Our universities suck, apparently

If you thought the American University of Beirut (AUB) is the best university in the region, well, you are wrong.

According to ARWU’s top 500 educational institutes of 2010, the best universities in the Arab world are King Saud University and King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals.

Who would have thought! I actually know nothing about both universities but congratulations for making the list.  

What’s even more intriguing is out of the 22 Arab countries (14,000,000 km2) only the above two universities made the list. On the other hand, seven different universities made the cut in tiny Israel (28,000 km2) and 25 made the cut in Japan (378,000 km2). Now what does that tell you about the educational system in the Arab world?

I still say the AUB got snubbed. 

The prize you don't want to win

As a news junkie, I scan and read news from all over the world. I actually make a game out of it. The which-region-wins-the-most-depressing-news-of-the-day game. Unfortunately, the Middle East always wins…and by a landslide. 

Below are the three ‘most interesting’ top stories from different regions around the world today*. Play along with me here, I promise it gets a little interesting.

Europe

• ‎Thriving German economy gives Europe a boost - report‎ 
• Energy Costs Push Prices Up Sharply in Europe
• EU Threatens KLM Over Ash Compensation

South America

• TAM, LAN intend to form 'number one' South American airline
• Latin America looks to the wind for its clean energy
• ‎The Kindness of South American Strangers

Australia

• Australia facing possibility of hung parliament
• Ricky Ponting: Australia can beat England 5-0 in Ashes
• Katy Perry Crashes Prom, Performs 'Teenage Dream' In Australia

North America

• Indians in America debate over mosque near 9/11 site
• Tyra Banks apologises after outcry over America's Next Top Model
• BP's Gulf Well: One Of America's Biggest Oil Fields?

Africa

• S.Africa's Aspen to buy Sigma drugs arm for $804 mln
• Journalists campaign against press curbs‎ 
• Naomi Campbell must apologise to the children of Africa‎

Most (if not all) of the top stories from around the world could not be more mundane or soft, don’t you agree?

Enters the Middle East. 

• US More Likely to Bomb Iran
• The War Against Iran Begins
• Mistrust Frustrates US Effort to Get Israelis, Palestinians Talking
• Israel to reject new peace talks‎ 
• 5 killed in car bomb explosion in northern Iraq
• Gaza future vague five years after unilateral Israeli disengagement
• Bombing Iran 

The Middle East, ladies and gentlemen; the world’s leading and only source of negative, depressing and terrifying news.

And we wonder why people are scared of this region! Leave it to us to spice up the world’s news. What’s fascinating is that our headlines have been the same for years. They really haven’t changed much, have they? They will probably remain the same until the next ice age.

We have been reading about the Palestinian–Israeli talks for decades now. Not a day goes by without reading about a tragic suicide bomb in Iraq. Every day we read about the increased tensions in the Middle East. Alas, the world remains amused with out stories.

We just have a knack for creating and spreading negativity to every corner of the world. If we have positive stories to share, it rarely goes beyond the walls of this region; or the world chooses to ignore them. On the other hand, our disastrous news, get the cover pages.

Seriously, when was the last time you heard a depressing story from Finland or Belgium or Brazil or Malaysia or Denmark or Cyprus or…the list goes on. How come there are no war predictions in other parts of the world? I think Canada’s most read negative stories of the year are RIM BlackBerry fiasco and temperatures rising to 36 Celsius. That’s it.  

Don’t you think it’s about time the ‘negative news’ crown was handed over? We have been on that dreadful thrown for decades. We should be able to let go by now.

Well one good thing about our news is that we provide the world’s media with enough content to keep the media industry alive. I honestly cannot imagine the news without horrendous stories from the Middle East. We also provide the world with entertainment. They watch and laugh. We are a nonstop action-horror-comedy blockbuster.

This experiment works flawlessly 99% of the time. Try it yourself.

P.S The post was written at 2am and published at 9:40am.

Plan B

Is the financial crisis really over? Our regional media says the future is bright. As Professor Hubert Farnsworth would say, “Good news, everyone!”

But when you talk to business owners, friends, employees and ex-clients, the story is somewhat different. You get the feeling that the future is as black as Beirut at night during brutal electricity rationings.

Some of the quotes I heard lately, and these are their actual words:

 We are not making money

Our budget is cut, yet again

I need plan B

I’m working on plan B

It’s a matter of time before we shut down

Our business has shut down

Our project is stalling

I’m gonna try Saudi

More layoffs in my company

I sent my CV everywhere

Screw the loans, I’m running away

We are accepting ridiculously low fees to survive

Our competition fee is still way lower than ours

That’s not good news at all!

