Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity constructed in order to fight global imperialism. (say what!)
There is within the spiritual universe of Islam a dimension which may be called "Abrahamic Pythagoreanism" or a way of seeing numbers and figures as keys to the structure of the cosmos and as symbols of the archetypal world and also a world which is viewed as the creation of God in the sense of the Abrahamicmonotheisms. It is this possibility within the intellectual universe of Islam and not any external influences that enabled Islam to develop a philosophy of mathematics akin to the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition of antiquity [...]
-Seyyid Hossein Nasr, from the Forward of Islamic Patterns by Keith Critchlow
So I recently picked up the book Islamic Patterns. I've owned it for a while, what I'm saying is that I'm making another attempt to get through it. It contains some interesting discussions of the philosophical principles which lay behind much of the geometric artwork in the Islamic world. To be honest, it is taking some effort to get through. What I'm finding is that my own mathematical training makes it hard for me to really see where Critchlow is coming from. There is definitely a gap between the typical academic concept of what a number is or what geometry is about and the Pythagorean notion of the same.
Recently I've been thinking in general terms about different kinds of mathematics: partly with the hopes of developing an innovative curriculum for my students next year, partly for my curiosity and edification, partly with hopes of putting together some kind of article or document, and possibly in order to develop a career as not just a mathematician but a numerologist of sorts.
One route (exemplefied by the song "Mathematics") is to extract the mathematical content of our everyday lives with an eye towards social relevance. Another route would be to take a more metaphysical path (through the I Ching, sacred geometry, enneagrams, and similar constructions). We'll see how it goes.
[Mos Def] Booka-booka-booka-booka-booka-booka Ha hah You know the deal It's just me yo Beats by Su-Primo for all of my peoples, negroes and latinos and even the gringos
Yo, check it one for Charlie Hustle, two for Steady Rock Three for the fourth comin live, future shock It's five dimensions, six senses Seven firmaments of heaven to hell, 8 Million Stories to tell Nine planets faithfully keep in orbit with the probable tenth, the universe expands length The body of my text posess extra strength Power-liftin powerless up, out of this, towerin inferno My ink so hot it burn through the journal I'm blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex Broken glass wall better keep your alarm set Streets too loud to ever hear freedom sing Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream but you chain cats get they CHA-POW, who dead now Killin fields need blood to graze the cash cow It's a number game, but shit don't add up somehow Like I got, sixteen to thirty-two bars to rock it but only 15% of profits, ever see my pockets like sixty-nine billion in the last twenty years spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like nearly half of America's largest cities is one-quarter black That's why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack Sixteen ounces to a pound, twenty more to a ki A five minute sentence hearing and you no longer free 40% of Americans own a cell phone so they can hear, everything that you say when you ain't home I guess, Michael Jackson was right, "You Are Not Alone" Rock your hardhat black cause you in the Terrordome full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers Young teens and prison greens facin life numbers Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation This new math is whippin motherfuckers ass You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add It's mathematics
Chorus: scratched by DJ Premier (repeat 2X)
"The Mighty Mos Def.." "It's simple mathematics" -> Fat Joe "Check it out!" "I revolve around science.." "What are we talking about here?"
.. "Do your math" -> Erykah Badu (2X) .. .. "One.. t-t-two.. three, four" -> James Brown .. .. "What are we talking about here?" ..
[Mos Def] Yo, it's one universal law but two sides to every story Three strikes and you be in for life, manditory Four MC's murdered in the last four years I ain't tryin to be the fifth one, the millenium is here Yo it's 6 Million Ways to Die, from the seven deadly thrills Eight-year olds gettin found with 9 mill's It's 10 P.M., where your seeds at? What's the deal He on the hill puffin krill to keep they belly filled Light in the ass with heavy steel, sights on the pretty shit in life Young soldiers tryin to earn they next stripe When the average minimum wage is $5.15 You best believe you gotta find a new ground to get cream The white unemployment rate, is nearly more than triple for black so frontliners got they gun in your back Bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty and end up in the global jail economy Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence Budget cutbacks but increased police presence And even if you get out of prison still livin join the other five million under state supervision This is business, no faces just lines and statistics from your phone, your zip code, to S-S-I digits The system break man child and women into figures Two columns for who is, and who ain't niggaz Numbers is hardly real and they never have feelings but you push too hard, even numbers got limits Why did one straw break the camel's back? Here's the secret: the million other straws underneath it - it's all mathematics
As usual, Salim Muwakkil is on target (so to speak). It just makes me wonder what the Middle East would look like if all nations were looked at symmetrically in terms of their compliance to the various international agreements, treaties and declarations.
