Middle East
Tonight, dear readers, marks the end of my travels. (My flight leaves in a few hours.) Since this is the end of my journey, and since everybody knows how dangerous the Middle East is, I feel obligated to comment on all the dangers I have endured while on my trip. They have been many and painful, but I will highlight only a few.
Danger #1: Being stuffed to death. The Arabs are a hospitable people, and one way of showing hospitality is to gorge one’s guests with food. If it’s not feeding time, no matter. Then you simply stuff your guests with sweets or small sandwich thingys. Are we being fattened up for the slaughter?
Danger #2: Multiculturalism run amok. The Middle-East is a complex mix of cultures; some people from different cultures intermarry, others simply work for one another. This is all well and good—in moderation. Sometimes, however, the multiculturalism gets out of hand, and then There is Pain. An example that comes to mind is the time I was forced by Our Leader to spend time at the Villagio Mall in Doha, Qatar. In this Arab city, this mall (an American invention) was designed to imitate an Italian city—Venice, to be specific—complete with fake gondolas on fake canals. If that weren’t bad enough, loud, harsh, technofunky something music (must I blame America again?) blasted out of the Virgin store while I stood ordering food from the Mongolian grill. A severe headache ensued. In Mongolia-land, whenever a meal was ready, the Indian employees banged on a gong with all their might. BOINGGGGGGGG!!!! went the reverberations in my poor aching skull. This brand of multiculturalism is enough to send me to the desert to commune silently with the camels.
Danger #3: Spending “fun time” on a dhow. Somebody has decided that a good way to keep tourists occupied is to stick them on a dhow (a traditional boat) and let them drift for a few hours. Our Leaders decided this would be good for us TWICE. The first time was a dinner cruise at night in Dubai. Although Dubai is, of course, part of an Arab country, the operators and all of the tourists except us on this dinner cruise were Indian. This would not be a problem except that they decided the best way to entertain us would be to blast out loud Indian music so that we could get massive headaches and not be able to talk to each other. There was an Indian buffet, but were kept from the food well past our feeding time (I was SO hungry on this trip, which explains my crankiness to a great extent) by being forced to watch a “magician.” I put quotes around “magician,” because this Indian man who was dressed like a pimp (a pink hat????), apparently knew no magic. He kept pouring water from one container into another and then looking at us like he had just performed magic. We were very confused. We were hungry and in pain. At one point he started a napkin on fire and seemed to expect applause for this magic. We were even hungrier and becoming surly. After what seemed like hours of this torture, the Magician Pimp finally gave up and we were allowed to eat. This soothed me a little bit, but we still remained trapped with the pounding Indian music for what seemed like hours on this stuffy boat. Since it was dark, we couldn’t see anything outside, but I suppose it was lovely.
As if that weren't enough torture, we were given another dhow tour in a different country. This time it was during the day. It was maybe 115 degrees. While we were moving (the first half hour or so), it was sort of fun. But then they anchored off shore and just let us sit in the sun and heat for almost three hours. There was no air conditioning and the gentle rocking made me quite sea sick. I lay in the blinding heat, listening to the buzzing sound of the jet skis and the misognynist rap music and wondered how I would survive the dangerous Middle East.
Tonight, dear readers, marks the end of my travels. (My flight leaves in a few hours.) Since this is the end of my journey, and since everybody knows how dangerous the Middle East is, I feel obligated to comment on all the dangers I have endured while on my trip. They have been many and painful, but I will highlight only a few.
Danger #1: Being stuffed to death. The Arabs are a hospitable people, and one way of showing hospitality is to gorge one’s guests with food. If it’s not feeding time, no matter. Then you simply stuff your guests with sweets or small sandwich thingys. Are we being fattened up for the slaughter?
Danger #2: Multiculturalism run amok. The Middle-East is a complex mix of cultures; some people from different cultures intermarry, others simply work for one another. This is all well and good—in moderation. Sometimes, however, the multiculturalism gets out of hand, and then There is Pain. An example that comes to mind is the time I was forced by Our Leader to spend time at the Villagio Mall in Doha, Qatar. In this Arab city, this mall (an American invention) was designed to imitate an Italian city—Venice, to be specific—complete with fake gondolas on fake canals. If that weren’t bad enough, loud, harsh, technofunky something music (must I blame America again?) blasted out of the Virgin store while I stood ordering food from the Mongolian grill. A severe headache ensued. In Mongolia-land, whenever a meal was ready, the Indian employees banged on a gong with all their might. BOINGGGGGGGG!!!! went the reverberations in my poor aching skull. This brand of multiculturalism is enough to send me to the desert to commune silently with the camels.
