The New IRP

Tajikistan's Islamic Renaissance Party makes for an interesting comparison with Islamist political parties in the Arab world:

"The IRP, the only officially registered Islamic party in Central Asia, has in the past depended heavily on support in the country's conservative east -- particularly Rasht Valley, the wartime stronghold of the Islamic opposition fighters. Today, the party boasts an increasing number of followers in other regions, including Kulob and Sughd, traditionally dominated by the pro-presidential party.

"The IRP broadened its support base in a number of ways. First, it sought to shed its image, cultivated since its founding in 1990, as a rural party followed by mullahs and religious conservatives. By replenishing its aging ranks, the party has made itself more appealing to intellectuals, businessmen, and students. Most of the IRP's candidates in the upcoming elections are in their 30s and 40s, and they include lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and at least one professional sportsman...

"Unlike the publicity-shy Nuri, who wore a dark beard and donned a long cloak at official meetings, the clean-shaven Kabiri comes across as media-savvy, outspoken, and dynamic...

"Kabiri has sought support outside the party's traditional base -- making it his goal to appeal to young and educated Tajiks, including women."

One commonality I see is the desire to broaden appeal in exactly the ways mentioned. The political context is different, however, in that the government has made no attempt at co-option. In fact, it seems more interested in the Turkish model, as are its Central Asian neighbors.

Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon is still biologically alive in Israel's Sheba Medical Center.

I just thought I'd note that fact.

Acre

The historic town of Acre, in northern Israel

Terror in Texas

I agree with every single line in this post:

"I’m not especially interested in debating semantics, but I think it’s very clear that if this had been done by a brownish-looking Muslim guy whose suicide note paralleled Islamist political themes that the right wing would be pissing its pants and demanding that anyone who refused the label the attack 'terrorism' be put up on treason charges. But the new rules seem to be that politically motivated violence when undertaken by white people isn’t terrorism...

"The key point, that all authorities seem to agree on, is that while this is a serious crime and a genuinely Bad Thing To Have Happen, that you need to put the likelihood of this sort of incident into a broader context. Simply put, the odds of 'death by disgruntled anti-tax activist flying an airplane into your office' are extremely small and it’s extremely difficult to think of cost-effective and efficacious methods of ensuring that this never happens again...

"Stack’s stated purpose for undertaking the attack was to try to prompt a counterproductive overreaction: 'I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.' It’s smart, then, that as a country we’re responding to his terrorism by trying to avoid counterproductive overreactions. But of course this is also Osama bin Laden’s goal and it’s also appropriate to respond to Islamist political violence in a similar spirit."

Cult of Berdymukhammedov

The rotating Turkmenbashi may have come down, but new statues are going up:

"Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov last week unveiled a new statue of his father, Malikguly Berdymukhammedov.

"The statue, which depicts the president's father sitting in an armchair with his hat on his lap, has been erected at Turkmenistan's Military Academy.

"It's not the first time Berdymukhammedov has honored his family members with a statue. Last September, a bust of the president's grandfather, Berdymukhamed Annaev, was unveiled in his native village of Yzgant...

"Berdymukhammedov doesn't have a giant gold statue of himself yet, but he has managed to author several books on medicine and Turkmen history and traditions."

We still need to see how far this goes, but the situation depresses me no matter what.

The Latest in Iran

Thursday was Iran's official commemoration of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the government controlled Tehran's streets:

"Iranians marked the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution on Thursday with a mass pro-government rally and an overwhelming security presence that prevented opposition protesters from staging a long-expected showdown...

"But witnesses and analysts in Tehran said the 31st birthday party of the Islamic Republic belonged to the government, despite gaps in the rally-goers at Freedom Square, who were among the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who turned out across the country to wave flags and chant 'Death to America.'"

Is this the end of Iran's reform movement? Not really. It just shows the government was able to prevent the kind of uprising we saw during Ashura by not disrupting the funerals of prominent ayatollahs and maintaining intense security, including crackdowns on communications systems. This can't be done all the time, and if the opposition could find a good, consistent hook, they could probably keep some protests going. However, the problem remains the lack of a suitable hook. Economic crises are more likely to make people take risks than important anniversaries.

The TSA and the Arabic Student

This hits close to home:

"The ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a college student who was arrested by the TSA and detained for five hours over a set of Arabic-language flash cards he was carrying.

"Nick George, a student at Pomona College in California, was grilled by the TSA on 'who did 9/11' and asked by FBI agents whether he was a communist after airport security officers found Arabic-English language learning cards in his luggage last summer, according to news reports and the ACLU.

