#the middle east

[witchywitchy]

"B-but Palestinians can get their freedom with peace not violence 🥺🥺" no. Screw your feelings. The armed resistance against colonizers and murderers is what will give Palestinians their freedom and what will eventually achieve real peace.

An enemy that bombs and uses white phosphorus against civilians doesn't know nor practice what your broken moral compass describes as "peace". Freedom was proven throughout history not to be achieved through kneeling and asking the oppressor to kindly stop. Freedom needs to be taken by force. Your little Utopian way of thinking doesn't work in the real world. Your feelings don't matter because you're not the one living under occupation. Your feelings don't matter because you're not one of the thousands of children who lost their limbs. You're not one of the children who became orphans due to this genocide. You're not the mother who lost her child to the carpet bombing. You're not the father carrying the remains of your child in plastic bags. You're not the newlywed woman who lost her husband. You're not the one at risk of either getting killed any second or losing your loved ones in the blink of an eye!

"Peace" is not really a thing you see during a live ethnic cleansing!

[strathshepard]

Yumna Al-Arashi: Axis of Evil (Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq), 2020

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[machetelanding]

Solar eclipse above the pyramids on August 30, 1905. Photography by Gabriel Lekegian.

[naartjie-hijabi]

The scariest part...

I think the scariest part of what's currently happening is the possiblity of a world war. In 2022, people joked about the possibility of Russia starting the third world war, two years later, I can't stop thinking about it actually happening.

Israel has been complicit in many global conflicts since its creation in 1948, now that they have been called out and are being held accountable for their actions for the first time in little more than 75 years, what exactly will be the outcome?

Both the UK and the US, two countries who actively support and fund Israel, have bombed Yemen, a country that has been kicked down so many times that it is only a matter of time before they start baring their teeth. The tension between China and Taiwan is increasing and the Russo-Ukrainian War has still not reached its conclusion. This year is the year of global elections and, honestly speaking, it feels like 2024 is a disaster in the making.

Of course I remain positive, this is just the musings of an 18 year old girl who has finally awoken to the state of current affairs. I am not educated in global politics, international relations, or anything related to law. I remain steadfast in my belief that Palestine will be free, that humanity will start caring, that individualism will decrease, but even still I refuse to be blindly optimistic.

It is because of my ill-knowledge of global politics that I have these terrible feelings. What is the actual state of the Middle East, how are things in Yemen, what kind of lives are Syrians leading, whose side is Saudi Arabia and the UAE truly on? It seems that in everywhere, Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, peace seems to be hanging on a thin thread ready to snap at the tiniest disruption.

Yesterday, I felt pride and today I felt anger, tomorrow I wonder what will I feel. There is certainty in my heart that things will get better, that world is in its healing stage right now, that's why everything is chaotic, but the logical part of me says that perhaps the worst is yet to come.

All in all, I believe that Palestine will be free and the liberation of Palestinians is a fight that I will continue until the Apartheid Israel is dismantled once and for all. It is not simply free Palestine, it is free Yemen, free Congo, free Sudan, free every singled oppressed individual. This is what was taught to me yesterday and what was reminded to me today. Tomorrow holds as much potential as it does uncertainty, and I guess that if there's a fight worth fighting for, we should focus on that instead and not on the possibility of terrible outcomes.

[444saudade]

[anakinsafterlife]

Thoughts on Dune Part 2

All right, friends. Dune Part 2. I absolutely picked the wrong time to start wanting to return to Tumblr, since I'm currently in the thick of Ramadan, but c'est la vie. I'm a bit worried that if I don't review now that I might forget my specific impressions of the movie, though I have to say that if this weren't Ramadan that I absolutely would be going back to see it again in the cinema, which says a lot considering that it's been at least ten years since I've actually wanted to go back and repeat a film instead of just waiting for it to come out on streaming/DVD.

So the movie is good. It is in fact very, very good. It's the Empire Strikes Back of the Dune duology (possibly trilogy), and (much like Empire) in terms of cinematography, music, scripting and acting it's nearly flawless. There are, however, issues, things that might not occur to a majority-Western audience but which are immediately clear to anyone who either comes from an Arab or Muslim background.

What follows here is a deep dive into some of the historical and cultural sources of Dune and some of the ways in which the movie producers, and in some cases fans, have failed to acknowledge those sources.

