Khepa Baul

Playlist for my radio show

2009-08-17T23:02:25Z

Early Dementia (Music) with sharif 08.17.2009 06:00AM to 09:00AM CST on http://www.weft.org

06:05AM Baaba Maal “Television” from Television (CD, Album) on Palm Pictures

06:14AM Andy Sheppard “We shall not go to market Today” from Movements In Colour (CD, Album) on ECM

06:21AM Charlie Louvin “Wreck On the Highway” from Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs (CD, Album) on Tompkins Square

06:25AM Animal Collective “In the flowers” from Merriweather Post Pavilion (CD, Album) on Domino

06:28AM David Berkman Quartet “Simple Pleasures” from Live at Smoke (CD, Album) on Challenge

06:43AM Eric Brace and Peter ^Cooper “I know a bird” from You don't have to like them both on Red Beet Records

06:47AM Jasson Ricci and New Blood “I am a new man” from Live at Ground Zero Vol 2 (CD, Comp) on Delta Groove

06:57AM Sanjay Mishra and Jerry Garcia “Monsoon” from Blue Incantation (CD, Album) on AKAR

07:06AM Eliades Ochoa “Estoy Como Nunca” from Estoy Como Nunca (CD, Album) on Virgin

07:11AM Hank Mobley “This I dig of you” from Best of Hank Mobley (CD, Album) on Blue Note

07:20AM Those Darlins “Red Light Love” from Red Light Love (CD, Album) on Oh Wow Dang

07:23AM Forro In the Dark “Nonsensical” from Music Meeting Festival Higlights 2009 (CD, Comp) on RNW

07:35AM Hailey Niswanger “Oliloqui Valley” from Confeddie (CD, Album) on self-released

07:38AM Huun Huur Tu and Carmen Rizzo “Ancestor Call” from eternal (CD, Album) on Spectre

07:44AM Billy Holiday “The Man I love” from Public Enemies (CD, Comp) on Decca

07:50AM Sara Tavares “Quando Das Um Pouco” from Xinti (CD, Album) on 4Q

07:53AM Otmaro Ruiz “And then she smiles” from Sojourn (CD, album) on Moondo Records

08:06AM Dex Romweber Duo “lookout” from Ruins of berlin (CD, Album) on Bloodshot

08:11AM Miroslav Vitous Group w/ Michel Portal “Variations on W. Shorter” from Remembering Weather Report (CD, album) on ECM

08:20AM Minos Matsas “Left at Rio Grande” from Music For Films (CD, Album) on Minos

08:25AM Buddy Miller “There's a higher power” from Universal United House of Prayer (CD, Album) on New West

08:31AM Brian Blade “Brother” from Mama Rosa (CD, Album) on Verde

08:34AM Kim Doo Soo “blues” from Sprit (CD, Album) on Riverman

08:40AM Valerie Miller “Caroline line” from autumn eyes (CD, Album) on grandmother aloe

08:45AM Nanci Griffith “The Loving Kind” from The Loving Kind (CD, Album) on Rounder

08:48AM Kimi Djabate “Fulolon” from Karam (CD, Album) on Cumbancha

08:55AM Nitin Sawhney “Distant Dreams” from London Undersound (CD, Album) on Positiv-ID

Playlists on Twitter

2009-06-23T00:35:49Z

I am putting my radio show playlist on twitter: http://twitter.com/earlydementia

Community Radio in Bangladesh

2009-05-31T16:07:17Z

Good news on the Community radio front in Bangladesh. This is a news report from Panos South Asia:

http://www.panosradiosouthasia.org/prsa/prsaarchives.php?id=66

In this edition, we are in Dhaka, Bangladesh where a sudden rise in the operation of community radio stations is expected after the government, for the first time, came up with a progressive and pro-radio broadcasting law in March 2008 that allows ownership of such radio stations to the local community. Bangladesh is the second country after Nepal, among South Asian countries, to make such a move. So far, 116 community radio stations are waiting their final go ahead to be on air. (15:00)

The fragility of homeland

2009-01-16T05:34:17Z

As we hopelessly witness the carnage in Gaza it is probably futile and somewhat arrogant to philosophize and write anything. Between Islamist and Zionist agenda children and innocent lives are wasted and we carry on blogging and signing our petitions.But sometime we do have to write and survive, it is better than silence. Maybe we have to look towards art for solace and find inspiration to resist and protest in a more effective, humane way. I present you Emily Jacir and her art project called Where We come From, currently in display at the San Francisco MOMA.

Jacir's photographs are simple but yet profoundly reminds us about the impact of simple art. Her work reminds us about the homes we lost, the homes we gained, the homes that we made where there wasn't any "home", and that very "home" that we never found or visited:

She used her U.S. passport to gain access to the occupied territories and come back -- a task which might sound surprisingly simple but is extremely difficult for some people. While she was there she took requests from people and fulfilled each wish:

"Go to Haifa and play soccer with the first Palestinian boy you see on the street."

"Drink the water in my parents' village."

"Go to Bayt Lahia and bring me a photo of my family, specially of my brother's kids."

"Go to the Israeli post office in Jerusalem and pay my phone bill."

"Go to my mother's grave in Jerusalem on her birthday and place flowers and pray."

Good Luck!

