A collective of intellectuals and academics
The BBC tells us of another round of denunciations:
Kamel Daoud is the Algerian novelist who came within an ace of winning France’s top book award – the Goncourt – last year for his Camus-inspired The Meursault Investigation.
He is also an independent-minded newspaper journalist, who has won as many enemies as friends over the years for his critical articles about the state of his country.
But Kamel Daoud has now announced to the world that he is giving up his newspaper work, and will focus on fiction.
Why? Because of the frenzied reaction to a piece he wrote in Le Monde concerning New Year’s Eve in Cologne.
Let me guess – he’s accused of “Islamophobia”?
The article in question – entitled “Cologne – City of Illusions” – was a two-pronged attack on the cliches triggered by the mass molestations of women.
On the one hand Daoud deplored the far-right “illusion” which treats all immigrants as potential rapists.
But by far the greater part of his anger was directed at the “naive” political left, who in his view deliberately ignore the cultural gulf separating the Arab-Muslim world from Europe.
Or they don’t ignore it but they pretend it’s just a matter of different as opposed to worse – stoning women, not stoning women, it’s all just part of the great tapestry of Culcha.
What Cologne showed, says Daoud, is how sex is “the greatest misery in the world of Allah”.
“So is the [male] refugee ‘savage’? No. But he is different. And giving him papers and a place in a hostel is not enough. It is not just the physical body that needs asylum. It is also the soul that needs to be persuaded to change.
“This Other (the [male] immigrant) comes from a vast, appalling, painful universe – an Arab-Muslim world full of sexual misery, with its sick relationship towards woman, the human body, desire. Merely taking him in is not a cure.”
I added the [male] because French does that but English doesn’t and it makes a difference.
These were strong words, and the reaction came fast.
In an opinion piece also in Le Monde, a collective of intellectuals and academics delivered an excoriating attack on Daoud, whom they accused of “feeding the Islamophobic fantasies of a growing part of the European population.”
That must have been pleasant for him.
Last year Adam Shatz, a leading liberal journalist and editor, wrote a long and favourable profile of Daoud for the New York Times.
But now – regretfully but firmly – he turned against him.
“It is very hard for me to imagine that you truly believe what you have written. This is not the Kamel Daoud that I know,” Shatz wrote in an open letter.
What worried Shatz – like the intellectuals (though he hated their “Soviet”-style public denunciation) – was the link Daoud drew between the events in Cologne and Islam.
“A few years ago we saw similar events at the Puerto Rico Day parade in New York. There too women were molested. But the molesters were not under the influence of Islam, but of alcohol,” he wrote.
That’s interesting, but so what? Both can be true – and also the influences can be combined. Maybe the Cologne abusers were fueled by alcohol as well as (partly or mostly or wholly) religious misogyny, and maybe the New York abusers were fueled by religious misogyny as well as alcohol. Or maybe the difference was absolute, but that doesn’t tell us much – it certainly doesn’t demonstrate that the Cologne abusers were not influenced by religious misogyny.
Daoud says he has had enough.
In an open letter to Shatz (a friend whose criticisms he respects), he denounces the academics and intellectuals who earlier denounced him.
“They do not live in my flesh or in my land, and I find it illegitimate – not to say scandalous – that certain people accuse me of Islamophobia from the safety and comfort of their western cafes.”
And that is his last word.
It’s like well-meaning lefties in the UK accusing Maryam of “Islamophobia” from the safety and comfort of their local pubs.
What the events cited tell us is that there are too many women being attacked, and something needs to change. Religious misogyny, atheist misogyny, libertarian misogyny, conservative misogyny, even liberal misogyny – this is what needs to change, no matter who is perpetrating it, and no matter what their culture (or their state of inebriation – if misogyny was not such a “thing”, inebriates might not target women, but work their energy off in some other way, hopefully less destructive).
From the Le Monde letter:
Merely posing the question, even to answer in the negative, is Bad.*
Reminds me of the “evidence” against Peter Tatchell.
* It’s Wrong to claim that young Muslim men are psychologically affected by their religion and culture, but it’s OK to suggest that Westerners respond like Pavlov’s dogs to any pairing of the words “refugee” and “savage.” Psychological analysis for me but not for thee.
What is wrong with these so-called intellectuals in their comfy cafes? How can they call themselves intelligent when their whole argument is:
“I want to be opposite some people who did bad things. They were against all things Muslim. I will be for anything that’s called Muslim.”
That’s some kind of headstand inversion of argumentum ad hominem. If they’re so intellectual, why can’t they see that?
I understand that there’s a real get-these-cooties-off-me feeling when you find yourself agreeing about something with the likes of Bush. I’ve had it myself. But then why don’t they get that feeling when they’re not just agreeing with but enabling some of the modern world’s worst human rights abusers?
@3: I think at basis it’s a failure to grasp that there are more than two sides. Some people really do seem to think that every conflict or opposition or disagreement has two sides, a right one and a wrong one; and, critically, that the moment they can identify somebody as being in the wrong, any and all opposition to the Wrong Person makes you right, and any and all agreement with the Wrong Person makes you wrong.
So here, the “collective” have noticed – how perceptive of them! – that racists who hate immigrants for being foreign are wrong. Therefore, absolutely anyone who suggests that anything about immigrants or the countries they come from might not be 100% peachy – is also wrong! How simple life must be.
