Muslim
Protest and the Language of the Unheard
by SOHAIL DAULATZAI
This article reproduced here courtesy of Counter Punch
Original
at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/16/muslim-protest-and-the-language-of-the-unheard/
“Why
did one straw break the camel’s back? Here’s the secret, there’s a million
other straws underneath it.” –
Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), “Mathematics”
The controversies around “free speech” and Muslims that were
provoked by the film trailer The Innocence of Muslims, the
publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the left leaning Charlie
Hebdo newspaper in
France, and more recently the racist pro-Zionist subway ads in New York City
have quite predictably provoked a ground swell of anger, frustration, and
confusion when it comes to dissent by those who happen to be Muslims.
While
some protests abroad turned violent, and protests against the cartoons were banned
in “democratic” France, President Obama himself weighed in on the topic at the
United Nations recently, extolling the virtues of the U.S. and its support of
“free speech” to the global community. But in making this an issue simply of
“free speech,” the media pundits, talking heads, “experts,” and many Muslims
themselves quite predictably relied on clichéd tropes that not only further
cement deeply held racist ideas about Muslims, but also undermine and ignore
the complex issues that these protests and dissent are rooted in.
Because
“free speech” is held as the cornerstone of Western liberal democracy,
interpreting these protests through this lens frames Muslims as being against
free expression, and even freedom itself. More subtly and significantly, it
suggests that Muslims are medieval and rooted in tradition, outside the fold of
democracy and modernity. This has been a well-worn, tried and true way of
talking about Muslims – part of a racist colonial past inherited by the
imperial present in which “they” are savage, primitive, and irrational, while
“we” are civilized, modern, and rational.
What
made this racist framework abundantly clear were the recent pro-Zionist subway
ads that appeared in New York last week and also in the Bay Area several weeks
before that said, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support
the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” By invoking the language of
“civilized” and “the savage,” these ads not only laid bare and made clear the
deeply racist and white supremacist logic that drives the policies of the U.S.
and its allies throughout the world, but they have also made abundantly clear
to all of us who are really listening and watching that despite the wishes of
those hawks who want to bring it back to “restore order,” or the guilty liberal
consciences who believe it to be a thing of the past, the logic of colonialism
is still very much alive and well, determining the fate and life chances of the
vast majority of the worlds people outside of Europe and the United States.
That
white supremacy and racism continue to define the “West” should not surprise
anyone – though it probably does for some, if not many others. Remember Mitt
Romney’s claim on his visit to London this past summer that Obama “does not
share our Anglo-Saxon heritage”? A dog whistle comment if there ever was one,
as Romney’s wink to the British and to the rest of Western Europe revealed
something far more sinister. For we have to remember that “the West” is less a
geographical marker and more of an ideological one, a catch-all phrase that
stands in for a set of ideals, values and beliefs that are used to distinguish
“the West” from “the Rest”: free speech, democracy, the “rule of law,”
liberalism, and all things civilized, modern, and progressive.
But
instead of these lofty ideals, a closer inspection would reveal a much more
insidious reality: that the history of this thing called “the West” has its
roots in slavery, genocide, the continuing saga of white supremacy, predatory
capitalism and exploitation of the Global South. These are the “ideas” of the
so-called West that are seen as having no geographic boundaries, and this is
why the U.S. and Europe continue to dominate the world’s stage, for it is these
“values” that all the world should embrace, or be made to, and that have become
the lingua franca for the entire world. But instead we constantly hear the
white noise that the West is benign and innocent, and is under attack as it
stands to uphold the noble cause of freedom, democracy and individual liberty.
For the West presents itself as David, when in fact, it is, and has been for
centuries, Goliath.
