Turning Mexican

I’ve been in San Francisco for four days. I’ve eaten burritos for three days.
Help.

 

The difficult path of ‘progressive’ Islam today

Just read a nice, concise essay, penned by a German political scientist, laying out the challenges to reform in Islam today. After identifying that “honest and objective questioning is long overdue,” he explains:

Here then lies the problem faced by progressive Islamic thought today: Due to the apparent ossification of debate and self-critique within the Muslim world, the respect for alterity and difference among Muslims has waned to an all-time low. The oppositional dialectics between the West and Islam have further entrenched the cultural, religious and ideological divide between the two sides, making dialogue itself a hazardous venture that few would attempt. Lost in the midst of this are minorities within the Muslim world: gay and lesbian Muslims, racial minorities, the underclass and the subaltern, etc who are often denied access into the space of public debate on the grounds that they are not trained as scholars of Islam, and are thus not qualified to speak on matters Islamic.

Even in the relatively liberal sect of Shi’a Islam I am ‘familiar’ with, I have personally been victim of the argument that I don’t have right to criticize customs that I have found misogynistic, elitist, or excluding because I’m not educated in the theology and practice enough to be worthy of debate. I don’t buy it. I’m not enough of an intellectual elitist to believe that fundamental questions of how people live and socialize can be obscured from rational engagement because someone ‘hasn’t read the book’.
While I agree with Dr. Noor’s (the author) diagnosis, I take slightexception with where he locates change:

The progressive current, if it is to emerge at all, will therefore have to burst the banks of conservative dogma that thus far have been reinforced by both Muslim conservatives and authoritarian statist elites alike. This cannot and will not be an easy or pleasant task and we must realise that change will not come easily to Muslim countries, and that a reformation of Islam from within can only be achieved through antagonism, resistance and conflict and the productive ambiguities therein. Crisis may after all be the best and sole ally of the progressive forces today.

Not to sound like a neo-con, but I believe that political change in Muslim countries can work to drill holes in the conservative dyke, so a progressive current can gradually saturate the conservative hegemony that reins today. Which is not to say that I endorse The Project for the New American Century. I just think that religious reform will come out of political reform.

 

Second Course and Dessert: Notting Hill and Bollywood

I once saw the movie Notting Hill, but I don’t remember there being many black people in the film. It was all Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts being annoyingly flirty and witty, listening to classical music and drinking wine out of nice stemware.

I guess the black people of England were tired of the hill being characterized so, because when I went to the Notting Hill Carnival on Monday, Hugh Grant’s wafty hair was nowhere in site. It was more like this:

’scuse me gov’ner, is this where the party is at?

The only female participant in the strong man competition.

Jerk Chicken Heaven

A combination of no open container laws and perfect jerk chicken made the Notting Hill carnival a fun, but crowded (500,000 people) party.

 

Aaron, Debs and I eventually found respite from the madness by meeting up with an old friend of mine, Ramya, at the house party of some Brown (as in the college, not my skin and kin) kid who lives in Notting Hill. As with most Brown grads, the kids at the party seemed to be wandering around the apartment aimlessly.

Ramya and her man. She now says ‘queue’ and ‘lorry’. I retort with my rendition of ‘Born in the USA’

 

 

London has been awesome. I’ve managed to pack in all kinds of crazy days and nights, but I’m leaving in thirty minutes for the Eastern Block, so I leave you with some pictures of a Bollywood film shooting I stumbled across trying to get to the National Gallery.

I offered to give her the support she clearly needs, but I don’t think she understood my accent

 

 

Rojan Josh on Brick Lane

I wouldn’t have imagined it, but I’ve been eating incredibly well during my first two days in
London. I just finished a huge hybrid brunch of mackerel, bagels, scrambled eggs and yogurt, which supervened upon a long run with A in Clapham Commons.
London has been delicious.

The trip over was surprisingly easy despite the three hour layover in
Cleveland. Truth be told though, the three double scotches at a bar in the Cleveland airport were pretty effective at making the hodgepodge of Continental transfer passengers more interesting than they first appeared. They never said anything about carrying flammable liquids inside my belly.

After finally getting through the madness of immigration at the airport, I finally made it to Picadilly, where A works, and then took the underground to his new apartment in Clapham.After a quick nap, we got ready and headed out for my first ever pub crawl, the rules of which we decided along the way. Thirty minutes per pub, alternating between half and full pints at each location. Though we eventually fell of schedule, we still made it to nine pubs. Needless to say it was a great night.

