Jihadism A Symptom Of Western Policy? That’s Mangled History: New Age Islam’s Selection from World Press, 19 November 2015
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
19November 2015
• Jihadism A Symptom Of Western Policy? That’s Mangled History
By Rafael Behr
• Muslim Council of Britain takes out advert denouncing Paris attack
By Aisha Gani
• Europe must tighten its borders, and France must face its demons
By Rachida Dati
• Shoot-to-kill won’t make us safe from terror – just sorry
By Gary Younge
• Paris attacks: the Muslim victims of terrorist bullets
By Anne Penketh
• Why Do Deaths In Paris Get More Attention Than Deaths In Beirut?
By Nesrine Malik
• What's It Like Being Muslim in America?
By Zehra Naqvi
• France's Minorities: Paris’s Muslims and Jews Are Now More Anxious Than Ever
• The Economist
• We Deserve Nuance: Common Misconceptions About Islam and Why You Should Never Blame All Muslims
By Abukar Adan
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Jihadism A Symptom Of Western Policy? That’s Mangled History
By Rafael Behr
17 November 2015
When I sat GCSE History in the summer of 1990, a few weeks before the first Gulf war, there was a staple question about the treaty of Versailles: did it cause the second world war? There was a model answer: yes and no. On the one hand; on the other hand. Georges Clemenceau’s vengeful myopia and exorbitant reparations weighed against the Depression and deeper roots of German fascism.
The question is still on the syllabus, but now sits alongside a module on “conflict and tension 1990-2009”, which makes me feel old. Is this history already? I don’t know how thoroughly today’s teenagers are expected to excavate the roots of jihadi terrorism. I do know that if the question is whether western interventions caused mass murder on the streets of Paris last week, to answer yes is historical and moral stupidity without rebuttal by the case for no – just as it would have been facile to have said Versailles spawned Hitler, and put the pen down.
This is not an argument for treating Islamic State as a threat to European democracy equivalent to the Third Reich, nor a denigration of everyone who counsels military caution as modern-day Chamberlains. Isis is the most remorselessly slaughter-hungry creed to stalk the continent since the 1930s; but it is also a distinct phenomenon craving legitimation as a state engaged in conventional war, which it is not.
The charge sheet against western policy dating back a generation is easily drafted. It takes moments to weave a tale of counterproductive geopolitical vandalism, starting from US support for the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, via the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq, pausing to condemn blind eyes turned and arms sold to Saudi Arabia, whence the theology of infidel-murder pullulates.
But to stop there is lazy. Worse, it takes an effort of analytical obtuseness to make aggressive western governments the initiating agent of all that is sinister, void of good intent or positive consequence, and thus explain jihadism as a symptom, with the CIA and Tony Blair as the virus. As if the Taliban should have been left to rule Afghanistan; as if the insurgency against allied forces in Iraq were a national liberation front akin to anti-colonial movements against the British Empire; as if Isis presented negotiable terms of secular grievance that can be settled at a peace conference; as if the rhetoric against “Zionist-Crusaders”, the genocide of Yazidisand the systematic enslavement of women were all logical extrapolations from a dodgy strategy cooked up in the Pentagon: extreme, yes, but explicable by cross-reference to prior western offences.
Yet this join-the-interventionist-dots view of terrorism’s genesis holds sway in the office of the leader of the Labour party. It is not endorsed by many MPs, which is why Jeremy Corbyn was verbally assailed by irate colleagues in ameeting of his parliamentary party on Monday night. The trigger for their fury was a round of TV interviews Corbyn had given resisting the use of drones to kill British jihadis in Syria, refusing to countenance any military action against terror groups and recoiling from a policy of permitting security services shoot-to-killlicence, anticipating a scenario like the one that has traumatised Paris. Veterans of such meetings say they have never seen a leader so isolated.
But the most revealing of Corbyn’s public statements was not about policy. It was his response when the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg read a quote from an article by the Stop the War Coalition, the pressure group of which the Labour leader was until recently chair, describing the Paris attack as “reaping the whirlwind of western support for extremist violence”. Corbyn hedged: “I wouldn’t use that language.” Clearly not now that he has graduated from speaking as a backbencher at fringe rallies to addressing the nation as a potential prime minister. He did, however, advance the same argument with different language. Past interventions had “unleashed” terrorist forces, making the current situation one “we have created”.
If Corbyn was spouting incoherent gibberish, the episode would be unremarkable except as a sign of Labour’s hastening march into irrelevance. What makes it insidious is the semi-coherence, the fluency of his ellipses and the cold diffidence, mingled with didactic vanity, that seemed to urge his audience to get beyond the banal horror of the headlines, to reach the deeper insight available to those, like himself, who have been warning about interventionist folly (he reminded us) since 2001. He did not excuse the murderers. “Obviously, absolutely, blame those that did it. Absolutely, obviously Isil are totally wrong,” he said, but with a hint of impatience, making the ethical distinction between terrorist and target sound like a caveat to the more sophisticated point he was getting at.
