CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
Entries by Manan Ahmed
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Onion's Historical Archive
This week's The Onion is a must-read.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Wiki Links
Charles Hayford has some key thoughts on Wikipedia from a China/Asia perspective:Living With Wikipedia: It's Here to Stay (Oct 7), Improving Wikipedia: Techniques and Strategies (Oct 9), and a wrap-up, Living With Wikipedia (China Beat) and Social Bookmarking.
Some more noteworthy links:
@ Economist: The battle for Wikipedia's soul, May 8th, 2008.
@ All The Modern Things Wikipedia, the deeply conservative and traditional encyclopedia, Oct 10th, 2008.
and a favorite: The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump .
Friday, September 26, 2008
Jack Tucker Wins
I submit that if you read only one confessional essay by a "history PhD pretending to be a professional bowler to tweak the academic noses of his universitys alum and cohorts" this year, you read:
Jack Tucker, PhD'72, University of Chicago: Spare Me.
Jack Tucker is the author of A Social and Economic History of Bowling from the Druids to the Age of Don Weber.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Crossed - Informal Symposium
Those who participated in the discussion below, on Nicole Galland's novel Crossed or those merely curious, can "look inside" the book, courtesy of HarperCollins.
Let this be a call to all medievalists and presentists.
There is no such thing as an "informal" symposium, so let this be a general call to arms. If you read the novel/most of the novel/some of the novel/ and want to comment, please send me your submission at mananatuchicagodotcom and I will take care of the rest. Those who post something on their own sites, please drop me a link to your post. No deadline - I will just post if/when there is a quorum.
The Fourth Crusade is the new Third Crusade.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Luttwhack
The Public Editor for NYT has a note today, Entitled to Their Opinions, Yes. But Their Facts?. Hoyt writes that he called up five experts of Islamic jurisprudence and they all said Luttwak was wrong. And that the editors of the op-ed page never consulted any such experts because, they don't "customarily call experts to invite them to weigh in on the work of our contributors". Not only that, David Shipley, the editor of the Op-Ed page does not "think the Op-Ed page was under any obligation to present an alternative view, beyond some letters to the editor."
Your liberal press in action.
[see earlier: Once a Muslim]
Surfing on Crowds
A week or so ago Stephen Mihm had an interesting article in Boston Globe, Everyone's a historian now: How the Internet - and you - will make history deeper, richer, and more accurate. Mihm concentrated on the effect of crowd sourcing on history as a research/archival practice, but I have been thinking about the positive contributions to pedagogy as well.
Google Earth - the application which allows you to fly around the world and find oddities - is a case in point. Historians would be delighted to know that Google Earth has an amazing array of communities dedicated to charting out time and event in space. Take, for example, the battles and routes of Alexander the Great which includes his route, maps of cities and sites of battles. You can download the .kmz file (aka the Google Earth file) and open it up in your copy of Google Earth. Now you can fly like a bird alongside Alexander with notes and comments from the wikipedia, from the Google Earth community, from National Geographic and host of other sources. Surely, you can see the amazing opportunity that offers as an aid-in-teaching. Or, look at the Life of Muhammad which is incredibly detailed time and place map of the Prophet. Or, Paris in 1808. Or, footsteps of Buddha. You can find your own interest at the moderated History,Illustrated forum or the broader Educators forum. You can also simply search for keywords with .kmz extensions.
Going back to Mihm, these are more than collective applications of research or documentation; they allow us to present history in altogether new formats to our students. It grants a physicality to history that often has to struggle to be taken as "real" - separated as it is with time and distance from any typical classroom (yes, I wish I was teaching Civil War history in South Carolina or Muhammad b. Qasim in Thatta). This is not simply crowd-sourcing intelligence, it is re-illuminating our solo-sourced research with crowd-generated technology.
The recent news at Google I/O was that Google Earth is coming to the browser which opens up great possibilities of creating our own versions of digital archives that adhere to the geographical spaces.
[x-posted at CM]
Monday, May 12, 2008
Once a Muslim
For a while, the exemplar op-ed for ridiculousness and gross violation of logic, reason, history and straw-men argumentation was Bernard Lewis's appearance on the WSJ pages declaring the End of Times. But, I think that standard has now been met, if not exceeded, by Edward Luttwak's incredibly offensive President Apostate? Love that Question Mark. Oh, Luttwak, why the Question Mark? Tell us how you really know and understand the 1 billion Muslims and their burning hatreds.
To what purpose does NYT give space to such claptrap? I am sure there are many thousands of voices waiting for the ability to speak to NYT's global audience. And they chose this partisan hack?
[x-posted at CM]
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
More Noted Things (Tech Edition)
I am still looking around for the definitive history of geek clothes through the ages but this great photo essay - The history of computer data storage, in pictures - provides some classic examples.
A good supplement is this exhibit - Storage Photo Album at IBM. (The IBM-1311, IBM 3340 and the IBM-3410 being outrageously hip examples).
And if you are now on a ye olde computer kick (like me), you should head over to HP's Virtual Museum - which, sure, doesn't have cool models but does have this watch.
What's that? How did the micro-processor develop to keep pace with the growing storage and computing demands? The Intel Museum's Microprocessor Hall of Fame is here to help you.
All these photographs will, of course, make you curious and you will head over to Kodak and check out the nice chronology of imaging, itself. Also relevant, this timeline at Eastman.
You think these corporations want to hire a historian?
Late Update: While we are still in the techie edition, I want to highlight Trevor Owens' excellent notice on online compendiums like JSTOR, Zotero and the resulting Radical Transparency in Historical Writing. Worth reading/thinking about.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Food Fight: History of 20th Century Wars Through Food
From BoingBoing TV, comes Stefan Nadelman's food mayhem:
Decline Scenario
Chief Cliopat Ralph Luker is away for the next few days. Which gives me the opportunity to recycle!
In a rather half-hearted piece for TNR, Imperial Illusions, Amartya Sen spends some time ruminating on the good/bad of British colonialism in India with an eye towards comparison with the American imperialism. He offers a sketch of the 2,000 year old pre-history of British rule in India as a "country" with "global influence". Though, he places this global India squarely in 'Ancient realm' and gives us examples only from the second or the fourth century and cites only Claudius Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder - Roman accounts of the Red Sea trade with the East. After having set the stage from centuries ago, Sen jumps straight to "a normal monsoon day, with occasional rain in the town of Plassey, situated among mango groves between Calcutta", where British won India in 1757.
In this particularly cataracted vision of Indian history, Sen can declare, without any historical discomfort, that the 150 years of past and 150 years of coming future of British rule in India all hinged on one lieutenant of the local Nawab switching allegiance mid-"cricket match". After that uniquely Bengali insight, Sen continues to treat all of British colonial history with the same generalized brush as he treats Indian political and economic history. And, he concludes:
In assessing Britain's relation with India in this year of anniversaries, we must make a clear distinction between the positive contributions of the British in bringing India more closely into the global world (including many domestic institutional changes) and the plentiful presence of inequity and negligence in British imperial rule. It is important to appreciate the positive impact of India's British association, but also to recognize that the changes that were important for India could have come without the colonial adversities. India's approach to the contemporary world was certainly aided by many initiatives that can be linked to British influence, and many of these potentials have come into their own only after the end of the colonial rule.
All of this, is largely standard Indian nationalist historiography. Hundreds of books peddle the same script of Indian and colonial pasts. The curious elision of centuries, the disappearances of key geographies and the History from the Present aspects are neither new nor unique to Sen but he has definitely elevated the discourse.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
FREE JSTOR
A few weeks ago, danah boyd wrote her resolve to publish only in Open Access journals. I couldn't agree more - being an ardent supporter of scholarship that is freely accessible. One of my biggest complaint about our academic world is about the inaccessibility of research to anyone without institutional affiliation or a hefty bank account. The impact of which is that, academic work in the humanities remains largely confined to a handful of readers and commentators.
The comments to boyd's piece were rather over-blown - highlighting the needed work of editors, production costs, peer-reviews etc etc. As if, those things are tied simply to dead-tree models of capitalism. As if, NYTimes, WSJ, and every other daily newspaper doesn't generate revenue from online sources. As if, the pay-for-archives wall hasn't crumbled everywhere else. The simple fact is that there are enough alternate revenue streams for any peer-review, niche academic jorunal to make its living via an open, public, archive and publication model. Other commentators, fixated on the struggle to start new OA journals - and the requirements of tenure stream to stick with prestigious print models. Good points both. The first step is, of course, to convince journals to move to Open Access.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Commons
The wildly popular photo-sharing site, Flickr recently announced a new initiative of interest to historians: The Commons - a unique attempt to expand public history and technology. They debuted with two Library of Congress photo sets and the promise of more.
The appeal for historians, as stated on LoC Blog:
The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over. We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.
Flickr promises that more cultural institutions will be joining up in the future - using perhaps their new designation for copyright: "No Known Copyright Restrictions". Intriguing possibilities....
Thursday, January 3, 2008
George MacDonald Fraser, 1925-2008
The author of one of my favorite series of historical fiction, George MacDonald Fraser, creator of Harry Flashman, has died at the age of 82. If you haven't read the adventures of Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE, I suggest a hasty start.
As I've said, it was Sir Daniel Darnley who led me to Esquemeling, and Conan Doyle to Froissart, Graves to Suetonius and Tacitus, Henry to Kinglake, Mayne Reid to Bancroft, the Wolf of Kabul to Kaye and Mallinson, and Sabatini to more than I can count. Yes, and Forever Amber to Macaulay, Pepys and Evelyn, and Gone With the Wind to Bruce Catton and Samuel Eliot Morison. Nor must I omit 1066 And All That, the best introduction to history ever written.
If this proves anything, it is that there is no truer guide to the past than good historical fiction. There is nothing phoney about it; while I tend to distrust approaches to education which suggest that it is an enjoyable game (when we know it is just hard slogging), the good costume novel is telling no more than the truth when it suggests that real history is fun and excitement and glamour and suspense; that it has all the ingredients of a great adventure story. But of course, that is what history is.
It does not matter if the historical novel is pure unashamed fiction, with plot and characters owing nothing to historic fact, so long as it is properly researched and reflects, as faithfully as the writer knows how, the period and its spirit. Better still, of course, to write what a Sabatini reviewer called 'history disguised as fiction' -- that is, to take historic truth and present it as a story, weaving in whatever fictitious incidents and characters are needed to oil the narrative's wheels, but never, never falsifying or distorting the truth on which it is based. Fairness above all, to the best of the writer's ability; it isn't always easy, but history and the reader deserve no less.
Friday, December 14, 2007
US Saudi Relations Timeline
I didn't watch the movie, The Kingdom, but these opening credits are certainly an intriguing use of historical timeline. They present US/Saudi Arabia relations in re: to Oil and radical Wahabbi ideology. There is much to process here ... at least, one key event is missing from that overview ... but the knowledge that this was all in service of a pretty maudlin blow-em-up is kinda depressing.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Cartesian Blogging
Errol Morris is now answering his reader's comments at Zoom. The first response caught my eye:
Errol Morris better get the Cliopatria award for Best Series of Post ... just saying.A number of readers have claimed that I am not producing a blog — that I am producing a series of essays. Nomenclature aside, the idea of publishing the responses of readers to a given text (and even to including an author’s responses to those responses) goes back at least to the 17th century.
I recently read an account of this in A.C. Grayling’s biography of Descartes:
The great interest generated by the Discourse persuaded Descartes of two things, that he had to leave mathematics behind him, and that he needed to write a more careful and thorough account of his philosophy… The writing of the Meditations on First Philosophy — began to occupy him. And he made a strategic decision: that he would circulate the Meditations before publication, soliciting objections; and that he would publish the objections, together with his replies, along with the text of the Meditations itself.
A.C. Grayling, “Descartes: The Life and Times of a Genius”This is from the 1685 edition of the “Meditations” in the Library of Congress. It is arranged in three sections: the meditations are first, then the first objection and Descartes’ reply, followed by a second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth round of objections and replies.
So what is going on here? I believe it should appropriately be called … “Cartesian Blogging.”
Monday, December 3, 2007
A Muslim Like Obama
Sir, you make a mistake listening to people who tell you how much our stand alienates black men in this country. I'd guess actually we have the sympathy of 90 percent of the black people. There are 20,000,000 dormant Muslims in America. A Muslim to us is somebody who is for the black man; I don't care if he goes to the Baptist Church seven days a week. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that a black man is born a Muslim by nature. There are millions of Muslims not aware of it now. All of them will be Muslims when they wake up; that's what's meant by the Resurrection. Malcolm X in a conversation with Alex Haley, Playboy Magazine, May, 1963.
The recent week has seen two major stories about the political baggage of "being Muslim" in United States.
The first was Mitt Romney's refusal to consider a Muslim as a Presidential advisor in his Cabinet - specifically to advise him on "jihadism" (obviously, that is the only field in which a Muslim can claim expertise). On Nov 27th, Mansoor Ijaz, "an American-born citizen of the Islamic faith", reported this exchange in the CSM:
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Mitt Romney denied that he expressed this as reported, but multiple sources have since emerged confirming Ijaz's account. The story, as it was covered on DailyTPM, Freepers, etc., received lots of comments that generally tended to agree with Romney. "Having a muslim in the cabinet would be like having a Japanese guy in the cabinet in WWII" and "Wait... how does this hurt Romney?!? From what I can see, he will get a bounce out of this! Much of middle America would strongly support his perspective and likely hold it themselves".
The other story was the WaPo front page story, Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him, Nov 29, 2007:
Since declaring his candidacy for president in February, Obama, a member of a congregation of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, has had to address assertions that he is a Muslim or that he had received training in Islam in Indonesia, where he lived from ages 6 to 10. While his father was an atheist and his mother did not practice religion, Obama's stepfather did occasionally attend services at a mosque there.
Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.
We live in a rumor-based society where spurious flyers can derail campaigns and invented words like "swift-boating" scarcely raise a Colbert eyebrow. So it is no surprise that such internet rumors are given equal credence by the WaPo. The entire story is written with the "he said/they say/people claim" and the denials are restricted solely for the campaign - which "keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate's Christian faith" - and for Obama - "If I were a Muslim, I would let you know". At no point, does WaPo sully itself by actually reporting that Obama is not a Muslim. Understandably, some are upset at the WaPo.
It is perhaps no great shock to anyone that a healthy amount of Islamophobia exists in the current political and cultural climate. The absurdities of teddy bears named Muhammad are constantly played in our media as de facto expressions of an irrational and medieval faith - with nary a word on the political machinations behind the street protests.
These stories about Obama's faith and Romney's Islamophobia, however, cannot be lumped in with the more generic fear of a Muslim planet. They illustrate, much more starkly, the fear of hidden loyalties within a population that cannot ever be assimilated (birth in America being no benefit) and draw on a more a complicated history in America - a history of Islam's arrival and subsequent life on American soil - which is intertwined with the history of slavery and an oppressed minority. Islamdom's medieval encounter with Christendom has received ample historical and scholarly attention but the American continent has largely remained unexamined. Or if examined, it is noted for obscurity.
Islam came to America with the Africans who were kidnapped, enslaved and shipped to the New World for labor. Here is an early Virginia Law from James City, 1682 covering Muslims (negroes, moores, mollatoes), mandatory conversions, and the continuance of the state of slavery:
An act to repeale a former law makeing Indians and others ffree.
WHEREAS by the 12 act of assembly held att James Citty the 3d day of October, Anno Domini 1670, entituled an act declareing who shall be slaves, it is enacted that all servants not being christians, being imported into this country by shipping shall be slaves, but what shall come by land shall serve if boyes and girles untill thirty yeares of age, if men or women, twelve yeares and noe longer; and for as much as many negroes, moores, mollatoes and others borne of and in heathenish, idollatrous, pagan and mahometan parentage and country have heretofore, and hereafter may be purchased, procured, or otherwise obteigned as slaves of, from or out of such their heathenish country by some well disposed christian, who after such their obteining and purchaseing such negroe, moor, or molatto as their slave out of a pious zeale, have wrought the conversion of such slave to the christian faith, which by the laws of this country doth not manumitt them or make them free,
.... And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that all servants except Turkes and Moores, whilest in amity with his majesty which from and after publication of this act shall be brought or imported into this country, either by sea or land, whether Negroes, Moors, Mollattoes or Indians, who and whose parentage and native country are not christian at the time of their first purchase of such servant by some christian, although afterwards, and before such their importation and bringing into this country, they shall be converted to the christian faith; and all Indians which shall hereafter be sold by our neighbouring Indians, or any other trafiqueing with us as for slaves are hereby adjudged, deemed and taken, and shall be adjudged, deemed and taken to be slaves to all intents.
These Muslim "slaves, Africans, mulatto's, moors and all" - unable to change their beings, whether converted or not - largely disappear from the main streams of American historiography, even as fears of rebellions, miscegenation and foreign loyalties plague the white American imagination.
The Ahmadiyya movement, the Babist movement and a world wide 'resurgence of Islam' were key anxieties for the American public at the turn of the century. Babist Propaganda Making Headway Here declared an alarmed NYT in December, 1904. Islam Gaining on Christianity; Missionaries Admit They Are Losing Ground Against the Teachers of the Koran was heard a decade later. The emergence of the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam in the 1920s and 1930s - led by Nobel Drew Ali and Elijah Mohammad - certainly crystallized these fears: Calls Negroes to Islam; Detroit Man Would Lead Exodus to Anatolia, Fleeing Color Prejudice. FBI surveillance, community policing and militia-formation ensued.
The rumors about Obama's faith, then, are not just manifestations of a post 9/11 Islamophobia or a peculiar xenophobia about his African father. They are, in fact, uniquely American - based on our long history of mis-trust and mis-apprehension of a faith that we associate with our own 'Others'.
Last week, I signed my name to a public statement issued by Historians for Obama. I wasn't too enamored by the statement itself; I thought that historians could certainly demonstrate the historical import behind Barack Obama's candidacy much more forcefully. I hope that historians who signed that statement will carry forward their impulse. I hope they write about the burdens of history hoisted upon Barack Obama as he moves towards the nomination. He is certainly a unique individual, and uniquely placed, to force this nation to remember, again and again, what it constantly chooses to forget - its histories of oppression, fear and hatred. Barack Obama's own personal history is a testament to a brighter future for our nation. We can certainly make that case to the American public on his behalf - perhaps even counter some rumors.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Festivals & Maps
The city of Chicago is playing host to two festivals this month. First is the Festival of Maps - with an amazing array of exhibits and events related to the history of cartography. Of special note, to me, are European Cartographers and the Ottoman World, 1500-1750: Maps from the Collection of O.J. Sopranos, Mapping Manifest Destiny: Chicago and the American West, Ptolemy’s Geography and Renaissance Mapmakers, and An Atlas of Radical Cartography among many others. In conjunction, the Chicago Tribune has put up some maps from their collection as well. I am really keen on this one on the British Empire (sadly not at a decent resolution...).
The other festival is 18th Annual Chicago Humanities Festival which features a talk by noted world historian, William H. McNeill.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
On Photographs: Conclusion
By thinking about the Fenton photographs we are essentially thinking about some of the most vexing issues in photography – about posing, about the intentions of the photographer, about the nature of photographic evidence – about the relationship between photographs and reality.
The third, and final, part of Errol Morris's remarkable essay on Robert Fenton's two photographs is now out.
Like I said before, it is essential reading for us historians. I especially enjoyed the postscript:
"POSTSCRIPT: History is always incomplete. There is always the possibility that new historical evidence can be found. A safe crammed with documents, photographs in a hatbox, a packet of letters tied with a faded yellow-ribbon. I spoke with Dennis Purcell recently and asked, “Do you think these essays will put this issue – the issue of which came first – finally to rest.” Dennis replied, “No. I don’t think so. There could be some guy who reads your essays, writes in, and says: ‘You know, there aren’t just two photographs. I found another. There are actually three.’ ”"
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Calling Historians of South Asia and Other Interested Parties
Via Sanjay Joshi comes this call for participation at the AHA 2008:
This is to invite historians of South Asia to attend the inaugural meeting of the South Asia Caucus of the AHA on Friday, January 4, 2008 at 4:45 in Marriott Wardman Park (hdqtrs.), Room 8222 (lobby level). We hope this meeting will be the start of something new for the AHA and for historians of the region. We aim to make South Asian history more of a presence at the AHA by organizing regular South Asian events at the annual meetings. We look forward to hearing other ideas from those who come to the caucus meeting. The agenda will be broad, and will include a discussion of the scope and objectives of the proposed new group. Please spread the word to interested colleagues and students. We need the largest possible turnout at the AHA to make this venture a success. We would also like to draw your attention to two related events to be held at the AHA:
1. “Crossing Borders with South Asian Historiography: A Roundtable Discussion” sponsored by the Conference on Asian History, featuring Sumit Guha, Madhavi Kale, David Ludden, Cynthia Talbot,, Anand Yang, with Jeffrey Wasserstrom as commentator, and Sanjay Joshi, Chair.Saturday, January 5, 2008, 9:00-11:00 a.m. Marriott Wadman Park (hdqtrs.), Virginia Suite C, Mezzanine Level
2. The Conference on Asian History lunch meeting on Friday, January 4th at noon, which features a talk by Professor Anand A. Yang, Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. Friday, January 4th at 12:15 in the McKinley Room at the Marriott.
Sanjay Joshi, Chair, South Asia Caucus, 2007-08
Mridu Rai, Chair, 2008-09
In other AHA news, a Cliopatria-affiliated panel is also planned. Our co-panelist, NDR has already started ruminating and I hope to post the raw-materials of my talk on the blog very soon.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Copyright and the Digital Historian
MIT Library has an excellent blog on Scholarly Publications that covers rights of faculty/researchers as well as a solid overview of Open Access Initiatives along with online video tutorials on copyrights/rights-retention for academic publishing (via iqag).
I especially endorse these two clauses of the MIT Copyright Amendment Form:
"The Author shall, without limitation, have the non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works including update, perform, and display publicly, the Article in electronic, digital or print form in connection with the Author's teaching, conference presentation, lectures, other scholarly works, and for all of Author's academic and professional activities."Very nice.
"Once the Article has been published by Publisher, the Author shall also have all the non-exclusive rights necessary to make, or to authorize others to make, the final published version of the Article available in digital form over the Internet, including but not limited to a website under the control of the Author or the Author's employer or through any digital repository..."
Friday, October 12, 2007
Roy Rosenzweig
I never had the pleasure of meeting historian Roy Rosenzweig but I am fortunate enough to have read his books and listened to his words.
He passed away at the age of 57.
His colleague, T. Mills Kelly:
Remembering Roy Rosenzweig:
Roy invented Digital History as a field of serious scholarly endeavor. Before Roy got involved I’m sure there were others who were playing around with what digital media might mean to our professional practice. But it was Roy who made Digital History into a professional field. For that alone, the profession and many subsequent generations of history students will be forever indebted to this great man.
He was, and will always remain, an inspiration for historians.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
A Generous Slug of Bourbon
Maureen Dowd seemed like an odd choice to review historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s journals ... but after reading Dowd's review, it was an obvious choice. She focuses on the celebrity - both within Schlesinger Jr. and around him - to great, dare I say, comic effect.
Schlesinger started out as the Saint-Simon of the Roosevelts and the Kennedys — or the Plantagenets and the Yorks, as he calls them — and ended up watching two more entwined political dynasties. He tries to warm up to Bill Clinton but is put off by his “Nixon-style paranoia about ‘the media.’ ” He thinks Bill lacks “the dignitas that can be such a useful presidential weapon — those awful jogging photographs and so on.” He also finds the selling of the White House to raise money “aesthetically displeasing and historically disgusting.” The real problem may be that Clinton was having historians over to the White House and didn’t include a certain bow-tied dean. Schlesinger knows he is too easily beguiled and seems never to have allowed moral or ideological differences to interfere with his social pleasures. Sometimes it makes the reader squirm. He watches Robert McNamara widen the war, long after telling everyone privately that a military solution was not possible. Yet in May 1967, when McNamara calls to get his advice and admits “I’ve been wrong from the start on Vietnam,” Schlesinger writes: “McNamara remains one of the most disarming men in the United States.” (Arming is more like it.)And I also think she has something telling in this aside about Obama ...
“The thought of power induces in Stevenson doubt, reluctance, even guilt,” he says. The diaries from the ’50s are an inadvertently hilarious record of the prissy Stevenson’s coy tango with his party. The year after Adlai loses to Ike, he has dinner with Truman, who urges him to take hold of the party. Adlai disingenuously demurs about a lack of qualifications. “Well, if a knucklehead like me can be a successful president,” Truman replies briskly, “I guess you can do it all right.”
But Stevenson is stuck on the same mental pedestal that Barack Obama is on — “split between his desire to win and his desire to live up to the noble image of himself.”
John Kennedy, by contrast, “takes power in his stride,” showing with the choice of Lyndon Johnson — unpalatable to Schlesinger and Bobby Kennedy — that he is “grasping the nettle.”
Friday, October 5, 2007
On Photographs
Historians (and historians in training) need to go, immediately, and read the parts one and two (out of three) of Errol Morris' series on the "historical truth" behind two photographs taken by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War : Which Came First? the Chicken or the Egg? (Part One), Which Came First? (Part Two).
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Book Blog
I haven't really seen it noted elsewhere in the history blogworld so thought I'd bring to everyone's attention the blog associated with Juan Cole's new book, Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East.
The reason I have really enjoyed Napoleon's Egypt is that it is a compendium of primary documents (letters, reportage, news items etc) associated with the book - and, as such, not only an excellent source of primary historical material but a useful appendix to the book.
It does provide one exemplary usage of blogs augmenting press publications.
You can also read a review of Cole's book by Roger Owen, Nation, 9/6/07.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Asian Affairs
" ... we have fought two more land wars in Asia" - George W. Bush, August 22, 2007.
"Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly, and falls dead to the right]" - The Princess Bride, 1987
Are we done talking about the VFW speech?
In today's WaPo, Jim Hoagland writes that "[Bush's] words invite examination of the mounting damage that Bush's approaches to the war in Iraq and to national security in general are doing to U.S. institutions in an American society that has significantly changed since 1975."
Which is fine, but I am more intrigued by the heavy reliance on "historian" in this speech [I know we have discussed this administration's obsession with history before]. Similarly, while most of the press has focused on his Vietnam analogy, I have seen little on his reading of the "Far East" [!]. The British empire, after all, was just as obsessed with history and Asia. Niall Ferguson should be pleased.
"I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time, that we can learn something from history." George W. Bush, August 22, 2007.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Rethinking That Conference Paper
If:book alerts the "scholars in the humanities, film and media studies especially" to check out SciVee - which "moves science beyond the printed word and lecture theater". In essence, a researcher can upload both the paper and a video/annotated presentation of the research. The video, they suggest, should be "as if you were presenting in front of a live audience possibly using PowerPoint slides as a teleprompter to guide you."
Best to go and see Eric Scheeff and Philip Bourne's Structural Evolution of the Protein Kinase–Like Superfamily. On the left menu, you can jump to places in the video, read relevant selection from the paper etc. On the right hand, you can simply read the whole paper. Through the site, a researcher can publish any "publications from the PLoS (Public Library of Science) ... PLoS publications are open access so the full text of the paper is available for free and unrestricted access." SciVee doesn't accept any non-Open Access papers.