After a pancake brunch on Saturday (I brought the Aunt Jemima from
Delaware, because apparently you can’t get the fake stuff in
England), we went for a walk around
Greenwich. Here we ate the traditional beef pie with mash (and gravy).

A quick water taxi ride up the
Thames took us back to the west side of
London and home, though we managed a stop off for a glass of sparkling wine at a great wine cellar on the north bank of the river.

Dinner was on

Brick Lane, the famous Bangladeshi restaurant row. No pictures of the food, but I can safely say the food was better than NYC Indian, but still not as good as moms.

Going to the Tate Modern this afternoon. In the mean time, I need to figure out what is next for Europe. I was planning on Eastern Europe, but I hear Scotland calling. Or is it the scotch calling?

Really though, there’s a theater festival in Edinburgh that could be fun. What to do?

 

One way of secularizing the Middle East…

I don’t know what it means that my first post in over a month is about violence and religion, and not about my own life. After all, I spent the last weeks carousing with good friends and family, and then leaving my home of four years. I’m left with boxes of half-complete introspections on my life, past, present, and future, waiting to be organized, labeled, taped close, and typed out.
Undoubtedly I will go through my boxes, cardboard and symbolic, in time.

Meanwhile, a war was fought in Lebanon, and the Iraqi story seems to be approaching depths of despair such that even Shakespeare would struggle to do justice to its tragedy.
The Gray Lady is reporting that “Fearful Iraqis Avoid Mosques as Attacks Rise“, which should be a slap to Americans dulled by the death count (72, 50, 46) each day. Iraqis are too scared to pray to Allah in the way to prophet has prescribed. More than a few members of the Washington punditocracy are proclaiming civil war, though Shrub hasn’t admitted as much. At least he’s consistent in denial- It’s not just a river in a autocratic, undemocratic Arab state we prop up to keep the peace in the Middle East. What peace? Da Nile.
But western ignorance is no revalation. I’m more interested in the Arab mind. Gallup recently published the findings of the “largest, most in-depth study of Muslim opinion ever done.” The poll suggests that Muslims, even extremist Muslims, are very conflicted about their feelings to the west. While there is little argument that America acts hypocritically, those polled simultaneously showed high value for western:
(1) technology; (2) the West’s value system, hard work, self-responsibility, rule of law, and cooperation; and (3) its fair political systems, democracy, respect for human rights, freedom of speech, and gender equality.
The great Pakistani Blog, Watandost, posted an analysis of the study and it’s implications for US foreign policy. The policy suggestions, primarily focusing on a realignment in US commitment to the Egypts and Israels of the Middle East, seem obvious to those who have been following the region. It’s a good read, especially in sifting through the data on extremist Muslim views.
But I’m still left wondering about the violence in Iraq. Beyond the obvious assertions of Zionist conspiracy, American Imperialism, and colonial legacy, I imagine more than a couple of Arabs are thinking about what the incredible violence and hate in the region mean for how the values of their culture and religion are being lived out. There must be at least glances inward, especially in Iraq where it isn’t Americans or Israelis pulling the trigger, but fellow Iraqis.
The political scientist in me wants to pull out my beat-up copy of Leviathan, but I refrain because my concern about the violence is not political, but religious/ethical. Iraqis are not living in a morality free, lawless state of nature. Rather many are specifically moving through the world with very developed religious rules. Have these rules failed them? Where is political Islam?
I dunno. more later.

 

dating terrorist

People at the New York Public Library think I am a social pariah/dating terrorist.
I’m at the library this afternoon, studying for the GRE. After a long section of probabilities, I decided to take a break and write some emails. In trying to make an analogy to a friend about how our freedom from being monitored and statistically labeled is “dissolving like roofies in a daiquiri,” I needed to look up the correct spelling of ‘roofy’. So i Googled it.
A moment later, I turn around, and there’s a guy standing behind me, staring at my screen filled with roofy links. He apparently had a question about connecting his Mac to the library network, and thought I could help him (do I have APPLE NERD labeled on my back?). So now both Google and this NYPL Mac user think I’m planning on drugging and having my way with some woman tonight. If they only knew that I’m so bad at talking to girls at bars, I probably end up roofying my own drink.

