RAPPERS REACH OUT

At Rock the Bells, Snoop and Wu-Tang Clan – NYTimes

In a consolidated community effort to readjust the bravado bar to its rightfully elevated level, gangster rappers (and Lauryn Hill) both old(er) and young united for a common cause: a better world where begins “a new age for the cop killers”, we can “smoke weed every day”, one’s only worry need only be “how many hos [next year] will I be banging”, and where “Wu-Tang Clan [still] ain’t nothing to fuck with”. The thousands in attendance were receptive, singing along to every lyric in the midst of drinking $8 Magic Hats and producing what may have seemed like an alarming cloud of polluting smoke from the mainland. The three headliners (Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg) each performed their classic outings in their entirety, all of which were released over a 3-week span in November of 1993, right around the time the white suburban population realized just how cool it really was to “fuck the police” and thus jumped on the bandwagon.

Demonstrating that hip-hop hasn’t produced any proper headliners since the turn of the century, it was the “old school” which managed to draw a huge crowd to Governor’s Island. It was true love for the rebel art form that attracted attention to the main stage, while the smaller-in-scope “Paid Dues” stage, where underground and semi-underground acts such as Jedi Mind Tricks all performed for the true rap aficionados, captivated a smaller yet eager mob. Misogyny and gang warfare were in the air and everyone in attendance seemed to be begging for more. After over twelve hours of non-stop concert, with sore backs, weak knees and their heads in the clouds, rap fanatics left the show knowing “the rhyme gets rougher as the rhyme goes on”, and the hour-long line for the ferry home was nothing but rough.

LA VIE EN ROSE

France Vows to Continue Deporting Roma – NYTimes

France is at it again, or more specifically Sarkozy. He’s playing with fire. Discontent that Justice and Daft Punk have given people a reason to appreciate the French, and realizing that a general disagreeable nature and a timeless pomposity were no longer a solid enough basis for attracting hostility, the 23rd President of the French Republic has taken it upon himself to provide the world with more solid grounds for disliking the French and thus making sure they remain on the global shit list. In a move that can really only be qualified as true to himself, “Sarko” is expatriating (bribing) 850 Roma (all from EU countries) as a gesture to the right-wing voter-base, precisely, and more somberly, the far-right, a detail most of the press omits. Mr. Sarkozy forgets that, despite his smoke screen quest of fighting crime, a considerable portion of the French population, notably much of its youth as well as the “third generation” citizens to whom Sarkozy has so often demonstrated prejudice, will not disregard this neglect for republican principles of equality on which the country should be based. Then again, what does he have to fear, besides a little berating from the foreign press? Sarkozy has developed a somehow cult, unwavering opposition since his first days as Minister of the Interior but it more often than not consists of a demographic that is either young/too few or don’t/can’t vote.

Avoiding a specific analysis of the current scale of xenophobia in France which would inevitably arrive to an abstract conclusion, the clash of cultures and communities has always been a handicap for French society, and it has always been the government’s unspoken policy to sweep the issue under the rug. Alternatively, and comparatively just as foolish, Sarkozy’s calling card has been an increasingly undiplomatic tendency to fan the flames. As a chronic reminder of a tension that he cannot manage to quell, Paris and her surrounding suburbs burn every full moon. The French ghettos, designed to segregate and alienate, hold the ideal parameters for breeding criminal/delinquent activity. Instead of extending an empathetic hand Sarkozy’s policies ruthlessly pursue coercive measures, actively seeking adult punishments for minors, in a corner of French society that, as he is well aware of, his voter-base does not consort with. The actual portion of Sarkozy’s voters actually seduced by such tactics is unknown, but it is an alarming speculation. In the end, a more appealing trait for a leader would be the acknowledgment of a double-edged sword that exists in French society which has many citizens of foreign ascent turning to “delinquency” in a hostile environment, inauspicious to positive development, which the government itself conceived in hopes that the attractive idea of a “rich and free” country would forever be enough to suppress their ambitions while retaining the desire to provide the nation with cheap labor.

It seems unlikely that Sarkozy will ever have to answer for his actions, after all his eloquent, demagogic diatribes will unfortunately garner enough fan base in time for the next elections. It is a worrisome assessment of the current state of mind governing the country. One can only hope that his critics, so vocal in musical form and in the twilight streets of progressive Paris, will represent themselves in the election urns. Only then perhaps can we go back to just being narcissistic romantics.

Note-worthy: “On Wednesday, several dozen people arrived in Bulgaria, where last week there was an uproar after the local news media reported that some of those deported on Friday were actually ethnic Turks.”

