Books

Lost In Transmission - by Jonathan Harley

     Most interesting book on an australian foreign correspondent experience in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He doesn't get the religious side exaclty right (or rather, he doesn't delve too deeply into it, contenting himself with sometimes unadequate generalities), but the rest is very good, informative but above all, it makes you discover the experience of a journalist who tries to do things the right way in impossible circumstances. It's especially interesting on the personnal level : no one is a hero, and the ones who are die very quickly and those who only appear to be are the worst of the lot.

     Also a good book to be read when you start forgetting, as a sheltered westerner (sheltered from wars and such), what the rest of the world looks like. As he rightly says, we are not the norm, we're just lucky. The last pages on the death of his friends, on this subject, are moving and disturbing.

     And once again, the experience of someone who is "hooked up" by Afghanistan. This terrible and beautiful country seem to have this effect on so many people who ever managed to go there, capturing their minds for ever.

City of Veils - by Zoë Ferraris

      Good thriller, good crime story set in Saudi Arabia. This is the reason, as always, that made me buy the book, since anything on this country interests me, but in the end, the book in itself is really good, as any good thriller I read before. 

      It's the first book from her that I read, and I'm quite happy to have ordered the other two, that seems to take up the same characters in the same place (mainly Jeddah).

      The author obviously knows stuff about the place and the country, even though you might detect, through the characters (what they say of the islamic veil, etc), that the author knows very well the religion as practised in Saudi Arabia in hard-line milieus, but not really, if at all, how it is percieved and practised elsewhere. As if she knew islam only through the lense of hard-core Wahhabism, and so sometimes I would have wished so feel the texture and deepness of the rest of the islamic world, if only the neighbouring countries, and its past ... Since wahhabism is only a recent phenomenon there.
        So the plot is good, the writing is ok, but if you want to learn anything on the religion or the culture, it's not really the book to buy. It still relies too much on the usual clichés, and it doesn't have the deepness you could expect from someone who researched the subject. Though I don't know anything about the author, I would say it's the sort of book written by someone who lived there for a short time but whose experience didn't end well.

       Well, you can't blame an author for giving the western reader what life is like sometimes there and giving into the cliché to grip a usually ignorant western audience, but even in this country there are other forms of living and religious practise and understanding that have yet to be described (after all, like every Gulf country, Saudi Arabia has a lot of migrants from the arab and non-arab world). But then, I haven't read the other books, maybe it gets more "real" in the others ... !

Impossible Man - by Michael Muhammad Knight

      Most interesting autobiography. I don't want to comment much on it as I haven't read what seems to be the follow-up "journey to the end of islam", but I would say that I enjoyed his novels more that his autobiography, thus far. 

     It explains how he got to know so much about islam, but also why he is locked, always, in a patriarchal vision of everything, despite islamic feminism or any other phenomenon producing other discourse. I would have thought that with everything he had studied, he would have at least seen the huge roles of women both in history and nowadays in the middle east, but he seems to see islam only through a patriarchal lense, to mix up the cultures where it is practised with the religion that is practised (well, most of people do, but still, it's not an excuse). Maybe because he was confronted since the start to a near "hardcore" version of the religion. (We can understand this it to an extent ... These are times where, in any country and any culture, you only hear about the hardcore part of politics and ideologies, the "quiet majority" keeps to itself, hidden).

       Anyway, more than the religion, it's a story of a quest for absolutism, what any and every teenager is after, a quest that fails since life doesn't give much into absolutism of any sort ... He was looking for perfection and found a religion practised by most imperfect humans, like any religion or anything else. He expected religion to stand the test of science, and there too many people, in my opinion, fail to get that science has nothing to do with religion. One explains the rational part of the human being, the other tackles the irrationnal one. And the danger begins when you want to wipe off one of these two ...

      Anyway, I've been a bit carried away. Back to the book : the real hero is his mother, and the book's key sentence is something his insane father told him "Woman is the  nigger of the world". (Something that is only true if you keep seeing the world, like the author, as a classic-style patriarchy. Because my experience of so-called patriarchal societies shows something much more complex ...)

"Le voyageur sans orient" de Salam al-Kindy

(FRA)

« Le voyageur sans orient : Poésie et philosophie des Arabes de l’ère préislamique» de Salam al-Kindy

     Voilà un très beau livre, plein de réflexions qui donnent à réfléchir et à revoir la culture arabo-musulmanne classique d’un oeil neuf. L’auteur maîtrise tellement son sujet, la pensée philosophique occidentale et la littérature des deux mondes arabe et européen qu’on se sent un peu bête parfois, et quelques passages son quelque peu difficile, mais si on prend le temps de le lire, et de le relire, c’est fascinant.

