One day you believe in God. The next all that matters is that cup of red wine, and worry about where the next will come from. It is conflicting, it is difficult: it make no sense. But sense is overrated these days, and the belief that it guides us, misguided. With my indulgence comes love for the lovers but not the beloved. I kneel for no one and whisper to none but myself. You ask why it is I care about that veil, though I spend my days uncovered (while my heart is covered): it is the way you look at my grandmother that moves me so. Her sightly smile and friendly eyes soothe the children while her clothing terrifies the elders. Is it really the sight of that old woman, my tata, covered from head to toe–to protect all her love, and mine–is it that sight alone that sets your eyes aflame with hatred? Is it her dark garb that you fear, though she walks with a limp that even a child can escape? Because when I awaken in the middle of the night, my bowels unsettled, to see my mother dressed in spotless white, whispering those words to herself and the companions on her shoulders: there is not a more humbling sight. I cannot believe, but I do, in other ways. It brings to my mind the image of mother before mother before mother: the pedagogy of humility. And what can one do before such a performance, except give a kiss on the hand and a moment of silence? From this we descend: and into whispers in the night we disappear, only to be found before we find ourselves.

Tags: Journal by yaman
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From a-Rab.net, a project I have been working on with friends:

We are currently preparing for our first issue and to that end we are seeking submissions of all kinds–literature, essays, articles, cartoons, poetry, stories, briefs, photographs, etc–from anybody who is interested in our project. We are currently a volunteer-driven project, and as such it is not possible to compensate contributors for their valuable submissions. However, we hope that the obvious need for an outlet like the a-Rab will encourage people to do what they can as we get started. In addition to this, we are also looking for individuals who are willing to support us on a regular basis: for example, people familiar with layout programs like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. If you’re interested in working with us on this project, your contact point is admin@a-rab.net.

Read the about page for more information:

The a-Rab is everyone recklessly slapped with a criminal label September 12th 2001; the folks who were already suspected and rejected: the dark-skinned and coarse, the multilingual with heavy scorned accents, the Muslims who pray to the East, the Arabs who sip heavily distilled grape alcohol, the Palestinians who forgot how to weep, the politically conscious, those who reject the system and won’t accept its idea of good manners.

We are not talking in terms of citizenship or ethnicity. We are speaking in terms of the cultural mainstream and in terms of what passes as “American.” In this country, they tell you who you need to be, and when you try to suggest your own alternative (that is, to create your own identity), you are abused. They would like you to be the happy Arab immigrant who is subsumed by the system, makes an art out of brown-nosing to beat all of those other foreign medical graduates in the residency programs, and becomes a well-off professional by: abandoning your political beliefs–your political consciousness!, your voice, and your relevance to society. This is what it takes to be an “American” Arab and not an a-Rab.

This castration of identity has been called by many a (European) visionary Assimilation. They heap praise on Assimilation as the way to overcome racial prejudice and discrimination, the way we can become a community with one identity that recognizes everything we hold in common. As attractive as the idea might seem, the truth is that every identity is defined by what it is not, and every community that adopts such an identity will inevitably clash with other identities, and will exclude them.

This is going to be good. Please spread the word. We need your help. Here is a facebook group to join.

Tags: Journal by yaman
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Earlier this week, I tried to register a name for a new student group with the Office of Student Life (OSL). One of the advantages of registering a group with the OSL is that it makes it relatively easy to reserve rooms for meetings, events, and other activities. I’ve done this in the past and have never run in to any problems. This time, however, the name for my group was rejected because it included the word “Berkeley,” and that this was not allowed because it might “suggest [that] the university sponsors” the group.

This was strange to me because I know that a number of student groups use the word “Berkeley” in their name. Furthermore, the OSL website itself states the following:

Registered student groups may not use the University of California, Berkeley or any abbreviations (e.g. UC) as part of their name or in conjunction with their programs. Other terms, such as ‘campus’ or ‘Berkeley campus’ may be used by a registered organization as part of its name.

