Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with Islam

[michelle]

IV Online magazine : IV376 - March 2006
Interview
The Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with Islam
Tariq Ali

The following interview with Tariq Ali was conducted by Alex De Jong and Paul Mepschen of the SAP (Dutch section of the Fourth International) at the Ernest Mandel symposium held in Brussels in November 2005. It was published in the March-April 2006 issue of the SAP’s journal, Grenzeloos.


Grenzeloos: It is of course the assassination of the film-maker Theo van Gogh and the threats made against the liberal member of parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali which have particularly drawn attention to Islam in the Netherlands. Like her, you are an unbeliever who comes from the Muslim world. Have you already felt threatened?

Tariq Ali: No, never. I travel a lot both in the Muslim world and in the rest of the world, but I have never yet felt threatened. Why is that? It is no doubt because people who don’t agree with me about religion know that I am an enemy of imperialism. I unceasingly criticize imperialism and all its works, more than the believers do. Whereas Hirsi Ali and people like her in the United States and in Europe make a profession out of attacking Islam. There are other important questions in the world.

Why do these people concentrate endlessly on Islam? In the way that they attack Islam, they go along with existing prejudices. And for that they are hated. There is no excuse or justification for acts of violence against these people. It is necessary to discuss with them. But these acts are a sign of despair: people are so much at the end of their tether that they have recourse to violence.

Don’t you think that the violence and threats against these people also represent a threat to all those of Muslim origin who do not correspond to the norm? To the unbelievers, the feminists, the homosexuals?

Certainly. But you have to understand that the Muslim community is very diversified. People are very uninformed about the Muslim world. The image that they have of it comes to a large extent through the immigrant communities in Europe, who are, besides, very different from each other. Life in the Muslim world is not monolithic: there are believers, unbelievers, atheists.

Whether the unbelievers can freely express themselves is obviously another question. Often they can’t, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. As is the case here, religion is not the central element in the life of Muslims. People work, eat, make love, build families. Some go to the mosque, others don’t. Exactly like in other parts of the world. The difference lies only in the fact that in some countries it is forbidden to criticize Islam. But that is not the case for example in Turkey. In other countries where it was also possible it has become more difficult today.

Religion is taking on much more importance. For young Muslims in the West, Islam is to a large extent a question of identity.

I think so too.It is a product of different factors, but above all of the vacuum of present day capitalism. There is no real alternative. Many people feel this and turn towards religion, not only Muslims. For the last 20 or 30 years, people who wouldn’t have considered themselves to be particularly religious have been turning towards Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Why? Because capitalism flattens everything like a steamroller and human beings want to find a refuge for themselves. Because many of them no longer see any socio-economic alternative, they go back to religion. That is why in the immigrant communities there are people who consider their identity from a purely religious point of view, and I don’t expect anything good to come from that. But I also think that all that will change with the coming generation. Today people are not all religious with the same degree of intensity, we can see different variations. I don’t think that the return to religion is universal.

One aspect of the orientalist representation of Muslims that is dominant today is that they are portrayed as people who can only behave in an uncritical and dogmatic way in relation to the Koran, whereas other believers, above all Christians, are reputed to be capable of producing a modern interpretation of their holy book.

This is in fact a mistaken representation, although it is very widespread. That is why I insist on the diversity of the Muslim world. In Poland the Church played at one time a significant role in the struggle against the Stalinist regime. In the West its role was greeted with enthusiasm. Why do we have this double standard?

Many people in the Muslim world consider an attack against Islam as unacceptable. Many of them, without being at all religious - I know some of them - say: “Yes I am a Muslim”. That is a result of the fact that the US has made it from a certain point of view unacceptable to be a Muslim. You are living in a country (the Netherlands) in which religion occupied a dominant position in an extreme way.

Protestant fundamentalism is one of the worst forms of fundamentalism. Protestant fundamentalism, of English or Dutch origin, was responsible for a genocide in North America; it wiped out the indigenous population in the name of progress - something that Muslims have not yet done.

Wherever we see this religious revival of which you speak - among Muslims in the West, among Christians in the United States... - we can see that conservative representations of sexuality play a big role.

That has always been the case. I don’t think capitalism absolutely wants human beings to have conservative representations of sexuality, but capitalism does want them to be brought up in nuclear families, isolated from each other.

When religion occupies a central place in a person’s identity, then that person seeks to distinguish him or herself from those around them; he or she defends morality and takes a position against homosexuality, at the same time affirming that women have an inferior value.

In the formation of the identity of each person, the question of sexuality plays a big role. Human beings are constantly looking for differences and they find them most easily in religion.

Is there a future for the feminist movement in the Muslim world and in the Muslim societies here in the west?

Of course. There was for example a very effective movement in Pakistan against the Islamic legislation that was introduced during the dictatorship, in 1977. All over the country women organized, demonstrated, and criticized the sharia. Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Tunisia have seen feminist movements.

The state authorities reacted to this challenge either by themselves creating fundamentalist movements, as in Pakistan, or by collaborating with them, as in Egypt. In exchange for a policy that was conservative and hostile to women on the part of the authorities, the fundamentalists undertook to no longer attack the state.

In the West, in the future, feminist movements will have to develop which are at the same time explicitly anti-imperialist. Then it would be possible to win young Muslim women to feminism. Unfortunately in the West feminism has little existence as a political current.

In the framework of your insistence on the differences, you speak in the “Clash of Fundamentalisms” of an official multiculturalism.

Yes, there lies the cause of the search for differences. When you look at Britain, you can see that religion has been supported there - by the government and above all by Blair. Even after September 11, the foundation of religious institutions, for example religious schools, was encouraged. Within official multiculturalism the differences between people are seen as a good thing.

In part that is really the case - people are different. But as a socialist I also know how difficult it is to forge unity. I think that among young people there are more points of convergence than there are differences. I am an optimist: the importance of religious dividing lines will not last long in Europe, perhaps 30 or 40 years.

Why?

To put it cynically: because capitalism is blind as far as sex, skin colour or religion are concerned. Insofar as it expands and extends it sets aside all the particularities of human beings. That is what has always happened.

Is the Left capable of showing that there is an alternative?

A: The Left is at present very weak. As far as the radical Left is concerned I am not optimistic. In Britain I am not a member of Respect. I disagree with them on some points. The way things are happening in Respect is pure opportunism. Obviously I am in favour of working with Muslim groups, but socialists the goal must be to win followers of religion to our own point of view, not to leave them in their entrenched positions.

So we should work together in a less uncritical way?

Of course. The way Respect is doing it won’t lead to anything. We have to find a neutral terrain which can offer a space for discussion. We must not conceal our own point of view by hiding it under the table. Many of the (Muslim) groups with which Respect has developed collaboration have very conservative and reactionary roots. In the countries from which they come, like for example Egypt or Indonesia, they have always been the enemies of the Left.

This is one of the problems that anti-racists and socialists come up against. On the one hand we want to develop solidarity with minorities who suffer discrimination, while on the other hand we have to maintain a critical position in relation to the conservative ways of thinking that are partly dominant among these minorities.

Muslim women in Mumbai demonstrate against the warFor socialists the task is clear: the Muslim communities must be defended against being made scapegoats, against repression, against the very widespread representation that terrorism is proper to Islam. All that must be energetically fought. But at the same time we must not close our eyes to the social conservatism which reigns in these communities, nor hide it. We have to try to win this people to our own ideas.

