I’ve been reading a fascinating article in 30-days.net about the Juba Arabs, a 900,000 strong population that live along the Somali/Ethiopian border.

Virtually cut off from the rest of the world, around 650,000 Juba live in Somalia’s fertile regions Wabi of Shebele. A further 275,000 live just over the border in Ethiopia.  Originally from the Arabian peninsula, the Juba speaks an Arabic dialect called Maay.

Hanging out with the Herdsman on the Horn

Standing proud at the Horn of Africa, Somalia is a poor nation with little industry and few natural resources. The region has been devastated by civil unrest and tribal war since 1991. Although Somalia has seemingly endless  coastline, the landscape is dry and barren with scorching year-round temperatures

Somali are traditionally nomadic herdsmen, while the Juba are mostly farmers. They grow coffee, wheat, vegetables, dates, mangoes and pomegranates.  Juba life has an in-built tradition of  daily coffee time and because wood is so scarce, the Juba burns animal-dung for their fires (and coffee pots!)

Welcome to the Juba Way of Life

The Juba is Sunni (Shafiite) Muslims and their distinct class structures are reflected in the way they dress. Juba Women wear veils at home as well as in public. When boys enter manhood they are allowed to wear a variety of headwear. Juba marriage is strictly arranged within their own tribe and children are highly valued as an asset to every family.

Village life lies at the heart of Juba culture and is more structured than among other African Arabs. Homes are typically made of mud-brick with a flat roof and most have only one room. Occasionally, the roof is made of grass thatch, which extends out to make a verandah.

Other Juban homes are similar to those of the Sudanese: a one room circular hut with a cone shaped thatch roof. Floors in these types of houses are either mud or thatch. Goats and chickens are kept in a small yard to provide milk and eggs.

Go figure: Arabic is one of the world’s leading languages yet the Wikipedia Arabic portal carries less words than its site in Catalan, which is spoken by 9 million people…

In a bold move to give the language the digital oomph it deserves web addresses will now be available in Arabic. The Guardian reports on how this is part of a wider move to open up cyberspace to domain names in multiple, non-Latin scripts.

Egypt: Also Known as Dot misr.

Egypt, the most densely populated Arab country, announced in May that it’s begun registering names under the. misr domain (“Misr” being the Arabic name for Egypt.)

The first three companies to use it are TE Data, Vodafone Data and Link Registrar. Egyptian communications Minister, Tarek Kamel, has called the move “a milestone in Internet history”.

“This great step will open up new horizons for e-services in Egypt,” he said in The Guardian.

“It will boost the number of online users in the country and will enable Internet services to penetrate new market segments by eliminating language barriers.”

Out With Old, In With the New

Instead of using the old .eg domain name,  Egyptian organizations can now use .”misr”, written from right to left in Arabic script as their default country code for domestic websites.

One of the first “internationalized domain names” leads to the Egyptian communications ministry. If a browser has the correct fonts installed, the user should see an Arabic name. But of course, this all depends on the browser…

Jumping on the Bandwidth Wagon

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also introducing the new codes: .Al-Saudiah and .Emarat.

Icann, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers , approved the use of non-Latin domain names at the end of 2009. About time too, given that half of the world’s Internet users use a Latin script as their primary language.

1% of all web content is in Arabic– though its 280 million speakers add up to 5% of the global population. Until now, Arabic web content had to be hosted under Latin addresses, creating practical problems and, as The Guardian puts it, “conveying a sense of linguistic discrimination.”

Egypt: Zooming Down the Info Highway

Internet access in Egypt is getting more and more affordable and the use of Internet on mobile devices is blossoming. The Egyptian government has said it plans to boost its broadband capacity with a $1bn upgrade in the next four years.

Microsoft and Google include Arabic in their top 10 languages most in need of attention and are hot on the case to increase access.

There’s something about Malta – something more than just a picturesque, sunny Mediterranean tourist location. The smallest country in the EU, this three- island nation of just 315 square km has been independent since 1964, but it has a strong and complex cultural and historical identity.