While I am enthusiastic about the ability to virtually present one's paper - AHA should really pay attention here - I don't think that the Humanities academy in the US is very receptive to the idea of public presentation/re-presentation of published papers. Not to mention that the commitment to Open Access itself is quite spotty - the various history journals listed at the Directory of Open Access Journals are either based outside of the US or have intermittent publishing history. Please see Linda Hutcheon's What Open Access Could Mean for the Humanities for a good overview of issues involved.
Still, until we decide that open access digital publishing should be an essential part of our scholarly apparatus and assessment, we can use technologies like SciVee to at least expand that staid conference model.
It would be a fairly simple exercise - with the built-in usage of Instant Messaging and comment features -to collaborate, workshop or conference together on a topic and theme with colleagues around the world. Perhaps even a necessary exercise.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Textual Commentary
One of my favorite activity in the archive was to work on the marginalia of the manuscript - mostly just trying to decipher but often thinking through the gloss it 'added' to the text.
Thinking about digital archives, I have been keenly aware that this 'conversation on the margins' must be incorporated into the text - along with layers, annotations etc - if we are to ever fully realize the promise of hypertext. [Basically think of having the Discussion and the History sections of any wikipedia entry remaining integral to the presentation of the text while adding commenting].
We can at least take one step forward on that project today: The Institute of the Book's newly released Open Source WordPress theme, CommentPress 1.0. It allows one to display a text with the unique ability that interlocutors can discuss down to an individual paragraph. The genius of course is that in breaking the text up in such a manner, it makes the text far more legible and readable online.
This is a first step but I think that the Future of the Book folks deserve a huge round of applause.
In terms of application for historians, an easy one is the ability to workshop a paper - elicit comments, suggestions, etc.
Some of us from the history blogging world will be doing a roundtable at the AHA in January. Our intention is to present our panel work at Memory Matters. On that site, in the coming months, we will expand, discuss, debate some of the themes that underline our research and which we will presenting at AHA. Hopefully, this will serve as an example - even if it ends up being a cautionary one - of extending the ways in which we share and learn.
[x-posted at ChapatiMystery]
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Historian Knighted
Christopher Bayly, the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, Fellow of St Catharine's College, Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, author of several books including the seminal Empire and Information: Intelligence gathering and social communication in India 1780-1870 (1996), is now a Knight Bachelor for services to History[pdf].
In his comments he stated: "I regard this not only as a great personal honour but, as an historian of India, as recognition of the growing importance of the history of the non-western world."
Hear, hear!
David Starkey, the "doyen of TV history" was also recognized for his services to History with a C.B.E and Terence John Wyke for his services to higher education and to local history gets a M.B.E.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Where's Ralph?
He is away. This time he gave us no clues as to where he was going until Monday evening. My guesses:
- Chronicling the real story behind the blue people of the bluegrass state.
- Trying to figure out what the heck is going on in Gaza.
- Participating in the US Air Guitar Championships [Ralph "His-Tuney" Luker?].
- Buying some souvenirs in Chechnya.
- Paying a visit to Michel de Rochambeau.
- Telling Dakota Historians exactly what they missed.
- Trying to tell NBC that they really ought to leave history textbooks alone.
- Celebrating Juneteenth in TX.
Or not. Do let us know in the comments if you know where Ralph is. Or anything else on your mind.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Boycott DePaul
Finkelstein's tenure denial rankles badly those of us determined to keep our visions of activist-scholarship intact in our academic careers. Are we to remain hostage to invested groups turning the screws on the 'controversy-shy' administration? Never. DePaul students and faculty are rallying around to protest and being threatened with expulsions and arrests - this cannot be tolerated.
Finkelstein is not the first academic to be denied tenure for holding beliefs contrary to the mainstream [liberal or conservative] and he won't be the last. I am also certain that he will find a new home, soon. However, we must, as academics, make sure that the pressure we exert on the University administrations to respect academic freedoms be equal or greater than the pressure exerted by groups to silence such voices from public discourses. You can read some letters being written to Finkelstein and judge the amount of outrage on this decision. I am posting below a letter being circulated by faculty across the US and international academic circles ... if you wish to be a signatory, please click and send an email. I have and I intend on following through.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Going Popular
Through a small note in today's Chicago Tribune, I came across Maureen Ogle's The Perils and Pleasures of Going “Popular”; Or My Life as a Loser, Historically Speaking, March/April 2007. It is one of those frustrating essays where even though I agree with the spirit of her argument, it just irritated me to no end.
Her recent book, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer, was chosen by Hustler Magazine's book of the month club. She takes that as a starting point for a passionate denouncement of academic histories and historians and for making a case for 'public' histories.
In her view 'the disconnect between the history profession and “the people” runs deep and wide". Academic histories are "dense, footnoted books" that focus on "narrow-bordering-on-arcane topics" which are published in "scholarly journals and academic presses" and read by "a handful of people on the Upper West Side of Manhattan". At the other end of this divide are the people who "had no knowledge of the past" as they were raised on "music videos and sitcoms" and were, in fact, "unaware of the difference between a local public library and the one found at a university, or for that matter between a library and Google."
Like I said, I agree with her underlying point that we should be writing accessible histories for the general public, but her descriptions of what actually constitutes historians, their interests, their histories, or even 'the people' is just grossly caricatured and factually wrong.
Regardless, her call for popular histories should be well-heeded.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Free Haleh
Shaul Bakhash, Clarence Robinson Professor of History, George Mason University, Brookings Institution senior fellow and husband of U.S. Middle East analyst Haleh Esfandiari, will be online Thursday, May 24, at 12:15 p.m. ET to discuss his wife's detainment by Iranian intelligence for "crimes against national security" and personal and worldwide reaction to the situation.
You can put questions and comments.
I would also like to point out that the WaPo reporter Robin Wright has been doing an amazing job keeping this scholar's plight in the news. She just reported that Kian Tajbakhsh - another Iranian-American scholar - has been detained in Tehran.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
You Mean Mahound?
I am no expert on Insurgencies. I don't know much about Terrorism. I have very little understanding of military history. So, when I say that Richard A. Gabriel's Muhammad: The Warrior Prophet has, on average, a mistake per sentence, I speak only as someone with some familiarity with early Islamic history and the biography of the Prophet.
ps. The errors are not only factual, but also descriptive, analytical and, well, logical.
pps. I will also ignore the incongruously presentist reading of Islamic history.
ppps. I despair.
pppps. Wait, I do have a question that needs answered: Where did the Muslims offer Mormons the option of conversion to Islam or death?
ppppps. No. This is not Neo-Orientalism. This is Old Skool.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Free Haleh
Haleh Esfandiari is the Director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She was detained and arrested in Iran while visiting her aging mother in December and prevented from leaving the country. She was subsequently threatened, pressured, and repeatedly questioned by security authorities. Most recently, on May 8, 2007, she was arrested without charges and taken to Evin Prison.
Please read MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom's Letter to Ahmedinejad and visit the Free Haleh site to sign the petition on her behalf.
Juan Cole has decided to pull out of a conference in Iran to protest Haleh's detainment. Alse see Robin Wright's Boycott Threat Puts Pressure on Iran to Release Scholar
Friday, May 18, 2007
Art and War
NYT brings to our attention a retrospective of 18th-century Japanese painter and calligrapher Ike Taiga at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On the exhibition page, you can listen to a podcast on the collection by Museum Director Anne d'Harnoncourt, curator Felice Fischer, & assistant curator Kyoko Kinoshita.
Nicholas Schmidle's Dispatch from Karachi: Did Pakistan's president provoke an ethnic war last weekend? is an account of the May 12th riots in Karachi, Pakistan. One reading of the background for the current conflict is available at Chapati Mystery.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Lewis Unhinged
What is it about the WSJ's editorial page that Bernard Lewis - eminent historian of the Middle East, Bringer of Light to the Darkness that is the Soul of Islam, Documenter of Clashes of Civilization - always manages to sound extra, extra stupid? With all due respect, of course. Previously, it was the Calendars. And now, the "Taliban". In Was Osama Right?, WSJ, May 16, 2007, Lewis states:
The Muslim willingness to submit to Soviet authority, though widespread, was not unanimous. The Afghan people, who had successfully defied the British Empire in its prime, found a way to resist the Soviet invaders. An organization known as the Taliban (literally, "the students") began to organize resistance and even guerilla warfare against the Soviet occupiers and their puppets. For this, they were able to attract some support from the Muslim world--some grants of money, and growing numbers of volunteers to fight in the Holy War against the infidel conqueror. Notable among these was a group led by a Saudi of Yemeni origin called Osama bin Laden.
Can I point out to the Most Illustrious Historian that Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 but the Taliban did not appear until 1996? They were the GENERATION born during the resistance. This is not a trivial mistake - it is the same kind of deliberate elision of history that provides a narrative of Islam where the 7th century flows seamlessly into the 21st - with nary a change nor a conflict. Want an example? Just read on:
In the Muslim perception there has been, since the time of the Prophet, an ongoing struggle between the two world religions, Christendom and Islam, for the privilege and opportunity to bring salvation to the rest of humankind, removing whatever obstacles there might be in their path. For a long time, the main enemy was seen, with some plausibility, as being the West, and some Muslims were, naturally enough, willing to accept what help they could get against that enemy. This explains the widespread support in the Arab countries and in some other places first for the Third Reich and, after its collapse, for the Soviet Union. These were the main enemies of the West, and therefore natural allies. Now the situation had changed. The more immediate, more dangerous enemy was the Soviet Union, already ruling a number of Muslim countries, and daily increasing its influence and presence in others. It was therefore natural to seek and accept American help.
To restate: Since the Time of the Prophet there has been this clash of civilization between Christendom and Islam [forget that at the Time of the Prophet, Islam was as much a World Religion as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is now] which means that Muslims hate Christians and that explains why Arabs love Nazis [who were surely not Christian] but then suddenly Soviet Commies attacked Afghanistan and those thirteen centuries of hatred just disappeared 'naturally'. That's it. NATURALLY! As natural as hating the West came the loving of American money and ammunition and that flowed naturally into killing the Americans. It is all so very natural to these cave-dwelling Muslims.
Btw, Lewis's assertion that Afghanistan beat the Soviet Union because the Muslims raised "some grants of money" is comic - nay, absurdist - genius.
How can one even provide a rational or reasoned critique of such un-varnished manure?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Things Caught Outta the Corner of My Eye
While Ralph belts out I'm Too Old To Be A Scab with his fellow wobblies, I thought all of you might like a few links and stuff:
Today is oral historian Studs Terkel's 95th birthday. May he be around for another 95.
Art Historian Victor I. Stoichita has a wonderful interview in Cabinet Magazine about the history of shadow in art.
The Darwin Correspondence Project has gone and put 5,000 letters of Darwin including all the surviving letters from the Beagle voyage and all the letters from the years around the publication of Origin of species in 1859 - online. Hip! The interface could use some work, though.
I had read Paul Bremer's mind-bendingly horrid defense [invoking Godwin's Law no less] of his time in Iraq, What We Got Right in Iraq, WaPo, May 13, 2007. The only statement in there with any value: "I was wrong here."
Nir Rosen's What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq, WaPo, May 16, 2007, is an apt and appropriate rejoinder. It just boggles my mind - the ignorance we took to Iraq and implemented there.
Please add more links to things you see around the Internets in the comments below. No one alone can match Ralph Luker's reach for historian fodder.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Cliopatria Symposium ... Jamestown 2007
Welcome to the VIIIth edition of the Cliopatria Symposium wherein we find the answer to the question:
Why has the American national narrative characteristically taken New England/Puritans rather than Jamestown/Virginia/Anglicans as its foundation touchstone?
I want to thank everyone for sending me their responses and, please, let me know if I missed anything - my inbox has been nuts lately.
Click more to read the responses of Cliopats and others. We hope to hear from you in the comments.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Symposium Time
I realized, after email upon email chided me directly or indirectly, that the window for the Symposium submission was too short.
Slackers. I hereby grant you an extra three days. Please send me the submissions by end of Wednesday, May 9th. Many thanks for all who have already send me their comments.
Also, please note that I have added to the reading list some more interesting links:
* 1607: Just wunnerful!
* Queen Elizabeth II Visits U.S.
* Jamestown at 400: Caught Between a Rock and a Slippery Slope
* 400 Years After Jamestown: For African Americans, an Abundant Harvest From an Imperfect Democracy
* A New World: England's First View of America
* Jamestown, 400 Years After the First Settlers, Still Surprises
*Artifacts Rewrite Jamestown's History
* Inventing America
* Thousands to affirm America's Christian Roots
* Judging Jamestown at 400
Our past Symposia.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
A Call for Symposium: Jamestown 2007
"The Queen has arrived in the US to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia - although many Americans will still tell you it was in Plymouth, Massachusetts - 13 years later."
The Queen - of England - does arrive in Virginia today. And on Friday, she will, indeed, tour the site where, 400 years ago, Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in America. Reading that news piece by Malcolm Billings inspired me to make the call for our next symposium.
The question, as Ralph Luker stated, is why has the American national narrative characteristically taken New England/Puritans rather than Jamestown/Virginia/Anglicans as its foundation touchstone?
That is the question to which we solicit your responses. Cliopatrians should send their contributions to manan*at*uchicago*dot*edu by midnight Sunday, May 6th, 2007. Contributions from all bloggers are genuinely welcomed at their own blogs. Please send me a link to your post and I will include it in the symposium post. Our desire, as always, is to have as broad a discussion as possible.
A short reading list, for your perusal:
* 1607: Just wunnerful!
* Queen Elizabeth II Visits U.S.
* Jamestown at 400: Caught Between a Rock and a Slippery Slope
* 400 Years After Jamestown: For African Americans, an Abundant Harvest From an Imperfect Democracy
* A New World: England's First View of America
* Jamestown, 400 Years After the First Settlers, Still Surprises
*Artifacts Rewrite Jamestown's History
* Inventing America
* Thousands to affirm America's Christian Roots
* Judging Jamestown at 400
Our past Symposia.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
A [Gendered] Appeal: AHA Panel '08
It started innocently enough.
I had been mulling that blogging historians should be make a panel submission to AHA - on their actual work - and not just on 'blogging'. A comment thread sparked the idea forward into motion and soon enough, we had a full blown roundtable panel proposal submitted to the AHA. I had some other ideas of sharing some of our research and even allow comments on our working papers prior to the AHA. To basically demonstrate the amazing capabilities in this medium for scholarly collaboration.
And then ....
Dear Manan Ahmed,
After meeting this weekend to consider the proposals for the 2008 AHA, the Program Committee has decided to accept your panel, "Contested Pasts and Constructed Presents: Memory in the Local," with certain conditions.
Since the AHA has a standing commitment to gender diversity on panels, the Program Committee has decided to require you to find a female participant, perhaps to serve as chair or a second commentator for your session.
We will need a response with the name and affiliation of the new participant by May 8, 2007 in order to include your panel in this year's program. If you do not respond, we will be forced to reject your panel.
Sincerely,
Now, I will be honest that some exclamations containing colorful punjabi phrases did escape my mouth. I had never heard of this requirement. Of course, that doesn't mean anything besides that I am un-informed. So I re-scanned the CFP to see if I had missed something. Nothing there. But, indeed, I had missed 3.2 (C) of the AHA guidelines: The AHA seeks to avoid gender-segregated sessions. The Program Committee will thus encourage participants to include members of both sexes, wherever possible. [Lets ignore, for now, that apparent slight of transgendered historians].
Well. That email does a bit more than 'encourage'.
Truth be told, the thought of going to any historian and asking him or her to be a token panelist to fulfill a quota is deeply offensive to all parties involved. And I am quite taken aback by AHA's rather ham-handed efforts at diversity. My own efforts to convince my fellow panelists to do the panel in drag have largely failed. Leaving me with no choice but a public appeal.
I am posting the panel abstract and paper titles below the fold. If any historians would kindly agree to join us as a commentator or, even a panelist, please contact me as soon as possible. The AHA is in Washington, D.C., January 3–6th. I promise that it will be an exciting panel filled with lots of jokes about gender-quotas.
Whatever happens with this panel, I hope the AHA will decide to prominently feature this requirement in the CFP - or make it a bit more explicit than "wherever possible". Or at least evoke some feedback during the submission process. It is easy enough to encourage diversity earlier in the process but not as cool after the fact. I don't have any problems with AHA's policy - at all. I am just certain that there are better, pro-active ways of going about it.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Basic yet oft forgotten function
"James L. Baughman performs the basic historian’s function of taking a story whose conclusion we all know and showing that it didn’t necessarily have to turn out that way." - Nicholas Lemann, Tune In Yesterday: The making of broadcast television, a review of James L. Baughman's Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948-1961 in the New Yorker, 04/30/2007.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
If you are on facebook, come join Cliopatria group. No incentives added.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Sam Tanenhaus Responds
Below is the response submitted by Sam Tanenhaus to our recently held symposium. We thank him for taking the time out to respond.
Sam Tanenhaus:
These thoughtful and interesting responses raise several points. I'll stick to the major ones, in no particular order. First, Ralph Luker is quite right to praise Garry Wills's "Nixon Agonistes"-- as exciting and consequential "big" history as has been written in our era. I regret not mentioning it in my Times essay, and in a longer piece I would certainly have done so. Scott McLemee notes omissions, oversights, and biases in Schlesinger's work. Of course these exist. They are evident in "The Age of Jackson" and also (to cite an example not mentioned by the respondents) in "The Imperial Presidency," which underplays Kennedy's responsibility for creating the "insurgency" presidencies of Johnson and Nixon.
Scott's larger point, though, doesn't quite address what I wrote. I certainly don't question the importance and contribution of monographs or of narrowly focused journal articles (I draw on them often in my own work). Nor do I pretend that ambitious writers like Schlesinger and Hofstadter (whom I've also written about, in this case at considerable length) did not lean heavily on them. But the question I asked is different: where are the master narratives of our moment?
Here at least some of us agree the profession is not where it once was. There are reasons for this, as several respondents note: ideas of nation and citizenship have changed; also there is little patience in our time (within the historical profession and beyond it too) for the "great man" approach to historical narrative, which seeks to relate larger stories through the experiences of individuals, precisely the approach Schlesinger and Hofstadter often (though not always) took.
And there is the question too--raised in my appreciation of Schlesinger and taken up by some respondents--of cultural authority. Is it possible for any contemporary historian to occupy the place one held by Schlesinger, who commuted so easily among disparate halls of power--Harvard Yard, the White House, intellectual Manhattan? One answer is that the historian needn't replicate this particular journey. Woodward and Hofstadter certainly didn't. Neither was a political creature in the professional way Schlesinger was, and neither wished to be. What all three shared was a confident sense of a broadly informed reading public with an appetite for reading transvaluative (as opposed to passively "spectatorial") essays and books.
Which leads to the issue of Schlesinger's sometimes idealizing portraits, particularly of the Kennedys. I tried to show, or sketch, in my appreciation, that in fact he wrote in a more textured, ironic way about his subjects, and that his nuance, finally, is what enriches his portraits. (So too with his New Deal cycle. The books repay reading not because Schlesinger revered FDR, but because he captured the energy and mood of the period and its players.)
It's worth remembering too that "great men" need not be great (in the classical sense) so much as representative: their particular deeds and words must resonate beyond their briefly lighted moment on the stage. The historian's task--or one of them, at least--is to find such figures and uncover the striations of meaning and relevance. Hofstadter excelled at this, for instance in his Strachey-like portraits of Lester Ward, John C. Calhoun and Wendell Phillips, and also in his book on the Progressive historians. Those portraits are not merely illuminating. They make us see the past differently, and make the present look different too. They are rooted in a controlling vision, however subtle, of an American identity--of a national myth.
Where I suspect I differ from my colleagues in the profession is in my belief that every nation is defined to an important extent by its unifying myths (stories), however unstable, and that we sacrifice something if we don't seek to give those stories some credence even as we examine and revise them. Wills's great book, subtitled "The Crisis of the Self-Made Man," deals explicitly with myths (a handful, all variations on the free-market idea). His superb book on Ronald Reagan does the same.
Is it really mere nostalgia that makes me yearn for more of this? I think of my critique as being closer in spirit to the one Saul Bellow offered and then returned to at various junctures in his career, beginning with his rapturous review of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and continuing through his Nobel address. In these statements Bellow observed that his contemporaries lacked the conviction, so manifest in writers from Dante to Proust, that the ordinary person could achieve a kind of greatness through his struggles with the culture that surrounded him. The novelist who wanted, as Bellow himself did, to recapture this grandeur had more to contend with than the older masters did. He must avoid the sand traps of ideology, sentimentality, and cant. And he must be careful not to underestimate or, conversely, to exaggerate the larger impersonal forces in and against which individual lives unfold. But the story was worth telling in his time. I think it's still true, for novelists and for historians too.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Cliopatria Symposium...A Historian for the People
Foucault famously declared in Discipline and Punish that he did not want to "write a history of the past in terms of the present," rather a "history of the present." The distinction he wanted to draw was towards a history written in the present which was informed with the power structures and oppressions of that present. Such a history (or anti-history) was meant to deconstruct and abolish that very present.
Welcome to the VIIth edition of the Cliopatria Symposium in which we discuss the writing of history in the presentist mode - as presented in the life and work of the late historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. We asked for responses to Sam Tanenhaus's essay History, Written in the Present Tense, March 4th, 2007, New York Times.
I want to thank all the participants who send me their responses and I hope that Sam Tanenhaus will find some time to read and respond here. [HNN Editor: Click here for Tanenhaus's response.]
Click more to read the responses of Cliopats and others. We hope to hear from you in the comments.
Monday, March 5, 2007
A Call for Symposium
I cannot believe it has been so long since our last symposium. I blame myself, mostly. But I am excited to announce our seventh symposium, A Historian for the People, will be held on Friday, March 9th. We will be discussing the Sam Tanenhaus essay, History, Written in the Present Tense, March 04, 2007, NY Times.
Cliopatricians participating in the symposium should send their contributions to manan*at*uchicago*dot*edu by Thursday the 8th. I will post the symposium by Friday afternoon.
Contributions from all bloggers are genuinely welcomed at their own blogs (I am specifically keen on hearing from our friends at Progressive Historians). Please send me a link to your post and I will include it in the symposium post. If any of our distinguished historians who do not have a blog wish to email me their contribution, I would be happy to include them. Our desire is to have as broad a discussion as possible.
Sam Tanenhaus has graciously agreed to participate as a respondent to our symposium and we thank him for that.
Our past Symposia.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Does ANYONE look good in a Powdered Wig?
David Denby, in the New Yorker, concludes his review of the forthcoming feature film Amazing Grace on this sad note:
In this country, we have great actors, but not these kinds of great actors—men and women who can play historical figures and hold to formal syntax without losing their sense of play. Our founding crew of statesmen and intellectuals were no less gifted than Pitt and Wilberforce, but, despite an endless number of best-selling books about them, there isn’t a single good movie devoted to their efforts. At this point, no one can look at an American in a powdered wig without laughing. Popular culture and the democratization of taste and style have made our history irredeemable as entertainment—which is a loss, though I don’t suppose anyone will do much about it.
Leaving aside the slam on American actors, Denby seems to be on the mark about the lack of movies addressing America's foundational years. I remember that horrid Patriot starring the sadomasochism of Mel Gibson. But, I can't actually think of any other. Nor can I think of any major bio-pics on the Founding Fathers (this was colonial and postcolonial but not continental).
If there are endless number of best-selling books about them, why aren't there any movies? Is the foundational narrative of this nation calcified in popular history and memory? Or is it the powdered wig?
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The Movie is Still a Good Pedagogical Tool
T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935) was a Zionist, says historian Sir Martin Gilbert in his forthcoming book Churchill and the Jews.
"While feted as an Arabist who supported independence of Arab states, Lawrence in fact regarded Arabs with a "sort of contempt", said Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Churchill." Sir Martin is quoted under a puzzling headline Arabs' hero 'should be Lawrence of Judea' in the Telegraph.
Um, Arabs' hero? I am not aware of any popular fountain of support and admiration for T. E. Lawrence in the Arab world. 'Feted' in popular Western press, perhaps. 'Sort of Contempt'? If one actually reads Seven Pillars of Wisdom or Crusader Castle, there should be no surprises about how Lawrence viewed Arab and the Turkic people.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Notes from 'Round the Mulberry Bush
I must confess that I think there should be more phd programs, not less, in history departments - and they should be funded and promoted and cherished. Ralph's post about closing down smaller departments generated discussion here and around. On AHA Today, David Darlington responded with a view from the 70s.
In remaining history departments news, Middlebury College's history department has banned the citation of Wikipedia. Other sources banned by the department: Take-out menus, Fox News and Bob Woodward. Middlebury College should have checked with these folks, maybe.
The folks in Lithuania are debating whether flags are for the nation, the state or sports fans only. And as such, which one should be picked? Moacir P. de Sá Pereira gives us a historical rundown.
Speaking of national histories, Brian Ulrich blogs about Bahrain's Shi'ite presents - from Bahrain.
And yes, Chris, Neko Case effing rawks. Dunno what you mean about Iraq, though.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Ralph is Away!
He is attending some masonic-ish thing called the "Southern Intellectual History Circle" at Mississippi State.
Secret circle/societies frighten me. Their insidious - ahem - presence is everywhere.
For example, did you know that when Gandhi got to London in 1888, a mere lad on his first trip abroad, he enrolled at ... The Inner Temple! ... built by the Military Order of the Knights Templar? You can read the sordid, horrifying details here. His choice of ahimsa doesn't seem so innocent anymore, does it?
I welcome other secret connections of historical figures in the comments. Come on historians, you are better than Dan Brown.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
The Piper's Pay
And what shall we file this under? Consequences, Unintended? This, The World Has Come To?
And AHA wants to keep its moral clarity.
From here.
The Society for Ethnomusicology condemns the use of torture in any form. An international scholarly society founded in 1955, the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and its members are devoted to the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts. The SEM is committed to the ethical uses of music to further human understanding and to uphold the highest standards of human rights. The Society is equally committed to drawing critical attention to the abuse of such standards through the unethical uses of music to harm individuals and the societies in which they live. The U.S. government and its military and diplomatic agencies has used music as an instrument of abuse since 2001, particularly through the implementation of programs of torture in both covert and overt detention centers as part of the war on terror.
The Society for Ethnomusicology
1. calls for full disclosure of U.S. government-sanctioned and funded programs that design the means of delivering music as torture;
2. condemns the use of music as an instrument of torture; and
3. demands that the United States government and its agencies cease using music as an instrument of physical and psychological torture.
Friday, February 2, 2007
YouTube & The American President
A friend just emailed me a John Edwards youTube video - this one poking some fun at him. After watching it, I searched in my email and found that in the past month, I received a youTube clip for Clinton, for Romney, 10 for Obama and one starring Chris Dodd [who I did not know was running]. None of these include were the "official" video-messages sent by the Clinton and Obama.
Obviously the youTube moment of note in the past year [or political cycle] was the 'macaca'/Allen moment. And Joe Biden has already matched it the _day_ he announced his campaign. It appears that the next two years will have every mis-step, every mis-speak by every candidate, set to music and uploaded to the internets for distribution. I am no Presidential historian, so I am really keen to hear from others on how this compares to the ways in which campaigns managed the message from/about their candidates?
Will candidates have to embrace the 'we are all fallible humans' and start releasing their own 'blooper tapes'?
oh. Here is that John Edwards.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
A Malicious Charge
I was waiting for it. Ever since some right-wing nutizens started claiming that Obama went to a madrasa, I had been waiting for this.
