German international magazine, der spiegel, publishes a dossier about Trump's presidency, the illustrative image is astounding

German international magazine, der spiegel, publishes a dossier about Trump's presidency, the illustrative image is astounding

    Saturday, February 04, 2017   No comments

 ISR comment: The image illustrating the cover dossier of “Der Spiegel,” a leading magazine out of Germany, a country that knows firsthand the consequences of being ruled by populist authoritarians, is astounding. It speaks to the power of art in capturing the moment. Its selection for the cover of the magazine underscores the role of the media and journalism in society during challenging times.
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Donald Trump has now been president of the United States for two weeks. It literally pains me to write about all that has happened in these first days. The president of the U.S. is a racist. He is attempting a coup from the top; he wants to establish an illiberal democracy, or worse; he wants to undermine the balance of power.

With his style of rule -- his decrees, his appointments and his firings -- he is dividing Washington and the rest of the country. Our cover story this week, which will be published in English on Monday, describes how Trump's inner circle works and how insecurity has grown among government officials. It sheds light on the role of Stephen Bannon, the former head of the right-wing news portal Breitbart News, who has become Trump's Faust, his chief ideologue and the man pulling the strings in the White House. Bannon is also a man who loves wars -- he sees them as being thoroughly advantageous.


During the course of his reporting on the cover story, SPIEGEL Washington correspondent Gordon Repinski met with government officials who spoke of their worries and their pangs of guilt. "They are considering whether the right thing to do would be to leave the government or to put up resistance from within," says Repinski. In London, my colleague Peter Müller spoke with Ted Malloch, who is considered Trump's favorite for the post of ambassador to the European Union -- a man who has praised Brexit and predicted the collapse of the euro.

  

The problem will not resolve itself. German business is the opponent of American trade policy, the German democracy is the ideological opponent of Donald Trump, but even here, in the middle of Germany, right-wing extremists are trying to give him a helping hand. It is high time that we stand up for what is important: democracy, freedom, the West and its alliances. Germany, of all countries, the economically and politically dominant democracy in Europe, will have to form the alliance against Trump, because it won't otherwise take shape. It is, however, absolutely necessary.


  

The image for this week's cover was created by the artist Edel Rodriguez. Edel was nine years old when, in 1980, he came to the U.S. with his mother -- two refugees, like so many others. "I remember it well, and I remember the feelings and how little kids feel when they are leaving their country," he told the Washington Post on Friday night.

The newspaper wrote: "This DER SPIEGEL Trump cover is stunning." It wasn't the first time Edel has drawn Trump. He usually portrays him without eyes -- you just see his angry, gaping mouth and, of course, the hair. "I don't want to live in a dictatorship," he says. "If I wanted to live in a dictatorship, I'd live in Cuba, where it's much warmer."

In other vital coverage this week, New York correspondent Philipp Oehmke met up with Dave Eggers and Wolfgang Höbel interviewed T.C. Boyle. Both American authors spoke about the issue gripping the entire world right now: Trump's America. "The world must be shaking," says Boyle.

Finally, in a SPIEGEL interview, my colleagues Horand Knaup, Markus Feldenkirchen and I asked Martin Schulz, the center-left Social Democratic Party's candidate challenging Angela Merkel in this year's chancellor race, what he thought of Trump. "Contemptible. He crosses the boundaries of every basic consensus that a democracy needs! It's staggering."

 A selection of stories from the issue will be published in English this week at
Spiegel.de/international.

 

Native Deen Uses Rap to Combat Stereotypes About Islam

Native Deen Uses Rap to Combat Stereotypes About Islam

    Tuesday, August 09, 2016   No comments

Summer camp may seem like an unlikely place to create a successful, internationally-acclaimed rap group.

But in the early 90s, during an era when the mix of rap and musical activism was at its prime, three amateur, Muslim-American artists saw an opportunity to blend the Islamic faith and hip-hop culture.

Roughly a decade later — the same year as the Sept. 11 attacks — the trio formed Native Deen, a Washington, D.C., based rap group,which celebrates the Islamic-American experience using a fusion of hip-hop and R&B flavor.

Native Deen meet with students during a trip with members of the U.S. State Department to a school in the Palestinian territories in 2006.


