C L O S E R

ISIM Review 22, Autumn 2008 is out and available online. As usual very interesting articles which are relevant for  my research, to name but a few:

• Jews and Others in Iraq / Sami Zubaida
• The Sound of Islam: Southeast Asian Boy Bands / Bart Barendregt
• Good Girls and Rebels / Miriam Gazzah
• Universal Aspirations: The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe / Brigitte Marechal
• New Muslim Youth Associations in Spain / Virtudes Tellez Delgado
• Islamic Religious Practice in Outer Space / Nils Fischer
• Ambivalent Purity / Martijn de Koning
• Muslim Idenitities in the Banlieue / Melanie Adrian
• Imam Hussayn is Love: Individualization of Shia Practices in Britain / Dana Moss
• Engaging Europe’s Muslims / Maleiha Malik
• Migration Matters: The Longer View / David Waines
• Editors’ Picks
• Arts: Hasan and Husain Essop

And many more of course. You can read on ISIM website.

Very interesting, new website:

Digital Islam

Digital Islam is a research project that focuses on the Middle East, Islam, and digital media. It aims to analyze the various ways in which Islam and Muslim identities are articulated through information and communication technologies and the Internet. Its research materials include websites, digital videoclips, and videogames. The webpage digitalislam.eu provides free access to full texts and bibliographical database of research resources.

• Home - full text papers, articles, and news
• Call for Papers - call for papers for conferences, workshops, and publications
• Bibliography - bibliographical database of books, articles, and papers
• Websites - bibliographical database of websites related to Islam and digital media. The database contains both academic research websites and major Islamic websites.
• Video and games - database of videogames which take place in the Middle East, represent Arabs and Muslims, have been produced by Middle Eastern developers, or have an Islamic emphasis. The latter are marked with asterisk (*) and can be also viewed in a separate list.

Editors

Vit Sisler, editor-in-chief, is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Information Studies of Charles University in Prague, where he is finishing his doctoral thesis about Islam and Islamic law on the Internet. He is also engaged in the research of social and political aspects of videogames, with emphasis given on the Middle Eastern games. Vit Sisler is a chair of workshop Religious Norms in Cyberspace which is annually held at the Cyberspace international conference in Brno, Czech Republic.
Vit Sisler’s homepage: http://uisk.jinonice.cuni.cz/sisler/

Tomas Tomanek, editor, is a master’s student at New Media Studies of Charles University in Prague.

Katerina Cechova, editor, is a master’s student at New Media Studies of Charles University in Prague, where she is finishing her thesis about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Internet.

Cover story: ‘My brother the bomber’ by Shiv Malik | Prospect Magazine June 2007 issue 135

Recently this article appeared in the Dutch daily NRC. It is presented as a a detailed account of the life and motivations of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings in London 2005.

What turned Mohammad Sidique Khan, a softly spoken youth worker, into the mastermind of 7/7? I spent months in a Leeds suburb getting to know Khan’s brother. A complex and disturbing story of the bomber’s radicalisation emerged

An interesting article, you can discuss it here but of course also here at the Prospect Magazine’s blog.  I suggest you read also Yahya Birt’s insightfull  comments on the article here.

Muslims In Western Europe After 9/11: Why the term Islamophobia is more a predicament than an explanation - CHALLENGE | Liberty & Security
by Cesari Jocelyne

Although the first occurrence of the term Islamophobia appeared in an essay by the Orientalist Etienne Dinet in L’Orient vu de l’Occident (1922), it is only in the 1990s that the term became common parlance in defining the discrimination faced by Muslims in Western Europe. Negative perceptions of Islam can be traced back through multiple confrontations between the Muslim world and Europe from the Crusades to colonialism [1]. However, Islamophobia is a modern and secular anti-Islamic discourse and practice appearing in the public sphere with the integration of Muslim immigrant communities and intensifying after 9/11. The term has been used increasingly amongst political circles and the media, and even Muslim organizations, especially since the 1997 Runnymede Report (Islamophobia: A Challenge for All). However, academics are still debating the legitimacy of the term (Werbner 2005, Modood 2002, Vertovec 2002, Halliday 1999) [2] and questioning how it differs from other terms such as racism, anti- Islamism, anti-Muslimness, and anti-Semitism.The term Islamophobia is contested because it is often imprecisely applied to very diverse phenomena, ranging from xenophobia to anti-terrorism. As Marcel Maussen points out in his chapter below, ‘the term «Islamophobia» groups together all kinds of different forms of discourse, speech and acts, by suggesting that they all emanate from an identical ideological core, which is an «irrational fear» (a phobia) of Islam.’ However, the term is used with increasing frequency in the media and political arenas, and sometimes in academic circles.

