I‘m pretty lukewarm on Thomas Friedman overall but he’s built quite a franchise on turning a good phrase or 2 and he does occasionally deliver some solid bits. Lately, in a media environment where every other article about Islam involves beheading, suicide bombs or sharia, he’s been doing a great job of recognizing the important & emerging pockets of liberalism in Muslim society writ large. In Iraq, for example, he recently noted an important reversal of the usual storyline for what happens to an intellectual who violates Arab society’s norms –
Here’s a story you don’t see very often. Iraq’s highest court told the Iraqi Parliament last Monday that it had no right to strip one of its members of immunity so he could be prosecuted for an alleged crime: visiting Israel for a seminar on counterterrorism. The Iraqi justices said the Sunni lawmaker, Mithal al-Alusi, had committed no crime and told the Parliament to back off.
Combatting Islamophobia His Own Way…
That’s not all. The Iraqi newspaper Al-Umma al-Iraqiyya carried an open letter signed by 400 Iraqi intellectuals, both Kurdish and Arab, defending Alusi. That takes a lot of courage and a lot of press freedom. I can’t imagine any other Arab country today where independent judges would tell the government it could not prosecute a parliamentarian for visiting Israel — and intellectuals would openly defend him in the press.
More stories like this & I believe Islamophobia worldwide would be taken down a notch or two. Towards the same end, Friedman has a great column this week about the Indian Muslim community’s response to the Mumbai attackers & how it contrasts with too many Arab Muslims –
All nine [of the Mumbai attackers] are still in the morgue because the leadership of India’s Muslim community has called them by their real name — “murderers” not “martyrs” — and is refusing to allow them to be buried in the main Muslim cemetery of Mumbai, the 7.5-acre Bada Kabrastan graveyard, run by the Muslim Jama Masjid Trust.
“People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim,” Hanif Nalkhande, a spokesman for the trust, told The Times of London. Eventually, one assumes, they will have to be buried, but the Mumbai Muslims remain defiant.
To be sure, Mumbai’s Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a predominantly Hindu country. Nevertheless, their in-your-face defiance of the Islamist terrorists stands out. It stands out against a dismal landscape of predominantly Sunni Muslim suicide murderers who have attacked civilians in mosques and markets — from Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan — but who have been treated by mainstream Arab media, like Al Jazeera, or by extremist Islamist spiritual leaders and Web sites, as “martyrs” whose actions deserve praise.
The symbolic gesture is interesting on many levels. In our politically correct world, a lot of social commentary first focuses on identifying majorities vis à vis minorities (or rich vs poor, white vs non-white, west vs. the rest, bank vs subprime borrower, etc.). The all too common implication being that the powerless aren’t entirely responsible for their “bad” behavior because circumstances created by the powerful made them do it.
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There is no truth, only competing agendas…. |
The problem is that at the extreme, this makes all standards of behavior & intent relative. To leverage Lenin’s classic formulation, determining right vs. wrong becomes first a question of “who? whom?” rather than “what.” Many of the “yes.. but’s” when talking about the cartoon rioters, for ex., rather explicitly hedged between Who/Whom (Westerners did something to Islam) and What (fighting Free Speech). Some rap lyrics can go platinum coming from the right mouth or be a hate crime coming from the wrong one.
Heck, depending on how deeply one buys into Who/Whom, the idea that Friedman – clearly non-desi and non-Muslim – should praise (i.e. judge) Desi Muslims might even be insulting.
However, what the Mumbai terror attacks remind us is that even in our multi-cultural, tolerant ideal world, we still ultimately require some universals (e.g. “don’t shoot up hotel guests”) that society must “intolerantly” judge & enforce regardless of Who/Whom. Friedman’s piece comes from this vein when it recognizes universals, that minorities still exercise volition, and are often a more proximate variable than anything the majority can do.
And so despite umpteen transgressions against them, the Muslim minority of India isn’t quietly rationalizing that somehow the Hindu majority “made” these terrorists do their deeds. They’re instead expressly disavowing the Mumbai 9. The result is an important step for the minority to productively and peacefully continue to engage the majority in common society –
When a culture and a faith community delegitimizes this kind of behavior, openly, loudly and consistently, it is more important than metal detectors or extra police. Religion and culture are the most important sources of restraint in a society.
It is why so few, if any, Indian Muslims are known to have joined Al Qaeda. And it is why, as outrageously expensive and as uncertain the outcome, trying to build decent, pluralistic societies in places like Iraq is not as crazy as it seems. It takes a village, and without Arab-Muslim societies where the villagers feel ownership over their lives and empowered to take on their own extremists — militarily and ideologically — this trend will not go away.