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Racism is nothing more than a mistake in analysis, and a logical error. It is not racist, as is often believed, to harbor malice towards another group of people. It is simply hateful. Considering that group of people to be a group worthy of any one feeling in the first place is what is racist. To come away from such an understanding of a “people” with a positive statement is no less racist than it is to come away with hatred and disdain, though its effects might not be as immediately reprehensible.

As an example, we might hear somebody say something like “I love black people” or “I love Jews” or “I love Arabs” etc. The speaker may not harbor any malicious feelings whatsoever, and may in fact be trying to prove the opposite: that they are not racist, and that they are not hateful. This strikes me as a stupid thing to say–it might confirm that the speaker is not hateful, but it says the opposite about whether or not the speaker is a racist. Racism has nothing to do with hate or love.

I think this brand of “positive” racism is much more widespread than may be apparent, and for the most part it is in and of itself relatively benign. But it reminds me of a recent article which explained Hannah Arendt’s refusal to “love the Jewish people” as a refusal to support “the premise and alibi for anti-semitism.”
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An abridged version of this post was submitted to the Daily Cal. They printed a further modified version on July 16, 2007, under a misleading headline “We Have Nothing to Prove to America,” as if 1) I am a Muslim and 2) I make any pretenses about representing Muslims. I am not a Muslim and I speak for no one but myself.

There is no doubt that Muslims and other minorities in America have faced varying degrees of discrimination and intimidation in recent years. We can even find evidence of this trend on our own campus in publications like the California Patriot. But Suhail Khan’s column (”Islam’s True Nature Lost in Interpretation”, 7/9/07) fails to identify what exactly is at stake with the rising anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant/minority attitudes in this country and, in fact, only helps to perpetuate prevailing paradigms by making hackneyed and misguided arguments.

In the first place, Khan expends much effort trying to “prove” that Muslims are just as “American” as everybody else. He writes that “like their fellow Americans,” Muslims “live, work, and serve” in our country, “pay taxes,” “[own] businesses,” and “serve in uniform.” To be sure, Khan is not the only Muslim to engage in this flawed strategy of making the Muslim American a mirror image of his white middle-class Protestant American counterpart. This has become cliche, as many Muslims scramble out of fear to show everything they have in common with a certain image of the American.
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It seems to me that the Democratic party began using the word ‘quagmire’ when it became critical of the war. So, we oppose the ‘quagmire’ in Iraq. Does that mean that if the war is no longer a ‘quagmire,’ but a ‘war’ with the possibility of a victorious end, that the Democratic party and all its supporters would then support the ‘war’? Is it possible to oppose the quagmire, but support the war? I do not trust the anti-quagmire politicians.

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Sasa has posted a link to a very interesting article about Syria’s disenfranchised and repressed Kurdish population. Besides my concern about the article’s failure to note that the Kurdish issue is a regional one and not one exclusive to Syria, I think it is a good opportunity to comment on the way the Syrian government, among others in the area, frames its national identity.

Identity cannot be imposed from the top-down–this strategy invariably leads to resistance, violence, and injustice. The regime has always stated that erasing sectarianism has been one of its goals, and it frequently accuses opposition activists of stirring sectarian sentiments in order to justify silencing them. But we should not feel that it is necessary to have a single identity to have a strong, inclusive, and successful political system in Syria. The only way to achieve any form of workable unity is to start with disunity; every minority group must be recognized and respected according to its own identity, not the one that we wish to identify it by. Diversity of identity as well as political affiliation must be embraced, not denied. Homogeneity, when imposed, can only produce discord, as it is inherently imaginary and will inevitably lead to conflict. It is better to facilitate these differences in the national identity and culture than to exclude them, because they are going to be there and will remain there, accepted or not.

Edit: Upon rereading this I noticed that I used the phrase “disenfranchised Kurdish population.” This implies that the rest of the population is not also disenfranchised. That was a mistake, but the rest of the population does seem to have better access to power and influence and greater mobility.

Tags: Current Events by yaman
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