Jerusalem and Kashmir: On Symbol and Substance in Muslim Grievance
As I review all the horrors of the past week in India, it occurs to me that it is time to revisit the age old dispute about whether or not America's historic obsession with "solving" the Arab Israeli crisis is doing more harm than good, but in perhaps a newer way.
Traditionally, I'd say the relevant world of Western academics and intellectuals (actually the intelligentsia generally) was divided into two groups. The largest viewed solving the Arab Israeli crisis as central to bringing about any sort of constructive change in the entire Muslim region (not just the Middle East). It is important to note that these voices might be stridently anti-Zionist ("Israel is the root of the region's problems"), fiercely unapologetic supporters of Israel (something like we will have peace when the Arabs (she could have said Muslims) love their children more than they hate ours) or most often something in between, but the notion is, you want some level of peace in the Muslim world and moderation in Islam, you have to go to Jerusalem and fix that problem first.
The challengers of this notion generally took the view that Israel was more scapegoat than substance, for at least those vast majority of Muslims who weren't Palestinian. Your average Iraqi or Iranian, the argument would go, isn't really concerned about Israel, he is concerned about his own war with his neighbor, and dying in it or having a loved one die in it. Your Kurd cares about his village, and what Saddam might do to it, and your Shi'i is concerned about the safety of her family in Ba'ath Iraq. So solve their real problems, and the Israel rhetoric dies away. Hence we go to Baghdad, not Jerusalem, to turn over a new page in the Middle East.
I've always found the two poles a bit unsatisfactory. Of course it is silly to think that Jerusalem is more than a symbol for an Iraqi living under the terror of Saddam and in the midst of a nine year war with Iran. Of course solve those problems (obviously not some easy thing as the Bush administration thought) and the Iraqi is happier and more prone to peace. Of course it's terribly simplistic and naive to think that if Sharon and Arafat had signed a peace deal, that the Iraqi under Saddam would be less prone to radicalism given what he has been through. But still symbols mean something. People wrap themselves in them, formulate their identities around them, articulate their needs and wants on the basis of them. If you asked an Iraqi whether or not the invasion of their country helped or hurt Israeli interests, 99.9999% would say it helped, and will further whatever America does is designed to help Israel. So with that attitude, it's hard to say the symbol is meaningless, and just as hard to say that it is everything.
But I think what we've learned in the past week or so from the Mumbai terrors is that there is more than one symbol in the Muslim world, and we are ignoring others at our peril. Even as the West dangerously conflates Islam and the Arabs, so does it risk emphasizing the Arab symbol of grievance, Jerusalem, too much over the South Asian Muslim symbol, Kashmir.
Much of this does go back to failing to understand that much of what is argued as shari'a is really more modern anti colonial regional liberation than it is medieval classical doctrine. When people talk about Muslim objections to the Israeli claim on Jerusalem, too often they sink into doctrine--it was the House of Islam and fell to the Jews, and Islam cannot tolerate Jewish control of any land that was once in its dominion. Or the mosque in Jerusalem is the second holiest site for Muslims, the place were the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. These are claims with currency in the Muslim world, though the first in particular, even if made at times, is actually pretty bad as an argument. There are lots of former Muslim lands other than Israel that nobody spends a minute thinking about. But it is not only dangerous, but positively insane, to ignore the geopoltiical realities as well--Zionism was the brainchild of European Jews, and supported, at times vigorously, by the West. And so there is this very strong feeling (for better or for worse, I'm not arguing merits, to me it's the perception that matters) that it is a form of colonization by the West. That is precisely how it is viewed in the Middle East, as a European colony.
So yes I've said it many times, don't just look at classical doctrine, why do I say it again? Well Kashmir is not the second holiest site in Islam, and I suppose it was once the House of Islam, but then again so was Granada. What it is though is a predominantly Muslim disputed region that is currently ruled (colonized if you are an Islamist) by an illegitimate (to Islamists) Hindu majority authority. So if one just looks at classical models of Islam to understand Islamist movements, and ignores modernity's permutations of the same, and mixes up Arabs and Muslims because Arabia is where it all started anyway and most classical Islam is centered in that region, or at furthest Turkey or Iran well then where do we end up?
Precisely where we are, obsessing about one symbol, Jerusalem, and ignoring another, Kashmir. And it's hard to argue we haven't been ignoring it. Even as particular Islamist movements, among the most extreme in the world, the home turf of Al Qaeda, have worked themselves into a near frenzy on Kashmir, it receives almost no media attention. What we want to know is when Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Lipni and if they'll reach a peace deal. (Here's a prediction, born of experience, NO.) The deadliest movements out there aren't much thinking Israel, they hate Jews enough and are repulsively anti-Semitic enough to want to kill them in India apparently but their target is definitely India, and we let our eye off that ball, and I think in part it's honestly because it didn't occur to us that some place that classical doctrine or Muslim holy text doesn't talk about at all could really be a wide source of symbolic grievance in the Muslim world. Apparently it can.
