social justice

Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas

tina — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Of the many things I accomplished in high school, “leading a political uprising” was suspiciously absent. Yet around the world, teenage girls are organizing their own social revolutions, a trend largely undocumented and unanalyzed before Jessica Taft’s Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas.

Taft’s interviews with teenage women engaged in progressive social justice work in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Mexico City, the San Francisco Bay area, and Vancouver reveals scores of young women active in sophisticated community organizing and creative political protests. These are girls shutting down their school systems to combat harassment; hosting workshops on challenging white supremacy; and railing against toxic waste facilities poisoning their communities.

Rebel Girls isn’t a critique of the culture of girlhood—a blossoming field dedicated to analyzing the psychosocial experiences of teenage women as they develop. Instead, Taft investigates young women engaged in social activism (either through community organizations or through their own initiatives) – a group whose power and accomplishments have been relatively ignored by the broader social justice movement. Taft not only recognizes this, but seeks to rectify it by placing the voices of the girls front and center in her research, creating a book that is simultaneously captivating and insightful.

It would be easy to stereotype the girls’ work based on their identities as teenagers or as young women. Taft astutely resists the temptation. For example, an interview with two Buenos Aires women building a community center examines how gender influences the women’s political work, but does not stray into potentially counterproductive stereotypes about girls. Observations that many of the girls featured strove to make politics “fun” does not smack of derision; rather, Taft places the girls’ “pleasurable politics” in the context of social justice movements throughout history.

The fact that teenagers are largely excluded from the standard markers of political engagement—being able to vote and run for office—colors their engagement as well as their political philosophies. The girls Taft interviews have largely circumvented these political avenues in favor of more direct and in many instances, more transformative social work. While Taft notes that ignoring the macro-level influences at the root of injustice may hinder lasting social change, her reluctance to investigate this further is one of very few weak points in Rebel Girls.

Through her meticulous interviews interwoven with historical background, Taft presents a work that is both a rigorous academic analysis and a thoughtful portrait of the intimate details of these women’s work.

Written by: Gwen Emmons, February 24th 2011

Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship

farhana — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Nathalie Lebon, Elizabeth Maier

Rutgers University Press

One of the aims of the groundbreaking work Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean is the diffusion of the ideas of these mostly Latin-American scholars to a larger audience, thus the original 2006 Spanish-language volume’s translation and subsequent adaptation and expansion into English.

However, it seems contradictory to the spirit of the project to start reviewing it without mentioning the authors here. Besides excellent introductory essays by the editors listed above, this tome includes articles by the following Latin American and Caribbean academics who, for the most part, have been conscientiously translated from the original language: Myriam Merlet, Graciela di Marco, Norma Mogrovejo, Montserrat Sagot, María Luisa Tarrés, and Morena Herrera. The volume also includes interviews done by Graciela di Marco, and articles by scholars such as Karen Kampwirth, Ana Lorena Carrillo, Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Kia Lily Caldwell, Mercedes Prieto, Andrea Pequeño, Clorinda Cominao, Alejandra Flores, Gina Maldonado, Cathy A. Rakowski, Gioconda Espina, Fiona MacAulay, Marysa Navarro, María Consuelo Mejía, Virginia Vargas, Marta Núñez Sarmiento, Helen Safa, Alice Colón, and Sara Poggio.

The foreword by Sonia E. Alvarez sums up succinctly why this book is so important to those of us studying questions of gender and activism in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to her reading, it is “brimming with compelling conceptual innovations, fresh empirical insights, and provocative political analysis, setting new parameters for future studies of feminist and other social movements in politics” in the region. There is no denying her expert judgment. However, the fact that this study provides a voice for the women listed above is what brings the innovative aspect, since many of these women have now been working in their respective countries for years in their own languages. Instead of all the “old regulars” working in the field in what the editors refer to as the Global North, this volume allows for an “inside look” into some (an infinite part, unfortunately) of the research that is ongoing in this region, at the same time as it allows for contrasting and/or other voices to come fill its pages. This achievement must be celebrated. Thus, for example, Graciela di Marco provides a voice for founding members of the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Nora Cortiñas and Estela Carlotto, more than thirty years into their continued battle.

Although some countries’ movements are still not included in this type of volume (Bolivia, Panama, and Honduras come to mind), the attempt made to be as inclusive as possible is one which is on the right track with making visible research on gender-based issues, especially with regard to race, religion, sexual preferences and social classes. However, there is no way to ignore the magnitude of providing a space to the women’s indigenous groups from Ecuador (for example), given that they have only had the right to vote in their own countries for less than forty years. And, significantly, this is what this volume is about- taking a larger look at women’s activism in the region and appreciating the scope of what has advanced in the past years for the very diverse women’s movement, given the ebb and flow of the political, social and economic circumstances in the world.

Regrettably, the situation has actually gone backwards in some countries such as Nicaragua where the women’s movement has suffered significant losses in the past years, as Kampwirth argues in her chapter, especially with the still controversial therapeutic abortion debate which has been ongoing in the country. While some countries have moved from what were seemingly viable feminist movements towards what Kampwirth deems as “antifeminism” or backlash movements, some are only experiencing nascent incursions into this activist domain (what Lebon fittingly calls “activism with unexpected actors”) and still reject the “feminist” label.

Among the twenty excellent chapters, of particular note in the volume, given last January’s earthquake and more recent cholera outbreak in Haiti, is Myriam Merlet’s article on women’s citizenship in that country. It provides a remarkable glimpse into the leaps and bounds that were being made by women leading up to this disaster and, perhaps, provides some inherent insight into how some of the country’s problems could eventually be resolved from within.

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, January 11th 2011

12th Annual Allied Media Conference (6/18 - 6/20/2010)

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Wayne State University

Detroit, Michigan

This weekend I attended my favorite conference: the Allied Media Conference (AMC) in Detroit. This year was way more subdued than the last two years I’ve attended. There were fewer people of color present; I didn’t go to very many sessions; I was on my period, feeling real low energy; and it was still amazing and transformative, and once again reminded me of what I’m here to do in this world. Even with its challenges, the AMC is the kind of conference that has me checking the calendar to make sure I’ve got it on deck for next year.

The most powerful part of the conference for me was being connected to the Creating Collective Access folks, organized in less than a month by some of the fiercest people I know. I was reminded how conferences themselves create a non-sustainable way of folks relating to each other, to themselves, and to their own needs. On some days the conference schedule was filled from 8am-2am. Being connected to the Collective Access folks allowed me to give myself permission to chill, to not push through exhaustion and inattentiveness to be at every session, and to not sacrifice a really good slow conversation to make it to a panel presentation on listening. I felt more in my body, more aware of my needs.

Creating Collective Access also had me questioning what collective space looks like and what to do when access may be so different for different people. I went to one of the sessions that was part of the Indigenous Media and Technology track, and the presenters were using smoke as a tool in the workshop. I was thinking about folks with disabilities that need scent-free spaces and how you hold those things together or, if you can’t, what do you do? Are we willing to do what it takes to create or use tools to share across real boundaries?

I was amazed by Adrienne Marie Brown’s Octavia Butler Symposium, people’s overwhelming interest as well as her awesome awesome facilitation skills. Adrienne is so fierce she had the notes up later that day! I was once again struck by folks' reluctance, and perhaps inability, to talk about trauma in our movement and how we heal or don’t from all these –isms that impact our lives.

I feel softer now, and sharper at the same time. I am refined and focused, recommitted to kindness with direction, and more prepared to speak up as an ally for the disability justice movement and the rights of indigenous peoples. I’m full and content and feel myself coming into a new era of myself. I’m hopeful and it feels really good.

