the years of rice and salt (part one)

So I'm in the middle of reading The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. The book is a work of alternative historical fiction with an intriguing premise: What if the Black Death had been more total in its impact, rendering the Christian West only a marginal actor in subsequent world history? Chinese and Islamic civilizations become dominant in the world. The Americas are primarily settled by the Japanese (but Native American cultures are able to continue in a stronger form than they do in our world). An ex-alchemist plants the foundation for classical chemistry and physics in Samarqand. And so it goes.

To be honest, I'm a little bit disappointed with the novel at the moment. I love the premise, but the book doesn't really seem to make the most of its setting(s). To provide continuity, the novel follows the souls of a small group of associates (a jati) as they reincarnate through multiple times and places through the centuries. But instead of fleshing out the broad trends and events of this alternate history, the novel focuses on the personal development of these souls across lifetimes. The result (so far) is a story which could just as easily been set in our own past. Hopefully, as the story goes on and as the histories diverge more, Robinson will give the reader a greater sense of how this other world differs from our own.

Wikipedia: The Years of Rice and Salt

from cross to crescent

From Cross to Crescent: Why Latinos are increasingly converting to Islam by Anthony Chiorazzi is another typical human-interest story on Latinos and Islam. This article stands out because it offers a glimpse of Islam in Cuba:

Islamic prayers mingled with the bustling sounds of traffic as he prostrated himself in prayer in a little mosque in Havana, Cuba, recalls Diego Santos, a Cuban-American who traveled to the communist state not long ago to visit his family.

A recent convert to Islam and a writer who prefers not to use his real name, Santos says that Islam in Cuba—like in America—is becoming more visible and that during his stay he found no attempt to repress it. In fact, after jum’a, Friday prayers, Santos talked openly in Spanish about Islam with fellow Muslims while strolling down the crowded streets of old Havana, even passing the government offices of the Cuban Community for the Defense of the Revolution, which has a notorious reputation for being the snitch center for Cuban rule breakers. "Nobody was hiding their Islam in Havana," says Santos.

Back in Los Angeles, Santos attends meetings of the Los Angeles Latino Muslim Association (LALMA), an organization working to help inform the Latino community about Islam. Santos says as a Cuban-American that he has been well embraced by the Muslim community in America because his conversion confirms Islam as a universal religion. Santos hopes that more people will understand that Islam is for everyone whether they live in Europe, America or even Cuba.

"i like a little salt on my cracker"

I haven't given y'all a dose of Paul Mooney in a while...

The last I heard (and posted...) in the wake of the Richard's rant, Mooney vowed to stop using the "n-word". I'm not sure whether the current Mooney excerpt comes before his promise or after, but in any case it is not for the linguistically faint-hearted. (It is also brief, but rather Grenada-esque, including comments on Arabs, 9/11, and Afro-Latinos along with Mooney's typical material).


[REPLACEMENT LINK 2/3/2011]

Paul Mooney and Planet Grenada

when is a bigot not a bigot?

You may have heard about the recent minor controversy involving the Rev. Al Sharpton and his comments related to Mormons during a debate between him and Christopher Hitchens at the New York Public Library. Hitchens is the recent best-selling author of the anti-theistic God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and he debated Sharpton on the existence of God.

Hitchens point is that religion in general (and thus Mormonism in particular) plays a negative role in society. In fact, one of the sections of his book is even called: Mormonism: A Racket becomes a Religion. More specifically, Hitchens is the one who, in the debate with Sharpton, first mentions Mitt Romney (a Mormon) and his candidacy for President, along wth the fact that until quite recently the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints officially supported a number of clearly racist doctrines.

So is Hitchens in trouble for his scathing barbs against Mormonism? Not as far as I can tell. Instead people seem to be all over Al Sharpton for making a relatively mild and light-hearted political swipe at Mitt Romney ("As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways") What kind of sense does that make? It is ok to dismiss an entire belief system as a racist poison, but it is unforgivable bigotry for a former Democratic Presidential candidate to suggest that a current Republican candidate won't win?

To be honest, I think that at least two things are going on. First, folks like to salivate over anything which even smells like hypocrisy. So especially in the wake of Al Sharpton's role in the recent Don Imus controversy, the white public will definitely derive a special satisfaction from the idea that Sharpton himself could be caught making insensitive comments.

