Semaine de la musique arabe / Arab music week - 8

Why did I do it, this Arab music week? Until a few days ago, Arab music for me was limited to Fairouz, a Khaled album that I bought on cassette tape years ago and later bought on CD, and Putumayo's Arabic Groove that I discovered a few years ago.
Pourquoi je l'ai fait, cette Semaine de la musique arabe? Jusqu'a la semaine derniere, je ne connaissais rien de la musique arabe sauf que Fairouz, Khaled, et Arabic Groove de Putumayo, que j'ai decouvert il y a quelques annees.

This week has been my exploration of the living, breathing, modern reality of young people in the Arab world. So no traditional wedding songs and Bedouin folk music - I was looking for rai, rap, rock, hip-hop, and reggae. I feel it's too bad that some people know nothing of it beyond Osama, Al Qaeda and the Taliban (yes, I know Pakistanis and Afghans are not Arabs), and am alarmed at how little I myself know of the culture and everyday life of West Asia and North Africa, despite my own country's ancient ties with that region.
Cette semaine a ete mon exploration de la musique contemporaine de la jeunesse arabe. Pas de chansons de mariage traditionelles ou de la musique bedouine. Je cherchais rai, rap, rock, hip-hop et reggae. C'est dommage que quelques gens ne savent rien de cette culture qu'Osama, Al Qaida et les Talibans (oui, je sais que les habitants de Pakistan et Afghanistan ne sont pas arabes). J'ai ete choque de realiser que moi aussi, je sais trop peu de la culture et vie quotidienne d'Asie de l'Ouest et d'Afrique du Nord, malgre les liens anciens de mon pays avec la region.

The songs I've posted, as far as I can tell, are about love and everyday life, just like pop music anywhere. As far as I'm aware, no song advocates violence (if you discover otherwise, please alert me).
Les chansons que j'ai postees parlent, pour autant que je sache, de l'amour et de la vie quotidienne, tout comme la musique pop partout. Je crois qu'aucune chanson exhorte la violence (si vous decouvrez autrement, s'il vous plait me prevenir).

For me, no language crosses barriers as effectively as music, especially contemporary music. I often used it when teaching world history at an American university, discussing how it was the outcome of a particular region's history.
Pour moi, aucune langue traverse les barrieres culturelles aussi bien que la musique, surtout la musique d'aujourd'hui. Je jouais souvent de la musique quand j'enseignais l'histoire du monde dans une universite americaine - on a discute la musique comme un resultat de l'histoire d'une region donnee.

To pick each day's song, I went through several others, and in that process, I made discoveries that
don't show up in the blog, like Tunisian mezoued music. I was surprised, because it sounds to me a bit like Celtic bagpipe music and a bit like the popular folk music from my own ancestral land (where I have never lived, but which is also desert, with lots of tribes and a relatively large proportion of Muslims in the population).
Pour choisir la chanson de la journee, j'en ai ecoute plusieurs. En train de faire cela, j'ai decouvert des choses qui ne sont pas inclus dans les postes - par exemple la musique mezoued tunisienne, qui m'a surpris car elle sonne un peu comme la cornemuse ecossaise, et un peu comme la musique de ma terre ancestrale (je n'y ai jamais habite, mais c'est aussi dans le desert et a une grande population des musulmans).

