We’re not idiots. But as Canadians, we’re told things, contradictory things, things that don’t add up… about Afghanistan, our mission, security, democracy… February 19th, here in Montreal, Robert Fisk, respected Middle East correspondent of 33 years, argued fervently for NATO and Canada, to get the hell out of “the total, absolute catastrophe” of the Middle East.  Montreal Serai co-sponsored the talk and this issue of Serai is dedicated to Canada’s militarization.  Now the 6th biggest spender in NATO, we’re meaner, more fantastic, more unreal than ever before.

The headquarters of Bombardier (800 Rene Levesque, Mtl.) producing military planes and training pilots to fly them. Photo by Martin Duckworth

In the Defence Department’s Mission statement here, we’re told that Canadian Forces are called upon to fulfill 3  roles:

• 1) Protect Canadians at home.
• 2) Defend North America in cooperation with the US.
• 3) Defend Canadian interests abroad.

We’re told that this is a democracy and yet the how’s, when’s and where’s of numbers 1, 2 and 3 are decided without any pretense to democratic consultation. Which seems to have led to a situation in which, as Fisk so aptly put it, “We are not safe anywhere!” For to honor numbers 2 and 3 surely means to seriously compromise number 1, when, for instance, Canada is deeply partnering with Israel on matters to do with our mutual security in such areas as correctional services, prisons, law enforcement and borders and mutual protection from “common threats” including “border issues” See here.

How do we, the electorate, deal with this allegiance, following the horrors that Israel has just inflicted on the Gaza, an open air prison of sorts / a testing ground for weaponry the likes of which not previously seen, the stuff of nightmares.  We do not deal with it very well, largely because we do not have to.

The terrible reality of Gaza here has not been televised.  Our constitutions, deemed too delicate, were spared the horrors, by what Fisk observed as TV’s “coalition with government” and, quoting Reuters, “Out of respect for the dead.”  ”The same bodies,” he added, “they wouldn’t show respect for when they were alive.”

How prepared are we to question policy and practice when it’s also a matter of business as usual? Many Canadians have interests in Israel vested right through their retirement: See here how the Canadian Pension Plan is investing in weapons sold to Israel. Heavens! you may think, at what price those golden years?!

The headquarters of SNC Lavalin (453 Rene Levesque, Mtl.) producing bullets for Canada and other militaries. Photo by Martin Duckworth

Then again, the CPP is no less patriotic than the DND who promise that “Defence will continue to make a vital contribution to the economy” while promoting “the deeply held Canadian values of democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law.” Speaking of the latter…on the matter of our mission, to Afghanistan, didn’t Harper recently declare on CNN, ”  …quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency. Because I think, you know, a part of the calculation there is the fact that, ultimately, the source of authority in Afghanistan has to be perceived as being indigenous. If it’s perceived as being foreign — and I still think we’re welcome there — but if it’s perceived as being foreign, it will always have a significant degree of opposition.” The blood of Afghan men, women and children; how many lives? Only for our leader to blandly arrive at the same understanding as Lawrence of Arabia, in 1929, “Granted mobility, security, time and doctrine, victory will rest with the insurgents.” Such is Afghanistan. “Why,” Fisk asks, “didn’t we read this in 2003?”

In a Real News panel on why we are in Afghanistan here,  Sunil Ram, military and security analyst, reports how the Taliban go back and blow up schools and other institutions built by the occupying force, the invaders, the Canadian crusaders. Tariq Amin-Khan, professor of politics at Ryerson points out that, “Reconstruction runs counter to the logic of militarization.”

This is Canada’s history in Afghanistan.  Will we learn from it?  Or are all lessons of history lost when foreign policy and defence are trade driven, outside democratic and ethical influence?  Malalai Joya, outspoken female legislator, banned from the Afghan Parliament, argued that “No nation can donate liberation to another nation.” Amin-Khan understands, “You have to allow the political process to unfold.” And that process must be native to that land.

Fisk spoke of how Palestinians are living the history of the Balfour Declaration while every day we in the West are living in this fantasy land of business as usual.  But, I for one want to escape to that reality that understands a we, over here, can no longer be safe from a them over there, the Arabs and Muslims, by now, “white hot incendiary with frustration that they do not get the one thing that all Arabs and all Muslims ask for…justice.”(Fisk) Because, thanks to the defence trade’s twisted notion of democratic praxis, we produce a plethora of weapons to go round so that there is no longer here and there; there is only here.

