Why democracy will win
Philip N. Howard, an associate professor at the University of Washington, is the author of “The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam”. The opinions expressed are his own.
The Day of Rage in Saudi Arabia was a tepid affair, and Libyan rebels have suffered strategic losses. Only two months ago, popular uprisings in Tunisia inspired Egyptians and others to take to the streets to demand political reform. Will the tough responses from Gadaffi and the Saudi government now discourage Arab conversations about democratic possibilities? It may seem like the dictators are ahead, but it’s only a temporary lead.
Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 20 years, Mubarak reigned in Egypt for 30 years, and Gadaffi has held Libya in a tight grip for 40 years. Yet their bravest challengers are 20- and 30-year-olds without ideological baggage, violent intentions or clear leaders. The groups that initiated and sustained protests have few meaningful experiences with public deliberation or voting, and little experience with successful protesting. These young activists are politically disciplined, pragmatic and collaborative. Where do young people who grow up in entrenched authoritarian regimes get political aspirations? How do they learn about political life in countries where faith and freedom coexist?
The answer, for the most part, is online. And it is not just that digital media provided new tools for organizing protest and inspiring stories of success from Tunisia and Egypt. The important structural change in Middle East political life is not so much about digital ties between the West and the Arab street, but about connections between Arab streets.
Research has demonstrated three clear democratizing effects of the Internet, especially among young people in the region: more individuals are using the Internet to openly discuss the interpretation of Islamic texts, more people are forming individuated political identities online and creating their own media, and more citizens are actively debating gender politics and pan-Islamic identity. Satellite television has fed a transnational Middle East identity for several decades. But it is only in the last decade that people have started transnational conversations about politics and shared grievances.
Some experts thought the Internet was going to be a boon for radical voices and fundamentalist Islam. But it turns out that digital media more often push such extremists to the side, and bolster the networks of civil society groups over terrorist groups. Individuals learn that they can become sources of information, and that Dropbox accounts, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Google and a host of other tools provide ways for people to spread information beyond the reach of their despot.
Islamophobia and a German central banker
How do you reconcile the traditions of many Muslim immigrants with the freedoms and values of 21st century Western Europe?
It’s a question that has led to periodic outbursts of vigorous debate from France to Holland and Switzerland. In Germany, the discussion has been relatively subdued. Until now.
Why? A passage in a book considered so unsettling that its author, Thilo Sarrazin, was forced to resign from the board of Germany’s central bank this month, provides part of the answer.
Criticism of Islam and Muslim immigrants, he writes, is wrongly seen to “equal Islamophobia which equals racism which equals anti-Semitism which equals right-wing radicalism which equals national socialism (Nazism).” In a country deeply ashamed of its 1933-1945 Nazi past, that’s enough to mute debate.
Sarrazin’s book, “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany abolishes itself), came under withering assault from Germany’s political and intellectual elite even before its publication and (judging from some of the comments) even before many of the critics waded through its 461 dense, statistics-laden pages.
It is not an anti-immigration, anti-Islam tirade, it is an argument against a combination of flawed immigration and social welfare policies that, according to Sarrazin, have tended to attract a sizeable number of immigrants more interested in living off generous government handouts than in finding a place in the labour market, climbing up the economic ladder and integrating into German society.
Immigrants from Muslim parts of former Yugoslavia, from Arab and North African countries and from Turkey (the largest group) “are the core of the integration problem,” Sarrazin writes, citing dismal statistics on scholastic achievement, unemployment, dependence on welfare payments, crime and reluctance to learn German, an essential step towards integration. In contrast, immigrants from Asia or India were doing particularly well in integrating and in making economic progress.
We don’t want to have our freedoms taken and live in the middle ages with Sharia law. The more you know about Islam the more you can see it’s not compatible with freedom and democracy. Learn more at The Center for the Study of Political Islam and citizenwarrior.com. Or better yet read “An Abridged Koran” it’s about 200 pages or so.
America’s trouble with Islam
Of the many posters held aloft in angry demonstrations about plans for an Islamic cultural centre and mosque in New York, one in particular is worth noting: “All I ever need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11.”
As an example of wilful ignorance, it’s in a class by itself. It passes judgment, in just 12 words, about a sprawling universe of 1.3 billion adherents of Islam (in 57 countries around the world) who come from different cultures, speak a wide variety of languages, follow different customs, hold different nationalities and believe in different interpretations of their faith, just like Christians or Jews. Suicidal murderers are a destructive but tiny minority.
