In light of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to three Yemeni ladies, a feat that has been heralded as one which defies "assumptions on both sides of the East-West divide by defying the Eastern stereotype that women are weak and unsuitable for leadership and the Western belief that Muslim women are oppressed by Islam, I'd like to look at what effect this might have on women who live where the East and West overlap.
The idea that Muslim women are oppressed by Islam puts Muslims living in western countries in a difficult position. If the Muslim woman is part of a family/culture in which men believe they are Islamically endowed power over women because women are somehow inferior, or worse, if she lives in an abusive relationship, it becomes even more difficult for her to speak out. This is especially the case if she sees herself as a devout Muslim. Even if she believes that she deserves better and has made up her mind that her culture or family values are not in her best interest, she cannot reach out for help for fear of making Islam "look bad" and confirming the reigning stereotype about her religion.
In order to escape her plight, she would have to feel disconnected from Islam in addition to confronting her family. If she did not want to risk her religion, she would endure her circumstances quietly.
However, with a recognition of global standard for strong Muslim women, the Western Muslimah can identify with them for both her faith and her sense of dignity and agency. For this reason alone, I am glad for the work of the Yemeni Peace Prize winners.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
An Important Note For My Audience
My sister made a comment, off this site, about my previous blogpost and it, along with a comment about my fiction, has triggered a serious breakthrough.
In my last blogpost, I passingly mention a story I wrote when I was in first grade. In the story, I teach my sister how to run because she afraid to do so. My sister commented that the story sounded like "The Scarlett Ibis," by James Hurst, which both of us read in our own due passage through Mrs. Geiger's ninth grade advanced English class. Interestingly, "The Scarlett Ibis" was the first story in which I was able to understand the idea of a literary theme.
I don't know if it was the sparks that surround my comprehension of that idea, but it made me realize that I've lost my ability to tell a good story. My sister ignored my entire narrative about myself as a writer and singled out the part that was most important to her. Telling a good story is all about knowing what your audience wants to hear. It's a way of making an argument that does not call out to objective fact, as academic arguments do, but which is a subtle use of yellow journalism, shared consciousness, and emotional intelligence. It is not an introspective act. Rather, at it's best, in my opinion. it encourages introspection and demonstrates a method of expression for those wary of the institution certified methods but who believe current conditions, whatever they are, can and must be improved. Telling stories, as any griot could tell you, is an exercise of community leadership.
Rewind.
I've lost my ability to tell a good story. Telling a good story is all about knowing what your audience wants to hear. What would they find interesting? What matters to them the most? And most important of all, who are "they"?
It takes me a long time to judge and cater to an audience. I watch and listen carefully. I start by talking to one person. Slowly, I infiltrate. Eventually, I become the person who knows and talks to everybody and thinks of them as all a part of on one large, dynamic, never-ending puzzle that I finally learned the key to solving. It takes me a long time but with slow and diligent work, including late nights spent imagining conversations with people I have yet to speak with and telling trial stories, which some people call "lies," to help me judge my audience, I can figure it out. And to be honest, it's the most interesting work in the world.
But I don't just want to study people like they are lab mice. And I don't do it because I want everyone to like me. I watch them carefully so I can function as best as I can in the community. I've mentioned my mom's self-consciousness about this before but I think it also has to do with having a sense that you are different in a way that most of the people around you might not understand. The difference between my mom and I is that I have never been ashamed of being different. In fact, I find it far more realistic to think of being different as something that's just, well, different.
Accordingly, people react differently to difference. As someone different, I realized I really needed to know my peers and accept their difference before I should expect them to accept mine. It's a trust breeds trust sort of thing. Also, because I feel more different than the usual amount, I felt it's something that needs to be done with extra care than the usual things I do. It is utterly important for me to be a part of a community. It is the only way I know how to function. It's only when I know everyone's stories that I can tell them my own and it's only once they know mine that they can properly become a part of it.
Once I am a part of a community, I am fully invested in its dynamic. Accordingly, the greatest pain I can suffer is the feeling that the community I am a part of does not have my own or even its own best interests in mind. If someone is doing something that hurts someone else in the community, I am restless until there is some resolution.
