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December 2007 Archives

December 31, 2007

New Year Open Thread

I'm writing from a business center in Bombay at the moment, so not much time to reflect eloquently on the past year. However, per tradition (and slightly early if you live in a North American timezone), I present you with our monthly open discussion thread. New readers may introduce themselves and regulars may whine and complain about random things as usual.

Since this is also a New Year thread, thoughts on where we should be going as a site are also welcome. I noticed some interest in subcontinental affairs in the Bhutto post, so perhaps I should be reading beyond the Mughal era and/or hunting down some Desi bloggers in the near future.

Anyway, I'm off to Udaipur. Happy New Year, whankers.

Posted by eerie at 11:59 PM | Comments (33) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Site News

December 29, 2007

Happy Holidays, Your Flats Flattened, Off Plan Of Course

While the headline news for "the Broader Middle East" if one accepts including Pakistan in that is certain to attract much learned and unlearned comment (1), some fundamentals of real estate market development, or lack thereof, attract my attention. Flats flattened, off plan, if I may indulge in grim humour as the death toll from a Christmas Eve apartment collapse continues to rise nearly a week after. This hearkens back to a "classic" as eerie signs it: Cairo's Collapsing Buildings. Again, a story of a collapsing block of flats, and doubtless gross underlying corruption.

However, gross corruption is not all, as without any question the heritage of Egyptian State Socialism is as much behind the sad, indeed grossly depressing tale of Egyptian economic and social development since Nasser. Under such circumstances, where secularism was historically effectively synoymous with the ded hand of the vampire state, it is no surprise American efforts at backing faux democracy trickled away into the sand in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Continue reading "Happy Holidays, Your Flats Flattened, Off Plan Of Course"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Economic Development , MENA Region General , North Africa

December 28, 2007

Sheikhs' Sure Booty: Your Empire At Work

Finally figuring out what anyone here could have told them years ago, US forces in Iraq have earned at least a B-plus in Empire-Building 101 -- not that that's a good thing, but it can salve a sore wound for an indefinite period. The principle is to use local power structures as your surrogates, basically by bribing them. This USA Today story details it well. (Thanks to a Klaus call, we have a link for the original stick-figure anti-insurgent plan offered by a later-killed US soldier here.)

Tribal sheiks . . . have seats on most of the city councils and the provincial council. . . . Many tribes run construction and trucking businesses and benefit from U.S. and Iraqi government reconstruction projects. The contracts with U.S. forces allow sheiks to hand out jobs, and thus maintain power.

Continue reading "Sheikhs' Sure Booty: Your Empire At Work"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 04:39 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Foreign Policy & MENA , Iraq War , MENA Region General , Political Development , Religious Minorities , Society & Culture , Terrorism , US Foreign Policy

December 27, 2007

Sindhs of the father: Benazir Bhutto dead thread (open)

Benazir Bhutto, ex-Pakistani prime minister, is now an ex-person. Have at the whole set of issues in this open thread, o dear readers. Others of the Aqoul team may post more detailed entries on this most unpleasant passing of the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. (BTW, I don't know who those people are who say 'why do Muslims never go out in the streets venting their anger when al-Qaeda or other extremists* do a terrorist act?') Well, clearly, they sometimes do.

Continue reading "Sindhs of the father: Benazir Bhutto dead thread (open)"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 06:22 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Foreign Policy & MENA , Gender Issues , Gulf , Islamism , Political Development , Society & Culture , Terrorism

December 25, 2007

Fishmonger Attitude and French Arab Illiteracy in Public Relations

I’ve just had this exchange on Ibn Kafka’s blog with a French Muslim blogger who nicknames herself La Voilée (The Veiled). Disillusioned by the French Republic’s liberticidal radical secularism and discrimination, she decided to start a blog communicating about her life as a veiled woman there. Though my distaste for the veil is not a secret for anyone here, it's important to remind that it remains a matter of individual choice. The whole French debate about it was completely displaced and misrepresented as proponents versus detractors of the veil, when it should have been about, God forbid, liberties and minority issues.

