The Ruh of Brown Folks

Contextualizing Libya: The NTC, NATO Intervention, and the Future of Libya in Perspective

2011-11-18T15:05:00.003-05:00

The following is a guest post by Sina Salessi which uses information unearthed by Wikileaks to discuss the role of Western capital and neoliberal doctrine in the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya.

The suffusion of revolutionary demonstrations in the Arab world which was sparked by Tunisia in December 2010 has been met with emphatic approval by all who hope to see an alternative to the vile and corrupted regimes of the region. These protests have had particular efficacy in decidedly ousting Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt respectively, with a culmination in the bloody demise of Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi. However, the meaning of his death for the future of the Libyan people must be put into perspective by first tracing the turbulent lineage of events to their roots in the earliest Libyan protests. The primary objectives of this article are fourfold: placing the National Transitional Council (NTC) and its pro-privatization leadership’s ideals in context, critically examining the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its neoliberal aims in the conflict by tracing the evolution of Gaddafi’s relationship with the West, expounding the current situation in Libya after Gaddafi’s death, and assessing possible prospects for the future of Libya and the Libyan people.

Art by Carlos Latuff
The unrest in Libya began in February with protests in the city of Benghazi. The protests started as a peaceful demonstration in remembrance of the Abu Salim Prison Massacre of 1996, where over 1200 political prisoners were slaughtered. The outrage found its original foundation in opposition to the regime’s unilateral and clandestine actions against these prisoners, as family members of the prisoners were not informed of the prisoners’ deaths for years. The protest reached its apogee with the arrest of Fathi Terbil, a lawyer who represents hundreds of the families of those slain (and who is now a member of the NTC). The reaction against these atrocities was met with violence from authorities, which soon escalated to a general strike against the 42 year old regime of Gaddafi. By early March, when the conflict had further escalated across the country, the NTC had asserted itself as the sole representative of Libya and the Libyan people against the Gaddafi regime. This is a crucial development because of the ideals espoused by its leader Mustafa Abduljalil, which nimbly fall in line with pro-privatization neoliberal business interests.

Neoliberalism can crudely be described as a doctrine which cements private corporate interests driven by profit motives, with aims to eliminate state subsidies such as public healthcare and free education which inconveniently impede profit aspirations. In order for these goals to be met, there is a strong emphasis on economic deregulation, which lends private corporate interests more autonomy as they relentlessly dismantle the welfare state. State subsidies must be completely eviscerated because they are a hindrance to capital accumulation, which is the process that yields profits. However, the pesky bulwark of state subsidies can be circumvented through profit driven privatization. David Harvey has addressed the issue of capital’s need to constantly transcend barriers to capital accumulation (such as state subsidies) in order to survive and expand, and the case of Libya is no different. The profit motives of private corporations are entirely antagonistic to state subsidization of industries, which is why private corporations are so adamant about eliminating them.

Abduljalil’s commitment to this doctrine is corroborated by a Wikileaks cable dated January 27, 2010: “Libya's Justice Minister-equivalent, Mustafa Mohammad Abduljalil, told the Ambassador on January 25 that as Libya opens its economy to other countries, it needs international assistance in developing its private sector and strengthening the commercial legal environment”.¹ Open economies are instrumental to neoliberal doctrine because they allow multinational corporations to conduct business in the private sector worldwide. Abduljalil undeniably recognizes this fact and clearly stated his approval of developing the private sector to the US Ambassador in Libya long before there were any stirrings of revolution in the region. The revolution in Libya started with a small localized grievance but as it proliferated across the country and metamorphosed into a generalized disdain for Gaddafi and his regime, it is important to examine NATO’s investment in the NTC’s victory. This victory had to be safeguarded at all costs, which led NATO to co-opt the revolutionary fervor for their own ends under the most spurious auspices imaginable. However, in order to properly unearth NATO’s motivations for intervention, it is first necessary to understand the trajectory of Gaddafi’s relations with the West.

Gaddafi and the West

Gaddafi’s previously hostile relations with the West steadily began to improve after December 2003, when he agreed to eschew all nuclear weapon aspirations. The World Bank provides statistical evidence of this improvement, as they display foreign direct investment inflows in Libya surging from $143 million in 2003² to over $3.8 billion in 2010³. After taking this vital first step, Gaddafi began to zealously encourage private business interests in Libya years before Abduljalil, the NTC, or any vestiges of protests complicated the equation. Sizeable portions of this exuberant growth in foreign direct investment from 2003 on can be accounted for with deals well over the hundred million dollar mark with Shell and British Petroleum among others. Libya had managed to wriggle itself out of the mire of “pariah states” by eliminating its nuclear plan and becoming much more amiable to neoliberal business interests (all while still having a ruthless dictator. This is a pattern that apparently can be safely ignored as long as that dictator is staunch in their approval of this doctrine).

However, despite these seemingly positive developments for Libya’s relationship with the West, it was strained throughout the course of its entire development not because of the regime’s refusal to democratize, but because of its policies and actions which were often hostile to business interests. For example, according to various Wikileaks cables, foreign companies were required to hire at least as many Libyans to match the amount of expatriates working for a particular firm. This could be problematic for industries such as oil, where there are very few Libyans who have the technical skills to match the amount of expatriates. As a result, companies were forced to pay for costly training, or to pay for employees who could not contribute to productivity.⁴ Under strict regulations, expatriate employees were only allowed the inconvenient six month multiple entry visas, which led to the cumbersome process of visa renewal abroad every six months.⁵ These requirements hurt the profit margins of hopeful multinational corporations and were anything but encouraging for continued business growth in Libya. This sentiment is displayed by a cable which states that “pernicious requirements such as the ‘one expat-one Libyan’ hiring policy and capricious visa policies, do nothing to encourage other U.S. and foreign companies with less international experience to enter the Libyan market”.⁶ The cable further provides voice to the grievances of unfavorable corporate taxation, labor, and visa policies which resulted in some of the smallest profit margins in the world for oil companies.

These cables clearly depict the intentions of corporations eager to exploit Libya’s vast natural resource reserves, and their impatient exasperation towards the barriers which would have to be overcome if they could hope to improve their profit conditions. As early as July 2006, a cable was sent from the US Embassy in Tripoli which assessed the difficulties of banking privatization in Libya. The private corporation Mckinsey & Company, an international consulting firm, hired an unnamed person to prepare a plan for Libyan bank privatization, and the cable explains that the plan was to “get foreign banks into Libya in the near term, while at the same time formulating a plan for dealing with the state banks and their unwieldy payrolls of public employees”.⁷ This excerpt further demonstrates the irreconcilable antagonisms between the private sector and state subsidies, and the private sector’s indomitable desire to completely eliminate state subsidies.

Two other major worries among private corporations were the possibility of resource nationalization which would eradicate all prospects of profitability by private corporations, and the penchant for corruption in the regime which had the potential to corrode profits. The first worry is encapsulated by this excerpt from a Gaddafi speech: “‘Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them -- now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money.’ His son, Seif al-Qadhafi, said in March 2007 that, ‘We will not tolerate a foreign company to make a profit at the expense of a Libyan citizen.’”.⁸ The second worry is captured by the anecdote of Muatassim al-Gaddafi, another of Gaddafi’s sons, placing pressure on Shukri Ghanem, Chairman of National Oil Corporation to provide him with $1.2 billion in cash or oil shipments.⁹ If the leader’s son had the audacity to coolly demand $1.2 billion from a Libyan citizen, visions of the immense summits that would have to be scaled in order to profitably do business in Libya undoubtedly flashed before the eyes of multinational corporations. Although Gaddafi had demonstrated his willingness to cooperate with neoliberal doctrine’s desires and requirements, there were still myriad inconveniences and barriers for private corporations in the realms of energy, banking, tourism, health services, and others to overcome before Libya could be considered a serious ally of capital accumulation and neoliberal doctrine. Gaddafi’s less pronounced but still existing nationalist tendencies (such as ensuring that all private businesses matched expatriate employee numbers with Libyan employees) were not ultimately suited to business interests, and it was this which decisively sealed his fate once the Libyan people began to voice their own (albeit very different) grievances against him.

NATO’s “Humanitarian” Intervention

Gaddafi’s muffled but still potent nationalist strain was not the sole reason, or even the primary reason NATO intervened to ensure his ousting. The UN very carefully observed the general sentiment in the region as evinced by the “Arab Spring” which was responsible for the successful deposition of other leaders. Although ostensibly strengthening their relationship with Gaddafi’s cooperation since December 2003, the West’s concerns about his commitment to private business interests were still a nagging doubt. This ultimately led to NATO’s intervention against him once they were able to discern the Libyan people’s anger and mobilization against the Gaddafi regime. After this sign of affirmation, the United Nations (UN) speciously passed Security Council Resolution 1973 (less than two weeks after Abduljalil declared his leadership, it should be noted) in order to legitimize intervention under the guise of protecting Libyan civilians. The last enfeebled apologists for intervention walk the boggy ground of “civilian protection”. This justification holds no weight if NATO’s reactions to civilian deaths are critically examined. For example, Human Rights Watch reported the finding of 53 bodies of apparent Gaddafi supporters, all in the same small space of an abandoned hotel, some with bound hands, and all in the same stages of decomposition, suggesting they had been killed at the same time.¹⁰ Additionally, in the chaos after Gaddafi’s death, militias were active in terrorizing inhabitants of towns they believed were loyal to Gaddafi. According to another Human Rights Watch Report, Tawergha, which was used as a base by Gaddafi forces until they were forced to flee in August, has been targeted by these militias and “Tawerghans have reported serious abuses, including arbitrary arrests, beatings, and some killings”.¹¹ It would be unfair to completely attribute these and many other grisly anecdotes solely to the NTC or NATO and use it as justification against them. However, if NATO’s concerns were truly about protecting civilians, one would presume that they would place immense pressure on the NTC to expediently conduct investigations to prosecute the perpetrators of these incidents. The fact that there has been no pressure from NATO and no prospects of internal investigation of NTC members who were responsible for “lynching dozens of captured soldiers and suspected foreign ‘mercenaries’”¹² after taking control of eastern Libya speaks volumes both about NATO’s supposed intentions of protecting civilians and the legitimacy of the NTC. The NTC’s own inability (or unwillingness) to conduct immediate investigations of these incidents is alarming because it sets a troubling precedent for lawlessness and vigilantism (usually against black Libyans and sub-Saharan African migrants in Libya), as long as the targets are alleged Gaddafi sympathizers. There should be no illusions about NATO’s intervention on the basis of “civilian protection”, and this meretricious justification for intervention should be placed in the broader context of ensuring that their neoliberal ally in the NTC would be the authority waiting in the wings after the chaos subsided.

The justification for intervention would allow NATO to properly exploit the people’s revolution against the regime behind the façade of helping the righteous protestors, while paving the way for their neoliberal cur. The first intervention by NATO began on March 19 and lasted until October 31, when the NTC had secured their position as the recognized Libyan authority. It has since been recognized as the Libyan authority by the US and European Union, with the UN swiftly delivering Libya’s seat to the NTC. Additionally, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have voiced their recognition of the NTC, with the IMF’s recognition “guided by views of its [the NTC’s] membership”.¹³ The neoliberal virtues extolled by the World Bank and IMF, such as enforcing “structural adjustment programs” which propose economic liberalization in order to qualify for loans, palpably falls in line with Abduljalil’s own economic principles, which sheds light on their ardent support for his new government. I contend that the major authorities of neoliberal doctrine (NATO, the World Bank, and the IMF), would not recognize a new authority in an embattled region so quickly and with such ardor if they were not absolutely sure that the new authority was not in line with their own principles, and if they were not sure that this authority would be more conducive to their interests than its predecessor.

NTC Leadership and the Future of Libya

The death of Gaddafi ensconced the NTC as the sole authority in Libya. However, the zealous neoliberal economic tenets embraced by Abduljalil and his NATO cheerleaders are not the only troubling portent that should be carefully considered. Abduljalil’s xenophobia and reactionary religious rhetoric should also meet our critical gaze. Abduljalil voiced his xenophobia fairly early on in the conflict in April, which is another disturbing attribute of the NTC’s leadership that NATO apparently had no qualms about intervening on behalf of. Abduljalil’s xenophobia is rooted in his distinction between black Libyans (which he apparently does not consider legitimate Libyans and refers to as “Africans”) and Arab Libyans. This is oxymoronic as Libya is an African country, which would render all Libyans as Africans. According to an Amnesty International report, he outrageously and unfoundedly relied on the foulest strain of extreme nationalism as he spouted that Gaddafi was using “‘African mercenaries’ against his own people. He also stated that as the former Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Justice he had witnessed first-hand that “40 per cent of criminals [in Libya] are Africans, passing through, greedily wishing to live in Europe”.¹⁴ The report goes on to explain that a majority of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters were actually Libyan nationals, and many dark skinned Libyans were mistaken for foreigners. Abduljalil and his followers have conveniently ignored this fact to date.

Abduljalil’s commitment to reactionary interpretations of religion is also questionable. For example, at a rally celebrating the Libyan revolution on October 23, at this early stage of definite victory Abduljalil presumably believed the matter was so important that he went out of his way to exclaim that the laws passed by Gaddafi which prevented polygamy should be repealed. His justification for this surprising view, especially held by someone so fervently supported by the West, is that it goes against his interpretation of Sharia law, which allows polygamy. He has since reassured the West that Libyan Islam “is moderate”, but it should be recognized that Article 1 of the Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration, passed by the NTC, canonizes Sharia as the primary source of all legislation in Libya with Islam as the state religion. Although this should raise a few eyebrows, it does not necessarily mean that Libya is doomed to endure the harsh implementation of Sharia in countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban for two reasons. The first reason is that Sharia law is not a monolithic concept and has historically been interpreted in different ways, and does not by default rule out secular laws. This characteristic malleability of Sharia law, especially under the command of dubious authorities, is very problematic but is an issue which is beyond the scope of this effort. The second reason is that Article 1 also states that the Libyan state is a democracy with guaranteed freedom of religion for non-Muslims. However, it remains to be seen if these aspects of the nascent constitution will be upheld or if they will simply give way to a stringent interpretation of Sharia law and a boisterous nationalistic fervor exemplified by Abduljalil’s solution for refugees, depicted by his promise to “close the borders in front of these Africans”.¹⁵ The possibility of a more punctilious interpretation of Sharia law and the implications it will have for the entire Libyan population should seriously be considered as a potentiality given Abduljalil’s own interpretation of it, although this is not to imply that it will unmistakably become a reality.

Although it is too early to definitively assess the outcome in Libya, all signs point to further neoliberalization of Libya’s economy. This can be attributed to NATO’s elimination of the strongest barricade to capital accumulation and Abduljalil’s enthusiastic support for prospects of privatization, which undoubtedly means a curbing of state subsidies and increase of private business prevalence throughout the country. The fact that the issue of business difficulty in Libya because of too much state intervention was a topic of discussion (and much consternation) in cables for many years can help explain why intervention was instrumental for better conditions in the private business environment, and why it is highly probable that state enterprise will give way to widespread privatization. With the assistance of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, NATO successfully managed to co-opt a popular struggle started by the Libyan people against a repressive tyrant for their own profit driven ends under the extremely tenuous justification of protecting the civilian population. If the more outrageous aspects of Abduljalil’s religious fundamentalist aspirations are implemented to their most extreme degree, Libya should have no worries about conflict with the West as long as they frenetically stick to the tenets of private business interests.

A telling example of this pattern is illustrated by the stark contrast between the US’s warmth toward Saudi Arabia, arguably the world’s most repressive regime (but a regime which sticks to ascribed doctrine), and their abject detestation of Iran, a country with a rigidly theocratic regime, but one which does not stick to the ascribed doctrine of bowing to the interests of multinational corporations. An even more pertinent example is the West’s bashful disregard for Gaddafi’s repressive tendencies against the Libyan people once he scrapped his nuclear plans and allowed more private businesses to enter Libya. This pattern of disregard has so far resulted in a failure to put any pressure on the more disgraceful ideals of the new regime’s leader, as Adbuljalil’s xenophobic nationalism has not garnered any serious criticism from any of his Western supporters. This should not come as a surprise given the West’s support for the apartheid state of Israel and other states with deplorable human rights records as long as they stick to ascribed neoliberal doctrine. This demonstrates that cooperation with business interests are a significantly more important criteria for acceptance into the international community than any semblance of democracy or human rights is. The Libyan people have already been forced to endure 42 years of repressive rule. We can only hope that the Libyan left will be able to overcome a new hurdle of mass pro-business privatization and the ominous possibility of nationalistic xenophobia coupled with extreme religious fundamentalism.

Sina Salessi is currently the only leftist getting an MBA at Chapman University in Orange County, California, where he also plays drums in the hardcore punk band Children of God.

Notes

1. “Senior Libyan Justice Official: Less Talk, More Action is Best,” Wikileaks, accessed November 3, 2011.

2.“Foreign Direct Investment, Net Inflows (BoP, Current US$),” The World Bank, accessed November 7, 2011.

3.“Foreign Direct Investment, Net Inflows (BoP, Current US$),” The World Bank, accessed November 7, 2011.

4.“Libya Investment Climate Statement,” Wikileaks, accessed November 5, 2011.

5.“Risky Business? American Construction Firm Enters Joint Venture with GOL,” Wikileaks, accessed November 5, 2011.

6.“Libyan Market Tests International Oil and Gas Companies,” Wikileaks, accessed November 6, 2011.

7.“Libyan Prospects for Banking Privatization – Tough Road,” Wikileaks, accessed November 6, 2011.

8.“Growth of Resource Nationalism in Libya,” Wikileaks, accessed November 6, 2011.

9.“National Oil Chairman Shukri Ghanem May Seek to Resign Soon,” Wikileaks, accessed November 6, 2011.

10.“Libya: Apparent Execution of 52 Gaddafi Supporters,” Human Rights Watch, accessed November 7, 2011.

11.“Libya: Militias Terrorizing Residents of ‘Loyalist’ Town,” Human Rights Watch, accessed November 7, 2011.

12.“The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances, and Torture,” Amnesty International, accessed November 7, 2011 (PDF, p. 9).

13.“IMF Recognizes Libya’s National Transitional Council, Says Ready to Support its Efforts to Revive the Country’s Economy” International Monetary Fund, accessed November 3, 2011.

14.“The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances, and Torture,” Amnesty International, accessed November 7, 2011 (PDF, p. 83).

15.“The Battle for Libya” (PDF, p. 89).

Rebuttal to Aman Ali

2011-10-04T03:11:00.007-04:00

In these times of rampant Islamophobia, a cottage industry of 'House Muslims' has sprung up, willing to sell out their own community for a shot at fame, the chance to become the next Irshad Manji or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The best definition of this phenomenon I've found has come from Ikhras. As they define it, House Muslims are

Arab and Muslim “activists” and “representatives” that hijacked our identities and name for their own self-aggrandizement and in furtherance of personal ambitions unrelated to our communities’ agenda, interests, and well-being.
...
Instead of condemning US crimes and warmongering abroad and embracing their natural role on the front-lines of the anti-War movement, these opportunistic, unprincipled Arabs and Muslims posing as representatives of their communities provide a veil of political legitimacy to the ruling class and foreign policy makers that victimize the people they claim to represent.

One up-and-coming young House Muslim by the name of Aman Ali recently took some cheap shots against the Irvine 11 in a blog for CNN. Rather than stand up for young activists who have been targeted and persecuted for being Muslim and speaking out, Ali used the opportunity to try to ingratiate himself to Islamophobes by accusing the Irvine 11 of "playing the victim card." I'd like to respond to his blog post here, piece by piece.

To begin, it looks like Ali did not even attempt to familiarize himself much with the Irvine 11 case; my guess is that he skimmed an article or two. Yet while he clearly hadn't studied the Orange County District Attorney's tactics, he managed to emulate them closely by depoliticizing the protest, just as the DA's prosecutor did in the courtroom. In describing the event, Ali writes "One by one, the students disrupted Oren’s speech and shouted at him over his support for Israel." This is only slightly different from the DA's claim that they "shut down a speech [just] because the speaker was Israeli." Oren wasn't interrupted for 'supporting' Israel but specifically for Israel's war crimes in Gaza that left over 1400 dead and thousands injured-- and as an ambassador for Israel and former IDF spokesman, he was personally complicit in the war crimes being protested. So let's not confuse the issue by making it seem like the Irvine 11 just wanted to interrupt the speech of any Israeli they could find.

Ali goes on to claim that "most Muslims will say we’re sick and tired of only talking about ourselves in a post-9/11 context as victims of oppression." This is classic House Muslim behavior, trying to speak for a broad and diverse community with one ridiculous statement. I don't claim to speak for all Muslims in the US, but most Muslims I know are sick and tired of being oppressed. Period.

He continues,

I feel like in a subconsciously sick and twisted way, we secretly enjoy playing the victim card.

I know I’m guilty of it.

Anytime I fly at the airport, in my mind there’s a part of me that wishes a TSA agent will grope me or take forever to search through my bags so I can call up one of my friends with an awesome story like “BRO! You’re not gonna believe what just happened!”

I could easily dismiss this discourse on victimhood (or "the victim card") as the same tired right-wing talking point used against women who were sexually harassed, or against people of color offended by racist portrayals of themselves in the media: "there's nothing wrong, you just want to be a victim!" Indeed, we have often heard the right use this garbage against Muslims, as well.

But I want to engage with this a little more seriously, because I feel like I understand where Ali is coming from-- not necessarily from the right per se, but from an equally misguided perspective that privileges his own experiences over those of others. I understand what Ali says about going through airport security because, to be painfully honest, I've felt like that too. Being an Iranian who frequently passes for white has left me with a lot of identity issues, and I can remember times I've almost been frustrated when I passed through TSA without a problem, thinking "can't you see I'm a brown man with a beard? Don't you want to question me about my foreign surname or scrutinize the pistachios in my backpack?"

I no longer feel like that, after having been interrogated by Homeland Security for several hours upon re-entering the US from Iran recently. But even when I did secretly long to be inspected, I understood clearly that this feeling comes from a place of privilege, and that it's unique to a few of us. I know that my father doesn't secretly want to get frisked so he can "play the victim card," because he would feel humiliated. The same is true of my grandparents. Let's not forget about the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Muslims in the US who, unlike me, have thick accents or don't speak much English at all; who don't have US passports and may not even have a current visa; and for whom being patted down or questioned is not something to brag about but an embarrassing and scary ordeal, one that can end not with an "awesome story" but with torture in Guantanamo Bay or deportation.

Returning to Ali's diatribe against the Irvine 11, Ali claims that the 'Stand With the Eleven' is an example of "playing the victim card" as described above. While acknowledging that "it’s completely bogus for these students to face charges, let alone be found guilty, on protesting a speech. Even if it’s a misdemeanor charge. It’s a slap in the face to the First Amendment," Ali adds "I refuse to deem these students as some kind of political prisoners." The point I think he wants to make is that it's not a political case and does not have serious consequences, or as he says at the end of his blog post, "let’s calm down and not blow this case out of proportion." But he's admitted that he sees the serious implications this case will have for the First Amendment, contradicting his own argument somewhat. Besides that, what Ali fails to mention is the context of the prosecution: the selective punishment of the Irvine 11 but not other non-Muslim students who participated in similar disruptions, the DA's office referring to the Irvine 11 as the "UCI Muslim case," the vicious Islamophobia in Orange County, and so on.

Ali makes light of the situation with quips like "Dude, you got a misdemeanor and were sentenced to community service. You’re not Nelson Mandela." But the stakes here are much higher than that; this case has set precedent for curtailing free speech and protest in Orange County, and threatening the Muslim and pro-Palestinian community here with arrest and prosecution for activism. He also just gets some of it wrong, like this:

Even funnier, one of the 11 students took a plea deal to avoid a conviction. So technically we’re only talking about 10 students here. Irvine 11 is false advertising. I want my money back.

Actually, the DA agreed to drop the charges against one of the students in exchange for community service because the DA had made unauthorized use of privileged information in his charges against the student. Because of that, the charges would have been thrown out in court, so the DA backed off.

I could continue critiquing the end of Ali's blog post, but I feel that I've made my point. He ends by saying "let’s place it into perspective of all the racial and religious injustices that have happened around the country." My point is that this case is an example of racial and religious injustice, not some students playing victim. It has real consequences for Islamophobia as well as freedom of speech. I have written about that elsewhere on this blog, as have dozens of others across the blogosphere as well as in newspapers across the country. If Ali had paid attention to this case or done any research, he would be aware of that. He also would have realized that the Irvine 11 themselves, far from being the self-aggrandizing martyrs holding "victim cards" as he describes them, have been very humble in how they've characterized themselves and their case. In public statements, they have stated that while the verdict is a blow to liberty, they do not view themselves as heroes or martyrs, and insisted that their persecution is less than what others have had to deal with, especially the Palestinians under occupation on whose behalf they were protesting to begin with.

I would like to end this rebuttal with a note to Aman Ali, if he's reading this. My tone in this piece has been hostile, and "House Muslim" is a serious insult-- maybe an overblown one for you, maybe not. The reason for my anger is that it is very frustrating to have someone like yourself, who does not live in Orange County or study at UC Irvine, make light of the situation here when you will not have to deal with the consequences. You don't live here, so you don't know that this case is connected to a broader trend of political Islamophobia in Orange County, where local politicians join racist mobs in threatening Muslims with violence. You don't know that our District Attorney was using this case to whip up Islamophobia among his base of supporters so he can get himself re-elected. I am a student and activist at UC Irvine, where I'm now afraid that the next person to get arrested and prosecuted for exercising free speech could be me. But it probably won't be you, since you don't live here.

I've called you a House Muslim-- prove me wrong. Not by defending your attack on the Irvine 11, which was uncool, but by taking a step back and doing some more reading on this issue. Read my piece on the issue, read the Electronic Intifada's coverage, read the links on the Stand With the Elevent campaign page instead of just making fun of them. And do some more thinking about what it means for students to "stomp out the ambassador’s right to free speech," as you put it, when the students are young individuals who made 10-15 second statements each and the Israeli ambassador (who, by the way, is not a US citizen) has access to speaking tours, the media, millions of dollars, and the backing of an entire country. Do some thinking about who your audience at this CNN blog is and why they posted it. Here's a hint: read some of the comments, like "take your mosques and your Sharia and get the hell out of here" or "I am so sick of muslims" or "hey muslims shut the hell up, we dont care about your nonsense!!!" (All real comments from the article).

Actually, it's worth pointing out that as far as I can tell, the vast majority of the comments are either from Islamophobes writing about how much they hate Muslims, or from Muslims writing about how much they disagree with your article. Which side do you want to be on?

Irvine 11: Guilty of Speaking Truth to Power

2011-09-27T17:10:00.002-04:00

This past Friday, an Orange County court found ten students guilty of, as one article put it, "being mean to Israeli ambassador" Michael Oren. Their prosecution constitutes an attack on Muslims and all people of conscience, and will have serious implications for Islamophobia, freedom of speech, and the future of Palestine solidarity activism. Because of all that is at stake, the students and their community are not taking this attack lying down, but are struggling to appeal the verdict and turn this defeat into a victory for justice.

Background

On February 8, 2010, Israeli ambassador Michael Oren spoke at UC Irvine. His talk came a little over a year after Israel's brutal assault on Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians (mostly civilians) dead and over 5,000 wounded, in which Oren had served in the IDF as a military propagandist. Ten students from UC Irvine and nearby UC Riverside, outraged by Oren's complicity in Israel's war crimes and inspired by an earlier protest at the University of Chicago, disrupted his speech by standing and shouting brief statements like "You, sir, are an accomplice to genocide!" After shouting for no more than 10-15 seconds each, the students left the auditorium and did not resist arrest by campus police. After the tenth had made his statement, a group of their supporters left the auditorium en masse, and an eleventh student was arrested for leading them in a chant of "Whose university? Our university!" The eleven arrested students came to be known as the Irvine 11.

The students were all disciplined by their universities, and from a legal perspective the issue should have ended there. However, Orange County district attorney Tony Rackauckas decided to make an example of these student protesters in order to criminalize dissent and pander to his right-wing base of support. After waiting until nearly the very end of the statute of limitations, in January 2011 Rackauckas convened a grand jury to investigate bringing criminal charges against the protesters. He eventually charged them with two misdemeanors: 'disturbing a public meeting,' and the decidedly Orwellian charge of 'conspiracy to disrupt a public meeting.' Criminalizing dissent was nothing new for the DA; for example, in 2005 he attempted to stick trumped-up charges on six young people of color at a protest against the racist Minutemen Project in Garden Grove. The protesters fought the charges in court and eventually won. But this time the DA was not only seeking to stifle protest, but to stir up Islamophobia as well.

Islamophobia in Orange County

It is noteworthy that while all of the Irvine 11 are Muslims and members of the Muslim Student Union, at no time did they ever bring religion into the issue. Their message was purely political, as evidenced by the statements they shouted which made reference to war crimes and genocide, not to Islam and Judaism. Some of them even lost family members in the 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza, making their opposition to Michael Oren personal as well as political. Yet the DA's office referred to the Irvine 11 as the "UCI Muslim Case" and compared them to the KKK in interviews with the media. By attempting to depoliticize the protest against the Israeli ambassador and make it about 'scary, intolerant Muslims' rather than legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, the DA could send a message of intimidation to student protesters while appearing to his reactionary base to be defending them against the 'Muslim threat.'

Southern California is home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the United States, but Orange County in particular has long been a bastion of the Right. Mere days after the DA formally charged the Irvine 11, in February 2011, hundreds of Islamophobic bigots showed up to protest the Islamic Circle of North America's fundraiser in Orange County for a women's shelter. The racist mob was joined by several elected Republican politicians as they hurled abuse and slurs at the charity event's attendees; city councilwoman Deborah Pauly even threatened them with violence, saying "I know quite a few Marines who will be willing to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise." These bigots were emboldened to act by the Islamophobic atmosphere created in part by the DA's selective prosecution of the Irvine 11.

Stand With the Eleven campaign

Immediately after the arrests made at UC Irvine in February 2010, activists sprang into action to defend the Irvine 11. Calling themselves 'Stand With the Eleven,' the campaign was made up primarily of young friends, classmates, and supporters of the Irvine 11. They put their social media savvy to work, quickly setting up a website as well as a Facebook page and Twitter account, but also establishing a presence on the ground, holding townhall meetings and reaching out to local mosques and community centers. Stand With the Eleven organized a petition drive and letter-writing campaign calling for the DA to drop all charges against the Irvine 11, and held a protest and press conference outside the DA's office. They also sought support from across California and the world, collecting donations for the legal defense and getting letters of support from the faculty and student governments of various University of California campuses as well as sundry community and interfaith leaders. The DA offered to drop the charges against the eleventh student arrested (who had not participated directly in disrupting the Israeli ambassador's speech) in exchange for community service, but refused to drop the charges against the other ten students. As the trial finally began in September 2011, Stand With the Eleven mobilized hundreds of supporters to come out to the courthouse.

"Political theater": Protest on Trial

The Orange County DA assigned Dan Wagner, the head of his homicide unit, as the prosecutor in the Irvine 11 trial. (Apparently there were no homicides in Orange County he needed to investigate). The prosecutor took the DA's approach of depoliticizing the case, playing up the religious factor by asking a witness to testify whether the defendants prayed before the protest and to describe their prayer, and seeking to remove this protest from the larger context of student protest as a whole at UC Irvine and other universities. The judge bought into this disingenuous depoliticization, claiming that protests against tuition hikes and budget cuts at UC Irvine were "irrelevant" and refusing to allow the defense to address them, despite the fact that some of the Irvine 11 had participated in such protests, and that all of them saw themselves as part of a tradition of student protest and a movement that made connections between occupation in Palestine, austerity measures in Irvine, and other issues.