Secondly, as a Presidential contender, it is probably in Romney's political interests to win points and publicity by positioning himself against a controversial figure like Sharpton. But ironies abound. The religiously conservative Romney attacks the clergyman but leaves alone the blatantly anti-religious, anti-Mormon intellectual.

If you would like to view Sharpton's (and Hitchens') comments in their original context you can check out Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens at FORA.tv.

the gospel from outer space

For a number of different reasons I've been thinking a bit about fictional belief systems and mythologies these days (e.g. Kurt Vonnegut's Bokononism). I've also been thinking about liberation theology. The two sort of come together in the following excerpt from Slaughterhouse-Five:

The Gospel from Outer Space

It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.
But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.

The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being of the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh, boy -- they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And then that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes.

The visitor from outer space made a gift to Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections!

Reminds me a bit of the previous discussion on Cornel West and Constantinian Christianity in islam and the passion (for social justice)

blogroll woes

Man, I really need to update my blogroll. I just added a few new blogs (mostly from Black Muslim women) but I should probably take some time to redesign the whole thing from scratch.

spanish immigration ploy: hire mothers

I just heard this story on the radio and thought it would be suitable for Planet Grenada:

NPR: Spanish Immigration Ploy: Hire Mothers
In order to aquire agricultural laborers without encouraging illegal immigration, Spanish farmowners have begun a guest worker program which targets Moroccan mothers in order to pick fruit. In general, they don't drink, don't smoke, or go go to the discos and when the work is done they will have a strong incentive to go back home. This is in contrast to "las rubias" (the blondes) from Eastern Europe who tended to spice up the local nightlife for young Spanish men.

See also:
Spiegel Online International: Moroccan Immigrants, Spanish Strawberries and Europe's Future by Daniela Gerson in Cartaya, Spain

liberative theology of islam

For a nice but general overview of Islam as a liberation theology, you can check out Liberative theology of Islam by Asghar Ali Engineer, a former member of the Dawoodi Bohra community.

the way of sufi chivalry

Another continuation of the greater jihad: a muslim art of war:

The Way of Sufi Chivalry by Ibn al-Husayn al-Sulami (translated by Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi). The Arabic term translated as "chivalry" is futuwwah. In Arabic, fata literally means a handsome, brave youth. But the book goes on to explain that based on its use in the Quran, the word came to mean "the ideal, noble and perfect man whose hospitality and generosity would extend until he had nothing left for himself; a man who would give all, including his life, for the sake of his friends." (the term is used to describe Abraham in the Quran [21:60] when he destroys the idols of his people.)

Al-Sulami's work doesn't have a martial emphasis, but instead focuses on spiritual attributes associated with the concept of futuwwah.

Also if you are interested in the subject, a Naqshbandi page in a similar vein discusses Spiritual Chivalry or Futuwwah.

the hankyoreh

This piece is old but never-posted... it resonates somewhat with the open-souce religion article. The Bible isn't exactly a Wiki but apparently some folks are still willing to engage in some pretty radical re-evaluations of the text.

The Hankyoreh: Scholar ignites controversy over comments regarding Old Testament is an article about well-known Korean philosopher and critic Do-ol Kim Young-oak and his arguments against the literal interpretation of the Bible and in support of doing away with the Old Testament. It seems like a repetition of the ancient "Heresy" of Marcionism.

Grenada's past:
alan moore and organized religion
moore organized religion

open source religion

Recently I received a comment on an older post about "Natural Islam" and Anarchism and I started to think again about what the overlap between Islam and Anarchism can look like. It made me want to check out Daniel Sieradski's (Jewish) Orthodox Anarchist blog, which I hadn't read in a while. A few clicks afterwards I came across the provocative phrase "open source Judaism" and the more general concept of "open source religion". From there I started reading a little about Yoism which calls itself "the world's first open source religion". After browsing their homepage a bit I realized that I sort of knew one of the founders of Yoism! (We were in the same organization at one point).

Yoism seems an interesting novelty but I'm not sure how "deep" it is. The founders are basically secular folks looking for meaning who decided to take their favorite quotes from various philosophers and scientists and scenes from their favorite South Park and Simpsons episodes, stick them all in a blender, and call it a religion. Their main religious text, the Book of Yo, is a work in progress (and is literally a Wiki).

In spite of converting from one religion to another, I think that due to my upbringing I still have a traditionalist bias when it comes to certain religious issues. Ideally religion is supposed to be something transcendent which guides and inspires humans with certain values, even when prevailing social currents point in other directions. But a religion like Yoism fundamentally incapable of doing that because it naturally sinks to the lowest common denominator. It can't help but be a product of the egos of its members.

