Chicago Arabesque festival

Chicago Arabesque 2010

In June Chicago hosts Arabesque, an Arab and Arab-American festival. Performers take the outdoor stage on Daley plaza, vendors sell food and knick-knacks, and sponsored booths showcase bits of Arab culture and trivia.

The website for the event, which is presented by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Arab Affairs has a great FAQ section that you’ll find helpful if you’re the least bit confused about the “Arab” designation.

Here are some highlights:

Who are the Arabs?
An Arab is anyone whose mother tongue is Arabic and who identifies himself or herself as Arab.

Does “Arab” denote a race?
The term Arab does not refer to a race, a lineage, or a religion, but rather to a language and a culture. Arabs may be Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, dark skinned or light skinned, city dwellers or farmers. Despite this diversity, Arabs share a common cultural identity.

Is the Arab World the same as the Muslim World?
The Arab World is not the same as the Muslim World. 80% of all Muslims are NOT Arabs. The terms “Arab” and “Muslim” are never interchangeable. Arab is a cultural/linguistic term, while Muslim is a religious term. The following countries for example are NON-Arab Muslim countries: Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Indonesia has more Muslims than any other country.

Do Arabs have a shared religion?
No. Arabs belong to many religions, including Islam, Christianity, Druze, Judaism and others. Within each of these religions there are additional distinctions.

Maghreb Association of North America booth. Maghreb refers to the region of North Africa that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya

visitors match names to pictures of famous Arab-Americans

White City, Windy City

If you have some time, check out this video. It gives a broad view of Chicago, Casablanca, and the Sister-City relationship between the two.

The video is very travel show-y, but I’ve never seen a travel show that combined visits to cities that are so different and far apart.

It’s supposed to be a pilot for a series on Sister-City relationship between US and Middle Eastern cities. It dates back to 2008, but I don’t know if the series took off. I’ll update here if I hear anything.
*****
update (7/7/2010): The US/Arab world sister-city documentary project never got off the ground, unfortunately. The pilot was done by Layalina Productions, a non-profit whose mission is to improve relations between the US and the Arab world through TV programming. Check out their shows, especially American Caravan and On the Road, two reality TV-type programs about Arab and American youth discovering each others’ countries. According to the Layalina website, their programs reach a target audience of millions, although my impression is that they reach a much smaller number of viewers in the U.S. than in the Middle East.

An American mom reflects on her daughter’s wish to wear the Hijab

“I understood then that while physical exposure had liberated me in some ways, Aliya could discover an entirely different type of freedom by choosing to cover herself.”

In “Cover Girl” (Oprah.com) Krista Bremer writes about her nine-year-old daughter’s desire to wear the hijab. Bremer is Anglo-American, her daughter is half Libyan.

Krista Bremer and her daughter, wearing the hijab. The hijab covers the hair and ears.

There’s so much to unpack from this article that I hardly know where to start. I’ll put in my two cents, even though Moroccan author Fatima Mernissi does it much better. Her book, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (1987), is required reading for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of the hijab.

Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society (1987)

What’s most refreshing about Bremer’s article is how lovingly she tries to understand her daughter’s decision to cover herself. She ascribes no political or antisocial motive to her daughter’s decision. Mainly concerned with the well-being of her child, Bremer transcends the self-righteousness and impotent outrage that usually characterizes the hijab discussion.

Bremer hones in on and challenges one concern in particular–that is, that the women who are covered are necessarily stifled. She imagines instead that her daughter, protected from the burden of worrying about how others view her body, will be able to pursue her interests freely. In contrast to her daughter’s freedom and spontaneity, Bremer describes a scene she remembers from a pool party. She observed a tween girl awkwardly try to play ping pong while wearing a bikini. My hairs stood on end as I read that and reflected on that familiar feeling of vulnerability, of being watched.

While I mostly appreciated Bremer’s human and thoughtful approach, her article glosses over an important detail:

Normally, the decision to wear the hijab (in public) is a lifelong commitment. It’s not typically an accessory that you can decide to wear depending on your mood. By downplaying the seriousness of this commitment Bremer allows us to look at the hijab with a more open mind, which is a good thing. We can try to imagine that it’s not all that different from letting a kid wear a tutu to school, the better to let them express themselves. In reality, though, and especially in light of the religious significance, deciding to wear the hijab is a big deal, a major lifestyle change. That’s part of the reason why it’s so controversial to have girls make that decision, especially at a really young age.