I would like to give an example: the last chapter of my book is an open letter to a young Muslim. After having written this letter, nearly a year later, I received a reply from some young Muslims. They thought that my letter was talking about them because they found in it remarks that they had made themselves. They were surprised to be taken so seriously and they had also discussed a lot among themselves. The result was that two of them joined the Scottish Socialist Party.

Our aim must be to reinforce the position of the youngest ones, who are turning in the direction of a progressive and secular perspective. That is very important. There are a lot of progressive people who can be found in the Muslim communities, but because of the atmosphere that reigns there, they can obviously not assert themselves openly. It is these people who can build secular forces and it is them that we must support. And it is above all among the young women that we will find such resources.

We can win over many of them if we don’t ignore them, which the far Left in France tends to do. The French far Left is the mirror image of British opportunism. It has practically no contact with the Muslim community and doesn’t consider that as a priority. Both attitudes are mistaken - we have to find a middle way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tariq Ali is a socialist writer and broadcaster who has been particularly active in anti-imperialist campaigns, from Vietnam to Iraq. Born and brought up in Pakistan, he now lives in London.

Source:
www.internationalviewpoint.org/article.php3?id_article=1012

[michelle]

Survey Finds 'Great Divide' in Muslim and Western Opinions

Our friends here, of all faiths, are welcome to comment on the results of this survey. I would be grateful if a few of you did.
I, not being Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc., cannot align myself with any religious or national outlooks. I consider myself a child of the Universe and try to adhere to Universal Laws, which have much to do with cause and effect.
For what it's worth, and if you care, I am unable [or nearly so] to hold a 3 Dimensional World perspective anymore. Over the course of my on going spiritual enlightenment, I have come to view all peoples [including those who would be considered negative or even "bad"] without judgment. I believe that we all are at different stages of the same path in learning lessons in duality. I am not perfect in my mental enlightenment, I occasionally stumble, forgive and correct myself, then continue on.
Perhaps you could give us what you see as the general view in your country, your own personal opinion, or the varying opinions you notice in the country in which you reside in......Thanking you in advance, Michelle

June 23, 2006
Survey Finds 'Great Divide' in Muslim and Western Opinions

by Jim Lobe

A "great divide" separates the worldviews of Muslims and Westerners, according to the results of a major new survey pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=253
which suggests that European Muslims, who held the most tolerant views, could be a bridge between the two groups.

"Many in the West see Muslims as fanatical, violent, and as lacking tolerance," according to an analysis of the survey by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project. "Muslims in the Middle East and Asia generally see Westerners as selfish, immoral, and greedy – as well as violent and fanatical."

But the survey also found that was less true among European Muslims. "In many ways, the views of Europe's Muslims represent a middle ground between the way Western publics and Muslims in the Middle East and Asia view each other," it said.

The survey and analysis, which were released by Pew here Thursday, found that positive views held by Muslims of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and terror tactics associated with him have declined over the past year, quite substantially in Pakistan and Jordan, where suicide attacks killed more than 50 people in Amman hotels over the last year.

At the same time, the percentage of Muslims who believe that Arabs did not carry out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon has increased. Majorities in Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and among the Muslim community in Britain doubt that Arabs had any role.

The survey, which was carried out in 13 countries from the beginning of April until mid-May, found that negative views of Muslims have become especially pronounced in Germany and Spain, where only 36 percent and 29 percent of respondents, respectively, expressed favorable opinions of Muslims. Both marked major declines from the last Pew poll one year ago.

By contrast, nearly two-thirds of French and British citizens said they had favorable views of Muslims. Fifty-six percent of Russians agreed with that opinion, as did 54 percent of U.S. respondents.

Interestingly, British and French respondents were the most upbeat as well about the prospects for democracy in Muslim countries. Six in 10 respondents in France and Britain said democracy can work well there, while only 49 percent of U.S. citizens and an average of four in 10 Spanish and Germans agreed.

More than 60 percent of Indonesians and Jordanians said they had favorable views of Christians, followed by 48 percent of Egyptians.

But only about one in four Pakistanis described their views as favorable, while only about one in seven Turks agreed, a possible reflection of growing anti-European and anti-U.S. opinion resulting from negotiations over Turkey's admission to the European Union and the popular anger there against the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

By contrast, Muslims living in Europe were much more positive about Christians, one of a number of indications in the survey that European Muslims are not only considerably less alienated from the societies in which they reside than many recent analyses have suggested, but also that they could act as a moderating force in the Muslim-Western divide.

Nine out of 10 French Muslims said they had positive views of Christians, followed by eight out of 10 Spanish Muslims (in spite of the strongly anti-Muslim views of most Spanish). Roughly seven out of 10 English and German Muslims also said their views of Christians were favorable

Of all Muslim populations surveyed, French Muslims were by far the most positive toward Jews – 71 percent said they had favorable opinions, roughly twice the percentage of Muslims in Britain, Germany, and Spain.

Elsewhere in the Muslim world, views of Jews were far more negative: in Indonesia, 17 percent of respondents said they had favorable opinions; in Turkey, 15 percent; in Pakistan 6 percent; and in the two Arab countries countries surveyed, Egypt and Jordan, only 2 and 1 percent, respectively.

As to relations between Muslims and Westerners, majorities in 10 out of 12 countries described them as "generally bad." In Europe, the most negative views were found in Germany (70 percent said "generally bad") and France (66 percent). Fifty-five percent of U.S. respondents described it the same way.

Turkey was the most negative of the predominantly Muslim nations, with nearly two-thirds opting for "generally bad" – although 77 percent of Nigerian Muslims made the same assessment – followed by Egypt (58 percent), Jordan (54 percent), and Indonesia (53 percent). Pakistan, where a slight plurality said that relations were "generally good," was the only exception.

The Pew analysis concluded that Muslims hold "an aggrieved view of the West – they are much more likely than Americans or Western Europeans to blame Western policies for their own lack of prosperity. For their part, Western publics instead point to government corruption, lack of education, and Islamic fundamentalism as the biggest obstacles to Muslim prosperity."

Thus, Muslims, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, tended to blame the controversy over the Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed earlier this year on Western disrespect for Islam. Majorities in the U.S. and Europe, on the other hand, blamed the crisis on Muslim intolerance.

In many respects, the two groups hold mirror images, however. When asked to choose among a list of negative traits Muslim and non-Muslim respondents saw in the other group, the survey found that Muslims in the Middle East and Asia – often by large majorities – generally view Westerns as selfish, arrogant, and violent. European Muslims, particularly those in France and Spain, however, tended to be far less damning about the traits of non-Muslims than in predominantly Muslim countries.

At the same time, majorities of non-Muslims in Europe found Muslims to be fanatical and violent, although only minorities in Britain, the U.S., and France subscribed to that view.

The survey's findings suggested that French and Spanish Muslims were the least alienated from their surrounding societies, even if the general public in Spain was found to be the most hostile toward Muslims of any of the European societies covered by the poll.

