culture

Saudi Arabia's "Miss Camel" contestants accused of fame seeking

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:35:00 +0100

Saudi Arabia will crown its most beautiful camel on Thursday. But what was once a local custom for desert-based camel breeders, has transformed into a money-driven competition for city-based business owners, turning beautiful camels into goldmines, and the businessmen into celebrities.

With 180 human participants, the King Abdel Aziz Festival is the most important meeting of its kind in the Arab world. Launched ten years ago, the prizes have spiralled year on year. This time around, the contest will give away the value of 70 million Saudi riyals (14 million euros) - essentially in cars - to the winners of categories 1, 30, 50 and 100 camels.

Camels line up for inspection in front of the jury. Video posted on YouTube by "r3000m" Feb 11, 2010.

Traditional pearl diving in the Gulf is making a comeback

Nicolas F24 — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:17:48 +0100

Picture: Mohammad al-Saleh, posted on Flickr, July 31 2008.

Due to the dominance of oil, diving for pearls as an industry was left by the wayside, but in recent years this traditional skill has been making a comeback. Our Kuwaiti observer takes us off shore with these treasure hunters.

Historically, the best natural pearls come from the Persian Gulf, particularly Bahrain. The pearls from this region have an exceptional sheen thanks to the mixture of salty and sweet waters in the Gulf.

But at the beginning of the 20th century, the discovery of huge oilfields in the Gulf and the competition from Japan's oyster farms put an end to this traditional industry.

However, over the past few years, several Gulf countries have been trying to revive the tradition. Qatar celebrates this activity during a special cultural week every year, while Kuwait inaugurated the Pearl Diving Festival, which aims to recreate the traditional pearl divers routes. Bahrain has now prohibited the import of farmed pearls and lodged an appeal Wednesday at Unesco for pearl diving to be protected.

Hummus, another cause for war in the Middle East

Team Observers — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:19:03 +0200

Published on Flickr on January 29, 2008 by hazy jenius.

Lebanon is accusing Israel of usurping its most precious culinary specialties. It intends to create a geographical label to identify ‘authentic’ Lebanese cuisine. To further stress its point, Lebanon also intends to beat the largest hummus dish world record, currently held by Israel…

Lebanon and Israel have officially been at war for 60 years. Over the past few months the neighbouring countries seem to have found a new subject to bicker about: food.

It all started on a local TV show last October when Lebanese industrialists complained about the commercialisation of star Lebanese dishes such as hummus under the label “Israeli cuisine” in western stores. The president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association, Fadi Abboud, filed a registration request for the creation of an EU label for authentic ‘Lebanese’ dishes.

Authentic hummus is a chickpea purée with sesame cream (tahini) seasoned with garlic, lemon and olive oil. It is one of the best-known and -loved Lebanese “mezze” (appetizers). Its popularity has spread to Israel, where the best hummus makers of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem reach movie-star fame.

Top hummus makers in Israel. Published on YouTube by elahnz , on April 8, 2009.

But hummus is also big business. Lebanese industrialists are mainly concerned about the loss of market share in the face of foreign produce, which they estimate at around one billion dollars a year.

In an increasingly competitive market, Israelis are coming up with ever-more-creative solutions. Paprika, onions, olives, basil and sun-dried tomatoes are among the new flavours which are added to the original recipe, much to the horror of hummus purists.

In 2007 Israeli scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem even published a study proving that hummus boosts physical growth, diminishes aggressiveness and is a good anti-depressant.

Israelis made the world’s largest plate of hummus in 2008: a 400 kg plate, four metres wide, at the Mahaneh Yehudat market in Jerusalem. Lebanese hummus makers intend to break that record on October 24 in Beirut’s Saifi marketplace. Originally published on The Hummus Blog.

Is Farouk Hosni worthy of leading UNESCO?

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:43:00 +0200

Posted on the Facebook group "Farouk Hosni NO for UNESCO"

UNESCO will choose its new general director this evening. It's Farouk Hosni, Egyptian Culture Minister since 1986, who looks set to succeed Koïchiro Matsuura at the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. But will the man who pledged to "burn" Israeli books really fit the bill?

Hosni's anti-Semitic accusations weigh heavily on his chances for the appointment. Last year for example, he responded to a query about Israeli books appearing in an Alexandria library by saying "Burn these books; if there are any there, I will burn them myself in front of you".

They are declarations which Hosni now regrets saying. Writing in French newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday, he expressed "solemn regret" but asked his critics to "focus on the 27 years of public service devoted to culture, (...) mankind, creation, The Book and books in general".

We asked our respective Egyptian and Israeli Observers if UNESCO should have looked elsewhere.

Japan’s new hit: "Mein Kampf", Manga-style

Team Observers — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:46:45 +0200

A Japanese publishing firm has re-edited a translation of Adolf Hitler’s ideological pamphlet, first published in 1924. But this edition has a new twist: it’s a manga-style comic. It’s made quite a splash in Japanese bookshops.

"Mein Kampf" is the latest publication in a collection of historical comic books called "Manga de Dokuha" ("Learn with mangas") edited by the publishing firm East Press. The collection already includes manga versions of Karl Marx’s "Capital" and Tolstoy’s "War and Peace". These revamped classics usually sell around 35,000 copies nationwide.

The publishing rights for “Mein Kampf” have until now been held by the German region of Bavaria, which decided which firms were authorised to publish new editions of the text. But the copyright will expire in 2015 and the pamphlet will enter the public domain.

East Press explains that the manga is a "tool to study Hitler’s personality", to "understand the thoughts that generated such a tragedy".

