Arabs: Bombers, Belly Dancers, Billionaires

As the blog posts can be about any aspect of sociology, in this blog I will connect this weeks reading, by Susan Williams & Travis Linnemann, about “Portrayals of Arab Terrorists in American Film”, with the music video of Jad Choueiri in Funky Arabs. Jad Choueiri’s music video is all about representing the Arabs in being a very similar culture and society to the west, and not the usual stereotype portrayed in Hollywood. According to this weeks reading, Arabs have been portrayed negatively in Hollywood, page 193, “Muslim Arabs have been stereotyped racially and religiously as the “cultural other” from the beginning of American cinema”. The lyrics of Jad’s song are trying to fight the negative representation of the Arab World, in fact the first sentence of the song says “ We are not what you see on CNN or BBC take a look at us, we’re not bombers we got the guts” using those words to describe and speak about the Arab image in the media is very interesting, especially by mentioning CNN, and BBC, the largest two news agencies in the world. Arabs always being portrayed by one of the 3 B’s, Belly Dancer, Billionaires or Bombers is the usual image portrayed in Hollywood. Later in the song, it’s said “you’re gonna experience, an Arab touch with a modern sense” the whole song moves on to showcase everything that is done in the west from tattooing to drinking, the video clip of the song showcases to the world that the societies in the Arab world are actually very similar to any other culture. I think this is a new and interesting way of showcasing that Arabs in reality are as similar to Hispanics, Americans, or even Europeans.

http://youtu.be/I4D6hJA846M

Picture: A representation of Arabs in Hollywood

Video: Jad Choueiri , Funky Arabs

Fake Identity Versus Real Society

According to sociology, societies are shaped depending on people beliefs and values within a society. In Qatar and the gulf (GCC) in general, sociological beliefs and acts are hidden within the society itself, or people interacting with Qatari society/ Gulf society, as in order to know about a certain culture or society, people need to interact with it. In the Gulf, culture and believes are not widely interacted with the whole world, except through media. There comes the fake identity.

Mass media are creating a new picture for the Gulf daily life and general attitudes and issues. Some of the issues pictured in the T.V shows can be based on true story such as problems within families; however, T.V shows picturing younger generations behaviors in the gulf are getting out of hand. For instance, high school people, especially females, within the gulf society wouldn't for example jump off the walls of a school and run away in the breaks than come back through the same process. Such an act was pictured in a T.V show "Banat El-Thanwya", literally translated as "High school girls". In the Gulf in general, females and males have different expectations from a society. Females are expected to pay more attention to rules, can break some, but not to the extent of breaking through the walls of a school and running away. In fact, they aren't expected to leave a place without permission or accompanied with an elder unless they got the permission from an elder person, their parents. As for the males, it's expected through the society that males creates more of a wild attitudes than females, but that doesn't reach to the extent of destroying something or harming another. In the mass media, males' roles in a gulf society are pictured in the right way more than the females' roles. The interacting of both females and males in a Gulf society through the picturing of T.V shows can also be debated. As some of the interacting can actually happen in the gulf society, but some wouldn't, such a female from the gulf having a boyfriend that picks her up from her parents house, also pictured in the T.V show "BanatEl-Thanwya". In the gulf, a boyfriend wouldn't dare to come to his girlfriend's parent's house, as having a boyfriend is actually not allowed, which than creates a social issue within the family. Other facts in the Gulf T.V shows, is that they picture females with nearly full make-up, fully dressed in the house as soon as they wake up out of bed, which is a wrong picture to the Gulf society daily life as well as an issue in T.V programs production for not picturing reality, but creating a new fake world that shouldn't be believed.

Education, Culture and Society

Education is an important part of our lives and contributes to our socialization. When speaking of education, sociologists focus on the "formal and informal social interactions that train, discipline, or shape (or reshape) the mind and body in planned or unplanned ways" (Ferrante, 366). We all achieve some sort of education during our lifetime, whether it's spontaneous or intended. Much of our education begins at a very young age in schooling systems. Schools are designed to provide formal, systematic instructions that take place primarily in classrooms. Schools also include extracurricular activities and assignments to be completed outside of the classroom.




