Something that warrants more writing than can be accomplished via a short-response blog assignment

To Jessica and Clifford: I noticed that I never posted this assignment, so I am publishing the post a bit late.

For someone who claims to be relatively informed about current events, especially those events dealing with multiculturalism and cultural tensions, I am sad to admit that, prior to reading Ian Buruma's "Murder in Amsterdam" and subsequently watching "Submission, Part 1", the film that ended up serving as the catalyst to the murder discussed in the book, I knew nothing about this film -- much less about the reaction it spurred that led to the assassination of its director in Amsterdam. For this assignment, we were to respond to Theo Van Gogh’s 10-minute 2004 film "Submission", and/or a film by another Dutch director that recently (very recently!) leaked onto the net, "Fitna." Now, there is a lot to be said about the films, and a reaction to them is more worthy of a paper rather than a blog post -- as my not-so-clever blog title suggests. Consequently, I treat the digital space here that I employ to talk about the films as merely a crude starting point to a discussion that extends far beyond the world of web-log entries and into the realm of person-to-person dialogue.

To analyze any body of work, I find it helpful (both for my sake and for the sake of the readers) to describe the piece, having the description serve as a launching pad to a subsequent analysis and response to the work. In “Submission,” four stories are told through the monologues of four Muslim women who are played by a single actress wearing a hijab that covers her entire frame, excluding the eyes. The veil, however, is see-though from the chest down, exposing her naked body on which verses from the Qur’an are painted. In the monologues, the women address Allah to express the various ways in which they have experienced abuse from males who claim that the violence is sanctioned by the Qur’an. As they tell their stories of rape, forced marriage, and beatings, graphic images of battered women appear.

Upon finishing the movie, I was in a quandary as to the approach I should take in responding to the film. Should I respond to it as an artistic piece, commenting on how different visual and audio techniques are used in the movie? Or should I respond to it as a political text -- a “political pamphlet,” as the director called it -- and discuss the social and political messages that might be conveyed through the monologues of the four women? Obviously, I really needed to do both because both of these facets are inextricably linked to each other. I will now attempt to combine (hopefully in some coherent manner) reactions to both of these aspects.

My immediate reaction to “Submission” was indicative of my scholarship in the social sciences, a field that has constantly pushed me to think critically -- to do a critical “close reading” if I may (for you JB!) -- of all knowledge and information that is presented to me. The critical analysis that is called upon by various fields in the social sciences -- especially those of anthropology and sociology --bases itself on the underlying supposition that all knowledge is socially and culturally produced. This kind of analytical framework in turn causes one to view any given body of work – whether a social theory, a description about a certain ethnic or cultural group, a historical account of a country – with the realization that the piece is a socio-culturally constructed entity that has been influenced by the discourses and assumptions that have predated it. In fact, to relate this back to our class, we have actually touched upon this concept with Lynch's A Walk Around the Block as well as Lefebvre's The Production of Space (it is quite incredible, I must say, how much of what we’ve covered in our brief time as a class--concepts of close reading, recognition of social constructs, etc.--relate to essential material that I have been exposed to through multiple years of learning! Props to Jessica and Clifford for that!).

So, having stated all of this, let me resume what I was trying to express in the first sentence of the previous paragraph: my immediate reaction to “Submission” was that it conveyed images and messages that partook in a larger discourse, that of Orientalism -- a discourse that has been used by Western powers to “make sense” of the East in order to better control it. The film views Muslim women though the lens of Orientalism by showing a very monolithic, stereotypical image of the Muslim woman: the oppressed, introverted, mysterious woman. In this way, such an image creates an “other” that is backwards and may even be viewed as uncivilized. All of this, obviously, has very dangerous and demeaning effects that take away from the complexity of Islam and those who identify with it -- thus essentially drawing one big stroke across all of Islam. Having said this, I realize that the film can also be interpreted to merely depict the stories and experiences of four particular women. Also, I am not saying that all of these “repertories of Orientalism” (as scholar Edward Said calls them) are systematically and fervently conveyed in the film – unlike the repertories utilized in “Fitna” that more directly, through gross generalizations and fear-mongering tactics, blame Muslim culture ("Islamization," as the film refers to it) for being anti-progressive and dangerous. Furthermore, the former film was not completely produced by Westerners, as it was written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a self-proclaimed ex-Muslim, Somalian-born Dutch citizen. Nevertheless, the film is still produced in a manner that pins the morality and progressiveness of Western society against the backwardness of Islam. This is clearly seen by the way the director uses the image of the nude body,with verses from the Qur'an written on it, that is seen through the translucent veil to symbolize the emotional and spiritual vulnerability and exposed condition of the women. Indeed, the imagery used to convey this message is striking and unique, but it all falls under very Western views of art and does not respect the fact that the way in which the message is conveyed can be offensive to some -- which reiterates the power structure in which the Western hegemonic thought is at the top.

However, now, allow me to oscillate back to the other side of the debate and comment on the humanistic sincerity that exists in the film. Albeit everything critical that I said about the film, it seems to present a genuine tension between deeply-rooted faith and undeniable personal emotions. In their intimate talks with Allah, the women are seen as being truly conflicted. This grounds the issue in very real, human terms, leaving the issue somewhat open–ended (but, obviously not so much since at the end of the film the last woman finally concludes, “Now that I pray for salvation, you remain silent as the grave I long for.”) Nevertheless, the final taste that the movie leaves in my mouth actually takes away from the humanism and dignity I have discussed. All four monologues are spoken by the same one person wearing the full length, black hijab. This in turn has the effect of essentially combining all of the women and their specific stories into one monolithic Muslim woman, thus ultimately conveying the message that all Muslim women are the same. The woman that was forced into an arranged marriage is the same woman who was raped by her uncle is the same woman beaten by her husband is the same woman who receives lashes for having premarital sex -- they are all seen as the same, and thus the assumption is that all Muslim women are subjected to such misogyny.