SAY HELLO TO KAMALA KHAN

I don't like zombie movies. It's not the creepiness or the guts and gore. As I stated in my post on The Hunger Games (http://storiesaresignposts.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-makes-heroine.html), they reinforce and encourage the us-against-them mentality. There's no dealing with zombies (and a lot of video game enemies), no negotiation, no common ground. It makes it easier for the edgers who hold the power in society to get otherwise peaceable people to kill their enemies if they can paint the enemies as less than human. Once you realize that "they" are people like you, it can be harder to kill a fellow human being.

That's why books like the ones I'm reviewing today are so important. Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel PERSEOPLIS (also an animated film) show the recent history of Iran and its political issues through the eyes of Marjane as a young girl. She shows how she felt when, overnight, the boys and the girls in her school were segregated into seperate classes and head scarves were made mandatory for the girls. She later experiences the horrors of death, destruction and injustice personally, all the while maintaining her love for freedom and western culture (denim jackets, Iron Maiden and Michael Jackson).

PERSIA BLUES by Dara Naraghi and Brent Bowman is a young adult graphic novel with a similar theme of daily life in Iran, interspersed with the adventures of the heroine's alter ego, a sort of female Conan in ancient Persia.

I've mentioned THE 99 in previous posts (http://storiesaresignposts.blogspot.com/2007/12/in-city-of-all-faiths.html). This wonderful series of comics involves super-powered people from all over the world, but Dr Naif Al-Mutawa created their powers based on the 99 attributes of Allah. The series has them working together for good, despite their differences. Unfortunately THE 99 is no longer published as paper comic books, but they are available as online comics (http://www.the99.org/)

Marvel's new title MS MARVEL may be the most important of this kind of storytelling. Marvel is a major force in comics, movies and TV. It gets more attention. The new Ms Marvel is Kamala Khan, a Pakistani muslim girl living with her family in Jersey City. Her origin is tied to Marvel's Inhumans, Avengers and Captain Marvel titles, so she's hard to ignore if you're a Marvel universe fan. And it's a fun read. Her parents are strictly religious, but Kamala is into normal teenage girl pursuits: parties, texting, being popular, and she's a huge Avengers fan. When she gains shapeshifting powers from the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist, she makes herself a super hero, but it's not the powers or the heroics that are important here. Like the other books, it reveals that, muslim or no, her wants and dreams are no different from anybody else's. Getting readers, especially young readers, to see this is what we need to save the world.

"I believe in my neighbors.
I know their faults and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults." - Robert A Heinlein, 

In The City of All Faiths

"Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice"~ Josephine Baker

"Every day, here and at home, we are warned about the enemy. But who is the enemy? Is it the alien? Well, we are all alien to one another. Is it the one who believes differently than we do? No, not at all, my friends. The enemy is fear. The enemy is ignorance. The enemy is the one who tells you that you must hate that which is different. Because, in the end, that hate will turn on you. And that same hate will destroy you." ~ Reverend Dexter, BABYLON 5

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

I don't like the word "tolerance." Tolerate means to put up with something, to, according to Webster, "allow" it. It implies that whatever you're tolerating is different, inferior or wrong. Selma G Hirsch, in THE FEARS MEN LIVE BY, said "Respect—not tolerance—must be our goal." This gets back to the whole Star Trek IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) thing. Even respect isn't enough - we should delight in our differences. Octavio Paz put it as, "life is plurality, death is uniformity."

And this is where myths and stories come in. A wonderful example of this is a new trend in comics by Arabic and Indian creators. The stories show that people everywhere have the same needs and wants.

AK Comics were published and sold through the Middle East. The company was founded by Ayman Kandeel in Egypt "to fill the cultural gap created over the years by providing essentially Arab role models, in our case, Arab superheroes to become a source of pride to our young generations. Editor Marwan Nashar read Spider-man but "always wondered why there weren't any Arabs leaping off buildings."

But Arabic or Islamic pride is not a main concern of AK's heroes. AK wants to promote peace through understanding - understanding that different cultures are all human at heart. And the similarities stand out in their comics more than the differences. The street scenes and day to day lives could be from any city anywhere.

The cornerstone of the AK universe is the City of All Faiths. The superheroine Jalila is its protector. In her secret identity Jalila is a nuclear scientist. Aya, Princess of Darkness, is a law student in her real life and Zein, the Last Pharoah, is a philosophy professor. "The religious backgrounds of the heroes remain undisclosed so that no religion or faith can be perceived as better than another."

Respect for different faiths and strong women characters? That's not what we'd expect to appeal to the Arabic world! At least not the stereotyped Arabic world we are told about

A new Arabic superhero series appeared in the last few months from Teshkeel Comics: the 99 (pictured above). Dr Naif Al-Mutawa, psychologist and children's book author, created the heroes, each of whom represents one of the 99 attributes of Allah. But again the stories are not about Islam. 99 gems containing ancient wisdom were lost around the world, and the people who find them are gifted with super powers. People of all kinds from all over the planet.

Virgin Comics features writers and artists from India, and works ancient Eastern mythologies into modern superhero myths like THE SADHU, DEVI and SNAKEWOMAN, and comics that tell the Indian myths directly, their India Authenic series. Devi can be read online at http://www.virgincomics.com/devi.html

There are too many misunderstandings between Western and Middle Eastern cultures. Some are born of ignorance, some created deliberately (*cough* weaponsofmassdestruction *cough*). Take the word Jihad. Its primary meaning in the Qur’ān is the inner struggle against a person's own demons; wars to defend the faith are dismissed as the Lesser Jihad.

We fear what we don't understand. A wise little old green man once said that fear leads to hate.

Shared stories that lead to understanding can, literally, save the world. And that's supposed to the job of our superheroes in the first place!