[In the field of research on islamophobia their are] two separate trends: CRS analyses different state policies concerning the integration of Muslim populations, while the EUMC records levels of discrimination encountered by European Muslims. None of the above reports combine these approaches (analysis of state policies and analysis of discrimination) to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding post-9/11 Muslim populations.

In a unique effort to understand the status of Muslims in Europe, our report will amalgamate both methods of analysis. We will examine policies undertaken since 9/11 in fields such as immigration, security, and religion, and we will simultaneously assess the influence of these policies on Muslims. We will also address the structural causes of discrimination, such as the socio-economic status of Muslim populations or the legal status of racial and ethnic minorities. In doing so, we differentiate our approach from the dominant view, which defines Islamophobia solely in terms of acts or speeches explicitly targeting Muslims.

The principal aim of this report is to highlight the multi-layered levels of discrimination encountered by Muslims. This phenomenon cannot simply be subsumed into the term Islamophobia. Indeed, the term can be misleading, as it presupposes the pre-eminence of religious discrimination when other forms of discrimination (such as racial or class) may be more relevant. We therefore intend to use the term Islamophobia as a starting point for analyzing the different dimensions that define the political situation of Muslim minorities in Europe. We will not to take the term for granted by assigning it only one meaning, such as anti-Islamic discourse.

In Part One, we will present the principal characteristics of the European Muslim population, in order to understand their particular status as religious or ethnic minorities. In Part Two, we will review the key components of discrimination that may affect Muslims in Europe.

A chapter on the Dutch situation, written by Marcel Maussen, can be found in the report.

UNESCO Documents and Publications - UNESDOC/UNESBIB
Burgess, J. Peter
Promoting human security: ethical, normative and educational frameworks in Western Europe:

A new kind of precariousness is touching Europe. The robust structures of social support that had become a commonplace in the post-war European welfare state are being increasingly challenged in almost invisible ways. The societybased guarantees of industrial late modernity are gradually giving over to more economic, political, social, cultural and even moral vulnerability. Although Europeans still hold fast to the basic ideas of security in terms of classical principles of economic and social welfare, these principles map less and less on to the globalized reality that shapes European lives.

The purpose of this report is to chart the basic contours of this new vulnerability in terms of human security. The inspiration and genealogy of human security are by now well known. Human
security is an influential diagnostic concept that emerged from the remnants of the Cold War ideological battlefield. As the attention of the world was released from the logic of bipolar geopolitics, a vast world of development challenges revealed itself. Human security emerged not as a new empirical object, but as a new epistemology. In other words, human security is not so much a new discovery as a new kind of knowledge, a new way of organizing the constellation of facts, values, priorities, views and ideologies.

In this report one chapter is about the Netherlands (by Bartels, De Koning, Knibbe and Salemink):

Given the rapid and rather extreme transition of a public discourse of cultural relativism and tolerance to a discourse emphasizing integration and assimilation and the closing of state borders for migration, the Dutch case exemplifies tendencies towards insecurity present in several countries in Western Europe. This is illustrated by the 2005 riots in the French suburbs as well as the 2006 German discussion about the security of teachers and children in multi-ethnic public schools. These trans-European concerns for cultural security are not only comparable, but also mutually influencing through transnational networks, as events and developments in one country may affects the situation in other countries as well. The recent transnational and international controversy over cartoons published in Denmark is a case in point. Finally, the threat of terror attacks (Madrid, London, political murders in the Netherlands) and the corresponding public and political responses make clear that the present insecurity over identity issues have a deep impact on people’s sense of physical security, thus violating the ‘freedom from fear’ dimension of human security. In other words, the way that people define their cultural identity is part and parcel of their subjective sense of human security – first and foremost in terms of cultural security, but eventually in terms of their physical safety.

Ter gelegenheid van de 18e globaliseringslezing, die afgelopen vrijdag werd gehouden door Saskia Sassen in Felix Meritis/Amsterdam, werd afgelopen zaterdag aan de Vrije Universiteit de conferentie Shaking up citizenship gehouden.

Eén van de bijdragen ’s middags was van Nicholas De Genova: States, citizens, and denizens -Nationalism, “rights,” and transnationality. In zijn bijdrage liet hij zien hoe ‘9-11′ en de nasleep ervan leidde tot veranderingen in het beleid met betrekking tot citizenship. Hij liet zien hoe de opbouw van de ‘Homeland Security State’ heeft geleid tot verschuiving van de macht van het wetgevende naar het uitvoerende niveau als het gaat om insluiting en uitsluiting van vreemdelingen. Iets dat met name nadelig uitvalt voor Arabieren/Moslims.

