Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Baring the Burden
Whatever might be said of his fiction, Rudyard Kipling is not the best of poets. His poem "The White Man's Burden" for example, is a hackneyed hymn to the colonialist and his civilising mission.The motivation was to encourage America’s takeover of the Philippines, which many see as the beginning of a long list of colonial interventions by the former colony, ostensibly founded on opposition to the injustice of the old world.
Kipling’s aim leads him to depict the colonial enterprise as a philanthropic challenge; this notion is of course the usual justification, but that’s precisely the point. The poem is an articulation of the imperial imagination, and the title encapsulates this most basic of its tenets in a phrase that has been appropriated by postcolonial critics of empire (and neo-colonial ones for that matter), for uses other than the ones the poet intended.
On the face of it, the contemporary discourse depicting Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the West” might seem the opposite of Kipling’s “White man's burden”; but while it implies an acknowledgement of guilt (which is a key component driving Western aid to the continent) it is significant that the phrase is in figurative terms a variation of the white man’s burden. The colonised other is a burden which the West must lift, while Africa is a scar the West bears – both passive objects of the West’s desired self-image.
The recent attempted abduction of 103 children in Chad is an example of the manipulation required to maintain this self-image. The European ‘aid workers’ in the case lied to the locals, claiming that they would be setting up a home in the capital N’djamena, offering their children a better life and (crucially) education. According to the group anything was justified in their effort to save the children from death and abuse, but even this Machiavellian rationalization does not hold water, as they had to manufacture their Darfur orphans using bandages and iodine to fake the 'war-wounded' look, as footage shot by a journalist accompanying the ‘rescue mission’ shows.
This journalist did not go to the authorities, and only released his video after the group was arrested; his justification being that he didn’t see the children being abused! Such reasoning is revealing: he would not have considered filming a kidnapping in his hometown without interfering. His excuse is in fact a testament to the power of the simplified and distorted image of Africa projected by global and particularly Western media: there’s a definite sense that, all things considered, the children would be much better off with European foster parents, away from the Africa and its endless troubles. Their anguished relatives’, interviewed on Aljazeera, see things differently.
‘The King Kong’ syndrome is Rey Chow’s name for a form of first world consumption in which the 3rd world is mined for thrilling scenes and stories of human misery. Tragic events supply melodramatic entertainment which is more attention-grabbing and invested with more ‘significance’, because they are ‘real’. Africa, the heart of darkness, is particularly vulnerable and is almost always portrayed as the site of misery.
The news media uses this ‘raw material’ in much the same way as the entertainment industry, to provide viewers with shocking spectacle. A BBC World advert promoting the channels website uses part of a news report; it is filmed from a low-flying plane which is dropping boxes (of aid presumably) over a crowd of people in what looks like a flooded area; the people dodge the falling packages and run after the plane while a reporter perched inside informs us that they are “desperate”. This segment of a report, playing on a laptop screen, is followed by the slogan “news on demand”.
It’s a marketing ploy which, had it been intentional, would have been a witty satire on news channels and their viewers, who together transform suffering into a sought-after commodity.
Virtually all the stories coming out of Africa are of conflict, disease and disaster, with Africans infantilised by being represented as perpetually pleading for nurture and nutrition. Reductive and sensationalist news coverage, coupled by the missionary language of those bent on ‘saving Africa’, combine to figure Western dominance as maternal solicitude.
This message is often taken quite literally, as exemplified by the celebrities adopting the continent as a ‘cause’, or going a step further and adopting a representative child.
‘Eye of the Child’, the organisation that (unsuccessfully) challenged the legality of Madonna’s speeded-up adoption of a Malawian boy, urged the star to consider supporting “community based approaches to care for orphans” as an alternative to efforts that “create and develop a dependency syndrome”. This phrase also perfectly describes the wider charity case approach to Africa.
In the case of the Chad orphans-that-weren’t, Dubai Cares seems to be offering to fund the sort of response ‘Eye of the Child’ advocates, by funding efforts to "trace the children's families, reunite them with their families and get them back to school" as a spokesman said. Highly commendable, but then the spokesman goes on to claim that they “don’t want to get involved in politics”, which seems disingenuous.
