Thula’, May, 2005; Photo by Daniel Martin Varisco
Monthly Archives: May 2012
The Barbarian Has to Keep It Real
Sinan Antoon (far right) near the Symbolic Tomb at the Martyr’s Monument in Baghdad (2003). Image from Encounter Productions.
The Barbarian Has to Keep It Real: Interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Sinan Antoon
Interview with Nahrain Al-Musawi, al-Jadaliya, May 03 2012
[The following interview with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Sinan Antoon was conducted by Nahrain Al-Musawi and originally published in Al-Akhbar English on 2 May 2012.]
Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi-born novelist, poet, translator, filmmaker, and professor. His 2003 widely translated novel I’jaam is a fictional prison memoir. The book is ironic and haunting as it reflects the absurdities of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, futile attempts to escape censorship, and prisoners going mad as a final act of revolt.
Antoon returned to Baghdad in 2003 and filmed About Baghdad, documenting the exhilaration and despair of Iraqis experiencing the fall of the Baathist regime and then the US occupation. He produced two collections of Arabic poetry, which have also been translated into English.
His most recent project is a translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s In the Presence of Absence (2011). Antoon has been at home in the US for decades, so when once asked about the distinction of being an Arab-American writer, he replied, “It’s not easy being a barbarian in Rome. The Romans rarely listen, but the barbarian has to keep it real.â€
In this interview, Antoon discusses the distinction of being a barbarian, “an outsider, a stranger,†in the US, as well as the trope of closure that frames the recent US withdrawal from Iraq, sectarianism discourse, and the unique quality of spatial fragmentation and division that now characterizes Baghdad – once Antoon’s home.
Nahrain al-Mousawi (NM): When and how did you leave Iraq? Can you talk about that experience a little bit?
Sinan Antoon (SA): I was supposed to leave Iraq in August 1990 to continue my studies abroad, but Saddam invaded Kuwait on August 2 and there was a travel ban. I survived the war and left in April 1991 after the war was over and the travel ban was lifted. I had always wanted to leave. Living under an authoritarian regime isn’t fun, especially for an aspiring writer who wasn’t willing to write in praise of the leader and his wars. (Some of those who made their names praising Saddam and his wars are running around now posing as patriotic anti-imperialists).
So I took the bus from Baghdad to Amman like thousands of Iraqis did and would do throughout the 1990s and later. I was happy to escape, but I shed a few tears as the bus drove away. I knew that I was leaving some irretrievable parts of my self and my life behind. I stayed in Amman for a few months and then was able to come to the US to do my graduate studies. I worked and did an MA in Arab Studies at Georgetown, then went on to get a doctorate in Arabic literature at Harvard. Continue reading The Barbarian Has to Keep It Real
A Poem for Mother’s Day
Art by Kahlil Gibran
by George N. El-Hage, May 13, 212
You are mother to the universe and to the stars.
The trees and the flowers are your children.
You are a symbol of eternity, for you are immortal
Like the oceans, the lakes and the rivers.
The sun and the seasons are your children.
You give all and take nothing.
You are nature in its diversity and bounty.
You are fire, the eternal flame.
You are the lava and the volcano.
You are Mary, the Blessed One, mother of the Crucified,
Yet mother to no one, for she remained a virgin.
You are mother to all humanity,
And all creations are your children. Continue reading A Poem for Mother’s Day
With Baldensperger in Palestine #3
As begun in a previous post, here is another excerpt from Philip J. Baldensperger’s The Immovable East, published in 1913, and available for free as a pdf at archive.org.
On Islam, Romney Doesn’t Have the Slightest Idea What He’s Talking About
by Juan Cole, History News Network, May 7, 2012
Mitt Romney said Monday that of course he would have taken out Osama bin Laden and that “even Jimmy Carter would have made that call.”
Since Jimmy Carter ordered a brave and risky but failed military mission into Iran, that was a cheap shot on the part of someone who has never had anything to do with the military. Moreover, Jimmy Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel and played a major role in reducing the number of Africans stricken by the Guinea worm from 3.5 million to 1,100. So Romney, who has mainly been sending our jobs overseas, isn’t good enough to shine Carter’s shoes.
