Wednesday, February 16, 2011

To Egypt, With Love

The neo conservative –the ideology or worldview that the Bush Administration after the Sep 11 terror attacks heartily professed and espoused-assessment and analysis of the ills that plague the Arab Islamic world have a striking resonance in the protest movement gripping the very important state of Egypt. Briefly, neo conservatives attributed the ills of the region largely to the authoritarian nature of governance and the striking absence of democracy and freedom in much of the Middle East. And, perhaps more importantly and significantly, they held that freedom was the fundamental aspiration and longing of every human being or that it-the idea of freedom-was and is universal. Nothing more validates the neo con assessment, to repeat, at the risk of sounding tautological, than the rumblings of change or the protest movement directed against the power structure put in place by the ageing gerontocrat and autocrat, Hosni Mubarak and his power clique, and perhaps inspired by the bottoms up change in Tunisia. While it is too soon to call the protest movement a revolution, it is, given the cunning that Arab autocrats have held and clung to power in the Middle East and the strategic position that Egypt holds, incredibly difficult to prognosticate on the implications and significance of the movement on the power dynamic of the Arab Muslim Middle East. Having said this, the protest movement is, however, an ode to the idea that determines history: the idea of freedom and its concomitant democracy. The protest movements, originating in Tunisia, also point out to the ‘potential return of ‘siyasah’(politics)-hitherto monopolized by the autocrats and the dreaded mukhabaraat(intelligence services) in the region and more broadly, to borrow a phrase,’ the return of history’ in the region.

The protest movement may unfortunately die, on account of fatigue and the remarkable staying power of established power structures in Egypt, who may take recourse to cosmetic change to keep their grip on power. However, it, on the positive side inaugurates the idea of freedom and democracy in the Arab Muslim world and the deep yearning for it by the ‘hoi polloi’, in the process not only validating the idea of either as universal but also discrediting the bleak image and picture painted by the Orientalists of the Arab Muslim world as being gripped by past notions of glory and stuck in that. The inference that the Orientalist’s and their neo Orientalist scribblers want us to draw is that authoritarianism is inherent to the Arab Muslim world, the ‘Arab street’ is inert, and dances to the tune of power thereby deflecting anger onto Israel, and that given the reactionary attitude and torpor induced by the loss of imperium, that has gripped the collective unconscious of the Arab Muslim world, the only idiom that the Arab Muslim world can engage with the world is terrorism- a point of view , unfortunately lent credence by the sordid saga of September 11. Now this notion stands discredited as the desire and yearning for freedom by the Arab street is on vivid and eloquent display. This may be the most significant message that is sent out or relayed by the protests.

Now after having laid out the ‘abstracts’, I would venture on the domain of amateur punditry by first touching on the potential fallout of the protests and then offering or attempting to offer some prescriptions for the policy making elite of the power that matters and will continue to do so for the indefinite future and whose bearing and orientation toward the protests will have enduring significance: the United States. It stands to reason, to repeat myself, that the staying power of the Egyptian regime is immense and that while the protests may rattle it and the power structure put in place, we may not witness long term and lasting change in Egypt. The only fallout or significant fallout that I see panning out is a bit of the ‘shuffling of cards’ to impart an illusion of change to the regime and its politics. This may take the form of changing electoral rules of conduct and allowing hitherto marginalized and excluded political forces and giving them a wee bit of voice.(El Baradei and his cohort and perhaps the more moderate wing of the Islamic Brotherhood spring to mind here).Some economic changes –tinkering with subsidies and inflation- that take care of the prosaic and mundane needs of the people may also be taken recourse to. Beyond this I see no significant change to the tenor, style and method of politics in Egypt. Having said this, it would be naïve to not see the protests as harbinger of real change in the future. A crack in the power edifice has appeared , the door for political and then economic change is ajar and it would be a travesty if this is not further exploited. This is where the role and orientation of the wounded hegemon, the United States, becomes pertinent. It would be prudent for the United States to adopt a ‘wait and watch’ approach, review its traditional assumptions about the Arab Middle East, and then carefully and delicately encourage forces of change in the region. The reviewed approach may have tangential (but much needed) impact on US diplomacy and the nature of its engagement with the Arab Muslim world. Hitherto held in thrall by the needs of the Cold War and flawed representation of both Islam and the Arabs, the United States, it could be fairly said, has not really figured out the Arab Islamic world and much of its foreign policy rested on flawed constructs. These constructs-lent salience and validated on the Arab Muslim side, by the regimes and mullah’s usurping the power of representation- have, I daresay ,contributed to much bad blood between the United States and the Arab Muslim world.(Sep 11 was but one ghastly and gory reminder of this bad blood). A prudent, careful and farsighted approach toward the Middle East may thus have ramifications and implications for both world order and peace. Much, depends on the United States. We all hope and pray that the wounded hegemon stays engaged, sees the protests as a cry for change, rise to the occasion and stay true to its creed. This , in the final analysis is what we all expect from the United States and world peace and order may ultimately depend upon it.

