Salah Ragab and Tony Allen

And speaking of Honest Jon's Records, this is an amazing item: a 12" featuring, on one side, "Sankofa" as performed by Tony Allen and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, and on the other, "One Tree" and "Ole," two Tony Allen compositions performed by Salah Ragab and the Afro-Egyptian Ensemble. (Listen here.)

Tony Allen, of course, served as drummer and musical director for Fela Kuti from 1968 to 1979, and, since Kuti's death in 1997, has emerged as a major Afrobeat (or as he puts it, afrofunk) artist in his own right, as well as collaborating with all kinds of people, including Damon Albarn on The Good, the Bad and the Queen. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is a eight-piece band that includes seven of the sons of Phil Cohran, famed trumpeter for Sun Ra. They've performed with Mos Def, among others.


Salah Ragab is a legendary figure, who also played with Sun Ra. He formed the Cairo Jazz Band in 1968, while a major in the Egyptian army and head of the Military Department of Music. He and the Cairo Jazz band and his work with Sun Ra are heard to best effect on the amazing album, The Sun Ra Arkestra Meets Salah Ragab in Egypt.


And there is also a more recent release, which I've not yet heard: Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band Present Egyptian Jazz. (You've gotta love the cover!)

El Gusto

You would think that by now, I would have had time to produce a blog about my recent trip to Morocco to attend the Festival des Andalousies Atlantiques in Essaouira. Somehow, moving my home office out of the living room and into a newly-vacated room in the back of the house has eaten up all my spare time.

In the meantime, please check out this report on the Algerian chaabi band El Gusto. I met Safinez Bousbia, the director of the documentary "El Gusto: The Good Feeling," in Essaouira, as well as one of the Jewish-Arab members of El Gusto, the grand master of the pianoriental, Maurice El Medioni. (Go here to see a photo of us.) Here's another good article about the El Gusto project. I was told that El Gusto (the film and the group) will be touring the US in summer '08. Stay tuned!

The album, Abdel Hadi Halo & The El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers, which features only the Muslim Algerian members of El Gusto, is as yet only available as an import. It was released by Damon Albarn's label, Honest Jon's Records. (I posted about the record previously here.)

To get a flavor of the Essaouira festival, see my photos here.

Indy Torture Film Festival: Cairo--NOT

Check out this AFP report. (I love it: the "Golden Whip" award!)

CAIRO - Egyptian bloggers, long at the forefront of exposing rights abuses, are planning an online festival of torture videos to run alongside the 31st Cairo Film Festival, local media reported today.

The parallel festival is the idea of a blogger named Walid, the Egyptian Mail reported, and will feature "controversial acts of torture allegedly committed by the security authorities". [I've been unable to track down the original article.]

Prizes, including a "Golden Whip", will be awarded to the best entrants.

Egypt's blogosphere has exposed numerous incidents of police torture, including that of minibus driver Imad al-Kabir who was shown being sodomised with a stick in widely distributed video footage shot on a police mobile phone.

Two policemen were jailed for three years earlier this month for that crime in a rare case of security forces members being sentenced for abusing detainees.

Rights groups say the use of torture is widespread in Egyptian jails and police stations, while the interior ministry says that those who carry out torture are always punished.

The Cairo Film Festival runs from November 27 to December 7.

UPDATE: One of those who first released torture videos denies any such "fringe" festival will take place. Khusara!

War Is Peace, Sanctions Are Diplomacy

A new Middle East Report Online (MERO): great analysis of US policy toward Iran, by Carah Ong, analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Proliferation.

Sanctions are punitive measures, not serious diplomacy, and the Bush administration has never undertaken a sustained diplomatic initiative aimed either at inducing Iran to cease enriching uranium or at soothing broader US-Iranian tensions. Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s persistent refusal to take military options “off the table,” combined with its intensified rhetoric against Iran, has made sanctions palatable to allies, as well as to some of the most dovish members of Congress and the American public -- but without addressing the political disputes that keep the US and Iran on a collision course.

W's new lap dog/poodle?

Sarkozy!

Cartoon courtesy of the inimitable Steve Bell of The Guardian. Please check out the article by Jonathan Steele which accompanies the cartoon, and which opens with this zinger: "Six months in office, and Nicolas Sarkozy has not ceased being an embarrassment on the world stage." It's interesting to see how Sarkozy is viewed from abroad, whereas in the US, both Democratic and Republican politicians are falling all over themselves to praise Sarkozy. When Sarkozy addressed a joint session of Congress on November 7, his speech in French was interrupted by applause over two dozen times and received six standing ovations. We just love foreign leaders who fawn all over us! That nasty Chirac (Sarkozy's predecessor)--wasn't with us on Iraq! So our current stance on Iran must be correct if Sarkozy is going along with it.

Here's a reminder of what urban youth of the cités thought of Sarkozy when he was Minister of the Interior.

The Politics of Youth: new issue of Middle East Report

(Confession: I'm an editor, and I have an article in the new issue. Please note that you can access my article along with Marc Lynch's for free. But buy the issue anyway!)