Danger #3: Spending “fun time” on a dhow. Somebody has decided that a good way to keep tourists occupied is to stick them on a dhow (a traditional boat) and let them drift for a few hours. Our Leaders decided this would be good for us TWICE. The first time was a dinner cruise at night in Dubai. Although Dubai is, of course, part of an Arab country, the operators and all of the tourists except us on this dinner cruise were Indian. This would not be a problem except that they decided the best way to entertain us would be to blast out loud Indian music so that we could get massive headaches and not be able to talk to each other. There was an Indian buffet, but were kept from the food well past our feeding time (I was SO hungry on this trip, which explains my crankiness to a great extent) by being forced to watch a “magician.” I put quotes around “magician,” because this Indian man who was dressed like a pimp (a pink hat????), apparently knew no magic. He kept pouring water from one container into another and then looking at us like he had just performed magic. We were very confused. We were hungry and in pain. At one point he started a napkin on fire and seemed to expect applause for this magic. We were even hungrier and becoming surly. After what seemed like hours of this torture, the Magician Pimp finally gave up and we were allowed to eat. This soothed me a little bit, but we still remained trapped with the pounding Indian music for what seemed like hours on this stuffy boat. Since it was dark, we couldn’t see anything outside, but I suppose it was lovely.
As if that weren't enough torture, we were given another dhow tour in a different country. This time it was during the day. It was maybe 115 degrees. While we were moving (the first half hour or so), it was sort of fun. But then they anchored off shore and just let us sit in the sun and heat for almost three hours. There was no air conditioning and the gentle rocking made me quite sea sick. I lay in the blinding heat, listening to the buzzing sound of the jet skis and the misognynist rap music and wondered how I would survive the dangerous Middle East.
Ladies: This One's For You
Gentle Readers:
Please be warned that this blog entry contains no nutritional value whatsoever. Its purpose is simply to report on the Hot Guy Guide at the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange. Many of us Fulbright-Hays women were swooning. I don't remember his name, but as my former roommate pointed out, "Who Cares"? (BTW, former roommate, he told me he likes me a lot more than he likes you. He also gave me a finance tip: Buy low, sell high.)
Newspaper articles on Parliament vote
Dear Readers: This is a follow-up to my previous blog entry. You may wish to read the previous blog first.
MPs pass 2 women rights bills, reject 3
Published Date: June 28, 2010 By B Izaak, Staff Writer
KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday passed two draft laws for Kuwaiti women rights but rejected three others with the help from the government who later combined with its supporters to shoot down the law that calls for writing off interest on Kuwaiti loans. Angry over the turn of events, there were mixed reactions from various sections of MPs, but many of them criticized the government and 27 of them signed a statement calling against passing the 2010/2011 budget to force the extension of the current assembly term.The drama began as the government voted against five draft laws to enhance the civil and social rights for Kuwaiti women but two of them were passed and the three others failed to get the required number. Women MPs strongly criticized the government after the session with Asil Al-Awadhi and Rula Dashti insisting that they will resubmit the rejected laws for consideration.Government spokesman and Communications Minister Mohammad Al-Baseeri said that the government backs women rights but it was forced to oppose the laws because the government was not consulted before the concerned committees approved them. The first law passed on women rights amends the civil service law to grant Kuwaiti women the social allowance if their husbands do not get it.The law also provides Kuwaiti women employed in the government a 70 day maternity holiday which can be extended for a further two months with full pay. The holiday can also be extended for four more months with a half pay. The law allows the minister to grant Kuwaiti female employees with a long unpaid vacation for between six months and three years. Kuwaiti women employees are entitled for a daily two-hour reduction in working hours for breast feeding for two years.The second law changes the immigration law to grant children of Kuwaiti women from foreign husbands permanent residency and exempts them of residency fees and allows Kuwaiti women to sponsor their foreign husbands. The assembly however rejected a law calling to grant Kuwaiti housewives a monthly salary of KD 350. It also rejected two other laws, one exempting children of Kuwaiti women from a foreign husband of health insurance fees and another to provide them with free education.The assembly passed the two laws in the first reading but failed to force a second and final reading and accordingly all the laws will have to be studied again by the assembly in the next term starting late October. On the other issue, the assembly rejected with a 33 against 26 vote the law that calls for scrapping interest on bank loans obtained by Kuwaiti citizens.The law was passed by the national assembly several months ago. The government rejected the law and sent it back to the assembly. To override the government rejection and make the law mandatory, MPs had two options: either vote on it during this term but with a two-thirds majority, or wait until next term to re-pass it only with a simple majority. Supporters of the law knew that they will not get the magical two-third majority of 44 votes and were banking on the next term.But speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi stunned them when he announced that since the law did not get the simple majority of the vote it will be taken off of the agenda which means it will not stay for another vote in the next term. Khorafi said his decision was based on the internal charter but veteran MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun and several other lawmakers disputed Khorafi's conclusion and insisted they will still have the right to have another vote on it next term.However, Baseeri appealed to MPs to pass amendments on the government sponsored defaulters fund which is scheduled to take place today. The defaulters fund is the government answer for the law to scrap interest. The fund, which is expected to have a capital of as high as KD 1 billion, will provide assistance only to Kuwaiti debtors who are unable to repay their debt.Meanwhile, the statement signed by the 27 MPs urged other lawmakers not to pass the state budget unless the assembly had debated and passed a number of highly important bills and issues. Under Kuwaiti law, the assembly term cannot be ended before passing the state budget and delaying the action would automatically mean extending the current term.
