The Arab Patient

This article is not about the recipients of medical treatment in the Arab World, and unless you read it in an oblique way, it is not about the pathology of Arabs either. Neither am I trying to make any reference to the award winning UK film ‘The English Patient’, even though there is an English connection of some sort. I am referring here to Oxford philosopher R. G. Collingwood who offered an explanation of human action by means of a medical metaphor. For him, every action involves three parties: agents, patients and instruments. In a surgical operation, the agent is the surgeon who acts, or operates, on the patient by means of instruments which could be material or human.

Human agency has been at the centre of attention for the human sciences. While earlier social theories favoured simplistic formulas that ascribe agency to vague entities such as society, language, the market and history – contemporary ones moved towards various forms of complex agency rather searching for a single agent. But whenever I think of Arab culture it seems to me that these theories do not provide sufficient tools to understand what is going on, precisely because they overlook the other end of the process: patients. Understanding forms of patiency in Arab culture as important as understanding forms of agency since the former affects to a great extent how people view their world.

When people talk about their lives they usually do it in a way that suggests that they are not in control of their own destiny. There is often someone, or something, more powerful that is shaping their lives. Various conspiracy theories which are constantly offered to explain events around us attest to this. Many would insist that globalisation is a Western conspiracy against Arab and Muslim cultures, or in a slightly different version, that it is a conspiracy to maintain Western hegemony over developing countries by means of entities such as the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. This view extends to regional politics as well. You will often be told that all that events taking place in the region are manifestation of a US-Israeli plot that has been devised a long time ago and is simply unfolding. Needless to say, the same applies to the local scene here in Jordan where the government is constantly involved in all sorts of conspiracies against citizens. During the bird-flue episode, one old man whom I had conversed with on the bus insisted that the disease was a hoax that the government came up with just to make the lives of people harder. He went on to describe at length how in the olden days they used to eat the flue-infected chickens which his mother cooked.

If you think this kind of rhetoric is limited to “the masses”, educated or not, then think again. It is there in the words of the elite: journalists, politicians, bureaucrats, intellectuals and artists. Let me bring an example from recent memory. The media war between Hizbullah and Israel has been an important side to the war in Lebanon, not only in trying to fix certain narratives of what had happened and what was happening, but also determining reference points for victory and defeat in the minds of audiences once the war was over. Israel’s rhetoric was “we want to destroy Hizbullah”, Hizbullah’s was “we do not want to be destroyed”. When the Israeli Army was killing hundreds of civilians in Lebanon and Hizbullah was raining northern Israel with katyushas, Nasrallah’s justification was “what we are doing is a reaction, not an action”. The underlying message was “they are making us do this”. The agent was Israel.

Understanding Arab patiency is key, in my opinion, for understanding the social, political and cultural dynamics in Arab societies. It is key for development, be it economic, social or political – for diagnosing problems and finding solutions. I am not referring here to various ‘empowerment’ programmes which many NGOs are busy running – as useful as these can be. What is required is a true understanding of dominant world-views which affect the way people act. Otherwise, any talk about development will remain at best partial and at worst cosmetic.

(This piece appeared in ‘Venture’ magazine no.6, Sept 2006)

Metaphorically Speaking

The concept of a city is, undoubtedly, a very complex one, for it encompasses physical, social, economic as well as historical, political and cultural dimensions. Here we are, thousands of years after the Greek civitas, with virtually no clear definition of what a city is. Hence, the temptation to simplify, even oversimplify, becomes very strong, and metaphors come to the rescue to help us articulate the complex beast. We speak of cities as ‘living organisms’ that wake up in the morning and sleep at night, as an ‘epidemic’ spreading through the planet and eating up its ‘good other’: nature. But metaphors, as the case is with all language, are not simply a way to describe the world, but also to shape it for us. It is through the eyes of language that we see the world, to use yet another metaphor.

Famous American urbanist Christopher Alexander recognised how urban planning practiced under the spell of metaphor can have catastrophic results on the quality of life in cities. Writing in the sixties, at the height of urban regeneration in the US, he was set to answer a single, but difficult question: why are European cities more pleasant and liveable than American ones? In a eureka moment he declared: “the city is not a tree”. Alexander’s thesis was that the perception of the city as a tree (meaning a self sustained rational system), prevalent amongst the planners of his time, has made them overlook how unplanned irrational behaviour of city dwellers can have a favourable effect on the urban environment, making it more humane and liveable. Instead, he suggested another metaphor through which urban planners should start seeing the city if they are to overcome the negative side of their practice; namely, the city as a “semi-lettuce”! Putting aside the botanical obsessions of Alexander and his fellow planners, I think he was not entirely far off from the truth.

In Jordan, talking about the city is even a trickier business. On the one hand, everyone seems to agree that Amman is the quintessential Jordanian city, perhaps even the only one. On the other, many Ammanites, find Amman to be hardly a city. To them, it is an overgrown town, or sometimes as a place where the city meets the countryside. But the city is witnessing an unprecedented wave of urban development projects, and a new mayor has been appointed with a first task of devising a new master plan for the city which would eventually integrate with a regional plan for the whole country. These, of course, are not the first plans to be made, but judging from the attention urban development has been receiving from politicians and investors recently, we can anticipate a higher degree of implementation for the new ones.

