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July 29th, 2008
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Arabeyes: Head Over Heels for Muhannad
A strange phenomenon has gripped the Arab world, and for the first time in a long while, Arabs seem to agree on something. It is an infatuation with a Turkish soap opera, dubbed in Arabic, and its stunning star Muhanned (played by Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ), whose romantic trysts are beamed on television screens across the region.
The obsession of some people with the soap has also prompted leading Islamic clergymen, like Grand Mufti of the Islamic world, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Al Shaikh, from Saudi Arabia, to issue a fatwa (religious edict) banning the drama, saying watching it is Haram (a sin).
What do bloggers have to say?
Jordan:
Osama Romoh [Ar] is annoyed with how a local newspaper is using the show's popularity to drive away attention from more pressing issues at home.
أستنكر ربط مسلسل نور بانخفاض أزمات المرور، هل هو استخفاف بعقول القراء..؟ هل القارئ غبي لدرجة أنه لا يستطيع ربط ارتفاع البنزين وعزوف الوافدين والخليجيين والسياح عن زيارة الأردن في الصيف وقيام الكثيرين بالتخلي عن سياراتهم والاعتماد على أقدامهم “كعّابي” بانخفاض أزمات المرور ..؟
حسناً، إذا نجحت الصحافة المحلية في إلهاء المواطنين عن ارتفاع أسعار المحروقات باللعب على وتر مسلسل نور، فلا أستبعد أن يأتي يوم نقرأ فيه خبر بعنوان: “توم وجيري يساهمان في تقليل جرائم الشرف في الأردن”.. أو خبر آخر بعنوان: “الرجل الحديدي يتدخل لحل أزمة المياه في الأردن”.
لقد قامت الصحافة العربية عامةً، والأردنية خاصة بإعطاء مسلسل نور حجماً ومساحة في صفحاتها أكثر من اللازم، أتساءل إن كان هذا “الترويج” مدفوعاً..!
وفي النهاية.. اصحوا.
I condemn relating the drop in the number of accidents to the soap opera Noor. Are they making fun of their readers? Is the reader so stupid that he cannot figure out that traffic accidents have dropped because of the rising costs of fuel, the drop in the number of tourists from Gulf countries and elsewhere to Jordan this summer and that many people with cars have given up on driving and now prefer to walk? Fine, if the local newspapers have succeeded in drawing the attention of people from the rising costs of fuel because of Noor, will a day come when we read headlines which say: “Tom and Jerry lead to a drop in honour crimes in Jordan” or “The Iron Man intervenes to end the water crisis in Jordan”? Arab newspapers, in general, and Jordanian papers, in particular, have given Noor a bigger scope than it deserves. I sometimes wonder if all this publicity is paid for! Wake up!
Fellow Jordanian Not Another Blog asks why do people like Noor?
What is it that's so fascinating about Noor?
There is barely a meaningful plot to the story. The plot keeps changing all the time its annoying. The show is badly dubbed and it never syncs up with the motion anyway.
The background music is always the same. The soundtrack is horrible. The characters always live in the huge house next to the sea. All the characters work at the same company.
Everyone calls the annoying old man their grandfather, when he isn't their grandfather! The dubbing sometimes changes what they are really saying that you can notice it in the acting.
I have tried to work out why on earth someone would like to see such a show and I have no idea. Now the last thing I need is someones phone to ring and I hear that piece of music again. Oh, god.
And still in Jordan, Tarek Bukah provides a link to episodes from Noor.
Kuwait:
Kuwaiti Frankom [Ar] is shocked with the number of young girls, who admit their undying love for Muhannad. He argues:
العديد من المسلسلات الشهيرة أبطالها أجمل من مهند فنحن لانعرف كيف يفكر مهند ولانعرف عمّا اذا كان مسلم أو مسيحي أو حتى يهودي ومن أي مذهب ينحدر ؟ الله اعلم
هم يكرهوننا ! فالساعات التي يقضيها العرب ممن توجهوا الى تركيا هذا الصيف على أمل أن يشاهدوا مهند في دورات المياه أو الفنادق أو حتى الاكشاك والمطاعم .. […] فلازالت نظرة الاتراك بل العالم للمسلم أو العربي هي نظرة أرهابية
The heroes of a number of soap operas are more handsome than Muhannad. We don't even know how Muhannad thinks or whether he is Muslim, Christian or even a Jew or what his sect is? God only knows.