     Il nous explique l’essence de la poésie pré-islamique, pourquoi tant de spécialistes l’ont mal comprise, et ce en quoi elle diffère de la poésie post-coranique, même si de forme les similitudes sont grandes. Et de là, la différence radicale entre la vision du monde jâhilite (pré-islamique) et la vision du monde après l’apparition de l’islam :

«On présente parfois la Jâhiliyya et sa poésie comme ayant ‘‘préparé»» l’ère coranique ; il serait plus exact d’écrire que le Coran a bâti une réponse terme à terme à la vision du monde de la Jâhiliyya et à son élaboration conceptuelle»

p.161

     Et je dirais même qu’il est peut-être essentiel, à qui «l’esprit» de l’islam lui échappe, de comprendre d’abord l’esprit et la vision du monde de la Jâhiliyya. La réponse monothéiste apparue ensuite prend tout son sens. Dans le monde jâhilite ultra-pessimiste, étrangement  très moderne pour nous occidentaux du 21ème siècle, vient une réponse optimiste avec la promesse de l’au-delà, et l’affirmation d’une existence divine qui donne un sens là où les poètes erraient «sans orient», subissant les pertes du temps, sans retour possible aux joies passées ...

     Il ne faut pas y voir une hiérarchisation, façon «quelle vision du monde est la meilleure ?», mais simplement ce va et vient entre les deux opposés, et comme les concepts de l’un sont repris par l’autre (voir le dernier chapitre qui parle du soufisme) pour aller encore plus loin ... et qui forme finalement la base de la culture arabo-musulmanne.

Bref, même si la poésie n’est pas notre tasse de thé, ce livre vaut vraiment le coup d’être lu (et relu).

(ENG)

«The traveller without orient, poetry and philosophy of the pre-islamic Arabs» by Salam al-Kindy

         Excellent book, in french, but I highly doubt it's been translated into english ... A shame really.

      It is essential in my opinion for who wants to understand the spirit of arabo-islamic cutlure, and in what world the islamic religion appeared. It unearth this often over-looked and almost always badly apprehended poetry that is the «jâhiliyya» poetry (pre-islamic), and the world view it shows. A world view that is strangely very modern and very «pessimistic», to which comes the Quran, bringing an «optimistic» view with the afterlife and the affirmation of the existence of God. Not that one is better than the other, but you suddenly understand what this is all about, and on what opposites is based the whole arabo-islamic culture. And how this post-quranic culture took and used some pre-islamic concepts and made them into something both similar and different, on another level.

       The author master both litteratures and philosophies, western and arabic, so the book sweeps through philosophy and poetry, and also mystical concepts, and all becomes clear and coherent, which is very rare, when the subject is both so precise and obscure (pre-islamic poetry) and large (world views).

    Anyway, despite some difficult paragraphs (especially for those who are not used to philosophical prose), this is worth reading, and re-reading.

"المسافر بدون اتجاه : شعر وفلسلفة عرب الجاهلية" 

لسلام الكندي  ـ لا أعرف إذا ترجمتي صحيحة ...الكلمة "اتجاه" بالفرنسية هنا هي نفس الكلمة من "شرق"

 كتاب مكتوب بالفرنسية على يد مثقف عربي من سلطانة عمان, عن الشعر الجاهلية والرؤية وراءها, رؤية العرب أناذاك عن العالم والحياة وهذا الكتاب كان مهم جدًا بالنسبة اليّ ففهمت الكثير وفي أي عالم ظهر الاسلام وما هو من أجوبة في عالم رؤيته متشائمة بالمعنى الفلسفي فالقرآن يحمل رؤية متفائلة ... صعب جدًا أن تختصر مثل هذا الكتاب الذي  يستوعب الشعر وفلسلفة وحتى التصوّف  ... ولكنه مهم جدا جدا بالنسبة لأي شخص مثلي الذي\التي يريد أن يفهم عما أُسّس الثقافة  العربية القديمة , وبشكل ما المعاصرة أيضًا 

نكتشف أن الرؤية "الجاهلية" هي متشابه جدًا من رؤية يمكن أن نجدها في فرنسا والغرب ـ لا أتكلم عن سلبية الأمر أم اجابيته فقط أجد التشاؤم الجاهلي قريبًا من تشاؤم نعرفه في فرنسا وأن في النهاية الشعر الجاهلي قريبًا منا وليس شيئًا قديمًا بعيدًا..

  

Ha ha. Ha ha.

I don't always laugh at reading the news, I even very rarely laugh, but this last week has been quite good to me, as to what happens in KSA : it seems the religious police has a very keen sense of what sort of men women might find overly handsome (I'm still waiting to see pictures of the guys though, since I already find that quite a lot of Arabian gulf guys are handsome, I'm frankly curious at how do these three look like ?!)*, and another story about what they never tell you in the west, or how a patriarchal system doesn't always go the way the guy want in the first place ... I wonder if he will ever regret his decision ? And why in the world the woman demanded such a condition ?!


* Update : I just heard one of them is Omar Burkan, which I'd already heard about. Well, true, even if he's not exactly my type, he's still too handsome for his own good.
Makes me think that well, we're not born all equals, life must be very different depending on whether you're handsome or ugly ... Despite of the political correctness at denying this, you see everyday that physical appearance is a huge factor.

