Raja Alem

Left: Raja Alem, from her collaboration with photographer Wendy Ewald, titled ALL KINDS OF VEILS.

~*~

I'm embarrassed to admit that I am totally unfamiliar with the work of Saudi Arabian author Raja Alem. I just read an interview in BOMB magazine and knew I had to find more! (If anyone is familiar with her work, how about a quick and impromptu review in my comments?)

One colorful passage in the interview:

Zubayda and my mother ran a substantial business making keffiyehs, the headdresses worn by pilgrims. She told us that one time she stepped on one of her sewing needles and it traveled from her foot up to her body, found its way into her knees and her hip, and gradually damaged her organs. The older she got, the more abbreviated the Epic of the Needle became, until all she would say was, “Oh, that needle I stepped on….” Toward the end it was just “The needle….” She’d flutter her eyelashes and sigh, as if suggesting that her story had become too world-famous to be recounted in detail. But she never abbreviated the moral, she ended the story with: “You work yourself to death. Your love of life—that’s what drains the oil in your lamp.”

When Mama got the phone call with the news of her sister’s death, she fell back into the time of My Thousand and One Nights and started thinking again in her mother tongue, Khazar, which everyone assumed she’d forgotten years ago. The amazing thing is that for my mother and her sister death is merely an excursion. If you happen to be dead, like Zubayda or my father, Mama will still talk to you and do all sorts of things to please you. Mama talks to Papa all the time, addressing him formally, teasing him with his formal title—Mohammed Alem (Mister Alem)—which is what she called him when they made love or were fighting. We still talk about him every day when we sit down to eat.

Mama brings out an elegantly presented juicy melon. Shadia and I ask, as if surprised, “Oh, where did we get that?”

“Mohammed Alem,” Mama says matter-of-factly. “He bought it this morning, plus two big cartons of fruit. He wanted to see you, Shadia. But I told him you wouldn’t come downstairs.”

Mama puts special emphasis on Shadia not wanting to “see” her dead father because whenever Mama is cranky or not feeling well she threatens us with, “I’m going to speak with Mohammed Alem about this! Call the driver! I’m ‘going to Mecca’!”

There’s no mistaking the quotation marks in her voice. “Going to Mecca” is our family code for “going to die.” I deflect Mama’s threat by saying, “Wait, Mama; never go without me. If anybody ‘goes to Mecca,’ we go together.”

A while ago Mama bought herself a Mercedes SUV. She was cruising north by the shore of the Red Sea at two in the morning (she kept checking to make sure Sony, her driver, wasn’t nodding off), fiddling with the shiny stereo controls and singing along with Abdulmjeed Abdullah, her favorite folk singer, when she turned to Shadia and announced, “Raja and I are ‘going to Mecca’ to show Mohammed Alem our new car. Are you coming with us, Shadia darling?”

It came as a bit of a shock, intoxicated as I was by the aroma of the new leather seats and thinking about how sweet life is, to hear my mother inviting us to die with her so she could show our dead father her new car.

If she writes in this same wonderfully warm, personal style, I will be delighted with her book Fatma - A Novel of Arabia, which I have just ordered.

And another good excerpt in the interview made me feel like I'd been slapped. And I don't think she even meant it that way; she was only telling the truth as she sees it:

What is the American mind? The world, especially the Third World, always thought of the American mind as unique, as an example of generosity and openness to invention. The Wizard of Oz is a perfect analogy for the American mind, an infinite source of stunning new ideas. We never thought that America would change from welcoming the world to conquering it. Once America had new ideas, a spontaneity so attractive to so many people. Now it has only armies inciting resistance.

We have so much more! Let us show it to you!

Yes we can. (You knew I was going to say that eventually, didn't you?)

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Listening to: Louis Armstrong - Stardust
via FoxyTunes

Probable Lesbian-baiting of Hillary Clinton looms on the horizon

Photo of Huma Abedin, from VOGUE.






In my email today comes a panoply of links, all accusing Hillary of being a lesbian. The links name names, and come with photos. Her name is Huma Abedin. The "evidence" is pretty flimsy, and is obviously in the eye of the beholder, namely, a bunch of right-wing homophobes and professional Hillary-haters.

For example, at the predictably-titled blog NoHillaryClinton.com, we get the National Enquirer version:

I have been receiving emails about Huma - one came for a Department of Justice computer (ISP) stating this: "I am close enough to both Hillary and Huma to know that it is an open secret on the campaign that those two are romantically involved. It is something you will never get them to verify though…"

[...]

According to my limited research the Clinton camp has tried to keep Huma’s existence real quiet. I at first suspected it to be because of her nationality and Hillary’s creepy relationships with India and Pakistan.

[...]

It is common knowledge that Hillary is bi-sexual. According to Bill’s long-time ex-girlfriend Gennifer Flowers, Hillary enjoyed performing oral sex on other women. On p.41 of Flowers’ autobiography "Gennifer Flowers: Passion and Betrayal", Gennifer asked Bill if there was any truth to the rumor that Hillary was having an affair with another woman. Bill laughed and said (referring to Hillary): "Honey - she’s probably eaten more p---- than I have."

And then we get the right wingnuts at FreeRepublic.com, who take the story further, accusing Abedin of being a Saudi intelligence agent. (Wait, I thought she was Pakistani? Ah, she lived in Saudi, as her mother still does.)

