Mere drops in an ocean of right-wing vitriol

Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media

Islam has long history downtown: Why the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ belongs in lower Manhattan

By Edward E. Curtis, The New York Daily News, Friday, July 23, 2010

Rick Lazio, the gubernatorial candidate from Suffolk County, doesn’t like it. Sarah Palin, though not exactly a New Yorker, has resoundingly “refudiated” it. More importantly, plenty of ordinary citizens vocally oppose the establishment of a Muslim community center and mosque near the World Trade Center site.

But no matter how offensive their presence may be to some people, Muslims have always been a part of lower Manhattan’s past. In fact, Islam in New York began near Ground Zero. From an historical perspective, there could hardly be a better place for a mosque.

One of the first Arab-American enclaves in New York City was located on Washington St. in lower Manhattan – the very area in which the World Trade Center was later built. Founded by Arabic-speaking Christians and Muslims from Ottoman Syria in the 1880s, it was called Little Syria.

The heart of Little Syria was full of outdoor cafes where non-Arab visitors sometimes gawked at men smoking hookahs and trading gossip about the Ottoman Empire. In a 1903 article, the New York Times called the neighborhood “quaint,” noting the “uniform politeness” of its inhabitants.

Lower Manhattan is also the final resting place of Muslims and other Africans, often slaves, who were forcibly resettled in New York when it was still New Amsterdam. The African Burial Ground, discovered in 1991, is six blocks away from the proposed Muslim community center. Scholars continue to debate the religious identity of the hundreds buried there, but the fact that some of the dead wore shrouds and were interred with strings of blue beads, frequently used as Islamic talismans, suggests Muslim were among the enslaved people who helped build Manhattan into a bustling city. Continue reading Mere drops in an ocean of right-wing vitriol →

Glenn Beck is not amused

Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media


Attacking Muslims Is In Vogue Again Among Conservatives

by Jason Linkins, Huffington Post, July 21, 2010

Recently in the land of the demented, it’s become ultra-voguish to hate Americans who are practitioners of Islam. Loud, angry, scare-bears have made their position very clear. Muslims aren’t allowed to have mosques in lower Manhattan or Staten Island or Tennessee or Southern California. In Jacksonville, Florida, anti-Muslim extremists can mount acts of terrorism without being concerned that the national media will get too heavily involved in covering the story. And among Alaskan celebrities of certain renown, the hatred of Muslims is threatening to rip the very fabric of the English language.

And now, Glenn Beck has decided that he cannot tolerate the thought of American Muslims riding around on rollercoasters for fun! This is what Beck bleated out to the world, via email: Continue reading Glenn Beck is not amused →

Hands Up after seven decades

Palestine, Photography


The plight of the Palestinians has a long history, one engaged on the ground before the creation of modern Israel. The photograph above, taken by John D. Whiting, is from The National Geographic Magazine December 1938 issue (p. 696). The caption reads:

BRITISH TOMMIES “FRISK” ARABS FOR ARMS NEAR JERUSALEM’S JAFFA GATE
In fighting between Arabs and Jews, hundreds on both sides have been killed and wounded from gunfire, bombs, and mines set under highways. Both peoples object to the proposed partition of the country, whereby each would be colonized in a separate district and Britain would retain control of a corridor from Jerusalem to the sea and of certain other regions.

One is reminded of Solomon’s lament that there is nothing new under the sun or the old French saw that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Regardless of who has done the frisking, the image of civilians standing in line before soldiers and with their hands up in the air is a telling reminder of the inability of politicians to resolve one of the most intractable disputes of the 20th century. The aftermath of two world wars and the thawing of the Cold War would seem more difficult to resolve than sharing space in a small corner of the Middle East. But then, this is a corner with a history of bloodshed that is unrivaled anywhere else. How ironic that the city where Christians believe the “Prince of Peace” will save the world from ultimate evil has been the site for so much continuing mistreatment of people.

Born Free, unless you are female

Gender and Sexuality, Islam in Europe, Islamic Law, Islamophobia

I opened my email this morning and back-to-back there was instant conflict: a posting about a new Indian Deoband fatwa ruling that veiled Muslim women should not ride bicycles and another about a female French lawyer who ripped the face covering off a young Muslim girl in a shopping mall near Nantes, the latter a pre-emptive strike for the pending anti-niqab law in the French parliament. Both rulings strike me as silly, both as overtly political. So now instead of the standard “Death to America” vs. “Muhammad is a child molester” chant wars we have entered the era of dueling over social mores through Fatwa Wars. Although not as erotic as the recent tit-illating fatwa controversy, also involving women’s bodies, the battle lines are still drawn over the same resource: what males do to control women’s bodies and minds.