If The Sun Doesn't Kill You, The Washing Machine Will

(ENG) 
     Another awesome book. Is it that I only blog about the books I love ? It seems I always start a post with that phrase. Anyway, pure british sense of humour throughout, I laughed from the beginning to the end of this short book (made even shorter by the fact that it is funny) : the actions and reflexions of a british expatriate in Qatar, author Peter Wood.
     A simple example of this humour is that sentence : instead of just writing «my cooker is broke» or «my cooker is not working anymore», the author writes «My cooker has temporarily withdrawn its co-operation». It may appear simple, but a whole book of it is just brilliant. I wish I was able to think and write like this ...
     And so, wether you are much into Gulf countries stuff like me or not, it doesn't matter, the author will make you interested. It gives you a good idea of what might have been Qatar in the early 90's and it surely has changed a lot since, but it's not what is important as much as the view and incredible experiences in a Gulf country of a Londoner who has never set foot there before. There are some subjects that eludes him still, which leads him to make some statements I wouldn't quite agree with, as would be expected from a lot of foreigners (and they're always the same : the desert, and the women), but a very interesting piece is his comparison of the judicial system between the U.K. and Qatar when dealing with crime and its punishment. And I find myself kind of agreeing with him even though it is a very unconventional view to be held by a westerner. The basic argument is that a very harsh system on crime in the end benefits much more society than a liberal system as the british one ... It sounds backwardish and all but his examples are quite convincing, I'll leave you read it ...
     That peculiar piece of opinion you might or might not agree with doesn't reflect at all the whole book, and I really recommend reading the whole thing, if you need a laugh, it's exactly what you need.

(FRA)
     Récit s'un expatrié anglais au Qatar, Peter Wood, dans les années 1990. Et c'est drôle. Du pur humour anglais d'un bout à l'autre, je le recommande à toute personne qui a envie de rire et qui comprend l'anglais sans trop de difficultés, peut importe que le Qatar l'intéresse ou pas à la base. (La prince il a dit, c'est un bouqin génial ...)
    Les seules pages dénuées d'humour sont au nombre de 3, et l'auteur y compare les système judiciaires qatari et anglais, en faveur du premier, donnant un point de vue inhabituel et peu consensuel, pour un européen, et bizarrement je me suis retrouvée à peu près convaincue. L'argument est que plus le système est dissuasif de par sa sévérité, plus les gens évitent, finalement, de faire n'importe quoi, et bien que de prime abord cela paraît réactionnaire et stupide pour l`ère du temps, les exemples qu'il relate donnent à réfléchir...
     Mais bon, ce n'est que marginal, le livre est à mourir de rire, cela donne envie de s'expatrier dans un pays du Golfe juste pour voir si tout cela est vrai, et si au final on pourrait avoir autant d'histoires drôles à raconter ... Peut etre beaucoup moins, car le Qatar a beaucoup changé en 20 ans, mais bon, en bref, le sujet principal de ce livre est l'humour propre au style de l'auteur tout autant que des situations improbables qu'il a vécu d'un européen parti loin de son univers familier.

سيرة ذاتية لرجل إنكليزي الذي راح يعمل في دواة قطر خلال التسعينات أي قبل عشرين عامًا ويسرد مغامراته بهذه الفكاهية الانكليزية العظيمة وتضك كيرًا منذ البداية حتى النهاية. في الاساس هي قصة اصطدام مضحك بين ثقافتين ... وتجد أيضًا بعض الصفحات حيث يقدم بدون سخرية اراء مثيرة للانتباه خاصة مقارنته بين النظام القضائي في قطر وفي إنكليترا وكيف يفضل هو النظام القطري القاسي الذي يجعل الكل يشعر بالأمان (لأن الناس يعرفون ما هي النتيجات إذا تختلف القانون) أكثر من النظام الانكليزي وعدم قسوته يجعل المجرمين لا يخافون أي شيئ ولا تشعر بكثير من الأمان ... بالنسبة لأروبي هذا الرأي غير عادي وفي خلاف من الرأي العام ولكن كل الأمثلة والحجات يعطيها كانت مقنعة... 
ولكن من جديد، الموضوع العام هو الأحداث والحالات المضحكة التي انخرط فيها في بلد حيث يعيش ناس من كل أنحاء العالم.  

The Kingdom - "A freak of geology gave the Kingdom oil ..." the rest is History.

  "the Kingdom" by Robert Lacey, published in 1981.

    

(ENG) 

       Not a fiction book, it’s a historical piece about the foundation of modern Saudi Arabia and its evolution up until the 80’s (I also bought the sequel by the same author which deals with Saudi Arabia from the 80’s up to nowadays, «Inside The Kingdom»). And I just finished it yesterday and loved it. 

Despite some out-of-date vocabulary and depictions (a bit orientalistic), it gathers everything I love : one of the arab countries that interests me the most (Saudi Arabia), subjects that interests me the most (geopolitics, arab culture and old traditions) and History. And the way of telling it all is so enjoyable, and typically british, that you forget that the book is actually big and deals with all sort of foreign or complicated notions. You read it like and epic more than like a history book.

