Review of Syrian Prayers: Sacred Music from Bilad Al Sham

My review of Syrian Prayers: Sacred Music from Bilad Al Sham was just published by RootsWorld.

You can read it here. Here's a sample from the review:

Erik Hillestad of the Norwegian record label KKV, in an attempt to highlight the diversity of religious faiths in the Arab world, traveled to Lebanon and made a series of recordings of Christian and Muslim vocalists, including Syrian and Iraqi refugees now living in Lebanon, as well as Lebanese nationals. The singers represent a broad range of religious traditions, all with deep roots in this region, known in Arabic as Bilad al-Sham (in English, the Levant, encompassing Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan). On this recording, we hear a sampling of just a few of the many Christian churches in the region: Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox), Maronite, Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Chaldean Catholic, and the Assyrian Church of the East. We also hear from Muslim vocalists representing the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shi'ite. A hear a range of languages as well: Arabic, Armenian, varieties of Eastern Aramaic (Syriac, Assyrian, Chaldean), and Greek. 

And please watch Hillestad's documentary about the project.

 

You are the aqal that is the pride of your people

 

....by Allah we will level the enemy's necks....

Here's one of the exhibits at the New Museum's show of contemporary art from and about the Arab world, Adel Abidin's Three Love Songs. It consists of three videos, one lounge, one jazz, one pop, featuring non-Arabic speaking singers who don't know what they were singing. The lyrics are from songs commissioned by Saddam Hussein to glorify him and his regime. Above are a couple of choice lyrics. (An aqal is the black cord that Arab men use to keep their kufiyas in place.)

The juxtaposition of lovely blonde women singing such lyrics...

and I quote from the description: 'It is this uncomfortable juxtaposition – between the lush visual romanticism and the harsh meaning of the lyrics, between the seduction of the performer and comprehension of the viewer – that forms the main conceptual element of this work.'

See excerpts from the vids and read about the sound installation here.

Here are links to a couple Saddam Hussein music videos, courtesy Frontline.

And for an introduction to some of the really great music produced during the Saddam era, I highly recommend the Choubi Choubi! collections produced by Sublime Frequencies. Volume 1 for now is out of stock, but I'm sure you could find one somewhere. Volume 2, only released on LP, was released this year, and is available. Really essential for your collection.

Here's a sample from Volume 1:

weird vet kufiya

My friend John grabbed this off of some vet FB page and sent it to me. We don't know who took the photo or what the story is behind it but it's one of those images that is floating around. I have no idea what to make of it. I'm befuddled.

The baseball cap says 'kafir' in Arabic, which is correctly translated as infidel. A synonym is unbeliever. I believe that Islamist insurgents in Iraq fighting against the US occupation would have used this term fairly routinely to describe the US military forces. I did not know that (some) US troops had embraced the term.

Just plain weird, to rest your sleeping baby in a red kufiya with gun shells and some sort of weapon behind him/her....

REORIENT on Mizrahi music

REORIENT recently published a fine overview of Mizrahi music in Egypt and current efforts to keep the Arab Jewish tradition alive, by Mohamed Belmaaza. He, I think correctly, labels the current generation of cultural activists 'Neo-Arab-Jews,' due to the fact that they have not been educated in standard Arabic, unlike their parents and grandparents who were born in the Arab world.

Belmaaz discusses the fabulous Neta Elkayam, about whom I hope to blog in future, and he cites the work of scholars of Mizrahi music Motti Regev, Edwin Seroussi, and Amy Horowitz. And there is much more.

But the bit that I found most interesting, and the most moving, is the discussion of David Regev Zaarour, grandson of the renowned Iraqi musician Youssef Zaarour. David Regev Zaarour "recently decided to pay tribute to his family by uploading on YouTube all of his grandfather’s recordings. ‘I had to put [the recordings] on YouTube to make [them] memorable. I got reactions and photos from people, especially from Iraq’, he says in a short documentary he created. As well, David also preserves the cultural legacy of his family and his roots by performing Arabic Iraqi and Egyptian music in his band, La Falfoula."

Here is a link to his archive youtube videos, which is quite remarkable. It includes not just music from Youssef Zaarour but by other Iraqi musicians as well. And also some vids of his group La Falfoula. Below is just a sample, but you should explore the entire archive.

Also very noteworthy is the video about David and his grandfather by Jewish Daily Forward. I was particularly moved by the phone call between David and an Iraqi, who pays tribute to the Iraqi Jewish musicians and states that is a national shame that their contribution to the country's is forgotten and not recognized.

Yusuf and David Zaarur, Iraqi Israeli musicians from Jewish Daily Forward on Vimeo.

