Dear all, I am pleased to inform you that I have now an official webpage at my domain  www.marranci.net. My blog remains here at wordpress.com,  at my webpage you can find a link to it and you can also subscribe to the feed if you wish. The website will be updated regularly, particularly the multimedia section, in which you can find photos, audio and video podcasts, some including presentations at seminars and conferences. In the publications section you can find the links to not only the book or article, but also – when available – to the text or part of it (some of which can be downloaded). Among other things, you can follow my calender of events where I will post events of interest in my field of research and, of course, where I am going to present my research. The webpage is very simple and surely lacks many of the bells and whistles popular today. Yet my intention is not only to reach friends and readers (including students) who have the fortune of living in high speed internet areas, but also those who still, like in some of the places I have conduced fieldwork, consider themselves lucky if they have  a 56Kb dial-up modem. Here lies also the reason for offering some of the articles and links to chapters in the edited books (thanks to google books). Unfortunately, although I would like to, I cannot provide more than an example-chapter of my book (normally the introduction). I have edited the picture, you can recognized  two elements: Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man,  and the faces of different human ethnic groups. Leonardo da Vinci was a fellow Florentine, and the Vitruvian Man wishes to represent the connection between the proportions of the human body and the universe.  I strongly believe that we cannot study the anthropos without taking into consideration the overall environment in which s/he lives. We, as anthropologist needs to reconsider the universal elements of being humans.  Your feedback about the webpage is very welcome.

I am also pleased to announce that Cardiff University has awarded me with an Honorary Senior Research Fellowship within the school of Religious and Theological Studies and made me a member of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK . Since I remain, at present,  based on ‘the other side of the world’ in Singapore, I consider the Centre my European academic base from which new collaborations and  exchanges can be envisaged and organized. I wish to thank Cardiff University for this opportunity and the School of Religious and Theological Studies, but in particular my colleague and friend Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray for this opportunity of working with the Centre and for the interest in my work. The Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK has an impressive number of active research projects and recently has achieved a collective research grant amounting to over £1,000,000. Some of the research projects can be found here. Certainly one of the best research centers specializing on Muslim communities in the UK, it also offers different and well structured  doctoral supervision programs.

I am at the beginning of this collaboration, but ideas for conferences and research are starting to develop and I am sure that they will be marked by an innovative discourse about Muslim communities both in the West and Southeast Asia.

If we observe the study of Muslim communities today, it is difficult to find a comparative approach between two particular regions such as Southeast Asia and Western countries. In this phase of my research I am trying to develop such a comparative approach. The fact that I am based in an excellent university such as NUS (National University of Singapore) and the dynamic Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK makes this project, although challenging, easier to realize. If you are interested in being involved in this comparative approach or interested in conducting your PhD with a bi-focused Southeast Asia-Western research, you are more than welcome to contact me.

While in London in 2000, I met an Afghan man, in full Pasthun Afghan attire, who proudly told me that he was a Taliban. During the cold war, the Taliban were, for the UK and US, the heroic mujahidin who fought the Red Devil, the atheist communist USSR. Some, during the 1980s, were welcomed to the west to escape persecution or recruit volunteers for their training camps, which were US and UK supported.The man in London claimed to be among those who reached the UK in the 1980s. When we met, the Taliban had established their Islamic republic and, following their own version of Shariah, implemented one of the most (albeit contradictory and corrupt) brutal regimes that Muslim countries had ever known.

During the conversation we had about Afghanistan, the self-defined Taliban proudly praised the success of his people in implementing God’s Law and Order, and then, while straightening his long beard with both hands, resolutely informed me that ‘Allah is merciful, the Taliban are not!’

These words came to my mind when I recently read that the chief Shariah judge of Pahang state ruled that a Shariah High Court’s verdict against Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was correct and should stay.

Ms Shukarno, a mother of two, was arrested for drinking beer at a beach resort. In July, the Islamic court (which can only sentence Muslims) condemned her to a 5000 Malay Ringgit ($1.500) fine and six strokes of a rattan cane. There are only three states in Malaysia — Pahang, Perlis and Kelantan — that impose caning for Muslims who drink alcohol as the others issue a fine. While the cane was rarely used with men, it has never once been used on a woman.

This, if the sentence is carried out, will be the first instance of a woman being caned in Malaysia. To the criticism that the judge has picked on a woman while many men’s shoulders escaped the cane, the same Pahang judge sentenced a destitute permanent resident to the same fate.

I have, however, the impression that we cannot expect to see very soon a similar sentence for one of the rich Gulf Arab sheiks who patronise the same beach resort Ms Shukarno did, and do not always extinguish their thirst with solely a nice green, fresh coconut (see Gilsenan for an interesting anecdote, but in the Middle East). Even less is the chance that an influential Malaysian, or his relative, would meet the cane (or even the fine).

Although some of my Malay (and Indonesian, where in Ache a similar punishment is implemented even with the hope of attracting tourists!) friends have rightly stressed that the punishment is more symbolic and aimed to shame rather than to hurt (many blogs have confused the Islamic court’s caning with the criminal one), the issue is not whether she has accepted the caning so as not to be punished in the afterlife, nor that the cane is thin, the force minimum and the stroke on the back instead of the buttocks.

Whether caning is an inhuman form of torture or a good form of discipline, as some have ended up debating, is again not the main problem. The central question for the world and, particularly for Singapore, is where Malaysia is aiming and how the country will be in the next ten years.

