Eltahawy and Manji
Mona Eltahawy in the Washington Post.
The July 7 London bombings did it for me. Perhaps it was because my parents moved us from Cairo to the British capital when I was 7 years old, and so London was my childhood “home.” Or maybe it was because our route to work and school every morning crisscrossed those same Underground stations that were targeted.
I know the feeling. As, of course, do countless other people – literally millions of them. They live there, they once lived there, they visited there, they have friends and relatives there. Many, many millions of people know the feeling.
I’m sure it was also those dog-eared statements that our clerics and religious leaders read out telling us that Islam means peace — it actually means submission — and asking us to please forget everything they had ever said before July 6, because as of July 7 they truly believe violence is bad. Their backpedaling is so furious you can smell the skid marks.
Yes, I’ve been noticing that ‘Islam means peace’ bromide lately, and wondering at it. I certainly was under the impression that it meant submission. I thought maybe it meant both, or that the two words are the same thing in Arabic – so it’s good to see that correction. (Of course, it may be that in the minds of clerics, sumbission in fact is peace. Reminds one of that old bitter remark of Tacitus’: they make a wilderness and call it peace. Submission is peace, in a sense, as is being dead. Give up, give in, empty yourself, empty your mind, become an obedient blank – and that’s peace. In a way. But if that’s peace, give me turmoil.)
I was against the invasion of Iraq and would not have voted for George Bush if I were a U.S. citizen, but I’m done with the “George Bush made me do it” excuse. We must accept responsibility for this mess if we are ever to find a way out. And for those non-Muslims who accept the George Bush excuse, I have a question: Do you think Muslims are incapable of accepting responsibility? It is at least in some way bigoted to think that Muslims can only react violently.
It’s also in some way bigoted – or condescending – to apply special standards to Muslims. If the bombers were anti-abortionists or Nazis, would the same people be talking the same nonsense about rage and alienation in the same tone? Give me a break.
I believe thursday’s bombings in London, combined with the first wave of explosions two weeks ago, are changing something for the better. Never before have I heard Muslims so sincerely denounce terrorism committed in our name as I did on my visit to Britain a few days ago. We’re finally waking up. Except on one front: the possible role of religion itself in these crimes…To blow yourself up, you need conviction. Secular society doesn’t compete well on this score…Which is why I don’t understand how moderate Muslim leaders can reject, flat-out, the notion that religion may also play a part in these bombings. What makes them so sure that Islam is an innocent bystander?
And not only moderate Muslim leaders. For some understandable reasons, plenty of non-Muslims also don’t want to admit that religion may play a part in the bombings.
What makes them sound so sure is literalism. That’s the trouble with Islam today. We Muslims, including moderates living here in the West, are routinely raised to believe that the Koran is the final and therefore perfect manifesto of God’s will, untouched and immutable. This is a supremacy complex. It’s dangerous because it inhibits moderates from asking hard questions about what happens when faith becomes dogma. To avoid the discomfort, we sanitize. And so it was, one week after the first wave of bombings. A high-profile gathering of 22 clerics and scholars at the London Cultural Center produced a statement, later echoed by a meeting of 500 Muslim leaders. It contained this line: “The Koran clearly declares that killing an innocent person [is] tantamount to killing all mankind.” I wish. In fact, the full verse reads, “Whoever kills a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all humankind.” Militant Muslims easily deploy the clause beginning with “except” to justify their rampages.
Interesting clause for clerics and scholars to leave out, isn’t it. Interesting game to play. Produce a statement saying ‘the Bible/the Torah clearly states [something with a key phrase that profoundly alters the meaning omitted].’ Not good. Not honest.
How about joining with the moderates of Judaism and Christianity in confessing some “sins of Scripture,” as Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has said of the Bible? Anything less leaves me with another question: Why is it that in diverse societies, those who oppose diversity of thought often feel more comfortable getting vocal than those who embrace it?
Interesting paradox, isn’t it.
