Welcome to the MoroccanCulture Blog

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)

Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. Search globrix.com to buy or rent UK property.

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions. Please read our Privacy Policy.To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from Times Online, The Times or The Sunday Times, click here.This website is published by a member of the News International Group. News International Limited, 1 Virginia St, London E98 1XY, is the holding company for the News International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.

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