Going Places, Meeting People, Dressing like an American

The past 24 hours have been pretty epic. I went to the concluding night of a 3-day film festival on refugees. The room mates came too, and it was the first night we all went out together. The show was enjoyable and intense, about a child soldier in Sudan who had grown up into an international musician and peace activist. This was an outdoors cinema and the seats on the ground level were taken, so we all trooped into a nearby building and watched from the roof. There was a moment when the movie was drowned out by the simultaneous call to prayer from two or three separate mosques in the area.

Afterwards the film festival was concluded with an reggae-esque band. The saxophonist, a Frenchman, played very sexily.

I got my first whiff of how friendly Egyptians can be. As I was standing next to Ana (room mate # 2) a child ran up to me and grabbed my hand, saying "dance with me!" I was in a pretty good mood so I ran over to where a crowd of 10 or so were spinning and twirling and joined in the fray. Very good time. The kids and I enjoyed mimicking each others dance moves - now a new generation of hip Egyptians knows how to dance like a gangly white guy!

That was the best time I had in Cairo so far. It was a gathering of laid back, happy people... many of them spoke English and wanted to chat. A reminder that good people can be found all over the world.

Today I decided to wear shorts and a tee-shirt and see if my method of dodging the heat made me more visible as a foreigner. I learned a few lessons.

First I rode the subway back to Mogamma (receiving many more glances on the train than yesterday.) The halls in the building, which were teeming yesterday morning, were empty. I soon found out why - business hours were closed for the document I wanted, despite the fact that it had already been processed and there were people sitting next to the pile where it lay. Cairo. I had the chance to test out my french, though... one of the people behind the window spoke french and I surprised myself by carrying on a decent conversation with him for a minute or two. I should get back into that language - I dedicated 6 years of my life to it, it would be a waste not to become fluent. Perhaps the foreign service will put me in France or Beirut or Morocco for a term.

Being defeated on that end (but making the acquaintance of three Americans who were in a similar circumstance to myself) I left and tried to find a vodaphone office.

I'm not really proud of what happened next. I asked a man for directions and he took me to his local store, where he preceded to sell me a phone from behind the display. The phone itself wasn't terribly expensive - I expected to pay around 300 LE - but in order to pay for it I went through a number of unwanted hoops. I told him that I would need to go to a bank to get the money I needed. He offered to show me a bank, but on the way he made a quick detour into his perfume shop. I wanted to go to the bank, but to be polite (since he had shown me the way to the phone shop) and I went inside. A warning flag went up as he sat me down and started to go into a sales pitch about how cheap his perfume was. Too late, he sucked me into a swirling barrage of discount offers, praises for his perfumes (which "sell for thousands" in Europe) and sweet tea. Somehow I found myself holding an 80 LE ($9) bottle of lotus perfume in one hand and my cell phone in the other.

It wasn't the worst deal I could have had, and it certainly will make a nice gift, but I don't like being taken advantage of or targeted as a foreigner. This man was friendly, but he was friendly to make a sale, and I only discovered the difference once it was too late. It was a cautionary tale; I know now that if you don't want something, say so firmly and stick to it. That's a good rule both for Cairo and anywhere else in the world.

The rest of the day was better. I went to the nearby Egyptian Museum and explored that for an hour or so. Then I ran into an Egyptian who, recognizing me as American, started testing his English with me. I started exchanging his Arabic for my English, and as he whipped out a notebook covered in English phrases I realized that he came to the Museum expressly for a chance to practice with a foreigner. I convinced him to take me to a Falafel restaurant that Alison had recommended, and gave him my card. He said he wanted to meet up again to talk some more... but with classes starting on Thursday I doubt I will have the time. I will write to him, though. I promised that much.

So, lessons learned: 1) Egyptians are very kind and helpful people, and more than a little forward compared to others I have met. 2) Wearing shorts and a tee shirt singles you out and announces your status as an American. People treat you differently, if not necessarily badly, when you dress distinctly from the locals. I think I may end up sucking it up and wearing pants and a collared shirt from now on according to the local custom. Although I had a good experience today, I prefer not to be considered an oddity and an opportunity in this country.

The first few days are the toughest...

...or this at least is what I'm telling myself.

It's afternoon, day three of Cairo, and I am beginning to feel a little overwhelmed. At some point during the first night I became an entre for at least one mosquito, who took a walk sampling both of my legs, my arms, my chest and my face. I react badly to bug bites, and I am covered from head to toe in red blotches that I am just dying to scratch. It reminds me of this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon... but more so.