This undercurrent of moral relativism contaminates the valid points in Corbyn’s argument. He is right that it is still unclear how British airstrikes in Syria would make a practical difference against terrorism. The memory of Jean Charles de Menezes, mistakenly gunned down by police in 2005, is reason to weigh gravely the implications of authorising a shoot-to-kill policy. Justice would have been better served if Mohammed “Jihadi John” Emwazi had been put on trial. But in the absence of a friendly constable to collar the villain in Syria, a choice had to be made about whether a drone strike was the best expedient alternative. Yes, a political settlement to the Syrian war is needed. Does Corbyn think this has hitherto escaped policymakers’ notice?
The hardest part of leadership is judging how far to stray from what is ideal for the sake of what is necessary. In making that calculation, the analysis of past policy failings is useful if it informs a prescription for what might work instead. What is the better use of western resources and power to defeat Isis, as a military force abroad and an ideology that recruits in our cities?
That goal will not be met by aligning a critique of British policy with the selective history that adorns jihadi propaganda. The solution is not an atonement list of supposed western aggressions in Muslim lands, maybe adding a few platitudes about diplomacy and the undesirability of war, then putting the pen down: all on the one hand, none on the other. Yet this is the Labour leader’s answer after so much study: some mangled history without a conclusion, half an argument, the sound of one hand wringing.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/17/jihadism-western-policy-jeremy-corbyn-isis
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Muslim Council of Britain takes out advert denouncing Paris attack
By Aisha Gani
Wednesday 18 November 2015
Hundreds of British Muslims have taken out an advert to highlight their “united condemnation” of terrorism after the attacks in Paris.
The advert, issued by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and endorsed by more than 300 of the body’s affiliates, features an image of the Eiffel Tower and the words: “With one voice, British Muslims condemn the Paris attacks unreservedly.
“The barbaric acts of Daesh [Isis] have no sanction in the religion of Islam, which forbids terrorism and the targeting of innocents.
“Muslims have held vigils and donated blood for the victims. It is not the terrorists who represent our faith but brave individuals like Stade de France security guard Zouheir, who risked his life to stop the attackers.”
Dr Shuja Shafi, the secretary general of the MCB, said it was important to make sure the UK heard the MCB’s condemnation of the attacks.
He said: “The advert aims to highlight how Muslims everywhere have consistently and without reservation spoken out against terror. It is important that our fellow Britons hear this message loudly and clearly.”
Muslim Council of Britain placed an advert in Daily Telegraph and Mail Online condemning the Paris attacks. Photograph: PR
“The aim of attacks like those inflicted on Paris and other cities across the world is to turn communities against each other,” said Shafi. “As Muslims, Britons and Europeans, we must stand together to make sure they do not succeed.”
The advert is signed by both Shia and Sunni institutions,professional associations and youth organisations that represent varied Muslim groups from across the UK.
Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the MCB, said: “The reaction has been hugely positive. Others have picked up on the hard copy and have re-circulated it. It has been a really good message to us.
“People say that Muslims are not really saying enough or that they cannot hear or see what is being said, so this advert gives us some good coverage.”
The advert paid tribute to the security guard at the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany on Friday night, who reportedly discovered a terrorist attempting to enter the ground and turned him away from the stadium.
Khan said: “We gauged the strength of feeling in Britain, especially with the link to Friday’s football match and France playing England in the UK on Tuesday night, by watching social media and seeing people’s shock at what happened.”
He added the statement mentions other cities across the world “because people are conscious of the fact that there were other bombings – there was Beirut, there was Ankara”, said Khan. “It was important to respect that and mention all the terrorism acts in our statement.”
The advert was also a reaction to examples of anti-Muslim behaviour which have surfaced since the attacks. On Monday, a 43-year-old woman was arrested by Thames Valley police after she wrote on Facebook that Muslims were no longer welcome in a beauty salon.
In another incident,Muslim takeaway workers in Fife, Scotland, were attacked by a gang allegedly shouting “Isis”, just 24 hours after the Paris attacks.
Khan said: “Another aspect is some of the hate crimes Muslims are facing in the UK as a reaction. The advert is a counter-measure to tell people that what these terrorists did in Paris does not reflect on what Muslims are like in the UK.
“We have some reports about people being threatened and this was also done to dispel any misconceptions about Muslims in general.”
theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/muslim-council-britain-advert-paris-attack
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Europe must tighten its borders, and France must face its demons
By Rachida Dati
Thursday 19 November 2015
In these trying times for France, we – especially those of us who are elected representatives – must step up the effort to find constructive solutions for our security and stability. But in our choice of words and in our actions we must apply wisdom and responsibility.
