so emblematic of western media to focus on michelle obama’s uncovered hair as some sort of feminist statement, while completely ignoring the milieu in which all of this is happening – she and her husband (the most powerful defenders of everyone’s “freedoms”) are gallivanting with saudi royalty, the most misogynistic dictatorial regime in the world. sigh.
Category: self-authored
#JeSuisGrecque
jan 26, 2015: it’s exhilarating to see the will of the greek people expressed electorally with such unequivocal force and clarity. on the same day, social media were plastered with harrowing photographs of a young egyptian activist, shaimaa al-sabbagh, a member of the socialist popular alliance party, who was shot dead by police as she was carrying a wreath of flowers to tahrir square. she was 32 years old. she was killed in cold blood, on the eve of the anniversary of egypt’s 2011 uprising, by the military dictatorship which crushed the hopes and dreams of the egyptian people. it’s heartbreaking and terrifying. naomi klein: may greece learn the hard lessons of every previous left victory: stay mobilized! mass pressure more important now than ever #syriza
a tribute to aunty iffie
remembering my aunt, my dad’s sister, who passed away on january 13, 2015. aunty iffie, as we used to call her, was one of the loveliest people in our family. she had this smile – warm, constant, irrepressible – it defined the contours of her personality. that’s the only way i can picture her: beaming smile, infinite kindness, not a harsh word to anyone. although my aunt had her share of challenges in life, nothing could put a dampener on her joie de vivre. she was loving, resilient, light-hearted. she tread gently on this earth. it’s not a quality that’s appreciated enough in modern times. the loud and aggressive get more attention. yet it’s exactly what we need most. i will miss her sweet sunniness. “surely we belong to god and to god shall we return.” may you rest in peace dear aunty iffie and may heaven smile on you forever.
the muslims i know at OASIS
screened “the muslims i know” at an OASIS class today. the room was jam-packed with people who introduced themselves as christians, jews, atheists, and even “confused.” a lot of great questions. a jewish woman told me how her iranian neighbor called her after the paris attacks to tell her that she didn’t support them. “why would she think she needed to do that,” she asked, “we’re best friends.” it was a rhetorical question. i told her that is indeed the burden we must bear as muslims these days, especially those of us who live in the west. even tho we have nothing to do with free agents who sometimes claim to be muslim and have all kinds of political agendas and behave in all sorts of bizarre ways, we are supposed to identify with them, explain them, apologize for them. we didn’t elect them. there was no referendum on who we’d like to represent us, as a major world religion. but each and everyone of us is forced to speak for 1.6 billion people. it’s obscene. 14 years after 9/11, i am tired of explaining. i am tired of debating the humanity of muslims. frankly, the debate itself is offensive. another woman told me she felt heartened by the paris march: “finally, we can come together and say no more.” no more of only one kind of violence tho, i told her. “of course,” she said, “no one is going to push back against american violence.” there u go i said, u just articulated the hypocrisy of the march. all in all, it was a great audience – curious, open-minded, respectful. if only msm would cover such honest, heartfelt conversations rather than closed door tête-à-têtes with the duck dynasty.
the difficulty of mourning by mara ahmed
someone made a brilliant comment about finding it hard to mourn in these times. it’s not just that we’ve lost our humanity or our power of concentration, it’s also, at least for me, the politics of divisiveness and violence that are embedded in the mourning process itself.
i’m not just talking about paris, a beautiful city with lovely people that i visited just a few weeks ago. i am also talking about peshawar and the incomprehensibly cruel attack on a school, which killed hundreds of children. what could be more inhumane, more heartbreaking. yet, from the beginning, the language of grief in both these cases was laced with absolute binaries and the need for swift vengeance. an implicit demand was made not to talk about political context, for that would mean justifying the attacks, not to analyze the reasons put forth by the attackers themselves, for that would mean humanizing them when they must remain a pure and abstract evil.
