Postcard from England

Posted on June 23rd, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, ISIM/RU Research, Multiculti Issues, Notes from the Field, Young Muslims.

This has been a very rewarding two weeks in England. After participating in a seminar on Monday 11 June I stayed for two more weeks. I wanted to do a follow up on my last visit to London, Birmingham and Leicester when I spoke with Muslims from the Netherlands who migrated to these cities. Read about that visit HERE and HERE. Short impression of this last visit follows below.

Research
The seminar in London was meant to work on a proposal for a new research project on integration (yes another one). A few people already know what this will be about but it is in such a premature stadium that I cannot say too much about it, except that it will be innovative, topical and so on…of course.

‘Living easy’
I had several meetings with Salafi Muslims from the Netherlands (from different backgrounds). These meetings were in a friendly atmosphere; with a few people it was mostly catching up where we left last time and I also met a few new informants. The stories by these persons differ strongly from the other talks I had (see below). In this case it involved people who were already above 20 years old when they left the Netherlands, they left voluntarily between 2 and 10 years ago. Some travel back and forth to the Netherlands but all of them appear to have chosen for England although the idea of migrating to an Islamic country is cherished by them. Most important difference according to them with life in the Netherlands is that they all are relatively anonymous in England. Either they are not bothered by intra-salafi politics and quarrels or they do not feel bothered by what they perceive as an intolerant climate in the Netherlands in which all kinds of negative definitions of identity and Islam are imposed upon them. Or both. Since the Salafi movement is the main target of the Dutch counter-radicalization policy and so-called ‘orthodox’ (meaning radical) religion is regarded as a security issue here, their impression might not be that strange. As such they find life easier moreover because they encounter more Muslims and better established (Salafi) Muslim communities here and they feel that their life style and outward appearances does not raise eyebrows as much as it does in the Netherlands.

‘The Netherlands is paradise’
The Salafis I have spoken to did certainly not regard England as paradise; they see too many problems for that such as crime, alcohol abuse, dirty neighbourhoods and so on. The others I have spoken to did see the Netherlands as a utopia. People are nicer, social, know each other, and so on. This rather ideal image of the Netherlands has probably something to do with the fact that they migrated to England when they were around 8-12 years old; a few even thinking they would only go for a long holiday. Their parents decided to migrate to England because they believed England would give them much more opportunities than the Netherlands. And although this group has a lot of negative things to say about England and is mostly positive about the Netherlands, also among them the discourse of opportunities is very strong as I already indicated last time. This is very remarkable at times for example when they talk about education. They are very positive about education in the Netherlands which is much better: better teachers, higher level, schools also teaching norms and values and so on; England is seen as the opposite. But still they believe that also in English education (although it is framed by some as a system of dumbing down) they have more chances. This is partly seen as a feature of the British system that appears to be more open and because they did not feel appreciated and recognized in the Netherlands. England offers much more security when it comes to be guarded againt discrimination (a point also made by the Salafis).

The educational system is appears to be a real issue in England. I spoke to one person who is teaching about youth work and we talked a little bit about education in England and problems with youth work; the latter having been severely hit by the cutbacks. This will be one of the issues I will pursue further because it gives some perspective to the stories of those who complain so much about England and offers some insight into the institutional and social challenges they face.

Living the Muslim life
Where both groups ‘meet’ each other is when they talk about religious life in England. As said above they feel protected in the England while in particular the Salafis complain about the loss of the once so tolerant country the others also signal that things have changed in the Netherlands. Although both groups do recognise a strong exclusion based upon race in daily life in England they feel very confident about being protected against anti-Islam discrimination (notwithstanding the rise of organisations such as the English Defense League (EDL). According to most of my interlocutors because there are more Muslims and better established Muslim organisations there is more of a Muslim life here whereby they are not bothered by questions of loyalty or having to account for everything. It does appear that most of them live relatively isolated from non-Muslims certainly in areas such Small Heath in Birmingham.

Setting the research agenda
I have used my visit last year and this one to establish new contacts and re-affirm old relationships. Both were meant to explore the possibilities for research and most meetings were rather unstructured; there were issues that came up and I responded to that. Now having a sort of basic list of topics and themes the third visit (probably in October or November) will have more structured meetings with a clearer involvement by me meant to go a little deeper into a few themes; this has to lead up to an article for an academic journal for which I have a clear idea now. This will be preceeded maybe by an article in a Dutch magazine on Middle East and Islam (ZemZem).

So this will be continued. For now, I would like to say thanks to everyone who was willing to talk to me, take me into their city and show me something of their lives in England. Thanks for making my stay very pleasant, useful and inspiring. iA we meet again in October / November.

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Closing the week 11 – Religion, secularism and the politics of freedom

Posted on March 18th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Blogosphere.

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Featuring Religion, secularism and the politics of freedom
The politics of religious freedom « The Immanent Frame

Received wisdom from across the political spectrum suggests that securing religious freedom results in peaceful co-existence and ensures individual and associational flourishing vis-à-vis the state. Meanwhile, a deficit of religious freedom is seen as a driving force behind—if not the proximate cause of—insecurity and violence. The logic of these assumptions is currently being used to justify a wide range of well-funded public and private interventions in many parts of the world.

But what is religious freedom, and why are we talking about it now?

Guest edited by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan in conjunction with a joint research project, scholars consider the multiple histories and genealogies of religious freedom—and the multiple contexts in which those histories and genealogies are salient today.

The naked public sphere? « The Immanent Frame

Santorum affirmed an earlier statement about his reaction to President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on his religion:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?

In light of Santorum’s recent comments, we asked a small handful of scholars about the status of these and related claims regarding religion in American political life. Just how “naked” is the American public square? What is the appropriate place of religion in the public sphere?

?Cultural models and Rethinking Secularism « The Immanent Frame

Taylor is clearly aware that the terms “secular” and “religious” have very different meanings in different traditions, which is precisely Talal Asad’s point in his discussion on blasphemy in Rethinking Secularism, but Taylor’s essential proposition that from the seventeenth century onward in the West the secular became a domain understood to be inhospitable to any claim made in the name of transcendence, “that the lower, immanent or secular, order is all that there is and that the higher, or transcendent, is a human invention,” is, at least from a cultural and historical perspective, seriously problematic, if not misleading. Yet before turning to what I find troubling about Taylor’s account of the relation between the religious and the secular in Western spirituality, let me say something first about the narrative Taylor is trying in important ways to correct.

tabsir.net » Miniskirting the Issue

Why is it that men blame women for their own failures? Whenever I hear a variant of the phrase, “Well, he couldn’t help himself,” I can’t but think that this excuse is in need of a lot of help. In Indonesia there is a bill being considered in parliament that would ban female lawmakers from wearing provocative clothing, such as miniskirts. Given that the number of Indonesian lawmakers wearing miniskirts must be a whopping minority, why is this needed?

Row delays opening of symbolic German mosque – The National

The Islamic organisation that commissioned the building sacked the German architect, Paul Böhm, in October, accusing him of 2,000 construction errors, cost overruns and of surreptitiously incorporating Christian elements into the design.

“Mr Böhm was brilliant as an artist but he failed as a master builder,” said the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (Ditib) a branch of the Turkish government’s religious affairs office.

It submitted a list of flaws such as nails and wire rods that were jutting out of the concrete of the unfinished building. The grand dome also is 23 centimetres out of place, Ditib said.

Mr Böhm, Ditib said, had included Christian crosses in the shape of the layout as well as a hidden Christogram made up of an X and a P, an old Christian symbol.

Mr Böhm, a respected designer of religious buildings, denied the accusations, and complained that Ditib was to blame for cost increases because it kept changing its mind about details.

He threatened to take legal action that would bring the project to a standstill.

Controversial from the outset, many residents complained that the mosque, which will offer space for 1,200 worshippers, would be too big. A far-right citizen’s group called Pro Cologne mounted a campaign against it, gathering 20,000 signatures and said that “a representative mosque with dome and minaret for several thousand faithful would change the face and the character of our hometown”.

Islam in France Case Study

As France experiences an influx of Muslim immigrants from former North African colonies and the Middle East, the country is struggling to deal with issues of multiculturalism and the role of religion in public life. In 2004, the French government banned female Muslim students from wearing headscarves in public schools. It claimed that any display of “conspicuous religious symbols” in schools contravenes the French value of laïcité, a strict interpretation of secularism in the public sphere. In 2011, the government passed a second law that bans full facial veils (i.e. niqabs, burkas) in public spaces. Many Muslims and non-Muslims have protested against the laws, arguing that they single out Islam unfairly and contribute to a narrow vision of what it means to be “French.”

Visibly Muslim by Emma Tarlo 2010 :: Malou Anthropology

Wearing a hijab or not wearing a hijab, being a Muslim or not being a Muslim, being British or being from a foreign background, being modern or being traditional, being emancipated or being oppressed; dichotomous questions that often get raised in the debate on Islamic identity and in particular about veiling. Emma Tarlo shows that it is not the question whether or not someone wears a veil and that these dichotomies mystify the complex reality of the hijab in the United Kingdom. Emma Tarlo shows in ‘Visibly Muslim’ the stories of multiple actors who are involved in or confronted by Islamic dress and Islamic fashion. Islam in Western urban societies is represented by the visibility of Islamic signs such as the hijab, which gives women an important role in the debate on Islam. Emma Tarlo successfully shows the many reasons, ideas, and issues about being visibly Muslim such as aesthetics, belonging, faith, politics, identity, ethics, morality, ethnicity and geography.

Misc.
New Issue of Anthropologies: Occupy and Open Access | Neuroanthropology

This is our Writing Culture moment. We have realized that we are in an unsustainable position as a field, one that is both ethically and methodologically off. But this time more “reflexivity” is not the answer. Indeed, the problems are more like those that have been gradually overcome between the fixed positions of sociobiologists and post-modernists, each convinced they are right and with little ground in the middle. Overcoming that opposition took several decades, and happened through a gradual process of engagement and reaching out on both sides, and yet it still comes up to bite anthropologists in the ass, such as happened with the word “science” in the AAA’s vision.

Anthropology, anthropologies; Islam, islams: Fields in Flux | CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies

Can there be an anthropology of Islam when both the discipline of Anthropology and the idea of Islam appear to be suspended in a state of undisciplined flux? This talk places Abdel Hamid El-Zein’s suggestion that anthropologists study “islams” in dialogue with John Comaroff’s recent response to “Is anthropology about to die?” Professor Varisco explores the ways anthropologists have been rethinking the idea of Islam. He also offers suggestions on how anthropologists can contribute to the broader study of Islam as practiced in contemporary cultural and in historical contexts.

strength, text, rape: Talal Asad – The Idea of An Anthropology of Islam

In conclusion, Asad says that, “An anthropology of Islam will therefore seek to understand the historical conditions that enable the production and maintenance of specific discursive traditions, or their transformation – and the efforts of practitioners to achieve coherence (Asad, 23).”

Dutch
Godsdienstonderwijs voor jonge moslims goed tegen dwang radicalen « vangodenenmensen

Godsdienstonderwijs moet. Is dat niet achterhaald? Dat moeten we toch juist afschaffen? Volgens Bart Voorzanger niet, omdat (vooral jonge) moslims meer kennis en inzicht nodig hebben in hun eigen islam om radicale geloofsgenoten van repliek te kunnen dienen. Thuis en in de moskee krijgen ze dat te weinig. Met meer kennis en inzicht kunnen zij beter hun eigen geloofs- en gedragskeuzen rechtvaardigen. En zijn ze beter bestand tegen dwang van radicalen.

NOS Nieuws – Conflict om gebedsruimte hbo

Na de Hogeschool van Amsterdam blijkt er ook op de Haagse Hogeschool een conflict te zijn over een gebedsruimte voor moslims. Studenten bidden daar in het trapgat omdat de school tot op heden geen aparte ruimte daarvoor beschikbaar wil stellen.

Moslims willen wasruimte op Noorderbegraafplaats – AMSTERDAM NOORD – PAROOL

Net zoals de begraafplaats De Nieuwe Ooster in Oost krijgt de Noorderbegraafplaats een nieuwe aula, een condoleanceruimte en een ontvangstruimte. Daarbij investeert Oost in een bewassingsruimte en een islamitisch grafvak voor 1400 graven die in de richting van Mekka liggen. Mustafa Topal van de moskee Emir Sultan en Aissa Zanzan van de Marokkaanse Unie Amsterdam-Noord vinden dat er in Noord ook een officiële bewassingsruimte bij moet komen voor de ongeveer 20.000 moslims in Noord.

Gebedsruimte voor moslims op kazerne – RTL Nieuws.nl

Moslims kunnen voortaan in hun eigen ruimte bidden op de Bernhardkazerne in Amersfoort. De eerste islamitische gebedsplaats, tegenover de hindoetempel en de kapel, is woensdag geopend en kan ook voor culturele lessen of bij speciale gelegenheden tijdens de vastenmaand ramadan worden gebruikt.

Bidden? Liever niet hier! | Wijblijvenhier.nl

Asma en Falko beklagen zich als studenten aan de Haagse Hogeschool over het beleid rondom gebeds- en/of stilteruimtes: “Voor nu zullen wij het gebed onderaan het trappenhuis, naast de nooduitgang, blijven verrichten”

RTV N-H – Nieuws – Marcouch: ‘Hogeschool te koppig in kwestie gebedsruimte’

Tweede Kamerlid Ahmed Marcouch (PvdA) vindt dat de Hogeschool van Amsterdam zich te koppig opstelt over een gebedsruimte voor islamitische leerlingen.

Heeft Marcouch gelijk?

De Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) dient er wijs aan te doen alle levensbeschouwingen en religies gelijk te behandelen en dit naar buiten toe helder te communiceren. Zeker in deze tijden van polarisatie, waarbij elk nieuwsberichtje over moslims leidt tot pavlovreacties bij politici, is het van groot belang dat bestuurders zich niet gek laten maken en behalve principieel (ten aanzien van gelijke behandeling) ook een beetje pragmatisch kunnen zijn.

Gebedsruimte op school is nergens voor nodig – Elma Drayer – TROUW

De kwestie suddert al een tijdje in de regionale pers en in studentenbladen, maar bereikte dinsdag ook uw krant: moslimstudenten aan de Hogeschool van Amsterdam zouden graag hun stilteruimte terug willen.

.god.voor.dommen » Blog Archive » De Hogeschool van Marcouch

Een gebedsruimte voor op de trappen biddende studenten lijkt niet onredelijk maar is het volgens mij wel. Ten eerste wordt er afbreuk gedaan aan het openbare karakter van de school. De instelling dient zich aan religieuze opvattingen aan te passen en niet andersom. Op een katholieke of protestantse school verwacht je eenmaal bepaalde ‘aanpassingen’ die getuigen van de spirituele grondvesten van de instelling. Ten tweede kan dit een opmaat zijn voor nog meer religieuze eisen. Zoals: jongens en meisjes gescheiden lesgeven; rooster aanpassen ten behoeve van momenten waarop gebeden dient te worden; aparte kantine voor moslims. Hoe ziet het rooster eruit tijdens Ramadan. En denk wel dat er géén twee roosters naast elkaar zullen bestaan. De niet-moslims zullen het dagritme van de moslims moeten volgen. Andere religieuze groepen zullen hun eisenpakket bij de directie inleveren. Al was het maar om niet achter te blijven. Ten derde meen ik hier een religieuze dwang in te herkennen. Een moslim zou juist een openbare instelling bezoeken. Bijvoorbeeld omdat hij liberale opvattingen heeft over geloof of dat zij geen hoofddoekje wil dragen of helemaal niet meer in Allah gelooft (de angst voor sociale uitsluiting onder Muslims In Name Only is groot, kan ik getuigen!). In de gebedsruimte kan keurig overzicht gehouden worden wie wel of niet op de juiste tijdstippen deelneemt aan het gebed. Degene die de andere de religieuze maat neemt, wordt in principe door de directie van de instelling gedekt. Handig zo’n woordvoerder die namens de gehele gemuilkorfde gemeenschap spreekt.

Martijn van Dam.com

Wij horen juist aan de kant van de vrouwen die zich willen ontworstelen aan de sociale druk of mannelijke dwang van religieuze kledingregels. Dat dwingen we niet af met wetten, maar met een uitgesproken opvatting. Een uitzonderingspositie waarbij gelovigen anders behandeld worden dan anderen, hoort daar niet bij. En evenmin mag je van ons verwachten anderen te dwingen rekening te houden met je strenge geloofsopvattingen. Dus geen gedwongen winkelsluiting op zondag, geen boerka in de klas, geen eigen gebedsruimte in een openbare school, geen recht op eigen slachtmethoden als die niet voldoen aan de standaarden voor dierenwelzijn, geen kuising van kunst, geen subsidie voor een partij die vrouwen actieve politieke participatie weigert.

onderwijsethiek.nl » Blog Archive » Gebedsruimte

Een interessante vraag wordt dan in hoeverre Van Dam meent dat gelovigen überhaupt in de publieke ruimte mogen bidden. Neem een protestants-christelijke of katholieke leerling in de schoolkantine. Mag deze bij het begin van de maaltijd de handen vouwen of een kruisje slaan? Vermoedelijk zal Van Dam deze tekenen van vroomheid wel willen tolereren. Maar als een rechtzinnige moslim­leerling voorafgaand aan de dagelijkse lunch een bidkleedje uitrolt om op islamitische wijze te bidden, wil Van Dam dat dan opeens verbieden? Dat lijkt me een ernstige vorm van discriminatie. Of wil Van Dam dat de moslimleerling even een leeg lokaal opzoekt om daar zijn of haar bidritueel te volvoeren?

Een gebed zonder einde, kamervragen van de PVV | InfoMag.nl laatste nieuws

De kazerne in Amersfoort heeft sinds kort een eigen gebedsruimte voor moslims. Er was al een speciale ruimte voor christenen en hindoes, een kapel en een tempel. Dat is Marcial Hernandez totaal in het verkeerde keelgat geschoten, op onze kosten zijn er weer de nodige kamervragen gesteld, t.w.v. ongeveer 20.000 euro, waarmee de gebedsruimte eigenlijk al betaald is.

Foto’s: Gebedsruimtes van onderwijsinstellingen | Wijblijvenhier.nl

Na al dit soort berichtgevingen lijkt het alsof gebedsruimtes ongewoon zijn op onderwijsinstellingen in Nederland. Daarom hierbij een overzicht van gebedsruimtes op hogescholen en universiteiten in Nederland en omgeving. Van Delft en Rotterdam tot Twente… het kan gewoon. Respecteren deze instellingen dan niet scheiding van kerk en staat?

Theodor Holman: “Ik voel me verwant met Breivik” | www.dagelijksestandaard.nl

“Absoluut. Ik vind Wilders ook nog te links. Dat meen ik echt. Met name zijn sociaal-economische programma. Fleur Agema en Martin Bosma en Wilders zijn idealisten. Die willen iets. Ik sta dichter bij Breivik. Hoewel Breivik uiteindelijk ook kapot gegaan is door zijn eigen idealisme. Ik zou nooit de wapens ter hand nemen omdat ik namelijk geen idealist ben. Ik ben meer Nietzsche. Bij wijze van spreken. Ik hoop dat je dit met de juiste relativering zal brengen. Haha! Snap je wat ik bedoel? Ik wil stukjes schrijven, langs de kant staan en mensen uitfluiten.”

Theodor Holman: “Ik moet de hele tijd verantwoording afleggen” | www.dagelijksestandaard.nl

“Nee. Dan gaan we kijken wat er gaat gebeuren. Dan gaan we zien waar het fout gaat. Dan gaan we nog veel vaker horen: ‘Ik ben voor vrijheid van meningsuiting, maar dat mag niet gebruikt worden om Allah te beledigen.’ Als je de vrijheid van meningsuiting op welke manier dan ook gaat aantasten, dan ben ik zelfs bereid om de wapens op te nemen. Want dan gaat het fout.”

Liever gierig of gevaarlijk? – Joop.nl

Eerder deze week werd de VPRO gedwongen een satirisch stuk over Joodse Westoever-kolonisten van haar website af te halen. De verontwaardiging in binnen- en buitenland over het Polenmeldpunt Van Geert Wilders duurt nog steeds voort. En tegelijkertijd kijkt niemand ervan op als moslims vrijwel iedere dag in verband worden gebracht met gevaar en achterlijkheid. Die selectieve verontwaardiging is niet alleen onterecht, maar ook onthullend. En niet alleen immoreel, maar ook gevaarlijk.

Idrissi: ‘De islam heeft een Rik Torfs nodig’ – De Standaard

Yamila Idrissi, Vlaams parlementslid voor de SP.A, maakt zich grote zorgen over de islamitische jeugd in onze hoofdstad. ‘Die kansarme jongeren waar extremisten zich op richten, zijn vogels voor de kat.’

Kerknieuws.nl: ‘Religieuze organisaties werken de-escalerend’

Landelijke, mainstream religieuze organisaties hebben de afgelopen jaren niet meegedaan aan de polarisatie tussen moslims en niet-moslims. Ze hebben juist een de-escalerende rol gespeeld in tijden van kritiek op de islam.

Dat concluderen de wetenschappers Sipco Vellenga en Gerard Wiegers van de Universiteit van Amsterdam in een dinsdag verschenen onderzoek.

Verdachte met buitenlands uiterlijk wordt veel strenger gestraft

Verdachten met een ‘buitenlands uiterlijk’ worden strenger gestraft dan autochtone Nederlanders, in het bijzonder als de verdachten geen Nederlands spreken. Dat meldt NRC Handelsblad vandaag op basis van een observatieonderzoek van drie criminologen van de Universiteit Leiden in tien verschillende Nederlandse rechtbanken.

Verdachten met een ‘buitenlands’ uiterlijk hebben een vijf keer hogere kans op onvoorwaardelijke celstraf dan Nederlanders. Wanneer ze ook het Nederlands niet machtig zijn lopen ze een twintig keer hogere kans op een vrijheidsstraf.

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Anthropology and Egyptian Revolution – Beyond the Visible

Posted on March 15th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

Great, American Ethnologist has a special issue on the Arab Spring! And even better: Free Access!. What they have in common is that the contributions go beyond the easy and very visible dimensions of Egyptian society such as the secular and the religious (that rule much of the media discourse on the Arab spring) and the highly mediatized protests at Tahrir (by for example looking at how people in a particular village or women at home in Cairo experienced the uprising and the collapse of the regime). I’m listing the titles and abstracts here. The links bring you the AE website and there you can access Wiley.com
Living the “Revolution” in an Egyptian Village

Living the “Revolution” in an Egyptian Village
By Lila Abu-Lughod

Media coverage of the uprising in Egypt in 2011 focused almost exclusively on Tahrir Square in Cairo. How was the revolution lived in other parts of Egypt, including the countryside? I offer a glimpse of what happened in one village in Upper Egypt where, as elsewhere, daily lives were deeply shaped by devastating national economic and social policies, the arbitrary power of police and security forces, and a sense of profound marginalization and disadvantage. Youth were galvanized to solve local problems in their own community, feeling themselves to be in a national space despite a history of marginalization. They also used a particular language for their activism: a strong language of social morality, not the media-friendly political language of “rights” and “democracy.”

Beyond Secular and Religious: An intellectual genealogy of Tahrir Square

Beyond Secular and Religious: An intellectual genealogy of Tahrir Square
By Charles Hirschkind

Competing visions of Egypt’s future have long been divided along secular versus religious lines, a split that both the Sadat and Mubarak regimes exploited to weaken political opposition. In this context, one striking feature of the Egyptian uprising that took place last spring is the extent to which it defied characterization in terms of the religious–secular binary. In this commentary, I explore how this movement drew sustenance from a unique political sensibility, one disencumbered of the secular versus religious oppositional logic and its concomitant forms of political rationality. This sensibility has a distinct intellectual genealogy within Egyptian political experience. I focus here on the careers of three Egyptian public intellectuals whose pioneering engagement with the question of the place of Islam within Egyptian political life provided an important part of the scaffolding, in my view, for the practices of solidarity and association that brought down the Mubarak regime.

