C L O S E R

Ook voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting

Posted on August 10th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category.

Ook voor de vrijheid van meningsuiting?

Hein de Kort voor Rizla.nl

Faith, Fit and Fun – Islam & Sports

Posted on April 4th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category, Notes from the Field, Public Islam, Youth culture (as a practice).

Although sports appear to be a secular leisure activity there is a relation with religion as well. Many sports ceremonies and rituals resemble religious ceremonies and rituals and both involve bodily exercise. Furthermore both the strong emotions, the extraordinary status given to major sport events such as the football World Cup have led many to compare it with religion and to use religious phrases in relation to sports such as ‘sacred ground’ for the football field and ‘sons of God’ for players of the Dutch football team Ajax (in the past). Like religion sports is used to generate some sense of belonging, representation and recognition.

Both sports and religion have socializing institutions and sports is often used as a means to socialize and educate people, also by churches and other religious communities. In the Netherlands some interesting research has been done among Moroccan-Dutch girls and kickboxing by Jasmijn Rana and in Israel research is done by Sorek among the Islamic Movement that created an independent Islamic Soccer League and uses football as a way to promote and nurture an identity based upon a moral code and moral boundaries. In Europe Salafi networks have also organized several sports events ranging from football tournaments and to ‘Salafi boxing’.

Recently there has been some debate on women wearing hijab and playing a football. A Dutch designer created a sports-headscarf, Capster, and a facebook page ‘Let Us Play‘ was created to support players who want to wear a headscarf. A Dutch women’s team, VV Hoograven, consists of Moroccan-Dutch girls and some wear a headscarf:
BBC News – Dutch design challenges Fifa’s football hijab ban

But Naima Loukili, who has come to see her daughter play for VV Hoograven, says it is a social rather than a religious barrier:
Girls from the mainly Muslim women’s football team VV Hoograven Amal Loukili (L, pictured with her mother Naima) has high hopes of playing at the top level of football

“It’s not something Islam says. It’s just our culture. Islam supports women to go out and do sport or do whatever they want. I’m happy my daughter has the opportunity to do this.”

And 10-year-old Amal Loukili is not letting any cultural considerations interfere with her ambitions. “I want to play for Barca one day or maybe even Holland,” she says.

Since last year the FIFA declared the hijab was a cultural rather than a religious symbol there is an opening now for women who want to be veiled; generating new debate of course in particular coming from nativist anti-islam politicians. In 2008 ESPN showed a short film on the Lady Caliphs of W. Deen Mohammed High School in the US, an all Muslim high schools where hijab is obliged for girls.

Last year Fordson: Faith – Fasting – Football was released; a documentary film that follows four talented high school football players from Dearborn Michigan during the last ten days of Ramadan when they prepare for the rivalry game:

From both films it is clear how the whole issue is framed within the idea of conflict and clashes in relation to the current political context of Islam:

As such it is clear that in particular Muslim women challenge many boundaries: secular-religious, sports for man – sports for women, Muslims vs. non-Muslims, and so on. World-class fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad hopes to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. If she qualifies, it is believed that she will be the first practicing Muslim to represent the U.S. in women’s fencing, and the first American to wear Islamic head-covering while competing. She speaks with host Michel Martin at NPR. Besides research covering those political issues would be interesting to see some research for example into how sports relation to the body is looked upon from a religious point of view.

It appears that part of the thing that has to be controlled is youth having fun. Whether it is fundamentalist movements, (secular) governments and sports associations ‘people having fun’ has to be controlled.As Asef Bayat explains:“Islamism and the Politics of Fun” in Volume 19, Number 3 • Public Culture

Fun is a metaphor for the expression of individuality, spontaneity, and lightness, in which joy is the central element. While joy is neither an equivalent nor a definition of fun, it remains a key component of it. Not everything joyful is fun, such as routine ways of having meals, even though one can make food fun by injecting joyful creativity in preparing or consuming it. Thus fun often points to usually improvised, spontaneous, free-form, changeable, and thus unpredictable expressions and practices. There is a strong tendency in modern times to structure and institutionalize fun in the form of, for instance, participating in organized leisure activities; going to bars, discos, concerts; and the like. However, the inevitable drive for spontaneity and invention renders organized fun a tenuous entity.

Fun may be expressed by individuals or collectives, in private or public, and take traditional or commoditized forms. Fashion, for instance, represents a collective, commoditized, and systematic expression of fun, yet one that is constantly in flux because it deems to respond to the carefree and shifting spirit of fun. […] For instance, whereas the elderly poor can afford simple, traditional, and contained diversions, the globalized and affluent youth tend to embrace more spontaneous, erotically charged, and commodified pleasures. This might help explain why globalizing youngsters more than others cause fear and fury among Islamist anti-fun adversaries, especially when much of what these youths practice is informed by Western technologies of fun and is framed in terms of “Western cultural import.”