Middle East Report 245
Winter 2007

THE POLITICS OF YOUTH


In many countries of the Middle East, as in other developing regions, young people between the ages of 15 and 24 make up a fifth or more of the population. These youth face serious socio-economic problems, including unemployment, under-employment and delayed marriage, but not the least of their burdens are the expectations and anxieties of their elders. In recent decades, indeed, youth have come to be seen as a problem in and of themselves. "The Politics of Youth," the winter 2007 issue of Middle East Report, measures the image against reality.

Anthropologist Ted Swedenburg sketches the "imagined youths" that preoccupy policy planners and pundits in the Middle East and the West. Youth are perceived both as people who need to be protected -- from radical political Islam or from "vulgar" popular culture -- and people from whom the social order may need to be protected. A corollary, among Western observers, is to see youth as the inevitable emancipators of closed political systems.

Real Middle Eastern youth confound elite hopes and fears in ways both conventionally political and mundane. In Egypt, finds political scientist Marc Lynch, young Muslim Brothers are challenging their older leaders' platforms and habits of mind with the open discussion fostered by their blogs. In Beirut, as Lara Deeb and Mona Harb demonstrate, the purchasing power of pious Shi'i youth is generating an "Islamic" culture of fun to parallel the hard-partying "Paris of the Middle East" downtown. In Israel, argues sociologist Tamir Sorek, young fans of Likud-supporting Beitar Jerusalem and the Arab team from Sakhnin both use the soccer stadium to demand full integration as citizens, rendering the Beitar-Sakhnin matches more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in miniature.

In a special report, James McDougall checks in on the recovery of Algeria from its long and brutal civil war. Many of the war's deep causes remain in place: The options in formal politics are limited to opportunism or principled, but impotent opposition, while the newly liberalized economy is working best for those who were already prosperous.

Also featured: Norma Claire Moruzzi reviews Shahram Khosravi's Young and Defiant in Iran; Khaled El-Rouayheb reviews Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs; Rosemary Sayigh reviews Laleh Khalili's Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine; and more.

Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies online at www.merip.org.

For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.

Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US and international policy for the region.

Middle East Report Online is a free service of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).

Wish I Could Go to This Event!

Poetry of Peace: A Night of Hip Hop & Culture Jam for Peace

* DAM the Palestinian Hip Hop Stars from Israel + Omar Offendum & Ragtop
* Read Taleed El-Sabawi's article on Palestinian Hip Hop
* Shaun Toub "Crash" & "The Kite Runner"
* Shiva Rose "David & Layla"
* Raya Meddine "Bosta"
* Mark LeVine author of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Religion and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam
* Saree Makdisi author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation
* Jodie Evans cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace
* Apoetnomadali featuring Morvarid performing Sar Zamin
* Basic Poetry Base One Basic & Apoetnomadali featuring Weapon X performing 1.9.7.9.
* Jerusalem Women: Partners for Peace
* with Deejay Al Fareed

Artists, writers and activists for Middle East peace, a benefit for Levantine Cultural Center, celebrating six years of progressive arts programming.

Bovard Auditorium, USC, 3551 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles 90089. 7-8 pm meet/greet, booths; 8-10:30 pm show; 10:30-midnight after-party.


And, it has just been announced that Palestinian standup comedian Maysoon Zayid is to join the lineup.

Read the press release for the event here. (But note that my friend Mark Levine is wrong about Palestinian-Israeli rap group Dam. Their name means "lasting" or "persisting" in Arabic, "blood" in Hebrew. See Joseph Massad's article, "Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music" in the book I co-edited with Rebecca Stein, Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Popular Culture.)
------------

One of the cool things about the Levantine Cultural Center is that one of its founders is Jordan Elgrably, a Moroccan Jewish American. (Thanks, Mohja!)

The Dalai Lama: NOT Pro-Democracy

Although I'm in no way a supporter of China's rule over Tibet, I'm really sick of Western liberals fawning over the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. So I was pleased to see Slavoj Zizek's recent op-ed in The New York Times (October 11--okay, so I'm way behind on my reading), which contained this observation:

What bothers Chinese authorities are sects like Falun Gong that insist on independence from state control. In the same vein, the problem with Tibetan Buddhism resides in an obvious fact that many Western enthusiasts conveniently forget: the traditional political structure of Tibet is theocracy, with the Dalai Lama at the center. He unites religious and secular power — so when we are talking about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, we are taking about choosing a head of state. It is strange to hear self-described democracy advocates who denounce Chinese persecution of followers of the Dalai Lama — a non-democratically elected leader if there ever was one.

Progress on the racial front? Income gap between black and white families grows

My mostly-white students tend to think that since the passage of civil rights legislation, racial problems in the US are "so over." My students are probably not out of synch with the rest of white America. Here's some troubling counter-evidence, from the Economic Mobility Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. A few choice excerpts from the AP report:

Incomes have increased among both black and white families in the past three decades - mainly because more women are in the work force. But the increase was greater among whites, according to the study being released Tuesday.