Treasure trove: Middle Eastern recorded music from the British Library

The British Library has a very nice sound archive that includes 74 items from the Middle East, digitized shellac recordings.

Most famous of the artists recorded here (10 tracks) is the Iraqi Jewish singer Salima Murad (1970-1972), listed here as Sitt Salima Pasha, as she was also known. Her tracks are all from the 1930s.

Salima Murad

Also worth hearing are two tracks from Sitt Mounira Hawazwaz, another female Jewish Iraqi singer. Two tracks from her, also from the 1930s.

And also cool, a couple tracks recorded in Bombay, India, by Muhamed Abdul Salam, presumably a Saudi 'ud player and vocalist. Finally, six very nice tracks from Ustad Salim Rashid Suri of Oman.

You should check them all out. Like I said, a true treasure.

Neve Gordon reviews Elliott Colla's 'Baghdad Central' in Los Angeles Review of Books

And it's a good one. Here's a short extract:

Detective Khafaji may have been recruited into collaboration, but that does not mean he serves only the Americans. In fact, his story is that of an individual struggling to maintain his selfhood and values even as he loses them. Because it effectively uses the noir genre to explore how the culture of deception is one that necessarily infects everyone, it is difficult to put the book down.

The theme of the review is  "collaboration," and Gordon reviews To Be a Friend Is Fatal : The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind by Kirk Johnson as well.

Elliott Colla's "Baghdad Central"

I read my friend Elliott Colla's police procedural set in post-Saddam Baghdad in manuscript. I thought it was great. He hunted for publishers, and Bitter Lemon Press decided it was a fine read too.

It has only just been published, but has already received two smoking reviews, one from The Independent, the other, from The Daily Star.

Here's an introduction to what it's all about, which I've sort of cribbed from the review in The Independent. The protagonist, Inspector Muhsin al-Khafaji, is a deserter from the Iraqi police who the US forces wrongly identify as a high-ranking official under Saddam. He is tortured at Abu Ghrayb and then cuts a deal with the American occupiers to train new recruits. In return, al-Khafaji will get medical relief for his daughter, suffering from kidney failure, and unable to obtain proper treatment due to UN sanctions imposed on Saddam's Iraq.

The novel even has a youtube trailer, if you will:



And Colla has a personal webpage.

You must read this now. If you like policiers. If you are interested in Iraq. If you like books.

And please buy it from your local bookstore. Not Amazon.

drone life 3: Lynn Hill on "Capacity" (Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd's Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project)

I learned of this thanks to a tweet of Teju Cole.

As you no doubt know, the great jazz pianist Vijay Iyer just received a prestigious MacArthur Award.

You will find him even more deserving when you learn, as I just have, of his recent release, with Mike Ladd, of Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project. I've only listened to a few tracks (it came out on September 24) but what I've heard is great. The publicity from Pi Recordings describes the album as follows: "a thought-provoking, sometimes frightening, and ultimately exhilarating combination of music, poetry and song, created from the actual dreams of young veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars." And check out the vid below that introduces the project.



But because I sometimes blog here (not very profoundly) about drones, I was particularly interested in the track "Capacity" (which you can listen to here), featuring the poetry and recollections of Lynn Hill, who worked as a drone operator, firing missiles remotely into Iraq from her base in Las Vegas. "Soft kill," she calls it. It's very powerful stuff.

Here's a section of her poem:

I have a capacity for war. I have a capacity for hate. I have a capacity for insanity. For anger. For lies. 525,600 minutes times 2, before I break into an explosion of thoughts, of insurgents and soft kills, and career moves. Capacity for destruction. Capacity for loss. Capacity for death, violence, nothingness. 24 months of pain and disgust. Actions of my hands accuse me. Guilty, charge. Unclear clear details and shaky intell, but still I pull the trigger. There’s a limit to madness. Gague clocks out at two years, but they serve up poison like entrees at Blueberry Hill. Crazy with a side of numb. It took 63,720,000 seconds to go from me to somebody else. 

And check out the NEA interview with Lynn Hill, where she reflects more on her poetry and her work as a Predator Drone operator.

