The world has been obsessed with superheroes since at least 1938, when DC Comics launched Superman. Since then, like Spiderman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and the Fantastic Four, Superman has been— with uncommon strength and virtue—a leading superhero archetype. The popularity of superhero comics is cyclical, often surging during war, perhaps why they are flourishing once again. The Incredible Hulk, Batman, and Iron Man battle evil in Hollywood this year. This month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opens “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” an exhibit that celebrates their glamorous haute couture.
Western superhero comics, however, don’t yet reflect the diversity of their audience. Overwhelmingly, white males remain both the heroes and targeted readers. Female superheroes—aside from Wonder Woman—are likely just voluptuous bodies. One reason for this may be that women are sparsely employed in the mainstream comics industry. Nonetheless, there is a growing demand for diverse comic characters—be they female or of a multi-cultural background.
Some comic enthusiasts are so tired of the superheroes that are clearly marketed toward a straight, white, male audience that they’re turning toward female-friendly comics from other cultures. The most influential (and one of the oldest and most widely read) of these hails from Japan: manga. Early versions of manga debuted in the late 19th century and its wide-ranging themes are read by women and men of all ages. Action, adventure, comedy, horror, sexuality, politics, science fiction, and romance are just a few of manga’s vast topics.
“American superheroes and villains are either pure good or evil, whereas Japanese manga have complex characters with whom readers can relate,” says Dr. Susan Napier, professor of Japanese Language and Literature at Tufts University. “This may be why manga became popular among Americans after September 11th. Young audiences feel the moral ambiguity of the modern world reflected in manga,” she adds.
For example, Dr. Napier points to “Fruits Basket,” a manga featuring orphan Tohru Honda who strives to break a curse that turns males she hugs into Chinese Zodiac signs. According to Dr. Napier, Honda’s “power” is a universal metaphor for people’s discomfort with the opposite sex that leads some to unwillingly transform into unrecognizable versions of themselves. The relatable themes and realistic, but powerful, heroines of shojo (female) manga explain their popularity among women— even though manga still has plenty sexualized female content, notes Dr. Napier. “Revolutionary Girl Utena” and “Princess Knight” are two popular shojo manga with smart, nuanced heroines. Like many shojo comics, “Revolutionary Girl Utena” is written and illustrated by women.
Indian comics also have psychologically complex female heroines—which may explain their recent popularity. Traditionally, Indian comics depict history, myths, and epics like the “Mahabharata,” that teem with strong women, such as goddesses Kali and Durga. One such series, “Amar Chitra Katha,” has sold 90 million copies (of 400 titles in 20 languages) since 1967. Deepak Chopra, film director Shekhar Kapur, and Sharad Devarajan of Gotham Entertainment Group were all fans of the series. They saw the worldwide popularity of manga as a sign that the West was demanding global content—and realized the time was right to launch a modern Indian comic series.
In 2005, the three founded Virgin Comics, a New York-based branch of media mogul Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin mega brand, to retell Indian epics to a Western market with an updated style. Some titles draw heavily from the goddess tradition, including “Devi” (Hindi for “goddess”) and “India Authentic.” Like Dr. Napier, Chopra believes Indian epics contain an appealing mix of nuanced superheroes. “Eastern traditions tell us there is no separation between sinner and saint, divine and diabolical or sacred and the profane…even gods and goddesses are not immune to jealousy and rage,” Chopra clarifies in a company press release.
Naif Al-Mutawa, the 37-year-old founder of Kuwaiti-based Teshkeel Media, was also inspired to start a comic with an eastern focus. Since childhood, Al-Mutawa had devoured comics but as an adult, he realized that the Arab world’s versions were mere translations of North American series —all based on Judeo-Christian models. Inspired by his four sons and negative press of the Arab world, Al-Mutawa pitched a comic based on positive Islamic imagery. Investors rallied around the idea and the series, called “The 99,” was born.
Even though each character of “The 99” embodies one of the ninety-nine tenets of Islam, religion is never explicitly mentioned. John Wheeler, or “Darr the Afflicter,” is blond, blue-eyed, and in a wheelchair. Hungarian Miklos Szekelyhidi, or “Jami the Assembler,” relies on electrical genius. But Al-Mutawa was also interested in creating a variety of Islamic female characters. Noora is a fierce young woman from the United Arab Emirates who makes holograms and wears her long hair loose. Amira Khan rejects her traditional Pakistani upbringing in London and instead employs her “satellite” mind for the F.B.I.
