Welcome to the MoroccanCulture Blog

http://newmeaningsofpeaceconference2008.blogspot.com/2008/02/reserach-group-on-culture-and.html
Research Group on Culture and Globalisation (RGCG)
Abdelmalek Essaadi University
Tetuan, Morocco
Organises a conference on:

The New Meanings of Peace after 9/11, 2001
Call for Papers
The idea of peace cannot be adequately formulated in the absence of clearly identified territories of conflict, war, and violence. Peace is not applicable where it does not qualify as imperative and decisive. Different ideas of peace can be negotiated or devised for different zones of trouble. At the end of World War II, peace emerged as a follow-up to the military victory of the Allies against totalitarian regimes that advocated Nazism and dictatorship and exercised genocides and holocausts. With his extreme ideologies and unobstructed territorial ambitions, Adolf Hitler posed a serious threat for Europe and for humanity at large, and as such the restoration of peace in Europe was conditioned by a sweeping military victory of Western democracies and the complete destruction of Hitler’s apparatuses of power. During the Cold War era, peace was both sustained and endangered by the nuclear armament in which both the US and the Soviet Union ferociously and boastfully engaged for most of the second half of the twentieth century. In a context of heightened military and technological rivalry between Western and Eastern blocks, peace depended upon the imminent possibility of a planetary war, and as such was often defined and negotiated in such terms as reciprocal deterrence and parallel power. The supremacy of one side over another represented a fatal threat to the idea of peace in a world that continued to be bi-polar up to 1991, the date that marks the dramatic and unexpected disintegration of the USSR .
On September 11th, 2001, New York and Washington DC were subjected to a surprise terrorist attack that resulted in the death of three thousand civilians and the collapse of two majestic towers in the World Trade Centre, which were claimed by Al-Qaeda Jihadists as the miraculous success of a “divine” conquest at the heart of the West’s most emblematic and thriving of all metropoles. The West bemoaned the horrors of these terrorist attacks, and the Muslim world had to face the glaring reality that Islam had been hijacked by extremists and terrorists to be re-engineered into a tool of mass murder. The events of 9/11, 2001 supplied an alternative arena for the war of ideologies and ideas and hastened the transition from a fading conflict between the democratic camp and the socialist camp to a new and bloody clash between liberalism and Islamism. The most defining markers of the reality of such a new conflict of ideologies was the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and the immediate overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam Husein as well as the series of terrorist explosions that shook some of the world’s major capitals such as Casablanca, Madrid, London, and Istanbul. However, despite the fact that the conflict between Islamism and liberalism can be best denominated as ideological, the wars on the ground, the casualties, deaths, and serious threats looming on the horizon make the conflict a much more serious threat. The “global war on terror” is not a metaphorical expression even if the armies engaging one another in this war are not conventionally deployed on a neatly bounded battlefield.
The restoration of peace in a world made increasingly volatile by the exercises of terror and the excesses of military power is, however, not dependent this time on a neat military victory of one party over another as was the case in World War II. World peace depends primarily on the spread of a culture of tolerance and the reform of educational, social, and economic policies particularly in non-Western countries and most crucially in the Arabo-Islamic world. World peace is a global pact that cannot be envisaged and achieved with the will-to-power of the world’s most advanced states and in total disregard of the interests and future of poorer countries. The negotiation of world peace today must take place at the most fundamental level of social debate in view of narrowing the gaps between Western and non-Western countries, richer and poorer societies. Peace can only be a shared legacy and a common destiny for humanity. The world can no longer sustain more wars and regional conflicts.
The organisers of this conference invite papers on these proposed topics:
· The culture of peace in the post-9/11 world;
· Peace and democracy;
· Peace and public policy;
· Peace and globalisation;
· Peace and cultural discourse;
· Peace and religion.

Conference Director:

Dr. Jamal Eddine Benhayoun,
jamaleddinebenhayoun@yahoo.co.uk

Date and venue: 19-21 June, 2008 at the Faculty of Humanities, AEU, Tetuan
Abstracts deadline: 24th March, 2008

by David Shasha

(“Babel” (Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu and Guillermo Arriaga, 2006)

In the cemetery of Bagneux, departement de la Seine, rests my mother. In old Cairo, in the cemetery of sand, my father. In Milano, in the dead marble city, my sister is buried. In Rome where the dark dug out the ground to receive him, my brother lies. Four graves. Three countries. Does death know borders? One family. Two continents. Four cities. Three flags. One language: of nothingness. One pain. Four glances in one. Four lives. One scream.

Edmond Jabes, The Book of Questions: Return to the Book

The generative myth of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is an attempt to account for the breakdown of human unity amid a welter of different languages. If we cannot speak in the same tongue then we are forced to live separately and at odds with one another. The text in the Book of Genesis accounts for this reality by showing a group of primeval human beings seeking to storm the very gates of heaven. The people were of “one speech and many words.” They had a single way of communicating, but different ideas. Hereafter, they would not only be separated by their ideas, but by the way in which they could communicate those ideas with one another.

The Tower of Babel is a myth that has gripped Western understanding of culture and pluralism. Underlying the myth of Babel is the idea that there is a violent force that brings people to seek and to conquer that which they do not understand. The punishment here is meant to fit the crime: for the violation of the sacred space of God the violators of Babel are marked with the affliction of different and incompatible languages.

The 2006 film “Babel” is a meditation on the myth of the Tower of Babel that shows us a world that is unified by the needs and desires of the human, but which is fatally caught in a whirlwind of mutual incomprehension where people cannot understand what others are saying to them.

The four stories of “Babel” are intertwined with one another. The central linking element is a rifle that passes from a Japanese businessman who goes on a hunting trip to Morocco where he gives the rifle as a gift to his native guide. The rifle changes hands from the Moroccan guide who sells it to another man who buys it in order to kill off the jackals that plague his flock of goats. The rifle is then put into the hands of the man’s two young sons who become curious to see whether the rifle will be able to shoot a length of three kilometers as has been advertised by the seller. When they aim the rifle at a tourist bus passing on the road below, an American tourist from California is shot in the neck by the bullet. The person shot is a mother and wife who has come with her husband to Morocco on a vacation to forget the recent death of an infant child. Back in California, the couple’s two surviving children are being taken care of by a Mexican woman who is trying to get back to Mexico to attend her son’s wedding.

