Companions of the Garden

Diwaniyya's "The Hidden World of Girls"

2012-03-20T09:00:00.062-04:00

Diwaniyya, a podcast for the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, identifies as its chief goal the provision of "thought-provoking conversations on Middle East culture, history and politics."
Its topic for March centers on the experiences of Middle Eastern women and girls, whom it discusses via The Hidden World of Girls, a series of radio documentaries produced by National Public Radio and its award-winning documentary team The Kitchen Sisters.
Of the six stories they offer, two in particular stood out for me.
The first offers a multi-media look at the stories of nine young women who chose to stop wearing the hijab, or headscarf. The presentation contrasts photos that depict the women before and after the shift, and are accompanied by short audio testimonies of what persuaded them to make the decision they made. Of the testimonies I viewed, the majority of women discussed the manner in which wearing the hijab forced them to act as representatives of the Muslim community, a role they grew tired of fulfilling. In no case was it a function of any attenuation of their faith.
While I greatly appreciated the story, I had a certain reservation over the manner in which its introductory video seemed to glorify the act of the headscarf's removal. I worry that it might reinforce the Western predisposition to view veil removal as liberation, but perhaps I'm reading too much into it, loyal, as I am, to the protagonist of my novel, who chooses to continue wearing the hijab and feels highly empowered in doing so.
The second outstanding story focuses on Amira Al-Sharif, a young photojournalist from Yemen working in New York with the stated intention of "documenting the lives of American women my age and to compare and contrast them with the lives of Yemeni young women." Sheeren Marisol Meraji, the author of the story, rightly observes, "I liked the idea of a Middle Eastern journalist flipping the script. It seems like it's always the other way around: Western journalists documenting Arab women." The article features eight of Al-Sharif's photos, which are, indeed, compelling. Also compelling is her pride in her homeland, of which she hopes to spread awareness.

Feminism in Tunisia

2012-03-16T10:00:00.005-04:00

A panel discussion held at Unisa University in Pretoria on International Women's Day, aimed at discussing women's involvement in the Arab Spring, offered some intriguing facts on the history of feminism in Tunisia.
Two in particular stood out for me, both date-related.
First, in 1962, women in Tunisia were allowed access to birth control.
Second, and more significant, in 1965, abortion was legalized - eight years before Roe v. Wade.
Though Tunisia's path to gender equality has been as rocky and back-slide prone as any - for which the dictatorship of Ben Ali did no favors - it pays to be mindful of the places where light shone through, especially in regions so often construed as lightless.
It's worth noting, also, that the abolition of monogamy and the establishment of a minimum age for marriage were among Tunisia's first legislative maneuvers upon independence from France in 1956.
Now, as before, the struggle continues.

Dr. Hayat Sindi, yet another participant in my "Remarkable Muslim Women" series

2012-03-12T09:00:00.001-04:00

Daily Beast and Newsweek magazines have selected for their list of the world's most distinguished 150 women Dr. Hayat Sindi, a Saudi national.
Dr. Sindi is a Cambridge graduate, earning a PhD in biotechnology in 2001. Chief among her many accomplishments is her pioneered technique of using inexpensive slips of paper and drops of blood or saliva to diagnose liver disease, a practice that allows low-income individuals to bypass cost-prohibiting lab tests, or to offer medical service to those who live in areas where clinics might be nonexistent. During a stint as a visiting professor at Harvard, and concurrent with the development of this technique, she co-founded Diagnostics for All, with the aim of facilitating broader access to health care. She will launch on October 21st, in Maine, the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity, which will help scientists draft business plans and locate investors for their ideas.
Sindi's successes are astonishing not only in their own right, but also in light of the largely oppressive culture in which she was raised.
At the same time, Sindi - who dresses traditionally, complete with headscarf - declares in no uncertain terms, "I’m very proud of where I came from. . . . Sometimes people think they need to completely discard their culture. But you have to hold on to your identity."
She acknowledges the resistance her father initially put up to her engagement in a lifestyle at odds with traditional Saudi notions of feminine behavior, but then closes on a moving note: "When he died, I found newspaper clippings about me under his pillow."

My love and support to the people of Kandahar Province

2012-03-11T16:45:00.002-04:00

As one who opposed this war from the outset, and still remembers vividly the sense of total moral collapse I felt on the day of our invasion, I can't stress enough my outrage over the killing spree today by a U.S. Army Sergeant that left dead 16 residents of Kandahar Province.
To the survivors of the massacre, and the families of its victims, my love and support goes out to you. Though U.S. officials will seek to portray this as an isolated incident, far too many of us are in some way complicit in the occupation and butchery of your nation, of which today's atrocity is just one other face.
One day soon, this war will end.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 22

2012-03-08T09:00:00.001-05:00

He engaged the clutch and the stockade walls swung outward and they moved through the rain, out of Jackson, out past Clinton, southwest to the Natchez Trace Parkway and down toward the ocean, Cassie plunging forward through the green and gushing woods, through trees swollen with rain-coaxed fertility, bent in submission . . . southwest down a highway transformed by storm into the likeness of a culvert, green-domed roof and watery base, everything flowing in perfect uniformity downhill to the river, to the Mexican Gulf . . .
A sign said Bayou Pierce Presbyterian Church, 1807.
They turned off the road and wound up the hill to the shack. They parked outside and they stepped through the door, into a totality of veteran wood . . . smells of dirt, impressions of consummate weathering . . . the place just big enough for ten people, maybe twelve . . . all of it abandoned and empty, consigned to history, but not to sterility.
Still spirit in the wood. In the dust. In the rain on the roof.
They sat on a bench in the corner and listened to the drips overhead.
He put his hand on the bench, wondering – inevitably – how many people had sat there before him; what isolated precession of the faithful had braved the storms of centuries past to stand in prayer on this muddy little leaf-strewn knoll.
“I can feel it,” said Abida, and the objects of her feeling – the spirit, and the belief that chased it – were left comfortably unspoken.

A heartbreaking look at New Orleans, from the ground up

2012-03-06T09:00:00.012-05:00

Last week I wrote about a video on the CNN homepage that put a human face to the crisis in Syria.
This week, I'll recommend to readers an incredibly moving article from CNN that looks at New Orleans through competing lights: popular associations of drunken revelry, color, music, and perpetual festivity juxtaposed with the debilitating intersection of poverty and hopelessness that conspire to make the Big Easy the murder capital of the United States.
Anyone who has read my manuscript - or spoken with me, for that matter - knows the degree to which New Orleans swept me away. The gas lights, the brightly colored walls and balconies of the French Quarter, the immediate proximity of the Mississippi River, the myriad genres of music that seemed to ooze out of every crevice . . . I can barely dwell on the city without feeling myself on the verge of tears. As such, I come dangerously close to falling into the same starry-eyed trap that grips the article's target audience - one that ignores what could rightly be called a domestic humanitarian emergency.
It's a lengthy read but one well worth pursuing, providing a heart-breaking chronicling not only of the victims and survivors but also the tireless efforts of those who seek to bring the epidemic to an end. We meet Curissa "Cee Cee" Davis, who at the time of her 18th birthday had lost 20 friends to homicide, including Katie, her best friend since 14, killed by a shotgun blast to the back by an abusive boyfriend. Later accounts detail an 11 year old killed by a stray bullet in a street-fight and a 2-year old who died when a man sprayed with an assault rifle the courtyard in which she played.
The article then focuses also on the efforts of Darryl Durham, who heads Arts for Kids, providing youth with a means to express their frustrations constructively, and Father Bill Terry of St. Anna's Episcopal Church, who set up a "murder wall" in 2007, and has since recorded the names of every murder victim as a means of bringing awareness.
Critically, the article provides insight into the factors that make the violence so pervasive. Chief among them, unsurprisingly, is race. In addition to the usual discrimination in hiring and housing, which demoralizes blacks and places them in situations of economic distress, New Orleans' residents of color are also confronted by what until recently was a wildly racist and corrupt police force, not to mention Katrina herself, which wreaked her greatest damage on traditionally black neighborhoods. Indeed, it was only after Katrina that the city first claimed the infamous murder capital designation.
Race frames the way the violence is perceived, also. The article details three men who were murdered in the act of protecting others. Two were black, one was white. The media all but canonized the third, and a colossal reward was offered for the arrest of his murderers, while the deaths of the first two men went largely unnoticed.
I say I was "dangerously close" to falling into the trap of sugar-coating the Crescent City, but I made certain that my second visit to New Orleans included a self-guided tour of neighborhoods like Tremé, that in 2010 still seemed a warzone in the aftermath of the storm. Such ventures only strengthened my love of the city, as its perseverance, its spirit of survival in spite of overwhelming hardship, was as beautiful to me as any of the French Quarter's alluring attractions. In celebrating the individuals who fight to rescue the city from crisis, and the successes they've already brought about, the article pays tribute to this very character.
A slideshow lends one more dimension to the piece, detailing the residents of the city and the surroundings in which they lead their lives.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 17

2012-03-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

A stream-of-consciousness passage where Dig meditates on the work of Delta Blues musician Son House:

Opening track “Death Letter,” the steel-bodied national busting in with its soul-soaked twang, the chords so filled with Mississippi mud it seemed a wonder the deck could keep running.
I got a letter this morning . . . said your love is dead . . .
Half-waltz, half-roll. The skin of a dead monarchal gator animated with riverboat grease dancing on the surface of an ocean of sweat and blood and runoff and atop it the man and his slide guitar, the high notes tear inducing and saliva coaxing in the same amorous breath. High chords on Track 2 “Pearline” like a loving slap from the vengeful, interspersed with melody. Blastchord-tune-blastchord-tune-blastchord-deltadawn wetness flooding runoff swamp dust cotton choke cotton choke. The old blackman and his semi-blindness coaxed from retirement in 1963 to palliate the resurgent thirst of a generation hungry for the purported purity of all things traditional. A studio and a river inside it. Oh, Pearline.

Bearing witness to Syria

2012-02-27T09:00:00.003-05:00

In allowing my blog to fall into increasing bouts of radio silence, I've done a disservice to my continued support for the Arab Spring, a term I refuse to retire, even in light of the bloody, soul-crushing mess unfolding in Syria.
Whatever happens going forward, irrespective of what now seems a likely outbreak of widespread civil war, it remains vitally important to recognize the incredible duration of time over which the protests were peaceful in nature, and even more important to celebrate those factions of the uprising that continue to plead for passive resistance to this day.
As a testament both to the non-violent protests and to those individuals who've felt themselves driven to take up arms, I strongly recommend to anyone with with the requisite emotional fortitude this stunning footage from the CNN homepage. It was compiled in Homs over the course of the last three weeks, since the start of the siege, by an as-yet anonymous French journalist. In addition to capturing with singular immediacy the atrocities that transpire as we speak, it's an incredible testament to a man's commitment to reportage. He charges into firefights, machine guns blasting within arm's reach of his lens . . . crosses an open street through sniper fire to interview people who've gathered in a makeshift hospital . . . interviews children who've been slammed with shellfire.
To anyone who watches the video - 10 minutes in length, but a 10 minutes that left me with the impression that I'd watched a feature-length documentary - I can only hope it will excite the commitment I feel, at least in the barest sense, of keeping the troubled nation in mind.
In supporting Syria, and by extension the global community, I'll be one more voice calling on Assad to get the hell out of Dodge.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 15

2012-02-23T09:00:00.004-05:00

On the road through Alabama, Dig reflects on the New York left behind:

He remembered lying in a cellar in Bushwick, in Brooklyn, down where the aroma of rotten planks and crossbeams bred a paradoxical atmosphere of fertility. He had a wrench in his hand and pliers in his belt. A wad of intersecting pipe hovered nine inches above his face.
He’d been down there an hour, fiddling around with everything that budged. Every once in a while the voice of someone in the building – most often a child – rose to a level sufficient to penetrate the floorboards above him. Otherwise, the place bore a stillness so inclusive that even the pipes above him were silent, bereft both of trickle and hum.
He’d been in Rio two weeks earlier.
There’d been a gunfight in a playground, just six meager blocks from the home of the MeetUp family that hosted him.
A nanny died in the cross-fire, blown down at the feet of an unsuspecting child.
He’d read about it in one of the Anglophone papers hoisted from the sidewalk, the words coming at him bloodless, an impotent chant, the conjured-up sorrow of a substance far inferior to the devastation he felt the day he came back to New York.
Woman robbed at knife-point in Bed-Stuy.
Page 6 of the Village Voice.
Not even injured. Just robbed.
And knowing no cause for his heightened revulsion other than the fact that it was Brooklyn this time. New York this time. Just another texture to the bloodbath of Home.
And there in the cellar of the nameless complex, with Bed-Stuy and the place of the mugging twelve blocks east, and closer still the warehouses and alleys of Bushwick, surrounding the cellar, and yet muted by the cellar, and shut out by the cellar, he found himself spontaneously struck by the feeling that he could stay there forever. Put down the wrench and close his eyes and enter a silence so deep that even the shouting of the child wouldn’t rouse him.
Instead he finished the job, hopped the train to Manhattan, and walked through Central Park. The crickets were already starting to sing, and the Latinos walked by in their sweat-stained A-shirts and their hacked-off shorts, followed by the women from 73rd St with their strollers and their heat-marred makeup, and the sweat of the city clung to the pavement, and the sound of the traffic and the metropolitan chaos purred through the trees, four octaves south of the crickets, and as always he could smell the baseball field long before he saw it – the kicked-up dust and the mass of leather gloves and palmed out bats – and he sat on the bleachers and watched them play, and every crack of the bat seemed to break open the air and leave in its wake a space to be filled, and the coach yelled and echoed in yelling, and within an hour of watching the fireflies had started to appear, and the contrast in heat between cellar and park had stoned him silly and played with his pores, and he remembered from afar, the park and the baseball, and he missed New York for the first time since leaving.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 14

2012-02-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, my friends, I can rap in your streets
I can pierce my ears with the grit of your ghettos

Born to the wars of the tongue-tied tenants
Tigris Euphrates inheritance of breath
by blood the nation my cradle and foes
watching it now from a far-flung shore
watching now your discount war

fought by word, of a part
in my name
send tanks for the honor of tearing my veil

not here in this city a field less worthy
nor here in the city a soil less rich
Birmingham City I’d take you to the trenches
not for the sheiks to tell me my rights
nor Bush to remind me
the knowledge misplaced

Here in the city I plant down my feet
you can write no map on the flesh of my body
nor flags on my skin
hadith on my womb

like home like breath my Birmingham child
let no man cite
for Crusade, my name

for God Almighty
knows the length of my hair

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 13

2012-02-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

The road ran straight as a latitude line. The trailers clustered on either side, each partitioned from the other by its own stand of trees. Its own curtain of vines. Its own little heap of aging Works in Progress.
“Are you sure it’s not just because you know you’re in Alabama?” he said.
She looked out the window, waited a moment, and then pointed.
“Look,” she said. “That house right there. That’s plantation-era, right?”
“Yeah. I think so, anyway.”
She watched as it slid past them on their right.
She told him it felt like how Rome must feel, or Egypt, or Angkor Watt in Cambodia, all the sad and mighty antebellum monoliths hearkening back to a culture that was regal, almost imperial, and yet juxtaposed in the unscrupulous light of day with trailers and shacks and houses, “And that’s not all,” she said. “These mansions . . . they kind of contrast with themselves.”
She gestured toward a looming, multi-colored, partially marble structure on the edge of a pasture. The windows were broken and the painted portions of the surface had peeled, and for all appearances the place was abandoned, save for a pair of black kids playing jacks on the steps. A woman kept watch from a trailer nearby.
“There!” she said. “That’s what’s different about Alabama.”
Dig smiled.
“Abida,” he said, “are you turning into Faulkner on me?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m still reading Twain.”

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 5

2012-02-02T09:00:00.002-05:00

A small town in central Virginia:

. . . .they left the restaurant and took off down Main Street in the direction opposite the place where they’d parked the truck. Dig allowed himself to fall a pace-and-a-half behind her, watching her move, her clothes so dark against the concrete that with the help of a slug or two of Jack Daniels he might have confused her with her shadow.
She walked slower than he’d ever seen her walk before.
A step. Three-quarters of a breath. A step.
Making eye contact with every person they passed, even the people who struggled to avoid it.
Greeting the ones who smiled at her. Smiling at the ones who didn’t.
Five blocks from the restaurant a gray-haired lady stepped out of a pastry shop and asked them to come inside. The air in the shop was odorless, and Dig blamed the AC; its ferocious campaign to keep all the chocolate from melting.
The gray-haired lady handed Abida a chocolate cherry chunky. She held it in both hands, as if dropping the pastry would incur something awful. Abida took it from her, and also used both hands. She chewed and swallowed, and she told the lady thank you, and they walked out to the street again, Abida smiling even wider than she had before, her hands rolled into fists, and they walked down to the end of Main Street, where an interpretive sign directed their attention to a building on the opposite corner, a landmark of the Civil War, its walls still riddled with the pockmarks of bullets.

A royal decree in Saudi Arabia grant women the right to work in lingerie shops

2012-01-31T09:00:00.005-05:00

'Tis the nature of regimes that thrive on a lack of imagination to create situations that are patently senseless.
Until very recently, just such a situation prevailed in Saudi Arabia, wherein women, otherwise institutionally partitioned from men in every respect, were forced to interact with their male compatriots in a surprisingly intimate context - when purchasing lingerie.
For this less than optimal arrangement, Saudi women could thank their society's prohibition on men and women working together, a reality that disproportionately affected employment in the retail sector. This ironic consequence was a culture of male-run stores catering to a female clientele, involving transactions that flatly undermined the codified status of women's modesty.
A royal decree by King Abdullah has put paid to this folly - the country’s cosmetics and lingerie shops now have until June to replace their male employees with women.
An informative article in The New York Times helps to keep the move in perspective: "King Abdullah generally supported an expansion of opportunities for women, but steps in this direction can’t be traced to any burst of enlightenment within the royal family. They are happening because the kingdom’s women need and want jobs and are learning how to make themselves heard — and because, in an increasingly expensive country, their husbands often want them to work."
Nonetheless, the move is a victory for women's self-determination and dignity, one that cannot be overstated.
It is worth pointing out, also, that women helped make the victory possible.
At the forefront was Reem Asaad, a financial adviser, writer, and women's rights advocate, who used social media to organize a boycott of the male-run shops, and helped women get trained for retail work.
In a June 2011 interview with PRI's The World, Asaad echoes my opening sentiments.
Quite simply, "We no longer accept things that are not logical."

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 12

2012-01-26T09:00:00.003-05:00

A bizarre and profoundly "off-the-map" local campground in southern Virginia:

In the morning there were pancakes on the open fire, at 10AM, when the daylight hours had come and bloomed and flushed out the details that night made obscure.
Here a fallen tree that bridged the creek, a cluster of tea bags hanging from its branches.
Here a string of deer vertebrae, tied together with bailing twine at the end of a grass rope, suspended from a limb, bending in the wind.
Here a plywood checkerboard with the squares sketched out in charcoal, and pebbles from the creek-bed in lieu of pieces, the two armies distinguished by a single shade of gray.
“Checkers,” said Dig. “I was never any good.”
He proved it over breakfast: a five-game series, one of which he won.
He washed the dishes in penance.
Knelt by the creek to scrub off the grease.
Put his hands in the water and startled up a crawfish from underneath a rock.
The crawfish watched him for a moment or two, the sunlight glinting off the pinkness of its body, its miniature antennae bending in the current, and then it flicked into motion again, wriggling forward to the safety of Dig’s shadow.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 5

2012-01-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

. . . a small knot of teens hung out in the back of a flatbed pickup listening to Beyonce. Dig watched as the solitary woman in the bunch tapped one of her comrades on the shoulder and pointed. The conversation cut off instantly. The shoulder-tapped comrade grabbed the brim of his baseball cap and switched it from backwards to forwards, and tipped the brim down low so that his eyes were in the shade. He raised the bottle of Pepsi to his lips and sipped it with a slowness that could almost be felt.
Dig crossed the lot and waved at the gang as he passed. The girl in the truck waved back nervously but the kid with the Coke just kept on looking at Abida, and didn’t acknowledge Dig’s presence.
One of the young boys with the rope said, “Hey mister,” in a tone Dig couldn’t decipher. Dig waved again. The boy waved back.
A thin concrete median at the end of the lot shielded the grass from errant tire tracks. Abida stood just shy of the grass line, her eyes on the engine, its wheels resting on a pair of tracks that ran thirty-odd feet on either side, as if to tempt the train into one last delusion of mobility.
“Typical New Yorker,” said Abida. “I get to Virginia and the first thing I gawk at is a train.”

