Resurfacing

I always come back
to the work my grandfather did.
It lets me break
down
and it clears my
head
to gasp for grace.

I must give back, I must be here. 
Said his heart, to his ear,
Said the whistle of the train,
climbing the mound of his back,
climbing west, into the Himalayas.

I always circle back,
climbing west,
climbing west.

One day, I'm going to be a famous poet

In my last post, I said I applaud Mona Eltahawy for gaining the readership she's gained. Not only that, as explained by Altmuslimah, she got a discussion going. Not only THAT, but I hope she's paving the way for Muslim, feminist journalists and writers on the world stage. That part is only a hope so far because to do so, she can't sacrifice her identity for success. That said, she doesn't need to represent every Muslim feminist out there but selling herself out will likely only cause a barrier for anyone wanting to follow in her footsteps.

I've been thinking recently about gaining a wider readership. And by thinking, I mean thinking of trying to get to that point myself. I don't intend to go via news or publishing corporations. That's not the only way to mass communication. At least, if those corps don't come to own the entire internet, it's not. And I'd like to come at it from a community organizer's point of view, where successful mass communication isn't muddled with the attitude of "trying to make a splash" like it has been for Mona Eltahawy.

In the meantime, I don't want to get lost in Muslim feminism. There's more to me than that. I've had the fortune of growing up in country where ideas flow freely and I can't forget that side of myself. I want to be a part of that free flow of ideas and there's more to my ideas, more to ME than my Muslim and feminist ideas. I want to be a poet so I can take those pieces apart and sew them back together into my favorite outfit. And when I figure out how to be a poet, I want to know how to get people to listen. The people who need it, at least. Who wants to sit around at home in her favorite outfit?

These are big dreams considering my current readership (I appreciate each of you deeply) but I've always been a big dreamer.

To touch base with another side of myself, (but mostly to direct you to something wonderful) I recently watched the premiere episode of HBO's Girls. I had to see what all the hubbub in the female and feminist blogosphere was about. Unfortunately, I was pretty upset about it. I don't even want to talk about it. I'm not watching any more of it if I can help it. I'd rather re-watch ABG.

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.

Is the Occupy movement over yet?

I am an extreme opponent of "Occupy Wall Street," and the "movements" it has "inspired." As demonstrated by the number of quotation marks in that last sentence. The opinions expressed in this post are meant to be inflammatory.  So, here are some reasons I think OWS would be better off dead:

1. Occupy Wall Street was, itself, a complete failure. Protesting "corporate greed," the greed that gobbled up tuition money and gave students nothing in return, so vaguely produces no results. It put the ball in the capitalist court, because blaming is the same as appointing responsibility. Occupy Wall Street's protesters took no responsibility. What if they instead protested the Higher Education Bubble, which was a far more immediate cause of their problems? Or the marketing/advertising industry? Trade and finance overall is not problematic, as OWS's founding Adbusters claims. General unrest is nothing new and nothing to protest.

2. Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring did it better than it's American copycat movement. Of course, they had more obviously corrupt leaders to overthrow while even most college educated Americans, after years under a subversively repressive government (felt only by people the government declared war upon such as Muslims, American and otherwise, via the War on Terror), had only vague feelings of injustice. The Arab inspiration behind Occupy Wall Street is widely recognized but rarely does OWS seek advice from the movement that inspired it. Why not?

3. Occupy Wall Street highlights the lack of employment opportunities for the college educated, who refuse to stoop to the level of working at Wal-mart. My dad, who worked as a "sales representative" at a Sony outlet store even after completing two master's degrees and nearly a PhD, sympathizes with this aspect of the movement. However, rather than protesting the degradation of having to work under your qualification, have any of the occupiers thought to protest the degrading nature of working class work? Have they ever thought that their adversity to joining the working class is devoid of endowing any dignity to the working class?

4. Occupy Wall Street is a manifestation of the fear of losing a middle class standard of living, more than anything. Or a fear of never gaining it. It's a fear of being ashamed that you can't afford to do what your friends are doing. It's a fear of going back home after college and being the least successful of your friends. Or even of having to go back home after college. It's a fear of no longer being able to imitate the bourgeoisie with middle class earnings. 

5. Occupy Wall Street propagates the facade of American democracy and opportunity. The world sees America as an emblem of democracy and opportunity. In this arena, America is more or less a "has been." We stopped being so as soon as we began to force that image upon other countries. That's when we became imperialist. America is also internally imperialist. Any sense of us being otherwise is a sense of entitlement. This is evidenced by the fact that everyone else is now doing what we claim to do better than we are*. Their protests are more successful. Their music and art is revolutionary. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and we can only manage to be sarcastic. We need to look to other countries for inspiration now. The movement's illusory nature is also evidenced by the fact that the media has largely been its proponent. I might've put some faith in this movement had it been named the American Spring (some have suggested calling it American Autumn but it didn't stick).

