21 February 2006

On Feb 7, 2006, under the heading 'Editorials', Newsday printed James Pinkerton's column, "Let's be honest: Multiculturalism can kill a nation". It became Newsday's most emailed story and still headed the weeks most e-mailed story list 7 days later. If you have not yet read Pinkerton's column, it is linked below.

Pamela K. Taylor is an award-winning poet and author, Co-Chair of the Progressive Muslim Union, Director of the Islamic Writers Alliance, has her Masters in Divinity from Harvard in Islamic Studies, and lest anyone doubt how American she is, one her immigrant ancestors arrived on the Mayflower in 1620.

Asked by the United Muslim Association of Toronto and the Muslim Canadian Congress, on Canada Day, July 1, 2005, this American became the first woman to lead prayers in a mixed gender service in a mosque in 1400 years. On February 19th she again lead prayers, this time at the request of Soheib Bencheikh, Director of the Institut Superieur des Sciences Islamiques and former Grand Mufti of Marseilles, as a sign of his solidarity with the movement for gender equity in Muslim societies. (Since many of our readers are not well versed in Islam, a Mufti is like a Bishop in the Catholic Church.)

The AA E-Zine asked Taylor to respond and this is her reply to Pinkerton's many errors in fact and judgment.

Mr. Pinkerton claims that multiculturalism can kill a nation, but let’s do as he suggests, and be honest. Multiculturalism is what this nation is built upon. Remember that old metaphor they used to teach us in school? America is a melting pot. I’ve got news for Mr. Pinkerton – that didn’t mean throwing a bunch of white, English males into a field and letting them reestablish English culture here in America. Not even a bunch of white, English, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish males. It was people from all over.

The first Muslims came with Columbus – they were his navigators and among the sailors that manned his boats. The first wave of Arab settlers came in the early 1840s. That’s why we have cities such as Medina, OH, and why Mecca can be found in Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee, not to mention the plethora of West Lebanons, New Palestines, and Cairos.

History is written by the winners. Also ignored are the Filipinos who came in the 1700's with the Spanish and later settled in what became New Orleans when the 'United States' was still just 13 colonies. The Chinese – they started coming in large numbers back about the same time as the Arabs, the late 1840s. As did the Japanese. The Africans, well, I think we’re all familiar how and when they began arriving. Perhaps some would like to minimize their impact on our culture but if you happen to like universal civil rights, jazz and rock and roll, etc, etc, etc, you’d better think twice.

This country has never been an ethnically “pure” land as were the countries of Europe.

This is without a doubt a major factor in why there have been no violent protest marches regarding the Danish cartoons here in America. Not because America was just so lucky that all the radical Islamists happened to move to Europe rather than to the US, but because American multiculturalism is radically different from European multiculturalism. Americans are far more willing to embrace differences; we have a culture that believes deep down in the universal equality of all human beings and a legal system which enforces that belief.

Europe, on the other hand, is still living under the shadow of its not so distant colonial past. Tensions between white secular or Catholic Frenchmen and Algerian Muslim Frenchmen have as much to do with the battle to throw off France’s colonial rule over Algeria a short 50 years ago as it has to do with what is going on today in France. Similarly Britain, where the self-aggrandizement of the rulers and the humiliation of the ruled of British colonial rule over the Indian sub-continent is still fresh in many people’s minds.

Tensions between Danes and immigrant Muslims have as much to do with the fact that the Danish people over the past few decades courted large numbers of migrant workers to do the menial jobs Danes wouldn’t – and took them understanding that they were clearly inferior rather than welcoming them as equals.

The fact is, many Europeans approach their Muslim populations from a position of arrogance – assumed superiority – due largely to assumptions that remain from the days of colonialism. The resulting alienation, economic hardship, and ghettoization of their new immigrants has led to a crisis that could indeed lead to greater and greater violence.

Thank God, America has dealt with its minorities in a much more humane manner. Thank God that opportunity here is not based upon one’s skin color or country of origin, but upon, largely, one’s hard work and one’s pursuit of education. And that where discrimination does take place, the courts will uphold the law. Clearly, there are still issues of racism and inequality of opportunity that America has to deal with, but it’s no where near the level as it is in Europe.

And not only is the problem much less severe here than on the other side of the Atlantic, but the response is radically different. Europe is growing steadily more and more xenophobic. Europeans attack their Muslim populations, banning practices that many, many Muslim believe to be required parts of their religion. They “open discussions” by, for all practical purposes, spitting in the face of those who they purportedly want to dialogue with. Their secularism is not one that seeks to ensure all religions can be freely practiced, but one that tries to squeeze religion out of the public sphere completely.

