Culture Wars Watch: Turkish Deputy PM on Protester in Bikini

What is it about Islamists and bikinis? Well, I mean, I know the answer, basically, but why would the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey (Mediterranean beaches, Aegean beaches, Black Sea beaches, big tourism sector) get tied in knots over a woman protester in Taksim wearing a bikini? They're not unknown on any of those beaches, last I heard.

The Culprit (Hürriyet Daily News)

Oh, I know that beachwear in countries with a big tourist sector is expected to be quite different from daily dress in downtown urban areas. If a tourist in Egypt from the beaches of Sharm al-Sheikh or Hurghada showed up in downtown Cairo, many Salafi heads would explode. (Make up your own minds whether that's a bad thing.) But as Hürriyet Daily News informs us: "Turkish Deputy PM says he could barely “restrain” himself from speaking out on bikini woman.":

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said he was “barely restraining” himself from saying certain things about the recent protests in Taksim where a woman danced around in her bikinis until police forces detained her, slamming the woman for believing “nudity is freedom.”

“We have a misunderstanding of freedom in a way that we see it as letting everyone on to the streets and stripping naked. Like in Taksim, recently, a woman came out eventually, and excuse me for saying this, just stripped off all her clothes, starting to dance in her underwear. Supposedly she came from Switzerland, and supposedly she brought freedom to Turkey. I can barely restrain myself from saying something,”

Either Mr. Arınç or his translator raises some questions here: "danced around in her bikinis": how many was she wearing exactly? She "just stripped off all her clothes, starting to dance in her underwear." Well, it wasn't all her clothes if she was wearing "underwear" or, apparently, a bathing suit. But the biggest question about his phrasing is: "I can barely restrain myself from saying something." Um, you didn't restrain yourself. You just said something to the Turkish national media and I'm blogging it over here in the US, OK?

Egypt's Syria Break and the MB's New Anti-Shi‘a Rhetoric

Egypt's break with Syria over the weekend followed almost immediately after a meeting of senor Islamists with President Morsi in which the Islamists, particularly well-known preacher and senior Muslim Brotherhood adviser Yusuf al-Qaradawi called for "jihad" against the Asad regime. The Syrian conflict has increasingly been a subject of Qaradawi's statements; his anti-Shi‘ite rhetoric has become more pronounced lately, and on his website he has published congratulations from the Saudi Crown Prince for his stance. Once an advocate of Sunni-Shi‘i cooperation, he has become more and more confrontational; the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole has endorsed similar rhetoric, always having been rather suspicious of Shi‘ism.

The new anti-Syria rhetoric, combined with the recent tough talk about Ethiopia's dam project, may be intended to provide external enemies to rally support at a time of domestic dissent. Most recently Morsi's appointment of new governors for the provinces raised eyebrows when the new governor of Luxor turned out to be a member of al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya, the group that staged the 1997 attack on tourists at Luxor. Al-Gama‘a al-Islamiyya has since renounced violence, but critics fear an impact on the already badly hit tourism sector.

But rhetoric aimed at Ethiopia and Syria at the same time could prove risky, and raises new questions about Morsi's (and the FJP Party's and its Brotherhood sponsors') foreign policy positions.

Jihadi On Egyptian TV: Destroy the Pyramids and Sphinx

I try. I really do. When the media was reporting that the Egyptian Parliament was considering a law that might permit necrophilia, I debunked, I think, fairly effectively, I think. And when there were reports the Salafis were threatening to encase the pyramids in wax, I tried to talk people down by noting that President Morsi went to Karnak to reassure tourists. But I overlooked the fact that, no matter how I may try to persuade people that Islamists are not all, necessarily, out to destroy civilization,  there will always be, somewhere, someplace, sometime, some complete unmitigated lunatic who will go on TV and say something so utterly outrageous that all I can do is report it.

Murgan Salim al-Gohary is a complete raving absolute batshit-crazy f*cking lunatic self-described Jihadi and ally of the Taliban, who, as the Egypt Independent describes it:

Gohary, 50, is well-known in Egypt for his advocacy of violence. He was sentenced twice under former President Hosni Mubarak, one of the two sentences being life imprisonment. He subsequently fled Egypt to Afghanistan, where he was badly injured in the American invasion. In 2007, he traveled from Pakistan to Syria, which then handed him over to Egypt. After Mubarak's fall in early 2011, he was released from prison by a judicial ruling.

“All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues,” he said.