-----------------
MPss accuse government of purposely failing women's laws under excuse of cost
Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Women's Affairs MP Masouma Al-Mubarak (left) and MP Aseel Al-Awadhi (right) vote at the Parliament on Sunday, June 27, 2010. (Source:Al Watan)
Tuesday,29 June 2010
KUWAIT: Head of the Parliamentary Committee on Women's Affairs and members of the committee criticized the passive role of the government regarding women's laws. MPs Masouma Al-Mubarak, Aseel Al-Awadhi and Salwa Al-Jassar asserted that the government "purposely failed" during the voting process under the pretext of high financial cost and lack of studies even though the government spends large sums of money on foreign donations and grants. They threatened the government that they will follow strict policies in the future.Al-Mubarak said that Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis have been deprived of social allowance for many years, while Al-Awadhi mentioned that the Parliament approved two out of five reports submitted by the committee during the first round of deliberations, and accused the government of attending the parliamentary session without being prepared. She said it was evident from the fact that the Government's Official Spokesperson Mohammed Al-Busairi discussed the social insurance bill, although it was not on the agenda. She accused the government of being "reckless", and warned the government that the female MPs will follow strict policies in response to what the government had done. She went on to criticize the government by saying that the government "had failed, over the course of one year, to provide the committee with detailed answers to its questions."MP Al-Jassar thanked the MPs who supported women's bill during Sunday's session, and also thanked the committee for its efforts to reach a final draft for the bill. She explained that the women embody the concept of national unity because they succeeded in bringing together the votes of male MPs, and noted that the approval of the women's bill during the first round of deliberations highlights the Parliament's achievements. She added that an opportunity is available during the summer to reach a unified vision during the coming round of deliberations.Moreover, MP Musallam Al-Barrak attacked the government and accused it of not being serious or fair to women married to non-Kuwaitis, since they have rights to receive medical treatment, education, and employment rights as well. He described the government as "bold", and revealed that the government rejected all 23 proposals without making any proposals regarding that matter, while spending 500 million US dollars to support small projects in the Arab countries, after all the MPs, except MP Dhaifallah Buramiah, approved that matter.
