Ilan Pappe, is professor of history at the University of Exeter in the UK, co-director of the Exeter Center for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984-2007), and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies in Haifa (2000-2008). He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), The Modern Middle East (2005), A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (2003), and Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (1988). He was formerly a leading member of Hadash, and was a candidate on the party list in the 1996 and 1999 Knesset elections. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1978, and in 1984 obtained his PhD in history from the University of Oxford, under the guidance of Arab historian Albert Hourani and Roger Owen. His doctoral thesis became his first book, Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ilan Pappe: I'm not a traitor
Controversial historian Ilan Pappe left Israel last year after his endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel exposed him and his family to death threats. Now a professor in England, Pappe maintains that a cultural boycott on his homeland is the only way to end the occupation
Ayelet Negev
Last summer, the Pappe family packed its belongings, rented out its spacious house in Israel and moved to Britain. Ever since his support of an academic boycott on Israel's universities became public, historian Ilan Pappe, 54, has felt like public enemy number one. Pappe says he had received death threats by phone almost on a daily basis.
....Did it not occur to you that calling for an academic boycott on Israel might incite the public against you?
"I supported the boycott because I believe that without pressure, Israel will not end the occupation. Even before then I reached the conclusion that the peace process enables Israel to stall for time. When in 2003 several international organizations approached me and asked whether I would support the boycott I replied positively.
"I believe that things would change only if Israel receives a strong message that as long as the occupation continues it would not be a legitimate member of the international community, and that until then its academics, doctors and authors would not be welcome. A similar boycott was imposed on South Africa. It took 21 years, but it eventually led to the end of Apartheid."
....Do you also call for an economic boycott of Israel?
"I am currently editing a book that compares the situation in Israel to the situation in South Africa, and I'm becoming convinced that there too, the economic boycott was less effective than the cultural one. As the son of German Jews, I know how important it is for our elites to be a part of Europe."
....Did you wholeheartedly support the boycott?
"No, you can’t wholeheartedly recommend a boycott of your society, especially when it includes you place of work, the Haifa University… The last thing I enjoy is being the person that holds up a mirror to his society's face and says, 'Look how ugly you are.' Some people like to challenge and incite their neighbors. I'm not like that, I don't write in order to annoy and I certainly don't hate myself, and I also love many people in Israel. I did not commit treason.
"But, I'm a historian, and this is the truth the way I see it: The story of a victim and a victimizer. And the victim is the Palestinians. Without idealizing the Palestinians -victims are not necessarily nice people, but they are still victims."
Pappe claims that his promotion at Haifa University has been blocked due to his political activity. "Provincial Haifa was unwilling to grant me the rank of a professor. I left for England as a doctor and in two days I climbed two ranks and became a faculty professor at the University of Exeter," he states.
However, Haifa University President Aharon Ben-Zeev claims that the university applied only relevant considerations in the question of Pappe's promotion. "We applied the regular criteria according to the university's constitution: Not only the list and quality of publications, but other considerations pertaining to the contribution to the university, teaching and so on," he explained.
Claims of ethnic cleansing
In an article published in the Israeli Mita'am Review for Literature and Radical Thought this week, titled "On the destruction of the Palestinian cities, spring 1948," Pappe maintains that the claim that the Arab residents fled or left their homes willingly during the war is false, and that a policy of "cleansing" the area from Arabs was employed as part of a plan to establish a Jewish-only state.
Pappe made similar claims in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which was published in England in 2006, in which he also presented testimonies of alleged massacres of Palestinians by Jewish soldiers.
These claims have been contested by many historians in Israel and abroad. Dr. Mordechai Bar-On, a research fellow at the Yad Ben-Zvi Institute and a former MK, calls Pappe "a propagandist, not a historian." Bar-On said that "the term ethnic cleansing is a vicious one, because it has never been used prior to the wars in former Yugoslavia. Indeed, there were places where Arab were expelled… but to say that there was an evil plan since the inception of Zionism for a forceful transfer – this is simply wrong and vicious."
However, Pappe insists that allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel is the only thing that could secure peace in the region.
....Would you be willing to vacate your home when they return to what used to be their villages near your house in Tivon?
"After years of working with refugees around the world and attending conferences on the right of return, I believe that no such notion exists on the Palestinian side. They want to return while understanding that they will live alongside the Jews. They don't want to expel anyone. What turned me into a great lover of the Palestinians is the will of many among them to share the land with us. Even people in Hamas.
"The reason most of my friends in the territories voted for Hamas wasn't because they didn't want to share the land with the Israelis, but because they thought Hamas would be more effective in the struggle against the occupation."
...By using terror?
"They don't consider this to be terror. Fatah and Hamas employ the tools of the weak, because they don't have planes or tanks. They are as violent as the Israelis, no more or less, with only one difference: The difference between the violence of the occupier and the violence of those fighting occupation."
....An article you wrote titled "Genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank" was published in the Tehran Times about a month ago. Are you providing the enemy with weapons against us?
"On the contrary, I wish to speak to the people in Iran. A Jordanian newspaper wrote in its editorial a year ago that absurdly, I am Israel's best ambassador in the Arab world, because they say – if such Israelis exist, maybe there's hope for peace with the Jewish state."
....Would you like your sons to serve in the army?
"It's their decision, but I preferred it if they didn't. As long as Israel has an occupying army, a rather cruel army, I wouldn’t want them to be part of it… I don't think there is one moral person in the world that supports what Israel stands for. And it pains me to say this. I truly love the country, I would very much like to live in it, but I very much dislike my state. Everything related to its policy against the Palestinians makes me very angry."
Pappe denies being more sensitive to the suffering of Palestinians than to that of Israelis. "I'm shocked when I see the child who lost his leg in Sderot, and I'm shocked when I see a child killed in Gaza. But as long as Israel maintains its stance that the Palestinian issue can be resolved by force, the Palestinian side will respond with force.
"Once we realize that the only way is to relinquish some of our holy ideas, and once the Palestinians give up the idea of nationalism, and once they realize that there needs to be one state here that isn't Jewish nor Palestinian, but a state of all its citizens, like in the US, we will have peace."