I expected, being written by a westerner, that it would be like all the usual stuff written about that country and the neighbouring ones and which is focusing on digging up the scandals and the clichés that will frighten you, «reel bad arab» style. But on the contrary, even though he does bring up everything that can be brought up, good and bad, the book made me even more fascinated with this country than before. I’m in the process of buying everything I can about it, both in english and in arabic.

And through this book I’ve been discovering a legendary character in the person of the state founder, Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the sort that you meet only once in a century, the likes of Napoleon. You can critizise some of his actions all the while applauding others, and as a westerner you might be more than puzzled by such a character, but in the end you’re fascinated (for Robert Jordan’s fans, he is a 20th century ta’veren). I wonder if anyone made a movie about him, because his story is the stuff of legends. Story of a handsome and ruthless old-school arab warrior, it has even got the battles and the swords and the castles, not only oil and modern stuff which come up only later. The man himself sounds dashing, with everything to make for an awesome biopic.

And Saudi Arabia of the beginning of the twentieth century sounded so beautiful, with deserts, palm groves and mud castles, and no cars or modern constructions to smear the scenery, and the last possibility of witnessing bedouin life.

I know that modernity in several aspects is a good thing (i.e. hospitals) but the price paid for if so high, it will always make me sad that now anywhere I’ll be travelling, the world will look the same, or try to look the same. Ugly buildings, same cars, pollution. And this is why I always admire anyone who try to keep some of their heritage, and try not to get wiped out by modernity (or rather westernization, you can be modern without being westernized). Even though I can't say that today heritage is well preserved in Saudi Arabia, from what I read in the newspapers of old buildings' desctruction ...

Anyway, digressions apart, some parts of the books shows that the author really tried to understand the country and its people, i.e :

(after writing about censoship) «On the other hand, ordinary Sa’udis can, and do, voice the most direct and bitter criticisms to the king, princes and ministers to their faces - and here perhaps is a clue. You can say what you like in the Kingdom within the intimacy of the personal bond, face to face. That is acceptable; it is dignified; it is your right. But to make a public criticism is different : it implies disrespect; it invites shame». (p.506)

And sometimes, you feel the author is confronted but something unfathomable for him, even though he sees it well : «If you come in to land at Jeddah, Riyadh or Dhahran airports any Friday around sunset you will see the desert around the towns dotted with the little groups, many of them lit, as darkness falls, by the blue glow of a portable television ont the corner of the rug. (...) This is where they have come from. The desert is the source of everything they hold dear - their religion, their code of honour, their ancestry, their black gold - and regularly the inhabitants of the Kingdom flee the modern pyramids their riches are creating to return to the bleak void that they find so consoling. (...) Do they catch wind of some secrets, these Arabs, as the desert breeze blows ? Do they find answers to their problems ? What does this communion with emptiness telle the men and women of the Kingdom about themselves and about the world in which they live ?» (p.522-533)

It’s not always that lyrical of course, but it shows how the author catches glimpes of everything or almost, but, at times, using his own western perception of the few things that are out of his grasp : «bleak», «emptiness», that’s how deserts look to him, and to many who never lived near one. But I guess everyone has places and situations like that will stay out of their grasp forever . A lot of aspects of western life looks like that to me : out of my grasp (which is a shame, since I was born and grew up in Europe). But deserts, I would most definitely not describe them as «bleak» and «empty». My dream is precisely to live near one, so that I can do exaclty that : have a night out in the desert every week or so, so far and so close to everything. It was what I loved best in Australia when I lived there, the central desert, and what I loved best in Jordan : driving trough it (and more cliché, cameling through it, tourist-style, but I don’t care, it was the best thing ever).

I could go on for long quoting the book, I highlighted practically one page out of two, there are so many incredible, unexpected stories and examples (for a western reader at least), it is really worth the read. It covers pratically all aspects and the differents elements that come crashing into that place during the last century (politics, culture, economics) and it’s a very good introduction, I think, for people who don’t know much about it. This book is reckoned a classic, and I understand why. If anyone is interested in this «mysterious» country (sorry for yet another cliché), read it !

(FRA)

Livre historique sur l’Arabie Saoudite au 20ème siècle (jusqu’aux années 1980. Publié en 1981, l’auteur en a depuis écrit récemment un autre, la suite). Malgré un vocabulaire un peu daté (orientaliste), c’est un des meilleurs livres que j’aie lu, toutes catégorie confondues. Au lieu de me faire détester ce pays, comme beaucoup de livres écrits sur le sujet le font (ou voudraient le faire), cela m’a encore plus fascinée par la péninsule arabique ... Je voudrais maintenant pouvoir acheter tout ce que je peux sur le sujet, en français, arabe et anglais.        L’auteur passe en revue à peu près tout : politique, religion, culture, économique, et l’occasionnel inévitable scandale ... Pour quelqu’un qui ne connaît rien au pays, je pense que c’est un bon plan de commencer par ce livre. Il me reste à lire la suite par le même auteur, qui m’attend sagement sur le rayon ...