Picturesque Malta

Both Catholicism and Islam have made a strong impression on Malta and the results are striking and enduring.

The three main islands that compose Malta, (Malta, Gozo and Comino), are, like the holy trinity itself: steeped in Christianity. Catholicism is effervescent on the islands or at least it was to me, when I spent a week in Gozo and watched the churchgoers parade past my window on Sunday morning. Hardly surprising, given as today, 98 % of the Maltese consider themselves practicing Catholics.

Catholic Soldiers Leave their Mark on Malta

Since the Stone Age, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, have passed through Malta, although the strongest influence was left by the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John.

These Catholic soldiers tended wounded and diseased soldiers during the Crusades, but soon began picking fights with the unfaithful.  After being expelled from the Jerusalem by the Turks in 1291 and from Rhodes, where they rallied against Islam, Emperor Charles V allowed them to relocate and settle in Malta.

In 1565, the Knights were besieged for a month by the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent but eventually fended Islam off once again. The Maltese capital La Valletta is said to have emerged after the Turkish besiege, when grand master John de la Valletta, decided to build a small fortress in the peninsula site of the San Elmo fortress.

The Maltese cross is identified as the symbol of an order of Christian warriors known as the Knights of Malta.

These days, The Maltese Cross, symbol of the Order of Knights of St John is found in literally every shop window in Malta!

Arguably Arab in Name and Nature

But Malta is also essentially Arab – Maltese is the only Arab language written in Roman letters, a byproduct of the Arab occupation, from 870 to 1091.  City and street names often sound inherently Arabic – take for instance Mdina, the old capital city of Malta (also known as the Silent City).

Today Malta may be one of the world’s most Catholic countries but it retains its Arab influence and customs. The “Eye of Allah” is still painted on both sides of the prow on all the Maltese fishing boats…

I was really touched by an article I read in The National yesterday – and thought I’d share it.

Mona Awad, a 42-year old expat Jordanian Christian secretary stood at Abu Dhabi International Airport in the UAE on October 15^th waiting for the man she was engaged to marry – whom she had met a month earlier.

He was due to fly in to the Arab Emirates to be united with her. Mona Awad lived with her family in the Tourist Club area of the UAE and the pressures of singledom were taking their toll.

Love as a Way Out

“I was not desperate for a husband as much as I was desperate to leave my family,” Ms Awad told The National. As she’d lived abroad for several years and felt that she had lost touch with her community at home, she had decided to join Shaadi online, an India Matrimonial website. She didn’t sign up to an Arab dating site as she felt that Arabs would think of it as “advertising myself”.

“Foreigners accept the idea [of dating online], but if I married an Arab, he would tell me later ‘did you forget when you advertised yourself to me?”

 – She revealed.

“Because Arab expats here are mostly Muslims, it is difficult for me to find a husband,” she said. “There is so much pressure inside the house and from society. I’m fed up of living with my family.”

Through Shaadi online, Mona met a man who called himself “Williams James”, a 42-year-old widower with one child.

A Twist in The Tale

As their relationship deepened in the month before their supposed meeting, Mr James told her Ms Awad had to travel to Nigeria to close a business deal before visiting her in the UAE.

Then suddenly, he told her he couldn’t travel to the UAE because he had to pay taxes for signing the contracts. He asked her to help him out and send him US$12,000. She did. He then asked for US$10,000, sent in different amounts to himself and two of his friends, identified as Robert and Samuel, because she could send only up to Dh5,000 a day through Western Union.

Williams James never showed up to meet his Jordanian fiancée. In fact, according to the supervisor of the British Airways flight, on which he was supposed to be traveling, he had not confirmed his booking.

That Sinking Feeling…

After waiting for almost an hour, Mona asked police for help. It soon became evident that she had been cheated out of her life’s savings: Dh110,000 (US$30,000).

The money she sent was the fruit of  22 years of work. After the wire transfers, she was left with Dh70 in her account. She also borrowed Dh5,000 to pay for wedding  preparations and paid for every international call to her suitor.

