In "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell suggests that euphemism and vague, abstract, cliched, and partisan language weaken public discourse. Circumlocution is a sign of weak writing and weak thinking and leads to more weak writing and weak thinking. Orwell claims that language "becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." The state intentionally uses vague, euphemistic phrases like "elimination of undesirably elements" to avoid reality. We have an ethical imperative to write clear, honest prose so we don't internalize and repeat state-imposed, sometimes unethical slogans. This influential, sixty-year-old essay has become canonical in writing courses because it argues that bad writing has consequences.
We read this essay in my English 204 course yesterday and students really resonded to Orwell's critique of language and discourse. I shared the American example of "collateral damage," and a few students knew the phrase. I asked them to share further examples of euphemisms or abstractions. Initially, their examples were general: politicians use language that makes their own parties sound good. "Yes, but can you think of any specific phrases?" I gently pushed. Finally, specificity, as one student mentioned that Hezbollah uses the phrase "divine victory" when talking about their 2006 war with Israel. A valid, if uncomfortable, example. Part of me immediately regretted pushing for specific examples. The student explained (in very non-partisan fashion) that "divine victory" is an abstraction and hence fits Orwell's conception of vague political discourse, but I still hoped that his example would not cause unspoken conflicts in the very diverse class.
The experience reminded me of my own complicated position as a teacher and outsider. I'm comfortable in the U.S. "teaching the conflicts," that is, engaging students with controversial issues of the day in order to analyze the language used by politicians, media, social movement leaders, and everyday people, and formulate their own ideas and arguments about those issues. Lebanon is a different context and I'm mindful that my presence as a teacher from the West echoes colonialism in some ways. I have no intentions to convert, save, or impose a partisan belief system, but I do want to teach critical engagement with the English language, so experiences like this present certain challenges.
America has its Orwellian moments, from last month's congressional hearings on Muslim loyalty to the post-9/11 suspension of civil liberties in the name of security. Lebanon does too. On English-language tv stations, words like "gay" and "pork" are censored. Odd that an episode of "Glee" that centers on a gay, out, high school student (not to mention teen pregnancy) can air, but the WORD "gay" is censored. Likewise, cooking shows can broadcast people cooking and eating pork but the WORD itself is bleeped. A friend and AUB colleague did some research on state censorship and posted on his blog a very interesting list of banned films along with justification. The document apparently comes from a local DVD retailer and was given to the retailer by the state. Justifications vary from materials subject to boycotts and blacklists to materials considered obscene, anti-Christian, or anti-Islamic. Some of the justifications themselves are wildly anti-semitic. Many are Orwellian, insomuch as they use vague language to advance a political end.
About many of these matters I am still an outsider. I will always be something of an outsider by virtue of my nationality. But I'm beginning to learn about the issues and their contexts and I want very much to understand more deeply. You can learn a lot from reading. You can learn even more from being present in a place and interacting with real people. Perhaps one of the best ways to understand is to put the learning that happens via human interaction in conversation with the learning that happens from reading texts like Orwell's essay.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
"On This Earth" by Mahmoud Darwish
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: April's hesitation, the
aroma of bread
at dawn, a woman's point of view about men, the works of Aeschylus, the
beginning
of love, grass on a stone, mothers living on a flute's sigh and the invaders' fears
of memories.
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: the final days of
September, a woman
keeping her apricots ripe after forty, the hour of sunlight in prison, a cloud
reflecting a swarm
of creatures, the peoples' applause for those who face death with a smile,
a tyrant's fear of songs.
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: on this earth, the Lady
of Earth,
mother of all beginnings and ends. She was called Palestine. Her name
later became
Palestine. My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.
aroma of bread
at dawn, a woman's point of view about men, the works of Aeschylus, the
beginning
of love, grass on a stone, mothers living on a flute's sigh and the invaders' fears
of memories.
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: the final days of
September, a woman
keeping her apricots ripe after forty, the hour of sunlight in prison, a cloud
reflecting a swarm
of creatures, the peoples' applause for those who face death with a smile,
a tyrant's fear of songs.
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: on this earth, the Lady
of Earth,
mother of all beginnings and ends. She was called Palestine. Her name
later became
Palestine. My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Cafe Younes
Today I write at Cafe Younes. I work on two essays at once, toggling back and forth, composing and revising. Whereas most of Beirut prefers tiny cups of espresso or sludgy turkish or Arabic coffee, french presses rule here. We're close to campus and all things European carry cultural capital. I sit outside on Younes patio, drink my french press, breathe secondhand smoke. Old Arab men reading stacks of newspapers with stories about unrest in Syria, kidnapped Estonians in the Bekaa, and revolution in Libya smoke. Undergrads working on power point presentations smoke. A man who looks just like Javier Bardem and speaks what I'm pretty sure is a non-Lebanese Arabic dialect smokes. Round, mosaic tables. Free copies of the Guardian, International Herald-Tribune, Daily Star, and various Arabic papers. A brilliant place to write.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tony Departs
My blog has been quiet for the past ten days or so while our nephew Tony visited. Partly because I've been busy popping around from city-to-city in Lebanon and partly because Tony ought to tell his own stories of Middle Eastern adventures.
