The Norway Massacre: Islamophobia Again Spills Blood

     I've spent the last week visiting my family and childhood home in Haines, Alaska.
     As such, I haven't made it a priority to post on the Norway massacre, a detail for which I apologize, though my feelings on the matter should come as no surprise to my readers.
     People often ask me what inspired me to write a novel on Islamophobia. My answer is brief: Islamophobia is, I feel, the most unacknowledged bigotry of our era.
     I by no means intend to downplay the severity of sexism, or racism toward America's black population, or of xenophobia toward our immigrants, but insofar as I've witnessed ignorance and hatred toward Muslims penetrate even those circles of individuals who oppose the preceding triad of idiocy, I feel the message of my book is one that very much needs to be heard.
    By now, most should be aware that when Anders Behring Breivik put his finger on the trigger, Islamophobia, as articulated on a global scale, was a tremendous part of what inspired him. His manifesto denounced his perceived failure of Norwegian politicians to defend the country against Islamic incursion, and quoted Robert Spencer, operator of the Jihad Watch website, 64 times.       
     Marc Sageman, a consultant on terrorism and a former C.I.A. officer, cited the darling argument of anti-jihadists that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
     Mr. Sageman tempered this claim by saying it was unfair to hold anti-jihadist writers responsible for Mr. Breivik's behavior. Given my belief that everyone must at some point be responsible for his or her actions, I agree, but to claim that a culture of fear and hate can be divorced from fearful and hateful actions is nothing short of absurd.
    Sadly but predictably, this is precisely what the Western media appears to be doing. A recent report from the New York Times suggests that Mr. Breivik is likely insane, a claim that gives me horrifying flashbacks to Jared Lee Loughner and the shooting of Representative Giffords in January. That too was an atrocity that seemed so obvious an extension of the hateful climate surrounding it, but the media quickly de-politicized and de-contexualized the act with the self-same designation of insanity.
     Meanwhile, New York Representative Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans to address terrorist threats from non-Muslims, and proceeded as planned.
      Where and when does it end?

An article I wrote on Islam and feminism has been published online

     I'm excited to announce that an article I composed on feminism in Islam for Encompassing Crescent, an online publication, has now been posted. Thanks to all those who helped me with the editing thereof, and thanks again, Fatih, for providing me with the publishing opportunity.
     The article deals in large part with the subject of Islamophobia, an overall focus of the issue. There are plenty of other articles that are worth checking out as well, and I'd encourage anyone who's interested to take a look.

The Arab Spring: Widening the Lens

   Trying to ascertain the current state of the Arab Spring is a task uniquely vulnerable to the age-old accusation of idealism. To place any meaningful hope in a democratic, sustainable outcome, as I continue to do, is immediately subject to attack.
    This week's issue of The Economist ran a feature on the uprisings.
    Given that The Economist has, on a number of occasions, drunk from the idealist chalice, its overall optimism about the Arab world is perhaps not itself encouraging. It does, however, have a solid track record for promoting broad strokes, big-picture frames of discussion, and, as such, puts a crucial detail in perspective: the fact that the Arab Spring is bigger than the five states that dominate the news.
     If Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Yemen predominate the public imagination, it is due only to their uprisings' having a more overt and recognizable character. But while pundits extrapolate from Egypt's struggles an overall breakdown in the pace of reform, a swelling protest movement in Morocco persuaded King Muhammad VI in March to draft a new constitution, that was overwhelmingly improved on July 1st. Jordan, too, has implemented democratic reforms. And while the Gulf States, minus Yemen, have so far succeeded in keeping their populations quiet through bribery and cash-showers, their actions are, by definition, a response to the mood of the people.
     Constraining the aspirations of an entire region of humanity to the struggles of select states in their midst is much like limiting the breadth of, say, Egypt's revolution to the toppling of Mubarek.
     The moral of the story is to reject myopia. Only from that basis can skepticism, for good or for ill, be properly fostered.

The Egyptian Revolution & the Fallacy of the "Done Deal"

     Every time I encounter another commentator gloomily opining on the "failed outcomes" of Egypt's revolution, I find myself wondering why the devil people were foolish enough to start talking about it in the past-tense. I was dance-in-the-streets happy with Mubarak's fall, and I'm happy to admit it, but how could anyone have expected a tidy solution with a military junta swooping in to take his place?
      Much of the public imagination, along with the media that helps inform it, seems to have chopped Egypt's narrative into two mutually exclusive chapters: "the revolution," ending with Mubarek's ouster, and "the outcome," encompassing everything that followed. Because this model precludes the concept that the revolution is an ongoing process, one that could in fact encompass a very large amount of chapters, any given challenge in the present can be used as a brownie-point deduction  - just one other thing the revolution "failed to make possible."
      Pascal Boniface, a prominent French political analyst, and Director of the Institute for International Relations and Strategies, assures the readers of Egypt's Al-Ahram Daily that what Egypt is going through is normal. "You cannot pass from one system to the other in one day," he says.
     While this outlook might appear to swing to the opposite, permissive side of the spectrum, broadening the time-frame over which we assess results is, I believe, imperative.
      Just yesterday, the Egyptian government fired 669 police officers, recognizing a key demand from protestors that murderous raping factions of the so-called law enforcement body be brought to justice.
      Are these grounds for rejoicing? No, not properly, but it should be grounds enough for remembering that no perception of Egypt is acceptable unless it makes room for surprises.
      Such is the nature of transformation.
   