This complex scenario is made even more complicated by the story of the Japanese hunter and his deaf daughter. The young girl has lost her mother in circumstances that are never made clear to us. It would appear that the mother took her own life, but we do not know how or why. All we know is that the young girl is deeply troubled and acts out her pain in the manner of the current misanthropic dysfunctionalism du jour; she does provocative things like walk around without panties, come on sexually to her dentist and generally act in a sluttish way. The young Japanese girl uses her sexuality to express her own personal anomie and alienation; her deafness is a malady that serves to redoubles her pain over the loss of her mother and which incites others to treat her with apathy and disdain.

“Babel” unfolds like a richly dense and allusive piece of literature: the stories crisscross and zigzag with one another during its heady course. We move from California to Japan to Morocco to Mexico in a vertiginous daze which allows us to see the cognitive dissonance that is generated from languages that do not quite line up with one another. People are translating for one another and cultural codes break down during the course of the translations. To make things more difficult, the narrative plays with time in a way where the events do not occur in a synchronized framework. Minor alterations of the temporal scheme take place that disorient the viewer.

The politics of a post-9/11 world are never very far from the surface of the narrative: after the American woman is shot by the Moroccan boy, a frenzied attempt at getting the woman to the hospital takes place. The wounded woman, played by the actress Cate Blanchett, becomes a political football as the American embassy marks the shooting – incorrectly – as a terrorist act. Once terrorism enters the picture, the life of Blanchett is less important than the purported geopolitical implications of the act. The US embassy refuses attempts by the Moroccans to have an ambulance sent to transport her to a hospital from the remote desert village where she is now bleeding to death. The passengers on the tourist bus, mainly British and French couples, become increasingly worried that the natives will come out of their hovels with machetes to kill them. They are panicked by the worry of the Arab Other who is viewed as a terrorist.

The political complications are compounded when we see the Mexican housekeeper back in San Diego. Trying desperately to find someone who can watch Blanchett’s two children when she goes back to Mexico for her son’s wedding, the maid becomes increasingly frenzied. Her devotion to the American family is absolute, but has now been compromised by the events in Morocco. We hear Blanchett’s husband, played by Brad Pitt, first telling the maid that he will arrange for someone to come and watch the kids – but then hear that he has been unsuccessful and that he is depending on her to stay.

Loyalty is here something that is obscured by the power relations between the individuals. The Mexican illegal is subservient to the rich American and is trapped in his grip. She is not oblivious to his dilemma, but after all this is her son’s wedding. She is now torn between her devotion to her son and to the responsibilities of her job. Desperate to resolve both problems, she fatefully decides to bring the two kids to the wedding.

Her nephew comes from Mexico to drive her to the wedding with the kids now in tow for the trip. As their mother is suffering in Morocco, the children embark on what will become a dangerous trip across a border which is now charged with the political electricity of the current American debate over illegal immigration. Leaving the US is a simple affair – getting back in is not.

While all this is taking place, we see the young Japanese girl and her life in Tokyo. She is a very troubled young lady who frequently flies off the handle and is quick to use her sexuality in quite provocative and often transgressive ways. She and her friends cruise the electrified boulevards of Tokyo – a place of ominous and anonymous modernity – without the ability to hear. We see them flirting with boys, getting stoned and living on the edge of the law. It is clear to us that the girl’s deafness and the great difficulty that she has in communicating with others points to a serious void in her life that is redoubled by the personal tragedy of the loss of her mother. Here the Babel model works at the level of an absence of spoken and heard language. The young woman cannot hear and speak as others do. And because of this her world is fraught with pain and imbalance.

Back in Morocco, we see a predatory Moroccan police scouring the mountain villages for the perpetrator of the shooting. The police act with flagrant disregard for the niceties of civilized policing and beat up and threaten anyone in their way. The children who have the rifle are themselves distraught over the mistake they have made. But a mistake it is – there is no malicious intent or terrorist implications involved in the action. Here the language conundrum is absolute: the Americans have raised the shooting to an international incident when in reality it is merely the foolish act of a couple of kids who do not understand what they are doing.

The language conundrum redoubles the alienation of the non-Arab tourists in Morocco. As Blanchett is brought into the village, we see a community that expresses the traditional Arab hospitality at the very same moment that the tourists are filled with dread and pathological fear that these same Arabs will kill them. The block between the languages and the way in which they are parsed is absolute. Pitt is initially comforted by the help provided to him and his wife by the Arab villagers, but he increasingly takes out his understandable frustrations on the people of the community who are just trying to help him.

The US embassy is responsible for blocking the ambulance and from providing the help the bleeding woman desperately needs. The danger comes not from the Arab villagers, but from a hysterical American bureaucracy that is now shot through with wild visions of Al-Qa’ida terrorists.

The trip to Mexico is a release for the housekeeper and the children. The celebration of the son’s wedding liberates the group and they cut loose. The little children enjoy the celebration and integrate into the native element. But tragedy is always waiting in the wings. After a long-night’s celebration, the nephew who drove the group to Mexico decides to drive them back. Now drunk, the nephew foolishly takes a short cut through a desolate area and the crossing over the border turns into a tragedy. After losing his battle with the border agents to be let peacefully through the crossing, the nephew decides to hit the gas pedal with aggression and a chase ensues. In the midst of the chase, the children in hysterics, he drops the three off in the middle of the desert where they spend the night. In the morning, frantic and hysterical, the housekeeper seeks help to get them back home. Of course, she is picked up by the police and arrested while the children are left behind. And though the children are eventually found by the border patrol, the housekeeper is less fortunate. She is arrested and deported back to Mexico.

The web of these intricately complex tales is an infinitely reflecting set of mirrors that are united by the misadventures involving language and (mis)understanding of the Other. The Tower of Babel model functions at the level of dysfunction and alienation. Systems of thinking clash and break up the ability of human beings to communicate and express their own values and needs. The hegemonic construct of American superiority infuses the various discourses with a cruelly pathological irony: Americans turn to outsiders to help and protect them, but immediately turn on those people when trouble arises.

