The Art of Conversation - Britons, Britain, Muslims and Islam
Readers of a sensitive disposition should be advised that this article contains words of a difficult nature. What you are about to read may cause a temporary shut down in common sense and a brief outburst of hysteria.
Shariah.
Are you still there? I have smelling salts if you need them. Beware, here are a few more: fatwa, hijab, apostasy, niqab, cousin-marriage, Imam, Muslim women.
We can take a short breather now, and collect ourselves. Phew. I apologise if my outburst has reduced some readers to gibbering ranting Alf Garnett type creatures.
When the Archbishop mentioned the scary S-word, all rational debate - even if it be to score a resounding knock-out in the first three minutes for the secular corner - was suspended. What on earth have we just experienced in the last few days? Rowan Williams barely mentioned the word 'shariah' and the country was in an Armageddon-style-end-of-the-world frenzy. It wasn't even possible to get a word in edgeways to say that he was not in fact advocating shariah law. Instead, the media was awash with images of floggings from Somalia to the rings of Saturn and all the way in between.
Now that we are in the post-MTV, post-spin sound-bite century, we have lost the ability for discussion and debate. Sophistication and subtlety are a thing of the past. What I rue most is the lost art of conversation. Mention a word, and its caricature will be whipped up in front of you. Muslim woman in hijab? Poor, oppressed woman, one of four wives forced into marriage to her cousin, barely speaks English, wishes she could wear a mini-skirt... Muslim Imam? Mad ranting mullah burning a flag... Fatwa? Sentence to death for parking on a double yellow line.
It is completely impossible to have any kind of conversation about these issues without tantrums and hysteria. If British culture, values and laws are robust, then they will stand the test of discussion about these concepts, and vanquish anything that turns out to be barbaric or medaeival, or simply just not suited to the stiff upper lip and rugged British constitution. The knee-jerk ranting that surrounds us belies a lack of confidence and an unfounded sense of mistrust in the historic institutions that have made this country great.
We must ditch the cartoon (pun entirely intended) responses to any Muslim-sounding word that decorate our front pages week in week out. If we could get away from the unhelpful and misleading stereotypes that have lodged themselves into the public psyche, then maybe we could work our way through these minefields that seem to explode every few weeks. We might find our national debate engaging in that elusive thing - progress. Instead, the conversations that we need to have are being de-railed by the inability to communicate on the same wavelength. How can Muslims be part of the national conversation, if their terminology is at best unheard and misunderstood, or worse is misrepresented and the object of scaremongering?
P.S. To reduce the burden on some 'opinionated' readers, I have prepared some comments in advance that you might like to make. If you still feel het up, you can register your vote for your preferred tantrum. (1) What on earth is this Muslim complaining about? If she doesn't like it here she can go home (2) Stop blowing us up if you don't want us to react with hysteria every time you mention a foreign word (3) All Muslim women are oppressed. This is a fact. Thus Muslims are wrong on every possible count and we are right about everything (4) The sooner Muslims get it into their thick heads that this is Britain and we do things the British way, the happier we will all be
Shariah.
Are you still there? I have smelling salts if you need them. Beware, here are a few more: fatwa, hijab, apostasy, niqab, cousin-marriage, Imam, Muslim women.
We can take a short breather now, and collect ourselves. Phew. I apologise if my outburst has reduced some readers to gibbering ranting Alf Garnett type creatures.
When the Archbishop mentioned the scary S-word, all rational debate - even if it be to score a resounding knock-out in the first three minutes for the secular corner - was suspended. What on earth have we just experienced in the last few days? Rowan Williams barely mentioned the word 'shariah' and the country was in an Armageddon-style-end-of-the-world frenzy. It wasn't even possible to get a word in edgeways to say that he was not in fact advocating shariah law. Instead, the media was awash with images of floggings from Somalia to the rings of Saturn and all the way in between.
Now that we are in the post-MTV, post-spin sound-bite century, we have lost the ability for discussion and debate. Sophistication and subtlety are a thing of the past. What I rue most is the lost art of conversation. Mention a word, and its caricature will be whipped up in front of you. Muslim woman in hijab? Poor, oppressed woman, one of four wives forced into marriage to her cousin, barely speaks English, wishes she could wear a mini-skirt... Muslim Imam? Mad ranting mullah burning a flag... Fatwa? Sentence to death for parking on a double yellow line.
It is completely impossible to have any kind of conversation about these issues without tantrums and hysteria. If British culture, values and laws are robust, then they will stand the test of discussion about these concepts, and vanquish anything that turns out to be barbaric or medaeival, or simply just not suited to the stiff upper lip and rugged British constitution. The knee-jerk ranting that surrounds us belies a lack of confidence and an unfounded sense of mistrust in the historic institutions that have made this country great.
We must ditch the cartoon (pun entirely intended) responses to any Muslim-sounding word that decorate our front pages week in week out. If we could get away from the unhelpful and misleading stereotypes that have lodged themselves into the public psyche, then maybe we could work our way through these minefields that seem to explode every few weeks. We might find our national debate engaging in that elusive thing - progress. Instead, the conversations that we need to have are being de-railed by the inability to communicate on the same wavelength. How can Muslims be part of the national conversation, if their terminology is at best unheard and misunderstood, or worse is misrepresented and the object of scaremongering?
P.S. To reduce the burden on some 'opinionated' readers, I have prepared some comments in advance that you might like to make. If you still feel het up, you can register your vote for your preferred tantrum. (1) What on earth is this Muslim complaining about? If she doesn't like it here she can go home (2) Stop blowing us up if you don't want us to react with hysteria every time you mention a foreign word (3) All Muslim women are oppressed. This is a fact. Thus Muslims are wrong on every possible count and we are right about everything (4) The sooner Muslims get it into their thick heads that this is Britain and we do things the British way, the happier we will all be
Labels: british, cartoon, comment, culture, Extremism, Hijab, humour, law, media, Muslim women, Muslims, News, Niqab
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 16:20
7 Comments:
Hello,
Firstly, let me say, awesome blog.
Secondly, I fully agree. The media have hyped this past the line of reason and many whom I have spoken to recently have mentioned the Archbishop in a less than flattering light.
But, this is Britain, and that seems to be happening more and more often. The amount of time when I disconnect from normal media, and just go read blogs is steadily increasing.
I have spoken with one of those whom have met and talked to the Archbishiop, and he's as annoyed about this hype as you are.
If I can be annoying and geeky for a second, can you please try to reduce the amount of javascript on your blog? My browser (firefox on Ubuntu Linux) locks up for about 45 seconds loading your page. Firefox shows a number of javascript problems when loading your site. I would debug them, if I had the time ;)
Kind Regards,
Kirrus
Thanks for your comment.
As a non-geeky person myself, how do I 'un-javascript' the blog?
I like the postscript where you pre-empt the nutters. Nice.
Can I also say, I am reading this on firefox in ubuntu and it loaded fine and always has done. (Ubuntu 7.10, firefox 2.0.0.12)
Hey musab, good to see you swing by.
I'm out of my geek depth with you guys. argh.
what are you up to these days?
i agree, the problem with the 24-hour-media era is that there is plenty of noise and precious little actual debate. Britain is particularly guilty of this with its gutter press, whose approach to 'news' the rest of Europe finds incomprehensible.
What I find so funny about all the crazy headlines in recent days is the fact that when you read what the Archbishop actually said it was that strands of Sharia are CURRENTLY respected in the UK, and we should be open about that fact. Yet nobody picked up on the subtlety that he was merely describing reality, preferring to fall into reveries of the grim armageddon awaiting Britons, who's awake to find themselves bound by Saudi fatwas or some such. A mature democracy is one where debate, especially difficult debates, are prized. It is impossible to debate anything in the current climate.
Your views seem to represent the reasonable face of the Muslim community which provides some hope that we can come out of the dark ages.
However today the British Muslim community can't even decide when the month of Ramadan starts.
There are many within the community who are still coming to terms with the modern world; music, photography and fiction are just some of the areas that have yet to be reconciled with scripture.
Given the current theological mess we shouldn't even entertain the thought of incorporating any aspect of Sharia into our existing legal system. This is a discussion that is not even worth having at this moment in time.
Whilst I do not entirely agree with the Archbishop, it is clear that the reaction of the media is way over the top. I think I am agreement with you here, rational debate was suspended. Amongst the more surprising items I noticed in the tabloid press for example was a criticism of Sharia law for being harsh .... wait for it .... on criminals. Yes that's the same tabloid press that has spent the last few years going on and on about how this country is too soft on criminals!
A sensible rational debate might have been good for both the Christian and Muslim communities, and given both communities a chance to learn from each other and find out what they expect from each other, an opportunity lost.
One thing I have to disagree with, ( Poor, oppressed woman .... ) what if a Muslim woman did want to wear a miniskirt? would she be treated better or worse than a Muslim man who drank alcohol?
Whether Muslims will like me for saying this or not, the treatment of women is not so much a stereotype. Having spent some years working in a job where I had to deal with such problems on a very intimate level, I was shocked about the numbers of young Muslim women who were forced into marriages that they didn't want, who struggled through domestic violence and who found little or no support within their family or community. Of course domestic violence occurs in Christian marriages, but honour killings and forced marriage are growing problems in the UK and are not of British origin, and most western women have more freedom to divorce.
Just one example, was a girl of 18, admitted that she would be beaten for merely talking to me because I am male. She had found someone she liked, and didn't want to get married to the men that her father was introducing her to, but was terrified of the consequences of going against her father. And she thought that she was treated better than most of her friends!
Similarly, I was once invited to a Muslim wedding, where the men (yes ONLY the men) openly drank alcohol. It is unlikely that any of them would be beaten for that. Whilst stereotyping is wrong, it is clear, even if it is not admitted, that Sharia law is twisted in the favour of men and one has to wonder just how much the participation of young women would be voluntary or induced by fear of reprisals.
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