But I really don't mean to be totally dismissive of this approach. For a moderate, reasonable example of an "open source" approach to religion (specifically Islam) you could read Open Ijtihad from Ideant (a blog by Ulises Ali Mejias... a pretty thoughtful guy in his own right and husband to Asma Barlas).

Thoughts?

bin laden

I'm not going to say I endorse the song "Bin Laden", but I've blogged about Immortal Technique and Mos Def here before so I figured I would put the video up and invite comments.

I'm baptized by America and covered in leeches
The dirty water that bleaches your soul and your facial features
Drownin' you in propaganda that they spit through the speakers
And if you speak about the evil that the government does
The Patriot Act'll track you to the type of your blood
They try to frame you, and say you was tryna sell drugs
And throw a federal indictment on niggaz to show you love
This shit is run by fake Christians, fake politicians
Look at they mansions, then look at the conditions you live in
All they talk about is terrorism on television
They tell you to listen, but they don't really tell you they mission
They funded Al-Qaeda, and now they blame the Muslim religion
Even though Bin Laden, was a CIA tactician
They gave him billions of dollars, and they funded his purpose
Fahrenheit 9/11, that's just scratchin' the surface

immortal technique: two interviews
3500 years ago...
final call interview with immortal technique
a revolution in the middle east
immortal technique and adisa banjoko
mos def's piece on assata shakur

soliloquies of a stranger

Say hello to Soliloquies of A Stranger The life of an African American, Muslim, Muhaajirah (Expat), from the hood, in an Inter-Racial Marriage. It Doesn’t get any stranger than that!

hispanic muslim day

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center

invites the community to attend their first

Hispanic Muslim Day

"The Pathway to Islam"

Saturday May 12, 2007 starting at 11:00AM to 5:00PM

Presenting:

The Beauty of Family in Islam

By Muhammad Isa Garcia from Argentina

Graduate of Umm Al Qura University in Makkah,

College of Da'wah , Hadith and Tafsir

Followed by

Understanding New Muslims: My experience as an Hispanic Muslim

A panel of Hispanic brothers and sisters discussing their experience in Islam

All lectures will be in English and Spanish

Hosted by:

Imam Abdul Malik Johari

and

Sheikh Shaker Al Sayyed,

Imam of Dar Al Hijrah

Includes a tour of the mosque and lunch

Be sure to bring your family and friends

For more information please contact

Imam Abdul Malik Johari at 202 345-5233

Musulmanes_hispanos@yahoo.com for Spanish and English

or check out Dar Al Hijrah's Website

amazin' man

So I finally saw The Last King of Scotland today. It is a work of fiction, framed as a memoir by a young Scottish doctor who becomes the personal physician of Idi Amin.

In some ways, the film is very reminiscent of Cry Freedom which focuses on another African leader (in this case, anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko who was played by Denzel Washington). So in both films the viewer gets a peek into the life of an important African figure. In both cases this figure is played by a high-caliber African-American actor (Forrest Whitaker actually won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Idi Amin). Also, in both cases, the story is told through the eyes of a peripherial white character. So in a fairly descriptive sense, one can say that neither film seems very Afrocentric. Less like Hamlet and more like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

The Last King of Scotland also brought back memories of a novelty song I remember hearing on the radio many years ago called Amazin' Man which features Idi Amin as a calypso singer. I didn't think much (or know) about it back then, but Idi Amin is parodied by John Bird, a white English actor so there is something of a "minstrel" vibe to the performance. On the other hand, anyone with the deaths of 300,000 people on their hands is getting off lightly if all they faced was an insulting and insensitive parody.

orthodox rebels

What follows are brief summaries (largely excerpted from the links given below) of how the four orthodox Sunni Imams related to the government authorities of their day. At the very least, they all experienced a certain amount of tension and in most cases, they endured some serious reprisals at the hand of the state for challenging the authorities.


