War & Fashion: Incongruous . . . or not?

"War is ugly. Fashion is beautiful. War projects the worst of humanity. Fashion displays sartorial splendor in its highest. War is fraught with danger, even for journalists and especially for photographers who must get up close to their subjects to frame an image. Fashion is far less perilous, though photographers must also get intimate with their subjects on and around the runways. There are photographers who shoot both: battlefields and runways, guns and glamour. At first, photographing war and fashion appear as incongruous acts that are difficult to reconcile.  Until, perhaps, you take a deeper look."

As always, pictures are more compelling than articles. For more on this bizarrely fascinating comparison, I strongly encourage reading this article from CNN.

Rough draft complete!

Nine months ago I set an aggressive deadline for completion of the rough draft of the latest incarnation of Companions of the Garden. Failure to complete said draft by 9/22/13 meant giving up the book forever. End of story.

I did this for two reasons.

First, I wanted to create the pressure I thought necessary to push the project to completion.  Second, and perhaps more important, I wanted a decisive litmus test that would determine just how much the book really meant to me. If I wasn’t able to meet the deadline, then it would be clear that the novel wasn’t a priority; that in so many words I didn’t want it enough.

As it turned out, I finished the draft Tuesday night, almost three weeks ahead of schedule, and this in spite of an enormous amount of other work. I finished it not because the deadline was looming, but because I couldn’t stop writing even if I’d wanted to.

Clearly – for better or worse – I do want it enough.

Now, the process involves my turning back to page one and commencing the fine-tuning process, obliterating verbosity, awkwardness, and redundancy, coaxing clarity out of murkiness, diminishing the word count, and, in general, advancing toward the published work I believe my characters deserve.   

9/22/13 was the last deadline on my calendar. It did its job, so expect others to follow. 

This morning's FurtherEd TV interview available on-demand

To those who missed this morning's webcast on FurtherEd TV, described the preceding post, the interview can be viewed on-demand on our online library: 

http://teachem.com/furtheredtv/learn/educators-innovators-girl-develop-it-hopscotch

Upcoming FurtherEd TV webcast on breaking down barriers to coding literacy

Gender equality constitutes a central pillar of this blog, as well as the novel itself. I'm thus heartened by a recent article in amNew York – a free, daily publication in New York City – on the heightened success of those seeking to break the gender barrier in coding. The article (not available online, unfortunately) showcased the efforts of such organizations as Girl Develop It and Skillcrush to empower more women to enter the field of coding and computer programming, traditionally a boy’s club.

Since March, I’ve acted as producer and host of FurtherEd TV, an online program featuring innovators in the field of education and learning. In this capacity, I had the honor of interviewing Vanessa Hurst of the aforementioned Girl Develop It, as well as Jocelyn Leavitt of Hopscotch, which uses iPad technology to teach coding to children, another disenfranchised group. Among other topics, the interview touches on how to challenge the social and cultural factors that discourage these groups from learning to code.

To anyone interested in learning more, please tune in for a 10AM EST rebroadcast of this interview this Friday 7/26. You’ll no doubt find charismatic and inspiring these movers and shakers who seek to revolutionize their field.

The webcast can be viewed via the below:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/furthered-tv

Good cause for a celebrated 4th

     After a long series of tragedy-inspired posts, I'm glad for the opportunity to celebrate a little (if belatedly) in response to the downfall of the ironically-titled Defense of Marriage Act. At first glance, the Supreme Court decision may not appear to fall within the scope of this blog, but in fact the development has major implications both in the feminist sphere (bulwarks against gay marriage have a disproportionate impact on lesbians) and, perhaps more fundamentally, in fulfilling the promise of a certain Preamble. Liberty and justice and such. 

     Generations to come will, I hope, find no less unfathomable the interference of the state in affairs of the heart than we now find the denial of suffrage on the basis of race and gender. My praise to those who fight to retire these nightmares, and for giving me a reason to be proud on July 4th.

Photographer dresses up her daughter as five historic feminists

In precisely the kind of innovative move that feminism needs, Jaime C. Moore, a lifestyle photographer, celebrated her daughter's 5-year birthday by dressing her up as five groundbreaking women: Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller, Coco Chanel, and Jane Goodall. In so doing, she succeeded in educating not only the recipient of her attention, but everyone who visits her site.