They hate us! How many hours will Arabs travelling in Turkey this summer spend hoping to see Muhannad in toilets, hotels, kiosks or restaurants? The attitude of Turks, or rather the entire world, to Muslims and Arabs is that they are terrorists.
Turkey:
On Al Jazeera Talk Turkish blogger Anwar Masri visits Abdoon Palace, where Noor was filmed, and takes a number of pictures at the site. He writes:
بعد الضجة الكبيرة التي أحدثها مسلسل نور التركي المدبلج إلى اللغة العربية في العالم العربي، قررت زيارة القصر الذي صور فيه ذلك المسلسل.
After the fuss created by the Turkish soap opera Noor, which has been dubbed into Arabic, I decided to visit the palace where it was filmed at.
Once inside, Masri writes about his shock at the number of Arab tourists flocking the place, to get a first look at the site. He explains:
يقوم اليوم أكثر من 200 سائح بزيارة القصر بدفع أجرة الدخول 50 دولار للشخص. يقول مستثمر القصر بأنه يعرف العديد من السياح العرب الذين قدموا إلى تركيا فقط لزيارة هذا القصر وهو سعيد جدا على أنه استطاع أن يجعل السائح العربي يفضل تركيا لرحلته الصيفية بدلا من أي دولة سياحية أخرى. ويضيف أن هذا المسلسل أدى إلى تطور العلاقات التركية العربية. تقول الإحصائيات أن عدد السياح السعوديين في الصيف الماضي كان حوالي 30 ألف سائح، أما في هذا الصيف فيتوقع وصول الرقم الى 100 ألف سائح من السعودية. ويشير الخبراء على أن هذه الزيادة تعود بشكل أساسي على أثر مسلسل نور في العالم العربي.
More than 200 tourists visit the palace daily and pay the $50 entrance fee per person. The palace investor says that he knows of a number of Arab tourists who have travelled all the way to Turkey, just to visit the palace and that he is happy that he was been able to make Arab tourists prefer Turkey to other summer destinations. He adds that the soap opera has improved Arab-Turkish relations. According to statistics, the number of Saudi tourists visiting Turkey was 30,000 last summer. This year, the number is expected to peak 100,000 tourists from Saudi Arabia. Experts point out that this surge was directly related to the impact of Noor on the Arab world.
Also on Global Voices Online:
Egypt: A Man's Views on Sexual Harassment in Egypt
In his post “The Sex Files“, blogger Wael Nawara presents a rather interesting perspective on sexual harassment in Egypt by drawing a comparison between Egyptian and Australian psychographics:
The situation seems to be quite the opposite down under. The British survey on Australian workplace showed that men were too afraid to complain about harassment. Aussie law firm Holding Redlich's senior associate, Fiona Knowles, said bosses were more likely to tell a man he was lucky to be ogled and hassled. One Australian man got a $10,000 payout after a Victorian tribunal found his bosses had dry-humped him and grabbed his genitals. Two-thirds of the 2300 men questioned in the British study also said that sexual banter was inappropriate at work. A separate poll of 1600 employers found bosses wouldn't take a complaint of sexual harassment as seriously if it were from a male worker! David Price of Peninsula said the balance had shifted and women now aimed sexual banter at men. “Not everyone's happy with these type of jokes and the situation is a growing problem for employers,” he said.
Going back to the situation in Egypt, Wael suspects that the reasons for the situations in the two countries are similar:
Emotional Deficit. For several decades, the Egyptian society was being Islamized, making the chances of having a natural and healthy pre-marriage boy-girl relationship ever diminishing. Marriage itself, it would seem is becoming more unaffordable than ever. The average age for marriage in Egypt for men has consistently increased. It is normal to see someone who is thirty years old who still has a few years to go before he can afford to provide the extensive requirements for marriage. In many cases, a young male in Egypt had to travel to the Gulf and work for a few years “building his fortune” to be able to afford the hefty burdens of marriage. Knowing that boys probably reach puberty at the age of 13 or 14, this means that a male in Egypt will spend some twenty years suffering from this emotional and “physical” deficit.
