The Common Ground News Service, November 8, 2005
Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
November 8, 2005
The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) is distributing the enclosed articles to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. Unless otherwise noted, all copyright permissions have been obtained and the articles may be reproduced by any news outlet or publication free of charge. If publishing, please acknowledge both the original source and CGNews, and notify us at cgnewspih@sfcg.org.
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ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:
1. “Women and a culture of peace” by Claude Salhani
In this first article of a new series of views on "The Role of Women in US-Muslim Relations," published in partnership with the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity and United Press International, Claude Salhani, international editor and political analyst with United Press International in Washington, counters a Western stereotype that all Muslim women are oppressed: “While the cliché of the oppressed woman still holds true in parts of the Muslim world, by and large, Muslim women have come to enjoy greater freedom.” Using examples, he shows how Muslim women may, in the foreseeable future, become the regions ambassadors of peace.
(Source: CGNews-PiH – November 8, 2005)
2. “Not the Paris Intifada” by Gwynne Dyer
Gwynne Dyer, a London-born independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries, confronts the growing perception that Paris has been taken over by Muslim-instigated violence. He argues instead that these riots are “an outburst of resentment and frustration by the marginalised and the unemployed of every ethnic group,” made up of Christians and Muslims, Arabs and French, who are all using a traditionally French mode of protest – riots and rebellion – to demonstrate their outrage at the lack of opportunities they face.
(Source: Jordan Times, November 7, 2005)
3. “When we sanctify cultures, we get group-think” by Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji, the author of The Trouble with Islam Today who is currently making a film about what there is to love within Islam, argues that cultural relativism is a misplaced construct in the discussion on imposing sharia, in the name of cultural rights, that is going on in many parts of the world. In fact, she feels that it is the dignity of the individual, based in the concept of universal human rights, that can finally overcome cultural practices – such as honor killings in the Muslim world - that violate such dignities, without hardening existing cultural identities.
(Source: The Independent, October 26, 2005)
4. ~YOUTH VIEWS ~
“In Bridging Gaps, Dialogue is Key” by Marwa Abou Dayya and Alex Fortes
American University of Beirut student, Marwa Abou Dayya, and Harvard student, Alex Fortesa, participants of Soliya, a youth program designed to improve dialogue and understanding between cultures, discuss their shared concerns for various issues affecting the world today, and identify three major areas of disagreement: Israel-Palestine; democracy, rights, and war ethics; and media objectivity. Showing sophisticated insight they suggest policy changes and opportunities for increased intercultural interaction as means of addressing these most sensitive and difficult challenges.
(Source: CGNews-PiH, November 8, 2005)
5. “Reworking 'The Simpsons' for the Arab world” by Vivian Salama
Vivian Salama, staff writer for the Daily Star, writes about the changes “The Simpsons” are making to adapt to the Arab world. In addition to some superficial name changes, they are also adjusting their lifestyles; for example Omar (aka Homer) has substituted evenings at the coffee shop enjoying a juice or tea in lieu of the time his Western counterpart spent at the bar drinking beer. Although there are certain themes that may not conform to this new, predominantly Muslim audience, the goal is to keep the show humorous and relevant.
(Source: The Daily Star, October 28, 2005)
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ARTICLE 1
Women and a culture of peace
Claude Salhani
Washington, DC - Establishing a role for women in a patriarchal society, one in which they can contribute toward building a culture of peace, is no simple task. Nevertheless, despite restrictions imposed more by cultural traditions than by religious diktat, Muslim women are not entirely the second-class citizens deprived of all rights, as so often portrayed in the West. And nor are non-Muslim women living in the Muslim world.
Women, as the gentler of the two sexes, often make better cultural ambassadors, or even just better ambassadors. It is a shame that most Muslim governments have been painfully slow in recognizing that fact, at least until very recently. With the rare exception, the Muslim world’s diplomatic corps has had remarkably few females serve as head of their overseas missions.
While accompanying Karen Hughes, President Bush’s newly appointed under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs on her visit to Saudi Arabia last September, Jonathan Karl, a senior foreign affairs correspondent with ABC News, wrote in The Weekly Standard, that when he asked a young Saudi female student what she wanted to be 10 years from now, she replied, "Ambassador."
"Does Saudi Arabia have any women ambassadors, anywhere in the world?" he asked.