But for the people waving all-I-ever-need-to-know posters in front of national television cameras two blocks from “ground zero,” site of the biggest mass murder in American history, Islam equals terrorism. No need for nuance, no need for learning, no need for building bridges between the faiths. The mindset epitomized by the slogan mirrors the radical fringe of Islamic thought, equally doubt-free and self-righteous.
Both sides have data to back up their assertions. The Islam-equals-terrorism school of thought can point to 3,000 victims of the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Those who preach that the U.S. is waging war on Islam itself, and terror acts are therefore a form of self-defence, can argue that Christian soldiers have been killing Muslims through history, from the Crusades to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The “ground zero mosque” affair began with a dispute over the center’s proximity to the hole where the Twin Towers once stood. Too close to hallowed ground, argue opponents, including family members of people who died in the attack. The question of location morphed into a national debate on religious tolerance and prompted demonstrations against planned mosques more than a thousand miles from New York.
Does all this add up to a rising wave of anti-Muslim bigotry? Or is it more of the same, with the volume turned higher in advance of mid-term elections? There are no hard data to answer that question and it is worth looking back a few years at polls on American attitudes towards Muslims. In 2006, a Gallup survey found that 39 percent favoured rules requiring Muslims, including U.S. citizens, to carry special identification to better spot potential terrorists.
Callers to a Washington radio show host who followed up on the ID issue suggested identifying Muslims with a crescent-shaped tattoo on their foreheads, stamps on their driving licenses, passports and birth certificates, or special armbands.
I wonder why it is that as soon as the threat of the cold war ended Islam steped up to fill the vaccum of peace?
from The Great Debate UK:
Interfaith centre at New York 9/11 site sparks controversy
- Mark Kobayashi-Hillary is the author of several books, including ‘Who Moved my Job?’ and ‘Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field’. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 was a Muslim.
That’s the kind of aphorism being bounced around the Internet because of the news that a nineteenth-century building located close to Ground Zero in New York may be demolished to make way for a community and cultural centre aimed at improving relations between Islam and the West.
Naturally the new building will include a mosque and there is outrage on the blogs and social networks after a three-hour hearing of New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission this week.
The focus of the hearing was officially to examine whether the building earmarked for demolition is actually worthy of preservation, but it seems that most of the campaigners asking for it to be awarded heritage status were more interested in heading off the proposed community centre.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg opted to avoid defending either side by saying: "The government should never be in the business of telling people how they should pray or where they can pray."
Islam, terror and political correctness
– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. –
The Islamic terrorists of the Bush era are gone. They have been replaced by violent extremists in a purge of the American government’s political lexicon. Smart move in the propaganda war between al Qaeda and the West? Or evidence of political correctness taken to extremes?
Those questions are worth revisiting after the publication in February of two key documents issued by the administration of President Barack Obama, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. Both deal with what used to be called the Global War on Terror. Neither uses the words “Muslim” or “Islam.”
The QDR says the United States is at war with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and speaks of the threat from “non-state actors” and terrorist networks. The Homeland Security Review identifies “al Qaeda and global violent extremism” as one of the main threats to the United States. No word on religion or al Qaeda’s use of a twisted version of Islam to justify mass murder.
To some, this omission amounts to a dangerous failure to deal with the root of the problem, evidence of a mind-set determined to avoid the appearance of anti-Muslim bias even if that endangers national security. Such charges flew thick and fast after a Muslim army officer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed 12 fellow soldiers and an army civilian in a shooting spree last November at the Fort Hood military base, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) as he opened fire.
There was no mention of Islam, or Hasan’s interpretation of his faith and his publicly proclaimed anger over America’s wars in Muslim countries, in the 86-page Army report on the shooting. In the words of John Lehman, a member of the commission set up to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the report released in January showed “how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become.”
President Obama’s initial description of the young Nigerian Muslim who attempted to bring down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day (“an isolated extremist”) also prompted charges from conservatives that his administration fails to recognize the link between Islamic radicalism and terrorism.
Has someone thought why there is so many different ideas on how to translate the Koran, the Bible etc. corect ?
Could it be that no one understands anything at all ?