In Australia, on the other hand, the rising percentage of women in white-collar jobs, probably makes the corporate workplace more dominated by women. I guess someone has to research this further, but I think it is basic supply and demand. Market forces at work. Men who are “available”, “interested” and “interesting” seem to have become a rare commodity in Australia. Always with an eye for opportunities whenever a market “gap”, or a “hole” is identified, I would strongly recommend the Egyptian and Australian governments to work something out in the form of some “cultural exchange” program, where young and highly eligible Egyptian men are sent to Australia. In exchange, interested Aussie women are imported into the streets of Cairo where they will have the time of their lives with the abundance of sex-starved men! A bad joke? Time to get serious.
In his post, Wael also tackles the issue of civil marriage - Orfi or temporary marriage - that is highly frowned upon in Egypt:
According to the theory of the “Parallel State”, whenever a formal economic, social, cultural or legal subsystem fails to deliver the basic needs of the people, mother nature steps in. People have collectively demonstrated a remarkable genius in devising parallel sub-systems to fill that gap, hole or deficit. Marriage becomes unaffordable, young couples resort to “civil marriage” or “Gawaz 3orfi”.
Wael elaborates on the theory of parallel states saying that in Egypt:
Courts don't work? You have thugs to bring back your money, checks or stolen land or apartment. The police doesn't care? You hire your own body guards or security officers, thank you very much. Government hospitals threaten to prematurely send you to your grave, you tip the nurses and everything will be fine, and you can always go for the five-star hospitals or the mosque clinics. Fixed rent for old apartment too low? There is “key-hold money” (Khelew Regl). And so on and on. This is the Parallel State at work and natural laws at their finest. And as these individual subsystems interact, they get interlocked in a huge web of “grey” or “shadow” subsystems, thus forming the “Parallel State”, the “Shadow State”.
Then he links this theory to his emotional deficits theory saying that:
The same goes for these emotional deficits. You want to call the abusers criminals and send them to jail, fine. So do I. This may be a part of the solution. But ultimately, on the long-term, we must learn to stop fighting nature. Accept nature. Young men and women have basic emotional and physical needs. These needs create demand which must be addressed with social solutions. Must be channeled in socially acceptable channels, affordable solutions and feasible means. The tightening moral code introduced by the Islamists only threatens to develop an explosive situation at home. There has been many reports and TV shows describing a similar situation at Saudi Arabia, where percentage of homosexuality is on the rise. Incest and other perverted forms of relationships seem to be increasing at alarming rates. Why do we have to deny nature and see perfectly normal relations indecent is beyond me. You ignore the laws of mother-nature and you will be inviting the parallel state to devise its own solution.
Wael concludes his post saying that:
If “civil marriage” or “Gawaz 3orfi” is a “grey solution” to mostly unaffordable “formal” marriage, sexual assault and molestation is a “black” and criminal behavior adopted by those who are unable to satisfy or control “that” deficit through the “grey solution”, namely the “civil marriage”.I do not want anyone to think that I am an apologist on behalf of the abusers. I am not. I am with tightening the punishment, but we have to realize that few, if any, seem to be reporting or filing police complaints against the abusers. So, the long-term solution in my opinion will be, to relax or ease the tight restrictions on boy-girl relationships. Let us go back to our normal selves. Again, I am not promoting total dropping of our customs, traditions or values in favor of becoming widely permissive. I am only suggesting that we, as a society, loosen the tight screws a bit to help release some of the pressure, in order to avoid explosion of an already flammable situation.
Mourning a sexually harassed Egypt - Part 2
Reuters published survey on sexual harassment in Egypt is still stirring angry responses from Egyptian bloggers.
In her post titled “Shame and Sexual Harassment in Egypt“, Mona Eltahawy took a trip back in time and visited her early experiences with sexual harassment:
When I was only 4 years-old, and still living in Cairo, a man exposed himself to me as I stood on a balcony at my family’s home, and gestured for me to come down.
At 15, I was groped as I was performing the rites of the Haj pilgrimage at Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims. Every part of my body was covered except for my face and hands. I’d never been groped before and burst into tears, but I was too ashamed to explain to my family what had happened.
