Bridging The Divide Between The United States And The Muslim World Through Arts And Ideas: Possibilities And Limitations

Session IV Art And Social Commentary: Fusion And Satire

The fourth session focused on art’s social dimension, both its capacity to integrate multiple cultural influences and the use of humor as a vehicle for commenting on politics and society. Participants drew examples from Sufi poetry, storytelling, hip hop, theater, and film, and examined the contemporary migration of literary, musical, and theatrical genres across cultural boundaries.

Moderator Bruce Lawrence, Profession of Religion at Duke University, opened the session by noting that Muslim storytelling often includes both pious and impious messages — and that the boundary between them can be hard to distinguish. He mentioned the ubiquity of figures like Nasr al–Din throughout the Muslim world, and observed that humor plays a central role in Muslim societies — a role that many outside observers today do not recognize.

The first speaker, writer and director Sulayman Al–Bassam of the Sabab Theater in Kuwait, addressed the theme of the fusion of multiple cultures and traditions in contemporary Muslim art, and specifically in his own work. Al–Bassam began his theater career in London in the 1990s, and moved back to Kuwait in 2001. His work is framed, he said, by two opposing narratives: on the one hand, the extreme violence typified by martyrdom and jihad; and on the other hand, the War on Terror. He sees a profound structural similarity between the two. The conflict between them, he said, is a focus of the theater work that he has been doing in Kuwait since 2002.

The social, political, and religious commentary of his plays has exposed Al–Bassam to the “hard” censorship of government authorities as well as the “soft” censorship of societal pressure. One route he has taken to avoid censorship is the use of texts from the canon of world literature; he has adapted and reworked Shakespeare’s plays into “Trojan horses” that enable him to explore contemporary societal issues. For example, “Al–Hamlet Summit” depicts a prince struggling with radical Islam. Al–Bassam’s plays are not direct translations — the end product is often very unlike the original — but working in translation allows him to invest the text with covert meaning.

Another approach to avoiding censorship that Al–Bassam has taken is the use of Arab–Islamic history as a mask of orthodoxy behind which he hopes to effect change. His play “The Mirror for Princes,” for instance, recounts the life of a 9th–century Abbasid ruler, but is actually a reflection on contemporary politics of empire and sectarian tensions that he hoped would “prick the conscience of the king.”

Al–Bassam suggested that his work can be seen as an example of transnational fusion, reflecting both the potential and the challenges of such projects. “Al–Hamlet Summit” was written and premiered in the United Kingdom, and subsequently traveled to the Tokyo International Arts Festival, Tehran, and Singapore. Although it was performed by a pan–Arab theater company, Al–Bassam described the play as a “failed” Trojan horse because it was never performed in the Arab world.

Al–Bassam went on to discuss his current production, “Richard III: An Arab Tragedy,” which is being presented as part of the Muslim Voices festival.20 Like his prior work, it uses an ostensibly foreign context — the England of Richard III — to examine regional issues: specifically, the misuse and abuse of power in the contemporary Persian Gulf. Unlike “Al–Hamlet Summit,” this work has successfully infiltrated the Arab world, with performances from Kuwait to Damascus, where it was seen by the President of Syria, Bashar Al–Asad. The play, echoing Shakespeare’s text, includes a reading of a list of those who have died in Richard III’s final battle. In Al–Bassam’s version, this includes Arab figures, one of them being murdered Lebanese intellectual Samir Kassir, who was known for his opposition to Syria’s military presence in Lebanon.21 Al–Bassam hoped that this would help open a space for critique of the regime.

Hamid Ismailov, novelist and head of the BBC’s Central Asia bureau, spoke next, addressing the impact that art can have as an oppositional tool as well as what the limits of this influence might be. Ismailov began by referencing the Granta Diary 2008: The Books They Tried to Ban (Granta Books, 2007), which lists books — including Lolita, The Origin of Species, and The Satanic Verses — that have been banned in different countries at different times for different reasons: sexual, religious, social, or political. In other words, opposition can arise in relation to many different things.