When I started out on the Arabic Music Week project, it was just to explore a contemporary culture that I knew was out there. As an Indian and a graduate student in the US, I've read, heard and experienced enough stereotypes to know how devastating they can be at worst, hurtful and dangerous very often, and annoying at best. I once wore an everyday cotton shalwaar-kameez to campus (in the US) on a day off and got asked if it was a "ceremonial dress" - does everything that's different from the western norm have to be special and steeped in tradition? Can't it just be another everyday reality? Western men make jokes about women and violence all the time (and they are frequently offensive). If an Arab makes such jokes, should that be perceived as religious politics, then? I think most people are ordinary people in their culture(s), and their thoughts and behavior are for the most part ordinary reactions to the things around them.
Quand j'ai commence ce projet sur la musique arabe, je voulais seulement explorer une culture contemporaine dont l'existence j'etais sure. Comme indienne qui a etudie dans une universite americaine, j'ai lu, entendu et vecu assez de stereotypes qui sont blessant, dangereux, et a tout le moins genant. Une fois, j'ai porte un shalwaar-kameez ordinaire au campus (c'etait le weekend), et quelqu'un m'a demande si c'etait de vetements ceremoniales. Est-ce que tout ce qui est different de la norme de l'Ouest doit etre special ou de la tradition sacree? N'est-il pas possible que ce n'est qu'une realite quotidienne? Les hommes americains, britanniques et europeens font souvent des blagues sexistes, par exemple, ou sur la violence. Ces plaisenteries sont parfois blessants ou de mauvais gout. Quand un Arabe fait une telle blague, est-ce qu'elle est ancree donc dans une politique religieuse? Je pense que la pluspart des gens est ordinaire dans leur culture, et ses pensees et ses manieres sont generalement des reactions ordinaires a leur environnement.

In the middle of my exploration, I discovered that almost at the same time that I posted a Tunisian rap song, CNN posted this report, about the important role of rap in Tunisia:
Pendant mon exploration, j'ai decouvert que quand j'ai poste le rap tunisien, CNN a poste au meme temps un report sur la role politique de rap en Tunisie:



And in my search, I discovered the astonishingly cool MaliKah (sorry, embedding is disabled, but please watch the AFP video!). Below I'm posting another song, just for you to sample - the person who posted it says she's singing about a group that doesn't even understand Islam is spoiling the image of the faith by killing in the name of religion:
Et dans mes recherches, j'ai decouvert la super-cool MaliKah (integration m alheureusement desactivee par YouTube, mais s'il vous plait regardez cette video de l'AFP!). Dessous j'ai poste une chanson ou elle chante d'un groupe qui gate l'image de l'Islam en tuant au nom de la religion:



I've never been a fan of rap, but I'm a little closer to being one after Arab Music Week :)

Je n'ai jamais ete un fan de rap, mais peut-etre mais la semaine de la musique arabe m'a apporté un peu plus près :)

And lastly, an interview with the Palestinian rap group DAM:

Et enfin, une entrevue avec les rappeurs palestiniens de DAM:

Semaine de la musique arabe / Arab music week - 7

Osiris is a rock group from Bahrain.

Osiris est une groupe rock de Bahrein.

Arab music week / semaine de la musique arabe - 6

Today, a political song. This is the Palestinian group DAM.

Aujourd'hui, une chanson politique, par un groupe Palestinienne qui s'appelle DAM.

Semaine de la musique arabe / Arab music week - 5

Rap tunisien par Balti. (Note: je ne comprends pas tous les paroles. Si elles sont blessantes, je m'excuse et j'espere que vous laissez une note pour me prevenir. Je ne supporte pas la violence et la haine.)

Rap from Tunisia by Balti. (Please note that I don't understand all the words. If they are offensive, I apologize, and hope that you'll leave a comment to alert me. I do not support violence and hate.)

Arab music week / semaine de la musique arabe - 4

Cette chanson s'appelle "Still Libyano" mais je ne suis pas sure si l'artiste est de la Libye.

The song is called "Still Libyano, but I'm not sure the singer is Libyan.



Sooo, here's another song, "Bahebbak" by a real Libyan, Cheb Jilani.

Voici donc encore une chanson, "Bahebbak" par Cheb Jilani, qui vient vraiement de la Libye.

Semaine de la musique arabe / Arab music week - 3

Diana Haddad, Lebanon / Liban:

Arab music week / Semaine de la musique arabe - 2

Rachid Taha, Algeria / Algerie

Semaine de la musique arabe / Arab music week

Starting today, I'm going to try to post a song every day. Just popular music, not necessarily political. Today's song is from Morocco, by Sawt el Atlas. I'm not familiar with Arabic pop music, so your suggestions, information, translations are welcome (please leave a comment). Peace.