Imam Abu Hanifa

In the year 146 A.H, Abu Hanifah was sent to prison by Mansur, the leader at the time, after the Imam’s refusal to state that Mansur was the rightful khalifa, as well as refusing the position of presidency of the supreme court in recompense. Whilst in prison Imam Abu Hanifah was thrashed with a stick. Mansur repented and sent the Imam money, only to be refused again. By now Imam Abu Hanifah had become well known and thousands flocked to meet and seek his opinion wherever he went. His imprisonment far from reduced his popularity, and Mansur realised that he would have to treat the Imam carefully, thus he allowed him to teach whilst still in prison. Mansur finally decided to do away with the great Imam and had him poisoned. Abu Hanifah feeling the effects of the poison, bent down in prayer and died in the month on Rajab. News of the Imam’s death reached far and wide, and thousands gathered at the prison. The city Qadi washed his body, and kept repeating "by God you were the greatest faqih and the most pious man of our time....".

Imam Malik

Imam Malik was known for his integrity and peity. He always lived up to his convictions. Neither fear nor favour could ever deflect him from the right path. He was among the members of the glorious society of early Islam who could not be purchased and whose undaunted courage always proved as a guiding star for the freedom fighters.

When he was aged twenty-five, the Caliphate passed into the hands of the Abbasids caliph Mansur who was his colleague. Mansur highly respected him for his deep learning. The Imam however, favoured the Fatimid Nafs Zakriya for the exalted office of the Caliph. When he learned that the people had taken the oath of fealty of Mansur, he said that since Mansur had forced people to do so, the oath was not binding them. He quoted a Tradition of the Prophet (sws) to the effect that a divorce by force is not legal. When Jafar, a cousin of Mansur, was posted as Governor of Medina, he induced the inhabitants of the Holy city to renew their oath of allegiance to Mansur. The Governor forbade him not to publicise his Fatwa in respect of forced divorce. Highly principled and fearless as he was, the defied the Governor’s orders and courageously persisted in his course. This infuriated the Governor, who ordered that the Imam be awarded 70 stripes, as punishment. According, seventy stripes were inflicted on the naked back of the Imam which began to bleed. Mounted on a camel in his bloodstaind clothes, he was paraded through the streets of Medina. This brutality of the Governor failed to cow down or unnerve the noble Imam. Caliph Mansur, when apprised of he matter, punished the Governor and apologised to the Imam.

Imam Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi

At the time of Harun ar-Rashid, he had an appointment in Yemen, as a judge in Najran. Sunnis portray that his devotion to justice, even when it meant criticizing the governor, caused him some problems, and he was taken before the Caliph, falsely accused of aiding the Alawis in a revolt. At this time, al Shaybani was the chief justice, and his defense of ash-Shafi'i, coupled with ash-Shafi'i’s own eloquent defense, convinced Harun ar-Rashid to dismiss the charge, and to direct al Shaybani to take ash-Shafi'i to Baghdad. In Baghdad, he developed his first madhab, influnced by the teachings of both Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik. Thus, his work there is known as “al Madhab al Qadim lil Imam as Shafi’i,” or the Old School of ash-Shafi'i.

Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal

The case of the persecution faced by Imam Ahmad is different from the previous cases for several reasons. Firstly (and this may just be a result of my own reading choices) but it seems that his suffering is more well-known than the above-mentioned cases. Secondly (and this might explain the first difference) Imam Ahmad's persecution is much more theological than political.

Under the reign of the Caliph at the time, Al-Ma'mun, a "heretical" Mu'tazilite theology become dominant and the religious authorities persecuted the orthodox scholars who disagreed including Imam Ahmad.

For refusing to follow the theology Al-Ma'mun tried to impose, Imam Ahmad was put in irons and was ordered to be delivered into the Caliph's presence. On the way, Imam Ahmad supplicated to Allah to prevent him from meeting Al-Ma’mun. His prayer was answered in the sudden death of al-Ma’mun. Unfortunately, the Inquisition continued into the reign of the next two caliphs and Imam Ahmad endured flogging, imprisonment and exile during this period. But with the death of the Caliph Al-Wathiq and the rise of the new Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, the persecution ended and Imam Ahmad regained some measure of freedom.

The Life of Imam Abu Hanifah by Maida Malik
Imam Malik by Kh. Jamil Ahmad
Wikipedia: Imam Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i
Wikipedia: Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal

islam and the passion (for social justice)

On YouTube I found an excerpt from a Coversation between Cornel West and Toni Morrisson which touched on the political implications of Mel Gibson's Passion (among other things). I was also able to find a fuller transcript of the conversation from The Nation's website under the title Blues, Love and Politics. The aspect which I found most intriguing is the distinction West makes between being a "Prophetic Christian" and a "Constantinian Christian" and it made me wonder about whether a similar distinction could be applied to Islam.

