Dear Young Islamophobe:
You will do well to start with any of the books written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Her best-known work is Infidel. Her latest book is Nomad. She has also written a few other things. Anything written by Hirsi Ali will do; they all say the same things about the terror of Islam.
I read Nomad recently. It is littered with stories like the following: “In February 2009 in Buffalo, New York, a forty-seven-year-old Muslim businessman who had set up a cable TV station to ‘promote more favorable views of Muslims,’ beheaded his wife, who was seeking to divorce him.”
This is a short short-story. You can narrate it at parties. Imagine the shock (but perhaps not the silence, because these days everyone, it seems, has a story to tell about Islam). But you should also learn from Hirsi Ali’s style of writing. Starting with Infidel, her assault on Islam has been a spectacular success largely because she speaks from personal experience. She has suffered undeniable personal trauma but what you can emulate is her ability to cast the whole of the Islamic world as her victimizer and, in a stroke of genius, the whole of the West [read militarist, interventionist, Bible-toting US of A] as her savior.
There are other trade secrets that you can glean from a reading of Hirsi Ali.
I don’t think Hirsi Ali is popular only because she serves so well the designs of an Islamophobic West. Rather, she is read also for her simplicity and her success. That is worth thinking about. Nothing is more powerful as a shock-and-awe weapon of control than the idea called “the American Dream.” It insists that we invest the wealth of all our utopian energies in two ways of thinking: oversimplication, and delusions of grandeur that border on megalomania.
My wife’s hairstylist in our small town in upstate New York, a Muslim immigrant woman from Lebanon, has been reading Hirsi Ali in an effort to improve her English. This is because Hirsi Ali is a skilled writer. She tells her story in a direct, unadorned prose. Her style is of great assistance to her, not least because she believes in oversimplifying the world.
But Hirsi Ali is nothing if not also a seller of dreams. What she lays down on the page with such terrible earnestness is appealing because she keeps retelling the magical story of immigrant transformation. Reading her you feel redeemed. You too ought to think and write like that; if you do so, your reader will often make the mistake of going past your false righteousness and admire, instead, your grit and enterprise as a writer.
Hirsi Ali had asked once: “How many girls born in Digfeer Hospital in Mogadishu in November 1969 are even alive today? And how many have a real voice?” There’s real tragedy behind that question but at the end we only see Hirsi Ali’s high cheekbones shining on CNN.
You, Young Islamophobe, have shown great enterprise in choosing this moment to pursue your dreams. A conservative think-tank will soon be reaching out to you. I’m a messenger of your future well-being.
Yours etc.,
Amitava Kumar
[Mutineers, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop sent two dinner tickets and six cocktail-hour tickets for this event. Who wants them? And why? The first eight to convince us they should be there get the goods. More details: Featuring Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru, Faiza Patel, and others. Tuesday, November 2, 6-7 pm dinner with authors, 7-9pm cocktail program. At the home of Faiza Patel, 111 Hudson Street, Apt. 6, New York City. Dinner with authors 6-7pm. Cocktails & literary discussion., 7-9pm.]
Yawn… so basically attack the writer when you cannot refute what she has to say. Oh and by the way, this was in the news this week. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/29/islamist-militia-executes-girls-somalia
I wish I could go.
I WANT TO GO TO THIS EVENT!! Amitava Kumar and Hari Kunru and H. M. Naqvi in the SAME F-ing room? (nerdy fangirling in progress).
Aaaaaah…
(tears)
[Thank you, wonderful writers, for putting this event together. Thanks for all that you do. Writers have always been the voice of conscience in societies, and I am happy to see these amazing brown authors coming together]
Amitava- LOVE your writing. Hirsi is an amazing writer whose voice is worth noting IF ONLY for the way in which she writes and because she represents a certain camp. That said, the content of her writing drives me crazy. She has found a niche and is serving it well- the young, exotic (former) Muslim girl who has seen THE LIGHT and knows how buttered the western side of her bread is. I don’t begrudge Hirsi her experiences within and without Islam (although their veracity leaves something to be desired), but I do distrust her intent and find her associations to be highly dangerous. Hirsi is hardly the voice of enlightened reason or reform no matter how dulcet her tones. I would say read her, but read her in context and with eyes wide-open.
“but I do distrust her intent and find her associations to be highly dangerous. Hirsi is hardly the voice of enlightened reason or reform no matter how dulcet her tones. I would say read her, but read her in context and with eyes wide-open.”
I always found her to be a calculated opportunist, apparently I wasn’t the only one.
Can’t knock the hustle though.
hm. i don’t follow ayaan hirsi ali much anymore. i’m not a neocon (in fact, i’m pretty much strongly anti-neocon), and as atheists go i’m pretty much an ‘accommodationist’. and she has credibility problems after having admitted to lying to get refugee status (though lying was the norm from what i can gather). but i have to say, some of the sneering at ali strikes me as weird. she has after all been threatened by islamic radicals, and her friend was theo van gogh was killed by an islamic radical. if she wants to be an opportunist, there are less stressful ways to go about it. i’m sure she could make a lot of $ if she became a born again moderate muslim too. is she going to do that you think?
i don’t think that islamic terrorism is the threat of our time; i’m much more worried about structural fiscal problems due to our entitlements and military expenditures. but the islamic religion is one i find personally objectionable, and i sure as hell would not want to live in a muslim society, they’re illiberal, and non-muslims are not usually given the same rights as muslims. and western muslims aren’t the most liberal either. a recent survey of british muslims showed that 100% thought homosexuality was morally wrong. i don’t think it is the worst thing in the world to think this, though i reject that position, but when a whole community has this attitude it’s out of step with western values. in the USA the situation is better, in part because the muslims are either native converts who are already american, or more educated immigrants. but even here, 51% of muslims are creationists, as against 14% of hindu americans (to be fair, 70% of evangelical protestants are creationists, but i’m not a big fan of that community or its influence on political life either; perhaps i’m an ‘evangeliphobe’).
all this is a way to say that some of the stupid stuff that the tea partiers say is execrable, and just plain false. i don’t stand with falsity. god is made up, and so is the idea that obama is a muslim born in kenya. and american liberties are inalienable. but neither do i have much sympathy for demonization of fear of islam. sorry, there’s a really important reason to be scared of islam, a large number of muslims have extremely illiberal attitudes, which they bring to western countries. as a public apostate (i never believed, but am from a muslim family, so that makes me an apostate in the eyes of some) who makes no secret of his atheism i have a personal stake, so i really don’t care if not an enlightened one.i find all religions to be basically rooted in false models of reality, but certain religions make demands on others in terms of accommodation, and in some cases where they’re a majority the behavior of non-believers. islam as a whole is in that category. it’s not just a private metaphysic, but a public praxy. it affects all who are fellow citizens with muslims.