Four in ten non-Muslim Spaniards said they believe that most or many Muslims in their country support Islamic extremism, but only 12 percent of Spanish Muslims agreed. Of the four minority publics surveyed, British Muslims are the most critical of their country and "come closer to views of Muslims around the world in their opinions of Westerners."

The religious divide was found to be surprisingly sharp in Nigeria, where, for example, nearly three out of four Muslims and Christians ascribed negative traits to the other groups. Nigerian Muslims also constituted a "conspicuous exception" to the trend toward declining confidence in bin Laden in the Muslim world.

More than six in 10 Nigerian Muslims said they have at least some confidence in the al-Qaeda leader, up from 44 percent in 2003. In addition, nearly half of Nigeria's Muslims said that suicide bombings could be justified often or sometimes in the defense of Islam.

(Inter Press Service)

Source:
www.antiwar.com/lobe/?%20articleid=9194

[michelle]

POLITICS-US:
Muslim and Arab Americans Ditch Republicans
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (IPS) - Increasingly disillusioned with more than five years of the "global war on terror", Arab- and Muslim-American voters are poised to vote heavily Democratic in the Nov. 7 mid-term elections, according to two polls released this week.

Strong majorities of Arab-American voters in four key states -- Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida -- intend to vote for the Democratic candidates for senator, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Arab American Institute (AAI).

The same poll, conducted by Zogby International (ZI), found that a whopping 76 percent of Arab Americans disapprove of the performance of President George W. Bush, who received a 46 percent plurality of the Arab-American vote when he was first elected to office six years ago.

Asked which party they would prefer to control Congress, 57 percent of Arab Americans chose Democrats, while only 26 percent said they favoured Republican control. That was a considerably larger gap than the general voting public which, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday, favours a Democratic Congress by a 57-40 percent margin.

Another survey of Muslim-American voters released here by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Tuesday also found widespread disillusionment with Bush, for whom a majority of Muslim Americans voted in 2000, particularly regarding the war on terror and foreign policy.

That poll, conducted by Genesis Research Associates in August, found that only 17 percent of Muslim-American voters consider themselves Republican now, while a plurality of 42 percent said they were Democrats and 28 percent said they did not belong to either party.

The same survey, in which Muslims were identified from voting records by common names prevalent among Muslims and thus did not include converts who did not change their legal names, also found widespread disapproval of the U.S. policies toward the Islamic world.

Seven in 10 respondents agreed with the statement, "A just resolution to the Palestinian cause would improve America's standing in the Muslim world;" two-thirds said they were in favour of "working toward normalisation of relations with Iran"; and 55 percent agreed with the assertion that "The war on terror has become a war on Islam."

Some seventy percent of Muslim voters said they disagreed (46 percent "strongly disagreed") with the proposition that "The war in Iraq has been worthwhile for America," while only 12 percent said they believed that it was. By contrast, only 39 percent of the U.S. general public currently believes that the U.S. military action in Iraq was the "right thing", according to the most recent Newsweek poll published this week.

While overlapping, the CAIR and AAI poll represent different constituencies. About two-thirds of the roughly 3.5 million Arab Americans living here are Christian -- mostly either Roman Catholic or Orthodox -- rather than Muslim.

Similarly, only about 40 percent of Muslim Americans or their ancestors hail from the Arab world. Nearly one in three is of Asian ancestry, another six percent is African, and five percent Iranian. Of the roughly five million Muslim Americans, about one million are registered to vote, according to Mohamed Nimer, who conducted the CAIR survey.

In 2000, Bush gained the largest percentage of votes from both groups due primarily to his outspoken opposition to ethnic profiling and the widespread impression, based on the performance of his father's administration from 1989 to 1993, that he would be more sympathetic to Arab and Palestinian aspirations than the administration of President Bill Clinton.

That impression, of course, turned out to be unfounded as Bush, more than any other modern president, has aligned his Middle East policies behind those of the Israeli government. And while publicly, Bush still opposes ethnic profiling, reports of hate crimes and harassment of suspected Arab- and Muslim-Americans have risen sharply since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

While the Arab-American population is disproportionately concentrated in a relatively few states, notably California and New York, AAI and Zogby have focused their polling over the past six years on the four "battleground" states, both because of the residence there of a significant numbers of Arab-American voters and because the electorates of all four are divided roughly evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

All four are also holding elections for both governor and senator this year, and the poll found that the Democratic candidates for each are strongly favoured among Arab Americans. Incumbent Democratic Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, for example, holds a 67-22 percent lead among Arab-American voters; in Ohio, Democrat Ted Strickland is favoured by a 60-21 percent margin in the gubernatorial race; and Michigan's incumbent Jennifer Granholm is favoured by a 61-29 percent margin.

The races for Senate are even more lop-sided. In three of the four races, the Democratic candidates, including the Pennsylvania contest in which the Republican incumbent Rick Santorum has been a strong booster of Bush's war on terrorism and was one of the first national politicians to use the word "Islamofascism", lead by a two-to-one margin. Even in Michigan, where Republicans are running an Arab American, Michael Bouchard, Arab American voters prefer the Democratic incumbent, Debbie Stabenow, by a 54-31 percent margin.

According to the poll, Arab Americans consider corruption to be the single most important issue in deciding how they vote, followed closely by the war in Iraq, civil liberties, Palestine, and Lebanon. By a margin of more than two to one, respondents said they believed Democrats would do a better job than Republicans on each issue.

The CAIR survey, which interviewed 1,000 randomly chosen registered Muslim voters, was the first of its kind and more general in scope, even if necessarily incomplete due to the absence of Muslim voters with traditionally non-Islamic names -- including, for example, Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democratic legislator, who is given a good chance of becoming the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress in the Nov. 7 elections. About 60 percent of respondents were men, and 80 percent of respondents were concentrated in 12 states, led by California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey and Texas.

Compared to the general U.S. population, it found that Muslim voters were much younger, significantly more educated -- 62 percent had at least a bachelor degree, or twice the national average -- and more Democratic in party identification.

It also found a wide range of religious observance: 31 percent said they attended mosque on a weekly basis; 16 percent, once a month; and 27 percent, rarely or never. Most respondents said they considered themselves "just Muslims", avoiding sectarian distinctions. Thirty-six percent said they are Sunni; 12 percent said they were Shia; two percent Sufi; and less than half of one percent "Salafi".

Like Arab Americans, Muslim-American voters considered domestic issues, rather than foreign policy, to be most important. Nearly half rated either civil liberties or education at the top of their list, while 20 percent named "conflicts in Palestine and Lebanon" as their most important concern, and 18 percent cited the "wars in Afghanistan and Iraq".

The poll found that Muslim-American voters appeared well-integrated into U.S. society. Nearly 90 percent said they vote regularly; two-thirds said they fly the U.S. flag on occasion; and 42 percent -- or about 50 percent more than the general population -- said they volunteered in institutions serving the public.

On general issues, 84 percent said Muslims should strongly emphasise shared values with Christians and Jews, and 77 percent said they believe that Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews. (END/2006)

SOURCE:
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35230

[michelle]

POLITICS:
Ideology Widening Muslim-West Divide
Mithre J. Sandrasagra

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (IPS) - The key reasons for the growing divide between Muslim and Western societies are not religious but political, concludes a report presented to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday in Istanbul, Turkey.

