Rediscovering Nasreddin Hodja

Reading Ziauddin Sardar, and the way he juxtaposes Nasreddin with Rumi opened my eyes to the possibility of reading Nasreddin as a sufi philosopher, to whom I believe I am already a disciple, through my mother's stories

One day they told the Hodja that his wife was going around and travelling too much, something not befitting the wife of a hodja. He said "No, that can't be true!", and when asked why he said "She can't be travelling all that much, had that been the case, her route would've her taken her home at some point!"

Hieronymo's mad againe

(upon watching Starter for 10)

what a pointless time to remember

the lesson unread
the sin unwashed
running up and down the stairs
up and down
running noses, in sync
what a useless time to remember

but of course each Ramadan will bring it back to me
each beginning, and each end

mad againe,
for just a while

A Few Days in September

French film about intelligence personnel... very good acting, excessive camera work which is beautiful but pointless, a cross between a 'French' film and a spy thriller, with a baddie who contacts his shrink continuously on the phone, and father figure issues, shared with the two kids.
The two Arab corporate men were also quite good- not au fait with what's going to happen on Sep 11, but being informed by it by a CIA agent (one of them was being played by - I think- an actor from Lost. The fact that he speaks French so well makes me think he's Iranian, again perfetc American casting! Iranians for Iraqis!)
The film also reminded me of the effort of another film I've seen recently, The Stone Merchant, which was trying to place Italy somewhere important on the fight against terror, and this one seems to lift its head up and says, hey, we in France are also involved with these efforts, more or less.

This is England (film about 80's in England)

very crucial scene that stiches things I have been reading recently all together

one racist-leaning skinhead asks a Jamaican rude boy who belongs in a non-political skin head group whether he feels himself to be Jamaican or English. After hesitation the boy says 'English' and then the racist skinhead applauds him and goes on a diatribe about 3.5 million Pakis infesting England, living in council flats, in a country that fought to keep out the enemy through two world wars, and that this boy should be proud to call himself English.
an Englishness defined against the Germans (the two world wars) and Pakis (taking up jobs and flats), and the boy of Jamaican origin is welcomed into the fold possibly because he is considered to be part of the history described in A Small Island, good Jamaicans protecting the mother country against Germans.

the Faulklands victory is portrayed as empty, the last attempt to define some national identity, and the vacuum is then underlined by Saun throwing St. George's Cross into the sea....

12 July 2007

Visit to Trakai
My history as
a series of Stalinesque manouvers
from this side of the Urals
to that

standing in the rain
looking at his iron face at a shop window
huddled in my Gestapo coat
was my rude introduction
to uncle Joe

to be repeated
with a difference
over the rolling hills of England,
through the lakesides of the Baltic,
and along the banks of the Rhein

Summer Reads

The Islamist

Volumes to be said about this one. Started its life (for me) on a rainy day in a pub in Shepherd's Bush. Resisted it for a while and then succumbed, and now happy about it. Accompanied me in Damascus and my observations there- good investment. Very acute observations, however some very naive. That is the main problem of the book- it's thoroughness is unbalanced. Some observations are very superficial and stereotypical while others go in depth. Appreciated the Saudi Arabia bit. It's insistence on calling the British Intelligence to more vigilance when it comes to Muslims makes it read like an informants report- which is a real shame because it does offer a very interesting snapshot of Islamist movements in London. Eye-opener for a hill-billy from Oxford. To be consulted for my upcoming definition for 'British Muslim' and worse 'British Muslim Novel'.

Bizi Bırakıp Nereye Gidiyorsun Türk (memoirs of a Turkish officer in Syria and Palestine)

Not Seven Pillars of Wisdom but hey! Considerably shorter and very heavy on unit manoevres, now and then cultural clash with the Arabs, with the protagonist falling ill now and then, which hit home with girls running with high fever in the house in Zabadani, and no one got spared the diarrhea. There's also a curious meeting with T.E. Lawrence where he offers him money but of course the Turk refuses. But the best is the passage where he is trying to convince bedouins that he knows more about Islam then they do. He devises a contest and beats them all :-)

The Pickup

Book read on promise. The reward was the unexpected reference to Shahrour, and through Göle, of all people! So Shahrour has entered main stream, although word on the Damascene street is that he is a scoundrel, and how can you trust your eyes with a dentist? (and this coming from a half-blind man, so one has to mark his words) Here I am looking at how Rhys plays with subjectivity in her novels and comes Gordimer with her bag of tricks, I mean, Rhys looks so elementary after that, I may as well throw the diss into the bin. Very cross with Gordimer. I did not like the protagonist(in), her motives were a bit too vague whereas the 'Middleeastern' (Syrian? Yemeni?) guy looked much more believable. This 'ethical turn' in the South African novel was also there, with the sexual harassment case. Who can say which country belongs to whom blah blah blah

Ahmet Mithat Efendi Avrupa'da

The father of the Turkish novel visits the Stockholm Exhibition, and then takes off to Paris with a married Russia woman, to discover the similarities between the two cultures--- well, both lagging behind Europe it turns out, but unspoilt human nature etc. etc. Madame Gulnar (her pen name) speaks perfect Ottoman Turkish and translates Pushkin into Turkish. So another to be reckoned with in the Utrecht database (make a mental note!) Of course far more progressed than the 'Orient', Ahmet Mithat finds little fault with the orientalists' treatment of, say, Egypt. Anyway, orientals at the time were not quite so militant about correcting misconceptions. Where did all this laissez-faire go? *sigh*

Sweetness in the Belly

An Irish girl brought up in a shrine in Morocco spends her youth in Harar. Now despite the improbable story-line, the protagonist was much more believable. I really like the idea of a sufi order around Bilal Habeshi, it turns out it is Camilla Gibb's brain child. Probably not Muslim herself. Again the question. Does the British Muslim novel have to be written by a Muslim? Or is it enough that the narrator or the focalizer is Muslim?

Small Island

Started in an overcast June day in a basement kitchen and ended on the beach facing Chios. The bits in Jamaica were really nice and chimed in with Rhys's descriptions, me feeling I'm doing something for the diss. What a wonderful 'founding myth'. I am tempted to write to one for British muslims. Did they fight in WW2? where can I get such info? (maybe yahoo questions) does a community need to have fought in WW2 to be considered to have contributed to the 'nation'? I enjoyed even the jungle bits, which I would not have had I not spent my last hours in Istanbul watching 3 episodes of Lost back to back!

Homo Faber

Thanks to Merle. Had I not been sent this book, Max Frisch would have remained as the writer of Biederman und die Brandstifter. What rubbish! Anyway, now he's a cross between Isherwood and Auster in my mind. Kept thinking of Neubauer as I read the book and my terrible gaffe. Again relished the plane bauch-landing bits no doubt due to my Lost-mania. There's almost a touch of McEwan as well, with him introducing scenes and unravelling what they mean slowly afterwards.

Maze

Greek writer based in London. Looked promising but again a novel about troup movements with not much to lighten the page--- certain aphorisms about the end of the Ottoman Empire. Text book. Will probably ditch it for Hanan ak-Shaykh's Only in London in my search for the British Muslim novel.

the road from Damascus

It was not the same thing.
The grass was thousand feet below and we were watching it from the plane rather than our backs on it looking upwards comfortably to see the craft.
We were not talking about Isherwood and Auden.
We were talking about Eliot and his poems with an oriental theme, the journey of the Magi and one other with a very long title which he had read and I not. We complained about Lonely Planet and impressed each other with our educated questions. So what are the Mosarabs? what is the difference between the Sunnis and Shiites? do you celebrate the Reconquista? what do you say on your rosary?
and then he told me where he came from they did not celebrate the Reconquista but the battle of Lepanto, where Cervantes had lost a hand and then I had to recommend White Castle. But they did play Moors and Spaniards alright, each family having chosen their side quite some time ago and sticking to it no matter what.

The strange sensation of speaking once again.

Damascus

26.07.07, Dimashq

(to be sung to a commercial tune)
Writing back from the colonies,
Hey!

Why I joined the group
(I wanted to go to Damascus, I wanted to learn Arabic enough to show off to my European friends, I wanted to walk in the footsteps of Paul- wink wink!)
What I saw
(utter chaos, bigotry, lack of sense of history, condescension, utter ignorance)
Why I left
(too hot, waste of time, didn’t want to strangle that woman!)

tropique
triste
tristesse de tropiques
or something along those lines (thank you Muldoon, yet another Paul, another Saul, who took pains to convert me)

time, here, is trimesterly
the day, the night, the early day which is still night, till you can tell a piece of string from the blackness outside
pieces of string that were lowered deep into the night
to save Paul, to save Saul

the barbaric hordes
to what we were:
the followers of the true Belief
those who have done away with stones
and excessive weeping
we were oh so superior
to go into that chamber
and mix with the princesses of darkness

and yet
I could see
under the archway
the landmarks of my own kin
the birthmarks on my own skin
from a time when we were far more closer
to being one

look at those columns rising
right above the bonbon sellers
they were here before us
we were here before us

