Journalistic Representations Challenge “The Clash & The Orient”

Hila Raz
Helga: Islam, Media & West
Representations of the ME
Comics, Blogs & Poems
10/29/08

Journalistic Representations Challenge
“The Clash & the Orient”

Every representation has some sort of objective- a purpose to depict and express a perspective, to deliver a message- to convey something of sorts. Personal narratives and accounts represent not only the individual telling the story but the setting in which they take place. Yet the medium used to convey personal narratives, represents something in of itself. Comic journalism, Blogs and poetry are perfect examples of artistic mediums used to tell a story perhaps in a slightly less conventional manner. Marjane Stapi’s Persepolis, Joe Sacco’s Palestine, Salam Pax’s Iraqi war blog, and Mahmoud Darwish’s imagery filled poetic account, all fall under such representations conveying life in the war-ridden Middle Eastern region. All the representations achieve in providing snip-its of daily life and experiences, that show perhaps one perspective that may resonate with many, but cannot be accepted as an all-encompassing representation. All of the works convey war-ridden regions, but perhaps re-write the “clash of civilizations” theory in one way or another, through personal voice. By showing that Middle Easterners’ are not blood-thirsty, war-loving; terrorist they challenge not only the “clash theory” but Orientalism which marginalizes “the other.”
The representations challenge Orient and the Clash, neutralizing the “other” in showing intimacy, emotion, and humanness- something which we all share and relate to.
Each challenge Orientalism in a unique way, some more nuanced than others, and to varying degrees. The Iraqi war blog for example doesn’t distance Salam Pax as the other; instead it made millions gravitate in utter curiosity to read his updated accounts. The updated blog written sep. 2002- April 2003, offers quite the refreshing inside take from life at “hotel pax” in Baghdad (which he named his home) and brilliantly depicts his thoughts, reactions, and critiques. His reactions seem to convey not only what is going on but a realistic pervasive sentiment present in Iraq that perhaps completely contradicts the representations coming from the west. He writes: “Baghdad is looking scarier by the minute… the news programs drive me crazy, but they are all we are watching” (pax, p. 143). Anyone submerged in war, secretly dispensing information, would probably react similarly; it’s a human flight or fight- fear response. Pax describes looking through New York Times email alerts and seeing ‘12 Americans stage protests Hussein is happy to allow’ “I read through wondering if Mr. John F. Burns is reporting news from the same Baghdad I live in” because no one at work and nothing on the news alludes to it(Pax, p.24). This is something that an outsider couldn’t convey, and obviously the western news media fails to represent- because of its flawed political objectives. Rather powerfully he writes a direct message
“Dear American friends, please stop sending her over here... personally, I lost interest when you were quoted saying things like ‘I wish people in our country would be willing to show the same spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation to the two million people in our prisons.’…are you getting ‘thank you’ gift from saddam? Because you should take it and leave and pray that your prisoners are not shown “the exact same (no-trial-just-shoot-them-i-don’t-want-to-worry-about-them)forgiveness” (pax, p.25)
Pax here conveys the utter frustration and filter through which the Iraqi war is depicted in the media. His blog provides minute details from his daily life but they show he, we, them= were all the same. Pax humorously references his [evil boss unit] when discussing not getting paid for over two months and wanting a new monitor. The boss replies: “we will think about it ‘ba3deen’” also known in Arabic as later, which Pax explains is the remedy response for everything (Pax, p.7).
Marjane Strapi in Persepolis also challenges Orientalism in some ways but perhaps provided the representation that most often did corner her in times as the “other” perhaps because that is how she felt especially once she fled to Austria. In Persepolis 1, we encounter a very personal account through the perspective of an older woman, returning to her childhood memories of the Islamic revolution. Strapi paints a very vivid portrait of life between the ages six and fourteen living amidst the crossfire in Iran. The struggles of political repression are depicted through the eyes of a child, which at times it was necessary to take a moment and take note of that, because it was a rather complex account. However some things though probably true are hard to grasp coming from a “child” like when Marjane asks to stay for a very long time in the bath admitting: “I wanted to know what it felt like to be in a cell filled with water” (Persepolis 1, p.25). Yet this shows a human tendency to mimic and understand harsh conditions. You see her as a child doing, seeing, understanding things that many don’t in a lifetime, and as a result she matures so early.
In Persepolis 2 you see perhaps slips of notions that could be considered slightly more Orientalist, the things she loves as a child resonate with the other texts of people growing up submerged in war such as exposure to riots, bombings, yet she often stresses her differences by saying “in my culture” or “in my country” when she describes why she behaves in particular ways while living in Austria. This allusion to “otherness” may result not so much because Marjane Strapi wanted to reinforce parts of Orientalism but because of this feeling of otherness that is part of the territory of being an immigrant. When she goes to her professors house she talks to his mother, Mrs. Arrouas, a Frenchwomen of Jewish Moroccan origins, who assures her: “I understand how hard it is…that’s the immigrant lot, it was he same for me when I arrived in France” (Strapi, p.61). Another example of cultural differences is stressed in the second graphic novel. “I came from a culture where even kissing in public was considered a sexual act…I had grown up in a country where the sex act was never consummated until after marriage. For Enrique it wasn’t a problem we satisfied ourselves with tender kisses” (Persepolis 2, p.58).