there are real people out there who are crazies. you know who they are. but when very generally framed terms like ‘islamophobia’ get thrown around regularly, you have situations where genuine thought-police use it to silence criticism. e.g., richard dawkins, hater of religion generally, being accused of being an islamophobe because of his worry that muslims are importing creationism in the united kingdom. if muslims are genuinely doing that, there’s a reason to have some phobia if you’re an evolutionary biologist.
links to support some of my contentions
http://www.gnxp.com/wp/culture/those-germans http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2494397/Richard-Dawkins-Muslim-parents-import-creationism-into-schools.html
not going to follow the rest of the thread. but i just wanted to make it clear that there are a range of opinions. too often all i hear are the nutty ‘islamophobies’ and what turns out to be implicit islamophilia.
p.s., here’s an exchange on islamophobia, and my own, between myself & my friend aziz poonawalla
http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/?p=4686 http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/?p=4695
i’ve lost about 20 pounds since the second photo was taken 6 years ago.
hm. i don’t follow ayaan hirsi ali much anymore. i’m not a neocon (in fact, i’m pretty much strongly anti-neocon), and as atheists go i’m pretty much an ‘accommodationist’. and she has credibility problems after having admitted to lying to get refugee status (though lying was the norm from what i can gather). but i have to say, some of the sneering at ali strikes me as weird. she has after all been threatened by islamic radicals, and her friend was theo van gogh was killed by an islamic radical. if she wants to be an opportunist, there are less stressful ways to go about it. i’m sure she could make a lot of $ if she became a born again moderate muslim too. is she going to do that you think?
i don’t think that islamic terrorism is the threat of our time; i’m much more worried about structural fiscal problems due to our entitlements and military expenditures. but the islamic religion is one i find personally objectionable, and i sure as hell would not want to live in a muslim society, they’re illiberal, and non-muslims are not usually given the same rights as muslims. and western muslims aren’t the most liberal either. a recent survey of british muslims showed that 100% thought homosexuality was morally wrong. i don’t think it is the worst thing in the world to think this, though i reject that position, but when a whole community has this attitude it’s out of step with western values. in the USA the situation is better, in part because the muslims are either native converts who are already american, or more educated immigrants. but even here, 51% of muslims are creationists, as against 14% of hindu americans (to be fair, 70% of evangelical protestants are creationists, but i’m not a big fan of that community or its influence on political life either; perhaps i’m an ‘evangeliphobe’).
all this is a way to say that some of the stupid stuff that the tea partiers say is execrable, and just plain false. i don’t stand with falsity. god is made up, and so is the idea that obama is a muslim born in kenya. and american liberties are inalienable. but neither do i have much sympathy for demonization of fear of islam. sorry, there’s a really important reason to be scared of islam, a large number of muslims have extremely illiberal attitudes, which they bring to western countries. as a public apostate (i never believed, but am from a muslim family, so that makes me an apostate in the eyes of some) who makes no secret of his atheism i have a personal stake, so i really don’t care if not an enlightened one.i find all religions to be basically rooted in false models of reality, but certain religions make demands on others in terms of accommodation, and in some cases where they’re a majority the behavior of non-believers. islam as a whole is in that category. it’s not just a private metaphysic, but a public praxy. it affects all who are fellow citizens with muslims.
there are real people out there who are crazies. you know who they are. but when very generally framed terms like ‘islamophobia’ get thrown around regularly, you have situations where genuine thought-police use it to silence criticism. e.g., richard dawkins, hater of religion generally, being accused of being an islamophobe because of his worry that muslims are importing creationism in the united kingdom. if muslims are genuinely doing that, there’s a reason to have some phobia if you’re an evolutionary biologist.
not going to follow the rest of the thread. but i just wanted to make it clear that there are a range of opinions. too often all i hear are the nutty ‘islamophobies’ and what turns out to be implicit islamophilia.
p.s., here’s an exchange on islamophobia, and my own, between myself & my friend aziz poonawalla
http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/?p=4686 http://secularright.org/SR/wordpress/?p=4695
i’ve lost about 20 pounds since the second photo was taken 6 years ago.
Two things-
1) the same critique you’ve made applies to nation-states, capitalism, liberalism, etc. probably much more so than to ‘Islam’. so where do you draw the line between a critique of Islam (or anything else) as a faith and a critique of the same thing as a political worldview?
2) How do you separate out what you’re critiquing that’s intrinsic to the faith and what you’re critiquing that’s not inherent to it? It would help the clarity of your argument, which is important, given the context in which you’re making it (a situation of widespread antipathy towards or fear of ‘Islam’ by powerful voices and many people in the United States and/or europe). You don’t want your argument to contribute to a dynamic of mutual mistrust for its own sake (communalism) rather than to be a critique of politicised faith that undermines liberalism, I’m assuming.
links to support some of my contentions above:
http://www.gnxp.com/wp/culture/those-germans http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2494397/Richard-Dawkins-Muslim-parents-import-creationism-into-schools.html
I would love to go to this. I’m a writer living a few blocks from Park51. I’m interested in how the diaspora South Asian community has grouped together around the identify of “desi.” Many of our parents would agree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali — so the fact that countering Islamophobia is on the agenda for our generation in part the adoption of some more liberal norms. Suddenly, a lot of us have started identifying in a way that makes Islamophobic comments sting — in part because of how desis themselves are seen as a group, rather than broken out into Muslim, Sikh, etc.
Gupta, one of the tickets is yours! Send me an e-mail so we can add you to the list…
Best, Sugi
Lol, that letter is badass, Amitava. There are very few out there who do not feel sympathy for Ayaan Hirsi’ s pain because she is very much an unhinged person. Her trauma may be real, but her fear is irrational, and the magnitude of her fear shows a fundamental detachment from reality. I wish she could find a way to heal, to work on getting through her pain. She is living in her own hell, and she probably cannot see how she is being taken advantage of, but on a larger national scale.
But Amitava, LOL, your letter is priceless because it is really all about how young Islamophobes have chosen to take advantage of this poor (certainly mentally unstable) woman. The breadth of THEIR delusions is amusing because, really, they will point to anything to make their case for something they already think is the truth.
Gupta, thank you for posting your beautiful comment. There are more young Hindu- and Sikh-Americans troubled and sickened by Islamophobia that one can express. It is true that our parents’s generation believe people like Ayaan, but then our generation of parents also are living in a freshly partitioned world.
However, the generation of young and ESPECIALLY well-traveled Indians find this targeting of Muslims as a targeting of self, and, yes, it stings.
Amitava, I love your latest book. I don’t know if you are doing a book tour, but please announce it here because I’d love your autograph.
Also, may I offer a vote for Gupta to win a ticket? He is in the area, and he sounds cool.