So symbols are important, but there are quite a few out there, and they are made of more stuff than medieval books and holy texts. Let's make sure we keep track of all of them.
HAH
Traditionally, I'd say the relevant world of Western academics and intellectuals (actually the intelligentsia generally) was divided into two groups. The largest viewed solving the Arab Israeli crisis as central to bringing about any sort of constructive change in the entire Muslim region (not just the Middle East). It is important to note that these voices might be stridently anti-Zionist ("Israel is the root of the region's problems"), fiercely unapologetic supporters of Israel (something like we will have peace when the Arabs (she could have said Muslims) love their children more than they hate ours) or most often something in between, but the notion is, you want some level of peace in the Muslim world and moderation in Islam, you have to go to Jerusalem and fix that problem first.
The challengers of this notion generally took the view that Israel was more scapegoat than substance, for at least those vast majority of Muslims who weren't Palestinian. Your average Iraqi or Iranian, the argument would go, isn't really concerned about Israel, he is concerned about his own war with his neighbor, and dying in it or having a loved one die in it. Your Kurd cares about his village, and what Saddam might do to it, and your Shi'i is concerned about the safety of her family in Ba'ath Iraq. So solve their real problems, and the Israel rhetoric dies away. Hence we go to Baghdad, not Jerusalem, to turn over a new page in the Middle East.
I've always found the two poles a bit unsatisfactory. Of course it is silly to think that Jerusalem is more than a symbol for an Iraqi living under the terror of Saddam and in the midst of a nine year war with Iran. Of course solve those problems (obviously not some easy thing as the Bush administration thought) and the Iraqi is happier and more prone to peace. Of course it's terribly simplistic and naive to think that if Sharon and Arafat had signed a peace deal, that the Iraqi under Saddam would be less prone to radicalism given what he has been through. But still symbols mean something. People wrap themselves in them, formulate their identities around them, articulate their needs and wants on the basis of them. If you asked an Iraqi whether or not the invasion of their country helped or hurt Israeli interests, 99.9999% would say it helped, and will further whatever America does is designed to help Israel. So with that attitude, it's hard to say the symbol is meaningless, and just as hard to say that it is everything.
But I think what we've learned in the past week or so from the Mumbai terrors is that there is more than one symbol in the Muslim world, and we are ignoring others at our peril. Even as the West dangerously conflates Islam and the Arabs, so does it risk emphasizing the Arab symbol of grievance, Jerusalem, too much over the South Asian Muslim symbol, Kashmir.
Much of this does go back to failing to understand that much of what is argued as shari'a is really more modern anti colonial regional liberation than it is medieval classical doctrine. When people talk about Muslim objections to the Israeli claim on Jerusalem, too often they sink into doctrine--it was the House of Islam and fell to the Jews, and Islam cannot tolerate Jewish control of any land that was once in its dominion. Or the mosque in Jerusalem is the second holiest site for Muslims, the place were the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. These are claims with currency in the Muslim world, though the first in particular, even if made at times, is actually pretty bad as an argument. There are lots of former Muslim lands other than Israel that nobody spends a minute thinking about. But it is not only dangerous, but positively insane, to ignore the geopoltiical realities as well--Zionism was the brainchild of European Jews, and supported, at times vigorously, by the West. And so there is this very strong feeling (for better or for worse, I'm not arguing merits, to me it's the perception that matters) that it is a form of colonization by the West. That is precisely how it is viewed in the Middle East, as a European colony.
So yes I've said it many times, don't just look at classical doctrine, why do I say it again? Well Kashmir is not the second holiest site in Islam, and I suppose it was once the House of Islam, but then again so was Granada. What it is though is a predominantly Muslim disputed region that is currently ruled (colonized if you are an Islamist) by an illegitimate (to Islamists) Hindu majority authority. So if one just looks at classical models of Islam to understand Islamist movements, and ignores modernity's permutations of the same, and mixes up Arabs and Muslims because Arabia is where it all started anyway and most classical Islam is centered in that region, or at furthest Turkey or Iran well then where do we end up?
Precisely where we are, obsessing about one symbol, Jerusalem, and ignoring another, Kashmir. And it's hard to argue we haven't been ignoring it. Even as particular Islamist movements, among the most extreme in the world, the home turf of Al Qaeda, have worked themselves into a near frenzy on Kashmir, it receives almost no media attention. What we want to know is when Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Lipni and if they'll reach a peace deal. (Here's a prediction, born of experience, NO.) The deadliest movements out there aren't much thinking Israel, they hate Jews enough and are repulsively anti-Semitic enough to want to kill them in India apparently but their target is definitely India, and we let our eye off that ball, and I think in part it's honestly because it didn't occur to us that some place that classical doctrine or Muslim holy text doesn't talk about at all could really be a wide source of symbolic grievance in the Muslim world. Apparently it can.
So symbols are important, but there are quite a few out there, and they are made of more stuff than medieval books and holy texts. Let's make sure we keep track of all of them.
HAH
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