Defining Lines at the Nasher

Much to see at three thoughtful, absorbing exhibits at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space" is one of them. ". . . [C]o-curated by Iftikahr Dadi and Hammad Nasar, brings together art across many genres . . . that have their common theme a preoccupation [pun intended?] with borders, boundaries and lines that divide and demarcate. . . " The British Empire, for one, "brought in its wake the geographic and cartographic division of much of the inhabited world . . ." Obviously, we're still living in the fallout zones from "the Middle East" to Africa and everywhere else in the world as we know it -- or really know it not. 

"Defining Lines: Cartography in the Age of Empire" takes a similar look at dividing lines, focusing on maps as cultural artifacts that carve up the world in ways that favor certain groups over others. "No matter . . . their claims to 'objectivity,' 'accuracy' and 'authority,' maps never simply show the world as it is; they are . . . 'a construction of reality, images laden with intentions and consequences.'" In the end, it's mostly about culture, power and economics. 

A third exhibit revolves around Doris Duke's spectacular "Shangri La" project in Hawaii, replete with beautiful Islamic-themed signs and wonders.

Very impressive all.

Today's Rune: Journey.   

When You Do Have to Live Like a Refugee

People tend to move or migrate for several reasons, including work opportunity or survival and sometimes to find hope within a nested support system. 

People are refugees or forced into relocation because of the effects of war, revolution and persecution -- the latter including slavery and religious or other cultural attacks on a scale ranging from harassment through coercion to genocide.   

As of mid-2013, the biggest mass refugee movements radiate from just a handful of countries. That is, more than half of all new and recent refugees have been displaced by upheavals in Somalia and Sudan (plus South Sudan), Afghanistan (still), Iraq (still) and Syria. (Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Displacement: The New 21st Century Challenge. Global Trends 2012 [2013]).

All refugees have stories to tell. Anyone can become a refugee. In addition to wild variables such as effects of war, revolution and persecution, we can add natural disasters, global warming, climate change and mass toxic events, or even slow seepage.

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Michelangelo Antonioni: L'eclisse / Eclipse (Part II)

Two interconnected scenes from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'eclisse / Eclipse (1962) go like this: after seemingly breaking up with a paramour, Vittoria (Monica Vitti) returns to her well-above-ground-floor Roma apartment, looks around, finds a hammer and puts up a small objet d'art. Her apartment neighbor friend Anita (played by Rosanna Rory) is sent by her husband to see what the racket is (and out of curiosity, no doubt). They chat a little, then Marta (played by Mirella Ricciardi), from her higher-up-across-a-courtyard apartment, calls and invites them over for company. Turns out when they get there that Marta's husband owns a plantation in Kenya, and judging from the interior of her pad, they have become wealthy from African colonization. There are many photographs and artifacts from Kenya and other parts of Africa spread around Marta's apartment, and mentions are made of Somalia and South Africa. 

This is Vittoria's first time inside. Marta waxes enthusiastically about Europeans in Kenya, and also proceeds in a derogatory manner about black Kenyans. Vittoria and Anita ask questions, and then we cut to Vittoria dancing in blackface with a pointed spear, jumping up and down on Marta's large bed. Marta becomes irritated. The tension is intruded upon by the sound of dogs yapping outside below. Marta's black poodle Zeus has run off with other dogs. The three women head down and out in pursuit.

Okay, so -- what is Antonioni trying to do here? Shock? Question colonialism, including Italy's historical role in Libya, Ethiopia, and so on? That's my initial guess.  

However, what is the intent and impact of blackface performance ever?  Does it depend on when and where and by whom? This is always controversial, at least it has always been in relatively recent history. Yet even now, blackface continues -- 50+ years after this weird scene in L'eclisse.

Consider the "African Queen" blackface photographs of Ondria Hardin, a "white" teenager from Lumberton, North Carolina, featured in Numéro in its March 2013 issue, images taken by Sebastian Kim. What the hell?

I just saw a live performance of the first half of Langston Hughes' Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961) and damned if, in one of the "moods," it didn't spotlight blackfacing amid counterpoints on whitefacing. Langston Hughes and Michelangelo Antonioni, and now Numéro -- progress, regress or digress? 

