There has recently been a number of articles in the press about the growing influence of the Indian-American lobby among Washington politicians. With the U.S.-India Nuclear deal taking center stage, the press began to focus more on the dynamics of this relationship. A number of parallels were drawn to the increasing similarity some of these groups share (or would like to share) with some Jewish lobby groups. A month old article in the NYTimes featured the Hindu American Foundation:
When the Hindu American Foundation began, it looked to groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for guidance with its advocacy and lobbying efforts.
Indian-Americans, who now number 2.4 million in this country, are turning to American Jews as role models and partners in areas like establishing community centers, advocating on civil rights issues and lobbying Congress.
Indians often say they see a version of themselves and what they hope to be in the experience of Jews in American politics: a small minority that has succeeded in combating prejudice and building political clout. [Link]
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p>As long time readers know, I have often (1,2,3) railed against some of the lobbying groups that purport to represent “Indian Americans” (USINPAC chief among those that receive my disdain). I do not feel that USINPAC represents my interests whatsoever and I wish the press would stop assuming they speak for all Indian Americans. Indolink points us to a new paper in the South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ) which examines a number of “Indian-American” lobby groups and how closely they really represent “Indian-American” interests (as opposed to “Hindustani” interests):
The article addresses the issue of the growing influence of the Indian-American lobbies and even more importantly their internal divisions, giving way to the constant formation of new groups. In the face of these divisions, the author shows how Islamophobia has provided a unifying force, whose roots can be found in the articulation between local and transnational factors: especially in the context of the (American) war against terrorism and the furthering of the India-Israel-US strategic partnership. No wonder a spokesperson for USINPAC was reported as saying: “The terrorism directed against India is the same as that directed against the United States and Israel.”
Therwath reveals that fieldwork conducted in New York and in Washington “revealed virulent streaks of Islamophobia and hostility towards Pakistan amongst professional Indian American lobbyists.” The author adds: “While not absolutely systematic, this anti-Muslim sentiment has been prominent in most of the interviews that I conducted…” [Link]
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p>I actually recommend reading the whole paper. It’s really quite fascinating and I had to stop myself from quoting the whole thing here. There are all kinds of gems in there that academically confirm things we all kind of knew:
When asked about their Muslim membership, USINPAC leaders seem embarrassed as they did not know the figure. In the end, they come up with a 10-15% estimate, a proportion that corresponds to the general proportion of Muslims in India and they think would hence enhance their representativity. They could not however mention one active Muslim member and none of them was Muslim either. Moreover, none of the 125 private donations made to USINPAC, since its creation, was registered in a Muslim name. The USINPAC members I met said they wish to defend India’s positions, oppose Pakistan and told traumatic tales of Islamic fundamentalism. Although a few of them directly experienced Partition, they all seemed to carry its stigma and have an Indo-centric approach, by contrast with the younger America-bred activists who focused on South Asian cooperation and local community issues. [Link]
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p>There are also some rather harsh quotes by some of the interview subjects who were commenting on the internal divisions inside many Indian American groups:
…a young 32-year old Indian Jewish migrant working for the American Jewish Committee (AJC), one of the most powerful ethnic lobbies in the U.S., is very harsh toward Indian Americans. This deeply patriotic senior fellow in charge of international affairs and Indian-Jewish American relations is extremely critical and says that ‘Indians suck you. You should never work for Indian Americans because they exploit you. They are very individualistic and very poor as a community. There is little close cooperation. Where there is success, there is ego and this is a problem’. [Link]
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p>What is perhaps the biggest factor contributing to Islamophobic elements within some lobby groups? As I’ve pointed out in past posts it is probably in large part due to a generational divide:
The second divisive factor is age, now that two generations of Indian Americans are professionally and politically active. Significantly, virulent critics of USINPAC include the 39 year-old President of the Indian American Leadership Initiative (IALI), the 29 year-old Executive Director of the Indian American Center for Political Awareness (IACPA) and the 29 year-old founding President of the now defunct South Asians for Kerry (SAKI). They have repeatedly pointed out the generation gap between themselves, born and raised in America, and the ‘uncle and aunties [who] don’t believe in this South Asian thing and who cannot see beyond the India-Pakistan and Hindu-Muslim communal conflicts. Although the younger generation is now entering the political arena, as Bobby Jindal’s 2004 election to the Congress has revealed, the older Indian Americans are still leading forefront organizations like USINPAC and claim to represent the community as a whole. The older generation of activists seems more influenced by subcontinental conflicts while the younger ones see the advantage of pan-Asianism or at least of South Asian unity and tend to form South Asian organizations in order to address a wider audience…The generation gap, aggravated by the fact that only 22.7% of Indian Americans were born in the U.S., all in the younger age group of course, provides a potent explanation about the pervading defiance against Islam encountered in USINPAC and other leading organizations. [Link]
There you have it (in the highlighted sentences above). Now you understand why there have been so many heated debates on SM (which is written mostly by the 22.7%) about this very thing. Bottom line as I see it? Unless our generation (through orgs like IALI, IACPA, SAALT) find more issues that we agree about and are willing to work hard to lobby Washington for, our “community” will increasingly be hijacked and represented in Washington by “long-distance Nationalists.”