During my 20s, when I had returned to Cairo and wore the hijab, a way of dressing which again covers everything but the face and the hands, I was groped so many times that whenever I passed a group of men I’d place my bag between me and them. Headphones helped block out the disgusting things men — and even boys barely in their teens — hissed at me.
With rare audacity Mona explicitly wrote about her disappointment with how the police - supposedly a figure of authority - added insult to injury:
I learned to push and punch those whose hands thought my body was fair game, but I never found anything to soothe the burning violation. So imagine how much sharper that violation stung when I tried to complain to the police only to be shooed away — or when it was their hands which groped me.
Once, a riot policeman fondled my breast while he was pushing back a group of us journalists at the trial of an opposition politician. I yelled at him, and I complained to his supervising officer, who moved him to the back row of riot police and told me “Nevermind.”
Commenting on the published survey, Mona says:
So it was no surprise to learn that 98 percent of foreign women visiting Egypt and 83 percent of native Egyptian women who were recently surveyed said that they, too, had been sexually harassed, and they have recounted a catalog of horrors similar to mine. What an awful time to be woman in Egypt.
When the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights reported that 62 percent of Egyptian men admitted to harassing women, I could only shudder at what sexist bullies so many of my countrymen are.
Even worse, when I read that the majority of the more than 2,000 Egyptian men and women that ECWR surveyed blamed women for bringing on the harassment because of the way they dressed, I honestly thought my countrymen and women had lost their minds.
Eltahawy digs deeper into the causes of such shameful behavior after eliminating provocative clothes saying:
In Egypt today, up to 80 percent of women wear one form of veil or another — be it a headscarf or a full-body veil that covers the face too — so you would think it was obvious that sexual harassment had nothing to do with the way a woman dresses.
So what is it that drives such a stubborn wish to fault women?
The answer lies in perhaps the saddest of all the Centre’s findings. Unlike foreign women, most Egyptian women said women should keep their harassment to themselves because they were ashamed or feared it could ruin their reputation. That’s when I was taken back full circle to the time I was groped on the Haj.
Shame.
This shame is fueled by religious and political messages that bombard Egyptian public life, turning women into sexual objects and giving men free reign to their bodies.
In 2006, It was the well-publicized episode of the mufti of Australia comparing women who didn’t wear the hijab to uncovered meat left out for wild cats. He was educated at al-Azhar, the religious institution in Egypt that trains clerics from all over the Sunni Muslim world. He was suspended, but his reprehensible views are very much at work among many other clerics. Today, as two bloggers in Egypt reported recently, there are email and poster campaigns with a message that uses candy to tell women that if they cover they will be safe from harassment, as covered candy is safe from flies.
When did Egyptian women become candy and when did Egyptian men turn into flies?
Like many Egyptian women, Mona knows that:
There is no law criminalizing sexual harassment in Egypt, and police often refuse to report women’s complaints. And when it is the police themselves who are harassing women, then clearly women’s safety is far from a priority in Egypt.
And once again she highlights a well known fact to female demonstrators saying:
The State itself taught Egyptians a most spectacular lesson in institutionalized patriarchy when security forces and government-hired thugs sexually assaulted demonstrators, especially women, during an anti-regime protest in 2005, giving a green light to harassers.
So there was little surprise that during a religious festival in 2006, a mob of men went on a rampage in downtown Cairo, sexually assaulting any woman they came across as police watched and did nothing.
Mona concluded her post by shedding light on how Egyptians and Egyptian media deal with incidents that are considered shameful or scandalous:
It was only when bloggers broke the news that the media reported the assaults. Still, the Egyptian regime has never acknowledged it happened. At a demonstration against sexual harassment that I attended in Cairo a few days later, there were nearly more riot police than protestors.
My sister Nora was 20 at the time, and she, with several of her friends, joined the protest. She had never been to a demonstration before but was incensed when she heard the State was denying something that had happened to her many times. We swapped our sexual harassment stories like veterans comparing war wounds, and we unraveled a taboo which shelters the real criminals of sexual harassment and has kept us hiding in shame.
And that is why I began here with my own stories — to free myself of the tentacles of that shame.
