M E S C & 2001—2006

T H E
B E S T
O F
AU C ’ S
M E S C &
B A R Q I Y YA
N E W S L E T T E R S
2001—2006
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 2
WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR
BAHGAT KORANY
THE PRESENT:
I
n a short time, and thanks
mainly to MESC fellows like
Garth Hall and his colleagues, our
newsletter made it in the news,
the big global news. For instance,
“letters to the editor” are
increasing and come from varied
quarters. Our survey of the “best”
21 books on the region elicits
reactions from “established”
scholars as different as Asaad
Abu-Khalil and Martin Kramer. Our
newsletter is quoted by Harvard
and Columbia newsletters.
To satisfy this growing interest,
we seized the opportunity of midyear recess to “look back” and
come out with a sample of the
contents of past issues. The main
criteria of selection was the way a
piece reveals how things look
from within the region itself.
For in terms of courses, MESC is
similar to many other
interdisciplinary programs across
the world. But our faculty and
students are more international in
origin, global in experience, varied
in their debates and tend to think
MARCH 2006
“out of the box”. Moreover, what
really distinguishes MESC
students and faculty is our very
direct and daily contact with what
we study. We are not “bookish”
about the Middle East, but “live”
this region.
Our field-based knowledge is
varied and to reflect this, this
edition’s articles are from
personal experiences (e.g. first
impressions of Cairo, Travels in
M.E.) to politics and its societal
basis (e.g. our debates on women,
role of Islamists) or its effect on
the arts (e.g. film, the
assassination of Al-Aqqad). A main
question, however, is the impact
of our field experience on the
state of M.E. studies (e.g. section
9 below). As it should be, we
don’t conduct the debate among
ourselves only, but include
insights from outside the program,
such as Tayeb Saleh’s reflections
on his classical novel and Ebtisam
El-Kitbi’s take on female political
participation in the Gulf. Enjoy!
Bahgat Korany
Welcome to the MESC:
MESC is a forum for the
students of AUC’s Middle East
Studies Program. However, we
welcome comments and
contributions from the entire
AUC community and beyond. If
these articles pique your
interest, consider making a
writing contribution to the
MESC. We welcome full-time
commitments and one-time
flings both. Drop us a line at:
[email protected]
- Garth
Editor, Epicurean, Giants fan
MARCH 2006
Page 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
A THEME-BASED
BEST OF MESC
First Impressions of Cairo
AUC Speakers
Women in the Middle East
Day 1, Cairo
Tayeb Saleh Speaks at AUC
Women’s Dreams in Egypt
March 2004
A Norwegian grad student wraps his head
around Cairo, luggage handlers, and the
movie Highlander. Page 4.
March 2002
Tayeb Saleh, Sudanese author of Seasons
of Migration to the North, talks to the MESC
crowd.
Page 11.
November 2003
A PhD candidate doing research in Cairo on
Egyptian women’s dreams.
Page 18.
Taxi, Taxi
December 2003
A MESC student provides a insight into AUC
life through the lens of her taxi trials.
Page 5.
The Dream and Reality of Cairo
May 2004
A grad student in her last semester at AUC
reflects on her three years in the Big C.
Page 6.
Travels in the Middle East
Of Tanks and Oranges
November 2002
An AUC Poli Sci Prof in Ramallah.
Page 7.
Life Under US Occupation in
Baghdad
October 2003
A MESC grad student on an Amnesty
International mission in the Round City.
Page 8.
Personal Reflection
American Soldier
May 2004
An MESC grad student tells about her
brother’s return from the Iraq war-zone.
Page 9.
Reflections on My Writings
May 2003
Iraqi short story writer Buthaina Al Nasiri
muses on her writings.
Page 10.
Politics and Gender in the GCC
Religion, Rights, and Globalization
May 2004
Cambridge’s Professor Turner considers
theories of globalization that don’t give
religion its due.
Page 12.
The AUC Community
The Voice
February 2003
A MESC student watches as Cairo police
suppress an AUC protest.
Page 13.
Interview with Professor Kandil
December 2005
An AUC Poli Sci prof talks on the Egyptian
elections and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Page 14.
Middle East Politics
May 2005
Dr. Ebtisam Al-Kitbi’s presentation to MESC
on women in Gulf politics.
Page 19.
Middle East Films
Egyptian Cinema
May 2003
Can modern Cairo flicks match the
classics?
Page 20.
Al-Akkad’s The Message
November 2005
Looking at The Message as a soldier
fighting off the armies of Muslim
stereotypes.
Page 21.
Middle East Studies
We Are the Dead
Middle East Studies After 9/11
February 2002
Is Afghanistan being made to love Big Bro
America?
Page 15.
February 2005
Three Middle East studies high scholars
weigh in.
Page 22.
My Favorite Victim
February 2003
Feeling self-righteous while forgetting our
own ugly, festering sores.
Page 16.
Water: A Source of War?
October 2001
Water in Israel & Palestine. Page 17.
The 21 Best Books of MES
November 2005
A despotic MESC editor tries to quantify the
universe, one discipline at a time.
Page 23.
MARCH 2006
Page 4
DAY 1 , CA I RO
ROGER BURLAND
MARCH 2004
E
gypt did not radiate the heavy
ambience of sudden death and
extreme danger, as one casual tourist would
expect. Instead, the atmosphere was surprisingly
easy. Maybe it’s due to the fact that this area has
harbored so many souls through the times, that a
dubious Norwegian individual hosed down by an
AK-47 or knifed and dumped in the Nile, is no
reason to fall into Western Norwegian melancholy.
However, as long as I am solvent, I hope they’ll let
me live. That means that I’m at least safe at the
airport.
Cairo is so extremely big that it is hard to
contemplate it. The management tasks the Cairo
mayor faces must be of such a nature that a longtime-ago he probably turned into a drooling
amoebae. Or, it could be that the mayor of Cairo
actually is an alien from outer space with several
heads and hands and some tentacles in reserve in
case of emergency.
Day 1:
As expected, I haven’t been able to achieve
much. Day 1 has been just as expected. As
expected, my luggage did not turn up at the airport.
Amsterdam airport is infamous for incompetence in
boarding luggage on airplanes, and even though I
am tempted to believe that one opportunistic
Egyptian yanked my bag off the assembly line, truth
is that 99.9% of all Egyptians must be more honest
than your average Dutch luggage handler. Any
luggage handler in the absurd world of airports, that
is. Let me explain, dear reader. The story about "the
handler" is paved with shady undertones. Must they
all face the eternal fires of hell on their final day!
The only thing is that luggage handlers are
immortals, like the Highlanders. Only a luggage
handler can kill another luggage handler. And then
they need a holy Samsonite suitcase filled with lead
not sporting a "heavy" tag because their backs are
fragile, that’s the Achilles heel of any handler. And it
also explains why they usually are spotted in a
horizontal position.
On the other hand, luggage handlers should be
respected. They are one of the universe’s complete
creatures. They are at complete peace with
themselves. The nearest comparison must be the
Finnish professional drunk. The Finnish pro takes
pride in his trade. He, like the handler wears a
uniform. The Finn, a knitted vest over a pale and
worn out jogging suit; the handler, an overall in his
airline’s colors. The pro, like the handler, turns up
for "work" at 0800hrs sharp: the Finn at the local
bench with one beer in his hand and the handler,
never late for the catering trolley as soon as the
plane has opened its doors. They are both
cosmopolitan. The Finn goes to a bar where huge
clocks display the time in Paris, London and New
York and the handler whistles after the
stewardesses flying in from Paris, London and New
York.
However, there end the similarities. While the
Finnish pro is a decent God fearing drunk, the
handlers are genetically useless, dirty and rude
lowlifes that have made it their craft to be lazy.
Instead of carrying luggage from A to B, they are
sleeping on it. An ugly display indeed. And contrary
to the Finnish pro that is content with harvesting
one beer at a time at the grocery shop, the handlers
have developed a wolf’s instinct for garbage. These
creatures can down unlimited
amounts of old airplane food. As
scabbed vultures they await for the
next fill. The luggage is of course just
a distraction in this eternal quest for
old buns with cheese and dry
brownies. The "feast" is naturally
consumed horizontally accompanied
by fermenting "coffee, tea or juice?"
This explains why my luggage
never arrived; however it is only part
of the story. The story runs deeper
than anyone outside the luggage hall
ever could imagine. Why are they
allowed to carry on with their
dysfunctional ways? It is a question
that never could be answered by
earthly words. The mayor of Cairo
would of course know the answer,
but hey, he’s from outer space.
“The only thing
is that luggage
handlers are
immortals, like
the Highlanders.
Only a luggage
handler can kill
another luggage
handler.”
MARCH 2006
Page 5
“TAXI, TAXI!”
MADGA ELSEHRAWI
DECEMBER 2003
G
enerally, I’m a public-transport person.
I catch the rumbling red bus every
morning and the metro every evening to get to and
from the AUC - these have been my daily routes for
the past five years or so.
