NYTimes on Ramadan: Islam in a Secular World III

So I can't make up my mind about New York Times. Of course, I can't expect a creature from the jungle that is American media to settle in completely with my Weltanschauung. But I have to say that, for the most part, I enjoyed Ian Buruma's piece on Tariq Ramadan. Although, it did seem at times, Buruma was looking for the fanatic in Ramadan and is surprised he doesn't find one.

Of Egyptian parentage, and Swiss upbringing, and a sound training in Western and Islamic philosophy, Ramadan feels he is in a position to help Western Muslims and non-Muslims negotiate with each other. Of course, this thoughts are valuable for people in any part of the world where secular modernity and Muslims are trying to figure each other out.

Ramadan is calling on Muslims to integrate into Western society. But this is a disciplined integration he foresees. He is calling on Muslims to respect the state that gives them citizenship and the secular law that protects them. But while being good Western citizens, Ramadan is also asking Muslims to adhere to traditionalist principles. He wishes more people critiqued (critique means to de-limit, not oppose) the sacred cows that are free speech, secularism and such. Explaining his criticism of a Voltaire play in Geneva called “Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet," he has to say, "The play would be another brick in the edifice of hatred and rejection.”

Jajabor wishes more people approached "free speech" with the necessary nuance that Ramadan seems to. To hate on an already beleaguered community, where the end is nothing but to provoke, is a cannibalization of freespeech ideals. The Jyllands-Posten bakwas is a case not very different.

Buruma's piece offers rare moments of insight into the personality of an otherwise very mysterious man. Despite his religiosity, he wrote his PhD thesis on Nietzsche the God-killer. Asked if he ever experienced doubts himself, Ramadan says, "Doubts about God, no...But questions, yes."

I had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Ramadan when he came to my college to give a talk. While I spoke with him at dinner, I was struck by his battle-weariness. It was clear he had lived a life of negotiating through crests of misunderstandings. He is wont to a life of surfing with aliens. Westerners rejected him for his familial links to Hassan Al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood (most recently the State Dept denied him a visa for donating money to groups linked to groups linked to groups the Dept finds unsavory). Also, more conservative Muslims disapprove of Ramadan's disciplined integration. Middle-paths were never meant to be easy.

Islam in a Secular World Part II

Throughout my travels in South Asia, home to 44% of the world's Muslim population, I am stunned to see a very commonplace apathy to the struggles of their brethren in the West, namely Muslims in the US, Canada, the UK and the continent.

In fact, to many, the whole notion of a "Western Muslim" smacks of an oxymoron, commonly buying into "Clash of Civilizations" discourses that populate many conservative minds, both in the West and the East.

I went to a talk arranged by London University Muslim Students' Group in which some British Muslim artists were engaging a diverse student crowd. In the back-row, were many uncle types, staff and post-graduate (graduate) students I assumed, who started attacking the young artists for claiming any adherence to the notion of a Western citizenship. "You can't be a Muslim and be Western!"

There was mention of a gay Muslim group. One of the uncles roared that homosexuality was a Western import! Of course, practices of pederasty (man-boy relationships) in large segments of Late Medieval aristocracy in Mughal, Ottoman and Safavid Empires are hardly remembered.

Not to say that Mughal, Ottoman and Safavid Empires that spanned a great part of what's today the Islamic World are easily labeled as "Muslim Empires." But the fact remains that homosexuality, perhaps in a less culturally coded term, has been a part of many Muslims' realities throughout history.

Ever since Muslims started migrating in substantial numbers to the West, mostly after World War II, to European cities to rebuild war-ravaged cities, and to America in the 60s and 70s, the attention focused on them was rather minimal.

And then came a spate of controversies, including, but not limited to the Rushdie affair, the murder of the Dutch painter Van Gogh, the Bradford Riots, London's 7/7 (unlike 9/11 of course, 7/7 was largely a perpetration of Britain's homegrown Muslims), the riots over the cartoons on Danish Jyllands-Posten, and more recently, over the Pope's remarks.

A number of questions are worth asking:

Despite a commonly-held idea among many Eastern Muslims that Western Muslims are "less Muslim," what is this recent phenomena one notices of extremism amoung various British Muslim youth?

Is this explained by the popularity of certain extremist Islamist groups in Britain, ala Hizb-Al-Tahrir, Ahl-i Hadith, etc? How much does racism have to do with this (see earlier post, "A Soapbox for All")?

How widespread is this problem of extremism among British Muslims? Are they just monopolizing the media or the larger realm of ideas in British Muslim minds?

