iBand is a good example of Jenkins’ notion of a DIY culture by fans that is empowered by open (in this case, jail broken) technology leading to a flourishing of creativity. Give people generative tools and they will generate and create.

It reminds us that we often make categories of people that do not ‘naturally’ exist, but which we put them in, and these categories become ‘real’ in themselves. I was thinking how many categorization schemes are responsible for making a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’, where in fact there is often not such a difference. What I mean with that, is that the difference is historical and political, not natural, but in the process ends up becoming naturalized (rather than being natural). Consider how you classify yourself when filling in the census: do you check the box for “White”, “African-American”, “Asian”? What if I am both? What if I am none of the above? The question is not just an arbitrary one that self-indulges in issues of personal identity, but takes on a serious dimension when you consider that these identities are collected and aggregated, processed and used to make public policy. Who gets welfare, who doesn’t? Which group has more crime, which group has less?

One category that keeps fascinating me is the “allochtoon” and “autochtoon” distinction in the Netherlands. It would go too far at this point to explain the very details, but more or less, the difference is whether your ‘roots’ are Dutch or not. Keep in mind, this is not about being a Dutch citizen or not! If I had to translate it to the American context, one could say this is the difference between Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic (what we call ‘allochtoon’ in the Netherlands) or “American”-American (autochtoon).

In the Dutch context, the word “allochtoon” has taken on a very sinister meaning in the last few years. Connotations of being backwards, of leeching on the Dutch welfare society, of being criminal .. but to come full circle, and to paraphrase Williams, “there are in fact no allochtonen, only ways of seeing people as allochtonen.”

Being the critical theorist with a big heart that Raymond Williams is, he followed that up with “the degree that we find the formula inadequate for ourselves, we can wish to extend to others the courtesy of acknowledging the unknown”.

Let me repeat that: “there are in fact no allochtonen, only ways of seeing people as allochtonen .. the degree that we find the formula inadequate for ourselves, we can wish to extend to others the courtesy of acknowledging the unknown“.

I see this kind of initiative as a great way to countering some of the less democratizing aspects of the web: first, the ‘Daily Me’ as suggested by Prof. Cass Sunstein: the idea that we end up only reading those websites that conform to our worldview, because the internet is so customizable, and second, the power law distribution as suggested by Prof. Clay Shirky: the idea that we end up only reading those websites that everybody else keeps linking to, or in terms of blogs, the so-called A-list bloggers.

In short: there are so many interesting blogs out there! Why keep reading the same ones over and over again?

PS: I was listed as one of her five blogs for BlogDay last year, by Qadira.

But having come to this step, I already know it’s time. The occurance of Bingdan incident, I felt, was the time to make things clear. That is to be prepared that, alright, the price I have to pay for are: First, never be able to obtain a visa again. Second, all my books have to be unloaded from shelves. Third, essays will never be published again. These were factors that were being factored in and then you can write this kind of essay.

Wiki has a not-so-complete entry, but given the (cultural, linguistical) constraints, it’s not all that bad. Also see the recently added about page.

EDIT: Belle once wrote a haiku inspired by ‘silent dreams’, reposted here in, posthumous:

floating on nebulous sky,
I lay my head
on the face of moonlight.

My friend Selmin, being from Turkey and now in the US for her PhD took up my invitation and shared her perspective on the issue. A quote of her that I like best sums up the idiocy of the whole issue:

“Personally, I’ve grown equally sick of the Western symbolic violence (continously assaulting Eastern values and mocking their sensibilities in every opportunity) and Eastern terrorism, that finds excuse for violence in every stupid act, lately.”

My classmate Susan sent me a website that gives an insight on how professional cartoonists themselves think about it. And finally, Global Voices has done a wonderful job translating and bringing us a wide diversity of voices from the Arabic blogosphere that brings a much richer voice to this issue than how the Western media is portraying them: e.g. Muslim people have a wider range of reactions than just burning the Danish embassy, or saying ‘nah nah’ and being totally childish back.