Youssou N'Dour, "I Bring What I Love": An elegaic meditation on faith, Islam and music
Cross-posted at River Twice Research.
President Obama's speech in Cairo last week as well as the candid and heated debates in Iran during its contentious presidential election provide yet another opportunity to revisit the sterile images of Islam that dominate the discussion both in the West and throughout the Muslim world as well. That discussion is framed by Muslim terrorists or extremists on the one hand squaring off against secular but resentful populations on the other. That is one facet of a kaleidoscope, a potent one but in no way the only one.
If there's any doubt on that score, a new documentary focusing on the career of Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour should dispel it utterly. "I Bring What I Love" is an elegiac, beautiful film, years in the making, and it will start playing in New York this week and then in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Like all documentaries, it will be dwarfed by the summer blockbusters that surround it, but this film deserves an audience.
In 2004, N'Dour's album "Egypt" created a controversy in Senegal and among a vocal handful of his fans because he set verses of the Koran to music. One of the debates between more fundamentalist Muslims and much of Muslim society world-wide is over the proper role of music in worship - not unlike the struggles among Baptists about dancing. N'Dour was and is a hugely popular singer with a world-wide following and adored in Senegal, and the negative reaction of several key members of the religious establishment in his country saddened and surprised him.N'Dour speaks passionately in the film about his love of God and his devotion to the Koran, and explains that he could think of no better way to honor his faith and his God than by putting those verses to music, as generations of Sufi mystics have done. His album ultimately won a Grammy, and in 2008 N'Dour was named one of Time Magazine's most influential people. But even without that recognition, N'Dour, his music, and this film would stand as a testament to the immensely complicated tapestry of global Islam, which cannot be defined by what clerics in Saudi Arabia or the mountains of Afghanistan say, or by the rhetoric of angry parties in Lebanon and Iran. Youssou N'Dour lays as much claim to speaking for a true Islam, and he does so with poetry, grace and beauty. That not only deserves a place at the table; it must be there, and as long as individuals like N'Dour can pour forth their hope in humanity with such mellifluous joy, it will be.
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Zachary, your piece resonates with passion, eloquence, and wisdom. It is profoundly moving in its sincerity, and we must all respect the theme of brotherhood it espouses.
At the same time, it raises vexing questions that are not easily answered. Let me digress a moment to recall an essay I once read, entitled "Who You Seem To Be Is Who You Are". The essay's purpose was to argue that whatever inner purposes motivate you ("you" being used here generically rather than personally), what affects me is their external expression. From my perspective, it is more important whether you treated me well or badly than whether that was what you meant to do.
Here, I would extend that admittedly oversimplified perspective on human relations from individuals to entire subsets of humanity, and in this case, the world of Islam. I have no diffiuclty believing that the "poetry, grace, and beauty" of N'Dour's artistry reflects the beauty, grace, and compassion inherent in Islam as practiced by an enormous number of its adherents. At the same time, I remain aware that the outward face of Islam today has been hijacked in many parts of the world by fanatics who represent the antithesis of what is best in that religion, but who, along with their followers, appear capable of greater impact on me and my world - even lethal impact - than the millions of Muslims represented in N'Dour's world view.
I started these comments by referring to vexing "questions" and the word "questions" is used in its literal sense rather than rhetorically. Rather than answer them myself, I would welcome your insight into how we in the non-Islamic West, as well as those within Islam, might alter the balance in the Muslim world to permit its most noble attributes to dominate.
I expect that the answer will include greater efforts at mutual understanding and appreciation. I wish that were the entire answer, but I fear it is not.
June 12, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink