| Muslims and Islamophobia | |
| 16 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Muslims face Islamophobia in Europe | |
 I would like to touch upon yet another important aspect of Islamophobia, the securitization of Islam and Muslims, especially after Sept. 11 and other tragic terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere. Islam and Muslims are usually singled out in the media and in political discourse which leads to the emergence of a sense of threat and fear. Muslims in Europe and elsewhere are viewed with suspicion because their beliefs are easily associated with violence and terrorism. The securitization of Islam erects a huge social barrier between Muslims and their European neighbours. The perceived Islamic threat leads to the profiling of Muslims, the restriction of civil liberties and the alienation of Muslims from the wider society through their withdrawal to a communitarian lifestyle. — Talip Küçükcan
URL of this page: http://newageislam.net/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1925 —- Muslims face Islamophobia in Europe by Talip Küçükcan Oct 05, 2009 There is no doubt that the presence of Muslims in many European countries has changed the demographic and religious landscape of the West. The arrival of Muslims in large numbers to Europe since the 1950s and 1960s and their permanent settlement through citizenship thereafter call for a reconsideration of the dominant view on the relationship between religion and society that is held in Europe. Since the Enlightenment, modernity has steadily secularized European societies, where church and state are separated, which has created different models depending on the political and cultural legacies of the countries concerned. As a consequence of social, political and legal developments after the Enlightenment, many people came to believe that modernism necessarily leads to secularism and the withdrawal of religion from the public sphere, which has largely been the European experience. However, when we look beyond Europe there is a different picture, including in the United States, which demonstrates that religion is a vitally important social phenomenon. Many social scientists today believe that Europe is an exception rather than a universal model as far as the public presence of religion and its relationship with society and the state are concerned. One of the widely held beliefs and deeply rooted assumptions that we must free ourselves from is the idea that there is an inevitable conflict between religion and modernity. The global reality and human experience throughout the centuries provide ample evidence that religion and multiple forms of modernity are reconcilable. Various forms of state-religion relations and the role of religion in providing education, health and social welfare services and the governments’ recognition of and support for religious institutions in many European countries and the US confirm the fact that religion does not necessarily challenge modern values and institutions, rather it makes contributions where the state may fall short. Although Europe has opened its arms to Muslims and largely allowed them to become citizens and settle down, several reports indicate that European politicians, the media and the public have not had similar success in opening their hearts and minds to accept Muslims and their culture. Reports by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, the European Network against Racism and the Runneymede Trust demonstrate that there is widespread Islamophobia in Europe. Image of Islam and Muslims in Europe Recent polls demonstrate that there is a growing mistrust towards Muslims in Europe. For example, a 2006 Deutsche Welle article shared findings from a survey which indicated that “Germans’ esteem for Islam has been falling since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, with 83 percent of the 1,076 Germans questioned in the survey agreeing with the statement that Islam is driven by fanaticism.” That amount is 10 percent higher than the previous survey results. A majority of the survey’s respondents (71 percent) is reported to have said “they believed Islam to be ‘intolerant,’ up from 66 percent.” The same survey also reports that “when asked what they associate with the word ‘Islam,’ 91 percent of respondents connected the religion to the discrimination of women, and 61 percent called Islam ‘undemocratic.’ Only 8 percent of Germans associated ‘peacefulness’ with Islam.” Moreover, it should also be underlined that content of the news coverage and the language of media reporting tends to focus predominantly on negative representations of Islam, such as conflicts and violence in the Middle East and issues related to terrorism and extremism. All of these contribute to the rise of essentialist views about Islam and Muslims in Western public opinion, leading to Islamophobia. For those who are sceptical about the notion of Islamophobia or who think that such a conceptualization is nothing more than an exaggeration, I would recommend looking at newspapers and other sources of information on current affairs. Let us see how our perception of Islam and Muslims in Europe is shaped and construed by the names, places, events, ideas, practices and objects that we tend associate with the words “Islam” or “Muslim” while reading or listening to the news. Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, in their book “Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy,” state that the names and events people “think of tend to be associated with violence [e.g. Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 tragedies, Monolithic and essentialized perception of Islam At this point we should turn to some factors that deepen social anxiety, fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims (Islamophobia) in Europe. Europeans tend to see Muslims as a monolithic community with a single identity and shared culture and imagination. However, a closer examination of Muslims will yield that there is great diversity among Muslim nations and communities. There are different zones of Islam (Asian, Arabic, Persian and Turkish) that have created enormous diversity through the centuries. Today there is yet another zone of Islam, which is the European zone, constructed by Muslims who are born, educated, employed and integrated in the receiving societies and have developed hybrid identities with a sense of belonging to Europe rather than their ancestral home. This hybridization of Muslim identity should be acknowledged and a monolithic perception of Islam and Muslim identity as essentialized categories should be given up. Securitization of Islam and Muslims Now I would like to touch upon yet another important aspect of Islamophobia, the securitization of Islam and Muslims, especially after Sept. 11 and other tragic terrorist attacks in Europe and elsewhere. Islam and Muslims are usually singled out in the media and in political discourse which leads to the emergence of a sense of threat and fear. Muslims in Europe and elsewhere are viewed with suspicion because their beliefs are easily associated with violence and terrorism. The securitization of Islam erects a huge social barrier between Muslims and their European neighbors. The perceived Islamic threat leads to the profiling of Muslims, the restriction of civil liberties and the alienation of Muslims from the wider society through their withdrawal to a communitarian lifestyle. The root causes of violence and terror should be sought somewhere else rather than in religion, as suggested by thinkers such as Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, who argue that global inequalities, injustices in the distribution of social welfare and deepening social problems are the main causes of violence and terror. As Karen Armstrong eloquently pointed out in a recent interview: “The divisions in our world are not the result of religion or of culture, but are politically based. There is an imbalance of power in the world, and the powerless are beginning to challenge hegemony of the Great Powers, declaring their independence of them; often using religious language to do so.” This requires the desecuritization of Islam and Muslims in Europe where they live, work and study alongside other Europeans. What to do to combat Islamophobia? Dominant views on the place of religion in modern society, its expression and representation should be reconsidered. Religion should be given a legitimate place and position in the public sphere. Islam should be recognized legally and officially and granted an equal status with other major religions. Muslims should feel that they are equal citizens of the countries in which they live, where their faith has legal recognition and enjoy the same rights and privileges as other faiths. Islam/Muslims (and other faiths) should not be considered a threat to European values. The securitization and stigmatization of Islam/Muslims should be avoided. Islam/Muslims should be not essentialized and regarded as a monolithic block. Diversity and plurality within Islamic communities should be acknowledged and the institutionalization of interpretational and intellectual diversity should be supported. Regular research on the aspects and dimensions of Islamophobia should be carried out. In order to conduct a rational debate on Islamophobia, a Europe-wide research group should be established to collect reliable data. Islamic institutions of higher educational should be established to provide Islamic education to young Muslims in Europe and to educate religious teachers and imams. International cooperation in the field of Islamic/religious studies should be established between European institutions and schools of higher education in the Muslim world to facilitate intellectual exchanges. In order to pursue such a project, the following is proposed: Dual degree programs should be established. Muslim students can register for BA, MA and Ph.D. studies and can be taught both in Europe and in recognized universities in the Muslim world. Graduates of such programs can have dual degrees and be eligible for employment in