"No," she replied. But she is convinced that her country is changing so much that Saudi Arabia will soon have women ambassadors, reported Karl.
While the cliché of the oppressed woman still holds true in parts of the Muslim world, by and large, Muslim women have come to enjoy greater freedom. They have won the right to vote and run for office in most Muslim countries. And while they may be largely absent from their diplomatic corps, Arab women are now found serving in police forces of most, if not all, Arab countries.
Muslim women are active members of their societies, where they play influential roles. Given the chance to serve their countries as diplomats, they can impact public opinion in a positive manner, particularly in the West where they can help establish common ground between the two cultures.
Queen Noor of Jordan, and the reigning monarch’s wife, Queen Rania, are prime examples of influential Muslim women involved in promoting dialogue between cultures.
In non-Arab Muslim states, such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, women have fared better, rising to the office of the presidency.
The fossilized views regarding women espoused by the Taliban or those of the strictest of Salafis are the exception rather that the rule in a changing Muslim world. Still, much more needs to be done for Muslim women to win parity with men.
Saudi author Badriyya Al-Bishr, a lecturer in social sciences at King Saud University, recently published an article in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat titled "Imagine You're a Woman." She laments the lack of women’s freedom in Saudi Arabia where adult women still require a guardian’s approval even to get a job. The ‘guardian’ may be her 15-year-old son.
In spite of these restrictions, women in the Muslim world are often not afraid to speak up, as demonstrated by a female Saudi Arabian journalist who drilled the Saudi minister of Religious Affairs at a press conference in Riyadh. Not satisfied with the answers, she persisted to the point of near harassment. It prompted the minister, who is also the kingdom’s Grand Imam, to comment to the Western press in attendance: “And some of you think we oppress our women and prevent them from voicing their opinion.”
Indeed, when Karen Hughes toured a number of Muslim countries last September, she was surprised to hear from Saudi women that driving a car, or even voting was very low on their list of priorities. Far more important was their need for the United States to better understand the Arab world, the need to build bridges between the US and the Muslim world, and the need for the US to help bring justice to all the people of the Middle East.
Countries and societies that exclude their women from active participation in every aspect of daily life only end up hurting themselves by limiting their human resource potential and brain power by nearly fifty percent. Empowering women as ambassadors of peace can help build that bridge.
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* Claude Salhani is International Editor and a political analyst with United Press International in Washington. Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.
Source: This article is part of a series of views on "The Role of Women in US-Muslim Relations", published in partnership with the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) and United Press International (UPI).
Visit the website at www.sfcg.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 2
Not the Paris Intifada
Gwynne Dyer
London - “Scum,” French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the rioters who have seized control of many working class “suburbs” around Paris every night since Oct. 27, when two teenagers died in an accident that many blame on the police.
Accused of pouring fuel on the flames, Sarkozy responded: “For too long, politicians have not used the right words to describe reality.”
Sarkozy plans to run for the presidency next year, and he wants to seem even tougher on crime and on immigrants (two separate issues that he regularly conflates) than his main rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. But his conviction that the policy of multiculturalism has failed has become the new popular wisdom in France where right-wing commentators refer to the riots as the “Paris Intifada” — as if the rioters were all Muslims.
Nothing as bad as the Paris riots has happened in Britain, but last month, gangs of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian youth fought each other in the Birmingham suburb of Handsworth-Lozells and many Asian businesses were looted or destroyed. The talk in the media was all of “ghettoisation”, and even Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality and himself of Caribbean descent, was carried away by the panic.
“America is not our dream but our nightmare,” Phillips said, referring to the existence of a permanent underclass in the United States, largely defined by race, which periodically rises in hopeless revolt and burns down parts of American cities. Britain must not allow American-style racial ghettos to emerge in its cities, he warned, and linked that risk to multiculturalism: “We have allowed tolerance of diversity to harden into the effective isolation of communities.”
Meanwhile, right-wing American commentators gloat over the notion that the French, who refused to follow the Bush administration on its crusade against alleged Islamic extremists in the Middle East (you know, like Saddam Hussein), now faced a Muslim uprising at home. Multiculturalism, as an alternative to the US “melting pot” approach in which second- or third-generation immigrants eventually lose their old identities and merge into the majority, is now under attack everywhere.