"We need to get away from stereotypes, generalisations and preconceptions, and take care not to let crimes committed by individuals or small groups dictate our image of an entire people, an entire region, or an entire religion," Annan said upon receiving the report.

Violence is fueled by fear and misunderstandings, economic inequality, wars by Western powers in Muslim countries and the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to Annan, not cultural and religious identity.

Although religion is often cynically exploited to stir passions, fuel suspicions and support alarmist claims that the world is facing a new "war of religion", the root of the matter is political, according to the report.

The report was prepared by the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilisations, an initiative launched in 2005 by Annan and co-sponsored by Spain and Turkey. Its aim is to respond to the broad consensus across nations, cultures and religions that all societies are interdependent, bound together in their development and security, and in their environmental, economic and financial wellbeing.

"The primary political force that has served to widen the rift between Muslim and Western societies is the widespread perception that there is a double standard as to when universal principles of human rights are championed and when they are ignored," Shamil Idriss, deputy director of the Alliance of Civilisations, told IPS.

Eloquent statements in support of democracy lose their relevance when democratically elected governments are shunned and sometimes subverted by powerful countries, according to the report.

"Western political and military intervention in Muslim societies is another cause of the widening rift," Idriss said. "Many Muslims believe that Islamic society is under attack."

Events of recent years have exacerbated mutual suspicion, fear and misunderstanding between Islamic and Western societies and this environment has been exploited by extremists throughout the world, according to the High-Level Group, composed of 20 prominent leaders in the fields of politics, academia, civil society, international finance, and media from all regions of the world.

The Alliance of Civilisations seeks to counter this trend by establishing a model of mutual respect between nations and cultures.

Secular political motives were responsible for some of the most horrifying reigns of terror in living memory, such as the Holocaust, the Stalinist repressions in the Soviet Union, and more recent genocides in Cambodia, the Balkans, and Rwanda, all perpetrated by state powers, according to the report.

"We should start by reaffirming -- and demonstrating -- that the problem is not the Koran, nor the Torah or the Bible," Annan said. "Indeed, I have often said the problem is never the faith -- it is the faithful, and how they behave towards each other," he stressed.

In its report, the group maintains that, "a cursory look at the twentieth century indicates that no single group, culture, geographic region, or political orientation has a monopoly on extremism and terrorist acts."

One of the major obstacles to bridging the rift between the Muslim and Western societies is the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many," said Annan. "It is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield."

The Arab-Israeli conflict has become a critical symbol of the deepening rift, according to the report.

"As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed," Annan said.

Along with Western military interventions in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, the group argues, this conflict contributes significantly to the growing sense of resentment and mistrust that mars relations among communities. The report also suggests that the repression of non-violent political opposition and the slow pace of reforms in some Muslim countries are key factors in the rise of extremism.

In order to address the issues outlined in their report, members of the High-Level Group offer a number of practical political solutions.

The group proposes that the secretary-general appoint a high representative to assist in defusing crises that arise at the intersection of religion and politics and to oversee the implementation of the report's recommendations.

They suggest that a white paper be created, analysing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "dispassionately and objectively, giving voice to the competing narratives on both sides," reviewing and diagnosing the successes and failures of past peace initiatives, and establishing clearly the conditions that must be met to find a way out of this crisis. In addition, the group calls for the resumption of the political process, including the convening of an international conference on the Middle East peace process as soon as possible.

The group also supports the expansion of political pluralism in Muslim countries. They call on ruling parties in the Muslim world to provide the space for the full participation of non-violent political parties, whether religious or secular in nature, and call on foreign governments to be consistent in their support for pluralism by, for example, respecting the outcome of elections.

The report also puts forward a range of concrete proposals in the areas of education, media, youth and migration to build bridges and promote a culture of respect and understanding among Western and Muslim communities.

With respect to the news media, "political leaders must react quickly to frame potentially inflammatory stories in their proper perspective," Idriss told IPS. A slow reaction by government leaders led to the controversy and violence that erupted after the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting Islamic prophet Muhammad, according to Idriss.

The group proposes the development of film and television programmes co-produced across religious and cultural boundaries and showing diversity as a normal feature of society.

"A broader range of characters must be encouraged," Idriss said. "Muslims should be portrayed as something other than terrorists."

"At a time when the increasing polarisation between major cultures and belief systems throughout the world urgently needs to be addressed, the presentation of this report and its recommendations to the international community constitutes a hopeful and exciting step in efforts to sow the seeds of respect and understanding," said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said, "We cannot stand idle in the face of claims that a clash of cultures and civilisations is inevitable. In our efforts to counter them... we can count on international law, on the U.N., on human rights, and, above all, we can count on the equal dignity of all men and women and on our unique capacity for dialogue and conflict resolution. From now on, we will also count on the Alliance of Civilisations."

Annan, who will be ending his term at the end of the year, said he would work with his successor, Ban Ki-moon, to help implement the recommendations of the report. (END/2006)

Source: ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35468

[michelle]

CHALLENGES 2006-2007:
A People Under Siege
William Fisher

NEW YORK, Dec 19 (IPS) - Five years after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, "Islamophobia" -- intensified by the war in Iraq and government actions -- has left millions of Muslims here and in other Western countries fearful of harassment, discrimination and questionable prosecutions, and confused about their place in society.

Recent polls indicate that almost half of U.S. citizens have a negative perception of Islam and that one in four of those surveyed have "extreme" anti-Muslim views. A survey by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that a quarter of people here consistently believe stereotypes such as: "Muslims value life less than other people" and "The Muslim religion teaches violence and hatred."

In 2005, CAIR received 1,972 civil rights complaints, compared to 1,522 in 2004. This constitutes a 29.6 percent increase in the total number of complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment from 2004. It is the highest number of Muslim civil rights complaints ever reported to CAIR.

What is the impact on Muslims and other Americans of Arab descent? One, who did not want to be named, told IPS, "It sometimes feels suffocating being in the U.S. now. We cannot turn on our TV in the evening to watch CNN or MSNBC or the other 'news stations' because of people like Glenn Beck and others who consistently spew hate, nonsense and misinformation about Islam and Arabs on primetime."

"And if we try to watch mindless drama on TV we are bombarded with shows about Middle East/Arab and Islamic terrorism -- shows like '24', 'Sleeper Cell', 'The Agency', etc. It is very difficult being an Arab/Muslim American these days."

Following 9/11, the U.S. Department of Justice began rounding up Arabs and other Muslims and -- mistakenly -- anybody who looked "Middle Eastern," including Sikhs from South Asia. In the months after the attacks, some 5,000 men were held in detention without charges, most without access to lawyers or family members. As confirmed in an investigation by the DOJ Inspector-General, many were held in solitary confinement and physically abused.

There were no prosecutions and no convictions of any of these people. Some, who were in the U.S. with expired visas or who had committed other immigration infractions, were deported.

Since then, the seemingly endless catalog of harassment and infringements on the civil rights of U.S. citizens has grown unabated. A few examples:

Ahmad Al Halabi graduated from high school in Dearborn, Michigan, the centre of the nation's Muslim community. He joined the Air Force and was assigned as a translator for al Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was accused of spying and spent 10 months in solitary confinement before the spy charges were dropped.