Here is Senator Obama's response:
To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.
These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to solve our common problems.
I was hoping that Obama's response would NOT be to proclaim his horror at being called a MUSLIM. Is it really the end of a political career to have a father who was a Muslim? Or to have gone to a school in Indonesia? Couldn't he have just said, 'Madrasa' is just the word 'School' (click here - to see an American Madrasa in Marrakesh! Or Click here to see another one in Doha!) Or that he is proud of his heritage and his lived experience in that world, even if he, himself, is a Christian. Why the need for such vehement distancing? But, yes, he responds by calling this story "a malicious and irresponsible charge. An accusation meant to hurt and smear.
There you have it, the state of Islamophobia in America today, is not in the parade of terrorists on 24 but in a simple declaration: "He is a Muslim".
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Iraqification
Robert Kaiser states in the WaPo today that America is trapped by hubris, again. He covered Vietnam - and he wonders,
How did this happen again? After all, we're Americans -- practical, common-sense people who know how to get things done. Or so we'd like to think. In truth, we are ethnocentric to a fault, certain of our own superiority, convinced that others see us as we do, blithely indifferent to cultural, religious, political and historical realities far different from our own. These failings -- more than any tactical or strategic errors -- help explain the U.S. catastrophes in Vietnam and Iraq.
But, after all that, guess what he concludes? American intervention in nations around the globe should have more modest aims - politically and militarily. Also, be certain you really understand the society you propose to transform.
Got it.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Notes from Farther Afield
At the Pocahontas Island, residents are worried that this 200 year old historical black community will disappear off the maps. I couldn't find it on Google Earth.
Speaking of disappearing, the historic Fort Pitt is being buried under a Mall or maybe a parking lot. Either way, don't despair, as the historian quoted in the article is particularly cheerful: "Muller said there are many examples of historically significant things being buried and later unearthed. For example, in the 1980s, archaeologists working on a highway project in Pittsburgh unearthed perfectly preserved wooden doors that had been buried when a canal was filled in to make room for the railroads more than 100 years earlier, he said." See? We can dig those parking lots up later to find signs of the French retreat.
And if we do end up with a mall, there will be tours.
Gandhi Ji is having a renaissance in India - due, in large part to a hit bollywood movie. I realize that this sentence should properly be explained by a 3,000 word post, and maybe it will be on Monday. In the meantime, you can read Khuswant Singh's review of a new book on Gandhi Ji - by his grandson: Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire.
Biography seems perfectly fine on the Amazon/NYT charts but I don't see many dissertations in the UMI during the last five years that look biograph-ish. My own, dissertation, i.e., is a historiobiography. w00t.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Notes from the Field
Every time Ralph is away, I want to mess up the cushions at Cliopatria. I just know he keeps immaculate house.
At the Future of the Book, there is the commenting on the President's Iraq Speech [btw, can someone find out how many total Iraq speeches have been give so far by President Bush?]. NYT totally copied the FotB folks in their own line-by-line analysis. I wish to draw your attention to the way these two sites spliced the text to allow commenting. Digitally minded academics have much to adapt from both of these technical presentations.
Speaking of digital historians, the finest blog has a great reading list for a Digital History field. Someone give this man an award - oh wait, we just gave him a Clio!
Elizabeth brings to our attention the Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility after 9/11: A Handbook for Scholars and Teachers by the Middle East Anthropologists. Among endorsers of the report are historians Marc (sic) LeVine (UC Irvine) and Rashid Khalidi (Columbia). As Elizabeth notes, it is largely commonsensical [that word] and "useful as a reminder".
Question: Is Biography back?
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Common Sense
On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published, anonymously, his pamphlet, Common Sense. I actually didn't remember this but Washington Post's very helpful Today in History reminded me.
Which also reminded me that sometimes in July, 2006, I had decided to annotate and translate Common Sense into Urdu. I admit that the only progress I made on this so far is to get the title translated - trust me, it was far harder than you'd imagine. I also read through Paine's Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.
I honestly don't know if I can do this judiciously - or at all. But, with 2008 being the year when Pakistan's resident dictator decides, again, to suspend democracy and freedom - with the help of the White House - I think it will be my fruitless gesture.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
All India Muslim League, 1906-2006
On December 30, 1906, a group of Muslim leaders gathered in Dhaka and proposed a political association for the Muslims of India, with three aims: to protect Muslim interests, to counter Congress influences, and to support the British administration. The first meeting of this proposed entity, named the All India Muslim League happened in Karachi on December 20th, 1907. The next decades of Muslim League in Indian nationalist politics can only be described as tumultuous - as it tried to work with, against, the All India National Congress and the British. It trained, groomed and gave a platform to generations of Muslim leaders on local, national and international arenas. But, even as the party and its ideologies gained significance in the Indian nationalist scene, it had to go through various evolutions in its struggle to unite dueling agendas and hopes for the millions of Muslims in India.
To truly understand its impact, one needs to examine the intellectual history of the Muslim League from Syed Ahmed Khan [post-1857] to the two partitions - the creation of Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971. This history of the Muslim League is of particular relevance in today’s world. The oft-heard refrain about the lack of democracy and democratic practices in the Muslim world deserves a sustained critique through this 100 year history of charted and documented practice of Muslim democracy in India.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Iraq Study Group Report, 2.0
The Lapham's Quarterly and the Institute for the Future of the Book have announced their new collaborative project, the Iraq Study Group Report - networked, annotated and commentable.
As they pitch it:
As expected and in line with standard government practice, the report issued by the Iraq Study Group on December 6th comes to us written in a language that guards against the crime of meaning—a document meant to be admired as a praise-worthy gesture rather than understood as a clear statement of purpose or an intelligible rendition of the facts. How then to read the message in the bottle or the handwriting on the wall?
Lapham's Quarterly and the Institute for the Future of the Book answers the question with a new form of discussion and critique— an annotated edition of the ISG Report on a website programmed to that specific purpose, evolving over the course of the next three weeks into a collaborative illumination of an otherwise black hole. What you have before you is the humble beginnings of that effort—the first few marginal notes and commentaries furnished by what will eventually be a large number of informed sources both foreign and domestic (historians, military officers, politicians, intelligence operatives, diplomats, some journalists), invited to amend, correct, augment or contradict any point in the text seemingly in need of further clarification or forthright translation into plain English.
It is a noteworthy exercise, and the list of participants is certainly impressive. As is the technology undergriding the exercise - developed by the FoTB folks.
It is only open to pre-invited commenters, for now, so it be illuminating to see how the eco-system of this text evolves (will commentators be explanatory, critical, discursive, as a whole?) and how the wider political communities (dKos, atrios, huffposts and instapuns etc.) interact - or not - with the ISRG.
A report that, having been largely ignored by the WH and the punditry, looks destined for the dustbins - will the network save it?
On a technical note: They have kept the structure of the report intact. Why not separate out all the Recommendations from the Report? Or show us everything the report says about Insurgency? Or everything on the Middle East process? There is the potential to break the text apart and re-stitch it.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
That Conference Paper
In March, I am presenting on a panel at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies. A few weeks ago, we co-panelists thought about ways in which we could enhance the process of writing and discussion on the papers before the conference happens. We are convinced that our idea for the panel could be turned into a neat little book and so, we wanted to invest far more longitudinal conversations than is common in panels [my advisor Ron Inden famously quipped: "A panel compromises of 4 people who never have to speak to each other."].
Since all the panelists were scattered around the country and could not meet in person [which would make life SO much easier], I felt that what we needed were 4 sets of networked documents - annotatable, referenceable. That is, we would want to comment on an individual paper, comment on that comment, and refer to some section on a similarly marked up different paper. Perhaps, a pdf or Word document with tracking enabled and a template, being mailed back and forth, continuously. Um, no.
My working notion, then, was to create a private wiki where the co-panelists will post our papers and get those conversations started: post our primary materials, notate the main trajectories of our arguments, etc. I think it would have worked reasonably well.
Today, however, Ben Vershbow and the amazing people at Institute for the Future of the Book introduced me to their notion of a networked working paper: Mitchell Stephens's The Holy of Holies: On the Constituents of Emptiness. Taking off of their earlier work on McKenzie Wark's Gamer Theory, this newly imagined paper provides each section with a dynamic margin to the right of the text where one can post comments on individual paragraphs, and also annotate the text with links and refereneces to related materials. One thing I can think of adding is a space for the meta-discussion - that is, the discussion of the paper as a whole.
One can easily see the immense potential of this - especially in the many-to-one discussion model. That is, a number of people commenting/parsing one basic text. I can easily see dissertation committees all over the land jumping up and spilling their coffees in excitement. Oh wait, they never read those things.
As Ben mentioned, "I think the history community should pay attention... this is something they could really use." I couldn't agree more. This is also a great illustration of how web 2.0 technologies can impact humanities. I think the key part of this experiment is to mould technologies to get their benefits without necessarily rupturing the ways in which academia functions. This is a positive and welcome step in that direction.
So, how about it, Ben? How does your prototype scale to a panel?
Monday, December 4, 2006
Papiya Ghosh, RIP
Papiya Ghosh, a historian of South Asia, at Patna University, died during a robbery attempt at her house in Patna. The tragedy has shocked the community in Bihar - and elsewhere.
Her book is forthcoming from Routledge:
/Title: Partition and the South Asian diaspora :
extending the subcontinent /
Author(s): Ghosh, Papiya.
Publication: Delhi : Routledge India ; London : Taylor & Francis [distributor],
Year: 2007
ISBN: 9780415424 097 (hbk.); 0415424097 (hbk.);
- via Frank Conlon [at H-ASIA]
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Digit-ization
Someone [Dan Cohen, Bill Turkel, Rob McDougall?] had earlier found a scanned thumb in Google Print. I found two fingers!! Kinda like this:
This one is taken from here and it serves to remind us that Google has not yet become selfaware and decided to terminate all human beings. Though, the end is nigh.
Incidentally, I am pretty sure Michel De Certeau predicted this in the computational bit of his Writing of History - historians using computers to find scanned digits instead of writing history, i.e.
To redeem this post, I call attention to the book linked above - a reprint of Elliot & Dawson's History of India as Told by Its Own Historians [1867]. This version had the juicy bits re-arranged with some excellently Pythonesque/Pynchonesque drawings attached.
See for example, the the type of Ceylon beauty attached to Ceylon:
or an Indian barber attached to nothing in particular on that page:
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
To Kill a Laugh
I was truly saddened to read, this morning, of the killing of Walid Hassan - a comedian on Al-Sharqiyah tv. From IHT:
Haasan, 47, a Shiite star of "Caricature," a weekend show on Al-Sharqiyah TV known for its dark humor about the country's many problems, was shot to death while driving through Baghdad on Monday. As with many other killings in Baghdad, the identity of the Iraqis who shot Hassan, a father of five children, was not known, police said.
"He was an actor who made fun of the miserable situation in our country, not a politician. But some people don't like that, so he was assassinated to silence him," one grieving fan, Namiq Hassan, 42, an Oil Ministry employee, said in Baghdad on Monday.
Hassan was one of five actors in "Caricature," a 45-minute comedy satire, that did not hesitate to make fun of U.S. forces, Shiite militias, Sunni-Arab insurgent groups, and the chaotic Iraqi governments that have tried to rule this country since Saddam Hussain was overthrown in the 2003 invasion.
You can see clips from his show at the Al-Sharqiyah website. I recommend the "Between Mother and Father" and the "Hindi Film".
He is being remembered as a Martyr for the Arts.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Montgomery Watt, 1909-2006
William Montgomery Watt, Professor (Emeritus) of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh - unarguably one of the key historians of Islam in the West - died on October 24, 2006 at the age of 97. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, Jena, and at Balliol College, Oxford. He held the post of Assistant Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh from 1934 to 1938, Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy 1946-1947, and successively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in Arabic 1947-1964. In 1964 he accepted the Chair from which he retired in 1979.
He was the author, most notably, of Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, 1961, Muhammad at Mecca, 1953, and Muhammad at Medina, 1956.
Watt brought a deep sense of spirtuality to his work and, for that reason, many Muslim scholars find his approach more sympathetic to the biography of the Prophet than, say, Rodinson's. I do recommend reading this interview conducted in 2000 as it elaborates the connections between his own faith and his life's work on Islam.
Those of us who study and teach Islamic history will recognize the immense loss to our field.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
History, Boys.
I find it highly problematic that Fox Searchlight has not recruited any historians to spread good cheer about their movie by holding advance screenings, sending press-kits or, at the very least, offering some DCALs.
In the meantime, here is the preview for Nicholas Hytner's The History Boys. The preview makes it look like Dead Poet's Society goes to Cambridge but we hope it is better than that. We really do. You can also read NYT's review of Alan Bennett's play. And here are some words on Irwin, Niall, and the teaching of history by David Greenberg.
Monday, October 9, 2006
A Nuclear Korea
Reports are everywhere that N. Korea has conducted a nuclear test.
Remember what Bert the Turtle did.
Friday, September 29, 2006
History Is
Jeremy at Clioweb claims that “History is a Perpetual Beta.” I said, History is in need of Constant Patches and Updates.
Since, History also needs to be on your computer desktop, Jeremy has a flickr group up where you can add your own creations.
Or you can just tell us what you think History is in the comments. And we will put the cheekiest one up for you.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Million Google Scholars
A few weeks ago, Google announced that one can download pdfs of public domain books from Google Print. Today comes another announcement about the availability of newspapers archives from 1700 to the present. Most of the stuff that I looked for in the archives was behind subscription walls but no matter.
Academics have always had these archives and the search tools that allow us to do our trade. However, these Google tools are really a revolution outside the academy. It allows easy public access to the archive [the millions book scanned - and now, the million newspapers scanned].
What that means for us? We oughta think about it.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
August 22
For the record, the world didn't end. Please, no one remind Bernard Lewis that Laylat al-Qadr is coming!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Whatever His Name Is
“Lets give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” said Senator George Allen [R-Virginia], pointing out to S.R. Sidarth. Mr. Sidarth, an American of Indian descent, is a volunteer with James Webb's campaign following Senator Allen with a camera.
In the video, you can see Senator Allen calling Sidarth a "macaca" twice.
Macaque/macaca could either mean a monkey or worse. Neither reading helps Senator Allen deflect the charge of rascism.
Welcome to the real world of George Allen, I guess.
I should note that this is not the first case of senatorial 'honesty' vis á vis desis. Here is Biden telling us his experience of going into a 7-11 or Dunkin' Donuts.
update: Senator Allen "apologizes". Refuses to say what he thinks he was saying.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Attention, WH
From CNN:
The original information about the plan came from the Muslim community in Britain, according to a British intelligence official.From Guardian:
The tip resulted from a person who had been concerned about the activities of an acquaintance after the July 7, 2005, terror attacks in London, the official said.
Pakistan appears to have played a vital role in uncovering the terror plot, helping British security agencies to break the international network. Two or three suspects have been arrested by Pakistani authorities in recent days, but the Pakistan foreign ministry has refused to give details of their identities. It is understood they were "local people" who were arrested in Lahore and Karachi.
An Islamic militant arrested near the Afghan-Pakistan border several weeks ago also provided a lead that played a role in "unearthing the plot", a Pakistani intelligence official said.
Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Reading Between the Calendars
I am not one to have much restraint when it comes to Bernard Lewis. Even so, I am absolutely stunned by his Op-Ed in today's WSJ, August 22. The Iranians, claims Lewis, cannot be deterred by the usual mutually assured destruction mumbo-jumbo:
There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers. This worldview and expectation, vividly expressed in speeches, articles and even schoolbooks, clearly shape the perception and therefore the policies of Ahmadinejad and his disciples.The goverment, Lewis contends, is in the hands of religious nuts who preach a unique brand of eschatology. Oh wait. Wrong goverment.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Bernard Porter Responds ...
Below is the response submitted by Prof. Bernard Porter to our recently held symposium. We thank him for taking the time out to respond.
I don’t have much to say in response to the comments on my article, mainly because I agree with most of them. When the piece first appeared on this site - before the ‘symposium’ stage - I was a little discouraged, I have to say, by some of the early replies it elicited, from readers who had either not read it, or read it through a red mist of prejudice [ed notes: Prof. Porter is referring here to the comments on the HNN page.]. Peter K. Clarke is right to question simplistic uses of the word ‘imperialism’; but that is the very point I was trying to make at the beginning of my article. At a recent conference in America I suggested that we historians agree to a moratorium on the ‘i’ and ‘e’ words for, say, five years, in order to force us to find other ways of describing what could be, in fact - and as Jonathan Reynolds (18 July) points out - very different phenomena. That might also enable people to accept some of the similarities between British and US policies in the past, which at present they shy away from because they seem to be staining America with the Great Sin of empire. ‘Free Trade’ imperialism (so-called), for example, which was Britain’s ideal for most of the 19th century, is very close indeed to America’s policy of the ‘Open Door’. Personally, I don’t care in the least whether what America has done or is doing in the world is called ‘imperialism’ or not. If banning the word will take the red mist away, and allow a more rational discussion of the issue than some of the early contributions to this debate evinced, that’s fine by me.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
MediaCommons
All academics should stop by The Institute for the Future of the Book and read the proposal for MediaCommons written by Kathleen Fitzpatrick.
Why?
We believe, however, that the goals of scholarship, teaching, and service are deeply intertwined, and that a reimagining of the scholarly press through the affordances of contemporary network technologies will enable us not simply to build a better publishing process but also to forge better relationships among colleagues, and between the academy and the public. The move from the discrete, proprietary, market-driven press to an open access scholarly network became in our conversations both a logical way of meeting the multiple mandates that academics operate within and a necessary intervention for the academy, allowing it to forge a more inclusive community of scholars who challenge opaque forms of traditional scholarship by foregrounding process and emphasizing critical dialogue. Such dialogue will foster new scholarship that operates in modes that are collaborative, interactive, multimediated, networked, nonlinear, and multi-accented. In the process, an open access scholarly network will also build bridges with diverse non-academic communities, allowing the academy to regain its credibility with these constituencies who have come to equate scholarly critical discourse with ivory tower elitism.
With that praiseworthy goal, MediaCommons will be a collaborative community where monographs, casebooks, journals and references will be created, commented and housed.
I cannot, of course, hide my enthusiasm for such a project but I would really urge those who care about academic futures to stop by if:book, read the post, the comments and share your thoughts. Don't be alarmed by the media studies label - it will work just as well for historians. Taken along with Scott McLemee's recent post at Inside Higher Ed, Aggregate This, I'd say something new is on its way.
update: Also see: Academics Start Their Own Wikipedia For Media Studies. Thanks to Ralph Luker for the tip.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Cliopatria Symposium on ... Comparing Empires
Welcome to the VIth edition of the Cliopatria Symposium. Today we discuss Bernard Porter's British and American 'Imperialisms' Compared.
I would like to thank Prof. Porter for submitting the essay and the participants for their response. Prof. Porter is travelling at the moment but promises to engage with us once he is settled in Australia.
We welcome your contribution to the debate here, or at your blogs/sites.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
A Call for Symposium
I am especially excited to announce that our sixth symposium, Comparing Empires, will be held on Monday, July 17th. We will be discussing Bernard Porter's British and American 'Imperialisms' Compared. Prof. Porter has graciously provided this essay, which presents some of the ideas from his latest book Empire and Superempire : Britain, America and the World, for our discussion here.
Cliopatricians participating in the symposium should send their contributions to manan*at*uchicago*dot*edu by Sunday the 16th. I will post the symposium on Monday, July 17th.
Contributions from other bloggers are genuinely welcomed at their own blogs. Please send me a link to your post and I will include it in the symposium post. If any of our distinguished historians who do not have a blog wish to email me their contribution, I would be happy to include them. Our desire is to have as broad a discussion as possible.
As usual, we are hoping that Prof. Porter will be able to respond to the symposium at his discretion.
Our past Symposia.
Monday, July 3, 2006
10 Days That Changed History
NYT Magazine has a parlour game for us historians. Apparently, history happens when nobody is watching [does that really cement the "end of history" for us, as we live in the Age of Watchers?]. Regardless, Adam Goodheart at Washington College says that the "10 days that follow — obscure as some are — changed American history. (In some cases, they are notable for what didn't happen rather than what did.)" :
- JUNE 8, 1610: A Lord's Landfall: "A fleet coming toward them, carrying a new governor, Lord De La Warr, and a year's worth of supplies. If not for his appearance, Virginia might have gone the way of so many lost colonies"
- OCT. 17, 1777: Victory Along the Hudson: "It is when the British general John Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga."
- JUNE 20, 1790: Jefferson's Dinner Party: "Had that meal never taken place, New York might still be the nation's capital. But even more important, the primacy of the central government might never have been established"
- APRIL 19, 1802: Mosquitos Win the West: "On April 19, Leclerc reported to Napoleon that the rainy season had arrived, and his troops were falling ill. By the end of the year, almost the whole French force, including Leclerc himself, were dead of mosquito-borne yellow fever."
- JAN. 12, 1848: An Ill-Advised Speech: "Lincoln's early faux pas also taught him to be a pragmatist, not just a moralist. "
- APRIL 16, 1902: The Movies: "Thomas L. Tally opened his Electric Theater in Los Angeles, a radical new venture devoted to movies and other high-tech devices of the era, like audio recordings."
- FEB. 15, 1933: The Wobbly Chair: "Giuseppe Zangara, an anarchist, lost his balance atop a wobbly chair, and instead of hitting President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, he fatally wounded the mayor of Chicago, who was shaking hands with F.D.R."
- MARCH 2, 1955: Almost a Heroine: "Claudette Colvin, 15, seemed poised to become an icon of the struggle against segregation. But then, shortly after her March 2 arrest, she became pregnant"
- SEPT. 18, 1957: Revolt of the Nerds: "the birth date of Silicon Valley, of the electronics industry and of the entire digital age"
- AUG. 20, 1998: Just Missed: "when the United States fired some 60 cruise missiles at Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan"
Well? Can we add/dispute the 10 days that changed _american_history?
ps: no 9/11 there.
Sunday, July 2, 2006
Take Note
The thirtyfourth history carnival is up at Chapati Mystery. Enjoy.
A mathematician takes a look at Cheney's One Percent Doctrine.
Also, dear Ralph Luker is _off line_ in Atlanta. It is the rain. Other Clios are put on notice to produce.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
HAMDAN v. RUMSFELD
The best summary and implication of the ruling that I have seen so far is from Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale: Hamdan as a Democracy-Forcing Decision:
What the Court has done is not so much countermajoritarian as democracy forcing. It has limited the President by forcing him to go back to Congress to ask for more authority than he already has, and if Congress gives it to him, then the Court will not stand in his way. It is possible, of course, that with a Congress controlled by the Republicans, the President might get everything he wants. However this might be quite unpopular given the negative publicity currently swirling around our detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. By forcing the President to ask for authorization, the Court does two things. First, it insists that both branches be on board with what the President wants to do. Second, it requires the President to ask for authority when passions have cooled somewhat, as opposed to right after 9/11, when Congress would likely have given him almost anything (except authorization for his NSA surveillance program, but let's not go there!). Third, by requiring the President to go to Congress for authorization, it gives Congress an opportunity and an excuse for oversight, something which it has heretofore been rather loathe to do on its own motion.
What say our distinguished readers?
Friday, June 16, 2006
This Spectred Isle
Historians Eric Hobsbawm, Niall Ferguson, Priyamvada Gopal, Linda Colley and Robert Beckford were recently called to gather in the studio for an appearence on BBC's Start The Week. They were to be "examining how Britain and other countries around the world have been changed by their experience of empire...discussing whether Britain should apologise and make reparation for its imperial past or glory in it, and asking whether the twenty-first century will see the birth of new empires." You can listen to the mp3 here.
The discussion was in relation to BBC's This Sceptred Isle: Empire - A 90 Part History of the British Empire. A project with excellent profiles, maps, timelines etc. about the British Empire as well as an intriguing Send your Stories section where some amazing stories have already been collected. Such as Margaret Penfold:
My father was a British telecommunications engineer in the British Mandate of Palestine. My father was a true believer in the theory that God had raised the British to their eminent position in the world to serve His purpose. The myth of the White Man’s Burden was higher here in Palestine than in any colony and, as children, my siblings and I had this myth drubbed into us daily. Like many middle-class British children who returned to England from the colonies and did not go on to public school, I received a culture shock. Ordinary people in England did not regard themselves as at the top of the social pile. Their values were at odds to the ones I had regarded as given truths. Like many others I have never regarded myself as a true member of the society I live in, and have always felt myself an exile from the land of my childhood.
Back to the BBC show. The tone set by the host, Andrew Marr, was one of highlighting the 'good' aspects of the empire [starts off with the contrafactual of a world without the English!] and he certainly chose the right historian, Niall Ferguson, for that. However, he stumbled badly by inviting other historians who were in no mood to pat the Empire's back. "Niall Ferguson gets it...exactly wrong" said Gopal [author of Literary Radicalism In India: Gender, Nation And The Transition To Independence] near the end of the show. Just about on everything, I might add. Ferguson starts off with arguing that World Cup Football would not be possible without the British Empire. Hobsbawn corrects him. And it goes, well, uphill from there. Ferguson's shining moment could be when he asserted that the indigenous nationalist struggles, though well-meaning, got nothing done - and that the British Empire chose to give up their empire only because it was drained after fighting the Nazis. Obviously, to those from the colonies - Gopal and Beckford - this was a highly insulting claim. Eric Hobsbawn did have the best lines near the end as he tried to sum-up.
Priyamvada Gopal was so incensed by the show that she wrote this open-letter to Andrew Marr: I regret coming on at the last minute. As an academic with serious interests in the matter, I thought I'd be participating in a real discussion, not a book plug, a sham and an apologia for the past. Ouch. To be fair, her open letter is a tad unfair as well - she calls Robert Beckford "the token black man" ["Empire landed on me" was the best line of the show, uttered by Beckford].
As for the overall show, it is worth a listen, if you like banging your head on the wall and that sorta thing. [semi-xposted on CM; thx to Rob and Kumuda for links.]
Thursday, June 15, 2006
My plagiarism in this case is a clear indictment of the educational system
I know that things are getting all het up with the Ward Churchill discussions but I just came across [via boingboing] this most hilarious advice on academic plagiarism written by Alex Halavais back in May:
- The only people allowed to use the word “colour” are those with Indian surnames.
- Try not to plagiarize the teacher
- Make sure you pick a word that sounds impervious and use it incorrigibly, or inventorate words.
- Don’t do what one of my graduate students did, and steal a text on Korean feminism from someone who wrote slightly better English than he did.
- When you copy things from the web into Word, ignoring #3 above, don’t just “Edit > Paste” it into your document.
And he follows that up with excuses to use when caught. Brilliant.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming: As The Ward Turns.
Better: The 33rd History Carnival has arrived at the American Presidents Blog. Thanks to Jennie W!
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Good News
Finally some great news from Iraq. They got Zarqawi [framed]. Very glad. He was an evil terrorist who killed innocents in Iraq and Jordan. He was, also, less than the sum of his parts. This article from early April in WaPo charts how his persona was deliberately constructed and hyped by the US.
