under|progress

Q-News: Blaming foreign policy is a cop-out

From the latest edition of Q-News (scroll down a little):

"There are some ideological liberals in our community who take to the pulpit to argue that American, British and Canadian foreign policy is responsible for creating the fertile grounds for violent extremists to germinate. The argument is lame and they know it. It is true that Western foreign policy is often driven by greed and ignorance and in most cases it results in death and destruction to countless innocent people, many of them in the Muslim world. But to conclude that foreign policy is wholly responsible for terrorism and suicide bombings is hogwash. The people who are advancing this argument are trying to save their own skin.

"Blaming Western foreign policy for fomenting extremism is precisely the argument that Ayman Al-Zawahiri and his new sidekick, American convert Adam Yahiye Gadahn a.k.a. ‘Azzam the American’ want us to advance to justify their vision of a ‘New Jihad World Order.’ When we buy in we end up advancing the goals of this fringe group of loud and obnoxious Muslim men and women who are hell-bent on heralding The End."

But you read that argument here first folks. And blaming "ideological liberals" is also a cop-out.

The question of free speech

The question of free speech has been brought up several times this year. First there were those cartoons, then the Pope, and then some opera (incidentally, opera is a rubbish, over-appreciated, underwhelming form of art). In its latest manifestation, Robert Redeker, a largely unknown French philosopher, has become an overnight darling of the Champions of Free Speech after receiving death threats for a column he write in Le Figaro.

The problem is not so much, or only, Redeker's comments in a newspaper. Such views are quite old and have been expressed many times by rabble rousers and scholars, some of which can probably be found in publications at a university library. They're part of the staple diet on which bigots feed to confirm their own prejudices. The pressing problem is that whilst Redeker, and others, are given column inches that would make Patrick Vieira look inadaquete, very little is done to provide a view from the other side. Le Figaro allowed Redeker to express his views; and this is fine, even if the views are indecent and vulgar, because there are legal, social and cultural reasons (since there is also a "context" to be invoked when discussing French views towards a public expression of religious beliefs). But did they also invite a French Muslim to respond and write a column of equal length and magnitude? If not, why not? (Please let me know in the comments box if they did.)

It is all good and well to defend free speech as an abstracted principle. But you'd be a fool to think that just because you can shout as much as you want on the street corner, your voice is actually heard or understood or means anything. The current world, for better or for worse, is informed by the media; sounds, pictures and words in print. It is unfair to say to people that they accept attacks on their practices and their beliefs in the spirit of free speech, and then at the same time deny them a similar platform from which to respond to such verbal assaults. It is even worse if you continously exclude them from contributing to society so that they may at least rise to a position where they are able to respond. Sentiments such as "you have the right to respond" concentrate on abstractions; my right to do something is, in the end, only as good as my ability to achieve that right (cf. Burke's attack on the "pretended rights of these theorists" and "speculatists" who are more concerned about "abstract" rights). How many people did Redeker reach with his column? And how many would have seen the views of a French Muslim writing in some small publication for local or ethnic consumption? You cannot tell me this distribution is fair in anyway.

Death threats are damning in this situation and merely reinforce the views of Redeker and new found fans. But I don't think some newspapers and media outlets are immune from criticism for not abiding by the spirit of the principle they claim to be defending.

Austrolabe: Seeing Jews beyond our own shortcomings

Austrolabe: "[W]e must make genuine connections with religious Jews, away from the spotlight, and work together on the many issues of common concern in a world that is increasingly hostile to both Semitic traditions. Vitriolic anti-Jewish rhetoric is not a triumph of our interests but rather marks a defeat of them. Our fates in the modern world are inextricably linked to the Jews and we must work sincerely with those who have similar qualities within their community [...]  Muslims do not realise what battles Jews fought for pluralism in the Western democracies that were previously very hostile to them. Without Jewish activism there would be no Islamic schools, no Halal meat and no male circumcision and perhaps not even any mosques (remember that the first Ottoman diplomats had to be baptised before they were allowed on British soil at Portsmouth during the reign of Victoria)."

