Rulers like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser started subsidizing bread as a way to buy loyalty, or at least obedience, and this system became so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described countries who used it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz - "democracies of bread." But the problem with this system of offering bread in exchange for genuine democracy is that it can never last - sooner or later, the bread will run out, and people will start demanding bread and roses too.
Annia CiezadloRulers like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser started subsidizing bread as a way to buy loyalty, or at least obedience, and this system became so pervasive that the Tunisian scholar Larbi Sadiki described countries who used it as dimuqratiyyat al-khubz - "democracies of bread." But the problem with this system of offering bread in exchange for genuine democracy is that it can never last - sooner or later, the bread will run out, and people will start demanding bread and roses too.
Annia CiezadloIn the Middle East, bread is so essential to everyday life that word for it in Egyptian Arabic is aish, which means life. It's always been the staple grain. But the predicament is that the Fertile Crescent, where wheat cultivation began, has now become the part of the world most dependent on imported wheat.
Annia CiezadloThere were a hundred booksellers in the old round city founded by the eighth-century caliph al-Mansur. The cafรฉ and wine-drinking culture of Baghdad has been famous for centuries; there was a whole school of Iraqi poets who wrote poems about the wine bars of medieval Baghdad - the khamriyaat, or wine songs, that I quote in the book.
Annia CiezadloI'm optimistic, though. Now, with the Arab Spring, I think that people in the region are beginning to overturn some of these clichรฉs, and Western editors are starting to catch up. We're seeing some exceptions to the stereotypes, like Elizabeth Rubin's great piecein Newsweek, "The Feminists in the Middle of Tahrir Square." But an article like that shouldn't be the exception. It should be the rule.
Annia CiezadloWhich is one of the dangers of immersion journalism: you can find yourself getting sucked into battles you have nothing to do with, in this case an ongoing battle between Muslims.
Annia CiezadloPedro Teixeira, the great Portuguese merchant-adventurer, wrote a beautiful description of a coffeehouse with windows overlooking the Tigris and the ruins of old Baghdad. That was in 1604, and he's visiting the same street that I write about in the book, named after Abu Nuwas, though it wasn't called that back then.
Annia Ciezadlo