Reflections on Secularism, Democracy, and Politics in Egypt

Reflections on Secularism, Democracy, and Politics in Egypt
By Hussein Ali Agrama

I reassess dominant understandings of the relations between secularism, democracy, and politics by comparing the Egyptian protests that began on January 25, 2011, and lasted until the fall of Mubarak with some of the events that occurred in their aftermath. The events that occurred after these protests demonstrated the obliging power of what I call the “problem-space of secularism,” anchored by the question of where to draw a line between religion and politics and the stakes of tolerance and religious freedom typically attached to it. By contrast, the protests themselves displayed a marked indifference to this question. Thus, they stood outside the problem-space of secularism, representing what I call an “asecular” moment. I suggest that such moments of asecularity merit greater attention.

Sectarian Conflict and Family Law in Contemporary Egypt

Sectarian Conflict and Family Law in Contemporary Egypt
By Saba Mahmood

Egypt continues to experience interreligious sectarian conflict between Muslims and Copts since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. The same factors that had contributed to escalating violence between the two communities continue to be at play in postrevolutionary Egypt. One of the key sites of sectarian conflict is interreligious marriage and conversion, an issue that ignites the passion and ire of both communities. While issues of sexuality and gender are at the center of these conflicts, religion-based family law plays a particularly pernicious role. In this essay, I rethink the nexus between family law, gender, and sectarian conflict through an examination of both the history of the emergence of Egyptian family law and the simultaneous relegation of religion and sexuality to the private sphere in the modern period.

Meanings and Feelings: Local interpretations of the use of violence in the Egyptian revolution

Meanings and Feelings: Local interpretations of the use of violence in the Egyptian revolution
By Farha Ghannam

I trace the shifting feelings of some of my close interlocutors in a low-income neighborhood in Cairo and explore some of the cultural meanings that informed their attempts to make sense of the changing situation during the first days of the Egyptian revolution. Specifically, I reflect on how existing concepts that structure uses of violence have been central to the way men and women interpreted the attacks of baltagiyya (thugs) on the protestors in Tahrir Square and how these interpretations ultimately framed my interlocutors’ feelings and views of the revolution, Mubarak’s regime, and its supporters.

The Egyptian Revolution: A Triumph of Poetry

The Egyptian Revolution: A Triumph of Poetry
By Reem Saad

The 11-day interval between the fall of Tunisia’s Ben Ali and the onset of the Egyptian revolution is now almost forgotten. These days were important mainly as the time when inspiration was nurtured and the big question on people’s minds was, could a revolution happen in Egypt? Never before had this question been debated so intensely. I look at two contrasting ways of addressing it. On the one hand, seasoned political analysts (mostly political scientists) were predominantly saying no, Egypt is not Tunisia. On the other hand, activists were talking dreams and poetry, especially invoking lines from two famous Arab poets on the power of popular will and the inevitability of revolution. In this case, poetry prevailed. It was not only a source of inspiration but also carried more explanatory power than much social science. Here I document this moment and pay tribute to poetry and dreams.

No Longer a Bargain: Women, masculinity, and the Egyptian uprising

No Longer a Bargain: Women, masculinity, and the Egyptian uprising
By Sherine Hafez

Although, according to eyewitness accounts, women made up 20 to 50 percent of the protestors in Tahrir Square, the events immediately following the Egyptian uprising revealed that women would not be part of the political deliberations between various contending parties and the Supreme Military Council in charge of the country. In this essay, I take a close look at the sociocultural dynamics behind the inclusion–dis-inclusion of women in the political sphere to question how this contradiction has, in recent years, characterized the nature of gender relations in Arab countries like Egypt. Multilayered, rapidly changing, and challenged patriarchal power lies at the very core of the uprising in Egypt. What the events of this uprising have revealed is that notions of masculinity undermined by a repressive regime have observably shifted the terms of the patriarchal bargain.

The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, class, space, and affect in Egypt

The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, class, space, and affect in Egypt
By Jessica Winegar

In this commentary, I challenge assumptions about political transformation by contrasting women’s experiences at home during the Egyptian revolution with the image of the iconic male revolutionary in Tahrir Square. I call attention to the way that revolution is experienced and undertaken in domestic spaces, through different forms of affect, in ways deeply inflected by gender and class.

Strength and Vulnerability after Egypt’s Arab Spring Uprisings

Strength and Vulnerability after Egypt’s Arab Spring Uprisings
By Sherine F. Hamdy

Following the revolts that unseated Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, a contradictory discourse has emerged in which Egyptians imagine themselves to be resilient in body and spirit but also enfeebled by years of political corruption and state negligence. During the mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the regime’s orchestrated violence neither crushed the movement nor provoked activists to abandon their vow of peaceful protest. However, Egyptians’ pride in the physical and moral resilience that enabled this feat is infused with an understanding of its fragility; many face vulnerabilities to disease within the context of environmental toxins, malnutrition, and a broken, overtaxed health care system. And they mourn the deterioration of moral principles and values after years of brutal oppression and social injustice. These conflicting views—of vitality and vulnerability—have led to a dizzying oscillation between optimism and despair; even as people celebrate the accomplishments of the uprisings, they are also keenly aware of the formidable challenges that lie ahead.

The issue has more than only the Arab Spring. Two interesting articles, for my readers, are:
Angels in Swindon: Public religion and ambient faith in England

Angels in Swindon: Public religion and ambient faith in England
By Matthew Engelke

In this article, I introduce the idea of “ambient faith” in an effort to clarify the stakes in long-standing debates about public and private religion. I take as my starting point the increasingly common recognition that conceptual distinctions between publicity and privacy are difficult to maintain in the first place and that they are, in any case, always relative. The idea of “ambient faith,” which I connect to work on the turn to a materialist semiotics, can serve as both a critique of and supplement to the ideas of “public” and “private” religion. Introducing ambience—the sense of ambience—allows one to raise important questions about the processes through which faith comes to the foreground or stays in the background—the extent to which faith, in other words, goes public or stays private. I use my research on a Christian organization in England, the Bible Society of England and Wales, to illuminate these points, discussing the society’s campaign in 2006 to bring angels to Swindon and its promotion of Bible reading in coffee shops. I also consider Brian Eno’s music and recent advertising trends for additional insights into the notion of “ambience.”

The Judge as Tragic Tero: Judicial ethics in Lebanon’s shari‘a courts

The Judge as Tragic Tero: Judicial ethics in Lebanon’s shari‘a courts
By Morgan Clarke

In this article, I present ethnography of judicial practice in Lebanon’s shari‘a courts and find a tension between the identity of the judges presiding as Islamic religious specialists and their identity as legal professionals. Just applying the rules of the law is incompatible with true religious vocation, which demands personal engagement with the morally needy. But to ignore legal strictures is to be dismissed as a mere sermonizer. I find this case illustrative of a deeper tension between the use of rules and the disciplining of virtuous selves and argue for a new anthropology of rules to set alongside the new anthropology of ethics.

See also a recent issue of Current Anthropology:
HOT SPOTS: REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN EGYPT | Cultural Anthropology

On this first anniversary of the “official” beginning of the Egyptian revolution, we find an ever more complex, and constantly shifting, social and political landscape. The military regime and gerontocracy remains entrenched, cutting deals with the older leadership Muslim Brotherhood, which recently took the lion’s share of seats in Parliament. For many Egyptians, the revolution is not over. As the one-year anniversary demonstrations showed, they have not given up on their clear set of demands to overthrow the broader regime and to regain dignity in their lives. For others, notably Islamists, the revolution brought tangible victories and the ability to speak and congregate freely for the first time in thirty years. In the eyes of some, especially those on the precarious edge of the wage economy, the revolution brought instability and “social chaos” and may not have been worth it. Anthropologists trying to make sense of these complex shifts in society, and to support Egyptians in their struggle, find themselves having to rework the tools of their discipline and what it means to be an anthropologist. These issues, and more, are discussed by the authors of the pieces in this Hot Spot.

This Hot Spot was originally conceived by the editors of Cultural Anthropology during the events of January-February 2011, when most observers and participants were far more optimistic than today about a speedy transformation of power in Egypt. Through no fault of the editors, it took much longer to put these pieces together, for reasons we discuss in some of the articles that follow, especially in Elyachar and Sabea. As it turns out, we believe that the outcome is much stronger than it would have been a year ago. Just this week, as we finally began to post these pieces, events again took a tragic turn. 74 Egyptians were recently killed in a soccer stadium, in what most Egyptians call a massacre (magzara), due to the widespread perception that they were planned or at least facilitated by the army and police, in part to take revenge on the role of soccer fan clubs in the ongoing revolution. These most recent events are not discussed in the Hot Spot. But by reading what follows, we hope that you will gain a much better sense of what is underway in Egypt and the region, learn more about the challenges posed by the massive revolts of the past year around the world for the writing of ethnography, and know more about where to turn for information and analysis of Egypt and the region. As editors of the Hot Spot, we thank everyone who took the time to dare to write about so much that is so uncertain, and for the help and cooperation of our colleagues at Jadaliyya and American Ethnologist as well as to the editors of Cultural Anthropology, Charles Piot and Anne Allison, and its managing editor, Alison Kenner, for their endless patience and immense help.

 

For interesting related posts see also:
Believing in religious freedom « The Immanent Frame

Like a good movie, the story of international religious freedom offers something for everyone. It pits cowardly oppressors against heroic saviors. It is a story of the triumph of international law over those who fail to adhere to global norms and standards. It is a story of secular tolerance versus violent religion. And today especially, it is a story of the need for the U.S. government and its friends to “convince” others—particularly Muslims—that they should endorse a particular model of religious liberty as a template for organizing and democratizing their politics and societies. It is a story of human progress and emancipation, of transforming conditions of religious oppression to liberate individuals—particularly women—from their primitive, pre-modern, discriminatory ways. Working alone and in tandem, these narratives justify intervention to save, define, shape, and sanctify parts of people’s (religious and non-religious) individual and collective lives. The projects with which they are associated are diverse yet intertwined, at times supporting and at times vying with one another. It is a mixed bag.

One common feature of these accounts is the notion that belief is the defining feature of religion. Although occasionally paying respect to other aspects of religious life and belonging, belief as the core of religiosity is a powerful unifying trope to which religious freedom advocates return again and again. Rallying around religion as belief, and the assumption that there can be no religion without belief, plays a central role in international religious freedom campaigns. This post asks whether it would be possible to continue promoting religious freedom as a universalizable construct if this modern construct of belief were seen as a political discourse situated in history, rather than as the mark of the sacred. And if it isn’t possible, then what is religious freedom advocacy actually promoting?

In his contribution to the new Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, Talal Asad questions the universality of the liberal democratic requirement that belief or conscience is what properly defines the individual and, for many liberals in particular, represents the essence of religiosity. His argument helps cast in a new light the position that belief is the defining moment of religion, underwriting protection of religious freedom as the right to believe by states as well as by various transnational actors and authorities.

And to conclude, interesting work is also done on CLOUD anthropologist » Arab Spring

1 comment.

Anthropologist John Bowen – Islam of France

Posted on February 8th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Multiculti Issues, Public Islam.

At France24:

Annette Young meets John R. Bowen, anthropologist and author of “Can Islam be French?” Islam is the second most widely practised religion in France, but how do Muslims live their religion in a country which is known for its fierce secularism?

1 comment.

Jessica Stern – Terror, Rape and Shame

Posted on January 24th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Why do researchers pick up a particular theme? How does their own life history influence their choices. We often assume and assert that our interest in particular topic is only motivated by the desire to do science. Often of course this is not entirely true. It is I think important to reflect upon our own histories, backgrounds in relation to the research we do. Does it create a particular bias, does it create particular blind spots and what can our research teach us about ourselves and vice versa?

One of the the world’s leading experts on violence and evil, Jessica Stern has lectured at Harvard about terrorism and is the author of a respected book, “Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill” (2003). Her book Denial: A Memoir of Terror is different from her earlier work. In this book she takes a different angle:

NYT – Books – Violence Expert Visits Her Dark Past

On Oct. 1, 1973, when Ms. Stern was 15 and her sister 14, the two of them, alone in a suburban house in leafy Concord, Mass., were raped by a man who cut the house’s telephone lines before walking inside and leading them upstairs.

Ms. Stern describes that evening in brutal detail. It was a night that changed her and taught her a dire lesson: “Shame can be sexually transmitted.” The crime wasn’t properly investigated. The police didn’t believe her when she said the rapist was a stranger. Because her story and those of others were not publicized or taken seriously enough by the police, the same man was able to rape some 44 girls — an incredible, heart-collapsing number — from 1971 to 1973. “The entire community,” she writes, “was in denial.”

The next video is from a Dutch TV program where Jessica Stern is interviewed. The start is in Dutch, but after about 30 seconds the talk will be in English.

Her book is not only a powerful complaint against people denying the experience of victims by ridiculizing, pressing them to move on, trivializing and so on and shows also how such mechanisms can have a strong social function as well (they indeed did move on).

This is not an easy endeavour as she herself explains:

I usually write about events in the political world. I am a witness. I do my best to report what I observe, objectively; and I often rely, at least in part, on other scholars’ previous work. People might disagree with my conclusions, but at least they can follow the trail of evidence and the logic of what I say. But here I am writing about what goes on in my own head. I am the sole expert. I cannot hide behind footnotes referring the reader to other scholars’ work. Nor can I share observations or test my conclusions against those of other experts. I play both roles: observer and observed. I have only myself to blame if I get it wrong or if I don’t push deep enough, past the layers of shame, toward a truth.

I was worried that writing about myself – not as an expert but as a victim – would make it harder for people to see me as an objective authority on terrorism. I find that when an “expert” reveals his biases and experiences to make clear to the reader that he knows the limits of his own objectivity, I trust him more, not less; but I’m not sure that all readers feel that way.

The interesting aspect of Stern’s account as that she uses her own emotions as an analytical instrument without reducing these emotions to mere typologies or products of cultural contexts. Emotions do not hinder good research or analysis, but can contribute to it; something that is certainly relevant for anthropologist (Stern is not) for whom the tensions of fieldwork produce particular emotions that are part of the experience of doing fieldwork.

The danger however with accounts such as these is that there is no way of making sure that her experience of fear, humiliation and shame are the same as those of rapists and terrorists. At the end of her memoir Stern proposes the thesis, connecting her experience with suffering and overcoming the trauma with her research, that many extremists have been sexually traumatized. The resulting shame and humiliation she suggests may be an important factor in the motivations of terrorists. This is not the most convincing part of her book. Now she may share particular meanings attached to her feelings, but her experiences and raw emotions can be different as well. Emotions have to be placed into a particular context and within a particular set of social relations and her personal story gives us some clue as to how to do that and in what particular context. Her story enables her and the reader to make sense of those emotions. Her personal experience as a tool to understand others is however less convincing because she does not adequately put her cases of the terrorists in their context. The emotions of terrorists may, or may not, be different even if all describe them in terms of shame. The fact, for example, that in the case of terrorists we are mainly talking about boys and men is probably one such difference.

This doesn’t mean it cannot work; using one’s own personal experiences as a starting point for an analysis. Anthropologist Beatty in a recent article in American Anthropologist refers to this when he criticizes different approaches regarding emotions in anthropology. He refers to different examples of ‘intimate ethnograpy’ from accounts on the holocaust that show:

the difficulties attending intimate ethnography: the complex negotiation of roles, the construction of a “truthful” account, and so on. What legitimizes the project in each case— and contrasts it with […]analogous experience— is the authors’ insider status as children of their informants, their necessary involvement in the reconstitution of personal history. Only when the stories are made to address broader themes do we feel the power of the original testimonies weakened as memories are distilled to familiar lessons about dehumanization and structural violence.

Based upon these examples Beatty pleas for relocating emotion in practice by using a narrative method. Indeed, as he acknowledges, not new but I think a necessary plea anyway. Also in the case of Stern’s book. Her book is a brave account that deserves to be read. There is a Dutch translation as well now. The book is a very useful step in analyzing emotions of the researcher and the researched. A narrative approach such as advocated by Beatty however may enable us to go beyond our own experiences (how useful they may be) but perhaps also to avoid reducing emotions to outward factors. Narratives, as Beatty explains, can show the personal significance of emotions while describing them in detail relating them to past social relations and particular events. In the end of course it will remain difficult to do justice to people’s emotions.

1 comment.

The Visual Politics of Truth and Drama

Posted on January 10th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Blind Horses.

Via Montclair Socioblog I came across a very interesting film made by visual anthropologist Ruben Salvadori. In this fascinating video Salvadori tries to make visible what is usually invisible: the photographer’s role when taking (or making) pictures. Salvadori did research in East Jerusalem being a newbie among photojournalists and turning his camera onto them exposing how photographers seek, create and stage drama in particular situations.

One of the commenters on Montclair points us to the Medium Cool film wherein the main character slowly but gradually realizes the power of images and how he and others are caught up in recording (or making) sensational events.
You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
Sensationalism turns events into ‘image bites‘ having similar persuasive effects as sound bites on people’s views. The power of these images bites (sometimes purposely used by social movements and politicians as part of their (visual) rhetoric) is that it makes the message almost incontestable because reality is reduced in such a way as to be seen as inherent in the way things are. It turns complex issues into appealing visual constructions that inform and shape people’s common sense. Seeing is believing, right?

And before I forget, check out Ruben Salvadori’s great blog with many more fascinating films and photo’s: Ruben Salvadori Photography Blog – Open Your Eyes.

0 comments.

Closing the year 2011 – Featuring…2011

Posted on December 31st, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology.

The year 2011 will probably live on in history like for example 1989. More than 32,000 hits for more than 220 posts later it is time to look back. I decided last year that this blog would probably benefit from working with guest authors; in most cases colleagues but also stories from the field by the people I work with. People like Asef Bayat, Linda Herrera, Samuli Schielke, Roel Meijer, Joas Wagemakers and others have all written one or more guest posts. Sometimes on their own work but in most cases on the Arab uprisings. The most read story in this categorie is also the most popular story on this blog: Egypt – After the Revolution, by Samuli Schielke. The second one in this category is Linda Herrera’s Two Faces of Revolution about Mohamed Bouazid and Khaled Said. Also Linda’s piece on the role of social media, Egypt’s Revolution 2.0 – The Facebook Factor has become one of the most popular pieces on this blog. Usually my weekly updates score high as well but only for a short period. An exception in this case is the update in week five featuring the Tunisia and Egypt uprisings which I basically turned into an essential reading list of that time. More can be found in the section Society & Politics in the Middle East.

For my field the other landmark in 2011 was of course the terrorist attack in Norway in July when Anders Behring Breivik literally and symbolically dropped a bomb on the myth of a tolerant Europe. One of the main debates in the Netherlands was, not very surprising, not only the link people made with Muslims and Al Qaeda when the news broke out but also if Breivik was not the ultimate consequence of Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam ideology. My own piece on the link between belief, ideology and violence where I briefly point to these issues became the most popular piece written by myself in English. The most popular entry however on Dutch issues was Annelies Moors’ take on the recent burqa debates in the Netherlands: Minister Donner as Mufti: New Developments in the Dutch ‘burqa debates’. This piece was not only read many times but also spread on several websites and among colleagues. It is not always easy and self-evident for colleagues who work with Muslims to speak out in public. In an excellent piece Maurits Berger shows what the consequences can be if one does: Campus Watch, but better – Freedom Party and Politics of Obstruction. Whatever the consequences however this blog will continue as will do I with my research. At the moment I’m rounding up my research on Salafism and trying to broaden my research scope to the issue of Muslim activism. In 2012 there will be a few posts rounding up my research on Salafism; these posts will be based upon articles and chapters I wrote as well as on the Dutch book I’m writing with my colleagues Joas Wagemakers and Carmen Becker. I already did a round up on the radicalization of Muslims – What we know and dont know. One example of my focus in Muslim activism on my blog is my report on the debate between Irshad Manji and Dutch politician Tofik Dibi on reform in Islam that was disturbed by a group of Muslim. I hope to use that blogentry as the starting point for an scientific article in 2012. And of course in 2012 I will continue to reflect on the theme of blogging and public anthropology as I did in 2011 for example in Anthropology: Blog This!.

Thanks to my guest authors 2011 is the first year that my English language articles are more popular than my Dutch language articles. Nevertheless we can see a similar pattern here. Among the most popular articles there are several on the Arab revolutions, with Nina ter Laan’s the Moroccan Exception as the number one (De Marokkaanse Uitzondering). Another popular article is my own article debunking a Dutch blogger who thinks having a prayer mark on your forehead is a sign of radicalism or even Al Qaeda influence: Analyzing the Libyan Revolution is not task for failures (Analyse van de Libische Revolutie is vooral geen voor prutsers). Also in the Dutch section a blog dealing with the ‘burqa debates’ is popular. In this case the report on a demonstration against the proposal for a ban on the ‘burqa’ by a radical group ‘See and Hear’ – Impression of a protest against the ban on the face veil’ (‘Zien en horen’ – Impressie protest verbod gezichtssluier). That Islam is a hot issue is not surprising and when transnational links between Dutch mosques and UAE organisations are revealed this gets even more attention as shown in a brief post on a Kuwaiti television program that shows the end of Ramadan in a Dutch mosque in Amsterdam (Moskee Slotervaart Amsterdam in Koeweit). And also here it is clear what the consequences can be when one speaks out in public. In one post I revealed the existence of several black lists: Supremacy and Fear – Lists of Betrayers of Nation, Culture and Race (Suprematie en Angst: Lijsten van Land-, Cultuur- en Rasverraders). The most popular story in Dutch however, and no. 2 on the overall list, is a report on the expected and contested visit of sheik Al-Maghraoui and sheikh Al-‘Arifi to the Netherlands. The first is called the pedo-imam in the Netherlands because he condones marrying under-age girls, the latter has been accused of approving the hitting of women by their men (an accusation that I think does not entirely stick). The story ‘Toothpicks, Visa and Women – the story of two sheikhs’ has become popular mainly because, I think, it is a very good and nuanced round up of the whole discussion and foremost because it is spread both by opponents and supporters of the Salafi mosques they were supposed to visit (Tandenstokers, visum en vrouwen – Een verhaal van twee sheikhs).

As every year several older posts end up high in the list of most popular. Two of them deal with the theme of an Islamic takeover of Europe. Islamizing Europe – Muslim Demographics is the most popular post in this site (when I began counting in 2006) and the Dutch post on the Islamization of the Netherlands (‘Islamisering’ van Nederland) deals with a similar theme; the former concentrating on the flawed perception of a growing Muslim community in Europe and the latter engaging with examples that appear to demonstrate that the takeover is already taking place. Only the Dutch language entry on politics and hiphop from 2007 – Politiek en Rap: Salah Edin en Appa – has been a long term hit like Muslim Demographics. Sometimes it surprises me when a post becomes very popular. Probably because there aren’t many researchers dealing with this theme my post on anime art and Muslims of last year is also very popular now. Probably two other posts (outside the guest authors category) have the potential of becoming a classic for this blog. The first one deals with the commercialization of the idea of a Dutch nation and Dutch culture and how banal racism and nationalism play a role in Dutch commercials. The blog – Dutch blend – Islam, race, nationalism and buying local in the Netherlands, is one of the most linked and spread on other blogs and webfora. The second one is the most linked blogentry and deals with the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet whereby the racist roots (blackface) of Zwarte Piet are explored and discussed; Jolly Black Servant – Tradition and Racism in the Netherlands. In particular Global Voices has linked to this post in several languages. There are two Dutch and one English posts that seem somewhat strange by showing up in the most popular list. First one deals with a cycling classic in Belgium, the tour of Flanders, and more in particular deals with the Flemish flags used by supporters during that race. – Ronde van Vlaanderen Vlagt – the second one with a chaotic debate on TV a few years ago ‘Rwina – Stijl in debat‘ and the third is about art, feminism and Muslim women, featuring an exhibition in 2009 – Rebelle Art – Feminism and Muslim Women. All three probably score high because they deal with a public phenomenon that is not explained in much detail anywhere else; the different flags in Belgium, an explanation of the word ‘rwina’ which is difficult to translate into Dutch or English. In the case of Rebelle Art it is probably the combination of the three topics: art, feminism and Muslim women.

For 2012 I think there will certainly be more entries by Guest Authors and given the attempt to start new research on activism there will be more reports in the categories Activism and in Notes from the Field.

