[DEBATE] : Quest for secular piety: excellent review (Islamists/Leftists /Palestine)

[Salim Vally]

www.killingtrain.com/chasingamiragereview

*On a quest for secular piety: Reviewing Tarek Fatah's "Chasing a Mirage"*

Justin Podur

Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: the
tragic illusion of an Islamic State (CM). It has been reviewed very
favorably indeed in the Canadian media, especially the Asper-family
owned newspapers. The right-wing National Post published long excerpts
from the book in serial form, and frequently runs op-eds by Tarek. His
basic thesis is that religion and politics should be separated in Islam.
Although it has major flaws, it also has many attributes of interest and
will be thought-provoking on the relationship between religion and
politics, and between Islam and the West.

*A flawed book with some thought-provoking ideas*

The experience of reading the book is a jarring one. Tarek frequently
overreaches, making claims beyond what the evidence provides. "the pain
we suffer is caused mostly by self-inflicted wounds, and is not entirely
the result of some Zionist conspiracy hatched by the West." (pg. xi) How
IMF restructuring or repeated US bombings, invasions, and occupations
are "self-inflicted" is unexplained. Sentences like that also put all
Muslims together, though the politics and problems in different Muslim
societies are different. CM includes preposterous statements about
"nations such as India and China, with few natural resources other than
their burgeoning populations" (pg. 325). India and China in fact have
tremendous natural resources (especially agricultural resources) that
are exploited to the fullest because of their large populations.

Tarek also says "being Canadian has had the most profound effect on
(his) thinking", and lists his Canadian heroes, which include both men
and women, French and Anglo-Canadians. But his list does not have Louis
Riel or Joseph Brant or any other indigenous person. Tarek's references
to "ordinary Canadians" don't include the country's indigenous people or
the crimes that were done to them. It is striking though, given his
emphasis on Canadian-ness and his expressed desire to hold a mirror up
to the Muslim community, that he shows a blind spot for Canada's
disgraceful colonialism.

The book is also jarring because of bombast and cliche. Phrases like
"the Palestinian movement cannot be allowed to degenerate into a fad for
out-of-luck leftists in search of a cause... When these rich armchair
anti-imperialists spout on Palestine, they seem to do it out of an
addiction, not a commitment" (pg. 74) occur throughout, and make the
whole book very demoralizing to read. The use of phrases like "the new
found love affair between the left and the Islamists" (pg. 318) make a
case by insinuation, a problem found throughout the book, especially
when describing Muslim organizations in the West and money they receive
from Saudi Arabia and other places. His newspaper columns are no
different, and are part of what makes it an easier choice to simply
discard what he has to say.

On the other hand, CM also offers interesting information, especially
about Islamic history and recent debates in the West. His attacks on
rigid doctrine, internalized racism, and illiberal politics are valid
and important. He has more than once presented me with obvious things I
hadn't thought about. When Maher Arar was being tortured in Syria, for
example, he wondered why people didn't demonstrate at the Syrian
consulate, but only the US and Canadian consulates. To be sure, to send
someone somewhere to be tortured was horrific, but shouldn't some anger
be directed at the torturer? When a Palestinian refugee was threatened
with deportation for having been a member of the PFLP (the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist Palestinian formation that
Canada has deemed "terrorist"), Tarek wrote an open letter to the
Canadian Prime Minister saying he, too, had been a member of the PFLP
and so if al-Yamani was going to be deported, so too should he be. For
reasons like these, Tarek deserves better than casual dismissal. If the
flaws can be filtered out, what remain are important questions on very
serious matters worthy of debate.

Tarek divides his target audience in five parts. First, Muslims, who he
hopes to persuade of his central thesis: that being a good, pious
Muslim, to follow the Qur'an and the five pillars, does not require a
particular form of state, and that trying to create an Islamic state can
only lead to calamity. Second, "ordinary, well-meaning, but naive
non-Muslims of Europe and North America", who he hopes to persuade that
Islamists are not authentic anti-imperialists. (pg. xiv) Third,
"conservative Republicans in the United States and their
neo-conservative allies in the West" who he hopes to persuade that
"dropping bombs helps the foe, not the friend." Fourth, Arabs, "who have
suffered at the hands of colonialism", whose "cause is just", but who
"need to recognize that... the plight of the Palestinians has been
abused and misused by their leadership for ulterior motives. They also
need to fight internalized racism that places darker-coloured fellow
Muslims from Africa and Asia on a lower rung of society." (pg. xvi)
Last, "Pakistanis who deny their ancient Indian heritage", and who, as a
consequence, "have become easy pickings for Islamist extremist radicals
who fill their empty ethnic vessels with false identities that deny them
their own ethnic heritage." (pg. xvii) Because I suspect I have only
limited access to only the second part of Tarek's target audience, this
review will focus on what is of interest to the "liberal and left-leaning".

