79 Comments on “Short Stories”
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ET Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am@ timdog
on drunken Arabs
I take it then that you’ve never spent an evening in the Bar Karnac off Martyrs’ Square in Damascus? Or in the cafes in Beirut? Or in downtown Cairo or Alexandria of a Saturday night?
One more proof that shariah is bullshit. It only works in daylight.
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Oigal Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 11:43 amNever met a drunk Arab and it seems rather unplausible given their draconian shariah laws.
In another life, I worked for a very large international organisation that had some very large contracts in “The Kingdom”.
Every year there would be a large “conference” in Australia and we were contractually bound to provide buses and escorted R&R tours for the delgates. Make no bones about it, these were brothel, strip club and discreet bar tours.
Arabs get drunk, only difference is they are the worlds biggest gropers, bring new meaning to the term obnoxious.
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Odinius Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pmET said:
One more proof that shariah is bullshit. It only works in daylight.
Or that those countries don’t have sharia restrictions on the consumption of alcohol??
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September 4th, 2009 at 4:17 pmArabs get drunk, only difference is they are the worlds biggest gropers, bring new meaning to the term obnoxious.
Also proof that shariah breeds hypocrites.
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Ross Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 10:45 pmYeah, I saw quite a few drunks in Morocco, though not in Egypt.But then the Egyptians are not Arabs, really
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September 4th, 2009 at 11:30 pmWhat’s an Arab, though? Probably someone who think they are an Arab and speaks Arabic, or whose parents spoke Arabic.
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Ross Says:
September 5th, 2009 at 1:44 amWell, Egyptians certainly speak Arabic, and write it, but they are most aware of their ancient national idetinty, and proud of it.
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timdog Says:
September 5th, 2009 at 2:10 amActually, Moroccans are probably less Arab than Egyptians. A very large number of them identify themselves as Berber; and probably a majority have at least some Berber blood…
Syria and Lebanon however are probably more “Arab”, but neither country is particular “Islamic” by Middle Eastern standards. Hence good beer and lively bars.
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September 5th, 2009 at 3:24 amSyria and Lebanon however are probably more “Arab”, but neither country is particular “Islamic” by Middle Eastern standards. Hence good beer and lively bars.
Yeah, as I pointed out earlier, there just ain’t so sharia there…
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September 5th, 2009 at 10:51 amtimdog said
Syria and Lebanon however are probably more “Arab”, but neither country is particular “Islamic” by Middle Eastern standards. Hence good beer and lively bars.
When we speak of Arabs we usually refer to the Kingdom, Yemen, Oman and the Emirates. Although Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians belong to the same ethnic group their history and culture had taken a different turn, especially after the fall of the Ottoman empire. Lebanon in particular had already a majority christian population consisting of Maronites, Greek-orthodox, Chaldeans, Jacobites, Armenians etc. Their attachment to Western lifestyle and culture became even more pronounced when in 1920 it became a League of Nations mandate administered by the French. There were even brothels in Beirut at the time – documented on film – something hard to fathom in Riyadh. No wonder they called it the Paris of the Levant.
Question is how long this partucular non-Islamic status by Middle Eastern standards as you call it is going to last since it has become a Hizbollah stronghold. -
September 5th, 2009 at 11:28 amPeople in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Syria generally consider themselves to be Arabs, and speak Arabic. Ergo, they are Arabs.
Ethnicity is highly subjective.
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September 5th, 2009 at 12:24 pm@ timdog again
To avoid confusion about the relevance of shariah why don’t you amend your pilgrimage story with the exact whereabouts of this drunken impotent Arab.
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September 5th, 2009 at 3:28 pmET – read the story again and you’ll note that the Arab was not really an Arab. He was quarter Yemeni, quarter Javanese, and half-Madurese.
there were even brothels
I don’t think you’d have to look too hard to find brothels in many Middle-Eastern countries even today. I imagine if you knew where to look and were prepared to pay you’d find them in Riyadh too.
