anonymous cowgirl

Dear friends,

Just learned that another court date has been set for the Baha’i leaders imprisoned in Iran: June 12th. Please keep them in your prayers. Here’s a link to Lev’s last post on this topic, describing Roxana Saberi’s account of her time with the Baha’is in Evin Prison.

Also want to point you towards the website for the Ziba Kazemi Foundation, named after the Canadian photojournalist who was imprisoned in Evin prison and came out in a coma, with signs of physical and sexual abuse. She died soon afterwards but her son has developed this foundation to try to seek justice. I believe their main income (to pay for court fees) is from selling her photos. The ones from Haiti are particularly timely, so please check them out. (I learned about it from Zahra’s Paradise, a webcomic about Iran, featured in the Economist recently – also worth a gander.)

My friend and advisor Sam Sommers recently published a post on his blog “Science of Small Talk” on the “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” Facebook group. His post examines how political correctness has become a pejorative term and why that seems misguided (and also whether the idea of opposing PC-ness has any bearing on the religious responses to the SouthPark/Facebook frenzy). It’s much more complicated than I am going to describe here – but I encourage you to read the whole post.
An excerpt:

…After all, [political correctness] comes from a good place with good intention to which most of us would subscribe: to make sure that all people feel comfortable and even valued. It doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing to err on that side of caution much of the time.
We live in a far more open, tolerant, and equitable society today than people did 50 years ago. The flat-out rejection and demonization of political correctness strikes me as a repudiation of much of this progress.

It is, for Muslims, incredibly offensive to try to portray the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in any way. Christians tend to not understand this, because there is a long historical tradition in Christian art of portraying Jesus the Christ and pretty much everyone associated with Him. (And often His Holiness Christ is portrayed with seriously Eurocentric features, but I’ll save that discussion for the essay I’m working on for the Mirror of Race website.) So for people coming from a Christian/ western understanding of the world, it’s an issue of free speech and common practice. For people coming from a Muslim religious background, it’s just ineffably horrifying.

Anyway, usually I’d chalk it up to old frameworks and lack of cross-cultural understanding and willingness to take perspective, etc, but I caught a fragment of a news story that this whole Facebook thing (and probably some other motivating factors) has led the government of Pakistan to place a ban on Facebook. And Youtube, Flickr, etc. Now this has gotten political – and because of my sister’s current residence, personal. So I thought I’d explore this a bit.

My interest is in framing this at a more personal level. In essence, what’s taking place here is: If A does something which offends B horribly, and A feels B’s response is inappropriate, then A will keep doing that offensive act, because A deems it important to exercise A’s right to free speech. Meanwhile, B gets frustrated and furious in response to what feels like a direct attack in utter disregard of all B holds sacred.

To look at this only in terms of free speech is to come at it from an individualistic framework. It is certainly clear that American culture and institutions value the right of the individual to self-expression. Cultural psychologists have been making this point for decades. In this case the prioritization of the individual (A) above all else is clear. But it isn’t everything.

The response (B) is coming from a deeply held religious belief about the offensiveness of a certain form of that expression – and unfortunately sometimes this is transmuted into calls for violence. The reactionary nature of that type of response – to shut down communication, or go on the attack – is truly harmful, and suggests a lack of faith in human nobility/ integrity.

Either way, I think we can do better. I honestly believe we as a human race are more mature than this – or at least capable of more maturity. For Baha’is, this issue is placed in the context of humanity’s relationship with God. The Universal House of Justice explains:

“The prohibition on representing the Manifestation of God in paintings and drawings or in dramatic presentations applies to all the Manifestations of God. There are, of course, great and wonderful works of art of past Dispensations, many of which portrayed the Manifestations of God in a spirit of reverence and love. In this Dispensation however the greater maturity of mankind and the greater awareness of the relationship between the Supreme Manifestation and His servants enable us to realize the impossibility of representing, in any human form, whether pictorially, in sculpture or dramatic representation, the Person of God’s Manifestations.”

More on maturity later…

What if, instead of Grand Theft Auto being about stealing cars and whatnot, it had been designed as a game about driving an ambulance? And you have to get the sick person to the hospital as quickly as you can without causing more accidents? Wouldn’t that be a better use of human capacity?

What other games could we alter?

If you’re looking for awesome games, Lev and I recently came across a board game called Pandemic , which is VERY challenging! It requires a good bit of consultation and teamwork with the other players to try to attain the goal (which is to stop the spread of disease across the world/board). I highly recommend.

Lev is busy taking an exam in his fancy math class, right now. Please think happy thoughts for him!

Yesterday I proctored an exam in a classroom full of undergraduates. Proctoring an exam makes you, for a while, almost superhuman in your highly attuned perception of hand movements. You stare out at a sea of people, writing, thinking, chewing on pencils, trying not to act suspicious. They shift, rub their faces, run their hands through their hair. Lean head against hand. Every movement of the fingers could be the beginning of a signal to you, the TA, that there’s a question to be resolved. Up a hand goes and you’re off, squeezing in between the aisles, hoping that you’ll understand the question and can help them.