During these years we have witnessed an increasing number of religious controversies, of which only the most publicised have gained international mass media attention. From the attempt to legally ban yoga for Muslims, to protests and cow-heads being thrown against the construction site of a Hindu temple, to the increase of corporal punishment for otherwise negligible breaches of the Malay Islamic code, there has been an escalation of events marked by a contradiction between the traditional representation of Malaysia as a moderate and tolerant Muslim country, and the Wahabi temptations of some Islamic courts and fatwa councils.

This, in my opinion, should be read in consideration of the so called Islam Hadhari project, which has recently failed. Portrayed as the roadmap to combine a dynamic, modern and tolerant Muslim society with strong Islamic values, Islam Hadhari has been unable to provide that ideological, and partially utopian, outcome in total. Yet it is the Malay Muslim clerics who remained in the majority, though often unofficially, opposed to the idea.

Malaysia is divided into states that have, also from the viewpoint of Islamic courts and Islamic legislation, some considerable autonomy. Recently the main political party, UMNO (United Malays National Organisation, which has ruled since independence, has faced strong challenges from the opposition coalition. The internal and external battle for political power has been long and debilitating. During this process, which is still very much unclear, the religious authorities have been able to increase their influence, requests and push boundaries that would have been difficult before.

Furthermore, in the last few years, the direct (but even more indirect— through funding and various platforms and connections) influence of the most intransigent Saudi Wahhabi movements has infiltrated Malaysia more than some commentators may have expected.

The weakening of the political system and the, sometimes dirty, battle between the government and the opposition may look propitious to some elements within the Islamic courts and religious councils for extending their influence and taking a slice of power should the fifty-year-old government finally collapse. The question is what kind of, unseen and hidden, influences some of the clerics call upon to serve as judges may be and also what system should be in place today in Malaysia to avoid a slow, but for this reason deepening, descent towards a legalistic Islam aimed solely at providing power to a clergy, which, otherwise, traditionally, is notoriously weak in Islam.

Beyond cases such the yoga fatwa, or the increasing, sometimes organised and directed, expression of intolerance, as well as the case of Ms Shukarno, is a test to verify of how Malaysian society, and neighbouring countries, may react to a future Malaysia that may be moderate – yes, but in extremism.

Dear all,

as many of you may have noticed, I have not posted here for a while and I have to say that I am not so happy with an average of one post per month.

Yet, I have been particularly busy during these few months, both conducting research as well as writing and presenting papers.

So,  I am glad to announce that very soon I will publish a new post and I will try to commit myself, despite the many commitments, to at least a post per-week.

meanwhile, if you are in Singapore on the 13th of October, and wish to know more about my current research in Southeast Asia, you are very welcome to attend this event below. Hope to meet some of you

Some of you reading the title of this post may think that I am referring to the most hedonistic prime minister in the world: Silvio Berlusconi and his adventures with teenagers as well as professional, and well paid, escorts. Yet, I am actually referring to another, less known and less publicized, case which has been taking place in Australia since May 2009. A quite unknown filmmaker has decided to sponsor his new ideas through the ever- successful use of blasphemy.

The filmmaker Justin Sisely wishes to produce a ‘documentary’ that will follow two virgins (one male and female) as they auction their virginity to unknown bidders. To succeed in his attempt, he, of course, needs certified virgins. Today, as we know, (at least in the ‘Western’ hemisphere) this is not a simple task, and to find two who are willing to prostitute their first intercourse is probably even harder.

Nonetheless, if this was not already controversial enough, Mr. Sisely has decided to use ‘religion’ as the cheapest (and probably fastest) way to reach visibility. In May he started a recruitment advertisement for his two ‘actors’ which featured the Virgin Mary with male genitalia drawn crudely on her forehead. The poster has been now banned. Mr. Sisely has declared that he has received death threats from upset Christians. Yet we are all very well aware that when Christians threaten or kill people in the name of religion, even when in a church or a court room, this produces a relatively low level of media exposure.

Now, reflecting on that point, Mr. Sisely has likely decided that if he must have his life threatened by a religious lunatic, at least let it be a Muslim one, so that in the worst of unfortunate instances he may at least hope to have the same posthumous glory that the unknown Theo Van Gogh had. Hence, the filmmaker has now embarked upon the revised recruitment campaign – using depictions of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, instead on the posters.

I find this story interesting, not because of the clear (and a bit worn out and clichéd) exploitation of religion, sex and money, but because of the idea that our societies are becoming more secular. Religion is still relevant in many aspects of life – hedonism included – as this case shows. Despite that religious blasphemy has been used for a very long time to attract profitable controversy, it seems that its power is now waning. Yet the offensive product does not have a very long shelf-life as far as memory is concerned.  For example: how many of you can remember the scandal of the Piss Christ?  Or, more recently, the works of Sarah Maple?   Surely, despite desperate bids for maximum exposure, both examples have faded into obscurity for most people.

The reason for this is that these types of ‘arts’, advertisements and blasphemy-based attention-seeking are focused toward obtaining emotional responses. They aim to upset the people for whom the given symbol has an emotional value or belief attached (indeed, those for whom the symbol has no such value will ignore it).  This provocation exploits the ‘secular’ context, in which the ‘believer’s’ emotional response will be perceived as being less rational than the artist’s inflammatory ‘art’.