The three-letter acronyms

Whilst some concentrate on "exclusion" and "alientation" debate to highlight differences between Muslims in the US and the UK, I think one crucial point has been missed by bloggers, pundits and critics: the TLAs.

American Muslims have four-letter acronyms to speak in their name: ICNA, ISNA, CAIR. Muslims in Britain, however, have three-letter acronyms to speak in our name: MCB, MAB, SMC. We do have MPAC; however, their inspiration is clearly AIPAC (being Jews they're one step ahead of Muslims with a five-letter acronym).

So, I propose all Muslim institutions in the United Kingdom adopt another letter to aid our integration into mainstream society.

I will be writing to Ruth Kelly to let her know about my startling findings.

Some Tories back 'Muslim concerns'

Forgot to mention this last week; from the BBC:

"Muslims who criticise the 'decadent' nature of British society are right, a group of Conservative MPs has said [...] In a letter to The Spectator, the six newly-elected MPs support criticism of the UK's "lawlessness, family breakdown ... binge drinking" and "brutishness" [...] Brian Binley, Peter Bone, David Burrows, Philip Davies, Robert Goodwill and Mark Harper represent a "new generation" of Tory MPs, they say [...] They blame "woolly-minded" liberal thinking for society's sliding value [...] In the article, the MPs endorse the views of John Hayes, who wrote previously in the magazine that many moderate Muslims believe much of Britain is decadent."

American Muslims understanding Israel

Two American Muslims, of similar religious persuasions, disagree on how Muslims should approach Israel:

Abu Sinan: "I disagree with Umar that this group [American Muslims for Understanding Israel or AMI] should target Muslim Israel relations. Israel, as a governmental entity, is a political issue. By even including the name Israel in the title of the group denotes a certain level of acceptance for what is a political subject. If the name of the group were "American Muslims Understanding Jews and Judaism" or even "American Muslims Against Anti-Semitism" I could stand behind it 100%. At the base of 99% of these conspiracy issues is a misunderstanding of Jews, Judaism and the West. Throwing the politically contentious issue of Israel into the fray will do nothing more than muddy the waters and distract from the real issue, which I believe is the issue of anti-Semitism in the Muslim community."

Umar Lee: "The concept of including the name “Israel” troubles Abu Sinan; but I have included it for a reason. I believe Muslims need to accept the fact of the existence of Israel and then move on with it. Israel is not going anywhere and the sooner Muslims reconcile ourselves to that fact then the sooner we can come towards a real solution to the problems and suffering of the Palestinians and the rest of those suffering in the Arab World."

Muslim Occidentalism: McDonald's, binge drinking and Goldman Sachs

Western Orientalism and its science of Islamology is a very well-studied and understood phenomenon. Edward Said, above all others, did much to highlight the distorting filters through which some of the most widely read Western scholars of Islam. It continues to rear its head in 21st-century neo-imperialist projects, under the guise of liberal interventionism and the resurrection of Modernist rhetoric from the 19th-century.

One would have thought that Muslims, and mostly Western Muslims, would have understood what it means to distort and crudely reduce entire human traditions and cultures into vulgar stereotypes or dismissal of other ideas as pointless and meaningless. Yet Muslims are far too happy to engage in their own form of Occidentalism when engaging with Western traditions.

I would consider my recent sojourn to Istanbul with three of my closest friends, all of whom I would say would essentially describe themselves as 'conservative' or 'traditionalist' (one is a student of Shaykh Haytham Tamim, who is the founder of the Utrujj Foundation), to have been an experiment in challenging Muslim Occidentalist views. What better place than where 'East meets West', where 'old and new', 'traditional and modern' sit side by side (insert your own well-worn cliche); a majority Muslim country, home to the most powerful and long standing Muslim empires and the capital of caliphal administration, now a staunchly secular state.