Last Sunday we hiked in the Batroun region, then spent Monday in the southern city of Tyre, probably my favorite place in the country. Tyre makes for a great do-it-yourself visit because people there are so social. The "far south" gets few American visitors due to proximity to Israel/Palestinian territories and hype about the dangers there, so a lot of people want to chat you up about where you're from. We visited the Roman ruins and I finally bought a big saj (a convex grill-like device commonly used to make various Lebanese streetfoods). Don't ask me how I'm going to get it back to the U.S. Family members: be sure to ask Tony about the horses and UNFiL troops in the hippodrome, and the litter of pups and ghost in the funerary complex.
Tuesday I taught all day so Nicole took Tony to the Beittedine Castle. Wednesday and Thursday we took two days to see the Christian coastal region: Nahr al Kalb, Jbeil (aka Byblos), Jounieh, Harissa (home of Our Lady of Lebanon), and Jeita. As promised, the telefrique to Harissa was a bit terrifying and the walk to the Jeita Grotto was tiring. Friday, Nicole, Tony, and I kept the d-i-y spirit alive and went to Tripoli and Batroun, cities in the north, and then out to drinks with Ghassan, a friend of mine with an MFA who Tony wanted to chat with about grad school decisions. Saturday, closer to Beirut for a soccer match at AUB, lunch at Aunti Selwa's (who knew she opened up on weekends?), and some much-needed catch-up on schoolwork.
Sunday, our pal Karine joined us for a day in Saida that included much falafel and a difficult-to-arrange-but-well-worth-it expedition to the Phoenician ruins of the god Eshmoun, a place nobody in Saida seemed to know of. Monday, out to Bekaa Valley for Baalbeck, Anjar, and the winery at Ksara; we did an organized tour which Tony didn't seem to find too "old lady"-ish, which is good, because those cities are a bit more difficult to access on your own. Sad to see Tony go. Any visit to Lebanon is too short. Have safe travels, T!
Last Sunday we hiked in the Batroun region, then spent Monday in the southern city of Tyre, probably my favorite place in the country. Tyre makes for a great do-it-yourself visit because people there are so social. The "far south" gets few American visitors due to proximity to Israel/Palestinian territories and hype about the dangers there, so a lot of people want to chat you up about where you're from. We visited the Roman ruins and I finally bought a big saj (a convex grill-like device commonly used to make various Lebanese streetfoods). Don't ask me how I'm going to get it back to the U.S. Family members: be sure to ask Tony about the horses and UNFiL troops in the hippodrome, and the litter of pups and ghost in the funerary complex.
Tuesday I taught all day so Nicole took Tony to the Beittedine Castle. Wednesday and Thursday we took two days to see the Christian coastal region: Nahr al Kalb, Jbeil (aka Byblos), Jounieh, Harissa (home of Our Lady of Lebanon), and Jeita. As promised, the telefrique to Harissa was a bit terrifying and the walk to the Jeita Grotto was tiring. Friday, Nicole, Tony, and I kept the d-i-y spirit alive and went to Tripoli and Batroun, cities in the north, and then out to drinks with Ghassan, a friend of mine with an MFA who Tony wanted to chat with about grad school decisions. Saturday, closer to Beirut for a soccer match at AUB, lunch at Aunti Selwa's (who knew she opened up on weekends?), and some much-needed catch-up on schoolwork.
Sunday, our pal Karine joined us for a day in Saida that included much falafel and a difficult-to-arrange-but-well-worth-it expedition to the Phoenician ruins of the god Eshmoun, a place nobody in Saida seemed to know of. Monday, out to Bekaa Valley for Baalbeck, Anjar, and the winery at Ksara; we did an organized tour which Tony didn't seem to find too "old lady"-ish, which is good, because those cities are a bit more difficult to access on your own. Sad to see Tony go. Any visit to Lebanon is too short. Have safe travels, T!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Tony Arrives
Nicole and I took Tony to Mayrig, an outstanding Armenian restaurant in the Gemmayzeh neighborhood of Beirut, a great meal for his first night in Lebanon. We shared dishes: a cucumber and tomato salad, grape leaves, cheese dumplings, sausage in a spicy red sauce, and a plate with three different types of kibbeh: lentil, potato, and raw lamb. To walk off at least part of the meal we walked to the city center from the restaurant and enjoyed the nighttime views of Downtown Beirut.
Speaking of walking off some calories, we got up bright and early for a "Vamos" hike through three mountain villages up north in the Batroun district: Smar Jbeil, Jrabata, and Sghar. I think Tony had a good time. We explored an old citadel, the monastery that houses the tomb of St. Rafqa, some high cliffs, and a 1,400-year-old Marian shrine that's a series of mountainside grottoes. Came home tired. Click here for pics.
