Tasnim

This Blog Has Moved!

2010-01-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

This blog has moved! I'm redirecting you to my new blog.

This Blog Will Move!

2010-01-07T05:39:00.000-08:00

This year it will be five years since I started blogging, so I figured its about time for some renovation. It's not much of a change, since I am staying with blogspot... (I thought of moving to Wordpress, but I'm too cheap to go the wordpress.org way, and the free one is too limited.)

The address will however be changing, probably sometime this week. When I'm done with the essay I should be writing right about now. >_<

A belated happy new year to everyone, and all the best in 2010.

Translation: In the Arab World You Live

2009-12-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

Poem by Tamim Barghouti:
In The Arab World You Live

(my translation)

In the Arab world, you live
Like a cat living under a car
Eyes seeing nothing of this world but shoes.

In the Arab world, you live
Like a clown,
Under you,
A clown you step on,
And on your head,
A clown stepping on you,
And all standing,
- respectable!

In the Arab world, you live
A football match
That's been going on
For a thousand years.
Players running left and right
And the ball, all the time,
In the hands of the referee.

In the Arab world, you live
Cursing the taste of water
and falafel
and the coffee house
and its visitors
and your wife
and her children
what the devil does
and your penniless state.

And if they asked you,
You say: praise be!
May He keep the blessings coming!

In the Arab world, you live
Like tears in the eyes of the proud.
Difficulty banishes them,
generosity returns them.

In the Arab world, you live
A student in a school courtyard,
Breakfast-less,
Eyes on the street
As he salutes the flag.

In the Arab world, you live
One eye on the clock
Afraid you'll miss the news
To see onscreen people
In the Arab world, die.

Translated by: Tasnim Qutait

Conflict of Loyalty

2009-12-22T15:39:00.001-08:00

Sweden and the Minarets

2009-12-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

One in four Swedes are against the building of minarets, apparently. In the poll, 26% were against, 44% said they should be allowed, and 30% were undecided.

I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been a larger number against. But then what does that 30% mean exactly? That it is a non-issue, or that people would rather not say?

I have no idea what that picture has to do with minarets. A seemingly smiling woman in a headscarf. Is she smiling to say: I come in peace? That seems the only explanation, given the article, which talks worriedly about the danger of rising intolerance in Sweden in quite opinionated terms.

On TV, Debatt had a show about it, except like Debatt always is, it was too wide-ranging a topic and too big an audience for anything useful to be "debated."

In the video, after a repetitive squabble over the oh-so-familiar sentence "Islam is a violent religion", a woman asks the Muslim-identifying group: "why are we not allowed to criticize you?"

Indirectly, an answer was provided which showed some of the differences of Islam in Sweden. The bearded, middle-aged man defending Islam against the extremists, the earnest politically-active young woman pushing dialogue, and the long-haired live-and-let-live guy. The fractures are many. The young woman did not like hearing, for example, that most Muslims in Sweden are not Muslims, and only identify strongly as Muslims because/when the community is under criticism (the long-haired guy's opinion). Different people see being Muslim differently, she said pointedly in reply.

One interesting point raised though, is how isolated everything is in Sweden. Individuals living in houses, not much of a sense of having neighbors. It's much more that way than in the UK, even. The immigrant areas so clearly marked out, and even where there is mixing, there is no mixing because people keep themselves to themselves so much. What exactly can we do about that, the presenter asked. The answer: we shouldn't be doing anything, it should be happening naturally.

Hyperfiction Links

2009-12-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

From Orality to Literacy to Hypertext: Back to the Future?
Why Hyperfiction Didn't Work
Role Playing Games as Interactive Fiction

Seeking Coffee

2009-12-08T06:28:00.001-08:00

Enchantment of Reading

2009-12-06T11:48:00.000-08:00

It is. . . easy to account for this enchantment. To follow the chain of perplexed ratiocination, to view with critical skill the airy architecture of systems, to unravel the web of sophistry, or weigh the merits of opposite hypotheses, requires perspicacity, and presupposes learning.

Anna Letitia Barbauld so effortlessly mixing words like "enchantment" with making reading sound like brain-hurting rocket science. And the "web of sophistry." What strange collisions of scientific and "airy" words.

Contextualizing Rappaccini’s Daughter in the Contemporary Race Debate

2009-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Beyond Allegory

As Frederick Crews notes, the excess and fairytale logic of Rappaccini's Daughter calls “for some nonliteral rationale” beyond the literal plot, and the narrator’s claims that the tale makes “little or no reference either to time or space” has resulted in dozens of metaphysical ahistorical readings. But as the Author is dead, we hope to show that Rappacini's Daughter was, despite Hawthorne pronouncements, inscribed with the concerns of its historical moment. More specifically, we use Bakhtin's concept of the dialogic imagination to argue that Hawthorne deflected the identity crisis of mid-ninteenth century America to 16th century Italy. As a result of this analogy, threats to the illusory White Anglo Saxon Prostestant American identity being constructed at the time were conceived in what Said would call orientalist terms.

Said and American Orientalism

To discuss orientalism in Hawthorne is problematic as Said's conception of Orientalism as a discourse constitutive of and constituted by the direct exercise of imperial power in the Orient means that he sees American orientalism as developing only after WWII, when America took over as the dominant western power in the ‘Near and Far East’. This time-frame has been disputed as power in Focault's power-knowledge dynamic is not limited to colonialism, and scholars like Mae Ngai and Ussama Makdisi have examined 19th century American orientalist discourse in relation to Chinese immigration and evangelical missions in the Levant.

More radically Fuaad Shaaban argues that not only Said's time frame but his model of orientialism is inadequate, because Said fails to draw the obvious conclusion from his observation that the imaginary oriental Europe constructed provided “one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other...[and thus]... helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image”.

> Rest of Presentation

Shaaban points out that orientalist discourse was applied to non orientals. He develops his argument specifically in relation to Europe’s most successful imperial venture, showing how America has been seen in terms of the orient that bordered the old world since Columbus – it is after all how American Indians ended up with such an incongruous name.

We argue through Rappaccini's Daughter that what Robert Young terms mid-19th c America’s “obsession and paranoia about hybridity” often utilized orientalism to define the ideal American against the various others of the new continent. Orientalist discourse was thus mobilised against Native Americans, Hispanics, Blacks and even non-Anglo-Saxon Europeans.

Glamorizing Racial Quandaries

In literature this had an added bonus as 'Eastern matter' was both popular and as a European import, a high cultural reference. A reworked 'Orientalism' thus served to glamorise the contemporary racial quandry by Orientalising America's various ethnic others. Orientalist elements are present in 19th century novels set in America and explicitly concerned with racial issues, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, andThe Last of the Mohicans. However this is even more pervasive in Rappaccini's Daughter , which seeks to escape the mundane concerns of the “here and to the Old World.

Allegorical Purity/Dialogic Polyphony

The excessive allusions in the text to Dante, Aristotle, Milton, and the Bible suggest that Hawthorne was attempting to attach his writing to a classical European literary history, differentiating himself from what he referred to as Americas “ink-stained Amazons”.

As Brickhouse explains in Hawthorne and the Americas, the tale as a whole is “marked by its author’s aspiration to transcend national and historical contingency”. The setting of the tale in 16th century Italy was according to Hawthorne a deliberate device to escape from contemporary American concerns, and confining the action to a walled garden further resists historicisation.

By shutting out the “real world” the ambiguity of Rappaccini's Daughter 's allegorical structure seems paradoxically monologic, fusing together all possible meanings in a belief in the coherence and unity of the symbol.

As Bergovitch points out, “historical facts tend towards fragmentation, but ambiguity brings this tendency under control.” In this sense, the text seems anti-dialogic, since Bakthin's dialogics denies telos through a recognition of difference, while Hawthorne implies telos through an evasion of conflict, suspending the text in an apolitical ambiguity which can account for all readings.

This is implicit in the joke on the philosophizing narrator and the fictional critical essay framing the text, which can't contain the multiplicity of meanings in the allegorical structure.

However the text itself dramatizes a similar dialogic process where a singular authorial voice unfolds a polyphony of other voices.

At the same time as the text aspires to a pure genealogy, it reveals its impossibility. Hawthorne felt even Irish and French immigrants defiled “yankeeland”, yet his aspirational classical references are Semetic and Southern European. His sources problematize the attempt at a pure genealogy even further, as scholars have traced Rappaccini to the figure of the mad alchemist in Arab literature, while Beatrice's poisonous nature and her kinship with the plants originate in Indian drama. The tale's allegorical structure tries to avoid historicity, but this intertextuality, and the heteroglossia of what Bakhtin refers to as the “elastic environment of other, alien words”, bring specificity into the tale. Luedtke argues that paying attention to the oriental textual roots of Rappaccini's Daughter is one way of redeeming it from overly allegorical or clinical interpretation as.

In the second half of this presentation we will follow this approach by focusing on the characters of Rappaccini and Beatrice, arguing that Hawthorne reworked oriental literary figures and western orientalist discourse to examine the linked contemporary fears of miscegenation, and the hybridizing potential of science.

Dangerous Science

Rappaccini's Daughter dramatizes the danger of interfering with nature in the context of the rising influence of science, through Hawthorne’s recurring concern with the “scientist as ethical being”. In the text Rappaccini embodies the modern figure of the hubris-driven scientist, a figure which has its historical roots in the mad alchemist. As Schummer demonstrates in Historical Roots of the Mad Scientist, the alchemist, as the creator of unnatural compounds, has provided a literary device through which to examine a fraught sense of ethnic fault-lines, in texts from the Arabian Nights to Frankenstein.

Schummer points to the tale of Hasan al Basri in the Arabian Nights as an example. Set on the border between the Arab and Persian parts of the Abbasid empire, the Persian alchemist in this text has an integral xenophobic function, underlining the threat of bringing otherness into sameness, and reflecting the ethnic tensions of the time.

According to Schummer, Rappacinni is the first instance of the mad scientist in literature. In the story there is a shift in focus from the mad alchemist’s tragic end as a result of his meddling with God’s creation, to the “new mad scientist” figure whose crossing of nature’s boundaries “did harm primarily to other people” rather than to himself. As Browner points out, Rappaccini was a reflection of an intellectual debate at the time about science’s worrying drift away from the morals provided by the humanities.

Separated from morality, there is no limit to the dangerous hybridizing potential of science, in its attempt to reconcile differences and create new compounds. As Brickhouse points out, through out the story there is a “narrative suggestive equation of poisonousness with racial co-mixture” which would suggest that far from escaping its time and place Rappaccini’s garden in Renaissance Padua with its “unnatural” hybrid plants, materializes mid 19th century America's hysteria about hybridity.