Suppose “The father, The Son and The holy Ghost” from the Bible were Metaphors that says:
The father; Responsibility.
The son; Your task.
The holy ghost; Your will.
Suppose when the Koran has the man superior to the woman,
it says the same thing, hit your balls and bring on the show.
from Afghan Journal:
Afghanistan: the Gods of war
[CROSSPOST blog: 27 post: 4308] Original Post Text: In openDemocracy, Paul Rogers writes that one of the great mistakes of the media is that it tends to assume the only actors in the campaign against Islamist militants are governments, with al Qaeda and the Taliban merely passive players.
"Beyond the details of what the Taliban and its allies decide, it is important to note that most analysis of Barack Obama’s strategy published in the western media is severely constrained by its selective perspective. There is a pervasive assumption - even now, after eight years of war - that the insurgents are mere “recipients” of external policy changes: reactive but not themselves proactive," he writes.
"This is nonsense - and dangerous nonsense. It would be far wiser to assume that these militias have people who are every bit as intelligent and professional in their thinking and planning as their western counterparts. They have had three months to think through the Obama leadership’s policy-development process; and much of this thinking will be about how the US changes affect their own plans - not how they will respond to the United States. Thus they may have very clear intentions for the next three to five years that are embedded in detailed military planning; and what is now happening on their side will involve adjustment of these plans in the light of the great rethink across the Atlantic."
So how will al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist groups respond?
As discussed before in openDemocracy, and highlighted on this blog more than a year ago, the Taliban has been pretty good at studying the lessons of history, including taking inspiration from the Vietnamese war commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, who successfully employed guerrilla tactics against the French before crushing them in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
It is reasonable to assume they have also studied the spillover of the U.S. war in Vietnam into Cambodia where the United States, reluctant to send in its ground troops, resorted to special ops and bombing campaigns to choke off the Vietcong's supply routes - rather as Pakistan now fears the Afghan campaign will spill into its territory as Washington tries to eradicate Afghan Taliban leaders and bases there. The ensuing chaos paved the way for the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.
It would be a step too far to suggest that the Afghan Taliban and their allies are set on taking over Pakistan. As it is, there is still a fierce debate on how far they are primarily Afghan nationalists who would settle for a return to power in Afghanistan and how far they have bought into al Qaeda's global Islamist agenda.
Anon which is more dangerous, a religious zealot or an empire seeking material gain?
from FaithWorld:
Lots of advice for Obama on dealing with Muslims and Islam
President-elect Barack Obama has been getting a lot of advice these days on how to deal with Muslims and Islam. He invited it by saying during his campaign that he either wanted to convene a conference with leaders of Muslim countries or deliver a major speech in a Muslim country "to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular”. But where? when? why? how? Early this month, I chimed in with a pitch for a speech in Turkey or Indonesia. Some quite interesting comments have come in since then.
Two French academics, Islam expert Olivier Roy and political scientist Justin Vaisse argued in a New York Times op-ed piece on Sunday that Obama's premise of trying to reconcile the West and Islam is flawed:
Such an initiative would reinforce the all-too-accepted but false notion that “Islam” and “the West” are distinct entities with utterly different values. Those who want to promote dialogue and peace between “civilizations” or “cultures” concede at least one crucial point to those who, like Osama bin Laden, promote a clash of civilizations: that separate civilizations do exist. They seek to reverse the polarity, replacing hostility with sympathy, but they are still following Osama bin Laden’s narrative.
Instead, Mr. Obama, the first “post-racial” president, can do better. He can use his power to transform perceptions to the long-term advantage of the United States and become a “post-civilizational” president. The page he should try to turn is not that of a supposed war between America and Islam, but the misconception of a monolithic Islam being the source of the main problems on the planet: terrorism, wars, nuclear proliferation, insurgencies and the like.
Also on Sunday, the Istanbul newspaper Sunday's Zaman ran a piece by sociologist Dogu Ergil who spelled out what he thought "moderate Muslims" expected of Obama.
Moderate or non-ideological Muslims expect Mr. Obama to support democratic trends in their countries, but not to push them from above using ruling elites that will never adopt a democratic agenda but rather will simply play for time, making only cosmetic changes. This will, in turn, further reinforce the power of autocratic regimes that are threatened by genuine democracy.