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"We grew up during the golden ages of hip-hop. This was the music and the language of young people," group member Naeem Muhammad told NBC News. Their mission? "To spread an uplifting message of Islam" to combat the misunderstanding of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, said group member Abdul-Malik Ahmad. The group now boasts sold out performances internationally and in 2006 won an Al-Mahabba Award, which celebrates Muslim achievements in the arts, in Dubai. "Our music came at a time where a lot of young Muslims were having issues with identity," Muhammad said, adding that Muslim youth often struggle with merging "their Muslim identity with all of their American identity" while growing up in a country that misunderstands their faith. Source

 

  

Inside the Arabic Islamic Institute in Tokyo

Inside the Arabic Islamic Institute in Tokyo

    Monday, May 12, 2014   No comments

Inside the Arabic Islamic Institute in Tokyo, 15 students of calligraphy raptly practice writing verses from the Qur’an. Yet when the call to prayer is heard, few stir. The instructors and students are Japanese, and only two are Muslims. Here, their calligrapher’s pens (qalam in Arabic) are not made of reeds, as is traditional in much of the Islamic world. Nor do they use the brushes (fude) favored by Japanese calligraphers. Their pens are made of bamboo, which is plentiful in Japan.

For centuries, educated Japanese have been taught the traditions of calligraphy beginning in grade school. At the Nitten, the annual arts exhibition in Osaka, calligraphy is important enough to merit its own section. An appreciation of calligraphy is a lifelong interest for many Japanese, and for some, acquiring proficiency at it is a lifelong study. Yet, over the past two decades, a few have quietly put down their fude and picked up a bamboo qalam to try their hand at calligraphy in Arabic, which, they often find, is not as alien as they had thought.

Yukari Takahashi, who owns an elegant Tokyo nightclub, holds up a sheet of Japanese rice paper with embossed floral patterns framing immaculate calligraphy. I ask her why she studies Arabic calligraphy, and, in her limited English, she answers, “Very beautiful.” Other practitioners—a retired consul-general, a choreographer and dancer, the head of the Tokyo City Retirement Fund—also mention beauty first when describing their attraction to Arabic calligraphy.

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Word As Image: Contextualizing “Calligraffiti: 1984-2013″ with French-Tunisian Street Artist eL Seed

Word As Image: Contextualizing “Calligraffiti: 1984-2013″ with French-Tunisian Street Artist eL Seed

    Wednesday, February 19, 2014   No comments

BY RUSTIN ZARKAR

“Calligraffiti:1984-2013,” runs from September 5th to October 5th, 2013 at New York’s Leila Heller Gallery. As an updated version of the original show in 1984, the current exhibition features nearly fifty artists from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and North America. The article below also contains segments of an interview with French-Tunisian street artist eL Seed.

The interplay between word and image– of language and visual representation– has become complexly intertwined in the cultural productions of contemporary societies. The art gallery combines text and image; most installations are accompanied by a placard revealing information about the piece such as the name of the artist, the materials used, as well as the name of the work and when it was created. Here, the word becomes a conveyor of meaning, which elucidates the content of the visual material. The textual is treated just as an instrument in the service of the visual. However, in the cases of calligraphy and graffiti– two separate but undeniably related art forms– text itself is the object of beauty. The word merges with the image itself and the dichotomy between the two is nullified; no one can say when the letters end and the image begins, or vice versa.

This synthesis of linguistic signs and visual representation is explored by New York’s Leila Heller Gallery in their new exhibition entitled “Calligraffitti: 1984-2013.” The show features a substantial collection of text-based visual art created by artists such as eL Seed, Parviz Tanavoli, Hassan Massoudy, Hossein Zenderoudi, Shirin Neshat, and many more. The show’s titular portmanteau points to another unification: that between graffiti and calligraphy. With the majority of the featured artists originating from the Arab world and Iran, the allusion to the regions’ traditional calligraphic practice is prominently displayed. The influence of early Islamicate styles such as floriated Kufic and Nasta’liq’s siah mashq are clearly visible in the innovative works.

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Where Allah Rocks: Indonesia's Tolerant Take on Islam

Where Allah Rocks: Indonesia's Tolerant Take on Islam

    Thursday, November 07, 2013   No comments

By Erich Follath

The Southeast Asian island nation of Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, which practices an open-minded, gentle version of Islam in urban areas. But elsewhere Islamists are beginning to encroach.
Joko Widodo is a strange character, a superstar in his country and a figure of growing importance in Asian politics. He is also a mixture of many things that don't ordinarily mix.

Sometimes he behaves like the legendary Kalif Harun al-Rashid, who used to sneak out of his palace in Baghdad at night to mingle, in disguise, with ordinary people and learn what they were thinking. Sometimes he emulates Nelson Mandela, who has charmed people with his optimism and eloquence throughout his life. And sometimes he comes across as a Mick Jagger type, charismatic and assertive, but perhaps a little too self-absorbed.

