some inspiration for Istanbul tickets (:

From Istanbul, with love..

Book club - Narayan (:

heyyyy village!!
Since I was dealing with presentations and papers, I have not been able to get involved the text deeply while writing the following thoughts, just trying to put my notes in sentences (that I had taken while readings. ) If it's not good enough for you to start, just push me with questions lol.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys! wink wink :-) (queen's face)

''It's so interesting for me thinking about some concepts that I have never get deeply involved before. gracias to the village. (:
Well, as a citizen of a country where even you're a citizen you don't have the language of rights, it was so enjoyable for me break the borders of my mind and rethought of citizenship in terms of her conceptualizations.

For the dignity issue, I'm still not sure whetver I get it wrong or not. Is she talking about the transition from the person of the King to an individual? In any way I love rethinking the idea of citizenship and seeing errors of conceptualization in terms of limited understanding taht depends on 'earning', or 'contrubuting' as preconditions of rights. I have a tendecy that it has been soooo much used by states so called -for the sake of the state.
In the issue of more inclusive of women, in a manner that just reading the woman merely over the family or men does not help us to undertstand ongoing problems.however, I'm still not sure how we're gonna deal with this? To illustrate: I'm just thinking one of my aunts, all she is thinking or considering about is my cousins' courses, lifes, their being sick or not as a mother sensitive but I really believe that she does not have any kind of time or will to do sthg excetp this. Politics is understood for her to do sthg bad or corrupted or ridicilous that even if she will came to the point to want to seek her right , she does not believe the system. So my question would be, how we're gonna make her realize her rights and enjoy 'citizenship' in practical life? What makes her get involved the system? There are some answers in the text but I am still looking forward to hear more impressive ones.lol
A here in our classes, while we're taking comparative politics, we have started to have the idea of 'citizenship'. If we're talking about the welfare state , it is always thought that the idea welfare state is most 'progressive' or extensive idea of citizenship in practise . Hımm. But it is also interesting to see the gaps of welfare state, rethinking about right based versus charirty based and the following argument made sense for me : 'Receipt of the welfare is usuallly considered grounds for disrespect, a threat to, rather than a realization of the citizenship.'

For political participation, I believe she's pretty right. Indeed, she's right to say that seeing the concept further, not only participation and representation of marginalized groups but also their getting involved as a wide variety of public institutions in terms of pre-conditions for the possibility of politically active citizens is very crucial. However my concern comes from seeing marginalized groups as homogenous groups. Are we able to classify easily while trying to engage them political life?
Her point about the problem of authority was also languagezation(lol) of 'lack' as usual important and just needed time for solution. Because these type of understanding errors needs more time to transform over generations. lol.

In the third step, I'd honestly tell, I'm pretty far about this. The idea of right to right because you're human ,not you are a citizen, is undoubtly significant for me but in terms of nationally thinking lol, we are still at a point that not even enjoying our rights but trying to talk about our rights that while we're seeking for doing this for citizens properly, non-citizens issue was kinda hard for me to imagine readily or too utopic haha. What about ongoing members and state's owing them? hımmm. In my understanding, conceptualizing this issue in the sense that state's owing them sthg is again problematic and what she had criticised before, because it goes again seeing them through thecontribution base. What about ongoing members who are non 'contributors'? Also may the non citizen/women issue be related topic with care politics? (I mean,you know, politics is thought for normal people. But what if you are in need of care others? Should a baby or an old person treated as a 30years old working man.?Who is actually maintaing the care?) So the idea that right to right because human is acceptable for me. However in practise this issue is very new that with the actualization of globalization, immigration and refugees, bring us so many concepts that we had touched upon yet. ''

Some interesting images

stumbling across this page just now and some images caught my eyes:









The wall reads:

The Myth of
Third World Debt

I hear tell
that the ‘West’ claims
‘Third World’ countries
owe them a debt.