“Why”, Fisk asked of government leaders, “do we believe these people?” “Why do we put our trust in Obama,” notably silent during Gaza.  Because he believes? We can believe what our government and military say they believe because we are prevented from seeing what they do.

Is it sane to suggest that until we bring the military into democracy, discussion and decision making, along with the economy, histories, the sciences, the environment, media and so on, that security will increasingly mean insecurity.

In this issue of Serai, there are no borders.

To see Robert Fisk in Ottawa, March 2009 click here.

Artist Biography: 

Lyne Lapointe’s career dates back to the early eighties, when she rapidly made a name for herself as one of the most promising artists of her generation. Between 1983 and 1994, Lyne Lapointe created ground-breaking sight specific works in collaboration with critic and artist Martha Fleming. These public art projects took place in abandoned buildings in Montreal, as well as in New York, London, Madrid and São Paulo. Lapointe has since moved from this collaborative undertaking and, in 2002, a survey of her solo work was organized and toured by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, followed by a number of individual and group exhibitions across the country and abroad. Lapointe’s work is included in major Canadian public and private collections.

The following exhibit was shown at the SBC galerie d’art contemporain in Montreal, from Septermber 24 to October 25, 2008 and included a special musical performance with Jean Derome, Saturday, September 27, 2008.  

La Clef

La Clef is a kinetic installation made up of eight elements featuring diverse musical instruments, mechanisms, electric motors, and mixed media. The instruments include a cither, a mandolin, an accordion and a rain maker. In the series, Ms. Lapointe focuses on automata and the damaged body. She probes the fallible machinery of the human body, which, despite all, withstands accidents and the imperfections it is fraught with.

Jean Derome is a saxophonist, flutist, composer and improvisational musician, a member of a number of jazz ensembles, and the founder of the Ambiances Magnétiques label.

He is as a major creative force in the current Quebec music scene and has participated in numerous international projects. His improvised performances create an artistic dialogue with the works of Lyne Lapointe. The eclecticism and plurality of the acoustic and visual languages is unique to these artists.   (Extracted from text by:  SBC galerie d’art contemporain)

All Photos:  Lyne Lapointe.   La Clef, Courtoisie de SBC galerie d’art contemporain, photo : Bettina Hoffman, 2008.

Fennario’s War (41 minutes) is a simple film. The Montreal playwright, David Fennario, reads a text in his Verdun apartment about World War One. He has based his drama on an interview he did with a Great War vet in the 1970s, and Fennario reads the three voices in his script: Gerry Nines, young reporter; Harry “Rosie”  Rollins, WWI infantryman; and his best friend, Rummie Robidoux.

On Feb 21, 2009, when Fennario’s War premiered in Montreal at Concordia University’s J.A. De Sève Cinema, the distinguished Quebec cinematographer, Martin Duckworth, spoke at the end of the showing. “I was with David this afternoon,” Duckworth said, ” and he spoke about Wordsworth, Nelligan, and Walt Whitman.” Then Duckworth added: “David is a poet.”

And indeed what David Fennario has been writing recently is deeply poetic, with the meditative character of Whitman’s long poems.

In Fennario’s War the viewer sees a writer at a desk – the face is intense, the eyes both sad and humourous, the fingers of this man reading are long and sensitive as they move in the air, probing and gesturing. The story that emerges speaks of horrible wartime experience seen in a way both real and hallucinatory. This voice evokes memory, its failures and its importance – and dismemberment. We see, in the words, parts of bodies moving through the air, landing wrongly, hopelessly broken: two left feet, a severed arm, features blown to bits. This tearing of the world is not the world as it should be, seen “whole” as Fennario thinks it must be, quoting a famous phrase of Hegel. And like Whitman, Fennario joins the parts together, brings the dead back to life, restores the past to the present, speaks sternly to his time and kindly to the future. Fennario succeeds in evoking what Whitman speaks of in a poem that Fennario likes to quote:

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?

If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.

–”To Think of Time”

Fennario in this small, simple film makes the past something so that the future can be something and not nothing. For if we are to have a future, we must make something of the past, we must understand it. In Fennario’s War, Rosie Rollins says of the Battle of Vimy Ridge: “Birth of a Nation they call it. I didn’t see nothing being born.” That is the truth, speaking through the playwright.

