AJ Forum: Keynote - Seymour Hersh

I missed most of the keynote speech but luckily there will be podcasts up soon and Ethan's posts. I caught up with some of the questions. One question was about the discrepancy in journalisms - what is or isn't reported and how - between the West and the East. Hersh answered in his usual frankness that this won't be bridged because people will always have their prejudices, discrimination will always be there, so you have to work with what you're given without expecting others to change their ways or accept yours.

Another question was about Hersh's usage of mostly American sources in his stories, and his answer was that it depends on the story, for example when writing on Abu Guraib he had to use American sources while for stories on Lebanon for example he uses sources from that part of the world. He also talked about his meetings with Hassan Nasrallah (four times), he found him to be intelligent and determined and he's surprised that the US administrations isn't willing to talk to him.

The final questions was asked by Ethan, he mentioned how bloggers in places like Egypt were doing a great job reporting on elections and issues of human rights and as a result facing persecution, shouldn't journalists be supporting the cause of such bloggers? Hersh's answer was straight, he said we journalists are bitchy and nasty to each other, let alone to bloggers. Simply he doesn't see that hapenning. He also talked about his excitement of what bloggers are doing and how technology is changing the media industry.

Al Jazeera Forum

The 3rd Annual Aljazeera Forum is starting officially tomorrow. The forum is about "Media and the Middle East - Beyond the Headlines". The keynote speaker for the first day is non-other-than Seymour Hersh. The first day will have three sessions, and the second day will have only two sessions. For us bloggers the session on new media "Speaking Truth to Power" will be most interesting. Ethan and alaa will be on the panel, that's exciting and looking forward to it.

All the sessions will be available as podcasts and interviews with some of the delegates will be on YouTube. The official blog for the forum is here. I'll be blogging, not live, from the forum.

Unidentified man

Despite all their coverage on Somalia, Reuters is having difficulty identifying the Somali PM Gedi.

Links for 28-03-2007

Tamil Tigers unveil latest tactic
Analysis of Tamil tigers recent air raids on Sri Lankan air force. From suicide bombing and gun-mounted boats to air capabilities.

BBC: The Editors - Both sides
BBC editors respond to yet another criticism from pro-Israel lobby that they're biased against Israel ... etc.

Somalia clashes continue as al-Qaeda names its key figure-News-World-Africa-TimesOnline
Another lazy and lame report about AlQaeda operatives in Mogadishu. The militias fighting against the Ethiopian and government troops aren't Islamist, they're tribal militias, the same ones for the past 17 years.

Links for 2007-03-25

• Thousand-Hand Dance (video)
  A dazzling dance by Chinese disabled performers, coming to Qatar next weekend.
• Tehran, Paris of the East?
  Interesting insight into a beauty salon in Tehran, though almost completely disconnected from the rest of the Middle East, at least culturally, Iranians think otherwise.

Quotable - Shia and Sunni ants

Resonates so well with the Sunna-Shia divide we see today in the Middle East:

Once under such a bush he saw the war of the ants. He instantly knew the cause of the war and the nature of the parties.

The red ants, whose bite (he had been told) was slightly poisonous, were Sunnis, the party among Muslims that rejected the claim of the descendants of Ali, and they were attacking the black ants, who were obviously Shiah, since black as well as green was the color warn by people like Ali Hashemi's father who claimed descendant from Ali. He remembers admiring the black ants for the justness of their cause and their individual heroism; but as the battle continued, he began to admire the orderliness and steadiness of the slower-moving red ants. As far as he could tell, neither side won.

The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy Mottahedeh, 1985

Mzalendo - A ground-breaking project

An excellent piece on Ory Okolloh's Mzalendo, a ground-breaking project to monitor the Kenyan parliament. I heard about the project when it was just being created, it's great that it's now receiving the attention of Kenyans, especially in the rural areas. Hopefully, there will be more such projects in Africa.

Rape in Mogadishu

The horrifying story of an 11 year old Somali girl gang-raped in Mogadishu when she was just seven, she is now recovering in Minnesota.

A Somali woman says she was raped by Ethiopian soldiers in Mogadishu. It's unimaginable for a Somali woman to come out publicly and claim she was raped if that wasn't true. So far the government hasn't said anything, at least as far as I know.

image: this is how old Muraayo was when she was gang-raped.

Eastleigh, Nairobi

Eastleigh, a tiny neighborhood in Nairobi, is the Somali business center in Kenya. Somali businesses are mostly located in Nairobi or Dubai, or mostly both. They import from East Asia via Dubai to Kenya and from there to the rest of Africa. In Eastleigh you find cars and trucks with number plates from around Africa - Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda ... etc - buying up merchandise to sell back home.

This is what BBC's Karen Allen had to say about Eastleigh:

Eastleigh - a bustling neighbourhood in the east of Nairobi - is where many of the city's 25,000 Somalis live.