Loyalty is here a one-way street: Americans demand fidelity and respect from others, but others are not granted the same respect in return. The Mexican maid is expected to watch the kids, but she is not permitted to take care of her own son on his wedding day. The Moroccans are expected to care for an American woman who has been wrongly shot by a couple of their kids, but the Moroccans cannot expect that the Americans will respect their own national integrity as they are all marked as terrorists.

This series of degenerative pathologies is tied together in the figure of Chieko, the deaf Japanese girl who is motherless. Her behavior reinforces the dysfunctional state of communication and discourse along the lines of the Babel model. No one is able to understand the young girl just as no one is able to understand the Mexican maid or the Moroccan boys. No one seeks to speak to these alien non-Americans as human beings or to provide them with the rights that Americans expect as part of some natural due course. There is here, post-Babel, a hierarchy of languages and cultures that infects the human condition. Some people naturally see themselves as superior to others.

In this context, the security of Americans is not at all protected. Blanchett and her children are put at risk because of this vain and vulgar American triumphalism. As the border patrol seeks to arrest and deport the maid, there is little sense that the maid is the one who is protecting the children and that if she is in danger, they are in danger as well. The organic interrelation between the Mexicans and the Americans is ignored. And in the case of the Moroccan debacle, the concern about international Arab terrorism permits the US embassy to ignore the pressing needs of Blanchett who is in effect put into even more danger by the decision to wait five days to get her to a hospital.

“Babel” is a fierce and unsparing construction of a world that has been decentered by the ways in which language separates human beings. The various discourses are wrenched apart and it is this that tears human beings apart and creates the distrust, hatred and violence that subsume the film’s many characters. Beginning with the innocuous gift of a rifle to a Moroccan peasant, we see the ways in which signs and symbols can link human beings across continents and across cultures, but when filtered through the semiotics of communicating systems such as language that very unity is deconstructed and torn to shreds.

The generative myth of the Tower of Babel serves as the formative template upon which the intertwined narratives are constructed, but which is transformed along the lines of current concerns. Against an incipient Humanism that seeks to protect the inherent dignity of the individual, “Babel” exposes the dysfunctional realities of the present moment: the carcinogenic hatreds that are subsumed under the rubrics of nationalisms, sexualities, politics and media babblings all form a deeply disturbing and disturbed universe where human beings seeking stability and security are left with no protection. All that is left in “Babel” is the principle that “might makes right.”

The stronger is able to withstand the babble and incoherence of the clash of languages and communications by their ability to crush the Other. Mechanisms of control are imposed by means of the policemen that appear throughout the film as an ominous specter. Oblivious to the basic needs of human beings, the police are charged with sorting out the anarchy that has been generated by alienated languages and fractured discourses. Rather than seeking to find a way to repair and heal the broken state of the protagonists, the police act as a mechanism of punishment and retribution meant to break the will of the Other and act as an affront to the dignity of mankind.

“Babel” is a prolix and complex piece of art that speaks to the very intense heart of human civilization. Its overlapping and interwoven narratives are fractured by the use of varying time frames and wildly disparate emotional states. It is a dense and allusive work whose seemingly infinite meanings continue to open up and flower on repeated viewings of the film. The movie continues to shift perspective depending upon the angle which one uses to view it. Different valuations and different meanings emerge depending upon the viewer’s perspective.

While “Babel” constructs its events in a particular manner based on our present circumstances, the overarching themes of the work restore for us the Biblical vision of a tortured humanity that cannot understand itself. The damage that is created by the babble of tongues occurs over the course of time and is not limited to any specific cultural construct. The myth of Babel is predicated on the pain and cruelty of humanity and our inability to treat one another with kindness, decency and respect. Watching the pathetic attempts of the protagonists of “Babel” to find comfort, stability and protection in a world of hate, violence and corruption marks for us a cultural moment that serves as a warning to the vile ways in which we act with one another.

The implicit warning of “Babel” is that we cannot survive if we do not understand who we are and what we are doing to one another. We must find ways to translate our many tongues to discover a shared framework, a common way of being human. The film in no way seeks to paper over or disregard the complications inherent in the post-9/11 world, but it cries out to its audience that we must restore a basic core of Humanistic values that will assuage the pain caused by the violence of language and the cruel ways in which imperial hegemonies are formed and executed.

The imperial hegemon in this case is Western, and more specifically American. The film seeks to examine and critique American global dominance and hegemony; a system which privileges one language and one culture at the expense of others. It is not an attempt to compromise the humanity of the West or of the Americans, but to ensure that all nations and all political systems serve equally to enforce the rights of all human beings.

The first step of this process – always the most difficult – is for those who have violated the rights of others to acknowledge that they are themselves only one branch of the global family. They are not the masters of the world and should not act as if they control others like puppets on a string. Law is a means to effect justice and not a means to place people in danger.

The clash of languages bespeaks a clash of civilizations. It can happen on the US-Mexico border, it can happen in a village in the Atlas mountains many miles from urban civilization, it can happen amid the glitter and bright neon lights of post-modern Tokyo, or it can happen in the paranoid world of a young deaf girl whose lack of hearing is a sign to others that she is outside the realm of civilization. The myth of Babel is a myth that can teach us how humanity can adopt cruel and malicious postures and how people can be made to suffer just for trying to live and get along in the world.

“Babel” as a film reminds us of what it means to be a human being and forces us to confront our own humanity and the ways in which we act in the world and how we look at our neighbors. In our gaze we can see the suffering, feel the pain and hear the piercing screams of those whose languages have torn them apart and whose cultures have marked them as alien and as Other. The lesson of the film is that we must acknowledge and respect Difference, but, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has noted in his brilliant new book The House We Build Together, must never permit Difference to tear down the shared space that we all inhabit as members of the human family.
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By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 2:53am GMT 20/03/2008

A Moroccan internet prankster jailed for pretending to be the brother of the king on the social networking site Facebook has been given a royal pardon.

