C L O S E R

ISIM/IMES: From Allah to Prada

Posted on May 31st, 2006 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

The International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) cordially invite you to a lecture by

From Allah to Prada (Forum, 2006) is the title of the first report of an ongoing research project among young Muslims in Amsterdam. From interviews with a panel of insider experts (professionals as well as young Muslims) a typology has been constructed, based on two dimensions (career and religious orientation). The aim of the study is to monitor developments in cultural identity, lifestyle and religion among young Muslims.
Dirk J. Korf, Ph.D., is associate professor in criminology at the Universities of Amsterdam and Utrecht. His main fields of research are lifestyles, patterns and trends of drug use and drug trafficking, as well as crime and crime prevention among ethnic minorities.

(more…)

1 comment.

The New Yorker: Oriana Fallaci directs her fury toward Islam.

Posted on May 31st, 2006 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

The New Yorker: Fact
THE AGITATOR
The New Yorker has a very interesting interview with Oriana Fallaci, by Margaret Talbot.

“Yesterday, I was hysterical,” the Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci said. She was telling me a story about a local dog owner and the liberties he’d allowed his animal to take in front of Fallaci’s town house, on the Upper East Side. Big mistake. “I no longer have the energy to get really angry, like I used to,” she added. It called to mind what the journalist Robert Scheer said about Fallaci after interviewing her for Playboy, in 1981: “For the first time in my life, I found myself feeling sorry for the likes of Khomeini, Qaddafi, the Shah of Iran, and Kissinger—all of whom had been the objects of her wrath—the people she described as interviewing ‘with a thousand feelings of rage.’ ”

[…]

Fallaci’s arguments appeal to many Europeans on a visceral level. The murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the “honor killings” of young women in England and Sweden, and the controversy in France over whether girls may wear head scarves to school have underscored the enormous clash in values between secular Europeans and fundamentalist Muslim immigrants. In Holland, immigration officials have begun showing potential immigrants films and brochures that detail certain “European” values, including equality of the sexes and tolerance of homosexuality. The implicit suggestion is that in order to live in Europe you must accept these ideas. Such clumsy efforts betray the frustration and confusion that many Europeans have felt since the riots that broke out in the suburbs of Paris last fall—perhaps the most spectacular sign that the assimilation of Western Europe’s fifteen million Muslims has stalled in many places, and never started in others.

Some European intellectuals have given Fallaci credit for offering an enraged, articulate voice to people who are genuinely bewildered and dismayed by the challenges of assimilating Islamic immigrants. In 2002, writing in the Italian weekly Panorama, Lucia Annunziata, a former foreign correspondent and columnist, and Carlo Rossella, then the magazine’s editor, argued that “The Rage and the Pride” had “redefined Italy’s conception of the current conflict between the Western world and the Islamic world. . . . Oriana Fallaci has confronted the issue with ironclad simplicity: We are different, she has said. And, at this point, we are incompatible.” The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, writing in Le Point, said that Fallaci “went too far,” reducing all “Sons of Allah to their worst elements,” yet he commended her for taking “the discourse and the actions of our adversaries” at their word and—in the wake of September 11th, the execution of Daniel Pearl, the destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan, and other atrocities committed in the name of Islam—not being intimidated by the “penitential narcissism that makes the West guilty of even that which victimizes it.”

[…]

Fallaci sees the threat of Islamic fundamentalism as a revival of the Fascism that she and her sisters grew up fighting. She told me, “I am convinced that the situation is politically substantially the same as in 1938, with the pact in Munich, when England and France did not understand a thing. With the Muslims, we have done the same thing.” She elaborated, in an e-mail, “Look at the Muslims: in Europe they go on with their chadors and their burkas and their djellabahs. They go on with the habits preached by the Koran, they go on with mistreating their wives and daughters. They refuse our culture, in short, and try to impose their culture, or so-called culture, on us. . . . I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture. Toward my values, my principles, my civilization. It is not only my duty toward my Christian roots. It is my duty toward freedom and toward the freedom fighter I am since I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism. Islamism is the new Nazi-Fascism. With Nazi-Fascism, no compromise is possible. No hypocritical tolerance. And those who do not understand this simple reality are feeding the suicide of the West.”

Fallaci refuses to recognize the limitations of this metaphor—say, the fact that Muslim immigration is not the same as an annexation by another state. And although European countries should indeed refuse to countenance certain cultural practices—polygamy, “honor killings,” and anti-Semitic teachings, for example—Fallaci tends to portray the worst practices of Islamic fundamentalists as representative of all Muslims. Certainly, European countries have made some foolish compromises in the name of placating Muslim residents. In Germany, where courts have ordered that Muslim religious instruction be offered in schools, just as Christian instruction is, critics have complained that the Islamic teaching often perpetuates a conservative version of Islam. The result, the historian Bernard Lewis argued, in a recent talk in Washington, is that “Islam as taught in Turkish schools is a sort of modernized, semi-secularized version of Islam, and Islam as taught in German schools is the full Wahhabi blast.” (This is a good reminder of why the American model of keeping religious instruction out of public schools facilitates assimilation.) Many of Fallaci’s objections, however, have more to do with her aesthetic sensibilities. For her, hearing Muslim prayers in Tuscany—she does her own wailing imitation—is a form of oppression. Yet such examples do not rise to the level of argument that she wants to make, which is that the native culture of Italy will collapse if Muslims keep immigrating.
[…]