In de bijdrage van mijn collega Edien Bartels en ondergetekende gingen we door op het thema ‘citizenship’ aan de hand van de recente discussies over dubbele nationaliteit. De discussie over de dubbele nationaliteit is vooral gevoerd vanuit twee posities, ofwel vanuit de Nederlandse samenleving ofwel vanuit de migrantenpositie.Het is nuttig om naar de relatie tussen beide te kijken, en dan vooral vanuit machtstsverhoudingen. ‘Wie bepaalt wie erbij hoort.’

Hier vindt u een verkorte versie van onze bijdrage: Continue Reading »

ISIM Publications ISIM Review #18: Shades of Islamism

ISIM has released it’s 18th issue of ISIM Review; the last one I have worked on albeit my role is very minor in this one. Since June Mathijs Pelkmans is the new editor of the ISIM Review. The main theme of this issue is shades of islamism covering a wide range of topics regarding several strands of islamism. Again, a must-read-issue of ISIM Review (although I admit I’m not very objective).

Shades of Islamism

• Islamists and US Foreign Policy / John L. Esposito
• Islamic Activism and Democratization / Wendy Asbeek Brusse & Jan Schoonenboom
• Islamist-Leftist Cooperation in the Arab World / Jillian Schwedler & Janine A. Clark
• The State in Islamist Thought / Irfan Ahmad
• The “Humanity” of Radical Jihad / Jenna Reinbold
• Re-reading al-Qaeda: Writings of Yusuf al-Ayiri / Roel Meijer
• Liberal Islam: Between Texts and its Modern Condition / Abdulkader Tayob
• Mohammad Khatami: The Philosopher President / Farzin Vahdat

Continue Reading »

Samen met dr. Edien Bartels van de VU heb ik een onderzoek verricht ten dienste van de
ACVZ :: Adviescommisie voor Vreemdelingenzaken en hun advies: Tot het huwelijk gedwongen.

Het heeft even geduurd maar nu staat het dus ook op een site.

Centraal in deze onderzoeksnotitie staat de vraag: Welke plaats nemen gedwongen huwelijken in, in het proces van partnerkeuze bij Turken, Marokkanen en Hindostanen in Nederland? In deze onderzoeksnotitie gaat het om een vergelijking tussen de drie genoemde groepen.
Als onderzoeksvragen komen aan de orde:

1. Welke opvattingen bestaan er over het huwelijk, het belang daarvan en de invulling ervan (in het bijzonder de plaats van vrije keuze en dwang daarbinnen)
2. Welke strategie�n hanteren beoogde huwelijkspartners?
3. Binnen welke context past het verschijnsel huwelijk?
4. Hoe vaak verloopt het proces van partnerkeuze tegen de wil van de beoogde partners?
5. Welke visie hebben de betrokken groepen op de rol van de overheid met betrekking tot gedwongen huwelijken?

Door middel van gesprekken met jongeren, ouders, sleutelfiguren en wetenschappers in combinatie met een analyse van websites en literatuurstudie, is dit onderzoek in twee maanden uitgevoerd. Dit betekent dat het onderzoek geen representatief beeld kan bieden over aantallen en trends. In deze onderzoeksnotitie richten we ons vooral op het beschrijven van het proces van partnerkeuze en de plaats die gedwongen huwelijken daarin spelen. Onder een gedwongen huwelijk verstaan we: een huwelijk waarbij de huwelijkspartners, of ��n van hen, geen zeggenschap hebben (heeft) en niet instemmen (instemt) met het huwelijk.
Op basis van ons onderzoek concluderen we dat gedwongen huwelijken onder de drie onderzochte groepen voorkomen. De dwang komt soms tot uiting in fysieke dwang (in verschillende vormen). Meestal gaat het om veel subtielere vormen van dwang en drang. De dalende huwelijksmigratie, het opgroeien van Turkse, Marokkaanse en Hindostaanse Nederlandse jongeren in een omgeving waarin autonomie belangrijk is, de toenemende nadruk op sociale autonomie in Marokkaanse gezinnen, doen ons veronderstellen dat het aantal gedwongen huwelijken afneemt en dat het verschijnsel van gedwongen huwelijken zowel onder jongeren als onder ouders steeds minder gewaardeerd wordt.