Indeed, student protest itself was on trial in the courtroom, especially in the prosecutor's closing statements which Shakeel Syed of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California called "political theater." The prosecutor argued that the student protesters should have adopted a different tactic, such as silent protest-- ignoring the fact that a silent protest outside the DA's office, held in March 2011 by Irvine 11 supporters with tape over their mouths, failed to get a response or even acknowledgement from the DA.

One had to wonder what kind of justice ten young Muslim men, one of whom named Osama, could hope to get from a jury drawn from the racist jury pool of Islamophobic Orange County in a trial that began the day after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Not much could be expected from the same court system that lynched a black man the same week a verdict was reached in the Irvine 11 case. Yet the verdict was an outrage to supporters all the same: guilty on both charges. The ten protesters were sentenced to pay a fine, perform 56 hours of community service, and be subject to three years of informal probation, which would be commuted to one year if the community service was finished by January 2012.

Fighting back

At a press conference following the sentencing on Friday, September 23, and a townhall meeting held the following Sunday, the Irvine 11 announced their intent to appeal the verdict, taking it to the Supreme Court if necessary. Though the DA succeeded in punishing ten men for protesting, he was not able to frighten the Muslim and pro-Palestinian community into quiet acquiescence. A year and a half after the initial protest, they are better organized and more resolved than ever. At Sunday's townhall meeting, some of the Irvine 11 spoke of their generation breaking with the quietism and fear that had kept some of the elders in their community away from political protest. Rather than being intimidated by their prosecution, these young men have been inspired by the support they received to become more active, more outspoken for justice.

The lesson for Orange County's Muslims, Palestine solidarity activists, and dissidents in general, is clear: if you speak out, you might face repression, but your community will have your back and will stand with you through it. As the Irvine 11 continue their struggle for justice, they will shine as an example and inspiration for future generations of protesters in Orange County who refuse to be intimidated.

To learn more about the Irvine 11 or to make a donation to their substantial legal fees, please visit www.Irvine11.com.

This post originally appeared on Solidarity webzine.

Jack Halberstam, Nadine Naber and the Critical Ethnic Studies Conference

2011-03-26T21:05:00.007-04:00

Two weeks ago I was at the Critical Ethnic Studies conference, and heard some fantastic talks (with my absolute favorites being Nadine Naber who provided a beautiful critique of Lee Edelman's No Future and David Lloyd who spoke on a number of issues including the economy and BDS) and some not-so-fantastic ones. I didn't imagine this would warrant a post here until I saw what Jack Halberstam (who also spoke at the conference) posted on Bully Bloggers about it.

Halberstam describes various plenary speakers as providing "brilliance," and "provocation," their arguments "brilliant," "elegant," "insightful," "brave," and "moving." When it comes to the two brown folks though, something interesting happens. Nadine Naber and Lisa Hajjar (who I unfortunately missed, and whose name Halberstam misspells as "Hajar"...) seem to have lacked all that brilliant, provocative, elegant, insightful, brave and moving discussion, but did a good job "trying" to speak. They "tried" to discuss the 'Middle East' and Naber "tried to bring some formulations from contemporary queer theory to bear upon activism by queer Arab groups." Halberstam offers nothing else, except that apparently "[t]here was much discussion after each presentation about whether it was ethical to leave up disturbing images of violated bodies as backdrop to a lecture."

Is it really even necessary for me to explain why this is offensive/obnoxious? That he even brings up the images used during the lecture makes me think he didn't listen to Naber's talk at all, where she quoted various U.S. and Israeli political figures to demonstrate how worthless they understood Palestinian lives (particularly children's lives) to be and linked this to the importance and usage of imagery of dead children at protests (and then tied this to her critique of Edelman).

I'm just unsure why Halberstam felt the need to mention Naber and Hajjar at all if it was only to make a patronizing remark between the apparent "brilliance" and "provocation" the rest of the plenary speakers provided. David Lloyd's talk didn't even warrant acknowledgment from Halberstam... what a shame Halberstam couldn't have just forgotten to mention Naber and Hajjar as well.

As an aside, Critical Ethnic Studies marks the second time I've heard Halberstam speak, and both times I've been thoroughly disappointed. Both times I heard a lot about Lady Gaga and animated films, but failed to really understand what he was arguing. Maybe I'm not clever enough, or maybe I need to know more about U.S. pop culture to understand, but what I did manage to gather from his talk at Critical Ethnic Studies was a call to kick out the "dinosaurs" (his term, if I remember correctly) of academia and strip them of tenure, and give tenure to the young, cutting-edge academics instead. I suppose it's only at a ridiculously cushy private university with a nearly three billion dollar endowment like USC that a professor, like Halberstam, can have the gall to make such a statement in this economic climate where professors at other (less disgustingly rich) universities are being furloughed, forced to take on larger course loads with larger class sizes, forced to take on more administrative work, etc. etc. and perhaps don't have the same amount of time to dedicate to cutting-edge research on Lady Gaga. It's interesting comparing Halberstam to Lloyd (also at USC) and their very different levels of awareness around the economy in their talks.

Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is Iraq 2003

2011-03-22T04:21:00.008-04:00

Professor Juan Cole just posted a piece on his popular blog Informed Comment, called Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is Not Iraq 2003. While I hold Professor Cole in great esteem both as a scholar and as an individual whose politics are generally pretty good in my opinion, occasionally I feel that the language he uses gets tainted by US imperialist rhetoric around international issues, and when that happens, those arguments often don't hold up logically or factually. I wrote a response to something he said about the 'international community' being opposed to Iran a couple years back, and I have taken this opportunity to rebut the claims he makes that the current imperialist invasion of Libya is significantly different from the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The italicized text is from Juan Cole's post; my responses are below.

1. The action in Libya was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. That in Iraq was not. By the UN Charter, military action after 1945 should either come as self-defense or with UNSC authorization. Most countries in the world are signatories to the charter and bound by its provisions.

Sure, this is objectively different than Iraq in 2003, but it shouldn't be a justification. The UN also established Israel in 1948 but that doesn't justify the Israeli occupation of Palestine today.

2. The Libyan people had risen up and thrown off the Qaddafi regime, with some 80-90 percent of the country having gone out of his hands before he started having tank commanders fire shells into peaceful crowds. It was this vast majority of the Libyan people that demanded the UN no-fly zone. In 2002-3 there was no similar popular movement against Saddam Hussein.

The same Libyan people that rose up against Qaddafi also railed against foreign intervention. Those that did call for a no-fly zone did not call to be bombed, which is is happening now - and the US military admits it has trouble identifying civilians, which has led to some (like Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League) decrying the invasion for killing Libyan civilians. It's disingenuous to conflate the popular movement against Qaddafi with a popular movement in support of the US/UN invasion. There were also Iraqis that supported the 2003 invasion, and Saddam was probably opposed by a majority of Iraqis, but the invasion itself was overwhelmingly unpopular.

3. There was an ongoing massacre of civilians, and the threat of more such massacres in Benghazi, by the Qaddafi regime, which precipitated the UNSC resolution. Although the Saddam Hussein regime had massacred people in the 1980s and early 1990s, nothing was going on in 2002-2003 that would have required international intervention.

The justification was slightly different, but only slightly so. According to the invasion narratives, Qaddafi is killing his own people; Saddam was killing his own people and would do it again, and moreover he supposedly had weapons of mass destruction, etc. The narrative that justified the 2003 invasion of Iraq claimed that it was in order to prevent it getting to the point of the situation in Libya now, with massacres taking place.

4. The Arab League urged the UNSC to take action against the Qaddafi regime, and in many ways precipitated Resolution 1973. The Arab League met in 2002 and expressed opposition to a war on Iraq. (Reports of Arab League backtracking on Sunday were incorrect, based on a remark of outgoing Secretary-General Amr Moussa that criticized the taking out of anti-aircraft batteries. The Arab League reaffirmed Sunday and Moussa agreed Monday that the No-Fly Zone is what it wants).

Objectively, sure, this is a difference. But why should we care what the Arab League says, one way or another? It's primarily made up of the leaders of despotic regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Yemen to Bahrain, that are often beholden to the US and are every bit as despicable as Qaddafi, and many of them are currently committing massacres against protesters in popular uprisings in their own countries.

5. None of the United Nations allies envisages landing troops on the ground, nor does the UNSC authorize it. Iraq was invaded by land forces.

The US supposedly did not envisage staying in Iraq for 8 years after the invasion, and yet here we are. It would be terribly naive of us to take the invading powers (or politicians in general, really) at their word on this.

6. No false allegations were made against the Qaddafi regime, of being in league with al-Qaeda or of having a nuclear weapons program. The charge is massacre of peaceful civilian demonstrators and an actual promise to commit more such massacres.

No false allegations against Qaddafi were needed to justify the invasion of Libya; instead, false allegations about the motivations for the invasion were made, as well about future plans. In both cases, we (the public) have been lied to about the reasons for going to war and the plans for what follows the initial invasion.

7. The United States did not take the lead role in urging a no-fly zone, and was dragged into this action by its Arab and European allies. President Obama pledges that the US role, mainly disabling anti-aircraft batteries and bombing runways, will last “days, not months” before being turned over to other United Nations allies.

See my response to #4- again, this is true, but why does it matter? The UK, France, and Italy (for example) have imperialist histories in North Africa far longer (and often bloodier) than that of the US. They supported Qaddafi in recent years, and are just as suspect in their motives as the US was in Iraq in 2003, along with the Arab League which I discussed above. Obama's pledge that the US role will last "days, not months" is as believable as Bush's announcement of "mission accomplished" in 2003. It's an empty slogan.

8. There is no sectarian or ethnic dimension to the Libyan conflict, whereas the US Pentagon conspired with Shiite and Kurdish parties to overthrow the Sunni-dominated Baathist regime in Iraq, setting the stage for a prolonged and bitter civil war.

Actually there is a great parallel here, but the division that the invading forces are exploiting is not religious or ethnic, but rather regional-- the underdeveloped east of the country versus Tripoli and other parts of western Libya that Qaddafi "rewarded" for their loyalty with development. These material divisions could prove to be even more deeply divisive than ideological divisions like religious sectarianism. That certainly remains to be seen, but many analysts have already begun speculating about US/UN plans to partition Libya along those regional lines (see here for one example).

9. The US has not rewarded countries such as Norway for entering the conflict as UN allies, but rather a genuine sense of outrage at the brutal crimes against humanity being committed by Qaddafi and his forces impelled the formation of this coalition. The Bush administration’s ‘coalition of the willing’ in contrast was often brought on board by what were essentially bribes.

What kind of a joke is this? A "genuine sense of outrage"? Where is the genuine sense of outrage for the exact same brutal crimes against humanity being committed in Bahrain and Yemen, close allies of the US and many other European countries involved in the invasion? What about the crackdown on protesters in other US/Western-allied countries like Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, Oman, and elsewhere? This is international politics in the 21st century; who really believes that the US, UK, France, or Italy invade one country and not another out of a "genuine sense of outrage" and not specific political, economic, and military interests?

10. Iraq in 2002-3 no longer posed a credible threat to its neighbors. A resurgent Qaddafi in Libya with petroleum billions at his disposal would likely attempt to undermine the democratic experiments in Tunisia and Egypt, blighting the lives of millions.

The other side to this coin is that the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, which were independent of foreign interference, could have played a more positive role in the Libyan uprising if not for the foreign invasion of Libya (and other factors, like the Egyptian military getting in the way of Egyptian popular support for the Libyan uprising, etc.) Juan Cole suggests that Qaddafi could, theoretically, undermine democracy in Tunisia and Egypt; however, as we speak, the US along with other Western imperialist powers and some powerful Arab states like Saudi Arabia are actively undermining democracy in those countries and many more.

Further reading

Solidarity and Intervention in Libya (Jadaliyya)
Don't exaggerate Arab support for Libya No Fly Zone (Foreign Policy)
The West goes to war for oil and power (Socialist Worker)
Arab League condemns broad Western bombing campaign in Libya (Washington Post)

Some diasporic reflections on the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

2011-02-12T01:57:00.008-05:00

I have purposely been silent on this blog during the past two months of the ongoing Arab intifada in Tunisia and Egypt. I remained silent, mesmerized at the beautiful democratic and revolutionary aspirations of millions of people, but I refused to play the role of native informant or make any ill-informed predictions. Now, I must write -- how can I not on the occasion of one of the most glorious historical events I will ever witness in my lifetime? It is not every day that I see my people overthrow 30 years of dictatorship (41 counting Sadat) in 18 days. Below is a scattering of reflections I have written and collected over the past few days.

***

I.

A few words on semantics. The "Lotus Revolution" did not cause "President" Hosni Mubarak to "resign." In fact, there is no "Lotus Revolution," "Jasmine Revolution," or any Orientalist-imaginary color revolt in the Arab world, nor are there any politicians in the Arab world worthy of official titles. There are peoples' revolutions led by ordinary folks from all walks of life, ranging from industrial workers in the provinces to unemployed university graduates, and then there are ruling criminals with armed thugs, military generals, billionaires, and friends in Washington and Tel Aviv. What actually happened: the Egyptian people overthrew one of the Arab world's most heinous criminals and Western-backed mafiosos, Hosni Mubarak, in a victory for Egyptians, Arabs, and oppressed people the world over.

I don't want to be the one who casts doubt on such a moment of euphoria, but I can't help but feel uncertain about the future. Clearly Mubarak lacks dignity to face the overwhelming masses of the Egyptian people, so he preferred to leave it to his vice-torturer-in-chief, Omar Sulaiman, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. This is the soft military coup we have all dreaded. I don't buy the idea that rule by the most powerful and well-funded institution in the country will actually end the emergency laws or aid a democratic transition. Haven't we learned anything from the past 60 years of decolonization and the "pitfalls of national consciousness"?

Mubarak is gone, but the regime is not... yet.

***

II.

I've been following the ongoing Egyptian labor and youth movements for three years now; these are two powerful forces that deserve much credit in organizing the recent revolution. I admit, though: I never felt empowered enough to involve myself in solidarity organizing for Egypt. Living in the diaspora, I don't have many options; many of the Egyptian American groups in my area are either tied to the Mubarak regime or bourgeois interests (one member of an organization I'll leave nameless even tried recruiting me to work for the State Department). I don't even own an Egyptian flag, and quite frankly am apprehensive about waving it. To me, it represents decades of military rule, trumped-up chauvinistic nationalism, and more recently, collaboration in the ongoing illegal siege of Gaza.

As I began visiting more frequently as an adult, I grew conscious of how badly Egypt has been hurt by neoliberalism, authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. Still, I felt alienated by the climate present in the country and fatalistic about its future.

And then, Khaled Said was killed in Alexandria last summer, sparking months of protests around the country and by Egyptians living abroad.

A month and a half ago, the horrid bombing of the the Qiddissin Church in Alexandria during New Year's Mass occurred. I take issue with the "national unity" discourses used in the wake of the attacks; Egyptian identity is not simply about "the cross and the crescent," but the equality and dignity of all Egyptians regardless of faith (have we forgotten about the continuing injustices committed against Egyptian Baha'is?). Still, I feel the show of genuine Christian-Muslim solidarity is an important one, and a true rejection of the sectarianism engineered by the Sadat and Mubarak regimes. The cross-religious mutual aid and solidarity expressed in the protests only prove this.

I am glad I have been proven wrong, but there is still much work ahead.

***

III.

To my brothers and sisters in Egypt: As one of you in the diaspora, I understand that it is not my place to tell you what you should do. I ask you, though: please, do not go. Do not leave the streets, do not stop striking, do not stop fighting for your demands. Do not give into the opportunists who want to steer your sacrifices in the direction of a neoliberal, linear model of "progress" and have you accept the regime's newly handpicked criminals as the next best option. Do not go anywhere until every last member of Mubarak's gang boards a plane to exile in some European city and the basic human right of self-governance is finally in your hands.

***

IV.

It was a difficult past 18 days, watching live footage of protesters violently attacked by Mubarak's thugs, hearing news of family members hurt by teargas, arrested, and beaten, and remaining unfazed by the hypocritical stance of the United States on the matter. Like my Iranian comrades in the summer of 2009, what was most frustrating was "hav[ing] to watch it unfold on YouTube and not in person." (see Eskandar and Hanif's posts)

Yes, I was angry: angry that I could not be in Egypt at such an important moment in its history; angry that I was born and in residence on the wrong continent; angry that my final semester of university prevented me from hopping on the next flight to Cairo; angry that even if I could quit school, I wouldn't find a direct flight because they've been canceled indefinitely.

But I no longer romanticize or feel guilt. I no longer need to dream about the Egypt my parents once knew because another Egypt is on its way, though it will take time. Despite my position in diaspora, one that I do not deny is one of middle-class Western comfort, I hope to find a place for myself in the arising Egypt. I will continue to struggle with the uneasy idea of "home" and recognize the privileges of my location while keeping my eyes and heart open to the destiny that the people of Egypt will determine for us all.

I Don't ♥ Patriarchy: Thoughts on Breast Cancer Awareness

2010-10-12T22:39:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago, I saw a sorority girl on my university campus wearing a T-shirt that read "I ♥ Boobies" with a pink ribbon below the text. This past week, I noticed an obnoxious load of Internet postings from female friends about where they "like it," or what color their bras are. While hunting for a parking spot a few days ago, I coincidentally parked next to a car with a "Save the Ta-Tas" bumper sticker. As the daughter of a survivor and the niece of two beloved aunts who died of breast cancer, I don't find anything cute about sexualizing the disease to promote awareness. I wanted nothing more than to rip that disgusting sticker off of his/her car. Instead, I left the driver an anonymous Post-It note, informing him/her of how offensive his/her bumper sticker is to breast cancer victims, survivors and their families. Given that October is breast cancer awareness month, how many more cars, T-shirts, and Internet waste will be plastered with ridiculous slogans that trivialize such a terrible disease?

This directly stems from the American obsession with breasts. While globalization has transplanted toxic American beauty standards throughout the global South, it would be incorrect to say that other societies do not have their own pre-conceived social constructions of breasts. Still, the concept of female breasts as purely sexual organs for male pleasure is not originally rooted in most non-Western societies, where breasts are generally associated with maternalism. Depending on the context, the exposure of female breasts (as opposed to male breasts -- funny how we use the word "chest" to desexualize men) in American society is either sexy or obscene. Unlike other parts of our anatomies, breasts do not have a sexual function, yet we are socialized to understand them as such through pornography, advertisements, fashion, etc. In this country, women and girls judge their self-worth on their breast size and mutilate their bodies with breast implants. We become the targets of lingerie companies who sell us push-up bras as a way to conceal our bodies and delude ourselves into thinking that we have perfectly round, perky breasts. Our society views female breasts as a taboo only when their exposure is linked with motherhood. Consider how Americans frown upon breastfeeding in public. A woman's cleavage is sexy, but public exposure of a female nipple is taboo and must immediately be censored. Ironically, the porn industry directly capitalizes off of the social taboo of bare female breasts -- the curiosity associated with a body part we don't normally see heightens its sex appeal, especially for the male viewer.

Patriarchal control and eroticization of the female body complicates any meaningful discussion of diseases like breast cancer. Even men suffer from the disease, but our phallocentric society does not want you to know that. Now, we have a patriarchal campaign that belittles women who are forced to choose between losing their breasts or losing their lives. Women who have had mastectomies are still sexualized, but are now defeminized. Saving these women's lives and providing emotional support for them and their families becomes irrelevant. Only a women's breasts, rather than her entire being, are regarded as worthy of being saved.

So, thank you, idiots, for completely devaluing every single woman who has suffered from this awful disease as nothing more than a pair of "boobs" that your privileged selves must rescue. You have successfully internalized the sexist status quo by belittling the disease as a schoolyard joke, even though at least one million women are diagnosed with it worldwide on an annual basis. Don't bother educating yourself and your lady friends about self-exams, regular doctor screenings and other preventative measures you can take. Forget about grassroots campaigns for better health care options, or organizing against factories that pump carcinogenic fumes into the bodies of poor women and women of color (who, might I add, have disproportionately higher death rates from breast cancer). All you have to do is take a picture to "show off your ta-tas," slather on some "boob lube" and update your Facebook with how you "like it on the floor."

There is nothing more tasteless and disrespectful than using sexual innuendos to demean the very painful struggles of women living with breast cancer. Before appointing yourself as a savior, begin by saving yourself from the patriarchal mindset behind these campaigns. Women with breast cancer are full human beings, not a pair of "ta-tas," who deserve genuine support.

Immigration and Queerness: Missing the Mark

2010-08-17T22:36:00.006-04:00

There's been a trend recently to track the "progress" of nations in the Global South, particularly places like Iran, by how "well" they treat non-straight citizens. This is obviously problematic for a number of reasons, particularly since Western concepts of "gay"/"lesbian"/"bisexual"/"homosexual"/etc. do not map so easily onto other cultures, and that, of course, the motive behind these criticisms is rarely (I'd say maybe even never) a genuine concern for oppressed peoples.

Andil Gosine, a professor at York University, contributed an article to the Queer Youth Cultures anthology that seemed like a promising critique of Canada's "queer-friendly" image, but turned out to be a pretty disappointing article regurgitating already popular (and incorrect) perceptions of non-straight sexuality in the Global South.

In “FOBS, Banana Boy, and The Gay Pretenders: Queer Youth Navigate Sex, ‘Race,’ and Nation in Toronto, Canada” Gosine examines the status of queer immigrant youth in Toronto, and where they locate themselves within supposedly “queer-friendly” Canada. He first provides a framework for why queer youth are apparently “outside their ‘home’ nations” as a result of their queerness, and then looks specifically at two cultural works by young queer immigrants to Toronto. Gosine first considers "Banana Boy," a film made by Samuel Chow, a gay-identified immigrant from Hong Kong, and then a personal story written by a lesbian-identified Iranian immigrant. He plots these narratives against the multi-cultural, queer-friendly state discourse of Canada. The personal narratives offered by Chow and the Iranian immigrant clearly problematize Canadian state rhetoric by displaying the intersecting forms of oppression they experience.

Although in the second half of his article Gosine utilizes immigrant-produced narratives to (rightfully) criticize the supposed queer utopia Canada presents itself to be, he momentarily reinforces this very idea. After a series of quotes from immigrants that display how their queerness was viewed more positively in their home nations, Gosine explains that “citation of these passages is not meant to suggest that Canada is a more repressive place for queers than [their] home countries…Instead, it compels reconsideration of assumptions about the easy ‘welcome' Canada is said to offer queers, and it also calls for more critical appreciation of the complex cultural contexts in countries that are generally dismissed as inferior” (237). Instead of taking this opportunity to examine how these immigrants may have had more complex reasons for emigrating to Canada, or the possibility that their queerness did not impact their decision to emigrate, Gosine simply ignores these possibilities.

Gosine misses an opportunity to examine, for example, the economic circumstances that may force a person to emigrate to the Global North. It is telling that the Iranian immigrant, who provides the most compelling story by facing death in her home nation for her queerness, describes her immigration to Canada (and not her death sentence) as “the worst experience of [her] life” (231). It is, in fact, only the Iranian immigrant who presents a case severe enough that her queerness can be considered the primary factor for her immigration. The other immigrants Gosine speaks to seem to consider their home countries as more comfortable places to be queer. It is therefore clear that other factors are encouraging emigration to Canada, but Gosine ignores them, and instead only offers these stories as an opportunity for a “more critical appreciation of the complex cultural contexts in countries that are generally dismissed as inferior” (237). In other words, Gosine uses these stories to offer an alternative view of these home nations as not entirely oppressive, but goes no further than that. He does not use them to contextualize people’s immigration and experiences in Canada, as he evidently does not want to suggest that Canada could be “a more repressive place for queers” than countries in the Global South, like Iran.

All in all, I was incredibly disappointed by the lack of depth in the article, and how Gosine still seems loyal to the tired (and, as proven by his own article, oftentimes incorrect) Third World = bad/repressive/evil for queers line. Aren't people tired of this false narrative yet? Don't folks want to engage a little more critically with what is happening in the Global South and with other ideas and categories of sexuality and gender that are not as restrictive as Western ones?

A Response to "Sex and Iran's Unstoppable Resistance"

2010-08-15T21:09:00.006-04:00

Catherine Sameh recently wrote a review of Janet Afary's Sexual Politics in Modern Iran here. Although Sameh gives a wonderfully informative and detailed review, she makes some points which deserve re-visiting, like the use of the hejab by men in the Green Movement and bonds of sisterhood in Iran.

Sameh briefly mentions the use of hejab by men in the Green Movement, most likely referencing Majid Tavakoli. Tavakoli, a prominent student activist in Iran, was arrested on December 9, 2009 after giving a speech at Amirkabir University. Later, government-sponsored media published photographs of Tavakoli in a chador (a large cut of fabric worn on top of clothing by more pious Muslim women in Iran). Although the arresting officers claim they found Tavakoli dressed in a chador, members of the Green Movement were outraged and declared that Tavakoli was forced to wear the chador by officers determined to humiliate him. In a show of solidarity, men began photographing themselves in hejab and chador (again, articles of clothing worn by women in Iran) and posting them on the Internet.

Although these photos were heralded by many as a sign that Iranian men refused to associate feminization with shame, it is clear from the attitude of many of these men that this simply is not the case. Men have donned traditionally feminine articles of clothing to show sympathy for Tavakoli, to show their recognition of his embarrassment. Instead of Green Movement supporters perhaps queering the chador, re-claiming it from the Islamic Republic and utilizing it as a tool for anonymity in the public sphere, they continually cried that Tavakoli was forced into the chador, offered witnesses claiming he was not wearing it as he left, and presented testimony from those who knew Tavakoli and claimed he would never do such a thing. The men wearing hejab in solidarity with Tavakoli have not done so to say they also claim this traditionally feminine article of clothing as a tool for resistance; they have done so to say to Tavakoli that they will not allow him to be “shamed” for being forced into these clothes.

It is impossible at this point to know whether Tavakoli chose to wear the chador or not, but no one has applauded Tavakoli for this rather clever attempt to escape authorities. Instead, his masculinity is continually discussed and defended, and the possibility that he chose to wear the chador is never offered. If this were not enough, many of the same supporters who have donned hejab and chador in support of Tavakoli have photoshopped images of Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad to show them in chador – to shame them through feminization, the same way they feel Tavakoli has been shamed. This only reinscribes already popular understandings of the chador and hejab as feminine and thus shameful for men. The intense reaction from Green Movement members upon the release of Tavakoli’s photos point to the movement’s patriarchal, not progressive, underpinnings (for more information about Tavakoli’s arrest and Green Movement reaction see here and here).

Sameh also mentions Afary’s interpretation of Iranian “bonds of sisterhood,” which Sameh calls “egalitarian homosexual relationships.”Although Sameh’s comment seems appropriate given Afary’s representation of bonds of sisterhood, other historians have discussed these bonds differently. The essay “In Spirit We Ate Each Other’s Sorrow” in Islamicate Sexualities by Kathryn Babayan allows for a more fluid understanding of vows of sisterhood. Babayan juxtaposes Aqa Jamal’s ‘Aqa’id al-Nisa,’ a satirical 17th century book disparaging women and female homosociality, with Safarnama-yi Manzum-i Hajj, a travelogue from a Safavi-era Isfahani widow in which she describes her affective bonds with her “sister.” Although Babayan identifies their relationship as one of “same-sex erotic desire (258),” she still allows room for vows of sisterhood to exist outside the limits of homosexuality. Babayan states “[w]ithin the confines of the practice of sisterhood, a certain female intimacy – whether platonic, romantic, or sexual – emerges outside the countours of Islamic law” (255). Even reading a relationship identified as containing “same-sex erotic desire” as homosexual is incredibly limiting, and it invisibilizes the multitude of rich emotions and desires women experienced in these relationships. Vows of sisterhood are in this unclear and tense space lying uncomfortably between homosociality and homosexuality, and this is exactly where they should be left. We should not continually try to categorize all same-sex relationships and desires in Iran (past or present) as either/or, but instead appreciate the very imprecise nature of relationships like vows of sisterhood. To try to force them into one side of a restrictive binary only does these powerful relations a disservice.

To be clear, I am not motivated by some homophobic agenda, afraid to “admit” to Iranian homosexual relations; rather, I wish to keep these very blurry, permeable and ultimately artificial lines between homosociality and homosexuality as blurry and permeable as possible. It is exactly this ambiguity that I find so fruitful and liberating, especially when juxtaposed with Western identifications that demand one be lesbian or straight. In fact, it is exactly these Western understandings of sexuality that were imposed on Iran beginning in the late 1800s that forced Iranians to begin understanding relations through homo or heterosexual lenses.

Overall, I enjoyed Sameh’s review of Afary’s book, and I think Afary contributes immensely to the growing scholarship on Iranian sexuality. I only hope that within this growing field we privilege Iranian understandings and engagements with sexuality, rather than struggle to fit Iranian relations into categories intelligible to a Western audience.

Congratulations, Iranian expatriates!

2010-07-19T09:30:00.001-04:00

Congratulations, Iranian expatriates! You have been presented with a fantastic opportunity to contribute to the betterment of your already over-inflated sense of self-importance and victimhood. If you are a secular, Westernized, wealthy Tehrani Persian living in the West and have a decent command of English (or in Western Europe, another appropriate language), you are entitled to appear on any mainstream news channel to speak on behalf of the entire nation of Iran, a country you do not live in and have not visited in many years.

When presenting yourself as a spokesperson for the 70 million people of Iran, please remember to abide by the following rules. Otherwise, your television appearance may be canceled.

You are strongly encouraged to make use of tired cliches such as: 'behind the veil', 'beneath the veil', 'lifting the veil', or 'beyond the veil'. When describing Iran, feel free to use any or all of the following adjectives: backwards, barbaric, medieval, irrational, dangerous. If you should choose to coin a neologism such as "mullahcracy" or "Islamofascist," please remember to smile smugly in order to remind your audience of how clever you are for coming up with such an original and biting term.

You must be vehemently opposed to the Iranian government in general and the Ahmadinejad administration in particular. No other opinions will be tolerated because all Iranians, like robots, think exactly alike.

You must be very careful when addressing Iranian history. Do complain of the 1979 revolution, in which the most popular protests in world history overthrew the country's kind and beloved dictator, King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Do not complain of the 1953 coup, in which the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically-elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and forcibly installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as king. Do mention Mir Hossein Mousavi's role as a reformist politician in recent years. Do not mention Mir Hossein Mousavi's role as prime minister in the 1980s, when he oversaw the violent purging of reformists and student activists, or the fact that he is a die-hard Khomeinist.

Be sure to identify Islam as the primary cause of oppression in Iran. It is preferable that you know very little or nothing at all about the religion; such knowledge is unnecessary and undesirable in order for you to be an authority on the subject. Do not, under any circumstances, be a practicing Muslim yourself; otherwise your opinion will be immediately disqualified. Non-Muslim religious minorities are discouraged from speaking unless they also happen to be critical of Islam.

Please remember that the most pressing and important problem facing Iranian women is the mandatory headscarf law. Avoid mentioning other problems, such as wage inequality or restricted access to abortion, as these issues also exist in the West and may therefore upset Western viewers. You are encouraged to advocate for the right of Iranian women to veil or not veil as they please, but you absolutely must not advocate for the right of European Muslim women to veil or not veil as they please.

You are strongly encouraged to promote U.S./European intervention in Iran. Do not mention that sanctions and military intervention have failed to produce positive results and caused millions of civilian deaths in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, remain optimistic that things would be different with Iran.