All of this has huge implications for non-white people the world
over, many of who happen to be Muslims. The fact that Muslims have become the quintessential
global Other has historic roots that date back to the very genesis of “the
West” and race in its modern form.In fact, the very idea of the West emerged directly out of the
Moor, and was crystalized in 1492, the year that simultaneously saw the
expulsion of Muslims from Spain and Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas that
led to native genocide and the conquest of the Americas. Muslims occupy a
particular role when it comes to race; it was beginning here that the idea of
Europe and the “West” began to cohere around concepts of anti-Black and
anti-Muslim racism, as whiteness and Christianity became inseparable in
defining race. As European expansion led to colonialism and slavery, according
to scholar Anouar Majid, “the world’s non-European natives or religions were
stamped with the taint of Muslim impurity.” As a result, Islam and Muslims have
represented a perpetual strangeness to the West and to whiteness. Although 9/11
is what seems to have raised the specter of Islam in relation to the West, a
closer look reveals that the Muslim— as the Other to a normative whiteness—has
not only haunted the very the foundation of the West since its inception but
has also given the West meaning, defining who is civilized and who is savage,
who is democratic and who is autocratic, who is peaceful and who is violent,
who is human and who is not.
This
has huge implications, because though the language of “civilized” and savage”
is only the most crude and obvious expression of white supremacy, many continue
to find it politically expedient and opportunistic to assume that this brand of
anti-Muslim racism comes from a small cabal of well funded Islamophobes on the
right in the U.S., instead of seeing it equally infecting and defining the
Democratic Party and its policies, as well as much of the so-called progressive
Left who continue to resort to tired Orientalist clichés about Muslims.
As a
result, when it comes to these recent protests or any dissent coming from
people who happen to be Muslims, the analysts, critics, lay people and even
some Muslims themselves participate in a racist Orientalist logic – one that
assumes that not only everything that a person who happens to be a Muslim does
is driven by Islam, but also that everything that Muslims do can be understood
through religion. This is tantamount to arguing that everything that the people
of Latin America do is because of Catholicism, and that it is through
Catholicism that they can be understood. Sounds ridiculous, right? But when it
comes to Muslims that kind of “analysis” is not seen as ridiculous, but as
rigorous.
But
is this racist framing the only way to understand this current situation? Is it
possible to back away from the screen, undo the myopia and gain more
perspective? As is typical, both dominant and alternative media have failed to
understand or know how to frame resistance and protest when it comes to
Muslims. In framing it as an issue of “free speech,” the media have presented
these protestors as “fanatics,” conveniently making this an issue solely about
religion and not also about politics, power, and a referendum on U.S. and
Western intervention in these countries.
As a result, this undermines the very real issues that these
protests are rooted in, and it refuses to view these protesters and their
supporters as complex actors, motivated by an array of issues and concerns.
While Innocence of Muslims, the French cartoons, and
the pro-Zionist signs in the subway may be part of the protests and discontent,
these are only the tip of the iceberg, and symbols for a much deeper discontent
that begs a more existential and ethical question: how much suffering are
people expected to endure? Let’s not even go back through centuries of European
colonialism or even 20th century
U.S. imperialism and subversion of democracy through the backing of dictators
and overthrowing of elected leaders. How about just the last eleven years of U.S-led
domination where torture, indefinite detention, drone wars in several
countries, targeted assassinations, unwavering support of Israel, wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, threats and sanctions on Iran, destabilization and
violations of national sovereignty, Guantanamo, the death of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, and the displacement of millions more has
become normalized and acceptable? And what of the support for a neoliberal
economic policy that has devastated the region for the benefit of the United
States, Europe and their lackeys? Can’t this be considered a central factor of
the political calculus of these protests and widespread discontent?
Second,
in framing protests by those who happen to be Muslims as religiously
determined, then these protests are assumed to have nothing in common with the
recent protests in Spain, Greece, Portugal, the Occupy Movement, or throughout
the Global South, all of which marks the protests in Egypt, Libya, Pakistan and
the region as distinct and even in opposition to the “secular” global movements
taking place around the world over economic inequality, corruption, and
hyper-militarization. Instead, Muslims are framed as existing outside the
framework and language of what is considered legitimate democratic protest and
even broader left politics.
Unless
Muslims protest in ways that mirror or affirm the ideas of the West more
broadly, and the U.S. specifically – whether it be Western ideas of liberalism,
U.S. intervention and foreign policy or neoliberal consensus – then those
protests, the protestors themselves, and the issues that they are protesting,
are not seen as legible or even legitimate to the West. This is part of a
larger strategy of undermining dissent, especially when the protestors are in
the Global South or racial minorities in Europe or the U.S. who seek to
challenge powerful interests. Whether they be the immigrants in the banileues
of Paris over the last several years, in Nigeria in 2011, London in 2012, or
even in Los Angeles in 1992 – the response is that these are “looters,”
“thugs,” and “mobs,” all synonyms for “violent extremists” that criminalizes
the protestors and undermines the legitimacy of their discontent and the
grievances that they have.