Osama Abulhassan and Ali Houssaiky, both 20 and from Dearborn, were charged with supporting terrorism in Marietta, Ohio, in August after making bulk purchases of cheap, prepaid cell phones from discount stores. The charges were dropped a week later.

Farooq Al-Fatlawi, a bus passenger en route to Chicago, was put off with his bags in Toledo, Ohio, after he told the driver he was from Iraq.

A San Francisco Bay Area civil rights activist, Raed Jarrar, was barred from a plane for wearing a T-shirt that said, "We will not be silent" in Arabic and English.

Six imams seen praying in a Minneapolis airport terminal were later removed from their U.S. Airways flight after a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant saying that the men were acting suspiciously. The imams were removed from the plane in handcuffs. They were questioned and released, but the airline says the crew acted properly in having the imams removed, and refused to issue them new tickets the following day. The imams are suing the airline.

Often cited as "Islamophobia Exhibit A", Canadian Muslim Maher Arar was abducted by U.S. officials at Kennedy airport in New York in 2002, and then transported to a prison in Syria where he was confined for more than 10 months in a cell that looked like a grave. He was beaten, tortured, and forced to make a false confession about having ties to al Qaeda. A Canadian commission of inquiry ruled after a two-year investigation that all the charges were unfounded. But Arar was barred from suing the U.S. government, which claimed that a trial would divulge "state secrets".

The U.S. Treasury Department, in its efforts to cut off financing for radical Islamic organisations, has used a provision of the Patriot Act to designate charities that support Muslim causes as terrorist organisations. Once a charitable organisation is designated as a supporter of terrorism, all of its materials and property may be seized and its assets frozen.

Thus far, the effort has resulted in the government shutting down five charities. But there has only been one indictment, no trials, and no convictions. Only one official criminal charge has been brought against a Muslim organisation for support of terrorism, and that case has not yet made it to trial. Three months ago, federal agents raided the offices of one of the nation's largest Islamic charities, Life for Relief and Development. Agents seized computers and donor records. But no charges have been filed and the charity remains in business.

While many American Muslims serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, they have less luck trying to get jobs in the civilian agencies involved in national security. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) when on a recruiting binge to find and hire new analysts and translators, many Arab-Americans and other American Muslims came forward and applied. But they have met with little success because they are frequently denied security clearances on grounds that they have friends and family back in the Middle East.

This kind of post-9/11 hysteria is not limited to the U.S. In Britain, which has suffered from terrorist attacks, Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw suggested that his female Muslim constituents remove their face-covering veils so that he could better interact with them.

And attempts by the British government to engage with the Muslim community since last year's bomb attacks in London have reportedly backfired and are not hampering the spread of extremism. A report by the think-tank Demos said, "Instead of isolating extremist elements, government initiatives had tended to 'drive a wedge' between the Muslim population and the wider community."

In the Netherlands, once thought to be the most open and tolerant society in Europe, the centre-right government promised to introduce legislation to ban the wearing of burqas and other facial coverings in most public places, including courts, schools, trains and even streets.

France, rocked last summer by riots in poor Paris suburbs largely inhabited by North African and Middle Eastern immigrants, has already banned the wearing of headscarves by students in public schools. And Nicolas Sarkozy, a government minister expected to be a leading candidate for the country's presidency, has taken a hard line on both immigration and France's large Muslim population. He says he refuses Islam "in France" but claims to endorse "an Islam of France."

In the U.S., the government acknowledges the complaints of American Arabs and Muslims. Daniel Sutherland, head of the civil rights division of the Department of Homeland Security, says fighting terrorism while respecting civil rights involves "difficult challenges".

But Sutherland says the government needs the help of these groups to fight terrorism at home: "Homeland security isn't gonna be won by people sitting in a building inside the Beltway, " he says.

Most members of that community believe that the government is -- perhaps inadvertently -- fanning the flames of bigotry by using phrases like "Islamo-Fascist" from the vocabulary it has crafted for the "global war on terror" and by actions such as high-profile press conferences announcing prosecutions that often collapse.

Samer Shehata, professor of Arab Politics at Georgetown University, probably speaks for the feeling in most of the U.S. Muslim community, "Quite simply," he told IPS, Islamophobia "produces an environment that is fundamentally at odds with what the U.S. is supposed to be about; our values for treating everyone fairly and not discriminating on the basis of skin color, race, religion, gender, etc.

"This is damaging certainly for all Americans and it is also damaging for the reputation of the U.S. overseas," he said. "One of the questions I hear the most whenever I am in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East is: how is it like now in the U.S. for Arabs? Have you been the victim of discrimination, bigotry, abuse?" (END/2006)

Source: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35897

For what it's worth, as a US citizen and European descendant, I am sincerely saddened by this and any type of bigotry. Most of us came from ancestors who, once new in America, suffered from discrimination. Our rich multicultured population is the true source of the united States' greatness.
In the spirit of this Christmas season: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to ALL.
Michelle

[michelle]

Pentagon Advisor Doubts Wisdom of U.S. Military’s Recruiting Muslims

Here's an article from a French Christian website; apparently Protestant. They highlight areas around the world where Christians are attacked. I am assuming they are fundamentalists, as I don't speak French, but I was able to read some highlights from various articles; much about pro-life, bible-based school ciriculums, and items concerning gay rights and marriage...Michelle

Pentagon Advisor Doubts Wisdom of U.S. Military’s Recruiting Muslims
By Chad Groening
January 4, 2007

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bob Maginnis, a Pentagon advisor and national defense expert, believes U.S. military officials are making a radical mistake by trying to make America’s armed services more attractive to Muslims.

The Pentagon has lately gone out of its way to attract Muslims into the U.S. military, citing the need for officers and troops who can speak Arabic and understand Islamic culture. And recently, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said that Muslims and the Islamic religion are totally compatible with Western values.

However, Maginnis disagrees with that assessment. In fact, he contends, "Someone who’s an adherent to the teaching of the Koran and then abides by what it says, that person — as far as I can understand — is incompatible with Western culture."

The retired Army officer says U.S. military leaders may well agree with his concerns, but they will not go against the policy of the Bush administration or even their commander-in-chief himself. "The President says Islam is a respectable faith, that it’s a great faith," Maginnis notes. "If President Bush says there is not a problem, then you can’t expect that his subordinates are going to come out with a contrary view."

Obviously, the lieutenant colonel observes, people in the military who live in Muslim-dominated cultures and "who deal with these issues day to day can, in the privacy of their conversations, say the types of things that I’ve expressed." But even if these military personnel believe, based on their experience of Islam, that its true adherents are inherently anti-Western, he asserts, "they can’t publicly state that."

Maginnis feels the Pentagon’s policy toward Islam is naïve, at best. And judging by what has happened in Western Europe and other parts of the world where Muslim ideology has taken hold, he believes the U.S. military’s ongoing effort to recruit Muslims will prove to be a radical mistake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

Source: www.spcm.org/Journal/spip.php?article5281

[michelle]

Kabul is moving to curb independent news media

By Abdul Waheed Wafa and Carlotta Gall
Monday, May 7, 2007

KABUL: The government of Afghanistan, competing with the Taliban for public support and trying to fend off accusations that it is corrupt and ineffective, is moving to curb one of its own most impressive achievements: the country's flourishing independent news media.