And it is well known . . . that I do not accept the mendacity of the so-called Moderate Islam. I do not believe that a Good Islam and a Bad Islam exist. Only Islam exists. And Islam is the Koran. And the Koran says what it says. Whatever its version. Of course there are exceptions. Also, considering the mathematical calculation of probabilities, some good Muslims must exist. I mean Muslims who appreciate freedom and democracy and secularism. But, as I say in the ‘Apocalypse,’ . . . good Muslims are few. So tragically few, in fact, that they must go around with bodyguards.” (Here she mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former member of the Dutch parliament, whom Holland, shamefully, declared last month that it would strip of her citizenship, citing an irregularity in her 1997 asylum application.) She wrote that she found my question about whether she would tolerate any mosques in Europe “insidious” and “offensive,” because it “aims to portray me as the bloodthirsty fanatics, who during the French Revolution beheaded even the statues of the Holy Virgin and of Jesus Christ and the Saints. Or as the equally bloodthirsty fanatics of the Bolshevik Revolution, who burned the icons and executed the clergymen and used the churches as warehouses. Really, no honest person can suggest that my ideas belong to that kind of people. I am known for a life spent in the struggle for freedom, and freedom includes the freedom of religion. But the struggle for freedom does not include the submission to a religion which, like the Muslim religion, wants to annihilate other religions.

[…]

Fallaci’s virtues are the virtues that shine most brightly in stark circumstances: the ferocious courage, and the willingness to say anything, that can amount to a life force. But Fallaci never convinced me that Europe’s encounter with immigration is that sort of circumstance. Not that it would matter to her. “You’ve got to get old, because you have nothing to lose,” she said over lunch that afternoon. “You have this respectability that is given to you, more or less. But you don’t give a damn. It is the ne plus ultra of freedom. And things that I didn’t used to say before—you know, there is in each of us a form of timidity, of cautiousness—now I open my big mouth. I say, ‘What are you going to do to me? You go fuck yourself—I say what I want.’ ”

2 comments.

IHRC – Islamic Human Rights Commission: British Muslims' Expectations of the Government Project

Posted on May 30th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

IHRC – Islamic Human Rights Commission

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is “an independent, not-for-profit, campaign, research and advocacy organization based in London , UK” . They work in partnership with different organizations from all backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background.

British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government Project

Through extensive surveys with Muslims across the UK , IHRC set out to give voice to the expectations of Muslims and articulate them to the British government. This project hopes to bring about a truly open and beneficial discussion aimed at changing policies and perceptions of a much maligned community whose diversity and sophistication is being ignored and condemned in an alarming and dangerous manner.

Reports are already available on citizenship, discrimination, schools and hijab. Further reports on university life, the media and Muslim contribution to British society are soon to follow.

Volume 5: [download summary] [order print version] (NEW)
Volume 4: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 3: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 2: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 1: [download summary] [order print version]

0 comments.

IHRC – Islamic Human Rights Commission: British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government Project

Posted on May 30th, 2006 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

IHRC – Islamic Human Rights Commission

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is “an independent, not-for-profit, campaign, research and advocacy organization based in London , UK” . They work in partnership with different organizations from all backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background.

British Muslims’ Expectations of the Government Project

Through extensive surveys with Muslims across the UK , IHRC set out to give voice to the expectations of Muslims and articulate them to the British government. This project hopes to bring about a truly open and beneficial discussion aimed at changing policies and perceptions of a much maligned community whose diversity and sophistication is being ignored and condemned in an alarming and dangerous manner.

Reports are already available on citizenship, discrimination, schools and hijab. Further reports on university life, the media and Muslim contribution to British society are soon to follow.

Volume 5: [download summary] [order print version] (NEW)
Volume 4: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 3: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 2: [download summary] [order print version]
Volume 1: [download summary] [order print version]

0 comments.

Are We Really Supposed To "Kill All The Infidels"?

Posted on May 29th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates.

Are We Really Supposed To “Kill All The Infidels”? – altmuslim.com
Thanks to Jamal from Opinionated Voice: I came across this article on AltMuslim.com:

The framework underlying fighting in Islam is self-defense, and all verses which call on the believers to “fight the unbelievers” must be understood in this framework.
By Hesham Hassaballa, May 19, 2005
I’m not what I seem
Time and again, over and over and over again, I either read or hear from people that Islam calls for the murder of “infidels,” or all those who are not Muslim. This perception is so pervasive, so entrenched, and I really do not know from where it comes. Yes, there are Muslims who do believe this: 19 of them crashed three planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 of my innocent American brothers and sisters. But, I don’t know from where they got this idea.

“It is the Qur’an, you idiot!!!” I am quite sure some of you just screamed that to your computer screen.

0 comments.

Are We Really Supposed To “Kill All The Infidels”?

Posted on May 29th, 2006 by .
Categories: Internal Debates.

