Why Dont You Blog?

Life before death refers to a sort of online argument between a Swedish and an Egyptian cartoonist.

This is a pretty wierd story all round. What is it about Scandinavians and cartoons about Islam? How is that the Islamic world seems to be poring over Northern European newspapers and art shows?

I live in only slightly-less-Northern Europe and I couldn’t get my hands on a Norwegian or Danish or Swedish newspaper without getting on a plane.

And if I could, I couldn’t understand a word without some very serious Babelfishing.

Oh, I guess I’d just have to look at the cartoons then.

Which may explain why the Islamic world is on a hair-trigger with regard to any Scandinavian artworks that involve men with beards. For Freya’s sake, they could just stop having the Nordic press delivered every day and there wouldn’t be a problem.

One completely irrelevant thing about this debate is that the Egyptian lad is a genius cartoonist. The Swedish lad is outclassed here. (Yes, I AM too lazy to check the names and I want to sound a bit like a football commentator on this one) So, in my too-sceptical way, I thought. “Maybe this cartoonist is playing with the blogosphere to get some well-deserved exposure for his work”

I mean, if you are a cartoonist in the Islamic world, it must be difficult to go about your daily work of cartooning without offending someone. Then you look at the vast international exposure that comes to cartoonists from small Nordic countries that you probably never heard of before for doing a few uninspired but religiously offensive funnies.

Wouldn’t you say “I want some of that sweet fame”? You can’t actually produce an offensive-religious cartoon yourself. (After all, Salman Rushdie’s still in hiding well over a decade after writing an “offensive” novel and he lives in the non-Muslim world and has lots of wealthy and powerful friends…) But you can produce a cartoon that is meant to offend a Scandinavian cartoonist.

OK, the international cultural impact is a bit diminished by the Swedish lad being bowled over by the gratuitously offensive genius of the Egyptian lad’s cartooning and wanting to buy the work.

But it still sort of works. Those of us who would never have seen the Egyptian lad’s drawings have all seen them. And (despite some vitriolic abuse on their quality in the comments on Life before Death) we can all see he’s a world-class artist.

Give him a job on a Swediish newspaper, please. That’s got to be the perfect way to distribute your cartoons throughout the Muslim world.

And the Swedish lad strikes a blow for the Nordic good-natured rationality that we all love. Win win, really.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Popularity: 23% [?]

Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman - an Egyptian student with the nom de blog “Kareem” - has been jailed for four years for insulting Islam and the Egyptian president, as reported by the BBC How depressing is that?

Here’s a brief summary of the BBC report. Abdel Soliman is a secularist, who was expelled from his University law studies for criticising religion. The University was responsible for reporting him to the police.

Mr Nabil had declared himself a secularist who does not fast during Ramadan and he criticised al-Azhar, the most prestigious institution of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world.
He accused it of spreading radical ideas and suppressing freedom of thought.

Well, that’s certainly proved his point then.

The BBC claims that Egyptian bloggers have gained an influence that greatly outweighs their numbers and have been instrumental in exposing some true horrors carried out by the Egyptian state. This is rather humbling to the rest of us bloggers, who usually just about manage to expose what we think about the latest top-selling indie record.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Popularity: 21% [?]

If you were ever entranced by reading HP Lovecraft or Victorian horror stories as a kid you will know that the word “necropolis” has a fascinating but chilling power. ** This news item is for you.

A BBC reports archaeological discoveries in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo. It is estimated that only about a third of the finds in the site have been discovered.

These are three to four thousand year sold and include a carved wooden sarcophagus (another fantastic word) and the tombs of a royal scribe and a butler.
There are sketchy pictures on the BBC site but the paintings and carving still look amazing.

It seems a little ironic. Ancient Egyptian culture was so focussed on preparing for the afterlife that bodies and artefacts can revealed as fresh to us, who live almost an eternity, in human terms, after them.* So the technology was pretty effective, it’s just the god stuff that didn’t quite pan out.

Although, ancient Egyptian gods are generally pretty engaging, with their jackal heads, and so on. And they kept plenty of artists and builders in work. It’s a pity at least some of them aren’t still around.

* In fact, from the creationist perspective they might have almost predated the creation of the universe, unless I’ve mixed up whatever 4,000 years is. (Maybe it was 4,000 BC. I am buggered if I am going to pay enough attention to the rantings to find out) That makes it an actual eternity. It makes you wonder why the Abrahamic world-religion God started out with a people who didn’t even recognise him, let alone pay constant obeisance to him. You think he’d have demanded a few first-born son sacrifices or handed out rules cut into stone or something, not just damned them as unchosen.

**And yes, I know all that Victorian exotica and horror stuff was a mixture of imperialism and childlike fascination with the Orient. Edward Said was completely right to criticise it. And the Victorian distortion applies to all history, the Victorian story-telling that turned snippets of historical information into myths, (Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Vikings, and all). The knowledge doesn’t stop it having power over the imagination, though.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Popularity: 22% [?]