The white people them
They come to our countries
they unleash
upon we
the holocaust of slavery
the evil, parasitic, violent process
them call colonization. What this means is
them rape Mother Africa
took her children to use as donkey
went right inside Mother Africa belly
and steal her resources
send them back home to the ‘west’.

We the Africans,
funded the industrial revolution
with our blood, sweat, and tears and
Life.

What this means is
them rape Mother Africa
took her children to use as donkey
went right inside Mother Africa belly
and steal her resources
send them back home to the ‘west’.

We the Africans,
funded the industrial revolution
with our blood, sweat, and tears and
Life.

So I don’t really understand
what the ‘west’ means
when them talk
‘bout ‘Third world debt’
I believe them have no shame
I know they full of untruth
they lie to themselves constantly
cause truth will kill them fe true.

I ask you to reconsider
who owes whom?

The west owes Africa
a debt so great
them can never
fully repay.

Though we may not say it,
don’t think we do not see it
We are silent
because white men talk too much
all in aid
of hiding the truth.

Third world debt
is a fiction of
white mans imagination.


Nyarai Humba

TAINA ASILI y La Banda Rebelde

Vassar just forwarded an email from this cool group so I was looking them up online and find an interesting description of the main singer on youtube:


Taína Asili carries on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing present
and past struggles into one poetic song-voice. She is a puertorriqueña
poet, vocalist, visual artist, mother, teacher and activist, currently
living, teaching and performing in Albany, NY. Her newest artistic work
is with her live band, Taína Asili y La Banda Rebelde, soulful vocals
laid over an infusion of hip hop and Afro-Caribbean sounds. Taína Asili
carries a fire breathing voice of rage and resistance to venues, festivals, conferences and political events across the country. She weaves resistance, anti-colonialist struggle, love, identity, reclamation of the body, ancestral remembrance, and more into a unique vocalization style melding poetry and song.


And I also find this song which makes me think of Zoological Relations...


Their Eyes (feat. Taina Asili)
written by evan greer

evan - guitar, vocals
taina asili - vocals (www.tainaasili.com)
ben lucal - drums
jory leanza-carey - bass (www.broadcastlive.org)

there are animals in cages with no room to turn around
being sent off to the slaughter and sold off by the pound
and there are people locked in prisons
where the outcome's much the same
they get death for their convictions
they get numbers for a name
there are women kept in houses
full of mirrors and TV
forced to fear their drunken fathers
and throw up the things they eat
and the same men who grab them
while they're walking down the street
rip their profits and their pleasure
from the earth beneath our feet
have you ever seen the eyes
of a soul that's occupied?
have you ever had to face
a creature living in a cage?
have you tasted their flesh
or drank their fear?
have you ever seen their eyes?
there are fences high in belfast
where the working class divides
the priests play with politicians
while the poor folks fight and die
and the lower twenty-six you know
are also occupied
by sexism and heroin and neoliberal lies
there are children born at checkpoints
who throw stones against the tanks
they play games amongst the rubble
till the glass in their eyes breaks
and with this concrete wall between them
there's no human face at all
another bus is blown to pieces
as the martyr heeds the call
have you ever seen the eyes
of a soul that's occupied?
do you know what has to die
just to make the things we buy?
do you reap the products of their lives?
have you ever seen their eyes?
can't you see it's all the same?
making profit out of pain
rape and torture are the norm
in prison and factory farms
occupation genocide
out of sight and out of mind
would you still live this life of lies
if you had to look them in the eyes?
have you ever seen their eyes?