Are We Really Supposed To “Kill All The Infidels”? – altmuslim.com
Thanks to Jamal from Opinionated Voice: I came across this article on AltMuslim.com:

The framework underlying fighting in Islam is self-defense, and all verses which call on the believers to “fight the unbelievers” must be understood in this framework.
By Hesham Hassaballa, May 19, 2005
I’m not what I seem
Time and again, over and over and over again, I either read or hear from people that Islam calls for the murder of “infidels,” or all those who are not Muslim. This perception is so pervasive, so entrenched, and I really do not know from where it comes. Yes, there are Muslims who do believe this: 19 of them crashed three planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 of my innocent American brothers and sisters. But, I don’t know from where they got this idea.

“It is the Qur’an, you idiot!!!” I am quite sure some of you just screamed that to your computer screen.

0 comments.

C L O S E R – The Dhimmi Card

Posted on May 28th, 2006 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Some personal considerations.

Terms like “dhimmitude” are often used polemically, a little bit the same like the term political correct is used. The latter term refers more to politics concerning issues of the multiculti society, while the former seems to be a psychological attitude of people that have surrendered to Muslims (gaining) dominance. This of course has triggered some muslim bloggers who now seek to explain dhimmitude for dummies. Brian Ulrich made an attempt that has been given considerable attention around the blogosphere. Some excerpts:

It is, however, important to note the Covenant of Umar, the document eventually attributed to the reign of the second rightly guided caliph which sets out the laws which dhimmis were to follow as their part of the covenant. These are not in the Qur’an, and in fact many represent continuations of Byzantine and Sassanid practices. Many others, such as the ban on Arabic inscriptions, seem to imply that at the time these regulations actually took shape, authorities were concerned to maintain social and cultural distance between a ruling elite and non-Muslims, who were then a majority of the population outside the Arabian peninsula.

A point which I emphasize to my students, however, is that the Umar document represents the theory, not the practice. Occasionally a ruler would start enforcing most or all of its prohibitions, but more often the main impediments faced by Christians and Jews were those common to all minorities, a popular prejudice against that which was different emphasized especially in times of difficulty. The stereotypes involving Jews in the Muslim Middle Ages more closely resembled that of Hispanics in the contemporary United States than the conspiracy theorizing of today. Another window into non-Muslim communities is that utilized most effectively by S.D. Goitein, the treasure trove of documents known as the Cairo Geniza. Here we see in the voluminous correspondence of medieval Egyptian Jewry that in that place and time, Jews and Christians played important social and political roles and were fully integrated into the large and prosperous economy of the Islamic world.
As might be expected, individuals whose letters are preserved in the Geniza have a variety of opinions regarding their status, but in his A Mediterranean Society, Goitein uses the analogy of “a nation within a nation,” noting that they share a common homeland and ultimate government guaranteeing justice and security, but follow different laws and answer to different religious authorities. The importance of that last should not be underestimated, for medieval Muslim rulers relied on religious leaders to govern, and just as the ulema were responsible for the Muslims, so Jewish and Christian communal leaders were responsible for their own people.

The period of the Crusades and Mongol invasions is usually considered an important turning point in this history. I know more about the Christians, but Jews were also affected by the strong sense of Muslim identity under attack from these outside powers, and subject both to government demands for money to fight these wars and the fact they were, in effect, still outsiders to the now larger, religiously defined Muslim community.

Even then, however, we still don’t have anything like the anti-Semitism seen today in much of the Muslim Middle East. When did that start to appear?

Lewis ties this into the idea that Muslims resent the inversion of the order in which their true religion was leading them into a glorious future, though since I understand that theory is riddled with holes I didn’t quote it above. The main point is that the deplorable anti-Semitism we see today in places like Iran and Syria has its origins in Europe, not the Qur’an, even if certain Qur’anic verses are occasionally ripped out of context to justify it, and those who draw comparisons between Hamas, Ahmadinejad, and the Nazis might do well to consider their own analogy and remember that “pogrom” is a European word. (As an aside, there are perhaps interesting parallels in Lewis’s depiction of the British using allegations of Muslim anti-Semitism to intervene in the Ottoman Empire and certain events in the news today.)

In another post he elaborated a little more on the topic.

The first is the “Hispanic” analogy. That was pretty off-the-cuff, and I have no doubt that a careful academic study would prove it fatuous. What I was going for was the idea that Jews were seen more as menial people associated with jobs no one else wanted to do and to some degree as a cultural threat. Despite perhaps sharing a sports loyalty, I would disagree with the tone of Mariner’s comment in the thread. On the religious point, for example, I think anti-Catholic bigotry still plays some role in how we view Hispanics, but a more relevant comparison might be to the huge backlash against flying Mexican flags. I could tackle a couple of the others, too, but really taken past the level of people’s perceptions, you’re comparing apples and oranges – a medieval religious legal system defined first and foremost by religious identity as opposed to a modern secular one based off nationality in a territorial defined space. Tomorrow I’ll try to remember to grab a copy of Goitein’s Geniza study and see what the voices of the past actually have to say for themselves.

