Links of interest for the week ending in December 5, 2009. The Atlantic Online | May 2007 | The Kingdom in the Closet | Nadya Labi "But what seems more startling, at least from a Western perspective, is that some of the men having sex with other men don’t consider themselves gay. For many Saudis, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with “gayness.” The act may fulfill a desire or a need, but it doesn’t constitute an identity. Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role. This attitude gives Saudi men who engage in homosexual behavior a degree of freedom. But as a more Westernized notion of gayness—a notion that stresses orientation over acts—takes hold in the country, will this delicate balance survive? " Planet Grenada: project censored: top 25 censored stories for 2010 A handful of 2009's news stories that slipped through the cracks... ElBaradei Drops A Bomb | The Arabist Article on the possibility of Mohamed el-Barade`i's potential candidacy for the 2011 Egyptian presidential elections. YouTube - Inside Iraq - afghanistan - the new Iraq? 4 Dec 09 As`ad AbuKhalil rips General Myers a new one. Militarism, Genderphobia and Beer « P U L S E "McCann Erickson and Maccabi Beer create an Israel in which women who don't strip for cash, gender benders, queers, people with physical disabilities (the army has fitness clauses for combat service), conscientious objectors, or Palestinians citizens of Israel are not part of acceptable norm. In this Spartan state, people who aren't scarred for life and proud of it, don't drink beer." Al Jazeera English - Focus - In fear of 'Eurabia'? "Ultimately, the vote to ban minarets, like other anti-Islamic legislation, is a symptom of a larger problem within contemporary European societies. It is not just that Europeans are increasingly inhospitable to Muslims and other immigrants. These sentiments reflect the fraying of the social fabric of Europe more broadly, particularly of countries that have had strong recent traditions of social solidarity and welfare." "Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike against targets in North and South Waziristan on January 23, and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. The Obama administration has now surpassed the number of Bush-era strikes in Pakistan and has faced fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths." Letter from An Afghan (American) Woman "Let me clarify why I feel tense whenever I hear the term "Afghani" used by well-meaning friends (okay, maybe they don't want to be friends with me. Maybe they just want me as their sounding board to fact-check their story that is about an "Afghan-I-" woman. They will usually not know that I think these things inside my little round head). When you use the term "Afghani" it means that you do not really know us, Afghans, very well and that perhaps a few newspaper clippings have intrigued you." LENIN'S TOMB: What's in a minaret? "Given the pace of reaction across Europe, and the growing hold of this specious, essentialist garbage about Islam, it is unsurprising that an innocuous and sometimes rather beautiful structure can, if the PR is effective, become so suffused with peril and portent for so many. But the minarets are just the start of it. No Islamophobe would be content with what is, at the moment, a symbolic gesture, a super-sized fuck-you. There will be numerous intermediate steps. Sarkozy and his allies may be next with the idea of a ban on the 'veil'. Someone else may take up the original intended issue of the Swiss reactionaries, and try to outlaw halal butchery. But if the intended effect is to intimidate Europe's Muslim population and ultimately reduce their numbers, then it can only be a matter of time before 'peace walls', ghettos, and forcible expulsion are on the agenda - presuming no one lifts a finger to protest in the meantime. Some Swiss anti-racists have already taken to the streets. They are, at the moment, small in number. But they could not possibly be as small in stature, as pathetic, as ridiculous, as paltry in almost every respect, as that majority of Swiss voters who cast such a petty and vindictive vote." The West and the Orientalism of Sexuality "Homosexuals in the Arab world? They have been “invented” by the West. In his book Desiring Arabs, Joseph Massad, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin and an associate professor at Columbia University, attempts to follow the process through which the gay movement, born in the USA, has resulted in and tried to impose a homosexual identity on those Arabs who entertain relations with people of their own sex. A process that according to Massad, follows the tracks of western imperialism." Anthropologists at war | The Economist THIS evening, Barack Obama will announce America's new strategy for pursuing the war in Afghanistan. Recent reports indicate the new approach has been influenced by advocates of a "tribal strategy", which would seek to build security using local tribes as the unit of agency and point of contact, rather than directing all aid and security efforts through Afghanistan's corrupt central government and fledgling national army. ... This is highly similar to the methods of colonial administration through local "traditional" proxies deployed by the British throughout South Asia and Africa. It is also similar to American attempts to enlist "traditional" local power structures (churches, highland ethnic tribes, etc) in counterinsurgencies in Vietnam and elsewhere. Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years? | Stephen M. Walt I disagree with the justifications the author makes below the chart, but the data speaks for itself. "So it would seem that the perfect Muslim immigrant in France is one who cleans the house, picks up the trash, attends to the infant or, increasingly, fixes the computer, heals the sick and runs the bank, and then disappears in a wisp of smoke, before his presence, his beliefs, his customs, his way of dress, his "noise and smell" offend the particular sensibilities of the general population. France is not alone in wishing that its Muslims were invisible. As anyone who has visited Western Europe in the past few years will tell you, the "Muslim question" is a matter of grave concern. " Obama's exceedingly familiar justifications for escalation In order to prepare Americans for Obama's Afghanistan escalation speech tonight at West Point (at least he's not wearing a fighter pilot costume), White House officials have been dispatched to speak to the media (anonymously, of course) to preview all of the new and exciting aspects of the President's plan. As a result, media accounts are filled with claims that there are major changes ordered by Obama that will transform our approach there. Malalai Joya speaks truth to power. "But I still have hope because, as our history teaches, the people of Afghanistan will never accept occupation." Daily Targum - PCRF works for children MABROUK! to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF) chapter at Rutgers University. RU-PCRF recently triumphed over the Zionists and right-wingers who attempted to shut down their meal swipe charity (God forbid you affirm the existence and suffering of the Palestinians). Obama's Middle East Policies: the Persistence of the Bush Doctrine on Vimeo This is a lecture by professor As'ad Abukhalil of California State University, Stanislaus. Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 at Harvard Law School. To learn more about professor Abukhalil's work, visit his website/blog at : http://angryarab.blogspot.com Tariq Ramadan: The Swiss have voted not against towers, but Muslims. Across Europe, we must stand up to the flame-fanning populists Short film on the reality of life in occupied Palestine.
Please note that Massad is NOT arguing that same-sex relations were invented by the West, but rather a particular, Western kind of identity based on sexual practice.
But to anyone with a memory that extends back for more than a few weeks, all of this seems anything but new. In January, 2007, George Bush delivered a speech to the nation announcing his escalation in Iraq -- that one only 20,000 troops, compared to the 30,000-40,000 Obama has ordered for Afghanistan. It's worthwhile to compare what Obama officials are excitedly featuring as new and innovative ideas with what Bush said; I'm not comparing the Iraq and Afghan escalations: only the rhetoric used to justify them.
Also, check out an op/ed published last week by Rutgers Hillel's ex-president in support of PCRF: http://www.dailytargum.com/opinions/donate-meals-to-pcrf-1.2095529
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
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2 comments:
I hate the entire premise of the Walt post so much. First the implication that there is an amorphous mass of "them" that does hate the US and that it's not just some exponents of very specific ideologies-this is just assumed. Secondly because all the Vietnamese that were killed as well as hundreds of thousands of people in various Latin American countries killed in coups or in civil wars funded and instigated by the US are rendered invisible simply because they're not Muslim.
Yeah, I had those same criticisms as well and debated whether to even post it - though while you're certainly right that he treats those Muslims who do hate the US as a monolithic mass, I would also challenge your assertion that only followers of specifically anti-US ideologies do. I think there are a great many people (Muslim or otherwise) who have been deeply, personally affected by US military violence and have reacted with hatred for the US. Not everyone's opposition is articulated within a specifically ideological framework such as some strain of nationalism or political Islam or what-have-you; sometimes it's just a visceral "I hate the bastards who did this to me/my family/my country/etc."
I guess it's hard to argue with the "Why do they hate us, what did we ever do to them?" crowd, as inevitably by arguing with them at their level you have to make some of the same kind of sweeping generalizations and broad statements that they do.
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