Cross-posted at Crunk Feminist Collective

Written by: Moya Bailey, July 21st 2010

The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Maurice Hamington

University of Illinois

Personally, what’s best about The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams by Maurice Hamington is something he left out. His focus stays on Addams’s political and philosophical thought with absolutely no mention of her having had, as I do, a twisted spine.

When my condition had just been detected, my eighth-grade health teacher singled me out to write a report on Jane Addams. My classmates got to choose. I was mortified. I had already read a children’s biography of Addams several years previously—subtitled “Little Lame Girl” if I remember correctly—before my scoliosis was noticeable or even present. I wanted nothing to do with Addams or Hull House. I had aspired to be Miss America. I didn’t want a role model for living with a crooked back; I wanted a straight back.

Today, reading a book about someone’s ideas, especially a woman’s ideas, offers a corrective to the current emphasis on “narrative” and “story” that even those who have normal spines can appreciate. Hamington’s biographical “overview” is a scant three pages, though for a figure like Addams, the “personal” is very much intertwined with the “political.” The first half of the book recounts her influences, writings, and unique contribution to philosophy (here Hamington lays out his argument that Addams is a philosopher in the line of American pragmatists and a feminist); and the second is devoted to the issues and subjects she wrote about.

To most of us, Addams is associated with Hull House, to my mind, unfortunately relegated to history as a museum and the settlement house movement. Social work, not philosophy—or even politics—would be the second identifier to come to mind. Sexism, argues Hamington, was what caused Addams to be omitted from the pantheon of American pragmatists and relegated to her position outside academia. William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead, who were influenced by and influenced Addams, were all professors. The author notes that although Addams acknowledged their influence on her work, the reverse was not true. Hamington, who supplies an impressive scholarly apparatus, partly excuses them with the comment: “Writers of the era were less meticulous about attribution than they are today.”

Feminists of a certain age who remember the outing of Addams in the 1970s will find little gossip about lesbianism, but they will find the Hull House culture cast as a prototype of what would be called “women’s space.” Not a separatist, Addams had friends of both sexes (and from all classes) and was much a part of the Progressive movement (1890-1920). Although claims are made about her construct of “lateral progress,” i.e., progress for everyone, as “radical” thinking, I suspect her emphasis on looking at things from all points of view would strike most as rather reformist. In a similar vein, she made important contributions to education, most especially adult education.

As for Addams’s place in feminism, Hamington tests Addams’s positions against a long array of feminisms, and ends up with “cultural” and proclaims her “prefigurative” of today’s more theoretical feminism. Her pacifist stand against American entry into World War I didn’t get Addams deported as Emma Goldman’s opposition did her. After all, Addams was the daughter of an Illinois state senator who corresponded with Abraham Lincoln. Still, this stand brought on bad press and considerably reduced her influence.

Hardly the avid fan of Jane Addams that Hamington is, I have come to value her and her work as I have learned to live with a spinal deformity and participated in social movements. I now more fully recognize the benefits of settlements to those reformers drawn to them as well as the neighborhood people they serve. These settlements, more than 400 of them at their peak, gave activists a direct encounter with the social needs embodied in real people, not “target populations.” This is something too often lacking in the staff of antipoverty, anti-hunger advocacy nonprofits administering services from distant downtown offices. May Hamington’s effort to enhance the legacy of Addams help move her heirs in the direction she championed.

Written by: Frances Chapman, February 22nd 2010

Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:02:00 +0000

Edited by Annice Jacoby

Abrams Publisher

I have to admit: laziness compelled me to review this book. It is, after all, a book on murals, containing over 500 illustrations. How difficult could that be? Plus, I spent one month in 2002 as an intern at the Women’s Building in San Francisco’s Mission District. The Women’s Building is aglow with a brightly colored mural of women, hovering powerfully over the sidewalks. I had also gone on the Precipita Eyes mural tour. I had some sense of what to expect then. I had no idea, however, that I would devour Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, text and all, from the first page to the last.

I had another misconception about this book: What could possibly be the feminist angle in a book on murals? I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find some feminist perspectives weaved, albeit in small amounts, throughout the book. For example, some of the women painted murals to teach children where food came from, and this contrasted with the male-centered murals dominating the District. The book also shared stories of how women got taunted for climbing scaffolding and how the artists of the Maestrapeace on the Women’s Building painted without any safety equipment, due to financial constraints.

However, the main gist of the book is the rebellious yet incredibly expressive quality of graffiti, pop art, cartoons, stencils and murals. Despite police harassment of graffiti artists, corporate control of billboards and wall space, and capitalism in the art world, the artists of the Mission District stand firm, fight back even, in their own distinctive ways. They fight back against issues such as imperialism, ignorance, capitalism, racism, sexism, etc. The residents also deal with issues of an unjust criminal justice system, immigration issues and gentrification through their public art. Drawing and painting offered an expressive outlet with far-reaching effects like community building, an alternative to violence and an opportunity to raise awareness—in their own voices.

The book is 304 pages, which covers over three decades of street art. It’s written by over twenty activists and artists, including a foreword by Carlos Santana, who grew up in the District. I came away from reading this book with a renewed interest in public art and a better appreciation for graffiti artists. I bet this book will pleasantly surprise readers, especially those interested in the mix of art and social justice issues.

Written by: Joan Dawson, November 4th 2009

Chesapeake Necklace

admin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 10:33:00 +0000

By Moonrise Jewelry

Moonrise Jewelry had me at hello. The woman-owned and operated, Virginia-based, eco-friendly company doesn't simply produce amazing jewelry; they "design, manufacture, and sell high-quality handmade jewelry while adhering to values that contribute to a stronger and healthier global community." Are you in love yet? Because it gets better.

Meredith Restein runs her business using raw and recycled materials gained from Fair Trade and ethical vendors for whom community economic development is a priority, and whose employees work in safe and healthy conditions and are provided with fair wages and labor standards. She insists on supply chain transparency to ensure the legality of all international transactions, and to maintain an ethical and sustainable business practice. When possible, Moonrise keeps production local to stimulate the rural Virginia economy, as well. And if that weren't enough, the company courts philanthropic partnerships to whom they give monetary and in-kind donations. Head over heals now, aren't you?

Delivered in a royal purple box with a metallic pink Moonrise Jewelry logo on the lid that was wrapped with a single, sage green ribbon tied in a bow, the initial presentation of the Chesapeake Necklace was stellar. The round pendant cast in 100% recycled silver is hand carved in a way that resembles ocean waves, which gives the delicate piece a sense of movement. The sterling silver chain with a ring clasp is available in multiple lengths—16", 18", or 20"—and the pendent is attached in an unconventional fashion by looping the chain through the intentionally off-center hole in the pendant. While the price tag ($78) might be off-putting, go re-read those first two paragraphs and remember that cheap usually equals exploitative.

The Chesapeake Necklace has become my FN2 (favorite necklace for now). It's simple enough to be casual, elegant, or sexy—not that the three are mutually exclusive. The Chesapeake also has mass appeal, as both my mom, my sister, and my best friend were all keen to relieve me of the piece, and weren't shy about making this known. Good thing they're all on the other side of the world now, or I'd have to be making frequent paranoid checks of my jewelry box, especially since this necklace has since sold out! No worries, though, there are plenty more to choose from.

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, September 6th 2009

In and Out of the Working Class

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:30:00 +0000

By Michael D. Yates

Arbeiter Ring Publishing

To be perfectly honest, I have not read any of Michael Yates’ other work, and only know his name as a radical economist. I was interested in In and Out of the Working Class to see how he would turn his lens of analysis on his own life, in hopes that he would not only tell his own story, but illuminate the world that we all inhabit. This reading of the personal as political is an important part of feminist writings, and I was curious how Yates, as a radical economist, would present the personal.