Original article here: http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3516193,00.html
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Faith.....
"And of them are some who listen unto thee. But canst thou make the deaf to hear even though they apprehend not? (42)And of them is he who looketh toward thee. But canst thou guide the blind even though they see not? (43) Lo! Allah wrongeth not mankind in aught; but mankind wrong themselves. (44) And on the day when He shall gather them together, (when it will seem) as though they had tarried but an hour of the day, recognising one another, those will verily have perished who denied the meeting with Allah and were not guided. (45) "
Surah Yunus [ Jonah ] , 10 :42-45
Faith is a gift. A precious gift.
All of us have gone through this phase of sadness in life having to see close friends and relatives who are OK in all aspect except... faith or the lack of it. How tragic.
But this tragedy is not just confined to us mere mortals. Remember even Adam had his Abel and Cain. Noah, despite more than 900 years of preaching, could not persuade his wife and family to join him in faith. Abraham, failed with his father.Abraham's cousin brother, Lot was a total failure with respect to his wife.Even Muhammad could not persuade his 'almost perfect' uncle, Abu Thalib, on his death bed!
So who are we to feel so tragic about our inability to bring 'faith'?
We can try but at the end of the day, Faith is truly a gift from Allah.
On the bright side consider one Leopold Weiss in 'Godless Europe' of 1920's. How a short stint as a journalist in the Middle East, and an indistinct short surah in the Noble Quran, and a very short 'cerebral enlightenment' interwined and forever changed his entire life:
"You are obsessed by greed for more and more
Until you go down to your graves
Nay ,but you will come to know.
Nay ,but you will come to know !
Nay ,if you but only knew it with the knowledge of certainty
You would indeed see the hell that you are in .
In time ,indeed you will see it with the eye of certainty .
On that day you will be asked what you have done with the boon of life ".
.
Surah 102, from The Glorious Quran
Leopold Weiss was travelling with his wife ,Elsa ,in September 1926 ,in a Berlin subway when he noted a well dressed business man ,with a beautiful suitcase on his kness and a large diamond ring on his hand .It was an upper-class compartment .
" But when I looked at his face ,I did not seem to be looking at a happy face .He appeared to be worried :but not merely worried but acutely unhappy ,with eyes staring vacantly in space and the corners of his mouth drawn in as if in pain -but not in bodily pain...Then I began to look around at all the other faces in the compartment-faces belonging without exception to well dressed ,well fed people :and in almost every one of them I could discern an expression of hidden suffering ,so hidden that the owner of the face seemed to be quite unaware of it "
Shocked by the transformation of a routine train ride into a moral vision ,he shared this experience with his wife ,Elsa .She also looked around with new eyes ,and said ," You are right .They all look as though they were suffering torments of hell...I wonder ,do they know themselves what is going on in them ?".When Leopold returned home ,he chanced upon his copy of The Glorious Quran which has fallen open on the 102nd chapter .The rest was history .
Leopold Weiss went on to become Europe's most famous convert to Islam ,Muhammad Asad .He found in the Quran a voice that addressed the particular obsession of his age [ which is still the obsession at this present 'age' ,despite our intellectuals' pretension to be not just 'post modern' but also 'post contemporary'].
Faith , my friend, is a gift from Allah. A most precious gift. Let us nurture and appreciate this gift.
Dr Nik Howk
Surah Yunus [ Jonah ] , 10 :42-45
Faith is a gift. A precious gift.
All of us have gone through this phase of sadness in life having to see close friends and relatives who are OK in all aspect except... faith or the lack of it. How tragic.
But this tragedy is not just confined to us mere mortals. Remember even Adam had his Abel and Cain. Noah, despite more than 900 years of preaching, could not persuade his wife and family to join him in faith. Abraham, failed with his father.Abraham's cousin brother, Lot was a total failure with respect to his wife.Even Muhammad could not persuade his 'almost perfect' uncle, Abu Thalib, on his death bed!
So who are we to feel so tragic about our inability to bring 'faith'?
We can try but at the end of the day, Faith is truly a gift from Allah.
On the bright side consider one Leopold Weiss in 'Godless Europe' of 1920's. How a short stint as a journalist in the Middle East, and an indistinct short surah in the Noble Quran, and a very short 'cerebral enlightenment' interwined and forever changed his entire life:
"You are obsessed by greed for more and more
Until you go down to your graves
Nay ,but you will come to know.
Nay ,but you will come to know !
Nay ,if you but only knew it with the knowledge of certainty
You would indeed see the hell that you are in .
In time ,indeed you will see it with the eye of certainty .
On that day you will be asked what you have done with the boon of life ".
.
Surah 102, from The Glorious Quran
Leopold Weiss was travelling with his wife ,Elsa ,in September 1926 ,in a Berlin subway when he noted a well dressed business man ,with a beautiful suitcase on his kness and a large diamond ring on his hand .It was an upper-class compartment .
" But when I looked at his face ,I did not seem to be looking at a happy face .He appeared to be worried :but not merely worried but acutely unhappy ,with eyes staring vacantly in space and the corners of his mouth drawn in as if in pain -but not in bodily pain...Then I began to look around at all the other faces in the compartment-faces belonging without exception to well dressed ,well fed people :and in almost every one of them I could discern an expression of hidden suffering ,so hidden that the owner of the face seemed to be quite unaware of it "
Shocked by the transformation of a routine train ride into a moral vision ,he shared this experience with his wife ,Elsa .She also looked around with new eyes ,and said ," You are right .They all look as though they were suffering torments of hell...I wonder ,do they know themselves what is going on in them ?".When Leopold returned home ,he chanced upon his copy of The Glorious Quran which has fallen open on the 102nd chapter .The rest was history .
Leopold Weiss went on to become Europe's most famous convert to Islam ,Muhammad Asad .He found in the Quran a voice that addressed the particular obsession of his age [ which is still the obsession at this present 'age' ,despite our intellectuals' pretension to be not just 'post modern' but also 'post contemporary'].
Faith , my friend, is a gift from Allah. A most precious gift. Let us nurture and appreciate this gift.
