Tracks

I am reading ‘Cities and Caliphs‘ by Nezar Alsayyad; he argues that the picture we have of the typical Islamic city is a stereotype, a product of what Said called ‘Orientalism‘ rather than of concrete research. In fact, the earliest Islamic towns were garrisons, such as Basrah and Kufah . Their organization was, to a great degree, determined pragmatically by the need to administer the newly conquered territories. To some extent, their form came about as a response to the accidents of the time; thus, for example, at Basrah, the mosque was moved from its original site to one closer to the administrative centre after the latter had been broken into by thieves. It was thought that the continual activity of the mosque would increase the security of the governor’s quarters.

However, Asayyad agrees that regional governors, when planning their settlements, were, however unconsciously, applying to their present circumstances the basic form of the town of Medinah, the town of the prophet and the place from which most of the early governors had originated.

Steven Mithen, in his otherwise excellent ‘After the Ice‘ , seems to stumble when he arrives at Catal Höyük. He is horrified by the enclosed living space, by the protruding bull’s heads, by the stylized representations of vultures and headless torsos; he imagines a family eating in one of the small, smoky rooms, sullenly bent over their plates, while a child is so overwhelmed by her surroundings that she is unable to do more than toy with her food. It as if this ancient township (or, as archaeologists now insist, this overgrown village) had finally pushed the author beyond the open-minded acceptance of other cultures that is the modern anthropologist’s touchstone. He believes that the inhabitants of Catal Höyük were ‘living in a Neolithic Hell’ and that ‘any independence of thought and behaviour’ had been ‘crushed out of them by an oppressive ideology’. This ideology is clearly manifest in the art.This reminds me of the day I visited a house for sale; when the owner proudly showed me into the living room - no baronial hall, by any stretch of the imagination other than his own - I found the space dominated by an enormous rhino’s head. I didn’t ask him if it was real, and he said nothing about it, but clearly he and his family were happy to live with this monstrous object, and probably considered it a major selling point.

Mithen, comparing the inhabitants of the town with the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, suggests that while the latter saw themselves as ‘part of the natural order’, the ‘people of Catal Höyük seemed to fear and despise the wild’. In which case, it is difficult to imagine why they would have wanted to decorate their walls with such imposing reminders. May it not be just as likely that, like my proud householder, the denizens of that ancient settlement saw their art as a celebration of their mastery over the wild bulls, of their courage in facing up to them and bringing them down?

But were they, in fact, hunting, killing and eating the bulls? Perhaps not; although they did eat large animals - mostly sheep and goats -  they seem to have been mainly consumers of fruit and cereals, and of shellfish and small fish that they would dredge from the nearby river.  Ian Hodder, who is the director of digging operations at Catal Höyük, suggests that some of the murals were intended to commmunicate in some way with the world of the dead, whose bodies were buried under the floor. The hunting scences and the bulls’ heads could have been part of a process by which the wild was domesticated. Rather than terrifying the inhabitants, as Mithen believes, the various representational artefacts, each in different ways, are tools that enable the people of the village to live with the Wild and the Dead.

Lucius opens his story with a preliminary encounter; travelling on foot to take the weight off his weary horse, he meets two fellow voyagers who are in conversation. The first has been telling of his unhappy adventures, which involve witchcraft and magic, an account which the second greets with skeptical merriment. Lucius interrupts the scoffer, arguing that there are stranger things on earth than are dreamt of in such a philosophy, and invites the first speaker to continue his tale.

This story includes many of the ingredients that modern ethnologists and historians would recognize as belonging to recipes for witchcraft the world over; the fantastic nature of the narrative merely whets  the appetite of the open-minded young man, who determines that he will get to the bottom of these mysteries.

Thus inspired, Lucius sets out upon a quest that will see him transformed from external observer to unwitting and unwilling participant. Becoming the lover of a minor witch, he uses his influence over her to penetrate the inner sanctum of a more powerful, and apparently more dangerous witch’s bower. Excited by what he witnesses there, he pleads with his girlfriend to work upon him the same transformation that the senior witch has worked upon herself. The results are unfortunate: he is transformed into an ass. Thus disguised, he becomes a participant observer in a world of violence, servitude, and abominable rituals.

It is a trajectory which many an ethnologist will recognize. Moreover, as in many ethnographies, the protagonist, on returning to his earlier self, finds himself changed and purified : the ethnographer’s voyage is one of self-discovery as much, if not more, than one of discovery of the Other. Dedicated to the goddess Isis, he has been lead to higher wisdom by his sojourn.

