Why is the UK Law Society throwing its weight behind a regressive form of Islam?

2014/04/21 Leave a comment

More on the UK Law Society’s drafting of guidance of sharia-compliant wills, and the impact this has on already vulnerable women in some Muslim communities:

But this isn’t the whole story: both practically and symbolically the move undermines the axiom that all British people – male and female; gay and straight; Muslim, Christian and atheist – should be equal under the law. As Charlie Klendijan of the Lawyers’ Secular Society explained to me, “The Law Society’s guidance notes have a special influence and prestige. They’re the recognised benchmark of ‘good practice’ for all solicitors, so they have a major impact on how law is practiced in this country. By publishing this guidance note, it has effectively legitimised sharia in the eyes of the legal world.” …

But British Muslims aren’t a single culture with a monolithic faith, and it’s not up to the Law Society to decide which understanding of “sharia practice” is correct. Instead of producing a neutral description of sharia, it has effectively issued a declamation on behalf of a regressive, reactionary version of Islamic jurisprudence that more liberal-minded Muslims fight bravely against.

For an organisation ostensibly committed to the liberal values enshrined in British law to join the theological fray on the conservative side is a cruel blow to reformist Muslims. …

What makes the controversy over these guidelines all the more absurd is their utter pointlessness. The Law Society ought simply to remind its members that their job is to provide legal, not religious, advice: clients looking for guidance on what sharia requires should be advised to consult an Islamic authority of their choice.

The nature of British Islam in not fixed: both moderates like Dr Hasan and reactionaries with their flyblown dogma hope to inherit a greater share of its future. The case continues and continues. Meanwhile is it too much to ask of the Law Society to refrain from taking sides?

Why is the Law Society throwing its weight behind a regressive form of Islam? – Comment – Voices – The Independent.

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A New Muslim Renaissance is Here | TIME.com

2014/04/19 Leave a comment

Rabia Chaudry in Time on some of the progressive trends among Muslim Americans, reminding of the diversity within Muslim communities and on change from within:

It’s heady, scary, and exciting to watch the face and discourse of American Muslims change and expand before your eyes. The Islam I grew up with in America is not the Islam my children are experiencing. The possibilities for their lives are much more expansive than the possibilities for my life were. The largely comfortable integration and success of American Muslims that sets them apart from their counterparts in Europe also lends space for these possibilities. From tremendously increased participation in American civic and cultural life, to pressing internal demands on religious orthodoxy, another generation or two will see a vastly different American Islam that will likely have an impact on Muslims globally. From marginalized minority, American Muslims are poised to become mainstream leaders and influencers. And it’s no small irony that while historians bemoan conquest and Western colonialism as the death knell for Islam’s “Golden Age”, this new Muslim renaissance is growing out of the West itself.

A New Muslim Renaissance is Here | TIME.com.

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Brandeis University rescinds planned honorary degree to outspoken critic of Islam

2014/04/12 Leave a comment

The latest polemic around Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Clearly, Brandeis did not do its research and background checks and should have anticipated this controversy. While many of the specific criticisms she makes about aspects of Islamic and related cultural practices are valid, she, like many critics (e.g., Pipes) go too far in painting Islam and Muslims with the same brush, rather than recognizing the diversity within Islam and among Muslims. Just imagine substituting Christian, Jewish or Sikh in any of her quotes below:

She has come under criticism for remarks about Islam. In a 2007 interview with Reason magazine, Hirsi Ali was quoted as saying “there is no moderate Islam” and that Islam needed to be defeated.

“Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful,” she said. “It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.”

That same year, she told the London Evening Standard that Islam is “the new fascism.”

She also characterized Islam as “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” she was quoted as saying, “It legitimates murder.”

Her selection by Brandeis sparked an outcry by students, faculty, and national advocacy groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“We believe offering such an award to a promoter of religious prejudice such as Ali is equivalent to promoting the work of white supremacists and anti-Semites,” the group stated.

An online petition signed by students and other critics condemned Hirsi Ali’s “extreme Islamophobic beliefs.”

Brandeis University rescinds planned honorary degree to outspoken critic of Islam – Metro – The Boston Globe.