*The premises of Chasing a Mirage*

CM's explicit thesis, that religion and politics ought to be separated
in Islam, rests on several implicit theses. The most important of these
is that Islam, or political Islam, is the major reason for what is wrong
in places like Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Iran, Palestine, and immigrant
Muslim communities in the West. Tarek sometimes acknowledges colonialism
and occupation (though he is more dismissive of the idea that there
might be racism against Muslims in the West), but also blames Islamist
doctrine and ideology as a cause (as opposed to primarily an effect, to
which we will return).

 From this flows the second implicit thesis, that there is something
unique about Islam in this respect. When Europe went through Renaissance
and Enlightenment, Christianity and Judaism advanced, and Islam remained
behind. "While most of humanity has come to recognize the futility of
racial and religious states, the Islamists of today present (the) sordid
past as their manifesto of the future." (pg. 19) Failure to separate
religion from politics in culture and theory left the way open for
Islamists (Syed Qutb, Abul Ala Maudoodi) to create doctrines based on
the politicized use of religion.

The third implicit thesis is that in politics, Western-style democracy
is the best form. Tarek is a Canadian by choice, he reminds the reader,
and cherishes the freedom that he finds in the West, where "the only
Arabs who today vote without fear of reprisal" live (pg. xvii). Islamism
is bad for the West and for Muslims in part because it causes Muslims to
"refuse to integrate or assimilate as part of Western society, yet
wishes to stay in (its) midst" (pg. xiv). Also, there is nothing wrong
with Islam itself, nor any other religion. Only the combination of
religion and politics is undesirable, and CM remains constantly
respectful of the basic tenets of Muslim religion.

 From these premises, Tarek in Part 1 goes through a series of case
studies. Pakistan's politics have been distorted by Islamism and were
distorted from the start. The Saudi regime, with the US guaranteeing its
safety in power and its unimaginable oil wealth, reaches out and
sponsors Islamism all over the world. Iran's Islamists destroyed the
leftist revolutionaries who they came to power with, and then imposed
their will on a reluctant society in brutal and totalitarian ways. And
Palestine has been hijacked by Islamists within and without. Next, in
Part 2, Tarek reads medieval Islamic history from the death of the
prophet Muhammad through to the Damascus, Baghdad, and al-Andalus
caliphates. The point of this reading is to show that this past provides
no useful guidance for political conduct in large, complex, industrial
societies. In Part 3 he moves on to contemporary case studies: He
concludes that the recent attempt to apply Sharia law in Ontario for
personal disputes between Muslims was a very bad idea. Democratic laws
have to apply to everyone and everyone must receive equal protection. He
concludes that the doctrine of jihad in Islamism, which, he says, is not
about inner struggle but about war, should be discarded. And while he
supports the right to wear the hijab, he argues that it is an arbitrary
convention without a solid basis in the Qur'an or core Muslim religion.
Finally, he concludes that Islamists and Islamism should be strongly
confronted in the West, by democrats of all kinds, Muslim and
non-Muslim. Since they hold illiberal views, Islamists should not be
allowed to use liberalism to undermine its foundation.

Before assessing CM's conclusions, it may be useful to state my own
rather different premises, for understanding the problems experienced by
the societies CM discusses (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Palestine, and
the Muslim diaspora) as well as some of those he does not.

*An alternative set of premises*

I agree that religion and politics ought to be separated. But I believe
that political Islam is primarily an effect of what is wrong in Muslim
societies, not a cause. Explaining the causes of the problems of the
third world is beyond the scope of a book review. But a "left-leaning"
explanation would look for causes related to economic and political
inequalities within and between societies. While these may have
pre-existed colonial encounters (Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel"
is devoted to explaining why the geography of Europe gave it certain
advantages for conquering the rest of the world) they were intensified
by them. Millions of indigenous people of the Americas died building
wealth for Europe and the American states (see Eduardo Galeano, "Open
Veins of Latin America"). Millions of Africans died in slavery and
colonialism (see Basil Davidson, "The African Slave Trade"). Throughout
Asia, lands and resources were taken over through military conquest, or
sometimes through finance, without firing a shot. These encounters
distorted the colonizers: they lost their ethical sense, they developed
doctrines of racism and exclusive notions of religion, and locked the
world into constant warfare.

