The trouble with caged 'islam-critics'

Among the most known islam-critics are two women: the Dutch (yes she still has her Dutch nationality) Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Canadian Irshad Manji. Hirsi Ali has recently published her book The Caged Virgin and Manji has published a while ago The trouble with Islam today.

What they both do in their books is trying to analyse how certain discourses (laid down in the Quran, hadiths, fatwas and son) are sustained and how they influence people’s behaviour. In their analysis they seem to rely on the assumption that discursive formations have their own logic and agency. This results in the conclusion that people are continually produced and reproduced by discourses that form an essential characteristic of ‘their’ group.

Hirsi Ali:

“…the vast majority of Muslim women are still enchained by the doctrine of virginity, which requires that women enter marriage as green, as grass: experience of love and sexuality before marriage is an absolute taboo.”

[…]

“[We] Muslims have religion inculcated into us from birth, and that is one of the very reasons for our falling behind the West in technology, finance, health, and culture.” “Every Muslim, from the beginnings of Islam to the present day, is raised in the belief that all knowledge can be found in the Koran.” “For Muslim children the study of biology and history can be very confusing.”

[…]

In Manji her essentialist writing is not so much in her opinions about the Islamic traditions but more in her overall message: that Muslims need to re-open the gates of ijtihad and interpret the Islamic texts themselves in order to be (fatwa-)free. In other words Muslims (in particular women) are oppressed by the current Islamic discursive formations and they need to be reformed. Only if that is the case, women can be free.

Notwithstanding the obvious differences between the two women, two important questions to be asked. First of all, if discursive formations lead to a violence or anti-women prone disposition, how can the varieties in violence, conflict and anti-women practices be explained? If, for example, Islam is indeed inherently violent why did the Danish cartoons lead to public uproar in Syria and Lebanon but not in Belgium or France? The second question is what kind of mechanisms of the rich and complicated discursive formations such as Islam bring about action? Political ideologies and religions are highly complicated, rich and multifaceted discursive formations. If for example Islam or national identity can be used to justify (violent) action but can also be used to promote democratic citizenship and peaceful participation in society, then how can it determine the relationship between groups and within groups in one particular way?

Political and religious elites and entrepreneurs play an important role here. A discourse can be invoked as a resource by the elites to justify courses of action in a way plausible to their followers and is a resource for long term dispositions (while violent conflict is usually short term) such as resentment, arrogance, suspicion and intolerance with regard to outsiders. This does not only concern outsiders. The position of migrant women in the Netherlands (among them many muslim women) is influenced in a negative way because of their dependency from their husbands residence permit. For example a woman from Morocco who marries a man from the Netherlands is for her legal status dependent from that man (same goes for men from Morocco who marry a woman from the Netherlands).

This means that people are indeed influenced by discursive formations and for example the position of women can be legitimized by invoking Quranic verses (but also the Dutch law…). Many people are influenced by it from their early years on. But this also means that these discourses have no power of their own but that they are always mediated by parents, peers, political and religious elites and so on. In this proces of mediation discourses are always produced, reproduced. They also will be automatically transformed in that process because those discourse will have to be made meaningful in different places and in different times.

This means that in both Hirsi Ali and Manji are wrong in their basic assumptions. In Manji’s case this also means that ijtihad in itself can never be the way to liberation. Take for example Bin Laden’s Declaration of Jihad, considered by Bernard Lewis as a travesty of the traditional Islamic jihad doctrine. Also a perfect example of ijtihad, but probably not one Manji or Hirsi Ali is waiting for.

What Manji, Hirsi Ali should do is come up with an in depth analysis of the role of mediators and how people use, reproduce and transform Islamic traditions in different places, different times and analyse why some discourses become dominant while others seem to loose ground. An analysis of the numerous projects of women, by women (but also by and for men) who try to liberate themselves through Islam and/or outside or away from Islam, is also necessary. This will make clear that within and between groups there is a balance of power. People have to negotiate about the definition and interpretation of ideas, practices and experiences that constitute a certain identity or religion. These are continually negotiated, implicitly and explicitly, between people within one’s own group and with people outside this group. Distinctive for Muslim identities or Muslim politics is the reference to experiences, beliefs, practices, symbols, and traditions that constitute ‘Islam’. This is a much more useful approach because it highlights the fact that people have to make certain choices in their lives. These choices are dependent upon their relationship with others inside and outside what they see as ‘their’ group. People are active agents in these processes constraint by (institutional) power structures. What Hirsi Ali and Manji should do is reforming the (instutional) power structures that, for example, may keep women in subaltern position and that restrict women and men in their freedom.
For an excellent review of Hirsi Ali’s and Manji’s books read Laila Lalami’s The missionary position in The Nation or (Hat Tip: Myrtus) follow the discussion on Ha ana za! on Hirsi Ali and Manji by Arima (who more or less echoes Lalami’s piece).