after the peshawar attacks, my newsfeed was flooded with images of lynched men. “terror suspects must be hanged within 24 hours,” perfectly nice people commanded. a pakistani woman, holding a toddler in her profile picture, urged the pakistani army to “kill them all, kill their neighbors, kill their friends, kill anyone who gives them bread, kill anyone who offers them shelter…” she went on for an entire paragraph.
in the wake of the paris attacks, #killallmuslims became a flashpoint of western solidarity against the un-europeans, the un-free. not making pornographic cartoons of prophets would mean giving up the freedoms that “our ancestors died for” a white american friend proclaimed, in a rather mystifying way.
hate-filled mourning with self-righteous demands to eliminate the other, for our security, for our values, for our way of life (whatever human misery that way of life might be built on) is difficult to embrace. one cannot help but see the inequities and incredible violence that exist in this sacrosanct system we must protect. one cannot un-see the images of children dying of cold in gaza and syria and wonder if this is the world order we’re fighting for, if these are the “values” we need to rally around. one cannot help but see the jarring, screaming hypocrisy of it all. it’s hammered into the feel-good demonstrations of unity on the part of the free, the civilized, the ones who count. it’s impossible for some of us to add our voices to this chorus of the privileged.
i’m thankful for the many who understand these contradictions. over the past few days, once again, i’ve consolidated my friend list with clear-minded activists who are able to articulate the complexities of our times, who are swayed by justice rather than fake slogans, and who allow us to focus on the underlying political causes of the unrest we’re seeing without calling for widespread extermination. as joe sacco put it rather directly, either we learn to coexist and make the compromises that are necessary for any kind of equal human relationship or we settle once and for all the question of the other. until some other evil bursts onto the scene that is.
below zero temperatures
jan 8, 2015: temperatures have been incredibly low over the past few days. there was a wind chill advisory until yesterday. thinking of the people in gaza whose homes were destroyed over the summer, of people in iraq and syria who have been displaced by civil war, and the poor and homeless right here in the united states. the world is unjust and inequitable. we must strive to make it more balanced. click here to support A Home for Sanctuary Village.
Harsha Walia on Charlie Hebdo plus my comments
Harsha Walia: In condemning the killings at Charlie Hebdo, can we please not forget that it’s a racist publication, that attacks on certain religions are racialized (and hence are racist attacks), that free speech/satire is not a sacred cow (especially when it becomes violent, hate speech), and that the backlash that will ensue will disproportionately target certain communities for scrutiny and surveillance (in the context of ever-rising anti-Muslim backlash in Europe under the guise of state/racialized secularism and anti-migrant sentiment). This is not to justify the murders (obviously), but this publication should continue to be condemned and not suddenly be let off the hook (like how the hell is there suddenly social license to reproduce their racist images as some kind of gesture of ‘solidarity’?), and to be vigilant about the rationale that the state will deploy for further enacting violence.
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my comments based on FB discussions:
1) i would like to start by saying that i don’t support violent defenders of anything (including islam, democracy, western values, oil, ethnic or cultural purity, or any kind of nationalism)
2) i am against killing people (including CH cartoonists, journalists in yemen, gaza and iraq, people living in pakistan’s northern areas, people bombed, tortured or assassinated all over the world)
3) now as far as CH and what kind of rag it is, which is a different discussion: it is well-known for being racist, especially islamophobic. here is a sampling of their cartoons which were meant to bully marginalized french muslims for the most part.
4) on the idea of equal opportunity offending, this article proves to be invaluable:
Charlie Hebdo was not in reality a model of freedom of speech. It has ended up, like so much of the “human rights left”, defending U.S.-led wars against “dictators”.
