Roots Again
As Hamlet said, words, words words. They can be so tricky. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident – and it can be very difficult to tell which is going on. Consider this rumination by Hanif Kureishi.
I believed that questions of race, identity and culture were the major issues post-colonial Europe had to face, and that inter-generational conflict was where these conflicts were being played out. The British-born children of immigrants were not only more religious and politically radical than their parents – whose priority had been to establish themselves in the new country – but they despised their parents’ moderation and desire to “compromise” with Britain. To them this seemed weak.
What does he mean by ‘politically radical’ in that paragraph? More religious and politically radical – so by radical he means right-wing radical. But it’s not entirely clear if he knows that’s what he means. I think that’s a confusion a lot of people have – they conflate anger (and, yes, ‘grievance’) and sulkiness and intransigeance and violence with radicalism, meaning (vaguely, sort of) lefty or at least revolutionary radicalism. (‘Revolutionary’ of course is just as tricky, and in the same way. Hitler was a revolutionary. One can have a revolution that’s not an egalitarian or progressive one – to put it mildly.) Maybe that’s one reason there is this weird current of almost-sympathy for Islamist terrorists that is entirely absent in the case of the BNP; maybe that’s one reason the SWP is hooked up with Respect.
But maybe he doesn’t mean radical that way. Anyway he makes some good points later.
These men believed they had access to the Truth, as stated in the Qur’an. There could be no doubt – or even much dispute about moral, social and political problems – because God had the answers. Therefore, for them, to argue with the Truth was like trying to disagree with the facts of geometry. For them the source of all virtue and vice was the pleasure and displeasure of Allah. To be a responsible human being was to submit to this…It is not only in the mosques but also in so-called “faith” schools that such ideas are propagated. The Blair government, while attempting to rid us of radical clerics, has pledged to set up more of these schools, as though a “moderate” closed system is completely different to an “extreme” one.
Exactly.
You can’t ask people to give up their religion; that would be absurd. Religions may be illusions, but these are important and profound illusions. And they will modify as they come into contact with other ideas. This is what an effective multiculturalism is: not a superficial exchange of festivals and food, but a robust and committed exchange of ideas – a conflict that is worth enduring, rather than a war. When it comes to teaching the young, we have the human duty to inform them that there is more than one book in the world, and more than one voice, and that if they wish to have their voices heard by others, everyone else is entitled to the same thing. These children deserve better than an education that comes from liberal guilt.
But that thing about modifying as they come into contact with other ideas – that is asking people to give up their religion – and a good thing too. At the very least it’s asking them to give up their religion in the form of something insulated and protected from other ideas and from disagreement – which, surely, comes to the same thing. Yes, you can ‘ask people’ (it’s part of education) to give up their insistence on literalist irrational anti-rational belief systems that cannot be questioned or criticised – sure you can. Not by force, not by scolding them; but as part of ordinary human interchange, as part of life in the big world, where there are other ideas and other evidence? Of course you can.
Hanif Kureishi: “You can’t ask people to give up their religion; that would be absurd.”
In Australia, Abu Bakr recently stated: “I am telling you that my religion doesn’t tolerate other religion. It doesn’t tolerate. The only one law which needs to spread – it can be here or anywhere else – has to be Islam.”
I don’t think it at all absurd that Abu Bakr (and others like him) should give us his religion, or at least his version of it. It is, in my view, absurd to suggest that he shouldn’t.
Your logic used while trying to pick apart Kureshi is flawed. Why does ‘more religious and politically radical’ necessarily mean right-wing radical?
It looks more like you don’t know what you mean.
It is perfectly possible to be both religious and left-wing radical. Look at the quakers.
If you’re trying to say that islam is an inherently right-wing religion, why not just come out and say it?
The second and third generation immigrants from the subcontinent and clearly more overtly religious than their parents and grandparents. They are also clearly more overtly politically radical than the parnets and granparents. Some are both, some only fit into one category. His paragraph, like his article makes perfect sense, except, perhaps, to someone desperate to pick holes in it to prove how incredibly clever she is.
“Give up their religion” made me think of something he said earlier in the column – about his father coming to prefer Buddhism to Islam. And Kureishi doesn’t specifically say what kind of schools his father chose for him, but I doubt he went to one featuring “strict schooling and teachers with sticks.”
So maybe the problem isn’t to somehow get people to give up their religion (sooner or later, they’ll all die anyway), but to get in the way of their imposing it on their children. Of course, religions stress the importance of early indroctination for that very reason, but if we could find a way of just slowing down that conveyor belt to the future….
