Contradiction and Hypocrisy in ‘Saudi Arabia Exposed’

Contradiction is common in many governments, and the Middle East is no exception: interpretations of the Qu’ran seem to have secret agendas and rules apply only to plebians, not the rulers (cue Gaddahfi and family partying it up with expensive booze, while alcohol was officially illegal in Libya). Nowhere do contradiction and hypocrisy reign supreme, as uchecked and unscrutinized as the royal Al-Saud family, as  in Saudi Arabia.

“Their behavior does not reach the self-concious level of hypocrsy, of believing one thing and doing another, for it is a set of dissonant beliefs that they do not even recognize coexist at the same time.” (p. 93)

So remarks John R. Bradley in Saudi Arabia Exposed: A Kingdom in Crisis, an aptly-named book which provides a first-hand inside look at Saudi Arabia’s people, culture and policies that goes beyond the usual news headliners that the Western world reads. The book uncovers many issues and realities that often get lost in the women’s-rights and Al-Saud and Wahhabi rhetoric (although he does discuss these as well).

I hate the West, I love the West….I hate the West, I love the West…

The most amazing realities Bradley uncovers involve the young Saudi adults (men, of course) that he teaches. One young man, Fahd, doesn’t want his siblings to meet his ‘Western guest’ because they will be yelled at for associating with infidels and be made fun of at school. “Of course, I think it’s stupid. But what can I do?” is Fahd’s reply when Bradley challenges him to stand up to such xenophobic behavior. The idea of someone being made fun of for having a foreign guest is ridiculous, although in the Saudi’s defense it’s not like Americans are simply innocent in our treatment of people different than us (look at the Trayvon Martin case).

19-year old Mohammed is an equally pampered and isolated young man living in his own private wing of the house who is an outrageous study in hypocritical extremes. Mohammed read’s Al-Qaeda political magazines and yet eats nothing but American junk food.He sit’s in online chatrooms, first defending Palestine and Islam and then taking time out to tease lesbianson other chat sites. He obliviously refers to the hypocrisys in his own life when he says, “They had everything [the 9/11 terrorists] and they gave it up for Allah.” Indeed, it can only make one scratch their head andwonder how a person who is so “confident” in his beliefs and who prefers to speak English (“A language he loved and was desperate to improve his proficiency in)” (p. 89) can, at the same time, support and admire people who made it their life’s mission to kill Americans, who denounce the very culture he also enjoys.

How can this hypocrisy exist? In Saudi Arabia it reaches extreme levels, namely because these youths admire an organization that aims to kill people, but the love-hate relationship with the West, and particularly America, is apparent in other non-Muslim countries. Witness in France: the French youth might laugh at America like their parents, but they still stand in line at McDonald’s, copy hip-hop style and blast our Top 40 music in their clubs. Youth around the world are similar simply because they embrace American music, style and movies and demand freedom and the right to be themselves (both which are at the heart of American culture), but non-American youth seem to be much more focused on American politics than young Americans themselves, as witnessed to how they let their opinions of our government taint their views.

Nevertheless, the idea that the person sitting in front of you sharing a cigarette and tea with you is also someone that cries for the  9/11 “martyrs” is rather discomforting, a truth that Bradley admits:

“It was difficult not to be insulted, for was not the implication that I, and others like me, are dirty, dangerous, contagious, unsafe?” (p.98)

This is an unsettling feeling that one gets being around people who are in some way quite different than yourself: there’s always a slight feeling that a divide exists, that the dominant group is somehow not as yielding as it should be. I myself have experienced this many a time, in different contexts. Why am I here, if I’m so different, if my views are so bad? you think.  Mohammed’s answer to this question is that the author is “different” from other Americans.

Why is he different? Because he attempts to create a dialogue between two cultures that view each other often warily? Because he dares to go beyond his religious and ethnic social group? (Oh, what a concept!) “I somehow was an exception, perhaps as a useful guest or even as a protected subordinate,”  Bradley hypothesizes. The reasons run the gamut (and, when considering Fahd’s response, it’s important to note that he is willing to ‘risk’ his own reputation to host his horrible house guest) but Mohammed’s is the best: “I get to know our enemy better.” (p. 99)

Flower Power Men

“The revelation that if one travels into the Asir mountains to find Al-Qaeda supporters, one ends up encouintering men who wear flowers in their hair and cultivate a passion for perfume.” (p. 65)

A “flower youth” in Saudi Arabia, sourced from facesofthearth.tumblr

The passage  Bradley devotes to Saudi “Flower men” was tantalizingly short (or at the very least, devoid of  a much-desired photo). The idea of grown men wearing wreathes of flowers in their hair a la little flower girls at a wedding is, well, intriguing, especially when one considers that feminity is discouraged in men. As Bradley is quoted above, more of that juxtaposition/contradiction that was mentioned before is blatantly evidenced here, where in the same land die-hard fundamentalists cohabit with men whose

“Headbands of these faun-like young men were a riot of fresh and dried flowers showing their vitality and character. Friendly and giggling continuously throughout a brief conversation, they finally scampered away, swinging their thighs and glancing back suggestively over their shoulders.” (p. 64)

Vibrant wreathes of flowers as men’s hair pieces seems positively boring when one considers the much-more lascivious behavior of the youths Bradley describes above. Again, it is kind of hard to imagine such open-minded men living  in the land of Wahhabi die-hards, but apparently it is perfectly okay for men to make open passes at each other, as long as every one agrees to look the other way, which leads us to…..