MORRISON: [reading] "I am curious about the language of religion, which has become more pronounced in this Administration. Can you comment on the manipulation of religious belief and language for violent ends?"

WEST: That's one of the most dangerous features of our moment, there's no doubt about that. We live in a society in which 96 percent of our fellow citizens believe in God, and 72 percent believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, 71 percent believe that the Book of Revelation has an empirically verifiable potential and 71 percent believe in angels. I don't put that down, I'm a Christian myself, but I'm a different kind of Christian than a lot of these Christians.

[...]

WEST: [...] the other side of this thing is that here we are, living in the biggest empire since the Roman Empire. Now the underside of the Roman Empire is the cross; that's why political prisoners were put to death, those who had the courage to act against the powers that be. We're the legatees of Constantinian Christianity, after Christianity was incorporated into the Roman Empire and was the official religion of the Roman Empire, which went on persecuting Jews and others.

Now, you see, I'm a prophetic Christian, I'm not a Constantinian Christian. That's very important. Because I want to raise the question, well, if you're going to talk about Jesus, did you really talk about the empire that put him to death and what the connection is between that empire and the empire that we're a part of now, and what Jesus demands of us in this empire given what he was willing to sacrifice in his own imperial moment? And I say now, Gibson, what have you got to say? But, he says, no, I'm going to give you sadomasochistic voyeurism.

So does this distinction play itself out in Islam? If so, how are the lines drawn?

Some might be tempted to say that the so-called Progressive Muslims are perhaps the analogue of West's "Prophetic Christian" but ironically, a number of those who use this label (like Irshad Manji for instance) are only liberal when it comes to religious issues but are neocons in terms of their politics. And conversely, in the egalitarian face of islamic orthodoxy we have already seen some indication of how orthodox Islam is actually rather progressive, at least in terms of the economic aspects of social justice.

Some might be tempted to say that Sunni Islam is the "Imperial" Islam while Shiism is more the Islam of the persecuted powerless minority. But that would be a little bit too simple.

For example, for a while now I've been meaning to elaborate on the fact that each of the four great imams who established the foundations for orthodox Sunni law had spent some time in prison or otherwise punished by for principled disobedience to the state of their day.

And conversely, within Shiism, Ali Shariati makes the distinction between Red Shi'ism (the religion of martyrdom) vs. Black Shi'ism (the religion of mourning) each with their own attitudes towards monarchy and clerical power. Some Shias focus on Imam Hussein's noble sacrifices in the interests of justice while others, in a Gibson-esque way, choose to emphasize the blood and gore.

I feel like something more detailed should be said, but I think I'll just end up repeating a point I already tried to make clear in ideology and temperament; namely that if some Muslims have a greater concern for social justice than others, they will not be identified merely by ideological labels ("progresive" , "orthodox", "shia" etc.) but on the existential decisions individuals make in their everyday lives.

Other Grenada:
islam needs radicals
sushi revisited: part one
ali shariati

tales of the out and gone

Amiri Baraka is definitely a figure I would like to "wrestle" with more on Planet Grenada. He has contributed much to the world of letters as a major member of the Black Arts Movement. And as an individual he has gone through an interesting series of personal transformations from changing his name, becoming a Black Muslim, a cultural nationalist, a "Third World" Marxist, etc.

NPR: Interview with Amiri Baraka on the occasion of his latest novel, 'Tales of the Out and Gone'.

Planet Grenada:
amiri baraka
kuumba

"with liberty, and justice..."

since when was blindness a good thing?

I know that justice and liberty are distinct, but the previous image of Bush as a vampire reminded me of the powerful Langston Hughes poem:

Justice

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

Many summers ago I was sitting on the porch of the house I was living in at the time, having a conversation with some folks about religion. One of the people there was an African-American Bahai and somehow the conversation turned to the question of why Islam seemed appealing to so many Black Americans. His answer, especially coming from a Bahai, really surprised me. He basically said that a history of oppression gave Black people a unique capacity to recognize the truth when we see it. I would question the narrow racialism implied by both examples, but would still suggest that even if it doesn't provide one with special race-based wisdom or insight, a collective history of oppression will at the very least give a person a low tolerance for bs.

death of liberty

robinson opened door for black hispanics

ESPN: Robinson opened door for black Hispanics by Enrique Rojas on how when Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947 he benefited Latinos/Afro-Latinos as well.

see also Grenada: latinos and baseball

we want to talk right down to earth in a language that everybody here can easily understand

YouTube: Mos Def Reads Malcolm X's Message to the Grassroots as a part of Voices of a People's History of the United States. If you go to "when in the course of human events..." you can find a link to an old Grenada post on the same speech (which points to a page with Malcolm X's actual audio) under the title for the fourth of july.

just another angry black muslim woman?

