New AFIC executive elected ...

While Jewish leaders were busy defending Muslims from the vicious and vitriolic attacks of a Jewish Professor, Muslim leaders were busy until the weekend jostling and jockeying for positions on the executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC).

The last time AFIC had an election, the two sides ended up in court. The court appointed an administrator. The peak body was thus out of action at a time when its leadership was needed to deal with the Hilaly debacle.

The new President, Ikebal Patel, is from the ACT. He is under pressure from a number of state councils (including the Islamic Council of Victoria) to do something about getting rid of the position of Mufti.

If my last conversation with Patel is anything to go by, Mufti Day won’t be coming to an end soon. On that occasion, I was in Canberra for a Multicultural festival. It was at the height of the Hilaly affair, and Patel asked my better half and I to stop writing articles critical of Hilaly and realise that the attack on Hilaly was “a grand media conspiracy”.

It’s great to see Muslims can look forward to a continuation of savvy AFIC leaders.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Muslim migrants and their presence in Europe

The recent comments of Professor Raphael Israeli have again raised the issue of the exact role played by migrants from Muslim-majority states living in Western countries. Israeli made some passing remarks to Muslims in the UK and France. It is important that, in addressing these remarks, we rely on facts and research.

I recently came across a study by Aristide R Zolberg and Long Litt Woon published in the March 1999 edition of the academic journal Politics & Society. Entitled Why Islam Is Like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States, the study addresses key issues relating to migration, ethnicity and citizenship. It compares the fixation of anti-migrant sectors in Europe against Muslims to that of anti-migrant sectors in the United States against Spanish-speaking migrants.

Although the paper was published before the events of September 11 2001, its observations remain valid.

In June 1998, the state of California held a referendum on the issue of bilingual education. That referendum caused considerable controversy, with the formation of an “English-only” movement at the centre of what was perceived by many as a clash between “Anglo-America” and the “invading” Spanish language.

In Europe at that time, the memory of minority Muslim responses to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the French ban on headscarves was seen as proof of “resurgent Islam” threatening European cultures.

The authors claim that

... Islam and Spanish are metonyms for the dangers that those most opposed to immigration perceive as looming ahead: loss of cultural identity, accompanied by disintegrative separatism or communal conflict.

Muslims in Europe come from a variety of backgrounds – South Asia, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Indonesia. Then there are historically European Muslims – Bosnians and Albanians. Within each group migrating from a single nation are numerous ethnic and tribal groups. Many Turks in Germany are ethnically Kurdish, while many French Algerians are Berbers and not Arabs. There are thus enormous varieties of ethnicity, language, class and sect.

The authors say that this leads to Muslim communities having no shared or agreed upon political orientation. Different Muslims have different orders of priorities in their identity and their lifestyle. Not every European who happens to be Muslim regards religion as always central to their life.

The authors argue that Europe’s Muslims practise many versions of Islam, and that these range as widely as their Christian counterparts. This leads to “perennial calls by religious leaders for unity of the umma (community)". And usually these calls are in vain, as anyone who has tried to celebrate Eid on the same day as everyone else soon finds out.

The authors claim that essentially the objections to a Muslim presence in Europe boil down to one question: “can one be Muslim and European?”

How do we answer this question? I have my own views which I have shared at different times on this blog. Readers are welcome to share their own views. Anyone have any ideas?

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Carrying the electoral cross ...

Nadia Jamal has written a thoughtful piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today about the enormous cross which the first MP in the NSW parliament will have to carry.

ANU sociologist Shakira Hussein also penned a piece some weeks back in The Oz, specifically on Sheik Hilaly’s attempts to endorse candidates. My own experience in the Auburn by-election and as a candidate in other Liberal election campaigns suggests that endorsement by Sheik Hilaly is something to be avoided at all costs.

And in the current environment, one doubts if the NSW branches of either major party will run candidates of Muslim background or heritage in a winnable seat. The Liberals have 25 year old Ned Manoun running in Liverpool. Like many Western Suburbs Libs, Ned is a former ALP member. He ran as an independent in the 2005 Werriwa by-election that followed Mark Latham’s retirement.

One important issue Jamal raises is the expectation that Muslim MP’s will always have definitive answer for “Muslim” issues. When they do this, they end up copping flack from overly sensitive Muslims and/or from sectarian fruitloops.

New Zealand Labour MP Ashraf Chaudhury has found himself in hot water for expressing somewhat homophobic sentiments. Similarly, when Choudhary abstained from a vote on liberalising New Zealand’s prostitution laws (thus allowing the bill to pass), he was criticised by Muslims for abandoning their religious principles.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see how newly elected Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison (the first Muslim to be elected to Congress) will be received in his own community after he visits Israel in the near future. He has also been criticised by the looney-Right for using the Koran (albeit Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy) at his swearing-in ceremony and even for “allowing” some of his Muslim campaign workers to shout the generic Arabic religious phrase “Allahu Akbar” (meaning “God is always greater”).

