|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
 Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:39 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
| I was a teenager at the time. It made me think that Muslims were all a bunch of immoral cowards. It also made someone I had never heard of look like a hero. Fortunately I met enough Muslims who were more liberal minded later on to realise that not all of them are so pathetic, but there's likely nothing Iran could have done to create a worse impression of Islam from my youthful point of view |
A lot of Muslims (as well as secular folk from Muslim backgrounds) were quite annoyed that the Radicals became the face of Islam as a result of the Rushdie Affair. Writers like Kenan Malik, Hanif Kureishi and Monica Ali have complained bitterly about this.
Here's an artilce by Kenan Malik along those lines:
Exploding the fatwa myths
| Quote: |
Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa transformed the Rushdie affair into a global conflict with historical repercussions. It also helped shroud it in myths about what caused it and about the lessons to be drawn from it. Twenty years on it is time we laid to rest the myths of the Rushdie affair.
Myth 1: The controversy over Rushdie's novel was driven by religion. It wasn't. It was a political conflict. The Satanic Verses first became an issue in India because an election was due in November 1988, two months after the publication of the novel. No politician wanted to alienate any section of India's 150-million strong Muslim community just before an election. Hardline Islamist groups used Rushdie's book to try to win political concessions. The novel subsequently became an issue in Britain as it turned into a weapon in the faction fights between various Islamic groups in this country.
Even more important was the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for supremacy in the Islamic world. From the 1970s onwards, Saudi Arabia had used oil money to fund Salafi organisation and mosques worldwide to cement its position as spokesman for the umma. Then came the Iranian revolution of 1979 that overthrew the Shah, established an Islamic republic, made Tehran the capital of Muslim radicalism, Ayatollah Khomeini its spiritual leader, and posed a direct challenge to Riyadh.
The Rushdie affair became a key part of that conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudis set up the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs, the principal anti-Rushdie group in Britain. Riyadh provided the funding and its co-chairman was a Saudi diplomat. The fatwa was an attempt by Iran to wrestle the initiative back from the Saudis, especially at a time when the country had lost face by being forced to pull out of its bloody eight-year war with Iraq and when political reformists were gaining the upper hand in Tehran.
Myth 2: All Muslims were offended by The Satanic Verses. They weren't. Until the fatwa the campaign against The Satanic Verses was largely confined to the subcontinent and Britain. Aside from the involvement of Saudi Arabia, there was little enthusiasm for a campaign against the novel in the Arab world or in Turkey, or among Muslim communities in France or Germany. When Saudi Arabia tried at the end of 1988 to get the novel banned in Muslim countries worldwide, few responded except those with large subcontinental populations, such as South Africa or Malaysia.
Even Iran did not ban the novel. Today, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui is a founding trustee of British Muslims for Secular Democracy. Twenty years ago his views about Islam and secularism were very different, being then a great admirer of the Iranian Revolution. He was in Tehran in the autumn of 1988 and was party to plenty of discussions about The Satanic Verses, in street cafes and government ministries. "There was little hostility to the novel", he remembers. "It was widely discussed. There were even some good reviews in the press."
Myth 3: The campaign against The Satanic Verses was about defending the dignity of the Muslim community. It wasn't. Rushdie's critics no more spoke for the Muslim community than Rushdie himself did. Both represented different strands of opinion within Muslim communities. Rushdie gave voice to a radical, secular sentiment that in the 1980s was deeply entrenched. Rushdie's critics spoke for some of the most conservative strands.
Their campaign against The Satanic Verses was not to protect the Muslim communities from unconscionable attack from anti-Muslim bigots but to protect their own privileged position within those communities from political attack from radical critics, to assert their right to be the true voice of Islam by denying legitimacy to such critics. As the philosopher Shabbir Akhtar, who became a spokesman for the Bradford Council of Mosques after the book-burning demonstration, put it in his book Be Careful with Muhammad!, "Islamic doctrine wisely discourages inappropriate kinds of curiosity; and orthodoxy encourages 'safe' thoughts." He himself refused "to countenance any subtlety of mind or will that might undermine Islam." People like Akhtar succeeded in their mission at least in part because secular liberals embraced them as the "authentic" voice of the Muslim community.
Myth 4: The Rushdie affair demonstrates the need for greater regulation on speech in a plural society. In fact it demonstrates the very opposite. It is precisely because we live in a plural society that expression needs to be as free as possible. In a plural society, it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. And we should deal with those clashes rather than suppress them. Important because any kind of social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities.