Asylum applications in the context of the Strauss-Kahn case

     I've maintained throughout, and will continue to maintain, that no amount of indiscretion on the part of the plaintiff in the Strauss-Kahn case gave DSK the right to rape her. Indeed, to assume that her character deficiencies lesson the severity of her trauma is to perpetuate the myth of the "perfect victim" - that is, in order for someone's injury to be valid he or she (but overwhelmingly and regrettably "she") must be unblemished, an extremely oppressive and destructive stereotype.
     That said, it doesn't hurt to point out that the maid's dishonesty on her asylum application might in fact have been completely understandable, and a far cry away from the slyly self-serving gesture the media would have us subscribe to.
    Jesse Ellison, a writer for the website of MSNBC, makes a highly illustrative argument to this effect:

     "Those who, like . . . the woman at the center of the case against Strauss-Kahn, apply for asylum after entering the United States represent just one-tenth of 1 percent of the world's refugees, and for them, according to [Ms.] Arnold-Fernandez [legal expert] it's been, on average, 17 years since they left their home countries. Legal representation is scant, and language is often an issue. But most notably: judges are given tremendous leeway. Approval rates swing wildly from courtroom to courtroom. One court officer can approve 90 percent of the cases that come before the bench, and just down the hall another might decline nine of the 10 that come before him. It's a discretionary system—a 'refugee roulette'—that has contributed to myth-making within immigrant communities, where the stories that 'worked,' are passed around like lucky charms."

     Ms. Arnold-Fernandez, quoted above, goes on to say:

    "'When you're going into a legal proceeding that hasn't been explained to you and you don't have adequate or ethical legal counsel and you know that your life or death may hinge on what you say, the temptation to use a story that worked for someone else is incredibly high . . . We have had clients whose real circumstances are more compelling than the stories they have been advised by others to use. But there's such a lack of adequate legal advice…. And in the absence of accurate information and legal assistance, refugee communities may end up filling in the gaps with inaccurate information.'
    The temptation is so great, she says, that some asylum seekers have been exploited by people charging $100 a pop for stories that "work."

    A non-refugee passing judgment on how a refugee should behave is a lot like someone who is not a victim of sexual assault passing judgment on how a rapist should behave.
    In short, unacceptable.

I refuse to give up on the Strauss-Kahn Case

     Let's get something straight: the charges aren't dropped until someone drops them.
     No matter how many news sources bludgeon us with the purported likelihood of their being dropped, no matter how oppressive the incessant construction of the case's being "in tatters" or "teetering" or "likely to fail," no matter how overwhelming the voices who refer to the prosecution as if it's already collapsed, it's not over until it's biGod over.
     Therefore, with respect to the standing allegation of sexual assault against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I'd like to champion two encouraging moves.
     One, Keven Thompson, the plaintiff's attorney, has called upon District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. to step aside. Mr. Thompson is quoted as saying "District Attorney Vance, we ask in earnest that your office voluntarily recuse itself from the Strauss-Kahn case and that you appoint a special prosecutor."  Seeing as Mr. Vance has in fact been prognosticating the failure of the case even more loudly than Strauss-Kahn's defense team, this seems a more than fair demand.
     Second, the maid is seeking damages for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the New York Post for calling her a prostitute. According her suit: "All of these statements are false, have subjected the plaintiff to humiliation, scorn and ridicule throughout the world by falsely portraying her as a prostitute or as a woman who trades her body for money and they constitute defamation and libel per se."  Speaking as one who, reading the article, wanted to blast the Post's headquarters with sheep excrement, I can only say amen.   
     It bears mentioning that the Post has already dropped at least one other bucket of slime on the plaintiff: its privacy-breaching revelation in May that she lived in housing reserved for individuals with HIV. HousingWorks.org rallied people across the country to contact the Post and condemn its decision. Not content to play the AIDS card on her, the Post went on to call her a whore.
      For that matter, Mr. Vance Jr's counter-productive behavior toward the plaintiff's case has some precedents of its own. Indeed, authorities in New York City have a less than impressive track record where rape is concerned: it took a Change.org campaign to get NYC to look into counting sexual assaults properly.
      It's been said before, but I'll say it again: this a case of critical importance for rape and assault victims all over the city, the country, and the world.
      I, for one, refuse to lose faith.

Chapters 1-5 of Companions of the Garden are now available at Scribd

    I'm excited to announce that Chapters 1-5 of Companions of the Garden can now be read or downloaded from Scribd. You can access them by clicking here, or by clicking the picture on the right side of blog page.
    Both readers and reader feedback are encouraged.
    Thanks, everyone, for their support.