If you follow these guidelines carefully, you too can speak as an authority on Iran - no knowledge, education, or original insight required! After all, you're entitled to special attention after your harrowing and traumatic choice to relocate from a posh neighborhood in Tehran to a posh neighborhood in Beverly Hills, New York, or Paris.

Finally

2010-06-06T04:41:00.002-04:00

In a few hours I will be traveling to Iran. I've been trying for several years to make this trip happen, and I hope it will contribute to what I think are some of the main themes of this blog: our lifelong struggles against deracination, our attempts to make sense of diaspora, and the troublesome question of 'home.'

I've disabled comments on this post, since I might not be able to read them for a while. I don't have time to write much now, but I'm sure I will have a great deal to say when I return to the U.S. in late August.

Miss USA? No thanks.

2010-05-20T01:02:00.011-04:00

I'm not rooting for the first Arab and Muslim Miss USA -- and frankly, it puzzles me that other Arab and Muslims see this as a cause to celebrate. As a disclaimer, let it be know that I am not playing into the hands of the racists fueled by their hatred of brown people, namely Daniel Pipes, Debbie Schlussel & Co. who dubbed Rima Fakih "Ms. Hizbullah USA." Nor am I on the side of the Salafis/Wahhabis and other Islamists who want to impose their patriarchal ideas of "modesty" onto Muslim women so to control their bodies.

I have few kind words for an inherently sexist phenomenon like the beauty contest, an event that places the female body on display for male consumption, strips women of their personalities, and forces unrealistic (and quite unhealthy) physical standards onto them. Nevertheless, I've seen Lebanese acquaintances react to the occasion with joy, haughtily assuring that Ms. Fakih must have won because of how "hot" and "exotic" Lebanese women are. Any positive outcomes of reducing Arab and Muslim women to exotic, sensual freaks is beyond me. It's enraging enough when Westerners have built centuries of scholarship and travel literature on this very problematic idea, and it's even more disheartening when Arabs and Muslims themselves mimic the same sentiment. Not to mention, it coalesces with a Lebanese hyper-nationalist phenomenon, which As`ad AbuKhalil (a.k.a the Angry Arab) sarcastically refers to as the "Lebanonese." The Lebanonese are essentially chauvinistic nationalists who seek to disassociate Lebanon from the rest of the Arab world, instead mythologizing Lebanon as a unique homeland for the racially superior descendants of the Phoenicians. A quick search on Angry Arab's blog can lead you to countless incidents of Lebanese racism against Palestinian refugees [1, 2, 3, 4] and Syrian migrant workers... and let's not even begin on intra-Lebanese sectarianism... or Lebanese racism against Ethiopian, Filipino and Sri Lankan indentured servants... but I digress.

If some react to Ms. Fakih's win by self-Orientalizing, others such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) are more vocal about the perceived benefits of Ms. Fakih's win, claiming this as some sort of victory for Arab Americans. I can't deny that the ADC has done considerable work to protect civil rights for Arab Americans, though I honestly feel that the organization provides no solid political vision for Arab Americans beyond that which is deemed friendly by the establishment (see a brief, but relevant, discussion on their organizational politics here). I think the following quote by Iman Hamad, Michigan's ADC director, speaks for itself: “[Fakih's win] is historic ... This shows the greatness of America, how everyone can have a chance to make it.” Is equal opportunity sexism supposed to somehow make sexism acceptable? Do communities of color need to engage in exploitative cultural practices in order to become "American"? This is the assimilation doctrine at work.

Disappointingly, some Arab American feminists are also convinced that Miss USA will somehow inspire the American public to change its discourse on Middle Easterners and Muslims. The problem with this is that in attempting to shatter the stereotypes, they are merely reinforced. By putting ourselves on pedestals and saying, "Hey America! We're not all terrorists! We can be sexy and have your plastic ideas of beauty, too!", we are simply playing along with these problematic notions of "terrorism" as part of brown folks' inherent condition and of white beauty as supreme. Other feminists argue that it is good to finally see a beauty queen role model for our daughters and sisters who looks "like us" (i.e. not blond or white). Again, this argument is loaded with the internalized notion that women of color must objectify themselves for public performance, that their beauty must be regulated, judged, and prized by white men. Instead of spoon-feeding our young girls and women a slightly altered version of American beauty standards, why aren't we teaching them to be comfortable in their skin, hair, and bodies in the first place? Do I really need Rima Fakih's tiny body and pole-dancing to teach younger generations of women in my family to be strong, to take pride in themselves, to know that brown is indeed beautiful?

I realize that ethnic identities in the United States are not as cut-and-dry as the "assimilation/cultural purity" dichotomy assumes. Over time, I've accepted that people negotiate themselves differently. Some will deny one aspect of themselves, either through full-blown assimilation or repatriating themselves back into their home countries; some will "integrate" in the mainstream sense of the word; and some will uneasily straddle their feet between two worlds. Some will choose a path different from those mentioned, and some won't even think about identity at all. As with everything else on this blog, this is not a post about who "is" or "isn't" a feminist, a "true" Arab, or Ms. Fakih's agency (or lack thereof) in entering a beauty pageant. If Ms. Fakih wants to objectify herself in front of millions of people, be my guest - but don't assume that she necessarily represents anything positive for women of color, especially Arab or Muslim women. Whether she likes it or not, she contributes to a huge system of female exploitation deeply embedded in American culture, albeit with an olive-skinned face.

DAM concert in Atlanta a victory for Palestine solidarity

2010-04-26T14:20:00.007-04:00

April 26, 2010
Atlanta, Georgia

DAM, Palestine’s first hip hop crew, landed in Atlanta on Friday, April 16, 2010. They performed for a completely packed crowd at the Drunken Unicorn, along with local groups Weapons of Audio and Contraverse. The concert represents a victory for Palestinian solidarity activists who struggled to bring DAM to Atlanta, and for the group, whose voice and movement are often stifled by Israeli occupation.

The group had intended to tour the U.S. in 2009, but the U.S. government denied their travel visas at the last minute, forcing them to cancel. Their appearance and successful concert last week was made possible by the efforts of activists and organizations like the Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia (MEIA-G), who hosted the show. Concert organizers estimate that 250-300 people attended, packing the venue nearly beyond its capacity.

DAM put on a high-energy performance, a mixture of hip hop, comedy, and politics, flowing between Arabic and English. Mixing genres is characteristic of their music as well, which fuses Arabic percussion rhythms and melodies with urban hip hop. The group’s lyrics deal with Israeli state violence and oppression inflicted upon the Palestinian people, as well as the Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality. They also draw influence from U.S.-based hip hop artists like Tupac and Mos Def, whose music reflects similar oppression, police brutality, racism and poverty.

“DAM brings the power of hip hop as a global voice against oppression and the lyrical magic of words and beats to infuse their audience with a spirit of resistance and hope. These artists offer a face of Palestine missing from the standard media presentation,” said Ouafae Azhari, coordinating member of MEIA-G.

Earlier in the day, DAM appeared at Georgia State University, alongside Slingshot Hip Hop director Jackie Salloum. DAM feature prominently in the film, which documents the history and development of Palestinian hip hop. DAM discussed the film, hip hop, and life under Israeli occupation with the audience. They will continue their U.S. tour throughout the month of April.

MEIA-G remains dedicated to the global campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel until it abides by international law and human rights. MEIA-G mobilized thousands last January in the streets of Atlanta to protest Israel’s massacre against the Palestinians in Gaza. It is currently working to end Georgia State University’s GILEE program which facilitates cross-border trainings between police in Georgia and apartheid Israel. For more on the program, see here and visit MEIA-G’s website.

Nezam ol-Molk on good governance

2010-04-18T16:49:00.003-04:00

Below is a small portion from Khwaje Nezam ol-Molk Tusi's Siyasatnameh, along with my translation and commentary. The text is a good example of ادبیات تعلیمی (adabiyāt-e ta'limi, 'didactic literature'), a genre of Persian literature which aims to educate the reader (often about virtue and morality).

Original text (Persian)

گویند روزی نوشروان عادل برنشسته بود و با خاصّگیان به شکار می‌رفت و بر کنار دیهی گذر کرد. پیری را دید نود ساله که گوز در زمین می‌نشاند. نوشروان را عجب آمد؛ زیرا که بیست سال گوز کشته بر می‌دهد. گفت: «ای پیر گوز می‌کاری؟» گفت: «آری». خدایگان گفت: «چندان بخواهی زیست که برش بخوری؟» پیر گفت: «کشتند و خوردیم و کاریم و خورند.» نوشروان را خوش آمد. گفت: «زه.» در وقت خزینه‌دار را گفت تا هزار درم به پیر داد. پیر گفت: «ای خداوند هیچ کس زودتر از بنده گوز نخورد.» گفت: «چگونه؟» پیر گفت: «اگر من گوز نکشتمی و خدایگان این جا گذر نکردی، آن چه به بنده رسید، نرسیدی و بنده آن جواب ندادی، من این هزار درم از کجا یافتمی؟» نوشروان گفت: «زها زه»، خزانه‌دار در وقت، دو هزار درم دیگر بدو داد؛ بهر آنک دوباره زه به زبان نوشروان رفت.

English translation

They say that one day, Anushirvan the Just had mounted his horse and was going hunting along with the nobles of his court, when he passed alongside a village. He saw an old man¹ of ninety years who was planting a walnut tree in the ground. Anushirvan was astonished, as walnut trees do not bear nuts until 20 years after planting. He asked, "Hey old man, are you planting walnuts?" The old man said "Yes." The king then asked "How long do you plan to live, that you'll be able to eat the nuts?" The old man said "Others planted and we ate, and we will plant so that others may eat."² Anushirvan liked this. He said "Bravo," and immediately told his royal treasurer to give the old man a thousand drams. The old man said, "Your Highness, no one has ever tasted the walnuts they planted as soon as I!" The king asked, "How so?" to which the old man replied, "If I hadn't planted the walnuts, and Your Highness hadn't passed by here, that which has happened wouldn't have occurred, I wouldn't have given you that answer, and where would I have got these thousand drams from?" Anushirvan said, "Bravo, bravo!" and the royal treasurer quickly gave the old man another two thousand drams, because "bravo" had come from the king's lips twice.

1. The original word is پیر (pir), a term fraught with meaning that is not easily rendered into English. I translated it as "old man," but in fact پیر is gender-neutral (and here this same passage is titled "Anushirvan and the Wise Old Woman"). Furthermore, the term is more respectful than calling someone "old man" in English, but I couldn't come up with a better alternative.

2. This line has become a well-known saying in Persian.

Commentary

Nezam ol-Molk wrote his Siyasatnameh a good 500 years after the death of Anushirvan. The author chose this Sassanid Iranian emperor as a model of the behavior appropriate for kings, viziers, and people of the court, as Anushirvan was regarded as a just and beloved leader by Iranians. It is also notable that Nezam ol-Molk chose a pre-Islamic Iranian leader as his model. Nezam ol-Molk was an adviser to the Seljuq Empire, a Persianized Turkic dynasty that promoted the indigenous Iranian culture and patronized Persian literature. The Siyasatnameh is exemplary of its cultural milieu in that it draws from both Islamic and pre-Islamic elements. In the story above, Anushirvan rewards the old man not only for his good actions, but for his sweet words as well, possibly a reference to the Zoroastrian mantra "good thoughts, good words, good deeds." It should also be noted that Nezam ol-Molk was a native of Tus, a city in Khorasan that was a center of Iranian identity and produced many other great literary figures, including the famous Ferdowsi.

I posted this text less as a statement about governance and more as an exercise for myself in translation from Persian to English. Nevertheless, I do think it contains a noble lesson, which is one of the reasons why I enjoy Persian literature so much.

Arabic is not going anywhere

2010-04-14T23:06:00.001-04:00

Arabic will die out if it is locked up in classrooms, warns Achraf El Bahi of The National, a government-owned newspaper in Abu Dhabi. Fortunately for Arabic-speakers, El Bali has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

I was surprised to see the above article posted on the Angry Arab's blog; you'd think he would know better. (Though I suspect he only posted the article in order to make fun of Saad Hariri).

Mainstream journalists are notorious (to linguists, anyway) for making major blunders nearly every time they try to write about language; browsing the archives of blogs like Language Log or Language Hat will turn up dozens of articles pointing out serious errors in mainstream reporting on linguistic issues. Non-specialists usually don't feel entitled to write about sciences like biology or chemistry, leaving the predictions to the scientists, but when it comes to the science of linguistics, just about everyone seems to feel that their ignorant analysis merits attention. El Bahi here is no exception. He presents enough linguistic inaccuracies and sheer falsehoods to make his entire argument invalid.

The crux of his argument centers around this idea:

"It is an obvious, if little known fact that modern standard Arabic is no longer anybody’s mother tongue. No one in the world speaks it as a native language." (emphasis mine)

Actually, throughout history Modern Standard Arabic has never been anybody's mother tongue (with the exception of very few eccentric individuals who have chosen to raise their children speaking it at home). That's just the point: it never mattered that Modern Standard Arabic wasn't anybody's mother tongue. Throughout its entire lifespan of over 200 years, Modern Standard Arabic has managed to grow into a vibrant literary language with many millions of speakers, and produce an impressive corpus of everything from novels to newspapers to poetry, without having any native speakers. El Bahi laments that

"Latin has almost died out precisely because it was locked up in church bookshelves. Arabic, with its elasticity, rhetorical treasures and axiomatic wealth may suffer the same fate if its use is restricted to the classroom, the mosque, and the halls of government."

Yet he neglects to mention that even today, Modern Standard Arabic is not limited to those arenas; it's also the language of nearly all Arabic written literature as well as Arabic news broadcasting on television and radio.

Throughout the article, the author refers to Modern Standard Arabic as "true," "proper," or "pure" Arabic, juxtaposed with colloquial Arabic (which must therefore be untrue, improper, and impure). This is as silly as suggesting that North Americans don't speak "true" English, because they don't use the same vocabulary and syntax as is used in newspapers (though to be fair, the differences between the colloquial and the standard language are greater in Arabic than in English). More importantly, the notion of Modern Standard (or for that matter Classical) Arabic as "pure" is false, anyhow. It's full of words from foreign languages, including ديمقراطية (democracy, from Greek), قنديل (lamp, from Latin), صابون (soap, from French), فردوس (paradise, from Persian), بنك (bank, from English), and hundreds more.

El Bahi goes on to say

"Countless Arabs find that their friends from Morocco and Algeria may as well be speaking Greek when they speak in their native dialects. True, these derivative languages bear a close resemblance to Arabic, but they are not, strictly speaking, Arabic.

Now, this is just wrong. Some linguists have argued that contemporary Arabic vernaculars (like Egyptian colloquial Arabic) should be viewed as separate languages, but no linguists claim that they aren't Arabic, any more than Cantonese is not Chinese.

Possibly the silliest part of the article comes at its very end, where the author closes with what I'm sure he thinks is a provocative question:

"If you’re an Arab, ask yourself: how do you say “zipper” in your supposed mother tongue?"

I'm not an Arab (and to be honest, my command of Arabic is quite poor), but I can tell you that the word for "zipper" is سحاب in Modern Standard and سوستة in Egyptian colloquial Arabic. More to the point, it's completely irrelevant whether Arabs know how to say "zipper" in their mother tongue, or just use the English word. Zippers are called "zíper" in Portuguese and "jippā" or "fasunā" in Japanese (from "zipper" and "fastener," respectively). German, Italian, French, and Spanish all have official, native words for "zipper," yet a variant of "zipper" or "zip" is popularly used in those languages as well. Are they all also in danger of dying out?

The fact is that most major world languages, including Spanish, French, and yes, Arabic, don't have a native word for many such everyday items as "telephone" and "television." Instead, they've simply borrowed the English word, and they're no worse off for it. More than 60% of English vocabulary is of foreign origin (including such basic words as "table," from French), yet somehow English appears to be surviving.

On that note, I'm a native speaker of English, but that doesn't automatically make me an expert on William Shakespeare. I read a couple of his plays in high school English classes, which I vaguely remember, yet I'm aware that I know basically nothing about him or his works. For that reason, you won't find any Shakespearean commentary on this blog. People like Achraf El Bahi need to realize the same: just because he may be a native speaker of Arabic, doesn't mean he knows anything about the language (and certainly not anything about linguistics), and should therefore avoid making boldly ill-informed predictions about the fate of the Arabic language.

Weekly links

2010-04-13T21:27:00.004-04:00

The weekly collection of links that has been appearing here on Sundays has been moved to a separate blog, so that we can focus more on original content here. All the link posts have been moved there, along with the comments left by readers. If you like reading the weekly links, please bookmark brownfolks2.blogspot.com or add it to your favorite RSS aggregator, like Google Reader. The new links-only blog will continue to be updated every Sunday. You can also see when it's updated by looking under Weekly links on the sidebar to the right of this blog, beneath the search.

Israeli ambassador grilled on apartheid

2010-03-02T18:16:00.006-05:00

March 1, 2010
Atlanta, Georgia

The Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia (MEIA-G) kicked off the first day of Israeli Apartheid Week on Monday by packing a lecture by Israeli ambassador Reda Mansour at Georgia State University (GSU). Students and local activists dominated the question and answer session, challenging the ambassador's whitewashed narrative of a "vibrant and diverse Israeli democracy" with critical questions about Israeli apartheid. After it had become apparent that Palestinian solidarity activists had hijacked the discussion, the ambassador was forced to end the event early.

The aim of Israeli Apartheid Week is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement. The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel, as South Africa was isolated during the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law. The UN International Civil Society Conference adopted the Palestinian call for BDS in 2005. Since then, Zionists have sought to counter the BDS movement and accusations of apartheid by pursuing "dialogue-driven" outreach that highlights the "diversity" and "liberal innovation" of Israeli society. Just as South Africa used black members of the collaborationist Inkatha Freedom Party as foreign emissaries for the apartheid regime, Israel chose Reda Mansour--an Israeli citizen and member of Israel's relatively privileged Druze Arab minority--to represent its interests.

Ambassador Reda Mansour (far L): "Israel is extremely proud of its close partnership with the Atlanta area and the entire Southeast."
Ambassador Mansour gave a lecture on the subject of "Israeli politics and identities." He avoided any discussion of the occupation, and attempted to paint a rosy picture of Israel as a multicultural country where diverse groups of people, including Arab citizens of Israel, live freely and participate in national politics. He made no mention of the fact that minorities within the state of Israel, from Palestinians to Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, face deep and systematic discrimination - a point which was later brought up by a member of the audience.

After speaking for a half hour, Mansour opened the floor to questions, stressing that the question and answer session was to be the main part of the event. Immediately, someone asked why Jews from anywhere in the world were allowed to move to Israel and become citizens, but millions of Palestinians displaced from their homes could not return. Others asked why Israel routinely harasses, beats, and arrests nonviolent Palestinian protesters. When the ambassador suggested that Palestine needed to find its own Gandhi, members of the audience reminded him that plenty of 'Palestinian Gandhis' can be found serving time in Israeli prisons. In a last-ditch intimidation effort, Ambassador Mansour stated he was aware that an organized group had come to his lecture with prepared questions, which he had presumably seen on a local e-mail list.

It wasn't just the organized students drawing attention to the elephant in the room. Thanks to unaffiliated students, the critical questions didn't stop: Why do even prominent Israeli politicians such as defense minister Ehud Barak agree that Israel is an apartheid state? Why does Israel oppose a one-state solution in which Jews and Palestinians could peacefully co-exist in one country? Not one question was uncritical of Israel's apartheid policies.

Mansour made some revealing statements in his attempt to answer (or dodge) the questions thrown at him. Immediately after urging the pro-Palestinian audience to be "self-critical," he made a confounding claim that Israeli Arabs may have "full citizenship," even if they do not enjoy "full rights." That was followed by a bizarre comparison of separate states for Israel and Palestine to separate parts of metro Atlanta, such as the majority-white suburb of Alpharetta and the majority-black downtown area. Perhaps the organizers saw him faltering or lost hope that this event would be an "apolitical" appreciation of Israeli diversity. With students eagerly holding their hands in the air, some of them clad in kufiyas, the organizers ended the event a mere 50 minutes after it began. In the frequently long-winded academic world, it's quite possible that a new record was set for "shortest presentation ever." The prize, activists hope, is a future reluctance of Israeli officials to return to their campus until apartheid policies are dismantled.

This wasn't the first activity in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle at GSU, though. MEIA-G and various student groups at GSU have set their sights on a program in their Criminal Justice Department called the "Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange" (GILEE). For reasons obscured to practically all of the 35,000+ students and education workers, their campus is being used to facilitate police cross-trainings between Israeli and Georgia police. Over the last 15 years, delegations of senior Georgia police officers (as well as other state officials and private security executives) have traveled to Israel under the auspices of GILEE to receive so-called "counter-terrorism" training.

Undoubtedly, Israel's 60 years of experience in suppressing the unflagging Palestinian movement for self-determination has yielded volumes of knowledge. Any state interested in more "efficient," "comprehensive," and "integrated" security services--which includes much of the world in an age of rising inequality and strife--is being invited to similar partnerships with Israel. Electronic Intifada writer Jimmy Johnson, in his article "Israel's export of occupation tactics," expounds on this international phenomenon beyond the scope of this article. Granted, the state of Georgia, with its Jim Crow past and uneasy present, is no amateur in this regard; through GILEE, they offer to help delegations of Israeli police learn drug law enforcement and so-called "community policing" (anti-brutality and police accountability advocates throughout the state are left scratching their heads at this term).

In line with the BDS call, students and community activists are urging the university administration cut this problematic connection. Universities should be places of critical scholarship, where the roots of problems, like colonial occupation and poverty, are addressed. We cannot afford to continue feeding the growth of an already bloated security state enmeshed in a wrong-headed "global war on terror," at the expense of real solutions that provide opportunity and meaningful self-determination for people first. To view the statement against GILEE and sign the petition, visit this page. From the grassroots, we can initiate truly purposeful dialogue, free of banalities from any Israeli state mouthpiece, and work toward an end to the occupation.

Tales from a whitewashed childhood

2010-01-23T22:35:00.001-05:00

Once when I was about 17 or 18, I had a bunch of friends over at my house, and served them hummus and chips. One (white) friend told me she had never even heard of hummus until recently. She said that was because she had grown up poor, and hummus was a luxury food enjoyed by the middle class in the U.S. At the time, I took it as an example of my class privilege and found it interesting that our differing class backgrounds had introduced us to different foods.

As I look back now, I realize how whitewashed I had been. It didn't occur to me at the time that eating hummus had nothing to do with my family's socioeconomic class and everything to do with the fact that my family is Iranian and Jewish, and that's what we eat. (Of course, hummus was not traditionally a part of Iranian nor Ashkenazi cuisine, but it has become popular with both groups, at least in diaspora). But back then, I thought of myself as white and identified with my white friend, so I couldn't see that she was the one who was exercising privilege. (Certainly the fact that my olive complexion often enables me to pass as white contributed to my thinking that I was white, but there were other factors in my upbringing that played an even bigger role).

In the following years I gained a more sophisticated knowledge of self, aided in no small part by moving out of the Iranian bubble that is southern California and having my race read differently in different locales. (Reading Fanon didn't hurt, either). I now see the above episode as instructive, not just of where my thinking on these issues was at the time, but of the confusion engendered by the disconnect between the way I was taught to view myself and the different ways others view me. See also Hoda's excellent piece on these same issues.

Take action on two important issues

2010-01-14T02:53:00.002-05:00

1. Stop the Bill that would Ban Visas for Iranians

The STEP Act would make it illegal for all Iranians to travel to the United States, with few exceptions made after "extensive federal screening," only in cases of medical emergency or political or religious asylum. According to Rep. Barrett, he is reintroducing the STEP Act in response to the Fort Hood shooting, carried out by an American citizen, and the Christmas-day attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit, attempted by a Nigerian national. The bill, however, targets citizens and residents of Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Yemen, and Syria. The bill originally would have deported all Iranians in the U.S. on student, work, exchange, or tourist visas within 60 days, but that part was removed due to protest. We need to continue to protest this racist and discriminatory bill until it is scrapped altogether. Please take a minute to send an email opposing the bill, and tell everyone you know to do the same. You can also spread the word via this Facebook event.

2. Earthquake hits Haiti, causing destruction to an impoverished nation

There's little "natural" about this disaster; it is man-made, and its impact would have been much less devastating had Haiti not been ravaged and plundered by the colonial powers for over 500 years (not the least of which taking place just in the past couple of decades). Shouldn't the leaders of the powers responsible for Haiti's destitution, especially the U.S. and France, be contributing massively to the relief effort? Unfortunately that's not going to happen, so the aid must also come from ordinary people like us. Here is a list of relief organizations that are accepting donations, but be sure to read this before you decide where to donate money. Médecins Sans Frontières is one organization that is well-established in Haiti and worthy of consideration.

Three poems

2010-01-13T01:38:00.004-05:00

My Jesus & Haiku for the Head Locked - Zein El-Amine
Little Mosque Poems - Mohja Kahf
get down w/yr. muslim-catholic self (the 7" version) - Robert Karimi

Part II: Some thoughts on Egypt, Gaza, and national identity

2010-01-02T17:07:00.023-05:00

It is personally hard for me knowing I descend from the country that participates in strangling Gaza through building another apartheid wall, denying aid and food caravans past the Rafah border, and holding full diplomatic relations with the Zionist enemy. The fact that Egypt is a pawn of the U.S. and Israel gives the collaboration some context, but this is also the regime doing whatever it can to salvage the little legitimacy it has. Mubarak needs a way to prove his strongman politics and groom his son for succession, and what better way than giving off the illusion that he has national security under control?

Palestinians are distrustful of me because they assume I am automatically on the side of Mubarak. Egyptians are distrustful of me because they think my unwavering support for the Palestinian struggle makes me self-hating. They also think I am not really Egyptian because I never lived there, and thus have no valid opinion on the matter. Frankly, I don't know what Egyptian identity is anymore when these days, being Egyptian means you must define yourself in the most xenophobic terms possible, whether against Sudanese refugees, Algerians [1, 2], and now Palestinians. In the Sadat and Mubarak eras, to be an Egyptian means one must believe in a worldwide conspiracy theory against Egypt and support all kinds of horrible torture, surveillance, and political repression measures under this siege mentality.

I know there are people out there who reject this polarized narrative, but amidst the talking heads on satellite TV and well-to-do Masriyeen who tell me, "Shut up, you're young, naive, and don't know any better. You don't know what it was like to live without electricity and water. We had no choice but to sign that treaty.", I feel alone. Egyptians have always known better than to trust our rulers on anything, so why is the mainstreaming of this position becoming so acceptable? To say I am ashamed is an understatement. If this is what being Egyptian means, I don't want to be one, any more than I want to be the apple pie, Marlboro Red, Budweiser Yankee imperialist that is associated with being an American citizen.

I know that in reality, things are not this polarized. Just as the United States has a rich tradition of immigrants, people of color, women, workers, and community activists seeking to redefine American identity as one fighting for justice and equality, Egyptians have a long history of resisting colonialism, Zionism, and domestic despotism to assert our dignity and identity. Egyptians have long held popular identification with Palestine, and unlike what Mubarak's supporters say, that solidarity is more than fighting in botched wars. Every regime of royal and republican Egypt has shed crocodile tears for Palestinians for their own political interests above anything else. The struggle for a democratic Egypt and a free Palestine are incumbent on one another, and Egyptians must wrest the discourse from the government which disingenuously manipulates the Palestinian issue for its own ends.

I recognize the privileges of my location in diaspora. I make no self-righteous claims to speak on behalf of anyone but myself, but a tyrant like Mubarak has even less of a right to claim he is working in the best interests of the Egyptian nation. It is up to the various opposition forces in Egypt and its expatriate communities to stay on top of the political situation and have our voices heard, while doing what we can to support our brothers and sisters in Gaza.

I leave you with the words of Salah Jahin, one of Egypt's most beloved revolutionary, nationalist poets of the 1950s-60s. Like many of his generation, Jahin saw the struggle of Egyptians as intrinsically tied to that of Palestinian liberation - and unlike some liberal intellectuals (e.g. Naguib Mahfouz), he always opposed normalization with Israel. The translation below is my own; any mistakes are my own.

انا كل يوم أسمع ........ فلان عذبوه
أسرح في بغداد و الجزاير واتوه
ما أعجبش م اللي يطيق بجسمه العذاب
و اعجب من اللي يطيق يعذب أخوه

Every day, I learn of someone tortured.
I roam in Baghdad and Algiers, and I get lost.
I don't care how his body endures the torture,
but I am amazed at he who causes his brother's pain.

Part I: Some thoughts on the movement to break the siege

2010-01-02T16:54:00.009-05:00

Happy New Year to you all. It's difficult to enjoy the simple pleasure of a new year while knowing that things are just as stagnant as they were a year ago. A turned page on the calendar has not changed the suffering of Palestinians since Israel began bombing and blockading Gaza in the summer of 2006, culminating in last winter's 22-day massacre. It is a new decade, and the wretched puppet regimes of the Arab world continue to act with utmost cruelty and barbarism towards the Palestinians, in full compliance with their friends in Tel Aviv and Washington. The bombardment of blog/Twitter posts and lack of mainstream media attention over the past few days made it difficult to discern what exactly is happening with the pro-Palestinian protestors in Egypt. This is a two-part post. The first part below is a summary and my thoughts on the Gaza Freedom March's attempts to break the blockade. The second part, in the post after this, is a more personal reflection of events in Gaza/Egypt.

1,400 foreign activists from the Gaza Freedom March, CODEPINK, and presumably other delegations have been in Egypt for almost a week. Their plans were to enter Gaza with humanitarian necessities in an attempt to break the Israeli/Egyptian-imposed siege. This was supposed to happen on December 27, the one-year anniversary of the Israeli onslaught. For the most part, it hasn't been the success that was hoped for. I applaud the activists for their courageous work undertaken, and any talk of them being "suspicious" from the Egyptian state media is quite simply nonsense... but in Mubarak's Egypt, I suppose even an 85-year old Holocaust survivor on a hunger strike is a threat to national security. Nevertheless, the past days' events deserve some scrutiny.

Organizers had been making arrangements regarding their travel with the Egyptian authorities for over a month. Nevertheless Mubarak's security forces began rounding up and detaining activists in their hotel rooms and breaking up their non-violent memorial acts almost immediately upon arrival. When the organizers realized that they could not protest the siege inside Gaza, they took to the streets, only to find that the police had absolutely no qualms beating them up. They continued protesting on the streets for the next few days, with sympathetic Egyptians joining them (Hossam el-Hamalawy has some videos up). Meanwhile, the regime denied entry to George Galloway's Viva Palestina caravan, and they were left stranded in Jordan and Syria for four days. The latest article I can find is from 30 December, stating that they would attempt entering Gaza through al-`Arish. Galloway has a history of maintaining warm relations with Mubarak, so it's surprising that his caravan wasn't allowed in.

The activists sent many a passionate plea to Mubarak to ease the restrictions, but to no avail. CODEPINK then decided to test their already-established connections with the first lady, Suzanne Mubarak. Eventually, they brokered a deal. The catch? Only two buses (100 people total) could enter Gaza under the banner of CODEPINK, not the Gaza Freedom March. In addition, CODEPINK had to immediately hand in the names of the attending activists to the Egyptian government. All of this was decided between CODEPINK and the government without the consensus of the attendees. Ultimately, the deal with the government led to factionalism, fragmenting the movement's intended unity. A significant portion of participants expressed their disgust with CODEPINK's decision; here is one analysis, and here is a short, powerful message from a Palestinian American woman who came with the GFM.

