Wordwork|play

Atheist Ads in Toronto

I went to Toronto last weekend with one of my brothers and my partner in search of the much anticipated, much covered and strangely controversial atheist ads.

We knew from the official Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign website that, beginning February 23rd, 2009, atheist ads would be running in the subway system. We did not know, however, that they would appear only inside subway cars, not on subway station walls. Nor did we know how few ads there would be.

We spent a fair bit of time in the subway system looking into numerous cars and, though we rode only in three cars, we saw only one ad in one of those cars. Many commercial ads appear two, three, or more times in a single car, but this may well be budget-related. However, given how much opposition there has been to these ads -- Halifax, NS, Ottawa and London, ON, Kelowna, Vancouver, and Victoria, BC refused to run them -- it should perhaps not be surprising that their presence, where not blocked entirely, would be minimal. 

What I like about the ad is that it initiates a much overdue conversation and acknowledges, as publicly as the many religious ads plastered around our public places, that the diversity of our cities and our country includes not only adherents to the various world religions, but also those who do not adhere to any religion at all. A sign (or gesture) of open-mindedness in our society is the inclusion of people from other cultural and religious backgrounds in private and public debates and discussions. Atheists are rarely thus included. It seems we have to interject somehow to make ourselves heard. We have to step boldly and uninvited onto the stage.

What I don't like so much about the ad is the last half of the second sentence -- its meaning is simply not clear enough and hence easily misunderstood. But back to that in a bit. 'There's probably no God' is, to my mind, a very mild statement. I would gladly have supported a more strongly worded statement to the effect that the existence of God is highly improbable. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian household, the first half of the second sentence, 'now stop worrying', makes complete sense. I worried almost constantly as a child, internally praying on and off throughout my days asking for forgiveness in case I had unknowingly done or thought something sinful. And the world could end any second, so I had to be ready at all times. I had terrible nightmares of devils with glowing red eyes converging on my crib because I had forgotten to say my bedtime prayer. But back to the last half of the second sentence, 'and enjoy your life'. Without any elaboration or explanation, it sounds hedonistic. It can easily be misinterpreted to mean that we need not be concerned about leading decent lives, about being good human beings, and that without God we may do whatever we wish and be absolved of responsibility.

I don't think the framers of the atheist ad advocate or meant to recommend a life of pure pleasure-seeking devoid of  responsibility, but it is too open to just that misinterpretation. The ad, pictured at left, which my partner and I happily discovered at the Queen's Park subway station, is much more to the point. The contention of many, perhaps most, theists is that human goodness derives from, is supported by, and can only manifest in the light of faith in god. This ad, posted by Humanist Canada, responds to that contention simply and without equivocation or ambiguity: "YOU CAN BE GOOD WITHOUT GOD".

While both ads represent a positive step onto the public stage for atheists, secular humanists and freethinkers, I simply cannot find any fault with the latter ad. The message is so clear, concise, non-confrontational and non-provocative. We can indeed be good without god. It means we have to think a great deal more, question our assumptions, come together to study, analyze, discuss and debate human behaviour and our place in the world and universe. It also requires openness and hard work, as life is colourful and complex and we cannot rely on any tradition, book, or institution to decide for us how to be good. But the rewards of letting go of faith and simple answers to embrace independent thought and engage the complexity of life are great and many. I think it's time we grew up as a species and learned to stand on our own feet, so to speak, to make good use of that wonderful tool in our heads and learn to be good because we want to be, not because we fear punishment in an imagined hell or desire the rewards of an imagined paradise.

Book Review: The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, by David Livingstone Smith

(Published Sept. 18, 2007 in BC Magazine--Book Review - The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War by David Livingstone Smith)

If David Livingstone Smith's analysis in this book is correct, then we all should read it: it is that important.

To say that much has been written on the topic of war seems like a gross understatement. At the time of this writing, a search for 'war' on Amazon.com yields 639,124 results. Tightened to display only non-fiction books on war still yields 183,839. History teachers, no doubt many with heart-felt sincerity, repeat the tired cliche, 'fail to study history and you are doomed to repeat it.' Have none of those in positions of power and influence, those directly or indirectly responsible for the wars being waged as I write, studied history? Have we the people not studied history? They, and we, have. At least versions thereof.

Almost one hundred years ago, WWI was touted as the war to end all wars. It didn't. David Livingstone Smith writes in the preface to The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, that "almost 200 million human beings, mostly civilians, have died in wars over the last century, and there is no end in sight." Why do we continue? That is the question Smith attempts to answer in The Most Dangerous Animal. He combines two sharply polarized historical views — that war is, behind the layers of artificial civility, our base nature and conversely, that war is a corruption of an otherwise gentle, kind, pure nature — to argue that war is caused by both "forces working in tandem; it is a child of ambivalence, a compromise between two opposing sides of human nature."

As is often the case, perhaps more obviously so for non-fiction than fiction, to understand an author's approach and biases, it is instructive to look at some biographical details. Perhaps it is the controversial nature of his approach, more than his topic or thesis, that compelled Smith to be as transparent, one could almost say defensive, as he is in the preface. Smith, born in New York City and educated partially in London, England, practiced and taught psychoanalytic psychotherapy for some time. After becoming skeptical of psychotherapy in general, he turned to the study of the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology, leading him eventually to the significance of evolutionary biology in the study of human nature. He is currently associate professor of philosophy at the University of New England, where he is also the co-founder and director of the New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology. He is also the author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind.