Combine this already uncomfortable sensation with the fact that the temperature during the day climbs to 111 Farenheit and you've got yourself a very sticky, very gross feeling on your hands. It makes me very frustrated, although I'm partly bringing it upon myself for insisting to dress as the Egyptians do and forgoing shorts. I wanted to blend in as much as possible, but faced with the June Egyptian sun I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it's not worth the pain. I'm a foreign dressed white guy, anyway. They were bound to catch on eventually.

But it's too early to be overly negative. I was thrown into the mix in the Mogamma today trying to get my visa extended, and while I wasn't fluent by any means I was able to make myself understood in Arabic. My inhibitions to talk to people are rapidly falling away (it's amazing how bug bite pain will make you willing to talk to a pharmacist - what's the Arabic word for "SAVE ME"?) and I was able to navigate successfully, if not quickly, through the bowels of the Egyptian bureaucracy. It was a labyrinth that took me two hours to work through, using my meager Arabic skills and connections with English-speaking travelers in the same boat as myself to figure out where I needed to go and who to talk to. I learned to be more aggressive in line - the locals cut me off with hardly a second glance until I started putting my hand in between them and the window... an experience highly reminiscent of my fourth grade playground at recess.

Anyway, the point is there is a lot to be positive about. Despite the beleaguered American economy the dollar is still phenomenally powerful here. My room mate Ana and I were hustled into paying at least triple the value of a cafe meal and the whole check still came out to less than $8. Groceries are likewise very cheap - I have a feeling that if I am careful I still could have a few hundred to live off of in D.C. The people are wonderfully friendly and helpful, and I have yet to experience the highs of Egypt like the Pyramids, or Alexandria. Things are looking up.

So the message of the day is positivity. Don't let heat and bug bites and pollution (I didn't mention the pollution here... it sucks) get me down. In a few days I will be healed and whole and I will be able to experience the city with much fewer inhibitions.

Touch Down in Cairo

It's about 5 am here in Cairo, and between the heat (it is 81 degrees), the jet lag and the call to prayer which goes off periodically from the mosque just outside my window, sleep is a bit illusive. So like a good American I turn to the internet to amuse me, and I figure I might as well amuse you all too with an update.

I have come to al Qahira to better my novice grasp of Arabic, as demanded of me by GW and the Foreign Service exam. So far I haven't had the ability or much of an opportunity to practice - occasions such as the airline losing my bags really deserve to be addressed in English if they are to be resolved - but I am looking forward to a day with plenty of other chances. For example, I am looking forward to going downstairs and giving a little bakshish (bribe) to the door man in order for him to accept the narrative that I am my friend Alison's cousin and that we are not living in sin. Funnily enough I realize I'd be outraged if someone suggested I do that in America, but for now the idea fits into my brain as though it's a traditional local custom. Take off your shoes before entering the house, bow to your elders, and bribe your doorman! We'll see what happens when the novelty wears off.

My bags are still in Rome at this point, or at any rate they might as well be since they aren't here in the apartment. But honestly I'm not feeling too upset. All the valuable electronics - my camera, my money, and gods be praised my laptop - were in the carry-on bag that I kept with me, and the numerous clothes and books left behind are easily replaced by the local shops. The only thing which gives me a pang is my guitar! If that is lost to the inner bowels of Al Italia I will end my self-imposed philosophical calm and wreak a terrible vengeance upon the system. Heads will roll.

So! Today's plans are, in no particular order:

• To bribe the doorman
• To obtain some new (preferably light and airy) clothes
• To explore the local shops and get a few basic supplies, food and toothpaste and the like
• To begin to explore the confusing, rusty and ancient torrent that is the Cairo bus system
• To trace a route towards the Fajr Center (my language center) in Nasr City, and of course
• To find a Cairo bar

I am so excited about this last one you see I have chosen to put it in italics. Everything I have heard from Alison (who, by the way, was a wonderful welcoming party to Cairo) speaks well of the local bar, Horiya. A recent vocab word! It means "freedom"! I hope it lives up to expectations.

I think I am going to love this city. It is hot and polluted and dirty, but also brimming over with life and difference and it represents a real challenge. I can already tell that I am going to be happy here. Pictures and hopefully more updates soon.

Reading Vali Nasr and Pondering US Policy

Few books, recently, have prompted me to question my own mindset more than Vali Nasr's The Heart of Islam.