I have been a part of some toxic communities. I have also been a part of communities I did not feel utilized what I had to offer it and therefore, did not have either my own or it's own best interests in mind. Maybe that makes me sound full of myself, asserting that I can differentiate what is best for a community. To be honest, after a certain point, I become too invested and I can no longer tell. What I've never been good at is abandoning a sinking ship. I think of it as good as being my own and if it's going down, so am I.
Of course, it only takes surviving that a few times, probably fewer for some people that others, that you have the choice to not go down with it. I, on the other hand, took so long to learn that, that when I learned it, I decided to maybe just find a different form of transportation.
However, this blog is not called "Introspective Commentary." Despite that, that's what it is. And to be honest, when I write fiction, it is really nothing more than introspection, either. My number one fan, maybe my only fan anymore, has told me that it is stream of consciousness, which for some reason never occurred to me before he pointed it out.
As I said before, in my last blogpost, my sister singled out the part of my post that was most important to her. Introspection, which is perhaps my own opinion (and that explains away my personal dislike of stream of consciousness narration), is often done to figure out what's most important to a person. For some people, just figuring things out, anything at all, is what's their most important thing. For me, the thing that was most important was my function in a community. I do not believe it was something that came from being a self-conscious teenager, though being one helped me figure it out. I think it's something I honestly believe to be the most important thing that there is and my recent introspective phase has come out of disillusionment with the idea.
However, introspection is not a vehicle of achieving what the title of this blog seems to imply and what I have in previous posts implied is most important to me. I am not trying to define new values for myself. I am in a battle against myself to get back to the way of life I prefer over this one. I'm not trying to get things back to the way they were. I am trying to resist the disillusionment, cynicism, and general closed heartedness/mindedness caused by disappointments outside of my own control and return to learning from my mistakes and then moving on.
I am trying to be someone who tells good stories, again.
In my last blogpost, I passingly mention a story I wrote when I was in first grade. In the story, I teach my sister how to run because she afraid to do so. My sister commented that the story sounded like "The Scarlett Ibis," by James Hurst, which both of us read in our own due passage through Mrs. Geiger's ninth grade advanced English class. Interestingly, "The Scarlett Ibis" was the first story in which I was able to understand the idea of a literary theme.
I don't know if it was the sparks that surround my comprehension of that idea, but it made me realize that I've lost my ability to tell a good story. My sister ignored my entire narrative about myself as a writer and singled out the part that was most important to her. Telling a good story is all about knowing what your audience wants to hear. It's a way of making an argument that does not call out to objective fact, as academic arguments do, but which is a subtle use of yellow journalism, shared consciousness, and emotional intelligence. It is not an introspective act. Rather, at it's best, in my opinion. it encourages introspection and demonstrates a method of expression for those wary of the institution certified methods but who believe current conditions, whatever they are, can and must be improved. Telling stories, as any griot could tell you, is an exercise of community leadership.
Rewind.
I've lost my ability to tell a good story. Telling a good story is all about knowing what your audience wants to hear. What would they find interesting? What matters to them the most? And most important of all, who are "they"?
It takes me a long time to judge and cater to an audience. I watch and listen carefully. I start by talking to one person. Slowly, I infiltrate. Eventually, I become the person who knows and talks to everybody and thinks of them as all a part of on one large, dynamic, never-ending puzzle that I finally learned the key to solving. It takes me a long time but with slow and diligent work, including late nights spent imagining conversations with people I have yet to speak with and telling trial stories, which some people call "lies," to help me judge my audience, I can figure it out. And to be honest, it's the most interesting work in the world.
But I don't just want to study people like they are lab mice. And I don't do it because I want everyone to like me. I watch them carefully so I can function as best as I can in the community. I've mentioned my mom's self-consciousness about this before but I think it also has to do with having a sense that you are different in a way that most of the people around you might not understand. The difference between my mom and I is that I have never been ashamed of being different. In fact, I find it far more realistic to think of being different as something that's just, well, different.
Accordingly, people react differently to difference. As someone different, I realized I really needed to know my peers and accept their difference before I should expect them to accept mine. It's a trust breeds trust sort of thing. Also, because I feel more different than the usual amount, I felt it's something that needs to be done with extra care than the usual things I do. It is utterly important for me to be a part of a community. It is the only way I know how to function. It's only when I know everyone's stories that I can tell them my own and it's only once they know mine that they can properly become a part of it.