The Most Dangerous Animal is, as he puts it, "unashamedly rooted in an evolutionary biological perspective," and he moves, again in his own words, "promiscuously between disciplines — from psychology, to philosophy, to prehistoric archeology, with forays into anthropology, psychoanalysis, and even microbiology." Aware that some may thus regard him as a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, he counters that "Nature does not respect the artificial boundaries between disciplines carved out by university departments." Fortunately for Smith, not only does his argument absolutely depend upon an interdisciplinary approach, but interdisciplinary studies are increasingly in vogue nowadays. His unashamedly evolutionary biological perspective will no doubt push many religiously conservative readers away. It is his hope, and mine as well, that this book will reach not only an exclusively secular readership, but that even those uneasy with his perspective will follow his argument through to its conclusion.

Another aspect Smith obviously suspects will make some readers uneasy is the fact that he neither has combat experience, nor relies much on interviews of military personnel returning from battle. Here, too, he feels compelled to offer preemptive justifications. Though scientific in nature, in that the argument is rooted in evolutionary biology, this is not a difficult read, technically. It is merely difficult because so dark, so ugly, so horrific an aspect of human nature is discussed.

Smith begins the body of the book with an image the Western media chose not to air in its gruesome detail. "Like many terrible things," he writes, "it is something that we do not want to think about too much if we can help it." Here is the description of the decapitation of Eugene Armstrong by four Islamic militants in Iraq on September 20, 2004:

The long knife sliced through Armstrong's flesh. He screamed. Blood gushed from his neck. His body shuddered and became limp. The executioner placed the dripping, severed head on the back of Armstrong's lifeless body.

Though very disturbing, Smith believes it would perhaps have been better for our media to show it, rather than stopping short before any blood was drawn. "Armstrong's execution was an act of war, and war is terrible." These images we reserve for our video games and action movies instead. Smith returns, as part of his argument, to these contradictory facts — we do not want to see the horrific details of war, whether perpetrated by us or on one of us by 'them', yet can hardly get enough of war imagery, in all its gruesome detail, through games and movies. Many young men, he writes, chose to join the Marines during the Vietnam war under the influence of John Wayne films. And indicative of the power of propaganda and film is the story of the sixty U.S. soldiers who died within the first four months of the war trying to outdraw one another, as they had seen done in cowboy movies. Though the cosmetic transformation of war is nothing new, Hollywood movie versions paint a picture that is not only way off the mark, but dangerous. Most filmmakers steer well clear of the true horrors of war. Apparently, according to General Sir John Hackett, quoted by Smith, there are certain conventions to be followed on the screen:

Men blown up by high explosives in real war...are often torn apart quite hideously; in films there is a big bang and bodies, intact, fly through the air with the greatest of ease. If they are shot...they fall down like children in a game, to lie motionless. The most harrowing thing in real battle is that they usually don't lie still; only the lucky ones are killed outright.

Throughout the book, Smith brings up uncomfortable and shocking realities. Though chapter one opens with an image from the current war in Iraq, that is not what the book is about. It is not about any specific war. It is not an anti-war book, per se. It is about war in general, about the roots of war in human nature. He points to many gruesome and shocking events, reaching back to screams of war victims evident in prehistoric burial sites, up to the present, where "a million other brutalities join them in a tortured chorus that echoes through history, but to which we turn a deaf ear," facts that are an embarrassment, facts that "deflate our pretensions to moral superiority, our conception of ourselves as standing at the pinnacle of creation." Though we prefer fairy tales, "turning truth on its head to keep the truth at a reassuringly safe distance," he will not let his reader off the hook.

Smith moves from an examination of the definitions of war, through its ambiguities, its broad and narrow definitions, to distinctions between murder, raids, battle, terrorism, atrocities, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnocide, and democide. He examines the distinction between "primitive warfare" and "civilized warfare," arguing that such hard boundaries drawn between them are arbitrary and serve only to throw "obstacles in the path of anyone trying to understand the relationship between war and human nature." Defining war ultimately as "premeditated, sanctioned violence carried out by one community (group, tribe, nation, etc.) against members of another," a definition that encompasses all the rest, he goes on to describe, in very simple, straight-forward terms, the reasons for war — territory, food, water, but also less tangible commodities like souls, honor, and justice. And most importantly, something at the very heart of his thesis, something to which he returns again and again, he argues that, "Like it or not, war is distinctively human."

To prove his thesis, that both our warlike nature and our aversion to war are part of human nature, Smith takes us along, chapter by chapter, to look at beings from ants to wolves to primates, with special focus on chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. By seeing how other, especially closely related social animals wage war, we can learn about ourselves. He traces our evolution from prehistoric humans to nomads and settled, agricultural, 'civilized' peoples. He draws on evolution of body and mind (evolutionary biology and psychology) to show how we have been shaped by biological factors into beings fit for war, and simultaneously into beings repulsed by war. Early on in the book Smith is careful to note that "saying that war is driven by biology is not the same as saying that it is inevitable. Indeed, the most important reason for teasing out the biological roots of war is to find better ways to prevent it." Saying war is natural, a case he makes very well with overwhelming evidence and a solid line of reasoning, could easily lead to the accusation that he is supporting war, indeed justifying it.

