Progressive Muslims: Friends of Imperialism And Neocolonialism (Or: The blog formerly known as Progressive Muslim Union North America Debate)
click here to read entire article
...the moderates function well as political rodents; they are policy carriers for the likes of Bush and Blair. However, unlike rodents they are unable to infect the masses, because the masses have already been inoculated against such types of vermin. They recognise the moderates as simply echoing the voice of Blair, justifying his murderous foreign policy that is composed of state-terrorism and mass murder of Muslims. They see the voice of the moderates only gets amplified when it coincides with Blair’s policy.
These extremist-moderates attempt to uphold their Islamic credentials by giving a liberal ‘interpretation’ (misinterpretation) of Islamic texts in order to justify their alliance with those who hate Islam and are busy murdering Muslims. Hence, their position is not dictated by their understanding of Islam rather it is the opposite; they mould Islam to justify their political position which they have adopted in the first place. So call them traitors, Zionist-Muslims, neo-con Muslims, neo-Coolies, they all point to the same trait of treachery
Open up the Washington Post and the strategic vision on display was an utterly mad piece co-written by one of the big boosters for war on Iraq, Kenneth Pollack, a hack thinker at the Brookings Institution, now an integral part of Israeli territory with its "Saban Center for Middle East Policy" named for the fanatic Zionist billionaire Haim Saban, majority owner of Paramount Pictures, a man who handed the Democratic Party a total of $12.3 million in 2002, a $7 million component of which was the biggest single contribution ever recorded up to that time.more on Brookings by Ron Jacobs.
August 22, 2006: For immediate release!
This statement is the resignation of the following Board members from the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC):
* Niaz Salimi, President;
* Rizwana Jafri, Vice President;
* El-Farouk Khaki, Secretary General;
* Arif Raza, Legal Advisor;
* Abbas Syed, Chief Financial Officer;
* Gary Dale, Director & webmaster;
* Atique Azad, Director;
* Jehad Aliweiwi, Director;
* Suhail Alsameed, Director.
It is also signed by the following people who have recently resigned from
the MCC Board and who share our concerns:
* Nadia al-Khatib;
* Hanadi Loubani.
The MCC was intended to be a voice of "Muslims not represented by other organizations, organizations that are sectarian or ethnocentric, largely authoritarian, and influenced by a fear of modernity and an aversion to joy." Over the years the MCC has made significant strides in offering a voice to many.
Recently, however, the public face of the MCC has deviated from its stated priorities. The message that MCC has been giving out is "not addressed to Muslims, it is aimed at making Muslim haters feel secure in their thinking".
As a result, many in the Muslim community have been alienated from the MCC as a viable voice for the community. Sadly many progressive Muslims and others perceive the MCC as being holier-than-thou, arrogant and enclosed in an ivory tower.
This was never our intention. The signatories to this statement believe that to combat the grips of fundamentalism and social isolation, we must engage and involve the Muslim community, and in particular the progressive and liberal voices within it.
For these reasons, we have chosen to leave the MCC, an organization which we have devoted ourselves to for several years.
We have decided to establish the Canadian Muslim Union (CMU), an organization which while advocating a separation of religion and state, will also work with and within the Muslim community.
The CMU will seek to engage the larger Muslim community in issues of human rights, human dignity, social justice and alternate progressive and inclusive visions of Islam. In so doing, we aim to instill joy in the celebration of our identities as Muslims and as Canadians with social consciences and a commitment to social justice and human dignity.
Contact: Arif Raza, 416 558-4777
This infatuation with misery while Hizbollah gains the admiration fo the Arabs reminds me of the young shia boys in Karachi who beat and flagellate themselves bloody to outdo each other on Ashuar (10 Muharram) to posture as adults and impress the hijabi/niqabi chicks.
How blind can this ummah be. Dumber and dumbest, that is what we all are. Creating our own Karbalas to feel good about our victimisation.
Tarek
With its frequent use of phrases such as ‘Islamic terrorist,’ ‘Muslim militants,’ ‘Islamic fundamentalists,’ and similar wordings, the Post was found during the study period to contain more than 230% as many negative references as the average of other media examples, even when the same stories were covered by other newspapers.And
From the beginning the Post has had a strongly conservative editorial stance, and has an editorial page featuring the writings of many prominent neo-conservatives and libertarians from the United States and Canada, including Diane Francis, Andrew Coyne, Mark Steyn and David Frum. This stance is typically mocked by those who refer to the paper as the "Fascist Post" or the "Zionist Post". A number of newspaper stands in Toronto holding the National Post for sale have been vandalized with these statements.