So I "went to dhikr" yesterday. I use quotes because in reality dhikr should be part of the basic punctuation of Muslim life so the idea of going to a specific location where dhikr can occur ir arguably rather odd. More specifically, I went to a gathering of the Shadhili tariqat [2] for group dhikr. The people were nice but I had to wrestle a bit with my "inner Taliban" since the people there were into "Sufism" but I wasn't sure if they were ready to say that they were "Muslim" or not. If I continue with them its just going to be something I'm going to have to work on somehow.
Coincidentally, I also discovered the following short film yesterday called Ms. Judgements. The people at dhikr were dressed like "gypsies" so I guess I'd identify most with the person right after:
This past Sunday, Obama gave a sermon on fatherhood at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. And can I say how deep it is to see a candidate actually give a sermon as opposed to merely pandering to Evangelicals? I'm also sure that Obama is absolutely relieved to be able to speak for himself in a church instead of having others speak on his behalf (and have the media assume he approves the message). In this sermon, Obama manages to strike a tone somewhere between government-responsibility and community-responsibility which I think works really well. I'm curious about how it will play among the "religious right" and the white "values voters"?
The clip from Audio Intefadeh seems to suggest Mark Gonzalez but that's not totally clear to me. In any case, he is a brilliant spoken word artist who is definitely in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and is trying to make a difference through his words and actions.
The Ghetto nerd came to America at age 6 with his impoverished Dominican family, like so many others before them, yearning to taste the “American Dream.” The Ghetto nerd suffered the brutal jabs and blows of the “American reality” as his family faced one epic tragedy after another. The Ghetto nerd immersed himself in literature, inhaling popular culture like air, snorting fantasy and science fiction like cerebral cocaine, and drowning himself in the wondrous, exaggerated worlds of comic books. ... A month before winning the Pulitzer, I sat with Junot Diaz, the Ghetto Nerd himself, for a revealing and candid discussion about the devastating “curse” and emotional scars of a tyrannical dictatorship – in this case that of Dominican Republic’s horrific General Trujillo – on an immigrant, American family; the mainstream “whitewashing” of “brown” experiences; the power of popular culture and comics books to express one’s personal narrative; the arrogance of “Whiteness”; and the emergence of a multicultural voice reflecting an ethnic, “All American” America.
This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from BarackObama in November. You know who you are.
I've linked to Wajahat Ali's blog before but I haven't checked him out in a while. It turns out I've missed a lot of good stuff. Here is an interview between Wajahat Ali and Islamic scholar Seyyid Hossein Nasr (who is also part of the Perennialist tradition we've discussed before here on Planet Grenada).
Blatantly stolen from Marc Manley over at The Manrilla Blog:
"From a small, self-published book entitled Something Else, jazz legend YusefLateef published an engaging book back in 1973. Yusef, who is known as a master multi-instrumentalist, is also a gifted writer, producing everything from short plays, essays, and poetry [as in this installment]. I have been putting segments of the book up on line. Here's the newest addition for your reading pleasure: http://www.manrilla.net/blog/reflections/
For more of Something Else, just visit the Blog and see the links under "Reads" on the right-hand side.
I actually wanted to include a clip of this song back when I wrote the post: o son of being / the spark but did not find one until now. I've recently been thinking about the relationship between Islam and hip-hop and so The Roots came to mind again (Malik B is Sunni and Black Thought is/has been a Five Percenter). Also, in spite of what I said in my mayda del valle post I went ahead and got The Best of the Roots album a few days ago (along with Game Theory and Rising Down)
1. I really like this image but was a bit surprised by how the mainstream networks were covering it. They were like "what is this mysterious gesture?". It is just another reminder of how "white" the mainstream press is in its perspective. It also an example of how Obama's candidacy (and hopefully his presidency) has the opportunity of being a sort of national teach-in on race relations; first by offering a peek into the Black church, and now introducing white people to African-American greeting practices.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, share a victory "dap" during an election night rally in St. Paul, MN
2. I'm not sure who Obama should pick as his running mate but I've been interested in Senator Jim Webb of Virginia ever since I'd caught part of an interview with him on NPR. He's a Vietnam veteran and an ex-Republican who today is highly critical of George W. Bush and the current Iraq War.
3. I never cease to be amazed by the number of third-party candidates who run for president in each election in relative anonymity. Of course you have the Greens and the Libertarians, but there are also at least three different kinds of "socialist" parties (four if you count the Nazi party), you have the Fascist party, the Prohibition Party, the Constitution Party and even the Vampire, Witches and Pagan Party which are all putting up candidates. Some of these candidates seem to be running more as a joke or as a publicity stunt and others are "serious" but are obviously long-shots while many seem to lie somewhere in between.
4. A couple of the third-party presidential candidates are former elected officials who "defected" from the major parties. One is former Republican Congressman, Bob Barr who is running as the Libertarian Party candidate this year. One can only hope that he can serve as a spoiler for McCain in this election.