Renowned feminist author Nawal al-Saadawi speaks on women and the Egyptian Revolution

2012-01-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

The Egyptian online publication Bikyamasr.com featured an interview with Nawal al-Saadawi, renowned feminist and author, on the subject of women in contemporary Egypt. Jailed under the Sadat regime, and then banished under Mubarek, Saadawi is not - perhaps unsurprisingly - nostalgic for the old guard, nor is she overly enthusiastic about the prevailing Islamist political parties, which she considers hostile to democracy.
She argues instead that the political landscape be completely rewritten, and that the integration of women in the democratic process be the overarching priority:

"Women are half the society. You cannot have a revolution without women. You cannot have democracy without women . . . The slogan of the revolution was dignity, social justice and freedom. You cannot have dignity or social justice or freedom without women. The revolution is not only political. The social dimension must be there. The social problems, the culture problems, the legal problems must be changed just as the political law are changed."

Interestingly, she contends that Egypt, at a cultural level, the level of the people, would have no qualms about backing a female presidential candidate, and that in fact the government, the military, and the Islamist parties and pressure groups are the ones responsible for institutionalizing misogyny. When asked whether or not Egyptians would turn out in mass to vote for a female president, she responded:

"Of course. Men and women in Egypt are very tolerant toward women. I was a medical doctor in the village and I was examining men and women. You know Egypt has a history of tolerance toward women and Christianity and all religions. We are civilized, not the government . . . It is the government and colonialism. External colonialism. But if you go among people, it is different. My village supported me when I presented my name. And the men before the women. When I was a doctor there they were ready for me to examine them, so it depends about the women, her character, her program, her seriousness . . . "

While I'm not certain my admittedly limited research on the subject predisposes me to agree, it's nonetheless a moving construct, and one that I'm sure speaks truth about to larger swaths of Egyptian society than is commonly believed.
On a related note, The Egyptian Gazette ran an article a week before Saadawi's interview revisiting the atrocity of "virginity tests" and the brutal treatment of female protestors by security forces. In a tone I couldn't help reading as rhetorical, the article began, "What is this society, with its laws, institutions and taboos, doing to ensure that women have the right to demonstrate without being humiliated?"
The answer - far too little. But people are at least being heard.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 10

2012-01-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

On a winding road in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Dig parks the truck so Abida can pray:

At the edge of the woods, a slender doe broke from the group and stood in place, watching Abida.
Abida moved. The doe raised her ears. Dig felt something shift in his chest, something that bore all the markings of sharpness.
Abida shifted into a crouch, left leg beneath her, right leg back. Her eyes were closed but her face was radiant, her smile blissful, her expression colored not just with rapture but also with awareness, as if she could sense the gaze of the animal her closed eyelids had thus far prevented her from seeing.
Then she prostrated again, and sat again, and she opened her eyes and at last saw the doe. The doe reacted to her gaze by raising her ears just a few degrees higher, but she didn’t move back.
Abida’s smile deepened. She rose to her feet and without a word stepped from the rug and moved toward the doe.
Dig watched. Kept quiet. Enjoyed his exclusion. Abida with her back to him. Moving toward the woods.
Twelve feet from the deer, Abida stopped and reached out her hands. The deer, recognizing a gesture that an endless influx of tourists had rendered all too familiar, took three steps forward and stopped again, and went on watching Abida. The two of them held that posture for all of the time it took for the sun to be gone – the glow to vanish from the trees – and then the doe dropped her head and entered the woods.
Dig got back in the truck and started the engine. Abida got in and fastened her seatbelt. She was breathing heavily. She smelled like earth.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 3

2012-01-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

“One of these days I’m going to find myself in Mecca,” she said, “standing in front of the ka’bala, and I want to do it sooner instead of later, when I’m still fresh enough to know what Hajj is about, but the thing is, I’m one of those screw-ball Muslims who feels like it’s not just a matter of walking up to the stone; it’s a matter of what you bring with you. Where you come from. What you are. And as far as those last two are concerned, the only identity I can claim is ‘Muslim from Astoria.’ Call me crazy, but that’s not enough for me. I’m also an American, from America. And it occurred to me after speaking with you yesterday that I –”
She stopped again for breath.
God, thought Dig. She’s really talking fast.
“ – it occurred to me that I have no idea what that means. And I want to know, Dig! I’ve been living in this country for twenty-one years and this right here is the farthest I’ve been from New York. I want to know America! Whether I love it or hate it I want to know what it is! In Saudi Arabia when they come at me with their cheap-shot America bashing, I want to be able to bash them back; something informed and knowledgeable that will blow all their preconceived notions out the window. And what better place to kick off my education than the American South, traveling with a man I can trust, who respects my right to prayer, and knows enough about my faith to not start harassing me about why I don’t believe in Jesus?!”
She raised her head and caught his gaze.
“You know we believe in him, right?” she said.
“Yes,” said Dig. He tried to steal the moment, to interject something that exceeded a syllable in length, but before he could do so she was off and running again.

Three women representing the Abrahamic faiths weigh in on modesty

2012-01-04T09:00:00.007-05:00

   Women's eNews recently ran a fascinating article covering a panel in which a Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic woman discussed the subject of modesty. All three women have made the choice to cover their hair, choices each one of them identify as being very much their own.
     They describe modesty as a personal construct, rather than a societal one.
"What is inner, that is what is dignified," Bronya Schaffer, a member of Chabad.org, a Jewish group, told Women's eNews. "It is a sense of self-respect, self-dignity and that's what gets projected. It has nothing to do with inhibition. A woman can do anything, be anything but within the context of Jewish law."
     Hajer Naili, the author of the article, who also chooses to cover her hair, echoes this sentiment of intense personal choice: ". . . as a Muslim woman I simply want to follow Islamic guidance. People often assume my family imposed the scarf on me or that it means I am married. I explain that a Muslim woman who wears a veil often does so by choice and there is no link between the veil and marriage in Islam."
     Naili closes by dwelling on another striking aspect of the panel - the degree to which it emphasized the commonality between the world's three major monotheisms: "As I listened to Sister Hill, Sayeed and Schaffer discuss their relation to this piece of cloth I found them sending a beautiful message of peace and co-existence among Christians, Muslims and Jews."

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 5

2011-12-29T09:00:00.002-05:00

Dig and Abida drive through central Virginia:

The weathered green signs that whizzed by on their right said Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway, and even without this periodic reminder, it seemed to Dig as if the landscape were in a perpetual state of outcry. The soil still rich with the memory of blood. Every tree and hill and gully bearing out the textured virtuosity of cannon balls and chain gun fire. Sweaty palms and fingers carving auditory scars on the landscape with their crank crank cranks on the chain gun winch. Beards and coats and uniforms – both gray and blue – all soaked in the stink of the unwashed and the first latent strains of the Unforgetting, and older still the crack of the whip and the choking hovering pathology of cotton. A land overwhelmed with sensory assault, and at once knowable and unmistakable for the northern visitor and his anticipated pageantry. At once his nation. At once his own.

Egyptian court rules against the use of "virginity tests" on female detainees

2011-12-28T09:00:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, an Egyptian court issued a ban on the military's performance of so-called "virginity tests" on female detainees, a stirring articulation not only of civil society's resistance to martial oppression, but also of the refusal of Egypt's women to be silenced by assault and intimidation.
The ruling comes in the case of 25-year-old Samira Ibrahim, a marketing manager, who took Egypt's military junta to court in August with the allegation that she'd been subjected to "tests" of this nature during a violent crackdown on protests on March 9th.
Rights groups contend that the military has implemented such practices to shield themselves against accusations of rape. Leaving aside the profound fallacy of using sexual assault to guard against sexual assault charges, the practice is perhaps most nauseating when one considers the junta's unshakeable confidence that the survivors of such atrocities would remain silent.
Ibrahim refused to allow them that privilege, and the courts have reinforced her stance. The three-judge panel attested that the virginity tests were "a violation of women's rights and an aggression against their dignity." Confirming aforementioned suspicions, the ruling also claimed that a member of the junta had admitted to Amnesty International in June that the practice was indeed indented to safeguard against rape charges, and indicated that it was in fact an administrative order and not an individual decision.

This ruling offers an encouraging companion narrative to a December 20 issue brief from the Center for American Progress, which looked at rape as a weapon of oppression in the context of the Arab Spring. Amidst a roster of injuries already grimly familiar to anyone who has worked in the field of women's rights - the devastating impact that sexual assault exacts in conservative religious communities, wherein assaulted women are seen to have lost their honor and are ostracized on that basis, or the inability of forcibly impregnated women to obtain abortions - the issue brief also comments on the degree to which women in much of the Arab world, Egypt included, are systematically denied access to the legal sphere. "Rape," it argues, "is not a matter of public justice . . . Public places where rape victims look for legal remedy, such as courts and police stations, are 'no place for respectable women.'"

Amidst a regime that makes a hobby out of squashing most forms of democratic expression, it remains to be seen how much yesterday's ruling will do to reverse that trend. But in lending solidarity to Ibrahim's statement - "I will not give up my rights as a woman and as a human being -" the courts have at least given the green light to women across the country who might otherwise have despaired of their grievances ever being heard.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 2

2011-12-22T09:00:00.004-05:00

As a means of getting more visitors engaged with the novel itself, and not just the social or political issues surrounding it, I'll now be posting every Thursday through mid-March an excerpt from the book, encapsulating some portion of the text that I find poignant.
Enjoy, and know that I'll always equate questions, feedback, and criticism with that thing called gold!

---
(Chapter 2, Washington, DC)

“You read the Qur’an,” she said.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“In college?”
He smiled, said, “No. 10th Grade.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not exactly.”
She shook her head, bewildered, as if he’d just revealed a mental defect; the kind of defect that made her quietly happy.
“Can I ask the infamous why?” she said.
He looked across the Mall. The sun clung soft to its three o’clock posture, the Washington Monument stark on the skyline.
“There’s this guy called Thomas Jefferson,” he said. “He buys a copy of the Qur’an from the Virginia Gazette, reads it cover to cover a dozen times over . . . even teaches himself basic Arabic . . . all in the name of wrapping his mind around something fresh, something totally new.”
He laughed and turned back to her.
“That’s how my sophomore history teacher opens his lecture on the first day of school. We’re all thinking, wow, that’s cool. That’s really, really cool. Then seconds later he blows the whole thing up, telling us, all Jefferson ever did with that knowledge was to bolster his case for the invasion of North Africa – the good old, ‘I know our enemy now’ routine. I guess the point of the lecture was how things never change, but that’s not what I took away from it. Instead I bought a copy of the Qur’an that night and skipped class the next three days so I could finish reading it. I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
She smiled. Shook her head again. Folded up her book and slipped it in her bag.
“Tea?” she said.
“Please.”

Thousands of women march on the streets of Cairo

2011-12-21T09:00:00.001-05:00

Though I don't have time to post on it properly, I'll take a moment to champion the women of Egypt, who in Cairo have turned out by the thousands to protest the atrocities committed on protesters by security forces.
Said a veteran female Egyptian journalist at a news conference on Monday, "the next revolution will be a women’s revolution for real."

Tribute to Tawakkol Karman

2011-12-20T09:00:00.004-05:00

From the opulent fanfare in Oslo, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Tawakkol Karman returns home to her tent in Yemen, to continue her protests of the Yemeni autocracy.
The image of three women of color sharing the conventionally masculine accolade is itself an incredible morale boost, but of course, the women in question are many universes removed from mere symbolic gratification: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Africa's first democratically elected female head of state, who helped resuscitate her country from a devastating war; her Liberian compatriot Leymah Gbowee, head of the Women for Peace movement, who succeeded, among many accomplishments, to unite Christian and Muslim women against her country's warlords; and Karman, politician, mother of three, head of Women Journalists Without Chains, and chief architect of the Yemeni Revolution, who gets the starring role in this post in part because she embodies so much of what Abida - hero of my novel - strives to become.
Karman's reinvention of the public imagination is as storied as her own identity.
First and foremost, her unwavering commitment to peace and democracy, and the vast ensemble of voices who cheer her on, challenge the construction of Yemen as a splintered, terrorist-breeding basket case. "After the revolution," Karman told Reuters, "you will see the real Yemen, which is peace, dreams and achievement."
Second, she breathes life into what for many (however unduly) is the fading promise of the Arab Spring. "The Arab world is today witnessing the birth of a new world, which tyrants and unjust rulers strive to oppose," Karman said in her acceptance speech. "But in the end, this new world will inevitably emerge. The people have decided to break free and walk in the footsteps of civilized free people of the world."
Third, at a point where Islamist electoral victories in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco have sent the world cascading into a fresh orgy of Islamophobia, Karman staunchly opposes the idea that Islam and democracy are inherently incompatible: "All the religions, they respect democracy. They respect human rights, they respect all the values that all of us carry . . . The only problem is the misunderstanding from the people who act -- Islam, Christian, Jewish or any other religion -- (as if to say) 'this is the religion'."
Finally, at the end of the day, Karman is an Arab woman in a headscarf leading a nation out of bondage. As I've stated in past posts, I can think of no blow more lethal to the notion that Muslim women are inherently oppressed, or that the women of the Middle East are in need of rescue by the West.
Adept at the destruction both of stereotypes and despots, Karman declares "I am not afraid of the future. If we did we would not make this revolution. We should not marginalize anyone. Participation in the political life is the only way that will drive extremism (away), so I am not afraid."

Stand in defense of "All American Muslim"

2011-12-13T09:00:00.005-05:00

In a gag-inducing turn of events, the Florida Family Association successfully pressured Lowe's, the national hardware chain, to withdraw its advertising from "All American Muslim," a new reality TV show that seeks to challenge Islamophobia.
"All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law," the Florida Family Association statement read. "The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."
Once again, we're treated to that unrepentantly bigoted construct that transforms the entire Muslim community into a caricatured gaggle of terrorists - that casts the overarching majority in the light of an extreme minority - only this time, the corporate giants of America have given the perpetrators of this hate-mongering a colossal victory. Lowe's, for one, made plain the fact that its decision stemmed directly from the Florida Family Association's actions.
Health researcher and Huffington Post commentator Abdulrahman El-Sayed sees echoes of the infamous Jim Crow.
"By pulling its advertisements from a television show meant to normalize the Muslim experience," he argues, "Lowe's and other corporations have tapped into that murky history of institutional discrimination. They have chosen to give way to fear and hate over mutual understanding and inclusiveness, implicitly barring a minority community from access to the public debate on account of the reviling hatred of a few."
Worst of all, "All American Muslim" is precisely the kind of show America needs right now. Set in Dearborn, Michigan, home of America's largest Muslim community, the TLC program chronicles the lives of several Muslim families, and works always to emphasize the ways in which their lifestyles resonate with what it is understood to be conventionally American. One of the stars is a police officer, another a football player.
"For a show meant to convey the truth about the diversity and honest normalness of the lives of average Muslims in the US, it succeeds brilliantly," El-Sayed says. "But some can't believe Muslims could be so normal."
Please join me in singing this extremely articulate petition, demanding that Lowe's reinstate its advertising, and put a stop to a culture that complies all too often with hatred and ignorance.
I would also encourage readers, again, to check out the compelling website My Fellow American, which allows visitors the opportunity to express their views on the Muslim community and Islamophobia through both the written word and video testimonials. As such, it offers the perfect forum for any and all individuals outraged by Lowe's decision to vent their frustration in a capacity that others will hear.

Belated words of support for Mona Eltahaway

2011-12-12T09:00:00.009-05:00

     Though I'm a bit tardy in doing so, I wanted to make certain to extend my support for Mona Eltahaway, a renowned columnist and speaker, of whom I've blogged on many an occasion, and who was recently and brutally assaulted by security forces in her native Egypt.
     To visit such attrocities on any human being is completely unconscionable, and I stand with Mona as I would stand with any survivor, in solidarity against evil. Yet ever since hearing her speak in New York last April, I've deeply admired her energy, optimism, and commitment to democracy in the Middle East, traits that persist in spite of her recent hardship, and that further augment my respect.
     Left arm and right hand broken, Mona told MSNBC that what happened to her was in fact "tiny compared to what has happened to so many Egyptians."
     Rather than bemoan her own condition, she kept the focus on Egypt itself, calling on the U.S. administration to stop sending military aid to the very junta responsible for the recurring crackdowns.
     "Three thousand people were injured during that time when I was injured," she said. "And not all those people have access to media the way that I do . . . The reason this revolution began was to fight exactly this type of brutality."
      I'm the first to admit that I haven't agreed with Mona on all points, but no amount of criticism should take precedent over the basic support that her strength of character deserves.
To Mona: I'm with you. They'll fail in the end.

Revised version of chapters 1-6 available on the blog

2011-12-08T09:00:00.003-05:00

I don't believe I ever made a former announcement of such, but Chapters 1-6 of the novel can actually be read on Scribd by clicking the picture on the right of the page. (It was originally Chapters 1-5, but the sixth chapter ends on a note that more accurately anticipates the tension that later develops in the characters' relationship.)
This document reflects the most recent revisions to Chapter 2, which I discussed in Friday's post: spiffed up dialogue between Dig and Abida (more realistic, less forced) and a more direct, less ranting, conclusion.
To anyone who's not yet had the opportunity to read a sample of the text and would like to do so, I strongly encourage you to check out. As I've said in the past, feedback is always appreciated, but even if you don't have any to provide, it's great to know there are people out there reading it. (It is, after all, what people do to novels.)

A shout-out to Jerin Arifa

2011-12-07T09:00:00.009-05:00

It having been much too long since I've done so, I wanted to give another shout-out to my wife, Jerin Arifa, whose tireless activism continues to brighten the world for women and minorities of all walks.
On Monday night, Jerin participated in a panel, held at Hunter College, that addressed the issues of sexual harassment and violence in New York’s subways and public spaces. Sharing the table with such notable figures as Emily May, Executive Director and co-founder of Hollaback!, Jerin performed in typically fine form - with eloquence, clarity, and conviction - in her discussion of the mindset and process that makes violence possible. Violence, she said, is a spectrum of behavior, one that begins with dehumanization of the individual (name calling, verbal abuse, unwelcome sexual advances, groping and exposure, etc.) that in turns makes easier, on the other end of the spectrum, the performance of physical violence toward that individual. Jerin chairs the National Young Feminist Task Force for NOW, the activities of which further informed her discussion.
I'll hold off on further extolling, as the sweetness therein begins to corrode the integrity of the message, and say simply that it's been a pleasure - indeed, more than a pleasure - to work in her company.
Jerin - keep up the awesome. You're just that.

Back from the dead . . .

2011-12-02T09:00:00.012-05:00

Needless to say, this blog has spent the better part of two months lying by the wayside, conspicuously silent on the Egyptian and Tunisian elections, the end of the Libyan Civil War, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's re-election in Liberia, and so forth.
Rather than dwell on the causes behind the lapse, I'll focus instead on what I've accomplished in the blackout:

1. Responding to feedback from readers and literary agents, I performed a number of much-needed revisions to Companions of the Garden, rewriting Chapter 2, where the energy dragged, and where the initial dialogue between Dig and Abida had an academic quality that felt forced and unrealistic. I also axed my self-indulgent attempts to be Faulkner via the drunken rant at the climax of the chapter, going instead for sustained realism. It was the same philosophy I used for my other big re-write: Chapter 22, another rant that turned off most of the people who read it. The overwhelming majority of the text reveals itself through simple, direct language, which I've now extended to the trouble spots. The product? A much better novel, with more room yet for growth!

2. I wrote a short story. Entitled (for the moment) "First Prophet," it offers a feminist re-imagining of the tale of Eve. Readers will be getting back to me shortly with thoughts. I'm excited to see what comes out of it!

All glowing aside, though, neither endeavor needed to preclude the existence of the blog, nor will they do so going forward.
As with the publishing process itself, my philosophy on this project is not to get back on the horse until I've found a better way of riding the darn thing. To that end, I'll be looking at ways to spice up the blog, with the aim of making it more engaging, more interactive, and more conducive to exploring the text itself.
More on this soon.
Thanks, as always, for the support.