For his fellow Indonesians, this is apparently an irresistible blend of character traits. Widodo, 52, widely known as "Jokowi," is a pop star and an inspirational tribune of the people. He is the governor of the regional district of Jakarta, a megalopolis of about 23 million people on a strip of land along the coast, which is constantly threatened by flooding. In fact, scientists believe that most of Jakarta will be underwater by 2050.

Greater Jakarta is one of the most chaotic collections of people in the world, a seemingly ungovernable Moloch. But according to opinion polls, Governor Jokowi is doing such a good job in Jakarta that Indonesians say they would elect him president in next year's national elections. This would also make him one of the leaders of the G-20 group of 20 major economies.

Indonesia, an enormous nation consisting of more than 17,500 islands, stretches from Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra to Borneo, Java, Bali, the Maluku Islands and New Guinea. It encompasses more than 5,000 kilometers (3,107 miles) from west to east, or about the distance from Lisbon to well past Moscow. It is a country with vast, virtually uninhabited regions and some of the world's most crowded places. It also holds volcanoes and tropical rainforests, the home of giant, 60-meter (200-foot) trees, along with mangroves and coral reefs, orangutans and Komodo dragons.

Indonesia's manmade wonders are as impressive as its natural features. Magnificent Buddhist temples like Borobudur and impressive Hindu sites like Tanah Lot are UNESCO World Heritage sites. And Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan boast some of the world's largest and most beautiful mosques.

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A Pilgrimage to a Person

A Pilgrimage to a Person

    Thursday, August 29, 2013   No comments

When you are not with close friends,
you are not in the presence.

It is sad to leave the people you travel with.
How much more so those who remind you of God.
Hurry back to the ones protecting you.

On every trip, have only one objective,
to meet those who are friends
inside the presence.

If you stay home, keep the same purpose,
to meet the innermost presence
as it lives in people.

Be a pilgrim to the Ka`ba inside a human being,and Mecca will rise into view on its own.

__________
A Rumi's poem, translated by Coleman Barks

Arab Cinderella: A Life Poem

Arab Cinderella: A Life Poem

    Tuesday, July 30, 2013   No comments

By Laila Alawa*

I always felt

as though my life, my being, my very self

were forevermore saddled with the

very expectations of

generations before me,

dusty individuals, their fervent whispers carrying,

moving, traveling,

across centuries of near-still air,

air rippled only with the occasional revolution,

scented softly with rosewater and hot Arabic coffee,

that their unfulfilled wishes, needs and every desire,

were now mine,

like a sort of modern-day Cinderella wish,

upon turning sixteen years of age, a welcome to the

world of

a dissatisfied life,

one in which you try your very hardest but

never get anywhere,

where you put your very best in,

but only the worst comes out,

a tired life.

It was one bestowed upon me,

an one I tried to shake off,

a cloak of heavy, dull satin,

pinned tight about my neck,

stranglehold.

Countless attempts. So much of my

being put in to making that cloak

shine, making it glow,

failed efforts heavy with the

stench of misintention,

a slew of sins.

Dissatisfaction. I began to

feel uncomfortable,

tears springing to my eyes as I contemplated

the heavy, deep fastenings of the cloak, only

unfastened through true lawlessness or truthful

intention.

I stumbled about with the heavy cloak

until one day

one morning,

fresh, calm and cool, the birds alight with their trills,

I faced towards the Kaabah and

felt the true cool of the deen

surrounding me and

transforming the cloak of dull expectations into

one of shining possibilities,

open and airy and effervescent

a garb of intentions, open worlds

a refuge of Islam.

______________

You can usually find Laila engaged in a deep conversation with a stranger, or nursing a cup of Earl Grey tea with three teaspoons of sugar. She graduated from Wellesley College in 2012 and currently works at Princeton University, conducting a study on Muslim American perceptions of belonging and community within the greater American diaspora. Laila funnels her love for jewelry making into her own business and works to bettering the Muslim American experience for both Muslims and America at large. She heads a faith anthology project for Muslim American women called Coming of Faith.

