President Obama’s announcement last week to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is worth a raised eyebrow. It’s easy diplomacy, but any discussion of weapons control or reduction is an opportunity to see what the U.S. should be doing beyond superficial cuts to its overwhelming nuclear arsenal. We’d like to celebrate any reduction in nuclear arms, however at the end of the day, U.S. nuclear capability maintains the ability to effectively destroy much of the globe. While we no longer operate under mutual assured destruction, the global moral standard, as well as our own as Americans, precludes the use of nuclear weapons. Of course the U.S. continues to build bigger, “better” bunker buster bombs with larger payloads. These bombs don’t make nuclear weapons irrelevant, they just illustrate how the U.S. is pursuing different technologies to kill those deemed enemies. Although the U.S. should seek ways to prevent proliferation, and involve international structures for when Iran eventually has a nuclear weapon (the genie has been out of the bottle since 1945, eventually all those who want them might have them), the talk and use of nuclear weapons does not command the attention or affect lives the way it did in previous decades.
If President Obama really wanted to pursue a peace oriented policy, there are two more meaningful actions he can pursue on weapons reduction besides the nuclear option. President Obama can look at our use of conventional weapons and sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Mine Ban Treaty if he wanted to do something that was useful and meaningful in protecting the lives of civilians. Although the U.S. government maintains that cluster bombs are an essential part of the U.S. arsenal, cluster bombs along with land mines continue to claim civilian lives years after conflicts have ended. President Obama’s stance on nuclear weapons is admirable, but if he wants to meaningfully affect the way wars are fought and how civilians are affected, he can go several steps further.
Duong Thu Huong has seen many of her novels banned in her native Vietnam, and a look at her work reveals some of the tensions that Vietnamese society is experiencing. Published in 1987 following the previous year’s policy of Doi Moi (Renovation), Beyond Illusions seeks to expose the fallacies of the government system in Vietnam through the prism of a broken marriage. Linh is committed to the ideals she was taught as a young cadre and can no longer love her husband, Nguyen, a talented journalist who has compromised his youthful idealism to provide for his family. She is quickly seduced by a prominent musician who is seeking to recover the favor of the communist party. The manipulations of the musician, as well as other sub plots show a system weighted by corrupted and greased by personal friendship. Personal bonds developed during the American war are stronger than the rule of law, and the ideals of the revolution are given a pass as individuals accumulate fame and power.
A dash of Anna Karenina and a sprinkle of Madame Bovary set against a changing Vietnam and Linh takes life. Like many young cadres she is given an idealistic vision for the functioning of society. Living a sheltered life, she has not had to compromise or sacrifice for her ideals. Although her affair causes a titter, she does not self destruct, and Duong Thu Huong celebrates the ability to never compromise. Linh never bends like her musician lover who will gladly fritter away ideals and morals for material comforts.
Linh’s narrow focus on ideals blinds her to the reality of her lover while her forsaken husband meanders through the novel. As a party hack he loses Linh’s love and respect as he writes articles in line with party doctrines. He gains back his love of truth by the end of the novel, and Duong Thu Huong delights in exposing corruption within the communist party while celebrating those who act according to conscience.
People who enjoy overly descriptive writing may enjoy the novel, however Beyond Illusions too often “feels like writing,” and too many windy metaphors and similes plague its pages. Although it is fairly engaging, the characters are for the most part unsympathetic. The novel’s strength however is showing the tensions of a society that is controlled and bases its legitimacy on a certain set of values dealing with issues of corruption and personal compromise. Although over twenty years old, Beyond Illusions still has relevance as issues of corruption and the state’s commitment to its revolutionary ideals remain issues of discourse.
Duong Thu Huong’s novel is highly critical of the government and although she was once celebrated by the government, she quickly fell from grace. From afar, Vietnam is often viewed through the lens of economic opportunity, with state control of society left mentioned. With several democracy activists sentenced to prison in January of this year, novels like Beyond Illusions reminds readers that there are several Vietnams – a mini economic tiger, an ever rising power in Southeast Asia, and a place where state repression, corruption, and daily cruelties play upon its population.
