I wanted my last blog post to be less dull, so here are some political cartoons relating to the Pope, Islam and his visit to Turkey:
(These are all taken from Slate magazine, a great site for articles on anything and everything, but also cool because you can look up cartoons by topic. and there are more cartoons there about this that I didn't post.)


this first three are similar to the one we looked at in class:

I'm reading another of Mahfouz's books, Children of the Alley, and I came across a line that seemed familiar:

Gabal found that he was not one person, as he had imagined he was all his life; he was two people. One of them believed in loyalty to his mother and the other wondered bewilderedly, "What about the Al Hamdan?" (106).

Gabal is a character that is supposed to be an allegorical figure for Moses, and he is torn between his loyalty to the woman who adopted him as a baby (and happens to be the wife of the person in charge), and the people he is related to in blood (who, like the Israelites, are persecuted).

This reminded me of the conversation Riyad and Kamal have in Sugar Street, when Riyad says:

Politics has recently handed me a new puzzle similar to the one I've had with religion. I have spurned religion with my intellect and yet from ethnic loyalty have felt sympathetic to it with my heart. In exactly the same way, I will spurn the Wafd with my heart and feel sympathetically inclined toward it with my intellect. If I say I'm a Wafdist, I betray my heart. If I say I'm opposed to the Wafd, I cheat my intellect. It's a catastrophe I never dreamed of. Apparently Copts are destined to live forever with split personalities. If all of us were a single individual, he would go mad (229).

While Riyad seems to see his split personality as necessary and Gabal finds his as difficult, Mahfouz is good at portraying the dichotomies of many of his characters (not just Riyad and Gabal) as something they need but are challenged by.

These dichotomies are not always between the secular and spiritual, or the body and the soul, as in Riyad's case. Like Gabal, many of Mahfouz's characters have difficulty reconciling two parts of their identity. Kamal stands out as the character whose constant internal struggle is revealed, and he seems to have abandoned his spiritual side, although his main dichotomy ends up being between not believing in anything, and really wanting to believe in something.

Kamal seems to really admire his two nephews Ahmad and Abd al-Muni'm for their strong beliefs in their separate causes, even though he doesn't really support either one. As the book progresses, it becomes obvious that Kamal has really begun to regret his lack of beliefs, and we see him fight with himself to marry Budur, and fail, but then tell Ridwan that he should get married if there is nothing to prevent it.

At the end of the book (and the end of the trilogy), Kamal is thinking of something Ahmad had said about his own beliefs, and says that

I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true, since shrinking from that would be a cowardly evasion of duty. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from this rebellion would be a form of treason (308).

It is here that Kamal recognizes that his lack of belief has been nothing but "an evasion of responsibility." But what is most appealing about Ahmad's strong convictions may be that it seems to be an answer to the dichotomy, since Ahmad claims to revolt against any ideas that would question or challenge his beliefs, thus making a clear choice of what is necessary, instead of constantly struggling between the two.

The video on Edward Said and Orientalism provided many important general points about Orientalism, much of which Tina addressed on her blog, but as I was watching it I kept trying to relate it to Sugar Street. In general, Sugar Street gives the Western reader a portrayal of the Arab/Oriental world to contrast with or call into question the view we have gotten from news and popular culture because of the systematic discourse of Orientalism.

It seemed to him that all the different ethnic groups into which humanity was divided were acting out an ironic farce that would have a dreadful ending. (pg 229 in Sugar Street)

This is something Kamal thinks as he is discussing the implications of the political figure Makram losing power in the Wafd party with his friend Riyad. Makram, like Riyad, is part of the Coptic community, and Riyad sees his fall from power as a fall for all the Copts, to which Kamal objects by saying "Makram is not all the Coptic Christians, and the Copts aren't Makram... the problem ceases to exist if you think of Makram as a politician and not as the entire Coptic community." To which Riyad responds, "Do the Muslims themselves think of him merely as a politician?" (229).

I remembered this exchange as I watched the video on Edward Said and Orientalism, particularly when Said made the point that stereotyping is something that has been going on as long as different groups of humanity have been in contact with one another. Said identified Orientalism as being more formal than general stereotyping because it is presented as objective knowledge, and then throughout the video shows how this has been used and perpetuated for political purposes. With the exchange between Kamal and Riyad, although it is not Orientalism, Mahfouz is able to make a point of similar to that made by Said about Orientalism (and the US's view of the Arab/Islamic world in particular), that Riyad may view the expulsion of Makram from the Wafd party as a political move against the Copts because he feels this is how the Muslims would view it.

