For the language nuts out there, a fascinating post on the linguistic origins of an Arabic word for cardamom, kakula. This is from bint battuta, who is based in Bahrain and has recently started blogging again. I'm so glad!
For four days, Qaddafi's body has been on public display. In a Muslim society, where burial is supposed to be immediate, this is an ultimate desecration. Here in the west, there is triumphalism, there is endless political analysis leading nowhere, but, au fond, it is the media on a rampage, a pack of dogs circling in for the kill. They show whatever pictures or videos they can acquire; nothing is too grisly, too inexplicable for children's eyes or damaging to their spirits; everything is fair game; no one is spared. Today's New York Times front page not only had videos and photographs of Qaddafi's end, but videos of the executions of Mussolini and Ceausescu.
I didn't watch them. I am sickened by all of this, even though I see little. I am not arguing that Qaddafi or Hussein or their ilk were not crazy, murderous dictators who had committed unspeakable criimes against their own people, or that they did not deserve justice. What sickens me is the atttitude in America, where the public appetite for violence and sensationalism apparently has no limit, while our hubris is coupled with blindness to our own acts, to the blood on our own hands.
Priam begging Achilles for Hector's body.
I'm reminded of imperial Rome, and the scene of Hector's death in the Iliad, many centuries before that. The Greeks, who gave us the word "barbarian" — for them it meant "foreigner" — were the barbarians that day. Achilles threaded sinews through Hector's ankles and dragged his naked corpse thrice around the walls of Troy behind his chariot, while Hector's wife and parents watched. Then Achilles, still mourning the death of his beloved friend Patroclus at the hands of the Trojans, refused to give up Hector's body for burial until King Priam, his aged father, came and begged on his knees for it. Rather than being a hymn of praise to the Greeks, the Iliad was, and remains (at least in my opinion) a poet's commentary on the folly of war, and a bitter insight into human nature.
But oh, the never-ending cruelty of victors, who always seem to feel their triumphalism is justified by the prior acts of those they kill! They make sure that the wheels of malice, war, and retribution remain well-oiled.
–
My dental surgeon left Romania as a young man shortly after the fall of Ceausescu. His hygienist, who I visited this morning, is Moroccan; the dental assistants are Salvadorian and Iranian, the receptionist French-Canadian. They've all known something about minorities, repression, violence, disappearances. The office runs mostly in French, but there is always a flurry of other languages; it's one of the surgeon's hobbies. I speak to my hygienist in my limited French, and she replies in her limited English. We laugh; at 11:00 I opened my mouth for her, and said, "La leçon commence!"
But today, after we spoke about our recent trips –mine to Iceland and London, hers to New York, which she loved but where her language uncertainty made her afraid to use the subway — I asked, "Penses-tu q'une paix est possible à la Libye?
She paused, the instrument poised in mid-air, and sat back, her eyes dark above her mask. Then she slowly shook her head. "It's very difficult," she said. "Dans toute la région, l'islamisme…" she gestured with her hands moving upward and raised her eyebrows: "il monte…"
"It's rising," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Et les jeunes ne l'aime pas."
"The young people don't like it."
"C'est ça. That's right. And the military, the dictators, don't like it. So…what do you do?"
This really is the impass facing the whole world. The problems are obvious, but what is the way forward when factions insist on their own ideologies as the answer, and those in power use it for greed and cronyism, rather than cooperating for the common good? Here in the west we may dress up in suits and speak formally rather than brandishing rifles, but how far have we come, really, from these tribes in the desert?
Writing Farsi script
on the page of the sky
blackbirds roost
in graceful dots and curves
then fly off all at once
like a poem
The baristas speak Arabic behind bottles of colored Italian syrup with French labels: rhum, gingembre, pamplemousse. I often come to this cafe for a quiet half hour before the rehearsal for Evensong; they recognize me now and are very kind, and I like listening to their voices. The coffee is always good, the chairs are comfortable, and I find can write or read calmly in the company of these sympathetic semi-strangers. I’ve begun to wonder, too, if this place represents a sort of way-station between my identities: the Anglican and very English choir-singer, and the girl who’s always been drawn to cultures other than her own.