I’m Gay and They Know it

“The holding of hands and even exchange of light kisses among men is carried normal” (p. 154)

Sourced from articles.dailynynews.com

Men holding hands or putting their arms around each other is not restricted to friendships in the Middle East: in Egypt, I was (pleasantly!) surprised to see young men doing this with their friends, because in our macho tough-man American culture, no man can hold hands with his friend without being called gay and ‘freaking out’ his friends. In most male friendships in the Arab world, this behavior is simply akin to that which girls do with their girlfriends and probably stems from the fact that in some places, male-female contact is quite limited, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Bradley expounds the theory that an ”all-male world made if anything more of a man out of a young man than the promiscous mingling with women, which many felt had a polluting, emasculating influence” (p. 161).

You can almost see the terrible logic behind such a theory (why is acting like a woman so bad? To paraphrase Madonna, it’s as if you’re saying being a girl is degrading). But because this seems to be a dominant theme in Wahhabism, men are stuck with men, and inevitably some of these men become Gay-or, at least,  take a stab at it because they have no chance at relations with a woman.  Jeddah is host to several gay discos, a fact I was surprised to learn, as dancing is forbidden under Wahhabism as  surely is the type of music that would be playing at  a disco; how on Earth did anyone even have the guts to build them in a country where alcohol is illegal? The idea of a disco in Saudi Arabia is just another example of the many contradictions of the country, and begs the question: what if women wanted a (obviously) women-only disco?

Only then would the state take notice: because they were forced to (again, that also begs the question: WHY is the state taking a blind eye?). Why are people content to just look away from something that, if asked about an interview, they would publicly condemn? The fact the government denies such acts is perhaps not so strange only when one brings into context the idea Bradley observes in which the people deny

“….just as they state that Islam treats all Muslims as equals as they casually exploit foreign Muslims because they happen to be from South Asia.” (p. 157)

Demeaning Demeanors

The fact that many Saudi Arabians look down upon upon their own Muslim “brothers and sisters” says a lot about warped perceptions and how the true meaning of the Qu’ran is abused and propaganda’d for even an individual’s agenda. Indian Muslims in retrospect are viewed no differently than Arab Muslims in the Qu’ran, and yet the thousands of Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers who turn up in the country looking for work are treated like  the garbage they’re forced to sweep off the streets. The abuse their fellow Muslims inflict on them is particularly surprising when one considers the positions of other foreigners-and non-Muslims at that-in the countr

According to Bradley, Americans are at the top of the food chain, even higher than Saudis themselves. That either indicates that the Saudi’s are majorly trying to suck up to the USA or that they’re selective in who they decide to show their renowned hospitality for. Saudis, Europeans and other Arabs follow (in that order), which perhaps suggests that the Saudi’s are financially motivated in their relations than religiously (again, not what you’d expect from the land of Mecca). South Asians (such as Indians)are at the bottom of the list (I couldn’t help wondering where  other cultures not mentioned (such as Africans or Asians) would show up on this racist hierarchy, or if they even live  in Saudi Arabia).

Snooty demeanors don’t end with the racist organizing of social groups, either, in Saudi Arabia. Much like their spoiled US neighbors, the Saudis highly frown upon “what they consider demeaning work such as taxi driving” (p. 131) and refuse to hold such menial jobs–or, in fact, hold any jobs at all. Indeed, the same issue that occurs here in America, where nobody wants to do the laborious jobs such as farming, carpentry, plumbing, or menial jobs such as being a waiter, is occurring in Saudi Arabia. Why does this phenomena start to occur? Because a society becomes so materialistically wealthy that it’s members decide they’re too good to do anything, even if they’re sorely lacking money and are about to be thrown on the street? Like Americans, the Saudis are lucky because they do have people willing to take on these menial tasks: foreign workers happy to have any job, even if they don’t get paid for several months. But how can one have a just society where most of the workers are treated  little better than slaves?

To Conclude: Will the Al-Saud soften their colours?

Like any other people, the Saudis are overshadowed and unfairly grouped with the ruling government and religious establishment, as Saudi Arabia Exposed shows us. Saudis like to speak English, go to clubs, dress non-traditionally, debate the state and-in the case of the Flower Men-really break traditional molds. Saudi culture is not black-and-white, rigid and unchanging, as one might have thought. Bradley includes an interesting quote from the infamous T. E. Lawrence, and it is one that, in light of this discussion on contradiction and hypocrisy, is particularly fitting:

“They were a people of primary colors, or rather of black and white….They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt….They knew only truth and untruth, belief and unbelief, without our hestiating retinue of finer shades….Their thoughts were at ease only in extremes….” T.E. Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926) (p. 93)

Lawrence spent  a good deal of his life living and intimately working in the Middle East, so it should be safe to say that he was fair in his analysis. When it concerns religion, especially the religious establishment, then yes, Saudis-and religious people throughout the world, for that matter-come across as extremely black-and-white, sure of their religion and the morals that it expounds. Good and evil are strictly laid out in religion, and even those grayer areas are “ignored,” doubt outlawed. Perhaps the Saudi government and Wahhabi officials want to rule in black and white because it makes the country easier to control, but I do believe that the Saudis are more “colourful” than that and hopefully (as we have seen recently with women’s rights) the establishment will lighten up and this intriguing country can open up.

