irshaddering thoughts

Dalai Lama offends China - should the world compromise?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 17, 2007

I love the idea of global interdependence. It’s long been my belief that our challenge today is not to decide who owns what identity but to decide what we all owe each other.

That’s why, as a best-selling author who lives in an open society, I’ve used my privileges to post free translations of my book on this website for those who don’t have access to it because of censorship.

But interdependence is not a panacea. It generates problems of its own. Put simply, the more interdependent countries are, the more offense they take at statements about the need for human rights.

Case in point: China’s reaction to the fact the Dalai Lama has just received the Congressional Gold Medal. Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader couldn’t have been more humble or conciliatory in his acceptance speech — but that’s not going to stop China from threatening retaliation.

Hints abound that Beijing will undermine US-EU efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Or that it will sabotage peace talks in Darfur. (Like we could ever count on Chinese leaders to support real peace in oil-rich Sudan. Please.)

As I write this, another case of offense is Turkey’s response to the Armenian genocide bill introduced in the US Congress. Turkey has lobbied feverishly against American legislation that declares the early 20th-century slaughter of Armenians to be a genocide.

More than merely protest with words, Turkey is promising to block its borders to US war planners, who desperately need Ankara onboard so they can move troops and equipment in and out of Iraq.

Not only has the Bush administration sided with Turkey (surprise!), but key Democrats in Congress are also withdrawing their support for the anti-genocide bill. “Too inflammatory to the Muslim world at this fragile time,” they now say. Odd. These same lawmakers didn’t think so a week ago. What changed?

Nothing more than Turkey’s outrage — and in an interdependent world, that translates into the need for self-censorship for the sake of conserving your allies.

Normally, I’d understand the strategic value of restraint. But on matters of basic human rights, no way. A genocide is a genocide is a genocide. End of story.

President Bush didn’t let China’s fuming stop him from attending today’s ceremony for the Dalai Lama. Why, then, should Democrats be bullied into conformity by furious Turkey or an enfeebled White House? I know: Iraq. But as House speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued on ABC News, “Some of what harms our troops relate to values — Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture. Our troops are well-served when we declare who we are as a country, and we declare it to the rest of the world.”

Global interdependence is great. Until it becomes an excuse for cow-towing to cowards.

Nobel committee’s brilliant choice, and I don’t mean Gore

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 15, 2007

I mean Doris Lessing, winner of the latest Nobel prize in literature. What makes Lessing such a compelling writer is that she’s an exemplar of moral courage — the willingness to break silences within your own community for the sake of a greater good.

A Londoner born in Persia and raised in Southern Rhodesia, Lessing once gave a series of lectures in my city of Toronto. Later published under the provocative title Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, those lectures turned me on to the force of her thinking.

Notice the word “choose” in her title. We’re not mere victims of our past, Lessing insists. We have the option - each of us - to be informed by cultural, ethnic, creedal and religious traditions without being bullied by them.

And who is “we?” That’s the beauty of Lessing. She refuses to play favorites. Women and men, whites and blacks, oppressors and self-styled liberators must be held to the same standard of conduct. Otherwise, justice has no integrity.

Let me illustrate by quoting directly from Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. First, she takes on the thought-police of her own “white” tribe:

I was brought up in a country where a small white minority dominated a black majority. In old Southern Rhodesia the white attitudes towards the blacks were extreme: prejudiced, ugly, ignorant. More to the point, these attitudes were assumed to be unchallengeable and unalterable, though the merest glance at history would have told them (and many of them were educated people) that it was inevitable their rule would pass, that their certitudes were temporary.

But it was not permissible for any member of this white minority to disagree with them. Anybody who did faced immediate ostracism; they had to change their minds, shut up, or get out. While the white regime lasted - ninety years, which is nothing in historical terms - a dissident was a heretic and traitor.

