Unhelpful and Trivialising Accusations of Islamophobia

The IHRC (Islamic Human Rights Commission), who organise pro-Hezbollah “Al-Quds Day” demonstrations with Azzam “Kaboom” Tamimi, and criticised the conviction of Abu Hamza as “creating an environment that can only further alienate the Muslim community”, have accused the Community Security Trust of demonising Islam and Muslims.

Many of the articles published on the CST website explore issues related to Islam and Muslims. These articles express Islamophobic views both against Muslims and against Islam itself. CST writers such as Michael Whine, Mark Gardener and Dave Rich centre their arguments upon an Orientalist reading of Islam and its history to fill out stereotypes about Islam and Muslims. Although the CST articles attempt to deal with contemporary issues, the arguments presented throughout the website are fixed in a skewed historical discourse about Islam. Their writings serve to demonize Islam and depict its adherents as being an intolerant and violent ‘other’.

Robert Irwin has fairly comprehensively rebutted Edward Said’s thesis about Orientalism but, regardless of that, is there actually any evidence of Anti-Muslim bigotry from the CST, or is this just another example of cries of “Islamophobia” being used to attack those who criticise Islamism?

Michael Whine’s assertion that Islam spread via ‘force of arms’ in his article entitled ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’is evidence of the CST’s skewed understanding of Islam and its history. (ii) One of the earliest refutations to the idea that Islam was spread by ‘force of arms’ was given by the noted historian De Lacy O’Leary in his book Islam at the Cross Road, where he wrote, ‘History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myth that historians have ever repeated.’(iii)

The 1997 Runnymede Trust report entitled ‘Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All’ stated that fundamental to Islamophobia is the attempt to depict Islam as being violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism, and engaged in a clash of civilizations.(iv) The CST’s analysis and understanding of the very issues it attempts to explore are based on a possibly wilful misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Islam. The articles posted on the website misrepresent Islam and serve to demonize Islam and Muslims.

Here is what Whine actually said on page 55 of his article ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ (pdf).

Certainly the spread of Islam across Arabia, the repulsion of the Crusades and the occupation of southern Europe in the latter part of the first millennium were all achieved by force of arms, marking out Islam as an agent for violence, at least in Christian eyes.

Firstly, it should be noted that the quotation from De Lacy O’Leary doesn’t actually contradict Whine’s assertion. O’Leary critiques the model where “fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races,” which is far removed from what Whine actually said. Secondly, making a historical claim about the original spread of Islam is very different to the Runnymede Trust’s definition of Islamophobia. Thirdly, the IHRC completely omits to mention that Whine hardly endorses the idea of “Islam as an agent for violence”. This becomes even clearer when they turn to Whine’s discussion of Jihad.

Given these rather obvious failings in their logic, it is somewhat ironic that the IHRC should accuse the CST’s articles of having “little academic rigor” and “[l]acking in methodology and utilising haphazard evidence.” Even more so when you have a look at some of the sourcing provided by the IHRC.

(ii) M. Whine, ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ in ‘Totalitarian movements and political Religions’ Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn 2001), pp. 54-72 (Frank Cass, London)

v) M. Whine, ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ in ‘Totalitarian movements and political Religions’ Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn 2001), pp. 54-72 (Frank Cass, London)

(vi) M. Whine, ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ in ‘Totalitarian movements and political Religions’ Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn 2001), pp. 54-72 (Frank Cass, London)

(xiii) M. Whine, ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ in ‘Totalitarian movements and political Religions’ Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn 2001), pp. 54-72 (Frank Cass, London)

(xix) M. Whine, ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’ in ‘Totalitarian movements and political Religions’ Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn 2001), pp. 54-72 (Frank Cass, London)

Although Whine’s article is available online, no link is provided by IHRC. If you do track it down, given that everything is sourced to “pp. 54-72″ (all of the pages of the article) it’s quite difficult to identify what is actually being referred to. I wouldn’t normally make a grouchy point about footnotes, but if you’ve accused somebody of having “little academic rigor” you should probably actually point your footnotes to something meaningful, rather than the entire article.

