“So-called native informants”
Oh here we go – is Rahaf al-Qunun just another tool of the Global Conspiracy of Islamophobia?
Now, as al-Qunun begins a new life in a new country, questions are being raised about the reasons for Canada’s speedy decision to grant her asylum, the message it sends and its implications for the future of the country’s already-frosty relationship with Saudi Arabia, where an estimated 17,000 Canadians currently live.
“Canada and Saudi Arabia are in a political battle currently, so because this woman is Saudi, my sense is that there was some political motive in promoting the ‘rescuing’ of a Saudi girl,” said Ryerson University professor Mehrunnisa Ali.
“Of course, the rescuing of oppressed people is a Western narrative in many different ways but the securing of a Saudi woman being oppressed by her family and her country sharpens this narrative in ways that may not have been possible otherwise.”
So…we all should have just turned our backs and let al-Qunun be deported back to Saudi Arabia and the tender mercies of her father? Rather than risk being part of The Western Narrative? And is the issue colonialist narratives or lucrative dealings with Saudi Arabia? They’re not quite the same thing, after all.
For some, including senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Amarnath Amarasingam, it’s concerning how al-Qunun’s case is being celebrated by figures that often push an anti-Islam or anti-immigration message.
“Many on the far-right love ex-Muslims, and many ex-Muslims on the far-right often present themselves as so-called native informants presenting to the mainstream the real ‘truth’ about Muslims,” he said.
Excuse me? “So-called” by whom? Ex-Muslims sure as hell don’t call themselves “native informants,” so why introduce the term? It’s a calculated insult, and it’s a cheat to use it while trying to disown it with “so-called.”
“It’s perhaps not surprising that many of these individuals on the far-right encouraged Canada to accept Rahaf after it was rumoured that she had abandoned Islam. To be clear, I’m very happy that Canada let her in but … I’m going to go out on a limb and say there are some ulterior motives there.”
“Ulterior” how, exactly? Is it “ulterior” to dislike Islam as it is mostly practiced because of its illiberal view of women?
A nasty piece. Not cool, CBC.
Well, gee. What’s the balance: sending an 18 year old home to be murdered, or risking the anti-immigrant Right getting another talking point?
It’s so hard to be a lefty sometimes, especially if you define the left in opposition to the right. The right is anti-immigrant/refugee? Then we must be for them. But the right is anti-Islam? Then we must be for that, as well. And the right is pro-Saudi Arabia? Then we must be against that. But then how can we be pro-Islam and anti-Saudi? And how can we possibly reconcile our defense of al-Qunun’s rights with our pro-Islam/anti-Saudi/pro-refugee (and, of course, anti-imperialist) ideology?
If only there were some sort of universal values we could hang our hats on….
Really. Strangely, I have not seen the Trump types celebrate this at all. This sort of rescue is doubly anathema to them, as this is an (1) humanitarian act (2) on behalf of a muslim.
It’s become a “thing” to simply stick the epithet “Western” on something to stop all dialogue. The implication is that there are no values in the “West” that are worth celebrating or exporting, and that “Western” is synonymous with “evil”. Yes, there are a lot of bad, nasty things done by western nations, but not all values held by westerners are bad, evil, corrupt, or wrong. In fact, many of our values are very good. What can be bad is when those values get corrupted for evil ends, or the means we take to spread those values to people that don’t want them, or that do, but their government doesn’t.
And, what most of these anti-Western folks are missing is that some of the nastiest people in this country (in the west in general), a lot of the policy makers and talking heads and public intellectuals on the right, have values more in line with the “East” (not any more homogenous as a unit than the “West”) than with the liberal values the anti-western liberals are denigrating.
And please, explain exactly what is wrong with preventing a girl from being murdered for choosing her own system of belief? Oh, wait, Islam. If she were escaping brutal Christian parents in the American South, most of the people now screaming foul would be celebrating her escape. Me? I would celebrate both.
South Africa under apartheid laws was a pariah state for oppressing its black majority*. Why is not Saudi Arabia not a pariah state for the patriarchal apartheid of its guardianship laws?
Oh, right. Oil. Money.
And, it’s only women.
*Oppression must always be opposed and resisted, but it is particularly repugnant when it is based on being born into a particular group, like sex or race, as one cannot leave the group even if one wanted to (pace trans activists).
You’ve all said it very well, especially iknklast @4 — the silly misuse of “Western” has long annoyed me.
iknklast@4: “Western” as an all purpose pejorative has been around for quite a while. It was already a thing in many left-ish circles (I don’t think the called themselves progressives back then) back when I was in college, and I graduated in 1992.
Academic Lurker – I do know that; I graduated college in 1985, so you’re a bit younger than me. I didn’t hear it a lot then, though, even though I was a political science major. When I first heard it thrown around constantly was when I took my philosophy courses as part of my Environmental Science doctorate in the early part of this century. The Philosophy students had nothing but contempt for science, and could never accept that there was anything good about the west, or anything negative that happened in the east. They were so immersed in this line of thought that they actually dismissed an article by the Dalai Lama explaining that Buddhism didn’t really say what most Westerners think as “obviously being written by someone who doesn’t know anything about Buddhism”. I wondered if they bothered to read the name of the author on the first page.
If that had been my only (or even my first) experience with Philosophy, I might have the contempt for it that some other scientists do. Fortunately, I have a very broad based education and have been reading Philosophy for years. Those two classes were the only graduate level classes I took in it, but they were also the only ones that made Philosophy look ridiculous and uninformed.
iknklast: Indeed. I was a double major in English and Chemistry and the split between the 2 cultures was striking. It was always impressive to see how easily people could make any scientific conclusion they didn’t like disappear simply by calling it “Western” science.
Islam is entry-level fascism.
So ‘Islamophobia’ is a form of what might be called ‘fascistophobia’.
I plead guilty to both. Islam is a terrible religion, just as fascism is a terrible political philosophy.
And I find it interesting that Islam arguably has no golden rule. At best, it has one that only applies to half the population:
http://islam.ru/en/content/story/golden-rule-islam