Who's Responsible for ISIS?

Think Progress and Juan Cole present a well informed, substantiated representation of most of my thoughts on Graeme Wood's article What ISIS Really Wants in the Atlantic.

Jerusha Tanner Lamptey
Professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary

By suggesting that Islam is ultimately beholden to specific literal readings of texts, Lamptey said Wood and other pundits inadvertently validate ISIS’s voice.
“[Wood’s position] confirms exactly what people like ISIS want people to think about them, which is that they are the only legitimate voice,” she said. “It echoes that rhetoric 100%. Yes, that is what ISIS says about themselves, but it is a different step to say ‘Yes, that is true about the Islamic tradition and all Muslims.’”

Nihad Awad
Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

“Scholars who study Islam, authorities of Islamic jurisprudence, are telling ISIS that they are wrong, and Mr. Wood knows more than what they do, and he’s saying that ISIS is Islamic?” Awad said. “I don’t think Mr. Wood has the background or the scholarship to make that dangerous statement, that historically inaccurate statement...."

Mohammad Fadel
Associate Professor & Toronto Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law at the University of Toronto

“Yes, [ISIS is] Islamic in that they use Islamic sources to justify all their actions,” Fadel said. “But I think the question that bothers most Muslims is the idea that just because someone says they are Muslim or that their actions are representative of Islam doesn’t make it so. Just because a group can appropriate Islamic sources and Islamic symbols, and then go around doing all sorts of awful things, doesn’t mean that they get to be the ones who define for the world what Islam means.”

I have much greater respect for Jerusha Lamptey and Juan Cole as experts on Islam and Iraq, respectively, than I have for the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Princeton, which is closely affiliated with the neo-cons who took us to war in Iraq under false/exaggerated pretenses. Wood, in contrast, leans heavily on Princeton's Bernard Haykel. I'm more trusting of the Edward Said school of Middle Eastern studies that Haykel dismisses as 'rooted in an “interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition.”'

* * *

What I would add that I haven't seen in other articles about ISIS is that the actions of the West in Iraq, from colonialism to Iran Contra to sanctions to invasion and occupation, have created fertile ground for conservatism, fanaticism, retaliation and flat-out fury.

Since about the time that ISIS emerged, I have given myself an entirely amateur self-diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). If it's an accurate self-diagnosis, mine is still only a mild, entirely manageable case. Still, coming to terms with my own trauma has changed my relationship to a long-held opinion of mine. I first formed my theory years ago in reference to the Palestinians, especially Gazans. Now I feel strongly that most of the Middle East, especially Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, suffers from the complications of several generations of moderate to severe trauma disorders.

In America, we've all learned since 2001 something about PTSD and how it effects our soldiers when they return home. Right now, PTSD is on trial in Texas in the so-called "American Sniper" case. But our soldiers get to come home. Our soldiers, to one degree or another, chose to enter the fight in the first place. What about the Iraqi kids who came of age during the Sunni Awakening, or the heyday of the Mahdi Army? What about their parents, who watched them die indiscriminately, as collateral damage in the conflict between Islamists and Coalition forces?

ISIL recruited them, but how much of a role did we play in making them recruit-able?

Sure, there are what Graeme Wood in another article calls the Psychopaths. I don't believe - and I don't think Wood believes - that their bloodthirsty enthusiasm for ISIS is really about religious conviction. If not this movement, I believe they would have found another, similarly bloody movement to join. In any case, Juan Cole makes a good case for their importance being exaggerated:

.01 percent of the community volunteered. They are often teens, some are on the lam from petty criminal charges, and many come back disillusioned. You could get 400 people to believe almost anything. It isn’t a significant statistic.

Al Qaeda, Abu Mas'ab Zarqawi, Salafi quietism, ISIL - all of these movements, self-styled resistance or liberation movements, were born at times when the United States and her allies were flexing their muscles in the Middle East. When do we turn from criticizing Islam to a serious critique of our own contributions to what's happening in the Arabian Peninsula?

"You're so patient!"

Brooklyn, NY, USA

Today I was teaching some Yemeni and Sudanese women useful language for making an doctor's appointment. We had a dialogue that I had read with one of the students, and we were going through it sentence by sentence to practice pronunciation.

Some of my students didn't have the soft /th/ sound in their native dialects, so I showed them how moving their tongues from behind their teeth to between their teeth changed the /s/ sound to the /th/ sound. Then I had them practice blending words, like the way we don't say "Do you want to make an appointment?" but instead we shove it all together into "D'ya-wanna make 'n-appoin'ment?" I had them repeat it over and over, first together as a group, then one at a time, again and again.

"You have such patience!" said one student in Arabic.

After I'd taught her how to say the same sentence in English (and showed them how it was not quite the same as a "patient" at the doctor's), I said, "That's because I've learned several languages, so I'm sympathetic."

"You know exactly what it's like!" she agreed.

This is what I love about teaching. We laughed so much that two hours just flew by, and these women not only learned what to say and how to say it, but I could see them gain confidence from the beginning of the lesson to the end. One woman, who was only going to stay a little while until the citizenship class started, was still there at the end of the class, glowing with accomplishment.

A few months ago, when I was hating my job and wishing I could just give up working altogether and become a stay-at-home Mom, a friend said, "We just have to find you a job that doesn't feel like work." I found it. Unfortunately, it doesn't pay any money....

Changed Everything

I woke up early this morning with the thought, "This is the Sunday I'm finally going to make it to All Souls UU Church and make some friends in NYC who aren't teachers." Then, I remembered that today was September 11th, and decided I didn't really want to get out of bed after all, let alone leave the house and have to face New York City in full mourning.

Maybe it's because I wasn't in New York on that day, wasn't even in the United States.
Maybe it's because of all the time I've spent in the Middle East since then and the collateral damage I've born witness to in that time.
Maybe it's because of all the harassment and difficulty my Muslim and "brown" friends across the country and the world have suffered in the interim.
Or maybe it's just because I was raised to be such a radical humanist.

I'm so tired of America putting on this big parade about how unfortunate we were to be attacked on 9/11. We've been attacked ONCE in SIXTY-FIVE years by foreign adversaries. How many nations around the world can say that? Or as my friend Ginny noted on Facebook today: 

9/11 death toll    =      2,819. 

US casualties in the wars that followed    =      6,686. 

non-US casualties in the wars that followed  =  148,000. 

It's not that I begrudge the families of the dead their mourning, their anger, their remembrance. They suffered. I would never deny them acknowledgement of that.

But I really struggle with the self-indulgence of people in Florida and California and Kansas and everywhere in between who think their lives have been irrevocably marked by what happened in New York, DC and Pennsylvania.  Did the bombing of Sarajevo change the world?  Did the fall of Mogadishu change the world?  Did the massacre on the Pearl Circle change the world?  Did the blockade of Gaza change the world?  And these are just the tragedies of the last 65 years that I can recall off the cuff.  How many hundreds more are there that we never even heard about?  It seems so arrogant to think 9/11 is so much more important.

But, of course, it's not arrogant. It's fact. 9/11 did change the world, starting a chain reaction of a magnitude we never could have imagined, which resulted directly or indirectly in massive deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, civil war in Yemen, liberation in North Africa, increased oppression in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, increased Kurdish autonomy, God-only-knows in Iran....

And maybe that's what makes me angry most of all ... that we have such overwhelming power to impose our judgements, our grief and our consequences on the rest of the world.

Why Art Is Important to Education

An Example You Have To See To Believe!

Brooklyn, NY, USA

I was doing research today about some of the New York City schools I've been told have significant Arab-American and Arab immigrant populations, where I think I have particularly relevant skills to offer. One of them is William McKinley High School. I found this video on their Website, and it is simply amazing! These kids understand history, English language arts, art theory, and the way that they intersect on a level I'm just not seeing in my summer school teaching experience. That's without even mentioning the images of amazing whimsy, like the image of Phaeton in a chariot pulling the sun across the sky in which the sun is the red bell of the fire alarm system.

This is precisely why we need to fight for room in school budgets for arts education.

"The Look," But Different

Cairo, Egypt

My Egyptian friend Mohannad's been squiring me around Cairo for the last couple of weeks, and there's been a striking difference in my experience of the city. I still draw as much attention as I usually do, but it's a very different kind of attention.