Positive and diverse images of Muslim women in “The 99” are still unified by a gender-neutral theme, according to Al-Mutawa,whose intention of giving his characters a range of backgrounds was to show the transcendent quality of Islamic values. However, noble intentions have not spared “The 99” from criticism. Some Muslim clerics denounce personification of God, depiction of women sans headscarves, and new myths interpreting Allah’s virtues. Saudi Arabia banned “The 99” for nearly two years until recently. Regardless, it enjoys increasing popularity, especially in the more liberal Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait and Dubai. “The 99” is also widely available throughout the United States, where Al-Mutawa says it has been warmly received by critics.
The success of these global comics, many of which have strong female heroines, has even influenced the once-staid comic industry here in the U.S. In response to the success of female comics overseas, mainstream publishers DC and Marvel Comics have introduced more female-centered series in the past three years, like “Anita Blake,” “Vampire Hunter,” and “Re-Gifters” (with a Korean-American lead). After years in the Western comic industry, American illustrator Nina Paley turned to Sita from the “Ramayana” for her animated film, “Sita Sings the Blues.” The acclaimed film weaves Paley’s personal story—following her husband to Trivandarum, India only to be dumped by him via email—with the humiliating dissolution of fictional Sita’s marriage. Why did Paley, a white American from Illinois turn to an Indian heroine? Paley couldn’t relate to any Western superhero characters. “Western comics are a sexist, brutal field dominated by men that create aggressive male characters,” Paley says. “In India, I could find a patron saint of heartbreak.”
Judd Winick, creator of diverse comic characters for both DC and Marvel, has faced complaints from readers about a perceived overt social agenda in the creation of new multicultural characters, but he believes they will temper with time. “After a while, it doesn’t look like a social agenda. It’s the world we live in,” Winick said in a 2006 interview.
Rachel Edidin assistant editor for the underground comic publishing giant Dark Horse believes good stories, good art, and interesting, well-developed characters win audiences regardless of gender or ethnicity. “Superheroes serve, as a genre, as some of the most vivid heroic narratives of our era, and a realization of a lot of people’s fantasies of very literal empowerment and activism,” she says. If an increasingly diverse readership has anything to say about it, it is time for modern-day superheroes to break out of the macho, ethno-centric mold and mirror the multicultural world we live in.
Richa Gulati is a freelance writer and practicing attorney based in New York City. This is her second article for JANERA.com
“Everything was shocking, everything was new,” says Adnan, an Iraqi translator working for the Americans in George Packer’s first-time play “Betrayed“. “But that was before.”
New Yorker writer George Packer’s “Betrayed” takes a look at Iraq through “before” and “after” lenses, illuminating the lives of Iraqis who have risked everything for the Americans, only to find themselves lost in a quagmire of indifference and bureaucracy. “Betrayed” flips open the reporting notebooks of Packer’s award-winning journalism and brings the voices of his subjects to stark, unflinching life. Based on Packer’s 2007 article for the New Yorker, with some scenes drawing directly from that text, “Betrayed” depicts how quickly the lives of Iraqis working as translators and political advisors to the Americans go from priceless to meaningless in the eyes of their employers.
The play, a Culture Project production, is tightly staged and directed by Pippin Parker, who makes exceptional use of the theatre’s small space. As the heat turns up and the Iraqi workers come to grips with how much they risk while collaborating with the Americans, simple gestures convey the enormity of the strain. A heated exchange of words between two of the translators oscillates between a shouting match and furious scribbling as they try to get back to work, their pens serving as their weapons. In another scene, an Iraqi translator’s constant touches to his forehead demonstrate the anguish of his situation and his effort, perhaps, to divine answers.
As the play progresses, the subject of identity takes center stage. Two translators, played with great economy and strength by Sevan Greene and Waleed F. Zuaiter, work furiously to get the Americans to change the translator’s badges, an immediate marker of their collaboration and a bulls eye to anyone interested in doing them harm. A second story is revealed as Intisar, a female Iraqi translator played by the brassy Aadya Bedi, grapples with the pressure to wear the jiljab, the Islamic covering for women. If she does, she eases one more layer of social pressure against her, though at the expense of her own sense of identity. If she does not, those who think she’s working for the Americans will have their worst suspicions confirmed. In one of the most moving scenes of the play, Intisar stands alone under a spotlight, wordlessly struggling with the choice she faces.