Allow me to finish this last entry of 2012 to point you to some of the diamonds outside this blog. I discovered two new blogs in 2011 quicly becoming one of my weekly reads. First of all Living Anthropologically. I think Jason Antrosio’s round up of 2011 makes clear why. The next one is Aaron Bady’s Zunguzungu, just have a look at it. But also don’t forget Ethnografix, a blog by Ryan Anderson who also founded the new online magazine Anthropologies. A must read for those interested in (social) media and anthropology is John Postill’s Media/Anthropology blog. Have a look at his selection of the best of 2011. For more good anthropology blogs you can always have a look at the new site Anthropology Report that features 100 blogs (and I’m very honoured Closer is on the list). The site has a survey now and if you are quick you can still submit your favorites. If you are still hungry for more then read also the 2011 lists at Scientific American (Ladybusiness Anthropology Edition by Kate Clancy), Retort (2011 – The year in me) and Somatosphere (A year in review) and Global Voices (Egypt: 2011 in Blog Posts) and go on to Juan Cole’s Top Ten Myths about the Arab Spring. Then if you are still not satisfied read the wonderful things Subashini read in 2011. If you are still not satisfied, I dont know what will but trying coming back in 2012.

My publications in 2011 can be found HERE

1 comment.

Postcard from Birmingham: islam and ethnicity in everyday life

Posted on October 30th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Activism, anthropology, ISIM/RU Research, Notes from the Field, Public Islam.

Right now Im making a trip in the UK, visiting London, Birmingham, Leicester and Manchester. The aim of this trip is twofold. Firstly, tying up some loose ends for my Salafism research. I am mainly interested in the lives of Salafi men and women, regardless their ethnic background, who migrated from the Netherlands to the UK. Some of them see this as a mode of doing hijra (lit. migration); migrating to an Islamic country. Certainly Birmingham is seen, in some Salafi circles, as a city where Muslims can practice their faith without almost any restrictions and without much prejudice and racism against Muslims.

Secondly, I’m planning to do new comparative research focusing on activism among Muslims (not only Salafi) in the UK and the Netherlands. It focuses on the various and multiple positions Muslims have taken up with respect to contested public events and conflicts in terms of Muslim activism. So far little is known about how such conflicts involving Islam are discussed among Muslims, let alone how they affect the level of lived experience. While the public, and hence easily accessible, dimension of these conflicts is important, we need to understand and investigate both how Muslims conceptualize and understand freedom of speech and freedom of religion, as well as the practices and processes of turning grievances and claims into public issues. Focusing on different modalities of Muslim activism, we understand Muslim activism as producing forms of social and political mobilisation aimed at contesting the exclusion of Islam from the public domain and of claiming a Muslim voice. Activism is a way for people to express their moral visions for themselves and on behalf of what they view as the common good, mobilizing others to share these moral visions.

Whereas much work on a Muslim public presence oscillates between a focus on highly radical/orthodox or very liberal Muslims, this research project engages with a far broader range of positions. It recognizes that religion needs to be taken seriously, but cannot be assumed to structure Muslims‘ engagement with the public completely. Starting from the concept of multiple positionalities that may well be ambiguous, ambivalent and at times contradictory, it also takes other aspects of people‘s everyday life serious. This then raises the question under which conditions Muslims engage in higher profile forms of public participation.

My trip to England is therefore intented to learn about the practices and experience of Salafi Muslim men and women in the UK after they migrated there from the Netherlands and to explore the field and getting to know new people for possibly future research. I will be staying in Birmingham most of the time, more in particular in the Small Heath area, known for its large share of migrants: Somalians and Asians and also as the headquarters for one of the Salafi branches in Europe: Salafipublications.

In both researches the realm of the every day life is very important. This makes research among Dutch Muslim migrants in the UK so interesting. It is in particular Salafi islam, in which it is emphasized that Islam is significant for all spheres of life, have the risk of reifying ‘Islam’ as the principal identity for Muslims and making Muslims ‘all about Islam’. A focus on the everyday life identity politics of Salafi Muslims in the Netherlands, brings about a more ambiguous and ambivalent interplay between local and transnational politics and between overcommunication and undercommunication of religious identity and ethnic identity. Many studies on European Muslims taking up the idea of Islam as a primary identity marker, are influenced by some sort of ‘groupism’ in which, for example, Salafi Muslims by definition are seen as upholding Muslim as a primary identity and rejecting ethnic identities because that is what being Salafi Muslim is all about. ‘Groupist’ readings take the existence of groups in society for granted and neglect that ethnicity and other types of social identities are part and parcel of processes of categorization and identification (Brubakers, Jenkins). Groupism is, following Brubaker, ’ the tendency to treat ethnic groups, nations and races as substantial entities to which interests and agency can be attributed.’ It conflates social categories with groups and groups with organizations that appear to speak on their behalf. In research this would mean ignoring how ethnicity works (as in how people attach particular meanings to social relationships) in daily life.

An approach that starts from the everyday life experiences of people in the case of the Salafi movement, means that I start with, following Ammerman’s writing on everyday religion, the experiences of nonexperts, the people who do not make a living being religious or thinking and writing about religious ideas or as political entrepeneurs. The official discourses are important of course, but only when they are used by the people themselves. Everyday also means activities outside religious institutions or movements according to Ammerman but without exluding those institutions and movements all together. Everyday ethnicity and religion can be related to mundane activities but also with crisis and special events. It means that we look as to how religion and ethnicity are interwoven with the lives of people we observe. In the case of ethnic and religious identity it means what Brubakers and others called the politics of categorization: how categories are proposed, propagated, imposed and articulated top down and how at a grass roots level they are appropriated, internalized, subverted, evaded or how transformed. It means to look at how, why and when particular social categories emerge or not, how these categories are used to mobilize people, how the provide people with a sense of belonging and self-understanding, and how they are used to communicate differences and similarities and so on. Or in other words, how religion and ethnicity make sense in daily life.

A focus on how ethnicity and religion make sense, or not, in daily lives of people, shows a more ambiguous side of the identity politics in which both overcommunication and undercommunication of ethnic identity and religious identity appear at the same time, where categories that are dominant at the national level are trickling down in daily interactions, get appropriated, transformed and subverted. Instead of being a game of one identity replacing the other, or coexisting hybrid identities, strong over- and under-communication is also part of identity negotiations.

A new postcard is due on Tuesday or Wednesday.

1 comment.

Anthropology: Blog This!

Posted on October 23rd, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Notes from the Field.

‘We’ all love anthropology, right? In a recent issue of the online journal (or is it a blog, or both?) Anthropologies Ryan Anderson asks the question: “So what is the purpose of anthropology?” A question he answers in a very personal and sophisticated manner:

anthropologies: Introduction: A sense of purpose

Sidney Mintz once argued that anthropologists might be able to solidify its “sense of purpose” through deeper “studies of the everyday in modern life” (in Sweetness and Power, 1986: 213).  I could not agree more–this is exactly what Chavez accomplished with his studies about migrant populations.  The purpose of anthropology is to interrogate the boundaries that separate the people with history from the People without History.  We have an imperative to ask why these boundaries exist, and to detail the structures that keep them in place.  Even more, the goal is to seek out the cracks and passageways that exist in these self-imposed social walls, and to find ways to break through the social, historical, and geographic divisions that pervade our contemporary lives.  As Mintz and Chavez powerfully demonstrate, such a project can begin the seemingly innocuous details of our own communities and backyards–and extend outward from there.  That, for me, is the  purpose of anthropology, and it is what gives the discipline a relevance for audiences far beyond the halls of academia.

These questions may yield very abstract, maybe even empty slogans but nevertheless these questions are important when we talk about ‘blogging anthropology’. If we don’t have an idea of what we are doing as anthropologists, why the hell blog about it? On the other hand what is the use of that question if the answers are so diverse given the broad range of specializations, political preferences and type of blogs among anthropologists? I would regard that however as too cynical and in the coming weeks I will think a little more on the issue of blogging anthropology. I will start, of course, with my own experiences of more than 10 years of maintaining a website (of which about 5 years as a weblog) and I will use that experience in an attempt to reflect on the issue of public anthropology. Following Calhoun on ‘public social science’ I defined public anthropology in a rather loose manner as being:

Public Anthropology: 10 Years from Researchpages to Closer

There are two main principles of public anthropology (that also distinguishes it from applied anthropology):

  • Public accountability
  • Attempting to understand the structures that frame and restrict solutions to problems

Craig Calhoun in a recent essay poses two important questions for public social science (H/T ZeroAnthropology and Sexuality and Society):
Public Sphere Forum » Blog Archive » Calhoun

First, what is the relationship between effective participation in public discourse and the maintenance of more or less autonomous academic fields with their own standards of judgment and intellectual agendas? Second, what is the relationship between “public intellectual” work, informing broad discussions among citizens, and “policy intellectual” work informing business or government decision makers?

As Calhoun explains it is not only about reaching a broader public. It is not only about spreading your knowledge which would amount to ‘showing off’ with little bearing on public issues. It is about producing ‘better social science’ that addresses public issues, tests particular social science hypothesis and informs both scientific and public debates.

But we can, and should ask some serious questions here. And I’m reminded here at one of our professors in Nijmegen, a linguist, who stated at the Anthropology and/in Publicity seminar (antpub) that anthropologists are masters in questioning everything and once there is only a glimpse of a consensus there will be at least one anthropologist who stands up and will say: ‘With all due respect, but I have to disagree here’. Which he, by the way, saw as good science.

What is anthropology if it is not public? Can there be something as a private anthropology? Is public meaning outside the academic realm? Going to the lay audience with our messages and our valuable contributions? How do we see the people we are working with then? And how do ‘we’ see ourselves? Isn’t teaching true public anthropology as my colleague Annelies Moors stated during the Antpub seminar. In the comments in the above mentioned article Anderson asks, in a rhetorical way, ‘what are we doing with all this anthropology stuff’? (There are some nice examples, read for example Barbara J. King‘s exposé on animal friendships and her appearance on CBS and another, recent, example is Anthropology, Moral Optimism, and Capitalism. A Four Field Manifesto.) In the same special issue Daniel Lende (of the Neuroanthropology blog) extends this to the field of anthropology online. What most of these questions appear to imply is that anthropology is a homogenuous field (an issue similar to what Mathijs Pelkmans talked about during antpub), or that the anthropological message is more or less the same regardless of the disciplines within anthropology, regardless of the individual anthropologist with his or her own academic, social and cultural background and roots. When for example Greg Downey in a very interesting, well-written contribution on Neuroanthropology (part of the Public Library of Science Network – PLoS) takes up the discussion with Ulf Hannerz (‘Diversity is our business) in talking to anthropology about anthropology as ‘our brand‘. Or when we proudly defend (and rightly so) anthropology against a flawed attack by some politician? Is public anthropology often not more than a nice get together for anthropologists who appear to talk to the larger public: an Anthro-Flop?

I will reflect upon the relation between blogging and (the lack of) public anthropology in an article I’m going to write the next weeks. Some of the issues I’m thinking about now:

  1. What kind of (anthropological?) knowledge are we producing on our blogs? Or what makes a blog an anthropological one, or one of an anthropologist?
  2. What makes an anthropology blog being an example of public anthropology? Is it enough to be open to the larger audience or should there be more, and if so, what?
  3. Is it necessary to reduce the complexities in anthropological writing?
  4. What actually is ‘good blogging’ for anthropologists? What are the good practices (individual posts as well as blogs)
  5. How can blogs ‘sell’ the purpose of anthropology to a larger audience, and do they? And if not, why? And if not, does it matter?
  6. Are there differences between blogs from, for example, different regions in the world? And what can we learn from that in terms of cross-cultural perspectives on computer-mediated communication and science
  7. To what extent are anthropology blogs contributing to an alternative public sphere that may or may not challenge the dominant public sphere?
  8. What is our public? Do we have a public in Warner‘s sense of the word? And if so, what are the consequences?
  9. How does blogging help us to understand the internet practices of the people we work with?
  10. How does blogging contribute to other activities in every day life, in particular research, teaching and writing books and/or articles for journals and/or newspapers/magazines

No of course not, I cannot deal with all of these issues. I would like to have your thought anyway on (some of) these issues and if possible I will take them up in the article (with proper credits of course).

NOTE
After I wrote this post, I found the following keynote address by Maximilian C. Forte at the 8th Annual Public Anthropology Conference “(Re)Defining Power: Paradigms of Praxis” which I found very interesting and challenging although he goes beyond what I’m prepared to do, yet. The core of his argument is that:

Public Anthropology […] is too much about institutionalized, professional, and disciplinary Anthropology, and not enough about being immersed in social struggles, collaborating, building new forms of engagement, and tackling issues of power, violence, and inequality that combine to produce increasingly miserable conditions of existence for most people on this planet. Too much concern is devoted to communicating Anthropology to “the public,” and not enough of the reverse.

You can watch his lecture here:

Beyond Public Anthropology: Approaching Zero from Maximilian Forte on Vimeo.

1 comment.

Radicalization Series VI – Muslims and Radicalization – What do we know?

Posted on September 8th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Headline, International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Since 9/11 the issue of radicalization of Muslims is top priority on many policy and research agenda’s. A large industry of research, policy making and advising, counter-radicalization programs and so on has emerged. In this post I will focus on research and the very basic question of what we know by now about radicalization. (more…)

3 comments.

Young and Invisible – African domestic workers in Yemen

Posted on August 13th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

Filmmaker Arda Nederveen and anthropologist Marina de Regt have made a short documentary about Ethiopian and Somalian women who work as domestic workers in Yemen. Many families in economically developed countries make use of migrant women as domestic workers and cleaners. But even in a relatively poor country such as Yemen, migrants and refugee women do paid domestic work. The majority of these come from the Horn of Africa. Why do these young women come to Yemen and what are their living and working conditions? Instead of portraying the women as victims, the film gives them a face and lets them show their resilience. The documentary will be shown on 16 December in Amsterdam.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, yet despite this attracts large numbers of refugees and migrants, mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Dutch researcher Marina de Regt studied the backgrounds and motives of Yemeni employers and migrant domestic workers, the interactions between both parties, and the influence of outsourcing domestic household work on the families and society.

The research yielded various results. The domestic workers come from countries that are even poorer than Yemen and migrate to improve their own position and that of their families. Yemeni women do not want to do paid housework as it has a very low status. Yemeni employers emphasise that the treatment of domestic workers in Yemen is better than in other Arabic countries, but discrimination and racism are clearly prevalent.

De Regt’s research is particularly relevant for the developmental problems in Yemen, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. There are scarcely any national and international organisations that defend the rights of domestic workers. They often work in isolated circumstances, have poor conditions of employment, make long working hours and are sometimes the victims of abuse and exploitation and have no possibilities to defend their rights. One of the indirect outcomes of the research was the start of a UNIFEM-funded project to improve the working conditions of domestic workers. The documentary will be used to promote awareness about the living and working conditions of domestic workers in Yemen, but also further afield.

Source: NWO

0 comments.

Srebrenica – Neither Here Nor There

Posted on July 11th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology.

On 11 July 1995 one of the worst atrocities since World War II took place in Srebrenica, Bosnia. The Muslim enclave, to be protected by Dutch soldiers for the UN had abandoned the enclave. Muslim men were separated from women and children; it is estimated that about 8.0000 men have been killed.

The film ‘Neither Here Nor There‘ is a portrayal of the struggles of the Selimovic family from Srebrenica, Bosnia, who resettled in Missouri after the worst single act of genocide in Europe since the end of World War II. The film traces the difficulties refugees have starting over in America, and how ties to the past remain an important, unbreakable part of their lives, especially for war refugees.

More than 8,000 men and teenage boys were murdered in Srebrenica in 1995. Many from the small town made the painful decision to seek refugee status in other countries as “ethnic cleansing” continued unabated. Missouri has become home to the largest Bosnian population outside of their homeland. Having survived the mass execution of their family and friends, the Bosnian refugees find themselves struggling to make a new life in Americas heartland.

The past comes back to haunt the family when they learn that DNA testing identified their father in a mass grave. The film follows the Selimovics on their first trip back to their homeland to a mass funeral in Srebrenica and to reunite with other family.

Sometimes a refugee’s home is neither here nor there. It’s somewhere in-between.

(Note: The film includes harrowing footage from the war, including recently discovered video proving mass executions.)

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Available from: The Videoproject

Running Time: 58 minutes
Gr. 9 – Adult
Closed Captioned
A film by Kerri Yost, Beth Pike, Stephen Hudnell, Elizabeth Federici

“A moving portrait of a family that survived the massacre of Bosnian Muslim men at Srebrenica, the film subtly but effectively explores issues of immigration, war, and memory. Neither Here Nor There is a beautifully told story of a people, an event, and an entire way of life. Scholars, students, and the public should see it, if only to tell themselves ‘never again’ yet again. Suitable for high school classes and for college courses in cultural anthropology, anthropology of ethnicity and ethnic conflict, anthropology of refugees and displaced persons, political anthropology, and European studies, as well as general audiences.”
– Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

“Neither Here Nor There is required viewing for anyone wishing to learn more about the Bosnian genocide. It is especially valuable as an introduction to the challenges that refugees face when acclimating to a new life in the U.S. The film tells its story with compassion, intelligence, directness, and occasional humor.”
-Dr. Benjamin Moore, PhD, Associate Professor of English, Fontbonne University

“In Neither Here Nor There, we come to know the Selimovic family from Srebrenica, and are deeply touched by everything that happens to them. This remarkable film tells their story and why it matters in the larger scheme of things.”
– Patrick McCarthy, author of After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis

Winner, Best Heartland Feature, Kansas City Film Festival

Note:

The film is well suited for teaching purposes, although the scenes are graphic at times. It includes a good introductory reader although I think for university students some additional reading is required.

1 comment.

New Book: Local Battles- Global Stakes

Posted on July 5th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: anthropology, Important Publications, ISIM/RU Research, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Together with my colleague Edien Bartels I have written a chapter called Submission and a Ritual Murder; The transnational aspects of a local conflict and protest in a volume edited by my colleagues of VU University Amsterdam: Ton Salman and Marjo de Theije.

In this volume Local Battles, Global Stakes. The Globalization of Local Conflicts and the Localization of Global Interests the authors challenge the often held assumption with regard to conflicts around the world that ‘the local’ and ‘the global’ are clearly distinct realms. This is most clearly brought out in phrases about ‘local responses’ to ‘global change’. This book addresses a wealth of cases from around the world that illustrate how local tensions, frictions and open conflicts are not only influenced by outside actors, but how local parties proactively seek to insert their interests in global discourses, if only to strengthen their legitimacy.

This compilation covers issues ranging from religious contentions, ethical controversies, ethnic clashes, and environmental issues in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe. Geo-political interference from outside players, material and immaterial support from diasporas, international media articulation of the conflict’s stakes, and international religious proselytising, all co-constitute local disputes. This book shows how local strife is often situated in and shaped by broader political and other contexts.

This book is meant for all scholars and students interested in the real and tangible effects of globalization processes, in particular for anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists and scholars interested in international dimensions of environmental issues, religion, ethnicity and gender.

  • Introduction by Marjo de Theije and Ton Salman

    • Part One: Global Religions, Local Battles
    2
    Edien Bartels and Martijn de Koning, abstract
    Submission and a Ritual Murder; The transnational aspects of a local conflict and protest
    On 2 November 2004, Theo van Gogh, a Dutch columnist, filmmaker and producer of the film Submission was murdered in Amsterdam by a Moroccan-Dutch Muslim. However in order to understand the significance of the film Submission and the murder of its producer, Theo van Gogh, we should look beyond these local and national frames, and beyond the local significance of this conflict. In this chapter we will show how a transnational take on both topics, the film Submission and the murder of Theo van Gogh, can contribute to a better understanding of how and why these local events occurred.

    Keywords: Islam, identity, Muslim youth, terrorism, liberalism.

    3
    Oscar Salemink, abstract
    Changing rights and wrongs: The transnational construction of indigenous and human rights among Vietnam’s Central Highlanders
    In the context of Vietnam’s Central Highlanders’ conflict-ridden relationship with the Vietnamese state and the growing transnational interference by their vociferous diaspora, this paper analyzes particular shifts in the framing of their rights. A notion of collective group rights that are by definition particularistic and exclusive has given way to individual rights (especially religious freedom) that are universal and inclusive. Simultaneously, a localized and communal emphasis has changed to a transnational one oriented toward international fora. Local interests and aspirations thus come to be framed as universal human rights that pertain to individuals, rather than local rights that pertain to collectives. In this light, recent attempts to theorize minority or indigenous rights appear to be ineffective and will probably be counter-productive.

    Keywords: Ethnicity, Human Rights, indigenous rights, Religion, transnationalism.

    4
    Marjo de Theije, abstract
    Local protest and transnational Catholicism in Brazil
    Based on research in Brazil, the author discusses three local situations of conflict and social protest, using a transnational perspective. She concentrates on the use of universal claims of Catholicism in local negotiations of religious change under the influence of different cultural campaigns. The clashes in question are divided into those involving local political problems and those concerning the religious domain itself. The analysis shows that in each of the cases–albeit with different intensity and outcome–the interconnection between translocal processes and the meaning and experience of locality has a significant role in the power plays and the formulations of religious or social protest in the local context.

    Keywords: Brazil, Catholicism, local, protest, transnational.

    Part Two: Family Values, Gendered Morals, Contested Ethics
    5
    Claudia Fonseca, abstract
    Protest Against Adoption in Brazil: A “Global” Presence in “Local” Matters
    As we trace the processes that have influenced the recent evolution of child placement policies in Brazil – from plenary adoption and foster care to family preservation – we observe how these technologies of government, designed to smooth over disputes involving issues of class and nationality, combine “external” with national inputs. Relevant actors range from international celebrities to local specialists (social workers, NGO volunteers, and judicial officials) and journalists who may themselves circulate through international decision-making sites.  Finally, the inclusion in our analysis of the role and understandings of birth families – politically, the bottom rung in adoption procedures — leads to the hypothesis that strategic alliances between local and international protest movements may exert an influence in the formation of national policies that may, at least momentarily, perturb traditional hierarchies of power.

    Keywords: Technologies of government, transnational adoption, protest movements, child rights, global assemblages.

    6
    Pinkaew Laungaramsri    , abstract
    Imagining nation: Women’s rights and the transnational movement of Shan women in Thailand and Burma
    This article explores the relationship between women, nation, nationalism, and transnational women’s practice through the Shan women’s movement in Thailand, particularly the international campaign to stop the systematic rape of Shan women by Burmese soldiers. Employing a feminist critique of nationalism, the article argues that transnational networks allow for the negotiation between national, local, and women’s identities. Whereas the authoritative power of nationalism continues to suppress and silence the transnational subjectivity of women, the Shan women’s movement represents a transnational attempt to contest the confinement of women’s subjectivities within the territorialized nation-state.

    Keywords: gender, nation, rape, refugees, transnationalism.

    7
    Halleh Ghorashi and Nayereh Tavakoli, abstract
    Paradoxes of transnational space and local activism: Iranians organizing across borders
    The Iranian revolution of 1979 promised to bring freedom and equality, but as soon as one group gained power, it turned out to be oppressive of both its political opposition and women. This resulted in the formation of a large Iranian diaspora bound together by its hatred for the Iranian regime. Years of suppression in the 1980s in Iran resulted in a deep gap between Iranians living inside and outside Iran. During the 1990s, however, cross-border relationships started to change as a result of two major factors: transnational activities and the influence of cyberspace. This paper focuses on the paradoxes of transnational connections in local protest with a focus on the women’s movement. We show both how transnational links have empowered women activists in Iran and how they have led to new dangers at the local level. We also reveal how support from the Iranian diaspora can be patronizing as well as supportive.

    Keywords: cyberspace, Iranian diaspora, Iranian revolution, Iranian women’s movement, Iranian Women’s Studies Foundation.

    8
    Martha Cecilia Ruiz and Lorraine Nencel, abstract
    Sex Work(er): The struggles of a global concept
    This chapter aims to trace the travels of the global concept sex work(er). This political concept is globally used by women working in the sex industry to organize and fight for rights and social respect. It is also a concept challenging past and present discourses on “sexual slavery”. We focus on the global and local struggles of the concept in regard to its acceptance and incorporation in global and local discourse. For this objective we frame this chapter in a theoretical approach built on the ideas of travelling theories; a framework offered as an alternative to the cultural imperialism critique of global feminism. Travelling theories recognizes the interconnectedness of the global and local but does not assume that the concepts are imposed and/or imitated when they reach their local destination. To illustrate how the concept sex work(er) has circualted not only from North to South but also within the South, we elaborate on a particular case, the Sex Workers Movement of Machala, Ecuador – one of the earliest founded organizations on the Latin American continent.

    Keywords: Sexwork(er), transnational migration, travelling theories.

    Part Three: Belonging Amidst Scattered Boundaries / Global Ammunition, Local Essentialisms
    9
    Karsten Paerregaard, abstract
    Transnational crossfire: Local, national and global conflicts in Peruvian migration
    This chapter argues that globalization processes are shaped by friction and exclusion as much as fluidity and inclusion and that conflict therefore is integral parts of population movements, especially when this evolves in a transnational context. By applying a transnational approach the chapter brings to the fore how tensions are negotiated, contested and reinterpreted not merely in a local but also in a regional, national and international context. More specifically, it examines the transnational network of Peruvian migrants who work as sheepherders in the United States and examines the conflicts that this migration practice generates in both Peru and the United States. The chapter concludes that the tensions that occur on the sheep ranches not only cause a divide within the migrant community itself but also trigger a political crisis on a national level in Peru and an international strife between Peru and the United States.

    Keywords: transnational, sheepherders, conflict, Peru, United States.

    10
    Lenie Brouwer, abstract
    Jokes, raps and transnational orientations – Protests of Dutch-Moroccan youths in the Debate on Islam
    Islam is today one of the most discussed topics in Dutch national newspapers and internet discussion groups. In this public debate the Muslim-voice is underrepresented, more in particular, the views of Muslim youngsters. The polarised debate and the current policy measures deepens the division between non-Muslims and Muslims, between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and fosters the highlighting of one specific identity that seems best suited to counter the accusations: that of being a Muslim. This makes Islam more attractive as a vehicle to reject all these accusations. The reactions of young Muslims or Dutch Moroccans are analysed in a media-technology context, a computer clubhouse in Amsterdam and Moroccan websites.  It is argued that Dutch Moroccan youths perceive Islam more and more as an appealing religion, as a motive of pride, in response to the negative image of Islam and the social exclusion of Muslims in the West.

    Keywords: Islam, Muslim youth, the Netherlands, media-technology, religious identity.

    11
    Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff, abstract
    British Indians in colonial India and Surinam: transnational identification and estrangement
    The authors present a case study of Indian nationalists who drew from a discourse on ‘exploited overseas Indian migrants’ to serve their own political interests. At the same time, overseas British Indians, in this case in Surinam, advocated the continuation of transnational relations between (British) India and Surinam in order to strengthen the position of their community locally. Clearly, for some time, transnational identification served the (national) interests of both groups in the two different nations. Yet, the authors also show that when such transnational ‘solutions’ did not serve any longer to solve local problems, estrangement between the two communities followed. Theoretically, this article constitutes a synthesis of approaches that connect identities to specific places and theories that have abandoned the study of geographically-based national societies. It demonstrates how the politics of place is dominant even within the field of transnational alliances.

    Keywords: estrangement, identity politics, overseas Indians, place, transnational identification.

    12
    Ton Salman, abstract
    Narrow margins, stern sovereignty: Juxtaposing transnational and local features of Bolivia’s crisis
    This article argues that the current Bolivian political crisis is ‘made’ both internally and abroad. Yet it is much more than a simple adding up of the two constituent factors: external influences are always mediated by local actors. Local actors turn these influences into meaningful issues and demands in the Bolivian political context. These actors, in turn, are co-constituted by external forces, as is the case with the prominent indigenous movements in the country: their self-awareness and identity politics in part depend upon support and discourses of a transnational nature. The fact that these indigenous movements insist on sovereignty and self-determination with regard to the use of Bolivia’s natural resources is a case in point. This demand, at the same time, is articulated in a setting in which this sovereignty suffers from tightening margins due to the external obligation to restructure both the state and the economy.

    Keywords: crisis of democracy, neo-liberalism, political protest, transnationalism.

    13
    Folkje Lips, abstract
    Stretching the margins of tolerated criticism: Using non-Cuban music in local protest
    This article presents music in Cuba as being more than just a sound and Cuban musicians as being more than mere entertainers. By choosing foreign music-genres as identity-markers, Cuban musicians and their audience express a critical awareness about their socio-political reality. Depending on the extent to which they want to employ this awareness to influence local concepts of society and politics, they modify and adapt their music to fit Cubaneity. Although critical awareness is not something the Cuban government will normally allow to be displayed, these musicians seem to enjoy some leeway. By examining two transnational musical genres, hip-hop and rock music, this article shows two different ways to find and widen the boundaries of the admissible in Cuba.

    Keywords: Cuba, Cubaneity, Hip-hop, Rock, Protest, State-control.

    Part Four: The Contested Ground of Environmental Values
    14
    Marja Spierenburg, Conrad Steenkamp, and Harry Wels, abstract
    Resistance of local communities against marginalization in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area
    The Great Limpopo is one of the largest Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) in the world, encompassing vast areas in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. The TFCA concept is embraced by practically all (international) conservation agencies. The rationale for the support is that the boundaries of ecosystems generally do not overlap with those of the nation-state. Their protection requires transnational cooperation. By arguing that local communities living in or close to TFCAs will participate and benefit economically, TFCA proponents claim social legitimacy for the project. However, analysis shows that communities first have to live up to rigid standards and requirements set by the international conservation authorities, before they are considered ‘fit’ to participate. Communities attempt to resist this type of marginalization by forming alliances with (inter)national development and human rights NGOs, with mixed results.

    Keywords: NGOs, resistance, sustainable development, transfrontier conservation, transnationalism.

    15
    Julia M. Wittmayer and Bram Büscher, abstract
    Conserving conflict? Transfrontier conservation, development discourses and local conflict between South Africa and Lesotho
    Since the early 1980s, South Africa and Lesotho have tried to find ways to jointly conserve the Maloti-Drakensberg mountain ecosystem that runs across their shared boundary. Recently, the countries completed the first phase of the ‘Maloti-Drakensberg transfrontier conservation and development project’ (MDTP) that besides conservation aims to reduce poverty through ecotourism and increase international cooperation. This chapter describes and analyses how discourses of conservation and development in the project both cement and complicate transnational relations and how these in turn articulate with, shape and are shaped by ‘the local’. The ‘local’ in Lesotho, in turn, can never be understood without drawing South Africa into the equation, for one because of the many Basotho that have always worked in South African mines, so providing their families with crucial livelihood support. Recently, however, massive retrenchments have forced numerous Basotho men to return to their families and try to again fit in locally. Focussing on the people living around the north-eastern boundary of Lesotho, we show how conflictual situations put the spotlight on the ways in which ‘the local’ in Lesotho deals with dual forces of localisation and transnationalisation. We argue that local people accommodate, even appropriate, these dual pressures by adopted an increasingly flexible stance in terms of identity, alliances and discourses. This in turn allows them to increase their livelihood options. In contrast, by being more focused on the level of discourse rather than these contradicting dynamics on the local level, the MDTP intervention planners, have decreased the likelihood of attaining their objectives.

    Keywords: Conflicts, Transfrontier Conservation, development, South Africa, Lesotho.

    The book can be ordered at VU University Publishers € 39,95 or at internet bookstores

    1 comment.

    Ritual slaughter in the Netherlands – From animal to ethical meat

    Posted on June 29th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Morocco, Public Islam, Religion Other.

    Update: see below

    The Dutch banned ritual slaughtering by Muslims and Jews. In a proposal heavily condemned by Muslim and Jewish organizations the Party of the Animals wanted a complete ban on dhabiha and shechita in cases where the animals were not stunned before the killing; the ritual slaughtering by Muslims and Jews. The ban will mostly effect orthodox Jews since all of the shechita slaughtering involves animals fully conscious while in the case of dhabiba this is the case in only 25%-40%. In order to get this bill passed through the lower house of parliament (a second vote is necessary in the senate) a so-called typical Dutch compromise was established: Jewish and Muslim communities have a year to provide evidence that animals slaughtered by dhabiba and shechita (and not stunning them) do not experience more pain than those animals that are stunned before killing.

    Food is much more than..just food. And even when it is just food it is of basic and existential importance to people. Many societies have food restrictions and so do many religions. Besides the Jewish and Islamic kosher and halal restrictions we have Hindu traditions pertaining to food pollution of different castes and within the Catholic tradition fish on Fridays is still (even in secular circles) a well-known phenomenon. Such food restrictions have several functions. First of all they are boundary markers; food culture practices mark who is ingroup and who is outgroup. Food practices are also reminders (and often daily reminders) to people’s moral responsibilities and obligations towards what is sacred. At the same time food is more than a reminder; it involves bodily practices and devotion as well, for example during prayer before dinner and during fasting. They also have a symbolic function in the sense that they explain, express and teach people about certain doctrines and dogmas; for example during fasting, the Eucharist and in vegetarianism. Food practices are also related to social structures of religious and ethnic groups; for example the role of the rabbi in Judaism with regard to kosher food but also differences between men and women in the production of food. And food has a very strong social function; producing and consuming food can reaffirm or even change (think about a first date with your partner) relationships with other people and there are elaborate etiquettes about how to eat. It can bring people together who may not share anything else or even have opposed understandings of the world as well as interests.

    As one of my great examples in anthropology, Mary Douglas, has taught us, people distinghuish between food that is polluted (‘matter of out place’) and that which is not polluted. For example we usually do not like flies in our soup or worms in our salad. With regard to religious restrictions for food, (particular) animals are ‘out of place’. Food that is haram or not kosher is like a fly in a soup for some people. Purity and impurity should not be mixed and people should not eat impure or hybrid food; not only the fly in the soup is impure but the fly makes the whole soup impure. These food restrictions come from old (not in the sense of not modern) of what was good (even healthy) to eat and what not. At the same rituals can transform animals that are taboo into food that is allowed. It is not always clear whether these restrictions are implemented top down or bottom up; in the sense that food restrictions can also be religious legitimation of what was already common practice. Whatever is the case food ties people in contemporary society in practices, discourses and memories with their ancestors and with traditions that are larger than their individual lives in the here and now. What it comes down to is that ritual and food pertains to deeply held values, beliefs, practices and memories. For some people for example the idea of having to eat dogs, worms or insects is enough to be repulsed and shocked; the idea of having to eat other food that is taboo can invoke the same bodily reactions and emotions.

    I think more or less the came can be said about food restrictions from the point of view of vegetarians and animal rights activists. This makes ‘food’ in the recent Dutch debates about ritual slaughtering a field where people battle over political, religious, economic, social and animal welfare issues. The Netherlands is now the second country to ban ritual slaughtering in recent years. Other countries such as Switzerland and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries also have bans which date from before World War II and probably not totally unrelated to anti-semitic tendencies of that time. So why now in the Netherlands?


    Ritual Slaughter Controversy Unites Jews, Muslims door NewsLook

    I do not think it is that speculative to say that the Animal Party has profitted from three major developments in Dutch society. First of all the animosity on ritual slaughtering is clearly related to the animosity about Islam. When the proposal for the bill was mentioned for the first time, the debate was about Islam and not about Jews.

    Second the proposal and also the current result signals a change in the relation between the religious and the secular. With the current compromise the burden of proof is not on the state but on religous communities that ritual slaughtering without stunning is does not lead to animals experiencing greater pain than those that are stunned before they are killed. Given the evidence on that issue right now and because they have to show that something ‘is not’ this will be an almost impossible endeavour. In the voting in parliament the support for the Jewish and Muslim communities came largely from the three Christian parties who voted unanimously against the law. For some this is the victory of modernity and secular society over ancient or even backward religion, for the other it is attacking the freedom of religion in society and a few have even referred back to World War II when the shechita was forbidden by the Nazis. In this process both camps are created and subsequently heavily targeted. Certainly not all Muslims and Jews prefer the old way of slaughtering; some of them have spoken out, many have not and some have chosen sides with the community leaders opposing the ban. In the debate however it appears that all Muslims and Jews are against the new law. The other side is often targeted as supporters of the Freedom Party of Wilders (who struggled with this issue since the result is not only that Muslims will be targeted but also Jews and they want to uphold an image as defenders of the Jewish community and Israel; which in their rhetoric is almost the same). The idea that there may be people who are not anti-religion in general or anti-islam in particular but support the ban because they think animal welfare is more important that religious convictions, is lost somehow in the debates.

    A third development may be signalling a trend that has already been set in motion when the Party for the Animals was elected in parliament several years ago. Although in many respects environmentalists are not hold high regard by the more rightist political parties and their constuencies, the Party for the Animals is regarded as a decent, somewhat atypical, party that deserves respect for its quest on animal rights. There seems to be a strong place for animal rights in Dutch society as long as it appears decent, not too left wing and outside the circles of the established parties. They are too small (two seats of out 150) to have actual power (but they are not aiming at being part of a government) but with the right timing they can gain momentum and accomplish things that would otherwise have been impossible. Whereas in the past religious groups had relatively much autonomy, and partly the case of ritual slaughtering is a remnant of that system, the Party for the Animals has now succeeded in putting animal rights first and making the regulations more state-centred.

    The debate over ritual slaughtering is not over yet. Given the compromise we can have the same debate next year over the question if ritual slaughtering is good for animals (which to some people would be nonsense anyway) and also the bill has still to pass the senate. Both the supporters of the ban and certainly its opponents will continue their campaigns which will probably revolve around the three developments I have mentioned here. Until then we have some time to catch up with reading about the importance of food:

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    Update 14-12-2011

    In a marathon meeting the Dutch senate debated the proposal on banning ritual slaughter. The conservative liberals already had withdrawn their support and last night also the social democrats rejected the proposal although their fellow party members at first supported it. (The Dutch system has two houses of debate. The senate is always the last one to debate and only has the right to approve or disapprove.) This means the proposal has been rejected.

    1 comment.

    Wilders on Trial VII – The dissensus ritual

    Posted on June 23rd, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Headline, Multiculti Issues.

    Dutch populist anti-islam and anti-establishment politician Geert Wilders was on trial for intentionally offending a group of people based on their religion, incitement to hatred and incitement to discrimination. Today he was cleared on all charges. According to the court some of Wilders’ statements were insulting, shocking and on the edge of legal acceptibility, but should be allowed because they were made in the broad context of a political and social debate on the multi-cultural society. The interesting and complicated thing with that line of reasoning of course is that Wilders himself is constitutive of that debate; he monopolizes the debate and sets the harsh tone and scope of that debate.

    The court said that talk of a tsunami of Muslims is ‘blunt and humiliating’ but ‘not subversive and does not incite to hatred or discrimination’. Furthermore, Wilders’ video Fitna could lead to feelings of hatred, but Wilders himself had not generated this feeling, the court said. Following the verdict Wilders said the ruling was a victory for freedom of speech: “I am extremely pleased and happy,” “This is not so much a win for myself, but a victory for freedom of speech. Fortunately you can criticize Islam and not be gagged in public debate.’ ‘Sometimes I meant to be coarse and denigrating,’ and: ‘In a political debate you must be able to say what you like.’
    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video
    This blogentry gives an overview of the trial and ends by engaging with the question if this trial was a good idea to begin with.

    Opening statement of Dutch MP Geerd Wilders in… door khandaniha

    It all started with the announcement of the movie Fitna in November 2007. According to Wilders to movie intendend to show to violent nature of Islam and the Quran (a license to kill). The police and the public prosecutor made it relatively easy to file a complaint against the movie. Immediately after its release the first complaint was filed and the forms necessary were already there. In June 2008 the public prosecutor decided however not to proceed with the prosecution because there were no unlawful elements in the movie. A strange decision. First one stimulates (before seeing the movie) people filing complaints, and then refuse to go on with it. Strange on behalf of the public prosecutor and one might add not very good for keeping confidence in the judiciary system because it stirs up things and leads people into a dead end. In January 2009 the Amsterdam appeals court orderded prosecutors to put Wilders on trial since ‘in a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to draw a clear line’. The court’s decision to prosecute is also in line with a previous decision in which a particular statement was not seen as inciting on its own, but it did within the particular context it was made. Other groups (including the people who made the complaints, a wide range of actors ranging from lawyers to one of the Salafi mosques in the Netherlands) have tried to frame it as incitement to hatred, insulting a religious group AND blashpemy. The latter however was turned down. The law on blasphemy is very strict and it is not even clear if making insulting comments about the prophet Muhammad is liable. See for more juridical details the brief by my Radboud University colleague Ybo Buruma. Framing it as blasphemy can be seen as attempt by religious status quo the protect the existing status quo, while making a movie bound to be experienced as blasphemous can be seen as an attack on that status quo. The same line of reasoning can be made with regard to incitement to hatred and discrimination and insulting a religious group. In both cases people want to defend their group from attacks that might be disruptive and threatening to the integrity of the group.

    Framing the trial

    How is the trial sold to the public? As said above, the authorities view the general in terms of ‘general interest to draw a clear line’. It appears to be self-evident that drawing a clear line is a good thing. One can wonder about that. The decision not to prosecute was made because of the context of the public debate in which the film was made which (needs to) leave room for people to make strong statements. In both cases we can see the reaction of the authorities as an attempt to de-politicize the whole issue by bringing it in and out and in again in the judicial system. This of course does not work. Wilders frames it different and contrary to the views of the authorities as a political trial meant to silence a politician who stands up for Dutch culture against the dangers from a violent and intolerant Islam that threatens to sweep the country. Wilders statement at the end of the trial gives a nice idea of how he framed the trial while the next video offers a glimpse of his ideas:

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    The Argument
    The defense Wilders has put up in trial is that he is just speaking out on the truth about Islam. They called several so-called expert witnesses including Wafa Sultan. Like the other witnesses before her, Wafa Sultan claims Islam is essentially a violent religion striving to conquer and submit the free world. She is not against Muslims as she claims (like Wilders does as well) but the question of a particular Muslim is dangerous depends (in her view) about how deep their religiosity is. If, according to her, the person is very pious and so on, then (given the violent nature of Islamic teachings) the person is dangerous. If the person however appears not to be very pious, one still has to consider the possibility that he is playing tricks and deceives you with his moderate outlook. Anthropologist Gabriele Marranci has explained quite clear why that argument does not add up (see also HERE).Rhetoric such as this reduces the multidimensionality of the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims, making one dimension all-encompassing and primordial while obscuring other dimensions and their mutual influences. Islam as a threat is a collective action frame, aimed at mobilizing people is constructed in order to influence people’s perception of particular events and meanings attributed to those events. If one applies it often enough and when it resonates among people because it appears to be logical and self-evident given particular processes and events people have experienced, such framing works as a mental shortcut that provides people with an effective and efficient way to deal with information. It is a form of persuasive communication used by political and religious elites prior to and during conflicts attempting to mobilize people for collective action. In this case the idea of Islam as a threat is the central organizing idea by which particular incidents and statements are qualified as examples of Islamization. Wilders’ statement in court was very important in this regard. The new government backed by Wilders’ PVV, wanted to build bridges and has as a motto: Freedom and Responsibility. Wilders stated that this motto was not his and ‘I’m not really a building-bridges-type-of-guy’. The other central organizing idea is ‘freedom’ but he talks about a particular kind of freedom. It pertains to freedom of the supporters of the Freedom Party and its MP’s. It pertains to a freedom from governmental interference and being liberated from the totalitarian and intolerant Islam and at the expense of (Muslim) minorities that are neglected and marginalized.

    The prosecutor
    As was to be expected a little bit the prosecutor sought acquittal on all points of the charge. Maybe surprising for outsiders but note that prosecutors initially declined to press charges against Wilders in June 2008. Prosecutors told the court that Wilders’ statements may be “hurtful” or “insulting” to Muslims, but there was insufficient proof to convict him of trying to polarize Dutch society into antagonistic groups. He has never called for violence. In the summation, prosecutor said Wilders’ statements were made as part of the public debate “about the immigration and integration of nonwestern foreigners, especially Muslims.” “Standpoints can vary considerably and emotions can run high, but … it is a debate that it must be possible to have,” she said.

    In one example cited by prosecutors, Wilders wrote in a 2007 opinion piece: “I’ve had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate,” and urged that the Quran be banned. The prosecutors said that statement, like others, was within the legal bounds of public debate. Many of Wilders’ statements seemed to denounce Islam as an ideology or its the growing influence in the Netherlands, rather than being intended as an abuse of Muslims as a people or group, according to the prosecutor. At the end of the day Wilders stated in the first trial “I don’t insult, I don’t incite hate, I don’t discriminate,” he said outside the courtroom afterward. “The only thing I do, and will keep on doing, is speaking the truth.” (copied from Yahoo! News). According to RNW:

    Wilders off the hook | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

    The prosecutors based their arguments on a few basic principles. In the first place, there is little jurisprudence in Dutch law to fall back on, particularly in the cases of incitement. The jurisprudence on the European level is somewhat broader, including recent cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights against Jean
    Marie le Pen in France, and Daniel Féret in Belgium. The lawyers cited both cases, as well as a few cases in Dutch courts.

    In addition, prosecutors maintained a very close, cautious reading ofthe law. Statements have to meet very specific criteria to be considered incitement. This is particularly true in the case of a politician taking part in a national debate.

    The whole process was quite muddled and in October an appellate court ordered a re-trial that started in February. The important thing is to understand the different historic trajectories underlying the current state of affairs regarding free speech. It is in particular the perceived social evils that constitute the bases of the complaints against Wilders. Because we are in a court system, the way to address these social evils is to demonstrate that people are harmed by it. It is the principle of harm that makes people having to account for their choice (how) to express themselves. This is what the plaintiffs tried to do and they asked for a guilty verdict and a symbolic damages award of 1 euro.

    Freedom and Power: dissensus ritual

    Now was this trial a good idea to begin with? Many commentators think it wasn’t as for example David Poort shows in a recent Al Jazeera article. Part of the comments there are correct of course. Whatever the outcome Wilders will not stop his extremist message nor will the debate about the limits of freedom of speech be over. And yes probably the fact that Wilders continues to challenge the limits is one of the things many people like so much about him. And yes, a court room may not be the most suitable place for a public debate. Furthermore it is often pointed out that Wilders is criticizing Islam, not the people, and since Islam is not a race nor an ethnicity, the discrimination laws do (or should) not apply. Nevertheless some of Wilders’ remarks on Muslims or calling Islam a ‘desert religion’ clearly uses racialized stereotyping and framing. Also particular cultural markers (such as headscarves) may not be racial but in the debates they can become racialized. This can happen because, although Islam is not a race indeed, Wilders is in fact racializing Islam by seeing it as an immutable and all pervasive category that drives people to intolerant acts. Furthermore besides the Islam-card he also plays the nativism card in which the native Dutch population is also seen as an immutable category constituting a moral community based upon judeo-christian values; a moral community that is in fact white. Furthermore Wilders did, albeit in an indirect manner, incite to violence and hatred by stating about Islam “It is a violent ideology like communism and fascism and we should deal with it that way“. Now how exactly did ‘we’ deal with communism and fascism? Certainly not (only) by drinking tea with communists and fascists.

    But there is more to it. During the last years Muslim activists have sought a way to adress their public views in a number of ways; from violent to peaceful and from petitions to demonstrations. Most of it not very effective and sometimes (the murder of Theo van Gogh) with considerable backlash against Muslim communities. The calm reaction of Muslims after the movie Fitna was praised and by some like Hirsi Ali seen as a sign that provocation actually works. By engaging a court case Muslim organisations (including a Salafi mosque) have stepped into ritual of court cases; a ritual that can offer a temporary solution to a complex and difficult political situation and that should transform a tense situation (as was clearly the case with Fitna) into a more balanced situation. It seems however that the whole trial did not lead to balance and social integration of conflictual standpoints, but to dissensus. We can think of other court cases that in similar ways appear to be dissensus rituals such as the US OJ Simpson trial as James Carey has suggested. A dissensus ritual does not (at least not immediately) lead to social integration but to a focus of the public on the existence of social crises and the escalation of such crisis. Relevant questions in this sense are: Does the trial and its verdict have any bearing on establishing, expressing and clarifying the new secularist order in this country? How are religious arguments viewed and how do religious group adjust to secular language in order to defend their claims? The other thing is how secularism plays a role here. The freedom of speech is a secular freedom, but how is it politically used by groups to mobilise people and legitimate their political actions? What does the politicization of the freedom of speech mean and what disciplining aspects play a role? And how does all of this more specific to (debates about) Islam in society? A next issue pertains to ‘group’ (a category used in the complaints). A group is not a thing in and of itself, groups are created for example by speaking about offending a ‘religious group’. The group is constructed on the basis of adherence to a religion, notwithstanding the fact that many people who filed complaints are not Muslim or religious at all. How does the notion of freedom of speech play a role in construction of a group as a coherent, cleary defined category of people?

