Mr friend Matteen wrote the following letter to the AP. I posted it here with his permission. It raises a question that a lot of us with some kind of limited awareness of the Middle East ask ourselves when we read the newspaper: When Arabs are speaking, why is every word translated except for “God”, which is always left as “Allah”? By the same logic, Israelis should be quoted as saying “Adonai” or “Yahweh”, Spanish people as saying “Dios”, etc. It all has the effect of reading a Tintin comic about Arabs. Not to knock Tintin, but it’s not known as being the most ethnically sensitive children’s book ever made. I expect a little more from the AP.
But enough of my rambling. Here’s Matteen’s much better written letter: Continue reading →
As long as we’re having a discussion about Darfur, I thought it would be a nice time to bring up this definitive interview from last year with Mahmood Mamdani on Democracy Now! (Sorry to overload on Mamdani inteviews from this particular show, but these clips are too good to pass up.) Below is part 1 of 3. I recommend watching them all.
The Darfur issue continues to be very relevant: VP-elect Joe Biden is a pro-interventionist who thinks the United States should enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur. (Sorry to subject you to more Palin in that link — you can skip her part, which begins at 2:03!)
This is worrying to me. I think Washington looks for military solutions because our military is so big, not because it is the best way to deal with things. Even pro-ICC, pro-interventionists like International Crisis Group president Gareth Evans say that military action in Sudan makes no sense. Read his objections (starting page 6 of the linked doc); they could apply to a lot of other places, like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the idea of stepped-up intervention has been tossed around.
This article in the Times about the decision Obama will have to make about whether to keep producing the F-22 reminded me of my “Obama Is Only the First Step” post, because it shows how difficult it will be for the United States to stop being a war machine. As we try to transition to being a country not at war, we will have to face much more than an ideological or strategic shift: we will face the daunting economic imperative of war. War-making has become a deep part of our identity, tied to our patriotism, our moral compass and our livelihoods.
This little piece on the F-22 is nice because it’s one of the most straightforward documentations of how the military-industrial complex keeps us in the business of making war.
Of course, we’ve known that for at least 48 years, and haven’t done or been able to do anything about it. A good moment to re-watch Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell speech!
LGD note: I recently wrote this essay looking at New York Times reporting in Darfur for a class on conflict and reporting. I thought it would be interesting to post here. Some of the footnotes I couldn’t include as links, so if for some reason you need a fully annotated version, please comment.
The biggest news story about conflict in Africa in the last five years has undoubtedly been the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which has often been called genocide. The current violence in Sudan’s western state emerged in 2003 just as peace agreements were finally being made to end the 20-year civil war between Sudan’s north and south. The conflict propelled a region that had once been regarded as a backwater onto the forefront of the international stage.
As reporting picked up steam in 2004, a story emerged about Darfur that was replayed in various forms: Nomadic Arab tribes, in league with Sudan’s nefarious government, were attempting to exterminate the black Africans of Darfur through a campaign of terror, rape and fire.
But scholars, Darfur experts and some aid groups have questioned the accuracy of this mainstream reporting on Darfur. In the last two years, this has coincided with a waning interest in the Darfur conflict among the American public.
In this essay, I follow the reporting on Darfur through the course of four years and several articles in the United States’ most influential newspaper, The New York Times. Through the evolution of the reporting, I show the ways in which the Times constructed an over-arching narrative about Darfur, why the story was relevant and popular, and why myths came to influence the reporting.
I can’t wait until January. That’s when Somali-Canadian artist K’naan’s new album, Troubadour, drops. I haven’t been so excited by an album since Outkast came out with Aquemini in 1998. And this one is better.
I first saw K’naan in early September at Le Poisson Rouge in the village, and I’ve been hooked since. At that show, Mos Def appeared in the crowd at one point, and got on stage to perform this number with K’naan.
When Mos Def endorses something in the music world, you should probably pay attention. That night, K’naan had all of us not only paying attention but also singing along with the anthems he unleashed.
The other day, I finally had the chance to get a sneak preview of Troubador at the house of a friend who had a hook-up. I was blown away. It’s a soulful, rousing, thought-provoking, witty and moving hour of classic joints. Dare I say it? OK, I will: Grammy 2010. If K’naan gets the kind of publicity he deserves, this will be a game-changing album, in a time when everyone is going back to the one-off single model on iTunes.
