21st-century Orientalism at its Best

Whoever said liberlism is a tonic for conservative myopia? Here we are, basking in the techno-glory of the 21st-century, enlightened and self-assured, not unlike the ancients who walked the earth before us, marveling at the awesome power of our potential. Here we are in Canada, a liberal, open-minded society, sensitive to other cultures and other ways, aware of other histories and other identities. We've defeated colonialism, facism, communism, racism...The '-ism' is on its way out altogether, replaced by what is: reality, multiplicity, multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism? Oops, isn't that another '-ism'? Hmm...I thought we were getting rid of those.

But this is Canada we're talking about: multiculturalism is sacred. Let all other '-isms' wallow in the cesspool of the absolute; this one is ours, we will guard it with our lives, with our very existence. Because, well, it's multiculturalism. It's the only 'ism' worth the wasted ink for the 3 extra letters (we are, of course, environmentalists as well). But more than that, it defines us: we are Canadians and multiculturalism is our own dream - The Canadian Dream.

But how multicultural are we really? It makes me wonder when I read an article like this:

Afghans Love a Good Rooster Fight

Apr 16, 2007 02:30 AM

Rosie DiManno

KABUL–Palwan Azam cradles the bird as if it were an infant, cooing and caressing.

Summoning up a mouthful of saliva, he spits into its face and massages the damp into a lather.

In rooster fighting, this is akin to working the boxer's corner between rounds, refreshing the punch-stunned combatant.

The russet gamecock, startlingly huge – more the size of a condor than a domestic fowl – is bloodied about the shoulders. Its back feathers, behind the crown, have been plucked clean in this bout, leaving a patch of grey, pimply flesh.

Lovingly, Azam wraps the bird in burlap, gathering it to his breast.

"Good Saus," he murmurs. "Champion Saus."

Azam is not the owner of Saus, a fine fowl specimen. He's its trainer, a 76-year-old Afghan who's been in the cockfighting business – the sport of kings and peasants, known here as morgh janngi – since his teens, every season turning out a stable of valiant competitors that attract touts from far and wide for a piece of the betting action.

The owner is actually Ghulamnabi, fat and formidable at 70, leaning on his walking stick as he carefully counts out his victor's purse. A sort of cockfighting Don King, he has made more than $2,000 from this morning's matches. The average monthly salary for an Afghan is about $40.

Ghulamnabi points to the no-name challenger of this fight, a tomato can in the opposite corner of the ring that looks as if it's about to croak, a blood-sodden mess with a chipped beak, now receiving first aid.

The cut-man in that corner has removed a switchblade knife from trousers and is sawing away at the poor creature's beak area, attempting to smooth down the damage. His bird has thrown in the towel.

"They tried saying the fight was a no-decision," Ghulamnabi harrumphs. "We won. Anybody can see that."

The opponent's owner, Achmed Seyar, tugs at an Elvis flop of hair that dips over his forehead, and finally concedes defeat. "It took me five months to train this rooster. I don't think he will be able to fight again."

In cockfighting, there is no referee. The outcome is determined in one of three ways: when a rooster refuses to fight any longer; when it has been pecked to death or immobility; or when the spectators collectively decide that a match is over, as was the case here.

On this morning, under a sultan's tent awning inside the grounds of the historic Babur Gardens in Kabul, about 300 men have gathered for the prime rooster-fighting card of the season. Insofar as the sport has an Afghan championship title event, this would be it. The smackdown started at 8 a.m. and wraps up by noon, when a number of gamblers stream out of the resurrected botanical park a whole lot poorer than they were when they entered. Such marquee duels are held about three times a year, though lesser competitions are staged weekly around the capital.

At least there's no fixing; no bird can be coaxed to take a dive.

"It's like tae kwon do," says Ghulamnabi of a sport that is deeply traditional and hugely popular in Afghanistan, if reviled as barbaric and cruelly inhumane in other lands.

"You have to breed a champion," Azam explains. "Find the two perfect parents and then spend much time training the bird."

