State and Ideology: The Cultural Holocaust

Shaheryar Ali

Some Theoretical Considerations: Death of Pluralism

“The article is intended to be the theoretical first part of a series of article on the suppressed cultural identities[A Pakistan you never knew] in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, One on the fate of Pakistani Jews has already been published and can be reached here”

A couple of years back I was reading a research report by a very intelligent Pakistani academic who works for the International Crisis Group, Dr Samina Ahmed on the rise of sectarianism in Pakistan. Being trained in the progressive tradition myself I was familiar with the theoretical framework in which Dr Ahmed operates, state and its origin, adaptation of an ideological character by the state, cold war and Jihad etc. What strike me and infact fascinated me was a passing remark by her on working ideology of all sectarian groups of Pakistan, she wrote they all operated on the “principle of exclusion”

This was a remarkable observation if one wants to understand the ideology of sectarianism and a sectarian state. States are not just material institutions of economy and violence, state has an ideological aspect as well. Structures of the state create a significant influence on super structures of the society on which it is maintaining control. That means through different ideological institutions, states create culture and patterns of thoughts which help the state to keep control [Gramsci and Althusser]. It has been explained as a mental condition in which a slave thinks and takes his slavery to be a state of “freedom”. This intervention into ideology or the “ways of thinking” became the obsession of western Marxists who were trying to understand failure of revolutions in the Western Europe. A series of whole new disciplines emerged like critical theory and cultural studies which focused on the ideological and cultural aspects of state and/or capitalism

As postmodernism became more influential in universities of Europe and North America, the critique was extended to a similar analysis of “reality” [Baudrillard] and alterations in human perceptions by Capitalism and state/super state. The ideological foundations of Pakistan state [not to be confused with official “Pakistan ideology”] lie in the communal/nationalist strife [Saigol,Rubina] which presumed an “absolute difference” between Hindus and Muslims. Jinnah put forward an argument which utilized “cultural difference” as base of civilization, which differentiated Indian Muslim from Indian Hindus with whom he shared same ethnicity and language [Bengali speaking muslim became part of a different civilization and nation than Bengali speaking Hindu from whom he originated in the first place through conversion]. Hindu and Muslim emerged as grand identities which were rhetorical in entity as demonstrated by the work of great Indian historian Romila Thaper, that before British Colonialism term Hindu or Muslim were rather meaningless in the sense that they didn’t constructed a unified socio-political identity. With the professed anti-clericalism and modernism of founding fathers of Pakistan, ideological intervention became all the more important and a unified cultural umbrella needed to be constructed to legitimize the claim of “distinct civilization”. This logically meant to suppress the ethnic, national and indigenous identities to construct the “Muslim identity” only through which survival of Pakistan was envisioned.

A study of discourse emerging from ruling elite of Pakistan, the PML and colonial administration which they inherited from Colonial administration suggest an obsession with monism themes as opposed to pluralism. Jinnah’s slogan of “Unity, Faith and Discipline” itself speaks of need to “unify and control”. The slogan relates more to ideologies of totalitarian regimes of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany than to the Liberal tradition of Western Europe to which Jinnah is said to be trained in. Ethnic identities became the “others” of Muslim identity and as a result an existential threat the new state. The question of national rights was diverted by Jinnah’s stern warning against the “evil of provincialism”, the need to construct a “unified culture” so strong that a man as modern as Jinnah who took up the case of muslim socio-cultural rights in India, stood in Dacca and thundered “Urdu Urdu and only Urdu!” a language which was not the language of even 0.2% of Pakistanis at the time Those who demanded an equal status of Bengali along side Urdu were to called traitors and communists. After Jinnah’s death things became worse and PML which lacked any popular base in East and West Pakistan joined hands with Clerics and Islamic Fundamentalists whom Jinnah thoroughly despised. Jinnah’s handpicked Prime Minister Nawabzada Khan Liaqat Ali Khan, a member of feudal aristocracy passed the Objectives Resolution and state acquired an ideological character.

The ideological apparatuses of the state in form of media, mosques,

Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung

universities and colleges started molding the minds of people. Considering one to be a Bengali or Punjabi was something like treason, same was the case with being Muslim. In British India Muslim was a broader and loose cultural identity which related more to practice of circumcision and burial of dead as opposed to cremation. Different sects of muslims existed and considered their sect to be true version of Islam but due to neutrality of the state didn’t operated on the “principle of exclusion”. The party which took up the issues of muslim socio-political and cultural rights in British India, the All India Muslim League comprised of “muslims” which were distinguishable by their heterodoxy not their orthodoxy. Sir Aga Khan was the president of All India Muslim League who was the Imam of Ismilies which were engaged in a bloody struggle against Sunni and Twelver Shias for more than 1000 years and who were considered “apostates” by clerics of both mainstream sects. Muhammed Ali Jinnah also belong to the Ismaili faith but later converted to more mainstream Twelver Shia faith but was a non practicing muslim by all standards. Many important leaders like Raja Sahib of Mehmoodabad were twelver Shias. Sir Zaferullah Khan was Ahmedi or Qadiani. Dr Allama Muhammed Iqbal was a revivalist who was opposed by Sunni orthodoxy and was rumored to be a Ahmedi as well the controversy ended when he denied these claims by writing an article in Statesmen condemning Ahmedi faith. [Controversy still exist weather he was Ahemdi for some part of his life and even after condemning Qadiani faith he considered Lahori group of this faith as part of muslim community]

Nawab Bahaduryar Jang another prominent leader of All India Muslim League belonged to “Mehdivia” sect. a sect similar to Ahmedies which considered pious saint Syed Muhammed Jonpuri as the Mehdi. Due to this heterodoxy and professed modernism of All India Muslim League the muslim clerics were bitterly against it. But this was to be changed when this movement was to end in formation of the “Muslim Homeland” [Not an intention of Jinnah according to some historians, most notably Dr Ayesha Jalal]. With the formation of Muslim homeland the question “Who is Muslim?” acquired a phenomenal character. Before partition as we have said earlier this question was not very relevant because of its oppositional character to the rival identity “The Hindu”. After partition of India on 15^th August 1947 all this changed. Muslim identity lost its contrasting “other”, a “moth eaten Pakistan” meant that its founding fathers were already paranoid about its chances of survival; the land which they got was hub of forces which opposed partition of India. Punjab was firmly in grip of feudal, with which Jinnah forged an alliance to make Pakistan, the Unionist Party held power in Punjab. All India Muslim League lacked support and organization in Punjab, the “salariat” class which was motivating the struggle for Pakistan was weakest in Punjab [Alavi,Hamza]. NWFP the province of overwhelming muslim majority despite best efforts of Jinnah stood with Bacha Khan and Indian National Congress. The 1946 elections which were held to decide the issue of muslim representation saw defeat of Muslim League despite support from the British in the NWFP. In Bengal muslim league held popular base but it was due to independent minded progressive leaders whom the central leadership didn’t trusted, Hussein Shaheed Soherwardi, AK Fazel-e-Haq, Molana Bhashani all were to be purged along with all mass base! Jinnah had to lean heavily on “socialism”[He went as far as declaring Islamic Socialism to be guiding ideology of Pakistan in Chittagong] to gain currency in Benagal but his negotiations with the Americans in 1946 had already decided Pakistan’s future alignment with “Anti-socialist block”. Bengali was suppressed, NWFP government dismissed, the party banned and its news paper “Pakhtoon” suppressed [start of press censorship in Pakistan, all this happened in first year of Pakistan]. The party headquarter was bulldozed and police opened fired on unarmed party workers at Barbra killing hundreds of Pushtoons, this despite Bacha Khan’s oath of loyalty to Pakistan. In Sindh , GM Syed had already left Muslim League depriving it of much popularity, the loyal faction of  Sindh League was  also disenfranchised when Jinnah dismissed Sindh government as well when CM opposed  partition of Sindh [separating Karachi from Sindh] This would be the start of never ending Sindhi-Mohajir conflict. Balochistan had to be annexed by force when upper and lower houses of Parliament of State of Qalat explicitly rejected proposals to join Pakistan. Khan of Qalat signed the document of accession but wrote himself that he didn’t have the authority to do so.