Say hello to: Just Another Angry Black Muslim Woman? a blog I recently "found" (although it is over a year old). I'm not sure what to make of the question mark. I really like the blog entires I've seen so far but then again, I don't think I've disliked any of the Black Muslim female blogs I've bumped into... and there aren't that many to begin with so another will still add something distinctive to the blogosphere. Anyway... enjoy.

a philosophical view of easter

Today I picked my copy of The Cornel West Reader and reread one of the pieces called "A Philosophical View of Easter". In it, West engages in a rather sophisticated explanation of what he means when he says resurrection claims of Christianity are "true". He lays the foundations by giving a thoughtful critique of Hume and what he calls sentential reductionism ("the view that sentences have their evidence for or against their truth or falsity isolated from and independent of other sentences."). And then he questions the empirical foundations of modern science by pointing out that even things like electrons, magnetism and black holes cannot be perceived directly and are mere theoretical constructs which we only have indirect access to.

By the same token, for West, the truth or falsehood of Christianity isn't a matter of whether the tomb was empty the Sunday after the Crucifixion, but is also something indirect. As West puts it:

I am suggesting that the primary test for the "truth value" of particular Christian descriptions and their resurrection claim is their capacity to facilitate the existential appropriate of Jesus Christ. This means that any "true" Christian description makes the Reality of Jesus Christ available, that it promotes and encourages the putting of oneself on the line, going to the edge of life's abyss and finding out whether the Reality of Jesus Christ... can sustain and support, define and develop oneself in one's perennial struggle of becoming a fuller and more faithful self in Christ.

I think this alternative notion of truth is definitely interesting but it seems a bit of a cop out. I sympathize because I think I went through something similar in terms of my own path but in general, if you have to go through a great deal of mental gymnastics in order to justify a certain religious label to yourself, then maybe it is time to think about shopping for a different religious tradition? Just a thought.

the hare club for men

This week's episode of South Park was called Fantastic Easter Special which, while satirizing the Da Vinci Code, attempted to explain the connection between rabbits, eggs and the origins of the Christian Church. Are you ready for the secret?

Grenada and the Da Vinci Code:
holy blood, holy grail
jesus in india
juan cole on the da vinci code

Similarities between the Jesus story and several Pagan religions:
the world's sixteen crucified saviors

Wikipedia: EasterBunny

radical equations

From the book, Radical Equations:

In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms. I use the term radical in its original meaning - getting down to and understanding the root cause. It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. That is easier said than done. But one of the things that has to be faced is, in the process of wanting to change that system, how much have we got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going... I am saying as you must say, too, that in order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.

-Ella Baker

wetback mountain

Although I normally don't like Carlos Mencia's material much, this sketch cracked me up when I saw it on tv a few days ago. (It also features Mario Lopez formerly of Saved by the Bell) It brings up a real question: in some contexts (especially corporate America) is it safer to identify strongly as Latino (or Black or Muslim) or identify as gay or bisexual? I've been in some "progressive" places where I've even sensed that some otherwise mainstream individuals choose to use a very broad definition of "bisexual" (i.e. everyone is a little bisexual) just to be able to claim some sort of non-mainstream (queer) identity. So while there seems to be some postive social cache to being queer in some situations, in these same environments (especially in the current political climate) folks can still feel pretty safe making slurs against Muslims... and in other ways, the voices of difference end up getting silenced as well. The lesson is that there are different kinds and sizes of "closets" for different folks.

shssh! don't tell americans how we treat enemy combatants

The future of freedom foundation: Shssh! Don’t Tell Americans How We Treat “Enemy Combatants” by Jacob G. Hornberger deals with Jose Padilla's approaching trial and the governments efforts to downplay what it did to Padilla while he was in custody as an "enemy combatant".

