Engaging Raj Patel's "The Value of Nothing"

I have not read Raj Patel's latest book yet, except for parts of its first chapter. Just read John Gray's review. I thought Gray raises an important question which remains an issue for materialist ideologies/movements fighting against materialism/capitalism. I touched upon this in a previous post, here. Yet, based on my previous reading and listening to Raj's work, I have a feeling that Gray might have under-appreciated Raj's call for a substantial change in how we value things and live our life; Gray may have read Raj through the lens of socialist/labor-rights/progressive movements that Raj is closed to in his activism, instead of reading the book on its own merit. But I can be wrong too.

On a side note, do check out a promotional video of the book that Raj has published online.

Excerpts:

Review: The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel
By John Gray, The Observer, December 13, 2009
Source

"Part of the problem is the belief that price and value are for most purposes one and the same. This equation makes it possible for them to develop impressive-looking mathematical models of the economy, but it involves a huge oversimplification of reality. As Raj Patel explains in this penetrating and admirably concise guide to the follies of market fundamentalism, the notion that the value of a good is its price obscures the complexity of markets and of human beings. Theories of efficient markets take the shifting abstractions generated by the price mechanism as actually existing entities but, as Patel puts it, using one of many vivid metaphors that stud his argument, this is like being in the simulated world of The Matrix, surrounded by "a digital rain of symbols and signs".

The seeming precision of the computer screen suggests that something substantial is being measured and exchanged, when in fact what is being traded are virtual assets whose relations with actual resources are tangled and hidden..."
...

"Contrary to the claims of economists, the belief that price equals value is not science, an accurate representation of the world, but ideology – a way of obfuscating the world."
...

"Much of what passes as economics is ideology and ideology only works if those who produce it also believe in it. The difficulty of the present situation comes from the fact that while few any longer believe in the free market, no one has an alternative to it that is able to command widespread support. Predictably, the financial storm has jolted moribund Marxist theories back into a semblance of life..."
...

"A passionate activist, he believes problems of resource scarcity are man-made and can always be solved by fairer distribution. However, the growth-oriented lifestyle of rich countries is not unsustainable because it is unjust; it is unsustainable because the Earth's resources are unalterably finite. It may be true that the imbalance between human demands and the environment could be diminished if enough people rejected material affluence as their main goal in life. But this is an extremely nebulous possibility and one that highlights the deepest difficulty for Patel's analysis.

Oscar Wilde may have been right that people know the price of everything and the value of nothing, a remark Patel cites at the start of his book, and which gives him its title. But what is value if it is not price? It is telling that when trying to flesh out a non-market account, Patel turns to religion, in this case Buddhism. The Buddhist tradition gives him what he needs – an understanding of human wellbeing that does not centre round the satisfaction of wants. Like the ancient European Stoic and Epicurean philosophies, Buddhism proposes that happiness lies in shrinking the self – in giving up our wants, rather than forever chasing after them. It is a thought that occurs to many well-off people from time to time, but it is hard to imagine large numbers of people ever acting on it.

Theories of value that focus on curbing desire run up against the demand for self-realisation, which is one of the strongest impulses in modern life. To be sure, the pursuit of self-realisation does not often result in happiness. But is it happiness that most people are pursuing? Or is it stimulus and excitement? In the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, Patel informs the reader, the introduction of satellite television has been followed by a crime wave. He seems to think this fact somehow strengthens his argument. But what it tells us is that no culture can now resist the dangerous charms of a life spent in insatiable desire."

Three Cups of Tea - A Critical Review

Three Cups of Tea - A Critical Review

By Ali A.

Different readers must have read “Three Cups of Tea” (2006) with varied emphasis and with different take-away lessons. The variation in their readings was probably informed by their educational, professional, geographic, ethnic, and national backgrounds, also their knowledge of the Pak and Afghan geographies and cultures, and, further, their understanding of current American involvement in these regions, its motives and history.

But, not all readings of this book are equal and not all facts and lessons from the book are worth taking. No doubt the book presents a remarkable story of courage and compassion. The purpose here is not to question those values. Nor to deny the personal struggles of the main character, Greg Mortenson, as depicted (and constructed) in the book. It is to scrutinize the cultural discourse – and solution – of 'development' and 'humanitarian intervention' offered in it. A New York Times bestseller that was subsequently published in two condensed versions for kids between 4 and 8 and 8 and 13 in the year 2009 and a required reading not just for school kids and social work majors in many US schools but also for senior commanding officers in the US military (according to the book’s official website), “Three Cups of Tea” has sort of become a canon for policy makers, social workers, and school teachers in many institutions. The availability of this book and its condensed editions in both original and cheap, pirated formats in bookstores of many South Asian cities indicates its widening popularity (or, at least, the potential for that). That makes it even more critical to carefully analyze the narrative and message of this book.

A particularly insightful approach to engage with this book is to examine its underlying normative assumptions and politics against the backdrop of the ‘cultural discourse’ that is being utilized to justify ongoing American hegemonic expansionism. This critical engagement is very relevant to how our humanitarian activists, policy makers, and general concerned audience, including you and I, understand these regions and peoples. It is also relevant for the kind of measures we adopt for 'solving' the regions' problems, deciding what is the 'right' thing to do, who should do it, and how.

Colonial Humanitarianism

First, the book never questions the idea of "humanitarian" intervention by an imperial power like the US, but only debates the method of such an intervention: That any such military intervention should be accompanied by humanitarian re-construction efforts, which (supposedly) would be a good thing for the local people and for American security interests (see p. 294). There is no reflection on Washington's past record of military interventions and its outcomes in this argument, and no appraisal of US motives and geo-strategic interests in the region. However, before any other question, the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions should be interrogated: What gives a country – especially a country like the US with a terrible track record of militarism and human rights violation – the right to violate sovereignty of other countries in the name of 'spreading democracy' and 'humanitarian interventions'?

Moreover, toward explaining the cause of extremism and 'terror', the book conveniently mutes the messy political history of the region-s. Perhaps because that history would point to the pivotal role that CIA, ISI, and Saudis played in creating the menace of terrorism and extremism. And, that would complicate the overly simplistic analysis of "terror" presented in the book. However, in any analysis of ‘terror’ in the Pak and Afghan regions, what should not be forgotten is that the Cold War was not fought in America or Europe but in regions like Pakistan and Afghanistan which are still paying the price of that war. In their efforts to combat Soviets, the US and its allies heavily funded and nurtured the most extremists of the militants in the region, because, as Mahmood Mamdani points out in his book "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim", they thought that fanatics fight harder. The US wanted to give Soviets their own Vietnam. The policy of using right wing religious organizations to combat socialist-nationalist impulses and movements was already a long-established US strategy in the Middle East before it was applied to the Afghan case.

Quoting a scholar from Pakistan, Mamdani also describes how a radical school curriculum was developed in an American university that was then taught to the children in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, particularly in the NWFP (now known as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) and the FATA regions. The same children then would be recruited for fighting against the Soviets. The Taliban are just the second generation of those extremist militants that the CIA, ISI, and Saudis nurtured together, spending more than six billion dollars and providing sophisticated weapons and training. Without understanding this history and the influence of external powers, one cannot understand the causes of terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Furthermore, it should be made clear that the American interventions in these (and other) regions of the world are themselves a kind of terrorism which continues to breed more terror and violence in reaction.

“Three Cups of Tea” simply ignores this long history and continuing interests of regional and global powers. Instead, in its highly a-historical and a-political narrative, the roots of the problem are smoothly traced back to 'internal' causes within Muslim societies: the problem with competing interpretations of Islam and with local socio-economic and cultural conditions, in particular, illiteracy. The silence on the role of 'external' political factors allows the narrative of this book to present 'our' involvement as only humanitarian and benevolent: 'We have nothing to do with their mess; we only want to help them fix their mess. Because we are able to do it, therefore, we should do it, in good faith'.

As the book pampers the blissful ignorance of Americans – the primary target audience of the book – of the imperial and exploitative policies of their government, it also appeals to, and reinforces, a false sense of self-righteous philanthropy in them. However, not philanthropy, but social justice should be the idiom of American interaction with the rest of the world. The difference the second approach makes is huge, because it induces an attitude of humility and guilt as it also induces a critical political awareness.

What Americans need to understand is that their affluence, luxury, extravagant "way of life", apathy toward politics are all directly linked to wars and exploitation of people and resources by their government in other parts of the world (and in their own country too). And each American, especially those directly benefiting from the imperial exploitations, is morally responsible for the actions of the American government-s. The place to start any humanitarian effort is to put a stop on their own government's military adventurism as well as economic and cultural exploitations in other parts of the world. What needs to be understood is that anti-Americanism in most parts of the world is not a result of "ignorance" but of direct experience with the consequences of American exploitation. Without considering and addressing the political causes, trying to change 'culture' through education in Muslims societies won't be much effective. On the contrary, such culture-centered understandings of the issue have at times contributed to the propaganda and justification of Washington’s hegemonic expansionism (See Lila Abu-Lughod’s and Saba Mahmood and Charles Hirschkind’s articles cited below).

Saving Muslims from themselves

Building on that last point, before Americans could help other people they should seriously reflect on their own biases and normative assumptions. The narrative in "Three Cups of Tea" never seriously reflects on how colonial-istic and arrogant it is to try 'changing cultures' of other people, through military means or ‘soft’ humanitarian efforts, to what 'WE' consider is 'right' for them. To save those people, to civilize them, to help them progress, isn’t this old colonial discourse of 'white man's burden' in a new guise?

"Three Cups of Tea" mentions in the passing another book "Ancient Futures" but never really connects the moral of that book to its own overriding message, especially the message presented in its second half. From the brief mention of that book in "Three Cups of Tea", "Ancient Futures" appears to suggest that there can be multiple ways to be modern, and indigenous people and cultures do not necessarily need to follow the West-European and American route-s to becoming modern. In fact, their definition of 'progress' and 'modern' may be very different from 'ours'. This moral lesson was shared in "Three Cups of Tea", but it never had any significant impact on its grand narrative or message, which remained couched in the idioms of "backward vs. modern", "conservative vs. progressive", "fundamentalist vs. tolerant". At various point in the book one gets the impression that the farther one gets from one's tradition and 'conservativeness' and becomes ‘like us', in thoughts and actions, the more "modern" one seems to become. Such measures of ‘progress’ and ‘achievement’ are especially apparent in the aspirations and changes reflected in the characters of Jahan, Aslam, and Tahira by the author-s for their ‘Western’ audience (See pages 195, 204, 299-303, 312).

