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Intellectual
Pirating
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By
Tarek A. Ghanem
Freelance writer – Cairo
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05/09/2002
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A
view of al-Azhar of Cairo, one of the Islamic world’s oldest
intellectual institutes and centers of Islamic learning
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The exposé of Islam is under the
command of the media, academia and literati: and its out in the
open. Islamophobia, we are told, is order of the day and the Muslim
world is the empire of evil. At last, the civilized (principally
Western) world, psychic and aggressive as it is, is pleased with
finding its new sacrifice for the sake of artificial idols of
supremacy, superiority and self-righteousness. Already secularism
made itself the custodian of human consciousness and liberty,
ousting the Judeo-Christian heritage and any other religious promise
or enterprise. And now the shot is on Islam.
The
drums of vehemence are beating so loud and sanity had its throat cut
by the pitchforks of nihilism. Even the light of reason is
overshadowed by the seriousness of the pack of swaggering
ignorance—to a degree that cannot be outshined. The time for
polemics is due and the space is infinite. It is not only a
fashionable wholesale business. Stardom is given, profit is made,
and prizes are furnished too.
Ride
the Wave
A
cold-blooded wave of hatred in literature has targeted Islam and
Muslims. The phenomenon is not incomprehensible. Before the carnage
of 9/11 such works were isolated (the most well known is Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses). Yet, never before has there
been a wave with such height and intensity, and indeed such
fascination.
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Oriana
Fallaci
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Oriana
Fallaci, an Italian author in her seventies who rode the European,
fashionable wave (yet still ongoing) of sharply jumping from left to
right, published a new book La Rabbie e l’Orgoglio (Anger
and Pride). In it racism is the standard. Racism is even intellectualized
in some passages: “…the sons of Allah multiply like rats.” It
is a best seller in both Italy and France selling one million
copies.
Fallaci
has never denied that her work is racist. Evidently, her loathing
for Muslims seems to compensate for her outrageous favoritism for
Jews. She seems to be in awe of the “Shakespearean figure” (her
words) Ariel Sharon and his works—the ideal mentor for mass
murderers.
The
eloquent Muslim writer Rana Kabbani, who lives in Paris, says
regarding this:
Had
this book's victims been anyone other than Muslims, it would not
have been published, and certainly not by any self-respecting house.
But Muslims are fair game now and to defame them en masse has become
not only respectable, but also highly profitable. The defamer has
nothing to fear, as there are no laws to check such vitriolic
prejudice, nor do Muslims have the organised self-defence groups
that Jews have formed so successfully to silence would be anti-semites
(Guardian, June 11, 2002).
Kabbani
referred to high-profile Jews, in particular Bernard-Henri Levy, who
rejected her onslaughts.
If
that is not enough, the Noble Prize novelist Michel Houellebecq
could not fulfill his literary dreams without bashing Islam and
other faiths. In an interview in French daily Le Monde he
declared Islam to be the “stupidest of all religions.” He added
that Islam is a dangerous religion and “materialism is a lesser
evil [than Islam].” His racist passion includes other races and
nationalities like Japanese, German and American. Although it may
seem ironic that such an award winner is a pornographer, Stalinist,
xenophobic, nihilist, chauvinist and caused other anti-feminist and
racist controversies, it could be that traits like this are actually
prerequisites to winning the latest Impac award: the world's richest
literary prize!
This
depressing image calls to mind the timing of last year’s Noble
prize in literature awarded to V.S. Naipaul - the travel writer
living in the darkness of post-modern ignorance and in his loathe
for Islam, and even his own country, India. His remark on Islam
being worse than imperialism is a case in point.
In
modern literary circles, where the writer is the saint of the
secular paradigm, prophesying about the duality of the world forms
and artistically witnesses the encounters of life forces, such
writers are nothing but intellectual demons preaching intolerance,
racism and hatred. They subsist under their “victim mentality”
of multiculturalism and blind generalizations.
Pipes
Along with his Pipe Nightmares
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Daniel
Pipes
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Moving
towards the “scholarly” end of the spectrum, we find the
new-crowned specialist and architect of the threat of Islam, Daniel
Pipes. Although Pipes does his homework and his research (as a
result of his prestigious Harvard education) his mind cannot escape
the “orientalist” paradigm. In fact, it is custom-made to fit
his former job as “an advisor” to the US State Department. For
him the existence of Islam is a menace and being a Muslim, by
definition, is political. His earlier hoax, In the Path of God:
Islam and Political Power, is fat in size but thin in accuracy,
and can be summed up as: Muslim resurgence is synonymous to
fundamentalism and is a product of the oil boom. Its main founders
are Saudi Arabia and Libya, and the main supporter is Russia.
Parvez
Manzoor, a renowned Muslim thinker wrote concerning this book:
Here
is a link, if ever it was in need of a demonstration, between the
academic Orientalism of Harvard and the grisly Realpolitik of the
State Department. The only talent that Pipes really possesses is
scurrility and the only argument he knows is calumny. As a tireless
crusader of the ideology of Western dominance and as an ardent
member of the Lodge of US-Israeli Freemasonry, Pipes has wielded his
stock invective against Islam and Muslims with considerable skill;
nonetheless, his scholarly diatribe, the present work clearly shows,
is a monumental exercise in frivolity, banality and paranoia.
