Joumana Haddad and non-suspecting Western journalists

Typically, another ignorant Western article about a fraud from Lebanon, known as Joumana Haddad.  Haddad is not even acknowledged as a feminist by Lebanese feminists but Western reporters (who can't read Arabic and judge) insist that she is a symbol of Arab feminists.  Don't get me wrong: what Haddad lacks in literary talents she compensates with skills (and funds) of self-promotion.  I have written about her anti-feminism before in Al-Akhbar and here is an English translation.  This profile of Haddad in the Independent even compares her to Germaine Greer: this is like comparing the Saudi King to Simone De Beauvoir.  But the Western press delights with her insults of Arab men and women: she here calls Arab women "brainwashed" implying that she is an exception, although evidence of her brilliance has never been noted, although the entourage of oil and gas prices like to invite her to Dubai.  Look how she is described here:  "where the tiny, doll-like Haddad".   But wait: Haddad stumbles (for the first time in her life) on a theory.  She theorizes about repression and oppression in the Arab world.  Here is her theory (please brace yourselves) as it is very sophisticated:  "In her new book, due to be published in the UK in September, Haddad tackles the Arab world's macho culture, which she says is responsible for atrocities on both a global and personal scale"s, from the rise to power of Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak to the condescension shown by husbands to their wives."  Is it me or I detect the birth of a successor to Max Weber here (not that she would know who Weber is of course).  ANd then it says:  "But nor does Haddad sit comfortably alongside traditional feminists, who censure her for refusing to support female politicians."  No, writer: feminists (traditional? To imply that she is non-traditional feminists?) in Lebanon don't like her not because she does not support female candidates for president (and there has been none in Lebanon if you bothered to check) but because her silly and rather trashy writings are blatantly anti-feminist.  Got it?  And then this:  "Haddad has earnt the epithet of 'the most hated woman in Lebanon'."  Who called her that?  Do Western reporters who write about her even know she is only mentioned in weekly National Inquirer-like magazines and publications in Lebanon and that she is ignored by the serious cultural section of newspapers?   And how can she be called "the most hated woman in Lebanon" when most Lebanese don't even know who she is.  I notice that she stopped telling the lie that fundamentalists and Hizbullah tried to censor her sleazy magazine when her lie and fabrication was exposed as a lie of her own invention?  Western media like to be duped only when the source is someone who promote and parrot the views and prejudices of the White Man.