China is also going on something of a humanitarian spending spree to raise its profile, and to counteract negative coverage. As a global player it is deploying aid as part of its strategic jostling for superpower status, and Africa is the perfect place to do so.
So it’s no longer just a Western phenomenon, in many countries Africa and Africans are conceived as a burden to enable policies that duplicate the underlying assumptions, and some of the ambitions of the colonial project.
After all even the scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century was regarded by many Europeans as a laudable charitable endeavour – which should make the current scramble more suspect. In the late 19th and early 20th century, colonial states produced propaganda material to celebrate the occupation and exploitation of their respective colonies, in which a matronly figure represents the European nation bringing the comfort and culture of civilisation to the natives. The feminine ‘soft power’ of development aid is not a modern alternative to the masculine colonial officer lifting the white mans burden, but an attendant concept.
There are certainly differences in the ways Africa is approached, and it is undeniably true that the continent needs and deserves assistance in order to overcome the barriers to its progress; but the Chad case is a particularly extreme example that highlights the problematic aspect of calls to save the continent that history forgot.
The present enthusiasm, being based on a generalised vision of a chaotic mass of humanity in the grip of apocalyptic horrors, has obscured the many positive developments on the African continent: the growing economies, rising living standards, expanding educational opportunities and most importantly the moves toward closer coordination between its states.
This is not to suggest that Africa’s troubles are over, or are on their way to being resolved; but the unrelenting negative portrayals are both inaccurate and unconstructive. Such portrayals are a product of the one-dimensional way in which the continent and its people are perceived, and they reinforce the same stereotypes.
The consequences are clear. The charity concert Live 8 overlooked African artists in its line-up of global celebrities; and while African countries receive aid and debt relief from more developed nations, they find it impossible to get a fair trade deal.
On the face of it, the contemporary discourse depicting Africa as a “scar on the conscience of the West” might seem the opposite of Kipling’s “White man's burden”; but while it implies an acknowledgement of guilt (which is a key component driving Western aid to the continent) it is significant that the phrase is in figurative terms a variation of the white man’s burden. The colonised other is a burden which the West must lift, while Africa is a scar the West bears – both passive objects of the West’s desired self-image.
The recent attempted abduction of 103 children in Chad is an example of the manipulation required to maintain this self-image. The European ‘aid workers’ in the case lied to the locals, claiming that they would be setting up a home in the capital N’djamena, offering their children a better life and (crucially) education. According to the group anything was justified in their effort to save the children from death and abuse, but even this Machiavellian rationalization does not hold water, as they had to manufacture their Darfur orphans using bandages and iodine to fake the 'war-wounded' look, as footage shot by a journalist accompanying the ‘rescue mission’ shows.
This journalist did not go to the authorities, and only released his video after the group was arrested; his justification being that he didn’t see the children being abused! Such reasoning is revealing: he would not have considered filming a kidnapping in his hometown without interfering. His excuse is in fact a testament to the power of the simplified and distorted image of Africa projected by global and particularly Western media: there’s a definite sense that, all things considered, the children would be much better off with European foster parents, away from the Africa and its endless troubles. Their anguished relatives’, interviewed on Aljazeera, see things differently.
‘The King Kong’ syndrome is Rey Chow’s name for a form of first world consumption in which the 3rd world is mined for thrilling scenes and stories of human misery. Tragic events supply melodramatic entertainment which is more attention-grabbing and invested with more ‘significance’, because they are ‘real’. Africa, the heart of darkness, is particularly vulnerable and is almost always portrayed as the site of misery.
The news media uses this ‘raw material’ in much the same way as the entertainment industry, to provide viewers with shocking spectacle. A BBC World advert promoting the channels website uses part of a news report; it is filmed from a low-flying plane which is dropping boxes (of aid presumably) over a crowd of people in what looks like a flooded area; the people dodge the falling packages and run after the plane while a reporter perched inside informs us that they are “desperate”. This segment of a report, playing on a laptop screen, is followed by the slogan “news on demand”.