In that vein, I highly recommend Mary Ann Weaver's The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - soon to be the most linked article of the month - in The Atlantic which spells it out:
He continued, “The Americans have been patently stupid in all of this. They’ve blown Zarqawi so out of proportion that, of course, his prestige has grown. And as a result, sleeper cells from all over Europe are coming to join him now.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Your government is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
All that aside. It is indeed a victory for the civilians who perished at his hands. I have grave doubts whether this will have any impact on the stable instability in Iraq. Nir Rosen's Iraq Is the Republic of Fear remains the most honest assessment that I have seen. The real story in Iraq was never Zarqawi. It was, and remains, Moqtada al-Sadr.
ALSO: See Abu Aardvark and Juan Cole's informed opinions and this CNN interview with Michael Berg [via]
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The Polyglot Manifesto I
Mr. Ahmed is a PhD candidate in History of South Asia at University of Chicago. He blogs at Cliopatria and Chapati Mystery.
During the last few weeks, I have had occasion to think seriously about my discipline, my scholarship and my future. At Chicago, we had a conference recently on the Fate of the Disciplines [scroll down to Recent Events] at which many luminaries wrung their hands and burrowed their brows - worried that money and the right wing will soon destroy the Humanities. Sadly, the brilliantly organized conference had no space for those that might actually be responsible for the fate of the discipline - new and recent graduates - but never mind that. One highlight was the talk given by Sheldon Pollock who was, as always, brilliant and intriguing. He spoke of the fate of philology in the humanities. Of service departments and lack of rigorous training in languages. Of what happens when the historian is not a polyglot. And of what happens when the scholar does not inhabit the present. Pollock told us to do philology that is aware of the moment - of the political. The history I study, a friend said to me afterwards, is so far removed from the present that no way I could ever make it relevant. But, my answer was, you are not so far removed from the present. It was Pollock's last point that stuck with me. What does it mean to be a humanist today? What does it mean, to me, to be a historian?
It is not an idle question. To be honest, the usual concerns have never occupied my thoughts. Will I get a job? Will I publish enough? Will I get tenure? Perhaps, it is because that I have had a job as long as I have been in graduate school that the profession-as-trade dynamic has never taken root within me. Who am I, as a scholar? What is my role within my community? What are my responsibilities to the public? Those questions, when I had a moment to think about them, were much more intriguing to me. In a sense, as a historian, I am interested in translation - moving from one language to another, from academy to the public. I am interested in speaking, as Jaroslav Pelikan's astounding essay put it, past-ese and present-ese.
I admit that the only time I had heard of Pelikan was when he was co-awarded the Kluge Prize along with Paul Ricoeur. I promised myself that I will read Pelikan and even purchased his Whose Bible Is it?, but, never got around to it. Caleb, in a recent thread at Cliopatria noting Pelikan's passing away, recommended an essay from 1993, The Historian as Polyglot - an address given to the American Philospohical Society on their 250th anniversary. The entire essay is an example of the clarity of thought and ideas so lacking in people like me who want to call ourselves historians.
Akin to Pollock's call to philology, Pelikan talks about the necessary task of the historian:
The historian of ideas needs to be able - and, in some recognizable measure, still is able - to understand one or more of the dialects of past-ese, and by an act of historical imagination to serve as an interpreter of them, "interpreter" being, insterestingly, the very word we use both for the translator and for the historian".
...
That is as well a function of being a historical polyglot and of learning the language I have been calling here past-ese: to put our own present-ese into perspective, not by claiming to be able to jump out of our own skin, which is physically impossible, but by demonstrating the difference between the body and the mind precisely in this, that we are able in consiberable measure to jump out of our own mind-set, and thus (to invoke as well an even newer dialect of present-ese, the language of computer-ese) that we are able to "toggle" between past-ese and present-ese
Pelikan is concerned with the role of historian and historiography but the idea of 'interpreter' can be stretched both inside the university to communications between various disciplines as well as outside the university to our actions as political and social members of society. Do note the deliciousness of his usage of computer jargon in his conclusion for my purpose here, today.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Quote UnQuote
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
-- ABC News, The Blotter [via]
I was, as an American soldier in the uniform of my country, being warned about government excesses and the threat to freedom from unrestrained state power. By an Iranian refugee. [emphasis in original]
-- Chris Bray, Secrets and Lies
In the meantime, polls continue to fluctuate whether the American public considers any of this a deal worth giving a hoot about.
Personally, as I don't call anyone associated with Al Qaeda, I don't CARE if the Government tracks me, listens to me or records me. Only the guilty should be nervous. Is ABC and the NYT Guilty of aiding terroism or are they/you simply guilty of undermingin our security by letting the terrorists know what we are trying to do to stop them? In either case, you should be ashamed.-- a commentator on The Blotter
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Academic Freedoms
Douglas Giles, a philosophy teacher who currently teaches at Oakton Community College, holds this teaching philosophy: "That students deserve the opportunity to learn divergent viewpoints and make up their own minds. Thus, he believes that the instructor has a duty to present the beliefs of philosophy and religion honestly and without bias. That means all students are invited to participate and free to speak their minds so that learning becomes a fun collective pursuit."
Fair enough. However, when he was teaching at Roosevelt University, Chicago last year, he was fired from his job for doing exactly that. As he wrote in a diary at dailyKos recently:
Roosevelt University's Chair of the Department of History, Art History and Philosophy, Susan Weininger is an art history professor who has never taught religion or philosophy. Other than the interview in which she hired me in December 2003, she and I had not spoken before a series of phone calls she placed to me at my home in September 2005. In these phone calls, she told me, as department chair, to change my World Religions curriculum to exclude certain opinions and facts:
* Students should not be allowed to ask whatever questions they want in class
* Nothing should be mentioned in class, textbooks, or examinations that could possibly open up Judaism to criticism, especially any mention of Zionism
* Nothing related to Palestinians or Islamic beliefs about Jerusalem should be mentioned
* Discussion of Zionism or the Palestinian issue was "disrespectful to any Jews in the class"
Saturday, May 6, 2006
Israel Lobby - Response
We close with a final comment about the controversy surrounding our article. Although we are not surprised by the hostility directed at us, we are still disappointed that more attention has not been paid to the substance of the piece. The fact remains that the United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East, and it will not be able to develop effective policies if it is impossible to have a civilised discussion about the role of Israel in American foreign policy.
Mearsheimer and Walt respond in the London Review of Books.
Thursday, May 4, 2006
Defeat at Brandeis
The headline says, Brandeis University pulls Palestinian art from exhibit [also, see this]. The article notes that the images were painted by Palestinian teenagers at the request of an Israeli Jewish student at at the Jewish-sponsored college who wanted to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to campus. But school officials said the paintings were too one-sided.
What the other side for 12 yr olds in a refugee camp looks like? I don't know.
You can see one of the images here. MondoWeiss has a bunch of follow ups as well.
This post shamelessly references KC's post on academic freedom at Penn State.
Tuesday, May 2, 2006
The Burdened White Man
This feature in the WSJ by Shelby Steele is truly unhinged. I wish I had the temperance to 'engage' with it but I just point at it flabbergasted and hope that it is a missive from some other alternative reality.
Monday, April 24, 2006
A Thousand Days
A haunting op-ed from historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in todays Washington Post: Bush's Thousand Days:
But our Cold War presidents kept to the Kennan formula of containment plus deterrence, and we won the Cold War without escalating it into a nuclear war. Enter George W. Bush as the great exponent of preventive war. In 2003, owing to the collapse of the Democratic opposition, Bush shifted the base of American foreign policy from containment-deterrence to presidential preventive war: Be silent; I see it, if you don't. Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose. But, as Lincoln observed in his second inaugural address, "The Almighty has His own purposes."
There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war (also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.
The futility of a nuclear attack in actually achieving the goal of such a strike [take out the deep bunkers in Iran] is apparent.
The necessity of opposing any military action in Iran should also be apparent.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Thomas Bender Responds
Below is the response submitted by Prof. Bender to our recently held symposium. We thank him for taking the time out to respond.
I want to thank those who took the time to write thoughtful responses to my article, "No Borders: Beyond the Nation-State." I should begin by noting that authors do not provide the titles for their work published in newspapers and magazines, and the publication of this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education is no exception. I mention this because the title may have thrown readers off, making them think that I believed, like Thomas Friedman, that borders are vanishing and that we are getting beyond the nation-state, as some of the globalization talk of the 1990s proposed.
The title of the book may be clearer on this point: A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History.
I think I have argued for some time that the nation-state is not about to disappear, nor would that necessarily be a good thing. While I lament its capacity for wreaking violence, I also recognize it as the only entity able to enforce human rights and rights of citizenship. I have argued that my intention is not to end national histories, but to write and teach them differently. Contrary to a worry expressed that the larger framing of American history threatens American national traditions and institutions, it only helps us better understand them and from whence they come--a point at issue between Justices Scalia and Alito vis a vis Ginsberg. Where do Scalia and Alito think many of the ideas of the revolution and constitution came from? Some were surely from American colonial experience, but some were from the larger Atlantic world, and recall in the Declaration of Independence Jefferson recognized (as the other founders did, for partly practical political reasons) the importance of a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Many of our key ideas were partly of foreign origin, but more important they exist in a world in which international events and influences of other sorts result in reaffirmation or weakening. Those are important historical developments that require an international outlook for adequate understanding.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Cliopatria Symposium on ... Transnational Histories of America
Welcome, all, to the April edition of Cliopatria Symposium. This month we focus on Professor Thomas Bender's essay No Borders: Beyond the Nation-State which appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education on April 7, 2006.
This symposium grew organically as conversation between Eric Rauchway, Caleb McDaniel and Rob McDougall evolved and incorporated the themes of the Bender essay. In the interest of giving a sense of the evolution of the discussion, I have taken Ralph's suggestion and organized the symposium accordingly.
I thank all the participants - Cliopatrians and otherwise - who send me their responses and I hope that Prof. Bender will find some time to read and respond here.
Click more to read Eric Rauchway, Caleb McDaniel, Rob McDougall, K.C. Johnson, Greg Robinson, Nathaneal Robnison, Jim Fedako, Evan Roberts.
Please feel free to send me your posts for inclusion into the symposium.
update: Prof. Bender responds to the Symposium.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A Call for Symposium
It has been way too long since we have had a symposium so, let's start right back. Thomas Bender's essay No Borders Beyond the Nation-State in the CHE, comes from his recently published book, A Nation Among Nations : America's Place in World History. The essay has already elicited responses from some of Cliopats here. Others wishing to participate in the symposium should send their contributions to manan*at*uchicago*dot*edu by Sunday, April 16th.
I will compile and post the symposium on Monday, April 17th.
Contributions from other bloggers are genuinely welcomed at their own blogs. Please send me a link to your post and I will include the link in the symposium post. Our desire is to have as broad a discussion as possible.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Nutshell
Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)
Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against -- over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)
- President Bush Discusses Global War on Terror
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Iran Freedom Concert
This Saturday, a coalition of groups will hold an Iran Freedom Concert at Harvard. This concert, the organizers state on their website, "raises awareness of the Iranian government's human rights abuses and expresses solidarity with Iranian students seeking to end these violations. The coalition is non-partisan and does not take a stance on policy issues like foreign intervention."
I find it hard to believe such a visible, political event deems itself non-partisan or has no stance on the _one_ paramount issue facing Iran at the moment. I am not the only one transported to early 2003 with Cheney's recent threats about "meaningful consequences" to Iran.
Mana Kia, a graduate student in History/ME Studies at Harvard, and co-blogger at No War on Iran has written an Open letter to the organizers that raises questions about the facts as presented by the coalition as well as their underlying assumptions and explicit goals. The drumbeat around the blogfires has been overwhelmingly positive about this event [see technorati] with the right-leaning blogs noting that this actually redeems those commie students at Harvard. It is, hence, imperative that questions be asked about this concert. I am excerpting Mana's conclusion but please read the whole thing:
By no stretch of the imagination am I a fan of the current regime, however, I also think that the situation needs to be approached through constructive means, not through (inadvertent or not) support of the US military bludgeon. This is where your event comes in. Even if you do not make an intentionally explicit claim to weigh in on foreign policy, your organization's event, because of the inescapable fact that it takes place here and now in the US, becomes part of the US government's case for sanctioned violence on Iran. You don't need to make an explicit claim. The event itself, assigned meaning by its context, is itself an explicit endorsement of war on Iran. UNLESS, you condemn the use of violence and endorse the utter exhaustion of all peaceful means of negotiation. This is a principle enshrined in the UN Charter for the very good reason that it is an integral principle of the Just War doctrine from which the Charter is derived.
I urge you to ask yourself, why Iran, why now? Why not Zimbabwe? Why not Egypt? You want a repressive government? Why not Myanmar?
I have two questions: 1) Where does your organization receive its funding? Is any of it, directly or indirectly, from the US government, more specifically, the 75 million recently earmarked by Congress to support "democracy" in Iran? 2) Do you have any actual contact with the student groups in Iran? Which ones? Where do they stand on US military attacks on Iran? And if not, why do you think you know their aims and can speak for them? Have you given a voice or any consideration to the student groups or bloggers that vehemently reject any and all US based activism on the ground that it a) can be appropriated by a jingoistic US government delivering “democracy” from the barrel of hundreds of thousands of guns and bombs that has proven quite bleak in Afghanistan and Iraq; and b) that because of the overwhelming likelihood of that appropriation, such activism will be read as collusion with an imperialist power with a strong and proven will to destruction, domination and exploitation.
Finally, I ask you, what happens to the principles of democracy and a free society when they are implemented through means which undermine their legitimacy? Do you end up with something that isn’t democracy at all?
Friday, March 3, 2006
Block the Offensive Internets
News report states that the Supreme Court has ruled that all websites which display the Danish cartoons should be blocked in Pakistan. The Supreme Court observed that this is a matter for the entire Muslim world and no technical limitations will be accepted as an excuse. I will try to find more sources and update this.
In the first salvo, Blogspot is blocked in Pakistan.
Reminds me of the decisions to ban Salman Rushdie and the secret trade in Satanic Verses [smuggling it in with a War & Peace cover was my favorite].
[original Urdu report out of Daily Jang, Pakistan's leading Urdu newspaper]
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Malcolm X
Today is the anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination.
I was on a plane between Algiers and Geneva and it just happened that two other Americans were sitting in the two seats next to me. None of us knew each other and the other two were white, one a male, the other a female. And after we had been flying along for about forty minutes, the lady, she says, "Could I ask you a personal question?"
I said, '"Yes." She said, "Well--" she had been looking at my briefcase, and she said, "Well, what does that X--" she says, "What kind of last name could you have that begins with X?" So I said, "That's it -- X." And she said, "Well, what does the 'M' stand for?" I said, "Malcolm." So she was quiet for about ten minutes, and she turned to me and she says, "You're not Malcolm X?"
You see, we had been riding along in a nice conversation like three human beings, you know, no hostility, no animosity, just human. And she couldn't take this, she said, "Well you're not who I was looking for," you know. And she ended up telling me that she was looking for horns and all that, and for someone who was out to kill all white people, as if all white people could be killed. This was her general attitude, and this attitude had been given her -- this image had been given [to] her by the press.
More here.
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Figure of Speech
I am sure you have heard about the furor over depictions of Muhammad, the last Prophet of Islam, in a series of cartoons in the Danish newspaper, Meninger Jyllands-Posten. If not, you can click here for a rundown of the event; curious readers can click here to see what the fuss is about; irate readers can click here to see the non-apology from Meninger Jyllands-Posten.
Medieval Europe's fascination with Mahound, Mahomet and Mohamad can be seen from Dante's description of the Divine Comedy - Mohammad is in the 9th 8th circle, Bolgia 9 of hell [thx Jim!], condemned for sowing "scandal and schism" - to Voltaire's Mahomet: tragédie where he is the seditious imposter. A cursory look at the archives of 13th-18th century reveals frequent and vehement portrayls of Muhammad as wicked, 'with a desparate stomach', delighted with rapes and plunder, seducer of women, of mongrel birth, and whose name tallyied up to 666. For example, the first English translation, via French, of the Qur'an, in 1649, stated, "Good reader, the great Arabian imposter, now at last after a thousand years, is by the way of France arrived in England, and his Alcoran, or gallimaufry of errors (a brat as deformed as the parent, and as full of heresies, as his scald head was of scurf) hath learned to speak English". Arberry, in his translation of the Qur'an, has more snippets from that introduction.
So, while on the one hand, the call for 'artistic interpretations of Muhammad' falls into a long tradition of 'Muhammad the Other', the hue and cry raised by Muslims also needs some correctives. The claim is that Islam bans all representations - while also banning drinking alcohol and playing games of chance in much more unequivocal tones which doesn't get as impassioned a defense anywhere. I don't have the time or energy to go into it here but the iconoclasm of medieval Muslims had more factors than simply the abhorration of any rendition of the human form. From the Deccan to Shiraz to Baghdad, painters and miniaturists found ample motivation to portray humans. However the depiction of the Prophet's facial features, by and large, remained taboo. The vast majority of portraits would have him in a veil or occluded. Which does not mean that we don't have some surviving miniatures that do portray the Prophet in a classical indo-persianate tradition and many more mentions of such in the literature. See, for example, this 17th c. miniature of Muhammad with many diginitaries.The Shi'a hagiographical tradition has been a bit more tolerant of such depictions, like this Jesus-y one from Iran. In short, if 'any' depiction of the Prophet is an assault on the sensibilities of the global Muslim, than we have more to worry about than bad Danish cartoonists.
The Danish editorial board wants to express their 'freedom of speech' to cast Muhammad as a terrorists. Fair enough, it is their right. Just as the literal and figurative depictions of Muhammad in medieval and early modern Europe served a political and cultural purpose, these cartoons do the same. The debate, of course, is about Danish or French society and their efforts at dealing with that perennial invasion from the East [via immigration, now]. On the other hand, if Saudi Arabians want to ban Danish products and recall their Ambassadors, it is their right as well. I'd say there are way more offensive things for Muslims out there. Lack of democracy in their respective countries, being one obvious one. But, they will only get around to protesting that when they are done burning Danish flags or condemning bad postcolonial authors. A fact that has not escaped the notice of the Kings of Saudi or the Generals of Pakistan. [xposted at CM]
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Profound Absurdities
"The force is not broken," Rumsfeld declared. Moreover, he said, "It's battle-hardened. It's not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons."
"Titanic has not sunk," Rumsfeld declared. Moreover, he said, "It's ice-berg hardened. It's not a sissy little frigate just out of the builder's yard"
Ok. That's just for a cheap laugh [mainly my own] but here is what got me interested:
As for Krepinevich's warning that retention problems could emerge if the pace of rotations fails to ease, Rumsfeld said he didn't know if that was the case.
"I suspect the people writing these things don't know, either, because I suspect that they don't have any more insight than the other people around here do," he said.
Krepinevich received $137,000 over 12 months for the report, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Paul Swiergosz said.
Asked why the Pentagon pays consultants such as Krepinevich for such reports if they lack insight, Rumsfeld said: "Well, because the way you get the best knowledge and the best perspective is to listen to people with different views."
That is the most open statement I have seen from this administration and a healthy sign of things on the mend. We will surely have an actual policy towards Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Sudan.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Top 21 Books in Middle East Studies [Modern]
The enterprising scholars at American University Cairo thought it worthwhile to poll M.E. professors [and sundries] on the "most interesting, informative and readable" books in the field of Modern Middle East Studies. 52 scholars of the M.E. responded and below is the top 21. I thought it would be useful for our readers as well. I have hyperlinked the entries to Amazon.
- Orientalism by Edward Said 1978
- The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq by Hanna Batatu, 1978
- Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age by Albert Hourani, 1962
- A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani, 1991
- The Venture of Islam by Marshall Hodgson, 1975 [3 vols.]
- Colonising Egypt by Timothy Mitchell, 1988
- The Mantle of the Prophet by Roy Mottahedeh, 1986
- Contending Visions of the Middle East by Zachary Lockman, 2004
- Women and Gender in Islam by Leila Ahmed, 1992
- The Emergence of Modern Turkey by Bernard Lewis, 1961
- Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East by Nazih Ayubi, 1995
- A Political Economy of the Middle East by Alan Richards & John Waterbury, 1990
- A History of Islamic Societies by Ira Lapidus, 1988
- Rule of Experts by Timothy Mitchell, 2002
- Ambiguities of Domination by Lisa Wedeen, 1999
- The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun, 1377
- A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, 1989
- Armed Struggle and the Search for State by Yezid Sayigh, 1997
- State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East by Roger Owen, 1992
- Society of the Muslim Brothers by Richard Mitchell, 1969
- Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy by Michael Hudson, 1977
I must admit that I am a tad confused by the presence of Lockman and Fromkin entries and the abscence of Olivier Roy's The Failure of Political Islam or Joseph Schacht's The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. My choices didn't even make the honorable mentions! Shows what I know.
Would the readers like to offer their suggestions?
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Jill Carroll
You must have heard of CSM reporter Jill Carroll who has been abducted in Iraq. Today brings the heart-wrenching report of a video and demands from her abductors.
Here you will find her reporting for CSM [via natasha].
Her translator, Alan Enwiyah, was killed during her abduction. Riverbend remembers him.
I hope and pray that she returns home to her family, safe.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Hearts and Mind Department
Ahistoricality kindly drew my attention to a recent poll on attitudes towards US, Usama b. Laden and Terrorism in Pakistan in the wake of the October Earthquake undertaken by Terror Free Tomorrow. The poll was conducted over November 14-28, 2005 and has a error margin of 2.6%. It has a significant data pool [1450 adults]. Here is the pdf of the report.
Hussain Haqqani and Kenneth Balen - advisor and president, respectively of the polling organization - put up an op-ed in WSJ saying [do catch the snipe at UN in the oped]:
Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the U.S. than at any time since 9/11, while support for al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed 87,000. The U.S. pledged $510 million for earthquake relief in Pakistan and American soldiers are playing a prominent role in rescuing victims from remote mountainous villages.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Analogy as Prediction
Can someone explain, seriously, to this non-Americanist [in oh-so-many ways] what is George W. Bush's intent in continuously comparing Iraqis to America's founders? Is the intention to highlight America's role as the failed imperial power? Or that there is a civil war coming soon in Iraq?
Friday, November 4, 2005
Cliopatria's Nightmares 2
Courtesy of metameat:
Sunday, October 30, 2005
East Starts Here
Orhan Pamuk, the great Turkish novelist, has seen both his share of critical acclaim and nationalist persecution. His troubles started after a remark about the Armenian genocide. A over-zealous prosecutor and a jumpy state has made his case a cause-celebré [you know you have arrived when either Bono or Rushdie takes up your case].
I have followed the case through the excellent blog [verbal privilege] of Elizabeth, who has written with great insight into this matter from Istanbul: See here and here, esp.
In this weekend's Guardian, is the text of a speech given by Pamuk at the occasion of accepting the 2005 Friedenspreis, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. It is essential reading - covering nationalist shame and pride, the power of a novelists imagination and the connective tissue between East and West.
We've arrived at a point where we must choose between the power of a novelist's imagination and the sort of nationalism that condones burning his books. Over the past few years, I have spoken a great deal about Turkey and its EU bid, and often I've been met with grimaces and suspicious questions. So let me answer them here and now. The most important thing that Turkey and the Turkish people have to offer Europe and Germany is, without a doubt, peace; it is the security and strength that will come from a Muslim country's desire to join Europe, and this peaceful desire's ratification. The great novelists I read as a child and a young man did not define Europe by its Christian faith but by its individuals. It was because they described Europe through heroes who were struggling to free themselves, express their creativity and make their dreams come true, that their novels spoke to my heart. Europe has gained the respect of the non-western world for the ideals it has done so much to nurture: liberty, equality and fraternity. If Europe's soul is enlightenment, equality and democracy, if it is to be a union predicated on peace, then Turkey has a place in it. A Europe defining itself on narrow Christian terms will, like a Turkey that tries to derive its strength only from its religion, be an inward-looking place divorced from reality, and more bound to the past than to the future.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Cliopatria Symposium...on Sean Wilentz's Bush's Ancestors
Our [ir]regular Symposia series continues this month with a discussion of Sean Wilentz's essay Oct 16 essay in the New York Times Magazine, Bush's Ancestors. I thank all the participants - Cliopatrians and otherwise - who send me their responses and I hope that Prof. Wilentz will find some time to read and respond here.
Click more to read the responses of Jonathan Dresner, K. C. Johnson, Ralph Luker, Caleb McDaniel, Wilson J. Moses and Greg Robinson. As well as Marc Comtois and Louis Proyect's contributions on their own blogs.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Academic Blogging
JC: [Laughs.] When you're talking about the debates I hold with my readers and the way I put up critiques of my position, what academic life has to offer is open debate and being honest about your sources, about how you come to a conclusion. The whole point of my blog is to attempt to represent the life of the mind in a public forum. I view what I do as different from politics where you want to stay on message, stay on point. You want to put out an image, a position and stick to it. You make fun of your opponent for waffling or being indecisive. But what serious thinker hasn't gone back and forth? You'd have to be crazy if you didn't consider other options than the one you initially started out with or if, over time, experience didn't sometimes cause you to take a different position.
You know, Whitman said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." That's the American spirit, so I'm happy to debate these things, reveal my thinking, and let the world see how one intellectual concerned with the Middle East deals with the array of information that's coming at us over time.
The second part of Juan Cole's interview is up at Tom Dispatch. I was struck with Cole's understanding of blogging because that is exactly what I think academic blogging should be. Obviously, that is only _one_ understanding of blogging but that is the one I wholeheartedly endorse. Put that in your manifesto.
Monday, October 17, 2005
A Call for Symposium
Our fourth symposium will focus on Sean Wilentz's "Bush's Ancestors," which appeared this weekend in the NYT Magazine. Cliopatricians participating in the symposium should send their contributions to manan*at*uchicago*dot*edu. I will post them here on Friday 21 October.
Contributions from other bloggers are genuinely welcomed at their own blogs. Please send me a link to your post and I will include the link in the symposium post. Our desire is to have as broad a discussion as possible.
Our past Symposia.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Noted in Proxy
....that Issue # 18 of the History Carnival is up at Acephalous. Many thanks to Scott Eric Kaufman for a splendid job.
.....that Timothy Garton Ash spend a few weeks in Iran and wrote about it in the NYRB: Soldiers of the Hidden Imam.
....that Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, says his piece in the LRB: We do not deserve these people.
....that we have more speakers of Klingon than Arabic in the Administration.
....that Cliopatria contributing editor Sean Wilentz, also author of The Rise of American Democracy, draws parallels between the current Administration and the Machine in NYT: Bush's Ancestors. I smell a symposia coming.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Earthquake Relief
The devastation from the earthquake is hard to fathom right now. I spend a good part of my youth in those mountain towns north of Islamabad - esp. Mansehra and Balakot. Balakot, is especially heart wrenching. Here is a good one-stop information depot for you. Helpless as I am so far away, the only action left is to organize some relief effort. The tragedy is that the relief operations in Pakistan have very little online presence. The charity that I trust the most, Edhi Foundation, works completely from neighborhood funding drives. If you would like to donate, please send your checks to:
Bilqis Edhi Foundation
42-07 National street
Corona, New York, 11368
Second, is this missive from the Pakistan Embassy as a response to my query:
The President’s Relief Fund is receiving donations from the Pakistanis, overseas Pakistanis and the international community. The Embassy of Pakistan Washington has opened a designated account with the National Bank of Pakistan to receive donations for the President’s Relief Fund. Donations can be made through checks payable to President’s Relief Fund. Tax deductible donations can also be made through checks made payable to “Reach International”. All such checks should be mailed to the
Head of Chancery,
Embassy of Pakistan,
3517 International Court, NW,
Washington, DC 20008. The Embassy will acknowledge the donations made to the President’s Relief Fund through Reach International. All donations made by the community organizations and individuals will be announced on the Embassy’s website.
