Blog Critique

Interacting with everyone’s blogs gave me insight into many controversies I missed throughout the semester. I enjoyed reading all the posts and found it interesting to read a wide range of perspectives on the topics we covered in class.

Namely, two of the posts that caught my attention were by Isabella who discussed soccer in the Middle East. The first one dealt with how women in Afghanistan were attempting to play soccer on an abandoned helipad, as it was the only place they could go to play without being caught. I am bringing this article up because I have been playing soccer since I was four and do not realize how much I took that for granted. She brought up a good point that the concept of women playing sports is a rather young idea. It’s hard to conceive a place where women are denied this harmless pastime.

Her second article also discussed how Qatar won the bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. I found her discussion about the ban on drinking interesting, but if the world is going to let local dictate these global events, we never should have held the Olympics in China. Reading Paul’s blog who also covered the same article, I have to agree with him when he said that FIFA made the right decision by choosing, “to bring soccer to a region that has been ignored. They look to the future in order bring positive world exposure to a country, a region and culture that so badly needs it”. I think that this world platform will be instrumental promoting world unity at a time when tensions between the western nations and countries in the Middle East are continually growing.

Another post I found interesting was Valerie’s discussion of the lack of citizen outrage against the corrupt political regime in Egypt. I completely agree with her when she stated, “that the richest 2% (Lauren’s rough figure) of the population are the ones who, on the one hand, could potentially wield the most influence over a corrupt government and leverage resources to open up a truly representative system of government, yet on the other hand, are the ones the very least likely to do this because the current system makes them rich!” There is no distribution of wealth in the oil rich gulf, as the wealth is all being concentrated within a small population and not filtering down to the rest of the country. This is a circular system as the people in power are keeping the wealth and their wealth is also keeping them in power.

Lastly, I was gripped by Kastania’s excellently written film review of Rana’s wedding. The rich description of the ascetics of the film in combination with an excellent analysis of the system of compromise in Israel/Palestine made me want to go out a see the movie. I felt as though I there in the film experiencing the countless obstacles with Rana as she went through her one day journey to find the love of her life. I thought she also utilized outside sources well and thought her quote use of the Rothenberg quote: “compromise should not be equated solely with sacrificing goals,” or traditions, but rather “gaining new ground” astutely describes the situation in Israel/Palestine.

Overall, I thought everyone’s blog provided unique perspectives on the various themes of class and gave me new insights into various media sources and their representations. Thanks everyone and Helga for a wonderful class experience!

In my last blog post I wanted to reflect back on the class and how my world viewpoint has been altered through this class. So here, I am presenting one of my experiences that inspired me to take this class when I was in Cyprus. Cyprus is a land divided. Half of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation. When I was there my Cypriot friend took us to the Turkish side of the divided capital Nicosia. We walked through the boarder, a non-place still scarred with bullet holes from the fighting between the two countries. The other half of the city was completely different. The tourist stores became more like a traditional marketplaces and the language changed from Greek to Turkish.

Upon walking through the Turkish side, I found the sign in the picture above. It was next to an old Cypriot church that had been transformed into a mosque. It reads “Cypriots be caefull (‘careful’ spelled wrong), the world wants us to fight’. When I was first there, I just snapped the picture and thought it was just about the dispute of land. However, as I now re-read the sign with my knowledge from this class, I realize the larger ideological context of the photograph.

Analyzing the sign carefully, one can see the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in the picture. On the left side of the sign is a church tower with the cross on top and on the right side in opposition is a minaret tower. The two birds who face each other, are divided by a tower with the Greek flag raised on the side with the Church tower and the Turkish flag raised on the other side with the mosque. It is interesting that they choose the Greek flag instead of the Cypriot flag, but I if a war is waged the Greeks will come to the aid of the ‘greek’ Cypriots. Also, looking at the flags you can see iconic religious symbols on each. For the Greek flag is has the cross in the corner and for the Turkish flag it holds the crescent moon and a star.

At first with my naïveté about the conflict, I thought of it as a threat to Greek Cypriots. However, after looking at it more closely it is actually promoting the union of the two sides with the coexistence of religious symbols surrounding the picture. Also, It says Annan Plan, which was the plan to join Cyprus under one unified country, however, the plan was blocked through larger political clashes between Turkey, Europe and the United States. Thus, Cypriots, like the Palestinians, have become a pawn in the political game of West v. East/ Christian v. Muslim: ‘The Clash of Civilizations’.

