(August 1, 2012 at 5:01 am)5thHorseman Wrote: Yeah I remeber reading somewhere that if you want to learn Arabic, you should learn colloquial Egyptian Arabic as everyone watches their films and can understand it. Quite amazing is how different Arabic is throughout the Middle East and North Africa and some people from one part cannot understand a word each other is saying from another part.
Yup, if you want to learn Arabic for studies, you have to learn the formal Literary Arabic, its the only format that is understood by all Arab countries, although that format is only used in books & formal speeches, if you want to learn Arabic for communication or entertainment, Egyptian is definitely the way to go, since Egypt is kind of like Hollywood in the ME, & is usually the most understood non-formal accent.
tribalism probably exists in mostly the Gulf countries' royalty, since those Kings/Princes are mostly related, they defend each other like they were from the same tribe, they give key positions to members of their tribe, the entire country is their big playground, & the people are their sheep.
Anyway, there is a concept in the ME that you probably haven't heard of, its more so in the Gulf countries. Every country is a business, the president/King/Sultan is the owner, the religious radicals are the board of directors, & the population are the workers, almost every headline about the middle east (prior to the Arab Spring) is about a decision/event by the two former & never the latter, I am vehemently anti-Islam, but the common public's words are not only suppressed by their leaders, but the media as well, that's why you saw people orgasmically happy when their voices were heard in the recent events.
However, religious leaders still have power over plenty of them, the reason is because people were raised to believe that those leaders could do no wrong, & even some barely practicing Muslims believe that, they were never taught critical thinking, even though their numbers is decreasing, the Arab Spring still scares me sometimes, I'm not sure if they will follow their religious leaders or not. I tend to think the latter in Bahrain, I still have some fears.
