March 17, 2005

Update on my translation of the Fatwa against Osama Ben Laden and Al Qaida
by Liza Sabater

First, I updated the translation last night at c u l t u r e k i t c h e n: Text of the Fatwa Declared Against Osama Bin Laden by the Islamic Commission of Spain.

Second, as a lot of you know --and as Nichelle is so keen to describe me-- I am a lapsed professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and literatures. What a lot of you might not know is that I am a rabid poliglot. Aside from being bi-lingual, I speak fluently, read and write Portuguese and French. I can also read Italian, Catalá and Gallego --although I have never formally studied them. My challenge is Rumanian. And I've had a hankering for taking up German, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin but life has gotten in the way of my taking classes.

As a child I used to spend hours translating my favorite English language cartoons, magazines and even books into Spanish and vice versa. To this day, there is nothing more fun for me than to read a dictionary, especially if it focuses on etymology (like the RAE and Oxford dictionaries). At home we even had a game, making up mis-translations of English puns --quite a linguistic feat since not even a word for pun in Spanish (it's translated as juego de palabras).

For little over 20 years I have worked as a translator and sometimes interpreter. I financed part of my education translating documents of all kinds : legal, commercial, medical, literary, even philosophical. At one point I wanted to become an interpreter at the United Nations. I even served as translator and consultant to a journalist who wrote one of the first Spanish language books about Hillary Rodham Clinton. I am actually writing about that experience, of listening on her mother and childhood friends talk about her and how that has always colored my perception of Ms. HRC.

I say all this because, believe it or not, it seems like my translation of Text of the Fatwa Declared Against Osama Bin Laden by the Islamic Commission of Spain is the only available translation here in the United States. I am assuming this by the number of hits I am getting on the page and the emails I have gotten, thanking me for the effort. What is most amazing to me is that all the emails I have gotten have been from red staters and ideologically conservative organizations and think tanks.

This is shocking to me for two reasons :

1. This fatwa is a historical document that no major news organization in the United States had the decency to pay a translator in order to publish a full English version of the document.

2. Given how the Democratic party and the anti-war movement have bashed the Bush Administration over their claims of ties between Sadaam Hussein and Al Qaida, no of these organizations have made available a full English version of the text either.

Which takes me to a post about blogs and think tanks. Mark Schmitt, author of The Decembrist, recently mused about creating a network of progressive blogs in lieu of a think tank in The Decembrist: Blogs and Think Tanks :

For example, if there is a political need to present an alternative approach to Social Security private accounts, could a self-organized network of bloggers, commentors and other participants work out some of the technical and political problems collaboratively over a fairly rapid period? That is, agree on a basic framework that would be equitable and minimize risk to individuals, figure out a way to deal with transition costs, find a creative way to sell the plan, etc. (I recognize that there is a sizable faction that would argue that the only appropriate response to Social Security privatization proposals is to yell and scream that the conservatives want to destroy Social Security and let seniors eat dog food while giving trillions away to Wall Street, but I think at the very least there should be a Plan B on the shelf.)

This is, I think, part of the reason why people blog in the first place : This here is my personal think tank. What I find troublesome about this proposal is its lack of sustainability.

If I had not been sick as a dog, it would have been very difficult for me to find the time and focus to dedicate to this kind of endeavor. In other words, I would have been working to put arroz con habichuelas on my family's table. And this is troubling, if I am the only one doing this kind of work.

Which takes me to something I have already mentioned : In my case, this blog has to evolve into a community; into a place I can call on translators, experts and activists of all kinds to do the work I see nobody else is doing. I need to mini-think tank this place.

There are political organizations already experimenting with the idea. I went to a meeting of Democracy for New York City where this whole idea of a "citizen think tank" is being experimented with as we speak. Again, my apprehension with this endeavor is with potential lack of sustainability. There is a lot of work to be done. How do you show people their contributions have not only value but are absolutely needed for the greater good.

How do you sell intellectual activism?

Posted by Liza Sabater in Activism, Blogs, Democrats, Grassroots, Language, Politics, Social Networks, Spain, Spanish, Terrorism, War, Writing
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