London Book Fair Attracts Global Publishing Community

As I mentioned in my last post and my other blog, I recently attended the London Book Fair. This year's theme was India, and the Indian companies had a large section in the middle of the exhibition area. Not only were there lots of publishers, but there was also a concerted effort by Indian printers to become a rival to China for affordable printing services. The Indians put on some good cultural events like interviews with prominent authors such as Vikram Seth, and a troupe of Indian dancers would pop out of nowhere at random moments to do their thing. I just wish they gave away free curry like some publishers gave away free beer!

Lesser-known countries were there too. Iceland had a big booth with some beautiful books. Azerbaijan had a booth promoting both its publishing and its tourism. Dubai was promoting an upcoming children's book fair. And despite being in the "United Kingdom", Scotland and Wales had booths of their own!

Two other booths caught my eye. One was for the Muslim Writers Awards, taking place May 27 in London. The shortlisted titles were on display and included a lot of interesting work by Muslim women. I also liked the booth for the African Books Collective, which distributes African books to overseas markets. They had a huge range of titles from all over the continent, but sadly none from The Gambia. I guess I'll have to wait until I get there to find out more about that country's writers.

Midlist Writer Awards Spirit21 the Premio Dardos Award

Last week Donna over at Donna's Book Pub awarded my other blog, Midlist Writer, the Premio Dardos Award. The award is given in recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.

By accepting the award, I must follow two rules:

1) Accept the award by posting it on my blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to their blog.

2) Pass the award along to blogs I find worthy of this acknowledgment.

I'm passing the award on to Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at the Spirit21 blog. Shelina is a leading voice in moderate Islam in the UK. Her work appears in the Guardian and other media outlets. She spends a lot of effort on encouraging Muslim women to speak out for themselves. It's interesting that the Western media spend so much time saying Muslim women need a voice but so rarely give them a chance to have one. Shelina has broken through this barrier and her blog and articles are well worth reading. I don't agree with everything she says (otherwise there would be no point in reading her) but her posts always give me something to think about.

It's Official: Kebabs Are Bad For You

In the film Casablanca, the corrupt police captain Louis Renault tells Rick Blaine that he's shocked, shocked, to discover there's gambling going on at Rick's Café Américain. A moment later a croupier hands him his winnings.

Yesterday the BBC reported that British health officials are shocked, shocked, to discover kebabs are high in calories, fat, and salt. The favorite food of binge drinkers, harried commuters, and penny-pinching backpackers, this slime on a stick apparently has an average of just under 1000 calories, the entire daily requirement for salt, and well over daily levels of saturated fat. The kebabs were tested without the rich fatty sauce that's usually slathered on as a final step in preparation.

Officials in 76 councils tested the nutritional value of 494 kebabs. The worst offenders had 1,990 calories, more than twice the daily requirement of salt, and more than three times the daily requirement of fat. More than a third included ingredients not on the labels, including several with pork. Two of the kebabs that included pork were sold by shops that claimed to be halal, meaning that they supposedly followed Muslim dietary rules that forbid pork.

But the question remains--will this make the fattest country in Europe change its dietary habits? Probably not, considering that everyone already knows kebabs are bad for you. This is probably why they are mostly eaten by people who have just been on a bender.

On the positive side, discarded kebabs make great foraging for urban England's growing population of wild animals. When I lived in Elephant and Castle, the local fox, dubbed "smokey", lived well off of kebabs and other junk food he found in the dumpster and on the sidewalk.

After Captain Renault pockets his winnings, he blithely orders Rick's Cafe closed. He's under political pressure to do so. I wonder, after the officials at the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services made their report and satisfied their bosses, did they light up a fag and pop down to the nearest pub for a pint?

Muslim Lingerie A Hot Item in Syria

Talk about breaking stereotypes.

The BBC just ran an interesting article on the Syrian tradition of presenting a new bride with lingerie. Apparantly the female relatives all get together and buy frilly g-strings and bras for the lucky woman. It's gotten hi-tech now with heart-shaped underwear that sing songs, and sound-sensitive bras that fall off when you clap. Reminds me of that old American TV commerical for The Clapper ("Clap on! Clap off! The Clapper!!!).