All these events which took place in first years or couple of years after birth of Pakistan unfortunately counterpoised “Muslim identity” against the local identities which also represented political opposition to Pakistan’s ruling elite. It became a rule to suppress any expression of cultural identity other than the official “Muslim” one. This was to be what I call “death of Pluralism” in Pakistan. After deciding the fate of national identities, the project of defining “muslim” came on agenda. Death of Jinnah accelerated the process and state’s alliance with fascist theorist Abul ala Maudaudi emerged. He gave a series of lectures on Radio Pakistan on Muslim Nationalism. Objectives resolution was passed, later Anti Ahmedi agitation started, the anti clerical vanguard in state tried to give a final resistance to the clerics. Justice Munir’s report tried to put clerics at their place but it was too late. A unified and oppressive muslim identity emerged which put all heretical muslim sects in a continuous state of fear of being declared “apostates”. The irony of history is that with this most of the founding fathers of this country also joined the ranks of “apostates” All alternative cultural expression vanished from the country, the Hindus, the Jews, Homosexuals, Heretics, Nationalists all had to face “cultural Holocaust” After Ahmedies Shias were targeted and now Bravelies are trying to protect their “islam” from muslims

Sir Zafrullah Khan

 

Pakistan’s Undesirables: ‘Dealing with’ the Hijra Problem

There has been a lot of hype few days back in media and in the blogosphere about the radical pro-people Supreme Court. Some of these “radical” decisions include orders to destroy poultry feed which contained Pork , probably Pakistan’s public enemy number one and “granting of rights to the Hijra community,  the traditional indo/pak  transgendered community. Yet other “pro-people” decisions included the populist racket to lower the petroleum prices which was beyond its mandate and was reversed by the executive  in few hours with no reaction from the SC  and which drew angry responses from serious commentators like Ayaz Amir and Dr Ayesha Siddiqa. The action on NEPRA was a similar story where SC after getting  headlines in Right Wing press allowed government to increase the electricity prices as planned with some cosmetic changes.  All these show a paradigm shift in the character of SC ,  from judicial activism its moving towards Judicial populism and in the longer run trying to take the position which Pakistan Army enjoys in relation to the weak political dispensation. Whilst the English speaking elites have hailed the decision about the Hijras as some great civil right victory, freethinker elaborates what does it means for the LGBT community of Pakistan, for it means nothing. It has only increased dangers for us. A genuine civil rights  decision is what Indian High Court has taken. Whats happening in Pakistan is “rotten radicalism” which exists only in minds and it changes nothing and only helps establish reaction.

SA

Freethinker

Cross Posted At : Bazm-e-Rindaan

Through the last month, Pakistani media celebrated the recognition of the citizenship rights of the hijra community by a Supreme Court ruling which declared them entitled to ‘protection guaranteed under Article four (rights of individuals to be dealt with in accordance of law) and Article nine (security of person) of the Constitution’. The ruling has been hailed as an important step toward the integration of ‘the Third sex’ into the Pakistani society, who are now going to be registered and surveyed (with ‘Third Sex’ designating their gender on the ID cards and forms) so as to enable them to access the services of state social welfare departments and financial support programs. What does it mean – recognition of citizenship rights? It means enfranchisement, access to avenues of power and justice, along with better opportunities for education and health-care. But those lofty goals of modernity that always excluded the hijra are still going to remain out of their reach – the future of economic empowerment for anyone on the margins of Pakistani economy is bleak, the road to justice is not particularly favorable to the poor and the illiterate, and the hijra as yet do not enjoy any special ‘minority’ rights that are needed for political mobilization and combating discrimination in a liberal democracy. Yes, modernity in Pakistan does not seem likely to empower our social outcasts.

There has been little serious discussion of this SC ruling online or in the print media: no speculation whatsoever over the meaning of gender in Pakistan, or whether this ruling is right in creating a hijra subject for the purposes of bureaucracy. What is going to constitute ‘the Third sex’? And what happens to those who do not qualify for this category? What about those ‘gender-confused’ people who do not want to be identified as ‘Third sex’, preferring instead to be identified as ‘male’ or ‘female’?. According to the article quoted above, the hijra are ‘left by the society to live by begging, dancing and prostitution’, to be exploited by the ‘self-styled guru’ – does it mean that after this ‘social uplift’ program, they will be made to give up their lifetyle? What if they can’t? Does discrimination go away after formal barriers to progress have been removed, or does it merely become invisible and more difficult to fight? With the avenus of empowerment formally open to them, wouldn’t the society find it easier to blame them if their ‘begging and dancing and prostitution’ continues? Will they be persecuted or will we realize that a ‘respectable’ life is just not possible for the hijra without a radical change in the society, its institutions and maybe our ideas of ‘respectable’?

These questions do not surface because of the complete exclusion of a view from the transgender standpoint in our media. This not only means that the interests of the transgendered go largely unarticulated in our media, but also that the experiences of hijra remain shrouded in mystery. With a bourgeois mentality that is reluctant to recognize gender deviance (‘inverted’ gender identification, same-sex desire, transvestism, and other inappropriate behavior, all of which, it can be argued, find a measure of acceptance among the more traditionally minded who allow their sons and daughters to join the hijra), the hijra are comfortably assigned a ‘Third sex’, . Online, a few articles can illustrate this: it is thought that the hijra are ‘almost invariably hermaphrodites’, when in fact they are not, consisting in a large number of ‘biological’ males who would be described in the West as ‘transgendered’ and ‘transsexual’. Because of that, you find people talking about ‘the true hijra‘ and ‘the cross-dresser’ who only tries to pass off as a hijra. The castration ritual evokes feelings of fascination and horror; it is something that goes against the ‘rational’ sensibilities of most Pakistani moderns. Of course most of us are conditioned to react with feelings of revulsion and pity for their lifestyle, associated with shameless beggary, singing bawdy songs, dancing in the streets, prostitution and even theft and kidnapping. But these feelings also show under the ruse of rationality in articles like this and this. Such write-ups also show the hijra as the enigmatic, untamed Other of the Pakistani society. This is why it is easy to link the hijra with the rise of prostitution, the spread of HIV and other ‘evils’, especially for those who do not want to criticize the system of relationships that produce these problems. It seems as if we do not want any understanding of the hijra; we have alwayswanted to fina a way to deal with them.

An understanding of the hijra begins with an understanding of the society. Ours is a society where, in traditional spaces, you find life strictly segregated on the basis of gender, and where it’s not segregated, there is blatant male privilege. The (patriarchal) family reigns supreme as an institution that organizes much of life, based on appropriate gender role socialization, a preference for sons over daughters, early marriages marked by ceremonies that are a public spectacle, and an exclusive system for the care of the young and the old. Transgendered children have an awkward presence in this life –  they cannot take the responsibilities of a son, nor can they be married off. And who will take care of them when they grow old? All this makes the marginalization of all ‘gender-confused’ a necessary condition of our social organization. And the ‘unfortunate condition’ of the hijra as a community becomes even more understandable when you think about the effects of urbanization and modern life itself, which has taken away their traditional place in the society and exposed them to sexual exploitation

And so, I do not find this Supreme Court ruling very heartening. There’s nothing radical about it: by proposing that ‘the hijra problem’ can be solved by ‘registering and surveying’ them, it locates the problem in a few particular conditions of the hijra life, and not in the society. And of course no real change will be achieved: the program will suffer from the usual pitfalls of an inefficient bureaucracy. Moreover, the cause of the hijra is in danger of getting co-opted, who do not need to worry now that the State is doing all it can to save them. Gender injustice is a site of revolutionary potential, and that can be lost with the State apparatus formally committed to the ‘social uplift’ of the hijra. But, like I said before, there will be no real ‘social uplift’ because the focus is on saving them from this unfortunate situation, rather than working to change the deeply embedded norms of our society

But perhaps the greatest danger, to which I’ve only alluded so far, is further entrenchment of the gendered order. The hijra have traditionally aroused feelings of awe in the rest of the society, because they defied gender as taken for granted by everyone else. Increasingly, people’s attitudes toward them is changing, as people rid themselves of ‘silly superstition’ and see the hijra as part of the lumpen masses. And I can see this official recognition as ‘the Third sex’ taking the demystification of the hijra further along. When they are seen as another sex category, the gendered body politic of the society comes to regulate and control them as well, their bodies becoming ‘sexed’ and providing the basis of a sex role, a body ideal, and a clothing distinction that applies to their sex. Much more likely is a medicalized view that ‘pathologizes’ their condition as defective maleness or femaleness (‘intersex’ as the medical classification goes), like it did in late 19th century Europe and became a part of the notorious eugenics movement. The concept of ‘intersex’ is heavily criticized by transgender activists in the US. In Iran, an adherence to this concept has led to a State-funded program of SRS operations which has both religious and scientific backing. The rationale behind these potentially life-threatening operations is the ‘integration’ of their ‘hijra’ into the society, but that does not necessarily mean a better life (from the documentary ‘Transsexuals in Iran’) for the gender-ambiguous of Iran.

At this point, we cannot project anything about the future of the hijra of Pakistan. But what is clear is that there are good reasons to be skeptical about this Supreme Court ruling. Perhaps then, the wise thing to do is to see this decision as inevitable in the given political context (as Basim Usmani reflects toward the end of his article), and not to endorse it as a positive step toward the liberation of the gender-ambiguous from an oppressive social structure.

Free Sajjda still awaits Freedom!!

