In our garden, we grow weeds
in a cracked tub my parents keep by the sidewalk.
We chanced upon these weeds one spring, the ground so swampy,
the earthworms had beached themselves on the sidewalk.
My parents were so happy, in disbelief, collecting a prized Bangladeshi plant
from soil along American sidewalk!
I was young and imagined Bangladeshis as fourth friends,
braving puddles, just off the edge of the sidewalk,
Who followed me home, me alone,
only to sit in silence among the weeds.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Information Marxism
One of my interests is branding. Products are often sold with fine print that threatens to contractually bind us into expressing certain personalities, attitudes, or traits. This is why you can answer the question: what's the difference between someone who owns a Mac and someone who owns a PC?
The truth is, there doesn't have to be any difference. It's like asking what the difference is between someone who owns cows and someone who owns goats. Maybe somewhere there's stereotype, but it hasn't been used to sell anything, at least not successfully, so most of us can't answer this question. But the real answer is the same: there doesn't necessarily have to be a difference.
When materialism was synonymous with shopohilism, caring about brands made you a shallow person. These days, if you don't care about brands, you aren't socially conscious. However, caring is no longer superficial but requires a lot of research. In the information age, a lack of social consciousness makes you information impoverished, lazy, inept, inconsiderate, and/or awkward. Still, honestly, social consciousness is a "brand" itself, and I have mixed feelings about branding.
First, how much of our identity is created through what we purchase? Everything you buy says something about you because everything you buy is a vote and an investment in the retailer, company, and product and how you vote and invest reflects upon you. Beyond bare necessities, your choices reflect your values or the values a brand convinces you you should have. That last part is pivotal. Do your choices reflect your values or the values advertising convinces you to have?
This came into perspective for me as a minority. The values my parents have are not the same as those held by the larger society I live in. Furthermore, my parents are rather religious and have only become more so over the course of my life. Though their cultural values are still pretty deeply held, religion gives them a more canonized and therefore more accessible way to examine their values against a standard they trust. Their cultural values tend to be more arbitrary but because religion plays such a large cultural role in my family, I have overall adapted a stance of re-examination of values.
It's not just the private sector that perpetuates branding. Schools, which are government regulated, perpetuate the American brand. Or what officials have decided is the American brand. It could be said that's politics in general.
When I was writing graduate school applications, one of the best questions I came across about information access is Randy Stoecker's concern over whether internet access gives underprivileged, dispossessed people a superficial or false sense of belonging to larger culture. Implied in this criticism is a distrust for larger culture, which is created through assertive branding and seeks to profit only the business owners.
The best answer to this question, I believe, comes from Hans Enzensberger, on whom I haven't done enough research but first encountered here. I have been interested in "new media" since I encountered Amir Ahmad's Islam in the Age of New Media project. Basically, the idea is the mass, radical manipulation of media. Branding is created through media but everyone has access to the creation of media, it gives everyone access, if they wish, to branding as well. Rather than only consuming pre-packaged brand values, people are given the chance to package and perpetuate the values they choose. This is also, in my opinion, one of the best uses of the internet. Already, the internet is being limited by big brands. That can't be allowed to happen. Branding, especially in the realm of the internet, needs to be put into the hands of socially conscious community leaders. Maybe that sounds like tribalism but if we are to be united, it has to be on fair terms.
The truth is, there doesn't have to be any difference. It's like asking what the difference is between someone who owns cows and someone who owns goats. Maybe somewhere there's stereotype, but it hasn't been used to sell anything, at least not successfully, so most of us can't answer this question. But the real answer is the same: there doesn't necessarily have to be a difference.
When materialism was synonymous with shopohilism, caring about brands made you a shallow person. These days, if you don't care about brands, you aren't socially conscious. However, caring is no longer superficial but requires a lot of research. In the information age, a lack of social consciousness makes you information impoverished, lazy, inept, inconsiderate, and/or awkward. Still, honestly, social consciousness is a "brand" itself, and I have mixed feelings about branding.