To understand the significance of K’naan’s music, you need to know a bit about his life story. Born in 1978, he grew up in Somalia and left on the last commercial flight out of Mogadishu in 1991, before the civil war descended into total chaos. In much of his music, he talks about the deaths of friends, violence and deprivation that characterized his youth. During that time, he listened to American rap music, memorizing lyrics before he knew what they meant. He’s been pursuing that passion ever since arriving in North America.
The pain and beauty of K’naan’s homeland resonate in all his music. In some songs, he samples old Ethiopian melodies, drops hip hop beats on them, weaves anti-violence rhymes through them, and links them with addictive, heart-tugging choruses. In the song “Somalia” — from which the title of this blog post comes — he sings:
What you know about the pirates terrorize the ocean?
To never know a single day without a big commotion
It can’t be healthy just to live with such a steep emotion
And when I try to sleep, I see coffins closin’
(You can download that song for free on K’naan’s MySpace page)
K’naan obviously listens to a lot of music. His flow most closely resembles Eminem’s. But elsewhere, like when he says I take inspiration from the most heinous of situations/Creatin’ medication from my own tribulations on “Take a Minute”, he sounds just like 2Pac. And when he speaks at the end of the same song, he sounds like Mos Def: “Nothin’ is perfect man, that’s what the world is, all I know is, I’m enjoying today. Cuz it ain’t every day that you get to give.” Elsewhere, he sounds like John Lennon: I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
His subject matter is a long, refreshing drink of water in the desert of still-bling-obsessed, violence-celebrating mainstream rap. K’naan talks about family, the virtues of generosity, the immigrant experience, the scars of war and — in one of the best songs, “Fifteen Minutes Away” — the simple pleasure of a wire transfer back home. He can afford to laugh at gangster-posturing American rappers because, he sings, he has lived a ghetto harder than anything they can talk about. The song “Strugglin'” from his excellent first album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, showcases classic K’naan content, and his fusion of folk melodies with Hip Hop:
In the most moving song of all (and there are many on Troubador), a tune called “People Like Me,” K’naan sings a verse that I wish would come to define a new era in Hip Hop. In the first verse, a first-person poem reminiscent of Eminem’s “Stan”, but with more of an advocacy angle, K’naan takes on the voice of a soldier in Iraq. I made my friend let me write down the whole verse, and I’ll leave you with that:
Is it fair to say that I am stressing out?
I’m stationed in Iraq and they won’t let me out
My homie said I was stupid for even joining
My counselor said my decision was “disappointing”
Oh she had good slates (?) at state colleges
And with my good grades it wouldn’t have been a problem
But they don’t understand just the power of significance
More than brilliance and certainly more than dividends
And if you ask me now, Would I repeat it?
Would I fight in a war I don’t believe in?
Well the answer is, it’s not me where the cancer is
They’ve been doin’ this before Jesus of Nazareth
And after all this time it is still deadly hazardous
And Bush isn’t really bein’ all that inaccurate
When he says we winnin’ the war, ‘cuz it’s staggerin’
But that’s ‘cuz we’re killin’ everybody that we see
And most of us soldiers we can barely fall asleep
And time and time again, I’m feelin’ incompetent
‘Cuz my woman back home, we constantly arguin’
And I must be crazy, ‘cuz all I’m obsessin’ with
Is her MySpace and Facebook, and who’s commentin’
Swear to God if she’s cheatin’ I’m doin her ass in!
I could tell with one look
And it came to me, soundin’ somethin’ like a song hook:
[Hook]
Heaven, is there a chance that you could come down
And open doors to hurting people like me…
I’m a fiend for good music by interesting people. I like artists who have a compelling life story that has shaped what they do.
So I was immediately captivated when I heard the smoky voice of Buika on PRI’s The World: Global Hit the other day. Buika is a Spanish singer whose family was refugees from Equatorial Guinea. She grew up singing in hotels in Mallorca after her father abandoned the family. Listen to the compelling podcast about her journey from being a Tina Turner impersonator to a nominee for a Latin Grammy the other night.