 

Capitalism and Love: Alternate Voices on Valentine’s Day

Shaheryar Ali

“Every Kiss Begins With Kay Jewelers”

With Pakistani Liberal’s new found love for Capitalism during General Mushraffs golden age of “Enlightened Moderation” Valentine Day has become the latest new festival in Pakistan. Now Islamists and religious fanatics in their usual opposition to any thing western have opposed Valentine’s Day on the premise that it promotes “obscenity”. The expression of Love is outrageous in their eyes and it erodes the moral and social fabric of the society, which if I decode means “that some how it dilutes the forced ‘gender segregation” in the Pakistan. Religious Right in Pakistan is not the only one in this their counterparts in India the Saffron brigade behave similarly

This opposition is not on Valentine’s Day rather it is to some thing which this day is thought to be representing that is Love and opposition to War, Violence and State authority. Modern day practices of Valentine’s days have nothing to do with the spirit of this day. Like every thing else Capitalism has converted this expression of Love into its anti-thesis. On onside Capitalist consumerist degeneration has resulted in “commoditization of Love” essentially equating love with wealth. The card industry, cosmetic industry, Diamond industry, Fashion Industry, the media Industry all in order to exploit the most beautiful of human emotion have contributed in building stereotypes, promoting prejudices and cultural hegemonies. The first victim of this is Love itself which is reduced to the category of a commodity which can be bought. This assault on Love is compounded by the market built sexism and promotion of highly loaded “stereotypical gender roles”. A general survey of the promotion campaigns around the world on Valentine Day reveals that it promotes a very shallow and sexist role of a woman. Most of it is based on the premise that woman can be wooed into love by showering her with expensive gifts. Diamond and Gold monopolies have shamelessly promoted this image of woman virtually equating love with a form of prostitution. Overall this approach enhances the already existing male chauvinist attitudes towards the women who are considered commodities themselves and “pleasure-toys” which can be bought by a DeBeers ring.

Muslim Gay Pride

A shameful example is this commercial which states “every kiss starts with Kay Jewelers”. In most of the promotion activities “men” are shown to be buying gifts for the “women” thus enhancing yet another of male chauvinist myths that “Men are the bread winners” reducing women to a mere dependent of the male who remains happy with a constant supply of diamonds, roses and chocolates. Yet another stereotyping this Valentine’s Day industry is building is what I call the “Jock and the Cheerleader” complex. A particular image of a boy Jock and a Cheerleader is repeated over and over again. This creates a complex in other boys and girls who don’t subscribe to this image. The societies governed by capitalism live on “conformity” carefully constructed resemblances which assures ones survival at social and economical level. There is an immense pressure on young people especially teenagers to “fit-in” otherwise they fall in “nerd”, “sissy” , “freak” and other “un-kool” categories. These in advanced countries have resulted in high teenage suicide rate, campus violence and murder. This complex is than banked upon by the “cosmetic mafia”, the “fashion industry”, “drug trade” and medically unregulated and monstrous “cosmetic surgery industry”. All these mafias are busy in their exploitation in Pakistan’s Valentine day boom. The hair transplant and plastic surgery clinics have mushroomed in Urban Pakistan and are unregulated and engaging in malpractice. They perform procedures ranging from liposuction to hymenoplasty. This to provide the Pakistani males the “Virgins” they want to marry. The image of male which is portrayed on Pakistani Valentine related media is a fair post teen urban male clad in Levi with an expensive multi media mobile phone, bulging muscles and an Ipod listening to western music. He is surrounded by admiring females they too fully urban dolls manufactured in some latest in vogue saloon. This is against which most young Pakistani has to compete and look up to the result is frustration, street crime and campus prostitution.

When the problem of sustenance of capitalism was being discussed in Western Europe after the war it was identified that Capitalism also operates in the realm of ideology by creating conflicting identities and it is the key to its sustenance. This “operation in contradiction” is visible in the pseudo-conflict between the pro-capitalist seculars and Islamic fascists around the Valentine’s Day. It is to be noted that forces like Jamate Islami in Pakistan and Hindu Nationalists in India who are notorious for their disruption of Valentine Day’s activities are vehemently Anti-communist and Anti-Left and pro-Capitalism. Jamate Islami has been on the forefront of resisting anti capitalist reforms of PPP in 70s and has supported “free market economy”. Thus first they allow the capitalization of Love and than protest on its “cultural manifestations”. The extreme fear, violence and confusion this phenomenon creates results in “de-humanization”, “dejection” and a sense of “de realization”. A poetic expression of this de-realized love in time of violence has been done by Awais Aftab the brilliant young Pakistani blogger. By expressing his torment on loss of love in age of violence and confusion Mr Aftab has emerged as an “alternate voice” in otherwise cooperate and Jihadi dominated discourse on Valentine day. The poem is called “Vitriolage” and it opens with these lovely lines

No Shiv Sena threatens me
Nor do Talibans bind my hands
Yet in the miasmatic world
In which i breathe
There is no Valentine’s Day
For you, for me

The entry can be reached here. Whilst the Pakistani blogsphere is conformist to a strangulating degree, a dear friend “freethinker” has deconstructed Valentine’s discourse by celebrating Love and Subversion..

Gay Valentine stereotypes

The dominant discourse on Valentine’s Day around the globe is “segregationist”, “totalizing’ and “de-humanizing”. This is extremely hegemonizing defining love in a strict “heterosexual” relationship. Love is only an emotion which is present between a “biological male” and a “biological female”. This corporate capitalist agenda disenfranchises whole of Homosexual humans. Reducing them to the status of “perverts” and “deviants” they are deprived of their humanity and rights, the political expression of this corporate and capitalist bigotry can be seen especially in United States where the corporate and its political allies the Moral Majority and Republicans have started a witch hunt against homosexuals by “defining” categories like “marriage”, “inheritance” and “family” in strict heterosexual terms. This in this sense becomes a strictly “fascist phenomenon”. By bombarding retinas and minds with pictures and visuals of love as a “heterosexual only” phenomenon, minds are being slowly transformed for annihilating a whole deviant population. Unfortunately even the self proclaimed “liberals” and “secularists” of Pakistan are insensitive to politics of gender and sexuality and even their notions of “human rights” and “pluralism” are plagued by essentialist prejudices of modernity. None of the major aggregation of Pakistani bloggers or Blog-zines has dared to challenge the conformity or protest at the segregationist interpretation of Love on Valentine’s Day. Across the border situation is batter. Blogbharti the aggregator of Indian Blogosphere published an article by an Indian Gay blogger Crazy Sam on Valentine’s Day. By doing so Blogbharti subverted the segregationist and exclusionary discourse on Love. Blogbharti should be congratulated for this act. Sam’s passionate plea is for “Equal Love”, he speaks about the segregated society and segregated love, reminding the straight heterosexual couples that the “fear” they feel on Valentine’s Day due to threat from the fascist goons is everyday reality of Gay of Life in India.

“Now just think about a small percentage of population who always has felt this unfairness that you are all feeling right now, every single day! Yes I’m talking about gays. For us gays, we could never think of celebrating Valentine’s Day with our special person in open places because we never felt secure to express our love. There is this fear always echoing in our minds (and not on Valentine’s Day alone) about what others would think and react if they see us holding hands or sitting across a table looking into each others eyes or giving a peck on the cheeks. It is not a good feel to always search for a secluded place to exchange such small tokens of love” Read the full article here

Sam maintains his own blog by the very “deconstructive” name of “The Straight Friendly Gay Blog”. It must be understood that

Jihad For Love

“exclusion” is the sole of a fascist society. Nothing is more dangerous than “exclusionary discourse” especially in Pakistan. Taliban couldn’t be defeated by pseudo-secularist discourse which is conformist and exclusionary. The Liberal Muslim’s insistence on constructing an “enlightened spiritual Islam” fails precisely because it becomes apart of dominant “Islam is the greatest and most democratic and liberal religion in the world” discourse in which Taliban and Liberal Muslims are united. The subversion is thus not achieved and all resistance becomes futile. This discourse insists on keeping “the others” invisible, the invisibility slowly evolves into amnesia and at this stage Genocide begins. How these apparently contradictory discourses merge can be demonstrated. While the Islamic Fascist says Homosexuals must be killed or there are no homosexuals in muslim world thus pushing gays towards genocide. This will result in protest by many even from western world who will focus on Islam’s objection to homosexuality. The Liberal muslim while vehemently oppose to Taliban will brand it “Islamophobia” and Euro-centricism giving examples of historic tolerance of homosexuality in the Past. To the general public which hears to “consensus opinion” message goes “Its all west’s fault they are enemies of Islam” because this is what both Mullah and secular is saying. The marginalized group is forgotten and keeps becoming victim of the dominant discourse. Ahmedin Nijad declared there are no homosexuals in Iran. This is a dangerous exclusionary discourse. Muslim Gay filmmaker Pervez Sharma has subverted this by making documentary recording “same gender love” in Muslim Societies. The film has got critical acclaim and awards and it challenges exclusionary discourse as well Islamophobia. The title itself is deconstructive “A Jihad for Love”

“Fourteen centuries after the revelation of the holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Islam today is the world’s second largest and fastest growing religion. Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels the many worlds of this dynamic faith discovering the stories of its most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims.

Filmed over 5 1/2 years, in 12 countries and 9 languages, “A Jihad for Love” comes from the heart of Islam. Looking beyond a hostile and war-torn present, this film seeks to reclaim the Islamic concept of a greater Jihad, which can mean ‘an inner struggle’ or ‘to strive in the path of God’. In doing so the film and its remarkable subjects move beyond the narrow concept of ‘Jihad’ as holy war.”

The film has been criticized for not challenging the theological objections to homosexuality but at least it has tried to challenge the strangulating invisibility imparted on Muslim Gays by Ahmedinijad and likes.

