Author Archives: Guy La Roche

About Guy La Roche

Dutch translator and subtitler living in Brittany with his three cats. Has also lived in the Flemish part of Belgium. Speaks English rather fluently and in a former life used to have a decent command of Spanish. Knows swear words in German and Russian. Not quite francophone yet, but slowly getting there. Vaguely centrist observer of the world around him, extremely naive and, sometimes, rather proud of it. Writes Venale Pecus.

Dreams of empire (plus bleg for our Turkish readers)

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Via Dutch weblog Sargasso. Somebody in Turkey posted the following video to YouTube:

This was picked up by Sargasso and one of their Dutch readers posted the following response:

Totally inane, of course, but I think it is rather amusing.

And now my bleg for our Turkish readers. Is the YouTube video Great Türkic State a spoof or is there something more serious, as in juvenile fantasies, behind it? Unfortunately, I cannot read the comments to the vid, hence the question. I know of Turkish nationalism, but I cannot believe this would extend to… China.

By the way, please do not forget to scroll down on our main page and read the latest episode of Douglas Muir’s excellent Frozen Conflicts series.

Update: Huib Riethof has an interesting background article that explains the Dutch video response.

The author of the video doesn’t explain him(her)self. I presume, that he/she followed the same fantasy as the young princess Wilhelmina (born 1880) did during the nineties of the 19th century, when she drew a Dutch imperium over most of Northern Europe, and adding all (former) Dutch possessions in the world (see above).

European power… sounds like a plan?

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Just a quick post to point our readers to a very interesting article in The New York Times by Parag Khanna entitled Waving goodbye to hegemony. Hat tip goes to EUlogist and a comment he made over at Nosemonkey’s EUtopia. The article talks about the redistribution of world power after the end of the Cold War and foresees a prominent role for Europe. Plenty of food for thought. Two quotes to wet your appetites (emphasis mine):

In Europe’s capital, Brussels, technocrats, strategists and legislators increasingly see their role as being the global balancer between America and China. Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, calls it “European patriotism.” The Europeans play both sides, and if they do it well, they profit handsomely. It’s a trend that will outlast both President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the self-described “friend of America,” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, regardless of her visiting the Crawford ranch.

While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit. Many poor regions of the world have realized that they want the European dream, not the American dream. Africa wants a real African Union like the E.U.; we offer no equivalent. Activists in the Middle East want parliamentary democracy like Europe’s, not American-style presidential strongman rule. Many of the foreign students we shunned after 9/11 are now in London and Berlin: twice as many Chinese study in Europe as in the U.S. We didn’t educate them, so we have no claims on their brains or loyalties as we have in decades past. More broadly, America controls legacy institutions few seem to want — like the International Monetary Fund — while Europe excels at building new and sophisticated ones modeled on itself.

What I found particularly refreshing in this article is Khanna’s focus on the role of “second-world countries”:

They are not in the first-world core of the global economy, nor in its third-world periphery. Lying alongside and between the Big Three, second-world countries are the swing states that will determine which of the superpowers has the upper hand for the next generation of geopolitics. From Venezuela to Vietnam and Morocco to Malaysia, the new reality of global affairs is that there is not one way to win allies and influence countries but three: America’s coalition (as in “coalition of the willing”), Europe’s consensus and China’s consultative styles. The geopolitical marketplace will decide which will lead the 21st century.

I invite you to go and read the article and share your thoughts with us.

Geert Wilders: much ado about an unscreened movie

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Two weeks ago Denmark was in turmoil because Danish newspapers decided to reprint the infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad after one of their authors had received death threats. And there is another Islam-related crisis brewing. This time in The Netherlands. I’ll give our readers a brief update on the situation.

Yesterday, Dutch Minister for Developing Cooperation Bert Koenders cancelled a working trip to Somalia because his delegation had received “direct threats”. The reason? Dutch MP Geert Wilders is about to release a fifteen minute self-made movie, called Fitna or ‘tribulation’, in which he will attempt to demonstrate that the Koran is “a terrible and fascist book that inspires people to horrible actions and violence.” The release date should be some time this March.