But by far the greatest trauma was suffered by the colonized These
societies were not perfect before colonialism destroyed them: they too
were full of caste (see BR Ambedkar's "Annihilation of Caste") and class
hierarchy, patriarchal traditions and religion, and militarism and
violence of their own. But colonialism intensified all of these and used
them to its own ends. The former colonies tried to make sense of what
had happened to them and how to free themselves from it (one one very
important aspect of this attempt, see Vijay Prashad's "Darker Nations").
Their responses included nationalism and communism, both of which were
brutally attacked by the Western powers (on these attacks, see William
Blum's "Killing Hope"). Religiously based nationalism in these parts of
the world was often seen as less threatening by the West.

This is where political islam enters the picture in Muslim societies.
Tarek is right that it does not provide the freedom and equality so
badly needed to address the other urgent problems of our societies. But
without a comparative perspective (which is adopted for example by Eqbal
Ahmad, one of Tarek's heroes and one of my own) one is left thinking
there is something especially bad about Islam or Muslim societies. This
is a convenient belief for Western readers who want to believe the
current "war on terror" might be justified. But an equally strong case
could be made, and has been, about the caste, irrational belief, and
hierarchy in East Asian cultures, or African cultures, or Indian
culture, or East Europe, or Latin America, or Europe or America itself -
and if the West were at war with these societies such cases would
receive greater attention here.

I do not believe that Islam has a monopoly over the failure to separate
religion and politics. I believe that all religions are systems of
authority, based on irrational belief, that mostly cannot meet the
burden of proof for the demands they make of their believers. A
distorted, politicized Christianity is a clear and present danger in the
United States (see Chris Hedges' "American Fascists", Thomas Frank's
"What's the Matter with Kansas? and watch "Jesus Camp"). Similar
problems exist with Israel and Zionism (see Michael Warchawski's
"Towards an Open Tomb", or Uri Davis's "Apartheid Israel"). As a result
I disagree with Tarek's statement that " most of humanity has come to
recognize the futility of racial and religious states". If only it were so.

I believe that the rest of the world, including the Muslim world but
especially indigenous peoples and Africans, have paid a blood price so
that those in the West could live in comfort and freedom. Democracy in
the West is worth defending to the degree that it can look in the mirror
of these atrocities, condemn them, and redress them. Self-congratulation
about Western achievements, freedoms, or superiority in rewarding itself
with what it stole from others is harmful to this necessary
self-examination. Massive inequalities in Western societies and between
the West and the rest of the world distort democracy, ethics, and the
possibilities for decent survival on the planet. Dealing with these
distortions is the most urgent political task at hand.

We all grow up and live in a world of traumas, hierarchies, and
inequalities, and we all rebel against these in different ways (see
Bruce Levine's "Commonsense Rebellion" for a diagnosis of everything
alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, sex addiction, and workoholism as
problematic ways of rebelling against meaninglessness and lack of
control in daily life). Constructive, collective, political rebellion is
what many of us strive to do and hope to see. But there are more
problematic ways of rebelling, some of which can sometimes have perverse
effects, and these are sometimes better rewarded by the institutions
that produce the ills we're rebellin against.

Because it is usually the oppressed who have to free themselves (and
their oppressors), and because many of those powerless and under attack
and fighting back (sometimes in ways that are themselves distorted) are
Muslims, an examination of the current role of Islam, and religion in
general, in politics is important. So, too, is thinking about what that
role could or should be. CM's value is in contributing to that debate.

*Assessing the conclusions of "Chasing a Mirage"*

Starting from these somewhat different premises, how do the conclusions
of CM appear? Take the Sharia law debate in Ontario. Some Muslim
organizations argued that Islamic law be used in binding arbitration to
settle disputes between parties. Their principal argument, which CM does
not mention, was that those principles were already being used in Jewish
and Christian communities: if religious arbitration was okay for some
religions, why not all? In the event, the Ontario government's decision
was the best one possible: rather than allowing it for all religions,
Ontario struck religious arbitration down for all.

Should jihad be discarded, and hijab recognized as an arbitrary cultural
convention and not a religious requirement? Yes, in the same way that
all doctrines should be subjected to tests of ethics and reason and
discarded if they fail those tests. The same is true for using the
distant past, described in Part 2 of CM, as a political guide for the
future. If some political idea, from history or elsewhere, will have
good effects from a perspective of universal human values, then it
should be used. If not, it should be rejected. These conclusions are
similar to Tarek's, though they come from different premises.

And what of the importance of challenging the illiberalism of the
Islamists in the West? Here we have a more serious disagreement, not on
the question of whether illiberalism should be challenged, but on where
the illiberalism comes from and what should be done about it. Tarek,
like Ed Husain in the UK (author of "The Islamist") attributes the
strength of Islamists in the West to the tolerance of "bleeding heart
liberals" and "the left". In doing so, he attributes more power to this
social force than it actually has. Liberals are on the defensive
everywhere in the West, and leftists are so marginal that one can only
read about us as rhetorical foils in books on political topics. Decency
and internationalism have plenty of followers in the West, to be sure.
But it is not tolerance, but intolerance and the exploitation of
legitimate grievances that others have failed to answer, that has
strengthened religious politics.

