dead white males (part one)

This was originally going to be a St. Valentine's Day post but time ran away from me...

I was in high school when I first heard about Allan Bloom's book "The Closing of the American Mind". This was my first introduction to the "cultural wars"... the epic struggle between the Canons of Dead White Male civilization and Political Multi-Post-Cultural-Relativistic Correctness. By default I tended to cheer for the second camp but as I grew older I tended to soften up on this a little.

I once saw Mortimer Adler (one of the pioneers of the University of Chicago's Great Books Program) on C-Span defending his curriculum against the standard criticism. Why aren't there more works by women? What about people of color? What about the works of the Buddha or Confucius? Aren't those "great books" too? Adler's basic response was that by excluding non-Western voices he wasn't really making a judgement call. The point isn't that Shakespeare and Plato are really greater than Rumi and Confucius. The point is that books of the Western canon don't just exist in isolation, instead they reflect and respond to one another and participate in what he called the Great Conversation.

As Adler puts it:

"What binds the authors together in an intellectual community is the great conversation in which they are engaged. In the works that come later in the sequence of years, we find authors listening to what their predecessors have had to say about this idea or that, this topic or that. They not only harken to the thought of their predecessors, they also respond to it by commenting on it in a variety of ways."

And rightly or wrongly, Adler argued, non-Western and non-dominant voices were historically excluded from participation in that Conversation.

The corollary, of course, is that there could be other "canons of Great Books" which serve as milestones for those other conversations. Latin America, Africa and her Diaspora, the "Orient", Confucian civilization, etc. Instead of being bothered by Adler's Dead White Male canon, I should just figure out which conversations are "mine" and then swim the depths of those particular oceans of ideas.

For example (and this is where the Valentine's Day connection comes in) if I'm going to be an educated member of the Muslim community, I should probably try to be more familiar with the canons of the Muslim conversation. And so on the fourteenth I was thinking to myself that I should get around to reading at least one version of the great "Oriental" love story of Layla and Majnun. I already read Romeo and Juliet in high school, but even that work is somewhat derrivative of the former. In some ways, Layla and Majnun is also reminiscent of the Song of Solomon in the sense that both texts can be read literally as being about physical romantic love, or metaphorically as beaing about spiritual divine love.

More on the canon(s) later...

our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure

It's just been on my mind. It poses an interesting challenge:

"'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Marianne Williamson

obama's islamic past

Examiner: Can a past of Islam change the path to president for Obama? raises the question of whether Obama's connections to the Muslim community (through his father, stepfather and brother) will turn out to be political liabilities.

shakira and wycleff at the grammys

A friend recently put a YouTube clip of Shakira and Wycleff at the Grammys on her blog, which I thought was rather Grenada-esque and so I decided to "steal" it. (Actually I wonder how much consideration to give the fact that she was introduced as a "Latina superstar" as opposed to an "Arab superstar"?)

In any case, what follows is my own weak attempt to justify the sudden increase in the booty-shakin' quotient on this side of the blogosphere...

For a while now, I've been thinking about doing some kind of "deep" post about the cultural significance of Shakira, but honestly how deep I can make her. But in "Let Us Be Moors": Islam, Race And "Connected Histories" (the same paper which I use for the opening summary of Planet Grenada, Hisham Aidi makes a noble effort. He writes:

In the past two years, Islam and the Arab-Muslim world seem to have entered even more poignantly into the Latin American imagination, gaining a presence in political discourse and strongly influencing Hispanic popular culture. This Arab cultural invasion of Latin America, which has reverberated in mainstream American culture, is often attributed to the Brazilian telenovela El Clon and Lebanese-Colombian pop icon Shakira.

[...]

Through the Latino back channel, the impact of Shakira in bringing Arab culture to the MTV audience has also been considerable. The Lebanese-Colombian singer was bombarded with questions by the media about her views "as an Arab" on the September 11 attacks, and advised to drop the belly dancing and the Arabic riffs from her music because it could hurt her album sales, but she refused. "I would have to rip out my heart or my insides in order to be able to please them," said the songstress, and expressed horror at hate crimes against "everything that's Arab, or seems Arab." [18] During the run-up to the Iraq war, Shakira's performances took on an explicitly political tone, with her dancers wearing masks of Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Fidel Castro. Backdrop screens flashed images of Bush and Saddam Hussein as two puppets playing a sinister game of chess, with the Grim Reaper as the puppeteer. She also undertook a highly publicized tour of the Middle East (though her concerts in Casablanca, Tunis and Beirut were postponed), during which she visited her father's ancestral village in the Bekaa Valley.