Going back to definitions for a moment, it is worthwhile to point out how vital it is to question, as Smith does, the easy, euphemistic definitions of war-related terms bandied about by supporters of war. As America continues to justify its 'war on terror', first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, and possibly soon in Iran (see Impending US Attack on Iran?), Smith's discussion of euphemistic language, designed to conceal the true nature of what is happening and employed in the service of self-deception, is of utmost importance. He spends a good deal of time around definitions of 'terrorism' and 'atrocity', not unlike Noam Chomsky in Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, and Arundhati Roy in War Talk. "As with terrorism," Smith writes, "we imagine that such acts are committed exclusively by the other side and that they are fundamentally alien and profoundly antagonistic to our own way of life."

There is much in this book to make people uncomfortable. Hardly a stone is left unturned in the quest to discover the roots of war in human nature. Not even cornerstones. To those who see science as the source of evil, the source of war, he counters that "if we were an essentially kind and peaceful species, it would not occur to us to use this tool for destructive purposes. We exploit science to make war because we are warlike creatures." And to those who would believe that religion is the solution, the source of all that is good, that institution without which humanity would be but brute beasts, devoid of morality, he has this to say: "Not only is there no evidence that religion makes people morally responsible, but history confronts us with a long, bloody record of wars, genocides, and other atrocities inspired by religious devotion and often executed by religious institutions." He follows this up with examples from various cultural and religious traditions.

Much of The Most Dangerous Animal is very dark and depressing. Indeed most of it is. Our track record is horrible almost beyond imagining. Here's an example, in numbers, sparing the gruesome details:

...around 87 million people have been killed in wars over the last century. If we add the victims of democide we get, at a conservative estimate, around 170 million deaths in the twentieth century alone... an average of 1.7 million a year, 4,630 a day, 193 an hour and 3 a minute. In the 1990s alone, around 2 million were killed in Afghanistan, 1.5 million in Sudan, almost 1 million in Rwanda, 500,000 in Angola, 250,000 in Bosnia and the same in Burundi, 200,000 in Guatemala, 150,000 in Liberia, and 75,000 in Algeria.

Among forty-one modern nations, Russia and the United Kingdom have been the worst offenders, with 3.6 and 5.9 wars per generation (and 49.3 and 48.3 years of conflict per century respectively), followed by France, Spain, Turkey, and Italy.

Though Smith's discussion is ultimately rooted in evolutionary biology, he is very good at breaking down complex theories and systems into very understandable, digestible parts, putting it well within reach of the intelligent, non-specialist, reader. Evolution, for example, he says is very easy to grasp. And when he explains it, it is. "It consists of three phases, which spiral through time in an endlessly recurring pattern of variation, selection, and reproduction.... Nature brings forth a huge number of slightly different organisms, makes each one run the gauntlet of life, discards the failures, and retains the successful models for further tinkering." Another wonderfully simple scientific explanation pertains to consciousness: "it is a mistake to imagine that there is something in the brain corresponding to our notion of consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing inside the brain... [it] is something that the brain does." Just as one cannot find washingness among the parts of a washing machine; it is something that it does.

There were a few things not addressed to my satisfaction in The Most Dangerous Animal. While a fair bit of time was devoted to the use of language to deceive, especially to deceive ourselves, relatively little was said about the role of religious, cultural, and political leaders in deceiving the masses. And even less was said about the role of economics in motivating these leaders to deceive themselves and us. Perhaps these require too much specificity, straying too far from his broad focus on the bedrock of human nature as it relates to war in general. Still, the role of economics in leading a relatively small number of people (and corporations) to deceive the masses, to exploit the vulnerabilities of the masses, for their own benefit, needs to be discussed. And it would fit right in.

Also, he devotes the last few chapters to an exploration of the mechanisms that allow us to deceive ourselves, so that we learn to recognize and thus avoid falling prey to those elements of our own nature that lead us to war. His approach, it seems, is to lift the veil, so to speak, and show us our own nature. Perhaps he will follow this book up with another, but I was really hoping for more insight into how we can, collectively, rise above our warlike nature. Self-knowledge is an individual endeavor, whereas war is a collective one. Though there are a few hopeful comments scattered throughout the text, it is only in the last chapter that Smith brings in a very cautious, subdued, almost forced, optimism.

He is wary of substituting "platitudes for thinking." The following, near the end, is perhaps the most optimistic statement to be found in this book:

If this analysis is anywhere near correct, then our best hope of stopping war is stopping this kind of self-deception, or at least becoming intolerant of it. If we do not take refuge in illusion, we will find it much more difficult to go to war.

