The number of people who said don’t go to Iran was really astounding, even more so now that I’ve been there and back. The country is a pleasant surprise in many respects. It is very clean, very green, very organised. People are friendly but few move over the line into what tourists often consider harrassment. I was intending to book a fixed itinerary with the travel agent through which I got a visa but due to some last minute flight changes the bookings were never made, so I went there free to move as I pleased but nervous that that would expose me to trouble with the authorities. I decided anyway to stick to the hotels that I had agreed on with the travel agent. I didn’t even have a guide book. At the airport on the way out I got myself a decent camera and a pair of sunglasses but there was no time for more than that in the rush. When I arrived, on a Friday afternoon in mid-April, there was no form to fill out at Shiraz airport and the immigrations officials only poured over the British visitor’s credentials for a few minutes more than the others in the queue. It was all incredibly easy and ad hoc for a country that gives the impression of being closed and unfriendly. Once you are in, it’s anything but. I was concerned though about the fact that I was a journalist, so didn’t want to ask too many questions and take too many photos in non-touristy locations. But part of the point of the trip was to improve my Farsi so I wasn’t going to keep quiet, as some people suggested. Continue Reading »
Hammonda.
Politics, Language, Media. Glam!
Ten Days in Iran
Shi’ite Khalas group answers Saudi government
The Shi’ite Khalas group – set up via London after the clashes in Medina in 2009, along lines of the Bahraini opposition group of same name – responds to the Saudi government’s declaration of 23 “wanted” people over the recent unrest in the Qatif area and allegations that they have a foreign agenda and are in touch with some lone foreigner, according to the odd statement by Mansour al-Turki this week (Khalas founding statement is in this anti-Shi’ite site: http://www.dd-sunnah.net/news/view/action/view/id/825/). Here is the statement in Arabic: Continue Reading »
The Iran nuclear debate: preserving regimes vs. destroying peoples
Debate has raged in recent days over an article in Foreign Affairs in which Matthew Kroenig of the Council on Foreign Relations argues that the United States should not flinch from launching a military operation, and soon, to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities before Iran achieves nuclear weapons capability. In “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option”, Kroenig writes that: “…skeptics of military action fail to appreciate the true danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. And their grim forecasts assume that the cure would be worse than the disease – that is, that the consequences of a U.S. assault on Iran would be as bad as or worse than those of Iran achieving its nuclear ambitions. But that is a faulty assumption. The truth is that a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically improve the long-term national security of the United States.” Continue Reading »
Who leads the (Wahhabized) Muslim mainstream?
The Imam Mohammed bin Saud Islamic University organised a conference this week titled “al-Salafiyya: manhaj shar’i wa matlab watani” (Salafism: Legal Path, National Demand) where recently appointed crown prince Nayef and the state’s official spokesman and advisor on religious affairs, the Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh, gave speeches praising al-Salafiyya, or Salafism. The use of that word was striking. The phrase refers to the al-salaf al-saleh, the pious early Muslims, companions of the Prophet and leaders of the Muslim community after his death and in that form it is often used in Saudi political and religious rhetoric. But the use of the abstract noun to indicate the school or trend of Sunni Islam promoted and championed by Saudi Arabia is unusual, at least with this force. Continue Reading »
Revolution, Art and the Islamists
The rise of Islamist groups in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya as a result of the revolutionary movement in Arab countries this year has generated much angst about the fate of the arts, in Egypt in particular. The regimes in Egypt and Tunisia were fond of presenting themselves as protectors of the arts against conservative Islamic forces and now that both in are a state of transformation many in the entertainment industry are preparing for the worst. Egyptian directors and actors at the Dubai International Film Festival this month expressed those fears: not only the country was in a mess, they said in private, the future of cinema and television was bleak. Many are looking to get out of the country and the Gulf, not least Dubai, is an attractive exile. The specific fear is that actresses will be obliged to cover up and the subject matter of the arts will shift to more conservative and “Islamic” themes. The ethic of Egyptian state TV itself could change, with more veiled women appearing, and this would be part of a wider shift in society – those will-they/won’t-they reports of Salafis banning alcohol, enforcing the hejab, banning bikinis and introducing a version of Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Continue Reading »
Starting a riot in Sidi Bouzid
Tunisia’s election is finally over and we have the first post-uprising victory of a Brotherhood calque. But the events in Sidi Bouzid certainly marred the process. I turned up there mid-Friday afternoon when the town courthouse and National Guard building were still burning furiously. Teenagers were talking around with burning plastic bags to spread the fires further. Documents were lying all over the road, with some desks and chairs. Some two dozen cars were burned out, while their tyres had been removed. The destruction inside the buildings was total. Shelves of archive inside the justice building were smouldering away, electricity wires dangled around dangerously, a few soldiers wandered in and out in an attempt, I suppose, to declare the state’s desire for the vandalism and looting to end. Townspeople came in to gawp at the ruin of the justice building and they appeared as bemused by the scene as the few journalists who had driven for hours along the unkempt country roads. Continue Reading »
Al-Nahda likely to back an open economy
TUNIS, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Tunisian Islamists who won a historic election victory this week are expected to promote business-friendly economic policies but Europe’s economic woes could favour Gulf investors in the short term, analysts say. Continue Reading »
Ghanouchi is at liberal end of Islamist spectrum
TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisian Islamist leader Rachid Ghannouchi is seen by many secularists as a dangerous radical, but for some conservative clerics who see themselves as the benchmark of orthodox Islam – he is so liberal that they call him an unbeliever.
Ghannouchi’s Ennahda party won Tunisia’s first free elections, 10 months after an uprising brought down ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had banned the group and imprisoned Ghannouchi before he took up home as an exile in London. Continue Reading »
Recent Reuters stuff- Saudi Gulf union plan stumbles as wary leaders seek detail
- Analysis: Saudi Gulf union plan stumbles as wary leaders seek detail
- Saudi and Bahrain expected to seek union: minister
- Gulf leaders expected to announce unity plan
- Bahrain “to get tougher” on protest as talks stop
- Bahrain arrests rights activist Nabeel Rajab
- King says foreign media exaggerate unrest in Bahrain
- Wary of Iran, Saudis seek progress on Gulf union
- Fears for Bahrain hunger striker, minister defends police
- Bahrain hardliners in driving seat after F1 fiasco
book titles
chapter on Saudi media empire:
Moussa vs Abu al-Futuh
A few days after the great event, I finally watched the first debate between Amr Moussa and Abd al-Moneim Abu al-Futuh. Here are my thoughts on it.
Continue Reading »