Says Jaime: "It started me thinking about all the REAL women for my daughter to know about and look up too, REAL women who without ever meeting Emma have changed her life for the better. My daughter wasn’t born into royalty, but she was born into a country where she can now vote, become a doctor, a pilot, an astronaut, or even President if she wants and that’s what REALLY matters. I wanted her to know the value of these amazing women who had gone against everything so she can now have everything. We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world……..so let’s set aside the Barbie Dolls and the Disney Princesses for just a moment, and let’s show our girls the REAL women they can be." 

For the complete article and accompanying photos - which I highly recommend - click here.

In solidarity (again)

     It would appear that only Islamophobic flashpoints bring me out of blogging retirement nowadays.
     So be it.
     The April 15th bombings at the Boston Marathon were an unambiguous tragedy.  As a marathon runner, and thus one for whom the finish line is as glorious a place as any, the massacre resonates with me on a uniquely personal level. But as a proud citizen of the planet Earth, I will not stand by idly while the Erik Rushes of the world call for Muslims to be slaughtered en masse and the Tom Brokaws blame the attack on an innate "Islamic rage."
     Muslims as a collective body can no more be held accountable for the behavior of a deranged individual or minority of individuals than the pacifists and free-thinkers of American can be held accountable for the carnage that the American hegemony has visited on the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and a vast and storied population of bloodied victims, from the villages of Vietnam to the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the genocidal near-elimination of North America’s indigenous people.  In fact, Muslims are less accountable, insofar as the atrocities of U.S. imperialism have always been carried out by individuals whom we have the capacity of extracting from office.
    I will make no move even to contextualize the murderous behavior of the Tsarnaev brothers, but I will fight – yes, to my last breath – to dismantle the crucible of fear and ignorance from which hate crimes are forged, either those by Islamist outliers or those who feel that lashing out at 23 percent of the world's population will somehow lead to peace. 
    The fight begins with speaking the truth.
   

N. Jerin Arifa's post on One Billion Rising

     Congratulations to my ever-inspiring wife, whose excellent post on the pervasiveness of Islamophobia and its intersection with women's rights issues had the prestigious honor of being featured on Eve Ensler's One Billion Rising.
    I'll allow the post to speak for itself.

First deadline met!

     I'm happy to announce that I met my first deadline - three days ahead of schedule!

     The first draft of the chapter-by-chapter outline is now complete. I'll spend a week or two revising it, and then it's time to knuckle down in earnest - re-writing the text itself. 

     To that end, the chapter summary was one of the most useful exercises I've ever pursued, partly in that it forced me to make sense of a story that was often nebulous even for its author. The chief challenge going forward, as I alluded to earlier, is to avoid overcompensating into didacticism, something I loathe as a reader. 

    Lucky thing, then, that challenges are precisely what I need!      

Setting deadlines & holding my feet to the fire

    To prevent the novel's becoming the never-ending project it is beginning to resemble, I've decided to set a series of irrevocable deadlines for myself. If I fail to meet any one deadline, I'm declaring novel-writing a great learning experience and will close the project permanently.
    Yes, that's right - permanently.
    While this might seem harsh, I believe it's the only thing that will keep things moving forward, and, at the end of the day, will shed light on just how much I want Companions to succeed. If I'm unable to rally myself and my resources enough to get X-amount of work done by X-time, then it's safe to say my interests have moved elsewhere.
    At present, based on the excellent feedback I received from my professional editor, I'm in fact rewriting the novel from scratch, keeping the majority of the plot points, but expanding the text to elaborate on the characters' internal monologues, making thoughts, reactions, and motivations more clear. I say "characters" because - in the biggest shift between the last draft and this one - I'm now narrating the story from both Dig and Abida's perspectives, rather than solely that of the former. Insofar as Abida's personal and spiritual journey is, in many ways, more interesting than Dig's, I believe this will make the novel more captivating and well-rounded.
     In proportion to revamping the book, I'm revamping the writing process itself. Rather then delving immediately into rewriting the text, I'm first going chapter by chapter and creating a detailed outline of each, identifying what each character says and does and why they say or do it, thus clearly mapping out motivation for the author. The goal of this, in part, is to prevent myself from focusing on style at the expense of plausibility, a mistake I've made with past work.
      What, then, are the deadlines? Here's what I'm making public:
     