While religious movements either tend to set up their own competitions in order to shield their youth from the deviations and temptations of everyday life or try to be part of the mainstream competitions on their own terms, sports associations are concerned with safety issues and with the question whether religion or religious symbols have a place in sports, governments are concerned with preserving social cohesion. Different modes of good islam and bad islam and of good society and bad society are invoked in these debates. But, as Bayat suggests,

at stake is not necessarily the disruption of the moral order, as often claimed, but rather the undermining of the hegemony, the regime of power on which certain strands of moral and political authority rest. By “moralpolitical authority,” I refer not only to states or governmental power but also to the authority of individuals (for instance, sheikhs or cult leaders) and social-political movements — those whose legitimacy lies in deploying a particular doctrinal paradigm. The adversaries’ fear of fun, I conclude, revolves ultimately around the fear of exit from the paradigm that frames their mastery; it is about anxiety over loss of their “paradigm power.”

Something that seems to missing in all these accounts is how faith, sports can have a similar relation with fun. Often the high Islamic traditions (as practised by salafists but also others) are contrasted with sports and popular culture; the former one being strict, serious and with a focus on discipline and the latter seen as creative, playful and joyful. And, in particular in popular debates, the religion as something concerned (or needs to be restricted to) mind and sports with the body. But of course also sports is about mind, seriousness and discipline while the accounts of the Muslims I work with are also filled with joy, jokes, playfulness when they talk about Islam. Being Muslim makes them happy and many of the meetings I attended are full with people sharing jokes and all kinds of conducts that are the expression of and provide people with fun. Both religion and sports, at least in their view, can be seen as celebrations of body, mind and the expressiveness that comes with it. In circles of fundamentalists but also in those who perform sports at a very high level, it does not so much celebrate mind and body by breaking free from normative obligations and organized power, but through it.

Faith, Fit and Fun – Islam & Sports

Posted on April 4th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category, Notes from the Field, Public Islam, Youth culture (as a practice).

Although sports appear to be a secular leisure activity there is a relation with religion as well. Many sports ceremonies and rituals resemble religious ceremonies and rituals and both involve bodily exercise. Furthermore both the strong emotions, the extraordinary status given to major sport events such as the football World Cup have led many to compare it with religion and to use religious phrases in relation to sports such as ‘sacred ground’ for the football field and ‘sons of God’ for players of the Dutch football team Ajax (in the past). Like religion sports is used to generate some sense of belonging, representation and recognition.

Both sports and religion have socializing institutions and sports is often used as a means to socialize and educate people, also by churches and other religious communities. In the Netherlands some interesting research has been done among Moroccan-Dutch girls and kickboxing by Jasmijn Rana and in Israel research is done by Sorek among the Islamic Movement that created an independent Islamic Soccer League and uses football as a way to promote and nurture an identity based upon a moral code and moral boundaries. In Europe Salafi networks have also organized several sports events ranging from football tournaments and to ‘Salafi boxing’.

Recently there has been some debate on women wearing hijab and playing a football. A Dutch designer created a sports-headscarf, Capster, and a facebook page ‘Let Us Play‘ was created to support players who want to wear a headscarf. A Dutch women’s team, VV Hoograven, consists of Moroccan-Dutch girls and some wear a headscarf:
BBC News – Dutch design challenges Fifa’s football hijab ban

But Naima Loukili, who has come to see her daughter play for VV Hoograven, says it is a social rather than a religious barrier:
Girls from the mainly Muslim women’s football team VV Hoograven Amal Loukili (L, pictured with her mother Naima) has high hopes of playing at the top level of football

“It’s not something Islam says. It’s just our culture. Islam supports women to go out and do sport or do whatever they want. I’m happy my daughter has the opportunity to do this.”

And 10-year-old Amal Loukili is not letting any cultural considerations interfere with her ambitions. “I want to play for Barca one day or maybe even Holland,” she says.

Since last year the FIFA declared the hijab was a cultural rather than a religious symbol there is an opening now for women who want to be veiled; generating new debate of course in particular coming from nativist anti-islam politicians. In 2008 ESPN showed a short film on the Lady Caliphs of W. Deen Mohammed High School in the US, an all Muslim high schools where hijab is obliged for girls.

Last year Fordson: Faith – Fasting – Football was released; a documentary film that follows four talented high school football players from Dearborn Michigan during the last ten days of Ramadan when they prepare for the rivalry game:

From both films it is clear how the whole issue is framed within the idea of conflict and clashes in relation to the current political context of Islam:

As such it is clear that in particular Muslim women challenge many boundaries: secular-religious, sports for man – sports for women, Muslims vs. non-Muslims, and so on. World-class fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad hopes to compete in the 2012 London Olympics. If she qualifies, it is believed that she will be the first practicing Muslim to represent the U.S. in women’s fencing, and the first American to wear Islamic head-covering while competing. She speaks with host Michel Martin at NPR. Besides research covering those political issues would be interesting to see some research for example into how sports relation to the body is looked upon from a religious point of view.

It appears that part of the thing that has to be controlled is youth having fun. Whether it is fundamentalist movements, (secular) governments and sports associations ‘people having fun’ has to be controlled.As Asef Bayat explains:“Islamism and the Politics of Fun” in Volume 19, Number 3 • Public Culture

Fun is a metaphor for the expression of individuality, spontaneity, and lightness, in which joy is the central element. While joy is neither an equivalent nor a definition of fun, it remains a key component of it. Not everything joyful is fun, such as routine ways of having meals, even though one can make food fun by injecting joyful creativity in preparing or consuming it. Thus fun often points to usually improvised, spontaneous, free-form, changeable, and thus unpredictable expressions and practices. There is a strong tendency in modern times to structure and institutionalize fun in the form of, for instance, participating in organized leisure activities; going to bars, discos, concerts; and the like. However, the inevitable drive for spontaneity and invention renders organized fun a tenuous entity.