In 2002, Philippe Val, who was editor in chief at the time, denounced Noam Chomsky for anti-Americanism and excessive criticism of Israel and of mainstream media. In 2008, another of Charlie Hebdo’s famous cartoonists, Siné, wrote a short note citing a news item that President Sarkozy’s son Jean was going to convert to Judaism to marry the heiress of a prosperous appliance chain. Siné added the comment, “He’ll go far, this lad.” For that, Siné was fired by Philippe Val on grounds of “anti-Semitism”. Siné promptly founded a rival paper which stole a number of Charlie Hebdo readers, revolted by CH’s double standards. More here.
5) the word “satire” is being thrown around quite a bit. here is a good take on satire:
Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel – it’s vulgar. (Molly Ivins)
anyone with any basic understanding of french society, will agree that french muslims are hardly the “powerful” in france (or in any other western country). this happened just a few days ago in germany.
our french vacation
December 21, 2014
In Paris: Lovely people, Sunday mass at Notre Dame de Paris, dinner at a Lebanese restaurant run by an Iranian where I had manouche (similar to tandoori roti) with makanek (Lebanese beef sausage flavored with cumin) and broumana (semolina honey lemon syrup cake). Paris is all lit up and the weather is mild spring weather for us Rochesterians. So wonderful to be here.
December 23, 2014
So yesterday we checked out the Louvre and the I.M. Pei pyramid and stole a glance at the elusive Mona Lisa. We walked around the Eiffel Tower which begins to shimmer and glitter at dusk and loved the Christmas market along the Champs-Elysées (nothing like churros and a warm drink on a winter night). Kids were ice skating in a small, makeshift rink and there was Christmas music aplenty. We had dinner at a restaurant in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Today we checked out all the ostentatious gold at the Chateau de Versailles, took a rest after all the walking and then headed to Montmartre. The Sacré-Coeur is always magical and the views of the city from the butte Montmartre always stunning. But the best part of the day was getting together with my indefatigable activist friends, the brilliant Stephanie McCarthy and Raymond Deane! Here we are at Le Sancerre with our families. What’s not to love about Paris?
December 24, 2014
Merry Chirstmas everyone! Special wishes from Place Rossetti, in Nice. This beautiful video was shot by my son.
December 25, 2014
Today we drove to the picturesque towns of Villefranche-sur-Mer and Menton. It is nice and sunny here. Menton is so pleasant in fact that it is full of lemon and orange trees, heavy with fruit, throughout the year. I kept saying to my husband that I wouldn’t mind retiring in the South of France. That is until I read a comically awful article about the “djihad sexuel” which made beards and long hair synonymous with beheadings and rape. Seriously? That’s a bit much, even for Yahoo News in French. Below is a stunning picture taken by my daughter.
December 26, 2014
Visited Eze and Monte Carlo today. Was charmed by Eze. Some history: “Eze is a tiny walled village perched on the top of a 1400-foot peak overlooking the Mediterranean. The village claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in France, possibly dating from the 9th century B.C. Tradition has it that early Phoenician sailors chose the spot to build a temple to Isis, goddess of the sun, and that the town’s unusual name is derived from hers. The site’s obvious advantages of defensibility, nearby water and arable land, and a commanding view of the sea explain why a town was established and remained there, despite repeated attempts of invaders to conquer and destroy it.” Loved Le Jardin Exotique planted amidst the ruins of a 12th century Roman castle that crowns the village. Not only does it offer gorgeous views all the way to Saint-Tropez but it’s also alive with beguiling sculptures of Earth goddesses created by Jean-Philippe Richard. The sculptures have an elegant simplicity to them, a calm beauty that blends in with the garden (which is full of exotic cacti and plants from all over the world) and the rugged cliff that supports the village. Magnifique. Picture by my daughter.
December 27, 2014
Started the day with a visit to the Matisse Chapel, Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence. Matisse was quite old (77) when he started working on this project, which took 4 years to complete. He designed everything – from the chapel’s architectural rendering and stained glass windows, to the furniture and light fixtures. My favorite piece of art inside the chapel is the carved wooden door to the confessional, a perfect example of Matisse’s cut-outs. The patterns are inspired by Islamic art Matisse had come across in Morocco. Light from the chapel’s stained glass windows hits the door at such an angle that the confessional seems to be suffused with pink light, when in fact the room is completely white. Simple and elegant, stripped down yet full of the creative play between light and color, it’s the perfect place to be quiet and centered.
