[lbo-talk] America's Anti-Muslim Prejudice

Joel Schalit managingeditor at tikkun.org
Tue May 9 14:45:04 PDT 2006


Ahh, yes. EI is absolutely dope. I have a lot of respect for the work they do. Its co-publisher/editor, Ali Abunimah, is interviewed about his work and his forthcoming book, One Country, in the current issue of Tikkun.

On May 9, 2006, at 2:25 PM, Marvin Gandall wrote:


> What do both of you think of Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada? I
> think
> EI (http://www.electronicintifada.net/new.shtml) is a great digest
> of news
> and opinion and his own material is first-rate. He deserves a wider
> audience, IMO.
>
> ----- 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/>
>>>
>>> ___________________________________
>>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>>
>>
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