In this process an economic, exploitable, ‘value’ is produced: those who began the controversy become the centre of the discussion.  This surrounds the figure of the ‘artist’ with other emotions which, no less than those of the offended ‘believers’, are not based on a rational consideration of fact but rather on ‘gut feelings’ – such as blind defense of the right to offend religion, or break the taboo. It is within this context that the hedonism of scandal finds its great, but short-lived, economic value.

It’s still better than nothing, I suppose, in these days of economic crisis.

On the 16th of July, UWS launched a new Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies as part of its partnership with NCEIS (National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies). I have received emails and queries about my involvement and position with the centre, as well as questions about its program and agenda. Since I have been mentioned as one of the ‘senior academics’ appointed to the new centre, and since some academic colleagues were aware of my intention and efforts for the past two years to start a centre along the same lines, I feel that I need to clarify the current situation and my collaboration on this project with my friend, and co-editor of the book series Muslims in Global Societies, Prof. Bryan Turner.

The original idea for this centre began with my earlier endeavors, such as my journal, which I founded when I was at the University of Aberdeen. I discussed further the idea of starting a centre with Prof. Bryan Turner in Amsterdam during a symposium I organized with the publisher Springer to launch my journal, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslims life. As we both moved to UWS, we decided to work together towards establishing the centre with the intention of leading it together.

Unfortunately, my role within the centre has been gravely marginalized in the past months, and my involvement has not been publicly acknowledged, so that Prof. Bryan Turner is now recognized as the only foundation Director (UWS apparently lacks a position title of ‘Deputy Director’ for their research centres) and is solely responsible for setting the agenda and program (as well as the appointments) for this new centre. The foundation Director, Prof. Bryan Turner, will not be based, other than for three months per year, at the centre since he is currently Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College, Boston, at least until 2012.

Therefore, after careful consideration, although I will remain based in UWS, I have decided to ask the foundation Director of the centre, Prof. Turner and UWS to remove my name from the list of the scholars affiliated to the newly established Centre for Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies.

Hence, I wish to clarify that, at the present, I am not involved in any decision making or other administrative tasks for this Centre, or in its research plans. In particular, allow me to disperse some current voices that have designated me as the ‘community liaison officer’ responsible for ‘engagement’ with the Muslim communities, which is the main target of the research of this centre.

Although I am an anthropologist, and I have a very good relationship with many Muslim communities in various countries, it is not my task, as an academic, to assume such a role and I surely do not have (neither would I consider having) such a role as far as the new Centre for the Study of Muslim Societies – or for that matter NCEIS, UWS, or any other entity – is concerned.

Finally, let me stress and clarify beyond any doubt that, although I invited Prof. Turner to be a member of the editorial board of Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim life, and I also invited him to start a new book series with me, neither my journal, nor my blog, nor my editorship of the book series, or any other aspect of my work conducted so far are expressions of, or affiliated to, this centre and remain independent academic endeavors.

Nonetheless, I wish my friend, Prof. Bryan Turner, and all colleagues involved, all the best for this new centre and its future research.

Posted in Academia, anthropology, Australia, marranci, Muslims, Religion, Research, Research Metodology, University ]]> http://marranci.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/centre-for-the-study-of-contemporary-muslim-societies/feed/ 5 Prof. Marranci http://marranci.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/sharia-in-the-u/ http://marranci.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/sharia-in-the-u/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:15:07 +0000 marranci http://marranci.wordpress.com/?p=273 ]]>

Recently in the UK the debate, started by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on the so-called Shari‘a Law, has seen a new wave of discussion following the publication of Sharia Law or ‘One Law For All by the controversy-seeking  conservative think tank Civitas. The author of the report, Dr Denis MacEoin, is not new to readers of my blog and also quite well known for his questionable (if not creative) social scientific skills and methodologies in a previous publication byPolicy Exchange.However, Dr Denis MacEoin has this time honestly admitted that his methodology has been based on what I can only call ‘analogical induction’. Indeed in the press release by Civitas we can read:

It is extremely difficult to find out what goes on in these courts, so MacEoin reproduces a range of fatwas issued by popular online fatwa sites, run out of or accessed through mosques in the UK, and in some cases, as was revealed in the earlier Civitas report Music, Chess and Other Sins, even from UK Muslim schools. These online fatwas can give a good indication of the rulings of sharia courts in Britain.

We can observe that some of the electronic ‘sources’ through which MacEoin judges British Shari‘a courts, that are based on the Arbitration Act 1996, come from an organization called Ask Imam, dispensing ‘personal advices and opinion on request’ (i.e. fatwas) in  South Africa! I think that just this alone shows how this report is based and biased on MacEoin’s personal opinions which are camouflaged with a sprinkling of very weak evidence.

Yet we have to recognize that both Civitas and MacEoin have reduced to zero any possibility of serious and in depth-research on Muslims. The same impenetrable ‘Shari‘a courts’ would not be, for instance, so impenetrable to an anthropologist and ethical research. But we have to remember that Civitas’ — and Dr MacEoin’s by proxy— research are not aimed at scientific evidence or academic engagement, but rather to publicity, political influence and catching the attention of the mass media.

Nonetheless, this time I do not need to discuss the methodology of Dr MacEoin’s research since it is clear and no mysterious ‘researchers’ have been employed. I am more interested in Dr MacEoin’s idea of Shari‘a since his views summarize well how some other commentators, politicians, and members of the general public (and interestingly some Muslims as well) see or perceive Shari‘a as a real ‘thing’, a phenomenon which exists beyond the actual social, political, and general environment and the individuals within it.