Not really fair to call it “arab-style” — its common in Malaysia and Indonesia too.
those are shafi regions, aren’t there? wonder what the moppila’s do, they’re shafi.
“Actually there’s no dudgeon goin’ up ’round these parts. You’re conflating my criticism of your comments with others which is fairly sloppy itself (given that you abhor such sloppiness in a purported academic journal.)”
actually there’s no up in arms going on here either. you are confusing my comments that apply to all the three articles taken together with my comments that apply only to therwath’s, which is also sloppy. and i’m sloppy because i don’t claim to be an academic with high-falutin’ sounding -isms and post-s and pre-s and affixes and suffixes and-izations and-ities and -ionisms and other headache-inducing terms at my behest to bedazzle and befuddle common men like me. i try but clearly it doesn’t have the same effect:)
” I was criticizing the scope of your criticism of the paper–which took it to task for things it couldn’t possibly have addressed in the space it took up. It’s fine to say that the substantiation is insufficient and the argument unpersuasive, but to go further and complain about what it left out is clearly an aspiration of one who feels that a different sort of paper is in order–which is why I asked you about writing your own and not just complaining about the omissions in the paper in question (note that I didn’t ask you to start your own blog).”
“The invitations to flesh out criticisms elsewhere is most definitely warranted when commentators introduce straw-man arguments into the discussion–if it is actually so important that you have to write a several-para long comment about it, then pony up the time-resources that Therwath did and provide a substantiated counterpoint. it is not an ‘incestuous’ approach that is needed to obtain the ‘authority’ to comment on the topic, but it does require you to sack up and write the response under the same rules that she did (with regards to substantiation) or at least point to some sources which contradict her conclusions.”
gee whiz. let me just say that i am a chameleon and i reflect the environment i’m in:) so perhaps i’ve picked up some bad habits here:) i don’t have to pony up anything. i don’t believe i introduced any straw-man or tin-man into anything. my only mistake, i guess, was actually bothering to read some of the other stuff in the journal and seeing some sort of context in a theme issue. is one of the rules not colouring outside the lines? should i have only read her paper and not been curious about the rest, even if they are all inter-related? i believe i ponied up all that was required of me as a reader. i am not sitting on the panel at some academic conference with her. what do you want? for me to concoct my own version of how i think all her interviews went? for me to interview usinpac and all its members? for me to interview u.s. congressmen/senators on usinpac and grill them about this alleged islamophobia and actually quote them instead of slighting them by innuendo? for me to interview/quote real live indian muslims about usinpac? for me to interview more than one indian-american lobby and actually quote people from them and do more specific research on them and their activities, including the non-hindu indian-american lobby groups? or does indian-american lobby equal hindu as well?
i don’t believe that as a lay reader of her piece i have to do anything more than i did or do what i think is her job for her. i gave my impressions of her piece. i said she needed more sources, more named sources, more valid sources (in my opinion), a sense that more fieldwork was actually conducted, a less gossipy way of presenting her “facts” etc. how is that not concrete instances of how i think her paper is lacking? and pray tell what are these sacrosanct rules under which she wrote her paper? the onus is on her, as the “expert”, to prove her case. i personally don’t think she did. you are free to disagree and write your own saga as to why i am wrong and she is right. and for the last time i never said the other paper omittted a narrative. i said the somewhat divergent manner in which the narratives were presented was suspect to me.
so you’ve never criticized a movie or a book or a newspaper article that you feel is lacking in some aspect? you’re a better man than I am….