Instead,
the world is told that this is about words, cartoons and movies. But are
Muslims only mad at some B-movie about the Prophet Muhammad, or might they also
be angry and insulted at the thousands of films and television programming put
out by Hollywood and the media industries that continue to dehumanize them. A
canon of cultural codes that sit at the heart of the West and lubricates a deep
anti-Muslim racism that generates public support and political capital for
domestic and foreign policy.
And
are Muslims simply mad about a cartoon in any one newspaper, or rather at the
larger public discourse in the U.S. and the West that stands in for informed
journalism and analysis. A corporate and even alternative media agenda that
gives sanction to either outright wars of aggression, targeted assassinations,
intervention, and drone wars in Muslim countries, or approval to the “soft”
power of “humanitarian intervention,” sanctions, indefinite detention,
surveillance and diplomatic pressure against Muslims both in the U.S and around
the world.
But this question of media and framing begs another question about
where does “free speech” exist? Or is it, like the idea of “democracy,” simply
a red herring – a way of holding up the idea that the West is advanced so that it
can claim a kind of moral and civilizational superiority over everyone else?
What
of “free speech” when six multinational conglomerates with interlocking
interests control 90% of media outlets in the U.S., or when combined with
telecommunications policy, the influence of public relations firms, advertising
interests, and “editorial decisions,” that there is a profound impact on
alternative voices emerging? And what of “democracy” when a private corporation
formed by both the Democratic and Republican parties (the “Commission on
Presidential Debates”) determines debate content, formats, and colludes to
exclude third party candidates? Or what about the purging of voters, the power
of lobbying groups in shaping policy, the more fundamental fact that two
parties with only slightly different ideas represent the interests of free
market imperialism, or even more obviously the 2000 “election”? If “free
speech” and “democracy” are going to be used, then lets admit that these are
not absolutes but rather deeply flawed and limited ideas, even in the West.
So instead of the reductive and racist arguments being made, can
these protests be seen as rooted in historical and political grievances? Not
what Samuel Huntington and his ilk would claim is a kind of “Muslim insecurity”
or “humiliation” about the “superiority of the West,” but rather a real and
justifiable demand for justice, dignity and sovereignty? To make this simply
about some bad film, a cartoon, and ad, or previously, the burning of a Qu’ran,
misses the point entirely. But then again, maybe that is the point: to undermine and divert
attention from the more systemic sources of Muslim discontent that continue to
undermine, limit and destroy Muslims lives and livelihood.
What
Muslims need to do is to embrace our racial Otherness in relation to the West,
and as bell hooks and others argue, use it as a site of resistance against the
realities that we are facing. Because to embrace our Otherness means to
recognize the force of white supremacy and the fact of the colonial present
that we live in. An embrace that can then lead to real anti-racist and
anti-imperialist solidarities with Black and Latino communities, and not the
path of “honorary whiteness” that so many have followed under the guise of
“diversity” and “multiculturalism.” And instead of denial and hubris on the
part of “the West,” there needs to be more honest reflection in order to get at
the more troubling and difficult issues that have to do with history, politics,
and power – an alchemy of brutality that has created an uneven playing field in
which both minorities inside, and the overwhelming majority of the world
outside of Europe and the U.S. is having to endure. Because if this more
difficult and self-reflective process doesn’t happen, then these protests are
just a trailer for what may yet come.
Sohail Daulatzai writes about race, U.S.-Muslim relations, film, hip-hop, U.S.
political culture, and American foreign policy. He is the author of Black Star,
Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America (2012)
and is the co-editor (with Michael Eric Dyson) of Born to Use Mics: Reading
Nas’s Illmatic (2009). He has published in numerous anthologies and journals
such as Basketball Jones, Black Routes to Islam, The Vinyl Ain’t Final, Souls,
Amer-Asia, and SAMAR, as well as having written the liner notes to the upcoming
release of the 20th anniversary of Rage Against the Machine’s self titled debut
album. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies
and the Program in African American Studies at the University of California,
Irvine. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is working on a graphic novel.