When I walk alone or with other girls, we get stared at by everyone, cat-called, lots of "Welcome to Egypt!" and Borat-esque "Verrry niiice!", occasional groping, and sometimes even more explicit invitations. My favorite is the plaintive whine, "Why won't you answer me...?" which has got to be the stupidest-ever follow-up to a terrible pick-up line! (For a few precious weeks during and immediately after the revolution, we encountered almost none of that, but it was too good a utopia to last!)

In the last few days, walking around with Mohannad, I've really clued in to the differences between then and now. At first, it seemed like the harassment was gone entirely, but eventually I noticed that we were receiving just as much attention. Only this time, it wasn't just baldly appraising looks and frustrated glares at me, but also at Mohannad. What's he done to get a foreign girl like that to walk around with him? they seem to be thinking.

Back at the beginning of the year, I remember Heather and Kirsten talking about this same phenomenon, when they were seen out with their Arab husbands. If the Egyptian Revolution often felt like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s civil rights movement, Cairo sometimes feels like MLK Jr.'s South, where interracial relationships are rare, and draw a lot of uncomfortable attention.

Ding, dong! The Warlord's Dead!

Cairo, Egypt

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

- Mark Twain

It's not that I'm happy Bin Laden the man is dead. I would have preferred a trial, public humiliation, and a long prison sentence in Guantanamo or some Saudi shit-hole of a prison ... but even as I write that I'm conflicted, because those words descend to a level of vindictiveness that I don't want to live by. In the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Standing By the Side of Love:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,

but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,

but you do not murder hate.

In fact, violence merely increases hate.

So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness:

only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

(Thanks to Carter for the quote.)

No, mostly I'm happy that Bin Laden the symbol and the excuse is dead. I'm listening to Talk of the Nation's coverage of Bin Laden's death on NPR, and one of their Middle East correspondents was talking about how Arabs see this as an end to a decade of collective punishments of the Arabs and other Muslims for the actions of Bin Laden and a few other fanatics. Afghanistan, Iraq, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, Pakistani drone attacks ... all of these look from the Middle East like punishment for 9/11, the USS Cole, the African embassy bombings, the first WTC bombing.... Now, finally, we've gotten rid of the man who, for the West, represents the deepest evil that Islam has to offer and too often blinds us to the great good that's present in Islam. True, Zawahiri and al-Masri are still out there, and hundreds of others bent on wreaking havoc on the West and Western installations in the East, but the biggest, baddest wolf is gone. It doesn't mean we automatically withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, close Guantanamo and put it all behind us, but it's a powerful step in the right direction.

At the same time, I think it's important to put this event into context. While Americans are making a big deal out of this attack, Arabs have other things on their minds. Hundreds are dying in Syria every day, and in Libya, standing up to mad, relentless dictators. The outlook for Yemen is not much better. Egypt and Tunisia are busy rebuilding - or, I should say, building - nations they can be proud of. Jordanians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Bahrainis, Saudis, Lebanese ... they're all busy with extremely important and emotional domestic issues.

Osama Bin Laden is barely relevant here anymore, and the single desperate act of a fruit vendor in Tunisia deserves more credit for that than a 10-year, trillions-of-dollars manhunt. The youth of the Arab Spring are disciples of Rev. King and Václav Havel of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, with whom some of the April 6 Youth studied nonviolent resistance techniques. Even when they were being attacked with horses and Molotov cocktails on Tahrir Square, Egyptian protesters were chanting "Peaceful! Peaceful!" to hold themselves and each other to a philosophy that rejects violence, even in retaliation for violence. Disciples of Osama Bin Laden still exist, but a much larger portion of Arab youth have found a far more powerful and effective means of expression.

A Lawyer And Everything!

Cairo, Egypt

I've started going to the grocery around the corner more frequently. They carry fresh milk and most of my other staples, and they're open after dark unlike the supermarket I used to frequent. The cashier there is enchanted by an American who speaks Arabic as well as I do, and he always engages me in conversation.

Tonight he was very pleased to my attention the prosecution of former president Mubarak. "There's going to be a real trial, with a judge, and they've given him an attorney. They're giving him his human rights!" As if to say, after all the years he denied us our human rights, we're better people than that.

Then he said, getting serious, "You know, America talks all the time about human rights, but they don't really mean it, do they? As soon as they want something from a leader like Mubarak, there's no more talk of human rights." I agreed with him, and clearly that wasn't the response he was looking for. "Really? You know this?" Of course, I agreed, governments are inherently selfish institutions. "And Americans know this?" he wanted to know.

Of course, that's where the conversation gets tricky, isn't it? My friends and family know that America is not the paragon of democratic virtues it claims to be, that it operates both domestically and abroad in ways that don't always serve the rights and interests of the people effected. Jon Stewart's audience knows this, and those who listen to NPR and watch PBS and stream al-Jazeera. Unitarian Universalists know this, and MoveOn.org members know this, and Peace Corps Volunteers see this.

But do "Americans" know that their government, for its own self-interests, is propping up evil despots and oil barons and CIA stooges and oppressive states who are willing to torture for the US Government? How do I answer that question?

It begs another question, too, that's been on my mind for a couple weeks now. When I go back to America, how do I answer the inevitable questions about what "Egyptians" or "Jordanians" or, worse, "Arabs" and "Muslims" think about America, about democracy, about freedom, about terrorism, about revolution...? As if any of those terms represented a uniform monolithic entity that had one opinion about anything!

Meanwhile....
They've been chanting on Tahrir Square since last night. I don't know what they're chanting, but there are a lot of them, and they're very enthusiastic, not about to back down until they've got everything they demand.

ANNOUNCING TAHRIR DOCUMENTS

I'm pleased to share this press release for a project I and many of my CASIC colleagues have been participating in here in Cairo.

ANNOUNCING TAHRIR DOCUMENTS

We are pleased to announce the launch of Tahrir Documents, an ongoing project to archive and translate printed discourse from the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath. The website presents a diverse collection of materials — among them activist newspapers, personal essays, advertisements, missives, and party communications —- in complete English translation alongside reproductions of the Arabic-language originals. The site will be updated regularly, frequently, and indefinitely as new writings appear in response to post-revolution developments, and as we locate earlier materials.  

The assembled documents address a variety of contemporary concerns including Muslim-Christian relations, constitutional amendments, moral conduct, revolutionary strategy, and the women's rights movement. Some of the highlights of the collection:

• A defense of protestors' continued sit-in at Tahrir Square released on March 9th, the same day on which their encampment was destroyed by thugs
• Guidelines for personal behavior after the revolution
• Numerous denunciations of sectarian violence
• The announcement of new political parties and presidential candidates.
• Numerous articles debating the constitutional amendments passed last week  
• Selections from Gurnal and Revolutionary Egypt, activist newspapers founded after the revolution    

We invite you to examine the the website, and to return regularly as we post communications and commentaries from the post-Mubarak era. We believe the archive indicative of the diversity of political thought and action in contemporary Egypt, and hope that this diversity is of interest to anyone following the country's transforming situation. The archive is searchable. 

Tahrir Documents is the work of volunteer translators in Egypt and abroad. It is not affiliated with any of those authors or groups whose works appear in translation on the website, nor with any organization foreign or domestic.

For more information please write to the editorial board at tahrirdocuments@gmail.com. We invite the submission of materials for translation and publication on the website.

Regards,

The Editors and Staff of Tahrir Documents

 www.tahrirdocuments.org / tahrirdocuments@gmail.com / twitter.com/tahrirdocuments

Foreign Interference

Cairo, Egypt

There was a protest of mostly women in black headscarves and big trendy sunglasses on the sidewalk in front of the Embassy of Bahrain in Zamalek today as I was walking home.

From Bahrain Embassy, Zamalek

What's happening in Bahrain is in some ways the most disturbing of all the uprisings in the Middle East. Until Sunday, those uprisings were domestic affairs. Financial assets have been frozen in foreign accounts, and plenty of rhetoric has flown about concerning the rest of the world's recommendations to the leaders of Algeria, Egypt, Yemen.... After weeks of discussing it and making proclamations, no country has even stepped in militarily to stop the atrocities in Libya.

