The Guardian and the UAE’s The National discuss ‘halal holidays’.
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thabet
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johnpi
Famous rapper and Tamil Tiger daughter MIA is very angry at the New York Times for listing Sri Lanka as the top destination to go on vacation in 2010.
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aziz
Color me unsurprised. But the fact remains that Colombo was a delightful city, Sri Lanka utterly gorgeous, and the people of Colombo among the warmest and hospitable I’ve ever met. I was entranced by Sri Lanka and I think it’s a great place to go.
Tamils have grievances but portraying Sri Lanka as some kind of North Korean analogue isnt going to help their cause any.
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cbarwa
Tamils have grievances
Considering the history of riots targeting them long before the current war started, that is one hell of a euphemism!
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aziz
I am trying not to take sides here. Frankly I was glad the war was over; I posted a lot on the war here at TI mostly critical of terror attacks on civilians, and I also wasnt happy about the postwar treatment by the govt. Check out the talk islam archives:
http://talkislam.info/tag/sri-lanka/
my point is that treating Sri Lanka like its a tyranny is just wrong. And most of the people I met in Colombo were just weary of the whole thing.
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cbarwa
Yes I know Aziz, I didn’t mean to imply you were taking sides but I think it is a bit meliorist just to say that Tamil’s had ‘grievances’ I mean that just makes them sound like some disgruntled constituents upset about a Wind farm in their backyard or sthg! There were real substantive issues at stake
my point is that treating Sri Lanka like its a tyranny is just wrong.
Yes, but lets not forget it isn’t a pleasant place for many Tamils to live in, through little fault of their own.
And most of the people I met in Colombo were just weary of the whole thing.
I worked on a consultancy for the Sri Lankan govt several years ago (on a rural credit programme) and I found it a beautiful place as well, didn’t have any problems with Sri Lankans either but then most obsessively wanted to find out whether I was Tamil or not and looked visibly relieved when they discovered that I was not. Can’t help wondering what my experience would have been like if I was.
You need to ask yourself, how many of the people in Colombo that you met were Tamils and how many were Sinhalese. I think that could colour perceptions quite a bit.
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thabet
Egypt’s ‘marriage (sex) tourism’ problem:
The marriages last any amount of time, from a couple of hours to years. Often they are simply a pretext for the man to have sex with the girl legally, while sometimes the man will take the girl back to his country, where they often serve as maids to other wives.
Last week, Moushira Khattab, the new minister of family and population, launched a campaign against underage marriages to Arab tourists in the villages of Cairo’s 6th of October Province, about 40 kilometres south of the city, known for their high levels of poverty and unemployment and where marriage tourism is rife.
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thabet
Gangs from North Africa, the Balkans and the Caucasus have been blamed for muggings and assaults of tourists from the Gulf states who are seen as rich pickings:
(Via Islam in Europe.)
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johnpi
Arab investors to build ‘Arab cities’ in Malaysia.
Malacca chief minister Mohamad Ali Rustam reportedly said the project, due for completion by 2012, will attract more Middle Eastern tourists and give locals a chance to experience Arabic culture.
Arab tourists spend on average 10 times more than other tourists, according to recent reports on Malaysian tourism that showed an increasing number of Muslim Middle Eastern tourists are seeking “halal tourism” in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei while avoiding the U.S. and Europe because of post Sept. 11, 2001 stereotyping and racial profiling.
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Sabir
I thought that the whole point of tourism is to explore other cultures, not re-create your own culture in a foreign locale.
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Alphonso
can get cheaper arab goods now huh? (kopiah, carpets, perfumes) oh wait, most goods in arab are made in indonesia…
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thabet
Travel operators in the Middle East are being encouraged to boost ‘religious tourism’.
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muse
A call for Muslims to better understand the struggle of Native Hawaiians. There are 45 tourists for every person of Hawaiian heritage on the islands. That’s incredible. But seems about right from what I remember from my visit.
Haunani-Kay Trask’s From a Native Daughter: Colonialism & Sovereignty in Hawai’ describes tourism as “cultural prostitution.” What do you guys think about that? I think its a harsh description, but accurate. I remember feeling suffocated by the tourist culture in Luxor, Egypt, making it my least favorite place there.
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razib
hm. mebee i missed something, but that article copied doesn’t seem to want to point out that the islands are politically dominated to a great extent by japanese americans now.
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aziz
The locla culture, for understandable reasons, has evolved to support anf encourage the tourist industry, so theres a positive feedback cycle going on. its sad that local culture has been diluted, but then again cultures are not static things. Prostitution? perhaps, but what was the alternative? retreat completely like the Amish into enclaves on the island highlands?
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thabet and 
cbarwa and 
aziz are discussing. 
Alphonso and 
Sabir are discussing. 
razib are discussing. 
midwinterspring 5:38 am on August 29, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
My wife had an atrocious time at one of these places a couple of weeks ago. The problem here in Turkey is that the hotels that offer these kinds of arrangements know full well that they are few and far between (and much in demand), so they charge high prices for poor services. It’s a similar case for companies that hire women who wear the headscarf. Since no one else will hire them, they feel no obligation to pay them what their labor is actually worth. Şerefsiz.
thabet 6:21 am on August 29, 2010 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The real evil of capitalism.