      Thu 2/13/13 - completion of the chapter-by-chapter outline
      Sun 9/29/13 - completion of rough draft of text
      Sun 11/17/13 - completion of revision & submission to readers for feedback
      Sun 1/5/14 - resubmission to editor for final review

     A year to go for the final deadline. If I can't make that . . . forget it!
     Wish me the best! And thanks for your support.      

Torture, Abuse, and the Judicial Abyss: The Treatment of Terrorist Suspects in the U.S.

     A post on the blog TruthDig, written by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and war correspondent Christ Hedges, expresses outrage over the reality whereby Muslim terrorist suspects "caught up in Article III Courts are denied the opportunity to confront their accusers and to have their religious and political associations protected, and they rarely find a judge courageous enough to protect their rights." Per Hedges, "These violations of fundamental civil liberties will not, in the end, be reserved exclusively for Muslims once the corporate state feels under siege. What is happening to them will happen to the rest of us."
     Hedges goes on to criticize the abhorrent treatment of Muslims in U.S. Federal prisons, which he likens to torture. He quotes Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, who asserts, quite unambiguously, "torture is legal in the United States in the form of years of solitary confinement and the use of special administrative measures."
     Hedges also quotes Craig Haney, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who has studied the effects of solitary confinement, who asserts that prolonged isolation eventually includes  "appetite and sleep disturbances, anxiety, panic, rage, loss of control, paranoia, hallucinations and self-mutilations" as well as "cognitive dysfunction ... hopelessness, a sense of emotional breakdown ... and suicidal ideation and behavior." Haney found that "many of the negative effects of solitary confinement are analogous to the acute reactions suffered by torture and trauma victims."     
     As per the title of his post, Hedges takes care to highlight the slippery slope that will soon blur the lines between the treatment of terrorism suspects and suspects more generally, but also points out the depressingly well-known fact (to those who pay attention) that the 25,000 prisoners in Federal prisons "are disproportionately Muslims and people of color."
         The more things change, as the saying goes, the more they stay the same.

Autonomy and the Hijab

     If I keep making posts of this nature - defending the idea that the wearing of the hijab or burqa can be a function of choice and independence - it's only because I continue to encounter arguments to the contrary, most commonly from within the feminist community.
     Lending credence to my stance, Judith Sunderland, writing for Women's E-News, both defends the right to the veil, and points out how attempts to force Muslim women to "uncover" are in effect the same as the legal mandates in some Muslim countries that the hijab or burqa be worn at all times.   
     My favorite quote:

     "Pro-ban arguments relating to women's rights have the greatest resonance. Yet denying women the right to cover themselves is as wrong as forcing them to do so. Muslim women, like all women, should have the right to dress as they choose and to make decisions about their lives and how to express their faith, identity and moral values. And they should not be forced to choose between their beliefs and their chosen profession.
     "Generalizations about women's oppression do a disservice to one of the basic tenets of gender equality: the right to self-determination and autonomy, the right a woman has to make decisions about her life and her body without interference from the state or others."