As far as the line about anti-Semitism first appearing in the late 19th century as a European import, that was Bernard Lewis’s quote, and I guess it does seem a bit odd out of context, though people should be given pause by the fact that this is not a scholar who is given to blaming things on Europe. (That’s part of why I’m leaning on him, especially for the modern period which I don’t know very well.) I haven’t re-read his entire book carefully, but from what I’ve glanced at and remember, what he calls anti-Semitism is basically this ideology which sees Jews as evil, powerful, manipulative, and responsible for many of the world’s problems. This is clearly different than seeing them as poor souls with an inferior religion. Seriously, the fact that works like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion originated in Europe isn’t even controversial!

Some of the reactions, like those at Faithfreedom.org, are typical for those who constantly pull the ‘dhimmi-card’: putting the other one down as a person whose mental abilities are flawed out of fear for the Muslim dominance. I do not know enough about ‘dhimmi’ in the history of muslim societies and communities. Probably more is to be said about it, so I’m waiting…

1 comment.

Morocco unbound: an interview with Yto Barrada – openDemocracy

Posted on May 28th, 2006 by .
Categories: Morocco.

Morocco unbound: an interview with Yto Barrada Yto Barrada Charlotte Collins – openDemocracy
On openDemocracy a very interesting interview with Yto Barrada. Over the last 15 years, the Strait of Gibraltar has become one of the main gateways for illegal immigration in north Africa. Yto Barrada’s photographs, taken between 1998 – 2004, capture the temptations of leaving, and the unfulfilled hopes of escaping into Europe. Charlotte Collins talks to her.

0 comments.

Boeken&cetera: 'De' Islam met cultureel antropologe Marjo Buitelaar

Posted on May 28th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

Boeken Artikelen: ‘De’ Islam
‘De’ Islam
Boeken&cetera met Marjo Buitelaar
Publicaties

Islam en het dagelijks leven

Het zou prettig zijn als een ieder die een oordeel uit wil spreken over de Islam, eerst een inburgeringscursus Islam bij Buitelaar ondergaat.Buitelaar ging naar Marokko en deed onderzoek naar de beleving van de vastenmaand ramadan en de betekenis van de ‘hammam’, het publieke badhuis. Ook in Nederland doet ze onderzoek onder vrouwen van Marokkaanse afkomst. Daarover schreef ze een genuanceerd verslag, verschenen onder de titel: “Islam en het dagelijks leven”.

Allereerst is duidelijk, maar moet nog maar eens gezegd, dat de Koran, net als de Bijbel en de Tora, multi-interpretabele werken zijn. Buitelaar maakt in deze aflevering van Boeken&cetera duidelijk dat er steeds meer aandacht is voor de religieuze identiteit van moslims en veel minder op alle andere identiteitvormende aspecten die een cultuur, een (immigrant) groep, met zich mee brengen.

Marjo Buitelaar is antropoloog en verbonden aan de faculteit Godgeleerdheid & Godsdienstwetenschap van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Voor een genuanceerd beeld met geluid kijkt u aanstaande zondag naar boeken&cetera.

0 comments.

Boeken&cetera: ‘De’ Islam met cultureel antropologe Marjo Buitelaar

Posted on May 28th, 2006 by .
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Multiculti Issues.

Boeken Artikelen: ‘De’ Islam
‘De’ Islam
Boeken&cetera met Marjo Buitelaar
Publicaties

Islam en het dagelijks leven

Het zou prettig zijn als een ieder die een oordeel uit wil spreken over de Islam, eerst een inburgeringscursus Islam bij Buitelaar ondergaat.Buitelaar ging naar Marokko en deed onderzoek naar de beleving van de vastenmaand ramadan en de betekenis van de ‘hammam’, het publieke badhuis. Ook in Nederland doet ze onderzoek onder vrouwen van Marokkaanse afkomst. Daarover schreef ze een genuanceerd verslag, verschenen onder de titel: “Islam en het dagelijks leven”.

Allereerst is duidelijk, maar moet nog maar eens gezegd, dat de Koran, net als de Bijbel en de Tora, multi-interpretabele werken zijn. Buitelaar maakt in deze aflevering van Boeken&cetera duidelijk dat er steeds meer aandacht is voor de religieuze identiteit van moslims en veel minder op alle andere identiteitvormende aspecten die een cultuur, een (immigrant) groep, met zich mee brengen.

Marjo Buitelaar is antropoloog en verbonden aan de faculteit Godgeleerdheid & Godsdienstwetenschap van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Voor een genuanceerd beeld met geluid kijkt u aanstaande zondag naar boeken&cetera.

0 comments.

C L O S E R – MaRock!

Posted on May 27th, 2006 by .
Categories: Arts & culture, Morocco.

Voor de oplettende Closer-lezer, niks nieuws, maar het schijnt dat MaRock in Marokko vooral nogal wat ophef heeft gezorgd en dat deze commotie nu ook in Nederland is doorgedrongen.

Voor meer recente info zie ook ook de bijbehorende weblog (in het Frans).

0 comments.

Protected: AD.nl – ‘Zo’n doe-het-zelf-imam, dat is pas echt gevaarlijk’

Posted on May 27th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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NRC – Sheila Kamerman: Verkeerde Vrienden

Posted on May 26th, 2006 by .
Categories: Important Publications, Youth culture (as a practice).