Even William Pfaff, the best informed of American commentators, has stopped believing that people with profoundly different traditions can live side by side in the same country. Writing in “The Observer” after the terrorist bombs in London in July, he said: “A half-century of well-intentioned but catastrophically mistaken policy of multiculturalism, indifferent or even hostile to social and cultural integration, has produced in Britain and much of Europe a technologically educated but culturally and morally unassimilated immigrant demi-intelligentsia.”
He was in effect arguing that the London bombs would not have happened if British immigration policy over the past fifty years had extinguished any sense of solidarity between the descendants of Muslim immigrants to Britain and Muslims elsewhere. That is no doubt true, as far as it goes, but not invading Iraq would have prevented the London bombs at a much lower cost.
The real problem with all this ranting about the failures of multiculturalism is that the Paris riots are actually a splendid demonstration of the successful integration of immigrants into French culture (which has, after all, a long tradition of insurrection and revolution). The riots in Paris are not a Muslim uprising. They are not even race riots. They are an outburst of resentment and frustration by the marginalised and the unemployed of every ethnic group.
The low-income housing estates that ring Paris and other big French cities are the dumping ground for everybody that hasn't made it in the cool 21st-century France of the urban centres, and they include the old white working class as well as immigrants from France's former colonies in Arabic-speaking North Africa and sub-Saharan black Africa and from all the poorer countries of Europe. Unemployment there is often twice the national average of 10 per cent. But they are not Muslim majority communities, or even non-white majority.
Every ethnic group lives jumbled together in the apartment towers. The kid gangs that dominate the estates steal from strangers and residents alike and fight among themselves for control of the drug trade, but they are models of racial and cultural integration. This can be little consolation to the owners of the 28,000 vehicles that have been burned on those estates so far this year, but what is happening now is neither an Intifada nor a race riot. It is a incoherent revolt by kids, many of them gang members, who would once have formed the next generation of the French working class. They are no longer needed in that role and they have no future, so they are very angry. But they are not politically organised, so after a few more nights, the violence will die down again for a while.
In Britain, where unemployment is half the French level and the council estates are less grim and less isolated geographically, there is much less anger. There haven't been French-style riots in Germany either, although many Germans have deeply racist attitudes towards non-Christian and non-white immigrants, but German cities also do not concentrate their poor people, immigrant and non-immigrant, in densely populated one-class “suburbs”.
The French have little to be proud of in their immigration policy, but what has been happening there since late October is neither American-style race riots nor a Muslim rebellion. About half the kids burning the cars and the buildings are white, working-class, post-Christian French, and they get along with the black and Muslim kids just fine.
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* Gwynne Dyer is a London-born independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Source: The Jordan Times, November 7, 2005
Visit the website at www.jordantimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 3
When we sanctify cultures, we get group-think
Irshad Manji
London - Right now, there is a contest waging around the world between the rights of the individual and the rights of cultures. In Iraq; in Spain; in Indonesia; France; in a large part, here in Britain; and even in Canada, some Muslim leaders are seeking to impose Sharia law on Muslim women and children in the name of cultural rights.
In Canada, it is Muslim women - many of them - who have hit the streets to protest what they term this abuse of multiculturalism. But they found it quite difficult to draw non-Muslims to join them. This leads not just to a lack of solidarity but also to a lack of integrity.
According to the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, last year alone, in that country, 1,200 women were murdered for alleged breaches of their families' honour. That's twice as many detainees than [there are] at Guantanamo Bay.
But honour killings have generated far less public condemnation. Why? I think a large part of the reason is cultural relativism. Now, there are many who would say "but surely we can have it both ways. We can embrace the equality of individuals and the equality of cultures". Yes, if we convince the gatekeepers of cultures to soften their own identities, allow more voices in and voices, in particular, who can and will reinterpret certain traditions.
But here's the key. Even that requires challenging traditions which risks putting people on the defensive, which risks hardening their identities. Is this a worthy risk to take? I would argue that if you believe in universal human rights as I do, then it is not just worthwhile, it is integral. As in integrity. Because if you believe that all human beings are entitled to a certain set of dignities, then those cultural practices which violate such dignities cannot, by definition, be justified.
The universality of human rights is premised on the dignity of the individual, not on the sanctity of cultures. When we sanctify those constructs called cultures, we make them static. We drain them of their dynamism. We wind up with group-think. Otherwise known as fundamentalism.