You can see this kind of thinking all over the place if you look for it. You’ll notice that the “collective” fail to address a single one of the substantive points about the current social politics in Islamic countries; they skip directly to saying the article must be bad, because it suggests that there might be problems, and racists have also said that there are problems, so any suggestion there are problems means you’re siding with racists.
It seems like a rejection of complexity. Everything has two sides rather than many; everything has one cause rather than many; you are either with us or against us.
SAWells, you are so, so right.
I’ve been saying this for the longest time. It seems to be a very human trait that crosses cultures, education and political persuasion. People want simplicity. They want to judge and categorise. 99% of the time it’s quite wrong headed, even if their is a generic stereotypical truth embedded deeply in their somewhere.
I could make all sorts of evo devo speculation as to why this is, but I’m not going to for the above reasons ;-)
Daoud may “respect” Shatz’s criticism; I don’t. He’s not quite Joyce Carol Oates on the scale of “islamophobia”-mongers, but has written plenty of mealy-mouthed articles for the Nation and the LRB. I’ve followed Daoud for a while (French is my second language). I hope he changes his mind; we need his polemics.
@ SAWells:
I would add also the willingness of cafe/pub intellectuals to apply Newton’s Third Law of Motion to social dynamics. See, for example: “Sure, cartoonists getting murdered is tragic, but really, for every action there’s a reaction.” Tut-tut, indeed.
Intended as a corollary to your thesis, not a rebuttal in any way, of course.
Lady Mondegreen, you quote:
And then add:
Checking Le Monde article, to me that question reads absolutely rhetorical. Ophelia has added an English translation in a post above, which I haven’t clicked on, but assume that it will bear my interpretation out. I paraphrase: “Am I saying that the [male] refugee is a savage? No, of course not.” Really, how can the people writing that letter believe that he is asking the question in all earnestness? Can’t we read, not even charitably (generally a good idea), but with the tiniest appreciation for rhetoric?* Argh.
The letter exchange between the two friends has a melancholy flavour – clearly those two people like each other and repeat the indicators as a mantra to cover their disagreements and hurt.
Shatz writes (my translation):
I think I somehow get what is happening here. It’s frustrating to see people from a dominant culture judging yours with a monocle firmly put in place, so you try to explain a variety of situations that the visitor doesn’t expect (or, simply said, you just try to add some nuance): hey, you American man, you probably come from a puritanical culture, did you know that sex is not forbidden here, that women actually expect a lot of pleasure in a marital relationship and are very capable of obtaining it? Well said, in context, sure – but Daoud sees more, sees that those circumstances, explained and unexpected to the foreigner, aren’t enough at all for a healthy relationship between men and women, while Shatz is so enchanted with the discovery of a second lens to examine the foreign situation, that he’s reluctant to dismiss facts like that as explaining the whole picture.
The following paragraph, to me, demonstrates what I’ve just tried to outline:
I’m less honest than Ophelia. I’ve translated this paragraph without calling attention to the fact that these friends seem to be all male; oooor… you could believe that the masculin “generic” covers women – only I don’t, not in this context and case. And, well, it’s just sex, however much that surprises Mr. Shatz — it’s not economic freedom, jobs, human status.
Sorry if I am unclear or have misunderstood the sequence of texts, or, well, the texts themselves (please correct me then!) – I’m extraordinarily tired tonight. But this post and its links have moved me and I had to say something. I’ll reread tomorrow. In the meantime – heartfelt thanks, M. Daoud, for denouncing toxicity and for speaking on behalf of my sisters. (It’s a fitting celebration of March 8th.)
*I’m talking about the pompous asses who condemn Daoud, not about you, Lady M., of course. I’m not trying to correct you, but to add a bit of nuance (sorry to repeat the word again).
[…] a comment by SAWells on A collective of intellectuals and […]
“…my friends are all bisexual.” But some people aren’t naturally bisexual, and the idea that because some people can use bisexuality to find relationships and fulfillment in a sex-segregated society before marriage does not indicate that heterosexual (or exclusively homosexual) people can be content.
Further to #6, here’s Shatz trying refute Daoud: “…le fait que les femmes voilées sont parfois les plus émancipées sexuellement “… the fact that veiled women are sometimes the most sexually liberated.”
Oh Allah! Can he get more orientalist than that?!
Ugh, I’m reading the letter. It’s awful – full of gassy empty profundities to disguise the shortage of real content.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/23841/the-fantasies-of-kamel-daoud
A translation of the letter, that is.
Rhetorical question I know, but unless he becomes explicit, probably not. Many people do tend to fetishize the exotic, which often means a person of different race, culture, appearance etc. Again evo devo explanations abound. I have no idea what the actual reason(s) is/are.
Pretty staggeringly oblivious of Shatz though (unless he is claiming special knowledge of a statistically significant portion of the population).
Given that the purpose of the veil is sexual oppression, this is absurd on its face. It is like saying, “the fact that slaves in chains are sometimes the freest.”
The only way to make sense of it is to interpret “sexually liberated” as a state of mind: you’re liberated if you feel liberated; you’re liberated if you’re not a prude. Which is fine on its own terms, but utterly (willfully?) ignores the reality of sexual oppression that is done by men to women and enforced by violence.