Human rights groups had expressed outrage after Fouad Mourtada, a 27-year-old computer engineer, was sentenced by a court to three years in jail and fined 10,000 dinar (£650) for "the use of false information and usurping the identity" of Prince Mourlay Rachid.

Mourtada, a graduate of the prestigious Mohammedia Engineers School in Rabat, had insisted he had meant no harm by setting up a Facebook page purporting to belong to King Mohammed VI's younger brother.
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He said at his trial: "I admire him, I like him a lot and I have never caused him any wrong, it was just a joke. I am innocent."

His lawyer had pointed out that Facebook contained sites for President Sarkozy, George Bush and Tony Blair, as well as sport and film stars, without any proof that they were real.

Amnesty International, which condemned Mourtada's sentence as disproportionate to the offence, had been particularly worried by the judge's claim that he had "undermined the sacred integrity of the realm as represented by the prince".

His release from jail in Casablanca on Tuesday evening followed an international campaign for his release by human rights groups and ordinary internet users.

Reporters Without Borders, a media freedom campaign group, welcomed the royal pardon but added: "Nevertheless, we regret that his liberation was due to a royal pardon and not a fair verdict."

The case illustrates that whatever the internet's generally liberating effect on free speech elsewhere in the world, any sort of criticism or mockery of the royal family remains very risky in Morocco.

Ahmed Benchemsi, a Moroccan journalist, faces up to five years in jail over an article he wrote about one of the king's speeches.

In another official reprieve for another Facebook user, a computer engineering student in Canada learned he would not be expelled for running a study group on the site.

Ryerson University in Toronto decided that Chris Avenir, 18, had been charged with 146 counts of academic misconduct - one for each of the classmates who discussed their course work on his Facebook page.

Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

PEOPLE & CULTURE
[03/19/2008 - 11:10]
The history of Morocco in São Paulo

The Ministry of Culture of the Arab country, in partnership with FAAP College, is going to promote, starting on the 31st, exhibition 'Morocco'. Around 500 archaeological, ethnic, handwritten, painted and photographed objects are going to show the riches of the Moroccan people.

Marina Sarruf*
marina.sarruf@anba.com.br

São Paulo – Starting on the 31st of March, Brazilians will be able to learn more about the history of Morocco. The fact is that the Ministry of Culture of the Arab country, in partnership with Armando Álvares Penteado College (FAAP), brings to São Paulo exhibition "Morocco", to bring together 500 items from the most important museums of Morocco. The exhibition, to take place at the FAAP Brazilian Art Museum, should be open to the public up to June 22.

"The objective of the exhibition is to strengthen cultural relations between developing countries and also to show Brazilian people the rich components of Moroccan culture," said to ANBA the director of Cultural Assets at the Ministry of Culture of Morocco, Abdellah Salih, one of the organizers of the fair. According to him, this kind of action brings the nations closer together and permits greater mutual knowledge of each society for a true partnership.

The idea of organising an exhibition about the Arab country at FAAP arose in 2006, when the ambassador of Morocco to Brazilian capital Brasília, Farida Jaïdi, was invited to make an official visit to the college. At the time, FAAP museum was organising an exhibition about Greece. "It was a large exhibition and there were many objects. I was impressed, so I suggested the organisation of an exhibition about Morocco," said the ambassador. Since then, she has been working for the exhibition to take place.

According to Farida, the promotion of the fair in 2008 is not by chance. "This will be an important year as there will be the second Summit of Arab and South American Countries," she said. The meeting of heads of state is scheduled to take place in the second half of the year, in Doha, the capital of Qatar. "I hope that the exhibition may show a little more of the culture of Morocco, which is very rich," added the ambassador.

According to Salih, the exhibition should contribute not only to bringing two peoples closer together, but also to increasing the tourist flow between both countries. The director of Cultural Assets of Morocco should come to Brazil together with the minister of Culture of the Arab country, Touria Jabrane Kryatif, and with other representatives of cultural institutions in Morocco.

The exhibition

Morocco, which is located in North Africa, is close to the European continent, which resulted in centuries of reciprocal exchange and domination. Even with a strong mixture of cultures and great foreign influences, Morocco never lost its true identity. The works to be presented in São Paulo are going to try to show a little of this history, from ancient times to date.

The exhibition should be divided into four parts. First, "The Origins" which includes articles like decorated vases from the Neolithic period and cave drawings from the Bronze Age. Ancient times and the centuries up to the Muslim period are illustrated by Moroccan objects for daily use.

The second part, called "Traditional Arts", brings aspects of the spiritual and intellectual practices of daily life in the cities and the country. To represent this art, several objects should be exhibited, like jewels, embroidered products, fabrics, garments, ceramics and weapons. In this part, those visiting the exhibition can also see a scenographic space showing the interior of a Moroccan home. Rooms with chests, sculpted wooden shelves, a floor covered in typical Moroccan carpets, cushions and mirrors are also part of this scenery.

Then comes "The eye of travelling orientalists and painters", which goes from the second half of the 19th century to the mid-20th century. In this section, the exhibition is going to show the outlook of foreign artists, painters, writers and photographers who visited the country, considered an excellent destination that exerts strong influence on and fascinates visitors.

Lastly comes "Contemporary Art", which brings paintings and photographs of Moroccan artists who show a panorama of contemporary artistic production in the Arab country.

Service

Exhibition "Morocco"
Date: March 31 to June 22
Site: FAAP Brazilian Art Museum
Address: Rua Alagoas, 903, Higienópolis, São Paulo
Time: Tuesdays to Fridays from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Further information: (+55 11) 3662-7198
Free admittance

*Translated by Mark Ament

Magharebia
Published on Magharebia‎ (http://www.magharebia.com) ‎
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/reportage/2008/03/07/reportage-01
Mounia Belafia discusses role of proverbs in perpetuating women's status in Morocco

07/03/2008

Writer and journalist Mounia Belafia spoke with Magharebia recently about her new book, "Women in Moroccan Proverbs". Belafia suggests that everyday phrases contribute to negative attitudes towards women.

Text and photos by Farah Kenani for Magharebia in Washington – 07/03/2008

Mounia Belafia, author of "Women in Moroccan Proverbs", says many commonly-used proverbs espouse negative opinions of women.