    The distinction between integration rituals and dissensus rituals however is not that strong as anthropologists have shown over and over again. Relegating the conflict between Wilders’ PVV and its supporters on the one hand and Muslims and anti-racism organisations on the other hand, and the state supposedly somewhere in the middle, decreases the conflictual aspects. It confirms that the natural order of how conflicts should be solved in this country is either by trial or by political debate. As such it establishes and reinforces a hierarchical order of how people should respond to the world. This order is not the same as years ago. In the 1990s Janmaat, a right wing leader, was convicted for wanting to abolish multicultural society; nowadays many people feel that conviction was wrong and, moreover, mainstream politicians have declared the failure of multiculturalism over and over again.

    When rituals can establish a hierarchical order, power comes into play of course. As Friedman makes clear that not everyone has equal power in deciding what particular words mean. Wilders claims that his freedom his attacked by the trial; for the people who started the trial with their complaints (Muslims and non-Muslims) it is a strategy to have a stronger position in the negotiations over what is  allowed in contemporary society and what is not. For Wilders it is a (forced) attempt to remain master over his own words. Ultimately, as Friedman also makes clear, it is the state who decides in the trial. The fact that many, even those opposing Wilders, deplored that Muslims and others went to trial (and forced the state to do this) is very interesting in this regard. For some it is about warding off the power of the state for others it is concerning that Muslims can actually have power by exercising their rights or by what has been a called a ‘legal jihad‘. And I think here we encounter a problem with the trial against Wilders. The state has shown a reluctant attitude in this trial; first by not wanting to go to trial at all and second (after being forced to go to trial) by seeking acquittal on all charges. It is as if there is a ritual going on but one of the performers is reluctantly playing its part in the performance. This is detrimental for the function of the ritual in many ways. To name a few, it could give people the impression that, according to the state, politicians (such as Wilders) are above the law. It could also give migrants and Muslims (not for the first time) the impression that the state doesn’t really care about protecting them against hate speech and discrimination.

    Look for example at the reactions of Moroccan and Muslims spokespersons after the acquittal of Wilders today:

    Farid Azarkan of the SMN association of Moroccans in the Netherlands said he feared the acquittal could further split Dutch society and encourage others to repeat Wilders’ comments.

    “You see that people feel more and more supported in saying that minorities are good for nothing,” Azarkan said.

    “Wilders has said very extreme things about Muslims and Moroccans, so when will it ever stop? Some will feel this as a sort of support for what they feel and as justification.”

    Minorities groups said they would now take the case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, arguing the ruling meant the Netherlands had failed to protect ethnic minorities from discrimination.

    “The acquittal means that the right of minorities to remain free of hate speech has been breached. We are going to claim our rights at the U.N.,” said Mohamed Rabbae of the National Council for Moroccans.

    This in particular important because there seems to be a double standard at work here. When the Muhammad cartoons affair occurred a few years ago the Belgian Arab-European League (AEL) came up with cartoons that, for example, depicted Adolf Hitler and Anne Frank in bed together. They wanted to show the double standard that was being applied according to them with regard to cartoons referring to Islam and those referring to the Holocaust and the Jews. According to the appellate court however they (after initially a lower court saw no problem in the cartoons)the cartoons were more grieving than necessary for the public debate over the issue of double standards and they had to pay a fine. Unlike the Wilders trial the AEL trial wasn’t a major public and political event and (given the appeal) the prosecutor did its job. It appears that the current debates are so limitless and the behaviour of politicians and opinion leaders in the debate about Muslims and Islam is so blunt to the say the least, without anyone having enough authority among all parties to set some boundaries, that going to court is indeed the only way left to establish some limits. It is clear that the public prosecutor has an important role in that but the way it has operated here may even lead to even less authority for them.

    1 comment.

    Open Brief – Geen innovatie zonder wetenschap

    Posted on June 20th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Guest authors, Headline, State of Science.

    Guest Authors:
    Peter-Paul Verbeek
    Appy Sluijs
    Beatrice de Graaf

    Topteams

    In de komende maanden worden cruciale politieke besluiten genomen over de toekomst van het wetenschappelijk onderzoek in Nederland. Nederland lijdt aan een zogeheten innovatieparadox: er wordt veel wetenschappelijk onderzoek gedaan, maar dat creëert onvoldoende economische kansen. Er zijn daarom negen ‘topteams’ gevormd die binnen negen ‘topsectoren’ plannen ontwikkelen om wetenschappelijk onderzoek en innovatie beter op elkaar te laten aansluiten. Komende week presenteren deze teams hun plannen aan de bewindspersonen.

    Innovatieparadox

    Volgens het Nederlands Observatorium van Wetenschap en Technologie (NOWT) is één van de oorzaken van de innovatieparadox de achterblijvende samenwerking van Nederlandse innovatieve bedrijven met universiteiten en onderzoeksinstellingen. Het valt dan ook te prijzen dat de regering deze situatie wil verbeteren. Maar daarbij mag niet vergeten worden dat fundamenteel wetenschappelijk onderzoek in veel gevallen de motor achter innovatie is.

    Antropologisch onderzoek naar kannibalisme in Papoea Nieuw Guinea leidde bijvoorbeeld tot de ontdekking van de prionziektes (Nobelprijs 1976 en 1997), waartoe ook de gekkekoeienziekte behoort. Onderzoek naar atoomkernspinresonantie wordt tegenwoordig gebruikt in MRI’s. Taalkundig onderzoek leidde tot automatische spraakherkenners. Onderzoek naar magnetische lagen leverde nu onmisbare hardware voor computers op. Zulk onderzoek verbetert de kwaliteit van leven en onze materiële mogelijkheden. Stuk voor stuk laten deze voorbeelden zien dat innovaties doorgaans op onvoorspelbare manieren ontstaan uit fundamenteel wetenschappelijk onderzoek. In de huidige plannen zou een aanzienlijk deel van de budgetten van de twee belangrijkste spelers in het fundamentele onderzoek in Nederland – de Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), en de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) – moeten worden besteed binnen de negen aangewezen gebieden. Gegeven het belang van het fundamenteel wetenschappelijk onderzoek is het cruciaal dat deze operatie met grote zorg wordt uitgevoerd.

    Excellente output door wetenschap

    Volgens het NOWT presteren wetenschappers in Nederland excellent op output in publicaties (2e in de wereld) en op impact van die publicaties (4e in de wereld). Dat is overigens vooral het gevolg van investeringen in het verleden. Ruimte om het budget verder af te romen is er niet: nu al besteedt de Nederlandse staat slechts 0.8% van het BNP aan wetenschap, flink minder dan andere westerse landen, en aanzienlijk lager dan het in de EU afgesproken streefcijfer. De geplande verschuiving van budgetten van fundamenteel naar toepassingsgericht onderzoek betekent dat we een kwalitatief zeer goed systeem (wetenschap) aantasten in een poging een minder goed werkend systeem (innovatie) te verbeteren. Dat kan geen goede ontwikkeling zijn voor een land dat wil opklimmen in de ranglijst van kenniseconomieën.

    Wat is dan wel nodig voor structureel succesvolle innovatie?

    De basis is het creëren en in stand houden van een vruchtbare voedingsbodem. Dat begint bij creativiteit, durf en een onderzoekende geest: eigenschappen die bij uitstek worden getraind door de uitdaging van fundamenteel toponderzoek. Ten tweede dient het beleid zich op de juiste tijdschaal te richten. Er zitten doorgaans tientallen jaren tussen een doorbraak in onderzoek en de maatschappelijke en/of economische impact daarvan. En dus moeten er structureel langetermijninvesteringen gedaan worden in fundamenteel onderzoek. Ten derde is er breedte nodig. Het is onvoorspelbaar uit welke velden belangrijke innovaties zullen komen, zoals duidelijk werd uit bovengenoemde voorbeelden. Die breedte strekt zich nadrukkelijk uit tot sociaalwetenschappelijk en geesteswetenschappelijk onderzoek. Innovatie betaalt zich niet alleen uit in direct economisch nut, maar ook in indirect kapitaal, zoals sociaal-maatschappelijke, juridische of culturele vooruitgang.

    Creëren van vruchtbare koppelingen tussen wetenschap en bedrijfsleven

    De oplossing voor de innovatieparadox ligt daarom niet in het eenzijdig overhevelen van middelen van fundamenteel naar toepassingsgericht onderzoek, maar in het creëren van vruchtbare koppelingen tussen wetenschap en bedrijfsleven. Dat kan op twee manieren. Allereerst zou een deel van de gelden voor de topsectoren geoormerkt moeten worden voor fundamenteel onderzoek, gekoppeld aan de domeinen van de topsectoren en onder auspiciën van NWO en KNAW. Zo blijft er een dynamische en vruchtbare poule van wetenschappelijk onderzoek bestaan, die misschien niet onmiddellijk ‘nuttig’ is, maar wel een onuitputtelijke bron voor innovatie blijft. Bovendien kunnen we alleen op die manier (buitenlands) talent werven en vasthouden.

    Ten tweede is het van belang dat het bedrijfsleven zélf investeert in innovatie. De cijfers van het NOWT laten zien dat het bedrijfsleven slechts 1.0% van het BNP investeert in Research and Development (R&D). Volgens de Europese norm zou deze investering twee keer zo hoog moeten zijn – sterke economieën blijken nog veel meer te investeren om concurrerend te zijn. Er zijn overigens uitzonderingen: het Nederlandse hightech bedrijf ASML investeert bijvoorbeeld jaarlijks zo’n 500 miljoen euro in R&D en verdient hier goed aan. ASML valt binnen een Topsector, zoals veel andere bedrijven waarvan de R&D investeringen prima op peil zijn. Dit roept de vraag op of extra overheidsgelden in deze gevallen nodig zijn en tot meer innovatie zullen leiden. Misschien belemmeren zulke gelden juist private investeringen in R&D.

    Creatief en innovatief onderzoekstalent, bottom up faciliteren

    Creatief en innovatief onderzoekstalent kan het beste bottom up gefaciliteerd worden, en niet top down georganiseerd. Dat is te realiseren door een substantieel deel van de innovatiegelden te oormerken voor fundamenteel onderzoek in de topsectoren. Via open competitie moet dit budget worden geïnvesteerd in de beste mensen met de beste ideeën. Daarnaast moet de overheid bedrijven stimuleren om te investeren in R&D, daarbij nauwe samenwerking zoekend met universiteiten en kennisinstituten. Innovatie drijft op goede ideeën van talentvolle individuen in vruchtbare samenwerkingsverbanden. Laat dat talent niet verloren gaan. De Jonge Akademie staat klaar om mee te denken over verdere beleidsontwikkeling.

    Namens De Jonge Akademie

    Peter-Paul Verbeek
    Appy Sluijs
    Beatrice de Graaf

    De auteurs zijn lid van De Jonge Akademie en hebben dit stuk geschreven namens De Jonge Akademie, een zelfstandig onderdeel van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. De Jonge Akademie is een dynamisch en innovatief platform van jonge topwetenschappers, werkzaam bij Nederlandse universiteiten en onderzoeksinstituten, die samen een breed spectrum van wetenschappelijke disciplines vertegenwoordigen en een visie uitdragen op wetenschap en wetenschapsbeleid.

    Over Papoea Nieuw Guinea, kannibalisme en prion-ziektes zie:

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    Lees hier de review ‘Understanding Kuru’ The contribution of anthropology and medicine door Shirley Lindenbaum

    0 comments.

    Closing the week 23 – Middle East Trials and Tribulations

    Posted on June 12th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Most popular on Closer this week:

    1. Buitengewoon gevangen in de ‘war against terror’ – De casus Saddek Sbaa
    2. “V for Vendetta”: The Other Face of Egypt’s Youth Movement – by Linda Herrera
    3. Making sense of the emotional field
    4. Discriminatie, activisme en het alledaagse

    Previous updates:

    Tunisia Uprising I – Tunisia Uprising II – Tunisia / Egypt Uprising Essential Reading I – The Egypt Revolution – A Need to Read List – Women & Middle East Uprisings – The Syrian Uprising – Women2Drive. See also the section Society and Politics in the Middle East (Dutch and English guest contributions).

    • If you want to stay updated and did not subscribe yet, you can do so HERE

    YouTube – Middle East – Trials and Tribulations

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    Syria
    ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ called into question — real or not? – BlogPost – The Washington Post

    Addressing the doubts Wednesday, Carvin wrote on Twitter: “Again, people should operate under the assumption that there is a real blogger under detention in Syria. Who they are is another matter.”

    After Report of Disappearance, Questions About Syrian-American Blogger – NYTimes.com

    Although it remains possible that the blog’s author was indeed detained, and has been writing a factual, not fictional, account of recent events in Syria, readers should be aware that the one person who has identified herself — to The Times, the BBC and Al Jazeera — as a personal friend of the blogger, Sandra Bagaria, has now clarified that she has never actually met the author of the Gay Girl in Damascus blog. Ms. Bagaria told The Lede that she had also never conversed with Ms. Arraf face to face via Skype, but had conducted an online relationship with her since January entirely through Internet communications in writing, including more than 500 e-mails.

    A Gay Girl in Damascus: Apology to readers

    I never expected this level of attention. While the narrative vo?ce may have been fictional, the facts on th?s blog are true and not m?sleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.

    I only hope that people pay as much attention to the people of the Middle East and their struggles in th?s year of revolutions. The events there are be?ng shaped by the people living them on a daily basis. I have only tried to illuminate them for a western audience.

    This experience has sadly only confirmed my feelings regarding the often superficial coverage of the Middle East and the pervasiveness of new forms of liberal Orientalism.

    However, I have been deeply touched by the reactions of readers.

    Best,
    Tom MacMaster,
    Istanbul, Turkey
    July 12, 2011

    The sole author of all posts on this blog

    The Two Homs—By Esther Adorno (Harper’s Magazine)

    I ask Qassem who the Shabbiha (“shadow”) are. “Shabbiha is how we used to call the gangs making money during the Syrian occupation in Lebanon,” Qassem says, lighting a cigarette. “They used to travel in ghost cars without plates; that’s how they got the name Shabbiha. They would smuggle cars from Lebanon to Syria. The police turned a blind eye, and in return Shabbiha would act as a shadow militia in case of need. . . . Now that soldiers are being killed for refusing to shoot civilians, or for refusing to shoot those running across the Lebanese border as refugees, Shabbiha is definitely more reliable than the army.” But as more people are stuffed in jail, and more protests are organized by relatives who want these prisoners released and returned home, more men are needed to suppress the opposition—and that’s why recruiters here come knocking at the door of young men like Qassem. He won’t even tell me what sect he belongs to.

    The Syrian uprising: The balance of power is shifting | The Economist

    A MONTH ago seasoned watchers of Syria reckoned that the regime’s ferocious crackdown would keep the lid on dissent, albeit with President Bashar Assad’s legitimacy badly impaired. Now the prevailing wisdom is changing. Rather than subside, the protests are spreading and intensifying. Having started in the south and spread to coastal cities such as Banias, they moved to Homs, Syria’s third-biggest city, and the surrounding central districts. More recently they have gripped Hama, the country’s fourth city, famed for its uprising in 1982, when 20,000 people may have been killed by the then president, Hafez Assad, the present incumbent’s father. After starting in the rural areas, the unrest has hit cities all over the country. And the death toll, well past 1,200, has begun to rise more sharply. On June 3rd, at least 70 people are reported to have been killed in Hama alone.

    Syria Comment » Archives » Idlib and Aleppo

    Idlib province, which is only 45 minutes from Aleppo is the eye of the hurricane. The government is poring troops into the region to make sure it remains under firm control. Syria cannot afford to lose territory where an insurgency or rebel army might emerge. Damascus will do everything it can to preclude the formation of a Benghazi, which would allow foreign intelligence agencies and governments to begin arming and training a rebel army, as happened in Libya.

    Egyptian Chronicles: The association of Syria street

    The logo of the association
    at one of the shops there “Facebook”
    Syria street is known to be a busy vital street in Mohendessin area. It is not only busy but also crowded thanks to its shops making it a hell for parking at the evening. Lately people have noticed something in the street then new shops , they noticed a sign with the name “The Youth of Syria street association”. Now who are those youth and what is this association !?

    Syria intensifies assault on anti-Assad protesters | Reuters

    (Reuters) – Syrian security forces intensified their assault on protesters calling for President Bashar al-Assad to quit, killing at least 34 demonstrators in the latest crackdown in the city of Hama, activists said.

    Syria: Crimes Against Humanity in Daraa | Human Rights Watch

    (New York) – Systematic killings and torture by Syrian security forces in the city of Daraa since protests began there on March 18, 2011, strongly suggest that these qualify as crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

    Egypt
    The Rubicon is in Egypt: an interview with Azza Karam « The Immanent Frame

    Azza Karam is the Senior Culture Advisor at the United Nations Population Fund, where she has pioneered efforts to make human development work more attentive to religion. Karam was born in Egypt and grew up, as the daughter of an Egyptian diplomat, in countries around the world, eventually earning a doctorate in international relations from the University of Amsterdam. Her several books include Transnational Political Islam (2004) and Islamisms, Women and the State (1998). Prior to joining UNFPA, she worked for the World Conference of Religions for Peace, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and the United Nations Development Program, among other organizations.

    This interview was conducted in conjunction with the SSRC project on Religion and International Affairs. Karam here speaks only for herself, not for any institution, organization, or board.—ed.

    NS: Before we get to your work at the United Nations, let’s start with recent events in Egypt, your home country. How, in your view, is the Egyptian revolution of a few months ago proceeding? Has it been betrayed yet?

    In Egypt, Islamist Salafist movement vies for political power in wake of revolution – The Washington Post

    For years, the rugged Mediterranean shoreline here has been a favorite necking place for young Egyptian couples. But now menacing new messages have been spray-painted on the rocks.

    “Would you find it all right for your sister?” one message says, addressing the men who bring girlfriends to the rocky area where waves break. “God sees you.” Other messages decry alcohol. One says simply, “Enough sins.”

    The fresh scrawls are the work of Islamists who are emerging from the fringes of Egyptian society with zeal and swagger. Their graffiti and billboards calling for a more conservative Egypt have become pervasive here in recent months, part of a rapidly growing debate about what should emerge from a revolution that toppled an autocratic leader and unleashed long-subdued social and political forces.

    Egyptian religious minorities fear rise of Islamists | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt

    Amid sectarian clashes and uncertainty about their future, religious minority leaders are expressing concern about the possibility of certain Islamic groups rising to power and writing a new constitution that does not protect minority rights.

    Yemen
    Was there a Yemeni Revolution? | Informed Comment

    Aljazeera Arabic is reporting that later in the day Sunday, clashes between armed groups of pro-Saleh and anti-Saleh gunmen broke out in the capital, where the situation is “unstable,” after Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment late Saturday.

    On the National Democratic Party – Blog – The Arabist

    In mid-January, I found myself at a seminar in Rome presenting a paper on Egypt’s National Democratic Party. Others spoke about the economic situation, the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian foreign policy. We all shared a gloomy view of situation in Egypt at the twilight of the Mubarak era and predicted trouble in the year ahead as Gamal Mubarak would make his bid to succeed his father. A couple of days later, I went to Tunisia to cover the revolution there, and then cut that trip short to make it back to Cairo by January 28, the day protestors defeated the police and security services across the country.

    My paper on the NDP saw the party as the battleground of elite politics over the last decade, a place where different elements of the regime fought out their parcel of privilege and influence.

    Bahrain
    What next for Bahrain? by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen | The Middle East Channel

    The lifting of the emergency law in Bahrain on June 1 seemed to pay immediate dividends two days later when the FIA reinstated the Bahrain Grand Prix in October. This decision signified a degree of international approval for the government’s efforts to contain the instability that broke out in February. Yet “normality” rests on a repressive maintenance of public order and a sustained closure of political and oppositional space, and is underpinned by foreign security personnel and Peninsula Shield Forces. These insulate the ruling Al-Khalifa family from opposition pressures and reduce the likelihood of any significant reform process in the Kingdom. In light of recent developments, what does the future hold for Bahrain, and for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) involvement?

    Saudi Arabia
    Could Women’s Rights Finally Improve in Saudi Arabia? – Max Fisher – International – The Atlantic

    Six months in, it’s still unclear whether the still-ongoing demonstrations and battles of the Arab Spring will produce a net positive or negative change for the region. They have yielded revolution in Tunisia, potential revolution in Egypt, civil war in Libya, potential civil war in Yemen, and violent crackdowns in Bahrain and Syria. Thousands of civilians have died, and though some regimes have changed for the better, some have only entrenched their worst behavior. It may be months of years before the uprisings recede and we can understand their impact. But there is one area where the Spring could finally produce one of the region’s most-needed, most-overdue reforms: women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.

    A Conversation With Saudi Women’s Rights Campaigner Wajeha al-Huwaider | The Nation

    Wajeha al-Huwaider is perhaps the best-known Saudi campaigner for women’s rights, human rights and democracy. She has protested energetically against the kingdom’s lack of formal laws (the Koran is it) and basic freedoms and in particular against the guardianship system, under which every female, from birth to death, needs the permission of a male relative to make decisions in all important areas of life—education, travel, marriage, employment, finances, even surgery. In 2008 a video of her driving a car, which is forbidden for women in Saudi Arabia, created a sensation when it was posted on YouTube. Al-Huwaider is a strong supporter of the June 17 Movement, which calls on Saudi women to start driving on that date, and made the celebrated YouTube video of its co-founder, Manal al-Sherif, jailed for nine days in May for driving. While this interview was in preparation, she was briefly detained by the police when she tried to visit Nathalie Morin, a French-Canadian woman held captive with her children by her Saudi husband.

    Libya
    NATO drops bombs on Gaddafi tweets | Herald Sun

    NATO has scrambled warplanes against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces after Libyans tweeted troop movements on the micro-blogging website, alliance officials say.

    Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (V): Making Sense of Libya – International Crisis Group

    The present conflict clearly represents the death agony of the Jamahiriya. Whether what comes after it fulfils Libyans’ hopes for freedom and legitimate government very much depends on how and when Qaddafi goes. This in turn depends on how – and how soon – the armed conflict gives way to political negotiation allowing Libya’s political actors, including Libyan public opinion as a whole, to address the crucial questions involved in defining the constitutive principles of a post-Jamahiriya state and agreeing on the modalities and interim institutions of the transition phase. The international community’s responsibility for the course events will take is very great. Instead of stubbornly maintaining the present policy and running the risk that its consequence will be dangerous chaos, it should act now to facilitate a negotiated end to the civil war and a new beginning for Libya’s political life.

    Morocco
    A few links on Morocco – Blog – The Arabist

    The February 20 movement continues to challenge the monarchy in Morocco, on the eve of the unveiling of a royal commission’s proposal for constitutional reform. Adl wal Ihsan, the country’s largest Islamist movement and a key supporter of the reform movement, has called for a civil state (rather than a religious one) as the regime launches a campaign to tar February 20 has having been taken over by Islamist and leftist radicals. Rachid Nini, Morocco’s most influential journalist, is sentenced to a year in prison, while the police begins to crack down on protestors, killing one last week. This and more in the links below, and analysis of Morocco will come at some later point. Do check out of the first link, which is an interactive website to debate, article by article, the constitution — it’s a great model to follow and someone in Egypt should do the same.

    The Middle East Uprising general
    Why social scientists failed to “predict” the Egyptian Revolution

    We’ve heard it many times: The Egyptian revolution was unexpected. Especially in Western countries, it is often called “Facebook Revolution”. That is not only wrong but insulting as it renders invisible the previous demonstrations, strikes and other political activities, going back 10 years or even longer, said prominent blogger and activist Hossam El-Hamalawy who blogs at 3arabawy.

    This political activism has gone unnoticed by many researchers and political analysts, especially in the West. Why?

    Rising Literacy and a Shrinking Birth Rate: A Look at the Root Causes of the Arab Revolution – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International

    In a SPIEGEL interview, French social scientist Emmanuel Todd discusses the demographic roots of the Arab revolution, which he argues was spurred by rising literacy and rapidly shrinking birth rates. He also muses on the ghost of Osama bin Laden, arguing “al-Qaida was already dead,” and on why he believes Germany is not a part of the “core West.”