Let me observe two important facts that are often forgotten. Firstly, do Muslims (who differ from one another in many aspects) in the UK care about this debate on Shari‘a courts based on the Arbitration Act 1996?  During my research in the UK, I have concluded that:

1. there is no unitary view about Shari’a among Muslims in the UK (even among Muslims of the same ethnic group or tradition) an unitary Shari’a court is impossible  at the present;
2. among the various priorities, this is not the most reported;
3. the debate on Shari‘a is often a consequence of particular political and mass media based debates than an internal one;
4. some of the most hardcore ‘traditionalists’  (if I can use such term) have clearly argued that there should not be a Shari‘a court in a non-Muslim country, and in any case a Shari ‘a  court which derives authority from a non-Muslim law is not Islamic by definition;
5. even without the Arbitration Act 1996 version of Shari‘a court, Muslims can always decide, as part of their freedoms granted in the UK, to live under a self-defined Shari‘a, hence the reason for why today we can find many fatwa websites (which often contradict each other in ‘opinions’).

Secondly, as has been discussed many times, religious courts exist in the UK and the case of Jewish courts, or Beth Din provide clear evidence of how the Arbitration Act 1996 can work in the case of Shari‘a courts.

Of course, Dr MacEoin would likely argue that Arbitration Shari’a courts cannot be compared to their Jewish counterparts because Shari‘a, as a system of law is barbaric. I respect–but disagree–with Dr MacEoin’s right to see the Shari’a as barbaric law. Yet the fact remains that he does not tell us which Shari ‘a he refers to – all of them? any interpretation? Also he would possibly suggest that Muslim law is unfair to women, but would perhaps hide that Jewish lawis certainly not fairer to them when compared to UK legislation.

Yet if we shift our focus to men, specifically fathers for instance, we may question whether the UK legislation is fair to them as far as divorce and custody are concerned. Some definitely think that it is not. The issue remains that the idea of ‘barbaric’ is an emotional or argumentative one. It cannot be declared to be a universal parameter because it is too subjective. What Israel has done in Gaza recently, for example, will be described by a majority of British people as ‘barbaric’ but perhaps not, for instance, (I trust) for Dr MacEoin, who would probably see the over reaction of Israel as simple defense and just action against Hamas (and here he is ready to deny, to Palestinian children and women those same human rights which he says to defend in the case of rejecting the Shari’a arbitration courts).

We need more serious research on religious based arbitration, and this of course should not focus only on Muslim organizations but also include all the religious arbitration which has taken place within the framework of the Arbitration Act 1996, or other national frameworks such as those which exist in the US. This research cannot be conducted though a superficial and naive (if not intellectually biased) methodology such as, for instance, checking what extreme ‘rabbinic fatwas’ exist in Israel in order to understand how Jews in Britain understand halakhic instructions.

‘Analogical induction’ is open to manipulation, personal opinion and aims more to impress and to argue than to analyze.  It is inevitable that we need a social scientific (and not textual as Dr MacEoin seems to prefer) approach with clear and ethical interviews of those involved (from the litigant party, the arbitrators, and the other actors) as well as participant observation.

More and more we can find examples in which Muslims are reduced to their material culture and religious culture: Muslim women reduced to their hijabs, niqabs, burkas, chadors; Muslim men represented as repressive, violent, fanatic and irrational and so on. Just read some commentaries about Muslim women, or about Muslim life in general, and you will be able to understand why I say that Muslims are reduced to their ‘material culture’.

The main element of this grievous fallacy, as I have explained in The Anthropology of Islam, is the idea that Muslims are shaped by culture and in particular by their own religion: Islam. If you think that this cultural objectification of Muslims is innocuous, it is time to rethink and read the story of a woman in Germany who was killed because of her hijab.

Contrary to the expectations of many, the killer is not her husband or father trying to defend their honor or Islam, but rather a white German neighbor whom the victim had brought to court for slander. Indeed, for this killer, what he wanted to offend, and then ended in murdering, was not the victim as a human being, but rather her dress, her hijab, the cultural material expression of what he hated: Islam.

And so blind hatred brought the killer to stab the victim eighteen times, and in the midst of the chaos, when her husband intervened in an attempt to save his wife, a nearby security guard shot him instead of the aggressor. When the critical decision to shoot must be made, it must be made in seconds.  Unfortunately, in this case, cultural stereotypes provided the target before objective judgement could.

Some of these stereotypes are ‘latent’ and the product of mainstream discourses, while others are expressly aimed to represent Muslims as different, prone to violence, controlled by Islam (whatever it might be), and as somehow ‘less-than-human’. I could spend energy to provide, link after link, examples for each category. Yet, it would be an endless, if not futile, effort.  Rather, let me debate the root of and the methodology behind such pernicious process.

First of all we have to consider that ‘Muslim’ is essentially within any discourse a mere linguistic label that can only derive its meaning from contexts. Surely ‘Muslim’ is not a ‘person’ in the agency signifier of the term, but rather an ‘idea’, or in other words, an abstraction. Let me put it like this, paraphrasing Bateson’s example (which refers to lions instead): if you happen to be sitting on a train and notice a dark complexioned man wearing a long beard and a Muslim cap sitting near you, and if his cumbersomely large rucksack makes you feel uneasy, it is a logically incorrect mistake to say that you fear the ‘Muslim.’