     Pays inaccessible, ça me donne encore plus envie qu’avant de le visiter. Et je me demande ce qu’on attend pour faire des films sur la vie des rois de ce pays : le premier en particulier, Abdul Aziz, relève de la légende, style Napoléon. Il en existe une fois par siècle, ce genre de personnalité. Qu’on le déteste ou l’aime, il ne laisse pas indifférent, et tous les éléments sont là pour faire un biopic de fou, les guerres, les châteaux, le sabre et le fusil, la technologie qui vient se mêler de tout ça avec le pétrole, l’ancienne culture du désert, les mouvements religieux, la géopolitique mondiale, etc ... J’ai lu ce livre comme de la fantasy. Et j’ai en même temps compris pas mal de choses sur l’économie du pétrole, qui l’eût cru ?

      Et comme toujours, le désert ... Un sujet qui reste mystérieux à l’auteur, la relation entre les habitants et le désert, qui est un des sujets qui m’attire le plus, et que je comprends le plus (un de mes objectifs étant de vivre vers un désert un jour).

فرني كما يريد كثير من الكتب عن هذه الموضوع لمؤلفين غربيين فأنا اللآن منجذبة للجزيرة العربية أكتر من قبل. كتاب تستوعب تقريبا كل شيء من التأريخ والسياسة في المعنى العام والعلاقات بالدول الخارجية والثقافة للشعوب في الجزيرة و و و  ... وأنا الغربية أتساءل لماذا لا سمعت أبدا عن أفلام على حياة الملوك آل سعود. تحديدا على حياة عبد العزيز التي تشبه خرافة مثل يحبها الغربيين, أي فيها الحروب والقصور والسيوف والعالم الحديث والنفط وهذا الشخصية العظيمة, عبد الزيز, مثل نابوليون وغيره من الشخصية الإستثنائية تظهر إلا مرة في أي قرن. مهما تفكر في مثل هذه الشخصية وهذا التأريخ, الكل مثير للاهمام. المؤلف رغم مصتطلحات قديمة استشراقية تنجنح في فهم الكثير وأحيانا لا يمكنه أن تفهم عناصير  مخصصة مثل العلاقة بين السعوديين والبادية (التيه ؟ الصحراء ؟ لا أعرف الكلمات المناسبة) وبشكل غريب هو تحديدا واحد مما افهمه ؛ واحد من أحلامي هو أن أعيش قرب صحراء مثل ما شفت في )الأردن وأستراليا ... أحلم بأن أزور السعودية ولكن أعتقد أن هذا مستحيل للوقت الحاضر ـ ما عندي محرم ولا فرصة للعمل هنا). 

على كل حال الكتاب جعلني أريد أشتري كل الكتب أجدها عن السعودية بأي لغة ... يوم الأمس اشتريت إثنين بالعربية. لنرى اذا استمتع 

بها مثل ما استمتعت بكتاب روبيرت لاسي

أعرف أن كثير من الناس عرب وغير عرب يكرهون هذا البلد ـ نفس شيء في فرنسا اذا تصبح غني فالناس يكرهونك ـ والثقافة الناس لا تهتم بفهمها يجعل الوضع أسوأ ... ولكن لا أجد ما هو أسوأ في النهاية في الجزيرة العربية مما هو الحال هنا في فرنسا. بل وعندهم الصحراء واللغة العربية وكل هذا ...

My thing with men clothing in Arab countries

Something I don’t usually talk about - clothes - although I pay a great deal of attention to the way people dress anywhere I might be, and I also am quick to critizise the way they dress too, because I have a weird but very definite taste about what fits who and how ... Unless, of course, the person gets the real secret of looking good : being confident with what you wear, whatever it is. Make the others believe the clothes you’re wearing are exactly what you wanted to wear and the look you have is exaclty the one you wanted to get (even if it’s not). That’s one of my hidden cliché-french sides for you then.

All that aside, for years I’ve been evaluating traditional and modern clothing in all the places I have visited for what they look like in general by people wearing them (regardless of the bad or good exceptions on individuals), and after all those years the first place for the best looking clothes ever, for both men and women, is always occupied by the same ones : for women, the indian sari, of which I will speak in a future post. And for men ... The traditional and modernized-traditional arabian dress, the stuff that includes most of the time now :

• the white thawb / thobe / kandura / dishdasha / etc: the arabic names for this long white dress as seen on the Gulf princes on TV.
• the black overcoat or bisht. 
• the keffieh / shimagh / etc : it seems they had a ton of different names according to the region for the head-dress.
• the iqal : the (usually) black cord that keeps the latter set on the head.