Tawakkol Karman's Nobel Peace Prize energizes the women of the Arab world

2011-10-12T09:00:00.004-04:00

Activist and revolutionary Tawakkol Karman's receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize last week has provided further galvanization not only to the uprising in her native Yemen, but also, specifically, to its women.
On Sunday, 15,000 women took to the streets of Saana, Yemen's capital and largest city, with additional marches occurring in Taiz and Shabwa provinces. They gathered not only in celebration of Karman's win, but also to send the signal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh that he is no more popular with the nation's female populace than he is with his fellow men. "Saleh will stand trial," the women of Taiz chanted, and in Shabwa, female protesters called on the United Nations to place sanctions against Saleh and his family.
At a presentation I attended last spring, Egyptian columnist and social media artisan Mona Eltahaway, gesturing to a photo of Karman that she'd displayed to the audience, remarked - unforgettably - "In that face lies the death of all preconceived notions of the Muslim woman."
Not only has Karman consistently proven Eltahawy's point - obliterating the uninformed assumption that any woman with a headscarf by definition must be docile or oppressed - but now she's energized other women to destroy those assumptions on their own. Women who take to the streets by the tens of the thousands in the face of brutal reprisals can't exactly be labeled the brow-beaten type. As Roula Khalaf of the Financial Times argues, the Nobel decision "sends a powerful if symbolic message of western acceptance of Islamist movements, an alternative view to the simplistic belief that they are incompatible with women’s empowerment."
I mentioned violent reprisals. There has already been at least one disgusting occurrence of such, with multiple sources confirming the attacks by pro-government thugs on 38 women in Taiz's Freedom Square. I therefor call on readers to keep Yemen's female Muslim revolutionaries - and future Founding Mothers - in their hearts and minds, and praise them for the singular role they play in steering their nation to the state of liberty it deserves.

Maria Gunnoe - A Voice for Appalachia

2011-10-10T09:00:00.009-04:00

With the Nobel Peace Prize going on Friday to two of the women I most admire on the international stage,Yemen's Tawakkol Karman and Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge a home-grown hero - Maria Gunnoe, a resident of West Virginia who leads the attack on mountain-top removal coal mining, a practice that poses dire consequences not just to the environment but to the very existence of the people who live in its shadow.
As I write this post, an instrumental folk station I created on Pandora Radio delivers tune after heartbreaking tune from Appalachia, an incessant reminder of the invaluable role that this region has played in the formation of our national identity. Ironic, then, that corporate interests would augment their assault on civilizations abroad with attacks on what could rightly be called one of the keystones of the American spirit. “They are blowing up my homeland,” says Gunnoe, not one to mince words.
The daughter, granddaughter and sister of coal miners, Gunnoe works for OVEC (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition) and in 2009 received the Goldman Environmental Prize, a Nobel equivalent in the field of grassroots activism. On September 30th, she and Bo Webb, another leading mover-and-shaker, testified before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. The two were in fact the only coalfield-residing witnesses to present at the hearing, the title of which made plain its bias - "Jobs at Risk: Community Impacts of the Obama Administration’s Effort to Rewrite the Stream Buffer Zone Rule."
"The coal industry obviously wants to bury and pollute all of our water and all of who we are, for temporary jobs," said Gunnoe, at the hearing. "Jobs in surface mining are dependent on blowing up the next mountain and burying the next stream . . . How could anyone say that these temporary jobs is worth the permanent displacement of our people and the destruction of their waters, mountains and culture?"
Later: "My nephew reminds me of what surface mining looks like from a child's eyes. As we were driving through our community he looks up and says, 'Aunt Sissy, what is wrong with these people? Don't they know we live down here?' I had to be honest with him and say, 'Yes, they know. They just simply don't care."
You can view the testimonies on the sub-committee's website, clicking to 99:20 for Webb's testimony, and 106:18 for Gunnoe's.
Interestingly, Mr. Webb drew a link between the apparent congressional appetite for environmental catastrophes and its recent trend towards curtailing a woman's right to reproductive freedom.
"Statistical research on Appalachian birth defects has found that a woman pregnant has a 42% greater chance of a baby born with birth defects than a pregnant woman living in a non mountaintop removal community," he said. " . . . If that does not get your attention, then you have sold your very heart and soul. Your pro life claim is no longer credible; it's false, and transparent. You stand on your bloody pulpit claiming to be pro life, yet allow our babies to be poisoned, disregarded like yesterdays garbage! A dog has more rights and protection than an unborn baby in a mountaintop removal community!"
Gunnoe made a similar observation in a recent Op-Ed for The Charleston Gazette, entitled "Where’s the church in this disaster?"
"It would seem that children in the womb are of great concern," she says. "But apparently that concern extends only to not killing the child outright. Insidious damage, disease and life-long problems seem not to matter, at least not enough for them to speak out. Could it be that their anti-abortion stance is really less about the health and well being of infants and children than about hatred of women?"
A rhetorical question if ever I heard one.

French feminists rally to retire "Mademoiselle”

2011-10-06T09:00:00.004-04:00

Galvanized by the deeply disturbing implications of the Strauss-Kahn/Diallo case for women worldwide, French feminists have rallied to put paid to a deeply entrenched form of sexism in their society: the legally mandated distinction between "Madame" and "Mademoiselle" on the basis of marital status.
  Unlike Spain, which has formally retired "Senorita," and Germany, which recently parted ways with "Fraulein," France still delineates between married and unmarried women, requiring French women to indicate marital status on everything from job applications to parking tickets.
  Marie-Noelle Bas, president of the feminist group Watchdog, argues that the distinction is problematic for precisely the same reasons that "Mrs/Miss" troubles Anglophone feminists; namely, that it defines women on the basis of their relationship to men. "In old days, women went from the domination of their father to the domination of their husband," she says. "They were 'mademoiselle' when they were girls, and 'madame' when they were married. For the men, there is no two states, only 'monsieur' from the youth to the elder."
It's been a while since I've read 1984, but Orwell's testimony on the overarching importance of language is as fresh in my mind as ever. Orwell addressed it in the characteristic negative - that the key to suppressing thought rests in the obliteration of one's access to the language that makes such thoughts possible - but so, too, is liberation born through the obliteration of the language that maintains oppressive structures. As a lover of language in all its forms, I can't emphasize enough my support for the movement.
  Thalia Breton, of the organization Dare Feminism, argues that the ongoing Strauss-Kahn fiasco has made it crucial for feminists to act, and to act now.
"People have really woken up about inequalities and sexism since the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair," she says, "and we think these issues will be a part of the presidential debate leading up to next May's election."
I can only hope for the same.

Another heartening gesture from Tunisia on the status of women

2011-10-04T09:00:00.002-04:00

As Bothaina Kamel continues to gain attention in her pursuit of the Egyptian presidency, more good news hearkens from Tunisia: on Friday, the nation formally withdrew all reservations to CEDAW - The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979, CEDAW is commonly described as an international bill of rights for women, and defines the oppression thereof as "...any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field." Any country that accepts CEDAW must commit itself to measures aimed at curbing that oppression.
Though Tunisia was one of the first countries to go onboard with CEDAW, as early as 1980, its pre-revolutionary establishment had lodged a series of reservations on four somewhat crucial rights that CEDAW had intended to preserve, these being:

- Equal rights to pass on nationality to their children.
- Equal rights and responsibilities in marriage and divorce.
- Equal rights in the guardianship and adoption of children.
- Equal personal rights as husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name, a profession and an occupation.

The interim government's decision to withdraw these reservations signals the likelihood that a newly elected parliament will amend whatever oppressive laws the original reservations were meant to protect. Along with a decision by Tunisia's National Electoral Commission in May to ensure gender parity in any future parliament, Tunisia's renovated relationship with CEDAW reinforces its reputation as the Middle East's leader in women's rights.
As a somewhat noteworthy aside, if any readers are unaware of CEDAW, it might perhaps stem from the fact that the United States is one of only seven countries in the world that has not yet ratified the convention. Given our penchant for slinging allegations of sexism at various regions of the world, this detail has always struck me as a little bit . . . curious.

The woman who wants to be Egypt's first female president

2011-09-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

Amidst the turmoil in Egypt, there remains at a least a few encouraging signs, a prime one being the visibility of a female candidate for the presidency.
Bothaina Kamel, a former TV and radio host, recalls vividly the Mubarak regime's incessant assertions that February's uprisings were the product of a "foreign agenda." Highly critical of the construction, Kamel now operates under the slogan Egypt is My Agenda, and cites among her chief objectives combating corruption and bringing a voice to marginalized ethnic groups nationwide. Says Kamel, "I promise by the election I will be the most informed of the candidates about the Egyptian people. I know the demands of the Bedouin, the people of Upper Egypt, the Coptic Christians, the workers and different groups from all parts of the country."
With respect to the former objective, she can cite among her accomplishments the creation in 2005 of Shayfeen - "We Are Watching You" - a movement that contested the largely fraudulent elections taking place that year, and yesterday reiterated her demand for the creation of an independent body to monitor and fight corruption in Egypt.
In terms of what scores points with me personally, Kamel shares my criticism of the perception that Egypt's revolution ended with Mubarak's ouster. "I know that we have just started a revolution," she says. "We haven't made a revolution yet. There's a lot more to do."
And lest there be any doubt as to her cognizance of the gendered dimensions of her campaign, Kamel tells the Guardian, "By putting myself forward I am making this democratic right – the right of a woman to be president – a concrete reality, and that alters expectations."
Her past projects include the radio show "The Egypt We Don't Know." Says Kamel, speaking of her experiences there, "I traveled all over the country collecting various songs, community traditions, local ideas about the Nile or the desert . . . On reflection, I think it was the most important program I've ever been involved in."
Someone to keep an eye on.

Reminder to check out "My Fellow American," an anti-Islamophobic website

2011-09-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

    With the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and everything it entails fresh in our minds, I wanted to remind everyone to check out the compelling website My Fellow American, which I blogged about in June, and which strongly enforces one of the chief goals of my novel: countering Islamophobia.
     As a refresher on the site's nature, My Fellow American allows visitors to contribute video testimonials challenging negative stereotypes about Muslims. The library is both diverse and compelling, articulating an agenda that in my estimation can't ever be stressed enough.
     One particular video that moved me this second time around features a young Mennonite discussing his interest in facilitating dialogue with the Muslims in his community. His motivation to better understand the faith includes experimental fasting during the month of Ramadan:

Inspiration from a Mennonite Journal

My Fellow American also features a short video teaser, which, as stressed in my last post, is a much-needed reminder of just how much hideousness has been voiced regarding the Muslim faith and its followers:

My Fellow American

Manal Omar: Another Extraordinary Woman

2011-09-01T09:00:00.022-04:00

I thought I'd celebrate the end of Ramadan by recognizing another one of the Arab world's movers and shakers: Manal Omar, director of the Iraq, Iran and North Africa programs for the United States Institute for Peace (USIP).
Omar launched her career in 1996 as a journalist in the Middle East. Less than a year later, UNESCO recruited her to work on one of her first lead assignments in Iraq, from 1997-1998. She then served as regional coordinator for Women for Women International in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Iraq, residing in the latter and setting up operations throughout the tumultuous period of 2003-2005. She also served as regional program manager for the Middle East for Oxfam - Great Britain, where she responded to humanitarian crises in Palestine and Lebanon, and worked more than three years with the World Bank’s development economics group.
At USIP, Omar works with the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations, which manages the Institute's activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Liberia, Sri Lanka, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has also carried out training programs in Yemen, Bahrain, Sudan, Lebanon, Kenya, and Palestine.
Not to be excluded, the written word has, in addition, excelled under Omar's direction. Her publications include: "In the Sea of National Building: Anchoring Women's Rights in the Iraqi Constitution," "Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity -- My Own and What it Means to Be a Woman in Chaos," and "Islamic Feminism."
As implied by the above, Omar compliments her commitment to international peace with equally fervent investment in the Muslim community, both abroad and at home. In 2007, Islamic Magazine named her one of the ten young visionaries shaping Islam in America.
I learned of Ms. Omar via a recent article in the Huffington Post, which also featured my perennial favorite from Yemen, Tawakul Karman.

The Nature of the Tragedy

2011-08-30T09:00:00.007-04:00

The outcome of the Strauss-Kahn criminal case was, in the purest sense, a low-down dirty shame, but one need not invite debate over the meaning or the application of "reasonable doubt" to label it as such.
Indeed, I can think of no substitute for reasonable doubt as a standard of evidence, and would even admit - though it breaks my heart to do so - that Ms. Diallo's testimony and accompanying credibility would not, at the time of the case's dismissal, have been sufficient to yield a conviction.
The tragedy, the hideous outcome of it all, is that no one seemed to try. The case never made it to trial, an environment in which Diallo's testimony might have grown into something less doubt-provoking than it had been before; an environment wherein, failing all else, the seriousness of her claims would at least have receivd the legal attention it deserved.
Had the case gone to trial, prosecutors might have balanced the holes in her credibility against a detail the media circus, and the court of public opinion it informed, never managed to address - the corresponding holes in Mr. Strauss-Kahn's credibility. Why, for instance, did he fail to provide details of where he went immediately after the alleged encounter until three weeks later? Why did French Journalist Tristan Banon come forward the day after Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest and claim he had attacked her in 2002? How were these details not assigned even a tenth the importance of Ms. Diallo's botched asylum application, or her murky financial history?
Had the case gone to trial, prosecutors might have countered the construction of the malicious, gold-digging maid with claims that stressed its unlikelihood. After three years of employment at the Sofitel Hotel, Strauss-Khan was hardly the first wealthy guest with whom Diallo came in contact. Were the accumulation of wealth her motive, the proximity of rich folk her opportunity, and the fabrication of rape her means, would she not have attempted such a stunt long ago?
At the end of the day, it may still have devolved into one person's word against another, which would not have been enough to convict Strauss-Kahn, but the poignancy of these matters makes repugnant the move that silenced them forever.
Rob Clyne of Sabotage Times puts it a bit more bluntly: ". . . this is rape we’re talking about. This is an accusation of a man forcing his penis into a woman’s mouth. Doubt, reasonable or otherwise, is not a strong enough reason to dismiss a case of this nature. The law protected DSK to such an extent that he didn’t even have to face cross examination. Justice, it seems, is in hiding. A depressing outlook for women’s rights and brave victims of sexual assault."
Indeed.
And now the would-be case is utterly vulnerable to media postulations, a process that has already canonized Diallo the Liar while leaving Strauss-Kahn ambiguous.
Ms. Dialo may or may not be a victim (I of course think she was) but her treatment in the media aligns closely enough with the victim-blaming paradigm that I, for one, feel justified in puking.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn can't silence the survivors

2011-08-24T09:07:00.005-04:00

Though I'm not religious, I couldn't help swooning over the thought that yesterday's earthquake might have bespoken some cosmic anger over the outcome of the criminal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Luckily, I didn't have to bring God into the equation to enjoy this gem of a video: the earthquake's pulverization of Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance's nauseating press conference on his rationale for dropping the charges.
It was almost enough to provide momentary solace.
Almost, but not quite.
For now, I'll avoid discussion of the enormity of yesterday's travesty, as there are no doubt many others hosting such conversations at this moment. Instead, I'll add my voice to what I can only hope is a surging chorus in support of assault victims worldwide. No outcome of this case would be grimmer than the dissuasion of survivors from bringing their abusers to trial.
The stigma, the inhibited access to proper legal representation, the misogynistic leanings of a plurality of America's judges . . . all have conspired to not only thwart the attempts of assault victims to successfully prosecute their abusers, but have discouraged a mast majority from even trying.
To any and all survivors who might be reading this, I, for one, stand fully behind you. You have as much a right to justice as you have to existence.
And yes, Ms. Diallo: that includes you too.

Interview with Nadia Al-Sakkaf, Editor of the Yemen Times

2011-08-23T09:00:00.004-04:00

As the battle for Tripoli approaches what many analysts consider the endgame, the revolution in Yemen toils onward, having largely followed Bahrain into the Western media's radio silence.
Shedding some light on the ongoing struggle, and the nation in which it unfolds, Nadia Al-Sakkaff, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times, partakes in a compelling interview with TED, featured below.

Charismatic, driven, and undeniably empowered, Al-Sakkaff echoes the character of her fellow national Tawakul Karman, whom she implicitly references when describing the Yemeni uprising as "a revolution started by women."

The interview mixes photos of the revolt with Al-Sakkaff's own biography, the inspiring story of a woman who moved forward with an unprecedented business venture in spite of widespread criticism from the more conservative factions of her society.

"Everybody was betting that I will not be able to do it," she says. ". . . It was very hard at first. I didn't want to clash with people. But with all due respect to all the men, and the older men especially, they did not want me around. It was very hard, you know, to impose my authority. But a woman's got to do what a woman's got to do. And in the first year, I had to fire half of the men. Brought in more women."

It goes without saying that Al-Sakkaff offers yet another challenge to the stereotype of the docile Muslim woman. Ironically, my one hesitation with the interview is that Al-Sakkaff herself is a bit generalizing where Muslim women are concerned, constructing as oppressed all women who choose to cover their faces.

On a related note, it should come as no surprise that Al-Sakaff vents frustration about the monolithic way in which Western media constructs her country as a whole.

"A lot of reporters come to Yemen and they want to write a story on Al-Qaeda or terrorism," she says. "And I just wanted to share with you: there's one reporter that came. He wanted to do a documentary on what his editors wanted. And he ended up writing about a story that even surprised me -- hip hop."
God bless the unexpected.

Muslim Women's Fashion: Dispelling Another Myth

2011-08-16T09:00:00.001-04:00

Another widespread misconception about Islam centers on the wardrobe: namely, that a Muslim woman's choice to dress conservatively precludes her ability to be fashionable, to be expressive in her attire. Quite to the contrary, modesty as a fashion choice is a booming industry in the Muslim world, stretching from the fledgling runways of Kabul to the aisles of Egypt, the undisputed trend-setter in both clothing and the arts.
A recent article in the Lifestyle section of the Washington Post snapshots the latest trends in conservative summer attire for Muslim women, focusing on an Egyptian-American couple and the warehouse they own and operate in Falls Church, Virginia.
Says a quoted fashionista, speaking to the one of the garment combos featured at the store, "On a typical summer day, I choose a skirt and a cute tunic with a lightweight scarf that coordinates . . . A popular staple in the Muslim lady’s wardrobe right now is the maxi dress with a body shirt underneath or a lightweight cardigan over the top."
The starring role of the article goes to the burqina, a "two-piece like a bikini and smaller than a burqa," which allows even the most conservative Muslim woman to take respite from the heat without compromising their modesty. Designed by Lebanese-born Aheda Zanetti, "the burqina and other 'Islamic' swimsuits resemble wetsuits used for surfing or scuba diving, except they are available in various colors and styles."
If any of the above strikes the reader as surprising, it likely stems from the pigeonholing parameters in which the West frames feminine beauty, parameters in which the attractiveness of a woman's clothing is so often proportional to the degree to which her body is revealed.
Muslim women's fashion - or, at least, the fashion discussed above - by definition conceals the body and de-emphasizes sexuality, but nothing in this philosophy countermands the capacity for clothing to be expressive, evocative, or aesthetically pleasing.
I'm not about to express a preference between philosophies, or put forward an opinion on which of the two is more empowering to women. I wish only to offer this up as another reminder that a planet of universally divergent belief yields plenty of room for all.
Says another interviewee for the article, “As a Muslim woman, I wear clothes that are flattering, yet don’t show the details of my figure . . . I do this because I believe that God has called upon Muslim women to conserve their beauty to those closest to her. So, one does not have to wear a miniskirt to look beautiful.”

Gender electoral parity in Tunisia

2011-08-11T09:00:00.001-04:00

In March of this year, rallying around International Women's Day, Tunisian activists drafted a constitutional wish-list aimed at effecting gender equality on all levels of society. A month later, their demands, deemed far-fetched at the time, were taken up by the national electoral commission when it began drafting rules for the constituent assembly elections. To the joy of feminists worldwide, the commission adopted a gender-parity system for candidate lists, requiring political parties to alternate men and women on their lists from top to bottom. Any party that does not adhere to this rule can face immediate rejection by the commission.
History has proven, again and again, that a democracy's claim to legitimacy can face few stricter litmus tests than the manner in which it treats its women. Tunisia's decisive stance in favor of gender equality bodes well not only for its own revolution, but for the world at large - a world in which democracies are far scarcer than the testosterone-driven media would have us believe.
Tunisia's constituent assembly elections are slated to take place on October 23rd. I'm sure I'm joined by many in devoutly hoping that the gestures of the electoral commission will result in the women of Tunisia assuming a meaningful and transformative role in their nation's evolution.