Yet the advantage of having at least one Muslim MP is that s/he can speak their mind on inter-communal matters from a genuinely non-partisan and non-communalist perspective. In this respect, British MP Shahid Malik criticism of a Muslim umbrella body for its exceptionally inconsiderate and infantile boycott of a Holocaust memorial commemoration is timely. Sometimes religious leaders won’t budge until secular ones give them a decent push.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

COMMENT: Europe & Islam

Over the next few weeks, this blog will focus on certain academic writings which I have collected over the past 12 months on various topical issues relating to Muslims, democracy, multiculturalism, clash of civilisations and all those other catch phrases we have come to know and love (or loathe, depending on your perspective).

Each day (I hope!), parts of a particular study will be presented in summarised format. I’ll share some of my own thoughts, and readers are free to make their own observations.

Today I want to discuss an article by Timothy M Savage entitled Europe and Islam: Crescent Waxing, Cultures Clashing. This article was published in the Summer 2004 edition of The Washington Quarterly, a journal on international affairs published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

Savage is a former US consul general in Leipzig, Germany and currently works at the Office of European Analysis at the US State Department. The article discusses what the author describes as the “Islamic challenge to Europe” which is two-fold.

Firstly, Europe must deal with its internal sphere. It must integrate a ghettoized and rapidly growing Muslim minority which many Europeans regard as encroaching upon the collective identity and public values of European society.

Second, Europe must develop a viable external approach to dealing with its primarily Muslim-populated volatile neighbours which are the focus of the EU’s recently adopted security strategy entitled “A Secure Europe in a Better World”. Linked to this is the EU’s New Neighbourhood initiative which defines a new framework for relations with 14 states or entities – Algeria, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Morocco, Ukraine, Tunisia, Syria, Russia, Moldova and Belarus.

Savage’s basic thesis seems to be that Europe’s new interaction with both its external and internal manifestations with Islam “offers a range of opportunities for positive change in the world”. Savage laments that Europe is choosing to rely on its old ways as entrenched in its unimpressive “track record of engagement with Islam over the last 1,350 years”.

Savage laments that Europe’s current stance shows it prefers “caution, predictability, control, and established structures over the boldness, adaptability, engagement, and re-defined relationships that the new situation requires”.

As for Muslims in Europe, Savage believes that they by and large are showing a “similar mindset”. This situation is dangerous, especially as Europe’s Muslim communities are growing. US State Department figures from 2003 show that Muslims make up some 5% of Europe’s population, and number in excess of 23 million. If one were to include Turkey, this figure climbs to 90 million or 15% of the total. In the past 3 decades, the Muslim population has more than doubled.

Externally, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the world’s 2nd highest fertility rate. Meanwhile, Europe has the world’s lowest fertility rates. In the next 3 decades, the population of the MENA region is expected to double.

By 2050, Muslims are expected to comprise al least 20% of Europe’s population.

So what does all this mean? Here’s a few thoughts …

[01] The European situation is not akin to the situation in Australia or New Zealand. Europe’s Muslim communities tend to be ethnically and linguistically homogenous. Australian Muslims come from over 60 different nationalities.

[02] Many European countries have implemented policies that have fostered ethnic welfare ghettoes e.g. France. Though some limited ghettos are present in Sydney, they are far less than in Europe.

[03] Attempts to compare the experience of Europe with its Muslim minorities (the “Londonistan” thesis) are like comparing chalk with cheese.

[04] Europe’s Muslim communities are very young and will be dominated (as they are in Australia) by the children and grandchildren of migrants. Already, in France, some 15% of the 16-25 year age bracket is Muslim. Meanwhile in Brussels, 25% of the population under 25 is Muslim In this sense, there is some comparison between Australia and Europe.

[05] The understanding of faith of young European Muslims is perhaps less affected by Middle Eastern and other theological trends in the Muslim world. It is more affected by distinctly European factors.

[06] Muslim groups and institutions from overseas will have to reinvent themselves if they are to remain relevant to the emerging younger generations.

[07] Australian and North American Muslim youth can play a constructive role within Europe by building bridges with European Muslim youth and providing them with a different and more realistic understanding of how Muslim religiosity can be played out using Western cultural symbols. Integration is not just a possibility. It is an imperative.

That’s my view. Now it’s over to you.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007


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Getting Boned again by The Oz's token feminist?

Allegedly leftwing feminist Pamela Bone has published yet another column for The Oz featuring her usual simplistic mantra that those representing the left/liberal side have jumped into bed with the Islamist lunatic fringe. Here are a few snippets ...

Why is scarcely a word spoken by liberal commentators about the treatment of women under the Taliban rule - child marriages, stonings, absolute exclusion from public life - that Hicks wanted to fight to uphold?