Yates succeeds in using an economic lens to place his own life within the capitalist class system. He traces his family’s history as immigrants, workers in western Pennsylvania’s factory and mining towns, and his trajectory towards academia. While Yates' stories of unionization, poverty, and the travails of youth point us toward an understanding of his own class position and politicization, his writing tends toward the nostalgic.

What I took away from Yates’ many stories—most non-fiction, with a few fictional narratives thrown in—was a determination to reinvigorate class struggle in America. I appreciated his attention to the differences and similarities of work in factories and work in universities, drawn out in a useful and coherent manner. Yates never loses his sense of purpose in helping the reader come to an understanding of all kinds of work as part of the same capitalist system, which he paints so clearly as unjust.

Yates’ purpose, however, falls short of bringing new and exciting ways of understanding work, class, and poverty. His autobiography feels, at times, self-indulgent; I remain unconvinced that his story is the one that we all need to read. At the same time, for those well acquainted with Yates' work, it may be of interest. I found it more useful as a model for what we each could do to examine our own lives and role in movements for economic justice.

Written by: Katrina Forman, August 17th 2009

The Ursula Franklin Reader: Pacifism as a Map

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:40:00 +0000

By Ursula M. Franklin, Michelle Swenarchuk

Between The Lines

Within the world of Ursula Franklin’s essays, idealism is not naïve, but an appropriate manifestation of consistent ethics. While deeply optimistic about the possibilities for social change, the writings of this Canadian scholar-scientist point out the dangers of settling for less than a total transformation of our social structures. She calls us not only to stand by our beliefs, but also to get more creative in how we live our beliefs.

In 1949, Franklin immigrated to Canada from Germany, where she had received her Ph.D. in experimental physics. From the beginning of her career, she was committed to the use of science for peace, and as the first female professor of science at the University of Toronto, she acutely felt the need for gender equity.

Pacifism comprises the solid foundation of Franklin’s thinking. Her commitment to pacifism is rooted both in her religious beliefs—she is a Quaker—and the sure knowledge that the means used will shape the outcome. The book includes a thorough description of the religious basis for pacifism among members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which will be helpful to readers. The imperatives of pacifism do not apply only to the religious, but for all citizens concerned with true justice.

The essays in this volume, written over more than twenty-five years, outline pacifism as a stance that requires actively working to transform the causes of war. This entails not only refusing to take up arms, but also—and more profoundly—transforming the view of the world that allows some to be called “enemies.” The result is a call for creative, prophetic rethinking of social structures and policies. Prescriptive solutions are not offered, perhaps due to Franklin’s strong belief in local solutions that grow out of genuine community and solidarity.

In her writing, Franklin stresses the importance of examining the means used to achieve social change—or any objective. Hierarchical, imperial approaches will not result in equality, nor can violence lead to nonviolent societies. Her focus on process becomes countercultural when addressing the “us versus them” mentality that dominates not only our governments, but also our cultures, where the global marketplace overwhelms local economies.

Franklin defines peace as the presence of justice and the absence of fear. Significantly, the absence of fear is not limited to fear of attack by an external “enemy,” but includes the fear of economic insecurity that comes from lack of access to food, shelter, and dignified work. She highlights the “interdependence of security”—in other words, there cannot be security for one nation without security for all, and there cannot be peace for one nation without peace for all. As she writes, “Life is not a football match; problems are not resolved by winning.”

As a scholar, Franklin has written extensively on the social challenges of technology. Part of her deep concern for technology lies in the cultural shift away from positive technologies (such as the ways of artisans) and toward mechanistic technologies that take power away from ordinary people. Like philosopher Jacques Ellul and activist Vandana Shiva, she asks that we consider how a given technology affects the common good and the pursuit of justice.

This challenging and inspiring collection of essays offers an invitation to be creative participants in our local and global communities, working for the common good while insisting that our governments do likewise.

Written by: Lisa Rand, August 14th 2009

The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:46:00 +0000

By Fanny Howe

Graywolf Press

Fanny Howe’s ostensible concern in The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation is the origin and nature of her writing life. Poet, novelist, and essayist of distinction, Howe also engages her familiar themes of mysticism, art making, and social justice, as well as her familiar backdrops of Boston and Ireland, with her signature catholicity.

In the two anchoring essays of the collection, which is Howe’s second work of lyrical nonfiction, she explores the origins of her work through bits of straight autobiography (childhood and adolescence in “Branches,” adolescence and adulthood in “Person, Place, Time”) interwoven with meditations on the works and (often famous) friendships that have influenced her. These two lengthy essays are refreshingly offset by several brief pieces, including the terse, brilliant “America,” a meditation on social injustice and spirituality (two pages); the glitteringly weird “The Land of Dreams,” a meditation on Jesus (one-and-a-half pages); and the gorgeous “Evocation,” a tiny slice of memoir made more sensuous by its subtle, tannic bite (four pages).

A mid-length essay, "Waters Wide," brings us from narrative of Howe's history into her present tense and recent past, moving with an easy clarity through meditations on the natures of time and language, writing as work as prayer, and qualities of transreligeous experience. There is an intimacy in this piece that is often lacking in "Branches" and "Person, Place, Time" which have their strengths in reading as cultural and political histories as well as personal ones.

Throughout The Winter Sun, Howe employs a prose form that has drawn accurate comparisons to collage. While these essays are rich in content, readers new to Howe may find her idiom taxing in the collection’s two longest pieces, where her narrative can become so broadly associative as to suggest evasion. Fortunately, neophytes to Howe have her extensive canon from which to draw if __The Winter Sun_ proves a mixed first meeting, while veteran converts will likely find it a fluid addition to her body of work.

Written by: Kaja Katamay, May 20th 2009

Slumdog Millionaire (or I Want to Sue the Indian Government: Memories of Gods, Lovers, and Slumdogs)

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Directed by Danny Boyle

Fox Searchlight Pictures

An old Native American curse goes like this, “May all your dreams come true!”

For many years, I had a dream; I wanted very badly to visit mysterious India. Last month my wish unexpectedly came true. Forbidden Sun Dance, my most recent documentary, was selected to compete in the Tri-Continental Human Rights Film Festival in India. This was a great opportunity to discover the land of my dreams.

While on tour with the festival, I was invited to watch Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire in a fancy movie theatre in the dazzling and enormous city of Mumbai by a lovely Bollywood moviemaking couple.

I had never seen such a theatre anywhere in North America! For double the ticket price, you get a seat in which you can actually lie down! Superbly comfortable, they were a bit like those huge massage chairs that I had seen in shopping malls in Canada.

I felt very strange sitting in that chair, munching on popcorn and watching not a fantasy-filled Bollywood movie, but a somewhat more realistic portrayal of life in India...

Bollywood – My Childhood Love

As a little girl growing up in Iran, and like millions of others living in Eastern countries, I loved Bollywood movies. They were all colour and glamour and rosy pictures of India, that heaven on earth; the country of love and flowers.

In my childish imagination, Bollywood’s India was the best place on the planet to live and be in love. For hours, my cousins and I would sit watching Bollywood movies and later try to imitate those gorgeous Indian actresses.

We would draw moles between our eyebrows and put on lots of makeup stolen from our mothers. We would wrap Granny’s colourful hijab around our bodies and pretend it was a sari while dancing along with the actresses and lip syncing all the songs that we knew by heart without understanding more than few words!

We all wanted to steal the heart of the main actor, Amitabh Bachchan. He was the most gorgeous man ever: tall, handsome, and an amazing dancer, he was our superbly passionate romantic hero who would do anything for love and justice—at the same time! A true prince charming. I would have done anything (and I mean anything) to get his attention if he ever showed up in my neighbourhood in Tehran!

In that way, I was just like little Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire.