First of all, it's obvious that the Fremen are meant to be based on the Arabs, but of the the entire main cast there is only ONE actor with an Arab background, and that is Souhaila Yacoub, the half-Tunisian actress who plays Shishakli, the female Fremen warrior who is executed by the Harkonnens. Now, I have to say that this woman was fantastic. Her attitude is completely on point for an Arab, especially a North African Arab: forceful, loud, a bit brash and mocking even under fire. Nicely done. Points to the producers there, but I have to take that point away again because she is literally the only Space Arab who is actually Arab. Javier Bardem, the Spanish actor who plays Stilgard, does have some interesting moments and one of the reasons why I feel that the screenwriters were advised on Arabic traditions/culture. The incident during which he warns Paul about the Jinn in the desert like it's a joke but then immediately turns extremely serious when Paul starts smiling is so in character for an Arab and honestly just a brilliant bit of scripting, but much of the time he also acted more or less like what people *think* a fanatical religious Arab acts like--loud, frantic and unstable.

Not only this, but the "Muslim" behaviour/traditions in the film are at best...vague. People are praying, but in any direction at all. I do realize that this would be a complicated issue on another planet, where the Ka'aba couldn't be pointed to, but there are Islamic rulings for EVERYTHING. Check out the one about praying in space:

Even if they had as a society simply picked a random direction for prayer, they should all be praying at the same time and in the same direction (they seem to do this in larger crowds, but not in the smaller group where we first see people praying). They also definitely shouldn't be talking during prayer or trying to make other people talk to them during prayer (as Chani does), since talking breaks your prayer and you have to start over all over again (during obligatory prayers).

Language, too, is an issue, and a big one, because while I do understand that a conlang was developed for use in this movie, the linguists consulted did know that the language was meant to be heavily influenced by Arabic. Consequently, they've included a lot of fragmentary Arabic in their work. Unfortunately this Arabic is poorly pronounced at best, to the point where I was looking words up and laughing at what they're meant to be based on. For example, "Shai Hulud," the word for the Worms, is based on the Arabicشيء خلود, which means "immortal thing," and should be pronounced with "shai" rhyming with "say" followed by a glottal stop, and the 'h' in "Hulood" is actually a guttural sound like the infamous "ch" in Bach, followed by a long U. Another example is Mua'dib مهذب , a real word in Arabic that means "teacher," but is is actually pronounced with a "th" sound instead of a d and emphasis on the second syllable, not on the last as in French. (Note: I made an error here. There is a word مؤدب , pronounced mostly the same in the movie, but with a glottal stop after the 'u' sound and a short 'i' after the d sound rather than a long vowel, that is usually used to mean polite, urbane, gentlemanly, etc. but which can also mean teacher, although I have never heard it used in this context) "Usul", أصول, Paul's other Fremen name, was likely not, as I had previously guessed, based on the word "Rasool," meaning Prophet, but on أصول الفقه the Principles of islamic Jurisprudence, which also ties directly into a religious/prophetic them. Again, this is pronounced on the long vowel, so with a short first U and a long second U.

I've included the Arabic spellings in here, by the way, so that you can drop them into Google translator and hear how they actually sound.

Now, I do realize that the story itself is set 8000 years in the future and that spoken Arabic as a language would have changed considerably in that time, if it existed still at all, but Arabic is a liturgical language as well as a vehicle for conversation, and Muslims all across the world today use it as a tool for worship. Muslims who have no cultural connection with Arabic often still learn it in order to connect more deeply with religious traditions and simply to perform prayers and other religious duties. Religious scholars consider it to be a necessary duty of the Muslim to learn at least some Arabic:

And keep in mind that the Arabic spoken today across the MENA region is very different (and different in different places) to the Arabic spoken 1400 years ago by the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him). Given Islamic traditions, the chances of the Fremen using liturgical/classical Arabic for their worship would be quite high, even if their spoken language had evolved past the point of being recognizably Arabic.

Keep in mind, also, that Dune as a whole is an allegory for colonialism, economic exploitation of poorer nations (or making rival nations poor through the same), as well as dehumanization of the views and needs of native peoples in order to make that exploitation palatable to the occupying forces (I thought that this was done quite smartly in Jessica's part of the story; although she is sympathetic to the Fremen, she feels that manipulating their religious traditions is the best way to protect her son, and in doing so she allows herself to dehumanize the people who come to rely on her).

It is, therefore, incumbent upon us not to distance ourselves too much from the intended message by claiming that Dune is fiction and need not too accurately reflect the culture and religion of the people that the Fremen are so clearly based on. The fact that the producers have done little to hire Arab actors or induced any real effort to accurately pronounce the Arabic words or accurately portrayal Islamic practices seems to indicate that they are concerned about identifying too closely with the economic and cultural struggle between East and West, properly because they fear the potential economic backlash, and this despite the fact that Frank Herbert clearly wrote his book to illustrate the fallout of that struggle.