Charming chap. He lists the Buddhas of Bamiyan on his resume. Can't UNESCO drop a SEAL team in and spirit him off to the International Criminal Court? (If UNESCO doesn't have special operations forces, can we propose some?) He did this on an Egyptian talk show and drew a comment from a former Founder of Tunisia's al-Nahda movement, Abdelfattah Mourou,  who was rather taken aback;

The vice president of Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro, called the station and told Gohary that famous military commander Amr ibn al-Aas [conaqueror of Egypt, companion of the Prophet Muhammad]  did not destroy statues when he conquered Egypt.  “So who are you to do it?” he wondered. “The Prophet destroyed the idols because people worshiped them, but the Sphinx and the Pyramids are not worshiped.”

Gohary responded that the conquerors lacked modern explosives technology.

Now, a lot of secular Egyptians actually love this sort of thing because it embarrasses the Muslim Brotherhood (and personally I don't mind them being embarrassed by their supposed fellow-Islamists), but Morsi has been careful to protect and defend the entire tourist industry, as his visit to Karnak showed. But he has not been quick to denounce the crazies spewing this kind of anti-cultural and anti-historical venom.

And while most Egyptians and most informed outsiders realize this guy is an outlier on the most outlying fringe, and he's not going to damage the pyramids without nuclear weapons, recent events in Timbuktu and at Sufi shrines across North Africa remind us that crazies can destroy heritage even if they don't have the power of the Taliban at Bamiyan,  And the sphinx has already lost its nose. (And maybe a couple of other things?)

As an Editor and Publisher I am as strong a free speech advocate as there can be, but this is not just "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater". this incitement to destroying a major part of the world's heritage. And what do you do with violent, inciting lunatics? Egypt seems to be following the US approach: "put them on TV talk shows." It may be time to rethink that.

For those of you who know Arabic, here's the original from Egypt's Dream TV2, though posted to YouTube by a Christian group:



Egyptian blogger Zeinobia lampooned the whole thing, and then when readers denounced her for calling attention to it, responded in defense. After all, story had been picked up by CNN, al-Arabiya, and many other international media. Zeinobia wasn't embarrassing Egypt before the world: Gohary had already done that.

Zeinobia did post a couple of cartoons worth reproducing here:

The sphinx has grown a beard and picked up some prayer beads in self defense:

And the sphinx expresses a (not very polite but utterly appropriate) response to the whole idea:

And since that is already a mite in bad taste, let me suggest that Mr. Gohary should perhaps not subscribe to the Facebook site Vuestra Experiencia in Egipto, which sent out this photo of a statue of Osiris today.  (Warning: Definitely Not Safe For Work. The statue is of an erect Osiris, and by that I do not mean it's simply not prone, if you get my meaning. [If you're familiar with the Isis/Osiris legend, I'm referring to the part that was eaten by the fish.] I suspect Mr. Gohary would not approve. Don't click if you are easily offended.)

Dubai Now, Building a Bigger Taj Mahal; and Dubai Then (1907)

You've probably already heard this elsewhere, but what do you do when you already have the world's tallest building and the Persian Gulf's first indoor ski slope? Well, Dubai's next project is to build a replica of the Taj Mahal as a hotel and wedding destination. It will be called Taj Arabia. But wait for it — this is Dubai, after all — it will be four times the size of the one in Agra. It will also cost $1.2 billion or thereabouts. Shows you what Shah Jahan could have done if he'd had money.

Why? I don't really know. Maybe because they didn't have one yet?

Just for the hell of it I thought I'd remind everyone that a century ago Dubai was a very different sort of place. I've talked about Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf before, and here's "Dibai Town" as he calls it, in Volume IIA, pp. 454-456 as it was around 1907:

Morsi Goes to Karnak: Is There a Real Salafi Threat to Antiquities?

Last Friday Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi visited the Temple of Karnak at Luxor, meeting with tourists there to reassure them that his administration intends to promote and encourage tourism. Lately tourism has been down and tour guides are nervous about Islamist intentions and attitudes towards tourists and the antiquities they come to see.

The visit of the Muslim Brotherhood President to a temple built to the god Amon-Ra is probably not going to sit very well with some of the more extreme Salafi groups in Egypt, but this and another recent flap raise once again the question of the attitude of extreme Salafis to antiquities. While the mainstream movements in Egypt, the Brotherhood and the more extreme Nour Party, insist they intend no harm to Egypt's heritage, their opponents in Egypt and elsewhere point to what has been happening recently in Timbuktu, and memories of the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, both of which instances show that extreme Salafis can indeed seek to destroy antiquities, even, in the case of Timbuktu, Islamic antiquities.

