azhar ahmed and the limits of free speech

The current controversy over the film Innocence of Muslims has got me thinking about the ways in which the West has its own taboos and sacred cows which potentially trump freedom of speech. One very recent example is the case of Azhar Ahmed, a 19 in West Yorkshire who was convicted of posting an offensive message on Facebook in the wake of the deaths of six UK soldiers in Afghanistan.

BBC News: Azhar Ahmed convicted of offensive Facebook message

The Guardian: Azhar Ahmed – charged with treason over Facebook comments?

"bow your head!"

Ape Central: BOW YOUR HEAD!: Michael Clarke Duncan Has Passed Away
Guardian: Michael Clarke Duncan obituary

islamic poultry for latino tables

NYT: Islamic Poultry for Latino Tables (Yes, They Have Chilies, Too)

jumah at the dnc

The Bureau of Indigenous Muslim Affairs is holding a Jumah Prayer at the Democratic National Convention along with a series of other Muslim events. I'm hoping the conspiracy theories don't get too thick.

totally radical muslims

Totally Radical Muslims Presents: Islamophopia, A Bitchin’ Zine! seems like an amazing project. I wish I could get a copy.

said no one, ever.

hat-tip to Perennial Reflection

you shouldn't shoot them

the sense of white supremacy

Racist attacks are authorized by a political culture that allows us to think in nativist terms, to bemoan the “browning” of America. By 2034, the Census department estimates, the non-white population of the US is going to be in the majority. With the political class unwilling to reverse the tide of jobless growth and corporate power, the politicians stigmatize the outsider as the problem of poverty and exploitation. This stigmatization, as Moishe Postone argues, obscures “the role played by capitalism in the reproduction of grief.” Far easier to let the Sikhs and the Latinos, the Muslims and the Africans bear the social cost for economic hopelessness and political powerlessness than to target the real problem: the structures that benefit the 1% and allow them to luxuriate in Richistan.

From Shooting at the Gurdwara: The Sense of White Supremacy by Vijay Prashad

michele bachman thankful no americans died in sikh shooting

The Onion: Michele Bachmann Thankful No Americans Died In Sikh Shooting

imam zaid: ramadan and charity: healing for the land

Ramadan and Charity: Healing for the Land By Imam Zaid Shakir

james earl jones: what to the slave is the fourth of july?

zero civilians in us killed by islamic terrorism... just like every year since 9/11

Loonwatch: Annual Report: Zero Civilians in U.S. Killed by Islamic Terrorism… Just Like Every Year Since 9/11

danay suarez - "yo aprendi"

blackface, brownface, yellowface, arabface, jewface and purpleface

Loonwatch: Blackface, Brownface, Yellowface, Arabface, Jewface, and Purpleface

"on a quiet day i can hear her breathing"

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness : and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling : their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

From: "Confronting Empire" by Arundhati Roy, Porto Alegre, Brazil January 27, 2003

tedx ramallah - mark gonzalez: wage beauty

Poet. Scholar. Lover of Life. Mark Gonzales is an HBO Def Poet with a Master's in Education, a Mexican and a Muslim, a Khalil Gibran meets Pablo Neruda in a lyrical break dance cypher, Mark lives in the center of intersections. From Palestinian refugee camps, universities in Beirut, foster homes in Portugal, to cities across the Americas, he transcends citizenship identity to break borders and wage beauty across continents through culture. He is respected internationally for his creative approaches to suicide prevention, human rights and human development via performance, photojournalism, and narrative therapy

See also:
Planet Grenada: mark gonzalez: audio intefadeh

sherman jackson on trayvon martin

Huffington Post: Trayvon Martin: Between 'Whitening' and Bad Law

ten muslim women every person should know

Huffington Post: 10 Muslim Women Every Person Should Know

the chronic-WHAT!-cles of calormen

For a while now I've been thinking about getting back to writing (I haven't written a new poem in ages). More specifically, I'm thinking about writing stories which riff off of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I'll spare you the details of what I'm planning (partly because I'm still figuring things out) except to say that I'm imagining a cross between Wicked and Game of Thrones... re-imagining the world of Narnia from a Calormen-centric perspective. (For those who don't know, the Calormen are basically a transmogrified version of Muslims who appear as villains in the Chronicles of Narnia.)

To look at what other folks have said about Lewis and his treatment of race and Orientalism in the Narnia books, you could check out:
Are The Chronicles of Narnia Sexist and Racist?
Red Dwarf, Black Dwarf: The Racial Overtones of Narnia
C.S. Lewis' Calormen: Exacerbating Ethnic Tensions?
So Why is She the White Witch?

For another look at Narnia with an eye towards concerns about gender and sexuality you might be interested in the short story, The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman.

see also:
fictional works using settings created by other artists

black to the future: to baldly go

For some interesting recent reflections from the blogosphere on the significance (and insignificance) of blackness in science fiction, especially in the case of Captain Sisko from Deep Space Nine, check out The Sisko System over at Zaki's Corner and from Racialicious take a look at O Captain, My Captain: A Look Back At Deep Space Nine’s Ben Sisko