Here is a wonderful article written by a culturally Arab woman:

There are numerous other articles addressing the same issues, but I like this one because it's written by a Muslim woman, who also addresses the "hijab cosplaying" in the movie. I didn't get into that much, but I definitely recognize that it's a problem when Muslim women worry about potential violence while wearing hijab in the streets of Western nations, but the same article of clothing is fetishized in movies and fashion.

I've also seen some comment about the Mahdi mention in particular. This is a saviour-figure in Islam who will come near the end of the world. There is no emphasis on this figure in Sunni Islam, but Shias seem to have a significant body of literature concerning this figure and, from what I understand, believe that he may perhaps have already come, and so there has been some poor reception in that community to applying the label of Mahdi to Paul. Criticisms ranging from insensitivity to outright blasphemy have been levelled regarding this usage. Now, there was some tip-toeing around the prophetic theme in Dune, and rightly so, I believe, since the Prophet Mohamed is the "seal of the prophets" in Islam, meaning the last and final. The fact that Paul was essentially set up as a false prophet by the Bene Gesserit does avoid some of the potential fallout from this, and also makes sense of Chani's rejection at the end of the film, since she felt strongly about Paul acting as a false Prophet.

Again, I am aware that there is internal cosmology within the series itself, and that some fans object to the religion of the Fremen being referred to as Islam, but when the inspiration for the entire ethnicity, religion, and the natural resources at stake are as clear as they are in this series, it's also futile to expect that people will not draw those associations, nor that people belonging to the religion or ethnic group in question may not acknowledge the beauty of the movie, the gorgeous cinematography, rousing music, and tightly plotted story, but still take exception to what is clearly Orientalism.

And it is frankly such a shame that we have to place this movie under that header, because the story of Dune is so sympathetic to the Middle East and its peoples, and as I said in the beginning I actually loved the film and found it very beautiful. It was also exciting to see Islamic themes used creatively in mainstream media, but while Frank Herbert clearly wrote the story as an exposition on the exploitation of natural resources, particularly oil, in the MENA region, the truth is that the racism and exploitation that he was protesting are very much alive today and contribute to the oppression of millions. It's particularly disappointing to see the message of the movie sail over the heads of people watching it when Arab Muslims in Palestine are being dehumanized and obliterated at this very moment, and while Libya was one of the latest Arab nations to be targeted for its oil resources, only a decade ago, with European oil companies moving in directly after the downfall of Ghadafi (which makes the timing extremely suspicious, one might say):

And even after the US finished their occupation of Iraq, Western oil companies remained en mass to continued drilling:

Egypt to this day remains economically destabilized while Western nations exploit its oil stocks, to no benefit at all of its peoples:

I'm sure I could cite dozens of other cases, but it's clear that there is a one-on-one parallel between spice melange and oil, making any protests of apoliticism in an inherently political story utterly vain.

I could go on, but I needn't. In short, this beautiful movie could have done so much good even beyond its obvious artistic merits, but instead it is still towing the political line. Much as was the case for Jessica and Paul, sometimes you can be a Harkonnen and not know it.

[damascusgirl]

Watching Westerners say dumb shit about how scared they are for “World War Three” is seriously pissing me off. How are you gonna make this about YOU. How??

You live in North America. A war in the Middle East is not largely gonna affect you. It’s going to happen miles and miles away.

You know who will be affected? People in the Middle East. Who will experience war, again, funded by YOUR country and the president YOU voted for. Those of us who have family in the Middle East, close to the conflict.

Please stop making everything about yourselves for once and learn some fucking empathy. It’s not hard.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

A wonderful person - not very like a woman, you know?

T.E. Lawrence on his friend Gertrude Bell

In many ways the life of T.E.arc Lawrence and Gertrude Bell was similar and overlapped in many ways. Two remarkable persons who represented the height of the British Empire heroism.

Lawrence is undoubtedly the more famous of the pair, branded in Orientalist film history by Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, headdress and all. But historians and contemporaries would arguably say, rightly in my opinion, that Bell’s influence on the Middle east region may have outweighed that of her overly confident friend and colleague, T.E. Lawrence. The First World War made Gertrude Bell into the icon she was to become after her death.

At the same time the First World War and its aftermath are a story of disappointment and depression for Gertrude Bell. Early on, she sees the war as the “end of the order we’re accustomed to” - a Whiggish order in which she had believed that British power could be exercised for good; she witnesses and fears the general abandonment of the belief that “there’s room enough in the sun” for everyone. Scales fell from her eyes earlier for her than for others of her class charged with redrawing the map of the Middle East and especially the fate of the Arabs.

Just before the installation of Prince Feisal, the not-yet-Iraqi tribes rebel. The colonial administration wants to adopt the position vacated by the Ottomans and demands of each tribe a poll tax. These are the the tribes that had been promised sovereignty. That is why they’d fought the Ottomans and sided with the allies: to be rid of their masters, not to swap them for some new ones. When the tax goes unpaid, the aerial bombardment of villages starts.

