Where Does Rumi's Universality Come From?

Dealing with Rumi fans in the Bay Area can be challenging. Here is a good commentary from the The New Yorker by Rozina Ali. I am glad that Rumi's close links to Islam are finally being acknowledged. As a translator myself, I find some changes executed under "translation" quite unfair to Rumi and to his readers (if not terrifying!)

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A couple of years ago, when Coldplay’s Chris Martin was going through a divorce from the actress Gwyneth Paltrow and feeling down, a friend gave him a book to lift his spirits. It was a collection of poetry by Jalaluddin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet, translated by Coleman Barks. “It kind of changed my life,” Martin said later, in an interview. A track from Coldplay’s most recent album features Barks reciting one of the poems: “This being human is a guest house / Every morning a new arrival / A joy, a depression, a meanness, / some momentary awareness comes / as an unexpected visitor.”

Rumi has helped the spiritual journeys of other celebrities—Madonna, Tilda Swinton—some of whom similarly incorporated his work into theirs. Aphorisms attributed to Rumi circulate daily on social media, offering motivation. “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever get polished,” one of them goes. Or, “Every moment I shape my destiny with a chisel. I am a carpenter of my own soul.” Barks’s translations, in particular, are shared widely on the Internet; they are also the ones that line American bookstore shelves and are recited at weddings. Rumi is often described as the best-selling poet in the United States. He is typically referred to as a mystic, a saint, a Sufi, an enlightened man. Curiously, however, although he was a lifelong scholar of the Koran and Islam, he is less frequently described as a Muslim.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-islam-from-the-poetry-of-rumi

The New Rhetoric of Martyrdom in Turkey

I am confused and troubled by the use of the word 'martyr' in the current Turkish politics and mainstream media. Anyone who is a victim of a terrorist attack is announced and repeatedly referred to as martyr. This might serve to some people as a consolatory tactic but not to all. 

Here is the definition of the word according to Oxford English Dictionary:

A person who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce faith in Christ or obedience to his teachings, a Christian way of life, or adherence to a law or tenet of the Church; (also) a person who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce the beliefs or tenets of a particular Christian denomination, sect, etc.

In extended (esp. non-religious) contexts: a person who undergoes death or great suffering for a faith, belief, or cause, or (usually with to; also with of, for) through devotion to some object.

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/114474?rskey=WGkqms&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid

What if the person who lost the loved one is not affiliated with any religion or simply chooses to stick to the old and traditional definition as we know/knew it? Who has the right to judge or lynch this person and on which grounds?

Elected Rector, Not "Appointed" one please...

I lack the words for the moment... For a change, I won't comment.

Police dispersed Boğaziçi University students who had gathered on campus on Monday to protest Professor Mehmed Özkan, who was controversially appointed rector by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Nov. 12 under a state of emergency decree.

The students protesting the appointment of Özkan instead of former rector Professor Gülay Barbarosoğlu, who had won 86 percent of the votes of academics in a July election for the position, gathered at the main gate of the university on Monday morning.

Calling the appointment a “coup of the palace [Erdoğan] against universities” and promising to continue protests until the state of emergency decree that empowers the president directly appoint rectors is cancelled, the protesting students were stopped and dispersed by police, who beat and temporarily detained some of them.

Students also launched a social media campaign with #kayyımrektormehmed and #MehmedÖzkanRektörümüzDeğildir hashtags.

Meanwhile, Professor Özkan, who did not even run in the campus election, has vowed to protect the university’s tradition of pluralism and free thought.

“I will work to continue to increase the success of our university in the academic and scientific fields, protecting the participatory, pluralistic and free tradition. I will work with all my strength to carry Boğaziçi’s values to the future, which will be the essential priority during my tenure as rector,” Özkan said in his first message to academics at the university.

Prof. Dr. Barbarosoğlu resigned on Saturday following the appointment of Özkan.

“I bid farewell to the university to which I have contributed as a student, an academic and an administrator for more than 40 years, and am ending my academic life,” said Barbarosoğlu in a message she issued.

https://www.turkishminute.com/2016/11/14/police-disperse-bogazici-students-protesting-new-rector/

Berkeley-Based Juana Alicia's Statement as an Artist, the SPILL Mural (Bay Area Mural Festival)

I am going to be brief in this entry and just let dear, strong, courageous, activist landlady/friend Juana Alicia's words speak for themselves. I feel so privileged to have met her by pure coincidence. On Friday morning, I was at the mural site near Ashby and took a few pictures which I am sharing here. Picking up a quiet weekday morning gave me the chance to take good shots:)