The Pakistani secularists or liberals who becomes tear eyed at the “barbarity” of ignorant Mullahs who wont allow the “love” who hate flowers and chocolates should keep in mind while they defend a corporate degenerative, exclusionary, stereotypical caricature of Love , they can Love even in most fascists of the societies, Taliban’s Afghanistan didn’t banned straight marriage nor did Hitler but in Iran these two teenage boys were hanged only because they loved each other and with Sharia in place in Swat this is the fate which awaits us , the Pakistani Gays if you people remained conformists

Hanged for Love, Iranian gays

 

Chador aur Char Divari: Subverting the discourse of exclusion 6

Of the three great systems of exclusion governing discourse — prohibited words, the division of madness and the will to truth ———” Foucault

The non-existence of women is the most important problem that has plagued the discourse in the Muslim countries. “Representational discourse” is in itself a discourse of exclusion, the “woman” and “woman hood” are representational entities, the Woman has always been be represented in the discourse , she never had her own voice. The famous existential philosopher Simone de Beauvior whilst writing her seminal feminist work “The second Sex” reached the conclusion : “No Human is born a Woman”.

In fundamentalist ‘Islamic’ context this representational discourse acquired a legal status where woman was judged to be unworthy of testimony. De-humanization of woman reached its peak under the USA sponsored Islamization of the Muslim world. General Muhammed Zia ul Haq and the theologians brought the “Law of Evidence” according to which the testimony of the woman was to be considered half of that of man. The traditional reading of Islam brought about the concept of “Naqis ul Aqal” “semi compos mentis” for the Woman. An animal which is not capable of making independent decisions, is source of Sin and lust and hence must be covered in a black veil, to protect the piety of Men, whose place is within the 4 walls of the house and who cant leave it without a male relative escorting her.

“Zina” (or fornication) became the ultimate focus of the project that aimed to suppress women’s sexuality with the fear of stones and lashes. “Chador or Char divari” became the official state doctrine for “woman” with approval from Mansoora! [Pakistan’s self-styled Vatican, headquarter of the Jamate Islami]

The Progressive left led a heroic struggle against the Neo Fascist Zia ul Haq, resulting in one of the most brutal crackdown against them, hangings, torture,murders,exiles, lashes—. Fahmida Riaz , Kishwar Naheed stood up against this tyranny , the result was the emergence of a radical feminist discourse that was modernist and progressive and which challenged the Islamist discourse on woman.

Fehmida Riaz is a true artist who never compromised , she was victimized by Zia ul Haq and his political Son Nawaz Sharif but she stood firm. Chador aur Char Divari is one of the most important poems ever written in Urdu. It traces the origins of Islamist exclusionist discourse and de constructs it. It asserts the “humanity” of woman , her independent will and voice and her challenge to the tyrants.

Translation follows

Four Walls and a Black Veil
What shall I do, Sire, with this black veil?
Why do you bestow on me this great favour?
I am not in mourning that I should wear it
To show the world my grief.
Nor am I sick That I should hide my shame
In its dark folds. S
Stamp my forehead with this Dismal seal?
If I am not too impudent, Sire
If you assure my life, may I tell you, Most humbly:
There lies, in your perfumed chamber, A corpse that stinks.
It begs for pity. Cover that shroudless corpse.
Not me. Its stench is everywhere. It cries for seclusion.
Listen to the heart-rending screams
Of those still naked beneath the veil.
You must know them well, these maids:
The hostage women of vanquished peoples,
Halal for a night, exiled at dawn;
The slave girls who carried your blessed seed
And brought forth children of half status only, yet
Was it not honour enough for them?
The wives who wait their precious turns
To pay homage to the conjugal couch;
The hapless, cowering girl-child
Whose blood will stain your gray beard red.

Life has no more tears to shed; it shed them all
In that fragrant chamber where, for ages now,
This sacrificial drama has played
And replayed. Please, Sire, bring it down.
The curtain. Now. You need it to cover the corpse.
I am not on this earth merely as a signet
Of your great lust.

These four walls and this black veil—
Let them bless the rotting remains.
I have spread my sails
In the open wind, on the wide seas,
And by my side a man stands,
A companion who won my trust

An exceptionally bold critique of the traditional values about woman
in Islamic societies, A historicist reading of the poem
can lead to accusation of Blasphemy!.Another of the crime
which was being done by Islamist regimes all over was the destruction
and denial of woman's sexuality. She was being ordered to lie
passively beneath the man, her husband as a religious duty. 
The woman who denies the advances of her husband was the subject
of curses by the Angeles of God,  the Aroused man
was like a solider of God with sword in hand, any
expression of sexuality by her was Sin ,her perfume could destroy
the piety of Men,her voice can make them mad and put them on
path of Sin and lust.Any awareness of sexuality could make her a
"Rebel out of control". In Arab world the mutilation of female
children in name of "circumcision" is the politics of orgasmic
control.By doing so these women are deprived of "sexual pleasure"
for ever, making them just an instrument for pleasure of the male.
Any pleasure on behalf of her is a Sin."Modesty" and "Asexuality"
were another of Islamists doctrines,challenged by Fehmida Riaz.
French Kiss is a lovely poem by Riaz, an expression of 
female sexuality and her humanity.

 

Deep Kiss

Deep myrrh-scented kiss,
deep with the tongue, suffused
with the musky perfume
of the wine of love: I'm reeling
with intoxication, languid
to the point of numbness,
yet with a mind so roused
an eye flies open
in every cell.

And you! Sucking my breath,
my life, from its deepest,
most ancient abode.

Kiss.
Wet, warm, dark.
Pitch black!
Like a moonless night,
when rain comes flooding in.

A glint of runaway time
fleeing in the wilderness of my soul
seems to be drawing closer.

I sway across a shadowy bridge.
It's about to end, I think,
somewhere ahead,
there is light.

Breaking the Silence----Fahmida Riaz

Shaheryar Ali

 

Islam’s Silent Moderates: Subverting the discourse of exclusion 5

Of the three great systems of exclusion governing discourse – prohibited words, the division of madness and the will to truth …” Foucault

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”, Noam Chomsky

The most important system of control of discourse working in the moslem societies is “prohibition”. An imagined ‘Islam’ has emerged as the single most important tool for censorship in Islamic world. When it involves other issues like “blasphemy” one could be certain that no voice will ever emerge in opposition to censorship. This is one of the most suffocating experiences to live in when those who struggled all their lives for change and freedom appear to be on board with the tyrants. It is precisely this “ideological gap” within the progressive and modernist moslem establishment which let people like Ayan Hirsi Ali to emerge!

Heroine of the “new Right”, its fashionable these days to slander and dismiss Ali in almost all progressive circles of Europe. The problem unfortunately will not disappear by this continuous “Tabbara” on her. The lacuna within the progressive left ,which has sealed its lips in name of “anti imperialism” on fundamentalism, freedom of expression, and Islamic roots of violence and subjugation of women, has to be filled. The alliances from Lebanon to Islamabad with Islamic fundamentalism have to be broken and progressive position be taken on feminism and other “transitory demands”.

Keeping the Neo-conservative political agenda aside ,Ali stands out as a bold and eloquent lady who has dared to break the silence on Islamic gendricide. “The caged Virgin” and “The Son Factory” stand out as phenomenal contribution on developing a radical feminist discourse in moslem world. The article I have chosen present the core argument of the progressive moslem left , the argument of “moderate moslem majority” – that “the moderates” are silent .

I recall a line: “Since the holocaust, you know what the Jews fear the most?” ” The Silence!”

Queer As Folk

*************************************

Islam’s Silent Moderates

Ayan Hirsi Ali

In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.

A twenty-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and two hundred lashes with a bamboo cane.

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Quran 24:2)

Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than thirty lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she is usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor.

We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a fifty-four-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to fifteen days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced forty lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.

Then there is Taslima Nasreen, the forty-five-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered five hundred thousand rupees for her head. In August, she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Kolkata and then Rajasthan. Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates. But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal, and bigoted–and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

Usually, Muslim groups like the Organization of the Islamic Conference are quick to defend any affront to the image of Islam. The organization, which represents fifty-seven Muslim states, sent four ambassadors to the leader of my political party in the Netherlands asking him to expel me from parliament after I gave a newspaper interview in 2003 noting that, by Western standards, some of Muhammad’s behavior would be unconscionable.

A few years later, Muslim ambassadors to Denmark protested the cartoons of Muhammad and demanded that their perpetrators be prosecuted. But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Quran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign, and so on. But the evidence mounts to the contrary.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate? When a moderate Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

Miss Ali was born in an influential Somili family, her father was a major political figure who resisted the Marxist dictatorship in Somalia, She was raised a devout moslem and has studied at a Saudi religious school as well, she escaped to Europe to avoid a forced marriage and abuse. She studied dutch and Political Science in Netherlands and soon rose to prominence . She was elected to the Dutch Parliament on a Liberal Party ticket, initially she was in Labour which she soon left due to “Left’s silence” of Islamic fundamentalism. Deeply influenced by “European Enlightenment” she came out strongly against organized religions including Islam and Christianity. She wrote the screenplay of VanGoh’s movie “Submission” that made her a target of extremists. These event made her closer to the Neo-Conservative right. She is fellow of the conservative American think tank “American Enterprise Institute”. An out spoken feminist and secular humanist ,Ali has received many prestigious honors as well as death threats. She is included in Time magazine 100 most influential thinkers. Her work on comparison of thought of John Stuart Mill and Islam and her defense of European Enlightenment as “collective human asset” are especially important.

