recommended: democracy in iran

Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr, Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty, Oxford University Press, 2006: pp.214 + xvii




The issue of Middle Eastern democracy is obviously one that is prominent on the mind of almost anyone who has an interest in politics, international affairs or Islam today. While there are at least a pair of functionally stable elected governments in the region, Israel and Turkey, at least one vision of what the United States hoped to accomplish in Iraq was to bring democracy to that country and begin a wave of democratization to the region so that those democratizing movements would become the natural allies of America in the war on terror. Blame for this failure has regularly pointed to Syria and Iran, and there has been open talk of forcing regime change in Iran.

Gheissari and Nasr’s book attempts to make the case that Iran is already, under its own power, well on its way to democratization, and by implication (though by no means explicitly) suggests that intervention and meddling in Iranian affairs by foreign powers will be counter-productive on this matter. The book traces the political history of Iran through the 20th century focusing on the internal political players and the ebb and flow of those forces. The role of foreign power is acknowledged – the United States, England, the Soviet Union/ Russia, China, etc. – but they only feature as minor characters in the narrative, e.g., the role of the United States in the 1953 coup is mentioned, but not detailed; instead the focus is on the political setting and the tensions that made American intervention possible and outlines who benefited from that intervention.

If foreign players are relegated to minor roles, then, as one might suspect, the major characters in the story are the Pahlavis, the Ulema, the bazaar and to a lesser degree left and liberal intelligentsia. The plot as it is outlined by the authors is simple but compelling. Iran, they argue, is unlike any other colonial or post-colonial state and therefore has a unique dynamic rooted in a very long history and pride concerning its Persian identity and its role as the protector of Shi’a Islam. It is the only country, they argue, to have undergone a genuinely fundamentalist Islamic Revolution and have, since then, passed on to a largely post-fundamentalist position within the culture at large. What has driven Iranian politics through the long twentieth century, which is still underway in Iran insofar as they remain within this dynamic, is the tension between the need to modernize the Iranian state and the need to democratize the state. “Modern Iranian politics has been shaped by the continuous struggle between, on the one hand, the ideals of freedom and rule of law and, on the other, the demand for stability, order, development and the kind of state that can provide them” (23).

From the standpoint of the authors, the official leaders of Iran have been more effective in providing modernization than freedom. And this is no accident. For the Pahlavis, already, it was clear that modernization had to be achieved by a government that could quickly and flexibly act, and thus act in a unilateral manner. Reza Khan quickly consolidated power by demonstrating that given greater authority, given a reinterpretation of the 1906 constitution, he could mobilize the economic resources of the country and achieve substantial improvements in the standard of living, industrial capacity and infrastructure of Iran. Initially this development found support amongst the Ulama, who saw the rise of Reza Khan as a reinstitution of public order, and a protective measure securing the realm of the Shi’a. But ultimately this was not the way in which Reza Khan interpreted himself. The security of Iran lay in modernization, and for this to be accomplished the monarchy needed to assert its autonomy from all forces that would slow it down, including the Ulama.

What made the later Revolution interesting, then, was the extent to which the Revolution, led by the Ulama and supported by the left-intelligentsia, was a revolution against a very successful campaign on the part of the monarchy over a fifty year period (not all of them smooth of course) to improve the economic lives of Iranians. When one administered the Reagan-test, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”, the vote should have undoubtedly come down in favor of the Pahlavi-state. Yet, the Revolution did happen and it happened because in the process of achieving this wonderful economic development, the Pahlavi-state lost its ability to represent people of Iran, i.e., the people of Iran did not see the Pahlavis as representing their own concerns.

This can be seen in the manner in which the Revolution rallied around Islam to protest the secular Pahlavi government. This turned out to be much more than a pragmatic stance, and eventually, as we know, Khomeni was able to secure Supreme Leader of the Revolution and the Ulama found itself at the head of the Iranian state. The Revolution then instituted a new set of laws based upon its interpretation of Islam, laws and practices which were enforced by unofficial powers associated with the Revolution and the local mosque.

In many ways, while the Revolution did represent a kind of democratic change in Iran, it, at the same time, set back state building and severely set back economic development. Most obvious, perhaps, is that foreign business was either no longer welcome, or did not feel comfortable investing resources in unstable Iran. But not as obvious was the fact that the Revolution itself developed a kind of allergy to the institutional state and so failed to develop new political bodies to administer revolutionary policies. Instead the mosque worked alongside or, sometimes, in competition with, older political institutions left over from the Pahlavi regime.

Eventually though, after the war with Iraq ended, the Ulama found itself needing to concentrate once again on economic development for a society that had sacrificed a great deal and found itself in dire straits. It was at this point that the Ulama followed the lead of the Pahlavis and began a full-scale consolidation of institutional power, overcoming its allergy to political organization. Yet, interestingly, the authors argue that this did not completely undermine the democratic impulse of the Revolution itself. While the Supreme Leader remained untouchable and unquestionable in his political decisions, nonetheless there was also the organization and gradual spread of democratic elections at the local and national level. This has created a situation, according to the authors, in which the people of Iran now expect and have to a large degree internalized democratic values. The democratization of the Iranian people has been achieved by factions of the Ulama itself (while there are groups within the Ulama that are very resistant to it, including the Supreme Leader). Gheissari and Nasr themselves believe that this can continue and must be allowed to continue, while the pressure against the Ulama by foreign powers, and the threat of military action against Iran, just as during the hard days of the war against Iraq, simply rallies the people, who otherwise wish to see democratic change, around the Ulama in a nationalistic surge.

The book has limits of course, as every such narrative must, and none of them take away from this reader's enjoyment and willingness to recommend the book. For the most part those limits serve to reinforce other aspects of the writing which are very positive. By largely marginalizing the narrative influence of European powers on the development of Iran, the authors in fact are much more capable of providing a picture of the issues internal to Iran as a state, that have contributed to its development. In other words, the authors have, because of their decision, been able to provide a very convincing description of the development and tensions present within the Iranian political consciousness; they have told an Iranian story. Foreign influences are narratively marginalized because they are precisely that in the mind of Iranians: foreign.

The one genuinely problematic limit that I find with the book is the failure, especially in the long introduction, to define democracy. One of the things they emphasize is the variety of ways in which “democracy” has been used in Iran at various times: many of them quite illiberal. But if, as they suggest, the goal in Iran, the necessity in Iran if there is to be a legitimate state, ought to be the promotion of democratic institutions, then it must be made clear what democracy means. Now they are clearly not the only ones to blame. Democracy is a term that is very much thrown around these days without anyone taking the time to define it; everyone relies on its apparent self-evidence and the shared presumption that democracy must be a good thing. But one can fairly ask that two scholars in positions of influence take the time to specify what it is that is truly being sought under the banner of “democracy” in order not simply to help us better understand Iran, but to better understand our own categories of interpretation in a time when that category in particular has become the justification for a great deal of violence and bloodshed.