From Vence it was a short drive to St Paul de Vence, one of the most beautiful villages in the South of France, chock-full of art and sculpture. After a quick lunch at Cafe de la Place, we headed to Cannes. The Promenade de la Croisette was lit up and offered gorgeous views. I had some hearty soupe de poisson à la provençale and a piece of delicious tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream at a cafe across from the boardwalk. It was getting dark by the time we got to Cannes but the sky was an incredible blue velvet, palm trees rustled in the wind, and people hurried along to their various destinations. A wonderful, lively scene.
December 28, 2014
Back to Paris after a very comfortable ride on the TGV. I wanted to check out the Pere Lachaise cemetery but it was closed by the time we got there. No problem. We had a lovely dinner at a bistro on Rue de la Roquette. I had magret de canard avec de la sauce aux canneberges et gratin Dauphinois. To die for! The tiramisu wasn’t half bad either. Tomorrow back to the US. Will miss France!
Taliban: We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America
the killing of children is heinous (whether in pakistan, palestine, iraq or the US) but it’s important to understand context rather than invent comfortable narratives. no, this was not an attack on “education” or “girls” or the expression of some twisted islamic ideology. it was a v specific and brutal revenge attack on the pakistani army, where it is most vulnerable.
nothing excuses the act. however, talking about it in biblical terms (evil, eliminating people, cutting out cancer, etc) is equally disturbing to me, esp when all children killed are not met with the same scriptural outrage. as someone from pakistan, with family still there, i am not keen on the cycle of violence that the war on terror has escalated. i do not support drones, army operations inside of waziristan, extrajudicial killings, torture and ethnic cleansing. just because CNN (or other msm) do not report on those atrocities, it does not mean that they don’t happen.
this is a bit diff from US school shootings. this is more like the beslan siege carried out by chechen militants. i remember that v clearly. no where in the media was it mentioned what the russians had done in chechnya, how grozny had been razed to the ground and 80,000 people killed. unless we understand what violence does to people, we are destined to respond with more violence. that’s what many pakistanis are demanding – large scale revenge. i don’t believe that’s the road to conciliation and peace.
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Sami Yousafzai: The unprecedented slaughter Tuesday at least 132 students at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, shows in the most gruesome possible way that the Pakistani Taliban, known as the TTP, have not yet been defeated or brought under control by the Pakistani military’s recent offensives. Certainly that was the objective of the attack: The school is a private one run by the army for the children of soldiers. “The TTP is ready for a long, long war against the U.S. puppet state of Pakistan,” a TTP commander told me when I reached him on his Afghan cellphone. “We are just displaced, but we are still in positions to attack wherever we want,” said Jihad Yar Wazir. Yar Wazir justified the killings as fitting retribution. “The parents of the army school are army soldiers and they are behind the massive killing of our kids and indiscriminate bombing in North and South Waziristan,” which are the TTP strongholds. “To hurt them at their safe haven and homes—such an attack is perfect revenge.” But the children are innocents, I said. What about them, I asked? “To hurt them at their safe haven and homes—such an attack is perfect revenge.” What about our kids and children,” he said. “These are the kids of the U.S.-backed Pakistani army and they should stop their parents from bombing our families and children.” Yar Wazir went on: “Those kids are innocent because they are wearing a suit and tie and Western shirts? But our kids wearing Islamic shalwar kamiz do not come before the eyes of the media and the West.” More here.
