C L O S E R

Somewhere – #Mipsterz all over the place

Posted on December 11th, 2013 by martijn.
Categories: Activism, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Public Islam, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

In the video Somewhere in America, a bunch of young Muslim women take over the urban landscape with their skateboards, high heels, hijabs and other fashionable clothing with a Jay-Z soundtrack. The video is directed together with Sara Aghaganian and Layla and released by Abbas Rattani and Habib Yazdi of Sheikh & Bake Productions: A music video that captures the attitude “I’m dope as hell and I don’t give a @!#$%&.”. Their facebook page describes them as:

A Mipster is someone who seeks inspiration from the Islamic tradition of divine scriptures, volumes of knowledge, mystical poets, bold prophets, inspirational politicians, esoteric Imams, and our fellow human beings searching for transcendental states of consciousness. A Mipster is an ironic identity, one that serves more as a perpetual critique of oneself and of society.

The video you see here is a clean version of the Jay Z song since several people complained about the N-word that was part of the original song.

Reactions

The video has gone viral on Facebook, Buzzfeed, Jezebel, Glamour, Huffington Post. The video has triggered an interesting debate about what it means to be a young, American, Muslims, woman. Take for example dr. Suad Abdul Khabeer:

“All I know to be is a solider, for my culture” | Somewhere in America? Somewhere in America there…

Everywhere in America, a Muslim woman’s headscarf is not only some sex, swag and consumption, it also belief and beauty, defiance and struggle, secrets and shame.

I know some people are celebrating this video and others criticizing it. I think it’s pretty clear I fall in the second camp. Yet, while it could be so much more. It actually does what it intends to do so effectively. Nothing in this video should surprise you. After all it is being championed by a group called the mipsterz—as in Muslim Hipsters—with no sense of irony. A friend remarked to me that the video was particularly tragic because our champion Ibtihaj Muhammad is in it, and she has been lauded by folks like Hilary Clinton for being a role model. And this video and its background song, replete with profanity including the N-word, seem far from that acclaim. Yet I don’t think it’s incongrous that the same person who Clinton lauded would end up in a video with Jay-Z as a back drop, both Clinton and Jay assert and epitomize American Exceptionalist Capitalism par excellence—and by this I mean the way they would approrpirate her not necessarily how she sees herself. And lest we forget, even Obama has Jay on his Ipod. The video is full frontal consumption and thus can only offer narrow visions of who Muslim women are, even in the attempt to show diversity but again how American is that?! I must admit I may have been a tad bit surprised that they didn’t bleep out at least the N-word but maybe they were aiming for that “ironic” hispter racism. Maybe in the remix they will swap out Nigga for Abeed.

Also a critical comment by Sana Saeed from The Islamic Monthly:

Somewhere in America, Muslim Women Are “Cool”

The video, produced/created/directed primarily by Muslim men (oh hey voyeuristic-cinematography-through-the-Male-Gaze heyyy), doesn’t achieve anything to really fight against stereotypes: it is literally young Muslim women with awesome fashion sense against the awkward backdrop of Jay Z singing about Miley Cyrus twerking. The only semblance of purpose seems to come in with the images of Ibtihaj Muhammad who is shown in her element, doing what she does as a professional athlete. Those images are powerful and beautiful in what they are saying. Other than that, however, all we as the audience are afforded are images that, simply put, objectify the Muslim female form by denigrating it completely to the physical. Muhammad’s form as a unique Muslim woman is complemented by her matter – the stuff that makes her her; makes her Ibtihaj. As the credits below the video mention, the rest of the women (Muhammad is included in this) are merely “models” even though every single one of them has a central and important function and contribution to her respective community and in her field. Instead of showing what makes each and every one of those women Herself, they’re made into this superfluous conformity of an image we, as the audience, consume and ogle at because hey, they’re part of the aesthetic of the video. Ibtihaj is shown as a professional badass and the rest are shown as professional hot women who skate in heels and take selfies on the roof. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, in and of itself, but what a strange dissonance and incongruence in imagery?

And if that isn’t textbook objectification then I think I’ve been raging against the wrong machine since I was 14.

One of the participants in the video, Aminah Sheikh, defends her choice of participating in the video:

Why I Participated in the ‘Somewhere in America’ #Mipsterz Video

My problem with all the critiques I am reading is that you are taking away my agency and power. I made this choice, and the video is in fact a reflection of me and many Muslim women. You may not like it, and that is ok. It may not represent you, and that is even better. You probably don’t know anyone like us – even more so better!

[…]

Hijabis are humans, and that was the point of the video. I know hijabis who ride bikes, skateboard and listen to rap. You can be in denial and reinforce the ‘us and them’ dichotomies and Occidentalism. But, I personally see this as reactionary Islamist politics — this naming, shunning and shaming. It is counterproductive and not useful. Islam is a global religion with about two billion adherents and colorful, historical trajectories.

Islamic culture has not come in a vacuum. Islam is linked to a myriad of people, histories, nations and ethnicities.

The most amusing part of this post-video conversation is the class/or Marxian critique and the linking of the video to materialism and consumption. First, of all the women in the video, not one is endorsing any particular brand. Second, it certainly ironic when the majority of “Western” Muslims are living in their fancy suburban homes, driving a luxury car, jet setting through Dubai and staying in luxury hotels on their Hajj– now they want to bring class politics into the discussion.

Let’s not even get started on the race politics: I am a first generation Muslim woman living in Toronto, Canada. I have been called a terrorist post-911 more times than I can count. I am brown-skinned and by no means the normative standard of beauty. I am a daughter of parents forcefully moved during partition in India/Pakistan. Like me, none of the women in the video fit into mainstream culture. It was great giving us some representation in alternative media forms. I can only hope one day there are more Muslim women in the media when I have my own daughter.

Finally, don’t say what my identity is. I can do that for myself. Don’t take away another woman’s power or agency.
I am Canadian. I am Western. I am them, and they are me. I am definitely the same. I can be a hipster, I can be a mipster, and I can be mainstream. Oh. and yes — I listen to Jay Z.

Peace out.

Another participant, Noor Tagouri expressed on Facebook that she wasn’t aware of how the final product would be:

When I was first asked to be a part of this project, I was told it was for an official music video of Yuna’s song “Loud Noises.” An inspiring song on friendship and love.

I was never told the music video fell through, and in turn a video was still going to come out of the footage shot and be set to Jay-Z’s “Somewhere in America.” I’ll admit, I was uneasy about it at first, still a bit meh about it because the explicit version was used and besides the theme of being “somewhere in America,” it wasn’t relevant to friendship, love or empowerment.

Nevertheless, the video was edited and posted before I could say anything about the drastic song change…and it remained fun/catchy. I enjoyed seeing the cool senses of fashion and recognizing faces of people who I admire. I get it. This song isn’t exactly appropriate, and I do believe the song choice is the main reason many people were thrown off about it. If it’s the way girls are dressed in their hijab, then, you really need to just accept the fact that hijab is a personal choice and everyone interprets it differently. Would it have been better to see an even MORE array of hijabis? Probably. But the video came out and though there was/is much criticism, there is also a lot of good feedback, esp from people who viewed hijab as “oppressive” and disempowering. So, I’ve decided to take the positive from this video and leave the negative. And next time, be sure that if I participate in something like this, I get the chance to see the progress before the final product is put out.

At one point the debate got (over?)heated and one of the things that happens with videos that go viral is that they are completely pulled out of their original context. As Rabia Chaudry explains:
Somewhere on the Internet, Muslim Women are being Shamed

I am really sorry that you vivacious, happy, dynamic, stylish, and I’m sure very bright young women are being brutally examined and analyzed with laser-like tenacity, and about as much empathy. It stinks to high heaven that you are being accused of promoting racism (poor song choice, but I know it had little to do with you), elitism, classism, fat shaming, immodesty, and essentially the downfall of our entire Ummah. Yes, I know. I didn’t see it coming either.

Debating the video
The next video shows the debate on Al Jazeera’s The Stream between Hajer Naili, Sana Saeed, Keziah Ridgeway and Linda Sarsour:

Earlier also a debate at HuffPo with Abbas Rattani, Hajer Naili, Sohaib Sultan, and Sana Saeed

In this debate Abbas Rattani refers to an all male mipster video, that has caused much less controversy and has only a little over 4200 views on youtube. That is this one

Dilemmas

It appears that we are much more concerned with women’s lives, bodies and dress then with men. The message of the video may be not that clear but that is probably stimulating the discussion as it leaves room for everyone to project their own meaning onto the video and onto the women in it as well. There have been a lot of comments stating that these women do not deserve to wear the hijab since they do not behave modestly. I have seen such comments (often ad hominem) from Muslims and non-Muslims signifying the attempts to control women’s bodies, attire and behaviour.

The fact that the performance in the video mixes and blurs the boundaries between pop culture, Islamic religiosity and identity and womanhood is probably also an important impetus for the debate. For some people pop culture is everything that is unislamic or even anti-Islamic. Mixing it with Islam is than often a source of controversy as it is regarded as vulgar and dangerous. At the same time for those people who want to make a strong statement in the sense of ‘Here I am, I’m not going away, deal with it’ pushing the boundaries through pop culture is often a strong tool for challenging the status quo (see also Imran Ali Malik‘s comments).

In that sense this is an important debate that goes beyond the video itself, or as Hind Makki explains (who has a great overview of the most important opinions and links):

Somewhere In America: My Thinksies & Some Linksies

while this discussion may seem trivial at first glance – that so many American Muslims are getting our scarves and kufis into a collective knot over a short clip that is essentially a fashion shoot set to a popular hip hop track – in reality, this public conversation points a collective finger on a very real question: what spaces are Muslim women occupying in American Islam?

The critiques also shows a fundamental dilemma for activists. Or two actually. First one if one wants to debunk stereotypes regarding a particular group it is difficult not to reproduce the same stereotype as well. By stating that Muslims are normal, want to have fun and fit in, the stereotype that they are abnormal, do not know how to have fun and do not fit is implicitly repeated. The second dilemma is that by showing the ‘normal Muslim’ in this video a particular category is included while others are excluded. Are those Muslims who do not have fun, who do not function in society, who are not strong women according to the definition of the video, not normal? This is certainly not what the video explicitly states, but by showing these women other women who do not resemble them are left out or made invisible. These dilemma’s notwithstanding (or maybe partly because of them) the video generated lots of comments and debate on what it means to be a Muslim woman and how to intervene in the debates on Islam.

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Imagine IC – Mijn God: Over Jongeren en Geloof

Posted on September 8th, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: (Upcoming) Events, Arts & culture, Public Islam, Religion Other, Ritual and Religious Experience, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Imagine IC is een culturele instelling in Amsterdam die zich vooral richt op ‘erfgoed van actueel samen leven’. De tentoonstellingen en manifestaties behandelen het dagelijks leven in een veranderende wereld. Een nieuw project van Imagine IC is ‘Mijn God’
Persbericht Mijn God | ImageIC

Imagine IC, Koštana Banovic en Rikko Voorberg presenteren: ‘Mijn God’. Een installatie en een programma vol verhalen van eigentijds geloven

Ruben bidt op Schiphol voor uitgeprocedeerde asielzoekers. ‘Mijn God’ over jongeren en geloof bij imagineic.nl

 

Imagine IC programmeert van 29 augustus 2012 tot 3 maart 2013 ‘Mijn God’. In ‘Mijn God’ vertellen jonge gelovigen in korte documentaires het verhaal van hun overtuiging, hun dagelijks leven en de samenleving waaraan zij bouwen. De filmische installatie op 14 schermen is op uitnodiging van Imagine IC gemaakt door Koštana Banovic. Zij deed hiervoor veldonderzoek in en vanuit Amsterdam Nieuw-West en Zuidoost. De officiële opening vindt plaats op vrijdag 14 september als onderdeel van het Open Art Weekend in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Vanaf 19.00 uur gaat Rikko Voorberg (bekend van Denkstof bij de EO) met bekende rappers als Brainpower en Zanillya in gesprek over de invloed van het geloof in hun leven.

Voor steeds meer jongeren in Nederland is het geloof actueel, in het werk, als persoonlijke inspiratiebron en maatschappelijke drive, of als onderwerp van uiteenlopende opinies en soms verhit debat. Zij zoeken manieren van geloven die bij hun past. Ruben en Faysal zijn een van de acht hoofdpersonen in ‘Mijn God’. Ruben is betrokken bij het organiseren van bezoeken aan het vreemdelingendetentiecentrum Schiphol-Oost. Met geloofsgenoten bidt hij, buiten de hekken van de gevangenis, voor de uitgeprocedeerde asielzoekers die daar gevangen zitten. ‘Ik geloof dat het mijn opdracht is om die mensen juist wél te zien’. Faysal vindt zijn plek voor zijn geloofspraktijk in de kickboksschool. Hier geeft hij les én afleiding aan jonge kinderen.