Het is niet zo dat �de� Marokkaanse, Turkse of Hindostaanse �cultuur� automatisch leidt tot gedwongen huwelijken. Evenmin is in �de� Nederlandse �cultuur� ieder huwelijk alleen gebaseerd op vrije keuze. De keuzes die men maakt binnen het proces van partnerkeuze, komen tot stand onder invloed van diverse persoonlijke, economische, sociale, politieke, culturele en demografische factoren zoals transnationale netwerken, voorkeur voor endogamie en idealen als familieloyaliteit en het huwelijk. Naar onze mening is de conclusie gerechtvaardigd dat gedwongen huwelijken een verschijnsel is dat langzaam maar zeker afneemt onder de drie onderzochte groepen. Toch wordt de druk om te trouwen (met een specifieke kandidaat) soms als groot ervaren door jongeren. Die ervaring berust mede op gebrekkige communicatie met de ouders en hoeft derhalve niet altijd terecht te zijn.

Dit wil niet zeggen dat er niks gedaan moet worden. We verwerpen echter de link die bestaat tussen integratie en gedwongen huwelijken.

**********************************
Together with my colleague from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Edien Bartels, I have done a research on forced marriages.

The focal point of this research paper is the question: What place do forced marriages
occupy in the process of choosing a spouse among Turks, Moroccans and Hindustani in the
Netherlands? This research paper focuses on a comparison between the three groups named.
The following research questions are posed:
1. What views are held with respect to marriage, the importance of marriage and how
it is brought about (especially the place given to freedom of choice, on the one hand,
and coercion, on the other, with respect who one is to marry)
2. What strategies do marriage partners use?
3. Within what societal context does the phenomenon of marriage fit?
4. How often does the process of choosing a partner go against the will of the partners?
5. What views do the groups involved have of the role of the government with respect
to forced marriages?

Forced marriages among Turks, Moroccans and Hindustanis is an issue but one that is not as clear cut as you might think. There are not that many examples anymore of parents forcing their daughter (or son!) into a marriages with someone they don’t want. There is considerable pressure however among parents and children to get married at some point in time. With family in for example Morocco this pressure can be to tough to resist for many people.

In the debate on social integration, the manner in which partners are chosen is seen as an
indicator of this integration. Force and freedom of choice are juxtaposed. Studies have
shown that force and freedom of choice in marriage actually represent the extremities of
a continuum with a large grey area in between. Arranged marriages can be placed in this
grey area.
In our research, parents seem to place great value on family relations and they see the
question of whether or not the families of potential partners suit one another as being
vitally important. In other words: they focus on the importance of familial relations and
mutual support. This concerns more than the situation in the Netherlands alone and can
involve the family living in Turkey and Morocco, respectively. The loyalties to, identification
with, and commitment to the family there and the mutual obligations that ensue
from this commitment mean that these can weigh more heavily than other aspects. In
addition, a marriage is still seen as a way in which to solve problems. The woman then
becomes the responsibility of her husband. And for the husband, it is the principal time
at which he demonstrates his sense of responsibility. Another view is the one concerning
the happiness of the children � parents are viewed as the ones that know what is
best for their children.
With respect to children, there are two main views that can clash. On the one side there
is the ideal of freedom of choice (children determine for themselves as to what will make
them happy and what is best for them). On the other hand, they feel a sense of loyalty
to their parents. Sometimes there is also the view that the parents are only looking after
their best interests. Based on the first view, they could marry whom they choose, but
loyalty to their parents means that they will take their parents� views into consideration
and usually ask for their parents� consent. They would not usually present a candidate to
their parents that they think would likely be rejected by them.
Although parents are increasingly shifting their position and favouring the romantic
ideal and although young people have grown up with this ideal, there is still a gap between
the generations in this respect. The idea that this is due to a lack of social integration
or even to unsuccessful integration into Dutch society does not do justice to the
great turnaround that parents in particular have made and ignores the fact that loyalty
to the family and identification with one�s own ethnic group cannot simply be ignored.
The speed at which these changes are taking place differs for the two generations. As a
result, parents and children are making different choices. In other words, parents and
young people are changing, but not in the same manner and at the same speed, which
means they see and interpret the world differently and therefore can act differently. This
causes problems with respect to the choice of a marriage partner within and outside the
group itself. It also explains why parents do not always recognise and acknowledge the
pressure that they put on their children as coercion or force. At the same time, it is also
easy to see why young people sometimes consider any interference by their parents as
a form of coercion. The problem of �forced marriages�, for these groups, is therefore not
so much the result of a lack of integration or of unsuccessful integration. It is rather the
result of a process of strong integration that the two generations are experiencing at different
speeds.