Interesting... but honestly if I find more serious discussion of Shakira's significance online, I'll probably add some links. I promise this won't just turn into fan site.

happy singles awareness day

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

And from last year's post:
happy v.d. (I hope people realized this was Will Smith from the song "Just the Two of Us")

Looking back at old posts reminds me... Planet Grenada is almost 2 years old... wow.

compass for a sea of scholars

I have written about a similar topic before but it has been on my mind again recently...

Shortly after becoming Muslim, I realized how common it is for Muslims to speak in extremely confident and extremely vague terms about what "the ulema" or "the scholars" have to say about this or that topic. At the same time, it was also very clear that in reality "the ulema" display a diverse range of orthodox opinions on a great many questions. The situation can definitely be confusing to a beginning Muslim.

One of the more beneficial talks I attended as a new Muslim was one which stressed the importance of finding a regular methodology for resolving the various fiqh issues one is faced with from day-to-day. One of the presenters even went as far as saying that pretty much given ANY action, there was at least one scholar who would argue that any action was halal. So if you just look to what "the ulema" say indiscriminately it would be possible to be lead by your ego and follow no law at all just by following the "easy rulings" of every scholar.

For practical decisions, one solution to this problem is to follow one of the traditional schools of fiqh (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali). I would say that seeing this presentation was one of the significant moments which really got me thinking seriously about following a madhab.

I would suggest that there is a similar problem when it comes to broader spiritual questions. If you want good general advice about spiritual/religious/moral/ethical issues from an Islamic perspective, where do you go? In the sea of varied scholars with varied opinions, who are the reliable sources? This is the question which inspired the current post:

According to a well-known hadith:

"Allah shall raise for this Umma at the head of every century a man who shall renew (or revive) for it its religion" (Sunan Abu Dawud)

The Arabic term for this figure is the Mujaddid and through the years Muslims have expressed a wide variety of opinions about the identity of the Mujaddid or reformer for any given century.

At one point, I thought to myself that a good goal would be to go to
some traditional sources and with a list of mujaddids I felt comfortable with, and become more familiar with the ideas and biographies of the people identified as mujaddid for all 14 centuries. To be honest I didn't get very far. Part of it was due to motivation but to be fair, some of it was ultimately due to the fact that translation of Islamic works into English is an uneven process. And texts which are of interest to English-speaking Muslims are not necessarily going to the same as texts which are of interest to Western scholars.

In any case, the whole concept of mujaddid is what reminded me that in a lot of ways there are some healthy similarities between what I would call traditional or orthodox Islam and the best aspects of Roman Catholicism (and Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy). Just the idea that in century after century there were always saint-scholars who were reminding the community of basic truths about the religion, passing down, preserving and reforming a traditional orthodox faith. This sense of continuity is especially pronounced in the case of candidates such as Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti (founder of the Chisti order) or Abdul Qadir Jilani (founder of the Qadri order) or a prominent Naqshbandi like Ahmad Sirhindi because the Sufi orders themselves each have specific silsilahs or chains of master-disciple relationships which trace, in "apostolic" fashion, from the current head of a given branch of the order all the way back to the Prophet Muhammad (saaws). Even for Sunnis, most of these chains typically go through Ali ibn Abu Talib (ra) but occasionally (in the case of the Naqshbandis) through Abu Bakr Siddiq (ra).

In any case, I would just suggest that going to these major touchstones like the mujaddids or through shaykhs with a verifiable lineage seem like a reasonable way to navigate through the uneven sea of "the ulema".

too much laughter?

In yesterday's jummah khutbah, the imam was enouraging moderation in all things... including laughter. He was saying that too much laughter can have a bad effect on the heart. On one level, I agree that in principle a certain kind of flippant and heedless attitude is a bad thing, but out of all the various challenges and ailments facing the ummah in the here and now, I'm asking myself how high does laughter rank? Thoughts?

say hello to...