Yes, David Fennario is something… a poet of the real.

DVDs of “Fennario’s War” are available for purchase through the site.

The Trailer:

The Pimento Report:

I’ve known Jason Breckenridge for many years and over that time the two insights I’ve gained about what makes him tick are 1) He concocts the most ridiculously unattainable schemes in an effort to make his working life as enjoyable as possible; 2) He invariably succeeds in pulling off these “unattainable” schemes. So when Jason pitched the idea of a series of television documentaries to Al Jazeera on the topic of the “Music of Resistance” – a series that would have him flying all over the globe gaining access to the inner sanctum of the likes of Seun Kuti, youngest son of Jason’s absolute idol Fela Anikulapo Kuti, creator of Afrobeat and also the voice of the oppressed in Nigeria – a series that would have him recruit Steve Chandra Savale, London-based activist, desi guitarist extraordinaire, and lifeblood of the politically entrenched Asian Dub Foundation as interviewer and presenter – a series that would let him tell the stories of different musicians that matter, not only in the sounds they produce but in their messages and actions and direct effects on their respective communities…I was 1) Insanely jealous; 2) Knew he would pull it off.

Steve Chandra Savale

Music of Resistance follows the chronicles of musicians who use their craft to realize radical political change. Steve Chandra Savale travels to Nigeria, Mozambique, Brazil, East London, Cape Verde and the desert of the Southern Sahara in order to introduce us to the lives of these iconoclastic musicians. In this Montreal Serai issue on Canada and Militarism – there is much to be learned from movements in other countries to reverse the trend towards arms. For example – one of the broadcasts in the series focuses on musical group Tinariwen, formerly a group of rebel soldiers, exiled from Mali and training alongside Colonel Gadaffi in Libya. After years of violence and conflict in a civil war in Northern Mali as they tried to preserve Touareg cultural identity, they eventually decided to trade in their guns for musical instruments and effect change in a different way than the cycle of killing that had prevailed. These electric guitar wielding revolutionaries have been instrumental in promoting peace through community action, for example by participating in the recent (January 2009) congress for peace that took place in Ersane in Norhtern Mali with 1500 Touareg  representatives as well as government representatives both from Libya and Mali.

You can check out the an introduction to Music of Resistance:

Steve Chandra Savale: Presenter

Produced, Directed and Written by Jason Breckenridge for Al Jazeera

For more info:

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/

http://www.musicofresistance.com/

Introduction:

When I left Montreal on February 15th I knew that this would not be a predictable trip.  From all that I’d heard, the border crossing from Egypt to Gaza (at Rafah) was unpredictable, at best.  Yet I did not hesitate to pack and go, backed by the support and endorsement of many groups and individuals.

The need to lay the ground for sending larger Canadian delegations, the show of support to the suffering people in Gaza and the importance of witnessing and reporting the reality in the besieged territory were the major reasons and motivations behind this trip.

It was also important for individuals and activist groups to challenge the brutal and unjust siege of Gaza, since countries worldwide, for the most part, were either participating in it or silent about it.

Map: The tiny Gaza strip measuring an average of 8km x 40 km. (from Google Earth)

Map of Gaza

Photo 1: Blocked at the border.

The trip was not an easy one.  My first two attempts to cross from Egypt to Gaza ended at the Rafah border crossing when the Egyptian authorities denied us exit announcing that, “the border is closed”.  International activists, including myself, held a picket in front of the gates.

Photo 2: Tunnel police.

Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are the lifeline for the besieged population of the strip.  It is an industry that is flourishing and a few are making millions out of it.  The tunnel industry is not sustained by arms smuggling, although some weapons must be passing through.  The profits made through this trade are the reason the Egyptian government will never be able to crush the smuggling industry despite turning the border area into an army base.  The only way to crush the tunnel trade, and also curb the arms smuggling, is to lift the siege and allow legal exchange of goods between Gaza and the world.

Photo 3: International delegations.

I met many internationals at the border, both individuals and small delegations from Britain, France, Jordan, the US as well as Bosnia.  All were denied passage to Gaza.  But when larger delegations were on the horizon: Code Pink from the US and Canada and Viva Palestina from the UK, the Egyptian government succumbed to the pressure and opened the border.

Photo 4: Two borders.