If there is one thing that I learned from this class, it is that most people do not want to fight. They do not want to be pawns in world conflicts. The message in this photograph is not of an violent attack, but it is a cautious warning to truly question why they are fighting? Do they really want to or does the world tell them they want to?

In Whose Name?

Abbas is an Iranian photographer who spent the last 10 years photographing in 16 different countries for his book, In Whose Name?, coming out January 15. In Whose Name? covers all form of extremism from religious to political, in each of the countries. Through Abbas’ representations the countries do not seem so different, each has their own forms of extremism and violence. His perspective as an Iranian citizen challenges stereotypical representations of Muslims and questions the Western thought that extremism is confined to the Middle East.

Take for example, Abbas’ photographs of the United States with their depiction of Christianity’s influence within the United States. He photographs usually combine religious symbols with politics. The seen below is wearing an American Flag sweater, is carrying a bible, and it attending a political rally in favor of the 10 commandments being displayed in public places. As Americans we always think of ourselves as completely secular, however, our state is also built on the principles of religion. Abbas’ photographs show that is not only Muslims who believe the duality of religion and law, but there are also people in the United States who want Christian laws as visible in the public sphere as secular laws.

What Abbas also questions is the role of political ideologies in eliciting similar violent extremism to that of the Jihadists. A political ideology does not wholly differ from a religious ideology. Both have basic rules, rights and moral codes of conduct that people believe in. Thinking about the United States in this way, I have to question whether our belief in freedom and democracy can be viewed as a form of violent extremism? We have fought more wars in the name of democratic freedom, than Jihadists have fought against the West. At what point do we need to criticize ourselves, or at least our government, for creating violent conflicts in order to spread our own radical notions of democracy?

Lastly, what I also enjoyed about Abbas’ photographs were his portraits of Middle Eastern society that challenge Western stereotypes. Especially in his pictures of Iran, he constructs a portrait of the society that one would never see represented in mainstream media. Some of my favorite pictures are displayed below. What I like most about these two photographs is that he gives these women an agency that is so little shown in media. Also, with the two women making the clothes, he shows that Iran is a ‘progressive’ society that is able to blend the traditions of Sharia with new developments in fashions that function within their societal conventions.

Thus, Abbas as a Middle Eastern photographer is able to provide a different perspective that the one we are used to seeing portrayed in media. An his work as an independent photographer provides one of the most objective explorations of extremism I have been able to encounter.

Check out magnum photos website to see all the photographs:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspxVP3=ViewBox&CT=Album&ALID=29YL530LLOOH

On a side note, Abbas also went to the UAE and some of his pictures relate to the discussion in my last post about the economic division and tourist spectacles of the UAE. Notice the differences between the luxury of an indoor ski resort in the middle of the desert and the housing the people are provide with.

The Arab Art Spectacle

A computer rendering of the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/arts/design/27museums.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1#

Recently, I encountered a New York Times article that summarized the new plans in Abu Dhabi and Doha to build branches of the Guggenheim, the Louvre, and a new museum for contemporary Arab art. Judging by this opening statement:

It is an audacious experiment: two small, oil-rich countries in the Middle East are using architecture and art to reshape their national identities virtually overnight, and in the process to redeem the tarnished image of Arabs abroad while showing the way toward a modern society within the boundaries of Islam.

My first assumption was the article was going to be wrought with Western ideas of Arab society of being backwards, not in modernity and not able to join modernity because of their religion. While this did prove to be true, the article did also problematize the project by questioning if Arab society was in fact knowingly presenting an occidental view of their culture.

The project itself is treading a thin line between creating a forum for the celebration Arab culture and creating another tropical local for the western art world to vacation to for just one more art spectacle each year— get ready for Art Basel Abu Dhabi! All jokes aside, many people in the Middle East view western spectacles in Arab society as a form of cultural imperialism and these types of developments have created many of the grievances Osama Bin Laden listed in his texts.

Here I am cautiously going to have to agree with those grievances and question why the Abu Dhabi is choosing to import ‘name-brand’ museums instead of creating their own locally developed art communities? To me it does seem a little excessive for these museums, such as the Guggenheim, to become mega-brands by having branches all over the world. (The article even sites NYU as one of the ‘brand name’ project occurring in Abu Dhabi). The article notes importantly that “both the Guggenheim and National Museum are being planned in the West” and “the projects themselves are being shaped almost exclusively by foreigners”. Even NYU has “no quotas ensuring that Emiratis or other Arabs are given a significant number of places.” The exclusion of the local cultural from the projects signals that the projects seem to be mere transplants of western society.