Perhaps it is a small victory, but the situation is virtually unchanged. It is one thing for organizers to re-decide their tactics in the midst of a roadblock, provided it is done in a democratic process. It is another thing to completely compromise the movement's goals for the sake of a small concession. As Ali Abunimah said in a Democracy Now! interview, the objective of the 27 December action was not about the number of activists brought into Gaza, but coming together as a united force to break the siege and expose those responsible for it. In addition to the U.S. and Israel, it is time to blow the whistle on local regimes who prolong the situation. Egypt did not cause Israel's siege, but it is responsible in maintaining it; Palestine solidarity activists must continue to use this as a point of pressure. It is good that these 100 activists will deliver some of that much-needed aid to Gaza, but the deal brought the movement nowhere in terms of its main goal: breaking the siege itself.

Given the amount of tightened security over the past year, it has become virtually impossible to enter Gaza by sea or land. The state press claims that there is no blockade and that the state actually does allow aid caravans into Gaza on a regular basis (a lie), and it surely will use the recent decision to bolster the government's case. In a way, the movement to break the siege becomes a double-edged sword. Since the movement ultimately did not succeed in their immediate goals, they are painted as a bunch of troublemakers conspirating against Egypt. Had they succeeded, the state would have used it as evidence of their supposed benevolence toward Palestinians in Gaza, thus washing their hands clean of any responsibility. In any case, has the siege really been broken? Can Gazans freely leave? The issue here is not simply whether foreign activists can enter or not. Egypt is a country where foreigners, especially Westerners, are privileged far more than the average citizen. When said foreigners and Westerners can't convince the state, even after a segment of them resorts to going soft on Mubarak, that isn't a good sign. What is the guarentee, then, that Palestinians will be able to leave Gaza from the Rafah border now?

Ali Abunimah reports that as of New Year's Day, the Gaza Freedom March has come to an end. The activists signed a declaration affirming their commitment to fighting Israeli apartheid until its downfall. The Gaza Freedom March certainly learned the tough lesson that no discussion of the blockade can go without an assessment of the Egyptian political climate:

But whatever frustration we felt is one millionth of the frustration of the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. So perhaps in some way it is better then that we did not get in, because Egypt gave us a small taste of what it serves every day to people in Gaza -- and a small taste of what Egyptians face when they challenge their government's policies.

I do hope that the past few days' events do not deter Egyptian and foreign activists from agitating for Gaza in their home communities and devising new strategies for breaking the siege. However, there is reason to be cautious of what the regime will unleash next. As the videos posted above, as well as recent imprisonments and deportations of journalists, prove, even foreigners are not spared the brutality of Mubarak's police batons and dungeons. But even so, at least they hold foreign passports and have their embassies to lobby on their behalf. They can garner media and international support relatively quicker than an ordinary Egyptian can. Now that the movement has disbanded, the government will direct its anger at the protesters onto ordinary Egyptians, and they will pay a price larger than that they are paying now. All the while, Gaza continues to suffer...

On the passing of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri

2009-12-20T13:24:00.004-05:00

Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri passed away in his home early this morning, due to cardiac arrest. He was 87. Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was the most courageous, compassionate, and principled `alim (religious scholar) I have known of in modern times.

Montazeri continuously put himself at great personal risk to speak out against oppression. His key role in denouncing the tyranny of the Pahlavi regime and organizing protests against it led him to be tortured and jailed for four years. Though he was a former student, friend, and supporter of Khomeini, he did not hesitate to openly criticize Khomeini's consolidation of power after the 1979 revolution. Montazeri was a supporter of Khomeini's doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, but differed in his opinion of how it should be implemented; while Khomeini began to turn the position of Leader into one of near-absolute rule, Montazeri believed that the Leader should only serve as an adviser to the country's democratically-elected political leadership.

In my opinion, the best yardstick for measuring a person's tolerance and compassion is their views towards the most marginalized and oppressed members of society. It is in this regard that Montazeri's genuine and principled compassion shines, as he was a consistent advocate of the rights of women, religious minorities, student dissidents, political prisoners, and others. While the rights of Zoroastrians, Christians, and Jews are enshrined in the Iranian constitution, and special legal provisions are made to protect their rights, no such provisions exist for the Baha'is of Iran. Khomeini accused them of being a political movement rather than a religion and declared them "apostates." As such, they have been denied even the most basic rights such as citizenship and education, and have been systematically discriminated against, imprisoned, and executed. In light of such harsh persecution, Montazeri's statement affirming their basic and civil rights is especially courageous.

Immediately following the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the Iranian regime carried out a wave of political repression, including mass executions of prisoners. The prisoners included many leftist activists and students, as well as members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a terrorist cult that had carried out assassinations in Iran and assisted Saddam Hussein during the war. Montazeri's own son, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Montazeri, had been killed in a 1981 terrorist bombing carried out by the MEK. Yet Montazeri denounced the executions, on the basis that not only were those guilty of serious crimes such as murder executed, but also people who had committed only minor offenses, allegedly including a 13-year-old girl who had supported an opposition group. Clearly Montazeri valued justice even above revenge against members of the organization that murdered his son. He wrote a letter to Khomeini, decrying the Islamic Republic's human rights abuses and accusing its intelligence ministry of being worse than that of the former Shah. Montazeri had been chosen to replace Khomeini as Leader of Iran (in part because he was one of the only Iranian Grand Ayatollahs at the time who supported Velayat-e Faqih), but his criticisms of the regime and letter to Khomeini cost him the position. Instead, in 1989 it was given to Ali Khamenei, who was not even properly qualified for it.

"Velayat-e Faqih" may be translated as "Rule by the Islamic Jurisprudent." The idea is that the very top scholar (or scholars) of Islamic law should hold a position of influence in government; in Khomeini's view, the most learned scholar holds the position of utmost authority. Therefore, according to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, only a Marja` could be Leader of Iran. Here, I think a comparison to the academic world may clarify things: a Hojjatoleslam is like a Master's student, whereas an Ayatollah is like someone who has a doctorate and may be a professor. A "Grand Ayatollah" (Ayatollah al-Ozma) or Marja` is the highest rank, comparable to a highly-esteemed professor whose published works are read and admired. In 1989, though Montazeri was a Marja`, Khamenei had only achieved the rank of Hojjatoleslam. In order to name Khamenei as his successor, Khomeini hastily amended the Iranian constitution to say that the Leader need only be an "expert" in Islamic jurisprudence, not necessarily a Marja`. He then "promoted" Khamenei overnight from Hojjatoleslam to Ayatollah. (To continue my imperfect analogy, imagine if Harvard University selected one of its Master's students, rather than a distinguished professor, to become president of the university, and gave the student an instant, unearned PhD degree). Many Ayatollahs in Iran and other countries refused to recognize Khamenei as a Marja`, among them Montazeri.

Montazeri remained a thorn in Khamenei's side. As he had criticized the Pahlavis and then Khomeini under the new regime, so did he criticize Khamenei whenever he disagreed with the Leader's policies. In 1997, after calling Khamenei unqualified to lead the country, the regime closed Montazeri's religious school in Qom and placed him under house arrest (which lasted until 2003); the regime claimed that it was for his own safety, as his home had been attacked just prior to his house arrest. None of this stopped him from continuing to criticize Khamenei, the Islamic Republic, the 2008 Parliamentary elections, the 2009 presidential elections, or any other injustice he saw. In the long tradition of Shi`a resistance to tyranny and oppression, Montazeri let there be no division between his faith, his scholarship, and his activism.

A few ignorant souls, both right-wing Muslims who wish to discredit Montazeri as well as Western journalists who wish to claim Montazeri as something he was not, attempted to paint Montazeri as a lackey of imperialism, or at least some kind of pro-Western figure. However, this should not be taken seriously, and Montazeri was critical not only of injustice in Iran, but everywhere. He was also outspoken in favor of Palestinian self-determination, and rightfully criticized the hypocrisy of the arrogant powers who oppose Iran's right to nuclear energy but are silent on the issue of Israel's nuclear weapons.

Montazeri was nearly unparalleled, not only in Iran but in the world, for his Islamic scholarship and especially for his unrelenting dedication to principle, his bravery, and most of all, his compassion. I truly and deeply mourn the loss of this great scholar and activist. Innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rāji`ūn. Ulā'ika `alayhim ṣalawātun min rabbihim wa raḥmatun wa ulā'ika humu-l-muhtadūn. - Verily, unto God do we belong, and verily, unto Him we shall return. It is they upon whom their Sustainer's blessings and grace are bestowed, and it is they, they who are on the right path. (Qur'an 2:156-7)

Further reading

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's website (Persian)
Grand Ayatollah Montazeri's website (English) - includes a biography
Al Jazeera: Iran cleric Montazeri dies
BBC: Crowds gather to mourn reformist Iran cleric Montazeri
BBC: Iran's dissident Grand Ayatollah Montazeri dies
BBC: Obituary: Ayatollah Montazeri
BBC: Visiting Iran's ayatollahs at Qom
Press TV: Ayatollah Montazeri passes away
Views from the Occident: In Memoriam: Iran's Principled Grand Ayatullah Hossein 'Ali Montazeri
Video: "Iran's Rebel Ayatollah"

For those who know Persian, Montazeri's complete personal memoirs (over 1000 pages) are available freely online (warning: large PDF). The last speech he gave before he passed away, in which he criticized the violence that followed Iran's summer 2009 elections, is viewable here.

Mini-update

2009-11-28T21:59:00.003-05:00

Between end-of-the-semester crunch time, grad school applications and attending the MESA conference in Boston, we Brown Folks haven't had much time to write lately. Expect some real updates after a few weeks. In the meantime, we'll regularly add links to our diigo account, which feed directly to the blog; updates are every Sunday.

The gloves come off: Islamophobia in Lilburn

2009-11-13T00:58:00.006-05:00

Tonight in Lilburn, GA, an angry group of Islamophobes have turned on their Muslim neighbors and sought to enshrine their bigotry in law by denying a local mosque the right to expand and build a cemetery. Sadly, the city's Planning Commission sided with the angry mob.

I will first briefly address the events that led up to tonight's Lilburn Planning Commission meeting, which culminated in the commission voting to deny Dar-e Abbas mosque permission for the re-zoning it needs in order to expand and build a cemetery. For more information on this, see Tahereh's detailed account and the collection of news articles at the bottom of this action page.

Racist, Islamophobic opposition

The mosque has been in Lilburn for 11 years, during which time its congregation has grown so much that it now needs to expand and build a cemetery to accommodate its members. In order to do so, it will need permission from the city to rezone the area. Those who oppose the rezoning have been open about their hatred and bigotry when speaking to reporters. "I am prejudice [sic], I just don't like Muslims and I don't want them taking over our neighborhood," said one resident. [1] At least three people told a reporter they opposed the mosque expansion because, in their own words, they were racists. [2] Another admitted that she would not oppose the expansion if it were for a Baptist church. [3] Kyle Wright agreed, saying "This is not what Lilburn needs. This is a Christian community, and they are anti-Christian." [This quote was printed in the Gwinnett Daily Post, but unfortunately the article has been taken offline.] Others were slightly less blatant, such as Lorraine Lobos, who said "This has nothing to do with...them. This is about hurting our community, this is about hurting our kids." [4]

Supporters of the mosque speak

At tonight's Planning Commission meeting, the first to speak was Donald McFarland, a reputable, independent, professional city planner who was hired by the city of Lilburn to determine whether the rezoning should be approved. He stated that the mosque expansion was consistent with similar church expansions and recommended that the rezoning be approved. Others spoke in favor of the mosque expansion, such as Reverend Bill Scott (who quoted the Biblical injunction to "love thy neighbor"), Ray Prichett (who had lived next to the mosque for 11 years without any problems), Thor Johnson (president of the Lilburn Business Association), and Deborah Greenwood (who said that preventing the mosque from expanding constitutes a violation of the Constitutionally-protected right to freedom of religion).

More of the same bigotry

The opposition to the mosque expansion expressed more of the same Islamophobic racism at the meeting. After Ailya Zaidi stated that the mosque promotes community values and faith in God, Lorraine Lobos retorted "I have faith in God too, my God, that justice will redeem our neighborhood." Deborah Hart claimed the mosque would invite criminal activity. Though she admitted that she had moved to Lilburn from elsewhere, she said that "the zoning should be for residents, not others coming in from outside to change the area," ignoring the fact that all who spoke in favor of the mosque were long-time Lilburn residents. She also said "something really disturbs me about that kind of infiltration when there is not an integration of cultures here at all," then claimed that "the neighborhood has splintered over the 10 years that the mosque has been here," and concluded her racist rant by adding "we shouldn't make exceptions for other cultures who have no standards for building in this country." She received loud applause from the opposition. Despite repeated warnings that those who clapped or made noise would be escorted out, the opposition remained noisy and unruly, variously clapping, shouting, jeering, groaning, and booing throughout the night.

Just a zoning issue?

Despite having made numerous comments indicating that they were motivated by racism and religious prejudice, members of the opposition tried to claim that the real issue was not religion, but the impact of the mosque expansion on their neighborhood. However, their concerns were clearly disingenuous, not based in reality, and hastily thought up in order to hide their Islamophobia. Many complained that they feared the expanded mosque would bring noise (the mosque will have no loudspeakers and does not broadcast a call to prayer, unlike the nearby churches which have church bells). Nearly all claimed that the mosque would bring traffic to a small and quiet neighborhood, though the mosque is not in a residential area but instead faces the very long, four-lane, Lawrenceville Highway, which has a 40 mph speed limit. The neighborhood already has a middle school with 1200 students, and is within two miles of about six strip malls and the enormous Salem Missionary Baptist megachurch. Furthermore, the mosque's services are on Friday nights, so any additional traffic would not pose a problem. Some opposed the expansion because they felt it would not invite business to the area, yet paradoxically others opposed the expansion because they feared it would draw too much business to the area. Many complained the mosque or cemetery would be visible from their backyards, but in fact a large tennis court acts a buffer between the mosque and the nearby neighborhood, rendering it invisible. It was plain to see that these people were making up excuses.

The Planning Commission's decision

Despite the expert opinion of independent city planner Donald McFarland and the statements of the mosque's supporters and its lawyer Doug Dillard, and despite the contradictory and demonstrably false arguments put forward by the opposition, the Planning Commission moved to deny the mosque's rezoning request. The motion was proposed and immediately seconded and passed, and without hesitation the Planning Commission read a lengthy statement explaining why they had decided the way they did. As evidenced by their prepared statement, it was obvious that they had made their decision long before the end of the meeting. Their decision is not binding, however, and is merely a recommendation for the Lilburn City Council, which will vote on the issue on November 18.

The broader context

The result of this meeting comes at a time of both public anti-Muslim hysteria, such as the violent beating of a Greek Orthodox priest who was mistaken for an "Arab terrorist," and a government crackdown on Muslims in the U.S. and abroad, such as the recent seizure of four mosques, renewed sanctions on Iran, and U.S. financial and military involvement in conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere. Tonight's Planning Commission meeting shows what can happen when an angry, racist mob is allowed to influence government policy. Georgia also has a significant history of discrimination and bigotry against Muslims.

How to get involved

We need people from all walks of life to get involved in the movement against Islamophobia. This is not an issue that only concerns Muslims; it is an issue that should concern all who care about fairness, equality, decency, and dignity, regardless of their race or creed. Here's how you can help:

Wear green and attend the Lilburn City Council meeting on Wednesday, November 18, at 6 PM, at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center, 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, GA 30045
Share this article with as many people as you can
Join our mailing list (or our Facebook page) to receive updates on the situation and how you can help
Check back here and at the action page for information on upcoming events

Diigo

2009-11-07T21:27:00.006-05:00

We're testing out an account with Diigo that will automatically post bookmarked links to our blog. If you happen to see a bunch of blank or deleted posts come up through your RSS feed or Google Reader, we're sorry - bear with us!

Nouri Gana, "Arab Despise Thyself"

2009-11-03T22:49:00.001-05:00

(Note: article originally found here.)

On my flight back from Philadelphia to Detroit, after having participated in the 122^nd MLA Annual Convention, I sat next to a young man whom I overheard speaking Arabic in his cell phone. I said “salam” in Arabic, and the young man was surprised and astonished: “how did you know I am Arab?” he impatiently asked, clearly disappointed to be found but viscerally eager to put me to task for it. I said I just overheard you speaking Arabic in your cell phone. Well, then, he said, “for your information, I am not Arab, I am American.” “That’s fine,” I said, “but you speak Arabic, no?” I deliberately asked the question in Arabic with an accent that is neither Tunisian (as mine normally is) nor fluently Palestinian (however I have tried to sound like one), and I followed it up with an English translation.

The young man looked at me with a smirk and said that he cannot possibly be Arab because he was born in the United States and his father was also born in the United States. He went on to add, however, that he considers himself American first and Palestinian second, that is, American Palestinian, but definitely not Arab. Obviously, whether Palestinians are Arabs or not is not for me to decide, but I wanted to leave a fringe of doubt about my knowledge of Palestine or about how Palestinians (or few of them at least) prefer to define themselves.

So, I went on to my next question, and I asked, “Why don’t you call yourself ‘Palestinian American’ then?” He said, “No, I am American first and then Palestinian.” “Well, I said, that’s fine, but how did you know that I myself am Arab?” It was not the swiftness of his response that shocked me but the tone of his voice, snobbish, intransigent, and ultimately condescending. “Yes, he said, you are!” It was perhaps the first time that someone so confidently and unequivocally determined and judged my racial identity at one and the same time. Not that I prefer the fluidities of postmodern identities and their sometimes overwrought and annoying slippages, flaunted narcissisms and paranoid self-consciousnesses, but that I have always casually adhered to a measure of identity without having ever closed it off to whatever might interpellate, enrich or expand it. I therefore cannot imagine myself contradicting someone identifying me as Arab (even though fewer and fewer would identify me as Tunisian and fewer still would identify me as Canadian), yet what this young man seemed to be implying by categorically adjudicating about my Arabness is that, unlike him, who is self-consciously American Palestinian, I cannot be redeemed or delivered from my Arabness since I wore it on my face and cannot possibly go “face-off.” So, I am trapped! I wear my face and my face marks me as Arab. He however seemed to enjoy wearing a different one, and that’s partly why he was devastated when I confronted him with a forgotten one that happens to be an Arab face. Otherwise, our decent but, I must admit, very disturbing conversation would probably have not taken place.

Even though I have no problem with the way people construct narratives of their own identities, I was quite surprised and shaken by this young man’s absolute disidentification with his “Arabness” (and to a lesser extent, “Palestinianness”) and wondered whether he would really be identified as such by mainstream America. Since when have self-professed multiculturalist societies ceased to identify individuals and peoples separately from where they descend or come from? More importantly, how come that this whole media-authored paranoia against Arabs in the United States has insinuated itself in the minds and hearts of a growing portion of Arabs who are born and raised in the United States in such a way that it compelled them to censor their ownmost Arabness? Gone are the times when to be Arab meant to be articulate and to speak with impeccable clarity, and not synonymous with being sentenced to hang in the everyday news like a parasitical fly at your lunch table.

I do not mind accepting whatever narrative identity this young man put forward, only if it were that simple! What I suspect is that what I witnessed is just another example of a pervasive wave of Arabs born in the United States, Britain, France or in Canada who speak Arabic (some of them don’t but they can still have the “luxury” of Arabic names) and relate to a national identity (Palestine, Algeria, Lebanon, etc.) but who insist that they are not Arabs. What I suspect, in other words, is not whether the likes of this young man is comfortable with his Americanness but whether or not he is not disavowing his Arabness, however near or distant it might be. Obviously, this is not something that should be of any concern to me if I did not note the young man’s disappointment, confusion and surprise when I spoke to him in Arabic and implied that he was Arab.

The question is not whether people are free to identify, refashion and reinvent themselves the way they like, but whether it is psychosocially salubrious to do so if the propelling forces are nothing more than the propagandistic and media propagated paranoia against Arabs and Muslims. Is it healthy to self-identify oneself as triumphantly American or as part-time American Palestinian if such an identity is instituted by a privatized and naturalized denial or disavowal of one’s ownmost ethnic identity? This young man (25, he told me) works in the Arab world and is a budding diplomat and has the potential to become a major player in the agonizing process of bringing peace to the Palestinians, a besieged people whose political and cultural energies are perennially being taxed beyond human creativity, endurance and persistence. How can this young man who has internalized a paranoid perception of Arabness be able to understand his own people, let alone himself or the way other Americans, unlike him, see him?

I once asked a friend of mine why is it that a lot of Arab Americans (who are Muslims, born-Muslims or of Muslim descent) choose non-Arab names for their own children? She told me not to be “judgmental” since I “don’t know the traumata that young children with Arab names go through at American schools.” I obviously understood the point, even though I still don’t believe that one can correct a wrong by perpetuating it. So, by calling your child Ray or Isabelle, do you think, given the intensive profiling systems and the unquenchably crooked interest in people’s ethnicities, do you think you’re building a better future for your child or that you’re somewhat protecting him or her from the radar of ethnic profiling?

Whether an Arab can never become American, ought not or must never become American is not the point, but rather that education (at the school system level in particular) should confront children with difference early on in their lives and decolonize rather than colonize their impressionable minds. If all children’s names go by Ray or Isabelle, etc., when is a child going to be exposed to different names? Plus, the argument that children suffer discrimination at school, while evidentially true, should not encourage parents to opt for mainstream or culturally-friendly names for their kids. What if your sensitive and anti-imperialist child grows up one day and accuses you of treachery, of giving her a name that does not coincide with her cultural allegiances or affiliations? What if? How would you feel as a parent? You might indeed give your child a hard time by calling him, for instance, Mustafa, Ali, and especially Osama, but you might also give him and yourself the occasion to debunk prejudices and to generate a model Osama that might eventually redeem the name from its combustible connotations. Rather than asking whether there can be a different Osama, a different Saddam, are we suggesting that there cannot be a worse or better one? Are we just supposed to toe the line and let the Media continue stereotyping Arab culture? So what if I insist on calling my child Osama, what? Do you think we should let history determine our fates or determine the direction of history through our familial, local and grassroots struggles even with little and small-scale actions, as small as the decision upon the name of your next child?

The other part of this problematic of narrative identities is not that some people construct themselves differently or in whatever manner they want to, but that they do so in the belief that they attach superior values to their own selves by pursuing a certain narrative rather than another one. The young man I met on the plane identified me as Arab immediately, as if he were impatiently sentencing me for having myself (and mistakenly so, as he tried to convince me) identified him as Arab. Did Arabs descend so low that it is an insult to be called “Arab”? Oh, have I just realized this now after the hurly burly has been done and the war lost and won? No, not at all, I heard about it before but it is always news to me: why should I get accustomed to it? Why should I beg to be appeased? Why should one get used to this maligned posture of Arabness both inside and outside the Arab world and among Arabs themselves?

My problem with identity politics is the racist gesture that inaugurates and sustains it. For, this young man sees himself as American, even though he is also a part-time Palestinian who speaks Arabic and works in the Arab world. The very fact that he viscerally denies the qualification to be Arab or to be taken for or identified with one is expressive of a certain value system at work in the parts of the collective unconscious of later generations of Arab Americans. This value system does not apply to all Arab Americans since I have seen and heard many of them reclaim a distant Arabness and actively identify with one, but it is always disheartening to learn that the young and bright are unwilling to identify with what Edward Said once called a “lost cause” but are in fact reenacting the official stance vis-à-vis Arabness induced by the media and the legacy of cumulative defeats of Arabs in their decolonization struggles against the triptych—Zionism, American and European postcolonial colonialism. Is really the very experience of being Arab nowadays a lost cause, nothing but a source of despondency and anguish? Did we come to accept this fichue position? If we are politicized and vulnerable, should we not identify even more enthusiastically with our own vulnerability rather than vacate it for misguided appropriations of prestigious and safer American or European identities? And how on earth are we going to convince the world to identify with our “lost causes” from the Mashriq to the Maghrib if we cannot identify with the signatures of those causes, with Arabness? If Arabness and Arabs are two lost causes in one, can we not at least afford the dignity of sportsmanship and reckon with those losses and try to initiate narrative departures and reconfigurations rather than change camps altogether? Today, apart from Iraqis, Palestinians continue to be the most vulnerable living Arabs in the Arab world, being as it were exposed to the besieging military machine of their nuclear oppressor; is it not more dignifying for Arabs to identify with Palestinians rather than to disidentify with Arabness? Should not the world identify with Palestinian exposure and vulnerability as it had once identified with Jewish vulnerability? Should not each of us unilaterally disengage with identity politics and invest in identifications with victims of injustices wherever they are? We ought to find a way to become, at least until further notice, all Palestinians, all Arabs...

"I just don't like Muslims..."

2009-10-25T21:46:00.001-04:00

The state of Georgia doesn't have the best history when it comes to Muslims (let's not forget the Georgia judge who barred hejabi women from his courtroom, and had one arrested for refusing to take it off), but this is a whole other level of discrimination and hatred. People are outraged because Muslims want to expand a mosque...

Dar-e Abbas is a mosque that holds services in a small house in the city of Lilburn. Over the years the number of attendees has grown, and they want to expand and remodel the mosque as well as add a cemetery. To do this they must have the property re-zoned from "residential" to "commercial." I think it's best now to turn to the videos showing what (apparently) happens when a property is re-zoned. The first is here, and the second here, and there is also an accompanying article found here.

Although I think all three links speak for themselves, here are a few choice quotes.

From the first video:

"I'm prejudiced, and I don't want them [Muslims] here."

"I mean, they need to just take a chill pill, so to speak, and go through the political system."

"I have a problem with it being a cemetery."

"Mosque is alright, but if they want to put a cemetery, that's no good."

The reporter says he spoke to three people "who told [him] flat out they were racist" and so did not want the mosque expanded, and when he asked why they would not say so on camera, they replied that they were "afraid their house would be burned to the ground."

From the second video:

"It doesn't have anything about, nothing to do about, umm, them [Muslims]. This is about hurting our community, this is about hurting our kids."

From the article:

"I am prejudice [sic], I just don't like Muslims and I don't want them taking over our neighborhood," said one resident who lives near the mosque. He did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation.
"I don't want someone coming to my house and burning it down."

"I don't have a problem with it being a place of faith I have a problem with it being a cemetery."

I pull these comments out with reason; I want to show how ridiculous the claim is that people are upset about re-zoning. There are so many offensive comments that it's hard to hear and appreciate them all when watching the videos, but reading them like this forces you to really understand how foul they are. These comments are reflections of ignorant and frightening Islamophobic attitudes that have absolutely nothing to do with zoning issues.

Regarding the cemetery comments - for those who understand why people would be uncomfortable with a cemetery in their neighborhood (which is the usual response I've gotten from people who I've discussed this article with), let me point out that this mosque is not located in a "neighborhood." This house is not in a small subdivision, but rather on a very long highway with a 45 mph speed limit, which runs through two counties and four cities. Still not convinced? Google Maps "Street View" shows that Lawrenceville Highway is a five lane road in front of the mosque. Not exactly a cozy neighborhood street.

If you're already planning a response explaining to me how perhaps these comments really are just people upset about a plot of land being legally zoned as one thing rather than another, I want you to imagine this article being about a church. I want you to imagine a small church wanting to expand and add a cemetery, and I want you to imagine the Muslims in the neighborhood up in arms about it. I want you to imagine Muslims discussing how they "just don't like" Christians, how they're flat out prejudiced against them and unapologetic about it. I want you to imagine them saying how they were afraid that these Christians--these clearly fanatical, backwards, frightening Christians--would come burn down their homes if they found out who they were (because only a fanatical, backwards, frightening people could be capable of such a thing). I want you to imagine a Muslim man telling the camera that these Christians just need to take a "chill pill" and "go through the political system" (as if they weren't already doing so, as if applying for re-zoning isn't exactly that). I want you to imagine a middle-aged Muslim woman telling the camera "this is about hurting our community, this is about hurting our kids."

It's rather awful, isn't it? It's not even awful as much as it is silly. It all sounds pretty silly, because it doesn't make sense. The idea of Christians not abiding by "the political system" doesn't make sense. The idea of Christians as barbarians that are capable of burning down your home doesn't make sense. The image of church-going Christians is not what one imagines when thinking about entities that hurt the community and kids.

Muslims have been so demonized in the U.S. that these statements seem plausible. They don't cause the same sort of visceral reactions you'd find if this were a group of Muslims speaking about Christians, and that's frightening.

There's so much that is so wrong with this story. Maybe the next post should be dedicated to the "reporters" covering their events and their ridiculous tone and language... "Clash of cultures"? Flashing "ANGRY PROTESTS" across the screen while showing only the Muslims? Describing people as "racist" against Muslims?(!) I don't have the emotional energy to dissect these things now though. I just want to say that you should care about this. It's clear from the reporter's comment (and from everything else produced by mainstream U.S. culture) that "Muslim" is, for many, a raced category conflating multiple ethnicities, religions, and nationalities into one identity. If you're a minority in any way there is every possibility that the same kind of dangerous "Other"-ing logic that allows thoughts like these to flourish can be (and probably already is) used against you.

U.S.-sponsored terrorism in Iran

2009-10-20T01:56:00.003-04:00

On Sunday, October 18, U.S.-backed Jundallah terrorists carried out a suicide bombing in the city of Sarbaz, in the Pishin region of Iran's Sistan & Baluchistan province, close to the Pakistani border. At least 42 people were killed and dozens injured, with prominent local figures and tribal leaders, both Sunni and Shi’a, among the victims.¹ Jundallah is linked to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups, yet they enjoy direct support from the U.S.

Jundallah has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was an attempt to sabotage an ongoing “Shiite-Sunni Tribes’ Solidarity Conference.” The province is primarily populated by Sunni Baluchis, who are a religious and ethnic minority in Iran. Baluchis have legitimate grievances with the Iranian state, but militants like Jundallah are using violence to oppose ethno-sectarian reconciliation and to destabilize Iran. Their opposition to reconciliation efforts may be motivated in part by their Salafi ideology, which considers the Shi’a to be apostates or non-Muslims. (For an discussion of how some Salafis have responded to the attacks, see the always excellent Views from the Occident).

Jundallah has been engaging in terrorist activity against Iran since its foundation in 2003. Its most recent attack before this one occurred on May 28, 2009; Jundallah set off a bomb in a Shi’a mosque in Zahedan, also in Sistan & Baluchestan, near the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It killed at least 19 people and injured 60. They followed up by shooting up Ahmadinejad’s election office in Zahedan, injuring at least three. In total, 25 people were killed.

The deputy governor of the province, Jalal Sayah, accused the U.S. of being behind the May attacks, and Iranian officials have now accused the U.S., U.K., Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia of involvement in this latest attack.² The first three have denied involvement and condemned terrorism; at the time of writing, I am unaware of any response from the Saudi government on the subject. The extent to which various foreign states were involved is debatable, but the fact that the U.S. provides direct support to Jundallah has been well documented.³ The U.S. began giving money and weapons to Jundallah as part of its “black ops” program for regime change in Iran, under George W. Bush. Barack Obama’s administration has chosen to continue this program. Furthermore, the U.S. does not recognize Jundallah as a terrorist organization. (Update: it seems that the U.S. is now attempting to cover its tracks. One can only hope that this represents a genuine change of strategy within the Obama adminstration).