Muslim moderates look at religion as a cultural affair, wanting to render it autonomous of politics so that it will be protected from political power and in the same way, preventing it from seeking political power. So they want the Obama administration to press their governments to enact reforms that will pave the way to democratic politics and legal changes that will allow for more individual freedoms. They do not want a hypocritical stance from an America which advocates democracy but supports the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world for the sake of oil deals and other strategic ends. The Bush administration set a very bad example of paying lip service to democracy, which, in fact, worked as a vehicle to blackmail Arab regimes and served America's strategic interests.
Michael Fullilove at the Brookings Institution made a pitch for an Obama speech in Indonesia in the New York Times while several Moroccan blogs have been running a campaign (including a petition with a long list of reasons) to have him speak there. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an exiled Egyptian sociologist and human rights who is a visiting professor at Harvard and Indiana universities, made the case for Indonesia or Turkey in the Washington Post.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador in the United States and Britain, has a long list of suggestions for a reformed U.S. policy towards the Muslim world in the Harvard International Review. The list is fairly extensive, although it would have been even more informative if it had included suggestions for what should change in the Muslim world.
Majid, a blanket statement like the one that reader made needs only one case to prove it wrong. It can be called stunningly wrong when there are many such cases to disprove it, as there are in the world today. The statement “Muslims are involved WHEREVER violence breaks out in the world” means that Muslims are involved EVERYWHERE that violence breaks out in the world. Do you really think that?
If you only consider Muslim victims of violence — the only ones mentioned in your comment — that would seem to be correct. But there are not only Muslim victims of violence in the world. What about other cases in the news, like Hindu nationalist violence against Christians in India or the violent army suppression of the Burmese protests led by Buddhist monks? Or the violence of guerrillas like the FARC in Columbia? There were no Muslims involved in those cases, as far as I know.
On the other hand, there have been other recent cases of violence involving Muslims that don’t quite fit your argument. Think of the violence by Muslims against Iraqi Christians. Or Muslims killing Muslims in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere. You complain about double standards but don’t include these cases in your list.
My conclusion is that blanket statements like this, either about all Muslims being violent or all victims being Muslims, are one-sided arguments that obscure more than they explain.
from FaithWorld:
Muslims and the U.S. election — two sobering reminders
Two Reuters colleagues in the United States have written sobering accounts of the place of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. presidential election campaign.
"These are uneasy times for America's Muslims, caught in a backwash from a presidential election campaign where the false notion that Barack Obama is Muslim has been seized on by some who link Islam with terrorism," writes Chicago religion writer Mike Conlon in "Sour note for American Muslims in election campaign."
"Incidents during the U.S. presidential election campaign, now in its final sprint towards November 4, show that fear and suspicion of Muslims persist undiminished and are being used as a political weapon," writes Washington columnist Bernd Debusmann in "In U.S. elections, fear of Muslims."
Click on the hyperlinked titles for the rest of the story.
Both of them cite former Secretary of State Colin Powell asking the real question that the other politicians, including Barack Obama, have been avoiding: "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion 'He (Obama) is a Muslim and might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
Election campaigns can bring out some ugly emotions. Do you think this will calm down after Nov. 4? Or, especially if Obama wins, will the rumour campaign against Muslims continue?
To me, if you vote based on religion or race you are a bigot and un-american. You obviously also do not value the Constitution and the principles upon which this nation was created.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya revolt going on in these place and now it is spreading to the East. It sounds good. People coming out into street and chasing the autocrats out, wow what a wonderful view to see. Or is it so? Isn’t this a Déjà vu? Haven’t we seen this happening in Soviet Union last century? What happened there after that? People with no experience of democracy came to power and all got lost to Organized criminals. Now women in those countries are prostituting all around the world and online to earn a living. No safety for anything. It is true and is needed the autocrats should be gone but that should be a systematic transfer not chaos which will only lead to anarchy. In a place that is already saturated by violence and terror. This will only lead to more confusion and chaos. I don’t know what should be a solution to this confusion I think people or anyone with any political experience should suggest a way out for these monarchs and autocrats. Maybe give these guys an Island to and live. Maybe they will accept that to save their lives. Take all the money from their bank accounts and extradite them there. Then a UN panel should conduct democratic elections. Easier said than done though, well what if the winners of the elections are something like Hamas? Okay enough is already there for paranoia what is going on there can only add fuel to the already burning fire.