Once I am a part of a community, I am fully invested in its dynamic. Accordingly, the greatest pain I can suffer is the feeling that the community I am a part of does not have my own or even its own best interests in mind. If someone is doing something that hurts someone else in the community, I am restless until there is some resolution.
I have been a part of some toxic communities. I have also been a part of communities I did not feel utilized what I had to offer it and therefore, did not have either my own or it's own best interests in mind. Maybe that makes me sound full of myself, asserting that I can differentiate what is best for a community. To be honest, after a certain point, I become too invested and I can no longer tell. What I've never been good at is abandoning a sinking ship. I think of it as good as being my own and if it's going down, so am I.
Of course, it only takes surviving that a few times, probably fewer for some people that others, that you have the choice to not go down with it. I, on the other hand, took so long to learn that, that when I learned it, I decided to maybe just find a different form of transportation.
However, this blog is not called "Introspective Commentary." Despite that, that's what it is. And to be honest, when I write fiction, it is really nothing more than introspection, either. My number one fan, maybe my only fan anymore, has told me that it is stream of consciousness, which for some reason never occurred to me before he pointed it out.
As I said before, in my last blogpost, my sister singled out the part of my post that was most important to her. Introspection, which is perhaps my own opinion (and that explains away my personal dislike of stream of consciousness narration), is often done to figure out what's most important to a person. For some people, just figuring things out, anything at all, is what's their most important thing. For me, the thing that was most important was my function in a community. I do not believe it was something that came from being a self-conscious teenager, though being one helped me figure it out. I think it's something I honestly believe to be the most important thing that there is and my recent introspective phase has come out of disillusionment with the idea.
However, introspection is not a vehicle of achieving what the title of this blog seems to imply and what I have in previous posts implied is most important to me. I am not trying to define new values for myself. I am in a battle against myself to get back to the way of life I prefer over this one. I'm not trying to get things back to the way they were. I am trying to resist the disillusionment, cynicism, and general closed heartedness/mindedness caused by disappointments outside of my own control and return to learning from my mistakes and then moving on.
I am trying to be someone who tells good stories, again.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Me, the writer
This the story of a developing writer I refer to as me.
In kindergarten and first grade, my school had a book binding program which spurred the story teller in me to write dozens of little stories for novelty of having them published alone. I can only remember one of those stories, in which I teach my younger sister, who in the story is afraid, how to run. In second grade, I had a poem published in one of those anthologies that publish kids' poems to get parents to buy the publication. I remember reading every poem in the book and only finding two or three I thought were as good as mine. In third grade, I wrote poems that first resulted in my teacher's accusation that I was a budding plagiarist but eventually lead to her admiration. She was really into Christmas-- we had a 12 ft tree in the classroom, and she kept the poem I wrote about it. She had me read it to the class and when, at the end they sat there in silence, she exclaimedd it was the silence of admiration. I half believed her but vowed never to share my poetry with my peers again.
My grandfather visited from Bangladesh when I was in third grade. My grandfather was a lawyer and is gifted, as good lawyers are, with his words. He had a special gift for story telling and has always taken his time to tell me stories he's read. He told me stories from 1001 Nights, Shakespeare, and the Quran, among others. This influenced me greatly as both an aficionado of stories and as a writer.
In fourth grade, perhaps in an effort to show off to my classmates in a way they could more easily appreciate, I switched to mainly academic writing. I wrote academically with ease and can only remember having a problem with it in ninth grade, which I attributed to my teacher's insanity. However, I later realized that my ninth grade English teacher had taught me deeper literary analysis than I'd ever experienced before and was just having trouble fitting my newly complicated thoughts into the old 3-5 paragraph essay format. I got that figured out pretty soon, though and could bang out a 5 paragraph essays in 45 mins from only having read the book/story/poem/play by my senior year. Regents preparation had given me the formula to do that and SAT essay practice had given me a vocabulary so sharp it impressed even very well-read teachers.
Writing continued to be easy for me until my first semester as an English major and second semester as a writing tutor. I began to struggle with it because I began to lose touch with the formula I had come to depend on. I saw too many possibilities and didn't know how to choose from among them the one best suited to my purpose. I don't know how my fellow tutors dealt with the exposure to such a wide array of equally viable writing styles.