Egypt Silences the Voice of Iran
On July 24th, Maggie Michael reported:
Egyptian authorities shut down the Cairo office of an Iranian TV network, a security official said Thursday, as the two nations spar over a film that justifies the killing of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic militants.
Blogger Dina Ayoub in her post Egypt vs Iran takes us back to the time when President Sadat signed the peace treaty with Israel:
All the Arab countries refused, and severed ties with Egypt, calling him a traitor and what not. Sadat had also offered the Palestinians to establish a peace treaty with Israel, in which Palestine would get a large amount of land (compared to what they have now). But they were stubborn and adamant about not negotiating then, just as they remain. So, some Iranian military moron decided to kill Sadat, and so he fired at him in a public ceremony commemorating the 6th of October war - the war which put Egypt on the track to negotiate with Israel, retrieve the whole of its land which Israel had invaded - Sinai, and build a stable relationship with it.
In defence of the late president, Dina Ayoub, who currently resides in Canada, says:
Unlike most of the other Arab leaders, Sadat didn't put his arrogance above the best interest of the country (at least not that particular time! hehe), and he did the reasonable thing. And the Arab countries could have all formed a much better position than they have now had they supported him. But his position was fairly weakened by their lack of support, yet he managed to establish peace with Israel and reserve Egypt's rights as best he could, granted, many many restrictions remain on Sinai- but… it still belongs to Egypt, which is a lot more than we can say for several other regions nearby.
Going back to the incident of shutting down the Iranian TV station - Al-Alam TV - Dina says that the station produced:
a movie deemed offensive by the Egyptian Government, and it is causing some serious escalations. The movie is named “Assassination of a Pharaoh”. I haven't seen it, but I would really love to, just so I know how they really think and so I can have a real and objective opinion about the movie.
Dina warns gullible readers and explains the connotations of the word “Pharaoh” in our culture saying:
To those who do not know how a “pharaoh” is regarded in the Arab world, it might seem that this title means no disrespect. But it's ridden with an intricate implication. Pharaohs are known for their arrogance, stubbornness, their slave driving, their unfairness, their unyielding power, and most importantly, their just final fall - getting what they deserved (a miserable death). The reason for this, is the story of the prophet Moses who pleaded with the Pharaoh endlessly, and was persecuted severely, then at the end the sea split into halves allowing Moses and his people (Jews) to cross, but when the arrogant pharaoh was mid way, the sea returned to normal, and he drowned. At his final moment, he realized Moses was right all along, but it was too late. Then his body was thrown ashore, for everybody to see the fall of the great pharaoh. In our culture, when we speak of history, the pharaohs did great things and had a very strong and thriving civilization. But when you call someone a pharaoh, it is not a good thing. It's an insult. Actually, we have something we say “malak metfar3an keda leh” - roughly translated into, ‘why are you acting so arrogantly', where the word for arrogant is derived from ‘Pharaonic'.
Once again Dina endorses the late president's peace treaty saying:
It's not like Egypt agrees with everything Israel does anyway, we still protest a lot about their actions against Palestine and disagree with probably all their politics, but just because one visionary (albeit not a saint) stopped to think, and decided not to walk the path of the rest of the Arab leaders, doesn't mean he deserved to die. But just closing your mind and deciding not to acknowledge that a force exists is like burying the head in the sand: you may not see what's around you, but that doesn't change the fact that it's there - and it sure as hell doesn't change what effect this force will have on you. So, in my opinion, refusing to acknowledge Israel is just plain stupid: it's there, deal with it.
Had Sadat not taken this step, it's quite likely Sinai would have ended up as war torn and destitute as many places in Palestine. And that would be such a shame, because it's a very beautiful & majestic place, and not to mention a great source of revenue for Egypt as a tourist attraction.
Although the idea of the movie did upset Dina, she still does not agree with how the Egyptian government dealt with the situation:
Now, while I find the idea behind making a movie that portrays this murderer as anything but a murderer (and this goes for any other murderer), and the fact that they have a street honoring this so-called man offensive & insulting too, I don't think that shutting down their station is a good idea. Mostly, because I believe in freedom of speech. If that's the way they feel about this, then so be it. Shutting down their station in Cairo isn't going to make them change their minds, nor is it going to make the world a better place. On the contrary, we're actually committing the same crime they are: intolerance. They were and remain to be intolerant towards Sadat's views, and co-existing with Israel. And now we do the same by refusing to tolerate their views. So we bury our heads in the sand as well, and refuse to hear what they think.