Violent separatists are cheered on (and at times supported) by U.S. imperialists, when they operate in a country the U.S. opposes. For example, they condemn Kurdish separatism in Turkey (a close U.S. ally) while supporting it in Iraq. From 1972-1975, the U.S. cynically encouraged Iraqi Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein, only to abandon them after Saddam struck a deal with the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran.⁴ The Kurdish uprising was summarily crushed by the Iraqi state, which deported and massacred tens of thousands of Kurds, using money, intelligence, and even weapons directly supplied by the U.S. The U.S. repeated this tactic numerous times in Iraq over the years. It encouraged Iraqi Kurds and Shi’a to rise up again in 1991 and then abandoned them; subsequently, as many as 100,000 or more people were killed and many more displaced.⁵ It later helped arm Kurdish guerrillas, only to abandon them yet again in 1996.

U.S. support for ethnic separatism is not limited to Iraq, however. In addition to directly supporting Jundallah (which claims not to be separatist), it also supports Kurdish separatists and many other similar groups in Iran. Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) suggested that the U.S. should promote ethnic division in Iran. (She later backtracked when criticized by the NIAC). Others have held a conference promoting this incredibly racist notion of “ein Volk, ein Reich” in Iran, and have drawn up maps of a new, thoroughly Balkanized Middle East including Iran partitioned along ethnic lines.

It boggles my mind to see that this kind of 19th-century European nationalist thinking--which played a crucial ideological role in so many disastrous wars throughout the 20th century, from the Balkan wars to World Wars I and II to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, not to mention the colonial partitioning of much of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere--is being revived. And it frustrates me deeply to see many of the Americans who railed against Bush’s support for terrorism remain silent about (or worse, defend) Obama as he continues his predecessor’s policies. Terrorism is a crime against humanity, whether perpetuated by Abdolmalek Rigi, Osama bin Ladin, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama.

Notes

1. For more, see Jundullah claims responsibility for terror attack and Iran presses Pakistan as terror attack kills 42 from Iran’s Press TV.

2. On the subject of blame, refer to Iran Blames U.S., Britain for Deadly Attack Against Revolutionary Guards and Iran Threats Follow Revolutionary Guards Attacks (RFE/RL), and Iran blames Pakistan for attack and Iran vows response to suicide blast (Al Jazeera).

3. For more sources on U.S. support for Jundallah, start with the relevant Wikipedia article. In particular, see ABC News Exclusive: The Secret War Against Iran, U.S. escalating covert operations against Iran: report (Reuters), Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran (New Yorker), Seymour Hersh: US Training Jundullah and MEK for Bombing Preparation (Iran Coverage), and Rigi’s brother exposes US ties with Jundullah (Press TV).

4. I say “cynically” because, as this article points out, the U.S. was fully aware of the fact that it was taking advantage of the Kurds and had no intention of allowing them to be successful.

5. For more on this, see William Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II (partially readable online).

Lawrence Joseph, "Sand Nigger"

2009-10-09T23:20:00.002-04:00

In the house in Detroit
in a room of shadows
when grandma reads her Arabic newspaper
it is difficult for me to follow her
word by word from right to left
and I do not understand
why she smiles about the Jews
who won't do business in Beirut
"because the Lebanese
are more Jew than Jew,"
or whether to believe her
that if I pray
to the holy card of Our Lady of Lebanon
I will share the miracle.
Lebanon is everywhere
in the house: in the kitchen
of steaming pots, leg of lamb
in the oven, plates of kousa,
hushwee rolled in cabbage,
dishes of olives, tomatoes, onions,
roasted chicken, and sweets;
at the card table in the sunroom
where grandpa teaches me
to wish the dice across the backgammon board
to the number I want;
Lebanon of mountains and sea,
of pine and almond trees,
of cedars in the service
of Solomon, Lebanon
of Babylonians, Phoenicians, Arabs, Turks
and Byzantines, of the one-eyed
monk, saint Maron,
in whose rite I am baptized;
Lebanon of my mother
warning my father not to let
the children hear,
of my brother who hears
and from whose silence
I know there is something
I will never know; Lebanon
of grandpa giving me my first coin
secretly, secretly
holding my face in his hands,
kissing me and promising me
the whole world.
My father's vocal chords bleed;
he shouts too much
at his brother, his partner,
in the grocery store that fails.
I hide money in my drawer, I have
the talent to make myself heard.
I am admonished to learn,
never to dirty my hands
with sawdust and meat.
At dinner, a cousin
describes his niece's head
severed with bullets, in Beirut,
in civil war. "More than
an eye for an eye," he demands,
breaks down, and cries.
My uncle tells me to recognize
my duty, to use my mind,
to bargain, to succeed.
He turns the diamond ring
on his finger, asks if
I know what asbestosis is,
"the lungs become like this,"
he says, holding up a fist;
he is proud to practice
law which "distributes
money to compensate flesh."
outside the house my practice
is not to respond to remarks
about my nose or the color of my skin.
"Sand nigger," I'm called,
and the name fits: I am
the light-skinned nigger
with black eyes and the look
difficult to figure--a look
of indifference, a look to kill--
a Levantine nigger
in the city on the strait
between the great lakes Erie and St. Clair
which has a reputation
for violence, an enthusiastically
bad-tempered sand nigger
who waves his hands, nice enough
to pass, Lebanese enough
to be against his brother,
with his brother against his cousin,
with cousin and brother
against the stranger.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T21:45:00.006-04:00

Perhaps someone can clarify for me: did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize for escalating the war in Afghanistan, or increasing the number of U.S. bombs dropped on Pakistan, or continuing the illegal occupation of Iraq (despite his sweet-sounding lies about leaving Iraq), or for giving nearly $3 billion in military aid to Israel? Maybe for continuing to support dictatorships throughout the world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Jordan and elsewhere?

The Nobel Prize Committee has awarded many Peace Prizes to warmongers and war criminals in the past, such as Henry Kissinger, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin, and Anwar Sadat, so I shouldn't be surprised, but this Obamamania is getting out of control.

"He got the peace prize, and we got the problem." -Malcolm X (on Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize)

October 6: a celebation of Egyptian military chauvinism

2009-10-06T21:42:00.014-04:00

While the Egyptian military establishment marks today as the 36th anniversary of the so-called "victory" of the Yom Kippur War, I am thinking of my Palestinian brothers and sisters suffering in Gaza at the hands of both Israel and its collaborators in Ramallah, Cairo, Riyadh, and Amman.

October 6 is nothing more than a national myth imposed from above by an authoritarian government, used to cover up the unpopular pro-Israel stance of the equally unpopular Egyptian regime. "But don't you remember the Great Victory of 1973?," the regime's loyalists and media mouthpieces ask. "We built bridges out of dust to win back Sinai! At least we're not like Syria, who still hasn't gotten her land back!" I don't have any kind words for any Arab government, pro-US/Israel or not, but at least Syria never signed a peace treaty with a rogue state (unlike the traitor Anwar al-Sadat), subsidized gas to said rogue state at below-market prices, or willingly participated in the strangling of Gaza under the bogus notion of 'national sovereignty'. Sovereignty?! What kind of sovereignty says that Egypt can't open the Rafah border crossing to send in food and medical aid because it violates the Camp David Accords? This is no longer tacit complicity: this is full and outright collaboration.

"We sacrificed enough for the Palestinians!," the regime said during the onslaught last winter. "Why should we do anything else for them?" Undeniably, Egyptian participation in the Arab-Israeli wars caused huge economic and social strains on Egyptian society since 1952... but it was never so much for the Palestinians as much as it was for Egyptian regional supremacy. As far as Egypt's past and present political leaders are concerned, the Palestinians are only rhetorical chess pieces in their desire for political and military hegemony.

If those excuses aren't hollow enough, the regime also tried to divorce Egyptian popular identification with Palestine through xenophobia: "The Palestinians just want to invade our country and steal our food! We're a poor country, and we have no room for them as it is!" If there is any proof that a Palestinian conspiracy caused food prices to raise last year because of the Egyptian government's decision to slash subsidies, let's see it. Mubarak, like his precedessor Sadat, has done everything to suppress poor and working-class Egyptians, as well as allow state-provided social services to deteriorate. This is the sly tactic of the Egyptian regime: hijacking the Palestinian issue as empty rhetoric to justify suppressing its own citizens, while cultivating an anti-Palestinian reactionary attitude among ordinary Egyptians who would otherwise be sympathetic.

Today, my mind is on those who are caught between the pressures of US/Israeli imperialism and their regional stooges, Egyptian and Palestinian alike. The struggle for a democratic Egypt is intrinsically tied to the struggle for a free Palestine, and no amount of decorations on the old dictator's military jacket prove his commitment to either.

Note: Edited on 10/7/09 with a few links.

On being a light-skinned Arab

2009-10-05T01:58:00.008-04:00

I.

People from the Northern United States are arrogant and in denial about their racism. "We're not like the South," they say. "We never lynched black people, and we never had Jim Crow laws. We're can't be racist!" Really? How were the suburbs created? What about the lynch mobs that came after anyone brown-skinned following the Iranian hostage crisis, the first Gulf War, and 9/11? What about the pseudo-intellectual, racist trash the New York Times regularly publishes about Muslims, aimed at the so-called educated classes in this country? Just because you aren't an in-your-face, Glenn Beck-discipled, confederate flag-waving redneck (and by the way, there are plenty of those in the North) doesn't mean you can't be a racist as well. Beneath its facade of cultural tolerance, the toxicity of Northern racism is its clandestine process of uprooting, whitening, and fostering self-hatred among people of color.

II.

When I was a freshman in high school, a Sindhi classmate referred to me as "brown". She probably meant it as something positive, a way of saying we probably share similar experiences. I didn't care; I was offended. In my mind at the time, the only thing worse than being called Arab was being likened to Indian. That was the lowest of the low... after all, I was white!

***

"Don't worry mom," the white guy I dated assured his mother. "She's not an Arab. She's not one of those sand niggers."

As much as I tried to whitewash myself, I knew I couldn't deny the obvious. "Hey, uhh.." I'm out of articulate words. Something about those words didn't sound right, but what else could I do? Showing my offense would mean admitting I am not really a white person, but actually one of those sand niggers.

"But you're not, right? Didn't you tell me you were Irish and Italian? And, Turkish or something because of your name, right?"

Had my skin been a little darker, I'm not sure if I would have been able to get away with that. I timidly mumble something about my parents being from Egypt. Of course, I stopped short of admitting that both my parents are Arabs, because that would just be too self-incriminating for my whitewashed 15-year old self.

"Oh, well you're not like them."

III.

"Oh, that's your daughter?"

Yes, I'm her daughter. I'm sorry you don't believe we're related because her skin is darker than mine -- and before you ask, no, I am not adopted, nor is my father white.

My mother has been a victim of colorism her entire life. She's learned to move past it, but there are still days when she looks in the mirror and laments, "Why do I have to be so dark and ugly?" Sometimes she'll hint it in less subtle ways, like how I must ensure my future children's skin won't be too dark so they can fit in in this country.

Even when I thought I was white, I never liked hearing these comments. Nobody wants to be put up on a pedestal like that.

***

Egyptians often don't believe that I am one of them; it's the skin (though I'm sure if I veiled, no one would second guess me). Whenever I go back with my mother, they assume she's married to a foreigner. When I was there without either of my parents this summer, it was even more difficult. I'd get every guess in the world before I got Egyptian. I must be French, right? Oh, nevermind, turns out I am Arab. Tunisian? Lebanese? Is my father American?

It's a subtle way of saying, "You're not really from here."

IV.

I never understood why certain teachers hated me, why people do a double-take when they see whose face my name is associated with, or the curious glances people shoot when I am with my mother at the supermarket. My skin isn't pasty, but it's light enough to have me "pass" as an ethnic white. Still, there was something about my long nose and bushy eyebrows that didn't satisfy others when I pretended to be white.

My light skin has made me both a recipient of white privilege and anti-Arab racism. Most of the privilege I received was at the expense of experiencing racist sentiment, because the other party in question figured it was 'okay' to say these things around me.

This is Northern racism: you never realize it's racism until it's too late to confront.

Ella Shohat, "Reflections by an Arab Jew"

2009-10-05T00:45:00.006-04:00

Behind the cut is a great article by the brilliant Iraqi-Jewish-Israeli scholar, Ella Shohat. While I'm at it, I recommend checking out the documentary Forget Baghdad, which discusses the experiences of Iraqi Jewish exiles living in Israel (not by their own choices) and their reflections on home, identity, and language. Shohat, along with four former members of the Iraqi Communist Party, are interviewed. One interviewee, the writer Sami Michael, reminisced on the pressure to assimilate and suppress his native tongue for Hebrew. Yet, Arabic kept reappearing in his dreams: "It was the revenge of the Arabic language!"

The experiences of Arabs in Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, are often left out of the standard Israel-Palestine discourse. The discrimination Mizrahi Jews face, like their Palestinian bretheren, is a testament to the racist nature of the state of Israel.

When issues of racial and colonial discourse are discussed in the U.S., people of Middle Eastern and North African origin are often excluded. This piece is written with the intent of opening up the multicultural debate, going beyond the U.S. census's simplistic categorization of Middle Eastern peoples as "whites."

It's also written with the intent of multiculturalizing American notions of Jewishness. My personal narrative questions the Eurocentric opposition of Arab and Jew, particularly the denial of Arab Jewish (Sephardic) voices both in the Middle Eastern and American contexts.

I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S. Most members of my family were born and raised in Baghdad, and now live in Iraq, Israel, the U.S., England, and Holland. When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the '50s, she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so differently--the European Jews--were actually European Christians. Jewishness for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in Arabic, had to be taught to speak of "us" as Jews and "them" as Arabs. For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been "Muslim," "Jew," and "Christian," not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that "Arabness" referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences.

Americans are often amazed to discover the existentially nauseating or charmingly exotic possibilities of such a syncretic identity. I recall a well-established colleague who despite my elaborate lessons on the history of Arab Jews, still had trouble understanding that I was not a tragic anomaly--for instance, the daughter of an Arab (Palestinian) and an Israeli (European Jew). Living in North America makes it even more difficult to communicate that we are Jews and yet entitled to our Middle Eastern difference. And that we are Arabs and yet entitled to our religious difference, like Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.

It was precisely the policing of cultural borders in Israel that led some of us to escape into the metropolises of syncretic identities. Yet, in an American context, we face again a hegemony that allows us to narrate a single Jewish memory, i.e., a European one. For those of us who don't hide our Middle Easterness under one Jewish "we," it becomes tougher and tougher to exist in an American context hostile to the very notion of Easterness.

As an Arab Jew, I am often obliged to explain the "mysteries" of this oxymoronic entity. That we have spoken Arabic, not Yiddish; that for millennia our cultural creativity, secular and religious, had been largely articulated in Arabic (Maimonides being one of the few intellectuals to "make it" into the consciousness of the West); and that even the most religious of our communities in the Middle East and North Africa never expressed themselves in Yiddish-accented Hebrew prayers, nor did they practice liturgical-gestural norms and sartorial codes favoring the dark colors of centuries-ago Poland. Middle Eastern women similarly never wore wigs; their hair covers, if worn, consisted of different variations on regional clothing (and in the wake of British and French imperialism, many wore Western-style clothes). If you go to our synagogues, even in New York, Montreal, Paris or London, you'll be amazed to hear the winding quarter tones of our music which the uninitiated might imagine to be coming from a mosque.

Now that the three cultural topographies that compose my ruptured and dislocated history--Iraq, Israel and the U.S.--have been involved in a war, it is crucial to say that we exist. Some of us refuse to dissolve so as to facilitate "neat" national and ethnic divisions. My anxiety and pain during the Scud attacks on Israel, where some of my family lives, did not cancel out my fear and anguish for the victims of the bombardment of Iraq, where I also have relatives.

War, however, is the friend of binarisms, leaving little place for complex identities. The Gulf War, for example, intensified a pressure already familiar to the Arab Jewish diaspora in the wake of the Israeli-Arab conflict: a pressure to choose between being a Jew and being an Arab. For our families, who have lived in Mesopotamia since at least the Babylonian exile, who have been Arabized for millennia, and who were abruptly dislodged to Israel 45 years ago, to be suddenly forced to assume a homogenous European Jewish identity based on experiences in Russia, Poland and Germany, was an exercise in self devastation. To be a European or American Jew has hardly been perceived as a contradiction, but to be an Arab Jew has been seen as a kind of logical paradox, even an ontological subversion. This binarism has led many Oriental Jews (our name in Israel referring to our common Asian and African countries of origin is Mizrahi or Mizrachi) to a profound and visceral schizophrenia, since for the first time in our history Arabness and Jewishness have been imposed as antonyms.

Intellectual discourse in the West highlights a Judeo-Christian tradition, yet rarely acknowledges the Judeo-Muslim culture of the Middle East, of North Africa, or of pre-Expulsion Spain (1492) and of the European parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish experience in the Muslim world has often been portrayed as an unending nightmare of oppression and humiliation.

Although I in no way want to idealize that experience--there were occasional tensions, discriminations, even violence--on the whole, we lived quite comfortably within Muslim societies.

Our history simply cannot be discussed in European Jewish terminology. As Iraqi Jews, while retaining a communal identity, we were generally well integrated and indigenous to the country, forming an inseparable part of its social and cultural life. Thoroughly Arabized, we used Arabic even in hymns and religious ceremonies. The liberal and secular trends of the 20th century engendered an even stronger association of Iraqi Jews and Arab culture, which brought Jews into an extremely active arena in public and cultural life. Prominent Jewish writers, poets and scholars played a vital role in Arab culture, distinguishing themselves in Arabic speaking theater, in music, as singers, composers, and players of traditional instruments.

In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the '40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua--higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)

The same historical process that dispossessed Palestinians of their property, lands and national-political rights, was linked to the dispossession of Middle Eastern and North African Jews of their property, lands, and rootedness in Muslim countries. As refugees, or mass immigrants (depending on one's political perspective), we were forced to leave everything behind and give up our Iraqi passports. The same process also affected our uprootedness or ambiguous positioning within Israel itself, where we have been systematically discriminated against by institutions that deployed their energies and material to the consistent advantage of European Jews and to the consistent disadvantage of Oriental Jews. Even our physiognomies betray us, leading to internalized colonialism or physical misperception. Sephardic Oriental women often dye their dark hair blond, while the men have more than once been arrested or beaten when mistaken for Palestinians. What for Ashkenazi immigrants from Russian and Poland was a social aliya (literally "ascent") was for Oriental Sephardic Jews a yerida ("descent").

Stripped of our history, we have been forced by our no-exit situation to repress our collective nostalgia, at least within the public sphere. The pervasive notion of "one people" reunited in their ancient homeland actively disauthorizes any affectionate memory of life before Israel. We have never been allowed to mourn a trauma that the images of Iraq's destruction only intensified and crystallized for some of us. Our cultural creativity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is hardly studied in Israeli schools, and it is becoming difficult to convince our children that we actually did exist there, and that some of us are still there in Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Iran.

Western media much prefer the spectacle of the triumphant progress of Western technology to the survival of the peoples and cultures of the Middle East. The case of Arab Jews is just one of many elisions. From the outside, there is little sense of our community, and even less sense of the diversity of our political perspectives. Oriental-Sephardic peace movements, from the Black Panthers of the '70s to the new Keshet (a "Rainbow" coalition of Mizrahi groups in Israel) not only call for a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians, but also for the cultural, political, and economic integration of Israel/Palestine into the Middle East. And thus an end to the binarisms of war, an end to a simplistic charting of Middle Eastern identities.

Cooperating with the enemy

2009-09-25T12:10:00.001-04:00

Shame on every one of these greedy, spineless traitors who sell out the Palestinian people and break the boycott for a buck.

The article describes Egypt as “un pays qui refuse toujours la ‘normalisation’ avec Israël” (a country that still refuses ‘normalization’ with Israel) but makes no mention of the fact that the Egyptian dictatorship, propped up by the U.S., made peace with Israel 30 years ago and that the Israeli occupation of Gaza could not continue without Egypt’s help. One of the traitors cannot even tell his Israeli clients his real name (Ahmed) without being insulted. He defends himself by saying that “le Prophète a dit qu’il faut connaître la langue de son ennemi” (the Prophet said that it is necessary to know the language of the enemy). Does he know that the Qur’an says, multiple times, not to befriend people who hate you and fight against you? For example:

Qur’an 60:9 – “God only forbids you to turn in friendship towards such as [those who] fight against you because of [your] faith, and drive you forth from your homelands, or aid [others] in driving you forth: and as for those [from among you] who turn towards them in friendship; it is they, they who are truly wrongdoers!” (Muhammad Asad translation)

The article ends with the stupidest line of all: “Mais pour les jeunes, qui n’ont connu que la paix, l’Iran est aujourd’hui davantage une menace pour l’Egypte qu'Israël” (But for the youth, who have known nothing but peace, Iran is now more a threat for Egypt than Israel). According to this 2007 poll, 86% of Egyptians consider Israel to be the biggest threat to Egypt, while only 27% of Egyptians consider Iran the biggest threat (p. 51). Israel, not Iran, has gone to war with Egypt, and Israel, not Iran, has occupied Egyptian territory in the past. Since 2007, official relations between Iran and Egypt have been improving. I truly doubt the number of young Egyptians who consider Iran a greater threat than Israel; many Egyptian youth sympathize with Palestine and participate in Palestinian solidarity activism, and Ahmadinejad is reportedly popular in Egypt because he is perceived to do what Mubarak won’t: stand up to Israel.

What international community?

2009-09-24T03:35:00.005-04:00

In his latest article (about post-election Iran and its nuclear energy program) professor Juan Cole says “Having damaged their legitimacy at home with a stolen election, which is still being actively protested in the streets months later, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are thumbing their noses at the international community.” The question is: what “international community” is Dr. Cole talking about? As of this time:

21 nations have publicly criticized Iran after the 2009 elections: Australia, Bermuda, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

26 nations have publicly congratulated Ahmadinejad after the elections: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brazil, Belarus, China, Iraq, Kuwait, Indonesia, Lebanon, Oman, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Qatar, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Yemen.

The remaining 144 members of the United Nations (besides Iran) have not made any public statements about the Iranian elections.

All 118 members of the Non-Aligned Movement have signed a statement declaring support for Iran's nuclear program. At least 7 non-members have also publicly expressed support (Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Turkey), bringing the total to at least 125. It should also be noted this includes every country that shares a land or even water border with Iran - so much for the argument that Iran “threatens its neighbors.”

So the “international community” does not oppose Iran. A very small minority, almost exclusively composed of the European and North American powers, does. This small minority condemns election fraud in Iran while supporting a military coup in Honduras (and elsewhere). It condemns Iran (a signatory of the NNPT) for peacefully and legally pursuing nuclear energy while supporting Israel (not a signatory of the NNPT) and its illegal possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. It condemns flawed democracy in Iran while supporting no democracy in Saudi Arabia (and China and Egypt and elsewhere). I hope Iran remains integrated within the actual international community, and I hope it continues to tell this small minority, that Juan Cole calls the “international community,” that they can go to hell.

Wounded at birth pts. I & II

2009-09-23T04:32:00.005-04:00

I.

You grow up crooked with different pressures on you, like a plant that yearns unevenly towards the light. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” And so you please no one, least of all yourself, and find yourself ground into dust, like pumice between two hard stones.

Wounded at birth, the scar stays forever and sometimes it still throbs and burns. I’m unsure whether to wait for the Moshiach or the Mahdi so I wait for both, and I’m always uncertain. Nothing fits right. My points of reference are all distorted. I think of Stokely Carmichael talking about the feeling of setting foot on the continent for the first time, or the words of a co-worker: “the ones born in diaspora, they don't feel at home anywhere.”

In the end my hands are tied. This problem began not with me, but generations ago, and has gone untreated for decades or centuries. It began with the Pahlavis, or the Qajars, or when a Litvak boy came to Vilnius and changed his last name to a German-sounding one, or when his family came to the U.S. and changed that name again and forgot what it used to be. Maybe it began when my parents defied tradition and married, or when they named me after the conqueror who laid waste to the throne of Jamshid, or when my surname lost its tashdid. Over all these years we retained dark hair and eyes, thick eyebrows and olive skin, but our insides were hollowed out, our tongues broken, our roots severed. “Have you ever seen how wheat rots? From within. The husk remains intact, but it is only a shell, like a cicada's skin left behind on a tree.”

II.

As time passes and I grow older I only feel more torn and less certain. Most people don’t get it. Those that do are the ones who have one foot in each world and are uneasy in both; the ones who stare out from old photographs, and the ones who stare back; the ones who cross thresholds and forever doubt their choices; the ones who spend a lifetime tracing their pain backwards through time and are never satisfied with what they find; the ones who try to remember things their ancestors knew; the ones who never learned to rake their cheeks and pour dirt on their heads, so instead they grieve the only way they know how: weakly, stupidly, quietly.

The Calendar We Live

2009-09-08T21:44:00.006-04:00

through this struggle in the funk of oppression & constant fight
we give our children love
their faces inquisitive with rise-up brows
feet strong & planted
they walk the banks of
rippled erosions
burrowing through
Nile valley terrain
meandering like octopus
swinging tentacles through space

we take the walk beside them
with hopes they will not sail to the other side

displaced in a place we call home-now
1969 was our exodus
fleeing the land of other
the diaspora of promise
wearing the sandals of broken english

& what do I become
in this world where rivers and deserts collide
the deep red sea of generational memories
swishing & spitting pacific images
in this forever-west

bridging the gap of tabla & hip-hop
citrus & hibiscus
I hit the streets of Cairo
kicking up dust
like air-brushed worlds of flat ghosts
eyes blinded by the butcher’s hanging carcass
suspended by metal like a condor wing
punctured by a gnarled branch
somewhere beyond this place

I imagine streets as a village
viable & crop-rich
flowing with silk humanity
eyes fill the alleys
black corneas float in an expanse of muslin
tabla rhythms & shisha smoke
creep from corners

I am somewhere between
home & home

- excerpt from Matthew Shenoda's poem "The Calendar We Live", from Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press, 2005) (can be accessed online here)

Ramadan 2009

2009-08-23T10:47:00.006-04:00

I fly back to the US tomorrow and hope to have some time to reflect and write on Egypt soon. For now, I do want to take the time to wish a happy Ramadan (albeit a day late) to those who observe. Ramadan karim - may it be a blessed month!

Review: Imagining Arab Womanhood

2009-08-17T02:53:00.004-04:00

Imagining Arab Womanhood: The Cultural Mythology of Veils, Harems, and Belly Dancers in the U.S. by Dr. Amira Jarmakani offers analyses of representations of Arab women in the U.S. Dr. Jarmakani dispels popular notions that U.S. engagement with Arab women started suddenly on September 11, 2001 by "excavating" popular representations of Arab women throughout U.S. history. The book first examines the French colonialist contexts in which orientalist imaginings of the harem were expressed through paintings. French orientalist paintings, as contrasted with American ones, display the different relationships each country had with the Middle East. While French paintings imagined the "Orient" as a threatening force, and created sexualized harems to be penetrated by the colonizers (as a result of French proximity and relations with the Ottoman Empire), the U.S. interpreted the Middle East as an unchanged Holy Land. From here Jarmakani discusses the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and its motives to prove America was a nation of progress. As a foil to the "White City" (the pinnacle of progress), other "nations" were presented in order from most to least progressed, with the "Street of Cairo" hosting "Little Egypt" - a (Syrian) woman brought to the U.S. to perform as a belly dancer at the Fair. The written accounts about "Little Egypt" and the other belly dancers at the Fair (as both fascinating and disgusting) are interesting, and provide evidence of U.S. anxieties in relation to female sexuality in general - not Arab female sexuality.

From here the book turns to tobacco advertisements in the early half of the 20th century. The tobacco advertisements were especially interesting for me, and Jarmakani does a mind-boggling job of deconstructing every single aspect of the advertisements. The "harem women" in the advertisements are identical to the French orientalist interpretations of the harem; however, the advertisements display a distinctly American orientalism when considering the sheikh-like figure in Omar ads. The "Terrible Turk" imagining of orientalist France is feminized and repackaged as a foil for American masculinity for Omar cigarettes (and oh, my fellow Iranians, how upset you will be when you read this chapter and realize who the "Omar" character is based on).

The last chapter of the book focuses on contemporary representations of Arab womanhood including Sharbat Gula ("the Afghan Girl" featured on the now famous cover of National Geographic), the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," a Reebok advertisement with a dizzying array of inaccurate Islamic attire and props, and various other confusing and disheartening depictions. The last chapter examines this shift in what the U.S. requires Arab women to be. From the World's Fair which needed to demonstrate American "progress" by positioning it against "primitive" societies, to tobacco advertisements which demonstrate rising U.S. consumerism and expansionism, to the contemporary context (which introduces globalizaion and neoliberalism) where Arab women are still an Other against which to measure the progress of the U.S., but within a new framework which deems them dangerous and foreign threats to national security. Suddenly the veil, which was sheer and erotic in tobacco ads became opaque and oppressive in the contemporary context. This era of neoliberalism also provides representations of Arab womanhood which no longer "[operate] as emblems of nostalgia" but instead "participate in fetishizing nostalgia" (181). What I found most interesting about the latter is how Jarmakani demonstrates how women are no longer even necessary in representations of Arab womanhood - props such as a veil or bangles in Camel cigarette ads are enough to signify who ("what" seems more appropriate here) is being represented.

One thing I really appreciate about the book is that it isn't, and doesn't want to be, a linear history of representations of Arab women (despite what my summary above may imply). Instead, Dr. Jarmakani considers these representations cultural artifacts "that have been created in a particular historical and cultural context, and which have been shaped by the confluence of social, political, and economic exigencies of the specific historical and cultural layer in which they are found" (21). Representations of Arab womanhood have, and continue to be, born out of American anxieties in relation to the Middle East. The way these "different" representations have been created and maintained is fascinating when put in perspective and understood as the result of the intersections of U.S. expansionism and consumerism. Imagining Arab Womanhood, for me, was a discussion of how U.S. culture appropriates its orientalist understanding of Arab womanhood in order to serve its own imperialistic needs.

As Jarmakani herself points, it's useful to remember that in the United States representations of Arab women means representations of all "Middle Eastern" women. Since in the U.S. Arab Turkish, Iranian, Afghan, Pakistani and other North African, Southwest and Central Asian identities have been problematically conflated into one monolithic entity known as "Arab," representations of Arab womanhood have as much to do with Turkish, Iranian, Afghan, and Pakistani women as they do with Arab women. American ideas about "Middle Eastern" women also clearly reveals perceptions about "Middle Eastern" men. So, what I'm trying to say is everyone should read this book, because it's relevant to everyone (it's not necessary for me to give an argument about why this is important for Americans to read, right? I think that's pretty obvious).

I think it goes without saying, but one needs, at the very least, a basic understanding of Edward Said's Orientalism to understand this book. I also think some familiarity with Barthes is really helpful (verging on necessary) in understanding her framework. I don't think I'd have really understood much of the book if I hadn't read Mythologies before, and even so, somewhere halfway into Imagining Arab Womanhood I re-read the "Myth Today" essay in Mythologies to make sure I actually understood terminology like signifier, second order sign system, etc. This is definitely an academic book, and there were plenty of things I didn't get. I re-read it and there are still some things I don't get, but that's what makes a great book. It's a very well researched book, and the bibliography provides enough interesting reading material to last you a while. Imagining Arab Womanhood is definitely a challenging book I will visit again and again, and I am sure each time I do I will be rewarded with another layer of understanding.

Imagining Arab Womanhood is available on Amazon for a discounted $63.89 (list price is $74.95), but this is because it is hardcover. If you're a poor poor poor student like me I realize you can't afford to drop $60.00 on a book, but it will hopefully be out in paperback soon (and thus much cheaper); once it is I will be sure to update this post and let you all know.