In the lead-up to the March 7th-8th Women's Book Fair in Fez, Magharebia spoke with Mounia Belafia about her new book "Women in Moroccan Proverbs". An expert in public perceptions and gender studies, the writer and journalist said that proverbs – even those used and created by women – reinforce popularly held negative perceptions about women and their role in society.

Magharebia: What prompted you to research the field of popular proverbs and their relation to women?

Mounia Belafia: My book was based on a conviction that the in-depth changes we desire for women's status in Morocco can't be achieved if we don't work on changing mindsets. A working woman would soon find herself no more than a housewife facing relatives that haven't necessarily witnessed the same development as the rest of society.

Based on that, I think we should work more profoundly in order to change mindsets and to achieve equality, not only on economic, political and other issues, but also in the patterns of behaviour that shape our conditions and influence our daily lives.

From this came the project of studying images of women and their relation to all types of discourse. I became interested in the topic at the media level, and I'm now preparing a study on women and theatre as part of my post-graduate studies.

The topic of popular proverbs, however, has intrigued me in a special way. I spent a lot of time studying it before I came to the conclusion that these popular proverbs, which are used by many of us in conscious or unconscious ways, embody many negative values regarding women. These negative values are passed from one generation to the next, and are reproduced in different ways. Popular proverbs and pop culture as a whole play a role in establishing and preserving traditions. This makes them act like established, deeply-rooted structures that are difficult to uproot.

Magharebia: Do you think that some women play a role in perpetuating the ideas contained in these proverbs?

Belafia: I was also concerned with the role women played in promoting offensive images of themselves. In my study, I posed the question of whether women used proverbs in their daily lives. The answer was yes. I posed another question, about whether they themselves were producing proverbs, and the answer was also yes.

Women are both consumers and producers of proverbs. Based on that, they are contributing, either consciously or unconsciously, to the dissemination of negative and offensive ideas about themselves.

In analyzing the body of these proverbs, we find ourselves faced with women who play a role in preserving traditions and passing them on accurately and honestly. A woman will replicate with her daughter-in-law what her mother-in-law did when she was young, in order to ensure that her son lives the same way his father did. The bride in turn hates the mother-in-law. Other differences within the community of women present an image of turbulence which resides in and engulfs that society.

Belafia's new book, "Women in Moroccan Proverbs", is based on the author's conviction that change in women's status in Morocco "can't be achieved if we don't work on changing mindsets."

Magharebia: What is the purpose of your study?

Belafia: My goal in this study was to attempt to transform the popular proverb from a product of its characteristics and status in society, outside the sphere of accountability and criticism, and from a product upon which society has imparted a type of sanctity, into a cultural product that is linked to social structure, justifications of behaviour patterns and existing hierarchal relations. In this way, we can approach the product in a critical way. We can read it based on a methodology of accountability that deals with it as a cultural product which perpetuates many social concepts and values and reproduces them in similar fashion to the way poems and wisdom are reproduced.

One of the conclusions of the study was that stereotypes about women are consistently repeated. These images take the typical form drawn by the type of thinking prevalent in the society. This "typical form" is dominated by negative images of women derived from a traditional culture that works to perpetuate women's inferior status in the social hierarchy. They are also derived from certain interpretations of religious thinking and from a special construction of tales and superstitions whose common divider justifies the inferior standing of women in the social hierarchy and in the predominant values surrounding them.

Even when a woman is mentioned in a positive way, we rarely find any other positive qualities except those that are related to her body and her "natural roles". Her standing is derived from her body, beauty, ability to give birth, care for her family and children, and skill in manual and domestic work.

Magharebia: As readers, what can we learn from this study? What are the points that must be dealt with?

Belafia: We can say that there are three major issues that can be presented through our study of prevailing popular proverbs about women. The first issue is that the proverbs produced by men and women alike reflect the balance of power within society. In this society, women are considered the weaker link, and they tend to be dominated by a masculine culture. Men are the stronger party, and everything revolves around them. Within this gender hierarchy of men and women there is another social hierarchy where the rich prevail over the poor, the strong over the weak, the master over the slave, the fertile over the infertile, the married over the divorced and widowed, and other steps on the ladder of prevailing social values.

The second issue is that no society can be studied based on its social and class relations alone. The prevailing culture must be taken into consideration. More importantly, my study of proverbs shows the extent of the role culture plays in preserving tradition. This brings us to a deep dilemma linked to the role of culture as a comprehensive anthropological concept in influencing social shifts.

The third issue is that pop culture often conforms to popular religious thinking in such a manner that it becomes difficult to discern between social cultural products, such as proverbs, and religious beliefs as understood by the public. As an expressive structure, the proverb is similar to wisdom. As we have shown in this study, the proverb, with its different time and place changes, is no more than a cultural product related to a certain historical situation with its own conditions and determining factors.

From The Times
March 8, 2008
Foodie at large
Meet the two young Turks who are forging their own culinary empire
Tony Turnbull

When I say I’ve discovered the joys of Turkish food recently, it’s not something I boast of lightly. My wife is of Greek Cypriot descent, and ever since the partitioning of Cyprus in 1974, Turkey – its people, its culture, its food – has been off limits. You don’t marry into a Greek family to start extolling the virtues of a well-made shish kebab, I can tell you.

Then, what do you know, one day her father turns up looking suspiciously tanned and relaxed and announces he’s just had a week in Bodrum. Such nice people, he says. “And the food?” Well, if it’s OK for him, it’s a green card for me.

Turkish food seems to offer a promised land of variety. It’s that old clich� of the country being at the crossroads of the world, I guess, and the different flavours come tumbling on top of one another, from the spices of Asia to the fresh herbs and sweetmeats of the Middle East; the fresh vegetables and olive oils of the Mediterranean to the rich stews and pickles of the Balkans.

The reason Turkey has been able to assimilate such a range of cuisines was the supremacy of the Ottoman Empire, which by the 17th century spanned three continents, all ruled over from the magnificent Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The palace kitchens consisted of ten domed buildings, and by the 18th century they were said to need nearly 1,400 chefs. Every dish, from imam bayaldi to halva, was assigned to a separate master chef, who in turn would have up to 100 apprentices working under him, spending a lifetime perfecting their single task.

