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Granted


Last fall when I started graduate school my sense of proportion seemed healthy. I took the required number of courses and earned straight As. I completed two freelance jobs. And though I always seemed to be working on papers and reading, there was time to spend with the people I love. Maybe the seven years I spent in the “real world” free from school strengthened my immunity to the guilt I witnessed in other grad students, who seemed to take school much too seriously. But it had been a hard summer: too much death.

I won the fellowships I applied for in winter while I watched what I didn’t know about Italian and Russian literature eclipse what I knew exponentially. Questions multiplied like rabbits. Answers, on the other hand, bloomed like yuccas: beautifully, slowly.

It seemed logical to call upon my experience working on set and behind the scenes in the film industry, where no alternative to getting the shot exists: on set, “impossible” is not an option. I would tackle the challenge of learning an immense body of knowledge as anyone on set confronts a film production dilemma. As on most film sets, I threw personal safety and well-being to the wolves. It seemed to follow that I should be able to learn more if I could devote more of my time to my studies. I sacrificed my time away from my books. And the quality, and amount of work I accomplished, remained the same as it had the first quarter.

Now I face down the last two weeks of spring quarter with what seems to be an insane pile of work. The time stretching ahead of me appears inadequate, my brain too slow. Will I complete it? Will I decide to forfeit perfect grades and request an “incomplete” in order to spend the first weeks of summer finishing spring course work? I can sit for hours in front of my computer screen, trying to outline a paper that will write itself. The time left for writing the paper is slipping away.

On my birthday, death and seven years of life outside academia melt away. Guilt rises at the thought of abandoning my books to see my family. It’s absurd. Where did the perspective go? When did it vanish? My family planned an ambush for my birthday: I succumbed. I didn’t crack a book this afternoon, but I ate two kinds of cake.

Is it failure I’m facing, or courage? I persist, clueless as to whether I’ll get everything done this time or whether, for the first time, I’ll come up short. With twice the required courseload, I’ve raised the stakes. What do I call what I’ve been given today? Family? Love? Perspective? An immunization against guilt?

All I know for sure is that I wouldn’t trade it for a bigger, better brain.

—Michaele Shapiro

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Political Prose

The path to the dark side

Last week I saw Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (in French, La Guerre des étoiles: La Revanche des Sith) in a Parisian theater. I opted for the subtitled version, rather than the French dubbed one, beca…


Last week I saw Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (in French, La Guerre des étoiles: La Revanche des Sith) in a Parisian theater. I opted for the subtitled version, rather than the French dubbed one, because for some reason Darth Vader does not sound like the incarnation of evil in French, but more like a Frenchman with a really bad head cold.

I liked the movie. Sure, the exposition of the plot could have at times been less light-saber-me-right-on-the-head, and I could have done without whole scenes worth of George Lucas’ trademark clunky dialogue. (“Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” — how can any actor utter that line with a straight face?) But with this film Lucas came back — at last — to the two resonant themes that he first explored in the original Star Wars trilogy.

The first is the hero’s journey. When he was writing the screenplay for the original 1977 film, Lucas found inspiration in Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which examined the themes shared by hero myths across time and cultures. The story of Luke Skywalker followed the classic narrative, or “monomyth,” described by Campbell — first “departure” (Luke must leave the life and family he knew as a simple farmer), then “initiation” (his learning of the ways of the Force, the identity of his father, and his destiny to face Darth Vader), and finally “return” (his rediscovery of family, his reconciliation with his father, and his “return” as a Jedi knight). The Revenge of the Sith is the exact inversion of this story: it begins with Anakin’s victorious return from battle in the outer reaches of the galaxy, then his initiation in fear (of Padme’s foreseen death) and temptation (of worldly power), and finally his decision to break from his order, his friends, and even the one he loves.

The execution may be less than perfect, but Lucas’ vision is compelling, at times moving. If what ensures the son’s victory is his compassion — a compassion that prevents Luke from killing Darth Vader and taking his place — what destroys the father is his fear. A good man turns to evil, Lucas tells us, not just because of ambition or greed, but also for the most noble reasons: a desire to prevent the suffering of a loved one. Indeed, Yoda’s advice to Anakin — to accept death as natural, to avoid the “attachment” that will lead him to jealousy and greed, to let go of his fear of loss — might have come from a lecture in Buddhist philosophy by the Dalai Lama (froggy voice included). What emerges is a picture of the subtle evils at the heart of all our material strivings — even love, when it oversteps its bounds into desire. “The fear of loss,” Yoda says, “is a path to the dark side.”

