----- Original Message ----- From: "Joel Schalit" <managingeditor at tikkun.org> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 1:06 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] America's Anti-Muslim Prejudice
>
> 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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