 

The struggle for Islam’s soul: Subverting the discourse of exclusion 4

1. Of the three great systems of exclusion governing discourse — prohibited words, the division of madness and the will to truth ———”

“I believe we must resolve ourselves to accept three decisions which our current thinking rather tends to resist, and which belong to the three groups of function I have just mentioned: to question our will to truth; to restore to discourse its character as an event; to abolish the sovereignty of the signifier…. One can straight away distinguish some of the methodological demands they imply. A principle of reversal, first of all…. Next, then, the principle of discontinuity ….” Michel Foucault I am planning to do all this , I am trying to bring forward the “prohibited voices”, those which have been totally eclipsed in the society by the dominant discourse. This is not “endorsing” one and rejecting “others”, rather, its simply a act of breathing , an act of subversion ,of saying what is not pleasant to hear, Its simply an act of living in the rotten stagnant conformity. Due to the overtly political nature of “war on terror”, the Islamism has suffered a qualitative change , it has taken the postmodern shape. The Progressive Islamist circles have in turn become “Post-Islamists”, the result is emergence of a discourse which is reactionary, anti modern and some times overtly racist and fascist.

Islam has nothing to do with violence

Islam needs no re-thinking or change

Its all Jewish conspiracy

Its all America’s fault.

This article by Ziauddin Sardar tend to expose the contradictions in the Islamist discourse, the assumptions about Islam which have been taught as “laws”. “The demolition of Babri Mosque” in India and alleged grand conspiracy to demolish “Dome of Rock” in Jerusalem have been used as “validaters” in Islamic discourse to prove “unity of whole world” against Islam. To destroy Islamic Identity , culture and existence. In the racist Islamist zeal no one mentions the demolition of Muhammed’s history from Saudi Arabia. Romila Thapar once commented that religion extremism is always “ahistorc” and it later becomes “Anti historic”. Sardar touches on the issue to “destroying history” by Islamists. On the whole this article too subverts and challange the dominant discourse on Islam and Islam’s political identity in Modern times. History is so much dreaded by Islamists because a simple historical analysis will show that theological roots of Islamism are not in Islam but in the Kharjites heresy and European Fascism.

Shaheryar Ali

The Struggle For Islam’s Soul

By Ziauddin Sardar

At about the time bombs were going off in London two weeks ago, bulldozers were demolishing sacred historic sites in Mecca and, in Delhi, a group of women was demonstrating against an “inhuman” fatwa ordering a rape victim to renounce her husband. Three seemingly unconnected violent acts. But they weave a thread highlighting a question we Muslims just cannot ignore: Why have we made Islam so violent? Within hours of the London atrocity, Muslim groups throughout Britain condemned the bombing, declaring in unequivocal terms that such acts had nothing to do with Islam. “Religious precepts,” declared the Muslim Council of Britain, “cannot be used to justify such crimes, which are completely contrary to our teaching and practice.” The eminently sensible Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid, chairman of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony U.K., announced: “No school of Islam allows the targeting of civilians or the killing of innocents. Indiscriminate, senseless and targeted killing has no justification in Islam.” The tenor of these statements is: These are the acts of pathologically mad people; Islam has nothing to do with it. But Islam has everything to do with it. As Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute, points out: “The terrorists are using Islamic sources to justify their actions. How can one then say it has nothing to do with Islam?” It is true that the vast majority of Muslims abhor violence and terrorism, and that the Qur’an and various schools of Islamic law forbid the killing of innocent civilians. It is true, as the vast majority of Muslims believe, that the main message of Islam is peace. Nevertheless, it is false to assume the Qur’an or Islamic law cannot be used to justify barbaric acts. The terrorists are a product of a specific mindset that has deep roots in Islamic history. They are nourished by an Islamic tradition that is intrinsically inhuman and violent in its rhetoric, thought and practice. They are provided solace and spiritual comfort by scholars, who use the Qur’an and Islamic law to justify their actions and fan the hatred. As a Muslim, I am deeply upset by the attacks, the more so now I know they were the work of British Muslims. But, as a Muslim, I also have a duty to recognize the Islamic nature of the problem that the terrorists have thrown up. They are acting in the name of my religion; it thus becomes my responsibility critically to examine the tradition that sustains them. The question of violence per se is not unique to Islam. All those who define themselves as the totality of a religion or an ideology have an innate tolerance for and tendency toward violence. It is the case in all religions and all ideologies through every age. But this does not lessen the responsibility on Muslims in Britain, or around the world, to be judicious, to examine themselves, their history and all it contains to redeem Islam from the pathology of this tradition. To deny that the terrorists are a product of Islamic history and tradition is more than complacency. It is a denial of responsibility, a denial of what is really happening in our communities. It is a refusal to live in the real world. The tradition that nourishes the mentality of the extremists has three inherent characteristics. First, it is ahistoric. It abhors history and drains it of all humanity. Islam, as a religion interpreted in the lives and thoughts of people called Muslims, is not something that unfolded in history with all its human strengths and weaknesses, but is a utopia that exists outside time. Hence it has no notion of progress, moral development or human evolution. What happened in Mecca earlier this month illustrates this point well. During the past 50 years, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have suffered incalculable violence. More than 300 historical sites have been levelled systematically. Only a few historic buildings remain in Mecca — and these are about to be demolished. “We are witnessing now the last few moments of the history of Mecca,” says Sami Angawi, a Saudi expert on the Islamic architecture of the Holy City. “Its layers of history are being bulldozed for a parking lot.” Angawi, who has fought to conserve the historic sites of the Holy City for more than 25 years, has no doubt what is largely to blame: Wahhabism, the dominant religious tradition of Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabis, he says, “have not allowed preservation of old buildings, especially those related to the Prophet.” Why? Because other Muslims will relate to the history of the Prophet, and they will then see him as a man living in a particular time and space that placed particular demands on him and forced him to act in particular ways. The Wahhabis want to universalize and eternalize every act of the Prophet. For them, the context is not only irrelevant but dangerous. It has to be expunged. What this means is that the time of the Prophet has to be constantly recreated, both in thought and action. It is perfect time, frozen and eternalized. Because it is perfect, it cannot be improved: It is the epitome of morality, incapable of growth. Second, this ideal tradition is monolithic. It does not recognize, understand or appreciate a contrary view. Those who express an alternative opinion are seen as apostates, collaborators or worse. The latest cause célèbre of Islamic law in India demonstrates what I mean. Imrana Bibi, the wife of a poor rickshaw puller in Uttar Pradesh, was raped by her father-in-law. The religious scholars of Deoband, an influential seminary with Wahhabi tendencies, issued a fatwa: her marriage is nullified, her husband is forbidden to her forever, she will have to separate for life from him and her five children. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board endorsed the “punishment.” When Bibi herself, along with women’s rights groups, complained about the double injustice, the clerics at Deoband declared: “She had a physical relationship with her father-in-law. It does not matter whether it was consensual or forced. She cannot live with her husband. Any Muslim who opposes our fatwa is not a true Muslim and is betraying Islam.” So, no complaint or opposition is allowed. A perfect tradition can only produce perfect fatwas. And those who are seen as betraying Islam can themselves become subjects of other perfect fatwas. As a tradition outside history, it does not recognize the diversity of Islam. The humanist or rationalist tradition of Islam, or the great mystical tradition, thus appear as a dangerous deviations. In Bangladesh the Wahhabis and Deobandis are terrorising and burning the mosques of the Ahmadiyya sect, which does not see the prophet Muhammad as the last Prophet, and insist that Ahmadis should be declared “non-Muslims”. In Pakistan, the Sunnis are killing Shias because they do not see them as legitimate Muslims. Ditto in Iraq. In Algeria the Armed Islamic Group openly declared that the entire “Algerian nation” was deviant and should be killed. As for Saudi Arabia, you cannot even take a commentary or translation of the Qur’an into the country that does not follow the prescribed line. Notice, also, that this tradition has a very specific view of sin. A perfect tradition must lead to perfect Muslims, who do not and cannot commit sin. Those who commit sin — that is, disagree or deviate — cannot be Muslims. Those outside this tradition are sinners and have to be brought to the Straight Path. The victims of sin themselves become sinners who have to be punished. Third, this tradition is aggressively self-righteous; and insists on imposing its notion of righteousness on others. It legitimizes intolerance and violence by endlessly quoting the famous verse from the Qur’an that asks the believers “to do good and prevent evil deeds.” The Bali bombers justified their actions with this verse. The Islamic Defenders Front, based in Indonesia, frequently burns and destroys cafes, cinemas and discos — places it considers to be sites of immoral or immodest behaviour. The hated religious police in Saudi Arabia are on the streets every day imposing a “moral code” (mainly on women). In Pakistan, the religious scholars succeeded in banning mixed (male and female) marathons. Just where does this tradition come from? It can be traced right back to the formative phase of Islam. The prophet Muhammad was succeeded by four caliphs who are known as the “Rightly Guided” because of their close friendship and relationship with the Prophet. Muslims regard the period of their rule in idealized terms — as the best that human endeavour can achieve. However, this was also a period of dissent, wars and rebellions. Three of the four Rightly Guided caliphs were murdered. One particular set of rebels, responsible for the murder of Ali, the fourth caliph, was known as the Kharjites. The Kharjites were a puritan sect which believed that history had come to an end after the revelation made to the last Prophet. From now on, there could not be any debate or compromise on any question: “The decision is God’s alone.” They were prone to extremist proclamations, denouncing Ali as well as Othman, the third caliph, and pronouncing everyone who did not agree with their point of view as infidel and outside the law. The Kharjites developed a radically different interpretation of what it means to be a Muslim. To be a Muslim, they argued, is to be in a perfect state of soul. Someone in that state cannot commit a sin and engage in wrongdoing. Sin, therefore was a contradiction for a true Muslim — it nullified the believer and demonstrated that inwardly he was an apostate. Thus, anyone who did any wrong was not really a Muslim. He could be put to death. Indeed, the Kharjites believed that all non-Kharjite Muslims were really apostates who were legitimate targets for violence. Although the Kharjites were eventually suppressed, their thought has recurred in Islamic history with cyclic regularity. Like their predecessors, the neo-Kharjites have no doubt that their identity is shaped by the best religion with the finest arrangements and precepts for all aspects of human existence; and there can be no deviation from the path. Those who do not agree are at best lesser Muslims and at worst legitimate targets for violence. In their rhetoric all is sacred, nothing secular and retribution is the paramount duty. “Since they have left humanity and history out of the equation,” says Dr Najah Kadhim, director of Islam21, a global network of Muslim intellectuals, “they have no conscience. No notion of guilt or remorse. Since the idea that they are perfect is part of their psychological make-up, they can do anything with impunity.” Injustice and violence are inbuilt in their thought and tradition, which, under certain circumstances, is transformed into undiluted fascism. We saw this most clearly in the case of the Taliban. So it just won’t do to say that these people are “not Muslims”, as the Muslim Council of Britain seems to suggest. We must acknowledge that the terrorists, and their neo-Kharjite tradition, are products of Islamic history. Only by recognising this brutal fact would we realize that the fight against terrorism is also an internal Muslim struggle within Islam. Indeed, it is a struggle for the very soul of Islam. Yet this struggle, as Dr Siddiqui points out, “cannot be shaped on the lines of “the war on terror.” The “war on terror” feeds the monster what it most desires: violent reaction to sustain the cycle of violence. “This is why Iraq has now become a breeding ground for the neo-Kharjite philosophy,” he argues. The war on terror, in fact, cannot be a war at all. It has to be a reasoned engagement with the politics of tradition. If Islam has been construed as the problem, then Islam is also the essential ingredient in the solution. “The best way to fight the Kharjite tradition is with the humanistic and rationalist traditions of Islam,” says Dr Kadhim. “This is how they were defeated in Islamic history. This is how we will defeat them now.” If Muslims do not take on the challenge, they cede the initiative to those who have misconceived the problem and accepted a military strategy that is no solution. And that will make us all prey to more violence