Speaking of walking off some calories, we got up bright and early for a "Vamos" hike through three mountain villages up north in the Batroun district: Smar Jbeil, Jrabata, and Sghar. I think Tony had a good time. We explored an old citadel, the monastery that houses the tomb of St. Rafqa, some high cliffs, and a 1,400-year-old Marian shrine that's a series of mountainside grottoes. Came home tired. Click here for pics.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Miscelaneous Friday
Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, a piece of the West that unlike St. Valentine's Day has not made its way to Beirut. Nicole and I celebrated the holiday at the Lebanese Oriental Orchestra. Nothing salutes the Irish quite like listening to the oud.
Speaking of the West, Caribou Coffee on AUB's campus sells "finjehn ahwe" for about 6,000LL (four dollars). Across the street from the AUB's main gate, several shops sell amazing espresso for 1,000LL or a cup of "American coffee" for 1,500. One-fourth the price. Business booms at both.
Trying to get as much schoolwork as possible done today, because inshallah Nephew Tony arrives tomorrow to spend spring break in Lebanon. We'll probably visit many of the same places we went with my parents and sister, with some surprises thrown in for good mesaure. Stay tuned for updates.
Speaking of the West, Caribou Coffee on AUB's campus sells "finjehn ahwe" for about 6,000LL (four dollars). Across the street from the AUB's main gate, several shops sell amazing espresso for 1,000LL or a cup of "American coffee" for 1,500. One-fourth the price. Business booms at both.
Trying to get as much schoolwork as possible done today, because inshallah Nephew Tony arrives tomorrow to spend spring break in Lebanon. We'll probably visit many of the same places we went with my parents and sister, with some surprises thrown in for good mesaure. Stay tuned for updates.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Summarizing Rashid Khalidi
Khalidi, a leading scholar of Mideast Studies, visited AUB to discuss preliminary observations about the Arab revolutions. He called the revolutions in Egypt et al "unprecedented" because the movement on the ground has been peaceful and inward-looking. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, revolutionary movements in the region resisted colonialism. Recent movements are fighting oppressors who are Arab, though backed by outsiders (look with shame, for instance, at the American tear gas cannisters used against peaceful protestors).
Young protestors, Khalidi observed, assert democracy but also individual and collective dignity. Police state repression of civil rights assaults individual dignity, of course, but also had resulted in a collective malaise and defeatism in places like Egypt. The entire Mideast saw no democratic revolutions, no toppling of monarchies, no liberalization from within during recent decades. "Arab" identity, though not monolithic, has reasserted itself as a meaningful marker, he said. In the abstract, Arab revolutions have the same goals as liberal revolutions in the West: democracy and freedom; they echo the French and American revolutions. Although he acknowledged that we don't yet know whether sustainable change is occuring, Khalidi argued that the moment is fresh. And he pointed out the reactionary, not peaceful status quo is mobilizing--successfully in Libya.
Regarding the West, he suggested that the U.S. (and by extension Israel, to whom the U.S. gives money, weaponry, and support on the UN Security Council) is left wondering how the revolutions will affect its own interests. American foreign policy has long been torn between "ideals" (democracy) and "interests" (oil, support for Israel). Khalidi mentioned American knowledge of geography, history, and foriegn languages and the audience laughed before he could complete his thought. Interesting and telling moment. The rest of his thought: All that America doesn't know about the region and, by virtue of our singular ignorance of foriegn languages for example, world culture and geography ultimately benefit the status quo. Insular attitudes--Khalidi said most members of the House of Representatives don't have a passport--benefit the status quo. But, inescapable images of Arabs peacefully organizing for democracy and freedom threaten that status quo, he said. Business-as-usual and hegemony-as-usual in Washington becomes more difficult when Americans are at last exposed to positive images of Arabs.
Young protestors, Khalidi observed, assert democracy but also individual and collective dignity. Police state repression of civil rights assaults individual dignity, of course, but also had resulted in a collective malaise and defeatism in places like Egypt. The entire Mideast saw no democratic revolutions, no toppling of monarchies, no liberalization from within during recent decades. "Arab" identity, though not monolithic, has reasserted itself as a meaningful marker, he said. In the abstract, Arab revolutions have the same goals as liberal revolutions in the West: democracy and freedom; they echo the French and American revolutions. Although he acknowledged that we don't yet know whether sustainable change is occuring, Khalidi argued that the moment is fresh. And he pointed out the reactionary, not peaceful status quo is mobilizing--successfully in Libya.
Regarding the West, he suggested that the U.S. (and by extension Israel, to whom the U.S. gives money, weaponry, and support on the UN Security Council) is left wondering how the revolutions will affect its own interests. American foreign policy has long been torn between "ideals" (democracy) and "interests" (oil, support for Israel). Khalidi mentioned American knowledge of geography, history, and foriegn languages and the audience laughed before he could complete his thought. Interesting and telling moment. The rest of his thought: All that America doesn't know about the region and, by virtue of our singular ignorance of foriegn languages for example, world culture and geography ultimately benefit the status quo. Insular attitudes--Khalidi said most members of the House of Representatives don't have a passport--benefit the status quo. But, inescapable images of Arabs peacefully organizing for democracy and freedom threaten that status quo, he said. Business-as-usual and hegemony-as-usual in Washington becomes more difficult when Americans are at last exposed to positive images of Arabs.
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