I guess all Muslims are suspect, according to this faction:

Setting aside all the titillation about the sapphic aspects of this story, the facts of p—y the matter just scream "intelligence mole".

How does the child of two university professors [one of them deceased], who is single, never married, and living on a clerical salary, in one of the most expensive cities in America, afford to "never... wear the same outfit twice"?

Much less purchase from the likes of Oscar de la Renta, Catherine Malandrino, Charles Nolan, Prada, and Marc Jacobs? Not to mention Yves Saint Laurent?

How does the child of two university professors [one of them deceased], who is single, never married, and living on a clerical salary, in one of the most expensive cities in America, afford to buy her own "apartment in the vicinity of 12th and U streets"?

What would such an apartment cost? $500,000? $750,000? $1,000,000?

Where is she getting that kind of money? Who is the co-signor on her loan?

And if she didn't dress nice, what would they be saying then? Jokes about Muslim women covering themselves up from head-to-toe and therefore having no fashion sense, undoubtedly. You can't win.

Apparently, it was Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto who got the party started:

As I recently said on MONICA CROWLEY's radio show, whisper campaigns are claiming that HILLARY CLINTON is GAYLE KING–ing her aide de camp, the glamorous HUMA ABEDIN, an Indian/Pakistani goddess from Kalamazoo, Michigan. In other words, Hillary may be putting Huma out there in the press and purposely making her more visible as a pre-emptive strike that amounts to her hiding in plain sight. This way, no Republican can later say, "Who is this gorgeous babe who spends so much intimate time with Hillary that the Observer called her Hill's 'body person'? Was GENNIFER FLOWERS's book right about Hillary's sexual taste?" And does either of this couple have the balls to bottom?

Of course that whole scenario can't possibly be true, since Bill and Hill have been so lovey-dovey lately for the cameras, and besides, whenever he's been serviced by an intern—or by anyone—he's clearly been thinking of his wife. (They're that close.) But suddenly, Huma—a sort of Muslim SALMA HAYEK—has that spread in Vogue and the accompanying write-up notes that she "oversees every minute of Senator Clinton's day." Every single minute? Even Gayle King takes a break now and then! (PS: If I called for comment, Hillary's camp would surely say, "Just because two powerful women are closer than sardines doesn't make them dykes." And that's so true. Look at MATT and BEN. But now that Crowley has dubbed me the head of Huma Resources, I'm going to pursue this story with every cojone I've got.)

I debated whether to pile on by writing this. Of course, if the freight train is already heading full-speed-ahead into the station, my teeny, inconsequential blog doesn't make much of a difference. Obviously, other people are getting these same emails and links, and it's only a matter of time before the story breaks in the mainstream media.

Or are the Republicans waiting for her to win the nomination first?

I think it's important for feminists to be ready to ask the feminist questions, aside from the general "So what?" that is every decent person's gut reaction to such a smear.

1) Isn't it interesting how strong, powerful women are always lesbian-baited? I can't think of any who haven't been, except possibly Margaret Thatcher. (Is that how right wing you gotta be, to be above suspicion?)

2) Would the rumors have taken hold if we all didn't know intimate details about Bill Clinton? Is it widely believed that Bill had affairs because Hillary wouldn't put out? (Does everyone realize LOTS of men have affairs, who have completely heterosexual wives?)

3) Is this because of Hillary's pro-gay politics and her long-time friendships with women such as Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres? (Is Bill similarly suspect for HIS politics, and for hanging around with Elton John?)

Perhaps some of you can think of other dynamics to this story that I haven't.

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Listening to: Billie Holiday - It's Easy to Remember
via FoxyTunes

Two Saudi Men Sentenced to 7000 Lashes for Being Gay

From Head-On Radio by way of the Pensito Review, comes this abomination:

Two Saudi Men Sentenced to 7,000 Lashes for Being Gay
Posted by Jon Ponder | Oct. 6, 2007, 11:35 am

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent declaration that there are no gay people in Iran brought attention to the fact gays in Iran who are discovered are sentenced to death, and that a pair of teenaged boys were executed for being gay in 2005.

American conservatives, many of whom advocate re-criminalizing gay behavior, may have been able to distance themselves from the story because Iran is an enemy of the United States. But now comes word that a major U.S. ally has sentenced two men to be tortured by flogging, and that part of the sentence has already been carried out in public:

Prison authorities in Saudi Arabia have begun administering 7,000 lashes to each of two men convicted of committing “homosexual acts”, a local newspaper reported yesterday.

The Okaz newspaper says that the sentence was being meted out in “phases” and was being conducted in a public square in the southwestern city of Al-Bahah.

Neither man has been named.

The floggings began on Tuesday. The men were dragged into the square, their shirts removed and they were whipped. They were then returned to prison. The process was repeated on Wednesday and will continue daily until all 7,000 lashes have been administered.

Islamic laws prohibiting gay sex are brutal:

Among the Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madhahib), the Hanafi school mandates a severe beating for the first offense, and the death penalty for a repeat offender. The Shafi’i school calls for 100 lashes for an unmarried homosexual, death by stoning for a married one. The Hanbali school requires stoning across the board. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, directed his followers to kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him”(‘Umdat al-Salik, p17.3).