S-L-M

The ‘What-ifs?’ of the Middle East

There are a lot of ‘what-ifs’ bouncing around the Middle East at the moment: speculation and hypothesis are rampant, but even these are subject to constant change and modification. Witness Syria, which renegged on it’s ‘peace plan:’ civilians continue to die each day. Or consider the Muslim Brotherhood, which has officially thrown it’s hat into the presidential election ring after consistent hem-hawing. News giant CNN has even jumped onto the speculation bandwagon, with articles on ‘Why American’s Should Care About Syria’ (which delved into the possible consequences of both pro-action and inaction in Syria) and ‘What if Israel Bombed Iran?’ which starts with,

 ”Imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and discover that during the night. Israeli planes had conducted a bombing raid on Iran. How would your world have changed?”

 In honor of the sort of vague wave of speculation and uncertainty that has rooted itself in the present climate of the Middle East (replacing that wild wave of rioting and violence, although rioting and violence are obviously still continuing in certain countries), let’s take a look at some wild-card, vague what-if possibilities, because, as Kate Capshaw so cheesily reminds us in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, anything goes!

“Anything Goes” from Indiana Jones

The negative what-ifs

> What if Salafis overtook the Egyptian government?

Egypt’s Military rulers have pretty much made sure that this won’t ever happen, since they recently disqualified several promising presidential candidates from both the Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood parties. A strong Islamic rule over Egypt thus seems unlikely in the near future, but anything goes in Egypt, where protests seem to ignite every other day and people (a.k.a. the Military government and the police) keep pulling a fast one on the general public. However, if, perchance, this did happen, or a Muslim Brotherhood candidate decided to run less moderately than his party has been appearing to be as of late, the results would be possibly disastrous for Egypt, at least on an international level. Would tourism go back to pre-revolution times, if strict dress was required and Egypt’s clubs and beach resorts disappeared?

 >What if oil disappeared from Saudi Arabia/Middle East?

Ok, so this one isn’t happening relatively soon, but it’s worth throwing it out there anyway. Saudia Arabia itself is not the heyday country of endless public spending that it used to be, back when the oil was first discovered. In some of these countries, oil is the only thing keeping them afloat in the global economy. Take away the oil, and what do they have? Weak economies that don’t even produce food, let alone exports; unskilled (and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, unwilling) workers; and a lack of any other resources. Some of the Arab countries don’t even have natural water supplies, which makes the situation even more precarious. If the despotic and new-regime governments have the people’s (and their own) interests at heart, they should start boosting other sectors of the economy (once the rioting subsides).

>What if Iran bombed Israel?
CNN’s article discusses the possible outcomes of Israel bombing Iran. But what about if Iran somehow managed to bomb Israel? Would there be full-out retaliation (providing that Israel’s weapons weren’t hit?) The USA, in either scenario, would likely get involved-how could they not, seeing as supposed nuclear weapons are at stake and Israel is so closely tied with our government?-but this scenario, out of all the rest, would affect the world the most. Oil prices would probably go up, the Middle East would probably explode (with celebrating? with shame?) into even greater turmoil, and Iran would certainly become even more of a pariah than it already is.
>What if Bashar Al-Assad doesn’t step down?

This is the biggest question of all, and is being asked on a daily basis by the international community. It doesn’t seem likely that the USA/NATO will intervene. The United Nations probably won’t, either; after all, it’s been over a year now and al-Assad is still hanging in there. It seems unlikely that the Syrians will cave in, but a good fact to point out is that, unlike in Libya, where the rebels were strongly against Gaddhafi loyalists, there doesn’t seem to be a huge split between pro-Assad citizens and the protesting body.

…..And now the positive ‘what-ifs’
 
>What if women were granted equal rights?

Would men lose rights? Would children suffer as their mother’s joined the workforce, gained hobbies, spent less time at home? Would houses go uncleaned and fester, would food go uncooked, would families break down and split apart? Would men have more sex, or less? Would society’s morals scatter to the wind? Would immorality reign? Would women become more competitive and self-absorbed? Would Islam be insulted? Would Middle Eastern society, in effect, cease to exist? No, no, no and, oh, no! There really are only positive benefits to this eternal ‘what-if.’

 
>What if Israel gave Palestinian’s the right to govern themselves and withdrew?

 At the moment, this seems highly unlikely, given that France’s Le Monde reported that both countries are at an extreme impasse and unwilling to even talk. What with the constant hunger strikes and international media attention, Palestine on any level seems an impossibility. But if Israel did experience a coup de coeur and decide to give freedom to it’s Palestinian brothers, I could only hope that the Middle East would rejoice, and that Muslims and Christians could live side by side as they did in the past (kinda seems impossible in today’s climate, but if it was possible then, it’s possible now!)
 
>What if Ahmadinejad was no longer president of Iran?

I don’t think it’s a stretch that if the Iranian government was replaced, that Iran would probably embrace freedom and reopen it’s doors to the rest of the world. Is it solely Ahmadinejad that embodies what was started by Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution? Of course not, but it seems that the Iranian government rallies around a central figure to dominate. If revolution did occur in Iran, I believe it would be better organized and a lot more peaceful than the other Arab Spring Revolutions, because the Iranians are proud of their heritage, their religion, and culture and I believe that in the aftermath of such a revolution, that they would quickly unite to form a new, stable government.

All of these what-ifs are important questions. Are my speculations

realistic or not?

Who knows? When it  comes to the Middle East au moment, anything

goes!