Ok folks, just some brief responses. ACFD and Muralimannered, thanks for the levity 🙂
bongdongs
Thanks bongdongs, will consider your suggestion. In case you’ve read the books by Ayesha Siddiqa and William Langewiesche at the bottom of the same Amazon link, as I recently did, please write if there was something new in Deception.
Brown, thanks for the link. I certainly acknowledge things can be bad for Hindus in Pakistan, there was no dispute on that. BTW, the links at the bottom of your wiki link show Hindus celebrating festivals in Pakistan too. That shows reality is not as simple as people often suggest, and I stand by my comment(s) above.
Moornam, glad you respected my views before. Hope you will consider them on their merits from here on out, too.
I’ll address any other substantive comment, query or reaction to my ideas, as and when I have time – but will ignore the ad hominem and non sequitur.
Thanks everyone!
during my last few visits i have been seeing that the modern hijabs are on the rise with moplahs, though i feel this time around it is the women who want to wear them for whatever reason. i find a lot of these women to be very educated as well – i think it is cyclical..
Mapillas wear a head covering that kind of looks like the African head coverings where you wrap your hair in a piece of cloth the same way you would a towel, or like thia
And they make damn good food.
you will only see older generation wearing that now.
There were a few people who wore hijab type headcoverings in Hyderabad in the 80s, and I agree, it was more educated people (a teacher at my school wore one but none of the Muslim students did).
Interesting thread. I guess at the end of the day I don’t see my domestic (i.e., US)-policy interests being particularly linked to South Asian affairs (though, to the extent they are, South-Asian seems obviously the way to go, as opposed to Indian-American). Re: foreign policy, I see the emerging US-Israel-India linkage as encouraging, though I certainly don’t think that involves any first-order opposition to Pakistan–when I hear, e.g., the Pakistani lawyers-in-hiding interviewed on NPR, my feelings are sympathetic, not hostile, and I also think there’s something to be said for the aforementioned alliance’s sticking with Mushie, at least ’til a better alternative looks pretty solid.
“the paper as it stands is far too short to prove it’s thesis..” ?? so why not reduce the scope of your thesis to fit the length of your paper and the dearth of evidence you apparently have? or why not expand your paper to do justice to our thesis? so it’s ok to have a grand thesis, write a paper that falls short of proving it and then beg off to your professors by saying your paper was too short to prove your thesis, but your thesis is a-ok nonetheless? i don’t remember that being acceptable.
“but it’s not really a scholarly essay so much as deliberate meditation.”
i love these euphemisms. this isn’t a yoga journal she’s writing in. it does say “academic journal” in the title. i thought academic and scholarly were related. and if her piece is “deliberate meditation”, think of my silly comments then as “stream of consciousness,” “thought experiment”, “transcendental meditation”, “out of body experience”, “words from the great beyond” or anything else that sounds”cool.” 🙂
Chachaji, you had mentioned the same a few days ago and at that time I had assumed that it was a one off comment, But since you have mentioned it again, I would think you have thought through this and would like to know your views. It seems like a reason why you advocate for the same if for the betterment of minorities and people in general. Now, I would think that a federation of the kind you mention would be sub-countries or states along linguistic lines with foreign affairs and the army under the control of a common ‘Government’. Something along the lines of what was proposed for Kashmir at some point except there is no bigger country. So, how does it work at the central level? How do you make sure that this big government is ‘elected’ in a way where the more populous and less populous states are well represented and not discriminated against. Also, what happens to a state which does not want to be a part of this federation? Do we just let it go. Plus, what about problems with states like Pakistan? And how does economics and immigration work – do people from Bihar still have the same rights to go to say TN? Taking from the link you cited the other day on population, unless other states are happy to accommodate the poverty of some states, how would it be better for people. Why would TN be interested in a free flow of labor from Bihar after the point where its needs are satisfied? What if two states have big issues that could escalate?
Another option could be to have of this sort only along economic lines. All the above questions would still be there plus those of security. And we are not even talking about the benefits we derive in India due it being a consolidated country – culturally, economically, etc. India’s economy and growth is largely internal consumption based unlike China, would that still continue to be, etc etc.
Ardy,
With no disrespect intended, I feel off topic discussion like this are not central to the topic at hand are best discussed off line, this will only instigate others to come out of the woodwork and make it a pissing contest, hope you understand.