2008-12-28T18:11:54Z

BBC has a nice summary of the tomorrow's election in Bangladesh.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7798187.stm

A Debt Foletold

2008-12-28T03:23:21Z

From Koranteng's Toli:
(toli: n. 1. A juicy piece of news. 2. The latest word or gossip. 3. The talk of the town, typically a salacious or risque tale of intrigue, corruption or foolishness. (Ga language, Ghana, West Africa)

http://koranteng.blogspot.com/2008/12/debt-foretold.html

Asked if she would use a credit card if one were given to her, Ms. Zhang looked confounded. "What's a credit card?" she asked, adding, "We have everything we need."

— China's Economy, in Need of Jump Start, Waits for Citizens' Fists to Loosen

Zizek and Milbank!

2008-11-02T17:42:43Z

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11672

The Monstrosity of Christ
Paradox or Dialectic?
Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank
Edited by Creston Davis
What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.
—John Milbank

To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.
—Slavoj Žižek

In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "Radical Orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

Ochin Pakhi: The Unknown Bard

2008-10-20T03:14:57Z

Rezwan at the Global Voices has some summary of a recent controversy regarding Lalon's statue:
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/10/19/bangladesh-sculptures-bigots-and-bloggers/

Mahmoud Darwish 1942-2008

2008-08-10T22:20:51Z

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet died died Saturday in Houston. He was 67.

Who am I, without Exile?
(translated by Sinan Antoon)
Stranger on the bank,
like the river, water binds me to your name.
Nothing brings me back from this distance
to the oasis: neither war nor peace.
Nothing grants me entry into the gospels.
Nothing. Nothing shines from the shores
of ebb and flow between the Tigris and the Nile.
Nothing lifts me down from the Pharaoh's chariots.
Nothing carries me, or loads me with an idea:
neither nostalgia, nor promise.
What shall I do? What shall I do without exile
and a long night of gazing at the water?

Off to Boston

2008-07-29T22:57:27Z

I am off to Boston to attend the ASA conference. My paper is on the last day but I am excited about some of the sessions coming up in the next few days. It will be a crazy few days. Thu I am going to the Junior Theorist Symposium and then if I have time, I have plans to scour the bookstores around Harvard Square. It is pretty amazing!

Bauls

2008-07-10T21:18:16Z

Bauls,
originally uploaded by Meditant.

Some colorful pictures of Bauls in Flickr
http://flickr.com/photos/meditant/tags/bauls/

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

2008-07-06T22:55:57Z

“You want freedom and they give you chicken korma”
Mohammed Hanif, currently the head of the BBC's Urdu service, shares his insight as a graduate of the Pakistan Air Force by creating a satirical account and explanation of the assassination of President Zia ul-Huq. On Aug, 17 1988 President ul-Huq was killed in a mysterious plane crash along with several of his top generals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel. Since then no official explanation came out regarding this incident. Therefore several conspiracy theories are running amok. Borrowing from all those theories and adding his own twist Hanif creates a witty account of the assassination. And according to his version it is a crate of mangoes on the board of the PakOne that was responsible.

The story starts with the moment before the crash and then flashback from the point of view of Ali Shigri, Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of Fury Squadron, son of Colonel Shigri, “one of the ten men standing between the Free World and the Red Army”:

“The runaway is in the middle of the Bahawalpur desert, six hundred miles away from the Arabian Sea. There is nothing between the sun's white fury and the endless expanse of shimmering sand except a dozen men in khaki uniforms walking towards the plane.”

The story then quickly moves into the day Ali Shigri's roommate “Baby O" Obaid's mysterious disappearance and the subsequent detention of Ali Shigi, the involvement of the intelligent service, and Code Red security alert for President Zia ul-Huq. In between we meet interesting characters such as the laundryman Uncle Starchy, blind Zainab, secretary general of the all Pakistan sweepers union and my favorite the First Lady:

The First Lady stayed away from newspapers. There were too many words she couldn't make sense of and too many pictures of her husband. She herself rarely appeared in the papers, and if she did, she was usually attending a children's festival or the Quran recitation competitions for women that General Zia dispatched her to so she could represent the government and hand out prizes. The information minister sent her the clippings of these pictures and she usually hid them from General Zia because he always found fault with her appearance. If she wore makeup, he accused her of aping high-society Westernized women. If she were no makeup, he said she looked like death, very unlike a First Lady. He constantly lectured her that as the First Lady of an Islamic state, she should be role model for other women. “Look at what Mrs. Ceausescu has done for her country.”

The bulk of the story is the account of Ali Shigri in first person and his flashback leading up to his arrest where he was accused of plotting to kill the president:

The soldier doesn't blindfold me. He walks me into a room that is trying very hard to look like a torture chamber. A barber's chair with rubber straps on its armrests is connected to amateurish-looking electrical devices. An assortment of canes, leather whips, and scythes are arranged on the table, along with a grass jar of chili powder. Nylon ropes hang from a hook on a wall and a pair of old tyres is connected to the ceiling with metal chains, probably to hand the prisoners upside down. The only new item is a while Phillips iron, unplugged. A torture chamber that doubles as a laundry room? I wonder.