Ayad Akhtar on “American Dervish: Muslim American Culture and Family Life”
nov 11, 2014: attended an ayad akhtar lecture yesterday at the u of r. he’s won the pulitzer for his play “disgraced” which is on broadway right now. i am happy for his success. i haven’t read his books or seen his plays but here are some thoughts about his lecture and the themes that seem to permeate his work.
i understand that it’s an impossible burden to be the member of a minority and to be expected to represent that entire community accurately, comprehensively, perennially. as the token muslim in most situations, i understand how ridiculous and unjust it is to expect one person to speak for 100s, 1000s, millions or 1.6 billion! it’s impossible to be everything to everyone at all times. as an artist, i understand that it is not the artist’s job to represent anyone but themselves, to have free artistic rein, to be concerned solely with the perfection of their craft. however, if most of an artist’s work is centered on certain aspects of their identity (their muslimness, their pakistaniness or their pakistani-americanness) then they are taking on that burden of representation willingly.
since v few muslims/pakistanis/pakistani-americans are able to attain meteoric mainstream success and the media exposure that comes with it, the content of a successful artist’s craft, deeply rooted within one small exoticized group, becomes more significant. not only will their work be scrutinized by their own community, but they will also participate actively in creating the dominant narrative – the lens thru which this minority is viewed.
here are brief descriptions of akhtar’s work:
[His film] The War Within is the story of Hassan, a Pakistani engineering student in Paris who is apprehended by American intelligence services for suspected terrorist activities. After his interrogation, Hassan undergoes a radical transformation and embarks upon a terrorist mission, surreptitiously entering the United States to join a cell based in New York City.
To appreciate the relevance of playwright Ayad Akhtar’s work, you need look no further than two eerie coincidences that shadowed his debut drama, “Disgraced.” The play, which portrays the downfall of a Muslim American lawyer, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2013. The day the award was announced, two Muslims deposited pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston marathon. A second grisly coincidence came a few weeks later. On the day “Disgraced” opened in London two Muslims murdered and tried to behead a British soldier on a busy street in what one said was revenge for the British army’s killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody linked these attacks to Akhtar’s play, but they were nonetheless chilling reminders of the violence that hovers at the edges of the territory he explores. “The work I’m doing is in direct dialogue with what’s happening in the Muslim world,” he said recently over dinner in New York.
[His play] “The Invisible Hand.” It’s the story of Nick, a stock and bond trader based in Pakistan who is kidnapped by Muslim extremists. Although the play examines some of the personal ramifications of the ongoing conflict between the Muslim Middle East and secular Western beliefs, Akhtar sees it as more of a story about global finance.
[His play] The Who and the What: Dark clouds appear early, as Mahwish covertly engages in some Quran-flouting canoodling to keep her fiance on the hook. Meanwhile Zarina — still resenting [her father] Afzal for breaking up her engagement to an Irish Catholic years before — is buried in an incendiary fiction project which will both personalize the Prophet as a flawed, lusting male, and indict the Muslim practice of veiling women as cruelly oppressive and theologically skewed. (Real-life activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali is evoked to point up the provocation.)
Ayad Akhtar is the author of the critically acclaimed, poignant, coming-of-age novel American Dervish. Since its debut,the book has been embraced around the world for the richness of its characters and illuminating the everyday lives of Muslim Americans, earning Akhtar a rightful place alongside today’s most compelling storytellers…The novel centers on one family’s struggle to identify both as Muslim and American, one boy’s devotion to his faith, and the sometimes tragic implications of extremism.
needless to say, akhtar is in constant dialogue with muslim-americanness. but it’s hugely disappointing that this engagement is based, almost exclusively, on stereotypes nurtured by mainstream media.