Fun may be expressed by individuals or collectives, in private or public, and take traditional or commoditized forms. Fashion, for instance, represents a collective, commoditized, and systematic expression of fun, yet one that is constantly in flux because it deems to respond to the carefree and shifting spirit of fun. […] For instance, whereas the elderly poor can afford simple, traditional, and contained diversions, the globalized and affluent youth tend to embrace more spontaneous, erotically charged, and commodified pleasures. This might help explain why globalizing youngsters more than others cause fear and fury among Islamist anti-fun adversaries, especially when much of what these youths practice is informed by Western technologies of fun and is framed in terms of “Western cultural import.”

While religious movements either tend to set up their own competitions in order to shield their youth from the deviations and temptations of everyday life or try to be part of the mainstream competitions on their own terms, sports associations are concerned with safety issues and with the question whether religion or religious symbols have a place in sports, governments are concerned with preserving social cohesion. Different modes of good islam and bad islam and of good society and bad society are invoked in these debates. But, as Bayat suggests,

at stake is not necessarily the disruption of the moral order, as often claimed, but rather the undermining of the hegemony, the regime of power on which certain strands of moral and political authority rest. By “moralpolitical authority,” I refer not only to states or governmental power but also to the authority of individuals (for instance, sheikhs or cult leaders) and social-political movements — those whose legitimacy lies in deploying a particular doctrinal paradigm. The adversaries’ fear of fun, I conclude, revolves ultimately around the fear of exit from the paradigm that frames their mastery; it is about anxiety over loss of their “paradigm power.”

Something that seems to missing in all these accounts is how faith, sports can have a similar relation with fun. Often the high Islamic traditions (as practised by salafists but also others) are contrasted with sports and popular culture; the former one being strict, serious and with a focus on discipline and the latter seen as creative, playful and joyful. And, in particular in popular debates, the religion as something concerned (or needs to be restricted to) mind and sports with the body. But of course also sports is about mind, seriousness and discipline while the accounts of the Muslims I work with are also filled with joy, jokes, playfulness when they talk about Islam. Being Muslim makes them happy and many of the meetings I attended are full with people sharing jokes and all kinds of conducts that are the expression of and provide people with fun. Both religion and sports, at least in their view, can be seen as celebrations of body, mind and the expressiveness that comes with it. In circles of fundamentalists but also in those who perform sports at a very high level, it does not so much celebrate mind and body by breaking free from normative obligations and organized power, but through it.

Islamoloog Joas Wagemakers krijgt Erasmus studieprijs

Posted on November 9th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, ISIM/RU Research, Joy Category, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Stichting Praemium Erasmianum kent een studieprijs toe aan het proefschrift van Joas Wagemakers, onderzoeker en docent Islam & Arabisch aan de Radboud Universiteit. Wagemakers promoveerde in november 2010 cum laude op zijn dissertatie over de Jordaanse radicaal-islamitische ideoloog Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.

De Stichting Praemium Erasmianum kent jaarlijks maximaal vijf Studieprijzen toe voor bijzondere dissertaties op het gebied van geesteswetenschappen en maatschappij- en gedragswetenschappen. De Studieprijs bestaat uit een geldbedrag van € 3.000 en een oorkonde.

Gematigd-extreme ideoloog
Joas Wagemakers ontvangt de prijs voor zijn proefschrift A Quietist Jihadi-Salafi.The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Het onderzoek gaat over de ideologie van de Jordaanse radicaal-islamitische Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi in de context van het salafisme, een stroming binnen de islam. Salafisme wordt doorgaans in drie categorieën verdeeld: het quiëtisme, dat zich op missionaire activiteiten en onderwijs richt en politiek veelal mijdt; het politiek salafisme, dat juist zeer politiek geëngageerd is; en het jihadi-salafisme, dat zich, soms met geweld, tegen de bestaande regimes in de moslimwereld keert omdat deze niet-islamitisch zouden zijn vanwege het feit dat ze de islamitische wetgeving (sharia) niet of niet volledig invoeren. Wagemakers laat zien dat al-Maqdisi zowel in de quiëtistische (gematigde) als de jihadistische (extremistische) categorie thuishoort. Dit verklaart waarom deze ‘gematigde extremist’ in sommige contexten wel en in andere juist niet invloedrijk is geweest.

Breder belang
Belangrijk criterium voor de bekroning van een proefschrift met de Praemium Erasmianum is ‘de casusoverstijgende behandeling van het onderwerp en het bredere belang van het boek voor andere disciplines’, aldus het persbericht. Daarmee wordt, denkt Wagemakers, bedoeld dat zijn proefschrift niet alleen relevant is voor het leven en denken van al-Maqdisi, maar ook voor andere processen van radicalisering. ‘Mijn studie beschrijft hoe radicalisering in z’n werk gaat, hoe tekst en context, Koran en omgeving, elkaar beïnvloeden. Op zich is het geen spectaculaire ontdekking dát dat zo gaat, maar ik heb het wel voor het eerst heel systematisch aangetoond. Mijn proefschrift geeft bovendien een tot dan toe niet verschenen inkijk in de ideologische achtergrond van het salafisme. En het laat zien hoe ideologie – en dat stuk is zeker casusoverstijgend – evolueert.’