The sheik attempts to halo the project with the intention that it will help expand the horizon of the youth in the UAE and keep them from becoming extremists. But really, who is this project for? It is not for the youth and it is especially not for the poor youth who are most susceptible to extremism. They are building St. Regis, Park Hyatt hotels, and golf courses, not schools or affordable housing. There are even talks that after the museums are built, the next project is to bulldoze the desert encampments where the poor UAE lives. Maybe if the governments focused on providing social services instead or building a ‘Workers’ Village’ to house 40,000 foreigners, their citizens would not be driven to resent western society for being given the valuable resources the government should be providing for them.

The one part of the article I did find interesting was when he discussed the Orientalism exhibition to be housed at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. While the many of the paintings he discusses are made by Western artists and are ‘Orientalist’, the Sheik likes to think of them as more artifacts, as ‘to many Arabs they are also vividly detailed historical records of a period that is otherwise undocumented”. Thus, the paintings have an empirical, historical value that should be celebrate, rather than shunned. He adds an interesting outlook describing the collection as ‘not simply relics of cultural imperialism… [but] as part of a cultural movement, an exchange of ideas”. He astutely recognizes that without these paintings a part of Arab history may have been lost and that they should be celebrated not hidden.

Overall, I’m less skeptical of the projects occurring in Qatar, while the Abu Dhabi project seems like another gimmick to continue hyper-simulation of the art spectacle abroad and to give the art world another weekend away from actual work.

Pepsi and Coke Ads

In continuing with the theme of music, what I found interesting were the two Pepsi and Coke advertisements. The genius of the two companies are their ability to create a global, but local brand image. The two advertisements each feature two rival female Arab pop stars, endorsing their products. The advertisements reminded me of the similar campaign that ran in the United States where Pepsi and Coke used rival pop stars Christina Aguleria and Britney Spears to sell their products. The two advertisements raise larger questions about economic globalization. By using the same format of advertisements does consumption become standardized across boarders? The standard model of advertising Coke and Pepsi utilize demonstrates how products sold in the Middle East does not necessarily differ from how products are sold in the United States. It also shows a similar cultural importance placed on celebrity in the United States and in Middle Eastern countries. Furthermore, is demonstrates how Western culture is blending with Arab culture and the global is not necessarily destroying the local, but celebrating it through advertisements. Looking at these ad campaigns one can see how global companies are creating models off consumption based off their success in the United States.

New Muslim Cool

In my last post I said that I read two articles in class pertaining to Islamic media and never discussed the second article. The second article titled “A New Research Agenda: Exploring the Transglobal Hip Hop Umma”, by H. Samy Alim, discussed the role of Islam in relation to rap music. Many of rappers throughout history, such as African Bambatta, Mos Def, Jurassic 5 and most recently Lupe Fiasco have been Muslim. The article discussed how these artists and the rap community, in general, are instrumental to fostering a sense of identity among the Islamic youth. This sense of belonging to the Islamic community is what Alim describes as the transglobal umma.

Here is an interesting link to a Lupe Song called Mohammed Walks:

The Hip Hop umma is Hip Hop ability to create a transnational, imagined community of Muslims. To Alim, Hip Hop has a powerful nation building property as an already established cultural movement with a vast following. Hip Hop, especially in America, has been associated with political and social mobilization. It was established to give voice to the powerless and since then, according to Alim, is “has been an active vehicle for social protest”. Hip Hop as activism against discrimination has become an important instrument for Islamic youth in areas such as the UK or France, where Islamaphobia is increasing.

Along with the article we watched a piece of a documentary called “New Muslim Cool” about two Puerto Ricans who converted to Islam and started using rap music to spread the word of Mohammad and create a community of Muslims in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The documentary provides a unique perspective into the multi-culturalism that does not always get portrayed in media. It shows the positive effects that Islam has had on these two brothers lives who were once drug dealers going down the wrong path and Islam helped them remove themselves from their situation. Now they lead pious lives and are trying to spread a positive message about Islam.

Here is the trailer for the video:

Azizah

This week in my Global Cultures class we read two articles related to Islam in the media and constructing Islamic identities. The first article dealt with a women’s magazine titled, Azizah. Azizah was funded in order to represent Muslim women who may be seen as “uniformly veiled, subordinate, uneducated, and passive” (170). Each cover of the magazine features a beautiful veiled woman, while inside the magazine the editors include women of multiple ethnicities and also display Muslim women without the veil.

