On the Arab world and racial discourse

Friday, June 20, 2008
L'Institut du Monde Arabe and Restaurant de la Mosquée de Paris

It has been said that, of all the topics to avoid in polite company, race and religion rank the most highly. Such trivial minutiae of etiquette, however, apparently do not apply at L’Institut du Monde Arabe. (Or perhaps we’ve simply failed to reach polite-company status. But I think not.)

The first activity was a guided tour of the institute. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the building was quite unique. (Joan from DC just made a quick cameo in my subconscious solely to remind me that uniqueness does not exist, inherent proof that Humanity in Action has already left an indelible imprint. But I digress.) Equipped with computer-controlled shutters, the windows of the institute emphasize what the tour guide described as the Arab desire to “see without being seen.”

Soon we moved on to other issues. Of most interest to me personally was the distinction stressed between the oft-confused Arab and Islamic worlds. The Arab League defines an Arab as “a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples.” (Merci beaucoup, Wikipedia.) It is a depressing social commentary that so few casual observers in the Western world seem to grasp the significance of the above statement’s omission of religious language. While the region generally referred to as ‘Arab’ is predominantly comprised of Muslims, the Islamic world encompasses a far greater geographical and ethnic spectrum. However, in our desperation to comprehend the ‘post-9/11 era,’ a tragic oversimplification of two overlapping yet quite distinct people-groups has become the status quo. Ironically, America’s understanding of Muslims and Arabs today could be seen as more primitive now than pre-9/11: then, we remained blissfully unaware; now, our rapidly constructed paradigms have dogmatically attached us to dangerous fallacies. Islam has been carelessly branded as inherently militant; the term jihad has been mutilated beyond recognition; Arabs are frequently associated with extremism and fundamentalism. Fear and anxiety have driven us to illogical conclusions, and these untruths have helped to trigger the mutual negative sentiments between countless Western and Middle Eastern peoples. “Know thy enemy” indeed.

Following the tour, we spoke with Ouerdia Oussedik, who discussed the various faces of L’Institut du Monde Arabe. Broadly defining the institute’s role as the spread of knowledge of the Arab world, Oussedik then detailed the various methods and programs used towards that end. Education was highlighted; specialists and guest lecturers appear every week to speak on Islam in France, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other relevant contemporary issues. These events are complemented by weekly literary discussions, a magazine, language and culture classes, etc.

The last event of the day took place at Restaurant de la Mosquée de Paris. Claude Grunitzky of Trace Magazine, at times vacillating between courage and naïveté, plugged his personal brand of ‘transculturalism.’ (Incidentally, he also shamelessly plugged his book of the same title, leading me to conclude that while perhaps racially-defined identities may someday become passé, authors of all races are forever doomed to collective homogeneity.)

Grunitzky called for a new epoch, one in which identity – both of self and others – would transcend race and describe choices, interests, and experiences instead. But while he envisioned a world in which Barack Obama could be appreciated for his policies, ambition, and charisma without being confined to a racial paradigm, I doubt that such a moment could ever arrive without first traversing the uncomfortable racial overemphasis America is undergoing in the current election cycle. It would be ludicrous to suggest that we could ever achieve authentic trans-racial egalitarianism without first lauding the painful, halting steps necessary to initiate it. Ignoring Obama’s race today would be allowing one of the crowning achievements of the past forty years of civil rights triumphs to slip by without the fanfare appropriate to its monumental nature.

And yet I am reluctant to charge Grunitzky with ignorance. It seems unlikely, given his understanding of America’s recent racial history, that he has somehow failed to understand the inevitability of its current obsession with race. Instead, what is somewhat more irritating is his lack of clarity on the actual destination of the Western world’s awkward, lumbering move towards ‘transculturalism.’ Although he provided a concise (and yet vague) definition of the term – the ability to transcend cultural borders – he was considerably less transparent in regards to his hope for what he termed a “post-black” world.

Once Grunitzky commenced with his description(s) of post-blackness, the discussion quickly devolved into a question of language. The students were divided over exactly what such a term entailed. Initially, it appeared that Grunitzky’s post-blackness referred to a sort of social utopia in which individuals would be defined by what they do. This world would be virtually devoid of racial discourse, not out of denial but out of its eventual irrelevance. In defense of the potential for such a reality, Grunitzky used Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey as two examples of public figures who are no longer characterized by their race.

Not everyone felt that Grunitzky had advocated the utter abolition of racial identity, however. Perhaps, some argued, his was simply a plea for a moratorium on the pervasive gross racial mischaracterizations common to popular culture (and exemplified by Hollywood). Only after we finally tire of these inane typecasts could we begin a genuine discourse on our racial similarities and particularities.

Which post-blackness, then, was Claude Grunitzky advocating? His seeming unwillingness to be confined to one specific definition was aggravating. However, other comments he made during the course of his lecture seemed to indicate that his version of post-blackness referred more to abolition of race-based identity than simply to an eradication of pejorative depictions of minorities in the media. His reflections on his frustration with a lack of acceptance among the African-American community in the States, his persistent feelings of being an outsider in Togo, and his struggles with identity crisis while in France all appeared to correspond to a desire to eliminate race as a defining characteristic and replace it with more relevant categories.

Could such an era ever arrive, though? Would it truly be beneficial to discard all notions of race in favor of alternative criteria? Aside from the proposition’s obvious idealism, there exists also an inherent danger that, in attempting to diminish the history of racial culture, one could actually create more confusion as a result.

Another fascinating aspect of Friday’s discussion was the way in which language played such a crucial role in framing the discourse. It provided much material for later reflection, and I couldn’t help but marvel at just how much gravity is often assigned to word choice – and by extension, I wondered if such attention to detail is simply a responsible prerequisite for fruitful discussion, or at least partially the product of our fragmented society’s collective inability to move past the safety of politically correct nitpicking. (I’m inspired mostly by our debates over the term “post-blackness,” but the linguistic phenomenon extends much farther than this.) While the value of carefully chosen terminology is nonnegotiable, I must admit that I often grow weary of debating language instead of the case itself on its own merits. Maybe I’m just lazy…which is precisely the same reason that I’ve decided to stop writing this post in the middle of a thought.