First, how much of our identity is created through what we purchase? Everything you buy says something about you because everything you buy is a vote and an investment in the retailer, company, and product and how you vote and invest reflects upon you. Beyond bare necessities, your choices reflect your values or the values a brand convinces you you should have. That last part is pivotal. Do your choices reflect your values or the values advertising convinces you to have?
This came into perspective for me as a minority. The values my parents have are not the same as those held by the larger society I live in. Furthermore, my parents are rather religious and have only become more so over the course of my life. Though their cultural values are still pretty deeply held, religion gives them a more canonized and therefore more accessible way to examine their values against a standard they trust. Their cultural values tend to be more arbitrary but because religion plays such a large cultural role in my family, I have overall adapted a stance of re-examination of values.
It's not just the private sector that perpetuates branding. Schools, which are government regulated, perpetuate the American brand. Or what officials have decided is the American brand. It could be said that's politics in general.
When I was writing graduate school applications, one of the best questions I came across about information access is Randy Stoecker's concern over whether internet access gives underprivileged, dispossessed people a superficial or false sense of belonging to larger culture. Implied in this criticism is a distrust for larger culture, which is created through assertive branding and seeks to profit only the business owners.
The best answer to this question, I believe, comes from Hans Enzensberger, on whom I haven't done enough research but first encountered here. I have been interested in "new media" since I encountered Amir Ahmad's Islam in the Age of New Media project. Basically, the idea is the mass, radical manipulation of media. Branding is created through media but everyone has access to the creation of media, it gives everyone access, if they wish, to branding as well. Rather than only consuming pre-packaged brand values, people are given the chance to package and perpetuate the values they choose. This is also, in my opinion, one of the best uses of the internet. Already, the internet is being limited by big brands. That can't be allowed to happen. Branding, especially in the realm of the internet, needs to be put into the hands of socially conscious community leaders. Maybe that sounds like tribalism but if we are to be united, it has to be on fair terms.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Meditation on Sharhnush Parsipur's Touba
Today, I have been mentally disconnected from the world around me, wandering in the book, Touba and the Meaning of Night. I finished it last night and I need to move on because I have plenty of reading I plan on getting done in the next few weeks. But in my usual approach to finishing a really good book, I want to dwell on it. I can't read anything else while I'm at work so here I am. To do this constructively, and because the themes of this book a very relevant to this blog, here's a quick analysis.
The book is pretty out there. Employing what critics are calling magical realism,which I love, the book is a blend Islamic mysticism and a critique of history and gender politics. At times I felt that the author was heavy handed by offering definitions yet her definitions were so good, I can't say I minded. I felt like I was being told a story by an elder, wisdom emanating from the actions of every character.
Alert: spoilers ahead. If you dare, keep reading.
Let's start with the Islamic mysticism. The main first ambition expressed by Touba, the main character, is her desire to find god and bear a messiah. She is inspired after her father teaches her the Quran, who is inspired to do so when the thought that the earth is round makes him realize that women are capable of thinking. Throughout the novel, when there is a change in the path of Touba's life, she recalls this ambition and wonders how her marriages, her children, her society, her property prevent her from following it. In the end, however, it is Layla, the embodiment of femininity, who enlightens Touba and unites her with the Touba Tree, the Sufi symbol for spiritual perfection, unity with God, and death.
The society that had successfully prevented her was itself in political and cultural upheaval. The political upheaval, despite Touba's marriage into the Qajar dynasty, always seemed distant in the book. The absence of politically people involved are not felt except in the case of Mr. Khiabani and Ismael, Touba's and her daughter Moone's prime male interests. These interests, through no fault of their own, turn Touba and her daughter towards mysticism. Nonetheless, the book begins with a story of a European man whipping Touba's father in the face for wandering, deep in mystic thought, into the path of his horse. The idea of historical progress, which is implemented by those in power, at first embarrass Touba, but in due course become irrelevant after she also questions, admires, and rejects them on the basis of disconnected principles. Touba's greatest difficulty is in dealing with modernization and, for which she consults her spiritual leader, fluctuating social norms.