Confessions of a Funky Ghetto Hijabi a blog by Chelby Marie Daigle, a Nigerian-Canadian Sunni Muslimah. Maybe she'll join Third Resurrection?

barack's black dilemma

In These Times: Barack's Black Dilemma by Salim Muwakkil is yet another overview of Barack Hussein Obama's candidacy. The passage which stands out the most for me is the following explanation of Obama's popularity among whites:

...his unusual ancestral narrative may also fuel the fervor of Obama’s white support, in that his lack of slave history elicits no feelings of historical guilt among whites. They love Obama because he doesn’t hate them, as they suspect blacks should. Another theory making the rounds on black talk radio proffers that some whites see Obama as a way to redeem America in the eyes of a world angered by the Bush administration—the multicultural Obama’s calming presence serving as a necessary balm.

I've often thought that a similar factor might help explain why as a group CAribbean Indians in the US seem to be better off than African-Americans with a longer lineage in this country. Of course, there was still a history of slavery on the islands but perhaps the white American can say "At least they were never OUR slaves". Just a thought.

For a more critical view of Obama which focuses more on how he is perceived by non-whites, check out: Obama's charm lost on America's black activists by Tony Allen-Mills from the TimesOnline.

ashurah 1428

I started this post a few days ago but unfortunately I let myself get distracted and it ended up being "late". But if you are still interested:

Tarjuma-e-azaa, is new group blog of folks discussing the theme of mourning for Muharram 1428. And on her own blog, Brown Rab Girl Fish reflects on on Derrida, Hussein and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in It's Muharram.

RxPG News recently put out a story Muharram India has got Indianised over the years which was surprising (at least to me) about how even the Hindus in India were celebrating some form of Ashurah.

And in Grenada's past we also have:
ashurah
more muharram posts

Finally, some general articles you might find topical are:
Islam Online: Al-Husayn: the Shiite Martyr, the Sunni Hero
Abu Ismael al-Beirawi: Lessons from the tragedy of Karbala

black presidents (part five)

Just when you thought it was over, something else happens:
For Lack of a Comma, Biden Gets in Trouble

In a recent interview, Joe Biden was gushing over the attributes of Barack Obama and (according to some) ended up insulting every other African-American who ever ran for President:

BIDEN: I mean you got the first, sorta, mainstream African-American.

HOROWITZ: Yeah.

BIDEN: Who's articulate and bright and–and clean and a nice-looking guy.

HOROWITZ: Mm.

BIDEN: That's a storybook, man.

To be honest, this whole Biden gaffe issue is being exaggerated. I don't think he really intended to say that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Shirley Chisholm and the rest were inarticulate, stupid and dirty. It is just being spun that way. That's not to say that Biden couldn't have been more tactful... but the comment wasn't as offensive as first portrayed by the initial reports.

black presidents (part four)

More on black presidents... to be honest I've been a little too busy to get all eloquent about the subject so this might seem more like a link dump. But ver since I started this series I was actually surprised by how many different models of leadership were out there... the Badass, the Bootlick, the Civil Rights activist, the Idealist, the Independent and the Insider. In the future I might pick this subject again (for example I've recently been catching up on old seasons of 24 and have been thinking a lot about how race and religion are portrayed on the series, including David Palmer's presidency) but for now this last post is something of a survey and a wrap-up

First some general comments:
GBN: The First Black President? by Ron Mwangaguhunga
NPR: Black Presidents Elected Regularly on TV, in Movies

One of the most extreme presidential candidates I want to consider is Eldridge Cleaver. He was an admitted rapist, former Black Panther, car thief who ran for president on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in spite of the fact that he was too young to qualify at the time. When he ran for President it was more about giving a symbolic defiant middle finger to the Man than anything else. Eventually Cleaver would become a Reagan Republican, Mormon and crack-head. He is definitely someone who has gone through some changes in his life.

See also ChickenBones: An Eldridge Cleaver Bio-Chronology

At the other extreme you have someone like Alan Keyes; a Regan Republican who seems to have run for president as a symbolic "Yassah, Mr. Boss." to the Man than anything else.