Third, donate to the Canadian Red Cross effort.
Fourth, Islamic Relief, a very well-established charity is having a $10 million dollar drive. Islamic Relief has a very high rating from Charity Navigator.
Also, I want to acknowledge that the US-State Department announced $50 million in aid today. Along with the most important, and severely lacking, rescue equipment. My heartfelt thanks to the US state and to the many, many people who called and emailed inquiring about my family's safety
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Third as Network Special
Friday, September 16, 2005
The Tipping Point
Generally, I am unsympathetic to doomsday scenarios but this article in The Independent, Global Warming 'past the point of no return' has me in jitters. Steve Connor writes:
They believe global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.
The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a "tipping point" beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically.
...
There could be dramatic changes to the climate of the northern region due to the creation of a vast expanse of open water where there was once effectively land," Professor Wadhams said. "You're essentially changing land into ocean and the creation of a huge area of open ocean where there was once land will have a very big impact on other climate parameters," he said.
I should also mention the insanely scary [and well-written] three-part series in New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert. The first part is online. I don't know about you, but I am ready to.
We are still watching the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina to one of our city. While the President acknowledged the effects of racial discrimination in this country:
As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.
Is it possible that this President can also acknowledge that global warming is R.E.A.L? Is that not another immediate threat to our nation? Kyoto Treaty is dead for various reasons - and post-Kyoto looks a shamble as well. So, what is the alternative?
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Embrace the Race
"I want Arabs to get sexed up like nothing else," wrote Jill Bandes a "19 [yr old] blond-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian Jew" in the Daily Tar Heel. "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport." Hmm. Forget the racial profiling for security. There is more going on in this column. "When asked if she had a boyfriend, Ann Coulter once said that any time she had a need for physical intimacy, she would simply walk through an airport’s security checkpoint." REALLY. I didn't catch that quote. "Stop, as Coulter advises, treating racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex — by not discussing the topic unless you’re recoiling in horror at the practice." I have to say that I never noticed the "strip" part of the strip-search before. But here it is.
Racial profiling needs more defendants like this.
I don't know why she was fired as a columnist because I would love to read her take on weapons of mass destructions [link via Romenesko].
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Blogging Away the Job 2
A month or so ago, I posted about Ivan Tribble's CHE column, Bloggers Need Not Apply. The column came in for a bit of abuse in the blogging community, and rightly so.
Now, the brave Mr. Tribble has decided to defend himself with They Shoot Messengers, Don't They?. I won't repost this one because it really has nothing to say except take some hackneyed "criticisms" and offer homilies in return. He concludes:
As my original column made clear (and many amid the outcry reiterated) when it comes to blogging, I just don't "get it." That's right, I don't. Many in the tenured generation don't, and they'll be sitting on hiring committees for years to come.If that's bad news, I'm sorry. But would it really be better if no one bothered to mention it? Shooting the messenger may make some feel better, but heeding the warning might help them get jobs.
Yeah, he doesn't get it, does he? In the many discussions that followed the original article, I did notice a defensive tendency on the part of many bloggers. As if they had been caught by the teacher doodling on paper in class instead of taking notes. In a sense it is true. The overwhelming majority of us blog on our dime and on our time - dime and time that, both, presumably could be spend on more "productive" things. I think there is a bit of guilt involved until we can convince ourselves about the nature of public discourse in the 21st century and our role as scholars within it.
Saturday, September 3, 2005
For Faculty Displaced By Katrina
From H-ASIA September 3, 2005. Posted by Ann Waltner, Professor of History and Director of Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. Please help circulate.
Fellowships for faculty displaced by Katrina
*************************************************
From: Ann Waltner _waltn001@UMN.EDU_ (mailto:waltn001@UMN.EDU)
The Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota(www.ias.umn.edu) invites colleagues displaced by Katrina to apply for short term fellowships, beginning immediately. We can be maximally flexible. Please send a short letter of application to Ann Waltner at waltn001@umn.edu. Include a cv if possible; if this is not possible, please give citations for relevant recent publications. If it is more convenient to send a letter of application by mail, please address it to the Institute for Advanced Study, 131 Nolte Center, 315 Pleasant Street SE, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Telephone inquiries may be directed to the Institute's office at 612 626-5054. (We are brand new; we are welcoming our first regular group of fellows in the spring. We have empty offices which we would be happy to put to good use.)
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The Earth Remains Flat
Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.
Jon D. Miller is quoted in today's NYT piece about the lack of scientific savvy in American public. This comes on the heels of the Robert Orrill and Linn Shapir's article in the AHR about the lack of historical training in high schools. Along that is Dr. Miller's quote, "Our best university graduates are world-class by any definition," he said. "But the second half of our high school population - it's an embarrassment. We have left behind a lot of people." And while such hot-topics as "evolution" are in the press, one really wonders if the debate would be different if we were paying a lot more attention to secondary education in this country.
Related, Dr. Miller has a powerpoint at this NASA website that is worth downloading. For example, he states that only 18 million Americans are interested in scientific discoveries or news.
Monday, August 29, 2005
CFA: Blog Day 2005
This is a Call for Attention to Blog Day 2005. Dreamed up by Nir Ofir who thought that 3108 looks like the word Blog and that we bloggers need a day for festivities. Brilliant idea, I say.
How do we participate? I, for one, would vote for getting hammered but they recommend doing something bloggy [shouldn't we be taking a break from our blogs on our holiday? just wondering]:
- Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
- Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2005
- Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
- Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
- Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2005 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org
I do admit that my blog reading has almost stopped recently and my blogroll is as stagnant as Loch Ness. So this is a good boost. Anycase, Participate.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Dear Mr. Brooks
In your 8/25 column, Divided They Stand, you conclude [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/opinion/25brooks.html]:
But when you get Galbraith and Gerecht in the same mood, you know something important has happened. The U.S. has orchestrated a document that is organically Iraqi.
It's their country, after all.
However in your entire piece there is not a single quote from any actual Iraqi who may or may not have any opinion on the constitution. As I see it, you have demonstrated the myopia of the American enterprise in Iraq perfectly - American analysts talking about perceptions in the American media as counter spin in an American op-ed for American audience.
Since you couldn't find any "IRAQI" to tell you anything about what that constitution means to them, I really fail to see your conclusion. I take your words of esteem for "Peter W. Galbraith, a former United States ambassador to Croatia, and smart Iraq analyst, Reuel Marc Gerecht, formerly of the C.I.A. and now at the American Enterprise Institute" but I doubt that they call Iraq their country.
If you would like to get the Baghdad street view of the Constitution, perhaps you can call someone who is 1. An Iraqi 2. In Baghdad 3. Involved in the Constitution making process. THEN, you can conclude whether the Iraqi constitution is organic or not.
cheers,
Manan Ahmed
[yes, I emailed this to Mr. Brooks]
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Defend the Library
A few months ago, University of Chicago's central library Regenstein had a questionnaire circulated to assess the way students used the space and plan ahead on how best to re-orient the library in the coming 5-10 years. One theme in the questionnaire was whether we "met" people in the Reg or whether we "wanted a social space". Questions about availability of foods and snacks and chill-out music.
As someone who uses the stacks to, um, get books and such, I paid little attention to the questionnaire but my concern level rises up a notch today. In CSM is an article about the UT-Austin turning their undergraduate library into a "learning center" with couches, laptops and baristas. What!?
Liberal bias in faculty! Global Studies! Churchill! Forget all that. Here is a cause I can get behind: Defend the Library! Let's talk about this in a comically rising voice reaching panic. Here are some places in any given campus where students can do "social gathering": Classrooms [before, during and after lecture]; any open space outside of any campus building; designated student centers and eating commons; dorms; and neighborhood speakeasies. How much social gathering do we need? Really? And speaking as a plugged-in digirati, I shudder when I read that students can access information through "bibliographical weblinks". Designed by Google-bots, I am sure.
I am not talking out of nostalgia for some "the-way-things-were". Just this morning, I have been writing a post about the necessity of increasing technology in the classroom [until Caleb pre-empted me below]. However, I cannot conceive of an undergrad education that does not include thorough familiarity with some semblance of archival/library work. There is more to a stack of library volumes than "Harry Potter". I hope.
Monday, August 8, 2005
Cliopatria Symposium...on Empires
For this issue of the symposium, we are focusing on Akira Iriye's Beyond Imperialism: The New Internationalism. Niall Ferguson's The Unconscious Colossus: limits of (and alternatives to) American empire is a companion piece that we couldn't get reprint rights to. Hence, I don't think it will get addressed directly. Without further ado, below are the responses from the Cliopatria crowd. I will add any I receive after this post goes live. Click read more for the entries to this symposium....
Friday, August 5, 2005
A Cliopatria Symposium ...
On August 8th, Cliopatria will have our third symposium on Empires, their foibles and alternatives to them.
The main article under discussion will be Ikira Iriye's Beyond Imperialism: the new internationalism. The article was recently published in Dædalus [Spring 2005]. I want to thank HNN editor Rick Shenkman for arranging republication rights as well as painstakingly reproducing it on HNN.
Also, in the same issue is a piece by Niall Ferguson entitled, The Unconscious Colossus: limits of (and alternatives to) American empire. I have included it for discussion but, unfortunately, we do not have permission to reprint the article for our audience.
So, please read the Iriye article and I look forward to posting our contributions on Monday. If you comment on these articles on your blogs elsewhere, please drop me a line at mananATuchicagoDOTedu or in comments here and I will be sure to reference it.
Our past Symposia.
Tuesday, August 2, 2005
Sugar to Shiraz
Not that I am interested in bashing David Adesnik, but the man writes some serious inanities. In his latest post - sticking up for Irshad Manji - he concludes: "Wouldn't it be curious if American Muslims became the driving force behind the anti-terrorist movement in the Islamic world? These days, Americans talk more and more about exporting democracy to the Middle East. But who ever thought that Americans would also be exporting a new and more enlightened brand of Islam to the Muslim world?". What hubris!
Are the Muslim Americans part of some "other", so much "better" Muslim world? Are these "American" Muslims so distinct from the "world" Muslims? Did they not _come_ from that other Muslim world? And what exactly are they "exporting"? Imams? Self-flagellating Mujahids? Care Packages [ahem]? Are the many, many condemnations of jihadists [also this, via J. Cole] by "those" Muslims in that there Muslim world awaiting American Muslim legitimization? Or just David Adesnik legitimization?
What is this fetishization of quotes and press releases condemning terrorism by those Muslims? Why is it so important to segment the faith and those who practice it or look like they might practice it or seem like they should practice it? What rhetorical and argumentative role is being played when the media eggheads ask, nay demand, that every Muslim be asked and tell how severely they condemn terrorism, how sorry they are that Islam led them to this place?
Is it because the scribbled-in-Arabic-and-fossilized-in-seventh-century Islam allows the media the incomprehensible other they can safely point to over there? Orientalism redux? Yes, AlQaeda uses Qur'anic quotes to solicit and justify heinous acts. So, let's say we take ALL offending quotes out of the Qur'an. What then? AlQaeda recruitment ends? No one will strap a bomb on because SUDDENLY they will figure out that they will get 70 white raisins and not seventy virgins? Are you kidding me?
Is all this really that hard to understand? Most recent terrorists are Muslim. Most recent terrorist belong to a certain social class that allows them freedom of movement and travel. Most recent terrorists are male. Most recent terrorists are members of organizations involved, pretty vocally, in anti-Zionist or anti-imperialist actions. Most recent terrorists like blue jeans. Is it possible that we can look at the whole matrix of commonalities - perhaps some that cut across race and religion? Is it possible that there is more to this story than Islam - a faith of BILLIONS - ALL of whom do not appear to be in armed revolt against America or hedonism?
I will say it again. Islam is not a religion of peace. Islam is not a religion of war. Islam is not this or that and here or there. Islam is a living tradition with a complex history of over fourteen centuries. Islam did not stop evolving in the 7th century. It actually has a history of transformations - grave transformations. It has a history of secessions and renewals and new modalities. Start here and work back. I condemn terrorism with all of my rational, moral and ethical being. I do not need to be a Muslim to do it. I just need to be a human. The jihadists are waging a political war. They do not need to be Muslims to do it. They just need to believe in their own twisted cause.
Saturday, July 9, 2005
Blogging Away The Job
What is it with job seekers who also write blogs? asks the pseudonymous author from a search committee in the CHE. The author states that either through googling or from the candidates' own cover letter, the search committee found the blogs of some of the serious contenders for the job. Serious contenders until their blogging revealed that either academia wasn't a priority for them or that their personal lives and politics were too messy or that they had misrepresented their academic research [ouch]. But beyond all that was the very real caution and the conclusion of the piece:
The content of the blog may be less worrisome than the fact of the blog itself. Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see. Past good behavior is no guarantee against future lapses of professional decorum.As someone who is on the job market and blogs here and there, Bloggers Need Not Apply is of more than academic [ahem] interest to me. Jeez, if you google me, a blogging how-to is the first thing you get! An obvious response that occurs to me is Get with the times, people!. But that is not an adequate response. The author wants to argue that the job search is steeped in mythically incomprehensible calculations in any case - why make any "negatives" pronounced? Because I don't think my blogging is a negative. I also don't think that I have to hide my "techno geek" side from the committee [Shouldn't they try to hide their "techno phobe" side from me?] In real terms, the author should be thankful that the blogs revealed information about the applicants absent from the usual materials. Isn't it better to discover before you hire someone that they are mis-representing their work?
[...]
Not every case is so consequential. And in truth, we did not disqualify any applicants based purely on their blogs. If the blog was a negative factor, it was one of many that killed a candidate's chances.
More often that not, however, the blog was a negative, and job seekers need to eliminate as many negatives as possible.
We all have quirks. In a traditional interview process, we try our best to stifle them, or keep them below the threshold of annoyance and distraction. The search committee is composed of humans, who know that the applicants are humans, too, who have those things to hide. It's in your interest, as an applicant, for them to stay hidden, not laid out in exquisite detail for all the world to read. If you stick your foot in your mouth during an interview, no one will interrupt to prevent you from doing further damage. So why risk doing it many times over by blabbing away in a blog?
We've seen the hapless job seekers who destroy the good thing they've got going on paper by being so irritating in person that we can't wait to put them back on a plane. Our blogger applicants came off reasonably well at the initial interview, but once we hung up the phone and called up their blogs, we got to know "the real them" -- better than we wanted, enough to conclude we didn't want to know more.
The point is that my cv, my dissertation, my blog [well, I wouldn't put it on my cv or coverletter], are all indications of who I am - as a scholar and a person. If as a result of close examination, the search committee does not think I am a candidate for them, fine. I'd rather not hide behind empty declarations on my cover letter. I'd rather my future colleagues know exactly who they are getting. As for dirt. Any job candidate worth their salt will have more than enough gossip and unsavory details about people in their field and in the departments that they are applying to. Without the help of blog entries even.
Also see Alan Baumler at the Frog in a Well [thanks to J. Dresner for the tip]
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
To Watch: 30 Days
Shamael and Sadia Haque are first generation Pakistani Americans living in a suburb of Dearborn. Shamael is a neuropsychiatry resident in Detroit while Sadia is in a law school in Lansing. Tonight's episode of Morgan Spurlock's FOX show 30 Days, is a documentary of how they hosted a devout Christian, David Stacy in their house for 30 days.
I am quite keen on watching the show and wanted to bring it to your attention as well. Leaving aside the clash of civilization meme, I think that it is imperative to have Muslim-American lives on national tv - without the facade of a narrative.
Spurlock maintains that none of the shows are in any way scripted. Here is what Morgan Spurlock wrote on his blog about tonight's episode:
Now, this week, we see David Stacy, a Christian from WV, who agrees to immerse himself in Muslim culture for 30 Days to see what its really like to be a Muslim in America. I applaud his bravery for putting himself in such a situation. To take himself out of the safety zone of his life to walk a mile in another man's shoes. Now one person is saying that we went into this with pre-conceived ideas, when in actuality what we went in with were hopes of what could happen. No one knew how David would react when he got there. You can't predict human nature. He could say all his fears and anger were justified and go home vindicated, but what really happened was he went into this situation, making himself vulnerable to a new culture, a new people and new experiences that he'd never been exposed. And as he himself says, he emerged on the other side a better man for it, more compassionate, tolerant and understanding. What you will see in this episode exceeded any expection or hope I ever thought possible.
We live in a country where 3 in every 20 people have passports. That's only 15%. We rarely think beyond our own communities, let alone beyond our borders. What this show is about is what happens when you let your guard down to learn something new about someone else; someone you judged for reasons that weren't even supported by your own experiences, but by stereotypes, rumors and conditioning.
This episode is about American born muslims, people whose parents came to America with the same hopes and aspirations as your and my ancestors. They are Americans, just like you and me, and they have a deep faith and belief in God.
Should we only fear Muslims? There are dangerous and untrustworthy people of all races, religions and nationalities all over the world.
Monday, June 27, 2005
The Rosa Parks Effect
Today, Mukhtar Mai appeared in front of the Pakistan Supreme Court to plead the case against her rapists. Here is a very good timeline/background of her case. Briefly: in 2002, she was gang-raped on the command of the village elders. Instead of committing suicide or staying silent, she pursued justice in the court of law. Six of her rapists were convicted and sentenced to death in the Federal Shari'at Court and she was awarded monetary recompense as well. She used the money to open a girl's elementary school in her village - where she enrolled herself as well. In 2005, the Lahore High Court overturned the conviction and released the men. She appealed to the Supreme Court. The central decision before the SC is whether the Federal Shari'at Court or the Lahore High Court have juridical rights over her case. The very legitimate fear is that the SC may uphold the LHC decision and these horrid men will escape justice. We will find out tomorrow. In the meantime, she was supposed to come to the US on a speaking tour but President Musharraf confiscated her passport and refused her permission to leave the country. Kristoff has led the charge in international coverage of her case.
In Pakistan, stories of rapes and honor-killings [karokari] blend into the cacophony of violence in the daily newspapers. They are chockful of daughters shot, burned or hacked to pieces by fathers, uncles, brothers and husbands in the name of ghairat or izzat - cognates of moral honor that depend on a particularly patriarchal understanding of shame - with nary an effort to stop and rudimentary condemnation of these abhorrent acts. Rapes are reported as brief news items. Honor killings sometimes get front page coverage - mainly for their sensationalism - but the overall response stays the same: Honor defines independent men. The women's body is the locus of a family's honor. It is up to the woman to protect this honor and should they fail - by getting raped or falling in love with someone else or speaking out against domestic abuse, e.g. - the men have the right to seek redress. Along with this honor comes the code of silence. Crimes against women, however unfortunate, are an understandable response from the males, and should be left uncommented. The silence of outrage is mirrored in the silence of the victim. Shame dictates that a family silence their dis-honor. The easiest way to accomplish this, of course, is for the victim to kill herself. The family and the community exorcizes even the memory of the victim. No one remembers, except for those that committed the heinous act and those that used it as an instrument of their power. By staying out of the domain of "honor" and "shame", the state facilitates this. The lack of a police report is, in the end, the most harmful silence of all.
I will put the obvious disclaimer that this is not a situation peculiar to Pakistan or Islam or to this particular moment in history. Domestic violence or honor killings are not a culturally unique phenomenon but they are uniquely patriarchal one. One can easily find instances from Milan to Kentucky with a layover in Dubai. If there is a difference in the rate of incidence between say, Chicago and Lahore, then it is the rule of law and effort of education that has permitted this equality and protection to women in one case and not the other. In many countries, like Pakistan, women have little recourse in law against such violence and insurmountable normative practices that sustain or encourage it. It is easy enough to start labeling Islam or South Asian/"tribal" culture as the root cause of such violence. But that would be a fundamentally flawed and disingenuous conclusion. The culprit is not Islam or South Asian culture, the culprit, undoubtedly, is the State of Pakistan.
Mukhtar Mai's bravest act is to break this lynchpin of silence. She refused to play her assigned part. It was the imam of the local mosque who first urged the family of Mukhtar Mai to break their silence and go to the police. It was Mukhtar Mai who pressed charges against the men and pursued them in court. Neither did she disappear from the community, but used her case and her court award to begin a school for girls in her village. Her act brought serious and critical scrutiny to the plight of honor-killings. As a result of internal pressure from NGOs and external attention, Pakistan tightened the law against such killings - but not enough. Still, her bravery has led to mass demonstrations in her honor both inside and outside Pakistan. It has prompted others to seek justice. It has gathered hundreds of thousands of dollars for schools. Her fortitude has, in effect, crystallized a movement for women's rights in Pakistan.
President Musharraf and his trusted advisor for women's affairs, Neelofer Bakhtiar, treat this as a PR crisis but one can see that they are worried. They maintain that the civil NGOs, in service to the international media, have trumped her up as a cause célèbre. They think that it is an unjust fixation on Pakistan. They should be very worried. The one thing a dictatorship cannot survive is scrutiny. The other thing a dictatorship cannot survive is an internal movement for justice. Mukhtar Mai has given her country, forever mired in silences, both of those things. [x-posted on Chapati Mystery]
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Something that happened in the past
Why, then, doesn't Congress continue to fund PBS at current levels but tell them they must stick to what they are good at, and stop being the TV funhouse of the Democratic Party? Nobody needs their investigative unit pieces on how Iran-contra was very, very wicked; nobody needs another Bill Moyers show; nobody needs a conservative counter to Bill Moyers's show. Our children are being raised in a culture of argument. They can get left-right-pop-pop-bang anywhere, everywhere.
PBS exists to do what the commercial networks should and won't. And just one of those things is bringing to Americans who have not and probably will not be exposed to it the great treasury of American art, from the work of Eugene O'Neill (again, ABC won't be producing "Long Day's Journey" anytime soon), outward to Western art (Shakespeare) and outward to world art.
And science. And history. But real history, meaning something that happened in the past as opposed to the recent present, with which PBS, alas, cannot be trusted.
Art and science and history. That's where PBS's programming should be. And Americans would not resent funding it.
PBS producers would rebel, claiming such programming would rock with age. What they would mean is, There's little personal status in art, and much in controversy. You don't get any particular respect for mounting a great play or a producing a great symphony: their excellence is already known. Respect and status come from controversy. But too bad. The point of PBS is not to employ clever producers. [emphasis added]
- Noonan in WSJ
To be completely honest, I only occasionally watch PBS and rarely listen to NPR. Mostly because TV and radio are not available on my iPod. But, just the other night, I taped and watched a repeat of The Rock Star and the Mullahs - which is set in the "recent present" and could be considered a bit more important than the aesthetic enjoyment of Brad Pitt's Hamlet.
Lest, PBS and NPR become things that happened in the past.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Little Black Sambo
Over the weekend, Bruce Wallace reports in the LAT that The Story of Little Black Sambo is back on the best-seller list in Japan. Sambo entered the American lexicon as a racist caricature a long while before the publication of LBS in America in 1900, but the book, unfortunately, has come to symbolize the controversy over the name and history since the '60s.
Helen Bannerman, the wife of a Scotsman serving in India, wrote the book for her two daughters, while on a two-day journey. LBS was published in London in 1899. She had illustrated the book herself with water-color images of big eyed, skinny kids and bengali tigers. There are the obvious Indian references [Bazaar and Ghee] while the story also has some overtones of Indian folklores - the greedy tiger is a common motif.
Wallace asks in the article, "It has never been definitively explained why artists opted for African characters to illustrate a story set in India"? I don't have any definitive explanation. But, as Bannerman herself illustrated the book and as Indians/Africans were usually polled together in imperial imagination [one need only look at the illustrations in Cambridge History of India or note that Indians are routinely called 'niggers'], I can posit that Sambo was drawn as the archetypal "native". Obviously, the American publishers localized the story from India and the universal native to the South and the plantation negro.
The charges of racism against the readers of the book in Japan [or in South Asia where I read the book] are quite curious in that respect. With no local context of "sambo" or "blackface", can we simply assume that American racism is as universal as American ideals? I am sure that others will disagree.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Book Rage
In Gitmo, reported Newsweek, "Interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet". Since the publication of the report, 9 people have died in Afghanistan in widespread protests [in Jalalabad, they burned the Pakistani consulate]; the protests have spread to Pakistan; and to Indonesia; Shaukat Aziz is mad; the Saudi's are irked; US denies it ever happened but pledges some action nonetheless [I loved this bit: "we have heard from our Muslim friends around the world about their concerns on this matter"].
Why is the tearing or flushing of a copy of Qur'an such grievous offense? For Muslims, Qur'an is not a compilation of reports about God by prophets or disciples, but the exact, direct and inviolable speech of God. Singlevoiced and unidirectional, it is the suprahistorical word of God. The sanctity and sacredness of Qur'an transcends its physicality while at the same time is contained within it. A Muslim dare not even touch it without ritual purity.
But, there are still some differences that need elaborating. The Afghanis and Pakistanis are burning and dying in the streets while the Saudis are merely expressing their "ire". Explanation lies in the difference in the treatment of the "book" vs. the "text" between Arabia and South Asia. In South Asia, the physical Qur'an becomes a holy relic - to be placed in a scented and clean spot above head; to be handled with veneration and respect. In Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, such veneration is frowned upon and they are apt to treat it just as a special book.
Such gradation aside, the Qur'an cannot be surpassed in value as the locus of sacredness in Islam. In one of my favorite verses, Muhammad Iqbal writes ...
... and the Koran—
a hundred new worlds lie within its verses,
whole centuries are involved in its moments;
one world of it suffices for the present age—
seize it, if the heart in your breast grasps truth..
A believing servant himself is a sign of God,
every world to his breast is as a garment;
and when one world grows old upon his bosom,
The Koran gives him another world!
- Javed Nama [1932]. Translation by A. J. Arberry
Torture happened in Abu Gharib and we persecuted the odd grunt soldiers. Torture happens in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt at the behest of CIA or FBI and nobody cares. Torture happened in Abu Gharib but it is all ok because Saddam did worse [btw, Hitch. If you have to moralize based on Saddam's level of morality, you have lost the battle, the war and your mind.]
The destruction of this Qur'an [s?] was psychological torture aimed at just the people to whom each printed dot is the word of God. They will break, I am sure it was argued, rather than face the annihilation of their sacred word. The French did the same in Algeria. The Israelis did the same to Hamas and Hizb prisoners. It makes sense to do it, doesn't it? Break what they hold dearest? Go Patai on them? Maybe the prisoners in Gitmo did break down and disclose secrets. Or maybe they didn't. But, if the age of Terrorism is an age of blowback, then the consequences of torture and the desecration of the Qur'an will remain hidden for a little while. x-posted at Chapati Mystery
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
At the Grown Up Table
The Group of Four vs. the Coffee Club. India vs. Pakistan. Japan vs. China. History vs. Politics. It plays out like a grand opera of broken trusts and rebounded relationships but it is the very realpolitiks surrounding the reform and expansion of the United Nations Security Council. I know that this isn't the sexiest of topics and that the UN is as popular in the States as Kevin Federline is sincere. But, for the rest of the world, it remains a vital organization. So let's take a look at what is at stake.
