Arabs doin' it for themselves

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zarwan/4486130923/



At the present time the whole world is closely following the events in the Arab world, especially Egypt at the moment, that have transpired as a revolt of the Tunisian uprising. Browsing through English-language blogs and comments left on online news sites, one may detect a popular pattern of thought. It is quite common to find comments in support of the Mubarak government, which range from expressions of strong backing to grudging tolerance. However, what these opinions have in common is a view that ultimately, the fate of Egypt and other Arab countries caught in the political storm must either be harsh but stable rule by the existing pro-Western strongmen, or a slide into backwards/hostile/violent (insert your adjective of choice here) Islamic theocracy.

The vehemence with which such persons uphold this blindingly misleading false dichotomy is astounding. It is asserted that incumbent governments are essentially the lesser of two evils. According to this viewpoint, the choice is between the West or Islam. West good, Islam bad. According to them, governments which have already demonstrated their corruption and cruelty, but are allied to the West, may be bad but are better than prospective Islamist governments which don't even exist yet.

Well, I can tell you one thing. People can wet their pants over how we're all in danger from folks like the Muslim Brotherhood, but believe it or not there's a huge gulf between political parties which seek to increase the prominence of their traditional religion in society (and follow policies of non-violence like the MB), and gun-toting fanatics hell-bent on killing the 'infidels'. The attempt to paint each and every political and social movement with the slightest thing to do with Islam as parts of a single monolithic anti-all-things-good juggernaut is a horribly trite slander which we don't even need to bother debunking here.

As well as this egregious reductionism, such attitudes also betray a deep historical amnesia, and a misuse of the term 'theocratic'. Sunni Islam - 90% of the Muslim demographic, and dominant in the Arab world - doesn't even have a religious hierachy. These people are in effect transplanting the European historical experience onto a completely different context, where the religous scholars were not rulers themselves, but frequently acted as a buffer against government oppression. The current social and political situation in the Middle East, as any academic worth his salt would tell you, is inextricably linked to the experience of colonialism by the Western powers. The environments which violent nationalist and religious groups grow out of are a direct consequence of the destruction of traditional institutions and civil society, the haphazard manipulation of borders and creation of artificial states and the imposition of secular dictatorships completely at odds with the interests of the common people - just like Mubarak's mob. 

It is precisely the status quo which feeds the resentment which leads to political violence. It provides extremist groups of both secular and religious persuasion with the demagogic ammunition for promoting a sense of hostility against foreign entities.  To unconditionally continue to support Arab dictatorships is to essentially prove that you are an imperialist power!

When we express alarm at the prospect of more 'Islamic' governments, we are merely demonstrating our intellectual hypocrisy and adherence to the classic 'Fukuyama fallacy' that 'liberal democracy' is the natural and normative end-point of human government. But by taking a world-view that developed in a very specific historical context and attributing universal relevance to it, we only express our own ideological totaliatarianism and intolerance for alternative points of view. 'Democracy' is a loaded term anyway - nobody (apart from the dictators themselves) seriously denies the desirablity of public consultation in matters of governance. However, if we use the term 'democracy' to describe the specific systems and institutions which developed in the West, we can imagine how people may very legitimately come to be opposed to it.

Western societies are extremely priviliged in that, in the modern age, they were more or less free to develop their political systems according to their own internal dynamics. The Arab world has not benefited from that luxury. So we should shut up and stop spouting the usual cliched, paternalistic tripe. The Egyptians, Tunisians and other Arab peoples are perfectly capable of deciding their own destinies, and we should let them get on with it, no matter what the end result may be.

HT in Oz: Foolishness on both sides

As I write this, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) has just held a conference here in Australia. Now for those of you not in the know, HT is an Islamist organization founded in 1953 with the goal of establishing a global caliphate. The theme of the conference was “The Struggle for Islam in the West”, keeping in with the group’s dualistic world view.

Predictably, the newspapers became ablaze. The site of the conference itself saw a picket by the Australian Protectionist Party, a xenophobic anti-immigration group. Wherever one turns, headlines scream of assaults on democracy (which HT has called for Muslims to reject) and ‘western culture/values’ in general.

What a circus. HT claims to act in the best interest of Muslims, but their methodology raises more questions than answers. For a start, how exactly do they plan to get ‘back’ former Muslim territories like Spain, as they desire? What will the non-Muslim inhabitants make of it? And how about the Shi’a? How will they be a part of the caliphate?

And they believe in a War on Islam – nobody is denying that Muslims so often bear the brunt of persecution in today’s world, but this self-indulgent luxuriation in paranoid “WAHHH the whole world is against us” conspiracy theories is simply obscene. It achieves absolutely nothing except perpetuate a hopeless victim mentality and further entrench the Huntingtonian concept of a “Clash of Civilizations” which has already been the source of so much pain and suffering in the world. People are complaining of being treated as a faceless, monolithic entity, but are all too happy to return the favour. Ya Allah, do they think that the Prophet s.a.w was sent to further divide humanity? Such an approach is good for nothing but the creation of fitna.

