Barack Mubarak! (Happy...Barack? Obama-brations?)

in the Middle East? to the Muslim world? (or NOT! see above picture, posted on this blog via Sepia Mutiny via Reuters. I cannot do better than Vinod's caption: "Keep your hands off my 'tribs!'" Fo-shiz yo, these must be some of the few South Asians who don't like Bharat Obama)

Here is a full transcript of the interview from al-Arabiya's website. What are your thoughts?

Of course, the interview has already been analyzed and re-analyzed by political pundits. I've already heard a few Obama-philes today remark about the "absolute perfection" and poignancy of his words. But what I would like to hear more about is GOP/conservative reaction to this interview. I wonder if those people who thought/think he is Muslim are smuggly saying "oooh, I told ya! he's rubbin shoulders with them Ay-rabs now too!" Indeed, this is the first of numerous signs that will reveal Obama to be the anti-christ. (check out some seriously ooog-lay pictures here) Colbert is also doing a good job of playing up on another aspect of paranoia as I write this post:

"Our President has been KIDNAPPED by a terrorist group calling themselves 'al-Arabiya' television network...'we are not perfect?!' WHAT are they DOING to him??!"

I would also like to hear more about how Muslims outside of the Middle East (*fewer than 15% of Muslims are Arab) are reacting to the interview. As an American Muslim, I am elated that Obama chose to give his first interview as President to an Arab news-channel. The seminal nature of the act itself is just as significant as what he said, if not more so. But I do like (most of) what he said. It's just a matter of seeing if the policies reflect the words. I have hope that they will. I agree with an Arab commentator on NPR who described the significance of the interview quite aptly. In response to a question that highlighted rhetorical similarities between Obama and Bush, he said (in different words): the interview reflects a change in mentality - and a change in mentality is a change that will be appreciated in the Muslim world.

One of my favorite excerpts from the interview is below. This portion is particularly important because we had to deal with the Bush administration's complicity with (or shall we say espousal of?) the "clash of civilizations" ideology for eight freakin years - and that is exactly what OBL, his gundas and minions wanted. Now, we can only hope and pray that the number of people OBL can enlist to minion-ize will dwindle.

Q: President Bush framed the war on terror conceptually in a way that was very broad, "war on terror," and used sometimes certain terminology that the many people -- Islamic fascism. You've always framed it in a different way, specifically against one group called al Qaeda and their collaborators. And is this one way of --

THE PRESIDENT: I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations -- whether Muslim or any other faith in the past -- that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.

And so you will I think see our administration be very clear in
distinguishing between organizations like al Qaeda -- that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it -- and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop. We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down.

But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.

City, Streets, People

Saturday was my first day of unemployment. It was also the day I went on a Street Retreat with the Faithful Fools, a "ministry of presence" in one of San Francisco's roughest and most notorious neighborhoods: the Tenderloin. I didn't have to be another color, age, or gender to have an intercultural experience. All I had to do was leave behind the trappings of privilege and wander into the the neighborhood. For a day, I became a part of the Tenderloin, and my neighbors embraced me.

Gerardo and David are homeless and stay at the Hospitality House. They saw me staring at the sculptures and watercolor paintings in the window. They smiled and asked what I was looking at. Then they told me that I could come back during the week and do artwork. "They'll give you the materials," they reassured me. "They'll give you support, too."

Krista and I crossed paths twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. The second time I saw her, I was walking absentmindedly past a man waving a switchblade. I caught a strong whiff of marijuana in the wind. Krista shook her head and offered to walk me wherever I was going. On our way to Market Street, a panhandler asked her for spare change. She sneered in disdain. "Can't he see?" she remarked to me. "I'm out here, too. I'm hurting, too." I gave her a hug before we parted ways. "You look like a nice girl," she muttered, concerned.

An hour before the end of the retreat, an Asian fellow with a bowl haircut made me cry. He was sitting next to me on a bench outside the public library. I recognized him immediately as a regular at St. Anthony Foundation's Dining Room, where I volunteer twice a month. I also happen to have seen him sleeping in a doorway of a building on Market Street. As we sat quietly outside the library doors, he politely rejected offers of leftover food. He looked undisturbed, unassuming, even peaceful. His hair was dusty and unkempt, and there appeared to be a protrusion on his scalp. Every few seconds, his whole body convulsed.

I zipped up my rain jacket to hide tears. I ran into the library, then out again. I bolted towards City Hall, finally collapsing against a flagpole near the Victory Garden.

A woman passing by in an electric wheelchair asked me if I was all right. "Yes, thank you," I sputtered between sobs. "I mean, do you have someplace to live?" I didn't have breath to answer. She gave me her home address. "You're welcome anytime. It's just me and my son." I managed to nod and thank her. "You're not alone," she said as she turned her wheelchair and rolled away. I doubled over and wept.

Not looking back

I was sick of being shielded. I wanted to shed my privilege like a molted exoskeleton.

For five months, I had allowed myself to be insulated in a bubble of wealthy, college-educated liberals. In this bubble, it was fashionable to pay lip service to social justice. We talked endlessly about giving voice to women on the margins and empowering them to find solutions. But when put to the test, we didn't recognize injustice on our doorstep. Hell, we didn't recognize it in ourselves.

I wanted out. I wanted air. I wanted to rub shoulders with humanity in all its shame and glory. I came to this city to serve peace and justice with my hands and my heart. I devoted this year to burning down the walls between my work and the world's suffering, not erecting new ones.