Whether Hanif talks about the busy streets, the secret dungeon created by the Mughals or the spiritual crisis of President Zia while reading the story of Jonah, he brings a witty sense of humor and depth to the story telling. In a recent interview he was asked, if he had received any threats from Zia’s family, the Army or the Intelligence Services. “No,” said Hanif. “I don’t think they are into reading books.”

Playlist: 06.30.08

2008-06-30T21:30:58Z

More playlists here:
http://weft.org/program/early-dementia-show

Ray Bonneville Cool Cool Rain Goin' By Feel
Victor Wooten Left, Right & Center Palmystery
Dengue Fever Clipped Wings Venus on Earth
Janiva Magness Bitter Pill What Love Will Do
Carly Simon Hold Out Your Heart This Kind of Love
Doug Miller Ice Cave Regenration
Endless Boogie Bad River Focus Level
My Morning Jacket I'm Amazed
Cheik Lo I Still Haven't Found In the Name of love www.africacelebratesu2.com
Holly Long Homeward Bound Leaving Kansas
Vijay Iyer Threnody Tragicomic
Bob Brozman Rolling Through the World Post-industrial Blues Ruf
Afrissippi Sonna Alliance
Jamie Baum Pine Creek Septet Solace
Uaragniaun Nu Mueire De Saule U Diavule E Lacqua Sante Felmay

Elana James Run away with me Snarf
Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog Todo El Mundo Party Intellectuals Pi
Billy Gragg I Almost Killed You Mr Love and Justice Anit-
Sammy Price Harlem Parlor Blues Classic Piano Blues Smithsonian
Kaiser Cartel Blue Sky March Forth blu hammock www.bluhammock.com
Annie Keating Drive Belmont
John Sebastian and David Grisman Coffee Blues Satisfied
Gary Nunez & Plena Libre Plena al Salsero Live in Monterry
Po' Girl Texas Folk Alliance Showcase 2008 Folk Alliance
Hayden The Van Song In Field and Town hardwood
Sonantes Defenestrando Six Degrees
Florent Vallant Nitshiuenana Quebec Putumay www.putumayo,com

Enchantress of Florence

2008-06-14T03:02:54Z

Several historical characters show up in the new novel of Rushdie.Akbar and Birbal are two:

“If you were an atheist, Birbal,” the Emperor challenged his first minister, “what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?” Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, “I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them.” “How so?” the Emperor asked. “All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own,” said Birbal. “And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.”

Postcoloniality and Globalization:Media and the Internet

2008-05-25T19:18:54Z

Mark Poster in a recent article (Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 24:4, 379 — 393) asks the question "is the epoch of postcolonial studies over"? His conclusion is that postcolonial mode of theory is in the decline and moreover with globalization and dissemination of Internet we can encounter a “planetary culture” that “might yield an instantiation of globalization that was neither foreseen nor desired by its neo-liberal proponents" (p. 391). He bases this conclusion on some valid critique of postcolonial theories. He particularly draws on Bhaba's idea of “Third Space” and “hybridity” and argues that the hybridity created by the new media and “electronic spaces” are very different than that envisioned by postcolonial theorists like Bhaba and others. Instead of looking at the colonizer/colonized schema, he wants to focus on the media landscape using Foucault's notion of power. However, from a scholar like Poster it is surprisingly a flimsy argument that does not bode well with the realities of the new media associated with the other structural changes that is happening in the neo-liberal economic systems.

As mentioned above, Poster starts with Bhaba's notion of hybridity and argues that this hybridization is taking a new form with the advent of networked computers:

“After the intense globalization of the past thirty years, the situation is altered and more complex still. For one thing, the peoples of the non-Western world are now, in large numbers, in the Western World, an outcome that has led to theories of multiculturalism and diaspora. To some extent, this is not new: Jews and Muslims inhabited Europe before Western globalization. The Chinese immigrated throughout Asia. Africans have been (unwillingly) placed in the West since the early days of globalization. Postcolonial theories of colonizer and colonized do not lend themselves to illuminate this sort of mixing. Second, the tremendous impact of the economic aspect of globalization has brought Western commodities to the rest of the world and has incorporated non-Western labor into the design and manufacture of Western goods and even increasingly for services, for markets all over the world. Postcolonial nations are now suffused with Western commodities, including the labor skills learned in Western universities and exported back home. Third, cultural objects now extend back and forth between the West and the rest through global communications systems.”

Although he mentions about labor and commodities but the direction of the article solely focuses on “global communications systems”. He brings in Appadurai's idea of “mediascape” in order to balance it with some postcolonial critique. To bring in media issue here is relevant, as he argues, but does that fill the gap of postcolonial theorizing?

“As the migrants circulate through the space of nations, affected by mass media and armed with their own media, the condition of postcoloniality is altered. For postcoloniality depended upon a stable geography of nations, each one harboring its people or better peoples with the asymmetry of the West and the rest defining a cartography of interaction and strife.”

Postcoloniality is altered, there's no doubt about that. But is it just through diffusion of media and information? There is a certain aspect of “informationilzing” the issues in Poster's argument that needs to be carefully looked at.

