A.R.T. 9/11

Monday, December 6, 2010

Does Palestine Still Exist? Did it Ever?

by Matthew Carlos Vargas Stehney

Currently, Palestine is a figment of our imagination. While the Palestinian Authority government holds symbolic power over the West Bank, it operates at the discretion and pleasure of Israel and the United States. Without the blessing of these occupational regimes, there would not be a Palestine, let alone a Palestinian government. It exists because we think it exists, in one form or another, but it is far from being a self sustaining, independent entity that could exist whether the world liked it or not. Western governments have been hesitant to recognize an independent Palestinian state, but the international community as a whole generally supports such an idea. Unfortunately for the first-world Western powers, former client state and third-world countries are establishing their independence from the first-world West, often through instituting socialist programs and removing themselves from the influence of Western institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. One such country is Brazil. In recent years, under the post-modern Socialist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil has established one of the world’s fastest growing economies and has quickly paid off its debt to the IMF, to the chagrin of first-world West who would have liked to maintain their influence in the region by forcing Brazil and surrounding countries to remain in debt. With this new found independence, Brazil has been able to voice its opinion, even when it is in opposition to traditional powers, and people are actually listening. This past weekend, the Brazilian imagination took a step beyond ours when it declared its recognition for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders (when Israel occupied Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank). Because peace talks have stalled as a result of the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, one recourse that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has is to somehow get the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders; Brazil’s recognition is a major first step in the process. The occupation of Palestine has been a contentious issue for the international community, especially the Muslim world. It is cited by Islamic extremists as one of the major grievances against the West, and especially the United States. Israeli settlement construction in occupied territories, according to Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar of the Middle East research & Information Project, “were understood by most Palestinians as marking out territory that Israel sought to annex,” in the final settlement of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority during the 1990s at Oslo. The mutual distrust at Oslo prevented any substantial agreement from being met between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, resulting in the Second Intifada (uprising) in 2000. With no gains made in the peace process, Beinin and Hajjar say that “top officials of the PA [Palestinian Authority] now say that UN resolutions must form the basis of future final status talks.” This is why our imagination is so important, and why the recent move by Brazil is critical for such resolutions. If more regional powers adopt resolutions recognizing the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, the UN would have to stop dragging its feet and address this crisis head-on. As extremists call for war against Israel and its supporters, such a resolution could only help deter violence (though some extremists may just replace their antipathy toward the occupation to direct antipathy toward the existence of Israel, if they haven’t already), though reduced violence should not be the sole reason to support an independent Palestine. Developed and developing countries, with little historical interest in the Middle East, should follow Brazil and declare their support for human dignity and self determination in Palestine. As formerly oppressed, formerly colonized people begin to gain their own footing in a global market and political network, they must show their support for those who are still under colonial rule, and no colonial occupation is more thorough than that in the Palestinian territories.

Helen Zughaib- "Changing Perceptions"

by Chelsea Brown

Does the painting on the left look familiar?

If you’ve studied any amount of Western art history, it should. It’s reminiscent of a Picasso, but something isn’t quite right. What is different about this image? Arab American artist Helen Zughaib wants her viewers to think about this question. Zughaib is a Lebanese American who lived the first part of her life in the Middle East and Europe. She later came to the United States to study art. Zughaib completed many works before September 11, 2001, but it will be her work post 9/11 that will gain her the most notoriety.

The painting above is a part of a series called “Secrets under the Abaya” where she illustrated Middle Eastern women, all wearing Abayas. The style of painting, however, is what makes her paintings interesting. Picasso is a well known Modernist painter and is associated with the Western school of art, even though he himself was Spanish. Zughaib has appropriated very western ideas of art to portray Eastern subjects.

She chose women in Abayas for this series because of the reputation that Middle Eastern women, and especially Muslims, have in the United States. We as “Christian” Americans feel the need to save Muslim women because we don’t understand the religion or the meaning behind the veil. Americans see the cultural norm of wearing an Abaya or Hijab as demeaning to women, when in context, it’s the complete opposite. The Bush administration was well known for saying that Muslim women need to be “saved”. Author Lilia Abu-Lughod believes that the Bush administration used the “oppression” of Muslim women as one of the strong justifications for going to war in Afghanistan. Zughaib’s depiction of women wearing Abayas is the visualization of the complexities of wearing a veil in Muslim culture- it is a concept that non-Muslims, and especially Americans, do not understand completely.