Anyway, moving on.

One major problem with the writings of Michael Whine, Mark Gardener and other CST writers is the language they employ. Careless use of language, often intentionally, serves their objective of distorting the image of both Islam and Muslims. One example of this can be seen in Whine’s analysis of the Islamic principle of da’wah (proselytising) in his article ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences’. Although Whine writes that da’wah is integral to Islam, he emphasises that it is of more importance to ‘Islamists’, implying some sort of link between those who partake in da’wah and the ‘radical’ and ‘violent’ actors he describes.(v) Interestingly his article fails to note that proselytising is also a key feature of Christianity. By omitting this key fact from his article, Whine is able to convey da’wah as being something more than simply an attempt by Muslims to bring people to what they believe is the truth. The article describes da’wah as a way to impose an authoritarian and a puritan system, and is used as evidence supporting the contention that ‘Islamists’ are totalitarian. In short, by misrepresenting and casting the Islamic principle of da’wah as being something evil, Whine is defaming a key article of Islam.

The relevant part of Whine’s article is pp 60-61.

Many Islamist organisations do not practice violent jihad, but all seek to impose an authoritarian and puritan system on their society. Dawah (the propagation of the faith) is also a basic feature of Islam. As a universalist creed Islam has sought to spread its message throughout the world, and the obligation is both an individual and collective one. Proselytism occupies a special place in the Islamist world outlook, as a consequence of al-Banna’s teachings.

Members of the Brotherhood took oaths of allegiance to carry out dawah, together with one of silence.

The IHRC’s characterisation of Whine’s words is deeply dishonest. They claim that “[t]he article describes da’wah as a way to impose an authoritarian and a puritan system”. Quite the contrary, Whine draws a clear line between da’wa as a basic tenet of Islam and da’wa in the hands of Islamists, who do use it “to impose an authoritarian and a puritan system”.

They twist Whine’s discussion of the term Jihad in a similar fashion.

In this same article, Whine defines jihad, a word that translates into struggle and striving as being a religious war against the West(vi). This blatantly incorrect definition and explanation of jihad serves only to portray Islam as an agent for violence. ‘Calls for jihad,’ writes Whine, ‘and the recent revelations of a worldwide Islamist network… suggest that Islam has declared a religious war.’ Such alarming claims and conclusions based on severe generalisations serve to represent Islam as being engaged in a war against the West, and by extension in a war against ordinary innocent people. This representation of Islam plays on post September 11 fears, and positions Muslims as being dangerous ‘fifth columnists’.

This is seriously misrepresenting what Whine wrote (p55).

Threats of jihad (religious war) against the West or statements supporting Islamist supremacy over other religions provide a picture of an Islam almost at war with itself, and in conflict with the rest of the world.(1) [...]  Calls for jihad and the recent revelations of a worldwide Islamist network dedicated not just to removing the US presence in the Middle East, but also to attacking the very symbols of ‘Western economic and political supremacy in the West itself suggest that Islam has declared a religious war. Osama bin Laden’s networked mutual aid umbrella for Islamist terrorism is also called The Front For Jihad Against The Crusaders and the Jews, harking back to an earlier age when Islam fought religious wars against, or defended itself against, Christianity and Judaism. The impression, though, is an incomplete one, the historical perspective seen through Western eyes is a skewed one, and Islam is not the monolithic religion that some of its spokesmen would argue. However, it is fundamentalism and Islamism rather than Islam the religion which concerns us now. [My emphasis]

Moreover, that first footnote defines jihad in a very different way to how the IHRC suggest Whine does:

Jihad (holy struggle) has two aspects: the mystical act of sacrifice as an act of devotion; the struggle for an Islamic state. It is not counted among the Five Pillars of the faith (profession of faith, prayers, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimage) but to Islamists it now constitutes an additional sixth pillar. For them jihad almost invariably means armed struggle against the impious, the heretic or the declared enemy. Jihad need not operate within a territorialised state; it applies throughout the ummah.