“I cannot say I fell in love with him, but I became emotionally attached to him,” Ms Awad said. “I thought I would finally marry. I also told everyone I would marry soon.” when all was said and done, she told her family that he had been “just playing”.

Words of Wisdom

Dr Ahmad Alomosh, chairman of the sociology department at the University of Sharjah and specialist in crime and families, said the issue had become rife in the UAE, due to the openness of cyber space. 

Dr Alomosh, who wrote a study on the theme said the extent of the phenomenon in the UAE was not yet known because it is not well studied. This is in partly due to the fact that many victims do not report cases.

Ms Awad, meanwhile, has filed a complaint with the police, who say money transfer records place “Mr James” in Nigeria.

Roll-up, Roll-up! Yes folks, I have (yet) another Arab heroine. A brilliant young female Arab artist whom I recently discovered through some friends in the UK.

Asia Alfasi is a British comic writer, who draws on her Libyan roots and the Arab and Muslims cultures, meshing them with Japanese influence in her magnificent manga-esque creations.

A World Traveller with a Roving Eye

Born in Libya to Arab parents, Asia relocated to the UK at the age of 8, and has lived there ever since. She first hit the headlines when her Arabian cartoon character Monir accompanied her in becoming the first female ever to participate in and win the  Hi8us Midlands Stripsearch Comic competition.

In 2003, Asia released first major work, “JinNarration”, was published in the Mammoth Book of Best New Manga, an anthology of up-and-coming young British comic artists.

Hot of the heels of her first major success, Asia’s short semi-autobiographical story, “The non-savvy non-commuter”, was displayed on the walls of Piccadilly Circus tube station as part of Thin Cities, the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the station’s opening from 15 December 2006 to 31 April 2007.

The Future’s Bright, the Future’s Graphic…

This talented young artist is presently working on her first graphic novel about a young Muslim girl and her life and adventures in Libya and Scotland. She is also converting the play Looking for Yoghurt (presently being performed by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company, Joyful Theatre and Kijimuna Festa in association with Hanyong) into a graphic novel.

And if that doesn’t like enough of a packed agenda, in her spare time, Asia is also working on another book entitled The Adventures of Joseph and Jasmine, also slated for publication later this year.

UK readers can catch a glimpse of Asia at BICS, the British International Comics Show on October 3 and 4, and the second London MCM Expo on October 24 and 25.

Talk about having several strings to your bow: Lebanese Arabic singer Nancy Arjam has sold over 2 million records, is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and a happily married wife and living mum. It would seem she’s got it all..

And she’s only 27…

An Arabic Music Icon

Legendary US TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey has likened her to a Middle Eastern Britney Spears (there’s an interesting thought!) Nancy was named one of the most influential stars of the Middle East on Oprah’s show. With 7 albums under her svelte belt, Nancy is also the youngest Arabic WMA winner ever and the first and only female Coca-Cola sponsor and spokeswoman in the Middle East.

Does this siren ever sleep?

Star-Gazing in The Early Days

Nancy Ajram was born in May 1983 in Achrafieh, a district in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1995, twelve-year old Nancy appeared on Noujoum Al-Moustakbal, (“Stars of the Future”); a Lebanese reality TV music talent contest much like the kind being beamed to many other parts of the world. The song she sang to Umm Kulthum won a gold medal in the Tarab category

Off the bat of that Nancy went on to study music with renowned Lebanese musicians despite being under 18, was accepted by the Lebanese syndicate of professional artists. In 1998, aged just 15, she released her first album, sung entirely in Arabic and called: Mihtagalak (“I Need You’) in 1998.

Rocketing up the Road to Fame

Nancy’s breakthrough came when she began working with producer and manager Jiji Lamara, and in 2003, Nancy pivoted to fame with the single “Akhasmak Ah” from her third album, and first bestseller: Ya Salam (Arabic for “How Beautiful”.)