This weekend has been more steeped in Middle Eastern culture than usual, because my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are visiting. On Friday we went to Akhavan, the Iranian market in Notre-Dame-de-Grace and then to Adonis, the Arab supermarket I’ve written about before, but not before having lunch at Achtarout – fresh-baked flatbread with zaatar, garnished with tomatoes, pickled beets, mint, onions, and hot green peppers, then heated and rolled in paper, all for 3 or 4 dollars and utterly delicious. We came home from these shopping trips laden with food that we began preparing that evening and haven’t finished yet. The next night we saw a new movie, Amereeka, about a Palestinian woman and her son who leave their home in Bethlehem and settle with her sister in a Midwestern city. The movie was in Arabic (and some English) with French subtitles, and conveyed very well the claustrophobia of the occupied territories, the desire for opportunity represented by America, and the profound disorientation of coming here. Set at the time of the Iraq invasion, it also depicted the prejudice faced by Arab Americans in school and at work, but was strongest, I think, as a love song to Middle Eastern culture and family life. The whole audience laughed knowingly, for instance, at the bag of cucumbers the grandmother gives her departing daughter and grandson, and how, when the family gets depressed, they go shopping for ethnic groceries in a nearby town or go out for Middle Eastern meals – food, always food for comfort and connection!
And it’s also been the Feast of All Saints. In a podcast over at qarrtsiluni, Dave and I reflected on the origins of All Hallow’s Eve and All Saints, and other cultures’ attempts to keep the spirits of the dead contentedly at rest, not wandering around in our world creating mischief. As I read up on All Saints’ Day and the Roman’s pagan festival of Lemuria that it replaced, I realized had forgotten that in the Catholic tradition, today, November 2nd is observed as All Souls’ Day, specifically for prayers for those who are dead but haven’t yet made it to heaven – not wanting to leave anyone out, among the living and the dead.
I sit in the cafe slowly drinking my latte, with “O Quam Gloriosam” running through my head – the text that is the antiphon for All Saints’ Day:
O quam gloriosum est regnum, in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes sancti,
amicti stolis albis, et sequuntur Agnum, quocumque ierit. Alleluia.O how glorious is the kingdom in which all the saints rejoice with Christ,
clad in robes of white they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Alleluia.
It’s so much not my image of the afterlife – being part of a countless throng in white robes, following Christ the Lamb “whither he goeth,” but I admit to the beauty of the mystical vision: a heaven where there is no time, no sorrow, no tears, just an unearthly, never-ending music, as William Harris so wondrously depicted in his motet for double choir in eight parts, to a text by John Donne, that we’ll also be performing at Evensong – take a moment and LISTEN.
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity,
in the habitation of thy glory and dominion,
world without end. Amen.
(Here is another version, a motet by Healey Willan, which was our introit for the morning service today.)
The music part would be OK, but I’d prefer, I must say, a heaven filled with small cucumbers and baklava – the afterlife my father-in-law wistfully and unbelievingly talked about sometimes – served by soulful, dark-eyed, bearded waiters who’d sometimes have time to sit down and keep me company on my couch. I’m clearly culturally confused!
And then again, maybe not. What I really like so much about this feast day is its insistence on the saintliness of all of us, especially the anonymous ones. Today, before going off to sing, I find myself reflecting on the fact that the original texts (which formed the basis for much of this English lyricism on which my own poetic ear was probably formed) were written by Jews, Palestinian Christians, and Greeks who looked very much like my husband, or the man who just made my coffee. Yet in the secular world of 2009, we seem so divided, so ignorant and fearful about one another, in contrast to the symbolism I feel is at the heart of this vision: the possibility of an undivided throng of humanity, united in love, free of suffering, equal in the eyes of one another, and before whatever we see as the Divine. It’s as impossible for me to believe in a heaven for some and not all, for the “elect” of one religion or another, as it is to live that way on earth – which, it seems to me, may be the point of all these stories after all.
Yesterday afternoon, discouraged by the rainy weather, we decided to go with our house guest to a movie. We chose "Cairo Time," a new film by the Montreal-born director Ruba Nadda, who now lives in Toronto. It looked good in the description we read, but turned out to have some real flaws. I'm astounded that this film won the audience favorite award for Canadian films at the Toronto Film Festival, and wonder if that could have happened in Montreal with its large Middle-Eastern and well-traveled population.