NRC Krantenarchief
Verkeerde vrienden

Sheila Kamerman
Vooral jongeren uit problematische gezinnen zijn gevoelig voor groepsinvloed
De vriendengroep heeft op een tiener meer invloed dan zijn ouders. Maar wat te doen als een vriendengroep een jeugdbende wordt?
De grootste angst van ouders met tienerkinderen is dat ze verkeerde vrienden krijgen, zegt pedagoog en onderzoeker Bas Levering van de Universiteit Utrecht. Al die ouders weten hoe belangrijk vrienden zijn en hoe groot hun invloed is. Daar hebben ze geen onderzoek voor nodig.’ Vrienden openen het venster op de wereld, zegt hoogleraar jeugd en kinderstudies Wim Meeus van de Universiteit Utrecht: De vrijetijdscultuur waarbinnen tieners zich bewegen is grotendeels georganiseerd rond vrienden. Kinderen leren alles van elkaar: hoe ze contact leggen met het andere geslacht, welke films of muziek cool zijn, alcohol drinken en welke kleding ze moeten dragen om erbij te horen.’
De invloed van leeftijdgenoten (peerpressure) op jongeren is groot, vindt pedagoog en voormalig jeugdhulpverlener en maatschappelijk werker Marinus Traas. Hij promoveerde onlangs aan de Universiteit van Tilburg op een studie naar de oorzaken van jeugdcriminalteit. Peerpressure is prima als het om fijne vriendschappen gaat, maar de invloed van leeftijdgenoten wordt een probleem als tieners in een groep ongewenst gedrag van elkaar gaan overnemen. In de ernstigste vorm gaat het om kopieren van crimineel gedrag. Vooral adolescenten uit kansarme, problematische gezinnen zijn gevoelig voor de invloed van peers, stelt Traas. Bij hen vindt de socialisatie vooral buiten het gezin plaats. Zij zijn extra kwetsbaar en worden eerder meegezogen in de criminaliteit.

0 comments.

C L O S E R – Hirsi Ali & Loyalty

Posted on May 25th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

Looking at the press reports and internet forums, it seems that many Muslim migrants and second generation are very glad that Hirsi Ali is going to leave this country and are not very sad about what happened to her. (A few seem to regret it but to me it looks like a minority but I have to admit I haven’t talked to many in real life about this).

I am wondering if they should be really pleased about all of this.

Let’s imagine the following. You are an asylumseeker. You have changed your story in such a way that you know you have more chance that the Dutch will grant you a status as a refugee. (The ones who never changed a story so that it would fit bureaucratic institutions, stop reading.) At that time you are in an asylum shelter (A field somewhere in the country side with some old second hand trailers). 10 years later you are in parlaiment, well known in the West, your Dutch is quite good, you have finished a university education. Well done huh? And no that is not easy, if it was easy there would be more like you.

Then after 10 years, people conclude that you have no right to have a Dutch citizenship. No matter what you did in those 10 years: university, parlaiment and so on. It doesn’t matter. Most reactions: rules are rules and go back to your country. No sense of loyalty, no idea that you might be a member of the Dutch ‘imagined community’. And if this can happen to a member of parlaiment, it can happen to every migrant citizen. So, I truly think some Muslim migrants should be more careful in expressing their relief that Hirsi Ali is leaving. What happened to her can happen to them, could be the conclusion. And most people don’t have an elite for support like Hirsi Ali has.

1 comment.

C L O S E R – Hirsi Ali & Loyalty

Posted on May 25th, 2006 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues.

Looking at the press reports and internet forums, it seems that many Muslim migrants and second generation are very glad that Hirsi Ali is going to leave this country and are not very sad about what happened to her. (A few seem to regret it but to me it looks like a minority but I have to admit I haven’t talked to many in real life about this).

I am wondering if they should be really pleased about all of this.

Let’s imagine the following. You are an asylumseeker. You have changed your story in such a way that you know you have more chance that the Dutch will grant you a status as a refugee. (The ones who never changed a story so that it would fit bureaucratic institutions, stop reading.) At that time you are in an asylum shelter (A field somewhere in the country side with some old second hand trailers). 10 years later you are in parlaiment, well known in the West, your Dutch is quite good, you have finished a university education. Well done huh? And no that is not easy, if it was easy there would be more like you.

Then after 10 years, people conclude that you have no right to have a Dutch citizenship. No matter what you did in those 10 years: university, parlaiment and so on. It doesn’t matter. Most reactions: rules are rules and go back to your country. No sense of loyalty, no idea that you might be a member of the Dutch ‘imagined community’. And if this can happen to a member of parlaiment, it can happen to every migrant citizen. So, I truly think some Muslim migrants should be more careful in expressing their relief that Hirsi Ali is leaving. What happened to her can happen to them, could be the conclusion. And most people don’t have an elite for support like Hirsi Ali has.

1 comment.

hetkanWel.net » Blog Archief » Hofstadgroep heeft humor

Posted on May 24th, 2006 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

hetkanWel.net » Blog Archief » Hofstadgroep heeft humor.