Why are Muslim feminists derided as apologists for imperialism, or "neocons"? How in the world did the Left allow feminism to be hijacked by the Right, when it was always the Left that fought for women's liberation and the Right that resisted it?

It’s a message that no doubt enables allegedly conservative editors and commentators to triumphantly sneer. And why shouldn’t they? Each time Bone repeats her mantra, we all forget how, for decades, it was conservatives using this Islamist fringe to fight communism.

Those were the days when that famous Saudi dissident’s name was really Usama bin Reagan, when he and his henchmen could commit plenty of 9/11’s provided they were targeted at the Soviet Union.

They were also the days when Saddam Hussein was the West’s best friend to the extent that even Donald Rumsfeld was happy to shake his hand and encourage him to use weapons of mass destruction on Iranian troops and citizens. Indeed, for at least one survivor of these attacks, Saddam’s hurried execution means the other guilty parties will again get away with murder.

Bone’s latest piece: “Why are Muslim feminists derided as apologists for imperialism, or "neocons"?”

Bone needs to do some traveling. Perhaps she can arrange something through the Australia-Indonesia Institute. Jakarta , capital of the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, is only around 7 hours away. She can visit private Muslim universities like Paramadina University and meet Muslim feminists working without interference as lecturers.

Bone might also consider going to the women’s studies section at the State Islamic University at Yogyakarta where Muslim feminists are writing and publishing freely.

She might even care to read Australian Muslim feminist author Hanifa Deen’s riveting book The Crescent and the Pen: The Strange Journey of Taslima Nasreen. I’m reading it right now. It’s excellent stuff. Reviewing the book for The Oz, one Canberra-based Muslim feminist writes

Bangladesh has a vibrant feminist movement, but Nasreen presents herself to the world as the lone voice of dissent.

The reviewer describes how Nasreen’s well-meaning sponsors from the left-liberal European literary establishment got their hands burnt in assuming she would be another

... made-to-order heroine of free speech against Islamic primitivism, “the female Salman Rushdie”.

She concludes:

[A]s the West steps up its campaign for ideological dissent in the Muslim world, this is an immensely timely reminder that dissidents tend to be unruly beasts rather than plaster saints.

In other words, Pamela, an anti-Islamist fruitcake is still a fruitcake and hardly worthy of support from anyone, whether on the left or the right.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

Who is Terry Baldwin?

Today I attended the Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in Lakemba. I was there covering the event for an online publication I write for on a regular basis. Among the people I saw there was a familiar face I also saw at a recent forum I attended where I shared a podium with Danny Nalliah from the Catch The Fire Ministries.

That familiar face was Terry Baldwin, a middle-aged chap with a small beard and jovial appearance. Baldwin attends a number of events related to Islam and Muslims, and takes a strong interest in Muslim affairs.

I have also seen Mr Baldwin at the Journalist and Islam conference organised by the Middle East Centre of Macquarie University. There, Baldwin boasted that he had recorded the speeches of a number of Muslim speakers and handed them to journalists. In particular, he admitted to forwarding a recording of Sheik Feiz Mohammad’s infamous 2005 lecture where he suggested women who dressed a certain way are eligible for rape.

Baldwin’s own expressed views on Islam are quite jaundiced to say the least. He believes Islam is an inherently violent faith. At the Journalism and Islam conference, he had a verbal altercation with a speaker who claimed Muslims as a whole had peaceful intentions which arose from their theology.

I took the opportunity of sitting down with Mr Baldwin today at the HT conference and finding out more about his activities. Baldwin was surprisingly cagey, especially when I asked about his dealings with The Age’s religious affairs writer Barney Zwartz.

Mr Zwartz recent cited Baldwin in a recent write-up of the HT in Australia:

Sydney Islam-watcher Terry Baldwin says the history HT presents of the West and Islam is simply fantasy. "It's not just a little bit wrong, it's grossly wrong: 'Your (Western) history was violence and oppression whereas ours (Islam's) was wonderful, and if you go back to that we can solve your problems as well as ours.' " Baldwin says the Doureihi brothers, Ashraf and Wassim, seem to lead the group, "but you can never be sure of that. In many groups there are gnomes in the background who pull all the strings and control the finances."

He does worry about HT's attempts to politicise Australian Muslims, to drive a wedge between them and the wider community. Many Muslims come to Australia to escape trouble and simply want to build a better life, he says, but HT wants them involved in the politics. "They go house to house around my neighbourhood and ask: 'Do you know any Muslims in your street. We have a new mosque and we want to tell them.' Then they try to recruit them."

I’m not sure what makes Baldwin an "Islam-watcher" apart from the fact that he attends many events and records them. Certainly this is his right. Further, it is clear that he has some kind of relationship with at least 2 journalists.