On Sunday, the Saudi army rolled across the border into Bahrain to assist the police there in crushing the opposition protests. By Tuesday there was blood in the streets. It doesn't bode well for the future of democracy in the oil-rich Persian Gulf states. The interests of oppressive Arab governments in that region are too deeply entrenched to allow free expression, and too essential to the global economy for the international community to intervene.

Things Heat Up In Cairo

Cairo, Egypt

Wednesday, 2 February 2011, 9:30AM
Alex and Lev are leaving on the American-organized evacuation flights for Europe today, and my parents have bought me a ticket to Jordan for tomorrow. I’m feeling quite conflicted, as I know Alex has been as well. We want to be here to see Egypt get the democratic, popularly-driven government it wants and deserves. This is the first time I’ve really wanted to be here in Egypt, felt real, deep affection for the people of Egypt. But if Mubarak doesn’t get his head out of his ass and step down by Friday, we’re afraid of what might happen after the afternoon sermon. The military still hasn’t said whose side they’re on, and the pro-Mubarak rally we saw this afternoon was unsettling at best. Discretion being the better part of valor, we’re running for the hills.

It’s not just our safety that’s driving us abroad. For three days, Egyptians have been begging us to get our pictures and experiences out to the rest of the world, to let them know what’s really happening here, and to urge our governments to support the protesters. All along, we’ve been promising to do just that, but we’ve only been able to get things out in bits and pieces over our periodic phone calls from home. Without Internet, the bulk of what we have to show and say to the world is trapped in Egypt. Not to mention that our family and friends are worried at best, frantic at worst, watching on CNN and Fox the repeated reports of looting, vandalism, anti-Americanism and violence in Egypt. If we leave the country, we can get the truth out and better support our Egyptian brothers and sisters in their struggle. We can do our part to put pressure on our government representatives to intervene. And with Skype, we can easily stay in touch with our friends here to keep the lines of communication open.

As I left Zamalek, it became more and more apparent that my taxi driver was an outspoken pro-Mubarak supporter. He had national radio on in the cab, and spoke at great length on how it’s time to end the violence and destruction, to reunite as one Egyptian people behind their president, and to restart an economy that was already failing. I’m reminded of a placard I saw yesterday at the Million Man March that read, “Egypt’s heart has stopped. We’re giving CPR.” As we came across the 6 October Bridge, there were few pro-Mubarak supporters in sight below. As we reached street-level, traffic was backed up as usual in the interchange near Ramsis street. “Did you ever think,” I joked with my driver, “that you’d be happy to see a traffic jam in Cairo? Things feel so normal again!” He agreed, assuring me that the worst was over and today would be the last day of protests. The government had already announced that Internet service would resume today, and by tomorrow the country would be back to normal, he said. I hope he’s right, but I’m skeptical.

Here in my apartment near Tahrir Square, things look quiet. My French roommate is moving the last of her things to her new apartment around the corner, a move she’s been planning on for a couple weeks now. My German roommate, meanwhile, filled up all the beds and couches in the apartment with protesters and foreign observers who hadn’t been able to go home last night. They are very apologetic about sleeping in my bed, but I’m glad to have been able to extend that service, even unknowingly, in support of the revolution. The Eritrean-German girl across the hall is back in her apartment, looking much more confident and optimistic than the last time I saw her.

11:30AM
My taxi to Dokki had to take the long way around, through Mounira down to the Botanical Garden, and then back up along the Nile to Tahrir Street in Dokki. These are mostly lower middle class neighborhoods, very different from Zamalek where I’ve been staying until today. As we drove through, things looked pretty normal. About two thirds of shops, restaurants and businesses seemed to be open. Despite widespread rumors of food shortages, especially bread, shelves seem to be pretty well stocked here and the usual street vendors are out selling government-subsidized bread. Traffic was still nothing like its usual snarl, but seemed to be up to almost half its usual volume. There were police deployed in their usual numbers. We passed several knots of protesters, but it was unclear which side they were on. Those holding signs on the square in front of the Sheraton seemed to be pro-Mubarak supporters, calling for national unity.

The best news is that Internet is now back up, and I can start putting up pictures and updating my blog again, not to mention reassuring the dozens of people who’ve sent emails, Facebook messages and posts and tweets to express their concern and lend their support. It makes me feel a little more guilty about leaving Egypt at this critical juncture, knowing that I could still get this information out if I stayed, but there’s no telling how long Internet will remain available, and discretion is still the better part of valor!

12:30PM
Before we got sucked into all the things we have to do on the Internet (and while it’s still night in America and no one in America is sitting by their email and Facebook in suspense), we decided to walk to Tahrir Square and see for ourselves what demonstrations look like today. On our way down the main street of Dokki, we were stopped by several groups of men who told us that “the real protest” (the pro-Mubarak protest) was in the other direction. As we crossed over onto Gezira Island, we noticed that almost all the taxis had “Yes to Mubarak” signs in their windshields. Not only that, but they were all relatively late-model taxis, which prompted Rachel to mention that there’s a government program that helps taxi drivers buy new vehicles. We suspect the government may have been using that as leverage to get these drivers out with a pro-government message.

As we crossed Kasr al-Aini Bridge, we started to get an uneasy feeling. All along the bridge there were knots of people arguing. Most were having pretty civil conversations. The anti-government protesters understand that real democracy means dialogue with the opposition, and they’re seeking opportunities to do that. They’re also whole-heartedly dedicated to non-violence, which includes verbal non-violence, and they were demonstrating that all along the bridge. The pro-Mubarak supporters, though, were very different. They were shouting, even screaming, with a very angry edge to their tones. And they were arriving by the minibus-full, as they were at yesterday’s pro-Mubarak rally down the Corniche. We’re pretty sure that they’re being bussed in by the government.

The closer we got to the military roadblock on the far side of the bridge, the more uneasy we became. Arguments became more and more heated, and there was a definite threat of violence in the air. We decided we didn’t want to take the risk of getting stuck on Tahrir Square if violence does break out, and retreated back to Dokki.

On our way back towards Dokki, Rachel was stopped by a father moving towards Kasr al-Aini Bridge with his five grown daughters. They had heard reports of violence breaking out on Tahrir Square, and were stopping people coming from that direction to see if they could get more information. As we talked to them, several knots of men tried to start an angry political discussion with the father, but he was very quietly refusing to engage in political debate, and asking only for the facts. Eventually, several anti-government protesters came by, pointing out that the anti-government faction was so much bigger than the pro-Mubarak faction that they would be crazy to start violence.

4:00PM
Andrew and Cosette are on Tahrir Square, where things are getting scary. Pro-Mubarak supporters have gotten onto Tahrir Square and are picking fights with anti-government protesters. Hoping to maintain a peaceful protest, the anti-government protesters are surrounding pro-government instigators, moving them off the square, and throwing over the fence in front of the Mugamma to be arrested by the military. We’ve urged Andrew and Cosette to get out of there quickly, before it gets worse.

Yesterday on Tahrir Square felt very much like I imagine it would have felt to be on the National Mall in Washington, DC, listening to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Today, though, it feels more like Birmingham, Alabama. Even under threat of very real violence against them, protesters continue to stand by their vow of nonviolence, the vast majority of them refusing to engage in violence even when they’ve been attacked and their lives are at very real risk. I can only hope that they can maintain the peace.

In the interim, someone’s mother has passed on the gist of an interview she saw with one of the “pro-Mubarak supporters.” Apparently he told journalists that he didn’t particularly want to be there, but that he works for the national petroleum company, and his superiors ordered him to Tahrir Square to support his president. None of us are the least bit surprised by this.

4:58PM
We’re watching on al-Jazeera English the action on Tahrir Square. There is definite violence happening on the street, with pro-government supporters attacking the thus-far peaceful protesters in running street battles, with the battle lines flowing back and forth. Anti-government protesters are holding their ground as best as they can without weapons. Pro-government “protesters” have hijacked several military trucks, are hurling rocks and bricks and other debris from rooftops onto the protesters below, and are attacking anti-government protesters from horse- and camel-back. The army is just standing by and watching. Rumor is that many of these instigators are plain-clothes or secret police sent by the Mubarak government to foment violence. Others are claiming that pro-Mubarak supporters have been delivered to points near the square in police transports. Foreign journalists are reporting that pro-Mubarak supporters have attacked them. Meanwhile, there are no ambulances around to take away the injured, whose numbers are growing.

