Now, our Man in Le Caire notes:

My hunch is that a large portion of Egyptians associate American (and more broadly, Western) values with social liberalism. Social conservatism runs deep here, and of course in the Gulf and in the more tribal areas of Jordan that's even more the case. People such as the esteemed Abu Aardvark are fond of pointing out that Arabs nevertheless consume large quantities of fine American cultural exports that are readily available on MBC 2 and OneTV and dozens of other satellite channels. But I would argue that one gets a jaundiced view of American culture from our movies and TV shows, both of which depict Americans as sexually promiscuous and violent. It's as if libertine Hollywood values are being projected onto an entire culture, with all of its diversity and nuance. And American culture seems to be the ultimate culprit even when, say, Lebanese pop tarts wiggle their rumps on Melody Arabia.

These are fair comments. Of course one should not leave out the Euro channels one can pick up, Sat "hotbird" being particularly full of very, ahem, interesting channels the Europeans pump out.

Certainly lots of Euro Sat programming is American, but the darker corners are not. Or so I am told. (ha.)

And certainly the conservative elements blame everything on Hollywood and American with respect to the Leb Pop Tart phenomena, but one rather doubts that would not be the case even were US programming less ubiquitous.

This aside, our Man in Le Caire asks a question I found amusing to some degree:

I think that American movies and television have more than a bit to do with why Western women find it so hard to walk around the streets of Cairo without being harrassed; too many Egyptian men believe that Western women are there for the taking. My female friends have recounted dozens of incidents where their asses (or worse) were grabbed while walking down the street in broad daylight, or where taxi drivers tried to kiss them. One visiting female friend was even groped, here in my own apartment, by the plumber. We assume that our neighbors imagine--quite literally--that we are running some sort of brothel, and perhaps the plumber believed that she was in fact a prostitute.

First, it is not just Western women, Egyptian stereotypes about foreign women in general are quite... peculiar. One need only know enough Maghrebine chicas to know that they too get propositioned with no small degree of regularity.

Now, certainly the image of Western women as conveyed in most Western film (Hollywood or not) is, to say the least, rather alien to rural Egyptian society, which does remain moderately ancient in its structure and deeply villagerish. That's quite relevant to Cairo insofar as the mass influx of newcomers over the past 30 years seriously ruralised urban society (or so the urbane claim - given I have seen the same thing in the Maghreb, I grant this some good portion of truth, although how one weights such things is not clear to me).

But let's also add in Egypt's and especially Cairo's ongoing housing crisis - leading to delayed marriages, far too many people crammed into generally insufficient spaces; well use your imagination about sex and frustration. Or take trip along the autostrada that runs through the hellish south-west bank developments.

Now, let's add general Mediterranean basin culture. Or in other words, let pratike's friends hang out in a Sicilian town for a time. Contrasts are easily overdone.

Finally, to be realistic, the idea of unmarried men and women sharing a flat together in Cairo is seriously alien. Sharing a flat, in 90 percent of the world, implies being family or sleeping together. Frankly it's not the Egyptians that are off in finding this Euro-American innovation of mixed flat sharing queer.... Neither right nor wrong here, but pulling hte commentary back to earth. One does not in any way need American media or films for more traditional people (Muslim, Xian or Pagan) to draw conclusions. It's simply not a done thing in most of the world and when Euro-Americans (speaking geographically, not in ethno-racial terms) import their habits to other places without reflexion.... Well it's something like the Saudi showing up in London with his four wives and a concubine and wondering why he is getting looks, eh what?

While indeed Western and indeed American media contribute to this, the cited example is actually something of the obverse (which is to say a demonstration of cultural cluelessness on the part of the guests inside the other culture - harmless enough on some levels but be realistic my dears; spent enough time in my little Maadi gardens a few years back wondering at the idiocy of the two gay Germans who used to rollerblade about in the evening holding hands, wearing hot shorts. Bloody insane - the hotshorts and holding hands being part, the other part was rollerblading around in the evening when everyone knows that Maadi is (i) dark as hell, (ii) full of idiot Egyptian cab drivers blowing along without their headlights.)