No-one has seen the movie yet, but Wilders already seems to have collected a few death threats himself and yesterday, in a rather unusual move, the Dutch Cabinet officially distanced itself from the movie and thereby from Wilders’ actions. The official stance is that the movie threatens the security of Dutch citizens and the military abroad. Wilders subsequently accused the Cabinet of capitulating to Islam. Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen and CDA PM Pieter van Geel even called on Wilders not to broadcast his movie because “it could affect security and the Dutch economy”. His alleged response: “They can go and screw themselves.” Employers’ organizations have also called on Wilders not to broadcast Fitna. Wientjes, president of the organization VNO-NCW, apparently stated that the business community benefits from a tolerant climate and that Wilders is not contributing to that. There are stories circulating that Dutch airhostesses are now afraid to fly to certain countries, that the Taliban in Afghanistan have announced to take actions against Dutch people and that a number of international business fairs are refusing Dutch entries.

At the same time several parties and MPs are, albeit cautiously, stressing the importance of freedom of expression. More precisely, Femke Halsema from GroenLinks (Left Greens) and Socialist Party leader Jan Marijnissen. They do point out, however, that Wilders has the moral responsibility to consider if the goal in this case really does justify the means. And both the Justice Minister and the Minister of Domestic Affairs have talked to Wilders warning him about the risks the movie poses to himself and the country.

Personally, I am really getting fed up with people issuing death threats, or worse, just because somebody expressed an opinion they find offensive even when I understand that some people, like Wilders, really seem to be ‘begging for it’. Consciously stirring up resentment under the guise of freedom of expression, by asking to ban the Koran in The Netherlands for example, is idiotic and makes a mockery of that very same freedom. There is a grain of truth in that the Koran is used by some Muslims factions and individuals as an inspiration/excuse for violence, but these problems are extremely complex and are not going to be solved by a simple, cinematographic book burning session. On the contrary. Still, Wilders is no Hitler and as far as I know he has not been inciting violence against Muslims. And, more importantly, the movie has not even been shown yet.

PS: The Dutch phrase “nobody zit echt te wachten op this movie” in this mock trailer means “nobody really cares about this movie”. I also found a fairly recent interview, in two parts, on YouTube in which Wilders talks to FoxNews about his upcoming movie and his views on the Koran and Islam.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Anyway, we’ll see what happens next.

Hopefully, NOT developing…

Update: Last Sunday some eight hundred people took to the streets in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif to protest “the Danish and Dutch insults against Islam”. The demonstrators, mainly students, shouted “death to Denmark” and “death to The Netherlands”, burned flags from both countries and demanded apologies and the punishment (in court) of those who insulted Islam.

There is also a ‘nice’ statement from Iran (for domestic use, though):

“Recently some Dutch and Danish media, influenced by usurping Zionists, have distorted and insulted Islamic sanctities,” said a statement read out in parliament on behalf of lawmakers which was broadcast on state radio.

I suppose “usurping Zionists” is the Iranian version of our “dirty terrorists”? Anyway, for an interesting, and more refreshing, debate among Muslims about this issue and the matter of freedom of speech, you can visit ShiaChat.com. A few quotes:

They are misusing the freedom of expression. They don’t understand the sensitiveness of issues relating to Islam. They have the right to criticise Islam and its Prophet with academic integrity but insulting and caricaturing is utterly disgusting. Danish cartoons and the film by Theo van Gogh was more of an insult than criticism. I don’t know how insulting the new film is but I should also mention one thing – The Muslim reaction on cartoons and film was out of proportion and very childish.

Well, instead of whining, why don’t you make a documentary refuting what was raised on the film – that is the best revenge. Why go about rioting and proving every possible negative stereotype when a educated critique of the film in terms of a point by point refuting of themes in the movie, or a creation of a counter film pointing out inaccuracies.