Egypt is not Afghanistan or Mali, and while there are some lunatic fringe Salafis in Egypt as elsewhere, Egyptian Islamists have sought to distance themselves from such ideas, though secularists in Egypt are quick to publicize the most extreme statements, leading to media frenzies like the "Egypt necrophilia law" story we analyzed previously, where an outrageous statement by a Moroccan Salafi was turned by the media into a story about the Egyptian Parliament allegedly considering legislation on the subject. Another such flap occurred last month, when a couple of parody Twitter accounts poking fun at a Saudi and an Emirati sheikh posted tweets urging President Morsi to destroy the Pyramids. Though the media caught on fairly early — the Daily News Egypt proclaiming it a "hoax" (though more properly it was mistaking a parody for the real thing), and even the New York Times headlined that "Contrary to Gossip, the Pyramids have no date with the Wrecking Ball." The fact that, in the absence of nuclear weapons, destroying the pyramids would be almost as formidable a task as building them, should have served as a clue. But the "Islamists want to destroy the Pyramids" theme got picked up by tabloids, Islamophobic websites, and secularist Middle Easterners who seek any alarmist story to discredit Islamists. Even after the media debunked the story, some on the right were clinging to it.

Secular Egyptians have made much of some of the crazier statements made by Salafis. This cartoon was making the rounds on Facebook a few weeks back;

Though the "destroy the pyramids" story greatly exaggerated what real Salafis have said and done, the theme (and the cartoon) reflect and play upon a real incident that occurred during the Parliamentary elections last fall. At a rally in Alexandria for the outspoken and extreme Nour Party candidate Abdel Moneim al-Shahat, party banners were used to cover a fountain bedecked with mermaids whose dress was deemed inappropriate for a Salafi rally:

Al-Masry Al-Youm

Now, you will note that these particular mermaids (neo-Classical, not Pharaonic, by the way) are not dressed like Disney's Little Mermaid with clamshell bras. Shahat would probably be uncomfortable with that, too, since he had pledged to ban bikinis, but apparently bare-breasted mermaids was considered too much for his followers to be subjected to. (Why they chose to rally near a fountain with mermaids has never been explained.) The mermaid incident drew a lot of comment and, recognizing bad publicity when it saw it, Shahat's own Nour Party distanced itself from the whole thing, saying that it was investigating, that this did not represent the party's policy:

 “We have never done such a thing in 40 years; it tarnishes our image,” said party spokesman Yousry Hammad, adding that someone could have acted on his own and covered it.
“All party leaders have denounced the act ,” he said. “He who did it will be punished.”

Shahat's other great contribution to this debate was a suggestion that, since Pharaonic statues are idols, their faces should be covered with wax. Apparently he considered this a moderate proposal since it would preserve them from destruction, just conceal their faces from the view of believers. (And, if the suggestion was not objectionable enough, the Daily Mail, reliably sensationalizing as is its style, turned this into a suggestion that the Pyramids be covered in wax. (That would take a lot of wax. And wouldn't it melt in an Egyptian summer?)

Now, here's the point: Shahat's antics were widely publicized, and he lost the election. Nobody in authority wants to cover anything in wax, and even the Nour Party says it's not going to run around putting bras on fountains.

The fact that there is no imminent threat to the pyramids does not mean that one should dismiss the real threats that have been realized in Bamiyan and Timbuktu. In Egypt as elsewhere, there are extremists who might, if they ever gained a following, destroy antiquities. Guarding against that is important, but imaginary panics about destroying the pyramids are an overreaction.

Ironically, within a day of the cartoon reproduced above showing up, the Facebook group Civilizarion of Ancient Egypt posted this classic group from the Egyptian museum:

That's the Pharaoh Menkaure (Mycerinus) of the Fourth Dynasty, builder of the third Giza Pyramid, flanked by the goddess Hathor and the local goddess where the basalt monument was found. Like many other works of Egyptian art, it is a masterpiece, some 4500 years old. It is one of Egypt's treasures, though I have no doubt some Egyptians would want to cover it up. But there is no imminent likelihood of that.

Violence in Tunisia Began with Art Exhibit, Then Spread

Tunisia is reeling from a wave of clashes Monday night in the elite seaside community of La Marsa and several other parts of the capital, as well as elsewhere in the country. What began as a protest over an art exhibit which Salafis characterized as un-Islamic has turned into open conflict between apparent Salafis (though he organized movements deny involvement) and the police. Though shots have been fired, apparently with rubber bullets and teargas used, no one has ben killed, though many have been treated in hospitals, and a curfew was imposed in eight governorates. The police stations in La Marsa and other parts of the country have been attacked and ransacked., The US Embassy has issued a warning about the violence in La Marsa, Sidi Bou Said, Carthage and Gammarth, all seaside areas popular with tourists. (Full disclosure: I took my honeymoon in Sidi Bou Said.)

The building tensions over the Printemps des Arts fair at a gallery in La Marsa first led to confrontations and then to a direct attack on the gallery and the destruction of some of the artworks.