In their first official talks since the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, India and Pakistan have once again brought themselves back to the table to discuss the controversial and long-standing issues of regional security, terrorism and Kashmir. On Thursday, February 26th, the two countries’ foreign secretaries met in New Delhi for a meeting that lasted four hours.
There was much written about this significant event in the days preceding the talks. Much of the discussion revolved around Islamabad and New Delhi’s starkly differing agendas going into the meeting. For India, cross-border terrorism was the most significant issue that needed to be addressed – and nothing else would be touched until Pakistan provided clear and persuasive answers to their concerns, particularly regarding cracking down on the orchestrators of the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan, not surprisingly, remained more concerned with the as-yet-unresolved Kashmir issue as well as conflict over shared water resources (interesting piece here about this somewhat surprising inclusion).
Despite both countries’ optimistic appraisals of the foreign secretary talks as a necessary first step in restarting the negotiating process, India has refused to resume the ‘composite dialogue’ which began in 2004 and was suspended after 166 people were killed, and hundreds more injured, in the Mumbai carnage. It has reportedly asked Pakistan to take strict action against 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao categorically stated, “From our side, we certainly don’t discount the achievements made by the Composite Dialogue… but the time is not right as yet to resume it because we have to create a climate of trust and confidence.” Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to ask for resumption of the dialogue without any preconditions.
It is unlikely that India will agree to bring the talks back into the fold of composite dialogue until it sees Pakistan taking greater steps towards countering anti-India militancy, but it is unlikely that much will be achieved without this dialogue and at the current level of bilateral talks. In fact, the biggest problem is precisely that the two countries deem different issues as their primary concerns and until they can agree on exactly what should be discussed, any “discussion” will prove futile. The Pakistan Government bristles at India’s insistence on linking the talks to terrorism, calling this focus “unfair.” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir stated,
“We have suffered many, many hundreds of Mumbai’s. We have lost a great number of civilians. . . Pakistan does not believe that India should lecture us and demand Pakistan does this or that. “
Domestic considerations in each country are critical to the success of these talks. Both Pakistan and India have large and vocal right-wing oppositions with which they need to contend and whom they have to convince. In India, L.K. Advani and the BJP have not minced words when accusing Manmohan Singh and the Congress Party of failing to defend India’s national security, deeming them weak. The RSS on Thursday said talks between India and Pakistan would not yield any results as long as Islamabad continued its “antagonistic mindset” towards India.
In addition, as garnered from some of the Indian press, it appears that the Indian public at large remains largely cynical of Pakistani intentions and doubts the Government of Pakistan’s sincerity in approaching the talks. One writer says, for instance, “It was obvious that the theatrics by the Pakistan Foreign Secretary caught us by surprise. It was equally obvious that we had not done our homework.” Another writing for The Hindu states, “Pakistan wants to deflect attention from the Indian focus on terrorism, and unsettle India by accusing it of wrongdoing on water.”
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, detractors argue that yet again, Pakistan is entering talks according to a framework and agenda determined by Indian interests and as a result of pressure from the United States. Cynicism runs deep.
The obvious backdrop of these talks and resumed dialogue is the Afghanistan strategy. Friendly relations between India and Pakistan matter to the rest of the world – primarily the United States – because of their impact on success in Afghanistan. It is now widely accepted and recognized that Pakistan’s alleged support for militancy, and its interest in Afghanistan, is part of its policy of strategic depth to ensure a buffer against India. Given this situation, it is important to note that India’s growing influence in Afghanistan, whereby it has provided $1.3 billion in aid, building roads and even building the Afghanistan Parliament, has been met with suspicion in Pakistan.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman stated clearly, “We have strong evidence (that India is) using Afghanistan against Pakistan’s interests and to destabilise Pakistan. Obviously we do have concerns vis-a-vis India.”
While I remain largely pessimistic about the impact of these talks, as Manmohan Singh rightly stated, “The chances of miscalculation can only increase in an environment of no contact.”
As Iraq gears up for this weekend’s national election, Nate Rosenblatt, Assistant Center Director at The American University of Iraq – Sulaimani (AUI-S), provides his observations and analysis. Before moving to Iraq, Nate studied/partied at SAIS with the rest of the Poets and Policymakers crew.