I have a capacity for war. I have a capacity for hate. I have a capacity for insanity. For anger. For lies. 525,600 minutes times 2, before I break into an explosion of thoughts, of insurgents and soft kills, and career moves. Capacity for destruction. Capacity for loss. Capacity for death, violence, nothingness. 24 months of pain and disgust. Actions of my hands accuse me. Guilty, charge. Unclear clear details and shaky intell, but still I pull the trigger. There’s a limit to madness. Gague clocks out at two years, but they serve up poison like entrees at Blueberry Hill. Crazy with a side of numb. It took 63,720,000 seconds to go from me to somebody else. To change. - See more at: http://arts.gov/audio/lynn-hill#file_audio_default_group_audio_transcript

I have a capacity for war. I have a capacity for hate. I have a capacity for insanity. For anger. For lies. 525,600 minutes times 2, before I break into an explosion of thoughts, of insurgents and soft kills, and career moves. Capacity for destruction. Capacity for loss. Capacity for death, violence, nothingness. 24 months of pain and disgust. Actions of my hands accuse me. Guilty, charge. Unclear clear details and shaky intell, but still I pull the trigger. There’s a limit to madness. Gague clocks out at two years, but they serve up poison like entrees at Blueberry Hill. Crazy with a side of numb. It took 63,720,000 seconds to go from me to somebody else. To change. - See more at: http://arts.gov/audio/lynn-hill#file_audio_default_group_audio_transcript

I have a capacity for war. I have a capacity for hate. I have a capacity for insanity. For anger. For lies. 525,600 minutes times 2, before I break into an explosion of thoughts, of insurgents and soft kills, and career moves. Capacity for destruction. Capacity for loss. Capacity for death, violence, nothingness. 24 months of pain and disgust. Actions of my hands accuse me. Guilty, charge. Unclear clear details and shaky intell, but still I pull the trigger. There’s a limit to madness. Gague clocks out at two years, but they serve up poison like entrees at Blueberry Hill. Crazy with a side of numb. It took 63,720,000 seconds to go from me to somebody else. To change. - See more at: http://arts.gov/audio/lynn-hill#file_audio_default_group_audio_transcript

PS: Vijay Iyer's 2003 collaboration with Mike Ladd, In What Language?, is also terrific.

Iraqi Jewish singer Salima Pasha Murad

Here are two sources for a bio, one from a project for a documentary on the singer, the other, from wikipedia. Written sources are paltry. Here's a more general one on Iraqi Jewish music.

But there is lots of her music up on youtube, including television footage. Here's a great one:


You can find many more, especially by searching with her name in Arabic: سليمه مراد

Statement from the Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews

Statement from the Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews, 14 September, 2012 / 27 Elul, 5772 

A) We most sincerely thank the Israeli government for confirming our status as refugees following a rapid, 62-year-long evaluation of our documents.

B) We request that Ashkenazi Jews are also recognized as refugees so that they won't consider sending to our homes the courteous officers of the Oz immigration enforcement unit.

C) We are seeking to demand compensation for our lost property and assets from the Iraqi government - NOT from the Palestinian Authority - and we will not agree with the option that compensation for our property be offset by compensation for the lost property of others (meaning, Palestinian refugees) or that said compensation be transferred to bodies that do not represent us (meaning, the Israeli government).

D) We demand the establishment of an investigative committee to examine: 1) if and by what means negotiations were carried out in 1950 between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as-Said, and if Ben-Gurion informed as-Said that he is authorized to take possession of the property and assets of Iraqi Jewry if he agreed to send them to Israel; 2) who ordered the bombing of the Masouda Shem-Tov synagogue in Baghdad, and if the Israeli Mossad and/or its operatives were involved. If it is determined that Ben-Gurion did, in fact, carry out negotiations over the fate of Iraqi Jewish property and assets in 1950, and directed the Mossad to bomb the community's synagogue in order to hasten our flight from Iraq, we will file a suit in an international court demanding half of the sum total of compensation for our refugee status from the Iraqi government and half from the Israeli government.

E) Blessings for a happy new year, a year of peace and prosperity, a year of tranquility and fertility.

 ~ The Ramat Gan Committee of Baghdadi Jews

(As originally posted by Almog Behar on FB. I got it via Racheli.)

Cafe Noah

Very moving documentary about musicians who were Jewish Arabs and ended up in Israel after 1948. They attempted, as best they could, to recreate their musical culture in exile, at Cafe Noah, in Tel Aviv. From Al Jazeera English.

Heavy Metal (Anti-)Islam

On July 11, The Atlantic published a piece on its website by Kim Kelly, entitled "When Black Metal's Anti-Religious Message Gets Turned on Islam." The article begins by describing a track called "Burn the Pages of Quran" by a female-fronted heavy metal band from Iraq called Janaza. It also describes the metal band Seeds Of Iblis (Iblis = Satan in Arabic), fronted by Anahita, the same woman who fronts Janaza, which has released an EP entitled Jihad Against Islam. Two other bands mentioned in this camp of "blasphemers" are Damaar and Ayat, both from Lebanon.