Public transport in Cairo, of course, has its
obvious disadvantages - occasional harassment,
pickpockets, oppressive crowds, and lack of
punctuality, etcetera. However, I’m thankfully one of
the lucky few who catch both the bus and the metro
at times when the density of the crowd is at its
minimum. And even when the crowd is at its
sardine-can-squashy-worst, it’s still bearable.
Lately however, I’ve had to resort to taking taxis so much simpler, easier, quicker, and comfortable
or so I thought.
I live in a place called El-roda, which is an islandextension to the Manial area. Apparently, El-roda is
a taxi driver’s night-mare, connected to the city by
two very small bridges that become clogged and
crowded and literally impassible during rush hour.
As one taxi driver put it, " El-roda is the next best to
hell. I’ll only take you there because I feel sorry for
you."
And certainly, I begin to feel sorry for myself! I
manage to get home after walking up and down
Mohamed Mahmoud Street for at least twenty-five
minutes, sticking my head in and out of taxi
windows and telling them my destination, only to be
met by their shocked faces, as if I’ve said
something obscene. There was one day in particular
when I stood around for three quarters of an hour,
screaming "El-roda!" into as many as thirty passing
taxis, repeating the word so often that I actually
started mispronouncing it.
There was a man however, who stopped his taxi
and agreed (after pausing to think about it). He
drove down through Garden City, managed to get us
caught in a traffic jam where we stayed unmoving
for what might have been forever, choking in clouds
of exhaust fumes that intensified with the Cairo
heat. The driver remained speechless until we
broke through and reached the beginning of Manial,
where he pulled over suddenly and said simply,
"I’m sorry lady. I’ve changed my mind and can’t
go into El-roda."
Changed his mind?!
Nothing about Cairo really shocks me anymore,
but that certainly was a first. Arguing with him that
afternoon didn’t get me very far, and being dumped
a good twenty-minute drive from my place, I had to
search for another taxi. I ended up with a man who
talked non-stop about everything from politics, to
his wife’s cooking, to religion, to football, to what
happened in the latest TV serial, occasionally
glancing over to me in the back seat and leaving
the steering wheel to gesture with his hands. At one
point, he even pulled out pictures of his children to
show me.
The trip home took about forty minutes longer
than it should have - time waiting for the taxi
excluded of course - and the scenario is repeated
almost on a daily basis. But I’ve noticed it as a
common trend now amongst taxi drivers - they’ve
become excessively picky. While standing outside
the AUC, there are literally rows of people with
exasperated expressions waiting to get someplace
via taxi, waving at one, and then another, and
another yet, while the vehicles pass slowly. The
drivers nod or shake their heads, taking their pick
as if choosing goods off a shelf. A friend mentioned
to me that perhaps taxis should drive down the
streets of Cairo and shout their destinations to
those looking for a ride or use neon signs as an
indication.
She was jesting, of course, but
ironically, she certainly made a point.
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 6
THE DREAM AND REALITY OF CAIRO:
A REFLECTION
COLLEEN JOHNSON
M AY 2 0 0 4
A
s many of us approach our final
semester at AUC, it is interesting to
look back at the expectations we arrived with as
new students, the many differences between how
we envisioned life in Cairo, and how it has actually
been.
I entered AUC as a graduate student after
already living in Cairo for a year, having spent a
semester here as a study abroad student, and then
another semester studying Arabic through ALI. So
unlike many of my colleagues today, my original
application letter to the MES program reflected
personal knowledge of what life in Cairo has to
offer. When I look back at how I felt as a new study
abroad student, though, the sense I had of a
dislocation between expectation and reality returns.
I spent my whole life being fascinated with
ancient Egypt. I read every book about mummies
and pyramids I could find (my parents insist I
actually memorized some of them), and dreamed of
the day I could actually visit Egypt. No italics could
possibly express the strength of my conviction that
Egypt was where I should be, and would be,
someday, somehow. However self-generated my
connection to Egypt, I had an unwavering belief in
it. Happily, when I was finally able to come live in
Egypt, my new life was congenial; though full of
revelations of my own ignorance.
Rather than pushing me further into Egyptology,
my discovery of my formerly blissful lack of
knowledge about Egypt’s more modern history,
language, religion, and culture spurred me to switch
to Middle East studies. Yet I learned more just from
living here than I ever could have from classes and
books.
I initially arrived not knowing if people in Egypt
had grocery stores (yes) or Mexican food (not really,
though I am a purist). These are trivial things, but
they reveal the way in which we envision unknown
places; simultaneously both as unlike and like
home as possible. I saw that Egypt had many of the
same characteristics as my home city of Tucson,
Arizona, yet I was also constantly confronted by
surprising differences, and things that I couldn’t
understand. An imagined country, I have learned, is
one that consists of a body of knowledge to be
absorbed, without the inexplicability of real life.
Poverty is a good example of this.
I arrived, as many people do, with the
understanding that I was entering the Third World. I
could not expect things to be the way they were in
the US. Yet, I was presented with children selling
tissue in the street, and was unprepared, as I was
for the rather astounding wealth that some families
here enjoy. This situation is not a fact to be
memorized, but one facet of Egypt that simply
exists without easy explanation or solution.
Looking back at the person I was when I first
came to Cairo, I think that life here has taught me
many things. The most important of these is that my
own imagination will never invent the worst of a
country, nor the best. Reality has been infinitely
more intriguing than the books I read. I was right to
believe that life in Cairo would teach me more than
school, but I did not anticipate the richness and
complexity that I glimpse more of everyday.
“I initially arrived
not knowing if
people in Egypt
had grocery
stores (yes) or
Mexican food
(not really,
though I am a
purist). “
MARCH 2006
Page 7
OF TANKS & ORANGES:
A WEEKEND IN THE WEST BANK
DR. MARK SALTER, POLI SCI DEPT
T
NOVEMBER 2002
anks are big. Of course, as a student of
security and war, I knew that tanks
were big. But as I learned recently, there is a large
difference between seeing a tank in a museum and
seeing it track your movements in an empty Nablus
street.
As a member of the Forced Migration and
Refugee Studies Program, I attended a conference
on research on Palestinian refugees in Ramallah
last month. My own particular interest in studying
Palestine is the attempt of the Israeli government to
control the movement of Palestinians. The closure
policy aims to protect Israeli settlements, civilians,
and army personnel by sealing off the West Bank
and Gaza. The IDF attempts closure in three basic
ways: strategic verticality, checkpoints, and
curfews. I have borrowed the term 'verticality' from
Eyal Weizman, who argues that a complete map of
the Occupied Palestinian Territories must account
for the vertical dimension. As a rule, Palestinian
villages are located in valleys, while Israeli
settlements are positioned on the top of hills. Each
seeks an advantage: Palestinian villages were
established near water sources; Israeli settlements
were established to gain strategic advantage.
One cannot understand the checkpoint system
without first understanding the two transportation
grids which overlay the West Bank. Israeli
authorities have laid roads between settlements,
which bypass Palestinian villages. Access to these
roads is controlled by IDF personnel and Israeli
security regulations. Moving out of town any
distance involves a checkpoint which takes at least
an hour and a half. So, to go to work (if there is any
-- there is 60 to 70% unemployment), university or a
hospital, you have to consider the checkpoints and
the limited hours of operation. There have been a
number of recent cases of women giving birth or old
people dying at the checkpoints waiting to go to a
hospital. It used to be that Palestinians were used a
local cheap labour source for the Israeli economy.
However, since the Intifada, the Israeli government
has refused to give out travel permits and has
increased immigration from South East Asia,
Eastern Europe, and China to make up the
difference.
The Israeli government controls these
checkpoints through the issuance of transit papers,
which are often very difficult to obtain. At the
moment, the Israeli government is building a wall to
'contain' the Palestinian people along the Green
line. In a number of cases, the new wall encroaches
on Palestinian territory - and, of course, the
settlements, roads, and checkpoints all exist on
expropriated land. However, as the Berlin Wall and
the Tijuana Wall illustrate, these barriers do not
deter crossing, they simply move the illegal
crossings into more and more marginal territory.
Finally, the aspect of Israeli occupation which
shocked me the most, the IDF regularly imposes
curfews on Palestinian cities, towns, and villages.
These curfews may be 'soft' or 'hard ' - i.e. some
movement or no movement. When I was in Nablus,
it was the first day without curfew in 120 days! I
can't imagine how these people make a life. They
can only be outside between 8am and sunset. The
curfew system means that not only do Israeli tanks
and jeeps control Palestinian space, but also
Palestinian time…
At Checkpoint Charlie between East and West
Nablus (curfew and free), the UN jeep that I was
traveling in was stopped. The jeep directing our
road had driven off to control some kids who, just
let off from school, spend their afternoon throwing
rocks at a tank. One of my guides, sick of waiting,
walked up to the tank and demanded to be let
through (their UN cards and my Canadian passport
are pretty privileged travel documents). As we were
waved through, a local truck drove past us. The
driver lost a box of oranges off the top of his load
and they spilt all across the intersection. Time
stopped. Everyone looked at the oranges as they
rolled in the dirt near the tank. There was no sound
except the growl of the tank and all of the engines.
