freedom

Afghan Star

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

One of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers, have a lyric in one of their songs claiming, “May you never be embarrassed to sing.” Since viewing Havana Marking’s documentary, Afghan Star, this lyric has been on repeat in my brain, reminding me, as Afghan Star aptly illustrates, if embarrassment is all that we have to risk, then we are risking very little. In her feature length directorial debut, Marking journeys into recently independent Afghanistan to explore the newly created television program Afghan Star. Following four contestants as they compete for the $5,000 prize, Marking exposes the inspiring and passionate citizens of a country shrouded by war, violence, and tyranny.

The film opens with a close-up of two little boys. One, whose face and eyes appear to have been violently damaged, sings sweetly into the camera and when he finishes the other states simply “If there was no singing the world would be silent.” From this point on Afghan Star weaves a complicated narrative that instigates dialogue about the power of having a voice, and the ideologies that determine what voices are heard and by who.

In 1996, the Taliban rule in Afghanistan created a ban on music, dancing, and singing. The ban was lifted in 2004, but as history has taught us all too well, a change in politics doesn’t always result in changing people. Most of those interviewed in the film, from the show’s producers to townspeople, equate singing with freedom; however, the concept of freedom is abstract and intangible. It is defined within the boundaries of Afghan politics and Islamic religion, leaving little room for the inclusion of Western liberties and autonomous behavior.

This is most evident in the subtle, yet disturbing, fulfillment of traditional gender roles. Both of the male contestants whom Marking chooses to focus on are met with great hope and respect by their communities. But when interviewing the families and supporters of the female contestants the responses are overwhelmingly concerned and fearful, or rife with ulterior motives. As the male contestants campaign openly in public and receive adoration from fans, the women are hidden by their burqas, unable to be recognized.

The contradiction is striking, yet the women are complicit and seemingly unaware of their alienation. However, the most drastic display of sexism occurs when Setara, one of the two female finalists and by far the most dynamic of all the contestants, is eliminated. While performing her final song, Setara “dances” on stage while also allowing her head scarf to fall revealing her hair. The result is scorn from her fellow competitors, eviction from her apartment and death threats so fierce and overwhelming, she fears returning to her hometown.

For those of us in the West, Afghan Star presents a thoughtful exploration of the life we so often take for granted: freedom of speech, the privilege of choice, and the unnecessary luxury of television and its star-making programs. But, above all, this film is a riveting reminder of the power, freedom and endless possibilities we hold in our voice and that no matter how we may use it, we must never be embarrassed to sing.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, May 30th 2010

Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Catherine Adams, Elizabeth H. Pleck

Oxford University Press

That the past is never past is nowhere more apparent than in recent debates over efforts to celebrate “Confederate History Month.” Happily, critics responded to the omission of slavery and the suffering it wrought from the latest official commemorations, still and perhaps forevermore marinated in the intoxicating rhetorical liquor of the “Lost Cause.” And so the sobering scholarship of archival scholars such as Catherine Adams and Elizabeth Pleck, drawing on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century legal records, family papers, genealogical studies, and often on the recorded words of enslaved people themselves is an urgently needed remedy.

Love of Freedom is grounded in two observations: that slavery was certainly not exclusively southern—that New England, too, had a terrible legacy of enslaving African people, although the circumstances of slavery in this region were distinctive in many respects. The second starting point is that while the people kidnapped and enslaved in New England were disproportionately male, African women’s experience of slavery and of the complicated legacies of African and colonial American patriarchy were similarly distinctive and should be studied independently.

Foremost, Love of Freedom is a thick description of the legal and social status of slavery in the northeastern American colonies and, as such, will serve as an important resource for anyone doing research in the field. The authors point out that the first kidnapped African people were taken to Boston only six years after its founding. Only five years later, in 1641, the Massachussetts Bay colony had the dubious distinction of becoming the first British colony to codify slavery legally. By 1700, the authors estimate a black population of one thousand, half living in Massachusetts. Fortunately for historians, the legal status of enslaved people, particularly women, seems to have been a source of continual legal challenge. The result is that we have a surprisingly rich record of direct testimony from enslaved women.

