November 28, 2004
Islam and the West
This interview with Gilles Kepel about adn around his book The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West is very good.
What caught my eye was the section on Islam in Europe’s heart. This means the “war for Muslim minds” as being fought in Europe as much as in Iraq or Palestine – and the communities of believers on the periphery of cities like London and Paris as the main battlefield in this war for the next decade.
To make his point Kepel refers to an incident in August 2004 where an “Islamist army” in Iraq bought two kidnapped French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, from the group of thugs responsible for their seizure. The Islamists announced they would behead the journalists unless France rescinded its secular ban on the wearing of the hijab (and other religious apparel) in French schools. The Islamists was convinced that this would mobilise the Muslim masses in France in their favour, and were supported in this expectation by various French Islamists on Arabic–speaking satellite TV.
Kipel says:
"Much to their dismay, French people of Muslim descent – regardless of the degree of their devotion – adamantly denied the kidnappers the right to speak in their name, and affirmed a primary solidarity with the journalists, not to whoever claimed to speak in the name of Islam."
Those Muslims who came out onto the streets of France to say “not in my name” were also making a crucial decision about their identities as individuals living in Europe within the context of the national debate over the wearing of the hijab. Kipel describes the significance of this not in my name stance:
"They were saying that their Muslim descent must not be hijacked to jeopardise what to them was most important in this whole episode, which was their being French and European...The larger point is that personal identity is not a given, but something in the continual process of being built. In the case of the hijab, the state affirmed the right of young women of Muslim origin in France not to be under pressure in state schools or projects from thugs who – in the name of Islamism or salafism – compelled them to wear the veil or be abused as “prostitutes” or even physically attacked."
I find this significant because the conservative discourse in Australia is to dump Muslims into the Islamist camp to creat the other as barbaric civilization which hates the Westfor what it is.
This blocks the very different voices of Muslim Australians living in our capital cities and their experiences of liberal democracy. It is amongst Australian Muslims that we would expect to find support for the idea of an Islamic understanding of a constitutional democracy. This would be one in which legitimation resides in a citizenry of individuals enjoying equal human and representational rights, governed by a parliament which legislates through consensual and majority decisions and operating within the rule of law and the Constitution.
I would presume that this would mark a innovative interpretation of Islamic political thought. An example courtesy of Stray Reflections
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at November 28, 2004 09:38 AM | TrackBack