Zughaib’s post 9/11 work is just as remarkable. In response to the terrorist attacks, Zughaib made a series of 2-d works that depicted Muslim scenes using stereotypically American colors and patterns. The geometric patterns she used can be interpreted as quilt pieces (a symbol of traditional Americana) or as Muslim tile pieces. The meaning is ambiguous. By blending cultural artistic practices and making them indistinct, she is bridging the gaps of Middle Eastern and American cultures. She herself is also portraying the meaning of her identity via painting. As a Lebanese American, she is caught between two cultures and is left to determine how to interpret both. This was especially a problem after 9/11, when many Americans were blaming the whole of the Arab and Muslim population for the terrorist attacks. The hyphenated identity, at least in this context, can leave immigrants, or descendants of immigrants, feeling alienated from the rest of the community.

Zughaib’s paintings are an interesting bridge between two cultures and they redefine what being an “American” means. Her skillful use of western painting methods with the depiction of Middle Eastern subjects leave much for the viewer to consider.

To see more of Helen Zughaib’s work, please check out her website.

Bibliography
Abu-Lughod, Lilia. "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving." American Anthropologists (2002): 783. Web. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/22843884/Lila-Abu-Lughod-Do-Muslim-Women-Really-Need-Saving>.

Helen Zughaib. 2009. Web. 07 Dec. 2010. <http://www.hzughaib.com/>.

One Man’s Divine Calling to Respond to 9/11 through Faith, Acceptance

By Ben Verdi, in response to http://www.pbs.org/itvs/caughtinthecrossfire/khader.html and http://www.curenyc.com/index.htm

Rev. Khader El-Yateem was born in the West Bank in 1968, and was raised a Christian. Now he sits on the board of an organization called “CURE: Community Understanding of Racial Equality” in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife and four children, and makes his life as a Lutheran Reverend. While he is a happily married, devoted father, there is something special about this reverend that puts him in an unusually opportunistic position to be a community leader on multiple fronts.

That is, he is an Arab-American man who is also a Christian minister. A rather well-known one in fact, for he was the subject of a PBS documentary series called “Caught in the Crossfire” which profiled Arab-Americans in post-9/11 American society and gleaned from them testimonies and responses to the tragedy as raw and authentic as they are inspirational.

His is an unbelievable story. Born in the West Bank, he was captured at the age of 20, along with the rest of his family, by Israeli soldiers and tortured for almost two months. He eventually was released and almost immediately fell in love and got married to an Arab woman bound for America, leaving his home country and people to begin a new life in New York City, the bad taste of his past still in his mouth.

By September 11^th 2001, El-Yateem had earned his masters degree in Divinity and founded the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York. After 9/11, however, his role in the community became one he couldn’t possibly have anticipated, but one he couldn’t have been better prepared for. His church became an artistic response to 9/11 in some ways, as he personally helped counsel people of all faiths and backgrounds after the tragedy, as many Muslims as Chrisitians, as many people who’d lost someone in the collapse of the World Trade Center as people who had been attacked for the ways they looked and dressed in the time thereafter.

To use his own words, Yateem says: “I feel like God calls me to be here.” The “here” he refers to is New York City, and few who have benefitted from his counsel, his faith and his unending compassion for the community around him, would disagree.

It really does seem as though this perfectly-placed Arab-American’s response to 9/11, when considering the hard times he lived through as a young man on the West Bank, was engineered by a higher power.

His resolve and faith, tested and refined in the torture chambers of his homeland, his peaceful and accepting view toward all the people who have sought his help since 9/11, and the ways in which he still attempts to deconstruct religious, racial and cultural barriers by working for the CURE organization in Brooklyn highlight one of the most noble ways that any New Yorker, Arab-American, or any person for that matter, has responded to 9/11.