Dr Nik Howk
Monday, May 17, 2010
Being Muslims and More Besides.....Farish A Noor
I occasionally read Farish Noor's 'The Other Malaysia'. Historian,writer, social activist,prolific social commentator with an academic/ psuedo-Islamic bent. I do not necessarily agree with what he writes mostly. Occasionally he appeared spiritually confused in his writings.Probably commiting the usual 'sin' common amongst 'apologetic' Malaysian writers writing on Islam and the social millieu surrounding Islam: the need and hunger for applause from a 'secular' gallery often times, perhaps. Or the need to be politically correct most time? Or both? Why they need to apologise on behalf of Islam and Muslims , I cannot comprehend!....Or maybe he really is spiritually confused, I am not sure.... But this piece he wrote on 'Being Muslim......' is worth a thought:
-------------------------------------
Being Muslims and More Besides: Muslim Identities as Complex and Cosmopolitan
By Farish A. Noor ~ April 21st, 2010. Filed under: TOM_Main, The Other Malaysia.
(*Note: I was invited to write a think-piece for an upcoming project and I thought I’d share it with anyone interested)
The past decade has witnessed a period of intense speculation on the subject of Muslim subjectivity; often prompted by reasons that have less to do with academic concerns and more with politics instead. We are back to the question of what is a Muslim subject, and what does Muslim subjectivity imply as far as individual actions in the public domain is concerned. It is not an exaggeration to state that the question of ‘what is being a Muslim’ has been asked more than ever. Why?
A simple answer to the question of why Muslim subjectivity has become a concern for so many is that Muslim identity today has been conflated with a host of other real and imagined agendas and objectives. Across North America and Western Europe in particular we see how the debate over issues of national identity and citizenship has brought forth the symbol of the Muslim subject as the liminal marker that stands on the border of what constitutes the nation. In countries such as Holland, Denmark, France and Switzerland, Europeans seem to be standing on the precipice of making a decision that will – in the long run – determine the heading of Europe and what Europe will come to mean in the future, as they debate the standing and status of European Muslims who may or may not be seen and accepted as part of the European family of nations and as European citizen-subjects.
Meanwhile in many Muslim-majority countries the debate has not been forgotten either, for in almost all postcolonial Muslim societies the same question is asked, albeit framed in slightly different terms: Can Muslims also be citizens of states, and if so which identity is to come first – Muslim identity or national identity couched in terms of a universal citizenship.
That such a question can be asked at all today is hardly a novel development as the challenge of reconciling many – sometimes primordial and essentialised – identities and loyalties has been part and parcel of modern nationalism and the project of modern nation-states from the outset. However this question as it is framed in the terms that it finds itself in today is of equal significance and importance for Muslims as well, wherever they may be, as it points us to a deeper existential and ontological question about Islam, Muslim religiosity and Muslim identity.
So let us identify some working premises: The Muslim citizen-subject is, and has always been, a cosmopolitan figure. Muslims live, work and abide by the laws and customs of the societies they find themselves in and exist in a plethora of contexts, be they in Muslim-minority or Muslim-majority states. However consciousness of being Muslim has grown as a result of the rise of identity politics, which is one mode of political economy that was the result of the advances and development of late industrial capitalism and its attendant phenomena, including globalisation.
In many parts of the world, Muslims exist and occupy several levels of identity at the same time: They are Muslims by faith, yet also defined by their class, gender, ethnic, communal, linguistic and historical background. Millions of Muslims also happen to be migrants who may harbour diverse loyalties and attachments, including loyalties to the new host country as well as nostalgic loyalties to their respective home countries. In their daily lives they also owe loyalties to the corporate/institutional bodies where they work and which employ them.
Yet all of the above are perfectly normal and mundane, everyday considerations that are faced by everyone on this planet. How is a Muslim any more different or unique to his or her non-Muslim neighbour when it comes to paying taxes, worrying about their children’s school fees and exam reports, or deciding where to eat and which movie to watch on the weekend? Amidst the academic and non-academic (or even pseudo-academic) debates over what constitutes Muslim identity, many of us have forgotten the simple fact that Muslims are perfectly ordinary human beings with downright ordinary (even pedestrian and humdrum) concerns like anyone else.
The tendency to render Muslim identity as specific, unique – and by extension different, even alien – however has grown in tandem with much of the over-hyped political discourse about ‘political Islam’ and Muslim political mobilisation. There are two sources that have contributed to this over-speculation and excessive concern over Muslims: The realities of international politics and the geo-strategic concerns of security agencies that now see and present Islam and Muslims as a potential threat to others; and on the other hand Muslims themselves who have taken on board the particularist logic of sectarian communal politics and who have used Islam as the basis for the construction of a communal form of identity politics.
It is to the latter that we will focus our attention here, as we feel that Muslims have more to lose if and when they choose to define their identities solely and primarily on Islam and Muslim identity alone. Simply put, the predicament is as follows: In many Muslim circles today, there has grown the tendency for some Muslims to identify themselves solely as Muslims – as if their normative religious behaviour was the benchmark of their respective individual identities in the most totalised sense, negating or sidelining all other identity-attachments.
This is not a universal phenomenon among all Muslims, but its development among some of the more vocal quarters of the Muslim community is something that has been noted by observers in and outside the community at least. In such instances, the Muslim subject becomes precisely that: A subjectivity that is defined in hyphenated terms with ‘Islam’ as the master signifier that defines all other values and identities. We have all come across instances of young idealistic Muslims who state time and again that they are Muslims first, and that all other identity-concerns come second.
Yet the problems that this poses are dual: Firstly if and when anyone locates the basis of his/her identity solely and primarily on any particular attachment – be it to religion, ethnicity, race or even nation – then it would be assumed that that primary attachment informs and determines all that he or she does, down to the most mundane level of everyday activity. This poses a logical problem for scholars at least, who fail to see how the most mundane of daily life-choices like parking your car, ordering a cheeseburger or watching a DVD can be determined (in a totally deterministic manner) by one primary identity-attachment. It also means that if we were to accept such claims at face value then the subject is left with no room for contingency, random choices or even free will, as all thought and action have become entirely determined by one identity-attachment solely. Cynics of such claims worry that in making such a claim the subject is surrendering all autonomy, independence and free will to a belief-system (be it religious or even secular) that henceforth takes over the subject like an autopilot. If and when such claims are made by Muslims, it has the added negative effect of reinforcing the negative prejudice against Islam that poses Islam as a totalising system that leaves no room for the individual’s conscience and rational agency.
