Exile and the Prophetic:

Redeeming

the Christmas season?

by Marc H. Ellis on December 26, 2012

This post is part of Marc H. Ellis's "Exile and the Prophetic" feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

So what if there was a Christmas tree at Auschwitz. That doesn’t invalidate Christmas and its symbolism, does it?

Star of David helicopter gunships patrolling the Palestinian sky. That doesn’t invalidate the Star of David so many Jews wear around their neck, does it?

I agree. It doesn’t invalidate anything. It simply places violence and atrocity at the heart of that symbolism and what that symbolism points to.

At the heart of Christianity – and Islam – and Judaism – and modernity – is beauty and violence, a violence we partake in or suffer from.

All the religious symbols I know of are held hostage by their history of violence.

I include the symbolism that adorns modernity and our secular brethren who have their own variation of religion. Since Christianity has been severely disciplined over the centuries, losing – thank God – most of its temporal power, it is modernity and its symbolism that is called upon to justify itself. Like modernity’s progress – and where it has taken us. Like modernity’s technology – and where it has taken us. Like modernity’s social organization – and where it has taken us.

This doesn’t mean our modern salvation play is only bad, corrupt and murderous. Like Christianity and Islam, there are at least two sides to modernity’s coin. Nor can we go back behind our various religions as if there’s a way forward without them. There isn’t.

The same with Judaism and Jewishness? You bet. How sad it is to see us join the parade of religions. There’s no Jewish way back to a place of innocence.

Is there a way a forward? Does that way forward include reclaiming the rich and varied symbolism that what went before us?

If Christmas trees and Stars of David aren’t ‘innocuous,’ are they redeemable? Is it worth trying to redeem the symbols of modernity, the truly great world religion to which every head bows?

Instead of trying to redeem these religions, the need is to establish a justice that forces them to place themselves in the broader stream of life. There they might find strength to look within themselves. What they’ll find is violence. They might find the resources for healing, too.

Whatever the balance and however long it takes, to think that once involved in the cycle of violence and atrocity there is a place of innocence where all can begin again is the mistake of mistakes. It sets everyone up for a repetition, as if history has no lessons to teach or learn.

There’s something more troubling than recognizing violence in what one holds so dear. Once a religion has enabled destruction and death the major force of that religion is always be prone to that way of being in the world. Understanding this, a dissident believer might think it better to abolish their religion than to risk a repeat performance.

Thus the arrival of Christians, Muslims and Jews of Conscience. Those of conscience have to walk their way through the religious symbolism that makes way for violence and destruction. Can we accomplish that walk separately, encased in our own failed religions, or only together, keeping our violating symbolism hidden away?

Whether we like it or not, the exile we feel, the exile we have to undertake - in order to right the course of our inheritance that won’t be righted – that exile is permanent. It is more painful when Christian, Jewish and Muslim holyday symbolism is trotted out. Could there be anything more depressing than the holydays of Christmas, Yom Kippur and Ramadan for religious folks of conscience?

Religion’s holydays are so hypocritical they defy the imagination. Christmas is among them, only to be outdone by Easter. Yom Kippur is among them, only to be outdone by Passover.

Can you imagine celebrating the salvation when that celebration means disaster for others? Christians do.

Can you imagine celebrating your liberation when you are oppressing another people? Jews do.

Can you imagine celebrating the computer and cell phone paraphernalia as the global warms and the seas rise? We do.

Steve Jobs. Our messiah?

The state of Israel. Our redemption?

If there’s a way to redeem the Christmas season or any other religious season it would certainly be important to have a go at it. But, then, after all that reforming it might be exile all around.

Exile isn’t easy. It takes patience and solidarity.

It may be too much to invoke the prophetic amid the Christmas trees that surround us.

Especially in the (un)Holy Land.

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About Marc H. Ellis

Marc H. Ellis is an author, liberation theologian, and Distinguished Visiting Professor, University for Peace, Costa Rica.

Black Warrior, Roman Soldier Image of the Week: This statue of patron saint Maurice shows the empire's relative lack of racial bias. By: Image of the Black in Western Art Archive  Posted: December 18, 2012

 

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Reliquary statue of St. Maurice. Heiltumsbuch, 1525-27,
parchment. (Aschaffenburg, Hofbibliothek, ms. 14, fol. 227, v.)

(The Root) -- This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. 