That means under no circumstances playing the blame game. Loud and clear, we should be reminding our fellow citizens that the root of the problem is neither immigration nor Islam.
Those who appear to have committed barbaric acts grew up in our midst. They were drugged with an ideology that takes Islam as an excuse to “justify” evil. Bombing Isis in Syria is necessary but at the same time we need to address an issue, a sickness dare I say, that has spread within our own European countries.
Over the last few months I have made many recommendations, as a rapporteur for the European Parliament on the prevention of radicalisation. Some of these should be implemented immediately to strengthen security. And the EU is the right level at which to act, since the threat we face is as common to the member states as it is mobile. You just have to look at where the so-called “foreign fighters” come from to understand that this is a Europe-wide issue: 1,200 from France, 600 from Germany, 440 from Belgium, 250 from the Netherlands.
An EU system of recording passenger names (requiring more systematic collection and use of data on passengers entering or leaving the EU) must be established as soon as possible to trace the movements of radicalised individuals. Reinforced controls along the Schengen area’s external borders must also be organised.
And because radicalisation occurs in most instances on the internet and in prisons – and not predominantly in mosques – we need to be preventing evil narratives and recruitment videos proliferating online and through social media. Internet companies should cooperate more thoroughly to remove illicit content and to decrypt terrorist communications. They must act more quickly than they are already doing. If they don’t, they must be held liable for failing to prevent terrorist propaganda from spreading.
Inside prisons, radicalised inmates should be kept apart, as is done in Fresnes prison in France. Its governor recently launched a highly effective pilot scheme involving managing Islamists in a separate unit. Governments across the EU need to draw inspiration from it. And prison staff should receive training in detecting radical behaviour.
Much greater cooperation is urgently needed on surveillance. European states need to increase information exchange and develop greater surveillance of citizens who fall under suspicion in their country of origin. They need to share good practices on dealing with so-called “foreign fighters” returning to their home country. Do we need to confiscate passports, even withdraw nationality, when there is a national security threat? All of these questions need to be addressed.
Finally, another way to fight against terrorism is to target finances and freeze assets. Let’s ask for more transparency on financial transfers from third countries to EU member states.
Members of the European Parliament, across the political spectrum, should act immediately on these pending EU proposals. Too many lives have been lost already so, as elected representatives, we must face up to our responsibilities.
As a nation we in France have, since last Friday, felt powerless, grief-stricken and angry. I can only begin to imagine the pain of those who lost a loved one. Why did this happen to us again? Why were so many precious lives so tragically lost? Why did young people resort to such barbaric acts?
But beyond immediate reaction in response to the security threat, France – and indeed other European countries – must face its demons.
Our policy of integration, which was once so strong, is failing today. We are seeing a frightening pattern develop: young people who were born in Europe killing in the name of a religion they know little about.
The answer is certainly not to further stigmatise Islam or immigration. This is exactly what Isis wants. They want Muslims to be excluded; they want our nation to be divided. They simply cannot win.
We must build a more inclusive society, which respects diversity while upholding values that bind us together. At school, in universities, through bringing excluded young people back into education, training or work, we can equip them to be responsible citizens and a force for good in the community.
The French president, François Hollande, has always said that youth policies are high on his agenda. But it cannot be mere wishful thinking. Our country needs us to deliver. Despite being in opposition today, I work and want to continue working with the government. My country and the security of my fellow citizens are far more important than any election or party politics.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/europe-tighten-borders-france-face-demons-integration-failing
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Shoot-to-kill won’t make us safe from terror – just sorry
By Gary Younge
Thursday 19 November 2015
The descriptions varied. Officer Frank assumed he was “a white man”, but thought: “It would be worth somebody else having a look.” Officer Ivor believed he had “Mongolian eyes”; Officer Harry said he was “acting in a wary manner”; Commander Dick thought him “very, very jumpy”. But a consensus soon emerged: he was a jihadi about to blow up London’s tube.
Within an hour the descriptions were unanimous. He was a dead man. How could he not be? The police had put seven bullets in his head. Within 24 hours a new consensus was taking hold. They had all been completely wrong. He was not off to spread terror through the capital, but to fix a broken fire alarm in Kilburn. He was not a terrorist, but a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician. His name was Jean Charles de Menezes.
Any shoot-to-kill policy inevitably rests on the presumption of guilt, often of a crime that has not yet taken place. In the most literal sense of the word, such policies are based on prejudice – a judgment made about who someone is and what they might do, prior to any evidence about either. Those presumptions do not come from nowhere. They are rooted in an array of received wisdoms – a constellation of probabilities, generalisations, bigotries, calculations, likelihoods, falsehoods, archetypes and stereotypes. Judgments are made through the crosshairs of a firearm. The verdict is always the same – death. There is no leave to appeal.