Cette semaine j'essaierai poster chaque jour une chanson arabe. Je m'interesse ici dans la musique populaire, pas necessairement des chansons politiques. La premiere chanson est par Sawt el Atlas, un duo marocain. Je ne connais pas bien la musique populaire arabe - je serais contente de vos suggestions, informations, traductions. Paix.

A sad song for the festive season, by Joni Mitchell

Glad someone uploaded this song :)

Never got to hear much of Emmylou Harris growing up in India. Heard a bit in the US, and this is one of my favorite songs:

Sanam Marvi and the contemporary sufi music of Pakistan

I'm no fan of Coca-Cola, but I am really grateful for Coke Studio's fabulous contribution to Pakistani culture. So much brilliant tradition and modernity out there! Makes me proud to be South Asian (I happen to be Indian, but only incidentally: my grandmother's village is 10 kilometres from that horrible, artificial border).

It's unfortunate that too much of the world (including India) knows little about Pakistan besides terrorism, intolerance, and political instability. The song I linked above is contemporary Sufi. Sufism is the opposite of violence, intolerance and instability - it's loving, embracing, and enduring.

Caetano Veloso sings "Cajuína"

I love Caetano Veloso. And now I hear him sing every time my cell phone rings :) I have the studio version from Putumayo's Acoustic Brazil collection. Sorry that the subtitles in the video below are quite nonsensical, but it's a great live version of the song!

I don't know Portuguese but I understand that cajuína is a beverage distilled from cashew, and that the best cajuína comes from northeastern Brazil. This song refers to Teresina, which may be a place there.

I would welcome a good translation and some information about whether this is a traditional song in Brazil - leave a comment! Also, if it's traditional, is it known in other former Portuguese colonies like Cabo Verde or Angola?

Hey Bobby Marley, sing something good to me!

LOL, whoever created this video must have smoked some crazy shit.

PS - Feel obliged to say that I don't endorse drugs, just psychedelic videos.

PPS - I heart Manu Chao

Thank you, Mercedes Sosa

Mercedes Sosa was born in July 1935, just a few days before my own mother, on the other side of the world. I can't recall when I first heard her, although I'm fairly sure it was in the US, well after Sosa was already famous and past her sixtieth birthday. Like my own mother's voice, her voice became a strong, reassuring, inspiring familiar presence in my life without my even noticing it.

Sosa was among the leading voices of the Nueva Canción movement of 1960s Latin America, which combined folk music with progressive/political lyrics, sort of like the American protest song.

Sosa supported Juan Perón's pro-labor politics. As Argentina grew more repressive, she found herself being searched an arrested on stage at a performance in 1979. She moved to Europe as she was banned in her own country. She moved back around the time of the Falklands War (1982).

Sosa has collaborated with many great musicians, including Joan Baez, Milton Nascimento, Nana Mouskouri, Luciano Pavarotti, Caetano Veloso, Shakira, and Sting.

She was suffering from renal ailments, and died earlier today. RIP.

A poem for the new year

Yesterday, I received this poetic wish for the new year from an American friend: "May the new year bring peace like rain dropping gently on our wounded world."
I picked a poem to start off the new year on a peaceful note. It's by the Punjabi sufi saint-poet Bulley Shah, who lived from the late 17th to the mid-18th century. He was of Uzbek heritage, was born in Bahawalpur, and lived and died in Kasur (both cities are in what is now the Pakistani Punjab). Bulley Shah wrote in his poems that no amount of learning was useful unless people looked inside themselves. Like other sufis, he saw no distinction between the God of one person and another -- for him there was no "false God", and Hindus and Muslims were one.
Well, the poem I chose is "Ki jaana main kaun". Here it is in the Nastaliq script, if you can read it (I can't). Here's an English transliteration-cum-translation. Below, I'm posting videos of three vastly different interpretations by Junoon, Rabbi, and an unidentified singer who's not identified.
Below is Junoon's sufi-rock "Bulleya" from their album Parvaaz. No comments on the video, but musically speaking, this is by far my most preferred version:


Next is Rabbi Shergill's pop version. I included it because the video contains many scenes of Mumbai - the Taj Mahal hotel, which was the site of a terrorist siege from November 26-28, 2008, the Gateway of India and waterfront across the road from the Taj, Churchgate station, and parts of Marine Drive including the Nariman Point stretch where the Oberoi and Trident hotels are. Of course, the video was made long before the recent attacks, which only goes to show how iconic the locations are where the terrorists struck. Also, Rabbi's version is more complete than Junoon's abbreviated text.


