Slightly surrealism

From time to time I have been known to write about social realism in literature and the visual arts.* That said, it was still strange last week to see a superabundance of the genre used to decorate the National Military Museum in Cairo. All of it manufactured in North Korea, no less. I can think of a website or two that would have a field day with this information, although the authors are unlikely to visit Cairo anytime soon.

As a motion pictures complement to all this belligerent socialist realism, required viewing was political thriller Al Rahina (2006). I won't spoil the ending for you; cynics might say that the filmmakers manage this all by themselves.

(*See my respective chapters in M.E.Sharpe Library of Franklin D.Roosevelt Studies: Franklin D.Roosevelt and the Shaping of American Political Culture v. 1. and Propaganda: Political Rhetoric and Identity, 1300-2000 (Themes in History).)

Gambling on Theocracy

So the success of the Manchester super-casino bid was a bit unexpected. At least I'll be near a micro-casino if I fancy a night out, in "Stratford City, West Ham United FC or the Docklands' ExCel Centre" (none of which are really "on Waltham Forest's doorstop", incidentally). (Read on at "Casino causing concerns", Waltham Forest Independent, 2 February 2007).

I was interested to note the opposition to the proposed casino(s) coming from the al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton High Road. According to Imam Dr Usama Hasan, "Gambling is prohibited in the Koran. I don't think our congregation will like the casino being built at all." I disagree, but at least the first half of the argument is consistent with his religious beliefs. As an extra justification, Dr Hasan adds "Gambling causes a lot of problems, people who run up debt may turn to crime - it is all related." If gambling is absolutely forbidden on religious grounds, then the extra - often dubious - speculation about the social consequences is unnecessary. Some fundamentalist; the local Imam relies on secular arguments to make his case. (James L. Nolan has already skewered the US religious right for having the same relativist logic in its own self-justifications in his book The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century's End).

I could come up with a cheap shot at critics of an "Islamo-fascist left alliance" who also have the same line on casinos as Dr. Hasan, but the odds on that happening make it too predictable.