Kelly concludes by describing Anahita and her projects in quite laudatory terms:

In a scene revered and reviled for its commitment to darkness and blasphemy, it's nevertheless rare to encounter musicians who are, quite literally, willing to die for their art. Anahita's message is controversial, but it also comes with sobering, almost-jarring humanity. As her one-woman war against Islam rages on, her deepest desire seems to be for peace—or at least, for understanding. 

"The goals of Janaza and Seeds Of Iblis are to show the world that Islam is dangerous," she said, "and even the people who live in the Middle East get hurt by this religion and seek for freedom of speech, just like the other people from all over the world."

Only two days later Hetal, writing for Metalluminati exposed Janaza as a (probable) hoax. The artists hide behind fake, re-purposed photos. They only communicate with journalists via Facebook. Their stories don't add up.

In fact, the whole notion that there is something called The Arabic Anti-Islamic Legion (The Atlantic for some reason renders "legion" as "league") seems to me highly suspect. On the one hand, the very existence of such a "legion" seems like a wet dream designed to appeal to Westerners (metal fans and non-metal fans alike) on the lookout for local critics of "Islam" with whom to sympathize (cf. Hirsi Ali). Better yet if these Arab or Middle Eastern critics are motivated by their embrace of a Western popular culture form. Isn't it cool and awesome that they are using metal to blast the bejesus out of that awful and threatening doctrine of "Islam." On the other, the whole thing seems like a propaganda gift to local forces who are always on the lookout for immoral, anti-religious behaviors by Arab or Middle Eastern youth who have been corrupted by various forms of Western popular culture (cf. "moral panics" in Egypt [1997], Morocco [2003] and Lebanon [2002-3] against "Satanic" heavy metal). The metal scenes in Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon have bounced back from the early attacks, but witch hunts keep occurring, as Beth Winegarner writes in an article for PopMatters in June. (And see, of course, Mark Levine's book, Heavy Metal Islam.)

My guess is that the perpetrators of the hoax are Western metal heads, not Arab ones. They may have been successful in creating a ruckus, and the music is pretty decent -- but they have, wittingly or not, probably done more harm to the Arab and Middle Eastern metal scene that they claim to be a part of. Too bad that The Atlantic also, irresponsibly, played along and gave the "Arabic Anti-Islamic Legion" even more publicity.

Music and Torture, Music and War

Very interesting documentary from al-Jazeera, called "Songs of War." It features Christopher Cerf, a composer for Sesame Street, who, after learning that some of his music was used in the torture of US-held prisoners of the "War on Terror," at Guantanamo and in Iraq, tries to make sense of what it all means.

Kufiya'd vet at NATO protest in Chicago

At least one of the fifty some vets of Afghanistan and Iraq who tossed away their medals on Sunday, May  20, as part of the anti-NATO demonstrations in Chicago, wore a kufiya. Not one of those military-issue khaki ones, but a red one.

The photo above is a screen save from the following report on the event. Please note the vet who tosses his medal, starting at 0:37. That is Jacob George, from my hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas, who has been riding around the country on his bicycle for two years, organizing against the war and playing banjo. Read about his project, called A Ride Till the End, here.

 

Forty one years prior to this event, on April 23, 1971, as part of an anti-war action organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, over 800 Nam vets tossed their medals, ribbons, discharge papers, and the like, at the US Capitol. The event was widely covered, and part of a major, ongoing mobilization against the Vietnam War. Alas, the anti-war actions in the US these days are, by contrast to those events, are a whimper.

Here's a video of that dramatic event:

By the rivers of Babylon

Journalist writing Rachel Shabi is an Iraqi Jew, born in Israel to parents who migrated there from Iraq in the early fifties and then moved to England. In her book, We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands (New York, 2008), Shabi writes that her father lampoons the legend of Iraqi Jews weeping beside Babylon as they remembered Zion.

"They weren't crying, " he says. "They were singing and dancing and drinking arak!"

Can someone, someday, write and record a vision of that brilliant reggae song?

kufiyas: "Green Zone" & MIA's /\/\/\Y/\

I've commented previously on what I am provisionally calling the "tough guy" kufiya. (Re: From Paris with Love, Green Zone, The Hurt Locker, The Book of Eli, Reign of Fire, and The Three Kings.)

I recently watched Green Zone, which I found to be, on the whole, not bad. Better than I had expected, based on some of the reviews I had read. Matt Damon, as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, is shown wearing a kufiya (khaki, regulation US military issue) from the beginning of the film, the first time you see him, and throughout. Always neatly arranged, as a conventional scarf should be worn. Always like this, as in the first view we get of Miller.