"If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict", the sociologist Tariq Modood has suggested, "They mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others' fundamental beliefs to criticism." But to limit such criticism is to limit the democratic process and the possibilities of social progress. Human beings, as Rushdie put it in his essay "In Good Faith", written a year after the fatwa, "understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the unsayable; not by bowing the knee whether to gods or to men." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| On the other hand wrote: |
My point is that a lot of Muslims expressed the same sort of sentiments about The Satanic Verses, yet there was much less criticism from the Left against that book. Furthermore, whatever his original intention in writing the novel, Rushdie is now pretty clearly in the "highly critical of Islam" camp. Here's a friendly interview he did with Irshad Manji, a woman despised among the leftist tendency I was referencing earlier.
http://tinyurl.com/cwdmcx
As you can see from reading the interview, Rushdie is pretty much on the same page as Manji when it comes to Islamic issues. Yet, in some progressive circles, Manji is subjected to vitriol of an intensity that I rarely, if ever, see directed against Rushdie. |
On this I can't comment. I don't know any of these lefties giving Rushdie a 'free pass' while complaining of apparently similar ventures. But I did enjoy the article. Thanks. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| But I did enjoy the article. Thanks. |
And I enjoyed the Malik piece. One small point, though...
| Quote: |
| Myth 1: The controversy over Rushdie's novel was driven by religion. It wasn't. It was a political conflict. The Satanic Verses first became an issue in India because an election was due in November 1988, two months after the publication of the novel. No politician wanted to alienate any section of India's 150-million strong Muslim community just before an election. Hardline Islamist groups used Rushdie's book to try to win political concessions. The novel subsequently became an issue in Britain as it turned into a weapon in the faction fights between various Islamic groups in this country. |
The politicians may have been using the book as a political weapon, but presumably the voters who responded positively to the politicans' pandering did so because they were offended by the book on religious grounds. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| On the other hand wrote: |
And I enjoyed the Malik piece. One small point, though...
| Quote: |
| Myth 1: The controversy over Rushdie's novel was driven by religion. It wasn't. It was a political conflict. The Satanic Verses first became an issue in India because an election was due in November 1988, two months after the publication of the novel. No politician wanted to alienate any section of India's 150-million strong Muslim community just before an election. Hardline Islamist groups used Rushdie's book to try to win political concessions. The novel subsequently became an issue in Britain as it turned into a weapon in the faction fights between various Islamic groups in this country. |
The politicians may have been using the book as a political weapon, but presumably the voters who responded positively to the politicans' pandering did so because they were offended by the book on religious grounds. |
Can you be sure? The religious conservatives and radicals screamed loudly, but how many were they speaking for? And a lot of British Asians who were offended were not even religious. For many it was just irrational ethnic pride at work.
Kenan Malik again:
| Quote: |
| Khomeini�s Islamic truth was nonsense on stilts, nothing more than a Shia attempt to wrest power from the Sunnis and the Saudis. It worked. At a stroke, the fatwa provided a new, global identity for any already radicalised young Muslims. Suddenly, to his amazement, Malik saw hitherto secular, left-wing young Muslims turn into Islamic fundamentalists. Khomeini had legitimised their discontent by shifting their gaze from the universal enemy of racism to the specific image of one man and his book. |
I didn't google up what I was looking for, and since I'm short on time, that will have to suffice. But Malik (and others) have talked about young Asian men who - prior to the controversy - had no interest in their parent's religion at all, and indeed were agnostic or atheist. Suddenly, they were up in arms claiming to be offended. A new brand of identity politics was forged in that time. I recall reading Malik discuss an acquaintance who - never having believed in Islam before - transformed from "leftwing wide boy to Islamic militant" overnight when the fuss began. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 10:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| A new brand of identity politics was forged in that time. I recall reading Malik discuss an acquaintance who - never having believed in Islam before - transformed from "leftwing wide boy to Islamic militant" overnight when the fuss began. |
Well, I'm a half French-Canadian lapsed Catholic. And if I heard some old-school anglo rednecks making fun of "dogan peasoupers", I might get my back up and go a bit tribal on them.
However, if I took my tribalism to the point of suddenly converting to ultramontaine "militant" Roman Catholicism, going back to mass every Sunday and taking communion on the tongue, one would have to assume that there had always been a strong, if latent, religious component to my psyche, over and above whatever ethnic loyalties I may have had. Otherwise, why wouldn't I just become a pro-francophone activist in the secular arena? In that mode, I could still defend French-Canadian Catholicism from irrational protestant attacks, without becoming a Catholic myself. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