Hezbollah in Lebanon are Shia, ideologically tied to non-Arab Iran, so part of a slightly different scene from mainstream “salafi”-style Islamism. There is also a very distinct separation between Hezbollah Lebanon and non-Hezbollah Lebanon, and a certain attitude amongst the Lebanese that “never the twain shall meet”.
Next door in Syria the Islamists have always had a very, very rough ride whenever they’ve dared to raise their heads… -
September 5th, 2009 at 3:34 pm@ Odinius
People in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Syria generally consider themselves to be Arabs, and speak Arabic. Ergo, they are Arabs.
Your statement is simply gratuitous. People of Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland and Belgium speak German. Does it mean they consider themselves Germans?
But you are right that ethnicity is indeed highly subjective. Otherwise the Jews could also be called Arabs as they belong to the same Semitic ethnicity.
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September 5th, 2009 at 3:38 pm@ timdog
ET – read the story again and you’ll note that the Arab was not really an Arab. He was quarter Yemeni, quarter Javanese, and half-Madurese.
My bad, but then why call him an Arab? Did he have a beard?
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September 5th, 2009 at 4:15 pm@ timdog
Hezbollah in Lebanon are Shia, ideologically tied to non-Arab Iran, so part of a slightly different scene from mainstream “salafi”-style Islamism.
Technically spoken you may be right. But whether it makes any difference in the end is highly debatable, judging from the islamist shariah strains Hezbollah’s (Party of Allah) Iranian counterpart imposes on their people. Women not allowed to come outside without the veil, hanging 13 year old girls for alleged sexual encounters…
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September 5th, 2009 at 8:05 pmtimdog said
I don’t think you’d have to look too hard to find brothels in many Middle-Eastern countries even today. I imagine if you knew where to look and were prepared to pay you’d find them in Riyadh too.
I don’t know about brothels in Riyadh but I do know some form of carpark prostitution is practiced over there. Fully niqabed women wait in vans parked in remote carparks and when they spot someone sitting alone in a car they approach him and let him fondle their breasts through the open window. If the guy gets properly aroused they climb into the car for further proceedings in exchange for an amount of riyals (or dollars or euros). This method has been recorded with a hidden camera by a gay guy as a measure of revenge for the way he and his ilk were treated by the shariah officials. The film was edited into some kind of documentary about himself and his plight and subsequently smuggled out of the country to be shown on western TV stations.
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September 5th, 2009 at 11:31 pmET:
Your statement is simply gratuitous. People of Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland and Belgium speak German. Does it mean they consider themselves Germans?
But you are right that ethnicity is indeed highly subjective. Otherwise the Jews could also be called Arabs as they belong to the same Semitic ethnicity.
I’m very glad you brought this specific example up! How much do you know about German conceptions of ethnicity and nationality? The concept of “Germanness” only emerged in the 19th century, with the Romantic philology. Before that, Germans thought of themselves as Saxons, Brandenburgers, Alsatians, Austrians, etc., or as Catholics/Lutherans. Ties were feudal and religious. Being philologists, the Romantics identified common mythic and linguistic themes, and constructed a sense of common identity explicitly based on language. This was the basis for the 19th century German unification movement, which would have reached further had it not butted up against France and Austria. In fact, its entire history up to 1939 was one of that state trying to incorporate German speakers from France, Austria, Czecho, etc. into the German state.
Looking forward to today, this is still the way Germans conceive of ethnicity. Ever heard of the concept of the vertriebene? This is a widespread term for “Germans who live outside Germany.” That is, people who speak German and consider themselves to be Germans. These people can obtain German citizenship merely by demonstrating their families are ethnic German.
So sorry, but yes…if people outside Germany speak German and consider themselves to be German, they are considered to be Germans by other Germans.
That’s how it works in the Middle East too.
.