And last is this unidentified singer in what I'm guessing is a Pakistani TV studio. Personally I'm not a big fan of what I call "sugam sangeet" orchestration, although I like singer's voice. I also included it because it illustrates how differently people can interpret the same text, and because this version includes some lines missing in the two preceding versions:

Chal Bulleya, othey chaliye
jithae sarae annae
na koi saadee jaat pachhaney
thae na koi saanu manney
Let's go, Bulleya, let's go to a place
where everyone is blind,
where nobody knows our lineage
and nobody judges us by it.

Muntazer al-Zaidi threw those shoes at Bush on behalf of millions of us

Me llaman calle

Manu Chao is one of my favorite musicians -- he has that rare combination of playfulness and sympathy, and even his profoundly sad songs make me want to celebrate and dance. I don't see how it's possible to more effectively encapsulate human experience in a four-minute song. The song below is on the soundtrack of Princesas, a film I've yet to see. I couldn't find a translation, but "Me llaman calle" translates, I think, to "They call me The Street". Princesas is about prostitutes. Enjoy!

Happy birthday, Pakistan!

I think Pakistan's Qaumi Tarana -- national anthem -- is beautiful, both the melody and words. Eschewing YouTube videos with military images, I have picked out three versions that I liked. I wish Pakistan's democracy every strength, great success, peace, and prosperity.

A kid showing off his shiny Ibanez.

A tribute by a cooking website, featuring Junoon's version of the anthem. The images are explained on YouTube.

And here you can listen to the words while reading the English translation. Unfortunately the type isn't very clear, and the sound starts a couple of seconds into the video, but it's simple and nice. The transliterated Urdu words are below, if you want to sing along :)

Paak sar zamin shaad baad

Kishwar-e-haseen shaad baad

Tu nishaane azme-aalishaan

Arze Pakistan

Markaz e yaqin shaad baad

Paak sarzamin ka nizaam

Quwat e akhuwat e awaam

Qaum, mulk, sultanat

Paainda taabinda baad

Shaad baad manzal e muraad

Parcham e sitaara o hilaal

Rahbar e taraqqi o kamaal

Tarjumaan e maazi shaan e haal

Jaane istaqbaal

Saayyai Khudaae zul jalaal

Academic liberals ≠ liberal academics

Previously on "What's wrong with American academia"
Part 1
Part 2 (latter part of post)

Today's instalment:

It's a common criticism of academia that it remains isolated in a lofty ivory tower peopled with latte-drinking, Volvo-driving liberals. The accusation is, of course, an old stereotype. But while it typically comes from right-of-center students and working-class people who feel silenced or marginalized, I make it from a left-of-center academic's perspective -- from within, you might say (and a little bit from without also). I consider the majority of these allegedly latte-drinking, Volvo-driving scholars to be conservative -- even those who publish in "radical" academic journals -- because they hide in that ivory tower and refuse to engage with social injustice around them, despite theorizing and analyzing it till they're blue in the face. "You don't want to be seen as a troublemaker," one professor, who has published under a "radical" series, advised me. There's something profoundly unethical about making your career by expounding a vision that you don't live. Oh wait, it already has a name: hypocrisy.

Yeah, these people vote Democrat, and they lecture and write books about Rosa Parks and postcolonial resistance and Gramsci. Their office doors signal their views with self-consciously earnest flyers and cartoons, all progressive of course: "Had a good weekend? Thank a Liberal!". The self-congratulatory ring is probably not intentional.