According to tradition, Maurice was a Roman soldier who was martyred for the Christian faith in the late third century. By the early 10th century, he had become the patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire. His military prowess and stalwart faith exemplified the twin goals of territorial conquest and religious conversion fired by imperial ambition. The personification of the empire by a black man reveals a relative lack of racial prejudice in Europe before the onset of the slave trade. Just as significantly, it relates to the multifaceted ethnicity of the empire, with its face set toward far-off lands.

The work represented here depicts the saint as a life-size reliquary made from a real suit of armor and holding an actual flag, sword and ostrich-plumed hat. It was commissioned by Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Magdeburg, the center of the cult of St. Maurice in Germany. After an existence of less than 20 years, this marvelous object was melted down to relieve the massive debt incurred by the archbishop in his crusade against the rising tide of Protestantism.

The Image of the Black in Western Art Archive resides at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. The director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute is Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is also The Root's editor-in-chief. The archive and Harvard University Press collaborated to create The Image of the Black in Western Art book series, eight volumes of which were edited by Gates and David Bindman and published by Harvard University Press. Text for each Image of the Week is written by Sheldon Cheek.

 

Cab Calloway, seen here in 1955, was born on Christmas day in 1907 to a teacher mother and lawyer father who were not thrilled that he dropped out of law school to pursue his musical career. Thankfully, the music thing worked out for him (and us!) in the end!

Photo: Express Newspapers/Getty Images.

CAB CALLOWAY

Watch the Full Documentary

A singer, dancer and bandleader, Cab led one of the most popular African American big bands during the jazz and swing eras of the 1930s-40s, with Harlem’s famous Cotton Club as his home stage. Best known for his “Hi de hi de hi de ho” refrain from signature song “Minnie the Moocher,” portrayal of Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess (1952), and role in The Blues Brothers (1980), Cab influenced countless performers, including Michael and Janet Jackson, and many of today’s hip-hop artists.

Watch the full one hour documentary Cab Calloway: Sketches below.

<p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 600px;">Watch Cab Calloway: Sketches on PBS. See more from American Masters.</p>

SOULFUL CHRISTMAS MIX

So, no chestnuts literally roasting on an open fire… but I did just slip a Lemon Pound Cake in the oven! Although it’s been said many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!

Call for Book Chapters:

Ni Wakati:

Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa

  

Posted on December 12, 2012 by sociolingo

The transformative impact of hip hop on African youth

Call for Book Chapters: Ni Wakati: Hip Hop and Social Change in Africa
Editors: Msia Kibona Clark, PhD and Mickie Mwanzia Koster, PhD

The proposed book intends to examine social change in Africa through the lens of hip hop music and culture. The book will look at contemporary social movements and social change in Africa and the participation of African youth through the production and utilization of hip hop music and culture. The notion “Ni Wakati” (It is time) frames the urgency of the revolutionary lyrics and messages.

The book will explore the transformative impact that hip hop has had on African youth, who have in turn emerged to push for social change on the continent. Hip hop music has done more than serve as a soundtrack to social change, it has also galvanized youth participation and amplified youth voices. Hip hop artists are also participating in social movements and pushing social change. These artists and youth are using hip hop culture as a space within which they inform, discuss and develop challenges to societal institutions, expectations, and mores.

Needed are chapters that relate to the intersection of social change and hip hop in Africa. Suggested topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Legacies of independence struggles and African hip hop

• African hip hop artists in the veneration of African heroes and leaders (such as Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Steve Biko, etc)

• The role of hip hop in calls for political change in Africa

• The role of women in hip hop in Africa

• Hip hop’s challenge and/or maintenance of gender oppressions in Africa

• African female hip hop artists and gender activismbayeba

• Hip hop artists as agents of social change in Africa

• Hip hop responses to conflict in Africa

• Hip hop and social resistance in Africa

• Hip hop and confrontations with African social institutions

• The role of hip hop (artists, culture and/or music) in contemporary social movements in Africa

Abstract Submission Guidelines: Interested contributors should send a 200-300 word abstract for consideration to Dr. Mickie Mwanzia Koster at mickie@mwanzia.com, no later than March 1, 2013. Submissions should include the abstract of the proposed chapter and the CV(s) of the author(s).

Book Timeline
The deadline for submitting abstracts is March 1, 2013
The deadline for submitting book chapter drafts is June 24, 2013

Editors
Dr. Msia Kibona Clark, California State University, Los Angeles. Mclark7@calstatela.edu
Dr. Mickie Mwanzia Koster, University of Texas, Tyler. Mickie@mwanzia.com

Suggested Books

• Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World (African Expressive Cultures)

Hip Hop Africa explores a new generation of Africans who are not only consumers of global musical currents, but also active and creative participants.

