{"id":44896,"date":"2015-05-25T06:02:18","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T06:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44896"},"modified":"2015-05-25T06:04:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T06:04:04","slug":"youssef-rakha-on-isis-hollywood-islam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44896","title":{"rendered":"Youssef Rakha on ISIS, Hollywood, Islam"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — stumbling across a new writer, and taking both note and notes ]
\n. <\/p>\n

I recently came across the Egyptian writer Youssef Rakha<\/strong>. He asked me to “add him to my network” on LinkedIn, I checked his profile out<\/a> and discovered he was a highly respected novelist, we exchanged a few words, his novel The Book of the Sultan’s Seal<\/a> arrived from Amazon today, and sometime in the last 48 hours I ran across his LA Review of Books<\/em> article, ISIS, Hollywood, Islam<\/a> — which contained the phrase:<\/p>\n

striking how similar al-Hayat Media Center\u2019s logo is to Al Jazeera\u2019s<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Al-Hayat<\/strong> is the outfit that publishes the Islamic State megazine, Dabiq<\/em>.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

So I did a due-diligence DoubleQuote<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\"SPEC<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And as far as one who does not read Arabic can see, I see.<\/p>\n

Two questions arising: correlation or causation? imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Also of particular interest in Youssef Rakha’s LARB piece, this fierce horror-film-critique of the IS film, A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross<\/em> — the one with the beheading of Coptic Christians by the sea:<\/p>\n

I noted that the video is so cinematic it comes across as make-believe. I noted that the Copts were historically against the Crusades. I noted that the ISIS fighters in the film are too herculean to be Middle Eastern, that their victims are the blue-collar breadwinners of indigent families in underdeveloped provinces of my country, guilty of nothing more than the religion of their birth. I noted that they ended up dying where they had gone to \u2014 economically \u2014 survive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I have given you a sip and a taste — read the whole thing<\/a> — the man can think! the man can write!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — stumbling across a new writer, and taking both note and notes ] . I recently came across the Egyptian writer Youssef Rakha. He asked me to “add him to my network” on LinkedIn, I checked his profile out and discovered he was a highly respected novelist, we exchanged a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,627,673,1078,652,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-doublequotes","category-egypt","category-is","category-literature","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44901,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44896\/revisions\/44901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}