For the longest time, urban planners saw Amman simply as a network of streets, therefore,.traffic congestion was the only problem that deserved their attention. To them, the city was a machine with streets as its pipelines whose streamlined operation was essential for its well-being. However, despite the many tunnels and overpasses which have been built over the years, traffic jams are an unremitting problem. These days, however, the attention is moving to public parks. In the language of a prominent Jordanian urbanist, for example, these are lungs through which the city breaths. It is through these spaces that city dwellers get to experience true urban life. This, in fact, seems to be a view shared by many with several development projects including public park components and the establishment of the Amman Beautification Committee whose efforts are squarely aimed at designing public spaces up to international standards. But to think of public parks as simply breathing spaces is to overlook their other facets. For instance, the ‘lungs of the city’ are also the unchallenged male zones, where sexual harassment of female pedestrians is a common practice.

Urban planning is primarily a problem-setting enterprise rather than a problem-solving one. Planners give solutions to what they see as a problem, but if their vision is limited so would their solutions. A better understanding of urban problems can only be achieved if we engage with the the city in its full complexity rather than through metaphors.

(This piece appeared in ‘Venture’ magazine no.4, July 2006)

What’s Happening to the Middle Class?

The term 'middle class' crops up very often these days. It seems that the age long argument of a dwindling Jordanian middle class is gaining more pertinence. The sharp increase in the prices of various commodities triggered and compounded by several fuel hikes is said to be pushing the middle class downwards since wages have not increased correspondingly. The whole situation seems to have been exacerbated by excessive gentrification resulting from stock-exchange-style real estate trading. While some property owners and traders have indeed made little fortunes in the process, buying or even renting a residence is becoming increasingly out of the reach of many Jordanians. These claims, however, seem to be belied by a growing consumer goods market and a flourishing construction industry, which are said to be a reflection of the growth of the middle class. Proponents of the latter argument insist that they are reaping the fruits of economic reform, while proponents of the former explain that the economy is only growing to the benefit of a few elite at the expense of the majority, that wealth is accumulating at the top strata of the social structure rather than 'trickling down' to the lower ones. While figures indicate that the Jordanian economy has been growing at a steady rate for several years now, the impact of that growth is hardly felt on a popular level. The discrepancy between figures and popular perceptions has been a major conundrum for the successive governments in recent years. The doctrine of liberal economy asserts that market dynamics will make economic growth felt at all levels, but for some reason this is not taking place. How, then, can this discrepancy be explained?

The problem with the various theories that try to explain what is happening to the middle class in Jordan is that they are based on false assumptions concerning the nature of that middle class and how wealth gets distributed in society. They presuppose that the middle class is a universal and homogeneous entity and move on to conclude that a healthy (capitalist) economy requires a large middle class. But the middle class in Jordan is not like the one in the UK, or any other Western society. For example, the Jordanian middle class was never a significant social power, contrary to its Western counterparts. Moreover, there are problems entailed in defining what the middle class is. Consider, for example, the vast diversity of the people describing themselves as middle class and how this description can vary from one context to another. Someone in the countryside who would describe himself as middle class might be considered lower class in a city like Amman, even if his levels of income and consumption remain the same.

Nonetheless, the middle class as a category cannot be dismissed so easily for the mere fact that many people associate themselves with it. If we cannot determine what the middle class is on a social level, perhaps we can on a cultural one. The term has, until recently, been commonly used to describe a class of professionals in the service sector and the bureaucrats of the state's various functions. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly associated with young entrepreneurs that may be, but are not necessarily related to a specific profession. Those who identify themselves with the professional middle class look at the emerging entrepreneurial middle class as usurpers detached from society and lacking moral commitment. Those who identify themselves as entrepreneurs look at the professionals as lazy bureaucrats who work little and complain a lot. Feelings of frustration common among the professional middle class are perhaps related to their lack of power, of which economic power is only one form, albeit an important one.

Jordan is certainly witnessing an economic boom especially in the real estate and construction sectors. But to imagine that the wealth generated in these fields will eventually trickle down to other parts of the social structure is to overlook the socio-political dynamics of the economy. Money does not simply move from one place to another, or from one person to another. Rather, it requires effort by some people to gain it and by others to retain it. In short, the utopia of liberal economy, where the whole society enjoys wealth and everyone lives happily ever after, is nothing but a fairy tale.

(This piece appeared in 'Venture' magazine no.3, June 2006)

Development for whom?

As difficult as it is to live in Amman without a car, it is not entirely a bad thing for an anthropologist like myself. The long hours people spend in the public transportation system often leave them vulnerable to my questions. It is a win-win situation where by people chat-away their boredom and I get to learn more about their views and concerns about my favourite topic, the city itself.

Something that never fails to surprise me is the ambivalence with which they talk about the many urban development projects currently underway in the city. What to me is the most noticeable change in the city in many years seems to be non of their concern. As we pass through the daedalian labyrinth of detours around the 4^th circle I would ask the taxi driver about what is going on in that area. He would reply that they are building a big bridge. When I ask why they are doing this, I would usually get some interesting answers. “This is just for prestige – wajaha” one would comment. Another would say that they are spending all these millions for the benefit of the affluent inhabitants of Abdoun, while the rest of the city hardly receives any attention. For a project that promises to solve traffic jams in the city, it is quite surprising that the commuters of the city hardly see it in this light.

With a bit of rational reflection, I find my surprise dispelled. After all, one hardly learns much about any of these projects through the media. Their meticulously designed and eye catching adverts and billboards say close to nothing about what they are. The adverts for the Abdali project, self declared as 'the new downtown for Amman', promise of a new kind of urban life. What this new urban life quite is, it doesn't say, nor does it explain what kind of downtown this one will be, or how it will be different from the old, or even why a new one is needed in the first place. I suppose that those responsible for the project have answers for these questions, but, for some reason, they just do not say them. The situation in the media is just as grim. There, these projects are insignificant to report, except in the economy sections, where they are usually a list of names and the investment figures associated with each. Ironically enough, this column is hardly an exception to the rule.

Case studies in the region and around the world demonstrate that urban development projects are not neutral spaces, but are rather instruments for political and social change. The Solidere project in central Beirut was used to symbolise the reunification of a city torn by war. So was the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. A recent survey done by the BBC seems to indicate that the many hype-making development projects of Dubai have become a substitute for institutional democracy; they provide a utopian image of the city that allows its inhabitants to identify with it in various forms. In Amman, however, what the discourse on urban development seems to be doing is the constitution of real-estate developers as the prime social agents and the alienation of the rest. One comment I have heard from several Ammanites was that they had felt that their city has been stolen from them.

It is easy to frame these arguments as part of a common Jordanian culture of complaint, or as result of ignorance. But to suggest that people complain for the sake of complaint, or that they find joy in moaning, is to overlook what is at stake. It is also bad manners. In a country that strives for social development and increased public participation, these complaints need to be taken seriously. Granted, urban development projects are creating a boom in the construction industry and the Jordanian economy in general, but without addressing the social and cultural issues entailed, something will remain amiss. There are serious issues of miscommunication, or perhaps non-communication that need to be tackled.

(This piece appeared in 'Venture' magazine no.2, May 2006)

Papers and Essays

This page includes various essays and papers I have written as part of my MA Critical Media and Cultural Studies at SOAS, University of London. There's an excerpt of each piece and a link to a downloadable PDF file. Feedback and comments would be much appreciated.

The Production of An 'Arab' Space:
an analysis of Arabic shop signs in London

This paper interrogates the notion of space, particularly social space, through a semiotic analysis of Arabic shop signs in London as a means for the production of an Arab space in the city. It looks at the production of an Arab space as part of the process of dwelling of Arab immigrants. It addresses the lack of theorisation of the ubiquitous terms of space and time and attempts an articulation of these and the media and attempts a definition of 'home'.

Are news images more powerful than the text?

It is commonly believed that news images have a bigger effect on the audience than the news text. Political commentators argue, for example, that the television coverage of the Vietnam war has mobilized the public opinion in the US against the war and finally brought it to an end. Similar arguments are made for the American intervention in Somalia, when the US pulled out its troops following the television broadcast of dead American soldiers being dragged in the streets of Mogadishu. Taylor (in Nossek et al.: 2005) mentions the unequal relationship between the effect of images and that of words in the Abu Gharib prisoners’ scandal. He stresses that earlier imageless reports from Amnesty International suggesting human rights violations in the Iraqi prison were totally unnoticed because they were not visual. History is said to be abundant with evidence of the power of news images. This paper investigates the relationship between images and text in news media.

The Conceptual Confusion Around 'Diaspora'

Much of the debate within the newly emerged field of diasporic studies is focused on defining what the so called 'diasporic communities' are and how they should be studied. The controversy stems not only from confusion over the term diaspora, but also the many similar terms of immigrants, exiles, travellers, nomads and transnational communities, as well as the many metaphors used in this discourse such as flows, boundaries, hybridisation, crosspollination, creolisation, roots and routes. The debate reflects an anxiety within a field that has drawn scholars from varying disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, political science, human geography and cultural studies – an anxiety over what constitutes their new field of inquiry, and a competition over coining new terms setting (or re-setting) the limits of future research. In this essay I will follow the various debates over the terms 'diaspora' and 'diasporic communities' commenting on the different approaches set by some key scholars and then move on to suggest general steps that need to be taken if the field is to produce serious scholarship.

The Practice and Use of Family Photography

With their bias towards all that is 'mass' in media, media and cultural studies have generally overlooked mediation as an everyday practice. While one can list the names of several scholars that have written about photography as a mass medium, such as Barthes, Sontag, Burger, Baudrillard and many others, work on the role of photography in everyday life remains severely understudied. In this essay, I attempt to shed some light on the role which photography as an everyday practice plays in the self construction of human subjects.