The end of happiness

Our happy days didn’t last long. The new Islamic regime in Iran robbed us of our childhood joys and fantasies. For girls to sing and dance became a crime against humanity, akin to adultery. Being seen to be in love, like those pretty Bollywood actresses, was to risk being stoned to death in the name of their angry and misogynist god.

Although owning a video player was a crime with a harsh punishment, we continued to keep our player and watch Bollywood movies in our basements. But this couldn’t help us to forget the cruel realities taking place outside our doors. Thousands of young Iranian revolutionaries were massacred by the new Islamic regime, which conducted a never-ending war with neighbouring Iraq, using the war as a tool to quell internal political dissent.

My childhood became nothing more than blood and hopelessness. Even Bollywood movies were powerless to bring the colour back to the dark reality that Iran had become.

I wanted a way out, something to offer the hope and fantasy that a lost teenager like me craved. Again India came through, this time with books not movies, and with a rational for what we went through. Apparently, this was our karma. We should not complain; we should accept the life that we had and be thankful in order to come back in a better situation, for instance in Switzerland or even the India as we pictured it from Bollywood movies.

I envied Indians, with their hundreds of gods. But they were more than happy to offer them to the world even a hopeless Iranian teenage girl like me. I could actually choose to believe or worship whatever god I wanted. To my surprise, the Indian gods could not change my life; they only could help me to live it more happily by changing my thoughts! In the darkness that was Iran, I was looking for a god who was less furious and violent than the one imposed on us by force after the 1979 revolution, the god of lashing, killing, stoning, war and absolute control over all, especially the guiltiest—women!

I longed to discover a happier god, a less harmful god, a god with more forgiveness and compassion. Above all, I longed for the god who would let us sing and dance—so I chose Krishna. After all, a god who would steal butter as a child couldn’t be so hard on others, right? So I chanted for Krishna: hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare. Unfortunately our relationship didn’t last long; Krishna seemed simple to follow at first, but was too restrictive for women, even more restrict than the god at home to whom granny would pray three times a day.

As I flowered into a young woman, I found an Indian guru named Osho whose philosophies amazed me. The sexual liberty that he encouraged his followers to experience in the name of spirituality would attract any young woman living in a restricted Muslim country!

Then along came Buddha, a very popular figure with my generation. The Buddha’s philosophy was to meditate to find both internal and external peace, even while living in a violent society. My friends adored him, but I always had my reservations. Experiencing inner and outer peace in a country that hanged people in front of us on the way back from school simply wasn’t an option for me. Buddhism was too hard to understand or practice during the violent, horrifying times we were experiencing in Iran.

No, Buddha wouldn’t work for me. I couldn’t accept the misery that I had been living in for most of my life in exchange for the hope for a better life in my next body.

Losing Faith in All My Lovers

Sadly, I was losing my faith in the Indian gods. I felt like they were old lovers. I still liked to carry their pictures and had a wish to meet them in India one day, but I could not follow them anymore. We were too different, we had grown apart, and our paths were no longer the same.

I needed to get out, to have some space, to leave my childhood neighbourhood behind. The place that I had lived for so many years, the place where I had my dreams and thoughts about Amitabh Bachchan, Krishna, Osho, and Buddha for many nights, no longer felt like my home...

Finding Them in a New Home

I was surprised to find out how popular Eastern spirituality was among the middle- and upper classes in Western countries, including the country that I entered as a refugee: Canada. The lost generation found themselves in a modern, hectic world, and were critical of churches. This generation was looking towards the unknown for answers, looking for the devil they didn’t know to replace the one they knew. No doubt the countless Indian gods provided a rich buffet of choice for Westerners with wide-ranging appetites who loved to keep their "options open".

Most of my Canadian friends, and even some Iranian old leftists, would follow some new age spiritual path, god, guru or lama. They would always report a flawless image of their newfound system of old Eastern beliefs. Hundreds of dollars would be spent buying books, going to retreats and workshops, and attending the speeches of a guru or lama visiting from India who were willing to receive their offerings. Generous donations would be made for building a new ashram or temple under the names of their masters somewhere in their own city or back in the motherland. Of course, the structure had to be better and more glamorous than those consecrated to competing deities.

In all honesty, I have always been very impressed by Indians. Their brain really works in any area that they focus; perhaps it’s something in their tasty spicy food! What is clear is that they have succeeded well at selling their gods, gurus, and lamas to Westerners as they have been in selling Bollywood pictures to Easterners for generations. But I had my own confusions about India. Exposed for years to India through their successful movie marketing and convincing spirituality, I always thought that there must be more to the land of my dreams than that—a real India to discover with my own eyes.

Arriving in My Land of Dreams

Leaving the crowded Delhi airport, which had been placed on a high security alert after the terrorist attacks of a few days previously, the first thing which struck me was all the poverty that I saw. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Hundreds of people living on the streets of Delhi; babies crawling dusty roads, eating garbage alongside of dogs, cats, and cows, and ignored by ordinary people who would walk right by them pretending they didn’t exist.

No Escape from Reality

Delhi was nightmare become reality; there was no escape. Unlike many other countries where you would see poverty only in ghettos, the poor in India are everywhere. Slums full of people exist even within the wealthy neighbourhoods. There was not a moment I was able to pretend that the poor didn’t exist, except places like the unbelievably beautiful academic buildings built during British colonial era or the Western-style shopping malls and restaurants where the poor are not allowed to enter. Even there, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see them. The poor were with me and I couldn’t ignore their presence even for a moment.

It’s not that I was completely naive before going to India. Deepa Mehta’s Elements trilogy Trilogy had introduced me to the terrible poverty, the inhumane discrimination against women, the injustice, the hypocrisy, and the corruption. But what I encountered in person was beyond what I had seen in my wildest imaginings.

A sad smile would attract many children, each begging with those beautiful eyes for some mercy. I have never felt more hopeless, and in those moments I began to understand why tourists are advised to totally ignore the people on the street. But the warnings always said it was about safety—tourists needed to be ‘safe.’

Safe? These homeless children were the safest people I have ever known. They just seemed so dehumanised and hopeless, exactly like me standing before them. They were kind, harmless, and polite. They would see my camera and were more than happy to pose for a few meagre rupees without me even asking. Their lives seemed so totally integrated with Bollywood that their reality became shaped by it.

Feeding the Temple, Forgetting the Kids

I went to a small village in Rajasthan where they were building more than seven new ashrams a short distance from each other. I couldn’t imagine how much money would be spent on those gardens and buildings and on the enormous statutes of Buddha, Shiva, or any of the other Indian gods that would stand in the front of the buildings.

I asked, and received some answers. These temples were mostly being built and paid for by Indian spiritual leaders living in Western countries using donations from their follower’s pockets.

I visited Iskan, the Hare Krishna temple to see just a few aged Western devotees chanting. Apparently the Hare Krishnas are not as popular now as during their heyday in the '60s and '70s when The Beatles had turned to them. Buddha is all the rage now in the West. Krishna has become an old fashioned, hippie god.

Many poor Indians chanted—hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare—outside the temple, hoping to attract some rich tourist’s sympathy—and perhaps a few spare rupees. It was hurtful and shameful to read the thoughts so clearly reflected in their eyes: “Yes, you are here on a pilgrimage to find your Indian god, but I also exist in India. Please make a donation here in my bowl, and I will promise to pray on behalf of you to any of my gods that you ask. Hare Krishna!”

I couldn’t understand why, in a country where thousands of temples already exist in all different sizes, shapes, and forms, there is need for Westerners to build more temples? Could these spiritual fanatics not see all this poverty? Did they believe that they could worship these new gods from within a safe Western bubble while ignoring the people on the streets who also believe in and worship the same god? What about building schools for the millions of street kids? Or how about providing shelters for the people who are born and die in the dirt of your newfound holy land?

