Suheir Hammad - What I Will

Blue Belligerence

Muslima.Ink!

Muslima Magazine Project

Over the course of the summer I have been involved in a project organized by Kista Folkhögskola, an education/culture centre which is hoping to launch a bilingual (English-Swedish) online magazine for and by young Muslim women.

The magazine will be mainly user-generated. Part of it will be in Swedish and will be focused on Sweden, while the English section will have a more global perspective.

Production: to publish an issue every other month (6 times a year).

Content: any genre of writing is welcome: articles, interviews, media analysis, reviews of books and films, health & fashion tips, stories, poems, recipes...the only limit is your imagination!

Goals: addressing problems and issues facing Swedish Muslims, but also to focus on the positive e.g profiling role-models, reflecting daily life for Muslims in Sweden.

During the Kista Folkhögskola Summer Academy at Sjövik, we set up a Writing Workshop for young teens whose work will hopefully be part of the first issue. They wrote on a wide variety of topics, including being bilingual, attending a concert for the Muslim hip-hop group Poetic Pilgramage, sports & hijab, careers and so on.

We are still building our team, still looking for contributors as well as editors for the Swedish section.

Our latest recruit: Madde! http://pinglanm.blogg.se/

http://www.kistafolkhogskola.se/

muslima.ink@live.com

Perishability in a Photograph

Two more random photos to add to my collection of random photos.

Spider webs and roses, it doesn't get more clichéd, and I can never resist a cliché.

And fire is always highly photogenic.

I Call This A Poem

Otur

det fanns en tydlig väg

och en välvillig sön

och en uppfriskande fläkt

och jag gick uppåt

utan ansträngning,

som en sten rullar ner

i mina drömmar.

Misfortune

there was a clear path

and a benevolent sun

and a refreshing breeze

and I went upwards

effortlessly

as a stone rolls down

in my dreams.

We had to write a poem in Swedish. Having attempted this feat I learnt that writing a poem in a language you are still learning is not at all easy... and can in fact lead to unintentional comedy.

Sjövik Photos

Back from Dalarna

I'm back from a week of what I will call a holiday, because the place was so serenely beautiful just being there made it a break from the business of ordinary life.

In reality, though, it was also a summer job during which I reprised my role as teacher of English as a second-language to bratty pre-teens and was forced to develop my Swedish speaking skills.

It was daunting and stressful and an experience, which is what I have decided to call anything I could have done better but hopefully will know how to do better next time.

At the end of the week I had reached the conclusion that a couple of Ukranians who speak neither English or Arabic are more manageable to teach than a gaggle of giggly Swedish-born girls.

The focus of the course was on writing. Most wrote on topics they had chosen, like travel, being bilingual, sports, careers and role-models. And then there was that inevitable little group who wanted to write about Hannah Montana. A line must be drawn somewhere. They got the dictator's pick of subject.

Quite a few of the girls became surprisingly innovative in the last two days, which was good, but also frustrating, because time was up and the course was over and I had to trust them to carry out interviews and write them up entirely independently.

The whole thing was part of a summer academy set up by Kista Fölkhögskola for Muslims in Sweden. This is their third year, and people came from Göteburg and Mälmo and all over to be there. There was an uplifting sense of community and oneness and joyous gathering, balanced out by the usual politics of human interraction and the necessary penance of communication.

I also helped out at a nursery. Helping out a nursery can be part of the aforementioned sense of cummunity and togetherness. It can also mean being willing to endure face-painting and running after runaway three-year-olds who claim to know the way home.

How to Grade a Murder

There's an article in the Guardian about Marwa Sherbini, with the title "A Murder that Germany Ignored." That says it all. Apparently, now is the time to ask questions about why no one asked questions before the demonstrations in Egypt. Poetically, the article that starts off as a sympathetic look into why Marwa's case was under-reported ends up wryly acknowledging the real worry for the German public - risk-levels and tourism and conversations that end prudently with "perhaps its not such a good idea to go see the pyramids this year."

Is it wrong to laugh?