6. Occupy Wall Street sold souvenirs to participants and had visitors. Do I need to explain this one? 

I am critical of this movement largely because I care deeply about protest and reform. However, the culture of the people participating in the largest protest movements in America acts as a blinder to their success. People who got good grades in school and completed college degrees, the people of the movement, are generally too institutionalized to understand what it means to protest and reform. I think there's a good reason behind "anti-intellectualism" in America. Know that in occupying in order to put your degree to work means you are using something designed against your best interests to pursue your interests.


*Does this also mean that countries emulating what they think of as being "American freedom" are going to have some issues to face, too? Yes.

On Habibi, Graphic Novel

I almost didn't read Craig Thompson's Habibi. After reading a media critique article from a Muslim perspective media watch, I was assured it perpetuated stereotypically western interpretations of both Arabs and Muslims. What Thomspon does was labelled "self-conscious orientalism." Thompson is quoted to note on his orientalist aesthetic as being superficial, saying,

“it’s almost better to not see the words when you’re looking at them and you can just appreciate them for their visual aesthetic, rather than have the meaning of the words get in the way.”

which is exemplified by the filling of a woman's body with Arabic text, as if, says the article, "the meaning of the imagery will get in the way of appreciating the aesthetic." However, what rang most true to me was one criticism stating that Thompson's portrayal of Arab brutality is never "justified or made to face consequences."

I dread stereotypically western interpretations of Islam, especially since it has a tendency of confusing Muslim with Arab. But since I'd been interested in it before reading the criticism, I went with my gut and didn't cancel the inter-library loan I used to request it. When it arrived, I began reading it on a slow day at work.

I was hooked. Thompson is a talented story-teller and artist. Though it is true that there a few Arabs who are portrayed as bad guys, there a lot of Arab good guys, too. For example, Zam, one of the main characters, becomes a eunuch in order to understand his sexual attraction to Dodola, his beautiful childhood rescuer, whose rape he witnessed after learning that she sold her body to feed them. Dodola is also a storyteller and the audience's source of an incredible amount of Islamic tradition, through the telling of stories from the Quran. Many stories serve to compare and contrast Islam and the other Abrahamic faiths, but many just serve to glorify Islam's value of storytelling and creative thinking. Though her child marriage to a scribe is the source of Dodola's literacy, in the scribe's insistence on teaching his young wife to read and write, he treats her as an equal and gives her the tools she needs to save her life over and over after he is killed by thieves. 

Things like that make me think Thompson's comment on having "the meaning of the words get in the way" was taken out of context. I don't really see him using orientalism merely as an aesthetic in much of the novel. The Quran itself is a written version of oral tradition, and in a lot of ways, Thompson's Habibi is the graphic version in addition to an interpretation for contemporary audiences, both on account of its format and messages conveyed. I also like that Thompson's narrative includes Islam in both the problems and the solutions faced by the world today, such as environmentalism and racism.

The reason I say that the criticism on Arab brutality spoke loudest to me is because I feel like many people are overly sensitive to negativity in nuanced portrayals of Muslims. True, the newsmedia usually zeroes in on negativity to the point where nuance is squeezed out of the picture. However, limiting media to only glowing portrayals of Muslims stifles nuance AND internal criticism, which can certainly be suggested by non-Muslims, such as Thompson, as well as Muslims.

Brown Girl In Bright Colors

The other day I was extremely frustrated with studying for the GRE and I drew this picture. It made me feel 1000 percent better than I felt before I started. I drew it off a picture Will took of me at Montauk in Spring 2009. It was done in paintbrush, freeware that is about equivalent to Microsoft Paint, using the pen and paint bucket tools.

I really like how this turned out. In some ways, it reminds me of comic book drawing. The colors, the lack of texture in the hair. I also like how the use of different colors instead of gradations of one color turned out. The face appears three dimensional despite color variation being replaced by light variation and a lack of other indications of depth. The light pattern is maintained, and that is enough to maintain the illusion of 3D. Although, I did use brighter colors for brighter areas, generally.

I also like that it looks kind of ugly at first glance. Almost witch-like with all the green in the skin. But some people do have greens in their skin color and it's beautiful. 

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.

Bengali Lessons

I is ami, rhyming with yummy.
You is thumi, rhyming with Rumi.

In Bengali, there are object pronouns.
As tu turns into te in Spanish,
thumi turns into thomakay,
which kind of sounds like stomachache.

Bhalo, in Bengali, means good.
It means satisfactory, proper, right,
well, nice.

Basha, in Bengali, means house or home
or where you're from.
My father uses the variation bari, when he speaks Bengali,
because up north in Rajshahi they speak Proper Bengali.
Rajshahi is officially
amar bari.
My ammu uses basha
because it's easier
on her southern dialect.
And by south, I mean Bhola,
which is a place
where I was born.

When we put the words together
for good
and
for home
we get the word for love: bhalobasha.

Bhalobasha is the noun and the root
that, when conjugated for ami,
is bhalobashi.

