The events unfolding around the political arrest of an apolitical businessman tells the story of a politically troubled country. The author of Guban, Abdi Latif Ega, cleverly weaves the social, environmental, cultural and political provisions of Somalia to voice the journey of a largely misunderstood country that came to be viewed as predestined to failure because of its culture. The author impressively debunks this preconception by offering an urgently needed alternate narrative, not only to grasp the circumstances through which Somalia came to be “a failing state” but also to construe the histories of many African countries. 

The author represents a rare voice that goes contrary to a great number of African authors who take a cathartic mode of writing through which they try to appeal to Western mainstream audiences confirming the prejudices about the savagery, inhumanity, poverty, famine, diseases and violence of African societies. He, however, does not go to the extreme opposite of that cathartic mode to talk about “the positive” through cultural enchantment. The author provides a compelling story of Somalia that humanizes and historicizes its political struggle. Guban is not a novel to be read for entertainment although it generously fulfills that requisite; rather, it is a story to be read for reflection and political learning. 

Pulling the Thread:

On a regular afternoon, Hoagsaday hears invasive knocks on the door of his house. He hurries angrily to open the door only to find himself surrounded by soldiers pushing him into a military truck. The news reaches the corners of Somalia like forest fire through neighbors and relatives who gather to witness the fiasco. Hoagsaday is driven to a heavily guarded building, leaving behind a hysterically crying wife and children. 

In Covarrubia’s seventeenth century dictionary Tesoro de La Lengua Castellana O Española, moro (from the Latin Maurus) is defined as “one from the province of Mauritania.” The term is meant to be used pejoratively as in the proverb, “A Moro muerto, gran lanzada” (p.1150). The Real Academia Española offers more than eleven definitions, including the natural border of North Africa and Spain; one who professes the religion of Islam; a Muslim who lived in Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth century; a black mare with a star on the forehead and shoes on one or two limbs; Muslims of Mindanoa and Malaysia; etc. In the Oxford English Dictionary, moor is defined as “originally a native or inhabitant of ancient Mauretania” and “later usually a member of a Muslim people of mixed Berber and Arab descent inhabiting north-western Africa (now mainly present-day Mauritania), who in the eighth century conquered Spain.”

In An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa’s Topography of Algiers (1612), Sosa devotes an entire chapter—“The Inhabitants and Neighbors of Algiers”—to defining the “Moor” as a category of people among other inhabitants in Algiers, including Jews, Turks and Christians. The rest of the text, however, does not always use the term in the same way; rather, its usage reveals and reproduces the conflation of race, ethnicity and religion in the early modern period.

Ibrahim El-Husseiny wrote the play “Comedy of Sorrows” only a few months after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation in February of 2011.  As such, it was one of the very first creative pieces produced in response to the Egyptian revolution.  Following a run of 60 performances in Egypt, a translation by Rebekah Maggor toured the States in Spring of 2012 as a staged reading, with performances at CUNY Graduate Center, the Radcliffe Institute, and Vanderbilt University, amongst other venues.  Two years into the revolution, Hani Omar Khalil sat down with El-Husseiny in Cairo to discuss both his own evolution as a political playwright as well as the role of theatrical narrative in the shaping of national discourse.  Questions and answers were given in Arabic, with translational assistance provided by Omar S. Khalil.

Distinguished by their ability to imagine the unimaginable and assign meaning to meaningless, human beings have always been meaning-seekers, and therefore myth-makers. Mythology could be about the incomprehensible part of the physical world or even about what we call the spiritual realm, but the epistemes of myths fuse together the spiritual and the mundane. The content of myths may occur within the bounds of time and space in some distant past, however, their retelling is a perpetual recurrence in collective memory. It is an eternal event that occurs in continuum. Myth is not merely an occurrence in chronological history, but also an ahistorical truth: “A myth was an event which in some sense, had happened once, but which happened all the time.”¹ 