MPs pass 2 women rights bills, reject 3
Published Date: June 28, 2010 By B Izaak, Staff Writer
KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday passed two draft laws for Kuwaiti women rights but rejected three others with the help from the government who later combined with its supporters to shoot down the law that calls for writing off interest on Kuwaiti loans. Angry over the turn of events, there were mixed reactions from various sections of MPs, but many of them criticized the government and 27 of them signed a statement calling against passing the 2010/2011 budget to force the extension of the current assembly term.The drama began as the government voted against five draft laws to enhance the civil and social rights for Kuwaiti women but two of them were passed and the three others failed to get the required number. Women MPs strongly criticized the government after the session with Asil Al-Awadhi and Rula Dashti insisting that they will resubmit the rejected laws for consideration.Government spokesman and Communications Minister Mohammad Al-Baseeri said that the government backs women rights but it was forced to oppose the laws because the government was not consulted before the concerned committees approved them. The first law passed on women rights amends the civil service law to grant Kuwaiti women the social allowance if their husbands do not get it.The law also provides Kuwaiti women employed in the government a 70 day maternity holiday which can be extended for a further two months with full pay. The holiday can also be extended for four more months with a half pay. The law allows the minister to grant Kuwaiti female employees with a long unpaid vacation for between six months and three years. Kuwaiti women employees are entitled for a daily two-hour reduction in working hours for breast feeding for two years.The second law changes the immigration law to grant children of Kuwaiti women from foreign husbands permanent residency and exempts them of residency fees and allows Kuwaiti women to sponsor their foreign husbands. The assembly however rejected a law calling to grant Kuwaiti housewives a monthly salary of KD 350. It also rejected two other laws, one exempting children of Kuwaiti women from a foreign husband of health insurance fees and another to provide them with free education.The assembly passed the two laws in the first reading but failed to force a second and final reading and accordingly all the laws will have to be studied again by the assembly in the next term starting late October. On the other issue, the assembly rejected with a 33 against 26 vote the law that calls for scrapping interest on bank loans obtained by Kuwaiti citizens.The law was passed by the national assembly several months ago. The government rejected the law and sent it back to the assembly. To override the government rejection and make the law mandatory, MPs had two options: either vote on it during this term but with a two-thirds majority, or wait until next term to re-pass it only with a simple majority. Supporters of the law knew that they will not get the magical two-third majority of 44 votes and were banking on the next term.But speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi stunned them when he announced that since the law did not get the simple majority of the vote it will be taken off of the agenda which means it will not stay for another vote in the next term. Khorafi said his decision was based on the internal charter but veteran MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun and several other lawmakers disputed Khorafi's conclusion and insisted they will still have the right to have another vote on it next term.However, Baseeri appealed to MPs to pass amendments on the government sponsored defaulters fund which is scheduled to take place today. The defaulters fund is the government answer for the law to scrap interest. The fund, which is expected to have a capital of as high as KD 1 billion, will provide assistance only to Kuwaiti debtors who are unable to repay their debt.Meanwhile, the statement signed by the 27 MPs urged other lawmakers not to pass the state budget unless the assembly had debated and passed a number of highly important bills and issues. Under Kuwaiti law, the assembly term cannot be ended before passing the state budget and delaying the action would automatically mean extending the current term.
-----------------
MPss accuse government of purposely failing women's laws under excuse of cost
Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Women's Affairs MP Masouma Al-Mubarak (left) and MP Aseel Al-Awadhi (right) vote at the Parliament on Sunday, June 27, 2010. (Source:Al Watan)
Tuesday,29 June 2010
KUWAIT: Head of the Parliamentary Committee on Women's Affairs and members of the committee criticized the passive role of the government regarding women's laws. MPs Masouma Al-Mubarak, Aseel Al-Awadhi and Salwa Al-Jassar asserted that the government "purposely failed" during the voting process under the pretext of high financial cost and lack of studies even though the government spends large sums of money on foreign donations and grants. They threatened the government that they will follow strict policies in the future.Al-Mubarak said that Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis have been deprived of social allowance for many years, while Al-Awadhi mentioned that the Parliament approved two out of five reports submitted by the committee during the first round of deliberations, and accused the government of attending the parliamentary session without being prepared. She said it was evident from the fact that the Government's Official Spokesperson Mohammed Al-Busairi discussed the social insurance bill, although it was not on the agenda. She accused the government of being "reckless", and warned the government that the female MPs will follow strict policies in response to what the government had done. She went on to criticize the government by saying that the government "had failed, over the course of one year, to provide the committee with detailed answers to its questions."MP Al-Jassar thanked the MPs who supported women's bill during Sunday's session, and also thanked the committee for its efforts to reach a final draft for the bill. She explained that the women embody the concept of national unity because they succeeded in bringing together the votes of male MPs, and noted that the approval of the women's bill during the first round of deliberations highlights the Parliament's achievements. She added that an opportunity is available during the summer to reach a unified vision during the coming round of deliberations.Moreover, MP Musallam Al-Barrak attacked the government and accused it of not being serious or fair to women married to non-Kuwaitis, since they have rights to receive medical treatment, education, and employment rights as well. He described the government as "bold", and revealed that the government rejected all 23 proposals without making any proposals regarding that matter, while spending 500 million US dollars to support small projects in the Arab countries, after all the MPs, except MP Dhaifallah Buramiah, approved that matter.
Kuwait: Shall I Compare Thee to Qatar and UAE?