The second theme is the downfall of democracy. Star Wars came to theaters in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate years, one of those rare historical moments when the veil was lifted and rampant abuse of executive power revealed. Lucas has talked about his interest in the question of why democracies turn into dictatorships. In ancient Rome, “why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew?” Lucas said. “Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It’s the same thing with Germany and Hitler.” (Fear will make people do anything, Nazi leader Hermann Göring once observed: “All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”) In all the cases mentioned, hysterical, irrational fear of enemies (external or internal) led freedom-loving citizens to accept increasingly drastic measures and rally behind an autocratic savior. Fear of loss, again, transforms good people into something else — leaders into unyielding crusaders, citizens into unthinking clones.

The earlier trilogy pitted an Empire against a rebel alliance; the second a Republic against a band of separatists. The “good guys” may seem obvious, given the cast of characters that populate each side (wholesome Jar Jar Binks vs. a cyborg general with emphysema?), but a closer look might make you question your own sympathies. After all, the Empire had the trappings of democracy — an Imperial Senate, only later dissolved by the Emperor — and it did, as promised, bring peace to the galaxy. The Separatists were terrorists led by greedy plutocrats, but their aims were worthy enough — to rid themselves of a corrupt and oppressive government. In Episode III, as the war nears its end and the Republic’s chancellor tightens his grip on power, Padme asks Anakin, “Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?” It is the same treasonous thinking that has been voiced by clear-eyed patriots throughout history: those Roman, French, and German republicans, among others, who protested the descent of their societies into the militarism of Caesar, Napolean, and Hitler. They were few, but history remembers them.

Well, it seems like I’ve gone into hyperspace with this post — Star Wars indeed! As if Star Wars had anything to do with U.S. military policy or certain missile defense systems now under development in violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 … what silliness. On to more pressing issues.

Next week: the striking historical parallels between Genghis Khan’s 13th-century conquest of the Eurasian continent and the plot line of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Yasukuni yet again


“To our regret, during Vice-Premier Wu Yi’s stay in Japan, Japanese leaders repeatedly made remarks on visiting the Yasukuni shrine that go against the efforts to improve Sino-Japanese relations,” seethed Kong Quan, the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, explaining Vice-Premier Wu Yi’s abrupt departure from Japan during her good will visit, which was intended to warm the frosty Sino-Japanese relationship.  

The shrine in question is Yasukuni Shrine, which is a perennial if symbolic thorn in Sino-Japanese relations. Founded in 1869, Yasukuni is dedicated to the souls of the approximately 2.5 million Japanese war dead, and the souls of innocent children and war criminals alike are venerated in the shrine. Hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to Yasukuni every year, and the shrine functions as a symbol of both respectful patriotism and militaristic nationalism. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi is a frequent visitor, and he insists that he makes his visits in his capacity as a private citizen; his Chinese counterparts view his visits as persistent affronts to China and a tacit approval of Japan’s history of military aggression against its East Asian neighbors.  

Given the recent publication of a new Japanese history textbook that glosses over Japan’s wartime atrocities that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s — one of the most notable editorial revisions to Japan’s wartime history includes referring to the Nanjing Massacre, during which anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed by Japanese troops between December of 1937 and March of 1938, as an “incident,” and neglecting to mention any numbers of civilians murdered during that massacre — and the ensuing violent protests that erupted in China, the nasty game of brinksmanship is consistently escalating.  

—Mimi Hanaoka

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Suffrage now


After a 10-hour parliamentary session and 23 votes against the motion, the Kuwaiti parliament has finally voted to amend its electoral laws and grant women the right to vote and to run in local and parliamentary elections.

The motion had been previously opposed and successfully thwarted by tribal and Islamist members of the parliament when they formed a majority and insisted that, according to Islamic law, women were barred from such leadership positions.  The parliament was finally convinced otherwise, but female candidates and voters must, even with this amendment, abide by Islamic law.

—Mimi Hanaoka

  

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Whose faces?


Travel writing and photography are meant to excite the reader and inspire wanderlust; inevitably, however, travelogues reveal far more about their writers than their subjects.  To reread 19th-century accounts of travel in Egypt and Africa is to be appalled at the explorers’ attitudes towards the “simple” people they encountered.  Unfortunately,  the New York Times special photography section, “The Face of Cairo” in last week’s Travel Magazine carries on proudly in the same dated vein.  The feature purports to show us the true people of Cairo’s many neighborhoods but instead presents a photogenic assemblage of wealthy and, well, simple people.