I had the interesting experience of talking in detail to a bunch of young Muslim students recently about the war in Iraq, and about terrorism.
I was actually shocked at how shallowly their sense of disaffection was rooted in a knowledge of history and politics. Although they were indeed angry about the state of the world, about the treatment of Muslims, about Palestine, and about the war in Iraq, they appeared to have almost no understanding of the historical context or even an insight into present day world politics.
I also noticed a very worrying tendency to reason things away in contradictory ways. So while the terrorist attacks in London and the US were terrible and to be condemned, they had nothing to do with Islam, these people weren’t Muslims, but actually, the US and UK deserve to be attacked for their foreign policy, and attacking Muslims, but do we really know it was Muslims that carried out these attacks, how do we know it wasn’t Mossad? A sort of scattergun of excuses.
They also (probably thanks to Mr Bush) had a real dificulty distinguishing between the ‘War on Terror’ and the war in Iraq, some of them had real difficulty with the concept that these should be considered separate phenomena, which further fuelled the perception that the US and UK are prosecuting a war against Islam (no, none of them knew that the nature of the Iraqi regime meant that it was hardly a paragon of Islamic virtue).
And don’t get me started on the grand Jewish conspiracies.
PM – that’s exactly the sort of honest & truthful appraisal that we need more of, otherwise any attempt at dialogue will result in meaningless cant and rhetoric. Thanks.
I should point out that I was giving my impressions at a general level – some individuals had a practically encyclopaedic knowledge of Middle East history and politics, particularly one bloke involved in the Palestinian solidarity campaign.
Yes, thanks, PM. That’s been my impression, if only from the sort of vacuous things Aslam said in his comment (we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore blah). But I am somewhat surprised they didn’t even know Iraq wasn’t Islamic-virtue-land. War with Iran down the memory-hole then, apparently.
Quite so, just as a cross section of (mainly) blokes in a decidedly working class west-midlands pub yesterday afternoon showed a range of responses from racisim, and ignorance to a solid grasp of the complexity of what’s going on and in on case a deep loathing for George Bush for ‘getting us into Iraq’ – this latter, I might add from an ex british paratroop who had done service in NI, the Falklands, and has sepecial forces pals currently in service…
Although I might have views on what’s going on that differ wildly from my neighbour, I really feel the only solution is to shut up and be as calm rational as we can at present, otherwise the public unrest and confusion will be unbearable, and only more tragedy can ensue…
– was responding to PM by the way
PM – After the dust of 9/11 had settled, I reckon if you asked a room full of 100 people anywhere to list the reasons the AQ were operating by, you’d have got an rather incoherent picture. And those rather incoherent feelings around the world will only cohese in to clarity with continued dialogue; only after that prcocess can we start sensibly talking about action. I wish all those columnists, interest groups pundits, and, perhaps worst – self proclaimed spokes-people – could shut up and let ordinary people have their say… Saul Below’s ‘crisis chatter’ remark seems so relevant currently.
Very good piece – as always. Your site is a refuge of sanity !
Can I expand on one of the comments above. I’ve spent a fair bit of time recently debating – or trying to – science and history on the BBC Muslim Board. Yiu can find it under the ‘Talk’ button at the top of the first BBC page.
The ignorance and arrogance there is startling.
Latest thing – though apparently it’s been circulating for a while – is a sort of Protocols of the Elders of Zion document but aimed at Britain.
It’s suposed to be the autobiography of a British spy who was sent to the Ottoman Empire to destablise Islam – in 1710 !
Just google on ‘Hempher’ to read this idiotic document.
Needless to say this goes down very well, despite containing countless schoolboy howlers….
Keep up the good work !
PM. Poor guy, it would appear that on top of an expired visa, his naural reaction to plainclothes guys with guns was to run… they shouted “stop armed police!” Perhaps they don’t stop in Rio either…
I’m witholding judgement on that one until the full evidence is in. It still seems an overreaction to an expired visa to run from armed police, of course we don’t know whether they identified themselves properly, all very confusing – I guess my money would be on his involvement in some fairly small time criminality, but who knows? Armed police aren’t exactly known for their restraint.