Weeeeee….The religious-yet-staunchly-secular Indian Muslim female has arrived!! First off, I’ve yet to see anyone on this thread demonstrate a clear and legitimate understanding (most of these posts are marked characterized by overzealous emotion and babble-speak) of the roots of Muslim prejudice in India. Unlike most of you, who lavish in your priveleged, Western lifestyles and have no knowledge of South Asia other than what you’ve read or “perceived,” I’ve spent a considerable amount of time traveling throughout India, including with my aunt, an Indian-Muslim journalist who has extensively documented the situation of India’s Muslims.
Despite India’s secular tenants, Indian Muslims face widespread discrimination in all sectors of society, especially government. To deny that Muslims in India face no prejudice is an egregious moral blunder. However, never would I classify the treatment of Indian Muslims as the result of overt hatred. Additionally, despite immense efforts of the Indian government to un-marginalize Indian Muslims, many have remained backward and uneducated, a fact that illustrates the crucial need for reform within Muslim culture (which differs greatly from the bigoted Wahabbi interpretations of Islam of Saudi Arabia and centers around of Sufisim, which is innately spiritual and syncretic). THE PROBLEM DOES NOT LIE WITHIN ISLAM AS A RELIGION — IT IS AN ISSUE OF CULTURE AND EDUCATION.
And to the pseudo-intellectual bozo who stated that all Muslim countries are theocratic and thus evil, have you never heard of Turkey and Tunisia, two secular republics? Any misguided fellow can easily employ the same reasoning and argue that Hinduism is discriminatory, backward, and illogical faith, as all religions are subject to interpretation!
Distrust (not blatant antipathy) of Indian Muslims has culminated since the arrival of Muslim invaders and establishment of Islamic sultanates, particularly the Mughal Empire. [[Yes, I’m 100% proud to be a Muslim, but I acknowledge that the Mughals, while contributing immensely to India’s rich cultural mosaic, also plundered senselessly and attempted to establish a uniform culture/religion throughout India. Let me emphasize that I am proud to be a Muslim, not Mughal-descendant-whatever, something to which I have no admiration or affinity!]] This distrust was further exacerbated by Partition and other communal tensions.
Ardy, brown makes a great suggestion. I suggest we discuss offline. Better yet, I should blog it, and link it here. Your feedback, as well as that of others, is valuable.
This isn’t a one-off thing, virtually any problem I think about – whether it is population, or economic growth, or political representation, or indeed religious identity – leads me to the pan-South Asian federation idea. Nor is this accidental – you have to address the basic issues for everything else to work out, and I see it as basic – though that doesn’t mean everything else must wait till it is sorted out. And this isn’t about resurrecting a vision of the past either, it’s about the future, so I really welcome your forward-looking and probing questions. The details and timeline remain to be worked out – I hope you don’t expect even me to have it all worked out to the last ‘t’ 🙂
What ho, old egg, simmer down and pass me the sherry and that copy of the Financial Times, I need a drink and to check on my portfolio, what, what?
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time traveling throughout India, including with my aunt, an Indian-Muslim journalist who has extensively documented the situation of India’s Muslims.
Asra Nomani?
Not sure if this has been answered. Let me try although I am just a commenter from a distant land. This issue is to be viewed through the lens of US interests, both political and business. US has gained immensely from having Pakistan as an ally. Likewise, Indian politicians have not cared much for the US except to send their children to the US. I suppose SM and its commenters reflect the general opinion of a segment of US diaspora that believes bsupporting the US position regardless of principle is morally right.
I think Arianna has raised some very telling points.
Razib @68: The city is actually HYDERABAD 🙂
It amazes me how these days people have equated ‘liberal’ with a specific set of political ideas to have completely left the original meaning of the word behind. It’s hard to consider somebody liberal, even if they consider themselves ‘a liberal,’ when discussion and openness to certain ‘conservative’ positions becomes impossible.
i cannot comment on tunisia, but as far as turkey is concerned, its secular nature is not so secular. yes, atatürk strove for a vision of a ‘secular’ turkey, but not only was that vision not completely detached from its islamic roots, but its practise was also only tentatively secular. a skim through the turkish constitution belies just how much of turkish law was unable to escape the influence of islamic law. the detailed history of the talks between EU and the turkish government also reveal how much its leaders are tied to islamic ways both culturally and legally. and the recent rise of islamic political parties in turkey is constantly challenging a secularism that has always only been tentative, not absolute or even strong. yes, comparative to other muslim countries (muslim by population or republic) turkey is secular, but viewed in the context of all governments, it would be wrong to deny just how tied it is to islam.
