Bohemian Bronze meets Mumtaz Mahal

Once again, South Asian imagery finds its way into marketing campaign of a North American giant. This time, it's Elizabeth Arden. Since 2002, Catherine Zeta Jones has been the 'face' of Arden,' a publicly traded company pulling in over 700 million in retail sales. Look at her and the Mendhi imagery selling luxe fake tans and 'exotic' glows. Arden's other product this season is her MumTaz Mahal limited edition eye shadow compact.


Note to fashion editors: readers like me are sick of reading articles about how to get an even tan using a cream or bronzer. This over abundance of articles like this, along with the absence of brown models sends a message to your readers about who you are speaking to and for.

Seeing this Mehndi reminds me of a party I went to recently. It was my cousin's wedding anniversary and for fun, I took some Mendhi stamps along. I had hunted for those wooden stamps after paying five paise to a guy at the Kumbha Mela selling instant Mehndi. He looked like a shoe-shine walla but his kit included burgundy ink and stamps. After that I hunted for my own wooden stamps and found some in Calcutta and some more at the lively night market on the broad sidewalks of Colaba in South Bombay. I threw away the stinky permanent ink that comes with the kit and bought a skin safe brown-burgundy ink that washes off if you try and do the dishes.

At the party I pinned my cousin down, which was pretty hard to do, considering she was the host with three young children, and decorated her hand with lovely patterns of fake-henna (but then later, she did the dishes). Pretty soon I had a line-up of little South Asian girls with outsretched arms and upturned palms. Naturally, they wanted some too. I was only happy to oblige and it was only half way through that I, decidely not a parent, realized I should have asked permission of their parents. It hadn't occurred to me: I was using washable ink. But afterwards, a concerned parent came to me: She wanted to make sure the ink washed off. Her girls, who lived in fairly small town, had to attend summer camp this week--and she didn't want them to be distracted by their hands. I'm pretty sure she was also saying she didn't want the other camp kids to be distracted by her girl's differences.

All this takes me back to Zeta-Jones and others who wear this concept so proudly. She can after all. For her, it comes with no racist baggage. It is simply beautifully decorative. No worries about what the 'other kids' might think.

The special-edition eye-shadow compact by Arden is one of two "exotic" compacts that honours women of colour: one is of Queen Nefertiti, an African priestess (her image from the 1300's, left) and the other of MumTaz Mahal containing "velvet plum tones." A part of me wants this beautiful compact with an image of a strong South Asian woman on it. Another part resists the appropriation and manipulation of the legendary woman who inspired the Taj Mahal.

This led me on a journey into Mumtaz. Who was this woman? What captured the mind of Canadian born and raised Arden in the 1930's when she first commissioned this portrait, found again and used in this 2006 compact? And what about Jaques Guerlain? The French designer who in 1925 named his sweet and heady perfume after this legendary woman, Mumtaz Mahal. Guerlain's Shalimar perfume with scents of "lemon, bergamot, jasmine, rose, vanilla, iris and amber" is actually named after the Gardens of Shalimar, a place Mumtaz liked to go. The gardens were built in Lahore, Pakistan in the 1630's and if you like, you can see a virtual view from the terrace. Notes from Guerlain say: "Guerlain's most successful and enduring fragrance was created by Jacques Guerlain at a time when fascination with the orient was sweeping Europe.

Below, an artists depiction of Mumtaz from the 1630's. Notice her nose and hands: how different from Arden's rendition (above) which skips the nose ring, the henna on her hands, and her sharp nose.

George Galloway Lambastes Interviewer on Sky TV

George Galloway challenged the media coverage of Lebanon and questions the cease fire in this interview on Sky News yesterday. His first words in the interview: "what a preposterous way to introduce an item and what a preposterous first question" and his last words in this interview; "No justice, no peace. No justice, no peace!"

"I Am African" Ad is Strange

ad in Vanity Fair, September 06 issue/keepachildalive.org

I thought this was a spoof when I first saw it. Though my first reaction was 'whoa, that is a strange and stupid ad," I've had to pause to really think about what keepachildalive.org is trying to do and say to its audience in this month's Vanity Fair. To be fair, the first question when looking at this ad for the non-profit Keep A Child Alive org, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow under the words, "I am African," should be; who reads, Vanity Fair? As its title, suggests its readership is for the leisurely (and white). Searching around, I found this copyranter blogger, a former copywriter who now hates anything to do with new york advertising. He's (what else?) ranting about the "I am African" ad.

Copyranter's blog says, "You are the whitest white girl in the entire wide white world, Paltrow. Cheers to you that you support a very worthy cause. BUT, allow someone else to do the ads.... you just look completely and utterly ridiculous."

Okay, fair enough, she does look somwhat ridiculous, with that "African" beaded necklace and smudge of tribal colour across her cheek. But maybe that's the point. Though with Brad and Angelina taking "Africa" into People magazine this year, it's hard not to feel somewhat suspicous of the coolness quotient of associating your name to 'being African.' Then again, if protest is cool, and if aligning yourself with continents that have so far been ignored in mainstream media is cool, then I'm all for it. Only this 'whole racism thing' makes it quite complicated, no? How easy is it for a white American 'apple-pie' (with a daughter named Apple and a son named Moses and a rock-star husband) woman to say, "I am African?" If the creators of the ad think Vanity Fair readers will pay less attention to the images of black Africans, but will stop for Gwyneth or David Bowie, doesn't the ad say more about the readers than its creators?

Daily Show on Lieberman Loss

sample quotes from this clip:

"Joe! We don't wanna go out with you anymore!"