 

How you fall doesn’t matter, it’s how you land

 

O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN

Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned – The Nation

Seven years after George Bush felt “the need, the need for speed“, getting lavishly chauffeured in on a S-3B Viking jet before declaring ‘mission accomplished’, victory is finally ours. A few bureaucratic hiccups and diplomatic faux-pas can explain the lapse in time between “the United States and our allies prevailing” and Victory, but the last of US combat troops (excluding 50,000 left behind for lingering purposes) finally closed the book on ‘Aye-raq’, leaving behind “a whole new world, with new horizons to pursue”. The United States is once again a proud country that rejoins the batch of “normal” nations which have only one conflict on their hands, in this case Afghanistan, for which support is rapidly waning, despite Joe’s best efforts. The keystone to American strategy seems to be tactful extraction, however the by-product is suspicious. Withdrawal from Afghanistan will also happen gradually in the next year, regardless of there never having been this many US troops on Afghan soil before. In certain areas of the country, US involvement has diminished and Taliban presence has resurged. As in Iraq, Americans will most likely leave behind much unfinished business.

Obvious security issues aside (last week saw a heavy suicide bombing in Baghdad), a specific demographic, women, already in precarious positions before both conflicts and continuously neglected throughout, will not receive the support it really should have had from the beginning, especially in Iraq, where we aimed to spread democracy and liberty once we realized those WMDs were so passé. It’s an easy sell to debate that the Iraq offensive/invasion actually made things worse, leaving many women widowed/orphaned and thus easy prey to sex trafficking. In Afghanistan, the Karzai regime, one established under the semi-watchful eye of the US government, is responsible for the inception of the caveman-worthy Shia Personal Status Law. Does it not seem baffling to be leaving, WMD-less and Osama-less,without even leaving so much as an imprint of positive evolution behind? Baffling, comical or tragic? Is this not a good reason to stay? A way to salvage but a sliver of whatever positive image the US might have had pre-Bush?

In the end, there is nothing more intolerable, not so much regarding the Americans hightailing it as we have come to expect such levels of predictability, but rather with the overall situation concerning women, both pre and post-conflict. An unsettling debate by all means, such issues flirt with the notion that culture can be questionable. The employment of the veil or burqa in much of the Islamic world is not necessarily an aspect of culture as much as it is one of religion. The Qur’an advises it to achieve a sense of modesty, which is meant to in turn protect a woman from any kind of molestation. The disparity between the Qur’an’s honest intentions (a reason why, culturally, women appreciate the veil) and man’s stronghold on Islamic society is sometimes hard to discern but also very nuanced from one country to the next. The result, however, premeditated or not, may just mean the further subjugation of women when coupled with the politicization of categorizing women as second-rate citizens (in Afghanistan), something that cannot simply be blamed on the apparent re-talibanization of the country. Stoning, the type of barbaric capital punishment which persists to a certain extent in the Islamic world (including Iran), is said to find its roots in the Islamic legal traditions (hadiths), not the Qur’an. It also affects more female victims as they are usually targets for adultery charges. Adversely, the rise in recent Afghan stonings can be attributed to a Taliban resurgence. Unfortunately, Iran’s recent case casts shame on the rest of the Islamic world, which shouldn’t be held accountable for such antics. Whether the repression of women is firmly anchored in Islamic culture however is doubtful. Progressive behavior is on the rise, and feminine movements are growing, however severe repercussions for such conduct may be. This only renders the American inefficiency and implausible apathy towards the matter all the more frustrating and discouraging in this post-Bush Obama-mania. Victory has a bitter taste, if not to say repulsive. One year is hopefully enough to make a change in Afghanistan, according to Hilary Clinton anyway. As for Iraq, well, maybe we’ll be back in ten years, when al-Qaeda will actually have taken over and there will be more WMDs than there are prostitutes.

Note-worthy: “Before feminists and the antiwar left come to blows, we might do well to consider that every Afghan woman or girl who still goes to work or school does so with the support of a progressive husband or father.”

MARS ATTACKS

KUHNER: Obama’s Islamic agenda – Washington Times

Al-Qaeda’s/Muslims’ master plan is only now coming to fruition. Ten years following the deadliest attack on US soil (actually Pearl Harbor wins by a couple hundred casualties, but who’s counting), our worst fears are materializing. The 9/11 strike was but a decoy,  a fiendishly devilish ploy to draw our attention away from the big picture and instead have us searching for solace by hunting ghosts and providing the gift of liberty to people who just don’t know any better. While our soldiers were busy taking group pictures for their annual holiday cards at local detention centers and crashing traditional wedding ceremonies in hopes of getting better acquainted with the local specimens of the fairer sex, al-Qaeda/Islam was laying the groundwork in anticipation of the coup de grace for their mischievous scheme: erecting a mosque/headquarters in downtown Manhattan, just two blocks from Ground Zero. This Houdini-inspired ruse succeeded, and our enemies are no longer at the gates but right in our backyard. Technology not being what it used to be, and the two other mosques located 3 blocks away being just too far from the A and C subway lines, proximity to the hallowed grounds of the World Trade Center was crucial. Agents/Cab drivers plan to use their binoculars in order to gaze upon their past glory and ridicule passerby’s from their third floor balcony vantage point by playing unflattering games necessitating saliva and accuracy, all the while overindulging themselves with Dunkin’ Donuts. None of this would have ever been possible without the proper geographical location.