Back from Alaska . . .

2011-08-05T08:57:00.002-04:00

and catching up on the work that accumulated in my absence. My book does still exist, and I do still care about the world! Real posting soon . . .

Flying north from Juneau

2011-07-29T13:21:00.004-04:00

     Returning home to Alaska, much like riding a foreign bus through Brooklyn or Queens, is a constant discovery of the radically new amidst the so-called familiar.
    The plane that brought me up here to Haines from Juneau was a striking reminder of such.
     It also functioned nicely as the latest installment of what I call "The Lenseless Chronicles": those breathtaking occasions of my life in which I managed not to have my camera on me, narratives spanning everything from the Berlin Wall to that frigid November day in 2001 when in British Columbia my dog cornered a mountain goat on the brink of a precipice. (Both goat and dog emerged unharmed.)
     It's a five hour flight from New York to Seattle, and a two hour flight from Seattle to Juneau, and even at the end of that exhausting pilgrimage, one is still eighty miles south of Haines, my childhood home.
     There exist two options for closing the remaining gap: a five-hour ride on the Alaska State Ferry, or a forty-minute ride on a single-prop, eight-passenger airplane, the like of which Alaskan mythology is based upon. Though the ferry is my preferred mode of transport, not to mention the cheaper of the two, connection times prevented me from partaking this time 'round, so instead I hopped a veteran performer of the tireless Wings of Alaska and headed north into the 5PM sun.
   We sped off the runway and banked to the right. Seated as I was on the starboard side of the aircraft, directly under the wing, I watched the wingtip cut a line across the body of the sprawling Mendenhall Glacier; watched the balloon tire of the plane's landing apparatus slide past the bottomless blue of the Pacific Ocean and the fishing port that huddles to the north of the Juneau Airport.
     I've flown this route dozens of times in my life, and never failed to find it astonishing in its beauty, but have nevertheless grown at least to anticipate the landmarks of the journey. It would be a straight shot up the salty reach of Lynn Canal, North America's deepest fjord, and a final bank and vulture-like circle to the Haines air-strip at the end of the line.
   Only this time it didn't play out quite like that.
     Our pilot, impromptu-style, dropped the suggestion of a "more scenic route," and when the passengers voiced their adamant support of the idea, we cut west off the Canal and up the Endicott River valley, thereby entering what felt to me like a parallel universe, existing in elusive proximity to the route I knew so well.
     A ridge to our right eclipsed the ocean. Jagged peaks on either side soared to a height half again the altitude of our plane. Ice fields and miniature glaciers spilled over their crowns, and newborn streams, fresh from the ice, rushed down the sides of the mountains, down into the encroaching green of the alder jungle.
   We left the Endicott River and continued north. Ridges beneath us brought the ground within a thousand feet of our posteriors, and then broke without warning into valleys of mud-brown rivers that quintupled the gap between our plane and the Earth, paralyzing abysses that cut out of nowhere. The white points and thin brown wings of Bald eagles circled at the fridges of visibility, as high above the valleys as we were above them.
   At last we came to the Davidson Glacier, a stunning mass of ice that lurches right to the fringes of the ocean, which throughout my life I'd known only from a distance, and only in small part, and now we flew with the whole of its mass right before our eyes, stretching from mountains to saltwater, our pilot turning us to the east to rejoin the Lynn Canal, banking so the plane stood almost on its side, the wingtip pointing out the fissures in the ice, the blue-on-black, the chasms that reached down into that for-God's-sake-I-don't-want-to-think-about-it underworld where fallen hikers just vanish.
   We landed on the airstrip in Haines, my first time home in two years. Shaken from the abruptness of it all, I stepped out onto the runway, the Davidson Glacier Valley still faintly visible in the distance, the smell of cottonwood saturating the air.
     All and all, it felt like a reasonable welcome.

The Norway Massacre: Islamophobia Again Spills Blood

2011-07-27T14:02:00.002-04:00

   I've spent the last week visiting my family and childhood home in Haines, Alaska.
   As such, I haven't made it a priority to post on the Norway massacre, a detail for which I apologize, though my feelings on the matter should come as no surprise to my readers.
   People often ask me what inspired me to write a novel on Islamophobia. My answer is brief: Islamophobia is, I feel, the most unacknowledged bigotry of our era.
   I by no means intend to downplay the severity of sexism, or racism toward America's black population, or of xenophobia toward our immigrants, but insofar as I've witnessed ignorance and hatred toward Muslims penetrate even those circles of individuals who oppose the preceding triad of idiocy, I feel the message of my book is one that very much needs to be heard.
   By now, most should be aware that when Anders Behring Breivik put his finger on the trigger, Islamophobia, as articulated on a global scale, was a tremendous part of what inspired him. His manifesto denounced his perceived failure of Norwegian politicians to defend the country against Islamic incursion, and quoted Robert Spencer, operator of the Jihad Watch website, 64 times.
   Marc Sageman, a consultant on terrorism and a former C.I.A. officer, cited the darling argument of anti-jihadists that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
   Mr. Sageman tempered this claim by saying it was unfair to hold anti-jihadist writers responsible for Mr. Breivik's behavior. Given my belief that everyone must at some point be responsible for his or her actions, I agree, but to claim that a culture of fear and hate can be divorced from fearful and hateful actions is nothing short of absurd.
   Sadly but predictably, this is precisely what the Western media appears to be doing. A recent report from the New York Times suggests that Mr. Breivik is likely insane, a claim that gives me horrifying flashbacks to Jared Lee Loughner and the shooting of Representative Giffords in January. That too was an atrocity that seemed so obvious an extension of the hateful climate surrounding it, but the media quickly de-politicized and de-contexualized the act with the self-same designation of insanity.
   Meanwhile, New York Representative Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans to address terrorist threats from non-Muslims, and proceeded as planned.
   Where and when does it end?

An article I wrote on Islam and feminism has been published online

2011-07-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

I'm excited to announce that an article I composed on feminism in Islam for Encompassing Crescent, an online publication, has now been posted. Thanks to all those who helped me with the editing thereof, and thanks again, Fatih, for providing me with the publishing opportunity.
The article deals in large part with the subject of Islamophobia, an overall focus of the issue. There are plenty of other articles that are worth checking out as well, and I'd encourage anyone who's interested to take a look.

The Arab Spring: Widening the Lens

2011-07-20T10:06:00.005-04:00

Trying to ascertain the current state of the Arab Spring is a task uniquely vulnerable to the age-old accusation of idealism. To place any meaningful hope in a democratic, sustainable outcome, as I continue to do, is immediately subject to attack.
This week's issue of The Economist ran a feature on the uprisings.
Given that The Economist has, on a number of occasions, drunk from the idealist chalice, its overall optimism about the Arab world is perhaps not itself encouraging. It does, however, have a solid track record for promoting broad strokes, big-picture frames of discussion, and, as such, puts a crucial detail in perspective: the fact that the Arab Spring is bigger than the five states that dominate the news.
If Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Yemen predominate the public imagination, it is due only to their uprisings' having a more overt and recognizable character. But while pundits extrapolate from Egypt's struggles an overall breakdown in the pace of reform, a swelling protest movement in Morocco persuaded King Muhammad VI in March to draft a new constitution, that was overwhelmingly improved on July 1st. Jordan, too, has implemented democratic reforms. And while the Gulf States, minus Yemen, have so far succeeded in keeping their populations quiet through bribery and cash-showers, their actions are, by definition, a response to the mood of the people.
Constraining the aspirations of an entire region of humanity to the struggles of select states in their midst is much like limiting the breadth of, say, Egypt's revolution to the toppling of Mubarek.
The moral of the story is to reject myopia. Only from that basis can skepticism, for good or for ill, be properly fostered.

The Egyptian Revolution & the Fallacy of the "Done Deal"

2011-07-14T09:00:00.031-04:00

Every time I encounter another commentator gloomily opining on the "failed outcomes" of Egypt's revolution, I find myself wondering why the devil people were foolish enough to start talking about it in the past-tense. I was dance-in-the-streets happy with Mubarak's fall, and I'm happy to admit it, but how could anyone have expected a tidy solution with a military junta swooping in to take his place?
Much of the public imagination, along with the media that helps inform it, seems to have chopped Egypt's narrative into two mutually exclusive chapters: "the revolution," ending with Mubarek's ouster, and "the outcome," encompassing everything that followed. Because this model precludes the concept that the revolution is an ongoing process, one that could in fact encompass a very large amount of chapters, any given challenge in the present can be used as a brownie-point deduction - just one other thing the revolution "failed to make possible."
Pascal Boniface, a prominent French political analyst, and Director of the Institute for International Relations and Strategies, assures the readers of Egypt's Al-Ahram Daily that what Egypt is going through is normal. "You cannot pass from one system to the other in one day," he says.
While this outlook might appear to swing to the opposite, permissive side of the spectrum, broadening the time-frame over which we assess results is, I believe, imperative.
Just yesterday, the Egyptian government fired 669 police officers, recognizing a key demand from protestors that murderous raping factions of the so-called law enforcement body be brought to justice.
Are these grounds for rejoicing? No, not properly, but it should be grounds enough for remembering that no perception of Egypt is acceptable unless it makes room for surprises.
Such is the nature of transformation.

Asylum applications in the context of the Strauss-Kahn case

2011-07-08T11:23:00.002-04:00

     I've maintained throughout, and will continue to maintain, that no amount of indiscretion on the part of the plaintiff in the Strauss-Kahn case gave DSK the right to rape her. Indeed, to assume that her character deficiencies lesson the severity of her trauma is to perpetuate the myth of the "perfect victim" - that is, in order for someone's injury to be valid he or she (but overwhelmingly and regrettably "she") must be unblemished, an extremely oppressive and destructive stereotype.
   That said, it doesn't hurt to point out that the maid's dishonesty on her asylum application might in fact have been completely understandable, and a far cry away from the slyly self-serving gesture the media would have us subscribe to.
    Jesse Ellison, a writer for the website of MSNBC, makes a highly illustrative argument to this effect:

     "Those who, like . . . the woman at the center of the case against Strauss-Kahn, apply for asylum after entering the United States represent just one-tenth of 1 percent of the world's refugees, and for them, according to [Ms.] Arnold-Fernandez [legal expert] it's been, on average, 17 years since they left their home countries. Legal representation is scant, and language is often an issue. But most notably: judges are given tremendous leeway. Approval rates swing wildly from courtroom to courtroom. One court officer can approve 90 percent of the cases that come before the bench, and just down the hall another might decline nine of the 10 that come before him. It's a discretionary system—a 'refugee roulette'—that has contributed to myth-making within immigrant communities, where the stories that 'worked,' are passed around like lucky charms."

   Ms. Arnold-Fernandez, quoted above, goes on to say:

"'When you're going into a legal proceeding that hasn't been explained to you and you don't have adequate or ethical legal counsel and you know that your life or death may hinge on what you say, the temptation to use a story that worked for someone else is incredibly high . . . We have had clients whose real circumstances are more compelling than the stories they have been advised by others to use. But there's such a lack of adequate legal advice…. And in the absence of accurate information and legal assistance, refugee communities may end up filling in the gaps with inaccurate information.'
    The temptation is so great, she says, that some asylum seekers have been exploited by people charging $100 a pop for stories that "work."

A non-refugee passing judgment on how a refugee should behave is a lot like someone who is not a victim of sexual assault passing judgment on how a rapist should behave.
In short, unacceptable.

I refuse to give up on the Strauss-Kahn Case

2011-07-07T09:00:00.007-04:00

Let's get something straight: the charges aren't dropped until someone drops them.
No matter how many news sources bludgeon us with the purported likelihood of their being dropped, no matter how oppressive the incessant construction of the case's being "in tatters" or "teetering" or "likely to fail," no matter how overwhelming the voices who refer to the prosecution as if it's already collapsed, it's not over until it's biGod over.
Therefore, with respect to the standing allegation of sexual assault against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I'd like to champion two encouraging moves.
One, Keven Thompson, the plaintiff's attorney, has called upon District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. to step aside. Mr. Thompson is quoted as saying "District Attorney Vance, we ask in earnest that your office voluntarily recuse itself from the Strauss-Kahn case and that you appoint a special prosecutor." Seeing as Mr. Vance has in fact been prognosticating the failure of the case even more loudly than Strauss-Kahn's defense team, this seems a more than fair demand.
Second, the maid is seeking damages for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the New York Post for calling her a prostitute. According her suit: "All of these statements are false, have subjected the plaintiff to humiliation, scorn and ridicule throughout the world by falsely portraying her as a prostitute or as a woman who trades her body for money and they constitute defamation and libel per se." Speaking as one who, reading the article, wanted to blast the Post's headquarters with sheep excrement, I can only say amen.
It bears mentioning that the Post has already dropped at least one other bucket of slime on the plaintiff: its privacy-breaching revelation in May that she lived in housing reserved for individuals with HIV. HousingWorks.org rallied people across the country to contact the Post and condemn its decision. Not content to play the AIDS card on her, the Post went on to call her a whore.
For that matter, Mr. Vance Jr's counter-productive behavior toward the plaintiff's case has some precedents of its own. Indeed, authorities in New York City have a less than impressive track record where rape is concerned: it took a Change.org campaign to get NYC to look into counting sexual assaults properly.
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: this a case of critical importance for rape and assault victims all over the city, the country, and the world.
I, for one, refuse to lose faith.

Chapters 1-5 of Companions of the Garden are now available at Scribd

2011-07-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'm excited to announce that Chapters 1-5 of Companions of the Garden can now be read or downloaded from Scribd. You can access them by clicking here, or by clicking the picture on the right side of blog page.
Both readers and reader feedback are encouraged.
Thanks, everyone, for their support.

National Organization for Women: National Conference of 2011

2011-07-02T11:06:00.002-04:00

On the downside, the constant deluge prevented us from leaving the hotel for any great length of time, so Sunny Florida might as well have been the rainy five boroughs we left behind. It was just as well, since the 2011 National Conference for NOW was the kind of thing from which it was difficult to disengage.
Attending the conference last weekend, to say nothing of presenting therein, was an incredible honor, if only to breathe the same air as the countless movers and shakers who have worked so hard to bring gender equality to fruition.
I took part in two separate panels in the course of my time there.
The first was part of the Young Feminist Task Force panel. I spoke on the subject of male feminism, and how to recruit men in the struggle for women's rights. Other panelists, including the monumentally inspiring Erin Matson, Action Vice-President of NOW, addressed means of bridging the generational gap between feminists - how to foster mentor/mentee relationships and make the feminist movement a truly ageless machine.
My other panel also addressed the subject of male feminism, this time in the company of two other men whose commitment to achieving gender equality lent much to admire.
My presentation began by focusing on my own story of becoming a feminist - what worked for me, what held me back - and then, echoing my focus on the previous panel, how to recruit other men to the cause.
I was followed by Ben Atherton-Zeman, author of Voices of Men, a one-person play that offers incredibly moving portraits of men and boys making stands against sexism and violence against women. Ben spoke on the stumbling blocks that can arise once men join the movement, including but by no means limited to their tendency to act in a domineering capacity toward fellow female activists.
Our panel wrapped up with Ken Gruberman, a music copyist, librarian, contractor, orchestrator, score supervisor, researcher, and six-time winner of the Grammy Award, who in typically humble fashion discussed none of his own accomplishments, but spoke instead to his experience of "living with a powerful woman" - his wife, Ellen Snortland, an astonishing artist and activist in her own right. Ken's presentation also included recordings from his exclusive interview with Dr. Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade, who endorsed the need for all genders to participate in the struggle for equality.
Long story short, I felt great about the presentation, and working with Ben and Ken was as much of an honor as any I experienced in the course of the conference.
Jerin moderated my panel with Ben and Ken. She was also involved with two other workshops, one on the intersection of feminism and the immigrant woman's experience, and the other looking at feminism in the context of Islam.
As Jerin has frequently brought to my attention, I speak from a certain bias where she's concerned. Nonetheless, I have no reservation saying she was outstanding on both panels, particularly the latter, which attracted a number of people whose attitudes toward Islam were, to put it gently, less than enlightened.
Those who arrived with an inflexible mindset left with an inflexible mindset, but from my vantage point at the video camera, clumsily trying to capture the discussion on tape, I could see many an attendee who were simply misinformed, whose faces slowly shifted from criticism to curiosity as Jerin and the other panelists discussed the Qur'an's strong declaration of equality between men and women, and the role that women have played through the development of the faith. It was a beautiful thing to see.
Participating as we did in a total of four different discussions, we had limited opportunities to partake in the rest of the conference, but we made sure to attend the closing plenary. Its speakers included Maya Rockymoore, President and CEO of Global Policy Solutions, who made the outrageously cool suggestion that someone wrap the Capitol Building in saran wrap with the label "misogynists work here." Maya was followed by Patricia Shroeder, a former member of Congress and a lifelong activist, who said, "You know your dreams are big enough when they scare you. They have to scare you." As a testament to the thoroughness with which gender norms have saturated my thinking, I'm halfway embarrassed to admit that the line brought me to tears.
To round out the experience, and to raise the bar on just how many honors a single weekend can contain, Jerin and I closed out the night by sharing dinner with Sonia Fuentes, one of the founding members of NOW, who was gracious enough to give us her time.
Alongside her incredible strength of character and her immense capacity for story-telling, I was most struck by her willingness to listen, and her openness to new ideas.
More and more, I feel as if it's the world's most unsung virtue.

DSK & the credibility factor: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

2011-07-01T12:52:00.000-04:00

News sources have erupted across the world with the purportedly devastating revelation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn's alleged victim lied on her asylum application and thus, by implication, could have lied about the assault. Coupled with her potential connection to criminal activity, this detail has, as the headlines would have it, led to a sea-change in public perception of the case.
Never mind that other women have come forward and accused Strauss-Kahn of assaulting them: these "major holes in the maid's credibility" are enough to put the case in jeopardy.
Even when scenarios don't pit immigrant single-mothers against the world's most powerful men, rapists have an overwhelming tendency to get off free, while the victims are left with the pain of blunted justice to augment the pain of the assault itself. While bloggers, columnists, and commentators go wild with renewed commitment to conspiracy theory, I see this as just another installment in the age-old tradition of victim-blaming.
The maid has a spotty history, so she must be a liar.
Strauss-Kahn has a spotty history, but ladies and gentleman of the jury, that has no bearing on the case.
I read opinions that question why Strauss-Kahn appeared to act so calmly after the alleged assault, how he seemed surprised by his arrest . . . in short, how antithetical his behavior was to that of a guilty man.
Excuse me: could it be because guilty men are often of the opinion that they've done nothing wrong, that this is in fact a prime characteristic of the criminal? Could it be because he thought himself immune to repercussions, an attitude completely in line with past behavior? And if we want to play the game of logic where people's motives are concerned, why would the maid have fabricated an assault against Strauss-Kahn when she knew the deck was so heavily stacked against her?
Toying with motives is a slippery slope, but there's nothing ambiguous whatsoever about the reality of power, privilege, and sexual atrocity. While the conspiracy theorists see proof of their positions in the progression of events, I see yet another manifestation of innocence by force and the oppression of the powerless.
Has the maid lied in the past? Do her phone calls to an incarcerated man indicate that she herself is a criminal?
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Some other noteworthy heroes of the Arab Spring

2011-06-23T09:00:00.006-04:00

An impassioned post for the Common Ground News Service, the latter an online initiative aimed at exploring "Muslim-Western relations," contributes to an effort I hold very dear - celebrating the women of the Arab Spring, whose names are largely absent from public discourse.
In addition to Tawakul Karman, one of the most critical figures in the Yemeni uprising, whom I've committed myself to following, the article celebrates two other women: Aasma Mahfouz of Egypt, who in the early stages of her country's revolution posted a hugely influential video calling for young people to demonstrate en masse, and Munira Fakhro, an organizer and spokesperson for the Pearl Square demonstrations in Bahrain, who stressed that the movement was "not Sunni, not Shia, but Bahraini." I confess that I was not aware of either of the two prior to reading this. You can expect more from me soon!
The post also reiterated the critical point that the women of the Arab Spring risk being shut out of whatever changes they help to implement.
Per Dr. Natana J. DeLong-Bas, author of the post:

"As we look at the Arab spring today, we must remember the lessons of Algeria and Kuwait. Although many courageous women risked their safety and gave their lives in the struggles for independence, once the conflict was over and independence declared, women were thanked for their contributions – and sent back home to leave the 'real' work to the men. The ruling entities may have changed, but the patriarchal order remained intact."