Indeed, there are no ‘Muslims’ or even ‘Christians’, ‘trains’ or ‘rucksacks’ present within your mind (i.e. brain).  Instead, there are only mental representations of the above nouns alongside millions of others. Bateson refers to these representations as a ‘difference that makes a difference’ (i.e. a bit of information), or more simply, an idea. In other words, you have an ‘idea’ of the ‘Muslim’ seated on the train, or even possibly of all ‘Muslims’ as a category. It is clear, however, that it would be wrong to confuse your idea, your mental representation, with the reality of the Muslim person sitting near you.

A person’s mental representations are equivalent to a map representing a territory; but as Alfred Korzybski loved to remind us, ‘the map is not the territory’ (1958: 58). Furthermore, in the case of Muslims, the map is often shaped by illusion and abstraction – namely, that something called Islam may exist in itself. Of course, this is not the case.

You will never meet something called ‘Islam’ on the street or in the queue at the Post Office.  Moreover, there is no person who can claim to know what ‘Islam wants’ because Islam is, in human terms, an ‘idea’, a bit of information, a difference that makes a difference.

There exist only ‘ideas’ about Islam, and these ideas can only be debated and discussed by people, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Muslims are human beings. As all other human beings, they too think and act upon their thoughts that derive from various interpretations and contexts.  Indeed, even when opinions and ideas appear similar, an attentive observer will discover that no two Muslims have identical ideas about Islam.  Although the fact that a person, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, can only learn about Islam from another person and so forth, this process of learning does not occur within a vacuum.  Instead, it happens within complex internal (mental and neurocognitive) and external (social and natural environment) contexts.

Back to the so-called ‘veil’, burka, hijab and women. It is clear that the reason for wearing one has multiple motives, both internal and external. Each case is different and personal and to try to discuss an ‘epistemology’ of ‘veil’ is not only a useless exercise but also an objectifying one. The danger is particularly high in anthropology and sociology, since these disciplines have a methodological tendency to deny individuality. I cannot other than agree with Rapport:

[there is a] social-scientific tendency to regard the individual actor as put upon rather than ‘putting on’. I find much here in the critique of displacement which accords with social-scientific analysis of individual behaviour in social-cultural millieux per se: ‘because’ motives are widely inferred while ‘in order to’ motives barely figure. Questions such as how individuals deal with life, how they make meaning in the midst of everyday life and change, suffering and good fortune, become questions largely of social determination. (2003: 52)

Indeed, the reality of everyday life is more complex – as is dealing with emotions, memories, dynamics of interaction and communication, so that, as Milton has observed,

First, the individual is the only entity in human society capable of experiencing emotions and having feelings, the only seat of consciousness, and therefore the only entity capable of learning. So, if we are interested in how human beings come to understand the world around them, we have to focus first on individuals, because societies and cultures as whole entities do not learn—individuals do.

Second, the individual is the only entity sufficiently discrete to have an environment [...] I suggest that entities like ‘society’, ‘culture’ and ‘population’ are too abstract to be surrounded by anything with which a substantive relationship is possible. (Milton 2007: 71)

To reduce the individual to society is a misleading analytical approach, but to reduce the individual to his or her material culture and (stereotyped) religious beliefs is not only intellectually dishonest but also extremely dangerous.  An example of the dangers of this approach can be observed in the objectification of Jews that occurred in Nazi Germany, and the Final Solution planned for the Jewish culture, and consequently the entire Jewish population, as the ‘Jew’ was believed to be merely an expression of Judaism.

Certainly today we can find some social scientists who fully embrace the fallacy of considering Muslims to be the product of a religion and material culture.   An illustration of this can be found in much of the work of, for example, Dr Marie Macey (I will discuss her work in another post, but read this chapter to have an idea).

Sometimes, however, such–intellectual and analytical–fallacies can produce laughable results. Look at this academic article entitled, ‘Is ethnicity and religion an aetiological factor in men with rapid ejaculation?’

If you cannot access it (or if you are not linked to a university account), allow me summarise the ’scientific’ research: the study analysed which group, on the basis of the religion they professed, has higher incidences of reported rapid ejaculation among Muslims, Christians and Others (there is ever an ‘Other’!). The study showed that Muslims, particularly those from Bangladesh, suffer the most from this unpleasant sexual disfunction, while Christians (all of them?) seemed to perform better in prolonging their bedroom antics.

However, if anyone now thinks that this may be a good argument to convert, say, Muslims in Afghanistan – think twice, since the same study tells us that Christians suffer more from erectile disfunction!

I think that this last example can clearly highlight what happens when we truly believe that ‘religion’ can ‘cause’ events and have effects on the behaviour of humans (or even their physiological functions!).

I hope that many scholars, and in particular doctoral students, will take seriously the weakness of a culturalist approach to religion, and consider the consequences of acting and making policies that draw upon such a false way of understanding Muslims, or any other religion.

Otherwise, one day we may wake up to discover Viagra vending machines in churches.