The Poisonous Damsel: Racialised Botany

Beatrice is described as “sister” to a garden full of cross-bred, poisonous plants: “new varieties of plants more horribly deleterious than nature…would ever have plagued the world withal”. If we accept Mcnair Wright argument that in the 19th century “race was constructed” partly “through racializing…botanical species”, we can better understand the strange vehemence of the narrator's moral indignation at the “commixture and as it were adultery of various vegetable species".

The threat of this mixing is emphasized in the story itself, where Beatrice herself confesses that the more “gorgeous” plants “shock and offend" her, and where ultimately her realization that their “evil…mingle[s] with my being” leaves her no option but to die.

This reflects how at the time, hybridity was conceived in terms of the terrible sublime. This is exemplified in the text where Giovanni describes Beatrice as both "beautiful" and "inexpressibly terrible."

The Indian genealogy of the poisonous damsel motif is referred to in the text itself, as Beatrice’s dark coloring “one shade more would have been too much” is contrasted to Giovanni’s “Grecian… head…and gold…ringlets” and she is later explicitly linked to the fable of the poisonous Indian woman sent to assassinate Alexander the Great. The narrator disapproves of Giovanni “defiling the pure whiteness" of Beatrice's image by accepting this analogy, however the plot proves him to be correct.

Beatrice’s story parallels that of mixed-race heroines in 19thc American novels, such as Cora Munro in the Last of the Mohicans, who is depicted as both a source of contamination and a victim of her father’s crime of miscegenation. Beatrice, who is not just a source of contamination but literally poisonous, also shares the fate of the majority of these heroines. It is only their death that can cut the narrative's Gordian knot. Since mixed race heroines are represented compassionately yet as polluted and potentially polluting, no other plot resolution is possible.

Conclusion

Rappaccini's Daughter has “no explicit relation to inter-American racial ideologies” in Brickhouse’s words. However by tying Beatrice to what Brickhouse calls an “Orientalist fable of western male vulnerability” Hawthorne can be said to be reworking this fable for a mid-nineteenth century America, which was attempting to define itself as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation the context of wars with Mexico, rising immigration and an increasing population of free African Americans.

Bakthin's dialogic imagination entails a sustained open-ended tension between opposed or conflicted outlooks. Trying to avoid historicisation and conflict through allegory and ambiguity, Rappaccini's Daughter creates a tension which is preserved rather than resolved. In this sense, it is a profoundly dialogic text, a self-proclaimed ahistorical allegory deeply embedded in the mid-19th race debate, a polemic against hybridity which stages its own hybridity.

Serial Novels and Works in Progress

2009-12-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

The potted history of the serial novel is well-documented, dating back to The Thousand and One Nights, with its frame of vizier's daughter Scheherazade narrating hook-laden stories to avoid execution by King Shahryar. Its heyday was the 19th century, with the Charles Dickens-founded periodical, All the Year Round, publishing novels of his, including Great Expectations, and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, at the same time as Sherlock Holmes was taking his first cases in The Strand magazine (which had a circulation of 500,000). Nowadays newspapers and journals rarely serialise novels, but the format lives on in Japanese manga, as well as the dank online caves of the horror, SF and occult genres, pioneered by Stephen King's "e-novel", The Plant, published in 2000 (which remains unfinished).

So does the serial novel in 2009 feel anachronistic, or thoroughly modern – a way of reading literature facilitated by technology?

Serial novels makes me think of the Pickwick Papers. Serial writing makes me think of fanfiction and wips. And the contrary souls who prefer catching a "long, regularly-updated wip" right at the start to reading through one already completed. And comments and feedback and community. Imagining all the possible alternative stories in the virtual universe between the text and the reader, only that process is doubled in fanfiction, with the directness of its responding and being responded to.

The aesthetics of anticipation, I was told by one wip-fan... compelling enough to be addictive, especially if there is a judicious use of cliffhangers. And no abandoned fics at the end.

Back Home

2009-12-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Summer is drawing to an end and you are going back (home). The open suitcase, overflowing with summer clothes, tells you what you would rather not admit: you have become one of those people, the ones who stream back to the home country in the holidays, visiting beach resorts and attempting to learn the names of a new crop of cousins.

There had been a girl born the night you arrived. You had first seen her tiny seven-day old face by candlelight, in a house that was quiet and dark and unfamiliar due to a blackout. The lack of electricity and the shadows thrown by the lone candle had made the familiar room seem like a prehistoric cavern or a bomb-shelter.

This picturesque scene could be a whole chapter in a story of home-coming, the sort of story that delves exuberantly into all the details of the homeland, describing smell, texture, and taste like a gastronomist and a travel brochure rolled into one.

But to begin writing a story of home-coming, you first have to pin down the word home, pin it down firmly on a world map with a red map-pin and give it a name, a location, a latitude.

"Don't tell me you're feeling sorry for yourself," says the angular aunt, the one with the perpetual furrowed brow that lent her a thoughtful air and a dignified mien. "Thousands would dream of this sort of life."

"The world's full of nomads with a collection of passports and a year split between continents," your cousin interjects. She's one of them. One of you.

You never thought you would be a stranger to winters in your own country. You can vaguely remember summer visits when the water would make you sick, and that makes you think of stories of sickly children in alien climates, quite contrary Mary wilting under a fierce sun, stubbornly poking at infertile sand. It is not a comfortable thought, because it brings you face to

face with the sour truth that belonging is never simply a matter of deciding to.

"You can only really become something in your own land. It's about dignity." This is the wisdom offered to you by an elderly woman, full of life and wrinkles, who commandeers the tea-making

process. She hands you a cup of green tea and asks you chidingly when you will come home for good. You fumble for an answer that will satisfy her.

"Don't ever write about 'home-coming'," your cousin demands, with acerbic scare quotes.

You promise not to.

Within a few days you and your cousin will be on opposite ends of the globe, where your lives will continue to unfold, connected by nothing but the slender thread that leads you back here, every other other summer. You could ignore it. You were neither born nor raised here. You are not moored.

Except when you step out of the enclosure of walls, the physical space that is home, you're still in some way home here. You no longer qualify for go home slogans. You don't feel compelled to eulogize the feeling. But it's something. It's there.

Home back home is a terraced house, currently empty, in a nice suburb where the cats tiptoe across the roofs at night and slip into your room if the window is open. Plump well-groomed pets hold the community together, encroaching into the neighbors gardens with no respect for properly pruned hedges and demarcated borders. Here the door is always unlocked and occasionally ajar during the daytime, and neighbors come in with a perfunctory knock or the clearing of a throat, while the cats are skinny, feral and aloof.

You lean out of the window and look down at an overgrown garden, home to a lemon tree, a fig tree and a weathered palm with a trunk like rhino hide. There are roses on the family farm, pale pink as new skin, and your aunt, a dedicated gardener, has stolen some for her own plot of land, is gently encouraging their growth as though they were premature infants or children with delicate constitutions.

Like a scene out of a film the suitcase waits to be closed. You leave it open and wander downstairs, encountering clusters of people who are your flesh and blood. Family. You are waiting for the farewell scene, an inversed version of the welcome, the same faces, but more subdued. It is a special kind of theater.

It seems a day between the embraces of welcome and the uplifted hands of farewell.

Inside Story - Swiss Minaret Ban

2009-12-02T06:36:00.000-08:00

Gigglefit, Reading The Waves

2009-11-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

The waves of the sea “like turbaned warriors, like turbaned men with poisoned assegais who, whirling their arms on high, advance upon the feeding flocks, the white sheep.”

Reading Woolf and giggling. Don't generally go hand in hand.

Voting on Minarets in Switzerland

2009-11-29T03:35:00.000-08:00

Swiss nationals are voting on whether to ban the building of minarets on the country's mosques.

Muslims make up about 6 percent of Switzerland, where there are currently four minarets. Not quite as many as the army of minaret-missiles on the anti-minaret posters. But, says Ulrich Schlüer of the rightwing Swiss People's party, why wait till you can't see the white cross on the flag for the forest of black minarets?

This either/or, it is draining. But, aesthetically speaking, very cleverly depicted.

Schlüer argues that the minaret has got nothing to do with religion. But, simultaneously, it seems that minarets are the first stage to the introduction of sharia law.

First they build a tower, and then, you see, they ban bacon. Also, FYI, architectural structures conduct forced marriages.

"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure - we don't have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it."

Oh and Julia Onken believes "mosques are male houses, minarets are male power symbols...the building of minarets is also a visible signal of the state's acceptance of the oppression of women."

I. Well. How logical. Perhaps we need a more extensive ban, to fully eradicate male power symbol architecture?

Eid Mubarak

2009-11-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

Postcolonial And Diasporic Representations Of Muslim Women

2009-11-25T12:52:00.000-08:00

Westernised Women & Silenced Ciphers:

Postcolonial And Diasporic Representations Of Muslim Women

Essay published in Outskirts.

"The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women."

- Laura Bush

On August 26, 2000 the New York Times reported on Asiyah Andrabi, a “conservative Muslim and radical feminist” who “makes her demands for equal rights for women from behind the all-enveloping burqa.” Andrabi, who is also described as a militant fighting for the liberation of Kashmir, seems to compound what the writer evidently sees as the irreconcilable contradiction between feminism and Islam, women’s rights and the veil, Muslim women and militancy. The representation of Muslim women as militant or potentially violent is rare. The idea of Islam as threatening is usually reserved for Muslim men, while women are perceived as an object of pity or empathy. Underlying Laura Bush’s statement is this more familiar paradigm of women as victims of fundamentalist Islamic tradition, implicitly brown women in need of rescue by civilized people throughout the world.

This paper examines representations of Muslim women, looking at the way interpretations of the Muslim woman are often limited to what is seen as the symbolic and ideological aspect of their presence in the texts, and examining the wider question of the veil, which unavoidably enters the realms of religious debate, cultural theory and literary criticism. It will focus primarily on two texts which can be classified as postcolonial: Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (BA) and Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story. In studying these texts and their representation of Muslim women, I am concerned not so much with the concept of "writing back" which is often a common theme in post-colonial discourse but with the way both writers speak out of and to their respective audiences.