Indeed, if his well argued analysis is correct, we all should read this book. There is obviously much more to be said, and much left to be discovered about human nature and about war. In a time when war, though fought far away, is pursued at great cost to both the imagined enemies and the soldiers who fight them, the light this book sheds on human nature, both on our warlike nature and on our natural repulsion to war, makes The Most Dangerous Animal a very relevant and important read.

See also:

- David Livingstone Smith's website
- The New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology

Book Review: If Olaya Street Could Talk--Saudi Arabia: the Heartland of Oil and Islam, by John Paul Jones

(Published Aug. 28, 2007 in BC Magazine--Book Review: If Olaya Street Could Talk - Saudi Arabia: the Heartland of Oil and Islam by John Paul Jones )

At once personal memoir, travel narrative, and cultural and political commentary.

What do we really know about Saudi Arabia? What does the North American general public know about the Kingdom aside from what is absorbed through media references? And if our sources of information about the Arab and Muslim world in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular, are mass media sources--tabloids, newspapers, magazines, radio and television shows, and let's not forget Hollywood--what exactly is it that we learn? Do we learn anything of substance? Anything positive? Anything but propaganda and crude caricatures of the Other viewed through prevailing political and ideological prisms?

After decades of negative portrayals in the news media and villainous stereotypes in Hollywood movies, a growing number of scholars, filmmakers and writers are not only pointing out that there exists a long history of anti-Arab racism in American mass media, but also that such portrayals have and continue to contribute to the rise of Islamic extremism and terrorism. Among them are Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs, Steve Salaita's Terrifying Patriotism: How Anti-Arab Racism Justifies Empire and Threatens Democracy, and Tran Nguyen's We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories of Immigrant America After 9/11. Others, such as Chomsky and Roy, discuss the issue within the larger framework of Nation and Empire. But these are products of post-9/11 America, arising at a time, and in a climate, where they simply can no longer be ignored.

John Paul Jones, in the introduction to his book, If Olaya Street Could Talk: Saudi Arabia, the Heartland of Oil & Islam, states that, unlike the books and articles he had read about France, another country he had learned to appreciate, with Saudi Arabia "it is only the exceptional book or article that reflects my experience. The others seem a crude caricature, like wartime propaganda, and much of this was even before 9/11." It is his hope that this book will be a "step in changing American perceptions of Saudi Arabia in particular, and the Arabs in general, and further an examination of how and why those shifts in 'tribal thinking' occur" that give rise to conflicts and war. Writing about his experience in Saudi Arabia, though he'd never intended to do so, "eventually became an imperative. To contribute to ending the ideology of war without end should be a sufficient reason."

If Olaya Street Could Talk is at once personal memoir, travel narrative, and cultural and political commentary. It draws on his experience as an American expatriate living and working in Saudi Arabia for nearly a quarter century. Though the book is essentially about his experiences in Saudi Arabia, his participation, though not by choice, in the Vietnam war during his youth also comes up more than once, playing an important role not only in the plot, so to speak, in that it launched him into the career that would later lead him to work in Saudi Arabia, but also in his perspective of the changes he witnesses while in Riyadh, particularly the political/religious/ideological changes leading up to and accelerating after the events of 9/11. His Vietnam experience forms an important backdrop to the overall narrative, adding weight especially to observations made constituting cultural/political commentary.

When first reading about the book, I expected a book heavy on theory and commentary. And because of the current cultural and political climate with the 'war on terror' being waged not only on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, but increasingly also against the Other at home, the ideological 'war without end', I expected a dark and depressing read. Although there are moments, small sections here and there, that can arouse anger, outrage and sadness in the politically and culturally aware reader, but more so in those with personal experience, that is certainly not the tenor of the book as a whole.

The opening chapters explain not only how Jones got to Saudi Arabia, how he came to work at the King Faisal Specialty Hospital in Riyadh, but also provide some background to illuminate the title of the book. It is a line adapted from W. C. Handy's "Beale Street Blues." Beale Street is of course the street in Memphis credited as the birthplace of the Blues. Jones was there in April of 1993 listening to the Blues with an Arab, the one who had hired him to return with him to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after studying St. Jude's operation, the hospital after which King Faisal Specialist Hospital was modeled. Jones quite deftly, using no more than a couple of paragraphs, creates a link between the cultural divide in America and the cultural divides in the Middle East. His Arab companion may not have been able to experience the full effect of the Blues because he did not know the history of the anguish that gave rise to it. Although not explored in much depth, he points out that the almost haphazard creation of new countries, new kingdoms, in the Arabian Peninsula, created deep cultural divides with consequences difficult for us to understand.

If Olaya Street Could Talk is an easy read. The writing is simple and straightforward. The fact that so much of the book reads like the personal memoir of an American expat living abroad, interspersed with frequent travel narratives, tales of road trips, camping, exploration, and scuba diving, makes it a much lighter read than a book solely focused on the Middle East crises or the conditions leading up to and contributing to them. It is these parts that make the heavy parts, the enraging and depressing parts, easier to handle. Many of the more academic books on culture, politics and war, and specifically on the aforementioned crises, can result in emotional overload and are consequently difficult to read straight through.