-LoA

the cola wars come to pan-arabia

while this post is meant to be enjoyable and fun, it is nonetheless important not to forget that the fight for control of the middle east is not only about oil. the primary american export is "culture". by this we usually mean american film and american music, etc., but the flow of american products into the middle east also includes coke and pepsi.

in an earlier post i have already pointed out (see "nancy ajram: life in the circus") the large stake that coca-cola has placed in nancy ajram trying to help the sales of coke in market that is dominated by pepsi. coke has been a large sponsor of her videos and spun the videos directly into commericials. here we see another example. notice the more traditional nancy ajram storyline-style video has been replaced by a sea of red and her name in large letters using the coca-cola font (and indeed in the commericial version it says 'coke' not 'nancy'). the song is no less enjoyable for its use as a marketing tool. sit back and enjoy "oul tany keda" and its accompanying commerical.

Nancy Ajram, "Oul Tani Keda" ["Tell Me That Again"] (2005)



Nancy Ajram, "Oul Tani Keda -- Commercial" (2005)



on the other side, nancy's main competition for queen of arabian pop, elissa (see "elissa: queen of pop"), is the vehicle of choice for pepsi in the middle east. in this well conceived commercial, elissa sings part of a song that had not yet been released at the time the commercial went to air. this both promoted the pepsi product and served as hype for the forthcoming album. this is "arrably", shot as a commericial... enjoy.


Elissa, "Arrably--Commercial" (2004)



pepsi is very aware that part of what they are selling is a piece of american culture, and that part of the appeal to the buyer is this ability to buy a bit of america. in recent commercials elissa has been paired with christina augilera. here the fusion of arabian and american cultural images is a central theme. augilera, while singing in english, belly-dances, while on the other hand a very international and cosmopolitan appearing elissa sings her arabic hit "bastannak". the arabian elissa ultimately ends up with the can of pepsi.


Christina Augilera and Elissa, "Pepsi Commercial" (2006)



this final pepsi commercial is in fact a full blown music video, and its content is probably deserving of a full blog of its own (unfortunately you will have to settle for coming and hearing the conference paper on it instead). the video features american pop stars brittany spears, pink and beyonce, and the undisputed king of arabian pop, amr diab, and is performed entirely in english. despite this though, pepsi is not offering a vision of happy fusion. while in the previous video (filmed much more recently) augilera and elissa were portrayed as on the path toward some manner of cultural convergence, in this video the message seems to be one in which arabia is able to master the pop-culture of americanism and ultimately conquer it. amr diab rules as the caesar, the americans are enslaved and there for his entertainment. the apparent disruption of his power by americanism is really nothing more than an appearance, a momentary abberation. ultimately amr diab reasserts his authority and reveals the situation was within his control all along.

but here one has the capitalist myth that consumption is mastery. and it is no surprise, then, that in order to tell such a myth the setting is not arabian at all but roman. to go down the consumerist path already places one within the myth-history of what we have been here calling americanism (which is only accurate insofar as the united states has dominated capitalism since ww2): one is overtaken by the very roots of western culture; one has already surrendered to the invading power before the war begins. so a commercial that at first glance appears to promote easy mastery of americanism by consuming it, in truth envisions the consummation of the exporting of americanism by subsuming arabia with its mythic field. one can already see this playing out in the ajram video insofar as it completely elides any distinctions between performance, rehearsal and spontaneous moments from "real life". no part of reality falls outside the capitalist reduction. capitalism is not primarily about the occupation of land, but about the occupation of minds and society. prepare to be rocked!


Amr Diab, Brittany Spears, Beyonce and Pink, "We Will Rock You -- Commerical" (2004)

-LoA

3 July 1988

Morteza Katouzian, "Flight 655" (1988)


Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name. Amen.

from the Penetential Order of the Latin Rite

looking in the mirror: orientalism in music

One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed. Television, films, and all the media's resources have forced information into more and more standardized molds. So far as the Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the nineteenth-century academic and imaginative demonology of "the mysterious Orient."
-Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)


By this time it should not come as a surprise that the site, both geographic and intellectual, which we call the Middle East, is seen not only as exotic, but as something erotic. It is a place where sexuality is unleashed in the absence of the civilizing impulse. No matter how many records Nancy Ajram sells in Egypt, the face of this Middle East will be the Niqaabi or the Afghan woman in the burqa (it is indicative of the problem that indeed most Westerners do not make a distinction between Arabian, Afghan, Persian, Pakistani, etc.). This eroticized vision is a necessary part of Western policy towards the region; it is a place where one's potency must be demonstrated. The violence and the eroticism cannot be separated. It is no accident that the two constant images that mesmerize the mainstream media are the militant and the sexually available, restrained woman.

This geographic erogenous zone is a place Occidentals plunder when they wish because here the rules of civilization no longer apply. It is a place that obeys only the laws of power and is thus closer to Nature, but for that reason less human. We appropriate it to ourselves at moments when our own passions seem uncontainable by the facade of civilization. This embrace of the Orient can come in a confused rush, much like passion itself, indiscriminately devouring whatever is available, expressing and managing the violence of desire by displacing onto a setting that is not one's own. Displacing it from oneself by denying that this is really who one is. This is who They are, but not I.



Sarah Brightman, "Harem", Harem (2003)

Brightman's video received (relatively mild) criticism for its mixture of Arabian and Indian images and symbols, but this really misses the point. Instead what one should see is the necessary confusion that comes of trying to make sense of the unfreedom we genuinely feel but are forced to deny and therefore must project onto someone, some-They who are, Naturally, unfree. This is repeated in the song "Free". Here the sound is not Orientalist, but the setting and theme is quintessentially so. Once again amid a group of young women in Asian clothing, this time rendered immobile, Brightman tells us of her desire to be free as she flounders in her desire to be desired. The contradiction is not, of course, in the desire for recognition, but in the dehumanizing form which that recognition apparently must take.



Sarah Brightman, "Free", Harem (2003)


Sting's collaboration with Cheb Mami bears some of the same elements. There are obvious allusions to fetishism: the concealing of the drivers face and her uniform, which repeats, in an Occidental fashion, the fantasy of the veiled Arabian woman. These themes are especially prominent, not surprisingly, in the remix version, which invokes the sexuality of the dance club. There women, now uncovered, dance in real cages, on display for the male viewer.

Yet one should not simply toss this visual experiment into the same bin of confusion with the Brightman fantasy, for at least two reasons. First, the desire of Sting to reach out to Cheb Mami is indicative of a larger and very long-standing theme in Sting's work: his internationalism, transculturalism. He constantly experiments in a variety of musical genres and sounds. Thus the incorporation of North African rai is in fact an acknowledgement of its humanity, its importance as a form of popular music. This is in stark contrast to Brightman, whose musical selections have often forgotten the reasons for their own existence and thus have to try to situate themselves within the world of popular music, reducing themselves to kitsch. Second, while the vision of "Desert Rose" is classical Orientalism, it does twist it by internalizing it. The desert is not some far away place, it turns out. The passions, violent and erotic, are not ultimately other, but are our own. The song leads back to the Occidental world and holds up a mirror to our own hypocrisy, even as Sting ends the song awash in a sea of young dancing women. The harem is not far away. It is here.