Kate McCulloch was among hundreds of Camden residents opposed to the Muslim school

Opening prayer rooms, mosques, Muslim schools, or even kebab shops is becoming an issue of ‘values’, and I am not referring here to economic ones. The values are often referred to as  ‘western values’ and they appear to come in various shapes and colors (Italian, Australian, American, British and so on).  Yet all have at least one similarity – feeling threatened by so-called ‘Islamic values’. In other words, much of the current debate on ‘values’ in western countries  is today shaped by the rediscovered presence  and practices (they have been in the West for centuries) of Muslims living in what an  increasing number of people perceive as a sort of secular Christendom. Each day we can discover one place or another claiming to be the last bastion against the ‘Islamization of the West’.Camden is today, at least for some of its few souls, such a place: the OZ version of Poitiers, it is the site of the last fight against the barbaric Saracen. The Saracen army, this time, is formed by about 900 children who may one day (though I strongly doubt it) attend a controversial proposed Qur’anic school. The project was initially rejected for ‘urban planing’ reasons, but an appeal was later granted and today we are waiting for the final decision.  I am not so interested, as an anthropologist, in what  can only be described as a provincial fracas. It is clear that some protagonists, such as Kate McCulloch have found a quick way to have their ten (or possibly more) minutes of fame (not easy when you live in a rural town of 3000).

Instead, I am more interested in the conceptualization and development of the idea of ‘values’ and how these kinds of incidents are shaping them. To do so, we need to look at some of the statements made to the press to justify the opposition not just against the school but clearly also against Australian Muslims in general. A letter submitted to Camden’s council and signed by some Christian churches describes Islam in general as  ”a private religion . . . driven by a powerful political agenda” and also as “an ideology with a plan for world domination”.

I am particularly interested in the definition of Islam as a ‘private religion’. I am curious about how the writers of the letter arrived to this conclusion and how they define a ‘public’ and ‘private’ religion. Also interesting is the accusation that Islam is driven by a political agenda – especially as this assumes the Christian movements and churches in Australia do not have  a ‘political agenda’, which, in reality,  the very letter they wrote demonstrates. Indeed, to a call by Reverend Glenda Blakefield (the associate general secretary of the Uniting Church’s national assembly) to understand the Camden affair from a multifaith perspective,  the Right Reverend Bruce Meller (whom vehemently opposes the Muslim school) has replied, ‘we are a Christian organisation and we want to see the teachings of Jesus be pre-eminent’.

Of course, I would be very surprised if a committed Christian would not have wished that the ‘teachings of Jesus’ were  pre-eminent, and of course his/her own church hegemonic to a level that could perhaps even induce the state to obey ’God’s Will’. There is nothing strange about it. Christianity, as any other religion (monotheistic or not) is about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and how to promote ‘good’ and forbid ’evil’. Hence, in this respect, committed and outspoken Muslims are no different from their ‘brothers and sisters in faith’ as  Reverend Glenda Blakefield would say.

As we have seen, one of the reasons for which the Qur’anic school (and by extension all Muslims)  is perceived as alien and dangerous to the Australian ‘way of life’ and ’society’ is that, according to the critics, Islam does not recognize ’secular law’. I have discussed elsewhere the fact that there is no ‘Islam’ per-se (other than in the mind of God), and there are instead only Muslims to embody it.  Thus, opinions about human law and God are many and diverse.  The heart of the issue here is that all monotheistic religions declare a superiority of the divine over the worldly.

Islam of course is much more scrutinized today than others, and a Catholic Cardinal recently clearly expressed this very same idea and asked (successfully) that a state (Italy) would legislate according to ‘God’s Law’ (of course, the Catholic version in this case).  Could you imagine if, instead of a Cardinal, the same request was made by an imam? So, we have to go back to the real reasons behind the opposition to the school  and scrutinize what is a more complex, and today more global, issue: what I have called the clash of  civilizers. This means that to understand the phenomenon (including the Camden affair) we need to discuss the (in this case western) genealogy of ‘civilization’. However, we cannot do so if first we do not look at the concept of the ‘West’ in itself.

Bonnet (2004) in his book The idea of the West has provided an interesting, and provocative, reading of ‘the west’ as a concept. He has suggested that the historical development of the modern idea of the West cannot be understood in isolation, but rather as part of the cultural and political effort to differentiate human society. The key, according to Bonnet, is to observe the change in fortune of another powerful European myth, the superiority of the white race. If today the expression ‘Western civilization’ is widely used and accepted, ‘one only has to look back some hundred years or so to find that something called “white civilization” was once also taken for granted’ (Bonnet 2004: 14). Bonnet, through an analysis of works written between 1890 and 1930 in Britain, has observed that literature that supposedly had to celebrate white identity highlighted in reality the vulnerability of such a social category. By the 1930s, ‘with hindsight, its decline and eclipse appears foretold in its own propaganda: for even the most ardent advocates of white solidarity found the idea inadequate’ (2004: 23).

One of these vulnerabilities was the lack of a proper history; the myth, in this case, had to be rooted within nature and the scientific domain. Bonnet is very careful not to directly connect the decline of whiteness and white solidarity with the development of the modern idea of the West. He has, however, rightly observed that the fading of the former has made the latter central to the European discourse of superiority since, ‘the idea of the West helped resolve some of the problematic and unsustainable characteristics of white supremacism’ (2004: 36).