Europe. Centres of excellence in Islamic scholarship and learning should be established in various European countries in order perform three main tasks: 1) to inform the European public, the media and politicians about Islam/Muslim culture; 2) to contribute to the emergence of Muslim thinkers and scholars who will be capable of independent and original intellectual research; 3) to establish links between Muslims in Europe and the intellectual trends of their ancestral homes in the Muslim world. The existing institutional structures and experiences of Muslim countries should be utilized. In this context Turkey offers some interesting models. There are 24 faculties of Islamic studies, offering state-of-the-art bachelor’s degrees in Turkey. Two of these faculties in Ankara and Istanbul launched a joint program two years ago called the “International Islamic Studies Program.” This program accepts students of Turkish origin from European countries who are citizens of the countries they live. They follow a Turkish program augmented with subjects held in several European languages. More recently, the faculty of Islamic studies at Marmara University in Istanbul created a “Bachelor of Islamic Studies in English” which is open to all nationalities. These courses should be examined and utilized in the context of educating young Muslims and providing religious leadership to Muslim communities in Europe in the medium and long terms. The media should be paid a greater attention and educated in their reporting about Muslims. Professional guidelines should be prepared and journalists should be made aware of the sensibilities of Muslims. A closer dialogue and cooperation should be established among media professionals and journalists to enhance international understanding. To this end, exchange programs between Western and Muslim media institutions should be initiated to foster mutual understanding and gain an insider perspective about the “other.” Media organizations and Internet service providers should ensure that vulnerable groups have easy access to complaint procedures. To this end appropriate legislation should be enacted to prevent the dissemination of illegal, racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic material in the media. Such initiatives, of course, should not be confused with censorship. Diversity in the media should be increased by the employment of more journalists with an Islamic background in the mainstream media who would be qualified to understand the significant distinctions and relations between religion and politics. A longer version of this article was presented at the “Hearing on Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia in Europe” organized by the Committee on Culture, Science and Education, Council of Europe on Sept. 8, 2009. URL of this page: http://newageislam.net/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1925 |
Category / Politics and Islam
Mizrahi Jews Reach Out to the Arab World
| Islam and the West | |
| 16 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Mizrahi Jews Reach Out to the Arab World | |
 Nevertheless, those painful moments should not conceal nor erase the well known and documented history of shared life. Muslim rule over the Jews was much more tolerant and lenient compared with non-Muslim countries. The fate of Jews in Muslim regions cannot be compared with the tragic fate of Jews in other regions, Europe in particular.
Judaism and Islam are not far apart from religious, spiritual, historical and cultural point of views. The alliance between these two religions dates back many generations. Yet the memory of this partnership and the unique history of Jews originated from the Muslim and Arab world (which today constitutes 50% of the Jewish population in Israel!) has unfortunately faded, both in Israel as well as in the majority of the Muslim world. In the necessary reconciliation process between West and East, oriental Jews can and should embody a live bridge of remembrance, healing and partnership. — Sherri Muzher URL of this page: http://newageislam.net/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1923 Mizrahi Jews Reach Out to the Arab World ‘Mizrahi’ means (in Hebrew) ‘East’ and it is part of a powerful mechanism of classification By Sherri Muzher When the late Egyptian president and Pan-Arabist Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, it may surprise people to know that it was the Egyptian singer and Mizrahi Jew Leila Murad who was chosen as the Revolution’s official singer. Murad was chosen over the much loved Egyptian singer and darling of the Arab world, Umm Kalthoum. The reality is that Mizrahi Jews a.k.a. Arab Jews have played important roles throughout Arab history. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Mizrahi Jewish journalist and activist Mati Shemoelof. He and other Mizrahi Jews issued a special letter to the Arab/Muslim world this past summer — not only talking about their shared history but also to realize the positive message set forth by President Obama earlier this year in Cairo, Egypt. Sherri Muzher (SM): Before getting into the letter, ‘A New Spirit: A Letter from Jewish Descendents of the Countries of Islam,’ I was hoping that you could describe what being a Mizrahi Jew has meant to you and how has it shaped your outlook throughout your life? Mati Shemoelof (MS): Being a Mizrahi Jew is a personal family matter, as well as a political issue. It is part of other identities I hold. Also to be Mizrahi Jew is part of my social struggle to change the values that stand in the covenant/treaty between the state and the society. Because Mizrahis are still oppressed, it is my task to fight against discrimination and look for a multi-cultural consciousness. I look for new structures that will create more tolerant ways to handle the diverse Identities in the Middle-East. SM: Mizrahi Jews and Sephardic Jews. What is the major difference since both are Middle Eastern Jews? MS: Sephardic Jews originated in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. This subgroup of Jews includes mainly the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492. The Sephardic Jews are part of the Mizrahi Jews. The term ‘Mizrahi’ means (in Hebrew) ‘East’ and it is part of a powerful mechanism of classification. Mizrahi Jews are historically Jews of Middle-Eastern descent whose families, in most cases, immigrated to Israel from Arab countries. They form about half of the Israeli Jewish population. The painful reality of Israel is the division within the society between Ashkenazi Jews (of European descent) and Mizrahis. This reality often goes unnoticed by outside observers, who naturally focus on the more violent aspects of Israeli political reality and the division between Jew/non-Jew which the Israeli state draws. In fact, in the mainstream of Israeli discourse there has long been a systematic avoidance/denial of this division, maintaining, as is perhaps ‘demanded’ by the core of Zionist ideology and its ongoing nation-building project, that the Jews are a distinct people and that Israeli Jews have a unified ethnicity and a shared history. Indeed, the mere notion of an Arab Jew, as some Mizrahis identify today themselves, is close to unthinkable in most mainstream media and consciousness. But the divide is not painful simply because it is denied. There is a history of political, economic and cultural oppression of Mizrahis and, as relatively recent scholarship establishes clearly, much of these elements are present to this day. SM: What sorts of issues are unique to the Mizrahi Jews? MS: Mizrahi Jews strive to bring about a meaningful change among the Israeli society and implement values of democracy, human rights, social justice, and equality and transform Israel to a multi cultural society. As a poet, I want to see that the literature and poetry of the Arab Jews as part of the curriculum and the whole Israeli canon. Still, it is a long way in implementing those ideas inside the mainstream Ethno-National cultural realms. SM: You are a member of Mimizrach Shemesh, an organization devoted to the Jewish tradition of social responsibility. How difficult is it in a climate of mistrust and anger to advocate this social responsibility? MS: Your question shows that you are familiar with the difficulties that any social activist faces in their everyday activism. ‘Mimizrach Shemesh’ is really a special institute trying to bring the theological and religious experiences of the Mizrahi Jews into the act of social change. For instance it re-constructs the world of the liturgical music of the Piyut from the distant past to today’s scene. It isn’t the only place for Mizrahis to re-connect to their heritage, it is a place for every Jew and non Jew to sit together and learn melodies that sing to God almighty. After you learn, sing and rejoice together, you can use this social and cultural power to bring political change. SM: The title of the letter is, ‘A new spirit.’ Explain the significance of this title. MS: Well, Ezéchiel Rahamim, a close friend, a talented author, scholar and the initiator/ entrepreneur of the letter thought that we should look for ‘New Spirit’ in terms of universalizing our identity and re-create it in a different way to move in the Middle East. For example, for years the West has been trying to mediate between Israel and the Arab states. But the European thought is the one which brought nationalism and Eurocentric as well as Orientalist ideas into the Middle East. Those European constructions couldn?t imagine a broad Arab-Jew range of identities (in which separation isn’t needed). For a thousand of years, Jews and Arabs lived, created, and breathed from the Arab culture without having the need to build an Apartheid separation wall between Judaism and Arabism. We thought that a ‘New Spirit’ is needed as parallel to the ‘A New Beginning’ name giving by President Barack Obama in his Cairo speech of June, 4, 2009. President Barack Obama is the first African-American to be elected; we’d like to see an Israeli prime minister who has an Arab heritage, will take on social responsibility and talk about