What anthropologists term ‘rites of passage’ may just as well be termed ‘rites of triage’; inevitably, they lead to selection, to the appointing of a chosen few and the definitive casting out of the leaden-footed. And it seems that if there are no external mechanisms for ensuring that the triage occurs, if there is no bunch of masked and painted elders to terrify, cut, test and promote, then the candidates will organize their own ceremonies. It is difficult to determine whether the latter are apt to be more or less brutal in their manifestations than the former.

Children in our modern, up-to-date, and enlightened societies, are thrust into a liminality at the age of five or six, to emerge later and later, labelled and certified. But the ceremonies by which these etiquettes are conferred are of so little significance that the young seek their own. In France, those that find themselves at the university have been so persuaded of their rights and of their liberties that they are unable to admit to the underlying meaning of their rituals; they march for the good of humankind, for a world of kindness and equality, where the tight-rope walker is guaranteed to never take a tumble.

Yet these rites operate an underhanded triage in which the uncommitted go to the wall. From the tables upon which they stand, the strong look down at the weaklings who are so misguided as to feel the need for lessons. Who needs a professor, they snort.We will have lost a goodly number of students by the time this pantomime is finished. Those who need no teachers will still be there.

Yet again the tables and chairs are piled up against the doors and upon the stairs leading up to the bridge. One small door into B building is open, and a group of students stand around it, checking on who enters. The classrooms on the ground floor are bare; if classes were to be held, students would have to sit on the floor. About ten of the students I should be seeing at nine o’ clock are gathered in front of the main door, and I go and chat with them, handing them back their mid-term test. Most seem resigned, rather than angry or enthusiastic. One of them tells me that we might get a room if we go over to the C building, that they are letting teachers hold ‘alternative’ classes. He adds that they listen at the door to ensure that the teacher is not cheating on them and holding a normal lesson. I tell them they might as well go home, and then adjourn to a nearby café with a colleague to organize next semester’s classes.

A little later I trudge over to A building (the computer and video-projector in my back-pack feel that much heavier for my having brought them over for nothing) to be confronted by yet another set of doors obstructed by tables and chairs. A student is standing on one of the tables, screaming at those of her peers who wish to resume classes. I turn and make my way to the main entrance, where I wait for a while to see if any of my students turn up for the twelve o’ clock class. Cannier than I, they have stayed away. In one corner of the entrance hallway, a bunch of students are playing music, and a Bob Marley sing-alike croons his way through ‘I shot the sheriff’. My teacher’s ear picks up a faulty transition from preterite to base form and I feel the chalk on my fingers.

Two young women, side by side, leaning over their pushchairs. As we approach, we can hear conversation, but they are not talking to each other, or to the children. Each is clutching her own portable telephone to her ear. One coos into hers, cajoling, winsome. The other is more brisk; it sounds as if she may be giving instructions. Passing by, I glance down at the infants; they stare ahead, heads bobbing as the chairs pass over the cracks in the pavement.

Some time later, we come upon a young man. He too is preceded by a pushchair. His ears are plugged with phones, and we can hear the scratch, scrape and bark of rap as our paths cross.

I think back to my own childhood. I remember my mother taking me through the lanes around Port Navas, making our way from my grandmother’s house to a nearby farm. We would stop and inspect the flowers in the hedgerow, look up to where a bird was perched in a tree, pick blackberries, my mother commenting to me upon what we saw, what we touched, what we heard and tasted. At the farm, I remember a bucket of milk, a thick film of cream across the surface. I would watch the cows being milked. One of the women might take me under the cow, and I would pull gently on a teat.

Tim Ingold, in his book on The Perception of the Environment, recalls how his father, a botanist, would show him the plants as they walked through the countryside, how he would encourage him to smell them and nibble at them. He compares this with how the young Walpiri male, just prior to his initiation, would be lead along the songlines of his people, lead to the marks that the ancestors had left upon the landscape, and offered clues as what there was to see in them, as to how to bind them into his life. He writes :

The idea of showing is an important one. To show something to somebody is to cause it to be seen or otherwise experienced - whether by touch, taste, smell or hearing - by that other person. It is, as it were, to lift a veil off some aspect or component of the environment so that it can be apprehended directly. In that way, truths that are inherent in the world are, bit by bit, revealed or disclosed to the novice. What each generation contributes to the next, in this process, is an education of attention. (Ingold, 2000, p. 21-2)