I am an agnostic(though my brain sez Atheist) from a Hindu family. I will say this. THere is an islam problem globally. Does it mean Islam is singularly the most evil religion? No. But the problem is a lot of the evils of religions like Hinduism are usually locally contained problems. Those caste abuses in india become merely petty ego related fights in the U.S.(example: a caste fueled gang war in Andhra Pradesh is a local human rights problem while the Telugu community having TANA , ATA, and other caste based organizations is of no security concern internationally regardless of how silly it is.) There have been reactionary tit for tat killings by both Hindus and Muslims in India, but it hasn’t reached the west.
Christianity at one time had evils perpetuated in its name on an international scale. But now is now. The problem with islam is not what it is supposed to be but what it is right now. Too many crazies seeking common ground with other crazies in other nations or normal people dealt a bad hand via collateral damage caused by the war on terror. I am sure the white people gave muslims in the UK enough of a reason to become bitter with the crude racism experienced over the last few decades. But how come you do not see other Indian subcontinent refugees look to fundamentalism in their own religions to combat whatever injustices their perceive?
There was a lot of crazy protests going on when Last Temptation of the Christ came out. But that pales next to the idea that even an innocent depiction of Mohammad on a tv show can invite death threats. When that happens, that affects MY life. My right to watch a show like South Park where they should have the freedom to at least show the face of Mohammad as they deem to.
[quote]Christianity at one time had evils perpetuated in its name on an international scale. But now is now. [/quote]
It’s a good thing Christians are not murdering thousands of Arabs and not funneling billions of dollars in aid and military equipment to seize a land just for them in the Middle East because that land is promised to them in by God. That they are not mandating a land for certain Oh wait.
And it’s a good thing that (Judeo-Christian) armies are not occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and putting aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. Oh wait.
It’s a good thing Bush and Rumsfeld did not see these occupations as divine messages and God given right…Oh wait.
Thanks for playing.
I don’t think Amitava is going to find 8 people to give away his tickets on sepia.
I think you are hard om Hirsi Ali, all societies have fierce critics whithin them, Noam Chomski, Michael Moore, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva etc. What infact is interesting is not so much as what Hirsi Ali says, but how Hirsi Ali is treated.
/////////////////////Christianity at one time had evils perpetuated in its name on an international scale./////////////////
probably because there is no one left to convert… oh wait there are the idolators in india … enter christian congress .. jai ho … and all that
Don’t worry dear Bong, you will know the real nature of Islam when you will be kicked out from Bengal by your Muslim brethren, partition didn’t make you learn something, people who refuse to learn from history are bound to live the tragedy again.
There are several problems with the ‘Islam is unique in that fundamentalists from Islam cause problems globally and other faiths don’t’ view.
The first is that it’s from a framework of looking at the religion rather than the politics or activities of who’s using the faith in order to understand it. It’s unclear that ‘the clash of civilizations’ model of looking at the world is at all useful when the eastern hemisphere has been interlinked for thousands of years and the world as a whole has been interlinked for 500+ into a global system of trade, political economy, nation-states, etc. Which has more bearing on the government of Saudi arabia – ‘islam’, or demand for oil, or american foreign policy, or other factors? Which was more bearing for the existence of Al Qaeda – ‘Islam’ or the technological change that allows small groups of people to cause a lot of damage or the Cold War and U.S. support for anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan? You have to make an argument for your framework.
The second is the idea of ‘local’ and ‘global’. There are more people in former British India (and therefore affected by communalism, notably including Hindu communalism) than there are in Europe and the United States combined. So one could easily make the argument that ‘the evils of religions like Hinduism’ are more important. But what is more relevant is that the idea that ‘the local’ is that which stays outside the U.S. or ‘the West’ and the global is that which affects the U.S. or ‘the West’ is too one-sidedly Eurocentric to be used to sustain an argument.
The third is that it’s simply not true in whatever framework you choose. Actions taken in the name of Christianity from ‘the West’ indirectly or directly contributed/contributes to massive numbers of deaths in Iraq, among women around the world in contributing to the denial of access to reproductive health, in not addressing the emergence of HIV quickly enough, in promoting the new death penalty for LGBT people in Uganda, etc. Actions taken in the name of Judaism contribute to violations of international law and justifications that are equivalent to those argued for by colonists (manifest destiny, etc.) Actions taken in the name of Islam contribute to political violence, discrimination and violence against women, homophobia, etc. Actions taken in the name of Hinduism contributed to political violence in India Pakistan and Bangladesh, rewriting of American school textbooks, cases of caste-based discrimination in the UK (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/11/caste-discrimination-uk-report), etc.
Give her a break…….she grew up in an oppressed environment.
Nobody is being harsh on Ayaan. What is being mocked is her way of dealing with her own demons, which is sexual abuse by a horrible mother and father. If all rape victims called for the slaughter of all men, then not much sympathy would lie with the rape victim. Ayaan needs to deal with her family, bring them to justice.
But her blaming her abuse to all Muslims is where her emotional disconnect lies. That and her inability to recognize that Geertz and the people she associates with are hardly her friends.
By the way, I love Islamophobes who cite “statistics” to support their hate! Right now, it is fashionable to be an Islamophobe, even praised if you bash Islam.
I’d like to see those same Islamophobes cite the rate of violence among black men, endemic poverty in black communities, and the horrific crimes against women in Central and most of africa to say that all Blacks are inferior, prone to violence, and uncivilized. Then maybe call for a return to Apartheid on africa because whites are so much more civilized.
Lol. Young Islamophobes–especially the pseudo-scientific kinds–are just opportunists, using the current climate to feel like they are one of the majority.
the same critique you’ve made applies to nation-states, capitalism, liberalism, etc. probably much more so than to ‘Islam’. so where do you draw the line between a critique of Islam (or anything else) as a faith and a critique of the same thing as a political worldview?
huh? all i care about is praxic exoteric stuff. so i care about superstition on a macrosocial level. i don’t think that there’s any chance materialists will be able to end supernatural delusion. i don’t understand what you’re point about capitalism, liberalism, nation-states, etc., has to do with anything. i’m not an anarcho-capitalist, and i don’t see capitalism as an end unto itself. i’m not a liberal absolutist either to be honest, and have some sympathy with aspects of communitarianism. i think nation-states foster human flourishing, but don’t think that the nation-state is the only unit of political organization which has any validity or claim to my loyalty.
How do you separate out what you’re critiquing that’s intrinsic to the faith and what you’re critiquing that’s not inherent to it?
i don’t think anything is intrinsic to a faith. it’s all made up, and they can make up whatever suits them, so long as historical and psychological parameters push them in the right direction. i concede that religionists believe there’s a ‘real’ islam or christianity. but as an atheist i don’t think this describes reality, and among those who share my beliefs on the god hypothesis i promote a total nominalism in the understanding of religious categories. i also don’t think it hurts people necessarily to believe in things which are probably false. i like reading fiction. the main problem and boon of religion is that beliefs have such a strong emotional valence that they can serve as the focus of collective action. whether it’s good or bad depends on your own perspective.