Lost oranges, a threat to security, were watched
over by a jittery tank. They were just picked that
morning.
“...as I learned
recently, there is
a large
difference
between seeing
a tank in a
museum and
seeing it track
your movements
in an empty
Nablus street.”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 8
LIFE UNDER US OCCUPATION IN BAGHDAD
JOANNA OYEDIRAN
I
OCTOBER 2003
n June and July 2003, I participated in an
Amnesty International mission to Iraq,
working mainly in Baghdad. One of the main
concerns expressed by Baghdad's Iraqi residents
related to insecurity. Legally, the occupying powers
are responsible for maintaining law and order.
Whether reconstruction efforts, economic
development or elections, nothing can progress in
Iraq without a decent level of security. The security
situation varies greatly from the effectively
autonomous Kurdish areas in the north, where
security is reported as stable, to areas like
Baghdad, gripped by high levels of violent "ordinary"
crime, such as murders and assaults, carjackings
and kidnappings, in combination with daily attacks
on US forces, as well as on civilian targets.
Baghdad is policed by a combination of Iraqi
police and US military police. The former are in
short supply. By 3 July 2003, the cut-off date for
police returning to work, only about 35,000 had
registered. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
estimates that a total of 65,000 police are required
in Iraq. It will take several years to train new police
officers to make up the numbers. There is not just a
shortage of human resources. Much has been
written about the "looting" that took place
immediately following the end of the war. Suffice it
to say that all the courts and police stations that I
visited in Baghdad had been subjected to extensive
vandalism and theft. The police suffered from a
lack of everything - chairs, cars, communications
equipment, stationery, guns.
This left the US military to take up the slack on
the security front. Soldiers are not trained law
enforcement officials. The US army's rules of
engagement in Iraq are for combat operations, not
peace support operations. However, in reality
soldiers are involved in both combat and law
enforcement operations. Given the level of
discontent amongst Iraqis, demonstrations are a
regular occurrence in Baghdad. During a
demonstration by soldiers from Iraq's disbanded
army on 18 June, US soldiers opened fire, killing at
least two demonstrators, after stones were thrown
at them. A well-trained and equipped police force
would have been expected to handle the situation
without resorting to firearms. The CPA is officially
responsible for administering Iraq, and the US
Central Command is responsible for directly
supporting the CPA in its activities. In reality the US
army has far more power and presence than is
indicated on paper. In the field of arrest and
detention of both criminal and security suspects, for
example, it often appears that the tail is wagging
the dog.
The CPA is based, in splendid isolation, in the
Republican Palace. Its physical location in Saddam
Hussein's seat of government, in itself, sends out
the wrong message to Iraqis. Contacting CPA
officials by telephone, let alone meeting with them,
is a daunting task for the most determined of
foreigners; it is almost impossible for all but the
best-connected of Iraqis. The main interface for
contact between the CPA/ US military and the
civilian population is the Civil Military Operations
Centres (CMOCs). However pleasant the soldiers
from Civil Affairs would sometimes be, they were
often, in our experience, unable to provide a prompt
and/or correct answer to concerns and complaints
brought to them, exacerbating feelings of
frustration among the civilian population. It took
two weeks for a mother, whose 17 year old son had
been shot and arrested in the family home, to find
out where he was detained. The success was
thanks to the dogged persistence of her brotherinlaw who visited a string of offices in the company
of a US reporter.
Many Iraqis with whom I spoke were pleased to
be rid of the government of Saddam Hussein, but
increasingly unhappy living under foreign
occupation with no end in sight. CPA officials say
that Ambassador Bremer is determined that the
CPA will be wound up within a year, but as current
discussions in the Security Council indicate, there is
no public and agreed timetable for the occupying
powers' withdrawal and return of sovereignty to the
Iraqi people.
“The CPA is based, in splendid
isolation, in the Republican Palace. “
“By 3 July 2003,
the cut-off date
for police
returning to work,
only about
35,000 had
registered. The
Coalition
Provisional
Authority (CPA)
estimates that a
total of 65,000
police are
required in Iraq.
It will take
several years to
train new police
officers to make
up the numbers.”
MARCH 2006
Page 9
AN AMERICAN SOLDIER
KATHERINE CRISLER
M AY 2 0 0 4
M
y brother is an American soldier. He
enlisted over a year ago, not to
become a hero soliciting revenge on behalf of the
victims of 9/11, but for the simple reason of having
something to do. He hoped it would give him
direction. Heretofore he had drifted without
knowing what he wanted to do or become. The
flattering promises of an U.S. Army recruiter
seemed to provide more than his ever-changing
career choices.
My brother survived boot camp. He didn't enjoy
himself but he learned from it. As many soldiers do
at this point, he gained a greater appreciation for
family and personal freedoms. In a short time that
appreciation would grow stronger. Graduation came
and then deployment. My brother was needed in
Iraq. My parents had one day to say goodbye to
their son before he needed to report to Fort Hood in
Texas for additional training.
After a few weeks, Rob was sent to Tikrit, the
birthplace of Saddam. He was stationed outside the
city in the open desert with no pleasant landscape
to divert the boring days ahead. "Nothing but dust
and flies," he told us during short and infrequent
calls made via satellite phone. As a combat
engineer, Rob's primary job was to disarm and
destroy Iraqi missiles and explosives. He also had
to guard those weapons until they were destroyed.
He rarely went on raids or came in contact with
anyone other than a fellow American soldier.
Although the news is full of reports of violence and
uprisings in Iraq, my brother witnessed very little of
that.
Rob only recently returned to the United States
and waited till then to talk to my mother about the
men he killed. Two men had tried to steal weapons
that US forces had collected. Rob and another
soldier caught them and instead of surrendering,
the Iraqis ran toward them. He told my mother, "It
happened so fast. I shot them both." One of the
men was shot in the lung. "His face was completely
white. It didn't seem real. His mouth kept opening
and closing like a fish." The other man was also
fatally shot. Both soldiers attempted CPR on the
dying men. Rob told us he just felt numb after it
happened. He still isn't sure how to describe what
he feels when he remembers back, but he doesn't
feel sorry for himself. He knew that killing was part
of a soldier's job description even if he did sign up
with a type of boyhood innocence.
My brother is just one young man caught up in
the mess of war and his story is not world media
front-page material. There are many more American
soldiers with similar experiences. They have not
killed scores of people, but they have killed. They
don't look forward to the death of others, but they
also want to keep their own lives. The increased
violence in southern Iraq makes me think of those
soldiers and the lives they are taking as they follow
orders. It makes me wonder what they think and
feel when a battle is over.
Some of those American soldiers may be
hardened, but I hope this war will have
accomplished something. When many of them go
home, they will return with the memory of men they
killed, of fallen friends, of innocent children
lamenting dead parents and of the chaotic
destruction in the streets they patrolled. Perhaps
they will return with experiences and voices loud
enough to prevent in the future what has happened
in Iraq—at least during their lifetime. It seems that
every generation who has lived without war is
doomed to create it.
“Rob only
recently
returned to the
United States
and waited till
then to talk to
my mother
about the men
he killed.”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 10
REFLECTIONS ON MY WRITINGS
BUTHAINA AL NASIRI, IRAQI AUTHOR
M AY 2 0 0 3
I
started publishing my first story during the
last years of the sixties of the last century,
"era of the short story explosion" as it was called. It
was also an era of glorious national issues and
dreams. Thus I was given a good reason to turn
from the personal to the general, avoiding the great
pitfall of femininity.
Recently, I was described by an Iraqi literary critic
as "an independent literary personality whose short
stories do not reveal her sex. Female characters
are limited in number in her stories where the
(subject) is a dominant factor."
How true! You can always count the women in my
five collections on your own finger. I have always
preferred to write about the world of men. It seems
much more interesting.
Furthermore, most of these men are from
backgrounds I never experienced first hand: an
American soldier at a military base on the eve of
1973 war, a bus driver on the road from Cairo to
Suiz, a dog's trainer in a circus, a drunk man in a
cheap hotel, a police reporter following a suspect, a
hungry man quarrelling with the streets' dos over
some thrown a way food, a fisherman at Tigris river,
a soldier going to war or coming back from one.
Why do I put on a mask every time I hold a pen and
start writing? Is it because of that patriarchal
censorship? Much deeper inside me there is always
that fear of expressing myself as a woman, which
dates back through my collective consciousness (as
an Arab woman) from pre-Islamic times down to
present day. It embodies the experiences of
humiliation, suppression, slavery and deprivation.
Women writers express this heavy heritage in
various ways according to the space of freedom
allowed to them by their men and their societies.
Although the sixties and seventies in my country
Iraq witnessed a rise in the chances of women for
education and participating in public life and
contributing to economic activities and even
politics, yet on social level she was (and is) still
considered property of man. The man in the family
of a woman writer, whether he may be a father, a
husband, a brother, sometimes a son permits her
to write, publish, attend conferences and meet
literary men if necessary.
This is because a woman's literary expressions
are considered part of her behavior of which,
the man in the family is responsible toward
society. He will not allow her to shame him by
writing outside the limits set for her.
