#BookReview: Guest Post: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable

Today's guest post is from Sarah Lake of Sarah So Sincere.

I was in elementary school in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the height of Malcolm X’s rebirth in our consciousness. I had an over sized “X” t-shirt and would steal my older cousin’s red, black and green Africa medallion to complete the outfit. I eventually found a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X in my house and read it so, in 1992, when Spike Lee’s biopic came out, my 9-year-old self was fully prepped. 

After repeatedly reading the autobiography and viewing the movie over the years, the legend of Malcolm X was firmly ingrained in my mind. To me, he was indeed, “our shining black prince,” our dignity and honor incarnate, a martyr who laid down his life for righteousness. New insights into the life of my hero through Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was overdue and highly anticipated. Marable’s reputation as a premier historian and this being his life’s work made the anticipation greater. “Oh, man. This is going to be good,” I thought when I cracked open the hardcover. 

Marable makes his goal abundantly clear in the prologue: he’s on a myth busting mission. Finding discrepancies in The Autobiography, Marable’s goal is to expose the truth. Using myth busting as a foundation for this work proves itself problematic throughout this book. There are times when Marable not only contradicts Malcolm’s assertions about the details of his life but also contradicts first hand accounts from Malcolm’s own family. Other times, Marable’s allegations are not supported by any evidence in the text and you are left to make a decision: do I take Manning Marable’s word for it or not? 

These instances do not make up the bulk of the book but they do coincide with the more salacious revelations in the text. These instances, though off-putting, would not deter me from recommending this book to one and all. Marable does a phenomenal job of putting the events of Malcolm’s life into context. Malcolm’s black nationalism and patriarchal attitudes did not develop in a vacuum. Examining his background and the various movements of the day, allow the reader to go deeper into Malcolm’s thought process and motives. In this way, Malcolm becomes less of a myth and more of a man. 

This book is invaluable for its insight into Malcolm’s relationship with the Nation of Islam. His total dedication to Elijah Muhammed is downright scary at times and puts into perspective how much the split from the NOI affected him. Marable does a great job of detailing the inner workings of the NOI. I found myself both enthralled and disgusted by the cult. Stories of their organized thuggery and the fact that Malcolm was not the first person killed for crossing them were a surprise to me. 

Another invaluable aspect of this book is the detailed account of Malcolm’s travels to Africa and the Middle East. Malcolm’s reception as a dignitary everywhere he went in these regions floored me in its contrast to his treatment in Europe and the U.S. His relationship with the orthodox Muslim world and how it lead, in part, to his demise was another fascinating new detail.

Some people have charged that Marable did “the man’s” bidding in attempting to disparage Malcolm’s legacy but I came away from this book with his legacy and my love for him very much intact. Marable, having died shortly before the release of this book, is not here to defend his scholarship but I thank him for this work. Despite my misgivings about some of the allegations, this book is a shining testament of Malcolm’s depth, complexity and dedication to growth, not only for himself but also for us. 

#BookReview: A Cup of Friendship - Deborah Rodriguez

Centered around the lives of frequent visitors to the Kabul Coffee House, A Cup of Friendship offers a glimpse into life in modern day Afghanistan.  I was hesitant to read it initially because I was worried that it would be another 'white person saves the natives' story, but surprisingly it wasn't.

Small town country girl Sunny came to Kabul with her on again/off again boyfriend, Tommy.  While Tommy is out playing secret soldier for extended periods of time, Sunny is trying to turn a profit with the coffee house she's opened in Kabul. Working along side her are Halajan, a widow; Halajan's twenty year old son, Ahmet, the coffee house's guard; Bashir the cook; and the newly arrived Yazmina.  Rounding out the cast of characters are Jack, a handsome American in Kabul as a consultant; Candace, the ex-wife of a U.S. diplomat; and Isabel, the fiercely loyal and indefatigable British journalist.

Through Isabel the reader learns of the atrocities that women in Afghanistan face under the Taliban regime and as laborers in opium fields.  Isabel's journeys also offer a brief glimpse into Muslim and Jewish relations in Afghanistan.  Candace's story focuses on growing terrorist cells.  Halajan is in love with a childhood friend, but communication is forbidden without her son's consent.  And Yazmina, a young widow, arrives in Kabul pregnant and afraid because a pregnant woman without a husband casts shame upon her family.

In this fast paced read, Rodriguez takes care to explore story lines that the average American reader may not have had exposure to before.  I was completely hooked from the beginning to end and highly encourage anyone else that's seeking a better understanding of every day life in Afghanistan to give this a read.

What did you like about this book?
There were a lot of characters to keep track of. It could have been difficult to keep them straight and keep the reader interested in all of them, but Rodriguez seems to have tackled this with ease.