Something else that I really appreciated was Said's discussion about Gramsei's philosophies. He said that the most interesting of the human tasks is to compile an inventory of the infinity of traces that history has left on us. This "history" includes our history from our nation, from our family, and from tradition, all three of which I see playing a part in the generations of Sugar Street. Said sees the purpose of this task as to understand our personal history in terms of everyone else's, and not to say, "my history is better/worse than yours." The great goal of this task, then, is to become someone else, to "transform yourself from a unitary identity into an identity that includes "the other" without suppressing the difference" (between yourself and "the other").

That's a really powerful idea, and a way I think Said is offering to beat Orientalism on a individual level that could eventually eradicate it on a larger scale in society. Said relates this process to writing and comparative literature, arguing that works coming from different traditions and cultures should be viewed not as being better or worse than one another, but "existing as contrapuntal lines in a great composition by which difference is respected and understood without coercion."

Since literature is one way that the Orientalism view has been proliferated and perpetuated, it is important for Western readers to view literature in this way- as a "great composition" that includes writings from all kinds of traditions, not just the Western. Most Western-educated people have really only been exposed to works by Western authors with a Western view, and thus are missing out on a large part of this "great composition." Which is why it is important to read books like Sugar Street and the others we have read in this class, in order to expand our view of the world (and, in many ways, correct it) and also to help us understand our identity in terms of everyone else's, to transform from a unitary identity into one that includes "the other" without suppressing difference.

Thoughts on the video of Dr. Uraziee and Sugar Street.
I think Dr. Uraziee made a lot of good points about post-colonial and neo-colonial literature that relate to Mahfouz's Sugar Street.

One thing she said was that Mahfouz writes about the daily lives of people, with the political events happening only in the background. In doing this, he is giving us (the reader, the West) an idea of what it is really like to live in Egypt in that time, something that can only really be done by giving huge amounts of detail to the everyday activities of a family of characters.
I think this is an important observation. Something I liked about the book was that Mahfouz seems to be putting forth a wide variety of viewpoints through his characters. Instead of writing from one frame of mind or espousing one ideological stance, like some of the other writers we have read do, he is offering a chance for more readers to connect with the book by finding a character they can relate to. He is also showing that there is not one easy answer to the problems left by the colonial power.

Another thing that Dr. Uraziee mentioned about what post-colonial lit and neo-colonial lit (coming from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean in particular) have in common relates both to Sugar Street in general and the point I have just made. Dr. Uraziee said that both are political, and necessarily so, not because the author made a revolutionary choice to write politically, but because politics impinges on their lives in so many ways, that it becomes an obvious thing, and forces them to form political loyalties that are fairly strong some way or another. This really struck me as something that maybe difficult for the average (modern) Western reader to really understand, because it is fairly easy in our culture to tune out to politics and embrace ambivalence. Dr. Uraziee is saying that in the post-colonial and neo-colonial world (some people include the US as part of, which I would reject because technically the colonizers have never really left and have instead appropriated the nation for themselves and created a new identity that is closely linked to their old), it is impossible not to be political. Kamal in Sugar Street may seem like an argument against this idea, but just the fact that he is constantly questioning things proves that is forced to think about them, something that isn't true in America (which is apparent if you ever try to talk to the average American about anything political). Kamal wants to be strong in some political loyalty, and something he thinks on pg.118 as he looks at his nephews with "admiration and delight" shows this, and further proves Dr. Uraziee's idea, "The new generation was making its difficult way to well-defined goals without doubt or anxiety."

That quote also may tie to something I said in a post before (with the help of Mark Twain) about how the revolution isn't going to happen with a singular action, but is a longer struggle where each part is necessary to reach the end, and connects to something else Dr. Uraziee said about Mahfouz's use of time in the Cairo trilogy. She commented that Mahfouz was fond of trilogies or tetralogies because he didn't think he could get everything out in one book. She added that his books have the sense that things take their own course, eventually the consequences will come out, but you won't necessarily see them in a short period of time. Perhaps that is what is happening through the generation of the family in Sugar Street.

This is kind of getting long, so I think I'll continue this thought in class, or in my next blog posting, or perhaps in a paper.