Knowing that if we take old orientalist paintings and old pictures taken in arab countries into account, the clothes were much more colorful and with more variations in the past (and in my opinion, even more beautiful ... Seriously, what’s better than a well-wrapped turban ? Some of the afghan people were well-minded to keep that style). Nowadays it pretty much goes down to the above elements with few variations : white, black, possibly creme and brown for the bisht, and red or black checkered keffiehs. Sometimes I even saw a wild grey thobe or even a black one ... I guess it is due both to modernization, like everywhere in the world everyday things and clothes tend to become simplified, and also maybe to the wahhabisation of clothes : getting rid of anything that might appear ostentatious or too rich (colours, extravagant patterns, gold threads everywhere, etc). I would have prefered seeing more diversity but well, I can’t say the black and white simple stuff doesn’t have its own charm, since it is still n°1 on my list !

Why is it my favorite ? I can’t really say. I just know that in my eyes even the ugliest guy could attain some sort of class by just wearing it. I think most of people say that of an Armani costume or something western and expensive well-known brands. So if the guy wearing it is handsome ...

Everything in these clothes fascinate me : the moves like old greek statues’ drapes and the swoosh-sounds given by the movements, the fabric, the cut, the differents ways of wearing it. I have the same sort of fascination for my favorite haute-couture designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, but the arabian clothes have the advantage of not wanting to be fashionable at all.

It might also be that my totally subjective tastes makes me say that arabic is the most beautiful language of the world (even though I also like the sound of anything from italian to pashto, or any semitic languages, but if you want me happy, you’d better talk in arabic, preferably with oriental dialects), and that my own personal prototype of prince charming is definitely arab-looking, but still ... Way before learning a single word of arabic or knowing anything about middle eastern cultures, foreign clothes fascinated me, especially the oriental ones. Proof of my almost objective tastes in clothing is that, not knowing anything about indian culture, I still maintain that the indian sari is the best for women ( followed in second by arabian abayas and other women robes, yes, I admit. And middle-age european costumes, definitely.)

And I wonder why I am quite alone in having this fascination for arabian clothes. I actually bought in Jerusalem, for a cheap price, a white thobe and a black bisht, the vendor must have wondered why I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the clothes hanging with others by his little shop’s door and why I didn’t even bother haggling at all before buying it, but he saw me walking away with my bundle quite happy ... It just hangs there in my dressing among my other (wearable) clothes, with no use in perpesctive at all, but it makes me happy, looking at it from time to time.

The other day I was roaming inside the university library, in the usual part of it (arab world) where whole shelves ar dedicated to arabian gulf countries, and reading through some article I discovered that this dress was imposed on men quite the same way the black abayas are on women (sometime maybe to a lesser extent, but still), and it suggested that if some sort of revolution were to happen in these countries, this imposition might well be broken and most of the guys would start wearing western clothes, the way they all do when they have the choice ... And reading that made me so sad. I am deeply upset by this stupid cultural westernization of the world. How can you trade something so classy and comfy at the same time, the thobe, for something so average and not comfy at all like blue jeans and shirt ? (I tried the women version of both and the comparison doesn’t stand : the first one is definitely better on all sides). Just because some singer wears it in some stupid song ?

       Another awful thing I saw in my travels in the arab world (outside gulf countries) is this tendency of men, when they want to appear "serious", "responsible" or classy or something, to dress with particularly ugly western outfits. It's like watching a old TV series with out-of-fashion clothes with ugly colours and patterns. Or like my university professors. A university professor in France, especially in the languages department, just don't get it, they must live so outside of the normal world that they got stuck in the 70's or the 80's or something. White shirt, black pants, black coat, that's the minimum to look O.K. Forget the brown, the patchy, the weird grandpa patterns. And in the arab world they worsen it with the mustache. I can't abide with the mustache ... A beard is way better (I won't stress it enough), or even nothing, but why in the world would anyone want to wear a mustache ?

I can only hope that the «hype» sort of things will get more multicultural and world-level, instead of only western based, so that some guys on this planet will keep wearing beautiful clothes out of choice ... and women beautiful ones too. And slims are not among them in my book, except on very particular occasions. 

P.S. : I just read that interesting article about the UAE "national dress" ... It does have mysterious powers !

أكتب هنا عن حبي للملابس العربية خاصة الملابس الرسمية في الخليج  (الثوب والبشت وكل ذلك ولها أسماء مختلفة حسب المنطقة فلا أعرفها كلها ... ) والملابس التقليدية في العالم العربي. أفكر أن الملابس الخليجية هي الأكثر جميلة على الرجال مقارنا لأي ملابس أخرى وكذلك أن الساري الهندي هو الاكثر جميل على النساء دون أي ملابس آخر.

سأحاول أن أترجم كل ذلك قيما بعد, بعد الامتحانات. ولكن يجب أن يعرف العرب أن ملابسهم أفضل وأجمل بكثير من ملابسنا البلهاء في الغرب, وهذا رئي كفتاة غربية التي عاشت في الأردن والتي شافت النوعين (الذين مع الثوب والذين مع الجينز)

زوج حذاء لعائشة - نبيلة الزبير

"النقاط للتفتيش. هي لم تُفتش. المرأة لا تفتش في هذه البلاد، لأنها لا يعتد بها، لا أهلية لها، ليست أحدًا، ولن تفعل شيئا. وإن فعلت فليس لنفسها، بل لأحد غيرها، لماذا تُسأل هي، هم قادرون على تهذيبها عبر وليّها، أبيها أو أخيها أو حتى زوجها. هي ليست شخصًا ليسألوه، هي "شيئ" له من يسأل بشأنه. 

