Juan Cole: Arab World Mourns Whitney Houston

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.  His latest book, Engaging the Muslim World, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan

Whitney Houston’s tragic death on Saturday was a global event, because of the enormous popularity of American popular culture. Houston’s music was played worldwide, not just inside the US. In the Arab world, many stations mix Arabic pop music with American, and Arab youth of the 1990s grew up with her. Her film roles, in The Body Guard, Waiting to Exhale, and The Preacher’s Wife, also brought her to the attention of Middle Eastern movie-goers. (The Bodyguard is a bad film, but it grossed $410 million outside the United States. It is after all a depiction of American glamor, and an inter-racial love story, and has a sound track that produced one of the greatest hits in music history.) The beauty of her voice and her dynamic stylings influenced many Arab pop singers.

Houston was also idolized as a person of color who broke through barriers. She was the first African-American on the cover of Seventeen, and her 1994 tour of post-Apartheid South Africa meant a great deal to that country, and to its president, Nelson Mandela.

Houston’s death was front page news in many Arab dailies, and elicited an outpouring of grief from her fans. Arabic newspapers said that the suddenness of her death magnified the shock. Her passing was also commemorated in Arabic on Twitter and Facebook.

Yemeni political activist and dissident Hind Aleryani ( @Dory_Eryani ) tweeted, “When I was a teenager in my room in #Yemen wondering what’s love, #WhitneyHouston was the voice that introduced Love 2 me #IWillAlwaysLoveYou.”

This recollection is a powerful reminder of the reach of American popular culture, and its influence in shaping ideas about, e.g., romantic love in the global South, including the Arab world....