When Western colonialism was at its height, it was said that the West was in its death throes. When communism spread in East Asia, and as Asian and African countries achieved independence, it was said, perhaps with more justification, that the West was in retreat. Yet even minor phenomenon, like the rise of youth culture or the decline of classical music, have been interpreted as signalling the end of Western civilization. (2004: 36)

Recently, two British scholars, Dr. June Edmunds and Prof. Anthony Glees have clashed over the popular topic of Islamic extremism within, in this case, British universities. This has been since 2006 a very ‘hot’ topic for the press and a long term ‘hot potato’ for deans at universities. Yet for some students and researchers, it has turned into a real nightmare. The two scholars, of course had opposing views. Dr June Edmunds, whom has conducted a University of Cambridge research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), has concluded,

The government’s reaction to new security threats, in particular an increasing surveillance of Muslim students, is a public-relations exercise to satisfy popular demands for tough action. The portrayal of a disproportionate threat from the Islamic community does not reflect informed opinion about how most young British Muslims – and university students in particular – live their lives. In this respect, it could well be counter-productive, alienating a law-abiding part of the British population.

This of course, contradicts previous alarmist research conducted by Prof. Anthony Glees for The Social Affairs Unit, one of an increasing number of  think-tanks, often right-wing oriented, mushrooming today in the UK . Prof. Anthony Glees (together with Chris Pope ) wrote the pamphlet When Students Turn to Terror, which listed 24 universities where radicalism, particularly when Islamic, flourished. Prof. Anthony Glees, contrary to many other academics, welcomed the British government to create a ’surveillance’ culture within British universities.  It does not come as a surprise that Prof. Anthony Glees vehemently rejected Dr June Edmunds’ research:

That Cambridge should issue a press release as grandiose as this, trumpeting research so flimsy and uncompelling as Edmunds’s, is curious.This research was based on only 26 interviews (of which eight were not even conducted in person). Hardly “detailed”.

Prof. Anthony Glees proceeds to list the methodological reasons for which Edmunds’ research should be considered ‘weak’, and among the ’sins’ listed we can read: not quoting Prof. Martin Innes’ study, which however, focused on the disaffection of young Muslims with the British police and politics, and was commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo); not using media reports of terror arrests, trials or convictions, and, the most capital of all  sins, not basing her research upon any polling evidence, such as that conducted by YouGov on behalf of the right-wing think-tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion.

Although I want here to discuss something different, we need to observe some important aspects of  the Edmunds vs. Glees quarrel.  Dr June Edmunds never declared that her study was a ‘definitive’ one nor that some students were not involved in radical movements or held extreme views, but instead only claimed that ‘young Muslim students are not disproportionately involved in extremist politics or susceptible to such radicalization.’ 

We can read the short Cambridge based research as a trend indicator instead of the ‘final answer’ to an issue, which, as we shall see, is more complex than we can expect. Yet Prof. Glees’ criticism of Dr Edmunds’ research tells us more about his idea of research than the possible weaknesses of the Cambridge ESRC project.

First of all, Prof. Glees attacked Edmunds’ research because it was allegedly based on 26 interviews. Although the number is low, it is still better than the foundation behind the astonishing revelation made in 2005 by Prof. Glees who claimed that York University was harbouring BNP extremists.  Based on very little evidence and in an attempt to augment what appeared to be very anecdotal evidence, Prof. Glees resorted to a Rumsfeldian style: ‘absence of evidence in this field is not necessarily evidence of absence.’

Prof. Glees has also an endemic allergy to any independent research (as to the state university system in general), since, as he has suggested in his criticism of Dr Edmunds’ research, what really matters is media reports of terror arrests, trials or convictions and even dubious polls conducted under the control of partisan organizations such as the Centre for Social Cohesion. Serious scientific research, based upon strong methodology, ethical guidelines and peer-reviews are, fro Prof. Glees, just obstacles to the ‘right’ way of ‘fighting’ extremism.

Indeed, Prof. Glees among others in certain ‘charities’ known as think-tanks are not engaging in scientific research but rather taking advantage (including economic advantage) of the infrastructures which the ‘war on terror’ have provided. While, together with others, Prof. Glees provides the mass media with the alarmist food they need for their news and inspires the government to suggest certain types of policy making (sometimes extremely disturbing in order to maintain enough attention).

He, like others in the same field, cannot explain why, in which way, or for what reason we have a phenomenon called ‘extremism’.  In conclusion, although Dr Elmunds’ research should be understood as a pilot research for further and more in-depth research, Prof. Glees’ criticism were surely short of academic strength.

Leaving aside the Glees vs. Edmunds polemic, we may wish to ask  a more serious question which targets the center of the University and extremism issue. Is all this debate about universities beings hotbeds of Islamic radicalism just a waste of energy, effort, money and resources? Are we engaging in a futile ‘exercise’ called ’spot the radical in the gown’? Let us observe some simple points.

First of all, we cannot discuss extremism, fundamentalism, or radicalism without defining it. Depending upon how we define it, we may then can classify whom, or which group, is the extremist. Of course, there are many definitions available and they are highly debatable – so the debate soon becomes endless and unproductive. It is thus better to move from this view and just ask: are there serious criminal activities taking place in universities? Surely, through my experience, the most serious crimes on campus tend to involve drugs.

However, such widespread problem does not attract much in the way of attention.  Indeed, your child, today at any university, is more at risk of becomming a drug addict or alcoholic than a political or religious extremist – yet where is the publicity surrounding this danger?

Secondly, why are we discussing whether universities are places where extreme ideas are developed? They are and they have always been. The most extremist political movements have grown up within universities – to name only one, The Red Brigades and their most important ideologue, Renato Curcio. Universities are places in which ideas, some positive and others negative, are debated, formed, deconstructed and redeveloped. To try to control this process is a futile effort. So, the question is not whether  ’extreme Islamic ideas’ (or fascist, racist, anti-gay, Christian fundamentalist, and so on) are discussed, offered, or developed in certain university environments but whether they attract a majority of students, in this case Muslims.