Though certainly not a history book, Jones manages to get some of the basics of Saudi history into the narrative. Of course the snippets of history he shares contribute to the larger narrative. He tells, mainly to provide some historical background not only to the particular incident of the seizure and occupation of the Grand Mosque in Makkah (Mecca), but also to the gradual rise of Wahabi extremism in Saudi Arabia, how the House of Saud had formed a loose alliance in the 1800s with Abdul Wahab. Abdul Aziz, in the early 1900s, once again made use of the latest incarnation of the Wahabites, the Ikhwan, the Brotherhood, in order to unify much of the Arabian Peninsula and establish the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The same region of the Kingdom from which the leader of the Mosque occupation hailed, produced several of the people who participated in the 9/11 attacks.

Both the descriptions of daily life at the hospital and around town, and the descriptions of trips to numerous places, combined with the maps in the appendix, provide the reader with a sense of basic familiarity with the country. Too bad the author didn't include a lot more pictures in the book. To see some photographs of the various places described in the book, both around town and in the desert, go to the Taza Press website. There you are able to see photographs relevant to various chapters of the book.

Jones and his family, unlike many of the other expats working at the hospital, did not take advantage of the many buffers the Hospital provided to remain isolated and insulated from the larger society--"the hospital was a mini-city, and like the US Army before, assumed the function of caring for many of the social needs of its employees and their families," providing completely furnished and equipped housing, its own power plant, water treatment plant, security and fire departments, subsidized food and recreation facilities, post office and telephone exchange, as well as transportation and travel departments. He and his family, along with a few other expats, got out, explored the country, especially the desert. They met various Saudis, in the city and on the road.

Getting out and getting involved in various activities around the country, including forming warm and not-so-warm relationships with various Saudis, has allowed Jones more insight into the social and cultural mechanism of change, including the impact of Western, particularly American, attitudes towards the Saudi people, their culture and religion. He observes how the hospital, during the early years when it was entirely administered by Americans, rendered the Saudis in whose country they lived and operated, largely invisible. In the very heart of one of the most socially conservative countries, he writes, the Saudis "were at the very periphery of our existence. The very poor Saudis drove the hospital buses and the local taxis. More affluent Saudis were shopkeepers... A small group of Saudis worked at the hospital in administration posts but were kept at the extreme edges of power... like so much cardamom sprinkled in the coffee, an exotic presence sufficient to suggest that one was not actually in a hospital in Peoria."

Jones also makes regular use of quotes by famous Western writers to introduce his chapters, people such as T.E.Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Wilfrid Thesiger, and Gertrude Bell, using them as points of reference and distinction, historical markers of sorts, laying bare past prejudices. He notes, after a Lawrence quote, what 'a profound unease' the modern reader should experience from some of their writing, especially their "casual assessment of the racial characteristics of another people." He is looking through very different eyes, of course, but in examining how others before him viewed and treated this particular Other, we get a bit more perspective on the inevitable rise of opposition and hatred. "All these observers," he writes, "with their impressions of Arabia, sliced and diced."

Over the course of almost 25 years, Jones witnesses remarkable changes in Saudi Arabia. He witnesses the profound and rapid transformation of Riyadh, at the time a small frontier town with only a couple of traffic lights, into a bustling, modern city. He witnesses the hybridization and modernization, in many cases for the worse, of the Bedouin. Most of the Bedouin, over the course of about 20 years, abandoned their nomadic lifestyles in favor of a sedentary lifestyle, and as with indigenous populations in various parts of the world, ended up with various problems, including an epidemic of diabetes.

A much more subtle transformation witnessed and described in the book, both timely and vital to understand in these troubled times, is on the cultural/religious front. Over time, not only are the changes in the hospital administration great, but the presence of the mutawaa, the religious police, becomes ever more pronounced and intrusive. He describes the subtle but noticeable changes from "the gentler days of the mid-80s" when men and women freely cohabited in the housing units surrounding the hospital, and when professional chamber music concerts held at the International Hotel "were open to the public where men and women, Saudi and non-Saudi, would sit together and enjoy," to a time, approaching and entering the new millennium, when the mutawaa roamed the streets, policing public morality, and when open hostility and violence towards Westerners emerged.

While describing the changes, Jones provides a number of examples of underlying aspects of Western, but particularly American, attitudes and behavior that have fomented the hatred of America and the West among those now labeled terrorist. There's the negative portrayal of the Arab in a children's book (Children of the World) in an Atlanta school library, leading Jones to think to himself, "this is what the Arabs are complaining about." There's the fact that, in 21 months of living in Atlanta and reading the Wall Street Journal daily to find and "save any article that was not totally negative, that had just one sentence which hinted at something positive in the country," there was not even one. And there were those Americans in Saudi Arabia, perhaps numerically no more than 10%, who carried with them "that insufferable, smug attitude that measures another person, or another country, by the degree to which they conform to American norms."

Perhaps more potent and pernicious than the above examples are those to be found in the media. Jones describes one particularly disturbing encounter with a well-known New York Times journalist, Thomas Friedman, the author of From Beirut to Jerusalem. Though technically not misquoting him, after an interview during the journalist's first visit to Saudi Arabia, Friedman had chosen to quote "only the part of our conversation which reconfirms preconceived notions," thereby completely distorting his statement. He quotes only the part about the author seeing "Saudi doctors and nurses around him celebrating on 9/11," but not the "overall statement about the number who had offered their condolences, the positive reaction of the Saudi hospital administration, and the number of Saudis who were far more concerned about Osama bin Laden changing their lives than the Americans' lives."

