Anti-Arab Racism in the USA

An Interesting and informative book that speaks of anti-Arab Racism in the USA, where it comes from and what it means in politics today.

It highlight the American exceptional-ism Steven Salaita experienced growing up on Appalachia (on the Virginia/West Virginia border) where there weren't many immigrant families.  He explains how he (Christian, Jordanian, Palestinian, & Latino) was never quite American enough for the folks in town, his classmates, & teachers.  How they ridiculed even the food he brought to school in his lunchbox, calling stuffed grape-leaves, little pieces of dodo.

Whenever the subject of terrorism was discussed in class, Steven was always singled out and asked about his own opinion of the subject, always assuming that an Arab will have a view that is vastly different from that of the other White Americans in the class. And that was even before 9/11.

Another vivid memory that Steven writes about is how, when he accidentally kicked a soccer ball into his xenophobic neighbor's yard, this neighbor screamed at his father about his damn Arabian children.

The book also exposes the extent of Anti-Arab Racism and its connection to the Zionist lobby in the USA, especially in academia & the media. I was most upset reading how Edward Said's death was received and covered in the popular media in the USA. 

Steven Salaita is Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Tech. To visit his website, click here.

Sowing Crisis

Prior to reading Sowing Crisis, I had never thought that an "Arab Cold War" existed and that it was a direct product of the "Cold War" between the two major powers of the time, the USA & the USSR.

In "Sowing Crisis" Khalidi clearly illustrates the way in which these two "battles" are connected.

Really interesting read.

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Colombia University.

Click here to watch the talk titled: "Palestine: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession".

Out of Place

I've just finished reading Edward Said's autobiography Out of Place. Any book or article by the late Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, is a excellent source of enlightenment in many fields but especially so (at least for me) in the fields of Politics & Literature. (I am afraid his knowledge of classical music is way out of my league. Or maybe my knowledge of Pop music is way out of his!!)

Out of Place is Said's reflection on his earlier life were he is always wrestling with a foreignness whether he is in Jerusalem, Cairo, or America. Said, who is believed by many to be among the leading public intellectuals in the latter part of the twentieth century, does not shy from revealing how as a child, he has repeatedly failed to secure the respect (and sometimes even the love) of his parents and his teachers at the different schools he went to in Cairo & the US.

The only voice that believed in the Edward that we know today, was imprisoned inside "Edward the disappointment". Only after years of living away from his family & the British school system, had Edward stopped living up to his parents' and teachers' expectations of failure, and the confident & bright Edward was allowed to flourish and to take over. (Sometimes I too hear voices in my head about a great nahoul that is waiting to be discovered, but whenever I say this to my husband, he tells me that I am schizophrenic.)

The book is full of interesting thoughts that mainly revolve around his feeling of homelessness. For example, Edward Said says:"when I travel, I always take too much with me, and that even a trip downtown requires the packing of a briefcase stocked with items disproportionately larger in size and number than the actual period of the trip. Analyzing this, I concluded that I had a secret but ineradicable fear of not returning."

The book also includes many references to events and names that shaped the history of Egypt in the past century. The least significant, yet my favorite, is about an incident that took place during his Victoria College days. Said remembers how the school's arrogant head boy, had physically and verbally punished him and his closest friend (Mustafa Hamdollah) because they ridiculed him while watching a school sporting event. The next Said knew about the head boy Shalhoub was a decade later when he became my beloved Omar Sherif. (mental note: in my next life, I should not be mean to any of my schoolmates in case they later become famous and write an autobiography)

To be a reasonably objective critic, I have to admit that there is a disadvantage to all of Edward Said's work. I am rarely able to finish a page without needing to consult with the dictionary. But compared to the monologue from V for Vendetta (or even Nadia's comment), his books are not all that difficult after all.

On the last page of the book, Said comes to terms with his strangeness. He says:"Now it does not seem important or even desirable to be right and in place. Better to wander out of place, not ever to feel too much at home anywhere, especially in a city like New York, where I shall be until I die."