5. On the scary side, I recently found out that former Democratic member of Congress Rep. Cynthia McKinney is running for president on the Green Party ticket. I say scary because I think McKinney is likely to be a "spoiler". Some of the angry/ disappointed/ disgruntled Clinton supporters have already expressed their willingness to vote for McCain. But now McKinney offers yet another (arguably more attractive) option for liberals who don't want to vote for Obama. Given the tensions which currently exist in the Democratic party between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, I think that there is a non-trivial mass of people who might be willing to make such a protest vote.
6. Now that I think about it, if Hillary had won her argument to the superdelegates, and they overruled the will of the non-superdelegates who went for Obama, I would have given serious thought to voting for McKinney myself.
7. By the way, times like these are why I wish we had proportional representation in the US so that genuine multi-party system could arise.
The epicenter of the new black activism [...] is Colombia. That's due as much to circumstance as design: more than a third of the 3.2 million Colombians uprooted by the country's long-running civil war are of African ancestry, as are many of the ragged street vendors and beggars who approach motorists at busy Bogotá intersections. Foreign and local NGOs are now working hard to publicize their plight. Though a landmark 1993 law enshrined the right of Afro-Colombians to obtain formal title to their ancestral lands, including 5 million hectares along the Pacific coast—a unique experiment in ethnic self-government—implementation has lagged, as unscrupulous agribusinesses and paramilitary warlords have seized communal property with near impunity. But recently, as part of its ongoing effort to win U.S. approval for a free-trade agreement, the government of President Alvaro Uribe has begun to expel these companies and restore 8,000 hectares of stolen land to Afro-Colombian community councils.
So Obama finally resigned his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ. The whole situation is weird and sad on all kinds of levels.
One of the weird aspects is that the straw that broke the camel's back on this issue was a recent sermon last Sunday by the Catholic priest, Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger but obviously Obama isn't even Catholic.
Also weird is the way that Pfleger's comments are being characterized. As "hateful"? As a rant? As "racist"? Admittedly, he was a bit harsh on Hillary but I would say that occasionally that being harsh on politicians in certainly part of the role of being a "prophetic" preacher. Pfleger's sermon also wasn't a "rant". It was definitely a rhetorically effective performance intended to satirize Hillary Clinton. But it certainly wasn't wild and irrational. By implication, Pfleger was simply making the point that some of the actions and reactions of Hillary Clinton and some of her supporters are motivated by a sense of racial entitlement. That's a perfectly reasonable and coherent claim and it is worth being discussed. It is either true or not true. Especially bizarre is the claim that the sermon was racist?!?!
The sad part of all this is the extent to which liberation theology is being demonized by the media and is being excluded from the political discourse. More generally, it is sad that the media and the political process can have as much influence as they on a person's religious declarations.
So I'm in the middle of reading The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader.Wilber's an interesting guy. He's a perennialist in the sense that he attempts to bring together a number of different religious, mystical and psychological systems into a single integrated structure. He seems most familiar with Buddhism and Hinduism and doesn't really do much to actively incorporate Islam into his work. But the brother over at Inspirations and Creative Thoughts has a couple of interesting posts which emphasize some of those connections anyway.
I've mentioned the television show Angel and the fictional evil secret-society The Circle of the Black Thorn in a previous post. (see circle of the black thorn.) The only bit I wanted to talk about was how the last season started to get much more explicitly political. For example, from the season's very first episode there is a scene where the main characers are going through the files of Wolfram & Hart, an evil demon-owned LA legal firm:
ANGEL This is unbelievable. FRED I think I've lost my appetite, which is kind of a first. LORNE (reading a file) Hmm, well, this is interesting. Apparently old Joe Kennedy tried to get out of his deal with the firm. ANGEL That explains a lot. LORNE Yeah, but George, Senior - he read the fine print. There's no one these guys don't have a piece of.
Then towards the end of the season they introduced a Hillary Clinton stand-in, the character of Helen Brucker, a female Senator who is planning to win the presidency in 2008 with the help of Wolfram & Hart:
SENATOR It's nice to see you again so soon, Angel. ANGEL (upon finding out that Senator Brucker was a member of the Circle of the Black Thorn) Senator. I had no idea you were so well...connected. SENATOR Well, I'm not gonna take the White House in 2008 on just my sparkling wit and funding from hostile governments. (chuckles)
Angel being a supernatural drama, the Senator actually isn't really human, but instead is some kind of demonic hellspawn who has managed to occupy a human body. Another interesting bit about this (which really wasn't on my mind when thse episodes first aired in 2004) is the fact that, in the series finale, Senator Brucker is killed with an axe to the head by Charles Gunn, the main Black character of the show. This all aired well before Obama declared his intentions to run for President to run so it is unlikely that Gunn is meant to be an Obama stand-in.
This has all been on my mind because "Power Play", the episode which introduced the Senator's character aired this past Friday morning, and the series finale "Not Fade Away" just aired this Monday morning.