One reason for the growing disparity: Incomes among black men have actually declined in the past three decades, when adjusted for inflation. They were offset only by gains among black women.

Incomes among white men, meanwhile, were relatively stagnant, while those of white women increased more than fivefold...

In 2004, a typical black family had an income that was only 58 percent of a typical white family's. In 1974, median black incomes were 63 percent those of whites.

"Too many Americans, whites and even some blacks, think that the playing field has indeed leveled," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League.

It has not, he added.

(my italics)

Why the FBI can't use falafel sales to catch Iranian agents

Israel's national dish
Originally uploaded by tsweden

Because falafel is Israel's national dish.

A friend brought me this fridge magnet from Israel last summer. Such falafel tourist kitsch is ubiquitous there.

And an Israeli designer of an Israeli kafiyeh (kufiya), Ben Haim, claims, “It’s going to be like the falafel."

Et tu, kufiya?

now Lauren Bush and Lupe Fiasco

kufiyaspotted by KABOBfest (they spell it keffiyeh spotting).

Yes, comrades, that is W's niece, daughter of Neil, who works as a fashion model. She reportedly once dated a Palestinian-American named Tammer Qaddumi (Yale) and now goes out with Ralph Lauren's son David.

And she majored in anthropology at Princeton. Maybe that explains her desire for exotic garb?

AS for skateboarding rapper Lupe Fiasco, he is Muslim, after all. Also kufiya-spotted by KABOBfest.

(Yes, kabobfest is now clearly outdoing me on the keffiyeh spotting. In my defense, they're a collective. And it's not a contest. My hatta is off to them!)

kufiyaspotting (yet another)

Originally uploaded by Horatio_Blue

I love the eighties feel of this.


I found it at The Fierce and Fabulous flickr pool. Don't miss it.

Watch what you eat...

From Democracy Now!
Thursday, Nov. 8.

FBI Monitored Sales At Middle Eastern Grocery Stores
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian secret agents. The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales [!!!!], combined with other data, would lead to Iranian agents in the region. The program was the brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie Hulon. The datamining operation was eventually stopped after FBI officials determined it was possibly illegal to place someone on a terrorist list because of what they ate.

Read the Congressional Quarterly report here. Particularly telling is this statement:

As ridiculous as it sounds, the groceries counting scheme is a measure of how desperate the FBI is to disrupt domestic terrorism plots.

And worse yet, a measure of how completely uninformed the FBI is, since falafel is a mainstay of the diet in Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel--but NOT Iran. Falafel sales are much more likely to be indicative of the presence of Israelis than Iranians...

Henri Alleg on Waterboarding

French journalist Henri Alleg, arrested and tortured by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957, describes his experience to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

(May the names Schumer and Feinstein live forever in infamy!)

Arabspotting: Coachella Valley High School Arabs

Coachella Valley is probably best known today for its music festival, "Coachella," but arguably it is more important economically for its dates, which originally started in the late nineteenth century with shoots from Morocco, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria. Almost 95% of US-produced dates come from Coachella, and all the date varieties have Arabic names: Deglet Nour, Medjool, Halawy, Khadrawy, Zahidi and Thoory. Hence the name of the Coachella Valley High School mascot: the Arab.

The history below has some mistakes: the headscarf is not a hijab but, as readers of this blog know, a kufiya (keffiyeh) or shemagh or hatta or ghutra. And Saudi Arabia was never a colony of France! (Of Aramco, maybe.) And who knows why the Saudis think they had any thing to do with this Arab mascot, since the original date shoots were not from the Arabian peninsula.

Here's the history, from the CVHS Alumni Association website.

The Evolution of Our Mascot

The Arab mascot dates back to when Coachella Valley High School first began to compete in athletics in the 1920s. The school adopted the name Arabs in part to recognize the importance of the date industry in this end of the valley, but also because it fit in perfectly with the neighboring towns of Mecca, Oasis, Arabia, and Thermal.

The original Arab was drawn carrying a lance and riding a horse. On his head he wore a turban.

His image remained that way until sometime in the 1950s when the turban was replaced by a fez and the lance was replaced by a scimitar.

There were two versions of the mascot - a young one holding a scimitar and an old one with a growling face and a gold tooth.

Another change in the mascot came in the 1980s. A group of Arabs from Saudi Arabia who were in the area touring the desert's date industry recommended that the mascot's headdress be changed from a fez to a hijab or head scarf. Their reasoning was that Saudi Arabia was no longer under French rule; therefore, Saudi Arabians no longer wore the fez as their headdress.

The school voted to honor the request and the mascot began to be drawn as he still appears today.

California Über Alles

In San Diego County: “There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported. Opponents of illegal immigration, including civilian border watch groups, seized on news that immigrants had been detained at the Qualcomm Stadium evacuation center as evidence of trouble that illegal immigrants cause.

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday...

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services...

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius [Political Science professor at UC-San Diego] said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

from today's New York Times.

More downloads: Kuban and Mano Negra

This time, Nubian singer Ali Hassan Kuban with Mano Negra (Manu Chao's old band), here, at Kanz al-Tuhaf.

