Taxi fashion statement in Aqaba

Taxis in Jordan’s southern port city of Aqaba are looking snazzy these days with a fresh coat of blue and green paint. It’s the new look for the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA). So far, 200 taxis out of 470 have been painted at government expense. Next year’s budget in the financially and administratively autonomous zone will provide for painting 50 public transportation buses.

There are still a few details to be worked out. As everyone knows, in Jordan serveeces are white and taxis are yellow. But Aqaba’s green and blue taxis deliver passengers to other cities. As soon as they set wheel outside the special economic zone, they can get stopped and ticketed for not having a yellow taxi. Last week a taxi driver got stopped and ticketed on the way to Maan. Until the word gets around–and I think Maan is just jealous here–I mean, what is in Maan?–the ASEZA will be paying these tickets.

Jordan’s Queen Rania on YouTube: “Ask me your stereotypes about Arabs”

“Change begins within each one of us, in our willingness to reach out to each other.”

The following is an unofficial transcript of Queen Rania’s YouTube message:

In a world where it’s so easy to connect to one another, we still remain very much disconnected. There’s a whole world of wonder out there that we cannot appreciate with stereotypes, so it’s important for all of us to join forces, come together, and try to bring down those misconceptions.

I’ve been surprised by some of the questions that I’ve been asked about the Arab world and the Middle East: do all Arabs hate Americans, can Arab women work, are there any YouTubers in Jordan. If what most people know about the Arab world and Arab people they’ve known through programs like 24 and Jack Bauer, then I think they’re in for a very big surprise.

YouTube is a great platform for a dialog and I believe that we need to use these tools in order to get those messages out there.

From now until August the twelfth, which is international youth day, I hope to be receiving from YouTubers some of the questions they have and some of the common stereotypes they have hear about the Arab world and I’ ll try to break them down one by one and address them.

I’ll also be encouraging YouTubers to help me out to address these common stereotypes, so I’ll be relying on your skills and your creativity so that we can all get this right.

I want people to know the real Arab world, to see it unedited, unscripted, and unfiltered, to see the personal side of my region, to know the places and faces, and the rituals and cultures that shape the part of the world that I call home.

Throwing a fit over “Fitna”

The European movie Fitna is currently unavailable anywhere. American bloggers are having fits because they can’t see it in order to determine whether it is offensive or not. According to the April 1, 2008 (!) Jordan Times:

The 15-minute film entitled “Fitna”, an Arabic word for sedition or disturbance, portrays Islam as a threat to the Western world. It shows images of violent acts and holds Islam and the Koran responsible for them.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende released a statement on behalf of the Dutch government on the day the odious film was posted on the Internet.

The Dutch government banned the movie from being displayed on cinema screens.

“The film equates Islam with violence. We reject this interpretation. The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence. In fact, the victims are often also Muslims,” the statement reads.

“We, therefore, regret that Mr Wilders has released this film. We believe it serves no purpose other than to cause offence. But feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats. The government is heartened by the initial restrained reactions of Dutch Muslim organisations,” Balkenende said.

Judeh said that the government valued the Dutch government’s condemnation of the film.

Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch MP who produced the film, heads the Freedom Party that has nine seats in the Dutch parliament.

The Dutch government, however, remains on alert for delayed responses to Wilders’ film.

“Sometimes it can take months before the true repercussions are felt,” AFP reported Balkenende as saying.

Meanwhile, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen sought to dampen anger through diplomacy and met with 26 ambassadors from the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, including Jordan’s envoy.

After the meeting, Verhagen issued a statement saying: “I am happy with the moderate reactions we have been getting from the Muslim world.” He added, “the rhetoric in some countries shows that we must be alert.”

Alert? Anger? Agression? Threats? Repercussions?

Well, all I can say is it’s a good thing all these diplomats aren’t “portraying Islam as a threat to the Western world.”

Did Syria’s President al-Assad really eat with Israelis?

I’m still chuckling over a humorous piece in The Onion about the Mideast peace talks in Anapolis earlier this month, titled “Syria Attends Mideast Peace Talks For Free Continental Breakfast”. Perhaps The Onion’s reporters, their reputations preceding them, weren’t permitted in the same press room with the mainstream press? Whatever happened, they did manage to get a couple shots of Syria president Bashar al-Assad.

But what is on the table in front of al-Assad in that formal conference portrait?