Let’s assume the future is in fact bright. When will it be bright? When business are dead? When people are laid off and are overwhelmed with debt? When expats lose all their hard earned savings in stalled projects?

I had a rather depressing interesting conversation with one my of ex-clients. Over the past 12 months, their budget for PR has shrunk 80% and it is set to shrink even further. When the crisis started, they laid off a significant number of staff from their Middle East offices. The crisis is presumably over but the layoffs continue to take place.

The company my cousin works for, a US financial firm, recently shut down its operations in the Middle East. Like anyone didn’t see that happening in the financial sector.

In the world of regional PR, competition is very tough. The days of big PR budgets are long gone. I hear agencies are pitching competitive retainer fees to stay afloat; especially when the number of PR agencies is quickly replacing the number of construction cranes in Dubai.

In media, and according to a random tweet, a leading English publication in the UAE is cutting jobs. This follows the demise of Emirates Business 24-7’s print edition. But it’s not just print. Recently, I noticed that two regional online publications have stopped updating their sites. Their last piece of news was over a month ago. I asked the editor of one of them and he confirmed that the publication is kaput. If online is not doing well, what hope is there for print?

My sabbatical is almost over and the above is not comforting. Time to follow the steps of the soon-to-be-unemployed and think of plan B.

I appreciate that our media is trying to give us a glimpse of hope but a reality check, every now and then, is highly needed.

Good luck to all.

Where do you live, man?

Watching American TV teaches you many things about the US, its culture and its history (history?). Take Political Correctness (PC) for example. Without my addiction to movies and shows, I wouldn’t have heard of the term.

According to Wikipedia, PC denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, disability, and age-related contexts.

Groovy!

But much like any ideology in the good ol’ US of A, extremism takes center stage. If interested in hilarious examples of political correctness, Google is your friend.  

For kicks, let’s see how some of these terms would fit in the Middle East. 

Did you know it is politically incorrect to say ‘black coffee’? The correct term is ‘without milk’, racist! Well that memo certainly did not reach baristas in the Arab world.  Every time I order Americano at Starbucks, the barista asks: “Black?” Should I correct him? Does he really care? More importantly, do I really care to invest in such conversation? “I’ll have it black, please.” 

The politically correct term for a midget is ‘little person’ or ‘vertically challenged’. The translation of both in Arabic is terribly insulting. I wouldn't dare blurt them out to find myself surrounded by a gang of midgets punching the butter out of my nuts. (Get it? It’s because they can’t punch higher, says the person writing about political correctness.)

It is politically incorrect to say garbage-man. The correct term is ‘sanitation engineer’. (Okay, was your reaction ‘WTF’, too?)

Arab reaction to Sanitation Engineer

 Knock Knock

“Who is it?”

“The sanitation engineer.”

“Is there something wrong with the building?”

“No, I’m just here to collect the garbage.”

“Ya akhul sharm...Zabbel wo 3amilli 7alak mhandes?” (You are a garbage-man posing as an engineer, you SOB?)

It is politically incorrect to say Merry Christmas. The correct term is ‘Happy Holidays’. Can’t you just picture it? Call it 'happy holidays' in the US and you are a politically correct liberal. Call it 'happy holidays' in the Middle East and you are an extremist. I will stick with Merry Christmas, thank you. 

But enough with the American examples.  

The idea behind this post stemmed from a tweet I thought was politically incorrect. The tweet was by fellow Arab on my Twitter timeline. When I argued, his reply was “where do you live, man?” 

He does have a point. I mean let’s face it, in the Arab world, the term ‘politically correct’ does not exist. We grew up politically incorrect and we were never corrected. PC was never part of our tradition or upbringing. In fact, the more politically incorrect you are, the more chuckles you get.

And am I that of an idealist to enforce an American ideology ( criticized by many Americans, mind you) on people in this part of the world? I certainly am not and to each his own, I say.

For ‘educational’ purposes, let me share with you some of the politically incorrect and racist terms in our part of the world.

Disclaimer: Do not take offense in the list below. It is nothing but stereotypes and many, including myself, do not condone such terms. Not all Arabs are politically incorrect.

