Yinka Shonibare MBE at the Smithsonian

On a dreary, dark morning in DC, I drove at a steady 12 miles an hour through the District’s suffocated streets, on my way to a conference on Palestine held at The Jerusalem Fund across town.  Due to a severe underestimation of the navigability of DC’s surface streets during rush hour (like a true Los Angeleno, I am tragically dependent on my car for transportation), I missed my conference and had to satisfy myself with a visit to the Smithsonian instead.  A few Metro stops later, I was in the subterranean galleries of the  National Museum of African Art, observing perhaps the most powerful postcolonial work I have yet seen from an African artist.

Yinka Shonibare MBE is a British-born Nigerian whose work, which includes sculpture, painting, mixed-media installations, photography, and film, couples binaries with striking results.  His sculptures are all of headless men, women, and children, whose race is unclear, dressed in pre-French Revolution gowns and frocks that are sewn from the ornate, bold “Dutch-wax” fabric still widely available across much of Africa today.  While this fabric is often misconstrued as being authentically African, it is manufactured in Britain and the Netherlands, and was originally based off Indonesian batik prints.  In an interview in 2002, Shonibare commented on his use of these textiles: “They prove to have a crossbred cultural background quite of their own.  And it’s the fallacy of that signification that I like.  It’s the way I view culture—it’s an artificial construct.”

In his film piece, Odile and Odette, Shonibare juxtaposes two ballerinas - one white, one African, both wearing classical tutus made of Dutch wax fabric – as reflections of one another in one mirror.  We see each dancer emulating the other’s movements and expressions, although the emphasis here is on the African dancer who is enacting a careful and studied imitation of the highly valued, and European-produced, ballet art form.

In addition to Shonibare’s obvious statements on race, his attention to the colonial economic and political exploitations of Africa are sharp and at times, disturbing.  His sculpture installation piece, Gallantry and Criminal Conversation, earned the exhibition a PG-13 rating for its graphic displays of sexual interaction.

Men and women, dressed yet again in Dutch-wax fabric 18th century costume, are posed atop closed wooden trunks in sexually explicit positions.  “This is capitalism at its best,” one of the security guards noted to me.  The comment penetrates the core of the piece, observing colonial imperialists’ literally “fucking” Africa over its concealed stores of wealth.

The artist makes further economic and even environmental commentary in his painting/installation piece, Black Gold I. The title is a direct reference to Africa’s oil and gold resources, sources of conflict and economic gain that observe no territorial borders or ethical boundaries.  We see the black paint splattered like oil across a white wall, and the circular canvases displayed without succinct lines of division or order.  The images on the canvases themselves are of flowers and branches, either stretched, unpainted fabric or paintings administered in thick, tactile layers of paint.  It is a focused explosion of a piece, controlled and raging at once.

The messages in Shonibare’s work are rich and multilayered, but much of his strength comes from the clear symbolism and ready accessibility of his argument to the average viewer.  No individual who comes into contact with one of his pieces will walk away scratching their head and muttering about the incoherencies and pretensions of fine art.  His work is sharp and solid, and hits its audience with a cacophony of fresh material to rethink Africa’s often forgotten past and the roots of its present struggles.

Exhibition of Yinka Shonibare MBE at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. until March 7, 2010.

Filed under: Africa , art, Nigeria, postcolonialism

Why Prioritizing “Women’s Rights” is a Bad Idea

NPR recently published an op-ed on Afghanistan by Rachel Reid, an Afghanistan specialist with Human Rights Watch.  (Related material on Afghan women’s rights can be found here.)  She makes a compelling argument for the U.S. Af-Pak policy: end relations with corrupt warlords, prioritize women’s rights, and do not increase foreign troop levels unless their presence will actually contribute to Afghan’s security.  Sounds clear and clean enough.  But the Obama Administration, and its special Af-Pak policy team, led by the infamous Richard Holbrooke, will have a difficult time delivering such a policy.

In fighting the war in Afghanistan, the United States has been presented with two approaches:

1. The minimalist view calls for an abandonment of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan and a renewed focus on Al Qaeda. This view has been endorsed by a variety of thinkers, including Leslie Gelb, Vice President Joe Biden, and the Bush Administration, and is thus responsible for landing America in its current quagmire.  Despite its obvious failings, this view correctly asserts that America is severely limited in its understanding of Afghanistan’s internal complexities, and is ill equipped to fight an elusive enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan.  Furthermore, it would be delusional to think that America can build a viable Afghan state.  Nation-building, which encompasses intoxicating ideas like civilian freedom, women’s rights, and education, were toted as justification for invading Iraq and a band-aid for the insurgency that erupted there.  It is folly to think that these same civil-society-strengthening initiatives will result in a victory this time around.