Another New York Times columnist sent to Riyadh, Maureen Dowd, instead of focusing on "understanding how Saudi professional women work, what their personal aspirations are, not to mention the aspirations and workings of the vast number of Saudi stay-at-home middle class mothers," and how these "contrast with the aspirations of American women," chose to contrast the negligees sold in prominent Riyadh lingerie stores with the completely covered women who shopped there.

Though Jones does not spend much time discussing politics or war in If Olaya Street Could Talk, nor the events of 9/11, he does hint at an interesting parallel between Saudi and American populations. After a close personal encounter with the mutawaa, a brief discussion takes place between him and the boss. "He voiced that he knew all Westerners hated the mutawaa," leaving Jones to think to himself, "also, about 80% of the Saudi population." What comes to mind immediately is how much the current American administration, with Bush at its head, claims to represent the will of the American people, to do what's best for the American people. Perhaps the percentage of Americans that, by the government's standards and rhetoric, could be labeled anti-American because they do not necessarily approve of the actions taken by the administration, ostensibly on their behalf, reaches a similar percentile.

If Olaya Street Could Talk is not only an interesting personal narrative of the author's life as an expat in Saudi Arabia, punctuated by fascinating travel tales, it is also an important book for our times. It has many positive things to say about the Kingdom. At times saddening and enraging, but much of the time fascinating and engaging, this book is highly recommended.

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Further Reading:

A Virtual Tour of Saudi Arabia
Taza Press

Vitriolic Comment on 'National Day of Action' Article on Blogcritics.org

Late on June 28th I wrote 'National Day of Action: First Nations not Giving Enough?'. It was published on Blogcritics.org today. Also today, I received an e-mail alerting me that a comment had been made to my article. The comment appears below (the commenter's name has been deleted as this is not personal and the individual is certainly not engaging in a conversation):

I am always happy to receive encouragement and positive feedback. I am just as happy to see comments representing views that differ from, or challenge, my own. What is important is that people engage in a conversation. The comment represented above does none of these things. It is simply a puerile attack.

Because it violates most of the comment rules set by blogcritics,org, I have sent an e-mail to the site to have them evaluate it. While I do hope it will be deleted, I did want to capture it before it was gone. Why? Simply put, the comment demonstrates just how important it is for caring, thinking people to continue to work towards social justice and human rights issues. I certainly am stimulated by this vitriolic response to my article to continue my work.

National Day of Action: First Nations not Giving Enough?

(Published June 30, 2007 in BC--National Day of Action: First Nations Not Giving Enough?)

The AFN has proclaimed a National Day of Action meant to draw attention to "Canada's biggest unresolved human rights issue."

The AFN (Assembly of First Nations) has proclaimed a National Day of Action, an event meant to draw attention to what University of British Columbia history professor Arthur Ray has called "Canada's biggest unresolved human rights issue." Though Canada ranks among the wealthiest nations in the world and is often touted as one of the best places in the world to live, Canada's First Nations communities continue to live in third-world conditions in our own country. Indeed some, such as the Center for World Indigenous Studies, realizing that the plight of indigenous peoples is often worse because they are largely invisible, prefer the term 'fourth world'--"Nations forcefully incorporated into states which maintain a distinct political culture but are internationally unrecognized."

A National Post article I came across yesterday left me feeling truly disturbed and angry. In "Indian give and take", Peter Shawn Taylor writes that, though "there have been some dark corners in Canada's relationship with the First Nations... a fair assessment of the entire legacy requires at least some recognition that most government policy in Canada has been motivated by the urge to protect and improve the native condition." He claims that at one "time the British Crown of Canada was a refuge for North America's natives," and that the Royal Proclamation of 1763 by King George III "deserves as much attention from Canadians as the Declaration of Independence gets from Americans." He goes on to paint Canada as a benevolent safe harbour for beleaguered American natives. And furthermore, Canada vastly outperforms the United States in negotiation and abiding by treaties. The gist of the article seems to be that Canada's indigenous peoples need to stop whining about 'past injustices', stop ignoring Canadian governments' 'good faith efforts', and to stop asking for so much--"It's all take, no give."

I would not have been surprised to hear Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or even radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh spew this kind of insensitive, hot-headed, and quite frankly, racist drivel. But I suppose I'm not quite used to this kind of unsympathetic, elitist, imperialist and utterly arrogant stance printed in one of our major newspapers. That the peoples whose land was invaded and forcefully wrested from them, whose populations were decimated not only by overt acts of war, but also by germ warfare and systems of forced assimilation, economic dependence and ethnocide, and whose treaties and land claims continue to be largely ignored or neglected, should learn to be quiet and give more is outrageous and unconscionable.