Actions taken in the name of Christianity from ‘the West’ indirectly or directly contributed/contributes to massive numbers of deaths in Iraq, among women around the world in contributing to the denial of access to reproductive health, in not addressing the emergence of HIV quickly enough, in promoting the new death penalty for LGBT people in Uganda, etc. Actions taken in the name of Judaism contribute to violations of international law and justifications that are equivalent to those argued for by colonists (manifest destiny, etc.)
yes, and religious and national partisans accuse those who attack this aspect of christian and jewish religion as ‘anti-christian’ and ‘anti-semitic.’
There are several problems with the ‘Islam is unique in that fundamentalists from Islam cause problems globally and other faiths don’t’ view.
you’re problematizing to obscure the issues. you focus on issues of justice which are salient and relevant, and which you can effect. so do americans who are more concerned with islamic radicalism than hindu nationalism. also, i know you have issues with what you’d consider ‘neoliberalism’, and i have issues with how the wealth is being distributed as well, but at least india is developing economically so as to mitigate the long term appeal of that sort of atavistic communalism. some parts of the muslim world are going in the right direction too, but unfortunately large parts are not (i’m thinking especially of the arab world’s non-democracies and petro-states).
Thanks for the extensive response, razib. The short version of what I’m trying to understand is – why is it more relevant to focus on the faith in question, how is the way that that faith is discussed going to be taken into account in addressing horrendous things that happen in the name of that faith, and is it possible to have a framework (any framework) that singles out a particular faith tradition for criticism and have it be defensible? It’s not to defend all things that happen in the name of Islam or any other belief system but ask, given that religions and religious understanding are both fluid and specific to context, to ask what can be attributed from horrendous things that happen in the name of Islam or any faith and what can be attributed to human rights violations, patriarchy, nationalism, path-dependent violence, state violence, historical factors, political economy or other secular categories? It’s as much a recovery of faith traditions and specifically those aspects of them that don’t conflict with a human rights or other secular ‘good’ agenda as it is to make this argument a little more complicated in order to understand it better.
My point is that your concerns about Islam as a social belief system that is used, in some cases, for particular political ends are equally or moreso applicable to worldviews that come with capitalism, liberalism, nationalism, etc. Far more people have died and far more violence has been committed in the name of nationalism than in the name of Islam up to this point. So I’m trying to figure out what the conception of religion you’re using is in referencing Islam and how it differs from other religions and how it relates to other worldviews. That’s the purpsose of the comment – are you agreeing with the idea that Islam in the comtemporary world is somehow unique as a worldview or faith and secondly, if it is, does that warrant the level of scrutiny that is applied in the united states and europe to all things muslim?
I understand what you’re saying here to an extent, I think, but I still find it confusing and it would help if you could explain more (perhaps in simpler english – i’m not well versed in philosophical language :). In my mind, the historical and psychological parameters are relevant, but work in conjunction with political economy and other social factors as the primary lens for this kind of analysis to understand what someone means by ‘islam.’ For example, to take an example with Hinduism, a comment above references caste as a ‘Hindu’ problem. In point of fact, casteism is a problem among multiple faiths in South Asia. The same kind of problematization can be applied to most faiths and their characteristics as lived (which is what you were focusing on, I think) and that results in the difficulty of trying to understand what role the faith itself (as a cultural and social phenomenon) plays and what role other realities play in any given situation.
In this situation, I would argue that given that religious understandings are fluid over time and that there is an active effort on the part of religious chauvinists of many faiths in many parts of the world to argue that anything is justifiable in the name of their religions, I am having trouble understanding why it’s reasonable to single out ‘Islam’ as a problem worldview or a problem faith on a macrolevel. This is very different than talking about the use of Islam in a particular place or time or the role of religion in politics or questioning the role of worldviews (both secular or faith based) in shaping how people are willing to tolerate inhumane actions that they would not otherwise sanction.
Right, but it has to have a common and fair grounding in terms of the relationship between faith, politics and whatever framework you’re using for that grounding. For example, for me, if I were talking about faith schools in Britain and homophobia, the argument I would make would probably come from a liberal/socialist human rights and identity politics framework or something like it and attempt to apply it to all faiths equally (to the best of my ability). And for this, I might be attacked by religious chauvinists in each faith tradition. But even though their specific criticism are, to me, totally invalid, and probably to many other coreligionists, i can defend it on the basis of a framework that I hold.
The argument implicitly made about Islam is generally that Islam is somehow a) currently and b) intrinsically incompatible with such a framework, which I think is false on the basis of having seen some of the things that have been done within religious and philosophical writings on Islam. If the faith can stretch to accommodate a multiplicity of ways of organizing a society, than why assign a normative value to to ‘Islam’ or any other faith rather than using secular categories of criticism?
This is probably true to some extent. I dislike the way the topic is generally dealt with and would prefer if it could be discussed in a world in which we could just have an honest discussion about it without my feeling the need to think about the 99% of what I hear about ‘Islam’. I can’t, for now, though ignore what I perceive as the broader context, which is probably just from an exaggerated sense of self-importance on my part.
Genuine concern with Islamic radicalism would focus on radicalism of all kinds. That’s my point. The problem is politicized religious fanaticism and all of the forms feed each other by what the tendencies encourage people to do. There is very little an American can do about Islamic radicalism with the major exception of tackling radicalism and Islamophobia in the United States and addressing the underlying causes that make it difficult to tackle that radicalism (think global, act local and what not).
In that vein, the paranoia around Islamic radicalism per se and all of Islam now by implication in the U.S. comes from a broader worldview that’s problematic and translates into extraordinarily disgusting and horrific actions on the ground through indoctrination through the Fox news and other ways (it works differently in Europe, but the problem of majoritarian bias ultimately remains). This is why I like ‘take it down a notch’ as not just a relief but also a sensible strategy towards fascistic tendencies of all kinds.
I disagree with your point about development. With regard to discussion the Muslim world, would just ask that the points above and this demographic data be remembered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population or from some other source that might be more reliable. If above 80% of the world’s Muslim population lives outside the Middle East and the largest predominantly Muslim countries in the world are Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, it’s probably worth taking this into account.
p.s. i would admit that the situation seems less optimistic in parts of the ‘cow belt’, and may be analogous to some parts of the muslim world.
also, re: religion. i guess i should enter into the record that i think religion is probably part of human nature. so for me it isn’t about abolishing it, but channeling religious faith so as to allow human flourishing by the light of the values which we in the west hold dear. i think muslim majority societies should be allowed to develop in their own way excepting extreme cases (e.g., i think it was right and proper that saudi arabia was forced to abolish slavery in 1960). same with south asia and east asia. that doesn’t mean i’d want to live in those regions, and i think people with those values should be allowed to transport those values into western nation-states.
