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Source: http://www.reason.com/links/links051303.shtml
The Postwar Arab Blues
(Reason) - Charles Paul Freund An Arabic dance track called "Longing Brought You to Me" hit Number 1 for the sixth consecutive week on the Beirut-based Top 20. What makes its continued success noteworthy is that the woman who performs it, a Kuwaiti singer named Nawal, recently took an interesting political risk. Even as nearly every other popular Arab singer was still bewailing U.S. "aggression" against the Iraqi people, Nawal publicly congratulated Iraqis on getting rid of Saddam, breaking with the pan-Arabist line on the war which had totally subsumed the region's pop culture, while not paying any price in popularity - suggesting that the region's long-rigid ideological binds may be loosening.