The second problem with taking such a position is of a practical nature, and has to do with our concern about the negative stereotyping of Islam as an all-pervasive totalising system, which we have alluded to above. If and when we come across Muslim political actors and agents who articulate their politics in terms of a vocabulary of absolutes, and who then claim to speak as Muslim enunciators speaking of the religion and on behalf of the entire religion and its faith community, then our worries are compounded. Instances of this are abundant: Militants who kill do so in the name of the faith they profess, while conservative Imams and Mullahs may make irrational and/or downright faulty and false statements while speaking from the subject-position of Muslim enunciators speaking for Islam. Thus when an Iranian Mullah opines that earthquakes are caused by scantily-clad women behaving badly, the falseness (and downright irrationality) of that claim is attributed not only to the individual Mullah, but sadly to Islam as well – for the simple reason that the Mullah has claimed to be speaking on behalf of the faith he professes.
Here lies our concern with the privileging of one singular identity as the basis of subjectivity, regardless of whether that identity is a religious, ethnic, racial or cultural one: It denies the reality that we are all complex composite subjectivities who are the amalgamated assembly of many loyalties and attachments. But if and when Muslim identity is seen and presented as the one and only base to our individual subjectivities, then everything that we say, do, think (or do not do) is pinned on Islam too. Thus let us ask ourselves these simple questions: If and when a Muslim double-parks, is that the fault of the driver or Islam? If and when a Muslim fails to file in his tax forms on time, is that the fault of the individual or his entire religion and belief-system? Surely a commonsensical reply to these questions would be to rescue Islam from the responsibility of being a totalising all-encompassing factor that determines the behaviour of subjects in a totalised, maximalist manner.
It is for this reason that talk of identity and identity politics today has to be tempered by realistic and logical considerations about human subjectivities and how we live in the ordinary way. Identity politics – be it in the name of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or any religion, ethnicity, language or culture for that matter – has the tendency to foreground one particular identity attachment at the expense of others; but this also has the effect of narrowing down the horizons of our subjectivities and perhaps also limiting the range of logical possibilities of our actions and behaviour. Islam as a way of life does not and need not be understood in terms of an identity straight-jacket that shapes Muslim subjectivities in such a closed and enforced manner; and Muslim subjects are not like Bonsai trees that are constrained by moral wires and ethical bonds so tight as to deny contingency, complexity and cosmopolitan multiple attachments to other things as well. Being a Muslim should not impoverish Muslim subjects, but this also entails accepting the mundane fact that Muslims are Muslims, but also something more.
2 comment:
Gram Massla
April 23rd, 2010 at 04:10
First, thanks for throwing us some red meat. We were being starved.
Second this discussson would have no traction were the subject Christians or even other religious groups. More or less they have been relegated to the sidelines. So why Islam and Muslims? As weltanschaaung goes only Islam challenges the Western perspective and current narrative. Like it or not this is a fact.
Westerners may feel smug about the superiorty of their rationality but their numbers are dropping. Oops! Something is wrong. The so-called Islamic problem in Europe is due to the fact that they cannot replenish themselves. They should sit up and question why.
Islam is the only religion that retains its weltanschaaung; nontheless I wouldn’t like to live in an islamic state. Such are the contradictions of life.
clk
April 29th, 2010 at 19:35
Without going into the academic field in detailed, I can only give my views from a layman perspective.
If one were to wind back the clock a few centuries ago, the same challenges facing the muslim community in a predominant Western culture were the same being faced by the less fundamental christians in the then Christian Western society then. One could just imagine an unmarried christian to-be-mother facing up to society much the same as an unmarried muslim to-be-mother facing up to society in Malaysia or any other muslim nation in the middle-east.
The other issue facing the Islamic world today is partly due to the fact that the media of this world is nearly dominated by the West and hence Islam-phobia gets a wider coverage.
Did anyone read about the debate over ethics vs scripture classes in the Australian school system? How much media coverage does Christophen Hitchens or Richard Dawkins gets compared to their equivalent (if any) in the muslim world in a media dominated by the Western perspective?
Why doesn’t Islam have any opposite view apart from the view they are currently potrayed? If it does have, why is this opposing view silent?
-------------------------------------
Being Muslims and More Besides: Muslim Identities as Complex and Cosmopolitan
By Farish A. Noor ~ April 21st, 2010. Filed under: TOM_Main, The Other Malaysia.
(*Note: I was invited to write a think-piece for an upcoming project and I thought I’d share it with anyone interested)
The past decade has witnessed a period of intense speculation on the subject of Muslim subjectivity; often prompted by reasons that have less to do with academic concerns and more with politics instead. We are back to the question of what is a Muslim subject, and what does Muslim subjectivity imply as far as individual actions in the public domain is concerned. It is not an exaggeration to state that the question of ‘what is being a Muslim’ has been asked more than ever. Why?
A simple answer to the question of why Muslim subjectivity has become a concern for so many is that Muslim identity today has been conflated with a host of other real and imagined agendas and objectives. Across North America and Western Europe in particular we see how the debate over issues of national identity and citizenship has brought forth the symbol of the Muslim subject as the liminal marker that stands on the border of what constitutes the nation. In countries such as Holland, Denmark, France and Switzerland, Europeans seem to be standing on the precipice of making a decision that will – in the long run – determine the heading of Europe and what Europe will come to mean in the future, as they debate the standing and status of European Muslims who may or may not be seen and accepted as part of the European family of nations and as European citizen-subjects.
Meanwhile in many Muslim-majority countries the debate has not been forgotten either, for in almost all postcolonial Muslim societies the same question is asked, albeit framed in slightly different terms: Can Muslims also be citizens of states, and if so which identity is to come first – Muslim identity or national identity couched in terms of a universal citizenship.