In one conservation, whilst sitting in our hotel after Maghrib, the discussion moved to 'liberty' and Muslim states. I pointed out that they fail miserabley on that aspect; that they do not leave people alone who is not directly harming anyone or causing any great offence. This, I said, was an ideal from Western traditions and Muslims who lived in Western states should appreciate this liberty (give or take the recent fascination with arresting and harassing people). They weren't about to be arrested everytime they left their front door (or even if they were asleep). The response from one friend was to suggest that my approval of 'liberty' was tantamount to advocating 'binge drinking'. The logic being that because people were free to drink, then they would want to binge drink, and so binge drinking would this become an 'ideal value', as it has in Britain. Whatever the flaws of the argument -- and the point here isn't even about binge drinking, which is a massive problem in Britain -- this isn't critical engagement with another tradition or culture, but is the reduction of these traditions into vulgar forms, where the worst aspects are held as the ideals. It is no different to suggesting that the subjegation of women is an ideal of Islam, because far too many Muslims engage in opressive practices against women in the name of Islam (and that do this shouldn't be denied).

In another conservation, two of my friends peppered their sentences with 'the West' and 'Westerners' in an act distancnig themselves from 'Western' policies, ideas and cultures, as though they resided totally apart from it. I pointed out that both of them were Westerners, who had only ever lived in the West; were only fluent in a Western language (they could speak Urdu/Punjabi/Bengali, but could not read or write it); were educated in Western systems; dressed in Western fashions; had quite Western (and middle class) tastes and would probably never want to live in the Muslim countries of their parents. One friend, who lauds his Pakistani identity and credentials, was unable even to name a single poem written by Iqbal! In any case a lot of Westerners rejected the Iraq War and speak out against Western policies. My Utrujji friend agreed with me (his training under a scholar has made him more circumspect in his pronouncements, although he has always been a thoughtful individual not prone to outbursts like the rest of us). Again, this almost subconscious distinction between themselves and 'the West' was annoying, even depressing. I had to point out to them that their Western lifestyles (including, perhaps, this holiday), their purchasing of expensive cars and houses, their jobs in large corporations, was simply helping to turn the cogs of the very society they were trying to distance themselves from in their rhetoric. Though they may complain about the West, it was their Western lifestyles and consumption which was fuelling imperialist resource wars and foreign policies and putting their brothers in sub-Saharan and East Africa in danger due to global warming, depletion of resources and uneven economic practices. In fact, what was most funny was the demand by all of them, the following day, to visit a McDonald's for lunch and a Burger King for dinner in the evening: two companies, seen as signs of 'Western cultural imperialism', who engage in less than ethical practices and are the epitome of 'Western' capitalism. (Note that all British Pakistani Muslims I know visit the nearest KFC, Burger King and McDonanld's as soon as they enter a Muslim country, because they want to 'know how it tastes'. They're engaging in a taboo that's been denied them for so long; that's what years of marketing does.)

But Islam was 'very simple', one one of them claimed. We eat when we need to; buy what we need to buy; and sleep where we need to sleep as long as they've been made halal. No need for difficult questions or moral problems. These were machinations of 'the West' or those Muslims infatuated by it! Only such simplicity was ignored by its very advocates when the need to subscribe to a mortgage for a house, or the chance to earn big money in an investment bank came about. In the desrie to engage in these transactions he invoked complex technical Islamic concepts in economics. Simple Islam should never stand in the way of that 4 bed semi in Essex and a £70k wage packet. It should only mean, it seems, legitimising ones prejudices.

And what bigger prejudice do they have then against women (which is a male flaw). Especially those women who might not be dressed to hide themselves from their lustful gazes. 'You see this is what Western liberalism does! It makes women remove their clothes!' Let's not forget that they could lower their gaze (a Qur'anic verse) or walk away. But these women make their faith weak and stop them from doing that. They stopped them from lowering their gazes. How very bibilical! Perhaps they're more Western than they like to think? (I exclude my Utrujji friend from this point.) It was liberty that had allowed women to remove too much clothing and so denied them the right of earning rewards for not engaging in the oppressive gaze (never mind that all laws can only have general principles and lots of exceptions and clarifications to these due to application of these principles, and that all such applications require interpretations by people; therefore culture and law are linked).