To gather other perspectives, I looked for articles published around the same time and on the same topic by several of our other major news sources and papers--CBC News, the Toronto Star, cnews Across Canada, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Sun. Most focused mainly on Prime Minister Harper's announcement, and how his plan may expedite land claim negotiations, currently extremely slow. Even the Toronto Sun, part of a family of papers that often caters to the lowest cultural denominator in its reporting of social and cultural issues, had a reasoned and sympathetic response. The National Post's decision to publish this imperialist rubbish says a great deal about the paper itself and its targeted audience.

The National Post article did one thing for me though, aside from inciting anger and outrage--it inspired me to wake up and read up, and to be engaged in supporting not only the particular issues surrounding the National Day of Action, but also other social and environmental justice issues. I thank the National Post for that. I hope others will be as stimulated by this as I to get out there and combat the wave of conservative, imperialist thinking that is projected by the current American administration and copied and adopted by various elements around the world, leading in many cases to the re-labeling of indigenous, or fourth world struggles, as terrorism.

Toronto's Pride Parade 2007: from Stonewall to Billboard?

(Published June 26, 2007 in BC--Toronto's Pride Parade: From Stonewall to Billboard?)

We seem to have come a long way from the days of Stonewall, the historical backdrop to the parade. But all is not well. The urgency is gone and the void is rapidly being filled by consumerism. We began with Stonewall and have ended up with billboards.

Toronto just wrapped up its Pride Week, one of the largest in the world, with a grand parade. Thousands of people lined the streets to watch and cheer on the colourful (in both its literal and figurative senses) procession of dykes on bikes, queens on cars, fairies on stilts, groups of leather-men, nudists, drummers, and dancers, as well as elaborate floats and marching groups representing various associations, organizations, and support networks. As expected, the parade was a mixture of sexy eye-candy, commercial sponsorship, and activism. It was a carnival atmosphere and Toronto was in a mood to party!

My partner and I arrived early enough to grab a bite to eat before settling into a nice spot on the soon-to-be shadier side of Yonge and Bloor. I walked with my partner down Yonge St., proverbial pencil in hand, eyes and ears wide open, taking in the sights and sounds of the thickening crowds.

On the street corner, the day's front pages peeping out of newspaper boxes were revealing. The Toronto Sun, in typical tabloid style, aimed to titillate its typical reader — the working-class male — with an image of dykes getting it on. The Toronto Star, with a very different market, features an article on its front page about "Smart employers now fostering Pride networks". On the sidewalk someone has dropped a little rainbow flag, its border a detachable coupon for Rogers.

Looking out the window from our places in a small Thai restaurant, we watch the slowly gathering crowds. Lots of singles, young and old, couples - heterosexual and homosexual - and few families with children find their places along the barricades. A few women walk bravely hand in hand. We saw no men holding hands, at least not outside the parade. That's not to say there were none, but certainly not enough for us to see even a single couple. And we were looking. Before the crowds got too thick, about an hour before the start of the parade, we settled into a nice spot.

I wonder how many people gathered to watch the parade know of its origins. Do they know of the pivotal event at Stonewall that is largely credited with launching the gay liberation movement into public consciousness, certainly in North America? Of course there were prior people and events of significance to the movement, to the sub-/counterculture.

There was the Society for Human Rights in Chicago (1924), Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948), The Mattachine Society, and the Daughters of Bilitis (1951 and 1956, respectively) to list some of the more recognized names, before the Stonewall riots (1969) in New York's Greenwich Village where gays first dared to publicly stand up for themselves in the face of police raids and brutality.

The first pride parade was held in commemoration of that event one year later. And every year from then on, cities around the world have enacted their own parades not only to commemorate that event, but generally to struggle for acceptance and equal rights. In the face of oppression and repression — religious, social, legal, political, the pride parade served to protest and educate, to assert and celebrate.

What really struck me, as I watched the parade, was how much of that struggle has disappeared. Protest and struggle featured minimally in this year's parade. Has our society achieved equality? Perhaps we have achieved just enough to not feel the same urgency, particularly in large urban centers. Moral support was still present, as was education. We were happy to see the various organizations that took part in the parade, such as PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Gays and Lesbians) groups, senior associations, cultural groups, faith groups, a handful of university groups and school boards, and workers' unions.

We now live in a society that has made certain legal gains. In 1973, homosexuality was struck from the list of psychiatric ailments. Sexual orientation is now included in anti-discrimination laws when it comes to labour practices. In some parts same-sex partners can now join in civil unions, or even get married. But for all the prominence and legal gains we have made, I fear we have also begun to lose certain things. For one thing, commercialism has taken a strong foothold in the parades. And many gay men are now becoming slaves to fashion and product-based lifestyles much like women were traditionally. Movies, television shows, magazines, and billboards portray mainly the beautiful, slim, hairless, fashion-conscious gay male.

As I snapped away with my digital camera, I was amazed at just how much advertising featured in the event. On the way into the barricaded area, people were handing out men's body spray. Floats included product advertisements like vodka, beer, sunglasses, etc. Many groups in the parade handed out not only condoms, a product that makes some sense in this context given lifestyle issues in a marginalized community, but also hair products, perfumes and fragrances, etc. Even subway billboards, only in subway stations near the parade, mind you, featured homosexual couples.