    Three Powerfully Wrong–and Wrongly Powerful–American Narratives about the Arab Spring

    The “Arab Spring” that actually began in the dead of winter has spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria…and the year only half over. As the media, policymakers, and global audiences struggle to make sense of changes that have inspired hundreds of millions to “just say no” to decades of dictatorship, a number of narratives have taken hold in the US—evident in remarks on cable news talk shows, at academic and policy symposia, and on Twitter—about precisely what is happening and what these massive crowds want. While elements of these narratives have some foundation in truth, they also present such a simplified view as to obscure crucial dimensions of the power struggles across the region. Below we unpack three of the most common narratives whose “truth” has become almost conventional wisdom, tossed out at cocktail parties and across coffee shops and metros. We aim to highlight what kinds of politics are made possible (and what kinds of challenges to power are foreclosed) as these narratives become part of the “common sense” that shapes our understanding of these extraordinary events.

    Middle East misc.

    THE VIEW FROM FEZ: Don’t miss the Aissawa Sufis tonight @Fes Festival

    A number of teams of Aissawi musicians work in each city in Morocco, but the sound especially permeates Fez and Meknes. Each group is led by a muqaddam, literally a presenter or leader. Abdullah is one such muqaddam, one that is known throughout the country. His father and grandfather were both Aissawa muqaddams, it runs in his family. He lamented that he has no son to continue the family business and, although he has two daughters who are well steeped in the style, he is concerned about the future. He and another prominent figure from Fez’s Sufi community, Abd ar-Rahim Amrani, will be joined onstage by maqaddams from Rabat, Fez, and Meknes, giving tonight’s performance an all-star cast. Amrani, an orchestrater of this week’s events, will bring elements of his own Hamadcha Brotherhood to the stage, insha’allah (God willing). These two are revered outside of Morocco as well – they just returned from a short stay in California where they performed and gave workshops to students at UCLA.

    Al-Qaida Video: Zawahiri Vows to Continue Bin Laden’s Work – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International

    First he praised Osama bin Laden, and then he issued threats to Pakistan and the United States. One month after the al-Qaida leader was shot dead in Abbottabad, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has promised that the group will stay the course. But he remained silent about the group’s new leadership.

    Iran, FIFA Clash Over Hijab – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2011

    Iran is challenging FIFA’s decision to ban its women footballers from playing an Olympic qualifier match because of their Islamic dress.

    Reformist Islam – Qantara.de

    Philosopher Jawdat Said, little known in the West, has been propagating a vision of Islam free of violence for the past 40 years. His books have been widely read and discussed by Islamic activists in the Arab world. A profile by Bashar Humeid


    Beyond denial « The Immanent Frame

    For a brief moment in 2007, news of a hit Iranian television series, whose Farsi title was translated variously as Zero Degree Turn or Zero Point Orbit, proliferated across the print and digital mediascapes of the Anglophone world. The series, created by Iranian director Hassan Fathi at great expense and broadcast in a thirty-episode season on the flagship state television station IRIB1, revolves around a Romeo and Juliet plot of illicit romance, with a distinctive twist: while the proverbial Romeo is one Habib Parsa (played by Iranian hearthrob Shahab Hosseini), a Muslim Iranian pursuing his studies in France, his Juliet is none other than a Jewish classmate, Sarah Astrok (played by the French actress Nathalie Matti), with whom he falls in love.

    Misc.
    Think You Can Handle Over 150 Facebook Friends? Not!

    Got ego? Trying to garner Facebook friends infinitum? Well you can’t!

    According to Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University, the Facebook yardstick that your brain can only handle is 150 friends.

    Research Focuses on Muslim Women Under Khmer Rouge | News | Khmer-English

    Cambodia’s women Muslims are increasingly embracing their own identities, as the minority group as a whole struggles with the impacts of the Khmer Rouge, according to new research.

    Express highlights its own inaccuracies on Muslim burkha ban challenge | Full Fact

    The Express had two of its perennial bugbears – immigration and Europe – in its sights this morning when it reported that a Muslim couple that had settled in Britain were to use taxpayers’ cash to fight France’s burkha ban in the European Court of Human Rights.

    It’s headline boldly declared that: “French Muslims to use our cash to fight burkha ban.”

    San Francisco’s proposed circumcision ban galvanizes religious opposition – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs

    The nation’s largest evangelical Christian umbrella group has come out against San Francisco’s proposed circumcision ban, evidence that the voter initiative is beginning to galvanize national religious opposition.

    Counter-terrorism and multiculturalism: Better than cure—but difficult | The Economist

    Good riddance, say critics who think that officialdom, in its efforts to combat terrorism, has gone too far in co-operating with Muslim figures who are themselves far from liberal democrats. They argue that Mr Baker’s ideological roots as a Salafi—one who takes very literally the precepts of Muhammad and his companions—makes him an unsuitable recipient of state funds. Mr Baker was also chairman from 1994 to 2009 of the Brixton mosque, where Richard Reid, later known as the “shoe bomber”, rolled out his prayer rug for a while. (Mr Baker says he warned the police repeatedly about militant recruiting there.) The critics felt vindicated when STREET’s website recently carried advice on clothing and music from clerics who in other contexts excoriate gays and Jews.

    Britain’s wrestling match with ‘extremists’ is self-defeating – The National

    All over Europe, amid increasingly harsh political debate, governments are having to address the issue of how to integrate Muslims communities. In some cases the response has been populist: Belgium is expected next month to follow the lead of France in banning the veiling of women’s faces in public.

    In countries as diverse as Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy, political parties are on the rise that focus the generalised discontent of voters on to Muslim communities. Views which only a few years ago would have been dismissed as fascist are now part of mainstream debate.

    Muslims call for action against hate crimes – Crime, UK – The Independent

    Britain’s largest mainstream Muslim organisation will today call for “robust action” to combat Islamophobic attacks amid fears of growing violence and under-reporting of hate crimes.

    Bulgaria Election | Nationalists | Religion Violence | Muslims

    Every Friday at noon, Muslims gather at the only mosque in Bulgaria’s capital, waiting for the daily prayer to start. Since their gathering turned bloody three weeks ago, police officers and television cameras have joined them.

    Muslim women’s group launches ‘jihad against violence’ | UK news | The Guardian

    A British Muslim women’s group has launched a “jihad against violence”, in a bid to reclaim the term jihad from extremists.

    Algeria’s Impact on French Philosophy: Between Poststructuralist Theory and Colonial Practice

    In the past few years, there appears to have been a falling out between Middle Eastern studies and post-structuralist theory. Edward Said’s Orientalism remains necessary reading for most graduate students, but the surrounding debates in post-colonial and post-structuralist theory have fallen decisively out of fashion. It would seem that the so-called “cultural turn” (often – mistakenly – taken to be synonymous with post-structuralism or postmodernism) was actually a dead-end. While there is a robust debate in critical theory as to the political implications of post-structuralism, in Middle Eastern studies the current refrain sometimes begins with: “just say No to Discourse.”

    A more sustained engagement with both critical theory, on the one hand, and Middle Eastern history, on the other, might offer a productive way out of this impasse.

    New Statesman – We will continue to spy on Muslims, says Theresa May

    “I don’t see anything wrong with identifying people who are vulnerable to being taken down a certain route.”

    tabsir.net » Cruising above the Empty Quarter

    There is a spectacular photographic website devoted to a book by George Steinmetz, who took photographs across the fabled Empty Quarter of Arabia.

    Dutch
    Kabinet zet zich niet meer in voor etnische minderheden – Nieuws – VK

    Het kabinet-Rutte zet zich niet in voor de emancipatie van etnische minderheden. Dat is een breuk met het verleden: het vorige kabinet plaatste de emancipatie van minderheden nog hoog op de agenda.

    Secularisme, scheiding van kerk en staat en islam

    In Nederland en veel andere Europese landen wordt steeds vaker een beroep gedaan op een strikte scheiding van kerk en staat in beleidsvorming ten aanzien van de Islam. Regelmatig worden ook de geschiedenis van het secularisme en de Verlichting aangeroepen als antwoord op de crisis van het multiculturalisme. Dit sterker wordende secularistische discours is herkenbaar uit de Franse context waarin het al jaren gangbaar is. In het Frankrijk van na 1989 was de laïcité lange tijd een gematigd en liberaal antwoord op de racistische strategieën van Le Pen. Ook in andere Europese landen lijkt secularisme het fatsoenlijke alternatief voor populistische anti-Islam discoursen. Voor linkse politiek lijkt het een goede, zelfs veelbelovende optie voor de omgang met de Islam, want hoewel secularisme niet per se de zichtbaarheid van de Islam in Europa bevordert, gaat het hier niet, zo is de gedachte, om de uitsluiting van de Islam, of eventueel zelfs om racisme ten aanzien van moslims. Secularisme wordt juist opgevat als de neutraliteit van de staat ten aanzien van alle religies. Religies dienen vrijgelaten te worden door de staat, mits ze de gewetensvrijheid van anderen maar respecteren en hun waarden en praktijken niet indruisen tegen de grondrechten van ieder individu in de liberale rechtsstaat. Het grote verschil met het multiculturalisme is dan, in de ogen van de secularisten, dat een seculiere orde het paternalistische optreden van de overheid, waarbij conservatieve religieuze elites vaak als vertegenwoordigers van hele groepen of zelfs ‘culturen’ werden gezien, overboord zet.

    Eindhovense moskee zet zich in voor bloeddonatie

    De komende twee weken zal Stichting Waqf van de Eindhovense moskee zich inzetten voor bloeddonatie en het belang hiervan benadrukken door de moslims bewust te maken van dit maatschappelijke onderwerp. Hiermee willen ze dat moslims zich maatschappelijk inzetten. Aldus de woordvoerders van de stichting: “Het tonen van betrokkenheid en het zich inzetten voor de maatschappij is een vereiste voor alle burgers.”

    Sjaria op de Krim blijkt broodje aap – Sargasso

    Moslimmeisje van 19 gestenigd na schoonheidswedstrijd’, kopte de krant. Drie jongemannen zouden een dorpsgenote met stenen om het leven hebben gebracht omdat haar deelname aan een regionale miss-verkiezing “niet in overeenstemming” zou zijn geweest “met de sjaria”. Andere persbureaus en media, waaronder ANP, Algemeen Dagblad, De Pers, Elsevier, Reformatorisch Dagblad, Nederlands Dagblad en tal van regionale dagbladen, volgden slaafs.

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    Saudi Arabia – Reform, Revolution and Hypocrisy

    Posted on June 5th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, International Terrorism, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Madawi Al-Rasheed is Professor of Social Anthropology at King’s College, London. Born in Saudi Arabia, she currently lives in London. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Her recent publications include Politics in an Arabian Oasis, A History of Saudi Arabia, and Contesting the Saudi State. In an interview with The Real News she reflects on current developments in Saudi Arabia against the background of the Middle Eastern uprisings and ‘Western hypocrisy’

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    In the next video you find another interview with Madawi Al-Rasheed that gives you some more background information on who rules Saudi Arabia and the War against Terror.

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    You can find Madawi Al Rasheed’s website HERE.

    0 comments.

    Closing the Week 21 – Featuring Mladic and the Shadow of Srebrenica

    Posted on May 29th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Blogosphere, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Most popular on Closer last week

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    Featuring Mladic and the Shadow of Srebrenica
    Duke University Press Log: Judith Armatta on the Arrest of Ratko Mladic

    The arrest of Ratko Mladic demonstrates how far the world community has moved from providing warlords and tyrants with golden parachutes. The arrest of Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarek and the indictment of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi provide further evidence of the degree to which accountability for crimes by the powerful has taken root. Mubarek will stand trial in Egypt before an Egyptian court. Gaddafi has been indicted by the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, an indictment that must be confirmed by a trial chamber of the ICC before an arrest can be made, which at this point is not imminent as Gaddafi remains in power.

    The Duck of Minerva: Mladic, OBL and International Justice

    What I find fascinating about the international reaction to his arrest is the importance of this man being brought to trial. At no point I am aware of during his years of hiding was it argued that he should instead be taken out by a targeted killing – partly because it was recognized that justice for his victims required a trial. Recent empirical research demonstrates that these courts have not only been able to effectively carry out prosecutions, but have had a number of other important positive side-effects, with few of the negatives originally feared. I remain puzzled that the ad hoc tribunal model has not been seriously considered for KSM, OBL or other terrorist masterminds.

    Diana Johnstone: Srebrenica Revisited

    The false interpretation of “Srebrenica” as part of an ongoing Serb project of “genocide” was used to incite the NATO war against Yugoslavia, which devastated a country and left behind a cauldron of hatred and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The United States is currently engaged in a far more murderous and destructive war in Iraq. In this context, the Western lamentations that inflate the Srebrenic massacre into “the greatest mass genocide since Nazi times” are a diversion from the real existing genocide, which is not the work of some racist maniac, but the ongoing imposition of a radically unjust socio-economic world order euphemistically called “globalization”.

    Dutch relief at the arrest of Mladi? | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

    The arrest of Ratko Mladi? has been warmly welcomed in the Netherlands. The former Bosnian Serb army chief is accused of a genocide that took place virtually under the noses of the Dutch UN forces. They were supposed to be protecting the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in 1995. The fall of the enclave and the murder of almost 8,000 Bosnian Muslims is therefore remembered by the Dutch as a black page in their country’s history. It was the worst atrocity committed in Europe since the Second World War.

    Mladic in Belgrade court for extradition hearing – Crime – Salon.com

    Mladic, 69, was one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives — the top commander of the Bosnian Serb army during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, which left more than 100,000 people dead and drove another 1.8 million from their homes. Thousands of Muslims and Croats were killed, tortured or driven out in a campaign to purge the region of non-Serbs.

    Mladic in the Dock-At Last – NYTimes.com

    Less than a month after the death of Osama bin Laden, Ratko Mladic, one of the most evil men of the 20th century, has been captured. The moment is sweet. For me, bittersweet. For 16 years, Mladic had been Richard Holbrooke’s nemesis, and my husband died without seeing him brought to justice. Mladic’s freedom all these years after the Dayton Accords put an end to the Bosnian war was a personal wound for Richard, the chief architect of that agreement. We cannot call Dayton a success while Mladic is free, my husband used to say.

    Profile: Ratko Mladic – Europe – Al Jazeera English

    Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military leader during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, was indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in 1995 on charges of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

    Serbia announced his arrest on May 26, 2011.

    “On behalf of the Republic of Serbia we announce that Ratko Mladic has been arrested,” Boris Tadic, the country’s president, said.

    “Today we closed one chapter of our recent history that will bring us one step closer to full reconciliation in the region.”

    Executions Were Mladic’s Signature, and Downfall – NYTimes.com

    With video cameras capturing the moment, Gen. Ratko Mladic’s bodyguards handed out chocolates to Bosnian Muslim children, promising terrified women that the violence was over.

    “No one will be harmed,” the Bosnian Serb commander said on July 12, 1995, gently patting a young boy on the head. “You have nothing to fear. You will all be evacuated.”

    Worst European massacre since WWII – The Irish Times – Thu, May 26, 2011

    As Bosnian Serb troops brutally ‘cleansed’ their ethnic rivals from land they claimed, Mladic and Karadzic defended their actions.

    What the arrest of Ratko Mladic means – International Crisis Group

    Not only is Mladic’s arrest important, but so too is the reaction of average Serbs. So far it has been extremely balanced and accepting. On the morning of the Mladic’s detention, President Tadic said that his arrest was necessary to restore Serbian honor. This is indeed a time for Serbs, but also the rest of the Balkan population to recognize that terrible crimes were perpetuated in their name, but those who committed the crimes will face justice.

    Mladic and his ilk should never be allowed to become local heroes; all people of the Balkans should clearly see them for who they are: ruthless cold blooded war criminals. This will provide the basis needed for reconciliation and forgiveness.

    The meaning of Mladic’s arrest | The Multilateralist

    Serb authorities arrested today Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army and author of the Srebrenica massacre. Serbia is reportedly arranging Mladic’s transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague. Serbian president Boris Tadic has denied that the arrest was arranged to occur on the eve of a report from the ICTY and a visit by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. There’s long been speculation that the Serbian authorities knew where Mladic was but hesitated to seize him because of support for him in the armed forces.

    Haunting Images of the Massacre That Shamed Europe – Photography by Andy Spyra | Foreign Policy

    On July 11, 1995, the Serbian army entered the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the days that followed killed 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. The Srebrenica genocide was the largest mass murder in Europe since the end of World War II, and the country is still recovering from the war that ended 15 years ago.

    Live from Belgrade – following the arrest of Ratko Mladic « A Slice Of Serbian Politics

    Almost eleven years since the gloriously announced democratic reforms and sixteen years since the Dayton agreement it is a high time for Serbia and the rest of the region to start walking towards the better future. Although Serbian Radical Party earlier today announced peaceful citizens’ protests and an opinion poll few days ago showed that 51 per cent of Serbia’s citizens is against Mladic’s arrest, I do not think that there is a political party or leader who would be able to make a political profit from organizing the protests similar to those when Radovan Karadzic was arrested.

    Balkans via Bohemia: First thoughts about the arrest of Ratko Mladic

    The arrest of indicted Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic is a watershed moment in the region. But there are significant perils in it as well, and perhaps not where one might expect to find them.

    Mladi? deserves a fair trial, but he will not get it… « BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

    I’ve been in Srebrenica and also in a morgue with several hundred unidentified bodies and also in Crni vrh – Zvornik the largest mass grave from a genocide in BiH. I wish Ratko Mladi? a fair trail, because fairness is what he deserves, although it can not be delivered in Haag or any other trial and also not in a/one lifetime, but he will get what he deserves! Above are images from Crni Vrh, Poto?ari, Sarajevo, Bijeli potok, Srebrenica. The sign on a billboard, written in Cyrillic is taken in Serbian part of BiH and my best translation would be “It is difficult to god, the way we are!”.

    The devolution of Ratko Mladic – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

    After rejecting ethnic division and asserting “brotherhood and unity”, how did Mladic become an accused war criminal?

    Thomas Cushman, Anthropology and genocide in the Balkans from Anthropological Theory

    This article examines scholarly discourse on the wars in the former Yugoslavia. It focuses on relativistic arguments put forward by anthropologists and shows how such mask and elide central historical realities of the con?ict. Relativistic accounts of serious modern con?icts often mirror and offer legitimation to the accounts put forth by perpetrators. In this case, several leading accounts of the wars in the former Yugoslavia display a strong af?nity to those asserted by Serbian nationalists. The article addresses the issue of ethics and intellectual responsibility in anthropological ?eldwork in situations of con?ict and the problem of the political uses of anthropological research.

    Religion and the Public
    Views: Matters of Ultimate Concern – Inside Higher Ed

    The papers and exchanges at the Cooper Union in October 2009 were, for the most part, sober enough. Discussions of the concept of the public sphere tend to be more civil than the actually existing public sphere itself. But we shouldn’t take this for granted. Quite a bit has changed since Habermas introduced the term about 50 years ago — and the vectors of argument in The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere place his initial formulation under a lot of strain.

    Butler, Habermas, and West on Religion in the Public Sphere

    In The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere a group of preeminent philosophers confront one pervasive contemporary concern: what role does — or should — religion play in our public lives? Reflecting on her recent work concerning state violence in Israel-Palestine, Judith Butler explores the potential of religious perspectives for renewing cultural and political criticism, while Jürgen Habermas, best known for his seminal conception of the public sphere, thinks through the ambiguous legacy of the concept of “the political” in contemporary theory. Charles Taylor argues for a radical redefinition of secularism, and Cornel West defends civil disobedience and emancipatory theology. Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen detail the immense contribution of these philosophers to contemporary social and political theory, and an afterword by Craig Calhoun places these attempts to reconceive the significance of both religion and the secular in the context of contemporary national and international politics.

    Dutch blasphemy law likely to stay as Christian fundamentalist takes Senate balance of power – The Washington Post

    Dutch courts have not prosecuted a blasphemy case since putting a novelist on trial in 1966 for a story about wanting to have sex with God, who had taken the form of a donkey.

    Theology and cognitive science | Helen De Cruz’s blog

    Traditionally, cognitive scientists have argued for a large cognitive divide between folk religion and theology. Folk religious beliefs are considered to be cognitively natural, whereas theology is chock-full of concepts that are difficult to represent. Pascal Boyer has termed the tendency of laypeople to distort official theological doctrines to reflect more intuitive modes of reasoning ”the tragedy of the theologian”.

    Arab Uprisings
    Three Days in Yemeni History | Waq al-Waq | Big Think

    As I write, shelling is still going on around Sadiq’s house, and there are rumors that the 1st Armored Division is preparing for war. Meanwhile, tribesmen loyal to Sadiq are rushing south from Amran towards the capital to defend their shaykh, while the US ambassador is reportedly preparing to depart the country.

    It isn’t clear where this headed, or what can be done from the outside, probably not much. Salih has let slip the dogs of war. This is likely to get worse before it gets better.

    A Palestinian Revolt in the Making? | The Nation

    The May 15 demonstrations reinvigorated the long-alienated Palestinian refugee community; although it is 70 percent of the Palestinian population, it has been largely shut out of the negotiations process with Israel. The emerging unity was on display at Qalandia, where youth trying to symbolically march from Ramallah to Jerusalem wore black T-shirts with the slogan “Direct Elections for the Palestine National Council, a Vote for Every Palestinian, Everywhere.” The PNC is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation organization and is responsible for electing its executive committee. Traditionally, seat allocation in the PNC has been divided to represent the influence factions within the PLO, of which Hamas is not a member.

    Readers’ Questions & Answers: More Thoughts on Arab Uprisings « The Moor Next Door

    Last week reader sent an email asking a number of questions about the impact of the Arab uprisings on the Arab region in terms of the foreign policy of the countries in the region, from the perspective of some one who generally focuses on the Maghreb. Another reader emailed and asked for thoughts on Libya specifically. This is the response to both, not totally coherent (these are areas of generally peripheral interest/knowledge for this blogger) but here is a summary and then a very general thought dump on: Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and regional Islamist movements (some of it is a bit dated, since it was written a week ago). Take it all with a grain of salt.

    Showdown in Morocco | The Middle East Channel

    What started as a small group on Facebook earlier this year, has since grown into a nationwide movement made up of a loose coalition of leftists, liberals and members of the conservative Islamist right. Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings and powered by new media, the movement convinced hundreds of thousands to take to the streets. The demonstrations held week in, week out, were remarkably peaceful. In response, King Mohammed VI promised a package of constitutional reforms to be submitted to a referendum in June. But as protesters, unconvinced by the King’s promise, vow to keep up pressure on the regime, authorities seem increasingly impatient and determined to break up protests violently, paving the way toward escalation and confrontation with the street. The middle class is joining the mass of demonstrators, moving the protests beyond the core of mobilized youth. Their target is the makhzen — which has become a code word for the monarchy’s abuses of power and monopoly over large sectors of the economy.

    Free of Qaddafi’s Grip, Young Libyans in Benghazi Find a Voice – Bloomberg

    Berenice Post, an Arabic and English weekly, is one of more than 50 publications that have sprung up in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi since the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi. Young Libyans in this eastern city are taking advantage of newfound freedoms to churn out publications, sketch anti-Qaddafi caricatures and record revolutionary rap.

    The future of the Arab uprisings – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

    A specter is haunting the Arab world – the specter of democratic revolution. All the powers of the old Arab world have entered into a holy alliance with each other and the United States to exorcise this specter: king and sultan, emir and president, neoliberals and zionists.

    While Marx and Engels used similar words in 1848 in reference to European regimes and the impending communist revolutions that were defeated in the Europe of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is much hope in the Arab world that these words would apply more successfully to the ongoing democratic Arab uprisings.

    Ducking the Arab Spring in Morocco « The Immanent Frame

    The wave of protests shaking the Arab political regimes has quietly but forcefully made its way to Morocco. The February 20 youth movement—made up of a loose coalition of independent groups, backed by liberal, leftist, labor, and Islamist opposition movements—is leading the call for democratic change. Since February it has organized two mass demonstrations across fifty major cities and towns, drawing several hundred thousands of protesters. Social and political protests in Morocco are not new, nor do they yet threaten the survival of the regime. But the revolutionary spirit and mass appeal of the movement signal a major shift in popular attitudes regarding the monarchy’s monopoly and abuses of power.

    Visualizing protests for media-bias and sectarianism » the engine room

    Reuters ran a story last month alleging media bias in Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring. This spawned a short flurry of online commentary, some posts more vitriolic than others. It also raised the awkward issue of how sectarianism impacts the regional spread and response to unrest, which is worth more considered attention than I have seen it given in mainstream reporting.