What was perhaps most disappointing was that all three are university graduates (all three studied mechanical engineering with me); one is a PhD candidate in a scientific discipline and the other are two highly paid IT professionals. So the arguments from 'social exclusion' or 'alienation' are not acceptable. All three have benefited greatly from their being Westerners and continue to benefit from this economically privileged status. I only asked them to think why this was so, and not to become secularist, alcoholic womanisers, who abandoned prayers and forgot to pay their zakaat or forgot God (in fact, quite the opposite; I'm more conservative and apprehensive about those matters than two of them and I do not believe there is anything necessarily wrong with being conservative). I should add that despite what you've read, they're all extremely nice and warm people; one sacrifices most of his personal time in the service of his parents, whilst another helps out in the local community. And they're all potential experts in their respective fields. Yet all three were shocked when I suggested Dr. Zakir Naik and Harun Yayha might not be authoritative voices in science, since neither are actually scientists. But it was enough for them that Naik and Yahya were using Western science, an extension of Western traditions, to prove their faith in the Qur'an, and at the same time engaging in a bit of lowbrow anti-Westernism which soothed their existence as Western Muslims. It was enough that Yahya had refuted Darwinism and evolution, even though Darwin himself rejected application of his ideas outside the context in which he developed them; and even though Yahya is not a biologist; and even though no biologist accepts such claims of refutation (there goes the 'only consult specialists' rule out of the window). All three of my friends studied and work in technical professions; and that may be part of the problem.

At the end of the trip, my Utrujji friend sat in the hotel one night and pondered that it was the secular democracy of Turkey which had opened up the beauty of Islam's call to God, through the azan, the salat, the Qur'anic recitation by the imam at the end of the salat, and the inspirational architecture of the Ottomans, to those outside Islam (whilst also helping to invigorate a Muslim's din), and not necessarily the 'Islamic states' of the Gulf and elsewhere.

Muslim blogosphere's secret Nordic weapon: Svend White

Thank God the Anglophone Muslim blogosphere has Svend White to tap into the latest goings on in Scandinavia, in particular Denmark. His detailed posts on the cartoon crisis and the subsequent fallout is a wealth of valuable information. In one of his latest offerings he looks at a new study of the whole affair, which questions the response of the Danish government:

"The early Muslim response did not demand government censorship.  The October 2005 letter from Muslim ambassadors to the Prime Minister explicitly affirmed freedom of speech (and presciently warned of the danger of unrest in Muslim societies), as did even Egypt's protest letter the following month to the UN.  All that was asked was for him to distance the government from Jyllands-Posten's divisive PR campaign against Islam.  In other words, the argument that the Danish government had no choice but to rebuff Muslims because they were demanding that the government ignore Danish laws protecting speech are patently false."

He also looks at the German Catholic response to Popetown, a cartoon lampooning the Vatican which was pulled off the schedule by the BBC a couple of years ago. It is currently being screened on MTV. He noted the double standards at operation (no 'solidatry' being shown by other media outlets); my response, playing devil's advocate, was to note the lack of violence associated with the protests by Catholics:

"Muslims for the most part live in and/or come from much rougher neighborhoods than Westerners, places with much less political stablity, and sometimes various kinds of violence and even warfare playing out within society. One hopes for a peaceful response, but expecting people living in such unstable societies to just write a letter to their non-existent congressman is hopelessly out of touch with reality."

British Muslims must fight extremism

With the run up to the anniversary of the July bombings, there has been a predictable flurry of articles and polls on Muslim Britain, including a piece this week by Ziauddin Sardar in The New Statesman, and a major poll conducted this past week for The Times and ITV News by Populus Limited. The death of a British Muslim soldier in Afghanistan has added to the column inches devoted to "Muslim Britain". Most of these polls show a mixed reaction to questions relating to terrorism; 13% of British Muslims think the July bombers are 'martyrs' and 7% think attacks on civilians can be justified. At the same time 56% think the government hasn't done enough to combat extremism, which is a higher percentage than the population at large. In a similar vein, Tony Blair came out yesterday and said that Muslims were in the best position to fight the extremist ideologies behind terrorist activities, and 'there was the little the government could do', in response to criticism that the government had been too slow to help.