The IHRC then move on to a discussion of Mark Gardner’s article ‘“Old” and “New”: Contemporary British Antisemitism‘:

While Gardner writes that “criticism” of Israel is legitimate, his labelling of anti-Zionism as being anti-Semitic serves to curtail the legitimate criticism of Israel that he himself says is acceptable. By writing that most anti-Zionists are inadvertently anti-Semitic, Gardner portrays Muslims who in large object to the state of Israel as being racist and anti-Semitic. [my emphasis] According to Gardner ‘Israel is the root cause of Muslim anger and Islamist terrorism.’(x) His conclusion then that anti-Zionism is in fact anti-Semitism implies that Muslims are angry at Israel not because of the political and humanitarian crisis that the creation of Israel instigated, but because Israel is a Jewish state. Gardner’s attempt at semantic games proves problematic also in that his equating of anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism fails to explain the significant percentage of Jews who are anti-Zionist.

Whilst this logic is decidedly wobbly, there is, to me, something troubling about Gardner’s argument:

The “new” anti-Zionists also include the first generation of Muslims who are an educated, politicized, and fully acculturated European minority. Successive Muslim generations will most likely rise in political, media and economic power, all of which will be premised upon an underlying demographic shift in their favour. It is of course their undeniable right to fully participate in every aspect of the societies to which they belong, but this may have a considerably negative impact on Jewish communities that identify (or are identified) with Israel.

This kind of talk about demographics suggests that you are talking about Antisemitic anti-Zionism being an intrinsic part of Muslims. That it is, somehow, passed down almost genetically to a Muslim child from his or her parents. This, in my opinion, is far too close for comfort to traditional racist ideas of inherited negative difference. However, Gardner’s views on this topic are more nuanced than this would suggest.

In Britain, the statistics of actual antisemitic incidents – hate crimes displaying antisemitic intent – show that Muslims are considerably over-represented as perpetrators per head of population. Muslims, however, are manifestly not the majority perpetrators. In 2006, for instance, the (Jewish) Community Security Trust knew of 205 incidents where a perpetrator had been identified. (11) In those cases, 49 percent of the perpetrators appeared to be white; 29 percent appeared to be Pakistani, Indian or Bangladeshi; 8 percent appeared Arab; and 14 percent appeared black. This suggests Muslims are approximately 10 times over-represented as perpetrators (based on the fact that Muslims comprise 3.1 percent of the UK population.)

Closer analysis reveals that Muslims are less over-represented than first appears. Most antisemitic incidents occur in neighbourhoods that are far less white than the average, as those are often the neighbourhoods in which most Jews live. For example, the highest number of antisemitic incidents occurs in the London local authority area of Barnet, where 14.8 percent of the population is Jewish, and 6.2 percent of the population is Muslim. Additionally, the Muslim population is younger than most other ethnic groups, and younger age cohorts are most likely to perpetrate antisemitic incidents, as they are more likely to be on the streets. So, Muslims are over-represented as perpetrators, but they are certainly not the majority of perpetrators. Most certainly, they are not as starkly over-represented as a superficial analysis of the UK population would initially imply – and as some commentators would like to allege.

The IHRC’s next “argument”, about another article by Gardner ‘An Unholy Alliance-Nazi Links with Arab Totalitarianism‘ (doc) is frankly laughable:

Mark Gardner in an article entitled ‘An Unholy Alliance-Nazi Links with Arab Totalitarianism’ writes ‘Muslim Islamists…have also been attracted to far right ideologies.’(xi) What is of concern to us in this chapter is not his allegation that Islamists have been attracted to far right ideologies, which he fails to provide evidence for, it is his use of the term ‘Muslim Islamists.‘ [my emphasis] His insertion of the word Muslim before Islamist is unnecessary and makes little sense linguistically. Of course the term Islamists stems from the source of their identity, Islam, thus there is no need to highlight or emphasise the fact they are Muslim, as this is evident from the term Islamist. By writing Muslim Islamists, Gardner places emphasise on the Muslim identity of these individuals, implying that there is something in the Muslim identity that makes them attentive to far right ideologies.(xii)

Not only are the IHRC’s conclusions remarkably developed for a single usage of “Muslim Islamist”, but there are 25 occurrences of the word “Islamist” in the article, of which just that one is coupled with “Muslim.” There are also three occurrences of “Islamism,” which is never coupled with “Muslim.” On such paltry evidence this argument looks even more silly.