Even the trappings are true to the stereotype: two of the four profs on my committee drove European cars (the third had a Civic -- a humble non-hybrid, I belive -- and I don't know what the fourth one drove). I don't think I ever saw any of them drink a latte, although their wine-drinking preferences (imported, i.e. non-US) were a sufficiently bourgeois equivalent. And what a flurry of excitement when Wegmans opened in town: 100 kinds of cheese, all imported -- why, we could all pretend we were in Paris! Now, I've nothing against the cheese, of course, except that it started at $8/lb. What I did find offensive was the look of fatuous delight on the professors' faces, which brought to mind the image of old Parsis in a South Bombay audience, tapping their feet to "Britannia Rules The Waves", nodding their heads in time and singing along, feeling mighty cultured.

One humble professor I knew drove an old Japanese car, taught about slavery and race, and is openly gay -- check off three boxes on the liberal list. She displayed a sense of great accomplishment in going to Cuba, although her trip was evidently quite affordable and legal. She brought back some cigars which she shared with a chosen few (including me) at a barbeque. I didn't hear her say much about the Cuban people, markets, or streets. But she made sure to casually mention that these were the most expensive Cuban cigars there are. Sometime later, she had her kitchen remodeled with beautiful handmade tiles ordered from another poor country. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for increasing the consumption of artisan products from poor countries. But every room in her home shouted, "I love Third World things!" Therefore, by association, she must love Third World people, right? After all, I'm Third-World, and she granted me the privilege of puffing at one of her horrendously expensive Cuban cigars (which, by the way, was like casting pearls before swine -- I don't like cigars, and I found it no less disgusting than any other cigar. If I must smoke, let it be a cigarette).

Liking Third World things, and visiting Third-World countries, is easy if you have the money and a visa. It does not make you liberal or warrant a sense of accomplishment, if you're bourgeois (which, let's face it, college professors are). Ivory-tower liberals, like other bourgeois, can afford to consume the Third World.

True, they choose to travel to Venezuela or Kenya, when they could have chosen Paris or Amsterdam (well, often they've already done Paris and Amsterdam). But that choice doesn't automatically make them liberal any more than skateboarding does. Voluntarily risking life and limb by traveling to a poor country -- through exposure to tropical viruses, flying on tinpot planes, etc -- is adventure, like risking injury or death by skiing or bungee jumping. Voluntarily exposing oneself to danger, as a thrilling diversion, is the fatuous delight of the rich -- quite a different thing from exposing oneself to danger to earn a meager livelihood, as many poor people (in poor and rich countries) do out of necessity.

Now, some may argue that a thrilling diversion is harmless. Could be, but it's not always so. My liberal Japanese-car-driving professor wants to visit a Third World country while her colleague's father is still governor, so she can be a guest in the governor's palace. Traveling to poor countries in a way that underscores how privileged you are, and lets you find more ways to exploit that privilege, does not (or should not) enhance your liberal credentials. It's the imperial fantasy of a farm-girl-turned-bourgeois-professor in small-town America. She's privileged by American standards (tenure, respectability, etc), but not really big cheese. At $45-50/hour (I'm guessing), she probably can't afford to fly business class and stay in club floor suites. But in a Third-World governor's palace, servants will bring tea to her four-poster bed every morning, and a liveried chauffeur will drive her around town. After a week or two, liberal credentials renewed by Third-World visit, she will return to Smalltown, USA, suitcases bursting with silk and silver -- precious pieces of imperial fantasy -- and hold forth authoritatively on the country she returned from.

So what does it mean when this conspicuous consumer of Third-World goods tells a Third-World person they have no right to be in the US? She was not an immigration officer. She was not my employer or advisor. She was not a law enforcement officer. I had never even taken a class with her! Yet she pronounced a judgement that it was not for her to pronounce, on a story that she hadn't fully heard. Hearing it might have brought to the surface the possibility of standing up for me, against one of her colleagues. Moral dilemmas are icky and complicated. The fewer sides of the story you listen to, the simpler you can keep it, at least in real life.

(Oh, and she also neglected to pay me for some work I did for her. Work without pay is that stuff you teach and write about, Professor Liberalism -- slavery!)

