Otherwise, the piece is voyeuristic social pornography. I have critiqued other pieces of the genre, but the writers of those other pieces at least understood enough Arabic to be able to make some semi-informed comments about their subjects. Ms Shapiro, by her own admission (twice) doesn’t know enough Arabic to be able to read the web postings she is reporting on or to conduct and interview with her principles, relying upon an interpreter for both. Granted, a great deal of foreign journalism is conducted through the mediation of interpreters, but does such stuff warrant a spread in the New York Times magazine? The only reason I can imagine is that the Grey Lady thinks the voyeurism of reporting on the Arab world is so deliciously titillating to justify it.
The frailties of the piece are legion. The first thing to annoy is the reporter’s gratuitous parroting of the tired old saw that Arab governments fan anti-Israeli sentiments amongst their people in order to deflect criticisms against themselves. Here she is:
Anti-Israel demonstrations in Arab capitals are nothing new. From Amman to Riyadh, governments have long viewed protests against Israel as a useful safety valve to allow citizens to let off steam without addressing grievances closer to home. But in Egypt, this time, the protests were different: some of the anger was aimed directly at the government of President Hosni Mubarak. In defiance of threats from the police, and in contravention of a national taboo, some demonstrators chanted slogans against Mubarak, condemning his government for maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel, for exporting natural gas to the country and for restricting movement through Egypt’s border with Gaza.This is one of many spurious lines of argument in the discourse on what is condemned as Arab antisemitism. The implications I suppose are that if only the Arab governments would shape up and respond to their constituents, everyone would cool down and accept the Jewish state as their neighbour. It is also pure fantasy. The Arab governments against whom this is directed, and often it is Egypt, are more pro-Israel than are their populaces and are embarrassed by their anti-Israel expressions.
What is more, Ms Shapiro here makes it seem that it is something new that Egyptians are criticizing their government for maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel (or to be more precise, they criticize their government for anything that looks like “normalization”) or that they are just now waking up to their governments sales of natural gas to Israel. The only thing new is the intensity of their disquiet at the closure of the Rafaa crossing.
(Something that is lost in all of this is that the Egyptian government is justified in its reluctance to open the border, lest hundreds of thousands of Gazans flee across the border and are not permitted to return by Israel, effectively turning the problem of Gaza’s Palestinians into an Egyptian problem. A new population displacement on the order of those that took place in 1948.)
Then she is almost patronizing in implying that it would be so unusual that Egyptians should be on Facebook:
Young Egyptians also were mobilizing and venting their anger over Gaza on what would, until recently, have seemed an unlikely venue: Facebook, the social-networking siteHow recently? September 2006? That’s when Facebook became open to everyone over 13. And that is about the time I started getting invitations to join Facebook from friends in Egypt. So what is so unlikely about this?
Then we get the usual descriptions of place:
ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON last fall, I made my way to a Cinnabon cafe in Nasr City, a well-to-do district of Cairo, to meet with one of the founders of the April 6 Facebook group, a 30-year-old woman named Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed Rashid, who works as a training coordinator for a company that makes Islamic DVDs. The Cinnabon was subdued: a few pairs of young women and one or two married couples were scattered around the seating area with open laptops and frothy, sweet drinks. Sean Paul’s “Temperature” played at a tasteful volume, low enough that the dance-hall lyrics about “the right tactics to turn you on” were nearly indecipherable.
This is pure voyeurism. I’m surprised that she hasn’t mentioned the trash and stray dogs in the streets, they usually do. And the description of her principle whom she is meeting there is gratuitous:
Rashid was wearing a meticulously coordinated outfit: brown pants, sandals, T-shirt, eyeliner and a baby blue tunic with overlapping light blue and brown head scarves.This is too sophomoric to even comment on further.
[She] has a round face, a high-pitched voice and a plucky sense of determination — Reese Witherspoon in a hijab.
