The Veil On Display

Yesterday, I went to the Austrian Cultural Forum to see their current exhibit on the veil. Part of the recent NY Muslim Arts and Ideas festival, this exhibition, The Seen And The Hidden: [Dis]covering the Veil, brings nuance and personal immediacy to a subject and a debate in which those ingredients are often lacking. Below are a sampling of some of my favorite pieces.

This piece, created by Asma Ahmed Shikoh, features hijabs from 100 women across the United States incorporated into a honeycomb-shaped sculpture. On each cell of the honeycomb, Shikoh has provided the name, city as well as some detail about the meaning of this particular scarf of each participant. I found this piece to be particularly powerful because of the personal connection that the artist encourages between the viewer and these women. The intimate information she provides forces the public to recognize these women as individuals, rather than members of a nameless bloc, with personal histories which inform the range of reasons why they have chosen to wear the veil.

I was particularly drawn to this piece because of the additional nuance that Esin Turan brings to the discussion. By using highly charged symbols such as the veil and the rainbow flag, he introduces alternative perceptions of gender and sexualtiy into the public consciousness, creating an unexpected twist in veil debate.

My subversive side took particular pleasure in this piece. Apparently the artist, Princess Hijab, has carried out a sort of guerrila warfare in the streets of Paris painting veiled women, such as these to the left, on outdoor advertisements around the city. With so many French threatened by the idea of women in headscarfs roaming the streets, seeing this ad must have really shook them up.

Especially this one with a woman smiling while wearing the scarf. Someone must have put her up to it!

Yes, good TV does exist outside of Hollywood

I recently went to a panel discussion on Media and the Arab world which discussed the lack of positive Muslim role models in the Western media from TV news anchors to movie stars. Although the topic was Western media, they primarily focused on American media outlets as they believed that it is American TV shows, movies, and other forms of journalism that has the greatest influence on Western audiences. This may be the case, but I just want to briefly highlight a few non-American Western shows and movies that do star Muslim characters and/or focus on Muslim plotlines and are doing precisely what this panel would love to see from Hollywood.

1) Little Mosque on the Prairie. This Canadian TV show, now in its fourth season, follows a small Muslim community in the small town of Mercy, Saskatchewan. Its characters represent a plurality of religious, ethnic, and political voices and the writers demonstrate a real interest in presenting a more thoughtful, nuanced look at Muslim life in the West. Unfortunately, it's not available on Netflix, but you can watch all the episodes on YouTube.

2) Only Human, a screwball comedy set in Spain, tells the story of a Jewish woman who brings home her Palestinian boyfriend for Shabbat dinner. For all the madcap chaos that ensues, much of it not having to do with the Jewish/Palestinian premise, it also slyly manages to address stereotypes on both sides with a refreshing lack of melodrama or preachiness.

These are but two examples of media projects that are trying, through humor, to offer to bridge the seemingly insurmountable gap between the West and the Muslim world. I am excited by these works and enthusiastically say--keep them coming!

Muslim Voices, Arts & Ideas

There is a fascinating festival going on right now in New York called Muslim Voices, Arts & Ideas that aims to use culture (books, film, visual arts) to break through the stereotypes that we (Americans and Muslims) have about each other. As part of this festival, the New York Public Library (NYPL) hosted a panel discussion entitled New Eyes on the Arab World: Breaking Down Barriers of Fear and Prejudice with Muslim and American writers and translators this past Saturday evening.

One of the most interesting things I learned was that there are a large number of young Arab writers who are interested in getting published in the West. It wasn’t completely clear as to why this is (do they want to reach a larger audience, is there more money to be made by selling in the West, do they want to de-exoticise the Arab world, or perhaps all three), but Paul Theroux, one of the panelists and a well-known Arabic-English translator, was encouraged by this wave and half-jokingly suggested that these young authors should be in touch with him as he is always looking for new books to work on!

Raja Alem, the only female writer on the panel, also seemed encouraged by these younger writers even if many of them may be able to sell more books than she, especially if they write books in the “chick lit” style of the Girls of Riyadh. She seemed particularly excited by the the web, in all its permutations, and sees the internet as a real opportunity for young Arab writers to be free from geographical borders and allows their work to be accessed immediately anywhere and by anybody.

Of course I always think of questions once the event is already over, but it occurred to me afterwards that no one really addressed the numerous books by Iranian authors that have already reached a wide audience in the West. I’m thinking of: Reading Lolita in Tehran, Persepolis, Lipstick Jihad, etc. Have their works helped to “break down barriers” and introduce a more nuanced Iran to Western audiences? What about hyphenated authors (i.e. Syrian-Americans, French-Algerians, etc…)? How do their experiences of living in multiple cultures influence their work and bridge the gap between the Arab world and the West?

The festival ends June 14. Go check it out!