S-L-M

Dreams of World’s Long Lost

“The question of the real Iran kept coming up in discussions between my parents and friends. Which was more legitimate: the ancient traditions with which the Shah propped up his power, or the strict Islamic principals of Khomeini?” (p. 119)

The Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran and her children, courtesy of theimageworks.com

Iran was once a country where Western law ruled the land, not blown-up exaggerated Islamic shariah law. Women were at one point banned from wearing the veil, not as they are today, where they are banned from going bare in public. Art, music, friendship, religion and, most importantly of all, freedom flourished.

Likewise, Egypt was once a country were Westerner’s were welcomed, not viewed with suspicious eyes or bombarded with questions.Women were more apt to be seen in fancy Parisian-style wear, and the langage du jour was French or English or Italian, not Arabic. As in Iran, the rich and simply comfortable were able to-and encouraged-to enjoy life, drinking and attending parties.

To be sure, neither of these countries were perfect. 1940s and 1950s Cairo saw intense corruption at the hands of King Farouk. Iran’s attempts to quell religion were just as wrong as it’s attempts now to quell individualism and freedom of choice, and the Shah was not innocent in his rule. But, given the choice, I would have lived in either of these eras in a heartbeat, as they are vastly more alluring than the current climates in either one of these magnificent countries.

Things I’ve Been Silent About, acclaimed writer Azar Nafisi’s autobiography about her life in Tehran and being the daughter of two political figures, is a shocking portrait of pre- and post- Revolution Iran. Her recounting of a lovely, if a bit-spoiled childhood growing up in Tehran is almost unbelievable when one contrasts it with modern life in the city today. Although Nafisi has been accused of painting Tehran in black and white and being a promoter of colonialism, the fact remains that this is what life was like in Tehran; her life was one shared by many others.

Things I’ve Been Silent About’s literary counterpart is none other than The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, an autobiographical look at author Lucette Lagnado’s family’s history in Cairo and their subsequent exodus from Egypt. The two books are immensely similar. Two young women grow up in cosmopolitan, worldly cities, only to one day more or less be forced to leave the countrys that they loved and cherished: Nafisi permanently moved to the USA with her family after watching Iran crumble before her, and being subjected to house arrest of a sort; Lagnado’s family was more or less compelled to leave Egypt when she was only seven. The reason? They were Jewish.

It was rather interesting to read an account of Jewish life in Cairo. Jewish life in Cairo–does that even exist anymore? There might still be a few Jewish families left, but they most likely practice their faith in secrecy behind closed doors. Lagnado’s book gave us a look at what the Middle East would look like if the governments were more accepting of all their citizens. During the 1940s and 1950s, Cairo seemed to rival any European destination for glamour, prestige, and diversity. Lagnado describes her father schmoozing with British soldiers, her mother conversing in Italian, Americans and Eastern Europeans wandering around in addition to the traditional Egyptians. Her family was Jewish, but they weren’t frowned upon nor ostracized, nor was anyone else (though she does admit that Arabs often weren’t allowed into places like Groppi’s, the upscale bakery that sounds like it would have put Paris’ Laduree to shame).

“Suzette [Lagnado's sister] remembered an exuberant culture where religion mattered, but so did going out at night and reveling in all the LEvant offered. Our father, who now all but lived at shul, was the prime example of this dual existence, where faith and ritual had in no way hindered his ability to lead a rich and pleasure-filled life. In Egypt, it was easy to be religious and worldly at the same time, but that seemed an impossibility here in America.” (p. 227)

Women on the beach in Alexandria, Egypt; courtesy of foreignpolicy.com

Religious and worldly at the same time–this is the key that Middle Eastern countries are missing. Because the wave of radical Islam has swept over so much of the land, I feel that most people have forgotten that it is possible to follow their faith, and still enjoy themselves on Earth. It was actually depressing to realize that Cairo was the city of my dreams–French-speaking, lively, raucous, fancy, open-minded–once upon a time. To compare Lagnado’s Cairo with the Cairo I have experienced was almost impossible.

In fact, Lagnado describes a situation that takes place in Brooklyn that sounds more akin to what I have experienced in Cairo than anything else she describes that actually takes place in Egypt. Her sister Suzette attends a wedding in a sleeveless dress, only to have the older women run over to her with a jacket to cover herself, as they find the outfit inappropriate. The strangeness of this act is not lost on Suzette, who recalls these very women wearing all sorts of baring fashions back in Egypt.

“That was when she’d sworn to herself that she would leave, and have nothing to do anymorewith this community of expatriats who called themselves Egyptians but bore no resemblence whatsoever to the people she had known back in Egypt.” (p. 228)

It is a strange phenomenon, how people can suddenly forget the traditions and habits that they grew up with. Often times we change because of a great life-altering in our lives; in this case, the Jewish-Egyptians in Brooklyn were most likely changed because they had been uprooted from their homes and might have looked to more traditional interpretations of their faith, since faith was the only thing they had left. In any case, the situation reminds me of my experience dressing every day in Cairo, and how dumbfounded I was when I was told that my husband’s mother wore mini skirts in 1960s Cairo, but now wore a hijab. What was the life-altering event, I wondered, that caused her to shed her old ways? Why is it, in the case of the Middle East, that people have become so traditional and so strongly seem to reject most facets of the “modern world,” whereas people elsewhere in the world don’t put up such a fight?

