Middle Eastern NewsRot
Gannked from "silmaril" on Livejournal: Paramount may be building a new theme park. Location? Ankara, Turkey!
...they'll need programmers, right? :) I mean, that's like heaven -- work, lunchtime dance classes, after-work dance classes, weekends in Topkapi's clothing stashes...*sigh*
And now, I drink deeply of the Hateorade. My least-favorite Western Orentalist "historian", Bernard Lewis, is getting an award from the President. This is a guy who's conclusions I disliked prior to 9/11; I recall writing an early draft of my Middle Eastern Dance Overview cringing at inserting Lewis. I will give him credit, in that his work on slavery in the Middle East was the only extant work on the subject, at the time. So points for uniqueness, negative points for tacky analysis that felt like he only skimmed the surface of the research he was quoting, and refused to tackle the deeper realities.
But after 9/11, oh boy! He did little to raise the discourse on the Middle East, churning out book after book after the attacks that sold millions based upon supporting sterotypes of "Islamic folk". Those "scholarly works" helped sell so-called "conservatives" on the "Islamofascist" concept...and helped sell this government on the track to Iraq. Crooks and Liars covers Bernard's crappy ways well, as well as introducing me to a fellow crony in the "Race/Religion-Bating Incompetence" Brigade.We're trying so very, very hard to get beyond surface views of "the other"...and people like Lewis ensure that too many of my fellow Westerns will never, ever get past their own prejudicial views. He's pocked the money...but I daresay Lady MacLewis cannot wash the blood away.
...they'll need programmers, right? :) I mean, that's like heaven -- work, lunchtime dance classes, after-work dance classes, weekends in Topkapi's clothing stashes...*sigh*
And now, I drink deeply of the Hateorade. My least-favorite Western Orentalist "historian", Bernard Lewis, is getting an award from the President. This is a guy who's conclusions I disliked prior to 9/11; I recall writing an early draft of my Middle Eastern Dance Overview cringing at inserting Lewis. I will give him credit, in that his work on slavery in the Middle East was the only extant work on the subject, at the time. So points for uniqueness, negative points for tacky analysis that felt like he only skimmed the surface of the research he was quoting, and refused to tackle the deeper realities.
But after 9/11, oh boy! He did little to raise the discourse on the Middle East, churning out book after book after the attacks that sold millions based upon supporting sterotypes of "Islamic folk". Those "scholarly works" helped sell so-called "conservatives" on the "Islamofascist" concept...and helped sell this government on the track to Iraq. Crooks and Liars covers Bernard's crappy ways well, as well as introducing me to a fellow crony in the "Race/Religion-Bating Incompetence" Brigade.We're trying so very, very hard to get beyond surface views of "the other"...and people like Lewis ensure that too many of my fellow Westerns will never, ever get past their own prejudicial views. He's pocked the money...but I daresay Lady MacLewis cannot wash the blood away.
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