On Touba's first visit to her spiritual leader, he sends her home because her mind is preoccupied with those she must care for: her family, including four young children and a mentally disturbed aunt. Her family soon doubles after they get home and Touba is asked to take in refugees from Azerbaijan and only to be broken when her husband takes a second wife. Two false images of gender equality are presented: the sexual agency of the court women, allowed them due to wealth and power, and the financial agency of Touba's daughter, afforded her through modernization. Both are false in giving neither woman what she wants, though the second, unlike the first, is less harmful in its falsehood. But what Touba wants most is to be united with God and each duty in her life seems to be an obstacle. After yet another generation of adopted family finally finds their own direction in life, Touba finals turns within herself and asks herself why she has never achieved her only goal.
That's as far as I can spoil it for you. Now I'll give you my conclusion: This is a work of dharmic feminism, a journey in search of the divine feminine. I don't know Farsi, but in Bengali, the word for religion doesn't translate to "faith." This is something I first glimpsed in a lecture by Ingrid Matteson, a professor on the Spirituality of Muslim Women at Hartford Seminary. I just put two and two together. The word for religion, dharmo, is very close the Hindu concept of "duty." Sufism is, in fact, highly influenced by the dharmic religions. Because Touba's end goal is to raise herself to union with God, and because her duties include contending with the social and political forces around her, she expresses embedded feminism.
I heavily related to this book because, even in different social and political environments, this is the Islam I grew up with. Persian culture is appreciated by many Bengalis, as is Buddhist and Hindu culture.. Though my family is Sunni and Iran is largely Shi'a, there are also members of my family who are Sufis, like Touba. My maternal grandfather, despite his Arabian influenced Islam, read palms, which I can't see jibing with Wahabism. My parents, in deference to my grandfather's dated reference, seek Arabian influence and these days that results in pretty straight-laced views. How has Wahabism developed over the span of my grandfathers' lives, my mother's life, my life? Could it have been less influential when my grandfather developed his religious views? These are relevant questions I wouldn't have thought to ask without having read this book.**
Of course, in America, Islam is something still different. Sufism is/should be different. I am an immigrant but I doubt I will instill in my children half the dharmic values I have and I don't have that many compared to my parents (though there are some I want to cultivate). At times, in America, you need something else. Are there Puritan, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish values that can be expressed in Islam? Considering the common root of the religions, that answer should be easy! But has it emerged? Eboo Patel says there is a cornerstone in the value of service and I agree. Mohja Kahf points out American Islam's roots in slavery and the Civil Rights movement and the American value of egalitarian love and that has to be a part of it, too. Also, it has to seriously engage in feminism. What else? I think there's more. I believe this is my generation's duty.
Now, time to get my laundry and clean my room.
**I have vague answers because I know a rough religio-political history of Islam, via Reza Aslan's No God But God and G. Willow Wilson's Butterfly Mosque.
The book is pretty out there. Employing what critics are calling magical realism,which I love, the book is a blend Islamic mysticism and a critique of history and gender politics. At times I felt that the author was heavy handed by offering definitions yet her definitions were so good, I can't say I minded. I felt like I was being told a story by an elder, wisdom emanating from the actions of every character.
Alert: spoilers ahead. If you dare, keep reading.
Let's start with the Islamic mysticism. The main first ambition expressed by Touba, the main character, is her desire to find god and bear a messiah. She is inspired after her father teaches her the Quran, who is inspired to do so when the thought that the earth is round makes him realize that women are capable of thinking. Throughout the novel, when there is a change in the path of Touba's life, she recalls this ambition and wonders how her marriages, her children, her society, her property prevent her from following it. In the end, however, it is Layla, the embodiment of femininity, who enlightens Touba and unites her with the Touba Tree, the Sufi symbol for spiritual perfection, unity with God, and death.