Some useful perspectives on the current unrest

     Amidst the chaos of misunderstanding surrounding the riots in the Middle East, I feel compelled to sieze on every refreshing kernel I come across.
     Fareed Zakaria, an author for CNN's Global Public Squares blog, urges readers not to allow the inevitably exacting imagery of the riots to distort their sense of scale. ". . . .keep in mind that these crowds number in the hundreds - perhaps thousands - in countries with tens of millions of people," he says. "They make for vivid images, but they do not tell the whole story."
     He goes on to make an interesting argument on a related point: "In many of these countries - particularly those that have toppled dictatorships - the most important reality is not of bad government but of weak government. In Libya, Yemen and even Egypt, the state has lost its ability to control its public. In a sense this might be progress. Egypt didn't see protests like this before because Hosni Mubarak's regime would arrest or even shoot protesters. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy is an elected politician, and he is trying to pander, appease, direct and guide people. I wish he were bolder and fought the extremist elements in his society head-on. But let's face it, he's behaving like an elected politician."
     Elsewhere, in an Op-Ed for the New York Times, author Doug Saunders addresses Islamophobia in the U.S., and in particular the assertion that Muslims can't be trusted and pose a threat to national security. He compares this prejudice with a belief popularly held against Catholics in the early half of the 20th Century, one so ingrained that "as late as 1950, 240,000 Americans bought copies of 'American Freedom and Catholic Power,' a New York Times best seller. Its author, Paul Blanshard, a former diplomat and editor at The Nation, made the case that Catholicism was an ideology of conquest, and that its traditions constituted a form of 'medieval authoritarianism that has no rightful place in the democratic American environment.'"
      Seeking to contextualize this prejudice:
   
      "Then, as now, there seemed to be evidence supporting the charge. Majority-Catholic countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Austria, had fallen into fascism or extremism. Crime and educational failure were rife among the children of Catholic immigrants. In the years after World War I, Catholic radicals carried out a deadly wave of terrorist attacks in the United States.

       These days, the same dark accusations are being leveled at American Muslims, many of whom are recent immigrants. And many otherwise reasonable Americans have greeted Muslims with fear and suspicion — in part because they came at a bad time. Their emigration to the United States, like that of many Catholics before them, has coincided with turmoil in their native countries and violence from a few extremists in their midst."     

      While Catholics can hardly be argued to be safe from prejudice in all corners of America, a nationally distributed hatred and mistrust of the community seems utterly bizarre, and the fact that it strikes us as such bodes well, I believe, for the future. It implies that future generations might respond with equal surprise to sweeping indictments against the Muslim community, at home and abroad.       

In solidarity with the Muslims of the world

     I'm emerging from my blogging sabbatical to express my unwavering solidarity with Muslims across the world - an overwhelming preponderance of Muslims - who have condemned the violent protests unfolding in the Middle East.
     Nothing really fancy to add.

Retiring my fandom of Mona Eltahawy

    Parting ways with your heroes is never an easy task, but after the publication of Mona Eltahawy's article "Why Do They Hate Us?" in the May/June 2012 issue of Foreign Policy, such a parting feels regrettably in order.

    Anyone who's read my blog history is well aware of my former fanboy-like admiration for the renowned journalist and speaker, and I will continue to harbor the utmost respect for her ability to carry forward in spite of atrocities perpetrated on her in Egypt last year. However, both my feminism and my staunch opposition to Islamophobia are now at odds with several assertions that her article places on the record. 

    First, the article claims, immediately following its title, that, "The real war on women is in the Middle East." While Mona later acknowledges (grudgingly) that women in Western countries also suffer from oppression, the use of "real" in connection with Middle Eastern misogyny by its very nature deprives of legitimacy the struggles of women everywhere else in the world. Given the massive legislative assault, in the U.S. alone, on birth control, abortion access, and the legal recourse available to sexual assault survivors, the statement is grossly insensitive. 

    Second, while the article appears to attack not Islam but the Middle East's political, cultural, and socioeconomic structures, the distinction is not nearly clear enough for the article to avoid reinforcing Islamophobic beliefs. 

     In the second paragraph, for instance, she refers to "a trifecta of sex, death, and religion, a bulldozer that crushes denial and defensiveness to get at the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East. [Emphasis added.]" Later, when speaking of child marriage, she discusses the disputed claim that the Prophet Muhammed married his second wife, Aisha, when she was a child. Neither statement is countered in any capacity in the balance of the article, which creates the impression that Islam itself partly to blame for the situation. Considering that Mona identified emphatically as a Muslim at the 2011 presentation that introduced me to her, and considering that Islam, as a first order of business at the time of its inception, banned female infanticide, granted women the right to divorce, and made measures to protect women and girls from sexual harassment and assault, this is both lamentable and ironic.        