not this commenter (and since someone asked for a count, i would be part of the ‘22.7’%). but to be fair to my fellow commenters, i don’t get that general feeling.
some of the passive techniques used by the private businesses to keep muslims/non-hindus away include building temples within apartment complexes and having vegetarians only buildings — this trend is particularly dangerous. I am talking about upscale apartments in metro cities enforcing these kind of rules. I agree with Arianna for the most part — I don’t think there is a well co-ordinated aparatus in place to do this intentionally (except in cases like Modi/Gujarat), but discrimincation is present, and with the legal system that takes years to settle cases people most often put up with it. The level of prejudice and discrimination also varies from place to place (Between Gujarat and Kerala (almost non-existent), you will probably get the whole spectrum).
Woot, woot! Another ABD for classical liberalism! Resistance by communitarians is futile!
Though liberalism does include some specific political ideas, like adequate protection of the private sphere.
In my view, Turkey is as secular as the u.s.a. do you think otherwise? Islam is an integral part of their culture, but the country has struggled hard (and sometimes even bend backwards, eg: not allowing women representatives to wear hijab in the parlament) to separate religion from politics. Christiantiy is an integral part of america and it is hard to imagine a non-christian/atheist being elected as a president here the u.s of a. in many ways it is the same in Turkey.
rob, point noted. but i don’t condone agreeing with other viewpoints for the sake of appearing liberal – just being open to hearing and considering them. but sometimes political discussions get to a point where people won’t even concede that the other side has made a least one valid point, just b/c of their overall political affiliation (their own or that of their opponent). it gets tiring, a bit silly, and it certainly undermines their position.
though i take offense at the ABD jab (esp. since as far as i know, you are too?) – i don’t think it’s really relevant, actually…
224 ak
No, no–“woot, woot” is an expression of exhilaration–I was welcoming you on board the liberal train!! Sorry if that wasn’t clear!
najeeb, i wouldn’t agree completely. i think islam is rather more ingrained legally, and culturally, in turkey than in the us. also, i know about the historical rules regarding the fez and the hijab in both public and parliament – but no point in forbidding superficial signs of islam when it’s so integrated into the laws that that parliament is seeking to create and uphold. on the other hand, i won’t deny the influence of christianity in the us. in that sense, both are in the same boat – claiming secularity when there are clear – and prominent – instances of religion mixing with government. in my view, it is just a matter of degree.
rob, sorry to have misinterpreted. but seeing as i tend to have views that sometimes defy categorization, i don’t think any label fits me at this point in time 😉
No problem, of course! I try to “own” (or, as the kids say these days, “pwn”) the anti-ABDism (see my comment #214), thus that wasn’t meant badly either!
I was speculating. Key word in my comment was ‘suppose’.
If USINPAC is Islamophobic due to lack of Muslims then the same baseless charge could be laid against SM. Many Mallu Muslims dont identify with India although they would identify with Kerala. Also, the percentage of Muslims who migrate to the OECD world is rather disproportionate to the population of India. Similarly the percentage of Christians who emigrate is also disproportionate.
For many older DBDs, Pakistan is an enemy state or at the very least not a friendly state. A pan-south asian loyalty really does not figure in deliberations. This may be hard for non-DBDs to understand but it is very real.
One of the points raised by a commenter is a valid one. The lack of Muslims who blog on SM. The response from the SM intern is rather weak. It is the same response that many companies provide when they have to hire someone outside the mainstream. How about some affirmative action chaps ?
Someone asked about loyalty – try the Tebbitt test – an excellent way to test one’s loyalties. This can be applied to any sporting event – not necessarily international ones.
So you’d like us to pay more attention to criteria like gender, religion and why not sexual orientation, while we’re at it…instead of looking for people who are AVAILABLE to blog regularly AND moderate their own posts, who are also a good fit? We’ve had Muslim guest bloggers, with origins in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, not that it matters to those who want to criticize us.