“Whoever kills a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all humankind.” Militant Muslims easily deploy the clause beginning with “except” to justify their rampages.
Interesting clause for clerics and scholars to leave out, isn’t it.
Interesting indeed. For every different religious commandment saying “Do not Kill,” there is one saying “except when they aren’t like us”, ie, Human.
No wonder they “Aliens” are so covert! ;)
(Cut me some slack on that one por favor. I just read a great review where the author {OB} pointed out the importance of humor in e’en the most serious venue.)
And the comments here are as refreshingly on point as the Post itself. I am now officially a Daily reader of B&W.
Greetings, MBains. Your official Daily reader’s decoder ring is in the mail.
Well just so. Thou shalt not kill except when you really really want to. Aka having it both ways – retaining self image as moral while still doing what one really really wants to.
PM. You’re right, although we only tend to hear about our intelligence failures, so perhaps a little hasty to critisise S019 etc for being too gung-ho. Whatever, it looks like an unmittigated indivudual tragedy which confuese and compounds the wider grief and anxiety in an already highly distressing situation. The root cause is terrorism. The causes of terror are debatable; we learn more and more, that as with Baader Meinhoff, they’re coming from bourgeois famillies..
Anyone see the New Al-Quaeda last night ? (UK, BBC2, 9.PM)
They’re basically jerking off over snuff movies out ther and calling it holy… Global Jiz-Had anyone ?
Thanks, Alun. ‘Hempher’ – I’ll have to look that up when I get a minute.
Protocols, Dreyfus, ‘Saint’ Hugh of Lincoln. Great Stitch-ups of History.
Hempher
Alright, I had the minute OB was waiting for (actually, I was frantically busy and am running late as I write, but dammitall, I was curious).
Let’s for one second ignore the fact that the whole thing sounds screwy and just see what’s out there.
Googling “Hempher” on the web gives you nearly 800 hits. Most seem to recount or quote the basic tale. Very, very few either question it or call it a forgery. The source is often given as a series run in “Der Spiegel” and afterwards picked up by a French newspaper identified only as “prominent.” No date for either of these mainstream press appearances is ever given, let alone a proper reference.
According to the online search engine of “Der Spiegel,” which I asked to check from the beginning of the 1990s until today, the word “Hempher” does not appear once.
Google Groups, which one might expect to be awash with a revelation of this nature, has the advantage of being sortable by date. There are just over thirty hits. The first ten or so are from 1998, from July, the most recent ten are 2004 and 2005, with the middle ten covering 2000-2004. The very first appearance refers back to http://www.ihlasnet.com/. In October the piece is lambasted for not sounding remotely authentic and for being a patently transparent attempt of a Moslem trying to imagine how a dastardly Briton might think and write.
Of course, the fact that this revelation can’t be traced back earlier than 1998 (the Groups archive goes back several years earlier than that) doesn’t seem to have stopped anybody, in fact, it’s a case study in how the Internet can be used for disinformation. And the Spiegel seal of plausibility is trotted out again and again without anyone seeming to have made the most rudimentary check against an easily available online source. I know, I’m naive to even get such an idea, but there you have it, folks.
Wow, good research, Stewart. Thanks for doing that – while running late, too. Order of merit.
Someone in the msm ought to do an exposé, it would seem.
It seems to go back a little farther than that, if the citations are accurate. Daniel Pipes (who makes me nervous as a rule, but I looked at the link anyway) seems to have written about the story in a book published in 1996; he cites M. Sıddïk Gümüş, Confessions of a British Spy, 3d ed. (Istanbul: Hakikat Kitabevi, 1993).