I disagree that Islam should be considered a global problem. Expansionist evangelicals of any religion are very problematic. And as to Christianity no longer taking center stage as the influence for exporting mayhem and destruction, that is SO not true. One has only to look at the Christian Zionist philosophy as well as some of the man on the street attitudes towards the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to see that for many people, there is a strong Christian (and I would qualify it even further- a particular strain of Protestantism) that drives their choices in whom they vote for, their support of the war effort, how they consume news, etc. Mixed with a sense of conflated patriotism, you then have, in the US, a population incapable of critical thinking- hence the issues with the Wikipedia links. Tolerant and humane Christianity has been shoved off/under the bus by the Christian neocons, much the way Islam has been hijacked and deformed. The problem with the West, and especially the American sector, is that everything seems to occur in a vacuum, or at least in some galaxy long, long ago and far, far away, even if they did it themselves last year. The murder of Theo van Gogh? No vacuum. Take a look at his video (if you can find it) of naked women under diaphanous abayas with sections of the Koran written on them. Does anyone remember the riots that broke out in the US when Goddard’s Je vous salue, Marie (Hail Mary)? No? Look it up. The heavy insurgency in 2004-06 in Iraq that the general US population couldn’t possibly fathom? Ingrates biting the hand that “liberated” them? Hardly. Go back and read through Wikileaks and ask yourself, if this were my country and I were living under this kind of occupation, would I sit there, wave and hold out flowers? The Americans in particular are like naive children. They do not realize that years of their imposition of what they consider to be the correct (read Christian) values on various regions of the world, their assassinations of leaders, manipulations of markets and freedom movements cause fissures and cultural psychosis. Hirsi, out of context, fits the Hollywood scenario of the exotic and fascinating female Other needing to be rescued from the baser tendencies of her less evolved male counterpart. Because this is the 20th/21sth century, Hirsi has somewhat solved her problem herself- but notice she didn’t seek asylum in an Asian country or South Africa, for example. She has availed herself of the West European (notice, she’s not in Italy or Greece, either) structure of asylum, with an ex-colonial power’s sense of betrayal and rejection. and without it, she would have no career, and would actually have to do something a little more constructive. In short, Hirsi has got a good gig going at the expense of a lot of people, and is functioning as the madonna of Anti-Islamism.
Razib:
also, re: religion. i guess i should enter into the record that i think religion is probably part of human nature. so for me it isn’t about abolishing it, but channeling religious faith so as to allow human flourishing by the light of the values which we in the west hold dear.
I agree with the sentiment, but not with the deification of the west. I would argue that the sole reason that you would find any enlightened values in the west is the overwhelming power and prosperity here.
Any minute glitch in the illusion of power—you find the villagers with pitchforks and sticks that you saw in the medieval times. To me, that is what really lies behind the Islamophobia of a majority in the west today. It is just that they can’t tolerate the fact that they may not be omnipotent, not any concern for any principle anywhere.
True, there are a principled few who treasure the values that seem to have come with the power and prosperity—civil rights, rule of law, partial religious tolerance—but I believe they are a very small minority. The moment that illusion of power or prosperity goes, they will be exactly like the voiceless minority who are akin to them in the muslim world.
Human nature has changed very little since we learnt to walk upright imo. The only change has been in the circumstances. Arguably it is a very cynical view. But it is a simple hypothesis that explains so much of human nature and human systems that I can’t let it go.
I have no problem with people hating Muslims or Islam. Most hatred of others, whether of blacks, those formerly-savage native Americans, aborigines in Australia, and now Arabs and Muslims in general, says a lot more about the hater. Like Ayaan, most people who hate are themselves scarred people, often deeply shameful of their own sense of self.
However, when the hatred starts to result in occupation, genocide, manipulation, the buck stops there. Judeo-Christians hatred of non-Jews and non-Christians is well documented, and most of the others they have fought like native americans or africans were ultimately completely subjugated or wiped out. What disturbs the JudeoChristian world is that they haven’t been able to wipe out all Muslims nor subjugate them under the new banner of democracy. The fact that Muslims are actively fighting back in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine is what raises the rancour.
If you ask an Islamophobe what would make him/her not hate Muslims, the answer is always imperial. Muslim nations must become pale imitations of the western world, must adopt the west’s values, and they must be made to become civilized. The language is couched in “rational” discourse of statistics and science, but the instinct is evangelical and sublimated religious (Christian, mostly) fundamentalism.
Are there some Muslim nations that are repressive and corrupt? Sure. There are also many non-Muslim nations that are repressive and corrupt. Are women in some Muslim places oppressed? Sure. There are women in many non-Muslim places who are also oppressed. It is the targeting of Muslims in a self-constructed vacuum that is fueling Islamophobia.
America doesn’t care about democracy or women’s rights. If it did, there would be troops in Central and South Africa where a woman is raped every 10 seconds and child soldiers are the norm. Nor would America be funding Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Jordan–all nations that have sustained autocracy.
An Islamophobe in America is basically one who has general deep-seated anger and hatred and desperately wants to be part of the mainstream, and Islam is the best outlet for now. For people like them, if it weren’t Muslims, it would have been someone else to hate–commies, blacks, single mothers. Islamophobes are also generally quite ignorant of larger contexts, have never really lived in other nonwestern nations, and are inherently and basically provincial, and are ignorant of the human element of history and culture. But that’s fine–just don’t send over troops and bombs and murder to 100s of 1000s of civilians to prove yourself better.
The issue isn’t whether all of Islam is bad. The issue is what should one do with those feelings. Occupy and terrorize and subjugate seem to be the solution deemed by the West.
I think the conundrum here is that religion occupies a unique space somewhere between philosophy and ethnicity. Technically it’s just like any other system of thought; but in reality its race-in-drag. You inherit it, for all practical purposes. So attacking it becomes a form of racism.
In contrast, secular philosophies enjoy no such protection. We generally hold them responsible for crimes committed under their name, though we may balk at positioning a philosophy as “inherently†oppressive (with the exception of Fascism). Sometimes things get fuzzy. For most of us, myself included, the Confederacy is inherently linked to racism. But for some southerners it’s an identity that can be detached from it. They see it as an ethnicity of sorts. I see it as an organization that should answer for its crimes as much as Maoists should answer for theirs.