You can see more shots here (from publicity stills) of Miller/Damon, who is always sharp and professional in his dress. His style of dress seems also to reflect his generally upright conduct throughout the film. [Added August 30: one or two of Miller's men are also shown wearing kufiyas, in the same manner as Miller.]

By contrast, there is Maj. Briggs (played by Jason Isaacs), who is Miller's chief on-the-ground antagonist in the US military, and is the main operative for Clark Poundstone (the Paul Bremer character, played by Greg Kinnear). Briggs is hunting down Iraqi "high value targets," Saddam's men who appear on the "deck of cards." Without necessarily knowing it, Briggs' mission is to eliminate (on behalf of Poundstone) Gen. al-Rawi and thereby kill the potential for scandal. Miller by contrast decides to try to capture al-Rawi alive, in order to expose the fact that the WMD's, the pretext for the invasion of Iraq, were a mirage.

From the perspective of the film, therefore, Briggs is somewhat out of control. The fact that he wears what I take to be a non-regulation colored blue kufiya, and that much more of his kufiya is exposed than is Miller/Damon's, would appear to index Briggs' roguish behavior. Note the marked difference between Briggs and Miller: the contrasting colors of their kufiyas and the different ways in which they wear their scarves. Briggs' dark glasses, messy hear and mustache also contribute to his "dangerous" look. From the film's perspective, this is not a positive "bad boy" image. In the end, and somewhat predictably, Briggs meets a violent end, while both he and Miller are chasing down al-Rawi.


Probably the most interesting political moment of Green Zone occurs toward the end. Miller finally has Gen. al-Rawi in his clutches, when suddenly his Iraqi translator "Freddy"shows up and shoots the Ba'athist general. "Freddy" then tells Miller, "It is not for you to decide what happens here." Reminding us that al-Rawi was in fact a vicious oppressor, guilty of many crimes against the Iraqi people. Miller's desire to capture him alive in order to blow the cover on the WMD myth does not trump the desire of Iraqis for justice.

[Added August 30: At one point Miller, or maybe another US soldier, calls an Iraqi a "hajji." Was this appellation in currency at the beginning of the invasion? I don't know.]

As for MIA and her new album /\/\ /\ Y /\ -- there has been lots of discussion about its politics and whether or not MIA is politically sophisticated, authentic, has sold out, is merely a silly provocateur, and so on...Check out Jeff Chang's post on MIA and MAYA is a particularly good take on these questions.

What I haven't noticed in all the discussion is the fact that the cover of the album, looks, at face value, like this:

The cover is 3-D, however, so if you buy the actual CD (get the Deluxe Edition) and look at its cover from a certain angle, the "veiling" over MIA's face is revealed, and you see...yes, MIA wearing a kufiya, of sorts.

MIA remains the provocateur, and even though she is married to the son of a millionaire and even though her politics are not "coherent" (are yours?), I appreciate the gesture. Kufiyas of course also show up in her controversial "Born Free" video, the first single released from the album, which I discussed here.

Another 'tough guy' kufiya: Matt Damon in "Green Zone"

I haven't even had a chance to see From Paris with Love or The Book of Eli yet, and now there's already another film with a "tough guy" character garbed in kufiya coming up. Green Zone, starring Matt Damon, is based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's acclaimed book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. The book is non-fiction, the film, a fictionalized version. Damon plays the part of Ray Miller, a warrant officer who is helping the CIA in its hunt for WMD's, and comes upon some sort of CIA conspiracy. It opens March 12.

Miller seems to be the only American in the film wearing a kufiya. He wears it US military style, as a scarf, kept inside the jacket, just the top bit protruding. It's never worn hipster, "triangle" style, nor is it ever wrapped around the head. That Miller (Damon) is shown with it in almost every scene would seem to indicate that it's an important insignia, an insignia, I'm pretty sure, of Miller's toughness. The fact that he's the only one shown wearing one distinguishes Miller/Damon as number one tough guy.

Given that the film is directed by Paul Greengrass, who also directed the Bourne trilogy, and given that it's based on the Chandrasekaran book, the film promises to be (a) action-packed and (b) politically interesting. The trailer makes one hopeful.

And the film will at the minimum have that kufiya thing going for it.

Did The Hurt Locker set off a trend? Or do such films just accurately depict US military styles in Iraq?

Kufiyas as (desired) signifiers of danger for soldiers and other tough guys

Lately I've run across a spate of kufiyas that are quite distinct from the hipster, the solidarity or the designer kufiyas. Kufiyas worn by military (Modern Warfare 2) or counter-terrorist ops (From Paris With Love). By a visionary tough-guy post-apocalyptic wanderer (The Book of Eli). And by the leader of a group of soldier dragon-hunting volunteers--also post-apocalypse (Reign of Fire).