In the stampede to defend and extol western values – whatever they are – against the onslaught of barbarism, it should be recognised that the principles of freedom and equality have never applied to all in the west except in the most formal sense. The criminalisation of communities of colour (and the Irish in Britain) long preceded the war on terror and will, unfortunately, survive it.
Fascism is once again a mainstream ideology in Europe, and Muslims are among its principal targets. Knowing what the odds are for black and Muslim people to be stopped and searched, the ramifications of a “don’t stop, just shoot” policy do not bear thinking about. “Terror,” explains the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, in Fear of Small Numbers, “opens the possibility that anyone may be a soldier in disguise, a sleeper among us, waiting to strike at the heart of our social slumber.” If such an atmosphere prevails, every brown skin will be just a “cleanskin” (an undercover terrorist not known to the police) waiting to happen – and the #blacklivesmatter slogan will shift from an issue pitching civil rights advocates against local and federal US law enforcement to one of global, geopolitical inequalities.
Those who might insist that racial sensitivity is a luxury we cannot afford at such critical times should realise that it is precisely the trust of black and Asian communities that is most needed to combat this particular fundamentalist scourge. Moreover, if unity against terror is genuinely what we are aiming for, it cannot be achieved by forcing some to live in terror of the state so that others can enjoy the illusion of security – we’re either all in this together or we’re not. Finally, the murder and humiliation of innocent people abroad at the hands of western forces is partly what has brought us to this point, helping to mobilise large numbers of disaffected Muslim youth. Being as callous and careless at home as we have been abroad will hurt, not help.
In moments that are clear cut – where a terrorist is pointing a gun at civilians or stands up, shouts a slogan and pulls a cord from a smoking vest – few (including, I would imagine, Jeremy Corbyn) would argue with the proposition that they should stopped by any means necessary, including lethal force. British police already have the right to use reasonable force if they believe somebody poses a threat to his or her life, or to the life of others.
But it is worthwhile pointing out that in the most high profile of such moments that have occurred, the assailants were apprehended (usually by civilians) using non-lethal means. The shoe bomber of 2001, the underwear bomber of 2009 – both of whom were caught trying to blow up aeroplanes in mid-flight – and the man who opened fire on a train in France in August this year were all overpowered by other passengers or crew. All were stopped and could expect to stand trial. If it is a way of life that we’re defending, then – even when it is not possible – this must nonetheless be the preferred outcome.
But situations are rarely that clear. The young Asian man running through the city with a backpack might be late for a football match; the woman in the hijab on the bus looking nervous and talking to herself might be on her way to an interview or an exam. You just don’t know. And once they’ve been shot, it’s too late to find out.
Police officers thought that De Menezes looked suspicious because he changed buses and looked fidgety, which is apparently how a well-trained terrorist would behave. It turned out he switched buses because the tube stop was closed, and was on edge because he was running late for work.
And when people are refracting their impressions through a lens of fear they rarely see straight. De Menezes was shot two weeks after jihadis had attacked tube trains and a bus in central London and a day after the failure of another plot. People were understandably jittery. Initial witness reports said that De Menezes was wearing a suspiciously large padded jacket on a hot day, had vaulted the ticket barriers, and kept running when asked to stop.
Anthony Larkin, who was on the train, said he saw “this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out”. Mark Whitby, who was also there, thought he saw a Pakistani terrorist being chased and gunned down by plainclothes policemen. Less than a month later, Whitby said “I now believe that I could have been looking at the surveillance officer” being thrown out of the way as De Menezes was being killed. The Pakistani in a padded jacket turned out to be a Brazilian in a light denim jacket who picked up a free paper and swiped his Oyster card.
We would all rather be safe than sorry. The problem with a policy such as shoot-to-kill is that its potential to make us safe is dwarfed by the likelihood that it will make us sorry.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/shoot-to-kill-terror-fear-prejudice-jean-charles-de-menezes
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Paris attacks: the Muslim victims of terrorist bullets
By Anne Penketh
Thursday 19 November 2015
“We’re ordinary citizens who love our family. My parents are in absolute distress. We were eight brothers and sisters, now we’re down to six,” said Abdallah Saadi, a brother of Halima and Houda.
Another brother, Khaled, told iTélé television he had been working in the restaurant on the Rue de Charonne that night and found Halima’s lifeless body amid the carnage after the attackers fled. Khaled, who survived by throwing himself on to the floor “for what seemed like an eternity”, helped a friend carry the body to a restaurant next door. Houda sustained a fatal head wound in the shooting and died in hospital.
