You have to see this music video to believe it. It's a political satire as done by the Britney Spears of the Arab world channelling Jon Stewart while singing and belly dancing: Kuwaiti Singer's Video Satirizes the Bush War. The link is to Helena Cobban, who blogged a great explanation of the video. Read it to help you understand what the heck is going on - but the video itself tells the story, even if you don't understand the Arabic.
"Within the highly wired world of the urban Middle East, the latest and most potent means of political communication are short videos that are disseminated either via YouTube or from cellphone to cellphone.
"I'm writing this from Egypt. Everyone here agrees that the video images of the hanging of Saddam Hussein played a huge role in stirring up anti-US and also anti-Shiite feelings among many of the Sunni Muslims who make up the majority of the Arab world's people.
"Now, a well-known Kuwaiti singer called Shams has come out with a new 5-minute video called Ahlan! Ezayek? ("Hi! How are you"), which is a hard-hitting anti-Bush satire. She energetically sings and performs a well-known Egyptian popular song of romantic repudiation. "Hi! How are you... You think you're so great? I never want to see you again!" while hamming it up with a dizzying array of props representing aspects of Bush's policy in the Middle East. And yes, that includes Washington's "information" policies, too, with repeated visual references to newspaper stories and to round-table type TV talk-shows..." - Helena Cobban
Hurry, hurry and watch it. I am stunned. It's hilarious and biting all at once. By the way, for bonus points, Shams satirizes Arabs who get plastic surgery to look more European.
Juan Cole weighs in.
Comments