Published on Jul. 22, 2005

 

A Damascene Conversion: Subverting the discourse of exclusion 2

Discourse” is nothing but all “written and verbal communication”. In line of Gramsci and later Foucault we have to understand “discourse” as “institutionalized” way of thinking, or in words of Judith Butler “limits of acceptable” speech. Its these limits which subverted in order to reach a true libertarian discourse. The discourse is controlled by means of “exclusion”, no other opinion simply exists. Foucault writes:

“Of the three great systems of exclusion governing discourse — prohibited words, the division of madness and the will to truth ———”

“——One can straight away distinguish some of the methodological demands they imply. A principle of reversal, first of all…. Next, then, the principle of discontinuity ….”

I am planning to do all this , i am trying to bring forward the “prohibited voices”, those which have been totally eclipsed in the society by the dominant discourse. This is not “endorsing” one and rejecting “others”, rather, its simply a act of breathing , an act of subversion ,of saying what is not pleasant to hear, Its simply an act of living in the rotten stagnant conformity.

One of the great “prohibiter” is “Islam” and “Honour of Prophet”, this brilliant article by Aatish Taseer tends to highlight the aspects of these two ideas which usually remain suppressed . A frank simple report but the one which shakes a lot of certainties. It was published in “Prospects”. The prose is enchanting, Taseer has a innocent frankness which simply is enlightening

“The Fastest Growing Religion of the World”

“Our soul, our blood, kind and gentle is our Prophet.”

A Damascene Conversion

Aatish Taseer

The last time I saw Isak Nilsen, we were eating okra and mutton in my flat near the diplomatic quarter of Damascus. The 22-year old Norwegian, who had been in Syria for four and a half months, seemed impatient to go before a sheikh and make the simple testimony—“There is no God but God and Muhammad is his Prophet”—that would introduce him to the society of the believers. Three days later he was on a plane back to Oslo, evacuated from a country where the faith put him at risk.

Isak’s Christianity was different from most of my European contemporaries. He was a theology student on his way to a career in the Norwegian church. He really believed that Christ had died on the cross for our sins and was the son of God. Yet now Isak was on the verge of converting to Islam, with its “clarity,” its “completeness” and its willingness to enter spheres of public life from which his church had long since retreated. Two days after our lunch the faith he was about to embrace did enter public life, but it was an entry far more violent than he would have liked. The same words that were to have been his conversion testimony had become the slogans of an angry mob attacking his embassy, burning his flag and threatening his friends.

For the past six weeks I had been in Damascus talking to young people about the place of religion in their lives. The Syrian capital is, to those interested in understanding Islam and Arabic, the key—what Boston is to liberal secular types. Abu Nour University, which reached its zenith under the late grand mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, is a favoured destination for students from non-Arab Muslim backgrounds hoping to gain or regain knowledge of the religion. On an average day Chechens, Indonesians, Pakistanis and British and American Muslims crowd the university’s corridors on their way to Koran and Arabic classes. The approach to Abu Nour is through a famous Damascus souk dotted with 13th and 14th-century minarets. Nearing the giant, still-new marble edifice, one begins to see bearded, robed and veiled figures from across the globe, standing out among the Syrians no less than Ella, my tall, blonde girlfriend.

The more secular Damascus University also attracts many foreigners for whom Islam holds a strong appeal, and it was among these students that I first experienced the city. I arrived in Damascus on a rainy Christmas eve after a gruelling bus journey from Aleppo, in northern Syria. I went to a flat in the embassy district that my friend Chad shared with Isak, the Norwegian student. Over the coming six weeks, Isak and I came to know each other reasonably well. That night he and a Norwegian friend of his were tucking into salmon and a bowl of gløgg, a Scandinavian winter drink. The three others in the room were my friend Chad—in Damascus to improve his Arabic—and two South Africans of south Asian extraction, brother and sister. The sister, Semeya, wore a headscarf and was bewitchingly pretty.

Over the gløgg, Isak mentioned his plans for a career in the church. Inspired by his vocation and by being in the city where Paul had converted to Christianity, I suggested that we go out, despite the bad weather, to find a midnight mass. The two Norwegians were fired by the idea and we set out in the direction of the old city, passing Straight Street, the street with a kink described in Acts as “a street called Straight,” a remark which Mark Twain cites as the only bit of facetiousness in the Bible. Such is the religious diversity of Damascus that we confused Catholic churches with Orthodox ones, Greek ones with Armenian ones, and wound up, well past midnight, cold, wet and unblessed.

Over the next few days I spent a lot of time in this curious milieu with Chad and his circle, discovering the hamams and souks of the city that I was to live in for the next two months. It took me a few days to realise that there was an Islamic current running through many in the group. It was hippy Islam, if such a thing is possible. The gatherings of Chad and his friends were inter-religious, multi-ethnic and tediously respectful, but Islam was always present. It was in the sparseness of people’s flats, the fondness for facial hair in the boys, the studied, serene voices and the abundance of fruit juice. I quickly grew tired of it, and after a dry Christmas dinner I befriended Even Nord, Isak’s friend, a Norwegian with a glint in his eye and knowledge of the Journalists’ Club, a place where we could get a drink.

Like schoolchildren, Even and I had given the others the slip and were heading off for a beer when Semeya, the South African beauty, found us and pulled Even aside, appearing to scold him in low tones. She knew where we were going and felt “uncomfortable” about its environment. It was fascinating to watch her, almost self-consciously demure under her headscarf and long eyelashes; I wondered what emotional blackmail she was employing and to what spiritual end. At last, after withholding his purpose and describing the place as a cafeteria, Even managed to extricate himself.

But the Journalists’ Club is not a cafeteria. It is a large gloomy room with hideous blue and gold interiors that derives such popularity it has from being the sole drinking establishment in that part of town. Even and I settled down under the fluorescent glare and had just ordered a beer and a glass of wine when Semeya appeared again, looking like a terrified, hunted creature. She quickly came over to our table, fussing to Even about how uncomfortable she was. “I just don’t feel right,” she whispered. She addressed hardly a word to me and spoke to Even in Arabic, which I don’t understand. Then she produced a sheet of Arabic verbs and studied them silently for a while; and then as quickly as she had come she was gone.