De Hofstadgroep heeft humor. Maar maken ze nu een geintje met ons, of worden we vierkant uitgelachen?

0 comments.

Consumption: It's Not OK to Eat a Sexed-Up Chicken

Posted on May 24th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

Consumption: It’s Not OK to Eat a Sexed-Up Chicken

Researchers from the United States and Brazil posed the following hypothetical: “A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a dead chicken. But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it. Is that wrong?

0 comments.

Consumption: It’s Not OK to Eat a Sexed-Up Chicken

Posted on May 24th, 2006 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

Consumption: It’s Not OK to Eat a Sexed-Up Chicken

Researchers from the United States and Brazil posed the following hypothetical: “A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a dead chicken. But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it. Is that wrong?

0 comments.

Institute for Social Research – Marianne Gullestad: Mohammed Atta and I. Identification, discrimination and the formation of sleepers

Posted on May 24th, 2006 by .
Categories: Important Publications.

Institute for Social Research: Publications
Marianne Gullestad
Mohammed Atta and I
Identification, discrimination and the formation of sleepers

(Mohammed Atta and I)

European Journal Of Cultural Studies 6 (4):529–548, 2003.

Summary

This article uses the popular thought figure of the sleeper as a methodological tool to get a new angle on the cultural analysis of majority minority–relations in Europe. I do so on the basis of an autobiographical essay written by Nazneen Khan, who considers the theoretical possibility that she too might have become a terrorist. The analysis focuses on descent and religion, as specific sources of identification and belonging, and on how and where, in present day identification, sleeper identities might be identified. The analysis reveals that the definition of the sleeper in the mass media is not the only one possible. This figure can be reconfigured more dynamically and processually as someone who has experienced repeated rejection within structured relations of power influenced by ideologies focusing on blood and religion. In addition, I argue that populist ideas in Europe can themselves be regarded as (racist) sleepers.

2 comments.

spiked-politics | Article | The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless

Posted on May 21st, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

spiked-politics | Article | The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless
The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless
The UK government’s ‘narrative’ on the London bombings shows how empty and pointless the attacks were. So why do so many try to read meaning into them?
by Brendan O’Neill

Why did four British citizens blow up themselves and 52 others on a Thursday morning in July 2005?

From what we’ve read over the past 10 months – the reams of analysis, commentary and speculation – you might think they did it as part of some Islamist conspiracy, or to register their opposition to the war in Iraq, or because they were evil and wished to topple British, even Western civilisation. In fact, as the UK government’s narrative on 7/7 now reveals, there is little hard evidence that they did it for any of those reasons. The truth appears to be that 7/7 was meaningless; it was a nihilistic attack carried out by four fairly ordinary blokes for no easily discernible aim or agenda. And tragically, those who died in it may as well have been killed by an earthquake or in a train crash. It is time to stop trying to read meaning into 7/7, and get over it.

2 comments.

spiked-politics | Article | The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless

Posted on May 21st, 2006 by .
Categories: International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

spiked-politics | Article | The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless
The truth about 7/7: it was meaningless
The UK government’s ‘narrative’ on the London bombings shows how empty and pointless the attacks were. So why do so many try to read meaning into them?
by Brendan O’Neill

Why did four British citizens blow up themselves and 52 others on a Thursday morning in July 2005?

From what we’ve read over the past 10 months – the reams of analysis, commentary and speculation – you might think they did it as part of some Islamist conspiracy, or to register their opposition to the war in Iraq, or because they were evil and wished to topple British, even Western civilisation. In fact, as the UK government’s narrative on 7/7 now reveals, there is little hard evidence that they did it for any of those reasons. The truth appears to be that 7/7 was meaningless; it was a nihilistic attack carried out by four fairly ordinary blokes for no easily discernible aim or agenda. And tragically, those who died in it may as well have been killed by an earthquake or in a train crash. It is time to stop trying to read meaning into 7/7, and get over it.

2 comments.

nrc.nl – Opinie – Strijd tegen absolute Allah is geboden

Posted on May 20th, 2006 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

nrc.nl – Opinie – Strijd tegen absolute Allah is geboden
De post hieronder gaat over Hirsi Ali’s ‘Straw Demons’. Hier staat er weer in, vandaag in NRC, maar al lang eerder gepubliceerd.

Strijd tegen absolute Allah is geboden

Kijk ook naar sociale rol van religie Is hervorming van de islam mogelijk?

De basis van iedere discussie over de plaats van de islam in een democratische samenleving moet het principe van gelijke behandeling zijn, schreef Paul Scheffer vorige week in NRC Handelsblad. Dat betekent: aanscherping van de scheiding tussen kerk en staat en de plicht voor moslims om ongelovigen en kritische leden in eigen kring dezelfde vrijheid te geven die zij nu terecht als groep opeisen. Dit stuk heeft veel reacties opgeroepen. Volgens Ayaan Hirsi Ali is Scheffers vertrouwen op een hervorming binnen de islam misplaatst – gelukkig leert Hirsi Ali ons wat de ware islam is, zegt Robbert Woltering. Onder hun stukken meer bijdragen aan de discussie over kerk en staat.