Two opinion pieces on opposite sides of the argument, starting with Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, defending the decision made by Brandeis:

Ms. Hirsi Ali’s statements on Islam are not incidental to her activism and her life’s work. They stand at the very center of her concern. It goes without saying that Brandeis blundered by not doing its research before making the announcement and embarrassing everyone involved. Still, the only issue for the critics of Brandeis is whether they affirm Ms. Hirsi Ali’s prejudicial and deeply offensive views on Islam as a violent and fascistic religious tradition. If they do, let them say so. And if they don’t, they should acknowledge that Brandeis was right in the decision it made.

Andrew Sullivan takes a very different take:
The rescinding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not exactly an act of punishment. No one has a right to any such degree and Brandeis is fully within its rights to breach basic manners and fail to do basic research about an honoree’s past work. And Ayaan has indeed said some intemperate and extreme things at times about Islam as a whole. But to judge Ayaan’s enormous body of work and her terrifying, pioneering life as a Somali refugee by a few quotes is, I’m afraid to say, all-too-familiar as an exercise in the public shaming of an intellectual for having provocative ideas. There seems to be an assumption that public speech must seek above all else to be “sensitive” rather than provocative, and must never hurt any feelings rather than tell uncomfortable truths. This is a terrible thing for liberal society as a whole and particularly terrible for a university campus, where freedom of thought should be paramount (although, of course, the hard academic left every day attempts to restrict that freedom).
Where The Hard Left Says No
I am more with Rabbi Yoffie on this. Yes, one should consider the life work and not just selected quotes. However, the quotes are consistent in Hirsi Ali’s overall writing and public remarks, and are central to her arguments against Islam in general, not just particular aspects of Islam.
Find it a bit surprising that Sullivan defends her position when his own views on religion are nuanced thoughtful and reflective, unlike the overly broad brush approach of Hirsi Ali.

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The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror

2014/04/05 Leave a comment

Worth reading for an alternate view on the “root causes” of extremism and terrorism by Arun Kundnani, and some of the missteps in the “war against terror.”

It does not answer why people in some communities are more drawn to extremism and violence than others. This is not unique to Muslims as other examples, such as previous patterns of violence among some Sikhs or Catholics in Northern Ireland. And many of the people implicated in terrorism and extremism are not the most disadvantaged or excluded in their communities:

This failure to engage with the real roots of violent alienation has ramifications going far beyond security. Both culturalism and reformism neglect what Kundnani calls “the basic political question thrown up by multiculturalism: how can a common way of life, together with full participation from all parts of society, be created?” Those British Muslims who “ghettoised” didn’t do so by choice but as a result of industrial collapse, discriminatory housing policies and the fear of racist violence. Identity politics was promoted and funded by local government in response to a 1970s radicalism (for instance the Asian Youth Movements, modelled on the Black Panthers), which linked anti-racism to anti-capitalism. Home secretary Willie Whitelaw supported “ethnic” TV programming on the grounds that “if they don’t get some outlet for their activities you are going to run yourself into much more trouble”. Multiculturalism, then, was not a leftist plot but a conservative move bringing together the state and community “uncles” against a much more subversive alternative. And in the last decade, while “anti-terror” resources have flowed into Muslim communities, benefiting the usual gatekeepers and provoking the envy of equally deprived non-Muslim communities, young, alienated Muslims, as likely obsessed by the Illuminati as the caliphate, are deterred from speaking – and being challenged – in public.

The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror – review | Books | The Guardian.

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Jonathan Kay: The space between the hijab and niqab is where our anxieties lie

2014/03/31 Leave a comment

Jonathan Kay on the contrast between the hijab and the niqab, following the experience of a young non-Muslim woman wearing a hijab for a week. I think he largely has it right on the contrast between the hijab being compatible with integration, the niqab not:

One of the effects of the niqab is that it strips away all of the informal social cues that we typically rely on when we talk to people: the smiles, raised eyebrows, furrowed brows and such that tell us if our jokes are funny or not, our stories interesting or not, our presence welcome or not. The Burqa signals to the non-burqa-wearer that, to the extent he is capable of arousing any emotion at all, it is of the negative variety. In such a situation, most of us non-burqa folks are likely to put on a nervous smile, say something harmless, and get any necessary social or commercial interaction over with as quickly as possible so as not to induce the fear of sexual predation that, the niqab’s existence implicitly signals, is but thinly suppressed in all of us.

Since 9/11, all Western societies have become obsessed with the way Muslim women dress. (Indeed, in parts of Quebec, it has become a sort of full-blown neurosis.) But Rawhani misunderstands the issue if she thinks that this is really about the hijab. It is about our basic, socially felt human need to see the faces  of those we interact with. The fact that we politely tolerate those who live behind masks bespeaks Canadian civility. But it does not mean the underlying practice is in any way healthy or desirable.