Unlike some Muslim bloggers, I am less derisory about his suggestion that Muslims are in a better place to fight the extremists in the battle of ideas. In fact, in this particular instance I think he is talking some sense (which makes a change). We do not want government inteference in every avenue of our lives or in our religious discourses, do we? So what do Blair's critics propose in this case? A government vetted Islam? No thanks. It  is only Muslims who can rescue the hijacking of Islamic terminology, beliefs, practices and tenants from extremists amongst us, or from those bigoted elements in the media, whether to the left or right of the political spectrum. What I reject is Blair's insistence on avoiding any connection between foreign policy objectives and the either attitudes suggested in the various polls or, in extreme cases, terrorist activities. This is unhelpful and displays willful ignorance; how many more tortuous pseudo-sermons taped on video does Blair have to see to note that nothing galvanizes these people more than interference by certain powers in "Muslim affairs".

'Experts' all around keep asking 'what radicalises young Muslims'? I don't think there is one single answer, but a series of issues which feed off each other and which should be addressed. For a start, it should be admitted that there are extremist elements amongst Muslims, some of who might support violent actions where such actions have no place, or worse engage in the glorification of death. Of this there can be no doubt. The way to combat this is for Muslims to challenge other Muslims should they hear or see them showing support for terrorist actions and their moral depravity (at the same time it can be asserted that there a controlled use of violence is permitted, e.g. in legitimate defence of one's home, family or livelihood). Challenge them on moral grounds, challenge them through the use of utilitarian arguments, or challenge them using faith-based exhortation, but challenge them they must. For example, we must challenge the recreation of the Palestine issue into the sixth pillar of Islam or allowing ourselves to become beholden to Palestinian nationalism, as this would make us no better than people who commit injustices. Instead the arguments should be for goodness and justice. The arguments should be for a better vision of humankind. Yet on the other side, there has to be a concerted effort to 'drain the swamp', for the 'facts on the ground' quite clearly show uneven, hypocritical and broken foreign policy objectives have disastrous consequences not only for Britain's standing in the world (for example, I know for a fact Britain has lost a lot of good will in the Gulf through work) but for the populations on which these objectives and goals are performed. Not all such "grievances" are false, despite Blair's rant, nor are they even restricted to Muslims (consider the opposition to the Iraq War was not particularly a 'Muslim' issue). In this case, there is nothing Muslims can do (not even standing on top of cardboard boxes will help!). And, as many Muslims will tell you, certain extremist figures were given virtual carte blanche in preaching their demagoguery for many years. Yet there were perfectly good laws to punish those preachers who called for the murder of people, without the need for more draconian measures.

But what can be drawn from the recent set of polls and surveys? The results are mixed: some results suggest a significant minority of Muslims are al-Qa'ida sympathisers and have a dim view of Westerners, while other results show that Muslims are even more demanding that the general population in dealing with extremism. Perhaps no redeeming theory can be drawn about Muslims in Britain, since they do not conform to any particular model. For example, those with extremely negative views about Western societies can easily be born and raised by quite well 'integrated' and 'assimilated' families (consider a similar, quite recent, example involving Canadian Muslims, whose situation might be comparable to British Muslims). On the other hand, British Muslims born in foreign, Muslim, countries have enlisted themselves in the armed forces, prepared to die for Britain (for example, the brother of Jabron Hashmi was also a soldier). This might be unsurprising, given that Muslims are extremely heterogeneous, split along any number of sectarian, linguistic, cultural and ethnic lines (add class to this, which will definitely be an emerging factor in the coming years) and given that the neologism "Islamic" is open to a wide variety of uses ("Islamic" being used to denote something considered normative to Muslim faith and practice).