Okay, so -- what next?

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).   

Freedom of Assembly in Action and Contested

The Occupy Wall Street movement -- or civil uprising -- has been unfolding for a couple of months now, spreading around from NYC. It's mostly peaceful. Responses have been mixed. Legal skirmishes have been ongoing -- city ordinances, permits, tents, parades, signs, police raids, social media, celebrities, writers, bread and circuses. It's gone global.  

So far, compared to simultaneous protests in Syria, Yemen or Somalia, there has not with the OWS movement been much violence from either direction. Compare, so far, to the 1960s -- when there were countless bombings, assassinations, and numerous instances of police and vigilante brutality.  Around the OWS happenings, constitutional rights are more or less intact and well-defended. But it's a big game of hit or miss so far. Some of the protesters are goofy, and some of the "official" response is heavy-handed at the local level. I dread the possibility of vigilante violence.

My impressions are not strictly from the perspective of a distant observer. I have participated directly if moderately, carrying signs, talking with OWS people, giving encouragement, that kind of thing.

It's clear what the movement is saying: social priorities are important and they are presently askew.  Improvements can and should be made. It's really that basic. The message is more important than the messengers, or even the tactics.  

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.    

Serious Midnight

So many conflicts, so little time. If you're in the line of fire, knives and bombs, so much time. The situation in Syria pits protestors against the Bashar al-Assad regime, civilians against soldiers and internal security forces.  Yes, there is war all over the planet, from Sudan to Somalia and spinning all around the globe, and this is just one of them. 

The countries neighboring Syria are being sucked into this particular disaster, too. Syria's population: 23 million -- more than live in New York, fewer than in Texas.

How this Syrian cycle ends, nobody knows yet; but more will be killed by the next sunrise, and, by the following midnight, more will be killed after that. There but for the grace of God or luck or kismet go the rest of us.   

Today's Rune: Joy.

Egypt: The Widening Gyre

In interpreting what's going on, it may be useful to know the relative population sizes of the various countries in the greater Middle Eastern region and beyond. Otherwise, it would be as if California was given the same relative weight as Wyoming, or New York the same as Rhode Island. There are differences -- everything is not weighted equally. In fact, world news coverage is often quite skewed in other directions for cultural, political, economic or other reasons.

Demographics/population

Tunisia: 10-11 million
Egypt: 80 million
Israel: 7-8 million
Libya: 6-7 million
Lebanon: 4-5 million
Syria: 22 million
Jordan: 6-7 million
Saudi Arabia: 20-26 million
Iraq: 31-32 million
Iran: 77 million
Turkey: 74 million
Somalia: 9-10 million
Sudan: 44-45 million
Ethiopia: 85-86 million
Algeria: 35 million
Yemen: 24 million

The largest populations of those listed above:
Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Algeria.

The smallest populations of those listed above:
Tunisia, Somalia, Israel, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon.

What will happen if the Tunisia-Egypt convulsions ripple throughout the region?   Should those in power in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan (etc.) be nervous?  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.   

Black Hawk Down

Finally saw Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, which came out in 2001, after 9/11. I don't know what to think about it. Scott makes impressive epic films, and this is certainly epic in showing modern urban warfare, more comprehensively than Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). The visuals and sound effects are superb. Furthermore, the 1993 street warfare and chaotic battle scenes in Mogadishu, Somalia (a city larger than Detroit), portend urban fighting in Iraq, only without the IEDs and suicide bombers.

This film dovetails perfectly with a book I just finished and will post about soon: James Hillman's A Terrible Love of War (2004). Black Hawk Down is based on Mark Bowden's 1999 nonfiction work, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.



Today's Rune: Possessions.

The Clintons Bounce Back -- Again

I. Bill Clinton went to North Korea, met with Kim Jong-il, secured the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee and then brought them back to the USA -- Bill Clinton as diplomatic pop star.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Somalia's Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed (previously, commander of the Islamic Courts Union) in an effort to shore up his moderate Islamic government against the more fundamentalist Hizbul Shabaab / Al-Shabaab insurgency. Overall, a much wiser approach than the Bush one, which was to give a green light to Ethiopian invasion in 2006 (the Ethiopians withdrew in ultimate failure earlier this year). The ever-resilient Clintons are back in the limelight!


