Ways of 'reading' and the myth of neutrality.

In this post I want to talk about some important critical frameworks that enabled me to closely ‘read’ Persepolis and Baghdad Burning. My previous post illustrated how crucial it is to not only reflect on the issues raised in the content of these texts, such as Satrapi’s discourse on ‘the veil’, but also how we, the reader,  are implicated in these texts. Through a series of complex cross- cultural discourses the reader is engaging certain representations of  ‘East’ and ‘West’ often without conscious awareness or intention. I have borrowed the above title ‘Ways of ‘Reading’ to make a specific reference to John Berger’s seminal text  ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972).  I can’t include all of the content that I found useful here but you can view the television series adapted from his work ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfB-pUm3eI).  In        ‘ Ways of Seeing’ Berger argues that ‘we never look just at one thing, we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves’ (quoted in Rose 2002, p. 12). What Berger is elucidating in his theory of ‘seeing’ also applies to ways of ‘reading’. Whenever a  ‘Western’ audience is engaged in reading a contemporary Middle Eastern text such as Persepolis and Baghdad Burning, it is crucial to identify how we (the reader) are complicit in particular constructions of the ‘Eastern’ other.  Gillian Whitlock elaborates on Berger’s claim by suggesting that‘ life narratives are constantly caught up in circuits of self – construction, where Islam is objectified as the obverse of Euro- American societies, driving a constant creation and re- creation of imaginary boundaries between ‘we’ and ‘others’ (2007, p. 8).  Certain critical discourses are thus called into the foreground to illuminate some of the complexities associated with autobiographical production and consumption.  Chandra Talpade Mohanty observes that ‘the existence of Third World women’s narratives in itself is not evidence of decentring hegemonic histories and subjectivities’ (2003,p.77).  She claims emphatically that ‘ it is the way that they are read, understood and located institutionally that is of paramount importance’ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 77).  What is being illuminated here is that as a reader we are never simply a passive, objective or neutral consumer of the text.  These new autobiographies thus point to the necessity of an active, engaged and critical readership of the political content being expressed to identify both subtle and overt mechanisms of institutional oppression.

One crucial term that has undoubtedly informed both the style and content of Satrapi’s and Riverbend’s work is the contextual framework that shapes their lives and can be attributed to a globalised post-modern world. Manfred Steger defines globalisation as ‘ a set of social processes that create, stretch, multiply and intensify worldwide interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of the local and the distant’ (2004, p. 13). The force of globalisation has clearly had an effect in these contemporary autobiographical narratives.  This impact is not only expressed by the authors in their textual content but also in their respective stylistic mediums .The fact that Riverbend is able to create a virtual ‘I’ utilising the world- wide web to speak back from war-torn Baghdad, indicates both the scope and the breadth of a globalised economy. This new literary form affords Riverbend the ability to reach an audience instantaneously.  She seizes this opportunity to actively exploit her autobiographical  ‘self’ through this technological hybrid form. Riverbend is aware that the setting up of this online space can potentially enable her some transformative agency through her acts of testimony. Whitlock adds that ‘these texts are enmeshed and active with conflicts utilising a globalised framework to make pertinent the fact that certain lives are at risk in the here and now’ (2007, p. 9).  Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis examines the effects of globalisation and the interconnectedness of local and global exchange in the chapter ‘Kim Wilde’.  Here  the young adolescent  Marji takes to the streets of Tehran searching for’ Western’ music while wearing a pair of Nikes, a denim jacket and a Michael Jackson badge.

 

                                                         (Image:  Satrapi, 2003 p.133)

Satrapi uses her graphic illustrations to draw attention to the shifting of cross-cultural borders in a contemporised post-modern world.  In frames such as the one above, Persepolis challenges any absolute or cohesive distinction between ‘East’ and ‘West’, instead illustrating that through the process of globalisation these dichotomies become increasingly blurred.  Satrapi intelligently deconstructs the perception of a singular monolithic nation state and suggests that neither the ‘we’ nor the ‘they’ are as self contained and homogenous as we/they once appeared.  Renato Rosaldo elaborates that ‘all of us inhabit a Twenty First Century world, which is at once marked with borrowing and lending across porous cultural boundaries and saturated with inequality , power and domination’ ( Rosaldo  1988. p, 87).