But to me, it's no surprise Egypt acts this way. The Prince of Egypt (a cartoon movie) was banned from Egypt because it portrayed that it wasn't the Egyptians who built the pyramids. But I really don't see how banning it helps. Actually, I think it's backwards to ban opposing views from your own country, because all that means is that we are ignorant to what the rest of the world thinks of us, and can thus never take a positive step to change our image. So we live on, thinking that everybody in the world knows that the Egyptians built the pyramids, and unaware that some people out there believe otherwise.
Arabeyes: Mourning Youssef Chahine
Tributes are pouring in from bloggers from around the Middle East and North Africa, mourning the death of renowned Egyptian film maker Youssef Chahine. Born in Alexandria in 1926, Chahine has left behind a legacy, and millions of fans and followers across the region.
Egyptian Nora Younis says she is happy for Chahine and the legacy he left behind.
Chahine passed away few hours ago. I am happy for him. He lived over 82 years and at least 60 out of which were thorough, intense, and edgy experiences. Chahine has also enjoyed a peaceful - but surely not quiet - exit. I am sure his funeral will be a red carpet Cannes. It is scheduled for Tuesday 29th, in “Cinema City”, Nahhas Studios, Haram
Commenting on the post in Arabic, Egyptian Leftist says:
انا اكتر حاجه خلتني ازعل على وفاته ان كان نفسي اقلبله قبل مايموت و اتكلم معاه كدا و اتبادل معاه طرف الحديث و دا كان حلم
انا شوفته على الحقيقه مره واحده كنت شغال مصمم جرافيكس في احد الجرائد و كانت في ايامها الأولي و هو كان بيزور المكان كنوع من المباركه للجريده و اهلها و قد ايه كان انسان جميل بيهزر و يتريق على الكل …
ارتاح و سايب وراه تاريخ كبييير عظيم
ربنا يرحمه
What saddened me the most when I heard of his death was that I have always wanted to meet him and talk to him. This was my dream.
I have met him once, when I was working as a graphic designer in one of the newspapers, which had just started, and he was visiting the paper to congratulate it for its launch. He was a lovely person, who joked with everyone. He is at peace now and has left behind a great legacy. May his soul rest in peace.
Egyptian Chronicles reflects the sentiments of many toward Chahine's activism when she says:
Some call late Chahien as the greatest director in the history of Egyptian cinema due to the fact that he was known aboard especially in France “But not in Hollywood” , I disagree , he was not the greatest but he was different with daring visions that broke all the taboos whether religiously or socially.
Still in Egypt, Fustat sheds some light on the filmmaker's career, which spans from the '50s, and adds:
He was an inspiration to me, and one of my proudest moments as a blogger was when my article on Chahine was posted on his official website.
My condolences to his family. May God rest his soul.
Egyptian blogger Baheyya eulogizes Chahine, sharing details of his career within the full post:
When I read the sad news of Youssef Chahine’s passing, a stream of images from his films passed through my mind’s eye, fragmentary and disjointed images that have stayed with me over the years. The scenes are nearly all in black and white; some are hilarious and others sombre, some are central to the drama and others peripheral, some I remember for their sheer beauty and others because they drove me to tears or deep laughter.
At the other end of the Arabic-speaking world, Moroccan blogger Citoyen Hmida [fr] is just as saddened by Chahine's passing:
Youssef CHAHINE a été un artiste qui, par sa culture plurielle, a su apporter un souffle chaque fois renouvelé au cinéma égyptien. Reconnu tant dans son propre pays – malgré des attaques plus que véhémentes qui lui portèrent les intégristes – que dans les pays arabes et aussi en Europe – Ours d'argent au Festival de Berlin en 1978 et en 1997 le prix du cinquantième anniversaire du festival de Cannes pour l'ensemble de son œuvre – Youssef Chahine aura été un des plus grands intellectuels arabes du XXème siècle.