تسأل، لا أحد يرد عليها. فقط يدفعون بها من سيارتها لتفسح الطريق. الطريق لمن؟ لسيارات الضيافة وأطقم الحراسة والدوريات. ما عدا ذلك لا أحد. الشوارع خالية ومفرغة ومقطوعة. المسافة التي تقطعها يوميًا إلى بيتها، نصف الساعة طال اليوم لساعات. والمدينة خالية ونظيفة. 

لمعوا المدينة. رفعوا قماماتها. زينوا الواجهات والنواصي. حتى البيوت التي على الشوارع الرئيسية، الشوارع التي ستنال شرف مرور الضيوف، لمعت واجهاتها. أسوار البيوت المهملة رُمّمت. كل هذا على شرف الضيوف. من أين لنا ضيوف طوال العام، لتبقى مدينتنا نظيفة. لكن والناس؟ ما دام الناس اقتنعوا بأنهم "وساخة" مكانها البيت، فليظلوا في بيوتهم. 

لكن الذي أفزع نشوى ذلك اليوم هو الأشجار. حولوا عشرات الأشجار من طبيعية إلى اصطناعية. نقلوها من المكان الذي كانت فيه على قيد الحياة، إلى حيث أرادوا لها أن تقف لتحية الضيوف. أشجار طويلة لا تصلح أبدًا لأن تكون أشجاراً للزينة. ما ذنب هذه الأشجار المجتثة من تربتها، من حياتها؟ اكتشفوا فجأة أنه ليس في مدينتهم أشجار؟ فما ذنب الأشجار التي اقتلعوها من موطنها، لتقيم هنا ميتة؟ هل عسكروا حتى الأشجار! إنها تقف مثل الجنود الذين صادفتهم في الشوارع. كل بضعة أمتار زرعوا جنديًا. جنود لا يلوون على شيء، لا يملكون أن يقولوا لا. هكذا هم الجنود على الأرجح. لكن الأشجار؛ هناك منها من قال لا، على طريقتها طبعًا، رفضت أن تقف. هل رفضت أم انهارت؟ تممدت شجرة أمامها بكامل طولها، شعرت بها تبكي قدرها، تنعي بلدًا يبكل بالأشجار ويجتثها للزينة. 

يا للرعب الذي يحدثه سقوط شجرة لتوه. كانت تعبر بسيارتها الخط الدائري، إلى يمينها السفارة السعودية، بعد سورها انعطفت يمينًا، بمدخل السبعين سقطت الشجرة! كادت تصطدم بها، اصطدمت بسقوطها! 

لو كامت لها أن تؤسس حزبًا، لكان حزبًا من أجل الأشجار! الناس؟ ربما ذات يوم كانوا أشجارًا، هم اليوم ذلك الحطب الذي يتكوّم، كل في بيته." 

ص. ٢٥١-٢٥٣ من "زوج حذاء لعائشة" لنبيلة الزبير

مع أن لا فهمت كل شيء (لا زال عربيتي ضعيفاً)، خاصة من هي هذه المرأة عائشة من عنوان الكتاب فيما القصة كلها تتعلق بحيات نساء ثلاثة أخريات: زينب ونشوى ورجاء. الشخصيات كثيرة، ويتركز الكتاب عن عائلة غنية نوعًا ما والناس المرتبطين بشكل أو آخر بهم ... عائلة يمنية ورجالها كلهم لهم تصرفات سيئة مختلفة، من الأب "متحرّر" إلى الأبناء "المتديّنين" (متطرّفين أكثر من متدينين فالحقيقة - لا شيء ديني لهم عدا مظهرهم الخارجي). في هذه الرواية النساء معظمهن ضحيات نظام الرجال ولكن قوة الرواية هي أن الشخصيات أكثر تعقيداً وعمقاً من أن القصة المفضلة لدى الغربيين عن المرأة الشرقية المقهورة والرجل الشرقي المسيطر: في النهاية لا تعرف إن يجب أن تكره أو تشفق على هؤلاء الرجال ولا تعرف ما يجب أن تفكر في هذه النساء شجعانات وضحيات في حد ما... ولكن من المؤكد أن الجهل في كل أشكالها هو العدو الأكبر في أي مجتمع ولا يأتي ذلك الجهل من الدين أو الأفكار أو شيء من هذا القبيل بل من عدم وجود ذكاء إنساني. 