Meanwhile, I was taking increasingly difficult and more writing intensive classes. I needed time to figure it out. I needed time to write papers 30 different ways or at least think through 30 different ways to approach my argumentation. I didn't have that kind of time and I sort of floundered. In fact, I regressed. In my need for experimentation, I ditched half my vocabulary and dipped from near eloquence to an incoherent mess. It didn't help that I was studying post-colonial and vernacular literature as an American immigrant minority from a previously colonized country. It doesn't help that I was unable to verbalize my thoughts and feelings to the people I thought I loved and trusted for fear of their utter disappointment. In fact, my writing was only clear when I clearly understood my own identity, which was rare. Such radical introspection doesn't always make for good grades, especially when you're struggling with the conventions that earn you your grades. It was, as they say, a recipe for disaster.
I promised I'm not saying this to create an infinite loop, but the story continues from the beginning of this blog.
In kindergarten and first grade, my school had a book binding program which spurred the story teller in me to write dozens of little stories for novelty of having them published alone. I can only remember one of those stories, in which I teach my younger sister, who in the story is afraid, how to run. In second grade, I had a poem published in one of those anthologies that publish kids' poems to get parents to buy the publication. I remember reading every poem in the book and only finding two or three I thought were as good as mine. In third grade, I wrote poems that first resulted in my teacher's accusation that I was a budding plagiarist but eventually lead to her admiration. She was really into Christmas-- we had a 12 ft tree in the classroom, and she kept the poem I wrote about it. She had me read it to the class and when, at the end they sat there in silence, she exclaimedd it was the silence of admiration. I half believed her but vowed never to share my poetry with my peers again.
My grandfather visited from Bangladesh when I was in third grade. My grandfather was a lawyer and is gifted, as good lawyers are, with his words. He had a special gift for story telling and has always taken his time to tell me stories he's read. He told me stories from 1001 Nights, Shakespeare, and the Quran, among others. This influenced me greatly as both an aficionado of stories and as a writer.
In fourth grade, perhaps in an effort to show off to my classmates in a way they could more easily appreciate, I switched to mainly academic writing. I wrote academically with ease and can only remember having a problem with it in ninth grade, which I attributed to my teacher's insanity. However, I later realized that my ninth grade English teacher had taught me deeper literary analysis than I'd ever experienced before and was just having trouble fitting my newly complicated thoughts into the old 3-5 paragraph essay format. I got that figured out pretty soon, though and could bang out a 5 paragraph essays in 45 mins from only having read the book/story/poem/play by my senior year. Regents preparation had given me the formula to do that and SAT essay practice had given me a vocabulary so sharp it impressed even very well-read teachers.
Writing continued to be easy for me until my first semester as an English major and second semester as a writing tutor. I began to struggle with it because I began to lose touch with the formula I had come to depend on. I saw too many possibilities and didn't know how to choose from among them the one best suited to my purpose. I don't know how my fellow tutors dealt with the exposure to such a wide array of equally viable writing styles.
Meanwhile, I was taking increasingly difficult and more writing intensive classes. I needed time to figure it out. I needed time to write papers 30 different ways or at least think through 30 different ways to approach my argumentation. I didn't have that kind of time and I sort of floundered. In fact, I regressed. In my need for experimentation, I ditched half my vocabulary and dipped from near eloquence to an incoherent mess. It didn't help that I was studying post-colonial and vernacular literature as an American immigrant minority from a previously colonized country. It doesn't help that I was unable to verbalize my thoughts and feelings to the people I thought I loved and trusted for fear of their utter disappointment. In fact, my writing was only clear when I clearly understood my own identity, which was rare. Such radical introspection doesn't always make for good grades, especially when you're struggling with the conventions that earn you your grades. It was, as they say, a recipe for disaster.
I promised I'm not saying this to create an infinite loop, but the story continues from the beginning of this blog.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Learning To Draw Again
I'm going to learn to draw again.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and memorize the gesture
of being seen.
I have grown too accustomed
to the pursuit of
the gaze of
privilege.
I have grown too accustomed
to seeing and not being seen.
I have grown too accustomed
to my supernatural position
as a ghost.
I'm going to learn to draw again.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and internalize the gesture
of being seen.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and memorize the gesture
of being seen.
I have grown too accustomed
to the pursuit of
the gaze of
privilege.
I have grown too accustomed
to seeing and not being seen.
I have grown too accustomed
to my supernatural position
as a ghost.
I'm going to learn to draw again.
I'll learn to look things straight in the eye
and internalize the gesture
of being seen.
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