Tharwalizations

Clergymen Bearing Gifts

Beware the clerics even when they come bearing victory – for the price is always too high for this worldly life.

Diversity and Turmoil

Diversity in our region creates certain dynamics that are simply too complex to be tackled through some facile generalizations. In this regard, and while Arabs across the region and the world seem to stand in solidarity with Hezbollah, the Bedouins in Israel seem to have a different opinion on this matter. Indeed, the Bedouins seem to “bitterly resent Hezbollah,” since of its Katyusha rockets tend to fall at them. Also, and contrary to how many Arabs feel with regard to the US, the Bedouins of Israel “don't think the U.S. is engaged in a war against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere. They think Arab anger around the world can be laid at the feet of dictators who spread misinformation to distract people from inept rule.” 

Conversely, many members of the Coptic community in Egypt seem to sympathize with Hezbollah and its cause. According to Bishop Rafic Gris, the spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church, “[a]ll Arabs must be proud of Hizbullah's gallantry."

On the other hand, events in Iraq have shown that while one part of the country could lie in shambles, another could be considered as an “example of success.” In this regards, the Intelligencer wonders in reference to Iraqi Kurdistan: “Did you know there is a vast region of Iraq where no U.S. troops have been killed, enemy terrorist activity has been negligible, there are few U.S. troops deployed, it is safe for Westerners to walk the streets, new business investment is taking off and there is a stable, democratic government providing more than adequately for the regions security?” 

Although, one has to note here the seriousness of the growing linguistic divide separating the Kurds form the rest of the Iraqi population.

A somewhat similar situation might be observed in Thailand. For while the southern parts of the country continue to witness an Islamic insurrection fueled in part by the deteriorating socioeconomic conditions, Muslim communities in the northern parts of the country, which have a different ethnic and national mix than their southern co-religionists, seem to be well-integrated with the rest of the population.

For their part, the Turkmen of Afghanistan are still having integration problems in the post-Taliban political system, adding another layer of complexity to the fragile situation in the country.

The problems of the Indonesian province of Aceh, on the other hand, have been further complicated when the provincial government adopted Sharia Law as the official law of the land. Indeed, this article in NY Times notes: “[a]cross this most religious of Indonesia’s provinces, brown uniformed policemen in black wagons enforce Shariah, or Islamic law. They haul unmarried couples into precincts and arrest people for drinking or gambling. Increasingly, many of the cases are pushed to the ultimate conclusion, public canings at mosques in front of pumped-up crowds.”

So, and as the region continues to struggle with the problems emanating from its diversity, its ongoing identity crisis, the aftershocks of the introduction of modernity into its folds, and fro deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and foreign dabbling, turmoil rather than wealth is the only thing that the region seems to be capable of generating at this stage. How long this will last depends heavily on the ability of the various peoples of the region to develop more pragmatic approaches to governance, development and “national priorities.” Indeed, a long-term vision for the development of the region, coupled with the necessary political will, is needed in order to prevent its continuing implosion.

A few thoughts on modernity

Many if not most of the main problems facing us in the region and hindering the process of change and modernization therein are psychological in nature. One such problem is the inability of our people to reconcile themselves with the necessity of making that crossover from the traditional to the modern. Instead, most seem to believe that they can keep one leg in each world thus maximizing their benefit, that is, they think that they can avail themselves of all that advantages that modernity has to offer while holding on as hard as they can to traditional values.

Often, this dilemma boils down to a desire to get all the technology but change nothing of the customs, values and mannerisms. Some might go a little further and opt to adopt certain superficial aspects of modernity, such as the modern dress-code for both men and women, but while adhering to the selfsame value system that any run-of-mill Islamist will adhere to, such as arranged marriages and many of the usual restrictions on women, especially with regard to inheritance and chastity. 

This inability to make the break with the past and move forward that has plagued our part of the world for the last century or so is precisely why our societies are now poised at the verge of a complete relapse into pre-modern modes of existence. We have not earned what modernity has to offer, because, one, we have not taken an active part in making for centuries, and, two, because we refuse to embrace it as a whole, on account of its “glaring” imperfections.

Indeed, modernity is not perfect, what human product is? But it also cannot be perfected by people who insist on remaining outside it, or who are not wholeheartedly committed to it, or who continue to look at it with a certain disdain, it being a “foreign” product and all that, and who continue to reject its essence: the insistence on individuality and individual rights.

Indeed, if people in our region can only accept that concept of individual rights, then, each one of them becomes free to create the particular mixture of modernity and traditionalism that best suits the quirks of his/her mind and soul. For a wholehearted embracing of modernity is not synonymous with a complete rejection of everything that traditional values have to offer. On the contrary, it simply gives the individual the right to construct the values system that best suits him/her and to act on that so long as the basic human rights of others are respected. This embedded ambivalence of modernity is what makes it better than traditional value systems with their claims to divine sanctions and inability to tolerate “heretical” views.