    The thrust of the Reuters piece was that Al Jazeera, much applauded for their critical role in disseminating information on protests in Tunisia and Egypt (praise rightly deserved), had turned a blind eye to Bahraini protests out of deference to Qatari royal interests.

    Racism, Sexism, Islamophobia
    Dutch court rejects anti-Islam MP’s bias claim < | Expatica The Netherlands

    An Amsterdam court rejected a claim by far right leader Geert Wilders that an earlier court decison was biased and that hate speech charges against him should be dropped.

    “The request is denied,” said Judge Marcel van Oosten, during a hearing broadcast on the Internet by Dutch public television. “The trial must go on.”

    Racist Science: An Evolutionary Psychologist on Black Women :: racismreview.com

    Kanazawa’s argument is of course baseless and there is no scientific evidence to support his notion that black women have more testosterone than other races of women. The perception of Kanazawa and the Ad Health interviewers is a direct reflection of the historical social construction of black women (and whites) by elite white men, such as Thomas Jefferson and Georges Cuvier. This is a society historically constructed by elite white men, whereby their notion of beauty is treated as the irrevocable truth. A socially created “truth,” that has not only been accepted by whites, but also by some people of color. As far back as the 15th and 16th centuries, European travelers and scientists have defined black women as innately inferior to white women in beauty, sexuality, and femininity. These early European travelers often defined black women as masculine and thus fit for the hard life of slavery.

    Asian people 42 times more likely to be held under terror law | UK news | The Guardian

    People from ethnic minorities are up to 42 times more likely than white people to be the target of a counter-terrorism power which allows the stopping and searching of the innocent yet grants them fewer rights than suspected criminals, official figures seen by the Guardian show.

    USC Knight Chair in Media and Religion

    As media coverage shifts to the rising backlash against the chauvinism of Strauss-Kahn’s defenders, journalists should remember that in France, as in the U.S., sexism is rarely separable from racial and religious prejudice. While journalists rightfully dismiss conspiracy theories from anonymous bloggers, they would do well to heed the insights of scholars and op-ed writers who highlight the relationship between male chauvinism and anti-Muslim prejudice in French culture.

    Anthropology
    EthnoSense

    This blog is for those who have experienced what other possible worlds are out there, who have dedicated time of their own to get to know another culture, another lifestyle… for those who realize that things could be different.

    From fieldnotes to fieldtags « media/anthropology

    I seem to spend a lot of my social media research time tagging web contents rather than taking fieldnotes. By ‘tagging’ I mean attaching keywords such as ‘activism’, ‘protest’, and ‘sinde’ to online materials that seem useful and then saving them on the bookmarking site Delicious.com, or (less frequently) on this blog, or ‘sharing’ them via Twitter through hashtags (e.g. #activism, #socialmedia, #egypt).

    The Memory Bank » Blog Archive » The ethnography of finance and the history of money

    Marcel Mauss was a prolific financial journalist, writing about the exchange rate crisis of 1922-24 at the same time as he was writing The Gift; but he kept them in separate compartments and economic anthropologists have been content to ignore his political writings. The recent emergence of the ethnographic study of finance promises to break down this division. But how might such an approach be integrated into the history of money at the global level? This paper outlines an approach to the anthropology of money drawing both on classical sources and on developments since the 1980s. With this in mind a number of ethnographies of finance are reviewed, paying attention to their methods and conclusions. How much has this exciting initiative contributed to a better understanding of the world economy today? What else is needed?

    Paul Venoit: Giving Anthropology a Little Lip Service

    Not for the faint of heart, red lipstick is like vibrance and confidence in a tube. But where did its sultry reputation originate? And why doesn’t a pale lip or a smoky eye conjure the same mood as only a red mouth can? Here’s where apothecary meets anthropology.

    On Neoliberalism by Sherry Ortner « Anthropology of this Century

    I find all of this encouraging on a number of counts. I am encouraged that there are wealthy persons like Ferguson who have both a critical intelligence and a conscience, as well as the talent to make a powerful film. I am encouraged that the film had the power to expose and shame an influential person, his field, and his institution, and possibly bring about some small but real change. I am encouraged that the Times covered, and indeed constructed, the story. It will only be out of some complicated conjuncture of people and forces like this – between wealthy and powerful renegades like Ferguson, powerful media like the New York Times (and smart reporters like Sewell Chan), anthropologists and others writing and teaching about what is going on, and ordinary people themselves, in their infinite practical wisdom, in every part of the globe – that some kinds of solutions may emerge.

    Misc.
    An Iraqi view on the Netherlands | Standplaats Wereld

    During my explanation my father joined us on Messenger, and Zahra started talking:

    – Daddy, do you know? Ali said that the people in the Netherlands do not have any kind of problems, and that is the reason they create their problems, and then they demonstrate against their imagined problems!!

    I honestly didn’t use this theoretical level of words! Now I wondered: who is the sociologist in my family??!!

    News : Exclusive: Guildford Four and Birmingham Six solicitor condemns Tony Blair’s role in the “layers and layers of deceit” in Pan Am 103 case : THE FIRM : SCOTLAND’S INDEPENDENT LAW JOURNAL

    Peirce, whose recently published book “Dispatches from the Dark Side” contains an essay entitled “The Framing of Al Megrahi” spoke to The Firm exclusively about the Pan Am 103 case and said that her involvement was prompted in part by her learning that the same discredited personnel whose flawed evidence was instrumental in convicting the Guildford and Birmingham convicts were also the providers of the key flawed evidence in the Megrahi case.

    AFP: 50 years for Germany’s Turkish community

    Aylin Selcuk may be the granddaughter of a Turkish immigrant, and a Muslim to boot, but she only really began to feel different from other Germans after a certain central banker spoke out.

    Bin Laden’s TV

    In part, the presumed self-evidence of the footage is attributable to its form – this being a video steeped in the familiar YouTube aesthetics of amateur production which we have all learned to read; indeed, some media outlets referred to it as a “home movie.” Yet self-evidence also depends on the video’s co-star: the television (indeed, the first minutes of footage focus solely on the TV screen, featuring a menu of channels and Bin Laden’s incriminating choice, Al Jazeera). If we believe the mainstream media, the video’s ability to “demystify the Bin Laden legend” rests in no small measure with the television itself. Consider the media’s depiction of this damning scene: “The video shows bin Laden sitting alone in a drab, run-down room in front of an old TV connected by a bundle of bare cables to a satellite receiver.” Or, from Tom Fuentes, former assistant director of the FBI on CNN: “An aging man crouched before a TV — a junkie TV, I might add — in a darkened room. Not exactly how most people picture the man who called for global jihad.” And: “So it’s a sort of a different image that some of this followers were being used to….There was nothing ostentatious about this video of Bin Laden. It wasn’t like he was looking at a flat screen…” (this from CNN’s ‘counter-terrorism expert’).

    Fatemeh Fakhraie: A feminist Muslim breaks stereotypes | OregonLive.com

    Fakhraie’s piece, “Roots,” appears in “I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim.” The collection of writing by 40 American Muslim women under the age of 40 was published this month by Ashland’s White Cloud Press. Each entry breaks open the life of a young woman who is at once ordinary and exceptional, who lives her life of faith under a spotlight that is often harsh.

    Dutch
    Alarm: meer dan helft van Amsterdamse bevolking allochtoon

    Niet iedere allochtoon is zoals de Telegraaf suggereert ‘geen Nederlander’, de meeste zijn genaturaliseerd en net zo Nederlands als Maxima. Veel hier zijn hier geboren en net zo Nederlands als Amaiia, onze toekomstige koningin. Maxima en Amalia zijn net als veel andere allochtonen ‘wit’ en geen moslim.
    Van islamisering van Amsterdam is voorlopig geen sprake. Al jaren schommelt het aantal Amsterdammers dat zichzelf moslim noemt rond de 12%.

    Amsterdam is net als veel andere hoofdsteden een stad met vele etnische groepen en nationaliteiten. Dat is op zich geen reden voor zorg of alarm. Wat wel reden tot zorg geeft, is dat er in Amsterdam steeds meer sprake lijkt te zijn van etnische tweedeling

    Etnische tweedeling in Amsterdam neemt toe

    De segregatie langs etnische lijnen in Amsterdam neemt nog altijd toe. Vooral buiten de ring is er sprake van een stijging van het aandeel niet-westerse allochtonen. Onder deze groepen is de werkloosheid fors hoger, ligt het opleidingsniveau lager, is er sprake van een slechtere gezondheid, heeft men minder vaak een eigen woning en voelt men zich vaker eenzaam en gediscrimineerd. Turken hebben de meeste problemen met hun gezondheid, de ontwikkeling van Surinaamse Amsterdammers stagneert en maar liefst 42% van de Marokkaanse kinderen leeft in armoede.

    Wat ook niet vrolijk stemt is dat steeds meer Amsterdammers alleen vrienden uit de eigen etnische groep hebben. Dit geldt voor Surinamers, Turken en Marokkanen en ook voor autochtonen.

    Dat zijn enkele conclusies uit de vorige week gepresenteerde participatiemonitor De Staat van de Stad VI en de Diversiteits- en Integratiemonitor 2010. Beide onderzoeken zijn uitgevoerd door het Amsterdamse onderzoeksbureau O+S.

    ‘Probleem is extremisme, niet sharia’ – Arabische opstand – TROUW

    “De deur is geopend voor conservatieve krachten in onze maatschappij, die een bedreiging vormen voor de positie van de vrouw”, zegt Tanahi al-Gabali. Zij was de eerste vrouwelijke rechter van Egypte, en is nu lid van het hooggerechtshof. Trouw spreekt met haar over de positie van vrouwen in Egypte na de revolutie.

    Sharia4Holland pleit voor gescheiden toiletten – GeenCommentaar

    Als het aan de radicale islamitische groepering Sharia4Holland ligt bieden restaurants, café’s en uitgaansgelegenheden zo spoedig mogelijk aparte toiletgelegenheden voor mannen en vrouwen. Tevens pleit de organisatie voor gescheiden sportteams en aparte gelegenheden tot douchen achteraf. Moslims in Nederland reageren verheugd, tegenstanders vrezen ‘een stap terug naar de middeleeuwen’.

    0 comments.

    Making sense of the emotional field

    Posted on May 26th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Method, Notes from the Field.

    This is one of those Stories of the Field. And maybe it is about Why I love anthropology as well. I’m not sure.

    I often tell people, just let me do my fieldwork and leave me the hell alone. It is in my fieldwork, previously among Moroccan-Dutch Muslim youth in the city of Gouda and now among Salafi Muslims in the Netherlands, where I am most comfortable. But besides the fact that fieldwork is interesting, fun and challenging it is also often cumbersome, exhausting and leaves me with feelings of being a stranger everywhere. I find it remarkable how many accounts of the fieldwork in PhD thesis and articles are often so neat and slick; if one encounters a problem it is solved rationally, explained away rationally or if there is no other option, legitimized rationally. No signs of emotional breakdowns, feelings of alienation, sadness, happiness and joy (except professional joy when there is a breakthrough in the research), boredom and despair. I admit, I am one of these anthropologists who can remain in the field with real people for years without showing any kind of emotional attachment or something like that.

    Of course, I am not. Sometimes my fieldwork hits me right back in the face. The first time was years ago. There was this teenage girl who had a lot of problems at home. In my work as youth worker and anthropologist I tried to help her as much as possible. First with her homework and later with her preprarations for a job at a prestigious institution. I must admit, I felt very proud when she made it, proud of her and of myself, even more so when she climbed the ranks very quickly. Until she had an accident that made her disabled for the rest of her life in a very very severe way; I felt nothing but sorry, sadness and even some existential confusion. So there you are, you have all the odds against you, but you still make it and then you end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life…

    The second time happened last year. In 2008 I defended my PhD on Moroccan-Dutch youth and the formation of a Muslim identity. I had already started with my post-doc project on Salafism and one of the persons (lets say M.) who was present at several meetings where I was as well, contacted me to get a copy of the book. M read the book and subsequently send me a list of questions about the book. And these were very good questions, some of them on a more intellectual level but also questions pertaining to M’s own personal experiences. As time past by I felt I was triggered by M’s questions and responses and at the same time felt admiration for M’s ambitions and they way M engaged with others in the often heated debates in webfora and chatrooms; M was strict, kind, serious but with a good sense of humor and one of those persons who had a kind word for everyone.

    M was clearly on the path of training trying to become a pious Muslim. M visited courses, lectures, and so on. Of course M was not without personal difficulties and flaws, since no one is, and some people felt M had too much of a public presence given the fact that for some time M ran a popular chatroom (which was gender mixed) and contributed a lot to debates on several webfora. Because of some restrictions M put on our interaction, we usually were very formal in our contacts on the chatroom and both of us kept a distance in our contacts. Nevertheless, although certainly not always agreeing with M on a personal level, I enjoyed the contact with M because it was intellectually challenging, provided me with new insights, ideas and contacts and M’s honesty was admirable and confronting. At the same time M used me as a sounding board for personal experiences and so on.

    M was one of the people therefore I grew very fond off during my years of research in a way that is often not possible within all circles of the Salafi movement. Last Summer, I had not heard from M in a while; nothing extraordinary and usually M would contact me again after a while. The only thing I heard now was a good bye message on the internet a few months earlier which I did not know how to interpret then. In this message M asked people to forgive any wrongdoings M might have done or engaged in.

    Several months ago I heard the reason behind this message; M knew that it was the last message. When I heard the news about M’s death I was shocked, I was impressed by the dignified way M carried on until the end, I was sad by the fact M was so young and had a difficult exhausting end and I was confused and curious about the inner peace M expressed and seemed to experience towards the final moment.

    So where do these emotions leave me as an anthropologist? Or is merely asking this question already a sign that I’m an overstressed workaholic? One person said to me, you are just human so you are sad that is all. Another one said, wow this as a perfect opportunity to explore some dimensions of people’s lives that you could not do earlier. I have problems with both responses. To start with the latter, this is probably the type of response you encounter in most fieldwork reports, PhD thesis and so on. Yes of course, the person was right of course but to me this seems to be rationality to the extremes. The first response is one you may find in the acknowledgements of books and articles, or occasionally a book is dedicated to the deceased; when you work in the field several years and you know some people already for years and even their personal stuff, you should feel sad. If you don’t, you lack the necessary empathy needed for doing sound ethnographic research. But is it really, you are just sad…and that is all? What does it say about my position as an anthropologist? Is it professional to feel really sad about the death of one of your key informants? What does it say about distance and proximity; two key elements in fieldwork? Does experience particular emotions about your informants mean that you have become too close, lost your impartiality and that, instead, you should view the people merely as raw data? Or are emotions also ways of knowing and understanding what is happening in the field as Shane J. Blackman seems to argue? And does it matter if we like or do not like our informants? Or what if one learns to share the same feelings of anger and hatred as Ghassan Hage describes? Or are we just using other people’s experiences and emotions to study our own fears, doubts, and understandings of the world as David Picard in an article at Anthropologies (What is anthropology?) reveals he realized at one point in his career?

    In recent years anthropology appears to have a little more interest in emotions and the field. In ‘Emotions in the Field. The Psychology and Anthropology of Fieldwork Experience‘ Davies and Spencer argue for a more sophisticated and reflexive approach of emotions and experiences in order to translate them into meaningful data (see also Emotions in the Field and Relational Anthropology by Dimitrina Spencer). Or as Shweder tells us ‘sometimes dormant or unknown emotional and cognitive structures within oneself are activated through participation. When they are activated, all of a sudden understanding occurs in a far more profound way’ (1997:162) (referred to in an article by Anne Monchamp in a special issue of Anthropological Matters on emotions in the field H/T Lorenz at Antropologi.info). At some point, no matter how unsettling these emotions were at a given point in time, reflecting upon these emotions should lead to a greater understanding of the field. And I think that is true, to some extent. As explained by Andrew Beatty, emotions do not just refer to the experience of being, for example, angry at a person, but emotions define the position of people and what is at stake in a field of interactions. Emotions, as he explains, function as social signs.

    One of the aspects of religiosity that I always sort of admired, maybe I even envy the people because personally (at an emotional level) I do not really understand, is the profound feeling of peace people like M have when they are faced with death. It is something that has driven me into the field of religion from the start. In my Salafi circles it appears to be a given that one will show up before God and has to account for oneself. Alas, M’s personal but also public farewell to visitors of a webforum and a chat room. Also, more recently, at a gathering a video was shown of a young Salafi ‘brother’ I had met twice and who was in hospital now, diagnosed with cancer. He was speaking with the interviewer about his faith, the support he sought with God (and somehow found). Most impressive for the audience watching however was, besides the fact that he was so seriously ill, his confidence in God, his confident testimony about it and addressing people in the audience by saying that it is never too late to repent but also you never know when it is your time. It was the last video in a meeting called ‘Your future’ (meaning not one’s future as a husband, wife, careermaker or whatever, but death) and it left many men with tears. It is such events that did not leave me unmoved that has led me to asking the question what does the Salafi movement do, rather than what the Salafi movement is.

    But of course this is different from the death of one of the key persons in your research. Still, what struck me in M’s personality is something that has given a profound shape to my research. Yes M was a dedicated participant in the Salafi movement with sometimes rigid views and uncomprimising and not always tolerant practices. M was dedicated to become a pious (in the Salafi sense) Muslim in thought, speech, behaviour and appearances. Sincerity and authenticity in personal faith was of the utmost importance and no compromise should be made. But M, like some others, also introduced me into the negotiations in daily life, the ambivalence and ambiguities of every day Salafi religiosity, into M’s realization that not everything M did was correct according to Salafi interpretations and the doubts that come with that realization. And M introduced me into the peace in the end, realizing that it was ok not to be perfect and that it was now upon God to rule. That is M made me aware once again that there is more to a Salafi Muslim than a person with full-formed moral identity connected with radicalism, fundamentalism or whatever label you want to give it. We often here only about the ideas of moral perfection and the idealized version of Islam, yet like others M remained vulnerable to the ambiguities and ruptures inherent in everyday life and within the Salafi movement. (See for a similar idea Schielke’s article Boredom and Despair in Rural Egypt). And isn’t that something all of us, religious or not, are concerned with? And it is probably why I like anthropology so much and sometimes hate it too. It is probably also a major reason why I was so confused with M’s death because I learned the person behind the internet nickname, behind the kunya and behind the Salafi label. Because M was not raw data but  a real person. A modest person dying at a very young age while trying to make the best out of life but who did not get the chance to pursue the dreams and hopes a lot of us have, but was at peace with that.

    Thank you my dear M. “Thanks for all the trouble and charity…hehehe”

    You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

    5 comments.

    Seminar Dynamiek van islamitische culturen

    Posted on May 11th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, ISIM/RU Research, My Research.

    De afdeling Islam & Arabisch van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen houdt haar jaarlijkse studiedag. Op deze dag zullen diverse onderzoekers van de afdeling vertellen over hun onderzoek. Aan het einde van de dag zal Dr. Samuli Schielke, Research Fellow Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)Berlijn, een lezing geven met als titel “Second thoughts about the anthropology of Islam, or how to make sense of grand schemes in everyday life“. In zijn lezing ontvouwt Samuli Schielke een antropologische benadering voor het bestuderen van het dagelijks leven moslims op een manier die religie serieus neemt, maar mensen niet reduceert tot hun religiositeit. Samuli Schielke schreef eerder op dit blog over de opstand in Egypte “Now, it’s gonna be a long one” – some first conclusions from the Egyptian revolution en Egypt: After the Revolution. Hij houdt ook een eigen blog bij: HIER.

    Datum: vrijdag 13 mei 2011
    Locatie: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Gymnasion GN7

    Programma

    10.00-10.15 Inloop

    10.15-10.20 Introductie onderzoeksprogramma

    10.20-11.00 Gender & Islam
    Sahar Noor
    Annemarie van Geel

    11.00-11.15 Pauze

    11.15-11.55 Islamitische Kunst
    Karin van Nieuwkerk
    Joseph Alagha

    11.55-12.35 De pre-islamitische tijd
    Gert Borg
    Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort

    12.35-13.30 Lunch

    13.30-14.30 Salafisme & Wahhabisme
    Joas Wagemakers
    Martijn de Koning
    Carmen Becker

    14.30-14.45 Pauze

    14.45-15.45 Keynote: Dr. Samuli Schielke, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlijn

    15.45-16.30 Borrel

    De toegang tot de sessies is gratis en vrij toegankelijk. Wilt u een lunch tijdens de middagpauze en koffie/thee in de overige pauzes dan s.v.p. aanmelden bij Sahar Noor (s.noor@rs.ru.nl). Aanmelden voor de lunch/koffie/thee kan tot en met woensdag 11 mei. Daarvoor geldt een eigen bijdrage van € 5.

    0 comments.

    Diyanet in Turkey and the Netherlands – Transnational politics and politicization of research

    Posted on May 10th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Headline, Multiculti Issues, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Guest Author: Thijl Sunier

    Do you agree that foreign governments should not intervene in matters of integration, or interfere with the religious life of people in the Netherlands?”
    “If this still happens, do you agree that this is counterproductive to integration [of Muslims]?

    These questions were posed by liberal MP’s in the Dutch Parliament to the government in February this year following the publication of the research report Diyanet. The Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs in a changing Environment that I wrote together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Turkey. The Diyanet is a state institution that regulates the mosques in Turkey and a considerable number of Turkish mosques in Europe.

    The time that researchers could pretend to work in an academic bubble is definitively over, if it ever existed. It is common knowledge that research results especially those dealing with culture are not just blind data that simply ‘add to our knowledge’. Cultural data are the result of a multilayered process of communication and rhetorical technique. We also know that the conditions under which social scientists carry out research are inextricably linked to political conditions. Data are not ‘neutral’ packages of knowledge up for grasp. They play a role in political processes and they are always part of specific power configuration. Scientific knowledge is socially situated.
    It is also common knowledge that the political sensitivity of research on Muslims and Islam in Europe has become particularly critical in the last decade. Doing research in the post 9/11 political climate about issues such as the place of Islam in European societies is caught up in a complex political and social web of opposing requirements and assumptions. The presence of Muslims in Europe has become first and foremost an issue of either integration policy, or security, or both. This has not only determined research agendas, but it has also made outcomes multi-interpretable almost by definition. Researchers on issues such as the application of sharia practices in family legislation in Europe, the different outlooks and convictions of young Muslims, the religious affiliations of women, or even innocent topics such as regulations for Islamic elderly people, cannot ignore the fact that their results bear a high political sensitivity.

    Both integration and security have become social engineering industries with their own assumptions and trajectories. Governments and policy makers, providers of research money increasingly ask for ‘hard facts’ about the presence of Muslims. There is of course an abundance of (mainly quantitative) research output that is completely geared towards the policy requirements of the day. Researchers produce readymade data that can be applied instantaneously.
    But there are also an important number of scholars that carry out research with a broader scope. Their results cannot so easily be applied to policy development, or, even more importantly, the outcomes are not at all unambiguous. Their research agenda reflect academic debates, theoretical and thematic inquiries, and socially and politically relevant problematic. When the results of such research are published the authors can be brought in awkward positions because the interpretation and hence the implications of the results can be diverted in all different directions completely beyond their control. Discussions may arise about issues that are only loosely related to the topic of the research and so on.