That’s not a luxury brothers Levent and Bulent Hassan have at Kazan, their Ottoman restaurant in the rather more prosaic surroundings of London’s Victoria, yet for the past six years they have been quietly garnering rave reviews from diners. Bloggers on www.london-eating.co.uk give it an unrivalled 9.6 for food. That’s higher than they rate Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road.

The cooking is nothing like so fancy, of course. Turkish food is at its heart the food of the home, but it is certainly very good. The menu takes in seared tuna rolled in sesame seeds, baby chicken dressed with yoghurt, lemon and chilli, and Sultan’s Delight, a spicy lamb stew served with smoked aubergines. Mezes include everything from b�rek (parcels of filo pastry stuffed with feta cheese and spinach) to kadinbudu k�fte (ladies’ thighs), made of rolled ground lamb and spices.

Levent and Bulent’s grandfather, a potato farmer, came over from Cyprus to earn enough to buy a tractor, and ended up owning a chain of Wimpy bars. When he died in the late Nineties, the brothers knew a change was needed. The Victoria branch was taking just £300 a day. “Back then the only thing people knew about Turkish food was kebab shops,” says Levent, “and it’s much more than that. Done properly it’s fresh, light and healthy – just right for the way people eat nowadays.”

He hopes to put Turkish food on the map in the way Momo has done for Moroccan cuisine. A second Kazan opens later this month in the City, and now he has his sights on the humble kebab. “I want to rekindle the love for the old-style kebab shop, only with wood-burning grills, organic lamb and free-range chicken. We’re going to really upgrade it, because deep down I think everyone loves that food too.

“After all,” he reasons, “ten years ago we didn’t want to know about burgers. Now they’ve gone gourmet. So why not kebabs, too?”

Kazan, 93-94 Wilton Road, London SW1 (020-7233 7100), and 34-36 Houndsditch, EC3 (www.kazan-restaurant.com)

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chicagotribune.com
FILM FESTIVAL
European Union film fest comes to Siskel Center

By Michael Phillips

Tribune movie critic
The dollar may not be much against the euro these days, but your dollar can buy a very impressive line-up of films offered by the Gene Siskel Film Center's 11th annual European Union Film Festival. This year's slate, running March 7 through April 3, zigzags from Slovenia to Ireland, constituting 61 features from 26 nations, many represented by EU co-productions between various countries. Stories of boundaries crossed and yearning unquenched will grace the screen, though grace itself is hard to come by in films such as the Austrian "Import Export," which paints a blackly comic, sexually explicit picture of an EU in constant economic and emotional flux.

Visit siskelfilmcenter.org, or call 312-846-2800.

'Estrellita' 2 1/2 stars (fair-good) (Slovenia; Matod Pevec, 2007) Each year the Film Center's European Union Film Festival opens with a film from the country currently heading up the EU itself. Thus we have Slovenian writer-director Pevec's well-acted if rather schematic melodrama starting things off with what might be termed a soft launch. It begins with the death of a concert violinist. His widow (Silva Cusin) and her son soon learn of the violinist's infidelities. At the funeral, a mysterious 12-year-old Bosnian immigrant turns up as a mourner. Taking its title from the nickname of the dead man's cherished instrument, "Estrellita" uses a debate over who owns the violin as a way of exploring various fragmenting relationships. The film might be more vibrant if the boy (played by Tadej Troha) weren't the sort of serenely angelic wonder who belongs more to the movies than to life. But the scenes between the boy's parents, coping with money issues and an eroding love, compensate for some of the contrivances. In Slovenian with English subtitles. 7 p.m. March 7; 3:15 p.m. March 9. --Michael Phillips

'Import Export' 3 stars (good) (Austria; Ulrich Seidl, 2007) Guaranteed to alienate as many audience members as it draws into its web, Seidl's astonishingly grungy odyssey follows the story of a nurse from Ukraine, moonlighting as a sex worker, who heads to Austria to expand her horizons. Meantime, an unemployed Vienna man and his debauched stepfather journey to another corner of the EU and find only the outer limits of their own corroded world-view. It's often painful to watch, and the scenes with the decrepit residents of a hospital ward dressed up for a macabre holiday celebration border on the exploitative (not to mention scenes with the stepfather's prostitute). But Seidl's wry, stately sense of composition is consistently well-considered, and he's getting at a sense of dislocated, blasted souls looking for a home in a way few other directors can match. In German, Russian and Slovak with English subtitles. 2:30 p.m. March 8; 6 p.m. March 11--Michael Phillips

'How to Cook Your Life' 3 stars (good) (Germany; Doris Dorrie, 2007). Once upon a time, Chef Edward Espe Brown was a real jerk. He was, according to his own recollection, arrogant and short-tempered, lacking in patience for the natural rhythms of cooking. He wanted everything done right, and he wanted it done 10 minutes ago. And then he found Zen Buddhism. Or maybe it found him--sometimes it's hard to tell. In any case, Brown and Buddhism met and fell in love, and now Brown teaches other aspiring Buddhists to cook in harmony with Zen principles: essentially, be aware of what you're putting into your body, its origins and how it feels, tastes and smells. What does it mean to prepare food for others? How do our food choices affect our surroundings? Although it occasionally threatens to take itself too seriously, on the whole this sumptuous, beautifully shot documentary, the latest from veteran German filmmaker Dorrie ("Men," "Enlightenment Guaranteed"), is as unpretentious and refreshing as the food it celebrates. In English and German with English subtitles. 5 p.m. March 8; 6 p.m. March 12.--Jessica Reaves

'Boarding Gate' one-half star (sub-poor) (France; Olivier Assayas, 2007). Oh, Olivier Assayas, if only you had quit while you were ahead. You might have sailed into early retirement on the redemptive fumes of "Clean," your bracing 2004 collaboration with Maggie Cheung. Instead, you let yourself slide into the muck, tapping the wildly untalented Asia Argento for this demeaning, nonsensical and ultimately stultifying chronicle of sad sacks who make consistently stupid choices. Unless you are absolutely desperate to watch Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) deliver a few lines of dialogue, there is absolutely no reason to subject yourself to this cinematic disaster. 9 p.m. March 8; 8 p.m. March 12.--Jessica Reaves