In America, on the other hand, we seek free practice of all religions. The protections in the Bill of Rights are very clear – the government may not act to establish one religion over another – and as a result, we take steps to ensure that all religious groups have equal ability to practice and are not discriminated against. 

When tensions do spring up, as they inevitably will as people negotiate their way into new countries, the American response is quite different from the European one. Where discrimination occurs, the legal system acts to remove the damage, and to allow free practice. We see interfaith groups springing up in every city and town. We see newspapers reaching out to columnists of different ethnic backgrounds so they can present their points of view. We see schools including the holidays of many, many cultures in their programming, and textbooks expanding to include lessons on different religions and cultural practices.

This difference in attitude, in the way our multiculturalism is formulated, makes a huge difference in the way immigrant communities integrate into our societies. And this is why we don’t see the kind of anger in the Muslim community here that you see in Europe, and why America has nothing to fear from its own Muslim population.

Having (hopefully) punched some major holes in one of Mr. Pinkerton’s straw men, lets turn to another – his gross stereotyping of Muslims.

Let’s be clear here – there are radical Muslim extremists. There are totalitarian Islamists who want to enforce their own puritan vision upon the whole world, a vision which is as scary to most Muslims as it is to most non-Muslims. Scarier perhaps, because it is our religion that is being distorted, and these radicals have shown no compunction in murdering fellow Muslims.

Fortunately, they are a small percentage of the world’s Muslim population, though people like Mr. Pinkerton would like you to think they are, in fact, the majority, indeed an overwhelming majority. They are, instead, a highly vocal, highly visible minority, and a highly mobilized one, but nonetheless a small one. Much like the IRA is/was a very visible, militant minority when compared to the world of Christianity.

And just as the IRA has been unsuccessful in recruiting large numbers of Christians to their cause, so too radical Muslims will only be able to attract a certain number of adherents. In places like Europe, where economic, social and political pressures come together to alienate and embitter Muslims, of course those ideologies are going to be more attractive. Even more so in countries where “Muslim” governments flaunt their corruption, oppress their own people, and ignore the crushing economic desperation large numbers of people live with, this is even truer. 

If we’re really scared of Muslims becoming fanatics the answer is not to push them out of America (an impossible task anyway, since 35-40% of the American Muslim community are African Americans, and another 25% are second generation (or third or fourth or…) Muslims born and raised here), but to alleviate the conditions which lead to extremism all over the world.

Mr. Pinkerton, as do many who want to put the fear of Islam in the hearts of Americans, pulls forth the worst examples across the Muslim world, and makes it seem like all Muslims agree with or like the example on display. Not only that, he compares these worst examples in the Muslim world to the highest ideals of American / Western society – ideals we may not even live up to 100% of the time. It’s like picking out Jim Jones and David Koresh as representatives of Christianity. Or like depicting Timothy McVeigh, the Unibomber, or Charles Manson as typical Americans. And then comparing them to Averroes, or Rumi, or Bodram Khan (an Afghani pacifist who inspired some 100,000 Afghanis to work hand in hand with Gandhi) as representatives of Islam. Let us be fair and compare Bin Laden to McVeigh, Benjamin Franklin to Avicenna.

He hauls out several examples to make his point about how backward / awful / utterly different Muslims are from the West. Let us examine them one by one.

1) He says: we are trying to bring them democracy and they turn to Islamism, pointing in particular to Hamas and Ahmedinejad, both elected officials. Huh? A freely elected official is a freely elected official no matter what his political persuasion. The Hamas win was, in fact, an exemplary exercise in democracy, an election that according to the international observers appears to have been executed without violence or corruption, with no voting irregularities, and with the participation of over 80% of the eligible voters!

One could argue, in fact, that this is far more democratic than American elections where only 25-30 percent of the eligible votes bother to participate, but that’s not the main issue. The fact that we don’t like the outcome of the vote does not make it any less a democratic process.

As for people wanting to use religion in politics, surely Mr. Pinkerton did not intend to claim that this is a phenomenon unique to Islam? Has he heard of the Religious Right? The Moral Majority? Judge Alito? President Bush, who claims to get guidance on matters of state from God himself?? How different is that?

As a progressive Muslim, I believe in secularism, and am opposed to the Islamist intent to make shari’ah the basis for civil law, just as I am opposed to making Christianity the basis for American law and/or basis for the interpretation of our law, but I cannot in honesty say that the same impulse doesn’t exist in many countries and cultures. The religion may differ, but the idea that religious principles should govern civil society is ubiquitous.