The contrast between the inefficiency at the Egyptian side of the border and the simple but efficient setup on the other side is astonishing considering the lack of resources available to the Hamas government in Gaza.

Photo 5: Targeted assassination.

In the Jabalia refugee camp (one of the most populated and dense areas in Gaza) Israel assassinated Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, by bombing the apartment building he lived in, killing him and over 10 members of his family in addition to other neighbours. A tent now stands in place where the building used to be, between the heavily damaged neighbouring buildings.

Photo 6: I don’t want to make new friends.

How do you react when a 13 year old tells you that the death of his friends is so painful that he does not want to make friends anymore?

Photo 7:  This is what my factory looked like.

To remind the world how his factory was before Israel destroyed it, the owner placed a photo in front of the ruins. The destruction of this factory is not unique, Israel flattened anything that stood (houses, factories, schools, mosques and even plantations) in an area extending up to two kilometres from the border.

Photo 8: Tents again.

How many times will we have to build then move back to tents again?

Photo 9: We don’t want handouts …

We want our houses back and we want security, she told us.

Photo 10: “We don’t like your democracy.”

Israel also targeted the Palestinian Legislature in Gaza city.

Photo 11: Gaza is still beautiful.

Sunrise at the Gaza harbour is spectacular, despite the warning gunfire heard whenever a fishing boat leaves the harbour. The Israelis are always trying to intimidate. 

One thing was clear to me by then, my last morning in Gaza before heading back to Egypt: The Palestinians will not disappear.  Their persistence and determination to continue their lives as normally as they can, despite all difficulties, is the pinnacle of peaceful resistance.

 
Hey kids! Want a career with a dubious future?

A job where you get paid to play real life deadly games?

Then join the Canadian Armed Forces!

Kill innocent people!  People you’ll never know!  People just like you!

Kill them up close or far away – your choice!

Kill babies, moms with children, old geezers, wedding guests,

pet dogs, donkeys, nurses, doctors, teachers and more!

They don’t want you there anyway, so kill ‘em all!

Unlike civilians, you’ll be licensed to kill! How cool is that?

In war, everyone is fair game!

And blame-free, easily excused ‘accidents’ happen all the time.

You can bomb hospitals, nurseries, wedding tents, schools, universities,

family farms, convoys of refugees – just like on TV

- and no one will chew you out! You’ll be obeying orders ‘doing your job.’

It’s patriotic! Satisfying! You’ll score huge points. And get paid, too!

You can do all this killing with modern ‘smart’ bombs, ‘intelligent guns’

and ‘enemy-sensitive’ grenades. You don’t have to think!

These amazing weapons only kill the bad people,

their bad kids and bad pet rabbits.

When you fly our ultra-cool jet fighters,

you get free cases of Coke before every flight.

We even pipe your favorite heavy metal tunes into the cockpit

to help drown out a nagging conscience.

And we’ll fill you full of beer and drugs afterwards to help you unwind.

Flying killer bombing missions was never easier!

For every evil, freedom and democracy hating, anti-Canadian, anti-American,

anti-God, anti-Tim Horton’s, anti-Hockey Night in Canada

enemy person, family or pet you kill,

you’ll get bonus air miles points for gift purchases.

Compete with like-minded patriotic killers from the USA for rad prizes.

Make your folks proud! And if you capture any of the ‘enemy’ alive,

learn how to hand them over to the Americans to torture,

or learn how to torture them yourself! It’s easy! Everyone’s doing it!

We’ll even teach you how to spot anti-patriotic, evil, insurgent,

dissident, anarchist, environmentalist, homosexual, feminist, foreign trouble-making,

anti-war Canadians from miles away so you can spy on them

and round them up for us in your spare time.

And if anyone questions why you kill for a living,

tell them you also hand out blankets, shoes, candy and k-rations

to poor, starving, homeless people – after you bombed their homes

or wiped out their families. That will shut them up.

Then return to the field of battle as part of the ‘reconstruction team’

to show them what a good sport you are,

re-building their destroyed country in our own image!

Come home to get congratulated by the number-one-killer himself,

the man who condones, encourages and promotes our nation’s contribution

to worldwide war, mayhem and devastation – but who never dirties his hands

- the oh-so-Christian, God-fearing, fearless Mr. Prime Minister!

He’ll decorate you for re-decorating other people’s faces, bodies, families

and cities, or for rearranging your own. Because it sometimes happens.