Typical authoritarianism of the Right, right? Lessing then exposes the same abusive traits on the Left:

A few months after the start of the miners’ strike in Britain, in 1984, just when it was moving into its second, more violent phase, a miner’s wife came on television to tell her story. Her husband had been on strike for months and they had no money. While he supported the union, and agreed there should have been a strike, he thought [union leader] Arthur Scargill had led the strike badly. Along with a minority, he had gone back to work.

A gang of miners had broken this couple’s windows, smashed up the inside of their house, and beaten the man. The woman said she knew who these men were. They were friends. She could not believe that decent folk could have done such a thing.

Ah, writes Lessing, but welcome to our eminently human impulse for dividing the world between us and them. Not only will supposed friends turn on you when the pack demands it, but you should expect them to. She warns:

If you are a member of a close-knit community, you know you differ from this community’s ideas at the risk of being seen as a no-goodnik, a criminal, an evil-doer. This is an absolutely automatic process; nearly everyone in such situations behaves automatically.

So where’s hope? Exactly with the “no-goodniks, the criminals, the evil-doers.” That is, with the handful of heretics who engage in self-criticism. I’m highlighting her words for good measure:

There is always the minority who do not behave automatically, and it seems to me that our future, the future of everybody, depends on this minority. We should be thinking of ways to educate our children to strengthen this minority and not, as we mostly do now, to revere the pack.

Music to my reformist Muslim ears! Teaching the need for moral courage - the choice to become a smeared minority , to transcend tribalism, to prefer the common good - is exactly what I’ll soon be doing at New York University.

If you want to know more about the Moral Courage Project that I’ll be initiating and directing, go the GET UPDATES box on the right-hand side of this page and join my confidential mailing list.

A final note: The New York Times recently re-printed a 1992 op-ed by Lessing in which she skewers political correctness not just among anti-communists, but also among anti-racists and feminists.

That’s who the Nobel committee chose as this year’s winner in literature. Proof, perhaps, that there is a God.

Happy Eid to the cartoonists of the world

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 13, 2007

At the end of Ramadhan, the Muslim month of fasting, my childhood memories have me dressing in a fine shalwar kameez, attending the mosque, comparing my crazy combo of colors to that of the other girls, and finally - oooh, mama - receiving a bowl of pudding in which foil-wrapped coins floated about. We kiddies could search for the bounty, consider ourselves rewarded for astronomical gastronomical sacrifice, and not resent the Catholics for their Easter egg hunts.

How we didn’t wind up choking on the coins, only Allah knows. Sorry Christopher Hitchens but God is, indeed, great.

Now, as an adult, what can I expect on Eid? Try a cartoon of myself, courtesy of a reader from the Philippines:

You can rest assured I won’t be starting a riot over this cartoon. Nor will I goad my many fans in al-Qaeda to put a bounty on the cartoonist’s head for suggesting that all Muslims sit improperly on our prayer rugs. In fact, I appreciate the depiction of me quietly reflecting.

If you’ve watched my documentary, Faith Without Fear, you know my mother would love this image too. “If only she would pray,” mother confides to camera about daughter, “I’d be such a happy mom.” But, ma, I do pray… just not the way you do.

Finally, the superfly — or super-fly-away — hair. That’s what transforms this cartoon into a caricature. Which makes me chuckle. It reminds me of the self-described moderate Muslim guy who wrote to say, “Irshad Manji, you lie so much about Islam that even your hair rises up in protest!” How do like it now, bro?

Eid Mubarak to one and all!

Critical thinking: a right (and duty) of all Muslims

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, On The Road on Oct 11, 2007

Last night’s sold-out film screening at NYU drew a number of young Muslims who are genuinely struggling with Islam. One girl cried in my arms. Another wrote these words to me:

As a devout (but not extremist) Muslim myself, your documentary Faith Without Fear really touched me deeply. I think that it is important for Muslims who are frustrated/oppressed by extremist Islam to know that it is ok to follow the faith that is within their souls. Muslims need to know that instead of abandoning their faith or Allah, they can and should turn to ijtihad.