American swagger and ignorance in Iraq is deftly captured by Jeremy Beck’s portrayal of a security officer as well as Mike Doyle’s role as the American foreign service officer. Yet the play never falls into stock portrayals or easy answers as the Americans illustrate their own efforts to know just who and how and why to trust. The American obsession with lie detector tests, for example, illustrated by Beck forcefully strapping on its machinery, demonstrates the struggle for security as much as it does the cruelty of American suspicion of all Iraqis.
The play hits a few flat notes, chiefly with spots of dialogue that contain too many cutesy jokes. “Betrayed” also focuses overwhelmingly on the plight of the male translators, whose stories develop rich nuances and depth while the female story remains flat. This may be a reflection of the access Packer had in Iraq, but far more could be done to bring forward the bravery and hard work of the Iraqi women who have become mixed up in this experiment.
Packer’s love of language and desire to bring the stories of the Iraqi supporters to life is evident throughout “Betrayed”, and is thrown into stunning relief as texts of letters describing the imminent threat to the collaborators is projected in increasingly large text against the back wall of the theatre. As Packer tells the Observer in a recent interview, “It’s kind of unreal and thrilling to see these actors and the set and the direction pulling together what has been raw life.” With this combination of text and performance, Packer brings the raw life he observed directly to us.
“Betrayed” comes to no easy conclusions as the Iraqi workers finally realize the strange deal of reliance and abandonment the Americans have struck for them. The threats they face on the street, coupled with the hot-cold American attitude inside the Green Zone, ultimately lead many to believe the risks are just not worth it.
“In the end, it was so simple to quit,” one of the translators says in a closing monologue as he prepares to leave Iraq. It’s a line that rings immediately true and yet it’s fraught with ambiguity as America itself seeks a way forward in Iraq.
If neither Packer’s book The Assassins’ Gate nor his prolific journalism have done enough to highlight the injustices of the Iraq war, Betrayed is an important addition to the arsenal. But if this play is to reach its intended audience, it needs to be staged on Capitol Hill, not downtown New York.
“Betrayed”, by George Packer; directed by Pippin Parker; sets and lighting by Garin Marschall; costumes by Rabiah Troncelliti; sound by Eric Shim; production stage manager, Leanne L. Long. Presented by the Culture Project, Allan Buchman, producing artistic director. At the Culture Project, 55 Mercer Street, SoHo; (212) 352-3101. Through April 13th. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
WITH: Jeremy Beck (Soldier/Regional Security Officer), Aadya Bedi (Intisar), Mike Doyle (Prescott), Ramsey Faragallah (Cursing Man/Old Man/Dishdasha Man/Eggplant Face/Ambassador), Sevan Greene (Laith) and Waleed F. Zuaiter (Adnan).
Caroline Cooper, a New York City-based writer, has just returned to the U.S. from Indonesia, where she was the communications manager for the UN. She has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times Beijing Bureau, the Wall Street Journal Asia, and Tank magazine.
At 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, students wait anxiously to be buzzed in through the heavy, wrought-iron gates at 142 Rua Dr. Gabriel dos Santos. Beyond lies a large, colonial house with a broad, wrap-around veranda. As students march upstairs to the old-fashioned classrooms, the wide-plank steps creak noisily underfoot. By 3p.m., schooled in the basics of documentary film making, they’re back on the street—shooting their first video on a digital video camera.
While this scene might sound typical, these students are not from New York University’s illustrious film school, nor the well-funded School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. They won’t be driving off to Sundance anytime soon. (If they go, they’ll be taking a 10-hour international flight.)
Rather, these students are enrolled at Academia Internacional de Cinema (AIC), a small, independent film school that’s located in the residential Higienópolis neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil.
Chasing a dream, AIC’s founders Steven Richter (an American), and Flavia Rocha (a Brazilian), co-founded the Academia in 2004 with their friend Ram Devineni (American). Richter, who had worked as the Production Director for Trafika Films in the U.S., briefly considered opening the school in Brooklyn. But when Rocha met some generous Brazilian bureaucrats at a Manhattan cocktail party, the couple decided to base the school in Brazil.
“Our goal was to launch an independent film school that developed independent filmmakers. It was to empower individuals to go out and have a vision and the know-how in all the areas in the art and craft of filmmaking,” says Richter, 36, who is AIC’s director and majority owner with Rocha, 34. (The couple are married.)
Richter, who had taught film to underprivileged students in the Bronx and was also an educator and course developer for the Seattle Film Institute, designed AIC to meet the needs of students who wanted to learn all aspects of filmmaking by actually making films. In Brazil, where major film schools typically require years of coursework before filmmaking begins, the Academia’s hands-on approach was a welcome change. (It was the first and is still the only independent film school in Brazil to offer a full-time program.) As of 2007, the school—which increases its programming by 15-20% every year—had 80 full-time film students and 300 part-timers taking workshops and intensives.