I applauded La Voilée’s initiative as it has the potential to provide a much needed alternative view about those issues. But when I read some of her comments in an entry comparing 19th century bearded women to today’s veiled women, I had this perception that their tone was the all too common knee-jerk aggressive-defensive “tough guy” one prevailing among French Arabs when they’re feeling judged.

Continue reading "Fishmonger Attitude and French Arab Illiteracy in Public Relations"

Posted by Shaheen at 06:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Ethnic Minorities , Religious Minorities

December 24, 2007

Holiday Fuzziness, Algeria, Al Qaeda and Iraq

As fuzzily cheery such news as interfaith warm and fuzzy declarations (which have their utility although as I consider them rather normal in my experience, I find them boring), of rather more interest perhaps is an uncharacteristically interesting commentary from NYT via the FT on one of the Algerian suicide bombers from last months bloody nonsense in Algiers which is interesting reading paired with FT's Quent Peel's commentary on the "socialist timewarp" that is Algeria, and the Kremlinesque opacity of its political sphere.

Continue reading "Holiday Fuzziness, Algeria, Al Qaeda and Iraq"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Foreign Policy & MENA , Islam & Politics , Islamism , North Africa , Political Development , Terrorism

December 16, 2007

Competent Adults in Charge? The Iraq Surge's Non-Failure

Not often do I get to be more right than Jim Henley, but here I claim it though I can't document my earlier growing sense that The Surge would turn out better than we cynics first expected. (The last time he was wrong, which goes back years, so was I, as when he predicted that Ariel Sharon would not go through with the Gaza withdrawal.) But now he is surprised that violence has not rebounded in Iraq since The Surge in a way he has predicted. I am far less surprised however and, although I started as a Surge Cynic as shown here, I have come to feel after more information that there has been a good chance of some sustained suppression of the violence. More on why, below.

Continue reading "Competent Adults in Charge? The Iraq Surge's Non-Failure"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 12:58 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Foreign Policy & MENA , Iraq War , MENA Region General , Op-Ed , Political Development , Religious Minorities , Society & Culture , Terrorism , US Foreign Policy

December 11, 2007

Releasing Built-Up Labor Tension

The floodgates have opened. It is the beginning of the end for serious labor repression in the UAE, and the rest of the Gulf is likely to follow. Dubai's employers have been forced to negotiate with (illegally) organized labor and come out second-best.

Organized labor has never had it good in the Gulf. The armies of foreign construction workers - there are 700,000 in the UAE alone - live in overcrowded and unhygienic quarters, work in unsafe conditions, have no political rights, and are banned from collective bargaining. They can't even switch jobs when their employers fail to pay them, as happens all too often. Over the past couple of years, a depreciation in the value of local currencies pegged to the dollar has meant they have been able to send less money home than ever before, rendering many unable to support families they were forced to leave behind, even as high inflation has eaten into their purchasing power in the Gulf. Meanwhile, demand for workers has surged with a building boom brought about by high oil prices.

Continue reading "Releasing Built-Up Labor Tension"

Posted by Top Secret Anonymous Guy at 11:17 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Business, Private , Economic Development , Economic Policy , Ethnic Minorities , Gulf

December 09, 2007

NIE Iran Nuke Report Roundup

A quick round-up on likely reactions of interested parties to the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuke dreams by TIME is here.

All sides of the Iran nuclear dispute are working hard to make their own reading of the report the accepted one . . . Israel and Washington hawks want military action against a grave and gathering threat; the Bush Administration is pursuing coercive diplomacy; the Europeans want to avoid war. And it is those agendas that will shape each player's response to the NIE in what promises to be a furious battle over Iran policy in the months to come.

Have at it. My 2 cents below fold.

