Abstract
Within the pragmatics of our conflicting world, few can deny peoples’ right of resistance. It is true that those few are often the most powerful and thus the most influential when it comes to the international community and what qualifies as legitimate or illegitimate resistance. Nevertheless, resistance, in all its forms continues to disturb and challenge monolithic discourses and one-dimensional perspectives. Among today’s nations who directly suffer from such facts, Arabs and Muslims can simply top the list. Subjugated to almost daily international deformations and national manipulations, the “resistance” of these people heads the world’s news, often as violent fighting of violent nations. If resistance defines a nation and its actions then defining resistance itself is a form of national consciousness and identity politics. That is how Arabs and Muslims should think of their resistance and its manifestations. We need to carry it on via shrewd strategies which maintain it civilized for the sake of our self-identification and keep it legitimate for the sake of our national cause. As we strive through our resistance, our unfortunate current image as terrorist and backwards should be an aim for reform rather than a justification for further dark connotations.
Highlights
Within the pragmatics of our conflicting world, few can deny peoples’ right of resistance
It is true that those few are often the most powerful and the most influential when it comes to the international community and what qualifies as legitimate or illegitimate resistance
If resistance defines a nation and its actions defining resistance itself is a form of national consciousness and identity politics
Summary
Wherever they might be found, resisting Arabs and Muslims seem to repeatedly fall within the global classifications of terrorism and fanatic extremism. Her poetry, such as in ZaatarDiva collection, is a good example of alternative Arab and Muslim voices and faces through which one witnesses a rich diversity and multiple identities as opposing to the more often monolithic representations Her performances evoke hope in a better common future represented by politically and culturally sophisticated figures capable of declaring the position of their nations within the sphere of what is beautiful and civilized. As deformed images of bad Arabs and Muslims haunt western realities they distress the eastern masses Feared within their own lands, many Arabs and Muslims share with diasporic artists the dream of employing the aesthetic to bring about political reforms and defy corruption. Al-Saher’s experience has influenced many Arab artists who are seeking to situate their works, identities and communities within the political message of aesthetic resistance, whether on the national or international levels. In the face of political crises and excessive otherness and fear, aesthetic solidarity stands a good chance in gracefully exposing the common global oppression and struggle and uniting the masses around a common goal of coexistence
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