• Maid of any nationality = Sri Lankan (common term in Lebanon)
• African = Slave/Negro 
• People from Al-Said (Egypt), Al-Tafila (Jordan), Al-Khalil (Palestine), Homs (Syria) = Dim-witted
• Lebanese man (as viewed by other Arab nationalities) = Effeminate accent, showoff
• Lebanese girl (as viewed by other Arab nationalities) = Easy, plastic and materialistic
• Jordanian man = Grouchy, blatant
• Jordanian women = Butch accent
• Palestinian = Bebsi  (Pepsi)
• Palestinian in Lebanon = Dark skinned refugee, country destroyer
• Syrian in Lebanon = Labor, undercover intelligence agent
• Lebanese in Syria = Cheap clothes shopper
• Kuwaiti = Rich, arrogant
• Saudi men = Rich, deprived
• Emarati = Rich, lazy
• Saudi women = Ninjas
• Indian man in the GCC = Cheapskate, Hindi (said mockingly)
• Westerner in the GCC = Condescending, loser in his country
• GCC organizations preferring westerners = Inferiority complex
• Russian women in UAE = Khow much?
• Filipino = Gay
• Journalist in the UAE = Copy & paste, spoiled, lazy
• Animal rights activists = Idiots
• Single women working abroad = Spinsters
• Single adults moving out of their parent’s house (applies to males and females) = Whores
• Gay = Abnormal
• Fat = Cow, mule
• Seeing a psychiatrist = Crazy
• Arab professional belly dancer = Prostitute
• Shakira belly dancing = Artist (the double standards in this region, sigh!)

If you think of other terms, leave a comment.

CNN: Disconnecting the Middle East from the rest of the world

Dear CNN,

I can't say I was shocked to read that you had to let go of Octavia Nasr, senior editor of Middle East affairs. Your action only confirms that CNN caves to right wing neocons. 

I will not get into how absurd it is to fire an editor, who's been dedicated to you for the past 20 years, over a misinterpreted message on Twitter. But, I would like to bring to your attention that the UAE President, H.H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has offered his condolences and tribute following the demise of Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Will you succumb to pressure and shut down your studio and offices in the UAE?

Just in case you missed it, leaders of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey and of many other nations have paid tribute to Fadlallah.

You better get in touch very soon with your advertisers, such as Qatar Foundation, Mubadala,  Masdar, Orascom and others, and explain your fictional loyalty to the Middle East.

You are a great contributor to the death of freedom o speech and to disconnecting the Middle East from the rest of the world. You should be ashamed.

Sincerely,

Arabianism

Update I: A Facebook group was created in support of Octavia Nasr. You can join the group here.

Update II: Octavia Nasr has not tweeted since CNN's unjust decision but Twitter user, @meetsamer, has been in touch with her and posted that Octavia has been feeling 'strong as a nail'. You will have the last laugh, Octavia. 

Arab countries do the ICANN-CAN

Saudi, UAE and Egypt can now have domain names in Arabic. A move praised by many so-called ‘experts’ in the region. In may 2010, Egypt’s ministry of communications launched its Arabic domain. Few other companies are expected to follow.

No one is expected to use it! 

The Internet has been accessible for users in Arabiansim land since 1995. By the start of the millennium, it became a necessarily and widely used.  Interestingly enough, you didn’t need to be bilingual to be online. Arabic was sufficient for many users to log on and chat, research, shop, play games, participate in forum discussions and more.

All they needed was 3 simple steps:

•      Turn on the computer
•      Open the browser
•      Look for Google or Yahoo in your favorites or bookmark bar.

For the past 15 years, new Internet users, with basic knowledge, have been following the above steps. With search engines providing the ability to search in Arabic, the Internet has been an easy ride for monolinguals.

And change is never easy. Once you are used to a simple functioning method, it is very difficult to adopt a new one.

Even if users wanted to use Arabic domains, unless they actually know the domain, they would still need to follow the above steps to search for it.

So why the Arabic addresses? If it’s not benefiting the users, who does it benefit? 

Is it another fake symbol of Patriotism and Arabianism? Does it make companies and organizations prouder to have Arabic URL addresses? Have they just woken up to this after 15 years of hibernation?

What I really would like to know is why are the so-called experts calling this a positive change? Is their business card that empty and need to be cluttered with yet another URL? More importantly, will those experts adopt this change and create Arabic domains for their websites? I sincerely doubt that.

Even the BBC called the new Icann (net regulator) move “historic”, yet the article failed to mention the benfits of having an Arabic URL.

In my personal opinion. Arabic domains are nothing but a 'prestige' which will lead to familiar PR stunts. Just wait and see the flooding of press releases with headlines such as: “First telecom company to have an Arabic domain” or “First bank to have an Arabic domain”, etc.

Honestly, before we brag about Arabic domains, I would rather see more Arabic content and users online. That would be the historic change.