The history of Kashmir is rich with mythology. Wherever there are significant geographical points, such as lakes (Wullar, Manasbal, Dal, Tarsar Marsar), or mountains (Harmukh, Mahadev, Takht-e Sulaiman, Koh-e Maran), there are corresponding myths. In fact, the creation myths abound about the emergence of the valley of Kashmir itself. All these myths have gone into the making of the collective psyche of the Kashmiris.The narration and construction of these myths in Kashmir are diverse. The myths in Kashmir can be classified in three categories: First, there are myths which sound like myths found in other areas around the world. Such myths include the shraz which is a typically Kashmiri mythological bird. In the myth, the bird is in love with the moon and attempts to hug it. In its pursuit of the moon, the bird goes atop a height and, guessing the moon to be closer, jumps off the height to grab the moon. It falls down to death and from its ashes rises another shraz. The myth reads like an indigenous version of the mythical Greek phoenix. 

From The Sunday Observer of October 22, 1944 

"Freedom must be an Ideal with a Social Content"

The following message was sent by Mr. M.N. Roy to the Bengal Provincial Conference of the Radical Democratic Party held on October 14/15, 1944 at Jaynagar under the presidentship of A.N. Chattopadyay M.L.A. (Central)

Dear Comrades,

More than half a century has passed since the place of the movement for freedom of India began. Bengal was the birth place of the movement. During this period, the world has undergone many changes ... the latest of them being the global war, which is now bearing its end. The conclusion of the mighty clash of arms however will bring the more fundamental issues underlying the gigantic conflict to the forefront. The war will still have to be waged on the political and social fronts, which cut across national frontiers.

The final stages of India's struggle for freedom will be fought in that context of a transnational period in the history of the world. In that period, old ideas and ideals will no longer hold good. They are already in the melting pot. Should India even then cling to antiquated ideas and cherish discredited ideals, she might still languish in the stagnant backwaters of history, when the more fortunate and enterprising peoples have turned their back on the past to bury its dead to march towards a future of real freedom.

 A Harlem state of mind. Music. Rhythm. Black beauty. Soul. Culture. Defiance. Harlem intrigues and inspires. Harlem has also innovated and has been invaded. By police. By white real estate. By capitalism. While Harlem innovates, the world culturally appropriates without seeing the sacrifice—both of blood and of spirit—that has produced such beauty, such depth, such life.

The recent cultural theft from Harlem has been the recent viral videos of gyrating bodies performing what they consider to be the "Harlem Shake." However, the original "Harlem Shake," and its later meaning to the residents of Harlem, does not correspond with the current trend that includes the appropriation of cultural capital from the residents of Harlem. For many Harlem residents, the "Harlem Shake" is an art form that deserves respect. Like many musical, literary and artistic traditions of Harlem that have been acquired by white, American society and corporate America, the "Harlem Shake" viral craze is just another example of the spectacle that will eventually fade and the art form that is the "Harlem Shake" will continue to be lived, performed and experienced by those who reside in Harlem. The "Harlem Shake," or what has become its viral spectacle, is indeed a site of protest and defiance to the powers that be—that discriminate, that dominate, that oppress. It is its rhythm, its perfection, its life that makes the "Harlem Shake" an art form.

January 10th, 2013 marked one of the worst episode of Shia genocide in Pakistan when two bomb blasts targeting the Hazara Shia community, killed almost 200 people in a busy marketplace in Quetta. The Hazara Shias, who have been systematically and ruthlessly killed for almost a decade, refused to bury their dead and sat alongside with their bodies on the streets for three days and nights, through torrential rain and cold weather. This was a heart-wrenching protest, which drew an overwhelming  nationwide response of sympathy from not just from Shia communities, but from Pakistanis of all religious affiliations. Protestors sought to highlight the injustices faced by the Shia community and the lack of state response, which can be judged from the fact that none of the perpetrators have ever been arrested or prosecuted in the last decade. One reason for the apparent inaction against the Sunni extremists seems to be a general confusion and a lack of consensus among the mainstream Sunnis themselves, regarding ways in which to respond to such incendiary vitriol spewed by such militant groups.

