Google Aims for Bigger Arab Audience

Finally! I spent 3 years learning to read Arabic just to discover that there's nothing written in Arabic that I actually want to read! Ok, I'm exaggerating (a little), but it would be so nice to see the Arabic language carry it's weight on the Internet:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32053fac-3342-11de-8f1b-00144feabdc0.html

Honestly though, I don't know that young people really want to use Arabic on the Internet. For one, written Arabic is vastly different from spoken Arabic (as different as French and Spanish they say) and among the educated and hip, it’s just not cool. It doesn’t lend itself well to dialogue, it lacks a complete vocabulary for most technical fields (including computers, chemistry, medicine and economics) and most people who want to write professionally would rather publish in a European language so they can reach a wider audience.

Hopefully these new Google tools will help. Now if someone would just open an online bookstore that ships Arabic novels to the U.S., all my problems would be solved.

Children of the Taliban

This is an amazing piece of journalism, and a scary one:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/pakistan802/video/video_index.html

The gist I take from it is that the Taliban are winning... in Pakistan. Everyone who thinks they have an opinion on the issue of Afghanistan / Pakistan should be required to watch this before commenting. 

Anyone who looks ahead to the next election, the next couple years, the next ten years, has completely missed the point. There are far more children in Taliban training camps than there are on the front line, which means their numbers will grow exponentially. Even the reporter, miss Sharmeen Obaid-Chinnoy, had the wool pulled over her eyes: those young men who said they were ready to join the Taliban and fight when they received training and arms, are likely already experienced killers. They probably had a good laugh when she left. My prediction is a 10+ years of guerllia warfare with the Pakistani government supported by U.S. funds and arms. Eventually the government will capitulate and be forced to broker a power sharing agreement in which they accept Sharia law and the Taliban becomes a legitimate political party, much like Hezbollah in Lebanon. At some point India will be dragged into this war too.

The Earthquake of 2012: Episode One

This is a neat piece of fiction. Anyone who has spent some time in Cairo will be immediately be impressed with its tongue-in-cheek narrative which is somehow completely accurate even though it hasn't actually happened.

http://arabist.net/archives/2009/04/01/the-earthquake-of-2012-episode-one/

On a more serious note, the news from Egypt is not good. The stresses of over-population on a country lacking natural resources continue to burden the infrastructure and population. Their aging leader will get sick soon or die, and his attempts to install his son as the heir apparent may not work. Because they refused to shut down the gas pipeline to Israeli during the siege of Gaza, they are widely seen as traitors and pawns of the Western powers. The food riots of last year have stopped since falling gas prices have made bread cheaper, but falling natural gas prices have also deprived the state of some of their income and I imagine tourism is declining as is shipping through the canal.

Reading the news I get a sinking feeling of dread that the country is about to unravel. Discord between Copts and Muslims, growing alienation between the government and the people, lack of employment, an increasingly audacious Islamist movement: These things are kindling.

Anything could be the spark: the death of President Mubarak; a new war between Hezbollah and Israel; an earthquake; government corruption brought to light.

I hate being depressingly pessimistic, and maybe I shouldn't let my emotions get in the way of what's supposed to be an objective blog but I just don't see any hope of a brighter future for this generation of young Egyptians. They're building on dessert wasteland now. The security apparatus is weak. There are no opportunities to earn for the ambitious and educated. Population growth is still way too high and they're susceptible to the currents of violence emanating from their neighbors. Perhaps worst of all, there are guns now:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090326.wisrael26/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090326.wisrael26

Say these shipments don't quite make it to Gaza, but they're not destroyed en route. Who ends up with them? The highest bidder? friends of the Ayatollah? The guy driving the truck? The guy at the checkpoint who takes the truck? Then what? Who loads them? Who hands them out? Who fires them? Who gets shot? Does it matter who shoots first?