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It may have been the teenagers on rollerblades clutching Kurdistan List flags in a six-person chain behind a motorcycle that was the most outrageous thing I’ve seen in northern Iraq this month. Or maybe it was the nearly hundred Gorran (Change) List supporters clinging for dear life to a crane truck barreling down Sulaimani’s main highway. Or what about the parade of horses draped in Kurdistan List flags that just went by? It could also have been the countless times a group of cars supporting one party decided, horns honking, to stop in the middle of the road and halt all traffic in one direction. Impromptu block party in the name of PUK party leader Jalal Talabani! As if people think somehow tripling one’s evening commute would garner their party more votes.
But the beauty of Iraq’s first national election since 2005 does not lie in cold, hard numbers. Iraq’s northern third – called the ‘Kurdistan Region’ after its largely Kurdish population – has two basic parties: the political hegemon Kurdistan List, which is comprised of old-guard politburos the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the aptly titled challenger Gorran (Change). There has been no pre-election polling despite the excitement of this newly competitive atmosphere. Political leaders are not calling homes prompting Iraqis to go vote. There is no “Hi, this is Nouri al-Maliki reminding you on March 7th to cast your ballot for my State of Law Coalition!”
This election is also not about party platforms or ideas. “I am voting for Kurdistan List because Mam (Uncle) Jalal is a good man” or “The PDK and PUK have been stealing from the Kurdish people so I’m for Gorran” is the general depth of local analysis. The poles of conservatism and liberalism have also yet to take shape, and though there are channels that host debates between candidates, most television stations here are run by political parties that air hours of the election campaign craziness one just came inside to escape.
Rather, what makes this campaign season so momentous is the mere act of displaying one’s support for a political party – any party. Politicians are giving hour-long speeches attended by masses of people. Just yesterday, there was a 10,000-person rally held at the Gorran headquarters in Sulaimani. It does not matter that presently candidates argue over little more than reputation; time, practice, and patience will allow this process to mature. And spare me the “Iraq will turn into another Lebanon” talk. Though this country was just as much a fabrication as that former bastion of Middle Eastern Christianity during the post-World War I era, there are clear and crucial differences between the two states. Iraq is too big, too proud and has too much oil to suffer the same fate as that other “democratic” Middle Eastern state. 2005 was the beginning of the creation of a realm where significant issues could be discussed openly. March 7, 2010 is the crucial second step.
Articles that ask “Is Iraq really a democracy?” like this one from the Philadelphia Inquirer (as you might guess the author says no) are both out of touch and unreasonable. Sure there are flaws, but there are few places in this region where one can freely elect who they support in the polling booth. And there are few places in this region where one can act foolish on the streets in the name of a political party of one’s own choosing. It’s a headache to experience at times, especially when the driver of a giant 18-wheeler lays on his horn as you walk home from work, but it’s worth the suffering. This place is electric with an atmosphere that, despite its defects, remains rare in a region starved for outlets of self-expression.
As I type, concrete barricades are being erected around cities and polling booths. This country is hunkering down for one of the most momentous weekends in its modern history. This has been a manic month, the culmination of which is now imminent. We step into the polling booth and hold our breath.
The current U.S. policy towards Burma is at a standstill. Despite high profile meetings from U.S. officials, and electionsscheduled in Burma during 2010 (possibly in October), the U.S. perspective seems to be that the ball is in Burma’s court. Although the spotlight only occasionally shines on Burma due to pressing obligations in Afghanistan, etc. the country remains a source of instability in the region and is home to long running insurgencies requiring closer examination if any peace is to be found.
Policy interests in Burma (Myanmar) range from geopolitical strategy (India and China competing for Burma’s energy resources, China’s access to the Indian Ocean, U.S. counterbalancing China in Southeast Asia) and human rights concerns, especially for political prisoners. Although Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other Burmese political dissidents should be rightly commended for their courage, vocal moral support for their work, while a principled stance, costs the U.S. relatively little. International pressure and sanctions have seemingly failed against the intransigence of the SPDC, which in addition to the thousands of Burmese political dissidents, continues to hold an American citizen captive.
