Why I Write

Why am I compelled to write?… Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger… To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispell the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit… Finally I write because I’m scared of writing, but I’m more scared of not writing.
- Gloria Anzaldua

Save Your Pity: Migrants don’t need your pity, or their own

Rehearsal came to its unfortunate close. Laughing and joking, we wrapped up our first “Greased Lightening” performance. We were doing a tribute to Broadway that year, creating a grand mixture of some of the greatest songs and dances to have graced the coveted stage. It had taken me a while, but I finally felt as though I had found my niche during my first year at the all-American Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School, located in the bustling and quaint town of Port Washington on Long Island. My once-foreign features were made familiar when I joined a more diverse crowd. I was Latino, Italian, Persian, or Greek; I wasn’t the new Pakistani girl in a primarily Jewish elementary school anymore.

The popular, pornographic view of Africa

Fall semester of the 2008 school year at McGill, my political science degree came to a sombre close. I had come to university as a bright-eyed, excited 18-year-old, in love with politics and assured that I was meant to study in the field. And like every other political science major, I was determined to pursue a degree in international law at a prestigious university and ideally wished to work in some sort of diplomatic department at the United Nations, after a wonderful and brief stint at a well-established non-governmental organization (NGO). This is how I would have saved the world.

Finding Islam’s Modernity

It’s not an easy road, or one which even guarantees success, but it’s the only option which perhaps remains for Muslims. Either Muslims succumb to the slow crumbling of their faith vis a vis political and social corruption or they take action which may not return the community towards the greatness it once experienced, but saves it from potential and further disintegration. Muslim societies need to modernize, but they, just like any other “civilizational faultline,” do not necessarily have to answer to any international authority. They need to fix themselves spiritually and their countries politically. They need to determine their own good life based on their own needs, not the demands of others.

What Their Denial Says

Our voices, at this point, had escalated slightly beyond the casual bellowing. My Sri Lankan Muslim Sinhalese Tamil friend sounded like every Zionist Jew and/or Israeli I had encountered in the days and weeks following the invasion of Gaza. She spoke about terrorism, the right of the government to self-defense, thousands of civilians as unfortunate (but required?) collateral damage, the use of human shields, and a benevolent government which called the homes of the people it would bomb within the ensuing minutes.

Beyond Mini-Skirts and Veils

President Sarkozy’s recent declarations against the burqa have fallen out of the news headlines but his words are still ringing loudly within and outside Western Muslim communities. Opinion pieces and letters continue to flood international and local papers, tugging back and forth. While such debates may be painful and trivial to read and listen to by many, they must be welcomed as they bring into light a far greater issue than any all-encompassing piece of fabric. Most importantly, however, there is a dire necessity for a more intellectually sound discussion outside the common “the mini-skirt versus the veil” parable.

The Rise of Right Wing Extremism: A New War

If the recent elections in the Middle East have held our attention hostage, let us then turn our worries towards elections which have sparked a new kind of radicalism.

Right here, at home.

From the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States to the recent European Parliament elections, there has been a rise within right wing extremism. Within Europe, this shift has been political, with centre-Right parties become the more popular choice amongst already apathetic voters. In the United States, however, the radicalism has lost politically. Instead, American Right wing radicalism is taking on a more grassroots route, one which has proven to be violent and fueled by a bitter conservative media.

Holy Stream of Consciousness, Foucault!

A while back, I had an extremely interesting and thought-provoking conversation with a friend of mine. He was taking a class on Foucault, and brought up his redefining of historical terms, primarily discussing the issue that sex and sexual identity were modern phenomena. It’s the idea that sexual identities, where we define sexual relations between individuals, are a product of modernity as opposed to anything natural. Foucault claims that prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, relations we now deem in a particular fashion were common and had nothing to do with personal identification.

Does Progress Presuppose Westernization?

So, what is modernity? It’s a general reference term to the modern period which spans the 16th century up until the 19th. During this period we see the rise of certain political ideas such as the importance of individual liberties, capitalism, as a result, the emergence of the nation state, technology and science taking on a greater role, industrialization and as a result rapid urbanization, as well as the transformation of war – all a result of this dictatorship of reason – meaning a result of when complete cold human reason, logic and the like are put upon a pedestal above all else – where religion once dominated, reason came to dominate.

Ahmedinejad At Durban II – Challenging Our Comfort Levels

The only thing which seems to be on the minds and mouths of many these days are the apparently ‘racist’ remarks made by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad at the second Durban conference on anti-Racism which recently took place in Geneva. From equating Zionism with racism to the eerily synchronized walkout by European states, the speech has been warranted nothing short of the most negative of criticism – but has this negative criticism been justified?