Under President Hamid Karzai, a 1960s media law was updated and has been considered the most liberal in the region. Six independent television channels have begun broadcasting, and dozens of radio stations and newspapers are now operating. All news media outlets were under government control under the Taliban government, which was ousted in late 2001.

Yet for the past year, as the government has sought to counter growing public dissatisfaction, it has tried to impose more controls over the news media, journalists and human rights officials said.

Parliament is now considering amendments that the critics warn could undo many of the gains made since the fall of the Taliban.

Said Aqa Fazil Sancharaki, the director of the Afghanistan National Journalists' Union, who has been lobbying against many of the amendments with limited success, said: "We are concerned about more restrictions. We are not optimistic."

One of his main concerns is a plan to abolish the media commission, a largely independent group made up of journalists and representatives of the community, which monitors the application of the law and judges complaints, and to replace it with a commission under much stronger government control.

A spokesman for Karzai said the president remained a firm supporter of freedom of the press and would wait to see what amendments were passed in the Parliament.

"The president can sign the law or he can send it back to Parliament with his amendments," said the spokesman, Khaleeq Ahmad.

Yet Karzai has said there is a need to restrict journalists. Ahmad said the president meant that journalists should be more responsible, and not print rumors or falsehoods.

The revisions before the Parliament were initiated by Karzai's government, though the legislation has changed as it has moved through Parliament. Journalists and members of Parliament said that some of the proposed restrictions certainly emanated from the cabinet, if not from the president.

"The government does not want to see and hear about its corruption and weaknesses on the media," said Shukria Barakzai, a member of Parliament and a former journalist.

The proposal before Parliament would prohibit coverage seen as violating the provisions of Islam or insulting other religions, as well as coverage that insults individuals or corporations, without allowing truth as a defense. It would also prohibit coverage seen as endangering national stability, security or sovereignty.

Sancharaki said he had lobbied unsuccessfully to have the clause changed to the "principles" of Islam rather than "provisions," which he said was so broad that it would allow all manner of interference.

The minister of information and culture, Abdul Karim Khuram, has also scrapped the plans of his predecessor to make the government-run Afghan National Radio and Television into a public service governed by an independent board, along the lines of the BBC.

Karzai pledged in 2002 to turn the national television and radio station, and the government news agency, Bakhtar, into public service broadcasting companies and to establish independent bodies to govern them and to license broadcasting.

But those promises have not been kept, said Shirazuddin Siddiqui, director of the BBC World Service Trust in Afghanistan, which conducts training for Afghan journalists.

"The problem is, our government and our Parliament are very young," he said. "Every government wants to have some control of the media."

Khuram said that in view of Afghanistan's fragile security situation, Afghan National Radio and Television should remain controlled by the government.

"The current situation regarding security, and social, political and cultural needs, is such that the government should have its own radio, television and newspapers," he said.

He said he also supported restrictions prohibiting news media coverage found to be against traditional values, the Islamic faith and ethics. He said he had received many complaints from people about nakedness shown on some channels. He also wanted to outlaw any coverage that could encourage sexual abuse of children, he said.

The intelligence service put out a document last year calling for restrictions on journalists, including outlawing interviews with the Taliban, whose fighters continue to carry out attacks in large areas of the country. That document did not have the government's support, Ahmad said.

"My concern is if the media is against the system and has more freedom, then elements like the Taliban will use the situation and gain more supporters," said Moeen Marastial, a former member of the religious and cultural parliamentary commission, which has worked on the news media law as it moved through Parliament.

The slaying last month by the Taliban of an Afghan translator and reporter, Ajmal Naqshbandi, has badly shaken the press corps, and while pressure from local power brokers has always been a fact of life, the possibility of new strictures from the central government have alarmed supporters of an independent news media.

In the most blatant attack on news gatherers, the attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabit, angered by coverage of his comments in Parliament, recently ordered the arrest of three journalists from the popular television channel Tolo TV. The police raided the television's headquarters, roughed up members of the staff and detained the three journalists for a brief period.

Khuram, the information minister, refused to condemn Sabit's action, saying that the attorney general had the right to make arrests. Instead, Khuram asked Tolo TV to apologize to Sabit for its coverage. Tolo TV refused, and filed a complaint with the Supreme Court.

In another matter that has caused widespread interest in Afghanistan, the upper house of Parliament passed an amnesty bill Sunday, granting factions and political groups involved in past hostilities freedom from state prosecution.

Supporters of the bill said it was necessary for peace and reconciliation in the country.

Karzai rejected an earlier version and introduced an amendment that recognizes the individual's right to seek justice for individual war crimes. It is not clear whether he will sign the new version.

Source:
www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=5596100

[michelle]

Secularism confronts Islam
Olivier Roy
25 - 10 - 2007

The vigorous debate about Muslims in Europe and their relationship to the west's understanding of itself needs to be informed by an understanding of history's duality and the present's fluidity, says Olivier Roy.

Islam's encounter with the west is as old as Islam itself. The first Muslim minorities living under western Christian domination date back to the 11th century (in Sicily). Yet the second half of the 20th century witnessed a distinctively new phenomenon: the massive, voluntary settlement in western societies of millions of Muslims coming from Muslim societies across the middle east, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Africa, and southeast Asia. The west has also witnessed the development of an indigenous trend of religious conversion (as in the case of the Nation of Islam).

And yet, while a Muslim population has definitively taken root in the west, the question of its integration remains open, especially in western Europe, where there is an overlap between Islam and work-driven immigration - an overlap that is not to be found in the United States. Socio-economic problems, cultural issues, and political tensions related to terrorism or the conflicts in the middle east converge around the question: is Islam compatible with the west?

Of course, this question rests on an essentialist worldview, according to which there is one Islam, on the one hand, and one western world, on the other hand. From that perspective, the west is allegedly defined by a set of values (freedom of expression, democracy, separation of church and state, human rights, and, especially, women's rights). But a problem immediately arises: are these Christian values? Is the opposition between Islam and the west derived from the fact that the west is Christian? Or is it rather because the west is secularised and no longer locates religion at the heart of its self-definition? Is it Christianity or secularism that makes the west so distinct?

A family feud

The relation between secularism and Christianity is complex. Either one defines the west in Christian terms, or one defines it in reference to the philosophy of the Enlightenment, human rights, and democracy that developed against the Catholic church (through first the Protestant reformation, then the Enlightenment, and finally a secular and democratic ideal). If the Catholic church has always fought secularism and the separation of church and state (at least until the beginning of the 20th century), Protestantism has played a more complex role by defending a sort of religious civil society in which the separation of church and state is seen as a necessary condition for a genuine religious revival. Secularisation therefore proceeds differently in Catholic and Protestant societies - against faith in the former, along with faith in the latter - to such an extent that it is difficult to talk about the "west".

Contemporary western societies, however, are, in fact, secularised, either because the separation of church and state is a constitutional principle (the United States); because civil society no longer defines itself through faith and religious practice (the United Kingdom, Germany, the Scandinavian countries); or because these two forms of secularism converge and reinforce each other, thus giving birth to what the French call laïcité. And yet when one opposes the west and Islam, it is by putting forward the Christian origins of western culture or, on the contrary, by emphasising its secularism. In other words, when we question Islam's capacity to become "westernised", we are referring to two different forms of westernisation: Christianisation and secularisation.