They came from varied backgrounds but the Muslim victims of the indiscriminate multiple attacks were all in the prime of their lives. They included a violinist, an architect, a receptionist and a shop assistant. As the children of France’s colonial legacy, or citizens of those countries, their deaths have cast a shroud of mourning beyond French shores to north Africa.
The Saadi family are originally from the Tunisian port town of Menzel Bourguiba but the children were raised on a council estate in the Burgundy town of Le Creusot where their parents still live. A friend of the two dead sisters, Karim, told France 3 television that both were “dynamic and hard-working. They lived life to the full.”
Pianist plays John Lennon’s Imagine outside Bataclan concert hall in tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks
A wreath from the Tunisian government was among the floral tributes outside La Belle Equipe on Tuesday, still shuttered four days after the Paris attacks which left at least 129 people dead. One of the fluttering paper messages beside the restaurant reads: “We are Muslim. You are terrorists and imposters.”
“These people are fascists, it’s got nothing to do with Islam,” said Azdine, a gas fitter of Tunisian descent who works close by.
Djamila Houd, 41, had been a receptionist at the headquarters of the Isabel Marant ready-to-wear fashion house near the Palais Royal for the past three years. She too lost her life on the terrace of La Belle Equipe. A colleague said she was “very jolly and friendly” and an essential member of the closely knit team. A friend who is now on compassionate leave has posted poignant pictures of the two of them enjoying fun times on a boat trip earlier this year.
Houd, who had an eight-year-old daughter, was the youngest daughter of a noted Algerian harki who fought with the French army during the Algerian war. The harkis struggled for many years to obtain official recognition for their loyalty to the French state.
In her home town of Dreux, 80km west of Paris, her elder sister, Tassadit, said that Djamila was a symbol that the jihadi fanatics wanted to destroy. “They hate freedom; they want to destroy it wherever it exists, the women like my sister in countries where freedom reigns. French Muslims must fight these extremists tooth and nail. The state must do everything to stop them,” she told the local newspaper, l’Echo Republicain.
The dead among France’s Muslim community included Asta Diakité, the cousin of the French footballer Lassana Diarra who was playing in the friendly against Germany on Friday night when two suicide bombers disrupted the match. Expressing his pain in a Facebook posting, the footballer said that Diakite, who worked in a chemist’s in the 18th arrondissement, was “my rock, my supporter, my elder sister”.
Moroccan architect Mohamed Amine Ibholmobarak, a 28-year-old who had completed an architectural study on the pilgrimage to Mecca, was also among the victims. Ibholmobarak, who taught at a Paris architecture institute, was shot at Le Carillon café in the 10th arrondissement while enjoying the mild autumn evening on the terrace with his wife, Maya, who was seriously wounded.
Kheireddine Sahbi, known as Didine, was a 29-year-old Algerian violinist and composer from an Algiers suburb who was studying ethno-musicology at the Sorbonne in Paris. He was killed by the gunmen on Friday night on his way home.
Many French Muslims, estimated to be at least 5 million strong, are fearful as anti-refugee sentiment has been fanned by the far-right Front National since Friday’s attacks. A Moroccan was beaten up during an anti-immigration rally by extreme-right youths in the Breton town of Pontivy on Saturday.
Jean-Pierre Filiu, an Islam scholar and Sciences Po university professor, commented to France-Inter that what Isis wanted “is that today in Paris and in France, Muslims are killed in reprisal. They want a civil war in France.”
theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/paris-attacks-muslim-victims-terrorist-france-isis
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Why Do Deaths In Paris Get More Attention Than Deaths In Beirut?
By Nesrine Malik
18 November 2015
Be honest. Do you care about all tragedies in the world equally? Do you feel as strongly about the Paris attacks as about say, a bombing in Baghdad, or the shooting of Sudanese migrants at the Egyptian Israeli border? The honest answer is probably no. And that is fine.
There have been many voices complaining that the Paris attacks have received more global attention than similar attacks in Lebanon and Iraq, and that the global news agenda is more sensitive about the loss of white western lives than others. This is technically a sound point. Ideally we should care about all deaths equally, but it’s human nature that we do not. Not out of some crass disregard for the lives of others, but the simple limitations of what we can care about, its proximity to home, and how it grabs our attention.
Yes the media is skewed, but we, the consumers, are also complicit – in that media is no longer a top-down affair, transmitting information to inert readers or watchers. We determine the news agenda far more than previously. Social media and, more crucially, the ability of new organisations to gauge which stories get the most hits, attention and circulation, mean that we are now as guilty of determining the agenda as editors are, if not more. There is something sanctimonious, maybe even hypocritical, about placing the onus purely on the media – they are often only reflecting back our chatter and activity back at us. The Beirut bombings actually did get quite a lot of coverage, but the news stories about them didn’t get much traction.