Other info:

Award winning vocalist Taina Asili sings the spirit of social change using soulful vocals laid over a unique infusion of Afro-Caribbean, reggae, rock, and hip hop. The band's eclectic style represents the diversity of its band members, who have origins in Puerto Rico, Sicily, Greece, Brazil, Ghana and Spain. Taina has shared the stage with artist such as Ursula Rucker, Sonia Sanchez, Pamela Means, Talib Kweli, and Tyrone Hill of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

info@tainaasili.com
518.817.8617
www.TainaAsili.com
www.Myspace.com/TainaPoet
www.tainaasili.com/Facebook
www.Sonicbids.com/TainaAsili

beautiful songs

Indian Vision - Chirapaq - Native American - Powerful Pride - Sacred Medicine


Cherokee Morning Song

beyzinhaaaaa, you might understand and like this ;-)

native american-tatar-turk song

Ward Churchill

I came across this name while searching for books on American genocide/holocaust, and he seems to have written relentlessly and prolifically against ongoing colonial violence and in support of indigenous resistance:

A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill (Author)

On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Consequences of American Conquest and Carnage (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill (Author)

Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema, and the Colonization of American Indians (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill (Author)

Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and Colonization (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill (Author)

Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America (Paperback)

Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Anglo-american Law (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill

Since Predator Came: Notes from the Struggle for American Indian Liberation (Paperback)
~ Ward Churchill (Author), Haunani-Kay Trask (Author)

Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement

I was wowed by his publications and his speeches also. here's a short clip on how he responded to an idiotic defense of Columbus celebration:

Ward Churchill denies free speech for Columbus Day celebrant

And here's a longer video but it doesn't really feel long coz he's very eloquent:

Ward Churchill: On Perpetual War, State Sponsored Terrorism, and the Limits of Academic Dissent (2005)


If you have time to check out any of these things (especially the clips), share your thoughts! We don't need to wait till next weekend for the conversations to start ;-) {wink wink beyza style :D}

Reading timeline

And here's a rough timeline for the next few books that are in our lineup:

1) December
Uma Narayan, Towards A Feminist Vision of Citizenship
Gayatri Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak?

2) January
Edwardo Galeano, selection of short stories from Walking Words
Michael Shapiro, Violent Cartographies Chapters 1 & 2
Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety Intro, Chapters tbd.

3) February
James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

The Transnational Adda Book Club!

Dear villagers,

I'm excited to get to read and talk with you all, just like the good old days! To start off, here is the master reading list we have compiled so far. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section, and I will make sure this list grows!Dear villagers, I'm excited to get to read and talk with you all, just like the good old days! To start off, here is the master reading list we have compiled so far. Below it is the tentative "agenda" for the next month or so, based on the suggestions we've made so far. Feel free to add to the list!"

Theory

• Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large
• Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments
• Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965)
• Kwame Nkrumah, Consciencism (1970)
• Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness
• Achille Mbembe, "On the postcolony" (2000)
• Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Infinite Layers/Third World?" (1989)
• Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Under Western Eyes, Feminism without Borders
• Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America
• Walter Mignolo: The Idea of Latin América (2005)
• James Baldwin, Notes of a Native son
• Saba Mahmood, The Politics of Piety
• Spivak, Questioned on Translation: Adrift, Can The Subaltern Speak?
• Michael Shapiro, Violent Cartographies

Essays, Fiction, Poems

• Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile (collection of 3 speeches)
• Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera (short essays and poems)
• Marmoud Darwish, poems
• Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine's Children - Returning to Haifa and Other Stories
• Eduardo Galeano, Walking Words or The Book of Embraces (many great short stories)
  

"My lands are where my dead lie buried."

I've been thinking a lot about Quynh's thoughtful provocation about Thanksgiving. What, indeed, prevents us from mourning with those who were massacred in the creation of the United States who every year celebrates a myth of national unity, in denial that a great crime happened on this very soil? There are many resources on the internet that point to thoughtful people who are marking tomorrow not by gorging, but by fasting and mourning. Tomorrow, I will be reading these poems and stories and remembering the dead. Here are some of the few I've gathered:

William S. Burrough's Thanksgiving Prayer, on video and in print.

Full text of the 1970 speech by Wampsutta, a Wampanoag Elder, that inaugurated the National Day of Mourning when he was disinvited to the Pilgrims' Feast for his views.

