On Thursday, Iran and the United States held their first formal diplomatic discussions in thirty years. Convened in Geneva, the hope behind the meetings was to defuse further conflict between the West and the Islamic Republic.
Writing for France 24, I explain what the larger significance of the gathering was, focusing on its use, by the Obama administration, to combat criticisms of its attitude towards Israel, as well as its significance for other Mideast states.
I can’t tell you how many first class exhibitions were held in London during the half year that we lived there. Each week, it seemed, there was always something good, and most importantly of interest, that we could have gone to. Sometimes I wondered if the city’s cultural events weren’t programmed specifically for us, as though they were consolation for Jennifer’s dreadful work situation.
One such event was Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East, which opened on January 30th at the new Saatchi Gallery on Kings Road. One of the most comprehensive exhibits of its kind (in the US, such shows are usually nation as opposed to region-specific) I took the opportunity to write about one of it’s featured photographers, Shadi Ghadirian, (see above) in today’s edition of Zeek.
Shot in Tehran, Ghadirian’s work is emblemmatic of the unrest currently engulfing the Islamic republic. Contending with the intersection of religion and women’s rights in the Mideast, her staged photographs nevertheless indulge a universal vernacular easily transportable to any number of foreign contexts. The ghetto blaster atop this lady’s shoulder is the tip of the iceberg. Check it out.
The Middle East has become a metaphor for the world. Whether you chalk it up to undue Zionist influence on post-WWII American foreign policy, the disproportionate impact that the Arab-Israeli conflict has wielded over Western political life, the growth of Islam in Europe, Arab immigration everywhere, or the global impact of Persian Gulf petro-dollars, the point is ultimately the same.
For a variety of legitimate (and, obviously illegitimate) reasons, the Middle East has become more tightly enmeshed in the West than ever before. Though it took until the War on Terror to drive this home, the Jihadi terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have had the ironic consequence of colonizing American culture and politics in return.
-Photo: Archway tube, London. Text excerpted from Israel vs. Utopia
Socialist realism is alive and well, if not exactly socialist. The fall of Baghdad, reimagined in the heart of the American desert. 29 Palms, California, June 2008.
Regimes like Iran need Israel to give the people they rule–many of whom are destitute due to systematic economic and political discrimination–an external object for their anger. Not only is the U.S. far too large to serve this fetishistic function, the reach of its consumer culture, particularly in the form of movies and popular music, makes it hard to regard America as fully external. In a sense, the U.S. is too near even when it’s thousands of miles away. By contrast, Israel is a place that people throughout the Middle East can imagine reaching in a geographical sense – the testing of missiles is always reported together with their cruising range – but it’s not part of their domestic experience. This has made it a fine scapegoat for the entirety of its six-decade existence.
What has changed since 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the political psychology of the region has been shaken by the physical proximity of American forces. Just as Israel has had to come to terms with the fact that the United States is now practically a virtual geographic neighbor, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and, above all, Iran have had to deal with the repercussions of a military imperialism as invasive as the cultural sort that preceded it. The American presence in the region has never been so thoroughly embodied. For this reason, the old stand-by of hostility towards Israel is being summoned, often hysterically, as a way to shore up the cracks in these countries’ political identities.
During the late 1970s, I can’t remember how many times my siblings and I would hear a song on the radio–most often English-language pop and disco–and try to sing along. We’d mimic the lyrics, switching back and forth between English and Hebrew as we unsuccessfully attempted to master particularly difficult American-sounding turns of phrase. Boney M‘s 1978 mega-hit “Rasputin,” and Earth, Wind and Fire’s 1979 smash “Boogie Wonderland” were particular sources of amusement, as friends and family would struggle to properly enunciate “R” and “W,” sounding, in the case of “Vonderland,” like Israeli caricatures of Bela Lugosi.
To read the rest of my review of Soul Messages From Dimona, click here.
The best band names are frequently found in hotel bathrooms. Mitzpeh Ramon, Sukkot, 2006.
1 of 4 photographs of our neighborhood, featured in a new photo essay of mine published today in Zeek. Focusing on the imbrication of the Middle Eastern in San Francisco life, the article is a brief portrait of an increasingly multicultural city, bisected by two regional conflicts, and immigrants living peacefully together, side by side.
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