Then you have a number of past candidates who have been associated with the mainstream civil rights establishment like Al Sharpton , Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson.

But of course nowadays, much of the media's attention is being placed on Barack Hussein Obama. A lot of the excitement about Obama's possible candidacy dates back to The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama's Address at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

other reflections and thoughts on Obama's candidacy:
The Times Online:Obama's charm lost on America's black activists looks at some of the wrinkles between Obama in the civil right's establishment.
NPR: Obama, or a History of Black Presidents of the U.S.

One of the more interesting characters in this subject area is Dr. Lenora Fulani. Fulani ran for President in 1988 as the candidate of the New Alliance Party. She received 0.2% of the vote, or almost a quarter of a million votes, and was the first African American independent on the ballot in all 50 states. She's been one of the strongest voices in favor of Black political independence (from the two-party system) and has been willing to work with everyone from Al Sharpton to Pat Buchanan.

If you want to get a taste of her perspective on the last presidential race check out
Black Electorate: "The Real Al Sharpton" by Dr. Lenora Fulani.

And you can get more of an overview of her organizing activities at:
www.independentvoting.org

Finally, in the musical world we have:
South African singer Brenda Fassie's rather prophetic song "Black President" about Nelson Mandela (several years before Mandela became South Africa's first President elected in free and open elections. (I wish I could find the actual song in a downloadable form. I have the single on tape and it is actually really good song).

And of course in hip-hop we have:
Dead Prez's Website
Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive: Dead Prez
Wikipedia: Dead Prez

Grenada's past:
if al gore was president aka black presidents (part three)
black presidents (part two)
black presidents (part one)

more on lupe fiasco

Alt.Muslim: Muslim Rapper "Walks" To The Top Of The Charts by Zahir Janmohamed gives a heads up to the musical career of Muslim hip-hop artist, Lupe Fiasco.

see also Grenada's Past:
lupe fiasco

the iraq war and america's economic imperialism

ZNet: The Iraq War and America's Economic Imperialism by Manning Marable. Hint: Follow the money.

the shame of guantanamo exposed in cuba

Common Dreams: The Shame of Guantanamo Exposed in Cuba is an article by Medea Benjamin who participated in a recent demonstration near the prison on January 11 to commemorate the 5-yearanniversary of the first prisoners being taken there. The link to the entire article is above but here is an excerpt:

“This is the closest I have been to my son in almost 5 years,” said Zohra Zewawi, the mother of Guantanamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, as she stood in front of the gates of the prison on the Cuban side. “On the one hand I feel incredibly sad that I am so close but can’t see or hold him; on the other hand I am happy because focusing the world’s attention on this shameful place might help get my son out of prison.”

While protests were happening all over the world to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the first prisoners taken to Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, a group of us traveled to the city of Guantanamo to bring our protest close to the gates of the US prison.

This is not the first time tragedy has befallen the Deghayes family. Zohra’s husband, a labor lawyer in Libya, was killed by the government of Col. Omar Qaddafi. Zohra fled to England to raise her five children. “The dictator Qaddafi tortured and imprisoned my husband; now the U.S., a country I thought was civilized, is doing the same thing to my son,” she said.

For the people of Guantanamo, our visit gave them insights into the horrors of the prison, but hope that people around the world are working to shut it down. “My city used to be known for Jose Marti’s beautiful poem and the song Guantanamera. It pains us that now we’re known worldwide for the infamous prison on the US base,” said Eneida Leiva Molina, head of the Guantanamo Friendship Institute. “We hope that once this anniversary is over, people will continue to work to shut the prison down.

For more information from Grenada's past, check out: Cagedprisoners.com

sleeper cell: the second season

So... I recently found a website where I could see the first few episodes of Sleeper Cell's second season. In some ways, the second season seems to suffer from the same limitations as the first season which I've mentioned before (see sleeper cell (part 2)) but fewer of the positives. Little or no emphasis is put on the faith of the main character, Darwyn the African-American Muslim FBI agent (which is unfortunate since it provided some interesting contrast and tension in the first season). In a similar vein, the government characters are generally portrayed as less compassionate, competent and ethical than they were in the first season. Instead of being about a sincere Muslim who has to carefully negotiate and come to terms with various loyalties and identities (keeping his own faith and integrity, not blowing his cover, and fighting against those who would betray his nation and his ummah) in this season, both the government characters and the Muslim villans seem painted in broader strokes and so the story seems more cartoonish than before.