2. Alternatively, policy makers recognize that neither Al Qaeda, nor Afghanistan, exist in a vacuum, and a pure counterterror approach will not produce sustainable results in the region.  Al Qaeda is part of a terror syndicate, whose numbers and members are constantly growing and shifting.  Afghanistan is also far from a unifed, stable nation-state with consistent control over the entirety of its territory and its borders.  Any action in Afghanistan will directly affect terrorist networks and internal affairs in its neighbor, Pakistan, whose own stabillity and complex slate of issues are tied to the disputed area of Kashmir and relations with India.  Therefore, the comprehensive view argues that America’s clear goal should be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but that government reform and the bolstering of civil society are paramount to ensure a lasting stability.

The Obama administration has taken the latter route.  In his remarks on America’s new Af-Pak strategy, the President stated:

A campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets or bombs alone… to advance security, opportunity and justice — not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces — we need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers.

A bipartisan bill to deliver annual aid to Pakistan over the next five years, the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan Authorization Bill, was signed into law as S. 1707: Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 by the President last month.  Throughout America’s time in the region, the President called for benchmarks to measure progress, a valuable step that the Bush Administration ignored, but also a lofty set of ambitions that will likely never been entirely completed to this or future administrations’ satisfaction.  He has not and will not provide a timetable.  In March 2008, Holbrooke predicted:

This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history.

While increasing women’s political and social rights in Afghanistan is a tantalizing thought, it is just another part of the promised package that America cannot deliver.  Refusing to engage in dialogue with corrupt leaders is not possible either, even though Obama wants to “seek a new compact with the Afghan government that cracks down on corrupt behavior.”  Clean behavior is hard to find if Afghanistan, however.  Whether Afghans had voted for Hamid Kharzai or Abdullah Abdullah, an Afghan who Reid interviewed said:

I did not vote. The warlords win whoever I vote for.

America has not much choice but to engage with warlords if it wants to achieve any structural change in governance and domestic Afghan policy.

Reid’s observation about security, however, is something to note.  She writes:

Those who argue for more troops should first explain what those forces will do and how they will enhance, instead of diminish, security.

Increased number of troops is too frequently equated with an increased level of security, when often the opposite desired effect occurs.  Increased security leads to an increased perception of insecurity that necessitates the such force, and breeds feelings among the local populace that they are being occupied and threatened and insurgency is the only available form of retaliation.  General McKiernan in Afghanistan had been requesting an increase in troops for months, and now that his wish has been delivered, the Af-Pak team would be wise to keep them there for as short a time as possible.

For daily updates on the U.S. Af-Pak policy and current events in the region, subscribe to the Afghanistan listserv, administered by Barnett Rubin, the country’s leading expert of Afghanistan, Director of Studies at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation, and a staff member with Holbrooke’s Af-Pak team.

Filed under: South Asia , Af-Pak policy, Afghanistan, aid, Obama, Pakistan, women's rights

30 Years Later

On the 30th anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, the opposition movement in Tehran hijacked the annual government-sponsored anti-American rally to chant their opposition to Ahmadinejad, Russia’s support of the Iranian president, and Obama’s lack of firm support for their cause.  The opposition has consistently called for Obama to openly condemn the summer election results and end dialogue with the Iranian government, but it has been unclear as to what degree of condemnation is acceptable or sufficient.  Obama’s statement apparently did not make the cut.  However, if the United States were to take a more definitive stance on the issue, whether through verbal censure, sanctions, or overt threats, heated preaching and treading on the toes of Iranian sovereignty is unlikely to make a dent in the Majlis‘ thought process.  (The Bush Administration did not exactly experience great success in influencing the Iranian government by waving its bludgeon around.)  Furthermore, it is not evident that the opposition would fully appreciate American overtures of support and goodwill.

How then can the U.S. provide support for the opposition’s call for democracy and condemn the Iranian government’s violation of universal human rights in such a way that will appease the Iranian opposition and not sacrifice U.S.’ national interests?  Fortunately, this is one instance in the Mideast in which America will keep its sticky hands and sermons to itself.  Obama has decided to dismantle the Iran Democracy Fund, whose petty $85 million was not contributing to much of the opposition’s efforts anyway.  While this decision has been widely reproved by congressmen, it has been embraced by human-rights activists and democracy supporters inside Iran.  Reza Aslan, professor, author, and contributor to the Daily Beast, writes:

The only way to punish a country for its bad behavior is first to have some kind of relationship with it. That is precisely what Obama is trying to do. By working toward the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran, Obama is laying the groundwork for real, meaningful, and lasting reform in Iran.

Not only is this the best approach for U.S. interests, but it is the best approach for the advocates of Iranian democracy.  By staying clear of direct involvement with the opposition, the Obama Administration is letting Iranians claim whatever future lies ahead as the product of their own efforts, rather than the manipulations of an outsider.

Filed under: Middle East , aid, Iran, Obama, protests