Three other albums followed: Ah w Noss (“Yes, and a half”) and Ya Tabtab Wa Dallaa, Shakhbat Shakhabit (Scribbled Scribbles – which was directed towards children) and her latest album, the sensationally successful Betfakkar Fi Eih.

Fame, Fortune, and Love…

In September 2008, Nancy married her partner of three years, Dr. Fadi Hachem. Two months later she won her first World Music Award for her best-selling album Betfakkar Fi Eih. In her short speech, Nancy said “2008 has been a fantastic year – a successful album, my wedding, and now a World Music Award, what can I ask for more?”.

On May 16, 2009, Nancy gave birth to her first child, a daughter named “Mila.” Short for Milagrosa (miraculous in Spanish), Mila is also a traditional, Levantine name meaning  “blooming tree”. Nancy released a song for her daughter, “Ya Rab Tekbar Mila” (I Pray that Mila Grows Up) on the same day. Not surprisingly, this incredible Lebanese Arabic star was voted  “Most Beautiful Mom” of 2009 in a survey by Rotana Magazine.

An Arabic Ambassador

After participating in many charity events and concerts, releasing a song for peace and opening her own charity organization in 2006, in October 2009, UNICEF chose Nancy to be the first female regional ambassador for the Middle East and North Africa.

As the debate surrounding women and the veil swirls and simmers to a boil in some Euro-countries, one extraordinary beauty pageant has added an unusual spin on “the V Word.”

Miss Arab World 2009/ Photo by Asmaa Waguih

The 2010 Miss Arab World Contest ignited considerable controversy, for two reasons. First up, it welcomed veiled and non-veiled Arab women from around the world to compete.

Encouraging Arab Women to Shine

The pageant took place in Cairo, on November 11, 2009. Sixteen stunning women aged 18-24 years old; each representing an Arab country waltzed down the catwalk before the jury and international media.

As our friends at Muslimah Media Watch wisely point out, the pageant encouraged Arab women to celebrate their own values and feel good about themselves without having to conform to beauty ideals dictated by other cultures.

MMW quotes All Beirut News on the ideology behind the contest:

“The Miss Arab World pageant aims to be more inclusive by allowing veiled and non-veiled women to compete alongside without having to compromise their values for events like swimwear competitions. Instead, the contestants strut down the catwalk in their national costumes.”

Bones of Contention

Mawadda Nour from Saudi Arabia was crowned Miss Arab World 2009, and Jessy Zaher from Lebanon was first runner up. No sooner had the winners been announced than a fresh wave of controversy welled up.

Why? Because Mawadda Nour isn’t stick-thin.

According to critics, Miss Nour doesn’t meet the “standard requirements of beauty pageant contestants.” Sawsan Al Sayed, head of the jury, told Wikeez that the Mawadda Nour was not a unanimous choice.

Yet, Hanan Nasr, head of the beauty pageant, told MMW “The main reason Nour has won the title was the fact the she is an example of the modest beautiful Arab intellectual girl who is beloved by all.”

Looking at the photos of a beaming Maddawa Nour wearing her prize-winning sash, she looks to me like a stunning, and very real woman, and a much better role model for young women than some of the stick-thin models I see in magazines and on billboards.

Beauty and the Media Beast

I give the Miss Arab World pageant and its organizers a big thumbs up for daring to go against the standardised norm. They’ve overwritten convoluted media ideals of beauty and encouraged Arab women to take pride in their culture, heritage and… intelligence.

Kuwaiti novelist Laila al-Othman turned a few heads last month when she got on her soapbox about a new wave of Saudi Arabian literature that contains too much… sex.

The books she targeted were written by women… There’s a great article about Laila’s rant in Arabic Literature (in English).

The Casting Couch Syndrome for Writers?

It describes how Arab news service Meedan reveals the author told a Saudi Arabian seminar in no uncertain terms that racy chick-lit merely greases the rungs of fame for many a young authoress and publishing house:

“The trend towards increasing sexual content can be understood by the love of fame and the fact that publishing houses race to have new female writers who aspire to make hasty career jumps.” She said.