It's an observation that can just as readily be applied to the feminist movement here in the U.S., and one that in fact has an interesting resonance for me personally.

On Saturday, I have the honor of speaking at a panel in Tampa for the NOW National Conference. Our conversation will address men's involvement in feminism, and will include among its topics of discussion the danger women face of having control of the movement wrestled away from them, by men who, often with good intentions, say "thanks for your work, ladies, but we'll take it from here."

Just as the experiences of Arab's female revolutionaries are the precise opposite of a vacuum, so is the abuse of power universal: power, its consequence, and the cost it exacts.

An infuriating end to the Wal-Mart sexual harassment suit

2011-06-21T09:43:00.002-04:00

   If any of the recent Supreme Court decisions offered up a cause for mourning, it would be yesterday's dismissal of the Wal-Mart sexual harassment suit, the largest employment class action in American history, and a critical development in the depressingly volatile field of women's rights.
   There is nothing short of tragic irony in the Court's rationale for the decision - that the prosecution needed to prove a nationwide policy or practice on the part of Wal-Mart to discriminate against its female employees - when in fact discrimination against women either through hiring, promotion, or inappropriate conduct is not only national but near-universal, and not just by Wal-Mart. The critical factor is the Court's naive assumption (or not so naive) that said discrimination would be blatant and codified, and that the existence of an anti-discrimination policy was enough to preclude it, when of course the abuse of women is overwhelmingly under the radar.
   Needless to say, the decision is not only a blow to women, but also to to ethnic and racial minorities, the LGBT community, persecuted religious groups, and any other routine target of abuse, in that it sends a message to all of the above that even a colossal articulation of resistance won't be enough to sway the tide of big-business.
   That said, I know I'm joined by many in claiming with defiance that this won't be the end of it, though it's most certainly the end of my ever setting foot in a Wal-Mart store again.

Tawakkol Karman - Yemeni Revolutionary

2011-06-15T09:27:00.001-04:00

I've spoken earlier about Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni journalist, human rights activist, member of Yemen’s main opposition party, founder in 2005 of Women Journalists Without Chains, and a mother of three . . . in short, one of those women in the world of whom you really want to keep track. Unfortunately, the news hardly ever manages to land on her, and I have Google Alerts to thank for this outstanding article in The New Yorker, which offers an excellent briefing both on Karman and the turbulent nation whose freedom she's struggling to realize.
Block out some time on a weekend: it might be a lengthy writeup, but it's shorter than any book you're likely to encounter, while still conveying a volume's worth of information. Now that Yemen has joined the ranks of nations we bomb in secrecy (did you know we're bombing it now?) we owe ourselves, and our so-called enemies, the barest margin of knowledge .

Mona Eltahawy on "The Power of the 'I'"

2011-06-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

Before I follow through on my promise to stop irritating my readers with my fanboy relationship with Mona Eltahawy, I wanted to share a dynamite video of a speech she offered at the Personal Democracy Forum 2011, where she discusses "the power of the I"; that is, the transformation of revolution and war from the abstract to the intensely personal. The latter, she argues, is the most effective means for revolutionary thinking to spread.

It's ten minutes long, but very much worth it:

Happy Birthday, Merrick!

2011-06-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

I wanted to take a moment to wish a happy birthday to my sister Merrick.
I'm not sure the term "Renaissance Woman" has come into vogue yet, but when it does, she should be first in line to receive it. Without any kind of exaggeration, I can attest to her incredible skill as a painter, sculptor, poet, carver, dancer, and world traveler.
Here's to 26 years of astonishing talent, sis. The world can't wait for at least 52 more.

A surprisingly happy ending to the flooding of Atchafalaya

2011-06-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

In mid-May I blogged in dismay on Louisiana's bayou country, the Cajun community therein, and the profound danger both faced at the hands of an imminent flood.
One month later, the waters appear to be receding, this thanks to a series of engineering miracles and the perseverance needed to see them through. The damage was much less severe than expected - negligible in some areas - such that Paul Naquin, the President of a local parish, remarked, "everything is working in our favor right now."
It's the kind of ending that one might find habit-forming.

Some scattered but encouraging threads from the Strauss-Kahn case

2011-06-09T09:00:00.008-04:00

With the Strauss-Kahn case poised at the brink of getting ever more hideous, it's worth noting at least a few heartening threads in the narrative.

First, Kenneth Thompson, one of the attorneys representing the maid, has appealed on French television for other potential victims of Strauss-Kahn to come forward and testify. His statement is stirring: "My law firm champions the rights of people who are taken advantage of all over the world. And so we take this case because we feel that no woman should be sexually assaulted anywhere."

Nor - as I pray this case will help to establish - should any assaulter ever be able to operate with impunity.

Second, the increasing visibility of French feminists who protest the actions of Strauss-Kahn is helping to challenge what at times seemed a monolithic image of French chauvinist tolerance. Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, an analyst of French politics and culture, argues that "this is a key moment, a watershed moment,” and that, while "France is a difficult country to budge," the case is "an important step."

"Women are emboldened," she concludes.

Third, the case has shed some light on the exhilarating power of the New York Hotel Worker's Union, rated one of the strongest worldwide. The Union provided buses to hotel workers who wanted to protest at Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arraignment, and has opened dialogues with hotel associations about equipping chambermaids with panic alarms. Since the commencement of the Strauss-Kahn case, at least one other cry for help has been honored:, a former chairman of one of Egypt's banks was arrested at another Manhattan hotel, also on charges of sexual abuse.

Finally, and perhaps most encouraging of all, two Democratic lawmakers responded to the Strauss-Kahn case by introducing legislation that would require hotel owners in New York State to provide sexual harassment training to their employees, and establish reliable system for reporting incidents of sexual assault.

Am I always on the lookout for a little dash of morale-boosting? Certainly, but these reports at least make it apparent that I can do so without grasping at straws.

A compelling anti-Islamophobic website & video teaser: My Fellow American

2011-06-08T09:00:00.004-04:00

It's an inspiring moment for any blogger to be reminded that someone is reading his or her work.

I was therefore heartened, and honored, when someone from the Unity Productions Foundation reached out to me and requested that I blog about one of their projects: My Fellow American, an anti-Islamophobic website aimed at re-asserting Islam's rightful status as a vital component of the national community.

A short video teaser is featured on the site. Among other strengths, it offers a morbid recap on the sheer mass of hateful discourse that's been shed on the Muslim faith:

My Fellow American

Visitors to the site can browse through a series of video testimonials and written anecdotes, compiled by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, which challenge stereotypes and offer refreshing counter-narratives to the ones put forward by our paranoid media.

See below for a personal favorite, where a non-Muslim resident of Northeast Tennessee recounts a simple but ingenius solution to a Muslim's neighbor's feeling of isolation:

Sandy Westin's Neighborhood

Visitors to the site can submit their own stories as well.

Finally, the website features a pledge, which, like most articles of its nature, shouldn't be necessary, but nevertheless hearkens from a place of gritty demand:

Muslims are our fellow Americans. They are part of the national fabric that holds our country together. They contribute to America in many ways, and deserve the same respect as any of us. I pledge to spread this message, and affirm our country’s principles of liberty and justice for all.

A tribute to God and Galaxy

2011-06-07T09:00:00.020-04:00

When asked to recount a perfect night in New York, I'd have no reservations listing last Friday evening among their ranks, if only for the atypical camaraderie of God and the Heavens.

It started with a hasty reading of an e-mail, the invite from the Progressive Muslim Meet-up Group, whose events I've attended off and on for the last eight months. With typical absent-mindedness, I failed to note both the name of the venue and the significance of its location when I Googled the address, impressed only by the fact that I could walk there from my office on Wall Street. My cluelessness held me all across Lower Manhattan, and even to the entrance of the building in question, where a lone police officer stood with his hands on a barricade. It wasn't until I'd gone inside, shed my shoes at the rack, taken a seat on the rug of the prayer hall, and listened to the coordinator for the space introduce himself to the nine or ten people present that I realized I was sitting in the Ground Zero Mosque.
"Ground Zero Mosque," the derogatory label for the Park 51 Community Center, is a phrase I've never uttered with anything shy of the utmost sarcasm, but at no point had it incurred quite such disgust from me as it did right then.
There we were, a handful of people, most of us students, all of us exhausted from a hard week of work, sitting on a rug in an empty white room quietly discussing peace. A more unassuming focal point for a nation's hatred I can't possibly imagine.
The theme of the evening was intrafaith healing.
Sunnis and Shi'ites swapped stories of what it was like to watch popular rhetoric breathe violence into the very distinctions we pondered in harmony. Good-natured teasing ("you Shias are so obsessed with history") seemed a universe apart from the bloodbaths of Baghdad or Bahrain. Two young women, a Sunni Malaysian and a Shi'ite Pakistani, both impassioned, both graced with good humor, sat knee to knee, laughing at the commonality of their experience, while at the same time professing pride at their own distinct paths, and all this made possible by Park 51, a so-called factory of terror.

I stayed until 9PM, rounding out my experience with God and humanity, then took the C-train to Brooklyn Bridge Park for an accompanying dash of the Universe.

In conjunction with the World Science Festival, amateur and professional astronomers had gathered by the dozens in the cool grasses of the East River embankment, telescopes of all dimensions aimed at the sky. While the lights of Manhattan glowed in the distance, and the tug-boats and barges slid past in eerie proximity, three world-class astronomers addressed a rapt audience on the wonders of the cosmos.
Charles Liu, a professor of astrophysics; Carter Emmart, a visual artisan for New York's Hayden Planetarium, and Timothy Ferris, a prolific author and producer of no less a phonograph than the one contained in the Voyager spacecraft . . . all of the panelists were equally guilty at exacerbating my life-long vulnerability to awe and wonder - of the Earth, of the firmament, of the view from outside.
"Number two question I always get," said Ferris. "Is there a God? Sure: why not."
At the end of the talk, the crowd dispersed to the awaiting telescope array.
I pressed my eye to a weathered viewfinder and beheld in perfect alignment the planet Saturn, its rings a thin slice of light extending through the center of the orb.
Whether a thing of design or of glorious accident, she was a genuine sight to see.

A tragic subject but an extraordinary woman

2011-06-05T10:11:00.000-04:00

Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist and activist whose speech at John Jay College I attended in April, was interviewed by CNN yesterday morning about the deteriorating situation in Syria.
The talk focused specifically on Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old boy whom the Syrian government tortured and murdered in April, and raised the question of whether or not his death would galvanize or demoralize the opposition.
Mona, sticking to that distinctive balance between optimism and and practicality that she impressed me by striking before, argued that demoralization was the one outcome that the people of Syria would resist
Though the interview is only three minutes long, I encourage anyone who is interested to view it, if only to get a sense of the infectiousness of her passion and convictions.

An online magazine has invited me to write an article

2011-06-03T09:06:00.000-04:00

Encompassing Crescent, an online monthly magazine aimed at exploring the Muslim world and facilitating interfaith dialogue, has generously invited me to write an article on Islamophobia.
Following on the months of research and interviews I compiled and the multiple books read in preparation for my novel, my topic of choice will be dismantling Islamophobic stereotypes of the docile, unambiguously oppressed Muslim woman. I'll keep everyone updated as I go, and will post a link to the article when complete.

An update on the role of women in the Arab Spring

2011-06-01T09:00:00.004-04:00

Okay, so it's not much of an update, but it's the best I could do.
Having forbidden myself from losing track of the Arab Spring's heroes, and in particular its game-changing women, I ran a Google News search on Tawakul Karman, the founder of Women Journalists Without Chains, who has been leading protests in Yemen for the last three years. Tawakul - also a politician and a 32-year-old, hijab-sporting mother of three - is most certainly worthy of attention, but I was unable to find any information on her more recent than a 5/13/11 article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
While it may not qualify as cutting-edge, the article offers a useful portrait of the revolution's female narrative.
Some stand-outs:

- Zainab al-Khawaja: a figurehead in the Bahraini revolution, who went on a hunger-strike to protest the brutal treatment of her husband, father, and brother-in-law.

- The Libyan mothers, sisters and widows of men killed in a 1996 prison massacre who protested en masse outside a courthouse in Benghazi after their lawyer was arrested, helping to set the stage for the subsequent national uprising.

- The female protestors in Yemen (another nod to the influence of Tawakul Karman) who poured into the streets by the thousands to rebuke dictator Saleh's assertions that it was un-Islamic for Yemeni men and women to protest side-by-side.

- Iman al-Obeidi: a Libyan women (blogged about earlier) who on March 26th broke into the Tripoli Hotel housing Western journalists to blast to the world the horrific story of her gang rape at the hands of pro-Qaddafi forces. As Qaddafi loyalists struggled to remove her, al-Obeidi shouted to the rolling cameras, “I am not scared of anything.”

Giving voice to the truths these women bear out, the headline of an opposition newspaper in Benghazi, cited at the start of the Herald article, offers a moving declaration:

“The role of the female in Libya: she is the Muslim, the mother, the soldier, the protester, the journalist, the volunteer, the citizen.”

Yet the article also raises the sobering question of whether women's transformative roles in the revolutions will result in a reciprocal transformation of their own status in society.
While crucial, I fear the question inevitably invites speculation on what this means for the women of Islam, which distracts from the one message I always try to end on: the oppression of women is global, and so must be its dismemberment.

Celebrating the capture of a genocidal rapist

2011-05-27T09:00:00.003-04:00

     At the Tribeca Film Festival of 2008, I watched a documentary entitled The Trial of Milosovic, a skillfully edited composite of archival footage on the Hague's failure to convict the titular monster.
      Milosovic's sudden death in 2006 cut the trials short, but not before the occurrence of a particularly infuriating incident in which he smirked from the criminal box - a smirk rendered immortal by the rolling camera - that the successful evasion of the law by Ratko Mladic, his lead general, proved the ultimate impotence of his enemies in bringing his legacy to rest.
      Flashback to another memory of mine: a rendition of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues in 2005, where a performer rendered with devastating efficacy the testimony of a Bosnian woman assaulted in one of Serbia's rape camps, the latter a brainchild both of Milosovic and his murderous general.
      Yesterday's arrest of Mladic can of course do little to undo the trauma that such women experienced, and can do even less - thanks to the intervention of oblivion - at wiping that godawful smile from Milosovic's face, but in the month that saw the extinction of Osama Bin Laden, his capture again signals the world's commitment to squashing the careers of mass-murderers, and this time a squashing done properly: through arrest and trial, and not - as with Bin Laden - through homicide.
      Mladic managed to wreak havoc on both religious and racial grounds, overseeing the slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995. He also co-opted the timeless weapon of rape as a demoralizing and eugenic tactic, systematically assaulting countless Bosnian women, with the aim of breaking the spirit of his enemies, and even, as a long term plan, breeding out the Bosniak bloodline through forced impregnation.
      I find myself wishing that the U.N could somehow allow for the victims of Mladic to line up in their hundreds of thousands and one at a time spit in his face, and I'd hope that he'd be handcuffed, so the saliva could sit, undisturbed, on his face.
      Unfortunately, there just aren't enough handcuffs in the world, though there's plenty of untapped saliva.

Prayers for a battered nation

2011-05-24T09:00:00.002-04:00

It's stunning, really: Louisiana and Mississippi hammered by floods, much of the South and the Midwest ripped apart by tornadoes . . . 100 people dead in Joplin, Missouri, by the latest
estimate. . .

I'm not sure what to add to what I've already said, save to articulate whatever passes for a secular man's prayer (our language is oddly unaccommodating on the matter) and to thank the New York Times for at least offering adequate coverage of the Joplin disaster so far.

Finally, if any of my readers can refer me to any viable online fundraising efforts, I'd be more than happy to donate. My fellow Americans deserve as much.

Strauss-Kahn and his not-so-tacit support base

2011-05-19T09:00:00.002-04:00

The appalling situation surrounding IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn's sexual assault charge is just one more illustration of what power, privilege, and a set of Caucasian testicles can buy you: the capacity not only to commit an atrocity, but to do so under full expectation of immunity.
That's not to say I'm any more repulsed by the conduct of Strauss-Kahn than I am by any other monster of his ilk. Rather, I'm disgusted at the light this has shed on just how much the upper-class white establishment will stand by its own, with the French aristocracy more inclined to condemn the American justice system than to acknowledge that one of their fellow noblemen might have done something wrong.
The Young Feminist Task Force, of the New York State Chapter of the National Organization for Women, has made space on its blog for letters of support for the victim. A single mother, immigrant, and woman of color, the assaulted housekeeper was everything her entitled attacker was not, a tragic reality that makes the situation all the more worthy of attention.
Meanwhile, we have France passing a sweeping ban on the burqa, purportedly for security concerns. Personally, I feel they'd better serve the security of their citizens by reigning in megalomaniacal rapists than oppressing their Muslims.

Tragedy threatens the Cajun community in central Louisiana

2011-05-15T10:58:00.004-04:00

The Atchafalaya Basin in central Louisiana is the one region of the American South that I struggled hardest to capture in my novel, and still managed, in my opinion, to fall short on. I was devastated to read in this morning's paper that the Mississippi Floods are posing a real threat to the area and the phenomenally rich culture it supports.
This particular article cites as one of its primary sources Oliver A. Houck, a Tulane Law School professor and former general counsel and vice president of the National Wildlife Federation, who fought to preserve the basin during his tenure there. Mr. Houck lays out the parameters of Atchafalaya, a sock-shaped region 20 miles wide and 150 miles long that tracks the course of its namesake river. The latter is in fact a branch of the Mississippi itself, splitting from the main channel north of Baton Rouge and flowing south to the Gulf of Mexico. Recent flooding on the Mississippi has made this parentage problematic, especially following a distressing decision by the Army Corps of the Engineers to open a major spillway that diverted millions of cubic tons of water into the Atchafalaya Basin, sparing Louisiana's cities but putting thousands of swamp-residing Cajuns in critical danger.
Rather than act as a broken record, pointing out the classist connotations of this maneuver, I'll instead lament with political neutrality on what this means for one of the country's most singular communities.
Cajuns, a culture almost solely unique to Louisiana, are descendants of the French-speaking residents of far-eastern Canada, whom the British expelled from their homelands during the Seven Years War, an event many historians have compared to ethnic cleansing. While many Cajuns were deported across the Atlantic, the majority settled in Louisiana, where they have resided ever since.
The Times interviewed Russell Melancon, a Cajun resident of the Basin who is faced with the prospect of abandoning a home that his family has inhabited for generations.
“It’s where we was raised,” he said. “Where my daddy was raised. Where we make our living. Why you are here is something you never even think about. You are this place.”
“You can’t have the Cajun culture without the basin,” says Professor Oliver Houck, echoing Mr. Melancon's sentiments.
Though tragic, the article's description of what will happen when the flood reaches Mr. Melancon's home underscores the distinctiveness of the Basin, and the culture it informs:

“Copperhead snakes might slither into the rafters. Alligators will take up residence on sheds. Gardens fat with tomatoes will be gone, and mosquitoes will swarm in such thick clouds that even he, a Cajun with skin as thick as one of those alligators, might not be able to stand it.”

Such descriptions would seem to apply as much to the Jurassic Period as they do to the jungles of Africa or Asia, neither one a part of the nation to which Atchafalaya actually belongs.
Dig and Abida, the protagonists of my novel, role into the basin on the fringes of a storm, a storm that both prefaces the climax of the book and echoes my own experience in the region, on which much of the novel is based.
I remember the rain pounding on the windshield, our mud-drenched Mercedes-Benz plowing down a narrow, intermittently unpaved highway, blasting Zydeco so loud we rattled the glass, looking out at the cabins and the trailers stretched out on the water, exuding an air of belonging and pride so palpable that I found the pen of my journal lunging for the paper, struggling to convey my impressions.
This very durability of presence gives me hope that whatever damages the flood exacts will be impermanent, an optimism that many Cajuns are quoted as sharing. Nevertheless, there's something indisputably gut-wrenching in watching another epicenter of our national heritage sustain a massive blow to the head.