While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is often considered a pre – requisite for further discussion between the U.S. and the Burmese generals, conflict and ethnic insurgencies are also mentioned (although secondarily, and with less fanfare). From the Land of Green Ghosts by Pascal Khoo Thwe is a stunning account of a man from the minority Padaung tribe who becomes a student activist, rebel soldier, and then exile and shines a light on the lives and experiences of many ethnic minorities living along the Thai – Myanmar border.
Pascal details his idyllic life of growing up near the jungle and developing a love of learning leading him to a mission school. Although he begins to have doubts about a life of religious service, he develops an interest in English literature eventually leading him to the University at Mandalay. Along the way he describes everyday life in rural Burma along with the everyday cruelties and corruption experienced by many. The account of demonetization and the lessons of “never argue with a person in a position of authority” especially stand out along with the brutal killing of his girlfriend while at university. Pascal’s account ranges from the poetic to the barbaric, and as the student uprising in 1988 occurs he finds himself becoming an outspoken leader in his community.
Pascal becomes hunted by Burmese authorities, and decides to flee with other students into the jungle and into the hands of an armed insurgent group. The perceptions of Burmese on ethnic minorities as well as the ineffectiveness of the students in that environment is noted upon while Pascal begins to make long journeys to Thailand highlighting the plight of cross – border migrants. A chance encounter years earlier with a professor from Cambridge becomes Pascal’s life line to the outer world. An eye witness to Burmese attacks and insurgent ambushes, the miracle of his survival leads to his rescue. Spirited away to England he his sponsored to study at Cambridge, where again he struggles, but ultimately succeeds in what is both a horrifying and uplifting account of one man’s life.
Although the Burmese military has co – opted some of the armed ethnic groups, last year’s Kokang incident and current efforts to fold armed groups into border forces have led some to speculate that simmering insurgencies may spark again. Combined with recent Thai efforts to repatriate Karen who have fled the conflict, the stories of fear and death played through Pascal’s life constantly repeat themselves in the lives of others. Fortunately, civil society and pressure from the U.S. government prevented the forcible repatriation of Karen refugees (Although it didn’t work for the Hmong late last year).
While the Obama administration waits for the Burmese junta with an open hand, continual conflict occurs within the country. Current cries for the release of dissidents are for the most part ignored. The U.S. can speed up its process of refugee processing so that individuals like Pascal have a chance at life. We can also continue to pressure the Thai government (a major non – NATO U.S. ally) for more equitable treatment of migrant workers and refugees fleeing from Burma.
More in-depth posts coming soon as a couple of us return from trips abroad and finalize changes to the blog’s layout. In the meantime, I wanted to briefly share what I have found to be quite an illustrative debate about Pakistan’s portrayal in the international media.
There has been an effort in recent years on the part of Pakistani journalists, documentary filmmakers, artists, etc. to present the “true face” of Pakistan (documentaries such as “Made in Pakistan” and movies such as “Slackistan,” to name a few). Most often, this means something as simple as demonstrating to outsiders that not all Pakistanis are terrorists, that not all of them are conservatives espousing anti-American sentiment or even, that not all of them are victims of terrorism or repressive cultures in the traditional sense. Simply put, these filmmakers/artists/journalists seek to demonstrate their own comfortable, often Westernized, lives to the outside world.
Last week, as Pakistan Fashion Week in Lahore came to a close, most Western media sources jumped at the opportunity to provide a profile of this “other side” of the country. In her piece for The Times, Mary Bowers wrote:
“A triumph for young liberals, the event was also a red rag to those who protect conservative Islamic values with an iron fist. Inter Services Intelligence and the bomb squad were standing by to keep out haute couture’s uninvited guests.”
In response, blogger XYZ at Café Pyalawrote: “Oh shoot. Here we go again with fashion weeks and Pakistan. Can we do anything in Pakistan without it being linked in some way to either appeasing the Taliban or kicking sand in their faces?”
Aside from questioning Bowers’ factual reporting and the quotes she chose to include in the article, XYZ raises the important question of whether, in their haste to present Pakistan as multi-faceted, Western journalists are merely emphasizing a societal cleavage that is less pronounced and highlighting issues which are in fact mundane.
