Jesus es verbo, no sustantivo -- Week # 8

Riccardo Arjona is a Guatemalan poet and singer; I admire his polemics, especially in his song, “Jesus es verbo, no sustantivo” (Jesus/Christianity is a verb, not a noun). As is evident in the title, Arjona encourages Catholics to embody Jesus in their actions, rather than follow the rituals set by the Vatican Church, an elitist establishment that has no sense of connection or commonality with the majority of Latin Americans living in poverty than the mere name, Catholic. Arjona criticizes the ostentatious practices of Catholicism, the financial resources invested in building luxurious temples and churches while pointing to class disparities, economic grievances and absolute poverty dominant in Latin America. His polemics remind me of Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian priest who calls on the Catholic faith to embody a more egalitarian understanding of the Bible in their actions and interpretations. Gutiérrez and Arjona both re-claim Catholicism in their unique ways, their vision is consistent with the narrative of human condition in the 21^st Century. They raise powerful questions that undermine the elitist and monopolized body of authority while their daily lives are still shaped by the language of Catholicism, their rich cultural heritage. They liberate Catholicism from abusive institutes. They claim it as a verb, rather than a fancy noun exploited by numerous establishments.

I experienced Islam as an oppressive ideology that ruthlessly established itself as a grand-narrative that mobilized masses solely for one purpose: exercising power. I was born into an Islam that had been turned into the absolute source for social, judicial, and political morality. For eighteen years, I lived with an Islam that attempted to annihilate any voice of opposition, an exclusive, elitist framework in which polemists and reformists were regarded as the enemies of Allah. I experienced the Islam of Iran in 1990s, a politicized religion.

I now live in a society that—relatively—allows me to formulate my own views. I choose not to affiliate with or practice any religion. Atheism is not a distance between me and the religious but simply a narrative that makes the most sense to me. But I still face a question that is neither religious nor existential: Culturally, what religion do I belong to? And the answer is clear: I am a Muslim. My childhood and teenage years are profoundly tied to the narrative of Islam, common themes and practices that bond 1.5 billion people, remarkably of different ethnic, economic, and social backgrounds.

It took me several years to move past deep frustrations and resentments of Iran’s authoritative Islam and acknowledge and embrace Islam as my cultural background, an Islam whose body of beliefs, values and symbols are reconcilable with my tendency of viewing the world through the prismatic lens of literature. In the United State of America, I have the freedom to re-claim Islam, emphasize its spiritual side, and negotiate its morality with literary elements: view its laws as symbols and metaphors for possibly greater meanings, interpret its verses through the Feminist, Marxist, and Queer thought, and place Islam as a whole in the context of life in 21^st Century.

Dissidents shouting Allah-o Akbar
on their rooftops in Iran

I believe a new Islam is in the making in my Iran. A generation with a silenced political consciousness has now emerged after 1979, hungry to exploit any outlet to observe the world, and dissatisfied with the failure of the Islamic regime to address their economic grievances and permit social liberties, they are searching for alternative avenues of political and social expression. They shout Allah-o Akbar on their rooftops to send a loud and clear message to the oppressive rulers: Your God maybe dead, ours is NOT. In an “Islamic” country, people can send shivers to the body of authority by shouting God’s name. For the martyrs of the Green movement, protesters organized funerals, 3^rd, 7^th, and 40^th day anniversaries (a Shi’a ritual). Funerals became an idiom of public defiance, the ruling regime was intimidated. They feared their own rituals, their own faith. Through their fear, they demonstrated that they do not know their own people. They demonstrated that Islam for them is a noun behind which they hide. Not only were Islamic practices not a hindrance to the way Iranians challenged the authority, but they also became a common language through which they articulated a profoundly contrasting account between the regime's oppressive Islam and their Islam that is in harmony with activism in the defense of social justice.

Gustavo Gutiérrez: "I desire that the hunger for God may remain, that the hunger for bread may be satisfied… Hunger for God, yes; hunger for bread, no."

Love and Peace from Los Reyes,

Aria