“Most programs available in Brazil are geared towards people who can afford it,” says Devineni, 35, who handles international relations for the school, fostering important connections with industry insiders in the U.S. Devineni also recently established Bollywood Brazil, bringing Bollywood films and productions to Brazil and vice versa. “We wanted to make it more open and democratic—anyone can apply—and if they’re diligent they can do well.”
The Academia is not unlike other Brazilian film schools in that it’s mostly comprised of middle and upper-class students in their mid-twenties. But while most film schools accept only 10-12 people, AIC accepts anyone—even if they don’t have an extensive portfolio. The school also makes a concerted effort to be inclusive, offering bolsas (scholarships) to low-income students, some of whom come from favelas in São Paulo and Rio (known for their poverty and drug and gang activity).
Lured by government incentives, Richter and Rocha originally opened the Academia in the southern city of Curitiba. But soon after renovating a building in an old industrial neighborhood, they discovered the limitations of this relationship and decided to relocate the school to its current spot in São Paulo. (Devineni stayed in
New York to develop the school’s U.S. contacts.) “The school is now 100% private money,” says Richter, “That gives us freedom but makes things difficult, too.”
The school relies exclusively on student tuition and grants to help them bring in international faculty such as Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel (“The Holy Girl”), Polish cinematographer Grzegorz Kedzierski, American Allison Anders (“Gas, Food, Lodging” screenwriter), and Steven Hopkins (director, “Trembling before G-d”). Most of the Brazilian faculty continue to work in film.
Brazilian writer Marcelo Carneiro da Cunha, 50, whose 15th book will be published this May, teaches scriptwriting at AIC. He says the Academia is important in the landscape of Brazilian film, “because it has a very practical view of filmmaking. It is not academic, and this helps improve the quality of the students’ films enormously.”
Former student Érico Rassi, 35, adds that because students work all crew positions (lights, sound, directing, etc.) on one another’s films, they quickly become very skillful. They also make connections that last well beyond school. “It is a college of art so you get to know a lot of people who have the same lines of thought as you. You make connections—your friends become your colleagues.” Rassis’ 10-minute film, “Um Pra Um” (One to One, 2006) made during his one semester at the Academia, has been shown in festivals throughout Brazil and won first prize at Rio’s International Short Film Festival in 2007.
Despite its emphasis on the practical side of filmmaking, the Academia sees itself as an art school that teaches filmmaking rather than a technical school that teaches craft. Students have created over 1,000 short films to date, with full-time students directing 14 films in both film and video, and acting as crew on at least 15 others in their graduating year alone. The majority of students are just beginning to enter festivals, win prizes, and get distribution for their projects.
Aside from Rassi, who continues to work full-time in advertising (as many Brazilian filmmakers must to support themselves), graduate Cristiano Burlan’s work is getting recognition: his first feature film, “Corações Desertos” (Deserted Hearts, 2006) was selected for the New Directors competition in the 30th International Film Festival of São Paulo, South America’s biggest film festival. His documentary “Construção” (Construction, 2006) was accepted to Tudo Verdade (It’s All True) an important documentary festival held (simultaneously) in São Paulo and Rio, as well as other festivals in Brazil and Cuba. He now teaches at AIC.
To help bring in new students and diversify their offerings, the Academia added a one-year creative writing program in February 2007. The program, Criação Literária, has a broader curriculum than the ones available at other schools in São Paulo, the seat of some of Brazil’s most powerful literary publishers. Already it has 30 full-time students.
“There are only small workshops in São Paulo,” says Rocha, who directs the writing program and has an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her bilingual book of poems “The Blue House Around Noon/A Casa Azul ao Meio-Dia,” from Travessa dos Editores, was published in 2005. “This is a different kind of commitment, much more extensive,” Rocha, also a working journalist and the former director of communications and publicity at the school, invites writers she admires to run the poetry, fiction, and non-fiction workshops. “There are some talented students in the course and we hope that it will have an effect on the São Paulo writing community.”
The film students have all the necessary equipment and facilities at their disposal, including two sound studios and a screening room, ten Macintosh computers with Final Cut Pro 6, and about ten cameras in various formats, including 16mm. Lighting and sound gear, plus post-sound mixing and editing equipment are also available, as is a library with more than 500 films on DVD. Quality used equipment can be very hard to find in Brazil’s relatively small film industry, and extremely expensive to purchase outright.