last night akhtar mentioned how his first book was a complete failure. i was interested in what kind of book that might have been and i found this information particularly enlightening. “At this time he was deep into writing a novel about a poet who worked at Goldman Sachs. Although the main character had Pakistani roots, the story line had little to do with Pakistan, or Islam — Akhtar wasn’t ready yet to explore his heritage. Instead he strove to create a generic exploration of a man’s inner life — a tale, he was certain, was destined to be the next Great American Novel. “I was convinced of that, without any irony,” he says. He completed the novel after six years and soon had to admit its failure. No publisher, no literary agent was interested. Even his friends panned it. “It was just not me,” he recalls. “I thought I was writing what I knew, but I wasn’t.”
that might explain the heavy-handed use of stereotypes in his present work. i understand that akhtar adds much more complexity and nuance to the situations and characters he creates but he’s decided to remain within certain parameters of what constitutes the accepted outside view of the american muslim experience. he made the point last night that as a stereotyped minority, we cannot continue to define ourselves in opposition to anti-muslim propaganda. i couldn’t agree more. i long to break out of that box, that suffocating framework. however, embracing anti-muslim propaganda, albeit with liberal doses of psycho-analysis and some social commentary, is hardly the best way to be free to define ourselves outside of the racist colonial frame of reference where we are expected to exist.
akhtar read from his book “american dervish”. i enjoyed the first section he read which described how spirituality once awakened can elevate day-to-day, pedestrian life to incredible levels of vividness, akin to a mystical experience. the second piece he read from the book was a conversation between a mother and son. he read the pakistani immigrant matriarch’s lines with a pakistani accent. i wanted to tell him he sounded like my kids, whose rendition of a south asian accent is completely in line with hank azaria’s apu (on the simpsons). it made it impossible for me to focus on what the woman was actually saying. her cartoonishness became overwhelming. however, what she said was important. she told her son that jewish men, unlike muslim men, know how to respect women and this was why she was raising him like a jew. this last line was certainly expected to have a comedic effect and it elicited laughter from the audience but within the context of the brutal, misogynistic muslim man oppressing his wife, it had more resonance than the casual witticism it’s supposed to embody.
here’s more from akhtar’s broadway play “disgraced”:
“Islam comes from the desert,” [the Muslim protagonist] says. “From a group of tough-minded, tough-living people who saw life as something hard and relentless. Something to be suffered.” And he speaks admiringly of the other desert-based tradition. “Jews reacted to the situation differently,” he continues. “They turned it over, and over, and over. I mean look at the Talmud. They’re looking at things from a hundred different angles, trying to negotiate with it, make it easier, more livable… It’s not what Muslims do. Muslims don’t think about it. They submit.” But as he’s further agitated, and further drunk, he also admits that he cannot escape his strict Muslim upbringing. “Even if you’re one of those lapsed Muslims sipping your after-dinner scotch alongside your beautiful white American wife and watching the news and seeing folks in the Middle East dying for values you were taught were purer, and stricter, and truer,” he says, “you can’t help but feel just a little a bit of pride.” As he did, he confesses, on September 11. Horrified, he says, but a little bit proud. […] But as much as Ayad’s terrific play is a scarily heightened portrait of the challenges of being an upwardly mobile Muslim-American in our current world, it also raises powerful questions for anyone who could be accused of having a dual loyalty.
from “the who and the what”:
“She has more power over you than she really wants,” Afzal says to Eli, accusing him of failing to treat his wife as a Muslim husband should. … And then, in a line that Mr. White [Afzal] delivers with a chilling casualness, he adds, “And she won’t be happy until you break her, son. She needs you to take it on, man.”
i wonder what the reaction to akhtar’s work would have been if he hadn’t been a muslim. i have a suspicion that we would understand his oeuvre quite differently. although i feel strongly that akhtar benefits from his native informant status, he made it quite clear last night that he doesn’t have double consciousness. he’s just american.
The funny thing is, I don’t feel like I’m writing about Muslim American life,” Akhtar explains. “I feel like I’m writing about American life.”
Akhtar acknowledges that Muslims face an especially precarious place in American society in the aftermath of Sept. 11. In the shadow of surveillance, profiling and doubt, many Muslim artists have been inspired to explore identity in their work. But Akhtar says his characters are also facing a more universal dilemma.
