Category Arab

Free Ali Abdulemam

Ali Abdulemam

I was shocked to learn that my friend Ali Abdulemam, a leading Bahraini blogger, was arrested yesterday by the Bahraini authorities for allegedly spreading “false news” on BahrainOnline.org portal, one of the most popular pro-democracy outlets in Bahrain. It is not the first time that Ali has been arrested for content published on his portal. I met Ali a couple of times in Beirut, where both of us attended Arab bloggers meetings. He is, in the words of Sami Ben Gharbia, “a pioneer among Arab activists, using the internet to militate for peaceful reform. He inspired many young Bahrainis and Arabs to use the internet to express themselves and engage in spirited debate.”

Please support Ali in any and every way you can: blog, tweet, and follow the updates here.

Ahwak

Although I was in Beirut six months ago, but I do miss this amazing city. There is something about this place that always makes me want to come back no matter how often I visit it. Soldier is full of Saudis these days, as it is always during the summer, but this is not the reason why I was missing Beirut today. The reason was this blogpost by Susannah Tarbush where she reported on Zeid Hamdan and his effort to create an alternative music scene in Lebanon.

In December 2008 I had a chance to attend one of his shows with Hiba Mansouri, who actually left a nice comment on my post last year. I recorded a couple of videos during that night, and I thought I’d share one of them with you here. In the video you can hear Hiba sings Ahwak, which an old song by Fairouz, and next to her you can see Zeid playing the guitar and fiddling with his laptop. Good times.

Robbery in skies, Routes of Arabia, Weddady’s response to Khouri

  • Have you heard of the Air France flight attendant who was arrested for robbing passengers? Muhammed al-Ahidib provides four reasons why this woman would not have been able to steal if she were working for Saudi Arabian Airline.
  • Here is another good review for Routes d’Arabie, this time from Bloomberg.
  • Nasser Weddady offers another fine rebuttal to Rami Khouri’s op-ed in NYT. At the end of his blogpost, Weddady comments on a part of Khour’s article that I chose to ignore, which is about the “hypocrisy” of US government’s interest in social media while it supports the very same dictatorships that crush liberties. This is an old and overused argument, and something I have touched on in my op-ed in the same newspaper last year.

Routes d’Arabie, Rami Khouri, Reverse culture shock

  • The Saudi Routes of Arabia exhibition in Paris has been receiving some pretty good reviews. Hundreds of artifacts never before seen outside Saudi Arabia are currently on view at the Louvre. I have seen most of these pieces at the National Museum, and I’m glad the whole world is getting a chance to see this part of our history. I wish they would do more to promote the museums and exhibitions like this inside the country for the locals who only get to hear about such events when they take place abroad.
  • Rami Khouri thinks the new media in the Middle East synonymous with the Al Jazeera effect of the 1990s, i.e. it is merely venting and therefor will not lead to any real change in the Arab political landscape. I’ve heard this rhetoric many times before. If he thinks that the current wave of activism is useless, then what exactly does he suggest? Should we just sit down, keep our mouths shut, and wait for his generation to bring about change? Based on their history, this seems pretty unlikely. But lamenting this whole phenomenon as merely venting is naïve. Khouri and other old media people obviously still struggle to understand new media and their influence. I never said blogging will change everything, but I think it is the start of something good, something that our predecessors were not able to do. The evidence is his comparison to Al Jazeera, which is a one-way medium just like the one he comes from, unlike new media where people are actively engaged and involved and not simply passive consumers.
  • My friend Ben has been living in Saudi Arabia for a year, and now he is back to the US and is suffering from a “reverse culture shock.” Thankfully, he says, his condition is treatable. The doctor has prescribed him movies, lots of bacon, and a few happy hours.

Maysoon explains herself

So Maysoon Azzam, the anchor from Al Arabiya channel who could not stop herself from laughing on screen while reading the news few days ago, finally decided to come out and explain why she was laughing so hard. Well, she did not exactly state the reason behind the laughing, but she justified it saying she is only human and not a robot.

Shocking.

Because I have always thought that Maysoon Azzam, Suhair al-Qaisay, Rima Maktabi, and the rest of Al Arabiya anchors were pure angels who descended upon us from the heavenly skies, to peek from the silver screens of our televisions and tell us the horror stories of war and conflict with a smile on their pretty faces. It has never, ever, not even for a single moment, crossed my mind that they could be mere mortals like me. Sorry. My bad.

UPDATE: Okay, that’s strange. The link above to the article that Maysoon Azzam has written on Alarabiya.net no longer works. It seems that the article has been deleted from the channel website. However, the piece has been already republished in many other websites. You can find it here and here. In her article Azzam says the management “understood what happened and received the incident and the reason behind it with a supportive smile.” The sudden deletion of her article probably suggests otherwise.

World Cup broadcast rights, GPYW grilled in Shoura

  • Broadcast rights of major sports events such as the World Cup used to be a hot topic for debate in the Arab World. Not anymore as most people here have grown accustomed to the realities of premium TV in the region. But something in this article from the New York Times caught my attention: “In many smaller European countries, public broadcasters still have a firm grip on the World Cup, under a collective agreement between FIFA, the governing body for the tournament, and the European Broadcasting Union, a group representing public broadcasters. A similar deal was signed between FIFA and the African Union of Broadcasters, providing viewers with free access to all the World Cup matches across much of sub-Saharan Africa.” Why this is not the case here? In the Middle East there is such a union. It’s called ASBU. Unfortunately for the people in this region, ASBU is too weak and has been subdued by private TV networks owned by individuals with close ties to Arab government. Go figure.
  • Speaking for the World Cup, Saudi Arabia did not make it to this year’s tournament for the first time since 1994. This failure to qualify and other local sports issues have been recently discussed in the Shoura Council. The General Presidency of Youth Welfare (GPYW) has come under strong criticism from Shoura members who questioned the performance of GPWY and how they spend their budget. I highly doubt this will change anything in that aging body, but I’m glad to see them getting kicked, even if it was merely symbolic.

The View of Arab TV, i.zone advertorial in Arab News

  • Why most of women talk shows on Arab TV channels have four hosts? Amal Zahid jokingly says, probably because they accept the notion that one woman is not enough for a man. The reason, of course, is because most of these talk shows are modeled after The View. But I agree with Zahid that my friend Buthaina al-Nassr is more than capable of hosting her own show instead of sharing the table with three other women on Al Hurra. She has already done it with Al Ekhbariya, and I’m sure she can do it again.
  • Dear Arab News, I like you guys, but shame on you for publishing this piece without telling your readers that it is an ad. Seriously, shame on you.