Category Archives: The Maghreb and the Middle East

University of Michigan’s Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com

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This is an interesting project, an effort to turn the cataloging of a distinct and unusual set of texts to the scholarly community as a whole.

The University of Michigan Special Collections Library needs help cataloguing its vast Islamic Manuscripts Collection.

But the library doesn’t plan to hire an expert. Instead, almost all of its 1,250 pieces are being scanned in-house to put the work on the Internet.

And the library hopes interested scholars will get involved…
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“It will be presented to the public in Wiki or blog-type interface, so people can comment on what they see. In that way, we hope we can get help from scholars all over the world in identifying the manuscripts and cataloguing them properly,” said Peggy Daub, director of Special Collections.

Read more about the project at this page: University of Michigan’s Islamic Manuscripts collection going online – AnnArbor.com.

(Thanks to Nancy Millichap)

Maths and science to be taught in English – The National Newspaper

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ABU DHABI–All pupils in state high schools will be taught maths and science in English by 2012, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) said yesterday.

At the launch of its 10-year strategic plan, Adec said it aimed to see pupils graduating with equal proficiency in English and Arabic.

In a concerted effort to turn out better qualified school-leavers, from this August the school day will also be extended by 90 minutes in all state high schools in the emirate. Pupils in all Abu Dhabi’s state schools will study for 10 extra days a year.

It follows the publication of results showing that only 13 per cent of applicants to federal universities scored enough in their English exams to bypass remedial courses.

via Maths and science to be taught in English – The National Newspaper.

Language of instruction is always a sensitive issue in the Arab  world for a number of reasons: practical, political and religious, among others.  Arabic is regarding by Muslims as a sacred language, the language in God revealed the Holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad, so for many it has a special status above all others.
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It also has a special status as an identity marker.  To speak Arabic was to resist colonial rule or cultural imperialism from the West.  And it is seen as a factor that unifies folks across the region beyond religious ties.  There are Muslim Arabs, there are Christian Arabs and their are even Arabic-speaking Jews.

Arabizing curricula is often a way of asserting a unique, independent identity.  That said, though, Arabization is quite controversial in places where there are minority populations that don’t speak Arabic as a native language.

English, on the other hand, is unquestionably the dominant world language at the moment and there is a certain practicality in acquiescing to that.

In terms of practicality, transforming the language of instruction is always difficult and some of the challenges are pointed out in this article.  Are teachers trained in one language capable of teaching a subject in another?  If you are changing a language of instruction, when do you do so?  Will the College student who was taught a subject in one language follow when they are taught in another?

It’s all very interesting.  I’ll be following how it goes.

Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians

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In a recent SF Gate Open Forum Post, Cyrus Farivar, a freelance technology journalist from California, looks at the ways in which technology has been used as a tool in the pro-democracy movement, official efforts to thrwart that, and technology developments that had made it more difficult for them to do so. He writes

But now that Iran has been experiencing turmoil surrounding its recent election, many Bay Area technology leaders finally realize the importance their technology and services can play in shaping world events. As foreign media have been kicked out of the country, information technology services suddenly have become a crucial tool to get and receive information from Iran.

Twitter famously received a call from the U.S. Department of State nearly two weeks ago asking the company to postpone its scheduled maintenance to suit those in Tehran’s time zone, rather than those on Pacific time.

Facebook recently added Persian language support for its iconic social networking site. Google took things to an entirely new level by launching its Persian version of Google translate, which allows for decent machine translation between English and Persian and vice versa. But why this newfound attention to the Persian language (and Iran) took so long remains a mystery. Google’s translation capability for Estonian even came online before Persian.

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So instead of superficial support, like Twitter users changing their avatars to green to support Iran’s reformist movement, Silicon Valley minds and money should pool resources as a way to help Iranians get around this information blockade by providing easier-to-use proxies, anonymizers and maybe even unfiltered Internet access through hardware.

Long-range Wi-Fi, 3G, satellite or other wireless communications devices from Iran’s neighboring countries or even the Persian Gulf could be used to get faster and better information in and out of Iran. One Arizona company, Space Data, even advertises the capability to use helium-filled balloons to provide Internet and mobile phone access. Much of Iran could theoretically be covered with one or two such balloons.

All of that may sound crazy, but not helping Iranian reformers at their darkest hour would be even crazier.

Read the whole article at: Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians, the San Francisco Chronicle.

Three Bloggers Arrested in Egypt on the Same Day

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Sometimes it’s dangerous to blog in Egypt.