What didn't you like about this book?
While everyone else's story seemed to teach a specific aspect of life in Kabul, I felt like Sunny's story could have taken place anywhere.  While the others were struggling to stay alive or live by the rules of their religion, Sunny's biggest problems seemed to be what man she'd end up with before the book ended.

What could the author do to improve this book?
Focus less on the American perspective (Sunny) and more on those native to Afghanistan.

304pp
Published: January 2011

Theme: Ronnie Talk to Russia by Prince

#BookReview: Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away - Christie Watson

An absolutely brilliant effort from first time novelist Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, is definitely a must read.  Watson tackles several issues head on and does so with ease.

Told from the point of view of Blessing, who is twelve when we first meet her, Tiny Sunbirds is the story of a Nigerian family uprooted from their comfortable existence in Lagos when the mother catches the father cheating.  Forced to move to Warri in the Niger Delta, Blessing and her brother Ezikiel are introduced to a lifestyle quite different from what they've known.  They're also re-introduced to their somewhat mysterious grandmother and their proud grandfather and this is where the adventure really begins.  Through the eyes of twelve year old Blessing, the reader is made aware of female circumcision and environmental issues resulting from foreign oil companies.

When the children first arrive in Warri, Ezikiel seems to be the responsible one while Blessing has her head in the clouds.  As they mature, and they're influenced both by the company they keep and their surroundings, their roles are reversed.  Blessing becomes the more stable of the two, while Ezikiel becomes restless and out of control.  His direct confrontations with her mother's white boyfriend are not at all in character for who he was.  It's fascinating to watch him evolve from a polite, studious teen to a disrespectful, fanatical one.

What did you like about this book?
I loved the moments shared between Blessing and her grandmother.  Even though her mother doesn't want her to, Blessing follows in the footsteps of her grandmother and I loved watching her pass on her knowledge.

Every character was fully utilized in this story.  Often secondary characters are given a line or two, but the author makes full use of them and it makes the story more complete. I was especially appreciative of Celestine.  Like a court jester, she provided comic relief at times when it was much needed.

What didn't you like about this book?
I wouldn't say it was a dislike, but when Blessing is finally reunited with the father she worships, he's in such a distasteful state.  I would have almost rather she had never reunited with him than to deal with what he had become since she last saw him.

What could the author do to improve this book?
 At first I was skeptical of the children's mother's relationship with Dan, an oil worker.  Perhaps if the author had given us a first person glimpse of Mama's life outside of the household, it would have been easier to accept.

448pp
Published: May 2011
Disclosure: Galley received from the publisher.

Theme: Bye Bye Blackbird by Rachelle Ferrell

Guest Post: Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality edited by Sarah Husain

Today's guest post is courtesy of Dr. Masood A. Raja.

The metropolitan representation of Muslim women is invariably couched in the language of victimhood. It seems that female Muslim subjects have never been able to transcend the passive state of existence allotted to them in the metropolitan imaginary. The burqa-clad Afghan women became emblems of suffering requiring the U.S post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. Thus, it seems that the alleviation of female victimhood still serves as a convincing legitimizing strategy for imperial wars. Lost in this whole process of imperial design and native patriarchy are the very voices of the so-called recipients of imperial benevolence: the Muslim women.

Sarah Husain’s timely anthology intervenes in this discourse and inserts hitherto silenced voices of Muslim women as agents who speak for themselves. The book is divided into four parts followed by an Afterword by Miriam Cooke, a renowned scholar in the field of Muslim Women Studies. Combining poems, short stories, essays, letters, and art work, the collection lets Muslim women formulate their diverse, often conflicting, views of the Islamic as well as the Western world. Cooke calls the contributions “brave writings” (261) that challenge the status quo both within the Islamic world and the metropolitan West.

Husain informs us of the multivalent scope of this collection in her candid and eloquent introduction. She declares that for the Muslim women “the struggles we face today are not just limited to those against colonial legacies and its inherited regimes of control, or against today’s imperial war, but. . . also. . . the struggles we face within our own ‘Muslim’ communities, our families, our homes—indeed the struggles within ourselves” (3). It is within this complex view of the Muslim female identity that most of the contributors to the anthology express themselves.