On Globalized Islam

Globalized Islam is a fact and a ‘fixture’ in most western societies now. Delinked from culture, and deterritorialized, it presents both an opportunity as well as a threat to both western societies and itself. The former because shorn of the influence of the mullahs whose esoteric scholarship and the endless world of fatwa’s disconnected from modern reality has ossified the Islamic traditions which are badly in need of reform, the prospects of Ijtehad(or enlightened reasoning) can perhaps only take place in the west. The latter because alienation or what David Cameron has aptly called ‘rootlessness’ can lead to a security as well as a social problem for western societies and also globalized Islam has the potential of transmogrifying or mutating Islam into an unrecognizable ideology in spite of the reassurances held out by the eminent Scholar Olivier Roy that globalized Islam will ultimately and inexorably go the way of Reform Judaism. This is rendered poignant and salient by the question of,’ Who Speaks for Muslims or Islam? Is it the imported mullah’s or mufti’s who can only speak in the idiom of madressah’s? Or modernist intellectuals who have made a name for themselves in their host societies but are estranged from fellow Muslims on account of either acculturation or other reasons?

Both, to repeat myself, I am afraid to say, pose insuperable problems or dilemmas for western societies and governments and Islam itself. The focus on the mullahs or imported imams, while comforting for Muslims in host societies, in terms of validation of Islamic principles for their progeny and ensuring continuity in some form of the Islamic traditions in the private sphere is a non starter. Non starter because the needs of globalized Islam are different: born and raised in western milieus, young Muslims need role models who can relate to them. It stretches reason to believe that, say a Pakistani imam trained (or schooled) only in the Deobandi tradition can relate to young Muslims in the west save perhaps the freshly arrived. Inherent in this approach also is the perpetuation of some odious accretions that Islam can do better without. The other option of modernist intellectuals begets problems too largely because these intellectuals speak from a perch that is disconnected from the reality of most Muslims in the west. Fluent in the idiom of host societies, some kind of schizophrenia- success in host societies comingled with a sense of estrangement from fellow Muslims whose problems they allegedly articulate or address- defines or marks these urbane and sophisticated intellectuals. This in a way replicates or is a microcosm of the problem of modernity or the trajectory of modernity in the Islamic worlds where the elite, schooled in the idiom of secular modernity were increasingly estranged from their constituents leading to sclerotic and warped forms of nationalism and secularism in the Arab Islamic worlds. This, in turn, created space for Islamist movements to thrive only to be repressed by the authoritarian states of the Arab Islamic world. In the west, what may happen is, that the ground may be ceded to movements like the Tableeghi Jamaat, whose monofocal emphasis on the five pillars of Islam and activism to make ‘good Muslims’ by focusing on the time of the Prophet (SAW) and mimicking the conditions of the early Muslims may be the only option available to young Muslims in the west. Or in a more extreme rendition, the field may become open for more radical imams or people espousing more radical views. So the question is what can be done or what methods can be employed to render the trajectory of globalized Islam smooth and salubrious?

The solution I would posit is that western governments, first and foremost accept that religion is here to stay in the west and that it is a need for those for whom it is the most significant and meaningful aspect of their lives and second instead of retreating from multiculturalism, which is the latest fashion these days actively, rejig existing institutional arrangements and enter into a partnership with sober and well meaning Muslim leaders. The nature of this partnership should not be along the lines of a quid pro quo but a genuine desire to integrate Islam into western societies on terms that are mutually beneficial. More specifically, this would mean or entail, traineeships for young imams who are schooled both in the western tradition as well as the Islamic one with excellent communication and leadership skills. The kind that would enable them to speak to the conditions of Muslims in the west in an idiom that they understand and more importantly educate young Muslims in the civic virtues of liberal societies and the responsibilities that this entails. Overlaying this may be an emphasis on Sufism or spiritual aspects of Islam which addresses the spiritual needs of Muslims. While this is no foolproof method that guarantees integration of Islam in the west, it may carry some insights that if applied may lead to peace within and without.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Musings on the Death of Multiculturalism in the West