'Priceless' 3 stars (good) (France; Pierre Salvadori, 2006). French gamin Audrey Tautou stars as Irene, a mistress looking to make a permanent alliance with a man of means. She makes a professional misstep when she encounters Gad Elmaleh as Jean, a hapless dog walker/bartender at a Biarritz resort. Misreading his tuxedoed self for a younger, fitter, richer sugar-daddy model, Irene ends up dumped, and Jean abandons his job to pursue her. She teaches him the craft of paid companionship, and faux romance blossoms into real love. This comedy benefits from leads with distinctive eyes--hers saucer-sized, his hang-dog--employed to impressive effect. In French with English subtitles. 3 p.m. March 9.--Maureen M. Hart

'Kicks' 3 stars (good) (Netherlands; Albert ter Heerdt, 2007). The format owes a lot to "Crash," but this culture-clash plot line is leavened with more humor than 2005's best-picture Oscar winner. The shooting of a Moroccan immigrant by a Dutch cop prone to racist patter (if not intentions) sets off reverberations in the immigrant and native-born communities. While the victim's kick-boxer brother Said (Mimoun Oaissa) works to keep the peace among inflamed local youths (and reassesses his relationship with his blond girlfriend), a Dutch filmmaker (Roeland Fernhout) invites trouble with a crackpot idea for a film about the immigrant situation. In Dutch and Arabic with English subtitles. 2:45 p.m. March 8; 8 p.m. March 10.--Maureen M. Hart

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[ 04 Mar 2008 20:02 ]


http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=45152

Baku. Turan Huseynova-APA. The Azerbaijan Cultural Days were opened in the headquarters of Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO). APA reports that Dr Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, the Director General of ISESCO, Abulfaz Garayev, Azerbaijani Minister of Culture and Tourism and the Secretary General of the Moroccan Ministry of Culture attended the inauguration.
Dr Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri said that the Azerbaijan Cultural Days reflected an advanced form of cultural dialogue.
The Director General strongly condemned the savage Israeli aggression and called upon the international community to assume its moral and legal responsibility to deter Israel and force it to stop its aggression and to abide by the international law.
The Director General stated also: “while we celebrate the Azerbaijan Cultural Days and promote dialogue among cultures and alliance of civilizations, we are deeply saddened to see the ongoing savage aggression led by the Israeli forces against the disarmed Palestinian people in Gaza.

By Gerald A. Honigman

I’ve watched the recent Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan closely.

What I will now say I’ve largely said before, but it’s now time to reassert what I believe to be hard truths to two friends.

I cannot condemn Ankara’s decision to invade Iraqi Kurdistan anymore than I could condemn Israel’s decision to go after Arabs who target Jews from Gaza, Judea and Samaria (renamed only recently in history the “West Bank”), and so forth. I’m glad to see that, for whatever reasons, the Turks have now withdrawn.

The PKK’s refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan was an open invitation for a Turkish invasion. I’m surprised it took so long in the coming. And I wrote that in the Kurdish media itself long ago.

Having said this, there’s another hard series of truths...

Unlike the plight of one fifth of Turkey’s population who are Kurds, Israel’s Arab population (also one fifth of Israel) are the freest Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. Despite many of the latter composing a real fifth column, (siding with fellow Arabs who call for Israel’s total destruction), Arab language, culture, political rights and so forth flourish in the land of the Jews.

Perfection? No...but compared to the plight of non-Arabs in so-called “Arab ” lands--especially those whom the Arabs call “their” kilab yahud (Jew dogs), the Jews who are left (more Jews fled those lands to Israel than Arabs who fled Israel)--Israeli Arabs live in Paradise. Just ask black African Sudanese in Darfur and southern Sudan, for starters (and Copts, Kurds, Assyrians, Amazigh/Berbers, and so forth).

I was pleased to hear that the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) recently invited Turkey to hold talks to resolve differences, while the President of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, Masud Barzani, expressed readiness to contribute to finding a peaceful solution to the problem. This is not the first time they’ve extended these invitations either.

In a statement, the PKK expressed a readiness to seek a peaceful solution to the issue of Kurds in Turkey through mediation by the government of Iraq's Kurdish Region and supported the KRG’s call for establishing dialogue.

On his part, President Barzani expressed his readiness to "actively participate" in finding a peaceful solution to the PKK-Turkish problem, which he hoped would "end violence in the region and build better relations of cooperation and consolidate security and stability for our people."

On the surface, this might appear to just be just wishful thinking. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ statement openly addressing the need for Ankara to address the real grievances of Turkish Kurds seems to be a welcome new development. I don’t recall an American official vocalizing this as firmly prior to now.

Let’s step back again...

Over the past century in particular, after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the wake of World War I, the Kurds were renamed Mountain Turks, had their language and culture outlawed, etc. and so forth to insure that the new, constricted Turkey which arose with Mustafa Kemal--Ataturk--would suffer no further geographical losses. Understandable, but not a just solution to the problem. After all, long before a Turk or Arab was in that vicinity, Kurds long lived there.

Turkey has been a valuable ally of America and has resisted Islamic extremism better than any other Muslim country. It also has relatively good relations with Israel...especially when its relations with neighboring Syria take a dive.

So, as with my Kurdish friends, I truly wish nothing but good for our Turkish friends as well.

But, as I’ve written often before and will repeat until it sinks in, friends should be able to disagree and still remain friends.

When Israel goes after Hamas terror masters, Ankara is quick to criticize and lecture about the need to create the Arabs’ 22nd state and second, not first, one in “Palestine”--Jordan having surfaced on some 80% of the original April 25, 1920 territory over the past century. Turkey knows full well what the Arabs’ plans are for the Jewish State, yet makes these demands anyway. But talk about the need for justice for 35 million truly stateless Kurds, and Ankara goes ballistic.

Turkey is some forty times as large as Israel geographically and eleven times larger in population.

