A Searching Faith

This morning, I’ve been reading extracts from Christine Odine’s “In Bad Faith”, published by the Centre for Policy Studies on Monday (01/07/08), as well as some of the related news-media responses and blog/press comments. I don’t think I have anything to add to the comment by Chris Allen and various responses reported in Guardian Education. We already know what the brilliant successful Sarfraz Manzoor thinks, and I am not about to play the disaffected ghoora by mocking him further. Despite a few perspicacious pieces of late, Yasmin Alibi-Brain has similarly returned to form in that much of what she said was indicative of a perspective rather than a reflection on it: the version of Islam taught in most faith schools is not one she feels comfy with. Nothing to do with her politics or her Ismailism, I surmise, but rather that she belongs to the (religiously) liberal wing of Islam which - regretably - is today somewhat disconnected from ‘Madrasa Islam’: ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ are potentially misleading catagories in this context.

I’ve only really been a serious academic student of Muslim education for a couple of weeks! Before then, I simply read the press and the odd report (and perused the odd book) whilst standing staunchly beside Muslims championing our right to choose, especially in the light of my own repeated experiences of teacher Islamophobia in the state sector. That position hasn’t changed. What has changed is my sense that Muslim education, in its broadest sense and also with respect to how Muslim children are educated in the UK, is bound up with several important contemporary issues impacting upon the umma. One is the way in which the ‘ulema often speak of their religious sphere - i.e. Madrasas - in terms that define it as a temporary haven of true Sunni practice waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Some days, when my non-religious and autism-dominated family have driven me to very edge of my sanity, I dream of running away to study in a madrasa. And it precisely because I share  - or perhaps use to share - that rather romantic notion of such institutions as being asylums of spiritual splendour - a step below heaven. However, in the midst of my daydream, as I stroll down shady corridors talking with learned elders about ‘ilm, I eventually come to the part where I walk into a room to discover a teacher frantically thrashing one of his students.

This vision is always followed by an internal silence, a grim sense that nowhere on Earth offers trustworthy shelter. Alhamdulillah, only Allah (swt) can provide that. No text or set of practices. No institutions. This is a radical way in which to see the world, and one that brings me back to the need to consider Muslim education from a politically astute critically analytic material perspective. Madrasas are places where, whatever imperfections might trouble either student or teacher, regimes of truth are reproduced.

That, for me, is a key issue - how these regimes of truth define the subjectivities of Muslim living in affluent nations such as the UK. That requires researchers to  look a little less at the sacred texts and a little more at how the reproduction of Islamic knowledges are influenced by historical/social context.

Change of use

First, I won’t be posting news-updates from The Daily Terror here any more. If people have been relying on this blogs’s RSS rather than The Terror’s html site to follow news, then my apologies. I can only say I know there are not many of you, but I do understand the convenience of RSS and I rarely follow sites than don’t provide it, with the exception of web forums. However, daily updates will still appear on The Terror, where possible before 7am. Weekends and school hols remain a whereever possible, insha Allah.

Second, if I’m going to post any news stuff, it will be on my Islam and Culture blog. Most pages with a blog-link on my revamped website now direct visitors there. Cultural Anarchlyst will primarily provide a platform for autobiographical comment - a dairy, if you like, and just as rough round the edges.

There are various reasons why I have been reticent in my personal blogging over the last few years. One is that the emotionally significant events in my life have largely involved people or groups of people where blogging about them had the potential to raise some tricky issues, not least the well-being of my autistic son, The Shaykh, i.e. public criticisms of those caring for him might impact on the quality of care he recieves: hence no names will be named herein. It’s a matter of balancing risk and need. As more and more agencies are becoming involved with The Shaykh in connection with respite/transition, and with little emotional support available in the real world beyond the comfort of an equally exhausted spouse, the need for a virtual blow hole has now shifted from being a liberal indulgence to a psychological imperative.

There are a couple of further reasons for my period of blogging reticence. Over the last couple of years, I have been a negotiating a platform where I can talk about Islam perhaps critically without inadvertantly concuring with Imperialist anti-Islamic discourses. I owe a lot to Yahya Birt, and others, for guiding me along that particular precipice. It’s a nasty set of issues, with some Muslims stirring up near-paranoia with respect to the influence of ‘the West’ in order to pursue their own agendas. I think I have a grasp of the politcs now, and my rediscovered outsider status is a good place to deal with the various positions surrounding this problem. it’s well nigh impossible not to align yourself politically in some sense, and so my position - broadly speaking - is to favour the powerless against the dominant elites, whether the elites be Muslim or non-Muslim. Nice leaders/politicians are the exception rather than the rule.

