Mark C. Eades
At the Ali Baba Internet Cafe, Jerusalem

Half-hidden in a narrow side street just off the Via Dolorosa in the Old City's Muslim Quarter, the Ali Baba Internet Cafe sits housed within stone walls that were put up not only before the internet existed, but probably even before the printing press. Run by a group of young Arab men who offer free tea or coffee with the rental of a computer, the shop is decorated with posters of the Dome of the Rock, Yassir Arafat in his trademark keffiyeh, Palestinian kids stoning an Israeli tank. In one corner of the shop a small television entertains customers and staff with local programming in Arabic, often music videos featuring Middle Eastern pop and hip-hop Straight Outta J-Town (yo!). As I check my e-mail here each day, I find myself amazed at the idea of performing such a postmodern activity in such an ancient setting, simultaneously operating a computer and watching pop videos amid narrow stone streets where Christ once walked. From a stone's throw of Calvary, I communicate via satellite with friends and loved ones on the other side of the Earth. I log in to my online banking account in California, check balances and transfer funds, then to my online travel agent to check for any updates on my flight schedule as the mid-day call to prayer echoes down from the Aqsa and across the rooftops of the Old City. I go to BBC News online, and access up-to-the-minute reports from across the region and around the globe: US forces battle Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Najaf; world reacts to US backing of Israeli claim to West Bank settlements; twelve-year-old Gaza girl killed by stray bullet while sitting down to lunch. In our era of electronic global jihad, I wonder how many acts of armed Palestinian resistance - even "martyrdom operations," as suicide bombings are called by militants - might have been planned and coordinated by e-mail or online chat from this very internet cafe, just as similar operations have at internet cafes like this one from Jerusalem to Baghdad to Bali. In the shadow of the Temple Mount, a portal in the stone opens to a strange new world of information, and an ancient battleground plays host to a 21st-Century war.



[Next: Adhan / Call to Prayer]


Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com