I highly recommend Out of Place.

The Lannan Foundation

I've found a gold mine!!! And since unlike depletable treasures, this one grows no matter how many people grab from its gems, I will share this gold mine with you.

Now repeat after me:"Ifta7 ya Lannan!!" (play along and imagine the annoying special sound effect of a huge rock moving).

Voila!!! It's the Lannan Foundation audio archive!!!!

I am sure you will enjoy any conversation/reading from the long list of true intellectuals who were guests of the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe. My favorite guests are:

Tariq Ali, Margaret Attwood, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Amy Goodman, John Pilger, Nadine Gordimer, Amira Hass, Seymour Hersh, Lewis Lapham, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, Ahdaf Soueif, Cornell West, & Howard Zinn.

BTW, if you know how to use iTunes, then go to Lannon's Podcast site, (Podcast was the word of the year in 2006. It is derived from the two words iPod & Broadcast) download some conversations to your iTunes and listen to them on your computer at your convenience. If you are hip (like moi) and have an iPod, then copy to your iPod to listen to them while away from your computer.

Enjoy (if you don't, then something is very wrong with ................... me)

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, among the gems, is a low life scorpion. Won't even mention his name not to give him the attention he does not deserve. If you haven't guessed who he is yet, he is "supposedly" a Muslim.

Ahdaf Soueif

About seven years ago, an American colleague of my husband asked me if I knew of an Egyptian novelist by the name Ahdaf Soueif. Filled with confidence (why is it that the more ignorant one is, the more confident one feels?) I replied: "This does not sound like an Egyptian name, I think you made a mistake." Since Jan had read Ahdaf's books, she insisted that Ahdaf was Egyptian. A quick Google search exposed my ignorance. I would have loved to cover the ignorance, by saying that the problem was the khawaga pronunciation of the name, but Jan is fluent in Arabic.

I never expected this incident to be a turning point in my life, but it definitely was. I read In the Eye of the Sun and it deeply touched me. I never identified with a character in a novel as I did with Asya. I then read her two books of short stories, Aisha & Sandpiper, and her second novel The Map of Love. I loved each one of them and wanted more. So I read all her articles that were available on the internet, then I reread In the Eye of the Sun, yes each and every word on the 800+ pages. I later read Mezzaterra & her translation of Murid Barghouti's I saw Ramallah & still wanted more.

By that time, I became confident that I have found my favorite novelist, and in spite of Margret Atwood's quote mentioned in this blog, I wanted to meet or at least know more about the person behind the pages. I emailed her. I remember that the question I sent her was very stupid, so I was truly surprised when she replied and her reply was sweet, humble, and graceful.

Ahdaf, who is a renowned and celebrated novelist in the west, could have easily gained more money and fame had she not chosen to embrace a brave stance on two issues:

• She recognized that Arab women writers' text is liable to misuse, and more so her own text since she writes in English, so she avoided controversial issues or discussed them with a sensitivity and an honesty that avert any misuse or misinterpretation.
• She repeatedly reflected her political beliefs in her work without any consideration to the expected aggression and assault of the Zionist machine and its supporters in the west. This stance might have cost her the Booker prize, but her reply was to intensify her activist work. Although she might have preferred to concentrate more on writing novels, after the death of her friend Edward Said, she did not hesitate in carrying the banner of the Palestinian cause.
  

Dear Ahdaf,

Thank you for your work, and for giving me an Egyptian role model I respect and love.
Thank you for helping me become a better, and less apathetic person.
Thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of Arab Women Writers.
Thank you for introducing me to the thought and work of the great Edward Said.
Thank you for bettering my sense of humor. My kids say that in the past couple of years, my jokes have gone from K.G. level to second grade, or even third grade level on some days.

your biggest fan,
nahoul

Check Ahdaf Soueif's site at: ahdafsoueif.com