--From a contribution by the author and broadcaster to a discussion on 'Notions of Identity in a Multicultural Society', held at the Canadian High Commission in London.
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* Irshad Manji is author of the The Trouble with Islam Today. She is currently making a film about what there is to love within Islam
Source: The Independent, October 26, 2005
Visit www.independent.co.uk
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained from the author for publication.
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ARTICLE 4
~YOUTH VIEWS~
In Bridging Gaps, Dialogue is Key
Marwa Abou Dayya and Alex Fortes
Beirut/Boston - Since the events of September 11, 2001, and especially since the beginning of the Iraq War in March 2003, the relationship between Arab states and the United States has been particularly contentious. As participants in Soliya Connect, a program that engages American and Arab college students in dialogue through weekly online videoconferences, we have discussed with our peers the politics, policies, and perceptions that divide these two regions. Encouraged by our surprising agreement and driven by our often-heated debates, we have attempted to better understand the issues that spark the greatest controversy between Arab and American nations. Through examination of our own views and our understanding of our respective cultures, we have identified three major areas of disagreement: Israel-Palestine; democracy, rights, and war ethics; and media objectivity. We believe that a better understanding of these issues, with an unwavering commitment to dialogue, is a vital initial step in disentangling the Arab-American tensions so prominent today.
The most viable proposal we can make is to maintain a serious commitment to increased dialogue and interaction between the two regions. This dialogue must transcend the normal interactions of diplomacy and work to place members of the society in every discipline at a discussion table, to air perceptions and grievances and to help clear up confusions. Programs such as Soliya are well designed to address this problem, but they do not go far enough. The United States' relationship to Israel, and implicitly, Israel's relationship to the Arab world, plays a pivotal role in American-Arab relations.
Therefore, a dialogue between Americans and Arabs must also include Israelis in order to be as productive as possible. The Lebanese government currently prohibits interaction between Lebanese citizens and Israelis. Throughout the course, we honored this rule and did not interact with Israelis at any point in the program; however, we think that it is vital for the interests of the whole region to open up dialogue fully between Israelis, Americans, and Arabs, at least in the context of programs with goals of fostering understanding such as Soliya. We therefore propose an effort to lobby the Lebanese government to modify this rule and exempt programs that aim at increasing understanding among the different cultures. It is also important to note that the United States, in its diversity, presents a less problematic arena in which to enhance American-Arab relations. By fostering dialogues among Americans of various backgrounds including those of Arab descent, we can soothe internal tensions having to do with the conflict without needing to address the more entrenched divides one encounters when dealing with the Middle East.
Since the Arab relationship to America is so heavily marked by the conflict in Israel and Palestine, commitment to resolution of this conflict must be the first priority of American foreign policy in the Middle East. While under the Clinton administration the United States did make earnest attempts to mediate between the two parties in the conflict, the Bush administration has until very recently been less willing to take an active role as mediator beyond putting forth proposed terms of peace. What has replaced the emphasis on Israel and Palestine - the war in Iraq - only serves to further aggravate American-Arab relations. While the justifications for this war were various and poorly corroborated, one of the chief ones stated by the American leadership is bringing democracy to the Middle East.
As a general policy goal, this is meritorious; using war as a means to achieve it, however, is anything but. The U.S. must instead emphasize reform from within, aiding it through trade liberalization and political support of popular liberal revolutions of the society. Achieving a democratic Middle East must be done on the terms of the people of the Middle East. It is the burden of Arab States to cooperate in prosecuting the most destructive elements of Arab society; however, in so doing, these governments risk being perceived as pawns of the United States and losing popular legitimacy. The subtleties of these interactions and the circumstances surrounding them are extremely complex and beyond the scope of this piece to address comprehensively. Even so, a commitment to more enlightened policies - both at the level of international politics and at the level of cultural dialogue and exchange - furthers our goal of cooperation and reconciliation.
We emphasize that maximizing social interaction and cultural exchange through various forms of dialogue - whether they be sponsored by NGOs, governments, educational institutions, or legitimate elements of the mass media - is central to decreasing the tension between American and Arab cultures.
-This joint piece by a Lebanese Muslim and an American Jew is itself a testament to the compromise and consensus that can be achieved between the two; any and all steps taken to further this goal, no matter how small, are positive.