That is not all. If we do not reform multiculturalism to promote integration and civic secular society, we risk creating a fragmented nation, divided into 21st century religious and racial tribes, suspicious of the other and longing for the home we left behind.
The difference is that the racist “conservative” is a little more open about his / her views. The racist “liberal” talks a lot of talk about lifting everyone up, but it’s an equality and uplifting as defined by him / her / the dominant culture. Why are so many liberals, here and in Europe, wringing their hands over “multiculturalism,” and some now talking as though it can be reversed? Because they don’t realize that our country (the US) is by default and always has been “multicultural.” Even many European countries have had a variety of ethnic, if not racial, groups living in them for centuries.
So when liberals and others start blabbering about “rethinking multiculturalism,” what they’re really doing is betraying their discomfort with the teeming masses saying, “Yes I am!” and with the minorities challenging the way things have always been done, the way history’s always been told, and the way the rest of the world is and has been explained to Joe and Jane America.
A particularly powerful case of such selective memories is now fully evident in an increasing body of mémoire by people from an Islamic background that has over the last half a decade, ever since the commencement of its "War on Terrorism," flooded the US market. This body of literature, perhaps best represented by Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), ordinarily points to legitimate concerns about the plight of Muslim women in the Islamic world and yet put that predicament squarely at the service of the US ideological psy-op, militarily stipulated in the US global warmongering. As President Bush has repeatedly indicated, the US is now engaged in a prolonged and open-ended war with terrorism. This terrorism has an ostensibly "Islamic" disposition and provenance. "Islam" in this particular reading is vile, violent, and above all abusive of women--and thus fighting against Islamic terrorism, ipso facto, is also to save Muslim women from the evil of their men. "White men saving brown women from brown men," as the distinguished postcolonial feminist Gayatri Spivak puts it in her seminal essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"The entire review is a must read - click here to read it!The publication of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran coincided with the most belligerent period in the recent US history, the global flexing of its military muscles, and as such the text has assumed a proverbial significance in the manner in which native informers turned comprador intellectuals serve a crucial function in facilitating public consent to imperial hubris. With one strike, Azar Nafisi has achieved three simultaneous objectives: (1) systematically and unfailingly denigrating an entire culture of revolutionary resistance to a history of savage colonialism; (2) doing so by blatantly advancing the presumed cultural foregrounding of a predatory empire; and (3) while at the very same time catering to the most retrograde and reactionary forces within the United States, waging an all out war against a pride of place by various immigrant communities and racialised minorities seeking curricular recognition on university campuses and in the American society at large.
ON THE SURFACE, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran has a very simple plot. A female professor of English literature at an Iranian university, having been born to a privileged family and thus educated in Europe and the United States, is finally fed up with the atrocious limitations of an Islamic republic, resigns her post, goes home, collects seven of her brightest female students and they get together and read some of the masterpieces of "Western literature," while connecting the characters and incidents of the novels they thus read to their daily predicaments in an ungodly Islamic republic. The plot, factual or manufactured or a combination of both, provides an occasion for the narrator to give a sweeping condemnation of not just the Islamic revolution but with it in fact the entire nation, the poor and the disenfranchised, that has given rise to it--for which she has absolutely nothing but visceral contempt. To connect this simple plot and its extended services to the US imperial operations at home and abroad, we need a larger theoretical frame of reference in comparative literary studies.
"The US-led invasion of Iraq may have replaced an overt and brutal dictatorship by Saddam Hussein with a covert and subtle dictatorship buy the Marja-e-Taqleed, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani—the highest-ranking Shiite authority on the planet."
“Once the war is declared, make no mistake Mr. Saddam Hussain and Mr. Bin Laden, We are with America. We will fight with America and we will fight for America. We have a covenant with this nation, we see it as a divine commitment and we will not disobey the Quran (9:4).”
In the heyday of the old colonialism, the white man did not need any help from the natives in putting down their religion and culture. Indeed, he preferred to do it himself. Then, the opinion of the natives carried little weight with the whites anyway. So why bother to recruit them to denounce their own people. As a result, Orientalists wrote countless tomes denigrating the cultures of the lesser breeds.