An article by a Duke Grad Student: "But being thankful for the privilege that comes at the hegemonic cost of others is not something to celebrate, or to give thanks for."

A review of Howard Zinn's book on Myths of American Exceptionalism that begins with recounting the slaughter of Pequot Indians and ends with US torture today.

An interview with Russell Means, American Indian Movement activist - not all of it is pertinent but there are some stirring parts where he cautions against casting American Indians as relics of the past when they are still constantly being wronged in the present

And in case you didn't see it before, the article Quynh shared on why we should be afraid of Thanksgiving.

A great talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Danger of A Single Story


I like her way of talking about stories and story-telling. reminds me of Chinua Achebe.

http://www.l3.ulg.ac.be/adichie/
Adichie's site

Malcom X & the politics of Q&A

we all know that questions, interviews, discussions... initiated by colonizers are always set up against the colonized, so it's very enjoyable to come across answers like these:

-
When asked if he (Malcom X) would accept outer help from the Communists:

"Let me tell you a little story. It's like being in a wolf's den. The wolf sees someone on the outside who is interested in freeing me from the den. The wolf doesn't like that person on the outside. But I don't care who opens the door and lets me out."

"Then your answer is yes?"

"No, I'm talking about a wolf."

:-)

-

Q: If Muslims ultimately gain control as you predict, what do you plan to

do with white people?

MALCOLM X: It’s not a case of what would we do, it’s a case of what would God

do with whites. What does a judge do with the guilty? Either the guilty one repents

and atones, or God executes judgment.

Q: You refer to whites as "the guilty" and "the enemy"; you predict divine

retribution against them; and you preach absolute separation from the white

community. Do not these views substantiate the fact that your movement is predicated

on race hatred?

MALCOLM X: Sir, it’s from Mr. Muhammad that the black masses are learning for

the first time in 400 years the real truth of how the white man brainwashed the black

man, kept him ignorant of his true history, robbed him of his self−confidence. The

black masses for the first time are understanding that it’s not a case of being

anti−white or anti−Christian, but it’s a case of seeing the true nature of the white

man. We’re anti−evil, anti−oppression, anti−lynching. You can’t be anti−those things

unless you’re also anti−the oppressor and the lyncher. You can’t be anti−slavery and

pro−slavemaster; you can’t be anti−crime and pro−criminal. In fact, Mr. Muhammad

teaches that if the present generation of whites would study their own race in the light

of their true history, they would be anti−white themselves.

Q: Are you?

MALCOLM X: As soon as the white man hears a black man say that he’s through

loving white people, then the white man accuses the black man of hating him. The

Honorable Elijah Muhammad doesn’t teach hate. The white man isn’t important

enough for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his followers to spend any time

hating him. The white man has brainwashed himself into believing that all the black

people in the world want to be cuddled up next to him. When he meets what we’re

talking about, he can’t believe it, it takes all the wind out of him. When we tell him

we don’t want to be around him, we don’t want to be like he is, he’s staggered. It

makes him re−evaluate his 300−year myth about the black man. What I want to know

is how the white man, with the blood of black people dripping off his fingers, can

have the audacity to be asking black people do they hate him. That takes a lot of nerve.

-

Q: You say that white men are devils by nature. Was Christ a devil?

MALCOLM X: Christ wasn’t white. Christ was a black man.

Q: On what Scripture do you base this assertion?

MALCOLM X: Sir, Billy Graham has made the same statement in public. Why not

ask him what Scripture he found it in? When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine

carried a picture of him in his privatestudy kneeling before a black Christ. What was

the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and

geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American

Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into

worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost

everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on

everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of

them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that

the history−whitening process either had left out great things that black men had

done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.

Other striking quotes by Malcom X (or "calling it what it is")

"I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American.... No I'm not an American, I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy.... I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of a victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare."

"If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don't even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn't integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march."

"I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance'! White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah'! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back - and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!"