No library near you? Luis’s donkeys will bring one

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:33:33 +0200

Photo : Diana Arias. Posted on the blog elbiblioburro.

Luis Soriano, an unemployed Colombian schoolteacher, spreads knowledge and literature to places where no librarian has ever set foot. He brings his books by donkeys to Colombia’s poorest and most isolated provinces.

After loading his donkeys back with books, Luis Soriano criss-crosses the desolate Nabusimake Valley in Colombia’s Magdalena province. To achieve his goal of giving peasant families and their children something to read, he invented “Biblioburros” (Library-donkeys), mobile libraries carried on the steep and narrow paths in the region on sturdy donkeys. Luis’s territory is also that of armed rebel groups but, according to him, the media coverage his initiative has received has meant that he is relatively safe from attacks.

The idea occurred to Luis in 1998 when he lost his job as a school teacher in the city of La Gloria. Although he came from a poor family, he owned one of the largest private collections of books in the country. He decided to share his ‘wealth’ with those who had never had access to a book in their life. After buying his first donkey, Alpha, he set off on his country’s least-travelled paths.

With the help of several NGOs and private businesses, Luis expanded his travelling library to 22 “Biblioburros”, led by a team of volunteers. His initiative reaches well beyond his home province. His sudden fame notwithstanding, Luis continues to cover eight country schools near his hometown himself.

“Punk’s not dead, it’s just under police surveillance”

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:10:56 +0200

One of our Observers in Russia, blogger Sean Guillory, has made us aware of an unusual addition to the country's "extremist" list. The authorities have added none other than, punks, to their blacklist.

Sean Guillory, a graduate student at UCLA (California) is writing his dissertation on the Young Communist League in NEP Russia.

Russian authorities just keep stretching and stretching the meaning of extremism. Now the list of extremists will include a variety of youth subcultures extending from skinheads to fans of the iconic Soviet rock band Kino. This is according to a report released by the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office which places music fans under police surveillance. From the St. Petersburg Times:

The district's criminal police have identified and included on a register 88 people who attribute themselves to informal entities such as ‘Skinheads,' ‘Aggressive Football Fans,' ‘Punks,' ‘Emos,' ‘Black Metallers,' ‘Fans of Kino,' ‘Alternative Rock Fans,' ‘Anarchists' and others'. Kino was a local 1980s pop-rock band influenced by The Cure and Duran Duran, and is still popular with young people in Russia, though it split up when its front man and sole songwriter Viktor Tsoi died in a car crash in 1991. Plans to erect an official monument to Tsoi are underway in the city.

The report said that apart from the criminal police, "this work" is also conducted by neighbourhood police inspectors and juvenile police departments. Once exposed and registered, the music fans and members of the other "informal entities" are the subject of "preventive work" conducted by the district's police officers, the district's administration officials and educational institution staff to "prevent crimes, including those of an extremist nature.

Wonderful. But far from anything new. A list of ‘ideologically harmful' music was concocted by the Komsomol in the 1980s. It didn't work then and it sure as hell isn't going to work now. One would think the St. Petersburg police have better things to do with their time.

And they say punk is dead. Nah, it's just under police surveillance."

Good behaviour guide for U.S. soldiers

Ségolène Team Observers — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:12:44 +0100

American soldiers can now get closer to their Iraqi and Afghani neighbours before their feet hit the ground. With virtual teachers, soldiers learn the lingo and the local customs at the same time... in a virtual game..

When the US Army touched down in Afghanistan in 2002, they barely spoke anything but English. When villagers ran into the streets, the soldiers, unable to communicate, couldn't work out if they were friend or foe. It was as the situation unravelled that a Californian defence professor came up with the idea of launching a "tactical language" programme www.tacticallanguage.com. Now, soldiers are briefed by their virtual counterparts in Arabic, Pashto or Dari, and given a few hints on how to follow the local customs and avoid cultural boo-boos. Former soldiers in Iraq tell us why the training isn't to be laughed at.

Le Clézio's Nobel prize – so French culture isn't dead after all!

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:21:19 +0200

Le Clézio during a trip to Guadeloupe in October 2007. Posted on Flickr by "Le crédit voyage".

French writer Jean-Marie Le Clézio has just received the Nobel Prize for Literature. For blogger Guillaume Thouroude, the award is proof that despite "American sniggers", French culture is not dead after all.

"Phoque" or "fuck" - when it comes to culture, Canadians don’t speak the same language

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:44:01 +0200

Language gaps and cultural misunderstandings are an integral part of daily life for Canadians dealing with their fellow countrymen from the other side of the French - British divide. This rather amusing sketch about the issue is also a serious warning about the future of Canadian culture, which according to the clip, faces near-extinction.

Under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Canadian government has cut 45 million euros worth of funding for cultural programmes over the past six months. Around fifteen programmes, considered out-dated or misused, have been axed. The latest blow came on 8 August when it was announced that two major funds would be withdrawn, leaving the cultural scene in Canada looking fragile.

However, investing in culture is a lucrative business. At least that's the message a group of Canadian celebrities are trying to get across. Since singer Michel Rivard, comedian Benoit Brière and humorist Stéphane Rousseau posted this video on YouTube 19 September, its been watched almost a million times.

The film tackles the great linguistic divide in Canada, something that both sides, despite frustrations, find rather funny. The video is a massive online hit, and arrives in time for the 14 October national party elections. Our Canadian Observers react to the sketch.

Posted on YouTube on an account called "Culture en péril" (culture in peril), and translated by "Tupperfan".