    Our research project was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main question to be answered was to what extent the coming to power of the moderate Islamic Party for Justice and Development in Turkey (AKP) in 2003 has caused a policy shift towards the aforementioned Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). The relevance of this question arises from the central role Diyanet plays in shaping and organizing Islam, both in Turkey and in Europe. The Diyanet was founded in 1924 by the new Turkish republic as an institute that resorted directly under the prime minister’s office. The first aim of Diyanet was to control religious life in Turkey, a state that had applied a radical secularist policy. Secondly Diyanet had the task to facilitate religious life, to train priests and to issue religious educational material. Although the organization is officially meant for all religious denominations present within the borders of Turkey, the actual fact that over 75% of the Turkish population is of Sunni Islamic background means that Diyanet is de facto a Sunni institute. Since the new Constitution of 1982 Diyanet has adopted the additional task to protect and endorse Turkish national identity.
    This makes Diyanet into a pivot in the debate about the separation of religion and state in Turkey and the freedom of religion. Diyanet was primarily designed to control Islam and to prevent Islamic teaching and practice that was not monitored by Diyanet. To what extent is the strong control on religious practices at odds with the freedom of religion and to what extent does the set-up of Diyanet guarantee the religious freedom of other than Sunni Islamic religious groups in Turkish society?
    Since 1982 Diyanet operates in Europe, notably in the Netherlands. They facilitate the opening and organization of mosques and the practicing of Islamic duties. They have an arrangement with the Dutch government to send imams who are trained in Turkey for a period of four years to their mosques. Unlike Turkey Diyanet has no monopoly position with regard to religious services in the Netherlands, but they outnumber other religious organizations. An adequate assessment of its position and the possible changes in this position is relevant for European governments and their representatives in Turkey because it may influence the position of Turkish immigrants in Europe. The activities of Diyanet in European host countries and its close connection with the Turkish state is common practice for over 25 years.
    In 2003 the AK Party in Turkey obtained an absolute majority during national elections. The AK party has a moderate Islamic agenda and is supported by the emerging internationally oriented but conservative urban middle class. Since Diyanet resorts directly under the prime minister, the question arises whether AKP has influenced the traditional functions of Diyanet with regard to Islam. This is not only relevant in order to understand the position of Diyanet, but also because it touches on the present debate about the future membership of Turkey of the EU and to what extent Turkey meets the ‘Copenhagen criteria’ with respect to the freedom of religion.

    The initial motivation to commission this research was related to worries on the part of the Dutch government that the AKP would undermine the secular principles of the Turkish republic and subsequently exert an influence on the mosques in the Netherlands that resort under the Diyanet. Instead of sticking to the formal question about the possible influence of the AKP on the agenda of Diyanet, as good academics we broadened up the question arguing that the growth of the AKP as the most powerful political force in Turkey in the 2000s and consequently the possible changes in the position of Diyanet, should be understood against the background of much more fundamental transformations of Turkish society. Since the 1980s Turkey has witnessed not only the emergence of a successful new urban middle class, but also the gradual growth of a civil society. This has brought Islam into the center of the political debate. One of the most remarkable and, according to some, paradoxical developments is the fact that the political and social forces that made Islam into a pivotal political issue are the same that require Turkey to open up to the world, to democratize and to break down the strong position of the state. So what we have observed in Turkey is a very complex transformation in which some of the traditional political and social dividing lines are put upside down. These transformations are so fundamental that they can hardly be turned reverse anymore even if the present AKP government tends to exhibit some of the nasty statist and authoritarian practices so typical of many of the Turkish governments of the past.
    With respect to the situation in the Netherlands we have observed a gradual detachment of mosques organizations from the countries of origin, a process that is taking place since the 1980s. They develop their own agenda despite the fact that they are part of a formal juridical top-down structure. As in the case of Turkey, such developments can only be understood if we place short term research results into long-term social, cultural and political contexts. In short, the outcomes of our research were consistent with the long term developments just sketched, but it did not reveal sudden changes, dramatic developments or breaches in long term trends. In fact the outcomes were nuanced, multidimensional and in many respects poly interpretable. This made the report an ambiguous project.

    Our research took place in a very sensitive context. The research was commissioned by the Dutch government dealing with a state bureaucracy of another country. The outcomes are relevant for the discussion about Turkey possible EU membership. What would this membership imply for expected opening up of the border? How should the Netherlands position itself in the debate about the identity of Europe? On the domestic level the issues raised in the report are relevant for the debate on integration and the position of Muslims in the country. In the 1980s the sending of Diyanet imams was welcomed because it would constitute a barrier against radicalism among Muslims. Today the same practice is depicted as unacceptable foreign influence exerted on domestic affairs and an obstacle against integration. The questions in the Parliament with which I started indicate clearly this remarkable political change. The sensitivity of Islam in the Netherlands is further stirred up by the anti-Islamic rhetoric of the right-wing party led by the populist Geert Wilders. There was even a strong rumor that the ministry of foreign affairs wanted to postpone the publication until after the regional elections on the 2nd of March 2011. Some feared that the issue of the ‘long arm of Ankara’ would be used by Wilders to depict the presence of Muslims as a fifth column and to gain electoral benefit.
    Also the very strong political polarization among Turks, both in Turkey and in Europe made the outcomes contested. During a public debate in Amsterdam some secular Turks accused us of being too credulous, even naïve by interviewing and citing officials of Diyanet. According to some representatives of organized Islam the report did not pay enough attention to the diversity, debates and contestations among Muslims in the Netherlands.

    It is hard to predict what the implications of the report will be. The media attention prior to the publication of the report was considerable, but very moderate and piecemeal afterwards. The editorial office of the main Dutch television news desk mailed us almost weekly to ask when the report would be published. But once it was published they decided that it was not dramatic enough for a news item. And eventually the timing is crucial but completely beyond one’s control: the amazing and dramatic developments in North Africa turned our report (and quite understandably so) into a footnote….!!

    Thijl Sunier is VISOR chair Islam in European societies at VU University Amsterdam, Dept. Of Social and Cultural Anthropology. He conducted research on inter-ethnic relations, Turkish youth and Turkish Islamic organisations in the Netherlands, comparative research among Turkish youth in France, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands, and international comparative research on nation building and multiculturalism in France and The Netherlands. Presently he is preparing research on styles of popular religiosity among young Muslims in Europe, religious leadership, and nation-building and Islam in Europe.

    The research on Diyanet was done by Thijl Sunier, Nico Landman, Heleen van der Linden, Nazl? Bilgili and Alper Bilgili

    1 comment.

    Doing Anthropology

    Posted on May 3rd, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology.

    As Talal Asad has suggested anthropology is:

    the comparison of embedded concepts (representations) between societies differently located in time and space [and] the forms of life that articulate them, the power they release or disable

    (2003:17).

    Anthropologists therefore have to analyze, reveal and understand people’s view of reality and how their practices are related to that. But what does that actually mean? What is it that anthropologists do? What is their research about?

    In the next video, three members of MIT’s Anthropology Department, Stefan Helmreich, Erica James, and Heather Paxson, talk about their current work and the process of doing fieldwork.

    H/T: Kerim at Savage Minds

    From now on this video will be featured on the right side of this site.

    0 comments.

    "Now, it's gonna be a long one" – some first conclusions from the Egyptian revolution

    Posted on February 8th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Guest authors, Headline, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Guest Author: Samuli Schielke

    Sunday, February 6, 2011

    Today is my scheduled day of departure from Egypt. As I sit on Cairo airport waiting for my flight to Frankfurt, it is the first time on this trip that regret anything – I regret that I am leaving today and not staying. I have told to every Egyptian I have met today that I am not escaping, just going for my work at the university and returning soon. But perhaps it has been more to convince myself than them. My European friend who like me came here last Monday is staying for another two weeks. My American friend in Imbaba tells that for months, she has been homesick to go to America and see her parents and family again. But now when the US government would even give her a free flight, she says that she cannot go. This is her home, and she is too attached to the people, and especially to her husband. Two days ago, he was arrested on his way back from Tahrir square, held captive for four hours, interrogated, and tortured with electroshocks. He is now more determined than ever. How could she leave him behind? But today is my scheduled departure, and I only intended to come for a week and then return to do what I can to give a balanced idea of the situation in Egypt in the public debates in Germany and Finland. Tomorrow I will give a phone interview to Deutschlandradio (a German news radio), and on Tuesday I will give a talk in Helsinki in Finland. Right now, I feel that maintaining high international pressure on the Egyptian government is going to be crucial, and I will do what I can.

    There remains little to be reported about the beginning day in Cairo, but maybe I can try to draw some first conclusion from this week.

    The morning in Cairo today was marked by a return to normality everywhere except on Tahrir Square itself, where the demonstrations continue. Now that the streets are full with people again, the fear I felt in the past days on the streets is gone, too. If I stayed, today would be the day when I would again walk through the streets of Cairo, talk with people and feel the atmosphere.

    From what I know from this morning’s short excursion in Giza and Dokki, the people remain split, but also ready to change their mind. As my Egyptian friend and I took a taxi to Dokki, the taxi driver was out on the street for the first time since 24 January, and had fully believed what the state television had told him. But as my friend, a journalist, told him what was really going on, the driver amazingly quickly shifted his opinion again, and remembered the old hatred against the oppressive system, the corruption, and the inflation that brought people to the streets last week. A big part of the people here seem impressively willing to change their mind, and if many of those who were out on the streets on 28 January – and also of those who stayed home – have changed their mind in favour of normality in the past days, they do expect things to get better now, and if they don’t, they are likely to change their minds again. This is the impression I also got from the taxi driver who took me to the airport from Dokki. He, too, had not left his house for eleven days, not out of fear for himself, but because he felt that he must stay at home to protect his family. He was very sceptical of what Egyptian television was telling, but he did expect things to get better now. What will he and others like him do if things don’t get better?

    As I came to Egypt a week ago I expected that the revolution would follow one of the two courses that were marked by the events of 1989: either a successful transition to democracy by overthrowing of the old regime as happened in eastern Europe, or shooting everybody dead as happened in China. Again, my prediction was wrong (although actually the government did try the Chinese option twice, only unsuccessfully), and now something more complicated is going on.

    This is really the question now: Will things get better or not? In other words: Was the revolution a success of a failure? And on what should its success be measured? If it is to be measured on the high spirits and sense of dignity of those who stood firm against the system, it was a success. If it is to be measured by the emotional switch of those who after the Friday of Anger submitted again to the mixture of fear and admiration of the president’s sweet words, it was a failure. If the immense local and international pressure on the Egyptian government will effect sustainable political change, it will be a success. But it will certainly not be an easy success, and very much continuous pressure is needed, as a friend of mine put it in words this morning: “Now, it’s gonna be a long one.”

    In Dokki I visited a European-Latin American couple who are determined to stay in Egypt. He was on Tahrir Square on Wednesday night when the thugs attacked the demonstrators, and he spent all night carrying wounded people to the makeshift field hospital. He says: “What really worries me is the possibility that Mubarak goes and is replaced by Omar Suleyman who then sticks to power with American approval. He is the worst of them all.” Just in case, he is trying to get his Latin American girlfriend a visa for Schengen area, because if Omar Suleyman’s campaign against alleged “foreign elements” and “particular agendas” continues, the day may come when they are forced to leave after all.

    A few words about the foreigners participating in the revolution need to be said.. Like the Spanish civil war once, so also the Egyptian revolution has moved many foreigners, mostly those living in Egypt since long, to participate in the struggle for democracy. This has been an ambiguous struggle in certain ways, because the state television has exploited the presence of foreigners on Tahrir Square in order to spread quite insane conspiracy theories about foreign agendas behind the democracy movement. The alliance against Egypt, the state television wants to make people believe, is made up of agents of Israel, Hamas, and Iran. That’s about the most insane conspiracy theory I have heard of for a long time. But unfortunately, conspiracy theories do not need to be logical to be convincing. But to step back to the ground of reality, if this revolution has taught me one thing is that the people of Egypt do not need to look up to Europe or America to imagine a better future. They have shown themselves capable of imagining a better future of their own making (with some important help from Tunisia). Compared to our governments with their lip service to democracy and appeasement of dictators, Egyptians have given the world an example in freedom and courage which we all should look up to as an example. This sense of admiration and respect is what has drawn so many foreigners to Tahrir Square in the past days, including myself.

    As an anthropologist who has long worked on festive culture, I noticed a strikingly festive aspect to the revolutionary space of Tahrir Square. It is not just a protest against an oppressive regime and a demand for freedom. In itself, it is freedom. It is a real, actual, lived moment of the freedom and dignity that the pro-democracy movement demands. As such, it is an ambiguous moment, because its stark sense of unity (there is a consensus of having absolutely no party slogans on the square) and power is bound to be transient, for even in the most successful scenario it will be followed by a long period of political transition, tactics, negotiations, party politics – all kinds of business that will not be anything like that moment of standing together and finally daring to say “no!”. But thanks to its utopian nature, it is also indestructible. Once it has been realised, it cannot be wiped out of people’s minds again. It will be an experience that, with different colourings and from different perspectives, will mark an entire generation.

    In a different sense, however, the relationship of transience and persistence is a critical one. A revolution is not a quick business; it requires persistence. Some have that persistence, and millions have continued demonstrating (remember that in Alexandria and all major provincial cities there are ongoing in demonstrations as well). Others, however, had the anger and energy to go out to the streets on the Friday of Anger on 28 January to say loudly “No!”, but not the persistence to withstand the lure of the president’s speech on Tuesday 1 February when Mubarak showed himself as a mortal human, an old soldier determined to die and be buried in his country. A journalist noted to me that this was the first time Mubarak has ever mentioned his own mortality – the very promise that he will die one day seems to have softened many people.

    Speaking of generations, this revolution has been called a youth revolution by all sides, be it by the demonstrators themselves, the state media, or international media. Doing so has different connotations. It can mean highlighting the progressive nature of the movement, but it can also mean depicting the movement as immature. In either case, in my experience the pro-democracy movement is not really a youth movement. People of all ages support the revolution, just like there are people of all ages who oppose it or are of two minds about it. If most of the people out in the demonstrations are young, it is because most Egyptians are young.

    Thinking about the way Egyptians are split about their revolution, it is interesting to see how much people offer me explicitly psychological explanations. The most simple one, regarding the switch of many of those who went out on the streets on the Friday of Anger (28 Jan) but were happy to support the president after his speech after the March of Millions (1 Feb), is that Egyptians are very emotional and prone to react emotionally, and in unpredictable ways. One of more subtle theories crystallise around the theme of Freud’s Oedipal father murder about which I wrote yesterday. Another is the Stockholm Syndrom that some have mentioned as an explanation why those who turn to support are favour of the system are often those most brutally oppressed by the same system. The Stockholm Syndrome, referring to a famous bank robbery with hostages in Stockholm, is the reaction of hostages who turn to support their abductors at whose mercy they are. There is something to it.

    As I finish writing this, my plane is leaving for Frankfurt and I will be out of Egypt for a while. After these notes, I will upload also some notes from early last week which I couldn’t upload then due to lack of Internet in Egypt. Those are notes from the March of Millions on Tuesday 1 February. But unlike I was thinking at that moment, it was not the biggest demonstration in the history of Egypt. The biggest one was the Friday of Anger on 28 January when people in every street of every city went out to shout “Down with the system!” Due to the almost total media blockade by the Egyptian government, there is still much too little footage from that day. What I have seen so far, shows amazing crowds even in districts far from the city centre, but they also show very systematic violence by the police force, which shot to kill that day. Many were killed, and many more are still missing. I will try to collect image and film material from that day, and if you can send me any, your help is appreciated.

    You can also see all my reports (one is still due to be uploaded later tonight) inhttp://samuliegypt.blogspot.com/ The content of the blog is in the public domain, so feel free to cite and circulate on the condition of giving credit to the original.

    Greetings from revolutionary Egypt!

    Samuli Schielke is a research fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. His research focusses on everyday religiosity and morality, aspiration and frustration in contemporary Egypt. In 2006 he defended his PhD Snacks and Saints: Mawlid Festivals and the Politics of Festivity, Piety and Modernity in Contemporary Egypt at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. During his stay in Cairo at the time of the protests at Tahrir Square he maintained a diary. The text here is part of that diary which you can read in full at his blog.

    3 comments.

    “Now, it’s gonna be a long one” – some first conclusions from the Egyptian revolution

    Posted on February 8th, 2011 by martijn.
    Categories: anthropology, Guest authors, Headline, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

    Guest Author: Samuli Schielke

    Sunday, February 6, 2011

    Today is my scheduled day of departure from Egypt. As I sit on Cairo airport waiting for my flight to Frankfurt, it is the first time on this trip that regret anything – I regret that I am leaving today and not staying. I have told to every Egyptian I have met today that I am not escaping, just going for my work at the university and returning soon. But perhaps it has been more to convince myself than them. My European friend who like me came here last Monday is staying for another two weeks. My American friend in Imbaba tells that for months, she has been homesick to go to America and see her parents and family again. But now when the US government would even give her a free flight, she says that she cannot go. This is her home, and she is too attached to the people, and especially to her husband. Two days ago, he was arrested on his way back from Tahrir square, held captive for four hours, interrogated, and tortured with electroshocks. He is now more determined than ever. How could she leave him behind? But today is my scheduled departure, and I only intended to come for a week and then return to do what I can to give a balanced idea of the situation in Egypt in the public debates in Germany and Finland. Tomorrow I will give a phone interview to Deutschlandradio (a German news radio), and on Tuesday I will give a talk in Helsinki in Finland. Right now, I feel that maintaining high international pressure on the Egyptian government is going to be crucial, and I will do what I can.

    There remains little to be reported about the beginning day in Cairo, but maybe I can try to draw some first conclusion from this week.

    The morning in Cairo today was marked by a return to normality everywhere except on Tahrir Square itself, where the demonstrations continue. Now that the streets are full with people again, the fear I felt in the past days on the streets is gone, too. If I stayed, today would be the day when I would again walk through the streets of Cairo, talk with people and feel the atmosphere.

    From what I know from this morning’s short excursion in Giza and Dokki, the people remain split, but also ready to change their mind. As my Egyptian friend and I took a taxi to Dokki, the taxi driver was out on the street for the first time since 24 January, and had fully believed what the state television had told him. But as my friend, a journalist, told him what was really going on, the driver amazingly quickly shifted his opinion again, and remembered the old hatred against the oppressive system, the corruption, and the inflation that brought people to the streets last week. A big part of the people here seem impressively willing to change their mind, and if many of those who were out on the streets on 28 January – and also of those who stayed home – have changed their mind in favour of normality in the past days, they do expect things to get better now, and if they don’t, they are likely to change their minds again. This is the impression I also got from the taxi driver who took me to the airport from Dokki. He, too, had not left his house for eleven days, not out of fear for himself, but because he felt that he must stay at home to protect his family. He was very sceptical of what Egyptian television was telling, but he did expect things to get better now. What will he and others like him do if things don’t get better?

    As I came to Egypt a week ago I expected that the revolution would follow one of the two courses that were marked by the events of 1989: either a successful transition to democracy by overthrowing of the old regime as happened in eastern Europe, or shooting everybody dead as happened in China. Again, my prediction was wrong (although actually the government did try the Chinese option twice, only unsuccessfully), and now something more complicated is going on.

    This is really the question now: Will things get better or not? In other words: Was the revolution a success of a failure? And on what should its success be measured? If it is to be measured on the high spirits and sense of dignity of those who stood firm against the system, it was a success. If it is to be measured by the emotional switch of those who after the Friday of Anger submitted again to the mixture of fear and admiration of the president’s sweet words, it was a failure. If the immense local and international pressure on the Egyptian government will effect sustainable political change, it will be a success. But it will certainly not be an easy success, and very much continuous pressure is needed, as a friend of mine put it in words this morning: “Now, it’s gonna be a long one.”

    In Dokki I visited a European-Latin American couple who are determined to stay in Egypt. He was on Tahrir Square on Wednesday night when the thugs attacked the demonstrators, and he spent all night carrying wounded people to the makeshift field hospital. He says: “What really worries me is the possibility that Mubarak goes and is replaced by Omar Suleyman who then sticks to power with American approval. He is the worst of them all.” Just in case, he is trying to get his Latin American girlfriend a visa for Schengen area, because if Omar Suleyman’s campaign against alleged “foreign elements” and “particular agendas” continues, the day may come when they are forced to leave after all.

    A few words about the foreigners participating in the revolution need to be said.. Like the Spanish civil war once, so also the Egyptian revolution has moved many foreigners, mostly those living in Egypt since long, to participate in the struggle for democracy. This has been an ambiguous struggle in certain ways, because the state television has exploited the presence of foreigners on Tahrir Square in order to spread quite insane conspiracy theories about foreign agendas behind the democracy movement. The alliance against Egypt, the state television wants to make people believe, is made up of agents of Israel, Hamas, and Iran. That’s about the most insane conspiracy theory I have heard of for a long time. But unfortunately, conspiracy theories do not need to be logical to be convincing. But to step back to the ground of reality, if this revolution has taught me one thing is that the people of Egypt do not need to look up to Europe or America to imagine a better future. They have shown themselves capable of imagining a better future of their own making (with some important help from Tunisia). Compared to our governments with their lip service to democracy and appeasement of dictators, Egyptians have given the world an example in freedom and courage which we all should look up to as an example. This sense of admiration and respect is what has drawn so many foreigners to Tahrir Square in the past days, including myself.

    As an anthropologist who has long worked on festive culture, I noticed a strikingly festive aspect to the revolutionary space of Tahrir Square. It is not just a protest against an oppressive regime and a demand for freedom. In itself, it is freedom. It is a real, actual, lived moment of the freedom and dignity that the pro-democracy movement demands. As such, it is an ambiguous moment, because its stark sense of unity (there is a consensus of having absolutely no party slogans on the square) and power is bound to be transient, for even in the most successful scenario it will be followed by a long period of political transition, tactics, negotiations, party politics – all kinds of business that will not be anything like that moment of standing together and finally daring to say “no!”. But thanks to its utopian nature, it is also indestructible. Once it has been realised, it cannot be wiped out of people’s minds again. It will be an experience that, with different colourings and from different perspectives, will mark an entire generation.

    In a different sense, however, the relationship of transience and persistence is a critical one. A revolution is not a quick business; it requires persistence. Some have that persistence, and millions have continued demonstrating (remember that in Alexandria and all major provincial cities there are ongoing in demonstrations as well). Others, however, had the anger and energy to go out to the streets on the Friday of Anger on 28 January to say loudly “No!”, but not the persistence to withstand the lure of the president’s speech on Tuesday 1 February when Mubarak showed himself as a mortal human, an old soldier determined to die and be buried in his country. A journalist noted to me that this was the first time Mubarak has ever mentioned his own mortality – the very promise that he will die one day seems to have softened many people.

    Speaking of generations, this revolution has been called a youth revolution by all sides, be it by the demonstrators themselves, the state media, or international media. Doing so has different connotations. It can mean highlighting the progressive nature of the movement, but it can also mean depicting the movement as immature. In either case, in my experience the pro-democracy movement is not really a youth movement. People of all ages support the revolution, just like there are people of all ages who oppose it or are of two minds about it. If most of the people out in the demonstrations are young, it is because most Egyptians are young.

    Thinking about the way Egyptians are split about their revolution, it is interesting to see how much people offer me explicitly psychological explanations. The most simple one, regarding the switch of many of those who went out on the streets on the Friday of Anger (28 Jan) but were happy to support the president after his speech after the March of Millions (1 Feb), is that Egyptians are very emotional and prone to react emotionally, and in unpredictable ways. One of more subtle theories crystallise around the theme of Freud’s Oedipal father murder about which I wrote yesterday. Another is the Stockholm Syndrom that some have mentioned as an explanation why those who turn to support are favour of the system are often those most brutally oppressed by the same system. The Stockholm Syndrome, referring to a famous bank robbery with hostages in Stockholm, is the reaction of hostages who turn to support their abductors at whose mercy they are. There is something to it.

    As I finish writing this, my plane is leaving for Frankfurt and I will be out of Egypt for a while. After these notes, I will upload also some notes from early last week which I couldn’t upload then due to lack of Internet in Egypt. Those are notes from the March of Millions on Tuesday 1 February. But unlike I was thinking at that moment, it was not the biggest demonstration in the history of Egypt. The biggest one was the Friday of Anger on 28 January when people in every street of every city went out to shout “Down with the system!” Due to the almost total media blockade by the Egyptian government, there is still much too little footage from that day. What I have seen so far, shows amazing crowds even in districts far from the city centre, but they also show very systematic violence by the police force, which shot to kill that day. Many were killed, and many more are still missing. I will try to collect image and film material from that day, and if you can send me any, your help is appreciated.

    You can also see all my reports (one is still due to be uploaded later tonight) inhttp://samuliegypt.blogspot.com/ The content of the blog is in the public domain, so feel free to cite and circulate on the condition of giving credit to the original.

    Greetings from revolutionary Egypt!

    Samuli Schielke is a research fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. His research focusses on everyday religiosity and morality, aspiration and frustration in contemporary Egypt. In 2006 he defended his PhD Snacks and Saints: Mawlid Festivals and the Politics of Festivity, Piety and Modernity in Contemporary Egypt at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. During his stay in Cairo at the time of the protests at Tahrir Square he maintained a diary. The text here is part of that diary which you can read in full at his blog.

    3 comments.

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