Persepolis and Baghdad Burning when read with an active and critical engagement can offer a diverse understanding of meanings that pertain to inequality, power and domination.  Certain crucial social theories, particularly postcolonial theory, draw attention to the ongoing construction of the ‘Eastern’  ‘other’.  Terms such as exoticism and orientalism illuminate the various cultural mechanisms that are associated with the  ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomous discourses. It is vital to critique the ways that texts such as Persepolis and Baghdad Burning have the potential to contribute to postcolonial concerns - in opening new spaces for exchange and dialogue - as well as simultaneously containing the potential to  re -engage the stereotypical and mythic eastern subject (Whitlock, 2007). Graham Huggans theory of ‘exoticism’ is useful here for he stresses that 'objects, places and people are not inherently ‘exotic” and “strange” but, rather, exoticism is a particular way of manufacturing otherness' (2001. p. 13) Contemporary Middle Eastern voices such as Marjane Satrapi’s and Riverbend’s have thus not only been marginalised due to their particular cultural circumstances and socio - political contexts but also through the reproduction of systems of ‘otherness’ circulating in Western discourses and rendering certain voices silent, unknowable and radically ‘other’ .  Edward Said elaborates that 'the binary opposition between the Orient (the East) and the Occident (the  West) is not only a means to a set of boundaries between self and other, but also a representation that is interlocked with the will to have power over those others' (Said 1979,  p. 71).  In my next post I will explore how these new literary forms are being embraced to facilitate and enable acts of testimony during times of social and political upheaval. I will discuss the ways that these two female authors, through their unique textual expressions, have opened necessary spaces for dialogue that speaks to the ‘everydayness’ -both the ordinary and the extraordinary - of women living in the contemporary Middle East.

Ban the Burka?? - Contemporary debates on the 'veil'

I have been thinking more and more about the 'veil' and how this issue has become so prevalent in contemporary debates between' East' and 'West'. I touched on this briefly in my previous post and have decided to post some images and links  to give the debate a contemporary context. I hope these images speak more that the words i could write on this page

                                                        Image 1. (www. sheikyermami.com)

Image 2. (www.thewestislamandsharia.blogspot.com)

                                                          Image 3. ( www.article.wn.com)

                                                      Image 4. ( www.itsallmaya.com)

                                                  Image 5. (www.frontpagemag.com)

              

                                                   
                                                         Image 6. ( www.ibloga.blogspot.com)

                                          Image 8. (www.barenakedislam.wordpress.com)

 France and Belgium see the wearing of the Muslim burka as so oppositional to the principles of  secularisation  and democracy that the 'veil' is no longer able to be worn in public spaces ( see news link) http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/07/officials-france-burqa-ban-legal-law-goes-into-effect-immediately/


Italy is also moving towards the same idea ( see link) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8049108/Italy-move-to-ban-the-burka.html

This banning of the burka is potentially only going to inflame tensions more. To prohibit this religious garment signifies the continued  divide between Islam  and the 'West'.

Satrapi and 'The Veil'

Satrapi begins her autobiographical graphic novel Persepolis with the bold and pertinent title 'The Veil’. Whitlock elaborates that the announcement of  ‘The Veil'  is mixed with high drama and irony  synonymous with Satrapi’s style of expression' (2007, p. 189).  In this opening chapter the young Marji receives the 'veil' with childlike irreverence taking the item and immediately finding alternatives for its use. These initial frames illustrate Marji’s playfulness and youthful rebelliousness, as well as the beginning of her resistance to impeding totalitarian control. She and her school mates begin to use the newly acquired 'veil' as toys consciously subverting the authority in which it is imposed.  The adult narrator Satrapi utilises a child’s perspective showing how it is possible to dilute some of the significance attached of the object, elucidating that the 'veil's' meanings can shift and be re-reinterpreted from different perspectives. As Whitlock argues 'Satrapi uses the child’s view to cut things into size and put the ‘veil’ into a different frame' ( 2007, p. 190). Satrapi resists stereotyping the imposition of the ‘veil’ and instead illustrates a complex view of the religious garment within her black and white frames.  Satrapi uses her simple graphics to complicate the site of veiling by offering a visual representation that refuses to render the girls as singular or  unidentifiable. Chandra Talpade Mohanty's theory about the ongoing production of the monolthic singular subject of the Third World woman for Western consumption is useful here. She argues ' outside history and unchanging , this woman remains the  passive and powerless subject, unable to represent herself' ( Mohanty, 2003, p. 35).  Satrapi's illustrations refutes the passive and powerless subject by imbuing her images with marked individuality (see the image below). She does this subtly through the raising of an eyebrow or the showing of the hair thus disrupting the western construction of  singularity and embracing a code of plurality. Satrapi complicates this imposition of the 'veil' by simultaneously nominating it it as a oppressive garment while also elucidating the possibilities of the ‘veil’ as a site of resistance, challenging authoritarian control. Thus Satrapi's decision to open the novel with the title  ‘ The Veil’ reveals her identity as adult narrator capable of offering diverse understandings of the meanings attached to it and  the ways it continues to be a great signifiers of cultural difference between 'East and the 'West'.  Nahibi and O’Malley point out that 'the visual image of the veiled child can be particularly disturbing from some perspectives: a dissonant combination of the familiar (the universal cartoonish figure of the child) and the strange (the veiled and radical other)' ( 2005 p. 11). This dissonance effect occurs throughout Satrapi's novel and especially in her discourse of the 'veil', thus the assumptions of recognition and familiarity experienced by a Western reader are constantly undermined by the interjection of culturally specific and unfamiliar references.