The contention here is not about building schools or providing other welfare services to people, but who is building them, with what assumptions, and purpose. Furthermore, what kind of education is being given in those schools, imparted with what impressions about indigenous culture and life, and at what cost?

With regards to impressions about indigenous culture and life, “Three Cups of Tea” misleadingly characterizes rural as essentially wild, poor, and ignorant, and therefore inclined on extremism and terror. Quite the contrary, rural areas in Pakistan – especially the places with sustainable living patterns and rich traditions – can't always be considered "poor". If progress is measured with ‘happiness’, ‘peace’, and ‘trust’, and not through extra-complicated life arrangements and material luxuries of urban areas, some of these rural areas may be far richer than their urban neighbors. One should also bear in mind that the rural areas in most of Pakistan have been historically known for their pluralistic cultural environment with emphasis on devotion and diffused religious culture and practices. That is especially true for the Northern Areas with very rich and diverse cultural histories.

To automatically equate “rural” with backwardness and ignorance is quite presumptuous and misleading. And, although the intention in “Three Cups of Tea” was probably to develop a more sympathetic understanding of the focused regions and bring ‘West’ and ‘East’ closer on humanitarian grounds, the narrative has strong resemblances with the colonial-style Orientalist discourse about “other” cultures. That discourse was built on “differences” between “us” and “them”. The “us” in this discourse constructed its self-image in relation to “them” and understood itself as enlightened, civilized, and superior. The other, unfamiliar cultures, in this logic, were seen as barbarian and dangerous, therefore, to be afraid of and to be controlled and civilized (See Edward Said’s insightful works cited below). The “other” in the present narrative is not necessarily the opposite but just behind “us” in the historical march toward progress, and “our” responsibility is to help them catch up.

Given such misleading impressions about the rural – widespread not only among foreigners but also social workers and policy makers from more urban areas of Pakistan – one wonders about the curriculum and teaching that are being given in those schools. What image of their own lands, people, culture, and religion the students studying such curriculum would develop for themselves? And what impact it would have on their self-identity and sense of purpose when the West-European and American historical experiences are taught to them as ‘universal’ and the only route to modernization (or the most successful and natural route to modernization). Such normative assumptions are abundant in the established ‘modern’ school curriculums found in both America and Pakistan. One therefore wonders when the students are taught about Western advancements, are they also informed about colonialism and slavery which were fundamentally part of the same project of Western "enlightenment" and "progress" – not as exceptions but as part of the very logic of "progress" and "civilization" as could be seen in the writings of John Locke and John Stuart Mill who rationalized and justified colonialism as a ‘progressive force’ which would civilize the indigenous people in colonized territories? And, similarly, when the students are enchanted with dreams of Western modernity, are they also allowed to competently and critically reflect on possessive individualism, excessive consumerism, exploitation of environment and people, and secular transformation of religions and traditions, which are all part and parcel of Western ‘Enlightenment’ and capitalist advancements, and to decide if taking the western route to becoming ‘modern’ is really that desirable?

Having spent some time in the Gilgit-Baltistan region recently and seen the outcome of some welfare projects run under similar organizations, including Aga Khan's, I am very concerned about the notions of "development" which detach children from their roots and land, make them lose their identity and self-worth, and about the notions of "progress" which are defined primarily in material-istic terms, that is material well-being of individuals and collectivities, but without serious regard for spiritual and cultural values and goals. It is one thing to adopt boiling practice for drinking water but quite another to start considering your traditional dress as dirty and backward. From this viewpoint, the character of Jahan in the book is quite illustrative of this problem.

Pakistan does need more schools and quality education, but simply constructing schools is not enough. The key is to look into the curriculum and teachers training. What kinds of identities are being constructed in the process of schooling, what role models are being presented, what outlooks of the world and sense of purpose in life are being imparted, and what tastes, desires and values are being constructed?

We need to ask similar question about other development projects in the region: What cost and consequences to people, culture, identities, values, and environment?

Gross Misrepresentations

Apart from problems with normative assumptions in the book, there are gross misrepresentations which require thorough scrutiny. That includes elements of fictions. For example, as one commentator pointed out elsewhere, "Mortenson could not have attended Mother Teresa's funeral in Spring 2000 (pp 233-235) because she died in Autumn 1997" (Nosheen Ali, 2010).

I also have serious doubts about Mortenson's kidnap episode in Waziristan. Those familiar with the geography of the region know very well that the Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) are miles apart from Peshawar and the FATA areas (where “Waziristan” is), and it makes little practical sense to expand the project to that far-away region when Mortenson had not completed even his first school in Korphe, Baltistan (and the book itself admits that the people in Korphe’s neighboring areas desperately wanted schools in their localities). On the same note, consider also the November 1979 issue of Time Magazine covering the Iran hostage crisis that Mortenson finds in his cell and through which he and co-author, David Relin, construct an emotion-filled, deeply touching narrative of fear and hope in the same episode. The story was probably quite inspiring to many American readers, but it is very unlikely for that English-language, 15 years old issue, with a "garish painting of a scowling Ayatollah Khomeini" on the cover, to be found in a cell located somewhere in the remote area of Waziristan. Likewise, the whole episode is filled with holes that were never satisfactorily addressed, leaving too many doubts. The episode, curiously enough, is also devoid of traceable details about “Waziristan”. (One can similarly question his excursions, their nature and purpose, into Afghanistan immediately after the fall of the Taliban regime.)

The Waziristan episode was critical to collapse starkly different geographies, cultures, and political histories into each other to frame Mortenson's tale and message in terms of combating "terrorism". That became possible only by suppressing the rich histories and variations among Northern Areas, Peshawar, FATA, and Afghanistan. Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) have 60-75% Shia population, whereas demographic makeup in the FATA areas is quite the inverse. Northern Areas, furthermore, are ethnically and linguistically much more diverse than the FATA areas. The connection with terror of the Sunni-radical-Taliban kind could not have been made by just discussing the Northern Areas, where Mortenson actually did the majority of his educational and welfare work. How were these regions connected in “Three Cups of Tea” then? Not through showing any parallels between their cultures, political histories, or geographies, but through Mortenson's travel, and through that the readers were given the impression that these starkly different regions can all be understood as one geographic and cultural entity – untamed and dangerous, in desperate need of education and enlightenment.

Perhaps the author-s and publishers wanted to collapse these regions to make their story more marketable considering the hype about terrorism and its sell-ability in America, as Nosheen Ali suggests in her analysis (Nosheen Ali, 2010). Perhaps, they also wanted to make their narrative more relevant and engage with the current war-on-terror discourse seriously and sincerely – but, evidently, uncritically and un-self-reflectively – through their own liberal-humanist diagnosis of the problem: That is, ‘ignorance and backwardness are the root cause of terror in the Muslim world'.

The overly simplistic-and-generalized depiction of ‘rural as wild, poor, and ignorant in Pakistan inclined on extremism’ was also instrumental for the author-s to make the case for their kind of solution: ‘Build schools before madrassas gets them’. The subtext of this solution is that secular education would turn students into ‘modern’ Muslims (read: “Good Muslims”, defined as modern, progressive, tolerant, pro-West) and remove their misunderstandings and ignorance about America (because to have those “misunderstandings” is wrong and characteristics of “Bad Muslims”, defined in the dominant cultural discourse as backward, fundamentalists, violent, and anti-West.).

Toward conclusion, ignorance no doubt has created a lot of injustice in the world and no region is spared from its evils. For concerned Americans perhaps the most optimal place to start combating ignorance is America itself. But, simply opening more schools in America won’t do it. Because celebrating “Columbus Day” as “discovery of America” but not as colonial exploitation of civilizations which already existed in the Americas, and observing “Thanksgiving” as the national holiday but without contemplating on the historic injustice done to Native Americans, and slaves and indentured servants for that matter, will continue to reinforce that blissful ignorance and false self-righteousness in Americans. “Columbus Day” and “Thanksgiving” are just two among many instances of distorted elements in the established (dominant) curriculum and teaching practices. What we need is a substantial transformation of the established curriculum taught in the schools – and in the content of other popular sources, like TV, movies, novels, magazines, from which people learn history and construct their imaginations and identities. And, not philanthropy or false national pride, but a deep concern for social justice for everyone and a self-reflective and sincere understanding of other cultures should be the guiding principles for developing that curriculum.

For further readings on this line of argument, see:

"Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"
http://www.smi.uib.no/seminars/Pensum/Abu-Lughod.pdf

“Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency.” By Charles Hirschkind and Saba Mahmood http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190136/

Particularly, on problems with the binary of “Good Muslim vs. Bad Muslim”, see
"Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Cracking the Media Code"
http://www.islamicinsights.com/news/opinion/good-muslim-bad-muslim-cracking-the-media-code.html

See also, Nosheen Ali’s excellent analysis of this book,
Ali, Nosheen. 2010. "Books vs Bombs? Humanitarian development and the narrative of terror in Northern Pakistan", Third World Quarterly, 31: 4, 541 — 559

Edward Said’s works, particularly, “Orientialism”, “Culture and Imperialism”, and “Covering Islam”, deal directly with some of themes discussed in this review.

Ali A. is doctoral student in Social Sciences. He can be reached at alismails786@gmail.com. Other versions of this article appeared in IslamicInsights and InkPaperMosaic


------
[Edit Aug 6, 2010]

Further comments based on readers' responses from a discussion in a public forum:

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Let me try to address them one by one:

**** Wrote: "Mr. Ali, with your assertion that, “…the book presents a remarkable story of courage and compassion. The point is not to question those values. It is to scrutinize the ideas (and solution) of ‘development’ and ‘humanitarian intervention’ offered in this book…” you are precisely undermining its message. I will also add that since this book is a novel, and not some study on the Afghanistan/Pakistan problem, it should not be criticized with the criteria that you use. Nevertheless, I will try to show that even with your pre-established criteria for judging the book, the book is still a great read."