Pipes
displays his theatrical horror of Islam in his column in The
Washington Post as nothing but intellectual terrorism. The
items on his literary agenda can be covered rather simply in two
points: Islam is a threat that must be eradicated; and
“Islamist” (in his view, fanatic) is equated with terrorist who
is not physically and ideologically different from the average
Muslim living next door. Nurturing and amplifying the mass
Islam-is-the-threat obsession, he is profiting from the sales of his
latest literary labor, Militant Islam Reaches America; the
latest stage of his ideological sickness.
9/11
and 9-1-1
The
literary blackening of Islam is multi-layered and deep-rooted. Part
of it stems from the classical problem of orientalism that has
backfired on Western mentality (amidst its expansion to disguise all
Asian civilizations and representations with a focus on Islam). In
the beginning, the ideas of God, man, nature and society in Islam
were ridiculed and demonized, and claimed as inferior to
Christendom. As orientalism evolved, it infected scholarship, travel
literature and fiction. This furnished the theological and military
dominance of the Crusaders, the intellectual superiority of the
Renaissance, the backwardness of the occupied under imperialism, and
the dependence of the underdeveloped in accordance to the
“civilized” (“us”) benchmark, of course.
The
criminal bloodshed, which bastardized the name of Islam and stained
it by the blood of the victims, opened the door wide open for such
cultural and ideological upsets. There is also the absurdity of the
“clash of civilizations.” But the actual clash on the level of
civilization between the Muslim world and the West is uneven: in the
technological, developmental, productive, military capabilities, and
intellectual, political, and religious discourses. In fact, the very
idea of “globalization” proves the deception of this unmatched
course of conflict. The course of collision has only involved
America and certain organizations, and not the entire West, or the
entire Muslim world.
Maybe
9/11 has strengthened the stereotype image of Muslims as
“terrorists.” It has also showed the ideological and
intellectual standpoints of the West and the “other” as a case
of cultural victimization. The other’s victimization of “us”
(being “us” the west or “us” the Muslim world) as well as
its threat and its (distorted) image, is the new mechanism of
cultural relativism on historical, social and political levels.
There is also the self-assurance about the other being
uncompromisingly wrong. But due to the West’s violation of what is
moral, tolerant and accepting of the “other,” the relation
between the two sides is disproportionate and dysfunctional.
Such
intellectual and ideological propaganda deserves effort and time due
to its roots and penetration. A long-term cultural rapprochement is
indispensable at this point where the two sides can come to an
understanding in each other’s logic and on each other’s own
terms. Cultural exchange programs and a strong awareness campaign
about the Muslim world and the diversity of its cultures, languages,
races and origins are possible scenarios.
Our
“Pride and Anger” Now
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Salman
Rushdie
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On seeing the cruel attack on Islam and Muslims (which actually
nourishes and mushrooms hate on the “other” side) there is a
need to counter such hostile environment on Islam, Muslims and
Arabs. It is imperative to institutionalize and intellectualize
groups that discriminate against Muslims. In a world where racism
and persecution are universally condemned, Muslims cannot be singled
out as undeserving in the struggle for modern human and civil
rights. To achieve such an objective one can follow in the footsteps
of the African-Americans and Jewish communities in America and other
Western countries. It is really stunning how powerful efforts
against anti-Semitism can defend their minority groups as well as
attack the slightest, and in many cases fabricated, insults (even
anti-Israeli occupation or apartheid criticisms).
Jewish
efforts to create an anti-Semitic platform after the holocaust were
far reaching. They accompanied the biggest wave of immigration in
the twentieth century to Palestine and the revival of Hebrew (an
ancient language) in twenty years. This shows that there are
the possibilities with organization and planning.
All
the while the Muslim world and the Muslim communities in the west
receive severe animosity and offensives from the mighty American
arsenal and Western media.
The
Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (AADC) is a remarkable
model - despite its short existence, limited community work, and
hostile surrounding environment – especially in the aftermath of
9/11. With the nightmarish awakening of extreme European
right-wingers and their racist political agenda, such Arab and
Muslim Committees must be instituted. On another level, the
Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) must create an
international anti-Islamic discrimination committee against
animosity towards the Muslim faith and sentiments.
The
turmoil of the post-modern, blasphemous The Satanic Verses
must be dealt with as a warning (somehow Rushdie was recently graced
by appearing in the movie Bridget Jones's Diary). Islam,
which deserves a tolerant and intellectually stimulating space for
dialogue, cannot be obscured by politics of despair. Muslim
communities fulfilled their role in following the legalities of
filing a lawsuit against Houellebecq in France. There is no need for
book burning or a reward for killing the offending writer. The
intellectual heritage of a “book-for-book” under the magnificent
days of Muslim civilization is an example that may be burdensome to
Muslim intellectuals, but actually must be adopted. This is the way
by which Muslim sorrows and pains on the severe attacks on their
faith, beliefs and pride, that grief, can be relieved.
The
author encourages your comments. Please e-mail him at t.ghanem@islam-online.net
See
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