You will alwyas find these kind of people rioting, burning and creating nuisance and mayhem. It is because they have no way to vent out their accumulated frustrations. I don’t blame them altogether. Those who are above them have the responsibility . They don’t understand that the Frankenstein’s Monster they have created will swallow their own fellow Muslims.

Update 2 (March 5th): Geert Wilders has apparently registered a website for the broadcast of his movie. It – the site but not yet the movie – can be found right here. And we keep on updating. I have removed some text referring to Wilders’ site being hosted in Canada. It turns out the content is officially in the US. And just now I found out that Dutch PM Balkenende, on a visit to Paris today, has asked Sarkozy for support – diplomatic or otherwise – in case all hell breaks loose… just to be on the safe side. The movie’s release appears to be scheduled for March 28th. What is going on here?

Ecological economics

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Surfing around the internet looking for more information on ecological economics I came across the Ecological Economics weblog and a podcast by Josh Farley, assistant professor at the University of Vermont. In his podcast Farley talks about the unsustainability of the concept of indefinite economic growth: Beyond economic growth by Josh Farley.

I post this here on AFOE to encourage a debate on developing new economic models to deal with global warming and all its possible consequences. It is about time we, here on AFOE, start addressing something which may very well be THE issue in the coming decades. Where is the middle ground between maintaining our living standards and slowly destroying our world? Can we maybe develop new, sustainable economic models that will allow us to grow in a different way? In other words, are there ways to satisfy both the homo economicus and the homo ecologicus?

Administration of Torture by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh

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Early 2004 photos emerged in the media showing Iraqi prisoners allegedly being abused and tortured by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq. The impact was devastating and the Bush administration, already under fire by critics for the way it handled the Iraq war, was faced with yet another serious public relations problem. America, the leader of the free world, the winner of hearts and minds, the liberator of people from oppressive regimes was seen to engage in the very same “evilness” it had denounced and gone to war for. The fact that the American abuse took place in the very same prison where evil dictator Saddam Hussein used to torture his own prisoners made the contrast even more poignant. Of course, the Bush administration had to respond and protect the image of their America. On June 22nd 2004 president Bush stated:

Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country. We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.*

To cut a very long explanation short, the abuse was done by “rogue soldiers”, aberrational and not a matter of official US policy. The narrative was picked up and expanded upon by various actors in the public arena. The harshness of the various interrogation methods used at Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, was heavily debated in, among others, the blogosphere. Both domestically and, yes, internationally people asked questions like: “Do loud music and bright lights really constitute torture?” Even vice-president Cheney chimed in when he called waterboarding “a no-brainer”. He proceeded to invoke “the terrorist threat” as a valid excuse for using controversial interrogation techniques and reiterated the official line that “we don’t torture”.

Between 2004 and now a lot has been written about the subject and the issue of torture and prisoner abuse continues to haunt the current US administration, especially in view of the upcoming US presidential elections, as evidenced by this recent article in The New York Times in which senator McCain chastises Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani for the latter’s failure to call waterboarding torture. About a week ago international media found the issue interesting enough to report that the “whistleblower website” Wikileaks had published the Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure, an outdated copy of the manual for prisoner treatment at Guantanamo Bay. And, naturally, the issue IS interesting. But what did really happen? What are the ramifications, both politically and morally, of what happened, and may very well continue to happen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay? What is the opinion of the experts, of people who actually deal with the interrogation of prisoners instead of laymen chattering about it on the internet? And what is it that sets this US Administration apart from others before it when it comes to the issue of torture?

With these questions I can introduce to our readers a truly remarkable book published by Columbia University Press, Administration of Torture, that answers all of them and is written by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, two lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Administration of Torture starts with an intriguing introduction in which ACLU lawyers Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh build their case that the current US Administration did condone torture, that the abuse of prisoners was indeed systemic, that senior government officials, like Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, were personally involved, probably for the first time in US history, in determining which interrogation techniques were to be used and that those techniques were possibly illegal and even unconstitutional bordering on war crimes.