Sting and Cheb Mami, "Desert Rose", Sacred Love (2003)




Sting and Cheb Mami, "Desert Rose -- Remix", Sacred Love (2003)

-LoA

musharraf's enlightenment

Perhaps the lightbulb is finally starting to flicker and illuminate the situation for Musharraf, because he is in a predicament.  Whatever the case, the political isolation of Mush is clearly starting to take its toll.  The Washington Post is reporting that Musharraf lashed out at his allies in Parliament accusing them of leaving him standing alone as the media and others called for his resignation.  But it is hard to see who he has to blame for this isolation other than himself, as he has made a number of decisions of late that could only undermine his claim to legitimacy.

What he has failed to understand, one might argue is that the governance of the military rested upon a certain recognition among the people of Pakistan of his rule.  The enlightened tyrant is in a tenuous position if they wish to maintain both their enlightenment and their tyranny.  Perhaps even more than a ruler who achieves power through elections, the enlightened tyrant must embody the will of the people in significant ways - must be their representative.  An elected leader can make unpopular decisions and will likely be tolerated because the electorate knows that when the times comes, that leader will be out of a job.  But when the tyrant sweeps into power with claims of stabilizing and reinvigorating a country so that the country can continue on its way towards prosperity, an almost impossible balancing act is required.  This is the role that the Pakistani military has played on a number of occasions, and it is the situation which brought about Musharraf's rise to power.  But he can only hold control, or at least "enlightened" control, as long as the people view him as their representative - acting on their behalf.  Obviously, no representative is going to be able to achieve this on a universal scale, but because Musharraf assumed power, every person who is alienated by him and no longer recognizes him as acting in some general way for the good of the country will feel legitimacy in opposing him as an unabashed tyrant.

The dismissal of the CJP was a significant misstep on his part because it indicated an unwillingness on his part to hold himself accountable to standards of enlightened government.  In short the dismissal of the CJP was a strike against the foundations of Musharraf's own claims to legitimacy.  The recent restrictions of the free press brought further protests and disruptions, and the outraged voice of the Pakistani people was severe enough to be felt in Islamabad.  Again what the toleration (at a bare minimum) of a free press indicates is the government's willingness to hear voices than its own.  The willingness to allow an opposition press shows that one is dedicated to responding to the concerns of those who might disagree with you.  These are things an enlightened tyrant must be willing to do.

Finding himself alone (or more to the point, having isolated himself), Mush has rescinded the restrictions upon the free press (see the same WaPo article), but it is probably much too late to save himself at this juncture.  And so he has two options, it seems to me. he can tear his country apart by passing over from an enlightened tyrant to a brutal one and stamp the will of the military upon the country through harsh and repressive measures.  Let us hope this is not the path he chooses.  I genuinely believe this is not what is in the heart of Musharraf, nor his desire for his country.  In which case his other option is to let the planned elections go forward without his insistence that he continue to be ruler of the country.  Every day in which delays that decision brings him closer to being remembered as Musharraf the Brutal.


-LoA

Theses on Orientalism and Islamophobia

1: Public opinion is held by no one, but is the opinion in which one becomes Other to oneself.


Steven Assael, Untitled [Superman] (2006)

2: It would seem that public opinion represents the consciousness of a group of people as they unite and impose their will upon some relevant authority, whether that authority be some government official of whatever rank, the local radio station or the bakery across the street. But this is not the case. Public opinion is not the expression of the power of a group, but the manifestation of the powerlessness of the self in the mass in which that self has become anonymous or abstract. It is the structure of a collective and therefore external identity.

3: That there is a connection between Orientalism and Islamophobia is not a surprising declaration. They are intertwined ways in which the Occident orients itself towards the Other as threat. But two things must be realized here.

3.1: First, every Other is, as such, a threat. This is not unique to the Oriental. They represent a comparable but separate desire with its own projects which is capable of appropriating resources and values which I may need against my will. Orientalism, then, represents the way in which the specific threat represented by a particular object, now called the Oriental, is thematized so that it might be put into practice.

3.1.example: This is different in content and scope, but comparable in its form to my relation to my neighbor, who is likewise an Other and a threat to me. Let us say that along the property line between my property and theirs are two rows, very close to one another, of blueberry bushes. The property line runs directly between these two rows of blueberry bushes. When my neighbor goes to cut the grass they are not able to ride the lawn mower directly between the two rows of bushes and so they always use the weedeater to tend to the blueberry bushes. One day, knowing that I have hurt my ankle, the neighbor trims around my bushes for me in an action of recognition and reciprocity between us. This allows me to complete my lawn care on the riding mower. But the next week, the neighbor does it again. And the next week again. Now there is confrontation and conflict regardless of the (let us say it already!) supposed good will of the neighbor, because if I allow the behavior to continue, at a certain point, in the eyes of the state of North Carolina, the property will pass over to my neighbor because they have cared for it (and we all have John Locke’s theory of property to thank for that). The bushes that were mine and which I used to make desserts and such to my great delight, will no longer be mine. The neighbor becomes in my eyes crafty and deceitful, a dissembler, who flatters me on the one hand while trying to steal from me on the other. The neighbor must be watched at all times because they are lazy and shiftless, not content to gain profit in a legitimate way, they would rather take what belongs to and has been nurtured by another, namely myself.

3.1.conclusion: Their separation from me and from my interests is made necessary by the nature of the object itself – my property – which constitutes them, by its very shape, as a threat, as an Other whose projects may interrupt my own, ultimately in a critical and perhaps even fatal way if things spiral too far out of hand. I need know NOTHING about my neighbor in order to know this. This is the truth of who they are in relation to the object in question, no matter what subjective characteristics they might possess. In other words it is objectively the truth: it is the truth carried in and constituted by the object itself. So we can summarize the first move of the object is that it constitutes the Other as Other and in this case as someone lazy, a liar, tricky and dissembling, greedy and lustful, etc., and I must adopt this attitude towards the Other if I am going to act in my own interests.

3.2: So the object makes the Other into the Other, but the truth of the matter is that the object also makes me into an Other.

3.2.1: Islamophobia, as the reflex of Orientalism, is not, first of all about the Oriental. It is about me. It describes the actions that I must take in order to maintain myself with my desires in the face of this Other, this Oriental, who is a threat. Once again, this is not a description of some subjective attitude on my part. It is not necessarily reflective of who I am in my personality, subjectivity, or selfhood, etc. It is who I am objectively, i.e., in relation to this object which demands maintenance and defense from me. My attitude and actions are given to me by the object as part and parcel of its character. This means that once again the attitude of Islamophobia is given to me as someone anonymous. Who I am does not matter other than the fact that I, like any other of a certain type, stand before this object in a particular way (as an American, and most probably as a White American). What matters is this generic identification which is indifferent to who I am individually. In other words, I receive my actions and attitudes as externalities. The I-who-acts could be anyone, any member of the genus to which I happen to find myself a part. I receive them as something Other than who I am; I am Other-than-I-am.