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Suryo Perkoso Says:
September 6th, 2009 at 7:07 amGood lord, far to much “ma’af” and “jammu” for me. Nothing worse than a failure to properly research – Wilbur Smith in Gold Mine particularly annoys me with “he threw the switch on the magneto’s of the two big diesels and they roared into life’
But hey, what the hell, the hardback version will surely make a fine axle stand.
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September 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pmOdinius
I presume with ‘Vertriebene’ you refer to the ‘Sudetendeutsche’ . I admit that Germany wasn’t the best example I could mention, given their traumatic experience of the forced division in East and West after WWII and the subsequent desire to reunite all Volksgenossen into the pangermanic cradle. However there still is a big difference between reality and the dreams of some 19th century romantic intellectuals and idealists. It certainly is true that some unification movements were successful and produced a national identity but others were not, like German-speaking Switzerland and Austria, abstraction made of the forced Anschluss in 1938. Some were proven to be downright failures like the idea of the ‘Vereenigde Nederlanden’ (United Netherlands).
Let me give you an example. If you want to insult a Flemish (=Dutch-speaking) Belgian Joe just tell him that he is Dutch and watch his reaction. Then try to explain him that in the 19th century there was this Aldietse Beweging a movement trying to promote the unity, cultural as well as political, between the various elements of the ‘Dutch tribe’ on the basis of ancestry, language and culture, and he will look at you as if you are coming from Mars. It is a bit farfetched and out of topic to go into much detail but if you are interested try Verdinaso.
For you, being an American, this may not be evident because the American national identity is largely based on language in the absence of ancient common cultural and ‘tribal’ grounds. In fact your history has had only a lifespan of a couple of hundred years after the Peace Treaty of Versailles in 1783. European, Middle and Far Eastern history being much older however went through far more complex tribal interactions resulting in schisms between peoples with obviously common characteristics (e.g. the Mekong area) and viceversa strong alliances between communities whose only common ground was the fact that they are forced neighbours (e.g. Great Britain) . Closer to home see and read here in IM some of the reactions about topics concerning Indonesia and Malaysia that both share the same basic language and ethnic characteristics. Just tell diego whom I believe is keturunan Bali that in fact he could well be taken for a Malaysian.
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September 6th, 2009 at 7:14 pmPeople in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Syria generally consider themselves to be Arabs, and speak Arabic. Ergo, they are Arabs.
If they all consider themselves Arabs then why is the Arab League such a pathetic attempt at panarabism? Why didn’t the UAR (United Arab Republic) between Egypt and Syria hold out for more than 3 and a half years?
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Ross Says:
September 6th, 2009 at 8:04 pmPerhaps Odinius had in mind the Volga Germans in Russia and the Saxon Germans in Romania. They get accepted automatically by German immigration, and naturally so.
Reverting to the much more interesting question of Arabs and morality, I have talked to many former TKIs who tell me that much of the cash they remit is a result of work other than cooking and cleaning.
Some go there with that in mind, some stumble into it and others are shamefully bullied into it.
It appears there are residential centres from which the lasses are hired out. Also there are go-go bars, not known if booze is on tap but girls are.No reason for my informants to lie about any of this, and not sure if they refer to Saudi or Kuwait or Emirates. I’ve never been to any of those countries, but human nature doesn’t change greatly from one race to the other, thus I’m inclined to believe the tales.
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September 6th, 2009 at 11:31 pmET,
Sudentendeutsche refers narrowly to Germans from the Sudentenland of Bohemia. Vertriebene literally means “the displaced”, but is a term for all ethnic Germans from “the east,” which as Ross rightly points out, includes Volga Germans and Romanian Saxons, but also includes the Schwabe from ex-Yugoslavia, East Prussians, etc.
But basically what I am trying to impress here is that you can’t impose a single set of rules for determining inclusion/exclusion in an ethnic or national category. You have to look at the specific circumstances of a place, and the rules people use to determine who’s in and who’s out. These may be highly contingent on circumstance. For example, an individual may view himself primarily as a Manc in comparison to a Scouser (from Liverpool), a Northerner in comparison to someone from London, English compared to a Welshman, and British in comparison to an American. Actually he views himself as all of these things, but the importance of each varies according to circumstance.
