Get them while they are young

A lot of people- me among them- in the middle-east claim that arabs are losing the culture war with the west because we are illprepared with out own cultural alternatives. When it comes to movies, music, fashion or whatever, the western countries seem to be able to kick everyone's ass in the department of exporting cultures. The protectionists- among the arabs- would always complain about the good old days when "music meant something" and " movies were good" and frown upon today's music and movies and quite naturally morals. I am not a protectionist by any means when it comes to the arts or cultures, but rather a purist. I am from the school that if a culture can't compete with another in terms of values, presntations, richness and salesmanship, then maybe it's time for that culture to whiter away and die. Not wanting that to happen to middle-eastern culture-egyptian in specific- i always lamented that if we could learn from western countries and borrow some pages from their playbook, then we would be able to bring our cultural beliefs into the 21st century and have it repackaged in a way that would hold an appeal to the younger generations and allow those beliefs and values to survive.Oh how I wished that some people would take the first step and produce something that would combine the packaging and salesmanship of the west and the ideals of the middle-east. The old saying that reminds you that you should be careful what you wish for? I hate it when it rings true. I seem to have gotten my wish, in a really twisted way, in a media forum i really didn't think about: Comic Books. Let me introduce you to AK comics ( hat tip: Jesse), which promises "Middle-east Heros" to its readers. It holds 4 differnet characters with 4 different universes in publication: Rakan, Jaila, Zain and Aya. In the words of the people who created the comics they are "four characters are destined to become the new household figures and their names will be synonyms for peace, justice and pride in the Middle East. Each hero is a unique blend of traditional, modern and futuristic qualities that symbolize and represent the Middle East nations." Sounds nice, no? Well it depends on how you look at it. Take for example Jaila: she protects "the city of all faiths" from the evil "Zios" army. Get it? City of all faiths? Zios army? wink wink nudge nudge.Ohh yeah, and Jaila parents died in the "55 years war" and she has two brothers, Raed and Khalid (hey jeff, jarrars anyone?), one of them became a drug addict cause of his parents death, and the other joined a terrorist group for the same reason. Gotta love the hidden moral of that story. If that is not enough for you to get what i am trying to note here, then you might agree with the view that maybe it's just a coincidence that almost every villian in those comic books holds a western or english name. For example:One of Rakan's enemies is Ripper; Jaila's archnemesis is called "Atom";Aya enemies include Donga and José Darian. Isn't that nice folks? I think it's just dandy. But hey, who knows, maybe it is a positive step after all. I mean, besides getting the kids when they are young and planting certain- let's say- "ideological seeds" in them, those comics might actually get some people who might not be so ideologiclaly driven to produce their own brand of comic books. One that doesn't have westerners and foreigners as the prime enemy for "Middle-eastern" heros. I know it's an almost non-existant silver lining, but it's all that i got for now. Oh well...