3.2.2: But we can take it one brief step further. To a certain extent MY Islamophobia is not even the attitude I hold indirectly, but the attitude I hold for Others, or, to put it otherwise, it is not the attitude I hold, but the attitude that I wish other members of my genus to hold. As an individual I need not hate the Oriental. I am capable of making individual judgments about good and bad Orientals. This is the source of that timeless but irrelevant defense in the face of my own racism: “I have Oriental friends; I cannot be an Islamophobe”. The problem is that the Oriental is a threat not only to me directly, or even more correctly, is not a threat at all to me directly, the Oriental is a threat to me-as-member-of-a-genus (e.g., American or Westerner or civilized humanity). The threat is not only to me but to me through all the other members of my genus. I am threatened through them and I am powerless to protect myself from the threat that occurs to me through them. Thus I need them to hold an attitude which will protect me from the Oriental-threat. I need them to defend me with all vigilance (the same holds true, by the way, for other members of my genus about me – they are threatened through me and I must maintain vigilance for them). Thus when I adopt the attitude of Islamophobia, as the attitude objectively required by the object (America, civilization, Christianity, etc.) I am not adopting it for myself as such but as the attitude of the others of my own genus to whom I offer myself as example.

3.2.example: Let us return to the much lower stakes of the owner of the blueberry bushes. My aggression against my neighbor is not based on my subjective attitude towards them, but out of my bushes’ demand that they be maintained by me if I am to use enjoy tarts in the summer. Moreover my own good will towards my neighbor is irrelevant because I must live the aggressive maintenance which the bushes require of me as an example to my neighbors so that they too will maintain their property and thus protect the common laws of property against any violation which would jeopardize mine in turn and in so doing expose me to harm and, if things were to spiral out of control, complete loss of property and death.

3.2.conclusion: Thus my phobic attitudes are doubly Other to me, or, better, are the attitudes-I-hold-as-Other-to-myself. They are the objectively demanded attitudes that all members of my genus must hold and which I hold as an example to the other members of my genus, due to my own impotence, as a reminder of the attitudes they must hold in order avoid exposing me.

-LoA

wahid (one)

Robert Ryman, "Ledger" (1982)

to the uninitiated, many of the beauties of the desert are difficult to impart. our first year in saudi arabia was wet and the desert bloomed. outbursts of green and color, sleeping beneath the arid beige, were unleashed upon the world for a short span. the rains were overwhelming at times. four members of a boy scout troop, camping in the wadi al-batin, were caught in a flash flood and died. often the winds would kick up before the storm and a wall of sand would sweep across the compound, only to be overtaken by the rain. when this would happen the rain would fall heavy and dark, coating everything in a sheet of mud, while serenading everyone with its virtuoso percussion.

but one could not count on rain. driving through desert, as we often did hunting for stones suitable for my mother's lapidary hobby, we would pass bedouin camps. tents made of heavy material would be planted in the desert, a stalk-like television antenna sprouting out its center, a generator bulging from the side. beside it would be the near omni-present toyota short pick-ups which the king gave to every boy when he reached age. and beside that would be the mercedes benz tank-truck which carried water: the vehicle of life. like the desert itself, they were warm people. the toyota blew up a cloud of sand and approached us, and though we shared no common language we were invited in for tea. the men sat with us as we drank the hot drink; a girl, who was probably younger than i was, brought the pot, while the women sat in another part of the large tent, peering from around a curtain in their black, veiled faces. we talked to each other with a friendly lack-of-understanding, and they smiled, talked among themselves and laughed.

but the real beauty of the desert was in its barren simplicity underneath a sun that stripped everything of what was inessential. in its persistence, light would gradually grind down any shadow and reveal it for the nothing that it was. shadow has no positive reality, it is a lack of light, and the light will not be denied for it is the only thing that is real. in the height of the day, the distinction between heaven and earth passed away, there was no longer any horizon, and we were all one.

-LoA

more from charsadda and nwfp

It appears there was a grenade attack on Monday against yet another music store in NWFP, this time in Sherpao. This is a continuation of similarly themed attacks that have been ongoing in the area. The story also reports that vendors in Charsadda said that they had been warned to stop selling such items for fear of Taliban attacks. It is not clear from the article if the warning came from local magistrates interested in their safety or as threat from someone.

I bring up the story for two reasons. First, I cannot find this news story on anywhere near as many news outlets. Even the Pakistani English-language newspaper, the Daily Times, only has a brief article on it. Clearly actual attacks against private business owners who are, presumably, Muslim is not as news worthy in the eyes of the BBC, et alia, as anonymous letters sent to "threaten the Christians of Pakistan" (play melodramatic music here). This despite the fact that one of the persons responsible for the attack was reportedly apprehended. Who were they? Is it Taliban related? Is it the wife's brother's cousins getting back at the husband for having an affair? Enquiring minds want to know. I want to know.

Second, just to continue the fun of trying to trace down the truth concerning the threatening letters understaken in yesterday's post, this timeline of events in the North West Frontier Province, which is actually quite handy, does not mention letters at all, but says instead that the threats against Christians were chalked onto the side of a local Church in Charsadda. I am going to rule the chalk-theory out on the basis of the picture which the AP provided, even though, given all the contradictions in the reporting, I am still going out on a limb since I can not read Urdu and if they put up the same picture and told me it was the grocery list his wife had given him that morning i would have to believe them. *sigh*

good luck with your news reading,
LoA.

trying to read the news from pakistan

Puck, "The Evil Spirits of Modern Daily News" (1888)

[All links provided at the end of the post.]

Last week, in a post on the challenges facing religious minorities in Pakistan, Saliha linked a BBC article concerning threats that were made against Christians in the town of Charsadda by means of an anonymous letter. Saif responded in the comments to Saliha’s post that the article struck him as a bit of propaganda, and I must admit that my first response was very similar to Saif’s. I actually thought Saliha’s post was very good and that she had made much much(!!) better use of the story than any of the news outlets that were reporting the story.

Several things bothered me about the way the media approached the story. I will begin with the BBC article in particular but then move on to look at broader coverage of the story in the U.S., U.K., Pakistan and elsewhere.


1. I think the number one thing that bothered me about the BBC article was the way in which the anonymous nature of the letter did not give the BBC one moment of pause. No one signed the letter and no one has claimed responsibility for the letter and thus one really has no way of judging the letter itself. For all the BBC knows, this was a couple of guys out on an all night bender that thought scaring some Christians would be funny. Now, this is not to say that as a Catholic if I were in Charsadda I would not be concerned. I would indeed be very troubled and no doubt frightened by such threats especially given the bomb attacks that had already occurred in the area.

2. But the inability to evaluate the significance of the letter was not important to the BBC and it is passed over in silence. This is a news story in their eyes, and does not need any such evaluation, because it confirms to them and to their presumed readers, the preconceptions of Pakistanis and Islam that they already have. As Saif points out, no legitimate religious authority would support such a letter, yet, despite this fact, you have no indication from the BBC that they even tried to get a response from one of the local Imam’s or even a cleric in Islamabad. The function of the story is simply to remind us how violent and uncivilized Pakistanis and Muslims are.