Let’s start with the Deoband bicycle banning. The commentary by Nigar Ataulla, an Indian Muslim who happens to be female as well as a journalist who enjoys bike riding, called “Cycle Fatwa  Rides into My Re-Cycle Bin” reads:
Continue reading Born Free, unless you are female →

Viagra for Aladdin Lovers

Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Orientalism, United Arab Emirates


“Sex and the City 2’s” stunning Muslim clichés
It’s hard to overstate the offensiveness of the fabulous four’s exquisitely tone-deaf trip to Abu Dhabi

By Wajahat Ali, Salon, May 26

I’m a heterosexual, Muslim dude who until recently thought pleated khakis and loafers were “hip” and mistook Bergdorf Goodman for an expensive Swiss chocolate. So it is not surprising that 40 minutes into “Sex and the City 2,” a 150-minute cotton candy fantasy accessorized with materialism and fashion porn, I was comatose with boredom.

But I was defibrillated by the film’s detour into Abu Dhabi (really Morocco and studio sets) and what can only be described as an Orientalist’s wet dream. After discovering they will visit the Middle East, the ladies whip out hall-of-fame Ali Baba clichés: References to “magic carpet” (a double entendre, naturally), Scheherazade and Jasmine from “Aladdin” come in rapid succession. Upon hearing a stewardess give routine flight instructions in Arabic, Samantha behaves like a wild-eyed child hearing a foreign language for the first time. “I wonder what she’s saying. It sounds so exotic!”

Michael Patrick King’s exquisitely tone-deaf movie is cinematic Viagra for Western cultural imperialists who still ignorantly and inaccurately paint the entire Middle East (and Iran) as a Shangri La in desperate need of liberation from ignorant, backward natives. Continue reading Viagra for Aladdin Lovers →

The Fifth Annual Arab-American Heritage Park Festival

Food and Drink, Music and Dance

The Fifth Annual Arab-American Heritage Park Festival

Sunday, July 18, From 1-6pm

Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY

15th Street Entrance

Presented By: The Arab American Family Support Center & Alwan for the Arts

Bring Your Family & Friends of all ages to Celebrate Arab Heritage

Directions:

F Train to 15th Street/Prospect Park B-68, B-69, or B-75 Buses to Prospect Park West & 9th Street

Enjoy music, cultural performances, savory Arabic food, traditional Arabic shisha, professional henna artists, heritage arts and crafts, face painting, bouncy house, plus enter the raffle to win lots of great prizes!

For more information contact Bret Denning at bret@aafscny.org

Worth a Response: Why Yemen is not Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Journalism and Media, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


“The village of Rihab in Wadi Dawan, a valley that is the ancestral home of Bin Laden”; Simon Norfolk/Institute, for The New York Times

Yemen hardly ever makes the news unless a journalist wants to rail against the green-dribbling khat habit of grown men who wear skirts or trump with the terrorism card. In the Sunday Magazine of The New York Times, Robert F. Worth asks the provocative question: “Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?” For an article that begins with a photograph of the valley “that is the ancestral home of Bin Laden” and mentions an American cruise missile in the first line, it hardly takes a Ph.D. to figure out what the answer is most likely to be in the mind of the reader. Worthy reporter that he is, The New York Times Middle East correspondent does not directly answer the question. He does not need to, since the Al Qaeda-laced narrative itself hinges on the comparison. The article ends with a visit to an “old man with a deeply lined face” and who walks with a cane. When asked if his son, an Al Qaeda figure described in the story, was really part of the plot in the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the father responds:

‘No,’ he said, ‘ I don’t believe this.’ He was silent for a long time, staring at the closed door of the house, which was illuminated at its edges by a bright rectangle of afternoon sunlight. then he spoke again.
‘He is a mujahid,’ he said, or holy warrior. ‘He is fighting those who occupy Arab lands. He is fighting unbelievers.’

I have read a number of articles by journalist Worth, usually with a favorable view of his ability to introduce nuance into what is generally a black-and-white portrayal of things Arab and Islamic. For this article, he contacted diplomats (former Ambassador Hull) and scholars (Gregory Johnson) who are knowledgable about recent political events in Yemen. He is also to be commended for learning some Arabic, although I am not sure his year-long training in classical will be of much help in casual conversation in dialect. Yet he visited Yemen and actually talked to local people and not just the other reporters in the pool. In this sense, the reporting is not bad, certainly not like The Daily News or Fox News engineering. The problem is that neither is the article very good. The question in the title, which perhaps was not the journalist’s choosing given the control of editors, is blatantly rhetorical, not a genuine search for an answer that goes beyond the verbal War on Terror jousting on all sides of the aisle in Washington and in much of the media. Continue reading Worth a Response: Why Yemen is not Afghanistan →

Colorful Lithographic Orientalism #5: Steed

Animals, Lithographs, Orientalism, Orientalist Art

As noted in a previous post, I recently went through a late 19th century scrapbook that belonged to my great, great aunt. She had cut out pictures that interested or amused her. Several of these have Orientalist themes. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words; other times the picture says enough for itself. In this series, I leave the image to speak for itself. If you would like to comment on what you see or imagine, please do so in the comments section.

For #4, click here