When we put the words together
(for good
and
for home)
Ami thomakay bhalobashi.

9/11: 10 Years Since And It's Time for A Muslim President

Good afternoon, my fellow Americans.
Well, actually, I should be honest,
I’m not an American citizen.
I’m a permanent resident, by chance,
patiently awaiting citizenship since I was a child of two.
But, please, hear me out:

Imagine me,
ten years ago,
seventh grade gym class,
the teacher comes in late,
interrupting my musings
over whether my sneakers made my feet look big,
saying, to the other teacher,
“No, they need to know.”

We fall silent.
He says,
“Guys, a plane flew into the Twin Towers
down in New York. It’s really bad.”

Imagine,
the words meant nothing to me.
I didn’t hear anything else he said.
Gym class moved through its usual motions.
As the day went on, I saw it on TV.
A friend of mine said he was worried
because his dad worked nearby.
As the day went on,
I wrote a poem, watching the second plane,
for the thousandth time.

Later, I was asked to read it at a school assembly.
I was nervous, but that day, I understood I had a responsibility.
I joined the school newspaper
to answer questions from people I didn’t know.
Was I was related to Osama bin Laden?
Did I have explosives hidden in my basement?
Did I believe in Jesus Christ?

The next year,
I joined school government and was elected into office.
The next year,
a friend told me she wanted to be trusted and,
in an act of self preservation,
shed her most protective layer; her hijab.

The next year,
I wrote poem after poem,
trying to understand.
The next year, I began volunteering in my community.

The next year, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11,
and completely distracted from Michael Moore’s snark
by the violent war imagery,
I cried like a baby.
The next year,
I became a media junkie,
holding my breath at every Muslim name,
praying to God,
that this person
was someone like me.
The next year,
my teachers chose me
for the Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony Award.

The next year,
I went to college.
I wanted to study civil rights
and this made my parents very nervous.
The next year, Barak Obama was elected
and my mom said,
“May God protect him.”

The next year,
I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn’t want to write about exotic food,
or men with beards and guns,
or women who were a pair of kohl darkened eyes.

Last year,
some people demonstrated against the construction of a community center,
because it would house the prayer of Islam,
prayer of, in English, peaceful surrender,
which they believed could taint the sanctity
of the nearby sacred space known as Ground Zero.

The Pew Poll found, this year,
Muslims are the most diverse religious group in America,
the most optimistic religious group,
and a group as loyal to America as they are to their religion.
This year, a GOP hopeful said on television
that any Muslim serving under him
would have to take a special loyalty oath.

I read somewhere,
that you aren’t culturally considered American
unless your family has been here at least two generations before your birth.
Every morning, all through school,
I pledged allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God,
With liberty, and justice for all.

I’d like to thank you, my fellow Americans,
who’ve been as good on their pledge as I have.

On the rearranging of disagreeable ways:

Creativity has nothing to do with the act of creating or invention. It is not solely artistic but the best art certainly interacts intimately with the idea of creativity. Creativity is kind of a misnomer for the ability to see something in many different ways. It's divergent thinking. Its resourcefulness. It's cleverness. At its best, creativity allows us to make the most of what we have.

In order to decide how you can make the most of what you have, you have to be able to see different ways of how to do best by what you have. For example, if you have a towel and you can only imagine it to be a device used to dry off wet things, you are limited in a situation in which you need something to serve as a pillow but only have a towel. (That example was inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

On the other hand, using a towel as a pillow is a creative use of a towel. An increasing amount of imagination is required to see an object or situation in increasingly unconventional ways, considered to be more creative ways. It's not that you have to accept that believing a towel is a device used to dry off wet things is a wrong conceptualization of a towel, but you have to accept that in a situation in which you have a towel and need something that is not a towel, the towel can and must be thought of differently.

As a poor kid, I accepted that fact. First, you look around you and see that what you have is not quite what you want and sometimes not even what you need. You must then fully understand what you want/need and what you have. Then, you have to accept that what you have is not some kind of punishment. It does not matter if you have been wronged or if you deserved better. If you feel like your limited situation is a punishment, at least face the toil of having to be creative as your penance. If you feel you have been wronged, embrace the toil as something that will make you stronger and prove you to be more resilient than those who have wronged you would have imagined. Sometimes, you are your own disciplinarian or have done yourself wrong to land yourself in your situation. Maybe you deserved it. Good for you. But now you have to learn from it and, as always, make the best of what you have.

As I just implied, you have to exercise creativity even in non-material circumstances. Exercising it in material circumstances can help you conserve resources but being able to exercise creativity when you are depressed, for example, can save your life. I have demonstrated a dangerous ease for depressive proclivities. However, if I think to myself that my depression can be solved by a change in perspective, that there must be a better way to look at things or a better attitude to have towards them and cling to that conviction, I have found myself able to recover without ever having used mood enhancing drugs.

It's only in the context of creativity that the expression "Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps" really makes any sense.