3. Factual inaccuracies: I do not know what they mean when they say John Michael, a Christian member of the Pakistani parliament, is the head of the Catholic Church in Pakistan, but as far as I can tell he is not a Roman Catholic bishop. Also, as far as I can tell, the head of the Catholic Church in Pakistan is still the Archbishop of Lahore, Lawrence Saldahna.

4. This brings us into the realm of more much more troubling challenges that face us as readers of the media. How can we tell what is going on? Who do we rely upon? One of the things I usually try to do with stories like this one, a half a world away with sketchy information, is try and see what other media outlets are saying. When I did that in this case, it was like I had fallen into a spider web and the more I tried to free myself (i.e. find the actual truth of the story) the more deeply I became entangled in the web.

- Let us start with the letter itself. The BBC report indicates only one letter. They show a picture (purchased from the AP) of a man, a cross behind him, holding the letter up for the camera to see. Yet other news agencies indicate that a number of letters were sent to various churches containing the threat, others that it was a mix of churches and homes (FOX, picking up the AP, reports 2 churches and several homes). An Indian outlet reports that the letters were received not only in Charsadda, but also in Mardan. It is in fact one of the Pakistani outlets that seems most helpful, if their information is presumed to be reliable. They report that the letters were photocopies of a hand-written note, written in rather crude Urdu. But this would seem to be contradicted by a Christian news outlet (whose sources are unspecified) that reports that the various letters received by different parties were not identical [Note that this same news agency has a bit from the 21 May edition calling Jerry Falwell a “cultural hero”].

- Then one has to deal with the threat itself. The BBC article, in its opening paragraph, written in bold print just so you don’t miss it, reports that the Christians are threatened with bomb attacks if they do not convert within the allotted 10 days. Christian Today puts a whole phrase about dire consequences and bombs in quotes, as if they were quoting the letter (or some other unnamed source). AsiaNews headline says that the Christians have been told to convert or die. These claims - the BBC, Christian Today and AsiaNews - seem to be untrue. Most news agencies are reporting that the threats are unspecific, noting only that there will be consequences if they do not convert. The above mentioned Christian news agency says that there are definitely letters that do not specify consequences but it is “reported” that some letters contain bomb threats. That is true insofar as the BBC is reporting that there are bomb threats, but no one seems to have any actual letter – unless the BBC knows something no one else knows, in which case they need to be clearer in their article. The AP provides the only translation of the letter that I could find. In its earliest article (from 12 May – oddly its 16 May article is much more inflammatory and for all intents and purposes says the Taliban wrote the letters), in the above mentioned picture taken by Muhammed Zubair, the following translation is provided:
{"Inform all Christians to covert to Islam or to leave this place. Otherwise you will be in trouble."
Thursday, May 10, 2007 in Charsadda, near Peshawar, Pakistan.}

- Another British outlet, the TimesOnline, reports that as a result of the letters "Christians have fled their homes". Now this is arguably important because it provides a way of judging whether or not Christians believe that the letters represent an escalated or new level of danger for them. Now I suppose, technically, in order for the TimesOnline claim to be true, one would only need at least two Christians to leave their home as a result of the threat. But clearly the opening sentence of the article is meant to imply that Christians have decided to make an exodus from the area. This seems false. Most outlets are reporting that a few Christians have left, but the vast majority are staying put. The BBC, who at least has the decency to provide a reporters name for the story, has Barbara Plett telling us that a few families have left but most are simply “living in fear”. Melodramatic, and not particularly helpful since it turns out that Ms Plett is reporting on the story from Islamabad and thus clearly has no way of confirming for us that what is being said is true. One Pakistani outlet, not surprisingly perhaps, is reporting that no one(!) has left as a result of the letters. This is stated by the local police chief and confirmed by a Christian source. While I find it improbable that a couple of people did not at least say to themselves, “I have not seen Auntie Mary down in Lahore in a long time; now would be a good time to visit”, it also seems unlikely that Christians have caused a traffic jam on the road south out of Charsadda: especially since the number of Christians we are talking about seems to be between approximately 500 and 600 people depending on which news organization you ask (the Middle Eastern Times reports, e.g., 50 families). Moreover at least this outlet has been responsible enough to provide two independent sources for the fact it is reporting and provided names for both of their sources. Clearly this is a revolutionary idea for modern journalism. They also note that the Associated Press had reported migration from the area and give the name of the AP source. I swear, it is almost like they know what responsible journalism is. Maybe the BBC should take notes.

- And then there is the matter of who is actually delivering the threat. The AP wire, picked up by FOX (FOX picks up the feed without the picture or the translation of the letter, interestingly), among others, opens its 12 May report with the claim that the letter is the work of “extremists” even though a few paragraphs later they admit that the letter was unsigned. It’s 16 May report goes even further, virtually declaring the Taliban party the author. The ironically named Christian news outlet, WorthyNews, declares in its headline that “Militants” are “forcing” Christians to convert and shutting down their churches. Besides ignoring the fact that the letters were anonymous, it makes it sound like armed militants are on the streets compelling Christians to say the shahada while they nail-shut the doors of local churches. Perhaps the most egregious offence on this score is from the Indian media outlet, The Times of India, which unambiguously identifies the letter-senders as the Taliban.

- The official response is another matter that is extremely unclear. If you are to believe the AsiaNews, which is a news service aimed at Catholic readers, the authorities are treating the letters as a “joke” and the Christians of Charsadda are callously being ignored. One can see how they might have inferred this, since a Pakistani outlet reports that the chief of police called the letters “immature” and said that the Taliban were much more sophisticated in their methods. But to say that he does not think that the letters are the work of the Taliban and to say that he is going to do nothing is two different things. And he goes on to say that special measures are being taken to ensure the security of Christians and churches. Now it might also be the case, at the very same time, that Christians do not feel secure despite whatever measures are available to the police. And this seems to be implied by the BBC story and others. But even the BBC notes that police have been stationed near Christian interests.

- Now, while I think it is fair to cut them a break, especially when talking about headlines where they are forced to conserve space and be economic with their words while at the same time trying to inspire you to want to read the story, I think it is also important to notice the way in which the words Christian and Pakistan(i) are used in these articles. Over and over again Christians are mentioned in the headlines as if all Christians of Pakistan were being threatened, and not 500 to 600 in a portion of NWFP. Moreover Pakistan is often used in the headlines in a way that could suggest that it is the Pakistani government or some official authority that is attempting to compel this mass conversion. Clearly Pakistan, if that word refers to the country and its powers, are not complelling anyone to convert, and the letters did not come from Pakistan.