He does find Appardurai's notion of media limiting, but how does he fix it? Poster is too much focused on the difference of the media rather than the structural differences that are attached to media such as copyright, ownership etc:

“Appadurai’s thesis of globalization as migration and media, productive as it is, does not adequately explore the difference of media or appear to reflect an understanding of the specificity of media. The subtlety of his analysis does not extend to an appreciation of the particular material and cultural forms of media. In the passage quoted above, for instance, he attributes the “rupture” introduced by media in the constitution of the contemporary imaginary to “electronic media.” This is far too general a term. He seems to be referring to networked computing. But “electronic” refers as well to radio, television and film, not to mention satellite communications systems and mobile phones. In other passages he refers to mass media in a way that does not exclude the Internet but probably should since networked computing is a many-to-many communications system not a few-to-many apparatus like television or film. The murkiness of Appadurai’s understanding of media inhibits the analytic power of his argument, as I will attempt to indicate below. It does not account for the difference between media controlled by transnational capital and media that afford individuals positions of speech, between media that enforce and reproduce the opposition of producer and consumer to media that challenge that separation.”

Poster then brings in Foucauldian notion to understand the complexity of mediascape which I think is very useful:

“In particular, Foucault’s notion of productive power is especially germane in the understanding of media. For Foucault, power produces relations and subject positions within those relations. Power for him is an apparatus (dispositif ) or mechanism, combining architectural spaces, practices, rules, and discourses. The confessional, the prison, the workshop and the school are prime examples of the operations of productive power. In each case individuals are positioned in such manner that they construct themselves in relations with others and with themselves. These relations are always asymmetrical, including some degree of domination. Individuals in these subject positions, however, are to a large extent unconscious of all the mechanisms that structure the situation in which they find themselves......This concept of power is particularly useful in understanding media effects and in fact, some of Foucault’s depictions of power sound as if he were speaking about computer networks.”

Then he falls in to the trope of “network” and “global” ideas of information which is not very helpful in understanding the complexity he is trying to unveil. To his credit he does point out the complexity of the "network" but does not follow through:

“How then does the globally networked communication system of digitized computing imbrication users unconsciously into new configurations of rectification? This apparently innocent question is complicated by three areas of concern: first is the question of the multiple nature of the Internet; second, and related to the first, is the relation of preexisting social and cultural forms to digital culture; third is the relation of non-Western cultures with the Internet mode of information that was originally developed in the West.”

I was following his argument till now and pretty much agreed with it, but with the following arrangement he lost me:

“The digital self that participates in Internet public spheres is different from the individual speaking in the angora or the coffee house, as well as from the representative of individuals speaking in democratic institutions like parliaments. Digital information machines construct subjects who are present only through their textual, aural, and visual uploads. The requirement of networked computing constructs subjects as producers of cultural objects, just like the speeches uttered in coffee houses or the essays published in newspapers, journals and books. Networked computing also enables subjects to distribute their own work to countless numbers of recipients, such as in globs, Listerine,multiple email distributions, web pages and file transfer protocol programs. In this respect, the digital self is more like a broadcaster than like an individual speaker at a meeting. Like some other media, a degree of anonymity is enabled by networked computing so that the assurances one has about identity in face-to-face situations or in publications that have strong gatekeeper functions such as newspapers and in print in general do not obtain.”

He goes on:

“We cannot yet be confident in giving shape to this emergent identity but we must acknowledge its novelty. “

OK, I agree with the notion of novelty but so what? Then, he says:

“Since the digital self also absorbs the accordances and constraints of the Internet, we can say that the positions of speech that are made possible in this medium are greatly expanded from what we have known before. To obtain such a speaking position in the digital world is vastly easier and more affordable than any comparable participation in the past. To speak in the angora one had to be a member of the elite of free citizens of Athens; to speak in the coffee house of early modern London, one had to be an adult, Christian (probably Protestant) male at least of the bourgeoisie; to speak in a salon in eighteenth century Paris, one had to be an invited aristocrat or bourgeois. To speak on the Internet, there are no age limits, no gender limits, and no religious, ethnic or national limits. Indeed there is no way to discern these traits in most Internet discussion forums, from Usenet to chat rooms, from Listerine to blogs"

Yes, there is not limit in the Internet like ancient Athens but that does not imply equal participation. I find the notion of “global space” and digital self” very limiting in a sense that it “absorbs the accordances and constraints of the Internet” as he implies but does not elaborate on it. And he is probably also sick of this “global” term so he leaps to the planetary dimension:

“In this regard, digital subjects are solicited not to stabilize, to centralize, to unify the territorial identity they were given by birth or social position, but to invent and to construct themselves in relations with others. In the digital medium, subject formation becomes a task inherent in cultural exchange. And it does so at a planetary level.”

Here I think he is under the “global long-sightedness” (Olson 2005)virus which is not helpful to look at what is going on locally. The communication, interaction and hybridization that are happening is useful and we need a global lens, no doubt, however, but in the expense of ignoring the locality and the particularly that the postcolonial mode that provide. It is not yet settled that postcolonial theory is in the decline or not, there are new dimensions that needs to be looked and media is definitely one of them. However, the over hyped notion of "network" and the idea "planetary communication" only create jargons that undervalue the specificity of the smaller issues.

References:
Olesen, Thomas. 2006. “Transnational Protest and global Activism/Coalitions across Borders:
Transnational Protest and the Neoliberal Order. International Sociology. 21: 417422.
Poster, Mark. 2007. "Postcolonial Theory in the Age of Planetary Communications". Quarterly Review of Film and Video 24:4, 379 — 393

Playlists...new CDs

2008-05-22T04:06:08Z

Some new stuff that I have been playing on my radio show.

