Anthology of war, love and nature poetry called ‘self-justifying propaganda’ but publishers say it reveals universal experiences.

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In 2007 the McGill Reporter interviewed Drs. Ragep and Wisnovsky about their Rational Sciences in Islam Project (RASI). The interview provides a general overview of RASI and is well worth a read!

McGill Reporter

RASI

Half-ad, half-performance, this was one of the examples of art as political statement selected by Professor Charles Tripp, a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, who spoke at the University of East London on Tuesday night. He argued that graffiti, murals, posters and other visual art forms helped to “break the spell” of dictators like Ben Ali, continuing to mobilise protesters against threats to the revolutionary ideals.

For instance in January this year, as tensions between Egypt’s interim military leadership and the crowds in Tahrir Square grew, the prominent street artist Ganzeer declared: “Art is the only weapon we have left to deal with the military dictatorship”. When the authorities put up barricades around Tahrir, they were soon transformed by the city’s artists. The use of visual tricks further undermined the installation of the barricades – many of these paintings simply depicted the forbidden street that lay behind.

Such innovation may be a reaction to the Egyptian leadership’s action, but Prof Tripp said 2011 was not, as often thought, “year zero for Arab creativity”. Rather, he argued, the Arab spring represented a more focused concentration of well-established dissident art, pointing to the defacement of a picture of Saddam Hussein by defeated Iraqi soldiers in 1991 as a powerful smashing of the symbolic power of the dictator’s face. Works like Democracy is Coming! by Huda Lutfi and Mohammed Abla’s No More Killing, a visceral depiction of the “violence of the everyday state”.

Perhaps the most powerful form of art in the Middle East is graffiti. For Prof Tripp, its potency lies in its “reclamation of public space” and he argued that as well as creating a sense of solidarity, graffiti can powerfully represent the public’s hold over territories: “The infrastructure is not enormous – as long as the spray can holds out”. While the Israeli West Bank wall has long been a target for street artists, the open space of Tahrir Square has demanded further inventiveness. Children became billboards for scrawled messages, as did carefully arranged plastic cups. According to Tripp, this effected a psychological change – the square became a place of “everyday public, rather than an everyday police state”.

Many locals feel, understandably, that walls and pavements are not a suitable place to commemorate the personal tragedies that come with revolutionary events. One of the images Tripp showed was of the graffiti commemorating martyrs of the Port Said football riots in February, where at least 74 people were killed. An audience member who had lived on the same street noted that some neighbours did not understand why victims of a serious tragedy were to be commemorated on something as undignified as a public toilet.

What Tripp’s talk underlined was that this art is a reaction against oppression, and a danger for any observer, particularly in the west, would be to separate the art from its context. There is a risk of imposing a western interpretation, or embracing only the most “western-friendly” face of Middle Eastern Art that western commentators like ourselves have to guard against. Near the end of his talk, Tripp related a story of Banksy painting on the controversial West Bank wall. An elderly Palestinian told him it looked beautiful, before adding: “We don’t want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall. Go home.”

Hi friends!
In 2008 an interview by the McGill News was conducted with some of our esteemed colleagues and researchers. The article highlights some challenges and opportunities for researchers in the fields of Islamic Studies. It also provides a nice overview of the history of the IIS & ISL, which are now celebrating our 60th anniversary!
Read on: McGill News Understanding Islam