It’s a marketing ploy which, had it been intentional, would have been a witty satire on news channels and their viewers, who together transform suffering into a sought-after commodity.
Virtually all the stories coming out of Africa are of conflict, disease and disaster, with Africans infantilised by being represented as perpetually pleading for nurture and nutrition. Reductive and sensationalist news coverage, coupled by the missionary language of those bent on ‘saving Africa’, combine to figure Western dominance as maternal solicitude.
This message is often taken quite literally, as exemplified by the celebrities adopting the continent as a ‘cause’, or going a step further and adopting a representative child.
‘Eye of the Child’, the organisation that (unsuccessfully) challenged the legality of Madonna’s speeded-up adoption of a Malawian boy, urged the star to consider supporting “community based approaches to care for orphans” as an alternative to efforts that “create and develop a dependency syndrome”. This phrase also perfectly describes the wider charity case approach to Africa.
In the case of the Chad orphans-that-weren’t, Dubai Cares seems to be offering to fund the sort of response ‘Eye of the Child’ advocates, by funding efforts to "trace the children's families, reunite them with their families and get them back to school" as a spokesman said. Highly commendable, but then the spokesman goes on to claim that they “don’t want to get involved in politics”, which seems disingenuous.
China is also going on something of a humanitarian spending spree to raise its profile, and to counteract negative coverage. As a global player it is deploying aid as part of its strategic jostling for superpower status, and Africa is the perfect place to do so.
So it’s no longer just a Western phenomenon, in many countries Africa and Africans are conceived as a burden to enable policies that duplicate the underlying assumptions, and some of the ambitions of the colonial project.
After all even the scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century was regarded by many Europeans as a laudable charitable endeavour – which should make the current scramble more suspect. In the late 19th and early 20th century, colonial states produced propaganda material to celebrate the occupation and exploitation of their respective colonies, in which a matronly figure represents the European nation bringing the comfort and culture of civilisation to the natives. The feminine ‘soft power’ of development aid is not a modern alternative to the masculine colonial officer lifting the white mans burden, but an attendant concept.
There are certainly differences in the ways Africa is approached, and it is undeniably true that the continent needs and deserves assistance in order to overcome the barriers to its progress; but the Chad case is a particularly extreme example that highlights the problematic aspect of calls to save the continent that history forgot.
The present enthusiasm, being based on a generalised vision of a chaotic mass of humanity in the grip of apocalyptic horrors, has obscured the many positive developments on the African continent: the growing economies, rising living standards, expanding educational opportunities and most importantly the moves toward closer coordination between its states.
This is not to suggest that Africa’s troubles are over, or are on their way to being resolved; but the unrelenting negative portrayals are both inaccurate and unconstructive. Such portrayals are a product of the one-dimensional way in which the continent and its people are perceived, and they reinforce the same stereotypes.
The consequences are clear. The charity concert Live 8 overlooked African artists in its line-up of global celebrities; and while African countries receive aid and debt relief from more developed nations, they find it impossible to get a fair trade deal.
Africans are confined to the role of recipient, rather than active participants who are changing their current reality and deciding their future.
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Poet And The Journalist
I missed the beginning of Tamim Barghouti's poetry reading - performance actually- in Ramallah on Aljazeera Live, but I could see that almost half the people in the audience were pointing their phones/cameras at him, so I wasn't too worried.Sure enough someone had uploaded the entire 'concert' on youtube - and I found out that he had been introduced by Jivara AlBudeiri! I thought I recognised her voice, but I wasn't entirely sure until I read this account of the evening from the Al'ayam newspaper.