For these reasons, most of us women writers
deny fervently to be classified as writing
female, feminine, womanly literature. We
refuse to categorize according to our sex
because we understand that our talents will
not be taken seriously. A woman's real place in
our culture is in her sacred duty to stick to her
holy assignment, that is being a housewife and a
mother. A full time unpaid job. A woman's writings
are looked upon as trivial, unnecessary and should
not by all means threaten her basic duty which is to
serve her husband and children.
On the other hand, speaking about myself, writing
is a vital activity I can not live without. I may stop
writing for years but the urge remains latent in my
veins, awaiting the moment of explosion. This
moment is more precious than all other forms of
pleasure, for in it there is birth, death, resurrection
and the act of creation…
“A woman's
writings are
looked upon as
trivial,
unnecessary and
should not by all
means threaten
her basic duty
which is to serve
her husband and
children.”
MARCH 2006
Page 11
TAY E B SA L E H S P E A K S AT AU C
HANAN THABET
O
MARCH 2002
n the 26th of February 2002, the Core
Program hosted a lecture by the
renowned author and Arab intellectual, Tayeb
Saleh. Saleh originally lived and studied in his
native Khartoum, later going on to London to
continue his higher education. Within the AUC
community, Tayeb Saleh is most famous for his
fiction novel, Seasons of Migration to the North.
This text, which is studied year after year in the
Core Seminar Program, has become a favorite
among both students and faculty in the program.
In engaging the novel, professors of the Core
often convey the text as though it were their own
life story, while students almost inevitably believe
there to be parallels between the life of the author
and the heroin of the book,
For Saleh true literary talent lies in one’s ability
to become immersed in a multitude of activities –
equitability and “balance” are two key words in
describing a great novelist and writer. Saleh relates
most to the Arab novelist, Yehya Haqqi, who like
Saleh, “wrote when the mood took him.” In other
words, writing is only one of the many factors in
Saleh’s life. It is an art that requires the author to
work freely without any time constraints or
coercion. After roughly thirty minutes of lecturing,
the floor was opened for questions from the
audience.
Throughout his lecture, Saleh referred to the field
of writing as being a “tedious business.” He still
finds it difficult to stare into a blank piece of paper
and create a “fictitious world.” Beginning with the
premise that not an element of truth can be found
in the work of fiction writers, Saleh argued that
dealing with “lies” and fiction one’s entire life “is no
fun.” Thus, as an author, Saleh’s
The single question which was on the minds of
many who had read Seasons of Migration to the
North, was whether Mustapha Sa’eed was in fact a
reflection of the author. Saleh responded to this
question with a firm “No,” explaining that the novel
is fiction, meaning that not
an element of reality is
expressed in its pages. For
Saleh, the field of writing
requires that reality be
removed from artistic
expressions. When asked
what “moved” him to write
Seasons of Migration
Saleh responded by
saying that “the writing is
its own justification” and
that the “novel is a world
with its own rationale,”
providing answers that
can only be deduced
through reading it.
After asking himself whether there are any
pleasures in writing, Saleh responded by saying that
there are few consolations for those who enjoy the
“role of being a writer.” An example he gave was
Hemmingway, whom Saleh referred to as a
“mediocre writer” that “died like a failed Gatsby.”
This statement opened the door for a plethora of
critiques on the lives of the world’s great authors.
Saleh believes Charles Dickens to be among the
“great writers” because he was able to strike a
balance between his career as a novelist and
enjoying other aspects of living, while Balzac was
nothing more than a “writing machine.”
In addition to being
among the respected
novelists of the Arab
world, Tayeb Saleh was
also head of the drama
department in the BBC’s
Arabic Services, head of
Information Services in
Qatar, and worked at the
UNESCO. Most recently,
Saleh was a visiting
professor at Vassar
College in New York.
The title given to the lecture “Intellectuals
Between East and West: A Personal Narrative” was
not a subject Saleh wished to discuss, making it
explicitly clear from the onset that “western values
and civilization” were not something he hoped to
understand. From there our speaker began to
discuss his personal position as a writer and gave a
short critique on the experiences of other novelists.
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
RELIGION, RIGHTS, AND GLOBALIZATION
H A N D E B AY R A K
M AY 2 0 0 4
B
ryan S. Turner, a Professor of Sociology
at Cambridge University and a leading
social theorist, gave three public lectures at AUC on
29-31 March 2004. The lecture, Religion, Rights
and Globalization: Derrida and Forgiveness, was the
last one of the three, in which Turner dealt with the
place of religion in the globalization theory.
By and large, Turner claims that the
contemporary globalization theory lacks a solid
discussion of religion. He argues that religion is
often regarded as a response to secular modernity
and globalization, especially in the case of Islam.
Moreover, Turner states that these responses again especially in the case of Islamare commonly
attributed to fundamentalism.
However, according to Turner, the so-called
Islamic reactions to globalization are not
fundamentalist at all. On the contrary, Turner claims
that these movements are anti-traditionalist since
they are very much influenced by and products of
global flows and networks.
Therefore, he concludes that it is not appropriate
to analyze these movements through classical
sociology anymore. What is needed, in his own
words, is a global sociology.
Along these lines, Turner proposes to create a
sociology that is based on a global human rights
culture. From his perspective, a global human rights
culture requires the possibility of a cosmopolitan
consciousness that brings about respect and
autonomy for cultures that are different from ours.
However, Turner says these global human rights
also create certain responsibilities.
For instance, he argues use of human rights
culture to bomb others is not acceptable. One of
the most interesting parts of Turner's argument is
his claim that human rights culture has or should
have a religious flavor to it. He suggests that a
human rights culture with a religious underpinning
may overcome the limits of the liberal argument.
That is to say, human rights can be based on nonrational values. And yet, such an attitude may be
more effective in terms of promoting and protecting
human rights. Having said that, one of the
questions that Turner's argument fails to
acknowledge and one point that is repeatedly
raised by the audience is what to do with religious
and cultural differences on the ground if a universal
human rights culture is to be created. To be precise,
although Turner's theory seems to be quite perfect
on paper, the question of application is yet to be
answered.
Page 12
MARCH 2006
Page 13
THE VOICE…
MAGDA ELSEHRAWI
H
FEBRUARY 2003
aving a perfect view of Mohamed
Mahmoud Street from the AUC Press
office balcony, I stepped out on the day of the
'Dignity' protest (24th February) to watch things
from above. I don't want to say I was saddened by
what took place. More like angered. Frustrated.
Helpless.
It was a shock, firstly, to behold what had
happened to the street itself. In contrast to the
white, cloudy gloom was an abundance of men
dressed in black uniforms and helmets, holding
batons and shields. They blocked off the entire
street, from the beginning of Tahrir Square all the
way down Mansour Street and Bab-el-Louk, like
solidified men made of metal. One had to marvel at
the pure symmetry of how these men stood, side by
side, backs rigid and faces twisted into frown,
elbows touching so as to make a perfect, human
fence. The entire surface-area of Mohamed
Mahmoud Street was bare, except for the
policemen that wandered up and down the asphalt,
talking wildly into their walkie-talkies as if they were
preparing for a war to start. A war indeed…
Students began to walk into the street… perhaps
about one hundred or so, some with the Kufiyya
around their shoulders or heads, some with their
hands held high in the air making signs of peace.
They were then literally pushed onto the sidewalk
by the police. The sidewalk, being less than two
meters in width, was where these students voiced
their protest. An entire empty street; every form of
life outside the area sealed off; Cairo traffic held
hostage on both sides to the point of explosion;
huge areas of space available and waiting for eager
feet to step in and scream for justice… all denied to
the students of AUC, who were instead given the
two-meter sidewalk as a ground for expression.
Literally herded into the sidewalk like a flock of
sheep. I nearly wept.
I don't want to make fun of the Egyptian police,
or the uniformed men that actually held hands and
ended up trotting around the students like dancing
pre-school children, pushing students back into
their limited sidewalk when they wanted to step into
an already sealed-off and bare street. But I want to
think out loud about the logic behind it all, about
why the police have to use such extremes
measures at every single protest to suffocate
passionate young students who want to use their
voices, to say something they as humans have
every right to say, in every respect. I want to think
about our so-called democracy. About why the
police went berserk. About how much space we
really have to make an evident change in the world,
to catch someone's attention, to break free of our
own chains, to reach the world and potentially
change it. To simply use our voices, our pens, our
songs and our paintings to make a statement and
show ourselves and the world the truth of our
feelings. Is it so wrong, to want to be heard?
One girl, in the middle of the small student
crowd, started screaming, "SAY NO, SAY NO!" She
was pushed forward, towards the main campus,
where the protest was to continue away from the
public eye. She was nearly in tears, screaming "No!
This is wrong, this is WRONG!" Bustled by fellow
students and policemen, she was eventually
pushed out of my sight. But she was right… it was
so very wrong. Wrong, because in this march for
'Dignity', and every other march we have for that
matter, our dignity was trampled. Wrong because
countries around the world gathered and screamed
for justice to come to the region, while in the region
itself, voices were suppressed. Who, around the
world, will know of what happened here at AUC?