Koštana Banovic
Koštana Banovic is geïntrigeerd door actuele gelovigheid en rituelen. In succesvolle filmwerken als ‘May I Enter’ (2010) en ‘Ploha’ (2008) verbeeldt ze deze thema’s in respectievelijk Salvador-Bahia en Sarajevo. Voor Imagine IC werkt ze haar thematiek voor het eerst in haar loopbaan uit in Nederland. Met ‘Mijn God’ willen Imagine IC en Koštana Banovic bijdragen aan gedeelde kijken op, en gevoelens van nieuw Nederlanderschap, in deze tijden waarin dat onder druk van vele onzekerheden staat. Decennialang heette het ‘echt Nederlands’ om religie thuis te laten. Maar intussen staat het publieke domein, mede onder invloed van immigratie en globalisering, zichtbaar en hoorbaar bol van het geloof: de zelfbewuste manifestatie van gelovigen – met gospelfestivals, tv-preken of hoofddoeken – genereert opinie en debat.

Het geluid van het geloof
Imagine IC ontwikkelt in samenwerking met een jongerenredactie bij ‘Mijn God’ een korte serie debatten. Het eerste debat vindt plaats in oktober en bespreekt ‘Het geluid van het geloof’. Het vertrekt vanuit de installatie, die de kijker onderdompelt in niet alleen beelden maar ook de geluiden van religie en het dagelijks gelovig leven in een stad als Amsterdam. Met jongeren willen wij meer van deze geluiden verzamelen en een religieuze ‘soundscape’ maken anno nu.

Imagine IC pioniert in het erfgoed van actueel samen leven. Wij gaan op ontdekkingstocht naar het dagelijks leven van vandaag en presenteren dit als erfgoed van de toekomst. Imagine IC is samen met de Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam gevestigd in gebouw Frankemaheerd, op loopafstand van station Bijlmer Arena. Wij zijn voor publiek geopend van woensdag tot en met zaterdag. Zie voor de dagelijkse tijden www.imagineic.nl of bel 020-4894866. Bel ook voor school- of groepsbezoek.

‘Mijn God’ is een project van Imagine IC in samenwerking met Koštana Banovi?. Imagine IC wordt gefinancierd door het Ministerie van OCW (tot 2013) en de Stad Amsterdam. ‘Mijn God’ wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Stadsdeel Zuidoost, Universiteit van Amsterdam, De Alliantie, Kerk en Wereld, SNS Reaalfonds en Stichting DOEN. Koštana Banovi? bedankt verder Memphis Film & Television en Mondriaanfonds.

Mijn God onderzoekt de dynamische relatie tussen religie en het publieke domein dat tegen vele verwachtingen in zichtbaar en hoorbaar bol staat van geloven. Op vrijdag 14 september vindt de opening van de video-installatie Mijn God van Kostana Banovic plaats met rappers Brainpower, Zanillya en IamAisha onder leiding van Rikko Voorberg (EO Denkstof).

Naast de video-installatie bestaat Mijn God ook uit twee jongerendebatten. Er zijn nog mensen welkom voor de redactie van deze debatten:
Gezocht: jongeren voor redactie Mijn God | ImageIC

Speelt religie een rol in jouw leven? En heb je een verhaal daarover? Meld je dan aan voor de jongerenredactie van Mijn God! In het project Mijn God vertellen jonge gelovigen over hun religie, nieuwe rituelen en lifestyle.

Mijn God bestaat uit een video-installatie van kunstenaar Kostana Banovic en debat. Voor twee jongerendebatten draag je als jongerenredactielid onderwerpen aan, en werk je actief mee aan het programma en de communicatie. Mijn God vindt plaats in het najaar van 2012.

Wil je deel uitmaken van deze redactie? Neem dan contact op met projectleider Yassine Boussaid via yassine@imagineic.nl of bel naar 020-489 48 66.

Vrijdag 14 september
Lokatie: Frankemaheerd 2, Amsterdam. Routebeschrijving

Programma:
18.00 uur De deuren van de expositiezaal gaan open. Hapjes en drankjes staan voor u klaar.
19.00 uur Openingsprogramma onder leiding van Rikko Voorberg.
Q&A met Marlous Willemsen, directeur Imagine IC, en Kostana Banovic, beeldend kunstenaar en maker van Mijn God.
Faysal, hoofdpersoon in Mijn God, vertelt zijn verhaal.
Rapper Zanillya reageert.
Rikko, hoofdpersoon in Mijn God, vertelt zijn verhaal.
Rapper IamAisha reageert.
Optreden rapper Zanillya.
Zie ook Facebook.

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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.

2 comments.

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.

2 comments.

De Kunst van het Nietsdoen – Criminalisering van Hangjongeren

Posted on February 2nd, 2012 by martijn.
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Youth culture (as a practice).

Eén van mijn vaste lezers maakte mij attent op Mart’s blog met een stuk over ‘geïnstitutionaliseerd Marokkaantje pesten‘. Hij schreef dit naar aanleiding van de volgende poster in het kader van een wervingsactie van de politie voor nieuw personeel.

U ziet hier het bijbehorende filmpje:

De campagne maakt overigens gebruik van wel meerdere stereotyperingen:

Maar ik wil het even hebben over het deel met de hangjongeren. Zoals in het blog wordt opgemerkt gaat het niet zozeer om de diender op straat maar om de copywriter die de slogan ‘Kun jij duidelijk maken dat niets doen ook overlast kan geven?‘ heeft bedacht en de politieorganisatie die deze campagneposter en film goedkeuren. Wat hier gebeurt is te zien als onderdeel van de criminalisering van ‘hangjongeren’. Waar het eigenlijk door de geschiedenis heen zeer gebruikelijk is dat jongeren, in het bijzonder jongens, in de openbare ruimte bij elkaar komen, elkaars grenzen en die van anderen aftasten en nieuwe grenzen vastleggen als onderdeel van het proces van opgroeien, zien we eveneens dat dit altijd met argusogen gevolgd wordt door volwassenen. Het zijn immers deels de grenzen die volwassenen gesteld hebben die worden afgestast, uitgedaagd, overschreden en veranderd. De hangplekken krijgen voor jongeren een speciale betekenis tijdens en door het hangen als een plek waar men elkaar ontmoet en waar ze hun identiteit en het idee van zichzelf zijn vorm en inhoud krijgen. Uit allerlei onderzoeken blijkt dat mensen jaren later daar nog met enige nostalgie aan terug denken bijvoorbeeld als ze er langskomen. Het is één van de manieren waarop een verbondenheid met iemands lokale omgeving wordt geschapen. Het gaat ook om het claimen van een plek en ruimtelijke autonomie ten koste van andere hanggroepen en volwassenen bijvoorbeeld door het achterlaten van graffiti of ‘rommel’ (meer dan eens afval van de Mac waar men net vandaan komt).

‘Overlast’ is het kernwoord waarmee volwassenen (buurtbewoners, politie, beleidsmakers) proberen de zeggenschap over de openbare ruimte terug te krijgen. In het geval van Marokkaans-Nederlandse hangjongeren (en in het filmpje en op de poster wordt waarschijnlijk niet voor niets een stereotype Marokkaans-Nederlandse hangjongere getoond) komt daar nog eens bij dat het gaat om een groep die gezien wordt als buitenstaander van de maatschappij. Hun claim op de openbare ruimte wordt door henzelf en de omgeving dan al snel geduid in termen van etniciteit of religie. De media spelen een grote rol in de criminalisering van hangjongeren. Verhalen in de media over hangplekken waar jongeren samenkomen zijn vrijwel altijd gekoppeld aan overlast en vertellen vrijwel altijd de boosheid van ouderen over het gebrek aan optreden door de politie. Erin Martineau heeft daar een mooi proefschrift “Too much tolerance”: Hang-around youth, public space, and the problem of freedom in the Netherlands” over geschreven, dat HIER in zijn geheel te downloaden is.

Martineau heeft onderzoek gedaan onder hangjongeren in Amsterdam en laat zien dat de zorgen omtrent hangjongeren samenhangen met andere zorgen van mensen over etnische diversiteit, gezag, sociale cohesie, opvoeding en veiligheid. Martineau laat zien dat het rondhangen van jongeren een eeuwenoude praktijk is, maar dat de term hangjongeren van meer recente datum is. De term maakt van een zeer diverse groep jongeren met uiteenlopende gedragingen een schijnbaar objectieve sociale categorie waar vervolgens beleid over gemaakt kan worden en waar de media haar reportages mee kan maken (het beestje moet immers een naam hebben toch?). Beleidsmakers, politici, media en politie maken zich druk over deze jongeren en in de debatten hierover en door de beleidsmaatregelen raakt de kwestie van hangjongeren vermengd met criminaliteit, integratie en gedragsregels die het publieke gedrag van deze jongeren moeten reguleren (denk aan de Gouden Stadsregels van Gouda).

Martineau stelt dat er niet zozeer sprake is van een morele paniek over de aanwezigheid en het gedrag van deze jongeren, maar dat er juist zeer gemengde boodschappen worden afgegeven. In het publieke vertoog worden hangjongeren vaak gezien als uitwas van de te grote tolerantie en vrijheden die de Nederlandse samenleving zouden kenmerken, en in het bijzonder in het geval van Marokkaans-Nederlandse hangjongeren als gevolg van het multiculturalisme. De grote, en soms theatrale ophef (‘straatterrorsten’) zouden dan een tegenreactie zijn op die tolerantie, vrijheden en het multiculturalisme. Volgens Martineau echter is dat onjuist. Terecht al is het maar omdat die vermeende vrijheden, tolerantie en het multiculturalisme mythes (maar wel belangrijke) zijn. Martineau maakt een ander punt overigens. De ophef over en criminalisering van rondhangende jongeren komt heeft te maken met drie ontwikkelingen sinds de jaren ’60:

1. Een sterk geïndividualiseerde notie van persoonlijke vrijheid
2. Het idee dat de overheid cq verzorgingsstaat alle sociale problemen moet oplossen
3. De opkomst en verspreiding van een stedelijk schoonheidsideaal over hoe de openbare ruimte eruit moet zien: ordentelijk, rustig en schoon.

Daarmee is de commotie over rondhangende jongeren niet zozeer een tegenreactie op een teveel aan tolerantie, maar een product van de veranderingen van de jaren zestig. Veel mensen, zo laat Martineau zien, hechten sterk aan hun eigen individuele vrijheid, maar zijn wel verontrust over overlast van het gedrag van anderen. Individualisering betekent in Nederland dat men zich ontdaan heeft van sociale banden die als knellend worden ervaren en waarbij zelfontplooiing voorop staat. De overheid dient garant te staan voor ieders persoonlijke vrijheid, maar men vraagt tevens de overheid om de vrijheid van anderen aan banden te leggen als men er last van heeft. Dat heeft ook betrekking op de sociale ruimte. Martineau laat zien dat mensen vinden recht te hebben op een vreedzame, schone, ordentelijke omgeving; een vinex-wijk in optima forma. De term ‘overlast’ geeft in de discussies heeft dan ook vooral betrekking op het afzien en de machteloosheid van volwassenen aan en de wens dat de overheid dit oplost. De overheid op haar beurt reageert met een beroep op de ouders die hun verantwoordelijkheid moeten nemen, maar neemt tegelijkertijd maatregelen die diep ingrijpen in de persoonlijke levenssfeer van jongeren gericht op preventie van overlast en het veilig maken van de publieke ruimte. Ook de commercie speelt daar handig op in: hangjongerenweg.nl. In het geval van Marokkaans-Nederlandse jongeren staat een en ander dan ook nog eens in het teken van integratie, de islam-discussie en in enkele gevallen zelfs in het teken van anti-radicalisering.

Enerzijds wil de overheid de sociale wereld reguleren en willen veel burgers een geordende wereld. Anderzijds echter vinden de meeste burgers dat zij het recht hebben hun leven naar eigen goeddunken te leiden en dat niemand zich daarmee zou moeten bemoeien en dat zij het recht op een schone, harmonieuze leefomgeving. In deze context worden jongeren in het algemeen, en allochtone Nederlandse jongeren in het bijzonder, gezien als onaangepast. Overheidsingrijpen zou dan ook noodzakelijk zijn om deze jongeren te leren wat gepast gedrag is in het openbaar. De commotie over rondhangende jongeren gaat dan ook niet zozeer over daadwerkelijke overlast van jongeren zelf, maar over onmacht, woede en angst bij volwassenen die wordt veroorzaakt doordat de problemen die zij ervaren niet weggaan. En die problemen gaan niet weg, want nietsdoen is immers niet verboden en je kunt ook niet dag en nacht jongerenwerkers bij de jongeren neerzetten. En die hangjongeren doen niet meer dan wat van hen verwacht wordt: vasthouden aan de notie van persoonlijke vrijheid die niet aangetast mag worden door gezagsstructuren en eisen van anderen. Wanneer ze dan toch worden aangesproken als vervelende jongeren die iets verkeerds doen, moeten we niet vreemd opkijken als ze op een agressieve wijze reageren: criminalisering van groepen produceert criminelen.

