The Middle East and Brazil: Perspectives on the New Global South

366 Pages·2014·2.293 MB·English

by  Paul Amar

THE MIDDLE EAST
BRAZIL
AND
Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa
Paul A. Silverstein, Susan Slyomovics, and Ted Swedenburg, editors
THE MIDDLE EAST
BRAZIL
AND
Perspectives on the New Global South
EDITED BY PAUL AMAR
Indiana University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
indiana university press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 usa
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
© 2014 by Indiana University Press
Chapter 6 © Ella Shohat & Robert Stam
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University
Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this
prohibition.
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Perma-
nence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress
The Middle East and Brazil : perspectives on the new global south / edited
by Paul Amar.
pages cm. — (Public cultures of the Middle East and North Africa)
isbn 978-0-253-01223-4 (cl) — isbn 978-0-253-01227-2 (pb) — isbn 978-0-
253-01496-2 (eb) 1. Middle East—Relations—Brazil. 2. Brazil—Relations
—Middle East. 3. Muslims—Brazil—History. 4. Muslims—Brazil—Ethnic
identity. 5. Brazil—Ethnic relations—History. 6. Transnationalism—
Social aspects—Brazil. 7. Transnationalism—Political aspects—Brazil.
8. Transnationalism in literature. 9. Brazilian literature. I. Amar, Paul
(Paul Edouard), 1968- author, editor of compilation.
ds63.2.b6m54 2014
303.48’281056—dc23
2014017132
1 2 3 4 5 19 18 17 16 15 14
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction · Paul Amar 1
Part One. South-South Relations, Security Politics,
Diplomatic History
1 The Middle East and Brazil: Transregional Politics
in the Dilma Rousseff Era · Paul Amar 17
2 The Summit of South America–Arab States: Historical Contexts
of South-South Solidarity and Exchange · Paulo Daniel Elias Farah 39
3 Brazil’s Relations with the Middle East in the
“Oil Shock” Era: Pragmatism, Universalism, and
Developmentalism in the 1970s · Carlos Ribeiro Santana 57
4 Palestine-Israel Controversies in the 1970s and the Birth of
Brazilian Transregionalism · Monique Sochaczewski 75
5 Terrorist Frontier Cell or Cosmopolitan Commercial Hub?
The Arab and Muslim Presence at the Border of Paraguay,
Brazil, and Argentina · Fernando Rabossi 92
Part Two. Race, Nation, and Transregional Imaginations
6 Tropical Orientalism: Brazil’s Race Debates and the
Sephardi-Moorish Atlantic · Ella Shohat and Robert Stam 119
vi Contents
7 Slave Barracks Aristocrats: Islam and the Orient in the
Work of Gilberto Freyre · Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond 162
8 Islamic Transnationalism and Anti-Slavery
Movements: The Malê Rebellion as Debated by
Brazil’s Press, 1835–1838 · José T. Cairus 182
9 A Transnational Intellectual Sphere: Brazil and Its Middle
Eastern Populations · María del Mar Logroño Narbona 199
10 The Politics of Anti-Zionism and Racial Democracy in
Homeland Tourism · John Tofik Karam 215
11 Rio de Janeiro’s Global Bazaar: Syrian, Lebanese, and
Chinese Merchants in the Saara · Neiva Vieira da Cunha
and Pedro Paulo Thiago de Mello 228
12 Muslim Identities in Brazil: Engaging Local and
Transnational Spheres · Paulo Gabriel Hilu da Rocha Pinto 241
Part Three. Literature and Transregional Media Cultures
13 Telenovelas and Muslim Identities in Brazil · Silvia M. Montenegro 259
14 Turco Peddlers, Brazilian Plantationists, and Transnational Arabs: The
Genre Triangle of Levantine-Brazilian Literature · Silvia C. Ferreira 279
15 Multiple Homelands: Heritage and Migrancy in Brazilian
Mahjari Literature · Armando Vargas 296
16 Orientalism in Milton Hatoum’s Fiction · Daniela Birman 308
17 Arab-Brazilian Literature: Alberto Mussa’s Mu‘allaqa and
South-South Dialogue · Waïl S. Hassan 322
Contributors 337
Index 341
Acknowledgments
This collective, transregional, and transdisciplinary conversation began under
the best of conditions thanks to the intelligence, vision, and hospitality of Paulo
Gabriel Hilu da Rocha Pinto, professor of anthropology at the Federal Univer-
sity Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, with whom I founded the Center for Middle
East Studies in 2003. I thank him for his continued leadership in these areas,
for his support to this team of scholars in the years since, and for his friend-
ship. For the production of this ambitious volume itself, I would like to thank
Paul A. Silverstein, Susan Slyomovics, and Ted Swedenburg, the editors of this
special series at Indiana University Press, Public Cultures of the Middle East
and North Africa, for moving beyond traditional approaches to the region, and
embracing the new world of histories, cultures, politics, and methods we offer.
Also, I would like to thank Indiana University Press Sponsoring Editor Rebecca
Tolen for her enthusiasm and all her hard work that made this book a reality.
And I would like to convey my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and the
members of the editorial board whose insights and suggestions improved each
of these chapters, and refined the profile of this book.
Most of all, I would like to thank Silvia Ferreira, whose research and pro-
duction assistance during the last two years has been truly incredible. Her
intelligence, patience, language skills, and organizational capacity—not to
mention her cutting-edge grasp of the scholarly issues and familiarity with
the communities embraced by this project—have ensured the high quality
of this volume.
vii
This page intentionally left blank
THE MIDDLE EAST
BRAZIL
AND