And why doesn’t al-Assad’s big plate of Danish rolls have a shadow? The table is highly polished, and everything else on the table, no matter how small, has a reflection.

Can you say “photoshop”?

Naughty, naughty Onion.

The Onion continued with their tongue-in-cheek explanation:

In Tehran, meanwhile, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was not invited to the talks, was highly critical of the summit, claiming that the European-style breakfast was indicative of a pro-Israel bias.

“It is quite obvious that the Annapolis summit will offer little real substance to those in attendance,” Ahmadinejad said. “The little single-serving boxes of cereal are not even sizable enough to constitute a real meal.”

Nevertheless, many within the State Department said they were encouraged to witness a number of delegates working together to clean up a cup of spilled coffee. At one point, the Israeli prime minister even offered to give up extra napkins to Syria’s president in order to stop the liquid from flowing over the side of the counter.

Funny stuff, but it made me stop and wonder–did all those people really eat together? The way I understand the Arab food symbolism, Arabs can have tea with anyone. This is an expected part of a meeting. An airing of opinions, as well as the hoped-for consensus, always takes place in the presence of those ubiquitous little tea glasses.

But food is a different matter. Eating with someone is a statement of acceptance, at least out in the boonies among the country people. I wonder how the diplomats interpret it. And if the Syrian entourage really did eat with the Israelis.

Care Bears in Sudan–”Punish with Bullets”

A friend of mine once nearly triggered an international incident when he put children named Saddam and Mohammed in a wastebasket to demonstrate the preposition “in”. The administrator stuck up for him–after all, he was wearing traditional robes in the classroom–and it all blew over.

Sudan is not quite so unemotional. Knife-brandishing crowds, demonstrating, when else–on Friday–demanded a British teacher whose students named a teddy bear “Mohammed” be executed by shooting. Uh, don’t you shoot people with guns?

Arab press quiet about Saudi gang-rape victim sentence

Arab press is strangely silent about a 19-year-old Saudi girl who was gang raped by 7 men then sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes after reporting the crime. Her attorney’s license to practice law was also revoked.

The only report of this I can find in the Arab press this week is this one sentence in the 21-Nov-07 Al-Jazeera:

RIYADH (AFP) - A Saudi woman sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang raped has vowed to challenge the ruling in a case that has received wide publicity, embarrassing the Saudi government.

Source: AFP

Human Rights Watch says the verdict “not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”

Iranian Barbershops closed by religious police: Can the unibrow be far behind?

Religious police have closed some 20 barbershops in Iran as a part of a crackdown on “bad hijab” or unIslamic clothing. On the forbidden list are makeup, tattoos, hairstyles with gel where the hair stands up, and plucking eyebrows for men.

Plucking eyebrows?

I saw a barber who knew how to do this in the north of Jordan. A friend of mine had a rather wolfish look–widow’s peak, eyebrows growing close together and a huge Arab mustache. I walked around with his sister while he went in for maintenance. The eyebrow plucking he was adamant must be done with a string. The string is held between the barbers two hands and dragged across the skin. As it is dragged across the skin the thread twists. The hairs get caught in the string and are plucked. After my friend emerged from the barber, I realized he had a unibrow and needed frequent attention to keep from looking Neanderthal.

The hair-plucking trick with the string is common and women do it too. One day I went with my Iraqi neighbor to find a beauty salon with reasonably priced haircuts. We ended up paying around four dollars each. I didn’t know what I wanted, so the stylist said “I will give you a Versace cut” and it was pretty good too. My friend knew in detail what she wanted layered and so forth and her haircut was more of a process. At the end, the stylist pointed out some courser facial hair on her temples, a new price was negotiated, and out came the string, deftly rolled across her forehead. I couldn’t see a difference but she was enormously satisfied with her appearance.

After my friends’ experience with plucking hair, I started becoming more aware of the appearance of Arab men on the street. A surprising number of them look like they might have unibrows that are kept separated into distinct eyebrows only by a barber’s frequent attention.

I am picturing the new Iran, without barbered eyebrows. A chorus line of Iranian men comes on stage in the Monty Python tradition looking like they might be ready to burst into a chorus of Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! As they turn, you can see they each have a unibrow and look exactly like Bert as in Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

Of course there is only one song that goes with Bert’s unibrow. The line of husky Iranian men bursts into a chorus of “Rubber ducky, you’re the one…”

Al Aziza “free from alcohol” perfume sniff test

Today at the Arab festival I found a great bargain at the Yemen booth: Al Aziza perfume on sale two for a dollar. You can find Arab perfumes all over–in the suq in Arab countries and in the little Arab neighborhood shops. The Al Aziza stuff is alcohol-free too, so if you follow a religious prohibition against ingesting alcohol, now you don’t have to put it on your skin either.