That such a question can be asked at all today is hardly a novel development as the challenge of reconciling many – sometimes primordial and essentialised – identities and loyalties has been part and parcel of modern nationalism and the project of modern nation-states from the outset. However this question as it is framed in the terms that it finds itself in today is of equal significance and importance for Muslims as well, wherever they may be, as it points us to a deeper existential and ontological question about Islam, Muslim religiosity and Muslim identity.
So let us identify some working premises: The Muslim citizen-subject is, and has always been, a cosmopolitan figure. Muslims live, work and abide by the laws and customs of the societies they find themselves in and exist in a plethora of contexts, be they in Muslim-minority or Muslim-majority states. However consciousness of being Muslim has grown as a result of the rise of identity politics, which is one mode of political economy that was the result of the advances and development of late industrial capitalism and its attendant phenomena, including globalisation.
In many parts of the world, Muslims exist and occupy several levels of identity at the same time: They are Muslims by faith, yet also defined by their class, gender, ethnic, communal, linguistic and historical background. Millions of Muslims also happen to be migrants who may harbour diverse loyalties and attachments, including loyalties to the new host country as well as nostalgic loyalties to their respective home countries. In their daily lives they also owe loyalties to the corporate/institutional bodies where they work and which employ them.
Yet all of the above are perfectly normal and mundane, everyday considerations that are faced by everyone on this planet. How is a Muslim any more different or unique to his or her non-Muslim neighbour when it comes to paying taxes, worrying about their children’s school fees and exam reports, or deciding where to eat and which movie to watch on the weekend? Amidst the academic and non-academic (or even pseudo-academic) debates over what constitutes Muslim identity, many of us have forgotten the simple fact that Muslims are perfectly ordinary human beings with downright ordinary (even pedestrian and humdrum) concerns like anyone else.
The tendency to render Muslim identity as specific, unique – and by extension different, even alien – however has grown in tandem with much of the over-hyped political discourse about ‘political Islam’ and Muslim political mobilisation. There are two sources that have contributed to this over-speculation and excessive concern over Muslims: The realities of international politics and the geo-strategic concerns of security agencies that now see and present Islam and Muslims as a potential threat to others; and on the other hand Muslims themselves who have taken on board the particularist logic of sectarian communal politics and who have used Islam as the basis for the construction of a communal form of identity politics.
It is to the latter that we will focus our attention here, as we feel that Muslims have more to lose if and when they choose to define their identities solely and primarily on Islam and Muslim identity alone. Simply put, the predicament is as follows: In many Muslim circles today, there has grown the tendency for some Muslims to identify themselves solely as Muslims – as if their normative religious behaviour was the benchmark of their respective individual identities in the most totalised sense, negating or sidelining all other identity-attachments.
This is not a universal phenomenon among all Muslims, but its development among some of the more vocal quarters of the Muslim community is something that has been noted by observers in and outside the community at least. In such instances, the Muslim subject becomes precisely that: A subjectivity that is defined in hyphenated terms with ‘Islam’ as the master signifier that defines all other values and identities. We have all come across instances of young idealistic Muslims who state time and again that they are Muslims first, and that all other identity-concerns come second.
Yet the problems that this poses are dual: Firstly if and when anyone locates the basis of his/her identity solely and primarily on any particular attachment – be it to religion, ethnicity, race or even nation – then it would be assumed that that primary attachment informs and determines all that he or she does, down to the most mundane level of everyday activity. This poses a logical problem for scholars at least, who fail to see how the most mundane of daily life-choices like parking your car, ordering a cheeseburger or watching a DVD can be determined (in a totally deterministic manner) by one primary identity-attachment. It also means that if we were to accept such claims at face value then the subject is left with no room for contingency, random choices or even free will, as all thought and action have become entirely determined by one identity-attachment solely. Cynics of such claims worry that in making such a claim the subject is surrendering all autonomy, independence and free will to a belief-system (be it religious or even secular) that henceforth takes over the subject like an autopilot. If and when such claims are made by Muslims, it has the added negative effect of reinforcing the negative prejudice against Islam that poses Islam as a totalising system that leaves no room for the individual’s conscience and rational agency.
The second problem with taking such a position is of a practical nature, and has to do with our concern about the negative stereotyping of Islam as an all-pervasive totalising system, which we have alluded to above. If and when we come across Muslim political actors and agents who articulate their politics in terms of a vocabulary of absolutes, and who then claim to speak as Muslim enunciators speaking of the religion and on behalf of the entire religion and its faith community, then our worries are compounded. Instances of this are abundant: Militants who kill do so in the name of the faith they profess, while conservative Imams and Mullahs may make irrational and/or downright faulty and false statements while speaking from the subject-position of Muslim enunciators speaking for Islam. Thus when an Iranian Mullah opines that earthquakes are caused by scantily-clad women behaving badly, the falseness (and downright irrationality) of that claim is attributed not only to the individual Mullah, but sadly to Islam as well – for the simple reason that the Mullah has claimed to be speaking on behalf of the faith he professes.
Here lies our concern with the privileging of one singular identity as the basis of subjectivity, regardless of whether that identity is a religious, ethnic, racial or cultural one: It denies the reality that we are all complex composite subjectivities who are the amalgamated assembly of many loyalties and attachments. But if and when Muslim identity is seen and presented as the one and only base to our individual subjectivities, then everything that we say, do, think (or do not do) is pinned on Islam too. Thus let us ask ourselves these simple questions: If and when a Muslim double-parks, is that the fault of the driver or Islam? If and when a Muslim fails to file in his tax forms on time, is that the fault of the individual or his entire religion and belief-system? Surely a commonsensical reply to these questions would be to rescue Islam from the responsibility of being a totalising all-encompassing factor that determines the behaviour of subjects in a totalised, maximalist manner.