1. In case you missed it, the book is written in the style of a realistic biography and partly as ethnography. Read the Harry Potter series instead if it is just courage and compassion that you are looking for and if that is your only criteria for judging the worth of this book. This book deals with some serious issues and the representation of the regions and solutions that it offers has some severe implications. And for that reason its narrative should be seriously engaged. “Three Cups of Tea” has sort of become a canon for policy makers, social workers, and school teachers in many institutions.

**** Wrote: "You accurately depict the US as an “imperial power” that does not have a stellar record when it comes to humanitarianism. Then you ask: “What gives a country – especially a country like the US with a terrible track record of militarism and human rights violation – the right to violate sovereignty of other countries in the name of ‘spreading democracy’ and ‘humanitarian interventions’?”

My answer:

The US does not have the right at all, but it has a duty to act in this unique case. Why? The US is ultimately responsible for the “mess” that continues to grow in that region. ... Therefore, since the US was one of the main actors in creating the problem, it is obliged to “fix” it too!"

2. No doubt, the US has created a mess in the Afghan-Pak regions. Good that we are on the same page on this point. What you also need to realize is that the current US presence in those regions is not out of altruism and benevolence. Furthermore, the continuing presence is actually exacerbating the political conditions there. For example, in Pakistan, we did not have any suicide bombers before 9/11, now we export them! Thanks to Bush and Musharraf’s anti-terrorism policies! In the case of Afghanistan, you may want to read on the phenomenon of “neo-Taliban” in Afghanistan (see, for e.g., Tariq Ali’s column cited below), who were not trained in the traditional madaaris of the 1980s but are from common Afghan people who have joined resurgent militant elements only after the American invasion, in reaction to continuous American bombardment and other misadventures in their country. What you also need to realize is that American intervention in these regions are themselves a kind of terrorism, which continues to breed more terror and violence in reaction.

**** wrote, "You claim that there is “…silence on the role of external ‘factors’….” in the book. This is false, because the book explicitly mentions the various external factors that I stated above. Specifically, Mortenson says it was the CIA which made “…Stinger missiles and the training to fire them effectively available to mujahedeen leaders battling America’s Cold War enemy here, leaders like Osama Bin Laden.”"

3. Of course, a few external factors have been ‘mentioned’ in the book, but never considered in the diagnosis of the main problem. The stinger missiles that you name were mentioned only in the passing and in inconsequential terms (see pgs. 213 and 217). And, if you look at the narrative carefully, even after ‘mentioning’ the external factors, the logic or cause of terrorism is basically traced back to the INTERNAL factors in the book: Conflict in interpretation of religion; the “good” and “bad” Muslims in that region; and, above all, illiteracy (as illustrated in the title of one of its chapters: “the enemy is ignorance”).

Once again, contrary to the book’s message, anti-Americanism in most parts of the world is not a result of “ignorance” but of direct experience with the consequences of American exploitation.

4. On the issue of false sense of self-righteousness, my basic contention is about the idiom of American engagement: philanthropy vs. social justice. The book does complicate the narrative of American engagement to some extent, but, as I argue in the review, the basic idiom remains the same. The courage and compassion that you find very inspiring in this book also feed into this idiom. I have made this point already in the review – so, won’t repeat that here. For further elaboration, you may want to read Lila Abu-Lughod’s and Saba Mahmood’s articles (cited below). You may also want to look at the politics of “Good vs. Bad Muslims”, which is part of that cultural idiom and discourse (See the article cited below).

5. Again, the subtext of Mortenson's solution is that secular education would turn students into ‘modern’ Muslims (read: “Good Muslims”, defined as modern, progressive, tolerant, pro-West) and remove their misunderstandings and ignorance about America (because to have those “misunderstandings” is wrong and characteristics of “Bad Muslims”, defined in the dominant cultural discourse as backward, fundamentalists, violent, and anti-West.). This subtext contradicts your claim that Mortenson’s solution is just about building schools and the curriculum choice is on the locals. For without the modern, secular curriculum that is by default the established curriculum in Pakistan, with all its faults, how is a school any different from a madressa. It’s the curriculum that makes all the difference and that is the key factor in Mortenson’s solution, even if he does not speak about that in open terms.

6. *** wrote, “The book proposes education and books as the solution, not wars and weapons. (With all due respect, I think you should be ashamed of yourself for depicting Mr. Mortenson in such a negative way for there are few people in the world who dedicate their entire lives in helping other human beings and bridging gaps between cultures. These are the people of action, not words.)”

At some points in the book, I agree with you, one does get the impression that the character Mortenson (as depicted in the book) opposes the American war-s and proposes books in place of wars. However, on pg. 294, Mortenson explicitly states that he supported “the war in Afghanistan” . He further says on the same page, “I believed in it because I believed we were serious when we said we planned to rebuild Afghanistan. I’m here [in Afghanistan] because I know that military victory is only the first phase of winning the war on terror and I’m afraid we’re not willing to take the next steps.” So, Ms. ****, if you look at his message closely, he is basically asking for a well-rounded strategy for war on terror, in which books should follow bombs in any post-war reconstruction efforts. In other words, ‘development’ should be part of US war strategy.

7. On the point about imposing normative assumption, as I suggest earlier, despite mention of some self-reflective works (like “Ancient Futures”), the grand narrative of the book remains couched in the tropes of “backward vs. modern”, “conservative vs. progressive”, “fundamentalist vs. tolerant”, in a new-Orientalist kind of narrative. As I suggest earlier, at various point in the book one gets the impression that the farther one gets from one’s tradition and ‘conservativeness’ and becomes ‘like us’, in thoughts and actions, the more “modern” one seems to become. Such MEASURES of ‘progress’ and ‘achievement’ are especially apparent in the aspirations and changes reflected in the characters of Jahan and Tahira by the author-s. Read closely the pages 195, 299-303, and 312.

For example, when Jahan says, “I couldn’t take my eyes off all the foreign ladies…They seemed so dignified. Whenever I’d seen people from downside before, I’d run away, ashamed of my dirty clothes.” (p. 195)

Or, when the book describes Tahira’s aspirations with these words: “Tahira, wearing a spotless white headscarf and sandals that wouldn’t have been practical in the mountains, told Mortenson that once she graduate, she planned to return to Korphe and teach alongside her father, Master Hussein. “I’ve had this chance,” she said. “Now when we go upside, all the people look at us, at our clothes, and think we are fashionable ladies. I think every girl of the Braldu deserves the chance to come downside at least once. Then their life will change. I think the greatest service I can perform is to go back and insure that this happens for all of them.” (p.312)

***, you may be seeing Jahan or Tahira as mere individuals who are asserting their personal aspirations. I am seeing their views as part of a pattern. It would take too much space to get in the debate of what’s wrong or right with this pattern and based on what perspective. Now, I am not saying all of these problems can be traced back to the curriculum being taught in those schools. The argument I presented is not just about what’s in the content but also what’s not in it and therefore what becomes the default presumption and bias. In that regard, in the review I hinted at some observations from my experience in the region and talk with people there. See the point about Western Enlightenment.

Furthermore, when I talked to people, I find that their aspirations and experiences of educational development and consequences are much more nuanced and multi-faceted than what was flatly and romantically presented in “Three Cups of Tea”. To give you just one example from a workshop that I conducted a couple of weeks ago in an area close to Gilgit, in which I emphasized on taking a comprehensive and cultural-sensitive approach to educational development, one community worker shared a concern that a single-minded emphasis on female education has created a disbalance in some places where you now have about 90% female literacy rate but very low male literacy rate. Now there aren’t good marriage proposals for these girls, many of whom end up in relationships that are less than satisfying to them. He connected that to the increasing number of suicide cases among educated females in a particular community. The observation, no doubt, requires further research into the causes and here I only present that as just a question to problematize the single-minded emphasis on female education advocated in “Three Cups of Tea”.

The observation also raises a number of other related questions here. The approach shared in the book is ‘ask people what they want and help them to get that’. You see that careful, contextual approach in the first few cases in the book, but then building-schools becomes the one-solution-for-all-problems for the rest of the places, especially in the second half of the book, with a focused emphasis on female education. We see no dialogue or critical exchange that should be the key ingredient of his advocated approach. Instead, the book relies on a very simplistic, if not misleading, diagnosis of local cultures and their problems (as I argue in my review) and advocates its single-minded solution to a problem (Wahhabi-Taliban style terrorism) that does not exist in the Northern Areas. That contradicts the approach that the book advocated at the beginning.

Community workers from the area shared a variety of experiences and approaches in their comments in my workshop, which were not always in agreement with each other, but they presented a quite complex picture of ground realities and needs. I wish Mortenson had continued the approach he advocates in principle, because that would have allowed us to see the variety of social factors and solutions that may be available. Next, and this might sound contradictory to the previous observation, but it could be argued that common people may not always know what may be best for them; more specifically, what may be the consequence of a certain educational development approach. To simply rely on their wishes may be too naive, and at times, irresponsible. I distinguish common people from the experienced community workers and that should resolve that apparent contradiction.

At times, especially in the second half of Mortenson’s book, I also felt that we see characters (not always professionals or experienced community workers) that speak exactly what he wanted to hear, expressing ideas and aspirations in a flat, almost romantic fashion for the Western readers about what needs to be done. This is probably due to the single-handed, decontextualized, anti-terror rhetoric and approach in the later half of the book, and perhaps also due to the construction of narrative by the two authors under the influence of the cultural discourse and in view of increasing the appeal of their narrative.


More Articles:

“Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency.” By Charles Hirschkind and Saba Mahmood http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190136/

Tariq Ali on Neo-Taliban: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174977/tariq_ali_has_the_u_s_invasion_of_pakistan_begun_

----
[Edit December 1, 2010: In another forum where this review was published, a person named Ghulam Parvi posted the following]

"GM. Parvi (Ghulam Parvi in three cups of tea). #

10.24.2010 10:56

Dear Ali and Friends. I am Ghulam Parvi for whom Greg Mortenson praised in his book three cups of tea.I know him, I worked him, I taught him, I helped him morally, physically and financially. Before publishing the book, when Greg showed me draft book, I told Greg and David that they have included many false stories and quite wrong picture of local culture and religion and law, Greg promised and committed that he will not included those false stories, but they published. Every reader should know that I was the translator to David Oliver Relien, when Greg brought David to Baltistan to polish the stories of three cups of tea. I am the eye witness to say that David and Greg has included false stories.