The text of the introduction in which these allegations are made, 52 pages long, is corroborated by over 300 footnotes pointing directly to official documents that are reproduced in the book over 374 pages. The true scope of the enormous investigative work done by Jaffer and Singh becomes clear when you know that over 100,000 of these official pages have been released to the ACLU and its partners under the Freedom of Information Act.

I have to admit that the prospect of wading through even 374 pages of official documents seemed a bit daunting at first. Especially since I am not a lawyer myself. But my initial reticence, and even scepticism as to the importance of this book when the whole issue of torture was already well-discussed elsewhere, was quickly overcome when I actually started to delve into these documents myself and when I discovered how easy it is to justify illegal actions with legal “loopholes”, how it was not really torture itself that was seen as a problem, but the way it could tarnish the reputation of the country or put at risk the career of certain people, how cynical and bureaucratical the whole issue was dealt with. And all of this on the basis of real, official documents and testimonies from and by people who were directly involved. In any case, the whole issue is explained extensively and clearly in the introduction to Administration of Torture, which handily serves as a manual to correctly interpret all those documents.

In the introduction, or the indictment of the Bush administration, if you will, Jaffer and Singh demonstrate, among many other things, how the US administration managed to deviate from previously established rules and practices, how it managed to reinterpret laws “in a way that would allow government personnel to engage in interrogation methods that violate both domestic law and also international law”**. One very telling example and quote:

In Januari of 2002, then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales opined that the war on terror had “render(ed) obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on the questioning of enemy prisoners,” and he recommended that the president deny al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners the protection of the Third Geneva Convention to “preserve flexibility” and “reduce the threat” that administration officials and military personnel would later be prosecuted for war crimes. Stating that the war against terrorism had “usher(ed) in a new paradigm,” President Bush formally endorsed this policy in a memorandum issued on February 7.”

The opinion of Gonzales and the February memo of Bush are both reproduced in full in the book.

Jaffer and Singh also demonstrate how various government officials and agencies, who deal with interrogations as a part of their job, have expressed doubts about the efficiency of the recommended interrogation methods. Even within the military similar doubts had been raised. This alone blows to smithereens the whole argument that harsh interrogation techniques are by definition necessary to protect the average American from the “terrorist threat”. One example and quote, talking about aggressive interrogation tactics, with the corresponding FBI memo reproduced in the book:

Not only are these tactics at odds with legally permissible interviewing techniques used by U.S. law enforcement agencies in the United States, but they are being employed by personnel in GTMO who appear to have little, if any, experience eliciting information for judicial purposes. The continued use of the techniques has the potential of negatively impacting future interviews by FBI agents as they attempt to gather intelligence and prepare cases for prosecution.”

Remember, this memo was written by people whose job it is to gather intelligence.

Furthermore, we learn that many detainees have either “been arrested by mistake” or “were of either no intelligence value or were of value but innocent and therefore should (…) not have remained in captivity”. We learn of interrogations ending with the death of detainees, we learn that the interrogation techniques used in Abu Ghraib were also pervasive in other US detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay and that abuse was endorsed by senior officials as a matter of policy. Torture, in other words, did not happen in spite of policy but because of it. All of these allegations are backed up by official documents.

In Administration of Torture Jaffer and Singh present enough evidence of illegal abuse and even war crimes committed by, among others, senior US government officials to warrant at the very least a thorough Congressional investigation no matter what your personal stance on the use of torture is. If it is against the rules, it is against the rules. Like any other ordinary citizen government officials are accountable and have to operate within the limits defined by law. Since the authors include official documents in this book, among which testimonies of people on the ground, we get a better understanding of how devastating even “soft techniques” like loud music, bright light, stress positions and isolation can be when used too extensively, as seems to have been the case. We learn therefore that, apart from moral reasons, there are also practical reasons for limiting the use of certain interrogation techniques. Some of them are plainly counter productive. We learn that in the absence of clear guidelines, or deliberate obfuscation of them, the slippery slope theory can quickly degenerate into reality, etcetera.