The only place Ms Shapiro’s piece begins to assume a certain refreshing informative tone is toward the end when she speaks briefly of the “cute cat principle of digital activism”, that is, its as easy to form or join an activist group as it is to post pictures of cute cats. What she doesn’t address about this, however, is that Facebook activism is largely inactive, apathetic. It is easy to join a group but that is as far a much activism goes. Even in Egypt.
The thing that gets me about all of this kind of writing, and there seems to be a lot more of it lately as our students start getting out into the Arab world, is its unabashed voyeurism. If you follow my very intermittent postings, you know what I call this: social pornography—very revealing but we don’t learn much.
Another thing that gets me is the subtext, which always seems to be asserting that if only the Arabs would become more like us, democracy would break out and the whole world would be roses.
There also seems to be a large dose of careerism going on, hence the voyeurism.
Soon I’ll post more about this type of careerism as it manifests itself now and then in the “Arabs-as-anti-semites” discourse.
4 comments:
Semi-expert,
First, welcome back to the blogosphere.
I think you are being way too harsh here. I was skeptical about whether this long article was worth reading when I saw the author's early remark about using a translator. So I sent the article to a highly sophisticated Egypt friend, one who probably shares most of the political views you have expressed through your blogging, and told him I wasnt gonna read the article unless he told me I should. He quickly sent me an email back saying it was an "excellent" article. Yeah, as you pointed out, there are some problems with the article and its not perfect. But I would say that, overall, its a pretty good and informative piece.
Political protest isn't something important in Egypt? There is very little organized protest in Egypt, especially from youth in their 20s. Yet in this case Facebook was used to launch some kind of mobilization that wouldn't have happened otherwise. I think that probably justifies a story. I don't really get the voyeurism comments.
the voyeurism involves the descriptions of the young woman and the cafe where she met her. this kind of crap shows up a lot. it used to be that no piece about shaaban abdel rahim was complete without an obligatory mention of the state of the streets. I get sick of it.
And then why does Shapiro not talk about what wael nawwara (an associate of mine) was wearing or the cute little cafe where she met him or any of the other men she interviews - like Ethan Zuckerman, for example? Because it is entirely irrelevant. By the same token, so is the mention of the woman's veil. Entirely irrelevant. it is as if she is some kind of curiosity - "well what do you know, an oppressed muslim girl who can dress stylishly and express an opinion." Shapiro ought to be ashamed of herself.
It gives the impression that she puts this junk in there to titillate her readers with the exoticism of Egypt and to demonstrate her credibility for her ablility to get round in it.
Ok, we might say that demonstrations are important. Not that they seem to accomplish much. But. Demonstrations in egypt are not unknown, and they are usually small. the kifaya demonstrations were never more than a few hundred people. and the 6 april strike was regarded as a disappointment.
I happened to mention on facebook, which I hardly ever open, that I was writing a blog. (I guess I opened it while blogging to check something out, and I was then prompted to say what I was doing right then.) That promted immediate requests for the URL from those pals of mine in Egypt who always seem to be on. They seem to share my opinion.
Probably those closer to the facebook activism in Egypt would approve of Shapiro's piece more than those who are not. I would suspect that most of my friends are not, otherwise I would be constantly barraged with all sorts of invitations to join (as I did in the days before the april 6 strikes - a fine example of the cute cat principle). Not because they are not interested and active, they are. It's just that most are graduates and trying to earn a living. Some of them are in the media, and some in academia. They are aware and active, just in different ways than facebook (although they have facebook accounts).
i also think you are being a little harsh on the article and samantha.
and referencing:
'The frailties of the piece are legion. The first thing to annoy is the reporter’s gratuitous parroting of the tired old saw that Arab governments fan anti-Israeli sentiments amongst their people in order to deflect criticisms against themselves.'
it is true that the egyptian government is more pro-israel in its actions than its people would like. but it is also completely true that all state mechanisms throughout the arab world have a severe anti-israel rhetorical slant. whether the primary reason for this is to deflect the locals from the governments' corrupt uselessness doesn't take away from that.
Post a Comment