Post-Revolution Egypt Needs Orientalist Perverts

Or maybe it doesn’t. Or maybe it does. Perhaps, it doesn’t.

Reconciling Lara Logan with a revolution

A basic aspect of Orientalism, new and old, is the tendency for Western writers to define entire populations throughout the “Orient” (Asia, including the Middle East) by a shared and exclusive set of characteristics. Classic examples include pictoral depictions of Arabs as either sexually savage and explicit or uncompromisingly prude; the idea that Islam – or religion more broadly – is the single-most overriding factor in an “Oriental’s” decision-making process; and the belief that Arabs are nothing more than desert-dwelling, incompetent, and unclean creatures that desperately need Western enlightenment and guidance.

“Hooverian Nights” Part I

American Orientalism and presidential mockery at its finest. I was kinda feeling bad for Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of Interior and Treasury until realized that they got to be “sheiks” and “memlooks”

Excerpt from an article by Wallace Irwin (June 20, 1931) for The Saturday Evening Post. enjoy (I personally re-typed it from an original source):

“Herbi Hooveh was a Kalif
From the State where Kalifs grow—
Kalif-ornia I refer to.
Doubt this point, if you prefer to,
Yest I’ll stick to what I know.
Herbi Hooveh’s Kalifate
Covered many a savage state
From Alaska’s frozen spots
To Miami’s vacant lots.

Muslims as Model Minority?

Racism Review has an excellent post up right now about the western worldview presented in the recent Gallup press book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, who must be Gallup’s token Muslim). The book is interesting, as it, at first glance, seems to be an [...]

Finding Islam’s Modernity

It’s not an easy road, or one which even guarantees success, but it’s the only option which perhaps remains for Muslims. Either Muslims succumb to the slow crumbling of their faith vis a vis political and social corruption or they take action which may not return the community towards the greatness it once experienced, but saves it from potential and further disintegration.

Teases W/O Teez: An Unfair Study of Sweeping Generalizations Accented by 19th C British Orientalist Cultural Observations of Lebanese Women

Being the “ass”-essor that I am, I can confidently say that if you are Lebanese and you have ass, you are an exception to the rule.  Perhaps it’s this “Phonecian” etno-ancestrial identification/blood that they so proudly tout over any claims to “Arab-ness” that is the cause of unfortunate a-posterioress condition.    One after another, in [...]

The “Arab Culture” and the Shoe: Let’s Put on our Orientalist Anthropological Musing Caps On Shall We?

The official play-by-playBush: “Shukran Jazeera” (hehehe)First Shoe: “This is a kiss goodbye, you son of a dog (Ibn kalb)” Second Shoe: “this is for the widows, the orphans, and all those killed in Iraq.” Not only did those comments and the conjoined hurling of shoes spark what would later be known as “shoe-gate,” but it [...]

Even MORE Disturbing than Busta Rhymes “A-rab Money”

Self-neo-orientatlizing hip hop artist/producer Noose remixes Busta Rhymes’ offensive song by “arabizing” it and the accompanying music video to the song.  Wonder what I mean by “arabizing” the song and hip hop culture? This is done by: wearing a kuffiyah (Arab gangsta cred), driving a benz (hip hop materialism cred), “brought up in the Jersey [...]

IT WAS THE GAYS

When I found myself grabbing my desk last week while the earth shuddered and the building shook, I had no idea what caused it. Thanks to Israeli Member of Knesset Shlomo Benizri, I’ve since been enlightened. It was the gays. Clearly there is an orgy of monumental proportions going on that I’m missing out on, [...]

How many Muslim women leaders can you name?

Charismatic, striking and politically sly, Benazir Bhutto, 54, was reared amid the privileges of Pakistan’s aristocracy and the ordeals of its turbulent politics. Smart, ambitious and resilient, she endured her father’s execution and her own imprisonment at the hands of a military dictator to become the country’s – and the Muslim world’s – first female [...]