Good, well-meaning, job-desperate folk like you

can get maimed, wounded, paralyzed, blinded, amputated,

hospitalized for life, or even killed.

But heck, whether you return home in a wheelchair, stretcher or body bag,

we guarantee you’ll be feted like a real hero! With the Canadian Armed Forces!

A cosmic motherly-sounding voice has always told me that even the darkest of clouds have silver linings. The past two weeks have forced me to now wonder if the same idea of a silver lining applies to clouds of white phosphorous.

In an arbitrary 15 years from now, the past two weeks (and, unfortunately, the remaining time to come) will be remembered with images of disturbing death and injury, reports of complete destruction of an already weakened Gazan infrastructure; thousands of IDPs; an unreachable humanitarian crisis and stories from survivors. Yet there is another memory which may leave an impact on the dynamics of the region and the North American perception on the entire 60-year-old conflict.

Without question, the North American media has often shown sympathy with one side more so than the other – an unfortunate, but natural occurrence. At the same time, however, a digression from such a grievance is vital. The aforementioned complaint does not take into consideration the surprising slight shift in the coverage of the war and humanitarian crisis. Oft-repressed opinions and oft-ignored facts are being given the opportunity to be expressed. Fierce criticisms of Israel and piercing predictions of the ramifications of the war are flooding major newspapers.

Unapologetic opinion pieces about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being published every day. Aside from asserting truths about the conflict during an extremely pertinent and bloody time, a common cause cannot be found amongst the authors. The claims of the Israeli government in regards to the operation and the facts about the humanitarian crisis are two points of contention which have been repeatedly brought up. The commentary has also, unsurprisingly, treaded outside the proximity of the current conflict. It is extremely hard to discuss this war without considering 60 years of context. And it is this particular tangent which may leave a legacy in popular discourse and thought about the conflict at large in North America – a region in dire need of another perspective. Underdog ideas seeping into the mainstream allow for a slim, but potentially momentous opportunity for the balance to be tipped toward a more equal and fair footing.

The rise of commentaries has also thrown out a rather pathetic and almost saddening punch to Israel’s public relations monopoly. Active writers, in print or online, have rushed to assist in and showcase the “unravelling” of Israel’s claims of self-defence and cries of moral responsibility. Fingers are viciously being thrust toward the direction of the political timing of the war, the Israeli breach of ceasefire; the failures of Israel’s propaganda machine this time around, and the unfathomable denial of the existence of a humanitarian crisis. Even the International Red Cross, a thoroughly neutral organization, came out with a statement which condemned and criticized Israel for its complete lack of compliance (and fatal defiance) of the organization’s attempt to reach injured and starving Gazans.

There generally seems to be an air of exasperation, as though the war has become one of the final pieces in a long and painful Jenga puzzle, with the prophetic early quivering of the tower just beginning. These sighs of being fed-up most poignantly found within the brief titles of the daily commentaries.

American historian Mark LeVine’s seething article “Who Will Save Israel from itself?” featured in Al-Jazeera discusses the gun with which Israel has shot itself in the foot, albeit with an extremely unsatisfactory answer to the title question. Robert Fisk’s repeated commentary in The Independent has asked and answered age old questions from an insightful and firsthand perspective, in such pieces as “Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask,” and “Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony.” Gideon Levy’s “The Time of the Righteous” in Haaretz unwaveringly with silent solemn anger lashed out against all supporters of the Israeli so-called “defensive war,” claiming that “anyone who justifies this war also justifies all its crimes.”

The BBC’s Paul Reynolds brought to the public’s attention, early on, the question of Israel’s propaganda in “Propaganda war: trusting what we see?” Khalid Rashidi’s “What you don’t know about Gaza” in The New York Times wrote a quick and to-the-point piece with “a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation [in the press] about Israel’s attack…”

Former Israel Defense Force soldier and now Oxford professor Avi Shlaim’s furious article in The Guardian, “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe” labels Israel as a rogue state. Just recently, the Times Online reported that Israeli soldiers coming back from the frontline were revealing the sort of “ruthless tactics against Hamas” being used. One soldier claims that he was shocked to see the neighbourhoods in Gaza as though “we [had been] bombing them for years.” Naomi Klein also got in on the action when she posted “Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction” on her online blog. And the list continues tirelessly.