Despite this, Ankara sees nothing wrong, after demanding the creation of the Arabs’ 22nd state, with telling Kurds--who have been massacred and subjugated in all the lands where they have lived in the new nationalist era--that they must remain forever in that stateless condition because of the potential threat independence in Iraqi Kurdistan might have to Turkey. The Turks fear the effect this will have on their own large, adjacent--and suppressed-- Kurdish population.

As we all know, the fear is well founded, and I understand it.

But if a Turkey which dwarfs Israel in size and population has reason to fear this, then what is Israel to say?

Again, one fifth of Israel is Arab...like the fifth of Turkey which is Kurd. Yet the Jews are told by virtually all--including Turks--that they must allow yet another Arab state, dedicated to their very destruction, to be set up in their backyard.

Keep in mind that whatever its flaws may be, the PKK does not seek Turkey’s destruction. The calls for independence by some largely are sired by real, unaddressed grievances--as Secretary Gates acknowledged.

Despite the potential for problems, justice does not demand that Kurds remain forever politically powerless in the nationalist age. A miniscule Israel faces worse problems regarding such things but is expected to allow for the creation of yet another rejectionist Arab state.

So, what’s to be done?

Once again repeating what I’ve written earlier, there is no doubt that the Kurds must do what the Arabs refuse to do...

Iraqi Kurdistan must show Ankara that an independent or highly autonomous Iraqi federal Kurdish region will not be a threat. Had it done so earlier, a Turkish invasion--even with Ankara eying Kurdish oil--would not have occurred or at least wouldn’t have been justified.

As President Barzani (whose late father will forever be a hero of mine) has stated above, there must be serious discussions with the PKK about what the greater good for Kurdistan will require. This means Kurdish leaders must get their own acts together as well...beyond protecting their own virtual fiefdoms--be they Talabani, Barzani, or whomever. If need be, they must use military force to subdue their own extremists.

Hopefully, it will not come to this. And nothing will be expected in this regard if the Turks don’t show that they will be willing to grant Iraqi Kurds the same right to have in one of which they expect Israel to allow Arabs to have almost two dozen of. Ankara must also seriously address the rights of Turkish Kurds as well instead of collaborating with both Syria and Iran in suppression of their respective Kurdish populations.

There is room for coexistence and cooperation if both peoples can get beyond their fears. A brighter future awaits them. Besides problems with the PKK, there are already real benefits materializing for Turks in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Both have a history of opposing Islamic extremism, though some are to be counted amongst both populations.

Kurds from Turkey, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere wanting to live in an independent Kurdish state can have in Iraqi Kurdistan what Jews have in a reborn Israel.

Like formerly truly stateless Jews, Kurds have suffered greatly because of this political powerlessness.

Again, renaming Arabs “Palestinians” (most of whom came from elsewhere) does not change the fact that Arabs have almost two dozen states--conquered from mostly non-Arab peoples. If there is a rough analogy to the Jews, it is the Kurds, not the Arabs. The Turks especially must also understand this since, besides Turkey, there are also a half dozen other Turkish states.

Both Turks and Kurds must examine each other’s needs and fears.

The future can be a promising one for both peoples.

While Arabs of different stripes blow each other apart, Turks and Kurds have mostly shown that they want no part of this sort of thing. Positive nationalism is better than negative nationalism.

Think of the possibilities which can arise if both peoples can get themselves to grant each other the humanity and respect both deserve.

Turkish Kurds must understand that the realm of the Turks will not see itself geographically split again. But this does not mean that Kurds should continue to be suppressed in Turkey. To insure Turkey’s integrity, the Turks have demanded Turkification of all who live there. This needs to be changed drastically. Imagine the outcry if Israel was doing this sort of thing to Arabs.

Ironically, Kurdish autonomy or independence in Iraqi Kurdistan has the potential to ease these very problems...under the right conditions.

Having the potential to live in a Kurdish-ruled area will give Kurds everywhere less grievance and reason to resort to violence.

Will there be risks and problems?
Of course. There is much that will be needed to be worked out. And all thirty or forty million Kurds will not fit into Iraqi Kurdistan.

But reasonable people can come up with reasonable solutions.

It’s time for both peoples to look ahead for a better future for both of their children...something Arabs who use their kids as human shields and who send them on suicide missions in pursuit of their own one-sided version of justice have proven incapable of doing.


Source: Article submitted by the author, an IHC Featured Writer

Edited by IHC staff, www.infoisrael.net

Published 5 March 2008

WAM
Published: March 01, 2008, 21:23

Abu Dhabi: Former Moroccan foreign minister Mohammad Bin Eisa has won the Shaikh Zayed Book Award for 2008 in the category of the Cultural Personality of the Year.

In a press release, Secretary-General of the Shaikh Zayed Book Award Rashid Al Uraimi said Bin Eisa has been awarded in recognition of his contributions to the cultural movement as well as for his role as a co-founder of Morocco's Aseelah Culture Season which was launched in 1978 as a forum for Arab, African and western cultural achievers and creative individuals and thinkers.

Bin Eisa will be presented a cash award of Dh1 million along with a certificate of appreciation.

Bin Eisa was born in Aseelah city, Morocco in 1937. He was Morocco's minister of culture between 1985-1992. He then became Morocco's minister of state for foreign affairs and culture between 1999-2007.

A prestigious ceremony will be held at the iconic Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi to honour winners of the second edition of the Shaikh Zayed Book Award (2007-8). The ceremony will be held on the sidelines of the upcoming Abu Dhabi International Book Fair from March 11 to 16.

Another Moroccan researcher and PhD holder won the Shaikh Zayed Book Award in the category of Young Authors for his book Future of international relations in the light of civilizations clash, which was described by the secretary-general as a remarkable contribution to Arab politics and philosophy.

The translation award went to Jordanian Fayez Al Sayagh, while the Arts Award went to Iraqi architect, Rafa Al Jaderji, and Publication and Distribution Award went to the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research.

The Libyan novelist Ebrahim Al Kowni won the Literature Award, while Huda Al Shawwa, a Kuwaiti, won the Child Literature Award.

In all, 512 candidates from 30 Arab countries contended for the second edition of the Shaikh Zayed Book Awards.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Heritage_and_Culture/10194100.html