    Third, her emphatic reinforcement of the Muslim world as the misogyny-capital of the planet are all too reminiscent of the cries to liberate Muslim women that were used to legitimize the invasions of of Afghanistan and Iraq. While it was likely not her intention to do so, Mona appears to leave just such a door open when, at the conclusion of the article, she calls for her readers to, "amplify the voices of the region and poke the hatred in its eye."

    Finally, the series of photographs depicting a plainly naked woman in a veil scattered throughout the article seem an odd aesthetic choice given the subject matter. Their purpose is (I'm guessing) to create an atmosphere of feminine vulnerability and exploitation, and yet they themselves are exploitive, as is any attempt by the media to capitalize on the female form for purposes of grabbing attention. How much creative control did Mona actually have over this? I can't be certain, but it's a testament to my shaken trust that I don't feel comfortable giving her the benefit of the doubt. 

    The statistics presented in the article are indeed compelling, and Mona is right to attest that any feminist should be horrified by the status of women in the Middle East. Statements such as these very much need to be made. However, the article's Islamophobic nature, its ironic objectification of women, and its trivialization of the victims of the (Unreal?) war on women deprive its author of at least one fan.

    There were far, far better ways to approach this. 

Working with an editor!

     Big news! I've taken the plunge and submitted my book to a professional editor, who as we speak is engaged in the long-overdue task of tearing the text into a hundred pieces, such that something Phoenix-like might emerge from the ashes.
     For as long as authors have put pen to paper, the human ego has made a fine dance of the feedback process. I, for one, have always prided myself on my receptivity to constructive criticism, but when it comes to entire scenes and chapters being slashed, I start having difficulty keeping my pulse down.
     Tough.
     Anyone who writes without readers in mind, but still expects his or her work to be read, is engaging in one of the world's most meaningless exercises, and chances are, the passages that authors find most emotionally resonant in their own work are those with which they have a personal relationship - a relationship in which the reader plays no part. As such, the slashing pen of an editor is a crucial investment, and well though I might mourn that which ends up on the cutting room floor, what remains, and what I write thereafter, will have have total devotion and fidelity to the reader. A trade-up, to be sure.
     On a closely-related note, I have, of my own volition, thrown out the first chapter of the book and written something new. It poses a much more plausible context for the protagonists to meet, one that doesn't require Abida, the female lead, to place herself in any perilous situations, and that allows for some of the novel's central themes to arise through situation, rather than forced dialogue. Chapters 1-6, clickable to the right, now reflect this change.
     Faulkner, a major inspiration for my writing of the novel, famously remarked, "In writing, you must kill your darlings."
     Or, as a fellow blogger said, adopting an approach that is less murderer, more drill-sergeant, "Perhaps ‘just mess your darlings up a bit until they fall into line and serve the story properly."
     I'll keep everyone posted as my darlings either bite the dust or learn to behave!

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 24

      Near the conclusion of the novel:


        He wrestled, at the last, for a moment of quiet.
Remembering the Windsor Ruins.  The pillars in the woods, standing tall, rain-soaked.  The droplets pattering on the leaves and the needles and the limbs.  The wet grass soaking with unapologetic deliberation through the knees of his blue jeans.
  He knew she’d never ask him what he prayed for.  It was his prayer, his prostration, his private communion with whatever God had taken shape for him.  To intrude on such matters was not in her nature, nor was it his nature to volunteer details without first being asked.
That left him alone with it all, unable to share with anyone the worldless, shapeless character of his supplication. 
       How he’d prayed for peace without knowing what it meant for him.  How in the end he asked only for the quiet of the ruins to penetrate some later state of chaos, and exist for a moment in perfect supremacy, numbing out the noise and the endless anarchy of everything he felt and loved and loathed.
If she’d asked him, he’d have fumbled without success for a means of description, both of the subject of his prayer and the way in which it seemed a lost cause even as it unfolded, and maybe, just maybe, she’d have been able to shed light on the affair – what it was about his mindset that made even the intervention of God seem insufficient to prevent his death. 
       But Abida wouldn’t ask, so Dig couldn’t fumble, and he remained alone with the certainty of doubt.  
       The memory of something sacrosanct and futile.  
       The mud on his knees as proof of his appeal.  

Diwaniyya's "The Hidden World of Girls"

     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

     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

     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."