It is tempting to make some generality about how modern parents, cut off from their children by the new toys that take up so much of their lives, no longer offer those opportunities for ‘an education of attention’ that Ingold, the Walpiri boy and I myself enjoyed. But perhaps the young women that I passed on my way to the Oise had, five minutes later, turned their attention most fully to their offspring. Perhaps the young man was returning from an hour or more spent patiently playing ball with his infant son. And I can remember long moments when, as a child, I would be among adults, but not with them. The grown-ups would converse about their own affairs, taking no more notice of me than was necessary to ensure that I came to no harm. Or I would withdraw into some world of my own, leaving my mother’s voice to become a comforting drone in the background, until she might upbraid me for not paying her full attention. But there are signs and clues that suggest that many of our schoolchildren have not been shown the world.

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This week we will be looking at the utopian city. We can start by having a look at Paul Maliszewski’s account of Gillette’s Metropolis, a project which never left the pages on which it was printed. Then go to Mike Davis‘ account of the development of Dubai as a a billionaire’s playground fit for Kubla Khan. While Gillette’s city was intended for everyone - all North Americans were to live in one perfect community - Dubai is reserved for the very rich. At a less exalted level, the gated community or city has been cropping up all over the world, from Five Oaks, with its closed streets, in the USA, to the richer suburbs of Joahnnesburg, in South Africa, or Yosemite Villas in Beijing. See also Stephen Holl’s presentation of the Beijing Looped Hybrid. (For other Beijing projects, see the Urban Planet site).

Perhaps Utopia is now to be reserved for the happy few while, in an increasingly polarized world, the poor are packed into the new slums described in Davis’ “Planet of Slums“, where hyper-urbanization occurs without the economic infrastructure to support it. And if the whole thing goes pear-shaped, well, there are ways of dealing with that too.

Aesop got the story wrong. Here’s how it really happened :

The boy was eight, ten years old. Who knew? He was about the right size, about the right build. It was time for him to go up to the pastures with the goats, his father decided. Why have sons, if not to keep your goats? It was time for the boy to begin to become a man.

In the morning, the man took his son up the rocky pathways to the higher places where the goats could forage for their summer feed. The boy walked in his father’s footsteps and thought of his mother. When they came to the place, his father showed him the shelter in which he could spend his nights. “Don’t let the animals stray,” he said. “Keep an eye out for the wolf. If he comes, you whistle.” His father stuck his fingers over his tongue and blew a long note. After a moment, there was an answer from across the valley. “Three times, quickly, for the wolf.” The boy nodded.

The boy tended to the goats. If they strayed, he threw rocks. Like all the boys, he could throw rocks, and he could whistle. Night fell, and it began to get cold. He rounded up the goats, and huddled against them. He couldn’t sleep. The night was full of sounds. He thought about the wolf. He’d seen one, once; some of the men had killed one, and they showed it to the boys. He remembered it had looked very large. He remembered the long yellow teeth. He knew the howl of the wolf.

Days passed. He saw no-one. He thought of his mother, and he listened to the noises. He thought of his sisters and his younger brothers. The noises seemed noisier. The goats shifted and stirred. He saw a shape against the starlight, and pressed his fingers to his tongue.

His father grumbled. “You imagine things. Next time, don’t bring us out here for nothing.” His elder cousin snorted at him, and his uncle looked very displeased. He giggled nervously. A blow caught him behind the ear. “Laugh will you?” The men left.

More days passed. He slept little. Always the noises. He thought of his little brothers, and of his mother. One night, he was almost sure he heard the wolf. In the morning, he counted the goats. He went out to look for the stray, and found its mauled carcass not far from the shelter. He dragged it to the edge of the pasture, and rolled it over the lip, watching it tumble into the valley. That night, he whistled again.

It was some days before his ears stopped throbbing. It was many days before the wolf came again. It was not alone. He watched, waiting for his whistle to be answered. No-one came. He watched as the wolves devoured the flock. In the morning, he stumbled, wide-eyed, back down to his father’s house.

The wolf is always there. Sometimes he comes, sometimes he does not. You must always answer when the whistle blows.

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At the moment, I’m reading “Planet of Slums ” by Mike Davis. The author, who is a Marxist scholar, paints an apocalyptic picture of the state of the world’s large cities - in particular those of the Third World. The slums of these cities are often little more than waste-disposal grounds - both figuratively and literally, for, argues Davis, their inhabitants are seen by the élites as human excreta, fit only to be dumped amid the open sewers.