Veni
Wagemakers ontving in september een Veni-subsidie van de Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) waarmee hij onderzoek gaat doen naar islamitische activisten (sociaal en/of politiek) in Jordanië. Wagemakers is als onderzoeker ook verbonden aan het instituut voor internationale betrekkingen Clingendael.

Uitreiking
De Studieprijzen Praemium Erasmianum worden op donderdag 15 december uitgereikt in Amsterdam.

(Tekst:Anja van Kessel, RU)

Mijn collega en (nog even) kamergenoot aan de Radboud Universiteit heeft eerder een stuk geschreven voor dit blog naar aanleiding van zijn proefschrift over Mohammed al Maqdisi:
The Ideology and Influence of Muhammad al Maqdisi
En hij heeft bijgedragen aan de volgende post over Al Maqdisi:
Het glazen huis – Al Maqdisi Jihadi Controverse en nieuwe publicatie

Three days of the West – What is Westernization?

Posted on May 1st, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Blind Horses, Joy Category, Multiculti Issues.

Last week in the Netherlands we had, again, a debate on young asylum seekers. It was decided that a 14-year old Afghan girl and her family could remain in the Netherlands although their asylum request had been rejected. The girl, Sahar, lives in the Netherlands for more than 10 years now and is a pupil at a higher secondary school. One of the criteria that played a role in the recent decision to let them stay is that Sahar is ‘westernized’ over the years which leads politicians to the conclusion that she (as a girl) could get into trouble when she has to live in Afghanistan (there are indeed examples of that). The criterium of ‘Westernization’ is not defined however and not extended to boys or other girls from Afghanistan (let alone other countries) in a similar situation. The next video provides some information on this discussion:

What's Westernization? door NewsLook

Service oriented as this anthropologist is, I have decided to look into the matter of Westernization a little more closer in order to come up with a definition that includes the fact that we talk about women (gender), upper class (with regard to education) and style of democratic participation (given the way people have lobbyed for the girl or against her). Important is that the elements of the definition have to extend beyond the Netherlands but not exclude the Netherlands and that they have been rooted in Western societies for a long time. Now it happens that in the last three days we have seen three perfect examples of those Western traditions that could be the corner stones of this definition.

29 april: A very elegant burqa for women
William and Kate got married. Have you seen Kate’s dress? A beautiful elegant with a face covering veil that both hides as well as accentuates the beauty of this woman.

“A modern bride, in a modern dress but with a historical allusion” and also think about ‘Grace Kelly’s dress’.

30 April: Get drunk, act silly, get together: Queensday in the Netherlands

30 April is the day the Netherlands celebrates the birthday of queen Beatrix. The atmosphere is somewhat similar to when the Dutch national soccer team plays and can be described as temporary Orange Fever.

1 May: Traditional political participation: Jump right out of the line and revolt!
The celebration of 1 May is a perfect and very old example of political participation: demonstrations, blocking the streets, violence by police and protesters. Let’s have a look at one of the mobilization video of the German 1 May movement:

As such this idea of Westernization is more real than reality, in fact a re-make of reality. Have fun.

Zanga Zanga in Libya

Posted on April 8th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, Joy Category, Society & Politics in the Middle East.

A few weeks ago Libyan leader Kadaffi gave an already famous speech in which he vowed to fight and die as a martyr. The rest of the speech was ominous but also incomprehensible. His speech appears to have become a youtube’s meme like for example Hitler’s speeches taken from the great film Der Untergang that has produced many hilarious new takes on Youtube. I will give you four here. The first one links Kadaffi’s speech with the one from Hitler who asks the Libyan leader to comment upon his book:

The second one is Gaddafi in the same speech (of course) but it seems he was speaking in a different language: Swedish

The third one is the Zanga Zanga remix; zanga referring to allyway.

And the fourth, and last, one is Conan O’Brien’s take on the speech:

Gin de Mooy / Sargasso – Vrouwenbesnijdenis: verminking of een mensenrecht

Dr. Kromzwaard Trofee 2010 – Stuur uw suggesties in

Posted on November 28th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Headline, Joy Category.

Vorig jaar ben ik begonnen met het ‘Beste/Slechtste van 2009’. Voor dit jaar officieel omgedoopt in Dr. Kromzwaard Trofee 2010. U kunt vanaf nu uw inzendingen insturen voor twee categorieën:

Blogs: welke blogentry over moslims en/of islam uit 2010 is het beste en welke is het slechtste? Kijk daarbij onder meer naar schrijfstijl, argumentatie en originaliteit.
Nieuws-/Achtergrondartikelen: welk artikel uit een nieuwsmedium (kranten, tijdschriften, omroepen, nieuwswebsites) is het beste of slechtste nieuws-/achtergrondartikel over moslims en/of islam? Kijk daarbij naar schrijfstijl, helderheid, nuance en nieuwswaardigheid.

Voor iedere categorie dient u dus een suggestie te geven voor het beste en voor het slechtste.

U kunt uw suggesties doorgeven via de volgende pagina: Dr. Kromzwaard Trofee Inzendingen. Inzendingen dienen hoofdzakelijk in het Nederlands te zijn. Artikelen met vertaling van Arabisch en/of Engels zijn toegestaan. U heeft drie weken de tijd. Daarna worden de nominaties bekend gemaakt en op 1 januari de winnaar.

Verras me!

De winnaars van vorig jaar:

Beste blogentry:

Beste nieuwsbericht:

RTL – 110 burgerdoden door missie Uruzgan

Slechtste blogentry:

Stan de Jong – Kristallnacht Buitenveldert (van oorspronkelijke site verwijderd)

Slechtste nieuwsbericht:

Telegraaf – Avondklok voor moslims (van Telegraaf site verwijderd)

3 comments.

Closer is Open

Posted on March 22nd, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category.

Yes it has been a while. In December of last year Closer was closed because of several reasons I’m not going to elaborate about. If you search this blog now you will notice that several entries are password-protected; they will remain that way. Furthermore this blog has a new wordpress theme, Arthemia, which is a theme that is in the middle between a blog and a magazine and hopefully fits the purpose of this blog a little better. You can find a headline-entry that will be refreshed every week and several featured posts that will be refreshed in one or two months.

I hope you will enjoy the new lay out and comments and advice about it are welcome as are your comments to entries here. In the coming weeks some other changes will be made but I hope you will not experience any inconvenience. For now, let me end with saying welcome back!

4 comments.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | The Voorwerp

Posted on August 7th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category.

The Voorwerp is a massive ‘light echo’ produced as the light strikes the gas

Dr Chris Lintott, University of Oxford

Voorwerp being a Dutch and English word: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | The Voorwerp

Posted on August 7th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category.

The Voorwerp is a massive ‘light echo’ produced as the light strikes the gas

Dr Chris Lintott, University of Oxford

Voorwerp being a Dutch and English word: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature

The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture – Under the Influence? The Bible, Culture and Nick Cave

Posted on February 18th, 2008 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

Time for something completely different from what I usually do. An article by Roland Boer in The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture: Under the Influence? The Bible, Culture and Nick Cave. You don’t have to agree with everything of course, but it is certainly an interesting perspective.

Abstract

Debates on the relation between culture and the Bible are locked into two restrictive models: either the Bible is a source for subsequent appropriations, or it is the goal that one must attain through the thicket of those appropriations. In order to trouble this two-way street, I explore the words and music of Nick Cave, focusing on the way he controls interpretation of his work and where that control breaks down. At this moment Cave provides an unwitting insight into another way to view the relation of the Bible and culture, one that operates in terms of “strategies of containment.”

YouTube – Linkin Park- Faint Emoticoncert

Posted on January 16th, 2008 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

Something completely different, probably old already but I have never seen it:
YouTube – Linkin Park- Faint Emoticoncert

Baba Ali: “I’m not a scholar, I just try to tell people simple things” – altmuslim.com

Baba Ali – I'm not a scholar, I just try to tell people simple things

Posted on June 13th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Blogosphere, Internal Debates, Joy Category.

One of the latest internet celebrities is Baba Ali who with several colleagues founded Ummah Films, a videoblog. Zahed Amanullah did an interview with him for Alt.Muslim.com. Alt.Muslim presents Baba Ali as:

An unlikely internet celebrity, Baba Ali is on a mission to provide thought provoking, lighthearted entertainment to young Muslims around the world. We find out what makes him tick.
By Zahed Amanullah, June 13, 2007
How did I get here?
If you’ve frequented Islamic websites and blogs over the past year, especially those geared towards youth, you may have come across links to videos of a close cropped young American Muslim speaking feverishly and comically into a webcam about the anomalies and quirks of Muslim life in the West. More accurately, if you haven’t seen the young man in question, it would be something of a minor miracle. Since mid-2006, Californian Baba Ali has produced a series of 7-10 minute video clips of himself, edited in rapid fire soundbites, produced in association with a like-minded group of young Muslim filmmakers calling themselves Ummah Films. Skirting fine lines between (near) preachiness, offbeat humour, self-deprecation, and sincere earnestness, Ali’s “The Reminder” series of videos has struck a chord with countless Muslim youth around the world facing the same questions he poses regarding marriage, extremism, and the norms of Islamic behaviour – in addition to his own anecdotes (such as the story of his converting to Islam). In the space of a year, he has arguably become the Muslim world’s first bonafide Internet celebrity (erm, besides Mahir and scary people with knives). Normally, producing video weblogs – or vlogs – would be seen as inconsequential in the age of the millions of contributions to MySpace and YouTube (even more so when some of the more popular ones turn out to be frauds). And for many over 30 or non-native English speakers, Ali’s hyperkinetic delivery and youth-oriented message might struggle to make an impression. But to paraphrase an Elvis record, millions of fans (the ones who have viewed his collective episodes so far over two “seasons”) can’t be wrong. A recent visit by Ali to the UK resulted in overflowing and sold out crowds at University College London, where he was treated like a rock star. His videos have been translated into a host of different languages, including Russian, French, Indonesian, German, and Dutch. Ali finds himself at a loss to explain his sudden popularity, but is keen to make the best of it, especially for the kids – his “weakness.” altmuslim’s Zahed Amanullah recently spoke to Ali, who told us about his stand-up comedy attempt, e-mail conversions, and why politics is part of the problem.

