irshaddering thoughts

Faith Without Fear launches Muslim film festival

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road, Announcements on Apr 14, 2008

Scene from “Faith Without Fear” showing me in a Yemeni classroom

Tonight in Boston, there won’t be a tea party.  But there will be an event that’s revolutionary in its own way: the American Islamic Congress is launching its first ever Muslim Film Festival — and my documentary, Faith Without Fear, kicks it off.

The festival highlights “think different women.” That means women on the front lines of reform, from Lebanon to Darfur. Featured films star Muslim female karate champions, women running for political office in Iran and Afghanistan, and Senegalese women using hip-hop as a way to transcend tribal politics. Fierce.

The American Islamic Congress is a civil rights organization working to end negative perceptions about Muslims. But not by playing victim. Instead, the AIC demands that Muslims lead by example. They recognize that we Muslims must champion social justice and pluralism within our own communities –- even at great personal risk.

Because the American Islamic Congress practices moral courage, I happily accepted their invitation to launch this year’s festival with my doc.

Faith Without Fear is being screened tonight at 6:30 pm at Boston University. I also invite you to stick around for the post-film discussion. Taking your questions on Muslim reform and moral courage will be Raquel Evita Saraswati, the coordinator of my charitable foundation, Project Ijtihad.

The event is free and open to the public. Click here for more information.

And to whet your appetite, watch selected clips of Faith Without Fear on my official YouTube channel.

In the spirit of the festival, thank you for thinking.

Human rights in MLK’s time and ours

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Apr 07, 2008

As we continue to remember the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago, there’s another murder to memorialize: that of an Iraqi Kurd named Du’a Khalil.

It’s been one year since the 17-year-old girl was stripped and stoned to death for seeing a Sunni boy, her body buried with the remains of a dog. Family members helped snuff her out, with a handful of relatives being arrested for their active involvement.

They weren’t alone: Her attackers number upwards of 1,000.
Equally sickening, bystanders recorded the assaults on their video phones. What I find evil is not they recorded it — I am, after all, linking to a snippet of the video — but that they stood by.

To be sure, hundreds of Iraqi citizens protested the killing of Du’a. Hundreds. Less than the number of individuals who butchered this young woman.

Still, for deadly silences to be shattered and public conversations to be sparked, all it ever takes is a handful of morally courageous individuals. Margaret Mead, the famed anthropologist, affirmed this of many societies when she observed that “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

So God bless the handful of global citizens at the International Campaign Against Honour Killings, who have announced April 7th a day to remember Du’a Khalil. It’s not just about Du’a; it’s about thousands more women in Arab and Muslim communities whose cultural puritans force them into shame, duplicity and, sometimes, pre-mature death.

If the perverse phenomenon of honor crimes is new to you, I strongly urge learning about it. Let me be your guide. To demystify the tribal concept of “honor,” I’ve blogged about the case of a Saudi gang-rape victim here and here.

Lest anyone assume that these indignities don’t happen in the West, check out my TV interview about Aqsa Parvez, the Muslim-Canadian teenager whose father has confessed to strangling her for the sake of his family’s reputation. In all but name, that’s an honor killing.

I’ve also blogged about how self-defined “progressive” non-Muslims contribute to such injustices by tolerating the intolerable for the sake of cultural “sensitivity.” Read this commentary.

Finally, for more analysis of cultural relativism, the ideology that states we can’t question abuses of power if they take place in societies other than our own, click here and here.

All of which brings me back to Martin Luther King Jr. I believe he would have openly supported the effort to end honor killings.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written 45 years ago this month, Rev. King warned that “we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

He added that the greatest barrier to equality is not the transparent bigot, but the “tepid liberal.” By that, MLK meant the person who fancies himself progressive but who prefers “negative peace,” or the absence of tension, over “positive peace,” or the presence of justice.

A life-and-death distinction in any struggle for human rights, in any generation.

Here it is — in Arabic

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Apr 04, 2008

Al-Arabiya.net, one of the most popular news sources in the Middle East, has just published the Arabic translation of my take on Fitna, Geert Wilders’ anti-Quran film.

Here’s the English original, also posted by Al-Arabiya. Don’t forget to read some of the comments under the article. They’re revealing and often quite funny.

I must congratulate Al-Arabiya.net for having the guts to run my words. This isn’t the first time. Last year they posted a piece I wrote about Salman Rushdie.

And probably the most comprehensive interview I’ve done with any media outlet, anywhere, was with — you guessed it — Al-Arabiya.net.

There’s hope for moral courage. There’s hope.

“Fitna” gives freedom of expression a bad name

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Apr 02, 2008

Here’s my review of Geert Wilders’ film, “Fitna,” published by the Washington Post and Newsweek magazine. Under the article is a section for comments.  I welcome yours.