I understand XYZ’s annoyance. I must admit that when I wryly noticed Pakistan having gone a bit Valentine’s Day crazy, I half-expected there to be an article in at least one of the Western media sources lauding Pakistani youth’s efforts at fighting militants through red, heart-shaped balloons.
However, is our cynical response just hoping for too much given current geostrategic concerns? In her response to XYZ’s piece (yes, there’s a full-blown blogosphere war going on!), Mary Bowers has rightly argued that “even if a Western journalist wanted to ignore the bombs and threats, Pakistan’s fashion week will not yet make the editorial schedule on its own merit, not least in the week where New York closes its catwalks and London’s open.”
“The fact is, a journalist arriving at the opening of London Fashion Week would not have a car full of policemen dedicated to her protection. . . .The first point to be made, therefore, is that however normal it has become for residents, Pakistan still has a problem that foreign commentators find fascinating.”
A short piece on surveying public opinion in Saudi Arabia, “Saudi Arabia by the Numbers,” by David Pollock highlights the difficulties in measuring Saudi attitudes, and also provided a reminder on the difficulties of learning about the Middle East. A few years ago I managed to make my way through Robert Fisk’s “The Great War for Civilisation,” detailing his war reportage on the region and acting as a concise history of some of the major events unfolding in the Middle East in the past few decades (I thought it was an excellent book, a doctoral student in Middle East studies, however, off handedly remarked with a tsk tsk that it was only a good starting point). Although Mr. Fisk lives in the region, finding Middle Eastern voices, particularly Saudi voices reflecting on their experience is a challenge for people wanting to learn and discern about the issues and lives that constitute the region.
“Wolves of the Crescent Moon,” by Yousef Al – Mohaimeed provides insights into Saudi Arabian society that haven’t been filtered through a Western lens. A slim novel, it’s prose is distinctive and the story is fairly engaging. Banned in Saudi Arabia, it presents a critical view of Saudi society as it follows the lives of three disaffected citizens of Riyadh. Focusing on three characters, all physically disfigured, the story explores their attitudes and experiences of traveling through life in Saudi Arabia. Their physical disfigurements brand them as societal outcasts, and hints at the broken quality of life among the country’s masses. The story opens in a Riyadh bus station, where Turad, a bedouin and former highwayman is looking to escape the oppression of his current life as a servant. He recalls the story of a friend, Tawfiq, who was enslaved in the Sudan, brought to Saudi Arabian, castrated, and sold as a eunuch to a wealthy family. Finding a document detailing the life of an abandoned orphan, Nasir, left behind by a rushing passenger, Turad also conceives a story for the child, continually abused and abandoned.
Turad reminisces about his life in the desert, where he was a successful, and proud highway robber, before being captured and left to die. Attacked and disfigured, he manages to live, but abandons his home in shame to live in the city, where he feels constrained and humiliated by the small service jobs he undertakes. The theme of globalization weaves into the narrative as he must compete with Bengalis and Filipinos for jobs, and while the tensions between internal and external migrants to the city are not explored fully, the rural – urban tensions that exist are addressed briefly. Tawfiq’s story, featuring child abuse including rape, is graphic and explores the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy. Both characters face everyday humiliations and abuse, and deprived of their humanity, a virulent anger seethes throughout the novel. Turad imagines Nasir’s life beginning with a love story. A young, seemingly upper class woman falls in love with a taxi driver. The young lovers enjoy a clandestine relationship until tribal identities prove an obstacle and the baby is abandoned. Turad’s wild, vivid imagination sees Nasir abused in institutional care and adopted as a plaything by a rich family only to be thrown away. As the narratives unfold, and the characters are scarred, the toll of everyday living in Saudi Arabia is explored, and while at times brutal, Yousef Al – Mohaimeed work retains a raw, emotional quality.
