ShahidButtar.com / About me / My highlights in 2007 /

Happy holidays!  I've had a wonderful year, and having heard that I sometimes do a poor job of sharing personal updates, posted a few of my highlights from 2007 below.   

• I started writing semi-regular social and policy commentary, fulfilling an ambition I've held at arm's length for several years.   Here are a few samples of pieces I've published over the past year:
  
  
  • Three months before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was forced from office, I wrote on Common Dreams that his lone departure would be insufficient – that meaningful accountability and the Rule of Law would remain possible only if Congress voted to impeach the President and Vice-President.
    
    
  • Two weeks before Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf imposed martial law, Foreign Policy in Focus published my analysis of the escalating crisis in Central Asia and the disturbing parallel with pre-revolution Iran .  In case you'd rather listen than read, I also did a few broadcast interviews on the subject, including one on Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Counterspin program which aired on over 140 stations across the country.
    
    
  • I also discussed the extraordinary provisions of the Military Commissions Act and reframed the torture debate on Alternet, noting that "Torture in the United States started long before 9/11."
    
  
  
• We finished recording and mastering my first CD: Get Outta Your Chair.  It'll be available in January and will include 10 tracks, including a blues song lamenting the war from a soldier's perspective; a funk tune ridiculing SUV owners and consumption in general; a rhyme over an ethereal South Asian tabla rhythm recounting a few personal challenges, and a rack of other tracks with sounds ranging from downtempo house to drum 'n bass.  We also shot and produced my first music video, for Bumpin in My SUV.  Check it out on YouTube!
  
  
• After two and a half years building the communications and outreach departments at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy in DC, I'm moving on…(and back) to San Francisco, where I'll be launching a program addressing racial and religious profiling for a young group called Muslim Advocates.  It's a secular progressive voice for the Muslim-American community that I'm excited to have a chance to help build.   My new job will give me a chance to get back in court, and also gain some exposure to legislative work, while continuing the coalition-building and public education work I've been doing and focusing it on a more specific set of legal issues and stakeholders.
  
  
• Last winter, I helped organize the life-changing ShantiSalaam tour to South Asia, spending 2 months performing and leading poetry and rhythm workshops in 13 cities across India, Pakistan and Kashmir .  The travel experience was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before, and I also got to witness a wide variety of amazing places and hordes of equally fascinating people.   Best of all, I gained a newfound respect for my native culture.
  
  
• ShantiSalaam inspired another trip to South Asia this winter.  In fact, I'm in London at the moment, and leave on Sunday for Pakistan , where I'll spend the next three weeks meeting with dissident lawyers, judges and journalists and helping compile a report on the impact of emergency rule on the legitimacy of the upcoming elections.   The National Lawyers Guild and the Lahore University of Management Sciences are involved, but the project is unfunded so please consider making a tax-deductible contribution of whatever you can comfortably afford.
  
  
• I'm still kickin' guerrilla poetry at every opportunity, most recently in DC, SF and NYC.  

We're all aware of the various crises confronting the U.S. and the broader world, including compounding problems in access to healthcare, housing, food, education, and due process – as well as our more overt threats to democracy, the rule of law, international peace and the environment.   While addressing each of these issues rigorously, it's important to also keep our heads up, for at least two reasons.

 

First, it'll help us remember that these various problems share at least one major common underlying cause: corporate power.   Whether they're weapons dealers lobbying for more war, automobile companies resisting upgrades to our transportation infrastructure, prison privateers profiting from the school-to-prison pipeline, or media conglomerates censoring insightful criticism and spoonfeeding you the latest tripe-passing-for-culture, the influence of corporations on our society is horrific.

 

Second, keeping our heads up and seeing the broader context will help us remember that, even in times of crisis, hope springs eternal.   There is enough beauty in the world to leave us gasping, however depressing any particular piece may appear in passing….

 

Many blessings in 2008, and let me know if life brings you to SF anytime soon,

Shahid