0 comments.

Vechten met roze bokshandschoenen – Gender, religie en kickboksen

Posted on August 6th, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, Guest authors, Multiculti Issues, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Vechten met roze bokshandschoenen
Gender en religie bij Marokkaans-Nederlandse kickboksters

Guest Author: Jasmijn Rana

In 2008 ontmoette ik Halima. Halima is 16 jaar en heeft Marokkaanse ouders. Ze is zelf in Nederland geboren en heeft twee nationaliteiten. Ze spreekt voornamelijk de Nederlandse taal, ook thuis, tegelijkertijd voelt ze zich ook Marokkaanse. Halima is praktiserend moslima, hetgeen zich onder meer uit in het dragen van een hoofddoek. Ze participeert sinds anderhalf jaar in kickbokstrainingen en heeft de ambitie om ook wedstrijden te vechten. Ze traint liever niet met jongens samen en volgt daarom ‘ladies-only’ trainingen. Toch draagt ze ook in de les een hoofddoek. Als ze eenmaal in een kickboksgala meedoet, waar altijd mannen aanwezig zijn, zal ze namelijk ook een hoofddoek willen dragen. Op deze manier oefent ze er alvast mee. Tijdens de trainingen draagt ze roze handschoenen, roze scheenbeschermers en een roze broekje. Onder haar zwarte hoofddoek draagt ze een roze onderdoek, waarvan je het voorste stukje op haar voorhoofd ziet. Bovendien draagt ze onder haar roze broekje een zwarte legging, zodat ook daar geen bloot te zien is. In haar uiterlijk, maar zeker ook in haar gedrag, draagt zij ideeën uit over vrouwelijkheid, etniciteit en religie.

Halima is geen uitzondering. In haar buurt is een groei te zien van het aantal meisjes dat kickbokst, een groei in het aantal lessen dat wordt gegeven en het aantal settings waar de sport werd aangeboden. Ook in andere buurten (in verschillende steden) waar veel migranten(kinderen) wonen, is een groei van het aantal kickboksscholen zichtbaar, terwijl ook buurthuizen vaker vechtsporten aanbieden. Vooral allochtone jongens en meisjes en autochtone jongens kiezen vaak voor vecht/verdedigingssporten. Opvallend is vooral de toename van de lessen waar ook, of uitsluitend, dames welkom zijn. Vooral jonge meiden zijn vaak actief betrokken bij deze activiteiten. Ze nemen deel aan zelfverdedigingssporten zoals karate en taekwondo, maar ook aan vechtsporten zoals kickboksen. Dat een vrij groot aantal meiden van Marokkaanse achtergrond kickbokst, gaat in tegen de gangbare beeldvorming. Dat roept de vraag op wat de achtergronden van deze meisjes zijn en vooral wat hen beweegt om voor deze sport te kiezen. De dagelijkse praktijken van deze meisjes laten zien hoe zij omgaan met thema’s als vrouwelijkheid, lichamelijkheid en religie. Hoe motiveer je als vrouw je keuze voor een ‘mannelijke’ sport? En hoe beargumenteer je deze sportkeuze tegenover je ouders en je religie?

Ladies Only
Er is in de geschiedenis een scheidslijn te zien tussen sporten voor mannen, en sporten voor vrouwen. De vraag of een sport geschikt was voor vrouwen lag aan de (wel of niet gracieuze) bewegingen van de sport. Kickboksen staat niet bekend om zijn gracieuze bewegingen, maar juist om zijn ruwe en gewelddadige schoppen en stoten. Net als andere vechtsporten wordt kickboksen daarom altijd al gezien als een typische mannensport. Deze stereotypering bestaat (nog steeds) bij veel mannen en vrouwen, van verschillende achtergronden en generaties. Het gewelddadige karakter van de sport wordt vooral als mannelijk gezien, omdat het voor vrouwen niet gepast zou zijn om een ander moedwillend pijn te willen doen. Veel meisjes zijn het eens met deze stelling en kiezen ervoor om alleen te trainen, en geen wedstrijden te doen. Toch wordt ook vaak expliciet benadrukt hoe heerlijk het is om al je agressie en frustratie op een bokszak los te laten. En ook ouders geven aan dat ze blij zijn dat hun dochter is gaan trainen, omdat ze nu minder agressief zijn in huis.

Kickboksende meisjes zijn zich er van bewust dat ze een ‘mannelijke sport’ doen en kennen de vooroordelen die ermee gepaard gaan. Ondanks de vaak stoere reacties hierop zijn sommigen ook bang voor ‘manwijf’ of lesbienne uitgemaakt te worden. Als kickboksende vrouw tussen de mannen moet je behalve over een lichamelijke conditie en kracht dus over behoorlijk wat zelfvertrouwen beschikken. Hoewel de vrouwen die niet in gemengde lessen trainen, zich niet direct hoeven te bewijzen tegenover mannelijke tegenstanders, hebben ook zij te maken met de stereotyperingen omtrent vechtsport. Op school, thuis en op straat worden ze hiermee geconfronteerd. Vechtsporten heeft de reputatie, net zoals voetbal bijvoorbeeld, mannelijke lichaamskenmerken op te leveren. Meer dan zwemmen of tennis, terwijl die ook vaak vergelijkbare fysieke effecten hebben. De sport wordt voor vrouwen daardoor vaak gepromoot met andere kenmerken van de sport, zoals dat je jezelf leert verdedigen. Door de collectieve ideeën die bestaan over mannelijkheid en vrouwelijkheid, en sporten die daarbij zouden passen, bieden sportscholen aangepaste lessen aan zoals ‘ladies-only’ lessen en Boks & Fun. Het ruwe karakter van de sport wordt zo afgezwakt. Veel meisjes kiezen deze aangepaste lessen juist uit vanwege deze ‘vrouwelijke touch’. De dames willen graag afvallen en ‘gezellig een uurtje bewegen’, en niet per se hun agressie kwijt of kunnen vechten. Ze behouden bij het sporten graag hun vrouwelijke karakter en bijbehorende lichaamskenmerken. Ook de posters en flyers voor damestrainingen promoten juist de vrouwelijke voordelen van het kickboksen. Als we de dames op kickboksposters en flyers moeten geloven, krijg je van kickboksen een slanker en strakker lichaam. De vrouwen kijken wel altijd stoer en alsof ze ieder moment kunnen aanvallen. Veel meiden vallen voor het ideaal van de slanke dame in roze op het affiche. Zo wordt in de kleedkamer het gewicht veelvuldig besproken. Elke week een kilo erbij of eraf, of weer een nieuw dieet uitgeprobeerd, iedereen is van elkaars vorderingen op de hoogte. Veel van de meisjes noemen ‘gewichtsverlies’ als reden dat ze zijn gaan kickboksen. Ze doen heel erg hun best om zo vrouwelijk mogelijk over te komen. Dit gebeurt in verschillende ‘mannelijke’ sporten, en vooral jonge vrouwen houden zich hier veel mee bezig. Dit merk je vooral in gemengde lessen. Als een meisje samen met een jongen traint, dan doet het meisje alsof ze heel hard is, maar zodra de oefening over is, lacht ze vriendelijk en maakt een speels grapje. Een bijkomende reactie hierop is het tonen van vrouwelijkheid via het uiterlijk. Ook dit heeft al een lange traditie. In sporten voor mannen wordt ‘mannelijkheid’ historisch gezien gepromoot en ‘gevierd’ door de media en overheid. Vrouwelijke sporten werden door deze tendens ook op hun vrouwelijkheid beoordeeld.

Zowel de meisjes die ik heb gesproken in de gemengde lessen als in de ‘ladies-only’ lessen doen hun best om een vrouwelijk uiterlijk te creëren. Roze is bijvoorbeeld een erg populaire kleur als het om kleding, handschoenen en scheenbeschermers gaat. En hoewel lang haar onpraktisch is, zijn er maar weinig meisje die het voor hun sport afknippen. Ook zorgen de meeste dames ervoor dat ze goed gekleed en gekapt de sportschool in en uitlopen, vooral als het mooi weer is. Toen er in Amsterdam een professionele fotograaf langs kwam, riep een van de meisjes: ‘Wacht ik doe nog even wat lipgloss op!’ Dit wordt ook wel ‘the feminine apologetic’ genoemd: het idee dat vrouwelijke sporters aantrekkelijk moeten zijn voor mannen om hun participatie in bepaalde sporten te legitimeren. Dit fenomeen is niet uniek in de sport, maar wordt bijvoorbeeld ook gesignaleerd in de zakenwereld.

De meiden zijn wel ook trots dat ze een ruwe sport beoefenen, omdat je je mannetje staat, je laat niet over je heen lopen. Ook zijn ze trots op de blauwe plekken, zoals blijkt uit dit stukje dialoog dat plaatsvond na een training in de kleedkamer:

Halima: Ah lekker! Ik ben kapot!
Aziza: Zo, anders ik wel. Die elleboog van jou was echt niet normaal hoor?
Halima: Elleboog?
Aziza: Ja elleboog ja! Je blokte mijn knie met je elleboog! Dat wordt zéker een blauwe plek. Hier kijk.
(Aziza stroopt haar legging omhoog en laat haar knie zien, die een beetje rood is.)
Halima: Ach man, dat is niks. Kijk, dit zijn blauwe plekken. Dit (laat haar bovenarm zien), dit (laat haar dijbeen zien).
(Trainster Mounia komt binnenlopen en lacht om het gesprek. Ze tilt haar knie op en wijst op haar scheenbeen.)
Mounia: Kijk, zo kan het ook. Geen blauwe plekken. Jullie moeten nog hard worden. En gewoon beter verdedigen.

Dit citaat laat zien dat het de kickboksters niet alleen gaat om de vrouwelijke aspecten van de sport. Ook het hard worden spreekt ze aan. Er wordt niet gezeurd over de pijn, maar eerder opgeschept over hoeveel pijn iemand kan verdragen.

Bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid
De vrouwelijkheid die gepromoot wordt op de posters voor ‘ladies-only’ trainingen, wordt op zodanige manier toegepast op het lichaam dat het nog strookt met wat er binnen de kring van de meisjes acceptabel is. Je hoeft niet per se een topje aan te trekken om je vrouwelijkheid te accentueren. Halima bijvoorbeeld, bedekt haar hele lichaam, maar accentueert het wel met roze elementen. De meeste meisjes dragen een T-shirt dat de schouders bedekt. Vaak zit daar zelfs nog een hemdje onder, dat in de broek gestopt wordt om een blote rug te voorkomen. Het is te kort door de bocht gezegd dat de meisjes dit doen omdát ze islamitisch zijn. We kunnen dit beter beschouwen als een habituele handeling die terug is te voeren op religie. Ook Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes die zich niet sterk identificeren met de islam hebben vaak deze gewoontes. Zo ook Souad, een 21-jarige hbo-studente. Ze is moslim, maar praktiseert haar geloof, naar eigen zeggen, niet ‘100%’. Ze draagt geen hoofddoek, bidt niet dagelijks en doet ‘wel eens dingen die God verboden heeft, zeg maar’. Op een dag zag ik haar naar de gymzaal toe lopen met een sjaal om haar bovenlijf gewikkeld. Om bij de gymzaal te komen moest ze door een korte gang waar de (mannelijke) eigenaar van de gym nog stond te praten met de trainster. Achteraf legde ze uit dat ze een sjaal omsloeg omdat ze het ‘niet zo netjes’ vond om langs hem te lopen met ‘zo’n strak truitje’. Bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid zijn voor haar een vanzelfsprekend onderdeel van lichamelijk handelen. Deze bescheidenheid en ingetogenheid zijn volgens velen voor vrouwen ook door de islam voorgeschreven. Deze modesty is een veel bestudeerd onderwerp op het gebied van gender en islam. Het gaat hierbij behalve om het dragen van (in een bepaalde mate) bedekkende kleding bijvoorbeeld ook om het niet in de ogen kijken van mannen. Ook dit zijn habituele handelingen, die vaak worden teruggevoerd op religie.