No study can claim that the majority of Muslim students in British (or any other to the best of my knowledge) universities are attracted to, or even come into contact with, such ideologies. Indeed as I have suggested in my last book, radicalism and extremism have more complex dynamics than  simple indoctrination.

Thirdly, it is true – fully true – that there is frustration among Muslims in the UK about the government, the mistakes made, the reluctancy to admit those mistakes and the singling out of an entire community. This is a reality which affects an entire community and not just students. The issue is called ‘dystopia’.

Certainly insisting that radicals and extremists are winning the hearts and minds of a majority of Muslims (something fully untrue at this time but possible in the future) does not help to address the causes at the root of extreme ideas, not just among Muslims but among human beings in general.

Hence, focusing on universities, and singling out a specific environment as the ‘alma mater’ of potential religious violence, and engaging in long diatribes on whether extremism is there or not, does not provide any real or useful answer. Yet there are people with extreme ideas, and not only  ”Islamic”, in universities as there are in any other environment of where many different kinds of people come together.

In reality, some of my research tends to suggest that the strongest extreme ideas, including religious and “Islamic”, can be found not in universities but rather in high schools.  

Yet we have also to take into consideration the age of the students: how many of us have been ‘extreme’ in our way of thinking at the age of fifteen?

Rohingya children studying the Qu'ran at the Madrassa

Today another 200 Rohingya refugees have been rescued while drifting away in a wooden boat near the coast of Indonesia. It is pretty clear that the Rohingya are becoming the ‘Roma gypsy‘ of Southeast Asia, and similar to the case of Roma in Europe, the discussion is not about them, as human beings or to address their issues, but rather about how to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Degrading camps, expulsions and even ridiculous statements that these refugees, who bear the physical scars of their oppression, are actually economic migrants seem at this stage to be the only solutions offered. Islamic parties and even extremist groups are not interested in the destiny of the Rohingya people – or as we shall see below, at least not from a humanitarian and ‘political’ viewpoint. For instance, 193  Rohingya Muslims tried to find refuge on Sabang Island in Aceh Province, but are today facing deportation and possibly torture or death in Burma. Yet Irfan Awwas, chairman of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, or MMI, said,  ’our attention has been focused and our energy has been exhausted on the Palestinian issue.’ In other words, this hard line Indonesian group tells us that it has screamed so much for Hamas and the Palestinians that it suffers from a hoarse ‘political’ voice.

Although this shows the real faces and intentions  of many Islamist movements around the world, particularly the most extremist, the Rohingya Muslims may surely be better off with the silence of such movements. This also means that there is space for a real voice that can help to resolve their issues. The US , with the UN, has to take the issue of the Rohingya people seriously and call for a forum to resolve the historical denial of an entire ethnic group. Rohingya Muslims are an ethnic group and have a traceable history in Burma which dates back to the early 7th century!  

However, I know very well that the world of international politics is cynical and Machiavellian, and no action will be taken until the countries in South Asia (and the West) fully understand the consequences of this ‘no-action’ policy. I have not very much time to go into detail here, but I wish to offer a brief  rationale for which not only Rohingya Muslims are suffering from their situation, but also how we can end badly in terms of international security; the only thing, unfortunately, which seems to matter to politicians today. 

Let me only address the situation in Bangladesh where there are possibly more than  26,000  Rohingya refugees. The camps there are in a shocking condition and host to some of the most appalling, unhygienic and poor situations that can be found in refugee camps. Many women have lost their husbands, mothers their sons, and children are often without proper education. Depression is palpable everywhere; but so too is anger, resentment and a readiness to face even death if this means to escape such a miserable and unjust life.  

In my most recent book I have discussed how emotions and what I have called an ‘ethos of justice’, which can turn into an ideology of justice, may increase the risk of, if not produce, what scholars have defined ‘fundamentalism’. Camps such as this one, in which so many Rohingya Muslims live and suffer as refugees, can only increase the resentment towards other states, people, and situations. 

Certainly it is not a surprise that some Rohingya Muslims may end in prison for petty crimes and that, as in the case of the Gypsies in Europe, people may show very little empathy towards them and their lives. Yet Rohingya have very few choices and possibilities. This is also true in the case of education, which is mainly religious and in Bangladeshi madrasas. The religious teaching in these madrasas is at the best very traditional and at worst dangerous for the education and formation of frustrated and poor new generations of displaced Rohingya Muslims. 

Should we be surprised that violent radical groups may target or exploit the desperate reality of these people?  I am not. I expect that if the situation of Rohingya Muslims is not addressed quickly, with an emphasis on justice and their rights, their refugee camps can easily become a security issue for the world and a prolific breeding ground for future extremists and possibly even cheap terrorists (yes, indeed, terrorism is often a paid job!).

There is enough desperation among the Rohingya Muslims, who fear terribly for their lives and the lives of their loved ones in Burma, that exploitation of their emotions and needs would perhaps be an easy vulnerability for a radical organization. 

If anyone can gain from the desperation of the Rohingya Muslims as people and individuals, it is certainly neither the Southeast Asian countries, nor the Western ones, but rather those extremist, violent, “jihadi” groups that today have more and more difficulties to recruit people for their bloody plots.  Now we may ask ourselves: are the silent, hoarse voices of radical violent Islamic groups so innocent?