I always knew there was poverty in India, but I naively thought that with the huge amount of money pouring in from all over the world through the spiritual tourist market and from Bollywood into a booming and wealthy city like Mumbai (which apparently has the most millionaires on the planet) more would have been done for the poor.

Ghandi vs. Mao?

I met an Indian businessman who had traveled all over the world, but was based in China. He strangely thought that Ghandi’s democracy had done more wrong that good for India.

I fought back. I think what Ghandi had done for this country no guru, lama, or contemporary communist dictator could do—so maybe India needs another Ghandi rather than a Chinese dictator. The businessman continued to compare his country to China and decided that the Chinese had dealt with poverty better than India ever had. He used the 2008 Olympics (China had put all the poor behind a wall), as an example.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! He was suggesting that the poor should be kept behind walls to protect tourists from exposure to the reality of misery. In a country with eighty percent its population in poverty, the government would have a hell of a job building enough walls to contain them all. Of course, this would have the benefit of leaving lots of space for the minority of privileged Indians, Bollywood stars, the wealthiest of the Zoroastrian Parsis, and of course, foreigners on spiritual pilgrimages or working for NGOs while living in five-star hotels.

I thought the only thing that India might learn from the Chinese would be to change their strict adoption laws so that the thousands of childless Westerners who are in line to receive a baby from China could adopt children from the streets of Delhi instead, and give them the love that they deserve.

I Want to Sue the Indian Government

Visiting the real India, not the one you see in tourist ads at your travel agency’s office, shattered my fantasies of the mysterious country I had always dreamed of one day visiting.

Who is responsible for the injustice that is India? Is it Bollywood, for producing distorted fantasy images for the world? India’s spiritual leaders who deceive millions of ingenuous westerners? Tourist agencies with their mind blowing exotic ads?

No, it is more likely the fault of the Indian government that tolerates savage injustice and disparity of wealth. Would it be possible, I fantasize, to sue the government of India on behalf of the millions of Indian street children who receive nothing from all the fame and wealth that India receives and enjoys? Could I seek a remedy before some court requiring those who control of the amazing, sacred land of India and who exploit it for their personal interest must share the wealth by actually contributing to India’s infrastructure and the health of its people? Surely, a country of such wealth and international fame can do something to address the abysmal poverty that surely has shocked more than one visitor into a helpless, suicidal funk.

India: the Beauty Within

I saw many beautiful things in India. I experienced real multiculturalism. Millions of different cultures and religions live and work together, while most countries in the region persecute minorities and permit no freedom of religion.

I witnessed democracy and freedom of speech at work when I saw a disabled person make a claim against the film festival in which I was participating for selecting a wheelchair unfriendly building in which to show the films. His claims caused the cancelation of the festival in the city of Goa, one of the five cities to which the festival would have traveled. It was somewhat ironic that in a country populated by millions of disabled poor living on the streets, one privileged and high-caste man could stop a highly organized human rights event.

I met some of the most amazing, generous, and peaceful people that I had ever met anywhere. I met hardworking, critical, but hopeful women activists and artists with a passion for justice that I rarely see. I met village women who would work hard on farms or in brick factories, while also making beautiful handicrafts in the hope that tourists would buy them.

There were the young, promising, intelligent Indian college students who harboured great dreams for their country and rest of the world. Some talked to me about their concerns about hostility with neighbouring Pakistan. They were worried about the possibility of war between people who one day could belong to the same land; they were disappointed with a corrupt government that is more concerned with building a war machine than with fighting poverty.

Seeing Forgotten Slum Children, But Not a Slumdog Millionaire

After a few days in India, I was sad to conclude that Slumdog Millionaire portrays an India much closer to the real thing than my childhood Bollywood movies represented. Even the theatre in which I watched Danny Boyle’s film seemed to exist in a surreal and glamorous Bollywood neighbourhood that was completely outside of the orbit of India’s reality. For me, although *Slumdog Millionaire's images were closer to reality, the rags-to-riches storyline was wildly improbable for any of the millions of India’s slum-dwelling girls and boys.

In a society of caste hierarchies that have deadly effect on the 'untouchables’—the absolute lowest caste who mostly live on the street—making a superstar out of a street urchin and providing him with a happy ending was copied from the Hollywood-Bollywood models, a fantasy provided by the same image-making machine that has always fed like a parasite on human hope for love, equality, and fairness. Yet I am still pleased with the film since it actually happened in a real Indian city and not in some surreal Bollywood set that most would think to be India.

Not-Happy-Ending to My Love Story

My best friend from Canada, who was visiting her parents in Mumbai, kindly took me around her childhood neighbourhood: the Juhu Beach areas of glamour and fame. We passed by Amitabh Bachchan’s house, the childhood favourite I shared with Slumdog Millionaire's main character. It was Republic Day and a big crowd waited anxiously for the moment when the big star would show up and give autographs to his fans.

I had no desire to meet him in person anymore, feeling I had been fooled enough by his movies as a child. Worse, huge images of him on commercial billboards all over India showed him using his fame to hawk everything from designer suits to Basmati rice, the luxuries that many of his poor fans could never hope to afford, in this life at least.

We have both changed. He is much older now—still handsome, but looking very conservative. There is no sign of the passionate man as I remember him from the old days, the man who would do anything for love and justice. I have also changed. I no longer believe in Prince Charming or the sweet fantasy of India that I used to know through his films.

Written by: Lila Ghobady, March 31st 2009

Ten Things I Hate About Me

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:33:00 +0000

By Randa Abdel-Fattah

Orchard Books

I was excited when the book Does My Head Look Big in This? came out a few years ago. In that book, author Randa Abdel-Fattah tells the story of Amal, a young Australian Muslim woman who decides to wear hijab and navigates the challenges of expressing her identity as an Australian Muslim. Books about young Muslims in the West (a political and not geographic definition, obviously, given that I’m including Australia) aren’t exactly common, so it’s always exciting when these things do come up.

Abdel-Fattah’s second book is Ten Things I Hate About Me. Unlike Amal, Jamilah, the protagonist of this book, works hard to keep her Australian identity separate from her Lebanese-Muslim identity. At school, she is Jamie, and with her bleached hair and coloured contacts–no one knows that she is Arab or Muslim. The novel takes us through the stress and anxiety that Jamilah faces in keeping her culture and religion hidden, and her eventual path towards finding a sense of comfort to be able to express all elements of her identity.

I’ll say right now that this book is not an especially amazing literary work. The plot is interesting but somewhat predictable. (Fair warning: there are some minor spoilers ahead, but nothing that you wouldn’t have guessed yourself while reading the book.) A lot of the characters are fairly one-dimensional and seem to be there just to make a point: Jamilah’s father immigrated to Australia from Lebanon and has a Ph.D., but works as a taxi driver; her sister Shereen wears hijab (often in the form of scarves decorated with political slogans) and spends all her time out at political rallies and other activities related to social justice. (A religious woman in a scarf who’s really active and vocal? Amazing!)

I guess it’s useful to have these characters there as a way of challenging some of the stereotypes that readers may have, but as Melinda wrote about in relation to Does My Head Look Big in This?, sometimes it felt as if the novel was banging us over the head with its attempts to challenge stereotypes. I would have liked to see some of these characters be a bit more subtle and complex.

That said, the novel still raised a lot of themes that are worthy of discussion and reflection. The story begins with a conversation about the anti-Arab riots that happened on Sydney beaches in December 2005, with one of Jamilah’s classmates (himself a Muslim of Arab background) talking about the injuries he received while fighting against the racist mobs. Some students are supportive of him, while others taunt him, suggesting that the people rioting were right; one student, Peter, complains that “Man, you ethnics and Asians are always complaining... Oh, help me! I’m a victim of racism. The white people are out to get me. Get over yourselves!”