I'd like to think of myself as an open-minded person. Although I am an atheist I willingly recognize that Islam, with its emphasis on truth, charity, and peace, has a lot to offer to anyone's personal philosophy. I know that the Muslim organizations with whom my country is at war only represent an extreme component of the faith. I understand that the Muslim world, while distinct from my own in many ways, has a vibrant culture which deserves the honor and respect of all who are exposed to it.

Yet along with that understanding, I have to say there are aspects of Islamic culture that strike me as simply wrong. The example of the hijab comes to mind. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the veil is mandated by law. Many women in that country wear it willingly and as a source of pride, yet many others struggle against at as an imposition by the state. To my mind the imposition of the veil is wrong, not because the veil itself is oppressive, but because the garment itself is imposed - the choice of whether to wear the article of clothing was removed from the person. I believe that this imposition is an injustice - I believe something should be done about it.

The obvious rejoinders include the fact that Iran does not represent the whole Islamic world, that the mandatory veil is an "invented tradition" that twists the words of the Prophet, and that it is unfair to hold the world's billion plus Muslims accountable to the policies of one authoritarian regime. These are all valid points. Nasr, in his book, adds one to the list - who am I, as a westerner, to determine what is just and unjust in any Muslim culture, even one that exists on the fringes as Iran does? Towards the end of his book, Nasr makes the argument that it is arrogant and ignorant of western observers to try and impose their own values upon the Muslim world. Nasr presents the possibility of a debate over values between Westerners and Muslims.

"The debate could continue for a long time, but at the end the Muslim interlocutors would thank their Western counterparts and state that they were grateful for their concern, but that if they really wanted to be friends and fellow human being,s the should not impose their views but ask the Muslim team what they considered to be the rights that were most missing in their lives and that their Western friends could help to realize." (pg 289)

Essentially, its the argument for self-determinism. Nasr isn't stating that he's against letting women choose whether veiling is right for them - he's arguing that it is up to Islamic culture, not the West, to make that judgement. He's not angry at countries with Muslim populations who walk about unveiled - he's angry with the model of forced unveiling represented by the Western-emulating Ataturk and Reza Shah. Ultimately Nasr is making the point that it is not the West's responsibility to intervene and force change, even when it genuinely feels that real injustice is being done.

It's an eloquent argument, and I wrestle with it. The track record of the West is hardly pristine, for one thing - I often need to remind myself that the founding of my own nation coincided with the mass occupation and usurpment of hundreds of millions of Native Americans. And, for another, I have to remember that the values of human rights are not always my nation's chief priority in the modern day.

A few paragraphs after that argument, Nasr touches upon another point that hits directly home.

"Anything less than mutual respect in understandingthe other side makes a sham of the question of human rights. And when the issue of human rights is used as a tool for policy by Western powers, it tends to nullify the efforts of those in the West who, with sincerity and good intention, are seeking to help others all over the globe to preserve the dignity of human life." (pg 290)

It might not have struck me so pointedly if I had not, the night before, prepared a briefing memo advocating that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's abuse of human rights should be used as a justification for applying targeted sanctions in the midst of the nuclear dispute.

It's a complex issue - In one context, both human rights abuse and nuclear proliferation are bad, and it is justifiable and right to advocate against them together. But it is also very important to make sure that one's condemnations against the abuse of human rights are genuine and not simply politically salient. My country supports the regimes of how many authoritarian but pro-western leaders, who, if free and fair elections were today held in their country, would immediately be shown the door and replaced with someone less friendly to our own interests? Can the US claim to be acting on behalf of the Iranian people, standing up for human rights, if last October it cut funding for multiple NGOs that documented and publicized instances of human rights violations? While the administration didn't comment on precisely why it took the action, many folks up on the hill argued that it was a decision in keeping with Iranian activists own wishes, and to prevent the impression that the U.S. was attempting to intervene in in Iranian domestic affairs.

This is all well and good, but there is something hypocritical about claiming that the United States wishes to "let the Iranians determine their own fate" on Monday and then on Tuesday citing domestic injustice as justification for sanctioning the Iranian regime. Especially when sanctions just happen also to be levied on the basis of our own security interests.

So, I am torn. On the one hand I heartily believe that we should criticize Iran for oppressing its own citizens, and, for that matter, that we should go further in promoting human rights and democracy in Saudi Arabia, a nation which many forget has even less of a claim to democracy than does Iran. But at the same time I also believe that we in my country need to recognize that the US, as great as it is, does not have a direct connection to the "Ultimate Truth" hotline. (Or, if we do, we haven't really been following its advice to the letter.) We need to be conscious of our own failures and hypocracies, even while we campaign for the greater good.