Granted, I realized that the worlds that Nafisi and Lagnado had lived in were highly privledged worlds; the average Iranian or Egyptian didn’t have an endless parade of servants calling cars for them, or trips to custom tailors, or dinners with the leading politicians of the country. Nafisi and Lagnado, one could say, lived highly westernized lives; Nafisi’s book doesn’t so much as make one mention of her own Islamic faith, in that as I read the book I truly felt as though I was reading the autobiography of a Western girl with a family problems, albeit family problems that included her prominent father being jailed. As Nafisi claims,

“Political dissent in Iran is treated as a form of criminality; most offenders are tried on bogus charges and there is little room for defense.” (p. 140)

Isn’t this the case in most Islamic countries nowadays? Disagree with the regime, and you’re branded for life; the police will never leave you alone. Nafisi’s father was indeed jailed on bogus charges,and indeed had little room to defend himself. Although Lagnado’s family doesn’t have run-ins with the law, there is one incident that occurs which sparks their final decision to leave Egypt, in which her older sister is arrested for hanging out with foreign sailors. She didn’t do anything wrong, except fraternize with foreigners: at that point in time, Egypt was slowly becoming xenophobic and wary of those who bore any resemblance to the colonizers who had once lived in the land. Lagnado, reporting on her recent visit to Egypt (she was granted entry, despite signing papers never to return), describes a realization she makes about Egyptians:

“Malaka Nazli hadn’t simply been a place I realized but a state of mind. It was where you could find an extraordinary, breathtaking level of humanity. What it lacked in privacy, what it failed to provide by way of modern comforts–hot runningwater, showers, electric stoves, refrigerators, telephones–it more than made up for in mercy and compassion and tenderness and grace, those  ethereal qualities that make and keep us human.” (p. 332)

Her realization is important for several reasons, namely, that it shows that the people of Cairo hadn’t changed since her family had fled many years ago. This statement shows that in their hearts, the people of Cairo–and any other Islamic country–are still kind, empathizing human beings, and that it is the governments that try to dictate what the people want, that try to change society, that try to set the morals and values even when they are in strict contradiction to those that already existed. This is true in Iran–did Nafisi and her friends allow their hearts to be changed by the repressive revolutionary regime? No–it is true in Egypt, as Lagnado shows (after all, the new occupants of her old neighborhood building Malaka Nazli are all Muslim and yet they show her respect and true kindness) and it is most likely true in every other Islamic country where regimes have taken over regardless of what the people were or wanted.

Beyond what these two autobiographies teach the reader politically and culturally, at their heart they are open revelations of a family’s intimacy and secrets. Both Nafisi and Lagnado were deeply affected and moved by their overbearing and strong-willed parents, and their lives were shaped not only by society and increasingly oppresive governments but also by their families. In the end, it was their families that gave them a sense of who they were; it was their families that kept the traditions and cultures that they had held so dear alive. The ending quote of Things That I’ve Been Silent About sums it up best:

“After the Islamic Revolution I came to realize the fragility of our mundane existence, the ease with which all that you call home, all that gives you an identiy, a sense of self and belonging, can be taken away from you. I learned that what my father had given me through his stories was a way to make a home for myself that was not dependent on geography or nationality or anything that other people can take away from me. These stories could not gaurd me againstthe pain i felt at my parents loss; they did not offer consolation or closure. it was only after their deaths that i came to realize that they each in their own way had given me a portable home that safegaurds memory and is a constant resistance against the tyranny of man and of time.” (p. 314)

S-L-M

“Offside” is Right in the Center

A girl goes to watch a soccer match ( “football,” if you’re not American). She buys her ticket, finds her seat, and cheers on her team. She holds her breath as the team she supports nears a goal, she groans when the enemy team scores, and when it’s all over, she goes home.

This taken-for-granted act of women across the Western world is one that women in Iran would consider a luxury, or better yet, an impossibility. Even something as simple as a woman going to a football match is forbidden, and no, it’s not because the Iranian government doesn’t want it’s women to become a bunch of tomboys shirking their feminine duty. As the country-boy soldier Samandar says in Offside, it’s because the women will “hear curses that they shouldn’t listen to.” Well, that’s his take, anyways.

Films about the Middle East can be divided into two groups: those that are made just to tell a story, like any movie in Hollywood, and those that are meant (and usually created by a Western director, or a Middle Eastern director with a rebel bent) to show the world some aspect of Middle Eastern culture, which usually means displaying the abject poverty, hopelessness or infringement on civil rights that often exists in many of these countries. However, Jafar Panahi’s film Offside is quite refreshing in that he manages to take a dig at Iran’s ludicrous civil laws and sexism without making one feel miserable. The film tackles just one offshoot or facet of sexism in Iran-the fact that women are not allowed to go to a stadium to watch a sports match-and manages to cover it with humor and lightheartedness.

The film follows the “capture” of several girls who try to sneak into the stadium for Iran’s match against Iran that will qualify it to go to the World Cup games and are quickly caught, despite the fact that they are dressed as boys. Some of the girls are so well-dressed that even the soldiers remark: “Is it a she or he?”

The lovely “boys” listening to the final minutes of the match while en route to the Vice squad:

VERSUS

Their soldier captors (here, gleefully celebrating when Iran beats Bahrain).