Exhibition showcasing over 1000 years of Islamic art and architecture opens at the Asian Civilisations Museum

Exhibition showcasing over 1000 years of Islamic art and architecture opens at the Asian Civilisations Museum

    Tuesday, July 30, 2013   No comments

The Asian Civilisations Museum presents an exhibition of works of art from the Aga Khan Museum. Featuring masterpieces of Islamic art and architecture spanning many centuries and from regions around the world, Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum: Architecture in Islamic Arts are on display at the ACM from 19 July to 28 October 2012. Architecture, with tiled and gilt domes, shaded courtyards, and inscribed gates, became a natural expression of Islam. The exhibition reveals how Muslim artists perceived the Islamic built environment. Over 100 objects, ranging from manuscript illumination, paintings, and architectural elements to hajj certificates and tiles decorated with passages from the Qur‟an, illustrate ideas of space and decoration in both religious and secular environments. The exhibition offers insights into some of the great Islamic dynasties: the al-Andalus of the Iberian Peninsula; Ilkhanid, Timurid, and Safavid Iran; Ottoman Turkey; and Mughal India. “Islamic architecture is one of the most visible aspects of Islamic culture,” says Dr Alan Chong, director of the Asian Civilisations Museum. “This exhibition approaches architecture from several points of view. Intricately painted illuminations capture the world in miniature, and invite the viewer into splendid palaces and intimate gardens. At the same time, visitors can inspect carved wooden beams and brilliantly coloured glazed tiles that once decorated mosques and other buildings. We hope that visitors will gain new insights into the history and creativity of the Islamic world.”

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Azeri maqami musician Alim Qasimov will be joining an Iranian band to perform a concert at the 49th International Festival of Carthage in Tunis

Azeri maqami musician Alim Qasimov will be joining an Iranian band to perform a concert at the 49th International Festival of Carthage in Tunis

    Tuesday, July 30, 2013   No comments

Vocalist Mohammad Motamedi will lead the group, which also features Sina Jahanabadi on kamancheh, Azad Mirzapur on tar, Pasha Hanjani on ney, and Hossein Rezaeinia and Milad Abassi on daf.

The concert has been scheduled for August 3 at the festival, which is currently underway in Tunisia. The festival will run until August 17.

Maqams or maqamat are sets of musical scales and characteristic melodic elements, or motives, and traditional patterns for their use, forming a system for the melodic and tonal development of performances in Islamic music.

Maqami music is connected to the traditions and perspective of an ethnic group living in a particular region.

Kufic Ancient and Modern: from calligraphy to typography

Kufic Ancient and Modern: from calligraphy to typography

    Friday, July 26, 2013   No comments

The Kuficpedia project is developing through an international group of scholars and designers with a shared interest in the Kufic script. The project came together around the historical research and achievements of calligrapher and typeface designer, Seyed Mohammad Vahid Mousavi Jazayeri. Vahid’s study of Thulth and Naskh scripts began in 1982 and after nearly ten years of training he began teaching students in Tehran since 1991. Within a year, he was developing two complementary fields: historical calligraphy research in a range of media (ceramics, coins, plaster and stone, as well as manuscripts) and contemporary type design.

He took a major step forward in 1993 when he rediscovered the lost technique of cutting a qalam (pen, writing implement) for the Primary Kufic script. Surviving Primary Kufic pens have been recut several times to refresh the tip and this has left characteristic scars that may also be seen on Vahid’s pens. Noting these scars, Professor Kalhornia, graphic designer and historian of calligraphy, concludes that Vahid has indeed recovered the lost technique. But, more than this, Vahid’s continuing research into the history and development of the script has led him also to recover the authentic calligraphic technique, and this means that Primary Kufic can not only be revived knowledgeably and relevantly but can also pave the way for – or even inspire – contemporary new scripts that correspond to its stateliness and range.

Vahid’s developing professional interest in type design continued alongside his historic researches, thus putting him in a uniquely authoritative position to revive the Kufic script and guide its contemporary development. He has designed over 3,000 logotypes as well as creating unusually rich and nuanced fonts whose expressive range is comparable with Primary Kufic.

An important core of his work was published in the Kufic Encyclopedia, which not only provides superlative, fully identified, historic exemplars but also gives technical training for the script. Kufic has, of course, already inspired other scripts such as Thulth and Naskh, and initial surveys of these are found in the Script and Calligraphy set, and in Stone Inscriptions: Kufic and Thulth.

In addition to research, Vahid has also published numerous calligraphic posters, including Divine Love (a set of 12 works in two sizes), Breeze of East, Messiah of Souls and Seventh Heaven.

Kuficpedia’s members and contributors are active in a variety of disciplines (including art history, philosophy, calligraphy, graphic and typeface design) and one of our core activities is conducting workshops in different countries. Kuficpedia is a non-profit group.