5:26PM
The Government is claiming that there are no plain-clothes or secret police among the pro-Mubarak supporters, and that these are simply ordinary Egyptians coming out to protest the violence and instability that has filled their streets for the last nine days. Of course, this jives with Mubarak’s attempt last night to paint himself as a force for stability and order. Moreover, the army is not making any effort to stop the pro-Mubarak supporters from their frightening acts of violence. That seems a pretty fair indication that the military has taken the side of the regime. The government is also denying that shots have been fired, though of course reporters have them on tape by this time.

5:37PM
Buildings are burning and tear gas is billowing on Ramsis Street beside the Egyptian Museum. El-Baradei is calling for the army to intervene, but it’s clear they have no intention to do any such thing. One emergency vehicle is coming up the Corniche towards Tahrir as night falls, but it’s unlikely it will come close enough to the square to be of any assistance. Only one emergency vehicle is not going to help a conflict of this scale. Now a second is on its way, but it’s still a mere palliative.

10:19PM
After hours of relative quiet on Tahrir Square, now there’s gunfire sounding over the plaza. My German roommate is making frequent reports over Facebook on the state of things in the downtown. He’s been onto Tahrir Square several times with medical supplies, water and moral support. I’m concerned for his safety, but impressed by his dedication to Egypt’s cause. He says that it’s a war zone down there, and with very little help in sight. Among other things, he reports that they’ve given shelter in our apartment to a foreign journalist who was attacked by pro-Mubarak supporters near Tahrir Square. I know a couple of German journalists who previously lived in our building have also been using our apartment as one their refuges.

My roommate also works with refugees in his usual job, and considers many of them his friends. As he gets them, he’s posting updates on Facebook about the refugee experience in the revolution. On a good day, it’s tough to be a refugee in Egypt, where unemployment is so high and wages so low for Egyptian citizens that they begrudge every pound spent on refugees they didn’t ask for. Now, with most ATMs out of cash and all the banks closed, UNHCR has been unable to pay out the usual food stipends that refugees depend on. At the same time, with rampant rumors of food shortages, shops are refusing to sell to refugees. This evening, as violence broke out on Tahrir Square, it’s also breaking out in refugee neighborhoods across the city, and many of the city’s Sudanese, Somali, Iraqi and other refugees now fear for their lives.

11:30PM
I’ve just spoken to an old Peace Corps friend, Ashley Bates, who works as a journalist with Mother Jones. I’ve linked in the past to her excellent reporting on the Gaza Strip, where she lived for a year as a freelance reporter, so she can relate more than almost anyone else I know to what it’s been like here. I’m not sure if it was an interview exactly, or just checking in and getting some background, but either way it was great to talk to her. She’s been tracking the experiences of Sudanese refugees in this crisis, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, and other stories periphery to the street fighting. She’s putting me in touch with some of her other contacts, as well.

Thursday, 3 February 2011, 8:11AM
I’m at the airport. We decided it was best to leave Dokki as early as possible, to be sure that we could find a cab and get through the streets before too many pro- or anti-government protesters were awake and, in the case of the former, spoiling for a fight. As we walked out towards the main thoroughfare, there were amateur roadblocks set up every hundred meters or so, and a cluster of tough-looking men standing on the corner between the King Hotel and the Wafd Party offices. The neighborhood was well-protected and showed no signs of any sort of struggle last night. Out on Tahrir Street, it was easy to flag down a taxi. We didn’t even bother to ask about price, just deciding among ourselves that we’d pay LE150, a little more than twice the usual fare to the airport, and be glad to get there safe and sound. After all, it’s a number easily divisible by 3!

Our taxi was stopped once on the Dokki side by a neighborhood watch who wanted to see the driver’s license and peek in the trunk, but everyone was very calm and collected about it, and we went on easily enough. The streets were virtually empty, except for the overpasses on the east end of the 6 October Bridge. We’d seen footage on al-Jazeera last night of pro-government supporters throwing stones and Molotov cocktails off those overpasses on the anti-government protesters below. Men were still clustered between burnt-out carcasses of cars along those overpasses, brandishing machetes, kitchen knives, and big sticks. I’m just glad not to have seen any guns. After that it was smooth sailing through virtually deserted streets to the airport.

It’s crowded here, with long lines at the Domestic Departures end of Terminal 3, and every seat filled with people waiting for later flights here at the International Departures end. Emma and Sarah have gone through the first security checkpoint to Check-In. I’ve been told to wait out in the Entrance Hall until 1:30, as my flight will not leave till quarter of five. But I managed to find an electrical outlet to plug in my laptop (the battery only lasts about 20 minutes these days) and am settled in for the long haul on the floor along the wall. Now that I’m here at the airport, I feel safer than I have in more than a day. My flight is as scheduled, as have almost all flights been in the last 48 hours. We’ve heard that they’re loading people on their planes as soon as they’re checked in and through security, instead of the usual loitering in the terminal, so that when the plane is cleared for take-off, they can leave immediately.

I was telling the girls, it’s been a long time since I’ve been this emotional about flying, maybe even since I left for Switzerland at 16. I’ve been doing my best to pull what my mother calls “the stoic Maryah act,” but one thing’s for sure: I’ll never be a war reporter! Yesterday was really scary, and no one knows if today and especially tomorrow (Friday) will be any better. I’m incredibly excited for Egypt right now. For the first time, people have a pride in their country and a sense of agency to improve it that I’ve never seen. At the same time, I worry that things may get far worse before they get better. I’m sorry to go, but also relieved.

As I leave for Jordan, let me also put to rest any concerns you may have about Jordan. As an expression of how different the conditions are in Egypt and Jordan, take demonstrations last Friday. While the Egyptian police met protesters with teargas and rubber bullets, the Jordanian police met protesters with Pepsi and sandwiches. They handed out a light lunch, King Abdullah went on state television and said he’d make some changes, people said, “We just wanted to know you were listening,” and they went home. In the last six years that I’ve been following Jordan’s politics, I can assure you that asking for the resignation of the Jordanian government is a normal thing for King Abdullah. It happens about every 6 months or so. Furthermore, anyone who’s been to both Jordan and Egypt can tell you that the situations there are completely different. Jordan is a relatively poor country, but it does not have the kind of abject poverty you find in Egypt, and certainly not on the scale you see in Egypt. Jordan is a stable country. None of my dozens of friends there are the least bit worried, which includes officials of both the Jordanian and American governments, activist bloggers, expats and ordinary Jordanians. There are always changes being asked for in Jordan, but the people know that King Abdullah has their best interests at heart, and they see things getting better all the time.

The Lotus Revolution Picks Up Steam

Cairo, Egypt

Tuesday, February 01, 2011, 8:30AM
Down the street at the AUC dorms, all the CASA Fellows met up with our director to get our monthly stipend. It was great to see everybody, assure ourselves that we’re okay and even excited to be here in this historic time. Meanwhile, the lobby of the dorm was filling up with students who were getting ready to evacuate. It’s amazing to think that my fellow CASA students are most of them just a year or less away from being undergraduates. The difference in our very enthusiastic and engaged group of scholars and the very nervous, subdued undergrads waiting for evacuation was almost tangible. While many of them are here taking theoretical classes on Middle Eastern politics or literature on the pristine little bubble of the New Campus, many of us are students of revolution with experience living in Yemen, Lebanon, and even Iraq. This kind of experience is the bread and butter of many of my colleagues’ specialties, and we’re actually quite excited to be here to witness history (and more than a little aware of how it will look in a cover letter, job interview or grad school application to be able to say that we lived through the Lotus Revolution!). As I said on NPR last night, we’re proud to support the best chance of real change in Middle East authoritarianism in a long time.

10:30AM
A steady stream of protestors was coming across Kasr al-Aini to Tahrir Square, enthusiastic and positive. Where men would normally be leering and harassing us as we cross the bridge, instead they were stopping to tell us their political aspirations, to thank us for supporting their cause, and to have their pictures taken with their signs. As we came up to the military roadblock at Tahrir Square, we were waved right through, and then stopped by a line of protestors providing their own security. They were dividing incoming protestors by gender for pat-downs, to go through their bags, and to read their placards to make sure they’re appropriate. It’s impressive to see how organized and thoughtful the protestors have been, how pro-active in not only organizing the protests over the last year, but also the measures they’ve taken to make sure the people are peaceful, that they’re fed so they won’t break into any more restaurants or stores, and generally assuring the military has no reason to use force.