He proved himself to be a dishonest and false story teller. He and David has made the book interesting, with fictitious stories. When he says himself, what and how his humanitarian services mixes with Saudi Arab, Iran, Kuwait, Religious conflict, Wahabism, Taliban, etc. etc. He has shown him as Hero, while he has not mentioned great services of the local people, local organizations and groups.

Does the American Readers believe over the stories? Without confirmation. Strange. Do not the publisher of America need permission to publish ones reference, who is defamed. Are the American writers, publishers and humanitarian workers like American Army, who blamed Iraq for having mass destruction weapons, attacked Iraq against the will of UNO, and then later committed that there were no weapon of mass destruction and the report of their CIA was baseless."

On History and Historiography

For sometime I wanted to list down articles and books related to the themes that I am interested in. Basically, a bibliography with titles that I have found useful or that I have read good reviews about and want to read soon. It's going to be a list of personal favorites, not a comprehensive list on the subject.

I start with Philosophy of History and Historiography in this post.

First, a quick note on how I distinguish the two. The philosophy of history, as it is understand here, is an attempt to find patterns and causes in social and historical changes. Historiography is about ways of writing history. It's about interrogating the research methodologies and social perspectives that inform selection of data, focus on certain historical agents (and not others), and questions that a historian/historical-sociologist pursues. The two - Philosophy of History and Historiography - are analytically separate enterprises, but closely related.

So, for example, Ibn Khaldun starts his "The Muqaddimah" with a critical appraisal of the history-writing of his time and proposes to present his own method, which he claims was based on ilm al-'Umran (Science of Population or Civilization). He outlines that science in 'The Muqaddimah' (the 'Prologue' to his Grand History, written in multiple volumes). The science was informed by his realistic and careful reading of history (realistic in terms of trying to find objective causes in history). He identified tribes and tribal solidarities as the core principle of social organization of his time and as a primary agent of historical change. His narrative focused on tribal groups to explain the rise and fall of dynasties.

The below list is in no ranked order:

"Trends of History in Qur'an" by Muhammad Baqir Sadr (Book, Online)

"The Muqaddimah" by Ibn Khaldun (Book, Online)

"On the Sociology of Islam" by Ali Shariati (Book, Citation)

"Social and Historical Change" by Murtaza Mutahhari (Book, Citation. Many parts are available Online. See "Man and Universe", Chapter V - "Society and History")

"On the Plight of the Oppressed People" by Ali Shariati (Article/Speech, Online)

"Marxism and other Western Fallacies" by Ali Shariati (Book, Citation)

"What is History?" by E. H. Carr (Book, Citation)

"Orientalism" by Edward Said (Book, Citation)

"Silencing the Past" by Michel-Rolph Trouillot (Book, Citation)

"Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992" by Shahid Amin (Book, Citation)

"The Holocaust industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" by Norman G. Finkelstein (Book, Citation)

"Remembering partition: violence, nationalism, and history in India" by Gyan Pandey (Book, Citation)

"Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference" by Dipesh Chakrabarty (Book, Citation)

"The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories" by Partha Chatterjee (Book, Citation)

"Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time" by Reinhart Koselleck (Book, Citation)

Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities" by Marshall David Sahlins (Book, Citation)

"The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber (Book, Citation)

"Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison" by Michel Foucault (Book, Citation)

"Vision and Method in Historical Sociology" By Theda Skocpol (Book, Citation)

"Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons" by Charles Tilly (Book, Citation)

"Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation" by William Hamilton Sewell (Book, Citation)

"Good Muslim, Bad Muslim"

Good Muslims are moderate, rational, non-violent, and progressive, who chant, "Islam is the R-O-P" (Religion of Peace). Bad Muslims are extremists, irrational, violent, and fundamentalists, who chant "Death to Amreeka" and are against everything modern-and-civilized. Often this is how Muslims are presented in the mainstream news media. Which box do you fit in?!

Three Responses

Usually three kinds of responses to the above binaries have been seen in the mainstream media. Some do not see any problem at all in these binaries. You might hear them saying something on the following line, "Yes, you are right...there is some trouble with Islam." "Bad Muslims in fact do exist, just like you said it." "But...we are not like them! We are Good Muslims! We are just like you want us to be!"

The second does see a problem with these binaries. This is the apologetic response that tries to defend Islam and Muslims but without questioning the underlying assumptions of those binaries. The people following this stance seem to have internalized the underlying assumptions and are unconcerned or unaware of their politics. You might hear them saying, "No, not all Muslims are terrorists." "There are a few bad apples among all people. We renounce all forms of violence. Islam is a religion of peace." "Islam also preaches tolerance just like you are demanding." These responses are often defeatist. How so? Ask a simple question to them: Are you a fundamentalist?

The third kind of response starts by questioning the underlying assumptions and interrogates their politics. So, for example, it would first ask who is a fundamentalist, who is defining that to be so, with what assumptions, and for what political ends? Before invading Taliban-controlled Afghanistan when President Bush demanded, are you with us or with them, the third kind of response absolutely refused to play within this false dilemma: Neither you, nor them!

I find the third approach most fruitful and assertive. This discussion is important if we are concerned about the questions of patriotism and integration in the mainstream, if we are concerned about the future of our activism and politics, about how others think of Muslims and Islam, and how even Muslims see themselves and their religion in an era of information age and globalization.

Let me elaborate the third approach by way of examining their underlying assumptions and politics below. This discussion is informed by Mahmood Mamdani's widely acclaimed book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (2005).

I should also clarify at this point that this piece focuses on how a certain mainstream discourse tries to frame and control Muslim outlook and politics. I do not deny that we have all kinds of social and political problems in our midst. We definitely need critical self-reflection and change. The concern in this piece is to be mindful of who is shaping the agenda of that "change", from what perspective, and toward what end? Another related concern is that even for resolving our "internal" problems we need to understand the role of "external" factors and long term historical interconnections.

The Underlying Assumptions

Want to understand why Muslim women are so oppressed? Why are Muslim men so violent? Why are there too many authoritarian regimes in the Middle East? WHY DO THEY HATE US? The answer to all of these questions, as the media and many political pundits tell, lies in understanding the "Muslim Mind" (or the "Arab Mind" or the "Shia Mind"). How do you read that mind? Read it by reading their religious texts. Understand the "logic of their culture" – often presented with quite simplistic and reductive formulas in the media. No surprise that immediately after 9/11, so many Americans rushed to Barnes & Noble to buy the Qur'an. No surprise that 'burqa' became the singular explanation of all kinds of oppression on women in Afghanistan. And no surprise that the anti-US-Israel resistance in many countries are many times explained through the so-called "martyrdom complex". ("It's not our fault that they are bent on killing themselves – we are just poor victims of their irrational beliefs.")

The Politics and Messy History

A historically informed perspective on the other hand would demand that the audience connect the abovementioned questions with wars, militarization, poverty, power struggles, the competition for global hegemony during and after the Cold War, the pursuit of oil and gas and other forms of economic and cultural exploitations, the direct support of the global powers to dictatorial and oppressive regimes. But you don't see that on the media most of the time. You instead see the above binaries that are simple, clear, and easy to understand and follow. These binaries, however, emphasize a narrow cultural logic for explanation at the expense of political causes and messy history, distorting the truth altogether.

That narrow cultural logic assumes that Muslim societies and politics are governed exclusively by their religions and culture and have developed in isolated containers, and the so-called 'West' had nothing to do with their political outcomes. Not many ask, for example: Were women in Afghanistan not already in bad conditions before the Taliban came to power (and worsened the situation further)? Why were they in such bad conditions? And why, out of various ideological inclinations and interpretations of Islam, only the most extremist versions became so dominant in Afghanistan during and after the Afghan Jihad?

Instead of focusing on the cultural logic, a better place to look at is the twisted history of the Cold War and its aftermath. The reality is that the battle ground for the Cold War was not America or Europe. It was fought mainly in the so-called "Third World" countries, of which the turbulent Pakistan and Afghanistan were key regions. The US interest in Afghanistan was to create a Vietnam for the Soviets, to "bleed them white", and for that purpose, a certain understanding of Jihad, devoid of its underlying Islamic ethics and respect for human life, was promoted with the co-sponsorship of Saudi Arabia. The combined interest of the two countries was also to contain the Iranian Revolution. Against the wishes and reservations of other jihadi and nationalist resistance groups, the most extreme and sectarian of those groups were officially patronized in Afghanistan and Pakistan during those years. The same groups were also given exclusive access to the refugee camps in the two countries to indoctrinate the next generation of mindless and ethics-less jihadis. The Taliban, their understanding of Islam, and style of jihad, all are the direct outcome of that joint enterprise.

The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan has a history and political context. So does the al-Qaeda. And so do the movements in Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. The origins, development, and forms of these various movements are often very distinct from each other. But by emphasizing those simplistic binaries, the mainstream media often conflates these very different kinds of movements into each other. No consideration is given that the pure terrorist organizations, many times created by those on the payroll of the CIA, like the Contras in Nicaragua or the shady al-Qaeda, are very different from those Islamist movements in Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere that are today engaged in principled resistance (militant or otherwise) and have legitimate causes and mass support base. Interestingly enough, the former groups – the pure terrorist movements – are used as the pretext in the so-called "War on Terror" through which the global powers and their supported dictatorial regimes suppress the legitimate resistance movements in their countries. Even non-Muslim states in South Asia, Latin America, and Africa have learned to use the rhetoric of terrorism to suppress various kinds of internal resistances opposing their oppressive policies and exploitative neo-liberal economic reforms.

Unfortunately, many urgently composed statements by Muslim media relations organizations denouncing "all violence in the name of religion" after tragedies like the Fort Hood shootings and Mumbai Attacks also collapse the distinctions among various groups and show little attention to the politics of these binaries. (I discuss this politics in more detail below.)

Power and Powerlessness

The adjectives "Islamist" or "Sectarian", as in "Islamo-fascism" or "Sectarian violence", are often used as both the 'description' and its 'explanation'. The answer is already assumed in the way question is defined. This is again an example of a narrow cultural logic which erases more than it explains.

Instead of the narrow cultural logic, the motivations of state rulers and grievances of people may be better understood by the logic of power and powerlessness. Saddam Hussein, for example, may have selected the most anti-Shia elements in his army to brutally suppress the Shia rebellion after the Gulf War, but if his Machiavellian suppression of the members of his secular-nationalist from the 1970s onward and the indiscriminate killing of the Kurds in 1987-88 are any indicators, Saddam himself was driven more by power ambitions than anti-Shia prejudice.