Turning to examples of oppositional art in the Muslim world, Ismailov cited the Uzbek tradition of erotic love poems, which were historically presented as metaphors in praise of the divine. For some writers, rebellion took the form of the decision to write in local languages rather than in Russian, while for women writers, writing as a woman was in itself an act of opposition.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he explained, opposition took the form of syntax; several poets were executed for writing in single words rather than in traditional phrases that placed the verb at the end of the construction. Then, when the Soviets took power in Uzbekistan in the 1920s, they re–canonized medieval literature while persecuting living poets who they considered “bourgeois individualists.”

Ismailov concluded with a caution against thinking primarily in oppositional terms: West versus East, West versus Islam, and so on. These oppositions merely replace Cold World terminology with a new “other.” He ended by suggesting to participants that what is needed is to develop alternatives to this oppositional way of thinking.

Neda Sarmast, documentary filmmaker and producer of the recent film Nobody’s Enemy, spoke third, using her experience as a case study that illustrated how art might serve as a space for fusion and for satire. Sarmast began by noting that although she has lived in the United States for most of her life, she was born in Iran and sees herself as connected to both places. In the United States, she has long found herself called to explain Iranian points of view and behavior, and vice versa when she is in Iran.

In Iran, she said, art has many purposes: it can be used as an oppositional tool, and it can also be used to bring people together. Prior to making her film, Sarmast had worked in the American music industry and toured with many artists, including Jon Bon Jovi. She saw first–hand art’s power to affect ordinary people. After September 11, 2001, she set out to change the skewed perceptions of Iran that she felt were being propagated in American media by making a movie featuring mainstream Iranians — not the extreme fringe.

After two years of fundraising, Sarmast traveled to Iran in 2005 to shoot what became Nobody’s Enemy: a documentary about the youth culture of Iran, including the vibrant Iranian hip hop scene. The film intends to entertain audiences rather than argue for a political point of view, Sarmast said. It offers a view of real people and how they live: the music they listen to, the food they eat, and how they relate to family and friends. Sarmast acknowledged that one film cannot fully explain an entire country, but it can help break down cultural stereotypes and barriers in a meaningful way.

Sarmast described the challenge of obtaining distribution for her film in the United States. One television station declined to air the film because its executives considered its positive portrayal of Iranian society to be “propaganda.” Without a TV or theatrical distributor, Sarmast has turned to less traditional venues. She has started screening the film on college campuses, speaking at conferences and other gatherings, and organizing smaller screenings for special groups, such as New York firefighters and police.

Sarmast described how making the film led her to discover the Iranian hip hop scene. She was surprised, at first, to find that Iranian youth had taken up a genre so clearly originating in American culture. But then she heard the result — a fusion of beats with poetry, which plays an important traditional role in Iranian culture. The vibrancy of Iran’s hip hop scene was all the more impressive to her since it is strictly underground; artists cannot release albums due to censorship, and therefore cannot make money from it. Nevertheless, Sarmast called hip hop the biggest trend in Middle Eastern music today.

Session discussant Richard Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University, began by recounting his own experience with censorship inside the United States. In the 1980s, he worked in the censorship division of CBS, one of America’s three major television networks. Americans rarely discuss censorship as a domestic issue — in fact, most of Bulliet’s colleagues later denied having been involved — but the practice is “the bread and butter of American culture,” he said.

Bulliet recounted how, under the Motion Picture Production Code, which was in effect from 1930 until 1968, every script produced in Hollywood was reviewed by the Production Code Administration. Much of the PCA’s work was done by one man, Joseph Breen, who imposed his own Roman Catholic tastes on an industry dominated by Jews, in a country primarily composed of Protestants. The PCA’s reign was enormously oppressive, Bulliet said, and segued into the black–listing that took place during the Cold War. In Bulliet’s view, the censorship of American movies and television reflects the country’s tendency to identify a knowable enemy — whether “deviants,” Communists, or Muslim extremists — and then obsess about that enemy to the exclusion of all others.