But in general, secular ideologues can’t punt on identity, so the bar is lower to tar them with crimes. When ideologues, like say libertarians like me, try to claim Bush was not a real libertarian and therefore we’re not responsible for the great recession, we are usually met with howls of protests. In contrast, positioning OBL as a not representative of Islam, or even as a clear corruption of the doctrines, is generally approved off and is indeed a long standing platitude deployed by people of good will after every terrorist event in order to keep the peace.
Hirsi Ali’s crime is that she takes Islam seriously. She even quotes scripture to prove her point. That’s unfair. If religious people start being held responsible for what’s in their texts then all hell will break loose. The arraignment we have is to let it go. That’s why no one calls Romney a racist for praising the founder of Mormonism but Trent Lott can’t catch a break after complimenting the leader of the states-rights party.
Because she messing with this arraignment, she arguably should be stopped. Personally, I don’t have the heart to do it, it strikes me like attacking Shirley Sherrod. But frankly I don’t like victims making policy—you get whacky theories like “white-privilege†which produce draconian responses like hate speech laws and affirmative action if you allow that—so I’m glad the rest of you have less heart.
Just reaffirmed my belief that mud-slinging is the easiest thing in the world to do.. and what better place than social media network. Few can really live the life she has, and I believe that all this brouhaha will eventually be meaningless and in due course, history will revere her as a person who rose against all odds..
@Jyoti Srivastava,
“Few can really live the life she has, and I believe that all this brouhaha will eventually be meaningless and in due course, history will revere her as a person who rose against all odds..”
Hey Jyoti, have you heard what Iraqi women went through during your country’s occupation of Iraq? I wonder whether Iraqi women could speak against the brutality of democracy, the white men and your country? Would you hear what Iraqi women have to say about democracy, white men and your country because they endured brutality unknown to you?
The personality cult toward Hirsi Ali aside, there’s a documentary out there questioning the veracity of her stories (created by white Dutch crew, lest you accuse it’s a brown thing or social network thing for “mud-slinging”). Let’s assume her stories were correct and that she experienced brutality in Somalia and Kenya, who should bear the blame for those atrocities? Islam? But the same Islam was followed by her fellow classmates in Kenya who went to be doctors and she was after all educated in a Muslim school. Should we blame the Somali culture then? Somali women from Iman to Dr.Abdi (http://www.soc.umn.edu/people/abdi_c.html) have been successful despite their culture and Somali men that Hirsi Ali spoke about in her books from her father to Osman were never inclined to impose violence against her.
The problem with people like you is that you loose your brain cells when you read lachrymose stories like hers. I have no problem with your personality cult, just don’t demand we follow your example and worship her.
The personality cult toward Hirsi Ali aside, there’s a documentary out there questioning the veracity of her stories (created by white Dutch crew, lest you accuse it’s a brown thing or social network thing for “mud-slinging”). Let’s assume her stories were correct and that she experienced brutality in Somalia and Kenya, who should bear the blame for those atrocities? Islam?
Absolutely. You should be ashamed of character assassination of this cheap nature (proof by vague suggestions of falsehood).
While I spoke against the West, I am even more opposed to knee jerk sympathizers of Islam. The Islam today is not the forward looking religion of a few centuries ago when it was powerful. Today, the dominant middle eastern strain is a paranoid, vindictive religion that dehumanizes everyone who it hasn’t subjugated, in a manner much worse than the West has done today.
@ Anonymous, who had the courtsey to read and reply to my comment..
Another belief of mine gets confirmed – mud-slinging is easier when done anonymously!!! Got to admit, I’m flattered that you got so provoked by my proverbian two cents contribution.. If an unknown entity like me can incite such a spirited reaction, I can imagine what someone in limelight can do..
And I have to admire you, for your astute observation, when you write about me as people who lose their brain cells.. I affirm, I’m sort of brain dead.. However, I dont worship any humnan beings and neither do I believe in personality cults.. So I cannot expect anyone or demand from anyone to follow my example for anything [so you read me totally wrong there].. I just admire anyone with a defiant personality..
By the same token, genuine concern with Hindu nationalism as expressed on this blog should focus on religious nationalism of all kinds – like that which allows the existence of religiously defined South Asian states.
As addressed to a young writer, the first paragraph is not bad advice. There is a kind truth in personal experience that cannot be argued away.
As to the second, the real tragedy is if one only sees Hirsi Ali’s shiny cheekbones, but that is also the proven sexist and misogynistic way to diminish everything that women say, and their experience.
Hirsi Ali’s is one voice. The best defense against her generalist, and erroneous, rant against all of Islam, is not dismissing her but to write counter argument. To argue that her writing will intensify anti-Islam sentiment is not enough. Let’s have more voices, more opinions, expressed as fearlessly as Ali does to enlighten Muslims and Non-Muslims alike about what Islam is really about.
Hello all. Thanks for reading, and writing to share your opinions. I’m hoping to see some of you at the AAWW event. http://aaww.org/#terrorstricken If you are interested in getting one of the free tickets, please let the editors at Sepia Mutiny know, via your comments, about the reasons for your interest in the event. It should be a treat, this event, especially for fans of Hari Kunzru. His electric, playful imagination was on full display in The Impressionist. I’ve taught Transmission more than once in my classes, and I liked, and learned from, My Revolutions. Here is a piece of short fiction by Hari, which is set in Jordan. http://www.harikunzru.com/archive/dear-aisha-2007
P.S. And here is a link to a piece I wrote about Hari Kunzru’s visit to Vassar http://bit.ly/ddqoT4
I have a real problem with the recent tendency of our technocrat cohort to consider culturally muslim public muslims more precious than culturally muslim public secular technocrats.
I think it pushes folks into publicly bullshitty personas in an age that could use more focus on empirically grounding our belief systems.
“I’m a muslim” shouldn’t offer more cache than “My ancestors were muslim, I’m a good faith participant in our public epistemology.” Too often, even for folks of a technocratic bent like Prof. Brad DeLong and other bloggers, they seem to value defending practicing muslims over defending secular technocrats from muslim cultures.
Dr. Anoymous, I’ve never read anywhere about acts of Hindu fundamentalism in the USA. What has the religion done in America that warrants a comparison with Islamic fundamentalism?
Don’t know how to remove posts. I didn’t read all of the responses before posting mine. Please delete this and the one above.
muhammad ruthlessly destroyed the pagan idols in the kaaba and incited hate against the “idolators”. his followers did the same to pagan sites throughout the ancient world, in the modern era, islamism finished off the hindu populations of “pakistan” as well as kashmir. and now islam is considered a joke and intolerant bigotry by most thinking people. karma is a biatch..
“Genuine concern with Islamic radicalism would focus on radicalism of all kinds. That’s my point.”
If this is true, then genuine concern with disingenuineness would focus on disingenuineness of all kinds.