But what do we do about the explicitly religious vocabulary used by various terrorist and Islamist movements? We did discuss that there are important distinctions between various groups, between their origins, contexts, and modes of resistance, but at the end of the day they all claim themselves to be religiously motivated – so why the emphasis on power/powerlessness logic?

Two considerations: First, particularly in the context of the failure of various kinds of leftist and nationalist movements in the second half of the last century, religion provided the space to resist neo-colonial advancements and dictatorial oppression. In some movements, religion expressed itself in mainly 'reactionary' terms. But at other places, the Islamists 'proactively' sought to create a vision for an alternative future based on spiritual values and social justice. Among others, the poet-philosopher Mohammad Iqbal and Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr come to mind. Understanding their distinctive approaches and how they engaged with both traditional Muslim and Western scholarships and politics of the time are crucial to de-mystify 'fundamentalism' and its appeal to masses. The emphasis here is to understand the issues and responses in their historical context without undermining their distinctions and weight.

Second, Islam as-a-solution needs to be distinguished from the historical "causes" of contemporary issues. The power/powerlessness logic, although not the only effective logic, is analytically more useful than the narrow cultural logic for understanding the historical background of 'Muslim politics' in many parts of world, particularly that of the Shia populations.

Consider the following illustration: Facing systematic discrimination and exploitation from their rulers (who came to power due to multitude of historical factors, of which the colonial and neo-colonial experiences of the last 200 hundreds years is the most important), these Shias found a powerful expression of their grievances and a solution in the Islamic ideology around and after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. However, instead of falling in the trap of polarizing identity politics, this Islamic ideology and movement sought to be pan-Islamic (non-sectarian, but at the same time, it sought empowerment of oppressed Shias under many Arab regimes). It was also anti-imperial and dedicated to the Palestine cause (which, despite the rhetorical overkill of the Arab nationalist leaders still today, was gradually abandoned by the Arab states from the late 1960s onward). No wonder that the aware masses in the Middle East and elsewhere, from all kinds of religious and ideological backgrounds, were naturally attracted to the Iranian Islamic movement and its manifestations. Glimpses of that attraction was again seen during and after the 2006 Summer War in Lebanon, despite the concerted efforts by the dictatorial rulers and the US and Israel to raise the false specter of the "Rising Shia Crescent".

It is in understanding the politics those in power and those marginalized in each case can we find answers of many questions asked in the mainstream media. The apologetic commentators spend hours defending how Islam is a religion of peace which does not support violence, etc. But these theological discussions cannot explain the problems that have their roots in power/powerlessness. Those media discussions at best serve as distractions from the real issues and at worst as control mechanisms in the hands of powers-that-be. (See below.)

A False Sense of Moral Superiority and Self-righteousness

Why does the American public support the neo-colonial enterprise of its government? Or, put differently, how is it that the politicians are able to sell their war-mongering agenda to people every time? This is a critical question. Among other factors, a crucial ingredient is nurturing a sense of self-righteousness in the people based on a blissful ignorance of history and a belief in the moral superiority and universal validity of the ideals of the so-called Western civilization. A few issues with that sense of moral superiority have been discussed in a previous piece, where I reviewed Fatemeh Keshavarz's book Jasmine and Stars. A useful book that dissects this blissful ignorance of history is James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Book Got Wrong (2nd edition, 2007).

The point I want to make here is that the neo-colonial enterprise is of course not presented in blunt terms. There is a whole moral discourse that is based on that blissful ignorance and sense of moral superiority among the masses that the governing elites use to advance their agenda. In the past, the rhetoric of saving the poor, oppressed women from the oppression of "Muslim"/"Arab"/"Indian" men was used by the colonial powers to advance and justify their expansionist agenda. More recently, the same moral discourse of "colonial feminism" was used to "liberate" the Afghan women from 'burqa'. Yesterday's colonial expansionism is today advanced through "humanitarian interventions" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to promote democracy, freedom, human rights, and enlightenment. The fact that before the US invasion of Afghanistan, the cause of "liberating" Afghan women from 'burqa' was endorsed by people from a variety of political and ideological persuasions, from far-right and conservatives to Hollywood celebrities and liberals and leftists, suggests the pervasiveness of this particular way of seeing Islam and Muslim societies. Columbia University Professor Lila Abu-Lughod's following piece provides valuable insights in regards to the connection with the colonial discourse: Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?

A useful question to ask in this regard is how come we see a simultaneous development of the so-called European Enlightenment and Colonial expansionism. The answers are complex, but one thing to realize is that the two tendencies were not necessarily contradictory to each other. Colonial subjugation of "other" people was not contradictory to the liberal ideals of political rights and self-determination. Because the very ideals of European Enlightenment, anchored in the notions of uni-linear historical progress of civilizations, the emphasis on particular modes of reasoning, the importance on individual rights and private property as the means of self-actualization, and the difference between the "modern" and "backward", implied that Europeans see themselves as "different," "superior," and "civilized" in comparison to other unfamiliar cultures and peoples. Both John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the champions of Liberalism, supported and rationalized the practice of colonialism through these ideals. To them it was a "progressive force" that would civilize the indigenous populations in colonized territories. That was the "White Man's Burden". These ideals were also incorporated into particular versions of Christianity that were brought to the Americas by the European settlers.

This moral discourse has deep roots and is directly intertwined with those cultural binaries. By tracing those roots, we can find useful clues and illustrations for deconstructing the contemporary neo-colonial moral discourse, equally popular among the liberals and conservatives speaking on Islam in the media.

The Politics of "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim"

Neo-Colonial Humanitarianism

Be it the Fort Hood shooting, 9/11, Mumbai Attack, Hostage Crisis, Taliban, al-Qaeda, or Palestine-Israel violence, when political context and messy history is removed from the picture, when important distinctions among these cases are blurred, and simplistic cultural logic of "irrational, violent, fundamentalist" is emphasized, they not only lead to wrong identification of causes but also suggest misleading solutions. A whole intellectual industry of "reforming" Islam under the patronage of RAND Corporation, Freedom House, and similar organizations has exponentially developed post 9/11.

When focus is on culture and 'the tensions/conflicts within', defined by burqa or some age-old sectarian divide in different cases, it takes the role of powerful state actors and external powers out of the picture (whereas many times the state and foreign powers are the ones behind staging terrorist activities and instigating violence in the name of religion). Thus, for example, the failure of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq was conveniently blamed on "sectarianism". By blaming it on the cultural logic, the global powers can thus be presented as saviors, as the only recourse of the poor, oppressed people, and if they leave that region (as in Iraq or Afghanistan today), then one should only expect chaos and civil war.

As the Control Mechanism

The "Good/Bad" Muslim rhetoric also serves as a control mechanism that seeks to (re-)socialize the Muslims to a certain 'cultural script' where they are to live and act under constant fear and self-discipline. The "Good" Muslims are expected to distance themselves from the "Bad" Muslims. See how people react to the labels of "fundamentalist", "extremists", "militant" in our communities and how so many like to be considered "moderate", "modern", "peaceful". This 'cultural script' is already widespread in our midst demanding people to act and align themselves along certain politics (or lack thereof). Among other things, it polarizes and disunites our communities.

Every time a tragedy happens, they feel obliged to immediately respond and distance themselves from those 'bad' Muslims. No consideration is usually given over the framing of the issue: Should it be seen through the lens of "Islam" (and therefore the "problems" with its teachings and its people) at all. That 'cultural script' is reinforced every time tragic incidents like Fort Hood happen (last year it was the Mumbai attacks). Again, there is usually no discussion of political context or messy history (not for 'justifying' these acts but to 'understand' them).

On a related note, these binaries are not new. The African American community has already experienced them during and after the civil rights movement, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was presented as the 'Good Black' and Malcolm X was the 'Bad Black'. It is an interesting topic in itself if MLK could have succeeded without Malcolm X type parallel resistance against the powers-that-be and if the historical context were that of a century earlier and MLK was doing his non-violent activism in the South. Interestingly enough though, MLK was also coerced to shut up when he raised his voice against the Vietnam War.

De-legitimizing the Legit Movements

At times the mindless chanting of 'peace, peace, non-violence, non-violence' by Muslim activists are used to de-legitimize militant resistance (as 'irrational' and 'unjustifiably violent') in Palestine. They take attention away from the whole history of Israeli atrocities by focusing too much on – and even blaming at times – the victims for responding with violence in defense. (Same goes for the case of Lebanon.) The 'peace, peace' slogans sometimes neglect the fact that the international community has failed to deliver any positive results in the last sixty years. So far the only thing that has been directly effective against the Israeli expansionism is militant resistance.

One can also argue that instead of 'wasting' time on the two-state solution over the last 30 years or so (since Camp David), if we had spent our time and energies on discrediting political Zionism in public opinion, perhaps we would have made at least 'some' accomplishments by now. Two-state solution was never the right answer (see "How Realistic is the Two-State Solution?"). If nothing else, at least we could have somewhat united our own communities – their opinion and activism – for the cause over these years. Communities here refer to the general Muslim community but also people of conscience from any background. The glimpses of that possibility (of uniting those concerned) were seen during the Summer 2006 Lebanon War and even more so during the Gaza massacre eleven months ago.

This point also highlights the need for developing sound political analysis especially from those engaging themselves with the media and public opinion campaigns. How do we frame our concerns that are beyond the narrow objective of appearing as "Good Muslims"?

Obama/Clinton's "Smart Power" for the Middle East

So far, the Obama administration has shown no meaningful signs of any major change to the old grand plan of a "New Middle East" (as Condy Rice famously stated), other than slight modifications in the tactics. Suspending the expansion of settlements and recognizing the two-state solution that the current administration is asking of Israel were already part of Bush's "Road Map for Peace". Neither of them had actually enforced these demands on Israel.

Against the Bush administration's "hard power", however, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has put forward the idea of "smart power", combining diplomacy and "iron fist". What that probably means for Muslim countries is the 'Good Muslim vs. Bad Muslim' game. The good Muslims are those compliant to the US-Israeli imperial ambitions. The Bad Muslims are those who resist that and therefore must be disciplined.