The opposing side is definitely not free from blame either. They go on pontificating about their sacred “democracy” and proclaim secular fatwas against those who offer even the slightest hint of criticism. So they say that democracy should be defended from Islam? If by “democracy”, one means the ability of the common people to have their voices heard by government, then this is absolutely compatible with Islam. In fact, one could even argue that throughout history, Islamic societies have done a much better job of this than their Occidental counterparts. But if by “democracy”, one means the specific institutions developed in Western contexts, it is nothing more than ideologically-motivated hubris to suggest that a particular system of governance is superior, has been superior, and will always be superior regardless of time, place and circumstance.

Both parties suffer from a bad case of cart-before-the-horse syndrome. If you want to change society for the better, purify your heart first! If this is not done, then even the most “perfect” external structure will be nothing but an empty shell. Why are people so obsessed with their ambitions in the dunya? This world is meant to be used for the benefit of the akhirah, not the other way around. You want to "save" Islam? Oh brother, sister, Islam is not a thing which is for "saving", and certainly not by the dabblings of politicians - don't you even have enough iman to realize that God's victory is assured already? He is the Greatest, the best of planners. Just follow the shari'ah and the tariqah, and everything else will come natually.

I am reminded of a sohba I attended last week when the sheikhs talked about how Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi (q) used the example of a flute to illustrate the relationship between the external and internal realities of things. Now, there is the flute as a piece of wood, and the flute as a thing which, by the interaction of its physical, external form with an inner quality, allows for the creation of music as the air flows through it. If we apply this analogy here, I daresay we are caught between two sets of musicless flutes which incidentally deny the validity of all other wind instruments.

What's in a Name Part XVIVXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI

I found out in the newspaper the other day that 41 people were killed and 175 injured in a bombing at a Sufi shrine in Lahore (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/bombers-target-heart-of-liberal-islam-in-pakistan/story-e6frg6so-1225887291875). My heart filled with rage – but not because of the actual incident itself. Astaghfirullah, something else was the initial cause of my anger.

That article was the front-pager and plastered all over the top in big bold letters was the title ‘Bombers target heart of liberal Islam', in a move that ‘appeared designed to inflame sectarian tensions’. The article goes on to state ‘Lahore is a sort of mecca for Sufism, the liberal, mystical arm of Islam that rejects the concept of jihad and promotes spiritual development through music and prayer’, finishing with a mention of an earlier attack on two Ahmadi mosques.

This piece is a near-perfect example of the hackneyed, reductionist and misleading use of language that newspaper editors and journalists seem so fond of, especially when writing about topics related (or not – religious profiling of delinquent youths, anyone?) to Islam. Complex phenomenon are reduced to easily-digestible categories that pit good versus evil, ‘liberal’ versus ‘conservative’ in a Manichean struggle, for the entertainment of the plebiscite.

As one who is highly empathetic to Sufism, I take it I am a ‘liberal’ then. So what the heck does that mean? That I listen to popular western music (I don’t)? Go to nightclubs (nope)? Wear revealing clothing (I don’t even wear shorts in the Australian summer)? Am I really the same as, for example, the westernized descendents of upper-class Iranian exiles who may do all of the above? On the other hand, I can tell you for a fact that I feel uncomfortable being at the same table with someone with a glass of bubbly. I also pray five times a day, which usually would have marked me as a backward zealot except that according to this article my that is something I do a a means to lovey-dovey spiritual enlightenment (presumably other Muslims don’t pray?).

Oh yes, and I reject jihad! Damn the fact that ‘jihad’ is the term used to mean anything a Muslim might undertake to ‘struggle’ for the perfection of his/other people’s Islam, and can range from refusing to have that extra cookie in the jar, to smiling whenever one greets another person, to defending Jerusalem from the forces of Richard the Lionheart! Damn the fact that so many of the greatest heroes and defenders of the Muslim peoples and upholders of chivalry and honour have been Sufis. Presumably Imam Shamil and Abd al-Qadir al Jazairi spent their days drinking tea and whining about what they could do to better integrate into Imperial society with those nice Russians and Frenchmen (a sausage-sizzle, perhaps?)!

And Sufism is implied to be a sect – but ‘Sufi’ itself is just a term used by westerners to categorise the expression of the science of the purification of the heart. It is a practice and a discipline. Sufism exists across the entire spectrum of Islam. Saying Sufism is a sect is like saying peanut butter is a type of bread. The Ahmadis, with their radically different beliefs, are indeed a sect – they themselves are named after their founder who believed he was the Messiah. Please do not compare us to them.