“Ijtihad” is Islam’s tradition of critical thinking, debate and dissent. To restore this progressive tradition to the practice of Islam, I and other reform-minded Muslims have launched Project Ijtihad.

Of course, our critics are loud and legion. They insist that ijtihad can only be exercised by “scholars.” In that case, they ought to read a scholarly paper written by Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, Ph.D.  To download the paper, click here, then go to the “Read and Learn” box at the right-hand side of the page.

Dr. Abd-Allah points out that ijtihad is a “duty of the first magnitude” for ordinary Muslims and not just for the elites. Throughout Islamic history, says Dr. Abd-Allah:

“… even the common people were required to perform their own type of ijtihad by striving to discern the competence of individual scholars and selecting the best to follow, a principle emphatically asserted by the majority of Sunni and Shi’i scholars and their schools.”

Today, he suggests, Muslims in North America are well-poised to revive ijtihad on behalf of Muslims everywhere:

“Like our counterparts in Canada, considerable sectors of the American Muslim community, in contrast to many of our co-religionists in the European Union, are highly educated and constitute, per capita, one of the most talented and prosperous Muslim communities in the world. Moreover, American Muslims, at least for the time being, enjoy a relatively favorable socio-political context with extensive freedoms and political enfranchisement. Few Muslims in the world today are in a more advantageous position to comprehend the essence of modernity and post-modernity and to formulate new directions for ijtihad in keeping with the best traditions of Islamic thought and the imperatives of an interconnected pluralistic world.”

I concluded last night’s event with a similar sentiment: We ijtihadists aren’t asking our fellow Muslims to import a foreign tradition or an alien virtue into the faith. We’re reminding Muslims that Islam itself once exhibited a tradition of indie thinking.

What in God’s name are we doing with that tradition now?

Giving thanks is no heresy, you turkeys

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 08, 2007

In Canada, it’s Thanksgiving Day. You’d think that all people of faith would welcome a semi-spiritual moment in the West’s calendar.

But how does one Toronto-area mosque reportedly recognize this most harmless, even honourable, of holidays? By telling Muslims that we’re kuffar if we participate in Thanksgiving greetings and dinners.

Apart from being mean-spirited and absurd, this decree is highly ironic. After all, etymologically speaking, “kuffar” refers to someone who’s ungrateful to God.

So think about it: If we express gratitude to God on Thanksgiving, we’re kuffar - ungrateful to God. Huh? How does that work?

As I said in a recent radio interview, teachings like these only feed off the ignorance of newly arrived Muslim communities. We should question our imams and civic leaders. I, for one, am grateful that I’ve taken the opportunity to educate myself, which is a privilege we enjoy in free societies.

Tonight, as I break my fast, I’ll be praying that more of us Muslims distinguish between education and indoctrination. Ameen and pass the gravy, please.

Malay translation of my book

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Q & A on Oct 04, 2007

Among the exciting new features of this site is the Malay translation of my book, which you can download free of charge.

There’s a reason I’m bringing this to your attention. I’ve learned that Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Prime Minister of Malaysia, may be an ally of reform-minded Muslims. Badawi advocates Islam Hadhari – or Civilizational Islam. Rather than spouting the “leave-it-to-scholars” elitism that Muslim leaders so often promote, Badawi says that the “onus of delivery is on all of us” in brokering peace between Islam and the West. A good start.

Better still, in an address at New York University, Badawi calls for Muslim reform based on Islamic principles of justice, compassion, equality, peace, solidarity and pluralism. That last word, pluralism, is key. It means not just hand-holding multicultural jamborees, God help us. Pluralism also means diversity of ideas. Translation: discussion, debate and dissent. Islam can handle these things. Can more Muslims handle them?

I have faith that the answer is yes – which is why I’ve gotten my book translated in Malay. What I don’t understand is why publication of my book is prohibited in Malaysia, especially if Badawi is such an advocate for free thought. I sincerely invite Malaysian Muslims to explain the paradox. Please contact my office.