“Wolves of the Crescent Moon” is reminiscent (though not quite the quality) of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as society’s abandoned and forgotten chronicle their injustices and indignation. The repressed fury and powerlessness of the trio provides a sense of some of the tensions that may exist in Saudi Arabia. While many impressions of Saudi Arabia continue to be made through questions about Wahhabism, the royal family, oil, OBL, CNN’s sports center-esque coverage of the Hajj, OPEC, etc, looking at the contentions that exist among the people and their daily struggles points to the similarities that we may have with Saudi citizens as we struggle with life’s challenges and humiliations while seeking to transcend the confines of our lives. It also reminds us of how much we don’t know about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is a good reason to grab a book.
Most are no doubt by now familiar with the case of Aafia Siddiqui, alleged female Al Qaeda operative. While the specifics of her involvement with Al Qaeda remain largely murky, what we do know about her – an MIT and Brandeis-educated neuroscientist and mother of three – make her particularly intriguing. On February 3, 2010, Aafia was found guilty in the United States District Court of Manhattan of firing at, and attempting to kill, American military officers while in custody in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to piece together the precise journey of how Aafia ended up in a courtroom in New York, but for those interested, Sana Saleem provides a good overview of Aafia’s case writing for Dawn. In brief, what we know of Aafia is that she disappeared from her home in Karachi in March 2003, on her way to Rawalpindi with her three children.
What happened next is the most critical point of contention. At the time of her disappearance, the FBI announced that Aafia was “wanted for questioning.” U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft referred to her as the most wanted woman in the world.
However, in May 2004, a spokesman for the Pakistani interior ministry claimed that Aafia had been arrested by Pakistani authorities and handed over to American authorities the previous year. Given the preponderance of evidence confirming such covert activities (extraordinary rendition), and Pakistani official compliance, this in itself is not difficult to believe. British journalist Yvonne Ridley has also famously spoken of hearing a female voice from one of the cells in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan (Prisoner 650), which she believed to have been that of Aafia’s. Amnesty International similarly expressed its suspicions that Aafia was in U.S. custody.
It was, however, only in July 2008 that the FBI announced that Aafia was in their custody in Afghanistan, ostensibly for purposes of questioning. No official charges till this point were filed against her, leading human rights groups to term her case one of extrajudicial detention.
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the core issue before the US District Court case in Manhattan had less to do with the detention and her alleged links to Al Qaeda, than with what, given the circumstances, is a much lesser issue. The veracity of the claims that Aafia was an Al Qaeda operative remain unclear to this day. The circumstances surrounding her alleged disappearance and detention are similarly mysterious, and likely to remain so. Previous cases that have been filed against the government on the issue of extraordinary rendition (those by the ACLU, for instance) have often been dismissed on the grounds of “state secrets privilege,” which claims that further litigation would undermine national security interests.
What has me most intrigued – as usual – is the reaction in Pakistan to last week’s ruling. There have been a host of protests, some led by religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Imran’s Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) and others by student groups, bar associations, and human rights organizations. It is quite interesting that these disparate groups have seemingly formed an alliance on this heated topic, although it is likely that they all have different reasons for protesting. There is little doubt, for instance, that the JI, who underplayed the flogging of a woman by the Taliban in Swat back in April, are motivated less by concerns of women’s rights than they are by what they view as a lopsided relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan.
“The truth is, if one is ready to face being socially ostracised by allowing himself to closely study the Aafia case objectively and without the crippling sight of the Islamist worldview, he is likely to concur with the American courts’ decision that, yes, Aafia was not innocent; at least not as innocent as her many sympathisers would have us believe.”
I disagree with the notion that if one questions the judicial process whereby Aafia was sentenced, he/she is necessarily abiding by an Islamist worldview (whatever that even means). I also find it particularly offensive that those who question human rights violations in the name of national security are so easily dubbed Islamist sympathizers in Pakistan.
Ultimately, as I’ve written previously, these debates will continue until we are presented with a set of facts that we can all agree on. Ridley writes about the U.S. District Court verdict:
“. . . The jury couldn’t handle the truth. Because that would have meant that the defendant really had been kidnapped, abused, tortured and held in dark, secret prisons by the US before being shot and put on a rendition flight to New York. It would have meant that her three children – two of them US citizens – would also have been kidnapped, abused and tortured by the US.”
In other news, Poets and Policymakers is getting a makeover! You will soon be able to enjoy your favorite content with a new color scheme. Shout-out to John O’Bryan for all his help and technical expertise.