Of the subjects, only a handful of lower-income men and women are shown, and all are employed.  The majority are members of the middle or upper class. These are some of the faces of Cairo, but by no means representative of the majority. The article highlights a small section of the Cairo population and allows them to represent a country where, according to Unicef, there were three Internet users among every 100 citizens in 2002.  Given the Internet’s immense cultural infiltration, this number has no doubt since tripled, but nonetheless, the majority of Cairenes are not wealthy.  The UNDP estimates that a quarter of the country lives below the Egyptian poverty line – which means that by United States standards, a quarter of the country is living in abject and unthinkable poverty.  The Times isn’t representing the faces of Cairo. Instead, it’s representing the faces we want to see to make us feel safer.

In light of recent terrorist attacks in Cairo targeted at tourists, the message of the photos is clear — it’s safe to come visit because we want to be just like you.  And so, ultimately, these photographs reveal far more about what we are seeking when we look to the Middle East than what is truly there.  We seek similarity to assuage our fears  — we want to see that these people look like us, think like us and, most importantly, buy the same things as us.  Over and over again, the men and women featured tell us that their favorite labels are “Louis Vuitton, Dior and Gucci” and that they love Julia Roberts.  When the subjects state otherwise, they are portrayed as unusual and anomalies. Only the three conservatively dressed, veiled girls “have no interest in American culture,” and no Internet.  They also have “no boyfriends or fiancés,” a fact which is presented as a charming piece of piety, when in fact, most Egyptian women do not date and postpone marriage until they have finished university and are more financially stable.

No one benefits from simplifying and homogenizing groups of people; there is no greater impediment to understanding than relying on simplistic stereotypes or, even worse, imagining that everyone everywhere is a version of yourself.  The Times’ photos might ensure that Nile cruise cancellations will be assuaged, but in the long run, we gain nothing from imagining that Cairenes are American wannabees with uncomplicated dreams.  

—Laura Louison

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Political Prose

Euro pudding

Michaele’s post reminded me of a recent French film, L’aub…


Michaele’s post reminded me of a recent French film, L’auberge espagnole — translated literally, “The Spanish Apartment.” It’s about a young Parisian named Xavier (Romain Duris) who decides to spend a year studying economics in Barcelona as part of the Erasmus exchange program. He soon finds himself in a rundown apartment populated by a host of European stereotypes: the neat-freak German and his clothes-sprawled-across-the-floor Italian roommate, the proud Spaniard driven into a tizzy by a bigoted Brit with a drinking problem, the hip Belgian lesbian who teaches the clueless-in-love Frenchman how to seduce a married woman … (okay, maybe that’s not so stereotypical). Xavier doesn’t end up learning much economics, but he learns quite a bit about life and love, the meaning of happiness and the meaninglessness of making money, how to kiss a woman while grabbing her left buttock in such a way as to drive her mad with passion, etc., etc. (Speaking of French movies, Audrey Tatou from Amelie is in it, playing Xavier’s left-at-home-girlfriend, but she has a total of 15 minutes of screen time devoted to rather un-Amelie-like pouting, so don’t see it just for her.)

After reading Michaele’s post, I was struck by how much the film is a metaphor for today’s European Union. Xavier decides to apply to Erasmus so that he can study economics, learn Spanish, and get a posh job in the French foreign-affairs bureaucracy; the first treaties establishing a European “community” in the 1950s were devoted solely to trade and a common economic policy. Xavier spends his time in Barcelona focusing on everything but his career: he becomes friends with people from around the continent, shatters some of his preconceptions about other cultures, and learns to see himself as, above all, European — in the end, he even loses his Amelie. Likewise, the EU has grown into something more than just a common currency and collection of integrated markets, and many Europeans today hope that its shared social and political values — democracy, secularism, an aversion to military solutions, a strong government role in providing health care and other vital services — will take precedence over its economic policy.

Right now, the dream of an integrated Europe is being fiercely debated across the continent. The European Constitution is up for ratification, and there are grave doubts that the populations of France and Great Britain, among other member states, will give it their blessing. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that even some die-hard opponents of the Constitution say they are actually in favor of a stronger European identity. At least among the left-wingers of the “No” crowd, their hostility to the Constitution has more to do with a belief that it is too supportive of free trade and outsourcing and too biased against the welfare state and the provision of public services. (In fact, ATTAC, one of the left-wing networks leading the charge in Europe against the Constitution, has insisted that their “No” vote is “authentically European and internationalist”; what they want is “another” kind of Constitution, one “founded upon values and goals other than competition and free trade.”)