Amreeka: Making it Work in America

By Elle Mastenbrook

Amreeka (2009) is a film about a family that moves from Palestine to the United States, and it is an excellent film that depicts some of the struggles that immigrants from the Middle Eastern region of the world face when they enter the United States. It combines humor with a serious message about acceptance into American life, and overall it is very effective. The movie chronicles Muna and Fadi, a mother and son, and the experiences they have. Here is a brief summary:

The main character, Muna, is a single mother that received a work visa to work in the United States. With encouragement from her son Fadi, she decided to move to the United States. They lived with Muna’s sister upon their arrival. They came to the state of Illinois, which was a huge change from Palestine. Muna got a job at White Castle, but told her family she was working at the bank next door to it because she was too ashamed of her actual employment. Fadi, who was 16, enrolled in school, and had to deal with being the outsider. During the time period that the film is set in, the United States began its war with Iraq. This led to many problems for Fadi. Some of the students at his school were very openly racist, and he got called names and was bullied. Muna and Fadi eventually found their place in their new home, but it wasn’t without difficulty. They had to deal with having an Arab identity in a very patriotic American city, and it took them awhile to find their place. But with the support of their family, and kind strangers, they started to consider America, or in Arabic, Amreeka, to be their home.

This story was very interesting to me, because it was not shy about the racism towards Arabs that existed post-9/11, and at the beginning of the Iraq War. The director and writer, Cherien Dabis, used this film to show viewers the kind of discrimination that they can prevent. It destroyed the binary of the “Other”, and demonstrated that everyone should be treated equally, despite their background. Muna was a very kind woman, and was always trying to make people happy. She bonded with her coworkers at White Castle, which led to some very hilarious moments in the film. Despite her good intentions, she had to deal with ignorance towards her culture. In one part, as seen in the trailer, she was sitting down for an interview, and her interviewer asked her if she was from an Israeli country, and she replied that no, she was Arab. To this he replied, “Don’t blow the place up.” The assumption that all Arabs are terrorists was not uncommon when the film takes place, and there are many Americans today that still believe us.
What many Americans do not realize, however, is that many Arab and Muslim Americans were just as affected by September 11^th as non-Arab and Muslim Americans. They lost friends and family in the attacks, and were very upset by the acts of the terrorists. Robert Stam and Ella Shohat dealt the us/them binary, which came about after the attacks on 9/11. It established all Americans as “us” and all Arabs and Muslims as “them”, or the “Other.” In their preface of their book Flagging Patriotism they explain that not all Arabs are Muslim, and many of them are Christian or Jewish, just like “us.” They also talked about “the border between ‘us’ and ‘them’… is constantly shifting” (Preface xvii). Amreeka dealt with this border by developing the characters of Muna and Fadi in a very thoughtful way. Muna grew through her employment at White Castle, and learned not to be ashamed of certain aspects of her life. Fadi became stronger, and found his identify through standing up to his classmates that harassed him because of his Palestinian heritage. Cherien Dabis did a fantastic job in this movie dealing with the “Other”, and gave a heartwarming tale of overcoming hardships through perseverance, and familial support. This film is a must-see for anyone interested in modern immigration during the aftermath of September 11^th.

Check out the trailer below...

Doris Bittar- The Blending of Cultures

by Chelsea Brown

We as Americans are used to seeing the image of the American Flag everywhere. It is the ultimate sign of patriotism like any country’s flag. It is a symbol of pride and the American spirit. More recently, in modern and contemporary art, the symbol of the American flag has been co-opted to represent other things.

Abstract Expressionist painter Jasper Johns turned the image of the flag into a pop art icon, much akin to Andy Warhol’s silk screen prints of a Campbell’s Soup can. The appropriation of American symbolism has since been a topic of popular debate among artists and art historians alike.

A contemporary and rather controversial artist to do this is Lebanese American artist Doris Bittar. Bittar’s work is unique in that she frames the American flag and other Western icons from a distinctly Arab American standpoint. She weaves together American, European, and Middle Eastern cultures through her images. She uses Arab, and more specifically, Islamic imagery to frame and to comment upon American values and icons.

When asked about her work, Bittar states that she uses colonialism as one of her main influences. When the Gulf War happened in 1991, Bittar felt alienated. As an Arab American, she saw her friends and even family members have a very pro-American one sided view of the war. As an Arab American, she is caught between the two cultures. Since then, she has never gotten rid of the feeling of alienation. Her use of distinctly Islamic motifs on American imagery conveys this confliction within her identity. She sees the rest of the world, and specifically America, through the cultural lens of an Arab American. She is not unpatriotic, like the concept mentioned in Ella Shohat and Robert Stam’s book “Flagging Patriotism” defines, nor is she xenophobic. She is simply trying to navigate the idea of what it means to be an Arab American post-gulf war and 9/11.