There were a wide variety of protestors in Tahrir Square today. Not only signs, but effigies of Mubarak hanging from the streetlights, men in shrouds laid out on the ground in “die-ins,” bullhorns leading the chanting, and much more. There were a lot more women today, and a lot more women in niqab and long khimar and other conservative dress. We felt like we were seeing more men with beards as well. Sheikhs from al-Azhar University, the most respected institution of Islamic law in the world, were out in full force in their distinctive red and white Ottoman turbans. There were also a lot more people who didn’t speak English, who were not educated in international and private schools, who were clearly of the middle and even lower classes. This crowd seemed like a truer cross-section of Egyptian society. It was still dominated by young intellectuals, but it’s now evident that the Facebook generation is expressing frustrations that are felt across all socio-economic levels.

Easily identified as foreigners, we were stopped repeatedly by Egyptians with a plea and a message. “You’ll show these pictures to the Americans, right? You’ll show them what’s really happening in Egypt!” As we agreed, we wished fervently for Internet to be restored so we could make good on those promises. We were also witness to many harangues about the American government. Egyptians have had extraordinarily high hopes for Obama, perhaps unreasonably high hopes (as have many Americans, I must add!), and they are furious that the Obama Administration can’t take a stand with the people against Mubarak. We foreigners find ourselves equally furious. There is real Thomas-Jefferson-and-Martin-Luther-King democracy going on today in the streets of Cairo, and we don’t understand how Obama can fail to support it.

11:30AM
We’re back on the square after a quick trip to my apartment, and numbers have swelled considerably in just the half hour we were down the street. Hundreds are lined up on each side of all the streets leading into Tahrir, waiting for a security check by teams of protesters. The girls who’ve patted me down and gone through my bag have been very apologetic about the intrusion, but I am anything but bothered. In fact, as I’ve told them all, I’m very glad to see them making sure that there’s security and peaceful protest on the square. I’m so impressed by the organization and responsibility and leadership that protesters have shown over the last few days. It reminds me of the aftermath of the Cairo Meeting in October, when volunteers who had never before had an opportunity for leadership suddenly discovered the sense of pride and fulfillment that comes from volunteering and leadership. I see the same spirit on Tahrir Square today, and the same exuberant feeling of community. It’s like they’ve suddenly woken up and realized that they can have a say in their future, that they can build a better nation for themselves, and that there’s a vast community of like-minded people - instant friends – that will stand beside them as they do.

2:00PM
There must be almost a million people, maybe more, on Tahrir Square by now. It’s an amazing sight, an amazing atmosphere. They’re chanting, they’re praying together in massive unified rows, they’re hanging effigies of Hosni Mubarak from the traffic lights. They’re painting a massive banner that says “The people want to change the regime.” We’re packed in shoulder to shoulder, back to front, and I with my claustrophobia and my constant distrust of Arab men should be really uncomfortable, but that’s not the case at all! In fact, I feel quite safe, like I’m part of a community of like-minded people. Occasionally people come over to complain to us about the Obama Administration’s unwillingness to take the side of the demonstrators, a frustration we share whole-heartedly. Sometimes their harangues are quite heated. One man, if we weren’t such good Arabic speakers, would have been absolutely terrifying. Egyptians tend to be loud people by nature, and this man was shouting at the top of his lungs, with a big graying beard and spittle flying, and I could suddenly understand why foreign correspondents who didn’t speak Arabic might be saying that there was a threat to foreigners from the protesters. But I don’t feel that at all.

In fact, we’ve run into a crowd of foreigners, including my journalist friend Sylvia and some of her Italian, American and other friends, holding signs with slogans like, “The foreigners in Egypt are with the people of Egypt,” or “We support the choice of the people of Egypt,” and “Game over, Obama!” They are drawing quite an excited crowd of Egyptians, filming them on their mobile phones, thanking them for support, giving them messages to deliver to their governments. A few feet away, a father and his daughters ask me to take their picture, holding signs saying “The children of Egypt want Mubarak to leave,” and “Leave, Mubarak! Tel Aviv is waiting for you!” The only foreign government the Egyptians seem to be more mad at than the Obama Administration is the Netanyahu government. After three decades of Mubarak’s propaganda machine deflecting all his people’s rage off himself onto Israel, now Israel has come out more strongly than any other government in support of Mubarak. The feeling here is definitely, if Tel Aviv wants him, they can take him, because Cairo won’t have him!

3:26PM
Alex, Lev and I have just gotten home from our observation of the protestors. As we were walking along the edge of the island looking over at the downtown, we found ourselves curious about the pro-Mubarak counter-demonstration we could see in front of the Foreign Ministry at the foot of 6 October Bridge. We stopped to ask a man along the way if he could make out what they were chanting across the river. At that moment, their slogan was “Stop the destruction!” he said, but they were shouting a variety of things. Mostly, he said, they were angry about the vandalism and violence, and the disruption to their livelihoods, and were ready for order to be restored to their country. That didn’t seem so unreasonable. But then it became apparent that he wasn’t just watching the pro-Mubarak demonstration, he approved of it. He started telling us what a force for stability Hosni Mubarak was in Egypt, that he had ruled in wartime and peacetime and was good for Egypt. At that moment, a group of men was walking past, and they were incensed by his little speech. They started scolding him for filling the poor foreigners’ heads with all this nonsense. When he started defending his point of view, the loudest of the other men kept repeating, “Have respect for yourself, man!” Things started to get emotional, and we took that as our cue to leave.

Having had that impassioned introduction, though, we wanted to get a closer look at the demonstration. As we walked across 6 October Bridge, the first thing I noticed was that people – mostly young men – were arriving by the minibus-load, not on foot as they were in Tahrir Square. I began to wonder in earnest then how sincere these demonstrators were. I remember during the recent parliamentary elections hearing stories from multiple sources of the NDP riding around the poorer neighborhoods, handing out 20 pound notes to anyone who would jump in the microbus and go off to the polling stations to vote for the NDP. In some neighborhoods, according to youth from Cairo University, votes could be bought for as little as a falafel sandwich (market value 1 Egyptian pound). I wonder how much it takes to convince angry, unemployed young men to go to a pro-Mubarak rally?

When we arrived at the other side of the bridge, on the edge of a significantly poorer neighborhood than the Tahrir Square area, we immediately sensed a difference. Instead of the camaraderie of Tahrir, the atmosphere was contentious. People were in shouting matches with a sharp, angry edge. There was an edge of violence in the air, and we quickly decided that we didn’t want to come any closer than the edge of the bridge, about 200m from the demonstration.

Now that we’re home, we’re plugged back into Al-Jazeera English. They’re saying that the youth movement Kafiya has formed a 10-person organizing committee which is offering to begin a dialogue with Sulaiman, but not Mubarak. Al-Jazeera is estimating up to 2 million protesters in Tahrir and the surrounding streets, 250,000 in Al-Arish in the Sinai, hundreds of thousands in Alexandria, plus protests in Suez, Mansouria, Ismailia, Luxor, Aswan, Tanta, Kufr Sheikh, Mahalla, etc. Based on al-Jazeera’s estimates, we estimate that there must be at least 4 million demonstrating across the country, or 5% of the population. Protesters on Tahrir Square are claiming (unverifiably) that 8 million people are marching across the nation, which would be 10% of the total population.

7:25PM
Egyptian state television has finally sent reporters to the protests, for the first time in a week of demonstrations. One of the first and best protected buildings in all of Egypt has been the Radio and Television Building on the Corniche, and they’ve shown no pictures at all of protestors up till now. Their reporters have thus far been clueless at best, outright liars at worst. They’ve reported on a mass prison break, which included political Palestinian prisoners. They’ve reported on the “heroic citizens” who have worked to defend their homes and national treasures. Finally, however, they’ve sent reporters to interview protesters, and Al-Jazeera says protesters on the square are interpreting it as a critical change in the government’s response to their demands.

