Eidcom Mabrouk!

Happy breaking of the fast to all my Muslim friends and readers.

Ramadan/Rosh Hashanah

Only someone who has experienced Ramadan can appreciate the camaraderie of breaking fast together at the end of the day over harira, dates, and shebekia. And for Jews, today marks the beginning of the New Year, traditionally celebrated with sweets for a "sweet" new year. Ramadan karim, happy Rosh Hashanah, and may we all live more harmoniously together as we celebrate our differences in the coming months and years.

Slow Boat from Morocco

Simply Moroccan has a great post — complete with pictures, lyrics, translations, and music video — on Reda Taliani's song about sailing to a better life.

Mofongo in Paradise

One of the things I have always liked best about Robert B. Parker's mystery stories is that urban(e) tough guy Spenser is regularly cooking some delicious gourmet dish when he is not out roughing up the bad guys. Parker is quite detailed about the mouth-watering meals that Spenser cooks up and then usually washes down with good beer, so much so that one could almost imagine doing the cooking oneself.

So it is that I try new food as much as I can; life should be a culinary adventure. Finding myself in Puerto Rico a little more than a week ago for a conference, I escaped from the lavish Rio Mar resort long enough to sample "Mofongo," a mashed plantain dish, with octopus and conch at a local restaurant. Much to my surprise, I was the only person in the restaurant, a fact compensated for by a magnificent view of the island.

The beauty of the island was in stark contrast to the rather grim reading I brought along. After much searching, I had obtained a copy of Mohammed Choukri's For Bread Alone, and I read it in the evenings after seminars. Choukri recounts his brutal upbringing in a novel that is also very much about food, because there is never enough of it. In one vignette, Choukri jumps off the pier in the harbor to retrieve a crust of bread discarded by a fisherman, only to discover that he is swimming in a sea of shit. (Milan Kundera would no doubt find the novel vulgar but not kitschy.) Choukri's novel counterpoints between desire and disgust, the torments of appetite in a world where there is never enough of anything and a cruel and ignominious death hovers constantly in the background.

The Slow Death of Morocco's Cuisine and Community

While others (whom I respect) have described as heartwarming the New York Times' recent article on Assilah and the role of the community oven (ferrane) as a foundation of Moroccan cooking and a center of community life, I found the article rather poignant. Unlike many places in the world, in Morocco it is still possible to find communities that bake their bread (Khubz) — a staple of Moroccan cuisine — in a community oven, an institution which &mdash like communal steam baths (hammam) knits communities together. In addition, farmers sell fresh produce in the souks, and chickens are bought freshly slaughtered from the butcher. As a friend of mine put it, in Morocco, it's all organic food. The Times, however, notes an ominous trend toward factory farming, mass production of food, and supermarkets, at least in the larger cities. In light of our soil-exhausting monocultures and the cruel overcrowding and massive doses of hormones and antibiotics to which we subject our livestock in the United States, I am seriously skeptical that Morocco will gain by following our example. Would anyone say that Americans eat better than Moroccans? Thought not.

Speaking Truth to Power

Nesweek reports that Syrian Ammar Abdulhamid and Egyptian blogger "Sandmonkey," who recently went underground, are teaming up with an initiative to protect Arab bloggers from political repression. Via Myrtus.

Songs and Solidarity

Xoussef's comment on Hind's "Give me a sign" — that the song is "banal" but the video is "wonderful," seems to me to be right on. Several other points struck me. One was that I don't see that many Moroccan (or Moroccan inspired) songs in English; pace Marrakesh Express. The other is the degree to which the video is orientalized, from Hind's dress to the images of her mysterious hooded lover to the dance scene at the end. I would be very curious to know how this song speaks to Moroccans — to me it seemed to play very much to a European/American fantasy of Morocco, but perhaps my own view is too crude and stereotyped.

I was also very struck by Xoussef's reasons that he won't blog for a Maghreb Union: to me, the proposed Union seems a noble aspiration but not a political possibility.

Gibbon on Morocco in his Time and the Time of the Romans

The genuine Mauritania, or country of the Moors, which, from the ancient city of Tingi, or Tangier, was distinguished by the appellation of Tingitana, is represented by the modern kingdom of Fez. Salle, on the Ocean, so infamous at present for its piratical depredations, was noticed by the Romans, as the extreme object of their power, and almost of their geography. A city of their foundation may still be discovered near Mequinez, the residence of the barbarian whom we condescend to style the Emperor of Morocco; but it does not appear, that his more southern dominions, Morocco itself, and Segelmessa, were ever comprehended within the Roman province. The western parts of Africa are intersected by the branches of Mount Atlas, a name so idly celebrated by the fancy of poets; but which is now diffused over the immense ocean that rolls between the ancient and the new continent.

Edward Gibbon - The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Volume 1

Solidarity

Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers - washingtonpost.com

The Washington Post today ran a story on women bloggers being targeted with harassment and threats of violence:

As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said.

Beyond the obvious revulsion against threats of sexual violence against anyone, there are several additional reasons why this story is particularly disturbing. Not only are many of the attacks quite graphic, but also the perpetrators are often able to remain anonymous on the Internet. While one's first sympathies go to the victims, the consequences for the blogosphere are also likely to be severe. I would venture to say that a majority of the high quality blogs that I read regularly are written by women, and for women in the Maghreb the Internet seems to have been a particularly liberating opportunity for public expression. It would be a shame for the criminal actions of a few sociopaths to shut down access to free expression on the Internet for over half of the population. Finally, if my daughters want to blog when they get older, I want them to be able to do so without fear.

Let the Bigotry Begin

Even before the identity of the shooter at Virginia Tech was known, people were speculating that he was a Muslim in the comments to the New York Times story online. However, there were positive comments in the Times condemning knee jerk racist and xenophobic comments, and one person linked to a statement from the Virginia Tech Muslim Students Association.