It is for this reason that talk of identity and identity politics today has to be tempered by realistic and logical considerations about human subjectivities and how we live in the ordinary way. Identity politics – be it in the name of Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or any religion, ethnicity, language or culture for that matter – has the tendency to foreground one particular identity attachment at the expense of others; but this also has the effect of narrowing down the horizons of our subjectivities and perhaps also limiting the range of logical possibilities of our actions and behaviour. Islam as a way of life does not and need not be understood in terms of an identity straight-jacket that shapes Muslim subjectivities in such a closed and enforced manner; and Muslim subjects are not like Bonsai trees that are constrained by moral wires and ethical bonds so tight as to deny contingency, complexity and cosmopolitan multiple attachments to other things as well. Being a Muslim should not impoverish Muslim subjects, but this also entails accepting the mundane fact that Muslims are Muslims, but also something more.
2 comment:
Gram Massla
April 23rd, 2010 at 04:10
First, thanks for throwing us some red meat. We were being starved.
Second this discussson would have no traction were the subject Christians or even other religious groups. More or less they have been relegated to the sidelines. So why Islam and Muslims? As weltanschaaung goes only Islam challenges the Western perspective and current narrative. Like it or not this is a fact.
Westerners may feel smug about the superiorty of their rationality but their numbers are dropping. Oops! Something is wrong. The so-called Islamic problem in Europe is due to the fact that they cannot replenish themselves. They should sit up and question why.
Islam is the only religion that retains its weltanschaaung; nontheless I wouldn’t like to live in an islamic state. Such are the contradictions of life.
clk
April 29th, 2010 at 19:35
Without going into the academic field in detailed, I can only give my views from a layman perspective.
If one were to wind back the clock a few centuries ago, the same challenges facing the muslim community in a predominant Western culture were the same being faced by the less fundamental christians in the then Christian Western society then. One could just imagine an unmarried christian to-be-mother facing up to society much the same as an unmarried muslim to-be-mother facing up to society in Malaysia or any other muslim nation in the middle-east.
The other issue facing the Islamic world today is partly due to the fact that the media of this world is nearly dominated by the West and hence Islam-phobia gets a wider coverage.
Did anyone read about the debate over ethics vs scripture classes in the Australian school system? How much media coverage does Christophen Hitchens or Richard Dawkins gets compared to their equivalent (if any) in the muslim world in a media dominated by the Western perspective?
Why doesn’t Islam have any opposite view apart from the view they are currently potrayed? If it does have, why is this opposing view silent?
Friday, May 7, 2010
Some random thots on.... OBESITY
A common problem worldwide and locally in Malaysia.Mainly due to lifestyle change[ IT connectivity,less physical sports among the new generations, MacDonald and Fast food culture, etc and etc], increasing affluence and changing societal values to physical activities and work.
At the family level ,obesity is ubiquitous. There is obesity everywhere you go.In my very own family , two of my children are extremely obese plus plus, a product of having a wife who 'finds' pleasure in cooking! An endocrinologist colleague of mine jokingly in fact viewed 'good cooks' amongst debutants as potential risk behaviour for future family.Good news for those prospective young ladies outside there who know very little about cooking : you girls are positive 'material'. Good cooks are hazardous to not only their own health but their future children and futute husband's health!...
People talk about BMI [ weight in Kg divided by square of surface area of body in metres ]when they want to classify obesity. Anything above 21 is already "yellow" in term of increasing predisposition to chronic medical problem and a shorter lifespan.25 and above is overweight. A BMI of 30 and above is OBESE.
I have a simple working rule in my clinic.Your height in centimetres minus 100. That is your ideal body weight. Say you are 170 cm in height, then your ideal body weight is 70 kg plus minus 3 to 4 kg both side. Beyond that narrow confine, consider yourselves overweight.If you are 170 cm in height and you weight is 10 kg excess, you are creeping into the obesity zone.15 to 20 kg above your ideal weight, you are in deep 'shit'.Beyond 20 kg from your ideal 70, you are most probably doomed to a shorter lifespan, 'averagely and statistically' speaking. How much shorter you may ask?
Recent studies showed as much as 12 to 15 years shorter....and mind you this is 'statistically' speaking.You might die of a fatal myocardial infarct at the ripe old age of 39!..Or a diabetic complication at 45.
What are the factors working against obese people? :
1.Increased propensity to Metabolic Syndrome: High blood cholesterol with low HDL cholesterol[ double whammy,'Too much garbage that is choleterol, with no garbage lorries, that is HDL choleterol or good cholesterol, as i used to simplify for my patients ], high triglyceride, borderline high blood pressure, and borderline high fasting blood sugar. All this impact on the circulatory system to give premature incidence of diabetes, hypertension , stroke and heart attack. The bottomline is : premature death or chronic ill health!
2.Musculo-skeletal effect on the joints especially the knees , ankles , hips and spines.The 'shock absorbers'.
3.Certain cancers occur more in obese people, example are colonic,endometrial cancers and increasingly now , hepatomas, ie malignant liver cancers.
4.Sleep apnea..impacts on quality of life or lack of it.
5.Liver cirrhosis: Usually present early as a major cause for 'fatty liver' usually diagnosed on ultrasound examination of the abdomen. Progress to complete scarring in the liver resulting in complete disruption of healthy liver cells being replaced initially by fat cells from the abdomen creeping in and finally total scarring of the whole liver....A potential epidemics of liver cirrhosis in Asia due to metabolic syndrome arising from creeping obesity in the future.
7.Obesity Related Congestive Cardiomyopathy
In the morbidly obese,carrying excess 30 to 50 kg above their ideal body weight, we cardiologist often times see this condition in our practice. Not difficult to imagine from the 'layman's perspective. However massive your size, your heart is only the size of your palm. Imagine that 'pump' pumping around the blood needed for 1 1/2 persons for years. Firstly, as a result of overwork, the muscle thickened. Subsequently the chambers dilate or enlarge. On the routine chest Xray, the heart silhoute showed a bigger heart.When the heart dilates further it become less efficient as a pump. You get shortness of breath and easy fatiguability. Over time you get pump failure. Luckily it not a common problem but with an explosion of obesity amongst the young people nowadays, we increasingly see this condition often in as young as their early forties and late thirties.Their problem are compounded further by diabetes , hypertension and primary lung hypoventilation and ischaemic heart disease, commonly related to obesity via the Metabolic Syndrome pathway as earlier discussed.