The society that had successfully prevented her was itself in political and cultural upheaval. The political upheaval, despite Touba's marriage into the Qajar dynasty, always seemed distant in the book. The absence of politically people involved are not felt except in the case of Mr. Khiabani and Ismael, Touba's and her daughter Moone's prime male interests. These interests, through no fault of their own, turn Touba and her daughter towards mysticism. Nonetheless, the book begins with a story of a European man whipping Touba's father in the face for wandering, deep in mystic thought, into the path of his horse. The idea of historical progress, which is implemented by those in power, at first embarrass Touba, but in due course become irrelevant after she also questions, admires, and rejects them on the basis of disconnected principles. Touba's greatest difficulty is in dealing with modernization and, for which she consults her spiritual leader, fluctuating social norms.
On Touba's first visit to her spiritual leader, he sends her home because her mind is preoccupied with those she must care for: her family, including four young children and a mentally disturbed aunt. Her family soon doubles after they get home and Touba is asked to take in refugees from Azerbaijan and only to be broken when her husband takes a second wife. Two false images of gender equality are presented: the sexual agency of the court women, allowed them due to wealth and power, and the financial agency of Touba's daughter, afforded her through modernization. Both are false in giving neither woman what she wants, though the second, unlike the first, is less harmful in its falsehood. But what Touba wants most is to be united with God and each duty in her life seems to be an obstacle. After yet another generation of adopted family finally finds their own direction in life, Touba finals turns within herself and asks herself why she has never achieved her only goal.
That's as far as I can spoil it for you. Now I'll give you my conclusion: This is a work of dharmic feminism, a journey in search of the divine feminine. I don't know Farsi, but in Bengali, the word for religion doesn't translate to "faith." This is something I first glimpsed in a lecture by Ingrid Matteson, a professor on the Spirituality of Muslim Women at Hartford Seminary. I just put two and two together. The word for religion, dharmo, is very close the Hindu concept of "duty." Sufism is, in fact, highly influenced by the dharmic religions. Because Touba's end goal is to raise herself to union with God, and because her duties include contending with the social and political forces around her, she expresses embedded feminism.
I heavily related to this book because, even in different social and political environments, this is the Islam I grew up with. Persian culture is appreciated by many Bengalis, as is Buddhist and Hindu culture.. Though my family is Sunni and Iran is largely Shi'a, there are also members of my family who are Sufis, like Touba. My maternal grandfather, despite his Arabian influenced Islam, read palms, which I can't see jibing with Wahabism. My parents, in deference to my grandfather's dated reference, seek Arabian influence and these days that results in pretty straight-laced views. How has Wahabism developed over the span of my grandfathers' lives, my mother's life, my life? Could it have been less influential when my grandfather developed his religious views? These are relevant questions I wouldn't have thought to ask without having read this book.**
Of course, in America, Islam is something still different. Sufism is/should be different. I am an immigrant but I doubt I will instill in my children half the dharmic values I have and I don't have that many compared to my parents (though there are some I want to cultivate). At times, in America, you need something else. Are there Puritan, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish values that can be expressed in Islam? Considering the common root of the religions, that answer should be easy! But has it emerged? Eboo Patel says there is a cornerstone in the value of service and I agree. Mohja Kahf points out American Islam's roots in slavery and the Civil Rights movement and the American value of egalitarian love and that has to be a part of it, too. Also, it has to seriously engage in feminism. What else? I think there's more. I believe this is my generation's duty.
Now, time to get my laundry and clean my room.
**I have vague answers because I know a rough religio-political history of Islam, via Reza Aslan's No God But God and G. Willow Wilson's Butterfly Mosque.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Shades of Grey and Brown
Fifty Shades of Grey recently hit the library bookshelves. I've had some interesting conversations with housewives and overheard interesting conversations among the ladies in the office. They're more or less unabashed, although I didn't spot anyone talking about it with or around too many men. It basically reminds me of the scene in Madmen when the ladies pass around a copy of Lady Chatterley. I don't think it's anything all that new and I don't think I'll be reading it, either.
