Who Lives Happily?
Here we go again, again, again. It’s odd that this argument never seems to do any work, it just keeps recurring. It’s like listening to someone with a car stuck in the snow late at night, somewhere far down the hill – you just hear that rrrrrrr, rrrrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrrrrr over and over, as the wheels spin and never bite.
Chris at Crooked Timber links to an article in the Financial Times (by far the best he’s read on the subject, he says) on the anti-Muslim backlash in the Netherlands after the Van Gogh murder. All eager for the treat, I hastened to begin reading. Alas, one problem with the article leapt out at me in the first paragraph, and then kept on leaping – to such an extent that I paused in my reading to go report the fact at CT, which meant criticising the article before I’d read a quarter of it. Well I’m an impatient bastard, always have been. But also that was kind of the point. It’s such a glaring problem and it’s so obvious right from the beginning – and yet people either don’t notice it or think it’s right and good.
Here’s that first paragraph:
Six weeks before he was gunned down in the street, the Dutch controversialist Theo van Gogh (pictured) sat on a panel in Amsterdam in a hall full of Dutch Muslims. The panel was organised by a group called “Ben je bang voor mij?” (”Are you afraid of me?”), which tries to bring together white and brown Dutch people.
And then here are a couple more quotes.
Suddenly many Dutch people see their country as a riven place, where Muslims and white people cannot co-exist, and which may be on the brink of disaster…Most of the 14m inhabitants of Europe’s most densely populated country were then white, but the Muslim population was growing fast.
Spot the flaw? Of course you do. ‘Dutch Muslims…white and brown Dutch people’ ‘Muslims and white people’ ‘then white, but the Muslim’. The guy seems to think that Muslim and brown are exact synonyms. Or, worse, he knows damn well they’re not but he writes that way in order to manipulate his less attentive readers into thinking they are. With, no doubt, benevolent intentions. Muslims in Europe (and the US) feel threatened and under attack, and racists can and do use criticism of Islam as a tactic. But obfuscation doesn’t help – or if it does it does so at the price of obscuring or concealing other problems. Religion is not race, race is not religion. Religion is a system of ideas which can and must be open to criticism. Race is not. Religions tell people what to do. Religions tell some people they’re entitled to rule and dominate others, and tell other people they are required to bow and submit to the dominants. Race doesn’t do that; it can’t; it has no ideational content, any more than hair colour or length of leg or shape of ear lobe has. That’s why one has to be kept permanently wide open to criticism and disagreement, and why the other can’t be. (What are you going to do, argue with someone whose legs are too short? ‘If they were longer you could run faster!’)
Kuper does make an attempt at dealing with some of the content-specific issues later in the article, but he does a very superficial job of it, leaving out the most crucial aspects.
According to multiculturalism, a society consists of blocs of ethnic groups each living happily within their own culture…Today the concept is going out of fashion in much of Europe. Critics say it locks people up in a fixed, imagined idea of what “Moroccan” or “Muslim” is.
It’s not just a question of fashion, and critics say a lot more than that (the best critics anyway). ‘[E]ach living happily within their own culture’ is a terrible oversimplification, or in fact simply inaccurate. Many women and girls don’t live all that happily ‘within their own culture’. Cultures are not monolithic; they don’t necessarily treat everyone equally; people within them don’t have identical experiences of ‘their own culture’. A culture may work in such a way that a dominant group lives happily while everyone else is subordinate and exploited. Pointing out that unpleasant fact is way more than a matter of ‘fashion’ – in fact if it were more fashionable, maybe reporters would do a better job of noticing and mentioning it.
Aside from the confusing use of white, brown and Muslim the article isn’t that bad, though. In the last excerpt you quoted – it seems to me that the term “happily” might be used somewhat tongue-in-cheek here by the writer.
M.
Yes, true. I think he was being tongue-in-cheek. No, it’s not that bad. But it could be so much better (I think). He leaves so much out. But he does also makes some good points.
BTW, OB, in case you didn’t see it on CT, the link to the Katha Pollitt article you inquired about (it begins: “The war between religious fanaticism and secular modernity is fought over women’s bodies…”!) is —
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021223&s=pollitt
Thank you, Peter – I did see it and then forgot to mention it (too busy being argumentative). Thanks very much!
(Comment cross-posted from CT).
Ophelia,
This really is tedious. You have a bee in your bonnet about people who claim that criticism of Islam is ipso facto racist. Fair enough, I’ll concede the point (though not without noting that whilst attacks on religions can be merely the stuff of enlightenment rationalism, they can also be the cover for nasty attempts to marginalise whole groups of people).
Here you accuse Simon Kuper of being conceptually confused and thinking that Islam is a race. I have to say that that’s a spectacularly wilful and boneheaded reading of what he wrote and one that only someone strongly predisposed to see examples of her pet conceptual confusion would have seen. Having read Kuper’s writings on and off over the years, I can tell you with pretty close to 100 per cent certainty that he is not conceptually confused in the way you suggest. It just happens that in the context he’s writing about there’s contingently (and especially in the minds of the Dutch people who are reacting negatively) a strong correlation between being Muslim and being “brown”.
