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January 31, 2005
Life in MENA: Various Follow ons (edit: cleaned out XML crap)
Media II: American Media Availability
An interesting item to note. MBC, the big Middle East media group that is behind al-Arabiyah and several other ArabSat channels is launching a channel (“4” - per the adverts) focused on rebroadcasting American news magazines/newscasts.
I hope that this is a sign of cleverness on the part of the United States, and that they’re going to pull the plug on that ridiculous waste of resources that is al-Hurra and focus on exploiting channels that already have legitimacy. I have some thoughts on how “4” is being done, and I hope they’re correct.
Sexual mores in MENA
Well, this is a question that I am not sure I can answer. Certainly I am not going to give personal observations of the type I believe are being requested. I can answer on what I have observed, but with the caveat that the degree of generalizability is perhaps suspect.
On the other hand, my own first hand observations match some works that looked at sociological trends, so they are perhaps not entirely off base.
I suppose my short answer is, my sensation is that urban morals are very 1950s American Ozzy and Harriet era; quite a lot of hanky panky goes on, but on the sly, and virginity has to be maintained. I can’t speak to the countryside.
The key point to retain is age of marriage – largely due to economic constraints attached to relatively unchanged standards regarding what a young couple has to have in terms of marriage ceremony (expensive) and housing (apartment, etc.) – is rapidly rising in the Arab world, especially in urban areas. In North Africa this is in the 30-35 range for me and the 25-30 range for women.
That is easily a full decade more than the traditional ages of marriage. People being people, a decade to two decades after puberty is a long time to wait… so while the “urfi” marriage may or may not be used everywhere, I would say my sense is there are socially accepted – so long as appearances are maintained – means of getting around the issue.
Alcohol consumption in the MENA - how does it vary in the region given the Islamic prohibition
Very hard to generalize on that.
Let me say that my impression is that ex-KSA, quite a lot of tippling goes on, even down to the popular/working class level. Certainly the liquor shops in the region carry brands that I have a very hard time imagining either expats or well-heeled ‘liberal’ locals drinking, and there are not enough Xian Arabs in the pop to support such widespread distribution of piss poor mass market headache making alcohol.
Obviously clear data is not available. The best I can say on an impressionistic basis is that among Arab Muslim men an important percentage (but probably not exceeding 30 percent) engage in the odd drink, and that merely having the odd drink is not considered that big a deal except among the “Holy Roller” set. On the other hand, ordinarily one should not be known as a regular drinker, that is more clearly considered a “bad thing” outside of upper class circles. Or another way to put it, something like pot use in North America – an occasional puff in one’s youth or perhaps at a party slides without huge reaction, but one should not be seen as a regular user. Highly inexact analogy but hopefully illustrates my sense of what I see. Now, nota bene, I obviously interact much more with middle class and upper middle class – and in fact the ultra rich here – than with the lower middle class to poor. At upper middle class and above levels, morals tend to be very Euro oriented, although they will not necessarily cop to that in wider public situs.
Finally, in the context of a 1950s America style morality, women drinking is seen as much, much more sinful than men. Typical Mediterranean basin macho double standards, not unique to the Arabo-Islamic world, although the degree is a bit worse.
I would note that there is plenty of textual evidence that drinking was hardly unknown in the classical period, although I would suspect that the pattern of elite and marginal consumption is one of long historical depth.
Popular music. What do people listen to in the Arabic world?
Depends. This is quite regional. Young urban listeners in the Mashreq (Egypt and east) seem to prefer Lebanese and Egyptian Arab pop music, as well as the latest top 50 type Western music. It’s catchy at times but not that interesting, at least to my tastes. Diana Haddad, Amr Diab, Sultan are a few names that come to mind, although they are not the latest. Nancy Arjam is newer. There’s quite a lot of variability in what I call “Leb-Egypto Pop” for short. Anything from poppy pseudo rap in Arabic to very 1980s poppy groups, to somewhat more traditional sounding pop. Of course regionally or by a country basis there are country level stars – e.g. the Gulf, Gulfie pop is popular (mixed in with Leb-Egypto Pop and Western pop), and a few of their stars break out into the wider Arab music scene. Same with Sudan, although it seems to me the Sudanese pop is off in its own world and doesn’t get much pan Arab play. Too African I guess. I can’t ever recall hearing Yemani or Omani pop, but I presume there are a few groups out there.
I’d say that outside of the big urban centers, tastes move to the traditional, so you’ll hear more cassettes of (local/national/regional) neo-traditional groups, plus generic Leb-Egypto pop, far less often Western music. I suppose this is not unlike any place in the world, the break between urban and non-urban tastes.
As for the percentages, hard to say, probably most music stations play something like 60 Arab 40 Western or misc., such as Hindi pop which sometimes marks a few big hits (and is well known to the population from Bollywood films). Varies of course.
What is odd to note is the Mashreq hardly ever listens to North African music, at all, although to my ears, North African music kicks Mashreqi tunes up and down the street. As in news, the
As for the
The urban radio component is more or less like in the Mashreq, except sub in Rai for Leb-Egypto pop, and maybe up the dosage of local-Euro fusion coming from the Mahgrebine diaspora in
I should note that in each region, Mashreq and
There you go, that’s the overview. I am afraid I am most unlearned in music, so I can’t do much better than this.
A MENA ETF (bis): Or Portfolio Investing in the Region
Let me reinterpret the MENA Exchange Traded Funds question to a more general observation.
Among the key issues for the portfolio investor in the region is the thin liquidity available in public companies. That means that even if you engage, say me, to construct a portfolio, it’s hard to do so because frankly the amount of paper actually circulating (never mind the number of public companies is also thin) is pretty minimal. Even if you can take a position large enough to be interesting, getting out is a serious problem. I should reflect more on this later.
Posted by The Lounsbury at January 31, 2005 10:05 AM
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Jan-July 2005
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