On May 8, 2006, at 9:34 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Have you read Sander L. Gilman's "The Parallels of Islam and Judaism
> in Diaspora" (Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol.51, No.31, 8 April
> 2005, <http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/60/144.html>)? As Gilman
> suggests, Muslims in Europe (and probably the United States) today are
> clearly going through the same struggle Jews and other cultural
> minorities went through earlier: How can one be a European (or an
> American) without ceasing to be a Muslim? What's the usable past in
> the cultural heritage of Islam in the post-modern capitalist world? A
> dialogue between Tariq Ramadan and Gilman on how to be Muslim and
> Jewish in Europe in Tikkun would be interesting, and it's guaranteed
> to get a lot of people's attention.
Yeah - it's a terrific piece. I agree with the article's positions, and I've always really enjoyed Gilman's work. Hah - thanks for the suggestion. That's an absolutely terrific idea.
>
> Anyhow, the Ramadan visa denial case is a good example of America's
> Muslim prejudice (the case is still in the news:
> <http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/14/news/scholar.php>). Ramadan
> sounds like exactly the kind of thinker that even the American power
> elite, not to mention the rest of America, might benefit from reaching
> out to, and yet he was unwelcome, and the power elite made sure that
> _everyone_ understood how unwelcome he was.
I agree - it was a completely ridiculous move to bar his entry.
>
> When the case was first brought to the public attention, the Muslim
> Students Association organized a petition campaign
> <http://www.petitiononline.com/MSANatl/petition.html> on Ramadan's
> behalf, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation included
> that in one of its action alerts. I forwarded it here, and even among
> leftists here, reactions to the petition campaign were decidedly
> mixed: "But, is this academic just another Sami al-Arian, of Islamic
> Jihad?" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-September/
> 021034.html>);
> "I am not going to sign any petition 'In the name of God'" (referring
> to the typical Muslim greetings at the beginning of the MSA petition
> at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-September/021071.html>);
> "It's as offensive for purported allies to talk about God in public
> policy spheres as it is when enemies do it" (also referring to the
> same at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2004/2004-September/
> 021046.html>).
Very cool - thanks for the reference. We ran a long editorial online about this when it occurred, written by one of our contributing editors, Mark LeVine, a professor of Middle Eastern history at UC Irvine. (Sigh, I can't find it....) Mark's book, Why They Don't Hate us (One World Press, 2005) is a terrific read by the way, and has an enormous amount of bearing on this discussion. I highly recommend it.
>
>> i'm increasingly convinced that one way to make up for the deficit
>> you describe below is American periodicals like ours doing better
>> recruiting for writing in Europe. I have met, for example, many
>> progressive secular persons of both Arab and Pakistani background in
>> the UK, who do unbelievable work, but only for British publications.
>> Particularly academics, whose writing just needs a little
>> accessibility refinement and editing for more broad public audiences
>> here interested in left perspectives.
>
> I agree. I've received some submissions from people who fit the
> bill: e.g.,
> Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, "The Muslim in the Mirror" (23 Feb. 2006),
> <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/aam230206.html>; "Persian Atoms:
> Enriching Facts, Diverting Fiction" (26 April 2006),
> <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/aam260406.html>.
Super - I appreciate the reference. Thanks. One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that there are also terrific resources to rely on amongst the staff of the English-language of newspapers such as Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly, Beirut's The Daily Star, and the Jordan Times, among others. I try and read all three every week, and find the op-eds in Al-Ahram Weekly absolutely invaluable. The Egyptian contributors to the publication (they do employ well-known British writers like Graham Usher) generate some of the most insightful and progressive op-eds I've ever read. I find it distressing that none of the Western news agency that pick up Middle Eastern commentary on regional affairs never buy stories from such periodicals, or hire out their writers. The only two correspondents I can recall are used for such purposes are Rami Khoury of the Daily Star, and on occasion, Daoud Kuttab from Al-Quds.
>
> But, more urgently than the matter of publication, we have to have a
> way of including ordinary Muslims in activism. In activism, we can't
> just talk to people who are already on the same page with us, so to
> speak, with regard to the space of religion in society, questions of
> sex/gender/sexuality, etc.
Absolutely - no question about that.
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
>
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