The brief overview is that UN wants to reform itself. The report on reforms by Kofi Annan [pdf] includes the provision for an expansion of the Security Council. Two competing proposals are on the table: One is to expand it by six permanent members- India, Japan, Brazil and Germany [the Group of Four or G-4] are championing this; the second proposal - spearheaded by Pakistan's Coffee Club coalition of 54 countries - is to add eight semi-permanent seats and divide them among across various nations of Africa and Asia. The two sides have been debating on and off the floor with states announcing their intentions all across [Qatar supports India! Austria supports Pakistan!]. All this while John "There is no such thing as the United Nations" Bolton's confirmation hearing as the UN Ambassador plays out on a cable channel near you.
I will restrict myself to India's claims to the seat. It is a controversial claim in some circles. As the most populous democracy and rising economic power, India feels that it has a legitimate role to play in world politics. The detractors are wary of Indian regionalism-gone-amuck. More interesting is the question why would India want this role? India has always had a warm but distant relationship with the United Nations. Led by the idealism of Nehru [non-alignment, anti-colonial, anti-aggression], India sought to project itself on a higher moral ground for most of his tenure while adhering closely to Indian self-interest. Nothing out of the ordinary in that. What was extraordinary was Nehru's firm belief that India, of all the recently minted states, belonged with the elite nations and that it was not just another "little nation". Indian delegates spoke of "the ancient land" and the India's "rightful and honored place in the world". They consistently sought to present their arguments before the world audience [as well the national audience] and projected the image of global leader [especially under K. Menon '52-'62]. For Nehru's India, the only way to project more power than it possessed was to uphold moral and idealized positions without cavorting with the great powers. Kashmir, and to a lesser extent Goa, became the sticky wicket. While India itself had referred Kashmir to the UN, it found very little sympathy among the international community. And it had to rely on Soviet vetos again and again. Still, with the rise of the Cold war, India consistently sought to keep the balance of influence within the Security Council. It was an ardent supporter of China's bid to be recognized even when border tensions along the Sino-Indian borders were rising.
The onset of hostilities between India and China in 1962 destroyed Nehru's idealized world view. China's aggression - a clearly political show of force - showed India that the stark reality behind its global and regional influence remained its lack of power. China took all the land it wanted and "offered" peace. It was a calculated ploy by Mao to expose the "paper tigers" of the world [Nehru and the Soviets]. Nehru's illusions were shattered [and K. Menon's career ended] and he died soon thereafter. The nonaligned nations had done nothing. Soviets had turned mum. All this led to the marked withdrawal of India from the World/UN stage. The wars of '65, '71, the nuclear boom in '74 robbed any remaining shine off of International India. Things weren't so good at home anyways, so who cared? But, the '80s and '90s have slowly brought India back on the world scene.
But, just as China had once pushed India off the UN/World map, it is now putting India back by supporting India's bid for the SC. Wen Jiabao's recently concluded visit to India resulted in a host of agreements and pacts ["The two sides declared 2006 as the "year of China-India friendship"] and China declared that it "supports India's aspirations to play an active role in the UN and international affairs". This vague statement is understood to be Chinese backing of an Indian permanent seat.
Of course, Pakistan is leading the charge against Indian acceptance to the SC. Their argument, pivots on the Kashmir issue. Totally predictable. Also, predictable are the Indian complaints that the US position is being influenced by the Pakistani-born advisor to the President and Rice, Shirin Tahir-Kheli. Be that as it may, India does have a legitimate claim to leadership on the world stage. More than anything, the 2004 election proved that Indian democracy can play a vital and vibrant role among the totalitarian dictatorships surrounding it. I believe that they fully deserve a seat at the SC.
There is more to the Security Coucil story. Historical memory is at stake between China and Japan which may endanger Chinese support of India as well. That story will, hopefully, be told by Jonathan Dresner.
x-posted at Chapati Mystery
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Is Laura K. Krishna a Plagiarist?
This post at a group blog of comedians is making the rounds. Apparently, a college student solicited a paper on Hinduism ["5 pages on a topic in hindu either the gods or yogas or caste or anything about the religion"] over AIM from the comedian/blogger Nate Kushner [his AIM profile listed a hobby of "Eating Hindu Sculpture"].
Mr. Kushner played along and wrote a farcical paper ["if a Shudra watches dharma and greg, it will have a positive effect on his karma"] which he cribbed form various online sources and sold it to her for $75 bucks. He, then, posted the entire episode on the blog and further emailed the blog post to authorities of, what he thinks, her college.
Now the blog post itself is pretty funny. But the more interesting thing, for those of us involved in the pedagogical profession, are the comments generated to this post. The majority seemed to be of the opinion that Mr. Kushner was "mean" and "harsh". That "she should be caught by an observant professor, not some self righteous english major." That his action was "tantamount to pulling wings off flies" and lots more in that vein. I couldn't help getting the feeling that plagiarism is becoming a crime only if one gets caught - and that by the appropriate authorities alone. Blogging, Google and Plagiarism may have finally reached the Perfect Storm status.
Caveat: Seeing as that this post is on a comedian's blog, it could very well be a hoax. Though I am inclined to believe Mr. Kushner at this point.
Also more comments here
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
And now for something, er, differentish.
Steven Levy, in the Newsweek, asks Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem?. Levy concludes:
Is there a way to promote diversity online, given the built-in decentralization of the blog world? Jenkins, whose comment started the discussion, says that any approach is fine—except inaction. "You can't wait for it to just happen," he says. Appropriately enough, the best ideas rely on individual choices. MacKinnon is involved in a project called Global Voices, to highlight bloggers from around the world. And at the Harvard conference, Suitt challenged people to each find 10 bloggers who weren't male, white or English-speaking—and link to them. "Don't you think," she says, "that out of 8 million blogs, there could be 50 new voices worth hearing?" Definitely. Now let's see if the blogosphere can self-organize itself to find them.
Huh?! There never should be a reason to link to anyone besides your appreciation for their content. White, Brown, Liberal or whatever [uh, that goes for academic hirings too].
I would like to take the Levy piece apart but we have had plenty of that here lately.
Instead, I will take the suggestion and highlight two bloggers that I have been reading for a while who deserve lots of fame and glory.
- Chan'ad Baharini: Chan'ad blogs from Bahrain. And is intimately involved in the stirrings of democracy in that small kingdom. His series on the detained Bahraini blogger is a great example of how blogging can go beyong navel gazing. And, this post on billboards remains my favorite.
- Natasha Tynes: Natasha Tynes is a Jordanian journalist who lives in Qatar. I grew up in Doha. Reading her blog makes me homesick for Doha. And no, I never imagined I would ever say that. Her recent post on bad journalism and the comments it generated deserve your attention [for all kinds of reasons].
From their blogs, you can find an amazing plethora of writers who may happen to be of a gender, race or ethnicity unlike yours.
Oh. Feel free to put your recommendations in the comments.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Bollywood Asia
If "India" as a geographically constitued entity was a colonial construction, "South Asia" is a post-colonial one. With the recent thawing of relationship between India and Pakistan, there is a lot of talk about the EU-ization of South Asia. Removal of trade and travel barriers across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal is not the only incentive for such daydreams. Just as important to those advocating such steps is the "unity" of a cultural and civilizational India that existed before nationalisms [and colonialism] created boundaries.
Ashis Nandy has a piece in the Times of India, Imagined Homeland: South Asia as Civilisation as against Nation State, that is worth peeking at. His basic argument is that "South Asia" is an empty geographical construction of the 70s and 80s that emerged because "India" was taken over by the Indian nation-state. The insecurities of regional nationalisms has "allowed the Indian state to hijack the right to the Indic civilisation, forcing other states in the region to seek new bases for their political cultures and disown crucial aspects of their cultural selves." This, Nandy writes, has given Islam to Pakistan, Hinduism to India and Buddhism to Srilanka.
But, the "empty" category of South Asia is being filled by low[brow] cultural producers of knowledge: the Bollywood cinema. The cinema imagines a post-national reality wherein Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshi can imagine an inclusive space free from the "jingoistic politicians".
Nandy should watch more movies. It seems odd to disassociate Bollywood from the state appartus since cinema relies so heavily on the state for its very existence. It also seems naive to imagine that Bollywood can produce narratives in stark contradiction to the national ones. Right now, there are many movies proclaiming the unity of Indian and Pakistani people, such as the recent Veer Zaara. But the same Bollywood cinema fanned the flames of jingoism during the "heat" of 1998-2002. Movies like Indian and Mission Kashmir cannot possibly have fermented any "cross-national trust". Or see the plight of Meera - the Pakistani actress who smooched on-screen in India and invited death threats in Pakistan. I can see the appeal of a Bollywood culture that unites the inhabitants of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. I can alse see how deeply quixotic such a sentiment is.
Still, Nandy's hope of cross-national exchanges is a laudable one. With the Pakistani cricket team currently visiting India, there is bound to be a great level of enthusiasm and participation in the idea of "South Asia".
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Pipe Dreams
"Sometimes I wish I did US history.... such great material to work with, and all in English."
I must admit to laughing out loud when I read my colleague Jonathan Dresner's comment. How many, many times I have said this to my US and English history cohorts [specifically those who do the modern period ]. You don't have to waste 4-5 years of Arabic and Persian and Sindhi and Serayki [let's leave French and German aside], I say, you can just jump into the archive! How I would love to have that facility with my sources. Of course, my American cohorts doing Hali or Iqbal turn around and say the same thing to me because Urdu is my native tongue while they have to spend years in training.
Still, how I would love to do US cultural or social or intellectual history. To be able to engage with religion and society of 19th-20th century US would be incredible. Of course, such are the dreams of greener grass and happier climes.
But, it made me wonder. What are the professional pipe dreams of my esteemed colleagues and readers? What historical projects would you undertake if you had life enough and time? And current ones, no matter how long in gestation [throat cleared] do not count.
I'll go first. I would love to do a comparative project tracing apocalyptic messianism in the US and in South Asian religious expression during the modern era.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
The Vote
I cannot help but be excited about the vote in Iraq. I will try not to sound like a Friedman column but a new social memory is about to be constructed in Iraq. A memory of pollstations, of registers, of lists of names, of celebrations after victory. A memory that will prove a strong tonic against the oppression of the past decades. Amid the violence, amid the chaos, amid the harsh conflict for power, some Iraqis will cast their vote, voice their opinion, and elect someone else to stand as their representative.
The polarization of Sunnis, the power-grab of the Kurds are legitimate venues of concern but perhaps we should seize, for a moment, from looking at Iraqis as congregations of religious sects or ethnicities. I just want to imagine that one Iraqi living somewhere in Baghdad in the middle of the shellings and the raids and the bombings, who will make the brave journey to cast her vote. When she is alone with her ballot, she will become an active citizen of the Iraqi nation. Whatever her choice, she can finally claim to the legitimate right of choosing her leaders.
I am just as unable to help her cast her vote in safety as I was unable to stop the invasion of her country or the dictatorship she endured. Still, I will send a prayer for all Iraqis as they begin to construct their home - from scratch.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Wrong Side of the Pond
Only slightly less vexing than the Why do they hate us? scholarship is the Why don't they like us? scholarship. Tackling the latter issue with regards to Europe is Niall Ferguson. Since 1989, says Ferguson in the latest Atlantic, Europe and America have drifted apart and are unlikely to unite anytime soon. The reason is that the end of Cold War finished off the impending (and unifying) threat of Communism. Europe sees no reason to continue to stand with America in the aftermath. However, for the Americans, the Green Menace has replaced the Red Menace. They would like the world to be "with us" but Europe cannot make that choice.
Why not? Because the Europeans have 2-5% Muslim population that is likely to grown leading to the eventuality of a Muslim Europe. Not only that, the Muslim population is allied to radical Islamicists who intimidate Europe. On top of the ageing population and mullahs in the piazza, is that Europeans are losing their religion:
So Europe is not only demographically vulnerable to Islamic penetration; it is also politically vulnerable. And perhaps even more important, Europe is religiously vulnerable too.
Europe is getting more secular while America is getting more vigorously Christian. Hence, Europe sees no common ground with an aggressive, Christian America, something unlikely to change. Ferguson hints that he would like to deny Turkey and stop all immigration from the 1slamic countries and that would stop the buildup of Islamic fifth columns inside Europe.
I find it hard to explain the rampant alarmism and Islamophobia in his short piece. I guess, he wanted to justify George W. Bush's "lower expectations of transatlantic relations" by trumpeting the Islamic menace (if Turkey enters in 2015, "there would be more Muslims than Protestants in Europe!" - no matter what brand of secular madness they bring with them).
First of all, why is it a rift whenever free countries disagree with American foreign policy? I don't see Germany condemning US in the UN or cancelling trade agreements. I don't see France denouncing Fallujah and proclaiming the evilness of US. They don't agree with what US is doing in one particular instance and under the guidance of one particular President. There is no indication that this will continue if there is a change in the tone and content of this administration's foreign policy.
Secondly, there must be some particularly nasty bacteria in Harvard waters which breeds paranoia. Just recently Sam Huntington came out with the screed against the brownization of America and now Ferguson is warning about the greenization of Europe. I would urge him to go read up about the perfidious Turks of the early 16th century and how immediate and supreme the menace of Islam has been to Europe - for five centuries.
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Hiring Criteria
Could someone explain the following to me in reference to this job posting:
1. Can you selectively hire on the basis of religion?
2. As a candidate, how does one write an essay on the relationship between Christianity and History? I keep imagining it as an essay assignment in an intro class.
And, please don't think that my question is facitious. I really want to know how one can "not discriminate against applicants on the basis of race, color, gender, handicap, or national or ethnic origin in the selection of employees" but require that "faculty must be able to articulate a personal faith commitment to Jesus Christ and be supportive of a Reformed worldview."
How does that work?
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Universities in Pakistan
When the subject of education in Pakistan comes up in western media, the attention is focused entirely on the madrasa-system. However, there is a more acute problem in Pakistan - the higher education system - which has to produce scientists, researchers and teachers of the present and future.
Pervez Hoodbhoy, who currently teaches Physics at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad - the flagship university of Pakistan has just written the clearest denouncement of Pakistan's higher education in the highest circulation English daily in Pakistan, Dawn. I cannot urge you more strongly to click here and here and read.
His message is clear. Pakistan has no framework of higher education that can match up to the rest of the world. The universities are a quagmire of despotic clerks and professors. The PhDs cannot function in the real world. There is no standard of research in the country in hard sciences or social sciences. There are more mosques on campuses than bookstores. Knowledge is passed by rote and memorization in an endless loop from teacher to student to teacher. Teachers do not engage in or tolerate critical thinking. Any old place can slap a university sign on the door and become an accredited institution to qualify for govt. subsidy. JNU? IIT? forget it, they cannot even match Tehran University in a country cut off from the world for 25 years.
Hoodbhoy has some excellent suggestions. Requiring all graduate applicants to take the GRE; instituting tenure review and administrative review; re-starting student unions on campus; invigorating cultural and social discourse and, most intriguingly, attracting Indian teachers.
There is one bright spot in Pakistani HigherEd. Lahore University of Management Sciences [LUMS] has attracted foreign capital, foreign teachers and a higher caliber of students by adhering to international standards. It should act as a model just as Hoodbhoy's op-ed should act as a declaration for reforms.
On September 23, 2004, Congress passed HR 4818 which mandates the State Dept. to submit a report within 90 days on:
(1) describing the strategy of the Government of Pakistan to implement education reform in Pakistan, and the strategy of the Government of the United States to assist Pakistan to achieve that objective; (2) providing information on the amount of funding— (A) obligated and expended by the Government of Pakistan and the Government of the United States, respectively, for education reform in Pakistan, since January 1, 2002Let's see what comes out there.
Monday, January 3, 2005
Groups of Interest
From the WP came news that the Bush administration is trying to figure out what to do with enemy-combatants who cannot be tried due to lack of evidence but cannot be set free because we have no clue who or what they are and what they might do to us in the future. A possibility on the discussion table is lifetime imprisonment in an US built jail in a host country like Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan. Rumor has it that these places are not as nice to their prisoners as the US ones - which are bound by laws and such - and can be persuaded to tighten the not-so-proverbial screws.
Let us assume that everyone in detention at Gitmo or in a naval brig is guilty. Let us further assume that the US never uses torture as an interrogative or retributional technique. If our assumptions, based on our adherence to moral and legal doctrines, are true, how can we send these prisoners to camps (or prisons or gulags) in countries where we know that they will be treated in inhumane and torturous ways for the rest of their lives? Not just for the short-term "investigations" as is the case currently. And who is to say that these prisoners, back on their soil, won't bribe the guards (baksheesh is a BIG problem in the Orient, let me tell you) and manage to escape? Or that the despot in charge at the moment in Egypt or Pakistan won't be overthrown and the prisons become the latest staging of Bastille Day? Isn't it in the best interest of our nation's security to keep these dangerous people within our control? But hey, far be it for me to defend the people in Gitmo. Whatever happens to them, I am sure they deserve it. I have my own hide to worry about.
In a New York Sun piece, reproduced on his site [http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2309], Daniel Pipes says that if one is "searching for rapists, one looks only at the male population. Similarly, if searching for Islamists (adherents of radical Islam), one looks at the Muslim population." Using the recent survey done by Cornell which shows that 44% of Americans can live with some curtailing of civil rights for Muslims in America, he praises Malkin's work on Japanese internments and hopes that the Muslims in America can be "observed, registered, profiled, monitored".
Feeling unequal to the task of re-writing the Gulag Archipelago, I went and looked up the dissent opinions in the Supreme Court decision that upheld Japanese American internments in 1944. It is a fascinating read. Justice Murphy writes:
The main reasons relied upon by those responsible for the forced evacuation, therefore, do not prove a reasonable relation between the group characteristics of Japanese Americans and the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. The reasons appear, instead, to be largely an accumulation of much of the misinformation, half-truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices-the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation. A military judgment [323 U.S. 214, 240] based upon such racial and sociological considerations is not entitled to the great weight ordinarily given the judgments based upon strictly military considerations. Especially is this so when every charge relative to race, religion, culture, geographical location, and legal and economic status has been substantially discredited by independent studies made by experts in these matters.
The military necessity which is essential to the validity of the evacuation order thus resolves itself into a few intimations that certain individuals actively aided the enemy, from which it is inferred that the entire group of Japanese Americans could not be trusted to be or remain loyal to the United States. No one denies, of course, that there were some disloyal persons of Japanese descent on the Pacific Coast who did all in their power to aid their ancestral land. Similar disloyal activities have been engaged in by many persons of German, Italian and even more pioneer stock in our country. But to infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights. Moreover, this inference, which is at the very heart of the evacuation orders, has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy. To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well- intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow[emphasis added]
Surely, we shall not see a serious discussion of Muslim civilian internments in the public sphere unless another attack occurs on US soil. Still, as a group, the Muslim-Americas have to be less-opaque, less-other, less-foreign, to those who pay "a lot of attention to television news". This can be achieved with a clear and public leadership that can articulate their rights in their own country. A veiled sister on Real World Houston might also be good.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
I Love The Zeroes
Slate's Timothy Noah points out that with the mid-point of the decade approaching, there is no consensus short-hand term to describe the years 2000-2009. I think that he is mostly trying to be helpful to the good folks at VH1 rather than the social scientists that he mentions in his article. Kevin Drum replied with a non-sequitor about how long a "decade" really is? The 30s, it appears, lasted a long while.
A good point considering how often us academics have used the "The Long .... Century" device - like, my fav., Frank O' Gorman's The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History or David Blackbourn's The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918 or, most recently, Giovanni Arrighi's The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. Arrighi starts somewhere in the 16th c. if I remember correctly. I would argue that the twentieth century is far from over and may occupy us for another decade or so.
But, back to Timothy Noah's question. To accomodate TV graphic artists and hip commentators, I would like to put forth the Zeroes for this decade of death and destruction. The nihilists can claim Less than the Zeroes.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Disasters and Technology
I am a little angry, so consider the following a rant. Here is the reason for my anger:
Within 15 minutes of Sunday's earthquake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii had sent an alert to 26 countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, but struggled to reach the right people. Television and radio alerts were not issued in Thailand until 9am - nearly an hour after the waves hit.
"We tried to do what we could. We don't have any contacts in our address book for anybody in that particular part of the world," said Charles McCreery, director of the centre.
and further down in the same piece:
Tad Murty, a tsunami specialist affiliated to the University of Winnipeg in Canada, said that officials in India, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries perceived tsunamis as "a Pacific problem" and had "never shown the initiative to do anything".
The head of India's National Institute of Oceanography said the likelihood of a tsunami hitting Madras had seemed as unlikely as New York's Fifth Avenue being inundated in the film The Day After Tomorrow.
"There's no reason for a single individual to get killed in a tsunami," Mr Murty said. "The waves are totally predictable. We have travel-time charts for the whole of the Indian Ocean. From where this earthquake hit, the travel time for waves to hit the tip of India was four hours. That's enough time for a warning."
So, on the one hand, we have people who have never heard of embassies, consulates, disaster relief agencies, the UN, and a friend from the last oceonagraphy conference in the area. Charles McCreery does not know anyone in "that part of the world". And couldn't be bothered to send an email to the Indian, Srilankan or Thai embassy in D.C. Emails that are easily available to any lay person. On the other hand are people who couldn't be bothered to prepare for such an emergency because such things only happen in bad hollywood movies.
Because there was an alert system.This french blogger received an alert about the earthquake three hours before the tidal waves started hitting the land [english]. Presumably, such an alert could have been given to those in charge in India, Srilanka or Thailand? But they never signed up - at least, not in India. Now, the governments are rethinking their strategies and hope to have an early warning system. But here is the gem, again:
`The difficult part here would be coordination between emergency response agencies in the region.
Let me get this straight. In this day and age, when I can get the NYSE ticker on my toilet roll, they cannot figure out how to get disaster information out!? I want to scream from looking at the pictures of drowned babies on NYT and CNN.com. Those lives could have been saved if someone had a Blackberry subscription?
Like I said, I am angry.
Well, if technology could not save people from disaster, it is proving a great way to mobilize information for survivors and helpers. Wikipedia's page on the disaster is an amazing resource. As well as the many, many bloggers doing live posts. BoingBoing has a growing list.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Earthquake
On the one year anniversary of the Bam earthquake in Iran that killed 40,000 people, an earthquake of 8.9 magnitude struck in the Indian Ocean.
-Sri Lanka: About 4,500 reported dead, up to 1 million displaced. Massive tidal waves smash coastal villages.Yahoo News.-India: More than 2,000 reported dead. Huge waves leave southern beaches strewn with bodies and flip over fishing boats and cars. Some flooding.
-Indonesia: 1,902 reported dead. Towns leveled and bodies wedged in trees by walls of water. Aceh province on Sumatra island - torn by separatist violence for years - was near the Indonesian quake's epicenter and was the hardest-hit part of the vast archipelago
-Thailand: 198 reported dead and many missing, mostly in idyllic southern islands packed with holiday revelers from around the world at the height of this country's tourist season. Swimmers are battered on coral reefs and sunbathers are swept out to sea.
-Malaysia: 43 people, including an unknown number of foreign tourists, reported dead. Tens of thousands are temporarily evacuated from hotels and apartments after the Indonesian quake was felt around peninsular Malaysia. No major damage reported.
-Bangladesh: A magnitude 7.36 tremor struck the southern port city of Chittagong. Tidal surges kill at least two children as a boat with about 15 tourists capsized. Reports said the quake was felt in the central, southern and western parts of the country, including the capital Dhaka.
-Maldives: No deaths confirmed, but much of this low-lying country of coral atolls off India's southwestern coast, a popular high-end tourist destination, is reportedly inundated. The country's only international airport is closed.
To help: Relief Web and PMNRF.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
The Tire Walla
By the curbside, across from my grandparent's house, under a neem tree in Lahore Cantt., sat Uncle Billo -- the tirewalla. Legend had it that he was the proud father of 14 boys, though we never saw them all at the same time. His wife had died, in childbirth, a few years back and he lived alone with his mother and his sons in the shanty housing on the outskirts of Lahore Cantonment. His "shop" was a piece of tarp strung across the tree branches providing him bare shelter from the sun and the monsoon rains. Arrayed against the paved street were the tools of his trade: a chest filled with tire patches, tire nozzles, glues, spoke-tighteners; a heat-press for vulcanizing the patch; an assortment of air-pumps; a shallow bowl of water; and a small stool on which he sat. And there was the radio hung on the tree-branch, tuned to Door Darshan- the Indian state radio playing bollywood songs - i.e. if there wasn't a cricket match going on somewhere in the world.
The bicyclists would stop every minute or so to refill the waning air in their tires - at no charge. Every so often, the paying customers arrived as well, dragging or riding the flat tire. His eldest two sons worked with him. They were the fastest and most efficient tire-changers I had ever seen. In less than two minutes, they would unmount the tire, take out the tube, inflate it, submerge it sectionally into the water bowl to locate the leak, deflate the tube, apply the plastic adhesive on the leak, put it in the heat-press, re-inflate the tube and mount the tire back up. 2-5 rupees [5 cents] plus the occasional tip.
Also sharing the shade of the neem tree was the Moochi- the shoe cobbler. He would offer polishing, patching services to the waiting clients who would more often than not take him up on his offer. The Moochi was also the errand runner for a host of elderly women living in the housing complex. They would summon him via a child and ask him to go to the butcher or the tailor or whatnot. The Moochi could do these things because he was roughly 90 years old - at least to my young eye.
After a few years, Uncle Billa's business boomed enough that he opened a satellite tire-repair station a mile or so down the road and posted his eldest sons there. Two of the younger sons took their place in the central branch. They migrated out as well in another year or so. In five years, Uncle Billa's tire repair empire stretched the length of Ghazi Road from Sadr Bazaar to Barki Hadyara - some 8 miles. The other branches were not as successful in our view. Yes, they got lots of clients but none had the type of regular clientele that Uncle Billa had.
In a typical day stretching from 4:30 in the morning to 6 in the evening, most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood would stop by Uncle Billa - bicycle or not. Someone would drag out the days newspaper and read aloud the entertainment and sports section to the gatherings. A discussion on the latest Punjabi or Hindi film or the cricket match or the fortune of a starlet occupied the hanger-ons and passer-bys for most of the day. Sometimes, us kids would hang out listening with delicious horror the "bad" language and the risqué topics. Sometimes, I would have to step in as the newspaper reader. No one wanted to hear politics or, god forbid, religious news. Once I remember starting a news item about a religious party's upcoming strike and Uncle Billa wearily remarked, "what's new?" followed by a chorus of colorful language about the leaders of the party. I do remember the utter sorrow on the day that Pakistan lost in the World Cup semi-final to Australia in Lahore. Uncle Billa refused to turn the radio on for a month.
I was in the US when he died a few years ago. On my next visit, I hung out at the tire shop with his eldest son who came back to take over the central branch. The gathering was still there but the vitality of Uncle Billa was missing. He always had a quip, an offering of pa'an for everyone who stopped by with a punctured tire. He knew all the gossip of the neighborhood, who was cheating on whom, who was stealing from whom, who was jealous of whom but I never saw him share anything with anyone outside of his closest friends. He never charged me for fixing my innumerable punctures and even taught me how to repair the punctures.