It is also not as neat an imbalance as you might think. The nature of the news incident is also important. There is some combination of factors that render something a news story worthy of supreme attention – an certain out-of-the-ordinariness, the presence of a simple evil assailant.
A mass attack in the heart of Paris is a less frequent event than a bombing in the Middle East. By the same token, a campus shooting is a more common occurrence in the US than it is anywhere else, and coverage of shooting events have lately been relegated down the front pages, due to frequency. It sounds churlish, but that is news.
Editors do have discretion as to what item they believe deserves attention, but that is also dependent on how many people are likely to read or watch it. TheWestgate attack in Nairobi got far more play in the global press than the Garissa massacre, even though they were both in the same country perpetrated by the same type of attacker. What is news and what is not is a complicated algorithm that doesn’t necessarily fall along the lines of white deaths bad, others indifferent.
It is undeniable that the western media is hardwired to care more and cover western stories more, and from a western point of view. Of course, western media outlets tend to have the benefit of greater resources. They broadcast in English, a global lingua franca, and they take advantage of a global cultural hegemony that amplifies their concerns far more widely than is reasonable. But CNN has the right to focus on material from its originating culture, as much as al-Jazeera does from an Arab or Middle Eastern point of view.
But we can all do better, as journalists and as news consumers, to project global events, broadcast information and make victims feel less alone. This means paying attention to more high-impact events that are out of our comfort zones, rather than cherrypicking those that make the disparity of care point best, and guilt-tripping others for not paying equal attention all the time. Otherwise we just undermine the sense of solidarity that we claim to be seeking.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/deaths-paris-beirut-media
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What's It Like Being Muslim in America?
By Zehra Naqvi
16/11/2015
I'm an attorney, a community organizer and a female Pakistani-American Muslim immigrant. Being Muslim in America means being identified by only one aspect of my identity. It means being told exactly what it means to be Muslim in America and having very little control over the narrative.
The first American Muslims were African-American slaves brought here against their will and the first Muslim community centers were built in the early to mid-1900s. Being Muslim in America means being treated as outsiders despite our communities having played a part in shaping this nation early on.
My faith teaches me empathy for all and imposes a personal obligation to fight injustice and inequality in all its forms. Being Muslim in America means that I am obligated to fight against racial injustice (including the model minority myth), advocate to close the wage gap and raise the minimum wage, and do better by those who cannot afford basic necessities or mental health services.
I arrived as an immigrant and achieved much more of the American Dream than I had imagined I would be able to. Being Muslim in America is being made to feel like I somehow snuck under the radar to pull it off -- that the Dream wasn't meant for people like me.
I'm teaching my nieces and nephews that this is the land of opportunity and they have to work hard to achieve their potential. Being Muslim in America means many others are telling these kids that there is a ceiling to their dreams and the Republican presidential candidates are telling them that they will never walk the hallways of power and their potential is thus limited.
I'm Shia Muslim, part of a sect that accounts for about 15-20 percent of the Muslim population overall and is a favorite target of ISIS as most recently proven by their recent attacks in Beirut. Being Muslim in America means being equated to those who would kill me, as they did many thousands of other Muslims over the past two years, all nuance lost.
American Muslims encompass a number of sects, races and viewpoints on domestic and international policies, presidential candidates, and everything else. Being Muslim in America means that none of that matters, we are perceived as a big uniform group of millions, a vague but ominous threat to the American way of life.
I'm told I have to state the obvious over and over again: denounce terrorism and terrorists and condemn all violence and injustice. Being Muslim means I am constantly made to feel like my community's claims are simply not credible, but I should keep trying to convince people of things I should never have to prove about myself in the first place.
I feel sick to my stomach looking at images of lives lost in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, and France this week, all in the name of my faith. Being Muslim in America means our grief is read as insincere, Muslim victims among the losses are ignored, and we are held accountable for events we had nothing to do with while officials refuse to acknowledge that our government policies and partnerships with regimes like Saudi Arabia perpetuate the threat we're all facing.
In American Muslim households across the country, kids are asking why the world hates Muslims, what kind of Muslims kill in the name of Islam, and how to handle the negative public perceptions about Muslims. Being Muslim in America means no one is informing non-Muslim Americans about the actual basis of the ideology that underlies ISIS -- Saudi-exported hate-mongering, supremacist Wahhabism -- or explaining that as long as we, as a nation, are more in love with oil than troubled by the true cost of that oil and what kind of ideology may be imported alongside that oil, we will all be at risk for more attacks, the reputation of the majority of Muslims around the world who don't buy into ISIS' distorted views of Islam will continue to be maligned and our kids will pay the price for all of our ignorance, having to stand up to misdirected bias and hate over and over again.