De eerste sociaal-wetenschappelijke studies naar sport en sportparticipatie hadden vaak een etnocentrische invalshoek. Daar zijn vooral stereotyperingen uit naar voren gekomen zoals ‘Aziaten zijn niet geïnteresseerd in sport’ of ‘islamitische meisjes mogen van hun ouders niet sporten. De identiteitsvorming van islamitische meisjes moet echter breder onderzocht worden. Zij zijn soms minder geneigd zich te identificeren met de etnische groep, maar in eerste plaats vaak met religie, dus in dit geval als moslima. De ouders van bijvoorbeeld Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes zijn bijvoorbeeld niet gewend te sporten. De islam biedt deze meisjes echter juist handvatten om te sporten, omdat de religie voorschrijft dat lichamelijke beweging gezondheidsvoordelen oplevert. Vooral in Iran is dit goed te zien, waar vrouwen steeds vaker (gescheiden) sporten, en dit zelfs gestimuleerd wordt met verwijzing naar de Koran. Paardrijden is om die reden een populaire sport in Iran. Ook op verschillende webfora wordt de discussie naar voren gehaald of vrouwen wel of niet zouden mogen sporten volgens de islam. Vaak gaat het daarbij of het toegestaan is om gemengd te sporten of dat het beter is alleen met vrouwen te sporten. Vaak zijn deze gesprekken praktisch van aard, en worden er tips over kleding uitgewisseld en adressen waar je lange kickboksbroeken kan kopen. Een ander punt dat vaak terugkomt in discussies is de vraag hoe om te gaan met muziek tijdens een sportles. Sommige discussies gaan dieper en verwijzen naar de teksten. Een veel gehoord voorbeeld is de beschreven hardloopwedstrijden tussen profeet Mohammed en zijn vrouw Aicha. Een discussie waar zowel vrouwen als mannen zich in bevinden gaat over de vraag of kickboksen überhaupt wel toegestaan is in de islam. De antwoorden variëren van persoonlijke meningen en ervaringen tot citaten uit de koran en hadith. Volgens de overleveringen zou het niet toegestaan zijn om andere of jezelf letsel aan te brengen, en al helemaal niet om iemand in het gezicht te slaan. Veel mensen kiezen er daardoor voor om alleen te trainen, en geen wedstrijden te vechten. Veel trainingen voor beginners en ook sommige gevorderde ladies-only lessen, gaan uit van oefeningen zonder in het gezicht te slaan. Ook het sparren gebeurd zonder het gezicht te raken. De meisjes die dit wel doen, beargumenteren hun keuze door te wijzen op het feit dat beide personen in het gevecht hier vrijwillig voor gekozen hebben.

Opvallend is echter dat de sportende meisjes zelf, ook als ze zich nadrukkelijk als moslima identificeren, deze discussies niet vaak voeren in en rondom de sportschool. Ze hebben de keuze al gemaakt, voordat ze de eerste training begonnen. Wel gaan er heel veel gesprekken over het sporten als moslima. Dus als je sport, hoe doe je dat dan? Sommige meiden laten daarmee heel bewust zien dat het goed mogelijk is om tegelijkertijd te kickboksen én moslima te zijn.

Tot slot
Kickboksende dames, met verschillende etnische of religieuze achtergronden, hebben te maken met de stereotypering van kickboksen als mannensport. Zij moeten zich derhalve verdedigen voor de sport die ze uitoefenen. Daarbij bevinden de meisjes zich in een levensfase waarbij zij hun vrouwelijkheid ontwikkelen en tegelijkertijd de grenzen van het gezag van ouders opzoeken. De meiden identificeren zich soms met het harde karakter van de sport, maar hopen tegelijkertijd ‘vrouwelijke’ lichaamskenmerken te verkrijgen met de sport en benadrukken deze vrouwelijkheid juist via gedrag en kleding. Tegelijkertijd performen zij deze vrouwelijkheid zodanig dat het strookt met de normen en waarden die ze van huis uit hebben meegekregen. Daarbij komt dat Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes en hun islamitische ouders vaak minder moeite hebben met kickboksen, omdat het een sport is waar meisjes gescheiden kunnen trainen en geen (niet-bedekkende) kleding hoeven te dragen die de vrouwelijke vormen accentueert. De populariteit van kickboksen onder Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes, en ladies-only lessen in het bijzonder, maken duidelijk dat deze groep meisjes de bestaande stereotyperingen kunnen weerleggen.

Jasmijn Rana voerde in opdracht van Forum onderzoek uit naar kickboksende Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes. Onlangs verscheen bij Boom Lemma Uitgevers ‘Chicks, Kicks & Glory. De betekenis van kickboksen voor Marokkaans-Nederlandse meisjes’.
Zij begint in oktober 2011 aan haar promotieonderzoek Young Muslim women in combat sports: Tensions and connections, aan de Berlin Graduate School for Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Unviersität Berlin.

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“V for Vendetta”: The Other Face of Egypt’s Youth Movement

Posted on June 3rd, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Guest authors, Headline, Society & Politics in the Middle East, Youth culture (as a practice).

Guest Author: Linda Herrera

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea […] and ideas are bulletproof.” – From the film V for Vendetta

In the summer of 2010 the youth of Facebook, “shebab al-Facebook,” began a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience through the Arabic “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook Fan Page. The success of their “silent stands” throughout the country gave youth a media friendly face as a group that espouses peaceful non-violent forms of civil disobedience to confront oppression and tyranny. The inspiration for the peaceful side of the movement was derived from divergent sources. Analysts writing in the western press were keen to point out the influence from celebrated figures and icons of nonviolence like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Gene Sharp and the human rights orientation of the cause. [1] The reputation the youth garnered as deft in nonviolent civil disobedience was well deserved and the silent stands were a feat of group solidarity, DIY youth activism, and the art of on-line to off-line mobilization. [2] But in actuality the youth movement has moved on multiple fronts and employed diverse strategies. The page itself vacillates between using bellicose language and images when talking about the objects of their rage — for example, the police and Interior Ministry — to instructing the community on non-violent peaceful strategies. The two approaches coexist in a symbiotic relation. On the flip side of any mask of peace is often a mask of menace.

From Google Images

The Guy Fawkes mask lifted from the comic book series and film V for Vendetta has been a staple of the page and the movement from the start. V for Vendetta enjoys cult status among certain segments of shebab al-Facebook who fall under the rubric of leftists, anarchists, Mohamed el Baradei supporters, Islamists, post-Islamists — which are by no means mutually exclusive categories. The potent imagery and eminently quotable lines from the film permeate individual Facebook pages and the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook Fan Page as posts, threads, cartoons, video links, and wall photos.

Cartoon posted on Arabic "We are All Khaled Said" Wall on July 29, 2010. The text reads: "We seek God's aid against misery."

The film, written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski and adapted from the comic book characters created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is set in a dystopian future that is a totalitarian Britain. The story serves as a warning to governments not to push their people too far and is a reminder to people of the formidable power they possess if they know how to harness it. The antihero, V, whose name stands for vendetta, vengeance, victim, villain, victory, violence, and “vestige of the vox populi,” also denotes “veritas,” truth. V survives a personal ordeal of captivity and torture and dedicates his life to taking revenge on his captors and awakening his fellow citizens to their oppression. He uses the mass broadcast system, the state’s propaganda machinery, to transmit his message. He proclaims:

“[T]he truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice . . . intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told . . . if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

The speech continues:

“I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen [Guy Fawkes] wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words — they are perspectives.”

V not only speaks the truth about the complicity of individuals in perpetuating the system, but makes them aware that they hold the power to overturn it. He declares to his fellow citizens:

“You are but a single individual. How can you possible make any difference? Individuals have no power in this modern world. That is what you’ve been taught because that is what they need you to believe. But it is not true. This is why they are afraid and the reason that I am here: to remind you that it is individuals who always hold the power. The real power. Individuals like me. And individuals like you.”

On June 14, 2010, eight days after Khaled Said’s killing at the hands of two officers, a short film, “Khaled for Vendetta,” was uploaded to YouTube with links to it on the Facebook page. A second film, “Khaled Vendetta,” followed on July 29, 2010.

The five-minute film “Khaled for Vendetta,” written and directed by Mohamed Elm elhoda (Matrix2008 studio), masterfully draws out the parallels between the totalitarian society in V for Vendetta and Egypt under Emergency Law.

The film opens with ominous music from V for Vendetta followed by a fade in and out of Khaled’s image over a black backdrop. The shot cuts to the Peoples Assembly (Majlis al-Sha`ab) session of May 11, 2010, with the then Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif, announcing the renewal of Emergency Law for two more years. He declares it will be used only to confront drugs and terrorism. Members of parliament applaud. The words “drugs and terrorism” are repeated over and over.

V sets down the first domino.

The next scene opens with a homemade film of a smiling Khaled in what appears to be his bedroom, followed by the now infamous photo taken at the morgue of his mangled face. A text states that Khaled Said was beaten by two plainclothes police under the auspices of the Emergency Law.

The masked man stacks more dominos.

The shot moves to a scene from the original film, a conversation between two police investigators about how everything is connected:

Finch: I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It was like I could see the whole thing; one long chain of events that stretched back […]. I felt like I could see everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern laid out in front of me and I realized that we were all part of it, and all trapped by it.

Dominic: So do you know what’s gonna happen?

Finch: No. It was a feeling. But I can guess. With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty. And then, Sutler [the leader] will be forced do the only thing he knows how to do. At which point, all V needs to do is keep his word. And then . . .

In the meantime V is setting up an elaborate pattern of dominos in the shape of an encircled “V.” He flicks the first domino and it sets off scenes of violence, chaos, destruction, fire, protests, shouting, upheaval.

The film ends with two still images. The first is of police in disproportionate numbers surrounding a small group of demonstrators. The second and final image is of the people outnumbering and surrounding the police. This closing image no doubt conveys the famous dictum from the film, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

In June of 2010, after the film was uploaded, a handful of viewers posted comments which are revealing of the movement within a movement.

“Brilliant video . . . Maybe Dr.El Baradei will be our “v” here in Egypt to save? us . . . I recommend this movie for everyone, it is like a mirror to the current situation here in Egypt . . . God bless you”

“Beneath this mask there is more? than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Adly, and ideas are bulletproof.”

“It brought the tears to my eyes? I can see it all coming soon isa? [inshaallah] it’s not khaled for vendetta anymore . . . it’s? Egypt for vendetta thnx mohamed for that awesome video”

With the fall of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, an image that immediately started circulating on Facebook was that of a masked man in the foreground of Tunisia’s flag. As Egyptians prepared for their own revolution, the simple image of the masked V made the rounds.

Image posted on Facebook

The appearance of this mask signaled that shebab al-Facebook were becoming restless. Their strategy of silence, even a deafening silence, was perceived as no longer enough to achieve the kind of political change they anxiously desired. And change they got.

In this post-revolution, post-Mubarak period, the mask and spirit of V have been more of less dormant. If events take a turn for the worse, if the crackdown from the military becomes unbearable or a dreaded counterrevolution occurs, V may very well resurface. But for now this seems unlikely, as youth are working in coalitions to develop civil political strategies to meet the changing circumstances. They are making some inroads as they press for democratic change, for working towards the realization of a society that affords people dignity and livelihoods. Yet so much remains unclear. What is certain is that the idea for change has been firmly planted and cannot be eradicated. Ideas after all, as V proclaims, are bulletproof. The struggle continues.

[1] See, for instance, articles about the influence of Gene Sharp in the revolution and articles about the Arabic translation of a comic book about Martin Luther King and strategies of non violence.

[2] For more on the silent stands see the excellent articles by Nadine Wahab and Adel Iskandar.

Linda Herrera is a social anthropologist with expertise in comparative and international education. She has lived in Egypt and conducted research on youth cultures and educational change in Egypt and the wider Middle East for over two decades. She is currently Associate Professor, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is co-editor with A. Bayat of the volume Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global North and South, published by Oxford University Press (2010).

This is article also appears on Jadaliyya.com. Other articles by Linda Herrera on Closer are:
Two Faces of Revolution
Egypt’s Revolution 2.0 – The Facebook Factor

1 comment.

"V for Vendetta": The Other Face of Egypt's Youth Movement

Posted on June 3rd, 2011 by martijn.
Categories: Guest authors, Headline, Society & Politics in the Middle East, Youth culture (as a practice).