Equally, I’m less worried about the impact of blogging on my writing style. In fact, this is a good place to reflect on writing - how readerly should I make my prose? - how experimental should I try to be? - should I work on building narrative skills? It’s possible to write these kinds of reflections out here without worrying too much about whether it comes up to peer review standards! Well, it’s possible now. In the past, I was often overly keen to pull in the punters. I’d be lieing if I said that didn’t matter, but I’d rather get shit-all visitors writing stuff that genuinely matters to me than hundreds for babbling on about a load of old bollocks.

So off we go.

The Optician-Cyborg

I’m going for an eye test this morning, insha Allah. I don’t actually need an eye test, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want one. However, the state benefits I’m currently receiving permit me a free test, after which I am also allowed a free pair of spectacles. However, my optician doesn’t like people on benefits, or so it would seem. I can’t be certain, but I’m judging from her reactions when I first went there and she learned I was a scrounging work-shy little git, on account of my having a profoundly autistic child who is the equivalent to a job and a half in himself.  But like most prejudices, facts and reality are not the issue here.

It’s funny how people like my optician - driven, ambitious people who want to “do well” even if it means a career doing something they obviously don’t enjoy - despise folks on welfare. You hear them chiding us for supposedly being layabouts, but I suspect they actually hate work and deep down would like to just do nothing. Ironically, I don’t hate work - and what is more, given the opportunities available in Britain at the beginning of the 21st century, there is really no excuse for smart people ending up in a career they genuinely loathe. At the risk of joining the stereotyping set, perhaps my optician’s apparent predicament is down to her being BrAsian. I know there is a trend among BrAsian parents to push there kids into the health professions, or law, or engineering, or IT. The whys and the wherefores are irrelevant, as far as I am concerned. If it means someone spending a life doing a job they hate, it’s a trend that’s plain stupid!

My optician expresses her contempt for me by being extremely rude - she even shouts. I can tell she gets off on it, so I act dim. Obviously, benefit-scum are thick, aren’t they? I watch her barely mask a derisive leer when she says something and I respond like an idiot. You can almost hear her internal voice guffawing, “What a moron!” Her output switched to conceited, audio permanently on patronise, she thus cools off and I get to have my eye test in relative piece. But as my missis points out, her bad attitude is bound to confront its benefits-nemesis sooner or later. The question is, will she simply lose her front teeth or get stabbed?

An exhibition with a difference

BBC Online
26/06/2008

Celebrating the British Asian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual (LGBT) community is not something that happens everyday in Berkshire. That’s why a venue in Reading is hosting an event that highlights their lives and experiences within the UK.

The Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC) is regularly at the forefront when bringing minority issues to the Berkshire majority.

This month is no different as they play host to one of the Dhoom Dhamaka festival’s main events, an exhibition called:  “If Shiva can wear lipstick, why can’t I? An exhibition exploring Queer Asian Life”.

Find out more about the Dhoom Dhamaka festival, a celebration of Asian arts, here:

Dhoom Dhamaka Festival 2008

more here/source

Tasneem Project: the final step

The Tasneem Project, my website, began life as a Yahoo homepage several years ago and since then has gone through a number of transformations, as my learning and interests have extended and developed. Over the next few months, insha Allah, the website will finally begin to take the first steps towards it becoming an objective educational tool for my own use and also for those interested in studying Islam from a Cultural Studies perspective (see Nye’s, Religion: The Basics). The new website will have nine sections:

1. Index: introducing website, closely linked to new (additional) blog: Culture and Islam;
2. Culture: an overview of Cultural Studies as a methodology for studying religion/Islam;
3. Postcolonial: the study of contemporary Islam and Muslims within Postcolonial Studies;
4. Gender: Islamic feminism;
5. Sexuality: LGBTIQ Muslims;
6. Education: an international perspective on Muslim education, with special reference to the UK;
7. Media: the representation of Muslims within the British media;
8. Self: a methodological approach incoporating governmentality and autoethnography;
9. Second Life: Islam online, focusing on the 3-D virtual reality Second Life.