The report (in Dutch with an English summary) / Het rapport kan hier worden gevonden: Over het huwelijk gesproken (PDF-file)

Vorig jaar heb ik met studenten Inge de Jong, Danielle Koning, Siela Jethoe, Warsha Mangre en antropologe Sharita Rampertap een onderzoek uitgevoerd voor de ACVZ naar gedwongen huwelijken onder Turkse, Marokkaanse en Hindostaanse Nederlanders.

Vandaag is dit gepubliceerd als onderdeel van het advies over gedwongen huwelijken dat is gepresenteerd aan mevrouw Verdonk.

Nieuws.nl - Binnenland

Over huwelijksdwang is in Nederland nog weinig bekend.

Over de omvang van gedwongen huwelijken geven de onderzoeken geen duidelijkheid. Probleemgevallen komen volgens secretaris Hans van Miert van de ACVZ ‘alleen boven water als het vreselijk fout gaat’. Hij kan daarom geen cijfers geven. Het college meent op basis van de rapporten en ‘de signalen uit bepaalde groepen en belangenorganisaties’ echter dat het om een ’serieus maatschappelijk probleem’ gaat.

Het uiteindelijk advies omvat een juridische voorstudie en mijn onderzoek. Dat overigens vermeld wordt als ‘De Koning’. Erg aardig van hen, maar als mede-auteur moet er bij staan dr. E. Bartels van de VU.

De conclusie van het advies luidt dat gedwongen huwelijken strafbaar gesteld moeten worden. In het onderzoek dat wij gedaan hebben, geven we daar geen advies over maar we maken wel duidelijk dat dat erg lastig is, onvoldoende (als er alleen een verbod komt) en waarschijnlijk ineffectief.

De twee rappers van DHC hebben een Werkstraf’ gekregen.

De DHC’ers hebben de grenzen van de vrijheid van meningsuiting overschreden met het lied, zo vindt de rechter. De diss bestaat namelijk louter uit ernstige bedreigingen.
[…]
De rechter is echter van mening dat een en ander wel voor rekening van de rappers komt. Er is weliswaar geen bewijs dat ze de diss zelf hebben verspreid, maar blijkbaar hebben zij er ook niet voor gezorgd dat niemand anders aan de rap kon komen en hem verspreiden. Bovendien hebben ze geen afstand genomen van hun uitingen, maar juist in het openbaar de verantwoordelijkheid op zich genomen door in het tv-programma NOVA te verschijnen.

Den Haag Connection is in ieder geval nog steeds een hit in het underground circuit zo is mijn inschatting. (Overigens is er een ge-restylde uitvoering van de Diss inmiddels in omloop)

Tijdens de rechtzaak twee weken geleden stelde de advocaat het volgende (volgens de Volkskrant):

‘Hiphop is onderdeel geworden van de jeugdcultuur’, haalde hij geraadpleegde experts aan. ‘Zo’n diss is voor de jongens van DHC d� manier om te reageren op een debat waarin zij voor hun gevoel gedisst worden. En als we het dan hebben over de toon van het integratiedebat: is ‘kutmarokkaan’ dan zoveel constructiever?’

Nu heeft die advocaat niet met mij gesproken, maar wel erg goed mijn artikel ‘Dit is geen poep wat ik praat - De Hirsi Ali Diss nader belicht’ in het tijdschrift ZemZem gelezen.

Dat blijft overeind naar mijn mening, zelfs al stellen de rappers dat de diss niet voor publieke consumptie was bedoeld en ook al is het niet vreemd dat veel mensen hier aanstoot aan nemen.

Tekst Hirsi Ali Diss
Hirsi Ali Diss

Fuck Hirsi Ali Somalie,
Dit is Rico Chemicalie
Ik ben aan zet
Stuur een Scudraket
naar die kankerslet
Je bent goedkoper dan een Easyjet
…
Ik sla je op je bek
Breek je nek
…
Doe ’s gewoon
Want ik weet in welk huis je woont
Kankerhoer, altijd op de loer
Met je dichtgenaaide snee
Bij de VVD, hey
…
Ben bezig met het voorbereiden
van een liquidatie bomba aktie tegen Hirsi Ali
Dat is mijn reactie voor de onrust die ze zei
…
Je maakt me moe
Weet je wat ik doe
Ik snij je in twee�n
Dump je in ��n van de zeven zee�n