And what's with this attention on British Muslims? There are comparable Muslim populations in Germany and France, where reports of racism are equally manifest. Why are certain sections of the British Muslim community seemingly more radicalized than their continental counterparts?

And finally, what's the deal with American (and Canadian) Muslims? Why do American Muslims appear to be a more tolerant bunch?

The fact that median immigrant American Muslim salaries rove around 70 grand and 48% of them are likely to have an M.A. or higher, self-explanatory?

Or is there something about the religious history of America and its tolerance towards various religious groups (while most of Europe suffered blood-baths to undermine churches) one needs to understand when comparing American and British Muslims?

Stay tuned to Addafication as we try answering some of these questions.

A Soapbox for All: British Muslims and the Fight for Young Muslims' Minds (Part I: Muslims in a Secular World)

As spotlight intensifies on Barak Obama and his possible Muslim past/Madrassa education, Bush announces a "surge" in Iraq, 20, 000 strong, Hamas celebrates a year in government, and the British Education Ministry declares a plan to school children in "British Citizenship." Meanwhile the international posterwoman for CNN, Christiane Amanpour, comes up with a riveting documentary on Islam in Britain, curiously entiteld, "The War Within."

Arguably the world's most famous female journalist, inveterately chic, Amanpour is interested in uncovering not just the radicalization among many of Britain's Muslims, but also the wedge between "Extremist" and "Moderate" Muslims (why the flipside of "Extremist" is not "Mainstream" but "Moderate" I'll never understand).






Amanpour reports feeling after 7/7, "shocked beyond words that young British Muslims, born and bred here (London), would go to that extreme."

Among reasons for extremism that Amanpour unearths, are the Iraq war, Anglo-American foreign policy, and American foreign forays which are increasingly seen by British Muslim youth as wars against Muslims and Islam. She also touches upon racism and/or Islamophobia, but not nearly as thoroughly as I would have liked. This is a topic for a lengthier discussion that Jajabor will revisit (stay tuned for Islam in a Secular World part II) . For now, one has to merely remind herself of the BBC TV documentary "The Secret Policeman" aired in October 2003 and the odious racist bile spewed by unsuspecting cops videotaped by an undercover journalist.

Of course, there is also the recent furor over lovely Shilpa Shetty being bullied on screen on Britain's favorite TV reality show "Big Brother." Jade Goody tells recommends to an already beleagured Shilpa, "you need a day in the slums...[where] people look up to you." Another participant points out, "she [Shilpa] can't even speak English properly" and wonders if "people in India eat with their hands." Empire hasn't struck back quite yet has it.

Another shortcoming of Amanpour's documentary is the absence of any discussion of the British Left. Afterall, a variety of British Muslim discouses borrow from and interact with Leftists discourses on international affairs, foreign policy, as well as public affairs such as social welfare. Leading public figures such as George Galloway and Tariq Ali are hero-worshipped by both communities (they overlap too!).

Although Amanpour interviews one Muslim woman of small comedy-club fame, who made a clear case for her distance from her extremist brethren, British Muslim women's voices were surprisngly lost in the documentary. Almost as if Amapour was operating within the discursive paradigm and boundaries as laid out by the extremist mullahs she derides.

While admittedly, a confident modern British Muslim woman who could have furthered the case for more likable British Islams, are unlikely to roam the streets of Bricklane, Southhall or Edgeware road, one just has to walk into the Queen Mary cafetaria or the charmingly decadent SOAS Bar to get a representative Muslim woman voice.

Despite all despites, Amanpour does a decent job. Kudos where kudos are due. She punctuates a wonderfully crafted narrative on the radicalization of British Muslim youth with extended dialog with the "Moderates." She interviews Hanif Qadir who runs a large youth center in London, the said female comedian, an musician who is interested crossing cultures, and a good imam who declares, "If you are evil, you can justify it with anything – Bible, Qur'an or Shakespeare."

Finally, the documentary is laudable for capturing certain priceless moments. There are great scenes of angry Muslim youth demonstrating outside a Catholic Church and locked in diatribe with irate Christian youth, in the wake of the Pope's now-infamous remarks.

Towards the end, there is another entertaining debate between a young "Moderate" Muslim man having a go at the more "Extremist"Uncles. All well and good, but in this scene and in a few others, I questioned the air of false credence to a notion that civilizational debates may at the end be timelessly generational.

A young "Moderate" Muslim man declares, to much applause from a British audience, "This [extemist Islam], ladies and gentlemen, is not an ideology, but a mental illness."