Yoni is the Wrong Damn Word: Marginalization and Exoticism

April 30, 2008 – 5:48 am

Why, oh, why does it have to be Yoni Ki Baat? Why? I’m South Asian, right? I’m solid South Asian. So why does it make my blood boil that South Asians are doing an adaptation of the Vagina Monologues called Yoni Ki Baat?

Well, I don’t have a damn yoni, for one thing. The first time I read the word yoni, it was in a Nancy Friday book of sexual fantasies and some white chick was describing her power centre being plunged or whatever and calling it a yoni.

I do not call my c*** yoni. I’m Pakistani. We don’t do Sanskrit in Pakistan, not on purpose, anyway (I take no responsibility for accidental Sanskrit). Pakistani vernacular has many words for vagina and none of them is yoni. So running into a performance of Yoni Ki Baat by South Asians in Seattle really just fries my onions all wrong.

However, I can deal. I know that in the US South Asian communities are dominated by Indianness and this is simply a reflection of the sub-continental hegemonic power structures. I don’t like it, but I’m a lazy person and that’s not a fight I’m going to pick on a 6-month quickie in Seattle.

A little bit of investigation, however, brings me the news that, no, in fact, even in Indian contexts, using yoni for vagina is extremely problematic. It’s a Sanskrit word. Sanskrit is the base for north Indian languages, including, most prominently, Hindi. Using it successfully projects, once again, north India as true India and Dravidian south India as other. As incidental. As internal or private. As “ethnic.” As not-really-there.

Well done, feminism. Read More »

By Kyla Pasha | Posted in Arts & Literature, Society, feminism, sex, south asia, women | Comments (8)

Mark Seal on Kenya in Vanity Fair: Bad Implications and Dead Ends

April 28, 2008 – 5:23 am

If you thought that a recent cover of Vogue magazine had a whiff of King Kong about it, consider the possibility that this month, Vanity Fair may have given Vogue a run for its money. Just remember that while words are subtler than pictures, they are no less suggestive.

I am a fan of Vanity Fair, and this column is therefore more difficult to write than usual. My column does not usually feature the issues I am about to discuss, but I felt that a digression, at present, was necessary.

Now, I didn’t get a hold of their April issue until recently, but once I did, I noticed that it features a story entitled “Prisoner of Kenya,” by veteran journalist Mark Seal. A potentially intriguing piece, correct?

It is intriguing indeed, but mostly for the wrong reasons.

The story centers on a wealthy white grand-grandson of “Kenya’s most prominent colonizer,” the third Baron Delamere who, the article says:

“virtually established Kenya for white settlement… After…the British government built railways, erected Nairobi, and forced the Masai tribesmen from their ancestral grazing lands to make way for white colonists, foremost of whom was Delamere.”

Meanwhile, the great-grandson in question, Thomas Patrick Gilbert Cholmondeley, was cleared after being accused the killing of one person before landing in jail again for the killing of another. Both victims were black Kenyans, from different tribes. From behind bars, Cholmondeley protests his innocence and insists both killings were accidental.

The prisoner is a polarizing figure in Kenya, and the fact that he walked free the first time around sparked outrage and protest. Now there is pressure on the Kenyan government to make sure Cholmondeley does not get away so easily.

Here’s a quote, taken from the body of the piece and splashed across a solemn picture of Cholmondeley to draw the reader in:

“If found guilty by the black judge who will decide his fate, Cholmondeley could face execution by handing.”

This immediately struck me as interesting. Why stress the point that the judge is black if not to freak out white people? Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, africa | Comments (14)

The Revenge: The Bane of Immortality

April 24, 2008 – 2:45 am

The previous installment of Chloe Bradshaw’s pirate saga can be found here.

While I thought about my brother and contemplated my undead state, Luke sat nearby, eyes closed.

“I am ready to leave.” I told him when the thinking got to be too much.

“Alright.”

I followed his lead as we both walked to the edge of the rock and jumped in. I was expecting the water to be cold, even after Luke said it wouldn’t be. I didn’t even feel wet. The current moved me up and down. The birds stayed away from us and wouldn’t come near.

“Animals are nervous around us, for we are not entirely human now,” Luke explained.

Swimming felt effortless, like I wasn’t even moving my arms and legs. Land seemed to be bearing closer, faster then possible. I felt the wind in my hair, but not the cold.

We reached Land’s End and its port. When we we climbed onto the wooden dock, I looked down at my clothes. They were bone dry. I glanced at Luke and noticed that he too had come up dry.

We started walking. Silence filled the air like a plague. The hills were breathtaking, heather covered most of them, making the hills look purple. I saw horses grazing in the nearby fields, as well as sheep. People were wrapped up warm and the leaves blew in the wind, the only sign that it was cold. As before, we came upon Sennen at record speed.