We’re not a company. We’re not a government. We’re just a blog, and a private one, at that. I think we do a damned good job of keeping this an open space. A blog that was staffed with a representative from every South Asian nation, all genders (why not trans, too) AND someone from each major religion would suck if those people weren’t passionate, committed, open-minded writers on top of all of that. What’s more important to you– tokenism or people whose outlook is inclusive? And by all means, if you think you can organize or coordinate something better, we’ll be nothing but happy for you. What’s stopping any of you? Time? Lack of interest? Other obligations? Welcome to our world.
Yes, yes–ISI’s funding of groups fomenting attacks on Kashmir and Delhi (and, perhaps, Hyderabad and Bombay) makes that obvious to anyone who’s not asleep at the switch. The pan-south asian loyalty thing is more about domestic US politics (I think–i.e., issues like profiling). And that’s where my disagreement with the thrust of the SAMAJ article comes in–there’s nothing in principle wrong with a group like USINPAC advocating closer US-India ties. How they do it is open to criticism, of course, but given the fragility of the US-India relationship after the hi-jinks of the Cold War, etc., I’m willing to give them some latitude–as an ABD, I’m not really sure what a pan-south-asian-american foreign policy would look like, unless it’s assumed to be whatever the Democratic party position happens to be, in which case it’s not attractive unless you’re really just more of a Democrat (not that there’s anything wrong with that) than interested in south asian stuff as a first order.
re: the bloggers in the bunker
I’ve opened up a discussion thread on our Facebook group, here. If that link doesn’t work, just go to our group, look for “Topic: Potential Guest Bloggers!” and have your say.
If you can’t access any of that, email us your suggestions, that way we can get back on track with this very important and interesting discussion. Thanks, everyone!
p.s. Be nice to the intern! Abhi didn’t grant their request for vacation time this week.
i don’t think you can introduce diversity by representation in forums like this. i don’t think the fact that this blog doesn’t have any muslim bloggers have anything to with a particular bias from SM folks; if you sense a bias, it is worth talking about but otherwise it is pointless. i also don’t see here that you need muslims to talk about muslim issues here – and muslim issues have always been discussed from various angles here, see we are already 200+ comments here!
In my view, Turkey is as secular as the u.s.a. do you think otherwise?
no, not really: http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/08/creationist_turkey_shold_not_b.php.
it is not that much more religious, but it is more like america than it is like western or northern europe.
Christiantiy is an integral part of america and it is hard to imagine a non-christian/atheist being elected as a president here the u.s of a. in many ways it is the same in Turkey.
are you sure none of the heads of state weren’t atheists? ataturk was not an unbeliever personally according to the biographies that i’ve read. in any case, non-christians have been elected as head of state in the USA (most certainly thomas jefferson was not a christian as we would understand it when he was elected, though he became more christophilic after he left the presidency), just not in a long time (i.e., not since universal suffrage unless you count unitarians, though they were christian unitarians from what i know).
i mean ataturk was an unbeliever (if i had a penny every time i did this on SM!).
1) SM excludes muslims 2) SM allows islamophobia to flourish 3) SM coddles muslims 4) SM has a double standard in regards to hindutva (bad) and islamism (let’s pretend it doesn’t exist) 5) SM has no real hindu bloggers 6) SM has no muslim bloggers 7) SM is all about india 8) SM knows nothing about india 9) SM is brown racist 10) SM is too PC
etc. etc. but for the grace of low traffic go us all…
btw, SM is also not a progressive public space. nor is it friendly to conservatives.
Razib, I still don’t see good amount of evidence for your disagreement. I am interested in this information. From what i have read, Turkey has tried harder than most other countries to curb even the outward appearances of religion. From what i remember, the private religious school system is entirely controlled by the state (which is NOT the case in the U.S). The understanding of evolution is not the only measuring stick for how secular a country is. The fact that Islamic parties are gaining power is also only a by-product of general nature of democracy – not that i like it. The evangelicals have gained considerable power in America too. Your assertion in your blog about Turkey being a good democracy only by islamic standards is based on what? I am looking for real hard data, policies and how islam dictates government, etc..
najeeb, more http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002878.html Here is data from the 1990-1993 World Values Survey on the percentage within each nation who affirm “strong religiosity.”1 I am inserting in a variety of nations for context, but focus on the number for Turkey:
more turkey data.