Recipes: Koofteh and Maast o Khiar

2009-07-29T00:27:00.011-04:00

Food has always been an important part of my identity. Even when I was younger and felt disconnected from my "Iranian-ness," Iranian food was the only food I craved and enjoyed. As I grew older food became one of the first avenues in which I was able to actively be Iranian. It felt empowering to learn how to cook these foods which had comforted me throughout my childhood, and to not have to rely on American foods which felt, and still feel, foreign. It's satisfying to be able to serve these dishes to the family that raised me on them.

I learned to cook from my family, but I know there are plenty of people who are far away from family, or whose families don't cook a whole lot. Because of this, and because the majority of Iranian recipes I've seen online are poorly written and/or inaccurate, I will periodically post recipes for those interested. I hope everyone enjoys them, but I especially hope Iranians reaching that point where they want to learn to make these foods they grew up eating find these posts helpful.

Below I have posted two recipes: koofteh Tabrizi and maast o khiar.
Koofteh is a traditionally Azeri dish which is now quite common throughout most of Iran, and among other ethnicities. Koofteh is usually some combination of meat and vegetables shaped into a ball and cooked in sauce. There are several kinds of koofteh, but my favorite is koofteh Tabrizi. The Persian version of this dish makes many small (golf-ball size) balls, but the traditional version of the dish calls for much larger balls which are usually stuffed in the center. Koofteh Tabrizi is usually regarded as a difficult dish, but I think it's pretty simple if someone provides detailed and clear instructions.. something I've hopefully done.

Maast (yogurt) o (and) khiar (cucumber) is a very simple dish and is often served alongside main courses during Iranian meals.

Koofteh Tabrizi
4-6 servings

1 lb. ground lamb or beef
1/2 cup white basmati rice (I use Tilda found at most international/Iranian/Arab grocery stores and sometimes even American stores)
1/2 cup lappeh (yellow split peas)
2 eggs
2 cups sabzi* (dried vegetables)
1 hard boiled egg (many substitutions available, see below for details)
1 tablespoon spices (I use "Sabzan's Adviye Kari /کاری ادويه - سبزان" sold in Iran if you're able to purchase it there, but it's essentially a combination of turmeric, red pepper, garlic powder, fenugreek, and cumin which you can mix at home)

6 cups water (or 3 cups water, 3 cups beef broth)
3 onions sliced
3 cloves garlic chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon turmeric
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
roghan Kermanshahi (Iranian ghee. Ghee can be used as a substitute, or just olive oil)

1. Boil lappeh until soft. If you've never done this before know to stay close because it quickly foams and boils over the pot. Lift the lid often, and remove foam as it rises.

2. While lappeh is boiling, boil rice until soft.

3. Mix lappeh, rice, meat, sabzi, raw eggs, and spices very well (until individual components aren't recognizable). If this is your first time making koofteh, it may be easier to mix the lappeh and rice first and mash them together before adding other ingredients. It is crucial to mix all these ingredients well; most of your lappeh should be smashed apart, there shouldn't be any whole grains of rice, and sabzi should be evenly distributed. Form this mixture into a ball by tossing it with a little force from one hand to the other and patting it smooth.

4. Using two or three fingers make a hole reaching the middle of the ball and insert the hard boiled egg. You can also use a fistful of zereshk (barberries), or some aloo khoshk (Persian prunes). Pat the mixture into a ball again to close the hole. Alternate between tossing and patting again for as long as you can; the longer you keep this up the better. I usually do it for about twenty minutes. This eliminates cracks and holes which cause the koofteh to open or fall apart while cooking.

I doubled this recipe today to serve ten. The koofteh on the left is stuffed, free of cracks, and ready to be cooked. On the right are the ingredients before mixing.

5. Saute onions and garlic until brown in roghan Kermanshahi (or oil). Add water (and/or broth), tomato paste, turmeric, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Bring sauce to a boil, then reduce to simmer.

6. Very carefully place your koofteh in the sauce. Ladle sauce over the exposed top half of the koofteh and continue doing this every ten to fifteen minutes. Allow the koofteh to cook on low heat with a lid for at least one hour (I average around one hour and ten/fifteen minutes - this is a good time to make maast o khiar).

7. When your koofteh is done be very careful in lifting it out of the pot. I usually use two spatulas to lift it - make sure to NOT scrape the bottom of the koofteh when positioning the spatula underneath it. Place the koofteh in a large bowl, and then pour the sauce in. Koofteh is traditionally served with sangak (an Iranian bread), but taftoon and lavash also work if sangak is not sold near you. If you don't have access to any kind of Iranian bread serve with pita bread.

Tips:

Koofteh expands as it cooks, make sure you use an adequate sized pot. This recipe yields a ball about six inches high, and 4 - 5 inches at its widest.

Vegans can substitute Lightlife's "Gimme Lean!" in the ground beef style for the meat, and one medium cooked and skinned potato for the raw eggs. I've made vegan koofteh this way many times, and it's great. Use zereshk or aloo instead of the hard boiled egg in the center.

If this is your first time making koofteh, or if you're having trouble forming a ball that sticks together without cracks/holes, you can make two balls instead of one with this recipe.

*I use an even mixture of marze (savory), tarkhoon (tarragon), reyhan (basil), tare (a type of small Persian leek; its unhelpful English name is Allium ampeloprasum ssp. persicum) and chai koohi (an herb not cultivated in the U.S.; English name is Stachys lavandulifolia). Besides chai koohi, all these herbs are easily found in local Iranian grocery stores, and sometimes even Arab and Turkish grocery stores. Basil and tarragon are also, obviously, found in American grocery stores. If you do not have an Iranian grocery store nearby there are many websites (like Sadaf linked to above) which sell sabzi.
As far as I can tell chai koohi isn't available in the U.S., but if you visit Iran, or have family or friends that do, chai koohi (along with all the other herbs listed) are very cheap and easy to find. Also, they're dried herbs, so they're not going to be heavy or take up a lot of room in your suitcase when you come back. When I go to Iran I always bring back this mix of sabzi specifically for koofteh.
There is also pre-mixed "koofteh seasoning" available, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you don't want to order these products online or head to an Iranian store, tarragon and basil are fine alone. I've made koofteh with only tarragon and basil, and although it's not as good, it's still delicious.

Maast o Khiar
4-6 servings

16 oz. yogurt (the thicker the better, "Greek" style works)
1 average size cucumber peeled and diced or grated
1.5 tablespoons dried mint (if using fresh mint chop finely)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Beat yogurt until smooth. (Optional: reserve three or four spoons of yogurt in a separate bowl)

2. Mix in cucumber, mint, salt and pepper.

3. If you saved a little yogurt in step one carefully spread it over the yogurt mix and smooth. Garnish with fresh mint, or spread dried mint in a pattern.

On the left is maast o khiar ready to be served. On the right is maast o khiar before adding a layer of plain yogurt and garnish.

Maast o khiar has endless variations: you can use many different herbs with mint including dill, parsley, tarragon, etc. You can also add a small sliced onion or shallot. Walnuts and raisins are also common garnishes.

Enjoy!

Update on airport harassment

2009-07-26T11:30:00.005-04:00

I arrived back in the United States yesterday, and I hope to write a little soon on what I experienced while in Iran, but for now I wanted to update the airport harassment situation. The short version is I received an apology and a $50.00 voucher off my next flight. I feel entirely unsatisfied. I suppose what I really want is to know how (or if) this man was punished for the comments he made, not a coupon that I won't ever be able to use (I must make my reservation through Delta to use the voucher, and tickets directly from Delta are far more expensive than through my travel agent). For those interested I've posted my original complaint letter and Delta's response below.

My letter:

I am writing to complain about exceptionally hostile, demeaning, and
rude service I received from a Delta employee. On June 9th, 2009 I took
a flight from Atlanta (ATL) to Tehran (IKA; KLM flight 621), with two
stops in New York (JFK; KLM flight 9119 operated by Delta) and Amsterdam
(AMS; KLM flight 6054 operated by Northwest).

When I arrived at the Delta international check-in counter I was
assisted by Mr. Bryan Kelley. Upon seeing my final destination he asked
if I had seen some event on the news the prior night regarding the
then-upcoming presidential election in Iran. I hadn't, and was anxious
to get checked in, but he proceeded to explain the event in detail. He
then asked me if I was going to vote while in Tehran, a question I found
entirely inappropriate and unprofessional, and one I doubt he would have
asked about the presidential election in America. He went on to say that
he hoped I did because he didn't like Ahmadinejad. I told him I didn't
get involved with politics, and was simply going to visit my family.
After this he spent a long time reading his screen, and then told me
there were a lot of restrictions because I was going to Iran and he
wanted to be sure he was properly following procedure. I don’t
doubt there are rules he needed to follow, but this was my third time
flying to Iran in the past year, and I've never spent so long being
checked in before. In fact, when I have flown to other international
destinations, such as Istanbul where I've flown to five times in the
past three years, my check-in time was the same as my flights to Iran.
Finally Mr. Kelley checked my luggage and showed me the tag, and said
that while in Amsterdam I would have to retrieve my bag and check it
again. This has never happened before; my bags have always been checked
all the way to Tehran. When I asked why, Mr. Kelley said that because
Iran was a “sanctioned country,” he was not allowed to check
my bag to Tehran. I asked when this changed, because Iran has been a
sanctioned country since 1979, but I've never had a problem checking my
bags before. He said these rules change "all the time," and when I
explained that just six months ago my bags were checked to Tehran, he
offered to "find out" whether or not this was possible. I agreed,
although by this time I was very worried about making my flight on time.
First he left for about five minutes. Then he came back and got on the
phone, and when he reached someone and explained the situation I can
only assume the person on the other end said that indeed he was able to
check my bag, because Mr. Kelley's response was "but Iran is a
sanctioned country, we're not allowed to have economic transactions with
them." He was then put on hold, the entire time not explaining anything
to me. After watching the clock and having fifteen minutes go by with
Mr. Kelley on hold, and without being offered any explanation or
apology, I politely asked if in Mr. Kelley's opinion I would make my
flight, because by this time it was 8:30 A.M., and my flight was at
9:37. He didn't respond at first, but then he looked up and said "What
do you want me to do about it?" in an entirely uncalled-for, angry tone.
I was too intimidated to respond. A few minutes later someone told Mr.
Kelley that he could check my bags, so he hung up and grumbled "Tehran
it is," and then changed the ticket on my luggage. He finished by saying
that maybe if we voted Ahmadinejad out I wouldn't have so much trouble
at the airport anymore. I was so upset and exhausted by the entire
ordeal, and especially by his last comment, that it didn't occur to me
until I began to walk away that he didn't give me my ticket for Tehran.
When I turned around to ask about my ticket to Tehran, which again I
have always gotten at my initial check-in in Atlanta, he told me to get
it in Amsterdam. I was so frightened by Mr. Kelley's hostile attitude,
and worried about missing my flight given how long this whole process
took, that I didn't bother asking about it and walked away.

I never expected to receive such negative and demeaning treatment
while checking in, least of all by someone working for an airline I just
paid over $1200 for a flight, and from whom I regularly (at least twice
a year) purchase international flights. The experience made me
incredibly uncomfortable about flying in general, and specifically with
Delta again.

Delta's response:

Dear Ms. ******,

Thank you for sharing concerns regarding your recent trip to Iran. On
behalf of everyone at Delta Air Lines and our SkyTeam partner, KLM, I
sincerely apologize for the difficulties you encountered due to our lack
of customer service on June 09.

We appreciate your comments regarding the unsatisfactory customer
service you encountered. After reading your remarks, I certainly
understand why you wanted to bring this matter to our attention. I am
sorry that in this instance you did not receive the service you expected
and should have received from one of our airport representatives, as we
expect our employees to be helpful and professional at all times. We
will make every effort to prevent anything similar from happening again.
Please know I will be sharing your comments with our Airport Customer
Service leadership team for internal follow up.

As a gesture of apology for the inconvenience caused to you due to our
lack of customer service, I have issued an Electronic Transportation
Credit (ETCV) in the amount of $50.00. Please note the voucher number
and associated Terms and Conditions will be arriving in a separate
email. Please keep the Terms and Conditions, since the ETCV number is
required for redemption. The ETCV can be used online at www.delta.com
or when booking directly through one of our Reservations offices.

Ms. ******, I want to thank you, again, for taking the time to bring
this disappointing experience to our attention. As a valued SkyMiles
member, you are an integral part of our customer base and we are always
interested in your feedback. Your business is important to us and we
look forward to providing you our world class service on Delta in the
future

Sincerely,

Peter P. Kite
Coordinator
Customer Care

Keywords used to find this blog

2009-07-25T04:07:00.045-04:00

(Last updated May 5, 2010) These are all actual keywords that people have searched for and wound up here. These only go back to mid-July 2009; before that, I didn't bother keeping track. This post will be updated periodically as I check the logs and find more absurd search terms.

People actually searched for:

ARE JEWISH MEN PERVERTS
westerners are perverts
Middle Eastern men penis
what color do you call arabic people brown
why are brown people perverts
arab men are perverts
white guys are perverts
turkish perverts
why muslim women hates christian women
are palestinians usually light or dark skinned
muslim women with white men
why are eastern european men perverted
turkish men are perverts
western perverts in asia
pervert women whit men
sand nigger
are arabs brown
why are perverts hated
"arabs love] white"
is that true people do sex in end of Sham-e-Ghariban?
iranians hate islam
does eating pistachios make me a terrorist?
likelihood of child being white if father is arab
brown guys are pervs
moeslim turkey happy bikini beach
white muslim male arab women
persian perverts
white male brown woman
brown muslim penis pics
turkish men are perverts
"i hate turkish"
arab guys are perverts
why i don't like muslims
do egyptian women like white men
is is racist to say i don't like muslims?
are all males perverts
so many perverts + muslim
i dont like muslims
turkish men are perverts
middle eastern people are perverts
how to show you don't like muslims
can middle eastern people be light skinned
fell in love with a muslim+hate it
i hate being a muslim woman
ARABS ARE SHIT
what is a sand nigger
arabs love white women
south asian perverts
so many perverts in istanbul
many white women forced to be islam
Cheerleaders anti islamic
WESTERN MEN ARE PERVERTS
sikh men and white women
i hate turkish men!
why are turkish men such perverts
" why Turkish men love white women"
red tube muslim women
woman veil sucks penis
I hate middle eastern men
north african perverts
muslim men white women
are turkish men perverts
why are brown guys hated
hate white males
male male perverts
muslim men perverts
the route to the pyramids in egypt sucks
i hate muslim women wear
are turkish men perverts
do women hate brown guys
arab egypt talk and suck
are turkish bloke perverts
FULLY VEILED
white women muslim men
Why are Middle Eastern men perverts?
MALE PERVERTS
orthodox jew perverts
are iranians of the brown race
egyptian women hate white guys
muslim women hate white men
perverts in turkey
I hate Muslim veil
dominant muslim male submissive hindu
muslim women want white men

Iran and “Anti-Imperialism”

2009-07-24T09:57:00.007-04:00

We Brown Folks have not managed to update the blog in a while because t. is in Iran, Hoda is in Egypt, I am in Armenia, and we all have a lot going on at the moment. However, I wanted to break the silence to share a couple of quotes I came across that feel particularly relevant right now. The first is from Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland’s Present by Norman Davies:

As always happens in a major international event, the Polish Crisis has produced its crop of instant experts who previously paid no attention to Poland’s affairs, and whose awareness of events before 1980 (or at the most 1970 or 1968) leaves much to be desired. ... After a two-year barrage of media coverage, Western opinion was indeed made aware that there was more at stake in Poland than the price of meat or the mistakes of a corrupt, totalitarian regime. But few people in the outside world had the means to look beneath the surface, and to glimpse the depth and antiquity of the issues involved. (Davies 2001: vii-viii)

A good friend of mine recently gave me this book, and on the very first page, in the preface to the first edition, I was struck by the above quote. Despite having been written in 1983 about Poland, it may as well have been written in 2009 about Iran. Indeed, Hamid Dabashi makes the same point in his most recent article. I thought he completely missed the point with regards to As’ad AbuKhalil, who refutes the unfair attack against him here, but aside from that Dabashi was right on in his criticism of reactionary segments of the Left. (For another critique of the Left on Iran, albeit also problematic, see here. Žižek's ridiculous and completely ignorant essay on the same subject is not even worth linking to, let alone commenting on.)

Some leftists have written excellent commentary on the events in Iran, but unfortunately many others have written what basically amounts to cheerleading the Iranian state as it brutally crushes dissent. The cheerleaders describe themselves as “anti-imperialists” and can be divided into two camps, secular and religious.

On the secular side, there are those whose approach can be described as “Stalinism without a Stalinist state.” As Stalinists opposed Poland’s Solidarność movement because they feared it would help Western capitalists undermine the Polish People’s Republic, today these reactionaries oppose the protests because they fear they will weaken Iran in the face of imperialist aggression. I understand this position very well because it is not so different from my own. For years, I have put my own issues with the Islamic Republic of Iran aside and defended my country against its detractors, particularly those who are ill-informed and/or apply double standards to Iran. However, those who wish to stand in solidarity with Iran should recognize that just as Iranians have a right to self-determination without foreign interference, they have also have right to struggle against domestic repression. Some of these “anti-imperialists” deride the protesters as somehow inauthentic, claiming that “true Iranians” support the regime. Their notion of what constitutes a “true Iranian” is essentialist and Orientalist, often straight out of a Bernard Lewis fantasy: “real” Iranians are poor, devout Shi’a who shun Western ways, believe in the values of the “Islamic revolution,” and hail Ahmadinejad as their populist savior. This is not only grossly inaccurate (one of Ahmadinejad’s strongest bases of support is the bazaari class, and many of his supporters sport designer jeans and sunglasses), it also reinscribes the utterly false divisions created by Western media coverage of the elections. The Western media likes to portray the Iranian opposition as secular, pro-Western, middle class, fashionable, English-speaking, Twitter-using youth, and the “anti-imperialists” decry the protesters as a bunch of wealthy North Tehran brats who want to foment a “Cedar/color revolution” in Iran. However, the truth is that both the opposition as well as Ahmadinejad’s supporters are incredibly diverse groups of people: both have members of all ages, religious and political orientations, ethnic and class backgrounds, etc. This fact has largely been ignored both by the Western media and by these “anti-imperialists.” The protesters should not be castigated just because of how they’ve been portrayed by the Western media, and the so-called leftists should know better than to take such portrayals at face value. (As a side note, I wish everyone, mainstream journalists and leftist bloggers alike, would stop discussing the clothing of Iranian protesters, counterprotesters, Mousavi’s wife, and so on. It is mostly irrelevant and not indicative of ideology or background, but Westerners are obsessed with the clothing of “Middle Easterners,” especially that of women.)

A subsection of the secular “anti-imperialist” camp are people, typically young Western men, who idolize Ahmadinejad for standing up to the West. Sometimes members of this subsection are anti-Semites who think Ahmadinejad is challenging the “Jewish World Order” or whatever, which is extra creepy - I have seen comments to this effect online and even heard them in person. These “angry white men” (I hope my specific meaning here is understood) eat up Ahmadinejad's populist and Third Worldist rhetoric without knowing much about his actual policies, which are in fact far from populist - see here and here. His Third Worldism is just as empty, and is really about distracting Iranians from domestic problems by playing up issues in Palestine, while securing Iranian dominance over markets such as reconstruction in southern Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere, and maintaining influence over the region. If he were truly an anti-imperialist, he would not have collaborated with the occupying forces and their puppet governments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second camp is the religious “anti-imperialists,” who tend to be even more obnoxious and distasteful than their secular counterparts. This group is made up almost entirely of non-Iranian Shi’a who fetishize the Islamic Republic from abroad, without having to endure the consequences of living under it. (I have a favorite Persian expression for these people: کاسه‌ داغتر از آش, the pot is hotter than the soup, ie. holier than the Pope). They disguise their blind support for the Islamic Republic of Iran by labelling themselves “anti-imperialists” or “revolutionary Muslims” yet they are motivated not by anti-imperialism, but by a dogmatic, uncritical, unconditional support for the IRI. If Khamenei announced that Iran was going to forcibly take over the Afghan government and subject Afghanistan to rule from Tehran (or Qom), I am quite sure that these “anti-imperialists” would applaud the decision and declare it “anti-imperialist” in nature. I believe the secular “anti-imperialists” mostly have good intentions but are misguided and take their “solidarity” to an absurd and damaging extreme, but the religious ones are disingenuous, and their insincere “anti-imperialism” is little more than camoflauge, just as Ahmadinejad’s phony “populism” amounts to little more than handing out sacks of potatoes while privatizing Iran’s economy. These reactionaries do not support the Iranian government because it is anti-imperialist; they support the Iranian government, ipso facto, whether it is anti-imperialist or not. It is only because Iran has developed strong ties with Venezuela and Bolivia that they care about Chávez and Morales, otherwise they wouldn’t care at all about Latin American anti-imperialism.

The uncritical support of these non-Iranian Shi’a for the Islamic Republic of Iran can be understood logically. Let us take Pakistan for example, as a great number of the so-called “revolutionary Muslims” seem to be Pakistani Shi’a. The ‘Islamization’ (if we can even call it that) of the Pakistani state that took place under Zia-ul-Haq and continued afterwards was the one of the biggest factors in creating reactionary tendencies amongst Pakistani Muslims. Some Sunnis bought into the poisonous takfiri Deobandism espoused by the state, and this led them to persecute Pakistani Shi’a even more harshly. Repression continued in following years as Saudi Arabia attempted to export Salafism to Pakistan, and I think those Pakistanis who are so dedicated to the IRI are coming from a defensive position of being persecuted. Across the border is a state where, instead of facing violent reprisals, Shi’a are in charge. So it’s easy to imagine why some Pakistani Shi’a (for example) might have a hard time being critical of the IRI - doubly so for those who choose Khamenei as their marja’. However, I believe that even on a purely religious level they are reactionary. Consider the words of Dr. Ali Shariati:

Shi’ites do not accept the path chosen by history. They deny the leaders who ruled the Muslims throughout history and deceived the majority of the people through their succession to the Prophet, and then by their supposed support of Islam and fight against paganism. Shi’ites turn their backs on the opulent mosques and magnificent palaces of the Caliphs of Islam and turn to the lonely, mud house of Fatima. Shi’ites, who represent the oppressed, justice-seeking class in the Caliphate system, find in this house whatever and whoever they have been seeking. (Red Shi’ism vs. Black Shi’ism)

I think if Shariati were alive today he would declare the Iranian regime to be the very embodiment of the “Safavid” or “Black” Shi’ism he criticized. Islam, like socialism, can be a liberating force, or it can be perverted and manipulated into an oppressive one (no one would deny that the Saudi regime’s version of “Islam” is oppressive to all). If people are to use Islam to liberate themselves, then it must be Shariati’s “’Alavi Shi’ism,” Islam from below, an Islam that recognizes God and Truth and Justice as authority, and not would-be Caliphs like Khamenei. In the final analysis, the Islamic Republic has done much to push Iranian Muslims away from Islam; I cannot count the number of Iranians I know who were born Muslims and became avowed atheists out of disgust with the IRI. According to Shariati, when an oppressive state justifies its rule through religion, it is the duty of the believers to follow the model of Imam Husayn and resist it.

There is one more quote I read recently that speaks to how I feel, as an Iranian and a leftist and anti-imperialist, about these reactionaries who are our supposed allies. It’s from آرش کمانگیر (Arash the Archer) by Bahram Beyzaie, which is a re-telling of a story from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Arash is standing atop the Alborz mountains at a time of great self-doubt, and his shadow says to him:

«همه کس به تو پشت کرده‌اند آرش، تو تنهایی.»
آرش می‌خروشد: «من بیزارم.»
«از دشمن؟»
و این فریاد می‌کند: «و بیشتر از دوست...»
“Everyone has turned their backs to you Arash, you are alone.”
Arash roars: “I’m disgusted!”
“With your enemies?”
And he yells: “And more with my friends!” (ادبیّات حماسی p. 53)

Update from t.

2009-06-26T12:15:00.001-04:00

t., one of the members of this blog, sent me an update from Iran yesterday. She is fine, and anxious to write about her perspective on things from inside Iran, but can't get online. Hopefully soon she will get Internet access and share her views here.

In an unrelated development, it seems that this poem has become even more timely, now that some Iranians such as Mohsen Makhmalbaf have referred to tonight's mourning for those killed in Iran as "Sham-e Ghariban." (Translation forthcoming)

Poem for those murdered in Iran

2009-06-26T02:00:00.009-04:00

I have mentioned before that black nationalist literature was very influential on me when I first started to question my identity. The most important thing I took from Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, and all the others I read, was to love my people. Malcolm would write of numbers runners and say, look at how creative my people are. If only we weren't forced into ghettos, we could put more of that creativity towards something positive. Stokely would write of those who tried to imitate the whites, and his anger was not with his people for turning away from their roots, but with the oppressors who defined whiteness as beautiful and blackness as ugly. These men had nothing but love for their people, even for those who couldn't even love themselves.

I tried to keep all that in mind as I attended a vigil in Atlanta last night for Neda Agha Soltan and all the others who have been killed at protests in Iran. I was deeply saddened by the violence in Iran, and the petty and childish infighting amongst Iranians at the vigil did little to make me feel better or remind me of why I love my people. I brought with me a poem by Makhdoom Mohiuddin, which I had translated into Persian (with the help of some friends), that expressed why Neda's murder affected us as it did. At least for the minute that I stood up on a park bench and read the poem before the crowd, everyone put their arguments aside and listened. Below is the poem in Persian, English, and Urdu, followed by my notes on its contents and translation.

فارسی

این قتل قتل یک نفر تنها که نیست
این قتل حق و مساوات و شریفیست
این قتل علم و حکمت و مردمیست
این قتل حلم و مروت و خاکساریست
این قتل غمگساری مظلومان است
این قتل یک، دو نفس نیست، قتل هزار است
قتل خدا، قتل شاهکار قدرت است
این شام شام غریبان است، صبح صبح حنین
این قتل قتل مسیح است، این قتل قتل حسین

Persian (transliterated)

in qatl qatl-e yek nafar tanhaa ke nist
in qatl-e haqq o mosaavaat o sharifist
in qatl-e elm o hekmat o mardomist
in qatl-e helm o morovvat o khaaksaarist
in qatl-e ghamgosaari-e mazlumaan ast
in qatl-e yek, do nafs nist, qatl-e hezaar ast
qatl-e khodaa, qatl-e shaahkaar-e qodrat ast
in shaam shaam-e gharibaan ast, sobh sobh-e honeyn
in qatl qatl-e masih ast, in qatl qatl-e hoseyn

English (translated from the Persian, not the original Urdu)

This murder is not the murder of any one person
This is the murder of truth, of equality, of decency
This is the murder of knowledge, of wisdom, of humanity
This is the murder of tolerance, of mercy, of humility
This is the murder of sympathy with the oppressed
This is the murder of not one or two souls, it's the murder of a thousand
This is the murder of God, the murder of the masterpiece of providence
This evening is the evening of desolation¹, this morning the morning of Hunayn²
This murder is the murder of Christ, this murder is the murder of Husayn³

1. Literally "the evening of the poor," it refers to the ritual mourning of Husayn on the 10th of Muharram.
2. The Battle of Hunayn was one of the early battles in the history of Islam, in which the Muslim troops suffered great losses when ambushed in the morning.
3. Husayn, grandson of Muhammad, was unjustly killed during the Battle of Karbala.

اردو

یہ قتل قتل کسی ایک آدمی کا نہیں
یہ قتل حق کا مساوات کا شرافت کا
یہ قتل عِلم کا حِکمت کا آدمیت کا
یہ قتل حِلم و مُروّت کا خاکساری کا
یہ قتل ظلم رسیدوں کی غم گساری کا
یہ قتل ایک کا دو کا نہیں، ہزار کا ہے
خدا کا قتل ہے قدرت کے شاہ کار کا قتل
یہ شام شامِ غریباں، ہے صبح صبح حُنین
یہ قتل قتلِ مسیحا یہ قتل قتلِ حُسین

Urdu (transliterated)

yeh qatl qatl kissi ek aadmi ka nahiN
yeh qatl haq ka musaawaat ka sharaafat ka
yeh qatl ilm ka hikmat ka aadmiyat ka
yeh qatl hilm-o-murawwat ka khaaksaari ka
yeh qatl zulm rasidoN ka gham gusaari ka
yeh qatl ek ka do ka nahiN, hazaar ka hai
khuda ka qatl hai qudrat ke shaahkaar ka qatl
yeh shaam shaam-e-gharibaan hai subh subh-e-hunayn
yeh qatl qatl-e-masiha yeh qatl qatl-e-husayn

Notes

The poem was originally written in Urdu by Makhdoom Mohiuddin. Noaman Ali translated it into English, and I later translated it into Persian. I tried to reproduce the meter and vocabulary of the original Urdu as closely as possible, while taking as few poetic liberties as I could.

According to Noaman, this is the first of three parts of a poem written upon the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I suspect that Mohiuddin, a communist, made use of religious imagery in this poem because it was powerful and familiar to many of his fellow Hyderabadis, not because he viewed the world in religious terms. It is in this spirit that I have translated this poem. Affected by both the Islamophobia of the Pahlavi regime and the brutal injustices carried out in the name of Islam by the Islamic Republic, many Iranians (especially in diaspora) have come to hold negative views towards anything associated with Islam. However, it cannot be denied that Iranian history and literature have been deeply influenced by Islam for the last 1400 years. The tragedy of Husayn is one that has become imprinted on the Iranian soul, familiar to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The founder of the Baha'i faith declared that he was the return of Imam Husayn; secular revolutionaries during the 1979 revolution used the figurative language of Husayn's martyrdom to describe their own struggle. Therefore, while Neda's death is mourned by Iranians belonging to all religions, or no religion, I nevertheless found this poem to be appropriate. I offer this contextualization to preempt any complaints from secular or non-Muslim Iranians; in the face of these murders, it is an appeal to humanity, not to any one religion.

About Us

2009-06-19T21:58:00.014-04:00

The Ruh of Brown Folks is a collaborative effort between three friends who have grown up in the United States but maintain intimate connections to their homelands. Each of our posts are written individually and do not necessarily reflect the views of the others.

Hoda grew up on the East Coast and has a B.A. in History and Middle Eastern Studies.

Alexander (or Eskandar) is a PhD student in Comparative Literature and has a bachelor's degree in Community Studies. He has written a post about his identity here.

t. is a PhD student in interdisciplinary studies and has an M.A. in Women's Studies and a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and Women's Studies. She has written a post about her identity here.

Iranian rumors

2009-06-19T03:25:00.002-04:00

There are two unsubstantiated rumors currently being circulated by some of the Iranian opposition to Ahmadinejad that I would like to put to rest. Let me preface this by reiterating that I support neither Ahmadinejad nor Mousavi, but I do support the protesters. I think that spreading rumors such as these two damages the credibility of the protest movement. It is simply hypocritical to accuse Ahmadinejad of fraud and then circulate forged letters and false rumors.

The first is a letter, purportedly sent in secret from the Iranian Minister of the Interior to Ayatollah Khamenei, which says the following:

Interior Ministry's letter to the Supreme Leader

Salaam Aleikom.

Regarding your concerns for the 10th presidential elections and due to your orders for Mr Ahmedinejad to be elected President, in this sensitive time, all matters have been organised in such a way that the results of the election will be in line with the revolution and the Islamic system. The following result will be declared to the people and all planning should be put in force to prevent any possible action from the opposition, and all party leaders and election candidates are under intense surveillance. Therefore, for your information only, I am telling you the actual results as follows:

Mirhossein Mousavi: 19,075,623

Mehdi Karroubi: 13,387,104

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 5,698,417

Mohsen Rezai: 38,716

(signed on behalf of the minister)

You can view the original Persian text here.