So I quit my job. I'm unemployed and starting fresh.

The power of provocation... Part I

VIA EFF'BOOK, of course.

I, the fiery Mistress of Spices, updated my Facebook profile with the following status recently:

"People who don't pray, inform, protest or care about what is happening in Gaza are complicit with the murder of innocent civilians." (Will explain later.)

Today, a friend was kind enough to bring the following post from the very professional-looking ArtStar blog to my attention:

http://www.artstarblog.com/2009/01/why-its-totally-okay-to-not-care-about.html

Interesting perspective, no? Even before I scoffed in outrage at the argument or thought to draft a rebuttal, I found myself feeling very flattered at the notion of someone feeling strongly enough to write a whole post in response to - or perhaps, prompted by - my facebook status.

Getting a few people to think about the crisis (who might have not before) was my objective anyway. And, no, I won't apologize for what I wrote or said beyond that explanation.

But this turned out better than I thought it would. Ah, delicious controversy and dissent has taken an ephemeral facebook status to a greater audience. What fun! People are thinking, "damn, why is this girl so crazy? why she callin me a murderer? I didn't kill nobody." No, friends, you haven't actually killed anyone. But, yes, you are allowing it.

And now, for my long-winded response to the response:

Last week, I went to a discussion group meeting. The topic for the night was inspired by the recent commemoration of Ashura: Suffering. Kristin, a professor of Islamic/Muslim studies at Sarah Lawrence, opened the discussion with a historical overview of Ashura and posed a few critical questions. Here is a sample of Kristin's opening reflections:

The sufferings of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn and his family
and followers in Karbala in the seventh century are remembered every year
by Shi‘i Muslims in the month of Muharram. The tragedy is reenacted in a
variety of literary, theatrical and processional ways. The memory of these
events is continually reconstructed as a means of personal religious
catharsis, a meaningful symbol of standing up to oppression, and as a way
to mobilize support and participation in political and military actions.
The themes of suffering and resistance to oppression have a particular
resonance for many Muslims in light of recent events in Gaza. As we are
once again supplied with endless pictures of the horrible suffering of
innocent civilians, calls for action, and the blaming of actors on all
sides, perhaps we can take a few moments to reflect upon the deeper issues
at stake.

For those of us living in comfortable circumstances, we might
ask ourselves in what ways we turn away from the suffering of others. Or, in what ways do we appropriate the sufferings of others for our own purposes? What would it mean to bear witness to suffering without demonizing some parties or acquiescing to incessant cycles of retaliatory violence? How does one respond to oppression without becoming an oppressor oneself? What constitutes a "healthy" conversation on suffering? What forms of photography, for example, bear witness to events in necessary ways and what forms provoke rage, disgust, or indifference in harmful ways? How does the Qur'an discuss the nature and phenomenon of human suffering and oppression, and the appropriate responses of believers?

It's difficult for me to attempt to summarize the whole thing but in this insufficient way: it was a long, beautiful, nuanced and varied discussion during which we addressed the concepts of justice, our perceptions of disabilities, tragedies and humility. We opened our understanding of these concepts by incorporating Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist concepts in addition to our own reflections about Islam. Inevitably, we were forced to express our frustrations and lamentations on the Gaza crisis from an emotional and spiritual, rather than political, perspective. And halfway through the discussion, a girl who was sitting in the corner of the room spoke up for the first time in response to someones foreseeable question about revenge and retribution.

"It is hard...it's hard not to be over there," she offered, with a perceptible quiver on her breath and a growing red flush spreading over her face. She leaned up in her chair, as if eager to get this off her chest: "I've lost five relatives over there so far...five people. And, you know, sometimes I think..." She paused for a brief moment before continuing as her eyes began to overflow with water. "I think that if I could castrate every Israeli soldier and every Israeli who is doing this do us I would feel better, I would feel some sort of contentment - as if it were justice. But that's not true. I know that they won't come back and I...I think about the Israeli soldiers who are my age, doing things that they don't really understand or want to do. Seeing things they don't want to see. It just doesn't solve things - it wouldn't help at all."

She looked down and the rest of us in the room looked around to gauge each other's reactions or stared off into the space of our own deep thoughts. I found my own eyes watering from the plethora of emotions that flooded my thoughts and confused me. Guilt, awe, anger, hopelessness, sadness. Most of all, I found myself reeling from the mere fact that this girl, who was justified in every way to be filled with rage and despair was also empathizing for the very people who were directly involved in the killing of her young cousins, uncles and aunts. I don't know what she's going through and none of us can even begin to fathom what's really going on in Gaza. But the pictures, the protests, the tears, the children, the mothers, the babies, the blood, the destruction, the wailing, the bombs, the destroyed schools, the hunger, the desolation of a heart that has lost everything meaningful in life... how do they make you feel? How would you have reacted to my new friend's revelation? And would you have been able to sleep that night, without some sort reflection or prayer asking for just a bit of respite, relief or hope for the Palestinians and peace in the region.

A new year, a new start?

Ideas for bringing more activity to this blog (only to be implemented by consensus, of course):
- Everyone takes a turn being the weekly "post leader" who provides a question, quote, poem, puzzle, etc. for others to respond to (say 5-10 min. max, seeing as we all lead busy lives). It could be fun, thought-provoking, political, frivolous... anything, really.
- Book club/reading group - We all read something together and post about it here.
- Everyone quits job or school to devote much-needed time to this blog and loved ones. =P

Thoughts?