Yet I do find it depressing when British Muslims, and those who have taken the benefits of living in Britain, express disdain, or faux moral outrage, towards Western society and history, or dismiss Western philosophy, politics or science as futile or worthless (at the same time happily consuming Western technologies). Unfortunately, I do think that there is an undercurrent of lowbrow anti-Westernism amongst some British Muslims. Why some of these attitudes are held, I cannot say. Is it merely a reaction to exclusion, derision or racism? I suspect they form part of the answer, and there can be no denying that Muslim participation and contribution is a two-way process. But I think Atif Imtiaz has offered the most useful insight in "The Muslim Condition" (a series I recently plugged on this blog), when he said that Muslims in Britain are 'cultural delinquents', who filter their entire engagement with wider British society through a language of rights and politics:

"Much of the British Muslim engagement relies upon fairly superficial readings of modernity and the present Western condition. This is because many young Muslim activists have mostly pursued careers in the technical, scientific, medical, financial or legal professions [thabet: guilty as charged!] that is, they help work the wheels of British society. There are relatively few Muslim graduates in the cultural sciences. Rumi asks his students in one of his discourses: '... you put forward your excuse, saying, 'I expend myself in lofty tasks...' Well, for whose sake but your own are you doing all these things?' (p. 28). One consequence is that our expertise on issues of culture and engagement, one of the foremost issues that we face, remains underdeveloped. In the aftermath of September 11, we could not muster one expert in American foreign policy from across the whole British Muslim community. The choice of career by our brightest means that we remain culturally delinquent, unable to notice the subtleties requisite for persuasion. Even in terms of our immediate urban needs, there are few Muslims who have mastered the downward spiralling in trends related to education or crime, a sociological know-how of how certain sections of the community are becoming de-educated and more importantly how to respond to it [...] As we constantly claim our rights in pursuit of further inclusion, we are in fact becoming further excluded since our claim to legal inclusion is leading to cultural exclusion. It is my main contention that we need to change our manner of engagement from a language of identity rights towards one that seeks to further human conversation – to mirror Rorty’s appeal to fellow liberals – to extend human sympathy, and this can only be done through a non-ideological Islam that ignores the daily media frenzy – that is, through deep religion, an 'inside Islam'."

(I would add here that many, many Muslims interact and engage perfectly well in Britain, even passing the 'integration' tests demanded of them by some critics; but they probably do not do so primarily as Muslims.)

In instances where unfair anti-Western attitudes are expressed, whether by my friends or people I meet who wish to express their opinions to me, I feel it is important for me to challenge attitudes which reduce all Western political, philosophical and humanist traditions to a few crude, negative, adjectives and dismiss all the output from Europe and its historical outposts as 'frivolous'. I think any Western Muslim should do this. They should also challenge certain myths which still circulate amongst Muslims here. One, in particular, is of a more moral and spiritual Islamic East, compared to an immoral or decedent secular West. I know literally dozens of Muslims (one a very good friend of mine) who left to live in Muslim countries in the hope of living their 'Islamic dream'. Yet, my friend, along with some acquaintances, have all returned to Britain, disappointed with what they experienced (bigotry, racial and even religious discrimination, incompetence). This veil has surely been lifted from our eyes by now. None of my comments, of course, suggest that anything deemed 'Western' is sacrosanct or off limits to valid, powerful and stinging criticism. Instead what I'm saying is that just as Muslims complain that Islamic traditions is reduced to a set of negative stereotypes, then similarly Western traditions suffer the same fate, even amongst Western Muslims. This is disappointing and borne out to some degree by the results from the recent Pew Global Attitude Project. We should be Western Muslims in the fullest sense: intellectually, morally, politically, physically and so on. Either that, or we hide and remain fearful that the horrors of the Holocaust are visited upon us.

Only then can Muslims in Britain, and other Western nations, offer a social conscience to their societies and a better vision for humankind and expect other people, their neighbours, colleagues and friends, to pay attention and reciprocate.

Muslims of Europe Conference

Over the past weekend, not only were England been kicked out of the World Cup, but the Muslims of Europe Conference was held in Istanbul. The conference was designed to help combat extremism, and discuss problems such as those of citizenship, identity and faith. They drew up a series of recommendations, including a recognition that

"[...]European societies value openness, inclusiveness and democracy [and that] European Muslims have a great opportunity to flourish as citizens in a pluralistic environment benefiting from access to education, prosperity and development. As citizens Muslims are obliged by Islamic law to obey the legislation of their countries particularly when they enjoy freedom of worship and benefit from social justice. As loyal citizens they are obliged to defend their countries against aggressors."

Check out their website for more information (you can read it four languages: English, French, Arabic and Turkish).