It should be immediately obvious that this letter is fake, best taken as a joke, yet somehow it has been making the rounds on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other sites as "evidence" of electoral fraud. Despite the letter having been thoroughly debunked (see here and here), the imminently naïve Robert Fisk cluelessly wonders "Could this letter be a fake?" in an article for The Independent.

I have reproduced an anonymous commenter's post on the Why We Protest message board, which sums up the evidence of forgery.

This is obviously a forgery due to the following:

1- The type face used for the body of the text is named "Titr" (translation: headline). Titr is a display typeface and not used for copy text. The interior ministry has strict formatting and style guidelines.

2- the ascender on the letter "ک" the second line of the letterhead is cutting into the line above it. The letterhead would also normally state the individual's name which is absent here.

3- The actual letter is missing basic punctuation which is commonly use in formal governmental correspondence.

4- The letter outright says "... based on your judgment in choosing Mahmoud Ahamdinejad as the best individual in forwarding the goals of the Islamic revolution..." This would not be included in this type of letter.

5- There is no watermark or confidential stamp.

Clearly, this letter is fake. It brings to mind a popular forgery from several years ago, a fake letter from the Iranian king Yazdgerd III to the new Caliph Omar, which was also conclusively debunked.

The second rumor I want to address is one that claims that the Iranian state brought 5000 members of the Lebanese Hizbullah movement into Iran to attack protesters. Additionally, it is now being claimed that Hamas members are also participating in violence against Iranian demonstrators. Here is one example of the rumor regarding Hizbullah, and another regarding Hamas.

Views from the Occident has done an excellent job at breaking down what is suspicious or unbelievable about this rumor. I highly suggest you read his post on the matter, as well as Abu Muqawama's. Here is a brief summary of what I consider their most salient points:

Reports claim that 5000 Hizbullah fighters are in Iran, but Hizbullah only has 1200-2000 active fighters.
It would be extremely unlikely for Hizbullah to abandon Lebanon for something like this, especially since tensions are high after the March 14 Coalition assumed victory in the recent Lebanese elections.
Western journalists may have confused Hizbullah with the Iranian group Ansar-e Hezbollah, which bears no relation to the Lebanese movement. There have been reports that members of Ansar-e Hezbollah have been attacking Iranian protesters.
The rumor neatly plays into existing Persian chauvinist and anti-Arab sentiment held by some Iranians.

I would like to add some comments of my own. First of all, the violent attacks on protesters in Iran have been very well-documented and are not in question. However, there exists no documented evidence whatsoever that would suggest a Hizbullah or Hamas presence in Iran, other than the reports of a few people on Twitter or various blogs. Even the reports themselves are spurious: some claim the attackers "looked like Arabs" or were speaking Arabic, whereas others claimed to have seen Hizbullah flags. There is an enormous amount of photos and video footage of the attackers, which can easily be found on Youtube or on popular blogs such as The Daily Dish, yet not a single one of them shows any Hizbullah flags or insignia, or anything else to suggest that Hizbullah or Hamas is present.

As others have pointed out, Hizbullah would have nothing to gain (and a lot to lose) from coming to Iran to attack protesters and support Ahmadinejad. There is no reason to suspect that Mousavi would lessen Iranian support for Hizbullah as president. Hizbullah was founded between 1982 and 1985, right in the middle of Mousavi's term as Prime Minister of Iran, and during that time Iran provided military and financial assistance to Hizbullah. His stance on Palestinian liberation is no different; Ahmadinejad even brought this up during the presidential debates prior to the election, saying "Mr. Mousavi had explicitly announced that we will send military forces to go stand alongside the Palestinian resistance to fight against the occupiers. Mr. Mousavi announced that the Zionist regime must be wiped out." Mousavi's stance regarding Hizbullah and Hamas is nearly identical to Ahmadinejad's, so why would these groups risk so much to support one over the other?

The unsubstantiated claims that the attackers "looked" Arab or were speaking Arabic fit the profile of Persian chauvinist anti-Arabism perfectly. The roots of Iranian anti-Arabism are deep and would take up an entire post of their own, but they were particularly inflamed during the Pahlavi regime (1925-1979), where Persian chauvinism/Aryanism and anti-Arabism dominated state discourses on Iranian identity. It was often repeated that the Arabs destroyed Iranian civilization during the Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th century, that Arabs were the enemy of Iranians, and so on. This kind of thinking flourished amongst Iranians who left Iran after the 1979 revolution; I am sure that any of my Iranian readers who grew up or lived in diaspora can recall their relatives telling them of the horrors the Arabs inflicted upon our country. Many Iranians who stayed in Iran after the revolution also continued to harbor anti-Arab sentiment nurtured under the previous regime. As I explained earlier, some Iranians (in particular, the same demographic that tends to favor Mousavi) harbor particular resentment against Lebanese and Palestinians due to the Islamic Republic's support for them.

Arabs make up about 3% of the population of Iran, living primarily in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, and face both racism and state repression. In order to explain the Hizbullah rumor, some people have posited that the Arabs in question are Iranian Arabs from Khuzestan. While this may be possible, I find it very unlikely. The reports have all been from Tehran or other cities far from Iran's southwest, and there are few (if any) Khuzestanis in Tehran. Moreover, Mousavi (and Karroubi) campaigned on a platform of greater rights for Iran's ethnic minorities, and Iranian Arabs are typically already hostile to the Iranian state because of the repression they face (see Al Jazeera's reports on the subject here and here). It is doubtful that they would have any interest in attacking the protesters, many of whom are demanding greater rights for Iranian Arabs and other minorities. Therefore, the rumor that the Arabs in question are Khuzestani is just as unlikely as the theory that they are Lebanese or Palestinian.

I think it's most likely that there simply are no Arabs at the protests. There is no evidence whatsoever, and the rumor fits prior Persian chauvinist narratives of "foreign Arabs ruining our country" too well, or as my friend Piotr put it, "they're sending in the ruthless foreigners because our people would never hurt their own."

Update, 07/25/09: A more recent and thorough compilation of false rumors can be found here.

Personal account from Tabriz

2009-06-17T13:25:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine who attends University of Tabriz has been sending me updates on the situation via email. This person prefers to remain anonymous, but has given me permission to reproduce the emails here.

June 13

Facebook is filtered , we can't send SMS, we can't call abroad.. We can't do anything. It seems funny but I'm talking to you from the past...
Actually this is an email passing through time

June 14

Here in Tabriz there is no such big problems yet like what has happened in Tehran .Thanks for your care, yeah no one of my family has been hurt but some of my friends in the university of Tabriz .I didn't know that till today morning when I came to the university.One of my classmates who has stayed in Tabriz for about a year said to me that "shame on you ,in every big city such as Mashhad and Shiraz people are doing something, streets are crowded, but here people do nothing".I really don't know what to tell him. In Tabriz we have lots of problems with the government because they think that Azerbayjan is dangarous for their revolutionary road(LOL). It's funny. All the world and in all centuries people want to protect their rights and so do Azeri people .Do you call such people dangarous?
Last night in front of the university of Tabriz , In Abresan and Valiasr streets (places that young people like me and my friends go walking and shopping, most crowded places in Tabriz specially in the evening)some people like Basijis where shouting and dancing and swearing to Mousavi and Karrubi to make people angry and react thoughtlessly and then they start to hurt them.My friend also say that about 150 students of Tabriz University had been in front of the University trying to tell that they know that Ahmadinejad is cheating in the electin. But here in Tabriz we have lots of this kind of situations and people know what to do , and they know the right time to talk and to act.I think that's why in Tabriz still there is no such problems yet about the election.
We know even in Shahanshahi time they try to put Tabriz (Azerbayjan) in a isolated situation. Now also in Islamic Republic of Iran , They don't want to do anything for tabriz. Even if Mousavi had been elected or Karroubi . Tabriz don't expect that they do something good for Azerbayjan.
We don't have any means of communication with the world outside, the internet , the sattelite, radio, even calling abroad is cut.You know what , even this Gmail stuff load after 1 minute .I just have a twitter gadjet in my gmail and I can get news from there .
It's the power , Ahmadinejad is using all his power . They don't want to learn from history, they are such stupid people that don't want to look at back , do something different,they are commiting the same errors .
I think Mousavi shouldn't use poeple , actually he is abusing people feelings, they should 've known that Ahmadinejad will use all his power to stay in his place.They shouldn't make people (specially the young ) so sensitive about the election .
I will try to be here all day long, If I can and will tell you if something special happens.
Actually I don't think that something special will happen.I'm trying to be realistic , not optimist or pesimist. I will try to tell what I know not what I feel.

---

I came home after a very looooooooooong day, today in uiniversity it was about 12 that I went out of the department to get some rest I faced about 200 students in the main square of the university jjust standing and waiting for their friends and for more students to join them . I ate lunch and went back to department , about 4 my friends called me that we are starting to go toward the main door of the university, my friends and I went there and joined them , there were more than 600 student rioting and protesting . The moats like"موسوی رای مرا پس بگیر " and " مرگ بر دیکتاتور" and also singing and old soing called" یار دبستانی من" . There were lots of cops outside the university, they were standing with sticks waiting for student to get outside the university and hit them , arrest them and hurt them. At about 8 a very strong rain starts and it lasts for about 30 minutes , I was like a wet rat..everyone was like that. We have to get out of the university to go home , I found one of the doors open and came out , I went to Abresan square and I saw more than 100 cops with sticks and such stuff waiting for people to react.I will send you some photos also which I got this evening in the Tabriz university. There is no means of communication here ,It's for about 3 days that I can't call one of my friends and get in tiuch with him.All the important sites are filtered, I just have twitter gadget in my Gmail and I got news from there .

June 15

No one can say what will happen next, we are just shocked .and please don't forward my emails to anyone with my name .I got cold because of last nights rain and I couldn't go out today but as I talked with my friends in Tehran , They say that even old people has gone to protest today in Tehran and also they set Mousavi free (He had been arrested this noon) to go there and talk to people and calm them down. My friend who was there to protest said taht she can't approximate how many people are there, so so so manyyyyyyyyy

---

Yeah , thanks , I just don't want to have any problem leaving Iran
I don't think that they can change something , I 'm completely pesimist about the situation , you know what will happen, just they will kill some people(as they 've already done that in "kuye daneshgah" last night ")and everything will finish , completely....
we have to say " good morning night"

---

People in Iran are tired of being just victims , they have already been victims for decades . Every one of my friends juat want to leave Iran and live in peace , not being abused for nothing ...Whenever I can live with love and peace will be my country. I want to cry over all this , I feel so sad, I feel shit . Sorry but this is what I feel , what I think , I love Tabriz , I love Iran , but how I can help my country when I don't have any means of communication , I don't feel free even in my own house.I even can't think freely, It kills me . I 'm kind of aperson who loves thinking without any boundaries but how ? here?

---

http://www.azadtabriz.org/news/archives/25886
Some of yesterdays photos which I told I will send you ...

---

They are killing people in Tabriz and Tehran right now. I can't sleep . I'm so anxious

---

به من بگو
بگو چطور اشکهایم را برایت ای میل کنم
به من بگو چطور لرزه روحم را برایت بفرستم
به من بگو چطور آرامشم را حفظ کنم
برایم کمی می توانی آزادی بفرستی
فکر می کنی بتوانی برایم ای میل کنی
یا می توانی برایم پست کنی
طوری که در گمرک گیر نیفتد
نمی دانم چطور برایت نشان بدهم که دستانم روی صفحه کلید دارد می لرزد
می توانی برایم کمی اعتماد به نفس بفرستی
می توانی برایم کمی امنیت بفرستی
من دارم دق می کنم دوست من

Sorry that I disturb you by my emails but this is the only way I can talk. I wrote this poem after hearing some bad news.

---

Yesterday was a really tough day here in university. The police entered the university and force us to leave there , they entered even gorl's dormitory and force them to leave there . They also arrested more than 20 students and we don't know where they are after 2 days. They evacuated Tabriz university in 30 minutes. These days I don't feel good at all, I can't concentrate on nothing . Nobody can do anything. Today I went back to theuniversity and they didn't let me to go to the labratory to get my stuff . It will be closed for next 2 months. They kill people so easily .
They are two kind of cops here , some wear uniforms and it's clear that they are cops but some are like ordinary people and they call themselves "ansare hezbollah" and are related to Basij. They are allowed to shoot . Basij is more powerfull than the police , They shoot poeple from their head and they die at the moment . Nobody can say how many people are dead and how many are arrested in these days . We don't have internet ,we can just send emails ,and we can't load any website( Twitter, BBC,CNN...). , just Google, I use some proxy sites but they don't work anymore in here.Sometimes google also can't be loaded.

Click here for image

On Iran

2009-06-17T01:59:00.002-04:00

As'ad AbuKhalil aka the Angry Arab wrote a post a few days ago regarding the Iranian elections and protests. I wrote to him in response, offering my opinion, and he posted my email on his blog. I commented on how Ahmadinejad's rhetoric on Israel has pushed some Iranians away from Palestinian solidarity, and a little about the nature of the protests.

For those of you following my blog who aren't familiar with the Angry Arab, you should definitely read it. It's one of the best sources of commentary on Arab politics out there, and was inspirational to us in creating The Ruh of Brown Folks.

Iranian elections

2009-06-17T00:01:00.001-04:00

I tried several times now to write my thoughts about what is currently happening in Iran, but could not. It is too difficult. It's not that I am so upset about political issues, or the violence, though of course I care about those things and am concerned about the safety of my friends and family in Iran. It's the fact that I am not there that is most upsetting. This is an important event in my nation's history and I have to watch it unfold on Youtube and not in person. I have no grand illusions of going to Iran and playing some relevant role, nor even little illusions of marching and hurling stones. I just want to be there.

I am frustrated by the assumptions people here make: Arabs and Pakistanis I have spoke to assume I support Ahmadinejad, whereas Iranians and Americans assume I support Mousavi. I support neither one, they are both crooks. I support the people of Iran.

Last night I watched "Silence of the Sea" (Khamushiye Darya), about a man who flees Iran to live in Sweden and then tries to return after 20 years, but is torn between being with his family in diaspora or reconnecting with his estranged homeland. It was a very poignant and thoughtful film, and I know the feeling well.

I'm sorry, there is no real point to this post, just my frustration at being outside of Iran. I will try to write some political analysis later if I feel up to it. t. intends to give her view from inside Iran soon, if she can get online.

Airport harassment

2009-06-09T16:55:00.001-04:00

At 8:15 AM today (Tuesday, June 9, 2009) t., who writes for this blog, was harassed at the airport by a white Delta agent while checking in. The incident began when he noticed that her final destination was Tehran. The agent told t. about a news story about Iran he had seen the previous night: "There was some big protest over there [referring to the pro-Mousavi rally in Tehran], and then Ahmadinejad's guys came and broke it up, and then they had a protest of their own." After questioning t. about her trip to Iran and whether she was going to vote in Iran's upcoming elections (to which she politely responded "I'm just going to see my family, I don't get involved in those things"), he tried to prevent her from checking her bags, citing sanctions against Iran. He also made her wait as long as he could, to the point where t. was minutes away from missing her flight.

Finally, the baggage checker was informed over the phone that sanctions had nothing to do with checking luggage. When he realized he had no choice but to allow t. to check her bags, he grew increasingly angry, making hostile remarks such as "if you guys had voted Ahmadinejad out, maybe you wouldn't have so many problems at the airport." In the end, she was able to check her bags and board the plane, but the baggage checker refused to issue her a boarding pass for her continuing flight, despite it being standard procedure to issue them.

t. was worried about being perceived as a 'threat' and therefore remained calm, polite, smiling, and genial throughout the episode. Clearly, she was being 'punished' for daring to visit Iran, and for the way Iranians voted in 2005 - a time when she was not a citizen of Iran and had never been there in her life. There were no real problems (t. visited Iran twice in 2008 from the same airport, and was able to check her bags and get boarding passes for continuing flights without issue), just a baggage checker who didn't like the fact that t. was going to Iran.

This little incident is an example of the unfair racist/xenophobic treatment, along with a broader pattern of racial profiling and harassment, that those guilty of "Flying While Brown" face in airports. More on this to come.

R.I.P. Ronald Takaki

2009-06-01T10:16:00.005-04:00

Ronald T. Takaki dies at 70

I read Takaki's "A Different Mirror" years ago in an ethnic studies class, in my first semester of college. I was vaguely familiar with the idea that race, gender, and class intersected, but his book (and the class) made that intersectionality real for me. Rest in peace, Dr. Takaki.

Diaspora sucks pt. IV: Iran

2009-06-01T06:06:00.008-04:00

When I was six I saw my green card for the first time. Big block letters across the top declaring I was a "RESIDENT ALIEN" frightened and confused me. I envisioned myself and all the Iranians I knew at the time as little green martians invading America and forcing our hosts to deal with our pistachios and thick accents. There are no two things that impacted my childhood and how I began to see myself greater than pistachios and accents. In elementary school during snack time, when other children were unpacking graham crackers or applesauce, I would happily pull out a plastic bag my mother would lovingly fill each morning with pistachios. It took a year or two for me to notice my non-pistachio-eating classmates; up until that day I don't know what I imagined other kids were eating. I think I just didn't care, because I loved pistachios, and what child, I thought at least, didn't? I remember cleaning up after snack time since the skins of pistachios would leave quite a mess on my desk once I cracked them open, and I remember one day looking up to see the two girls whose desks were across from mine looking at me with disgust. No one said anything, but then again, they didn't really need to. For the first time I looked around and saw the animal crackers and applesauce and, more importantly, the lack of pistachios. It was the first time, that I can remember at least, that I understood that I was different.

Some children in diaspora grow up with parents who speak to them exclusively in their native tongues, some only speak English, and the rest fall somewhere in between. Sometimes these in-between kids, or exclusively English-speaking kids, grow up and are resentful at not having learned their native tongue, and some (as Hoda and Alexander have shared) pursue the long and challenging task of learning their respective languages. Some children though grow up in a home where only their native tongue is spoken, and don't learn a word of English until attending school...and some of those kids are confused and teased so much that instead of priding themselves on their fluency in their native tongue, they are embarrassed and ashamed of it, and make a conscious decision to erase it from their memory. I fall into the latter category.

My first year of school was a blur. Smiling but quickly running-out-of-patience teachers, crayons, crying, kids giving me confused expressions, wishing and waiting to go home, all while surrounded by foreign sounds I couldn't understand all day which left my head aching. It was during my second year of school, when I had a decent grasp of English, that I finally understood the horror of little American children each time I opened my mouth: I had an accent. A thick accent which gave each and every kid in the school, no matter how low on the elementary school totem pole they sat, the right to tease me. Shortly after came the day I broke my mother's heart. My mother still talks about the day I came home from school upset and declared that I would never speak Persian again.

A few years later my mother and I went to an ice cream shop where we were in line for the only register available. When a cashier opened up another register, she called us over to place our orders. The two American women in front of us got angry, and they screamed that they were there before us. I'd never seen people so angry about ice cream before. I was confused as to why they'd yell at my mother instead of the cashier. I didn't care though. I wanted ice cream. We ordered at the same time as the women, and I could hear them talking next to us...There were glances, angry ones, and comments I couldn't quite make out, and once my mother and I got our ice cream and were walking out one yelled "WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY?!" My eight-year-old heart had never beaten so hard or so fast. I'd never felt fear the way I did in that moment. I remember turning around and being faced with two women whose eyes were filled with enough hate and rage that I realized that it wasn't about the ice cream. My mother, stunned and silent, after what felt like an eternity, eventually shot back a weak "shut up!" in a voice that cracked. We went back to the car and ate our ice cream in silence. Every once in a while I could see her eyes well up with tears she'd blink away, but I was too frightened to say anything.

My life, especially how I understand it in diaspora, is composed of moments like these. That's not to say that I'm not happy with my life, and family, and friends, but that doesn't minimize the importance of these moments. These moments add up and serve as constant reminders that no matter how wonderful a life I may have, there is always something missing.

I don't belong here.[1] I refuse to apologize for it anymore. I don't belong here because I am not wanted here. Somewhere between cruel children capable of making me want to disown my language and heritage at six; frustrating and failed relationships because people refused to acknowledge my existence as an Iranian woman; "exotic" being the compliment I get most often in reference to my physical appearance; notes under my windshield demanding "GO BACK HOME TERORIST [sic];" being called "terrorist girl" throughout middle school when our history teacher decided the only thing worth knowing about Iran was the hostage situation; watching my proud, intelligent, respected grandfather be processed like an animal by the medical industrial complex simply because he couldn't speak English; realizing that many (if not most) people I meet equate the way I look/explaining that I am Iranian as code for Arab (which I'm not), and Muslim (which I'm not); realizing that most people don't care if everyone in the "Middle East" isn't Arab and Muslim and don't care if I'm neither, they just want me to "explain" this whole "veil" issue; and realizing I am truly a "RESIDENT ALIEN" no matter my citizenship status, I have understood that I am not wanted here.

Throughout my awkward adolescent and teenage years I did my best to "fit in" with any group that would have me. Even when I had American friends who, as best they could, accepted me, I still felt like a stranger. Sometimes I felt as though I'd infiltrated a group for some mission I could never figure out, while other times like I was let in a circle out of pity. No matter what though, there was always a feeling, an understanding that I didn't belong. One way I could tell was that I was never, even at the height of my assimilation, able to call myself "Iranian-American," (nevermind "American" alone). I could force myself to forget Persian, to rid myself of my accent when speaking English, to only befriend Americans, and to disown my heritage, but I never belonged. I am only thankful that I realized this when I did, and I was able to start rebuilding my personal path back home. I began speaking and learning Persian again. I stopped being ashamed and started enjoying the only music I think I ever truly enjoyed - Iranian music. I allowed myself to get angry when I walked in American homes that have covered their floors in poorly machine-made "Oriental" rugs whose patterns have been stolen from all over Iran. I allowed myself to stop justifying and apologizing for my feeling of non-belonging. I am Iranian. I am not "Middle Eastern," I am not "Iranian-American," and I am certainly not American. I am Iranian. I live in diaspora. I hate it. I escape to Iran during summers and winters, but it's only a temporary solution. I do, and will continue to do, my best each day to create a path that leads to home permanently. I don't want to be a "RESIDENT ALIEN" here any more than you want this pistachio-eating martian in your country.

[1] For me the most elegantly written and unapologetic look at "belonging" is Dr. Zeina Zaatari's "In The Belly of the Beast: Struggling for Non-Violent Belonging" which can be found in volume 5 of the MIT Journal of Middle Eastern Studies pp. 75 - 87.

After the world

2009-05-31T23:52:00.003-04:00

I wrote this last year and I thought I would put it up here.

It's five in the morning in Vedeno, in Chechnya, and the mountain air is freezing as always, the Russian soldiers are still dogs and they've sent a wolf, Shamil Basayev, to his grave. It's one in the afternoon in Baqubah, in Iraq, and the midday sun is boiling as always, the American soldiers are still pigs and they've sent a boar, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, to his grave. It's so many hours compounded upon each other, everywhere, and the climate is unbearable as always, the butchers are still animals and they're slaughtering everyone else. Sometimes they cut down a horrible beast like Basayev or Zarqawi but most of the time they're gutting people like it was nothing. This wretched world full of suffering just has to end, some day only dervishes will whirl in the Kavkaz mountains, some day the Assyrians will rebuild the House of Jacob. I hope so. This wretched world full of misery just keeps on destroying everything and the past calls out of darkness, to make things right again, the huge and terrible states will crush each other into dirt and sand and they will be humbled, the mountain people will teach them to wash their clothes in a stream, the desert people will teach them to dig wells. The states will fall and the mountain people will chant zikr and the desert people will dance dabkeh and the world will grow dizzy and fall asleep for once.

White male perverts hate it when Muslim women veil

2009-05-31T03:22:00.000-04:00

Via Lenin's Tomb: yet another article by a misogynistic, Islamophobic white man keen on telling Muslim women how to dress.

The author, Matthew Parris, collapses all Muslim women from Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey into one homogeneous, monolithic entity, against which all British Muslim women are judged - ignoring the fact that the vast majority of British Muslims are from South Asia, not the Middle East (and that Lebanon and Turkey are not particularly representative of the region when it comes to clothing [1]). He then suggests that Muslim women respect "British culture" by taking off their veils in public. "British culture," apparently, is something defined exclusively by white Britons. His "British culture" is quite happy to enjoy tea from South Asia, but horrified that South Asians living in Britan might not want to wear tube tops and miniskirts. And what of white British Muslim women who choose to veil? Are they allowed to play a role in defining "British culture"?

Parris's perverted obsession with what lies beneath the veil is typical of some Western men. Accustomed to women in revealing clothing on television and on the street, he is frustrated and offended by Muslim women who resist being ogled by dressing conservatively. He complains that they hide their faces from his lusty gaze, whining that some ignore him and walk away when he tries to flirt with them. They should make themselves uncomfortable so that he can gawk at them in comfort. Many women would feel naked if forced to go about in public bareheaded - not just Muslims, but Orthodox Jewish women as well as women of sundry other cultures and faiths [2]. Let us continue the demand to unveil to its natural end: if it would make men feel more comfortable, should women be expected to go about topless? If it would make gentiles more comfortable, should Jewish men be expected to take off their yarmulkes?

When Reza Shah banned the veil in Iran in 1936, many women were outraged, and openly violated the law by continuing to wear veils in public. Other women were unwilling or afraid to break the law, but horrified at the prospect of going outside unveiled, and so remained at home. A law that claimed to "liberate" women thus forced many women out of the public sphere and back into the home. Similar dynamics today have forced many Turkish Muslim women out of universities, government buildings, and other spaces where the headscarf is banned. Westerners have paternalistically attempted to "liberate" Afghan and Iraqi women, and have succeeded in a way: in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, millions of women have been liberated of their lives.

Parris concludes his mind-bogglingly ignorant and sexist diatribe by claiming that women behave rudely on trains more frequently than do men, because of their genes. He does not mention that he thinks women are also genetically predisposed towards cleaning, child-rearing, submissive behavior, hysteria, and poor driving, but he may as well. To paraphrase Edward Said, Islamophobia is the last kind of racism that is completely acceptable in Western society. Similarly, while policing women's dress started to become uncool in the 1960s, it is apparently still acceptable for non-Muslim white men to police Muslim women's dress.

[1] Out of all the countries in the 'Middle East,' Lebanon and Turkey are the two that are commonly thought of as being the most 'Westernized,' which is why I say they are not particularly representative of Middle Eastern dress standards, let alone Islamic ones. For reference, here are some pictures of fully veiled women from the countries Parris mentions.

Byblos, Lebanon

Damascus, Syria

Istanbul, Turkey

[2] Muslim women are not the only ones who wear veils or other head coverings. They are worn religiously by some Christian women, Jewish men and women, Hindu women, and Sikh men and women, and are also worn culturally by many throughout Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe; parts of West and North Africa; and most of West, Central, and South Asia. In addition, veiling was prevalent amongst the previous generation of Western European women.

Obama, Bush, and Malcolm

2009-05-29T10:46:00.002-04:00

The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday. (AP)

Please, tell me how Obama's warmongering is any better than Bush's warmongering. Explain it to me, because I don't understand how Obama occupying Iraq, carpet-bombing Afghanistan, giving billions of dollars to Israel, and threatening Iran is any better than what Bush did in the region. He has truly been nothing but more of the same. You want to know what has changed? This is what has changed:

U.S. drone attacks, which often result in civilian casualties and are opposed by both the Pakistani government and its people, have increased greatly. Just look at this timeline; since Obama's inauguration in January, the U.S. has struck Pakistan more times than in all of 2008, and more than twice the total number of times from 2004-2007.

Despite the opportunity the economic crisis gave Obama to end U.S. aid to Israel, as anti-occupation groups called for, his Fiscal Year 2010 budget includes $2.8 billion in military aid to Israel.

Bush's plan for Afghanistan involved bombing it until the Afghans were too weak and brutalized to resist. Obama has radically revised this plan, suggesting drastic changes: he wants to bomb Afghanistan until the mountains are leveled and all Afghans have been wiped out.

What Malcolm X said about Northern "liberals" and Southern racists is a perfect analogy for the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. They represent the same interests, but at least the Republicans are honest about their imperialism, whereas the Democrats cloak theirs in the language of "change."

The North's liberals have been for so long pointing accusing fingers at the South and getting away with it that they have fits when they are exposed as the world's worst hypocrites. ... The white Southerner, you can say one thing - he is honest. He bares his teeth to the black man; he tells the black man, to his face, that Southern whites never will accept phony "integration." The Southern white goes further, to tell the black man that he means to fight him every inch of the way - against even the so-called "tokenism." The advantage of this is the Southern black man has never been under any illusions about the opposition he is dealing with. ... But the Northern white man, he grins with his teeth, and his mouth has always been full of tricks and lies of "equality" and "integration." When one day all over America, a black hand touched the white man's shoulder, and the white man turned, and there stood the Negro saying "Me, too..." why, that Northern liberal shrank from that black man with as much guilt and dread as any Southern white man.

-The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1965

More Soldiers Going Unpunished...

2009-05-26T02:47:00.003-04:00

A German soldier who shot and killed a woman and two children in Afghanistan last year will not be punished. This apparently comes as a great relief to Germany's defense minister since he believes German soldiers "should not have to deal with legal problems arising from their service." Yes, because clearly soldiers deserve full and permanent immunity while they rape, torture and kill innocent human beings.

In case you were wondering, the woman and two children weren't strapped to bombs and rushing the soldier wielding machine guns; they were in a car which had turned around. Yes, they were shot in the back. Why? "He claimed that he was frightened of being attacked and therefore decided to act preemptively against the Afghans, although the car the family were traveling in had turned round and was moving away from the German checkpoint." It's almost comical that someone thinks he can get away with murdering three innocent lives with such a ridiculous excuse, until you realize that claiming to be frightened by the backs of a woman and two children is apparently a legitimate and legally sound reason to murder when you're a soldier.

"Diaspora sucks part IV" will be up soon...

Diaspora sucks pt. III: Egypt

2009-05-24T17:27:00.005-04:00

This past semester, my Arabic professor, a Syrian immigrant who researches Arab American identity for his Ph.D, asked us to write compositions on our identities. To write about 20 years of frustration and pain in Arabic, the language of my parents, the language I was estranged from for so long, instead of English, my first language, was empowering. Yet, I am still stuck memorizing grammar charts, thumbing through dictionaries, stumbling over numerals, and struggling to figure out where I fit in between all of this: لستُ هنا أو هناك.. و أنا دائماً هنا و هناك ("I am not here, nor there... and I am always here and there.") 'Here' is now becoming 'there' - for the next three months, at least. I'm flying out to Cairo in a few hours, returning August 17. Yet, I don't consider this my eighth trip to Egypt; I consider it my third.

For most of my life, Egypt was something I vaguely experienced abroad in diaspora, a situation that always left me in a degenerate position between both my countries of origin and citizenship. At home, I had bits and pieces of what my parents brought: kousa mahshi and koshari, Umm Kalsoum and Mohamed Mounir cassettes, Islamic artwork in every room, and eavesdropped conversations I couldn't entirely understand or partake in, for my parents never enforced me to speak Arabic. I don't have a lot of extended family here, am an only child, and despite growing up in a multiracial town, had few Arab classmates, leaving me with even less immersion opportunities. As a kid, we'd go to Egypt every few years, but only for a week or two -- never long enough for me to feel connected. My cousins, eager to practice their English on their American-born cousin, never spoke to me in Arabic, either. My parents not enforcing Arabic at home was not an ideological decision done out of self-hatred; it was just that as new immigrants with their own time, resource, and health restraints, they simply could not properly teach me. It was bad enough for them that I spoke English an accent. Just because I heard bits and pieces of a language in regards to my immediate surroundings didn't mean I really knew it. I was not educated in Arabic, nor could I even hold down a casual conversation. Now, three years into my self-initiated Arabic study, I pay the price of that decision as I stutter over my words and slip "...يعني" as filler to escape from my speaking quagmire.