The girls, who mock the Middle Eastern stereotype that all girls are docile, quiet and “girly,” are quite the characters and pretty brave (or crazy, if one is similarly football-obsessed) considering that their actions will eventually lead them to the Vice Squad, Iran’s version of the “morality police.” During most of the film they are kept in a pen right outside the stadium walls while waiting for the Army chief to arrive, thus teasing them as they can hear the crowd roar with delight or despair. There’s “Soldier Girl” who get’s to watch the game because she dresses in a rather-authentic military uniform; “Crybaby Girl”  who loses her uncle once they’re inside the stadium; “Chador-Girl”, who hides under the robe she brought when her friend’s father notices her; “Uppity Girl,” who looks very much like a boy and has quite the mouth; “SadGirl,” who tried to attend the game in testament  to her friend, and “Bathroom-Girl,” who stars in the film’s arguably most comedic moment when she demands to be taken to the bathroom. Seeing that she is still recognizable as a girl, the soldiers devise for her an ingenious mask out of a fan poster:

Barely able to see where she’s walking, she’s accompanied to the men’s bathroom(after all, only men’s facilities exist!) and an ensuing melee occurs as Tehrani boys try to enter the bathroom, not knowing that a girl is inside. She runs off while her captor is preoccupied, but eventually returns to the holding pen because she felt bad for the Samandar the country soldier and the cattle he grieves about.

The barbs traded between the girls and the soldiers are intensely funny, so one can only imagine how funny the film must be to a Farsi speaker. Sure, the girls are hitting at hard, cold, and silly truths–”So if I was born in Japan I could attend the match? I was born in the wrong country?”–but the actors are so great that the film is highly enjoyable

 What makes the film so natural and both funny and serious at the same time is that it is realistic. Sure, the characters spar fighting words at times, but the “debate” that goes on is a natural one; in “real life” (as opposed to Hollywood) this is how the scene would play out. The girls haven’t analyzed their points to perfection, complete with passionate speeches, and the boys aren’t stereotypically cruel and ignorant, nor are they stereo-typically charitable.

The final scene, one might say, is pure Hollywood, in that Iran wins the match and in the ensuing pandemonium on the street, the bus transporting the girls (and a firecracker-addicted male youth) stops and when the soldiers get out, the girls make a dash for it. One could almost say that it’s a cheesy perfect ending, except for one factor: apparently, the movie was actually filmed during a real-life match, which meant that the director had two outcomes in mind.

Docu-drama? “Real” fiction? However you want to peg Offside, one adjective should always be used: one-of-a-kind!

S-L-M

Links:

1. Offside on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbc5Fgvc1ko

Struggling for Song in “No One Knows About Persian Cats”

The other night I watched the film No One Knows About Persian Cats, a 2010 Iranian film released by IFC which, like most foreign films, is completely unknown to American viewers and thus totally dishonored.  The film, which highlights actual Iranian bands as it follows the loosely-scripted real-life story of the band Take It Easy Hospital (composed of Ashkan Kooshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi) as they try to get a backing band for their group in order to play in London, UK. Filmed in a documentary-cum-music-video style, with great shots of a country seldom seen to the West and an interesting soundtrack, the film blends Western ideas with universal wants on an all-too-Middle-Eastern background which presents an overall captivating but agenda-less work.

Box art for No one Knows about Persian Cats. Courtesy of the IFC website.

To an American who lives in a world of free speech, where every teenager with half an ounce of vocal or musical talent believes that they’re the next pop star, “Persian Cats” stands in an astonishing contrast. Here we have bands that, because of their lyrical content or style, are not allowed a permit, which is the only way one can legally play (even practice!) music in Iran. This sounds like it would crush the dream of every 14 year-old Iranian who dreams of thumping rock metal or gyrating like Britney Spears, but as the film shows, artists without permits will go to great lengths to continue their craft, even when the stakes are high (at the begining of the film, Ashkan and Negar are released from prison after being caught preforming without a permit). The camera follows the actors (it feels almost wrong to call them actors, and yet here they are, reinacting their story; perhaps docu-drama fits better?) as they tunnel through room after room, down multiple sets of stairs and alleyways, ducking into basements and past doors covered in sheets or up into tiny attics. What’s with the maze? The musicians have to find the most removed, isolated studios for their clandestine craft-thus underlining literally the meaning of “underground artists.” In the USA, “underground artists” mean artists that simply aren’t well known. In Iran, it means being oppressed musically and being forced literally, underground. One group even resorts to playing on a rooftop shack they built, and wait until their neighbors exit the building to commence the drums.
With some of the bands, one can easily see why the Iranian government would refuse them a permit. One band (which goes so far as to practice in a cowshed when their neighbors force them out) plays heavy death metal with Persian lyrics and death stares. Another one (which we meet on a floor of a construction site overlooking Tehran) is a rap group speaking about the injustices of poverty in their country. But some of them don’t seem so bad: take, for instance, the group that Hamed Behdad (Ashkan and Negars “manager”) sings in: it has a Persian rhythm to it, and male Persian dancers preform a clearly traditional dance as he sings.

The injustice that these bands cannot legally preform-let alone practice- is only tempered by the realization that, next door in Afghanistan, music itself was forbidden under Taliban rule, a fate that seems unbelievable. Ashkan and Negars band itself is pretty tame: Take it Easy Hospital (despite it’s emo name) is full of slightly-off-tune indie pop, the sort that contains lyrics that don’t seem to match up. Perhaps the Iranian government disliked the band simply because it is composed of a guy and a girl, who are in fact a couple, although the movie never, ever seems to make light of this.
Indeed, Negars presence in this movie seems, well, I wouldn’t say shocking but it certainly seems unusual. We find (or she finds herself) constantly surrounded by men: whether it’s in one of the clandestine meeting practice studios or

An image of the bands playing in a clandestine basement. Courtesy of the NY Times.

meeting with Hamed or riding on the back of a scooter, she is usually  the only girl ever present. As such, the viewer almost forgets that she is a girl, because no one seems to notice this distinction or make note of it. She wears black hipster glasses that underline her seriousness (she is always the voice of reasoning and practicality, gently nudging the boys along and verbalizing her and Ashkan’s wants in her soft-but-not-girly voice) and baggy clothes; perhaps if she dressed more overtly girlish or sexy her presence would be more formidable. Omnipresent is a large olive-coloured backpack that she wears in most scenes, as if to prove that she is a woman, for she is the burden bearer.