Checking in with Tunisia

2011-05-15T09:41:00.000-04:00

An article in The Economist has identified some encouraging signs in Tunisia - signs that the country is still moving forward on the rocky road to democracy.
The undisputed kick-starter of the Arab Spring, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia quickly skipped from the public eye as soon as it toppled its dictator, save for some scattered reports of stagnation, economic woe, and overall distress.
The Economist argues that such reports are misleading, occurring, as they do, in the context of Tunisia's unbroken commitment to drafting a new constitution. A 260-person body will be charged with fulfilling that task, and the creation of that party will take place via a general election scheduled for July 24th. A 16-member independent commission will monitor the polls, to guard against fraud or the abuse of power. Best of all, from the feminist standpoint, the government has mandated that half of the elected party must be women.
Though it is certainly premature to conclude that Tunisia has overcome its authoritarian proclivities, it is nevertheless encouraging to note that it has so far challenged the old familiar narrative of the failed revolution, so timelessly embodied by the great Pete Townsend: "Meet the new boss . . . same as the old boss."
May they please continue their good work!

First the storm, now the flood

2011-05-09T23:02:00.003-04:00

I'd no sooner finished this morning's post on the tornadoes in the South, and the failure of the media to maintain coverage, when flood warnings went out along the banks of the Mississippi, which has surged to levels higher than any seen in the last 70 years, prompting evacuations in Memphis and sending another ripple of anxiety through the Gulf.
As if to prove my point, The New York Times featured it for less than half an afternoon, then removed it from the homepage completely.
Thank goodness we have a few more updates on the U.S.-Pakistani tit-for-tat to distract us from the suffering of our own fellow citizens.

Tornadoes, the American South, and Domestic Imperialism

2011-05-09T09:00:00.020-04:00

American culture and national identity form one of the central pillars of this blog, but I've neglected it of late in favor of the other acting pillars, namely those pertaining to feminism and Islam.
In the interest of correcting this trend, but also giving voice to a subject on which I’m ashamed to have kept silent, I’d like to extend belated condolences to the victims of April’s tornadoes, and my support for its survivors.
During my travels through the American South, one of the elements that most impressed me was its air of resilience and durability, a theme that exploded in the public consciousness with Katrina in 2005, and that recent assault of tornadoes on Alabama and neighboring states has again brought to the public eye.
A New York Times article reports on Mr. and Mrs. Walker, two mobile home residents in rural Alabama.
In the morning hours of April 27th, a tornado pulverized their dwelling and buried them in rubble, making their survival more than a little miraculous. Their community immediately reached out to assist them, providing them with food, shelter, and clothing, and the support needed to get through the trauma. Readers can draw their own conclusions from the story, but I find proof of the region's tenacity in the testimony of Mrs. Walker’s son: “People take care of their own here . . . the South has risen again.”
I would be loath to omit a resonance between sections of the South and the Third World.
“Third World” is a term I appropriate with the utmost caution, given its condescending and at times bigoted connotations, but it’s one that I feel best communicates the way in which Washington handles its southern neighbors. Though the relationship is of course nuanced and by no means monolithic, there have been a depressing number of occurrences that made clear the privilege that the more economically sound North has enjoyed with respect to the South.
Katrina stands out as a prominent example, a disaster that placed the Gulf States at the mercy of Washington, which in turn failed to utilize its power to assist the region for nearly 72 hours. The story of the Walkers offer a gloomy update to this legacy, one that indicts not only our own government but the international community as well: citing as an excuse the remoteness of the Walkers' residence – a dirt road in northeastern Alabama – the Red Cross failed to arrive at the scene until three days after the tornadoes tore through.
Yet it’s not simply the power to rescue or neglect the ills of the South that puts Washington in a privileged position, but also its power to set the agenda. While our fellow Americans struggle to recover from the second-deadliest tornado outbreak in our nation’s history, ad nauseum reports of Bin Laden’s last hours and its implications for the endless “War on Terror” have saturated the media. With the exception of the Walkers’ story, itself presented as a somewhat saccharine “human interest story,” the New York Times has been largely silent on the matter since the end of April. A visit to today's home page shows only one mention of the disaster, located in the lower-left hand corner, visible only after scrolling down.
All of this strikes a familiar tone with Washington’s response to the earthquake in Haiti, to the floods in Pakistan, to the cyclone in Myanmar, and so forth.
Domestic imperialism is by no means preferable to hegemony abroad. I would love it if our leaders could get their act straight.

Some cause for celebration on the feminist front

2011-05-08T08:55:00.001-04:00

In offering a bit of well-earned celebration to the mothers of the world, Mother’s Day is also, by definition, a celebration of women – their triumphs as much as their travails.
Back in March I wrote a blogpost calling for the resignation of Juan Terranova, a prominent journalist and professor in Buenos Aires who threatened with brutal rape Inti Maria, an activist for the anti-street harassment outfit Hollaback. I’m thrilled to announce that after an international outcry and months of work, this outcome has at last come to pass.
Hollaback’s initiative began with a petition in Spanish on Change.org, and quickly spread through the usual social media conduits – Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and so forth – until it had garnered over 3,500 signatures from 75 countries. When El Guardian, the publication that Mr. Terranova worked for, refused to follow through on their demands, activists targeted the magazine’s two main advertisers, Fiat and Lacoste. Incredibly, both pulled out, and condemned Terranova’s threat. Reeling from their loss, El Guardian issued a public apology and showed Terranova the door.
Needless to say, the outcome of this initiative is inspiring not only for its own sake, but also in the precedent it sets for future action, issuing to the Terranovas of the world a message that they cannot expect to operate forever under the mantle of impunity.
To Hollaback, Change.org, and everyone involved in the campaign, I thank you profusely for a job well done.
For the full story, click here.

Pen World Voices Literary Festival

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

NOTE: The following was scheduled for posting on Mon 5/3. I postponed it two days to allow room for Bin Laden's death.)

The Pen World Voices literary festival took place here in New York last week. Unfortunately, an unusually busy work schedule only allowed me to attend two of its events.
My impressions of the two follow:

- Revolutionaries of the Arab World, 4/27/11 -

The first event I attended saw six panelists discussing the Arab Spring. I picked it out of a long list of programs in part out of the hope that it would do one of two things: cure me of my idealistic infatuation that the revolutions will somehow blow the lid off global evil, or legitimize that infatuation by exposing me to others who felt the same.
In the end, it did neither, and was something of a disappointment, lacking a specific agenda and digressing as a consequence, consisting entirely of secular individuals who couldn’t speak to the religious experience of the uprising, and featuring a gender ratio that I wasn’t all that happy with: five men and one woman.
That said, the speakers themselves were enthralling, not the least of which being Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian journalist and novelist and the aforementioned sole female contingent of the bunch. She had an exacting presence about her, and spoke in a manner so commanding of attention that when she praised the dictator oustings for putting and end to “all that bullshit,” it didn’t seem as if anything else needed to be said.
Rula also offered what is possibly the most compelling litmus test I’ve ever head for determining whether or not a revolution will reproduce evil: “see how the military beaves and how the women are treated, and then you’ll know.”
I also became an immediate fan of Alex Nuns, the only non-Arab on the panel, a fact he acknowledged, in classic British Isles deadpan, in his introduction: “like the moderator said, I’m just an English guy.” Ironically, through his co-editing of Tweets from Tahrir: Egypt’s Revolution as it Unfolded, In the Words of the People Who Made It, managed to bring to the audience the most intimate portrait of the revolution of any of the presenters: scattered tweets and Facebook posts from the young men and women who rallied in the thick of it.
When asked what made the Arab revolution significant, Alex answered simply, “For the first time in decades, Arab public opinion counts.”
There was, in addition, Abdelkader Benali, a Moroccan novelist whose work has garnered multiple awards internationally, and who spoke of the revolutions with the fierce and unmitigated enthusiasm that most closely resembled my own.
Further resonances emerged when the moderator put to him the question of whether or not political enthusiasm can in fact corrupt the quality of one’s writing by sliding the scale toward propaganda, a concern I’ve frequently had about my own work, with Companions of the Garden a prime example.
He answered, compellingly if not directly, that the spirit of the revolution and their nature trickles into his writing whether he wants them to or not.
“With something like this,” he said, “it’s really hard to maintain distance.”
Given the incredible talent of everyone present, it was a shame that the course of conversation proved so scattershot, and also that it was only allowed a mere 80 minutes to breathe.

- The Moth: What Went Wrong, 4/30/11 –

On Saturday evening, I attended a night of high-priced storytelling with the Moth, an organization devoted specifically to the world’s oldest art form. The theme of the night was “What Went Wrong,” a concept that the various storytellers were allowed to interpret as they saw fit.
Salman Rushdie hosted the event. Though my respect for him has sunk wildly since his signing of the petition for Roman Polanski’s release, I couldn’t deny being a little humbled at seeing him in person, and was impressed by how personable he was, both funny and engaging.
The concept of the evening was truly brilliant, five great authors switching off at the microphone, and, for rigorously enforced ten-minute blocks of time, telling their stories. Not reading samples of their work, or reciting poetry. Telling stories.
Jenny Allen, one of my favorite presenters of the evening, told the devastatingly moving and oddly hilarious story of picking out a wig while battling cancer, negotiating such horrifying phenomena as the $5000 differential between wigs made of Indian women’s hair and the higher-prices wigs of European hair.
Elif Shafak, one of the more popular novelists in Turkey, whom the feminist in me compels me to learn more about, told of the eleven-plus days in which she didn’t leave her apartment in Istanbul, having vowed not to do so until she’d finished her book.
Australian naturalist and outdoorsman Warren McDonald recounted the forty-eight hours he spent pinned beneath a boulder; how it cost him his legs but couldn’t keep him from climbing, the story ending with him dragging himself to the summit of a peak in Tasmania.
After the intermission, playwright Edgar Oliver spun the wonderfully weird yarn of his wine-laden, Bohemianesque escapades in Tangiers, and Jonathan Franzen, closing out the night on the perfect note, raised the uncomfortable question of what happens when a storyteller claims as his own the story of someone else.
Walking away from the near saturation of talent, I felt even more the looming obligation to read more than I’m reading.
I have yet to be convinced that short of experience, a writer has any greater duty.

Bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:32:00.000-04:00

     As the confines of my desk job prevent me from making any extensive commentary on the matter, I'm keeping this brief.
     Am I glad he's dead? Certainly, but as the intelligence community has attested again and again, Bin Laden had, of late, far more closely resembled the symbolic architect of terror than any kind of literal one. As such, his death serves a psychological function much more thoroughly than a practical or strategic accomplishment.
     Psychological relief is a thing to which the people of New York were greatly entitled, but for me at least, it arrives in tandem with a huge host of concerns.
     The first, as always, comes in the form of the massive crowds of revelers at Times Square chanting "USA! USA!," the kind of nationalistic eruption that has a strong historical track-record of leading to trouble.
     Second, and more intensely, it distracts from the concerns at home. As a symbolic figure, Bin Laden posed far less a threat to the American people than the rising tide of Islamophobia or the right-wing's War on Women, and while it's possible that the venting of aggression that comes with his death might relieve a little of the population's proclivity for the former, I can't imagine how national discourse will avoid losing track of the assault on health care, contraception, and reproductive rights that wreaks havoc on over 50% of our country's population.
     Again, I'm extremely grateful for any peacemaking that this development might have provided to the survivors of 9/11 or the families of its victims, but given our media's sickening enthusiasm for myopia, to say nothing of the likelihood that Bin Laden's death will do little to deter Al-Qaeda, my excitement is muted.

A fascinating exhibit at the New York Hall of Science

2011-04-25T09:00:00.003-04:00

   Jerin and I celebrated Easter yesterday by hitching the Flushing bound bus to the New York Hall of Science, where a mobile exhibition, entitled “10001 Inventions – Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World,” was closing out its New York run. Aimed at challenging the prevailing myth that the fifth through fifteenth centuries were a “Dark Age,” and to offer a counterpoint to the abject barbarism of European society that gave rise to said belief, the exhibition showcased the enthralling spectrum of innovations that Muslim civilization brought into the world – technological, academic, medicinal, astrological, cartographical, and so forth.
   The windmill, it turns out, originated in Afghanistan, and consisted initially of vertical sails standing perpendicular to the ground, as opposed to the horizontal sails that Europe would later make famous.
   15th century Chinese-Muslim admiral Zheng He commanded a fleet of the largest wooden vessels ever built, at least five times larger than other ships of its day.
   Ibn al-Hayam’s Book of Optics, written between 1011 and 1021, laid out fundamentally original ideas about light and vision, breaking from the idea that our eyes see by sending out invisible rays, and instead arguing in favor of the current understanding that light rays emitted from visible objects enter the space of the eyes.
   Equally incredible, the famous traveler Evliya Celebi recorded that the first person to take a rocket-powered flight was his brother, Lagari Hasan Celebi, in 17th century Turkey, utilizing gunpowder to blast himself into the sky, where he spread out wings and glided down to safety.
   Four hundred years earlier, Al-Jazari brought to fruition a huge constellation of gadgets and mechanisms, the most significant being a crank and connecting-rod system, one that transferred circular motion into linear motions, and remains to this day a crucial component of pumps and engines.
   To its credit, the exhibit made certain not to limit its focus to the mere testosterone-driven innovations of history.
   Merriam Al-Ijliya, an extraordinary woman of the 10th Century, excelled in instrument-making, and broke from the patterns of many of her female contemporaries by taking up a trade. She settled in northern Syria, where she specialized in astrolabes, meticulously constructed devices for land navigation and time telling.
   The exhibit also showcased Fatima al-Fihri of Fez, Morocco. Al-Fihri received a sizable fortune from her businessman father, and, determined to improve the quality of life in her community, constructed in 841 a colossal mosque and college complex dubbed Al-Qarawiyin, known today as the world’s oldest university.
   In addition to being a fascinating study in its own right, the exhibit served the added function of combating Islamophobia, attacking the construction of Islam as something alien and hostile to the West by effectively showing how the West as we know it would not have existed without the work of Muslims.
   Finally, on a related note, 1001 Inventions made a decisive point to show that much of the Golden Ages (a far more apt title than its “Dark” counterpart) featured cooperation among faiths, with Christians, Jews, and Muslims all working together to further the evolution of science and human initiative.
   At the end of our three-hour stint there, when at last we exited the building, I found myself hoping to pass Peter King or Newt Gingrich on their way into the exhibit. My whimsical side hopes that it might have altered their perspectives, but if past behavior is any predictor, they would most likely have left the museum defending the historical contributions of Europe’s barons and genocidal warlords.

Requesting a 29-hour day

2011-04-22T09:00:00.002-04:00

     I was on the phone with mom the other night, talking about the so-called Arab Spring – the flight of the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and my refusal to let the media end the story there, and my even stronger refusal to give up on the people of Syria and Yemen and Bahrain (thank you, ladies and gentleman of the press, for completely abandoning that last one) – and I asked her if she thought 2011 might be the new 1968.
     “To be honest,” she said, “I still don’t feel like I was really there in 1968. I wasn’t involved enough, and I didn’t follow through.”
     I’m not sure how much justice she does herself there, but that matter aside, it got me thinking, as I do more and more these days, just how one should go about avoiding that; that is, how one gets involved, and how one follows through.
     I like to consider myself at least something of an activist, but the sheer enormity of the planet’s potential for revolution right now, if not the revolutions taking place already, make a somewhat intimidating prospect of where to best direct one’s energy.
     Spending my evenings peddling to massively overworked literary agents a manuscript concerning Islamophobia and gender conflict, two of the biggest problems facing our country right now, I can’t avoid the fantasy that I’m somehow acting to further a cause or two. Unfortunately, novels have a sporadic track record for effecting change, and when they do, in fact, manage to do so, it’s not the kind of change that lends itself to easy measurement. (Not to mention the fact that, in all fairness, I’m not sure I qualify as a novelist until one of these agents sees fit for my query letter a destination other than the recycling bin.)
     The implication, then, is that the real revolutionary work must rally from somewhere between my publishing ventures, my fifty hour work week, and the six hours of sleep I try to allow myself nightly, and the numbers leave little room to breathe.
     The capacity for mathematics to defeat one’s enthusiasm for changing the world is all too potent, but as history shows, the world doesn’t wait.
     To the revolutionaries of the planet: I’m applying for some extra hours.

Book Talk: a revised synopsis of my novel

2011-04-20T09:00:00.007-04:00

     Again, this blog is intended more to discuss the themes of my book than the book itself, but for kicks, here's the latest draft of my synopsis. Feedback is welcome!

-------------------

COMPANIONS OF THE GARDEN
Micah R. Bochart

     Two wayfaring New Yorkers. A long road South. A nation on fire with God, the Blues, and the mass flailing for identity.

     DIG CARSON, 27, an age renowned for the destruction of volatile thinkers, has abandoned in the same gesture his apartment in Brooklyn and the medication that kept his manic depression at bay. ABIDA KAHLEEL, 25, prays five times daily and wears her hijab with pride, but has come to question fundamental aspects of her faith and culture.

     The two cross paths for the first time in a New Jersey gas station, her stranded by a breakdown on an ill-fated bus trip to Baltimore, him driving for driving’s sake, headed south to New Orleans. Dig offers to give her a ride, an offer she accepts, the direness of her situation trumping her cultural inhibition about traveling alone with a strange man.

     Within an hour of sharing the road, their explosively kindred natures catch both by surprise. Both hunger for a form of liberation, both long to experience a nation they barely know, and – as we discover in short order – both suffer from the same species of mental illness, which rollicks them from intermittent states of despair to fits of genuine reverence.

     Two days later, the two of them arriving in Washington by separate roads, Abida calls him and asks if she can accompany him to New Orleans. In love already, and a novel away from admitting it, Dig says yes.

     They make their way south, an improvised, back-road pilgrimage to a Mecca of their choosing. Their progress is episodic, a string of unlikely encounters, each in some way speaking to the eruptive character of a nation whose search for direction mirrors their own.

     An artist in Virginia paints a dynamic array of American freeze frames on an assortment of fungus. A young Muslim poet in Birmingham rants on her American right to cover her hair. A brutal car crash in rural Alabama throws into fleeting unity Abida and two Baptist women, who pray jointly for the souls of two trapped passengers, while Dig founders in the helpless sensation of having nothing to pray to. Two Mississippi highway patrolmen detain them on false charges, but crack under pressure when Abida, vehemently defending her rights as a citizen to go wherever she chooses without harassment, threatens to call down the press.

     Themes of decline run tandem with the prevailing theme of ardor.

     The road winds down toward the Mississippi Delta. The two slide further into madness. Dig falls deeper into love.

     He watches in awe as Abida strides defiantly through a small Virginia hamlet, daring the locals to stare at her. He watches again in the Blue Ridge Mountains while she kneels in prayer to the sunset, her rug spread open on the cooling asphalt of the parkway. The two trade rides on a makeshift plank swing near the Tennessee border, and Dig is caught off guard when Abida puts her hand on his back, pushing him upward in spectacular arcs. After a week of resistance, in a dive hotel in Jackson, Mississippi, he binge-drinks to the point of wreckage and collapses in the shower, resigned at last to the awkward truth that an unattainable girl has snatched up his heart.

     In a trance, euphoric but weakening, they drift through the forests of Mississippi, arriving at the banks of its namesake river, the cathartic peak of their journey. Dig’s spirits sustain him into southern Louisiana, then crash for the final time.

     They roll into New Orleans on a tide of confession, Dig admitting first his resignation to suicide and then his attraction to Abida. Abida, at wits end, retreats into her hotel room. Pushed over the edge by the perceived rejection, he tumbles through rain-pummeled Bourbon Street, drinks into blackout, and attempts to drown himself in the river. Abida saves his life.

     They speak for the last time in the cozy aesthetic of a hospital room, Dig recovering from alcohol poisoning, Abida struggling to come to terms with just what their relationship has meant for her. With the implication that she in fact loves him back, she agrees that it’s in the best interest of both her faith and her future if they refrain from meeting again. They hug each other goodbye, and Dig is left to wander the streets of the city, to reign in the enormity of their odyssey – the scattered splinters of faith, love, illness, and national identity all united by the common thread of reverence – and to glimpse in the wreckage of his near-death experience something akin to the wiping of the slate, from which something fresh can begin.