Starring the indie-film actress Patricia Clarkson (Juliette) and Alexander Siddig (Tareq) the story involves a happily-married blonde magazine editor who flies to Cairo for a vacation with her UN-employed husband, who's been working in a refugee camp in Gaza. But violence erupts in the camp, and her husband can't get back to Cairo. Instead, his old colleague and friend, a tall handsome Arab named Tareq, picks Juliette up at the airport and eventually becomes her Egyptian guide. No one was miscast, but I found the story and direction completely implausible, even to the point of being silly and guilty of unfortunate stereotyping.
Juliette wanders around Cairo tossing her bleached-blonde hair, wearing sleeveless dresses, plunging necklines, and short skirts, and wonders tearfully why men are following and hassling her — this is a supposedly intelligent woman who beats Tareq at chess and edits a successful magazine, and who is married to a seasoned UN administrator of long Middle Eastern experience? Come on. Even her Cairo guidebook, often consulted on-screen, would give her the basic guidelines. Behavior that might be believable in an adolescent character comes off
as ridiculous in a middle-aged woman of Juliette's background; the craziest moment is when she stubbornly boards a bus full of Palestinians bound for Gaza because she "just wants to see" her husband, but of course the bus is stopped by military police and she's taken off, cell phone in hand, to call Tareq to come and fetch her. Tareq is pleased when Juliette finally trades her floral sundresses for a long-sleeved shirt and headscarf for a visit to a mosque — but the next day she's back in a sleeveless yellow number and no bra. He tells her to be careful, pointing out that three tourists were recently killed outside their hotel. "Why?" she asks. "Because they were American," he answers, as if talking to a child. He's bemused one day, irritated to the point of stony silence the next, then non-plussed: is this a pattern that would really make a man like Tareq fall in love?
What I find most disturbing is that films like this perpetuate western attitudes and stereotypes about the "exotic east" and "clueless westerner," and do nothing for the cross-cultural understanding ostensibly at their root. The Canadian director, 36-year old Ruba Nadda, has a Palestinian mother and Syrian father. This film, her second feature, seems shot through western eyes sympathetic to Arab culture but colored less by knowledge of cultural nuance than by the allure of the exotic that Edward Said called "Orientalism." (An article about the actual tournage in Cairo reveals some of the problems Nadda encountered and how she got around them.) Stereotypes abound, not only in behavior of the blonde heroine, but in comments like that of a female friend who (following the requisite lunch in a Bedouin tent) reveals she had an affair with an Arab man: "He became possessive and demanding — they all do," she says, then adds, with a faraway look in her eyes, "But he was a great lover."
The romance that develops between Juliette and Tareq seems unlikely at best — he's smart, elegant, restrained, and sophisticated — what does he see in her? — and never becomes physical. He's the best actor in the film, but no on-screen sexual tension ever develops between the two of them. And the predictability of the locations weakens the film. In addition to the Bedouins, there's also a carpet-weaving scene, and of course a trip to the
pyramids, with our heroine wearing a turquoise chiffon evening dress.
The best parts of the movie are the street shots of Cairo itself, and these certainly increased my long-standing desire to go there with my own "exotic" husband – his last visit there was a long time ago, when his father was working, for real, as a UN administrator of a Gaza camp. But I certainly won't be dressed for the trip by the costumer for this film.
Wishing a blessed Ramadan to all my Muslim friends and readers.
Yesterday we had to go to the northeastern part of the city, near Anjou to pick up a package, and on the way back we decided to stop at Sami's, a well-known Montreal wholesaler of fruits and vegetables. Sami's is an Arab company, with one large warehouse-like store at the Jean-Talon and another major warehouse in the Chabanel district near Marche Central. But when we walked into this east-end store, we couldn't believe our eyes. The photographs don't begin to convey the vastness of the warehouse, or just how much produce was on display in these towering piles. We had almost no money, and Sami's only does cash transactions, so we pooled all our coins and finally found a cash machine so that we could take advantage of the stop. Extra-virgin olive oil for 4.99…vine-ripe tomatoes for 99 cents a pound…yellow peppers for 1.35…
Sami's also carries all the roots and herbs needed in the cooking of the African and Latin American communities, as well as Middle Eastern ones. I love seeing the stacks of fresh mint, piles of parsley and dill, thyme tied into great bunches. Yesterday, though, I was stopped by this display of leaves and their name in Arabic: "malukhiyah" – these are the Egyptian mallow leaves that are the basis for special dishes loved by Egyptians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and it is this leaf that my father-in-law was always asking for, but I never found. We brought him a frozen package once, but he, of course, dismissed it as inauthentic. If he were alive now, I'd bring him fresh green almonds and malukhiyah, try to follow his directions for cooking the herb with chicken, and endure the insults when he tasted it. Instead, all I could do was to picked up a sheaf of leaves, crushed one and hold it to my nose, and then gently put it back onto the pile like an offering.
Yesterday I began writing about him again; it's time to pick up the pieces of that story and fill in the blank areas: he'd be 100 years and two months right now. I see him clearly in my imagination, eating malukhiyah and gazing out at the Mediterranean, lost in contented thought.
(Does anyone here know how to cook malukhiyah, or have memories of eating it? I'd love to hear from you if you do.)
I never thought I'd see an American president, with a Muslim name, receiving a standing ovation in Cairo before giving a major policy speech containing positive, hopeful language and never once mentioning terrorism — but today it happened. Early reaction from the Muslim world has been generally positive, though some people have mentioned the lack of concrete ideas, and have said that actions speak louder than words. I think perhaps Arabs cannot quite understand what a departure this is, and how much Obama is bucking the tide, especially in his firm determination about Israel and Palestine. He's proving how stubborn and courageous he is, and I wish him all the stamina in the world – he's going to need it.
Now, a look at the cost of war from a spiritual perspective, but one which, I suspect, underlies Obama's thinking:
“In theological terms, war is sin,” writes
Mahedy." (William P. Mahedy, a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam, is the author of “Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of
Vietnam Vets") “This has nothing to do with whether a particular war is
justified or whether isolated incidents in a soldier’s war were right
or wrong. The point is that war as a human enterprise is a matter of
sin. It is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings. It produces
alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a
turning away from God.”
The young soldiers and Marines do not plan
or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its
causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and
religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the
nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in
combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war
is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into
war’s essence, which is death.
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the
old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by
politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious
institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This
betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the
nation or in any god.
Chris Hedges, "War is Sin," in TruthDig
It's good to see that Chris Hedges, former Vermonter,
NY Times war correspondent, graduate of Yale Divinity School, and the author of
"War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning," has finally cut to the chase and said exactly what he thinks of war. Exposing the hypocritical collusion between religion and political
power is critical (even in Canada "Remembrance Day" is still observed,
acting out in tear-jerking liturgy the formalized relationship between the Church, the
military, and the heroic dead). But until the day when the message changes from every pulpit, as well as all the other religious and quasi-religious speaking platforms used to rally people and troops behind war-mongering governments, human beings will
continue to believe in national exceptionalism, and use religion to justify war and view the death
of soldiers as a heroic act. This is not to say – and Chris makes this point -
that all wars and all killing are unjustified. But I suggest that we listen to
the veterans Chris speaks of here, and see if their post-war God is also ours.
"Mahedy tells of a soldier, a former
altar boy, who says to him: 'Hey, Chaplain … how come it’s a sin
to hop into bed with a mama-san but it’s okay to blow away gooks out in the bush?'' …“How is it that a Christian can, with a clear conscience, spend a year
in a war zone killing people and yet place his soul in jeopardy by
spending a few minutes with a prostitute? If the New Testament
prohibitions of sexual misconduct are to be stringently interpreted,
why, then, are Jesus’ injunctions against violence not binding in the
same way? In other words, what does the commandment ‘Thou shalt not
kill’ really mean?”
I've always been driven crazy by this same thing, as old as Abrahamic religion itself, but taken to new heights by the puritans and their evangelical heirs, as well as Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists: the idea that sex (even between people who love each other but aren't in a church-sanctioned state of heterosexual matrimony) can send you to hell, but violence in the name of the Lord is perfectly OK. I would like to turn Mahedy's question back to every member of the clergy and every apologist for every religion, in particular to those Bible-toting Congresspersons outraged by Janet Jackson's breast, or gay marriage, but voting happily for funds that rain bombs on children, or send young poor kids into war: just what does "thou shalt not kill" actually mean to you?
When Obama speaks about every single child having a right to a future, that is an answer. To reiterate Chaplain Mahedy's comment: "…war as a human enterprise is a matter of
sin. It is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings." The fact that war has existed as long as our species itself is not exactly cause for optimism, but we still must believe — and act as if it is possible — to eradicate this worst manifestation of our tendency toward territoriality, competition, power, and revenge.