Guest Author: Linda Herrera

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea […] and ideas are bulletproof.” – From the film V for Vendetta

In the summer of 2010 the youth of Facebook, “shebab al-Facebook,” began a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience through the Arabic “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook Fan Page. The success of their “silent stands” throughout the country gave youth a media friendly face as a group that espouses peaceful non-violent forms of civil disobedience to confront oppression and tyranny. The inspiration for the peaceful side of the movement was derived from divergent sources. Analysts writing in the western press were keen to point out the influence from celebrated figures and icons of nonviolence like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Gene Sharp and the human rights orientation of the cause. [1] The reputation the youth garnered as deft in nonviolent civil disobedience was well deserved and the silent stands were a feat of group solidarity, DIY youth activism, and the art of on-line to off-line mobilization. [2] But in actuality the youth movement has moved on multiple fronts and employed diverse strategies. The page itself vacillates between using bellicose language and images when talking about the objects of their rage — for example, the police and Interior Ministry — to instructing the community on non-violent peaceful strategies. The two approaches coexist in a symbiotic relation. On the flip side of any mask of peace is often a mask of menace.

From Google Images

The Guy Fawkes mask lifted from the comic book series and film V for Vendetta has been a staple of the page and the movement from the start. V for Vendetta enjoys cult status among certain segments of shebab al-Facebook who fall under the rubric of leftists, anarchists, Mohamed el Baradei supporters, Islamists, post-Islamists — which are by no means mutually exclusive categories. The potent imagery and eminently quotable lines from the film permeate individual Facebook pages and the “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook Fan Page as posts, threads, cartoons, video links, and wall photos.

Cartoon posted on Arabic "We are All Khaled Said" Wall on July 29, 2010. The text reads: "We seek God's aid against misery."

The film, written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski and adapted from the comic book characters created by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is set in a dystopian future that is a totalitarian Britain. The story serves as a warning to governments not to push their people too far and is a reminder to people of the formidable power they possess if they know how to harness it. The antihero, V, whose name stands for vendetta, vengeance, victim, villain, victory, violence, and “vestige of the vox populi,” also denotes “veritas,” truth. V survives a personal ordeal of captivity and torture and dedicates his life to taking revenge on his captors and awakening his fellow citizens to their oppression. He uses the mass broadcast system, the state’s propaganda machinery, to transmit his message. He proclaims:

“[T]he truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice . . . intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told . . . if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

The speech continues:

“I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen [Guy Fawkes] wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words — they are perspectives.”

V not only speaks the truth about the complicity of individuals in perpetuating the system, but makes them aware that they hold the power to overturn it. He declares to his fellow citizens:

“You are but a single individual. How can you possible make any difference? Individuals have no power in this modern world. That is what you’ve been taught because that is what they need you to believe. But it is not true. This is why they are afraid and the reason that I am here: to remind you that it is individuals who always hold the power. The real power. Individuals like me. And individuals like you.”

On June 14, 2010, eight days after Khaled Said’s killing at the hands of two officers, a short film, “Khaled for Vendetta,” was uploaded to YouTube with links to it on the Facebook page. A second film, “Khaled Vendetta,” followed on July 29, 2010.

The five-minute film “Khaled for Vendetta,” written and directed by Mohamed Elm elhoda (Matrix2008 studio), masterfully draws out the parallels between the totalitarian society in V for Vendetta and Egypt under Emergency Law.

The film opens with ominous music from V for Vendetta followed by a fade in and out of Khaled’s image over a black backdrop. The shot cuts to the Peoples Assembly (Majlis al-Sha`ab) session of May 11, 2010, with the then Prime Minister, Ahmed Nazif, announcing the renewal of Emergency Law for two more years. He declares it will be used only to confront drugs and terrorism. Members of parliament applaud. The words “drugs and terrorism” are repeated over and over.

V sets down the first domino.

The next scene opens with a homemade film of a smiling Khaled in what appears to be his bedroom, followed by the now infamous photo taken at the morgue of his mangled face. A text states that Khaled Said was beaten by two plainclothes police under the auspices of the Emergency Law.

The masked man stacks more dominos.

The shot moves to a scene from the original film, a conversation between two police investigators about how everything is connected:

Finch: I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It was like I could see the whole thing; one long chain of events that stretched back […]. I felt like I could see everything that had happened, and everything that was going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern laid out in front of me and I realized that we were all part of it, and all trapped by it.

Dominic: So do you know what’s gonna happen?

Finch: No. It was a feeling. But I can guess. With so much chaos, someone will do something stupid. And when they do, things will turn nasty. And then, Sutler [the leader] will be forced do the only thing he knows how to do. At which point, all V needs to do is keep his word. And then . . .

In the meantime V is setting up an elaborate pattern of dominos in the shape of an encircled “V.” He flicks the first domino and it sets off scenes of violence, chaos, destruction, fire, protests, shouting, upheaval.

The film ends with two still images. The first is of police in disproportionate numbers surrounding a small group of demonstrators. The second and final image is of the people outnumbering and surrounding the police. This closing image no doubt conveys the famous dictum from the film, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

In June of 2010, after the film was uploaded, a handful of viewers posted comments which are revealing of the movement within a movement.

“Brilliant video . . . Maybe Dr.El Baradei will be our “v” here in Egypt to save? us . . . I recommend this movie for everyone, it is like a mirror to the current situation here in Egypt . . . God bless you”

“Beneath this mask there is more? than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Adly, and ideas are bulletproof.”

“It brought the tears to my eyes? I can see it all coming soon isa? [inshaallah] it’s not khaled for vendetta anymore . . . it’s? Egypt for vendetta thnx mohamed for that awesome video”

With the fall of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, an image that immediately started circulating on Facebook was that of a masked man in the foreground of Tunisia’s flag. As Egyptians prepared for their own revolution, the simple image of the masked V made the rounds.

Image posted on Facebook

The appearance of this mask signaled that shebab al-Facebook were becoming restless. Their strategy of silence, even a deafening silence, was perceived as no longer enough to achieve the kind of political change they anxiously desired. And change they got.

In this post-revolution, post-Mubarak period, the mask and spirit of V have been more of less dormant. If events take a turn for the worse, if the crackdown from the military becomes unbearable or a dreaded counterrevolution occurs, V may very well resurface. But for now this seems unlikely, as youth are working in coalitions to develop civil political strategies to meet the changing circumstances. They are making some inroads as they press for democratic change, for working towards the realization of a society that affords people dignity and livelihoods. Yet so much remains unclear. What is certain is that the idea for change has been firmly planted and cannot be eradicated. Ideas after all, as V proclaims, are bulletproof. The struggle continues.

[1] See, for instance, articles about the influence of Gene Sharp in the revolution and articles about the Arabic translation of a comic book about Martin Luther King and strategies of non violence.

[2] For more on the silent stands see the excellent articles by Nadine Wahab and Adel Iskandar.

Linda Herrera is a social anthropologist with expertise in comparative and international education. She has lived in Egypt and conducted research on youth cultures and educational change in Egypt and the wider Middle East for over two decades. She is currently Associate Professor, Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is co-editor with A. Bayat of the volume Being Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global North and South, published by Oxford University Press (2010).

This is article also appears on Jadaliyya.com. Other articles by Linda Herrera on Closer are:
Two Faces of Revolution
Egypt’s Revolution 2.0 – The Facebook Factor

1 comment.

Global Voices – Islam Goes Pop in Nijmegen

Posted on December 1st, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Public Islam, Youth culture (as a practice).

Zondag 12 december Van 14.00 tot 18.00 uur LUX, Mariënburg 38-39, Nijmegen

Halal-soaps, moslim-rap en een Afghaanse versie van American Idols. Hoe kijken mensen in de islamitische wereld eigenlijk naar dit soort vormen van ‘populaire cultuur’? Combinaties van kunst en amusement met religiositeit zijn voor hen niet altijd evident. Marokkaanse heavy metal fans en -muzikanten werden bijvoorbeeld gearresteerd op verdenking van Satanisme. In vele landen in de islamitische wereld vinden er debatten plaats tussen moslimgeleerden, politici, kunstenaars en publiek over de relatie tussen kunst en islam. Wat is toelaatbaar? Welke muziek mag je wel en niet maken? Mag een artiest een religieuze boodschap overdragen via punk-muziek of rap? Welke instrumenten mogen er wel of niet gebruikt worden? Wie bepaalt dat? Hoe pop is islam?

Het door de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) gefinancierde onderzoeksproject ‘Islam and the performing arts in Europe and the Middle East’, uitgevoerd door de afdeling Islam en Arabisch aan de Radboud universiteit, onderzoekt deze en andere vragen. Met de Egyptische filmmaker Ismail Elmokadem over zijn nieuwste film Pop goes Islam, de islamitische muziekgroep El Waefa uit Den Haag en met Joseph Alagha, Nina ter Laan en Karin van Nieuwkerk van Islam en Arabisch aan de Radboud universiteit. Gespreksleiding is in handen van Chris Keulemans, voormalig directeur van De Balie.

Zondag 12 december Van 14.00 tot 18.00 uur LUX, Mariënburg 38-39, Nijmegen
Entree € 7,50 (€ 2,50 voor studenten op vertoon van collegekaart of OV-jaarkaart) Reserveren via 0900-5894636 (kassa LUX)
Meer info op www.lux-nijmegen.nl.
Georganiseerd i.s.m. Elan, expertisecentrum voor integratie, emancipatie en participatie.
Global is een project van LUX, lokaalmondiaal en het CIDIN van de Radboud Universiteit over globalisering en internationale samenwerking. Dit project is mogelijk gemaakt door de NCDO. Informatie over dit project vindt u op www.globaldebat.nl.

0 comments.

Nu Online: Zoeken naar een ‘zuivere’ Islam

Posted on August 22nd, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications, Gouda Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Ritual and Religious Experience, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Sinds enige tijd kun je via de VU repository mijn proefschrift Zoeken naar een ‘zuivere’ islam downloaden. Dat kan ook via deze site.

• Het proefschrift is online te lezen: HIER
• Samenvatting in het Nederlands lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Artikel Migrantenstudies lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Samenvatting in het Engels lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Artikel ISIM Review in het Engels lezen én downloaden: HIER

Veel leesplezier, en commentaar wordt op prijs gesteld.

3 comments.

Nu Online: Zoeken naar een 'zuivere' Islam

Posted on August 22nd, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications, Gouda Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Ritual and Religious Experience, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Sinds enige tijd kun je via de VU repository mijn proefschrift Zoeken naar een ‘zuivere’ islam downloaden. Dat kan ook via deze site.

• Het proefschrift is online te lezen: HIER
• Samenvatting in het Nederlands lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Artikel Migrantenstudies lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Samenvatting in het Engels lezen én downloaden: HIER
• Artikel ISIM Review in het Engels lezen én downloaden: HIER

Veel leesplezier, en commentaar wordt op prijs gesteld.

3 comments.

New Publication: Being Young and Muslim – New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North

Posted on August 19th, 2010 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, ISIM Leiden, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Oxford University Press: Being Young and Muslim: Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat

Being Young and Muslim
New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North
Editors: Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of interest in youth issues and Muslim youth in particular. Young Muslims have been thrust into the global spotlight in relation to questions about security and extremism, work and migration, and rights and citizenship. This book interrogates the cultures and politics of Muslim youth in the global South and North to understand their trajectories, conditions, and choices. Drawing on wide-ranging research from Indonesia to Iran and Germany to the U.S., it shows that while the majority of young Muslims share many common social, political, and economic challenges, they exhibit remarkably diverse responses to them. Far from being “exceptional,” young Muslims often have as much in common with their non-Muslim global generational counterparts as they share among themselves. As they migrate, forge networks, innovate in the arts, master the tools of new media, and assert themselves in the public sphere, Muslim youth have emerged as important cultural and political actors on a world stage. The essays in this volume look at the strategies Muslim youths deploy to realize their interests and aspirations.

The volume explores the ways in which the young, both in Muslim majority societies and Muslim communities in the West, negotiate their Muslim identity in relation to their youthful desires – their individuality, the search for autonomy and security for the future. Due to a combination of the shifting moral politics at home, the relentless process of cultural and economic globalization, the rise of a civilizational discourse in which “Islam” is positioned in opposition to the “West,” sluggish economies and wide scale unemployment, youth cultures and politics are developing in novel yet little understood ways. Their interests, aspirations, and socioeconomic capacities appear to be producing a new cultural politics: the cultural behavior of Muslim youths, the authors say, must be understood as located in the political realm and representing a new arena of contestation for power. While often referred to as the “builders of the future” by the power elite, the young are also stigmatized and feared as disruptive agents who are prone to radicalism and deviation. The essays in this volume look at the strategies Muslim youths deploy to realize their interests and aspirations, including music and fashion, party politics, collective violence, gang activities, religious radicalism and other forms of expression.