Negar seems free from restraint: there is no older brother or parent demanding to know where she is, that she come home; money doesn’t seem to be an objection, nor is the fact that she wanders around Tehran alone (as she does in the opening scene, where she arrives at a “real” recording studio and talks in her lost-and-delirious way with one of the studio producers). She even appears to have her own car, as evidenced by the fact that we  see her driving the band around. When a policeman pulls her and Ashkan over, he does not berate her for being in a car alone with a man: instead, he takes her dog away from her.
Thus, the Tehran that we are introduced to seems uneasy, unsure, a little bit lost. While there is an agenda, a plot to the film–the band is trying to get to London–and we are introduced to the themes/ideas of people struggling to speak freely, the film doesn’t push these ideas in one’s face. This is not a typical presentation of a clashes between ideals, East vs. West, old vs. new, although these forces do come out. Negars is a prime example: she wears a headscarf, but it is casually wrapped around her head so that her light-brown hair is clearly visible, as though she is torn between wanting to respect tradition and religion but also represent herself. In wearing the scarf undone, it appears that she is unsure of herself. Nader likes to speak English, and one day overhears Negars critiquing him for this, which is somewhat odd when one considers that her band preforms entirely in English.

Uneasiness seems to reign: perhaps it’s OK to sing in English, because it’s commercial and goes with their indie style better, but to speak English amongst Iranians is perhaps pretentious. The bands make some comments about the Americans, yet their music is clearly Western: modern rap, of the variety that the rap group preforms, was born in the urban frontiers of the USA; screamo-rock bears the influence of grunge a la Nirvana and Take it Easy Hospital’s brand of indie pop wouldn’t be out of place at a hipster bar in Brooklyn.The bands dream West, where they can play their music in the open, all except the rap group, which smartly states that their music “is for here, Tehran.” Indeed: their words speak to the public, to the government; their words critique their, Iranian, society, and would be out of place in the Western world of freedom. As I watched the movie, I couldn’t help but wonder what is the point? What is the point of making music if you’ll never get to play it for an audience? To never have your cries of social freedom and justice heard?
The answer is both literal and figurative. Negar and Ashkan defy the government by planning a secret concert in an underground room, always with the help of Hamed, himself a good study in the struggle of East vs. West. Hamed, who parrots bootleg DVDs and likes to drink alcohol–what does he get out of helping Negars and Ashkan? What is the point for helping struggling musicians who might never get anywhere? It certainly seems like they’ll be going nowhere, when the old man forgering their passports gets arrested. Hamed, who’s hopes and dreams seemed to be escaping back to London with the band, seems to question the reality of their musical struggle and subsequently gets drunk. No one knows about Persian Cats, as the film’s title suggests: no one knows about these bands, but to the bands, this does not matter. They seem determined that one day, some how, their words will break free of their cages and prisons and inspire the people they were meant for.
“I’ve been here alone/I’ve been here with you/…it’s a jungle out there,” go the lyrics in Take it Easy Hospital’s song “Human Jungle,” easily their best song (and, in my opinion, the best song in the movie; it certainly replayed in my ears after I’d finished watching). Is she talking about the tricky, dangerous jungle of Tehran, where police hide behind every corner, waiting for a bit of music to play? Is she talking about the jungle that is the world beyond Tehran, the West where the band has their eyes focused on? She could be talking about either one: no one knows, but it’s a fitting bit of lyricism.

At  the end of the film, when Negar and Ashkan go to rescue Nader from a party, the police arrive: to escape capture, Ashkan jumps out the window; the last we see of him, he’s being rushed to the ER. The very last image of the movie shows Negar appearing to back flip off a roof. It is a very vague scene that asks a million questions. Is she really on a roof? Is she trying to emulate Ashkan’s seemingly suicidal jump? If this was an American movie, the film would have ended with the band playing their planned concert triumphantly, basking in the glow of an audience. It would have ended on a note of hope and victory. Negars jump does not seem to be very hopeful: it seems like she has given up. Or has she? Perhaps she is escaping her cage.  No one knows.

S-L-M

The Hefty Price of Honor, as shown by Jan Goodwin

Not since Fast Food Nation have I read a more epic, cringing and flat-out astonishing (not to mention well-written) piece of non-fiction than Price of Honor, written by Jan Goodwin. Goodwin, an investigative journalist, spent four years in the Arab world interviewing everyone from poor peasant women on the street to high-ranking shiekhas to even the Grand of Al-Azhar himself, in order to (as it states on the cover) “lift the veil of silence on the Islamic World” regarding Muslim women.

