on https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/11/climate-refugees-151125093146088.html
As it related to the Jota Mombaca interview and 2021 reading we discussed in class, I thought this article might be something people may be interested in learning more about.
on I’m an avid user of Bandcamp, a music streaming platform that also allows you to purchase music, and they have a segment called “Album of the Day”. It just so happened to be about Sun Ra so I wanted to share their article with you all today.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2019/10/28/album-of-the-day-sun-ra-arkestra-live-in-kalisz-1986/?fbclid=IwAR3W3tessGxNG_eUbySD3oGJHz_fYTEQivcqYAtP_dfKTdeee3IOEJHy5PA
on The love between Nadia and Saeed reminded me of the song “Pink + White” by Frank Ocean. The song evokes the perseverance that a couple has in the midst of social, economic and political problems that underly their reality. More specifically, Frank Ocean talks about believing and having faith in Love, something that the person that he is talking to in the song taught him. The space that Nadia and Saeed create for themself is somewhat of an escape from these problems, where both of them can have fun without constraints or burdens.
https://genius.com/10267184
on For this week I selected a song called Exit West by Irmin Schmidt. The song does not have any words and has a strange somber melodic progression. The first half of Exit West provides us with a glimpse into a war-ridden sexist society seemingly devoid of freedom. The tone of this song nicely matches the tone of our reading thus far.
on This song reminds me of the dynamic parts of Nada and Saeed’s relationship throughout the turmoil of their circumstances. Relating to the fact that they can only see each other during certain times, the intimacy when they first kiss and lay in bed together, the loneliness they feel when their cellphones and internet get cut off, and the strong pull and desire for more from Nadia.
on This book has a lot of nihilistic views (war and such) so it made me think of the song, “Wall of Death” by the Prodigy. I selected this, not really because of the lyrics, but by the pure aggressive nature of the song. I feel like it symbolizes the undertones of this story.
on Throughout this reading, it is interesting how the author, Mohsin Hamid, interweaves the notion of war and decay. It seems every moment of inspection within the book, Hamid injects a bit of darkness within as if he wants the readers to have an underlying tone of instability while reading this book. Something that would take one off guard would be this line in the book, “such that Nadia and her family both considered her thereafter to be without a family, something all of them, all four, for the rest of their lives, regretted, but which none of them would ever act to repair, partly out of stubbornness, partly out of bafflement at how to go about doing so, and partly because the impending descent of their city into the abyss would come before they realized that they had lost the chance.”(Hamid 22) Even when discussing family and the difficulties of fixing the stresses and tensions within family ties, Hamid tells the readers that there isn’t any real point of trying to mend anything because the destruction of their lives is nigh. These Nihlisitc attributes are very interesting and I wonder how Hamid will play with that and other rhetorical devices as the book continues.
It’s perplexing how Hamid made Saeed racist. There is a point in the book where he talks about his distaste for Filipinos. (I personally don’t see how this can contribute or add on to the story but I wonder if these details are even necessary. Perhaps Hamid is setting up for a scene further down the book where the character Saeed realizes that Filipinos and himself are on the same level).
on “There was no physical violence in Nadia’s home, and much giving to charity, but when after finishing university Nadia announced, to her family’s utter horror, and to her own surprise for she had not planned to say it, that she was moving out on her own, an unmarried woman, the break involved hard words on all sides, from her father, from her mother, even more so from her sister, and perhaps most of all from Nadia herself, such that Nadia and her family, something all of them, all four, for the rest of their lives, regretted, but which none of them would ever act to repair, partly out of stubbornness, partly out of bafflement at how to go about doing so, and partly because the impending descent of they city into the abyss would come before they realized that they had lost the chance.”
This quote was particularly interesting to me, seeing how I have a similar writing style. It was almost as easy to me to read this quote as it would be to read a plethora of simple sentences. Hamid’s use of one extremely long sentence creates the illusion of the argument in the family, the quick and heated feeling of the conversation, the brevity of the time it took for Nadia to make the decision, and the contrasting personality of Nadia in comparison to the rest of the family. Hamid purposefully uses commas instead of periods to really showcase the intensity of this household conversation. Imagine trying to rely all of this information in one breathe and how intense of a feeling that would be for your lungs and your body as a whole. This feeling is probably how Nadia felt growing up. She was almost an outcast in her family because of her different beliefs and her natural feelings of going against the grain.
