Books and Videos!

I have not read that many books by African or Middle Eastern writers because most of my English classes have nurtured my curiosity for American writers. These would include African American writers that I enjoy like Fredrick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Henry Louis gates, and James Baldwin. However below are a couple books I have read depicting the life in Africa or the Middle East.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The series of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and a few more of his books


As for movies, there are also not many that I can remember but here are a few. (The last three I have a vague memory of but I know I watched them).
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
A couple episodes of the show and some great short videos of Botswana, Africa and its culture
Hotel Rwanda
Blood Diamond
African Queen
The Last King of Scotland

Movies and Books- Africa and Middle East

Like everyone has said before me, I have not read many books or seen many movies about or by people in Africa and the Middle East. These were the few I could think of, mostly by looking back on other's posts.

Hotel Rwanda, Babel, Blood Diamond, Things Fall Apart, The Kite Runner

MENA Oil vs. Topography

Looking at the map of the MENA region that Mama Pugs linked us to, the green regions are clearly near the major waterways because not that surprisingly, water tends to congregate in relatively low places.  These places have been inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years, and it is there in Sumeria that the first sophisticated human cultures are said to have sprung up.  The areas are rich in culture and history, and still densely populated.  Most of the major oil-producing regions are in these fertile valleys and coastal areas, and as I see it, that is for two reasons:

One, oil is a liquid.  That being true, it will try to flow to the lowest possible place.  Seeing as the Earth's mantle is pretty impassable, those low spots are determined by where the mantle is or isn't.  As anyone who has studied plate tectonics knows, mountains are made when the mantle forces pieces of the crust to collide, and they both turn up.  Thus, the mantle is higher than average.  As a matter of fact, the same thing could be said of almost anywhere there is land sticking out of the water on Earth.  Thus, oil tends to flow and collect wherever the measured elevation is low.  So low altitude means more oil, as is reinforced by the maps.

Two, (which is a bit more of a stretch), the oil has been discovered in lowlands and in the Persian Gulf.  Perhaps that might be because it's a lot easier to drill for oil in water-churned sediment than mountains?  Nobody wants to drill through an extra 3000 feet of rock, so of course no oil has been discovered under the mountainous regions.  It would be expensive to find, gather, and transport.  Instead, companies have stuck with just finding oil in more cost-effective places, in order to make more profit.

Pop-Culture

As the numerous posts before this one have mentioned, the only thing that I have read from the Middle East/ Africa are Things Fall Apart and The Kite Runner. When I think of the Middle East or Africa I usually think of oppression and lack of free speech. This is probably the reason that not very many books/movies are published there are heard about world-wide. In countries such as Pakistan terrorist groups such as the Taliban control the nation and do not allow free speech. If someone wanted to say something that did not agree with the views of the people in power, it would result in severe consequences such as death. I think its sad that people in those countries have to be afraid to speak out.

Maybe I Have, Maybe I Haven't

Although I probably have seen or read something by an African or a Middle Eastern writer I haven't paid that much attention to who writes or directs movies enough to give particulars.  Unfortunately the only ones that I can truly give are the books Things Fall Apart, and The Kite Runner. I think that both of these books are pretty good and are fairly interesting but these are the only two that I can give with confidence of the writer behind the book.

African and Middle East Pop-Culture

The Kite Runner - This is the story about a guy from the middle east who immigrates to America and experiences many hardships in doing so. This is one of my favorite books I have ever read. Although some parts are graphic and hard to read, it's so interesting and gives a great load of detail about life in his community. 

Things Fall Apart - This book gives an insight into a village colonized by white Europeans, who try to force their culture upon them, including religion and government. We see one man's struggle to keep his village pure of the Europeans and how the strongest man in the village rebels. 

Like many other classmates, the only books I have read or can remember written by an African or Middle Eastern are those that we have read in school. I've like both these books, the Kite Runner in particular, for they both tell stories of struggle and hardship. 

Middle East-Media/Literature

Here are a list of media and literature that reference or center around the middle east:

Things Fall Apart

The Kite Runner

Infidel- Deep book. Incredible insight into life in an Islamic state as a woman. A chronicle of the terrible injustices that are committed upon women in the middle east. A personal account and memoir. Just scrumptious.

Babel

The Kite Runner

The Kingdom

Generation Kill (HBO)

The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (Doc.)

Munich

Syriana- A particularly interesting movie that portrays the absolute significance of oil in the middle east and the exaggerated politics behind it.

Rendition

Charlie Wilson's War

In the Valley of Elah

Saddam (HBO)

Pop-culture/MENA/Africa

The Kite Runner: A book about a boy who immigrates to America from the middle east, and the hardship he experiences along the road.

Things Fall Apart: getting old

To be honest I have not read much about Africa let alone the Middle East. However, I have never really affiliated the term pop-culture with many African nations. 

Foreign Approval

After reading the section on "The Question of Palestine" in our book, I was convinced that the United States granted itself the authority without the right. To quote the book: "After World War II, the Zionists turned for support to the United States, and in March 1948, the Truman administration approved the concept of an independent Jewish state..." The question of Palestine was answered by the United States, yet how can we decide the borders, let alone the existence of a nation. To me, this is an example of the United States flaunting its love for democracy and peace in a land where democracy is unheard of, and peace is limited. On page 835, we can see that perhaps the state of Israel is not as concrete and defined as president Truman would have liked it to be. 

Land should have been distributed to the Jews. An independent nation was called for, especially after a horrific event such as the holocaust. Uniting the Jewish population under one state sounded/s like an idea worth fighting for, and the fight prevailed, or did it? Israel is now marked by the feuding war taking place with its neighbors. Was what Truman did the right thing to do? The idea was backed by logical thinking, but strategically, the thought process of the location was controversial. This is evident when looking at the present day.

Borders laid out in the Middle East are something not to be reconfigured. The United States did such, and now the state of Israel and its Arab neighbors are fighting over the answer given.

Pop Culture: Africa and the Middle East

Unfortunatelty, I do not have a very extensive knowledge of African literature or the Middle East or Africa in other media. I have--like everyone else--read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The story--simply put--is about a village of Igbo people that is invaded by white missionaries who hope to convert them to Christianity. In general, I was not a big fan of this book. Frequenty it was very sexist (and although I realize that this is probably an accurate rendition of the village and its people, I still don't like or agree with it), and the plot--while it was well-written in that it wasn't a novel harshly condemning the white men for their actions--did not have much depth to it besides telling the same story from two different points of view.
As for movies, I have seen The Battle of Algiers, which we saw in class.

Oil in the Middle East

As many people before me have observed the major oil-producing areas do seem to be in the lowly elevated parts of the Middle East, and most of them are near water. If this is the case though, why is there an area that crosses the Iraq border with Armenia, which on the topographical map appears to be relatively highly elevated, however is apparently one of the major oil-producing areas on the map in our book? It's also obvious on the oil map that many of the oil producing areas cross from one country into another, which is an obvious source of conflict in the Middle-East since everyone wants it for themselves.