The real demonstration of one's liberal values is to be willing to standing up not just for someone, but also against someone, and to strive to ensure a fair hearing. That would be worthy of a sense of accomplishment -- crossing divides, sticking your neck out for what you profess (but perhaps they're called "professors" because they only profess), forging an equal partnership with the marginalized, not splitting "Others" into "good" and "bad" (e.g. "You're okay, but other Asians are not."). In a consumption situation, your beliefs are not tested. There's no dilemma.

Consider the non-dilemma situation of the Cuban-cigar-sharing barbeque: some white-American locals and some internationals were invited. "International" has a nice, liberal ring to it, doesn't it? But you want to be careful not to go too foreign, because then everyone has to work at understanding the conversation, and that just ruins the evening. So, a white couple from Oceania and myself, an Asian (me, the only non-white guest of the white professor who would later tell me I had no right to be in America). Looking back, I see why I was the perfect liberal accesory: non-white, with an accent distinct enough to be "foreign", but not so foreign as to ruin the evening. I'm articulate in English, and my views are liberal. I add a touch of diversity to any gathering, without demanding that people cope with my foreignness. No dilemma, no inconvenience.

In the dilemma situation, I not only got no hearing, but was roundly told to get out of America, and -- incredibly petty -- not paid for work done. By a racism-hating, Republican-bashing, slavery-decrying feminist gay tenured professor. The amount she owed me was not a big sum, but when it's coupled with a "Get out of America" lecture, you have to wonder about people who make their career writing about slavery.

To be sure, disengaged academics will write brilliant books, if they're brilliant. But they will never inspire or change a life. The most brilliant professors I've known as a graduate student are generally pedantic and boring in their discussions of even the most moving and profound subject material. The one professor who stands out in my memory (and the memories of most of his students) as life-changing had an incredibly courageous pedagogy (nothing edgy, just utterly earnest, honest, and challenging) and a skill and sensitivity that could only have come from the sincerity of the questions we all grappled with in class together. Thirteen years later, I'm still moved to tears when I read the papers I wrote for him. He was denied tenure at the university where he taught me, and I suspect it was because he allowed people to question received notions of pedagogy as well as of race. Only the luckiest among us get to encounter one or two teachers in our lives who are that gifted and devoted.

Isolation in the ivory tower can, of course, impoverish scholarship itself. (I am speaking of humanities and social sciences, which is what I know best). But more on that some other time. Coming up on future episodes of "What's wrong with American academia":

• Pointless punctuation
• Antidepressants and the privatization of social dysfunction
  
• Faffology
  

Stay tuned!

Image source: http://www.cartoonstock.com

Shifting the dream

Here's an old favorite REM song, from New Adventures in Hi-Fi. It always reminds me of Geraldine Page's character in Interiors walking into the sea until she disappears.

Leave

Nothing could be bring me closer.
Nothing could be bring me near.
Where is the road I follow
To leave it, leave?

It's under, under, under my feet.
The sea spread out there before me.
Where do I go when the land touches sea?
There is my trust in what I believe.

That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me down,
To leave it, believe it,
Leave it all behind.

Shifting the dream
Nothing could bring me further from my old friend time.
Shifting the dream
It's charging the scene
I know where I marked the signs.

I suffer the dreams of a world gone mad
I like it like that and I know it
I know it well, ugly and sweet,
I temper madness with an even extreme.

That's what keeps me
That's what keeps me
That's what keeps me down
I say that I'm a lightweight
I say that I'm a airplane
That never left the ground.

That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me down,
To leave it, believe it.
Leave it all behind.

Lift me, lift me,
I attain my dream.
I lost myself, I lost the
Heartache calling me.
I lost myself in sorrow
I lost myself in pain.
I lost myself in clarity,
Memory, leave, leave.

That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me down,
To leave it, believe it,
Leave it all behind.

That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me,
That's what keeps me down,
To leave it, believe it,
Leave it all behind.

Lift my hands, my eyes are still,
I'll walk into the sea
Shoot myself in a different place
And leave it

I've longed for this to take me,
I've longed for my release
I've waited for the callin'
To leave, leave.

Leave, leave.
Leavin', leavin'