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C L O S E R – A difficult week

Posted on May 20th, 2006 by .
Categories: Some personal considerations.

C L O S E R

Well, this has been a difficult week for the Dutch, not the least for Hirsi Ali of course (Yes, no matter what Verdonk says or no matter what some of her critics say, to me she is Dutch). On Harry’s Place a nice summary for what happened to her:

It’s safe to say it hasn’t been a brilliant few weeks for Ayaan Hirsi Ali. First she was ordered to vacate her apartment building after an appeal court judge ruled in favour of neighbours who’d complained that her presence put their own safety at risk. Then on Tuesday she resigned from the Dutch parliament following revelations that she’d lied on her asylum application in 1992, and announced she’d be leaving the Netherlands to join the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The resignation was announced in a press conference in which she explained her reasons for agreeing to join the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)…

Harry’s Place is one of the few that can be considered pro-Hirsi Ali, but remains polite, distant and with a nose for different views without insulting these but just criticizing their content, as in the case of Developing Your Web Presence, Par en Bas and don’t forget Navaho Gunleg:

Just reading right here that the two-timing, lying, double-crossing bitch we call Ayaan Hirsi Ali (but is actually called Ayaan Hirsi Magan) will work for the American Enterprise Institute.

Of course, I am not surprised; she’s been sucking up to the US world-wide globalisation policies for ages now; that has always been pretty damn clear to me.

So now it’s official. As of the 1st of September she’s outta here.

Hopefully, this obvious ‘conflict of interest’ shall mean she’s really out of politics in this little country of ours. I have always thought of her as the Dutch Condoleeza Rice, as in sell-out capitalist bitch.

It’s obviously very dangerous that she will be spending time in this ‘conservative thinktank’, sucking Bush’s dick while Rice is holding it. (Eeew, now that was not the picture I was looking for.)

Meanwhile, in the Dutch newspapers several columnists try to make sense of it. Ephimenco (pro-hirsi ali) in Trouw:

Who is fishing in the gutter of the internetfora, reaches the same conclusion: the most humiliating remarks against the fallen politician are from different political spheres. Remarkable, but also comforting: after a period of polarizing, the people recovered their lost unity at the cost of the ‘sooty black one’ (sorry don’t know the translation for ‘roetmop’)

Jaffe Vink, also in Trouw, finds it

[…] painful to see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali – for who the Netherlands is the country she loves – has to leave. […] Her statements are ordinary, almost plain. She pleads for the freedom of the individual, the equality of man and woman, the emancipation of allochtone women and especially muslimwomen. No office clerk will be shocked, but the worldwide Muslimcommunity does. […] Islam has two big problems that should be solved: the first is the position of the apostate and the second is the depiction of the paradise. […] How can a religion expect respect, when it deals with his apostates the way it does? I challenge imams to preach about this, I challenge them to write about this. […] Dear imams, criticize that picture of the paradise, criticize the death of the martyr in the name of the holy life. Celebrate life, imams. Teach that to your children. Celebrate life. And tell your children that Ayaan Hirsi Ali also can live on. Grant her life. Tell that to your children. Tell them.

Also in Trouw, J.A.A. van Doorn:

The main difference, and that is what this is about, […]: Hirsi Ali came from abroad like many others. The government tries to send back or refuse, those who entered with a story based on lies. About that policy, unnecessary tough I admit, we can debate, but it has nothing to do with the infamous ‘Ausbürgerung’ (He refers to one commentator who pointed to the practice of the Nazi’s who expelled German citizens they did not like). One thing should be clear: when friends of Ayaan write about Ayaan, the are often lead by their friendship in a way that is harmful to their reputation. But of course, they have a difficult time these days.

(All translation of the Dutch texts are mine, in case of errors just let me know)

Of course, there is nothing wrong with Hirsi Ali’s goals: the rights of the individuals and the emancipation of Muslim women. Problem is that she creates strawman fallacies. For example  she talks about a pure islam. This is certainly an issue but doesn’t say much. Many people talk about pure islam and in practice that can be a very intolerant but also a very tolerant islam. She however chooses the first definition and elaborates on this pure islam as if it were a clearly delineated, homogenous Islam: The true doctrine of the pure Islam, as laid down in the Quran and hadith, calls upon believers to take violent action against infidels, apostates and for example homosexuals, while an unfriendly attitude against women is a given.” Of course there is a Muslim movement that would fit nicely in this definition, but what Hirsi Ali does here is pushing aside ‘ordinary’ Muslims as people who just did not quite understand their own religion. In fact there are numerous version of this true islam, which actually means that true islam does not explain anything. Instead, it is true islam that should be explained. By distorting and misrepresenting this vision of true islam, she makes other Muslims look like weak, naieve and ridiculous. Her vision of true islam is no less then a straw demon. Because, in her view, every Muslim that should discover her version of true islam, would radicalize since a Muslim is completely submitted to God and cannot distance himself from the prophet Muhammad. So a Muslim has no other choice. Also her vision of Muslims can be called a  straw demon because she ignores the fact that the position of Muslims is not only determined by religious traditions but also by economic, social, juridical, psychological factors and groupprocesses (for example, radicalization is almost always a groupprocess instead of a purely individual process).