On the one hand, Aidoo’s ironically titled novel, as has often been noted, is in fact a discourse on the complexities of the positions and lives of members of the Ghana’s neo-colonial elite, (Odamtten: 1994: 161) while Kureishi writes not as a postcolonial subject displaced in Britain but “as a British subject in a post-colonial world trying to contest and displace the dominant narrative of the nation.” (Williams: 1999: 10) I have chosen to focus on two Muslim female characters represented in these two very different texts who both play a secondary part in the plot, yet whose presence in the text is nevertheless central to both novels.

(Rest of the Essay)

Algeria vs Egypt

2009-11-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

So everyone is watching the match, and I have been drawn inexorably into it, to the extent that I'm now watching football and listening to the French commentary on Algerian TV, because its raining here and the Egyptian channel is a mass of violent colors.

Which is not altogether inappropriate, considering the violence that "flared" days and days before the match and has continued to "flare" since, online and offline. You would think it would not be possible to despair more over the state of Arab disunity, but it seems some people are determined to prove otherwise.

I am not a football fan at all. But I can understand the football obsession, even if I can't fully relate to it. I was in Cairo when Egypt won the African cup. It was a quite spectacularly unforgettable night.

Wahed Sefr got that part right. So maybe it takes people's minds of the dreariness of day to day, and maybe it is about much more than nationalism.

But now its just ridiculous. Whoever wins the match, I think what will last longer in people's memory is the fiasco of what occured before it.

http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/11/game-night.html

http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/11/hats-off-mekki.html

Jamal Dajani on the Fort Hood Story

2009-11-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Don't Ask Me About Hasan

"Hey, Jamal...sorry to disturb you so early. But you know the Hasan story is big, and I was wondering if you're willing to come for an interview and talk about how it feels being a Maahzlem (Muslim) and all," a television producer says to me on my cell, while I was driving to work.

"How did you feel being a Christian, with Timothy McVeigh and Adolf Hitler being Christians?" I fired back.

Crane Your Neck to See the Sky

2009-11-05T02:48:00.000-08:00

'Rogue' Afghan Policeman

2009-11-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

Five British soldiers have been shot dead by a "rogue Afghan policeman."

Parenthetically, somewhere far below the masses of restrained recriminating text: Two Afghan police are also believed to have been killed. (Or, as it may be, three, we don't really know)

Reporting on the facts and responses to the facts are peppered with head-shaking over Afghan govt incompetence and Afghan police uselessness, amid analytical re-enactments and objectivity-laden emotion. I don't understand the convolutions of attempting neutrality. I really don't.

And now everyone has to focus very very carefully on the word "rogue" because why would an Afghan harbor ill-will towards British troops? The motive for this one, it's a real puzzler.

"Sources close to the investigation said Gulbaddin may have been high on heroin at the time of the attack. It has been suggested the killer may have had links to the Taleban. There are also suggestions that he had animosity towards his superiors after being repeatedly moved around the country as part of his duties."

So. Our "rogue Afghan policeman" is either a) a junkie b) a lazy native who didn't appreciate having duties, or c) a terrorist, in which case see d) the general uselessness of the Afghan govt which can't stop infilitrators infilitrating into their poorly educated, notoriously corrupt police force.

Yes, we are in a post-imperial age.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

2009-11-04T02:56:00.000-08:00

Another appalling video game movie. Xena meets Alladin by way of Tomb Raider, only Gemma Arterton's voice-over accomplishes the feat of being even more annoying than Lara Croft's accent.

Which, perfectly sensical. Over the top British accents, never ever out of place if you're talking ancient/foreign. (The prince in the game had a British accent. So. Yeah, extremely authentic.)

I do accept the wisdom and inevitability of Hollywood's marker for all things foreign, the neutral space for your imagination to supply authenticity. But: "We must take the dagger to the secret guardian temple!" Seriously? That is just toe-curlingly cringe-worthy.

And this appalling Disney misadventure is taken seriously enough that there are yelps of "white-washing!", followed by casting suggestions of ethnic-looking people and/or recommendations of contacts and tanning.

Also: Aryan Iranians (excuse me, Persians) harping on about their Caucasianness, and Iranians rolling their eyes at said Aryans, and the dawning awareness that Hollywood mentality makes blue-eyed Persian princes the flip-side of 300.

Prince of Persia was the first game I ever played. Now I will never be able to play it without feeling nauseous.

Al Jazeera's 13th Birthday

2009-11-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

Al Jazeera 13th Anniversary will apparently be accompanied by a make-over of the Arabic channel, which is in desperately dire need of change. Ever since someone decided to loose all sense of aesthetics and arabesques for the busy-ness of a CNN type glarish clash of colours, it's all gone more than a little random.

Content over appearance and all, but I have a conspiracy theory that Al Arabiya's viewers may be drawn there as a result of its colour-coded matchiness and restfully mesmerising purple. The expensive graphics may also be a factor. Al Jazeera Arabic has needed more funding for a long long time.

When it first launched in 1996, Jazeera was the only independent 24 hour news channel in the Arab world. It is still the most watched. The channel's appearance should be up to the standard of the reporting. And they really need the new programmes that will apparently be coming.

(I am still bemoaning the loss of Siri Lil ghaya and Yu7ka Ana)

So. Let's hope the relaunch does it justice.

Tunisia's First Lady and The Queen of Carthage

2009-10-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

The subject and title character of The Queen of Carthage by Nicolas Beau and Catherine Graciet, is Leila al-Tarabulusi, wife of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

And Leila is not at all flattered.

Written by two French journalists, the book promptly got itself banned in Tunis, for its apparently "offensive" portrayal of Tunisia's first lady and the sheer unwholesome amount of megalomania-inducing power she, and her tribe, so despotically wield. The book is apparently also critical of France's complicity and profound silence in the face of such abuses of power in its former colony.

Is is not ironic that this where France turns around with raised eyebrows and stresses: former colony. How scandalous to imply that we should interfere! We are no longer in the imperial age. We are the unassuming, unmeddling, diplomatic presence on the red carpet, side by side with our dark-skinned brethen for the general improvement of their quality of life, with absolutely no self-interest but our purely humanitarian concern for their well-being!

Tunisia is not pleased. There have been attempts to ban the book in France. Calling the book "defamatory" and "injurious" did not, however, have much effect. Since that didn't work out, Tunisian journalists who have dared to talk about the "injurious" book have been visited by government-sent thugs with a sanction to injure (as a means to re-adjust and fine-tune the journalist's sense of self-preservation.)

In other news, the Tunisian President was recently re-elected, with an unbelievable ego-inflating majority.

Islam: Sweden's Biggest Threat Since WWII

2009-10-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

Islam is Sweden's biggest threat since World War II, says Jimmie Åkesson, leader of Sweden Democrats. Writing in Aftonbladet, he asserted that “today’s multicultural Swedish power-elite are totally blind to the dangers of Islam,” and ended his article with a promise to do "everything in his power" to "turn the trend."And now everyone is in that mode of outraged condemnation that follows the outrageous comments of far-right leaders. Åkesson's blatant attention-seeking is getting a lot of attention.

Maria Schottenius writes "Grotesque, Jimmie Åkesson. Change Muslims to Jews and read." Kristina Edblom seems to be shaking her head exasperatedly in the article "Wrong, wrong, wrong, Åkesson." It's the literal (ten) statistical wrongs she points out, and the population studies that don't exist, which have meant that the SD leader had to take back and/or qualify a few statements, such as his claim that Muslim men are overrepresented among rape perpetrators. Although he explains a few others quite logically. When it comes to his claim that fundamentalism is rising, for example, he justifies that as a quite natural assumption since the Muslim population is growing.

One of the funniest passages in Åkesson's article is this: "Därmed antar man också att man kommer att kunna tämja islam på samma sätt som sekulära krafter sedan århundraden tillbaka tämjt den europeiska kristendomen och förpassat den till den privata sfären."

"There is an assumption that one can tame Islam as a century ago secular powers tamed European Christianity and relegated it to the private sphere."

Åkesson is contemptuous of such naivety. You can't tame Islam! It has no equivalent to the New Testament, no common or garden variety "kärleksbudskap" (literally, love message). Evidence for all this: they actively rejected the Enlightenment, and Humanism.

Such lovely, beautiful, enlightened, human ideologies to reject.

There are quite a few laugh-out-loud statements. There is also the usual, in one long, intense, overwhelming passage with the premise that "Islam has changed Sweden more than Sweden has changed Islam." We now have: Halal meat in swedish supermarkets! Swedish swimming pools with women-only hours! Ramadan holidays! Circumcisions! Terrorist organisations! And: High Birth Rates (They breed like rabbits)!

"All this is now part of the Swedish reality." You feel quite sorry for poor overwhelmed Åkesson at this point. According to him, this horrible nightmare is all the fault of the postmodern, "oikophobic" Western world. The editor's note at the end clarifies: "oikophobe: according to the British philosopher Scruton someone who despises his homeland."

Åkesson's article was a "debate" piece and its certainly done it's job in the sense that there is now a storm of words about Åkesson's words. I'm glad he wrote the article, and not only for the laughs. But I'm also in two minds about this. Condemning (or laughing at) Åkesson is very very easy. Actually dealing with the situation (and the mentality) behind his inflammatory words is not so simple.

Snake, Dove, World

2009-10-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Time That Remains Trailer

2009-10-22T10:36:00.000-07:00

Trailer for Elia Suleiman's film, The Time that Remains, which I blogged about here.