The result is mesmerizing: whereas it takes me just a few days to finish a book, this one took me a few weeks. Several times I wanted to put it down and not continue, for I felt that every chapter was more crushing than the next. The

A personal photo taken in Egypt with my husband and some of his family. Hard to believe these women once dressed in mini-skirts like me!

book is so loaded with information and observances that one could easily write a paper on each chapter. What is nice about Goodwin’s style is that she doesn’t simply throw the facts at you, nor does she simply make a list of all the horror stories (although they are a-plenty). Instead, she includes an overview of each country she visits, giving time to their political and economic situations which play a very large role in the treatment of women; as is stated several times, “When Islam is powerful and strong, the treatment of women is good; when Islam is weak or precarious, women are the first to feel the burn.”

Price of Honor was first published in 1994, and a revised edition came out in 2003. My copy happened to be the first one published in 1994; thus, there was no talk of 9/11, no talk of Saddam Hussein being overthrown; Osama Bin Laden was not mentioned anywhere.  One might dismiss this earlier copy as useless, given that it is quite behind current events, but I found it intriguing to see this snapshot of the Middle East from more than 10 years ago. It was interesting to compare what I know now of today’s Middle East with the Middle East that is described in the book.

A surprising note: reading about Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Gaza did not tear at me as much as the other nations did, even though the conditions for women in these countries are by far the worst. I understand that these were/are war-torn countries, countries that were/are poor and where everyone lives in deplorable conditions. What galled me more was the injustice taking place in the countries like UAE, or Egypt, or Kuwait. These countries are exposed to Western people and values and yet still women are looked down upon.  The thought of being able to live a life materialistically identical to any Westerner’s and yet to be fully deprived of your right to even leave the house without permission is beyond comprehension. I guess it was because I identified with these women’s lifestyles the most, and the thought of having to bow down to family tradition chilled me.

Perhaps the worst of all the various quotes that stood out to me were those uttered at a Koran class in Kuwait. The women attending the class were not Kuwaitis: they were American women married to Muslim Kuwaiti husbands, and all remained heavily covered. The hostess, Mia, was a blatant anti-Semite and uttered such disturbing and untrue statements as:

“The American media are controlled by Jews. Prostitutes in the United States are Jews; men who run the striptease industry are Jews….Islam should be the religion that controls the world!” (p. 184) -Mia

 How can an American-born woman be so ignorant? Aren’t there prostitutes of every race and ethnicity-and religion-here in the US? And no religion should control the world; everyone is entitled to their own way of thinking. The backwards-thinking reached a zenith with Hind, their Kuwaiti teacher who had been educated in the West:

“A woman’s beauty should only be seen at home by her husband…A Western woman has to go out by herself, do everything by herslef. This is not freedom. Freedom is to be safe. I do not want eyes following me as i walk….my voice should not be heard by a male who is not my relative….A woman does’t need to work, her husband should take care of her, provide for her.” -Hind (p. 187)

It is nice that most Arab women have such tight family networks and never have to venture out alone for something as simple as going to the corner grocery, but this is not realistic. What if a woman isn’t married? What if her parents are dead? What if she moved across the country for a job? She thus needs to provide for herself. This way of thinking might be nice in theory, but it severely limits women the ability to make something out of themselves. If a woman cannot even go out to buy groceries because the cashier might be a man and will thus “her voice will be heard by him,” well, that is ridiculous and it is certainly not mentioned in the Koran!

As one can see, there is a dearth of quotes in Price of Honor. Here, a look at both anti-women and pro-women sentiments:

Anti-Feminists

“In the United States there are so many different religions that it must be confusing.” -Lubna, a shiekha in the United Arab Emirates. (p. 141)

“It will give my children a bad idea if they see their mother out in the world, working in an office.” -Amal, a young student in the UAE. (p. 143)

“I could never live as you do in America; I would be afraid….you are alone. No, I don’t want what you foreign women call freedom. Our way is better, kinder, i think.” -Sarai, an Afghani woman. (p. 91)

“The role of women has deteriorated because of so-called modernization in the West. Your fashions, short skirts, dancing, women having boyfriends and not husbands, having babies and not being married–this is unlawful. It is also against all women.” -Muslim Sisterhood founder Zeinab al-Ghazali of Egypt. (p. 328)

“Medically, doctor’s say a man’s heart is stronger than a woman’s. Women’s bodies and brains are weaker than man’s, and they are particularly weak when they have their menses.” -Mullah Azad of Pakistan. (p. 64)

“Doctor, we care for you, but we are afraid you will go to Hell because of the way you dress.” –Several Islamist students at a Jordanian university to their professor, Aaara al-Amiri.

Pro-Feminists

“I am sixteen, this is my youth. I should be having fun. Instead, I am here dressed like a peasant grandmother to mourn a dead old man who hated beauty.” -A young girl at the Iranian celebrations of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death. (p. 127)

“I am not against Islam. It is part of my identity, but it is also time that educated women read the Koran for themsleves and make their own interpretations of it, not live with the misinterpretation of Islam that goes against their rights.” -Professor Aara al-Amiri of Jordan (p. 279)

“The Saudi’s are blockheads regarding women and driving. What is better, to have a woman travle in a taxi with a male drivrwho is a stranger or for her to drive her own car.”–A religious man in Jordan. (p. 275)

“As if the government shouldn’t be engaged in more important things than who cuts a woman’s hair.” -A Kuwaiti woman. (p. 160)

“Morality has nothing to do with hiding the face…the fundamentalists always focus so much of their energy on women because they want to divert people from the serious problems of the day.”-Nawal al Saadawi, an Egyptian woman. (p. 332)

S-L-M