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.