Soundtrack for the Next Misadventure 2: Hich Kas

Go here for some mp3s by a great Iranian rapper named Hich Kas ("Nobody"). This youtube video features the song "Ekhtelaf" and some photos of the artist. And of course, Hich Kas has a myspace page, which you should keep returning to, for new songs.

Soundtrack for the Next Misadventure

I love the title of this post, I wish I had invented it.

I intend in future (between finishing off a couple articles and getting ready to head off for Morocco) to post other sources for music from what may be the next target of US intervention. Meanwhile, Magic of Juju is a great source for all kinds of music, including Sabah and Fairuz.

Kufiyaspotting #25: Ayatollah Khameini, Hajjarian hit man

I've been reading Roxanne Varzi's very interesting ethnography, Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolutionary Iran, and came across this interesting bit:

When the meaning of sacred symbols shifts [such as the chador, conventionally worn by women who support the Islamic revolution, but now sometimes worn by young women out on dates with their boyfriends], power structures are renegotiated, as well as trust in one's own vision. An example is the Arab qafiyeh (scarf) [I have no idea why Varzi adopts such an idiosyncratic spelling]: a symbol of Palestinian resistance. The qafiyeh was first donned by Islamic revolutionaries to show support for Palestine and resistance to Westernization. Later, it became a symbol of the volunteer soldiers fighting for Islam in the Iran-Iraq war.

The qafiyeh is still worn by Ayatollah Khameini [Iran's current Supreme Leader and ex-president]. Just before the Iranian New Year in spring 2000, a hit man [Saeed Asgar] in the assassination attempt on the reformist Said Hajjarian was described as wearing a beard and a qafiyeh. Suddenly the symbol sacred to Islamic revolutionaries became descriptive of a suspect against reform. Hatamikia, a well-known film director, wrote an editorial reminding the nation that the qafiyeh is not the symbol of an assassin or murderer; and he added that it was disrespectful to emphasize this characteristic in the description of Hajjarian's would-be assassin.

Go here for a Middle East Report Online interview with Hajjarian. For another example of the shifting meaning of "sacred symbols" in Iran, go here to read about how the Islamic republic has banned the wearing of red kufiyas as badges of Arab identity in Khuzistan/'Arabistan.

The photos are of Ayatollah Khameini, one from the early eighties, the other contemporary.

Kufiyaspotting #24: The Cool Kids

A kufiya from the rap world: The Cool Kids. (Thanks for the tip, Dave.) I was only just introduced to this rap duo, who are aptly named. Hip, old-schoolish. Check out their myspace page, and for some free downloads, go here.

Kufiyaspotting #24: Sting Plays at the Pyramids for Palestinian Children

This photo by Abdel-Hamid Eid accompanies the article "Desert Bloom," about Sting's visit to Cairo in Al-Ahram Weekly, 26 April - 2 May 2001. It appeared shortly before Sting's concert at the Pyramids, along with rai star Cheb Mami, Egyptian sha'abi star Hakim, and Lebanon's Elissa.

Here's the most interesting bit, the Palestine connection. I quote:

The sponsors of this high profile event also pledged to donate 10 per cent of ticket revenues to the children of Palestine through Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a British charity organisation.

Sting goes on to say:

"My opinion is that the future lies around the negotiating table in the peace process. I'm not with bulldozers and tanks. And the sooner we get there the better," he urged. He believes that some of his songs "sing very directly about the situation in Palestine in a metaphorical way. It was very moving. I don't take it for granted"...

The singer brushed aside concern that he might be criticised for performing at a concert where revenues will be channeled to Palestinians.

"A charity for children can't be criticised," the singer said matter-of-factly. "I am here because I want to be here. I have great joy in singing"...

Sting says his message is "intrinsic in my songs and my music", but he told Al-Ahram Weekly that he had "no idea" whether he will compose or write songs for the Palestinian cause any time soon...
Egypt's Hakim said that he was delighted to take part in a cultural exchange mixing Egyptian folklore, Algerian Rai, Western music and Lebanese pop. Lebanon's Elissa said that her performance at the concert "is the least I can do for the Palestinian cause."

After being badgered by politically-loaded questions, Sting reminded his inquisitors that his was not the art of politics. "I am a singer. When I have an opinion, I can express it, but my job is to entertain. I don't want to be a politician"...

Cairo brings back "very fond" memories of his days as lead singer with The Police, when the band performed at the American University in Cairo in 1980.

As for Sting's outfit, which he wore at the interview, the white disdasha and kufiya (scarf): He was given the outfit in Jordan where he performed two days earlier, Sting told reporters.

A New Low for NPR's "This I Believe": "I support the military checkpoints" for Palestinians

My Sunday morning tea was nearly ruined by this morning's episode of the NPR series "This I Believe." It featured Tamar Duke-Cohan, raised in Israel, who teaches classes about the Hholocaust at Hebrew College, Newton, Mass.