Kuwait is the third and last country we are visiting on our tour. It, like Qatar and UAE, is a very small country made recently wealthy because of oil (or gas, in the case of Qatar.) Like the other two, it is highly developed economically, yet still quite culturally conservative. It is geographically similar (desert bordering the sea).
Our group with MP Dr. Massouma Al-Mubarak
Like the other two countries, it’s past was dominated by fishing, pearling, and trading. Also like the other two, it is governed by a ruling family—the Al Sabah. It is also peaceful, stable, and relatively pro-Western. (One of our speakers said Kuwait is a compromise between Saudi Arabia (hyper-conservative, even repressive) and Lebanon (volatile).
One of the most important differences between Kuwait and the other two countries is that Kuwait City has been a sizable settlement for centuries. (In contrast, Dubai and Doha were much smaller trading villages). Another significant difference is that the significant development based on oil wealth came perhaps a generation earlier than the other two. (Development was rapid after WW II.)
As a result, Kuwait has a different “feel” to me. For lack of a better term, it feels more “real.” The other places were newer, built to a large extent through the initiatives of the ruling family, and had the feel of a “development” or someone’s “project.” (I’m putting these words into quotation marks because I don’t really know what I’m talking about; I’m just trying to convey a vague impression I get.) Kuwait has older buildings and the “feeling” of a real city, with all of its pros and cons. (This impression only goes so far; I haven’t seen much real poverty, although I’ve seen plenty of buildings in a state of disrepair.)
Another significant difference is that Kuwait has, to quote Jill Crystal, “the longest experience of all the Gulf states with constitutions and elected bodies. Kuwait’s constitution was adopted in 1962, making it one of the oldest in the region and the oldest in the Gulf. In accordance with this constitution, Kuwait has had an elected unicameral National Assembly (majlis al-umma) since 1963.” And, wonder of wonders, in 2005 women were granted the right to vote and run for office. In 2009 four women were elected to parliament. Woo hoo!
There are significant differences in the population (and thus the assembly) between conservatives (often religious conservatives) and liberals and between the “hadar” (the settled, Sunni, urban elite) and the “bedu” (the settled Bedouin tribes.)
Because Kuwaitis actually have a voice in how their society runs, the society on the surface appears to be more conservative than Qatar and United Arab Emirates. For example, unlike the other countries , alcohol is completely banned, even in hotels. This doesn’t mean that the population overall is more conservative than in Qatar and UAE. People Who Know More Than I Do tell me that if the population in the other countries could vote, they would probably ban it outright, too. However, the emirs in the other countries make such decisions in order to be more friendly to tourists and foreign businesses. Another side effect of giving people the right to vote is that they can make decisions that liberal Americans find unsettling. For example, in Kuwait, universities have been unsegregated for a long time. But a couple of years ago, something happened at one of the universities (a party? Some untoward mingling of the sexes?) that led to the assembly voting to segregate the universities by sexes. The educators we have talked to see this as a huge pain in the butt and not good for education. (One reason this isn’t good, they say, is that women tend to be much better students—not necessarily inherently smarter, but more studious and interested. When classes are mixed, they have a good influence on the male students. When the young men have their own classes, all hell breaks loose.)
Last week, we visited parliament and were able to meet with three of these four women. (The fourth one was not there.) This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. On the first day we visited, the Parliament was supposed to vote on several bills related to women’s rights. Unfortunately, because of a lack of quorum, the assembly meeting was cancelled. (Was the lack of quorum deliberate?) On the positive side, the female MPs had time to meet with us because of this cancellation.
All four of the female MPs have Ph.Ds from American universities and are considered very strong women, effective politicians. They certainly came across that way to us. (I’m still waiting to meet those submissive Muslim women we hear so much about.) They told us that one of the proposals was to pay housewives to stay at home. They were against this bill because they believed it was an attempt to “buy off” women’s participation in the public sector. (I agree.) There were also several bills related to Kuwaiti women who marry non-Kuwaiti men. Under current law, if a Kuwaiti man marries a non-Kuwaiti woman, the wife and children still get all the benefits of Kuwaiti nationals. (These benefits are considerable; Kuwait is basically a welfare state.) However, if I understand correctly, if a Kuwaiti woman marries a non-Kuwaiti man, her husband and children are considered foreigners with none of the rights of Kuwaiti citizens. (We met a woman in this situation—the one who gave the talk on the Kuwait cityscape as “etch-a-sketch.”) This week, they finally voted on the issues. Some passed, some didn’t. The “housewife bill” didn’t pass. (Good!) Spouses and children of women married to non-Kuwaiti men received some rights, but not all of them. (In my next blog, I'll reproduce two newspaper articles with details about the vote.)