"George was boarding a plane to California on Aug. 29, 2009, after visiting his native Pennsylvania when TSA agents noticed the cards. George had been studying Arabic and used the flash cards -- which have Arabic on one side and English on the other -- to help him translate the Arabic news service al-Jazeera. Among the flash cards were the words 'terrorist' and 'explosion,' the Philadelphia Daily News reported."

UPDATE: Something I should add: I did consider whether this might be akin to the "Little Red Hoax" from a few years ago. The bit about the officers asking if the student was a communist is especially strange. However, linked story highlights enough official response that I feel comfortable saying something like this did indeed occur.

Heavy Metal Islam

A couple of years ago, Mark LeVine, the occasionally blogging historian of the modern Middle East, published his latest book Heavy Metal Islam: Rock Religion and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, about the important heavy metal scene in the Middle East and related areas, a work which expanded on one of the examples in his previous book Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Both books are important for exploring the many faces of cultural globalization, and, in the case of Heavy Metal Islam, the role played by musical counterculture in debates within Muslim societies, especially among the children of the elites.

The book includes a quote from Moroccan heavy metal artist Reda Zine: "We play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal." The genre's often harsh lyrics blend well with the cynicism and anger toward society, politics, and the world generally that characterizes much of the Middle East. Whereas in the United States and Britain, heavy metal has been long unmoored from its roots in the economic woes of the 1970's, in the Middle East it still retains them, and represents not just a form of entertainment frequently criticized by the more conservative establishment, but also a critique of that establishment and the world it governs.

Potential connections between heavy metal and political dissent came through most strongly in the chapter on Egypt, where I learned that Shady and Noor Noor, sons of Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Noor, were both known parts of their country's heavy metal scene. The "potential" in that sentence is important, however, as in much of the book the artists seemed most interested in protecting their music and expression rather than moving into action beyond the expression. LeVine also frequently sought connections between metalheads and Islamists, with what seemed like little success.

In his conclusion, LeVine illustrates the potential he sees with an account of Istanbul's Barisha Rock for Peace Festival, a sort of Turkish Woodstock which in 2007 drew around 150,000 fans. His conclusion:

"Luckily, the metal-heads, hip-hoppers, rockers, and punks of the Middle East are no longer alone. They not only have each other; helped by the Internet and an increasing number of international festivals of various sizes, the world is starting to listen to their music and their stories. A real dialogue between cultures and countries is emerging, one that will not be cowed by authoritarian governments, silences by war-crazed administrations, overshadowed by jihadi propagandists, or co-opted by multinational conglomerates. It is being conducted by young people around the world, on their terms, and if they're lucky, it will be free of the stereotypes, prejudices, and conflicting interests that have doomed their elders' conversations for generations...

"The fear, the violence, the hatred in the Middle East can seem deafening, but it's still not loud enough to silence the voices of resistance. A generation after Twisted Sister's 1984 smash hit, kids across the MENA are screaming, in English, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Hebrew, Turkish, and French - online, onstage, and, however tentatively, on the streets - "We're not gonna take it anymore." It's a message that used to resonate with Americans and Europeans. The sooner we rejoin the chorus, the sooner real peace, democracy, and reconciliation will be achieved - not just in the heartlands of the Muslim world, but in the heartlands of the West as well."

You can hear LeVine discussing the book's topic here.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)

Sentencing

Does anyone else find this just plain weird?

"The Yemen State Security Court sentenced the political leader of Al Houthi armed rebellion, Yahya Al Houthi, to 15 years in prison on Saturday.

"The court's Judge Mohsen Alwan, considered Al Houthi, who is currently living in German, as fugitive from justice and tried him in absentia.

"Yahya Al Houthi, brother of the top rebel's leader Abdul Malek Al Houthi, is accused of forming a militia to overthrow the current republican system and to restore the royal clerical rule by force."

That crime sounds like it would merit a much longer sentence.

Class Sizes

Riffing off this post from Tenured Radical, Dr. Crazy cuts to a core issue facing higher education:

"The core question is, as far as I can reduce it down, do more bodies in seats per each section = greater teaching productivity/efficiency? In these times of budgetary woe, it seems like my administrators at least think that the answer to that question is 'yes.' There's lots of talk about raising class maximums, about finding ways to have tenure-line faculty teach more and more students, about how to organize teaching in a way that costs less and that yields more profit. There is something to be said for this model of thinking about things. According to a corporate model, efficiency = fewer dollars spent and more students 'served.'

"But this is where things get sticky. What does it mean to "serve" our students? Are students "served" by ever-increasing class sizes? Yes, more of them will be able to enroll in and to complete a greater number of courses under this model. But is teaching productivity measured (solely) by enrollment figures? Should it be?"