These racist remarks (complicated by the fact that Peter is one of the most popular guys in the school and spends a lot of the book flirting with Jamilah) continue throughout the story. I appreciated that Abdel-Fattah didn’t hold back on describing the racism that Jamilah was facing: it’s not simply a story of multiculturalism where everyone is happy and things like racism are an exception to the harmonious norm, but rather a more raw (and, I would argue, more truthful) portrayal of some of the ugly racism that does exist in Western societies. There is also an argument made about Muslims and Arabs being held accountable for the actions of other people from their communities in ways that other groups aren’t: in one conversation with her aunt, Jamilah argues that:

"When those teenage boys gang-raped girls in Sydney, it was the boys’ Lebanese-Muslim background that was put on trial. I went to school and I watched Peter Clarkson cross-examine Ahmed for a crime he did not commit. I read headlines describing the crimes as ‘Middle Eastern rape.’ I’ve never heard of Anglo burglary or Caucasian murder. If an Anglo-Australian commits a crime, the only descriptions we get are the colour of his clothes and hair.”

Along with this is a really honest portrayal of the effect that racism has on Jamilah. To explain why she hides her background at school, she says:

“I don’t have the courage to be up-front about who I am. I’d rather not deal with people wondering if I keep a picture of Osama bin Laden in the shape of a love heart under my pillow. Call me crazy, but I’m also not particularly excited about the prospect of having to stand accused every time somebody who happens to be of Lebanese background commits a crime.”

This silence, however, takes its toll. When she later talks about another moment where Ahmed stands up against racist comments, she reflects that, “The same prejudice and bigotry that silences me, vocalizes him. And even though my silence protects me, I’m the one walking with my head down.” When the aforementioned Peter tells Jamilah (or, perhaps more accurately, Jamie) that he likes that she is not self-absorbed, she thinks to herself, “”News bulletin: I’m not obsessed with the sound of my own voice because I don’t have a voice. I’m stifling it beneath layers of deceit and shame.” Jamilah’s sense of vulnerability and shame is palpable throughout the novel, and conveys a strong message about the personal impact of racism.

Although my own background is very different from Jamilah’s, there were several moments where I felt that I could really identify with her struggles to juggle several elements of her identity that are so often portrayed as exclusive to each other. Even when it’s not about actually hiding our identities, the fact of belonging to multiple communities that are often understood as separate can be complicated and difficult to handle. The extent that Jamilah goes through to keep some aspects of her identity hidden might seem a bit extreme, but the idea of downplaying certain parts of our identity in certain spaces definitely resonates. Add in the social pressure of high school (which, actually, I did find a bit exaggerated in this novel, but it’s relevant nonetheless) and the need to fit in becomes even more intense. As our protagonist says, “The Jamilah in me longs to be respected for who she is, not tolerated and put up with like some bad odour or annoying houseguest. But it takes guts to command that respect and deal with people’s judgements. Being Jamie at school shelters me from confronting all that.”

Her confusion about how to understand her multiple identities comes out in several places throughout the book. I like the way she illustrates the juggling metaphor here:

“All I want is to fit in and be accepted as an Aussie. But I don’t know how to do that when I’m juggling my Lebanese and Muslim background at the same time. It’s not like juggling an orange, and apple, and a banana. They’re all fruit and all fruits are pretty much equal, right? But the way I see it, juggling Aussie and Lebanese and Muslim is like juggling a couch, a mailbox, and a tray of muffins. Completely and utterly incongruous. How can I be three identities in one? It doesn’t work. They’re always at war with one another. If I want to go clubbing, the Muslim in me says it’s wrong and the Lebanese in me panics about bumping into somebody who knows somebody who knows my dad. If I want to go to a Lebanese wedding as the four hundredth guest, the Aussie in me will laugh and wonder why we’re not having civilized cocktails in a function room that seats a maximum of fifty people. if I want to fast during Ramadan, the Aussie in me will think I’m a masochist. I can’t win.”

As the story progresses and Jamilah’s hold on the strict separation of her Australian and Lebanese-Muslim identities beings to weaken, she begins to realise the effect that this separation has had on her and on her relationships to the people around her.

“All I want to know is what place I have in this country I call home. It all comes down to emotional real estate. Finding your place, renovating it as you go along (a haircut here, a university degree there), and having neighbourly relations with other property owners. So far, I’ve figured that dyeing my hair blonde, poking my eyes with contact lenses, and living a lie at school all guarantee me a share in the Australian property market. But I’m starting to realise how empty my bit of ‘place’ is. It’s got no soul. The cosmetics are fantastic and would look great on domain.com. But you can’t smell life. It tastes like stale cookies and sounds like socks on carpet.”

Cheesy? Well, yeah. And perhaps a bit simplistic, given the racism that was discussed earlier. It’s not as if just deciding to be yourself is necessarily going to make for an easy ride. But the sentiment is interesting, the idea that her attempts at self-preservation in fact become a form of self-destruction and self-silencing, and ultimately prove to be unsustainable.

The personal impact of this silence is also strongly felt at points. Since not a single person at her school knows about her religious and cultural background, Jamilah’s friendships at school remain stunted and superficial, prompting this reflection:

“I don’t have a proper relationship with my so-called closest friend. We’re like the two sides of a train track, each comfortable in our parallel existence. We don’t intersect or touch each other. But sometimes you need to collide. You need to crash and make an impact just to feel your friendship is alive. To feel that it’s more than passing notes to each other in class and sharing fries at lunchtime. I don’t have any collision scars from this friendship. And as deliberate as that is, it’s not something I’m proud of.”

The novel also addresses family issues in interesting ways. Jamilah’s father is very strict with her, and much less so with her brother, who goes out clubbing and drinking. Jamilah’s frustration at this double standard is expressed throughout the book. At the same time, she is very conscious of how this could be seen from the outside, and of not wanting to perpetuate a stereotype of Arab Muslim families as inherently sexist and oppressive. When her friend Amy asks if she’ll be coming to a party, she pretends that she’ll be going, because:

“I’m too embarrassed to tell her that my dad won’t let me go. I don’t want her to pigeonhole me as a poor, pitiful, repressed Lebanese girl. I know that my dad’s strictness is cultural and religious, but I also know it has a lot to do with my mother’s death as well, and the fact that he’s bringing us up alone. I don’t understand him. I don’t always agree with him. But I know that I’m not a stereotype and I’ll do everything in my power to protect myself from being seen as one, even if that means lying to my closest friend.”

The “I’m not a stereotype” idea comes up also in her conversations with “John,” an online friend to whom Jamilah has revealed more about her life than she has to her friends at school. When she mentions that she would be “dead meat” if she ever had a boyfriend (and, more importantly, if her father found out), he responds by asking, “Are you serious? Like those honour killings you hear about?” Jamilah’s frustrated response is to tell him, “No, you space cadet. Sheesh, this is why I hate opening up to people about my family! Can’t I be metaphorical without having my dad equated to a Taliban warlord?”

Okay, so the family stuff isn’t exactly subtle. The book is really clearly trying to make a point that families can be conservative and strict without filling the kinds of stereotypes that non-Muslims might expect. Although the lack of subtlety doesn’t make for amazing literature, I do have to say that the point is a good one, and it’s nice to see something that tackles these stereotypes head-on. Moreover, Jamilah is ultimately able to convince her dad to make small concessions: after some persuasion, she is able to get a part-time job, and after much persuasion, she is even able to go to her school’s formal. I think these changes speak louder than the direct points that she makes, since they demonstrate that her family’s rules are not carved in stone, and that restrictions can be resisted from within, without requiring some kind of saviour from the outside. I’m hoping that readers will understand that, by extension, other cultural rules (and resistance to them) can be equally dynamic, even when they seem monolithic and repressive from the outside.