I wish I had the time and money to play the video game Modern Warfare 2, it looks like a really incredible game. Yes, it's all shoot-em-up, but just check it out if you doubt that it would be a hoot to play. The case for the game features a picture of a US military guy whose neck and face are wrapped with a kufiya. I didn't see much kufiya action when I looked at the game previews, but the case seems to indicate it is a significant clothing item for some of the principals. Or at least a marketing mechanism.

I've been told that the kufiya is standard wear for US Marines operating in Iraq. (As of today, they are out.) I hope to have a bit more data on current Marine usage soon. The kufiya was also adopted by US soldiers during the first Gulf War. Recall the character of Chief, played by Ice Cube, in the film The Three Kings--still the best film dealing with the 1990-91 war. (Photo source here.)

The kufiya is of course a handy item to have in the desert and sun, useful for shading oneself, keeping out the dust, achieving anonymity, etc. And it's handy in the cold evenings as well. No surprise then that the British military have used them since at least the Second World War--using the name shemagh.

But besides the utility of the kufiya, there is also the fact that, by wearing an item iconically associated with the "bad guys," the "hajjis," US soldiers may hope to capture and mobilize some of the danger associated with the enemy and his ability to plant IEDs, as well as perhaps to tame it.

That seems to be what is going on with the military contractor team leader in the film The Hurt Locker, played by Ralph Fiennes. His wildness and recklessness seems to be signalled by the fact that he, and the rest of his crew, are garbed in kufiyas. In fact, when the EOD unit led by Sergeant James first sights the contractors, they think they are "hajjis" (i.e., Iraqi insurgents). This is entirely due to the fact the kufiyas wrapped around their faces. (My earlier remarks on The Hurt Locker are here and here.)

The upcoming film, From Paris with Love, which opens on February 5, stars John Travolta as FBI agent Charlie Wax, whose mission it is to stop a threatened terrorist attack on Paris. From the trailer, it's clear that Agent Wax is another one of those cops or intelligent agents or soldiers so typical of Hollywood action movies, one who must use "unorthodox" methods--involving massive violence, machismo, over-the-top stunts, and borderline-insane schemes--to defeat the bad guys. Wax's signature shaved head, leather jacket, goatee and kufiya are all essential stylistic elements that combine to signal that he is Dirty Harry for the twenty-tens. Looking through the various trailers and publicity photos for the film, I found it hard to find a scene where Travolta/Wax wasn't in kufiya.

And then there is The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington as Eli, a wanderer through a post-apocalypse United States, who carries the Bible and is the master of all weapons. Although he is not always shown with a kufiya around his, he does wear it at many times, and so in this film too the kufiya functions as a sign of Eli's toughness.

I'm told that there is a key scene involving the exchange of a kufiya for water. (The US has been turned into a parched wasteland.) The film has received quite mixed reviews, but for the sake of research, I do intend to see it.

You can view the trailer for the film here, at the official website.

And here's another shot of the kufiya-garbed Eli:

And another image, from the cover of The Book of Eli comic book:

Finally, there is the 2002 film Reign of Fire, and the character of Denton Van Zan played by Matthew McConaughey. The year is 2020. Dragons have been brought to life, out of hibernation. They multiply and burn much of the earth. Humans respond with nukes, and the planet is virtually wiped out.

A band of heavily-armed volunteers from the US, led by Van Zan, arrives in England to aid a small group of survivors, headed by Quinn (Christian Bale). Van Zan is super-tough and battle-hardened, a true warrior. He has the attitude and demeanor of a Marine officer. He is bald, fully bearded, and his body is loaded with tattoos. And he is frequently seen wearing kufiya. Like the bald pate and the tattoos, the kufiya is key to Van Zan's fierce, uncompromising, wild-man persona.

Below we see Van Zan in conversation with Alex (played by Izabella Scorupco), who is part of his military team.

Van Zan, true to his image, dies after the explosive charge he shoots at the dragon with his crossbow fails to kill the beast. Van Zan jumps off the high tower he is on, in a vain attempt to slay the dragon with a battle axe. He is bare-chested, showing off all his tattoos, having thrown off his sleeveless jacket and kufiya. His wild, suicidal yet noble gesture leads to his death. Alex and Quinn kill off the dragon and survive to re-establish human civilization.