I was so content just walking through the cobbled streets of my home town. The sensation of being back really was wonderful. It felt like I had been gone for a life time. I saw Luke looking around and I had the feeling that he had not been here before.

“No,” he said when I asked him. “I never saw the point, I favoured going to places far away from home, and Sennen is too close to home.”

I felt great sympathy for Luke. It must have been grim, spending so many years alone. And I was also grateful that I would not spend years alone without anyone to talk to. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, YA, fiction | Comments (5)

Yearning For Answers: Fundamentalism, Polygamy, and the Role of Women

April 21, 2008 – 9:22 am

When I heard about the raid on a fundamentalist Texas compound called Yearning for Zion, I got to thinking about polygamy (well, my initial thought was more along the lines of “wow, I really want to hurl my coffee cup at the wall,” but that should probably go without saying).

Although the raid was part of an ongoing child abuse probe (hence my desire to destroy a perfectly innocent coffee cup), the issue of polygamy once again took center stage as Americans and everyone else who watched the news coming out of Texas began a new round of debating the subject.

Let me put this as succinctly as possible: If you advocate for the legalization of polygamy in the States, I will only take you seriously if you advocate polyandry as well. Now for the caveat: Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, Current Affairs, Religion, christianity, family, north america, sex, women | Comments (40)

Budapest: Good Food and Good Times

April 20, 2008 – 8:16 am

I was excited to explore this city after having heard so much about Budapest from my Grandmother, Pempe Aitken, who once joined Queen Juliana of Holland on her honeymoon here.

It was the celebratory weekend of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary. All weekend long fireworks lit up the city which consists of two sides: the Buda side and the Pest side.

Buda is the mountainous side with all the castles. The Pest side is flat, newer, and more industrial. On the plane, I had finished Michael Kaufman’s biography of George Soros and discovered what Budapest was like during Soros’ childhood (miserable). Yet communism has long since died, and I was hoping for a friendly welcome. I was not disappointed, to say the least.

First, I headed toward the famous green cupola of the Gellert Hotel to experience Hungary’s spa culture. Hungary is famous for its medicinal waters and there are roughly 1,300 thermal springs that have been discovered so far. The mineral composition of the waters at each spa varies, resulting in different spas specializing in curing different ailments.

Even if you are totally healthy you can benefit, because we all need a bit of tuning up. Budapest spas offer very cheaply priced beauty treatments. It’s no mistake that Estée Lauder had Hungarian blood - Hungary is not only beautiful but its spas will keep you beautiful too!

There are drawbacks for heading to the most famous spa in town, because tout le monde was at the Gellert. One could hardly move, it was like Fulham Pool on a Saturday. I promptly checked out and moved from the Buda side to the low-key Mercure hotel on the Pest side.

After finding a less famous (i.e. quieter) spa, I soaked up the thermal waters and enjoyed the best massage I have ever experienced. My masseuse did not have Western European training - which teaches one to follow a formal massage pattern that can end up feeling mechanical. Here, masseuses follow their instincts and find knots you never knew existed.

Finally, I was relaxed and ready to experience the festivities. The biggest socialite in Budapest, Elena Ernst (she runs the Ernst gallery), was throwing a party. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Society, europe, food, travel | Comments (0)

The Greatest Hits Of My Greatest Weaknesses

April 18, 2008 – 11:22 am

I want to provide you with a mariner’s chart of my character: the contrasts and topography of my chipped, flawed personality. What the hell, you ask?

Well, this is based on that narcissism that all writers have – or ought to have. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I’m besieged by academic deadlines and need something to laugh about.

But the main reason? I’m sitting in a class that I am having trouble caring about (we’re watching a movie on bowel diseases. I just looked up, and was greeted by the sight of a very charming endoscopy).

Some of these tempt me severely, and some of these just make me cry: Read More »

By Joe Hormes | Posted in Columnist, Entertainment, Science & Technology, Society, humor | Comments (1)

The Revenge: The Drowned

April 16, 2008 – 6:11 am

The previous installment of Chloe Bradshaw’s pirate saga can be found here.

Floating in the sea I looked around in search for the other members of my doomed crew.

I couldn’t see through the sheet of rain. I did manage to glimpse Mr Williams’ figure, head bobbing up and down over the waves. With the last ounce of strength I had I swam towards him. When I arrived, he looked in pretty bad shape

He couldn’t stay afloat and I couldn’t keep him at the surface. Tears came to my eyes. I still feel responsible for his death, and as I am writing this, the same tears are forming again. I couldn’t save no matter how much I wanted to. He looked at me, eyes wide with fear. His expression froze before he sank to the sea bed.