 

                                                        ( Image Satrapi, 2003, p.3)

What seems to be of most concern in contemporary discourses on the ‘veil’ in 'Western' societies (and there are many in current circulation)  - is largely due to significant cultural differences and particularly the ways that this difference is constructed as  ‘other’. According to Leila Ahmed ' the veil is never just an item of clothing, it is a signifier which is ‘pregnant with meaning’ ( 1992, p.166). The imposition of Islamic veiling under the totalitarian regime  in Iran in 1979 this a very different situation to Muslim women living in the 'West' who are free to actively participate in the wearing of the garment and often do so with pride,  as  it reflects their religious identity. This is an important distinction to make and marks a substantial divide in the discourse of equality and rights  that is coming from a largely western liberal feminist perspective. As Chandra Mohanty observes, 'the veil marks the limits and limitations of western feminist thinking about agency and cultural difference. She continues that the figure of the woman in the veil returns to haunt feminism with seemingly intractable cultural difference' (Mohanty, 2003). Satrapi, while not claiming to be a feminist, uses Persepolis to illustrate the ways that patriarchy and fundamentalist Islam become inextricably entwined in Iran after the revolution in 1979. Below is an excerpt from an interview with Satrapi illustrating this point).

Satrapi:  "You see, the basic problem of a country like mine, apart from the regime, apart from the government, is the patriarchal culture that is leading my country. That is the worst. That is why the government is still there. Whatever it touches, it gives its interpretation of the thing. When it touches psychology it says that the woman is more sensitive than the man. When it touches the medicine it says that our brain is a little less weight than the man’s. When it touches anything it gives its own interpretation, and the interpretation goes towards politics, towards religion, towards everything. So that is the situation. You know, the feminists become very angry when I say I am not a feminist. I am a humanist. I believe in human beings. After what I have seen in the world, I don’t think women are better than the men" ( Tully, 2004). 

For Satrapi this merging of  patriarchy and the totalitarian state of Iran is a systemic problem that makes its most visible and unapologetic expression through the imposition of the 'veil'.  Satrapi elucidates in Persepolis that it was Iranian women in particular whose spatial geography became radically restructured under the Khomeini regime. For the young Marji then the 'veil' increasingly becomes a symbol of oppression that 'radically transforms relations between public and private space violently and in gendered terms'( Whitlock, 2007, p. 164). This veiling of the body is bound up in the overt sexualising and objectification of women in Iran under a hyper- masculine political regime. Young Marji is a child who bares witness to the beginnings of a political and religious ideological war, one that holds specific and violent ideals of gender at its core.  These violent ideals of gender radically alters young Marji’s every day life. It changes who she is as a person, as well as her family and the people she loves.  In a later chapter titled 'The Trip' we (the reader) see the Satrapi family sitting in front of their television; an image reflecting how everyday familial experiences are complicated by extreme socio -poilitical conditions. The adult narrator Marjane Satrapi shares with the reader that the conversations that were occurring in her household were anything but 'normal' and were often about survival. She writes ' and so to protect women from all the potential rapists they decreed that wearing the veil was obligatory'  (Satrapi, 2003, p. 74) In this chapter Satrapi also complicates the public separation of women and men in Iran through the adorning the 'veil'. She acknowledges that it is not only women who are constructed in limited reductive ways under a totalitarian regime. She argues that when woman bodies become framed  as ‘other’  and in highly sexual terms,  ‘modern’ men, such as her father,  become  simultaneously represented as sexual predators.  Her fathers speech bubble captures this process of interpellation when he exclaims’  ‘incredible, they think all men are perverts’ (Satrapi, 2003 p.74). 


The graphic autobiography Persepolis is undoubtedly a  highly political novel producing images and text that reflect Satrapi's political/historical/religious context in Iran.  However, Persepolis is also very much a personal coming of age narrative that mediates between the political and the personal seamlessly, weaving her everyday experiences with discourses of war and oppression. Satrapi engages the discourse of the 'veil' in her graphic illustrations as one of the most immediate signifiers of her personal and political landscape. Although this story is largely told through the perspective of a child, Satrapi draws on the retrospective awareness afforded in her adult identity as a French/ Iranian woman. Marjane Satrapi in undoubtedly a woman who is well aware of the contemporary nature of the debate of the 'veil' within secular democratic societies. The 'veil'  continues to have important and changing meanings in both 'Eastern' and 'Western' discourses  and Satrapi reminds us of the nature of these conflicting debates that  intersect with both the personal and political formation of one's identity.

                                                                          (Image Satrapi, 2003. p. 6)