This is a fairly ambitious project, and it will take some time to construct a coherent online resource, insha Allah. The present website will stay in situ for now and I will continue to expand it’s content. However, a designated hour will be spent each day building the basic framework for the new site and it will go online as soon as its core elements are properly developed, with the site marked as ‘under development’. I’ve no plans to change the site’s ‘look’ - the current design is reasonably user friendly and aesthetically passable.

Religious, security, and military leaders call for Presidential ban on torture

Ekklesia
25 June 2008

A group including Evangelical, Baptist, Catholic, and Other Religious Leaders, six former Secretaries of State for Defence, and top officials from every US administration since the Vietnam war, are today calling on the US President to issue an executive order banning torture.

The broad bipartisan coalition have issued a statement, saying that such a ban would improve national security and ‘recommit America to its values’.

Their call coincides with ongoing debate over the treatment of prisoners and comes on the heels of a Supreme Court decision upholding the right of habeas corpus for detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.

It also comes after Amnesty International accused European governments of complicity and inaction over US-led rendition and secret detention, and the day before the UN’s International Day in Support of Torture Victims.

The statement calls for the President to adopt an executive order affirming principles including the rule of law, an end to rendition, Congressional and judicial oversight of detention and interrogation, uniform national standards for all prisoner treatment, and an end to any practice the US would not like to see used on Americans, such as water boarding, through adherence to the “golden rule” - which states that no methods of interrogation will be authorised that would be unacceptable if used against Americans.

“Though we come from a variety of backgrounds and walks of life, we agree that the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against prisoners is immoral, unwise, and un-American” the statement says.

“In our effort to secure ourselves, we have resorted to tactics which do not work, which endanger US personnel abroad, which discourage political, military, and intelligence cooperation from our allies, and which ultimately do not enhance our security.

“Our President must lead us by our core principles. We must be better than our enemies, and our treatment of prisoners captured in the battle against terrorism must reflect our character and values as Americans.”

Several signatories will participate in a telephone press conference call today (Wednesday) to discuss the statement.

The text of the full statement is as follows:

Though we come from a variety of backgrounds and walks of life, we agree that the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against prisoners is immoral, unwise, and un-American. In our effort to secure ourselves, we have resorted to tactics which do not work, which endanger US personnel abroad, which discourage political, military, and intelligence cooperation from our allies, and which ultimately do not enhance our security.

Our President must lead us by our core principles. We must be better than our enemies, and our treatment of prisoners captured in the battle against terrorism must reflect our character and values as Americans. Therefore, we believe the President of the United States should issue an Executive Order that provides as follows:

The “Golden Rule”
We will not authorize or use any methods of interrogation that we would not find acceptable if used against Americans, be they civilians or soldiers.

One National Standard
We will have one national standard for all US personnel and agencies for the interrogation and treatment of prisoners. Currently, the best expression of that standard is the US Army Field Manual, which will be used until any other interrogation technique has been approved based on the Golden Rule principle.

The Rule of Law
We will acknowledge all prisoners to our courts or the International Red Cross. We will in no circumstance hold persons in secret prisons or engage in disappearances. In all cases, prisoners will have the opportunity to prove their innocence in ways that fully conform to American principles of fairness.

Duty to Protect
We acknowledge our historical commitment to end the use of torture and cruelty in the world. The US will not transfer any person to countries that use torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Checks and Balances
Congress and the courts play an invaluable role in protecting the values and institutions of our nation and must have and will have access to the information they need to be fully informed about our detention and interrogation policies.

Clarity and Accountability
All US personnel—whether soldiers or intelligence staff—deserve the certainty that they are implementing policy that complies fully with the law. Henceforth all US officials who authorize, implement, or fail in their duty to prevent the use of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners will be held accountable, regardless of rank or position.