7:35PM
Al-Jazeera is showing state television, and claiming that these are shots from Tahrir Square. As any beginning student of Arabic should know, though, the signs they’re showing on state television say “Yes to Mubarak!” Clearly this is the pro-government rally at 6 October Bridge, not Tahrir Square at all.

10:43PM
Sa’ad ad-Din Ibrahim, writer and activist, is on al-Jazeera English praising the young intellectuals who have brought about this peaceful “Lotus Revolution.” He is stressing that these protests have not been organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, but by young, secular, democratic, Westernized middle class young people. The Muslim Brotherhood is supporting regime change, but they are not the driving force behind this movement. He’s also speaking about the army, which has kept the trust of the people by living up to its promise not to use force against Egyptian civilians. His hope, and mine, is that the Egyptian army will take the traditional position of the Turkish army, as the guardian of democracy and secularism and peaceful demonstration. My fear, and my classmates’, is that the people are making a mistake by placing their faith in the military, which has not yet declared which side it’s on, but which is led by old cronies of President Mubarak.

Both the White House and President Mubarak are supposed to speak imminently, and we’re staying up to hear them both. Meanwhile, Egyptian state television is still showing images of “the protests,” but al-Jazeera English has now figured out that the signs saying “Yes to Mubarak” are from the little pro-Mubarak rally downstream, and not from Tahrir Square.

10:57PM
Pres. Mubarak is on State television. He’s praising the Egyptian people for exercising “their right to freedom of expression,” and condemning those who took advantage of those demonstrations to commit acts of violence. He goes on to extol the steps he took over the last week to reform the government in reaction to popular demands, and condemning those “political forces” that opposed his attempts to restore stability. He denies ever having any intention of running in the next presidential elections in September, or indeed ever seeking power except for the sake of his nation, but asserted his intention to stay in office until elections and supervise a peaceful transition to the next government. He’s calling on the Parliament to amend the qualifications for presidency in the constitution and in law, and for the Parliament to abide by rulings of the courts, especially regarding matters of electoral law. He promises economic and social reform. He’s charging the police to treat citizens with respect and dignity. He’s demanding that all measures be taken to bring to justice all looters, arsonists and other perpetrators of criminal acts.

It’s a preposterous speech, demonstrating once again how completely ignorant and blind Mubarak is to the realities of Egyptian life in general, and in particular to what’s happening on the streets right now. Demonstrators had set up televisions on Tahrir Square in anticipation of this speech, and their reaction was immediate and vehement. It was evident yesterday and this afternoon to anyone on the streets that protestors have no intention of stopping their demonstrations until Mubarak resigns and leaves the country, or is convicted and sentenced to death. They’re chanting, a million voices at once, “Leave, leave!” and “The people want the president to fall.”

"I Wanna Get Married," Now In English!

It can be difficult for an interested outsider to find a truly inside perspective on a country, especially one as controversial as the Arabic Republic of Egypt. Bloggers are on the forefront of change in that arena, however, writing honestly about what's really happening in countries where traditional media may be carefully controlled by the government. The author of the blog "I Wanna Get Married," now also a book and a TV series, is one such voice illustrating the everyday trials of an upper-middle class Egyptian woman in search of a husband.

A friend on Facebook recently put me onto this article, more on the academic side than my usual blogging style, that describes the so-called "marriage crisis" from the inside out.

"What distinguishes this latest round of marriage crisis debate is its coincidence with the popularity of ‘Ayiza Atgawwiz, a voice that claims to speak on behalf of single women. In her blog profile, Abdel Aal identified herself as one of Egypt’s 15 million single women between the ages of 25 to 35. Though she does not reveal how she obtained this improbable number, she does something far more powerful and provocative than add a statistic to the hubbub. She coopts the slur “spinster” and proclaims herself a spokesperson for this constituency. In doing so, Abdel Aal exposes the implicit threat concealed within the discussion of the marriage crisis affecting men: the fate of a nation full of unwed women in a society where marriage is the only legitimate outlet for sexual activity, particularly for women. As throughout the twentieth century, the press debates on the marriage crisis have focused overwhelmingly on bachelors and their reasons for not marrying. Rather than ask women why they are not marrying, analysts have assumed that they must be the main reason for men’s abstention from marriage and thus a persistent obstacle to the course of nature. These female thirty-somethings are said to be materialistic, and too career-oriented, educated or “liberated” to make proper wives, not because they wish it so, but because men could not possibly choose them as partners. A single woman like Abdel Aal, who has made a career of explaining why she is not married, reverses the gender roles that maintain the social order. If throngs of single and not-so-young women like her are actively resisting marriage, they may be more subversive to the nation than the bachelors and their supposedly inadequate pool of potential brides."

It's a bit long, but if you're interested in what the feminist movement looks like in Egypt these days, not to mention the marriage crisis, this is a good place to start!

Sharia and Siyasa

Cairo, Egypt

American University in Cairo inaugurated its new Law School yesterday, in conjunction with the History Department, with a fascinating lecture by the Chair of the History Department Dr. Khalid Fahmy on sharia and siyasa in Egypt’s legal history. His research in the Cairo archives is revealing a very different picture of sharia and Islamic law than is commonly espoused by both Orientalists and Islamists.  I would definitely recommend looking up some of his work (I will be!), but here are the highlights:

“Siyasa” in the contemporary context translates as “politics,” but in the 1820s-1870s referred instead to a late Ottoman, pre-colonial secular court system that complemented the religious sharia courts.  The latter are limited in a number of ways.  Sharia courts can only bring a verdict if the next-of-kin demand it, and must drop a case if the next-of-kin do not wish to pursue their right to retribution. In the case that any of the next-of-kin are under the age of majority, the case cannot be dismissed until all relatives have reached the age of majority. Furthermore, convictions can only be handed down if the accused confesses, or if a minimum number of reliable eyewitnesses can be established. In essence, the sharia courts only adjudicate verbal cases between families, not between the individual and his government. In short, sharia curtails the cycle of revenge and retribution that was tearing Arab society apart at the time of the Prophet Mohammad.

In contrast, “siyasa” in the Ottoman sense is that system of courts and rulings that regulates offenses against government.  Traditionally, this involved cases of bribery, embezzlement and misuse of power.  In the 1820s-1870s in Egypt, however, it also came to oversee and supplement the sharia court system. After a ruling had been made by the Islamic sharia court, it would come to this secular siyasa court or council.  This council included muftis who reviewed the sharia court’s rulings and assured that its judges really understood their responsibilities under sharia law. Whether the sharia court had rightfully dismissed the case or ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the siyasa court then had the authority to re-examine the case using, not spoken evidence, but physical evidence, including forensic science. Generally, the siyasa court then issued an additional punishment on top of the sharia court’s punishment, intended “as a warning to others,” i.e. to enforce the power of the state.

All of this is fascinating, but what’s particularly salient is the light it sheds on the current claims about sharia law, both by the Islamists who advocate a return to pure sharia, and by the Orientalists who reject sharia as barbaric and backwards. Strict Salafi Islamists have been calling for decades for a legal system based entirely and solely on sharia, rejecting the extant secular court systems in Muslim countries as unduly influenced by the West and as un-Islamic. Many Orientalists reject the sharia courts as having outlived their usefulness, relegating them to personal status law (marriage, divorce, inheritance), and labeling them an affront to liberal Western ideas of secular justice. Moderates find themselves in an identity crisis, a clash of civilizations, between the Islamist and Orientalist critiquesof a dual religious/secular court system. However, 19^th century accounts about the dual sharia and siyasa justice systems give no indication of an identity crisis or a clash of civilizations. In fact, new research is revealing that all Islamic states since the Ummayad Caliphate in the 7th Century have used an additional, complementary legal system to strengthen sharia, not weaken it. In this regard, both Islamists’ and Orientalists’ understanding of sharia law is inaccurate.

A Linguistic Sidenote
As I listened to this lecture, I was reminded of something our professor Wael said in class this week about the origins of the word “sharia [shari3a].” Though we now understand sharia to be a system of Islamic law, in fact it is derived from the same root as shara3a [road]. Before Islam, the word meant “a path leading to water,” i.e. the path to survival in the desert. In Islamic terms, it means the path toward righteousness, towards heaven, towards right relationships with your fellow man and God. It reminded me of a sermon I heard at my UU church in high school about the word “sin,” which derives originally from the Greek word meaning “to stray from the path,” i.e. from the path towards righteousness and heaven. Thus, in Islamic terms, to sin is to stray from sharia, and to accept punishment from a sharia court is to return one’s soul to the path towards righteousness. Wael will be teaching a course in the spring about how pre-Islamic and early Islamic Bedouin culture influenced the Arabic language, shaped the Arab worldview, and can get in the way of non-Bedouins, both Westerners and settled/urban Arabs, seeking to understand the Arabic language.