In Canada, cockfighting is illegal. In the United States, it has been outlawed in all but two states, though a clandestine circuit continues to prosper. During the Taliban era, it was banned, along with just about everything else, from toys to television. These days, the Hamid Karzai government disapproves but doesn't interfere.

If one were looking for it, there's come-and-pay-per-view dog-fighting and camel-fighting around Afghanistan. Cow-fighting, too. It's a Swiss import, I'm told, though it's hard to figure how such docile creatures can be made to do battle.

There's a certain bloodlust in the medieval culture of Afghanistan, a fondness for the harsh and punishing. Through the centuries, this ferocity of nature has helped make Afghans outstanding warriors who are equally pugnacious at "play."

They thrill to the pseudo-savage as expressed in buzkashi – barebacked polo with a headless goat's body serving as the ball, commonly seen in the northern provinces – and morgh janngi.

Roosters are inherently combative and, as alpha males, naturally inclined to aggression against all boy-birds of the same species. But they're coached to ultra-belligerence in sparring sessions, methodically conditioned for increased strength and stamina by weeks of training runs – literally made to run ahead of their trainers for hours at a time in what's called "driving the cock."

The stronger their legs, the higher they'll jump to parry and thrust.

In the match just finished, both cocks were game, leaping high into the air, sparring and cocking, lunging and fluttering, fanning their wings and slashing with sharpened talons.

Contrary to the custom in some Asian countries, those talons aren't fitted with spurs but rather bandaged above the claws, like boxers' hands. During breaks, their trainers continually spit and blow cooling air on the birds' faces.

To an outsider, it's horrible to watch. But the crowd is delirious, although spectators are careful to suppress outbursts – cheering would distract and apparently discombobulate the birds.

Before matches, bookmakers roam among the audience, taking bets, while non-formal groups of alleged experts – shills, more like – help raise the stakes by arguing for and against the feathered gladiators.

At a top-drawer competition such as this, no game galoot can just step/scratch into the ring. Rather, a cockfighting jirga is held beforehand, a meeting where respected elders assess the contenders, deciding how the birds should be matched, establishing the rules of play and ruling on how wagering will be conducted.

Sometimes, a jirga can go on for hours. It's all part of the spectacle.

In Azam's arms, Saus settles down. He fought four rounds and this evening will receive a champion's feed before cotton swaddling is laid on his wounds.

Cock of the walk until the next cocky challenger comes along.

ASIDE: When this article was originally posted on the Toronto Star website, the headline read: AFGHANS LOVE A GOOD FIGHT. A few hours later, the 'rooster' was added.

How kind of the editors to clarify: no no, roosters, they like to fight roosters. Thanks. But the article that follows does little to redeem the headline. From the lead through to the kicker, it is 21st-century Orientalism at its best. So, the article begins: Afghans treat their fighting cocks like their children, they train them to kill, for aggression, for blood. How sweet.

In the next two lines, the metaphor goes through a time warp: out pops a fully-grown prize fighter chomping at his bit as his trainer pumps him up for another round. What is the message here? That Afghans are bred for violence? That it's in their nature? From swaddling child to bloodthirsty killer in three short sentences, those Afghans are a dangerous crew.

The imagery, however, doesn't stop there. Further down, the article describes cock fighting as "a sport that is deeply traditional and hugely popular in Afghanistan, if reviled as barbaric and cruelly inhumane in other lands." "Reviled" and “barbaric”…an interesting choice of words. Powerful words with very specific connotations. In common usage, barbaric is generally used to describe cultures. Its history is a history of otherness, representing the foreign, the frightening world of the “other.” “Revile” is derived from the word vile, originally meaning base or common; in other words, a term of domination (one reviles from an elevated position – you look down on those you revile). So, because they fight cocks, or rather as the example of cock fighting tells us, Afghans are barbaric, we raise our pristine noses to them (“we” meaning the enlightened West). They are below us, incomprehensible, cruel.

