Bullying has been much in the news lately, unfortunately. The recent suicides of young students has drawn attention to the dramatic and detestable negative powers of bullies. Many more eloquent than I have commented on this, and expressed many of my sentiments. Notably too Dan Savage has created the It Gets Better Project, as a way to reach out to those who feel marked by their difference and ridiculed for it. Again, I have little to add to those who have already spoken about their sadness, their desire to support those who get bullied and to sit in solidarity with them, and to those who demand this kind of behavior STOP. Immediately.
I went to a talk at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute last week. It was a debate between reputed scholars Saba Mahmood and Joan Scott on secularism, religious liberty, and sex. Mahmood, who you should definitely read if you haven't, argued in her critical work The Politics of Piety that resistance is not the only form of agency. Intervening in scholarly traditions that have painted a person's agency or self-articulation as either succumbing to dominant, normalizing forces versus resisting them, Mahmood argues that this is a simplistic and non-useful way to look at the way agency works. In this talk, Mahmood discussed how often times, discussions of secularism locate themselves on gendered bodies. In plain talk, discussions of the "secular state" versus "freedom of religious expression" show up in fights over abortion, gay marriage, women's reproductive rights, etc. We do not see examples of straight men's bodies, and these mens' control over their own bodies - these discussions don't come up. These bodies are all gendered or non-hetero-male bodies, and control over them becomes an issue: does the government get the final say, or does the religious community? In this formulation, however, women's bodies and those practicing non-heterosexual behaviors are defined as "opposite" the norm - and straight men become the norm. It is precisely this kind of thinking, which manifests itself in othering behavior, that has so insidiously reared its ugly head in the bullying.
How can we accept difference, and hold a community of various different practices, without the fear of that difference? I would call for tolerance, but after reading Wendy Brown's Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, I can no longer advocate for tolerance. I advocate a space where all identities can be respected and shared, even and especially when they conflict. Even in New York, though, a city full of different identities and traditions, I have found troubling encounters with difference. Two nights ago, I got on the R train coming home from the gym after work. The train was full of commuters, so I boarded the train in a crush of people. After I sat down, I looked around and surveyed the car. I didn't immediately notice anything noteworthy, but then I saw a large black lump sitting in the seat across and diagonally from me. It is fairly common to see women wearing hijab or Hasidic dress, but I have never before seen a woman (and here, I am presuming this person was a woman) wearing a full burqa, with a mesh covering over the eyes, either here or in Syria or Tunisia. She wore a full black chador, with a cape covering her form so that I couldn't see her arms, and she had her purse and bags under her cloak. I felt guilty, after all my training in Middle East Studies, that she had been so invisible to me, and that I was so highly aware of her difference. Ashamed of looking at her more than I looked at the other passengers, I tried not to look at her (although I have problems with this, too - I was avoiding her more than I did anyone else on the train, thus treating her differently, further marking her difference). I began to be aware of others' reactions to her, people doing double-takes and staring openly. I wondered if she felt uncomfortable with the attention she garnered; I wondered if she was used to it or liked the extra attention. It has been argued that some Muslims have begun to dress more conservatively, and more "Islamically" (problematic, another post) post 9/11 to assert their identity (ies) in the face of anti-Muslim sentiment and behavior. I wondered if she rode the train often. These thoughts felt distressing - I was imagining her personality because of her dress, defining her on one expression (perhaps chosen, perhaps not) of an identity. I was not seeing her as a whole person. I was essentializing her, and in wondering whether she took the train, I was falling pretty to the idea that the woman in the veil must not know where she's going nor how to negotiate South Brooklyn geography or society. I admit this not because I am proud of it, but because I am deeply ashamed, that after my academic training and after my time in the Middle East, I'd still catch myself thinking this way. It troubles me, because I know better. Period. And I am always frustrated when I play the role of cultural ambassador, advocating for respect and understanding towards Middle Eastern cultures to my fellow Americans who don't know as much about the region as I do, who have never been, who haven't studied Arabic, whose questions make me sad about the lack of knowledge about the world in general and the Middle East in particular. How, then, can I judge these others for mistakes I still myself commit, for ignorance I fall back on when confronted with something, or someone, outside my comfort zone?
In watching the other passengers negotiate this woman's presence, I saw some passengers got up and moved to other seats, or passed through the car, tripping on other passengers, as they stared at her. It was an uncomfortable ride, not just because of the MTA's orange plastic seats, but because of the social norms, fear, and tensions that were laid bare. I was uncomfortable with myself, for my marking of this woman's difference, for my reaction, for my lack of being as postcolonial/evolved/understanding/generous as I'd like to be. I did not bully this woman, but I did mark her as different with my behavior, just like everyone else on the train. So I am led to wonder, what can I/we learn from this profound discomfort? Is this discomfort an integral part of accepting an increasingly interconnected world community wherein each person carries many identities that articulate themselves across and into other identities, challenging our easy assumptions about people, the world, the way things are? Perhaps, like adolescence, this strange in-between-ness means that is fertile ground, that there is a space of transitioning, and if we can learn to accept that things are not always the way we imagine them to be, we can see more fully the world around us, holding our experiences with dignity, and without judgment. And that starts with me. I can't control the behavior of others, but I can work on my own.
I realize this little post will not convince swarms of people to change their behavior, especially since someone far more famous asked the same question I am posing many years ago. In honor of John Lennon's 70th birthday, I will end this post by asking you to:
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
PS: Another great book on difference and the modern era is Rabbi Jonathan Sack's The Dignity of Difference.
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