Ultimately, the discussion around the wearing of the hijab centers around the classic feminist conundrum: a woman’s ability to choose for herself.

Ambassadorial Scholars training 2010 (Pittsburgh, PA)

I have quite a lot to think and write about just from the past week or so. I’ll take it one update at a time…

Bridgeville, a working class town outside of Pittsburgh, and hometown of one Sr. Karl.

Last weekend I spent 24 hours with a handful of other Ambassadorial Scholars in Pittsburgh to train for next year, when we’ll all be out in the world as students, ambassadors, and young representatives of the Rotary. The most interesting part of our meeting by far was mingling with other scholars headed to Ghana, South Africa, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Australia, Jordan, Brazil… One person will be in Bogotá, Colombia studying regional development! Another will be in Rabat, Morocco, but just for the summer. (The Rotary no longer awards Ambassadorial Scholarships for short-term study, though.)

The Rotary calls this a training, but I think it makes more sense to think of it as a kick-off meeting with some rules and tips thrown in for good measure. Topics covered include: pre- and post- year of study duties (presentations to Rotary clubs for example), how to address sensitive questions about our culture and politics, and dealing with sexual harassment. The last two both fall under the general theme of “culture clash,” though the example of sexual harassment is a more personal and possibly traumatizing example. The official presentation on sexual harassment had mostly to do with Rotary protocol, but the session led to a more interesting conversation on how to communicate that what someone might consider harmless behavior is actually, “in my culture,” deeply offensive. (Of course assault can’t be relativized in the same way)

One of the more interactive sessions focused on how to address controversial questions about our country of origin. During my interview in August 2009, for instance, I was asked how I would respond to this doozy: “Can you explain this whole health care debate?” The trick is not necessarily to drop a ton of knowledge on them, but rather to give the broad strokes in a balanced and non-defensive way.

In the first few hours of our training, the facilitator of this session passed out a list of questions and called on people to answer them. Oh, it was heart-pounding fun! Here are some examples of what we were asked to respond to, questions mostly drawn from a book called Citizen Diplomacy: Responding to Questions about America (review to come–oh and take a look at the publisher!)

-Why is American culture so violent?
-Why does your government have such a laissez-faire attitude towards the economy, which has such damaging consequences throughout the world?

I’ve been answering questions about the U.S., especially in France, since I was a kid. Some questions are informed, occasionally some are profoundly silly, some come from strangers and some from my own family. Some questions are veiled accusations, and not everyone is as interested in your answer as they are in making a point. It’s a challenge to answer some of these questions without rolling your eyes, or without taking offense at the assumptions that they hint at.

Still, thankfully people are curious enough to pose a question, even at the risk of appearing uninformed. This kid once asked my sister and I if we lived in the “bourg” of Chicago–which is like asking if we live on Main Street. Poor guy was pretty embarrassed when we laughed, judging him to be provincial, I guess. Hey, we were kids.

This weekend at the Rotary District 6450 Conference (more on that later) I’ve been hanging out with a current Ambassadorial Scholar from South Korea about his experience so far. I’ve been pestering him with questions along the lines of, “What’s the weirdest thing about Americans?” He’s pretty good at politely deflecting those questions, but he does sometimes talk about the strange comments he gets from people about his country. Things like, “Korea, huh? So, why are you so evil?”

Readers, what is the most challenging or silliest question you’ve had to field about your culture (whatever that means to you)? I’ll kick it off with a question I was asked, and though a lot about, when I was in Paris, in early 2006:

What is wrong with the American people that they allow their government to kill innocent civilians in Iraq? Do they just not care about people who aren’t American?

Ouf.

**** “The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes you a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East” by Neil MacFarquhar

Let me start by saying that I didn’t start to study Arabic to get into politics.
Which is part of the reason why Neil MacFarquhar‘s crash course in Middle Eastern politics was so illuminating. The book is organized by themes: “Satellite TV,” “Talking about Jihad,” “Police States,” etc., and spans “from Tehran to Marrakesh,” as he puts it. MacFarquhar draws on years of experience as a New York Times correspondent based in Cairo, and tons of interviews of local influential people he collected over the course of a year or so.