I'm scared of terrorist attacks. I'm scared I will be attacked for wearing hijab. I'm scared my mosque might be attacked. I'm scared law enforcement will look upon my loved ones with increased scrutiny on the streets, at airports, and in police stations. I'm scared of how routine the concept of surveillance has become in my community, and I'm scared that we're getting it from all sides and there's no end in sight. Being Muslim in America means the mantra of "national security" and an exclusive form of nationalism justifies anything my community has to endure.
As a Shia Muslim, I can practice my faith here openly as opposed to many predominantly-Muslim countries that criminalize and demonize my sect. Being Muslim in America means that despite all the hardships of being Muslim in America, I'm proud to be an American Muslim and appreciate the advantages and opportunities that come with calling this nation my home, including the freedom to write pieces like this and participate in debates and protests to protect my community and stand in solidarity with other American communities trying to ensure that we keep shaping America to reflect the potential and power of diversity rather than the institutionalization of stereotypes, generalizations, and outdated notions.
This is home and houses my past, my present, and my future. Being Muslim in America is making sure that I share my narrative, my fears, and my hopes with generations of Americans who either don't yet recognize in our stories the struggles they themselves have lived through, or do and are already pushing back on the tide of hate. We cannot go it alone and, thankfully, we don't have to.
huffingtonpost.com/zehra-naqvi/what-its-like-being-muslim-in-america_b_8569378.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
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France's Minorities: Paris’s Muslims and Jews Are Now More Anxious Than Ever
The Economist
Nov 17th 2015
UNDER a traffic bridge not far from the famous Saint-Ouen flea market in northern Paris is another, more dismal curbside market, where immigrants sell scraps of used clothing, single shoes and bashed-up electronic equipment. The dominant language here is Arabic, and new arrivals from Syria exchange information on how to reach Britain. After the November 13th attacks, carried out by members of Islamic State (IS) and directed from the movement’s headquarters in Syria, the main concern is over how border controls could be affected. “This will only make people blame us, though we’re escaping IS ourselves,” worries Abdel Manal, recently arrived in Paris from Aleppo. Election posters for the far-right National Front are plastered on the walls, showing a threatening young woman in a niqab head-covering, but the local Muslim residents don’t seem to fear a backlash.
“The Front are just trying to provoke people,” says Mubarak Bariki, a Tunisian-born male nurse. The perpetrators of the attacks were “doing something which is haram (forbidden)”. Some in the market insist that that the attacks were fictions invented by America and Israel to hurt Muslims. “There’s no such thing as IS,” said one young man.
In relatively liberal Paris, Muslims do not seem to fear retribution. In other French cities, anti-Muslim slogans have been chanted at memorial rallies and graffiti daubed on mosques. The desire not to be identified with the perpetrators motivated a group of imams, joined by rabbis, to lay candles and flowers at the Bataclan theatre, site of the greatest carnage in Paris. But as new details emerge about the identities of the attackers, at least two of whom were French-born, questions are inevitably being raised about the failed integration (or radicalisation) of too many of the children of France’s immigrants from its former colonies in north Africa. The national census does not mention religion, but demographers estimate that 5-10% of French are Muslim.
“After 25 years of speaking about [the issue of] French Muslims, all the governments have failed,” says Olivier Roy of the European University Institute, an expert on radicalisation in France. One problem, he argues, is that Muslim communities are highly fragmented. Politicians tend to appoint their own interlocutors. These purported local leaders have little following, while imams are credible only inside their own mosques. While the public imagines Muslim youth as disenfranchised and poor, many are actually middle-class individualists who “despise those who are chosen by the government to speak on their behalf.” Many of the security personnel who responded to the attacks were Muslims. Liberals argue that they should be considered better representatives of France’s Muslims than the murderers.
French Jews are much better integrated than Muslims. For them, Friday’s violence was a reminder of the second round of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, which targeted a kosher supermarket in Paris, and of the attack in 2012 at the entrance to a Jewish school in Toulouse. Following the supermarket attack, Jewish institutions throughout France were guarded by soldiers. French Jews reacted with ambivalence, at once glad of the protection and distressed at their status as endangered subjects. The attacks spurred an already rising wave of emigration: about 9000 Jews are expected to leave France for Israel this year.