Here are a few juicy examples of Duke-Cohan's beliefs:

Moral or not, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is a fact of life, as is the threat of terrorism. Given this realpolitik, I support the military checkpoints, which have managed to halt suicide bombings despite their negative impact on Palestinian lives.

Military occupation simply a "fact of life"!

Does the Israeli need for security outweigh the importance of the rights of individual Palestinians? I believe it does and my mother believes it does not.

Duke-Cohan's mother belongs to Machsom Watch, an Israeli women's group that monitors Israeli soldiers' behavior at checkpoints. It is an extremely courageous group--check out its monthly reports. (The photo above, of the Qalandiya checkpoint, is from Machsom Watch.)

Note that "This I Believe" chooses to feature an Israeli point of view that supports the military occupation. And a point of view that argues that the "morality" of this position is based on the fact of an ongoing argument between Duke-Cohan and her mother over these issues.

...we are duty bound to confront moral dilemmas and scrutinize the implications of our actions. For me, this is the main lesson of the Holocaust. We must hotly debate the political and ethical questions posed by today's complicated world — and we should sometimes disagree, avoiding the dangers of "group-think," while striving for compromise. That's why I believe in asking hard questions and arguing about them.

Would NPR ever broadcast an essay from someone like Duke-Cohan's mother? Or from a Palestinian living under the military occupation that Duke-Cohan considers simply a "fact of life"? This I (kinda) believe: not. (I couldn't find anyone taking such a position when I hunted through the "This I Believe" data base. Does this conform with Edward R. Murrow's moral vision?)

Shana Tova (Happy New Year) from Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz's intrepid correspondent, gives his account of some of the Palestinian casualties (in Gaza and the West Bank) of the Jewish year of 5767. As he says, a "pretty quiet" year, "only" 457 Palestinians and 10 Israelis were killed. But for children, horrible: 92 Palestinian children killed (but not a single Israeli child), and one-fifth of the Palestinians killed: children and teens.

Too bad that most of kufiya wearers I keep obsessively tracking aren't, for the most part, aware of such issues (the honorable exception: Aki Nawaz).

Timbaland the "ethno-beat-thief"

Read here wayneandwax's post about the new suit, filed by Osama Ahmed Fahmy (not Admed, as in the original allhiphop.com post), against Jay-Z, Timbaland and a host of others, for the use of a riff from Abdel Halim Hafez's 1957 recording, "Khosara," in Jay-Z's 1999 hit, "Big Pimpin'."

Kufiyaspotting #23: Robert Geller

The more time I spend on this subject, the more amazed I am at how ubiquitous the kufiya has become. I missed this from last fall, Robert Geller's scarf, from his prestigious Harald line, which according to Laura Schechter, was "envisioned [by Geller] as an interpretation of the Arabic warm-weather scarf, also known as a shemagh, designed to protect from direct sun and shield the mouth and eyes from dust and sand." Schechter calls it "the Harald Kaffiyeh scarf."

And, according to this article in Nylon, the German-born Geller typically wears a "Palestinian scarf" of the sort that he used to finish off the look of most of his Autumn '06 line.

Back from Holland

Bicycles outside The Hague train station
Originally uploaded by tsweden

I returned on the 19th from a trip to Holland. I was invited there by ISIM (The Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World), to participate in a workshop on Islamic Fashion and Music, and to give a talk. The title of the lecture, cosponsored by Cosmopolis (Rotterdam) was "Jihad Rap?: 'Islamic' Popular Music in Europe, Post 9/11." I gave the lecture, on September 14, in Rotterdam, a city I had never visited. It's very cool--it was pretty much completely bombed out when the Germans invaded in World War II, and currently a lot of money is being spent on refurbishing it. The architecture is outstanding, and you can see a few examples on my flickr account.

One of the things that really impressed me is how much biking goes on in Holland. As you can see from the photo, hundreds of bikes are parked outside the train stations. Every road has a bike lane or a dedicated bike path. Everyone seems to be riding bikes. We went on a lovely, long bike ride last Sunday, and the bike paths were full of riders. I hardly ever see anyone else riding when I'm on my bike in Fayetteville. No doubt due in part to all the bike riding, and all the walking, you don't notice any obese people in The Netherlands. (But you notice them as soon as you get off the plane in Northwest Arkansas.)

Thanks to the people at ISIM, there was a lot of media coverage of my visit. I couldn't figure out why, but one my ISIM handlers pointed out that it was probably the title, "Jihad Rap"! If you read Dutch, check this report out in Dagblad De Pers, and this one in Metro, a free paper which is read by 1.5 million people, in a country with a population of 16.5 million. (The circulation of USA Today, by comparison, is 2.3 million, the highest in the US.) There was more coverage, but not all of it is available on-line. If I find some more I'll post those links as well. (Here's another, originally from NRC Handesblad.)

I may have more to say about my Holland experiences in future...