Your failures of comprehension really are pretty serious here. So, for example, Kuper’s “living happily” quote is not an endorsement of multiculturalism but a thumbnail sketch of multicultural utopia in they eyes of its most optimistic advocates (ie not Kuper himself) which then introduces a contrast with what “critics” say. You then attack his account of what “critics” say because he doesn’t go into sufficient detail to encompass explicitly the exact points that you, as a “critic”, would like to make.
Nowhere do you even bother addressing the central point of the article, which is to attack the insistent demand that Muslims identify as Dutch-first/Muslims-second etc. That they “integrate” and “assimilate” as good liberal citizens. And so on. As Kuper makes clear, these demands are (a) highly offensive, as we can see just by recalling the similar questioning of Jews “are they really German?” / “Where is their loyalty?” and (b) totally counterproductive.
Do you think that persistent stigmatization and demanding that a group become more “normal”, identifying them as a “problem” and so on, is likely to (a) make members of that group shrug their shoulders and conform or (b) feel threatened, reinforce their group identity, get massively pissed off etc? Personally, I’m guessing it does the latter.
The trouble with me writing that last paragraph is that you are probably tempted to process it as “Chris says we shouldn’t criticise Islam”. Well, no, I wasn’t saying that. I was saying that persistent stigmatization and demonization of groups, blaming all members for the actions of extremists etc etc is not a good strategy for anyone who wants to promote the liberal values we both share. Funnily enough, I think that’s what Simon Kuper was saying too. What a pity that you couldn’t hear him.
It’s a strange article, ins’t it? It makes good sense for a while and then jolts you with something odd. You’ve already picked up the confusion between religion and race but the little thing that struck me was that the fact that you can now get a haircut on a Sunday should be a subject for regret. Why? Because your hair would be cut by a Moroccan?
Weird. It took me back to Schama’s ‘The Embarrassment of Riches’ and the propensity of the Dutch to feel more and more guilty as their lives got better and better.
So, since Chris B did (why is it that about 60% of our commenters are named Chris? I keep wondering), I will stick my answer at CT here too.
————-
Chris,
“Here you accuse Simon Kuper of being conceptually confused and thinking that Islam is a race.”
No I don’t. I’m accusing him of a verbal confusion – of mere careless wording, if you like. I don’t know whether it’s deliberately careless or merely careless tout court, but I’m not claiming that if anyone asked him, he would say Islam is a race. But the verbal confusion is the point. However, I may not have made it clear enough that that was what I meant. Beg pardon – spectacularly boneheaded of me.
“It just happens that in the context he’s writing about there’s contingently (and especially in the minds of the Dutch people who are reacting negatively) a strong correlation between being Muslim and being “brown”.”
Yes I know, I get that. But I still think that even an implicit or careless assumption that the two are the same – and that assumption is in the words he chose to use – is a mistake – a mistake in the sense of being a bad idea that does harm, prevents seeing the issues clearly, that sort of thing.
“You then attack his account of what “critics” say because he doesn’t go into sufficient detail to encompass explicitly the exact points that you, as a “critic”, would like to make.”
Yup, true. Fair point. But then I think that ‘detail’ is a detail that gets left out all too often, and I’m also not sure that I think the status and well-being, the capabilities and flourishing of subordinate groups within cultures is really such a trivial issue as to be a mere ‘detail’. But perhaps reading Martha Nussbaum’s very detailed work on this subject has warped my perspective.
True about not addressing the central point; I was simply addressing a peripheral one. One does that sometimes.
No, I agree with you about the stigmatization. I was planning to add that point (in an ‘on the other hand’ sort of way) later, probably at B&W since I don’t want to go on and on and on here.
“The trouble with me writing that last paragraph is that you are probably tempted to process it as “Chris says we shouldn’t criticise Islam”.”
No, I’m not. I do take your point, as I said. (Although I could also point out that there are in fact ‘members of that group’ [depending on how one defines ‘that group’ – I mean ‘brown people’ from predominantly Muslim cultures who are not in fact Muslim, or who are Muslim but are critical of Islam or what Islam has become or Islam as currently understood] who don’t [for instance] see criticisms of [for instance] Sharia or the Koran as stigmatization but rather as vitally necessary. And they do not get as much attention, as much of a hearing, as much media presence, as they ought to. Their secular leftist comrades tend to ignore them. Okay, that’s a bee in my bonnet if you like. But I think it’s true all the same.) But even so, I don’t think sloppy or deceptive language about the issue helps anything.