You can read more of the interview with him at Alt.Muslim or look at Ummah Films for his and others’ films. Enjoy already an example here (and yes, for my Dutch audience….it has Dutch subtitles just as we like it….)! (more…)

Baba Ali: “I’m not a scholar, I just try to tell people simple things” – altmuslim.com

Baba Ali – I’m not a scholar, I just try to tell people simple things

Posted on June 13th, 2007 by .
Categories: Arts & culture, Blogosphere, Internal Debates, Joy Category.

One of the latest internet celebrities is Baba Ali who with several colleagues founded Ummah Films, a videoblog. Zahed Amanullah did an interview with him for Alt.Muslim.com. Alt.Muslim presents Baba Ali as:

An unlikely internet celebrity, Baba Ali is on a mission to provide thought provoking, lighthearted entertainment to young Muslims around the world. We find out what makes him tick.
By Zahed Amanullah, June 13, 2007
How did I get here?
If you’ve frequented Islamic websites and blogs over the past year, especially those geared towards youth, you may have come across links to videos of a close cropped young American Muslim speaking feverishly and comically into a webcam about the anomalies and quirks of Muslim life in the West. More accurately, if you haven’t seen the young man in question, it would be something of a minor miracle. Since mid-2006, Californian Baba Ali has produced a series of 7-10 minute video clips of himself, edited in rapid fire soundbites, produced in association with a like-minded group of young Muslim filmmakers calling themselves Ummah Films. Skirting fine lines between (near) preachiness, offbeat humour, self-deprecation, and sincere earnestness, Ali’s “The Reminder” series of videos has struck a chord with countless Muslim youth around the world facing the same questions he poses regarding marriage, extremism, and the norms of Islamic behaviour – in addition to his own anecdotes (such as the story of his converting to Islam). In the space of a year, he has arguably become the Muslim world’s first bonafide Internet celebrity (erm, besides Mahir and scary people with knives). Normally, producing video weblogs – or vlogs – would be seen as inconsequential in the age of the millions of contributions to MySpace and YouTube (even more so when some of the more popular ones turn out to be frauds). And for many over 30 or non-native English speakers, Ali’s hyperkinetic delivery and youth-oriented message might struggle to make an impression. But to paraphrase an Elvis record, millions of fans (the ones who have viewed his collective episodes so far over two “seasons”) can’t be wrong. A recent visit by Ali to the UK resulted in overflowing and sold out crowds at University College London, where he was treated like a rock star. His videos have been translated into a host of different languages, including Russian, French, Indonesian, German, and Dutch. Ali finds himself at a loss to explain his sudden popularity, but is keen to make the best of it, especially for the kids – his “weakness.” altmuslim’s Zahed Amanullah recently spoke to Ali, who told us about his stand-up comedy attempt, e-mail conversions, and why politics is part of the problem.

You can read more of the interview with him at Alt.Muslim or look at Ummah Films for his and others’ films. Enjoy already an example here (and yes, for my Dutch audience….it has Dutch subtitles just as we like it….)! (more…)

Suspected Terrorist at E-Bay

Posted on February 1st, 2007 by .
Categories: Joy Category, Uncategorized.

Suspected Terrorist to be bought at E-Bay:

Via Esc

A bit of magical realism on an ordinary Sunday

Posted on January 14th, 2007 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

You can’t always be busy with ‘serious’ stuff right? So go to Mighty Optical Illusions and enjoy Rob Gonsalves, a Canadian painter of magic realism illusions.

Hat tip: Otowi

Are you a post-gothic young man or woman with no sense of hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs?

Posted on December 29th, 2006 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

In my younger days I resembled a little bit like a gothic so my current position as an academic researcher must come as no surprise for you. I wonder if the nice and sweet youngsters of today can look back in joy as much as I do. Getting older of course means in increasing sense of hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs but the solution is keeping fit by drinking camel milk and keeping strong by mental muscle exercise and explore those worlds where no man has gone before.

I admit, this post is only written because of the beautiful word: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs. This and the rest is based upon the things we did not know last year.

From hotdogs to herring: Taking back New Amsterdam

Posted on November 22nd, 2006 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

Gawker reports that ‘Brave Activists Fight To Take Back New Amsterdam’

The group Give us back New York. have embarked on a mission to revert the control over New York to its original colonizer: The Netherlands. :

The Empire State Building would shine with Red Light!

Wallstreet – was never meant to be a street.

Central Park would be a tulip field. How sweet would not the scent of tulips be in the buzzing city!

Times Square, now reachable by boat and filled with authentic Amsterdam canal water, nutrified by stoned British tourists since decades – how sweet would not the scent… eh, nevermind.

The Statue of Liberty would get rid of that silly torch and crown and get herself a tulip and a traditional Dutch dress. Any similarities to that American robe-and-pointy-hat thing are strictly unintended. We wore it first!

The yellow cabs would of course be orange!

And last but definitely not least, wellknown coffee shop Starbucks would be a … coffee shop.

In het jaar 2525: 475,29% van de Amsterdammers Marokkaan

Posted on November 11th, 2006 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

Volgens de gemeente Amsterdam:

Marokkanen binnenkort grootste allochtone herkomstgroep

Surinamers (9,4% van de Amsterdammers) vormen al decennia lang de grootste allochtone herkomstgroep in de stad. Door verhuizingen naar Almere en het buitenland neemt hun aantal echter langzaam af. Verwacht wordt dat in 2008 de Marokkanen, nu 8,8% van alle Amsterdammers, de grootste herkomstgroep zullen vormen.