French Jews hope the latest killings, which targeted public spaces seemingly at random, will reinforce the sense that all citizens are in the same boat. “What has happened should make everyone realise that we need better security for all of France, not just the Jews,” says Levi Matusof, rabbi of a congregation in Paris’s 16th arondissement. In a practical sense, there may be no other choice. Patrick Klugman, a deputy mayor of Paris and a former president of the Jewish student union, says there is simply nothing more that can be done to improve security at Jewish institutions. “Now we should hope that because many of the casualties were young French Muslims, they can also speak out,” Mr Klugman says.
economist.com/news/europe/21678666-after-attacks-muslims-hope-escape-backlash-jews-hope-majority-has-finally
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We Deserve Nuance: Common Misconceptions About Islam and Why You Should Never Blame All Muslims
By Abukar Adan
18/11/2015
I am a Muslim. I am also a black, immigrant, heterosexual male, who was born in rural Ethiopia and raised in a quintessential New England city. I've experienced adversity and opportunity, prejudice and privilege. I've navigated cultures and social classes, in the process, coming into contact with diverse individuals and ideas that have shaped who I am.
These various identities, environments and experiences interact in complex ways to inform my worldview. Unfortunately, however, like many Muslims around the world, I am often expected to apologize for other people's crimes, prove my innocence and educate my colleagues. This shouldn't be my job. It's tiring, infuriating and frankly unfair.
So in light of this past weekend's horrific attacks in Paris that have left at least 129 people dead and the inevitable demonization of Muslims, I would like to take the liberty to address three of the most common misconceptions about Islam and its followers.
1. Islam makes people violent
Islam doesn't inherently make people violent or peaceful. Like virtually all religions, it depends on the meaning it's given by individuals or societies. Whether it's by radical Jewish settlers, Christian fundamentalists or extremist Buddhists, many religions can be manipulated to achieve sinister objectives. Muslims are not the only people committing violence but the distorted narrative perpetuated by the mainstream media, illustrated in this CNN interview with Reza Aslan, would make you think otherwise.
2. Maybe not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims
Speaking of media bias, perhaps nowhere is it more evident than the inconsistent application of the term "terrorist." Muslims, particularly those from the Middle East, are so often associated with "terrorist" that our collective consciousness has come to render the two inseparable. This portrayal of Muslims is grossly inaccurate. In fact, New America, a Washington Research Center, has found that, since "Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims."
The term "terrorist" is nothing short of meaningless propaganda. As Glenn Greenwald, one of the leading investigative journalists of our time, writes in his article for the Intercept:
Ample scholarship proves that the term "terrorism" is empty, definition-free and invariably manipulated. Harvard's Lisa Stampnitzky has documented "the inability of researchers to establish a suitable definition of the concept of 'terrorism' itself." The concept of "terrorism" is fundamentally plagued by ideological agendas and self-interested manipulation, as Professor Richard Jackson at the the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand has explained: "most of what is accepted as well-founded 'knowledge' in terrorism studies is, in fact, highly debatable and unstable" and is "biased towards Western state priorities."
3. They hate us
The "us vs. them" mentality, when referring to any group of people, often limits one's capacity to understand issues within a particular context. For instance, when groups like ISIS commit heinous crimes, many automatically blame religion. When trying to understand what motivated these senseless attacks, however, it's important to consider the various factors at play such the instability created by the West's continual interventions in the Middle East, the coalition's arming of sectarian groups and the lack of opportunities brought in part by the "War on Terror."
In a recent interview, VICE founder Shane Smith asked President Obama about the popularity of ISIL and how to defeat them to which the POTUS responded, "ISIL is a direct outgrowth of al Qaeda in Iraq, that grew out of our invasion, which is an example of unintended consequences." Obama added:
I'm worried about how, even if ISIL is defeated, the underlying problem of disaffected Sunnis around the world -- but particularly in some of these areas including Libya, including Yemen -- where a young man who's growing up has no education, has no prospects for the future, is looking around and the one way he can get validation, power, respect is if he's a fighter. 'And this looks like the toughest gang around, so let me affiliate with them, and now you're giving me a religious rationale for doing this.' That's a problem we're going to have, generally. And we can't keep thinking about counterterrorism and security as entirely separate from diplomacy, development, education.
There are many underlying social and political issues that drive young men, often with very few alternatives, to join groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. To solely blame Islam for the recent atrocities is disingenuous at best.
This past weekend's senseless attacks in Paris and Beirut have left us in shock and searching for answers. Some will undoubtedly respond irrationally. As the bigots stereotype and smear all Muslims, we must resist the urge of blaming innocent people.
Islam is a religion made up of 1.6 billon people and each one of us is unique, with complex identities and experiences that shape us. No Muslim should be expected to apologize for a crime he/she didn't commit. We deserve nuance.
huffingtonpost.com/abukar-adan-/the-need-for-nuance-islam-muslims_b_8567148.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/jihadism-symptom-western-policy-that’s/d/105331
New Age Islam, Islam, Islamic Website, War on Terror, Afghanistan, Grand Mosque, Makkah, Syria, ISIS, Russia, Paris Attack