Malalai Joya - "A Woman Among Warlords"

2011-04-18T09:00:00.002-04:00

     I always forget how pastoral the bus ride to Albany is.
    Jerin I took the Greyhound up there on Saturday to attend a council meeting for New York NOW. En route, admiring the miles of unbroken forest, the sudden gorges and the creeks far below, I engrossed myself in the memoir of Malalai Joya - A Woman Among Warlords.
    We’d seen her appear the night before at the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan, in conversation with Eve Ensler. Lauded by BBC News as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan,” and named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2010, Joya is a devoted human rights activist, an uncompromising advocate for women, and a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament, to which she was the youngest individual ever elected.
     Though of course familiar with the work of Ensler, I knew shamefully little about Joya prior to the discussion, as has been the case with the majority of the presentations and lectures I’ve attended recently. It didn’t take long for her to make a fan of me, in the text of her book, if not the incredible presence she carried on stage.
     Twenty-five years old and 5 feet tall, she stood up to speak at a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003 and without skipping a beat denounced, to their faces, the mass-murdering warlords and regional dictators whom NATO had managed, incredibly, to install in the legislature. She’s survived five assassination attempts and travels under guard. A progeny of the refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan, she operated as a teacher in secret girl’s schools, hiding her books under her burqa to avoid detection by the Taliban, and later established a free medical clinic and orphanage in her home province of Farah. Last month, when our genius government attempted to deny her an entry visa on the grounds that she “lived underground” and was thus “unemployed,” Joya became the centerpiece of a massive public campaign that ultimately succeeded in getting the decision rescinded, hence her appearance in Manhattan Friday night.
     Giving thanks to the people who’d assisted her, Joya expressed her gratitude to the American people, who once again had forbidden their government to speak for them.
     Reflecting on her words as the scenery of central New York slid past the slimy, Greyhound window, I found myself drifting back to October of 2001, when, as a 19-year-old kid fresh out of high school, I watched the words “America Strikes Back!” explode across the screen of whatever Southeast Alaskan television set I happened to be staring at and felt like my nation had sold its collective soul to hell.
    To have known at the time that a hero such as Joya could have stepped from the wreckage and thrown that hell back in my government’s face, while at the same time empowering my fellow citizens with the knowledge that our leaders’ inferno-bound path wasn’t one we were forced to follow, might have given me a small margin of comfort.
     Failing that, she certainly gave me a lot to think about right now.

Rally to Oppose War, Condemn Terrorism, & Fight Islamophobia, 4/9/11

2011-04-12T09:00:00.001-04:00

     Saturday’s rally, organized by the United National Antiwar Committee and the Muslim Peace Coalition, had at least two things going for it.
     First, it was the most multi-dimensional of any of the protests I’ve attended, officially directed at ending the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, and the Islamophobia that comes with them, but providing also a conduit for dozens of different focus groups to pool their energies, frustrations, and their commitment to action, from labor activists to feminists to teachers to environmentalists, and so forth.
     Second, and most important, it was warm outside
     This was not only a distinctive feature in my recent history of rallying (as earlier blog posts can attest) but also the first convincing proof that this God’s Own winter is ever going to end. To walk down Broadway short-sleeved, my sweatshirt tied around my waist, felt like an exercise in the impossible, and to do so in the midst of a teeming crowd, comprising activists from all over the country, Maine and Philadelphia not withstanding, made it that much better of a bargain.
     The rally amassed at Union Square in Manhattan, then wove down Broadway to City Hall, where speeches continued for over an hour.
     Jerin and I arrived at the point of origin just as the crowd was mobilizing, arriving in time to catch the classically Big Apple juxtaposition of a black, dreadlocked rapper on the main stage providing an unintended soundtrack to a long line of Arab and South Asian Muslim men bowing their heads to Mecca. As if to give voice to the very bedfellows my novel seeks to conjoin, the rapper, ranting in defense of oppressed geographies, rallied the crowd to shout first “Palestine” then “New Orleans.”
     Striking, for both Jerin and me, was the sheer number of women who participated in the march, and how many of them proudly sported hijabs. Like Mona Eltahawy pointing to the face of Tawakul Karman (subject of an earlier blog post) and calling it the death of all preconceived notions of the complacent Muslim woman, so the abundance of young female activists marching the streets of New York to protest agendas of hate was a sight to behold, and to bookmark for future citation.
     For some photos that Jerin and I took of the event, click here.

On whether or not my work qualifies as "feminist"

2011-04-08T09:00:00.004-04:00

     I think I’ve done a decent job so far of not flat-out discussing my book on this blog, but I’m book-dropping now, in part because it fits with the predominantly feminist train of thought I’ve been on lately, and also because, to be honest, it’s what’s foremost on my mind right now.
     A friend called me from Los Angeles last night, having read the book, and wanting to offer me suggestions. Among other useful criticisms, he said he had difficulty accepting the kick-off to the story, or, to use my less preferred but formal terminology, the “inciting incident.” At least one other reader had similar reservations.
     Needless to say, a weak inciting incident is a bad bit of business, but in addition to whatever trouble it creates for the plot and the plausibility thereof, I worry that it undermines the book’s feminist credentials.
     I call my book a feminist text for the simple reason that it deals extensively with the challenges women face, and one strong woman who dares to be challenged, yet the whole of the plot hinges on that woman’s rather dangerous decision to get into the vehicle of a strange man, a man whom she’s just met at a roadside gas station a few minutes earlier. Would she actually have done so?
     Readers who were skeptical of this moment may not have said this directly, but from an objective standpoint, it’s hard not to see this as a classic case of male privilege clouding an author’s ability to write an authentic female character.
     A few words in my defense.
     First, I try to put Abida in a desperate situation, where the need to catch a ride is pressing enough for her to risk a choice that she might not have risked otherwise.
    Second, I give her character a rebellious and more than a little reckless streak, and I place her at an angry point in her life, such that the very renunciation of caution has a certain appeal for her.
    Finally, I try to make it clear that at the time of accepting Dig’s offer of a ride to Baltimore, Abida’s doing just that, and nothing more. The decision to travel with him to New Orleans is arrived at much later in the game, when she has a clearer sense of who he is, and a greater basis for trusting him.
     In short, I tried to write Abida with utmost sensitivity to the risks she faced as a woman in a man-rigged society, not to mention a woman of color and a Muslim, but the very fact that I was comfortable with my end-product while readers continue to be cautious leaves me wondering if perhaps my metaphorical phallus were getting caught in my face.
     Is all this a shameless, backhanded plug to get more people to read the book, or the beginning of the book, and offer feedback?
    Most certainly, but until this book goes to press, feedback will continue to be cherished!

Kathleen Barry, on "Unmaking War, Remaking Men"

2011-04-06T09:00:00.013-04:00

     On Monday night, in keeping with my recent streak of attending amazing lecturers, I went to a Chelsea bookstore for a presentation and book-signing by Kathleen Barry, in connection with her recent publication of Unmaking War, Remaking Men: How Empathy Can Reshape Our Politics, Our Soldiers and Ourselves.
     I approached the lecture with a certain reservation. Though I’ll proudly declare myself a feminist even as they drag me thrashing into the quicksand, I have no patience whatsoever for misandry or guy-bashing, and I worried that the themes of the evening might encourage as much. Needless to say, my fears were laid quickly to rest.
     Kathleen Barry, who holds a doctorate in both sociology and education, and has functioned as an unstoppable activist since the 1960s, particularly in the arena of sexual slavery, scored points with me early on by unequivocally denouncing the idea that men are genetically predisposed toward violence, and also the idea that masculinity in itself is a violent entity. Rather, she centered her grievance on what she referred to as “blinding macho,” a socialized phenomenon that is responsible for an entire spectrum of destructive behavior, from sexual assault and domestic abuse to participation in that magnum opus of institutionalized violence – war. *
     Her thoughts about how “blinding macho” develops resonated strongly with my own experiences of masculinity, as conveyed to me by society. She argued that it begins with men being fed an overwhelming compulsion to operate in the role of protector. From the impression that protection is needed comes a perception of danger, and a sense that violence might be needed to meet that danger, and then, from that, the idea that whatever a man is called upon to protect must be inherently more valuable than he is. The end product is expendability, and nothing breeds and exacerbates violence like the feeling of having nothing left to lose.
     Yet Kathleen was careful to stay close to her agenda. Rather than dwell on the more abstract question of who or what fosters these predilections, she focused specifically on how the military takes advantage of them.
     First and most obviously, it makes expendability the keystone of the soldier’s psychology, and subordinates a man’s personal worth to a nebulous, rarely defined patriotism. Second, it creates a situation where men quite literally bond over killing, insofar as the only other way for a soldier to exercise his protector impulse is to “look after his buddy,” a “looking after” that makes killing a necessity. Finally, the idea that a buddy is in turn “looking after you” is the only factor that can counter one’s own fixation on worthlessness, wherein expendability again enters the equation.
     The answer to these ills, in Kathleen’s estimation, is employment of the titular empathy, but here, as is common with solutions, I felt a little more clarity was needed. Obviously, having empathy for your so-called enemies is the first step to undermining the “blinding macho,” but that’s hardly a new claim, and it left some issues unanswered. The question I had – indeed, the question I put to her in the Q & A session that followed – was how to preempt all that; how to help the young men and boys to counter the protector urge at that very sensitive stage when society first feeds it to them.
     To her credit, she didn’t pretend to have any answers, but suggested that among the many things in life we could stop biffing up, we might consider the beauty of nurture – freeing it from its feminine shackles, and allowing both men and women to participate.
     “Nurturing is beautiful,” she said, “and men can be beautiful nurturers.”
     It was good enough for me.

(* “‘Blinding macho,’ is grammatically incorrect,” Kathleen said, shortly after introducing the concept. “It should be ‘blinding machismo’ but I hate to give it that Latin edge.”)

Mona Eltahawy on Revolution

2011-04-04T09:00:00.004-04:00

     I’m notorious for hyperbole, so it probably carries little water for me to say that Mona Eltahawy was perhaps the most energized, passionate, and inspiring speaker I’ve ever seen. Therefore, with the bare minimum of water carried, the Egyptian-born award-winning journalist, social media artisan, and self-identified feminist was perhaps the most energized, passionate, etc.
     I attended a lecture of hers Thursday night at Manhattan’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I wasn’t familiar with her work prior to arriving, drawn instead by the topic of the evening: the American Muslim woman’s experience, a discussion that I hoped would help me in the ongoing process of better understanding Abida, the female protagonist of my novel. I got what I asked for and then some, though this was as much the product of Mona’s enthusiasm – her vital, frothing, and unapologetic ranting – as anything she said.
     In so many words, she gave me a picture of the world I liked, one where the civil war in Libya and the political deadlocks in Tunisia and Egypt haven’t eclipsed the spirit that gave rise to them; where it’s possible to feel as if something truly unprecedented were taking place in the Muslim world, and the world at large, without getting blasted off the intellectual stage for that capital sin of idealism.
     The kicker, of course, was Mona’s firm acknowledgment of the reality that everything will fizzle to nothing without that magic thing called work.
     Idealists – or at least that obnoxious faction of them that always invite attack – have a tendency to brush work into the margins. Not only did Mona drown us in the overwhelming necessity for work, but she also made the work look beautiful, and, best of all, she bent over backwards (if such an individual can bend backwards at all) to celebrate the work that’s already being done, and the women who are out there doing it.
     A featured freeze-frame on her projector centered on the face Tawakel Karman, a Yemeni journalist, human rights activist, member of Yemen’s main opposition party, and the founder in 2005 of Women Journalists Without Chains, as she led a crowd of protestors calling for the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s installment of the Mubarek franchise.
     “In that face,” said Mona, pointing at Karman’s photo, “lies the death of all preconceived notions of the Muslim woman.”
     She went on to champion Iman al-Obeidy, the Libyan women who on March 26th broke into the Tripoli Hotel housing Western journalists to blast to the world the horrific story of her gang rape at the hands of pro-Qaddafi forces. As Qaddafi loyalists struggled to remove her, al-Obeidy shouted to the rolling cameras, “I am not scared of anything.”
     “They heard her,” Mona said, and so did we.
     Though she may have drifted somewhat from the lecture’s nominal focus on the American experience, America itself was by no means denied a prominent place in her talk.
     To speak of our country as a singular hotbed for democratic exploration is by no means a novel observation, nor is it in any way unique to speak of America’s exploits having rippled across the globe, but what did succeed in snagging my passion was Mona’s construction of America as a place of imported rebellion; as much so as a place of export.
     America, she argued, was as much a Mecca as Mecca itself, boasting one of the most diverse congregations of Muslim immigrants on the planet, but where others might have cited the disconnect between these immigrants and their places of origin as a form of liberation, Mona instead stressed that it was precisely the spirit of strength and resistance they brought with them that creates such a strong potential for liberalism here.
     She argued further that the miracle of social media – often heralded, but impossible, in my estimation, to be stressed enough – has created a sense of global community where the spirit of revolution transcends nationalities. She pointed to the Egyptian sympathizers, many of them women, who ordered pizza for the protestors in Wisconsin, a conjoining of revolts that ten years ago would have been completely disparate.
     Again the word “imported” came to the fore: imported revolution, and imported role models. With another nod to Tawakel Karman, the Yemeni activist, “The role model for America’s Muslims is no longer the suicide bomber: the role model is the revolutionary.”
     And in case there was any doubt about where scripture fit in: “I believe Muhammed was a revolutionary. So was his wife. I want to continue their revolution.”
     Yeah. Good stuff.

My feelings on Terry Jones

2011-04-03T11:43:00.002-04:00

     Twelve people died in Kabul yesterday when thousands or rioters overran a UN compound, acting in response to evangelical pastor Terry Jones’ burning of the Qur’an in Florida. In a doubly tragic twist of affairs, the victims consisted of five Nepalese guards and two Europeans – none of them American.
     Of the arguments offered against Mr. Jones’ agenda, I always found it disgusting that concerns about security were voiced so much more often than any condemnation of his malevolent bigotry, but it was still a fair grievance, and now – as predicted – it’s been borne out in truth. (On a related note, I'd challenge my readers to find in the corresponding report in the New York Times any quotations whatsoever of the overwhelming preponderance of Muslims who denounced the attack.)
   For Mr. Jones’ statement on the matter: “We must hold these countries and people accountable for what they have done as well as for any excuses they may use to promote their terrorist activities. Islam is not a religion of peace. It is time that we call these people to accountability.”
     Would it be prohibitively ironic for a secularist like myself to request that this man burn in hell?

Happy Birthday, Mom

2011-04-01T09:53:00.000-04:00

You're still my favorite feminist, and, to this day, one of my most inspiring role models. I hope it's a good one for you.

In defense of Muslim History Month

2011-03-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

     On Sunday, a journalism student from NYU was kind enough to give me the opportunity to be interviewed for her multimedia thesis project on Islamophobia.
     Being neither a pundit nor an academic on the subject, I doubt I had anything groundbreaking to contribute to the content she’d already accumulated, other than to reiterate the one point I don’t hear being made enough: that countering Islamophobia in America should not simply be a matter of repelling the stigmas that bigots impose on Muslims, but also of Muslims’ claiming space in America as Americans.
     It’s overwhelmingly the case that Islamophobic attacks slice so low below the belt that retaliations must be equally rudimentary. No, Muslims aren’t Satan incarnate. No, Muslims aren’t constantly preoccupied with plans for the next terrorist assault. No, Muslims aren’t proponents of slavery or child abduction. To go so far as to argue that the Muslims of America shouldn’t have their patriotism questioned, and shouldn’t be made to feel as if they don’t belong, feels like asking for the moon, but if there’s one thing my limited experience with activism has taught me, it’s the importance of making certain that the moon is the one thing you always ask for. Muslims in America should be respected as Americans, and there’s nothing overly ambitious in demanding as much. Anyone who argues to the contrary is no less guilty of racism than the gemstone who asks the imam where he’s hidden his horns.
     But even this stance is something of a compromise, insofar as it only examines the identity of American Muslims in response to bigoted attacks. How much better it would be to, say, examine the contributions that prominent Muslims have made to American culture, or propose a “Muslim History Month,” than to only approach these subjects as a means of deflection. How much better to initiate these conversations simply for the sake of celebration, rather than empowering the racist factions of our society by allowing them to provoke us into doing so.
     This will remain a dream of mine.

Featured Musicians: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

2011-03-24T09:00:00.002-04:00

     Growing up, my dad made it something of a crime to say you liked country music. Given the overabundance of artists like Billy Ray Cyrus, LeAnnn Rhymes, and Clint Black, I can’t say I blame him, but to condemn the genre categorically would mandate, among other tragedies, the loss of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which specialized in building bridges between markedly divergent musical tastes.
     The incredible popularity of their landmark 1974 release Will the Circle Be Unbroken pulled off the unlikely feat of spanning the gulf between Nasvhille and Woodstock. Devotees of Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane found new targets of idolatry in the likes of Hank Williams and the Carter Family, and this at a time when the cultural bases associated with the respective genres had become as polarized as any liberal/conservative divide before and after.
     Indeed, the band became less renowned as a musical unit than an excuse for some of the greatest artists in America to get together and play, a trend that continued with two subsequent volumes of Circle, the first released in 1989, and the second in 2002.
     By virtue of its being the first recording I discovered, Volume III is the album closest to my heart, conjoining the classically diverse talents of Willie Nelson, Taj Mahal, Alison Krauss, Johnny Cash, and Tom Petty, not to mention folk legend and repeat performer Doc Watson, and banjo virtuoso Earl Scruggs.
     Writing in the record jacket for Volume III, music critic Jack Hurst makes an interesting observation:
     “In startling contrast to the period of the first album, though, the post-Sept. 11 era of this new third one is a time of national unity rather than division. The chasm increasingly to be faced now is one of years, those decades and epochs that stretch ever further between country music’s present and a past fading into the mists of history. Yet again, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has built a bridge.”
     Needless to say, the unity Mr. Hurst perceived in 2002 would quickly disintegrate, with liberals and conservatives again staking such wildly disparate territories that they’ve created whole cultures of mutual exclusion. It leads me to wonder if perhaps a Volume IV might be in order, one that could prove, as the first volume did, America’s ability to cohabit the grooves of a record.

Happy Birthday, Dad

2011-03-23T21:21:00.002-04:00

Needless to say, I wouldn't be here without you!

Thanks for everything.

- Micah

Gender and Genocide

2011-03-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

     On Sunday I attended a panel discussion at Brooklyn Museum entitled “Gender and Genocide,” moderated by Gloria Steinem. Despite being a fan of her work for years, it was the first time I’d heard her speak, or seen her in person. To do so in such a potent yet intimate capacity was a genuine privilege.
     The panel focused on the sexual assault of Jewish woman during the Holocaust, stories that, while hideous, have gone a long time untold.
     There are a variety of reasons behind this lack of visibility, all equally disturbing: first, legal stipulations by the Third Reich forbid Nazi officers and soldiers from engaging in sexual relations with Jewish women, an injunction that failed to prevent them from perpetrating abuse, but succeeded in precluding documentation of the assaults; second, the rapes occurred in such close proximity to the outright murder of prisoners, male and female alike, that they found themselves all too often overshadowed; and third, the hideously counter-intuitive phenomenon of victim-blaming prevented many women from coming forward to discuss their experiences.
     Two of the panel’s more impassioned presenters, Drs. Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel, co-edited a book entitled Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, the recent publication of which helped to prompt the panel. The editors’ expressed goal was to make certain that the victims’ stories were preserved, expanding the declaration to “Never forget the Holocaust” to include the remembrance of victims of assault.
     To its enormous credit, the panel didn’t limit itself to the Nazi genocide, but addressed present-day atrocities as well. In the Q & A session that followed the panel, one of the women from the audience approached the microphone, introduced herself first as “an American Jew,” then declared, her words moving in their succinctness, “The best way to remember the Holocaust is to be cognizant of the world we live in.”
     Embodying that very approach, the panel included Maman Jeanne Kasongo L. Ngondo, President and Founder of the Shalupe Foundation, whose extraordinary work in her native Congo has addressed the needs of countless women, and this in the world’s most lethal present-day war-zone. Maman Jeane’s exacting, first-hand testimony countered what I find to be a palpably disturbing trend: the tendency of public discourse to assign to the Nazi genocide a status so unparalleled that subsequent mass-murders are robbed of their seriousness. By some estimates, over six million people have died in the Congo since the wars began in 1997, matching, if not exceeding, the famous figure of Jews killed in the Holocaust. I was beyond grateful that a member of the panel could speak on their behalf.
     As for Gloria herself, acquaintances of mine who know her personally have spoken again and again of her humility, and her conduct on the panel confirmed it. Her opening speech, while powerful, was only three or four minutes long, and for the vast majority of the discussion she remained a respectful listener, functioning in her official capacity of moderator, and speaking only when it was necessary to guide the conversation along.
     Given the timeless preponderance of the ego, it was a breath of fresh air, to say the least.