Moreover, Romney is forgetting what he said about Obama when bin Laden was killed:
“I think the president deserves credit for approving a relatively high-risk entry into the country with helicopters and special operations personnel, Navy SEALs,†Romney said. “That was the thing that proved to be successful.â€
So at the time, Romney acknowledged that Obama made the decision, and that it was a high-risk strategy that he approved (advisors such as Joe Biden preferred a missile strike). Continue reading On Islam, Romney Doesn’t Have the Slightest Idea What He’s Talking About
With Baldensperger in Palestine #2
As begun in a previous post, here is another excerpt from Philip J. Baldensperger’s The Immovable East, published in 1913, and available for free as a pdf at archive.org.
Googling the End of the World
Here is a moral teaser: is Google good or evil? Google and its browser kindred have completely transformed the way we get information. It is the cyberspatial ouija board that few people could do without. I will be using it while writing this post, for example. Yesterday morning I was reading an article posted on the LA Times website about a new study published in Science that argues how “Thinking can undermine religious faith.” In the left margin of the webpage there are two Ads by Google. Both are prime examples of what the article is saying: that a lot of what goes by the name of religion is gut level rather than thought out.
I clicked on “The End-Time is Here” Google ad and discovered a website with a free pdf of 2008 God’s Final Witness by Ronald Weinland, who gives updates on the book in his blog. My first gut level thought was how strange it was that a book about the end of the world with the date 2008 should still be touted on a Google ad. But upon further thinking, by actually reading parts of the book, I discovered that the magic date is in fact May 27, 2008, less than three weeks from today. Here is the blurb that says it all:
The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind and the beginning in a countdown of the final three and one-half years of man’s self-rule that will end by May 27, 2012.
On December 14, 2008, the First Trumpet of the Seventh Seal of the Book of Revelation sounded, which announced the beginning collapse of the economy of the United States and great destruction that will follow. The next three trumpets will result in the total collapse of the United States, and once the Fifth Trumpet sounds the world will be thrust into WW III.
Silly me; the world was not supposed to end in 2008, since that was just the economic meltdown that God chose to let us all know that in a short time he would pull another Flood and this time 6 billion people would die. Bad news for Romney, I suppose, since I doubt any Mormons will be in the 144,000 elect who will then rule the earth (and unless God intervenes there will be a lot of stinking dead bodies to bury). I am not sure what or who they will rule over, since only the really good people are being saved, but then look what a terrible thing Noah’s son Ham did to his drunken, naked father. and given that curse of Ham, is it any wonder that Obama will be denied a second term? I wonder if having a socialist in the Oval Office, not to mention that God must have known that France would also just elect another socialist and the Commie Putin would sweep to victory again, was the final straw for the great God Jehovah.
Regarding this new date, pre-Mayan it would seem, both my gut and thinking part of my brain are skeptical, but it is only fair to reproduce the argument here so you as an educated reader can decide for yourself. So take a look at this:
Emory Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies
Emory approves new Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies
By Elaine Justice, Emory News, May 2, 2012
A new Ph.D. program in Islamic Civilizations Studies (ICIVS) has been approved by Emory University’s Board of Trustees for the university’s Laney Graduate School.
“Faculty have come together from several Emory schools and departments to establish a comprehensive approach to research and scholarship in this vital area, a pattern which is a hallmark of the Laney Graduate School,†says Lisa Tedesco, dean of the Laney Graduate School and vice provost for academic affairs–graduate studies.
The program will offer an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the global impact of Islam, says Vincent Cornell, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies.
“Demand for specialists in the Islamic world and Islamic studies is high and is expected to remain so for the next decade at least,†he says. “The program in Islamic Civilizations Studies will be a place for graduate students who are interested in the interface between the histories, languages, literatures and societies of the Islamic world.â€
The new independent and interdisciplinary program is designed to complement and cooperate with Emory’s current Ph.D. programs in the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR), anthropology, comparative literature, Spanish, history, political science, philosophy and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. It also is designed to complement and cooperate with current and future programs in Jewish studies. Continue reading Emory Ph.D. in Islamic Civilizations Studies