This long sentence showcases not only the intensity of the family conversation, but also the time it took for Nadia to make this decision. Hasid says in the book, “and to her own surprise for she had not planned to say it”, but also showcases the quickness of this decision through the long sentence and the placement of the commas. Each of the coupling of words between the commas is very short and quick to read. EX: “an unmarried woman”, “partly out of stubbornness”, “all four”, etc. Also, if going back to the point of saying this all in one breath, this would all have to come out rather quickly to ensure that it is all said, further emphasizing the short thought put into the decision. Imagine the high that comes from pushing all of this out in one breathe, the heat, and the intensive feeling, this is all showcased as well in this paragraph.
Finally, this paragraph also showcases the contrast between Nadia and her family. When Hasid talked about the family as a whole, he used regular sentences, in contrast to this very long one sentence paragraph. In this instance, when Nadia does something against the norm of the family, it gets this long sentence with breaks only from the commas- something that is not all that used in literature.
on Mombaça, Jota. “2021.” The Present Is Not Enough – Queer Histories and Futures, Hebbel am Ufer, 2019, https://www.hebbel-am-ufer.de/en/hau3000-archiv/2021-by-jota-mombaca/.
Jota Mombaça is an artist from Natal, Brazil, whose work focuses on the impacts of coloniality, among other topics. Excerpts from their 2019 short story, “The Time Has Come, In Which The Lights of This Epoch Were Lit Everywhere,” were published under the title “2021” in the accompanying publication for a festival called “The Present is Not Enough – Queer Histories and Futures.” This festival was organized by Hebbel am Ufer, a theatre in Berlin. The piece is framed as a series of journal entries set in 2021 and sets an almost apocalyptic atmosphere, although Hebbel am Ufer describes the work as “less a dystopia than a poetic description of the status quo.”
In the piece, the narrator describes life in dark tunnels that were originally created by the current residents’ enslaved ancestors and currently being expanded by the new generation. The tunnels are a place for people of color (perhaps specifically Black people) to escape from the world above, where white supremacy reigns and oppresses. The residents have learned to live with heightened senses in this dark, subterranean space. The residents lose track of time, and death does not seem to faze them as they consider themselves half-dead already.
The piece seems to be a metaphor for the oppression of people of color—specifically, the descendants of enslaved Africans in Brazil, as the reference to Zumbi dos Palmares, a leader in the resistance to enslavement of Africans by the Portuguese in Brazil, implies—who are hoping for a new world, but are struggling in the oppressiveness of the space they occupy. At one point, the community realizes and sees its own strength, but fatigue comes crashing down: it is difficult to fight against oppression when one is stuck in the cogs of oppression, fatigued by the millions of day-to-day obstacles to overcome first before fighting against the bigger issues.
One of the most poignant paragraphs from “2021” is the following:
“We are tired and we are also furious. There are moments when we desire so firmly the abolition of all things done through our social death that we feel the earth to start trembling around us. We then hold hands, refusing the fear, in order to wish together that the earth finally vibrates their apocalypse this time.”
This paragraph can be read as a poetic expression of the wish to abolish white supremacy, the system and structure that has caused the speakers’ apocalypse that has forced them into these oppressive underground tunnels.
“2021” ends on a hopeful note, with the speaker expressing that they were alive and they would live. The speaker remembers a phrase that they heard on January 1st, 2012, which is, “’May the victory reward those who have made war without loving it.’” Colonizers/Enslavers often made/make war and inflicted violence and enjoyed the spoils of war—which they did not need—and sometimes even explicitly enjoyed watching the suffering they were inflicting. In the case of oppressed groups fighting against the status quo, they are doing it to fight the oppressive, unjust status quo: it is out of necessity, not unchecked and oppressive desire.
on The setting created in the excerpt from “2021” by Jota Mombaça is very apocalyptic and pessimistic. Mombaça emphasizes the interconnectedness of people in this apocalyptic, dark, subterranean world, which reminds me of the mood of this song in particular from Jhené Aiko’s album Trip.
“The world’s a f*cking mess
It’s gone to sh*t
And I am every bit a part of it
I may have started it
I try to find a brighter sight
An elevated, higher sight
It’s out of sight
Oblivion
Wish I would go back
I could go back to no one
Oblivion
Wish I would go back
I could go back to nothing”