• Native Tongues: An African Hip-hop reader

Native Tongues reminds the world that Africa is not a country. This diverse anthology draws readers attention to the fact that African hip-hop is rich, multi-layered and incisive in its engagement with postcolonial issues in the age of Empire.

CFP : 14th Annual Researching Africa Day Workshop, Oxford 2013

  

Posted on December 14, 2012 by sociolingo

Call For Papers for the 14th Annual Researching Africa Day Workshop

Researching Africa Day provides graduate students with the opportunity to network with fellow researchers, exchange information, discuss research strategies and develop ideas in a constructive, stimulating and engaging environment. The workshop is open to all graduates working on Africa within the disciplines of history, politics, economics, development studies, literature, anthropology, social policy, geography, public health and the natural sciences.

Saturday, 23rd February 2013, St Antony’s College, Oxford

Contact: Ed Teversham edward.teversham@stx.ox.ac.uk

 

St Antony’s College (Photo credit: daniel villar onrubia)

 

The title of this year’s workshop is:

Researching Africa: The Flow of Research?

This year’s workshop interrogates the process of researching Africa. We hope to explore how research progresses, as well as examine the issues and obstacles that confront researchers at various stages. We aim to question the idea that research always follows a sequence that begins in the library and ends on the word processor. We have divided the workshop into four panels that follow the accepted chronology of research, and we invite papers that either investigate these stages (from the
acquisition of material to its presentation), or challenge their relationship to one another, in order to understand the ‘flow’ of research as it actually is.

The four panels are outlined as follows:

1) Accessing
How do we access material? From gaining ethical clearance, to finding our ‘field sites’ and negotiating
‘gatekeepers’, what issues and difficulties do we experience as researchers in Africa?

2) Acquiring
How do we acquire material? From archives and life histories, to images and data-sets, what choices does the researcher make in the process of collection?

3) Interrogating
How do we interrogate our material? From grounding personal experience to the application of theory, how do we make sense of what we have gathered during fieldwork?

4) Presenting
How do we present our material? From the format to the content, what dilemmas are faced and what impact do we make as researchers?

* * * * *

We invite papers on the panels outlined above. Presentations should be between 12 and 15 minutes, followed by a discussion between the panelists and the audience. Please send a title and abstract of your paper of 200 words by 25th January 2013.

Ed Teversham
edward.teversham@stx.ox.ac.uk

We welcome participation from students beyond Oxford. While the cost of travel is not normally reimbursed, appeals for assistance with travel expenses will be considered in exceptional circumstances. We have limited funding and encourage speakers to pursue funding opportunities at their home institutions first. Accommodation for those who wish to stay the night may be available at certain colleges at your own expense.

Suggested Book

• Emotional and Ethical Challenges for Field Research in Africa: The Story Behind the Findings

Presenting their personal accounts, a variety of researchers who have done field research in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa explore the challenges faced when engaging in local-level research in difficult situations.

Call for Submissions:

FNCL Essay Prize on

Cinema of Latin America

and the Caribbean 2012

The New Latin American Film Foundation [La Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (FNCL)], with the collaboration of the National Center for Autonomous Cinematography of Venezuela [Centro Nacional Autónomo de Cinematografía de Venezuela (CNAC)] announce the Award for Essay on Cinema of Latin America and the Caribbean, with the purpose of encouraging the study, cultural diffusion and production of essays on cinema and audiovisual production in Central America and the Caribbean. The deadline for this contest is January 31, 2013. The winning essay will be chosen by an international jury and will be announced as part of the 53rd edition of the International Film Festival of Cartagena de Indias, to be held from February 21 to 27, 2013.

Participants may include essayists, historians, and scholars of any country, provided the subject matter is appropriate to the theme of the film and audiovisual production of Central America and the Caribbean. Another theme also considered valid for this contest is work on the activity of minority groups in Latin American culture.

Submission Guidelines:
The essay will address, in a free and creative form, any aspect of the values ​​bequeathed by Central American and Caribbean cinema. Essayists may use any method necessary in the development of the work, provided that they comply with the aforementioned thematic limitation. Minimum length is 150 pages (double-spaced in Arial 12 font). Papers must be unpublished and presented for the contest in Spanish.
Each entry must be accompanied by:

a) A photocopy of the registration of intellectual property law of the author’s country of origin or residence.

b) Author’s letter accepting the publication of the essay in case of obtaining the prize, giving the organizers publishing rights for one year.