I'm not sure of whether this is a good thing or not but the cell members are being portrayed in a more diverse way (e.g. a female member, a Latino ex-gangbanger) I've read that there is also a gay Muslim member of the terror cell but that is not totally obvious from the episodes I've seen. (Although if the claim is true, it is definitely forshadowed). On the one hand this is good in the sense that it shows some of the diversity which exists in the Muslim community. On the other hand, it gives the impression that all Muslims could be terrorists.

Perhaps I'll be able to say more as I see more of the season.

if al gore was president aka black presidents (part three)

I am still in the middle of working on a series of blog entires on the theme of Black presidents. A few of the articles and essays I've found so far deal realistically with the obstacles and prospects faced by Black candidates. Others deal with historical candidates. Most of the items so far have more to do with imaginative and visionary utopian scenarios.

The following clip falls into the utopian category. It doesn't really fit into the series (unless you consider the fact that Gore served under Bill Clinton, whom Toni Morrison famously called the first Black President.) But the premise is that there is an alternate universe where Gore became President after the 2000 elections. How different would our situation be if that had been the case? Rogue glaciers. Mexiforia. Universal Health Care. Six Flags Tehran. Check it out. It cracked me up the first time I saw it. And note, it is really Al Gore, not an actor.

SNL: If Al Gore was President: (video , transcript)

marvin x speaks

Marvin X Speaks is a new blog by a brother who has been a frequent subject over at Planet Grenada. Also check out: more marvin x

happy new year y'all

Today is the first of Muharram 1428. Ashurah is approaching. Get ready.

liber decatriarchia mystica

I was reading online and found out about a book which has been hyped-up in the most amazing way. The book is called Liber Decatriarchia Mystica and is written by Wahid Azal (who in the past has gone by the name of Nima Hazini). My understanding is that he is an ex-Bahai who later became a Babi (a member of the religion which was the Bahai faith's most immediate ancestor) but that now he is on a much more ecclectic and individualistic path which is influenced by Babism, Qabbalah, Islam, shamanism and the teachings of Aleister Crowley.
One review says:

This book introduces the Qabbalah of Bayani Gnostic Universalism via the qabbalistic Tree of Reality of 13 Spheres and 36 Subtle-Ray Pathways. The main portion of the work is the author's inspired re-write of the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation) to reflect this qabbalistic Tree. LIBER DECATRIARCHIA MYSTICA is Hermeticism, the post-Islamic Bayani gnostic path and the High Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi married to shamanism and Qabbalah. The author also challenges prevailing assumptions regarding the legitimacy of Rabbinic Judaism, Paulianist Christianity, Sunni Islam and modern Baha'ism. This book, not for the feint hearted, is sure to generate controversy. The author advocates for a Liberation Theosophy and the establishment of a Theophanocracy by a Universal Global Gnostic Ecclesia. This is a Green leftwing political manifesto and a high esoteric magnum opus all rolled into one!

A second review I found adds:

Azal also re-appropriates the discourse of gnosis and esotericism away from the Right and brings it back to the (Green) Left by arguing for a Liberation Theosophy and Theophanocracy. If Che Guevara and Franz Fanon were to meet Jacob Boehme and the Sufi Ibn ‘Arabi, fuse into one person, we would find Wahid Azal, a radical twenty-first century prophet of gnosis and a Nietzchean “esoteric” Zarathustra for our times.

I would probably disagree with Wahid Azal on a large number of points (especially Crowley I think) but I was still struck by the range of influences he invokes in his work. I found the description of the book incredibly provocative (although not tempting enough to justify the price). What resonates the most with me is the idea that in some ways Planet Grenada also brings together wildly disparate topics and influences. (including Guevara, Fanon, Ibn' Arabi, Liberation Theology, something similar to Theosophy, and even some Nietzsche on the side). My hope is that somehow I've managed to be deep without being esoteric, broad and comprehensive while coherent, spiritual while remaining socially relevant. How am I doing?