Methods of determining ethnicity and nationality vary tremendously.
Germans understand the Vertriebene to be Germans based upon two things: that they consider themselves to be German, and they speak the German language as their native tongue. Turks or Yugoslavs who are born in Germany and speak only German are not considered German, even if they fully assimilate into German cultural life.
The Flemmish example is different from the German one, indeed, as you describe.
There are other ethnicities/nationalities, for example French, where this is not the case at all. If you are born in Montreal, consider yourself French, speak French and have a French last name, you are still not really going to be considered French. An Algerian who is born in France, holds French citizenship, speaks French and is fully assimilated in French life is considered, by most French, to be French.
Ethnicity is therefore subjective and subject to different rules of inclusion and exclusion depending on circumstance. This is perhaps the single most important finding of the last 50 years in the study of ethnicity and nationalism. Whether you are in or out depends a whole lot on “consensus of feeling,” which can change by circumstance, space or time.
Moving over to the Arabs…given that “Arabness” is based on your name/language and whether you understand yourself to be an Arab, it’s a bit silly to say “no, Arabs are only on the Arabian peninsula.” You might simultaneously see yourself as an Egyptian or Syrian in relation to other Arabs, but as an Arab in relation to a Turk.
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September 8th, 2009 at 4:28 pmRoss said
Also there are go-go bars
I wouldn’t be surprised. After all the belly dance and the ‘dance of the seven veils’ originated in this part of the world. BTW I’ve always wondered which veil is the last to fall. Given islamic sensibilities it must be the one from the … head.
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Achmad Sudarsono Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 9:43 amRoss’s answer to Islamist militancy: waste the bastards. In “Duke of Jaksa” Ross airs his Clint Eastwood fantasy of walking not-so-soft and carrying a gun rather than a stick.
He joins the likes of Gangsta Rappa Ice Cube who advocates puttin’ a cap in the ass of his enemies. Nice, Ross. George W. had the same idea with Iraq and what a success that has been.
Ross’s apparent explanation for what drives groups like the FPI is that they are evil and must therefore die. Enter avenging white man bearing fire arm. So much for helping readers understand the world.
I won’t even talk about the prose. A big thumbs down.
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September 9th, 2009 at 12:39 pm@ Achmad
How would you handle FPI thugs? The tongkat londo?
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September 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pmET,
You mean as a writer, a policeman, or president ?
As a writer, I’d try to do what the latter two couldn’t, and explain why they think the way they do. Not act out personal Rambo fantasies.
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September 9th, 2009 at 7:29 pmAfter several offline days drinking teh tarik and eating nasi biriyani I step briefly amongst Tamil gentlemen browsing matrimonial sites to find that Mr Ross won the vote. And a sincere congratulations to him. I thought he would.
While of course I agree with you entirely Achmad (so glad you showed up) about the actual sentiments Ross expresses, the point was to write a short story for the entertainment of the public, and evidently he did it better for this particular constituency.
Highfalutin literary pretensions and stylistic affectations are all well and good, but that way lies starvation, obviously, and no man but a blockhead ever wrote – except for money [or votes]… -
September 9th, 2009 at 7:44 pmAchmad Sudarsono Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
ET,You mean as a writer, a policeman, or president ?
As a writer, I’d try to do what the latter two couldn’t, and explain why they think the way they do. Not act out personal Rambo fantasies.
I was rather thinking as the mayor of jakarta, if you remember what I mean.
I
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September 9th, 2009 at 7:45 pmAchmad Sudarsono Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
ET,You mean as a writer, a policeman, or president ?
As a writer, I’d try to do what the latter two couldn’t, and explain why they think the way they do. Not act out personal Rambo fantasies.
As the mayor of Jakarta if you remember what I mean….
As a writer eh Achmad? unusual for you to give much away, though you were the best they ever had…..
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