How Not To Be Unidentified & Fled

2009-10-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

(published in Gloom Cupboard)

how not to be unidentified

(iraq 2007)

as old as the olive tree

reads the text on the body

fished out of the river

in the blue light before dawn

the line decipherable

body still a cypher

but now the word is out

in the beginning the word

the riddle, the clue

poetic self-effacing small tattoo

waits for a face and a name

to replace the figures

on the anonymous stiff blank sheet

as the man at the morgue

numbers the nameless

in dingy dimlit rooms

nothing is white anymore

even at the height of noon

dark corners untouched

by sunlight, streaming

through bulletholes in metal doors

through the eye of a needle

silver needle retracing

new blue greivances

not snakes, tigerheads or proud flags

no bold these colours don't run

but first name, last name, tribal name

diligently picked out

by a fine arts graduate, raw tattoist

tattoing over and over

a rollcall of death

a thin woman with corrugated skin

and her own blue-green tattoo on her chin

brought in her great grand-daughter

last of the line, moon faced,

red-chipped polish on bitten nails

plaited hair and red ribbons

orphaned and cast back

two generations

there's a waiting list:

the dull-eyed, drained

of imagination

prozac zombie nation

the bitter, counting off their dead

on accusing fingers

the rosary-clicking crowd

agrees to anything

on the one condition

of positive identification

but the younger generation

wears pragmaticism

like a raincoat

get a tattoo in case you die

make it look good in case you live

no guarantees,

the self-made tattoist says

he turns his palms up,

they are even as the scales

of justice, blue 18

and 81 filling in the lines

no promises, no refunds

they discuss what part of the body

is most likely

to survive unscathed

and the neighbours children wear

themselves to school everyday

name, D.O.B, address,

denomination, (digitally

altered to protect their identity)

fled

fled the country

a running figure that just

gave the slip to the grasping shadow

that was the homeland

then shipped oars and anchored

temporarily somewhere

planning a pension

and an anthology of poetry

words that would scream

defiance and restore

everything, symbolically

II.

talking about the weather

is comforting now

when you've run away

from too many people who know too much

anonymous people

are a blessing

they have blank eyes

like teddybear buttons

and stitched smiles

and they say the most banal things

the mental voiceover goes away

snippets of overheard conversations substitute

and the anthology is left at a lonely sentence

about forgetting

Another Controversial War Book: Thomas Rathsack's Fighting with the Elite

2009-10-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Jæger – i krig med eliten (Fighting with the Elite) by former Danish commando Thomas Rathsack is a book about the Danish Army’s Special Operations Force in Afghanistan. It is a book which has been described as a threat to national security. Flemming Rose of the Danish cartoon controversy, he who preached so eloquently, harping on about the utter sanctity of freedom of speech, apparently agrees to the need to suppress some freedoms and ban some books for the sake of the better functioning of armies (our brave men and women) in faraway foreign lands.

According to the army, the book is too detailed, therefore it's dangerous. To prove that, they had it translated into Arabic, and put it on the web. Look! It's there. In Arabic. For everyone Arab to see.

Our crabbed script is a terrorist. Linguistic signs of danger, knowledge as power and a strange self-defeating paradox which calls for Foucauldian disentangling. There's a joke there somewhere.

Politiken was the first newspaper to publish the full edition of the book. Toger Seidenfaden, editor-in-chief, said this: Suddenly, the minister of defense announced that there was an Arabic translation of the book on the Internet, and he pointed out to the whole press corps and to the parliament that this was clearly a sign that some dangerous people out there were interested in the contents of the book...It turned out that the leak which had put it briefly on the Internet had been done by the spokesman, the colonel in charge of communications for the defense ministry.”

Arab Poetry in Transition

2009-10-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time André Lefevere argued that “of all the great literatures of the world, the literature produced in the Islamic system is arguably the least available to readers in Europe and the Americas.” Since that time, there has been a marked increase in translation from the Islamic world into European languages, especially English.

When it comes to Arabic literature, translation has conventionally focused on poetry, reflecting its ‘privileged’ status. Egyptian poet Iman Mersal, in describing the “limited exposure the West has had to Arab literary output”, noted two trends: the favoring of traditional, especially Sufi, poetry, at the expense of the modern, and when it comes to the modern, presenting the works of known poets (Adonis, Darwish, Saadi Youssef) “as if suspended in a poetic vacuum…without providing a background that would place them in a cultural or literary tradition.”

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on modern Arab literary output, and a rise in translations of novels beyond those of Naguib Mahfouz.

Poetry, however, has remained privileged, with a dramatic increase in translations modern Arab poets beyond the handful already "recognised" outside the Arab world. This should be a good thing. However, several warning voices have pointed out that there are problem with this phenomenon. As Elie Chalala points out the “trend toward prolific translation of marginal Arab poetry” potentially “distorts the image of Arab poetry [and] the importance of the poets in their own native poetic environment.”

It’s not of course that it is only marginal poetry being translated. There are also books like Nathalie Handal’s The Poetry of Arab Women, a continuation of the work begun in Salma Khadra Jayyusi’s seminal Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology. Sarah Maguire, often referred to as perhaps the only living English-language poet who has had a collection translated into Arabic, cites Jayussi as the beginning of her fascination with Arab poetry. What drew her, she says, was the poetry’s lyricism, it’s “enormously sensual” quality “as well as—or rather linked with—a deep political sense.”

Advertising this popular politico-sensual quality is often a good marketing strategy. It is a quality captured in translations of obscure poetry from war-torn countries, collected under the adaptable title: “Poems of Love and War.”

However, there is much that does not translate as well, such as the “bombast and self-aggrandisement and showing off” which, from Maguire’s Western perspective is “a problem with a lot of poets writing in Arabic.”

I would say that the political and literary underpinnings of the age-old tradition of bombast make it a little too deep-rooted to be set aside and labeled audience-repelling problem. Qabani’s poems, for example, frequently employ this bombastically explosive ‘I’ who proclaims:

My poem won't kiss your hand, it is

Sultans who should kiss its hand.

Self-aggrandizement, maybe. But it also reminds the reader of Al Mutannabi’s famous claim that his words are more important than the battle won - without the words, history would not remember the battle.

Maguire stresses that reading Arab poetry provides “a perspective which is crucial if we are to apprehend what’s happening in the world today”, as well as an “aesthetic injection” to the poetry of what she refers to as ‘grey’ countries. Her own poetry quietly injects words like ‘zaatar’ (Arabic for thyme) as symbol for a bitter history, described as:

pollen like gunpowder

dust in the hand

cast over Palestine

from the mouths of stones.

The personal, according to some, is increasingly converging with poetical and political in young Arab poetry. Dr. Basilyus Bawardi who teaches Arabic poetics, argues that it is “leaving behind the ‘sanctified’ subjects – lachrymose love poems or poems of cliched symbols, resistance poetry.” Even when poems deal with these tired or tiresome themes, it is “in a way that is more intellectual and calculated. Arabic poetry today is more personal, but it still radiates a certain kind of collectivity.”

Maurits Berger heaves a sigh of relief in similarly noting the move away from “heroic and nationalistic Palestinian literature” to “personalised miniatures”, and “refined style [which] yields very powerful images. No mention is made of ‘Palestine’, ‘homeland’ or similarly grand terms.” This last statement could be interpreted in a variety of ways: either poems which mention Palestine are not personal, or they are unfashionably epic-leaning, or perhaps, Berger means to say that Palestinian poets have finally woken up to the postmodern and ditched the meta-narrative. Whatever the interpretation, it is clear that personalized miniature Palestinian poetry which doesn’t appear to hassle or hector the reader too overtly is easily confined to the story circle and stripped of political depth. So, Darwish’s work becomes poetry you can read out loud “in the company of friends, with coffee or tea and a plate of halwayat.” And apparently, this is also imminently translatable poetry.

It is true that there’s also something of an appetite for modern Arab poetry not so lightly consumed. This is where taboo-breaking and/or diaspora poetry steps in. Popularity is greatly increased if the poet has been imprisoned or exiled. As Mersal incisively comments: “[for] Western organizations… drawing writers who had been imprisoned in their countries is a way of stating their inculpability from the absence of the freedom of speech. It could also be a denial of the role the West plays in not encouraging this right in some areas of the world like the Middle East.”

Similarly, although less sympathetically, Syrian poet and critic Nouri Jarah points out that many poets rushed into translation are often "transformed from individuals fleeing repression into individuals benefiting from repression." In such a situation, being granted political asylum has more influence on translation than the merit of the poetry. This leads to the slightly ludicrous situation where someone completely unknown to Sudanese audiences, for example, can become Sudan’s representative poet. And this poet is then assumed to be the best a certain culture has to offer. Because no one else has been translated.

If repression leads to seeking political asylum which leads to being granted asylum which leads to being translated, quite clearly, as Jarah says, "the more repression intensifies... the more prosperous the conditions of the poet." Choice of where to apply is strategic. If you want to be translated into German apply for asylum in Germany. This is how, as Jarah puts it, "the Danish reader had his own Iraqi poet; the Swedish his Kurdish poet…and the French his Algerian."

Perhaps this is inevitable. That the rush of translation has made literature produced in and by the Arab world increasingly more available is obvious. What’s not so certain is whether this rush of translation has fulfilled the functions Adrienne Rich describes in this passage:

We translate…for illumination of the poetic core of literatures we could not enter any other way. And for other reasons too, having to do with what in poetry is inimitable, intransigent, telegraphic, musical, explicit, indirect, physical, impalpable, unmistakably human as the human face, yet varied as faces are.

Exilic

2009-10-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

reading the exilic poem to fresh-faced

diaspora young, new crop

arab eyes

stumble over arabic

words,

hurdles

flowing script disjointed

knots and dots, a therefore

over a loop

a noose, a ring

exhaustion settles in

released from everything too cursive

their tomorrows step away

from your yesterdays

Azhar Usman in Sweden

2009-10-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

I went to see Azhar Usman of Allah Made Me Funny perform in Kista on Tuesday. Travelled from a seminar in Uppsala to a standup performance in Stockholm. It was one of those mind-whirling days when morning and evening seem to be separated by a gulf of events and the horrors of public transportation.

The performance was about an hour, comprised of some old material, some context specific jokes (IKEA-land) and some really hilarious cultural commentary.

I think everyone recognised the imam who shouts into the microphone, telling everyone that "we have to love each other!"

Also, he kept repeating the words "Sneak Islamifiering!" a phrase he had heard in Norway, which an audience member explained was the idea of Muslims sneaking Islam into secular society.

What does it mean? That one day, before you know it, the adhan will blare out from loudspeakers?

As Azhar Usman pointed out, Muslims are not very sneaky.

Bab Al Hara's Um Josef

2009-09-23T12:59:00.001-07:00

In its fifth season, Bab Al Hara has been established as a Ramadan tradition. I seem to have inadvertently started a series on the show and reasons people watch it, despite the fact that since the first season I have yet to accomplish the feat of actually watching a full episode. I do however catch the beginning with my post-iftaar coffee and knafa.

This year one of the most popular characters introduced is El Nimes, a comical flea-ridden trickster figure whose greetings have been turned into ringtones throughout the Arab world.

But as far as I am concerned, if there was any reason to watch Bab al Hara this year, it was Um Josef, another new character who has gone some way towards overturning criticism that the show only features vapid women in limited roles. A strong-willed, strong-minded, outspoken, and occasionally foul-mouthed midwife, she plays an instrumental role in helping the resistance and is clearly intended to represent unity and nationalism. This "avatar" element of her role is underscored by her Christian faith (she wears a big cross), and her fiery rallying words.

She is only just rescued from being too much of an avatar by a couple of wry sentences, and by the fact that she is played by Mona Wasef, one of a very limited number of Arab actresses who can actually act.