Bulliet then recalled Al–Bassam’s idea of art produced in exile acting as a “Trojan horse,” and noted that many artists from Muslim–majority countries share this ambition but fail to insert their work back into their societies of origin. What strategies can artists in exile employ to reach audiences in their original home countries? How should they relate to their host societies?

Bulliet agreed with Ismailov that there is danger in oppositional thinking, but noted that monolithic environments do exist, whether the monolith arises from the current American tendency to see Islam exclusively in terms of extremism or stems from the prevailing political and social climate in many Middle Eastern countries. He suggested that participants take the floor discussion as an opportunity to propose specific approaches for critics and satirists to adopt in order to effectively oppose these hegemonic systems.

Floor Discussion

The floor discussion initially focused on negative perceptions held about Muslims in the West. One participant commented that in Europe, people use the concept of “freedom of speech” to justify making insulting statements about Muslims. Anti–Semitic comments are considered racist and censured, but Islam is only considered a religion. It needs to be recognized that — like Judaism — Islam has racial, religious, and cultural components.

Another participant commented that Muslims are more integrated into American life than European life. Despite the geographical proximity and the shared history between Europe and the Islamic world, Europeans focus exclusively on “Judeo–Christian history.” Indeed, Richard Bulliet’s recent book, The Case for Islamo–Christian Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2004) points out that the phrase “Judeo–Christian” is relatively new, having gained popularity after World War II as a gesture of solidarity. Bulliet argues for the introduction of the phrase “Islamo–Christian,” to encourage recognition of the sibling relationship that exists between Christianity and Islam, as well.

In response to the challenges that several participants face in finding distribution for their work, one participant observed that the Western media are dependent on ratings and advertisers, and therefore on their ability to attract an audience. As a result, they often cater to what people want to hear or see, rather than what they need to hear and see. Are there parallel forces at work in the Muslim world? Another participant felt that this question assumed the existence of two opposing monoliths and that only by relinquishing this model will we be able to approach issues of difference and division from a “win/win” point of view.

Another participant suggested that education is the key to overcoming misperceptions of the Islamic world as a monolith. The great diversity of the Muslim world needs to be taught not only in the West, but in many countries whose education systems have been given over to groups with particular agendas. Kuwait, for instance, is a constitutional democracy, but the Muslim Brotherhood has come to dominate public education while the ruling family turns what the participant called a blind eye to the effects.

The Internet is a valuable tool for breaking down monoliths in the United States and in Muslim countries, another participant suggested. Has there been any measurable reaction from entrenched and long–standing assumptions and beliefs? In response, someone remarked on the growing number of blogs in the Muslim world; the trend has become pervasive in Turkey and Egypt, among other places. Some blogging does draw the attention of state governments and other authorities, but thus far, each time a government shuts down access to one site or proxy server, another opens up.

Another participant cited YouTube as a means of getting past censorship barriers in many Muslim countries. YouTube’s combination of user–produced videos and clips of broadcast content offers many people access to images of daily life, world news, and entertainment that they would otherwise miss. Sarmast mentioned that the Iranian hip hop artists featured in her documentary reach audiences almost exclusively through the Internet. Furthermore, since 2007, Farsi has become the tenth– largest blogging language on the web.22 Today, many second– and third–generation Persian–American families and other Diasporan communities are reconnecting with their roots online.

Another participant suggested that the Internet could serve as a platform for a modern version of the “citizen diplomacy” movement of the 1980s, which sought to end the Cold War by encouraging ordinary American citizens to visit the Soviet Union and get to know their counterparts there, in hopes of finding common ground. The movement’s efforts to engage diplomats and correspondents in discussions about a different point of view that focused on commonality rather than conflict contributed to an eventual shift in perception.

Changing perceptions of “the other” may be easier today, with the Internet providing more people access to more information, different perspectives, and new experiences. However, a final participant pointed out, while the rise of “soft media” such as blogging and social networking may present a less monolithic picture, it has also resulted in a decrease in “hard” investigative reporting.

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