Tunisia has generally won praise as a successful transition, but growing violence from radical Salafis in one of the most secularized of Arab countries is increasingly causing concern, Cultural issues increasingly seem to be the battleground, and the attack on the Printemps des Arts Fair was reportedly organized using Facebook and other social media.

Egypt State TV Suspends Anti-Foreigner Ads

Egyptian State TV has suspended (apparently not "pulled" for good as some are reporting) two public service announcements that had raised controversy by warning young Egyptians against associating with foreigners who, it suggests, are probably spies. The ads struck many as an odd approach for a country depended on tourism as a major source of revenue, though they seem to play into the theme of blaming the revolution on foreign agents and plots. The public service announcements are still appearing on some private channels.

The two ads are in the tradition of "loose lips sink ships"-type propaganda; the first warns against talking with foreigners, the second against interacting with then online.  Being introduced just a week before the Presidential election runoff adds to the curious questions.  Even if you don't understand any Arabic, I think the messages comes across:

Minya Hoping Tourists Return to Amarna

Minya Montage (Wikipedia)

Reuters has a piece, "Egypt Province Hopes Vote Will End its Isolation," about the Middle Egyptian city and Governorate of Minya. While I doubt that the Presidential election results will directly resuscitate tourism in Minya, a return to something like normal life in Egypt may well do so.

Though I suspect a lot of non-Egypt-hands have never heard of Minya, it is a major city and university town and has been a center of radical Islamist politics; during the violence between Al-Gamalsquo;a al-Islamiyya and the state in the 1990s it was a center of frequent clashes. As a region with a high Coptic population as well as a  hotbed of Islamism, sectarian conflicts have been frequent.

As the article notes, Minya used to be a stop for tourist cruises going up the Nile, and the base for visits to the ruins of Tell El Amarna, the ancient capital (Akhetaten)  of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten. Amarna is of course one of the key archaeological sites in Egypt,though less visited than Luxor, Aswan, and the Pyramids around Cairo.

Akhenaten

Since Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti are rather famous for his religious innovations and her famous bust, and he is the predecessor and usually presumed to be the father of Tutankhamen, one of the few Pharaohs most tourists have heard of,Amarna should probably be a more frequented site than it was even before the troubles of the 1990s killed the limited tourist trade that existed.

Shades of Carrie Nation: The Salafi War on Liquor Stores and Bars in Tunisia.

Steve Inskeep at NPR is on a "Revolutionary Road Trip" across North Africa, and in his report "Once Tolerated, Alcohol Now Creates Rift in Tunisia." he tells this story of a hotel where he stopped:

Over dinner in the hotel restaurant, one of my traveling companions ordered a beer, only to have a staff member in his red blazer inform us sadly that the hotel did not serve alcohol. Later, the staff member whispered more of the story: If we had only arrived sooner, he would have been able to serve the beer.

A few days before our visit, he said, conservative religious activists came to the hotel and objected to the serving of alcohol, particularly on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Tunisia has long cultivated a variety of decent wines, and brews a decent French-style beer called Celtia; its tourist industry is  major currency earner,  Though the Ixlamist Al-Nahda Party has a plurality in Parliament, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has insisted that there'll be no banning of the "booze and bikinis" being targeted in other countries. Well, the government isn't banning anything. Alcohol is still very much fully legal in Tunisia.. But as the anecdote above shows, some Islamists — the hardcore Salafis, not Al-Nahda, at least so far — are resorting to bullying, as in this story, or worse, smashing up and burning liquor stores and bars.

In recent weeks, radical Salafis have attacked establishments selling liquor in several places. On May 19 there was an organized attack on bars and liquor stores in Sidi Bouzid, where the Revolution was first sparked. Police were apparently passive, but after things got out of hand, the Justice Minister warned of harsh consequences.

Those who attacked liquor stores crossed the “red lines,” according to the minister. Bhiri said that there can be no “state within a state” and the culprits would be severely punished.
The statement came in response to the Salafist assault on bars as well as the house of a bar owner on Saturday (May 19^th) night, which resulted in an armed melee. The owner of the bar retaliated by firing on the Al-Rahma Mosque.

It sounds as if the barkeep might have been sampling his own product. Then in the northwestern town of Jendouba, sc3ne of confrontations over the wearing of niqab at the local university, masked "Salafis" attacked and burned bars, and also the police station for good measure,  There was some dispute about the identity of the attackers:

The perpetrators themselves, as well as the Jendouba residents, defined these individuals as  ”Salafists,” but Achraf believes that this may not entirely be the case. In his eyes, the wrongdoers described themselves as religiously conservative Salafists solely as a pretext to justify their actions. “These people pretend to be Salafist, but they used to be thugs. The people of Jendouba know them really well,” he asserted.