Hope you all have a great Earth Day!

Having just come back from Texas, where I had the opportunity to have a few “interesting” conversations, I gotta hand it to Eric Knowles, Brian Lowery, and R.L. Schaumberg, for their brand new article in the March edition of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, “Racial prejudice predicts opposition to Obama and his health care reform plan.” Here’s the abstract:
“The present study examines the relationship between racial prejudice and reactions to President Barack Obama and his policies. Before the 2008 election, participants’ levels of implicit and explicit anti-Black prejudice were measured. Over the following days and months, voting behavior, attitudes toward Obama, and attitudes toward Obama’s health care reform plan were assessed. Controlling for explicit prejudice, implicit prejudice predicted a reluctance to vote for Obama, opposition to his health care reform plan, and endorsement of specific concerns about the plan. In an experiment, the association between implicit prejudice and opposition to health care reform replicated when the plan was attributed to Obama, but not to Bill Clinton – suggesting that individuals high in anti-Black prejudice tended to oppose Obama at least in part because they dislike him as a Black person. In sum, our data support the notion that racial prejudice is one factor driving opposition to Obama and his policies.” (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An Early History of the Baha’i Faith, by William Sears

Kudos to Lev, my beloved husband and co-blogger, for such a dedicated streak of Fast-blogging! These last few days have been tumultuous, but so wonderful nevertheless. I thought I’d share a couple of things that fed my spirit this year.

This Fast, I’ve been trying to start each day by reading one chapter from William Sears’ book, Release the Sun, which is an account of the early days of the Baha’i Faith and those heroes we call the dawnbreakers. The valour and devotion of those souls is inspiring. One quote from Tahirih (Chapter 15) particularly captured my attention. She had been listening to another one of the early believers eloquently expounding upon the signs and proofs of the Faith, and she spoke up, saying, “Let deeds, not words, testify to thy faith, if thou art a man of true learning. Cease idly repeating the traditions of the past, for the day of service, of steadfast action, is come. Now is the time to promote the Word of God, and to sacrifice ourselves in His path. Let deeds, not words, be our adorning.”

She did, of course, live her own life in accordance with this call to action. She boldly broke with the dominant religious tradition and invoked the wrath of many by proclaiming the equality of women and men, a core Baha’i principle, and as the first women’s suffrage martyr, she paid with her life for it. Her last words before she was strangled were “You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.”

Nineteen chapters in the book, nineteen days of the Fast. It works out quite nicely.

Speaking of nineteen days, another nice aspect of the Fast this year is that I’ve been closely following the nineteen days website. It’s a nice reminder that people all over the world are engaging in this same spiritually cleansing and reflecting process. Plus it’s a visual banquet. After you explore it, check out every morn and eve, a sister site for the rest of the year.

It’s a great time of the year to revel in beauty. One final note: the book cover image associated with this post was designed by my Uncle Bob, aka Robert Reddy, who is continually producing astonishing beauty over at Progress Gallery. Happy spring!

by Naomi Shihab Nye (shared with me by the beloved Mad Johnson)

The Arabs have a saying:
When a stranger comes to your door
feed him for 3 days without ever asking his name,
where he has come from and where he is going.
Because by then he will be able to answer,
But of course, by then, you won’t care.

Let’s get back to that, then–
What is it that you want? Rice? Pine nuts?
Here take this red brocade pillow
while my child feeds water to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came.
I wasn’t even pretending to be busy.
That is the armor people of the last century
put on to appear as if they had a purpose.
I will not be claimed.
Here, your plate is waiting.
Let me snip fresh mint into your tea.

As we all keep the citizens of Haiti in our prayers, also check out this interesting website. Solar power in a suitcase, designed for use in health care facilities in places where the power supply is unsteady:
We Care Solar
They’ve been working hard to send a bunch of these to Haiti.

Let us know what other opportunities for action you have encountered!

“When such a crisis sweeps over the world no person should hope to remain intact. We belong to an organic unit and when one part of the organism suffers all the rest of the body will feel its consequence. This is in fact the reason why Baha’u'llah calls our attention to the unity of mankind.” -Shoghi Effendi

by Robert E. Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Happy Gregorian New Year, everyone!

A short while ago, Lev and I had a discussion about perfect songs. My criteria are straightforward but exacting: everything about the song must be perfect, with nothing about it to make you wince or wish it was different. A good tip-off is that every time you hear the song, you are excited about it. The music is perfectly arranged, and evokes just the right emotion. Also, lyrics matter. There are a lot of almost-perfect songs, but if something about the lyrics rubs you the wrong way (or makes you wince or raise an eyebrow in confusion), then it’s for another list.

After thinking about it, I can only come up with a short list. I submit it here for your enjoyment. Please let us all know your contributions too!

• Service, by David Hunt
• Something to Talk about, Bonnie Raitt
• Dignificada, Lila Downs
• I Can’t Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt