blog-e-bilal

A Tale of Two Virginias

by Bilal Qureshi

The Lighthouse is a charming Christian retail store in the heart of Mechanicsville, Va.  Owner Kathy Heath supplies Bibles, church decorations, and inspirational music to this small town of 30,000 residents in central Virginia.
“This is a family-oriented community and people live here all their lives,” Heath said with a smile.
The town’s downtown district of one-story shops harkens back to a more traditional era. It is home to a drug store diner, a family-run butcher shop, and a barber who proudly hangs a gun on his wall with the sign “we don’t call 911 here.”
Seventy percent of Mechanicsville voted Republican in the last statewide election. 
Less than 100 miles to the north, sharply dressed professionals rush past construction cranes working on a glittering condominium complex and a Whole Foods. They are trying to catch the Washington subway during morning rush hour in Arlington, Va.
Aasil Ahmad is a Georgetown-educated political consultant and has lived in the area for fifteen years.  He says he likes the fact that as Arlington has evolved, it has become more urban and gotten better, hipper restaurants and shops. But unlike its more obvious urban alternative, New York, “it remains an easy city to manage.”
This suburban Democratic stronghold is less than five miles from Washington, DC and growing.

Virginia is a traditionally Republican state where patriotic flag-waving and staunchly conservative values tend to fare well. But during the past decade there has been an economic and population boom in northern Virginia, the suburban counties adjacent to Washington, DC.
Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudon, the three counties that comprise the region, are now among the more wealthy, racially diverse, and more educated in the country. The 2006 Edison/Mitofsky exit polls showed that residents of these counties are also less likely to attend church or serve in the military than the rest of Virginia. These cultural divisions and the growing electoral clout of northern Virginia are challenging the conservative identity of the state. 
On Aug. 11, Sen. George Allen, R-Va., made a statement that virtually ended speculation about a presidential campaign in 2008 and gave the Democrats a chance to recapture a Senate seat that would eventually cost Republicans that house of Congress.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters in southwest Virginia during his re-election campaign, Allen referred to an opposition volunteer of Indian descent in the audience as ‘macaca,’ a north African racial slur meaning “monkey.”

Although national coverage focused on Allen’s use of the term, his full statement highlighted the growing cultural divisions within the state. Allen had concluded his controversial remarks by saying “…let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”   
Within a few weeks, Allen lost his 20-point lead over his Democratic rival Jim Webb and the two candidates entered election day dead even in the polls. When Allen finally conceded defeat on Nov. 9, paving the way for the Democrats to assume full control of Congress, it became clear that perhaps even he had also misunderstood the “real world of Virginia.”
Gov. Tim Kaine, the second Democrat to be elected to the post in a row, said Sen. Allen’s comments reflected an antiquated way of understanding Virginia. He said the political fallout from his comments reflected the fact that his ideas no longer represent the sensibilities of Virginians.
“Fifteen or 20 years ago if a candidate had made some insensitive statements, I don’t know if the voters would have held that against him,” he said. “But they do now because they recognize that we’re a big and diverse state and we’re going to get more diverse and that’s a good, not a bad thing.”

Robert Shapiro covers politics for central Virginia’s leading newspaper, the Richmond Times Dispatch. He said Virginia no longer fits into the mold of a conventional southern ‘red’ state and changes in the socio-political make-up of the northern counties are part of the reason why.
“I think to the outside world Virginia is somehow this quiet verdant rural backwater,” Shapiro said.  “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
During the past decade tax incentives and Virginia’s geographic centrality have attracted major telecommunications and computing firms to the region.  The growth of defense spending under the Department of Homeland Security has also created thousands of jobs with government contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, which have headquarters in northern Virginia.
As people move into the region from across the country, cities such as Arlington and Alexandria have become more racially and politically diverse than the more homogenous, traditional cities of Roanoke and Mechanicsville, in the southern part of the state.
According to 2005 population estimates from the Census Bureau, there are now five times as many Hispanic and Asian residents in northern Virginia as there are in the rest of the state.
Jim Webb swept the counties of northern Virginia in part due to the growing opposition to the war in Iraq. But he also won because voters in northern Virginia do not share Allen’s socially conservative agenda. 
According to Aseil Abu-Bakr, a Fairfax resident who works at the World Bank, Allen’s rigid position on issues such as abortion and immigration simply reflects the conservative culture of the southern part of the state.
“What do you expect from the rest of a state where there is a serious lack of diversity in every sense of the word,” she said.

This was especially evident in the debate over a constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage that appeared on the Virginia ballot.
According to Allen, “…we were raised with things that are really, really important - family and faith and freedom and football…and the most important institution in society is family.”
Webb, in contrast, took a moderated position that although he did not support gay marriage, he opposed a constitutional ban on gay relationships.
Although the ban eventually passed by more than 30 points statewide, residents in northern Virginia, who also supported Webb by wide margins, voted against the amendment.
In Fairfax County, for example, where Webb won by 20 points, residents opposed the marriage amendment by 10 points. This opposition has traditional conservative voters such as Rev. William Carter of Richmond concerned.
“That makes me a little nervous. There seems to be a transition toward more liberal values, in Virginia so we’re going to have to fight it,” he said.

But all southern voters are not suspicious of the growth in northern Virginia. Donald Campen of Richmond said the region is the engine for economic growth in the state and its diverse, educated residents have helped the state surge forward.
“Well we got some very educated people there,” Campen said. “And when you balance out the education and the population and the incomes, overall I think they're a good asset for the entire state.” 

A Call for Social Intelligence

by Bilal Qureshi

Studies show that standard measures of intelligence such as IQ only predict four to ten percent of long-term professional success. The other 90 percent depends on what best-selling author and psychologist Daniel Goleman calls individual social intelligence – a combination of self-awareness and effective interpersonal skills.
Goleman spoke at the launch of Columbia Business School’s new Program on Social Intelligence on Monday evening. The initiative incorporates social training into the school’s curriculum through a series of coaching programs and seminars directed by experts in the relatively new field of behavioral neuroscience.
Goleman, a leading figure in the field, reported on the brain and behavior for The New York Times for over ten years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, became an instant bestseller and extended the traditional definition of human intelligence to successful parenting, relationships, and leadership.
His new book Social Intelligence looks at how the ways in which human beings relate to one another affect their lives. He said that there is an unspoken disconnect between the academic and professional world. “While academic success is measured by individual achievements, the professional world requires learning to work with others effectively,” he explained.
Goleman called academic and technical aptitude “threshold skills.” He said that while these skills are necessary to enter a particular field, they are not sufficient to thrive and succeed within that environment in the long term. This requires social intelligence.
Socially intelligent communication requires an empathetic understanding of how others are feeling and the ability to adapt one’s message to those situations.
He said a socially intelligent manager, for example, would critique an employee with a “positive no” that acknowledges weakness, but also recognizes potential at the same time. This encourages improvement and commitment instead of disheartening employees.
“Emotions are contagious and leaders have a primal ability to help others stay in their best emotional state,” he added.
Columbia Business School is the first business school to introduce a formal program in social intelligence. The program includes plans to provide students with comprehensive behavioral assessments and guidance through their professional careers.
But Goleman emphasized that the need to act more wisely in relationships extends to life outside the workplace. He concluded with an especially relevant example for the chic twenty-something audience “Social intelligence leads to a richer and better dating life.”

A New York Ramadan

by Bilal Qureshi

A teenager carefully browses a row of CDs before selecting just the right one – standard fare for any avid music shopper. Yet in this music shop in the predominantly South Asian neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens, this teenager has a more specific purpose.
17-year-old Pakistani immigrant Faizan Ali has selected a collection of Arabic recitations from the Quran and as he leaves the building, he deliberately avoids eye contact with the seductive Indian models whose posters line the walls.
“This is the holy month of Ramadan,” he said. “And my focus is on God.”
For the majority of Muslims living in this immigrant pocket of New York City, the month of Ramadan, which began last week, carries both a spiritual and a social dimension. Observant Muslims throughout the New York metropolitan area, an estimated 800,000 of the 5-million to 7-million nationwide, do not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset during the thirty days of Ramadan. But in addition to fasting, Muslims like Ali also recalibrate their daily lives to focus on religion and spend more time at home among family and friends.
This has a strong impact on restaurants and stores in Jackson Heights, which rely heavily on the South Asian Muslims who make up almost half of the neighborhood’s retail clientele. While some storeowners look for creative ways to attract customers who are fasting with discounts and special meals, most businesses experience a decline in traffic and sales during Ramadan.
The Eagle Theater is located in the heart of the neighborhood’s commercial district and shows the latest films from India. But manager Saqib Mirza says attendance and therefore business has decreased by almost fifty percent since the start of Ramadan.
Indian distributors do not release major films during this time of year considering the expected decline in attendance. This leaves theatre-owners like Mirza with limited options.
“This one has been playing for over three weeks,” Mirza said as he pointed to a tattered movie poster outside the theater. He is eagerly waiting for the end of Ramadan in late October so he can begin showing the season’s blockbuster films.
Muslim-owned eatery Kabob King is one of the neighborhood’s most popular restaurants. While there are usually long lines for a table, manager Saeed Khan focuses on expanding the restaurant’s take-out menu and Ramadan-themed meals during the fasting season.
He says customers prefer to eat at home with family and it is evident in the rows of empty tables in this otherwise popular eatery. Manhattan resident Samieur Rahman, who does not observe Ramadan but grew up in a Muslim country, says he finds it awkward to be eating at the restaurant even though there is no defined rule against it.
“I feel rude eating in front of people who are fasting,” Samieur said. “I would prefer to take this home to be more respectful.”
The change in atmosphere during Ramadan reflects the cultural traditions of the Muslim population in Jackson Heights. This temporarily affects businesses, but it also makes Muslim residents and visitors feel more at home.
Ali, who immigrated to the U.S. seven months ago, traveled almost two hours on the subway from the Bronx to spend a few hours in Jackson Heights. He broke his fast with traditional Pakistani food from one of the local eateries and purchased his favorite recording of the Quran.
He emphasizes that coming to Jackson Heights helps him deepen his Ramadan experience by getting a sense of being among the faithful and back at home.

Ramadan, the Guest

by Tariq Ramadan

It is as a guest, who you may welcome with the apparent and due civilities, with the sincere pleasure as you receive a visit or with the profound joy of the reception and the renewed reunion.

It is a month during which you may be able to deprive yourself from eating and drinking at the surface of your body’s needs. You may be able as well to share with your sisters and brothers the fraternal atmosphere of this month... You may be able, more profoundly, to invite your behaviour, your conscience and your heart altogether to fast during this month.

Close to the Quran’s light, its words and inspirations, you must experience the rupture. To serve the human beings, the poor people... To awake your conscience in the proximity of the wounds and the injustices people face... To move away from your heart your bad thoughts, to distance yourself from the darkest dimensions of your being... your violence, your jealousies, your superficialities.

Invite this month as you invite your most precious friend, give it the welcoming of the lovers whose behaviour changes in the presence of the beloved, who beautify themselves for him, make themselves kind and nice, who offer and offer themselves without counting. Whose gestures are smiles and whose words are prayers.

This month is your blessed guest... and the guests very soon know and feel which place they have in their host’s heart. The month of Ramadan is Light, Bounty, Love at your door... and that has no price.

Allow your guest to enter in the most precious dwelling of your heart and honour it every day by offering your memory, your generosity, your sisterhood, your brotherhood and your love. It is the best gift you can offer to your blessed guest... it is the way for your to invite, beside you, the Absolute Generous, The Most Close.

Blessed Ramadan. Your guest is your host, may you respond to its invitation with the meditation it expects.

May the One accept your fast, your love, your generosity.
With tenderness, and love...

Rethinking "War on Terror"

by Bilal Qureshi

The U.S.-led war on terror was a colossal mistake and has distracted the international community from effectively containing terrorism, a Harvard scholar said today.
“Terrorism is the means, not the ends,” she said. “It makes no more sense to declare a war on terrorism than it does to declare war on another military technique like precision-guided missiles.”
Louise Richardson, executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, was speaking at the 92nd Street Y on the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Richardson is widely regarded as a leading expert on terrorism and the subject of her talk, “What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat,” is also the title of her latest book.
According to Richardson, the Bush Administration adopted a one-dimensional view of terrorism when it declared war between “us and them” in Sept. 2001. She said the U.S. government needed wider international support and understanding of regional realities to contain terrorism effectively.
She defined terrorism as “a lethal mix of disaffected individuals, an enabling society, and a legitimizing political or religious ideology.”
Richardson began her discussion with a historical overview of terrorism to emphasize the fact that terrorism was not an exclusively modern or Islamic phenomenon.
“There have been Christian, Jewish, Hindu, atheist and secular terrorists,” she said.
Richardson added that although terrorist organizations around the world have pursued different political goals, they shared three secondary objectives: revenge, renown, and reaction.
America’s war on terror was a reaction to al-Qaeda and provided the organization unprecedented publicity and renown.
Richardson said that the Bush Administration’s failure to curb violence and build a successful democracy in Iraq was evidence that a unilateral, military response to terrorism could not work in the long-term.
“Military strength is too blunt an instrument to ensure success against terrorism,” she said.
She cited examples of successful political campaigns against the I.R.A. in her native Northern Ireland and against Basque separatists in Spain to suggest an alternative to military force.
Richardson admitted that her nuanced understanding of how to contain terrorism has been called dispassionate and soft.
“But instead of worrying about what is hard or soft against terrorism, we should exclusively focus on what is effective against terrorism,” she said.
Richardson repeatedly emphasized the need for dialogue between Western governments and moderate Muslims.
“The best way to defeat the minority of Muslims who support terrorist organizations is to engage the majority who do not support them to fight for you,” she said.
Some members of the audience disagreed with Richardson’s conclusions. One man said that the current conflict was in fact a war between Islam and the West and that Richardson was underestimating the possibility of further attacks.
Another woman told the audience that the Muslim community was complicit in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the government needed to monitor American Mosques and Muslim neighborhoods more closely.
Queens resident Anne Moroney said that while she agreed with Richardson, she “could not see how we would implement her suggestions.”

George Galloway

State of the Media

An Auspicious Week?

There has been minimal activity on this blog for several days and the reasons are quite simple. I have had to a.) pack my life in small boxes from Staples b.) tie up loose strings dangling from my generally unorganized life c.) say teary goodbyes to an incredible group of family and friends... and d.) spend days reflecting on an undefined and tumultuous year. The highs have been damn high (SriLankan New Year's, Beirut/Damascus Nights pre-Israel, Plush new couches with the kidSister, the Sony Grand Wega and Netflix), and the lows have been low in their own right (c/o Pakistan). At the end of the day, an experientially rich life is what it's all about and I am grateful for all of it.
As of tonight, I have settled into my fresh and clean new apartment in Morningside Heights, Manhattan. It is the perfect student apartment in terms of cost, location, size, etc. and my window has an incredible view of Columbia and a classic New York street. But alas, there is a catch. According to several staff members, my Chinese roommate, who will be returning from Beijing at the end of the month, is the unhygenic legend of the building. You think desi masalas call for a mad rush to the showers...wait till you catch a whif of the residue his culinary pyrotechnics have left throughout our 3ft kitchen (also located inside the living room) over the past two years. Here's hoping that with the prayers and well wishes of my two faithful readers, we can eventually resolve our differences and the apartment will be up to living and visiting standards. As of right now, it is great thanks to my bilOCD and the relentless scrubbing and decorative skills of my father and sister, respectively. This is all despite the fact that Liu from Beijing has currently sublet his room to another Chinese student...and....his wife...and their....eight year-old daughter. It's all clear on the Asian family sitcom set in a small student apartment intended for two, but I'm obviously not bitter. I just hate the smell of their food and lifestyle, period. Multicultural sensitivities have their limits.
On the whole, things are good if a bit anxiety-inducing. Classes start 9am tomorrow morning and New York is lovable, loathable New York. Before I close it up, I just realized that this is the third August in a row that my professional/personal life has massively rebooted...which is both cool/weird and worthy of sharing...
August 16th, 2004 - First post-collegiate workday at the Atlantic in Washington, DC
August 14th, 2005 - Arrival in Lahore on Pakistan's Independence Day
August 17th, 2006 - First official day of graduate school in New York
things that make you go hmm...

