Recent readings: Orientalism

Edward Said is an American academic, he was born in Palestine and lived in Egypt for some time before immigrating to the United States.

Orientalism is a classic that Said had put with great care, the book had simply changed the way the West looks at the "Orient". It had even created a negative tone to the word "orientalism", modern western scholars are apparently distancing themselves from being called "orientalists".

The book re-examines the term "orient" and what it actually means to the Western reader, or maybe what it was made to mean to the Western reader. Orientalism argues that the West actually made its own Orient and that the Orient as know in the West is actually the Western discourse about it.

To illustrate the idea, Said gives as an example the way Orientalists made their "scholarly" analysis of the revolutions and rebellions against the colonial rule in Africa and Asia. For instance, in their analysis of the Arab revolt in Egypt, some Orientalists gave the impression that the Arab "violence", is somehow due to inherent tendencies to chaos rather than to legitimate pursuit of freedom and independence. Colonialism needed to be justified with orientalist theories like "Arabs/Africans/Indians are incapable of self-governance".

The book goes through the representations of the Orient since medieval times, this was essentially anti-Islam rant fuelled by the religious authorities in Europe. Said spends a good part of the book describing the orientalism of colonial times which is the period when "Oriental Studies" in Europe became of great importance to the colonial mouvements in Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and others. Indeed, one of the most central ideas in "Orientalism" is that the orientalists were essentially serving the colonial interests. Some critics blame Said for ignoring other orientalists who were not affiliated with colonial authorities and seemed to be solely interested into Oriental arts for instance. Mahmoud Darwish put this in his stunning beautiful symbolic style in a poem called Tibak (طباق):

نيويورك. إدوارد يصحو على كسل الفجر

يعزف لحناً لموتسارت

يركض في ملعب التِنِس الجامعيِّ.

يفكِّر في رحلة الفكر عبر الحدود

وفوق الحواجز

يقرأ نيويورك تايمز

يكتب تعليقَهُ المتوتِّر

يلعن مستشرقاً

يُرْشِدُ الجنرالَ الى نقطة الضعف في قلب شرقيّةٍ

يستحمُّ. ويختارُ بَدْلَتَهُ بأناقةِ دِيكٍ

ويشربُ قهوتَهُ بالحليب

ويصرخ بالفجر: لا تتلكأ

Orientalism, just like Said described, is still alive and well. Bernard Lewis, a British now living in the US is probably the best example of Said's orientalists. Despite his strong disagreement with Said, Lewis is regarded as a major figure of modern Middle Eastern studies. When Lewis justified the war in Iraq with "we free them or they destroy us", he summarised what Said has been trying to tell us in his book.

Despite my disagreement with some of Lewis analysis, I think his extensive research may give the Muslim world some very useful clues on how to regain more status and accelerate development. I will try to make my next politico-historical reading a Lewis.

هذه المدونة في إضراب

.

A Tunisian in the church

I have been living in Western countries for a few years now and I have never attended a mass, at a Christian church that is. Actually, I have been living close to several churches in Tunis for a decade and I always thought of visiting the Roman Catholic church in avenue Habib Bourguiba. It never happened for lack of time, lack of determination and mostly for the fear that it may appear inappropriate to the local Christians.

I talked about this to a co-worker and he invited me to attend the mass at the Guildford Saint Saviour's church which I did (with my wife) on 26 February 2006. It was a very worthwhile experience and I'd love to have it again.

To a muslim, the prayer ritual is obviously quite different. It consisted into a considerable amount of singing and music playing which would correspond more to a joyful adhkar (أذكار) session in the Islamic tradition. The person leading the prayer gave a speech about Jonas, that's Yunus (يونس) in Arabic. Except from the mention of the Trinity in the lyrics, I didn't see much conflicting with the Islamic teachings.

The common belief that muslims cannot pray at a church or at synagogue is not totally accurate. When Syria was conquered by Muslims in the 7th century, Christians and Muslims were praying at the same church (Saint John maybe) alternating services on Fridays and Sundays. Later when Omar Ibn Al-Khattab (عمر إبن الخطاب) conquered Jerusalem (القدس), he commanded that muslims shall not pray in Christian worship places for fear that it may establish a tradition of possessing churches in the future.

It happened the day of my visit that the church was ogranising a kind of informal meeting to discuss about "Is nothing sacred?". Assured by the ones who invited me, I attended; the discussions addressed several topics like some show I didn't know about but which appeared to be blasphemous, the muslims reaction to the Danish cartoons and so on. At the very end, I asked permission to comment on a question by one of the attendees: "do Muslims take their religion more seriously than us?" and (briefly) on the Danish cartoons affair.

My point of view was essentially that for muslims Islam has been a power that brought scientific, social, military and economical advances and it's still being regarded as the social system that turned a bunch of desert warring tribes into masters of the World. Islamic Civilisation owes all of its achievements to Islam, therefore, I think this is why the Islamic religion has this great esteem for Muslims. The US channel PBS used a nice expression to describe this: Islam -- Empire of Faith, it's a documentary which runs over 3 episodes: The Messenger, The Awakening and The Ottomans.

The Christian church in the West, on the other hand, was more regarded as an obstacle to Western advances. Tales of blasphemy charges against scientists are still vivid in the minds and I believe that this has costed the church a lot of credibility over the past centuries. That's obviously the opinion of someone who knows very little about the history of Christian church(es).

The Danish cartoons affair deserves a post by itself, but at the church I only pointed out that the violence the media has described happened in inherently violent and instable places, namely Gaza, Palestine, Nigeria, Pakistan and such. The cartoons were a mere trigger for communities already under tension.