Today the West needs help in putting down the uppity natives--especially the Muslims. One reason for this is that with the death of the old colonialism, some natives have begun to talk for themselves. A few are even talking back at the Orientalists raising all sorts of uncomfortable questions. This hasn't been good: and something had to be done about it. In the 1970s the West began to patronize 'natives' who were deft at putting down their own people. Was the West losing its confidence?
The demand for 'native' Orientalists was strong. The pay for such turncoats was good too. Soon a whole crop of native Orientalists arrived on the scene. Perhaps, the most distinguished members of this coterie include Nirad Chaudhuri, V. S. Naipaul, Fouad Ajami and Salman Rushdi. They are some of the best loved natives in the West.
Then there came the 'war against global terrorism' creating an instant boom in the market for Orientalists of Muslim vintage. The West now demanded Muslims who would diagnose their own problems as the West wanted to see them--as the unavoidable failings of their religion and culture. The West now demanded Muslims who would range themselves against their own people--who would denounce the just struggles of their own people as moral aberrations, as symptoms of a sick society.
Those who follow Islam as it has been understood for centuries have to deal with attacks on multiple fronts, there is certainly no respite in being known as a ‘traditionalist’.
... the progressive/reformists/modernists whose theology is so plainly confused that they don’t even think it is worth discussing. It is difficult to believe they revere anything, either that, or they view expressive reverence as a form of weakness.
To speak of them, first we must identify them. This is difficult to do as they plainly avoid discussion of their own religious beliefs and their ideological heroes are often non-Muslim.
...
One of their defining characteristics is their enjoyment to dip into taboo’s. In fact the more taboo the subject, the better it is for them to discuss (better search-engine keywords). The most interesting aspect of their reactionary approach is that, like most short lived movements, they rely intimately on criticisms of the other to define themselves.
What is quite curious is that there is not one among them that has actually come from a background of traditional learning.
Lacking a fundamental understanding of what they spend their hours criticising, their mistakes in their understanding of tradition are visible from afar. This latest post from Ali Eteraz, lists a number of things he applies to the traditional understanding of Islam. His immediate mistake of making the lead financing state of the Wahabi philosophy, Saudi Arabia, into following the “Hanbali legal code”. As if Shaykh Abd al Qadir Jilani (rad) would have approved of this mockery of a legal code in Wahabistan.
After reading an article on Wafa Sultan (the up-and-coming Muslim reformer) in the New York Times today, it occured to me that I should get on this reformer bandwagon before the market gets saturated. I'm articulate, telegenic, exotic (yet oh so fluffy and Westernized), not to mention female (oppressed by rigid Islamic paternalism, naturally). Too bad I've got so many other little schemes on the go and can't spare the time for this one. However, I've written a handy little guide for aspiring refuseniks, male or female, Muslim or non-Muslim. Hopefully it will inspire readers to lead the charge in enlightening the benighted Islamic world.Click here to read the 7 life changing steps!
Karen Hughes: "I've reached out extensively to our Muslim-American community, because I believe they are a very important bridge. We send them around the world, they have a lot more credibility to debate issues of faith than I do as a Christian woman."
Karen Hughes: "The voices of Muslim Americans have more credibility in the Muslim world frankly than my voice as a government official."
For examples i'll use one of his interview for the newspaper Le Parisien (one of the french newspaper that have published cartoons of the Prophet) in which: he IS saying that he is FOR the BAN at school (personal note: i'm not a hijab fanatic myself, but i think girls should do whatever they want and that it's ridiculous to ban it at school).
In the same interview he is worried about the fact that there are more muslims going to pray at the masjid than some years ago, and to him that shows how France is fulle of muslims being radicalized. He believes those are waiting to be terrorists...
In general i don't think he defends muslims or progressive ideas that much, to me he is down to go wherever the power that be wants to see muslims go... He's just the muslim credibility to the people paranoid with terrorism, who see terrorism everywhere and who want to control Islam... i'm not saying his intentions are deeply wrongs, but i would say that he sounds to often like an "uncle Tom" to me...
I don't want to be hating on him, i wish him peace, but i just don't see his points, and i think his perception that France is in danger because of evil terrorists taking over the hearts of the believers is VERY dangerous, because it surely is used by the power that be for a dark agenda.
Plus Bencheikh never smiles !! what's wrong wit u dude ? lol
For ya'll french readers out there here is the itw:
http://www.fairelejour.org/article.php3?id_article=491
In Noor and Hamzah's case, the "non-debate" is actually the startling assertion that no debate is possible, on the grounds that almost every Muslim outside the MWU/PMU fold is intellectually incompetent. Thus, in a single sweep, Muslim scholarship around the world is reduced to dunderhead status.