Who will know that people here are passionate if no
one can hear them? How is anything ever going to
change?
An Australian singer sang once about the
importance of voices. His name was John Farnham,
and he said "You're the voice; make it clear. We're
not going to live in silence, we're not going to live
with fear." Fear and silence are boundaries that
have to be crossed if the changes we want to see
will ever happen. We are the Voice after all. And
voices are there to be used. Our dignity becomes a
farce if we don't.
“...these men stood, side by side,
backs rigid and faces twisted into
frown, elbows touching so as to
make a perfect, human fence.”
“I don't want to
make fun of the
Egyptian police,
or the uniformed
men that
actually held
hands and
ended up
trotting around
the students like
dancing preschool children,
pushing
students back…”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 14
AN INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR KANDIL
ANNE CZICHOS
DECEMBER 2005
A selection from MESC graduate student Anne
Czichos’ interview with the AUC Political Science
Department’s Hazem Kandil.
Professor Kandil, why do you think the secular
political parties outside the NDP are doing so poorly
in the current parliamentary elections?
They are doing so poorly because of the way these
parties have been constructed to be part of the
state. They were established by the state, some of
their leaders were chosen by the state. Many were
even members of the state’s single party, and so
they have always been part of the regime.
By the time these parties started to become more
vocal in the opposition, they discovered that they
didn’t have any real constituencies. They were not
established to reflect people’s will. For example,
the leftist parties are completely detached from the
labor unions, peasants and the working class in
general. They are an elite intelligentsia who have
internalized and circulate ideas ranging from Marx
and Lenin all the way to the Third Wave in Europe,
and do not represent the interests of any particular
constituency in Egypt.
Similarly, the liberal parties are detached from
liberal constituencies. They don’t have much of a
connection with university professors or
businessmen, liberal thinkers, authors, novelists,
artists, or other people who normally tend to have
liberal tendencies.
The secular parties outside the NDP don’t have a
popular base. They have always performed poorly
and they will continue to perform poorly in
upcoming elections.
How do you explain then that Ayman Nour did
relatively well in the presidential elections, yet lost
his parliamentary seat in the parliamentary
elections?
People who voted for Ayman Nour in the
presidential elections were people who tried to vote
for change. Change in several senses. First of all,
and most importantly, change of the age group the
person who holds the President’s office represents.
Nour was seen as representing youth. And so voting
for him was voting for the idea that a young man
can actually lead the country.
Secondly, it was a vote not only against the
President, but also against the other parties for the
reasons that I mentioned before. It was the
reflection of a desire for something different, and
his party, the Ghad Party, which was formed just
months before the presidential elections, was seen
as something different.
Thirdly, because so many people who were
interested in casting a vote against Mubarak didn’t
even know most of the people who ran against him.
However, Ayman Nour had been a member of
parliament two times. People knew him, saw him
on TV. They knew he was a winner, in the sense
that he could run a campaign and actually win. He
is the only person people knew other than
Mubarak.
However, when it comes to parliamentary elections,
you are, supposedly, talking about a certain
constituency in a certain zone and how much they
think that this person serves their interests in
parliament. But, in Cairo, someone like Ayman Nour
has his office in downtown while he is representing
Bab El-Shaeriya.
People who run for elections usually do not serve
and live among their constituencies anymore. They
are not looking out for them, they live where the
elites live, downtown, in Zamalek, completely
detached from their constituencies. So, maybe,
people’s vote against Nour in the parliamentary
elections was people saying, “Well, you know,
you’re a big-shot, but that won’t help serve the
people of Bab El-Shaeriya.”
The rest of the interview can be found on the MESC
website:
http://www.aucegypt.edu/academic/mesc/
Hazem Kandil is an AUC
lecturer in the Political
Science department.
So, maybe,
people’s vote
against Nour in
the
parliamentary
elections was
people saying,
“Well, you know,
you’re a big-shot,
but that won’t
help serve the
people of Bab ElShaeriya.”
MARCH 2006
Page 15
WE ARE THE DEAD
ANTHONY J. ASCHETTINO
FEBRUARY 2002
T
ell me, Winston - and remember, no
lies; you know that I am always able to
detect a lie - tell me, what are your true
feelings toward Big Brother?"
"I hate him."
“You hate him. Good. Then the time has
come for you to take the last step. You must
love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him;
you must love him."
- George Orwell, 1984
If anything has happened to me personally since
the events of 11th September, it has been that my
consumption of reading material has increased so
drastically that it now rivals my consumption of
food. At times I go hungry, yet I am never without a
book or paper easily within an arms length. And if
there is any book that never leaves my grasp,
following me closely wherever I may be, it is 1984
by George Orwell.
I suppose it is not going too far as to say that I
have read 1984 at least a dozen times in the few
months that have followed those horrific events.
But why mention this? Certainly, the book has a
merit in that it stands on its own as one of the
greatest pieces of literature of the 20th century.
However the worries of Orwell are over, aren't they?
Communism, the "evil empire" has crumbled like a
house of cards. Capitalism and Democracy are
spreading throughout the world, brought under the
glorious banner of the United States of America.
Whenever the forces of wrong have risen up, the
United States has led the world in a courageous
effort to restore the rule of the just. She has
employed the concepts of jus bellum more nobly
than any state before her. She stands as a power
unmatched: any who contest her or try to attack her
are met with swift, overwhelming power. As the
Colossus once bestrode Rhodes, now America
stands over all other nations as the greatest power
the world has ever known in its history.
You may wonder why I included the opening
quote in this essay. I did so because if one could
have pried into my mind, as O'Brien did to Winston,
in the days after the United States started her
unrelenting assault on Afghanistan it would have
read like the above. Only one may replace "Big
Brother" with "America". It is true that I am an
American; there have been plenty of times when I
have been proud of the way that my country has
acted and the way that her people have risen to
challenges almost unthinkable to most and yet
swiftly conquered them. However, lately there has
been a more sinister aspect to what we can best
term "American neo-Imperialism.” We are no longer
merely satisfied with forcing states into submission.
No, we now demand not only submission but also
that the state love us, want us, desire America as
well.
This is something difficult to grasp at first. I
myself was not sure of it when I first felt it pulling at
the corners of my mind. The more I read Orwell,
however, the more I became convinced that 1984
is more important to us now than it was in the
1950's when the Soviet Union was at its peak.
Ironically, we are in more danger now than we were
then. This time Big Brother does not reside in the
personage of Stalin, but in the potential governance
of the United States in her quest for complete
global hegemony…
Meanwhile, the list of suspects grows daily. The
list of states who are involved in terrorism
lengthens with every new speech by the American
President. In the Universities now, even voicing
opinions that are against the interests of American
"security" is enough to have one fired from their job
(this happened in Florida). I am eagerly waiting for
John Ashcroft to announce the newest measure in
safeguarding America: the introduction of
thoughtcrime as a punishable action.
Mr. Bush asks why people in other countries hate
America so much. How can they hate us? Do they
not see that America is really a genteel parent who,
although at times needs to chastise the child, still
does all in the best interests of him or her? When
we obliterated Iraq in 1991, it was in her best
interests; she had transgressed and was therefore
punished. Should she throw out Saddam Husayn,
all would be forgiven. When we annihilated the
Taliban, it was in the best interests of the people of
Afghanistan. When we force other states to open
their doors to global capitalism via IMF and World
Bank and bring "McWorld" to all people in all lands,
do they not realize that it is out of love for them that
we do as such?
“We are no
longer merely
satisfied with
forcing states
into submission.
No, we now
demand not only
submission but
also that the
state love us,
want us, desire
America as
well.”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 16
MY FAVORITE VICTIM
SEAN ANTHONY
O
FEBRUARY 2003
ur age is the age of victimization on
massive scales. Victims surround us
everywhere we walk: victims of poverty, victims of
injustice, victims of violence, victims of natural
disaster, victims of chance, victims of love, etc. In
an age of such uncanny victim consciousness,
there is a considerable amount of competition over
who gets to be the favorite victim. Nothing feels
better than being able to show solidarity with
victims while remaining immune to their actual
suffering. This way, we can feel self-righteous
without pain, and dissect the faults of others while
forgetting our own ugly, festering sores. As the most
prominent anthropologist of violence, René Girard,
observed, "The victims most interesting to us are
always those who allow us to condemn our
neighbors."
And who is more our neighbor here than Israelthe proverbial modern Satan of the Middle East?
The act of cataloguing the Palestinian victims of the
conflict against this victim has literally achieved the
status of an act of devotion-all confirmed by the
hallowed idiom through which the dead are spoken
of as martyrs. However, only the most callous and
cynical cannot be repulsed by the propagandization
of Palestine and Palestinian sufferings, how
animosity has led to the hatred and dehumanization of all persons and things Jewish, and
how the nations profit, both politically and
economically, by the commodification of the
conflict. And, worst of all, must we not bemoan how
pulpits have become sites for hate-mongers and
how religion instead of becoming an instrument for
liberating the mind from hate has rather become a
force that fuels further violence, hatred and dehumanization.
Academics obsessively attempt to place all
things in their respective historical, social contexts.