I glanced around in hope that I would see someone else. Alas, no one was in sight. I looked around desperately once more, before I started to swim towards Long Ships. The water was freezing and my heartbeat was slowing. I was running out of hope.

The rain was still pounding and the storm still taunting. I wasn’t that far away from Long Ships, when I realized I couldn’t go any further. It was painful when I breathed in, like someone was pounding upon my ribcage with fists of steel.

My eyes were shutting. I felt numb, the coldness didn’t reach me now. I wasn’t in pain just awfully tired. I stopped panicking, there was no point. I let my eyes close and the current took me. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, YA, fiction | Comments (3)

Geert Wilders, “Fitna,” and the Last Refuge of the Bigoted

April 14, 2008 – 9:04 am

Fitna (the Arabic word for ‘dissension’), a new film by Geert Wilders, a rightwing Dutch parliamentarian, should not be suppressed.

This isn’t because it has anything valuable or insightful to offer to the debates surrounding Islam, modernity, or the convulsions wracking much of the Middle East. No, it must be seen so that it can be shown up for the insipid propaganda video it is.

To suppress the film in the name of political correctness only underscores the seductive mystery its creators have cultivated. Wilders & Co released snippets of info here and there, whipping up a torrent of anticipation for a film that can only be described as banal.

“Fitna” is a propaganda piece whose ‘aesthetic’ is comparable to those made by radical Islamists. The burning of effigies, extremist placards, and threats to website staff undertaken by Muslim vigilantes as a reaction to this film are themselves myopic and morally bankrupt. When ‘Muslim indignation’ takes a violent turn it merely confirms the claims of provocateurs like Wilders.

The film itself is not a critique of Islamic fundamentalism or even the tribal vestiges of malign practices such as stoning and female circumcision. Wilders’ enterprise is rather the pathetic attempt to salvage a ‘nativist’ conception of Dutch, and, more generally, European identity.

In order to fashion a ‘pristine’ and ‘untarnished’ representation of this idea, Wilders is forced to place it in contradistinction to a clearly defined enemy, represented by the looming threat of a monolithic and omnipresent ‘Islam’. Fitna is therefore yet another variant of the discursively manufactured ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis first argued for by Samuel P. Huntington in the American journal Foreign Affairs over a decade ago.

Wilders’ strategy is simple and crude. He arbitrarily picks out a few decontextualized lines from the Quran, then juxtaposes them with footage of obscene violence committed by Muslim extremists. 9/11, 7/7, and the Madrid Bombings, are paraded across the screen in an orgy of mayhem.

The propaganda videos of al-Qaeda and those inspired by their message equally rely on publicizing violence in order to attract recruits. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, Current Affairs, europe, islam | Comments (3)

A Warning To Writers: Post-Colonialism As Opium

April 11, 2008 – 4:45 am

Writers, when they come to teach you the humanities, run away.

The divorce of dignity and method afflicts and impairs every system of thought. Law, for example, ceases to serve the ends of providing for human dignity if it restricts itself to a blind allegiance of rules, or to a rigorous imposition of doctrine. Dignity is the first victim of such tyranny.

The incapability of contemporary Islamic Legal Theory to attend to today’s problems is a consequence of the enthronement of particular methodologies to a level of authoritativeness simply due to said methodologies’ old age. What has happened, in time, is that today’s Muslim can find no feasible “Islamic” way of inserting the ideas of human decency into the status quo because the emphasis is on rules, not people.

Old rules, however, don’t give a cruel world a conscience. The result, today, is that there is only one Islamic culture - that of helplessness. Man suffers for the sake of adherence to words that have become sacrosanct because of how much dust has collected on them.

Apathy is the opposite of helplessness but is the child of the same father - stasis. Instead of emerging from a lack of things, as helplessness does, it occurs despite overabundance and luxury. Whereas the Muslim world’s inability to emphasize the value of a person leads it into a spiral of sadness and grief, modern American culture suffers from a similar disease which leads to a culture of apathy.

Consider this:

The pet-theories of the most prestigious scholars, are, on the whole, methodological masturbation. Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Arts & Literature, Columnist, Religion, academia | Comments (11)

The Untouched It

April 9, 2008 – 7:20 am

The thought of it excited her.
She discussed it with her tender peers.
They were open with anticipation
For confirmation of their fears,
For reprieve from waiting,
For a taste of the Garden,
Which lay in their heads ahead
Where exposure hardens.

The touch of it fulfills her.
She gushes it to her curious mates.
They are anxious for information
To process on prying dates,
To understand what lies ahead,
To shed away the prim,
Knowing what they are in to,
But now what’s into them?

Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, poetry, sex | Comments (3)