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As Friedman notes, the message it sends other Muslims is as important as the message it sends other Indians. As I argued with Yeh Hum Naheen, disaffected young men are a fact of life in every society on the planet. What determines where they land on the long continuum from schoolyard punk to international terrorist is the social narrative they draw their “juice” from. Given Islam’s traditional insistence on a clean, expedient burial, 9 bodies rotting in a morgue for nearly 3 months is a pretty graphic signal to aspiring copycats. Far from being hailed as martyrs, future terrorists are being told that Desi Muslims consider them chumps.
Not per se, it would depend on what you’re protesting about–if you’re non-violently and ineffectually protesting about your own suppression, then, yes, is would be.
Ineffectually sure. Non-violent protest can bring good things though.
Yeah, but I’m not sure that Partition and 50 years of Fabaian Socialism is “good.”
rob. no worries. i think we’re on the same wavelength here. just trying to reason with the other side without setting off a firestorm…
Amen. 😉
Thoughtful post sir,
from,
A burden to any society.
57 · samr said
i agree. advani is scum.
OK, based on liberal baseline, but then, what Muslim leader (or, opposition leader) isn’t?
why the but? what? who? whom?
60 · rob said
Compared to Advani? Abdolkarim Soroush springs to mind.
Also, I thought the whole point of this post was to establish universal norms – surely “don’t incite a crowd/movement in a region tense with communalism to tear down a masjid and build a temple on the mythical birthplace of a mythical figure” would fall in that category, reagrdless of your baseline?
But it doesn’t – illustrating that the process is political. Which again leads to the point about how “universal norms” can only be universal (or better said, “consensus”) in a particular social spaces. In Sepia Mutiny’s that is not a “universal norm” whereas “don’t be racist against Indian-American people” probably is.
“In our politically correct world, a lot of social commentary first focuses on identifying majorities vis à vis minorities (or rich vs poor, white vs non-white, west vs. the rest, bank vs subprime borrower, etc.). The all too common implication being that the powerless aren’t entirely responsible for their “bad” behavior because circumstances created by the powerful made them do it.”
I can’t speak for all people who examine things, but I would NOT argue that trying to understand that the circumstances under which something comes to existance is a way to create and excuse or say people aren’t ‘bad’ because it was all the ‘evil majorities’ fault. I think the point is more to UNDERSTAND the circumstances under which something (i.e. the Taliban) flourished, so that we can understand what WE can/should do ourselves to avoid helping groups like that come into existence and grow.
I think reflecting on history and understanding what factors contributed to a certain event is important for humans to use to learn so we don’t just keep repeating the same mistakes again and again. And by understanding, for example, how the Taliban came into existence, and what factors led to their rise and power in Afghanistan, we are NOT saying “Oh those cute little Talibs had no agency, they are just innocent people led astray by the U.S.”.
Honestly, it really irks me when people suggest understanding something is the same as making excuses. It’s not, it’s just trying to be rational.
And regarding Thomas Friedman, I would respect him a bit more if he used something besides anecdotes to argue his points.
4 · MoorNam said
desi= adj. indigenous, of a country desi log= people of my country, desi nav, indigenous boat,, etc
from desh= country
videshi- foreigner, i.e., not from this country
Technically desi can be applied to any country or group, as up to the speakers choice. In America, I am surrounding by my desi log, in India I am videshi, and vice-versa for an Indian citizen.
“If you’re serious in your question, the answer is, it is decided through reason/rationality–see, e.g., J.S. Mill, J. Rawls, R. Nozick.”
dude, i don’t know how you can reconcile these folks with funding VHP. it is beyond me. yet, you can criticize muslims being offended at the cartoons. of course, i believe that publishing the cartoon was ok (not that it was funny), and may liberal democracies increase in the coming century etc. of course, fundamentalists from within can say that don’t need any other political theories or social contracts like constitutions, as islam provides a comprehensive political philosophy in the quran. again, i think that it is an unreasonable and irrational argument, which cannot be applied to diverse societies. OTOH, you’re schooled in the traditions of liberal democracies, and you make the same mistakes. so what hope is there for those who grow up in rigidly theocratic societies?