Heresies, misfits and a film called Fitna

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road on Mar 29, 2008

Wait! Before you send me another link to Geert Wilders’ film, Fitna, let me assure you that I get the hint. You want me to watch it. I now have. And you want me to comment on it. I soon will. Check this space over the coming days for my review.

Meanwhile, I’m in Atlanta, ground zero of America’s civil rights movement. Atlanta could also become a crucible for Islam’s burgeoning reform movement.

This weekend, Muslim misfits are convening here to participate in “A Celebration of Heresy: Critical Thinking for Islamic Reform.” Yep, we proudly deem ourselves heretics — dissidents who work from inside the traditions of Islam. As our conference’s website declares:

Any dissenting idea against the prevailing religious traditions is generally considered heresy. Jesus was accused of heresy by the Jewish high council and handed over to the occupying Romans to be executed. Abraham was thrown into a fiery furnace for heresy, but saved by God. Muhammad, who criticized “the way of their fathers” — slavery, aggression, financial exploitation, racism and xenophobia — was a dangerous heretic according to the tribal courts of Mecca… Heretical ideas have tested the tolerance of a society and in many cases have created the fuel of progress, particularly in the area of religion.

Our conference opened on Friday night. To my ears, the most powerful sentiments came from Fereydoun Taslimi, an Iranian-American who helped created the Noor Foundation. In Arabic, “noor” means “light.”

How fitting for a Muslim misfit. According to Taslimi, “dissent is an act of faith… Discussing abuses of power in Islam does not make Islam inferior to any of the other religions. On the contrary, it shows that we have a level of confidence in our beliefs that allows us to confront these issues squarely and constructively.”

To the inevitable critics, he offered this gem: The Quran tells us that you shall not accept any information unless you verify it for yourself (17:36).

This means relying on lived experience as much as on scholarly theories. Since the conference participants come from around the world — Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada, America, Trinidad and India — lived experiences will differ. Therefore, interpretations will too.

That’s as it should be if we’re going to replace intellectual conformity with diversity of thought in the practice of Islam. What binds us all is a rejection of religious violence and a commitment to freedom of expression.

So how would we deal with the film, Fitna? I don’t yet know, but I hope we debate such things over the weekend.

At the conference opening, a Dutch delegate reported that the debut of Wilders’ movie was “a flop.” He promised to share more with us on Saturday. You can follow the conference LIVE.

As for my own take on Fitna? Coming soon.

Read about the morally courageous intellectual who inspired this heresy conference.

Who are you… not to be unique?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Q & A on Mar 26, 2008

Tonight at New York University, I’m delivering a speech called “Faith Without Fear: Moral Courage in an Age of Conformity.” I’ll be discussing how ordinary people can develop the permission to defy orthodoxy in their own communities.

You got a sneak preview of the speech in my previous post. I pointed out that jealous, lazy or frustrated types often silence mavericks with the subtle sneer, “Who the hell are you?” Instead of challenging their personal insecurities (which would require honesty, God forbid), they’ll take the lazy route of making you feel insufficient.

Socrates and Einstein didn’t buy that age-old ploy. Why should you?

The point resonated. A sample of your comments:

* “I’m an Asian-American who never, ever wanted to do what all the ‘clever’ brown girls are supposed to, which is become physicians, attorneys and of course wives. Ever since childhood I’ve been asking myself, ‘Who the hell am I to think differently?’ You answered by reminding us all about self-educated, supposedly un-credentialed renegades like Socrates, Spinoza, Einstein, Rosa and Obama.

I’m now inspired to challenge some of my community’s prejudices, especially about women. But I know I’ll get backlash. It’s inevitable, right? Can you throw me a few more scraps to fortify my backbone?” - Priya

* “As a woman in a world where there’s so much negativity thrown at you, how do you find strength to not internalize it? Any pearls of wisdom you can offer other women living in similar worlds? I and my female colleagues are waiting with bated breathe for your response.” - Daniela, MA, CHRP

You betcha, babes.

First, here’s an excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s final sermon, entitled “The Drum Major Instinct”:

“If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.

That’s a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.

You don’t have have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.

You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”

Now, how do you cultivate the confidence to be “great” when you’re not perfect — that is, when you know that your subject and verb won’t always agree?

I say, understand your fear in order to transcend it. Marianne Williamson nails this point in a counter-intuitive way:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

My advice: Put these sentiments into your own words so that you’re expressing a personal manifesto of moral courage. When they’re authentic, words won’t fail you. They’re already in you.

Go get ‘em — the words. And the world.

Learn more about the Moral Courage Project, which I’m directing at New York University.