Today's Guardian

Inta Eyh

The tragic war in the Middle East wages on; with the carte blanche for Israel's brutal military machine provided by none other than the world's most civilised societies - the United States and Britain. It is not fair to say that the international community has completely turned its back on the humanitarian catastrophe in Lebanon that has claimed and displaced countless civilians. From Kofi Annan's strongly-worded plea for an immediate ceasefire to the UN's scathing declarations citing the disproportionate loss of life, displacement, and destruction...there is global consensus that is what is happening in Lebanon today is unacceptable and fundamentally counterproductive to securing peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, there is very little that UN resolutions and statements can achieve on the ground when the world's two most powerful nations shun the international community and thereby enable Israel to wage its demolition of Lebanon indefinitely.

The extent of the political, economic, and societal upheavel occuring in Lebanon today will come into focus once the dust settles weeks, months, or years from now. I have been thinking most about the long-term cultural impact of this particular war on a fragile region that is already so fragmented along religious and class lines. From a visual perspective, Lebanese society is a jarring mix of the scantily-clad couture Arabs and the ninja brand of conservative Islamist militancy draped in burqaas and fiery rhetoric. To complicate matters even more, many of the dirty Arabs who dance and drink their nights away in one of Beirut's incredible clubs strongly support Hizbullah by day. It is by far the sexiest landscape in which to examine the culture wars being waged across the Muslim world between so-called secular liberals and Islamist end-of-worlders (A dichotomy which is not nearly as clearcut as some would like to believe). Yet for better or worse, even if Israel destroys the military and material infrastructure of Hizbullah, this latest episode has strengthened the movement's ideological influence alongside the global rise of Islamist resistance. Sheikh Nasrullah, the political leader of Hizbullah, may lose the armed fight...but I am certain he wins the war for the 'hearts and minds' of frustrated Arabs. My personal quagmire is what becomes of LBC and my girl Nancy Ajram, the star of the Arab world. I simply could not resist the songs and then the videos... and by the end of the trip was definitely ready to leik Haifa's wawa.

It may sound terrible but there has to be a third way - a New Islam like New Labour that allows for these pulls to feel less comparmentalized and more fluid in the way life actually works on the ground for the majority of Muslims. I am open to Nasrullah taking over the region (insert facetiousness here) as long as he brings Nancy and the Lebanese spectrum/demographic realities along for the ride. In the meantime, the following review of the book Muhajababes examines these issues with a much sharper focus...

Islam and the porno devils
Can the clash between scantily clad secularism and conservative religious ideology produce a third way in the Arab world? Some wish according to Allegra Stratton's fascinating exploration of this question, Muhajababes, writes Rachel Aspden

Sunday July 23, 2006
The Observer

Muhajababes
by Allegra Stratton (Constable & Robinson £7.99, pp281)

As a guide to the preoccupations of young Arabs, the Middle-Eastern chaos currently splashed across the front pages is only part of the story. Vying with bearded Hizbollah commanders for the hearts and minds (or at least cash and attention) of Middle-Eastern youth is a well-funded and altogether better-looking army: a gang of half-naked girls. Stars of the omnipresent Arabic music videos ('video-clips'), the girls - led by Maria, Elissa, Ruby, Nancy Ajram and Haifa Wehbe - are the region's super-groomed, cosmetically enhanced sweethearts - or its 'porno clip devils', according to one Egyptian newspaper. Their grip on 'the morals of Arab youth' is so strong that in 2004 conservative Egyptian MPs called for a ban on the clips - supported by letters and petitions from young Egyptians.

But how do the region's armies of under-30 video-lovers and haters square up? In early 2005 Allegra Stratton, a young BBC producer, set off on a tour of Beirut, Amman, Cairo, Dubai, Kuwait City and Damascus with the aim of finding out.

Stratton is in search of a cultural revolution - experts on the Middle East have told her that a massive rise in the number of educated young people coupled with a stunted job market have led to a situation that parallels the English Civil War, the French Revolution and 1968. So, at first, she goes looking for a Haight-Ashbury-type counterculture, hanging out with TV producers, struggling artists, MCs and curators.

Her findings are less romantic than she had hoped - there are no flower children in Damascus, and Amman's only nude portraitist is, she disappointedly remarks, 'crap'. The verdict is characteristic of Muhajababes, which is written in a jaunty conversational tone that allows Stratton to feel 'rubbish' about 'shit' things, such as the invasion of Iraq or badly produced Arabic music. The chirpiness can grate - 'Here, everyone has a telly on their desk,' she observes artlessly of BBC Westminster - but it has an upside. In comparison with many products of the Middle-Eastern comment and analysis industry, and despite its off-puttingly trend-spotting title, Muhajababes is direct, energetic and unpretentious. Stratton is out on the street accosting passers-by and counting the number of veiled women with a persistence that makes her a likeable and instructive guide to the lure of extremism for Palestinian refugees or why What Not to Wear will never air in Beirut.

And what she learns, Trinny and Susannah aside, is fascinating. The video-clip girls are indeed a serious cultural force - Nancy Ajram was recently voted 'one of the region's most influential Arabs' by the Arabic version of Newsweek - but their eminence grise is the Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the eighth-richest man in the world and the owner of the Rotana satellite stations and record label that 80 per cent of Arab pop stars are signed to. Despite the acres of flesh on display at Rotana, the singers' most fervent fans are the eponymous 'muhajababes': veiled girls (muhajaba is Arabic for 'one who veils') who nevertheless wear skin-tight jeans, stiletto heels and plenty of make-up. To describe them, Stratton learns a great new Arabic word, 'rewish', which means somewhere between 'hip' and 'distracted' - these are the Dazed & Confused-sters of the Middle East. Nominally strict Muslims, some sneak cigarettes, date boys and engage in other behaviour that is technically haram (forbidden).

Ranged against (or sometimes, confusingly, alongside) them are the conservative anti-clip brigade. But increasingly they, too, Stratton discovers, worship the TV screen. Their idol is a swoonsome young accountant-turned-preacher called Amr Khaled, who appears on religious shows with 'young men and women, praying, crying and giving hearty, healthy belly laughs, as if they were in a vitamin-supplement advert'. Stratton is particularly scathing about Khaled, a well-fed BMW driver who announces, televangelist-style, that: 'I want to have money and the best clothes to make people love God's religion.' But it's only when she ditches her dream of finding the Arab Bob Dylan and focuses on Khaled's 'Life Makers' initiative that Muhajababes gains in pace and authority.

Capable of mobilising hundreds of thousands of young Muslims worldwide for causes ranging from the benign (collecting clothes for charity) to the sinister (berating smokers and drinkers in public), Khaled is the well-groomed face of a new, media-friendly conservative Islam that reviles the 'degrading display of women's bodies'.

Between the muhajababes and the Life Makers, there is little room for the handful of arty oddballs (including the gay Kuwaiti who provides the book's best line, 'There's no such thing as straight in Kuwait') to whom Stratton, as a liberal Westerner, is instinctively drawn. But this is the point. Social change in the Middle East won't be led, as Stratton - and many Western policy-makers - had hoped, by the secular trendies, but by those she dismissively describes as the 'Life Making, green-fingered, litter-collecting, I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing Arabs'. Muhajababes discovers a world in which religion is packaged and sold as slickly as a video clip. And the people behind the scenes are the same, too: Prince Al-Waleed has already diversified into an immensely popular new Islamic channel, Al-Risala ('The Message'). And it is not a conveniently distant world either: having been banned from preaching by the nervous Egyptian regime in 2002, Khaled now finds refuge in the UK and is soon, Stratton surmises, advising the British government on engaging with the Muslim world.

It is hard, as Muhajababes demonstrates, for secular observers to appreciate the genuine force of belief, however clumsily or confusedly it may be expressed. In the summer of 2004 when I was living in Cairo, I was surprised to meet engineering graduates who believed in djinn with green claws and veiled girls who swapped oral-sex tips. But with bombs falling in the Beirut streets that Stratton scoured fruitlessly for a trendier revolution, the region's latest crisis is a reminder that it's essential to try.

The Trinity