Like all such wild men who break taboos and regulations and the rules of civilized behavior (the Geneva Conventions, for instance) to defend "us" against the terroristic enemy, Van Zan is not able to be domesticated. In such cases, the kufiya seems to function not just as a kind of talisman of the opponent, that lends potency to the action hero by a kind of sympathetic magic, but it seems to signify as well that he cannot be really assimilated comfortably into the society which he defends. Like Van Zan, the military contractor of The Hurt Locker played by Ralph Fiennes is killed, by the Iraqi insurgents. The character of Sgt. James, who also wears kufiya in the film--although it's a khaki one, and hence more subdued kufiya than the contractor's hajji-looking black-and-white checked shemagh. Nonetheless, at the end of the film, James is unable to re-enter civilian life. It's just too dull and lacking in adrenaline rushes. He re-ups for another tour of "explosive ordinance disposal."

I hope I'm not giving anything away when I tell you that Eli dies at the end of The Book of Eli. [P.S., May 15, 2011: Elyse just informed me that Eli wears a white galabiyya in the last scene. I didn't remember that. He dies as a kind of devout Muslim???] And we can guess, based on our experience with all the Dirty Harrys and the John McClanes (Die Hard series) and the Martin Riggs' (Lethal Weapon series), that Agent Wax does not get happily married and go off to live peacefully in the suburbs, at the end of From Paris with Love.

Footnotes on Rihanna

Courtesy of what I've learned from friends, some more commentary on Rihanna and her notorious "Hard" video.

First, and I found this rather astounding, among Rihanna's 13 tattoos (I think that the count is correct) is one written in Arabic script! It reads, as far as I can tell, al-hurriya fî masîh (الحرية في مسيح) or maybe al-hurriya fî al-masîh (the latter would be more correct), that is, "freedom in Christ" or more literally, "freedom in the messiah." Christ/masîh appears right under her left breast, so it's not seen all that often. These are the two shots I could find.


This looks like it says al-hurriya fi masîh.


This one, curiously, makes it look as though the original had been altered slightly, so that the article al- had been added. It doesn't show masîh (Christ), just al-hurriya fi-al.... Those of you who know Arabic will note that there should be no link between the fi and the al. So it's corrected incorrectly.

The statement of course is not one that you would probably want display when prancing around in your porno-military outfits on your invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan. It would make you appear as if your campaign for freedom/democracy was in fact a Crusade. But in fact, my friend Robin said that she thought she spotted an Arabic tattoo, in the late sequence where Rihanna carries the banner. (Here's the shot from my original post.) Given, Robin says, that the banner is black, might it be Shi'ite/Abbasid?!!

Keen eyes, Robin! Here's another shot, with the banner.


The friend who brought Rihanna's Arabic tattoo to my attention said that he had thought it might mean that Rihanna was not imperialistic in her views, in contrast with the very patriotic, and Walmart-friendly, Beyoncé. Turns out not to be so.

(Did Rihanna get the idea of an Arabic tattoo from Angelina Jolie, whose right arm is adorned with a tattoo that reads العزيمة, "al-'azeema" or determination?)

Second, Robin comments on the Arabic that appears on the wall of the house. 'The arabic graffiti on the wall reads: "li-llah [can't see] ilayhi raji'un," which is for some reason broken out from the expression "*inna* li-llah wa-inna ilayhi raji'un," "we belong to god & to him we return," from Surat al-Baqarah, verse 156 [the Qur'an], what you say when you hear that somebody has died. it's interesting in the context of the song; hard to believe that anybody involved in the production had thought it through that much, though maybe somebody had.'

Thanks to Robin and her keen eyes and superior (to my own) Qur'anic knowledge.

ADDENDUM, Jan. 7, 2010. Iraqiguy put up this comment on the original Rihanna post:

...the expression "انا لله و اتا اليه راجعون" meaning "we all belong to Allah and verily to him we shall return"

It's usually written on the walls of houses where people would have just passed away. It's arabic and islamic etiquette for what to say when you hear about a death.

this expression is ofcourse very prevalent in Iraq and Palestine and every arabic country involved in war or civil unrest, where death is a common occurrence.

Thanks! I would only add that, in the context of the vid, it's interesting that the soldier walks by that written on the wall. When the perpetrator of the death being commemorated may, in all likelihood, have been the US military.

Third, Geoff says: "the hat in the card-playing still looks VERY much like a WW2-era German military cap; note the eagle ... maybe Afrika Korps? Disturbing."

I think he's right, especially about the eagle. See here.

Rihanna's "Hard" Video: Supporting the Afghan Surge

Over the past year, I've heard my MERIP comrade Moustafa Bayoumi give the same, great, paper twice, at last year's MESA (Middle East Studies Association) conference, and at this year's American Studies Association (ASA) conference. It's entitled, "The Race is On: Muslims and Arabs in the American Imagination," and I hope it's published soon. He argues that, since 9/11, the formerly mostly invisible Arabs and Muslims in the US have become massively visible, and increasingly, racialized. And racialized in a particular way: associated with blackness, and hence, turned into a social problem.