It was over a drink with Even that I became aware of the strange appeal of both Islam and Semeya in his life. “In the west, we are all about rights,” he said, “but we have forgotten about limits.” He said he and Isak had both been impressed by Semeya’s spiritual quest. “She’s here only to develop her relationship with God,” he said, admiringly. It sounded like she had seduced them both with her piety.

What had seemed to me a fine example of female guile was to Even evidence of how Islam curbed the excesses of modern western life. “The only immorality in the west these days,” he said, “is to speak of morality. I am so tired of this hedonistic lifestyle, I want something simple.” He was blond, athletic and handsome, and knew a fair amount about Norwegian death metal music; I expect he also knew something about the western excesses of which he spoke. But I didn’t share his pessimism, and after a drink or two we parted ways. It was my first taste of this kind of talk. I had no idea how much more was coming my way.

The next day I left town and went travelling for two weeks with Ella. When I returned, I ran into Chad and Isak at an estate agent, where I was looking for a flat. Isak had his parents with him. The Eid holiday was beginning and they were about to set off around Syria. I learned from Chad that Isak, before the arrival of his parents, had been travelling with Semeya.

Once I had settled into an old 1920s flat, not far from the French embassy, I asked Even to take me to Abu Nour, the university where international Islam broods high up the hill overlooking Syria’s capital. I thought Even would be the perfect guide to this mysterious, slightly intimidating quarter. He spoke good Arabic; was, like Isak, his friend and apparent rival for Semeya’s affections, increasingly Muslim; and with a peculiar charisma moved through the dustier parts of the city like a favourite blond son. After lunch one day, he and I set out through the Souk Jouma. As we made our way past stalls full of dates, olives, meat and blood oranges, past electrical repair shops, camel butchers and a man drying trotters with a blowtorch, I caught my first glimpse of Abu Nour students. There were small Indonesians with conical hats and wispy beards, vast African women in coloured veils and pale Europeans with red facial hair. The scene culminated in a small square from where Abu Nour’s white minarets were clearly visible. The square was packed with internet cafés, Islamic literature and a store called Shukr specialising in stylish Islamic clothes for western markets.

We were looking for Tariq, a fix-it man known to all the new arrivals. We found him on one corner of the square, a big, meaty figure with a friendly manner. “Where are you from, brother?” he asked. “I welcome people from every country because everyone was very nice to me when I was in Europe. I can help you, brother, and unlike a lot of guides, I don’t ask for your money. What do you want? Arabic? Koran? A lot of people come here from all over the world—Africa, England, Pakistan—to learn about Islam.” Unlike a lot of guides who say they don’t want money, Tariq truly didn’t, which made me even more nervous. In a country where it is rumoured that 10 per cent of the population are informers for the mukhabarat, I was concerned that Tariq was making his money elsewhere. It was Thursday and we agreed to meet the next day before Friday prayers.

On the way back, Even suddenly grabbed my arm and we slipped into a side street off the main souk. Even knocked on a black metal door and after a short wait, a small Asian man in grey Arab robes opened the door. He hugged and kissed Even profusely. He welcomed us into a sitting room and then into a further room, which looked like a tiny presidential office. Above a big desk and chair there hung, on one side, the Syrian flag with a picture of the president, and on the other a flag I didn’t recognise: red stripes and yellow stars and moons on a black background. We were in the headquarters of the Pattani United Liberation Organisation, of which I had never heard, and the little man was its president in Syria. Cakes and soft drinks arrived and the man unburdened all the details of the plight of his people in southern Thailand. He produced his wife and a little baby a few minutes later. Then he insisted we watch a film about a massacre in Pattani, in which a soft-spoken American narrator told of the horrors of Thaksin Shinawatra’s regime in Thailand. When it was over, the little man said, “Pattani want peace, but Shinawatra want to make war.” At this he laughed maniacally and pointed to the wallpaper on his computer. “It say, ‘Thailand will be destroyed and Pattani will rise.’” Again he laughed his hellish laugh and we took our leave, Abu Nour and its environs now seeming to me like some rabbit warren of extras from a jihad film.

The next morning Tariq took me to the translation room of the mosque at Abu Nour, where you can listen to the sermons and prayers in a number of languages. On the way I confessed to him that I didn’t know how to pray. “No problem brother, we will teach you,” he said. We entered the great building with hundreds of other people. Tariq led me up a few flights of stairs on to a balcony, from where I could see hundreds of white caps below. I followed Tariq into an annexe where a handful of students were watching a sermon on television. Tariq sat me down next to a short, south Asian brother dressed in white. “Please brother, teach him to pray,” said Tariq, and with that he left. I greeted Mohammad, who turned out to be from Australia, and thanked him for his help as he passed me some headphones. When the sermon had finished, he suggested that we do our ablutions.

I followed Mohammad into the washing area. He taught me how to wash Islamically: my hands up to my elbows, my face, a portion of my hair and my feet up to my ankles. He seemed to notice that I was less diligent than he was, and he said, quietly: “The Prophet used to do it three times.” When we returned to the translation room, a few robed, bearded figures had come on to the stage. Mohammad whispered to me that Abu Nour often had guest speakers, and that today they had the grand muftis of Syria and Bosnia, as well as the Syrian minister of culture.

I put on my headphones and started to listen to an English translation of the words of Salah Kuftaro, director of the university and son of the former grand mufti. His speech, like those that followed—except for the grand mufti of Bosnia, who preached the need for understanding—was all incendiary politics. Each time the formula was the same: Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and moderation, they would say (as if answering a counter-claim); a reference to the glory of the Islamic past and the need to guard against the enemies of Islam; then a congratulation to the present regime for doing so. Kuftaro finished by saying: “It is easy to get depressed in these times, to see the forces against Islam. The Islamic world is fragmented and divided. It is so because of the west and the influence of its ideas. First they rob us economically, then they rob our land, and once they have done that, they rob us culturally.”

After he had finished, we prayed. I had a rough idea of what to do and managed to get by without drawing too much attention to myself. When it was over, I was introduced to some of the brothers from Britain and America. Mohammad suggested I join them at the Kentucky Fried Chicken that evening, but I declined. As I walked back through the souk, I felt drained. The speeches had been so full of grievance, so closed to the idea of real reconciliation. I knew that in a country where the discussion of politics is forbidden, the mosques were the only outlet for these issues, but I still wondered why the preachers were so reliant on confrontation to get the message across.

I spent several days meeting privately with some of the people I had met at the mosque, trying to understand what had made them give up their lives in the west and turn to Islam. Simplicity, clearing away the clutter of modern life, was a big theme. Completeness was another: a single divine philosophy managing every aspect of life and conduct. Routine was another still: praying and fasting ordered the mayhem. And identity: feeling part of a universal brotherhood where other identities had failed. There were brothers like Fuad, a British Asian from Doncaster who had escaped his corporate job in Bristol to come to Abu Nour. “It was so grey,” he said. “The drive to work every morning, operating on mechanised time, arriving to find you have 200 emails. I realised that to succeed in that world, in the corporation, you had to serve the corporation. And for what? For money? Instead I chose to submit to something true, something with meaning.” There were many like Fuad.

Since arriving in Istanbul three months earlier, beginning a journey through the Dar al-Islam—land of the believers—that would also take me back to my own long-obscured Islamic roots in Pakistan, I had seen how Islamic “completeness” informed ideas of language, science and history. Khaldun, my Arabic teacher in Damascus, who was desperate to move to America or Britain to convey the word of Muhammad, showed me how Islam lived even in the pages of his English-language textbook. He pointed to a small multiple-choice exercise in which the author had suggested that in order not to be rude, it was better to say someone was not handsome rather than that he was ugly, or to say that someone was not interesting rather than that he was boring. “See,” he shouted, “this is like Islam! English is a moral language.” Zahir, the translator of the Friday sermon at Abu Nour, had shown me how science came from the Koran. Nadir, my guide and translator, showed me that history itself came from Islam. In a frustrated moment, he said: “We used to have a great history. Not before Islam of course, but since.” By “we” he meant Syrians, who a mile away had founded the Christian church, and who, a millennium before that, had invented the alphabet.

“This land has had a great history for thousands of years that pre-dates Islam,” I said.

“Yes,” Nadir answered, “an immoral history.”

I had never heard of such a thing, but Nadir’s idea, like Khaldun’s, was part of Islam’s all-encompassing nature. If you had it, you needed nothing else. “If I find one thing,” Nadir said, “one thing that the Koran doesn’t cover, I will renounce the faith.” But Nadir could never find that one thing because Islam served as the source of everything. Unlike Even, I was beginning to feel that this, not the hedonism of the west, was the real problem of limits.

It was during these disheartening discussions with Syrians and visitors alike that I saw Isak again. We arranged to have lunch in the old city, in a restaurant that had once been a stable. I brought Ella, and Isak was with Chad. I hadn’t seen Isak since that time outside the real estate office. His friendly face, supported by a physical and emotional solidity, made him the sort of person people like to trust. Seeing Isak, I had a thought I’d had before: he would make such a good priest.