Directly from the voices of women such as Hagar Blackmore we get an account of being kidnapped away from her family in Angola, transported to Barbardos, and sold to a wealthy merchant in Cambridge. From this woman we learn of the vulnerability of enslaved women to rape, and we get some sense of what it meant to be a survivor. The authors point out that the principle of coverture, a convention of English common law in which women’s legal identities were subsumed under those of their husbands, further guaranteed the absence of any sort of reasonable legal protection for enslaved women—or even for free married black women.

As a part of laying to rest the myth of slavery in the north as a benign institution, the book illustrates one manifestation of the idea of coverture. A wife’s killing her husband was, because of established notions of hierarchy, worse than ordinary murder and was, in fact, given a special designation: “petit treason,” for which burning to death was the punishment. Killing a husband—or a master, in the case of enslaved people, was almost—if not quite—on the scale of regicide and was punished accordingly. The book lays out the grim details of human suffering: the archaeological evidence showing widespread malnutrition among black children in the region; the spinal deformations evident among women forced to do laundry, ironing, and household heavy lifting; the forced breeding.

Among the most important archival sources is the record of “freedom suits,” women “seeking possession of their liberty” through manumission or some sort of legal process. Through the testimony extant in these cases, the reader gets a powerful sense of exactly what freedom meant to these women—and what slavery meant. As the authors conclude from these records, “Being stolen from kin and homeland was the central wrong African men and women cited time and again.” And to rectify this crime entailed the re-possession of the self by its rightful owner.

Written by: Rick Taylor, April 28th 2010

Bina Das: A Memoir

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Bina Das, Dhira Dhar

Zubaan

“History is always in the making, and our struggle for a truly free country will not be over easily,” says Bina Das towards the conclusion of her memoir, brilliantly translated by Dhira Dhar, who was close to this firebrand revolutionary of Bengal. In its pages, Bina Das: A Memoir holds history in flashback. The glorious and gradual unfolding of an Indian nationalist who is counted amongst the heroes of the history of the country’s struggle for independence (like Pritilata Waddedar, Surya Sen, Shivaram Hari Rajguru, and innumerable others) in the few pages of her memoir is nothing short of poignant.

The curtain rises on the eve of August 15, 1947, the day of India’s independence. A nation standing at the crossroads of destiny may have caused countless minds like Das’s to be filled with a sense of despair and doubt, coupled with the misery of Partition, yet she asserts that this freedom was finally the real one and “flashed like lightning through our thrilled souls.” She reminisces her life at the backdrop of this day when she expected her country to march ahead in full glory. And thereafter, the entire story of her life unfurls before the reader in dramatic flashbacks, moments of captured memory framed in the ensuing pages.

Das narrates her family background, her life as a student, and the wondrous transition phase of her life when she graduated from a non-violent freedom fighter into that of an armed revolutionary. She talks of her participation in the last lap of the freedom movement, her subsequent nine-year imprisonment, her release on the eve of independence, and her return to politics from a long prison life. Each of these events has been described in poetic subtlety.

Like children of her generation, her education began at home under the careful guidance of her parents. Often Das’s father, the erudite Brahmo scholar Beni Madhab Das, who played a pivotal role in shaping the thoughts of the young Subhas Chandra Bose, would sit with Bina and her siblings and read plays like Bhishma, Shahjahan and others by D.L. Roy. This, Das claims, was her first introduction to the heroic and tragic in drama, bound to have left indelible imprints in her mind.

Das belonged to a family and a generation that was making the platform for the freedom movement. Her mother, Sarala Devi, was exceptionally enthusiastic about all kinds of social work. Sister Kalyani (Kalyani Bhattacharjee) was also a leading social activist and revolutionary. Das acknowledges that the most precious thing she received from her father was the wealth of freedom he gave her. Understandably this was instrumental in building the consciousness necessary for the struggle for freedom in her later years.