MPs Aseel al-Awardi and Massouma al-Mubarak in Parliament.
MP Rola Dashti next to a picture celebrating the four women's election to parliament a year ago.
Books R Not Us
Dear Readers:
I mentioned in an earlier blog that I could not find much Gulf literature to speak of. Let me clarify that I have not been able to find Gulf literature translated in English. I confess, dear readers, that I do not speak Arabic, although I’m getting a hankering to learn it.
It’s not hard to find books printed in English here, but almost all of them are American (and European to a lesser extent). There are Anglo-American classics and there are plenty of best-seller type books. The Twilight series is selling very well here, as is the business self-help book Who Moved My Cheese? There just isn’t any literature written in this part of the world (that’s been translated in English.)
One theory is that there are plenty of Kuwaiti writers; they just haven’t been translated and published because of anti-Arab bias by the Western publishing houses. This was an explanation I received last night at a Kuwaiti gathering. That may be true, but this explanation doesn’t explain why there seems to be plenty of translated Arabic literature coming out of places like Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. It also doesn’t explain where there is a distressing (to me) lack of bookstores or literary culture that I can discern. There is ONE bookstore in all of Kuwait (population about 3 million people) and it is pretty paltry in comparison to your average Borders or Barnes and Nobles. (For the record, Dubai has some very good bookstores and one fantastic Japanese owned bookstore with a great selection of Middle Eastern history and literature in English. But even in that fantastic bookstore, there was very little from the Gulf region, but a lot from Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.)
The people in charge of our Fulbright Tour also couldn’t seem to find any local academics who were able to speak about local literature. I’m not sure if it is because they didn’t try very hard or because literature people are rare species. It’s not that people in this region are poorly educated. They are not. But it seems that the education focuses on practical professional skills as opposed to the liberal arts.
It seems that the most logical conclusion is that reading and writing simply isn’t a big part of the culture in this part of the world. (I say this despite the fact that whenever we ask a local person about writing, they say things like “Oh, there are lots of writers. My wife’s second cousin’s neighbor is a very well known writer.” But if asked to name names of authors or books, nobody can quite think of any.) I could be wrong and would be happy to be enlightened. I also suspect that the situation will change given the huge growth of women in higher education in this region. I am staying tuned.
I mentioned in an earlier blog that I could not find much Gulf literature to speak of. Let me clarify that I have not been able to find Gulf literature translated in English. I confess, dear readers, that I do not speak Arabic, although I’m getting a hankering to learn it.
It’s not hard to find books printed in English here, but almost all of them are American (and European to a lesser extent). There are Anglo-American classics and there are plenty of best-seller type books. The Twilight series is selling very well here, as is the business self-help book Who Moved My Cheese? There just isn’t any literature written in this part of the world (that’s been translated in English.)
One theory is that there are plenty of Kuwaiti writers; they just haven’t been translated and published because of anti-Arab bias by the Western publishing houses. This was an explanation I received last night at a Kuwaiti gathering. That may be true, but this explanation doesn’t explain why there seems to be plenty of translated Arabic literature coming out of places like Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. It also doesn’t explain where there is a distressing (to me) lack of bookstores or literary culture that I can discern. There is ONE bookstore in all of Kuwait (population about 3 million people) and it is pretty paltry in comparison to your average Borders or Barnes and Nobles. (For the record, Dubai has some very good bookstores and one fantastic Japanese owned bookstore with a great selection of Middle Eastern history and literature in English. But even in that fantastic bookstore, there was very little from the Gulf region, but a lot from Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.)
The people in charge of our Fulbright Tour also couldn’t seem to find any local academics who were able to speak about local literature. I’m not sure if it is because they didn’t try very hard or because literature people are rare species. It’s not that people in this region are poorly educated. They are not. But it seems that the education focuses on practical professional skills as opposed to the liberal arts.
It seems that the most logical conclusion is that reading and writing simply isn’t a big part of the culture in this part of the world. (I say this despite the fact that whenever we ask a local person about writing, they say things like “Oh, there are lots of writers. My wife’s second cousin’s neighbor is a very well known writer.” But if asked to name names of authors or books, nobody can quite think of any.) I could be wrong and would be happy to be enlightened. I also suspect that the situation will change given the huge growth of women in higher education in this region. I am staying tuned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