Memo to progressives re: Iran

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 02, 2007

In the upper right-hand corner of this website is a box of revolving images. One of those images shows young Iranian men being hanged for homosexuality. Immediately after it is the black-and-white image of an Iranian woman being buried alive and readied for a stoning. And in the online source notes of my book is a video, authenticated by Human Rights Watch, of a man in Iran being killed with fist-sized rocks. Such atrocities have only worsened under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Please - puhleez - read this searing commentary about the Iranian plight and fight for basic freedoms. It’s penned by my friend Payam Akhavan, a former UN war crimes prosecutor and now professor of international law at McGill U in Montreal. Admittedly short on concrete solutions (who can blame him?), the piece is blunt and breathtakingly articulate in its analysis.

Bottom line: Iranians deserve the support of all progressives who care more about loving human dignity than about hating the White House.

Is John McCain a bigot?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Oct 01, 2007

Republican presidential aspirant John McCain says that he prefers a Christian president to a Muslim one. Is he a bigot for making that choice — or, more to the point, for making it public? The short answer is no. At least no more of a bigot than any of us is.
           
When we vote for our political leaders, we’re wise to choose those who represent the values we hold dear. That’s rational. And that’s what McCain was trying to convey - albeit clumsily. Yes, I know he’s been sucking up to the religious right. But I don’t accuse him of pandering in this particular case because he also made clear that he’d vote for a Mormon — not exactly a favored denomination with America’s evangelicals.

Moreover, McCain said something fascinating and, well, hopeful when he added that he knows many Mormons who’ve been magnificent people.                       

This comment suggests that McCain doesn’t know too many Muslims who’ve been magnificent. With the likes of Ibrahim Hooper and CAIR reflexively jumping down his throat, can you blame him for not being impressed with us Muslims?

Memo to Brother Hooper: a more constructive approach would be to invite McCain to “get to know” other Muslims — including truly reform-minded ones such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. It turns out that Dr. Jasser lives in Arizona, which is McCain’s own state.                  
             
I figure that if McCain knew more of the Jassers and fewer of the Hoopers, he’d see that Muslims are capable of being magnificent — pluralistic, self-critical, and proudly American. I’d certainly vote for Dr. Jasser. I’m willing to bet that McCain would too. Keep in mind, as a faithful Muslim, I don’t gamble.

Are Muslim women used cars?

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 28, 2007

In Saudi Arabia, by law, women can be passed down from their fathers to their husbands, sons, or brothers. In other words, Saudi women have the legal status of a used car — and yet, they’re not even allowed to drive a used car. How’s that for justice.

Not good enough, it turns out, for more and more daughters of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women are petitioning their government for the right to drive. Women have sent a petition straight to King Abdullah – bearing 1,100 signatures and citing the lack of religious reasoning behind the current regulations. They even have the support of some men, who recognize that women’s full participation in the economy is necessary.

You see, Saudi Arabian women are participating more and more in the public sector. Due to a struggling economy, women have headed into the workforce in droves- steering the country’s financial situation in a more positive direction. Just last year, two Saudi businesswomen were elected to the Kingdom’s chamber of commerce, their election earning mention in Forbes’ “Most Powerful Women in Politics” feature this year.

But how can Saudi Arabia’s women- and the Saudi economy- reach their full potential when many women spend up to half of their income on hiring male drivers?

See this piece in the International Herald Tribune, and head on over to Project Ijtihad’s myspace page to discuss your views.

Me and Mahmoud

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Sep 28, 2007

Fallout from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia U:

The debate rages about who gets to gab at American universities. James “Skip” Rutherford, Dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, names me (among others) as having the right to speak on campus. Phew. Maybe the Dean can smuggle me into Iran. Then we’ll see if that country has “no homosexuals,”as  President Ahmadinejad claimed at Columbia.

In that spirit, check out the Persian translation of my book - free of charge. Mahmoud should honor a girl who spurns the decadent profit motive, don’t you think?

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