While all the contributions are worthy of note, in the interest of brevity, I will include only a few examples. Not surprisingly, Part One, (UN) NAMING WARS, starts with a poem entitled “Woman” by S.N, a South-Asian poet and writer. Written in a patriarchal voice, the poem displays the prejudices that manifest themselves upon women’s bodies, for the woman’s body, in the poem’s male perspective, “is for us to mark our territory/and to conduct our wars” (20). Anida Yoeu’s “The Day After: A Cento Based on Hate Crimes Filed Shortly after 9/11” chronicles various individual and communal acts of hate in the U.S against the bodies, minds, and sacred sites of Muslims. The most moving account combines an act of public hatred with social apathy, a recipe for larger racial tragedies:

    Two women at a bagel store.
    Woman attacked for wearing a Quranic charm around her neck.
    Attacker lunges,
    yells, “look what your people have done to my people.”
    No one in the store tried to help.
    The owner apologized to the attackers for any inconvenience. (25-26)

Part Two of the book, WITNESSING ACTS, includes work that provides a testimony to the impact of native patriarchy and imperial wars on the bodies of women, while also articulating women’s resistance to all these powerful dictates. Shahrzad Naficy’s “On Loan to the Public,” a story “inspired by a glimpse of two orphans in Afghanistan on CNN” (111) plays with the idea of public display of Third World victimhood, and makes us privy to the thoughts and suffering of her protagonist, a female-child rape victim. The narrator’s references to happy childhood scenes elsewhere render her experience even more heartbreaking and also serve as testimony to her courage in intolerable circumstances.

Part Three, (UN) NAMING FAITHS/UNCLAIMING NATIONS, complicates the two major signifiers of identity: religion and nationalism. The works included in this part provide insightful critique of the nation and religion as imagined by Muslim women themselves and not by their Western benefactors. The critique of religion employs the very language of faith that has often been the medium through which the native Muslim patriarchy has articulated women’s place in Islamic societies. In a moving essay at the end of this section entitled “Infinite and Everywhere! My Kaleidoscopic Identity,” Mansha Parven Mirza captures the traumas, trials and ambivalences of maintaining a hybrid identity in a world obsessed with cultural and religious purities. Challenging the purists, she ends her essay with this courageous statement: “For those who cannot deal with the likes of me, tough luck! I’m here to stay, and this time I won’t drift away” (213).

Part Four, RE-CLAIMING OUR BODIES/RE-CLAIMING OUR SEXUALITIES, deals with, as is obvious, women’s bodies and sexuality, most sensitive subjects in Muslim societies. The challenge to a stereotypical view of the Muslim womanhood becomes obvious in a few lines of Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf’s poem “The Veil, My Body”:

   It’s just a piece of cloth
   But after Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Maluku, Kosovo
   This is all I have. (246)

The Muslim female identity is constructed within the larger imperatives of native patriarchy and the international power politics, and in such a complex scenario any reading of the female Muslim subject will have to be much more nuanced and complex. Voices of Resistance brilliantly places itself in between the two extremes of politics of representation—the West and the Islamic East—and lets the female Muslim subject speak for herself. The collection, besides being interesting for a non-academic reader, will be a useful text in fields as diverse as literature, politics, cultural studies, women studies and studies of gender.

About the reviewer:

Author of Constructing Pakistan (Oxford UP), Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja is an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature and the editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. Dr. Rajahttp://postcoloniality.org/

#BookReview: The Prophet of Zongo Street - Mohammed Naseehu Ali

A delightful collection of short stories, The Prophet of Zongo Street, skillfully introduces the reader to a wide array of characters connected to this fictitious street in Kumasi, Ghana. From the elderly Uwargida who magically spins tales for the young children to the humble tea seller, Mallam Sile, who always has a kind word for the cruel patrons that take advantage of him, you'll be drawn into these stories from start to finish.

Other enjoyable stories include The Live In, a short about a Ghanese woman relocated to New York drawn by her sister's claims of wealth and fortune; Man Pass Man, about a local hustler that is finally outhustled; and The Manhood Test, in which a newly married couple test the definition of marriage; and the title story, The Prophet of Zongo Street.

I greatly enjoyed this collection of stories.

#BookReview: Midnight - Sister Souljah

If you pick this book up thinking you're getting the sequel to the highly acclaimed "The Coldest Winter Ever", you'll be disappointed to know this book is not a sequel. That begs the question, why isn't it? I'm one of those people that will struggle through a book for days even if it's poorly written, poorly edited and the storyline is non-existent.

Midnight is the story of a young Islamic boy that immigrates to America from Africa with his mother. In the 5 years before he leaves Africa, he is taught many lessons by his father and uses all he has learned to protect his mother in America. While his mother only speaks Arabic, he was taught English and is able to translate for her. As such, he becomes the voice for her when dealing with landlords, clients, etc. He struggles to stay true to his Islamic beliefs while living in Brooklyn and dating, and eventually marrying, a Japanese artist, all at the age of 14. The end of the book finds the 14 year old boarding a plane to Japan to reclaim the hand of his 16 year old bride who has been spirited back to Japan by her father.

I smell a sequel and to this I still say, WHY? We couldn't get a sequel to "The Coldest Winter Ever", a book that truly deserved a sequel, but you're going to give us one to this?