This would mean on posts concerning hindutva, you are seen introducing the subject of islamic fundamentalism…in the same manner in which you bring up neo-liberalism, the tea party, or modi when the shoe is on the other foot. It would mean that if we’re discussing a boycott of israel, unless pakistan is included, the boycott is deemed anti-semitic…in the same manner in which islamaphobia is raised when islamic terrorists are singled out. It would mean we question why mlk did not concern himself with communist oppression, like he did with jim crow and vietnam.
How can you single out Hirsi Ali (or others like her) without contradicting yourself? After all, its the singling out that raises the spectre of disingenuineness.
I’m not going to reply to most of what you’ve said because I have to think about it more and, to be honest, it seems off topic. I don’t understand what my success or failure at being consistent or sincere on a general level has to do with the specific conversation I am having about how Americans and others could collectively could do a better job of addressing all kinds of fanaticism (including Islamic fanaticism) by being attentive to all of them as the same type of thing. If I fail at that in your eyes, it’s your prerogative to make that judgement, but it doesn’t really speak to anything I’ve said above other than to throw into question my worldview without addressing what I’ve said.
Anyway, I was not specifically talking about hirsa ali, who is too complex for me to grapple with as a public figure given all the various strands of her personal experience and her public persona that, at times, provokes extremely contradictory reactions. Was simply responding to specific arguments above in the context of the general topic of Islamophobia and its critics and that this is a south asian american space.
Terrific post
Please don’t reduce Hirsi Ali to her cheekbones. That’s really offensive and demeaning. If you don’t like what she says, you’re free to not listen to it. I don’t agree with a lot of what she says, but she’s not the one ordering people’s throats to be slit for their opinions or their criticism of religion. Amitava Kumar should be especially sensitive to the plight of persecuted writers, even (and especially) if they are apostates, coming as he does from India where, just today, Arundhati Roy has had her house attacked by right wing people who are against what she says. I find Roy’s writings problematic but everyone, from Roy to Hirsi Ali, has a right to say whatever they wish to say without having their lives endangered. Until idiot religious fanatics learn to hit back with words rather than with knives and violence, every idiot author deserves to have her say and deserves her police protection for that right of expression.
Ayaan isn’t just popular because she criticizes Islam she is popular because she is a woman that stood up to the patriarchs in her own damn family! There are millions of women across the world that are forced into arranged marriages by sexist evil men. Ayaan is a brave feminist and a woman that believes in women’s rights. I believe one of the reasons Ayaan receives so much negativity is because she is a woman that is speaking out against the misogyny in Islam. Irshad Manji the Canadian feminist writer is also very critical of the misogyny in Islam. I think it is easy for western people to criticize Ayaan but none of us experienced the bruality and the abuse this woman experienced from Muslim men. Muslim men beat, rape, torture, and abuse women this is a fact.
“Arundhati Roy has had her house attacked by right wing people who are against what she says”
And I’ll just repeat what I said: “…everyone, from Roy to Hirsi Ali, has a right to say whatever they wish to say without having their lives endangered. Until idiot religious fanatics learn to hit back with words rather than with knives and violence, every idiot author deserves to have her say and deserves her police protection for that right of expression.”
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article861709.ece
“They were prevented from entering the house by the guard and servants.”
Wow a communist with SERVANTS..how does that work?
just a minor prefatory note which might clarify my point re: some discussants here. i identify with the western tradition by choice. when i have read the “great philosophers” of islam, indian civilization, china, and the west (starting with greece), my own personal preference in rank order is that of the west, then china, then india, and finally islam. my reasons probably have to do with a combination of disposition (i have several siblings who i am not close to who are also irreligious, rather uncommon statistically in the USA, especially given that my parents are conventionally religious) and environment. i do believe in a direction to liberal humanism (e.g., abolition of slavery, the idea of legal equality between men and women) which is universal, but, my preference for western values and culture has much admittedly to do with subjective aesthetic values and the stream of human civilization with which i identify. unlike some secular south asian hindus and muslims i have no emotional connection to supernaturalism and the cultural traditions from which they emerge and developed with, feeling supernaturalism to be incomprehensible (hinduism) or repulsive (islam). i am with “team west”, and am very skeptical of genuine multiculturalism. but that doesn’t mean i’m a neocon or liberal internationalist, i think different cultures and civilizations should be allowed to develop in their own way in the global order, with a very thin set of minimal human rights guarantees (e.g., slavery, extreme legal inequalities between the sexes as limiting the franchise to men only, etc.).
on to dr. anon’s comment
It’s not to defend all things that happen in the name of Islam or any other belief system but ask, given that religions and religious understanding are both fluid and specific to context, to ask what can be attributed from horrendous things that happen in the name of Islam or any faith and what can be attributed to human rights violations, patriarchy, nationalism, path-dependent violence, state violence, historical factors, political economy or other secular categories?
i don’t believe that any of these things are necessarily entailed by islam. i don’t think in a platonic sense there is an islam, or christianity, or hinduism. rather, these ideas are created in the minds of humans, through social consensus. the fact is that muslims as a whole do have a self conception of themselves, of a unitary identity of sorts, and share a common set of values, on average. i’ve looked in the world values surveys, and muslim nations in particular combine religiosity along with religious intolerance. in contrast, india and much of africa tends to be religious, but more tolerant (if not ideally so), europe is secular but tolerant, while china and other parts of east asia are secular but intolerant. so i don’t think you can exchange the role of religion so easily between islam and the western christian majority nations (if you consider greece western, i think it is equivalent to many muslim nations in the role that the greek orthodox church plays in national life). because religions emerge from group consensus the ideas and values of muslims in the wider muslim world will have an influence on muslims. in contrast, the mandeans of sweden will probably become very swedish in their outlook because almost no mandeans remain in iraq (the jordanian and syrian refugee mandaens are converting to islam).
i think one of the major issues is that the “core muslim world”, the “white muslim nations” of the arab world, iran, and turkey, have a lot of cultural pull on asian and african muslims. and, they tend to set an example of religious intolerance and exclusion because of their particular histories. that history can’t simply be washed away. if senegal was a model for the muslim world it would be one thing, but it isn’t. rather, you have turkey, iran, and the gulf states. turkey is often produced as an exemplar, but it is more religious and creationist than the USA, and, it was created in an act of religious cleansing in the 1920s. its religious identity is strongly suffused with rather rabid nationalism (which i’ve experienced personally, google “razib” and “ataturk”).
are you agreeing with the idea that Islam in the comtemporary world is somehow unique as a worldview or faith and secondly, if it is, does that warrant the level of scrutiny that is applied in the united states and europe to all things muslim?