The idea behind all this commercialism seems to be that there is a large new market to exploit. Who cares if equality or justice is achieved? If we (I'm speaking from the point of view of commercial interest, and political, for that matter) allow these people the freedom to express themselves and share certain rights, we stand to profit from a large new market. The last line of an article in today's Star perhaps sums it up: "The event brings in an estimated $80 million to the local economy."

Aside from the influx of commercial elements, I also noticed more other causes, not necessarily related, attempting to share the platform, such as medicinal marijuana (maybe there's a link to AIDS, I'm not sure--it certainly wasn't explicitly linked) and environmental issues. I'm not sure how to feel about other causes sharing the platform. Maybe it's a good thing. But it could also once again point to a loss of energy and focus.

We seem to have come a long way from the days of Stonewall, the historical backdrop to the parade. But all is not well. The urgency is gone and the void is rapidly being filled by consumerism. We began with Stonewall and have ended up with billboards.

To learn more about milestones in the struggle for gay rights, see The American Gay Rights Movement: a Timeline, A Brief History of Gay Rights, and Same Sex Rights: Canada Timeline

Pride Week 2007 in Toronto: I'll be there to do a Close Reading

This weekend wraps up Pride Week 2007 in Toronto, one of the largest Prides in the world. Because I don't live in Toronto anymore, I haven't been able to participate in the events and festivities as much as I would have liked. (Oh how I wish I could live in T.O. again!) At least my partner and I will make it down there tomorrow for the parade.

I haven't been to the Pride in a few years and look forward to being there again for at least a day. Friends and family may recall a time when I objected to the whole thing, feeling that gays were trying too hard and were making too much noise. I no longer feel that way, needless to say, having grown in my knowledge and understanding of the various issues involved. I now see BLGTQI issues as essentially human rights issues, and as long as there is oppression and repression of minority rights, there will be the social and political need to educate and to protest, and the emotional need to assert and celebrate our identities.

Despite the gains made in the last forty years or so, we have a long way to go towards true acceptance, true equality. Most of our gains have been made in the legislative realm. While there appears to be more acceptance, particularly in certain environments, much of that, I think, is legislated acceptance. Canadians, generally, and more so in larger urban environments, learn quickly how to give the appearance of open-mindedness and acceptance. In other words, they learn politically correct speech and behaviour. But there are many signs that for all the legal gains, much is yet left to be done socially.

The parade will turn into a live text for me tomorrow, and I will be doing a close, critical reading to examine the narrative in the context of the larger story. And you can be assured that I will have at least the proverbial pencil in hand at all times. You can be further assured that I will share some of my analysis and commentary with you here and elsewhere.

Expletives, obscenities, and swearing...

(originally posted on my other blog, hybrid tumbleweed, 03-19-2006)

Oh the power of words...  asshole, bitch, cunt, damn, faggot, fuck, hell, pussy, piss, shit, up yours, plus variations, combinations, and elaborations thereof... do I need to go on?  We have devised many words to express frustration and anger, and to express power relationships. 

We sometimes use expletives (swearwords, obscenities, curses, profanity, etc.) simply to blow off some steam, directing them not against anyone but merely into the air.  We use them at other times to let someone else know how we feel about a situation or indeed about them.  We also pepper our language with these colourful words to enhance and embellish, to add a certain umph to what we are saying.

What has really struck me about these words is what the vast majority of them seem to have in common.  At the most basic level, all swearwords are meant to inflict anything from discomfort to shame, indignation, and pain.  Many are uncomfortable because they break certain taboos, or because they blaspheme, or else because they refer to dirty or denigrating things.  Many refer to bodily funtions and excretions, or to sexual functions or objectifications, while others reference religion. 

A great number of swearwords specifically refer to the infliction of pain, discomfort or humiliation through sexual acts.  The word 'fuck' is frequently used simply to add force or emphasis, or to release frustration, but, because of its sexual reference, when used against another person it refers to the use of sex to humiliate and harm.  After all, when we say 'fuck you' to someone, we don't mean that we would like to have sex with or make love to them.  There is no tenderness or mutual consent implied here.  I think it really refers to sexual violence, to rape.  The same goes for the phrase 'up yours' and the gesture that usually accompanies it.  It signifies the infliction of anal pain via sexual or other insertion.

To those who may feel that I am pulling things out of thin air to argue against the use of expletives, let me say that I actually feel very conflicted about their use.  I do use them from time to time, but tend to use them simply to vent, or sometimes to add force to a statement, rather than directing them against people. 

I am not a religious person and therefore have no 'moral objection' to swearing.  But I am an ethical person, a thinking person, and I know that humanity has often used sexuality to hurt people.  Indeed, rape has often been a calculated part of war.  The Inquisition and the Crusades were full of tales of calculated, institutionalised sexual brutality.  And the reports of sexual violence and humiliation inflicted by American forces on prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility (caution: very graphic and disturbing images) demonstrate that the practice has not been relegated to our history books, but is very much alive in so-called civilised societies.   

Expletives may be harmless, may help release tension, and can be quite fun.  However, they do reference a very dark aspect of humanity, or should I say inhumanity.  I really feel that if we use expletives, especially ones with sexual references, we should use them with a full awareness of the darker references inherent in them.