Since this all happens within the context of marriage, there's nothing unIslamic about it. In fact, the article states that in Islamic law, not getting satisfied is valid grounds for a woman to divorce a man. I didn't know that. I wonder how often that actually makes it though the courts? One of the producers of this stuff points out that it actually helps support religion, because if a couple is satisfied with each other they won't go looking elsewhere. A sizzling home life stops you from sinning.

There's an entire street dedicated to lingerie at the Damascus souk. I missed it somehow when I was there in 1994. Perhaps I saw women's clothing and ducked down another alley, assuming I wouldn't be welcome. Or perhaps I was too fascinated by that amazing bookshop behind the Blue Mosque. My loss!

The Muslim Community in Spain

Police in Barcelona arrested nine people this week in connection with the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid. I'm glad they're hunting down these guys, but knowing Spain's wimpy sentencing laws I'm sure they won't spend the rest of their lives in jail like they deserve.

It's sad these idiots have become the face of the Muslim community in Europe, because all of my interactions with European Muslims have been positive ones. Just this week in Julián's favorite park he got to play with a little Moroccan girl. She had a big purple plastic hammer he liked (he's big into tools) and so she filled up a bucket with sand while he pounded the sand flat so she could fit more in. Meanwhile I shared a bench with the kid's mother, who dressed traditionally but spoke excellent Spanish.

A lot of pundits whine about Muslim immigrants not "becoming European". Well, I'm not becoming European either, and I bet these same pundits have never shared a bench with a Muslim immigrant and watched their children play together. I bet they won't report on it either.

Proposed Malaysian Law Would Limit Women's Travel

The BBC has reported that the Malaysian government is proposing to require women to get permission from their families or employers before they could travel abroad. Supposedly this is to keep them from falling into the hands of predatory gangs who will use them for drug trafficking or worse purposes, but it seems to me more to placate the rising Islamist movement in that country. If they're really worried about criminal gangs, how about launching a crackdown on criminals?

Many Muslims are objecting to what is obviously an unIslamic proposal. I've read the Qur'an (twice, in fact) and there is nothing in it about limiting a woman's human right to free movement. In fact, Muhammad's boss, first convert, and later wife was a woman named Khadijah who ran her own trading business. Muhammad was her caravan leader. As a rich businesswoman, Khadijah probably moved around a lot, although by the time Muhammad worked for her she was a middle-aged widow with several kids, an independent working mother in other words, so she probably didn't get around as much as she used to.

Hopefully the uproar will make the government back off. This law would hurt their country's economy because it will hamper the free movement of some of their best scientists and educators. It will also lead to far, far worse. If the government thinks that the Islamists will be satisfied with this little scrap, they'll soon find out otherwise.

Veiled Women in Madrid

A couple of days ago on the Metro I saw a Muslim woman with a veil over her face. That's the first time I've seen that here. There are lots of Muslim women in Madrid, mostly Moroccans and West Africans, but they usually wear head scarves. Those are so common in Western Europe I don't even notice them anymore.

Seeing a person's face covered with a veil bothers me. The face is such a distinctive part of a person's character that it's a bit off-putting to see it hidden. Not that I agree with France's oppressive and counter-productive policy of banning the veil in public institutions. That only serves to marginalize people, or as a female writer friend of mine said, "It's just another instance of men telling women what to wear."

What's beginning to make me more comfortable with veils is that I've seen some professional women wearing them. The woman on the Metro was a mother with a few kids in tow, but on my most recent trip to the British Library I saw a veiled college student. The other women in her study group only wore head scarves, and she was sitting right next to an Arab guy. They were all laughing and slacking off like regular college students.

Once in England I went into a chemists (that's a pharmacy to you Yanks) and the chemist (pharmacist) was wearing a veil. I have to admit I did a double take, but she didn't act any differently than any other chemist as she dispensed my medication.

I have to hand it to these women. They obviously are educated and out in the world, but they still keep their traditions. They might have pressure from their families to cover their faces, but I have a hard time believing that women who are going to college or have professional jobs don't have the independence to dress as they choose. This is something we don't think of in the West, that many Muslim women freely choose to dress the way they do. They must get a lot of pressure from society at large. I wonder how many comments that chemist has to endure every day? And that student wouldn't have been able to go to college if she was French.

I still don't like veils, but if we're really living in a multicultural, democratic society, then I'm the one who's going to have to adapt.