It’s pretty hard to tell what perfume is going to smell like on your skin just by sniffing the bottle, so I just bought four of the little 3-ounce bottles and now I am busy dabbing and sniffing. I got Abu Ghutra (which smelled the best in the bottle) plus Majmooa, Marina, and Solitis.

The Majmooa was definitely the “majnoona”, having a very strong and fun scent in the beginning. After several hours the odors of all the perfumes had faded quite a bit. The Majmooa could hardly be smelled at all, and the Marina was a very faint sweetish smell. But the Solitis had a curiously fresh smell–I don’t know any other way to describe it–and the Abu Ghutra was still quite strong and had kept its characteristic scent. So if you want a scent that can last for several hours, it’s definitely the Abu Ghutra.

You probably won’t find the exact same perfumes in your own neck of the woods. But playing with perfume scents is just another way to stop the American push button rat race culture for a few moments and just savor life.

Chicago’s first Arabesque Arab festival ends..Aaahhhhh, Arabs

Finally yesterday I was able to break away from work long enough to check out the last day of Chicago’s first Arab festival, the Arabesque. It was everything I had hoped for, mostly the opportunity to be in the presence of a lot of Arabs, hear the language, and as they say over there, breathe the air.

The first indication of the festival’s impending success was the weather. A cold front came in just in time for the large numbers of women who attended in modest but less than comfortable attire–scarves meant to cover the hair and jackets completely covering the arms. I myself went to work that morning in a long skirt with jacket so I could jump on a train and go straight to the festival dressed as conservatively as I would be in Jordan.

The second indication was the information derived from another traveler on the train. Was I going to the Taste, he asked, pouring whiskey from a small bottle into a cup of McDonalds coffee. The Taste of Chicago, which I saw in 1979 and have stayed away from ever since on account of the crowds, had already started on Navy Pier. The Arab festival would have a small, select Arab crowd and I would have them all to myself.

The festival had what festivals are supposed to have: booths with food, merchandise, and political information (Jimmy Carter’s latest book was much in evidence). There was free calligraphy–someone would write your name in Arabic with a bamboo brush and there was free henna–someone would draw floral patterns on your hand with henna tubes, not like the lo-tech palms and soles henna you can see at village weddings. One booth offered bread from the local pita bakery as well as Lebanese olives and that finely ground coffee (check out the music on their home page) with cardamom. On stage, an impromptu group of guys linked arms and joined the musicians in dancing a little bit of the traditional dubka.

The argila booth attracted a lot of attention, both with it’s water-cooled smoking pipes, and with its variety of tobaccos. Apple or double apple tobaccos are the most traditional along with strawberry, but they also had some peach, apricot, and melon that smelled pretty good, as well as some more esoteric flavors like banana, raspberry, cola, and jasmine.

The music booth also drew a brisk crowd. A Palestinian guy working the booth with his wife flipped CD’s in and out of a CD player as one hauntingly minor eastern tune after another poured out of the speakers. One CD was ten dollars, and two CD’s were twenty–no Arab-style price negotiations here. Iraqi singer and heartthrob Hossam al-Rassam they had never heard of, but were able to find two other Iraqi tapes out of their huge selection.

Mayor Daley came down earlier in the day, and there were lots of photos all around. The mayor wasn’t the one to suggest the festival, though–the Arab community came to him. About time, said the merchant at one booth. There has been enough publicity about one kind of Arab. The city needs to see the other kind.

Vocabulary:

قهوة –qahwa (coffee)

هال –hale (cardamom)

شمام –shamam (muskmelon)

مشمش –mish mish (apricot)

دراق –duraq (peach)

التفاح –tufah (apple)

التفاحتين –tufahtain (double apple)

زيتون–zaytoon (olives)

أخضر –akhdar (green)

ملح –milleh (salt)

Chicago’s first Arab festival–Arabesque

Daley Plaza

June 27-June 30

Wednesday-Friday 10-3

Saturday 10-5

Free.

Here’s the link:

http://www.chicagoarabesque.com/