Election Countdown 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...

Four days to the September 20 presidential and local elections and counting. I guess I should be releasing a new video on the topic, but there are so many facets of the elections that I am having difficulties coming up with a coherent script, and there are so many more great posters that go up every day faster than I can photograph them, but they are so great that I don't want to leave them out. If you ever played the computer game Zork: Grand Inquisitor, then you may get a joke I am thinking about making involving campaign posters and one of the presidential candidates. Oh, what the hey. Here you go.

I watched an interview on al-Jazeera with Faisal bin Shamlan (the only credible opposition presidential candidate in the history of Yemen). I am not fluent yet so of course I did not understand everything that was being said. I was in the frustrating position of understanding the question, or the answer, but usually not both at the same time. I did get some gems out of the interview though.

-Many tribal leaders just want a normal, representative government. They are leaning towards bin Shamlan.
-On the off chance that bin Shamlan actually wins a majority (estimated as up to 70%!) we don't know whether mechanisms to transfer power exist, and whether they would work.
-Several accusations of corruption were hurled at the current regime.

I've been having a heck of a time arguing with some American students here who insist that the US would not work with bin Shamlan because he his Islahi, and that the disruption of order would be too great if he were to win. Now I can see martial law being declared and other illegal tactics, including violence, to prevent bin Shamlan from taking power if he were to win. But that we would refuse to work with him becuase he is Islahi? False statement! Although bin Shamlan represents a coalition of five parties that includes Islah (the premier opposition party, happens to be Islamist), bin Shamlan is otherwise an independent who does not actually belong to any of those five parties, so he's not a Nasserite or a Socialist either, and any one who says that he is, is committing a fallacy. I fully understand why the U.S. government works with Saleh, because really we have no other choice, and he does have the tribal/political connections to get things done. I'd say that if bin Shamlan wins the election, that would be pretty solid proof that he has enough support to rule, expecially since he has to win despite all the voter fraud that I predict will occur.

Bin Shamlan's basic platform, aside from fighting poverty, is one of political reform to reinstate old term limits and have a truly independent judiciary, among other elements of reform. His campaign promises are actually a step in the right direction towards real democracy, a goal which the U.S. swears that it wants. Electing bin Shamlan is not the same thing as electing Hamas or Hizbollah. Bin Shamlan has no radical foreign policy agenda that the Bush administration would have a hard time swallowing. A more democratic Yemen would show her neighbors a thing or two. The only problem I could see with bin Shamlan is the possibility of instability and violence in a prolonged succession struggle.

WTF?

Dear Diary,

My personal life has just taken a turn for the bizarre.

An employee at my school (not a teacher) asked me last night if I would have dinner with him this evening. I assumed that he meant dinner with some of the Yemeni staff, who often dine together. I thought of how a pleasant evening it would be to sit and chat with such friendly people.

However, as it turns out, his intention was to take me to a restaurant, alone. Just me and him. And not in the large group I had anticipated. That is just absolutely not done in Yemen, ever. Unless the people in question are a married couple or relatives which are not elegible to marry each other. It was a situation that implied something about a social relationship which I am not willing to encourage. Needless to say, the day I go on a date in Yemen is when pigs fly or Hades covers over with ice, or something to that effect.

"Where are all the others?" I asked.
"What others?"
"So you mean that we are going to a restaurant, just you and me?"
"Yes..." He made a funny face that I was unsure how to interpret.
"Why?" I asked, glaring at him.
"Is there a problem?"
Of course there's a problem here, you bloody idiot! Or at least, that's what I wanted to yell at him, but I didn't. Though not for lack of knowing how to translate the appropriate idioms into Arabic, the language of our conversation. From that point, I tried to speak slowly, and clearly, my voice getting increasingly louder, as. if. talking. to. an. extremely. dense. person.
"Because...becuase this is Yemen. And here in Yemen, unrelated men and women don't do out to restaurants alone."
"Sure they do."
"No, no they don't." Seriously, like I was going to fall for that one?

I should have seen it coming when he called me the most beautiful woman in Yemen last night. I thought he was just joking, since he says stuff like that all the time to everybody.