Kufiyaspotting #22: Nili Lotan's kufiya dresses on Fifth Avenue and at New York Fashion Week

Thanks to Rochelle, who spotted the kufiya sheeth in silk while walking down Fifth Avenue (NYC) over Labor Day weekend and took photos on her cellphone. The designer, as you can read on the window, is Nili Lotan, who is based in New York City, born in Israel. According to the New York Times, Nili Lotan "served in the Israeli air force before working for Nautica and Ralph Lauren." That's her photo in the window. You can read there as well that Nili Lotan is the winner of this year's Mercury Style Awards, sponsored by Elle Magazine.

It appears that these two dresses are from her Spring '08 fashion line, which she revealed on September 10 at the New York Fashion Week. Below is a photo of a red kufiya dress shown on the runway. If you check out this youtube clip from the show, it's the eight dress that goes by--although it's hard to recognize that it's a red kufiya design (backless).


The line will be featured in a spread for American Photo's November 2007 issue. Be sure to check for kufiyas! (I've read some accounts of the line at the New York Fashion Week and no one seemed to notice the kufiya.)

In Israel, however, observers have a keener eye for Palestinian motifs. According to an article published last year in Ha'aretz, she has used Palestinian as well as Yemeni embroidery in her previous designs:

Local embroidery is also incorporated into Lotan's clothes. On a quest for Yemenite embroidery, she met with several older Yemenite women, but says she came to the conclusion that she finds Palestinian embroidery more interesting.

"Yemenite embroidery has one motif," explains Lotan, "while Palestinian embroidery is a whole world. Now I visit a group of women in Segev Shalom, near Be'er Sheva, for ideas. I also plan to use ideas from the sources that inspired Maskit, which I feel is a wonderful project."

The embroideries are a minimal component in Lotan's clothes. "No one would ever figure out where they came from. Even the outfit Paris Hilton wears was inspired by a Yemenite woman. I use these ideas in only a few of my clothes, but they give me a lot of pleasure."

And, according to Ha'aretz, there is a vague sort of political dimension to her fashion, although it doesn't seem to go beyond a desire to stimulate "thinking":

Next spring women in Manhattan could be wearing dresses, skirts and blouses, or even underwear, emblazoned with rifles, submachine guns and pistols. The fashionable woman looking for a slightly more refined message will have an alternative: dresses with oil-well prints, which will go nicely with U.S. Army-issue water canteen belts accessorized with silver buckles.

The designer behind this arms-print collection is Nili Lotan, an American-Israeli and a familiar figure on the American fashion scene....

"I'm sick of drawing flowers, circles and stripes, and decided to look for graphic shapes that would express my experiences," says Lotan, explaining the rationale behind her new collection, which will be presented in January 2007. "This is not about a protest, but rather an expression of what I feel. I want to stimulate women to think. What's happening around the world today bothers me. What's happening in Israel and the Middle East bothers me even more. I was in Israel for a week during the war in Lebanon, and I am very worried. Still, I thought up the idea for dresses with gun prints beforehand."

Lotan realizes that her collection may not interest fashionistas from Park Avenue.

"I don't think that these are prints that many women will want to wear," she admits. "I don't think many women will want to express their political opinions via their clothes. Even so, I believe there will be some who will buy [my collection] because it will give them a unique power. There are even some who think it is very sexy."

I've not yet found the guns and oil-well Lotan lines...

Displaced: Middle East Report Issue 244

Very timely new issue of Middle East Report (244, Fall 2007), on Displacement. The promotional blurb is below. Read and SUBSCRIBE! (Confession: I'm on the editorial committee).

Downplayed in the media, dithered over by the international community and (until recently) ignored by the Bush administration, more than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the US-led invasion of their country in 2003. Even before the Iraqis' flight, the Middle East held the dubious distinction of being one of the foremost generators of refugees -- Palestinians, Sudanese, Somalis and others -- in the world. In the mass uprooting and dispersal of Iraqis, as demonstrated in the fall 2007 issue of Middle East Report, "Displaced," there is much that is sadly familiar.

What is novel about the Iraqi displacement crisis, writes anthropologist Julie Peteet, is the near silence about the displaced, the absence of camps and the belated humanitarian assistance. The crisis magnifies the trend noticeable in the 1990s toward categorizing the displaced as something other than refugees and thereby minimizing the legal obligations of states and international bodies to help them.

Madona Mokbel surveys the plight of Iraqis in neighboring states, where they are denied access to jobs and services, and also face the growing resentment of the native population, who blame them for rising prices and groaning infrastructure. As political scientist Stefanie Nanes finds in Jordan, this blame is misplaced. Given the limited capacity of neighboring states to absorb refugees, the question is why the US and UN have been so slow to respond, argue researchers Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding.

The displacement of Iraqis of course recalls the 1948 expulsion and flight of Palestinians, who continue to live in a harrowing limbo. Muhammad Ali Khalidi and Diane Riskedahl, analyzing the Lebanese army's summer 2007 assault on the Nahr al-Barid refugee camp, conclude that the only thing uniting Lebanese factions is "antipathy for the Palestinians living in their midst." Relief efforts, reports Mayssun Sukarieh, are received with ambivalence by Palestinians who wish their supporters would focus on campaigning for Palestinian rights -- including the right of return. Middle East Report interviews the activists of Zochrot, an Israeli organization working to recover the suppressed memory of the Palestinian displacement in Israel.