Of Mosques and Tea Parties

Cairo, Egypt

It seems America is always doing something to make me squirm whenever I'm abroad. In Switzerland, it was Columbine and Monica Lewinsky. In Germany, it was that spy plane over China. In England, it was the talk about invading Iraq. In Jordan, it was Abu Ghraib Prison and the re-election of George W. Bush (among other things). When I came back to Jordan, it was failing to speak up against the Gaza War. I know my country isn't trying to embarrass me on purpose, and I guess it's hard to avoid when you're the only superpower of your age.

All this week in class, we've been talking about the Cordoba Center, the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" that's not a mosque and not really all that close to Ground Zero, either, according to my friends who live in New York City. Not just the Cordoba Center, but also the locally controversial mosques in Murfreesboro, TN; Temecula, CA; Sheboygan, WI; and others. Not to mention that crazy minister in Gainesburg, FL, who organized a Qur'an-burning party. We're not only speaking about it in class, but it's been a hot topic among my friends on Facebook, too, whether in Egypt, Jordan or the United States, whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish or otherwise.

I just want to put my opinion out there, one that may be influenced by my background as a child of Mayflower families, and a student in William Penn's colony.

The United States is a nation settled, founded and populated on principles of freedom, including the freedoms of religion and assembly enshrined in our very founding documents. I would venture to guess that more than half of Americans are descended from immigrants who came to the Americas seeking religious freedoms: Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Amish, Mennonites, Jews, Tibetan Buddhists, Uygher Muslims, Shi'ites, Sufis, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, agnostics, atheists, humanists.... They have all faced discrimination in America, too, but one by one they become accepted and eventually pass into complete anonymity. "They hate us for our freedoms," said Jon Stewart on the Daily Show (referring to the terrorists, of course), "so is this any time to be exercising those freedoms?" If not now, then when?

But I would also like to point out, especially to my Muslim friends in the Arab world, the bright side of this controversy. For every protest against the building or expansion of a mosque in America, there has usually been a significantly larger counter-protest. Gainesburg's proposed Qur'an burning party is not the norm for that multicultural, welcoming city. Moreover, pro-mosque rallies tend to be led by priests, ministers, rabbis, and other religious and secular leaders who are not Muslim, but who understand the lesson of the German pastor Martin Niemoller:

"When they came for the Jews, I did nothing, for I am not a Jew. When they came for the Socialists, I did nothing, for I am not a Socialist. When they came for the labor leaders, the homosexuals, the gypsies, I did nothing, for I am none of these, and when they came for me, I was alone, there was no one to stand up for me."

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Muslims say, "America is the best place in the world to be a Muslim," whether because of the freedom to practice whatever their personal interpretation of the religion, or because living in an open, pluralistic society like the United States forces you to examine and more deeply understand your religious beliefs. Feisal Abdul Rauf, one of the Cordoba Center's organizers, wrote a wonderful book titled What's Right With Islam Is What's Right With America, arguing that America's values and religious freedoms are exactly why it's such a great place to be a Muslim, and the American government sends him around the Muslim world to tell people and governments how important freedom of religion is for Islam's future.

I want to see America reach the full potential to which her founders aspired. After all, the first nation to recognize the United States as an independent, sovereign nation was a Muslim nation, Morocco.

One-Track Minds!

Egypt, Cairo

I've had 3 conversations in Arabic this week, two with taxi drivers, one with the plumber. They all came back to the same topic: sex. Surprise, surprise, I know!

But it's a little (just a little!) more complicated than that. It starts out as a conversation about relationships more generally.

"Is it true that Americans really have boyfriends and girlfriends, just like that?" Cairo is notorious in the Arab world for the growing number of boy-girl relationships you can find here. Find any bridge over the Nile at and after sunset, and you'll find dozens of these couples, holding hands and talking. But it's controversial.

"And your parents know? They don't disapprove?" This is the real sticking point for Cairenes - and Jordanians, for that matter. Despite the rising prevalence of dating, it's almost always done clandestinely. It's okay for men to date, but it's a terrible shame on the family for a girl to be involved in a relationship, however chaste, before marrying. In fact, it can get her killed by family members.

"And American couples ... they have sex?" Because this is the most baffling thing of all about Americans and Europeans dating before marriage. Virginity is still a highly prized commodity in the Arab world, so much so that girls will spend thousands of dollars to have their hymens restored before marriage, just to avoid any hint of shame.

"And what if there's a baby? Whose name will they give it?" Not who will take care of it, but whose name will the baby take. Perhaps one question is a proxy for the other, but it's an indication of the vital importance of family ties, of paternity and acknowledgment in Arab culture.

They're interesting conversations, for sure ... but not conversations I want to keep having with my cab drivers!

Egyptian Fashion

First Impressions

Cairo, Egypt

I've been thinking about this entry since I arrived in Egypt, and after discussing hijab in my MSA class all week, it seemed the perfect time to get it out there.

Now, when I discussed this idea with my new roommate Nellie, who has lived in Cairo for 4 years, she took issue with several of my observations. Bear in mind that they are only first impressions. That said, many of my classmates have lived in Egypt before, and the professor has lived here all his life, and they tended to agree with most of what I'm about to say. My search for good photos also revealed this blogger who agrees with many of my observations, as well as expounding quite beautifully on many more of her own.

This is the photograph in my textbook:

The two women on the left are wearing the chimar, the third woman is wearing the niqab, and the woman on the right is wearing the hijab. In Amman, the hijab is the primary mark of modesty you'll see, and rarely falls much below the shoulders. In rural southern Jordan, you see a lot of niqab, but not so much in the places I've lived. Here in Cairo, the niqab is far more prevalent, and even more so in the villages we passed returning from the North Shore. The chimar is rare in Jordan, but very prevalent here, perhaps especially among middle-aged women and under the niqab. The girls on the right side of this picture are also wearing skirts, which are much more popular here than in Jordan; in this weather, I prefer them, too!

I've also seen a lot more chador here, like the women in the background of this picture:

I generally associate these with Shi'ites, particularly Iraqis and Iranians. Our professor says that they are a very new phenomenon in Egypt, only becoming popular in the last few years. I've seen some very interesting use of the chador, too, incorporating it into a headscarf.

There's also a marked difference in style. In Jordan, most women wear their headscarves not much below the shoulders, if not tucked right into their shirt collars. Here in Egypt, however, fashion seems to favor very long hijab, falling to the waist, hip or even knee:

From Moving to Egypt

There are more images in my Web Album, but you get the picture. It makes me wonder if this style of hijab isn't somehow cooler, and thus more suited to this climate. A style that definitely is cooler is the so-called "Spanish style" that leaves the neck exposed:

From Moving to Egypt

I got this image from The Hijab Blog, an interesting site by a Canadian woman who just adores Cairene hijab fashion.

Another popular trend I've noticed is the layered look:

From Moving to Egypt

This I confess to not understanding at all, as this style must be HOT in Egyptian weather.

In general, I would say that Egyptian girls are more likely to wear hijab than Jordanians, and more likely to wear a more conservative style. This was primarily where my roommate and I disagreed, she claiming that plenty of girls wore "hijab in name only," paired with clothes so tight and revealing that they may as well not bother with the scarf. I've certainly seen those girls here, and there are plenty of them, but not nearly as many as I'm used to seeing in Amman, or even in more rural parts of northern Jordan.

A Note On Terminology
What you will not see in Egypt (nor probably in France, England, or anywhere else that it's generating legal controversy) is the burka, a distinctive and comprehensive covering pretty much exclusive to Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

This is not a burka; it's a niqab, but with an extra layer of material covering the eyes:

Hospitality Is In the Eyes of the Beholder

Aqaba, Jordan

My Lower Intermediate students were reading a text in New Headway Plus about the souqs of Marrakesh. It describes how the carpet seller welcomes you into his shop, pulls out rug after rug, brings you tea....