Linda Herrera, Senior Lecturer in International Development Studies, is Convenor of the Children and Youth Studies M.A. specialization at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Asef Bayat , Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, holds the chair of Society and Culture of the Middle East and Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the author of Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (2007) and Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (2010).

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Being Young and Muslim in Neoliberal Times by Asef Bayat and Linda Herrera

• Politics of Dissent
• 2. Muslim Youth and the Claim of Youthfulness by Asef Bayat
• 3. The Drama of Jihad: The Emergence of Salafi Youth in Indonesia by Noorhaidi Hasan
• 4. Moroccan Youth and Political Islam by Mounia Bennani-Chraibi
• 5. Rebels without a Cause? A Politics of Deviance in Saudi Arabia by Abdullah al-Otaibi and Pascal Menoret
• 6. The Battle of the Ages: Contests for Religious Authority in The Gambia by Marloes Janson
• 7. Cyber Resistance: Palestinian Youth and Emerging Internet Culture by Makram Khoury-Machool

• Livelihoods and Lifestyles
• 8. Young Egyptians’ Quest for Jobs and Justice by Linda Herrera
• 9. Reaching a Larger World: Muslim Youth and Expanding Circuitries of Operation by AbdouMaliq Simone
• 10.Being Young, Muslim and American in Brooklyn by Moustafa Bayoumi

• Strivings for Citizenship
• 11. ‘Also the School Is a Temple’: Republicanism, Imagined Transnational Spaces, and the Schooling Of Muslim Youth in France by Andre Elias Mazawi
• 12. Avoiding Youthfulness? Young Muslims Negotiating Gender and Citizenship in France and Germany by Schirin Amir-Moazami
• 13. Struggles over Defining the Moral City: Islam and Urban Public Life in Iran by Azam Khatam

• Navigating Identities
• 14. Securing Futures: Youth, Generation, and Muslim Identities in Niger by Adeline Masquelier
• 15. “Rasta” Sufis and Muslim Youth Culture in Mali by Benjamin F. Soares
• 16. Performance, Politics and Visceral Transformation: Post-Islamist Youth in Turkey by Ayse Saktanber
• 17. Negotiating with Modernity: Young Women and Sexuality in Iran by Fatemeh Sadeghi

• Musical Politics
• 18. Fundamental’s Jihad Rap by Ted Swedenburg
• 19. Maroc-Hop: Music and Youth Identities in the Netherlands by Miriam Gazzah
• 20. Heavy Metal in the Middle East: New Urban Spaces in a Translocal Underground by Pierre Hecker
• 21. Music VCDs and the New Generation: Negotiating Youth, Femininity and Islam in Indonesia by Suzanne Naafs
• 22. Conclusion: Knowing Muslim Youth by Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat

• References

“This is an excellent collection of essays on youth in a number of Muslim majority (and minority) societies in the context of globalization and modernity. A particular strength of this volume is its ability to highlight the multiple and contested roles of religion and personal faith in the fashioning of contemporary youthful Muslim identities. Such insights often challenge secular Western master narratives of modernity and suggest credible reconceptualizations of what it means to be young and modern in a broad swath of the world today.”

— Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies, Indiana University

Knowing the work of both editors and having read some of the early versions of different chapters, I would highly recommend this book. It engages with important questions, challenges existing definitions and interpretations without being apologetic. The variety in topics and regions provides the reader with a very rich source of contemporary debates, repertoires and interpretations of being young and Muslim.

1 comment.

New Muslim Cool

Posted on September 15th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Multiculti Issues, Youth culture (as a practice).

A documentary about Jason Perez, an American man who’s a rapper, educator, father, Muslim, husband and idealist who is trying to get away from his old life with gangs and drugs. The documentary is not a typical feel good film but also moves beyond the usual stereotypes showing the reproduction and transformation of cultural repertoires. Great film and probably useful for teaching purposes as well.

You can watch the trailer here:

[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne-dhZckbIk /]

The website New Muslim Cool has the DVD along with an educational toolkit (incl. lessons plans).

0 comments.

From Salvation to Selfation? Subjectivisation among Dutch Christian youngsters

Posted on September 9th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: (Upcoming) Events, Religion Other, Youth culture (as a practice).

Tomorrow my colleague Johan Roeland will defend his PhD thesis: Selfation – Dutch Evangelical Youth Between Subjectivization and Subjection

Published by AUP.

You can download the thesis at VU DARE. Unfortunately I cannot be there because of teaching obligations but I would like to recommend his book to you.  Besides the fact that many of his findings corresponds with that of mine (and other’s) research among Muslim (salafi) youth, it is one of the best accounts of religious life among Dutch orthodox-christian youth.

In the social-scientific study of religion, two theories on the history, development and fate of religion in West-Europe and the United States have been dominant. On the one hand, the secularisation-thesis supporting the conviction that religion in this part of the world is on the decline, both in social and individual respect. On the other hand, the sacralisation-thesis stressing the idea of a lasting and even growing significance of religion, visible in the resurgence of Christianity in charismatic and evangelical forms, the increasing awareness of religious fundamentalism, and the rise of new-religious movements and implicit religious sentiments connected to phenomena such as sport, well-being, health, spirituality, art and internet.

Recently, some scholars in the field (among them Anton van Harskamp, Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead), dissatisfied with the two main theoretical frameworks, developed a third theory, referred to as the subjectivisation-thesis. In the first place they recognise that the West currently witnesses both secularisation and sacralisation, and secondly, that both developments are an expression of – what scholars like Charles Taylor, Ronald Inglehard and Robert Bellah have indicated as – the subjective turn in modern culture.

In this present qualitative research, which is based on fieldwork in Houten, a suburban area in the Netherlands, I will investigate whether the subjectivisation-thesis is a fruitful theory to describe and explain current modes of evangelical and charismatic Christianity among Dutch Christian youngsters. Both the evangelical and charismatic movement have increased in popularity in recent years, especially among young people, and have become a visible, lively and attractive phenomenon in the Dutch religious scene. My main question addresses the extension of these modes of religiosity in terms of subjectivization among young people. I will answer this question by focusing on three aspects of subjectivisation: identity, subjectivity and experience.

Het voorheen vanzelfsprekende denkbeeld van de onvermijdelijke afname van de betekenis van religie in Noordwest Europa staat meer en meer ter discussie. Religie lijkt niet zozeer te verdwijnen, maar ze lijkt subjectief en persoonlijk te worden, gericht op de individuele religieuze beleving. In zijn proefschrift onderzoekt Johan Roeland in hoeverre de dominante opvatting over religieuze veranderingen houdbaar is.

Roeland deed een kwalitatief onderzoek naar een van de meest populaire manifestaties van Protestantisme in Nederland: evangelicalisme onder Nederlandse jongeren. Hij neemt de lezer in zijn proefschrift mee naar de settings en gemeenschappen waarin deze jongeren hun geloof beleven en vorm geven. Tevens bespreekt hij de morele en ideologische repertoires aan de hand waarvan deze jongeren gestalte geven aan hun religiositeit, de wijze waarop hun connectie met het heilige is bemiddeld, en de implicaties hiervan voor de discussies over de aard en toekomst van religie in Noordwest Europa.

0 comments.

Migrantenstudies – Identificatie van migrantenjongeren

Posted on August 28th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications, ISIM/RU Research, Multiculti Issues, My Research, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Migrantenstudies is het enige Nederlandstalige wetenschappelijke tijdschrift voor onderzoek naar migratie, etnische minderheden en de Nederlandse samenleving. Tal van onderwerpen komen aan bod zoals huisvesting, gezondheidszorg, onderwijs, arbeidsmarkt, politieke participatie, discriminatie en identiteit. Het eerste nummer van dit jaar (dat sinds kort online staat) is een thema-nummer over identificatie van migrantenjongeren.

Jongeren nemen een belangrijke plaats in het identiteitsdebat in, omdat juist van hen verwacht wordt dat zij zich met Nederland identificeren; het is het land waar ze zijn opgegroeid en vaak ook zijn geboren. Dit themanummer brengt een aantal recente studies samen over identificatie van in het bijzonder Marokkaanse en Turkse migrantenjongeren. Deze studies besteden in het bijzonder aandacht aan de wijze waarop de migrantenjongeren in de context van de huidige Nederlandse samenleving hun identiteit construeren en welke factoren daarop van invloed zijn.
Ersanili & Scholten, p. 3

In dit nummer vindt u artikelen van Han Entzinger, Inge van der Welle en Virginie Mamadouh, Evelyn Ersanili, Susan Ketner, Simone Boogaarts en ondergetekende:

• Inleiding, Evelyn Ersanilli & Peter Scholten (red), pag. 2-8
• Integratie, maar uit de gratie. Multi-etnisch samenleven onder Rotterdamse jongeren, Han Entzinger, pag. 8-23
• Territoriale identiteiten en de identificatiestrategieën van Amsterdamse jongvolwassenen van buitenlandse afkomst. Over evenwichtskunstenaars en kleurbekenners, Inge van der Welle en Virginie Mamadouh, pag. 24-41
• Identificatie van Turkse migrantenjongeren in Nederland, Frankrijk en Duitsland, Evelyn Ersanilli, pag. 42-58
• Islam is islam. Punt uit? Marokkaans-Nederlandse moslimjongeren in Gouda en de culturele constructie van een ‘zuivere’ islam, Martijn de Koning, pag. 59-72
• “Ik denk niet in culturen… ik denk eigenlijk meer in mijn geloof’. Waarom jongeren van Marokkaanse afkomst in Nederland de moslimidentiteit zo sterk benadrukken, Susan Ketner, pag. 73-87
• Gedwongen of Vrije keuze? In- en uitsluitingsmechanisme in de etno-party scene, Simone Boogaarts, pag. 87-104

U kunt het hele nummer gratis downloaden: Themanummer ‘Identificatie van Migrantenjongeren’

0 comments.

Punk Piety – "Challenging the orthodoxy of Punk and Islam"

Posted on August 10th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

A Muslim meld of punk and piety – The Globe and Mail

It was early September and the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA] was about to wrap up in Chicago. About 400 young Muslims had gathered at a Hyatt hotel ballroom for open-mike night, hyped as a wholesome alternative to the vice-land that every big American city inevitably becomes once the sun sets.

The first few acts – Koran recitation, stern spoken-word stylings – matched the hype. But around 3 a.m., with fewer than a quarter of the original audience still around, an all-girl Vancouver punk band took to the stage. A 25-year-old singer with short black hair and a voice like a bar fight asked the crowd: “ISNA, are you ready to rock?”

And no, not everyone was ready to rock on the song Middle Eastern Zombies by Secret Trial Five.
[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpqgrDFeUU /]
(accoustic version not from the ISNA event)

Secret Trial Five is an all-female Canadian punk rock band founded by Sena Hussain after 9/11. The name of the band is derived from a group of Canadian Muslims who currently remain in prison. Together with bands such as Vote Hezbollah, The Kominas, Al-Thawra and Diacritical they belong to a music movement or subculture called taqwacore. Taqwa meaning pious or God-fearing signifying the love and awe for God. Core comes from hardcore or hardcore punk, referring to a punk rock genre that is heavier and faster than early punk rock. Hardcore songs usually are short and very fast (and not to mention loud!) and covering a variety of topics often with a political connotation. Bands such as The Damned, The Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion and Hüskür Dü (in their early times). A particular faction within the hardcore subculture involves the straight edge philosophy of no promiscuity, smoking, drinking or doing drugs.

The name Taqwacores comes from Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores that tells the story of Yusuf Ali. His house, and that of several of his companions, is a safe haven for punk parties and for Muslims who want to remain outside the local mosques for Friday prayers and outside the Muslim Student Organization.
hardcore piety

Umar is “straightedge”, though covered in halal tattoos, including 2:219, referring to the proscription in the Quran against drinking alcohol. Rabeya, the sole female occupant of the house, wears a burqa, and has never been seen by most of her friends. She is also an ardent feminist and a fan of the punk group Propagandhi. Fasiq is a hashishiyyun, often to be found on the roof with a Quran in hand. His usual companion is Jehangir, who tells drunken tales of the taqwacores (hardcore pious) in “Khalifornia” and punk Islamic philosophy to anyone who’ll listen.

All four perform wudhu and use whatever is at hand as a prayer mat. A hole smashed into the wall marks qiblah, the direction of Mecca. Jehangir plays the call to prayer, adhan, on his electric guitar from the rooftop. Every Friday afternoon Islamic kids, punks and drop-outs gather at the house for jumaa.

Jehangir is a tragic romantic, believing in an open and inclusive Islam. At parties, Umar stands disapprovingly at the back of the room, and refuses to allow beer and drugs in his truck, if not the communal space.