his/her identity with pride. SM: Can you talk about why you and other Mizrahi Jews decided to issue this letter now? MS: In 2007 I was one of the editors of a book that dealt with the third Mizrahi generation (those who grow up in the seventies and eighties). The name of the book was: ‘Echoing Identities: Young Mizrahi Anthology’ . We use an autobiographical prose in order to identify a new and assertive political collective of writers. That cultural confrontation was part of the ongoing Mizrahi and social struggles that came before us like the Israeli ‘Black-Panthers’ movement and the ‘Democratic Mizrahi rainbow’ and others. Right after the Obama speech in Cairo, Ezéchiel called me. He was totally enthusiastic. He had an idea that we should continue and widen his (President Obama) message as part of our Mizrahi Generation. Ezéchiel wanted to use our list of writers from the book and sign that call. I immediately agreed. We published the call in the Israeli media but we couldn’t get it ran for long. It seems that it was hard for the media to speak about it and they didn’t deal with it in a significant way. Please understand that it includes a really great list of Influential creators who signed it. Still, it seems that Israeli politics wasn’t interested in broadening her cultural national border. SM: In ‘A new spirit’, you and the other authors write about the Arabic culture being a ‘part of our identity, a part of it that we cannot sever and wouldn’t wish to sever, even if we could.’ Can you talk more about this, and how receptive are non-Middle Eastern Jews to this reminder? MS: In our communities, as in others, we find various responses and it is a long process of democratic dialogue. You must understand that it is a denial discourse and so it raises a lot of violent energy. You can’t learn about it in school so it’s really unspeakable outside academic or cultural spheres (i.e. in a political way). The first reaction I received was that we were racist. Friends of mine who work as editors asked me why they should publish it if European Jews were not included. ‘Well it isn’t about race’ I said. ‘It is about ethnicity.’ However, they couldn’t understand that we have different histories and symbolic imagination. I also tried to explain that we stand as a united Mizrahi generation not because we want to erase other groups but because we do believe that the end to the silencing of our group is raising our voice. But in Israel I guess, even friendship can’t precede the national Zionist idea of: ‘One nation, One language, One Memory.’ We still try to challenge it by those acts. SM: Would it be fair to say that given the shared history with the Arabs, Mizrahi Jews are more likely to effective conduits in the pursuit of peace between Arabs and Israelis? MS: This argument can lead to essentialism so I will be careful. We use the Mizrahi term which the country has used to label us to empower ourselves. The Arab Jew’s narrative holds creative ways to handle the problems which the national idea brought upon each other in the Middle-East. It is sharing knowledge of the Arabic language, culture and diverse viewpoints. The Arab Jew’s narrative holds in its memory and history and religion. But it is also a shared struggle for social justice and a re-construction of the region with its original inhabitants. So we stand in that tension between awareness and symbolic belonging and identification. And yes by moving on this scale of possibilities we can contribute to de-colonize the Israeli culture. SM: Who is your main target audience with this manifesto and why? MS: The main target of this Manifesto is really first of all a call to the Arab World to show that the Israeli government and policy makers don’t speak in our language. It is really a multi-cultural universal call for social justice in order to integrate into the Middle East without colonization and oppression, and be a part of the interest of the region itself. SM: If President Obama was sitting across from you, what would you say to him? MS: ‘Mr. President, I am proud that a community organizer (as I was) reached the higher level of responsibility. Your social vision is an example to all of us.’ If he had more time I would ask about the influence that Malcolm X’s heritage had on him. I wrote a thesis about the connection between the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee’s film. I hope that my academic work will lead to a personal talk about identity, poetry and Arab-Jew awareness as a tool for social change. ‘A New Spirit, from Israeli Descendants of the Countries of Islam’ An open letter from Israeli Descendants of the Countries of Islam: We, the daughters and sons of parents who immigrated to Israel from Arab and Muslim countries, hereby express our support for the new spirit presented by president Obama in his Cairo speech. A spirit of reconciliation, realistic vision, striving for justice and dignity, respect for different religions, cultures and human beings, whoever and wherever they are. We were born in Israel and we are Israelis. Our country