78uuu lumière des étoiles

Dusty:Starlight:Culture



Intelligence?
2003-11-23   9:14 p.m.

Don't know why my blogged ruminations seem to take place on Sundays, maybe that's just when I seem to have the time to contemplate the week. Ah, when I was angst-filled enough to biotch everyday about something. sniff, sniff. Perhaps I should stop doing Yoga and eating so well - maybe then I'd be more angst-filled. I think i'll rain-check that till next year, though; something is bound to come up which will needle me enough, after all...I'm just hoping that something won't be the 2004 election.

Taking a trip to the Met this week with my friend Irene was exactly what I needed to get myself grounded, actually - we strolled through the Asian art exhibits, spending most of our time studying the intricacies of the Tibetan scroll covers and temple friezes. We talked a while in the Japanese Garden that lies in the center of all the gallery rooms - there is just something about trees indoors and running water that makes sense to me. In fact, while we sat looking around and feeling really serene, we decided that there was a lot about Asian culture and religion that seemed to make sense to us. Quite a striking difference, then, when we got up to see the traveling El Greco exhibit. El Greco I didn't know much of but had seen in Spain several years before - and I had the same feelings on Saturday that I did those few years ago. Obsessions with Christianity and Christian iconography make for some beautiful art, but represent what scare me most about religion. Just looking at the fanaticism in El Greco's subject's eyes, the light emanating from everywhere but the subjects themselves...I don't know. Something about the paintings seem to represent a purposelessness in people to me. I know that many have different interpretations, my husband being one of them. They strike a chord in me, though, or perhaps I should say dischord. Irene seemed to have similar feelings, so we hustled out and got some yummy healthy food at Dojo after picking around at the NYU street fair, or what was left of it.

It was a thoroughly relaxing time, followed by a movie with lady-brett and some partying with new-old friends (re-new friends? Friends-I-hadn't-seen-in-a-while-but-who've-been-calling-again? How does one explain that?). I must, however, rant for a wee second. Ah the controlled breathing of Yoga goes poof, out the window.

I found out while we were at the Met that the Islamic art exhibit is closed for the next few years for the purposes of "enlargement, renovation, and restoration". Hrrm. Some pieces are being displayed in a temporary gallery, but the most beautiful remain out of sight. HRRRRMMM.

I'm not going to turn this into another one of my conspiracy theories, I have too much faith in artistic organizations for that. However, this closing couldn't have come at a worse time. There are too many gross misconceptions about the Islamic community and culture-at-large running amok in current political and conventional dialogue. The grossest example is set, unfortunately, by people in our own administration, like William Boykin. Boykin is a general who has recently been appointed to a senior Defense Department post. On more than one occasion, Gen. Boykin has made comments reducing much of our "conflict" in the middle east to ignorant "holy war" standards. In describing his battle with a Somali warlord, for example, who happens to be Muslim, Boykin said "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol". Suddenly, this becomes not about political power, economy, oppression, genocide; it becomes a Christian-Mythological conflict or war that our administration has archaic and obtuse means of justifying. How embarrassing! What year is this? I know many of my friends are fast losing faith in the American people, but I KNOW we're smarter than that - I know that kind of rhetoric is completely unacceptable to most who hear it.

Even more embarrassing: Boykin's gross misunderstandings about how Islam "works". It was founded, in part, to present a contrast that led away from "idol worship" and prohibits any "graven images". In all the Islamic temples I've ever visited - from those in Morocco to those in museums - even the many I've seen on TV or in films - there has never been a representation of any image. In fact, many Mosques are decorated in mosaic as elaborately as they are specifically because of this reason - to beautify the space, the artists must rely on something other than images of humanity - or animals, for that matter. There exists no magnetic dashboard Muhammad, no pictures of him to frame and hang in your bathroom or study.