So, on one level we need to figure out just what we believe about the world. The US can't claim to stand for justice if the only times we act against injustice are when the "unjust" are acting against our interests. We should mean it when we say we support freedom and democracy, we should be willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal, and we should be willing to be criticized when we fail to live up to that goal.

And we need to consider the point Nasr is making - that engaging the Muslim world on, as Obama said in Cairo, the basis of "mutual respect and mutual interest," actually does require a change in our own behavior. We need to recognize that the much of the Middle East does not feel as though it needs American saving, and that our own cultural history is hardly earns us authority to preach. While advocating the values that we genuinely hold dear, we should also be conscious of our nation's imperfections, and act towards the rest of the world with a bit of humility as well as pride.

Facebook and the Inner Soul

Two comics today!

Full Size Image HEAH

I'm not claiming that everyone in the world goes home and cradles themselves because of a yawning, bottomless void of self-doubt haunting their subconscious. I'm just saying that people, all people, experience insecurity from time to time.

Every once in a while when I read a biography, listen to an interview, or read a great comic (http://boxbrown.com/?p=733) I realize that those little pangs of "What the hell are you doing" aren't something that I alone experience. For a long time I believed that I was the only one to feel that way. But these days I realize that it's a part of the human condition! I see it in biographies of history's greatest and in those friends of mine who I thought were forces of nature but who have breakdowns just like every other common man.

That's why it's awesome that we're all insecure. Because it makes being insecure less of a lonely thing.

This comic is a little out of order because I have another story arc going on, but I wanted to get it in there. Also, those people in the comic are on a train... I'm not sure that came across.

Next!

Full Size Image M'YAH

Ah... topical humor. 60 years from now when we are all part of the Hivemind this comic about "internet" humor will make no sense whatsoever.

Facebook does make it very, very difficult for you to permanently deactivate your account. Even if you quit, all the data remains on Facebook and can easily be reactivated. Facebook blocks online services that remove all of your friend information and change your password/email combo. DEAD PEOPLE have trouble getting their accounts taken offline. This is because Facebook makes its money by selling data about its users, and is loathe to allow people to take away this data. Also, Facebook hates dead people.

It's not too sinister if you're ok with the idea of a free exchange of information... but it is a little disturbing if you weren't aware of how much of your personal information actually belongs to Facebook, not you.

I just think it's funny to consider Facebook, not as a greedy company trying to stop you from deleting its money-making resource, but as a Good Samaritan trying to stop you from doing the unthinkable and *gasp* engaging with the real world.

First use of color in a Repiphany! strip, by the way.

Peace!

Derek

Complex Respect for a Power Figure in Iran

NThe Lede Blog of NYTimes.com often has some really fascinating material on current events in Iran. Yesterday's post was about senior opposition cleric Grand Ayatollah Youssef Sanei and his recent troubles with the Iranian government. I'm very interested in Sanei and what he represents. According to this Witness Online documentary (link provided by The Lede), the Ayatollah considers himself a "modern" religious practioner who follows the news and works to adapt Islamic teachings to the contemporary world.

In addition to a daily sermon, Sanei runs a website and telephone hotline for people to call in and get religious advice on a variety of matters. He condones abortion under certain medical circumstances, denounces suicide bombings, and encourages all people to ensure their cars. Sanei quickly breaks the western stereotype of the Khomeni-esque Iranian cleric; the firebrand social conservative.

As an atheist I am generally uncomfortable with religious figures, even those with whom I agree, holding a place of great social authority. Religion has a tremendous ability to unite people and encourage moral behavior, but simultaneously it is capable of retaining practitioners in the moral world of millenia ago. "Thou shall not murder"remains just as valid as ever, but there's a passage or two in Leviticus that needs updating, and I want my representatives in government to know that.

Yet I find myself less worried about this Iranian cleric who, in the youtube video above, denounces suicide bombers and the nuclear bomb in more or less secular terms.

Sanei on nuclear weapons:

"Nuclear bombs destroy heaven and earth.... What is the sin of the plants? the unborn children? the environment which belongs to all humantiy? The nuclear bomb destroys everything, so we are not allowed to use it even in defense of ourselves. You have to attack the enemy, but the innocent people? So using the nuclear bomb, which is a blind weapon, is forbidden in Islam."

On sucicide attacks:

"Suicide bombing is a crime and a sin. That's two - resulting in the killing of innocent people. Suicide bombing is against Islam, against common sense, and human dignity. What al Qaeda and the Taliban are doing is a sin - it's against basic human principles."