- And, finally, to take up Saif’s complaint, which I believe is a relatively legitimate one. Only the news services, like the Middle Eastern News, which picked up the AFP feed and the quote from Shabaz Bhatti, have any statements denouncing the letter and claiming that they violate the spirit of Islam. Even that paragraph is not terribly clear in the AFP feed and it is not clear who is speaking, who the “Alliance” is, and whether or not the speaker is Muslim. A better version of this article (perhaps the original full version, I can not tell) is found at ChristianToday, where one learns that the Alliance is the “All Pakistan Minority Alliance”. Moreover, I presume that the All Pakistan Minority Alliance is a private organization, but who they are and what they do is unstated. Unfortunately, the Christian Today article fails to mention Shabaz Bhatti by name, so I have to put those two pieces together from two different articles. Another thing that the Christian Today article does well is link this event with broader events affecting religious minorities in Pakistan, mentioning the recent failed legislation that was brought before Parliament for the equal treatment of blasphemy no matter which religion was involved. Saliha has also provided us a very useful post on that topic. The 12 May AP report is also one of the few (the only one?) that provides a quote from Pakistani authorities insisting that religious minorities in Pakistan have the right to practice their religion and that their rights will be protected by the Pakistani government. This statement disappears from nearly ALL subsequent reports from other news agencies. Moreover no one seems to have gone to the “trouble” of attempting to interview religious leaders in Peshawar or Islamabad or anywhere else to get their reaction. Meanwhile we have statements from Christian leaders in Islambad and Lahore, as well as foreign Christian figures denouncing the threat to Christians. This is the point at which the articles, especially from the Western media come very very close to being propaganda. They refuse to even acknowledge the need to seek the opinion of Muslim voices. The presumably Muslim voice of the letter(s) is the only voice they can hear. Whether or not it is self-consciously propaganda, it is Yellow Journalism by any standard.




________________________________

The following provides, I believe, a complete list of the all the links that were referenced in this post, beginning with Saliha Shah's two wonderful posts on religious minorities and the freedom of religion found at eteraz.org:

Saliha Shah, "A Step Back for Religious Freedom"

Saliha Shah, "Why Protect Religious Minorities?"

AP - 12 May (includes translation of letter), "Pakistan Christians Receive Threatening Letters Urging Conversion"

see FOXNews version of same article here

BBC (as already linked by Saliha Shah), "Pakistan Christians Demand Help"

Middle Eastern Times (picking up the AFP feed), "Christians in Pakistan Ordered to Convert"

The TimesOnline, "Christians in Pakistan Told to Convert"

AsiaNews, "Christians Threatened: Convert to Islam or Die"

The Times of India, "Pak Bishop Slams Taliban Threats"

Worthy News, "Pakistan Militants Force Christians to Convert to Islam and Shut Churches"

The Daily Times, "Threatening Letter to Christians in Charsadda: Police Guarding Homes and Churches"

Assist News Service (ANS) [A Christian News Outlet], "Letters Threaten Pakistani Christians to Convert to Islam"

Christian Today, "Christians Have 10 Days to Convert to Islam in Pakistan"

AP - 16 May, "Pakistani Christians Warned to Convert"

-LoA

:from munirah

we write this to you from the desert
the letters forming: light on sand
while you wait for
the air conditioner to turn off
inside your cape cod cottage:
new england in june and the electricity costs so much

each grain of sand here is a moment of infinity
each one calls out to you
silently
in the way only infinity can
while you turn up the tv
in order to avoid that revelation

you say, the desert is a liar:
illusions of water, the blurring of distinctions; it will kill if it can
i will stay on solid ground, in the reality of
shopping malls, dairy queens and the marketing machine
but we say, the sun is the only truth
and every grain of sand, its prism

-LoA

the universal natacha atlas

truth is that whether you know it or not you have probably heard the voice of natacha atlas. a genuinely international musician who has recorded music in arabic, french, spanish and english; she has accompanied a wide variety of singers on various albums. she joined sarah brightman on "arabian nights" from the album harem (on which a post is forthcoming), she appeared on the indigo girls come on now social, on the track "faye tucker", she was hired to provide the vocals on cirque de soleil's sound track for verekai, and also provided music for the sound track of the orlando bloom movie, the kingdom of heaven. these among many other international projects means that it would be hard for someone to avoid her.

given earlier posts it is natural to compare her work with that of arabian pop queens nancy ajram and elissa. but even a cursory glance reveals that despite very contemporary sounds from all the artists involved, atlas moves to a very different groove. while elissa, for instance, portrays herself and her music as extremely cosmopolitan despite her deep roots in the levant, atlas, who is nomadic (an egyptian muslim with some distant jewish roots, growing up in a moroccan suburb of brussels and then in the uk, etc.) emphasizes her north african identity both in her sound and in her appearance, even as she maps that identification on a variety of cultural forms. the rhythms of rai, salsa, north african folk music, etc. permeates everything she does, even when she does not perform in arabic.

we offer, as an introduction, three songs from the 1990s. the first two are a narrative pair (though, to be clear, atlas videos do not possess the narrative quality that we have come to associate with ajram's work): the first in english, the second in french. in "one brief moment", she mourns the man she has (not even yet) lost as she apathetically changes clothes in front of the taxi driver while they drive through london. in the second, having arrived at the location where she is to perform, she covers "mon amie la rose" as men look on with desire and as the dramas of love (and its lack) unfold among the dancers, only to leave as distant and unmoved as she arrived. "mon amie la rose" was an important hit for establishing her french audience.



Natacha Atlas, "One Brief Moment", Gedida (1999)




Natacha Atlas, "Mon Amie La Rose", Gedida (1999)

only yesterday you were admiring me
tomorrow i will be dust forever
[and then in arabic at the end...]
my friend the rose
told me something
during the night...



the final song, "leysh nat'arak" is a regal march from her first solo album that reveals her confidence and her embrace of her egyptian roots. she also makes clear that her musical choices have political consequences and motivations in a way that entirely sets her apart from elissa and nancy ajram. she has referred to herself as the "the human gaza strip", divided and torn between worlds, and she does not hold back on this powerful song.


Natacha Atlas, "Leysh Nat'Arak" ["Why Are You Fighting?"] (1995)

why are you fighting?
crossing borders in the desert heat
the stories in the rocks and stones
signatures of time written on every face
the syncopated heartbeat of arab and jew
a song that keeps saying remember
if you are cousins why are you fighting
listen to your hearts and the truth will be clear
it's written on your bones

-LoA

problems with language; or, the war against ideas, part 2

Evelyn DeMorgan, "The Field of the Slain" (1916)

One wonders how much of the foreign policy failure of the United States in the Middle East is itself a failure of language. Do the Americans even understand what it is they are working for? The Crusade-for-Democracy has been and will continue to be a dismal failure because democracy is not really what America and the Europeans want to see in the middle east, even though they do not seem to realize it. Democracy, where it has been achieved has been an embarassment, and a wave of middle eastern democratization would only increase the problem. Palestine, in free elections, elected Hamas; elections in Lebanon have seen the increased political influence of Hizbillah; the broadening of elections in Egypt (Masr) demonstrated the popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, while extending elections in Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan would weaken if not topple those who would be allies and partners of liberal governments.

Democracy is not the solution and is often a problem. It was a form of government spurned up until very recently because of how dangerous it was to hand over power to the mob. Democracy is always, taken on its own, mob rule. The failure, then, is the inability of the United States, among others, to recognize and articulate that it does not want democratization but liberalization in the Middle East: something that is not tied, initially in any case, to a particular form of choosing one's rulers. Monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, etc. are all capable of being liberal, and it was only the liberal revolutions in France in and the United States that made democracy something more than the tyranny of the mob (and that only after a great deal of bloodshed at the hand of the mob in France). Liberalism, a word that Bush is seemingly incapable of speaking, is the commitment to the universal rule of law, the tradition of human and civil rights, a belief in universal human dignity, negative freedom (i.e., freedom from constraint) and the abstract equity of all before the law. These are the things that protect the socially vulnerable from the violence of tyrants, even when that tyrant is the demos (the mob/the people) itself.