And the numbers are growing all the time; in his opening chapter, he cites UN statistics which forecast that “By 2015, black Africa will have 332 million slum-dwellers, a number that will continue to double every fifteen years.” Nor is this growth to be confined to Africa; the Indian slums, he tells us, are growing 250% faster than overall population. He asserts that : “… the cities of the future, rather than being made out of glass and steel, as envisioned by earlier generations of urbanists, are instead largely constructed out of crude brick, straw, recylced plastic, cement blocks, and scrap wood. Instead of cities of light soaring toward heaven, much of the twenty-first century urban world squats in squalor, surrounded by pollution, excrement, and decay.”

Davis’ purpose is political; he is eager to demolish the arguments of the neo-liberals whose policies, administered through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have, he claims, been instrumental in tipping millions of people into urban poverty. To make his case, he draws upon a large number of sources: newspaper interviews and articles, World Bank and IMF documents and reports, novels and works of poetry. He cites sociologists, geographers, political scientists, urbanists - and anthropologists. The latter are a rich source of information for today’s urbanist; they have walked the streets, they have smelled the smells, and they have lived with and talked to the people, gaining insights that cannot be acquired by the fast-moving journalist or the number-crunching sociologist.

And so he reaches for quotes from, for example, Teresa Caldeira ’s book, City of Walls, on how urban space in Brazil is becoming increasingly controlled through police violence and vigilante activity, or from Monique Skidmore’s investigations of the slums of Myanamore. On Kinshasa, he can call on the joint work of geographer Angeline Mwacan and anthropologist Theodore Trefon. Caroline Moser’s work on how the lives of the poor in Ecuador were further ravaged by Structural Adaptation Programmes (SAPs) initiated by the IMF is invoked as part of his main argument, which is that the slum conditions that he describes were not the result of some inevitable process, but were the foreseeable consequences of the ways in which development agencies have imposed a unique, ultraliberal, vision on the Third World.

Davis’ book illustrates the extent to which any investigation of the world we live in will need to engage with all the human sciences - indeed, with the humanities as a whole, for he cites Rudyard Kipling , and the Nigerian poet, Odia Ofeimun among his sources. That’s as may be, you reply. But the anthropologists whose work Davis uses study modern populations, living in modern cities, and whose lives are directly affected by the policies and agents of modern institution. We, on the other hand, have been asked to read about archaic tribes, about initiation into secret societies , about magic and about witchcraft . What does all this have to do with us?

Well, I’m tempted to say, “Just look around you.” Look at the city you live in, listen to its sounds and its music. Africa, Asia, the Middle East - they are all here in St. Denis. Some of what you think of as archaic is right in front of your eyes, as vibrant and alive as it has ever been. While you are giggling over your horoscope, think of how many people are turning to other, more exotic sources of enlightenment. I’d want to add that historians, sociologists and political scientists are turning their attentions more and more to the kinds of questions that anthropologists ask; the influence of Durkheim and Mauss runs through the historiography of the Annales school, and historians like Ginzburg or McFarlane read Evans-Pritchard and Malinowski with attention and admiration.

However, I’ll leave that for another time. For now, I will return to ‘Planet of Slums‘. One of the more distressing characteristics of slum-life is to be found in the ways in which the people who live in them are exposed to the predatory activities of criminal gangs who exploit and rob them in many different ways. There is no free space, the squatter pays a rent to the local mafiosi which, when calculated in terms of dollars per square fooot, can be just as costly, if not more so, than a luxury apartment. The women are forced to work as menials, in sweat shops or as prostitutes. Above all, the children are often treated as vermin , as blow-flies to be swatted. The South American vigilantes hunt them down and shoot them. But it is perhaps in Kinshasa that their fate can be most clearly seen in all its terror. For the children become the scapegoats for all the ills suffered by the slum-dwellers. They are accused of witchcraft , and turned out into the streets, where they may be beaten to death by angry mobs. The witch-hunt is still with us, and the magical fills our newspapers.

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The nomad sees space differently from the farmer. Where the farmer sees boundaries and frontiers, the voyager sees paths. Where the farmer creates enclosed fields, the nomad traverses territory. The nomad tells stories of landmarks, stories that move from here to there. The farmer’s tales are dreams of enlarged holdings.

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