MacFarquhar’s childhood in Libya
MacFarquhar starts off his book by painting a picture of his childhood, spent in an oil company community in Libya. Above all MacFarquhar stresses that he and his family, Americans who lived in a gated community surrounded by other expats, were by no means immersed in Libyan society. At the same time he lays claim to a kind of relationship with the region that comes from childhood experiences—he’s nostalgic for the sounds and smells of the souq, for instance. I was drawn in by this chapter-long disclaimer, and took it as an indication of his self-awareness and implied understanding of the complexities of the Middle East. Though he’s self-conscious about his sheltered upbringing, he doesn’t write off his experience as illegitimate—and neither do I. His is one of the many facets of life in an Arab and Middle Eastern country.

Don’t file this under “Travel Books”
To call this a travel book (as it’s being marketed) is misleading. In fact for the most part, MacFarquhar stays far away from the kind of exotic and romantic “Arabian Nights” business which usually keeps me away from any New York Times travel section article about Morocco. (See also: Sex and the City 2 trailer; Jessica Simpson’s cringe-worthy exposé on Moroccan standards of beauty.)

Where can the U.S. fit into the picture?
MacFarquhar has an agenda, for sure. The underlying theme of this book on the “Changing Middle East” is one of…“hope.” For reference, the book was published in 2009, when the “hope” trope was already beyond clichéd and moving into “tacky” territory. The last chapter, which is heavy on the H word, is redeemed somewhat when MacFarquhar offers concrete thoughts for the U.S. State Department’s proverbial suggestion box. Here are his three “conclusions about the way the U.S. could be really effective in bring about change [in the Middle East]:”

1) Address basic quality of life concerns of people, such as education—but on their terms.
2) Be more vocal in supporting grassroots change—but not directly.
3) Be more consistent in condemning repression of all kinds, but especially the secret police—even among our allies.

An underlying theme in his description of U.S. involvement in the Middle East is our country’s misunderstanding of local cultures, and the presumption that we can manipulate the political or cultural scene to our advantage without having our efforts backfire. In the chapter on satellite TV, for instance, MacFarquhar talks about the US-sponsored network Al-Hurra, which provided viewers with programming that the State Department deemed appropriate, but not with any programming that anyone actually wanted to watch. Here are his words:

“Al-Hurra’s main problem was that instead of becoming an independent news source, its choice of programs was clouded by disputes between American critics, particularly conservative critics, over what they thought Arabs should be watching. They had the paternalistic attitude that the station should be like castor oil: good for the viewers rather than what people in the region actually wanted to watch…As the Arab state broadcasts show, politicians make lousy editors.”

I love that castor oil image, because for me it evokes not only paternalism but also quackery.

One major mind-bender here is the question of the Americans’ role in other societies. On the one hand to say that we are powerless to ease suffering and repression in the world is disingenuous. On the other hand, it is counter-productive to meddle to the point where Americans are perceived as paternalistic and self-interested (if not evil and undermining of local values). Somewhere in civil society and local arts, science, and intellectual communities (in various levels of underground status) we should, “somehow,” be able to “find a way” to nudge along locally grown movements that could be beneficial to Middle Eastern countries and to longer term peace and stability in the region. In other words, trying to transplant American values directly into another country is no better than having higher ups dictate to citizens what they can and can’t watch, read, or wear. Our challenge is to find a way to “do no harm” as we seek a way to encourage justice and more open society.

Americans are not from Mars, and the Middle East is not, in fact, located on Venus.
This book, a must-read for anyone who feels like understanding “the Middle East” is beyond their grasp, left me feeling more than ever that I still know very little. I’m not sure that I feel as optimistic as MacFarquhar in his last chapter, which in any case comes off as a little forced. However his book reaffirms my belief in the importance of cross-cultural learning. Do we, or our own leaders for that matter, have an understanding of the Middle East that goes beyond finding ways to exert American influence, diplomatic or otherwise? Take for instance the war in Iraq. Leaving aside the fact that “spreading Democracy” served as a pretext for aggression (my opinion), isn’t it preposterous to think that we can decide what’s best for a culture that the vast majority of us aren’t the least bit familiar with?

I won’t spend a paragraph here to endorse or defend President Obama, but I will say this: My interest in him as a candidate came in large part from his (presumed) international perspective, transmitted not only through his Kenyan father and anthropologist mother, but also through his experience living as a child in Indonesia. It’s disturbing to me that so many people revile him for that very reason. Of course it’s easier to throw up our hands in frustration at not understanding those non (and un-) Americans, and to write off millions of people as “crazy,” “extremist,” “haters of freedom.” Never mind that our country has already played an important role in shaping the region we fear so much.