Perfect right? The next Mahmoud Darwish introduced by the most passionate and committed journalist on Aljazeera. If only words really were more powerful than bullets.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Stupid Americans - Uncle Sam inspires 3ami 3arabi
افتراء
شعب أمريكا غبي
كف عن هذا الهُراء
لا تدع للحقد
أن يبلغ حد الفتراء
قل بهذا الشعب ما شئت
ولكن لا تقل عنه غبي
اأيقولون غبيا
ًللغباء؟
احمد مطر -
Whether it is calumny, as the title of Ahmad Matar's poem claims (only to be contradicted by the text), to call American's stupid seems a moot point; the world having decided that the its sole Superpower is characterised by this trait above all others.
And the American as voter is particularly afflicted with a lack of brain power, eating up such patent whoppers as in Steve Brodner's cartoon.
The nation of shopkeepers appreciates a Tom Brownian PM who quotes his school motto in his inaugural speech, and the Americans prefer a straight-talking cowboy. To each his own.
And as to foreign policy, those who celebrate the fall from grace of neo-cons as the awakening of the gullible and naive seem to ignore the fact that their detractors feel the need to compete.
With Iraq burning, and the rest of the region apparently gearing up for a similar inferno, we have more than our share of certified experts in the global phenomena of Yankee bashing, most of whom have a sub-speciality in attention-deficiency, short-term fixation and sheer stupidity studies.
From the perspective of a local groundling, watching the US of A's military and diplomatic [sic] machine wreak havoc across it's current stomping ground, America appears as a lobotomised blindfolded colossus on the rampage.
Seeing such a monster - and the destruction it leaves in it's wake - up close and personal gives an intensity to the anti-US rants, and enough emotion to inspire poetry on their stupidity- as in the Iraqi Ahmad Matar's poem above, and the Lebanese Khaled El-habir's below:
ابانا الذي في السما
ابانا الذي في السما انت عراسي انما عندي كلام
في كم سؤال بها لعمر اجتمعوا براسي من القهر والانهزام
ما هيدا مبارح كان ولد كيف تبلع كل البلد... اول سؤال
مبارح اخونا كان فقير وهلق تيابو من حرير... تاني سؤال
ليش العرب بعد النفط صارت حضارتهن زفت... تالت سؤال
كيف العدالة بنعدم والحرية بتنحرم... رابع سؤال
كيف بيخلق واحد زعيم والتاني ما عندو ملّيم... خامس سؤال
كيف اليهودي مضطهد، ما هوّي سارقلي بلد... هوني السؤال
كيف العراقي بينقتل ما قالوا حرية وعدل... سابع سؤال
ليش الضمير بيحتضر عنا وبيضلو مستتر... تامن سؤال
كيف الامركاني حكم، هيدا الغبي بين الامم... تاسع سؤال
ليش الفتك فينا حلال، فكرلي بهذا السؤال... عاشر سؤال
هيدي وصايا يا ابي... ارشف وصفها بمكتبي كي لا تزال
ابانا الذي في السما انتا عراسي انما عندي كلام
ابانا الذي في السما انت الهي انما هذا حرام
اخيراً ليس آخراً ما يطلع حكيي نافراً... ولا تعتبرني كافراً
اطلع فيي يا ابي... ساعدني خطيّ يا ابي ...عليك السلام
خالد الهبر -
Not since their Southern neighbours gave vent to their furious anti-gringo rage amid uncivil proxy wars, a sting of coups, and a plethora of military dictators have Americans been reviled in verse so frequently.
Ahmad Matar and Khaled El-habir are not among the more passionate practitioners of this art form though.
افتراء (Calumny) is one of Matar's shortest, and in comparison with the rest of his poetry is positively mild...which is probably why it's also one of his worst, since his genius is for Swiftian humour. He reserves his venom for certain Arab rulers, and is perhaps even harsher with their people, who seem to have resigned themselves to endure oppression as their inevitable lot.
I must say his Lafitat is a bit extreme, and although I can understand the frustration that prompts it, blanket statements regarding ALL Arab rulers and the Arab people as a whole don't seem to leave the all important chink of possibility open.