Additionally, Brazil’s major arts funding is closely tied to heavily bureaucratic government programs at the federal, state, and city levels that allow corporations to sponsor artists instead of paying taxes.
This can lead to problems—lack of sponsorship because of a film’s subject matter and implicit favoritism when corporations want to continue funding an experienced artist instead of supporting new artists. When funding is granted but slow to get past administrative hurdles, it can delay the completion of a project—even for established filmmakers. It took Phillipe Barcinski, the award-winning film and TV director, five years to make his latest film, “Não Por Acaso” (Not by Chance, 2007).
With the exception of big-name filmmakers such as Fernando Meirelles (“The Constant Gardener,” “City of God”) and Walter Salles (“Motorcycle Diaries,” “Central Station”), Brazil produces few films that make it beyond the country’s own borders—or that even gain a respectable audience within them.
“National production was seen as seen as third class. What everyone was watching and reading was American—better quality,” says Juliana Faria, Senior Analyst for research and acquisition at GloboSat, a pay-TV section of Globo Network.
However, citing the freedoms that digital technology affords, AIC co-founder Devineni says that he, Rocha, and Richter took inspiration from the ethos of 70’s filmmaking in the U.S., “Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese figured out how to raise money and get their films made; they worked on every aspect of them, that’s how it was.” They hope that AIC graduates will not only approach filmmaking—and secure funding—in the same DIY spirit but also gain wide audiences both in Brazil and abroad.
Acclaimed documentarian João Moreira Salles, winner of the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize for his 2003 film “Nelson Freire” (and brother of Walter Salles), says he feels optimistic not only about the new crop of film technicians graduating from Brazilian film institutes, but also about the type of artistic films new graduates might make. Especially, it seems, those who have graduated from independent-minded schools like the Academia. “I am very hopeful that something really good will come from it. Something formally different that says something new.”
Joelle Hann has written for The New York Times, Time Out New York, Poets & Writers, Geist Magazine, and McSweeney’s among others. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary venues including the 2006 anthology, Broken Land: Poets of Brooklyn. Although she is Canadian, holds a British passport, and lives in Brooklyn, she is obsessed with Brazil.
Trivia question: what do the Ploof restaurant in New Dehli, the Divan Hotel in Istanbul and the Elks Club in Panama City have in common with the Eurasia Foundation in Kiev and a Starbucks in Nongkhai, Thailand?
Answer: they were all “worldwide voting centers”—hotspots of participatory democracy U.S. style, where votes were recently cast for the next Democratic presidential candidate of the United States. Between February 5th and February 12th 2008, expat Americans who entered these and other fine establishments in over 70 cities around the globe, could participate in what Democrats Abroad, the overseas branch of the Democratic Party, has dubbed the first ever “Global Primary.”
An estimated 6-9 million U.S. citizens live abroad. As of last October, I’m one of them. After years of intercontinental romancing, I decided to join my French lover in Paris, where for the past six months I’ve been working on a screenplay and writing articles about French film and culture. As news about the tight Democratic primary race crossed the Atlantic, I felt guilty for not having requested an absentee ballot from Massachusetts, my de facto U.S. address for elections.
One dark morning while searching Craig’s List Paris for office space, I stumbled onto the “events” section and found a notice for the Young Democrats Abroad Cocktail Party. Eureka! The perfect way to connect to the drama of the campaign back home and wash it down with a stiff drink.
What I discovered that night was far more stimulating than a gin and tonic. I didn’t need an absentee ballot to vote in the Democratic primaries. I was part of a whole constituency hitherto unknown to me—the stateless American Democrats—and my expat voice would be heard, in the primaries at least. (To vote in the general elections this November, all expats still need to request absentee ballots from their last state of residence in the U.S. or from www.VoteFromAbroad.org.)
All I had to do was register with Democrats Abroad online before Jan. 31 and then I could vote via the Internet, snail mail or fax. I could also vote in person by showing up with my passport at a worldwide voting center on Super Tuesday or on February 12th.
So on February 5, 2008, another rainy night in Paris, I boarded the number 63 bus in front of Saint Sulpice Church in the sixth arrondissement, rode it past the Louvre, past the year-round lights twinkling in the trees along the Seine, past Les Invalides, Louis XIV’s military hospital all the way to the American Church at 65 Quai D’Orsay.
The room was charged with the energy of an historic election. A buzzing crowd, diverse in age and ilk, waited in line to vote. People milled about touting buttons for their chosen candidates and engaging in political banter with their compatriots, while foreign journalists taped interviews with party apparatchiks and voters.