Dat dus in 2008. In 2525 dus 475,29% van de Amsterdammers Marokkaan heb ik berekend volgens het Sokal-raamwerk dat rekening houdt met de voorkeuren van linkse statistici. Dat is natuurlijk een probleem. (more…)

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rotted shark, anyone?

Posted on September 23rd, 2006 by martijn.
Categories: Joy Category.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rotted shark, anyone?
Old, but still funny to read the report about the ‘disgusting’ dishes in different countries.

The quintessential Dutch food experience is the FEBO snack automat. These are great walls of heated compartments, all clad in shiny chrome, brightly lit and impeccably clean. Drop a coin in the slot and the door of your chosen compartment flicks open, disgorging some lump of tasteless deep-fried mystery-meat apologetically sweating grease into its cardboard carton. Nowhere illustrates better the Dutch love of scrubbed cosiness and efficiency and their total indifference to the pleasures of the palate. This sense of culinary anticlimax is everywhere in the country. I will never forget buying what I hoped was a spicy pasty in Rotterdam, only to find that it was filled with nothing but white sauce. Likewise the day a Dutch flatmate cooked us what she swore was a delicious traditional dish, then brought in a pan of reconstituted powdered mash, kale and tinned frankfurters. Even the more appealing Dutch treats, such as double-fried chips with mayonnaise, are spoilt by lack of care: the oil for the second frying is often stale, while the mayo is a form of sickly, watery industrial run-off. Thankfully, the Dutch Indonesians have improved things a little by injecting much needed care and spice into the national diet.

Well there is more of course than only FEBO but yes we could call it Dutch. But be aware, it’s conquering the world, starting in New York with Automat.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rotted shark, anyone?

Posted on September 23rd, 2006 by .
Categories: Joy Category.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rotted shark, anyone?
Old, but still funny to read the report about the ‘disgusting’ dishes in different countries.

The quintessential Dutch food experience is the FEBO snack automat. These are great walls of heated compartments, all clad in shiny chrome, brightly lit and impeccably clean. Drop a coin in the slot and the door of your chosen compartment flicks open, disgorging some lump of tasteless deep-fried mystery-meat apologetically sweating grease into its cardboard carton. Nowhere illustrates better the Dutch love of scrubbed cosiness and efficiency and their total indifference to the pleasures of the palate. This sense of culinary anticlimax is everywhere in the country. I will never forget buying what I hoped was a spicy pasty in Rotterdam, only to find that it was filled with nothing but white sauce. Likewise the day a Dutch flatmate cooked us what she swore was a delicious traditional dish, then brought in a pan of reconstituted powdered mash, kale and tinned frankfurters. Even the more appealing Dutch treats, such as double-fried chips with mayonnaise, are spoilt by lack of care: the oil for the second frying is often stale, while the mayo is a form of sickly, watery industrial run-off. Thankfully, the Dutch Indonesians have improved things a little by injecting much needed care and spice into the national diet.

Well there is more of course than only FEBO but yes we could call it Dutch. But be aware, it’s conquering the world, starting in New York with Automat.

C L O S E R – Some disturbing and something to laugh

Posted on September 3rd, 2006 by .
Categories: Joy Category, Misc. News, Uncategorized.

There is some discussion in the blogosphere of an attempt in the Armed Forces Journal to redraw the map of the Middle East:

ARMED FORCES JOURNAL – Blood borders – June 2006
Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look
By Ralph Peters

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference â€” often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The Maps are to be found here (NOW) and here (AFTER). It is rather daring: even the Israelis are pushed behind the 1967-borders. What kind of ideas do these people have? Do they think the Middle East is a chess board? They want a new summit with Churchill, Stalin and Eisenhower? Probably for people like me, who are obsessed with structure and evolution rather than revolution, they have left one thing the same though. The situation of the Palestinians is still not resolved.

And because it is Sunday I try to give you something funny as well. Usually I go to the Onion.com and pick something there. Not necessary, today you are invited to The Observer.

Come fly with me – unless you’ve eaten all the pies, that is

Armando Iannucci
Sunday August 27, 2006
The Observer

An eyewitness writes:

We were coming back from our holidays in Spain and it was 3am when the flight was scheduled to depart, so we were all pretty tired, but I still had my wits about me. There were these two strange-looking men who came on the flight at the very last minute, and they were both clinically obese. That’s when me and all the other passengers told the cabin crew we weren’t happy and asked for them to be removed. I think we were right. One of them was so fat that he looked like he might explode at any minute.

Islamicate: Invoking Spinoza

C L O S E R – Back from liminoid

Posted on September 1st, 2006 by .
Categories: Blogosphere, Gouda Issues, Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Joy Category, Morocco, Religious and Political Radicalization, Some personal considerations.

Well, hello there. It’s been a while. I think besides during my stay in Morocco a few years ago, there was never a ‘blog-less’ period that was so long. Holidays (indeed, that was my liminoid phase), writing research applications, writing two chapters of my Ph.D (yes!) and a lot of small things kept me away from here. Not that there wasn’t anything to blog about. Let me give you a small tour of what happened and what would certainly have been part of the blog:

A Romeo and Juliet story

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 08/09/2006 | Love in the time of holy war
Love in the time of holy war
More than distance and prison separate a Muslim extremist and his Jewish girlfriend.