One of the questions brought up in class was whether or not Azizah ostracizes other Muslim women who choose not to wear the veil. In a majority of the Muslim world, except Saudi Arabia, women actually have a choice to the wear the veil. Thus, by featuring a veiled Muslim woman on every cover is the magazine solely targeting a specific audience and ostracizing the rest of women who choose not to wear the veil? One could argue that inside the magazine there features of women who are unveiled and who could speak to the population of Muslim women who do not wear the veil.

However, the question is not fully answered by simply talking about the audience of the magazine, but also of the male dominated media who quasi-control the content of Azizah magazine. I would argue that cover of the magazine is “public space”, while the content of the magazine is “private space” for the viewers. The distinction of public/private space follows a larger social ideology of the veil being worn in public and not in private. Thus, the magazine, while it may be for the purpose giving voice to underrepresented women, it’s content still cannot fully reject the collective interests of society.

In keeping with this weeks theme of giving voices to unheard people, I have decided to share a website by a photojournalist, Susan Meiselas, who attempts to give a minority population an outlet for collective memory.

akaKurdistan is a website where Meiselas attempts to create an open space for the people of the oppressed Kurdistan population to share their stories. Unlike many other photojournalists who go into countries and snap photographs without ever knowing the stories of the people Meiselas creates a space for Kurds to represent their own nation and their stories. The photographic national archive is important to the reassertion of the collective identity of the nation as it builds a shared history. The Kurds are nation without a voice or political representations, yet this website gives them a space to be heard.

What is also important is that although Meiselas

is a western photographer she removes her Orientalist lens by allowing the people to represent themselves. She recognizes that the western gaze constructs an “other”. However, I also must question whether the idea of a nation or a national archive is a western construction being imposed upon the Kurdistan people? Even though that may be the case, the modern nation-state is the best way for minority populations to gain be represented.

The stories uploaded to the site show a people in transit without a home. The most recent story shows a Kurdish village during herding season. The people like the sheep are in constant flux, as they are homeless. Although, the people live as a part of Turkey, Iran, or Iraq, they are depicted as separate with their own stories and identities.

Link to the website: http://www.akakurdistan.com/

Linktv.Org: Middle Eastern News Compilation

Taking a break from my criticism of American media, I have decided to discuss one of my favorite news sources for Middle Eastern politics. Linktv.org is a nonprofit news organization whose mission is to ‘provide powerful stories and unseen perspectives’ and to give ‘voice to people without and voice’. Their stories reflect their ideologies as their award winning programs, such as Mosaic News, which provides various perspectives on news stories from countries in the Middle East.

Comparing the Mosaic news representation of Islam versus the western media narratives provides an interesting insight into how western media choose to frame particular stories and groups of people. For example in the video, the program provides different Middle Eastern perspectives into the Israeli conflict over its decision to make Jerusalem its’ national priority implying it wants to expand its’ settlements within the city. What the video does well is it provides different points of view from inside Israel to the Palestinian Authority and BBC. By providing various viewpoints, Linktv.org gives voices to underrepresented people such as the Palestinians struggle to heard against the dominant pro-Israeli narrative in Western media sources.

Not only does the multi-perspective structure create a more credible news site, it also gives the people the power to represent themselves within conflicts. No longer are Muslims shown as violent mobs in news stories, rather, many of the videos show politicians in peaceful dialogues working in a parliamentary type setting much like showing US congress. It also interviews individuals in each country giving them a voice in the conflicts, which at the same time, combats the universalizing western conceptions of Muslims. Because of this, Linktv.org is an important news site in providing imperative Middle Eastern viewpoint on their own conflicts without the western orientalist lens obscuring the stories.

Juan Williams Fired

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/10/21/christian-whiton-juan-williams-fired-npr-oreilly-muslim-islamism-airplane/

In recent news, a radio host, Juan Williams was fired from NPR for making statements regarding his fear of Muslims and being a proponent of the idea that Muslims are attacking America. Here is what he said:

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

It’s hard to even know what he means when he says ‘they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims”. Is it a problem that people identify themselves as Muslim? What identity is being Muslim supposed to come second to?

