Ridley: Islamophobia in the West

[qatarperegrine]

I was going to write about Yvonne Ridley's talk on Islamophobia, but I don't feel I have much to say. I agree with a colleague who said Ridley just didn't add much to the dialogue. Her speech consisted largely of outrageously unsubstantiated claims that most of the audience agreed with anyway, and that was about that. It didn't really fuel intellectual discussion.

There's not much to refute when everything she said was couched in vague sentiments like "we should develop a zero-tolerance approach to anyone who'd try to dilute our faith" without specifying who is diluting the faith or (more importantly) exactly what a zero-tolerance approach would mean.

Much of the talk was actually from her recent article Beware the Happy Clappies, so if you did not hear her speak, reading that will give you a gist of her rhetoric.

The only major section of her speech not appearing in the article was on the Mohammed cartoon controversy. Specifically, she lifted up the Muslim world's response to that incident as an ideal display of Muslim values and solidarity. She said that the Muslim response sent the message "We can be strong; you can only push us so far." As proof of this she said gleefully that "You'd have to have an editor with suicidal tendencies to publish a cartoon [like those] again." I found this rather stunning. I don't know any Westerners who feel they have a more positive understanding of Islam as a result of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.

Harking back to my blog entry about about pacifism in Islam, she also said, "Muslims are not pacifists. We're peace-loving people, but we're not pacifists."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with Y. Ridley when she said only 'an editor with suicidal tendencies 'would publish a cartoon like that again. You may not know of any westerner who developed a more positive understanding of Islam, but one thing the world has learnt is that Muslims are not going to tolerate this kind of behaviour.This 'lets bash the Muslims' culture is sickening and the Muslims stood up and defended their beliefs loudly and clearly.I will admit some Muslims were over zealous in their display of anger and it may have distorted the true image of Islam as a religion of peace .However the benefit gained by protesting and showing objection outnumbered the harm.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Well, here's what I saw:

A newspaper published (admittedly distateful) cartoons that offended Muslims by linking Mohammad to acts of violence.

And Muslims defended Mohammad's honor by... committing acts of violence. And calling for less freedom of expression.

Frankly, the fact that the Muslim world's reaction is seen here as "defend[ing] their beliefs loudly and clearly" makes me lose a lot of respect for Muslim beliefs. It really weakened my faith in the idea that Islam and modernity/democracy are at all compatible, because clearly when there is conflict between freedom and piety, everyone is eager to throw freedom out the window.

[materjibrail.livejournal.com]

Just musing. According to one of the posts recently, lots of students have read or seen the DaVinci Code. Isn't that a bit like the Satanic verses? Salman Rushdie was not thought to be exploring interesting ideas that the mainstream missed. Do we have a double standard here? I find the Da Vinci Code to be uninspired writing, bad history and boring, as well as offensive to Christian beliefs: but I wouldn't ban it. The cartoons(which I never saw) were probably uninspired, bad history etc etc. as well as, obviously, offensive to Muslim beliefs.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

"but I wouldn't ban it"

The only country I know that DID ban it was Lebanon.

I really need to read some Salman Rushdie. Maybe when I'm home at Christmas.

Hi again

[(Anonymous)]

I just wanted to say bear in mind that the violent acts that were commited carried out in mostly if not entirely poverty stricken third world countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia. The Middle East chose to react in a much more rational, moderate way like boycotting Danish products.....well at least for a while. Im sure you know that so why is it that your perception of Islam is getting distorted because of these countries misinterpretation of it?

Re: Hi again

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Embassies were torched in Syria and Lebanon. A priest was shot in Turkey.

You're right that most of the Middle East (including, of course, Qatar) reacted much more moderately. However, many of our students supported the embassy-torchings and other violent reactions.

And that is, incidentally, why my perception of Islam was affected. If the violent reactions had been confined to a few isolated psychos, I wouldn't think any worse of Islam. After all, when artwork offensive to Christianity is produced, sometimes a few psychos make death threats against the artist. But that's not what happened. An awful lot of those "rational, moderate" people actually SUPPORT the more violent reactions. Ridley was gleeful about them, and held them up as a model of how Muslims should act. That makes the extreme reactions more than just a few isolated incidents. If mainstream Muslims think it was appropriate, then that DOES reflect on the religion as a whole.