If this sounds preposterous it is because no one believes it isn’t. G.O.P. wasted no time in turning this controversy into a disruptive political issue, knowing even they could not pull off making this look like a terrorist attempt at incursion (some black sheep have strayed from this game plan). They instead decided to take the ethos route, asking ‘why there’? It is a legitimate question. It is their right. It is their first amendment’s right just as much as anyone else’s, but must they exercise it two blocks away from the site of a tragedy still so fresh in so many minds, knowing full well that rarely can you find a more sensitive issue than that of the September 11 attacks? In the end, as inscrutable a debate as this may be, the answer should essentially be ‘why not’. If one does not actually hold the sordid belief that this Islamic center poses an immediate threat, then the only reasoning behind opposing its construction is the understandable yet illogical association of Islam with terrorist activities. Beyond the notion of religious freedom, would it not be a better idea, if only for the sake of our principles lying above those of extremist idealists, to “ally” ourselves with the Muslim population against our common enemy: those who misinterpret the Qur’an.

Obama’s reaction to the Ground Zero Mosque aside, which I would hardly characterize as “embracing”, it is an arduous task to debate the issue with a critic who qualifies Obama’s desire to strengthen Muslim-American relations as a negative approach. By no means is America devalorizing itself by sending the Muslim world a positive message i.e. that it appreciates their culture and hopes for more encompassing peaceful relations.  Mr. Kuhner’s incredulous belief that Obama’s affirmation of his Muslim heritage is reason for agitation seems bigotedly narrow-minded, to say the most. There is a certain tip-toeing process to be undertaken in this issue. All advocates of a peaceful world were victims in the early hours of that tragic day, and some obviously more so than others, but one must point his guns in the right direction, and as a matter of fact know when to holster them. Labeling an Islamic community center neighboring Ground Zero a “monument of victory” is a narrow-sightedness unworthy of a nation supposed to be above its offenders.  The debate rages on, and with purpose. Could we keep the discussion relevant?

Note-worthy: “He is the most Muslim-friendly president in the nation’s history. He wants the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed. […] And he is prematurely withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”

AMERICANS SHOW THEIR GUNS IN PUBLIC

Activists Take Fight on Immigration to Arizona Border – NYTimes

It is pretty much a world-wide consensus that the United States has nothing to bring to the culture table, and most people around the world will snicker the word “McDonald’s” with a grotesquely imitated American accent, usually an attempt at a southern accent, when asked about American culture. It is therefore such a beautiful thing to witness my fellow Americans demonstrate that there are reasons beyond artificially enhanced foods that push our people to congregate, namely xenophobic instincts and the difficulty to turn down adherence to any angry mob, especially if the latter is armed to the teeth.

Political motivations aside, border control is a legitimate concern, although the question of whether or not any of these sawed-off-packing activists would hold any kind of nuance between a trafficker and a single mother when gazing down their barrel sights does come to mind. And forget casting aside political motivations. Seizing another opportunity to make someone else look bad, conservative political candidates attending the love-meet asserted that anyone not in attendance was obviously incompetent, didn’t care or was just a pussy for not wanting to come to a gun rally border security rally. Unfortunately, having to wait and see if Obama’s new measures will actually have ameliorative effects would mean speculating that the incumbent president, who after all garnered 53% of all votes cast in the 2008 election, could potentially do something right, and not being able to take one’s 38. caliber out for a Sunday stroll.

The urgency of the issue lies in the threat posed by drug, human and gun traffickers from which much of the stigma of dangerous immigrants originates.  These demonstrations hold a duplicitous nature though in that most attendees are advocates of the recent, partially passed Arizona immigration law, which exercises a questionable abuse of power of which consequences will end up being the targeting of specific people based on their appearance. It is unclear what the common denominator is which brings these Americans together: security or a general distaste for that which is foreign? In any case, something must be done for the safety of border states. However, it is equally essential to send the right message. Besides, if antagonism toward your foreign neighbors floats your boat, perhaps we should transfer our  attention to the Atlantic and our European counterparts. Their accents are far thicker and they are way more likely to steal your women.

Note-worty: “She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.””