Um Josef is irreverent, she smokes, and she makes disparaging remarks about several of "the Men" - the same Men whose exploits carry the plot forward while the women are left to fill in the scenes with petty cat fights and picturesque housewifely chores of once upon a time.

Unfortunately, her presence (and her character's) couldn't quite keep Bab el Hara 4 from descending into a mire of cliches and melodrama and confusion. So much of Bab el Hara 4 was herding the viewer towards Bab el Hara 5, and so much effort was put into cliffhangers and creating new stories, that the current story made little sense.

Three-quarters of it was an improvement on last year, which was criticized for being nothing but a series of births, divorces and marriages. This year the show started off all political - the Hara challenged the French, which resulted in a seige (echoing the Gaza situation). However, after that crisis was resolved, new story lines and new characters multiplied, with no obvious function but to hook the audience for next Ramadan's show.

Not surprisingly, quite a lot of viewers have given up on the series, feeling that it has become little more than a money-making scheme. But for others, Um Josef is enough of an incentive to change their opinion that the Hara doors should close forever.

I just wish I could transplant her character into another story.

Skansen

2009-09-21T11:06:00.001-07:00

Eid Sweets

2009-09-20T01:26:00.000-07:00

Moved to Uppsala!

2009-09-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

Finally found a flat in Uppsala, and moved (for the fourth time this year!). Just in time too, since summer is over and term has officially begun. The first term is all Literary Theory and Academic Writing, which means that I am now regretting all the books I left behind in storage in Libya. Having to check a long list of libraries and waiting for a book to become available is not fun. It is especially not fun when you have the same book but just can't get to it due to the complication of it being in another country.

It's odd to plunge back into a subject after four years. Leads to a lot of tip of the tongue moments. The information is there, just frustratingly out of reach. Like the books.

Ramadan Kareem

2009-08-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Top of the Wishlist

2009-08-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Climbing the Wall

2009-08-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

Moving House!

2009-08-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Again. And this is a temporary residence, while we search for a flat in Uppsala where we're staying for the next two or so years. Sweden seems to be grossly overcrowded. Searching for accomodation here is not at all easy, and the formfilling is a headache, despite deceptively streamlined bureaucracy.

On the whole, moving is a long and laborious enough process, but the worst of it is that I'm reduced to stealing the neighbour's wireless connection. As wi-fi hotspots go, it's abysmal. The signal is weak and very erratic. Sometimes, working from home seems less like the most flexible way to work and more like the most frustrating.

Suheir Hammad - What I Will

2009-07-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

Blue Belligerence

2009-07-29T04:23:00.000-07:00

Muslima.Ink!

2009-07-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Muslima Magazine Project

2009-07-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the summer I have been involved in a project organized by Kista Folkhögskola, an education/culture centre which is hoping to launch a bilingual (English-Swedish) online magazine for and by young Muslim women.

The magazine will be mainly user-generated. Part of it will be in Swedish and will be focused on Sweden, while the English section will have a more global perspective.

Production: to publish an issue every other month (6 times a year).

Content: any genre of writing is welcome: articles, interviews, media analysis, reviews of books and films, health & fashion tips, stories, poems, recipes...the only limit is your imagination!

Goals: addressing problems and issues facing Swedish Muslims, but also to focus on the positive e.g profiling role-models, reflecting daily life for Muslims in Sweden.

During the Kista Folkhögskola Summer Academy at Sjövik, we set up a Writing Workshop for young teens whose work will hopefully be part of the first issue. They wrote on a wide variety of topics, including being bilingual, attending a concert for the Muslim hip-hop group Poetic Pilgramage, sports & hijab, careers and so on.

We are still building our team, still looking for contributors as well as editors for the Swedish section.

Our latest recruit: Madde! http://pinglanm.blogg.se/

http://www.kistafolkhogskola.se/

muslima.ink@live.com

Perishability in a Photograph

2009-07-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Two more random photos to add to my collection of random photos.

Spider webs and roses, it doesn't get more clichéd, and I can never resist a cliché.

And fire is always highly photogenic.

I Call This A Poem

2009-07-24T04:20:00.000-07:00

Otur

det fanns en tydlig väg
och en välvillig sön
och en uppfriskande fläkt
och jag gick uppåt
utan ansträngning,
som en sten rullar ner

i mina drömmar.

Misfortune

there was a clear path
and a benevolent sun
and a refreshing breeze
and I went upwards
effortlessly
as a stone rolls down

in my dreams.

We had to write a poem in Swedish. Having attempted this feat I learnt that writing a poem in a language you are still learning is not at all easy... and can in fact lead to unintentional comedy.

Sjövik Photos

2009-07-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Back from Dalarna

2009-07-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a week of what I will call a holiday, because the place was so serenely beautiful just being there made it a break from the business of ordinary life.

In reality, though, it was also a summer job during which I reprised my role as teacher of English as a second-language to bratty pre-teens and was forced to develop my Swedish speaking skills.

It was daunting and stressful and an experience, which is what I have decided to call anything I could have done better but hopefully will know how to do better next time.

At the end of the week I had reached the conclusion that a couple of Ukranians who speak neither English or Arabic are more manageable to teach than a gaggle of giggly Swedish-born girls.

The focus of the course was on writing. Most wrote on topics they had chosen, like travel, being bilingual, sports, careers and role-models. And then there was that inevitable little group who wanted to write about Hannah Montana. A line must be drawn somewhere. They got the dictator's pick of subject.

Quite a few of the girls became surprisingly innovative in the last two days, which was good, but also frustrating, because time was up and the course was over and I had to trust them to carry out interviews and write them up entirely independently.

The whole thing was part of a summer academy set up by Kista Fölkhögskola for Muslims in Sweden. This is their third year, and people came from Göteburg and Mälmo and all over to be there. There was an uplifting sense of community and oneness and joyous gathering, balanced out by the usual politics of human interraction and the necessary penance of communication.

I also helped out at a nursery. Helping out a nursery can be part of the aforementioned sense of cummunity and togetherness. It can also mean being willing to endure face-painting and running after runaway three-year-olds who claim to know the way home.

How to Grade a Murder

2009-07-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

There's an article in the Guardian about Marwa Sherbini, with the title "A Murder that Germany Ignored." That says it all. Apparently, now is the time to ask questions about why no one asked questions before the demonstrations in Egypt. Poetically, the article that starts off as a sympathetic look into why Marwa's case was under-reported ends up wryly acknowledging the real worry for the German public - risk-levels and tourism and conversations that end prudently with "perhaps its not such a good idea to go see the pyramids this year."

Is it wrong to laugh?

The German press reported on the case on the back page and fell asleep. A few days later it was awakened by thousands of Egyptians who protested vociferously against the "Islamophobia" of the Germans. Islamophobic? Us? Suddenly the German federal government, which had kept silent for nearly a week, found words of sorrow. And journalists started to write long articles about the astonishing reactions in Egypt.

I don't think Marwa's murder proves German "Islamophobia". But it proves a lack of interest in the reality of today's German society that is disturbing. And the more one thinks about it, the more disturbing it gets...
The press treated the case as if it was something banal. Just one of these tragic incidents one cannot really understand. It was not until the demonstrations in Cairo that the details were published. And then the German press very quickly had other worries. One day after the demonstrations a radio host called Karim al-Gawhary, the Cairo correspondent of a German newspaper, and asked him: "How dangerous is it now for German tourists in Egypt?"

The Egyptian blogosphere has been up in arms about the Marwa Sherbini case this last week, and rightly so. I think that it would actually be a challenge to react to this story with anything less than outrage and disbelief.

A pregrant woman stabbed 18 times infront of her 3 year old son, who then sees his father stabbed and then shot by security who mistake him for the attacker?

As a cinematic moment, it would seem contrived, implausible and melodramatic. But the tragedy is this tragedy is real, and responding to an incident like this with vitriolic "now we know who the real terrorists are" rhetoric is, as far as I'm concerned, petty. It's trivalizing and it's silly. Not to mention that it is as disconnected from reality as the blusterings of the "this has nothing to do with racism" "this was a mindless if tragic killing" camp.

This has everything to do with racism, and the fact that the husband was assumed to be the attacker only compounds that racist dimension. But perhaps what fueled the outrage in the Egyptian media most was the under-reporting of this story in Europe, especially when compared to the frenzied coverage of atrocities commited by Muslims. If Marwa had been the victim of an honour killing, her face would porbably be more recognisable. It would be plastered all over right-wing blogs. But positing the question "what if she was the victim of an honour killing?, like weighing coverage of Marwa's murder against coverage of Theo Van Gogh's murder, doesn't change the fact that this story doesn't seem to be as interesting.

I suppose "imagine if she was black" arguments might help someone see the case in a different light, but only if they are of the opinion that "Muslim" is no subset of "human".

Pomegranates and Myrrh

2009-07-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

Pomegranates And Myrrh is Najwa Najjar’s debut feature film, portraying the realities of day-to-day life in besieged Ramallah and telling a story of life, love and resistance.

The film focuses on Ziad and Kamar, both of the Christian Arab minority. It begins with Ziad's journey to East Jerusalem to marry Kamar, and we see the beginning of what should have been their happy life together. But the couple's dreams for the future are dashed when Ziad is placed under administrative detention and attempts are made to confiscate their land. Trying to cope with her husband's imprisonement, Kamar turns to her passion for dance and meets choreographer Kais, who has returned to Palestine after 20 years in exile.

In Najwa Najjar's words:

"The idea for the film started with the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada. Witnessing the daily violence, humiliation, grinding poverty, curfews, movement controls, assassination attempts and the tit for tat suicide bombings . . . "

Najjar also said: "I wanted a Palestinian story. A story different to what the world was used to seeing – simply a story of Palestinians trying to live ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances, which has been (and continues to be) overlooked...."

I have lost count of the variations on "this is not about politics, this is about ordinary people", a line which is frequently deployed in films about Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and other troubled regions, apparently in an attempt to confirm of the humanity of humans.

I absolutely love Najjar's work but I really hate that line. It is starting to sound like a supplication. An "excuse me while I venture into the realm of stories from your evening news" apology. A preamble begging the viewer's patience to dabble in depressing issues, as though to say "this film is about Palestine, but let me hasten to add, it is also very much about dancing and love triangles."

But I don't want to sound negative. I guess she explains it quite beautifully: "I needed to find a way to survive, to find hope in what seemed to be a hopeless situation . . . It is my hope that this story - told through the story of a woman, a love story, a story of dance and music, incorporating the events both internally and externally will evoke similar emotions and feelings in anyone confronting barriers blocking the achievement of his or her ambitions and dreams."