Pointing the Finger

Laila apparently singled out Wardah Abdel-Malik’s Al-Awbah (The Return) and Saba al-Harz’s Al-Akharoun (The Others), although it goes without saying that she would be liable to include Rajaa Alsanea’s highly popular Girls of Riyadh on her hit-lit-list.

Taboo-Busting Titillation for … Whom?

Arabic Literature also quotes The National in how a new genre of Saudi fiction was born after Girls of Riyadh. It seems young Arabic authors from the Kingdom are keen to break Saudi taboos, and this goes for male as well as female writers. Taboo busting is a fundamental element in literature, but if your motivation is just to make Western pulses race, it’s somewhat less appealing.

I haven’t read any of the books in question, but trawling around the net, reviews of The Others and Girls of Riyadh suggest that by default the fact these reads are available in English, and designed to shock can deflect from their literary prowess.

It’s interesting to ponder the critique by Al-Othman and those who support her views. As Arabic Literature points out: who knows if it’s the exploitation of sexuality selling novels that’s put the bee in the author’s bonnet… or is it the actual sex between the pages that makes her want to shelve them?

I read a fascinating response to the intriguing question of whether Sudan is an African or Arab country, or actually both -  by a Sudanese blogger, who goes by the screen name of The Sudanese Thinker.

He says it’s a tough call but that the feels his country is an Afro-Arab nation. This makes perfect sense, given Sudan’s history and heritage, a subject area our blogger-guide seems to know inside out and is good enough to share with us.

The Sudanese Spectrum

Sudan belongs to both the African Union and Arab League, and has around 600 different tribes, some of which are African, some Afro-Arab and others Arab.

Within Sudan’s diverse ethnic landscape you can find purely African tribes such as the Nuer from Southern Sudan. The Rashaida, hailing from the East of country, represent the most recent Arab tribe to arrive in Sudan, having crossed the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula around 150 years ago. The Rashaida have remained purely Arab as they haven’t intermarried with local African or Afro-Arab tribes.

All the Arab tribes found in Sudan today came over from the Arabian Peninsula at one time or another, while the African tribes such as the Nuer, Dinka, Nuba and Nubians are indigenous.

The Afro-Arab tribes spring from intermarriages between Arab tribes and African tribes. The Sudanese thinker, is ethnically a Shaigee: an (exotic) combination of Nubian, Nuba and Arab blood.

Names and Numbers

Pure Arab tribes like the Rashaida in Sudan are minorities. The majority of tribes are either African or Afro-Arab.  Therefore when it comes to numbers, Sudanese are mainly African and not Arab.

“Whether we’re Arab or African, can’t be fully answered without taking into account how we Sudanese view ourselves though.” Sudanese Thinker explains, adding that  Southerners consider themselves Africans, while for many Northern Sudanese, it gets a little more “complicated”.

Northern Sudanese are predominantly Afro-Arab, and have been both “Arabized” and “Islamized” so, culturally speaking, Northern Sudanese are mainly Arab, not African.

Arab culture dominates in Sudan, although many Afro-Arab tribes have retained a lot of African traditions and have not been fully Arabized. Still, according to native wisdom from our trusted source, Arab culture is what ties many tribes together in Sudan, with the other common link being Islam. About 70% of Sudan’s population is Muslim, and the majority of Sudanese people are multilingual, speaking Arabic together with other languages.

Multi-Me

The Sudanese Thinker concludes that (not surprisingly) it’s tricky for him to choose between  whether he feels more Arab or more African and life would be easier if he could choose both. He rounds off with a very interesting point: Which one plays a bigger role in forming one’s identity? Ethnicity or culture? For him, as for me: the answer is ethnicity.

The Sudanese Thinker has consecutively been a finalist in the Weblog Awards three years in a row. Seems to me, he’s brilliant, openminded, and both ethnically and culturally informed and aware.

Photos courtesy of worldreligion.nielsonpi.com, sudan101.com.