And check out a song or two as well.
(And btw, this is the first installation in a recurring feature about my neverending quest for great music.)
Ah, nothing like being hated on by Bill O’Reilly. It makes you feel like you still stand for something.
I’d just like to reach out and thank the man behind the O Factor for this ridiculous and bizarre clip he made interviewing homeless people in San Francisco.
My advice to Bill O’Reilly: Stay out of the Sucker Free City. But keep making these excellent clips promoting us! We love it. We love your hate.
I am very sorry I missed it. My friend John put together this clip.
I was in the laundromat two days ago on Malcom X and 117th and overheard a middle aged woman talking to an older man.
“I go to work in the morning and I look at my boss and just smile,” she said with a laugh. “We’re ready for Barack Obama. I’m more ready for Obama than I’m ready for myself.”
A professor of mine — a leading star in anthropology with a towering, critical mind — pointed out to us students on Thursday that we should be asking what kind of change Barack Obama will really bring.
Make no mistake: this prof was happy about Obama, and couldn’t hide it. I don’t think he had any intention of dampening the classroom’s euphoria, either (there are like two McCain supporters at SIPA). But it’s his job to think about these things, so I think we’d do well to listen.
What he pointed out was that there’s lots we don’t know about the Obama presidency. Will he deepen the occupation of Afghanistan? Isn’t the United States’ superpower status so predicated on a powerful military that we will need ever more expeditions to stay relevant? Hasn’t Obama worryingly surrounded himself with interventionists like Samantha Power? (In my prof’s view — or what I understand of it from his class — Power’s take on what the U.S. should have done in Rwanda was wrong and didn’t account for the country’s history.) And what of a resurgence of patriotism — even jingoism — that could mean a blank check on dubious policies? (We’ve seen that one before!)
In short, my prof was saying that the president can only be as big as the presidency. I think he’s is right. And there are far more constraints on Barack Obama than there were on W, for two reasons. One, Obama truly was elected by a grassroots campaign, and so must in some ways be held to the whims of his grassroots. Two, the changes he wants to make — and that progressives hope he makes — are more revolutionary than the kind of changes Bush began 2000.
I had already been thinking about the limits and challenges of an Obama presidency because of some observations I made while canvassing in Ohio. For one thing, there are those in America that hate what Obama stands for. Like it or not, they vote, and we must bring them into the dialogue if we ever want lasting change in our country. Without that, the Christian right will just end up hating Obama as much as progressives hate Bush.
Another thing is that there is certainly not unity among Obama’s supporters on all issues. In the post-euphoria of the election, we shouldn’t shy away from looking at our fellow Obama supporters and asking them what they think about really difficult issues: abortion, gay marriage, immigration, Israel and Palestine. And while we all agree that our current foreign policy is terrible, there is wide disagreement about what the correct one looks like. One Obama supporter told me he thinks Iraqis should pay us back for the cost of the invasion. I totally disagree. The fact that we were able to agree enough on the campaign to drive around in the middle of the night before E-Day planting Obama signs is testament to the power of Obama’s message. But the discussion is not resolved.
We don’t need immediate consensus, but we must have dialogue. We can all crawl back to the rocks we live under — liberal, conservative, coastal or heartland — and wait for Obama to answer all these questions for us. Or we can keep up the amazing hope and dialogue this campaign has started, so we are never surprised by the views our fellow voters come up with, and so that when we hit impasses, we know how to solve them in ways beside shouting at each other, or worse.
Here’s an issue we can start with: Obama’s reported plan to come up with an alternative justice system to replace Guantanamo. Is this what we want? The ACLU has criticized it. On the other hand, it’s a way to get the travesty of Guantanamo off our hands with the quickest consensus possible. I don’t know enough yet to give a strong opinion (though when the ACLU speaks, we should listen). All I can say is: Stay abreast, stay engaged, don’t get passive!
Finally, a shout out to my fellow canvasser and blogger Seth Wessler, who is doing his part to promote this dialogue with his excellent blog posts via Racewire, which is associated with the magazine Colorlines. I love these anecdotes from Ohio (Seth stayed in the same house I did in Lancaster).
Eamon Kircher-Allen 