Well, enough of beating up on his living arrangements, it is so very studentish and harmless enough. Afterall, in Cairo I shared a flat with a mad and drunk Leb (still escapes me why I thought this a good idea, the housing allowance was good enough, but Maurice was so entertainingly mad)

In other words, it's not at all clear that the spread of American culture is a positive thing for US-Arab relations. Enough Arabs are repelled at their own societies' yen for American and Western cultural products that the dynamic here is much more ambiguous than that of Eastern Europe during the Cold War, when blue jeans and rock n' roll played a major part in the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. It may even be dangerous. There's not much that policymakers can or should do to counteract the pernicious side effects of American "cultural imperialism," but it's worth remembering that it's not just the policies, stupid.

Well....

Yes, the structure of the entire affaire, the entire set of problems is indeed utterly different than the Cold War, that I very much agree and further I find it one of the key misconceptions among American officials that I speak to. The Cold War paradigm is utterly off, but also seems to be dominate.

Indeed the cultural interaction is more complex, and very differently structured.

Now, I find the phrasing, Arabs repelled by their own cultural deeply unfortunate. If one is banking on Arabs alienated from their own culture, one has already lost, one is already quite fucked.

Now, I do grant pratike that a rather clear underlying sub-text (why use that awful Lit Crittish phrase? I suppose in this case it actually means something) to much commentary in the West, especially in the bloggish areas, with respect to "secular Muslims"; "secular Arabs" is really a yen for Arabo-Muslims who are "just like us" and in fact "alienated" from their culture. Indeed the fetishisation of "secular" (often coming from the same quarters that amusing bang on about the evils of 'secular humanism' undermining Xianity) rather suggests what many observers are really desiring is non-Muslim Muslims because they're more than slightly put off by the whole culture (as they understand it).

A common enough error. And a great way to pine away for the fjords, because it isn't going to happen.

There is an ambiguous dynamic, and it would strike me that one of the less-than-helpful things that goes on is this rather open wishing for Islam not to be Islam in certain quarters.

I would personally lose the secularisation talk as it really doesn't help push the idea, and merely push things like good governance, etc. - that is to say a number of items that are bound up in the phrase secular when used in this context, ex the cultural angle.

There's a genuine cultural divide here.

It's hard not to add a sarcastic comment here, even though it would be unfair and a low blow. I shall most uncharacteristically restrain myself and rather say that a better way to put this would be is that there is a rather poorly understood cultural divide.

Now as to comments, a Dave Schuler asked:

I sincerely wish there were a little more meat on these bones. What policies? Do most people in the Middle East know what our policies are? I doubt that most Americans know what our policies are.

The policies that I've seen most frequently cited in this context are support for Israel and support for authoritarian regimes in the area. What support for authoritarian regimes? Most of that support is either military aid to Egypt or trade.

Funny question this, and poorly framed.

The proper answer is, most Americans know about policies that are perceived to impact them. Most people in the MENA region believe US policies impact them, they have at least an inkling - although as the US has done a piss-poor job of actually communicating its views on its policies (as opposed to merely bleating and lecturing from on high) one can say that the level of knowledge is best characterised as poor.

But that is the mass public for you.

The US Government support for Israel and perceived bias towards Israeli interests generally of course is widely perceived and grates on even moderate nerves. I would say with reason, but that is quite another matter.

Support for authoritarian regimes: Obviously the big ticket item is indeed the vast sums poured into the coffers of Mubarek, but it would be foolish to overlook the American's fairly cozy relationship with the Ben Ali regime (Abu Aardvark noted the irony of the Bush Administration's silly Middle East Partnership Initiative for reforms, esp. democratic reforms, being HQ'ed in Tunis, although the Tunisians it must be admitted are such gracious hosts so long as one doesn't comment on Ben Ali), off and on support (trivial in US terms, important in local terms) to the regime in Mauretania (past, probably present shortly - also see the Israeli angle there), the Gulf states (although obviously that is hardly determinant), etc.

The perception of importance of this support is probably overdone, at the same time there is a strong perception that "they" - the Arabs / local citizens - are not free to choose say, an Islamist government if they wanted because the US would come in lapping up accusations of al Qaeda connexions etc. (true or not).

The question, in the end, strikes me as sadly innocent.

ah yes. And trade. Well, trade is not (surprise, surprise) something well loved. Not in the US (Ahem, NAFTA being so very stunningly popular, the CAFTA treaty, etc), not in Europe, not anywhere. The losers howl, the winners may not initially notice the gains. A bit silly to cite this as a .... well it seems to have been cited as a positive.