The “who the hell are you?” hand grenade

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road on Mar 23, 2008

Packing the hall to discuss Islam and democracy at Syracuse U. (Photo: David Medeiros)

Maybe it was the full house. Or the hot lights. Or my multi-media approach. Then again, it could have been my deliberate use of humor to make difficult conversations less threatening and more engaging for people of varied backgrounds.

Whatever the reason, I recently got scolded at Syracuse University. There, during a sold-out screening of my film, the chair of religion accused me of putting on a “rock star” performance.

Frankly, I took that as a compliment. After all, the topic was “Islam and Democracy: Do They Have a Prayer?” How could I be elitist in communicating the potential to reconcile Islam and democracy? As a faithful Muslim and an observant democrat, wouldn’t I have integrity showing that scholarship should be accessible to ordinary people?

Not to my critic, who complained about never having been invited to appear on CNN. Bingo! In alleging that I’m a “rock star,” she meant to dismiss my credibility. The esteemed professor succeeded in revealing her own snobbery.

Over years of advocating for Muslim reform, I’ve noticed that frustrated academics silence reform-minded Muslims by hurling the “who-the-hell-are-you?” hand grenade. Funny thing is, history abounds with individuals who had no legitimacy in established circles but who pressed forward.

Socrates is a screaming example. His refusal to shrink and slink away ultimately produced a student known as Plato. Not bad for a self-educated lover of questions.

Then there’s Baruch Spinoza, among the greatest modern voices of religious toleration. If we can applaud him for being banished from Holland’s Jewish community by the rabbis, we can be equally impressed that he worked as a grinder of glass.

Closer to our own time, consider Albert Einstein. For years, he toiled as a patent clerk but didn’t let that stop him from publishing some of his scientific masterpieces. Self-appointed arbiters of authority dismissed Einstein at first.

Maybe my favorite example of maverick legitimacy is Rosa Parks, who stayed in her seat on a bus when a white man told her to move back. She didn’t defy him out of naivete; she’d calculated her decision for maximum moral impact. You could call her a tactician extraordinaire.

And who was Rosa, anyway? A seamstress. A tailor’s assistant. By today’s career standards, a veritable nobody. Yet a simple and strategic act of conscience, animated by a love of justice, made her the mother of America’s civil rights movement.

At Rosa’s funeral, another “unqualified” upstart spoke. His name is Barack Obama.

Which brings me back to the struggle of reform-minded Muslims today. I’m by no means the only one who faces the who-the-hell-are-you hand grenade. So does Zia Sardar, a British Muslim, journalist and public intellectual who blogs about the Qur’an from his liberal point of view.

Not long ago, Sardar responded to a fellow Muslim who accused him of lacking the proper tools and thus interpreting the Qur’an for “mere five minutes of fame.” Sardar’s response should be read fully; here’s a taste:

“In the end, the issue of authority comes down to power and territory. For too long, a group of narrow-minded, ill-educated elite have usurped the power to comment on the Qur’an and defended this territory with the rhetoric of fire and brimstone. It is time ordinary Muslims took this power back to where it belongs: with all Muslims, whatever their background, whatever their state of knowledge…

Rather than being told what to think, concerned Muslims everywhere need to get back to the religious duty of actively participating in interpretation — which can only come from lively debate.”

Supposedly inclusive professors can be no less dogmatic than puritan imams in defining the limits of legitimate conversation, let alone debate. As the chair of religion at Syracuse U announced, I’ve undone “decades” of scholarship in a 45-minute appearance!

While thrilled to wield such power, I’d rather use it to ask a question: Who needs conservative mullahs when you’ve got the progressive priests of academe?

But there I go again believing I’m allowed to question. She might wonder what gives me the right to speak. I wonder what gives me the responsibility not to.

View the entire video of my rock star performance.

Agent of moral courage: Barack Obama

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Mar 19, 2008

In planning for this blog entry, I had a different Agent of Moral Courage picked out. Wrote my post, polished the points, checked the links and timed the draft to go live shortly.

Then Barack Obama opened his big mouth. And moral courage poured out.

Responding to the media frenzy over his former pastor’s racially charged rage about the United States, Senator Obama did better than “denounce and reject” (the standard demand made of any candidate whose supporters offend others).

Instead, he spoke truth to power within his community — first his Black community and then his wider American community — for the sake of a greater good. My favorite excerpt from yesterday’s speech:

“For the African-American community, that path [to a more perfect union] means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.

But it also means binding our particular grievances — for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs — to the larger aspirations of all Americans: the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who’s been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.

And it means taking full responsibility for own lives by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American — and yes, conservative — notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

What we know, what we have seen, is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation.”

‘Nuff said.

Why did I pre-empt a lesser-known Agent of Moral Courage for someone who’s being blogged about everywhere? Because to catch on, moral courage needs high-profile practitioners. Their example permits more of us to defy dogma.