Compared to the online option, the worldwide voting center’s methods were archaic. There weren’t even any ancient metal voting machines. I wrote my name, address, and candidate selection on a sheet of paper, folded it over and slid it into a big clear box, overseen by two American women who thanked me with friendly smiles, a welcome touch of home in surly Paris.
After casting my ballot I chatted with Jeremy Goldstein, a television producer from New York City, and his buddies—all Obama supporters.
“Obama’s more electable,” said Goldstein. “The Republicans are eager to put Hillary on the chopping block.”
Glenn Burney, a screenplay translator from Pennsylvania, felt that Obama was “the only one who will restore international faith in the U.S.”
Ohioan Christopher Storey, a professor at Ecole Polytechnique and Sciences Po, was swayed by Obama’s rhetoric of change and was ready for a new surname to occupy the White House after 20 years of Bush and Clinton. I pointed out that France’s president, Sarkozy, recently won on a platform of change—an amorphous goal.
“When Sarkozy says change he means destroy the French welfare state,” Storey elaborated. “Obama’s change is more about political discourse. He’s a whole new kind of candidate, one who embraces the political center where consensus is possible rather than the polarized politics of the past.”
On a bench outside the assembly hall, I met Dale Novick, a Hillary supporter. A middle-aged life coach from New Orleans, Novick put it this way: “If I were ill and needed surgery I would want a brilliant surgeon rather than a brilliant top of the class valedvictorian. I believe in Hillary’s experience and her political know-how to lead the U.S. out of the treacherous waters that our current president has led us into.”
After voting, I crossed the river and made my way to the Young Democrats Abroad’s Super Tuesday party in a swanky club off the Champs Elysees. Organizer Brian Lang was working the guest list and in a chipper mood. He had expected about 200 people and already had well over 300.
There, I drank a beer with Phil Leventhal, a medical writer in his 40s, who summed up his expat feelings succinctly. “If Obama won the presidency I’d feel more comfortable about moving back to the United States,” he said.
Leventhal may be extreme in his sentiment but as the results have shown, he was not alone in his preference. There were 23,105 ballots cast in DA’s first ever global primary; two-thirds of them went to Obama and one-third to Clinton.
In reality, this global primary is not altogether a first. Democrats Abroad (DA)—a branch of the Democratic Party—was founded in 1964 by expats who lived in Paris and London. It started sending non-voting delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1972 and voting delegates in 1976, in the same way that a U.S. state or territory does. (Republicans Abroad, which is a political action committee, does not hold a primary or send delegates to the Republican National Convention. It fundraises, however, and encourages Republican expats to obtain absentee ballots from their home states.)
The Chairman of France’s chapter of Democrats Abroad, Joseph Smallhoover, says gaining the vote for their delegates wasn’t much of a struggle. They just asked the existing chairman of the Democratic National Committee who said “sure.” Today DA is a worldwide organization that’s broken down into three regions: Asia/pacific, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMA), and the Americas.
Still, this year’s primary is novel and DA does have real reasons to celebrate. In a race where every delegate counts, DA will have two more delegate votes at the August National Convention than before—11 votes in all. It sends 22 delegates to the convention and each delegate gets half a vote. That means DA has more clout than a U.S. territory like Guam with 9 delegate votes but less than the two least populous states of Alaska and Wyoming, which have 18 each.
Eight of these delegates are the much sought-after superdelegates, members of the Democratic National Committee who are free to vote for either Democratic candidate. Nine of the delegates will vote as their regions did in the worldwide primary. The remaining five delegates will be chosen in April at the DA’s Global Convention in Vancouver. So far, Obama’s won the sole delegate from the Asia/Pacific region and four from the Europe/Middle East/Africa region to Clinton’s two. They each won one delegate from the Americas region, bringing the current total to six for Obama and three for Clinton, (or 3 delegate convention votes for Obama and 1.5 for Clinton).
But what makes the 2008 primary newly significant is that expats can vote in one of the worldwide voting centers or online. According to the DA, Internet votes came from 164 countries and territories. Thus, this Global Primary was an election without borders—or at least without U.S. borders.
Internet voting itself is not new, but it’s not widely accepted yet, either. It has been used for elections by Australia (for its overseas military personnel), in Switzerland, the Philippines, England and during the 2004 Michigan Democratic presidential primary.