“Now, there’s real hospitality!” my students said. It was a good salesman, they said, who anticipated his customer’s needs before the customer, who brought out tea, who engaged the customer in conversation.

It started an interesting conversation about differing ideas of hospitality. To most Westerners, what Arabs consider good hospitality and customer service is too intrusive, too pushy. When we walk into a shop, we want to be left alone to look by ourselves, with the shop assistant on hand to answer our questions if we have them. Arabs consider this extraordinarily bad customer service; they expect the shopkeeper to strike up a conversation with them from the moment they walk into the shop, and they don't feel that such a conversation constitutes pressure to buy something as we in the West often do. It was one of the many cultural adjustments I had to make as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and one that I still struggle with 4 years later!

No Honor Among Teachers

Marj al-Hamam, suburban Amman, Jordan

I find all my conversations turning to education in Jordan recently. Perhaps it's partly Nas's recent posts on education and the long comments I left on this one. As Jordan slips further into recession, and slips on the Freedom House scale from "partly free" to "not free," reforms of all sorts seem more important and elusive than ever. It may just be because I'm a teacher, but I feel very strongly that none of these reforms are possible without a foundation of education reform.

King Abdullah II's Jordan First and National Agenda programs both included comprehensive education reforms, and the Amman Message also calls for more critical thinking in religious and civic curricula. There have been significant (though hardly sufficient) improvements made to the national curriculum and teacher training, both in universities and in-service training (for those teachers who can actually attend). But none of that means anything if teachers aren't appropriately compensated.

The average public school teacher makes less than $350 a month, and is technically forbidden by the Ministry of Education from holding another job. In practice, of course, most male teachers are also doing private tutoring or teaching at after-school centers, as salaries are well below the cost of living for most people.

The student who comes most regularly to Bell's free Conversation Club on Thursdays is a physics teacher, Firas. Today he explained to me that he has 3 jobs and works an average of 18-20 hours per day, sleeping an average of 3 hours a night. In addition, he's taking English classes in hopes of being able to get a higher-paying job, perhaps $500 a month, teaching at a private school. He's also taking an International Computer Driving License course, a U.N. certification he will have to obtain to keep his teaching job with the Ministry.

Teachers in the U.S. or Europe would have gone on strike 5 years ago, when wages had already been stagnant for 8 years, and the cost of living suddenly doubled as a result of the Iraq War. As far as I can tell, though, there's no teachers' union in Jordan. Teachers have been voicing their discontent, but the government's response has been less than encouraging.

A prime example is this week's announcement by the Minister of Education. In response to teachers' complaints about wages, he made a statement on public television. Perhaps, he opined, if teachers shaved in the morning and ironed their clothes, it might be worth giving them a raise. He said this on public television.

As a result of this and other abuses, teachers feel undervalued and unsupported. They work 7:40-2:00, and whatever can't be finished in that time doesn't get done. They never take grading or lesson planning home. In fact, where lesson planning goes, after their first year of teaching, they just copy last year's lesson plans into this year's notebook. Any education reform, no matter how well-intentioned or theoretically sound, is doomed to failure in the face of completely understandable teacher apathy.

Firas was telling me of his and his friends' attempts to marry. When his friends have gone to meet the fathers of the girls they're hoping to marry, of course they are asked about their jobs. They are all teachers. Fathers say, "I've even had taxi drivers want to marry my daughter and turned them away!" Even as cheap as taxi fare is here, and as high as the overhead is in that industry, taxi drivers can still make 2 or 3 times as much as a teacher.

It's a real shame, given the history of the Arab world. Students would come from the very ends of the known earth - China, Morocco, Tanzania, Zanzibar - to study with the great Arab masters in Kufa, Basra and Andalusia. Abbassid Baghdad was a Mecca of great learning. Teachers and scholars garnered the highest respect in that world. How different the world would have been if they hadn't been able to preserve all the masterpieces of the Classical world? That kind of respect inspired greatness. JD150 a month inspires apathy. Can you blame them?

Rainy Bliss

Amman, Jordan

From A Rainy Day In

I love rainy weekends. Not just because Jordan so badly needs the rain. I love the sound of the rain. I love being snuggled up in my bed listening to it out the window. Despite the cold, I've got my window cracked open so I can hear it better.

I like the rain as an excuse to sleep in, relax, catch up on my blogging, my emails, my job apps, my reading, my PBS Frontline and Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me! episodes, my cross-stitching, my scrapbooking, my creative writing. It gives me an excuse to not get dressed, not leave the house, not speak to anyone but my roommates, without feeling too terribly like a hermit.

I think it's time I revived Introvert Days. It was something I discovered the first time I was in Jordan, and that got me through grad school. Once a week, I would stay home, in my pajamas, and do things purely for myself, by myself. It took a long time to convince my neighbors in the village that this was a good thing. Arabs are generally terrified to be alone, and so they assumed that I was, too, and it took me a long time to convince them not to send their daughters over to my house to keep me company on Friday afternoons. But it was a necessary psychological defense.

These days, with Bell Amman growing by leaps and bounds, I think I need that refuge again. We've got full schedules, and most of our part-time teachers teaching full schedules, too. When I go to Aqaba to teach this intensive course, it's hard to say just what we're going to do to cover my classes. All of this is a good thing. It means that we might start to turn a profit sometime soon. In some ways, though, it makes work more stressful than ever, and regular Introvert Days more necessary.

Plus, check out the cool photos I got of an impressive thunder and hail storm:

From A Rainy Day In

Meanwhile, my roommates Ryan and Melanie had a very different idea of how to spend their rainy day:

From A Rainy Day In

Airport Vignettes

Vicissitudes of Check-In

I can't keep track of all the regulations for luggage - how many bags you can take without paying extra, how heavy they can be, what your carry-on can weigh - so every time I walk up to check-in, I start to worry what it's going to cost me (to date, despite many overweight bags, just one luggage fee of $200 for my first bag for a domestic US flight). At the Air France counter, the man next to me was getting nailed for every extra half kilo by the woman at the counter. (I couldn't help wondering if it was because he looked Middle Eastern.) The ticket agent checking my passport kept looking over and saying, "Is that a regulation?" to which she would snap, "Yes, it's a regulation! And this is a full flight, so we have to be really strict!" So I was pretty worried, because I was pretty sure that my bag was overweight. But when I loaded it on the scale, my ticket agent (a very cute young man) didn't even turn on the scale, and didn't even blink when he hauled it off again on his side. Check-in is so arbitrary!

"Random" Check

I felt so bad on my way through security for the poor young man, about 19, in a big ghetto sweatshirt and über-baggy jeans, with a big "Arab-fro" (you know, like a "Jew-fro" - see picture - except darker!) who got pulled aside at least 4 times for extra inspections. Extra check on his passport, then patted down even though he didn't set off the alarm, including having a TSA man put his hands all through the guy's hair, and then making him take everything out of his carry-on for inspection. And as I walked away, I saw him putting back into his bag an enormous manual on passing your FAA certification....

I mean, I understand the importance of the job TSA does. I both admire and pity them for it. They have to rely on racial profiling, even though they deny it. El Al is right when they say it's the only way to be effective. But, honestly, if you were a terrorist, would you put on such an distinctively rebellious look? Wouldn't you want to look inconspicuous, in bootleg jeans and a T-shirt with an unremarkable hairstyle? This kid, Arab though he clearly was, didn't look like a terrorist. Quite the opposite. He looked like a teenager rebelling against his conservative parents by embracing Western culture. He also looked used to this. Like all my Arab-American friends, I'm sure he gets pulled aside for "random" inspections every time he flies....

Jordanians Abroad

I seemed to run into them everywhere I went. At the airport, I found myself sitting next to an older couple, the woman wearing hijab. When the ground crew gave instructions for boarding, it was with a very thick French accent, and the woman started asking her husband in Arabic what was going on. He didn't know, so I jumped in and explained. "Are you Arab?" she asked, very confused.
"No, I'm American."
"Where did you learn your Arabic?"
"Oh, I've been living in Jordan."
"Really? We're Iraqi, but we've been living in Jordan for 22 years."
In the end, I got an invitation to dinner at their house with "some real Iraqi food"!