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Meet the new Middle East - cool, sexy and devout
By Publisher: Melbourne University Press
ISBN: 0522853250
Book description:
Meet Allegra Stratton, hip young journalist. She's been wrong about the war in Iraq, fallen out with her friend, and is fast approaching a quarter-life crisis. In her disillusionment she takes herself to Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Dubai, Kuwait City and Damascus to understand what daily life is like for Arabs of her own age. She finds that two-thirds of the Middle East population is younger than 25. That there are more graduates than at any time in history, but few jobs to go round.
The youth are trying to come to terms with the Middle Eastern ripple of change: Iraq's first post-Saddam elections, Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, Kuwait giving women the vote. Islamic revival is in the wind. Or is it? While looking for youth culture as she knows it, Allegra soon discovers that it is the massive video industry of airbrushed, heavily produced, scantily clad singers who hold the affections of young Arabs-the Muhajababes. And there's a contradiction: many of the fans of these semi-naked popstrels are also very devout.
Is this trendy Islam, or just another form of religious conservatism? The answer to this question may lie closer to home than Allegra thought.
Allegra Stratton is a producer on BBC Newsnight and before that spent three years producing BBC1's This Week. She has written for the Independent, The Times and the New Statesman. She lives in London.
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