“The process of becoming American has to do with rupture and renewal — rupture from the Old World, renewal of the self in a new world. That self-creative capacity is what it means to be American in many ways, and I think that part of that rupture is the capacity to make fun of yourself and the capacity to criticize yourself.”
i am all for self-criticism. i am all for flawed characters with depth and complexity. i am just looking for something more than the muslim terrorist/wife beater/religious fanatic. perhaps akhtar could turn to his own life and the society he moves in for inspiration. he was born in NYC and raised in milwaukee, both his parents are physicians, he is a graduate of brown and columbia universities, he studied acting in italy with jerzy grotowski, he lives in NYC where he has taught acting along with andre gregory (my dinner with andre). his own life experience as a pakistani-american muslim might be harder to sell to the mainstream but it might sparkle with the kind of originality and truth that would make him an important, authentic voice in american culture. i’ll continue to wait for that play.
celebrate palestine at asbury first UMC
nov 9, 2014: at the celebrate palestine event today (part of the witness palestine film series) where we had a palestinian dinner, enjoyed palestinian music and shared palestinian literature. celebration of culture, history and identity is resistance to oppression.
steven salaita in rochester
oct 30, 2014: met steven salaita this evening after his talk at the university of rochester. the topic was “digital means, political ends, and academic freedom in the new gilded age.” before steven took the stage, ted brown (u of r) talked about his work on the use of x-rays to treat skin conditions and his collaboration with israeli doctors. that research has opened his eyes to aspects of zionism he was unfamiliar with. lisa cerami (nazareth college) discussed the corporatization of american universities and the focus on profits. increasingly students are seen as the consumers of a certain “brand” which must be protected at all costs. the inequities that exist within that corporate system and the vulnerability of 75% of those who teach and who are non-tenure track faculty, mirror the inequities and labor class vulnerabilities which exist in american society at large. tom gibson (u of r) spoke about a long history of attacks on academic freedom starting with world war i. steven began his talk with palestine/israel, which is central to his present travails. he said he didn’t mince his words: the so-called conflict is about colonization and it will end with decolonization. he had no doubts about that. he talked about the importance of activism and the right to be compassionate as an academic who studies marginalized communities. it wasn’t enough to observe and document like a detached nature photographer. one of the points he made truly resonated with me. the idea of “civility” (his tweets were deemed “uncivil” and that’s one of the reasons he was fired by the university of illinois) and how it applies to his area of specialization, native american studies. the sheer violence meted out to indigenous peoples has always been expressed in very polite language, which makes that barbarity all the more insidious. civility is about toeing the neoliberal line, it’s about kowtowing to power and maintaining the status quo. the evening ended with excellent Q&A. great questions from a wide spectrum of political affiliations, and from steven: absolute respect, considered engagement and complete honesty. any university would be lucky to have him on their faculty – if education/learning is what matters in the end.
a tribute to my unforgettable aunt and uncle
rafique ahmed qureshi, my mamoon jaan, my mom’s eldest brother whom she loved like a father, has passed away. “surely we belong to god and to him shall we return.” he was an incredibly, intimidatingly brilliant man: well-read, articulate in a precise yet idiomatic way both in urdu and english, with a lively mind and a spectacular memory. he was born in gohana, india, in 1921. he studied at the anglo arabic college (delhi) and then at st stephen’s college (also in delhi) from where he graduated with a master’s in history. after partition, he moved to pakistan in a kafila (foot convoy) of 80,000 people. he was a young man at the time. he lived and made that momentous history. in pakistan, he worked for the railways. mamoon jaan’s house, in mayo gardens, will remain one of my most cherished childhood haunts – a sprawling mansion set amidst gardens with multicolored roses, all archways and verandas and heavy wooden doors and outdoor ceiling fans. it was magical, a place of endless adventure and discovery, a second home, something rooted and safe and permanent. that’s what mamoon jaan was like in a way. when my grandfather died leaving a large family behind, a few years after partition, it was my uncle who stepped up to the plate and took care of things and people. he made everyone feel safe.