ذلك المقطع غير ممثل للكتاب الذي تصف عموماً علاقات بين الناس و"الوسط السفلي" في مجتمع اليمن (يعني عالم الدعارة والرجال المتراودون فيه) ومحاولة إمرأة في استقرار حياتها خارج هذه العالم وتجد أن العالم العادي ليس أفضل إطلاقاً - ولكن أحببت ذلك المقطع لأن نادراً ما أجد أي إنتباه للطبيعة في العالم العربي مما شفت منه أو قرأت عنه، مع أن الطبيعة في الشرق الأوسط هي في أزمة كبيرة مثل الوضع الإنساني (بكثرة الحروب والمشكلات أكثرها مرتبطة بالغرب وبالغباء الذي تجد في كل مكان) ... ومنذ شفت أشجار الزيتون المقتلعة في فلسطين والأكياس البلاستيكية في كل مكان تلوّث المظهر والأشجار والأزهار في الأردن، صرت أنتبه لمثل هذه الأوصاف. وإضافة إلى ذلك طبعاً هذه الأشجار استعارة لأوضاع أخرى كما تقترح الأسطُر الأخيرة. 

ذلك المقطع تصف كذلك هذه العلاقة المكروهة بين الأقوياء والضعفاء وكل ما ومن يٌضحى من الأشياء والناس في مشروع لقاء القوي مع الضعيف (هناك "الضيوف" واليمن). 

استمتعت كثيرًا في قراءة الكتاب والآن يبقى لي أن أعيد القراءة لأفهم بالضبط من هي هذه “عائشة”! 

لا حل ولا اختيار ولا عمل آخر لداعرة إلا القوادة. الطريقة الى القوادة إجباري. قاربت مدة صلاحيتها على الانتهاء. الرياضي يخرج من اللعبة، ليعود إليها مدربًا في نادٍ أو مدرس ألعاب رياضية في مدرسة. وعارضة الأزياء تدير مشغلًا أو معرض ألبسة. ومحترفات التمثيل والغناء يجرين عمليات تجميل. [...] وأضيفي يا رجاء إلى قائمتك هذه: ورؤساء الجمهوريات العربية يغيّرون الدستور. 

ص. ٢٩٨

زوج حذاء لعائشة - نبيلة الزبير

. ضحكت في الجملة الأخيرة
من الكتاب أقرأ اللآن ... سأكتب عنه فيما بعد

Anyone interested in the state of the ( more of less subversive ) political blogosphere in the arab world, especially in the often forgotten arabic peninsula, should read this great article.

     There is not many brands in the arab world specialized in arabic calligraphy designs on T-Shirts and modern clothes, which is a shame given all the possibilities this calligraphy gives for designs ( not even speaking of the richness of middle eastern culture and politics that can be used ) and I just saw this post in a great jordanian blog about a Saudi brand, and I really love their work ...

L'or noir, bénédiction et malédiction des arabes ... Et le reste.

     Tout européen/américain qui fait un film, ou autre oeuvre artistique, sur le moyen orient coure le risque de se faire taxer d'orientalisme (Edward Saïd est passé par là), même là où il n'y a pas lieu d'être, ou si peu (Edward Saïd a aussi bien fait son boulot, du moins pour ceux qui ont écouté la leçon).
     Mais en dépit de minimes critiques (un surjeu d'acteur de la part d'un, une réplique mal renseignée comme sur le mariage musulman, qui contrairement au mariage chrétien n'est pas un acte sacré, c'est un contrat), le film Or Noir reste tout à fait convaincant, motivant, et l'histoire intéressante, où chaque personnage est bon et mauvais à la fois tout en croyant bien faire, pas de dramatisation inutile, de lourdeurs (sauf pour ceux qui n'aiment pas les scènes de combat), pas de sur-utilisation du rôle de la religion (que c'est agréable par les temps qui courent, un film qui reste réaliste à ce sujet !)... Et bien sûr les costumes, les paysages, les maisons, et le physique des acteurs sont à eux seuls des arguments pour courir voir le film ... Bref, en ce qui me concerne, bien mieux que Lawrence d'arabie.

     L'ordre et la morale : nous somme loin de Hugo, Voltaire, des droits de l'homme et de tout ce qui pourrait rendre fier d'être français. Si on n'est pas convaincu de la pourriture qui règne en politique, ou si on pense que le colonialisme est vraiment terminé, alors allez voir ce film. (Dommage que la bande son soit trop présente, ou peut-être juste mal adaptée ?)

     Intouchables : maintenant que le gros des troupes l'a vu, il y a enfin de la place dans les salles. Malgré le rabattage médiatique, film hautement réussi, drôle, qui redonne de l'espoir concernant ce stupide animal qu'est l'homme. Et Omar Sy est un sacré bon acteur, en plus d'être bon comique ...

     Time out : bon film d'action, bonne idée de départ (le temps a remplacé l'argent) bien que pas exploitée à fond, Robin des bois du XXIème siècle, allégorie tranparente de notre système capitaliste ... Et mention spéciale à l'actrice aux beaux yeux (Amanda Seyfried) qui passe tout le film à courir avec des talons de 15 centimètres.
Ah oui et quelqu'un pourra-t-il m'expliquer pourquoi le nom originel du film (In Time) a été traduit pour le public français par ... Un autre titre en anglais (time out) ?!