“Does studying theology usually lead to a career in the Norwegian church?” I asked him.

“Yes, after the MA, which includes a year of training, you become eligible to join the church,” he said.

“Is that a route you plan to take?” Ella asked.

“Yes, well, actually…” he said, and then turned to Chad with a coy smile, as if about to make a confession of love for his friend, asking, “I can tell them, right?”

Chad shrugged his shoulders. “It’s up to you…”

“Actually,” Isak said, turning to Ella and me, “I’ve become more interested in Islam.”

“What has interested you?” I said.

“The fact that it handles politics more openly,” he answered. This aspect of Islam was precisely what was putting me off, but Isak felt that in the over-secularised environment of Europe, the church had lost its role as a forum on political issues. “Islam,” he continued, “discusses politics more honestly.” He also emphasised that he liked the prayers five times a day, that the faith had a tangible quality and ruled over all aspects of its adherents’ lives. I had heard this a million times before, but never from a potential priest and someone used to the vast freedoms of Scandinavia.

So great was Isak’s passion about Islam that Ella finally asked: “Would you think of converting?”

“I am actually in the process now,” came the reply.

I was sure the seductions of Semeya had played some part in this, although Chad assured me later that this was not the case. As I spoke more to Isak, he mentioned travelling to Palestine years ago on an inter-faith trip with Muslims and being struck by the passion of their belief. It was exactly this aspect that worried me about Isak’s conversion. I felt that it was Norway rather than the Abu Nour side of Syria that had found the proper role in life for faith. While the passion and fervour of deep faith attracted Isak, it unnerved me.

I asked what his parents thought about his conversion and he said they didn’t know yet. But his mother had returned to Norway from Syria with “sparkles” in her eyes. “It’s not like the politicians and press want us to believe,” she had told people back home.

“What isn’t? Syria or Islam?” I asked.

“Both,” Isak replied.

There was something touching about the openness of his thinking, his willingness to take on belief. More than he knew, the open society he had lived in had shaped his thinking and made the conversion possible. Yet had it been too open? Too diffident? So much so that he now wanted to embrace its opposite?

I asked him if he was worried that his faith would diminish once he was out of an Islamic environment. It was hard to imagine the ritual ablutions among the pubs and wooden Lutheran churches of Fredvang, his fishing village in Norway. “Well, I’ll pray five times a day,” he answered. “And I’ll have the Koran.”

I knew he meant it, yet I felt that Islam was so public a religion, so exacting in its control of the physical details of everyday life, that in distant, cold Norway, with no sound of the muezzin for miles, it would be harder to find the direction to Mecca. I saw Isak as a friend by now, and feared it would all lead to an ugly outcome: hysteria, breakdown, a loss of faith.

The next (and last) time I saw Isak, it was for lunch at my flat. The cartoon furore was brewing up and a Norwegian paper had just printed the images. Isak was critical of the paper’s decision. He said the publication was a small religious rag with a tiny circulation, one they scoffed at in Norway, and that its decision had less to do with free speech than with circulation.

Isak stayed with me most of the afternoon and we spoke again about his conversion. He said the most significant obstacle was a question on the nature of Christ. The Muslims treat him as a great prophet, and give him the title of Ruhollah, or spirit of God, but do not accept that he was the son of God and died for our sins. I said that purely for aesthetic reasons it would be sad to lose that story. Isak replied, “No Muslim could accept that Christ was the son of God because to them God is a flawless entity. He doesn’t come upon the earth and experience, hunger, poverty and death.” It was a conversation for which I had little training. My concern was that the faith—not the precepts but the feeling of faith, and its limitless quality in Islamic society—was overrunning Isak’s careful theological training. He admitted, “Lately, from friends and people I’ve been talking to, I’ve had more influence from the Islamic side. I feel like a split personality.”

The next day, the cartoons were the subject of the Friday sermon from the pulpit of almost every mosque in Syria. Even and I returned to the translation room at Abu Nour. From below, Kuftaro was speaking: “The Europeans are using all their power to destroy our faith. It is our Islamic duty to boycott all goods from these countries.” He compared Islam’s situation today to its situation in 7th-century Arabia, where it was also beset and surrounded by enemies. Not once did Kuftaro make any distinction between the papers that had published the cartoons and the countries themselves. “When our sanctity is oppressed,” Kuftaro continued, “we will sacrifice our souls, spirits and bodies for you, O Prophet.”

Even and I looked nervously at each other. It was chilling to think of identical sermons taking place throughout the country, attended by so many people. Demonstrations were now taking place every day outside various European embassies in Damascus.

After the sermon, brother Rafik, an African-American from Florida who had once told me to listen to the ringing in my heart that is Islam, defended the sermon. “Well they got their response, didn’t they?” he said. “If it’s response they wanted, they have it. There are men sitting on their embassies with AK-47s.” I questioned weakly whether threats and violence were a fitting response to what was indeed a provocation, but one within parameters western liberals considered legitimate.

“Yes, but who gave you that right, if not God himself?” brother Rafik replied. It was hopeless; he had yielded entirely to scripture.

Even and I went back to his house and he prepared lunch for a few friends. We had barely finished eating when we heard the next stage of “the response.”

“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet,” rang out from the pavement below. We opened the window and saw that a small but fierce crowd of about 100 people, consisting of women in headscarves, children, old and middle-aged men and youths, was marching under the green banner of Islam in the direction of the French embassy. Some women from the crowd who caught sight of us on the balcony gestured to the girls to cover their heads. Even and I raced downstairs to see the demonstration.

If we hadn’t known what the context was, it would have been hard to make out the cause of the demonstrators. Their chanting, though strong and angry, was simple and repetitive: “Muhammad is the Prophet of God” again and again. The women who chanted had tears running down their cheeks and the message was so simple that a small child on someone’s shoulders led them in their divine slogans. His shrill voice raised their temperature and some at the front of the crowd began to scuffle with the police standing in front of the embassy. They pushed harder against the line of police, but they didn’t have enough momentum or mass to break it. One demonstrator threw some garbage at its steep concrete walls.

It was pathetic to see this crowd with its one slogan yelling angrily at an edifice that did not answer back. It was all they had understood of the situation, all they had been told: the enemies of Islam had directed an offence against them and it was their Islamic duty to respond. They knew nothing of the modern systems from which the provocation had emerged nor how to distinguish between the institutions that were accountable and those that were not.

Suddenly a Syrian friend of Even’s appeared from the crowd. The man had been part of the demonstration, which had gone from the Danish embassy to the French. He was in a state of exhilaration, laughing and joking at Even being a Norwegian. We followed him deeper into the crowd, but they were pushing against the police line again and I stopped. Even and his friend went closer to the front.

Then with no warning, the friend turned around and addressed the crowd. “This is my friend. He is a Norwegian and a good man.” A menacing silence came over the crowd. I feared for Even’s safety. The friend picked Even up on his shoulders and said: “Speak for your country.” Even, if he was scared, showed no sign of it. He took in the crowd for an instant and then addressed them in Arabic. “This is just an embassy,” he said, in a loud clear voice. “It is not actually the country. This incident is the result of lack of understanding. We need to understand each other better. Then we will have the chance to live in togetherness and we can show proper respect to you. Inshallah, Inshallah, Inshallah.” The crowd roared in approval and someone shouted, “He accepts Islam.”

Addressing an angry crowd in a language that was not his own was an achievement for Even in itself, but the message that had come so simply to him was far

Pictures: Basel Abazeed

beyond anything the crowd had come up with. His message was full of diffidence and sympathy, keen not to blame but to comprehend. In the west such words would be clichéd; in the Arab world Even’s statement resounded with freshness.

We went back to Even’s house afterwards with his Syrian friend. “I wish I could have said more,” said Even, the adrenaline still strong in his voice. “I didn’t have the words. What I really wanted to say was, ‘We know you’re angry, but we still don’t know why.’”

We knew still less the next day, because the feeling of faith had broken its banks and submerged its own precepts. Even walked with the crowd that set fire to his own embassy. Pretending to be a Swede, manhandled and accused, at one stage he feared the crowd would turn on him. Teargassed by the police, he sought refuge with the wounded in a mosque. But when he returned to my flat, the detail that had impressed itself on him was that the crowd had prayed in the street before attacking the embassy, crying, “Our soul, our blood, kind and gentle is our Prophet.”

Some of the Norwegians of Damascus were to have a dinner that night, but it was cancelled as the rioting continued into the evening. As the news made its way across the world, Norway announced it was evacuating its citizens. By 4am, the first planes had started to leave. It was sad. I knew many of them. They were the best of the international lot: the majority had come with an idea of public service and they were the most keen to be part of Syrian life. Even decided to stay. He felt he had many Syrian friends who would protect him should things get ugly. Isak also wanted to stay, but his parents disagreed. The next morning he called me to say that he was leaving within the hour because of fears for his security. “I’m sure things will be fine in Damascus,” he said apologetically, “but now there’s this small, 1 per cent doubt in my mind