In case you're not disgusted enough now with this little-boy ignorant playground-fighting program our administration seems to be running, let me remind you that YOU PAY BOYKIN'S SALARY. Let me also remind you that he isn't the only one full of holes, contradictions, prejudice and double-standards. Take, for example, how often our administration calls on the "founding fathers" for a reference or to justify some plan or action. Then, take an administration - Boykin included - who cannot seem to separate church and state. Who, in fact, seem to encourage a confusing mingling of the two. Boykin also said that "God elevated George W. Bush to the presidency". Surely the man is free to express whatever his views are as we all can, but doing so in uniform? In such a high office? And if he used such "freedom of speech" to speak out against the war, what then? If he admitted how much we've gone and blundered up in Iraq, what then? Would he be fired? Or defended by Rumsfeld, as he was after he'd made the original comments? Those founding fathers, the ones conservatives just loooove to reference, would be shocked and disgusted - that is NOT what they would call a separation of church and state. That's a whole lot of "my religion is the best religion, and yours isn't. While I can't put you in jail for that (yet, or technically), I can certainly wield much power over you and make disparaging remarks even though I'm an official who is paid to encourage the execution of DEMOCRACY".

This has been troubling me on so many levels lately. Prompted by this fiasco, and a book by Fareed Zakaria, I've decided to incorporate some explorations of Islamic Feminism into my curriculum, just to offer a new and fresh perspective into the culture. Islamic Feminism. A contradiction in terms, you say? Certainly not. I had started to become somewhat familiar with Islamic Feminist Theorists like Fatima Mernissi in grad school. I never looked into her work or the study enough; I dismissed the discipline as inherently contradictory myself. But understanding through travel, my students, and my own education just how separate the culture of the Middle East which oppresses women actually is from the religion of Islam, I've opened myself up again to new possibilities. Just like in our more familiar Judeo-Chrisitan religions, the texts of the Qu'ran have been misinterpreted, misused and taken advantage of for the patriarchal purposes of control and power. All of these monotheistic religions are inherently patriarchal. Why we walk around as American women thinking that the Western ones aren't is beyond me. I used to do it - can't explain why. I think it was some conditioning, maybe the egocentricity of youth - the infallibility you think you possess when you are young and foolish. Whatever the case, I'm starting small, for the sake of myself and the other students I teach who grew up far from any good understanding of how these different cultures work. Safaa, a brilliant student in my Intro to WS class this semester did an excellent presentation on her country's (Egypt) take on the divisions between Middle-Eastern culture and Islam, the religion. The two are mutually exclusive, in many communities; just like here in the West there are some areas there that regard religious text as metaphoric, open to interpretation, and fluid. And again, just like here, there are some communities that do not; some communities that instead use religion as a weapon with which to oppress, beat, kill, rape, and brutalize any and all people, especially women.

It's good to feel your perspective on something change - it's good to push for a certain sense of understanding. It's not a comfortable feeling, to unlearn all the crap we learn from Western Media. However, it's essential to any "peacemaking" process; it's essential to any true "globalization" efforts we'll make in the future. It's more than just cultural sensitivity when my students say that they'll never look with pity again upon a woman wearing a veil - that they'll instead remain open to the possibility that the veil is a symbol of adherence to and love of religion rather than a mark of victimization. That's understanding and learning.

Zakaria says in his new book that eventually, Osama bin Laden won't have to make videos anymore to be shown on Aljazeera. "He can just put together the greatest hits of Boykin, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and they will make his point nicely -- that Americans see all Muslims as enemies". How can we sink so low? How have we come to let such ignorance represent our perspective, when we're better and smarter than that? How can we keep providing more and better ammo for a terrorist, a viscous, fanatic killer?

Sigh. PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IN 2004. Have a little look-see here in case you're wondering like I am what on earth you can do to help.

I'm off, then, as I'm on the hunt for a couple of songs. 'Tis the season, already, it seems. I've been torturing Steve with 102.7's round the clock x-mas fest in the hopes of catching my three favorite xmas songs: The Kink's "Father Christmas", The Waitresses "Christmas Wrapping", and Sting's "Gabriel's Message". Last year I was lucky enough to find Rhino's New Wave Christmas cd, and surely I have copies of the above three songs floating around somewhere, but I just need to hear them sooner than the time it would take me to dig through my piles 'o music.

'night

T