The Verified Voting Foundation, strong opponents of Internet voting, call the DA’s use of online voting a “dangerous experiment” for reasons such as network failure, fake web sites, hackers (particularly Eastern European teenagers and hostile governments wanting to over throw the U.S. government) as well as difficulties with recounts. But Everyone Counts, the software company programming the DA online primary, has been running online elections in Britain since 2003 and claims its system is fully transparent, even to the users themselves.
“This system is safer than Internet banking,” says Smallhoover who explains that DA was opposed to a U.S. government effort to set up on-line voting overseas a few years ago because the system was not secure.
So why can’t we expats vote online or from worldwide voting centers for the elections in November? Because general elections are regulated by states and the federal government, not a political party. As a subset of the Democratic Party, Democrats Abroad, like the Republican Party, is a private entity that can hold its elections any way it wants. “We could even use black balls,” Smallhoover says.
But all you nomadic Americans: be forewarned. Though you can download your absentee registration from the Internet for this November’s presidential election, you still have to snail mail or fax the forms back long before November 4th (the deadline varies by state). Don’t procrastinate—you won’t stumble upon a cocktail voting party a few days before the general election.
Sarah Canner is a writer living and drinking in Paris.
“We must uphold minorities’ rights if we are to maintain a free and democratic society.” Riccardo Malagoli, president of Bologna’s San Donato neighborhood, punctuates these words with a long, dramatic pause. As he lights another cigarette, a plume of smoke wafts towards the window, as if attracted by the misty gray of the mid-October sky. “It is with this truth in mind that the mayor and I made our decision.” He swivels toward the window and stares past the swirling smoke at the urban landscape beyond.
The last few months have not been particularly kind to Mr. Malagoli. Since early September he has found himself at the center of a political tempest. At its core lies his decision, along with that of Mayor Sergio Cofferati, to support the Muslim community’s request to build the first mosque and cultural center in Bologna.
The row over the construction of the city’s first mosque dates back to 2003, when leaders of the local Muslim community first appealed for permission to build a place of worship and a congregation hall. That request was largely ignored until 2006, when the Muslim community pressured Mr. Malagoli to deal with the issue in a timely fashion.
Throughout 2006, Mr. Malagoli worked with Muslim community leaders to find a suitable location for the mosque. With Mayor Cofferati’s support, he developed a proposal in the spring of this year that called for the government to sell 52,000 square meters of land in the San Donato neighborhood to the Muslim community, 6,000 of which would be allocated for the mosque while the remaining 46,000 would be used to construct a cultural center, a parking lot, a green space and walkways. Deliberations regarding the terms of the contract lasted through August, at the end of which the mayor and Mr. Malagoli decided to grant the Muslim community the right to build the mosque.
The ink on their agreement had barely dried before journalists began questioning the decision. Some reports raised concerns about the size of the mosque, declaring that the local Muslim community did not need a “mega-mosque.” They also accused the government of a lack of transparency and faulted it for not consulting San Donato’s non-Muslim residents, saying the government preferred to deal secretly with Muslim leaders.
Scenting an opportunity to obtain political advantage, leaders of the opposition – including members of Silvio Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia, the extreme-right Lega Nord and the Catholic Church—called on the government to rescind the agreement. In early September, they organized rallies aimed at derailing the mosque’s construction.
Though marginal at first, the opposition groups’ efforts quickly obtained popular support. Their protests became increasingly well attended, their petitions reached an ever-widening audience, and their lobbying efforts intensified. Some agitated for more extreme measures. One politician from the Lega Nord party, Roberto Calderoli, called for Maiale Day (“Pig Day”), during which he and his supporters planned to trample on the future mosque’s grounds with their pet pigs.
By mid-September, the situation had reached a breaking point. The government, loath to lose their electoral majority, caved in to mounting political pressure, announcing a cessation of construction. The mayor called for a month-long period of deliberation during which he promised that his government would consult with citizens’ groups, opposition parties and Muslim leaders in order to develop a plan that would be palatable to all.
On October 23, at the end of the deliberative process, the mayor and Mr. Malagoli presided over a town hall meeting in San Donato that, though cantankerous at times, resulted in a compromise. After four hours of discussion, the mayor announced that an agreement had been reached: the mosque would be built, albeit at half the size and farther from the city center than had been agreed to under the original plan.
Judging by their initial reactions, the Muslim community and the opposition now seem content to abide by the new agreement. Daniele Parracino, President of the Islamic Cultural Society of Bologna, recently said that the agreement would come to represent “the first successful accord between an Italian Muslim community and the city government.” And yet the situation remains tenuous, with another surge in popular protest likely. Whether the deal holds depends in large part on the stridency of popular opposition. “One can only hope,” Mr. Malagoli sighs, “that the neighborhood’s residents will come to see the wisdom of our decision.”