This proposed shift is not solely about politics, just as the situation in Gaza is not. To approach the conflict as such is to approach it with a narrow and propaganda-cluttered ideological mind. The Palestinian issue is about a mounting humanitarian crisis which has existed for far longer than 18 days. Our governments (save for the Venezuelans) may not be taking the appropriate action required to address the atrocities being committed by Israel, but challenges to the mainstream discourse through the mainstream discourse allow for the general populace to gain the critical information necessary for change in the policies of our own states toward any country oppressing another people. On January 14, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, described the slaughter of the Palestinians as genocide. The tower begins to sway a bit more.

This is the silver lining in the clouds of white phosphorous over Gaza.

In the following short reconstructed video, De-Construction, I’ve used a home video report from Gaza and extracts from other videos found on Youtube, along side my own recordings, to try to convey something of how development, occupation and destruction rely heavily upon each other and how they are embodied by those who suffer invasion.

Picture from "Urban Iran"

Urban Iran

Mark Batty Publisher

www.markbattypublisher.com

130 pages, hard cover, $27.95 US/ $32.95 CA/

Urban Iran is a beautiful book. Its eye-catching stark black and white hard cover with embossed lettering and mixed patterns invites the hand to a pleasant touch. A large part of the book is devoted to the art of a children’s book illustrator who was admired by the artistic director of the book. The images are magnificent examples of the art of an era that saw a splash of the creative scene in art galleries, books, and on the stage.

The book is a celebration of the “golden age” of the arts in Iran; the days when beautiful art and music flourished. Those were the 60s and 70s of course. Under the vigilant eyes and ears of the Shah’s oppressive regime there was little that could grow and flourish. Books were censored, arts and writers jailed and tortured, publishing houses shut down and voices silenced. For a brief period in the last two decades of Shah, oil revenues and international interest gave rise to an active art scene.  It was a short-lived burst of creative energy that was suddenly aborted when the men of cloth pronounced it un-Islamic. With the end of that era, people went back to decorating their homes with cheap Chinese posters of Eagle Brand tea imitating the art of Gainsborough and postcards of the prophet and his successor saints.

In 1979 there was a change. Shah’s monarchy ended and the Islamic Republic took the throne. Over the past 30 years, the Islamic regime has failed to prove it is any more open to intellectual freedoms than Shah was. As a matter of fact, decrees from factions in power at times have openly opposed the idea of democratic freedoms based on the “ideological” argument that democracy is a western concept and is not mentioned in the Qur’an.

Music became “corrupt” and art became simply “blasphemy”. If you had something to say, you should whisper it in your daily prayers. The middleclass intelligentsia that had critiqued the undue influence of the west on the Iranian culture, was now bullied out of the political scene by the clergymen who had not read the books, nor had they heard the music, but had deep roots in the neighbourhood mosques. They promoted themselves as the only option out of the “modern corruption” and rode the waves of the rebellion into the royal palaces.

 The book is a testimony to the fact that despite the regime’s best effort at closely controlling all modes of cultural expression, the young under-thirty generation, naturally thirsty for inspiration and ways of expression, is looking for models to emulate or icons to unseat. Bored and unhappy with the deserted scene, some of them look to the bygone years. And for others, emerging from the fanatic repression means reaching for the West for inspiration; ironically the opposite of the very same thing that had united their “revolutionary” fathers for a while. Heavy metal, Goth style, and graffiti have taken root in the land of meditative music and tiled architecture. Various artists desperately seek validation and a sense of belonging by producing work that would win in festivals abroad but is soon forgotten at home. Alone, the spray-paint artist somewhat glorified in the book, uses English words or slang in his street graffiti. How widely is he understood? Does he keep his message private in a public realm to show off his membership in the elite club of those who “dig it”?

 In other words, Urban Iran is in part a brief and hasty report on the art and music produced in basements or back alleys by those rejected by the mainstream media and in part a shallow social commentary. These artists find company in the long line of those the masses on the street never adopted as their own; from the medieval illuminators of the Islamic texts to the avant-garde urban artists under the Shah, to the hiphop/metal/graffiti art/music scene mentioned in the book. It is ironic that most of the art and music discussed in the book bear strong cultural meanings for the Westerner; whether the artists manage to use the existing popular art forms for fresh and locally significant content remains to be seen. For now, private basements hold the practice sites for metal and hiphop, or for risky graffiti, or riské parties.