The reactions to my visit were mixed, someone from the church's staff said that what I did was "brave", another attendee was staring at us for the whole session and gave the impression that he didn't like us being there. Many others expressed sympathy and escorted us on the way out, some even asked us to come again. Thank you all for the warm welcome.

Childhood comics: Sinan - سنان

Sinan was one of the comics that marked the childhood of millions in the Arab World. My sister had a Sinan T-shirt when she was about 4. It's one of these comics made in the 70's and, very successfully, translated to Arabic. The translation of these Japanese anime is usually done in Syrian and Lebanese studios; Young Future and Space Toons are names that come to mind. I believe that Sinan's English name is Beaver.

The opening song is still vivid in my mind 25 years later, it goes like..

سنان يا سنان

يا خير الأصدقاء
في الغابة الخضراء
سنان يا سنان

شعارك الوفاء
يا خير الأصدقاء
ها نحن بإنتظارك
سنان يا سنان

سنان يا سنان
يا نفحة النسيم
بطبعك الكريم
سنان يا سنان
و رأيك الحكيم
يا خير الأصدقاء
ها نحن بإنتظارك
سنان يا سنان

سنان يا سنان
صديقنا الأمين
في غابة الحلوين
سنان يا سنان
الكل سالمين
يا خير الأصدقاء
ها نحن بإنتظارك
سنان يا سنان

The closing song, equally beautiful, goes like..

ما أحلى أن نعيش
في خير و سلام
ما أحلى أن نكون
في حب و وئام

لا شر يؤذينا
لا ظلم يؤذينا
و الدنيا تبقى تبقى
آمال للجميع

ما أحلى أن نعيش
في بيت واحد
ما أحلى أن نكون
في وطن واحد
الحب للجميع
و الخير للجميع

Sinan was a very brave young squirrel who always helped the needy and did all he could to bring happiness and joy to those in sadness. Every episode would address a typical social situation, no guns, no flying robots, just plain goodness and big-hearted behaviour. Sinan was supported by his friends Lala and a young bear (forgot the name). The bad guys were a gang of Foufou the fox and Farfour the bear, led by Sharshoor the wolf. The Sharshoor gang were not terribly bad, they were just a bunch of idiots giving Sinan a hard time.

I really cannot make any sense of the "modern" comics a la Pokemon, I just can't get the point.. or is it just me growing too old?

United Kingdom -- First impressions

We have been in Great Britain for about 10 months now and I thought I should write down some of my first impressions about this place. This is definitely not pretending to be a scientific evaluation, but a mere side scratches of a newcomer. It's also worth noting that we only saw part of the South West (Surrey) which seems to be in a more favourable situation than the rest of the country.

The name
It's still a bit confusing for me to make a clear distinction between Britain, Great Britain, England and the United Kingdom. It seems like the official name is "United Kingdom" although the top-level Internet domain name for this country is actually GB (and not UK) as per ISO 3166. England seems to be used to indicate the largest island.

Food
Food was probably the most noticeable difference for me. The British seem to heavily consume ready-made and frozen meals, grocery stores contain huge sections of this type of food. The "hot food section" is usually a tiny corner that the shopper can barely spot, hot food is almost synonymous with roast chicken. The national junk food is fish and chips which is usually a portion of deep-fried, breaded Cod fish with potato fries.
The other significant food in the UK is alcohol, it seems to be an integral part of the social life and there are shops dedicated to nothing but selling beer, wine and spirits. It's very common that people head to the pub (bar) right after work, everyday at times.

"Bloody"
This seems to be the term to use to express anger while avoiding vulgar expressions. It appears to be socially acceptable.

Transportation
A very good roads network. The underground service is well-designed and reliable. There's a problem with the cost though; parking is very expensive at several GBP per day, gas is at an average of 0.90 GBP per litre and diesel is usually a little more expensive than gas. Trains tend, apparently for safety reasons, to run slower then in other European countries, a round-trip from Guildford to Cambridge costs about 36 GBP which is, by Tunisian standards, a lot.

Health Services
The National Health Service (NHS) is the public authority running the Government's health services. The state is controlling almost all aspects of health care, patients need to register with a local General Practitioner (GP) who coordinates all their health service needs. The first general impressions are not very positive so far, but we had a very good experience with the emergency service.

Queueing
Fellow Tunisians have a lot to learn from the British on this matter, everyone queues, everywhere.

Urban organisation
All buildings look exactly the same: red-brick walls with tiny rooms and really tight doors, I often wonder how they could take sofas inside the house. Actually, whe I moved I shipped a 3-seater sofa to my address in the UK, unfortunately I had to sell the item on e-Bay (for a fraction of the price) because I simply couldn't take it upstairs. Some modern buildings tend to use more metal and glass. Roads are usually a bit tight compared to Dubai or the US. Some of the roads suffer a little damage, clearly because of rain water.

Media
The Independent is my preferred newspaper. I don't have exposure to many popular TV channels, I only receive five of them. I listen to BBC 4 Radio daily and I find it great, Radio Tunis has to do a lot of restructuring to reach this high standard; too much music has exactly zero informational value.
The British media has the particularity of being shocking without turning politically incorrect. Showing body liquids and extreme nudity on TV is somehow a form of joking here and I recall seeing postcards with human genitals in London. I find it an interesting form of humour. Some say that the British were shocked so many times that they hardly find anything shocking.

No middle finger
Extending the middle finger as a vulgar sign of extreme offense does not work in Britain. The British express the same by extending both middle fingers of the same hand (the ones closest to the thumb). The legend says that in earlier times, when British archers were captured by the French, they had their fingers chopped, at least the ones used to throw arrows. Therefore, showing off the fingers is used as a sign of defiance.