The only romantic interest from anyone in this country that I shall entertain is, oh, well maybe I shouldn't be writing that sort of thing here. I'm leaving in 10 days so the point is rather moot anyway.

September 11

I have a hard time believeing that it really has been five years since September 11, 2001. It really still seems like it was just a year ago, perhaps because of the enormous effect those events have had on my world. It is the day in history that has/will define(d) my generation.

I remember very vividly where I was, and what I was doing.

It started off as a normal Tuesday morning. I was a senior in high school in the middle of my AP U.S. Government class, the second period of the day. We were discussing some facet or other of the Bill of Rights, when a secretary from the front office came in and handed two pages of a CNN article printed on neon pink paper to the teacher. "Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, and a third plane might have just hit the Pentagon!" said the office aide.

After she left, my teacher passed the article around the room. One girl from NYC started crying, and for some reason I remember what she was wearing, even though I don't remember anyone else's clothes from that day. Mr. S decided not to continue our previous discussion, but rather to let us go early.

I had a free period, so I marched right into my dormitory and up the stairs to the computer/tv lounge, where I saw the second tower collapse live. Shortly afterwards a faculty member came in to announce that we were having a special assembly, and all girls should report immediately to the auditorium.

Every other day, on the hill up to the auditorium, we would talk and laugh and gossip during the opportunity to see friends during classes. Not that day. It was eerily silent.

Once we were all seated and accounted for, the headmistress bean detailing to us every single thing that she knew about what had happened so far that day, including evacuations and road closures in the DC area. Girls gre more hysterical by the minute, not knowing if their friends and family were safe. I didn't know anyone personally who was in New York, an airplane, or the Pentagon at the time, so I was not as distressed as they were. I was in shock, vaguely worried about being so close to the CIA, another possible target, and could not really comprehend the chaos and the amount of lives lost. Instead, I calmy sat in that auditorium seat and predicted a rise in the racism towards those of Middle Eastern origin, and I cursed Osama bin Laden. Yes, I was already well aware of who he was at that point in my life as an astute resident of Saudi Arabia, and he was my number one suspect.

Classes were not cancelled that day, under the assumption that having students stay on campus was the safest option, and as long as they're at school, they might as well learn something. Were were, howeverm informed that our senior class retreat fieldtrip, which would have happened the next day, was cancelled.

I tried to call my parents several times that day, but I could never get through. The school's telephone system was perpetually busy from the volume of people trying to call in and out to say that they were alive.

That is what I remember, and what I will never forget.

Books-a-Million

Dear Diary,

I just returned from a wonderful place, as wonderful as being a kid in a candy store. I even had to stop myself from skipping down the aisles in glee. Not that there was any room to skip, as people were pushing and shoving all over the place and carts with boxes of books were barreling over everything in sight. All these sights and more are to be had at the Sana’a Book Expo 2006!

I have been awaiting this day for months, the day when I could finally go and see all these Arab literary and academic treasures for myself. It was quite a cultural experience, with stalls from several corners of the Arab World filling the convention hall.

I have learned that I can’t understand Egyptian very well at all. For some reason the Egyptian vendors all assumed that I understood Egyptian, and when I apologized in fu97a (MSA) to tell them that I could not understand Egyptian, they either assumed I was an ignorant foreigner and switched to English, or blithely continued on in fu97a. Whatever happened to the educated, as one might assume of a book publisher, speaking fu97a? My shami (Levantine dialect), however, is better than it has ever been. It was so refreshing to speak in Jordanian to one Jordanian gentleman, that before I realized it, I was flirting with him. A little. It’s not my fault if he’s good-looking, single, well educated, Christian, and has a US work visa. OK, not that I care so much about religion, but it would make him more marriageable as far as all the other parties (the extended families) are concerned. (This country is really getting to me with all its obsession with marriage- way more than half the girls my age are already married!) He gave me a business card for the publishing company and wrote his e-mail address on it, which is one of the Arab equivalents of asking me for my number. So, should I register for an extra e-mail account so that he can’t track me from it and be penpals?