1. Pink Martini: Very eclectic new release -- Hey Eugene!
2. Haale Gafori: Iranian-American rock singer.
3. Etnar Finatawa: Nomdas with electric guitars.
4. The Details.
5. New Release by Brad Mehldau Trio.
6. Argentine Diva Liliana Barrios, tribute to Anibal Troilo.
7. Lionel Loueke: Karibu

Notes on Al-Ghazālī and Descartes

2008-05-22T03:46:16Z

Comparing Ghazzali and Descartes: Convergence or Divergence?

Carl Olson (2003) in his introduction to Zen and the art of postmodernism calls comparative philosophy “a promiscuous activity” (19) as the scholars involving comparing ideas need to try out different things, go around the block few times:

“The comparative thinker must remain intellectually promiscuous because of the possibility of the fusion of divergent horizons. This promiscuity takes place on the margins of philosophy, which is indicative of the uncertainty, riskiness, and dangers associated with comparative philosophy and one's willingness to venture one's self-understanding in the presence of the other.”

Olson's idea of margin here implies that one is willing to cross the border which is not possible from the center.

However risky and uncertain this task maybe Tamara Albertini takes a stab on this under the umbrella of certainty. In the article “Crisis and Certainty of Knowledge in Al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) and Descartes (1596-1650)” Albertini draws an “epistemological platform” in order to compare and contrast these two influential thinkers. The idea here is not to equate these two thinkers although there are some similarities but to strengthen the platform where we could establish a nuanced understanding of both of them and furthermore proceed with dialogs that can enlighten our views about different traditions.

Al- Ghazālī, one of most influential Islamic thinkers, helped create a new path for Islamic philosophy by carving a way out of the influence of Aristotelian-Neoplatonic concepts. And Descartes is a towering figure in Western metaphysics after Aristotle who both of these thinkers read and commented on. However, as several scholars suggested the common thread here is doubt and skepticism. Following that line Albertini explores how “they thought that doubt could be defeated” (2) by focusing on their argumentations and methods.

After several years of teaching in a prestigious institution in Baghdad, al-Ghazālī underwent a profound spiritual crisis:

“So I became certain that I was on the brink of a crumbling bank and already on the verge of falling into the Fire, unless, I set about mending my ways. I therefore, reflected unceasingly on this for some time, while I still had freedom of choice (quoted in Albertini 2005:1).”

The bulk of the article deals with al-Ghazālī works specifically how he criticizes different school of thoughts: the scholastic theologians, the Batinites, the philosophers, and Sufis. His goal is to define and find “true” knowledge, therefore he criticizes the various ways to get to that knowledge:

“[a] true knower does not stop short of grasping the originating principle of that object or of the epistemic process that he (or she) wishes to understand. On the other hand, a true knower also does not restrict reality to that principle only but follows it through all of its manifestations down to its lowest expression, such as reflection or a shadow in Plato, or in marks traced on a sheet in al-Ghazālī: (Albertini 2005:4).

In order to attain this knowledge Al-Ghazālī defines what is “true”: “So I began by saying to myself: “What I seek is knowledge of the true meaning of things. Of necessity, therefore, I must inquire into just what the true meaning of knowledge is.” Then it became clear to me that that sure and certain knowledge [al-ilm al-yaqini] is that in which the thing known is made manifest that no doubt clings to it, nor is it companied by the possibility of error and deception, nor can the mind even suppose such a possibility.” (Al-Ghazālī, quoted in Albertini 2005: 5).</blockquote>

In order to achieve this certainty Al-Ghazālī proposes the idea of cleansing ones' mind of opinions and beliefs that have been absorbed from youth and onwards. As Albertini points out, he does not question the belief but questions the method. Hence when he criticizes the philosophical method, he is not demanding the end of philosophy as some scholars blamed him for that. His goal is to question the “untested epistemic content”.

In a similar fashion we find Descartes questioning:

“for all the opinions to which I had hitherto given credence, I could not do better than to undertake, once and for all, to get rid of them, in order to replace them afterwards either by other, better ones, or even by the same ones, when I would have adjusted them to the level or reason”

(Discourse on Method, quoted in Albertini: 6). He then goes on delineating four rules. The first one is:

“The first rule was never to accept anything as true that I did not evidently know to be such: that is to say, carefully avoid all precipitation and prejudice, and to include in my judgments nothing more than that which would present itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I were to have no occasion to put in doubt. (Discourse on Method).

There are some significant methodological differences between them that comes into play how they understand such uncertainty. However, the common epistemological framework here is linking self-knowledge to knowledge of God:
“Like Al-Ghazālī, one finds Descartes linking self-knowledge to the knowledge of God. In the Meditations one learns, thus that by scrutinizing one's thinking one discovers ideas of such clarity and directness that they can only be innate. ..The Cartesian idea of God rests on two intrinsically related notions: infinity and perfection. Both notions are thought to be underived concepts that can be acquired neither through experience nor through a logical operation. Descartes' reasoning is that we do not acquire the notion of infinity by negating what is finite, and we do not grasp perfection by thinking of the opposite of imperfection.”