Submissions must include three hard copies of the essay—the original and two copies—and one copy in digital format (in Word or another commonly used medium). The submissions should be sent to the headquarters of the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema (see below). Essay must be accompanied by a page, enclosed in a separate envelope, noting the title and author’s pseudonym; in another envelope labeled with the pseudonym should include related data: the title, the author’s name, and Curriculum Vitae. The organizers are not responsible for returning of the essays.

La Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano [Foundation of New Latin American Cinema] is a nonprofit private cultural institution. It was created with the purpose of contributing to the development and integration of Latin American cinema, achieving a broader common audiovisual universe, and aiding the recovery and strengthening Latin American and Caribbean cultural identity. Founded by the Committee on Latin American Filmmakers (C-CAL) on December 4, 1985, it is composed of filmmakers from eighteen countries and is chaired by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.

Address:
Fundación del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano
Quinta Santa Bárbara, Calle 31 y 212,
Rpto. La Coronela, La Lisa. La Habana, Cuba  Zip Code: 11500

Phone numbers: 537 2718976, 537 2718141, 537 271 7379; Fax: 537 273 6364

Email: direccion@fncl.cult.cu

For more information, you may visit www.cinelatinoamericano.org

For original call for submissions (in Spanish), see http://www.cinelatinoamericano.org/convocatoria.aspx?cod=519

Short Eyes

Sir Andre Bemler

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Miguel “Mikey” Piñero was born on December 19, 1946 in Gurabo, Puerto Rico. In 1950 he moved with his family to New York’s Lower East Side. He was convicted of his first crime, theft, at 11, and was sent to juvenile detention. At 18, Mikey was caught robbing a jewelry store and landed in Rikers Island. He picked up a dope habit while in prison.

In 1972, Piñero was sentenced to Sing Sing prison for second-degree armed robbery. While doing time, as part of the inmates playwriting workshop, he wrote the classic play Short Eyes, the story of a pedophile (a “short eyes” in prison slang, considered by inmates to be the lowest of the low) who gets sent to the Tombs in NYC on a rape charge. New York Times theater critic Mel Gussow came to see it; the director of the Theater at Riverside Church read Gussow’s rave review and had Piñero put up the play when he was paroled in 1973.

Theater impresario Joseph Papp saw the play and was so impressed that he moved the production to The Public Theater. Short Eyes was nominated for six Tony Awards. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award for the “best play of the year.” Piñero became an overnight literary sensation, and Hollywood clamored for the talents of the troubled young man who brought the street with him.

In 1977, Short Eyes was turned into a film directed by Robert M. Young. In the film Piñero played the part of Go-Go, a prisoner. Mikey, a lifelong dopefiend, just couldn’t stay out of trouble. While on set, he and Tito Goya were arrested for armed robbery and were arraigned in the same building where they were filming.

He wrote a bunch of TV scripts, and had supporting roles in a number of films, most notably the must-see Fort Apache, The Bronx (1981), alongside Paul Newman. He also played the part of drug lord Esteban Calderone in several episodes of TV series Miami Vice in 1984, as well as writing the episode “Smuggler’s Blues” in the same year. But through it all, Mikey remained a junky, and continuously trolled the streets of the Lower East Side on an endless search for dope. As he once confessed to this reporter, he preferred “selling works on Avenue D than hanging out at Michael Mann’s pool with a bunch of topless starlets”. At that same time, he also said his internal organs were shot and he had 18 months to live. I asked him how he knew that, and he said, “Doctor gave me 6 months, so I figure I can last 18.” He died on June 16, 1988, about 18 months later, from cirrhosis.

Sensitive Skin is proud to present the rarely-seen film Short Eyes in its entirety. Starring Piñero, Bruce Davison, a very young Luis Guzman, with cameos by Curtis Mayfield and Freddy Fender, plus almost every miscreant, junky and second-story man who spent any time on the Lower East Side in the early ’70s. (As the novelist Joel Rose informed me in 1986, “every one of those guys is dead.”) It’s one of the most realistic portrayals of prison life ever to make it to the screen. A great film based on a great play. Enjoy.

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Watch a Tribute to

Dave Chappelle,

Using Only Sound Bites

From Dave Chappelle

 

This powerful, touching short features sound bites from Dave Chappelle meant to remind you why Dave Chappelle is the only Dave Chappelle to fill Dave Chappelle's shoes.

• By Eliot Glazer