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* Marwa Abou Dayya is an American University of Beirut student and Alex Fortesa is a student at Harvard.
Source: CGNews-PiH Youth Views, November 8, 2005
Visit the website at www.sfcg.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 5
Reworking 'The Simpsons' for the Arab world
Vivian Salama
Cairo - As with any family moving to the Arab world from the West, "The Simpsons" quickly discovered they'd need to make some adaptations to their lives if they were to connect with the natives. First, they would change their names - the family now called Al-Shamshoons; the father, once Homer, now goes by Omar; his mischievous son Bart, now Badr.
There would be fundamental changes to their lifestyles as well. Omar, once a fan of tossing back a few beers with friends, now goes to the club or the ahwa (coffee shop) and sips on sodas and juice. The list goes on. Donuts have been replaced by kakh (Arabic cookies); bacon is done away with altogether as it is against Islam; and the kids, once a rowdy bunch of conniving delinquents, are still just as cunning but mind their manners with their parents a bit more.
Brought to life by creator Matt Groening and the FOX network, "The Simpsons," over the last decade, would take the United States and later the world by storm. The show, in a way, prompted an animation revolution - with idiosyncratic expressions such as "Doh!" recently added to the English dictionary.
In sharp contrast to cartoons already airing at the time, "The Simpsons" targeted teenagers, with its sophisticated, often controversial and risque antics. Until recently, Arab satellite network MBC aired a subtitled version of the hit cartoon sitcom. Just before Ramadan, the network won exclusive rights to air an Arabic-dubbed version of the show, slightly adapting story lines to suit Arab audiences.
"MBC is looking to find programs suitable for young adults and teenagers," says Michel Costandi, MBC's business development director in Dubai. "We've always thought of new ideas that are entertaining - introducing new genres. The dubbed version of the program fit nicely with our objectives."
Dubbing western cartoons is by no means a new trend. Disney cartoons have been dubbed for years, though their storylines are generally better suited for younger audiences. Still as dysfunctional as their U.S. counterparts, MBC's creative team looked to maintain "Al-Shamshoons" plots nearly identical to that of the original, subtly changing references that may be deemed inappropriate.
"In the Arab world, life does not revolve around bars," Costandi points out.
"Sure we have a night life, but alcohol is not really part of the daily scene in Egypt, Lebanon or anywhere else. So, we do not stress on what Homer is drinking. If he is drinking beer in the original, in ours, we let him drink something else, or we don't say what he is drinking."
"We do not have our own cartoons, unfortunately, that are as strong as the ones coming from the West," points out Shahira Khalil, editor in chief of Samir magazine and an expert in children's press. "Here, the idea is we can show things from other cultures, but the problem is that we fear our children will imitate. This is an Islamic culture - we do not encourage alcohol. It is not our culture."
Part of the success of "Al-Shamshoons" is the voices behind it. Among the major celebrities bringing life to "Al-Shamshoons" cast are actors Mohammad Heneidy, Hanan al-Turk and Rogina.
MBC executives chose to debut the Arabic version of the hit-series during the month of Ramadan as it guarantees them the highest number of viewers.
Currently, the network has only scheduled to run "Al-Shamshoons" daily through the month of Ramadan. However, Costandi says the apparent success of the dubbed program has encouraged executives to continue showing the program after the holy month. As with their decision to run Arabized-reality television shows and game shows modeled after American programs, MBC also intends to repeat the process with other Western programs that would be suitable for this age group.
The original Simpsons was famed for introducing younger audiences to controversial subjects, such as homosexuality and racism. Should MBC decide to continue airing the series, it will have to make some major decisions about the storylines it will keep and those it will do away with.
"With any good idea, we sit together in meetings and research and assess what we need at our network," Costandi adds. "Comedy was discussed - and youth audiences are important so that's how the idea came about. We had to put everything behind this to make it a success. That means talents, scheduling, the season, time slots - it's a big investment for us."
"Al-Shamshoons" is currently broadcast daily during the early-evening prime-time slot on MBC.
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* Vivian Salama is a staff writer for the Daily Star.
Source: The Daily Star, October 28, 2005
Visit the website at www.dailystar.com.lb
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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The Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity, brought to you by Search for Common Ground, seeks to build bridges of understanding between the West and the Arab World and countries with predominately Muslim populations. This service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal in June 2003.
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