Petition for the termination of an Argentinian journalist

2011-03-14T09:52:00.001-04:00

     Please join me in calling for the immediate termination of Juan Terranova, a prominent Argentinian journalist who threatened the director of Hollaback Buenos Aires with rape.
     To anyone who might be unfamiliar, Hollaback is an international organization devoted to ending street harassment. It allows victims of harassment to take photos of their harassers and submit them to an online library, thereby eroding the anonymity that allows harassers to operate from a place of perceived impunity. Hollaback has already lead to the arrest of at least one individual, who made the mistake of exposing himself to a woman on a subway and thinking he could get away with it. Many more victories are certain to follow.
     If Mr. Terranova's rape threat seems more destructive than the perpetration of street harassment, it is largely because rape has a more identifiable impact. While I have no intention whatsoever of downplaying the attrocity of rape, it is crucial to note that sexual assault would be inherently less possible without the culture of violence in which such acts are encouraged, and in the creation of this culture, harassment plays an indispensable role. Like the overarching mindset to which it gives rise, harassment requires a dehumanization and objectification of women, accompanied by alienation. Through wolf whistles, gestures, and lewd exclamations, women are made to feel as if they don't belong on the streets of the very cities they inhabit. With their identities reduced, in the eyes of their aggressors, to walking targets of verbal abuse, the physical abuse of these women is but a natural extension of the dynamic.
    In a world where these destructive cultures have been categorically dismantled, in which the perpetrators of violence are the overwhelming exception and not the rule, a rapist would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.
    I therefore ask you to sign the following petition, simultaneously supporting Hollaback and silencing an individual whose transgression cannot and should not go unpunished.

In memory of Roger Potter

2011-03-11T08:20:00.000-05:00

Today I’m departing somewhat from the theme of the blog to send my thoughts to Roger Potter, a close friend of my family’s, who passed away Monday after suffering a series of health complications. Roger was quite possibly the kindest human being I’ve ever known in my life, and one who, in my estimation, died a couple of centuries before his time.
    I consider this post only “somewhat” of a thematic departure, in that Roger was also an amazing feminist, though I doubt it was a label he applied to himself. That’s partly because labels and Roger were mutually exclusive, but also because he did not, to my knowledge, ever consciously commit himself to the actual goal of gender equality, and yet if the cause of much of society’s gendered conflict is, as I believe to be the case, the massive populations of men who flounder amidst competing pronouncements of what it means to be male, then Roger was an astoundingly positive influence, simply by virtue of being who he was: a damn good guy.
    I knew him, in part, in his capacity as my first employer, when, right out of high school, I signed on to work as a longshoremen for Alaska’s Southeast Stevedoring. Roger was our dispatcher. Between the hours of five and six a.m., he and I and four other guys would gather at the local dock and wait for the massive cruise ships to roll in, at which point we’d wrangle their back-breaking mooring lines out of the water and around the seagull-stained anchoring posts.
    In both the froth of the job and its breeze-shooting prelude, Roger was a joy to be around. He was a great storyteller, a good listener, and a model boss. Moreover, while the longshoring crew was a great group of guys, such that the following was never an issue, I know without a doubt that he would have expertly extinguished any of that destructive competitiveness that all too often explodes when testosterone and manual labor collide.
    But there’s more that I’m trying to get at with this line of thought, and while the last thing I’d want to do is turn this attempt at an obituary into an obnoxious author’s character study, it was too moving a part of his personality for me to leave out: Roger embodied, in perfect harmony, many of the classic traits of both masculinity and femininity.
    He was a beast at the docks, an absolute powerhouse. Dad, who also had the honor of longshoring with Roger, for a longer time than I did, used to say that when you saw Roger working from a distance, you couldn’t tell if he was hauling in a line or making his bed. Dad meant two things by this: first that Roger made a grueling task look effortless, and second that he performed something outwardly brutal with grace and delicacy.
    Everything Roger did had grace in it. Everything about him was in some way gentle. His lifestyle spanned a profession that one associates with no less hypermasculine a figure than Marlon Brando with a love of hummingbirds and quilting. At a time when the media had, in spite of the best efforts of my parents, left my impressionable teenage psyche feeling as if feminist traits would flat-out emasculate me, Roger was the perfect role model, showing me that such traits not only coexisted nicely with masculinity, but made you – in short – a better guy all around.
    Roger’s funeral will take place tomorrow. I won’t be able to make the trip home, so I’ll have to attend in spirit. My thoughts go out to you, Roger, and to the longshoring team, who will, as I understand it, arrive at your service wearing their hardhats.
    We know for a fact you’d have wanted it this way.

Photos from Sunday's rally

2011-03-10T08:10:00.000-05:00

Five days down the line Sunday's rally continues to inspire the hell out of me, and this in spite of the pragmatism that I try to instill in myself; pragmatism offering the gentle but crucial reminder that no one rally is enough to effect lasting change. It's not altogether unlike the process by which I try to keep the revolutions in the Middle East from making me light-headed and euphoric. Revolution is just the barest beginning of the destruction of totalitarianism. Like writing the rough draft of a novel (another apt comparison) it's the first stage of a long and rocky process that one must bear constantly in mind to stave off the fluff of idealism.

That said, it was a fantastic rally, and I was fortunate enough to land some compelling photos. Anyone interested can follow the link below:

https://picasaweb.google.com/mbochart/RallyTodayIAmAMuslimToo#

Today, I am a Muslim Too

2011-03-07T08:49:00.000-05:00

Keeping with my recent stint of protests and rallies, I attended yesterday a mass gathering at Times Square entitled "Today, I am a Muslim Too." Organized in response to the nationwide trend toward Islamophobia, and in particular toward U.S. Representative Peter King's proposed hearings on the radicalization of Islam, labeled by many as a McCarthy-style witch hunt, the rally aimed to collapse for the span of its duration distinctions between faiths, cultures, and races, and mobilize populations against a common oppressor.

Ironically, the actual rhetoric of the rally, for all of its power, proved less effective in creating a sense of unity than the torrential downpour that erupted twenty minutes in. Umbrellas sprouted by the hundreds, one after the other throughout the tightly-packed crowd, a kaleidoscope of colored fabric embodying the very rainbow effect that the presenters aimed to bestow on their audience. Muslims who'd brought their umbrellas welcomed into their spheres of dryness Jews who'd neglected to do so. Buddhists spread their canopies for bedraggled Christians who stood soaked at their shoulders. When the presenters hit their cheer-marked peaks and the crowds screamed in response, the person cheering next to you was not merely a co-attendee of the rally, but your umbrella-mate, your fellow refugee of cloudbursts joined to you by a four-foot diameter of shelter.

Among others, presenters included Daisy Kahn, Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, entrepreneur Russell Simmons, and Imam Shamsi Ali of New York's 96th Street Islamic Cultural Center, whom I've met with on several occasions, and who provided me with valuable assistance in the development of my book.

The ongoing revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa helped to provide the rally with both its charged undertone and its sense of immediacy, and if I had any major reservations about the affair, it pertained to the failure of any of the presenters to draw parallels between the world-wide tumult and the active attempts of American conservatives to exacerbate the oppression of women. I can only hope that the matter was at least on the minds of the attendees, affecting, as it does, over half of the nation's people.

N. Jerin Arifa receives award for feminist activism

2011-03-03T09:02:00.000-05:00

     I want to give a shout-out to my wife N. Jerin Arifa, who received an award last night from The Women's Democratic Club of New York City for her activist work in the field of feminism and women's rights. With the specific objective of attacking rape and domestic violence at the source, and disassembling the destructive cultures in which such atrocities are possible, Jerin's efforts have been tireless, constant, and highly contagious. The receipt of such an award is just one of many honors to which she's entitled.
     The honor was bestowed at the 5th Annual Women's Awards, held at Stonewall Inn in Manhattan's West Village. Set against the backdrop of worldwide revolution stretching from Wisconsin to Tehran, the location drew further galvanization from its own place in history: ground zero for the Stonewall Riots and the explosion of the anti-homophobic protests of 1969.
     It was no small coincidence that the gay pride, civil rights, and women's liberation movements all began in such close proximity to one another, yet contemporary discourse all too often partitions them into mutually exclusive boxes, as if an individual can't be a gay rights advocate and a feminist at the same time. Last night's awards made an explicit point of countering that assumption, with multiple presenters and honorees arguing that feminism means equality for all genders - female, male, queer, and so forth, inclusive of whatever identities people hold as their own.
     Proceeds for the event went toward Hollaback!, an organization that performs game-changing work toward the elimination of street harassment.

Featured Musician: Randy Newman

2011-03-01T08:56:00.001-05:00

     After Kirk Douglas' filibuster, Randy Newman's acceptance speech for Best Original Song was my own personal highlight of Sunday night's Oscar show, though I'm more than willing to admit that my immense respect for the man and his work likely skewed my perception of the moment. That Newman is now commonly associated either with DreamWorks soundtracks or the imbecile assaults by Family Guy is a point of minor tragedy for me, given that his compositions from the 70s and 80s produced some of America's richest, most exacting social satire.
     Newman's style mixed deadpan, straight-faced delivery with unflinching confrontation of taboo subjects. "Political Science," for a start, is a casual rumination on the merits of destroying the world through nuclear war, a prospect that in 1974, the year of the song's release, rested somewhat prominently on the average listener's mind. "Burn On" sings the praises of the Cuyahoga River, which in 1969 famously caught fire through abject pollution and burned for three days, the song constructing the event as if were some kind of magic, delightful occurrence.
     Not content merely to address controversy from a distance, Newman's lyrics often inhabit the very disreputable characters that give rise to taboo. The wince-inducing "Sail Away" takes the perspective of an Atlantic slave trader convincing African tribesmen, under flagrantly false pretense, to come to America. "Rednecks," more painful still, explodes from the mouths of self-identified bigots, the song's lyrics throwing to the four winds racist and anti-Semitic slurs, one after the other.
     "Rednecks" serves as the opening track to Good Old Boys, Newman's acclaimed album from 1972. The album is one-half smear campaign on conservative prejudice, the other half a sympathetic homage to the marginalized, blue-collar Caucasian whose own sense of oppression all-too-often gives rise to the very bigotry that the other half of the record attacks.
     "Louisiana 1927," hearkening from the latter category, is my runaway favorite, not only on the album but in the whole of Newman's library. Short, simple, and outrageously beautiful, the song addresses the devastating Mississippi Flood of 1927 that left 700,000 people homeless, and further articulates the Southern paranoia that the North was either somehow responsible for the event or, at best, bluntly unconcerned.
     At the tear-jerking climax of the ballad, "President Coolidge come down in a railroad train," and remarks, with cynical dispassion, and bigotry of his own, "Ain't it a shame/What the river has done/To this poor cracker's land."
     Swap out "Coolidge" for "Bush" and "railroad train" for "big jet plane" and the song serves perfectly as an anthem for Katrina, a case-in-point for Stevie Wonder's remark that any great protest song will always be relevant.
     For ensnaring the pains of a nation and its people, Randy Newman is a man I'm proud to salute.

The Rally for Women's Health

2011-02-27T11:00:00.007-05:00

Prior to the sun slipping behind the nearest high-rise, the weather in fact bordered on pleasant, bus as soon as

Prior to the sun slipping behind the nearest high-rise, the weather in fact bordered on pleasant, but as soon as the shade swept over us, the drop in temperature inevitably invited comments from the MC about how glad she was to see so many people standing vigilant in spite of the cold.
It's difficult to attend a rally without hearing some permutation of that claim, but in this case, the statement was more than just, not only because of the chill of the air, but also the importance and immediacy of the cause. The House of Representatives has launched a brutal assault on Planned Parenthood and related entities, voting to defund organizations critical to the healthcare and well-being of women. In a bizarrely horrific parallel gesture, anti-choice billboards have appeared in New York City claiming that "the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb," a sickening appropriation of racist rhetoric to construe a women's right to choose as a genocidal act. Saturday's Rally for Women's Health, held in Manhattan's Foley Square, took a stand against these forces, aimed at both endorsing the right of choice and confronting the paradoxical right-wing logic that condemns abortion but undermines the accessibility of birth control and family planning.

I attended the rally in my capacity as a member of the Young Feminist Task Force of the National Organization for Women. The turnout was spectacular, as were its speakers, a diverse array featuring, among others, activist Shelby Knox, New York Senator Charles Schumer, Christine Quinn (Speaker of the New York City Council), U.S. Representative from Brooklyn Anthony Weiner (one of the rally's most inspiring orators) and an intended appearance by Gloria Steinem, who canceled due to illness but sent her impassioned support.

Though my emotions ran high throughout the rally, my somewhat notorious and frequently embarrassing propensity for tearing up in public didn't kick in until a local reverend from Judson Memorial Church articulated the degree to which Christianity, at its theological roots, landed on the side of women; that the religious groups colluding with the anti-choice right are in fact as un-Christian as they come. "Jesus Christ respected women," she proclaimed, with an intensity of spirit to which my blog-based quotation can't even begin to do justice.

That so many religions arising from concepts of love and benevolence (Islam another outstanding example) have in the liberal eye become conjoined with violence and oppression is just one tragedy of many that the fanatics and fundamentalists have brought to bear. The pronouncement to a square full of feminists that God came down on the side of choice, liberty, and the rights of women was more than enough to choke me up.

Lucky for me, it was not yet cold enough to freeze the tears to my face.

Samina Ali's "How I Met God"

2011-02-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

     Samina Ali is one of many brilliant women whose work inspired and assisted me while I was doing research for my novel.
     A Muslim-American author originally from India, Ali writes of a near-death experience that occurred while she was giving birth to her son. Starting with a massive seizure, the crisis led to a heart attack, liver and kidney failure, pulmonary and cerebral edema, and a brain hemorrhage, the latter a condition sufficiently serious to kill most patients. Her subsequent survival shook the medical community to its roots, a reality that would be compounded by her total absence of any kind of residual physical injury.
     In Ali’s telling, there is at the time of her pseudo-death no light at the end of the tunnel, no spontaneous flashing of her life’s history, but instead a sensation of total darkness, total emptiness, a sense of unadulterated being.
     While such expressions might ring somewhat familiar to the average reader, her experience of God in the moment is beautifully rendered:

     “If the world can be described in positive qualities – attainment, attachment, gain, power – the world of God can be described in negation – undying, unchanging, unmanifest, unmoving, immeasurable, invisible, infinite. In God’s world, in His presence, I was nothing but pure awareness, pure consciousness, purity.”

     More beautiful yet, this absolute sense of divine connection doesn’t end with the ER, but follows her back into life again, allowing her to break free from the myriad ways in which her religious community imposed barriers between God and the Self. She describes the tendency in Indian-American populations for individuals to compete with one another to see who can be the better believer – who fasts the most, prays the most, and so forth.
     “People seem to be proclaiming, God is on my side,” she writes, “rather than humbly asking, am I on God’s side?”
     The cited essay “How I Met God” appears in the essay collection Living Islam Outloud: American Muslim Women Speak.

Kabul's Female Arts Center

2011-02-23T08:40:00.004-05:00

     While browsing Women's E-news, I came across a fascinating archived article from 2008 about a "Female Arts Center" in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Center was established with the specific purpose of allowing Afghani women the opportunity to express through visual arts what their vastly constraining society barred them from expressing elsewhere. I was unfortunately unable to locate any updated information about whether or not the center still exists, but in the context of a nation that could likely bar the right of women to vote without the express permission of their husbands, any kind of institutionalized conduit of expression, whether of passions, frustrations, or all of the above, would no doubt be a valuable asset to Afghanistan's female population.

   For a look the 2008 article, see below:

     http://womensenews.org/story/080817/afghan-women-blaze-path-in-contemporary-art

     If anyone has any information about the Female Arts Center, it would be greatly appreciated!

Featured Musician: Son House, Father of the Delta Blues

2011-02-21T12:00:00.003-05:00

     Companions of the Garden is in part a rumination on what it means to be American. It takes acute fascination in American culture in general, and Southern culture in particular, of which music is an inextricable part.
     In this regard, I’m launching a weekly “featured musician” posting, where I explore an American artist whose work has in some way informed our national identity.
     Eddie J. House, Jr., known commonly as Son House, is the perfect place to start. Heralded as the “Father of Delta Blues,” his music offers a stunning encapsulation of the magic of the Deep South, raising to its zenith what could well be my favorite musical genre, a sound inextricably linked with the culture of his native Mississippi.
     House made his initial recordings in the 1930s and 40s, including for the Library of Congress in 1941. He then disappeared from the public eye for much of the two decades that followed, to be rediscovered by blues enthusiasts and coaxed from de facto retirement in the mid-1960s for a renewed series of recordings and performances.
     Blues critic Tony Russell, in connection with the Sony collection "Mojo Workin’: Blues for the Next Generation," writes that “many blues artists make music that is personal and individual, yet at the same time implies the history that lies behind and around it. Listening to Son House is not simply listening to a man singing with a guitar, but hearing, through him and in the air about him, other voices and other guitars, so that we can reconstruct in our imagination the landscape of a vanished South, the world of the first blues singers.”
     I cite Son House directly in Companions of the Garden. He provides musical undertone to one of the novel’s occasional stream-of-consciousness passages, which takes place as the characters drive through the forests of western Mississippi:

“Half-waltz, half-roll. The skin of a dead monarchal gator animated with riverboat grease dancing on the surface of an ocean of sweat and blood and runoff and atop it the man and his slide guitar, the high notes tear inducing and saliva coaxing in the same amorous breath. High chords on “Pearline” like a loving slap from the vengeful, interspersed with melody. Blastchord-tune-blastchord-tune-blastchord-deltadawn wetness flooding runoff swamp dust cotton choke cotton choke. . . . A studio and a river inside it. Oh, Pearline.”

     Long story short: the man is amazing.

New Facebook page for Companions of the Garden

2011-02-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

I've created a Facebook page in connection with the book. The page can be viewed via the following:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Companions-of-the-Garden/136162313117092

Cheers!

Interfaith dating in the Muslim community

2011-02-19T16:52:00.001-05:00

Last night I had the privilege of attending a conversation on interfaith dating in the Muslim community, put on by The New York City Progressive Muslim Meetup Group, at John H. Holmes Community House near Grand Central Station.

It was a highly inspiring discussion, one in which participants were both passionate about the subject and open to sharing their own experiences. The majority opinion in fact seemed open to dating outside the faith, but with three major reservations, none of which managed to surprise me.

The first, of course, was family. The participants identified themselves, for the most part, as progressive Muslims, a label that proved somewhat less compatible with their parents. While they themselves might have succeeded at carving out a space in their faith in which the act of dating of non-Muslims did not feel sinful, it often complicated to the point of rupture their relationships with their families, both extended and immediate.

The second, no less shocking, was children. This became a major factor when the conversation shifted from interfaith dating to interfaith marriage, with story after story chronicling the sudden collapse of otherwise happy unions as the question arose of how childrearing might straddle the gap between, say, Islam and Judaism, or Islam and atheism. It was a question the night left precariously open.

Finally, and most morbidly predictable of all, the consensus seemed to indicate that it is significantly easier for Muslim men to date non-Muslim women than it is for Muslim women to date non-Muslim men. This is in part due to a section of the Qur’an that endorses the marriage of Muslim men to non-Muslim women and forbids the inverse, but also because of the overarching, religion-transcending reality than the stigma of sexual or romantic misconduct is much more hostile toward women than men.

One aspect of the conversation that intrigued me was its tendency to split between individuals who’d converted to Islam and those who were raised in the faith. Overall, interfaith dating proved less difficult for the former, insofar as any relationship decision they happened to make was less significant for their family than their actual choice to convert.

I encourage anyone interested in finding out more about the faith to attend one of the group's regular gatherings. The atmosphere is welcoming, and the location convenient. (Not to say that such descriptions couldn't apply to a majority of locations in New York.)