 

Israel- the uniter Bush could never be

Osama must be rolling in his cave at reading this Times piece about sympathy and support in the Sunni Arab streets for the Sh’ia group Hezbollah’s unfortunate provocation of Israeli forces and their current ruination at the trigger finger of IDF F-16 pilots.
Sh’ia - Sunni rancor goes back over a thousand years ago to a leadership split soon after Mohammed died. Many hard-core Sunnis (Bin Laden’s ilk, for example) don’t even consider Sh’ias Muslims at all. The sectarian violence in Iraq, while complicated, at least partly stems from the history of this divide. For the moment at least, Israel may be achieving what anti-colonial pan-Islamist of the mid 20th century never could- a deferment of Muslim sectarianism.
As the article suggests however, Sunni leadership does not share these sentiments. Arab governments have been embarrassingly silent on Israel’s obscene devastation of Lebanon (not to mention the pseudo- apartheid world they’ve constructed within Israel and the occupied territories). They are all far to beholden of American money and guns to actually take a stand against Israel’s actions. They do, however, allow clerics in their countries to rant anti-Semitic, anti-American half-truths which foment public anger with no outlet other than illegal, terrorist activities.
Which makes Maliki’s strong condemnation of Israel while his country is barely being held together by largest single international American military presence today, ironically heartening. The potential emergence of a Sh’ia crescent of power from Tehran through Bagdad to Beirut may be just what Dar al-Islam (The Muslim World) needs. The Sh’ia tradition is one of strong distrust of authority and activism in the face of tyranny. This tradition is deeply embedded in Sh’ia mythology, and has been historically manifest time and time again, the Iranian revolution being a noteworthy recent example. Sh’ia Islam is also more open to itjihad, the use of reason in formulating law, than the dominant Sunni schools today. If there’s anything the Middle East (and world) needs, it’s more reason.
Perhaps Sh’ias, Persian and Arab, will open up the political space needed for real change to happen in this region that is rich in oil but severely lacking in constructive energy.
Or not…

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Shia

 

take me back to Maui

I am still clearly jet lagged. Rather than finding sleep, I have spent the last two hours reading a host of news and opinion pieces about the campaigns being waged by Hamas, Israel, and Hezbollah. The only coherent thought that surfaces is that I wish i was back in Hawaii, where Beirut is just a drinking game and the politics of the day are about growing organic pineapples.
What sucks about trying to find right and wrong in what’s happening there is that everything and everyone seems to be wrong. International law provides no nuanced guidance, and the United Nations is playing it’s usual song of impotent acknowledgment, like a pathetic call center customer service rep. The other Arab states are busy oppressing their own populations and salivating as oil prices go up and The Europeans seem stuck in a World Cup stupor- if only Brazil had won the damn thing.

Everything can and has been said about what happens to the Palestinians, Israelis, and neighbors. History is sliced finely and twisted tightly so agreeable narratives are impossible. The analytical frameworks I am left with are hopelessly simple. They are ones of military/economic power imbalance and deeply seeded racism.

 

36 Hours in LA

In an attempt to avoid subway terrorist plots and gas explosions, I left New York last Thursday for LA. Conclusion- I’ll take the terrorists, Con Edison, and muggy summer days.
To be fair, I did have a great time at my cousin’s wedding, the expressed purposed of the trip. Also, I was living in the heart of California Republican territory, Yorba Linda. In Yorba Linda (birthplace of Tricky Dick), the landscaping is immaculately manicured and immigrants who maintain them are well hidden.
As if the OC was not satisfied with trimmed hedges while cuticles roam the streets untrimmed, upon landing I was ferried to a nail salon to get a pedicure. It was my first ever, and i have to say it rocked. The nail artist cut, shaped, and sanded my nails with the deft strokes of someone who knows the limits of nails and pushes them. She was like the —– of nails.
The wedding itself was great. As these things go, it spanned Wednesday through Sunday, with events every day. Beyond the expect drama of large families and the unexpected dickishness of the groom’s posse, the events went off without any serious hiccups. But five days of dressing up, being ordered around, and smiling at everyone who congratulates you would be exhausting, which is why indian brides grow Shiva-like extra appendages.

Right now I’m in Maui with very limited internet access (and limited motivation to find any), but Hawaii will be blogged soon.

 

fishy

I made the acquaintance of a girl a couple weeks ago and have been trying to meet up with her on two occasions, both of which she flaked out on. She continues to email me, however, trying to set up a date, most recently for this evening.
This morning I get the following note:

Hey - how was the 4th?
Mine was fun, better than I expected.
I have one caveat about tonight, I’m getting a facial at 5:30pm and if I look like a blow fish afterwards, I am not going out…you understand?
(I need one badly, it’s been ages)

Will call you later. Wish me luck. :O)

I thought facials make a girl look hotter, not nastier. I don’t even know what is involved in a facial. Are facials something people need to get regularly? Why does she need one badly? Maybe facial is code for something else. Like “taking a dump”?
Shady.