Religion plays a fairly minor role in the story; Jamilah identifies as Muslim, but this isn’t the focus of the novel (this is actually pretty refreshing—someone can be Muslim while also having lots of other dimensions to her life! Who knew?) Various family members demonstrate different levels of religiosity, which is presented as something normal. Even the hijab is—shockingly—not a major issue. Jamilah’s sister wears it, but it is talked about more as a fashion and political statement than a religious one (although it is acknowledged as both.) There are a few more direct conversations about religion (again with obvious points that the author wanted to convey, like when Jamilah’s aunt argues that, “The Koran has been manipulated and abused to exploit women”), but it was nice to see a story about a Muslim girl that didn’t only revolve around the fact that she was Muslim.

I wasn’t thrilled with the cover of the book. The cover features a strip of photos of a girl, alternatively wearing hijab and not wearing it. This annoys me, because although a lot of the book is about Jamilah trying to balance her Muslim-Arab cultural-religious identity with her Australian identity, she never talks about wearing a headscarf. Her Lebanese culture is talked about in terms of music and food, but not at all in terms of hijab, and it’s annoying to see that on the cover as the representative picture of Jamilah’s Lebanese-Muslimness. Moreover, what does this say about the picture where she’s not wearing hijab? Is that the picture where she’s “Australian”? Can’t she have her head uncovered and still be seen as Lebanese and Muslim as well as Australian? If the whole point of the book is to demonstrate that these identities shouldn’t be mutually exclusive of one another, it seems problematic that there is one way to “look” Arab and another way to “look” Australian.

Overall, while it was often trying too hard to make its points, this book was an entertaining read, and an interesting look into the life of a girl trying to balance her cultures and religion, to cope with the racism and sexism that she faces, and to find a space where she feels at home.

Written by: Krista Riley @ MMW, March 17th 2009

Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival

admin — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:39:00 +0000

By João Biehl

Princeton University Press

Ethnographers, novelists, and prisoners write heart-wrenching books because they present simple truths. Will to Live is a powerful, at points searing ethnography of HIV antibody surveillance systems in Brazil and pharmaceutical industry influence in bringing forth new relations of politics and health care. It tells of the bodily suffering of Brazilians who contract, and eventually die from, AIDS - and of those who fear such diagnoses, although they are HIV antibody negative.

It demonstrates the varying degrees of access that Brazilians have to highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) and that track along the fault lines of social structure. That HAART works for many (but not others) or that it comes too late (or too early or is engaged too haltingly) signifies the contradictions and paradoxes of culture and social structure that are usually revealed in epidemics. Although it is filled with positive stories and better outcomes (HAART brings many back from the brink of death), Will to Live is as painful to read as Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ Death Without Weeping, also about Brazil but in context of infant mortality; Paul Farmer’s AIDS and Accusation, also about AIDS but set in Haiti; and Begonia Aretxaga’s Shattering Silence, about Northern Ireland women who deploy their incarcerated bodies and even bodily fluids in political protest.

Will to Live shows that the national and international response to HIV and AIDS has in Brazil “shifted from controlling the epidemic to controlling individualized disease.” “Yes,” the author writes, “distribution programs make antiretroviral therapies accessible, but they are one element in the full treatment of a disease that... remains a matter of a regional politics of nonintervention.” “It’s a shame what is happening to AIDS” is the direct utterance of an otherwise well-intended caregiver, suggesting just how much the cart has been put before the horse and what the public health costs can be of imagining only a pharmaceutical response.

João Biehl is a Brazilian anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University who has a long time studied the conceptualization, implementation and evolution of the Brazilian AIDS Control Program (BACP). Multi-sited in location, multi-method in logistics, multi-voiced in narrative, and multi-purpose in scope, Will to Live unravels and critiques the ways in which NGOs (non-governmental organizations), churches, the Ministry of Health, pharmaceutical industry representatives, gender and sex work activists, and those suffering from HIV or AIDS mounted a “national” response to HIV and AIDS that is anything but. “A central concern of my ethnography,” the author notes, “has been to produce alternative epidemiological evidence and to generate some form of visibility and accountability for the abandoned subjects with AIDS.”

A site of Biehl’s particular focus is Caasah, a part-community house, part-hospice, part-pharmacy, part-training ground in advocacy. Caasah was formed in 1992, “when a group of homeless AIDS patients, former prostitutes, transvestites, and drug users squatted in an abandoned maternity ward in the outskirts of Salvador” and turned it into a care center. He returned to Caasah in 2001 to find a near-complete turnover there of patients and staff and a reorientation of service provision and funding source. As such, Caasah well represents both the protean nature of AIDS and the constraints upon and conditions under which local-level responses to it were mounted.

All but a very few pharmaceutical industry representatives, health authorities, and politicians talk in double-speak. Many exacerbated cleavage between rich and poor, politically visible and not:

As with all things political and economic, the reality underlying the AIDS policy is convoluted, dynamic, and filled with gaps. The politicians involved in the making of the AIDS policy were consciously engaged in projects to reform the relationship between the state and society, as well as the scope of governance, as Brazil molded itself to a global market economy. One of this book’s central arguments is that on the other side of the signifier _model policy _stands a new political economy of pharmaceuticals, with international and national particularities. As NGO activism converged with state policy making, and as the public health paradigm shifted from prevention to treatment access, political rights have moved toward biologically based rights.

Comprising eight chapters including Introduction and Conclusions, Will to Live is equally heavy and light, grim and hopeful, ethnographic and theoretical. The Introduction (“A New World of Health”) bookends painful personal stories and broadly sweeping discussion of the political-economy of pharmaceuticals. Rhetorical and other slippage in the overly optimistic assessments of AIDS bureaucrats and pharmaceutical representatives is revealed in stories of busted aid posts, iatrogenic illness, and social structures that sicken people. Chapter One (“Pharmaceutical Governance”) discusses the complexities of state-local, transnational-NGO and doctor-patient relations. Biehl writes perceptively about the successes of Brazil in manufacturing generic drugs that challenged patent rights granted by the WTO.

The particular successes and failures of Caasah are scattered in discussion throughout the book, but Chapter Two (“Circuits of Care”) looks intently at the new subjectivities (e.g., patient-citizen, “risk group” member, the “worried well”) that arise in social, technical and economic relations brought to bear by HIV, HIV antibody testing and AIDS. The failures of the surveillance system – but also its tremendous promise – are shown acutely in the next chapter, “A Hidden Epidemic,” which reveals the biases in public health and society at large with regards to surveillance, treatment and counseling. Chapter Five, “Patient-Citizenship,” examines the Phoenix-like rise from the ashes of imminent death that has been occasioned in many of those who have responded particularly well to HAART. Many have resumed reasonably normal sexual and political lives relatively free of the anxieties and technoneuroses brought on by the antiretrovirals themselves and the HIV antibody testing and counseling regime. The first section of Chapter Six, “Will to Live,” is appropriately titled “Lifelong AIDS,” for it reveals the stark contours of the limits and promises of a largely biomedical “fix” for what is clearly and also about sickness in the social-structure.

There is little for a reader about which to complain. A quotation is repeated and some Index entries are incorrect, but there are extremely few typos or grammatical infelicities. I want to highlight one particular kind of problem that mars Biehl’s presentation at many points, however. Biehl claims that “Epidemiological surveillance services registered the first HIV/AIDS cases in 1982.” This conflates HIV and AIDS, as he does ad infinitum, and HIV hadn’t yet been identified, either. It doesn’t excuse him to say that everyone else does, too - for real damage is done in such conflation, for example, that “HIVab+” means a death sentence and a rhetorical slide to “AIDS” to “contagious” to social leperhood.