Musings on the Death of Multiculturalism in the West

David Cameron’s public statement’s on the nature of ills plaguing Muslim Britain and hence the broader society and polity echo Angela Merkel’s disdain and resigned comments on multiculturalism in Germany. It would, however, be a mistake to see a parallel between Britain and Germany. Britain-proud heir to or perhaps even pioneer of multiculturalism – clearly departs from the condition of Germany where it was the policy problem or conundrum raised by the gastarbeiter(or guest workers) overlain perhaps by the problems engendered by the deepening and widening of the European Union and the structural forces of globalization catalyzed the problem rendering it in the process into a social problem. It would thus, to repeat, be a mistake to view the entire multicultural enterprise as being flawed and introduce an alternate policy straitjacket or paradigm that goes against the gravamen of diversity and pluralism. Having said this, it is about time that some of the assumptions undergirding multiculturalism and its policy implications are due for a comprehensive review.


The consensus or the evolving consensus in the west about the ills or pitfalls of multiculturalism stem largely from the failure of state encouraged or more accurately state patronized multiculturalism to inculcate the ‘we’ feeling among Muslims who have chosen to live or who for other reasons-persecution, refugees fleeing from failed states-find themselves in the west. Or in other words, state patronized multiculturalism has failed to make citizens out of Muslims in the west. This state of affairs, alarming as it is for intrinsic reasons, it must be pointed out, does not accrue from Islam or the nature of the Islamic faith. The failure lies in the lackadaisical approach towards the presence and existence of Muslims living in western societies and in the final analysis is an educational failure. By educational failure is meant that the nature of open societies, the rights, duties and responsibilities accruing from living in open societies has not been adequately explained to Muslims in the west. Having said this, I am not for one moment suggesting that western societies owe Muslims an explanation but it, for reasons of prudence and sagacity, it would have been better, if the nature of liberalism and open societies would have been made clear to Muslims in an idiom that would be understood by them.

It would be a travesty if the entire project or enterprise of multiculturalism were to be abandoned because implicit in aspects of multiculturalism is a renewed or a fresh relationship between Islam and the West. Hitherto articulated in the idiom of and colored by colonialism and the colonial legacy and, of course, the historical memory of the crusades, the contemporary encounter between Islam and the west mediated by globalization, offers a meeting point which can potentially be frictionless, from a long duree point of view. And the good thing is that it can be a good for Muslims and by extension the host societies. Good because some of the accretions that have been built upon the Islamic tradition, on account of vested interests and power of the mullahs, and that have stubbornly persisted, may be given short shrift by the contemporary encounter. Or in other words, reform of some of Islamic traditions, long overdue, and resisted by the corpus of mullahs and their patrons, within the Islamic world may actually happen in the west or on account of Islam’s contemporary encounter with the west. The doors of Ijtihad (roughly meaning, independent and enlightened reasoning), frowned upon by the extremists and fanatics may actually be opened in the west- the ancillary benefit of liberalism and the liberal tradition.

An added advantage may be that the virtues of toleration and respect for diversity- virtues that the Quran respects and enjoins- become a reflex among Muslims living in the west. Long used to living in mono cultural societies, some Muslims have, unfortunately lost this virtue and in some cases or instances may even aggressively pursue a majoritarian agenda.(Taliban ruled Afghanistan springs to mind here).Appreciation of diversity, tolerance and toleration, the ability to countenance diverse points of view may accrue only in multi cultural and liberal societies and continuing with the legacy of multiculturalism albeit in a new and reviewed form. In our globalized world, with diasporic movements across cultures, these enlightened Muslims can represent the west as it is than the warped images which reduce the west to a crude caricature. This new model of multiculturalism may take as its starting point the kind of integration which, one assuages Muslims fears, that living in the west does not mean or necessarily entail loss of faith, and second also lays the onus of integrating with the broader society on both Muslims themselves and members of the broader societies too. In other others, review the model of citizenship by rendering it into an active model and allow the impetus of integration come from within by demonstrating the soft power of liberal societies. The alternative-extreme models of assimilation –may send a wrong message to Muslims both within and without. A message that validates the fears of some Muslims that the west is out on an all out assault on Islam and renders the passive majority of Muslims if not open to the suasions of extremists but certainly sympathetic to them. This is a message that does not need to be sent out at this delicate moment of tension between the Islamic worlds and the west. So Mr. Cameron, a review but not a jettisoning of the multiculturalism paradigm is called for.