In Al-Ghazālī writings we understand the importance of reason but also the importance of intuition, these combined can show us the true knowledge.

Reference:
Albertini, Tamara, 2005 "Crisis and Certainty of Knowledge in al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) and Descartes (1596-1650)" Philosophy East and West 55,1:1-14.
Olson, Carl, 20003. Zen and the Art of Postmodern Philosophy. New York: State University of New York Press.

Helping Burma...

2008-05-08T20:17:43Z

1. http://www.foundationburma.org or by check or money order to Foundation for the People of Burma, 225 Bush Street Suite 590, San Francisco, CA 94104. For questions please call (415) 217-7015.

2. Mennonite Central Committee http://mcc.org/myanmarrelief/

3. http://www.burma-network.org/

4. unicef http://www.unicef.org/

Miles From India

2008-05-06T03:02:12Z

A fascinating collaboration between members of Miles Davis band and Indian musicians.

http://www.milesfromindia.com/

Miles Alumni

Gary Bartz, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Chick Corea, Pete Cosey, Michael Henderson,
Adam Holzman, Robert Irving III, Dave Liebman,John McLaughlin, Marcus Miller,
Ndugu Chancler, Benny Rietveld,Wallace Roney, Badal Roy,
Mike Stern, Lenny White and Vince Wilburn Jr.

Indian Musicians

Gino Banks, Louiz Banks, Ravi Chari, Rakesh Chaurasia,
Selva Ghanesh, Sikki Gurucharan, Dilshad Khan, Shankar Mahadevan,
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Brij Narain, Sridhar Parthasarathy, Taufiq Qureshi,
Kala Ramnath, U. Shrinivas, A. Sivamani and Vikku Vinayakram.

THROMBOSIS IN THE VEINS OF PETROLEUM

2008-04-28T04:59:37Z

Taha Muhammad Ali is one of the leading poets from Palestine. Born in 1931 in Galilee village of Saffuriya, he fled to Lebanon, after his village was destroyed during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. A year later he slipped back across the border with his family and settled in Nazareth, where he has lived ever since. This poem is from a recent collection So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971-2005, Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin. Published by Copper Canyon Press.

THROMBOSIS IN THE VEINS OF PETROLEUM
By Taha Muhammad Ali.

When I was a child
I fell into the abyss
but didn’t die;
I drowned in the pond
when I was young,
but did not die;
and now, God help us—
one of my habits is running
into battalions of land mines
along the border,
as my songs
and the days of my youth
are dispersed:
here a flower,
there a scream;
and yet,
I do not die!

----
They butchered me
on the doorstep
like a lamb for the feast—
thrombosis
in the veins of petroleum;
In God’s name
they slit my throat
from ear to ear
a thousand times,
and each time
my dripping blood would swing
back and forth
like the feet of a man
hanged from a gallows,
and come to rest,
a large, crimson mallow
blossom—
a beacon
to guide ships
and mark
the site of palaces
and embassies.

-----

And tomorrow,
God help us—
the phone won’t ring
in a brothel or castle,
and not in a single Gulf Emirate,
except to offer a new prescription
for my extermination.
But …
just as the mallow tells us,
and as the borders know,
I won’t die! I will not die!!
I’ll linger on—a piece of shrapnel
the size of a penknife
lodged in the neck;
I’ll remain—
a blood stain
the size of a cloud
on the shirt of this world!

MATERIALITIES OF DEMOCRACY, Transnational Sociology Workshop

2008-04-10T14:04:23Z

I will be presenting at the upcoming transnational workshop. Timothy Mitchell, a prominent social theorist and political scientist will be the keynote.

MATERIALITIES OF DEMOCRACY
The 9th Transnational Sociology Workshop
April 12, 2008

Room 22 Education Building

9:00 Reception (Breakfast buffet and coffee)
9:30 Keynote by Professor Timothy Mitchell: "Carbon Democracy"
10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Technologies of Colonialism

Jamie McGowan (UIUC, Geography)
"Interpreting Conventional Signs & Imperial Designs: The Surveying and Mapping
of Colonial Ghana, 1874-1932"

Cheng-Heng Chang (UIUC, Sociology)
"Cultivating Hokkaidō: Environment, Modernity and Japan's Colonial Regime"

Discussant: Prof. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (UIUC, Sociology)

12:30 Lunch and coffee
1:30 Technologies of Justice

Sharif Islam (UIUC, Sociology)
"Problematizing Information and Communication Technology as Progress:
Assessing the Wider Social and Political Role of Free and Open Source
Movement"

Chandler Armstrong (UIUC, Sociology)
"Development with Appropriate Technology in the Information Age"

Discussant: Prof. Rayvon Fouché (UIUC, History)

3:15 Coffee and snack break

3:30 Transnational Metabolisms

Dan Lord (UIUC, Sociology)
"Building a Global Energy System: Remembering the Nineteenth-Century
"Origins" of Oil Capitalism"

Prof. Zsuzsa Gille (UIUC, Sociology)
"Materialities of State Socialism and Postsocialism"

Discussant: Prof. Diana Mincyte (UIUC, Advertising)

5:15 Break

5:30 Concluding Remarks by Professor Timothy Mitchell

Papers will be available on the Sociology Department's wepbage:
http://www.soc.uiuc.edu/

Wolves of the Crescent Moon by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

2008-04-07T03:09:03Z

Saudi writer Yousef Al-Mohiameed Wolves of the Crescent Moon (Fikhakh al-rai'ha) is a provocative and sometime disturbing tale set in contemporary Riyadh. It is short, quick paced story that brings together three men that are living in the periphery of the Saudi society. There's the middle-aged Bedouin, Turad, who has come in from the desert in search of work. Nasir, an orphan, and Amm Tawfiq, an old ex-slave brought from the Sudan decades ago as a youth. The allegorical style of the book poses some of the thorny questions the Saudi society is facing. The book is banned in the Kingdom, the author had to publish is from Beirut.