In the light of the imploding violence against the Shias and the atrocities taking place in the name of religion, it seems worthwhile to delve deeper into history to analyze the dynamics of Sunni militancy. Prevalent analysis on Pakistan continues to insist that the hatred Sunni militant groups bear towards Shia Muslims is fundamentally theological. In reality it has little to do with theology and everything to do with the politics of the times. Much is consequently being said about the need to accept and overcome religious 'differences' among both sects in Pakistan presently, but the exact nature or scale of these differences is hardly ever a point of reference in any meaningful discussion. In this sense, the very premise of such arguments seems intrinsically flawed, as it portrays the Shia as the 'other' with many commentators inadvertently aggregating them with non-Muslims as a 'minority.'

“..People sometimes ask...why the Pope does not introduce this or that reform? The true answer is that a revolutionist is not the kind of man who becomes a Pope and that a man who becomes a Pope has no wish to be a revolutionist.”

What will the legacy of B.R. Ambedkar mean to India and the world one hundred years from now? It is not uncommon or insignificant that extraordinary genius remains under-appreciated in its time, waiting in the wings as the lens of human consciousness develops the capacity to penetrate into its beckoning depths. Far ahead of its time, even in this day and age, Ambedkar’s The Annihilation of Caste is one such exceptional tract of extraordinary human insight. Though currently undervalued, its universal frame suggests that it must eventually take its place as a guiding beacon of the Indian nation.

Like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X, the legacy of M.K. Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar form an essential binary. One person paves the way for immidiate change, taking into consideration current sensibilities, while the other constructs the dreams of tomorrow--shattering every rotten, but dearly held sentiment that stands in the way. Today, we understand Gandhi and Ambedkar as polarities, in time perhaps we will see that they are two essential parts of the same puzzle of India.

One hundred years from now, with the distance of time, we might realize that Gandhi was but India's pope. His complicit charisma threaded together an unlikely nation. Ambedkar is our revolutionist. He set the terms for our freedom and through his drafting of the Indian Constitution, he won a victory that Gandhi never could. Unlike Gandhi, he did not see the nation that would exist in the next year, the next decade or the next five decades. He imagined the contours of a nation that persisted beyond this century and into the next. He constructed the strong foundations necessary for such longevity. His commitment to fundamental human equality and social justice sealed the nation together in an unbreakable bond. Through his words, his deeds, and his greatest legacy to the people of the Indian nation: the Indian Constitution, he has left us the foundations for the construction of an eternal nation. He has set his legacy in the strongest of stone. How our current generation decides to engage with his legacy, will determine the fate of our own legacy, as well as the fate of our nation.

On February 22 2013, The Annihilation of Caste Reading Group had its inaugural session with Mr. Paul Divakar, National Secretary, Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights. We read the seminal Indian text, our reading group’s namesake, The Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar. We requested Mr. Divakar, a leading Indian activist and humanitarian and inspiration to people across the globe, to Skype in with us from New Delhi. He guided us through the tract at the level of textual interpretation, socio-cultural practice and current-day realities.

Written in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Mahmood Mamdani’s 2005 book Good Muslim, BadMuslim historicizes the violence of terrorism. It extricates terrorism from the narrow morality that arises from the convergence of ethics and national interest, and instead locates terrorism “first and foremost as unfinished business of the Cold War.”¹ “Good” and “bad” Muslims, terms borrowed from former U.S. President George W. Bush,² are descriptions not of religious adherence, but of utility to U.S. foreign policy. As yesterday’s allies become today’s antagonists, the labels change to morally denigrate American foes.

Reintroducing history to the violence, the book begins by tracing the broad contours of the relationship between nation-state modernity and violence. Mamdani rejects violence as a pre-modern phenomenon, asserting instead that there is an inextricable relationship between violence and modernity.³ This is the book’s central theoretical framework: violence is political, not cultural.