Re: Hi again

[(Anonymous)]

An "awful lot" dont represent the mentality of billions of other muslims spread out throughout the world. Besides, you have to counter in the media exploitation of those supposed "awful lot". And like you said yourself before in order to get a better understanding one must not have bias and approach religion objectively and not allow people's, regardless of numbers, actions or reactions influence your conclusion of that religion. Lets assume its true and the majority are supportive of the violence. Do YOU think that is the REAL face of Islam? Is that what you will be certain of when your studying or teaching comparative religion? In the long run you can think what you want but dont for one second allow many's wrongdoings mislead you. That is the one thing that I learnt from YOU and value most since I found your blog. Your capacity for compassion and understanding inspires us all. But if you start lacking repsect for the faith of billins of people worldwide then we cant help it if we start lacking respect for you or your faith in return.

Re: Hi again

[qatar.livejournal.com]

"Lets assume its true and the majority are supportive of the violence. Do YOU think that is the REAL face of Islam?"

I think that my understanding of religions is fundamentally different from a Muslim understanding. I view religions as cultural phenomena, as human inventions, not as truths that are handed down from on high. As such, I think religions are what we make of them. On some fundamental level, Islam is defined by the religious practices and beliefs of Muslims. In contrast, every Muslim I talk to here differentiates between ISLAM, by which they mean the ideal of what Islam should be, and MUSLIM PRACTICE, by which they mean what Muslims actually do.

On the one hand, this is a useful distinction to make. It's the reason that Huston Smith, in his landmark comparative religions textbook, discusses only the ideals of the world religions, and not the practices that sometimes belay those ideals. And this makes sense. The presence of religious wars shows that people are often pretty terrible about applying their religious beliefs, and are susceptible to employing violence despite those beliefs. That is not always the religion's fault -- it would sure seem unfair to blame the Buddha for Buddhist violence in Sri Lanka, for example. So from that perspective, it's conceivable to imagine a world in which every Muslim was violent and immoral, and yet Islam was still a good religion. (Just like Christianity is still a good religion despite the Crusades and other morally objectionable interludes in Christian history.)

However, I don't think the situation is really as clear-cut as that. Because, again, I think that religions are cultural constructs (created in response to to experiences of the Divine) and not handed down by God personally. As human creations, they are what we make of them. Imagine I invented a religion and said that it would make the practitioner more compassionate. Yet everyone who adopted my religion, in practice, became really mean and argumentative. Do you think it would be fair for me to say, "It's not my religion's fault; we value compassion"? That doesn't work. I can't define the religion in complete isolation from the way it's practiced and from the way it affects people in the real world.

So if many Muslims supported an extreme response, does that support become the real face of Islam? I don't think there's an easy answer. On the one hand, it's quite likely that those Muslims were misguided and not interpreting Islam correctly. On the other hand, I think it's useful to wonder whether there are aspects of Islam that condoned and encouraged the extreme response.

Again, I only bring this up BECAUSE Ridley said that the Muslim world's reaction was the ideal one. If the extreme reactions were in violation to the ideals and principles of Islam, then I would not hold Islam responsible at all -- any more than I hold Buddhism responsible for the civil war in Sri Lanka. However, this reaction is being explicitly lifted up as being in accordance with -- even a shining example of -- Muslim ideals. And that worries me a great deal.

Thank you for reminding me that I value compassion and understanding. For some reason I have a very short temper when it comes to the cartoon controversy. :-(

Re: Hi again

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly. The REAL face of Islam, if you ask me, is what Muslims around the world do. Not what is written somewhere by someone regarding how it should be. I don't care for religious texts and dogmas, what I care about is the world I live in. And what I see is probably not the intended REAL face of religions, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to swallow. The reaction of the Muslim world towards the cartoon controversy was appaling. Torching embassies???

QC