Racialization of Muslims

spiked | Making Muslims into a race apart
Making Muslims into a race apart
In his TV show on British Muslims, Jon Snow was more anthropologist than journalist, trekking to an exotic land to meet apparently peculiar people.

Some things about IsraÃ«l and Hezbollah

towards God is our journey
Muslim disagreement on the ‘Party of God’

The Qana Conspiracy Theory – World Opinion Roundup
The Qana Conspiracy Theory

Some things about irritating aircraft passengers a.k.a. terrorists

Mirror.co.uk – News – EXCLUSIVE: MALAGA JET MUTINY PAIR’S SHOCK AT PLANE EJECTION
EXCLUSIVE: MALAGA JET MUTINY PAIR’S SHOCK AT PLANE EJECTION
Sohail Ashraf & Khuram Zeb
We just couldn’t believe they feared we were bombers We’re ordinary Asian lads who only wanted some fun

The Peninsula On-line: Qatar’s leading English Daily
All is well, say Indians in terror scare

Some Dutch stuff

NRC Handelsblad – Digitale Editie – Zaterdag 26 augustus 2006

Strijd in Midden-Oosten bewijst het failliet van de koude oorlog tegen de moslimdemocraten
Saad Eddin Ibrahim

NRC Handelsblad – Digitale Editie – Zaterdag 26 augustus 2006

Ook ik had een martelaar voor Allah kunnen worden
Naema Tahir

Het is, in je hoofd, niet eens zoâ€™n grote stap, martelaar worden voor de islam. Toen schrijfster Naema Tahir als ontheemde puber klem zat tussen Pakistan, Engeland en Nederland, lokte het gastvrije hemelse paradijs heel wat meer dan het verwarrende leven als immigrant.

AD.nl – 24 uur per dag actueel nieuws /
Groei islamitische basisschool Gouda zet door

STOPlog
De Vliegeraar
Dit boek geeft je het gevoel de geschiedenis van de laatste 30 jaar in Afghanistan van binnenuit te hebben beleefd. Daarin is schrijver Khaled Hosseini zondermeer geslaagd. De Vliegeraar van Kabul is een verpletterend boek dat je van het begin tot het eind gevangen houdt. Net als een vlieger zal de lezer het verhaal ook daarna niet meer loslaten, zoals dat bij bepaalde boeken het geval is.

Trouw, deVerdieping| letter-geest – Veroordeeld tot verstoting uit de maatschappij
Veroordeeld tot verstoting uit de maatschappij
door Joshua Livestro

Essayist Joshua Livestro signaleert een streven om te willen terugkeren naar vroeger, â€™naar de tijd van vÃ³Ã³r de polarisering, vÃ³Ã³r de kogels, de messteken en de harde woorden over de (radicale) islamâ€™.

Maar â€™wat bedoeld is als een herstel van oude verhoudingen, draagt in praktijk vooral bij aan de voortschrijdende islamisering van de Nederlandse samenlevingâ€™. Degenen die zich hiertegen verzetten, worden maatschappelijk verstoten.

Van der Horst

Een gevalletje ‘vrijheid van meningsuiting’ van iemand die zich presenteert als de ridder van het vrije woord, maar dat beter niet kan doen (ook al had hij in de kwestie zelf gelijk).

Some interesting research stuff

Pearsall’s Books: Pentecostalism and the Berbers
Pentecostalism and the Berbers

rfmcdpei: [BRIEF NOTE] The Christianization of Kabylia?
The Christianization of Kabylia?

Something about free speech

Raed in the Middle: back from the mideast
One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver’s license. He said “people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt”. I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English “we will not be silent”. You can take a look at it in this picture taken during our Jordan meetings with Iraqi MPs. I said “I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive”. He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him “why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn’t it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?” The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said “people here in the US don’t understand these things about constitutional rights”. So I answered him “I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt”.

Something strange

There is this funny video I found only recently seems to make clear why we, men, never should be allowed to come close to an iron (which is undoubtedly true of course 😉 ). Funny thing is though that the same video was emailed to me and the video there was called: muslim-of-the-week (moslim-van-de-week). Don’t know how people know if this guy is a Muslim or not and I don’t know what it means this name change (there was no comment in the email), but nevertheless I found it remarkable. Another thing that is remarkable; I do a lot of stupid things every day and luckily no cameras around, while this one is filmed in such a way (angle) that the effect would be clear. So it is probably fake. But still, it is funny, so here watch it yourself:

Totallycrap: Call me on My Mobile

And something funny

Austin Powers in Goldmember – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
* Goldmember: “Hey, everybody! I’m from Holland! Isn’t that vierd?”
* Goldmember: “Look everyvone! My vinky vas a key!” (triumphantly holds up his penis/spare tractor-beam key)

Nigel Powers: “Only a bloody Dutchman!”

* Nigel Powers: “There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures…and the Dutch. ”

So, yes, that means that I’m back from going liminoid, but still without an answer to the most important question in the blogosphere: what’s the use of blogging? And for the people who have noticed that this blog wasn’t online the last few days, religionresearch.org (of which this blog is part of) had exceeded the bandwith limit. Mainly due to my blog but I don’t know why: a hundred and something visitors isn’t enough for that. So is anyone stealing my bandwith?