Williams says his statement is taken out of context, as what he is truly saying is that Americans need to heed the growing Muslim bigotry. Yet he himself is contributing the bigoted media narrative against Muslims. He statements indisputably are inherently racist. To him the Muslim identity should be suppressed making it inferior to other identities. It is only after this that Fox News defiantly decided to expand his role at their news station sympathizing with his absurd anti-Islamic sentiments.

Glenn Beck Video

In continuing my critique of the anti-Islamic narrative in American conservative media, I have come to the television personality Glenn Beck. As an avid Tea Party supporter and proponent on television, Becks programming is the most absurdly malicious and deceitful ‘news program’ on television. Can his show even be called news as he contaminates the airwaves with conspiracy theories, opinion and lectures on what it means to be an American?

One video in particular caught my attention regarding a conspiracy theory involving President Obama, his Muslim Kenyan heritage, and colonialism. The basis of the argument comes from a book written by Dinesh D'Souza who has been called one of America's most influential conservative thinkers and one of the nation's 500 leading authorities on international issues. His book is titled “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”. Sound familiar? The title draws from Bernard Lewis’ essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” a fellow former policy advisor to the Bush Administration who was the first proponent in the idea of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between the US and Islamic forces.

The titles are exactly the same except that change from Muslim to Obama. Implicit in the changing Muslim to Obama is the suggestion that in fact Obama is a Muslim. This equation groups Obama into the conservative media stereotype of the uncontrollable, infuriated blind rage of the ‘dangerous’ Muslim who is against the United States. This is exactly the narrative that Glen Beck is attempting to construct by having D’Souza on the show.

D’Souza’s theory is that Obama is a threat to national security because he is an anti-colonialist who wants to pull out of the Afghan war, reduce our energy consumption so other countries have more, and tax the rich because the obscene money they make comes from American colonial exploitation. How is it that Obama’s promotion peaceful solutions to Global problems be turned into an obscure political conspiracy based purely off opinionated statements of two conservative policy makers?

Well for Glen Beck and D’Souza to be anti-colonial is to be anti-American as America is still an oppressor— made explicitly clear in Beck’s large red ‘Fact’ dot next to America as a colonizing entity. Thus, Glen Beck seems to be saying that to be an American the people need to be neo-colonialists who destroy and oppress the lands of others. It is disturbing that these dated narratives still fester in the minds of our political leaders and disseminate to the American people through trivial talks shows under the guise of legitimate ‘news programs’. Although Beck and D’Souza make explicitly clear that their statements are opinions, they are drawing the dots for people to make a particular connects between Obama, Muslims and an anti-American political agenda.

Tea Party Videos

Here are some of the Tea Party Videos:

Like the great political commentaries of our day John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I am enthralled with exposing the absurdities of our modern media spectacles. So I am dedicating this space to the revealing of propagandist tactics employed by news programs and to a general commentary on the nonsensical state of media in the United States in relation to their perpetuation of an anti-Islamic narrative.

First I would like to begin with a fury of media that has been released regarding a new political phenomenon in the United States. The Tea Party is a new United States party rooted in Christian fundamentalism and dated political theories. Their absurdly conservative agenda and blatant anti-Islamic propaganda have lead me to their website to attempt to understand more about their parties manifesto.

Upon doing this I discovered an entire collection of videos devoted to an anti-Islamic narrative. With ridiculous post titles such as “Could BHO [Barak Hussein Obama] be a Saudi Plant in the White House?’ , “Beware the Deception of Islam” and “Middle School Students Learn to Pray to Allah (WTF)”, can this truly be a rapidly growing party vying for political power in the United States? This group claiming to be “upholding the grand principles set forth in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights” is completely ignoring the fundamental basic rights the United States was founded on, such as freedom of religion and speech. How is it that this movement is able to gain such traction under the false pretense of American Patriotism and who are the people behind this anti-Islamic propagandist media?

The answer is Dale Robertson the founder of a Tea Party, who is described on their website as an outstanding military officer who is not enjoying his military pension, His battle team apparently was “first to the scene on 9/11 as well as the first to launch an offensive in Afghanistan”. Understanding the foundation of the Tea Party as one based in militant ideology is critical to realizing why the group is perpetuating the “clash of civilizations”. They want to fight. They want the American people to keep thinking that Islam is a threat to the nationally security. So everyday they disseminate anti-Islamic propaganda from news programs to keep the American people in constant fear. While in reality the United States is bombing and attacking innocent Muslims every single day.

Maybe Mr. Robertson should just go back to enjoying his cozy military pension and stop disseminating lies to the American people under the guise of “Patriotism”.