When I heard that this was going to be an international expo, I envisioned that there would be publishers from all over the Arab world. Well, what I found was that most of the stalls were from Yemen, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. I saw one from Sudan, one from Qatar, a handful of Saudi, two Kuwaiti, three Omani, and two Emirati. There were no other African nations present. But the biggest shock of all- Where, o where, pray tell, were all the Lebanese? I only saw THREE Lebanese companies, and they weren’t the famous ones that I had been looking forward to visiting. Dar al-‘Alm l-l-Malayin, whose fabulous books I have purchased in other Arab countries, was nowhere in sight. Neither was Libraire du Liban, and how I do covet some of their dictionaries... I was rather hoping as well, against all hope, that the publisher of Banat ar-Riyadh (It has a Lebanese publisher although it is a Saudi novel) would be there. No, no Banat ar-Riyadh (Girls of Riyadh) for me. No Harry Potter either, even though I went to every single Egyptian stall. (Grrrrrr…..) The official Arab publisher of Harry Potter is Egyptian. The official Saudi government publishing booth had a great display, but of course, in typical Saudi fashion, all the books that I wanted (one of their academic journals for economics) were for DISPLAY ONLY. So said the sign (in Arabic) in large black letters.

Most of the books available were religious books, or university textbooks. Or guides to computer software and programming. Literature for adults (oh, there were kiddie books aplenty) was severely lacking from the selected titles, which really makes me wonder if reading literature is not as common as it once was. Most of the literature that I saw was English lit at the English bookstores, except for the bookstore next to the entrance chock full of Naguib Mahfouz, may he rest in peace. I was going to get the first book of the Cairo Trilogy, and then I remembered that if I got one, I would want to get them all. Anyway, I don’t have that much room in my suitcase, and I would not be able to understand the dialogue in colloquial Cairene. I’m afraid my reading level also does not cover comparitive or exaggerative literary devices, ie figurative language. There were also stalls solely with educational software titles, and some stalls that were mostly kids VCDs (bootleg!) with some educational software to attempt to justify it as educational. However, I seriously must protest that anyone would try to consider Noir and Vampire Hunter D (violent anime with other adult subject matter that should give it an R rating) as children’s cartoons. Everything else for sale on the shelf next to it was definitely for children, so I pray that certain scenes were edited out altogether and the Arabic subtitles bowdlerized.

At one point I was approached by a group of ladies and asked in English if I had possibly seen any books on Semantics, as they had been looking everywhere for some to no avail. I still don’t know what Semantics is, and I didn’t understand when she switched to Arabic. I think it has something to do with logic, but I couldn’t remember the word for logic at the time, so I couldn’t ask her.

So what did I buy? Basic Microeconomics and Basic Macroeconomics! It’s the only way I’ll ever learn the terms in Arabic. The amazing thing is that I can understand all the new phrases from the context, which is an infinitely more natural way to learn and retain them than from a business glossary. I have never seen an actual economics textbook in Arabic until today (unless maybe somebody were to have taken me to Dammam? Oh well, guess I just saved you the trip), and I was amazed to see all genres available, even Econometrics! I held off on the Econometrics, since I really don’t need to try and do Arabic and calculus at the same time. Even if I used to grade Econometrics homework. No, thank you.

The HGC Show: Episode 1, Yemeni Election Special

Welcome to the first episode of the HGC show. It's kind of like this blog, except with sound. And video. Polyglot Poetry and Youtube are the exclusive homes of the HGC Show. Accept no imitations or substitutions.

It's in Arabic (yes, I know there are mistakes all over the place, I didn't catch them until after the final version. Some of the mistakes occured in the narration, though my notes were correct, and some were there all along). It has English subtitles, and educated speakers of both languages will be able to tell that I am not a translator, and sometimes the Arabic was a direct translation of the English in my head, and sometimes the English subtitales are a very stilted direct translation from when the words came directly channeled in Arabic. The important thing is that I now know what to do next time, as this is my first video EVER. If I get really into this I'll have to buy a real video camera and a microphone when I'm back in the States, instead of using my digital still camera and the microphone in my computer.

This is a mostly serious news broadcast, meant to demonstrate to my family that I really can speak Arabic (they don't believe me!), and that my hair is somewhat red. If you watch the whole news segment you get a cool surprise at the end! Enjoy!