The German press reported on the case on the back page and fell asleep. A few days later it was awakened by thousands of Egyptians who protested vociferously against the "Islamophobia" of the Germans. Islamophobic? Us? Suddenly the German federal government, which had kept silent for nearly a week, found words of sorrow. And journalists started to write long articles about the astonishing reactions in Egypt.

I don't think Marwa's murder proves German "Islamophobia". But it proves a lack of interest in the reality of today's German society that is disturbing. And the more one thinks about it, the more disturbing it gets...

The press treated the case as if it was something banal. Just one of these tragic incidents one cannot really understand. It was not until the demonstrations in Cairo that the details were published. And then the German press very quickly had other worries. One day after the demonstrations a radio host called Karim al-Gawhary, the Cairo correspondent of a German newspaper, and asked him: "How dangerous is it now for German tourists in Egypt?"

The Egyptian blogosphere has been up in arms about the Marwa Sherbini case this last week, and rightly so. I think that it would actually be a challenge to react to this story with anything less than outrage and disbelief.

A pregrant woman stabbed 18 times infront of her 3 year old son, who then sees his father stabbed and then shot by security who mistake him for the attacker?

As a cinematic moment, it would seem contrived, implausible and melodramatic. But the tragedy is this tragedy is real, and responding to an incident like this with vitriolic "now we know who the real terrorists are" rhetoric is, as far as I'm concerned, petty. It's trivalizing and it's silly. Not to mention that it is as disconnected from reality as the blusterings of the "this has nothing to do with racism" "this was a mindless if tragic killing" camp.

This has everything to do with racism, and the fact that the husband was assumed to be the attacker only compounds that racist dimension. But perhaps what fueled the outrage in the Egyptian media most was the under-reporting of this story in Europe, especially when compared to the frenzied coverage of atrocities commited by Muslims. If Marwa had been the victim of an honour killing, her face would porbably be more recognisable. It would be plastered all over right-wing blogs. But positing the question "what if she was the victim of an honour killing?, like weighing coverage of Marwa's murder against coverage of Theo Van Gogh's murder, doesn't change the fact that this story doesn't seem to be as interesting.

I suppose "imagine if she was black" arguments might help someone see the case in a different light, but only if they are of the opinion that "Muslim" is no subset of "human".

Pomegranates and Myrrh

Pomegranates And Myrrh is Najwa Najjar’s debut feature film, portraying the realities of day-to-day life in besieged Ramallah and telling a story of life, love and resistance.

The film focuses on Ziad and Kamar, both of the Christian Arab minority. It begins with Ziad's journey to East Jerusalem to marry Kamar, and we see the beginning of what should have been their happy life together. But the couple's dreams for the future are dashed when Ziad is placed under administrative detention and attempts are made to confiscate their land. Trying to cope with her husband's imprisonement, Kamar turns to her passion for dance and meets choreographer Kais, who has returned to Palestine after 20 years in exile.

In Najwa Najjar's words:

"The idea for the film started with the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada. Witnessing the daily violence, humiliation, grinding poverty, curfews, movement controls, assassination attempts and the tit for tat suicide bombings . . . "

Najjar also said: "I wanted a Palestinian story. A story different to what the world was used to seeing – simply a story of Palestinians trying to live ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances, which has been (and continues to be) overlooked...."

I have lost count of the variations on "this is not about politics, this is about ordinary people", a line which is frequently deployed in films about Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and other troubled regions, apparently in an attempt to confirm of the humanity of humans.

I absolutely love Najjar's work but I really hate that line. It is starting to sound like a supplication. An "excuse me while I venture into the realm of stories from your evening news" apology. A preamble begging the viewer's patience to dabble in depressing issues, as though to say "this film is about Palestine, but let me hasten to add, it is also very much about dancing and love triangles."

But I don't want to sound negative. I guess she explains it quite beautifully: "I needed to find a way to survive, to find hope in what seemed to be a hopeless situation . . . It is my hope that this story - told through the story of a woman, a love story, a story of dance and music, incorporating the events both internally and externally will evoke similar emotions and feelings in anyone confronting barriers blocking the achievement of his or her ambitions and dreams."

Egyptian Woman Killed in German Court Drama

Huffington Post - Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" on Monday - a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom as her young son watched.

Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Her husband was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.

Nice. Let's begin in the passive voice, concentrate on the amusing appellation, and then suggest rampant conspiracy theorism and over-application of the word racism. Having covered outraged crowds, move on to the actual incident, which if you read that far, may potentially help clarify the racism charge.

Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.

Her husband, who was in Germany on a research fellowship, came to her aid and was also stabbed by the neighbor and shot in the leg by a security guard who initially mistook him for the attacker, German prosecutors said. He is now in critical condition in a German hospital, according to al-Sherbini's brother.

"The guards thought that as long as he wasn't blond, he must be the attacker so they shot him," al-Sherbini told an Egyptian television station.

Global Voices

Islam in Europe

Margaret Atwood - The Tent

"Why do you think this writing of yours, this graphomania in a flimsy cave, this scribbling back and forth and up and down over the walls of what is beginning to seem like a prison, is capable of protecting anyone at all? Yourself included. It's an illusion, the belief that your doodling is a kind of armor, a kind of charm, because no one knows better than you do how fragile your tent really is. Already there's a clomping of leather-covered feet, there's a scratching, there's a scrabbling, there's a sound of rasping breath. Wind comes in, your candle tips over and flares up and a loose tent-flap catches fire, and through the widening black-edged gap you can see the eyes of the howlers, red and shining in the light from your burning paper shelter, but you keep on writing anyway because what else can you do?"

I read a review that made Margaret Atwood's The Tent seem pretension-intensive, claustraphobic, moralistic, and generally demoralising. Back away, this way be prose poetry. Fictional essays. Fictional essays described as entertaining.

The words entertaining and essays, combined. As an incorrigibly pretentious person myself, I have a keen and highly developed sense for the pretenious, and that is pretension, defined. Feel priveleged, unworthy reader, holder of this small, incomplete book in your hands. This is Vintage Atwood. Punctuated with wonderful illustrations by the author. There's even a red ribbon bookmark.

So maybe, if Margaret Atwood hadn't half-written them, these fragments or fictional essays or prose poems or incomplete yet highly imaginative tales wouldn't have been published. But Margaret Atwood did write them and they are brilliant. Of course they are. It is vintage Atwood.

Although they are not all exactly entertaning. More like dauntingly breath-takingly inspiring. I re-read and re-re-read Life Stories, Voice, and The Animals Reject Their Names. I grinned through Plots for Exotics and Chicken Little Goes Too Far. Didn't much like King Log in Exile. Or Tree Baby. A little too unfinished to be artfully unfinished for my taste. "There is a charm and even a beauty in unfinished work," Peter Ackroyd wrote in Chatterton. "The face which is broken by the sculptor and then abandoned, the poem which is attempted and never ended..."

Artists used to have to learn to draw actual recognisable portraits and learn perspective and all those technical details before they could scrawl stick-figures or paint random streaks and call the result art. It's a good thing Atwood wrote stories about novels she would never write. And not solely for the immensely practical and satisfying reason that The Tent fits into any handbag and is readable and re-readable anywhere. Also because it is like being invited into the workshop of seemingly effortless talent. And also, it is the first book I've lingered over since The Lollipop Shoes.

I read it in a waiting-room. It made me insanely jealous. Talent always does.

To Read is to Travel - Rise of the Muslim Woman's Memoir

A re-write of my essay on travel narratives in Muslim women's literature, published at Altmuslimah:

Muslim women's memoirs often deal with what it means to be pulled between the polar forces of East and West, and whether it is possible to find balance in the midst of that cultural intersection. Complicating this is a delicate balance between challenging the Western representations of Muslim women and avoiding painting an overly romantic picture of the East. The post 9 /11 period has seen a proliferation of texts on the Muslim world which fall under the genre of the travel narrative. In recent years this has included a wave of personal accounts by journalists reporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as The Bookseller of Kabul, by Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, or Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between, an account of his experiences in Afghanistan, which was followed by The Prince of the Marshes And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq. These texts promise a reader that he or she will emerge with the same depth of knowledge that the traveler possesses, or in other words, that to read is to travel. They promise to pinpoint and define the essence of a place, which, to paraphrase Woolf, can simply mean to “seek out whatever it may be that is most unlike what we are used to, and declare this to be the very essence.” Clearly, travel and exposure do not always cleanse the traveler of prejudice. In Orientalist travel narratives, the search for what is “most unlike what we are used to” tended to fixate on the veil or the harem as misogynistic touchstones of a region and a religion that were at once alien, violent, and inferior. In more recent years, a globalized discourse of the Muslim woman has emerged, referred to as the New Orientalist narrative, which has propagated an image of victimhood. The image has then been employed to justify war as the exportation of freedom and democracy. Mohja Kahf has argued that the existing paradigm for stories about or by Muslim women relies on stereotypical images which have dominated Western representations of Muslim women since the 18th century. These clichés fall into two broad categories: victim and escapee. The story of the victim is characterized by stasis – the marginalized woman on the edges of society, the girl sequestered in her room, the concubine revamped. The escapee, on the other hand, is an agent capable of action, who breaks through a life of suppression to flee to the Western world, where she finds a secular haven. The increasing interest in the stories of Muslim women has been accompanied by an increase in literature by Muslim women writers, especially memoirs and autoethnographies. The rise of this genre has been partly attributed to its promise to take the reader on a journey into the author's private world. In many ways, this can be seen as an effort by Muslim women to reclaim their identities, but writing about one’s life can easily be manipulated to meet demands. An example of this can be seen in the memoirs of the Egyptian feminist Huda Sha'rawi, originally titled My Memoirs, and given the title Harem Years when translated. On the other hand, it would be simplistic to imply that writers are pawns to the demands of the market, particularly as some of these writers have themselves been accused of limiting themselves to a restricted repertoire to pander to expectations. Reviewers of Muslim women's literature often seem to read these works as sociological and anthropological texts that directly reflect the reality of the "Muslim Woman.” This assumption simplifies the nebulous position of many Muslim women, both in the diasporas and in countries caught between Western and Islamic values. These writers are trying to wear multiple hats as they attempt to address both the West and speak to their own cultures, all the while working to dismantle outdated Orientalist myths. In Ahdaf Soueif’s In the Eye of the Sun for example, the heroine is disturbed by the fact that she is perceived as “exotic,” seeing nothing exotic about the fact that she is Egyptian. There is, however, a delicate balance between challenging the Western representations of Muslim women and avoiding painting an overly romantic picture of the East. Examinations of contentious topics such as honor killings, oppression, and women’s rights are susceptible to “The Color Purple” syndrome, the debate raised by the publication of Alice Walker's novel, over whether and how a black woman writer should address the sexism of black men in the midst of a racist mainstream climate. For many Muslim women writers these problems are amplified by the fact that they choose to write in English, a choice which, in some cases, leaves them vulnerable to the criticism that they have “forgotten their roots,” a criticism Hind Wassef has made of Souief in an article with the uncompromising title "Unblushing Bourgeoisie”. A third dynamic can be seen in the counter-narrative offered by some Muslim women writers to the New Orientalism they detect in the work of their peers. This is something Fatemeh Keshavarz examines in her book Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran. As Keshavarz points out, the New Orientalist narrative often takes the form of eyewitness accounts which don't demand that their reader be informed about the context. Such books often “appeal to an ongoing post-9/11 sense of insecurity” by showing that “discontented people in the problem-ridden areas in the Middle East are by and large the monsters that you are afraid of.” Muslim women's memoirs often deal with what it means to be pulled between the polar forces of East and West, and whether it is possible to find balance in the midst of that cultural intersection. This tension can be seen even in the titles of the memoirs, as in Azadeh Moaveni’s Lipstick Jihad, subtitled A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran. Interestingly, in a New York Times review, Lipstick Jihad was described as “giv[ing] the reader a guided tour through the underground youth culture in Tehran." If reading a book is akin to taking a guided tour, in this case the writers themselves often travel between two worlds, their work creating not a perfect synthesis of cultures, but new structures which open up new ways of thinking, suggesting that East/West is often an oversimplification of modern mobility.