Confronting September 11: A Vision of the World
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In
the aftermath of the September 11th atrocities many scholars have
commented that states and nations have become less important. What do
we need to live in a world where, as political scientist Benjamin
Barber notes, "it could hardly escape even casual observers that global
warming recognizes no sovereign territory, that AIDS carries no
passport, that technology renders national borders meaningless, that
the internet defies regulation, that oil and cocaine addiction circle
the planet like twin plagues." In 1989, aware of increasing
interdependence, Professors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates,
Jr. began a project that would eventually become The Dictionary of
Global Culture. Through their work, they hoped to equip students of the
world with the necessary vocabulary to help people from diverse
traditions understand, respect, and work with each other. They dubbed
their project "the global citizens' guide to culture." They write:
-
What we
are suggesting in effect is that we all participate, albeit from
different cultural positions, in a global system of culture. That
culture is increasingly less dominated by the West, less Eurocentric,
if you like. And so there must be more of many of the "other"
traditions and we want to know more.... in part because we think that in
preparing the new generations for a culture that is more global, it is
essential for them to learn about William Shakespeare as they learn
about Wole Soyinka from Nigeria, Murasaki Shikibu from Japan,
Rabindranath Tagore from India. As we in the West develop a more global
culture, we do so in the context of Western traditions: we do so
because an understanding of other cultures enriches, without
displacing, our own.1
Strengthening what links humanity across
cultures does not mean eradicating local differences or weakening
national bonds. In her book, Islam and Democracy, Moroccan scholar
Fatima Mernissi tells the story of a poet named Attar and his vision of
a world where differences were understood as a strengthening and
enriching instead of a source for division, fear, and conflict.
She writes:
-
There in the Simorgh's radiant face they saw
Themselves, the Simorgh of the worldwith awe
They gazed, and dared at last to comprehend
They were the Simorgh and the journey's end.
They see the Simorgh standing there;
They look at both and see the two are one,
That this is that, that this, the goal is won.
They ask (but inwardly; they make no sound)
The meaning of these mysteries that confound
Their puzzled ignorance....
-
I am a mirror set before your eyes,
And all who come before my splendour see
Themselves, their own unique reality;
You came as thirty birds and therefore saw
These selfsame thirty birds, not less nor more;
If you had come as forty, fifty, here
An answering forty, fifty would appear;...
And since you came as thirty birds, you see
These thirty birds when you discover Me,
The Simorgh, Truth's last flawless jewel, the light
In which you will be lost to mortal sight,
Dispersed to nothingness until once more
You find in Me the selves you were before.
It happened
in Nishapur in Iran in the spring of A.D. 1175. A man dreamed of a
world without fear, without boundaries, where you could travel very far
and find yourself in company of strangers who you knew yourself,
strangers who were neither hostile nor aggressive. It was the land of
the Simorgh.
In his long meditations in Nishapur,
all by himself Attar imagined that land where strangeness only enriched
what we are to the ultimate degree. He committed his dream to paper, a
long poem that he called Mantiq al-tayr (The Conference of the Birds).
It instantly became famous, but intolerance and violence knocked one
night at Attar's door. Genghis Khan's Mongol soldiers murdered Attar in
1230. The poet died, but the dream lived on through the centuries and
continues to haunt our imaginations.
Thousands of birds had heard of a
fabulous being called the Simorgh, whom they longed to see and know.
They decided to go together, by their thousands, to the place where
they were told he could be found. For years and years they crossed
rivers and oceans to find the Simorgh, that fabulous creature, radiant
and dazzling. Many birds died along the way and never finished the
journey. Fatigue and the rigors of the climate decimated most of the
seekers. Only thirty succeeded in arriving at the gates of the fortress
of the legendary Simorgh. But when they were finally received, a
surprise awaited them which we will understand better if we know that
in Persian si means thirty and morgh means birds:
When the thirty birds, dazzled and
baffled, asked the Simorgh to explain this strange reality to them, he
talked of a mirror that could reflect the whole planet, with all its
differences and individualities. They asked him to reveal the great
secret, to explain the mystery of why 'we' is not distinguished here
from ‘you'?" The Simorgh explained to them what is still not understood
eight centuries later by our leaders: that the community, indeed the
whole world can be a mirror of individualities, and that its strength
will then only be greater:
Since that time, the Simorgh, banned
in the Orient of the palaces, has haunted women's tales and children's
dreams. Today the cry for pluralism no longer has to hide behind
metaphysical allegories. We can bring a new world into being through
all the scientific advances that allow us to communicate, to engage in
unlimited dialogue, to create that global mirror in which all cultures
can shine in their uniqueness. Nothing makes me more exuberant than the
vision of this new world, and the fact that we must go forward toward
it without any barriers no longer frightens me. How are we to learn to
stride into the abyss and be like the wind? How are we to be
defenseless like the forest? How can we have uncertainty as our
country? It is surely the poets who will be our guides among these new
galaxies.2
CONNECTIONS
- If Professors Gates and Appiah were to ask you, as they did scholars across the world, for 10 things that people from all over the world should know about your culture, what would you list? What would you use as a criteria for selection? What culture would your list represent? You may choose to share your lists with you classmates. How are your lists similar? How are they different? How do you account for both the similarities and differences?
- Fatima Mernissi recounts the allegory of the Simorgh. What does the allegory mean to you? How do you understand its lessons for the world today?
- Why do you think many people are frightened by the idea of creating a "global mirror in which all cultures can shine in their uniqueness"? What do you think people would see?
- What does Mernissi mean by her questions, "How are we to learn to stride into the abyss and be like the wind? How are we to be defenseless like the forest? How can we have uncertainty as our country?" How would you attempt to answer them? What do you see as other questions we must answer in order to negotiate our shrinking world?
- Fatima Mernissi has great hope in the ability of democracy to help prevent conflict and respect difference. At its best, how does democracy respond to conflict and difference?
- Individually or in small groups, create allegories that you think might serve a useful stories to guide people as they encounter difference and conflict. What lessons do you think people need to embrace?
- Research poets, musicians, writers, artists, and architects that have imagined a better world. What are their visions? How would you imagine such a world?.
1 The Dictionary of Global Culture edited by K. Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Knopf, 1997, xi
2 Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World by Fatima Mernissi translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. Perseus Books, 1992, pp. 172174.
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