It’s not a simple task to try to understand foreign cultures, but it’s an important one.

Women of Fez

Rachel Newcomb’s Women of Fez: Ambiguities of Urban Life in Morocco was recommended to me by a professor of anthropology in Morocco. Over email I told her that I was reading Moroccan fiction, as part of my preparation for next year. Fiction is fine, she said, but you should read more ethnography.

Ethnography combines several different methods of qualitative research in order to shed light on a culture. Newcomb relies on interviews, participant observation, and historical overview to sketch one perspective of Moroccan culture: that of middle-class women in the city of Fez.

In 2003-04, Morocco passed the most recent set of reforms to the Mudawanna, the legal code that governs family issues and women’s rights. I learned from Newcomb’s book that the debate surrounding these changes dragged on for years. Many people, including women, did not support changing a law which regarded women as legal minors, under the guardianship of their father or husband. Several of Newcomb’s informants—that is, those people she interviewed as part of her research—objected to the proposed changes. Remember that we are talking about middle class, educated, urban women. Confused?

The strength of ethnographic work, I think, lies in the tendency to avoid passing judgment on a subject. To enter into contact with another culture and understand it on its own terms is tricky because the temptation is so strong to draw direct parallels with what we know. God knows I’ve many times suffered the brilliant analyses of American culture at the hands of French people! Everyone in the world is a social scientist when it comes to understanding the essence of American society (hint: it may resemble a cross between a cowboy and a hamburger). Similarly, an American might have read Mastering the Art of French Cooking, found that it confirmed their most fantastic visions of Parisian life, and continued to “love” French culture. What is maddening to me has not so much to do with whether or not these impressions are accurate. Rather, it’s the idea that an outsider has determined that they understand a culture to the point where they can judge it to be weird, romantic, exotic, boring, etc.

It’s indeed frustrating to be exposed to a set of beliefs that make no sense to me. I recently spent a week on a cruise ship and was baffled by how people can spend five straight days buying $15 cocktails and giving themselves second degree sunburns while seeing nothing strange about this. Incidentally, someone advised me before the trip to approach the cruise experience as if I were an anthropologist. It was damn difficult, and if the goal was to withhold judgment I’m not sure I did so well.

The lens of anthropology is extremely valuable to me as I learn more about Morocco. Newcomb has you appreciate the nuances of “women’s rights” in a specific cultural context. It’s a mistake to think of “progress” in women’s rights as a linear spectrum, originating from what we code “Taliban” and moving towards an ideal state of equality where men and women have identical roles. That being said, this is not about cultural relativism (the idea that no culture is better than any other). Remember that some “modern” Moroccan women object to the Mudawanna reforms. It doesn’t seem to compute. Newcomb is great at illuminating what seems unreasonable to someone unfamiliar with the culture. She seeks to show us how the women about whom she writes define “being modern” in the context of Moroccan norms and narratives. In other words, women in Morocco and in Fez are not simply becoming “westernized.”

By studying a specific segment of Moroccan women Newcomb reminds us that the issue of women’s rights is not black and white, as Moroccan women have different privileges to gain or lose depending on their socioeconomic class and the status of their families. Here in the United States, the issue of socioeconomic class is taboo. Consequently we forget to take into account the experience of working class and poor women when we talk about women’s rights and feminism. Your basic narrative of the history of feminism says that women fought for the chance to work outside of the home. In reality, many women already worked, and not by choice. Not everyone stood to benefit in the same way from the changes we enjoy today.

We should take care not to assume female solidarity. A middle class Fassi woman might defend the old Mudawanna because she benefits from the status of her family, whose prestige, wealth, and power has been consolidated over the years by fathers who brokered marriages to favor their own network of kin. She doesn’t necessarily object to her family being led by a strong patriarch. Her family being the source of her success, she might not want to shake up existing social structures. Ironically, as Newcomb points out, she may defend the Mudawanna as necessary to protect the interests of more vulnerable women who are either poor, or live in the countryside, or both.

Newcomb examines how her subjects occupy the shifting roles of women in Moroccan society. Those roles do not neatly fit into opposing categories of “oppressed” and “empowered,” and to think in these terms not only ignores the broader social system but also pigeonholes women into being either enlightened or brainwashed.