True, things are more complex, and it would be easy to show that western secularism actually has a Christian origin - as I do in my book, Secularism Confronts Islam. But it is interesting to see that the critique of Islam is today a rallying-point for two intellectual families that have been opposed to each other so far: those who think that the west is first and foremost Christian (and who, not that long ago, considered that the Jews could hardly be assimilated) and those who think that the west is primarily secular and democratic. In other words, the Christian right and the secular left are today united in their criticism of Islam.

A debate of abstraction

But if Christianity has been able to recast itself as one religion among others in a secular space, why would this be impossible for Islam? Two arguments are usually summoned to make this case: the first is theological and says that the separation between religion and politics is foreign to Islam; the second is cultural and posits that Islam is more than a religion: it is a culture. Both arguments are addressed in Secularism Confronts Islam.

But this theoretical debate, which thrives on op-ed pieces and talk-shows, is increasingly solved in the practice of Muslims themselves. The experience of everyday life as a minority brings Muslims to develop practices, compromises, and considerations meant to cope with a secularism that imposes itself on them. This does not mean that Islam has never experienced secularism but only that, with the exception of a few isolated thinkers, it never felt the need to think about it. Today, both life-conditions in the west and the domination of the western model through the process of globalisation compel many Muslims to relate explicitly to this form of secularism, somewhat urgently and under the pressure of political events. This reflection spans a very wide intellectual spectrum that goes from what I call neo-fundamentalism to liberal positions, proceeding through all kinds of more or less enlightened conservatism.

Unfortunately, the paradigms and models mobilised in the western debate over Islam hardly reflect the real practices of Muslims. While the political debate over the potential danger allegedly represented by Muslims is more or less inspired by the intellectual debate about the "clash of civilisations", the help of sociology (that is, the concrete analysis of Muslim practices) is hardly sought even though sociology is at pains to grasp the concrete forms of religiosity that characterise the practice of Islam within immigrant communities. One must therefore abandon the current models in order to understand how it is possible to practice one's faith as a Muslim in a secularised western context. And one quickly realises then that Muslims tend to find themselves in a position that is closer to that of the born-again Christians or the Haredi Jews than to the position of a stranger.

A model conflict

So far, the west has managed its Muslim population by mobilising two models: multiculturalism, usually associated with English-speaking countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada) and northern Europe, and the assimilationist model, specific to France.

Multiculturalism supposes that Islam as a religion is embedded in a distinct culture that maintains itself from one generation to the next. One can be a good citizen and at the same time identify primarily with a culture that is not the dominant one. In other words, the citizen's relation to the nation can be mediated by a communitarian sense of belonging.

In the assimilationist model (the official term is "integration"), access to citizenship (which turns out to be relatively easy) means that individual cultural backgrounds are erased and overridden by a political community, the nation, that ignores all intermediary communitarian attachments (whether based on race or on ethnic or religious identities), which are then removed to the private sphere. As was declared in the French national assembly during the vote that granted full citizenship to French Jews in 1791: "They must be granted everything as individuals and nothing as a nation" (in the sense of community).

Nothing could be more opposed than the multicultural and assimilationist models: the French consider Anglo-Saxon multiculturalism either as the destruction of national unity or as an instrument of ghettoisation, while assimilationism is perceived abroad as the expression of an authoritarian, centralised state that refuses to recognise minority rights, when it does not infringe on human rights.

A recast relationship

Yet the tensions that have troubled western societies since 11 September 2001 show that both these models are in crisis. In France, many young Muslims complain that theirs is a second-class citizenship and that they are still the victims of racism, while they are integrated in terms of language and education and accept laïcité. Moreover, also in France, young born-again Muslims demand to be recognised as believers in the public space (by wearing a veil, if they are girls). At the same time, the increasing radicalisation of a fraction of Muslim youth in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands has led to a shift in public opinion in these countries, whereby the multicultural model is called into question and accused of encouraging "separatism".

As a matter of fact, both multiculturalism and assimilationism are in crisis for similar reasons: both posit the existence of an intrinsic link between religion and culture. Keeping one's religion also means keeping one's culture. Multiculturalism therefore implies that religion remains embedded in a stable cultural background, and assimiliationism implies that integration, by definition, leads to the secularisation of beliefs and behaviours, since all cultural backgrounds disappear.

But the problem is that today's religious revival - whether under fundamentalist or spiritualistic forms - develops by decoupling itself from any cultural reference. It thrives on the loss of cultural identity: the young radicals are indeed perfectly "westernised". Among the born-again and the converts (numerous young women who want to wear the veil belong to these categories), Islam is seen not as a cultural relic but as a religion that is universal and global and reaches beyond specific cultures, just like evangelicalism or Pentecostalism. And this loss of cultural identity is the condition both for integration and for new forms of fundamentalism. Whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, religious revivalism raises the question of the place of religion in the public sphere. The debates about prayers in school, the display of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, or the creation of an eruv following the request of Haredi Jews to privatise public space on Shabbat show that the recasting of the relation between the religious and the public sphere is not specific to Islam.

A French exception

Why, then, pay so much attention to French laicite, which until now seemed to be an exception? There is today a convergence of the various debates taking place in western countries: tellingly, they focus on the apparel worn by some Muslim women (prohibition of the headscarf in French high schools, increasingly vocal critique of the burqa in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands). The real issue here is indeed the articulation of religious identity within the public sphere and therefore the question of secularism. This debate started in France in 1989 and was continued in the United Kingdom in 2006, following a newspaper article criticising a constituent's wearing of the niqab (face-veil) by the then leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw.

Is France an exception, or does it represent a real alternative to multiculturalism? Here lies the interest of studying the French model. From a historical point of view, there is indeed a French exception: France may be the only democracy that has fought religion in order to impose a state-enforced secularism. In France, laïcité is an exacerbated, politicised, and ideological form of western secularism that has developed on two levels:

* A very strict separation of church and state, against the backdrop of a political conflict between the state and the Catholic church that resulted in a law regulating very strictly the presence of religion in the public sphere (1905). This is what I call legal laïcité

* An ideological and philosophical interpretation of laïcité that claims to provide a value system common to all citizens by expelling religion into the private sphere. I call this ideological laicite: today, it leads the majority of the secular left to strike an alliance with the Christian right against Islam.

Laïcité therefore defines national cohesion by asserting a purely political identity that confines to the private sphere any specific religious or cultural identities. Outside France, this very offensive and militant laïcité is perceived as excessive, and even undemocratic, since it violates individual freedom. It is regularly denounced in the annual report of the United States state department on religious freedom in the world (not only because of the prohibition of the Muslim veil but also because of the restrictions placed on the activities of sects such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists).

Yet, over a short period of time, the initial hostility of European multiculturalist countries toward the French model has turned into a renewed interest: what if the French were right? A sizeable number of countries that have embraced multiculturalism so far are about to restrict the wearing of the Islamic veil (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany). This interest in laicite is primarily negative: it stems from the crisis (from the death, I would even argue) of multiculturalism.