2) As for his complaints about a Turkish movie in which Americans play the bad guy – how many Hollywood movies portray Arabs as the bad guys? Indiana Jones shoots Arabs left and right. Movies like “Rules of Engagement” show the slaughter of Arab men, women, and children – and while the movie questions the actions of the soldiers who opened fire, audiences all over America rise to their feet clapping when the soldiers gun down the “bad guys.”  “True Lies,” “Executive Decision,” “The Mummy,” “Never Say Never Again,” “Frantic,” the list goes on and one.

I’m not saying that such movies excuse the Turkish drama, but rather, let’s be fair here. One Turkish show targets Americans – how many American shows target Muslims and Arabs? (Reel Bad Arabs, by Jack Shaheen is an eye-opening book about how Hollywood treats Arabs and Muslims for those who might be interested in this topic.)

Again, I have no love for movies which foster hatred between cultures and glorify violence, but honestly, decrying this Turkish drama has got to be one of the worst cases of the kettle calling the pot black. It is nothing short of fear-mongering at its best.

3) He points to the Danish cartoon incident as though no other groups have ever protested when their holy icons were spat upon. Anyone remember the furor over Piss Christ? Or the French man who burned down the theater where “The Last Temptation of Christ” was playing, resulting in the death of at least one movie goer? Anyone remember the protestors outside theaters showing “Agnes of God?”  Religious people have always protested the desecration of their religion, no matter what religion they belong to.

Now, does the Muslim world have a problem with clerics and/or governments who want to whip up the populace? Yes. The chronology of the Danish cartoons is extremely telling. They were first published in September 2005, to little fanfare. It was only after a couple of clerics decided that they had to take matters into their hands, showing not only the cartoons that were actually published, but also far more egregious ones that depicted the Prophet as a pedophile, as a pig writing the Qur’an of his own will, and engaged in acts of bestiality, that things blew up.

Do we also have a problem with repressive governments? Yes. It is clear that various “Muslim” governments have taken advantage of the cartoon scandal to promote their own agenda. Repressive governments such as the ones in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran have a vested interest in fostering the notion that their country and/or culture are under attack by the West. It draws attention away from their own corruption and oppressiveness, and it unites the populace against a common enemy, ensuring that they won’t turn upon their own government.

Do these problems represent a fundamental clash of civilizations and culture that can never be overcome and separates us forever? No. No more than the pedophile Catholic priests represent a clash of culture that separates Catholics and America forever. No more than the oppressive governments that ruled in Central and South America represented a fundamental difference in human nature.

Most egregious of Mr. Pinkerton’s claims are unsupported, bald and patently false statements such as “Not everyone thirsts for liberty,” or “For the West, broadly speaking, the highest value is freedom, including freedom of religious expression. But for the Muslim world, the highest value seems to be Islamic piety.” Such sweeping generalizations are inevitably wrong. In fact, every human being thirsts for precisely the same things – that is, the ability to live a decent, dignified life with a safe, sound place to live, sufficient food, and good times with family and friends, free from fear of crime and governmental oppression.

It is impossible to lump “the Muslim world” into a single category, just as it is impossible to lump “The West” into a single category as well.  The Muslims we hear about on the nightly news (as lovely a set of representatives of Muslim culture as the Americans we hear about on the nightly news…) may indeed hold Islamic piety as an important value. Again, so do the religious right that have such profound influence in America. This is no different. And their insistence on bringing religion into the public sphere is no different – witness the huge move to define marriage in ways to restrict the freedoms of gay and lesbian couples, etc. 

At the same time, just as the Religious Right is countered by liberal and progressive voices in America, so too the Muslim religious right is countered by liberal and progressive voices… just we don’t make the news pages as often, if at all. After all, we’re not out making mayhem; we aren’t newsworthy. 

Muslims come in all stripes – secular humanists, Marxists, socialists, moderates, progressives, green Muslims, and fundamentalists. We come from vastly different cultures, from Morocco to Malaysia, from Kenya to India and Indonesia, and increasingly, from the West. There is no “Muslim culture” because the culture varies from area to area. Trying to lump us into some scary monolith is just a distortion of the facts.

Muslims have been an integral part of the making and shaping of America for hundreds of years. If Mr. Pinkerton really knew what he was talking about, he would have written about how immigration is the very essence of this nation. Multiculturalism is America.


James Pinkerton Editorial column in Newsday
"Let's Be Honest, Multiculturalism can kill a nation"
http://www.aaezine.org/articles/vol13/13N3PinkertonMulticulturalism.shtml

Pamela K. Taylor's website is http://www.pktaylor.com
and her blog is http://www.pktaylor.com/pksblog/warpedgalaxies.html