The National has launched in Abu Dhabi. Won’t make any judgements yet on its royal family-funded coverage, but its book review looks good. Here is a good lambasting of Sandra Mackey’s A Mirror of the Arab World, the current non-fiction ME release at Barnes and Nobles.
A Mirror of the Arab World is aimed at Western readers who are afraid that the Middle East is going to erupt and arrive violently on their doorsteps…
Mackey seems to have gathered no voices, no stories of lived experience…
…She also gives Assad’s son, Syria’s current president, the name Bashir rather than Bashar. Similar, true. But to gauge the difference try this: Find a small street in Beirut with a large concentration of Lebanese Forces Stencils. Find a young man born around 1983 named Bashir (the popularity of the name surged in the wake of the Christian warlord and president-elect Bashir Gemayel’s assassination in 1982). Call him Bashar and see what happens. You might want to duck.