If the multicultural model has failed, then one should look at the alternative represented by the French model. But is French laïcité a solution? How does it work? Isn't it too specific to the French context? How can one imagine both the national cohesion of western societies and the development, beyond specific cultures, of "faith communities" based on individual and voluntary choices, which, however, put forward their specific agendas? Communitarianism and individualism go hand in hand in these faith communities.

The redefinition of the relations between religion and politics is a new challenge for the west, and not only because of Islam. Islam is a mirror in which the west projects its own identity crisis. We live in a post-culturalist society, and this post-culturalism is the very foundation of the contemporary religious revival.

Managing these new forms of religiosity is a challenge for the west as a whole. It is also a task to which Secularism Confronts Islam intends to contribute - by drawing the lessons from the French debate, but only to resituate it in the general context of the relations between Islam and the west.

Source:
www.opendemocracy.net/article/faith_ideas/europe_islam/islam_secularism

[michelle]

Anger at LA police plan to 'map' Muslims
Nov 9 03:23 PM US/Eastern

A plan by the Los Angeles Police Department's counter-terrorism bureau to map Muslim groups in the city has angered civil rights activists and community leaders, it was reported Friday.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the LAPD wants to create a map of Muslim groups in order to help communities avoid the influence of radicals seeking to incite "violent, ideologically-based extremism."

"We are seeking to identify at-risk communities," LAPD deputy chief Michael Downing told the Times. "We are looking for communities and enclaves based on risk factors that are likely to become isolated.

"We want to know where the Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens are so we can reach out to those communities."

The Times quoted Downing as saying that the Muslim Public Affairs Council had indicated support for the program "in concept."

The group's executive director Salam Al-Marayati told the newspaper it wanted to meet with the LAPD next week to discuss the issue.

"We will work with the LAPD and give them input, while at the same time making sure that people's civil liberties are protected," said Al-Marayati, commending Downing's "forthright engagement with the Muslim community."

However the plan was condemned by other Muslim groups, with the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California accusing the LAPD of "racial profiling."

"We certainly reject this idea completely," the council's executive-director Shakeel Syed told the Times. "This stems basically from this presumption that there is homogenized Muslim terrorism that exists among us."

The Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also criticized the plan. Council official Hussam Ayloush said mapping "basically turns the LAPD officers into religious political analysts, while their role is to fight crime and enforce the laws."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and community groups have a letter to the LAPD expressing "grave concerns" about the program, reports said.

"The mapping of Muslim communities . . . seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths," the Times quoted the letter as saying.

According to reports an estimated 500,000 Muslims live in the Greater Los Angeles area, the country's second-biggest concentration outside of New York.

Copyright AFP 2007, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Source:
www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071109192330.irvcbpkl&show_article=1

[alexzello]

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think?

[michelle]

alexzello said:

What do you think of Obadiah Shoher's views on the Middle East conflict? One can argue, of course, that Shoher is ultra-right, but his followers are far from being a marginal group. Also, he rejects Jewish moralistic reasoning - that's alone is highly unusual for the Israeli right. And he is very influential here in Israel. So what do you think?

Spam Alert

We can discuss this man's views if desired.

However this author is actually advertising a blog for Obadiah Shoher. He is not really interested in a discussion.

If you google "Obadiah Shoher ", you see AlexZello repetitive post more than you see any actual information about Obadiah Shoher. (Though I only looked on the first few pages)

Often, when someone asks "who is this guy" or otherwise asking for additional information. His reply, if there is one at all, is:

"uh, here's the site in question: Middle East conflict(which gives you a link)"

While we can discuss the possibilities of annexing Palestine territories, I seriously doubt anyone is going to get any meaningfull response from the author.

Source: forum.sonshi.com/showthread.php?s=ae58a6fcf94341388d82a36499177aca&threadid=2605

Note from Michelle: Ditto on the above...other forums take note. And I personally think that Obadiah Shoher's material is insane.

[michelle]

When Our Vaginas Are A Curse

Just to let you see where I'm coming from on this one, here's a quote from the article which started this thread:

Apr 5, 2006 16:05:10 GMT 4 michelle said:

IV Online magazine : IV376 - March 2006
Interview
The Anti-Imperialist Left Confronted with Islam
Tariq Ali

Wherever we see this religious revival of which you speak - among Muslims in the West, among Christians in the United States... - we can see that conservative representations of sexuality play a big role.

That has always been the case. I don’t think capitalism absolutely wants human beings to have conservative representations of sexuality, but capitalism does want them to be brought up in nuclear families, isolated from each other.

When religion occupies a central place in a person’s identity, then that person seeks to distinguish him or herself from those around them; he or she defends morality and takes a position against homosexuality, at the same time affirming that women have an inferior value.

In the formation of the identity of each person, the question of sexuality plays a big role. Human beings are constantly looking for differences and they find them most easily in religion.

If anyone can remember back to the days of this forum's inception, there was an article put up by a Western woman which contained the word vagina, used in its proper context as a body part. There was nothing in this said article which was pornographic or otherwise negative in terms of the vagina.

In the beginning here, we were advised that Muslim guests/members could be offended by the use of bad language and other offensive dialogue and that we should be extremely aware of our and guests'/members' language and topics of discussion. For the most part, I agreed with this; not just for Muslims but all as well.....Far too many websites use profanity freely and to me, this is offensive plus it didn't keep with the atmosphere we were creating here.

The male staff of the forum at that time got wigged out over the appearance of the word vagina and much debate over its use ensued. I added my thoughts that it is merely a word for a body part and can be found within the pages of any dictionary. I voted that the article could stay. I was out voted on this by my male counterparts 3 to 1....the article was censored/deleted.

Now, before I go on, I am well aware that Western men also refer to vaginas in a derogatory way, especially when they rename it with the 'C' word....I cringe at this word: C_ _ _ _. However, unless I live in a perfect world, surrounded by perfect men, I don't hear the 'C' word too often. In fact, when I do hear its use, it normally comes from the type one would call a lowlife.

That said, I am rolling my proverbial eyeballs at the warning I was given not to offend Muslims here at the FH Forum. The following was written by an Arab woman, so this isn't something we in the West are throwing out there to degrade the Muslim community.

All I have to say is: Stellar language, 'gentlemen.'

Michelle

When Our Vaginas Are A Curse
Monday, February 19, 2007

The thread on this blog discussing women's bodies (Women Dirtier Than Men?) and a video I ran into on another blog present this nagging question:

Why is it that we Arabs only speak of women's vaginas to curse them?

Think about it:

If a man is upset with his neighbor, he curses his mother's vagina.
If a man is angry with his enemies, he curses their sister's vaginas.
If a man is pist with his political leaders, he curses their mothers' and sisters' vaginas.
If a man stubs his toe against a table, he curses its maker's vagina.

Sometimes when things get heated, violence may be added for effect as in"my foot in your mother's vagina."

Some women use these curses but are frowned upon because this is primarily male language. My not using the Arabic words in this post is part of my resistance to this language. More honestly, it is a testimony to how estranged I am as an Arab woman from my mother's tongue when it comes to my body.

It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the "everyday" context in which the word vagina is used in the spoken Arabic language.

No wonder Arab women's vaginas have such low self-esteem!! They are a curse!

We need a new body language. And fresher curses.

Source: arabwomanprogressivevoice.blogspot.com/2007/02/when-our-vaginas-are-curse.html