At the same time, Bayoumi argues, "African Americans have emerged in popular culture in recent years as the leaders of an American nation and an American empire." Moreover, he says, " this image often revolves fundamentally around the idea of black friendship with Muslims and Arabs, a friendship not among equals but of a modified projection of American power." To simplify, then, the long and venerable tradition of African-Americans opposing US imperialism is increasingly abandoned in favor of a civil rights position of actively participating in all aspects of US life, including US imperialism. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama: all faces designed, or used, to make our empire acceptable, at home, and abroad. (Of course it's not just "faces." It's active involvement and even policy determination.)

And so we come to Rihanna, whose new "Hard" video I found shocking, even though I was very familiar with Bayoumi's argument. But no doubt it's my residual and very out-of-date expectations that African-American popular culture should somehow be oppositional that makes me outraged at how pro-imperialist Rihanna's vid is. And how it deploys so many signs of "coolness" to push the imperial agenda.

I would like the song a lot if I had not seen the vid. Now I cannot listen without seeing it. Militaristic and battlefield scenes (which are made to look like they are shot in Iraq) serve as a kind of runway for Rihanna, where she can display various outfits and demonstrate her "hard"-ness. "Yeah yeah yeah, I'm so hard," she sings over and over again in the chorus.

Rihanna appears in various outfits and scenarios.

In bright red lipstick, in GI fatigues, as if on the set of a GI-themed porn shoot. Her mouth ready to receive...what?

More is revealed, and we see black tape over her nipples. At least that's what it looks like at first glance, but then we notice it's actually over a low-cut, skin-colored tank top. The tape over nipples stunt was done recently by Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse. But I think it was Wendy O of the Plasmatics who was most famous for this look.

Rihanna is also shown as if she were the commander, inspecting her unit of (all-male) troops who are in formation. Here she looks like classic Grace Jones.

Later we see Cmdr Rihanna before "her" troops, shouldering a heavy weapon. If you watch the vid (and you must) you'll notice that this outfit includes a bikini bottom showing off a very shapely booty.

Here, she looks something like Nona Hendryx in '83-'84, when she was all about that sci-funk look. I saw Nona in concert back then but can't find a good photo of what she looked like. The outfits looked aluminum. This is more or less it.

Garbed in her sci-fi gear, "hard" Rihanna strolls through the desert, unconcerned by the explosions going off around her.

We also see Rihanna with bandoliers over either shoulder. And without them, but in the same outfit, atop a pink tank. Between her legs. Really hard, a for-sure phallic female here. I guess the pink tank makes it feminine. And the Mickey Mouse ears on her helmet--is that supposed to be funny? If so, it's about the only element of humor in the vid.

And there is the Madonna-esque outfit--the bronze bikini top. In which Rihanna is variously displayed strutting atop a sandbagged position with some GIs.

Or lying supine.

There are other outfits whose referents are less clear to me. Rihanna plays poker with the guys in this one. And she wins. Because she's hard. "And my runway looks so clear," she sings. "But the hottest bitch in heels right here."

Here, she's wearing a camouflage/net thing. And her weapon.

This outfit, which appears towards the end of the vid, also escapes me. A leopard-skin Prussian looking helmet? And the black banner she is waving?

Young Jeezy appears in the video with a guest rap. He's in GI gear, smoking a cigar, but he is much more relaxed in his poses. He's already hard, just puffing on the blunt.

In case it wasn't clear, the video also clues you into the fact that this is the Middle East, and probably Iraq, that we're in. The Arabic script is sort of passable. This last word here reads raj'iun, or 'returning.' An important slogan for the Palestinians.

As I read this vid, it all adds up to an articulation of support for the upcoming Afghanistan surge. The militaristic poses make Rihanna look hard. Alternatively, they help make her look freaky and kinky. At the same time, she, by her very presence on the battlefield, makes the US military invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan look sexy. And bloodless. There are no 'bad guys.' There are no civilians in the desert. No one gets injured. It's all fabulous.

The US military and African-American r'n'b and fashion and sex are all in synchrony here.

I cannot imagine Grace Jones ever performing in such a blatant display of support for US imperial adventure. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, African-American musicians like Nas, Outkast, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, George Clinton, Raphael Saadiq, Missy Elliott and others came out to express their opposition, as part of Musicians United to Win Without War. (They signed an ad that appeared in the New York Times on Feb. 26, 2003, among other things.)

Where is the "cultural" opposition to the Afghan surge?