I can get behind this. His denunciation of these forms of violence include quite a few mentions of "sin" and "Islam", but his exortations against attacking the innocent, against using blind weapons - are arguments that all people, including atheists, could discuss and find valid.

I find Ayatollah Sanei interesting for the same reason I find the Pope interesting, or the Dalai Lama. I find myself having great respect for this moral figure, who tells men that they shouldn't worry about shaving their beard and applies scrutiny to his own behavior such that he wont reveal which newspapers he reads in the morning for fear of endorsing one over the other. I may not be comfortable with the concept of religious authorities, but I appreciate good men and women where they are found.

Holes in Space-time, and Piracy

First, the fun stuff. Two new comics! As usual, click on the images to full screen.





Second, I thought I'd publish a forum conversation I started on The Pirate Bay. Those of you who know me know that media piracy is a favorite topic of mine. Let me know what you think.

Explain to me something about the ethics of piracy.
Hey folks. I just got finished watching "Steal this Film" and thought I'd come over to talk to the stars of the show about something bugging me. This started out as a quick question and became something of a rant/question, so if you aren't interested in reading a wall of text feel free to escape now.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to say that I do use the Pirate Bay. I visited the site last week to download the install disc to Civilization IV, a game that I had bought years back but lost the CD for. That generally is the way that I operate with torrenting - I download something for which I already have a physical, legal copy.

That being said, I feel unconvinced by some of the arguments in support of file sharing. I'm not talking about the legality of the Pirate Bay - the fact that I'm writing on these forums now proves that the PB servers exist in a legal grey area, at least for now. I'm talking about the morality of file sharing, especially when it comes to piracy. I'm hoping you fine folks will be able to clear something up for me.

To my mind there are two concepts of file sharing. One is about the idea of a culture of sharing music, and the other is about a culture of downloading files nobody ever intended to be shared. I'm all for the first one, but the second I can't help but think is wrong.

I'm happy when I hear the people on this forum talk about a culture of file sharing. It's a beautiful concept. As someone who publishes music online for free and runs a webcomic, I'm happy to share my media with people all over the world. The operative word here, of course, is "share". The people who are pissed off at Pirate Bay aren't the people who chose to give away their music, they are the people who plan to sell their music for profit.

I've read a lot of arguments on this forum about how the music industry loses less money than they claim to lose, or that Hollywood pulls on strings to get Washington to enforce copyright laws, or that musicians make most of their money on tours, or that the music industry will survive file sharing just as it survived the gramophone. These arguments could be completely true and wouldn't make stealing media justified in my mind. To me these sort of arguments just go to how unpopular the big corporations are... to make the argument that the people who own the music industry are bad, therefore stealing their music must be good. That's a moral fallacy. Even exploitive rich people have rights, and it diminishes us as a people to ignore that.

The real heart of the matter is this: the people who create media do so in order to sell it and make money. We may resent how much they charge for their product, or the DRM that they slap onto it, but ultimately we have two moral reactions to their choice: to pay for the product and use it, or not to pay and not to use it. Spin it any way you like, but the third option, to not pay for media and to download it anyway, just amounts to theft.

Clearly some of you folks disagree, and I'm sure you feel moral about this decision. So I'm interested - why it is not theft to torrent something that one hasn't paid for? Why is media ok to steal when jewelery or TVs or clothes are wrong to steal?

Perhaps its something to do with what that one fellow in the beginning of "Steal this Film" was talking about - that ideas are free and not material objects? Pshaw, I say. The film showed an awful lot of the Matrix - did they forget the scenes when Morpheus about "what is real"? The Matrix was real even though it didn't "exist" in the real world because one could sense it, feel it when one was plugged in. Music is the same. In my life I will never be able to "touch" the music that touches me, but I don't assume that the rules surrounding it and all other products are different. Pirates talk about a new era of thinking, but I can't help but find it backwards to argue that the incoporeality of music removes it from equations of just conduct.

Maybe at the end of the day I just get irritated that people rail against big evil Hollywood while in the same breath torrenting the biggest block busters. For a whole bunch of pirates, the Pirate Bay isn't about ideology, its about cheap movies. There's really nothing too impressive about that.

I hope I've made a fair point. I'd be interested in hearing your perspectives.

I feel pretty at odds with my generation on this topic. Hopefully either I or the rest of you guys will come around. I'm too young to be a cantankerous, contrary old man!