The story unfolds in a bus station with Turad, who lost his left ear during a failed robbery in the desert. This deformity haunts him everyday and later we find the other two also has similar deformity: Tawfiq who lost his testicles and Nasir, lost an eye when he was an infant. Al-Mohiameed is at his best in describing these incidents with gruesome detail, as a result some other parts of the story feels flat. However, overall the structure works out nicely with different points of view, sometime even in the same page. He brings together these three deformed men with flashbacks and dreams and connecting their pasts during one night in Riyadh and ends when the city is "like a young woman wiping the sleep from her eyes".

Al-Mohiameed uses some nice poetic touch while describing the brutality of slavery and Bedouin life. As Turad sits in the bus station trying decide where to go, we get a glimpse of the these people eariler lifes with the crescent moon looming behind:

On one occasion, at the beginning of the night with the crescent moon just over the horizon like the slender sculpted eyebrow of a sleeping woman, the scent of camels came upon them, like a herd in the desert. It invaded Turad's nose and he mentioned to his companion to be silent. They lay motionless in the sand like two rocks. They had tied bands of cloth around their waists to keep up their tattered thobes for ease of movement. They had their sharp knives ready, for it was their intention to sneak up past the guards and slip into the middle.

Or later we hear Amm Tawfiq's account on how he was transported from Sudan

I was sad. The sun was drawing its golden mantle across the shoulders of the houses in the quarter of al-Mazlum. They had just pushed me into the back of a Ford truck with a pile of furniture and household items: rugs and blankets, and pillows with colorful linen covers. I took one and placed it under my head as we drove along the darkness. It was stuffed with feathers, and the sharp quills scratched my face. Ah, if only I could put the feathers along my arms and fly. Slowly, I would ascend, little by little, until I was a bird in the open sky.

Although overwhelming few times, it was a good quick read. A good translation from Arabic by Anthony Calderbank.

Nazi Literature in The Americas by Roberto Bolaño

2008-04-05T19:52:37Z

Roberto Bolaño's (1953-2003) Nazi Literature in The Americas first came out in Spanish (Historia de la literature Nazi en America) in 1996. The brave souls at the New Directions Publishing just published the English translation by Chris Andrews. According to Literary Saloon, this book is an "astonishing achievement". New York Times Book Review calls it, "a wicked, invented encyclopedia of imaginary fascist writers and literary tastemakers". This is no doubt will be one of the best releases of this year, a classic Bolaño that seeks the limits of literature in a sarcastic, humorous way.

This highly imaginative and experimental work is an encyclopedia of several imagniary right-wing Pan-American authors with complete and annotated bibliography. Most of these authors not only spew fascist and Nazi ideas, they are also horrible writers, but yet, writing sometime defines their whole existence. Within four or five pages, Bolaño creates fleshed out characters that sometime haunts the reader and sometime even creates sympathy. But the irony is Bolaño never quotes any poem or writings (similar to The Savage Detectives), we learn about the styles and various publications, but we don't see as much poetry, as much as we read about the love life and trial and tribulations of these writers:

He died in an old-age home in Villa Luro, his world possesions consisting of a single suitcase full of books and unpublished manuscripts.
His books were never published. His manuscripts were probably thrown out with the trash or burned by the orderlies.

We find another writer, Rory Long, from North America:

He made a living giving lectures and readings all around the country. He was married and divorced four times, although he always said that the love of his life was Margaret Hogan. Time mollified his literary incentive: there is a yawning gulf between the aggressive sarcasm of "Negative Of John Brown" and the Olympian serenity of the ailing poet in "Homage to a Vine Street Dog". He remained firm in his disdain for Jews and homosexuals to the end, although at the time of his death he was beginning, gradually, to accept African Americans.

The book is divided into fourteen sections such as "Itinerant heroes or the fragility of mirrors" , "Magicians, mercenaries and miserable characters" , "The Aryan brotherhood", "Wandering Women of Letters". The last section is a called "Epilogue for monsters" that lists secondary literary figures, publishing houses and with a complete bibliography:

Duchess of Bahamontes. Cordoba, 1893-1957. "Duchess and Cordoban. Her platonic lovers numbered in the hundreds. Urinary problems and anorgasmia. A fine gardener in her old age.
...
Otto Haushofer. Berlin, 1871-Berlin, 1945. Nazi philosopher. Godfather of Luz Mendiluce and father of various harebrained theories: hollow earth, solid universe, original civilizations, the interplanetary Aryan tribe. He committed suicide after being raped by three drunk Uzbek soldiers.
...
The Fourth Reich in Aregntina. No doubt one of the most peculiar, outlandish and stubborn publishing ventures spawned by the Americas, even fecund in enterprises verging on insanity, illegality and idiocy. The topical first issue was entirely devoted to refuting the legality of the Nuremberg trials, which were full swing at that time.....