II. On the way to Austin, Texas, in late December, 1992, I drove through Little Rock and Hope, Arkansas: after the election, but before the Clintons moved into the White House. It was an exciting time, and there was a lot of hubbub around the Governor's mansion in Little Rock. Bill Clinton signs had already sprouted in "a Town called Hope," which if memory serves, had a Pizza Hut and a few other amenities at the time.

III. Obama has obviously learned from the Clintons' experiences, and he's been smart enough to call on them for service. The Republican opposition once again tries to block a progressive agenda, only this time, Republicans are weaker and more fragmented. The so-called Rainbow Coalition is larger now, with more college youth, African Americans and Latinos registered and voting Democratic than ever before. Good! This time around, health care reform has a much better chance of becoming a reality, perhaps by October 2009.

Today's Rune: Joy.

Khyber Pass: Seven Years and Counting

Hard to believe the US/NATO has been engaged in Afghanistan for seven years already, with no end in sight. The complexities are enormous, the Taliban relentless. Now, additional fighting in Pakistan, near the Khyber Pass, and in various parts of Afghanistan. A regional approach draws in several more countries, including India, Iran, China and former parts of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, back in the "Middle East" . . . fill in the blank . . .

But even lesser in general American consciousness, the return of Somalia into bitter fighting, after the Ethiopian withdrawal to pre-invasion points.

Permanent war as a way of life, forever? Or cycles of war, with ceasefires from exhaustion? There are some who see the Prusso-German ascendancy from about 1866 until final defeat in 1945 as one long conflict punctuated by such ceasefires, ending with Germany's "integration." Perhaps this latest round is part of a comparable arc.

Today's Rune: Joy.

Shell Shock

"About 300,000 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer PTSD or depression, or one in five of the more than 1.5 million who have deployed, according to a report by RAND Corp." -- Claudia Parsons, "Iraq war strains U.S. army mental health system," Reuters, Tue May 6, 2008 9:56am EDT.

Add shell shocked civilians (young children, adults) in war zones like Gaza and Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan; add chronically poor, afflicted, economically dislocated, displaced . . .

We're in trouble. I guess it's a long time coming; among those of us who can, we'd better roll up our sleeves and get to it.

My question is this: does anyone have specific suggestions for helping people out? Beyond the obvious way of making financial contributions?

Today's Rune: Initiation.

One More Bloodbath for the Road

Right up to their last days, everything the Bush-Cheney people and their allies touch turns into blood and shit.

I don't know which is worse, Bush's bufoonishly naive "beliefs" or Cheney's depraved and utterly destructive "we good/they bad" worldview.

Does anyone else remember this gem? "President Bush Predicts Middle East Peace Deal" (Telegraph, January 11, 2008): "President George W. Bush has predicted that a Middle East peace treaty will be signed by the time he leaves office, while on a visit to Israel. . . 'I'm on a timetable,' he told reporters. 'I've got 12 months.' . . . 'I believe it's possible - not only possible, I believe it's going to happen - that there [will] be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office (in January 2009).'"

We have a little over two more weeks to go and can only hope that Prick Cheney doesn't have his way. He'd have a U.S.-approved Israeli air strike against Iran before he heads back for the cowboy hills. If such was the case, Gaza would merely be a diversion (albeit a savage and brutal one) for even bigger fireworks to come.




















These idiots have ineptly sponsored wars from Somalia to Pakistan, from Georgia to Iraq, from Lebanon to Afghanistan -- all of them epic disasters now and unpardonable clusterfucks. Condoleezza Rice is a worthless Secretary of State, a feckless stooge. What a gargantuan shit storm the incoming administration will have to deal with! God help the civilians caught in the crossfire in Gaza and everywhere. Indeed, God help us all.

Today's Rune: Opening.