Then we move onto the real meat of what the IHRC want to do; equate Islamism and Islam so as to defend Islamist ideologies with unhelpful and trivialising accusations of Islamophobia.

Note this paragraph (all emphasis my own):

In almost all of the CST publications, there is a wilful misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Islam that plays heavily on the post September 11 political climate. The writers utilise the violent actions of a minority of Muslims to present a monolithic and demonic Islam that stands opposed to the West. Via constructed misrepresentations and knowledgeable ignorance, their writings distort the Islamic faith and present it as being a right wing political ideology akin to Nazism, Fascism and totalitarianism.
The Runnymede report on Islamophobia asserted that integral to Islamophobia was a deliberate attempt to depict Islam as being a political ideology, used for political or military advantage. Throughout the CST articles there is a conscious attempt to compare Islam, a 1430 year old faith of over 1.4 billion adherents to racist and intolerant modern political ideologies. In his article ‘Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences,’ Whine via a comparison of the two subjects, draws the conclusion that the ‘Islamist‘ ideology is akin to Communism and Fascism.(xiii) He bases this conclusion on the works of Martin Kramer, a right-wing Zionist who directed the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African studies at Tel-Aviv University.(xiv)

The IHRC briefing accuses the CST articles of being against all Islam and all Muslims, yet its only evidence in support of this is Whine’s condemnation of Islamism. It happens more than once (again emphasis is my own):

By continuously interchanging terms and playing on Islamophobic stereotypes, Whine presents Islam as the antithesis to democracy. He compares Islamism to totalitarianism and argues that they are similar as ‘both seek to mobilise- both aim at the elimination of opposition- and both believe in sacrifice, either for God or for the process.’(xix) There are a number of problems with the above statement. Not only does Whine fail to elaborate on what he means by the terms mobilise and sacrifice, he assigns them negative connotations. As with most religions and organisations, indeed Islam does attempt to mobilise people for a number of reasons and does require its adherents to undertake sacrifice. To assign the desire to mobilise and a belief in sacrifice to totalitarian ideologies is nonsensical. Moreover Gardner’s conclusion that Islamists aim at the elimination of opposition runs contrary to historical evidence. One only needs to look at the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or the Islamic Salvation Front of Algeria to see that these ‘Islamists’ contrary to what Gardner claims, played by the rules of their respective countries and ran for positions in what were advertised by the regimes as being ‘democratic’ elections. In his attempt to fill out stereotypes about Islam and its adherents, Gardner manipulates common concepts and ascribes them to Islamists and Islam.

I particularly enjoy the way the IHRC try to argue that Gardner’s definition of Islamism is the same as Islam even though they do not even attempt to argue that one third of it, “elimination of opposition”, is shared with Islam. Instead, they try to argue that Islamists do not “aim at the elimination of opposition.” Even if the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are now not using violence against their opponents (which probably had quite a lot to do with Mubarak’s repressive policies rather than Islamist principles), the IHRC must be aware of what Hamas has been doing to their Fatah opponents and that the National Islamic Front dominated government of Sudan has hardly created a haven of liberal democratic values. As Islamists can be shown to “aim at the elimination of opposition” then Gardner is not, as the IHRC claim, conflating Islam and Islamism.

I recently blogged about the need to distinguish between what Islamophobia is and what Islamophobia is not. This is a classic example of what is not. Rather, it is an attempt to defend Islamists and their ideology, not Muslims in general. It should be no surprise that Islamophobia Watch gave it a ringing endorsement. What is worse, the words of the CST writers are twisted gratuitously, none of the evidence stacks up and a concerted effort is made to deny that anti-Zionism can often be Antisemitism. It’s a disgraceful performance from the IHRC but, given their past behaviour, an entirely predictable one.