A ceaseless, tireless worker, Das concludes that her only prayer shall be to remain active in the cause of suffering humanity and not lose herself in the “idle morass of inactivity.” This perhaps aptly sums up towering figures like Das and those of her bygone generation.

Memoirs are almost always untranslatable, and Dhar has done a grand job of translating this one with impeccable skill. It is a must read, especially for those who wish to recapitulate the lives and times of revolutionaries like Bina Das.

Written by: Jhuma Sen, April 25th 2010

Laughing without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American at Home and Abroad

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:57:00 +0000

By Firoozeh Dumas

Villard

Laughing without an Accent is Firoozeh Dumas’s second book, after her debut memoir Funny in Farsi. Dumas is an Iranian-American who writes about the similarities and differences in Iranian cultures through her own experiences growing up in Iran and America. The book is a compilation of twenty-eight vignettes which span her life in both countries. The vignettes portray her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in the most memorable ways, usually leaving the reader with a smile or laugh before eagerly turning to read the next story.

These days, Iranians are fighting for free, fair, and democratic elections and for their personal rights and freedom. Humor is not the first thing that may come to mind for Americans when thinking about Iranians right now. However, Dumas, who is married to a Frenchman, writes her stories with such ease that humor is exactly what readers find in each story, along with kindness, compassion, love, and sometimes chaos. Almost all of her stories are about her family, and how Persian culture really defines itself in society—or... well... doesn’t (hence, the humor).

One example of calamity is the cultural clash that occurs over a holiday feast her husband cooks for her parents. This is a hysterical but good-hearted read along with her other story of the amazingly bright red comforter that Firoozeh’s mother brought for them that just wouldn’t disappear. Her stories are meaningful because readers, regardless of origin, can relate to the humanity behind her writing.

Dumas’ descriptive skill gives her the leeway to explore her characters more freely, and set a peaceful tone for her readers. She challenges us to look beyond the dissimilarities and focus on the similarities which bring us together. She cleverly uses humor, grace, and respect for the written word as her instruments in one unique symphony. The music that she creates is our laughter—some with accents, some without.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, July 16th 2009

Broken World

admin — Fri, 25 May 2007 13:40:00 +0000

By Joseph Lease

Coffee House Press

Don’t be fooled by the title of Joseph Lease’s collection of poems, though the world may be “broken,” the collection spends its time rebuilding, rationalizing and living despite it. Repetition fuels the elegy, “Broken World (for James Assatly),” a poem built in sections, a poem that works to remember a friend and writer who died of AIDS. The poem’s repetition is representative of how the collection operates: poems announce what things are not, only to reconstruct the world with its pieces. So, in the elegy, Lease repeats what things “won’t be”:

won’t be stronger. won’t be water. / won’t be dancing or floating berries. / won’t be a year. Won’t be a song. / Won’t be taller. Won’t be accounted / a flame. Won’t be a boy. Won’t be / any relation to the famous rebel.

The repetition - such as the repetition in Gertrude Stein’s pieces in Tender Buttons - creates a plain where things will be, where the poem allows for things to be stronger, a song, and taller. The other statement Lease repeats is “and I shatter / everyone who hates you.” The poem shatters not only homophobia, not only the loss of another person to AIDS, but shatters Assatly’s anonymity. In the back of the book, it’s stated that Assatly’s novel Hejira remains unpublished; these poems provide a space to praise Assatly.

The last poem of the collection exists in sections, each titled, “Free Again.” Through the use of space play and his use of the dash, Lease allows the reader to link associations, and to continue the thought. In this poem, Lease is offering a freedom of language and a freedom to make associations. Again, his use of negation offers the reverse. He may write, “... – there are no symbols, no spells –...” but the poetry collection is full of symbols and links of image, statement, and sound. The collection ends with the lines: “I can remember my secret book – / I was a ghost, you were the only one / who could hear me –.” By ending the book with not only the second person address to the reader, but with the dash, extends the conversation past the confines of the page. Lease’s space play, elliptical poems and second person address causes the reader to engage and read in a new way.

Written by: Lisa Bower, May 25th 2007