This guest contribution comes from Lauren S., a recent graduate of Johns Hopkins SAIS, where she focused on Middle East issues, spent time in the area, and picked up a love for the region’s literature while she was at it.
I first became aware of Mahmoud Darwish years ago through the music of the Lebanese-born artist Marcel Khalife, who drew on Darwish’s lyrical poetry for his songs. Rita and the Rifle, or Rita w’al-Bundaqiya, as it is sung in Arabic, tells the story of Darwish, who is a Palestinian, and his first lover, a Jewish Israeli woman to whom he gave the pseudonym of Rita. Darwish evokes a moving nostalgia in the poem on which the song is based, longing for his love and lamenting the politics that separated them. Rita is a symbol and character who appears periodically throughout Darwish’s poetry. And the poems’s style – original, tender, and devoid of cliché – is an apt introduction to Darwish’s works.
A new translation of Darwish’s later poems, entitled If I Were Another, spans Darwish’s final works, written between 1990 and 2005, before his death in 2008. His writings are filled with allusions to literature, religion, history, and myth. Obscure symbols and even Arabic letters make up the characters in his poetry, which occasionally verges on the grandiose. But the reader is able to forgive him for the occasional wordiness because of the tender and introspective portraits he paints.
Darwish’s poetry points to an artist who sets out to write about human stories but ends up tangled in politics. Rita’s Winter is Darwish’s final poem about his former love, written in 1992, decades after he first wrote about her. The poem’s characters are surrounded by political turmoil but seek to isolate themselves in the small details of their lives:
Rita sips the morning tea
and peels the first apple with ten irises
and says: Don’t read the newspaper now, the drums are the drums
and war isn’t my profession. And I am I. Are you you?
Although he was never formally a politician, Darwish was long associated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He was born in 1942 in a small village of Galilee, and the loss of his village, which was destroyed after the 1948 war, seems to haunt his works. Darwish was finally forced to emigrate from Israel for good in 1971 after a series of arrests by Israeli authorities. He has been called a poet of the resistance, but his poetry in this volume is more often muted and steeped in long narrative.
The theme of exile occurs throughout Darwish’s works and refers to both a physical and emotional state. He writes in Eleven Planets at the End of the Andalusian Scene:
I will soon exit
the wrinkles of my time as a stranger to Syria and the Andalus.
The earth is not my sky, yet this sky is my evening
and the keys are mine, the minarets are mine, the lanterns are mine, and I
am also mine. I am the Adam of two Edens, I lost them twice.
In the poem, Darwish recounts the purges of Muslims and Jews from Spain in the 15th century. It is as if Darwish is bored with his own troubles and more concerned with exploring the abstract and historical dimensions of exile. And that is in part what makes him so fresh and engaging and his work so universal.
Darwish takes a similar approach in The “Red Indian’s” Penultimate Speech to the White Man, this time more defiant:
What have you promised our garden, stranger?
Some tin roses prettier than our roses? Do what you please, but do
you know the deer will not chew the grass if our blood touches it?
Darwish asks later in the poem, Will you not memorize a bit of poetry to halt the slaughter?
The role of poetry in Darwish’s works is salutary, but it is often overtaken by events too powerful to control. The ending of Rita’s Winter seems to indicate a triumph of facts over poetry:
Take me to a faraway land
take me to a the faraway land, Rita sobbed, this winter
is long…
And she broke the ceramic of the day against the iron windowpane
placed her handgun on the poem’s draft
threw her stockings on the chair, and the cooing broke…
then she went barefoot to the unknown, and departure reached me.
Finally, in this somber collection Darwish also grapples with the end of his own life. In Mural, written shortly after Darwish nearly died of cardiovascular disease in 1999, Darwish writes hauntingly of his own inevitable death as well as the uncertain fate of his countrymen:
Death! wait for me, until I finish
the funeral arrangements in this fragile spring,
when I was born, when I would prevent the sermonizers
from repeating what they said about the sad country
and the resistance of olives and figs in the face
of time and its army. I will tell them: Pour me
in the Nun, where my soul gulps
Surat al-Rahman in the Quran. And walk
silently with me in my father’s footsteps,
and on the flute’s stride in my eternity.