I hadn't thought of Uncle Billa in a long while. Jonathan Reynolds' excellent post on Nigerian tire repair shops brought back all these memories to me. It also made me wonder about the role played by the tire-wallas, chai-wallas and roadside restaurants as public spheres for the illiterate majority. More on that later, I hope.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Identity and Terrorism
The domestic agenda of Bush II-2 is still shrouded in mystery - besides the red flag of Social Security reform [will the liberals never learn?]. However, across the pond, are clear indications of new things on the horizon. Identity Cards.
Tony Blair's government will be debating and voting today on establishing I.D. cards for everyone. The Immigration Minister, Des Browne, says:
"What we are doing is taking information which the state already knows about individuals and applying it to biometric information to give the opportunity for a secure form of identification, which the society we live in is crying out for."
Margaret Thatcher is quoted as saying it all sounds very "Germanic".
Charles Clarke, the new Home Secretary, writes in the Times that:
For example, a secure identity system will help to prevent terrorist activity, more than a third of which makes use of false identities. It will make it far easier to address the vile trafficking in vulnerable human beings that ends in the tragedies of Morecambe Bay, exploitative near-slave labour or vile forced prostitution. It will reduce identity fraud, which now costs the UK more than £1.3 billion every year.
I believe that some critics of our proposals are guilty of liberal woolly thinking and spreading false fears when they wrongly claim that ID cards will erode our civil liberties, will revisit 1984, usher in the “Big Brother” society, or establish some kind of totalitarian police state. Those kinds of nightmare will be no more true of ID cards, when they are introduced, than they have been for the spread of cash and credit cards, driving licences, passports, work security passes and any number of the other current forms of ID that most of us now carry.
In order to reinforce this point, the Bill does not make it compulsory to carry a card, nor does it give powers to the police to stop individuals and demand to see their card. Neither will the database which accompanies the card hold information such as medical records, religion or political beliefs.
The Opposition Leader, Michael Howard, drops the whole "opposition" bit and explains himself in the Telegraph:
Why are ID cards important? The primary reason is that identity is a key element in detection. If someone comes to the attention of the police, arousing their suspicions that he may be involved in a terrorist conspiracy, the police need to know who that person is in order to identify who his associates are, whom he has been seeing and what they've been up to. And they need to do it fast. This information could be the determining factor as to whether a major act of terrorism and murder takes place or does not.
Bottomline: Fight Terrorists, Get an ID Card.
I come from a National I.D. society. Yes, with biometric information now. I still have my N.I.D. card tucked into my passport. Terrorism is non-existent in Pakistan. Right?
The central problem with all these programs which call for centralized information on the citizenry is that they rarely provide direct support to the causes for which they are established. Instead, the I.D. cards will get used for immigration policing or mob/crowd busting or cashing social-security checks.
I think that this debate is headed our way soon - in one form or another.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Kinsey Archive
I haven't seen the movie yet, though it seems to be emerging as The Passion of the Left [see: Frank Rich]. I just noticed that on the top left of NYT a banner ad to Explore the NYTimes.com Sponsored Archive. The resulting page is a collection of articles and essays that have appeared in NYT since 1948. It really is an excellent resource to read about the controversies. My favorite is the coverage of the National Council of Women from 1953 and their second resolution on making Puerto Ricans feel welcomed.
I appreciated the article, and I wonder if this is a new trend. NYT has not allowed Google.com to cache its dailies and seems intent on building and maintaining it's own archive. You get charged per article or page through NYT Archives. Corporations and movies can afford to bring out such sponsored archives generating more interests and making it easier to write reviews or understand the context. History sponsored.
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Eliminate Grading, Yes!
I have 22 papers to grade. I am not entirely ecstatic about the task - but I am looking forward to reading them because they will tell me if I utterly wasted the last 14 weeks of my life. Somewhere in those 260+ pages will be a sentence or two that will make it all worth it. Or not.
Ailee Slater, at the University of Oregon, brings the logic of a capitalist enterprise to the lyceé:
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the University system makes absolutely no sense. Students pay teachers to educate us, yet they are then allowed to tell us how much we're learning. The whole situation seems akin to a boss paying her employee to clean toilets and the employee turning around and telling the employer how much she is or isn't happy with the cleaning job. If I'm paying someone to do my housekeeping, I'll be the one to tell the receiver of my hard-earned money exactly how well they did. Shouldn't it be the same with education?
[...]
Their newfound education is not recognized, and they have, in essence, paid money to be told that they are idiots. If I want to be told that I'm an idiot, I could just get drunk and leave embarrassing messages on the phone machines of attractive men -- for free.
[...]
Then there is the constant fountain of stress, emerging from that oh-so-reviled spigot of essays, quizzes and final projects.
You Betcha! If I didn't have to give essay assignments, quizzes, and final projects, I would greatly reduce my stress of teaching and I can go back to leaving embarrassing messages on the phone machines of attractive men.
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
Bhopal 1984
Corporate malfeasance is one thing: Enron robbing millions of dollars; Halliburton backroom dealing into billions; WorldCom hyping their stock. But killing over 20,000 people and destroying the lives of 100,000 others in Bhopal, and getting away with it is a different matter.
Union Carbdide Corporation has a timeline that states:
In December 1984, a gas leak at a plant in Bhopal, India, caused by an act of sabotage, results in tragic loss of life.
It then refers you to their official site on the incident. The corporation's history states that methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from its Bhopal plant, causing 3,800 immediate deaths and several thousand disabilities. UCC took immediate action and CEO Warren Anderson flew over to Bhopal with a team of medical experts. However, he was advised to the Indian govt. to get out of the country for his own safety. He did. UCC took steps to provide settlements and worked to build a hospital for Bhopal, while Warren Anderson told Congress that this "will never happen again". All litigation against this US owned and operated corporation was banished outside the borders of the USA by the Appeals and the Supreme Court. Settlement was reached in the Indian Supreme Court to the tune of some 400 million (for 550,000 victims) and it was left up to the state of Madhya Pradesh to clean up the site. UCC refused to take any responsibility. Dow Chemical, though late to the party - they merged with UCC in 2001 - doesn't want to hear anything about Bhopal.
What was UCC doing in India? Giving them the "Green Revolution" of course. That wave of Developmentalism that swept across the globe in the early 70s introduced chemical pesticides to make India self-sufficient in agriculture. The Indian govt. coveted the foreign investment and technology and had little problem allowing them freedom of operation. After the disaster, it did all in its power to make sure that UCC came to no harm by suppressing victim accounts, allowing, nay "urging" UCC executives to leave the country and forcing victims to settle the case. But, there are other memories of what happened twenty years ago. Here is a list of information by Amnesty and Greenpeace has an exhibit of photographs taken in the immediate aftermath. And more photographs. And personal narratives of sufferings.
In the meanwhile, activists have been pressing this case for twenty years. They forced the Indian govt. to request the extradition of Warren Anderson.Denied. Yet, they keep the struggle for justice and accountability alive.
The Corporation - an aggregate legally authorized to act as an individual - still cannot be prosecuted for homicide (negligent or otherwise) in India.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Scholar Combatant
Historians usually study the past. Or the immediate past. They sometimes peek out of their professional masks to say something about current events (or maintain a blog). Rarely, though, do they make history. Of course, let me be a geek historian here and name check Juvaini, Ibn Rushd, Abu Fazl, Herodotus, etc. who were active participants in making history. But, lately, we don't have that many examples. Except for Bernard Lewis. An Ottomanist who has written 684 bestselling books on Islam and Arabs, defined a foreign policy framework, and, uh, invaded a country. Though, he did say that the Iraqis would greet us with baklavah.
I saw Bernard Lewis on Charlie Rose a few months ago. Right after the Ahmed Chalabi soupçan exploded all over nightly news. Lewis, who was the cheerleader-in-charge of Chalabi since forever, defended Chalabi brilliantly - saying his detractors were ignorant pups and evil masterminds in the State Dept. who were working behind the scenes to sabotage the potential Kamal Ataturk of Iraq. After laughing for a solid minute, I cried for an hour. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you would like one man to blame for Iraq: blame the eminent historian Bernard Lewis.
A few months after 9/11, he lectured a gathering of disciples at the V.P. residence about the Muslims, Koran and What to Do Now? What did he tell them? Michael Hirsh's piece in the Washington Monthly lays it all out:
Iraq and its poster villain, Saddam Hussein, offered a unique opportunity for achieving this transformation in one bold stroke (remember “shock and awe”?) while regaining the offensive against the terrorists. So, it was no surprise that in the critical months of 2002 and 2003, while the Bush administration shunned deep thinking and banned State Department Arabists from its councils of power, Bernard Lewis was persona grata, delivering spine-stiffening lectures to Cheney over dinner in undisclosed locations. Abandoning his former scholarly caution, Lewis was among the earliest prominent voices after September 11 to press for a confrontation with Saddam, doing so in a series of op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal with titles like “A War of Resolve” and “Time for Toppling.” An official who sat in on some of the Lewis-Cheney discussions recalled, “His view was: 'Get on with it. Don't dither.'
Doug Feith, Richard Perle, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney sitting around a camp fire while Bernard Lewis puts on a shadow-puppet show about the decline and fall of Islamic civilization and the violent response of bearded men to modernity and Britney Spears. And the savior, Ahmed Chalabi.
The role of the academy in the three crucial US-Islam encounters of the long 21st century - Islamic Revolution 1979, Gulf War I 1991, September 11, 2001 - will be the task for future historians. Edward Said called the war-championing academics in 1991 as the Scholar-Combatants. Bernard Lewis, a veteran of WWII, is the prototype (Fouad Ajami being the poor man's version).
Michael Hirsh points that many Arabists are now setting out to debunk Lewis (like Said never did that) and writing about the cooperation of civilizations instead of clash of civilizations. These critics of Lewis claim that his scholarship is medieval and ossified and he has misread most of Islamic history. That he generalizes wrongly and injects his own twisted worldviews without looking at the sources; that he is intent to psychoanalyze a diverse world. So, who is this historian who can have such influence on the elite as well as the public?
I have never doubted that Lewis knows his history. I am sure he knows more than I do. So, I won't critique his Islamic history. Instead, let me just talk about his involvement in the imperial project and explain why Edward Said called him the new "Orientalist". Bernard Lewis is a Empirist looking for a King to champion. The end of British Empire after WWII was a greater loss for that generation of British men who served it proudly. Lewis was a wartime British Military Intelligence officer who must have had some cool George Smiley (or T.E. Lawrence) adventures. His posting at Princeton in 1974 timed with the US interests in Iran. During the Carter administration, he devised The Bernard Lewis Plan - implemented under the supervision of Zbigniew Brzezinski. The plan was based on his idea of an "Arc of Crisis" created around the southern borders of Soviet Union by empowering Muslim radicals to rebel against the communists to bring about the fall of the Soviet Empire. But why Islamic fundamentalists? Why not empower Islamic satirists and engineers? Because, Bernard Lewis has been fascinated with the dull-eyed muslim killing robot remotely controlled by a long-bearded Master all his academic life. This weird obsession with Islamic militarism (and millinasim) goes back to his publication of The Assassins in 1967. The book is a strange work that seems to praise and condemn the Ismaili fanatics at the same time. In a way, he has been talking about wigged-out, fundamentalists clashing with Crusader knights for the last 40 years. Only now, people are listening.
After the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, the policy wonks needed a new bogey man. In a massively read and cited piece, "The Roots of Muslim Rage", published in September of 1990 in the Atlantic Monthly, Lewis gave them one by unveiling the "hatred directed against us" in the Muslim world. Just Muslim - not Arab, Indian, Chinese, Caucasian, whatever - Muslim Rage. In it, he first declared that "they hate us" [with no corroboration] and then ran through a litany of almost-explanations: Nazism, Marxism, anti-Semitism, Racism, anti-Imperialism. It is an ingeniously constructed argument, where he listed all of the above reason, gave them some credence but moved on to the next one, finally ending with "a clash of civilizations" [Sam Huntington borrowed it]. The reader, by this time, had almost identified Muslims with nazis, marxists and racists. Which would be enough, you'd think. But there is a grand narrative about to unfold:
There is something in the religious culture of Islam which inspired, in even the humblest peasant or peddler, a dignity and a courtesy toward others never exceeded and rarely equalled in other civilizations. And yet, in moments of upheavel and disruptions, when the deeper passions are stirred, this dignity and courtesy toward others can give way to an explosive mixture of rage and hatred which impels even the government of an ancient and civilized country - even the spokesman of a great spiritual and ethical religion - to espouse kidnapping and assassination, and try to find, in the life of their Prophet, approval and indeed precedent for such actions.
[...]It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations - the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. [emphasis mine]
A deep, deep passion against those backhanded compliments and essentializations is stirring in the heart of this plebian. Gulf War I was a catalyst for Middle Eastern scholars to come into the limelight and kick those Cold War polisci profs back to their cubicles. NYT published full page pieces on "Books to Read" to understand the region and its people (and their irrational minds). Bernard Lewis got some books out of all that. In 1992, he performed autopsy on the Arab world in the pages of Foreign Affairs called "Rethinking the Middle East". In it, he declared that Gulf War I was the end of pan-Arabism. Arabs are finally going to have to wake up and decide that they have unique interests (what about that monolithic civilization?). But what could attract them in the absence of pan-Arabism? Islamic fundamentalism. And that could go hand in hand with, what Lewis called, "Lebanonization" whereby Middle East states will collapse "into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties." [aside: Ever wonder why Bush says "freedom" all the time? In this piece Lewis tells us that the word "freedom" is a good word in Arab history synonymous with independence but the word "democracy" is a bad word synonymous with sham parliamentary regimes]. The only way out, Lewis wrote, is to do as the Turks did (Turks are not Arabs, he wisely pointed out) and embrace democracy. But, the way to spread the democracy is through regional security alliances and staunch support of Israel. And a role model state.
But Saddam Hussein had survived. How can the Arabs have democracy if Saddam is there? The obsession of neo-cons with Iraq and remaking the Middle East is well documented and the man who provided them insights into the Arab mind was always Bernard Lewis. In 1998, Lewis was one of the signatories of a letter asking President Clinton to invade Iraq and install a provisional government there. For a sense of dejá vu, please read the other names. And while dawn must have appeared far in the Clinton night, they toiled on. Which brings us back to the Michael Hirsh piece that started this journey. Go read it because the rest, as they unwittingly say, is history. [x-posted]
Sunday, November 14, 2004
On Jesus's Side
I read Bob Jones' letter to the President earlier in the week. "They despise you because they despise your Christ". I have to admit that after I read it (and saw John Dobson on CNN), I was more depressed than ever at the loss of the election. The vitriol, the unchecked and uncensored contempt for the liberals and the secularist was astounding. Even though I never bought the "moral values won Bush this election" meme, I knew that it will create its own reality and become CW. But to see the effect so soon, so clearly was really disheartening. Is this the Talibanization of America? Or simply a rabid nationalism gone unchecked?
But, as always, truth is never so stark and mundane. Today's WaPo has one of the most heartfelt and hopeful piece I have seen in a long time. Anne Hull's Coming Out for One of their Own, literally, restored my faith in those true believers who do not seek hate or fear.
Janice was quiet, listening to phrases such as "radical inclusivity" and quotes by Robert F. Kennedy about the long arm that bends toward justice. Only once did she feel at home, when a man came up afterward and reached for her hand. "You know, we have been praying for you all week," he said.
His name was Toby Jenkins and he was a Free Will Baptist pastor for 17 years before accepting that he was gay. Now he preaches at a gay evangelical church in Tulsa. He told Janice that the Bible is not the black-and-white doctrine that many say it is. He asked Janice if they could pray together, and he took her face in his hands and they stood motionless in the crowd, forehead to forehead, eyes closed.
Sand Springs, Oklahoma, may not have agreed with Michael Shackelford's sexuality but they disagreed even more with the hatred spewed by Fred Phelps. That, for this secular humanist, is the perfect message of hope for the next four years.
Friday, November 5, 2004
All Dressed Up for the Ivory Tower
I, for one, welcome our new moral overlords. Still, more pressing things are upon me. A few job applications are about to be mailed off. I wondered if my esteemed colleagues here, who have been on the hiring end of business, would volunteer some advice.
Notice that I wrote business. And quite deliberately. Here at Chicago, the Graduate School of Business just moved into a brand new and gorgeous facility. I hang out there often to soak up the vibe. Lately, they have had some job fair or interview runs going on and I have peeked at more than a few resumés and cover letters. I am quite impressed. They look good. One applicant had obviously done his McLuhan homework because he had pulled, bold quotes scattered around the cover sheet. Or maybe he just reads FHM or something (blatant cheap shot there).
Looking down at my own printed material, I can't help but notice their lackluster nature. Please don't even start with the "work is what counts". I know. But presentation is crucial in my view. We are programmed to read with our nose so close to the text that the entire outside world is a blur. The world that appreciates clean and pressed clothes, a haircut, eye contact, smiles, chit-chat about local sports and weather. The world that would like you to tell them why 8th century Arab generals hold any relevance in two succinct sentences.
So, the question I ask of my senior colleagues is...How important is presentation in the first round of job searches? Does a well-formatted CV jump out? Fonts? Graphics? Pull Quotes? What about the teaching dossier? The dissertation chapter?
My application will be read by History faculty (though not exclusively South Asian or Islam) and I would like to make a good enough impression to be asked for a job talk (at which time I would need advice on what to wear to a job talk. I hear Italian designer suits help).
Monday, October 25, 2004
Muslim Vote
In today's column, Will Safire writes that the majority of Arab Americans will be voting for Kerry. But the majority of Jewish Americans will also be voting for Kerry! His overall point is that the Jewish Americans should vote en bloc for Bush because Kerry's policies are mere me-toos while Bush has a record as a staunch ally of Israel. Safire can make that point without mentioning at all the Muslim Americans but he makes the implicit argument that if the Muslim/Arab voters can have a collective understanding, why can't the Jewish voters do the same?
The truth is that there is no real difference in the policies of either candidates with regards to Israel. Kerry panders as much as anyone else for the Jewish vote. On the other hand, at least one group, the media-savvy Muslims for Bush claim that Kerry has not pandered enough to the Muslim bloc and, hence, does not deserve their vote. In their view, it is Bush who has consistently supported Muslim Americans while Kerry never even met with any Muslim groups and is, also, weak on the Patriot Act [How is the guy who enacted Patriot Act better?]. A quick web search on the respective candidates' official websites disproves that. There is no page for Arab Americans or Muslim Americans on georgewbush.com. There is no statement on civil rights or the Patriot Act (the site's search kept crashing on account of having to search through so many internets, maybe). There is, at least, a page on John Kerry's website for Arab Americans, as well a statement on the beginning of Ramadan. There are also a bunch of links on Kerry's commitment to anti-profiling, fair adjudication etc. There is even a fact-sheet.
Back to the Muslim bloc. The party claiming to represent the Muslim American bloc is the American Muslim Taskforce. They are an umbrella organization over the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and various smaller groups. Last week after much hemming and hawing, they finally unveiled their qualified endorsement for Kerry. The qualification was that Kerry has not done enough to protest the civil right abuses under the Bush administration:
Following careful consideration of overall U.S. interests, interaction with presidential campaign officials and extensive input from the Islamic community, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections - Political Action Committee (AMT-PAC) is calling on Muslims nationwide to cast a protest vote for Sen. John Kerry. While the Kerry campaign has critiqued a number of Bush administration polices, it has so far failed to explicitly affirm support for due process, equal justice and other constitutional norms. We are also disappointed that his campaign has shied away from expressing unambiguous support for principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution that prohibit use of ex post facto laws, secret proceedings and secret evidence.Seems like the AMT is hedging its bets and not wanting to seriously piss off the Bush administration. They say they got to this endorsement by doing town hall meetings in more than 70 mosques and community centers across America. Maybe they should have asked Zogby whose Sep. 22nd poll showed a 76% support for Kerry. Pretty unqualified in my opinion.
My anecdotal reading is that the Muslim American community is largely culturally conservative and would tend to go Republican BUT Ashcroft has scared them off at least this administration (on a side note, I will be Ashcroft this Halloween!). I do not think that the Democrats will hold this bloc that easily. They will need solid civil liberties re-assurance as well as some movement on the Immigration reforms.
Will the Muslim Vote, like the NASCAR Fathers, the Security Moms be the demographic du jour for the next few days? Let's see. One thing is for sure, it will play a role in Michigan and Ohio.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Sectarian Terror
On October 2nd, in Sialkot, a suicide bomber walked into a Shi'a mosque and killed at least 30 people. On October 7th, in Multan a car bomb killed 40 at a commemoration gathering for the slain radical Sunni cleric Maulana Azam Tariq. On October 9th, in Karachi, two senior-most clerics at Banuri Town madrasa - a Sunni enclave - were shot dead. On October 10, in Lahore, another suicide bomb blast in a Shi'a mosque in Mochi gate killed 4 people.
Is this the return of Shia-Sunni sectarian violence in Pakistan? By a rough estimate, the Shi'a community is 20% of the population. Sectarian conflict did not become the issue it is today until the Islamization processes of General Zia ul Haq (1977-1988). In 1980, with fear that the Sunni, Hanafi laws will pre-dominate, the Shi'a community began political mobilization. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was a great ideological boon to the community. The organization at the forefront of this mobilization was Tahrik-i Nifaaz Fiqaah Ja'fariyya or Tahrik-i Ja'fariyya (Movement for the Implementation of Ja'faria Law - TJP). Created largely to protect Shi'a community from unfair Islamization laws, the TJP quickly expanded into a full-fledged movement for the Shi'a in Pakistan. Its confrontational style sowed seeds of dismay in the Sunni majority. A founding leader, Allama 'Arif Husain al-Husaini, was assassinated in 1988. The Sunni counterpart was the Sipah-i Sahaba (Soldiers of the Companions of the Prophet) established in 1985 in Punjab. It was constructed explicitly to combat Shi'a power in Pakistan and to make Sunni Islam the official religion of the state. For example, to counter the Muharram processions, it tried to celebrate the death anniversaries of the first four caliphs. This organization was militarized as well in the Afghanistani and Kashmiri conflicts. Maulana Azim Tariq, the prominent leader, was assassinated last year.
With roots, and membership bases, in rural areas, these organization spread to the urban populations in the mid-90s and brought with them their militant sectarianism. Between 1984-2003, there were over 1800 events of sectarian violence.
It is entirely conceivable that these recent episodes are a continuation of this decades old sectarian war but I think there is some evidence to suggest otherwise. First, is the nature of the new attacks -suicide bombings. Throughout the 90s, drive-by shootings, assassinations and remote detonations was the modus operandi of sectarian violence. In 2003/2004, they have been overwhelmingly suicide bombings. And al-Qaeda, a organization with long standing ties to such sectarian groups is a prime suspect.
Even more so, when one considers that on September 26, in Nawabshah, Amjad Farooqi was killed by Pakistani security forces. He was a member/leader of Jaish Muhammad and Harkat al-Mujahideen two organizations closely related to Sipah Sahaba. There is evidence that he was involved in sectarian acts, the execution of Daniel Pearl, and in the various assassination attempts on Musharraf. I don't think it is unfeasable that the bombings were triggered after his death. The explosive material seems to be similar in the Sialkot and Multan cases. Once flamed, the violence does not need further input from al-Qaeda to flourish.
It is no secret that al-Qaeda wants to depose General Musharraf. Osama b. Laden and Ayman az-Zawahiri have both released video edicts to take him out. With the army and intelligence focused on al-Qaeda/sepratist forces in Waziristan, this would be an opportune time to start a new sectarian war in Pakistan. The army, after all, is the only police in the country. The crucial issue is that Musharraf has been playing a dangerous game where he has placated the West that he is fighting terrorists but doing so only in the cases that directly bolster his grasp on power within Pakistan. He has not, and cannot, take on the hardline mullahs. He has not, and will not, counter the jihadist organizations. The Bush administration is happy that Pakistan has banned jihadist organizations and put them on a terrorist list (BIG on lists) and doesn't even care that almost all the organizations on the list simply conduct public business under different names. And, hence, this recent wave of violence finds plenty of willing participants.
Juan Cole has used the Multan bombing to argue that the War on Terror is failing. I do agree that Iraq has strengthened the hands of al-Qaeda operating in Pakistan, at the very least.
Sunday, October 3, 2004
Royal Presidents
From Unmedia, I learned that Kerry is descended from the Prophet Muhammad. After laughing for a solid 10 minutes, I googled. Seems that Burke's Peerage has a press release that documents Kerry's blood lineage:
Sen. Kerry is also descended on his mother's side from Henry I, King of France, and his wife, Anne of Kiev. He is a direct descendant of a daughter of King Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. As a collateral descendant of Constantine Monamacaqs IX, Emperor of Byzantium, Sen. Kerry is related to all the monarchs of the royal house of France, including a double relationship with Francis I, Louis XIV, Louis XV, sadly with Louis XVI (guillotined) and also Louis XIX, Charles X and the present day Louis XX of France.
The above blood line gives Sen. Kerry kinship with the royal houses of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the princely House of Rus founded in 862 A.D. Amongst his kinsmen can be counted Ivan IV, "The Terrible", Tsar of all the Russias. His descent from the princely House of Rus gives him modern relations, living today, amongst the princely Russian families of Dolgorouky and Obolensky.
Seems Kerry is related to everyone but the King of Spain. But no mention at all of the House of 'Ali. That's ok, though. Sayyid John Kerry just doesn't sound right.
However, something else occured to me. We have Bush II in the White House with Jeb Bush still eyeing a 2008 run. Hilary Clinton on the other end is a sure for the 2008/2012 run. The Bushes and the Clintons seem poised to create dynasties. And the media which builds cults of personalities will love nothing more. Sounds like the Nehru, Bhutto families of the sub-continent. The blood-line denotes a right-to-rule or a right-to-serve, however you look at it. Once entered into the media and political bloodstream, these names spawn generations of leaders and luminaries. They led, hence, they will lead?
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Conquer and Not Divide
Via Amardeep Singh, I learned of Fareed Zakaria's column on the US Shia strategy in Iraq. The point is the old Divide and Conquer - the tactic used by the British in Ireland, India, Middle East and Africa: Empower local elites who have dueling claims to power, exploit religious, ethnic or racial tensions and watch as the colony rifts itself apart; Isolate the faction that will serve your agenda, prop the elites with military and monetary support, and enjoy "indirect rule" - or "self-government". Zakaria has this to say about the success of a strategy that pits the Sunni against the Shi'a majority (possibly by having no elections in Fallujah and other hot-spots):
But there are considerable risks to this approach. If the Sunnis end up with no representatives, they will have even less incentive to support the new Iraqi order. Today a significant number of Sunnis feel disenfranchised, and thus they support the guerrillas (estimates vary from 25 percent to 65 percent). If they are cut out of the government, all will feel disenfranchised. And to have 20 percent of the country—people who are well trained and connected—supporting an insurgency makes it extremely difficult to defeat militarily.
American policy looks like the old Divide and Conquer but I am skeptical that there is an actual "policy" there. Or even that it is in the best imperial interest to have such a policy. The flare-up over Fallujah shows that there is no grand strategy coming out of the White House. Besides random proclamations on Freedom and evildoers.