Reporters Without Borders calls on the Egyptian authorities to explain why police arrested three bloggers – Abdel Rahman Ayyash, Magdi Saad and Ahmad Abu This not only spoils the fun and generic cialis excitement but also you lost pleasurable memory right there. Sildenafil Citrate and nitrate both http://www.tonysplate.com/Kitrics_Digital_Nutritional_Scale_Instruction_Manual.pdf pfizer viagra sales loosen up the blood vessels acquire stiff (arteriosclerosis), the proper blood transmission on the pennies is clogged. There are order tadalafil no prescription certain side effects of this drug too. DOSAGE OF cheap viagra pfizer TO BEAT IMPOTENCE The dosage of this particular ED medication, even the most common side effects of these medicines include headache, dizziness, nasal congestion, impaired vision, photophobia, and indigestion to name a few. Khalil – last week, two of them on their return from a trip abroad. All three were arrested on the same day, 21 July….

via Reporters Sans Frontières.

Meedan | Al-Jazeera bureau chief threatened in…

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has issued a statement condemning Yemen’s ‘harassment and denigration’ of Al Jazeera television, including a threatening telephone call to Sanaa bureau chief, Mourad Hashem, earlier this week.

RSF said that Al Jazeera has been branded by the authorities as the ‘enemy of a united Yemen’ because the channel covered unrest in the south of the country.
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“The authorities use and abuse defence of national unity to censor media that try to cover events in southern Yemen,” the press freedom organisation said in the release.

via Meedan | Al-Jazeera bureau chief threatened in….

Video Game Sales in the Middle East

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Here is an interesting post analyzing factors that may be impacting the sale of products such as XBox, Wii and PlayStation in the Middle East.

Video games are on the list of the most popular mainstream media, which makes up an important percentage of social activity for a considerable portion of youngsters worldwide. The Middle East region is no exception; video games are as popular in the region as it is anywhere else in the world despite the minimal support/focus of the major hardware players Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. Their lack of interest in the region – so far – keeps the doors open for piracy to nourish and dominate the regional video games industry. For instance, almost every Nintendo Wii in Saudi Arabia is modified with a special chip to allow the machine to play pirated games that cost 3$ to 8$ in comparison to the original games costing around $80 – $100 in the region – even higher than their prices in many western countries.

Among the factors considered, religious sensitivities, stereotyping, marketing strategies and the impact of piracy. He makes some good points. I would particularly like to see some of the locally produced games.

The offensive portrayal of Arabs in some Western video games has triggered local Arab production companies to come up with their own version of video games to protect their identity and perspective of the state of affairs of the regional conflicts. Afkar Media, a Syrian company, has already produced different games with nationalism streak: Under Ash, a political game that tells the story of the first intifada from the Palestinian perspective. Under Siege, is another political game that tells the story of a Palestinian family and their struggle during the second intifada (1999-2002). Quraish, the first Arabic 3D real strategy game (RTS), tracks the origins of Islam in the desert of Arabic 590 A.C.

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My Computer and War in Africa

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It takes a lot of seimi-precious metal to make up the portable electronics devices we treat as throw away, and much of it comes from the more war torn corners of our planet. So this article from Time Magazine was food for thought.

When the film Blood Diamond came out in 2006, people were startled at the alleged origins of the precious stones from areas of bloody conflict and began asking whether the jewels on their fingers cost a human life. Will consumers soon find themselves asking similar questions about their cell phones and computers?

In a report released earlier this week, Global Witness claims that multinational companies are furthering a trade in minerals at the heart of the hi-tech industry that feeds the horrendous civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). (Global Witness is the same nongovernmental organization that helped expose the violence that plagues many of the sources of diamonds.) However, the accused companies, with varying degrees of hostility, deny any culpability, saying Global Witness oversimplifies a complex economic process in a chaotic geopolitial setting.
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The provinces of North and South Kivu in the eastern DRC are filled with mines of cassiterite, wolframite, coltan and gold – minerals needed to manufacture everything from lightbulbs to laptops, from MP3 players to Playstations. Over the past 12 years of armed conflict in the region, control of these valuable natural resources has allegedly become a lucrative way for warring parties to purchase munitions and fund their fighting. The Global Witness report claims to have followed the supply chain of these minerals from warring parties to middlemen to international buyers.

Read more in the piece by Elizabeth Dias, on Time.com. The Global Witness report, Faced with a Gun, What Can You Do? is also available online.

Artist-to-Artist International 2009 Invites Artists from the North Africa and the Middle East

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Visiting Arts in partnership with The Delfina Foundation is pleased to announce Artist-to-Artist International 2009. The 2009 scheme will have a specific geographic focus by inviting artists from across the Middle East and North Africa.

The programme provides an opportunity to bring together artists to initiate dialogues across international borders, enabling pairs of artists to enter into new working relationships on an open-ended and informal basis. Professional, practising UK based artists can apply to invite an artist of their choice, from the below prioritised countries, to visit them in the UK for one week.
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Follow the link for more information, including application information.