Perhaps this failure is rooted in the American political situation. There has never been a flourishing right or left in the United States. Neither fascism nor Marxism were ever very successful on American soil, and so the term liberalism lost its distinguishing character relative to those other two movements against which it was so starkly defined on the European continent in the middle 20th century. And now 'liberal' is a curse in the mouth of social and economic conservatives, even though neither side, ironically enough, realizes that they are both liberal.

But whatever the case, the goal of the United States ought to be the broadening of liberal reforms in those countries with whom it is friendly in the middle east: the least and last of which would be "democratic" elections. High on the list must be freedom of speech and its relative, freedom of the press (something which is itself under increasing pressure in the United States): the ability of the government and thus also the public to tolerate speech with which it does not agree; the ability to show that violence is not the only way to handle disagreement. This would allow political parties to organize, to form their own voice and to learn how to operate in the public square. The places where we ought to be pushing for liberalization are Saudi Arabia (slowly), Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt (where the United States has exhibited failure on a massive scale in recent days) and encourage its further extension in Lebanon (which is at a critical moment), Qatar, and the UAE (especially Dubai), and Bahrain.

Instead, current American policy is alienating those whom it has the greatest ability to actually reach, and disrupting and further degrading the lives of those over whom it has the least influence. Democracy, without liberalization, is tyranny, and America is helping to bring that new tyranny to the Middle East at gun point.

-LoA

the war against ideas, part 1

Frederick Leighton, "Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis" (1871)

Someone decided to make War on Terror. I am not sure - I have heard rumors about something called a constitution - but while the President asked for the power to fight Terror, I believe the Congress was the one with the power to declare war (which it didn't actually do) and overwhelmingly voted to provide said President with said powers. Rhetorically it has been a very effective ploy and has garnered for the chief executive of the United States a great deal of autonomy, not only in how he uses military troops against other sovereign countries (without, ironically enough, declaring war), or how he treats "enemy combatants" (another handy rhetorical term with no real legal standing, but clearly not the same as prisoners-of-war), but in how he can turn the intelligence powers (who did their job oh-so-effectively, by the way, before he used their intelligence to justify taking American troops into Iraq) against the citizens of his own country, using laws that (once again) Congress passed.

Making war against an idea: one is tempted to invite the military, or at least the national guard, into the bedrooms of children everywhere and let them empty everything they have at "the Dark", so children everywhere no longer have to be Afraid and can sleep more soundly. Maybe there are plans to put the Dark on a watch-list of Terror organizations; I am not privy to such information. We no longer make wars against countries, it has become awkward. After all the President's war powers would no doubt have been defunct by now if cowardly-Congress had been forced to declare war against Afghanistan or Iraq, as it ought to have done: concrete enemies providing concrete limits. It would also have made clear to everyone who was covered by the rules of war and who lay outside the bounds of war, properly speaking. Rhetorically, Terror is both more indefinite, and therefore more broad and more powerful. Will the President retain war powers until there is Peace? Until Kingdom come?

Today we make wars against ideas, while the cowardly-Congress grills administration officials over the perfectly legal actions of the President in firing and hiring prosecutors [ed.-It seems to me that, these days, if the President does something legal, we should throw a party, not Congressional hearings.], in an attempt to deflect its own role in a War-Without-End. With such category mistakes and demagoguery running rampant, it is no wonder that diplomacy has fallen into disrepute in Washington D.C.; after all, words-as-the-bearers-of-truth are to be met with arms and force according to the new rhetoric, until nothing is left other than emptiness and lies.

-LoA

the lies of conscience (forgetting lebanon)

tonight i am reading kant: kant who argued that one's love of god was shown in one's attentiveness to the moral law: kant for whom god never appeared to us directly but in whom we could not help but believe because humanity was driven by a desire for the infinite: kant who dreamt that perpetual peace was indeed possible, that it was our hope.

this post from last year recalls the horrific events in lebanon last summer.

best wishes to everyone this evening,
LoA.


Chris DeBurgh and Elissa, "Lebanese Night" (2002)


We sleep peacefully
calmly
sweetly...
We sleep deeply, dreaming of
what we will do tomorrow
how we will spend our wealth
who we will love...
We sleep luxuriously, on a quiet night
with a clean conscience
wrapped warmly in the silken sheets of the blood of Others.

-LoA



"The War in Lebanon - Listen" (July 2006)

tehran

Shahrad Malek Fazeli, "Retiring with the Qur'an" (2005)

1. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
2. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
3. Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
4. Master of the Day of Judgment
5. Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
6. Show us the straight way,
7. The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray.

Quran Sunah 1 (The Opening)




Neil Bell, "A Recent Visit to Tehran" (May 2006)

Therefore if a man has in his heart that love to Allah which the law enjoins, it is perfectly lawful, nay, laudable in him to take part in exercises which promote it. On the other hand, if his heart is full of sensual desires, music and dancing will only increase them, and are therefore unlawful for him. While, if he listens to them merely as a matter of amusement, they are neither lawful nor unlawful, but indifferent. For the mere fact that they are pleasant does not make them unlawful any more than the pleasure of listening to the singing of birds or looking at green grass and running water is unlawful. The innocent character of music and dancing, regarded merely as a pastime, is also corroborated by an authentic tradition which we have from the Lady Ayesha, who narrates: "One festival-day some Africans were performing in a mosque. The Prophet said to me, 'Do you wish to see them?' I replied, 'Yes.' Accordingly he lifted me up with his own blessed hand, and I looked on so long that he said more than once, 'Have not you had enough of watching?"...
Al-Ghazali, The Alchemy of Happiness (11th century)


Iman Maleki, "Composing Music Secretly" (1996)

-LoA

nancy ajram: pop and plot

in 2002 a young lebanese woman with a handful of songs but no recognition to her credit burst onto the scene of arab-pop with "akhasmak aah". her director, a veteran of the egyptian movie industry turned to one of the popular tropes of his craft to define her, and to make an impression with the viewing audience: the female proprietor/manager of a bar, working alone, dancing for a little extra money, in front of an all-male audience. ajram was sexy, flirtatious, hard-working...and an elusive, independent figure. the story internal to the video matched its reception. ajram caused a controversy, especially in egypt, for being too sexual, but slipped away from the chaos herself (though she would be rather viciously pursued by critics over the next several years) and into stardom.


Nancy Ajram, "Akhasmak Aah", Ya Salam (2002)

i will upset you, yes!
i will leave you, no!


the next three are put together in order to form an over-arching story. this is indeed a characteristic of many ajram videos: the presence of a strong, clear, if simple, plot. the director is generally aided in this by the fact that arabic pop seems to have a more patient ear with each song pushing the five minute mark, if not beyond. even more, one can note here the development of larger storyline that progresses from her initial crush, through the excitement of a wedding to the challenges of marriage.