I don't talk much about sin; like "evil," it's not a word I find useful or helpful. But in this case I agree with the simple point of saying, "this kind of killing is wrong and we must do everything to avoid it," as well as Obama's (to me, astonishing) refusal to engage in the "eye-for-an-eye" rhetoric that has blighted the heritage and perverted the essential message of all three Abrahamic religions, and given the word "terrorism" and "terrorist" so much weight, regardless of which side wields the word, the stone, or the bomb.
(Addendum: for those who don't know his background, here's a little bit more on George Mitchell, who was instrumental in brokering peace in Northern Ireland. Full bio.
He was born on Aug. 20, 1933, in Waterville, Me., where his father
was a janitor at Colby College and his mother worked nights in a
textile mill to support their five children. His mother was an
immigrant from Lebanon, and his father, an orphan of Irish ancestry,
was raised by a Lebanese family./In his youth, Mr. Mitchell served as an altar boy in the
Arabic-language Maronite Catholic church in Waterville, and in later
years said he still retained a few words of Arabic.
Yesterday, President Obama gave an interview to Al-Arabiya TV. I went there as soon as I heard the news, this morning, and read the full transcript and I am quite astounded – I thought he might gradually move toward articulating this position, but for him to state it right at the outset signals an entirely new start, coming from a deep understanding of the region and the interrelationships between the conflicts we're seeing. It also takes a lot of courage, because there is going to be serious blow-back against this approach, both domestically and from the hardliners in Israel. Internationally, I think we will see relief, and skepticism that will gradually be won over – the comments following the transcript are interesting in that regard. If he can hold to this approach, it will defuse the power of the nay-sayers and of the extremists. Personally, I am thrilled both by what is being said here, and by the timing of this interview and Mitchell's immediate deployment and the signal these actions give. It's the best we could hope for.
I'd urge anyone who is interested to read the entire transcript on Al-Arabiya's English language website.
(excerpt)
THE PRESIDENT:…And so what I
told him (George Mitchell) is start by listening, because all too often the United States
starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues –and we don't
always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen. He's going to
be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to
me. From there we will formulate a specific response.
Ultimately, we
cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what's best for them.
They're going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment
is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is
not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. And that
instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table.
I do think that
it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or
Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For those who would like to read some alternative analyses of the conflict in Gaza, here are a few recent links. These are less focussed on the reporting of specific incidents, and more on political analysis; several speak to the grave challenge facing the new U.S. President.
William Pfaff, "Who's in Charge – Obama, the Pentagon, or Israel?", (Truthdig)
William Pfaff, "The Drama of Reciprocal Self-Destruction," (Truthdig)
Rami Khouri, "Obama's Pro-Israel Congressional Welcome." (Daily Star, Beirut )
Chris Hedges, "The Language of Death," (Truthdig) (Many readers may find the first few paragraphs of this article over-the-top – Hedges, who was a Middle-East and war reporter for many years, is very much on the side of the Palestinians and in deep distress about current events. But his analysis of the internal political realities is astute and his connections in the Israeli media are deep and longstanding. He used to work for The New York Times but now can only get published in the alternative press.)
This week's Ekklesia newsletter (a liberal Christian newsletter from Britain) is devoted to this subject, from a religious perspective.
(My thanks to M.H. for most of these links.)
My husband received this letter today:
I studied Arabic and Near Eastern Studies with your father in 197x, and I remember, as if it were yesterday, sitting with our small class in his home at the school. As class began, he insisted we have tastes of exotic delicacies he offered us on a tray. When we protested we were not hungry (this was an evening class, after dinner) he rejoined, in his musical singsong voice with a twinkle in his eye, "One does not eat because one is hungry, one eats because food is offered." We dutifully partook of a morsel or two before delving into the dramatic history of this distant part of the world none of us had ever seen.
Thanks to your father, the Middle East began that year to open up in color and joy. Ever since it has seemed to me both human and accessible, even as the world news would have us believe it different and dangerous. I have never forgotten the warm way it was introduced to me.
My deepest sympathies and gratitude to all your family.
"(New readers who aren't familiar with the stories of my father-in-law posted here over the past few years will find them collected, in reverse chronological order, under the title "The Fig and the Orchid.")