Not only did I have a malfunctioning knowledge of where I come from and the language I ought to know, but I flat-out refused the little I had. Sure, there was Saturday school, which I do credit for teaching me rudimentary basics like my alphabet and surahs from the Qur'an, yet which I also fault for being just as socially polarized as public school was. In any case, I was too rebellious to retain much of it. In the 1990s, you simply don't want to be Arab. You get tired of kids making cat calls and sexual jokes out of your mispronounced name, mercilessly teasing you for your body hair, insulting your mother's cooking (at a school multicultural function, no less!), imitating the Bangles, and receiving glaring looks from your 5th grade teacher as she mentioned the "terrorists" who "won't leave [her] people's land alone" in passing (this was pre-intifada). I knew I was different, but since I didn't have a solid sense of who I was, I just swallowed my pride.

After 9/11, you definitely don't want to be Arab; I don't think enough words can do that statement justice. When you don't have a strong sense of self, it becomes easy to fall to the prey of assimilation, which is essentially the route I took after the towers hit. In my mind at the time, I had no reason to associate with Egypt and other Arabs. I never did, and never will, fit in with the clique-y, materialistic Egyptian American community. I rejected them as much as I rejected Egypt. I couldn't fool everybody, though. With a name, nose, and eyebrows like mine, I always got "What are you?"'s. Usually, the answer was something vague: "Mediterranean". Once, I even lied and said I was part Irish. I tried so hard to claim a "whiteness" to which I knew I never belonged to.

Sometimes, though, I'd answer "Egyptian", to the amusement and surprise of ignorant white people who assume Egypt has not changed since before the common era. I was perfectly fine with others Orientalizing me, asking me if I had seen the Pyramids and spoke "hieroglyphics" fluently. And I, the self-hating Arab, willingly participated in my own Orientalization, so long as the white society I desired acceptance from so much didn't realize modern Egypt is an Arab country. Egypt was so dead to me that I didn't care if it remained unchanging in the American imagination.

As I reached the point in my life I am at now, I've learned to forgive my family for not actively teaching me my language. However, I will never forgive the white power structure in this country that forced me to sink into my chair when teachers and peers butchered - often on purpose - my non-Anglo name, shut out my language from memory, deny my roots, and live in shame of myself.

Three years ago, I realized I was not white. Yet, I had always felt so estranged from Egypt to ever feel authentically Masriyya. I began re-teaching myself how to read, write, and speak Arabic, since I had forgotten everything. When I traveled to Egypt of my own will two summers ago, my first time back in four years, and again this past winter, the tension changed. Now, Egypt is something I am getting to know and experience for myself. Identity is tied to what you do, and not simply who you are. Language is an integral part of that, for it is what allows me to seize my Egyptian-ness; I feel it when I express my happiness in Arabic, when Umm Kalsoum holds a long note, and when Salah Jahin ends every ruba`iyat with "!!! عجبي".

Yet as much as I try to put away the past, it backfires on me every second. My birth and citizenship in the United States leaves me as an object of suspicion: "Oh, she must be spoiled and Americanized. She has it so easy in the US. She doesn't know anything. She's just here for a vacation." I know I am a foreigner in Egypt because I was not raised there, but I don't like to be treated as one. I don't want to be viewed as a tourist or a traitor; I just want to feel at home, in the same way I deserve to feel at home when I am in the US. I love Egypt as much as those who condescend me claim to; I should not be denied what is also mine to claim. It bothers me so much that I, a person of Egyptian origin, am looked upon in such a light, yet if I were a white American coming to Egypt on tourism, I would never be singled out as an outsider. Like Edward Said, I am permanently afflicted with feeling "out of place", no matter where I am. This feeling of belonging everywhere and nowhere is so familiar, yet disheartening... though if I did belong to any one place, I'm not sure if the packed luggage next to me as I write this would still be here.

Diaspora sucks pt. II

2009-05-22T16:47:00.001-04:00

Growing up in a mixed family in diaspora, I did not grow up "Iranian" but rather claimed it for myself, figuring out what it meant from whatever materials I could get my hands on. I learned how to be Iranian mostly from foreign sources. I learned how to be Iranian--or maybe it is better to say I learned how to un-assimilate myself--from reading Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers, from reading Gloria Anzaldúa, from my Ashkenazi Jewish mother, from Pan-Arabism, from Orientalist travelogues. I pieced it together from old photographs, stories I think I remember my father telling me, and other things I just made up. I learned from infrequent trips to my relatives' homes, where Persian was murmured unintelligibly around me.

Memories of those visits have a dreamy, synaesthetic quality to them in my head. The sound of Persian was inextricably linked to the fragrances and flavors of our food: saffron rice with barberries; cool yogurt with cucumbers, dill, and mint; pastries with rosewater and honey. Uprooted as I was in diaspora, what sense of self I had came from the Persian food my mother and grandmother prepared. As Bahman Ghobadi fell in love with cinema through Kurdish sandwiches, as Aziz and Atieh in The Fish Fall in Love mediated their love through cooking, I located one part of my identity in my palate. It has taken me years to try to locate the others.

My mother, like other mothers, maybe all mothers, was burdened with the patriarchal task of providing identity by mothering. In a mixed family, this task was doubled: arranging the seder plate and the haft-sin, cooking kugel and kotlet, and so on. I am still untangling the nexus of Judaism and Iranian-ness. My mother knew how to be Jewish, and so my Jewish identity came easily, in Yiddish phrases, Hebrew school, rituals and holidays; decorated by mezuzahs and candles; marked in stages from my bris to my bar mitzvah. But how to be Iranian? This was a more contested notion, something my mother could not know and something I feel my father was still in the process of redefining for himself, let alone for his children.

Sometimes I think my father only wanted to shield my brother and I from everything he had faced as an Iranian in the U.S. Maybe he thought he was protecting us by raising us as Americans, and I can't blame him for wanting to shield us from xenophobia and racism. Other times I think that he, like so many other young, urban Iranians of his generation, was simply Westoxified, and valued American ways more highly than Iranian ones. In the end, though, I don't really think it was either one of those. I don't think he actively tried to raise us as Americans or to prevent us from identifying with Iran. I think he saw himself as American, and, living in America and having married an American, naturally his children would be American as well.

It was not until I was mostly grown up that I began to realize that my skin was olive-colored and that my eyebrows connected in the middle, that I could pronounce the sounds of Persian words easily (even if I was still ignorant to their meaning), that there was this enormous heritage that belonged to me. I started to ask myself questions: Do I have to be American? Am I white? Am I Iranian? What do these things mean? I had little at my disposal with which to answer these questions, and trying to answer them was a difficult and painful process. Some of them I have answered for myself: No, I am not American. No, I am not white. The others I still struggle with.

The one tool I had to help me answer these questions was the Persian language. Persian symbolized the birthright my upbringing had denied me access to, and from what I had read of Fanon, I was sure that language was the key to knowledge of self. With that in mind, I threw myself into studying Persian. That was more than three years ago; I am still studying, and I feel more than ever that the more Persian I learn, the more I learn about myself.

Due to passport complications, I cannot go to Iran yet, so I am going to Armenia this summer to study Persian language and literature at Arya International University in Yerevan. All this time, I have been trying to learn how to be an Iranian from all the wrong places, and while I'm moving ever closer to Iran, this summer I will still be one country away. In Armenia, Armenians gaze west to Mt. Ararat, their nation's most powerful symbol, which lies just over the border yet beyond their reach, in Turkish territory. Perhaps they will know how I feel when I go and peer over Armenia's southern border into Iran, the homeland I dream of but have never set foot on. Next year in Tehran, I hope. Until then...diaspora sucks.

Diaspora sucks

2009-05-18T11:41:00.002-04:00

I wrote this in my journal in November 2008, in the midst of the American euphoria over Obama's election.

In diaspora, I have to dip my head below the surface to breathe culture into my lungs, take big gulping breaths of santoor and setar, saffron and rosewater, Torah and Qur'an, Turkmen poetry and Azeri dances, and dream of Iran. Hamashun yekian, hame maale mane. When can I stop gasping, when will I not need to be greedy, and simply take it all in every day? Iran is bursting at the seams and overflowing into the Caspian and the Khalije Fars. Iran pours into Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and the tide washes them back in: Safavid castles, Armenian churches, pilgrims freshly returned from Najaf, Balochistani winds, Afghan love songs, and Turkmen nomads on camels.

In diaspora it is the opposite: everything presses inwards so tightly it could implode, crushing you with the pressure, so your breath doesn't come out and you hurry through each day trying not to forget who you are. In Mazandaran the rain is fresh and washes the mountain air clean for the people to breathe; here the rain is dirty and just muddies the streets. There, things are budding, popping, blooming, flowers are thrusting their faces into the world; here everything is being shoveled under concrete and painted over; there, people burn pictures of Khatami, let alone Ahmadinejad or Khamenei; here they hold the picture of their Uncle Tom proudly aloft and ululate; there, they're locking themselves in factories, collecting signatures, throwing Ali Shari'ati's "NO" back in the face of the establishment; here, the collective "YES" (WE CAN) is a celebration of the establishment; there, they are fed up; here, they have bought in; there, hope is desperate, revolutionary even, "hope" is an indigenous word in the midst of foreign tyranny; here, "hope" is a campaign slogan.

I'm done with this place. Get me out of here. Take me home to Iran.

Obama: more of the same

2009-05-17T14:52:00.004-04:00

Obama has been nothing but more of the same, more of the same, more of the same erosion of civil liberties, more of the same harassment of immigrants, the same broken health care system, the same support for Israel, the same policies of bleeding Afghanistan, and the same (superficially modified) occupation of Iraq. What has really changed is aptly summarized in this cartoon by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff.

I cannot believe that there are still Americans who insist that Obama is somehow "different" or "better" than his predecessor. He is a politician, and he represents the interests of capital and empire. Prior to the 2008 election, there was a lot of talk amongst U.S. 'liberals' of getting the Republicans out of office (electing Obama) and then "getting back to work" (organizing for social change). It's 2009. Obama is the president of the United States. Stop apologizing for Obama's torture and Obama's wars. Stop apologizing for more of the same. Stop apologizing for Obama. Get back to work.

What Israel means to me

2009-05-15T15:31:00.003-04:00

Today is the 61st anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe that expelled Palestinians from their homes, massacred them, stole their property and their land, and launched the illegal Israeli occupation that continues to this day. Nearly five million Palestinians live as refugees, and nearly a million of them are survivors of the Nakba, who were forced out of their homes in 1948 and are still prevented from returning by Israel.

I commemorate the Nakba not only for what has been done to the Palestinians, but for how it has affected me, as well. Zionists have attempted to dominate all discourse on what it means to be a Jew, and in so doing have pushed me away from my identity. It is so difficult to be a Jew when there is there is an entity that claims to speak for me, claims to represent me, and is committing ethnic cleansing in my name. Israeli occupation has made it impossible for me to untangle my own relationship with that land. I cannot figure out what Jerusalem means to me while there is apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing going on in that very city. The State of Israel has dragged Eretz Yisroel from the realm of the mythical down into the mundane, and its sacred chronology has been perverted. Instead of waiting for the messiah to establish the Kingdom of God in Israel after the End of Days, the Zionists have attempted to construct it themselves. So what do we wait for now? How can I have a spiritual connection to the Land of Israel when there is a physical entity (and a violent, racist, colonialist entity at that) occupying that space?

So today I mourn, for everyone who has been colonized by Israel: Palestinians and Jews alike. I mourn for the Palestinian lives, land, and homes stolen by Israel, and I mourn for the Jewish spirituality, identity, and innocence stolen by Israel. I hope that the occupation will end, Palestine will be free, and I will be able to reconcile the Jerusalem of my soul with the Jerusalem on Earth.

Israel and the Holocaust

2009-05-11T12:36:00.002-04:00

In the West Bank, a Palestinian man has created a Holocaust museum dedicated to the Jewish victims of genocide in Europe. In Israel, you would never see anything like this for the Palestinians, whose suffering is hidden from the Israeli public. (Israel also vigorously denies the Armenian genocide.) What you do see in Israel is disrespect for the memory of the Holocaust. Zionist politicians love to compare anything and everything to the Holocaust. Right now, they keep repeating that Iran is like Nazi Germany. (For a more accurate depiction of what life is like for Iran's 25,000 Jews, see this). In the past, they have frequently compared Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, the PLO, Saddam, and many others to the Nazis. These dishonest, inaccurate comparisons trivialize the Holocaust and reduce it to a political tool. This is not a recent phenomenon; it began almost immediately after the Holocaust ended, with the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948, as the Holocaust survivors were forced to forgive Germany and thus "displaced their anger onto Palestinians." Thankfully, there are Jewish groups speaking out against Zionism and the trivializing manipulation of the Holocaust. But it is not enough to criticize the tactics of Zionism; we must reject it altogether as a racist, colonialist ideology of apartheid and occupation. As always, and now more than ever, Zionism [itself] is the problem.

Sentences issued

2009-05-11T12:09:00.002-04:00

Roxana Saberi has been released from prison in Iran and has been banned from working as a journalist in Iran for five years. I don't doubt that every aspect of her arrest, trial, and release have been part of a political game between the US and Iran. However, US coverage of Saberi's treatment has been sorely lacking in context. Saberi, an Iranian-American dual national who reported for Fox News (amongst other agencies), was tried in Iran for working as a journalist without legal credentials. At the same time that Saberi's trial was going on, Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani businessman who had been living in the US for 30 years, was tried in the US for "providing aid to a terrorist organization." His crime was running a satellite TV company in New York, which broadcast Hezbollah's Al-Manar station. He also broadcast Christian programming and "adult entertainment," so clearly his choice to show Al-Manar was a business decision, not an ideological one. Unlike Saberi, who in the end was released, Iqbal has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison.

Why didn't the US media cover Iqbal's trial as hysterically as they did that of Saberi? For one, Iqbal isn't a pretty young woman with American citizenship working in an evil, foreign land. For another, freedom of the press only applies to other countries (especially those the US doesn't like, such as Iran). When free speech or free press issues come up in the US, they are smothered under the blanket of national security.

In other news, the American soldier who raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then murdered her and her family has been found guilty and may face a death sentence. There are many, many others (occupying soldiers, corporations operating in the Green Zone, etc.) who torture, rape, and murder Iraqis daily and get away with it, but at least this one didn't.

Letters

2009-05-11T10:33:00.003-04:00

From Mahmood: Tamer Naffar from DAM has a new video of him rapping through the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Earlier Mahmoud made a similar video, so I guess Suhell's up next. The samples on this track are international, from DMX (American) to Seyfu (French, of Senegalese origin) to one of DAM's own songs "Mali Huriye."

The "Ruff Ryders Anthem" sample made me wonder: what does DMX think of Obama now? Leave a comment if you know.

The Bahá'í's of Egypt

2009-05-08T02:40:00.005-04:00

It comes as no surprise that almost immediately following great news regarding the legal status of Bahá'í's in Egypt, bad news, and then worse news should follow. The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded in 19th century Iran that's principle beliefs concern the unity and equality of humankind (between genders, races, ethnicities, etc.), which clearly makes Bahá'ís, as we will soon see, Zionist, seditious, pro-colonialist apostates.

Ever since 1960 the Bahá'í Faith and its adherents have not been legally recognized as a religion by the Egyptian government (thanks Nasser!) This is especially sad considering Egypt was the first Arab nation to recognize the Bahá'í Faith as a religion in 1925. Identity cards in Egypt, which list religion, are "essential for access to employment, education, and medical and financial services, as well as freedom of movement and security of property," and even though Bahá'ís are not recognized under Egyptian law, in prior years they were able to obtain identity cards because they were paper cards where one could write in a religion. Some Bahá'ís got away with actually writing in "Bahá'í," but the majority of them simply inserted a dash "-" and this was what was also put on their birth certificates. Since 2000 though, when Egypt began digitalizing their identity card system, Bahá'ís were denied even the right to insert dashes under their religious affiliation. This marginalized the ever shrinking Bahá'í community of Egypt even more. Recently though, after a long and difficult battle, Egyptian courts have finally decided to allow Bahá'ís to again insert dashes on their identity cards.

Good news comes with a price though. Almost immediately after the ruling, "Dr." Hamid Siddique "filed a lawsuit against the Minister of Interior...demanding the Minister to cease issuing ID cards to Baha’is. He further demanded that all those who were issued ID cards with a dash “-” listed in the religion field should have their Egyptian nationality withdrawn." In case you didn't catch that, Egyptians who are Bahá'í should HAVE THEIR EGYPTIAN NATIONALITY WITHDRAWN simply because they are Bahá'í. As a fun side note, "Dr." Hamid Siddique has written extensively about the Bahá'í Faith, claiming that it was a religion started "under the protection of Russian, Jewish and English colonialism, with the aim of corrupting Islamic belief and dividing the Muslims and diverting them from their basic aims." A claim obviously based in something other than ... reality. As ridiculous as his statements are, they are fairly common among "radical" (insane) clerics who twist Islam around to justify the harassment and even killing of Bahá'ís.

"Dr." Siddique is quite the character, but the case filed next is, amazingly enough, even more ridiculous: Yousself el Badry, a Muslim cleric, along with other clerics and eighteen lawyers (which is clearly necessary) want Bahá'ís prosecuted for the recent outbreak of violence in the village Showraniyah. The outbreak of violence, mind you, was perpretrated by a (Muslim) mob against Bahá'í families! Yes, that's right, an angry mob first threw bricks and rocks at Bahá'í homes, chanting things like "Bahá'í are enemies of Allah," and later returned to set five homes on fire by throwing Molotov cocktails, at the same time making sure to "[cut] off the water supply beforehand in order to prevent rescue attempts." Yes, clearly these Bahá'ís were responsible for somehow creating a radical mob that burned down their homes, and should be held accountable for it. A video of one home burning is provided on both the above links, and is also hosted on YouTube:

I think what is most difficult and frustrating in dealing with the way Bahá'ís are treated, is realizing that Bahá'ís are taught to respect the laws of whatever country they reside in, even if those same laws treat them as sub-human, as undeserving of even the most basic human rights. Violence is strictly forbidden (so any thoughts of defending themselves against violent mobs with Molotov cocktails are out), and their beliefs center on the equality of women and men, eliminating prejudice, and eliminating extreme wealth and poverty. They are even forbidden from proselytizing, which makes one wonder what it is that the Egyptian government (along with the Iranian government, which has an even worse history with Bahá'ís) is really afraid of when it comes to their Bahá'í citizens...

For those interested in following the cases of Bahá'í in Egypt, this link - Bahá'í Faith in Egypt is a great blog which follows developments.

(Thanks to Hoda for the initial link)

ملح هذا البحر ("Salt of This Sea") - Review

2009-05-06T14:22:00.020-04:00

Soraya, born in Brooklyn in a working class community of Palestinian refugees, discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Stubborn, passionate and determined to reclaim what is hers, she fulfills her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine. Once there, slowly she is taken apart by the reality around her and she is forced to confront her own anger. She meets Emad, a young Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever. Tired of the constraints that dictate their lives, they know in order to be free, they must take things into their own hands, even if it’s illegal. (film.com)

This past weekend, I attended a screening of Annemarie Jacir's first feature-length film, ملح هذا البحر ("Salt of This Sea") at Tribeca. Not only did it open with one of my favorite Marcel Khalife songs, include the talented Suheir Hammad in the cast, and host a cameo appearance by Tamer Nafar of DAM, but the plot line offers plenty to think about regarding 'home' and identity. I won't summarize the plot here, but I recommend watching The Real News Network's interview with Suheir Hammad as well as Inside the Middle East's interview with Annemarie Jacir (both below) to get a better feel of the film. For good reviews, check The National and Eye for Film.

Well-made films that artfully depict a Middle Easterner in diaspora 'going home' are few and far between. Unlike many young Americans who 'return home' to their country, Soraya is not a spoiled brat who just wants to party and extend her Western life abroad; she has a historical memory, is fluent in her language, and does not experience culture shock. If anything, the political blockades on her personal journey are what she cannot get over. In many ways, she is privileged. While it is certainly not easy for her to enter, it is far easier for her to obtain an entry visa in comparison to Emad's slim chances of leaving Ramallah. Yet, at the same time, she is not entirely privileged. She is a Palestinian of 1948, unrecognized by both the Israeli occupiers and the corrupt PA. The dynamic between Palestinians of the Nakba and Palestinians inside the territories is one often not explored, and I appreciate the film bringing that rift to light.

I saw a lot of myself through Soraya's character. I know how it feels to romanticize about a place from afar, to obsessively memorize the old songs and poems of my parents' generation, to desire possession of a foreign passport. I know how it feels when you return 'home' and are taunted by natives who claim you are nothing but a tourist, like the following argument between Emad and Soraya:

Emad: "Do you think Palestine is just oranges [referring to the famed orange trees of Yaffa]?"

Soraya: "(in Brooklyn-accented English) You don't know me! (in Arabic) Don't tell me I don't know what Palestine is. I know what Palestine is."

Yet at the same time, I am too conscious of my status as an Egyptian born and raised abroad to know I can never fully repatriate myself. There were points in the film where I couldn't help but get annoyed at Soraya's complete oblivion and naiveté towards her condition. Whenever asked the question "Where are you from?", her standard response is "Here [Palestine]." She only responds with "Brooklyn, NY" whenever the opportunity is convenient for her. Yes, she is Palestinian, and like all Palestinians she has the right to return-- but she is also of the diaspora (her Brooklyn 'tude is a testament to that). If she weren't, why else would she crave the subjective aspects of Emad's life? She is not a Palestinian born and raised in Palestine, and she has trouble coming to terms with the fact that she never will be.

Identities are not static. I don't believe one is simply a monolith of "American" or "Arab", "Palestinian", etc., just as hyphenated identities ("Arab-American") are not enough. We in the diaspora carry a multitude of identities around with us thanks to the many experiences and people we come across. Soraya is just as much a first-generation New Yorker as she is Palestinian, with many shades of gray in between. To deny that fact is to affirm what racist White America tells us everyday: that we don't belong here, and therefore we should just pack up and "go back to where we came from".

Plans for DVD release are still up in the air, but check the Facebook page in the meantime for updates on local screenings.

Occupation, Past and Present

2009-05-06T09:56:00.012-04:00

From Feministe: Trial for soldier accused of raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family. Occupying soldiers commit horrible offenses like this constantly in Iraq, but most of them go unpunished. Anything less than a full, incommutable life sentence for this monster will be unjust (but sadly, not surprising). Troops out NOW. Not August 2010. Today.

On a less depressing note, from Mahmood, check out this great Palestinian short film ولد جدار و حمار ("A Boy, a Wall, and a Donkey"). English subtitles are included.

And via The Arabist: The US Army Pocket Guide to Iran (1943)
It's a guide for US troops stationed in Iran during World War II, featuring wonderfully Orientalist illustrations, and such gems as "Don’t try to tell Iranis how much better everything is in the United States. They think most things are better in Iran." Ain't that the truth! You can see the full text of the guide at this site, which has other interesting propaganda, such as this Pocket Guide to Iraq from the same year. (Thanks Hoda)

Recruiting martyrs

2009-05-04T10:28:00.006-04:00

Al Jazeera has uncovered evidence of U.S. occupiers attempting to convert Afghans to Christianity.

I am more sympathetic to Christianity and religion in general than most on the left. I don't think there is anything inherently evil or wrong about Christianity. While I don't agree with proselytizing, it doesn't bother me when Mormons or other Christian evangelists knock on my door to try to convert me; usually I just explain what the mezuzah on my family's door frame means and send them on their way. But this is something else entirely. This is truly sick. These soldiers occupy Afghanistan with tanks and bombs, and they have a lot of nerve to even touch a Bible with their filthy, bloodstained hands. They are in a country where the penalty for apostasy is death, and they wish to coerce Afghans (who live in fear of the U.S. soldiers) into volunteering for a death sentence. These soldiers are recruiting martyrs.

Take a look at the language they themselves use: In one recorded sermon, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, tells soldiers that, as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him". It is no coincidence that in Dari as well as Pashto, the two main languages of Afghanistan, the words for "witness" (shâhed) and "martyr" (shahid) both stem from the same Arabic root.

I cannot understand the sick mentality of someone who would entice people into converting, knowing full well that the converts will be brutally killed for doing so. Yet somehow, Americans wonder why their occupations are seen by many Muslims as a new Christian Crusade. You cannot blame this on Bush anymore. This is Obama's occupation now, and he has made it very clear that he relishes the thought of continuing to occupy and bomb Afghanistan until the mountains are leveled and the Afghans as a people have been exterminated. Christian evangelism, rolling back of women's rights, concessions to the Taliban, constant bloodshed and terror: this is the face of Obama's Afghanistan. Get out now.

Whitewashed

2009-05-01T11:23:00.003-04:00

Via accusehistory: there's a new book out called Whitewashed: America's Invisible Middle Eastern Minority by John Tehranian. I haven't read it yet, but I look forward to reviewing it when I get my hands on a copy. There's a short interview with the author here and a longer one here.

Tehranian's book seems to be more about "external" identity (how Middle Easterners in America are perceived and treated both by law and by society) rather than "internal" identity, as the title might suggest. From listening to the interviews, it seems that Tehranian approaches the issue from a very mainstream, American(ized) integrationist approach, and while I may have a different vision and different approach, I think his is important. Those of us who live in diaspora all have different desires and aspirations, from blending in completely to resisting assimilation at all levels, from leaving our homelands for America or leaving America for our homelands, and a multitude of shades in between. Whether we live in America by choice or in exile, whether we embrace or reject life in diaspora, whether we're here for a day or a lifetime - we're here, and we need to be treated fairly. It is only when we have freedom, equality, justice, safety, and security in this country that we will be free to explore our identities and decide where "home" is. Until then, we struggle against racism and the many ugly forms it takes against us in America.

For more on Middle Easterners and whiteness see Gelareh Asayesh's essay, I Grew Up Thinking I Was White, in the anthology "My sister, guard your veil; my brother, guard your eyes."

P.H.A.T.W.A.

2009-04-30T16:33:00.001-04:00

Peep this new track called P.H.A.T.W.A. from The Narcicyst, whose song Real Arab Money launched the backlash against Busta Rhymes's "Arab Money." (See also Revolution of the Mind's response, Fuck Your Arab Money). "P.H.A.T.W.A." is dope, the video is great, and I love all the humor packed in there: Narcy's "Same Shit, Different Saddam" shirt, "their lies make me mo' sad, like Israeli intelligence," and my favorite part, the Arab security officer whose name is Mohammed "Amu" Toomas. Check it out.

Here is the best comment I found on the "P.H.A.T.W.A." Youtube page:
Attention Arabs. The shit you guys have to take is fucked up. If someone is harassing you just make up a Latino alias (we got your back). Say your name is Carlos Velez or something. These dumb fucks can't tell the difference.
Solidarity...?

Side note: does anyone actually care about Busta Rhymes anymore? He was my favorite rapper when I was in the 5th grade. He used to rap at light-speed about all kinds of crazy things, he had long dreads and a paranoid, interesting character. Then I guess he fell off for a long time...and now he's back, cut off his dreads, and has slow, boring rhymes about butts and "Ay-rab money." Anyway, Busta got called on his ridiculous Orientalist bullshit, and I hope that hypocrite puts his tails between his legs and backs off the scene for a minute. He should've quit the game after Genesis anyway.

The one pig Mubarak forgot to count in: himself (as well as his cabinet, police, mukhabarat...).

2009-04-29T16:19:00.021-04:00

So, Mubarak has ordered the mass execution of all pigs in Cairo as per the swine flu frenzy. Great; not only are the livelihoods of ~60,000 people now ruined, but the rest of Cairo is put in jeopardy, as the pigs are necessary to keep the city clean.

"We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?" said Gergis Faris, a 46-year-old pig farmer in another part of Cairo who collects garbage to feed his animals. "We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?"

As much as Mubarak loves sectarianism, I'm not sure if this is just a deliberate attack on the Coptic community, though. This is also an obvious tactic to exploit the health crisis in order to eradicate the zabbaleen of work, which in turn privatizes the public sector. I do think Egypt needs serious re-structuring in its public works and health sectors (and nearly every other), but not at the expense of these peoples' livelihoods and for the benefit of foreign developers. Clearly, this isn't an isolated incident; considering the date of that Ahram article (2002), this has been in the works for a while.

As a blurb on the BBC notes, the Christian workers may be ready to strike. Given Egypt's incredible strike wave over the past few years, the regime has taken heed; Mubarak even used his Labor Day speech to beg workers not to strike. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a hint at the trash collectors. In any case, as a friend wrote to me in an e-mail, "Get ready for one of the smelliest trips to Cairo."

Related: here's the first half of 'Garbage Dreams', a documentary on the zabbaleen that a friend worked on (broken up into three clips). Truth be told, I haven't gotten to watch all of it, but I'm just putting it out there for whoever is interested.
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(thanks t. and Derek for the AP and BBC articles.)

America's self-fulfilling prophecy in Iraq

2009-04-27T09:55:00.010-04:00

Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11 (Patrick Cockburn, The Independent)

"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq.

This is the self-fulfilling prophecy that America has unleashed upon itself. It set out to shape the Middle East in its own image: violent, vengeful, destructive. We are now all familiar with the fact that the U.S. armed and trained both secular dictators like Saddam Hussein and Reza Shah Pahlavi as well as Islamic extremists like Osama bin Ladin, the Taliban, and the Afghan mujahideen. Many also know of America's role in overthrowing Mohammed Mosaddegh (Iran's progressive, democratically-elected prime minister), helping Israel to undermine the secular Palestinian Left, and backing Saudi Arabia (which bankrolls and exports its miserable Salafi/Wahhabi cult). All of these events, however, are relegated to the past: "America made mistakes," the reasoning goes, "but it has learned from them and will not repeat them in the War on Terror." Yet as articles such as this one show, America is still manufacturing the same "terrorist enemies" it claims to oppose.

Neither al-Qa'ida in Iraq nor the Taliban in Pakistan have any legitimacy, and the majority of both countries, respectively, is opposed to the puritanical and violent ideology of these groups. However, the Pakistani Taliban finds a base of support for some of the same reasons that al-Qa'ida does: it is a group that purports to fight the foreign occupiers. Every second the U.S. is in Iraq breeds more support for extremists such as al-Qa'ida, and every U.S. drone attack in Pakistan sends more young men into the arms of the Taliban. Still, many Americans are desperate to continue relegating U.S. mistakes to the past, this time to a more recent (but certainly over) era: the Bush administration. This is nearsightedness of the highest degree. The deep wounds the U.S. has inflicted on the Middle East go back much earlier than Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., and they continue under the Obama administration, which continues to rain destruction upon Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine, and is hungrily eying Iran as its next target. Don't get it twisted; it is U.S. empire, not an individual president, that is to blame.

Patrick Cockburn (author of the article linked above) wrote one of the best books I've read on Iraqi politics and resistance under the current U.S. occupation, Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. Definitely recommended. For a broader, feminist history and ethnography of 'modern' Iraq (1948-2007) see Nadje Sadig al-Ali's Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present, which was recommended to me by t. and is perhaps my favorite book written about Iraq. I have not yet had the opportunity to read her new book What Kind of Liberation?: Women and the Occupation of Iraq. She speaks about her new book here and here.