The status quo regimes of the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan – are presented as the "moderate" Muslims. Those opposing their corruption and the hegemonic ambitions of US-Israel from within the status quo states and from outside are labeled as the Bad Muslims. And it is demanded from the latter (those resisting) to 'reform' and become 'good Muslims'. After the inauguration, Obama went to the West Bank, not Gaza, and then to Egypt, where he delivered his now popular Cairo speech.

Consider the following two sentences from the end of that speech: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition." What?! During the inquisition?! Muslims were slaughtered, forced to convert or exile under the Inquisitorial Regime. Is that what Mr. Obama is suggesting that Muslims do today against the oppression of their own dictatorial regimes and from outside? Perhaps it was a blunder on the part of Obama's speech writer.

But in practical terms, this is exactly what the current administration is asking of the Palestinian people: Keep suffering. Rhetorical gestures of re-conciliations by the new administration aside, the US and Israel are more or less continuing the same policy of turning Gaza into a virtual prison and dividing the West Bank into small quarantines through the Security Wall, with Israel having effective control over water, communication, and security matters of both areas.

Towards Conclusion

Perhaps we should also reflect upon the role of power (and powerlessness) that we too face in our societies, in our daily lives, in our activism: Why is it that we feel pressured to apologize/condemn every time a Fort Hood like incidence happens? Why don't our public relation organizations in America also condemn the ongoing US atrocities in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other places with the same dedication? On another level, is it even correct to frame/understand Fort Hood shooting or 9/11 in terms of a narrow cultural logic of binaries? Who is defining that framework, with what perspective? What is the politics of this framing? Who benefits?

A challenge for all of us, especially the scholars and activists, is to come up with practical strategies and rhetorical tools for the media and public opinion that are in line with our principles and based on sound strategic analysis. Where we do not 'apologize' for the crimes that we did not commit, but at the same time, we proactively counter the negative propaganda against us and our legit causes. This is crucial not only for reaching out to the general audience and politicians but also for the outlook and identities formation of our own communities.

Important also is to closely study various anti-war/civil/human rights movements in the US, UK, South Africa, India, and elsewhere. What kinds of strategies and alliances worked, what did not, and in what political and historical context? Can we use the same strategies and tactics in the present context of the country we may be in?

Lastly, we need to do more than just issuing reactionary responses after every tragic incidence threatening the Muslim image. We need to come up with a more proactive vision for what our role as individuals and communities could be in the countries we may be in. An important point here is to not become so self-absorbed in our national interest that we dissociate ourselves from the conditions in the rest of the world. The challenge is to come up with sound analysis and detailed action plans – not just empty proposals and rhetoric in annual conferences – that combine our principles, national objectives, and global interests.

Ali A. is a doctoral student in social sciences. He can be reached at alismails786@gmail.com

The article was first published at: http://www.islamicinsights.com/news/opinion/good-muslim-bad-muslim-cracking-the-media-code.html

Review - Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran

Review: Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran (UNC Press, 2007)

By Ali A., Islamic Insights, Feb 9-15, 2009

While reading a text assigned for your class on a topic related to Islam and Muslims, ever had that feeling of frustration, “That’s NOT how it is!”? You know the reading is full of holes, yet you are at a loss for words to articulate what’s wrong with it?

If your answer is yes, here is a book in which you will find a range of tools to dissect those annoying readings. The book is called “Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than 'Lolita' in Tehran” (UNC Press, 2007). The author is Fatemeh Keshaverz, who is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Keshaverz’s argument is two-fold. One, she exposes the omissions and misrepresentations in Azar Nafisi's national bestseller “Reading Lolita in Tehran” (Random House, 2003). Two, she presents a literary analysis of a range of poetry and prose from Iran as well as gives us a feeling of life in Iran from her personal experience. This exposition is meant to question the simplistic and bleak picture one may get from “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and to invite the readers to understand Islam and Muslim cultures in their full complexity and richness.

Keshavarz argues that Azar Nafisi’s book represents a ‘New Orientalist’ narrative. Her argument builds on the critical writings of Edward Said in which he argued that the way the West perceived the Orient (the East) had profound consequences on their mutual interactions. By “West”, he was particularly referring to the circles of power and the intellectual discourse over the past few centuries. In the Orientalist perception, the East was seen as unvaryingly different, backward, inferior, mysterious, and dangerous. It was something to be wary of or to be disciplined. Aggressive colonial expansions in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere were rationalized as a ‘progressive force’ which would civilize the indigenous populations in the colonized lands. These expansions occurred simultaneously with the development of the Enlightenment and technological advancements in the West. [1] Edward Said further argued that such perceptions, especially concerning the Muslim world, continue to dominate the popular discourse in the West.

Developing on Said’s line of argument, Keshavarz argues that the ‘New Orientalist’ narrative "equally simplifies its subject. For example, it explains almost all undesirable Middle Eastern incidents in terms of Muslim men's submission to God and Muslim women's submission to men. The old narrative was imbued with the authority of an all-knowing foreign expert. The emerging narrative varies somewhat in that it might have a native--or seminative--insider tone. Furthermore, as the product of a self-questioning era, it shows a relative awareness of its own possible shortcomings. Yet it replicates the earlier narrative's strong undercurrent of superiority and of impatience with the locals, who are often portrayed as uncomplicated. The new narrative does not necessarily support overt colonial ambitions. But it does not hide its clear preference for a western political and cultural takeover. Most importantly, it replicates the totalizing - and silencing - tendencies of the old Orientalists by virtue of erasing, through unnuanced narration, the complexity and richness in the local culture" (p.3).

The introduction and the first chapter of “Jasmine and Stars” introduce the goal and main arguments of this book. The subsequent three chapters take the readers on an exciting journey which explores the rich literary heritage and diverse lives of the people in Iran. Keshavarz particularly focuses on the Sufi tradition in her discussion of Islam. The personal stories she shares all throughout the book convey feelings of warmth, tenderness, and “shared humanity” (p.5) (shared by the peoples of Iran and the West). In her analysis of poetry, novels, and Sufi thought in these three chapters she also shows how these literary expressions animate in the lives of ordinary people in Iran. The fifth chapter quite sharply dissects “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. Concluding the book in the sixth chapter, Keshavarz once again exhorts the readers to explore the shared humanity and richness of Muslim cultures.

The first and fifth chapters along with the introduction could also be read separately if readers are interested in specifically reading the critique of “Reading Lolita in Tehran”. The tools and vocabulary provided in these chapters could also help with evaluating works such as “Nine Parts of Desire”, “The Bookseller of Kabul”, “'The Kite Runner”, “The Almond”, “Persepolis”, and “The Trouble with Islam”.

The value of this book should be self-evident in a time when distortions and lies about Islam and Muslims are widespread. These distortions are damaging not only for inter-communal relations but also the way Muslims themselves perceive their identity. Yet while reading the book, at times I wished that Keshavarz had scrutinized the premises of these distortions even more deeply. This analysis would have expanded the power and scope of her criticism. Below are two inter-related points in this regard.

The first point is that people do not have to believe in the same things you believe in before you could appreciate and respect their humanity. By presenting instances of ‘shared humanity’ (shared values, emotions, thoughts), Keshavarz does a fine job of relating with the Western audience. Her discussion of modern Iranian literature, particularly the works by Forough Farrokhzad and Shahrnush Parsipur, conveys a strong sense of agency – the kind of agency which is idealized in the liberal feminist discourse(s). Keshavarz is also very frank about her feminist sensibilities in the book that have informed her selections and arguments. However, the real challenge in any attempt to understand other cultures and peoples is to appreciate the ‘differences’ in outlooks and sensibilities, while also observing that our own ideals may not be universally valid. For example, women in Muslim cultures may also cherish ‘autonomy’ and ‘empowerment’, but their definition of these ideals may be very different from what some liberal feminists would like for them. Failing to recognize this difference can result in the kind of intolerance that is seen today in France against the Muslim Hijab. Some scholars would take the argument on another level to argue that ideals like ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy’ (which have a particular history in the Western liberal tradition and are often defined in terms of individual choices and interests in opposition to community values and interests) may not be as important – if at all – for many women in other cultures. Saba Mahmood and Lila Abu-Lughod’s works make compelling arguments in this regard. [2] In their works they also argue that appreciating these differences does not necessarily mean falling into moral relativism.

The second point is that we need to question the question first before answering with the typical ‘Not all Muslims are fundamentalist/extremists, and we need to consider the voices of moderation and peace too’. The question that needs to be asked first is what’s wrong with being a fundamentalist and who defines a “fundamentalist” as such? If being a fundamentalist means believing in some fundamentals of religion, then most Muslims are fundamentalists! This issue connects to a dichotomy that underlies the popular discourse in the West. In this dichotomy Muslims are either ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’. Good Muslims are ‘modern’, ‘moderate/progressive/rational’, and ‘pro-western’. The Bad Muslims are ‘backward’, ‘fundamentalist/extremists/fanatics’, and ‘anti-western’. I am not saying that “Jasmine and Stars” necessarily falls into this trap. But it misses the voices and sensibilities of those considered to be the “Bad Muslims” (both male and female), particularly those that were part of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and those that are opposed to physical and symbolic intrusions by global powers today. By no means is this segment of the population a minority in Iran, and they are the ones most frequently stereotyped in the ‘New Orientalist’ narratives. Representing their lives and outlooks does not necessarily mean that one endorses or justifies them. But as risky and daunting as this task may be for the kind of project that Keshavarz is engaged in, without challenging the ‘Good vs. Bad’ Muslim dichotomy most answers would come off as merely apologetic in the popular discourse.

Toward this end, we first need to scrutinize the normative assumptions of the liberal-secular discourse and its supposed moral superiority. (Examples are in the last two points – one relating to the discourse on women’s rights, the other relating to the politics of war on terror). Next, we need to bring in the political and historical context in the picture. I have Mahmood Mamdani’s important work “Good Muslim, Bad Muslims” (Pantheon, 2004) in mind that critically examines the American foreign policy during the Cold War era. In the first chapter of “Jasmine and Stars” Keshavarz could also use a more elaborate discussion on the relation between power and knowledge, in how misrepresentations about Islam serve the hegemonic ambitions of global powers today. [3]

In the challenging task of representing the missing voices (of the supposed “Bad Muslims”), Keshavarz could perhaps find a parallel with the outrage she personally felt when it was unintentionally implied to her by another person in London that the Iranian culture and people were backward ('they ate with hands') (p.24-25). The outrage was not about using or not using spoons per se. It was about the insinuation underlying it in that particular situation which she felt was undermining her culture and her own identity. She perceived it to be a kind of symbolic violence. It is clear from the text that she felt it rational and natural to respond to it. Other people can also have similar attachment to their religious symbols and values, and they can be as real and rational to them as any other reality out there.