So, even when so much has already been said about the subject, I would highly recommend Administration of Torture, not only because it is a formidable example of investigative journalism, not only because it shows that torture is not by definition the way to go, not only because of its historic value in documenting a very important part of American history, not only because of its current “political value” since it could form the basis of a legal investigation into possible war crimes committed by an American administration, but because, to all of us, it demonstrates the way power can and will corrupt if it is allowed to go unchecked.

As a matter of fact, regardless of all those freedom speeches made by George W. Bush in the past years, I would consider the very existence of this book as the prime example of the true free spirit of the American people. I do believe, as evidenced by this American book published by Americans, that the values of their country are such that torture is not a part of their soul and their being.

So, yes, Administration of Torture is a serious indictment of the Bush administration warranting further investigation. But it is also, and foremost, proof that the American democracy is still alive and kicking and that we can still look to America as an example of true freedom. That is why, in these often dark and insecure times, this very book can and must serve as a beacon of hope and as an example to all those, even here in Europe, who seek to curb constitutional freedoms in the name of the war against terrorism. We should all be better than our enemies.

*The Bush quote is taken directly from the book.
** This quote in between brackets is taken from an interview with Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh from the Columbia University Press podcast series, also accessible through the book’s webpage at Columbia University Press.

Lingua britannica

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As soon as I have some time I shall write a follow-up to Ingrid Robeyns’ post at Crooked Timber on the current political crisis in Belgium and talk a bit about the importance of the Dutch language to Flemish native speakers of Dutch. I am still looking for the right angle to the story and I’ll probably decide to tackle the subject in a personal manner. It may be the best way, even when it is by proxy, to convey some of the sensibilities involved to a broader audience.

In the meantime, however, I would like to keep the interesting debate on language in the comments section to Ingrid’s post alive and point you to a remarkable report on language proficieny in Brussels and Belgium by Philippe Van Parijs, entitled Brussels Capital of Europe: new linguistic challenges (pdf), which was published at the Brussels Studies website. I am sure our readers will find plenty to debate here. One quote to wet your appetites:

In Europe and the rest of the world we absolutely need a common language, one that is not monopolized by a small elite but is widely spread amongst all sections of the population. Through accidents of history this role has fallen to English. For us Belgians, what a stroke of luck! Whether our mother tongue is French or Dutch, of the 6000 languages spoken in the world today, English is one of the 10 to 15 languages that lie closest to our own. Even better: if there is one language in the world that can claim to lie precisely midway between French and Dutch, it is English and only English, which is after all but a dialect very similar to Frisian, which the Angles took with them when they crossed the Channel in the fifth century and which was later made unrecognisable by some Vikings who, after a few centuries of French lessons in Normandy, crossed the channel in turn to simplify its grammar and graft 10,000 French words onto it. Some inveterate narcissists will perhaps still manage to complain about the fact that the chosen language is not precisely the same as the one in which they were rocked by their mum. But this should not stop us rejoicing at our incredible luck.

Why is the author rejoicing? To quote a Dutch saying: Als twee honden vechten om een been, loopt een derde ermee heen. Or, literally translated, When two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third dog will walk off with it. According to Van Parijs, the Belgian lingua franca won’t be Dutch, nor French, but… English:

When today’s adolescents will have completed their language-learning period, the order of the three languages will most probably be reversed. For their generation, English will have become the country’s first language, Dutch the second and French the third.

“Cultural” uniformity within Europe

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The BBC news site carries two stories today that really deserve more attention, especially in light of many debates on European culture and identity. The two stories highlight trends that have been going on for quite a while now and I suppose you could consider these trends to be intrinsically ‘cultural’ as they reflect contemporary behaviour patterns. Culture is not only about the arts, it is also, and maybe foremost, about the way people actually live and behave.