Continue reading "NIE Iran Nuke Report Roundup"

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 09:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Central Asia , Foreign Policy & MENA , Gulf , Iraq War , Levant , MENA Region General , Political Development , US Foreign Policy

December 08, 2007

Citigroup: "Arab" Capital, Need and Fear

With the good apparent news that , as FT commentator Ferguson put it, World War IV is off as the warmongering Right Bolshies in America have had their arguments castrated, and a moment on the weekend, I think it useful to take an economy moment to reflex slightly on on Citigroup's rescue by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and the effective non-reaction of the usual suspects such as congenital cretin Mr Schumer. Now, the non-reaction somewhat wrong-foots my own commentary two months ago anticipating great hysteria, but perhaps the promise to be "silent" as an FT arty put it placated the professional cretin. Or perhaps rather his handlers in NY understood Citi's shaky state and shaped the reaction, so very different than either his reaction to the investment proposed in Nasdaq or last year (2006) with Dubai Ports World (also at the opening for more explicit Schumerism).

The contrast between in particular the round up of reaction in the Schumerism link and the non-reaction to Citigroup is interesting. Fear of banking collapse and grinding halt to the queer American use of houses as credit cards perhaps partial driving explanations on the political side, but my speciality is not American politics, which I care little about except where it has MENA blow back. Unfortunately given a near decade of utter cretinism on the Americans part in this respect, this is too frequent.

Continue reading "Citigroup: "Arab" Capital, Need and Fear"

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:59 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Business, Private , Gulf , MENA Region General , US Foreign Policy

December 04, 2007

George W. Bush, a Lamer Duck than Mohammed the Teddy Bear?

It certainly surprised me, but in a report released today, all sixteen US intelligence agencies collectively stated:

We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program...

We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons...

We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.

Well, what about that as a spoiler for the Armageddon wing of the US government and neo-con movement?

Continue reading "George W. Bush, a Lamer Duck than Mohammed the Teddy Bear?"

Posted by Ibn Kafka at 02:13 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Filed Under: US Foreign Policy

December 03, 2007

New Month Open Thread

It's that time again. Pass on links, ask questions, offer abuse, as you like. In the meantime, a 2004 Randy McDonald essay smacks down the demographic arguments of the "Eurabia" hysterics:

The French Muslim community, after all, is barely more than a generation old. In Tunisia, fertility rates have fallen below the levels needed to sustain the population over the long term; Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia, are not much further behind. There isn’t any more reason to assume that French Muslim fertility rates will remain above replacement rate, after all, than there was to expect Western fertility rates to remain above replacement level.

I'd also draw Mr. Hogan's attention to McDonald's discussion of the Catholic problem in America.

UPDATE: Oh, and go vote early and (ahem) only once for Aqoul for best group blog in the Brass Crescent awards.

Posted by tomscud at 11:42 AM | Comments (51) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Site News

December 02, 2007

Prediction: Teddy Bear Thing Started As Spite

This sentence is in one story: "The row erupted after a secretary at the school complained to the Sudanese authorities about the naming of the bear." I cannot find it but somewhere I came across a reference to the Teddy Bear Teacher as having apologized to a faculty member who was offended. Prediction: this will turn out to have started as a spite attack by someone in the school staff who, for whatever reason, did not personally like that teacher and found an issue to attack her on that would get the dopey and the offenderati riled up. Could be wrong here, but the spidey senses are starting to tingle as this kind of information trickles in.

Posted by Matthew Hogan at 09:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Islam & Politics , Islam General , Islamism , North Africa , Political Development , Religious Minorities , Society & Culture

December 01, 2007

Spank me, I've been a bad girl

Marjorie, an expatriate blogger in Qatar who often tackles social and religious issues, brought my attention to that country's first survey of violence against women. Not only had nearly two-thirds of women polled been beaten, over two in five believed they deserved it.

Continue reading "Spank me, I've been a bad girl"

Posted by dubaiwalla at 10:41 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Gender Issues , Gulf , Society & Culture