Planet Grenada and Jose Padilla

black immigrants: the invisible model minority

Inside Bay Area: Black immigrants, the invisible model minority expands on a topic we've touched on recently in: universities enrolling more black immigrants

reclaiming jewish traditions in mexico

New American Media: Reclaiming Jewish Traditions in Mexico

For more on Jews in Latin America, see also:
adio kerida
chavez and anti-semitism

guantanamo, dred scott and the amistad

Common Dreams: Guantánamo, Dred Scott and the Amistad by Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

the segregated blogosphere

Colorlines: The Segregated Blogosphere by Celina De Leon

eleggua group

Afro-Venezuelan Musicians Connect the Diaspora by Khalil Abdullah talks about the music of Eleggua Group and how it is making bridges across the African diaspora.

bridging the black/immigrant divide

Black Electorate: Bridging the Black/Immigrant Divide by Alan Jenkins

santeria leader fights euless ban on animal sacrifices

Black Electorate: Santeria leader Fights Euless Ban On Animal Sacrifice by Michael Grabell deals with an old problem; how do members of a religious minority practice their faith in the face of resistance from a more "conventional" environment? In this case the minority faith is Santeria. I've heard of this issue of animal sacrifice coming up before in Florida where there is obviously a large Cuban-American population. (see Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah) But this article gives the first example I know of similar tensions occuring in Texas.

see also:
"you can't keep me out of my own house"

growing muslim community brings new traditions to the neightborhood

Black Electorate: Brooklyn’s ‘Kosher,’ And Now ‘Halal,’ Too - Growing Muslim Community Brings New Traditions To The Neighborhood by Melissa Castro

the politics of naming: genocide, civil war and insurgency

Black Electorate: The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War and Insurgency by Mahmood Mamdani deal with the differences in how Iraq and Darfur are perceived:

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

Mahmood Mamdani is a Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror.

happy birthday to me

Today is St. Patrick's day... better known in some circles as Lame Excuse for Public Intoxication Day. It also happens to be Planet Grenada's birthday. (Just turned two years old)

first things first
moors, snakes and st. patrick

universities enrolling more black immigrants

The nation's most elite colleges and universities are bolstering their black student populations by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa, the West Indies and Latin America, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Education.

Washington Post: Top Universities Enrolling More Black Immigrants

Planet Grenada see also:
on being black at a latino march (on "plane" blacks and "boat" blacks)
we are leading the pack (on african/caribbeans in the UK)
barack's black dilemma (on why Obama seems less threatening)

latin american council of churches elects first black president

Christianity Today: Latin American Council of Churches Elects First Black President

with apologies to jesse jackson

Here is the recent "Wheel of Fortune" episode of South Park, With Apologies to Jesse Jackson. The last couple of minutes really sums up some of the small-scale political issues in my life right now. When a white person is criticized for problematic behavior around race, they may sincerely feel bad, but they still have plenty of white privilege and other forms of power to wield which they are capable of ruthlessly exercising in order to feel okay. In this episode we see Randy Marsh (Stan's father) accidentally use the n-word and get taunted as "the nigger guy". But by the end, he (along with Michael Richards and Mark Fuhrman) is able to get legislation passed to ban this hateful language. As the reporter said: From now on, if a person uses the word "nigger," it must be at least seven words away from the word "guy."

Planet Grenada on Michael Richards

tego calderon: latin america needs its own civil rights movement

New York Post: Black Pride: Latin America needs its own Civil Rights Movement by Reggaeton rapper, Tego Calderon

pencak silat

I haven't worked on the Muslim Art of War series in a while so I thought I should share the following online video games.

Pencak Silat
Pencak Silat 2
Pencak Silat Defender

For those that don't know, Silat is a Southeast Asian martial art which is popular in Malaysia and Indonesia (and thus even though it seems to have pre-Islamic roots, a lot of Muslims practice it and bring an Islamic flavor to their understanding of the art.). Personally, I've learned whatever little I know about it from Naqshbandis I've met. I wouldn't claim that the movements in the video games are authentic but to me it is interesting that the games even exist.

upon the ashes of babylon

Here is an entire talk entitled Upon the Ashes of Babylon from a powerful Muslim spoken word artist, Amir Sulaiman. The event was part of Islam Awareness Week 2006 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB, Canada. Amir's words manifest a quiet confidence which I find compelling. He has a way of framing issues which is really cathartic and healthy... it reminds me of how I felt when I read Malcolm's speeches for the first time.