Thanks, OB. I did notice the Pipes, but because I was in a hurry, I limited my date-checking to Groups, where I could do it in automated fashion. Now that I look back following your comment, I see that his page, from a 1996 book, as you point out, contains links (“This account derives from…”) back to sites starting with:
“Memoirs Of Hempher, The British Spy To The Middle East is the title of a document that was published in series (episodes) in the German paper Spiegel and later on in a prominent French paper. A Lebanese doctor translated the document to the Arabic language and from there on it was translated to English and other languages. Waqf Ikhlas publications put out and circulated the document in English in hard copy and electronically under the title: Confessions of a British spy and British enmity against Islam.”
This is word for word what appears in almost all the other, later, sources. In other words, we’re not much closer to a real verifiable source. It is, course possible, that the Spiegel ran something once too early for it to be included in its online search engine, but we have lots of vagueness about when and that persistently unnamed French paper. I ran a combined search on “Hempher” and “Spiegel” which gave me nearly 80 hits, but when I limited the search to pages in German and then to pages originating in Germany, I got less than 10 hits each. Wouldn’t one have expected there to be more in German if the Spiegel was really the source? Why didn’t Pipes do better homework?
Alright, there’s more now and it’s quite interesting. Pipes’ first link is to a page in English. It contains a link to a German version and only on that page do we find out what I assume is the identity of the “Lebanese doctor” who translated it (they probably mean from English, before their claim it appeared in the Spiegel): Yusuf Nabhani (also Nebhani or an-Nabhani), who died in Beirut in 1932. It seems to have originated with him, whether really translated or just made up. Hakikat Kitabevi publishes it in Istanbul, together with a text entitled “British Enmity Against Islam” (“The British are a conceited and arrogant people. The high value which they attach to themselves and to their own country leaves its place to a symmetrical detestation when it comes to other people and their countries.”) and a booklet by Nebhani entitled “A Summary of the Statements which will help choose the Islamic Religion.” Of course, if you’re nowhere near Istanbul, you can get this great-value package from Hizmet Books in Saddle Brook, N.J.
While this is a nice window into the world(view) of which suicide bombers may partake (similar to what you just posted mentioning MEMRI), the icing on the cake here is that unless I’ve jumped the gun because of similar names, Nabhani’s grandson seems to have been the founder of Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose members, as we now all know, are so gentle that they’re very easily shocked, right?
So Stewart, you seem to be saying that this der Spiegel article from the late 1990’s was translated by a man who died in 1932!
{sigh}
I assure you that I’m not commenting on the veracity of your findings. I’m confused OR, if I DO understand your conclusions, disillusioned… but I’m used to the latter. ;}
Either way, sincere thanks for the investigation.
The people spreading this thing around are making a number of claims. They say (variously and usually in an order that does not make chronological sense) that the British officially published it (no date or reference given), that it appeared as a series (not just a mention, but important enough to rate serialisation) in Der Spiegel (no date given) and a prominent French paper (no name or date given). In only one source does one find anything whatsoever that links to a date and that is the year of death of the man who is supposed to have put it together for the edition that was in its third printing in 1993. I think I’ve gone as far as I can with this research from online sources. Time to dump the package in the lap of the friend who works for Spiegel-TV. What I’ve heard about their fact-checkers is awe-inspiring.
Do I even need to mention that not one of the more than twenty million documents searchable online in Britain’s National Archives and the British Library gives a hit for “Hempher?”
Thanks for the thanks. Detective work is fun, anyway. You get to wear a deerstalker (not that anyone notices when you hit “enter” for your search request), play the violin and take drugs.
You only get to wear a deerstalker in the country though, and then only under certain circumstances. In town you definitely have to wear the gentleman’s top hat. SH would no more have worn a deerstalker in town than he would have walked down the Strand in his underpants.
Second the thanks for detective work, and let us know what Spiegel-TV friend turns up.
Preliminary unsurprising result: Der Spiegel has at no point in its existence ever published an article containing the word “Hempher.” The search carried out included those articles blocked for normal users from the outside.