Laughing Leaders:    

I was reading Arab media online last evening, après le diner. I saw a photo of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad laughing together, and they seemed to be really laughing. Actually they looked far from the thuggish image promoted in the West and by the media of the fellow thuggish Middle East leaders. Which does not mean they are any less thuggish than other Middle Eastern leaders. I don’t recall seeing any others doing so, and my search of the internet proved my suspicions. Regional leaders, especially Arab leaders, even the least thuggish ones, usually grimace in pain when they show teeth in public. (Remember: thuggishness is in the eye of the beholder, or the victim, or the guest of the state in the dungeon, in this case).

I still suspect that they all laugh a lot in private: at their peoples who put up with them, and at some foreign potentates who buy all the BS they dish out. Maybe they feel that they need to frown and scowl all the time to be taken seriously. And unfortunately most of the peoples, almost all the peoples, have the same attitude: they can't seem to laugh in public.

Suddenly it hit me: those two troublemakers (at least by some standards) are probably the youngest Middle East leaders! Look around: all the rest have leaders who are very old, too old, or mummified old. I won’t name names in order to protect the not so innocent. The head of the UAE and king of Bahrain are the only other young exceptions I can think of. Even Netanyahu is probably getting near seventy, something he probably tries to hide.

Of course those two, Assad and Nejad, preside over societies where freedom of expression is largely muzzled, while other older Arab rulers preside over societies where freedom of expression is largely muzzled.

Not sure it makes a damn difference in the scheme of things, but one never knows.

Speaking of Mummified: shaikh al-shaikh

“Saudi Mufti wages fierce attack on ‘liberals’ and call their ideas impure and tainted, Shaikh al-Shaikh (that would be ‘Shaikh’ squared) urged Saudi girls to remain chaste and respectable in the face of liberal challenges….”

Shaikh al-Shaikh, as his last name indicates is a direct descendant of Shaikh Mohammed Bin Abdulwahab, for whom the Wahhabi faith is named. He is not to be mistaken for the great Mohammed Abdelwahab, the late inimitable Egyptian composer and singer. He also should not be mistaken for Britney Palin just he talks a lot about chastity and abstinence this week, but he would fit nicely in the shrinking GOP tent.

FYI: I think the definition of liberal over there is applied rather liberally: it might just mean that one believes a 10 year old girl should not be forced to marry a 50 year old man. So, let’s not get misty-eyed you American ‘progressives’: these guys are not MoveOn.Org material.

Cheers

mhg