If a faithful Christian can dare to challenge his religious mentor, risk alienating the congregation to which he belongs, push “his people” to accept responsibility for their ills, empathize with the anger of all sides, and throw in a respectful nod to the ideological Other - in this case, conservatives - all the while chasing votes from proud liberals, then we’re left with one question:

Now that a politician is exercising moral courage, what excuse do the rest of have not to?

Join the debate about this post at my MySpace page.

Moral Courage Project: the launch

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Mar 14, 2008

Wish you were there! Here are photographic highlights, excerpts from my opening statement, some of the blog coverage and memorable words that one guest jotted on his blackberry…

Excerpts from my opening statement:

Robert F. Kennedy observed, “Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society.

Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

So, as Bobby Kennedy understood, moral courage is the willingness to risk backlash from your own community as you pursue a greater, common, good.

Here at NYU’s School of Public Service, we believe that developing moral courage is as urgent as it’s ever been — and possibly more so.

Why do I say “more so”? Because we live in a time of identity politics, when it’s relatively easy for angry individuals to point fingers at the outside world and blame others for their own community’s ills.

Far more dangerous, emotionally and sometimes physically, to call out injustice within your group and thereby upset your seemingly natural allies.

The Moral Courage Project addresses one of the great leadership challenges of our time: to transcend the us-versus-them polarity of identity politics. We need to bust out of that polarity because the world’s problems are too complex for dichotomies that diminish us.

We know that avoiding introspection produces dishonest results — a dishonesty that infects human relations, skews public policies and censors talent from which communities would otherwise grow.

It’s because we see this dishonesty everywhere that the Moral Courage Project intends to teach, mentor and engage heretics everywhere. Future events will feature dissident Christians, politically incorrect feminists, whistle-blowing Jews, queer gays (meaning gays and lesbians who challenge the cozy consensus of their movements), self-critical African-Americans, maverick Hispanics and even renegade Republicans!

But I can’t imagine a more worthy champion of moral courage with whom to introduce this project than Professor Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im.

He’s an exile from Sudan, a reform-minded Muslim and the intellectual force behind an upcoming conference called “A Celebration of Heresy: Critical Thinking for Islamic Reform.” Now that’s chutzpah.

We hope you’ll apply tonight’s lessons to your own lives.

Some guests made notes of the lessons — in real time — via their blackberries. A sample of what one young man took away from the event:

> Every orthodoxy started as heresy.

> Heresy is rejuvenation, a source of innovation.

> A man can fail many times, but he is not a failure until he starts blaming others for the failures.

> Religion is a personal experience.

> A state must be secular for a society to be religious.

> When a state enforces Shari’a, they are enforcing law. That is different from a personal commitment.

> “We need a secular state to be better Muslims.”

> Conflict is creative, violence is destructive.

> I seek to challenge, I expect to be resisted (hopefully not overwhelmingly). If I’m not resisted I’m not relevant.

> Ppl will defer to true piety but that is a social act, not a political act.

> There may have been a role for clerics when most could not read, but now that role has passed… like the unions.

> Those who attack violently are declaring their impotence at participating in the discussion, at responding to the ideas on the table.

> “Islamo-fascist” is itself a fascist use of the term. If someone is fascist and also Muslim then they are fascist, period.

> A heretic counters a point of view from within tradition; an infidel does not speak from the voice of tradition.

> I can cease being Muslim, but I can’t cease being human.

Finally, the blogosphere weighs in from different corners of the globe (and various corners of the room!):

* Ali Eteraz

* Political Mavens

* The Sudanese Thinker

* Some Swedish dude

Intrigued enough to learn more about the Moral Courage Project? Maybe even get involved? Here you go.

I love your guts

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Feb 26, 2008

“Ask and ye shall receive,” they say.  Earlier this month, I asked you to get more involved in our mission of Muslim reform and moral courage. How? By signing the petition against death threats.

Your signatures are coming from all over the world: Algeria, Nigeria, Indonesia, India, Argentina, Pakistan, New Zealand, Poland, Finland, Italy… Here’s the up-to-date list of signatories and places from which they originate.

Thank you, my dear readers, for having guts. Courage is contagious, and your boldness will surely inspire others once they know about it.

In that spirit, I’m now asking you to circulate the link to our petition against death threats.  Tell your friends, families and mailing lists why you signed.  Feel free to share with them my February 14 and February 18 blog entries.  Help them understand what the stakes are and why they should add their names to the roster of those who defend universal human rights, freedom of conscience and pluralism of peaceful ideas.

You’ve proven that Muslim reformists are not alone. It’s time to prove that all of us have even more allies, Muslim and not.

Do your thing.

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