on the first point, no. on the second point, muslims do deserve some scrutiny in europe, but probably not so much in the USA. i think we have bigger problems than muslims. the main reason that i think muslims deserve scrutiny in europe is that i am worried about muslim subcultures developing which reject the mainstream values of france, italy, sweden, etc. there are plenty of places that arab muslims can practice different and unique forms of their religion in keeping with their historical traditions. i’m enthusiastic to see a genuine european islam which is synthetic, and doesn’t keep looking to the middle east. as for the USA, i’m sanguine because the numbers are not there.
as for religion vs. other things such as nationalism. i think that there are similarities, but there are differences. i believe that religion is particularly powerful and robust when viewed as an ideology, as “higher religions” can be. but the “lower level” of religious phenomenon are psychological, and so it can remain robust in the face of defeat at an institutional level. see the revival of institutional orthodox christianity in much of eastern europe after the fall of communism, because it had persisted at a more individual scale for several generations. communism had some of the aspects of religion, but the gods of communism, lenin, stalin, mao, etc., died. the only way that communism can persist like religion is it to deify their gods, e.g., preserve the body of lenin, or ascribe supernatural characteristics to communist leaders as in north korea.
i think muslim radicals in the west are probably analogized to anarchists in the early 20th century.
The argument implicitly made about Islam is generally that Islam is somehow a) currently and b) intrinsically incompatible with such a framework, which I think is false on the basis of having seen some of the things that have been done within religious and philosophical writings on Islam. If the faith can stretch to accommodate a multiplicity of ways of organizing a society, than why assign a normative value to to ‘Islam’ or any other faith rather than using secular categories of criticism?
i obviously responded to you above. i don’t think that anything is intrinsic to a religion. there are beef eating hindus in kerala. there are muslim mystics in albania who drink wine in their religious ceremonies. there are married buddhist priests in japan. but there are obvious statistical realities at a given time and place. in british islam homosexuality is simply not acceptable, and importantly, religious believers do think that a set of values are intrinsic to their religion. before 1500 all western christians believed than transubstantiation was intrinsic to their religion. in 1600, this was no longer true. but the transition between the two states was not without stress and tension.
back to the bigger point: what is islamophobia? how can there be islamophobia if there is no essential islam? the main issue i think is that many people accuse islamophobes of hating muslims, and being racist. some of that is surely true. but in other cases islamophobes simply think islam is a barbaric belief system rooted in superstition. this is surely the case for “new atheists” like sam harris and richard dawkins. but self-interested islamic activists and some of their liberal fellow travelers in the watch for islamophobes elide this distinction. some of the same has happened i’ve noticed with judaism. i’ve seen people who express contempt for the barbaric practices of haredi jews, and even conventional jewish practices such as circumcision, are accused of being anti-semites. now, it is true that historically many of the critics of jewish practices hated jews as jews, but even in the past that was no always the case. i’ve been accused of being an anti-semite when i’ve pointed out that some of the beliefs and practices of haredi jews are basically racist, and should be stamped out. now, in a literal sense i was against certain semites, in particular, haredi jews of a particular bent. but this is clearly an abuse of the spirit of the term “anti-semite.” my own preference is that people avoid specific terms like ‘anti-semite’ or ‘islamophobe,’ because they’re so often hijacked by self-interested parties who misuse them.
in any case, i guess i will finish by saying that i think in terms of identity formation and mobilizing collective action, religion is probably the most important cultural phenomenon today which humans have. i think it’s more important than class, race, and politics. the main problem with islam and the west right now is a matter of politics. but we can’t just make the politics go away. muslims will care about their co-religionists across the world, and it happens to be the fact that muslims are involved in lots of conflicts all around the world.
” my preference for western values and culture has much admittedly to do with subjective aesthetic values and the stream of human civilization with which i identify.”
do you find this set of preferences to be received by your liberal peers as their more conservative friend’s idiosyncrasies-which-must-be-humored-to-maintain-the-relationship or a valid opinion? I find that practitioners of mate racism (as outlined by robin hanson) are not so accepting of this ‘western values and culture’ preference.
This is probably true to some extent. I dislike the way the topic is generally dealt with and would prefer if it could be discussed in a world in which we could just have an honest discussion about it without my feeling the need to think about the 99% of what I hear about ‘Islam’. I can’t, for now, though ignore what I perceive as the broader context, which is probably just from an exaggerated sense of self-importance on my part.
well, the accusation came out a little harsher than i meant to. the basic issue here is that when people share a set of presuppositions they can have an intelligible discussion. when they don’t, it gets harder. those of us who are more conservative just have a hard time making ourselves understood to the mainstream here, which is to the left, if not as left as you. unlike some conservatives on SM i don’t see a point in complaining about this, the culture of this weblog is representative of the mainstream among young american south asians who identify as south asian. but, sometimes i do want to inject another perspective, because i think the mainstream south asian american culture can get a little insular, especially toward more conservative viewpoints.
your attempt to get a deeper, “thicker”, understanding isn’t too useful with us conservatives because it’s probably not possible in blog-comment format. we need to bridge so many differences. it is more useful when it comes to people closer to your own position. so i am generally of inclination to engage in problematization with people who in many ways share my positions, because that we can see if there are ways to resolve the differences on the margin in a small amount of time.
Arundahti Roy may have been attacked by right wingers in India, but she still operates in India, and has an official voice in India, this goes as well for the fierce critics of the west, i.e Noam Chomsky etc. I think it speaks volumes that Hirsi Ali can’t operate in her own part of the world, not even in Neteherlands apparently.
test
“Arundhati Roy has had her house attacked by right wing people who are against what she says. I find Roy’s writings problematic but everyone, from Roy to Hirsi Ali, has a right to say whatever they wish to say without having their lives endangered.”
Ms. Roy’s house was not “attacked”. About 2 dozen aunties protested outside her house and broke a flowerpot. This wannabe communist’s house is located in a very upscale neighbourhood, the same one in which US embassy is located 😉 www. youtube.com/watch?v=JH-DbuNKeRg Freedom of expression, no ?
Anyways it is ludicrous to compare miss Roy with Hirsi Ali. The latter has undergone unimaginable horrors so much so that she had to escape from her country. The former is the product of a secular liberal society, which she is actively working to undermine.
According to Miss Roy, the Maoists are “Gandhians with Guns”. By the same logic, Taliban are “Gandhhians with bombs”, no ?
I’m not comparing Arundhati Roy and Hirsi Ali, I’m comparing respective societies response to them. Arundhati Roy hold a similar hatred to the liberal, market economy based India that Hirsi Ali holds towards her Islamist society. While Amitava is correct in many things he says, it speaks volumes that Hirsi Ali can’t operate within her own society.
CB,
I was responding to Sharmishtha’a comments, not yours. She was suggesting that getting a couple of flowerpots broken by a bunch of worked up aunties is the same as getting one’s throat slit or getting stoned to death . I am saying it ain’t.