is important to us, and we would like to see it secure, just, and prosperous for the benefit of its inhabitants. Yet, the recent conflict into which we were born cannot erase the long history of hundreds and thousands of years, during which our parents and ancestors lived in Muslim and Arab countries. Not only they have lived in the region from time immemorial, but were also part of the fabric of daily life and have contributed to the development of the region and its culture. Nowadays, the cultures of the lands of Islam, Middle East, and the Arab world, are all still part of our identity; a part which we cannot, and do not wish to repress nor uproot. Surly, the Jews living in Muslim countries endured some difficult times. Nevertheless, those painful moments should not conceal nor erase the well known and documented history of shared life. Muslim rule over the Jews was much more tolerant and lenient compared with non-Muslim countries. The fate of Jews in Muslim regions cannot be compared with the tragic fate of Jews in other regions, Europe in particular. One can view the last decades as a period during which a deep chasm has been opened between the We however, prefer to perceive these last decades as a painful yet temporary crack in a history that goes longer than that. We have a shared past and a shared future. Thus, when we look at the map, we see Israel as part of the Middle East, and not solely from a geographical perspective. Judaism and Islam are not far apart from religious, spiritual, historical and cultural point of views. The alliance between these two religions dates back many generations. Yet the memory of this partnership and the unique history of Jews originated from the Muslim and Arab world (which today constitutes 50% of the Jewish population in Israel!) has unfortunately faded, both in Israel as well as in the majority of the Muslim world. In the necessary reconciliation process between West and East, oriental Jews can and should embody a live bridge of remembrance, healing and partnership. From our point of view the rift between Israel/Jews and the Arab/Muslim world cannot last forever, it is splitting our identities and our souls. As for the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we hope that a fair solution of mutual respect and mutual recognition will be reached very soon. A solution that considers the hopes, fears and pains of the Palestinian side, as well as those of the Israeli side. We therefore, express our support for the new spirit set forth by President Obama in Cairo. We wish to join the vision for a future in which bridges of mutual respect and humanity will replace walls of suspicion, aggression and hatred. All this in the spirit of justice and humanism shared by both Judaism and Islam. Sherri Muzher is the Director of the Michigan Media Watch. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Source: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15461 URL of this page: http://newageislam.net/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1923 |
Mushairas Today: Are they responsible for the Muslim decline
| Urdu Section | |
| 16 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Mushairas Today: Are they responsible for the Muslim decline | |
| By Ehsan Hasan
URL: http://newageislam.net/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1922
|
Should Christians, Muslims and Jews unite?
| Interfaith Dialogue | |
| 15 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Should Christians, Muslims and Jews unite? | |
 Today, many ideological struggles continue to divide the world. However, the major ideological conflict is not between religions, but between people who believe in truth, in God’s existence and in the need for cooperation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, people who deny truth, who deny holiness: – the unbelievers … This will be done by forming an alliance of all conscientious people, namely, the righteous among Christians and Muslims, along with devout Jews, who will come together and unite in this common cause. |
The outsourcing of stupidity in the English-language Arab press
| Islam and the West | |
| 15 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| The outsourcing of stupidity in the English-language Arab press | |
 As the Arab media has moved away from overt conspiracy theories and, in most cases, the most blatant forms of anti-Semitism, a couple of those that publish in English have found a way to continue to include these malignant ideas with a form of plausible deniability: simply attribute them to someone with a Western name. — Hussein Ibish.
Disengaging America from the Israel Lobby — America’s free press, justice system, and democracy are dependent upon the separation of American from Israeli interests. To survive, America must disentangle itself from the Zionist web of control. The common Zionist argument that Jews should get to keep what they stole just because they’ve been sitting on other people’s property for so many years is not a valid legal argument. |
syedmdasadullah.wordpress.com 