But have we not done enough of this? This
'remembering everything but learning nothing'? This
act resurrects the old stalemate of the haunting
memory of the holocaust as a quasi-justification for
the intransigent Zionist insistence on there being a
Jewish state versus the atrocities committed in the
name of Palestinians against Jewish civilians—also
being quasi-justifiable as a product of the daily,
continual humiliation and murder of Palestinians. Is
not the context obscuring what is ultimately at
stake rather than bringing it to light?
Each and every one seems to be keen on
documenting their own favorite victim to push
forward their own agenda whether it be Zionism,
statism, Islamism, or whatever. And no one loves
more than to gain the right to act with impunity as a
victim- is this not what America has done post9/11? A prominent cultural theorist wrote, "On
September 11, the USA was given the opportunity
to realize what kind of world it was part of. It might
have taken this opportunity but it did not; instead it
opted to reassert its traditional ideological
commitments; out with the feelings of responsibility
and guilt towards the impoverished Third World, we
are the victims now!" Only the USA as victim can
delude anyone into thinking that Iraq is of larger
concern than Palestine. Is not Israel doing the same
as its tanks besiege and destroy the infrastructure
of the PNA while simultaneously screaming, "Stop
the attacks!" Is this not a veiled way of saying,
"Please, attack us, so that we [as victims] may
crush you!"
To avoid further decline [Where to? A
Balkanization of the Middle East patrolled by
NATO?], we must make efforts to de-contextualize
the sufferings of this conflict. Tragedies must no
longer be either Jewish or Arab but must become
human—defying the racism and sectarianism
permeating the discourses of both sides. This is
the possible 'impossibility' that is important just
because it is 'impossible' in the current cycle; for its
emergence would mark the end of this cycle.
As the most
prominent
anthropologist
of violence,
René Girard,
observed,"The
victims most
interesting to us
are always those
who allow us to
condemn our
neighbors."
René Girard
French philosopher born in 1923
who believes that human culture
is based on a sacrifice as the way
out of "mimetic," or imitative,
violence between rivals
MARCH 2006
Page 17
WATER:
A SOURCE OF WAR
NATTASUDA METTAPRASERT
T
OCTOBER 2001
he scarcity of water and the high cost
of its development have long been
recognized in arid regions, especially in the Arabian
Gulf countries. Traditionally, water has not been the
most prominent aspect of Israeli-Arab
confrontations. However, in the recent years,
particularly since the late 1980s, water has been a
serious bone of contention.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians
is not only about land but also involves the precious
water of the Levant region. Palestinian officials
complain that on average an Israeli uses three
times the amount of water as a Palestinian; the
latter actually living in the West Bank where the
source of water for Israel is located. Moreover, the
Lebanese have long accused
Israel of having designs on the waters of the
River Lifani, which explains the Jewish state’s
interest in maintaining a toehold in Southern
Lebanon. Syria also accuses Israel of being
reluctant to withdraw from the Golan Heights (the
strategic plateau Israeli captured in the Arab-Israeli
war of 1967) because of the desire to exploit the
Golan’s water resources.
The water issues continue to be divisive. Many
countries in the Middle East region routinely use
water as a bargaining chip in their quarrels with
their neighbors while the demand of water
continues to increase rapidly as the population
keeps growing. In the ominous words of Meir Ben
Meir, the former Israeli Water Commissioner, “ I can
promise that if there is not sufficient water in our
region, if there is scarcity of water, if people remain
thirsty for water, then we shall doubtlessly face
war.”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 18
WOMEN’S DREAMS AND VISIONS
IN CONTEMPORARY EGYPT
AMIRA MITTERMAIER
NOVEMBER 2003
D
reams are not restrained by
limits imposed by time, place,
logic, class, or gender. During one's sleep,
according to one Islamic dream model, the
soul leaves the body, roams freely in the world
of albarzakh, and there can communicate
with other souls, living or dead.
Dreams and visions have held a central
place in Islam historically, and dream
interpreters might have even competed with
other religious specialists (such as saints or
jurists) for recognition as mediators between
this world and the next, between God and
humans. Still today, in contemporary Egypt,
dreams can empower individual dreamers
and circumvent visible power structures.
Specifically focusing on women's religious
dreams and visions, it is argued that dreams
and visions can open up access to realms of
religious knowledge and experience that the
dreamers do not necessarily partake in on a
visible level.
Through discussing a number of concrete
examples of Egyptian women's dreams and
visions, involving encounters between the
living and dead-Christian women and the
Virgin Mary; Muslim women and the Prophet
Muhammad, saints, and sheikhs-- it is argued
that taking the realm of the imagination
seriously should complicate our assumptions
about inclusion and exclusion and the
outdated by still persistent private/public
paradigm.
The indigenous dream models to be found
in contemporary Egypt thus can also be
understood as a critique to the Freudian
model, according to which, "a dream does not
want to say anything to anyone. It is not a
vehicle for communication; on the contrary it
is meant to remain ununderstood." Dreams
outside of and in spite of the Freudian model,
can be a vehicle for communication: between
different souls; the living and the dead; spirits
and humans; and the divine and humans.
power structures.
Dreams in a number of cultures are
thought to have divinatory qualities and to
provide glimpses into the world of the
unknown.
Women dreamers, excluded from certain
realms of religious authority, as well as certain
spaces of religious practice, are offered a
powerful alternative through their dreams and
visions.
This access to the world of the unknown,
'alam al-ghayb, however, can be disturbing
both for the ulama' and for those advocating
an "enlightened," "disenchanted" Islam, an
Islam free of superstition and divination, an
Islam shaped and controlled by the modern
state. I argue in my paper that, while those
promoting a "disenchanted" Islam are trying
to contain the individual access to the world
of the unknown, dreams and visions are
ultimately not controllable and have the
potential to circumvent and subvert existing
Finally, it is argued that examining dreams
and visions can provide new insights into the
complex relationship between gender, power,
knowledge, and the realm of the imagination.
Only if we stop to focus exclusively on what we
social scientists can see with our own eyes,
can we begin to appreciate the many ways in
which religious knowledge and experience are
accessible across time, place, class and
gender.
MARCH 2006
Page 19
POLITICS &GENDER
DISCRIMINATION IN THE GCC
M AY 2 0 0 5
I
n her 21 January lecture on
"Women's Political Role in the GCC
States," Dr. Ebtisam Al-Kitbi, of El-Ain
university and Gulf Research center in U.A.E
presented the argument that there has been
increasing participation and recognition of
women in GCC states in the political and
governmental affairs in the region.
Beginning with an evaluation of the
constitutional background for such
participation, Dr. Al-Kitbi pointed out the fact
that: "The GCC constitutions strictly prohibit
gender discrimination, insisting at the same
time on women's basic rights of equality with
men."
Analyzing the non-discrimination provisions
in a variety of constitutions, ranging from that
of UAE to the constitution of Saudi Arabia, Dr.
Al-Kitbi is able to present the constitutional
foundation of non-discrimination in the GCC
states. Interestingly, Dr. Al-Kitbi does not, as
part of her analysis of the constitutions in the
region, engage in a comparative discussion of
their terms and provisions, nor does she
investigate the implications of references to
sharica law in some constitutions and the
relationship between religious law and
political participation. The fact that Bahrain's
constitution not only incorporates a nondiscrimination clause, but also includes
specific reference to "the right to vote and
stand for elections," whereas Oman, Qatar,
and Kuwait simply reference equality viz.
"public rights and duties," demonstrate the
wide variation in the concreteness and scope
of constitutional nondiscrimination provisions
amongst GCC states.
Furthermore, Dr. Al-Kitbi's reference to
Article 26 of the constitution of Saudi Arabia,
which merely provides that "the state
respects human rights…according to Islamic
law," neither points towards a definitive
articulation of a principle of nondiscrimination, nor fully acknowledges the
interaction between sharia law's genderdifferentiation in the areas of due process
and inheritance, and the broader societal
equality and participation of women. It is
similarly interesting that Dr. Al-Kitbi's evidence
that "all GCC countries sought to adhere to
international conventions and treaties that
aim to protect women and promote their role"
is GCC ratification of CEDAW (the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women), neglecting to
point out that there are more reservations
filed against CEDAW than any other
international covenant, the most
comprehensive opposition coming from GCC
states like Saudi Arabia, making CEDAW one
of the most vehemently-opposed conventions
to date.
While her analysis of the legal framework
for women's political participation in the GCC
states may have lacked nuance, where Dr. AlKitbi really excelled in her argument was in
her discussion of concrete gains realized by
women in various political fora throughout the
GCC states. Dr. Al-Kitbi presented a spectrum
of gains, acknowledging that "experience in
the GCC countries varies according to the
political and social development of each of
the six member-states of the GCC."