Dr A
The first part of your statement about not inciting a frenzied crowd can be understood. It would inevitably lead to a great deal of violence and chaos, but was it necessary to add the mythical figure bit? As far as I understand, not just temples,but all places of worship are dedicated to figures of faith, mythology and folklore. They could have made the rational world proud and built a natural history museum on the site dedicated to facts and reason, though ;p
I have interacted with desi Muslims in India and the UK, and my assessment is that comparing like to like, Indian Muslims are far more integrated in the ‘mainstream’ than their UK counterparts (talking about the Indian middle class muslims). This might be due to the shared common culture and ethnicity in India, and the suspicion/perception of racism in the UK. Of course I have no figures, just personal experience and anecdotes.
29 · RC said
See Orwell chacha on modern English of the worst sort.
I think Johann Hari responded well with this.
69 · AS said
Actually, this is useful. Thanks.
well that passage from johann hari is very persuasive. to me the irrationality of religion is an intuitive idea; nonetheless, i see intelligent and otherwise people use superstition, rituals, scriptures, faith, and god for finding solace. i’m actually ok with all that as long as people recognize that their behavior is just fulfilling an emotional need. it is when religious practitioners start positing religious justifications for political programs (‘hindu rashtra,’ ‘caliphate’), or psuedo-scientific reasons for rituals and superstitions, or faith as a special category of belief that is immune to contradiction by reason or evidence that i begin to get sick. ah, for the day when even extremists respond to reason, democratic considerations, and constitutional strictures rather than following their pernicious interpretations of ‘divine revelation.’
That’s what Narendra Modi would also say. Then you get into when the fire started, and go back all the way to the Tartar invasions.
For most religious people, reason is a form of superstition. And it is rather hard to show, using reason, that it is not. Particularly when reason has brought us to the current state of the world. I sometimes get the sense that religious extremism is a Luddite response. There is a hankering for past/lost utopias, the only difference is the images (from Ramayana, 1001 Nights, Genesis, Hardy…).
There was a day as you envision. For a very illuminating read on the use of reason in arguing against/for religious positions, and problems thereof, see this book. The debate between Madhyamika Buddhism and the other Indian traditions is the best ever of a rational, and civil, discussion of (almost all possible) religious positions, based on a formal logical framework. Lots of insightful epistemology there, but the debate was/is still unresolved. So yes, it would be less violent in the short-term, but it still wouldn’t get anywhere, and end in violence at some point.
Comedy – can comedians make fun of religious leaders in their country is to me a good stress test for religions. For instance Steven Colbert’s “I am American and So Can You” book takes a hit at all major world religions. How safe a comedian feels poking fun at different religions is to me telling.
Criticism – how do religious people handle criticism of their faith is also a good stress test for religions. By handle I don’t mean just taking it, but how do they voice their disagreement. Do people feel safe voicing criticism or do they feel they will be specifically targeted for death (Rushdie for example).
Really? If you reduce the positions to a few “bullet points,” it might “look” contradictory, and I admit (obviously) that the “thrust” of liberalism and the VHP are in (quite) different directions, but it’s no logical contradiction to support both. To wit, (1) Nozick (this hardly requires explanation–my relationship w/ VHP-A is merely that of a capitalistic act between consenting adults), (2) Rawls (“VHP’ing” is protected by the 1st p. of j. (tho’, of course, individual bad acts/actors of VHP, should they occur, would be punished)), (3) Mill (well, it’s my all-considered judgment that it is to the good of society for Hindus to stop being downtrodden/ridiculed/taught that their monuments merely “were lost,” etc.). 😉
India has suffered many attacks before the latest Bombay terror attacks, but since this one received global coverage, Bombay [Indian] Muslims, by denying proper burial to the ten terrorists, killed the proverbial birds with one stone – show the world that they were not like “them” [ i am not implying that the Indian Muslims are like “them”, but I do know that a majority of Indian Muslims i know, including memebers of my family, sympathize more with the ten terrorists than the Hindus who lost their lives in the attacks], and avert a possibly violent reaction by the Shiv Sena or Bajrang Dal thugs.
http://dailypioneer.com/157991/Barbarians-at-the-gate.html
Vir Sanghvi writing for Hindustan Times. I find his articles generally sensible and well balanced.
Just out of curiosity, would they sympathize more with the Mumbai Muslims killed in the attacks than the ten terrorists?
Thanks for the Vir Sanghvi link, he is indeed sensible, and a good barometer of the liberal opinion in India. Looks like people are finally losing their patience with the Mullahs. Time too.