Khaled El-habir's ابانا الذي في السما (Our Father which art in heaven) has a confused speaker questioning injustice, and specifically asking ten questions (for which no answers are provided, although something like Naji Al3ali's cartoon is implied) out of which only three (Palestine, Iraq and "how the stupid American rules the world") acknowledges the American elephant in the Arab living room.
The rest deal mostly with issues of reform and good governance, as talked up but not practised by various Western leaders.
For example:"how is it that he has swallowed the country, only yesterday he was a boy", which just conjures up that memorable Saad Hariri Jack Straw moment (to my mind anyway).
Neither Matar nor El-habir ignore America's role, but they realise that العيب فينا the main problem is not with America, but with us.
In the words of Abu Al-qasim Al-shabi, as taught to every schoolchild:
إذا الشعب يوماً اراد الحياة فلابد ان يستجيب القدر
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Om kriget i TV'n
I was about 7 or 8 when I first came across this poem in the fattest book in our library. The books satisfyingly wide spine was the reason it was often the one I chose to flip through whenever I wanted to act truly ‘growed up’; but as it was a collection of over a 1000 Swedish poems, some pieces were short and simple enough for me to actually read.
‘Om kriget i Vietnam’ was not the sort of thing I would usually attempt, but I was hooked from the first line. Of course I knew nothing of Vietnam, but a few days earlier, despite my parent’s best efforts, I had seen a news segment from the then ongoing 2nd (or 91) Gulf War. They thought we were all safely asleep and were watching the evening news, but for some reason I woke up and came into the living room; from the doorway I watched the whole report, complete with the Iraqi corpses and POW’s (paraded across the globe sans condemnation for barbarity) and it wasn’t until the anchor moved unto some local item that my mother noticed me. I remember I slept with her that night.
Those images, perhaps more inexplicable than shocking, were what made me read and re-read the poem. Obviously it was way over my head, I couldn’t even understand some of the words, but I was fascinated by the disjunction between placid Scandinavia and the horrors on TV - it seemed so distant, so unreal, like it was something going on literally inside that black box.
Om kriget i Vietnam
Bakom TV'n ändrades ljuset
utanför fönstren. Mörkret bytes
mot grått och träden framträdde
svarta i det klara grå ljuset
från ny snön. På morgonen
var allt igen snöat. Jag går nu
ut och sopar efter stormen.
Jag hör i radio att USA
gett ut en vitbok
om kriget i VIETNAM
i vilken Nordvietnam anklagas
för aggression. I går kväll
på TV såg vi en filmspelning från
Viet Congs sida, fick höra
helikoptermaskinernas
dova fladdrande,
från marken, från de beskjutnas
sida. I en annan film
för ett par veckor sedan
intervjudnas de amerikanska
helikopternforärna av CBS. En av dem
beskrev sin utlösning
när han äntligen fick skott på
en “VC”: han slungades
tre meter fram
av raketerna. Det blir säkert mer snö idag
säger min granne, svartklädd
på vag till sitt arbete. Han
balsamerar döda och är nåttvardare på
mentalsjukhus. Trackten jag bor i —Lund
med omnejd — blir en allt vitare
bok, solen kommer och lyser
brännande kall over de vidsträkta sidorna.
De döda är siffror, som vilar, vivlar
som kristaller, i vinden over fälten. Hittils
beräknas 2 millioner ha dött i VIETNAM.
Här dör knappast någon
av annat än personliga skäl. Den svenska
ekonomin dödar numera
inte många, i varje fall
inte här i landet. Ingen för
krig i vårt land for att skydda
sina egna intressen. Ingen
bränner oss med napalm
fär en feudal frihets skull.
På 14- och 1500-tålen fanns ingen napalm.
Solen stiger här mot middag.
Det är snart mars 1965.
För var dag.
dödas allt fler i USA’s vidriga krig.
Snöflingorna på fotot av
president Johnson
vid tiden för det sista bombingarna
i Nordvietnam — han steg
ur eller in i en bil — faller
allt tätare over de vita sidorna.