Jonathan Kay: The space between the hijab and niqab is where our anxieties lie | National Post.

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It’s Muslims themselves who give voice to verse

2014/03/29 Leave a comment

Good piece by Ayesha Chaudhry on religious texts and interpretations. Although written about Islam, applies more broadly:

An indispensable step in this process of reinterpretation is an honest and unflinching examination of the religious tradition. Believers need not apologize or be ashamed of their history, but they must certainly not defend and perpetuate aspects of their religious tradition that are oppressive and tyrannical.

Religious traditions are shaped by their own social and historical contexts and it’s only natural that given the evolving notions of justice and gender equality, modern Muslims will look to the Koran to protect women against gendered violence. They have begun doing so, and the rest of us, Muslims or other, must use our power to give these interpretations the authority they deserve.

It’s Muslims themselves who give voice to verse – The Globe and Mail.

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‘Self-censorship’ in discussion of multiculturalism, says London’s deputy mayor

2014/03/22 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion with Munira Mirza, deputy mayor of London, on multiculturalism, with particular reference to academic circles. Her point on the mistake of treating Muslims as “a homogenous group” particularly relevant (a lesson that can likely be applied to any community engagement strategy):

While at Policy Exchange, Mirza was lead author of a 2007 report, Living Apart Together: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism, that claimed that “Government policies to improve engagement with Muslims make things worse. By treating Muslims as a homogeneous group, the Government fails to see the diversity of opinions amongst Muslims, so they feel more ignored and excluded.”

This argument was obviously controversial, but Mirza reports a “quite vicious” response from academics who focused on “quibbling with the technicalities of the research”. There was also “an assumption that, because it was published by a thinktank, it was therefore driven by ideological motives and there was nothing in it that was substantial, whereas we in the universities are much more objective”.

It is here that Mirza detects “a kind of coercive consensus around some of the debates in higher education around issues such as multiculturalism.

“There isn’t much appetite to criticise it as a policy or to entertain the notion that some of these ideas have had damaging effects. I think there’s a degree of self-censorship. I don’t think you get the critical level of discussion and debate [about multiculturalism] in the university sector that you do in the press and media. I think there’s more intelligent public conversation outside than there is inside.”

‘Self-censorship’ in discussion of multiculturalism, says London’s deputy mayor | News | Times Higher Education.

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UK: Bid to boost feminism among Muslim women

2014/03/18 Leave a comment

Part of an emerging and ongoing debate within Muslim communities, this time from the UK:

A new project to connect Islam to feminism has been launched to tackle long-standing concerns that religious Muslim women are excluded from the women’s rights debate.

In what is a deeply controversial area for many in Islamic communities and for many mainstream feminists, the linkup between a Muslim charity and the project is seen as a pioneering step to bring women from different cultural backgrounds together in the battle for sexual equality.

The social enterprise Maslaha, established by the Young Foundation to work on improving social conditions in Muslim and minority communities, said the programme had attracted a huge response in the past few days.

“An awful lot of Muslim women have felt excluded from the debate about women’s rights and this project really focuses on bringing ordinary women into a debate about Islamic feminism that has so far only really been heard in academic circles,” said Latifa Akay of Maslaha.

Bid to boost feminism among Muslim women | World news | The Observer.

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Le malaise musulman – La Presse+

2014/03/17 Leave a comment

Not surprising, and illustrates why the PQ is using its identity politics and Charter strategy (English Canada also has a more negative impression of Muslims compared to other faith groups, but not to this extent):

La barrière est énorme : 72 % des non-francophones disent avoir une opinion positive des musulmans, mais seulement 36 % des francophones pensent de même. Intuitivement, Youri Rivest, vice-président de CROP, s’est demandé si cela pouvait s’expliquer par le fait que les francophones vivent beaucoup en région et qu’ils ne sont pas habitués à voir des gens d’autres cultures.

Or, M. Rivest signale que, vérification faite, cette variable compte peu. La différence dans la perception des musulmans par les francophones et les non-francophones ne peut pas non plus s’expliquer par le fait que les non-francophones de l’échantillon sont personnellement touchés par la Charte, puisque leur cohorte compte tout autant de musulmans que de Chinois, de Grecs, d’Italiens que d’hispanophones, pour qui la Charte ne changera rien à leurs habitudes.