I have heard comments before that the Indian Muslims only refused burying the terrorists because they were afraid of the reaction from Hindus. But it made me wonder who does this insult more? Indian muslims or hindus? What is worse to assume that Hindus automatically will react violently if the Muslims buried the terrorists, or that Muslims really would like to bury the terrorists but only refusing to because of possible outside reaction.
I think it is better to give the benefit of doubt that Indian Muslims just don’t agree with what the terrorists did and don’t feel greater kinship with them, and that is why they won’t bury their bodies. They did this because they felt it really was the right thing to do. They were sincere.
High time.. Otherwise they’d be clubbed with the “secular buffoons” we find in plenty in India. 🙂
Whoa–thanks for the candour.
It is hogawsh to present Indian Muslims as somehow different from other Muslims. There are a billion+ Muslims, and they don’t support terrorism either. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Arab states, etc., are all anti terrorism. To say that somehow India Muslims are better is to continue the love affair that America has with (Hindu) India, especially now that India does business with Israel. This is nothing more than a circle jerk of Israel, India, and America–all perpetuating the biased reporting of propping up each other while demonizing Muslims. This echoes of the British preference for Hindus during colonialism, and sets to further divide the desi (which includes more than India) Muslims, and also to create divisions within desis themselves. The article serves to put Indian Muslims on a pedestal, while denouncing Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslims, when the latter nations have been fighting against Islamic extremism longer than India.
But Friedman is playing the U.S. media game: According to U.S. media, Muslims behead women and oppress them, while there is no mention of the Hindu abuse of women, or the systematic rape and oppression of African women (many of them Christian).
It is sad to see how quickly Hindu desis on this site jump to demonize Arabs or other Muslims. The divide and conquer propaganda worked well enough in the 1940s to separate a nation that had been whole for centuries. And the game continues.
Bottomline, anytime a neocon like Friedman praises India, desis around the world should feel a sense of foreboding. If India thinks that its next Best Friends Forever (Israel and America) will make it a global power player, it thinks to look back at history (its own colonial history) and learn how puppeteers work their strings.
LOL–what you call a “circle jerk,” I call–Yankees, Yindus and Yehudis–FTW!!
Errr–that would be rebuild, not build.
62 · Dr Amonymous said
you contradict yourself by bemoaning incitement while simultaneously provoking the Hindu fascists by labeling their figures “mythical”. If rob riots, its on you.
LOL, Manju–I’m not rioting under any foreseeable circumstances, though I may occasionally ummmmm–“look the other way” while my peeps do. . . . I’m playing the long game, looking towards the restoration of the Kaaba as Hindu temple. Moo-hoo-hahaha.
😉
Nilufar
Pakistan? Really? The very same that Kasab and his fellow travellers came from? the one where Masood Azhar, Hafiz Sayeed and Dawood Ibrahim (and according to many worthies, uncle Osama too) currently reside?
In the case of Pakistan, producing and exporting much of it as well.
84 · Nilufar said
..must … resist … urge …to knock down strawmen … setup by …. Paki troll ……
Yes, folks who promote an image of India as a modern, forward looking, tolerant society are really hurting India. The older depictions served India so much better.
And yes, there is no difference in the openess and tolerence of Indian society compared to Pakistani, Bangla, Malay, or Arab society. And their denizens, have been so effective in curbing terrorism.
Thank you so much for these insights. ..
(hey, mild sarcasm counts as restraint right?)
damn! pn oak! i guess the wingnuts have really come home to roost on sepia.
76 · Zainab said
i do hope you call them out on it. i am hindu and have explicitly expressed my disgust with far too many “educated” family members and friends who have expressed varying degrees of support ranging from condoning to glee at narendra modi’s pogroms saying the muslims were asking for it, or being happy that advani incited the destruction of the babri masjid – as somebody observed above. we need to shame our co-religionists who are infused with bloodlust even if they belong to our own family/social circles.
“i am not implying that the Indian Muslims are like “them”, but I do know that a majority of Indian Muslims i know, including memebers of my family, sympathize more with the ten terrorists than the Hindus who lost their lives in the attacks”
That is a tall claim! really? my anecdotal evidence just suggests otherwise! i am an indian muslim and i don’t know anyone personally who sympathize with the Bombay attackers. i know the sympathies toward other ‘muslim’ causes like Palestine and Kashmir and so on, but mumbai attacks were a different breed, forget about my anecdotal evidence but i don’t see any mainstream muslim organizations or individuals supporting what terrorists did. Freedman’s article and another report from Emily Wax that came out on Washington post a few weeks ago are testimonies to the wave of protests from indian muslims.