Also featured: Stephen Dedalus chronicles another forced migration that has passed almost unnoticed in the West -- the Pakistani military's displacement of perhaps 250,000 people from rebellious Balochistan; Joel Beinin visits settler-besieged al-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills; Laleh Khalili reviews Bernard Rougier's Everyday Jihad; and more.

Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies online at www.merip.org.

Kufiyaspotting #21: Justin Timberlake at the MTV Video Music Awards

Somehow, I missed watching them last night, but thanks to Hisham, I've learned that Justin Timberlake had a black-and-white kufiya stuck in his back pocket while performing at the MTV MVA, 2007. (You can see it quite clearly if you click on the photo to see an enlarged version.) And yes, Justin has pretty high "hip" credibility, so that must mean: kufiyas are still hip. (But in the back pocket? What's next?

Btw, I searched the MTV site but couldn't find a video of this performance. Someone tell me when it shows up on youtube--it's not there yet.

Kufiyaspotting #20: Fun^Da^Mental

I'm preparing to speak about Fun^Da^Mental again and realized that, although Aki Nawaz seems always to be garbed in a kufiya, I've never devoted a kufiyaspotting post to the group. Most infamously, kufiyas feature in their music video for "Dog Tribe," which the BBC banned from daytime television. (You can watch the vid at Fun^Da^Mental's site, just go to video. But better yet, buy All Is War and get a DVD with all their vids.) John Hutnyk gives a penetrating analysis of the video and controversy over it in his book, Critique of Exotica. (Search this site for many more posts on Fun^Da^Mental.)

Fez: "Mad Men"

I've been watching the new AMC show "Mad Men" pretty faithfully, in part because I like the way it depicts gender relations in the early '60s.

I was struck by something in the latest episode (8), "The Hobo Code." Don goes to meet his on-the-side girl Midge and her beatnik friends at a flat (probably somewhere in the Village). They all smoke pot and listen to Miles Davis. Here's the thing, one of the guys is wearing a fez--green, I think. So now I'm dying to know whether this is "accurate" (the show prides itself on its scrupulously faithful attention to details of setting and costuming).

So, was the fez part of "hip" beatnik gear? Where did it come from? Surely not the Shriners--the epitome of un-hip.



There's a flickr fez pool to look at--but it doesn't really help.

I seem to recall photos of bebop artists wearing fezes, and then of course there's the Moorish Science Temple founded by Noble Drew Ali (pictured above), which was gaining white bohemian adherents in the fifties (see Peter Lamborn Wilson's Sacred Drift, p. 49).

And then there are Matt Groening's beloved Akbar and Jeff of Life Is Hell.

Stay tuned. Maybe I need to start a "fezspotting" series?

Pete Doherty, The Libertines, Love Music Hate Racism

Early on in my kufiyaspotting adventure, I posted about The Libertines and the kufiya that appears on the sleeve of their 2004 CD. More recently, I've posted about ex-Libertines, current Babyshambles leader Pete Doherty, infamous drug abuser and boyfriend of Kate Moss, who was spotted giving charity kisses for Palestinian children.

Now I find that Doherty has also played a leading role in the British anti-racist formation, Love Music Hate Racism, and in fact, has done more free work for the organization than any other artist. Love Music Hate Racism was set up in 2002 in response to "rising levels of racism and electoral successes for the Nazi British National Party (BNP)." LMHR is a successor to the celebrated Rock Against Racism movement of the late 1970s.

Among the many other acts involved with LMHR is British Muslim rap group Mecca2Medina as well as Asian Dub Foundation.

Berke Breathed on the Burqini (Islamic Swimsuit)

Check it out (courtesy salon.com--thanks to Chris for alerting me to this).


More on the burqini here and here.

Footnote: before I was a Razorback I was a Longhorn. Berke Breathed got his start as a cartoonist, doing a strip called The Academia Waltz, back in 1978, when I was a grad student at UT. I remember it fondly.

Forget the Kufiya, It's Syrian Lingerie

I'm about to go off to Holland to give a talk on "Jihad [sic] Rap," but I'm really sorry I will miss the symposium on Arabic Visual Culture, "Khatt Kufi Kufiya," to be held in Amsterdam on August 24, and sponsored by the Khatt Foundation Center for Arabic Typography in Amsterdam. Interesting sessions include the one on lingerie, led by Malu Halasa, whose book on the subject, The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design, is coming out in 2008.


And then there's the session on "The Clash of the Motion Picture," led by lecturer and video documentary maker Khaled Ramadan. Is his kufiya outfit not the craziest you've ever seen?


And there's much more: check out the site for the conference, visually and intellectually stimulating.

New mp3: Adawiya

Check my blog Kanz al-Tuhaf for an 'Adawiya download.

