Iconoclasm vs. A Muslim American Brand

Earlier today, while leafing through a fashion magazine at work, I entertained a complex fantasy involving Jay Z and Beyonce endorsing public libraries and whether or not I would wear a hijab to the ceremony/celebrations (to which I would obviously be invited) they would have in honor of their endorsement. Thursdays are slow days.

Reflected in that fantasy are 3 things I've been thinking about recently:

1. Icons. Pop icons, public figures, product campaigns/packaging, idols, art.

2. Family/community vs. individualism.

3. The meaning of hijab and the circumstances, yes circumstances, under which it's better to wear one than not wear one. 

The first is because, in The Butterfly Mosque G. Willow Wilson mentions the Islamic recommendation against and in some cases even prohibition of icons. This comes from a long history of refusing to worship idols, through which the worshiper may associate partners with god or earthly manifestations of god and divide god's oneness. Wilson, though, is a graphic novelist whose work depicts human and animal figures which, though not forbidden to Muslims as is the depiction of the Prophet, is certainly not recommended. Islamic art, rather than being iconic, is meant to be decorative and using a graphic novel as decoration is tantamount to using any other book as such. Wilson goes on to say that American culture, by contrast, is icon centric.

Wilson also mentions the Egyptian distaste for living alone in the ground of it being waste of resources. Economies of scale aside, the Times article, "The Freedom and Perils of Living Alone," , implies living alone diminishes the ability to anticipate the needs of others, working in direct contrast with the values of collective society (and, I would argue, representative democracy) such as the society heavily family centric, borderline tribal society of Egypt.

Hijab is another post...kind of.

Anyway, I am going into library science because I'm interested in community building and, as I've witnessed by working the circulation desk at the busiest public library in RCLS (a library partnership/conglomeration covering Orange, Rockland, Ulster, and Sullivan counties), public libraries have a lot of potential as a major community hubs. I am going into it with the awareness that the computer/internet access provided by most libraries has been criticized for merely providing the underprivileged communities with the feeling of belonging in larger society without providing them the skills necessary to contribute to and create that society.

I believe that no one should be preyed upon as consumers under the guise of inclusion. They should also be able to create and contribute to the creation of their own/chosen brands, like what Jay Z is to black culture.They should be able to make and choose their own icons, aesthetics, etc and feel their participation in the brand benefits someone they trust.

While a brand may anticipate the needs of it's consumers, it also sells what is ultimately its own conception of society's needs to society and makes a profit that society does not necessarily benefit from. Jay Z says, "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man." As a public figure, he sells himself as a brand. In consumer culture, if hip-hop is the religion, Jay Z is god. If not forever, at least until the next god. Jay Z doesn't define himself by participating in consumer culture like normal people do. He defines himself as culture to be consumed. Anything he does becomes a part of his brand. However, creating a brand that saves your people the degradation of investing in brand values that may directly contradict their own (ie: Tommy Hilfiger's racism) is definitely community empowerment.



So, as a 21st century Muslim, I have to ask: can Muslims have a public figure like Jay Z? Is it Islamic to create a Muslim brand that neither exoticizes, stereotypes, nor exploits Islam or Muslims (or anyone or anything else) while uplifting Muslims Americans? Since brands, rather than tribal communities (more easily maintained in more homogeneous societies), are the American vehicles of unification and identity, not to mention that of globalization, can they take the place of the family/community as something that empowers Muslims? Is the identifier "muslim american" one that truly brings people together as both Muslims and Americans without a brand? Or are culture generating brands too akin to idol worship? Would it be okay if the brand didn't center around a celebrity?

The easy answer is that Islam IS a brand, so to speak, and under all circumstances should be the main principle of unification and identity for all Muslims. The easy answer is not necessarily a wrong answer.

But what I'm more concerned with and what we lose by going with the easy answer are the cultural aspects-- things found in magazines, things like recipes, family traditions, the finer aspects of grooming, beauty standards, relationship advice, interior design, etc.  I would like to see something providing Muslim Americans (many of whom are immigrants) a connection/consciousness with the tribulations of their parents while simultaneously imagining their future as Americans (like hip-hop that samples jazz and blues). While we're at it, immigrant Muslims also sorely need to connect with black Muslims and converts need to understand the difference between cultural and religious practice. 