According to Dr. Al-Kitbi's analysis, it would
seem that Bahrain, Oman, UAE and Qatar are
the most progressive countries in terms of
their appointment of women to high-level
positions in government, the inclusion of
female activists in grass-roots political
groups, and the participation of women in
public elections. Kuwait, in contrast, is in a
kind of legislative straight-jacket, with women
disenfranchised according to Kuwaiti
electoral law, and the reform efforts of the
president to amend the law being blocked by
a more conservative Islamist parliament. By
Dr. Al- Kitbi's reading of the political scene in
the GCC states, women in Saudi Arabia
"remain the least fortunate of all GCC women
in terms of political, social and economic
rights," and Dr. Al-Kitbi goes so far as to say
that "women do not play a political role in
Saudi Arabia." Dr. Al-Kitbi does not merely
analyze, on a case-by-case basis, the varying
political role of women in the GCC states; she
also posits a semi-prescriptive analysis of the
future of women in GCC politics.
Perhaps the most important elements to
this prescriptive analysis are Dr. Al-Kitbi's
comments it is in large part "social and
cultural" constraints (as opposed to
constitutional/legal obstacles) that will
challenge the developing political might of
women in GCC states, as well as credence
she pays to "external factors" (ie: international
pressure) pushing GCC reform.
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
EGY TPIAN CINEMA:
COMING TO WHAT?
MAGDA ELSEHHRAWI
T
M AY 2 0 0 3
here is always someone who sings
along when an Abdel-Halim Hafez or a
Farid el-Atrash song plays… marvels at Samia
Gamal's belly-dancing or flutters their eyes when old
heart-throbs like Rushdie Abaza or Ahmed Ramzy
make a gallantly enter a scene. So many have
droned about the quality of those 'good old' black
and white movies, and how their stories had
meaning and element. And there are those that
wrinkle their noses in disapproval at the movies of
today, arguing about the lack of substance, lack of
decency, lack of idea and story and good acting.
I remember once when I was walked out of an
Arabic movie named el-Gentel (The Gentleman,
1995), how I was pretty much revolted, and I
couldn't help but wrinkle my nose in confusion too…
was there are a story here? What did the producer
think he was trying to sell?
There have been those that have thought out
loud about the odd way the Egyptian cinema has
made an 'about-face' turn over the last two
decades. From heightened romance to
controversial social issues, to politics… and finally
to what we seem to have now. There is absolutely
no doubt that Egyptian cinema was an essential key
used to portray touchy issues to the public, and that
it had a huge impact on society itself. Issues
targeting the dilemmas of divorce, adultery, rape,
abuse, forgery, beaurocracy, law, identity and so on,
have all been brought into the light, and some of
which worked towards arousing public opinion for or
against these issues, and hence worked on by
those that really wanted to make a change, better
the society, and rid it of the abundant hidden
problems that resided in its depths. And this
doesn't just involve Egyptian cinema alone. Arab
cinema as a whole encompasses a massive variety
of issues.
The vast variety of themes that have emerged
in Arab cinema were primarily due to the political
changes that erupted throughout the Arab world
within the last century. Reference to the questions
of secularism, religion, social identity, nationalism
and even feminism within the creations of Arab
cinema were an attempt to reform concepts of Arab
society and culture after years of colonial
occupation. Cinema was used to convey ideas
about social justice, class structure, and the female
role in society, as an attempt to mould these
discarded aspects into one nationalistic mass.
Yet these concepts began to alter when Arab
cinema shifted its concern from political aspects to
matters that involved the individual, and hence the
issue of identity; addressing themes of a more
personal basis, including religion, ethnicity and
gender. Themes of this kind have managed to seep
through the rigid walls of the nationalistic dream,
and have instead openly face the overlooked reality
of the individual status and its identity. The
Egyptian cinema in particular was blessed with a
number of brilliant movies from the 60's down to
the 80's. One such as Aridu Hallan (I Need a
Solution) staring Fatin Hamama, who fought for a
divorce after prolonged years in a miserable
marriage, particularly sparked amazing changes in
marriage laws, although they only took place about
2 years ago (the movie was made in the early 70's).
Another brilliant one is where actress Souad
Hosny plays the role of a young lady with
Disassociative Identity Disorder (something like
split-personality), where she roams the streets at
night with different men, stays out till dawn, comes
back home only to climb through her window, and
wakes up to resume being the innocent teenager
that her parents know her to be. There have been
so many other films targeting the areas that might
be considered socially taboo (such as sex, religion).
Films did something. But the Egyptian films of
today… could you call them experimental?
One could say that something like Francis Ford
Coppola's Koyaanisqatsi is truly experimental (you
get about 3 hours of dizzying images with absolutely
no words, but horrendously loud music… and there
is still a story!). The ones that fly into Egypt (and the
ones made in Egypt too) during the film festivals all
open the door to new and wonderful things. Cinema
itself is such deep field to delve into… with so much
art, philosophy, chemistry, history and creativity
involved…
It's quite amazing, how the Egyptian cinema
once produced heart-breaking, soul-shaking
movies, now replaced by Al-lympie and its likes. One
simply wonders.
Page 20
MARCH 2006
Page 21
AL-AKKAD’S THE MESSAGE
CLARK GARD & DANNY CORBIN
NOVEMBER 2005
O
n October 31, 2005, the last Monday
of Ramadan, the Middle Eastern
Studies Center presented the epic
drama The Message to a packed house.
Introduction to the Film
The film, by Mustapha Al-Akkad (1930-2005), is
the stirring tale of Muhammad through the eyes of
those around him. The Prophet is never shown on
screen, keeping with Islamic tradition. The main
character is his Uncle Hamza, played by Anthony
Quinn. The film, shot in 1976 on location in
Morocco and Libya, is validated for accuracy by
both Al-Azhar University in Cairo and The High
Islamic Congress of the Shiat in Lebanon. However,
the film is banned in Egypt. Al-Akkad appealed for
the ban to be lifted 25 years ago but never received
a decision concerning his appeal.
The movie also had troubles as it was being
made. The production crew ran out of funding
before the film was completed. Thankfully, Al-Akkad
eventually received funding for the completion of
the film from Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.
The filming was also complicated by Al-Akkad’s
decision to shoot the entire picture, scene by
scene, first in Arabic and then—with different lead
actors—in English. Although initially controversial in
Islamic circles in America and in the Middle East,
the film soon obtained immense popularity. It is still
shown in countries like Saudi Arabia and other
states in the Middle East during Ramadan almost
every year.
Ironically, Mustapha Al-Akkad is not famous for
The Message but for his involvement as an
executive producer for all of the numerous
Halloween films. Al-Akkad was born in Syria in
1930 and moved to California to study film in
1950. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in
film and received an M.A. in the same field from
USC.
On Friday November 11, 2005 Mustapha AlAkkad died from wounds sustained from the triple
hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan. His daughter,
Rima was also a victim of the tragic Jordanian
bombings. Rima Akkad Monla was an alumnus of
American University in Beirut with an M.A. in Middle
Eastern studies.
The Film in Context
Mustafa Al-Akkad’s The Message is, by his own
account, part of what he considers to be the war that
Muslims must fight, on the battlefield of mass media,
against the negative stereotypes and warped
understandings exported globally about Muslims and
the nature of Islam. In interviews with IslamOnline, AlAkkad has rallied against the huge military spending in
the region—when “[we] never see a single bullet fired
against our enemies”—and has argued that the real
battle that Muslims must fight is in the arena of the
media. “We are not in need of military weaponry to
change the horrible image that Muslims are stuck with,”
says Al-Akkad, “it is more important to know how to use
the most effective weapon in the modern world, the
media.” Part of Al-Akkad’s cinematic goals are therefore
markedly polemical. Describing the current state of
visual culture as a time in which the Zionist media has
succeeded in marring the image of Muslims, Al-Akkad
believes that “there is no solution but the media, only
the media.”
Upon understanding this aspect of Al-Akkad’s work, it
is relevant to ask what role we, the audience, play in this
battle. On October 31, 2005, Al-Akkad’s audience
included the diverse student body of MESC, celebrating
the breaking of the Ramadan fast in an American
University in a city that is one of the most historically
enduring centers of Islamic thought. In his book Truth
and Method, German philosopher Hans Georg- Gadamer
argues that “there can be no speech that does not bind
the speaker and the person spoken to.”
It is with this in mind that we come to understand the
viewing of Al-Akkad’s film—our localized and particular
viewing in this time and place—as inextricably liked to
the way in which our viewing is regulated. As we think
about the direction of the film, and attempt to decipher
its message, we cannot separate, for example, the
unique shooting of the film (in particular the viewing
angle of the spectator-participant) and our role as both
target and fighter in the battle Al-Akkad describes,
above. Often discussed only in terms of its historical
authenticity/value, or alternatively in terms of its
aesthetic and technical cinematic merit, we should be
encouraged to read Al- Akkad’s film as neither a
detached historical account nor an artistic exercise.
Rather, we should be conscious of the battle Al-Akkad
describes, the terrain on which it is being fought, and
our role as onlooker and necessary participant in a
process that is historical, artistic, and also polemical.