Though the government is pledging to stop such attacks, the NPR anecdote suggests many establishments are going dry out of fear.

Carrie Nation & Hatchet

Shades of Carrie Nation. The Salafis, and perhaps others of my overseas readers, may not be familiar with the singular career of Ms. Nation 1846-1911), an American temperance crusader whose formidable visage, and emblematic hatchet, appear at left. Wikipedia explains the origin of the hatchet and her attacks on saloons at the turn of the last century:

Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita her husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you."^[2] The couple divorced in 1901, not having had any children.^[9]
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women she would march into a bar, and sing and pray while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet. Her actions often did not include other people, just herself. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested some 30 times for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.^[10] In April 1901 Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in Downtown Kansas City.^[11] She was arrested, hauled into court and fined $500 ($13,400 in 2011 dollars),^[12] although the judge suspended the fine so long as Nation never returned to Kansas City.^[13]

Carrie Nation, proto-Salafi?

UPDATE: I missed this post on thr Kefteji blog about the sort of down-market (what in Egypt would be called baladi) bars and liquor stores, which aren't what tourists would see on Avenue Bourguiba. Definitely read it. I hadn't seen it yet, though we seem to have used the same picture of Celtia.

Tunisia Seeks to Restore Tourism, Reassure Beachgoers, Jewish Pilgrims

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has told a conference on tourism in Djerba that the new Tunisian government, though Jebali's own Al-Nahda Party is the largest party, it intends to continue to encourage tourism to Tunisia's beaches and other destinations:

"We will respect the traditions of our visitors in their food, and clothing and lifestyle," Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said at a conference to promote tourism held on the island of Djerba, known for its white sandy beaches and luxury spas.

Though the news story refers inaccurately to the "Islamist government" (Nahda lacks a majority), it also notes:

As if to reinforce his message, a wide selection of alcoholic beverages was on offer at the opening ceremony of the tourism conference on Sunday night.

I guess that's what he means when he refers to "their food." Anyway, it's been clear all along that Tunisia was not — whatever its hardcore Salafis might prefer — about to pursue the bans on "booze and bikinis" Islamists in Egypt keep discussing.

Tunisia, like the whole region since the "Arab Spring," has suffered from a decline in tourism, and is trying to get out the message that the beaches are open and welcoming. This from the Tunisia Tourist Board Site:

The Tunisia Tourism Board is On Message

They seem to be having some success: earlier this month the first cruise liner of the season docked at La Goulette outside Tunis.

Some may recall that last year Tunisia stirred controversy over what many thought were overly suggestive ads on the sides of London buses, such as this one:
That may indeed have raised some eyebrows, but it also got a lot of attention for Tunisia, and made its point.

Another tourism element the new government appears intent on holding on to is the international Jewish tourism/pilgrimage trade to the medieval synagogue on the island Djerba. This, too, is being continued and encouraged by the government. Djerba, where the tourism promotion conference was held, is known for both the ancient synagogue and its beaches.

Moroccan Belly Dance Festival With Israelis Provokes Islamist and Political Complaints

Just the other day I was joking about an "emerging Islamist/belly dancer axis," after several incidents involving Islamists and belly dancers. But things are quite different in Morocco. There are Islamist complaints, and also political complaints, about the "Mediterranean Delight International Belly Dance Festival" in Marrakech in May. The festival has apparently been around for several years, but even in Morocco an Islamist party, the PJD, is now leading the government, and many Islamists object to belly dancing on moral grounds.

But there's another element in this case. At least two of the key participants featured on the website (one female, one male) are Israelis. Now, Israelis actually visit Morocco regularly, both in official capacities and as tourists; the two countries have a de facto equivalent of relations even if not formal. (Their security services have also been known to work together, but that's a tale for another time.) In fact, the Israelis involved in this — one of them is apparently one of the organizers — also participated in last year's event, and perhaps earlier ones as well. So what's the big deal?

I suspect it's that somebody noticed, setting off both political critics of the modus vivendi with Israel, and Islamists, who object both to Israelis and to belly dancing and thus doubly to Israeli belly dancers.

Here's an Arab view of the issue from Al-Arabiya, and to balance that a report from the Jerusalem Post offering the Israeli reaction and also noting that an Israeli diplomat was recently hustled out of Morocco as soon as his meetings ended, and a Jewish man was recently killed in Fez, possibly due to his identity. So there's a serious side to this, and a potential threat to Moroccan-Israeli (unofficial) relations.