I don’t know where the guy lives but here, where I live, brown & muslim correlate. As a matter of fact (I suppose noone has beef with matters of fact), I see no issue with that, nor with pointing it out. Sure, that does not make them synonymous but, as much as some people like dissociating brown and muslim to be free attacking the muslims, I know quite a lot of them pretending to the same just to be able to attack the browns, under the cover of the politically correct hunt for Islam.
It’s bollocks; this hunt for Islam. It’s bollocks; the incessant attacking of the multicultural society. Is it not quite a fair approach to argue for rule of law & avoid the hyperboles?
But he didn’t point it out (until later). He simply used the two words as if they were synonymous, right at the beginning of the article. Pointing out that most Mulims are ‘brown’ (and even that is pretty debatable, really – a lot of them are olive) is not the same thing as using ‘brown’ and ‘Muslim’ as interchangeable terms.
“It’s bollocks; this hunt for Islam.”
Is it? Would you like to live under Sharia? Would you like it if you were a woman? If not, isn’t it worth pointing out that Sharia is not good for women (among other people) anywhere? Happily, not all Muslims endorse Sharia. But it’s difficult to criticise Sharia (for instance) without getting into what you call a ‘hunt for Islam’.
I agree that the white and brown meme is very distractive -if not a strawman-, but at the same time it does reflect Dutch public debate which is suffering in purity under the popular backlash effect from earlier misplaced political correctness (taboo) over immigration issues.
An issue that has been repressed for decades, like this issue has been, will leave people eager to find equilibrium in open debate. A catch-up. This is precisely what is going on in the Netherlands. The Dutch are trying to find a way out of the dark, eager to be heard, often overreacting. Come back in a year or two and everything will be settled.
Sure. These catch-ups are happening in a lot of places, even if not as sharply as in the Netherlands. And I do realize that criticism of Islam can all too easily slide right into Muslim-bashing. But I think that point is better made quite literally and flat-footedly, rather than via conflation of race and religion.
OB – Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. The author seems as distracted as some of the Dutch populace, thereby disqualifying his article as a truly objective observation. Race is simply a strawman to the theme, an obfuscating sidetrack and marginal at that. The core issues under debate are IMO pure and valid, and they deserve more focus than the obligatory flukes of human truthfinding.
“Would you like to live under Sharia?”
The hell I would.
“Would you like it if you were a woman?”
Even less so.
“If not, isn’t it worth pointing out that Sharia is not good for women (among other people) anywhere?”
It is a tad trivial but well worth it in my opinion nevertheless.
“Happily, not all Muslims endorse Sharia.”
Not all? Damned, in a country where over a million muslims have their home, where at best a few thousands would go for the Sharia & where the majority of the young muslims have no freakin’ clue what it is specifically about; “not all”?
“But it’s difficult to criticise Sharia (for instance) without getting into what you call a ‘hunt for Islam’.”
Is it? Can’t I criticize the pope whilst avoiding a “hunt for catholicism”. Can’t I criticize pro-lifers, without going in for a “hunt for protestantism”? Can’t I criticize orthodox Jews without getting into a “hunt against the Talmud”? Can´t I criticize the Bhagwan without risking “a hunt for Buddhism”?
If I can’t & I know I did then I have an awkward reality problem.
(by the way is the Sharia – with all its gory details – an integral part of their Koran? Is the Islam the most sublime of all monotheistic revealed religions for not having any inconsistency, therefore also not needing any interpretation, in their Big Book?)
JoB, well it’s not all that trivial. Remember Ontario, for instance. And there was that UK survey last week that said 66% of Muslims polled would like to see Sharia for civil cases in the UK.
“Not all?”
Well that’s my point! The equation often gets made between criticising for instance Sharia and ‘Muslim-bashing’. Well why? Not all Muslims are Sharia-fans, so why make the equation?
“Can’t I criticize the pope whilst avoiding a “hunt for catholicism”. Can’t I criticize pro-lifers, without going in for a “hunt for protestantism”? Can’t I criticize orthodox Jews without getting into a “hunt against the Talmud”? Can´t I criticize the Bhagwan without risking “a hunt for Buddhism”?”
Well, see, I would criticise (or ‘hunt for’ if you insist on putting it that way) Catholicism and Protestantism and Judaism too, as well as criticising individuals. That’s the point. There is such a thing as Islam, after all; it does have some basic tenets; ‘liberal’ or ‘moderate’ Muslims often disagree with the other kind by saying ‘the Koran does not say ___’ – that women should be mutilated or whatever the subject at issue is. But I don’t think people should be granted rights or not, mutilated or not, stoned to death or not, walled up or not, depending on what the Koran says (or the Bible or the Talmud either). So assuming that Islam is still a religion of the Book, which as far as I know it is, then that’s one glaring reason to criticise it in its entirety, not just in its more obviously extreme manifestations.
I don’t want the ‘biblical ethics’ people like Marvin Olasky and George Bush would impose on us, and I don’t want Koranic ethics either.