C-h-o-p-i-n
or a plethora of girls everywhere I go
(but dear Christophine, I did not fight for this liberty
so please don’t worship me
it was a gift from my fathers
and that you fail to understand
to know, Christophine
to know all this and then turn my face away from it
that has been my victory
auf Achse Christophine, auf Achse)

and out there in the dark
with the city’s glimmering lights
as we pass through cafes and cafes
full of men
the only company I wanted to have
was of those failed Roman soldiers who
having accepted defeat
are courteous to the locals
and are tolerated everywhere
for their degenerate and faulty ways.
(and are obviously always auf Achse)

27.07.07

I remember
I remember her boredom
and disappointment as she entered
that little open air cafe
where men were playing the oud and she
was for a moment all-ready to give herself away
to the music
and then
when they made for the Temple and he
proferred her a piece of cloth to put around her head
she remembered who she was
dear Harriet
I remember her words
words I iterated
I remember the Temple
the one the likes of which I sought back at home

But now I shall remember moments other than this
other ouds playing into the night
in the courtyard of times spent, empires spent where
what remains are words like Istanbul, effendi and all the rest
and yet with all our smiles induced by not a drop of alcohol
we were gay
like war-children
playing in and around the rubble of their own home
tip-toeing to the notes of C-h-o-p-i-n

30.07.07, Zabadini

round and round
goes the book in circles and crescents.
around the table are smiling faces dressed in white
and a calmness descends into my heart
as I look on the arid hills
I remember dear old granny,
And a great aunt who has recenlty passed away
She used to tell us stories of this land
in that honeyed cadence of hers
and our hostess
in my great aunt’s white scarf
smiles as we try to read the book aloud
and if she opens her mouth I am convinced
she will ask me how my mother’s doing
how my studies are going
and when I’ll earn enough money
to send her to Hajj one more time.

Two days ago,
in the Roman theatre
sang a footsoldier of the Moors
about the fool moon
and the coming of the awaited one
His name
Speaks a thousand conquests
And Roman defeats....

And I
Climbed the steps
in that age-old way that I had always imagined I’d climb
the pyramids
reserved for those
wearing skirts
Rupert, dear old Rupert
Singing of rabbits and bears.

01.08.07, Zabadani

is this the face
that launched a thousand ships?

Standing by the fruit-juice seller
Eyeing us through the slit she had in her veil
And smiling all the while a knowing smile
She classifies us
as the pure who have come
to learn an ancient art
for which she has no use.
is this the face that launched a thousand ships?

wherein the only expression you will find
is one that asks, one that wants to learn
one that is anxious to be good, to please

is this the face
that resisted defacement
after a thousand assails
after a thousand sails
is this the face
that repelled a thousand ships
to be conquered
by other soldiers
that have never seen the seven-hilled Roman city?

the new conquerers
in their transparent whites
and air of ordering around

how long will they last,
till it is their faces
that draws you and me to these shores, Christophine
till it is their faces
that launch a thousand ships
that will bring havoc
on their palaces and kings.

10.08.07, Zabadini

A History Lesson:

Because evil will find you.

After all these years of hide and seek
And engaging in other petty games
it will seek and find you
in valleys deep in dryness and conflict

She packed up her bags and left
She mounted on a horse and sped out of the city
But no,
Reminds us Faith
Not for ladies of our ilk, such behaviour
Remember how Harriet climbed the Pyramids
with those dainty shoes of hers and her knee-lengthed skirts

not for us those dainty shoes,
not for us those knee-lengthed skirts
for us, the chiding of men sitting on chairs
speaking of all the ills of the world
all the fears of the world

but as we walked through the little shafts of light
in that age old bazaar, a late copy of the one back home
we were merry like two school girls
and let our eyes be dazzled by all the cheap colourful, plastic toys
and further on we made small talk
with men sitting on chairs, behind stalls
(but you see, we were not their daughters to chide)
with the power of speech
our tongues bewitched them all
and we sailed through those little streets
and the courtyards of everyday palaces.

The old man can no longer pack up his bags and go
It is going to be Aisha, believe me Faith
who gets up on that horse and go
like so many centuries ago.

ticking off/on the map

In a Russian cafe in Lithuania, realising that Ghetto comes from the word Gatve, or indeed Gasse.... the blogger is in Lithuanian, but more importantly, someone jas just logged onto yandex.ru on this very computer.... so this is sort of waters I have entered.... speaking of which it poured down a little while ago so better go get my umbrella.
the Uni is closed to visitors due to graduation.... am parched
tick tick tick
trickle
treacle

Northern Lights

(dedicated to D. who was recently asked the same question, but under very different circumstances)

It was late
late into the night
when he asked
Sind Sie Deutsche?

the sun had set
and I had already left
the Heide, der Fluss

I no longer knew
my can trash from my bio
I now left
all the lights on

It was deep into the night
when he asked
Sind Sie Deutsche?