Moreover, “AIDS” had not yet congealed into a biomedical category, either. This leads him at many, many points to confuse cause and effect, vector and pathogen, infection and antibody, for example, when he says that “the homosexual/bisexual mode of transmission accounted for less than thirty percent of the total number of AIDS infections.” Ontologically, epidemiological notions do no counting; epidemiologists do. Logically, “bisexual” mode of transmission (of HIV) has also to mean “heterosexual,” which then must be explained anew for its expanded and more complicated, often hidden properties. Empirically, the “total number of AIDS infections” would multiply the epidemiological categories of “HIV antibody positive” and “AIDS diagnoses” by at least five-fold if not twenty-fold, that is, in terms of pulmonary tuberculosis, cryptosporidium, toxoplasmosis, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, persistent diarrhea, anaemia, and so on. As well, this undercuts the force of Biehl’s informants who rightly point to the endemic state of such infections and problems prior to the arrival of HIV and AIDS. Further, it suggests that these individual infections or pathogens are sexually transmitted and that there are characteristic differences along the lines of sexual identity (i.e., “heterosexual” transmission of this, “homosexual” transmission of that).

The lengthy discussion of subjectivity comprising Chapter Four is difficult to follow and jargony, although its theorization of “technoneurosis” (and elsewhere, of “auto-bioadministration”) is spot-on. Biehl argues from the standpoint of careful analyses of case studies that the “confused and painful experience of Oxygen [the pseudonym of a sick and anxious woman repeatedly testing HIVab negative] was somewhat technically engineered. This testing apparatus played a determinant role in the emergence of a socially visible imaginary AIDS.”

Nevertheless, this and other chapters exemplifies well the Foucaultian thesis that discourse about subjects (in this case, about the technical aspects of an HIV antibody test and about what constitutes “good” and “bad” sex) creates new subjects: the worried well, the sick and the anxious, the promiscuous and the guilt-ridden. The algorithm of HAART adherence is predictable on sociological grounds. “Failures” are on blamed on the individual, not the system; not the social structure; not the lack of housing, food, education, and employment. Nor was the HAART roll-out so universal and stable as its proponents claimed

Laid atop an already struggling public health system, Biehl found that “the universal availability of essential medicines has been subject to changing political winds; treatments are easily stopped, and people have to seek more specialized services in the private health sector or, as many put it, ‘die waiting in overcrowded public services.” The meaning of “primary care” has changed to mean selective targeting of those more likely to live, and triage has replaced universality as a metaphor of coverage. Clients become clinical trial subjects. Treatment trumps prevention. Risk becomes individualized instead of increasingly social. Infection becomes increasingly moral and subject to religious edict. HIV antibody test counselors compete with one another not to be the one to read the positive bands. Social scientific insights are swept aside.

This newest addition to Princeton University’s (In)Formation Series, edited by Paul Rabinow, is a sober but accessible and extremely humane text, just as well constructed as attractively presented. The black-and-white photographs taken by Torben Eskerod are arresting and invite commentary, speculation and, in my case, envy. Around this exciting new work could be wrapped all manner of upper-division or graduate-level courses in anthropology, public health, medicine and even political-economy. Like too many countries and cultures to count, ill-tempered politicians, cynical epidemiologists and overburdened healthcare workers in Brazil have contributed to an official portrait of HIV transmission dynamics, infectious burden and prevention efforts that often bears little resemblance to reality. Once again, the inequalities of social structure get off scot-free. This ethnography is a major contribution to social theory and justice.

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., June 14th 2008

Music for Landing Planes By

admin — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:39:00 +0000

By Éireann Lorsung

Milkweed Editions

Music for Landing Planes By is an intriguing collection of poetry by Éireann Lorsung. Lorsung draws from her experiences studying print making and drawing in Italy and teaching high school in rural France. Her collection of poems is woven together through her thoughtfully crafted verse and repetition of words. Lorsung skillfully comments on broader social issues through her reflections on daily activities.

The collection begins with the poem "Being," which sets the tone and style for the compilation as well as acquaints the reader with Lorsung's view of her life as inspiration for her writing: "every place I've been is on fire with words." And, what a remarkable life she has led. With the maturity and depth of her writing, the reader would not guess that this is Lorsung's debut collection of poetry.

Her craft is at its best in her poems "And Will Be," "Forgetting in Multiple" and "Printmaking." Lorsung's use of enjambment encourages the reader to look at the verse in its entirety and then reflect on the multiple meanings each line offers. Her poems find inspiration in nature and speak of blooming flowers and waiting out the winter thaw like "birds in the thatch." The beauty of Lorsung’s poetry is that you can read her poems over and over and discover something new each time.

Written by: Breanne Reindl, July 15th 2007

The Peace Tree

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:24:00 +0000

Directed by Mitra Sen

Sandalwood Productions

The Peace Tree is a heartwarming, informative movie by producer and director Mitra Sen. There are funny, touching and beautiful moments throughout this compelling movie.

At school, all different religious holidays are discussed and celebrated. I learned about Eid, the Muslim celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. But what happens at home is another story. Old prejudices are difficult to transcend, and parents are reluctant to allow their children to participate in the traditions of other faiths. The persistence and sweetness of two Muslim sisters and their Christian best friend finally win over the cautious parents.

The end of the movie is happy, with the children being honored by the mayor of their town. Despite moments of conflict, nothing bad happens beyond the exchange of a few sharp words. The Peace Tree would be appropriate for the entire family and probably most appreciated by 6 – 10 year olds.

This movie has created a movement: the international celebration of Peace Tree Day. It serves as an introduction to Peace Tree Day and could be useful for any group just beginning to celebrate the holiday.

At times, the dialogue does not ring true, but this movie’s heart is always in the right place. With lively colors, gorgeous clothing, and joyful music, The Peace Tree has a great deal of charm and appeal. It can bring diversity and cultural information to your home during the holidays or any time and encourage respect and unity among all people.

Written by: Laura-Marie Taylor, April 24th 2007

A Simple Distance

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:14:00 +0000

By K. E. Silva

Akashic Books

"All this speaking for others had me losing my own voice," states Jean, the conflicted lesbian attorney with mommy issues in A Simple Distance, K. E. Silva's luscious, tropical/San Francisco novel. In less than 200 rich and delicious pages, Silva layers a bold and romantic tale of family betrayal, lust, politics and the ever-poignant quest for a place one can call home.

Cracked like a coconut, Jean is hard and coarse on the outside, wrapped snugly in her thick skin. Though hidden inside, her sweetness and urge for lasting love and social justice push through her rough exterior. A civil-rights lawyer in San Francisco (are there really any other kind of lawyers in San Francisco?), she is obligated to sacrifice her own beliefs in order to defend her client. Her work life bleeds into her personal life as she finds herself holding her tongue in almost every situation - except when it's dancing in the mouth of a spunky female doctor on the homophobic West Indian island where her family's name is currency. Her secretly illicit love affair, when exposed, shakes the palm trees of the island and challenges her conservative, traditional family to cling to their history or confront the present. Jean's relationship to her mother, to her race, to her job and to her lover are thrust to the forefront as she is forced to not only stay afloat, but navigate through the tumultuous waters of her history.

The novel brings to the surface that triplet of issues: race, class and gender though Silva's deeply drawn characters give a unique voice that screams louder than the politics. Though there are a few moments of cliché, in the end Silva doesn't let anyone off the hook so easily. Her sharp yet ravishing language caresses her story and conjures glorious yet flawed characters swimming in contradictions as they splash through love, prejudice, pride and revenge in their journey to find that place called home.

Written by: Dana Edell, March 22nd 2007