I believe that the admonition concerning icons exist to make brand awareness necessary rather than to prohibit the making of icons altogether. I know there are magazines out there for Muslim Americans and there are Muslim American brands but I want to see more that are self aware yet vigorous enough to gain recognition from mainstream America, especially in the wake of the flop that was TLC's reality TV show or the impending, Colbert "threat down" bearing "The Shahs of Sunset" disaster.

Who's making your future?: An introduction to mine.

“There is no such thing as unmanipulated writing, filming, or broadcasting. The question is therefore not whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates them. A revolutionary plan should not require the manipulators to disappear: on the contrary, it must make everyone a manipulator." -Hans Enzensberger (Rust Belt Visions: The 2011 Allied Media Conference)

It is a commonly held notion that the world around us isn't good enough. Maybe with the exception of people who belong to the elite class of luxury and excess, most of us look around us and see things that need to be improved. Most of us are willing to work towards improvement, if only for a good night of sleep following a hard day's work. We don't want our effort to line the pockets of the elite or further the damage already surrounding us.

For change to happen, we need resources. Knowing that one of the problems we face is a shortage of resources, some of us choose to directly address this need. I respect that effort, especially because to do it honestly it requires skillful navigation between the corporate creation of scarcity and actual need.

Apparent in my penchant for literature, rooted, perhaps, in the immigrant tradition, I want to address our need for resources by helping both people seeking to provide resources and the people in need of them think about what they really need and to best provide and/or obtain it, and I want to do it by addressing our escapist tendencies.

Next, though you might not immediately see how this comes next, a good story caters to the escapism of entertainment and a really good story teaches you something important at the same time. Though I have spent years of my life with my nose, nay my entire head, in some book, I know that most people escape into music, television shows, movies, video games, or, the biggest one of all: the internet. And though I was an English major, I know that most if not all media contains a message. The message is usually simple: consume more media from this source/follow this message.

BUT the original conception of the internet was not one prompting us to consume but to create. It was not to create another platform for corporate manipulation but to give us access to creating information. Dave Winer from Wired.com equates internet access with having access to your own personal printing press. And the more digitized media becomes, the future we can take that. Why not your own radio or TV station? Video game? Record company? Art gallery? Why not? It seems like the ultimate escapism until you realize the internet is a place where change can happen. In fact, it is happening but the change is being enacted by corporations and that needs to change.

The next question is that of creating media with messages in good faith. In other words, creating media in the context of creating a better world, not just one into which we can escape, as has been its historical corporate function. This is probably the hardest part. While I was English major, dissecting the worlds created in literature-- even though literary fiction is often a prompt to dissect the intentions of the world around us, facing the intentionality in the world around us is an incredibly difficult task. Before using literary analysis, which tries to pinpoint the techniques used by the author to create the message of the book, I never really thought of books as being authored, forget the process by which they are. The way I learned to read as an English major and the way I read before were entirely different and the difference nearly ruined the pleasure of reading for me.

But there are people who face intentionality at its worst everyday. People who face racism or sexism, for example, and know they should be judged as an individual rather than through prejudice. Especially when prejudice is encountered everywhere, it becomes apparent as being constructed with the intention to justify the mistreatment of others. People who struggle against it can tell you how important it is to know the historical context of both the force they reckon with and of their struggle as it proceeds.

For example, when part of a struggle against prejudice, such as the revolutionary movement of hip-hop, is commercialized and made into "pop," it's context (the Civil Rights Movement) disappears. So how do you create media in good faith? You make sure it is connected with the context of it's intention. Don't trust anything without context.

But simply providing context is not enough. Judith Butler, on addressing the lack of centrality/representation/leadership in feminism states that gender, to remain relevant and to avoid coercion, must function as platform for the interpretation of gender. For feminists, gender is a conversation starter, not a lecture. Gender is a context but without the opportunity to continually edit the contained content, it morphs into the polar opposite of what feminists (and humans in general) need it to be. Given, the next step is to empower people to contribute to the creation of information and media.

So, my goal is to help people become aware of information manipulation (giving them context) while giving them the skills to dismantle the sway of the current methods of manipulation as content contributors. This will not only help people become more aware of commercially created "need" but hopefully also help us find our actual context within which we can assess our actual needs. Believe it or not, you can learn all the necessary skills to do what I want to do at a good Library and Information Science program. So that's where I'm headed next.