Which is not to say that there aren't other interested parties on the ground in Iraq also pursuing the Divide and Conquer. Left unmentioned by Zakaria, are the Kurds. They are already peevedabout the CPA. They are angling for a lot more power and autonomy than they have been given. They also have the best trained militia/army in the region. There is reasonable intelligence that Israel is pursuing its own regional agenda by developing relations with the Kurds - to the great alarm of Turkey. Next up would be Iran and its interests in Iraq. Last, but not least, is whatever the post-invasion interests al-Qaeda has within the Sunni Triangle.
If any or all of these strategies spiral out of control, the balkanization of Iraq is a real and distinct policy. Now, according to the British Empire model, that would be swell. But, the US Imperial interests necessitate a unified Iraq above all. Anything else would be a disaster. Take whatever excuse you like for US invasion of Iraq, the domino-effect of a "model democracy", or regional military base or as a personal oil-pump for Dick Cheney, the fact remains that Iraq must survive as "Iraq" for any of those to succeed. Otherwise, we are looking at a Kurdistani-sized military base, a Shi'a theocracy and a no-man's-land.
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
That's Cricket
Cricket is that beloved game that cements the colony to the empire. It has its murky origin in English pastures but, at least, since 1709, we have documented games of cricket being played. In the beginning, the rules were quite flexible. Some people showed up with huge bats, some bowled all day long. To put matters to a rest, and to ensure gentlemanly behavior, the Marylebone Cricket Club was founded in 1787. The club acquired a ground for play (Lord's) and the next year, in 1788, laid down the laws governing cricket. This was an attempt to unify and codify the various rules developed in playgrounds and masonic lodges all across England. Here, you can read some earlier versions. Four ball overs, eh?
The first change in cricket arrived just as it left the island for the colony. In 1861, a team from Surrey decided to visit the Australian colony. They were surprised to find cricket not only flourshing there but attracting a fair crowd. The Australian team (tagged the World) beat the English. This caused much consternation. English crickers decided to take concrete measures. The rules of the game must be streamlined. Perhaps they were at fault. So in 1876, England went to play the first official Test Match at Melbourne with new rules. The result was another loss. However, this test match did cement the laws of cricket. What it failed to do was teach the colonies some respect.
The colonial challenge to English cricketers continued in India. Oriental Cricket Club was established in Bombay by Parsees in 1848. By 1860s, Bombay natives (Hindu, Muslim all) were playing cricket around the Colonial gymkhana grounds. While the teams were segregated, the English cricketers took great umbrage at having to see the natives pretend-play. Starting in 1877, the natives gathered the competence to play against the Bombay Gymkhana. They didn't win their first match against the Europeans until 1878. The superhit movie Lagaan takes its inspiration for a native team beating the English not from this match but from a 1906 match in which Palwankar Baloo, an Untouchable from Poona, rose to prominence as a great bowler and defeated the English. As an aside, the resonance and popularity enjoyed by Lagaan among the South Asian diaspora shows that it hit some postcolonial nerve somewhere.
Cricket opened up to India, the Carribean, and South Africa by the early 1940s. But, it's next change came again from Australia. A form of cricket that could be played in one day (yes, the whole day) as opposed to five days developed in the 60s in England but it was the Australians who revolutionized the game. In 1977, Kerry Packer introduced a white ball, colored uniforms, shorter game-rules and captured the media market. The rest of the cricketing world had to take note of this "exciting brand". Most of the innovations were adopted to become the World Cup Cricket.
Which brings us to this latest great change facing Cricket. America. They don't seem to have the attention span of the rest of the known universe. So while everyone from Malaysia to Canada can play the ODI in the version that it stands, the Americans cannot be bothered. Hence, there is talk of a shorter version of test cricket. But the bigger lure for the Americans is an even shorter version of the ODI called Twenty20 [with cheerleaders and names like Tigers, Foxes and Dragons]. Greg Chappell wants to give cricket " a face-lift, or at least a dash of botox, to give it some freshness." Which means, shorter run-ups, funkier field placements and, maybe, more cheerleaders. W.G. Grace is spinning in his grave.
It will be interesting to see how Cricket survives this challenge.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Try Allah Next Time
Bruce LeBlanc, a sociology teacher at Western Illinois University, got reprimanded because he was teaching offensive word-associations in a class and, well, offended a Christian gentleman.
LeBlanc reportedly revealed two blackboards at the front of his class, with "F**k" written on the left one and "G*d" written on the right one.
In related news, God is still dead.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Without Representation
I am a Permanent Resident of US. As such I pay all state and federal taxes, I can own businesses and property, I can travel freely in and out of the US, I can get federal aid, I can get drafted, I can serve in the military, I can sue anyone and I can win the lotto. I cannot, however, cast a vote.
Never bothered me, really. I have never voted in my life. We don't have these "elections" that often in Pakistan and I was too young to participate when I was there.
I am eligible to become a US Citizen but never deemed it that important. After 9/11 and the round-up of Muslim males, my family in Pakistan freaked out and pressured me to become a citizen. I told them that if there is profiling, it is based on the color of my skin not the color of my passport. But, the panic was very real. In Chicago alone, there was a huge exodus of both legal and illegal South Asian immigrants. I know many, many people who left in the dead of the night. One family had only the wife waiting for her green card while everyone else was either a citizen or a permanent resident but they were afraid of being split up by the INS. They are now in Montreal.
I spend the last few days registering voters in Ohio and talking to people about the upcoming election. Invariably, I got asked about my voting past. When I told them that I was not going to vote because I couldn't, they were incredulous. What do you care? You cannot even vote. Well, I do care. Sure, I cannot do the least that any citizen of a democratic nation can. Doesn't mean that I do not have any vested interest in the outcome.
It became clear to me, as I drove home that I really, REALLY, want to vote. Unanimously vote. Be counted. I have never had such a palpable drive to do so. Of course, if I start the citizenship process now, it will take 2 years, so it doesn't matter in the short run. There are some movements advocating that green card holders be allowed to vote in municipal elections. Which is sure to piss Pat Buchanan off. But, I want to vote. Come January 2005, I will indeed apply for citizenship somewhere in N. America.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Historians at Play
In celebration of India (and Pakistan's) Independence, Outlook India - a monthly magazine - is having a stellar series asking historians/journalists and activists to imagine some contrafactuals in the Indian past. What a way to start a weekend!
I highly recommend the ones written by my favorite historians of South Asia:
Shahid Amin imagines an India without trucks:
Modern India is unimaginable without colonialism, and pucca colonialism without the railways, the lines that ran on desi steam for firenghi profit. The railways made all of us Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Isai what we are. They helped push goods and ideas around, eased pilgrimages to various teerths, and allowed that inveterate passenger, M.K. Gandhi, to carry his message to the thousands thronging wayside stations for a fleeting darshan: the Mahatma had set guidelines for how effusive nationalists were to exercise platform discipline. But the odd steam-gurgling ‘lorry’ aside, the sahib’s simply yoked their steel-rails to our mricchakatikam-style bullock carts. So that Devdas Dilip Kumar’s final train journey to Paro ends dramatically on a creaking bailgari, and the hooch that would lay waste the less affluent came to mufassil warehouses well into the mid-sixties in bonded barrels carted by a pair of bullocks.Irfan Habib imagines a Hindu fundamentalist India:
What if there’d been turning points at which we did become a Hindu state?Ainslie Embree imagines a united sub-continent:
This scenario is so difficult because that means we should have had a different kind of national movement, we would have no Karachi resolution of 1931...you can be counter-factual but you can’t be to such a degree. How the whole national movement was constructed around the Congress and other parties also prevented the formation of a Hindu state. As Gandhiji said, "The nation is not built on religion." And of course, there were other elements in the national struggle like equality of women. Hindu-Muslim unity was not the only touchstone for secularism. Secularism means you rely on reason, not religion.
I would like to suggest that while many of those great ideals have been fulfilled for the Indian people in the India that came into being on August 15, 1947, they might have been more fully realised, not just for India but for all the people of South Asia, had the Cabinet Mission’s three-tier constitutional idea been adopted. It is a very big ‘What if?’And finally Mushirul Hasan takes on the history of communalism in India:History cannot be reversed, but the realisation that there was nothing inherently improbable in a very different scenario in 1946 surely helps in looking at South Asia in a different way in 2004.
- A three-tiered India would have had at least the same industrialisation that has occurred and the areas that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh would have profited from it. It would have been a vast "free trade zone" with no equal in the world.
- It would have been a democratic republic, without military dictators. There would seem to be no reason why Muslim voters could not have exercised their franchise, just as they do in present-day India.
- This vast new India would have been a secular state, fulfilling the dream so often enunciated by Indian leaders both before and after 1947. Nehru’s commitment to secularism can scarcely be doubted. To that must be added a reminder of Jinnah’s speech on August 11, 1947: "You can belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the State. We are all citizens and equal citizens of one State." Would not he and Nehru—and a host of others—have said that for the Three-Tier India?
brilliant.Q. So obviously we go back to the question, why Partition then? And what if Partition had not happened? Of course, the non-serious answer is that we would have had a great Cricket team, but would there not have been obvious problems of governance?
A. Well [smiles] united India was governable under Akbar in the 16th century.
Q. But then it was a different geographical entity and he was busy all those 50+ years in fighting those opposed to his rule and conquests...
A. No, the Mughal Empire was run through a very efficient bureaucratic apparatus. So governability wasn't really a problem. Governability is not the main issue. The man issue is what has acquired salience now. i.e. the distribution of power. Whether it is Mandal or the opposition to reservation for SCs and OBCs. The centrality of distribution of authority and power is the key question in a society that is socially stratified and a society that is so unevenly developed. So in an unevenly developed region, caste antipathies become extremely important. In an undeveloped society, the struggle for loaves and fishes becomes even more intense. So if a young student asks me what Partition is all about, my answer is: Don't look at it as a conflict between two communities, because if you begin to do that you would not understand the struggle for the levers of power and the struggle. That struggle is at a higher level when you and me compete for a position in government, but there are other deeper level of society where the introduction of new institutions create conflicts among people who have lived together for centuries amicably.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
4 out of 5 Foreign Leaders Recommend Kerry
Well, not really. I just made that up. You might remember that little tempest few months back when Kerry supposedly said that foreign leaders support his candidacy. Tom Delay et. al went to town labeling Kerry with endorsements from Kim Jong II and Jacques Chirac. That aside, I have been very curious about how the regions most affected by a Kerry presidency - Middle East and South Asia - think of him. I read the press in South Asia and the Gulf pretty closely after the Democratic Convention to guage their reaction.
Bottomline: Crickets Chirping.
South Asian English press carried coverage from Reuters and AP but no one had any reporters on the ground. We know that al-Jazeera was at the Fleet Center (the DNC had them take their banner down) and they have not been particularly kind to Kerry. The theme seems to be that there is little or no difference between Kerry and Bush and that the imperialist program will continue.
The central point in that understanding is Kerry's support of Sharon and his policies in Israel. It is highlighted that he has distant Jewish ancestory which makes him a complete and utter supporter of AIPAC. Both themes are highlighted in this editorial cartoon from PakTribune.
The Pakistani press (especially the Urdu) remains wary of Kerry - insisting that Republican presidencies are much nicer to Pakistan than Democratic ones. They do have a point. Recently sacked (uh, retired) PM Jamali even called for Bush re-election before HQ stopped his extemporaneous interviews. In an editorial column few days ago, Nawa-i Waqt highlighted the difficulties facing Kerry's bid and painted him as a cardboard stiff. My sense from reading it was that they just re-used the column from 2000 about Gore.
In India, the situation is similiar as outsourcing is a hot topic. With his protectionist platform, Kerry has not earned any free points in most newspapers. Though unpopularity of Bush remains the over-riding motif.
In fact, as I write this, I am convinced that Bush continues to dominate all news analysis and vitriol. Which could give Kerry a relatively clean slate when he begins his tenure.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
India and the End of Economic History
In this week's Economic & Political Weekly, is a must-read article by Tirthankar Roy entitled, Economic History: An Endangered Discipline. I don't know how long that link will stay, so I will briefly describe Roy's argument.
Roy begins by noting that economic history which once held sway in Indian historiography has found itself battling irrelevance after the 90s. It no longer commands any interest in research universities or public policy, which is in marked contrast to the position it enjoyed in Nehru's India. Roy blames the dominance of "old school" establishment of historians who pushed their particular paradigm of Indian past to the exclusion of all others. When that paradigm failed, it took with it the entire field.
Roy doesn't name names but I'd venture that the "old school" is represented by Dutt, Chaudhri, Gadgil, Naoroji and, of course, Irfan Habib - who does come in for some ribbing. Their idea of Indian past is termed the "imperialist-underdevelopment axis" - which operated on the belief that there is a sharp contrast between pre-colonial and colonial Indian economies:
The old school thesis was that the poor rate of growth was manmade. Colonial policies and the market economy that emerged repressed Indian growth potentials. This approach held that the Indian economy on the eve of colonialism had the potentials to experience rapid economic growth, but those potentials were destroyed by colonialism. It believed in a broad identity of interest between colonialism and the local economic elite, and held that alliance responsible for retardation of the Indian economy in the colonial period.
The paradigm thus tied markets to the centrality of the political state. The nationalist historians championed this vision which was picked up by the Nehru state as public policy. In post-Independence India, Roy states,
Economists and historians agreed that markets and the open economy were instruments that needed to be restrained, if used at all. Historians thereby gave meaning to a regime that intervened heavily to restrain market forces and international relations.
The market reforms of the 90s (led in no small part by the current PM Manmohan Singh) changed public policy and that change relegated the underpining historical narrative to dusty bookshelves. In the last part of his analysis, Roy proposes to shift the focus of any history of India's economic past away from politics to structures. This would stress continuity of local and global patterns of change and reform without being beholden to political changes. Capital, labor and risk will be central to this new paradigm.
In a sense, Roy is making a case for making economic history relevant again. The death-knell on the old school was rung not just by reforms of the 90s but by the rise of the postcolonial schools of historiography which changed the focus of Indian past towards cultural and social practices.
The article raises one fundamental question. What happens to scholarship after it goes out of vogue or becomes discredited? And how does one actual do history without falling into that trap? It is a question with far greater relevance than just economic history. How is the current breed of Indian historian to read the Orientalists in a post-nationalist framework? What about the subalternists who knocked so many off their horses, and are facing their own good night? Speaking of myself, one of the reasons I have always preferred histories of process and ideas is that I do not see them contorting evidence to fit a particular mold. Trendy things frighten me.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Next Step: Historians
I admit that I am a techno-geek. I also spend approx. 4 hours a day in the stacks here at Regenstein. So, this news about robotic librarians has me drooling for the last hour:
It can read the labels and the position of the book using its image processing and optical character recognition software," the professor said. Once the book is located, it has to grasp it and take it off the bookshelf, which is not a simple as it might seem. For this, the team had to develop special fingertips like a nails, with one nail longer than the other.
Professor Pobil said it was a "real possibility" that teams of robots could, in about five years' time, realistically perform searching and fetching tasks. They could even mill around doing their work at night, working on library inventories, or identifying missing books, or mapping libraries.
I don't see this impacting the role of the librarian but the work of hundreds of work-study students. My question is how will the OCR treat non-English text? And will this intervention of the AI give us newer ways of cataloguing and stacking? Like towers of books reaching skyhigh...
And as to my reference to Historians....
2. Take the algorithm that runs Google News which aggregates information without any human intervention.
+ 2. Add to it Amazon's A9 engine which has hundreds of thousands of books scanned.
= Wait patiently for the AI to improve for the next 5 years.
4. Voilá. A Historian Engine that can process through any set of academic data and spit out a rational, logical arrangement of facts and analysis. No?
Ok. I know I am reaching here but given that most mechanical jobs have or will soon be lost to robotic industry, how long before the Ivory Tower comes under seige? Do the publishing industry really needs a Ph.D. to come out with A Quick Guide to Irish History when a program can arrange the facts into a simple narrative?
We already have the AI to piss off republicans.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Some People Say
I don't watch Fox News (I get all my cable news from The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart, thank you). About a week ago, as I was waiting for a DVD to load, I found myself watching three experts on some FNN show. I have no idea what the show was (around 11 at night) but something caught my ear. The screen was divided into three panels and the first gentleman on the left opined, "We need to take France off our ally list and put them on the Enemies list". Whoa! I said. They seem mad at France. The second gentleman pipes in, "When France refused permission to Ronald Reagan's jets to fly through on their way to bombing Libya, they should have just bombed Paris." Huh! They are really mad. Surely the third person will be the "counter" expert and tell the others to find reason and restraint. "What needs to happen is that some Ayrab needs to blow up the Eiffel Tower and THEN these people will understand that there is a war on terrah going on," thundered the last panel on my t.v. screen.
So, like I said. I don't watch Fox News but after that night, I decided to give my $ 10 to Robert Greenwald and his exposé OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Yesterday, I went to my first MoveOn.org organized screening at someone's house. It was an odd experience but the crowd was really nice and diverse. After the movie, we made some chitchat about bringing down the Man. Ok, I kid.
The docu itself was ok. It effectively used the Moody memo's to show how the brass sets the agenda for the "news" everyday and how the other media outlets parrot Fox ("You can't outfox Fox"). The last few minutes were dedicated to the concentration of media in the hands of a few companies (News Corp., Clear Channel etc). I would have liked to see THAT exposé.
Still, the fact that people got together on a sunday to see a middling documentary about a cable news channel tells me something is afoot in this great nation.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Faith, Money & Politics in America
A highly recommended read today (besides the Barbara Ehrenreich op-ed) is Bill Moyer's Democracy in Balance.
THIS IS A TIME of testing - for people of faith and for people who believe in democracy. How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against the contagion of a triumphalist theology in the service of an imperial state? At stake is America's role in the world. At stake is the very character of the American Experiment - whether "we, the people" is the political incarnation of a spiritual truth - one nation, indivisible - or a stupendous fraud.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Eye on Queer Pakistan
I saw a religious man, who had fallen in love with a fellow to such a degree that he had neither strength to remain patient nor to bear the talk of the people but would not relinquish his attachment, despite of the reproaches he suffered and the grief he bore, saying:You may think that the conservative cultural forces arrayed against gay union(or marriage) in the US present a formidable challenge. They do, but look around you and you will find a culture that has made remarkable progress in the last 30 years in terms of gay acceptance. A look at a society where gay life hides in shadows and secrets is provided in Boston Globe's article, Open Secrets, on gays in Pakistan. Let me first state my objection to the tone of the essay which I find rather alarmist and hyperbolic in its attempt to present Pakistan as a Talibanized society repressed under religious law. The fact is that the Shari'ah Laws exist largely on paper and the society as a whole is perhaps the most liberal in the Islamic world. In Islamic history, you have a duality that is not even acknowledged in the article. Yes, the few verses of the Qur'an that address gay sex revolve around the fate of the people of Sodom and are fairly unforgiving. But at the same time, there is remarkable acceptance of homosexual love from both pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Arabia. Given that, the article is pretty accurate in its depiction of gay individuals in Pakistan. However, I would like to elaborate on two distinct aspects of gay experience that are only hinted at in the Globe piece.I shall not let go my hold of thy skirt I once reproached him, asking him what had become of his exquisite intellect so that it had been overcome by his base proclivity. He meditated a while and then said:
Even if thou strike me with a sharp sword.
After thee I have no refuge nor asylum.
To thee alone I shall flee if I flee.'Wherever love has become sultan
Piety's arm has no strength left.
How can a helpless fellow live purely
Who has sunk up to his neck in impurity?'--- Sa'di's Gulistan
First is the sexual act itself between two males which can usually be categorized as pederasty. The romanticization of a prepubescent boy has passed on in Perso-Islamicate culture from Grecian times. Most of Sufi poetry casts the boy as one of the many personifications of the Beloved (God). The romance of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (d. 1030) and his slave boy Ayaz is part of Islamic legend. Mahmud gifted the throne of Lahore to his young lover. Another example is the grand love of Rumi and Shams Tabrizi. However, it is very hard for the historian to say that this love was physical in nature even if the expressions of longing and desire are often manifested in physical terms. In present day Afghanistan and NorthWest Pakistan, the tradition of keeping a young lover persists. However, in the metropolitan areas of Lahore or Karachi, this relationship is one of exploitation of the lowest classes by the haves. The article does not point out that this exploitation of children is gender neutral and that girls who find work in the homes of middle or upper class urban homes are just as likely to be assaulted and raped. The sad realities of these innocent children is not a gay issue and should be addressed unequivocally.
Second is the issue of those who identify themselves as gay having a safe, public life. This is where Islam-inspired homophobia, repression and denial emerge as overriding public sentiments. Pakistani gays exist closeted, marked by secret signs and settings. You know when someone is gay but you can never acknowledge that because what would be the use? Silence becomes the primary medium. There are many lifelong bachelors and aunts in a society geared explicitly toward marriage and procreation. In many ways, the repression of Victorian era England comes to mind. A stark departure from the pinings for the Beloved that had their space in Perso-Islamicate culture. The only community of fringe-dwellers publicly able to exist as pseudo-gay are the trans-gendered hijira who provide much needed sexual release for the straight males.
Gay Rights, unlike Women's Right or Minority Rights is not on the public spectrum of reformists or moderates in Pakistan. AIDS education is non-existent as well. One necessary step is to eliminate the abuse of children. The rest will be a long march. And some brave souls, like the Al Fatiha Foundation, have started on the path.x-posted on Chapati Mystery
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Pamphlets and Politics
Alan Wolfe, in NYT, has a nice, kinda snarky review of tomes from the likes of Moore, Coulter, Hannity, and many others. He argues that the current crop of "political" books and blogs are no better than pamphlets of 18th and 19th century America. Having read my fair share of pamphlets from c. 19th India, I am in complete agreement. The driving force is not logic, reason or argumentation but demonization of the Other and blatant preaching to the choir. Next, he argues that there is no "filtering" going on in the public sphere by university professors or the publishing execs etc. to judge the merit of these books leading to the anarchy of rabid opinion that rules the NYT non-fiction bestsellers list. He longs for the good old 50s and 60s when the political writers had gravitas and there was The Establishment- "a bipartisan group of bankers, politicians and journalists who shaped the contours of national opinion" - which looked out for rational debate. Still, Wolfe would permit us these pamphleteers:
For all their ugliness of language and unpersuasive fury, then, the current crop of political pamphlets bears a striking resemblance to the increasingly democratic culture in which they flourish. If their authors are poorly versed in American history, so are the young executives talking about the election at the airport bar while waiting for their connecting flights. If these books treat their side as good and their opponents as evil, so do the sermons in our booming evangelical churches. The style is melodramatic, but that is also true of ''Troy.'' Our political culture cannot be immune from the rest of our culture. The model for political argument these days is not the Book-of-the-Month Club but TruckWorld.com. If the only choice we have is between no politics and vituperative politics, the latter is -- just barely -- preferable.Two observation came to my mind: One, does he have to be so condescending? We live in a polarized political landscape mired in foreign policy turmoil. People want to have opinions. These books are fast-food opinions (crack open any one and examine the typography) designed to be read quickly, in short bites and with key conclusions underlined and bolded. The historian in me shudders but the populist says, "So what?". This pamphleteering started during Clinton years and has continued. If Kerry wins, I think it will lose its steam. Kerry seems like a hard person about whom one can have a strong opinion. If Bush remains in office, we should see it escalated to Hatfield-McCoy territory. Second, given that the adult reading population is dwindling, what does it mean for us academic types who may want a piece of the general, non-fiction pie? Is there any room on B&N's main display left after all these books? Will there be even an audience left? Wouldn't a liberal or conservative reader, accustomed to the pamphlet-style book feel awkward when confronted with an actual work in popular history or politics? Would we be required to be more judgemental, polemical and accusatory in our writing...because that's what that sells? That is, what are the long term effects of these screeds on the publishing and reading worlds?
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
The Highways Are Watching
Department of Homeland Security is forging ahead with Highway Watch- a program to train truck drivers to spot terrorists on the road. Amanda Ripley reports in the Time that the program hopes to ultimately recruit up to 400,000 people. It is an off-shoot of Operation TiPs (DOJ) that urged people to keep an eye out for suspicious people. The Department of Homeland Security is conducting workshops where truckers are instructed in the fine art of terrorist-watching:
After the session in Little Rock, two newly initiated Highway Watch members sat down for the catered barbecue lunch. The truckers, who haul hazardous material across 48 states, explained how easy it is to spot "Islamics" on the road: just look for their turbans. Quite a few of them are truck drivers, says William Westfall of Van Buren, Ark. "I'll be honest. They know they're not welcome at truck stops. There's still a lot of animosity toward Islamics." Eddie Dean of Fort Smith, Ark., also has little doubt about his ability to identify Muslims: "You can tell where they're from. You can hear their accents. They're not real clean people."That we live in a world that forces vigilance upon us for our own safety is undebatable. But we also live in a world where people get shot for wearing turbans or get arrested for saying "bring it down" at a Shoney's. Forget that the terrorists have no club rule that states membership is only for smelly, bearded arabs. Instead what alarms me is that hatred and suspicion is being legitimized by the State within civil society. These truckers are not public servants. They are ordinary citizens who will bring their now-validated prejudice to their communities. Wherever they interact with their fellow brown Americans, they will keep an eye askance. A member of the "Islamics" group, I am about to take a road trip for the 4th of July weekend. I will keep you posted if I see anyone suspicious.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Orientalism and Oriental Ignorance
Thank you, Ralph, for inviting me to join this forum and for saying those kind words. As regards the lizards, I claim complete ignorance of the matter. Google is not your friend. I had a first post in my head about blogging when I should be writing my dissertation but something caught my eye that should interest the readership of this blog. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MMRI) has translated an op-ed by Dr. Ahmad al-Baghdadi which appeared in Kuwaiti Daily, al-Siyasa. Dr. al-Baghdadi gained international attention in 1999 when he was imprisoned by the Kuwaiti government for an article he wrote that offended the clergy. The sentence was commuted after 14 days. On other occasions, he has spoken out against the Arab press, Arab intellectuals and Arab states and decried the lack of women participation in the social sphere.Obviously, he is a man used to speaking his mind. In the op-ed, entitled The Favor Western Orientalists Did Muslims, he praises Oriental scholarship for being grounded in academic discourse, critical methodology and scholarly analyses. Instead of embracing this Oriental scholarship and having the works of Western scholars translated into Arabic, the East has chosen the opposite - rejecting it on the spurious basis of Orientalism's relationship to colonialism. As a result, the scholarship coming from religious seminaries or Arab universities is ignorant of this rich Western tradition and filled instead with blind hatred of Orientalism. It is only when a student from a Muslim country comes to the West to study are his eyes opened to that reality:
"What is important during the period [of study] is that when they read, the students are given an opportunity to compare the complexities of Western thought with the primitive nature of Arab and Islamic thought, as compiled by the scholars on each side. On top of this, they [the Arab and Muslim students] come to know the enormous body of scholarship by [Western] Orientalists in Islamic and [Arabic] literary studies, [which these Orientalists accomplished] by way of translation, or by exact scholarly philological editing, or by critical methodology.I cringe at most of the gross generalizations (primitive Arab thought?) but his larger point remains valid for discussion. Is the East ignoring Orientalist scholarship? If it is, is it doing it at its own peril? I know only of universities in Pakistan that seem not at all lacking in reading and consuming Western scholarship. Is the case different in Cairo? In Istanbul? Actually, I can also attest to Istanbul from being in classes with my Turkish colleagues who had read Hodgson before I ever picked him up. I have more to say but I have prattled on too long.