90 · DizzyDesi said
i thought this is the kind of language that inspires entire posts about racism on sepia mutiny?
87 · Manju said
not really.
‘kill them’ = incitement ‘your gods are mythical’ is not incitement unless you are a rage boy or worse – of any religion. but i agree with your larger point. hindu fascists and their supporters are as bad as the muslim crazies.
So you say, but this is interestingly not the view of the gov’ts of the USA, Canada, numerous European nations, nor Japan, all of which have various Islamic terror groups on their banned/watch lists, but not any Hindu groups. Why? It’s all a conspiracy, of course. . . . LOL!!
93 · najeeb said
I am sorry. I refuse to accept your anecdotal evidence because it does not fit with my extant prejudices and bigotry.
Pakistan and other Muslim countries that you argue export terror actually are not. Just because Muslims ARE FIGHTING AGAINST American and Israeli imperialism, they are labeled as terrorists. Pakistan and Afghanistan were the ground zero of America and Russian cold war, and the Middle East is pretty much a puppet for America. Iran is presented as “terrorist” because its people overthrew American puppet the Shah, and because Iran likes to think for itself, it is labeled a terrorist nation. Same with Syria. But nations that are in America’s pockets–Saudi, Egypt, Bahrain, etc., are not on the terror list. Hmmm…interesting.
You can call me a Paki all you want, but unlike you Hindus, Muslims are not trying to be white shahibs. I like how Hindus like to compare themselves to Jews and white Americans. Mimic men, all of them.
Get Americans off Muslims lands, and you will get peace. I like how America setting up one of its largest military bases in Iraq–permannetly–is not seen as an act of terror.
Terrorists/freedom fighters. The terms are interchangeable.
And to the Hindu fascists like Rob, you don’t know ANYTHING about your neighboring Muslim countries, and all your information comes from the overtly biased and war mongering American media, so save your breath: you have no credibility.
I’m not at all sure that the desire to participate in modernity is best labeled as mimicry. Keep crying, though–your whole political-economic system is based on aggression, so no big surprise it goes into profound crisis when it’s checked and counter-attacked and defeated.
“84 · Nilufar said
“
Your post raises a few questions for me – not trying to be sarcastic or mean spirited here. Enlighten me, if anyone has any answers.
Is Friedman considered a neocon? (This journalist contributes to the NY Times which not exactly a right wing publication.) I usually think of people like Ann Coulter, Limbaugh & Michelle Malkin as neocons.
Are there any specific examples of Desis commenting on this website that have demonized Arabs & Muslims?
Did the British who ruled over India really prefer Hindus over others during (India’s) colonial times? Are there any specific examples of this? I would think they would have preferred to deal with other Christians. (or even other Caucasians or Jewish people or Muslims for that matter. The Jewish & Muslim religions are way more like Christianity compared to Hinduism.)
Nilufar, I understand that you must be frustrated, but I’m afraid the facts just don’t align with what you’re saying:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4550144/CIA-warns-Barack-Obama-that-British-terrorists-are-the-biggest-threat-to-the-US.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lashkar-e-Toiba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Gul
(there’s plenty more, but tried to use “neutral” sources so they wouldn’t get painted by the “India propaganda” brush)
I agree that demonization of an entire people isn’t the way; however, we must also call a spade a spade (i.e. LeT, et al) when we see it. Whatever your position on your Kashmir, I don’t understand how you can call LeT terrorists freedom fighters when they commit a Mumbai. Whatever your outrage about Palestine, how is the Chabad house massacre of an innocent couple justified? There was no military value here? It was a slaughter that they glutted in, plain and simple.
The people you claim don’t exist and not funded by certain countries thrive on the Janus-faced approach. They claim to be avenging grievances, when in reality, they have an imperial political agenda that they are advancing and yes exporting. So please don’t lecture us on unity when it would be incredulous for any indian, hindu or muslim, to unite with an establishment, aka the ISI/Army, that celebrates the massacre of nonbelievers and apostates and dreams of India’s death by a thousand cuts. Perhaps you might have better luck with Arundhati Roy and Praful Bidwai…
i’ll ignore the white sahib stuff, but…
really? you should join pn oak’s revisionist history institute 🙂
that is the explanation for 9/11 or mumbai or 7/7 or the bombay train blasts?
this is certainly an important point. but it doesn’t mean that the other countries are better in some objective sense. although, you do make a convincing case for rob embracing wahhabism.