The core issue in this novel is the conflict between orthodox, fundamentalist and Sufi varieties of Islam, inclusion and exclusion, an attempt to find a (radical) alternative combined with a public display of complete lack of respect for authorities (in a true punk spirit I may add) by trying to merge hardcore punk with Islam:
Muslim Punk Rock? – India Currents

Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way—the energy perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified cohesive communities when nothing can be further from the truth.

Taqwacores has become a sort of manifesto (as for example Catcher in the Rye has been) for a range of bands that mix punkrock with (their vision on) Islam but without having a distinctive style of music, which to a certain extent challenges people’s understanding of hardcore traditions. For example Al-Thawra has clear rai influences, while Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate is about hiphop and techno and the Kominas use Bhangra influences. Regarding ‘orthodox Islam’ as a code of to do’s and to don’ts they emphasize personal responsibility and individual piety (with no social restraints) and it is clearly a post 9/11 genre taking up all kinds of political issues that pertain to Muslims in a very harsh, rude, provocative and satirical way. What they do also seem to share is that they appear to be ‘pissed off about everything’ (parents, society, politicians, religious authorities you name it) and trying to resist homogenizing labelling (such as progressive, punk, radical, gay, Arab) of Muslims.
Allah, Amps and Anarchy : Rolling Stone

Vote Hezbollah (the band’s name is intended as a joke) is one of five Muslim punk bands that recently wrapped up a ten-date tour that took them from Boston to Chicago during August and September. The bands, which hail from Chicago, San Antonio, Boston and Washington, D.C., share left-of-center politics and an antipathy toward the president. And all have used punk as a means to express the anger, confusion and pride in being young and Muslim in post-9/11 America.

Twenty-four hours after leaving the Toledo mosque, Boston’s Kominas — Punjabi for “the Bastards” — are playing in a packed basement in a rundown corner of Chicago’s Logan Square. Local punks mix with curious young Muslims — including a few girls wearing head scarves — as Kominas frontman Shahjehan Khan launches into the opening lines of “Sharia Law in the U.S.A.”: “I am an Islamist!/And I am an anti-Christ!” Nearby, mohawked bassist Basim Usmani — whose T-shirt reads frisk me i’m muslim — slaps out the song’s bass line while viciously slam-dancing with a dude in a woman’s burqa.

I’m not really sure if we can speak about a real movement here. My impression is that it is yet too small yet but with the taqwacore tour the bands gained more recognition and also the first taqwacore webmagazine has been established. Needless to say that taqwacore also evokes controversy (always important for a movement), accusations of blasphemy and fear of angry Muslims resulting in censorship, but it clearly has also found a way into the lives of (American) Muslim youth:

The Koran, punk rock and lots of questions – Los Angeles Times

Hiba slips out of the white T-shirt with black letters that read “HOMOPHOBIA IS GAY,” which she wore to Kempner High School, where she is a junior. It’s one of a collection of slogans the 17-year-old has silk-screened on T-shirts in her bedroom, unbeknownst to her parents, both Muslim immigrants from Pakistan.

There are other aspects of Hiba’s life lately she thinks they might not approve of either, like the Muslim punk music she has been listening to with lyrics such as “suicide bomb the GAP,” or “Rumi was a homo.” Or the novel she bought online, about rebellious Muslim teenagers in New York. It opens with: “Muhammad was a punk rocker, he tore everything down. Muhammad was a punk rocker and he rocked that town.”

This much Hiba knows: She is a Muslim teenager living in America.

But what does that mean?

It is a question that pesters her, like the other questions she is afraid to ask her parents: Can she still be a good Muslim even though she does not dress in hijab or pray five times a day? If Islam is right, does that make other religions wrong? Is going to prom haram, or sinful? Is punk?

Hiba loves Allah but wrestles with how to express her faith. She wonders whether it is OK to question customs. Behind her parents’ backs, she tests Islamic traditions, trying to decipher culture versus religion, refusing to blindly believe that they are one.

“Isn’t that what Prophet Muhammad did?” asks Hiba, raising her thick black eyebrows and straightening her wiry frame, which takes on the shape of a question mark when she stands hunched in insecurity. “Question the times? Question what other people were doing?”

Hiba’s hunt for answers has led her to other books too. They line her bedroom wall next to copies of Nylon magazine, one with “Gossip Girls” on its front cover. There’s “Radiant Prayers,” a collection from the Koran, and “Rumi: Hidden Music,” a Persian poet celebrated in parts of the Muslim world.[…]One day, Hiba typed the word “punk” into an online search engine and stumbled across a book by writer Michael Muhammad Knight. “The Taqwacores,” a 2003 novel — its title a combination of the Arabic word “taqwa,” or consciousness of God, and “hardcore” — is about a group of punk Muslim friends: a straight-edged Sunni, a rebel girl who wears band patches on her burka and a dope-smoking Sufi who sports a mohawk. The characters drink alcohol, do drugs, urinate on the Koran, have sex, pray, love and worship Allah.

Hiba related to the main character’s take on his identity, in which the author wrote: “I stopped trying to define Punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. . . . Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities when nothing can be further from the truth.”

Hiba devoured the book, passing it around to her friends.

I expect that two films will further contribute to the spread of taqwacore:

EyesteelFilm-TAQWACORE

TAQWACORE! follows Basim and The Kominas on their first North American tour. Along the way, they’ll pick up other Muslim misfits and together they’ll all descend upon Chicago in time to crash the party at the ISNA convention – the largest Muslim event in North America run by top mullahs and imams among the conservative ilk.

Sparks are sure to fly when Basim and his crew show up promoting the ultimate Taqwacore show. In between finding kindred spirits and battling the prejudices of the old guard, TAQWACORE! will chart this explosive new scene attracting Muslims youth all over the globe. Please join us on this intense and insightful thrill ride.

This feature documentary (directed by Omar Majeed and produced by EyeSteelFilm) also features the incident at ISNA referred to above and you can watch a trailer at the website. A second film based upon Taqwacores made by Eyad Zahra is planned for this year.

Al Jazeera English has a very good episode on the Playlist Series on taqwacores featuring taqwacore band Al-Thawra, Eyad Zahra and writer Michael Muhammad Knight
[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbFyBedolM /]
And another fine example of taqwacore band is Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate:

[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W71_qVZTADw /]
I’m not sure if it is has reached (mainland) Europe yet and certainly not the Netherlands, but lets wait, see and listen.

There is also a digital ethnography of the taqwacore scene: Taqwatweet

4 comments.

Punk Piety – “Challenging the orthodoxy of Punk and Islam”

Posted on August 10th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

A Muslim meld of punk and piety – The Globe and Mail

It was early September and the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA] was about to wrap up in Chicago. About 400 young Muslims had gathered at a Hyatt hotel ballroom for open-mike night, hyped as a wholesome alternative to the vice-land that every big American city inevitably becomes once the sun sets.

The first few acts – Koran recitation, stern spoken-word stylings – matched the hype. But around 3 a.m., with fewer than a quarter of the original audience still around, an all-girl Vancouver punk band took to the stage. A 25-year-old singer with short black hair and a voice like a bar fight asked the crowd: “ISNA, are you ready to rock?”

And no, not everyone was ready to rock on the song Middle Eastern Zombies by Secret Trial Five.
[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpqgrDFeUU /]
(accoustic version not from the ISNA event)

Secret Trial Five is an all-female Canadian punk rock band founded by Sena Hussain after 9/11. The name of the band is derived from a group of Canadian Muslims who currently remain in prison. Together with bands such as Vote Hezbollah, The Kominas, Al-Thawra and Diacritical they belong to a music movement or subculture called taqwacore. Taqwa meaning pious or God-fearing signifying the love and awe for God. Core comes from hardcore or hardcore punk, referring to a punk rock genre that is heavier and faster than early punk rock. Hardcore songs usually are short and very fast (and not to mention loud!) and covering a variety of topics often with a political connotation. Bands such as The Damned, The Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion and Hüskür Dü (in their early times). A particular faction within the hardcore subculture involves the straight edge philosophy of no promiscuity, smoking, drinking or doing drugs.

The name Taqwacores comes from Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores that tells the story of Yusuf Ali. His house, and that of several of his companions, is a safe haven for punk parties and for Muslims who want to remain outside the local mosques for Friday prayers and outside the Muslim Student Organization.
hardcore piety

Umar is “straightedge”, though covered in halal tattoos, including 2:219, referring to the proscription in the Quran against drinking alcohol. Rabeya, the sole female occupant of the house, wears a burqa, and has never been seen by most of her friends. She is also an ardent feminist and a fan of the punk group Propagandhi. Fasiq is a hashishiyyun, often to be found on the roof with a Quran in hand. His usual companion is Jehangir, who tells drunken tales of the taqwacores (hardcore pious) in “Khalifornia” and punk Islamic philosophy to anyone who’ll listen.

All four perform wudhu and use whatever is at hand as a prayer mat. A hole smashed into the wall marks qiblah, the direction of Mecca. Jehangir plays the call to prayer, adhan, on his electric guitar from the rooftop. Every Friday afternoon Islamic kids, punks and drop-outs gather at the house for jumaa.

Jehangir is a tragic romantic, believing in an open and inclusive Islam. At parties, Umar stands disapprovingly at the back of the room, and refuses to allow beer and drugs in his truck, if not the communal space.

The core issue in this novel is the conflict between orthodox, fundamentalist and Sufi varieties of Islam, inclusion and exclusion, an attempt to find a (radical) alternative combined with a public display of complete lack of respect for authorities (in a true punk spirit I may add) by trying to merge hardcore punk with Islam:
Muslim Punk Rock? – India Currents

Both began in tremendous bursts of truth and vitality but seem to have lost something along the way—the energy perhaps, that comes with knowing the world has never seen such positive force and fury and never would again. Both have suffered from sell-outs and hypocrites, but also from true believers whose devotion had crippled their creative drive. Both are viewed by outsiders as unified cohesive communities when nothing can be further from the truth.

Taqwacores has become a sort of manifesto (as for example Catcher in the Rye has been) for a range of bands that mix punkrock with (their vision on) Islam but without having a distinctive style of music, which to a certain extent challenges people’s understanding of hardcore traditions. For example Al-Thawra has clear rai influences, while Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate is about hiphop and techno and the Kominas use Bhangra influences. Regarding ‘orthodox Islam’ as a code of to do’s and to don’ts they emphasize personal responsibility and individual piety (with no social restraints) and it is clearly a post 9/11 genre taking up all kinds of political issues that pertain to Muslims in a very harsh, rude, provocative and satirical way. What they do also seem to share is that they appear to be ‘pissed off about everything’ (parents, society, politicians, religious authorities you name it) and trying to resist homogenizing labelling (such as progressive, punk, radical, gay, Arab) of Muslims.
Allah, Amps and Anarchy : Rolling Stone

Vote Hezbollah (the band’s name is intended as a joke) is one of five Muslim punk bands that recently wrapped up a ten-date tour that took them from Boston to Chicago during August and September. The bands, which hail from Chicago, San Antonio, Boston and Washington, D.C., share left-of-center politics and an antipathy toward the president. And all have used punk as a means to express the anger, confusion and pride in being young and Muslim in post-9/11 America.

Twenty-four hours after leaving the Toledo mosque, Boston’s Kominas — Punjabi for “the Bastards” — are playing in a packed basement in a rundown corner of Chicago’s Logan Square. Local punks mix with curious young Muslims — including a few girls wearing head scarves — as Kominas frontman Shahjehan Khan launches into the opening lines of “Sharia Law in the U.S.A.”: “I am an Islamist!/And I am an anti-Christ!” Nearby, mohawked bassist Basim Usmani — whose T-shirt reads frisk me i’m muslim — slaps out the song’s bass line while viciously slam-dancing with a dude in a woman’s burqa.

I’m not really sure if we can speak about a real movement here. My impression is that it is yet too small yet but with the taqwacore tour the bands gained more recognition and also the first taqwacore webmagazine has been established. Needless to say that taqwacore also evokes controversy (always important for a movement), accusations of blasphemy and fear of angry Muslims resulting in censorship, but it clearly has also found a way into the lives of (American) Muslim youth:

The Koran, punk rock and lots of questions – Los Angeles Times

Hiba slips out of the white T-shirt with black letters that read “HOMOPHOBIA IS GAY,” which she wore to Kempner High School, where she is a junior. It’s one of a collection of slogans the 17-year-old has silk-screened on T-shirts in her bedroom, unbeknownst to her parents, both Muslim immigrants from Pakistan.

There are other aspects of Hiba’s life lately she thinks they might not approve of either, like the Muslim punk music she has been listening to with lyrics such as “suicide bomb the GAP,” or “Rumi was a homo.” Or the novel she bought online, about rebellious Muslim teenagers in New York. It opens with: “Muhammad was a punk rocker, he tore everything down. Muhammad was a punk rocker and he rocked that town.”