The first BBC story talks about the famous Parisian Left Bank losing its renowned cultural identity:

In the 1940s Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli gave the area its own jazz sound while in the cafes and bars, Sartre penned his theories on existentialism and literary geniuses Orwell and Hemingway were inspired to write novels. But the heritage of the Left Bank is now under threat as McDonald’s, Starbucks and souvenir shops begin to take over the traditional bookshops and cafes. (…) Deputy Mayor of Paris, Lyne Cohen Solal, is adamant that Paris’s prized Left Bank should resist uniformity. “All the cities all over in Europe are starting to look the same. London, Berlin they’re going to have the same streets with the same shops.”

It is a trend I have observed myself when visiting several European capitals. Culture and history are increasingly being replaced by uniform commerce. One could of course point out that much of culture and history have been shaped by commerce anyway, but I do not believe it has ever been so… uniform. At least, in my perception.

At the same time culture is carried by people. And if those people prefer uniform shopping over their own more or less unique heritage, well, to what extent should one deny them that way of life? In a way one could say that consumerism itself is part and parcel of contemporary culture. From the article:

The state representative in charge of economic development Michel Lalande believes it is time that Paris welcomed in the spirit of the 21st Century. “If the bookshops are closing down, it’s also because they have fewer customers. Preserving these bookshops is all very well, but what would be even better is if tourists and Parisians actually went to them.

The second story is even more familiar to me. It is about the touristic development of the Mediterranean. Author Julian Pettifer writes:

This is how I described what had happened to a familiar street in Torremolinos: “…then (in the 50s) it was filled with dark little shops selling oil, wine and olives and formidable-looking corsets to peasant women with long black dresses. Donkeys were the main traffic. It was intensely Spanish. Now, it could be just about anywhere. The shops have that international chic I associate with boutiques in big international airports. “The restaurants are anything but Spanish. There are French, Danish and Dutch “bistros” and something called “The New West End Fish and Chip Boutique de Poisson Frites”. This loss of national identity has introduced a new word into the Spanish language: El Boom.”

The development of the Spanish coastline I have been able to observe firsthand. I have seen how the coast of Murcia, for instance, has gradually taken on the ‘allure’ of a true Atlantic wall consisting of countless more or less uniform holiday resorts that are now obscuring from view the once so beautiful Mediterranean sea. More often than not city planning is horrendous and I know of at least one resort where the sheer amount of concrete and a lack of cultural activity have managed to make life quite dreary in the land of sun and sea. The sun has become the primary and sole reason to buy there. Or even elsewhere if local real estate prices become too high. Many Mediterranean countries seem to be perfectly interchangeable in this regard. As long as there is sun, who cares about local culture. El Boom is now expanding to countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bulgaria and even Libya. And its pattern is invariably the same. Claim a piece of land near the sea and turn it into a saleable patch of pretty uniform concrete. One wonders when supply will start to outpace demand.

Very often I hear people talk about the threat of Islamic culture to the identity and culture of Europe. But what exactly is that culture of Europe nowadays? Is it really much different from that of Americans shopping in New York, of Japanese consuming in Tokyo or Chinese people buying Coca Cola in Peking? To what extent is our cultural ‘behaviour’, driven by prosperity, really unique? And would it be worth our while to protect whatever is left of our historical heritage, like that deputy mayor of Paris wants to do, against the, no doubt envigorating, spirit of commercialism? Has it become, in short, outdated, reactionary and selfish even, to express one’s non-profitable love for something and to fight for the realisation of one’s desire to keep some things just the way they are?

Update: First of all, the comments and link have been fixed. Secondly, Paul Currion from The Unforgiving Minute weblog has an interesting follow-up to this post entitled Cleaning up in Montenegro. As it happens Paul was interviewed by the very same Julian Pettifer that is quoted here on the very same subject of the Mediterranean coastline for BBC4’s Crossing Continents. Sadly, he did not make the final cut himself but, as a bonus, he does graciously provide a link to that BBC4 broadcast.