But this ambivalence is also modernity’s weak point, one that is often exploited by Islamists, and other fundamentalists, who would protest loudly against any infringements against their basic human rights, while simultaneously and quite knowingly preaching a message that, in effect, denies others their basic human rights.

Be that as it may, every system does have weak points, and the best way to protect the modern system from its main weak point is through vigilance. The temptation to resort to intimidation and establishing legal restrictions on basic freedoms, such as free speech and the freedom of assembly is nothing less than foolish as it will eventually serve to undermine the very system we are trying to protect.

Asking all the wrong questions

Ever since the Danish Cartoon Controversy, a spate of alarmist articles and reports on Islam and the Muslim communities in western societies appeared in various newspapers and journals across the world, all warning against the danger posed by Islam as such and all asserting that Islam as a faith is inherently violence.

But, and while I do not dispute the existence of a problem related to a clash between the values espoused by traditional faiths and those advocated by modernity, I find it too simplistic, nonetheless, to make such absurd claims. For like all other traditional faith systems out there, Islamic teachings and holy texts have throughout history lent themselves equally to the pursuit of peace and happiness as to the waging of war against the infidels and the heretics.

As such, the real questions in font of us is not whether Islam is a religion of peace or not, and not whether Europe is being Islamicized through an invasion of hordes of Muslim immigrants, rather the real questions should focus on the nature of the mechanisms that need to be employed for modernizing Muslim societies and of integration Muslims into the fabric of modern existence. The questions should also deal with the various variants of transitional arrangements that need to be involved here.

There are no easy answers here, of course, but that’s in itself a demonstration of the relevance and correctness of the questions being posed. The questions referred to above, on the other hand, can lead to the very simple conclusion regarding the inevitability and necessity of conflict, with all the compromises conflicts usually entail with regards to respect of the basic human rights of the perceived “enemies.”

Muslim reformers need to shout

In their first women conference in Hyderabad, India, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind president Dr. Mohammed Abdul Haq Ansari asserted that, “[i]n the name of liberty, women are being sexually exploited and misused for promotion of brands. But reality is that dogs are given better treatment than women in the western countries.”

These are some very powerful words indeed. Unfortunately, we rarely hear such powerful condemnations against women abuse practiced in Muslim societies. Our sharpest criticisms are always reserved for the West, while we tend to whitewash and deny our own problems no matter how serious they happen to be. In fact, we often tend to blame our most serious problems on the West as well.

Islamic radicalism, for instance, and according to former Iranian President, Muhammad Khatami, is the product of a “self-centred” West that is “determined to see the entire world adopt its values.”

But, and to give Mr. Khatami some credit, he does acknowledge that the “violence and extremism” we see in parts of the Islamic world seem to stem from “their backwardness and a feeling of humiliation, making understanding and compromise all the more difficult.”

Still, and unless we are ready to acknowledge that this backwardness comes as an indication that Islam itself is perfectible and that Muslims don’t have a monopoly on knowledge, even in matters pertaining to spirituality and ethical/moral behavior, and unless we are willing to tackle the specific details involved in such acknowledgements, legitimizing all the while the different approaches and interpretations that are bound to emerge as a result of this exercise, such general admissions of culpability are hardly enough to stem the rising tide of radicalism and enable our societies to rise up to the level of developmental challenges posed by modernity. 

Hiding behind the insistence on our cultural specificity by making such transparent statements and assertions as the ones made recently by Mr. Eyad Madani, Saudi Minister of Culture and Information, in the opening moments of the Jeddah Economic Forum, when he noted that "[o]ur approach isn't to call for feminism, but rather femininity," is foolish to an extreme, as everybody knows by now invoking the argument pertaining to cultural specificity is consistently used to justify the curtailing of certain basic and well-established human right. In this case, the issue was unsurprisingly that of the status of women in Saudi society.

Still, Mr. Madani did stir up a controversy when he asserted that there "is nothing in the written laws of the country that prohibits women from applying for a driver's license,” and then urged “would-be Saudi women drivers to try to overturn the ban,” often imposed by the local authorities in the Kingdom.

But such minor assertions are hardly enough to balance things up in a part of the world that insists on reliving the crusades. Unless Muslims reformers become more willing to join the intellectual battle against the extremists in their own societies, the talibanization of our part of the world will be made inevitable.

The New Rushdiesque!

Indeed, it is happening again: protests and condemnations giving way to riots, arson and pandemonium. Just as Khomeini needed to use the Rushdie Affair to stoke the dying fires of his revolution, so now are the myriad Arab dictatorships, most notably the Syrian one, using an, at worst, unwise decision by a Danish publisher to rally the masses to the cause and divert their people’s attention, no matter how momentarily, from their corrupt authoritarian and inept rule. Indeed, a new Rushdiesque is unfolding, albeit a rather mediocre one. For Arab rulers cannot produce but mediocrity. The scenes in Damascus and Beirut are but a simple testament to this little macabre truth.

See in this regard as well the blogposts by Tabsir, Llano Estacado, Mental Mayhem and Religious policeman.