And there do seem to be some issues here that may have inflamed opinions more than were strictly necessary. For instance, if you go to the entrance page for the festival's website, you'll find buttons to take you to pages in no fewer than eight languages: English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Hebrew and Japanese. Do you notice anything missing? Yes, though Morocco is an Arab country, there's no page in Arabic, though there is one in Hebrew. That seems undiplomatic, to say the least.

The frieze of international flags does include Egypt, Morocco and Turkey along with Israel, but there's no page in Arabic. Here's the English site and here's the Hebrew.

Now, I'm not trying to suggest this is the most important issue in Morocco at the moment; it's a distraction and a bit frivolous; whether one festival is held or not doesn't matter much given the problems the region, including Morocco, face. But it's a reminder that these cultural flashpoints, like the "booze and bikinis" debate over tourism in Egypt, are going to be an issue as political Islamists test their strength. Even so Westernized a country as Morocco is not immune, and the tourism industry may well be affected. Admittedly, it's easy to make too much of this, but it's the Islamists who are bringing it up, though it draws attention because it gives the media an excuse to show pictures of bikinis or belly dancers.

No such sensationalism here, of course, though I do have a duty to demonstrate that there is in fact a precedent for these Israeli belly dancers appearing in Morocco. Here's Simona Guzman, who's quoted in the Jerusalem Post article and who is apparently an organizer of the festival as well, performing at last year's Mediterranean Delight Festival in Marrakech:

Libya: Still Time to Book for Summer

MSNBC asks: "Could Sun-Soaked Libya Be the Mediterranean's Next Tourism Hot Spot?"

Why not? Unspoiled beaches, sun, spectacular Roman ruins like Leptis Magna, rival militias shooting it out . . . well, it may take a little time yet. Maybe next year. And if the folks threatening to leave Egypt if they ban booze and bikinis are thinking of Libya as a replacement, they may want to check the new rulers' intentions on those issues.

But hey, it's a country I've never visited, and I'd love to see Leptis Magna.

The Grand Hotels of Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel

From the Oxford University Press Blog: a conversation with an author of a book about Egypt's grand hotels in the golden age: The Grand Hotels of Egypt: In the Golden Age of Travel. (Note: "Travel," not "Tourism." There was a difference.)  Of course with Shepheard's burned in 1952 the grandest of the grand is long gone, but some of the others still survive: it's neighbor the Windsor, now known mainly for its barrel bar, and the once grand Cecil in Alexandria, Old Winter Palace in Luxor and Old Cataract in Aswan; the book apparently uses lots of old photographs and such. It should be worth a look. I'll confess a lingering romantic attachment to the leftovers of Empire; the tendency to feel that Agatha Christie (or is it Somerset Maugham?) is having tea across the way, or some other echo of a lost era. I also know, of course, that the Imperial visitors were blind to the countries around them and the people who served then their tea. Besides the great ones in Egypt there are other relics I've visited such as the King David in Jerusalem, the Peninsula in Hong Kong or Raffles in Singapore, and doubtless many more in the Subcontinent that I don't know. Anyway, it sounds like a book worth seeing.

Sinai's Growing Anarchy: A Challenge for Both Egypt and Israel

On Sunday, person or persons unknown blew up the natural gas pipeline in northern Sinai that carries Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan. If that news sounds familiar, it's because this is the 12th time the same pipeline has been blown up since the fall of Husni Mubarak a year ago.

The supply of natural gas to Israel is controversial of course, though the attacks also disrupt Jordan's gas supply.

Also in the past month, we have seen Sinai bedouins take over a resort complex south of Taba, Aqua Sun,  (though there were no tourists present at the time) in a dispute over land: the Egyptian military,citing restrictions placed on the militarization of the border area in the peace treaty with Israel, did not act. Other bedouin groups kidnapped 25 Chinese workers, though they were released after a day; and two American tourists were briefly held, though they praised their captors' politeness and hospitality.

And that's just the past month. You may recall the serious border incident last August when raiders inside Egyptian Sinai attacked a bus inside Israel en route to Eilat; in an Israeli counterstroke Israel mistakenly killed several Egyptian policemen.

Israel, increasingly concerned about instability and lack of order in Sinai, has begun building a border fence along the border from the Gaza border to the Gulf of Aqaba, something never considered necessary before.

Some of the more heated commentary has tended to portray Sinai as increasingly anarchic, with Israelis worrying it could become a Gaza writ large, a sanctuary from which Hamas or other enemies could target Israel, then fade back into the Sinai desert. Egypt is also concerned of course, but also has a lot on its plate at the moment.

Some background may be in order here: smuggling has been an endemic problem, both smuggling of goods (including automobiles) and human trafficking, especially of African refugees trying to enter Israel. But while nuisances, those did not pose the kind of security challenges we are seeing now.