Palestinian rappers: Nahr el-Bared/Badawi, Beirut, Tyre, Ramallah

For some reason I can't make the video of the rappers from Nahr el-Bared to post here, so I'll just link to the post from Decentering Damascus. It's filmed at an event at Badawi refugee camp (Tripoli, Lebanon) organized by displaced Palestinian youth from Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. I'll try to get some help in translating the lyrics. Meanwhile, check it out. The offspring of Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel in 1948, themselves displaced again by the fighting between the Lebanese Army and Fateh al-Islami.

Meanwhile, check out this flyer for the "Anti-Crise" festival, to be held at Sanayeh Garden in Beirut on September 8, and at the port of Tyre on September 9, which features among other artists two Palestinian rappers from Lebanon, RAy (of I-voice--check out I-voice's free downloads at their myspace page) and H2z (you can listen to his raps here).

Finally, visit Ramallah Underground for more Palestinian rap. I've not visited this site for awhile and they've got some great new stuff.

More downloads: Sudan, Jordan, Libya

Please check out my music blog, Kanz al-Tuhaf, for (rare) downloads from al-Bilabil (Sudan), Abu Youssef (Jordan) and Nasir al-Zimawi wa al-Nusur (Libya).

Kufiyaspotting #19: Editors

I just noticed this photo while leisurely leafing through the latest issue of Spin. This appears to be the publicity photo that is being circulated in conjunction with the release of their second album, An End Has a Start. I had not heard of this Birmingham band, but I've now listened to a few tracks from their Live at Lollapalooza 2006 album, and I really like their sound. They remind me of Echo and the Bunnymen. I haven't hunted much but I get no sense that there are any radical politics involved here. The kufiya (worn by guitarist Chris Urbanowicz) is just... normal "hip" gear in England these days. (Spin gives the new album 3 1/2 stars; Rolling Stone is less enthusiastic.)

Meanwhile, it may be okay for mainstream rock bands and hipsters to wear kufiyas, but if you're the principal of an Arab-themed public school in New York City, God forbid that you should ever use the word intifada...

Antiwar/Occupation Songs: Lee Hazlewood

As part of the ongoing and occasional series on songs critical of the Iraq war/occupation, there is Lee Hazlewood. I meant to post something earlier, and now that he has passed away, I'm finally prodded to do so.

His last album, Cake or Death, is quite wonderful, quirky and singular, like everything Hazlewood ever did (or at least, what I've heard). His version of "These Boots Are Made for Walking" is worth the price of the album alone.

And there are at least a couple notes of dissent here, first of all, on "Baghdad Knights":

And the soldiers they stay
Shoot to kill and then pray
They soon leave the outskirts of hell.
And they write their letters to loved ones
Write sometimes we fight
Sometimes we run
Just like playing football
…with a gun.
Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhhhhh
Those Baghdad Knights!
Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhhhhh
Those Baghdad Knights!

And then there is "Anthem":

I never never never ran.
I never fought or hurt nobody,
nobody I was bigger than.
I always did what my mama told me.
Do so good and pay that band.
I always did what my mama told me
but I never did vote Republican.
I never did vote Republican.

RIP, Lee.

Separate Latrines for Iraqis at US Base

Some call it segregation. Thanks Bob, who notes that this recalls the Jim Crow policies of ARAMCO.

Kufiyaspotting #18: Libertines Scarf Print T-Shirt

The trend that won't stop, that keeps mutating like a virus...This is a must have item: the "Libertines Scarf Print T-Shirt," so you don't have to buy an actual kufiya, you can wear a t-shirt with one printed on it, available from ASOS.com, for 16 pounds sterling.

Does the name have anything to do with the fact that Carl Barat appeared garbed in a kufiya on the cover of The Libertines' eponymous 2005 album? Or that ex-Libertine Pete Doherty's girlfriend, Kate Moss, has donated charity kissess to raise money for Palestinian children?

Meanwhile, I've recently learned that in Sweden they don't bother with the name, "kufiya," they just call it what it is: a Palestinian scarf (palestinsjal).

Kufiya/keffiyeh controversy round 2: Delia's

As of last month, Delia's was selling the kufiya as a "peace scarf"--much as Urban Outfitters did for a time in its early spring catalogue, as you can see on this post from Jewschool (scroll down). Some folks wrote in to complain about Delia's seeming support for terrorism, as you can see from the comments on Jewschool about this item. Delia's form letter included the following: "We apologize that this item has offended anyone; this was not our intention. Please be assured that our company did not intend to imply
any support for terrorism." Delia's quickly shifted the name to "Euro Scarf," and more recently, has discontinued the item.

Meanwhile, Kabobfest reports that Zara's department store in West Jerusalem is carrying a multi-colored kufiya.

On and on and on...

Interviewed on Swedish National Radio...

The kufiya (woops, keffiyeh) story continues to extend my 15 seconds of fame. I was recently interviewed for a show on Swedish National Radio called "Stil" (Style), on the topic of the recent popularity of the kufiya in North America and Europe. If you know Swedish (I don't, I was interviewed in English), give it a listen. It's the July 20 show, about about 20+ minutes into the show. Sometimes at the first click on the link you get the live feed, but if you click the link again you should get to July 20th.