Egyptian Woman Killed in German Court Drama

2009-07-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

Huffington Post - Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" on Monday - a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom as her young son watched.
Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Her husband was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.

Nice. Let's begin in the passive voice, concentrate on the amusing appellation, and then suggest rampant conspiracy theorism and over-application of the word racism. Having covered outraged crowds, move on to the actual incident, which if you read that far, may potentially help clarify the racism charge.

Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.
Her husband, who was in Germany on a research fellowship, came to her aid and was also stabbed by the neighbor and shot in the leg by a security guard who initially mistook him for the attacker, German prosecutors said. He is now in critical condition in a German hospital, according to al-Sherbini's brother.
"The guards thought that as long as he wasn't blond, he must be the attacker so they shot him," al-Sherbini told an Egyptian television station.

Global Voices

Islam in Europe

Margaret Atwood - The Tent

2009-07-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

"Why do you think this writing of yours, this graphomania in a flimsy cave, this scribbling back and forth and up and down over the walls of what is beginning to seem like a prison, is capable of protecting anyone at all? Yourself included. It's an illusion, the belief that your doodling is a kind of armor, a kind of charm, because no one knows better than you do how fragile your tent really is. Already there's a clomping of leather-covered feet, there's a scratching, there's a scrabbling, there's a sound of rasping breath. Wind comes in, your candle tips over and flares up and a loose tent-flap catches fire, and through the widening black-edged gap you can see the eyes of the howlers, red and shining in the light from your burning paper shelter, but you keep on writing anyway because what else can you do?"

I read a review that made Margaret Atwood's The Tent seem pretension-intensive, claustraphobic, moralistic, and generally demoralising. Back away, this way be prose poetry. Fictional essays. Fictional essays described as entertaining.

The words entertaining and essays, combined. As an incorrigibly pretentious person myself, I have a keen and highly developed sense for the pretenious, and that is pretension, defined. Feel priveleged, unworthy reader, holder of this small, incomplete book in your hands. This is Vintage Atwood. Punctuated with wonderful illustrations by the author. There's even a red ribbon bookmark.

So maybe, if Margaret Atwood hadn't half-written them, these fragments or fictional essays or prose poems or incomplete yet highly imaginative tales wouldn't have been published. But Margaret Atwood did write them and they are brilliant. Of course they are. It is vintage Atwood.

Although they are not all exactly entertaning. More like dauntingly breath-takingly inspiring. I re-read and re-re-read Life Stories, Voice, and The Animals Reject Their Names. I grinned through Plots for Exotics and Chicken Little Goes Too Far. Didn't much like King Log in Exile. Or Tree Baby. A little too unfinished to be artfully unfinished for my taste. "There is a charm and even a beauty in unfinished work," Peter Ackroyd wrote in Chatterton. "The face which is broken by the sculptor and then abandoned, the poem which is attempted and never ended..."

Artists used to have to learn to draw actual recognisable portraits and learn perspective and all those technical details before they could scrawl stick-figures or paint random streaks and call the result art. It's a good thing Atwood wrote stories about novels she would never write. And not solely for the immensely practical and satisfying reason that The Tent fits into any handbag and is readable and re-readable anywhere. Also because it is like being invited into the workshop of seemingly effortless talent. And also, it is the first book I've lingered over since The Lollipop Shoes.

I read it in a waiting-room. It made me insanely jealous. Talent always does.

To Read is to Travel - Rise of the Muslim Woman's Memoir

2009-07-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

A re-write of my essay on travel narratives in Muslim women's literature, published at Altmuslimah:
Muslim women's memoirs often deal with what it means to be pulled between the polar forces of East and West, and whether it is possible to find balance in the midst of that cultural intersection. Complicating this is a delicate balance between challenging the Western representations of Muslim women and avoiding painting an overly romantic picture of the East.

The post 9 /11 period has seen a proliferation of texts on the Muslim world which fall under the genre of the travel narrative. In recent years this has included a wave of personal accounts by journalists reporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as The Bookseller of Kabul, by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, or Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between, an account of his experiences in Afghanistan, which was followed by The Prince of the Marshes And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq.

These texts promise a reader that he or she will emerge with the same depth of knowledge that the traveler possesses, or in other words, that to read is to travel. They promise to pinpoint and define the essence of a place, which, to paraphrase Woolf, can simply mean to “seek out whatever it may be that is most unlike what we are used to, and declare this to be the very essence.”

Clearly, travel and exposure do not always cleanse the traveler of prejudice. In Orientalist travel narratives, the search for what is “most unlike what we are used to” tended to fixate on the veil or the harem as misogynistic touchstones of a region and a religion that were at once alien, violent, and inferior.

In more recent years, a globalized discourse of the Muslim woman has emerged, referred to as the New Orientalist narrative, which has propagated an image of victimhood. The image has then been employed to justify war as the exportation of freedom and democracy.

Mohja Kahf has argued that the existing paradigm for stories about or by Muslim women relies on stereotypical images which have dominated Western representations of Muslim women since the 18th century. These clichés fall into two broad categories: victim and escapee. The story of the victim is characterized by stasis – the marginalized woman on the edges of society, the girl sequestered in her room, the concubine revamped. The escapee, on the other hand, is an agent capable of action, who breaks through a life of suppression to flee to the Western world, where she finds a secular haven.

The increasing interest in the stories of Muslim women has been accompanied by an increase in literature by Muslim women writers, especially memoirs and autoethnographies. The rise of this genre has been partly attributed to its promise to take the reader on a journey into the author's private world. In many ways, this can be seen as an effort by Muslim women to reclaim their identities, but writing about one’s life can easily be manipulated to meet demands. An example of this can be seen in the memoirs of the Egyptian feminist Huda Sha'rawi, originally titled My Memoirs, and given the title Harem Years when translated. On the other hand, it would be simplistic to imply that writers are pawns to the demands of the market, particularly as some of these writers have themselves been accused of limiting themselves to a restricted repertoire to pander to expectations.

Reviewers of Muslim women's literature often seem to read these works as sociological and anthropological texts that directly reflect the reality of the "Muslim Woman.” This assumption simplifies the nebulous position of many Muslim women, both in the diasporas and in countries caught between Western and Islamic values. These writers are trying to wear multiple hats as they attempt to address both the West and speak to their own cultures, all the while working to dismantle outdated Orientalist myths. In Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun for example, the heroine is disturbed by the fact that she is perceived as “exotic,” seeing nothing exotic about the fact that she is Egyptian.

There is, however, a delicate balance between challenging the Western representations of Muslim women and avoiding painting an overly romantic picture of the East. Examinations of contentious topics such as honor killings, oppression, and women’s rights are susceptible to “The Color Purple” syndrome, the debate raised by the publication of Alice Walker's novel, over whether and how a black woman writer should address the sexism of black men in the midst of a racist mainstream climate.

For many Muslim women writers these problems are amplified by the fact that they choose to write in English, a choice which, in some cases, leaves them vulnerable to the criticism that they have “forgotten their roots,” a criticism Hind Wassef has made of Souief in an article with the uncompromising title "Unblushing Bourgeoisie”.

A third dynamic can be seen in the counter-narrative offered by some Muslim women writers to the New Orientalism they detect in the work of their peers. This is something Fatemeh Keshavarz examines in her book Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran. As Keshavarz points out, the New Orientalist narrative often takes the form of eyewitness accounts which don't demand that their reader be informed about the context. Such books often “appeal to an ongoing post-9/11 sense of insecurity” by showing that “discontented people in the problem-ridden areas in the Middle East are by and large the monsters that you are afraid of.”

Muslim women's memoirs often deal with what it means to be pulled between the polar forces of East and West, and whether it is possible to find balance in the midst of that cultural intersection. This tension can be seen even in the titles of the memoirs, as in Azadeh Moaveni’s Lipstick Jihad, subtitled A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran.

Interestingly, in a New York Times review, Lipstick Jihad was described as “giv[ing] the reader a guided tour through the underground youth culture in Tehran." If reading a book is akin to taking a guided tour, in this case the writers themselves often travel between two worlds, their work creating not a perfect synthesis of cultures, but new structures which open up new ways of thinking, suggesting that East/West is often an oversimplification of modern mobility.

Deepak Chopra: Mini Skirts, Yes. Burqas, No?

2009-06-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Huffington Post - Doesn't it seem strange that women in France have the right to wear mini skirts but not burqas? Both costumes are about sexuality, or if that seems too judgmental, both are about the issue of modesty. In the Arab world this is a religious issue, and it's not as though the Christian world is totally free of that perspective -- as far as I know, a woman will not be permitted inside the Vatican without covering her head. A secular society has no business making decisions based on religion, and that means in either direction.

An Uncertain Hour

2009-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Refik Sener - Ayatollah Dostoevsky

2009-06-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

A snippet of Refik Sener's short story Ayatollah Dostoevsky, translated from Swedish:

The seat opposite me was empty, but for a little book with a grey cover. To judge from the letters it was either Arabic or Persian, but the picture was familiar; it was Fyodor Dostoevsky's figure. It was clearly a translation of his work. But which? While I sat and thought of the possibilities a man came in. [...] The man gave the book a push and sits in the empty seat. Then he glanced at it. "That's no Swedish book," he said. "That's some Muslim nonsense. That such people are let into this country..."

"It's Dostoevsky," I said. "He's the one who wrote Crime and Punishment."

"He's one of their mullahs, is he?"

"Whose?" said I, somewhat surprised.

"The Muslims, of course. One of their mullahs who want to take over the world and rule it with Muslim laws. Crime and Punishment indeed!"

- Refik Sener, Ayatollah Dostoevsky

The Fabulous Picture Show - Ajami

2009-06-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera Journalists Released

2009-06-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

AJE - "Afghan authorities have released two Al Jazeera producers who had been kept at the intelligence headquarters in Kabul for three days.

Qais Azimy, a senior producer at Al Jazeera English channel, and Hameedullah Shah, from the Arabic service, were freed around 11:30 GMT on Wednesday.

The producers were detained on Sunday, two days after Al Jazeera aired a report on the Taliban in Kunduz province that was produced by Azimy....

David Chater, who filed the report for Al Jazeera, said: "Intelligence forces ... accuse us of producing something that is unbalanced, with no government representative.

"That is clearly untrue. We interviewed at the same time the commander of the German forces in Kunduz, and he put his point across very clearly. That was a balanced report."