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Interesting though this debacle may be, its relevance for those living outside Bologna may not be evident. However, when one considers its implications for America’s “war on terror” and Western Europe’s struggle to integrate an ever-increasing number of Muslim immigrants, one begins to appreciate the insights that it provides.
The first lesson we can extract from this episode regards the virulence of anti-Muslim sentiment in Western Europe. If one critically examines the primary concerns articulated by the mosque’s opponents, one quickly appreciates the degree to which ‘Islamophobia’ has captured the popular imagination here in Bologna. To be sure, some of the opposition based their claims on mundane concerns regarding the suitability of such a large mosque in a residential neighborhood (insufficient parking was a frequently-cited reason); most, however, rested on claims that are entirely unsubstantiated by the facts.
For instance, opponents often claimed that Muslims were overrunning Bologna and that a Muslim “invasion” was in the works. In fact, the Muslim community numbers but 9,200 in this city of 350,000, representing only 2.4% of the city’s population. Native Bolognese also frequently equate Muslim immigrants with criminality, drugs and unemployment. Never mind that, according to a recent study published by Bocconi University’s Econpubblica, Muslim immigrants tend to be more highly educated and industrious than the average Italian.
What makes the primacy of Islamophobia in the opposition’s rhetoric so surprising and indeed so illustrative is that Bologna has historically been one of Europe’s most traditionally tolerant cities, where immigrants have been welcomed as integral members of the city’s economy. Its university—Europe’s oldest and one of Italy’s most prestigious—has long attracted scholars from around the world and instilled in the locals an appreciation for foreigners and foreign ideas. More recently, its center-left governments’ implementation of progressive policies has resulted in the establishment of an array of support networks whose aim has been to help immigrants integrate into the community. This openness motivated Francesco Petrarch, one of its most famous residents, to declare in the 1320s that “there is no place more pleasant and free in the whole world.” The recent row over the mosque’s construction makes one wonder if Petrarch would feel today as he did then.
The second implication is that it is dangerous to judge the merits of proposed policies regarding immigration based on their symbolic—rather than actual—effects. For in doing so, we distort the debate from one based on facts to one based on emotions that, in the context of immigration, often entail irrational fears. Many in Bologna oppose the mosque’s construction not because their rational faculties tell them that Muslims should not have a place of worship but because they see in the construction of a mosque a symbolic acceptance of the Muslim presence and an irreversible shift from Catholicism to multiculturalism. To these social conservatives, a minaret—any minaret—piercing Bologna’s skyline represents an existential threat to their ideal polity.
Stripped of its symbolic value, the mosque is just a place of worship, no different than a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue or a Hindu temple. So, unless we admit symbolic considerations into public discourse, it stands to reason that, if Christians are allowed to build churches and Jews are allowed to build synagogues, the Muslim community ought to be allowed to build a mosque.
Moreover, the proposed mosque is desperately needed. The total capacity of all places of Muslim worship in Italy, according to Mario Scialoia, an authoritative voice of Italian Islam, is 60,000, which corresponds to only 7% of Italian Muslims. In Bologna, there are currently eight “prayer halls,” most of them in dimly lit basements. When one considers that the city’s Jewish community, which numbers barely 300, has a synagogue near the city’s main piazza, it is incomprehensible that the (significantly larger) Muslim community should not be permitted to build a mosque at the city’s periphery.
Finally, the fiasco highlights the increasingly costly trade-offs facing policy-makers between the protection of civil liberties and the promotion of domestic security. Fortunately for Bologna’s inhabitants, its leaders have courageously stood up to popular pressure in order to protect minorities’ rights. A different administration—one guided by political expediency rather than democratic principles—would likely have bowed to popular opinion and not allowed the mosque to be built. This has transpired in numerous Italian cities, including Genoa most recently, where Muslim residents have been denied the right to build mosques.
When considering what balance to strike between liberty and security, let us bear in mind the fact that many of the hijackers who attacked the United States on 9/11 had adopted their militant ideologies while living in Western Europe. It is precisely for this reason that we must not circumvent minorities’ rights in order to enhance security, for in doing so we risk alienating the moderate majority of immigrants. More importantly, if we sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of security, we undermine the very thing that we claim to be protecting—that is, a free and democratic society.
Ilan Stein is a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University’s Bologna Center. Before returning to Washington, D.C. to complete a Master’s in International Relations, he hopes to master the art of tortellini-making.