Mustafa Al-Akkad
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
Page 22
MIDDLE EAST STUDIES AFTER 9/11
DR. ANN LESCH, DEAN OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
DR. ABD EL MONEIMSAID, DIRECTOR OF THE AL-AHRAM CENTER
DR. JOEL BEININ, HISTORY PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
CHAIR: DR. BAHGAT KORANY, AUC MES PROGRAM DIRECTOR
D
FEBRUARY 2005
Dr. Abd El Moneim Said began his
r. Ann Lesch began her
presentation with a historical
overview of Middle East studies, noting that the
orientation of university programs has gone
along with US strategic interests. For instance,
the Arab-Israeli conflict was kept out of MESA’s
first conference, even though it was held after
1967. Furthermore, the use of the word
“Palestine” was unheard of, as was publishing
on such issues. There were also student
protests against the establishment of MES
(Middle East Studies) centers with external
funding.
In 1984, AIPEC (a Jewish lobby in the US),
issued the “College Guide: Exposing the antiIsrael Campaign on Campus,” identifying
lecturers who were anti-Israel. Also in the
1980s, the Anti-Defamation League circulated
a booklet on Arab sympathizers, in an attempt
to prevent these people from getting tenured or
hired.
By the end of the 1980s, MES fellowships,
centers, and publications were flourishing.
However, Israeli-oriented think tanks remained
a great influence on the executive, with
academics unable to compete with them to get
to the public arena. Such neo-conservative,
right-wing think tanks were connected to the
hawkish view that the Oslo accords were too
accommodating to Palestine alone.
In the 1990s, after the outbreak of the
second Intifadah and the breakdown of the
peace process, attacks on Middle East studies
became more vocal.
Dr. Lesch also remarked that, in the
aftermath of September 11th, MES academics
were blamed for their failure to predict it. MES
was attacked for conformist and group think,
with the idea that everyone was a student of
Edward Said. MES was also branded as antiAmerican, pro-al-Qaeda, and against the War
on Terror…
Dr. Lesch gave the judgment that, overall,
the field is at a critical moment, especially
since the next round of funding is in 2005.
comments by arguing that the “Middle East”
does not exist, it is a construct. Nevertheless,
MES should try and look forward and attempt
to predict that next crisis… For that purpose,
he would raise ten issues that MES should
tackle. These are:
1) September 11th has extended the Middle
East all the way to Indonesia. The question is:
What makes Islamists everywhere use the
same political behavior and discourses?
2) Are new boundaries inside the system
rather than around the region?
3) Is political change external or internal?
4) Why is the Middle East a conflictual region
that hosts 25% of the world’s conflicts even
though it only contains 3% of the world’s
population? Is it because the Middle East has
a lot of “isms?” Is it because the Middle
Eastern states are new?
5) Why do Middle East dictators behave
differently? For instance, Pinochet in Chile
was bloody, but he didn’t invade anybody
else. This issue was not tackled by the Arab
Development Report.
6) Regarding fundamentalism: Why would
someone want to commit suicide? And why
would someone coming from Brooklyn want to
have a settlement in the West Bank?
7) How do societies choose their goals? And,
how does the goal of society become
salvation?
8) Why is Israel so exceptional to the
international community and why can Israel
get away with so much?
9) How can we understand the possibilities of
peace, such as the Taif agreement and the
Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement?
10) How can regional stability occur in a
global order? All other regions except the
Middle East and Africa have a security system
and a development cooperation system. The
Middle East has no project for security and no
By way of conclusion, Dr. Said argued that
perhaps social sciences needed an equivalent
to chaos theory in the natural sciences.
Dr. Joel Beinin remarked that most
Americans know little or nothing about the
Middle East, and, in turn, care little or nothing
about the region as well. Also, the majority of
those who do care see it through the lens of
either Christian or Jewish interest groups that
tend to focus on the historical/religious
significance of the region (eg: as the land of
the old testament)
He argued that “we won in academia,”
however, citing the number of scholars who
learn Arabic, live in the Arab world, and have
some empathy with the societies they study.
He noted that now, those interested in Middle
East studies can get good jobs in prestigious
institutions, even if they are writing about the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
He stated that he feels the phenomenon
of Campus Watch and the campaigns of
Stanley Kurtz, Daniel Pipes, and Martin
Kramer will not last. However, there are
issues more subtle than these over attacks.
Dr. Beinin maintained that the problem in
trying to explain the Middle East lies no in the
media, and in what State Department
intelligence does or does not know. Rather, it
is a problem of high policy.
He raised the question of what the role of
MESA should be, and pointed out that MESA
is not a policy organization, but is rather a
professional association. MESA, from time to
time, reluctantly adopts resolutions with a
political tinge, but that is the extent of its role.
It is individuals, and not the organization, that
find themselves forced to respond to such
attacks on Middle East studies. Thus, on one
had, attacks on Middle East Studies are
coming from other individuals who posses
funding and from institutions, and on the
other hand, MESA is not a counterweight, and
individuals must act on their own.
MARCH 2006
Page 23
THE 21 BEST BOOKS OF MES
GARTH HALL
NOVEMBER 2005
1. Orientalism
12. A Political Economy of the Middle East
Edward Said, 1978
Alan Richards & John Waterbury, 1990
2. The Old Social Classes and the
13. A History of Islamic Societies
Revolutionary Movements of Iraq
Ira Lapidus, 1988
Hanna Batatu, 1978
3. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
Timothy Mitchell, 2002
East studies
books. So we
15. Ambiguities of Domination
emailed just
Lisa Wedeen, 1999
over two
hundred MES
16. The Muqaddimah
Ibn Khaldun, 1377
Marshall Hodgson, 1975
17. A Peace to End All Peace
6. Colonising Egypt
David Fromkin, 1989
professors and
experts and
asked them for
the ten books
they found to be
Timothy Mitchell, 1988
7. The Mantle of the Prophet
make a list of
the best Middle
Albert Hourani, 1991
5. The Venture of Islam
MESC wanted to
14. Rule of Experts
Albert Hourani, 1962
4. A History of the Arab Peoples
“We here at
18. Armed Struggle & the Search for State
the most
Yezid Sayigh, 1997
‘interesting,
informative, and
Roy Mottahedeh, 1986
19. State, Power and Politics in the
readable’ in the
8. Contending Visions of the Middle East
Making of the Modern Middle East
field. We
Zachary Lockman, 2004
Roger Owen, 1992
received just
9. Women and Gender in Islam
20. Society of the Muslim Brothers
Leila Ahmed, 1992
Richard Mitchell, 1969
10. The Emergence of Modern Turkey
Bernard Lewis, 1961
11. Over-stating the Arab State: Politics
and Society in the Middle East
Nazih Ayubi, 1995
21. Arab Politics: The Search for
Legitimacy
Michael Hudson, 1977
over fifty
responses and
from these we
compiled the
Top 21 list.”
THE BEST OF AUC’S MESC & BARQIYYA NEWSLETTERS
MY STELLA BEER T-SHIRT
TRIES TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET
DR. SHARIF ELMUSA
FEBRUARY 2005
W
hile loitering one day in the bazaar
I saw a white Stella Beer T-shirt
But being a T-shirt and Egyptian
Liked it at first sight
It has a social metabolism too strong to curb.
And bought it without much bargaining.
It is the first to fling itself
It is made of the finest Egyptian cotton,
Into the pagan suitcase shuttling back
Almost silk-thin and flannel to the touch.
to America, the origin of its kind,
On the left breast and back, a handsome logo—
Even though it knows
A yellow ellipse blazed with blue Arabic and English calligraphy:
The easy-going habitat that conceived it
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Is in the grip of inflected fantasies
In the grip of the one-hundred-percent loyal.
Stella “local,” not “for export”
They gaze at the olive skin, the broad lips
Is the bear that beer buffs,
of my mother tongue from their eagle’s height,
Natives and expats, hold in high esteem.
Their reptilian fear.
“It tastes home,” Dina says,
The bottle is twice the size of the can,
I hate them. I hate them all who made me write such
And the wobbly pound goes a long way.
a high-pitched confessional about a closet affair.
In all, a stellar brew of the land
I want my eccentricity to drift
That once made solemn offerings
Without leaving a footprint on the paved streets.
Of beer to the supreme gods.
If I was my daughter’s age, I’d join a protest
March and hand the bullies confusing flowers.
But when the time comes
for wearing the shirt, my feet balk,
I loathe my own capitulation even more.
As if disabled by mother’s.
I conjure bizarre schemes—
Imshi elhait elhait…
Like cloaking the shirt in a brown bag,
“Walk alongside the wall, the wall,
The way street drunks wrap their naked bottles,
And implore the Lord for safety.”
Or doing what an American woman in Cairo
I am afraid a keeper of the promise,
is said to have done: Cut the flaps
Who hasn’t read his Khayyam
of a cardboard box, made two holes—
Who craves everlasting wine
the size of her fist—on the sides
Served by the handsome boys and virgin girls
And donned the crafted shield around her upper body
of Paradise, I am afraid he might be affronted
to mark a sovereign space
By the impious design, foam in rage
against men’s long arms and tongues.
And stun my passing pleasure.
Dispirited, unable to exceed my size,
So I wear the shirt indoors,
I mumble the shirt’s maxim,
After work, around the happy hour,
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Doubly savoring my Stellas.