50 years of EU Foreign policy

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Browsing through the archives of EUTUBE, “the YouTube space of the European Commission”, I came across a video called 50 years of EU in the world. Since we haven’t really done anything special here on AFOE to commemorate the European Project’s 50th anniversary, I thought this video might be an appropriate birthday gift to our readers. I am sure there will be plenty to debate… especially in light of some current events.

PS: When it comes to promoting something we really have a lot to learn from the States, even when I personally appreciate the calm tone of the EU vid. And, of course, do not forget to have a look at some of the other videos at EUTUBE.

Secular science confronts Islam

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Physics Today has a very interesting, and refreshing, online article (hat tip Sargasso) on Islam and science that ties in neatly with AFOE’s review of Olivier Roy’s latest book Secularism confronts Islam. The article is written by Pervez Hoodbhoy, nuclear physics professor at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. As usual, I shall give our readers one quote, but please do and go read the whole thing.

In the quest for modernity and science, internal struggles continue within the Islamic world. Progressive Muslim forces have recently been weakened, but not extinguished, as a consequence of the confrontation between Muslims and the West. On an ever-shrinking globe, there can be no winners in that conflict: It is time to calm the waters. We must learn to drop the pursuit of narrow nationalist and religious agendas, both in the West and among Muslims. In the long run, political boundaries should and can be treated as artificial and temporary, as shown by the successful creation of the European Union. Just as important, the practice of religion must be a matter of choice for the individual, not enforced by the state. This leaves secular humanism, based on common sense and the principles of logic and reason, as our only reasonable choice for governance and progress. Being scientists, we understand this easily. The task is to persuade those who do not.

Secularism confronts Islam by Olivier Roy

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When I look at contemporary public discourse, no day seems to go by without at least someone mentioning the threat of Islam. Last week Dutch MP Geert Wilders even went as far as to call for a ban on the Koran itself, comparing it in true Godwin style to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, because “it incites violence in the name of a fascist ideology”. His idea was widely condemned, even by people who would normally sympathize with at least some of his views, but the fact that he was confident enough to put this idea to the test is very telling. Islam is a hot topic and the threat of Islam, the Islamic monster as it were, either perceived or real, sells.

At the same time there has been real violence in the name of Islam. 9-11 and the bombings in London and Madrid are obvious examples but, the scope of the inflicted destruction notwithstanding, they could be placed in a wider geopolitical context. Far more telling, for me, was the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. He was killed in the name of Islam by a young, Dutch Muslim extremist of Moroccan descent called Mohammed Bouyeri. This particular murder has been as devastating as the aforementioned bombings, not in scope but in psychological impact. He brought the threat of Islam home… from the inside out. His religious radicalization leading up to his murder of Theo van Gogh cannot be explained merely by geopolitical events or by what some people, like Wilders, would call inherent traits of the Islamic religion. The prosecutor in his murder trial formulated it like this: “The defendant rejects our democracy. He even wants to bring down our democracy.”

The murder of Theo van Gogh was seen as proof of the failure of multiculturalism and, much more important, a direct link was established, in the public mind, between Muslim immigrants and religious violence. What had thus far been a sociological problem, the cultural integration of immigrants who had, by the way, been around for decades, turned into a debate on the position of, in this case Islamist, religion in Western society. Islam, in short, had become a subversive force in Western society threatening traditional values and democracy. Islam was no longer just another religion, it had become a political, assertive and proactive force. Again, in the public mind. I remember fifteen odd years ago there already were lively debates on the position of immigrants in Western society. But those debates hardly ever considered religion. What exactly happened between then and now? Why did some young Western Muslims radicalize and how did they, arguably a minority within a minority, manage to have such an impact on Western public opinion?