just a couple of months before, my mom’s eldest sister, farhat razi, left us. seven years younger than my uncle, she too was an intrepid young woman involved in political activism like the rest of her family. she was a stunning beauty. my mom tells me that her school friends used to make excuses to visit their home so they could sneak a glance at her famously gorgeous sister. but my khala was beautiful inside and out. she had a kind and generous heart. when my dad was seriously injured in a car accident in 1970 and was hospitalized for 3 months, my aunt took care of me and my sister while my mom attended my dad. that’s when we started calling her mummy, just like her own kids. she had the most delightful girlish laugh even in her old age and she made the most delicious bhujias and chutneys and parathas. everything came from the heart.
“surely we belong to god and to him shall we return.” may they both rest in peace. they will be deeply missed. they both left their benevolent mark on the world.
cultural competence panel at summit business conference
attended a business conference organized by rochester women’s network today. i was on a panel that discussed cultural competence. it was amazing to me how much overlap there was in what i had to say as a muslim woman, what gabrielle had to say as a trans-woman and what margie had to say as an african american woman. the things that we stressed were: openness, respect, immense diversity within any group and therefore the irrelevance of stereotypes, the toxic nature of dehumanization and condescension (i quoted wade davis: every culture that’s different from u is not a failed attempt at being u) and the richness of learning by allowing new information to seep in and affect beliefs and behavior.
i reminded everyone that identity is too porous and complex to contain w/i the narrow confines of religion, ethnicity or culture. the words that i liked most in the definition of cultural competence were suspension of judgment and discomfort. only if we’re willing to be intellectually and emotionally uncomfortable, do we find it possible to be truly open to other human beings. it’s much riskier than staying put, in one’s comfort zone.
of course, i had to make it broader and asked people to think about openness, respect, risk-taking and growth and apply these to nation-states: what kind of interruptions should we allow to our sovereignty, how can we rethink our politics on immigration and national borders, on the meaning of citizenship and universal human rights, on the narrative of us vs them, and the assumption of immutable identities that we are supposed to be at war with. discomfort is good if it can help us open up to our fellow human beings and our environment. more about the conference here.
here i am with fellow panelists margie lovett scott (left) and gabrielle hermosa (center).
KILL THE MESSENGER
watched “kill the messenger” last night. it’s an incredibly important film based on the life and work of gary webb, an american journalist who wrote the 1996 dark alliance series of articles (about CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking in the US). the articles were written for the san jose mercury news and later published collectively as a book. i wasn’t surprised by the fact that drug trafficking was used to finance an illegal war in nicaragua (against people who wanted to reform their govt and ensure free elections), that the money for this illegal war was raised by selling crack cocaine in impoverished black neighborhoods here in the US, that when the story came out the govt used its private propaganda arm (the NYT and washington post among other venerable media institutions) to “controversalize” gary webb and shift the focus on him rather than his work, and that webb could not work as a journalist after this process of delegitimization was successfully carried out. i know that govts lie, that power corrupts, and that the CIA has damaged the world in ways that we are just beginning to understand. i know that the war on drugs is as dark and dodgy as the war on terror. i know that investigative journalists (who don’t just quote govt officials or ask the CIA to proofread their work) put themselves in great danger when shining a light on govt malfeasance of this scale. the thing that took me off guard was one of the last lines in the film. gary webb died in 2004. he was 49 years old. he was found with *two* gunshot wounds to the head. it was deemed a “suicide” and that’s what we’re still told. since when is a human being able to shoot themselves in the head twice? seriously. i guess the suspension of disbelief doesn’t apply only to magic acts or coleridge’s fantastical tales.
more info on gary webb’s story at democracy now!