This is not a ghetto. It is a thriving business community with freshly painted buildings, gridlocked traffic and a turnover of around £30m ($56m) a month.

That is extremely high for this part of the world.

Walk the packed streets and you will find women wearing the hijab, or headscarf, and rows of men dipping into big sacks of khat or miraa - the leafy narcotic that is chewed by so many here. It gives them a buzz and smoothes conversation.

This is Somalia recreated on Kenyan soil.

My younger brother has just been to Eastleigh and this was impression after the 1st day were little different:

We are staying In a lodge in Eastleigh (or Isli as Somalis pronounce it) by the way, and the less said the better.

I regret leaving the camera behind. I refused to get off the car when we
came to the lodge. This place is FILTHY. it's impossible to describe in words
the sorry state of this place..It's the slums of Africa. And to make things
worse, it's been raining the day before we came here. Dhiiqada [Somali word for mud] combined with mountains of rubbish in every corner of every street (if you could call it that) made things absolutely unimaginable. But the place we're staying in is quite clean, it's just when you step outside. There was sunshine and it dried a
bit and I am slowly getting used to it.

I decided when we arrived that I would call for a hunger strike given those
extreme conditions, but I am slowly adopting a less radical stance. I am
still in shock....but I'll keep you updated.

My younger brother spent almost a month is Eastleigh, in the end he quite liked it and he is determined to go back there despite the dire state of place. Though Eastleigh generates a handsome income - by Africa standards - and employees so many people, the government has no intentions to improve the roads, sewage system and public health.

Violence against women continues

International Women's Day was couple of days ago, though I don't pay attention to days dedicated to a cause - Independence Day, Mother's Day - I decided to write about one of things that angers me most in this world, violence against women. Women around the world continue to face rape and sexual violence, honor killing and exploitation. Some of these crimes are so horrible that - I think - there's no banishment that could be enough for it, not even capital banishment.

Rape and sexual violence against women is on the increase in regional and sectarian conflicts, found a UN report last year:

A UN report prepared for the meeting found that systematic rape was a prominent feature of the conflicts in Bosnia-Hergovina, DR Congo, East Timor and Haiti, and is ongoing in the Darfur region of Sudan.

But rape has been used there as a weapon of war to impose the will of one people on another - as it was in previous conflicts such as those in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Rwanda, he says.

In Rwanda, officials estimate that 60,000 women were raped during the 1994 conflict, two-thirds of whom have been infected with HIV/Aids, the UNFPA believes.

In Bosnia, the figure is put at around 40,000.

In Southern Africa, traditional healers/witchdoctors tell their "customers" that raping young girls curs aids. The result is the most disgusting, vile and horrifying crimes possible, the rape of girls and babies, some as young as few months old. Many girls die either immediately, of injury or infection but those who survive are left with horrible disfigurements and HIV infection.

Equally horrible is the use of sulfuric acid to disfigure women - and even children - and often with horrible and irreversible health problems, a brutal and inhumane way to take revenge. This is more common in South Asia, though there are similar incident in Africa and elsewhere. Take the example of Hasina, from Bangladesh:

Hasina is 20 years old. Five years ago, when she was still a carefree high school pupil, an employee of her father who felt he had been slighted, threw sulphuric acid over her. Hasina was left with horrific scarring after an attack with sulphuric acid. The attack left her with terrible disfigurement to her face and chest.

"When I first saw my face in the mirror I said, 'God why did you keep me alive? It would be better that I died,'" she told us.

"But now I want to survive and live in society."

Hundreds of women are killed each year for family "honor"; in Indian, Jordan, Israel, Pakistan, Uganda, Pakistan ... etc. Many of the perpetrators either completely escape banishment or get light sentences, due to deep-rooted culture that doesn't see the crime in killing for ones honor.

Heaven and Hell in the Arab world

(hat tip: Mohamed)

BBC and the clash civilizations!

You must have heard about the Moroccan journalists accused of "defaming Islam and damaging morality". I've read the jokes that sparked the controversy, as a Muslim I thought they were at best tasteless and offensive. But I also forwarded the link to two Muslim friends of mine, a British and an Australian, and they felt the same.

But I'm offended more by the Moroccan government who is using Islam to silence its westernized critics and the threat of extremism to imprison and torture their opponents.

But I guess the trophy goes to the BBC, which took upon itself to put the story into a neat, civilizational context:

So now the judges in particular and Morocco in general have a choice. And it is not an easy one. Do they side with liberal values and win the admiration of Western democracies, or do they uphold their Islamic traditions and receive the backing of most of the Arab world? But laughter, like freedom, the journalists said, could not be suppressed.

So here you've it, it's either "liberal values" or "Islamic traditions" and the backing of either "Western democracies" or the "arab world". How lame?

How much a museum cost?