Murals are significant contributions  to the people in that they bring art into the public sphere and that they can serve as effective tools of social emancipation or expressions of a political and ecological concerns and goals. It is an ancient form of art and can be found in many cultures and countries. I have been in love with the type of murals in the Bay Area since I first visited here back in 2005. In fact, one of my favorite buildings in San Francisco as a feminist scholar happens to be the Women's Building (1971), a women-led community space that advocates self-determination, gender equality and social justice.  It was the most thrilling surprise to learn that Juana Alicia is one of the artists who contributed to this amazing work of art. Thanks Juana Alicia for being you and for making this world a more beautiful and valuable place through ART.

http://womensbuilding.org/the-mural/


The Artist's Statement:

This mural, SPILL/DERRAME, is dedicated to all life forms in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Deepwater Horizon oil spill took place on April 20, 2010. As you probably know, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Macondo oil well drilling platform started the largest marine oil spill in maritime history, dumping 4.2 million barrels of oil, and officials subsequently released 1.8 million gallons of Corexit, a chemical dispersant used to break up the oil, into the Gulf before the well was sealed.[1]  I was deeply disturbed by this event, as I spend much of my life enjoying, admiring and being nurtured by those Gulf waters, in the small village of Telchác, Yucatán, Mexico.

I feel that it is my responsibility as an artist to be an activist for social justice, human rights and environmental health, and this piece addresses all of these issues. As we face multi-faceted assaults on the environment, and on all of the elements and species that live on this precious planet, I see my job as to create images that work for them. I bring images that awaken, shock, challenge and hopefully, raise consciousness, to provoke thinking, discussion and action on the part of those that “read” them on the streets of our cities, or within the walls of schools, hospitals, labor unions and other sites of social interaction and critical thought. I also seek to bring beauty, hope and healing to the urban environment via the mural form.

As we watch and support the present struggle of our brothers and sisters at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on the banks of the Missouri River, we feel the ongoing urgency to protect the waters of the planet and all of the species that depend on them. This mural is dedicated to those fierce Earth Protectors, and to all of the pueblos around the world that are fighting to keep the oil in the ground, and to re-establish both environmental and spiritual balance. We know that the planet is in crisis, and that the timeline for reversing the effects of rampant, unbridled exploitation of her resources, is short. I appreciate the support of the Bay Area Mural Festival, La Peña Cultural Center, and the California Arts Council, community volunteers, my assistant Keena Romano, and my students from Berkeley City College, for enabling the production of this mural. 

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[1] Six years later, controversy still rages about the wisdom of carpet-bombing the Gulf with these chemicals, and newly released documents reveal that government scientists expressed concern at the time about the health consequences of mixing such large quantities of dispersants with the millions of barrels of sweet crude. Occupational health experts now believe it created a toxic mix that sickened thousands of locals—including some of the 47,000 people that worked in some capacity on BP’s cleanup operation—crippling them with chemically induced illnesses that doctors are unable to treat. TECH & SCIENCEDEEPWATER HORIZON OIL DISASTER EXTENDS ITS TOXIC REACH

BY LINDA MARSA ON 10/10/16 AT 10:25 AM

[1]

http://www.juanaalicia.com/
http://juanaaliciaatcentro.wordpress.com/
http://truecolorsmuralproject.wordpress.com/

A Berkeley Conference: Fatema Mernissi (1940-2015) for Our Times

Organized by Prof. Minoo Moallem

and Prof. Paola Bacchetta. 

This conference honored the life and work of the recently deceased pioneer

feminist sociologist and writer Fatema Mernissi. Features an

international group of scholars who discuss some of the most

pressing issues with regard to gender, women and sexuality in the Muslim and Arab World.

 For the full list of speaker and the presentation titles: 

 http://cmes.berkeley.edu/fatema-mernissi-for-our-times/

The first time I read a Mernissi book must have been 2001 when I began my MA in Women and Gender Studies and I fell in love with the language and her mixing the personal with the social and the political. The Dreams of Trespass  as a autobiographical fiction probably triggered the kind of writing that I have been practicing in the past few years. However, the one I have used the most frequently has been Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems. The idea of these essays came. when Fatema Mernissi was struck by Western male journalists’ idea of harem life during her book tour of Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (1995) and the looks and the weird questions she was posed. Edward Said's arguments in Orientalism are still strong and alive but only changed forms. The East or the Orient is a product in the rationalized and self-serving history of the West. The word harem comes in the package!

 The world Mernissi grew up in was one of independent women and insecure men, of male-female relationships much more complex than Westerners think.  A world of passive, sex-starved women competing for their all-powerful husband’s attentions simply did not exist.