Criticism of such use of language may seem to be nit-picking, but such writings have a very real and very serious effect in the real world. If one controls language, one controls the way people think, and the media wields huge power and responsibility. I strongly do not appreciate the implication that in order to be seen as more acceptable to western society, I have to be a lesser Muslim, and that those who indiscriminately murder are somehow judged as being ‘more’ Muslim. I do not appreciate the caricature of Islamic spiritual practices and the implication that the only acceptable Muslim is one who unquestioningly devours current western trends and fashions. The pigeonholing of Muslims into ‘liberal/moderate’ and ‘conservative/radical’, in denying any complexity to us, effectively denies our humanity, reinforces the world-view of the terrorists, insults the victims of the bomb attack under the façade of mourning and shackles any real attempts to achieve meaningful international relations and inter-religious understanding

Very Western Terrorism

One of the most enduring images of intercivilizational conflict these days is that of the Islamist terrorist and his war on the West. This is almost universally portrayed as a conflict between the traditional, the oriental and the quintessentially Islamic and the modern, culturally and intellectually superior occident. However, this perspective is dependent on a historical amnesia that affects so much of modern society today. Islamist terrorism is not a story of Islam versus the West, but rather of modern secularism falling upon its own sword.

We often attribute the violence of entities like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah to superstitious primitivism. Far from being medieval throwbacsk, such movements have their ideological foundation in Western modernity. The most distinctive features of violent Islamism - the globalization of organized violence and the belief in the possibility of establishing a utopia via acts of destruction - are unfounded within traditional Islamic scholarship. Rather, they are the by-products of Enlightenment philosophy. The Islamist is just as likely to be middle-class and university-educated, rather than a stereotypical ignorant Third-Worlder. He often has spent time in the west, and received a western education. We only need to read the history of Muslim political radicalism to understand these facts.
The association between Islam and anti-Western violence is notable only because of its rarity. Except in cases of response to direct military invasion, such as African resistance to the redcoats of the British Empire, and more recently the conflicts in Bosnia and Cold War Afghanistan, the Muslim response to the challenges of the West was overwhelmingly informed by pragmatism, self-reflection and conciliation. The true weapons of the dissemination of Islam have always been through culture, religion and philosophy, hence its ability to spread to places like Southeast Asia, China and West Africa. Even during periods of military conquest by Muslim kingdoms, one would be hard pressed to find examples where it was actually motivated by religion.

However, many radicals see the traditional response as a flawed approach, and in espousing of violent insurrection reject the scholarship of tradition. In drifting away from Tauhid, the metaphysical Unity at the heart of Islam, they adopt the cosmology of the universe as Light and Dark, with the former’s imperative to conquer the latter. This Occidental archetype, this pursuer of victory against an Other, who if incapable of achieving this goal settles for the glorious and spectacular end, is an impossible role model if one follows the religion of a God who is the master of history, who sends the rain on good and evil alike.

How terribly modern the terrorist is! They justify the targeting of civilians as religiously-sanctioned, but how ironic is it that the self-styled warriors of God base their philosophy on secular modernism. From the bombing of German cities by the RAF to the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such violence is typical of the utilitarian Enlightenment ethic. For the religious, morality can never be subjected to the whims of convenience. On the contrary, the harder it is to follow, the more crucial it becomes. Within this attitude war is no longer an activity of defence, or a way to attain resources or power, but a veritable act of social engineering. This Utopianism, arising from the revolutionaries of France to be later passed down to innumerable inheritors, is obsessed with ideas of progress. That humanity can somehow be made better, and the fundamental evils and injustices wiped out through external action – armed conflict being an effective and legitimate way of achieving this. The ‘Greater Good’ conquers all.

Similarly, the fashion of the suicide attack is Islamically baseless in spite of its perceived normativity. Even the Hashashin preferred to be struck down by the bodyguards of their victims or be dragged off for torture than turn their blades upon themselves. If Christians would forgive me for the use of this polemic device; in the Quran there is no Samson. Jonah does not ask to be chucked overboard and Job does not pray for death. Though Islamic history and literature is replete with martyrs, one would be hard-pressed to find any who actively sought after martyrdom. There is neither Achilles nor Ajax, nor any of those who threw themselves at the Roman authorities begging for death, glorifying it for its own sake. Suicide bombing itself was pioneered by the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist group which carried out the most number of these attacks up to the Iraq invasion, and passed on this technique to groups in the Middle East which were also of Marxist persuasion.

The insurrectionist and revolutionary mentality of the philosophers of Islamism, is symptomatic of a Westphalian conception of statehood with no basis in religion. ‘Muslim’ no longer becomes a descriptor of one’s metaphysical world view, but the name of a member of a certain political party, and jihad is the token revolutionary struggle through which supremacy is established. The Islamist attempts to establish a state where, in contrast to the traditional proliferation of self-regulatory bodies and separation between the ulema and the political leadership, he mimics the ideological totalitarianism of the modern centralised entity. In such a state, political dissidence is identical to blasphemy and people fear the government rather than God. In these “Islamic” societies morality is relegated to the law courts and individual conscience is negated. Virtue thus becomes superfluous and Paradise is accessed through obedience rather than effort or devotion.

From the Jacobins to the Marxists to the neoconservatives, modern philosophy gave rise to the view, found nowhere within Islam, that a new world may be brought about through the use of systemic violence. It is one of the great ironies of our times how the Islamists have internalized the essence of the very things they profess to hate.