Gertrude Bell writes home, distraught, already blaming the curse it is that oil has been discovered in this land. Churchill had seen from the start of the war that oil independence for the empire would be the great strategic prize of the war as well as a tactical military requirement. There was never anything innocent in the War Office’s late recruitment of Bell to the Cairo office to work alongside T.E. Lawrence (who, in what is presumably for him the highest of compliments, writes of her that she is “not very like a woman”).

As the war and the aftermath of the Paris Peace 1919 gives way to the realpolitik of the grab for oil-rich Ottoman lands in the 1920s, she tries to warn that “no people likes permanently to be governed by another”.

Dutifully, she draws the boundaries of the new Kingdom of Iraq to balance Sunni and Shia numbers – “to avoid a theocratic state”. The Cairo Conference in 1921 set out to achieve this end and resulted in Feisal being given a Kingdom in Iraq and his brother the throne of neighboring Transjordan.

However in the end, she concludes that “making kings is too great a strain” because, we feel, she knows that Britain’s promises of sovereignty will be empty.

The talent and sympathy of the likes of Gertrude Bell don’t count for much against the onward march of power and the interests of those who wield it.

[dreamsoffaerie]

cultures of the world ↣ lebanese (insp.)

and forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair

[witchywitchy]

The fight for Palestinian liberation is long and needs patience and strength. I urge you all not to give up on the Palestinian cause no matter how much death you see, no matter how high the numbers get, and no matter how much destruction you witness. We are all doing a great job boosting pro-Palestinian voices and costing Western propagandists money. We're doing an incredible job boycotting all pro-Israeli products, and we're seeing great results. The people are finally seeing the true face of the West and the Israeli occupation, and we're seeing great signs of change. We're on our way to witnessing a free Palestine, and we mustn't lose hope now or ever. Keep posting, keep boosting, and keep saying free Palestine until Palestine is free.

We're nowhere near giving up, and we never will be.

[strathshepard]

In her series “Northern Yemen,” Yumna Al-Arashi captures the majesty of the Yemeni landscape as well as the women who inhabit it. Coverings resemble a superhero’s uniform, shielding and empowering its wearer in its night-colored drapery. Through the images, Al-Arashi hopes to shift the conversation around women’s rights in the Middle East away from its usual trappings, and in doing so, help stop the worldwide habit of policing women’s clothing and bodies. ”People often disregard Muslim women as being incapable of power or identity simply because they wear hijab,” the artist said. “I believe women’s emancipation does not require women to adhere to any way of dress ― whether it is hijab or bikinis. Defining emancipation based on physical appearance is not adhering to the truest form of the word. Woman’s emancipation enables a woman to have equal rights in every realm no matter how she dresses.” “Emancipation will come when we can fully respect a woman,” Al-Arashi concluded, “no matter how she looks or where she comes from.” –Priscilla Frank, Huffington Post, 2016

[nationsoftheworldtournament]

interact with this post in some way for me to randomly* assign you a country, territory, autonomous zone, or other region to research and follow current events for in 2024

Some clarifications before we get started

I'm using a random list generator to come up with these assignments so micronations won't be included

Everyone SHOULD be learning what they can about the genocide being inflicted against Palestinians and the Israel vs Palestine conflict more broadly, so for that reason I want everyone to treat Palestine as another country to learn more about in addition to the one I assign

interacting with this post in any way will be treated as an invitation to given you an assignment, this includes interacting exclusively to tell me NOT to do so

There's no set deadlines for turning anything in; if you wanna send new findings each week you're welcome to do that but you can also submit them monthly or even compile them to release at the end of 2024

Multiple interactions via the same blog won't lead to multiple assignments unless you explicitly ask for more

While I'm not going to explicitly require or forbid you to use specific sources I'd encourage you to look at sources both from within your assigned nation as well as from those outside of it, and in general be aware of fact checking and whatnot

*and some clarification: this won't be entirely at random because I'm going to generally try to avoid assigning anybody their own country...but like if you don't have it in your bio I'm not gonna ask what it is I'll just not worry about it when giving you your assignment

[cavalierzee]

Israel Was Never A Democracy

I was raised in Jerusalem in a family of Zionist patriots, that included:

A signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence

A president of Israel

A general in the Israeli army

I can state without hesitation, israel was never a democracy nor was it ever intended to be one.

Quote by: Miko Peled

Source. Twitter.com

[sunsetsmakemesad]

Maybe if some of you stopped assuming "middle east=terrorist" the world would be a better place.

[hate5sixofficial]

Vein.FM 2022-01-15 The Middle East Cambridge, MA