Many Sinai residents, especially the bedouin tribes, have long complained of neglect from Cairo. Outside of two tourist zones — Saint Catherine's Monastery/Mount Sinai and the strip of beach resorts from Taba to Sharm al-Sheikh — the peninsula is underdeveloped, and the bedouin claim they are mistreated. (The occupation of the Aqua Sun resort was based on a claim that the land on which the resort was built was illegally taken from the tribe.) The restrictions on military deployments in the peace treaty have further weakened security in the eastern strip of Sinai.

Add to this already explosive mix the disappearance of local police throughout much of Egypt during the revolution, including the release of many prisoners. That scandalous release is now generally seen as a last-gasp attempt of the Mubarak regime to create a sense of insecurity; it's believed that at least some of the escaped prisoners faded into Sinai. In addition, police forces have never come back to full strength, adding to the sense that Sinai is increasingly an almost unpoliced area. Although, except for the Aqua Sun occupation, this round of instability has not targeted the "Sinai Riviera" resort strip, it's likely to have an impact on Egypt's already-suffering tourist trade, especially since many Sinai tourists come from Israel, though not in such numbers as was once the case.

FJP Now Says No Tourism Restrictions by Coming Egyptian Parliament

Photo From Bikya Masr

Though I posted a (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) treatment of the Islamism-and-tourism debate in Egypt over a month ago, the whole question (often shortened to "booze and bikinis") has continued to preoccupy both the international media and the Egyptian as well.

With it now clear that the Freedom and Justice Party (the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing) will have the Speakership of the new People's Assembly, and with word that tourism was down by a third for the year, a number the tourist industry says is actually too optimistic because it includes 500,000 Libyan "tourists" who were fleeing the civil war in their country,  it's hardly surprising that the Freedom and Justice Party has tried to ease concerns that Islamists will torpedo the tourist sector, responsible for more than a tenth of the Egyptian GDP.

FJP  members are saying that the incoming Parliament will make no changes that could affect tourism in the next five years (one noting that 60% of the Party's members  in Red Sea Governorate work in the tourist sector).

The Brotherhood and the FJP have so far been putting their moderate face forward. Many doubt that that is their long-term intent, but any statements undermining the tourist economy would likely be met by pressure from the Military Council, which has still not made clear just how much power the new Parliament will exercise. Continuing instability, of course, is as likely to impede tourism even more effectively than future bans on alcohol and bikinis.

A Christmas Prediction

It's December 22. Any minute now, all the TV networks should be airing their once a year "Christmas in troubled Bethlehem" spots. At least it helps boost tourism, but Bethlehem's problems are there year round, as is the wall that separates it from Jerusalem.

The Future of Tourism in Egypt if Islamists Have Their Way: Is There One?

This young lady (photo courtesy The Arabist) is quite fetching to be sure, in what is sometimes dubbed a "burkini," but is she really the future of tourism in Egypt? Will American, British, French, Italian and Israeli tourists (I won't even bring up the Germans) be content to dress accordingly on Egypt's beaches (perhaps, since in some scenarios the males will all be somewhere totally separate), while sipping nothing stronger than lemonade, drawn solely to learn about the ancient culture, where the statues of pharaohs and their queens may be covered with cloth to protect their modesty, while the statues of gods and goddesses are hidden because they're graven idols? And where couples may be asked for marriage certificates when checking into hotels? In a country where tourism is a major source of hard currency and where the tourist infrastructure is extensive, it seems unlikely, But some of the Islamists who are feeling giddy with victory in the first phase of elections are talking about creating a "sin-free" tourism sector, banning not just alcohol and bikinis, but mixed bathing and perhaps more. Some Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, are trying to downplay the idea,  and given the country's economic plight, torpedoing the tourist industry hardly seems wise. The Islamist who was recently quoted as saying "They came to see the ancient civilization, not to drink alcohol," may misunderstand why people go to resorts like Sharm al-Sheikh or Hurghada, both of which are sorely lacking in ancient monuments, and  known purely as beach resorts.

Sharm al-Sheikh, for Now

Now, I think that that paragon of journalism The Daily Mail is going too far in proclaiming "The end of Sharm al-Sheikh?," and I'm sure Egypt's hotel industry will weigh in on these issues, As will the ruling military, which, I believe, may have some investments in the tourist sector.

In danger of extinction?

It's true, of course, that Hurghada and Sharm al-Sheikh are almost utterly alien to most Egyptians who haven't been there and who couldn't afford them anyway; the tourists aren't wearing bikinis in Egyptian villages or downtown Cairo. (So don't share this link with any rabid Islamists. It's a collection of YouTube videos of bikini contests in Hurghada.)

Cover up, Isis! You too, Horus!

