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Alternative classroom approaches to teaching Thanksgiving

The Guardian is having a discussion about the 30th anniversary of the publication of Orientalism.

Beyond the Veil

"When the French government invaded Algeria, in 1830, it started a vast campaign of military 'pacification,' which was quickly followed by the imposition of French laws deemed necessary for the civilizing mission to succeed. Women were crucial to that enterprise. In articles, stories and novels of the day, Algerian women were universally depicted as oppressed, and so in order for civilization truly to penetrate Algeria, the argument went, the women had to cast off their veils. General Bugeaud, who was charged with administering the territory in the 1840s, declared, 'The Arabs elude us because they conceal their women from our gaze.'"

1. I finally saw Out of Africa, 22 years after it came out. In the past, this was one of the few movies guaranteed to put me to sleep. I've tried to watch it at least three times and could never stay awake. This time I soldiered on because it came on tv, coincidentally, just as I was finishing the book.

The book was published in 1937 and is as racist and colonialist as one would expect. There is much talk of the Natives, and their charming Native habits, etc. What it wasn't, though, was sexist, and watching the movie I was up in arms at little things I wouldn't even have noticed had I not read the book (for the first time) and watched the movie (for the first time) both in the same week.

I am not one of those people who needs a perfect match between the book and the screenplay, and even if I were, Out of Africa wouldn't be one of the darlings I felt obligated to protect. I also realize that a movie is dependent on dialogue in a way a book is not, and having Meryl Streep sitting alone in her kitchen saying "I am observing something about the Maasai…" just wouldn't work.

BUT, the way they chose to handle this was to turn the movie into a romance between Streep and Robert Redford, and put the author's words into his mouth. That's right, he explaaains Kenya to her, in his rugged, been-there-done-that way, and she, the sheltered woman, nods sagely at his wisdom, with just enough intelligence (this being Streep, not Paris Hilton) for the viewer to think, "my, what a good, almost-equal partner she makes! he's so independent, but she's smart enough to appreciate him! what a well-matched couple!" — when in reality the things he's explaaaining, about Gikuyu history and big game hunting, are taken almost verbatim from the book, i.e. stolen from the female narrator. Those should have been Streep's lines, with Redford, if he had to be there at all, being the one to do all the intent listening, all the thoughtful nodding.

Moreover! Because they made it into a romance above all else, the movie was actually more racist than the book was, even though it was made 50 years later. Because they'd turned Streep into a woman who primarily pined for her man, alone out on the sweeping African hills (how poetic!), the myriad relationships Isak Dinesen had with Kenyans were written out. It's true she did have this lover who would come and stay with her every now and then, and I'm sure that was hot and everything, but most of her energy was spent trying to make her farm work and on interacting with people who weren't out on safari ten months a year. Although her relationships with Kenyans were deeply problematic in a colonial context, at least those relationships _existed_, and took up a good portion of her attention and thus a good portion of her ink.

In the movie, however, she's got a couple of African servants or something, whatever — cut to a shot of her on her porch! wind in her hair! wishing her white boyfriend would come home and kiss her on the mouth. Both of them are portrayed as outsiders among the other colonials, which was true in the memoir as well, but making Redford the leading man (as opposed to occasional visitor) forces whatever knowledge he's acquired of the culture and the landscape to be packaged as evidence of his rugged independence, rather than evidence of things he's learned from the Kenyans, and because Streep's the girl and can't out-independent him, her relationships are even more superficial. There's no room for African characters in that set-up, at least none with any background, history, complexity, or expertise in anything that would outshine Redford. So they mostly plant coffee and sweep floors and do things in large mobs.

2. I also saw World Trade Center. From the trailer, I thought it would be a sappy sentimental ode to cops and firefighters, and how surprising would that be, because that's not anything I've heard before in relation to 9/11. Instead it was a disaster movie about some heavy stuff that fell on these two guys.

The issue of Canada adopting a version of sharia law is an interesting one. accusehistory discusses it here and here.

I'm not inherently opposed to competing or co-existing legal systems sharing the same jurisdiction. Not even sure if that's the right way to phrase it, but I'm thinking of Nigeria, where apparently you first take your case to a tribal council and if the solution isn't satisfactory to either party you can appeal and have it decided by the state. In theory, this seems like a nice way to reconcile cultural differences, though obviously it only works if everyone knows about it; one of the fears with the Canadian law is that recent immigrants (mainly women) will be told they have no choice but to get divorced within the religious courts.

What I don't understand about this, though, is how they can possibly define Muslim family law with such precision. I realize there are a few principles that are almost universally understood to be part-and-parcel of a "Muslim divorce," like the notion that the woman retains property in her own name. She's also entitled to "some" support after divorce, but what does "some" mean, and how long does it last? Child custody is particularly nebulous: after the Iranian revolution men were awarded custody of their boy children immediately following a divorce and of their girl children after age two (later, I believe, this was changed to boys at two and girls at seven); in Egypt after Sadat boys went to live with their fathers at age fifteen and girls stayed with their mothers until they were married or otherwise left the home. That's a lot of leeway in the interpretation of Islamic law, and either way the fitness of the parent doesn't enter the discussion. Is Canada claiming to have the definitive answer to this question?

My other question is why this only applies to family law. Here I feel like quoting myself, from a piece I wrote recently: "Herbert Liebesny has described the colonial displacement of Muslim law in majority-Muslim countries as five concentric circles, with commercial law on the outside, followed by penal law, real estate, contracts and torts, and finally family law at the center of the circle, the segment least affected by European influence. Since marriage, divorce, and other 'private' matters had scant influence on Europeans' ability to turn a profit in the colonies, these matters were among the only indigenous institutions left largely intact in the wake of imperialism. Over time this innermost circle came to represent 'authentic Muslim identity' both inside and outside the Middle East, and those who challenged laws related to women's rights — even laws dating back to the nineteenth century — were suspected of working in consort with the colonizers."

Which isn't to say I'd like to see sharia in its most draconian Saudi-style form instituted in Canada, wouldn't even like to see an Egyptian-style system that prohibits Muslims alone from gambling, or drinking alcohol during Ramadan. But I find it interesting that family law and other areas that affect women are considered "safe" territory for tinkering with the system, that these are the areas where we all agree to nod our heads and "respect multiculturalism," but in areas that involve the movement of capital, for example, or the treatment of prisoners, Islamic thought is still subservient to secular law. I suspect a lot of people who wouldn't dream of denying credit cards or a home mortgage to Muslim men (prohibition of usury), people who would rightly call that discriminatory, are still willing to consider taking a Muslim woman's children away from her in the name of Islamic law.

I'm sure there are good intentions behind this somewhere and in a way I'm impressed with Canada for even considering it, since the "How can we accommodate you, good Muslim citizens?" is an attitude in short supply right now. But there's potential for abuse all over the place.