Sunday, August 29, 2010

Links via Diigo (weekly)

  • Tariq Ali weighs in on the Western and Pakistani elites' pathetic response to the Pakistan floods.

    tags: natural disaster pakistan neoliberalism imperialism

  • Good review of Achcar's latest book.

    tags: book review arabs zionism holocaust palestine israel

  • " The point should nonetheless be made that Islam is not a new religion in the Latino experience. Aside from more ancient links to Islamic Andalusia, there has been a large influx of Arabs, particularly from Syria and Lebanon, beginning in the 1860s. The number of Muslims currently in Latin America has been estimated at between four and six million, with 800,000 Muslims in Argentina and 1.5 million in Brazil alone. And Islam has not remained the exclusive domain of Arab or Indo-Pakistani immigrants. Aside from conversions among some of the ethnically African populations of Trinidad or Jamaica, for example, a few "indigenous" Muslim communities have likewise taken root. In the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, a group of Tzotzil Mayan Indians have embraced Islam,[2] establishing their own mosque and zabiha[3] restaurant and butcher shop. Likely, many in Latin America have come to similar conclusions about the relationship between Christianity and slavery/colonial domination that those of African descent have come to in the United States. According to one writer: "Rather than viewing Catholicism as the native religion of their culture, they [Latinos] protest that Catholicism was originally forced on their indigenous ancestors by Europeans."[4]"

    tags: latino islam arab america diaspora race colonialism indigenous christianity

  • "For crying out loud, Hassan Nassrallah and Hezbollah can even draw the distinction between a Lebanese Jew and an Israeli soldier who happens to be a Jew. So how is it that Americans can’t distinguish between American Muslims who were victims of 9/11 and Saudi Muslims who were the perpetrators of 9/11?"

    tags: lebanon israel islam judaism islamophobia

  • "The reality is that the phrase “Islam has been hijacked” is a product of White supremacy. It is the dominant culture’s way of speaking for us, imposing its definition of Muslims/Islam upon us, and implanting the idea that we are, indeed, inferior, inadequate, and subhuman. Once we internalize the racist and hateful messages and start using them, the idea becomes normalized and spreads. We have to unplug ourselves from the oppressive system and start defining ourselves. "

    tags: race islamophobia

  • Anyone with a non-Anglo name can relate to this.

    tags: race naming identity iranians

  • "All but lost to living memory and forgotten in the current controversy, Washington Street was the “heart of New York’s Arab world,” as The New York Times described it in 1946, shortly before that Arab-American community was almost entirely displaced by construction of entrance ramps to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. "

    tags: arab america race diaspora

  • "I spoke to other ‘halfies’ in a quest to discover whether, as a half-Egyptian, my feeling that there is a fine line between a split-heritage and a split-personality is universal, how they have reconciled their dual cultures, and where Egypt fits in all this.
    ...
    One of the few representations of half-Egyptians in literature is Leila, or Li-Li, the title character of Egyptian writer Youssef Idriss’ story. The daughter of a deceased British soldier and an Egyptian mother, Li-Li is the arch-temptress who lures the Imam away from prayers with her “eyes like electric sparks flashing from pole to pole, now Saxon now Egyptian.”

    While stridently independent, Li-Li is objectified as a result of her dual heritage. “The European is an enticing character, much more so when the heady wine of Egyptian blood runs through her veins.”

    For her Egyptian peers, she was both an Egyptian and foreigner. “They bowed to the fact that she belonged to no one, and since she belonged to no one she belonged to them all.”"

    tags: egypt identity

  • "On a musical-comedy journey into Cuba's politics, Palestinian filmmaker Osama Qashoo learns that "Palestino" is derogatory Havana slang for second-class citizens from the rural east, and Qashoo finds much in common with the homelss Cuban street musician Louisito."\n\nWatch Part 2 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgntG3Ec1lI

    tags: cuba palestine race migration solidarity music

  • Is this a joke?!

    tags: black america race prison prison industrial complex security industrial complex language

  • "“I recall going to events were I was told that I’m not allowed to speak of women issues – politics first, they said to me, women rights are not our main subject. But I am Palestine. I’m a Palestinian person – whenever I speak, I speak of Palestine – whether it is right here or not, when I speak of women’s issues, I speak as a Palestinian woman – there is no such thing as we’ll take care of women’s rights later”"

    tags: palestine israel feminism hip-hop

  • "Eat, Pray, Love detailed Gilbert’s decision to leave an unsatisfying marriage and embark on an international safari of self-actualization. (Publisher Viking subsidized the “unscripted” yearlong vacation.) Gilbert ate exotic food, meditated in exotic places, and had exotic romantic interludes; both culture clashes and enlightenment ensued, as did Gilbert’s ham-fistedly paternalistic attempt to buy an impoverished Indonesian woman a house. The book could easily have been called Wealthy, Whiny, White ... It’s no secret that, according to America’s marketing machine, we’re living in a “postfeminist” world where what many people mean by “empowerment” is the power to spend their own money. Twenty- and thirtysomething women seem more eager than ever to embrace their “right” to participate in crash diets and their “choice” to get breast implants, obsess about their age, and apply the Sex and the City personality metric to their friends (Are you a Miranda or a Samantha? Did you get your Brazilian and your Botox?). Such marketing, and the women who buy into it, assumes the work of feminism is largely done. Perhaps it’s because, unlike American women before them, few of the people either making or consuming these cultural products and messages have been pushed to pursue secretarial school instead of medical school, been accused of “asking for” sexual assault, or been told driving and voting were intellectually beyond them. This perspective makes it easy for the antifeminism embedded in the wellness jargon of priv-lit to gain momentum. "

    tags: feminism women race capitalism orientalism

  • Excellent interview with Ali Abunimah on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque." This is probably the only worthwhile and nuanced discussion out there on this issue.

    tags: islamophobia race

  • Is the racism surrounding the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" despicable? Yes. Are the leaders of Park51 opportunists who spend way too much time schmoozing to the State Department and FBI instead of challenging the US's abhorrent foreign and domestic policies toward Muslims? Yes.

    tags: islamophobia zionism


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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