Middle East

Hydrocarbon Citizens: How Oil Transformed People and Politics in the Middle East

BY NIMAH MAZAHERI. Oxford University Press, 2022, 264 pp.

Analysts have long attributed the autocracy that prevails in Middle Eastern oil-producing countries to an “authoritarian bargain”: in return for generous government-sponsored benefits, the people acquiesce to autocracy. Mazaheri finds statistical evidence that this is indeed the case, drawing on data from surveys conducted by the research network Arab Barometer between 2006 and 2019 and two online surveys of citizens of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that he administered in 2018. More interesting, however, are the distinctions among his survey respondents. Both poorer people and better-educated people tend to be less enthusiastic than others about government policy; older people and women are more appreciative of government largess. It is gratifying to see surveys and quantitative techniques deployed where only a few decades ago legal restrictions and poor data made such methods virtually impossible. One can quibble with this approach—Mazaheri’s confidence in the reliability of an online survey might be misplaced when digital surveillance is widespread—but the author is admirably transparent in describing his methodology and analysis, and in doing so supports a nuanced version of the conventional wisdom.

25 Million Sparks: The Untold Story of Refugee Entrepreneurs

BY ANDREW LEON HANNA. Cambridge University Press, 2022, 232 pp.

Sweetly inspirational and aiming to counter the dismal and often dismissive portrayal of refugees around the world, Hanna tells the stories of the small businesses founded by three women in Zaatari, the large Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. After being chased out of Daraa, one of the earliest Syrian towns to revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, the three find themselves housed in cramped trailers, grateful to be alive but disoriented, destitute, and worried about their families and their future. Soon enough, however, Asma opens an afterschool program, Malak opens an art gallery, and Yasmina restarts her bridal services business. They help support their families while finding

dignity and friendship in their newly productive lives. For Hanna, these women also serve as exemplars of the grit and determination of refugees around the world. These are feel-good stories; Hanna breezes over many of the challenges of life in the camp, including the troubles faced by people with disabilities or major medical problems. But the book accomplishes its purpose: it is a salutary reminder of the remarkable resilience of the human spirit under duress.

Media of the Masses: Cassette Culture in Modern Egypt

BY ANDREW SIMON. Stanford University Press, 2022, 304 pp.

First introduced in the 1960s, cassette tapes quickly outpaced vinyl records as the medium by which spoken words and music were recorded, distributed, and shared. Tapes flooded markets around the world, including Egypt’s, in the 1970s. As Simon shows in a book organized to evoke a cassette— the two halves of the volume are called Side A and Side B—the impact was dramatic and long lasting. The arbiters of musical taste in places such as state radio and the Cairo Opera House lost control to small producers of popular “vulgar” music; official narratives such as the putative success of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to Cairo in 1974 were subverted by widely circulated recordings of rude (and very funny) songs about the occasion. Although cassettes are no longer widely available in Egypt, having been supplanted everywhere by digital technology, their legacy of democratizing opinion and expression is still palpable.

Laughter in the Dark: Egypt to the Tune of Change

BY YASMINE EL RASHIDI.

Columbia Global Reports, 2023, 112 pp.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt, a local hip-hop genre called mahraganat developed, appealing to—and expressing the frustrations of—the nearly twothirds of 15-to-29-year-olds who are unemployed. Influenced by Western musical fashions, the performers were as varied as their American and European counterparts. Some seemed to bask in living as rich sellouts, and some insisted on presenting a political critique, but all reveled in being condemned by bewildered Egyptian parents. Over time, the musicians also drew the disapproving attention of a government that had limited tolerance for social criticism, much less political antagonism. Within a decade, mahraganat was outlawed, and El Rashidi bitterly describes a generation of young people increasingly resorting to aimless hooliganism, alcohol, and drugs to dull a sense of futility and disappointment.

Syria Divided: Patterns of Violence in a Complex Civil War

BY ORA SZEKELY. Columbia University Press, 2023, 296 pp.

In this fascinating examination of the battles that began in 2011 in Syria, Szekely traces a proliferation of fighting

forces and factions, each with its own narrative justifying participation in the war. As the Syrian regime and its opponents were joined on the battlefield by jihadist groups and Kurdish nationalists, the opposition itself fragmented, and foreign patrons grew more influential. Soon, the array of possible enemies had grown exponentially, and the narratives about who was fighting whom and why grew increasingly convoluted. This chaos, she suggests, shaped the use of violence. No longer was bloodshed merely an instrument or consequence of combat; it also became a public relations device, deliberately drawing attention to partisan stories of valor and fortitude on the battlefield. The films of carefully staged beheadings that were produced and disseminated by the Islamic State had less polished counterparts in arcade-game-like battle videos issued by local factions and “made for TV” segments easily picked up by mainstream media. Perhaps most intriguing were the “thank you” messages sent to international donors by local proxy forces, showing the good uses to which their funds were put in videos of exploding buildings and battlefield carnage—violence carried out not so much to advance a political narrative as to bolster a pitch for further funds.