Nancy Ajram, "Yay sehr 3youno", Ah w Noss (2005)


Nancy Ajram, "Lawn 3younak"

the coup d'grace. plaintive and powerful in any language.

Nancy Ajram, "Enta Eih", Ah w Noss (2005)

What are you? Is it not enough
That you hurt me? Have pity. How cruel are you?


-LoA

for mohammed

...you will always be the face of Falastin for me.


Dusty Griffith, "Resurrection" (2007)

I see an image - which one is not important -
I see an image and I rush back, once again, to the desert
I rush back to the desert as I have done so often before
to the desert of Unknowing

And I wonder - do you wonder also? -
I wonder what has transpired over the distance
the distance of years, miles, languages
that have come to separate us in the land of the Real

We were children in the desert - little ones in the Kingdom of Heaven -
We were children, free in the desert before History grabbed hold
Before History made us aware of Injustice
and we were called to account

Do you also yearn - in the disquietude of your tired soul -
Do you also miss the desert of Unknowing
Have you returned there in your moments of confusion
and found the quiet Truth once again?

-LoA

let there be blood

we wait for the death of one more person in iraq. cnn promises it is imminent. he is at the site of his execution. certainly he will not be the only one to die there today: not the only person killed even. probably not even the only one executed, as executions in various forms seem to have become a common place, especially in baghdad. no one seems to be content until the blood runs to the bridles. so by all means, let there be blood.

-LoA.

hajj (1982/1403)

And proclaim that the people shall observe Hajj. They will come
to you walking or riding on various exhausted (means of transportation). They
will come from the farthest locations. (22:27-28)

Johan Berthold Jongkind, "Leaving the Port of Honfleur" (1865)


my very first flight left from a small airport in new bern in the rain. i hobbled around the lobby waiting to board, a crutch under each arm because less than a week before i had twisted my left ankle so badly that the muscle tear had literally pulled bone away from the side of my foot. but they were nothing but an annoyance to me now; i felt no pain, only that they were slowing things down.

when we finally boarded i was excited about flying in a way that i have since more than recovered from. the plane pushed its way up into the gray sky and bounced its way along towards dc. my mother's face was the same color as the sky long before we got there.

by the time we arrived in nyc i decided it was time to dump the crutches. the foot never healed correctly and it still hurts for me to sit cross-legged if my left foot is on the bottom, but even now i dont regret it. i walked on two feet onto what is still the largest plane i have ever been on. the pan am double-decker had sleeping quarters on the upper floor for those who had the money. but the government was only paying for our family to fly third class.




Jean-Léon Gérôme, "Arabs Crossing the Desert" (1870)

it is not only the largest plane i have ever been on, it may well be one of the most crowded flights i have ever been on. i have been on other full flights since, all of which were much less enjoyable, but this flight teemed with life. there was an energy i could not have understood at the time which made the plane seem about to burst. and that energy lasted for almost every minute of the fifteen hour, non-stop flight.

it was almost as if we had booked a flight on a family reunion. people, most of whom had never met before that flight, chatted joyously like old friends, relatives departed and only now reunited. i dont remember when the singing started. somewhere over the atlantic, in a language i could not understand, people, drunk on nothing but happiness, joined together in one voice. in and out of a dramamine induced sleep, stretched across the lap of a total stranger, the festivities went on around me. this was flying, and flying was a party.

we were over land and the party went in an uneven ebb and flow when a transformation began to take place. a slow stream of people male and female began to move to the bathrooms, still three or four hours from our destination. they began to undress themselves of america and become something else. fantastic clothing, a sea of flowing white, but new to me, unseen before and thus fabulous, like butterflies. and as the transformation took hold among the passengers, leaving only us as defective, stunted human beings trapped in our cocoons, the party in the sky reached its climax until someone, in the now-foreign language that was english, announced that we were descending.



Jean-Léon Gérôme, "An Arab Caravan" (c.1870)


it was a descent into light, and overwhelming brightness. as we approached the ground i stared out the window: a small herd of camels trotted underneath us, glancing casually upwards. the plane slammed downward onto the runway, as if we could not land fast enough now. the shutters banged down and everyone let out a collective gasp, and then applause.

the plane parked not far from the terminal and a ramp was brought alongside. and we advanced slowly upon the exit. i was a child of the south, raised on heat and humidity in equal portion with eggs and grits. but when i stepped off that plane, nearly blinded by the purity of the light, i was embraced by the new world, wrapped in warmth and moisture that tangibly took hold of me. and i was in dhahran.

-LoA

reflections on being lost

[dedicated to alaleh, baraka, koonj, path2hope and all those others who have that feeling of homelessness]


Umm Aisha, "Grief, Anxiety and Sadness" (2005)


On 20 December 1983 my family was on vacation. It was, in a sense, an odd vacation, and no doubt my parents did not think of it as such, but for me...well, I am a victim of that uniquely modern, liberal and capitalistic phenomenon which Heidegger identifies as homelessness – a failure indicative of a spreading Americanism as far as he was concerned. Homelessness: to be without roots, and thus lost. We had gone home for Christmas after spending the better part of the year abroad in Saudi Arabia. I slept on my grandmother's couch and read Cosmo in the dim light of an old lamp while others slept: issue after issue with absolute fascination: an exposure to something exotic and new.

My parents have always been sure where home was. And they returned there as quickly as possible. Trips there were not vacations, they were returns from exile. But for me, it was never so.

But one wonders if there is not a virtue to homelessness, despite what Heidegger might say. On 20 December 1983 Donald Rumsfeld was shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein. Despite my most cynical moments I do not truly operate under the illusion that Mr. Rumsfeld thought of Hussein as a real ally. I doubt anyone was under any misperception of how reprehensible the leader of the Iraqi Ba'ath party was. But Mr. Rumsfeld knew quite clearly where home was, and this was not it. But he could use Iraq to the interests of his home. When you know where home is, everything outside the door becomes "barbarian" to a greater or lesser degree, and what more can you expect of barbarians than brutality and violence. If Mr. Rumsfeld could, by shaking this hand, aim this particular barbarian at Iran, then that would, by the basic calculus performed by those back at home, be useful. 'Let them kill themselves and we will gladly give them the encouragement and means to do it.' And when the barbarian lord became unruly and was no longer able to be controlled or directed at the right enemy, no longer killed the right people, he could be removed.

I am homeless to Heidegger because I do not unequivocally know where home is. I failed to fully develop the appropriate loyalties; I was not able to draw the distinction, so important to Mr. Rumsfeld's little outing on 20 December 1983, between we-who-are-civilized and they-who-are-barbarians, and so instead I found myself a guest in my grandmother's house no less than I was a guest in Saudi Arabia. I was invited to share Christmas with her much as I had been invited to share in the wonderful nights of Ramadan with my friends in Saudi. There would no longer be a cultural door which I could step through and be finally and decisively at home, though I found myself warmly embraced by many as their guest and neighbor. I have committed that sin, so unforgivable, not only to Rumsfeld but also to Heidegger, of being at home with my homelessness.

-LoA