With these introductory questions I can finally introduce world renowned expert on Islam Olivier Roy and his excellent new book Secularism confronts Islam, published by Columbia University Press. As far as the body of the book goes, Columbia University Press already did a great job summarizing this online:

Analyzing the French case in particular, in which the tension between Islam and the conception of Western secularism is exacerbated, Roy makes important distinctions between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, hegemony and tolerance, and the role of the umma and the sharia in Muslim religious life. He pits Muslim religious revivalism against similar movements in the West, such as evangelical Protestantism and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and refutes the myth of a single “Muslim community” by detailing different groups and their inability to overcome their differences.

The great value of Secularism confronts Islam, which should make it a lasting classic, is that it recognizes the complexity of the issues at hand and that it offers us, by revealing their diverse and often surprising underlying dynamics, the tools to understand them better. Olivier Roy hands his readers a wealth of material that will allow them to interpret past, ongoing and future developments in a more objective and different manner. And, maybe most important of all, he reduces “the Islamic threat” to its just proportions and, in doing so, gives us the means to deal, both intellectually and emotionally, in a more appropriate and effective way with that very same threat. One example to illustrate this:

Laïcité creates religion by making it a category apart that has to be isolated and circumscribed. It reinforces religious identities rather than allowing them to dissolve in more diversified practices and identities.

In other words, by fighting a monster the wrong way, you can actually make that monster stronger.

Olivier Roy does not necessarily provide conclusive, foolproof all-encompassing answers to the questions I asked in my introduction, but he does provide a wealth of insights that may help us understand not only what is going on, but how things have developed and how they should be seen in a wider context. To rephrase it using my monster metaphor: Who is the Frankenstein behind the monster and how tall and threatening is that monster really?

It is here that Olivier Roy excels. Instead of focusing on the monster itself, I am of course talking about the public perception in the West of Islam, he takes a hard look at the surroundings and circumstances in which it was created. In the preface to Secularism confronts Islam, which can be found online on this page of the Columbia University Press website, he states:

The redefinition of the relations between religion and politics is a new challenge for the West, and not only because of Islam. Islam is a mirror in which the West projects its own identity crisis. We live in a postculturalist society, and this postculturalism is the very foundation of the contemporary religious revival.

With this observation Olivier Roy takes his readers on an intellectual, yet fact-based, journey that ends with another remarkable observation:

What I have attempted to show here is that even fundamentalism has at bottom incorporated the religious space of the West (individualism, separation between politics and religion) and is striving to promote its conservative, indeed reactionary, values in a discourse and practice that mirror those of Christian and Jewish conservatives. The problem is not Islam but religion or, rather, the contemporary forms of the revival of religion.

Olivier Roy comes to this conclusion by analyzing the true meaning and origin of the French laïcité policy and by contrasting laïcité with secularism, by exploring the different attitudes different countries in the West have adopted to Islam and immigration, by comparing neofundamentalist doctrines (and finding too many similarities for comfort), by explaining the political dimension of religion, by pointing out the importance of and quest for identity, etcetera. In the end it all comes together nicely and clearly and the reader is left, not necessarily with clear-cut answers to the (re)integration of religion, and notably Islam, in Western societies, but with a clearer vision of all the different elements that are working together in (re)shaping our societies.

In short, even when Secularism confronts Islam focusses on the confrontation between Islam and secularist values, which, as Olivier Roy demonstrates, are not necessarily exclusively Western, it is most of all a work that, by its sheer depth, inspires readers to think about many other concepts. It inspires readers to even rethink some of those concepts in order to gain a better understanding of all the dynamics at play. As we all know, the first step in solving a problem is understanding that problem. Or, to pick up my silly monster metaphor again, if you are afraid of something, the best thing to do is to confront the scary monster by trying to understand it. More often than not you will find it to be much less threatening than you initially thought it would be. The monster may even confront you with yourself… Or, in this case, with the dynamics of our own societies.

So, if you feel the need to chase some monsters, imagined or real, from under your beds, go and read Olivier Roy’s Secularism confronts Islam. As he himself states this is:

…an invitation to think about Islam in the same framework as we think about other religions and about the religious phenomenon itself. This is true respect for the other and the true criticial spirit.