However, one wonders of the quality of information Baldwin gives to the reporters and columnists he deals with. His own expressed views on Islam resemble something out of JihadWatch. More importantly, one wonders about his ability to identify different Muslim groups.

For instance, Baldwin’s claim that HT goes around door knocking and inviting people to the mosque to hear a talk sounds absurd. My own experience with HT (spanning over a decade) is that HT would never use such methodology. Rather, this methodology is largely the trademark of the Tabligh Jamaah, an Indian-based Sufi missionary movement.

It therefore surprises me that someone like Zwartz would quote someone who, it seems to me, is clearly not a knowledgeable or credible source. I’m particularly concerned about Baldwin’s insistence on being so cagey about his dealings with journalists at some times, whilst at other times boasting of recording and “leaking” (to use the term he used at the Journalism and Islam conference) material to scribes.

Still, it’s obvious we will be seeing more of Baldwin over the coming months. He is a pleasant chap, and I hope Muslim groups continue to show him the hospitality HT showed him today.

© Irfan Yusuf 2007

CRIKEY: The PM discovers YouTube

It’s been slow news days at the Daily Telegraph with Luke McIlveen had to trawl the YouTube.com portal to come up with stories.

All he found were some offensive videos online since November 2006. And some offensive comments attached to them. As if the comments here aren’t bad enough.

Fairfax websites also jumped onto the bandwagon. Yet no one could explain a simple issue which even a school boy could figure out:

I went to 'Cronulla riots' on YouTube and there's all these videos of Anglos saying 'We are proud of what we did'. So there's already other race hate videos out there. Why are they only targeting one [community]?

You can find some of them here and here.

The PM claimed that the video serves as

... a reminder that there is undoubtedly within a section, a small section, of the Lebanese Muslim community a group of people who are antagonistic to the values and the way of life in this country.

Really? Did he ascertain whether Lebanese Muslims created and/or uploaded the video before making such provocative sectarian remarks? Did he hold information that wasn’t available to either the NSW Police or the NSW Education Minister?

I watched one of the videos before it was taken down. I saw/heard:

• Rap music in the background.
• Images of stereotypical young Lebanese boys with bad haircuts and hotted-up cars.
• Repeated images of the green and red cedar symbol of the Lebanese flag.

And I never knew that Lebanese Muslims had a monopoly on rap music. Either that, or Eminem must have changed both his ethnicity and his religion.

Further, in what sense do images of hotted-up cars and pop music show hostility to Australian values and lifestyle? I used to see the Anglo thugs doing the same in East Ryde in the ‘70’s. They’d shout racist insults at me and whistle and hoot and anything slightly resembling a female. Instead of rap, they had heavy metal.

But that doesn’t stop the PM from turning this into a sectarian issue. Nor does it stop the Tele from running the story again and from running Paul Kent’s hysterical column comparing “fundamental Muslims” to Nazis. Not even John Ilhan’s column (published last week in the Herald-Sun) makes the DT look better.

Here’s more.

An edited version of this first appeared in the Crikey! daily alert for 25 January 2007.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006

Halal Snippets

This year, John Howard will be speaking to some 17 Christian groups at the Festival Hall in Melbourne. The pre-recorded speech has been arranged by Danny Nalliah, a Sri Lankan-born pastor of the Assemblies of God Churches and founder of the Catch the Fire Ministries.

The event was reported in Melbourne’s Herald-Sun. What the newspaper doesn’t report is that Nalliah’s service has also been advertised prominently in the 12 January 2007 edition of the Australian League of Rights publication On Target.

Allegedly conservative columnist Andrew Bolt writes for the Herald-Sun, and has been consistently supporting the Ministry in its defence of religious vilification. Treasurer Peter Costello provided a letter of support for the Ministry in the litigation. In this respect, both Costello and Bolt are in league with the Australian League of Rights, an organisation Nalliah has addressed on numerous occasions.

***
How about this for insightful comment. Here’s what blogger Kieran writes on The Dead Roo blog …

If I were to go around proclaiming myself Pope of Australia, perhaps
backed by some small bunch of religious extremists, and then claim to speak on
behalf of all catholics, I’d be laughed at. Would it be too extreme to speculate
that the Australian media and certain elements of the political establishment
legitimize this idiots bizarre claims to speak for all Australian muslims
because it suites their interests to have Australian Islam represented in this
fashion? …

Everyone has jumped onto the bandwagon, there was barely
a state premier that didn’t get an indignant sound bite. It’s John Howard who
owes Hilaly a bunch of flowers. Coming up to flag waving day John Howard has had
yet another chance to build an Australian ‘majority identity’, defined by the
obvious unAustralianness of some dark skinned minority that probably wouldn’t
vote for him anyway. These are election winning wedges.

But this isn’t the 1980’s, this is the 21st century, when one uses
a dog whistle.

© Irfan Yusuf 2006