Khadija Project

2009-06-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

The Khadija Project is a Swedish-Muslim initiative which, as it's name suggests, focuses on women's issues, working "to ensure that Muslim women's voices are heard", "to counteract the negative media coverage of the Muslim woman", and "to highlight her role as a contributing factor to Swedish society."

What I found interesting and encouraging about this project was that, unlike Elektra, there doesn't seem to be that patronzing vibe. No tear-jerker tactics and weepy rhetoric by Westernized second-generation immigrant Muslim women intent on rescuing poor oppressed Muslim women still languishing in the dark ages. And no Operation Remove Veil either.

Instead the first few sentences point out the gulf between, on the one hand, the view of many Muslim women who stated in a Gallup poll that their religion is a source of happiness and strength in their lives, and on the other hand, the broad abstraction of the myth that flourishes in the western media of the oppressed Muslim woman.

On the blog of one of the project-leaders, I found the following desciption:

"...det nystartade projektet Khadija som ska handla om jämställdhet riktat mot muslimska grupper. Där vi (jag är en av projektledarna) ska arbeta för att ta fram en metod med att förena svensk jämställdhetslagstiftning och syn på jämställdhet med en islamisk syn på detsamma. Islam är i sig jämställt och erbjuder en jämställd syn på mannen och kvinnan. Tyvärr efterlevs detta inte av olika skäl i den muslimska världen och hos de muslimska grupperna. Vi vill förändra detta och lyfta fram jämställdhetsbegreppet på nytt för att skapa en omvärdering av det. Idag är jämställdhet bland muslimer så ofta förknippat med en kulturimperalism där västerländska värderingar och uppfattningar hängt med när man velat liberalisera och kolonialisera den muslimska världen... Vi vill komplettera redan befintliga satsningar mot kvinnofrid och hedersvåld som sharafs hjältar och elektra, som saknat legitimitet hos de muslimska grupperna, genom att arbeta aktivt med jämställdhet och kvinnofridsfrågor."

"The Khadija project will be about equality, where we (I am one of the project leaders) will work to develop a method to combine Swedish gender equality legislation and vision of gender equality with an Islamic view of the same. Islam itself is about equality, and offers a vision of the equal worth of men and women. Unfortunately, for various reasons, this is not always seen in the Muslim world and among Muslim groups. We want to change this and highlight the concept in order to create a re-evaluation of it. Today among Muslims, feminism is often associated with cultural imperalism, with the Western values and ideas which came along when the West wanted to liberalize and colonialize the Muslim world.... We want to complement existing efforts against oppression and honour killing, such as Sharaf heroes and Elektra, which lacked legitimacy in the Muslim communities, by working actively with equality and women's rights issues."

The Sirens of Baghdad

2009-06-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today our struggle is internal. Muslims are on the side of the person who can project their voice, the Muslim voice, as far as possible. They don't care whether he's a terrorist or an artist, an impostor or a righteous man, an obscure genius or an elder statesman. They need a myth, an idol. Someone capable of representing them, of expressing them in their complexity, of defending them in some way. Whether with the pen or with bombs, it makes little difference to them. And so it's up to us to choose our weapons, Jalal. Us: you and me.

- Yasmina Khadra, Sirens of Baghdad

Stereotypes and Silhouettes

2009-06-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

You Forgot My Face

Empty Silhouette

Skewed Guantanamo Figures

2009-06-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

Veolia Quits Jerusalem Rail Project

2009-06-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

Alarabiya - "A European corporation scrapped a rail way project that was to be built on occupied Palestinian territory to link Israeli settlers after a global boycott campaign succeeded in mounting enough pressure on the company to cost it considerable losses.

Veolia Transport abandoned a multi-million dollar project that was to build an urban train system linking Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem with those in the West Bank."

Veolia lost its contract for Stockholms tunnelbana earlier this year. Although the fact that Veolia lost may have had more to do with management issues, rather than directly linked to the illegal settlements railway project, the fact that Veolia was undertaking a project that constitutes a major violation of international law was quite often mentioned as part of the wider campaign against the company. It was one black mark among many.

The Electronic Intifada - Veolia's partnership in an Israeli project for a tramline, to be constructed on occupied Palestinian territory in East Jerusalem has drawn the attention of advocacy groups around the world who have responded to the call by Palestinian civil society for campaigns of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Victory - Veolia Derailed! In the first smashing and convincing victory of the global BDS movement in the field of corporate responsibility and ethical compliance, Veolia is reportedly abandoning the Jerusalem Light Rail project, an illegal project that aims at connecting Israeli colonies built on occupied Palestinian territory to the city of Jerusalem.

Veolia hoppar av spårvägsprojektet på ockuperad mark!

Shoeing Netanyahu

2009-06-11T03:49:00.000-07:00

Much Ado About Shoes?

An excerpt from a Ha'aretz article:

A photo released by the White House, which shows Obama talking on the phone with Netanyahu on Monday, speaks volumes: The president is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, as though he were dictating to Netanyahu: "Listen up and write 'Palestinian state' a hundred times. That's right, Palestine, with a P." As an enthusiast of Muslim culture, Obama surely knows there is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of one's shoes at another person. Indeed, photos of other presidential phone calls depict Obama leaning on his desk, with his feet on the floor.

Doha Debates - Arranged Marriages Should End for Muslim Women

2009-06-07T09:31:00.001-07:00

This House believes that Muslim women should be free to marry anyone they choose:
"The male-dominated Arab world was given a sharp warning by Qatar’s Doha Debates that Muslim women expect greater freedom in choosing a husband.
An audience of more than 350 people who attended the last in the current season of debates voted 62 per cent to 38 in favour of a motion that Muslim women should be free to marry anyone they choose."
The case is often made that arranged marriage should not be confused with forced marriage. It's an important point to make, but in real life, the distinction is less clear. Realistically, pragmatically, all that seperates arranged marriage from forced marriage is the pressure exerted.
That's why just banning forced marriages is not enough. There are not enough clerics talking about these issues, not enough programs in place to re-educate people and raise awareness, not enough support structures for those looking for help. The unequivocally unislamic custom of forced marriage is not something to get defensive about, it's something that needs to be eradicated.
When a Muslim woman can say "no" for herself, an arranged marriage is no more oppressive than matchmaking. When a Muslim woman can not say "no" for herself, its not an arranged marriage. It stops being "arranging" and becomes "forcing."
The premise that arranged marriages curtail a Muslim woman's freedom would only hold true if she was locked in a tower, presented with a row of suitors and asked to choose one. That is, if arranged marriage was the only option she had.
Choose someone we choose for you, or don't choose at all - that is not a choice.
In my own extended family, it's pretty evenly split between spouses who met through friends and family and those who met in university, for example. A 28-year old woman I know is still undecided between the son of her mother's friend (a match arranged by her parents) and a man she met attending an IT course, both of whom presented themselves to her family to ask for her hand. I would say she has the choice to marry anyone she chooses. I don't see arranged marriage and choice as being incompatible.
I think choice is the requisite component that makes an arranged marriage "arranged" not "forced."
But when the Doha Debates motion is "Muslim women should be free to marry anyone they choose," and the title incisively concludes "arranged marriages should end for Muslim women" - I can only translate it as another gently chiding exhortation to stop being so backward.

Obama Reinforces Presumed Religious Identities

2009-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

Marieme Helie Lucas asks, 'Where are women and secularists of Muslim countries in Obama's speech in Cairo?'

"It is beyond doubt that many people around the world, of various political opinions and creeds, will feel relieved after the speech the President of the USA delivered in Cairo today. It is apparently a new voice, a voice of peace, quite far from Bush's clash of civilisations. But is it so?

I presume that political commentators will point out the fact that Obama equates violence on the part of occupied Palestinians to violence on the part of Israeli colonizers, or that he has not abandoned the idea that the United States should tell the world how to behave and fight for their rights, or that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reduced to a religious conflict, or that he still justifies the war in Afghanistan, etc...

All those are important issues that need to be challenged. However, what affects me most, as an Algerian secularist, is thatObama has not done away with the idea of homogeneous civilisations that was at the heart of the theory of the 'clash of civilisations'. Moreover, his very American idea of civilisation is that it can be equated to religion. He persistently opposes 'Islam and the West' (as two entities/civilisations), 'America and Islam'(a country vs. a religion); he claims that 'America is not at war with Islam'. In short 'the West' is composed of countries, while ' Islam' is not....

First of all, Obama's discourse is addressed to 'Islam', as if an idea, a concept, a belief, could hear him; as if those were not necessarily mediated by the people who hold these views, ideas, concepts or beliefs. As Soheib Bencheikh, former Great Mufti of Marseilles and now Director of the Institute of High Islamic Studies in Marseilles, used to say: “I have never seen a Qur'an walking in the street...”

Can we imagine for one minute that Obama would address himself to '’Christianity' or to 'Buddhism'? No, he would talk to Christians or Buddhists – to real people, keeping in mind all their differences.

Obama is essentialising Islam, ignoring the large differences that exist among Muslim believers themselves, in terms of religious schools of thought and interpretations, cultural differences and political opinions."

I'm not exactly a fan of WLUML (Women Living Under Muslim Laws), I wouldn't call myself a secularist, and I don't agree with all the writers opinions, but she really hits the nail on the head in these paragraphs. The West is not a stable monolithic entity always exclusive of Islam, and Islam is a religion, not a homogenous world.

But, although it is important to point out the limitations of such terminology, is it practical to condemn it? These terms have after all become a useful shorthand “providing descriptive access to an unhappy reality: the asymmetric relationship between a self-defined West and a Western-defined Other (Islam, non-West).” (Asma Barlas "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an)

Complexion

2009-06-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

you have no story but
the wall of your complexion
the religion you wear
the tongue your mother tongue
wages war with, wages war against
these are the trappings of your character

honesty is the best policy
but authenticity is a flavour
and too many influences
spoil the broth

you are advised
to hone your hybridity
into a success story, above all
be complimentary
to your host country
and its munificent
multiculturalism
diversity
makes us all rich

On Obama's Speech

2009-06-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

The world is falling over itself admiring the rhetorical genius of Obama's speech-writers, dazzled by the brilliance of Obama's oratory skills. Even Irshad Manji, whom nothing pleaseth, jangled her earrings and gave Obama the cautiously approving "time will tell" treatment - after she had rolled her eyes at his "pandering to his audience" with a sentence on colonialism.

I do have to wonder if she also rolled her eyes at Obama's paragraph on the Holocaust. Only because I hope she didn't strain her eyeballs.