Gulf countries, with fat wallets from high oil prices, have taken to buying everything, from universities, athletes and even art. Dubai, the most superficial city I've ever seen, has everything outsourced and brought from somewhere including the necessary manpower, the local population is about 15% which means everything is run by the 85% expats. You can go for days without seeing a local. Qatar brought Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown ... instead of advancing its substandard Qatar University. Administrators of these universities talk, disbelievingly, of unlimited budgets.

Now Abu Dhabi went a step further, why not buy a whole museum. For $700 million, the Louvre will have a branch in Abu Dhabi:

The deal, to be signed in Abu Dhabi by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheikh Sultan bin Tannoun, paves the way for a new "Louvre Abu Dhabi", due to open in 2013.

The architect will be French. Construction costs will be borne by the emirate.
Most controversially, the agreement will allow Abu Dhabi to lease works from the Louvre and other French museums for durations of up to two years.

The deal have generated a controversy in France and many French art-lovers are critical of the deal, this is what the BBC had to say:

A storm is raging in France over the government's decision to build a branch of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi - the first-ever foreign annex of the world-famous art gallery.

The controversy is not over public spending on culture - French taxpayers think nothing of subsidising films to the tune of 500m euros a year ($700m; £350m).

The row centres on the fact that France stands to make money from the deal, being signed on Tuesday.

A good deal of money, in fact. According to unofficial estimates, Abu Dhabi should pay about 700m euros over 20 years for the privilege of displaying works from French museums.

This, according to critics, amounts to using France's artistic heritage for basely commercial ends.

"Our museums are not for sale", proclaims an online petition signed by 4,700 people - including many curators, art historians, and archaeologists.

The French public might disapprove of the deal but I doubt Abu Dhabi residents are even aware of the controversy, let alone voice their disapproval. But I wonder if there's more to it, let say an anti-Arab feeling:

French museums will be deprived of major works, which will be displayed in a "random, unscientific" way in Abu Dhabi

Why does it have to be "random, unscientific" if it's in Abu Dhabi?

Only in Morocco ...

The King pardons 33,000 prisoners as part of a celebration of the birth of his daughter ... justice prevails.

A miracle healer claims to cure HIV, cancer and every other disease there is. Such "healers" pop-up every now and then, in the Muslim world. Morocco has 40% illiteracy rate.

Torbi el Mekki, the man being hailed as the miracle healer of Skhirat, a village about 30km south of the capital, Rabat, says he can cure any disease from HIV/Aids to cancer.

When pilgrims reach the front of the long line, they are ushered forward by his assistants.

It is a very quick process: Mr Mekki shakes their hands; touches their bottle of water or bag of sugar - which he says will cure them of all their ills - and blesses them as they go past.

"I do this in the name of God. I do not do it for money," he says dismissing suggestions that he is a charlatan.

"If I wanted to do it for money I would gain billions every day. But I don't need money because I am already rich from land that I inherited."

Some people say he makes money out of the sugar and water that they have to buy.

The story-teller in Marrakesh, a fascinating man with a dying trade, Moulay Mohammed has been practicing his art for over 45 years. Unfortunately, people are glued to their TV sets and the young aren't interested in becoming story-tellers but Moualy remains optimistic.

I found Moulay Mohammed, a bearded man with a few missing teeth, sitting in the square in his grey jellabah surrounded by a circle of onlookers. He is 71 and has been a story-teller for 45 years.

He used to come as a boy and listen to the old men in the square tell their stories and he was so entranced by them that he became one himself.

He says he knows most of the Old Testament and all of A Thousand and One Nights.

According to legend, to prevent her murderous husband King Shahryar from killing her, the Persian Queen Scheherazade told a different story every night for 1001 nights.

Moulay Mohammed is like a modern day Scheherazade: he tells tales of sultans, thieves, wise men and fools, he speaks of mystics, genies, viziers and belly dancers.

Moulay Mohammed told me it is not just what he says that counts but how he says it.

Unsettling Iran

The pending conflict between Iran and US has been making headlines, even more than before, in the past few weeks. Aircraft carriers moving into the Gulf, troop surges, hundreds of Iranians arrested in Iraq and the nuclear standoff had everyone speculating an imminent, inevitable US strike against Iran. Other say, an Israeli strike more likely. But of course everyone knows it isn't that easy, even for the Bush administration.

It has surfaced that US, along with Arab Sunni states afraid of Iranian influence, is supporting separatist movements to destabilize the Iranian regime. A large portion of Iran isn't Persian, there are Arabs in the south-west, Baluchis in the south-east, Kurds in west and Azeris in the north-west, these ethnic groups make up more than 40 percent of the population in Iran, only the Azeris are Shia. None of these are adequately represented in the government and are treated as second class citizens (apart from Azeris again). In the past two years the number of attacks on Iranian security have increased.

So far the situation isn't that worrying for Iran but if the attacks increase and the US, along with Sunni states, decide to push this, it could be disastrous for Iran. Arabs are also becoming more vocal in demanding more rights for Arab-Sunni minority in Iran.