She does the same with her critics for example when she said the Mohammed Cheppih wanted to introduce shari’a and corporal punishment when there is majority. That is true, but what he also said is that he wanted an ideal islamic state and then the shari’a (as a way of life, not only the punishments), something which he considered to be a utopia.  Weak, one might say, but it still is more nuanced then she stated.

The other way around of course also happens. Hirsi Ali for example has never stated that the prophet Muhammad is a perverse man or a pedophile, full stop. She has stated, referring to his marriage with Aisha, that such a behaviour would be called pervers according to the present Western standards. Weak, one might say, but it is still much more nuance then most often is referred to.

Notwithstanding the pain this last week has caused for Hirsi Ali, in my view she is (again) the winner. She was, again, exposed as someone who lied about her past and therefore loses an important basis for her authority and credibility. But in the end, who has lost credibility and authority? The Dutch government and especially Dutch integration minister Verdonk, whose credo ‘rules are rules’ simply does not work because there are always special circumstances. Almost the entire government and parlaiment stood up for her, something she never realized before (except of course right after the murder on Van Gogh). In some of the Dutch press but certainly in the foreign press she is hailed as the icon of Dutch tolerance (and the victim of intolerance) and her position as an authority on (radical) islam is not really challenged.

Last news item. The Hofstad-group has congratuled Zembla because of ‘telling the truth about Hirsi Ali’. A joke as Jermaine W. (brother of Jason W., convicted last year in the Hofstad-trial) said; they send flowers, Moroccan cookies and their name and adresses. According to the police (who was brought in) it was not forbidden: ‘you can give flowers to a broadcasting station’.

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Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law

Posted on May 20th, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law
Iran denies religious dress code law
Iranian officials on Saturday denied a report published by the Canadian National Post on the previous day, claiming that a new dress-code law was passed in Iran this past week, which mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities – Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians – will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public.

The National Post later cited experts saying that the idea of religious demarcation had only arisen in discussing a law defining Iranian dress code. The paper quoted an Iranian commentator who said the idea of external identification of non-Muslim minorities was only raised as a secondary motion.

Legislator Emad Afroogh, who sponsored the bill and chairs the parliament’s cultural committee, told The Associated Press on Friday there was no truth to the Canadian newspaper report.

“It’s a sheer lie. The rumors about this are worthless,” he said, explaining that the bill seeks only to make women dress more conservatively and avoid Western fashions. “The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing,” he said. “Please tell them (in the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill,” he said.

Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed told the AP: “Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament. Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here.”

A diplomat at Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York called the report “completely false.”

“We reject that. It is not true. The minorities in Iran are completely free and are represented in the Iranian parliament,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously because he was not allowed to make official statements.

Whether approved as law or not, the proposal demanded that Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones.

The new law was drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, but was blocked. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In addition to the requirements on non-Muslims, the Iranian government has also envisioned that all Muslim Iranians wear “standard Islamic garments” designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions.

The purpose for the law was to prevent Muslims from becoming najis “unclean” by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.

According to Ahmadinejad, reported the National Post, the new Islamic uniforms will establish “visual equality” for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.

0 comments.

Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law

Posted on May 20th, 2006 by .
Categories: Misc. News.

Jerusalem Post | Iran denies religious dress code law
Iran denies religious dress code law
Iranian officials on Saturday denied a report published by the Canadian National Post on the previous day, claiming that a new dress-code law was passed in Iran this past week, which mandates the government to make sure that religious minorities – Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians – will have to adopt distinct color schemes to make them identifiable in public.

The National Post later cited experts saying that the idea of religious demarcation had only arisen in discussing a law defining Iranian dress code. The paper quoted an Iranian commentator who said the idea of external identification of non-Muslim minorities was only raised as a secondary motion.

Legislator Emad Afroogh, who sponsored the bill and chairs the parliament’s cultural committee, told The Associated Press on Friday there was no truth to the Canadian newspaper report.

“It’s a sheer lie. The rumors about this are worthless,” he said, explaining that the bill seeks only to make women dress more conservatively and avoid Western fashions. “The bill is not related to minorities. It is only about clothing,” he said. “Please tell them (in the West) to check the details of the bill. There is no mention of religious minorities and their clothing in the bill,” he said.

Iranian Jewish lawmaker Morris Motamed told the AP: “Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament. Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here.”

A diplomat at Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York called the report “completely false.”

“We reject that. It is not true. The minorities in Iran are completely free and are represented in the Iranian parliament,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously because he was not allowed to make official statements.

Whether approved as law or not, the proposal demanded that Jews will have to wear a yellow band on their exterior in public, while Christians will be required to don red ones.

The new law was drafted during the presidency of Muhammad Khatami in 2004, but was blocked. That blockage, however, has been removed under pressure from current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In addition to the requirements on non-Muslims, the Iranian government has also envisioned that all Muslim Iranians wear “standard Islamic garments” designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions.

The purpose for the law was to prevent Muslims from becoming najis “unclean” by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.

According to Ahmadinejad, reported the National Post, the new Islamic uniforms will establish “visual equality” for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam.

0 comments.

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