The distinction between ‘progressive’ Muslims and ‘conservative’ Muslims may not have been invented by the Neo-Cons who rule the roost in the White House, or the repressive regimes that blight the landscape of the Muslim world, but it cannot be denied that they have also profited from such distinctions. President Bush Junior’s warm embrace of the concept of ‘progressive Islam,’ and his establishment’s support for ‘progressive Muslim’ issues and personalities comes at the cost of expelling other Muslims from the domain of the civilised, rational, normal and acceptable. Already we have seen many a repressive Muslim government or regime hijacking the terms ‘progressive’ and ‘moderate’ in order to whitewash the authoritarian structures of power they control, and to sell themselves as exemplary models of ‘progressive Islam’ at work.
And let us not forget that those ‘Muslim conservatives’ we are so inclined to banish beyond the pale of civilised community are fellow Muslims who are likewise grappling with the challenges of the globalised age we live in. By engaging with Islamist conservatives and fundamentalists, we ensure that the frontiers of discourse and dialogue remain open, and the possibility of genuine constructive change remain with us. The alternative is the exclusionary politics of expulsion and non-dialogue, a deafening silence that divides the Muslim world and dooms our efforts to uplift humanity as a whole.If these labels were artificial, and exclusionary before, they are even more irrelevant today. Those who Noor, and others would label "traditional" or "conservative" Muslims are the ones who are doing the very real work of service to the Muslim community in a variety of domains. These areas include gender, racism, environmental concern, domestic violence, consumerism, and not allowing Islam to be "reformed" and divided up by the neo-cons. There are other areas that also need to be addressed, no doubt, and much more needs to be done.
Muslims For Bush: On behalf of all of our members, we are deeply upset by such comments. We suggest that such British commentators start reverting their criticism towards Prime Minister Tony Blair, who we have never seen make any sorts of outreach to minorities, whether it be visiting British Muslims in a Mosque after a terrorist attack, as President Bush did here, or hugging minorities. This is the kind of stuff that makes us love America!
Living Tradition Blog response:
Oh, dear. Well, you see, Muslims aren't concerned about Bush visiting mosques and holding iftars as much as we are concerned about white phosphoros and shrapnel being used on defenseless Iraqis and Afghanis--not to mention our American fallen soldiers and those who are coming home with some serious injuries. For all the speeches about "Islam is Peace" and "Muslim Americans are patrotic" can't compare to the over 25,000 death count of Iraqi civilians since the March 2003 invasion. So who cares if Tony Blair didn't hug a bunch a Muslims, Bush and Blair share the same policies when it comes down to oppressing poor Muslims in the "third world." He hugging minorities! I is soooo happy (insert me tap dancing)! Maybe he should have thrown some life rafts to all those drowning minorities in New Orleans
Click here to read more!
... the behaviour of the brain trust behind Naseeb. The forum given to members for artistic expression was handed over to cronies and close friends of the braintrust, in order to spew out rather shoddy propaganda for Progressive causes. One being the infamous Muslims for Bush, and their giddy founder, known to Naseebers as HassanDaddy (really).
Neo-Orientalists of the Rand Corporation
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
December 13th marks the first anniversary of the Rand Corporation report “The Muslim World After 9/11” that suggests exploitation of Sunni, Shiite and Arab, non-Arab divides to promote the US policy objectives in the Muslim world.This was the second Rand report about Islam and Muslims in 2004.
The first report was Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies. The Rand reports are the latest in a long series of policy papers dedicated to further the military, economic, and cultural onslaught of the West on the Muslim World. Dig a little into the reports and it won’t take long to find the real objectives.
Writers of these reports are neo-Orientalists with clear intention to belittle Islam and its adherents to achieve ambitions of the empire like the Orientalists of the 19th century who co-operated hand-in-hand with the imperialistic aims of the European colonial powers.
A: Western imagination has been fertile at inventing projects for reforming the world, not least the world of Islam. This is their perennial cover for world domination: they are always engaged in civilizing the people they exploit, enslave or exterminate.
The West has accepted market-driven notions of 'rights' as supreme values. Should Muslims willy-nilly follow suit? Or should they seek greater justice in gender-relations within the matrix of their own system of values?