Also in Morocco, Larbi [fr] shares a similar sentiment:
Avec sa mort, disparaît une icône et un citoyen du monde qui a contribué au dialogue interculturel et la promotion de la compréhension mutuelle. Un cinéaste qui a combattu, avec intelligence et élégance, le fanatisme religieux et l'autocratie là où il n'y a ni droits de l'homme ni liberté de croyance.
From Kuwait, Jabriya Za7ma posts Chahine's picture with the following comment:
Adieu Chahine
Commentators on the post are all praying for Chahine's soul to rest in peace.
Another Kuwaiti blogger, K80Economics, pays a fitting tribute and writes:
A prominent Arab film maker passes away. He showed us how to best fight authoritarianism and fundamentalism: through art and culture. Art and culture are the light that sheds away extremism and the breath of fresh air upon which liberty thrives. May his soul rest in peace.
Moving back to the Maghreb, Tunisian Carpe Diem [fr] mourns Chahine and celebrates his good deeds:
La longue carrière de Youssef Chahine a été une lutte constante contre son milieu, qu'il voyait comme l'oppresseur des pauvres, contre le pouvoir, la censure dont il a souvent été la cible, il dénonçait la montée de l'extrémisme islamique et militait pour la tolérance. Autant de thèmes qu'il développait dans ses oeuvres.
Another Tunisian blogger, Diana MagaZine, demonstrates Chahine's reach:
I know that Youssef Chahin was very liberate and open minded man. He was against tolitarism and dictaturship. He was fighting for freedom. But what I cannot understand is this unanimous agreement of tn-blogs to commemortae the brave man. I never seen such agreement in tn-blogs. Even duiring the events of Redaif and Gafsa, there was no unanimity, but only divisions and breaks.
Blogger Critical Montages has compiled several videos demonstrating Chahine's best works. It is clear from the reactions of these bloggers and others that Chahine, his body of work, and his idealism will not soon be forgotten.
This post was written collaboratively with Amira Al Hussaini.
Bangladesh: Tweeting and blogging an earthquake
A moderate earthquake jolted Dhaka city on the 27th of July approximately at 00:51 hours Bangladesh Time (+6 GMT). Russell John reports in his blog:
I was lying on my bed talking to a friend on the phone, and I suddenly felt that the bed was shaking. Within 3 seconds, it stopped. My first impression was that a cat got under my bed and it was shaking it, but then I realised that it's impossible as the bed is way too heavy. (Plus there was no cat, I checked!)
I quickly asked my friends on IRC, and they said they felt it too.
So it was an earthquake for real! Quake in Dhaka at 12:51 AM!
Russell tweeted instantaneously:
Oh my God, I just felt an earthquake!
Within next minutes, tweets started to appear confirming that they also felt the earthquake.
Munaz of Nothing to Lose and Nothing to Gain shared the tweeter feeds of some of his friends:
Information online was hard to come by (except some Bangla blogs) and everybody was trying to get updates. So Bauani of Information blog contacted U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center and posted the find:
Magnitude: 4.9
Date-Time: Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 18:51:49 UTC
Location: 24.773°N, 90.480°E
Depth: 5.2 km (3.2 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region: BANGLADESH
He was also posting the updates as and when available.
Apparently no casualties were reported but it rattled the affected people of Dhaka, a populous mega city.
Rumi of In The Middle of Nowhere writes:
Map of all the major and minor tectonic plates of the world
If you can locate Bangladesh in the world map, you will see two plate boundaries, i.e. two fault lines cross Bangladesh….many scientists have been warning about the probability of a devastating 8-9 Richter scale catastrophic earthquake in the northeastern and southeastern parts of Bangladesh.
So, (a) major earthquake is also possible in Bangladesh. Are we ready?
Links for Tue, 2008-07
LimbicNutrition Weblog was liveblogging the rioting in Belgrade.
Ukrainiana reviews media reports on the flooding in Western Ukraine, which has killed at least 22 people, including six children.
James of Robert Amsterdam's Blog is wondering whether “Karadzic arrest [could be] a response to Russian energy imperialism.”
Diário da África [Africa Diary, pt] posts a list of important books for those who want to learn more about Angola. Some of them, such as ‘Angola: Anatomy of an Oil State' by Tony Hodges, are in English.
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