Although the aim of schools is to educate students, sometimes the type and method of education is different. Growing up, I went to multiple schools and in different countries. I was born in Saudi Arabia and attended school there until the age of five before I moved to Scotland and studied there. After almost two years of living in Scotland, I returned once again to my previous school in Saudi Arabia. During this period in my life, I realized how different the education systems were. The type of schools were completely different as well.



Saudi Arabia is an Islamic and Arab country, so the majority of the schools taught and encouraged Islamic behavior and Arab culture. Manarat Al-Riyadh, the school which I went to in Saudi Arabia, was an International School that taught both American and British curriculum. In addition, Arabic and Islamic studies were also enforced on students even if they were not Muslims. The cultural and religious studies started from as early as the first grade and continued until the 12th grade.



On the contrary, when I was in Hillhead Primary School in Scotland, the curriculum that was being taught was very different. Unlike my previous school, in Scotland, my school emphasized mostly on manners, behaviors and how to work and interact with people. There was less emphasis on studies and more emphasis on social interaction. Also, there were no classes offered about Scottish or Western culture and no theology classes. Contrasting to Saudi Arabia, the students in my class were of different religions and cultures. There were Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhist, Arab, African, Caucasian and Asian.



We can see how schools are designed to serve society by functioning as places for education, discipline and socialization. The curriculum for schools differ on which background they're from, nevertheless they're purpose is to socialize people to allow them to function according to their society.

Which door can I take?

Earlier this semester, in our Sociology class, our professor, Geoff Harkness, showed us a video of a sociology experiment that was done in the US. Watch below:

I thought if this experiment was done here in Doha, Qatar no one would conform and we would most likely have different results. On the other hand, our professor had a different hypothesis, where he believed people would conform.

So I went out and actually did the experiment as one of my assignments. I placed “ladies only” and “men only” signs on the Carnegie Mellon building doors here in Qatar. Here are my results:

I thought of many different reasons to why people acted in this manner. One of which is that here in the Middle East, specifically in Qatar, there is a stereotype that women are more oppressed and can’t always do what they wish on doing. So when they saw such signs in Education City, a space with six different American universities, they were disappointed and angry. Instead of being able to express themselves in their universities, they had to deal with the cultural restrictions there too.

Whereas for the men, I believe that the men acted out this way as a sign of masculinity. They refused to walk into the “ladies only” door and confidently walked into the “men only” one. We don’t see any of the men acting out on the experiment as being something they disapprove of. However, in minute 2.47, we see how this young man refuses to be pulled in to the ladies only door and forcefully walk into the “right” door, dragging the lady with him.

Our professor pointed out an interesting fact too, women happen to cross gender boundaries more often than men do. An example of that is, imagine a “man’s” sport, like football- that is usually accepted and women won’t get as many negative sanctions as a man, let’s say, doing ballet- now, THAT is out of the ordinary.

I would love to hear what other people think of this, please share any thoughts on why you think people here didn’t conform to this like they did in the US.

Do Trend's End Lives ?

Due to these past few years, where the Arab society has met different types of people from various countries around the world, different subcultures have emerged, stating that they will the change the stereotype idea of Arab’s to Westerners.
These Subcultures included everything from Gothic groups to Football addicts who communicate with each other on a daily basis using the most amazing creation of our time, the Internet.
However with every change there is an opposition; and opening up all of a sudden has affected the Arab society on a great level. How? Well using the example of Goths and Emo’s who have been spreading quite quickly throughout the Arab countries these subcultures have created tension and fear to the Arab society.
What is an Emo? Emo stands for Emotional, the correct term is Emotional Punk, these people are part of a group whom want to fit in with a certain group or subculture. They tend to be suicidal, wear black and listen to rock and roll. Apart from the black clothing, Emo kids can be identified through blonde or pink streaks in their hair, dark make up and plenty of piercings.
As they are creating a deviance, meaning they have created an appearance or behavior that is not accepted by the culture, values or norms of our countries in the Arab Society.
By violating certain norms and values of a culture is that these groups have created fear in households of Arab families as I mentioned people known as Emo’s tend to be suicidal and suicide is considered forbidden and unwelcomed in most religions, whether in the Arab or Western side of the world, and due to the new fashion of Emo’s Arab individual’s are carried away with the trend not knowing what it hides.
Not only has the Emo affected the Arab communities however in the following video Westerners have been affected as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUGYe3Ly0jE