Bittar’s work challenges the idea of what it means to be an American. The American icons of apple pie, baseball, and above all, the American flag are nostalgic symbols of Americanism. America no longer embodies the idea of “Main Street U.S.A.” with white heteronormative practices of the nuclear family and success through hard work (if it ever actually did). Times are changing- and the immigrant story is becoming more and more relevant. Hyphenated identities are becoming the norm and in turn, what it means to be an American. Bittar’s unique and witty combinations of American and Middle Eastern imagery are the visual interpretation of the hyphenated identity of an immigrant. As an immigrant who came to the U.S. when she was 6 years old, she is struggling to take hold of her Lebanese identity as well as the American one. She is visualizing the struggle between these two cultures in her paintings. Her story is just one out of the millions who have immigrated here.

Bittar’s work also recognizes the personal struggle of individuals, both here in the U.S. and abroad. Her series Coffee Stories, recognizes the story of the individual through the common, but personal practice of making coffee. Her work bridges the gap between the stories of the millions to the uniquely personal story of the individual. This is in addition to the bridging and combining of cultures through the combination of popular cultural imagery.

To see more of Doris Bittar’s work, check out her website and the Youtube video below.

Bibliography

Babaie, Sussan. "Visual Cultures of Islam." Ann Arbor. Winter 2008. Lecture.

"Doris Bittar." Welcome to DorisBittar.com. Web. 08 Dec. 2010. <http://www.dorisbittar.com/>.

Potts, Alex. "Modernism and Abstract Expressionism." HistArt 272. Ann Arbor. Fall 2009. Lecture.

Stam, Robert, and Ella Shohat. "Preface." Flagging Patriotism: Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism. New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.

They are Welcome in Whose Country?

by Matthew Carlos Vargas Stehney

“We have nothing against Muslims, they are welcome in our country, they are welcome to worship, we have freedom of religion, we have freedom of speech…they are welcome.”

-Reverend Terry Jones on why he is going to burn the Qur’an.

Recently, a crazy person hijacked the media spotlight and directed it to his small church in Florida, whose congregation was planning to have a Qur’an burning celebration on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Reverend Terry Jones and the members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL felt that burning the most sacred book of the Muslim faith would be a statement against Terrorism. What many have overlooked is that, through the above quote, Reverend Jones not only brings into question the legitimacy of burning the Muslim holy book, but also brings into question American subjectivity and citizenship. Unfortunately for many Muslim Americans, the 9/11 attacks further removed them from the realm of the American subject. Muslim and Arab Americans have been essentialized as inherently outside the boundaries of what is American. However, a question arises from quotes such as this: when does ‘their’ become ‘our?’ If a Muslim becomes an American citizen, or is born an American citizen, or whose grandparents were born American citizens, or is an American citizen who became Muslim; is what they do not then essentially American? Not according to the good reverend, or to a large number of Americans for that matter. They are welcome in our country. This implies that Islam cannot be American, and therefore its adherents are only visitors, or immigrants, but not Americans. Muslim and Arab Americans have had to remind the public that they are also Americans, and were also attacked on 9/11. According to scholars Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr, following the 9/11 attacks, “Middle Eastern and Muslim American leaders…proactively claimed the rightful place of their constituents in American Society,” and advocated for American Muslims and Arabs from a civil rights platform. This platform is inherently American, operating from within American political and social framework to declare rights as Americans. To these leaders, this is not a conflict between American interests and their own, it is a declaration of rights as American subjects. Bakalian and Bozormehr also cite a post 9/11 study where Americans who displayed the American flag were polled on their reasons for doing so. While various reason for displaying the flag were given, “the authors [of the poll] found a positive correlation between displaying flags and having negative stereotypes of Arabs…some even saying ‘I would like to exclude Arabs from my country,’” despite the fact that many Arabs and Muslims were displaying the same flag at the same time. Is it not their country too? Doesn’t an Arab or Muslim American citizen have just as much a right to say they don’t want someone in their country (the US, if you have yet to catch on)? That is the essential debate prompted by the opening quote of this post. It is impossible to say that Muslims are one way while Americans are another, if you are including Muslims who are also Americans in your statement; it’s a logical fallacy. What Reverend Jones et al fails to realize is that if a Muslim American prays five times a day, then praying five times a day is an American practice; if a Muslim American goes on Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, then going on Hajj is an American practice. Of course, not everyone’s Americanness can be questioned, a white Christian citizen could never be excluded from American subjectivity, regardless of when their family came to this country, or what they did to it. Would Terry Nichols or Timothy McVey ever cause Christianity or whiteness to be cast from what is essentially American? While many would like to believe that whiteness and Christianity are the foundation of American subjectivity, *cough – Tea Party – cough* no American citizen has the right to declare dominion over what is considered American, over the interests of other American citizens. That is the imaginary beauty of the American experiment: equal citizenship under the law. Unfortunately, the American subject has been racialized or essentialized at every point in its history, to the exclusion of others, despite the fact that the rhetoric of American ethics and morals contradicts these exclusionary practices. Will the “melting pot” or “mixed salad” ever actually describe America?

