Racism for the mainstream

The vilification of Islam, particularly in the West, has developed into something of a pseudo-intellectual industry.

My first piece for Online Opinion has just been posted here.

First, define democracy

Lost in the contrived debate over whether Islam is compatible with democracy is a far more important set of questions: what does democracy mean to different societies - not just Westerners or Muslims, but to the Chinese, Tibetans and so on?

Does it matter that no Western government offered material support to the people of Pakistan as they sought to depose their dictator over the past several years?

Should we recall that it was Western countries that overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the 1950s?

The debate also avoids any appraisal of the malaise in Western democracies. One only has to look at the frivolity of the US presidential race, where candidates are criticised for their lack of tenpin bowling skills, to appreciate that something is wrong. In our own country democracy has often been reduced to a shallow exhibition of personalities.

Rather than insist that Muslims prove their worth in Western eyes, it would be more productive if we in the West took a good look at our own democracies.

Mustafa Qadri, Sydney

(Published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 18 April 2008)

Identity and resistance

For the foreseeable future (which is far from forever), my core intellectual interest will be ideology, identity and resistance. What are the features of identity that persuade people to resist those that are 'different' to them? What role does ideology play? These questions might seem quite abstract, but in fact they are very concrete.

The most obvious example is nationality. Nationality represents a relationship of association between an individual and a state. It means, for example, that you can travel to and from a certain territory relatively unmolested (with numerous exceptions which I won't go into for now). But there are problems with the concept of nationality because it tends to discriminate in an arbitrary way. Some of the most dedicated, good people get locked up as illegal immigrants while others are offered citizenship or residency simply because they have a lot of money or have the right skin colour. Whether people indigent to the country of nationality are particularly nationalistic is often quite uncertain. Most Pakistanis, for example, are either Pahtan, or Sindi, Balochi, Punjabi or from a region like Karachi or Lahore first. And they are Pakistani second. Even then our patriotism tends to most manifest itself only when we play cricket.

Resistance is another key feature of identity. To resist, by definition, you need to identify whom you are resisting and whom you are fighting on behalf. My particular interest in this inevitably stems from recent geopolitical events. I'm simply not convinced that there's a clash of civilisations, or, even, that there is a Western world fighting a Muslim world. But I want to empirically investigate this.

I find it concerning that there is now a lot of research on 'what Muslims think'. Inherent in this project is the assumption that religious identity, for Muslims at least, is the pre-eminent marker of identity. Therefore, it is the likely source of resistance to outside interference, real or perceived. But what about cultural affinities, nationality, 'race', and gender? And what about the elephant in the room; what about socioeconomics? That is, what about class distinctions?

Another problem with the clash of civilisations model is the way it marginalises most of the world's populations. Not only does it marginalise Muslims, it marginalises most others as either too benign or intellectually undeveloped to merit attention. Hence, the concern with India or China, for example, is not that their peoples will out think the West, but will instead out produce it.

All of these things are lost in the emphasis on religion.