The talk about censoring or otherwise concealing ancient Egyptian monuments seems equally counterproductive. If people are coming only for the ancient culture and not the beaches, are you going to hide the ancient culture? It naturally and disturbingly calls to mind the Taliban blowing up the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Since Egyptian gods and goddesses tend to be wearing loincloths and headdresses and not much in between (hey, it gets hot there in summer, and there was no A/C),  I suppose it is inevitable that some people are going to want to cover them up, even if they weren't already idols to begin with. Yet even the classic Isis/Horus madonna-and-child at left, extremely well-crafted as it is, will be taboo.

The cognitive dissonance between "they should come for our ancient culture" and "the ancient culture is pagan and evil" is going to be a problem as well.

Not too long ago Zeinobia printed this cartoon on her blog, which nails it down pretty well: the man — judging by the dome I think he represents Parliament — is shackled with balls and chains representing Egypt's problems (food issues, unemployment, poverty, abuse of women, etc.), and he has visibly empty pockets, but he is shouting about getting rid of bikinis.

They'll be ok with this though:  no bikinis here.

No Bikinis Here; Just Belts or Bronze Age G-Strings

Faced With Declining Tourism, Egyptian Cabinet Shoots Self in Foot (or Possibly Head?)

OK, for my rocket scientist readers and others, ponder this one: You've got the world's most ancient civilization (OK, Iraq has a case, but tourism isn't big there right now), the only surviving one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (pointy structures conveniently near your capital city with lots of five-star hotels), a huge and longstanding tourism infrastructure with many guides speaking European languages,  and are dependent on tourism for hard currency. And, since you had this little revolution thingy a few months back that was on all the TV channels, your tourism revenues are sharply down this summer, though starting to improve a bit. So what do you do about it? You there with your hand up, yes, you: The Egyptian Cabinet, you say? And your answer is . . .

Let's tighten the visa requirements so visitors can't get visas at the airport anymore!

Oh, that makes sense . . . wait . . . What?

Also see here, and here, which suggests this is not some kind of fever hallucination.

While a certain amount of incoherent stammering seems the proper reaction, a lot of Egyptian bloggers and tweeters immediately noted the seeming insanity of this move. Yes, the US and most European and major Asian nations require prior visas for entering Egyptians. Yes, a certain reciprocity would be preferable. (Good luck with that on the eve of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Muhammad Atta was Egyptian, and so's Ayman al-Zawahiri.)

I know: it doesn't apply to tourists arriving in groups Good: you only severely wounded your tourist influx, and didn't strangle it outright. Yes, when I was going to Egypt in the 1970s and early 1980s you needed a visa beforehand (But the US didn't even have diplomatic relations when I first went out, and tourism was at a historic low ebb.) Yes, there's an undercurrent of xenophobia right now, but you still need the tourist trade. Yes, there's an undercurrent of popular paranoia about foreign spies. Hint: they're already there as diplomats, businessmen, or somebody else that stays longer than tourists.

Did the Egyptian Cabinet come up with this in response to rising xenophobia, or was it the SCAF in response to their own sensitivity about foreign influence? Or did somebody in the bureaucracy just decide, hey, let's try this?

Shark Story Jumps the Shark: Mossad Not Involved

Okay, after an earlier posting on the shark story I came down fairly hard on a commenter who snarkily suggested the Egyptians would blame it on Israel. This being the region of self-fulfilling prophecy, of course, now the governor of South Sinai has allegedly said the shark might be a Mossad plot to undermine Egyptian tourism. Israel has apparently denied this, which is giving it more attention than it deserves.

For one thing — oh, why even argue about Mossad sharks? — but if nothing else, who do you think patronizes Sharm al-Sheikh? Mostly Europeans and . . . Israelis. It's a favorite of Israeli tourists. Could a shark distinguish?

Belgian Tourist Stabbed in Aswan

For the first time in years, outside of Sinai, [well, I'm accurate about the "stabbed" part, but forgot the February 2009 bombing near Sayyidna Hussein in Cairo] a tourist has been stabbed in Egypt, a Belgian tourist in Aswan. Details are sparse. (I have no idea why the website story is illustrated with a picture of Abu Simbel, which is not in Aswan.) (On second thought, they moved Abu Simbel once, and since I haven't been there lately, perhaps . . . nah.)

Outside of terrorist bombings in Sharm al-Sheikh, Dhahab, and other sites on the "Sinai Riveira" (easy targets since many of the tourists are Israeli and the attackers have the Sinai to fall back into), attacks on tourists have been rare since the 1990s, particularly the attack on the Deir al-Bahri temple at Luxor in 1997, though there have been a handful of incidents in Cairo and elsewhere. And this may turn out to just be a robbery or something, but it's the first in a while in the Nile Valley.