Mona-Lisa in a Burka 8, July 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in French IR.Tags: Burka, Kuwait blog, Louvre, Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa burka, Sarkozy
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A tribute to Sarkozy’s attack on the Islamic Burka.
Hat tip: (i.e. stolen from) this excellent blog on Kuwait with an unusual and welcome focus on human rights and migrant worker issues.
Article catch up 27, May 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Egypt, French IR, Saudi Arabia, The Emirates.Tags: Abu Dhabi torture, GCC monetary union, Obama, Sarkozy, Saudi, Shia politics
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– Reuters have an interesting article about Saudi’s dealings with their Shia minority. The most interesting sentence is in the middle:
Saudi King Abdullah removed the governor of the Najran region last year after the Ismaili Shi’ites, a majority in the area, complained about efforts to settle Sunni Yemenis and give them housing and jobs in an effort to marginalise them further.
– The Independent on Sarkozy’s recent trip to the Gulf. It is a neat summary, though quite how it fails to mention the recent case Abu Dhabi torture case (here and here) or their nuclear ambitions is beyond me.
The presence in Abu Dhabi is seen by President Sarkozy as part of a radical shift of French foreign and security policy away from the independent or “multi-polar” approach taken by the former President, Jacques Chirac. Together with the decision to rejoin the military structures of Nato, the Gulf base is intended as a move towards the “Anglo-Saxon” way of looking at the world. At the same time, both moves are intended to give France a greater stake in Western decision-making.
– It appears as if Obama will be speaking at Cairo University and not at the Al Azhar as some had hoped.
– The extraordinarily optimistic Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Abdulrahman Al-Attiyah is still hopeful that the Gulf monetary Union will go ahead, despite the UAE pulling out of the deal this past week. I am not that sure how, exactly, the Emirates could have made their wishes any clearer…
A riposte to Gallic arrogance 17, January 2008
Posted by thegulfblog.com in French IR.Tags: arrogance, France, Sarkozy
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Mshari al Zaydi, the editorial editor for the Saudi daily ‘al Sharq al Awsat’ neatly summed up the hubris of Sarkozy’s intrepid international dealings in recent times. Indeed, this quote needn’t be restricted to this particular situation: simply replace country specific terms, in this case Syrian, with issues in Chad, the Emirates, Bulgaria, Libya, Colombia…
“If Sarkozy believes that he is more informed than the rest of the Arab countries that have repeatedly tried to have faith in the promises of Bashar Assad to no avail, then he is surely deluded. If he thought that he could tempt the Damascene regime to change then he is surely deluded.”
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=11356
The Gulf blog 
Sarkozy’s Islam comments poorly timed 23, June 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in French IR, Middle East, Qatar.Tags: Abu Dhabi, Burka, France, French military base, Islam comments, Louvre, Qatar, Sarkozy, Sorbonne
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French Emperor President Nicholas Sarkozy has controversially stated that the Islamic Burka is not welcome in France:
Many worry that overt symbols of Islam such as the Burka or girls wearing the Veil in schools (as well as anyone wearing any religious symbolism in schools) threaten France’s secular nature.
These comments come, however, during the visit of the Emir of Qatar, Hamad Al Thani, to France. Qatar is something of a confusing country. Outwardly, they host Al Jazeera, allow alcohol consumption in the state, invite Western Universities to Doha to teach their children, but they are intrinsically a conservative country and follow the strict, much maligned Wahhabi version of Islam, as in Saudi Arabia. Conservative or not, such comments are sure to be provocative in a country where France wants to secure lucrative defense and other types of contracts. Indeed, this visit officially celebrates Qatar Airway’s purchase of Airbus aircraft at a time when the aviation industry isn’t far from on its knees.
One wonders how one the one hand Sarkozy wants to tow this hard-line approach at home, sure to anger many Muslims, but also seek to create ever greater links with countries in the Persian Gulf. These links range from establishing a French military base in Abu Dhabi, to supplying the Emirates with fighter- aircraft as well as ‘selling out’, as some French people see it, and allowing the Sorbonne and the Louvre to go to Abu Dhabi. Indeed, it seems like Sarkozy is seeking to let himself have cake and eat it.