Signatories to the statement include:

Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, McAfee School of Theology; President, Evangelicals for Human Rights
Rev. Dr. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
Alberto Mora, Former General Counsel, US Navy
General Paul J. Kern (USA-Ret.), Former Commanding General, US Army Materiel Command; led internal Army investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib
Douglas A. Johnson, Executive Director, Center for Victims of Torture

Evangelical signatories include Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, (National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference), Rev. Dr. Richard Mouw, (Fuller Theological Seminary), Mr. David Neff, (Christianity Today Media Group), Rev. Dr. Joel C. Hunter, (Northland - A Church Distributed), Mr. Gary Haugen (International Justice Mission), Dr. Robert Michael Franklin (Morehouse College), Rev. Richard Cizik (National Association of Evangelicals), Rev. Tony Campolo (Eastern University), Dr. Robert Andringa (Council for Christian Colleges & Universities), Rev. Dr. Paul Alexander (Haggard Graduate School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University), and Dr. Stanley Burgess (Regent University School of Divinity).

Other religious signatories include Bishop Thomas G. Wenski (Committee on International Justice and Peace, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), Rabbi Steve Gutow (Jewish Council of Public Affairs), Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick (Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.), Rev. Dr. William Shaw (National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.), Rabbi Eric Yoffe (Union for Reform Judaism), Dr. Ingrid Mattson (Islamic Society of North America), Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick (Former Archbishop of Washington, DC), Rabbi Gerald Serotta (Rabbis for Human Rights - North America)

National security and defense signatories include Former Secretaries of State George Shultz, Madeleine Albright, and Warren Christopher and Former Secretaries of Defense Harold Brown, William Perry and William Cohen, Former Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and John C. Whitehead; Former Under Secretaries of State Marc Grossman, Thomas R. Pickering, Frank Wisner, and Joseph Nye; Former Assistant Secretaries of State Lorne Craner and Harold Koh; Former Deputy Secretaries of Defense William H. Taft IV, Rudy deLeon, and John Hamre; Former Under Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Ashton B. Carter; Former National Security Advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski, Anthony Lake, and Samuel R. Berger; Harry McPherson, former Counsel to President Johnson; Former Senators Charles S. Robb (Chair of the Iraq Intelligence Commission), J. Bennett Johnston (Judge Advocate General Corps), John Glenn (also Colonel, USMC-Ret.), Sam Nunn, and Gary Hart; Former Governor Thomas Kean (9/11 Commission Chair); Former FBI security and counterterrorism expert Jack Cloonan; and retired CIA operations officer Burton Gerber.

Former military signatories include Retired Generals Joseph P. Hoar (USMC-Ret.), James L. Jones (USMC- Ret.), Paul J. Kern (USA-Ret.), Merrill A. McPeak (USAF- Ret., Former Chief of Staff, US Air Force), Joseph W. Ralston (USAF-Ret., former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff), Volney F. Warner (USA-Ret.); Lt. Generals Robert G. Gard, Jr. (USA-Ret.), Harry E. Soyster (USA-Ret., Army Intelligence); Retired Admirals Archie Clemins (USN-Ret.) and Greg G. Johnson (USN-Ret.); and former US Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora.

source

Reading between the headlines

Top Asian officer plans to sue Met for discrimination
Terri Judd, Independent
Britain’s most senior Asian police officer is preparing to take legal action against Scotland Yard for racial discrimination, accusing colleagues of victimisation, bullying and harassment. Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur is set to make allegations against Commissioner Sir Ian Blair as well as the Police Authority chairman, Len Duvall. Mr Ghaffur, who is responsible for security at the 2012 Olympics, has had legal documents drawn up and is in the final stages of preparing the case…
[Met faces race claims from Muslim police chief - Vikram Dodd, Guardian]

BBC and other broadcasters ‘too white’
Nicole Martin, Telegraph
One of the BBC’s senior executives has attacked the corporation and other broadcasters for failing to employ black and Asian people in senior roles. Samir Shah, a non-executive director at the BBC, said that ethnic minorities as well as people from working class backgrounds were still being excluded from the industry’s so-called “power elite”, despite equal opportunity policies stretching back 30 years.
[There are too many ethnics on TV, says Asian BBC chief - Paul Revoir, Mail]

White boy, 12, suspected of being Islamic extremist recruit after he showed beheading videos to classmates
Daily Mail
A 12-year-old white schoolboy is among 120 people being dealt with by police in a new project combating Islamic-inspired violent extremism, it was revealed today. The child, who has only been identified by the initials BC, was reported by his school in West Yorkshire after he was found circulating video clips of terrorists beheading Westerners. Sick films were distributed to classmates on their mobile phones, prompting a teacher to march the boy to the local police station.