On a side note, at times, I did not feel very convinced by the interpretation she presents in some of her anecdotal examples. For instance, the encounter she had at the grocery store in the check out line where she thought that her Muslim name caused discomfort and suspicion in the next lady. She made that conclusion by just observing the lady’s body language and thought that the lady's particular behavior was a reflection of the dominant cultural understandings (p.16-17). One can similarly question the scene in the bus where she listened to a conversation between two soldiers who were returning from the war front in 1987. Based on a very short dialogue between the soldiers, our author suggests that "I can tell you for sure that neither of them had enjoyed the war, or had looked for heroism, and yet neither had run away..." (p.134). Not sure what she meant to imply with this, but the question is whether anything could be implied with certainty on the basis of that short conversation. In these and some other anecdotal examples, more ethnographic details would have helped the readers to judge for themselves whether they agree with her interpretation.

I hope that the critical remarks in the second half of this review would not to dissuade you from reading this wonderful book with full of gems. These remarks were only meant to seriously engage with her arguments. I highly recommend this book for personal readings and group discussions. [4]

Ali A. is a doctoral student in social sciences. He can be reached at alismails786@gmail.com.

References:

[1] The critical point that needs to be emphasized here is that the justification given for Colonial expansions was not contradictory to the liberal ideals of political rights and self-determination. The Enlightenment contained notions of uni-linear progress of history and civilizations, the emphasis on particular modes of thought and reason, and the importance on individual rights and private property as means of self-actualization. Based on these ideals certain cultures and peoples were seen as “modern” and “superior” and others as “backward” and “inferior”. Both John Locke and John Stuart Mill supported and rationalized the practice of colonialism as a “progressive force” which would civilize and advance the backward civilizations. That was the “White Man’s Burden”. These ideas were also incorporated by particular versions of missionary Christianity. For more on this line of argument see Uday Mehta’s “Liberalism and Empire” (Chicago, 1999).

[2] See Lila Abu-Lughod. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” (American Anthropologist, September 2002). An interview with Abu-Lughod (Asia Source, March 2002). See Saba Mahmood’s interview by Nermeen Shaikh in “The Present as History” (Columbia, 2007) and her book “Politics of Piety” (Princeton, 2005).

[3] Hamid Dabashi’s critical review of “Reading Lolita in Tehran” entitled “Native informers and the making of the American empire” (Al-Ahram, June 2006) has some useful insights in this connection.

[4] Readers may also like to see the following pieces: Interview: Fatemeh Keshavarz with ZNet; Interview: Fatemeh Keshavarz with UNC Press; Interview: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim - Mahmood Mamdani - Asia Source; Review: Movie ‘300′ by Hamid Dabashi; “Questioning Liberalism, Too” by Saba Mahmood, Boston Review.

Saving Muslim Women

Following are excerpts from two interviews conducted within last few years and collected in the volume “The Present as History” by Nermeen Shaikh (Columbia 2007). Would highly recommend this volume to all readers, especially those in the humanities and social sciences.

Lila Abu-Lughod

Lughod, pg. 144-5: “Many of us have noticed that suddenly, after 9/11 and the American response of war in Afghanistan, the hunger for information about Muslim women seems insatiable. My own experience of this was in the form of an avalanche of invitations to appear on news programs and at universities and colleges. On the one hand, I was pleased that my expertise was appreciated and that so many people wanted to know more about a subject I had spent twenty years studying. On the other hand, I was suspicious because it seemed that this desire to know about “women and Islam” was leading people away from the very issues one needed to examine in order to understand what had happened.

Those issues include the history of Afghanistan – with Soviet, US, Pakistani, and Saudi involvements; the dynamics of Islamist movements in the Middle East; the politics and economics of American support for repressive governments. The problem gets framed as one about another culture or religion. Plastering neat cultural icons like “the Muslim woman” over messier historical and political narratives doesn’t get you anywhere. What does this substitution accomplish? Why, one has to ask, didn’t people rush to ask about Guatemalan women, Vietnamese women (or Buddhist women), Palestinian women, or Bosnian women when trying to understand those conflicts? The problem gets framed as one about another culture or religion, and the blame for the problems in the world placed on Muslim men, now neatly branded as patriarchal….

“… I ask myself about the very strong appeal of this notion of “saving” Afghan women, a notion that justifies American intervention (according to the First Lady Laura Bush’s November 2001 radio address) and that dampens criticism of intervention by American and European feminists. It is easy to see through the hypocritical “feminism” of a Republican administration. More troubling for me are the attitudes of those who do genuinely care about women’s status. The problem, of course, with ideas of “saving” other women is that they depend on and reinforce a sense of superiority by Westerners.

When you save someone, you are saving them from something. You are also saving them to something. What violences are entailed in this transformation? And what presumptions are entailed in this transformation? And what presumptions are being made about the superiority of what you are saving them to? This is the arrogance that feminists need to question. The reason I brought up African American women, or working-class women in the United States, was that the smug and patronizing assumptions of this missionary rhetoric would be obvious if used at home, because we’ve become more politicized about problems of race and class. What would happen if white-middle class women today said they needed to save those poor African American women from the oppression of their men?”

****

“The point about women’s veiling is of course too complicated to lay out here. But there were three reasons why I said it could not so simply be associated with lack of agency. First, “veiling” is not one thing across different parts of the Muslim world, or even among different social groups within particular regions. The variety is extraordinary, going from headscarves unself-consciously worn by young women in rural areas to the fuller forms of the very modern “Islamic dress” now being adopted by university women in the most elite fields, including medicine and engineering. Second, many of the women around the Muslim world who wear these different forms of cover describe this as a choice. We need to take their views seriously, even if not at face value. Beyond that, however, we need to ask some hard questions about what we actually mean when we use words like “agency” and “choice” when talking about human beings, always social beings always living in particular societies with culturally variable meanings of personhood. Do we not all work within social codes? What does the expression we often use here, “the tyranny of fashion,” suggest about agency in dress codes?

****

“I think we need to recognize that even after “liberation” from the Taliban, Afghan women (and one can’t presume any uniformity of views even within this category) might want different things from what we (Westerners, of course also a diverse category) might want for them. What do we do about that? I don’t think we need simply to be cultural relativists, advocating respect for whatever goes on elsewhere and explaining it as “just their culture.” I‘ve already talked about the problem of “culture” explanations in my criticism of the focus on the category of “Muslim women.” And it should be recalled that Afghan or other Muslims’ “cultures” are just as much part of history and an interconnected world as ours are. What I think we need to do is to work hard to respect and recognize difference-as produces of different histories, as expressions of different circumstances, as manifestations of differently structured desires. We might still argue for justice for women, but consider that there might be different ideas about justice and that different women might want, or choose, different futures from what we envision as best. Among the most difficult things for American feminists to accept is that these futures might involve women in developing within a different religious tradition, or traditions, that don’t have as their primary ideal something called “freedom.”

Reports that came out of the Bonn peace conference in late November 2001 revealed that there were even differences among the few Afghan women feminists and activists present. Some, like the representative of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) refused to be conciliatory to any notion of Muslim governance. But others looked to Iran as a country in which they could see women making significant gains within an Islamic framework – in part through an Islamically oriented feminist movement that is challenging injustices and reinterpreting the religious tradition. The situation in Iran is itself the subject of great debate within feminist circles, especially among Iranian feminists in the West. It is not clear whether and in what ways women have made gains, and whether the great increases in literacy, decreases in birthrates, presence of women in the professions and government, and a feminist flourishing in cultural fields like writing and filmmaking are because of or despite the establishment of a so-called Islamic Republic.

The concept of an Islamic feminism itself is also the subject of heated debate. Is it an oxymoron, or does it refer to a viable movement forged by women who want another way? Still, the representatives at the Bonn peace conference thought it was more realistic to look to the Iranian model than to a secular Western one if they wanted to have any appeal to local women and to have a chance of transforming women’s lives and gender relations from within.”

****

Saba Mahmood

Saba Mahmood, Present as History, 148-153: “In my writing when I use the term “liberal” I am referring to liberalism as a tradition of political thought and philosophy with a distinct conception of the subject, ethics, and politics. The liberal tradition as it emerged over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth century in Europe is coincidental with development of capitalism and modern governance. Among the principles central to liberal political and moral philosophy that I address in my work on Islamism is the principle of liberty and freedom as an individual and political ethic. While the notion of freedom is valued in a number of premodern traditions, liberalisms comes to be primarily understood as an individual capacity to act autonomously in accord with one’s own desires and interests (interest here is largely defined in economic terms). Insomuch as autonomy is regarded as a “natural” human attribute, it presupposes a necessary antagonism between the individual and the social, and individual interests are understood to stand in opposition to community values and interest. The liberal maxim that the good life is necessarily a freely chosen one in which a person develops his unique capacities in accord with his “own will and interests” has now become the most dominant ethic of our age….

"The precepts of liberal political philosophy were introduced into non-Western societies (including Muslim societies) through colonial rule and an expanding system of global capitalist power (through institutions of law, governance, trade, and commerce) over the course of two centuries. Liberal presuppositions about politics and society have over time become an intrinsic part of the sensibilities and institutions of these societies and form an important resource for indigenous critiques of Western power and domination throughout the colonial and postcolonial period. It is precisely because many aspects of liberal discourse have become a part of the language of resistance to Western forms of power that I think it is important to attend to its hegemonic qualities, its normative assumptions, and the ways in which it remains peculiarly blind to other kinds of political and social projects and moral-ethical aspirations. Let me elaborate on this…

“A second example I want to give here of the hegemony liberalism commands in discourses of resistance is the prominence given to the ideal of individual freedom and autonomy within postcolonial feminist projects. One of the most cherished goals of postcolonial feminism-a movement aimed at improving the collective situation of “Third World women”- is to secure conditions under which women can live more autonomously and learn to distinguish between their “own desires” and those of the society, tradition, culture, or community. Despite the critiques leveled against Eurocentric feminism, it is quite common for postcolonial feminists to continue to reproduce many liberal assumptions, key among them the idea that the individual’s desires and interests stand in a relationship of opposition to the demands of tradition, society, and community. It is quite common, therefore, to hear that one of the failings of traditional societies is to subsume the individual within the collective (the family, the biradari, etc.), thereby extinguishing the opportunities for women to learn how to distinguish between their own desires and those of the society, the elders, the culture, and so on. But one might as to whether such an opposition between the individual and the social is universally valid: indeed, such an opposition hardly applies to how life is lived and experienced in Western liberal societies.