In Darwish’s A Memory of Forgetfulness shows A Palestinian refugee clinging to his memories in the foreign land of Beirut during the war. He writes: “I want nothing more than the aroma of coffee. The aroma... so I can hold myself together, stand on my feet and be transformed from something that crawls into a human being” (Darwish, p. 6) here he states the word ‘human’ he reels in humanity the essence of our commonalities what makes the occident versus the orient, the us versus them impossible. It challenges the clash by stressing our similarities, the universality that binds us all together: being human.” coffee, for an addict like me, is the key to the day” (d, p.7). Here he challenges Orientalism, he’s a coffee addict just like me, reflecting and carrying on as much normalcy as possible like most would strive to do. Metaphors of war challenge the orient profoundly. Here particularly Darwish recaps habitual comforts such as sipping is coffee everyday that cup o Joe for some is what maintains some level of normalcy. People tend to seek and cling to that comfort in difficult times.
Some of representations perhaps do embody elements of the clash theory- put don’t perpetuate it rather contest it by conveying the powerful universality of humanism. All personify people and societies eager for freedom and normalcy. Salam Pax’s blog depicts humor, sarcasm and blatant cynicism which perhaps conveys some doubt but represents a definite challenge to the clash of civilizations. He states it loud and clear: Rant: “no one inside Iraq is for war (note I said ‘war’ not ‘a change of regime’)…I do think war could have been avoided” (pax, p.119). If that isn’t a challenge to the clash- I don’t know what is. In Persepolis however, sometimes the clash opposition isn’t as vivid. Strapi expresses falling more for her new boyfriend Enrique after he invites her to an anarchist party (right up her ally): “A revolutionary anarchist party!” it reminded me of the commitment and the battles of my childhood in Iran, even better, it would perhaps allow me to better understand Bakunin” (Persepolis 2, p.55). Anarchists I suppose do also challenge the clash, though some of the depictions in Persepolis do come off as “inclined to battle” but her opposition or trauma yet perseverance is clear. Not many can say this about their childhood universally: “at home, there’s a war. I’m scared for my parents. I’m alone and feel guilty. I don’t have much money. My uncle was assassinated. I saw my neighbor die in a bombing” (Strapi, p.61). Her account still re-writes the clash, as the otherness isn’t a choice it’s a result of her circumstances and not one which is real. Somehow elements of parallel experiences that depict a clash but are shattered by “humanism” are shared in the representations from the other texts. In A happy childhood, Kerbaj: is shown building little school bombs during the Lebanese civil war 1975. Is that a call for a clash?
In Joe Sacco’s Palestine which was created to provide information from the Palestinian perspective and successfully Contests the dominating notion that history is written by the winners or those in control, but showing the other side. The raw depiction of the territories challenges the clash: “with injured boys the main problem is at first they feel like heroes-they’ve done something for their country…but when a boy starts living with his injury he might not feel the support of others (Sacco, p.205). The pain and suffering and want to end the occupation are so apparent- they don’t want to perpetuate the clash, they want to END IT. “I don’t want to die under the rubble…fear is shameful in the midst of this fever of heroism erupting from the people…he who dies here does not die by chance. Rather he who lives, lives by chance, because not one span of earth has been spared the rockets and not one spot where you can take a step” (Sacco, p.27). The accounts recap the warzone different perhaps from any western or regular accounts of the Palestinian occupation conflict. Yet Sacco like the rest of the writers challenges the Orient and the Clash.
Can these texts be considered historical accounts? They are personal accounts and representations of what they experienced. In Persepolis parts definitely coincide with shared experience and historical events which therefore do shed a heightened light on understanding those times. For example: “in 1990, the era of grand revolutionary ideas and demonstrations was over. Between 1980-83, the government had imprisoned and executed so many high-school and college students that we no longer dared to talk politics” (p.148) To our “leaders the smallest thing could be a subject of subversion: showing your wrist, a loud laugh, having a walkman- everything was a pretext to arrest us” (Strapi, p.148). Those are all challenges. Even Sacco depicts the Palestinian outcry: “who is going to help them forget in the midst of this anguish, which never stops reminding them of their alienation from place and society? Who will accept them as citizens? Who will protect them against the whips of discrimination and pursuit: ‘you don’t belong here?’ (Sacco, p.15). His journalistic comic representation forces all audiences to grapple with this reality- to challenge fixed notions. Overall all four representations offer a challenge to the clash and Orientalist theories. Perhaps they can be branded as Tempocentric accounts fixed in a certain time and from a certain perspective, but each undeniably achieves in telling a story needed to be heard. The comic journalistic stories, poems, journals blogs, etc. are focused around specific individuals so they can’t properly depict an entire country, or universal sentiment, but that’s because there is no such things as universal sentiment.




































Bibliography


Mahmoud Darwish. Memory of Forgetfulness. August, Beirut, 1982. Berkeley: University California Press.

Mazen Kerbaj. A Happy Childhood. Words without borders. The online magazine for international literature

Salam Pax. The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi.

Joe Sacco. Palestine. Fantagraphic Books. 2007

Marjane Strapi. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon 2003.

Marjane Strapi. Persepolis 2. New York: Pantheon. 2005