When I see a very fat guy in my clinic, I see 'future' headaches for us doctors, and despite what you guys may think of us, unlike lawyers, we do not like future 'Headaches'...
A fat guy with poor heart function with diabetes and borderline kidney function, with poor lung function, breathing heavily even at rest in bed,and on top of that has a perforated appendix awaiting a cardiological review prior to an emergency appendicectomy, constitute a big headache for plumbers like me.If he does not go for surgery, he could progress to 'septicaemia' ie overwhelming infection in the blood. If he does go to surgery,he has a higher probability of dying on the table due to an anaesthetic accident. If he survived surgery , he may may end up having a 'coronary incident' or pulmonary embolism in the immediate post procedure period. These are the type of patients that keep us plumbers awake at night...Hobson's choice!.....How do you tell that to a patient [ and his or her relatives ] who is in need of emergency surgery?
8.Ventilation/breathing failure due to increased incidence of 'under-filled' lungs alveoli, initially leading to increasing pressure in the lung tissues and finally respiratory failure. This we frequently see in extremely obese individuals....Do not feel that you need to be only candidates for Asia's Biggest Losers before you are there...If you are already 30 kg excess beyond your ideal range, you are already half way there!
9.Low self esteem...May seem least of all the problem enumerated but actually very real. Less job opportunity,less 'marriageability' quotient, depression etc and etc.
How then can one get out of this vicious cycle of ill health leading to more ill health?
First and foremost and rule number ONE: There is no short cut.....can forget about gastric bypass, stomach balloons and worst of all lipo-suctions.While gastric bypass and balloons work for the extremely obese ,it is not without risk and cost plus plus and it is still hard work with respect to diet ,diet and diet. There is no escaping that even with bypass....Lipo suction is only for the 'looneys'. It does not change anything. Risk of fat embolism and instant peri- procedure death or irreversible brain damage due to hypoxia is real and significant.Remember the celebrated 'datin' case in Pantai sometime ago!.
What do we have then?....hard work my dear, hard work.....
Just 4 words:Cut intake, burn more !...
Cut Intake:
.Do not add calories in your drinks...drink plain water
.Try eating slower than your usual pace. Use fork and spoon if this help.
.Factor in salad, vege soup or fruits before actual meals.ie dessert 1st before meal.
.Try just fruits as your working day lunch. Fruits and veges and salad are fibre rich with reduced calories.
.Cut down on 'deep fries', santan and fats. Apart from 'stimulating your very own liver to produce your own 'endogenous' cholesterol, fats,oil and santan are 'packed with calories.
.If you have to have rice, just one 'cupful' at each meal..
. Fruits, fruits ,fruits and fruits
. Small meals..do not try missing your meals but go for small meals and plenty of fluids before during and after meals.
Burn More:
.Factor in physical activities in your daily life. If you can take the staircase rather than the elevator, take the staircase. If you can park your car one kilometre away from your work place and FOC rather than park near your office and pay, park one kilometre away FOC. If your work means you come back only at 730 pm at night, and if you are a Muslim, choose a surau one or two kilometres away from your house and walk there daily for Isyak prayer. What I mean is , you do not need to be in the gym to exercise, just activate and plan your life ACTIVELY.
.Exercise everyday of your life. Half an hour a day will do.
.Enrol in a gym near your office. Go to the gym at lunch break or after office rather than be contributing to the jam.
.Do your 'home work' while exercise.Ie keep your mind busy thinking about solutions to work problems, zikir, music or something so that your 'exercise time' will be a pleasure to you.
What is the dividend in keeping to an ideal weight:
Even if by a twist of fate you do not get chosen to 'live longer', you live a healthier and more vital life. Your sex life will be 100 % better, your attitude to life will be more 'tolerable' to your life partners.In short , you will be less of an ..rsehole to yourselves![ pardon the pun! ]
Take care......
Dr Nik Howk
Related Articles:
. Angina and the Coronary Patient (Click Here)
. Exercise: Mixing the Profane and the Sublime (Click Here)
. The 4 Jokers.(Click Here)
. Letter to a prospective Son-in-Law(Click Here)
. Some random thots on Longevity..[1,2,3 ](Click Here, Here & Here)
. Longevity: A Muslim's Perspective.(Click Here)
At the family level ,obesity is ubiquitous. There is obesity everywhere you go.In my very own family , two of my children are extremely obese plus plus, a product of having a wife who 'finds' pleasure in cooking! An endocrinologist colleague of mine jokingly in fact viewed 'good cooks' amongst debutants as potential risk behaviour for future family.Good news for those prospective young ladies outside there who know very little about cooking : you girls are positive 'material'. Good cooks are hazardous to not only their own health but their future children and futute husband's health!...
People talk about BMI [ weight in Kg divided by square of surface area of body in metres ]when they want to classify obesity. Anything above 21 is already "yellow" in term of increasing predisposition to chronic medical problem and a shorter lifespan.25 and above is overweight. A BMI of 30 and above is OBESE.
I have a simple working rule in my clinic.Your height in centimetres minus 100. That is your ideal body weight. Say you are 170 cm in height, then your ideal body weight is 70 kg plus minus 3 to 4 kg both side. Beyond that narrow confine, consider yourselves overweight.If you are 170 cm in height and you weight is 10 kg excess, you are creeping into the obesity zone.15 to 20 kg above your ideal weight, you are in deep 'shit'.Beyond 20 kg from your ideal 70, you are most probably doomed to a shorter lifespan, 'averagely and statistically' speaking. How much shorter you may ask?
Recent studies showed as much as 12 to 15 years shorter....and mind you this is 'statistically' speaking.You might die of a fatal myocardial infarct at the ripe old age of 39!..Or a diabetic complication at 45.
What are the factors working against obese people? :
1.Increased propensity to Metabolic Syndrome: High blood cholesterol with low HDL cholesterol[ double whammy,'Too much garbage that is choleterol, with no garbage lorries, that is HDL choleterol or good cholesterol, as i used to simplify for my patients ], high triglyceride, borderline high blood pressure, and borderline high fasting blood sugar. All this impact on the circulatory system to give premature incidence of diabetes, hypertension , stroke and heart attack. The bottomline is : premature death or chronic ill health!