Ten Eyes for an Eye

And so the sickening cycle continues. Happy freaking holidays, world. Violence and more violence, and the Earth does not yet stand still. An Israeli assault on Gaza, operation ten eyes gouged out for every one and no peace in sight.











Conflict from Somalia, which may revert to square one just two years after a U.S.-backed Ethiopian blitzkrieg intended to permanently topple the Islamic Courts; through the Middle East and Afghanistan; through the Khyber Pass to Pakistan and India, where armies as large or larger than that of the US (still, itself, mostly bogged down in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan) face off in an exercise of saber rattling or downward-spiraling miscalculation. And so it goes to Sri Lanka, former home of Arthur C. Clark, where Tamil Tigers fight on against government onslaught. And so it goes.









Where are the peacemakers?




















Today's Rune: Initiation.

From Somalia with Love

Some readers may remember how two years ago, the Ethiopian government launched a blitzkrieg invasion of Somalia with the support (and high hopes) of the Bush administration.

How the Islamic Courts Union seemed to fall apart immediately, only to regroup and wage a tenacious guerrilla insurgency.

Well, folks, the Ethiopian Army is about to pull out of Somalia, leaving another disaster in its wake.

To quote from an excellent article I came across in The Seattle Times (online):

"Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. policy failures since 9/11," said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. "By any rational metric, what we've ended up with there today is the opposite of what we wanted." Oh, goodie.

For more, see Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune, "U.S. appears to be losing its secret war in Somalia" (11/29/2008):

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008448575_somalia29.html

One more snippet:

"Your government [i.e. the United States government] gets away with a lot here," said the prison warden Hassan Mohamed Ibrahim, striding about his antique facility with a pistol tucked in the back of his pants. "In Iraq, the world is watching. In Afghanistan, the world is watching. In Somalia, nobody is watching."

And to those who think Somalia, who cares? Everything is interconnected, only more so now than ever.

Today's Rune: The Self. p.s. Post title is not a direct reference to the book of the same name.

The Ides of June

In case anyone hasn't noticed the Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) vs. Fatah (Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini) civil war in the Palestinian territories, Hamas just seized power in the Gaza Strip, leaving Fatah to attempt consolidating what's left of their power in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Lebanon is anything but stable, with Hezbollah still very much in position after fighting Israel to a standstill last year; while today in the Nahr Al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the Al Qaeda-aligned Fatah Al Islam crew continues to entangle Lebanese Army troops in ferocious combat. Palestinian fighters of the more radical variety must feel all proud now, proving that when sufficiently armed and trained, they can fight as well as anyone else.

What does it all mean? These latest developments in the Middle East are more symptoms of festering, unresolved struggles over land, resources, and raw power. But you know, the invasion of Iraq solved everything, yes? Let's not forget Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, the Kurds, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Somalia, and the rest of the blood-soaked daisy chain. Clearly, it's going to be a long summer.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Birthdays: Edvard Grieg, Ramón López Velarde, Erik Erikson, Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, Lash La Rue, Alberto Sordi, Mario Cuomo, Waylon Jennings, Harry Nilsson, Xaviera Hollander (b. Vera de Vries), Nicola Pagett, Michèle Laroque, Helen Hunt, Idalis DeLeon, Pia Miranda, Elizabeth Reaser, Nina Liu, Cara Zavaleta.

Déjà Vu in Mogadishu

Around Christmas time last year I posted briefly about Somalia and Ethiopia: "the nastiness in the Middle East is spreading wildly into the Horn of Africa. Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men everywhere?"

Since then, U.S.-backed mostly Christian Ethiopian forces launched a blitzkrieg invasion of Sunni Muslim Somalia. The Islamic Courts and allied militias melted into the background. U.S. airstrikes and special forces attacks were directed at some of the Sunni leadership, with dubious results.