Bolaño's brilliance is in creating a world where poetry and writing is the ultimate reality even for these monsters and fascists. His sublime satire and pseudo academic tone hinges upon our bleak political reality of the modern world. Literature, a "humane" vocation, a political reality could become another aesthetic for Nazi like brutality. A brilliant work, highly recommended, but as another reviewer said: "though readers should be aware of what they are getting themselves into: this is not your usual novel".

Saramago...excerpts from Death At Intervals

2008-04-04T03:37:01Z

"Lovers of concision, laconicism and economy of language will doubtless be asking, if the idea is such a simple one, why did we need all this waffle to arrive, at last, at the critical point. The answer is equally simple, and we will give it using a current and very trendy term. that will, we hope, make up for the archaisms with which, in the likely opinion of some, we have spattered this account as if with mould, and that term is context."...

All the names in the book was written with small cases even death.

"We've all had our moments of weakness, and if we manage to get through today without any, we'll be sure to have some tomorrow. Just as beneath the bronze cuirass of achilles there once beat a sentimental heart, think only of the hero's ten years of jealousy after agememnon stole away his beloved, the slave girl briseis, and then the terrible rage that made him return to war, howling out his wrath at the trojans when his friend patroclus was killed by hector, so beneath the most impenetrable of armours ever forged and guaranteed to remain impenetrable until the end of time, we are referring here, of course, to death's skeleton, there is always a chance that one day something will casually insinuate itself into the dread carcass, a soft chord from a cello, an ingenuous trill on a piano, or the mere sight of sheet music open on a chair, which will make you remember that thing you refuse to think about, that you have never lived and that, do what you may, you will never live...."

Review

Review: Death At Intervals

2008-03-23T01:49:18Z

Marcel Proust apparently saw death disguised as a fat woman dressed in black. But José Saramago's death (with small 'd') in the novel Death At Intervals (As Intermitências da Morte), is a “skeleton wrapped in a sheet” and “she lives in a chilly room accompanied by a rusty old scythe that never replies to questions”. Yes, death, a morte, is feminine in gender in Portuguese and she is whimsical, funny, and often times cold as death should be. However, as the story progresses, Saramago, defying every single rule that is taught in creative writing classes, brings forth a more nuanced death that talks to her scythe and certain times feels sorry for the human beings that she is destined to snatch away.

Saramago with his unique narrative style creates a world that makes us question what it means to be human. The story starts like this. All hell breaks loose, if that is indeed an apt expression in this context, when in an unnamed country, death stops her usual duties: “The following day, no one died”. Then a series of events occurs.. Newspapers across the nation prints ominous headlines -- “What Will Become Of Us Now?”. The government is at a loss while some citizens are ecstatic with the vision of immortal life:

Although the crisis is clearly not the most appropriate one to describe these extraordinary events, for it would be absurd, incongruous and an affront to the most basic logic to speak of a crisis in an existential situation that has been privileged by the absence of death, one can understand why some citizens, zealous of their right to know the truth, are asking themselves, and each other, what the hell is going on with the government, who have so far given not the slightest sign of life. When asked in passing during a brief interval between two meetings, the minister of health, had, it is true, explained to journalists that, bearing in mind that they lacked sufficient information to form a judgment, any official statement would, inevitable, be premature,

Saramago loves to poke fun at the dismay of bureaucrats and at the hysteria of the government as he did in another novel (Seeing), where all the citizens turned in a blank ballot. Not only the government is at a loss, with the absence of death the insurance and funeral industry are in a quagmire. So is the church where death is crucial concept tied with religion and god:

if there was no death, there could be no resurrection, and if there was no resurrection, then there would be no point in having a church. Now, since this was clearly the only agricultural implement god possessed with which to plough the roads that would lead to his kingdom, the obvious, irrefutable conclusion is that the entire holy story ends, inevitably, in a cul-de-sac.

The story moves on as Saramago details the confusion that seeps through the country. Then death, with the small 'd', returns. She comes back after seven months of hiatus with a violet-colored envelop that announces or proclaims, if you fancy such lofty words:

“ Dear Madam, I regret to inform you that in a week your life will end, irrevocably and irremissibly. Please make the best use you can of the time remaining to your, yours faithfully, death.”

In the country where no one dies, death returns as an empress from her “freezing subterranean room, as if she had been buried alive, but on top of the highest mountain presiding over the fates of the world, gazing benevolently down on the human herd, watching them as they rush hither and thither, unaware that they're heading in the same direction, that one step forward will take them just as close to death as one step back,”

I will leave further details for the brave readers as the story of death turns into a story of love. Saramago once again created a world that at the same time defies logic and commonsense but also pours a mist of philosophical quandary that questions our basic human understanding about life, death and love.

As of today, this hasn't been published in the USA.

Death at Intervals
by José Saramago, another brilliant translation by Margaret Jull Costa.
Harvill Secker £12.99, pp208