Healing Through Music

By Elle Mastenbrook, in response to http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/arts/drawing-a-rap-refrain-from-a-un-resolution.html

There are many ways that Arabs and Muslims have dealt with the aftermath of September 11^th, and one of the most entertaining is through music. Iron Sheik is a Palestinian rap artist who uses his music to make political statements on various problems he sees in modern society. He has rapped about most everything, from getting searched at the airport to the quest for oil, and he even has a song called “Conversation with Edward Said.” Edward Said is a famous scholar, best known for his work titled Orientalism, which was revolutionary in depicting the way Western culture perceives Middle Eastern culture. In Orientalism he criticized how definitions of the Orient created a binary between Western and Eastern culture. “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient- dealing with by making statements about it, authorizing views of it… in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating… and having authority of the Orient” (Said 69). Here he is stating that by labeling and critiquing the Orient, Western powers are establishing an authority over the region, therefore gaining all the power. Iron Sheik responded to Said’s ideas, and applied it to the occupation in Palestine. In his song “Conversation with Edward Said” he intermingles quotes of Said’s with his own lyrics, and makes a very powerful song. He slams the United States’ support of Israel, and criticizes their lack of help towards all of the Palestinian grievances.

Iron Sheik’s real name is Will Youmans, and he just so happens to be a graduate of the University of Michigan, and is currently working on his PhD there. He also received his law degree from the University of California at Berkley. He was born in Detroit, and has made quite the name for himself not only as a rapper, but a scholar as well. He has performed all over the world, and has had featured in many prominent news outlets, including the New York Times. In a review of one of his performances, author Danny Hakim wrote:

“And then Mr. Youmans began a set that substituted political statements for the four-letter words of other raps. He extolled the festivalgoers to get out of the bleachers and crowd the stage. He invited their reactions to various hot buttons, asking, ''Who here likes Fox News?'' and jabbing with banter like: ''The next song is about George W. It's called 'Low Expectations.'” (NY Times 07/08/2004). He is very liberal, which can be seen through his lyrics, and unlike a lot of other rappers, he has extensive knowledge to back up what he talks about. In this video clip, it shows Will Youmans on a news program and he raps about the violence and displacement that is taking place in Palestine:

As you can see, he is very knowledgeable about what is happening abroad, and he is using his music to get the word out to a broader audience.

All in all, the Iron Sheik has a good message for those who will listen. He wants peace for the Middle East, particularly Palestine, and his awareness of the issues make his arguments even more valid. And he is a Michigan Wolverine, so he obviously is very intelligent. Music is a great outlet for people dealing with grievances, and maybe if more Arab or Muslim Americans used this medium then their injustices could be addressed. The more the word gets out there, the more the Western/Eastern binary of us versus them can be disintegrated. September 11^th was a horrific tragedy, but why doesn’t the United States address the tragedies they are imposing on Palestine. The Iron Sheik wants to get the message out, and chose rap as his way to this. What will you do to make more people more aware of the problems that you see in the world? Just something to think about…