I actually thought the contextualizing and the delicate raking up of history and bad blood - including calling Iraq a war of choice, and acknowledging the role the US played in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government - was what gave the speech that Obama hallmark of depth, seriousness and resolute intellectualism.

Although Obama could probably make Bush doctrine sound profound and I am clearly among those dazzled by the brilliance of Obama's oratory skills. On the linguistic, semantic, phonetic level, the speech was perfection.

Or it would have been, if not for the little voice in my head, a contrary little voice that never shuts up, and which becomes particularly voluble listening to long speeches.

...when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

Wonderfully stirring words I could not enjoy. Because when Obama said Jerusalem, the little voice in my head chimed in: capital of Israel, see under AIPAC, Obama's speech at.

Another powerful and compelling paragraph was Obama's denunciation of all forms of violence, specifically Palestinian:

It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

The little voice took on a face and made one. No one seethes more over the utter cowardly stupidity of such forms of civilian-targetting resistance than myself. The word resistance, though, begs the question. Pointing to home-made rockets and overlooking tanks, F-16s, Apaches, white phosphorus and DIME bombs...doesn't impress the little voice in my head.

Obama came into power mere days after Israel's onslaught on Gaza ended the lives of 1300 Palestinians, including over 410 children. Some of those children were even buried alive while sleeping.

But perhaps that is justifuable on the grounds that only dead Palestinians understand that violence is a dead end.

(dA recently deleted my juxtaposition of words from Obama's inaugration and a Gazan child's reality. I honestly don't know why, but the little voice in my head thought this would be an appropriate place to plonk it. It was that peeved.)

Obama's Speech to the Muslim World

2009-06-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

Transcript of Obama's Speech at Cairo University

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers - Thomas Jefferson - kept in his personal library.

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words - within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."

Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores - that includes nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today who enjoy incomes and education that are higher than average.

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations - to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.

That does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: we must face these tensions squarely. And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice, we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

That's why we're partnering with a coalition of forty-six countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths - more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.

We also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.

Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future - and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. That is why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012. We will help Iraq train its Security Forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.

And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

Finally, the Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways.

Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld - whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

Indeed, faith should bring us together. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That is why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's Interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations. Around the world, we can turn dialogue into Interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action - whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.

The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.

Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.

I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities. In all nations - including my own - this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities - those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.

But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim-majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.

This is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. Many Gulf States have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century, and in too many Muslim communities there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasizing such investments within my country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.

On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo.

On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.

All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.

The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek - a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.

I know there are many - Muslim and non-Muslim - who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort - that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country - you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

Hands Clasped in Cynicism

2009-06-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

Miss Hoggs speaks to Mrs Gordon:

...tänk nu på saken en smula! Vad är det för slags människor, som bor här? De är antigen mohammedaner eller judar eller kristna. Antag nu, att ni, unga kvinna, vore en muhammedan! Då skulle denna stad vara en helig plats för er. Ni skulle tro, att er profet hade uppstigit till himmelen just från den gamla tempelplatsen här borta, och ni skulle känna er tvungen att hata båda judar och krista därför att ni vet, att de ingenting högre önskar än att få köra bort er från denna ort. Och om ni vore jude, mrs Gordon, då måste ni ju hata muhammedanerna, därför att de äger era fäders land, och likaså kunde ni inte fördra de kristna, därför att ni vet, att de aldrig skulle tillåta ert folk att komma till herravåldet i denna stad. Eller också, mrs Gordon, är ni en kristen, men då är Jerusalem er heliga stad främför alla, och då måste ni hata muhammedanerna, som äger den, och judarna, som vill äga den och säga att denna stad och detta land är deras och att ingen annan har någon rätt till dem. Men är ni kristen, måste ni vidare hata alla kristna, som inte har alldeles samma bekännelse som ni, därför att ni vet, att så snart en av dem kommer till makten här, så ska ni utan miskund bli fördriven.

Ja, så förhåller det sig med den här saken, och nu hoppas jag, att ni är övertygad, unga Amerika, att det inte lönar sig att predika enighet i Jerusalem.

...think a little! What kind of people live here? They are either Mohammedans or Jews or Christians. Imagine now that you, young woman, were a Mohammedan. Then this would be a holy place for you. You would believe that your prophet had ascended to heaven precisely from that old temple, and you would feel obliged to hate both Jews and Christians because you know that their dearest wish is to drive you away from this region. And if you were a Jew, Mrs Gordon, then you would have to hate the Mohammedans, because they own your father's land, and also the Christians, because you know that they would never allow your people to take absolute power in this city. Or else, Mrs Gordon, you are Christian, and then Jerusalem is your holy city above all others, and then you must hate the Mohammedans, who own it, and the Jews, who wish to own it and say that this city and this land is theirs and no one else has rights to them. But if you are Christian, you must also hate all Christians who do not hold the exact same beliefs as you, because you know that as soon as one of them comes to power here, you will doubtless be expelled.

Yes, this is how it is, and now I hope you are convinced, young America, that it does no good to preach unity in Jerusalem.

- Selma Lagerlöf, Jerusalem

End of a Beautiful Enmity

2009-05-31T08:13:00.001-07:00

Jeeran was fickle, and I was lazy. When using free host pages as jotters there's much to be said for the low-maintenance basics. So that was the beginning of a beautiful enmity. Now geocities demise means I will have to think about the arduous process of moving, can't say I'm seething with anger.

On the Blacklist

2009-05-28T03:44:00.000-07:00

In the occupation corner
of my passport
there is a small small sentence saying
writer and poet.

Once upon a time
I thought it was a magical phrase,
that it would open doors
and make guards bow to me
intoxicate officers and soldiers.

Then I discovered
it was my greatest shame,
the greatest accusation,
the sword that swings
every time I travel.

My translation of Nizar Qabbani's poem.

The Time That Remains

2009-05-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

I've been reading reviews of "The Time That Remains," which Robert Ebert describes as a "a deadpan Palestinian comedy".In another review the film is described thusly: "the never-ending Story between Arabs and Jews gets another wryly humorous workout." It is the third of Elia Suleiman's films dealing with the thorny subject of Israeli-Arabs and the place of Palestinians in the state of Israel, following Divine Intervention (2002) and Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996).

"The Time That Remains" is a semi biographic film, in four historic episodes, about a family--my family--spanning from 1948, until recent times. The film is inspired by my father’s diaries of his personal accounts, starting from when he was a resistant fighter in 1948, and by my mother’s letters to family members who were forced to leave the country since then. Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labeled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland. [synopsis from the director]

In the film's framing device, Suleiman takes a taxi from the airport as he arrives in Israel, and is caught in a sudden thunderstorm. The film itself is composed of vignettes which jump back and forth in time and are separated by fadeouts: "a succession of small events, running jokes and ironic observations in the director's Tati-esque style". This succession of events document 1948 Nazareth, Suleiman's father's involvement with the ragtag resistance movement, and his transformation into the old man in the cafe who drinks endless cups of coffee.

But paralleling these sequences is young Elia's own political coming-of-age story, "from young conformist to political activist, and ultimately to mute observer", as he attends a school where students sing patriotic Hebrew songs, is reprimanded for describing the US as colonialist, and as a teenager rips an Israeli flag. Later the film returns to the present, as Suleiman returns to his home town to visit his widowed mother.

"The character played by Suleiman, satire linked with autobiography, a solemn, silent figure with dark shadows under his eyes, is poker-faced and never speaks. He simply stands and regards all that happens for 60 years."

Suleiman explaination of the title of the film seems more like an exlanation of this witness figure: "The [title] of this film is a political term that describes the Palestinians who remain on their own land, who are insiders and absentees, while they remain on their own land," Suleiman continued, "It's a very political term which I appropriated...from my personal context being present and absent, someone who is an outsider and an insider, someone who does not live in one place but always departs."

The film is obviously a fusion of the political and the personal, but what does jar me reading all these reviews is that other approving comment often tacked on, reassuring the reader that the film is more personal than political, or that it is not at all overt in its political commitment, and would not be out of place in European arthouses.

In this case, surely the political is personal, and vice versa?

scene from the film

Just Belligerent Today Okay?

2009-05-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

A while ago I came across this photograph someone had taken of a Muslim woman and her child. The woman is dressed in black. Her hair is covered with a headscarf. She has a pensive expression on her face.

The photograph had the sort of title that reminds me of a certain kind of poetry, and the photographer admitted to not being brave enough to approach the woman in some form other than through the zoom lens of the camera.

But it inspired some interesting responses, which included words such as "heart-breaking" and "thought-provoking". Commentators applauded the photographer's social commentary, and pointed out the ironic contrast between the two figures and the happy colours of the children's play area. Both photographer and commentators also spent quite a bit of time pondering what possible reasons the woman could have for looking so forgetful of joy. The potential reasons went from a nameless fear to racism to the Lebanon war, and then one person poignantly added that not knowing the true circumstances actually made it even more emotive and unsettling and evocative.

It exasperated me. I have been told that's just peevish, since these people are clearly wonderful, caring, compassionate intelligent souls, and it is cantankerous beyond belief to find fault with Good Samaritan instincts.

But, when someone says they want to "reach out" to "people like this" and then proceed to castigate themselves for not doing so, my eyes roll of their own accord.

One person compared the feeling the photograph evoked to wanting to "reach out" to disabled people, and then finally deciding not to "reach out" to them due to the troubling thought that it may make them feel they are "different."

Then there was one person who interjected that she may just have been feeling tired. Yes! What if she was just tired? What if she was remembering the death of her pet goldfish? What if she didn't want to smile because she has very crooked teeth? What if she was just feeling blue? Surely there is quite a wide spectrum of normal human emotion available that could cause apparent joy forgetfulness?

Seriously, though, perhaps Muslim women should walk around policing their facial expressions in case they seem like they are projecting an image of subjected to prejudice/oppressed/fearful/marginalised womanhood. Maybe they should beam, constantly, and festoon everything they own in little badges with those silly little messages, like Proud 2b Muslim, I Love My Hijab and I Hug Random Hijabies.

There's the other side of this. I Love My Hijab badges have their place I'm sure, but that place is as far away from me as possible. I find such bouncy positive energy exhausting.

It's not that I don't see the point. I can see why a happy-looking Muslim woman might help to project a positive image of Muslim women, which might in turn help fight the truly very bizarre assortment of images that come up when you google the phrase Muslim women.

But in the interests of everyday facial expression shifts and the spice of life, I'd argue that belligerence is sometimes quite as human as beaming.