Upon the Ashes of Babylon
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Past Grenada posts on Amir

verily, there is only one hip-hop umma

Socialism and Democracy: In his article, "Verily, There Is Only One Hip-Hop Umma": Islam, Cultural Protest and Urban Marginality Hisham Aidi wrestles with the full gamut of Grenada- esque themes. Specifically, he looks at how politically conscious Black, Latino and Arab youths are coming together and participating in Islamic and Islamically-tinged forms of hip-hop culture.

dominican tango

On a lighter note, here is a clip of the song For the Last Time, I'm Dominican from the musical episode of Scrubs, performed as a duet between Carla and Turk. Carla Espinosa on Scrubs (played by Judy Reyes) is one of the few Afro-Latina characters currently on television.

y tu abuela donde esta?

You Tube: Here is a performance by Evelyn Brito of Y Tu Abuela Donde Esta?, the paradigmatic poem by Fortunato Vizcarrondo on invisibility and Afro-Latino identity. We've previously discussed the general theme of invisibility on multiple occasions (see "that's wells, not ellison, in case you feel like being cute again.") and I've also referenced Vizcarrondo's work specifically in my own writing (see slave ships south) But it is nice to actually hear and see the work acted out.

the departed

I recently saw The Departed. It wasn't bad, but like many such movies, the excessive hype led to me being disappointed by the film. The acting was good but the ending seemed more messy than necessary.

By the way, I'm starting to reach that age where I realize that pretty much every story has been told before. For example, The Departed was actually a remake of a Hong Kong thriller called Infernal Affairs. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the original film since, based on the little I've read about it so far, the plot is somewhat more elegant and less "messy" than The Departed.

Also, both Deep Cover (Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum) and No Way Out (Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman) were older films which dealt with similar themes (double-identity and divided loyalties) in ways which I found more compelling. I highly recommend them.

By the way, No Way Out was a remake of an even older film called The Big Clock (based on a novel of the same name). For me, this all connects to some of the issues raised in the dead white males post. If there are only so many stories, it makes sense to ask which is the best example of a given type and form the canon. The tragic love story. The heroic quest. The road trip. The buddy cop film. etc. There are only so many myths... so many archetypes.

Grenada's past:
deep cover

race and the human genome

Africana.com: Race and the Human Genome by Hisham Aidi is a brief overview (from 2001) of some of the racial implications of modern genetics research.

the party of lincoln

So I guess he was a white supremacist...

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

-Abraham Lincoln, (September 18, 1858)

black presidents (part six)

It is likely that with the possible exception of occasional updates on Obama's candidacy, this will be the last entry in this series on Black presidents. I'd meant to comment on the topic of the current post especially after I realized that some folks were finding their way to Planet Grenada by trying to learn more about this subject anyway...

but Sondjata over at Garvey's Ghost already beat me to the punch with his entry: On These So Called "Black" Presidents

I'd heard this claim before because some of the Afrocentric bookstores I would frequent carried J.A. Roger's book "The Five Negro Presidents". Basically, the claim is that several of the past U.S. Presidents (not counting Bill Clinton) had some amount of African descent and were therefore only "passing" as white. (The candidates are Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge).

Personally I would not want to dismiss these claims without really looking at the evidence but in some cases the racial identification seems more rooted in negative campaigning in a racist society than on solid genealogical information. Furthermore, as Sondjata's post underlines, the fact that anyone could consider any of the candidates "Black" just reveals some of the extremely bizarre implications of the one-drop rule and the American construction of race.

See also:
5 Black Presidents by Dr. Leroy Vaughn
DiversityInc: Obama Wouldn't Be First Black President by Aysha Hussain

black presidents (part four)
black presidents (part five)

al sharpton and strom thurmond

From an old Boondocks:

Huey to Ceasar: Y'know, love him or hate him... you can't deny that there is a powerful message for all of us to learn in the long life of Strom Thurmond.

Ceasar: And that is...?

Huey: That you can really, really, really, really, really hate Black people... And it's basicaly ok with everyone...

In related news: Al Sharpton recently learned that some of his ancestors were owned by Strom Thurmond's ancestors. Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams says: It's not that bad.

blacks and browns urged to unite for immigration

By James Wright, Contributing Writer
February 26, 2007
WASHINGTON - A coalition of Blacks and Latinos is necessary to effecting changes in immigration laws, a nationwide advocacy group has determined.

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), which operates under the umbrella of the Center for Community Change, held a summit on the campus of Gallaudet University from Jan. 30-Feb. 1 to discuss strategies on how to bring together the two largest minority groups to create fair, comprehensive immigration reform policy. There were workshops, speakers and visits to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
(full story in the Louisiana Weekly)

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?