But as the piece progresses, Darwish actually challenges death, calling out to it directly, and affirming life:
Death, all the arts have defeated you, all of them,
all the songs in Mesopotamia have defeated you,
the Egyptians’ obelisk, the Pharaohs’ tombs,
the carvings on temple rock, all have defeated you,
and immortality has escaped your traps…
Fady Joudah, who translated Darwish’s poetry, notes in the introduction that Darwish believed in the centrality of Mural in this collection and in its message of hope for Palestinians, humanity, and Darwish himself. So too, in some way then, Darwish’s collection has cheated death.
Viewpoints on China seem to be divided among those who cite human rights abuses, businesses and governments that are driven by economic potential, and apologists who acknowledge the former while following the latter. A visit to China confirms both the economic potential visually displayed on large avenues capped with a sophisticated skyline, and the sense that something is amiss. As protesters in Hong Kong are currently campaigning for democracy, the recent spat with Google along with last year’s story on “black jails,” portray a China still very interested in the control of its population. Although the excellent photo essay Anarchy in the PRC on the Foreign Policy web site displays an emergent and vibrant youth culture, the culture still exists within the confines set by the government. Culture is continually evolving, and the expectations of the people for more freedoms represent a constant tension. Despite having his work being banned in China, Ma Jian’s reflections on the government’s progress bears fruit when trying to analyze the New China.
Ma Jian’s “Beijing Coma” traces the events leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre through the eyes of one of its victms. Dai Wei, shot in the head, and trapped in a coma remembers his life while China continues to undergo rapid change. Remembering his father’s imprisonment during China’s Cultural Revolution, he traces the brutality of life in China under a repressive government. He recalls hustling in China’s emerging economy and the beginnings of economic liberalization, and provides an account of being a Beijing Univeristy student during the Tiananmen Square movement.
Dai Wei, as head of security for the student movement, provides perspectives on the passionate, yet contentious student leadership, filled with power struggles and a doomed romanticism. Ma Jian’s writing captures the confusion and excitement of being in the movement, and the bulk of the novel recounts the hunger strike and days leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre. The paranoia and ruthlessness of the government is exposed while the irrationality and anger of the students is pursued as well. The ending sequence of Beijing Coma is shocking for the violence used against students protesting for Democracy. Ma Jian, also a participant in the movement, creates an admirable telling of a tale China would like to forget.
Beijing Coma has two narrative streams, the flashbacks to the student movement, and Dai Wei’s life in a coma cared for by his mother. Trapped in his body, but able to hear, Dai Wei spends ten years in bed. Visited by friends, he discovers the sudden economic changes China undergoes, while hearing which friends have become wealthy and which continue to suffer under China’s regime. As a student protestor, his mother is forbidden to seek official medical care for her son and is routinely visited by the security bureau. Her search for alternative treatments eventually leads her to the Falun Gong, once again exposing the family to the government’s repressive practices. With the family apartment about to be bull – dozed for a new shopping mall in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, the sense of progress and need for cohesiveness at all costs is given, while Beijing Coma’s dark humor and tragic telling of China’s modern history lingers.
In one earlier passage Dai Wei muses on the history of his iron bed, painted with a new coat of paint every generation only for the paint to chip and reveal the rusting iron underneath. China’s language and veneer have changed, but the government’s desire for control has not. Hopefully, there is room for change. Last year’s National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009 – 2010) shows a consideration and potential commitment to human rights that didn’t exist before. As China adopts the language of human rights, an opportunity to find new lines of non – confrontational dialogue exists.
China cares about its image abroad, its use of soft diplomacy has been written about several times elsewhere. What matters however, is whether China can stand the test of what its citizens think. One of Beijing Coma’s lessons – the more things change, the more they stay the same should be remembered, while those in China looking for basic freedoms as enshrined in the Human Rights Action Plan should be supported.
Here, at Poets and Policymakers, three Johns Hopkins SAIS alums, and one current student—now in different corners of the globe—comment on U.S. foreign policy, the literature that is inspired by it, and pretty much everything else in between.