The conflict has shifted, in a way remarkably similar to what's happened in Iraq since the initial U.S.-led invasion there. The Ethiopians escorted the unpopular "transitional" Somali government into the major port city of Mogadishu. As with Iraq, there was no well-thought out plan for after the initial onslaught and capture of the capital, the Baghdad of Somalia. Lamely, peace-keepers from other African nations were supposed to deploy as the Ethiopians withdrew. So far, though, only a small detachment of Ugandans has arrived in Mogadishu, and an Islamic insurgency now rages in the city, backed by local warlords. Other nations are now balking at sending in additional peace-keepers, and it's no wonder why.

In the past days, Ethiopian soldiers have been killed and dragged through the streets; a Ugandan plane and at least one Ethiopian helicopter have been shot down by insurgents. Hospitals are overwhelmed and civilians desperately try to survive. Where this goes from here is anyone's guess, though I would venture that wherever it goes, it won't be good. The disasters of war are spreading far and wide. Anarchy reigns.

Today's Rune: Flow.

Birthdays: René Descartes, Octavio Paz, John Fowles, César Chávez, Herb Alpert, Marge Piercy, Barney Frank, Christopher Walken, Al Gore, Ewan McGregor.

Bon voyage!

Do They Know It's Christmas?

Brace yourself, Bridget: war comes to Somalia by way of Ethiopia and Eritrea. If you were unfortunate enough to have seen or participated in the "Do They Know It's Christmas" Band Aid and We Are the World campaigns of the mid-1980s, the ones designed to end famine in Ethiopia and so on, you might be depressed about the latest events. If you never heard of it, surprise, surprise.

I still haven't read or seen Black Hawk Down, which involves US helicopters and troops in Somalia disastrously fighting warlords, but intend to.

So far, it seems, Islamic Courts and Islamic militia have set up their version of law and order in the formerly anarchic and warlordish parts of Somalia. Further in the interior, a lame government, friendly to the West, has a scrap of land and a few strategic points that the Islamic forces intend to control.

The government of Ethiopia, ostensibly a "Christian nation," has moved troops, tanks and airpower into Somalia to prop up the "official" government. Meanwhile, Eritreans, who hate the Ethiopians, are supplying the Somali Islamic guys with weapons and reinforcements. They are now having at it.

Bottom line: the nastiness in the Middle East is spreading wildly into the Horn of Africa. Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men everywhere?

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Merry Funky Christmas, Part II! And happy first day of Kwanzaa.

Mass Myopia

The news, dear readers, is myopic. Take one variable: population. The following are sample national estimates for 2003 (in millions) taken from UN sources and from The Economist. How should we suppose these estimates will change over say, the next fifty years? It's good to keep some perspective for our viewfinders.

China 1,304.2
India 1,065.5
USA 294.0
Brazil 178.5
Pakistan 153.6
Russia 143.2
Egypt 71.9
Turkey 71.3
Ethiopia 70.7
Iran 68.9
France 60.1
United Kingdom 59.3
Italy 57.4
South Korea 47.7
Spain 41.1
Sudan 33.6
Algeria 31.8
Canada 31.5
Morocco 30.6
Uzbekistan 26.1
Iraq 25.2
Saudi Arabia 24.2
Afganistan 23.9
North Korea 22.7
Taiwan 22.5
Yemen 20.0
Syria 17.8
Kazakhstan 15.4
Portugal 10.1
Somalia 9.9
Tunisia 9.8
Israel 6.4
Libya 5.6
Jordan 5.5
Georgia 5.1
Lebanon 3.7
West Bank and Gaza 3.6
Armenia 3.1
Kuwait 2.5

If one glances at the bottom of the list and compares the figures with recent headlines, one can see that when the Israelis lose nine killed in action in one day of fighting against Hezbollah guerillas, it is comparable to the U.S.A. losing about 450 troops K.I.A. in one day. So far, the U.S. has suffered about 2,570 K.I.A. and nearly 19,000 W.I.A. in Iraq in the last three years. The Israeli Army is facing an intense foe and are finding themselves in a nasty little war. The Lebanese have suffered worse than the Americans did during the 9/11 attacks by far in the last couple of weeks, proportionally. We'll see what happens next; but meanwhile, let's not lose sight of the rest of the world. There's a lot more going on than Israel and Lebanon. And just wait until 2025 or so, if we make it!

Hasta La Vista!