N’empêche, ces gens sont peut-être spontanément sensibles au fait d’être minoritaires, avance M. Rivest. Mais la différence fondamentale dans la perception des musulmans réside ailleurs à son avis : cela serait une question de valeurs. « Parmi les Québécois qui ont une opinion négative des musulmans, observe-t-il, 82 % ont l’impression que les immigrés ont des valeurs différentes de celles des Québécois et 84 % estiment que les immigrés devraient mettre de côté leur culture et s’adapter à celle du Québec »

Le malaise musulman – La Presse+.

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Debate over Muslim Integration: Doug Saunders and Salim Mansur

2014/03/14 2 Comments

Starting with Robert Sibley’s good account of the debate over Muslim immigration from both the comforting (Saunders) and alarmist (Mansur) angles.

Some of Mansur’s language, however, almost resembles “Elders of Zion” language in its conspiratorial characterizations (for my mini-review of Mansur’s book, Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation of Multiculturalism, see my other blog, Lymphoma Journey Week 49: Another Good Week):

Mansur pointed out that the long-term subversion of the West is the mandate of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization not only of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in the United States, but also CAIR’s Canadian subsidiary, CAIR-CAN (which now prefers to call itself the National Council of  Canadian Muslims). The Muslim Brotherhood “sees immigration as a process of settlement in its strategy of subverting Western civilization from within,” he said

In Mansur’s view, the Islamists think long-term in much the same way as the communists did following the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s. What Canadians are seeing now, he concluded, is “the drip, by drip, by drip” effort to erode the liberal democratic traditions of western countries by means, in part, of mass immigration.

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2014/03/01/great-debate-mansur-versus-saunders-on-muslim-immigration/

The actual text of the interventions by Doug Saunders and Salim Mansour opening the debate:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/is-muslim-immigration-a-threat-to-the-west/article17302855/#dashboard/follows/

A follow-on column by Sibley, commenting on Irshad Manji’s recent speech and interviews (Q&A: Irshad Manji on Multiculturalism), also building on the “controlling the world” theme:

In a similar fashion to Mansur, Manji warns that if current fear-based multiculturalism continues Canadians will see their country increasingly segregated and cliqueist. And that way lays a fractured society of competing power elites. “By giving rights to cultures, not just to individuals, what we wind up doing, in fact, is not giving more power to the entire community, we wind up giving more power to those who are already powerful within certain communities.”

And therein resides the “threat.” As theologian Mark Durie observes: Islam “classically demands a political realization, and specifically one in which Islam rules over all other religions, ideologies and competing political visions. Islam is not unique in having a political vision or speaking to politics, but it is unique in demanding that it alone must rule the political sphere … Not all Muslims are seeking to implement this vision, but many are.”

In other words, offending people (including Muslims) is a necessary, if insufficient, condition for freedom in a multicultural society.

I agree with his point on being able to offend people as part of a democratic society, and the focus on individual rights, not group rights, but the ability to offend should not be used in a gratuitous manner and criticism should be measured in tone.

Muslim immigration and multiculturalism

And while free speech and debate is to be encouraged, a reminder by Amy Awad that what seems to be considered acceptable discourse with respect to Muslims would not be for Blacks, Jews or other minorities:

Unlike recreational debating societies, MLI is supposed to be providing real policy alternatives. But the resolution being debated tonight is informed by fear: “Muslim immigration is no threat to Canada or the West.” Can you imagine if the word “Muslim” were replaced by any other religious or ethno-cultural group — say “Jewish” or “black”?

Over the past century, Western democracies have held public debates on whether or not blacks ought to be given certain rights, and whether Jews threatened the European societies in which they resided. The debates were based on the problematic premise that blacks, Jews or other minorities were monolithic groups with defined characteristics, and that those characteristics were more important than the humanity they shared with everyone else.

Similarly, can we really start a debate about “Muslim immigration”? There is no such thing. Rather, there is immigration of a large variety of Muslim individuals from a broad range of countries and cultures around the world with a wide range of religious practices. Recall that 20% of the world’s population is Muslim. It is not possible to generalize about the threat they may or may not pose to Canada. We should not accept the very premise of this debate.

But better to have the debate out in the open, rather than being overly polite and avoid discussion.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/27/amy-awad-people-immigrate-religions-dont/

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