To everything there is a season. And a reason? Its not easy to get at the root causes of Arab world anti-Westernism. it does not seem like a pure hate, but rather the antagonism of the love-hate relationship, like intense compressed blasts of D.H. Lawrence. There is an attraction and repulsion, and a certain sense that they spawned western culture, yet are somehow left outside it. How the heck could Cantigas of Moorish Spain end up as Rock n’ Roll? And there is a sense that the wheel of ascendancy will turn again, propelling the Arab world to the top of the cycle. Then there is the political factor; the absurdity of democracy yet the powerful reverberations of its illusion creating new and unpredictable forms of cultural mutation.
—Max Burchartz. Tanzfestspiele (Dance Festival). 1928
Max Burchartz, poster
moma.org via johno—Read more:http://welovetypography.com/post/7569
Then there is the language, its contexts of image and space that seems transcendent in itself and part of a construction of feelings and emotion informed by the complexity of the language. That is revolution is not revolution as literal translation, politics is not politics; its like Eisenstein or Welles with language as a kind of complex cinematic montage where space, object, movement and speaking present composites of what can be termed Arabic language of which in the West we have little patience for the grist and grit of what really informs the broader cultural narrative of the various protest movements in the Arab world; we are too transfixed by self-interest and symbolic dilution into recognizable information commodities, seen in its most base and vulgar form in the Pamela Geller’s and simplistic populists without much skin in the game, and the walking and chewing gum analogy synonymous with an incomprehension of composites of meaning that multiply around root worlds related to sophisticated and complex schemas of reference, studded with sets of symbols; different forms, shapes, grammatical functions, all linked together through rules of syntax and punctuation only vaguely assimilable yet appealingly not inferior…
(see link at end) …She noted Syrian women’s active role in the revolution against President Bashar Al-Assad, regretting their marginalization now that the country has dived into an all-armed conflict. In countries with which the United States has no diplomatic relations, be it Syria, Iran or North Mali, Verveer said she and the US State Department —where her office is housed — were working diplomatic channels or relying on other countries to help. She deplored the fact that Iranian women had been barred from 77 disciplines in several universities last summer, describing the move as a “terrible setback.” About the sanctions slapped on Iran by Western countries, she acknowledged that they had the “unintended effect” of harming the civilian population, among them women, but that they were justified “to stop Iran from developing potential nuclear warfare.” Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/globalwomenarabspring.html#ixzz29OjVgTF7
—A girlfriend who was about to get married was telling me about her wedding plans recently when she said, almost as an aside: ‘Oh, and I’ve converted to Islam.’
Her fiancé was a Muslim but she thought it no more than a minor detail — like ordering the corsages, or finalising the table plan — to arrange a private ceremony before the big day in which she took on his faith. I think she expected me to say ‘How lovely. And have you decided on the centre-pieces?’ But instead I blurted out: ‘You’ve done what?’
‘It’s fine. I really don’t mind,’ she continued, whilst puffing on a Marlboro Light. ‘It was easy. I just had to say a few words and it was done. I don’t have to wear a veil or go to mosque or anything. It doesn’t seem to make any difference at all.’ Apart from the fact that her children, when they come along, will be brought up Muslims. ‘Well, it will be nice for them to have a faith, and a set of rules to live by,’ she said.
‘But you have a faith and a set of rules to live by,’ I argued, feeling more and more offended. ‘You’re a Christian.’ I wanted to add, ‘You go to nightclubs, drink alcohol, wear skinny jeans, tight tops and make-up. Why on earth are you converting to a faith which thinks you are the infidel?’ But I didn’t say that, of course.
‘I’m really not that bothered,’ she assured me. ‘I’m not a practising Christian. It doesn’t make any difference to me either way.’—Read more:http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8667291/till-faith-do-us-part/
(see link at end) The Institute for Gulf Affairs (IGA), a think-tank and human-rights lobby in Washington, DC, reports that much of the material that provoked fury in the West after September 2001 is still used in Saudi classrooms today. Ali al-Ahmed, director of the IGA and author of a forthcoming work on Saudi textbooks, cites such examples as “The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers”, and “The Jews occupied Palestine with the help of the crusaders’ malevolence towards Islam… But the Muslims will not remain silent”. The Saudi education minister says the books are being revised—but that it will take another three years. Mr Ahmed says change is not happening sooner “because the state would be putting its survival at risk. The purpose of education is to ensure social obedience to the ruler.” Read More:http://www.arabist.net/blog/2012/10/14/how-textbooks-protect-the-al-sauds.html
Ludwig Meidner art. —This week felt like a throwback to the 1950s, to McCarthyism and fear mongering. I, and countless others, spoke out in defense of Muslim Americans who were feeling attacked by ads on New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. public transit systems that compared Muslims to “savages”. Physical safety was of serious concern for many Muslim Americans, which is why the three transit authorities appropriately delayed or declined the ads, later to be court-ordered into running the ads.
What happened next is what alarms me most. Anyone who stepped up to defend fellow Muslim Americans was deemed by the ads’ sponsors as the “enemy.” I’ve heard this accusation before, except when I was much younger, growing up in Colorado in a Japanese internment camp.
This is what the ad says: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.” —Read More;http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/honda-anti-jihad-ads-reminiscent-of-mccarthyism-1950s-fear-mongering/2012/10/11/5958e6e6-1401-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_blog.html?hpid=z11
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…Islam is a special case, when it comes to conversion. To convert to Judaism is incredibly complicated, in some traditions involving a rabbi rejecting you three times before allowing you to embark on a lengthy and painstaking process. Catholics are notoriously picky and arguably spend more time and energy th
ecruiting in deselecting large numbers of their existing members for infringements such as divorce and remarriage. They demand that converts undergo weeks, sometimes months of preparation which is to end in their saying they believe the entire Catholic doctrine: a hurdle many cradle Catholics could not clear. Many Hindus still believe that theirs is an identity that can only be had from birth and as such there is no formal process for conversion to -Hinduism.
—László Moholy-Nagy—Theft of land and theft of Kafka’s papers, or something a bit more nuanced….—The ruling settles a long legal dispute over ownership of the documents.
Kafka gave the writings to his friend Max Brod, whose secretary insisted he left them to her. After her death, her daughters refused to hand them over.
It is thought the manuscripts might include unpublished material by Kafka. Brod ignored his friend’s request to burn his work when he died.
Instead, Brod published the literature, which turned Kafka into one of the 20th Century’s most noted novelists.
Brod fled Czechoslovakia in 1939, after Germany invaded, for Palestine. Upon his death in 1968 he bequeathed his collection to his secretary Esther Hoffe.While Kafka is revered all over the world… many Israelis view Kafka, as a Jew, as part of Israel’s cultural heritage and want the country to have whatever it can of him”
Katya Adler
BBC News
…
But a Tel Aviv family court ruled on Sunday that Brod had explicitly ordered Hoffe to catalogue and transfer his collection “to the library of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem or the Tel Aviv municipal library, or any other public institution in Israel or abroad”.
Hoffe in fact kept most of the collection locked away, and sold some of it—Read More:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19942975
By contrast, Islam allows anyone to recite a single short sentence and sign a piece of paper. An internet search turns up dozens of sites instructing on the quickest way to convert — including doing it in your own living room, on your own — and there are any number of forums with Muslims giving pre-conversion Christians helpful advice on how to pronounce the shahada in Arabic. Read More:http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8667291/till-faith-do-us-part/
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