In my work I have tried to unpack the limits, prejudices, and blind spots that the adoption of liberal ideals and discourses has produced within the political imagination of postcolonial Muslim societies. Thus, for example, in my book Politics of Piety I have tried to problematize the liberal valorization of the value of autonomy and the concomitant ideal of freedom that animates contemporary feminist thought. In doing so, my aim is not to dismiss the utility of these ideals for women’s struggles, or to suggest that they are wrong, or to presuppose a better model of the relationship between the individual and the social. Rather my aim is to question the validity of these distinctions as universally valid and to urge feminists to challenge this rather narrow and parochial way of being human in the world. Some of the questions I am interested in exploring are: What are the different conceptions of the self that are now part of the postcolonial Muslim world that stand in tension with liberal conceptions of the self that are often upheld as more enlightened ways of being human in the world? Because liberalism does not map on to the geographic divide of the West and non-West (in other words, it is not a “cultural” trope) but commands a much broader set of allegiances, what sorts of mutations and genealogies of the self exist in our postcolonial world? What structures of power and authority, with different kinds of political imaginaries, do different conceptions of the subjective presuppose? And what desires, other than freedom, do people live by? What do we mean by freedom, from what, and toward what end? …

****

“The remarks I made that you quote from were a product of the dissatisfaction I had come to feel with feminist analyses of the Islamic movements in particular and conservative religious movements in general. These analyses often present two supposedly different accounts of women’s participation in the Islamist movement. On the one hand, you have accounts in which feminist scholars portray Islamist women as the antithesis of all that feminism stands for, women who instrumentally appropriate feminist symbols, imagery and language, only to make these symbolic resources serve patriarchal ends and goals. On the other hand, there are monographs that desperately search for “Islamic feminism,” trying to unearth the feminist potential within Islamist women’s discourses even when this language is not a part of Islamist projects. These two accounts, in my opinion, are the mirror opposite of each other: the political and analytical worth of this movement is to be measured in terms of whether it is profeminist or antifeminist. What changes in this equation is the valuation of Islamism vis-à-vis feminism, but we learn little about the goals, projects, and practices of Islamism itself. It is seldom asked whether feminism is the relevant lens through which to analyze women’s participation in the Islamist movement: Are there other notions of what it means to be human in this world, competing conceptions of human flourishing and collective and individual good, whose logic does not map onto the ideals that feminism represents and advocates? How might these movements expand feminist politics and analytics beyond what this tradition already knows and values?

Feminism, as I discuss in my book, admittedly is a wide ranging tradition that encompasses socialist, liberal, radical, and other interpretations. But what is common to this tradition and indeed what gives it a certain analytical and political coherence, is the position that women are the subservient members of any society and it is the task of feminist scholars both to render this subservience visible within a given society and to suggest ways in which this subservience might be subverted and changed. While I consider both of these aspects of feminist scholarship to be a worthy enterprise, I also think that in order for feminism to be a vibrant and expansive tradition, it must expand its horizons to a consideration of projects, aspirations, and desires that do not reproduce its liberatory assumptions and telos- but indeed challenge it. In other words, if feminist analysis aspires to be more than a regurgitation of its moral superiority (which these days often translates into a simple denunciation of Islam’s abuses), then it must seriously contemplate the idea that it can learn something from nonliberal movements; that these movements might have something to teach feminists about what it means to be human in this world and to live in a variety of ways that do not map onto the logic of anti- or profeminist positions. Such a way of engaging nonliberal movements requires that we question the idea that all women, regardless of their historical and social location, are necessarily interested in expanding their freedoms, that they all seek to become autonomous individuals against the constraints of social and cultural norms.”

****

“I think one of the reasons why the burqa-or the veil-took such center-stage in the feminist mobilization against the Taliban in the United States is due to the overdetermined status of the veil in Western history, particularly the colonial and Orientalist legacy that made the veil a symbol of Islam’s inferior status vis-à-vis “European civilization.” What Charles Hirschkind and I tried to point out [in “Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency”] is that American feminist preoccupations-along with the Western media’s-came at the expense of ignoring (or downplaying) the conditions of war and starvation that women were subjected to at that time in Afghanistan. Let me remind you here of the immense feminist mobilization we saw in American against the Taliban: it was led by the Feminist Majority whose broad-based campaign bore fruit as a wide array of popular women’s magazines (Such as Jane, Glamour, and Vogue) and television and radio shows honed in on the burqa as the primary symbol of Afghan’s women’s oppression. Mind you, this was before the events of September 11, 2001, when the Bush administration instrumentally used this vast feminist mobilization to justify its bombing of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban regime. At the time, there were other Afghan women’s organization that had also been trying to draw international attention to women’s plight under Taliban rule, but their efforts never seized the American imagination on the scale or in the manner that the Feminist Majority campaign did- with the burqa as its potent and singular symbol.

We need to recall here that when the Taliban came to power in 1995, the situation of Afghan women was already dire as a result of twenty years of war in which the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, had turned the region into an orgiastic field of violence. The United States alone poured over three billion dollars into Afghanistan, the largest covert operation in the U.S. history since the Second World War, to destabilize the Soviet occupation (with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the two most dictatorial regimes in the region, as partners in this project). It has been widely reported that the vast majority of the U.S. financial aid was given to the most extreme militant groups in Afghanistan with the understanding that “religious fanatics” would fight the godless communists better. When the Taliban came into power in 1995, they made the situation for urban women worse, but, as was reported even in the popular media at the time, women’s situation remained much the same in rural areas.

The Feminist Majority campaign, by virtue of focusing exclusively on the burqa and the Taliban regime, in effect ignored these other issues and the larger context that hand enabled the Taliban to come into power in the first place. In doing so, American liberal feminists overlooked the U.S. government’s culpability in promoting extremist groups like the Taliban and in creating the conditions of war and starvation to which women were particularly vulnerable. In the Feminist Majority campaign literature, there was hardly a mention of the fact that the United States had practically created the likes of the Afghan mujahideen (of which the Taliban were a product) or the brutal history of U.S. involvement in the region. The focus on the burqa made the Taliban issue sexy, it caught the attention of the popular media. Celebrities, who would not have been moved by accounts of poverty and starvation, were galvanized by the image of the burqa. The question we asked in this article was a simple one: Why were images of starving women and children, ravaged by twenty years of war, not as moving for Americans as the image of the burqa-clad women?

It was clear to us that what mobilized the sympathies of ordinary Americans was the shared judgment that the veil is the ultimate symbol of Muslim women’s oppression, which, once removed, would give Afghan women the freedom to do what they wanted. Now this judgment, as we argued, is not simply wrong but a fantasy, produced by a certain kind of imaginary that has an overdetermined reading of the veil. It does not take much intelligence to understand that Afghan women’s freedom depends not on an article of clothing but on the kinds of resources they have access to and the general social conditions in which they live: simply put, an unveiled starving woman is no better than a veiled starving woman. Furthermore, as has been proven over and over again in history, groups that are most devastated by conditions of war, militarization, and starvation are women, children, and the elderly since they are the most vulnerable members of a society and their access to the material resources of a community is limited. It was the silence of the feminist and the media campaign in American against this far more injurious form of victimization of women (enable by billions of dollars in U.S. financial and military aid to the region) that was absolutely astounding to us.

Given the campaign’s success, it was hard for us not to reach the conclusion that the preoccupation of liberal feminists and the Western media with the veil had more to do with the long-standing colonial fantasy to disrobe the Muslim woman than with an interest in securing her “liberation.” This is not a difficult deduction to make especially if one follows the events in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban. When the American forces marched in, there were joyous celebratory articles and reports in the U.S. media about how the overthrow of the Taliban would result in Afghan women unveiling themselves, which in turn was represented as an act that would restore their freedoms and rights. Of course, subsequently, we learned that not all women wanted to unveil and that the custom of donning the burqa continued to be practiced in many areas of Afghanistan. More importantly, women’s situation became much worse than it was under the Taliban because of increased lawlessness and ethnic-tribal warfare, and the escalation of poverty and militarization in Afghanistan (numerous human rights groups have documented this). Yet none of these disturbing reports have galvanized the Feminist Majority, media celebrities, or popular media (all of whom rallied in support of the U.S. military campaign obscenely named “Operation Enduring Freedom”) to take up the cause of Afghan women.

****

“… Is women’s adoption of regimes of dieting, exercising, and various body enhancement techniques in Euro-American societies simply an expression of their false consciousness or is one’s relationship to cultural values, its standards of sexual, physical, and personal worth, more complicated than the false consciousness thesis allows? The notion of false consciousness presumes an omniscient self-transparent consciousness that can step out of the fog of ideology to reveal the “true conditions” of one’s oppression and a pathway out of it. Such clairvoyance is crucially dependent upon a calculation of more and less enlightened beings, wherein the destiny of the latter is clearly to be determined by the former. As must be clear, my objection to such a formulation is both analytical and political.

I do not think that the concept of “choice” is very helpful here either, even though it is the term often used in debates around the veil-both by its champions and detractors (“I choose to wear it” versus “The veil is a cultural imposition”). Liberalism often formulates choice as a measure of freedom (societies that have “more choices” are supposed to have “more freedom” and those with fewer choices have less). Yet such a calculus must be clearly rejected precisely because of the ways in which choice has been rendered an instrument of domination in liberal capitalist societies. Not only does this liberal formulation resurrect the fiction of the autonomous sovereign subject, but it also blinds us to the powers and processes that produce such a subject. Clearly, neither the veil nor any other form of attire can be easily mapped onto the calculus of less-and-more choice (or less-and-more freedom) precisely because one’s relationship to a religious-cultural practice is far more implicated and complicated.”