What Europe will end up emerging is difficult to say. L’auberge espagnole evokes the youthful ideal of Europe: a delirious mixture of language and culture that, left for a few decades to cook, emerges as a delicate dish to be shared among friends (another translation of “L’auberge espagnole” is “Euro pudding”). From the point of view of the film, it’s interesting that Xavier, the son of divorced parents — a sentimental, hippie mother and a rigid, businessman father — starts off pursuing his father’s dream of material success but by the end of the film has drawn closer — tentatively — to his estranged mother. Give the Europeans a few more years and we may see something similar take place.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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European identity: an end to nationalism?


In an article for the International Herald Tribune, Katrin Bennhold ties the development of a new European identity to the European university foreign exchange program, Erasmus, which has enabled 1.2 million university students to study abroad since 1987. Around one-third of Europeans between the ages of 21 and 35 claim they consider themselves “more European than German, French or Italian,” Bennhold writes, citing a Time magazine survey from 2001. Professor of Political Science Stefan Wolff, of the University of Bath, refers to them as the “Erasmus generation.”

With the birth of the European Union, many university students not only study outside their country of origin, but also elect to remain in their host country to work after graduation, according to Bennhold. Erasmus has grown from 3,000 grants in 1987 to a current 136,000 grants to study abroad per year. And as Bennhold points out, the impact subsidized exchange opportunities may have upon the newest members of the European Union is significant. Participation in Erasmus programs has increased by a third among the new Eastern European EU members since their admittance to the EU one year ago to a current 20,000 students. Wolff’s hopes for the future are high:

“For the first time in history, we’re seeing the seeds of a truly European identity … Give it 15, 20, or 25 years, and Europe will be run by leaders with a completely different socialization from those of today. I’m quite optimistic that in the future there will be less national wrangling, less Brussels-bashing, and more unity in EU policy making – even if that is hard to picture today.”

—Michaele Shapiro

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Sexual statistics


Profits, as recently reported by the BBC, that a forced prostitute will reap on behalf of his or her master:

$67,200 in industrialized nations
$45,000 in the Middle East
$23,500 in transitional countries
$18,200 in Latin America
$10,000 in Asia and Africa

By means of comparison, the average annual salary of a Bulgarian worker: $2,600.

Sex, and more broadly forced labor and exploitation, sells; the International Labour Organisation reports that forced labor is a $31 billion global industry.

—Mimi Hanaoka

  

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Racing in Iran


Forcing her Peugeot through the streets of Tehran at 80 kilometers an hour in a 30-kph zone, Laleh Seddigh — 28, indefatigable, and beautiful — is quite literally racing her way to the top of Iran’s car-racing community. Seddigh has been notching a number of firsts: She is the first woman since the Islamic Revolution occurred, in 1979, to compete against her male counterparts in any athletic competition; she is the first Iranian woman to compete against men in car racing; and she was first to cross the finish line during Iran’s national racing championship, which was held in March of this year. Lest her detractors think that she has traded brawn for brains, she has already received her BA and MA from Tehran University, and she is currently working towards her doctorate in industrial management and production.

As one of the 70 percent of Iranians younger than 35, she has a bold confidence and a message that may well be a function of her youthful vitality: “In this society, women don’t believe in themselves … They have to believe in their inside power.”

—Mimi Hanaoka

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Racist roundup answers!


Answers to the “Racist (and mysogynist!) roundup” quiz:

1. B. The manager said, “Bin Laden is in charge of the kitchen.”

2. A. Miss Jones said to Miss Info, “You feel superior, probably because you’re Asian,” to which Mr. Lynn responded: “I’m gonna start shooting Asians.” The boardgame was “Chinkopoly,” and the song was “We Are the World.”

3. I am sad to say, as someone raised in New Jersey (South Jersey!), the answer is D.

4. A. Star (Troi Torain) called her a “bitch” and a “filthy rat-eater.”

5. D., though the wire service that carries Coulter’s columns, Universal Press Syndicate, eventually edited the column to read: “That dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas.”

Gosh, those racists/mysogynists say the darndest things! Do let me know if you hear about any more hilarious mysogynist/racist/etc. bits of news, in the States or elsewhere — you just can’t get enough of these people! (Did I say “these people”?)