Your assertion in your blog about Turkey being a good democracy only by islamic standards is based on what?
i didn’t say that. i said: “But the reality is that Turkey is secular and Western by the standards of the Islamic world, not the Western world.” in the western world the united states is batsh*t crazy when it comes to religion. turkey & tunisia probably approach the united states, and they’re considered secular countries in the muslim world. the standards are different. as for the disagreement, it goes to people trying to show that the islamic world can be secular by pointing to turkey. it isn’t a good example, it just reinforces how shifted the standards are. also,
1) that secularism has been achieved through stuffing laicism down the throats of the population by the elite 2) and, that secularism still is relatively modest in its outcomes compared to other countries which have tried to do the same, such as france
(a good analogy to turkey might be mexico, its ruling class has been strongly anti-clerical for most of the 20th century, but its populace remains relatively\ catholic)
…btw, almost turkey-day.
oh, and najeeb, here is my point. people generalize about islam & muslims like they’re all goat-beards, or that that is the “true islam,” the fundamental islam which non-goat-beards are just deviants from. that’s obviously a straw man. but people also generalize about islam & muslims and assert that the religion exhibits the same range & distribution of variation in terms of attitudes & practices as christians or jews. that’s also a straw man. the reality is that muslims are diverse, but the distribution of the diversity depending on the metric is often different from other religions. e.g., imagine a metric “gay friendliness.” there are christians in africa who support capital punishment (at least de jure) for homosexuals. there are christians who believe that homosexuals can be ordained as priests with power to dispense sacraments within the faith. this is a range. similarly, there are muslims who support capital punishment for homosexuals and muslims who would accept homosexuals as full members of the ummah. when i say homosxuals i mean individuals who not only have inclination but openly engage in same sex acts as part of romantic relationships. my point is that we can accept that christians and muslims exhibit great diversity without pretending as if that diversity is distributed similarly. in the united states within the episcopal church the dominant faction is the one which favors the ordination and entrance of homosexuals into functions as clergy. i know of no major equivalent islamic movement which would accept open homosexuals as imams or ulams.
Do dorkinis wear bikinis ?
Anna: How dare Abhi did not grant vacation time for intern around the holidays, while he just took off on vacation. I’ll tell you kids these days have no respect for the monkeys (interns) in the bunker. ’nuff of hate so far on this thread. Have a happy Thanksgiving all and stay safe.
Melbourne Desi’s SM comments summarized:
1) America sucks
2) Americans are ignorant imperialists
3) This sentence sounds like it is really (America Sucks) saying something intellectually significant but really I am just saying America sucks.
🙂
And with that, I am off on a much deserved vacacion [hint]! Peace out my homies.
leaving issues of the influence of islam aside (which i have aready argued above), but one way in which turkey is not distinctly democratic is its treament of minorities and the issues involving it. in particular, the treatment of kurds and the issue of the armenian ‘genocide’ (disputed term). orhan pamuk was put on trial for merely stating his opinion that the killing of armenians constituted a genocide. and the kurdish people and culture are consistently censored. if you want more insight, look into the history of the EU-turkey entry talks – changes that turkey has been making regarding its free speech, human rights violations etc have largely been in order to get into the EU – i.e. not self-motivated by some concept of democracy. this is not to say that the US, or other western countries are perfect democracies or themselves innocent of human rights violations – i’m just saying that by any standard, turkey is not democratic as you argue. and if you visit the country and are familiar with its recent history, you would know just how integrated islam is into society and the law. if you’e looking for proof of how islam dictates the government – look to the text of its constitution, and the sort of changes it has been making in response to EU accession talks. if you’re interested in further sources and commentary, e-mail me (handle linked).
sorry, that should read : …turkey is not as democratic…
Najeeb and Razib – Key difference between America and Turkey [besides thanksgiving ]: the latter doesn’t allow the establishment of certain Churches[greek orthodox, i think] on it’s soil. Turkey is also way behind on minority and gay rights.
Also, the Turkish army exercises too much influence over the Govt. formation [in past, the army has dismissed governments]. And, If I am not mistaken, the Turkish Army, not unlike the Pakistani Army, has extensive Commercial interests as well.
Attacking? Attacking? Who is “attacking” who here?
Non-Muslim Indian Americans more than likely do not mix closely with African American Muslims. Indian American Muslims probably do – at the masjid.
That leaves everyone else in the Indian American community and I’ve never heard news of hoardes of Indian Americans committing crimes against African American Muslims.
Fill me in!