Seyed Mohammad Vahid Mousavi Jazayeri

Ben Affleck was surprised by Best Director and Best Drama wins for 'Argo'

Ben Affleck was surprised by Best Director and Best Drama wins for 'Argo'

    Monday, January 14, 2013   No comments

The Golden Globes left Hollywood muddled on Sunday with Iran hostage thriller “Argo” winning best drama and director for Ben Affleck (pictured) while presumed big-winner “Lincoln” by Steven Spielberg received only one prize.

...

“Argo” won the top prize, best dramatic movie, and Ben Affleck was named best director for the film, three days after he failed to get an Oscar nomination in the same category.

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Dave Matthews On His Band's 'Unique Sort Of Love Affair'

Dave Matthews On His Band's 'Unique Sort Of Love Affair'

    Sunday, September 09, 2012   No comments

For many people, the definitive soundtrack of the mid-1990s was a band out of Virginia with unusual instrumentation and an unmistakable sound. Born and partially raised in South Africa, Dave Matthews was a bartender in the college town of Charlottesville when he founded the Dave Matthews Band in 1991. Two decades on, the group has sold 40 million records and become one of the biggest live acts in the world.

The Dave Matthews Band has a new studio album, its seventh, called Away From the World. Things have changed for the group since 1991: Matthews is a father now, and this album is the group's second since the 2008 death of founding member LeRoi Moore. Here, Matthews speaks with NPR's Guy Raz about what has kept the other members together — and performs two songs from the new album on ukulele and guitar.

Interview Highlights

On the title Away From the World

"It kind of is suggesting that all of us are sort of removed from the world, in a way, in our minds. That we're all in the same boat, even though we're sort of locked in our own heads."

On growing up in apartheid-era South Africa

"Being a white South African, I enjoyed the better things that that country gave to a small percentage of its population. But [I had] a mother that was so devoted to making sure that we knew that to be credited or discredited for something about yourself that you were born with, that you had the inability to change — whether it's the color of your skin or anything about you — was just the worst kind of crime. ... The guys who worked at my uncle's dairy, I'd sneak over there and — I was in Africa so we didn't have to worry about it — and smoke pot with them when I was a teenager, and drink with them and play music. And more than play, I'd listen to these guys play music. That felt almost like a revolutionary act, and then, at the same time, I got all the gift from it."

On the song "Gaucho" and the new album's themes of change

"I don't think that 'good can win.' I don't think everything is going to get peachy ever. But I think we have to fight for what we believe in. I also get very disheartened by the shallowness of the debates we have. Nothing is black or white, nothing's us or them. But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There's incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope."

On the future of the Dave Matthews Band

"I can remember saying 'I can't imagine that I'm going to be doing this when I'm 45' — and I'm 45. And so I don't know if there's a place that we need to go to. But it's also a sort of interesting challenge to try and work with the same group of people because there's a uniqueness to it — of trying to get past all the things that relationships have when we're working together. ... There's four of us that have been in the band for more than 20 years. It's interesting that our love for each other really revolves around the music we make together. We're not in the same age group, we didn't come up in the same places, but we really do have a unique sort of love affair when we're playing music together. And it gets stranger and stranger, but it's good."

Listen to Interview > 

Poems: Fireflies

Poems: Fireflies

    Wednesday, February 29, 2012   No comments

by Oman Musa

Muhammad Ali at 70: What he meant, what he means

Muhammad Ali at 70: What he meant, what he means

    Wednesday, January 18, 2012   No comments

by Dave Zirin

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali turned 70 on Tuesday, and the three-time heavyweight champion who doubled as the most famous draft resistor in U.S. history remains larger than life in the American mind, despite being ravaged by Parkinson's disease. Two years ago, on a visit to Louisville, Ky., I was reminded why.

In a cab on the way to the Muhammad Ali Center downtown, I saw that my driver had a Vietnam Veterans of America patch on display by his license. I asked him about his experience in Southeast Asia, and he started talking a mile a minute about his time "in country," how his "happiest days" were being a sniper in Vietnam. He even said: "You might not know this, being from Washington, D.C., but the most dangerous animal to hunt is man." He then described the task in detail. He wanted to make sure I left his cab fully aware of his pride, patriotism and unwavering belief in the duty of going to war when country called.

I didn't engage the driver in a debate about Vietnam or U.S. imperialism, but given my reason for being in Louisville, I couldn't resist one question. I asked: "What do you think about Muhammad Ali? He opposed the war in Vietnam. He called it an illegal war aimed at increasing oppression throughout the globe.

"Now you're in a city where there is a Muhammad Ali Street and you're taking me to the Muhammad Ali Center. Does that bother you?"

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