2.Musculo-skeletal effect on the joints especially the knees , ankles , hips and spines.The 'shock absorbers'.
3.Certain cancers occur more in obese people, example are colonic,endometrial cancers and increasingly now , hepatomas, ie malignant liver cancers.
4.Sleep apnea..impacts on quality of life or lack of it.
5.Liver cirrhosis: Usually present early as a major cause for 'fatty liver' usually diagnosed on ultrasound examination of the abdomen. Progress to complete scarring in the liver resulting in complete disruption of healthy liver cells being replaced initially by fat cells from the abdomen creeping in and finally total scarring of the whole liver....A potential epidemics of liver cirrhosis in Asia due to metabolic syndrome arising from creeping obesity in the future.
7.Obesity Related Congestive Cardiomyopathy
In the morbidly obese,carrying excess 30 to 50 kg above their ideal body weight, we cardiologist often times see this condition in our practice. Not difficult to imagine from the 'layman's perspective. However massive your size, your heart is only the size of your palm. Imagine that 'pump' pumping around the blood needed for 1 1/2 persons for years. Firstly, as a result of overwork, the muscle thickened. Subsequently the chambers dilate or enlarge. On the routine chest Xray, the heart silhoute showed a bigger heart.When the heart dilates further it become less efficient as a pump. You get shortness of breath and easy fatiguability. Over time you get pump failure. Luckily it not a common problem but with an explosion of obesity amongst the young people nowadays, we increasingly see this condition often in as young as their early forties and late thirties.Their problem are compounded further by diabetes , hypertension and primary lung hypoventilation and ischaemic heart disease, commonly related to obesity via the Metabolic Syndrome pathway as earlier discussed.
When I see a very fat guy in my clinic, I see 'future' headaches for us doctors, and despite what you guys may think of us, unlike lawyers, we do not like future 'Headaches'...
A fat guy with poor heart function with diabetes and borderline kidney function, with poor lung function, breathing heavily even at rest in bed,and on top of that has a perforated appendix awaiting a cardiological review prior to an emergency appendicectomy, constitute a big headache for plumbers like me.If he does not go for surgery, he could progress to 'septicaemia' ie overwhelming infection in the blood. If he does go to surgery,he has a higher probability of dying on the table due to an anaesthetic accident. If he survived surgery , he may may end up having a 'coronary incident' or pulmonary embolism in the immediate post procedure period. These are the type of patients that keep us plumbers awake at night...Hobson's choice!.....How do you tell that to a patient [ and his or her relatives ] who is in need of emergency surgery?
8.Ventilation/breathing failure due to increased incidence of 'under-filled' lungs alveoli, initially leading to increasing pressure in the lung tissues and finally respiratory failure. This we frequently see in extremely obese individuals....Do not feel that you need to be only candidates for Asia's Biggest Losers before you are there...If you are already 30 kg excess beyond your ideal range, you are already half way there!
9.Low self esteem...May seem least of all the problem enumerated but actually very real. Less job opportunity,less 'marriageability' quotient, depression etc and etc.
How then can one get out of this vicious cycle of ill health leading to more ill health?
First and foremost and rule number ONE: There is no short cut.....can forget about gastric bypass, stomach balloons and worst of all lipo-suctions.While gastric bypass and balloons work for the extremely obese ,it is not without risk and cost plus plus and it is still hard work with respect to diet ,diet and diet. There is no escaping that even with bypass....Lipo suction is only for the 'looneys'. It does not change anything. Risk of fat embolism and instant peri- procedure death or irreversible brain damage due to hypoxia is real and significant.Remember the celebrated 'datin' case in Pantai sometime ago!.
What do we have then?....hard work my dear, hard work.....
Just 4 words:Cut intake, burn more !...
Cut Intake:
.Do not add calories in your drinks...drink plain water
.Try eating slower than your usual pace. Use fork and spoon if this help.
.Factor in salad, vege soup or fruits before actual meals.ie dessert 1st before meal.
.Try just fruits as your working day lunch. Fruits and veges and salad are fibre rich with reduced calories.
.Cut down on 'deep fries', santan and fats. Apart from 'stimulating your very own liver to produce your own 'endogenous' cholesterol, fats,oil and santan are 'packed with calories.
.If you have to have rice, just one 'cupful' at each meal..
. Fruits, fruits ,fruits and fruits
. Small meals..do not try missing your meals but go for small meals and plenty of fluids before during and after meals.
Burn More:
.Factor in physical activities in your daily life. If you can take the staircase rather than the elevator, take the staircase. If you can park your car one kilometre away from your work place and FOC rather than park near your office and pay, park one kilometre away FOC. If your work means you come back only at 730 pm at night, and if you are a Muslim, choose a surau one or two kilometres away from your house and walk there daily for Isyak prayer. What I mean is , you do not need to be in the gym to exercise, just activate and plan your life ACTIVELY.
.Exercise everyday of your life. Half an hour a day will do.
.Enrol in a gym near your office. Go to the gym at lunch break or after office rather than be contributing to the jam.
.Do your 'home work' while exercise.Ie keep your mind busy thinking about solutions to work problems, zikir, music or something so that your 'exercise time' will be a pleasure to you.
What is the dividend in keeping to an ideal weight:
Even if by a twist of fate you do not get chosen to 'live longer', you live a healthier and more vital life. Your sex life will be 100 % better, your attitude to life will be more 'tolerable' to your life partners.In short , you will be less of an ..rsehole to yourselves![ pardon the pun! ]
Take care......
Dr Nik Howk
Related Articles:
. Angina and the Coronary Patient (Click Here)
. Exercise: Mixing the Profane and the Sublime (Click Here)
. The 4 Jokers.(Click Here)
. Letter to a prospective Son-in-Law(Click Here)
. Some random thots on Longevity..[1,2,3 ](Click Here, Here & Here)
. Longevity: A Muslim's Perspective.(Click Here)
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