Ophelia – I’m not quite sure whether almost-sympathy for islamic terrorism is absent among the traditional far right. There might be surprising agreement among the two about the “decadence” of Western society, about the odious nature of interethnic mixing, and, of course, an image of Jews as stooped, hook-nosed little men wringing their hands and going “Heh heh heh” while thinking about their world domination plans, etcetera.
In fact, some ten years ago one of the main Dutch neo-nazis, “Gauleiter” Eite Homan, tried to build a party called the “Fundamentalist Workers’ Party” which apparently would combine nazism and Arabic nationalism (Aside from Hitler, Homan was a big fan of Qaddafi and also actually left groups such as Sendero Luminoso and the Khmer Rouge). I’ve heard little from this ever since, so I suppose it went down badly – but it shows the crossover is possible.
I think Kureishi’s point is that it’s pointless to *ask* people to question their own faith – which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t *encourage* it (esp through education).
Exactly how that is to be achieved I’m unsure.
I’m *especially* unsure how we can rely on education to lead people away from the ignorance that makes extremist faith so seductive when we’re rather cheerfully letting certain religious radicals exert influence over education; I take it everyone here is aware of Bush’s recent endorsement of the teaching of creationism in science classes?
I agree with outeast. It’s better to make some progress than no progress, and if you bluntly ask the citizenry to change their religion you’ll make no progress, whereas if you try to teach them liberal tolerance for other religions, you’ll make some progress.
Chris, the state, at least in the UK, has been urging liberal tolerance for years. They have, in practice if not in theory, turned a blind eye to practices most people regard as abhorent in the name of liberal tolerance. Merely to claim religious fervour is to get a respectful hearing. The extremists, Moslem, Christian, Hindu or Jewish, have felt no need to reciprocate. Why on earth would religious fundamentalists, fanatics and domestic tyrants engage in a dialogue which offers them no advantage? They have what they want; absolute moral certainty, control over others, an eternal scapegoat for any perceived flaws in their world. A dialogue of the sort we are discussing requires something like Cromwell’s exhortation (and I’m no Cromwell fan); ‘I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you might be wrong.’ Since that very thought is unthinkable to the religiously fundamental mind, it is going to be a one way conversation.
“It is perfectly possible to be both religious and left-wing radical. Look at the quakers.”
True – but Kureishi isn’t talking about Quakers in that passage. Is it perfectly possible to be more fundamentalist-Muslim and be left-wing radical? I really don’t know. It may be possible in theory, but in practice that doesn’t seem to be what it means. Then again, depending on how you define the terms, it may not be possible even in theory. If you think that being left-wing simply rules out believing in the systematic subordination of women (which I do think), then if one definitional attribute of fundamentalist Islam is that it believes the systematic subordination of women is mandated by the Koran and hence by Allah – it’s not possible.
“If you’re trying to say that islam is an inherently right-wing religion, why not just come out and say it?”
Don’t worry. When that’s what I want to say, I say it. I’m not inhibited about it.
“The second and third generation immigrants from the subcontinent and clearly more overtly religious than their parents and grandparents. They are also clearly more overtly politically radical than the parnets and granparents.”
Yes but radical in what sense? In the sense of urgently wanting more equality and freedom for everyone? Or in the sense of being more willing to commit mass murder for unarticulated reasons?
Since my point is that the meaning of the word ‘radical’ is not self-evident, it’s not helpful simply to repeat it.
“His paragraph, like his article makes perfect sense, except, perhaps, to someone desperate to pick holes in it to prove how incredibly clever she is.”
I didn’t say his paragraph didn’t make sense. I asked questions about exactly what he meant by certain words, particularly the word “radical.” That’s not the same thing. And I did that because I really don’t know exactly what he meant, not for the reason you impute.
Merlijn – Very interesting. No, I’m sure you’re right about the crossover.
outeast, Chris – but Kureishi said “give up” their religion, not “change” it. The point is, he says you can ask them to change it (though not necessarily by putting it that way), and my point is that asking them to change it (or, if you prefer, to put themselves in a position to change it by exposing themselves to discussion and rational argument) is in fact asking them to give it up, in the form they know it.
In other words, I’m just saying there is a tendency to exaggerate how taboo it is to ‘ask’ people to ‘give up’ their religion. The world is full of evidence and data and conversation that can and do undermine pristine religious beliefs; few people argue that ‘devout’ people should be equipped with special helmets that would protect them from all threatening inputs.