Here's a link to the article about Somalia and Hezbollah I talked about at the beginning of class:

U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters

(the new york times)

So what can we do?
This is an interesting question not just because it surfaces in the three most recent class texts (Sugar Street, Rebel’s Silhouette and Sweet & Sour Milk) but also because it the question any great revolutionary must ask in the face of a Goliath-like injustice or oppression.
When Soyaan dies, and his soul is claimed by the General, Loyaan spends the rest of the book trying to answer this question.
In Rebel’s Silhouette, Faiz is in prison reflecting on that very question, ultimately asking “you” to “tell us what to do.”
Just from the first few chapters of Sugar Street, when this question is asked twice in two different forms, you get the sense of a society eager to find the answer to this question so as to gain independence.
But in all three, the situation looks bleak.
Loyaan is claimed by the General just like his twin.
Faiz is stuck in prison and his poems are filled with a sense of futility.
We get a similar sense from a few lines in the fourth chapter of Sugar Street: "For too long the nation had patiently endured the blows it recieved..." (32)
Despite this, (at least the two works we’ve finished) the works seem to be encouraging hope, instead of saying “give up.”
For some reason that probably has everything to do with timing, this all reminds me of an essay by Mark Twain I am reading for an American Literature class, called “The Turning Point of My Life.” Twain seems to be responding to an imaginary prompt asking him to talk about the turning point of his life, and he says that the question

“implies--without intention, perhaps--that that turning-point ITSELF was the creator of the new condition. This gives it too much distinction, too much prominence, too much credit. It is only the LAST link in a very long chain of turning-points commissioned to produce the cardinal result; it is not any more important than the humblest of its ten thousand predecessors. Each of the ten thousand did its appointed share, on its appointed date, in forwarding the scheme, and they were all necessary; to have left out any one of them would have defeated the scheme and brought about SOME OTHER result. It know we have a fashion of saying "such and such an event was the turning-point in my life," but we shouldn't say it. We should merely grant that its place as LAST link in the chain makes it the most CONSPICUOUS link; in real importance it has no advantage over any one of its predecessors.” (http://www.online-literature.com/twain/1324/)

So, in light of our readings, the apparent “failures” of Loyaan and Faiz should be viewed as links in a long chain that will ultimately lead to change.
We see the hope of this in the texts:
Loyaan passes the memorandums to his sister, and the baby Soyaan is born.
By writing his poetry, Faiz is writing to the future.
I’m not sure how Sugar Street is going to turn out, but from what we’ve read and our discussion so far, I get the feeling that Kamal’s nephews will factor in somehow.

((sorry for the length of this post. the mark twain essay is worth reading in its entirety, though, and is actually kind of funny.))

I think Tina has it right in her interpretations of the epigraphs. For chapter 11, I also saw the dead ant as Soyaan and the live one as Loyaan, who doesn't realize the approach of the river until too late. I thought it was interesting in light of some of our past discussions that the living ant is characterized as female.

As for chapter 12's epigraph, the mother is unknowingly trying to lead her child to danger (the scorpion in between them), but if the child sticks with his choice (the grasshopper) he will be okay (i'm pretty sure a gecko isn't going to hurt anyone). In consideration of what happens in this chapter, this seems to be suggesting that if Loyaan just does what he wants, instead of following the advice of everyone else (his neighbor, his mother, his sister, etc.), who may mean well but are "blind" to what is really going on, then he will be okay. This then raises the question of what Loyaan really wants, which still seems kind of ambigious to me. It seems like Loyaan himself is not even sure what to do, and we see that through the internal dialogue that is constantly ordering and questioning everything he does.

In thinking about these particular epigraphs, I wonder what the point of the epigraphs in general is. Why did Farah choose to include them at the beginning of each chapter? Each epigraph seems to be a mini-parable or part of a parable that relates the overall or central moral of the following chapter to the reader. It seems like Farah is trying to make sure that the reader gets his point, and thus expresses it in a different way.

I also think that the epigraphs can relate to the discussion on Orientalism and Occidentalism (or Eurocentrism) in class. We talked about how often the dominated or colonized cultures were ones with an oral tradition. The epigraphs remind me of the kind of stories or parables that would be passed down in an oral tradition, from one generation to the next. They might eventually be written down, but originate from and connect back to this oral tradition. Perhaps Farah is reminding his people of this oral tradtion, and the lessons that it has to offer through these stories, and showing how these lessons are even more important in the current situation.

And according to our educated friend wikipedia, " Somali was a mainly oral culture... Speakers in political or religious assemblies and litigants in courts traditionally were expected to use poetry or poetic proverbs. Even everyday talk tended to have a terse, vivid, poetic style, characterized by carefully chosen words, condensed meaning, and alliteration."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Somalia

"boondocks" comic for today (10.11.06), post about sweet and sour milk to come....