Tonight in Migration and the Muslim Diaspora class we had a guest, Naeem Mohaiemen.
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He is an artist, who does photographic work and video work on the dynamics of politics and ideology within Bangladesh and within the migrant Bangladeshi community in New York.
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He is very secular, and anti-"Islamist" but he had some really interesting things to say I hadn't thought about.
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For example, he blames a lot of Islamist Jihadi action on economic factors. Newly independent governments couldn't find jobs for their people, but the could find an enemy by using Islam.
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He also spoke about the different types of projection of power. How when he was young the United States had libraries and outreach into the Bangladeshi community (he saw Star Wars at the US Library in 1978) - but how now everything is geared towards security not reaching the community. I guess now in Bangladesh, the ONLY US presence is the embassy and it is powerfully guarded. It is understandable - yet at the same time reinforces the feeling of enemy, not friend.
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Also he discussed how even our "soft" diplomacy - cultural projects, libraries, exchange programs - are outsourced by underfunded agencies to the pentagon or other security folks like blackwater -so even our outreach is channeled first by security.
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Finally (I will shut up after this), he discussed the idea of home as an abstract place for migrants. For example, in England a lot of Bangladeshi migrants wear the headscarf to remind them of home, but in Bangladesh itself, very few women wear the headscarf. Migrants carry this idealized home in their minds that might not really exist.
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Nothing he said was Earthshattering, but it made for a great class.