This much Hiba knows: She is a Muslim teenager living in America.

But what does that mean?

It is a question that pesters her, like the other questions she is afraid to ask her parents: Can she still be a good Muslim even though she does not dress in hijab or pray five times a day? If Islam is right, does that make other religions wrong? Is going to prom haram, or sinful? Is punk?

Hiba loves Allah but wrestles with how to express her faith. She wonders whether it is OK to question customs. Behind her parents’ backs, she tests Islamic traditions, trying to decipher culture versus religion, refusing to blindly believe that they are one.

“Isn’t that what Prophet Muhammad did?” asks Hiba, raising her thick black eyebrows and straightening her wiry frame, which takes on the shape of a question mark when she stands hunched in insecurity. “Question the times? Question what other people were doing?”

Hiba’s hunt for answers has led her to other books too. They line her bedroom wall next to copies of Nylon magazine, one with “Gossip Girls” on its front cover. There’s “Radiant Prayers,” a collection from the Koran, and “Rumi: Hidden Music,” a Persian poet celebrated in parts of the Muslim world.[…]One day, Hiba typed the word “punk” into an online search engine and stumbled across a book by writer Michael Muhammad Knight. “The Taqwacores,” a 2003 novel — its title a combination of the Arabic word “taqwa,” or consciousness of God, and “hardcore” — is about a group of punk Muslim friends: a straight-edged Sunni, a rebel girl who wears band patches on her burka and a dope-smoking Sufi who sports a mohawk. The characters drink alcohol, do drugs, urinate on the Koran, have sex, pray, love and worship Allah.

Hiba related to the main character’s take on his identity, in which the author wrote: “I stopped trying to define Punk around the same time I stopped trying to define Islam. . . . Both are viewed by outsiders as unified, cohesive communities when nothing can be further from the truth.”

Hiba devoured the book, passing it around to her friends.

I expect that two films will further contribute to the spread of taqwacore:

EyesteelFilm-TAQWACORE

TAQWACORE! follows Basim and The Kominas on their first North American tour. Along the way, they’ll pick up other Muslim misfits and together they’ll all descend upon Chicago in time to crash the party at the ISNA convention – the largest Muslim event in North America run by top mullahs and imams among the conservative ilk.

Sparks are sure to fly when Basim and his crew show up promoting the ultimate Taqwacore show. In between finding kindred spirits and battling the prejudices of the old guard, TAQWACORE! will chart this explosive new scene attracting Muslims youth all over the globe. Please join us on this intense and insightful thrill ride.

This feature documentary (directed by Omar Majeed and produced by EyeSteelFilm) also features the incident at ISNA referred to above and you can watch a trailer at the website. A second film based upon Taqwacores made by Eyad Zahra is planned for this year.

Al Jazeera English has a very good episode on the Playlist Series on taqwacores featuring taqwacore band Al-Thawra, Eyad Zahra and writer Michael Muhammad Knight
[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbFyBedolM /]
And another fine example of taqwacore band is Sagg Taqwacore Syndicate:

[flashvideo filename=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W71_qVZTADw /]
I’m not sure if it is has reached (mainland) Europe yet and certainly not the Netherlands, but lets wait, see and listen.

There is also a digital ethnography of the taqwacore scene: Taqwatweet

4 comments.

Stierf Michael Jackson als moslim?

Posted on June 29th, 2009 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Ritual and Religious Experience, Youth culture (as a practice).

Natuurlijk is er veel aandacht voor de dood van Michael Jackson en zoals u inmiddels wel gewend bent zijn post over actuele dramatische zaken hier altijd laat en zelfs een beetje mosterd na de maaltijd. Diverse webfora zoals Marokko.nl (HIER, HIER, HIER), Ansaar.nl (HIER) en Ontdekislam (HIER) hebben zeer veel bijdragen van participanten over MJ. Zeker bij Marokko.nl valt wel op dat er nogal wat mensen iets melden die dat normaal veel minder of zelfs niet doen. Eén van de discussies over MJ die voortdurend terugkomt gaat over de vraag of hij nu wel moslim is of niet.

Die vraag, of beter nog de sinds 2003 regelmatig terugkerende bewering dat hij bekeerd is tot de islam is ook al eerder hier aan bod geweest. Ook nu zijn de rapporten dat hij tot de islam bekeerd zou zijn, niet van de lucht en niet alleen op sites waar moslims komen. Naar verluidt zou hij beinvloed zijn door reizen naar het Midden-Oosten en zijn broer Jermaine. Let wel er is geen enkele officiële bevestiging dat hij moslim was, van hemzelf of zijn directe omgeving. Wel ontkenningen hiervan. Niettemin dus nu met zijn dood doen de geruchten weer de ronde en op sommige Engelstalige sites kun je zelfs gebeden voor de doden (Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un) vinden en het is duidelijk dat (los van of hij nu wel of niet moslim is) zijn dood velen geraakt heeft, ook buiten het westen.

Muslimmatters gaat op hun gebruikelijke, dwz grondige, wijze in op bovenstaande vraag. Zij verwijzen onder meer naar imam Johari Malik die stelt dat CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in zijn show The Situation Room terloops opgemerkt zou hebben dat een imam de familie Jackson heeft bezocht om de begrafenis te bespreken. Er is echter geen enkele bevestiging voor te vinden. Ali Eteraz stelt dat degenen die betrokken zouden zijn geweest bij zijn bekering, allen ontkend hebben zoals Dawud Wharnsby.

Nu is het voor gelovigen wellicht begrijpelijk dat men zich nu afvraagt of MJ moslim was; als hij immers in het paradijs wil komen zal hij toch moslim moeten zijn. En hij heeft mogelijk nogal wat zonden die vergeven moeten worden. Toch lijkt het vrij twijfelachtig dat hij inderdaad moslim is en die geruchten zijn eigenlijk al vanaf het begin al onwaarschijnlijk. Waarom dan toch dat hardnekkige gerucht dat hij moslim is, zowel aan de zijde van moslims als van niet-moslims? Een poging om één van de grootste popsterren allertijden te annexeren als moslim? Een poging om zich te distantiëren van één van de meest omstreden Westerse popsterren allertijden? Een poging om zielenheil te vinden voor een superster die velen na aan het hart gaat? Een poging om een verklaring te vinden voor zijn ogenschijnlijk irrationele gedrag?

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Leo Lucassen over hangjeugd vanaf 1850

Posted on November 11th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Youth culture (as a practice).

AD.nl – Gouda – ’Ook in de jaren ’20 stenen door autoruit’

Kern van het betoog van hoogleraar Leo Lucassen over hangjongeren, is dat burgers minder accepteren van hun omgeving dan voorheen, waardoor oude problemen plotseling nieuw lijken.

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ISIM Review available online

Posted on November 3rd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: [Online] Publications, Arts & culture, ISIM/RU Research, Multiculti Issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements, Research International, Ritual and Religious Experience, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

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

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

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

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Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth – Miriam Gazzah

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: (Upcoming) Events, Arts & culture, Youth culture (as a practice).

Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth

8 September 2008 |1.30 pm | Academiezaal Aula, Comeniuslaan 2, Radboud University Nijmegen

Supervisors: Prof. dr. C.H.M. Versteegh, prof. dr. A.I. Tayob (University of Capetown)
Co-supervisor: dr. K. van Nieuwkerk

Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch-Moroccan Youth is the Ph.D study by Miriam Gazzah. It is a comprehensive anthropological study of the social significance of music among Dutch-Moroccan youth. In the Netherlands, a Dutch-Moroccan music scene has emerged, including events and websites. Dutch-Moroccan youth are often pioneers in the Dutch hiphop scene, using music as a tool to identify with or distance themselves from others. They (re)present and position themselves in society through music and musical activities. The chapters in this study deal with the development of the Dutch-Moroccan music scene, the construction of Dutch-Moroccan identity, the impact of Islam on female artists and the way Dutch- Moroccan rappers react to stereotypes about Moroccans. All along, Dutch society, its struggles with multiculturalism and its debates on integration, the position of Islam and fear of terrorism, form the backdrop to this story.

Miriam Gazzah has studied Mediterranean studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She graduated in 2001. Her MA thesis focused on the development of the raï music subculture in Algeria. Between 2003 and 2007 she was a PhD Fellow at International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden and the Radboud University Nijmegen.

Venue: Academiezaal Aula, Comeniuslaan 2, Radboud University Nijmegen

Supervisors: Prof. dr. C.H.M. Versteegh, prof. dr. A.I. Tayob (University of Capetown)
Co-supervisor: dr. K. van Nieuwkerk

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RU Wetenschapsagenda – Nederlands-Marokkaanse jongeren en hun muziek

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Arts & culture, Important Publications, Youth culture (as a practice).

Wetenschapsagenda – Nederlands-Marokkaanse jongeren en hun muziek – www.ru.nl

Nederlands-Marokkaanse jongeren en hun muziek

Muziek is een belangrijk middel voor jongeren om duidelijk te maken wie ze zijn en waar ze bij willen horen. Dat geldt ook voor Nederlands-Marokkaanse jongeren, een groep die centraal staat in het promotieonderzoek van Miriam Gazzah. Door hen via muziek te benaderen, wilde zij meer inzicht te krijgen in de diversiteit aan identiteiten onder Nederlands-Marokkaanse jongeren – een groep die nogal eens over één kam wordt geschoren.

Miriam Gazzah (Vaassen, 1977) studeerde mediterrane studies aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. Van 2003 tot 2007 werkte zij aan haar promotieonderzoek bij het International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) gelieerd aan de Universiteit Leiden en de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. Dit promotieonderzoek is begeleid vanuit het Institute for Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies van de Radboud Universteit Nijmegen. Gazzah heeft in 2006 en 2007 meegewerkt aan de tentoonstelling ‘Multiple M, Lifestyles van moslimjongeren’ van de Amsterdamse stichting Imagine Identity and Culture. Momenteel werkt zij bij het Limburgs Museum als medewerker in het project Kleur Bekennen, dat gaat over migratie en migranten in Limburg.

Miriam Gazzah promoveert op 8 september aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op haar proefschrift ‘Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and Identification Processes of Dutch- Moroccan Youth’. Promotores: prof. A.I. Tayob (Universiteit van Kaapstad), prof. C.Versteegh. Copromotor: dr. K. van Nieuwkerk.

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| overigeartikelen – Het probleem is juist dat ze te weinig Marokkaans zijn

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Youth culture (as a practice).

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Protected: Trouw, deVerdieping| overigeartikelen – Het probleem is juist dat ze te weinig Marokkaans zijn

Posted on July 18th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Youth culture (as a practice).

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How Heavy Metal Is Working Its Way Into Islam : NPR

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

How Heavy Metal Is Working Its Way Into Islam : NPR
Talk of the Nation, July 10, 2008 · Music like heavy metal, punk, hip-hop and reggae — often voices of protest — are typically considered immoral in the Muslim world. But this music may also turn out to be the soundtrack of a revolution unfolding across that world, according to one author. Mark LeVine, an author, musician and professor of Middle Eastern history, talks about the young generation of heavy metal fans in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Excerpt: ‘Heavy Metal Islam’

by Mark LeVine

The first time I heard the words “heavy metal” and “Islam” in the same sentence, I was confused, to say the least. It was around 5:00 p.m. on a hot July day in the city of Fes, Morocco in 2002. I was at the bar of the five-star Palais Jamai Hotel with a group of friends having a drink—and only one drink, considering they were about twenty-five dollars apiece—to celebrate a birthday. Out of nowhere the person sitting across from me described a punk performance he had seen not long before we met, in the city of Rabat.

“There are Muslim punks? In Morocco?” I asked him.

The idea of a young Moroccan with a mohawk and a Scottish kilt almost caused me to spill my drink.

“Of course,” he replied. “And the metal scene here is good too.” That the possibility of a Muslim heavy-metal scene came as a total surprise to me only underscored how much I still had to learn about Morocco, and the Muslim world more broadly, even after a dozen years studying, traveling, and living in it. If there could be such a thing as a Heavy Metal Islam, I thought, then perhaps the future was far brighter than most observers of the Muslim world imagined less than a year after September 11, 2001.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at the notion of Muslim metalheads or punkers. Muslim history is full of characters and movements that seemed far out of the mainstream in their day, but that nevertheless helped bring about farreaching changes in their societies. As I nursed my drink, I contemplated the various musical, cultural, and political permutations that could be produced by combining Islam and hard rock. I began to wonder: What could Muslim metal artists and their fans teach us about the state of Islam today?

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