But something good has come out of this for me, nonetheless. While trying to explain why I would not be reading it to a fellow lover of literature, I said that, right now, there are other ways that I'm more interested in developing my imagination.
And then it hit me. Ever since I was in the middle of my B.A., I have been conflicted about what I should be reading. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to read. There were a lot of people telling me what I, as a student of literature, should read. On the grounds of studying literature and yet studying post-colonial literature, which is anti-literature, in the classical sense, as much as movements in modernism are, and yet feeling as though there was something missing, all I knew was the my love for reading was in shambles and if it were to die, a part of me I loved would die with it. But the question I needed to ask myself was: What part of my imagination do I need/want to develop?
When I was in middle school, a well-meaning school librarian suggested I read a fiction book by a Muslim author with Muslim characters in a Muslim country. I don't even remember what book. Flustered, I told her I didn't want to. Between Harry Potter books, I was more interested in the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I was interested in anything written by Avi or Rodman Philbrick. I remember liking a series of fairy tales re-written as novels from the point of view of a different character. Growing up sheltered, I wanted to know about the culture beyond my house, a culture I desperately wanted to take part in or at least relate to.
Even then, I knew I wasn't interested in mainstream culture-- I was self-aware enough to know I was different and geeky and be able to appreciate that about myself. But I remember being afraid of being shaped wrongly by the book she suggested. I was afraid it would change me in a way I had no control over. I was afraid it would hit uncomfortably close to home. I was also afraid it would miss and make me feel too different, an unreachable other. Even as I started reading global, post-colonial literature in college, I was a apprehensive about reading anything by Indian, Bengali, or Muslim writers.
As I became more exposed to writing closer to my experience, started reading and enjoying a few books, even becoming overwhelmed by volume of literature I could still read about it, it became less important for me to be able to completely relate to a work by a Muslim or from a Muslim country. It made me realize that there were a lot of people like me, but not exactly like me and that this is a good thing. Even though there's still a part of me that's afraid that if I read one more book about being from the Indian subcontinent, being an immigrant, being Muslim, on top of which, being feminist, I'm going to alienate myself, now I think that it's something I need to develop more of an imagination for.
In a way, this focus it does limit me. I don't read very much mainstream literature and I'm not that interested in much of the literary canon and because of these reasons, it's not enough for me to meet someone who loves to read to feel an immediate connection with them-- like it was in middle school. But I do still connect with people who love literary fiction of most varieties. I also recently discovered my love for sci-fi. The biggest difference is that I now relate most to people developing shades of grey within their imagination of Muslim, immigrant, female, religious, subcontinental experiences because as someone of these experiences and an American on top of that, to do otherwise would require me to believe these descriptors are limits upon myself and believe they should be for other people, too.
But something good has come out of this for me, nonetheless. While trying to explain why I would not be reading it to a fellow lover of literature, I said that, right now, there are other ways that I'm more interested in developing my imagination.
And then it hit me. Ever since I was in the middle of my B.A., I have been conflicted about what I should be reading. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to read. There were a lot of people telling me what I, as a student of literature, should read. On the grounds of studying literature and yet studying post-colonial literature, which is anti-literature, in the classical sense, as much as movements in modernism are, and yet feeling as though there was something missing, all I knew was the my love for reading was in shambles and if it were to die, a part of me I loved would die with it. But the question I needed to ask myself was: What part of my imagination do I need/want to develop?
When I was in middle school, a well-meaning school librarian suggested I read a fiction book by a Muslim author with Muslim characters in a Muslim country. I don't even remember what book. Flustered, I told her I didn't want to. Between Harry Potter books, I was more interested in the Alice series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I was interested in anything written by Avi or Rodman Philbrick. I remember liking a series of fairy tales re-written as novels from the point of view of a different character. Growing up sheltered, I wanted to know about the culture beyond my house, a culture I desperately wanted to take part in or at least relate to.
