A while ago, I read an article (that I probably rambled about here) that was written by an Arab author, detaling his opinion that in some senses Middle Eastern culture was stuck in a sort of a limbo (I'm obviously horribly simplifying a very long and involved text). That is, having had an expansive golden age in recent centuries, and then (even and especially) more recently having been under the crush of orientalism and colonialism, there was a lingering feeling that a continuation of that golden age was stolen, or on the other hand, is deserved. The author of this article added to that thought by asserting that any progression that a feeling like that might have inspired is rather stifled by the stgnation of religious influence - ie, that of the Koran, for example, which has preserved the (Koranic) Arabic nigh unchanged for centuries - an influence that effectively works towards stagnation.
      Fine, all well and good and open to vigorous debate and all that. So then, I spend a good portion of this past weekend listening to Hebrew with various English politi-religious assertions mixed in; and this sudden thought springs into my head, that if Arab culture is supposedly too stuck in its past, and negative effects on culture occur and reactive elements erupt, I wonder whether the same could ironically be said for Hebrew/Israeli culture, given the existence of the 'promised land' of Israel and coming out from that extremist settlers and displaced Palestinians.

Nadya Lev - photography