I knew not how he
discerned or
distinguished
my accent or
my dress

it was in Stockholm that I was addressed
late, too late
Sind Sie Deutsche?

after all the misplaced smiles
after all the misplaced good will
it was late into the night,
when I had already left
the Heide, die Autobahn
that I was so addressed
under the northern lights of Gamla Stan.

Coventrieren

They were not known to abide by rules of war
as attested by one Gaul, who spoke about their breaches before
but I find myself suprised, and sometimes amused
everytime
this comes to pass
and I am stranded with a silly expression on my face
on my side of the sidewalk
as I keep the conversation going,
like never really happened

but my battlements are on fire,
my aide de camp has been slaughtered
and forced to keep the upper lip stiff
I smile and joke
while they raze my house down
and pillage the orchard
that shall no longer bear fruit

A Change of Chronotope

Sitting there in the sun
on a bench I no longer recognized
I heard the birds and realized I was free
Life was no longer measured by the distances
of space and time leading me to or away from the beloved

Giessen Revisited

Ha ha- not quite Jeremy Irons, but hey!
it does feel like a World War away that I was trying to become a part of this place
and today, as people were showing me where various rooms were
and were helping me plug certain things into various sockets
in all their helpfulness
it felt just like another venue
I was expected to perform at
and perform I did,
saluting at one instant
my startled audience
with a handwave.

The Center Holds :-)

lest we forget

Swedish Mountain Passes

Early in the evening,
A duck cuts into the purple,
Ducks into the dark blue
Of the surface that is rippling
In the calm air

It is the breath of the ducks that’s rippling the surface
It’s your voice whispering “Swedish mountain passes”

Swedish mountain passes
Were the last words you said to me
The last words I heard you speak
That actually meant anything

Swedish mountain passes

Swedish mountain passes
Of high and low altitudes
where either side is laden with fruit
with blueberries, mountainberries, strawberries
swedish mountain passes
that are laden with fruit
with names I cannot speak

it is your ghost that haunts this lake
this evening,
the ripples on the surface,
the face I have sat across at the table

Early evening by the lake
A duck cuts through the deep purple
Dives into the unspeakable abyss
To the rhythm of your voice repeating
Swedish mountain passes.

Uppsala

Here I am once again in the land of smelly supermarkets and shiny happy people--- well never mind the statistics for suicides, that how I know them.
Am sitting in a sunnier and happier version of the Stockwerk in Heidelberg where everyone brings a smile into the kitchen decked with Swedish furniture, and where I am sitting working on my paper.
I had a nice chat with Stella in her blue-white flowe patterned dress, on which I complimented her, to which she said it belonged to her grandmother and which, she said, she made to fit her slenderer body by sewing it up! Very talented girl who's thinking of going to Denmark for a year in order to secure a place as a medical student.
The plan is to go to Friday prayers soon, I hope we catch some of the glorious sun that I can see from my table position.

Babel

we used to speak the same language,
love between us was a given

when we turned to the sun
our skin used to turn to the same colour,
our hands would shrink to the same shape

but now I lose you in this multitude
for I understand not what you say,
these towers, this curse
that we brought upon ourselves.

Remembering and Forgetting

(As I enter the room and T. is talking about forgetting in a cadence that is painfully familiar)

repetition
with a difference
repetition
of a name
of my name
with a difference
oh, what a difference
that hue of tweed makes

tweed
grey or green
uttering words of
forgetting
oh, for that getting
closer
or
not so closer

remembering
times spent on the green-
grass of this newfoundland
never suspecting
the future to come
the fissure to come

remembering
the girls we once were.

I like England and Trifles

wondering on İstiklal with Lizzie, we chanced upon a shop run by subjects of the Empire, the Empire that was. It turned out the lady had gone to my high school, and her friend called me "mignon" and "sympathique" only in a way that they could. It was a serene moment, a salute to a world that is now lost.

what care I, that the wannabes and the have-lots are fighting it out?

der Heiden Heiland

Licht! Mehr Licht!
to deliver us from the pit
-less valleys of the Rhine or the Lahn
where we are named and maimed
each according to his own demon

lest we stay
lest we stay