Even then, I knew I wasn't interested in mainstream culture-- I was self-aware enough to know I was different and geeky and be able to appreciate that about myself. But I remember being afraid of being shaped wrongly by the book she suggested. I was afraid it would change me in a way I had no control over. I was afraid it would hit uncomfortably close to home. I was also afraid it would miss and make me feel too different, an unreachable other. Even as I started reading global, post-colonial literature in college, I was a apprehensive about reading anything by Indian, Bengali, or Muslim writers.
As I became more exposed to writing closer to my experience, started reading and enjoying a few books, even becoming overwhelmed by volume of literature I could still read about it, it became less important for me to be able to completely relate to a work by a Muslim or from a Muslim country. It made me realize that there were a lot of people like me, but not exactly like me and that this is a good thing. Even though there's still a part of me that's afraid that if I read one more book about being from the Indian subcontinent, being an immigrant, being Muslim, on top of which, being feminist, I'm going to alienate myself, now I think that it's something I need to develop more of an imagination for.
In a way, this focus it does limit me. I don't read very much mainstream literature and I'm not that interested in much of the literary canon and because of these reasons, it's not enough for me to meet someone who loves to read to feel an immediate connection with them-- like it was in middle school. But I do still connect with people who love literary fiction of most varieties. I also recently discovered my love for sci-fi. The biggest difference is that I now relate most to people developing shades of grey within their imagination of Muslim, immigrant, female, religious, subcontinental experiences because as someone of these experiences and an American on top of that, to do otherwise would require me to believe these descriptors are limits upon myself and believe they should be for other people, too.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Against Eltahawy's Criticism of Religious Sublimation
My favorite part of this video is towards the end, when Leila Ahmed criticizes Mona Eltahawy's interpretation of Alifa Rifaat's story, "Distant View of a Minaret." There are several reasons its my favorite part. First, it got me to read the story for myself, which wasn't hard because it is also linked in the Foreign Policy article, for myself. Second, in my first post about this article, my strongest criticism of it was Eltahawy's criticism of religious sublimation, which is what is happening in her reading of the story, by "claiming to have God firmly on their side."
Before I tell you my final reason for liking Ahmed's criticism, I have to tell you me second favorite part of this video. My second part of this video is how much respect these two women have for each other and that the Melissa Harris-Perry show did nothing to play that down. This makes me feel like I don't have to worry about Eltahawy burning bridges for those who want to follow in her footsteps. I loved that both she and Ahmed met and talked to Alifa Rifaat. I love this network of Muslim feminist thinkers and the exchange of feminist thought. Beautifully done. And I love that Mona made a splash and brought these pieces together for anyone who is willing to see beyond the Islamophobic and anti-Islamophobia static.
Now, my final reason for liking Ahmed's criticism, brought on by Eltahawy's bringing this issue to the forefront, is that this is the part of the discussion I want to take part in.
Reminiscent of Marxist, "opium of the masses" idea, that religion allows us an escapist option in the face of oppression or that it can be turned to instead of reform is a common criticism of religion itself, not society, which the umbrella under which gender criticism usually falls. I don't like Eltahawy's blurring of the line between religion and society but the truth is, Islam has been used to justify and normalize misogyny. Yet, for the women who marry the men under oppressive regimes and are, in turn, oppressed themselves, is religious sublimation so bad? It saves a woman from a life of finding meaning only through her duty to her uncaring husband. Isn't that feminism? Alternatives, which should be available, include divorce, marrying out of the culture or not marrying, all of which value the self over the society and can both free a woman of the pitfalls of misogyny and introduce a whole set of new problems (that will likely include a foreign version of misogyny) or not marrying men
And then there's the idea that God is a patriarchal man. I don't believe that to be true. But there are probably many religious women that do believe that and by believing that there's a good model for a patriarchal man, continue to believe in patriarchy. While feminists tear down patriarchy for its flaw, these women seem to believe in a higher standard for it. What's wrong with that? Where that higher standard (which should be considered a moderate from of feminism) is left unexpressed is where my only criticism of what Eltahawy blankets over can be found. If that seems un-feminist of me, I think you need to expand your definition of the term.
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