How can we assess CM's analysis of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and
Palestine? Pakistan was indeed founded on a religious basis, and the
partition and confrontation between India and Pakistan did incredible
damage to both societies over many decades. Saudi Arabia is ruled by a
monarchy held up by the US military, that in exchange controls the
population and uses its wealth to divert politics in religious
directions. CM presents Iran from the perspective of some of its
defeated leftists, who helped overthrow the Shah only to be destroyed
politically (and, ultimately, physically, in mass murders of political
prisoners in the 1980s).

CM's chapter on Palestine, by contrast, is wholly without merit. Tarek
offers the chapter as if it is strategic advice to the Palestinians, but
like reading much of the North American media, one can come away
thinking Israel's occupation is a minor issue and that the central
conflict is between lslamists and others. This is one of the confusions
of Tarek's politics in general. At times he adopts the tone of a
self-critical leftist, who leftists ought to take seriously, at other
times the self-congratulation of Western pundits, who leftists would
normally dismiss because of lack of time. From both postures, he blasts
leftists and anti-imperialists with, at times, ugly rhetoric. What's
more, since the cause of Palestine should be based on universal human
rights and self-determination and Islamists (indeed Muslims, or Jews)
have no special right to comment on it, Tarek's dissident Muslim
position adds nothing of interest to the debate.

Those concerned about the Palestinian cause could, no doubt, benefit
from serious examination of how Hamas came to power and the Palestinian
left became so marginal. It is important to think about how best to
resist the agendas of Israel and the US (and Canada) for the
Palestinians - an agenda of starvation and murder, it bears repeating -
and how to relate to the significant social force that Hamas now
represents in Palestine, for better or worse. But for that examination,
one will have to look elsewhere - perhaps to Azzam Tamimi's "Hamas: A
history from within", to some of Amira Hass's reporting since the 2006
election, or Adel Samara's critiques of "NGO-ization".

Leftists I've spoken to were dismissive. They disliked Tarek's frequent
and sweeping attacks on what he calls "the left" (I prefer to use the
term "leftists", since "the left" does not really exist in any organized
form in North America in any case). Another anti-Muslim book, they
guessed, part of a cottage industry designed to demonize the selected
victims of Western foreign policy. Iraq is occupied, a million people
killed. Palestine is occupied, starved, choked to death. Afghanistan is
occupied. Iran is threatened. Deportations of Muslims are rampant in
Western countries. Secret trials are occurring. The Egyptian regime
receives billions in weaponry and subsidies in exchange for support of
Israel's occupation of Palestine and suppression of the population.
Other dictatorships in Muslim countries receive similar largesse. Of
course, to do all this to a group of people requires an industry to
produce convenient stories about them. Anyone who can produce such
stories will be rewarded handsomely, with sympathetic reviews, prominent
placement in bookstores, and high sales for telling convenient things to
people about what they are doing. Irshad Manji's "Trouble With Islam"
was part of this industry, and many might assume CM is as well. While
Tarek refused Manji's acknowledgement of him in her book, he called her
"courageous" and expressed sympathy that she was being called
opportunist and her message ignored in his own, a fate his book will
share, in some quarters.

A better comparison than Irshad Manji might be to black conservatives in
the US, such as Shelby Steele or John McWhorter, who draw on a worthy
tradition of black self-help but emphasize it out of context to the
degree that the central problem of institutional racism is lost.

In any case Tarek and CM should not be quickly dismissed. For all the
book's flaws, it does at times deal with serious issues seriously. It
raises important questions about politics in immigrant communities and
in poor countries. And although Tarek sometimes lacks compassion, makes
cases by insinuation, ignores or blows off key parts of the story,
misses crucial context, and makes claims well beyond his evidence, he
also presents interesting arguments about history, discusses some
neglected crimes whose main victims, after all, are Muslims, and is
worth reading on contemporary debates even when you disagree.
Unfortunately, to disagree with Tarek is to invite bombastic and
overblown replies, but he also at times seriously attempts to engage in
a way that might actually advance the debate on how best to advance
decent values in both Western and Muslim societies. To advance that
debate, it is worth assuming Tarek's good faith and giving "Chasing a
Mirage" a careful reading to separate the parts that are without merit
from the parts that have some.

Justin Podur is a toronto-based writer. He can be reached at
justin at killingtrain.com



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