The framing of mutual joy (John Bryson Chane, Guardian CiF)
Anglican conservative accuses ‘relic’ Williams of colonial mindset (Riazat Butt, guardian.co.uk)
Facebook a valid educational tool, teachers told (Anthea Lipsett, EducationGuardian.co.uk)
Salman Rushdie is knighted by the Queen (Andrew Pierce, Telegraph)
Spectacular Transports (Trinketization)
What an elite education deprives you of (Koonj)

Intern Nick Griffin in Belmarsh

Nazi supporter guilty of terror plans and possessing child porn
Jo Adetunji, The Guardian
A Nazi sympathiser, described by police as extremely dangerous, has been found guilty of planning acts of terrorism and of possessing child pornography after investigators found homemade bombs and indecent images of children at his home. Martyn Gilleard, 31, a forklift truck driver from Goole, east Yorkshire, pleaded guilty in two separate cases at Leeds crown court after police found “significant” volumes of extreme right-wing literature, weapons, ammunition and homemade explosives…
[Kid porn stash of Nazi fiend - Alastair Taylor, The Sun]

Christians must recover nerve, says Nazir-Ali
Riazat Butt, The Guardian
The west is losing Christian discourse at a time when it needs it most, the bishop of Rochester told a gathering of conservative church leaders in Jerusalem yesterday. Addressing the 1,200 delegates of the Global Anglican Future Conference, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali said militant secularism was creating a double jeopardy for western culture. “Western culture depends on Judeo-Christian heritage. Let us pray we are able to recover our Christian nerve in the west…”

Unison urges teaching assistants and dinner ladies to strike
Anthea Lipsett, EducationGuardian.co.uk
Unison negotiators are recommending that teaching assistants and school dinner staff stage a 48-hour walkout next month to kick off a programme of public sector strike action this summer. Unison’s local government members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland voted yesterday, by 55% to 45%, for a series of sustained strikes over a 2.45% pay offer. Union negotiators are recommending staff stage a walkout in protest at the offer on July 15 and 16.

The ladder of fundamentalism (Lenin’s Tomb)
Gafcon: ‘There will be no split’ (Ruth Gledhill)
Confusion over handshake issue at Irish awards (Indigo Jo Blogs)
New French Muslim chief on the “virginity lie” case (Tom Heneghan, Faith World)
China demolishes mosque over Olympic row (Reuters, Times of India)
End rendition and secret detention: Europe’s duty (Amnesty International)

Shabir Hussain, Ahmed Hassan, Peter Akinola

Asian officer held back by Met police ‘glass ceiling’, tribunal told
Vikram Dodd, The Guardian
The most senior officer to sue his own force for racial discrimination said yesterday he had repeatedly been blocked for promotion because he was not part of a “golden circle” of white officers. Commander Shabir Hussain told of the prejudice he faced in the ranks, including being told to leave the country after the September 11 attacks in 2001.m Hussain, an officer with the Metropolitan police, told an employment tribunal he had been rejected an “unprecedented” four times for promotion…

Muslim teenager Ahmed Hassan murdered by white thug Michael Brook
Andrew Norfolk, Times
A Muslim schoolboy described as a perfect pupil and a model son was murdered by a drunken white teenager who had only been released from custody three days earlier, a court heard today. Ahmed Hassan, 17, an A* student who hoped to become a lawyer, was waiting with friends to catch a Saturday afternoon train to Manchester when he received a fatal stab wound in the back.  The knife was wielded by Michael Brook, 18, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire…

Cracks begin to show at summit discussing gay clergy rift
Riazat Butt, The Guardian,
The people gathered on the Mount of Olives were united in voice as they sang their officially approved hymns, but on the second day of a conference which has laid bare the divisions in the Anglican communion over homosexuality, notes of discord could already be heard.  Talk of betrayal, disappointment and disagreement threatens to sour the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), which has cost £2.5m and drawn more than 1,200 delegates from Africa, Australia and the US.
[Vicious hot air currents - Stephen Bates, Guardian CiF]

The Anglican culture wars (Andrew Brown, Guardian CiF)
Routine Abuses in the name of security in Tunisia (Amnesty International)