But if it would only end there. Alas, new heights of sinister hermeneutics await us. The article begins with Afghans and cock fighting, expands into culture, and then, in a neat little twist, spirals back on itself. “During the Taliban era,” the article says, “[cock fighting] was banned, along with just about everything else, from toys to television.” So, after denouncing cock fighting as cruel and barbaric, the focus is brought at last to the Taliban, that avatar of barbarism. Hey, cock fighting may be the sport of barbarians, the article seems to be saying, but its barbarian fun…you know, like toys and television. But those vicious Taliban, they wouldn’t let their fellow barbarians have some good old-fashioned barbarian fun. Nice.

So when Afghans participate in recreational activities they're barbarians. When they ban those same activities, they're barbarian killjoys. I can concede that most people lack the basic understanding of Taliban culture to see beyond the violent veneer exported out of Afghanistan and plastered on the front pages of Western newspapers. But not an intelligent, perceptive journalist whose job it is to present facts, not perpetuate myths.

There is a difference, for example, between political and cultural Talibanism (oops! Another ‘ism’ – sorry). The politics of the movement are heavily influenced by Pakistan and a small cadre of leaders like Mullah Omar who seize on aspects of the Pashtun culture to acheive their own political goals. That culture exists a priori to its politics: Pashtun tradition is centuries-old (possibly millenia old), dating back to its nomad roots (those roots are still alive today in the Kuchi people). To understand the Taliban, we have to understand the cultural rules evolving out of a nomadic life - a life constantly on the edge, where competition over scarce resources is intense. Within that context, the apparent brutality (to us) of that system begins to make some sense - the revenge culture for, example, where justice must be swift and unequivocal (there are no legal institutions in a nomadic culture, no jails, no rehabilitation facilities). When a crime is committed among nomads, justice MUST be swift; punishment MUST be immediate and memorable to keep the precarious balance between nomadic tribes intact. That system has carried over to settled Pashtuns and is the basis, I think, of the Taliban justice system.

Does that mean Pashtun (or Taliban) culture is inherently violent? No. Like every other culture in the world, it has its good side and its dark side. The politicization of the culture is only a recent phenomenon: it evolved mainly out of the civil war when outside powers decided to take advantage of ethnic factionalization following the exodus of the Soviet occupiers. To make the connection, as this article does, not only between violence and the Taliban but in Afghan culture as some monolithic whole is 21st-century Orienalism in action. Should we forget that prior to the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was awash with foreigners following the silk route to India and further east? Is it some sort of aberration that these foreigners were generally welcomed as long as they respected the culture of their hosts? In other words, do we deny history for the sake of facile categories that reinforce the Us vs. Them illusion? The current situation is the aberration: politicization of Afghan culture has created these categories. Western observers - journalists, academics, militaries - latch on to these categories, spread them, exploit them and ultimately fortify them. In this article, subtlety final collapses in the following passage:

“There's a certain bloodlust in the medieval culture of Afghanistan, a fondness for the harsh and punishing. Through the centuries, this ferocity of nature has helped make Afghans outstanding warriors who are equally pugnacious at "play."

They thrill to the pseudo-savage as expressed in buzkashi – barebacked polo with a headless goat's body serving as the ball, commonly seen in the northern provinces – and morgh janngi.”

Yes, Afghans enjoy pain and punishment. They thrive on it, those savages. The “ferocity” of their “nature” is why Canadian troops are having such a tough time in Afghanistan. This rather odd assessment has really no basis in fact. If you talk to any soldier who’s come up against the Taliban in a head on fight, they’ll tell you these guys are no G.I. Joe. They’re disorganized and undisciplined. They generally lose head to head fights. What makes them dangerous is the absence of a fear of death. Deploy that fearlessness alongside their tactics, guerrilla tactics, and you do end up with an opponent who is difficult to defeat. But it has nothing to do with some inherent warrior-ness.

I could paint a completely different picture of Afghans (whatever that means considering Afghanistan is a collection of cultures) but I feel like I’d be repeating myself. I could also point out that hockey is probably the most violent of big-ticket sports out there, and yet one would not call Canadians naturally inclined to violence. Canadians, if our recent commemoration of Vimy Ridge is any indication, are also “outstanding warriors” but I doubt the Toronto Star, a liberal paper, would take the position that Canadians are naturally ferocious.

But hey, we’re multicultural, dammit!