"The lesson is people are mad as hell about the war in Iraq and they're not gonna let people get away with it anymore."

Long and Insidious Roots in the Corridors of Washington

Journalist Robert Fisk spoke to the guest host of CBC's the Current on August 10th. As always, Fisk speaks about the reality of war in the Middle-East and says "what's going on in Beirut has long and insidious roots in the marbled corridors of Washington."

This is a 20 minute podcast of the interview: Robert Fisk on CBC.

To sign the ceasefire petition, go to: Ceasefire.

Hot Caribana DJ

copyright 2006: BrownSugarMagazine, email for permission

Spice Bistro, Toronto. Caribana Festival, 2006

This DJ spinning at Spice Bistro was amazing. We tripped under his spell by accident Caribana weekend on Toronto's College Street club strip. Actually our first intention was to check out Kwame and DJ Dave Campbell's party down the street at the Octopus Lounge on Palmerston at College but when we arrived, the crowds were lined up and clamouring to get in. We felt ready and breathless for the party when organizer Kwame came outside to tell us that DJ Dave and himself could allow no more revelers in. "Go away, seriously people," he yelled. "I don't want to waste anyone's time. We're at full capacity.'' A woman with blue hair in front of us said she felt she'd been in line for three hours. Okay, seriously: three hours! Who does that?

So we went down the road (accompanied by the woman with blue hair); first checking out the New College Bar -- but there was a tough line-up there and it didn't feel very Caribana in there, if you know what I mean. So we crossed the street and hit Spice. For the record, all females in the crowd were slightly reluctant to enter; Spice is the one lounge on College you actually get your ass pinched. Yes, blink your eyes, this is 2006.

Spice was empty-ish when we arrived but quickly filled with Kwame-stragglers and others getting off shows and drinking rounds elsewhere. Then the DJ got going and the place got jumping. Soon we missed Dave and Kwame no more. The DJ spun us around with reggae, soca, and old soul.

Dr. Wafa Sultan: The MEMRI Manipulate

An upset and irate friend sent me one of those strange "you must be informed of this during this war" emails today. The email had been blindly forwarded to her, another email address added to a list of names of people she drank beer with on saturday (monday, tuesday, wednesday) nights in multicultural new york. She was so distressed, she called me--across the country--to make sure I had received it and to find out what I thought.

The email contained a video clip of the now famous Dr. Wafa Sultan speaking in an interview on Al Jazeera television in February 06. As I watched the video and listened to Sultan's powerful voice echo through my computer, I took in her frightening words. “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality."

Who was this bold and powerful woman? She is amazing in many ways; she appears powerful, lucid, strong. But what is she saying? This DC-based Syrian psychologist was using the same argument colonialsts and imperialists have used throughout time to justify war! As Israel continues to bomb Beirut, how could she possibly be implying that all Muslims are 'backward,' 'primitive,' and 'irrational?' She is a mirror of classic U.S. foreign policy justifying the pillaging of entire regions. The idea that the "somewhere else's of this world have much to be desired," and "need to be taught," as a University Professor once explained to me is woven throughout our colonial history.

Another professor, Mahmood Mamdani explains how this concept of Culture has played out in recent history in order to justify bombings and occupations in his book, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim. "During the Cold War, Africans were stigmatized as the prime example of peoples not capable of modernity.....[But], Islam and the Middle East have displaced Africa as the hard premodern core." The difference, he explains, is that while Africans were perceived as 'incapable of modernity,' the Middle East, is seen as not only incapable but also resistant to modernity. An "enemy of civilization" was created in the minds of the west and after 9/11 George Bush publicly evoked 'the crusade," alluding to this 'clash of civilizations.' This perception produces fear and military action, as we have witnessed.

The New York Times, ran a story about the Sultan video. They wrote, "Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries." The Times noted that the video had been redistributed by MEMRI TV and drew in a million viewers. What the Times failed to tell its readers is that MEMRI TV is a DC based project of a former Israeli colonel in order to "inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East."

If you watch this video, be wary of the manipulative edits by this right-wing organization, clearly interested in spreading a particular propaganda. The voice of Sultan reverberates as if she is speaking on a bullhorn to a large outdoor assembly. The voices of interviewer and guest Ibrahim Al-Kouly are normal and have not been put on a reverb. It is also clear that severe (and bad) edits have been made, editing out the more rational and contextualizing remarks of host, Faisal al Qassam.

The Times' writer assumes, perhaps hopefully, that Sultan is speaking only of "clerics, holy warriors and political leaders," but is she? I hope so, though in her interview she is not careful to distinguish between "muslims' and "extremists." There is one line in her interview that makes perfect sense -- and if we throw out much of the rest -- we are left with this bit of sense: "Extremism is a social illness."

My friend's story ends well: She wrote a response to her group of friends, many of them Israeli-New Yorkers, reminding them of the diversity within religions, within nations. She reminded them how easily we are all manipulated by media and by their "undisputed truth." Hours passed. Finally as the day came to a close, she received her responses. Just so you know, there is much hope in that little corner of New York: for the diversity of understanding, for criticism of face-vale...and for the end of war.


To read the complete transcript of this video --NOT the biased and cut one provided by MEMRI, go to this PDF file: http://aqoul.com/images/wafa_sultan.pdf

For a progressive view on the war in Lebanon, try this article, emailed to be by another friend: http://tinyurl.com/ofsj7

A Canadian Media Tradition

Toronto, ON, CA, June 2006:

"Canada Grows it's Own."
A Canadian Media Tradition: Racial Profiling