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Political Prose

Racist (and misogynist!) roundup

For those who haven’t been keeping abreast of the activities of all the racists and misogynists back in the States (which I would be blissfully ignoring myself, if not for all the action alerts that keep plopping into m…


For those who haven’t been keeping abreast of the activities of all the racists and misogynists back in the States (which I would be blissfully ignoring myself, if not for all the action alerts that keep plopping into my Inbox), here is a handy quiz:

1. In April, seven Arab American men filed a $28 million lawsuit alleging that while they were eating at a Denny’s restaurant in Florida:

A. Their server refused to take any order except “Moons Over My Hammy.”

B. The manager kicked them out and told them, “We don’t serve bin Ladens here.”

C. The restaurant had a sign over its bathroom that said, “No A-rabs allowed.”

D. They waited for over an hour for their food while customers who arrived later were served. After they asked twice about their order, the manager responded: “Saddam Hussein is in charge of the kitchen.”

2. In February, New York radio host Miss Jones returned to Hot 97. She had been suspended from her morning show for:

A. Playing a song that mocked the victims of December’s tsunami and included the lyrics: “There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away / You can hear God laughing, ‘Swim you bitches swim.’”

B. Insulting her Asian American co-host Miss Info by calling her a “screaming chink.” Co-host Todd Lynn added: “God, I hate those Asians.”

C. Telling her listeners to a create their own board game, “Gookopoly,” in protest of the board game “Ghettopoly,” which was created by an Asian immigrant.

D. Singing on the air, to the tune of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: “So now you’re screwed. It’s the tsunami, / You better run and kiss your ass away. Go find your mommy. / I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head. And now your children will be sold. Child slavery.”

3. In April, the hosts of a New Jersey radio show, 101.5 FM’s “The Jersey Guys,” criticized a Korean American candidate in a local Democratic primary, and then said the following:

A. Talking about how ethnic minorities were always asking for special treatment, host Craig Carton said: “And no one gives a damn about us anymore … And if we cry about it, you know what’s brought up? Slavery … or if we cry about it … well you know, ching chong, ching chong [mimics Chinese accent], you bombed us.”

B. After commiserating with a caller about the “damn Orientals and Indians” in New Jersey, Carton remarked, “It’s like you’re a foreigner in your own country, isn’t it?”

C. Complaining that all the poker tables in Atlantic City were crowded with Chinese players, Carton opined: “Well, go to [Atlantic City] for one week and try and get a table …  ching chong, ching chong, ching chong [mimics Chinese accent]. ‘Hehe, you hit it on seventeen, you stupid bitch’ … they got their little beady pocketbooks with the little beads on it. They take out wads of hundreds. Ching chong ching chong [accent].”

D. All of the above.

4. In December, the hosts of the “Star and Buc Wild” morning show on Power 99 in Philadelphia phoned a customer service call center in India and then:

A. Threatened to “choke” the customer service representative.

B. Called her a “cow-worshipping bitch.”

C. Called her “filthy monkey-eater.”

D. All of the above.

5. Political commentator Ann Coulter sparked protests in March when she insulted Helen Thomas, a columnist who has worked as a White House correspondent for more than 60 years. What did she call Thomas?

A. “That dyspeptic Arab Helen Thomas.”

B. “That clueless Arab liberal, Helen Thomas.”

C. “That Arab I’d like to shoot, Helen Thomas.”

D. “That old Arab Helen Thomas.”

You can view the answers by clicking here.

—Victor Tan Chen

Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

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Sex on the brain


Swedish researchers have, using brain-imaging techniques, concluded that gay men and straight men respond differently to two different scents that are potentially involved in sexual arousal.  So what does all this sex on the brain mean? Firstly, it may give credence to the notion that humans, like animals, may have pheromones, which are chemicals that invite certain types of behavior, such as sexuality, within a species; secondly, this data may prompt researchers to consider the biological and chemical foundations of sexuality and sexual preference.

The study, however, should only be seen as a beginning and certainly not as proof that there is a biological explanation for sexual orientation and behavior; it is still unclear whether it is sexual behavior that transforms brain chemistry or whether it is the brain chemistry that dictates sexual preference.  Furthermore, Dr. Ivanka Savic of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who headed the study, issued the curiously vague comment that while the subjects in her research included gay women, the results of that aspect of the study were “somewhat complicated” and therefore cannot yet be published. We should, then, cautiously understand this study only as a foray into the biological causes and effects of sexuality and as a door that is beginning to be opened, but not as a definitive statement about sexuality or sexual behavior and orientation.

—Mimi Hanaoka

  
  

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