Fler döda, fler rätt fårdiganden,
tills allt snöar igen
i den natt som slutgiltigt
ändrar sitt ljus utanfär fönstren.
-Göran Sonnevi
‘Om kriget i Vietnam’ was not the sort of thing I would usually attempt, but I was hooked from the first line. Of course I knew nothing of Vietnam, but a few days earlier, despite my parent’s best efforts, I had seen a news segment from the then ongoing 2nd (or 91) Gulf War. They thought we were all safely asleep and were watching the evening news, but for some reason I woke up and came into the living room; from the doorway I watched the whole report, complete with the Iraqi corpses and POW’s (paraded across the globe sans condemnation for barbarity) and it wasn’t until the anchor moved unto some local item that my mother noticed me. I remember I slept with her that night.
Those images, perhaps more inexplicable than shocking, were what made me read and re-read the poem. Obviously it was way over my head, I couldn’t even understand some of the words, but I was fascinated by the disjunction between placid Scandinavia and the horrors on TV - it seemed so distant, so unreal, like it was something going on literally inside that black box.
Om kriget i Vietnam
Bakom TV'n ändrades ljuset
utanför fönstren. Mörkret bytes
mot grått och träden framträdde
svarta i det klara grå ljuset
från ny snön. På morgonen
var allt igen snöat. Jag går nu
ut och sopar efter stormen.
Jag hör i radio att USA
gett ut en vitbok
om kriget i VIETNAM
i vilken Nordvietnam anklagas
för aggression. I går kväll
på TV såg vi en filmspelning från
Viet Congs sida, fick höra
helikoptermaskinernas
dova fladdrande,
från marken, från de beskjutnas
sida. I en annan film
för ett par veckor sedan
intervjudnas de amerikanska
helikopternforärna av CBS. En av dem
beskrev sin utlösning
när han äntligen fick skott på
en “VC”: han slungades
tre meter fram
av raketerna. Det blir säkert mer snö idag
säger min granne, svartklädd
på vag till sitt arbete. Han
balsamerar döda och är nåttvardare på
mentalsjukhus. Trackten jag bor i —Lund
med omnejd — blir en allt vitare
bok, solen kommer och lyser
brännande kall over de vidsträkta sidorna.
De döda är siffror, som vilar, vivlar
som kristaller, i vinden over fälten. Hittils
beräknas 2 millioner ha dött i VIETNAM.
Här dör knappast någon
av annat än personliga skäl. Den svenska
ekonomin dödar numera
inte många, i varje fall
inte här i landet. Ingen för
krig i vårt land for att skydda
sina egna intressen. Ingen
bränner oss med napalm
fär en feudal frihets skull.
På 14- och 1500-tålen fanns ingen napalm.
Solen stiger här mot middag.
Det är snart mars 1965.
För var dag.
dödas allt fler i USA’s vidriga krig.
Snöflingorna på fotot av
president Johnson
vid tiden för det sista bombingarna
i Nordvietnam — han steg
ur eller in i en bil — faller
allt tätare over de vita sidorna.
Fler döda, fler rätt fårdiganden,
tills allt snöar igen
i den natt som slutgiltigt
ändrar sitt ljus utanfär fönstren.
-Göran Sonnevi
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Landet som icke är
Jag längtar till landet som icke är,
Ty allting som är, är jag trött att begära.
Månen berättar mig i silverne runorom ländet som icke är.
Ty allting som är, är jag trött att begära.
Månen berättar mig i silverne runorom ländet som icke är.
Landet, där all vår önskan blir underbart uppfylld,
landet, där alla våra kedjor falla, landet,
där vi svalka vår sargrade pannaI månens dagg.
Mitt liv var en het villa.
Men ett har jag funnit och ett har jag verkligen vunnit—
Vägen till landet som icke är.
Edith Södergran
landet, där alla våra kedjor falla, landet,
där vi svalka vår sargrade pannaI månens dagg.
Mitt liv var en het villa.
Men ett har jag funnit och ett har jag verkligen vunnit—
Vägen till landet som icke är.
Edith Södergran
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
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