A book review for The National
By David Lepeska
Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a wonder: a rich, gorgeous and boldly ambitious fairy tale about love and spirituality, the ancient and the modern, East and West and the decline of the natural world. It’s also something of a disappointment.
Thompson first gained renown in 2003, with his semi-autobiographical debut, Blankets. That book recounted his blush of first love in rural Wisconsin and his decision to leave the evangelical Christian faith of his parents. It earned great acclaim and half a dozen awards. With his new work he has set his sights higher.
The story opens in an Arabia-like desert facing severe drought. Desperate to survive, a father marries off his daughter, Dodola, inexplicably named after a Slavic rain goddess, to a gruff, older scribe. He whisks her away and takes her virginity, then teaches her to read and write. One night, thieves ransack their house, slash the scribe’s throat, kidnap Dodola and sell her into slavery.
At the slave market she comes across an abandoned, dark-skinned, three-year-old boy, Zam. When Dodola escapes into the desert she snatches the boy and takes him with her, to raise as her “Habibi”, or darling. For nine years, they live in an abandoned boat beached on the dunes as Dodola sells herself to men in passing caravans in return for provisions.
The adolescent Zam follows her out one day and watches as she is raped, crouching in angry fear behind a camel. He curses himself, then goes out searching for food. “We could be reclaimed as slaves at any time,” she says when he finally returns. “[Zam] didn’t understand that our world was dying. People were crying out for water, but the sources had dried up,” Dodola thinks to herself. “However, the masses will need something to distract them from destruction ... and my body will still be a commodity.”
As the last in a series of images, we see Zam beneath Dodola’s closing thought: “This is the world of men.” When Zam goes out foraging a second time, Dodola is snatched up by bounty hunters who hand her over to a drooling, pot-bellied caricature of a sultan. She becomes his aphrodite, the favourite among his well-stocked harem.
That common Arab cliché is just one among a handful of Orientalist stereotypes in the book: desert caravans filled with rough merchants, dirty souqs, frolicking harem girls, despotic, turbaned leaders, subservient eunuchs. It’s often hard to tell whether Thompson is using them to titillate and entertain or to comment on their questionable use in ages past.
If Dodola is not being ravished by one man or another, she is being fantasised about. And unlike R Crumb and a handful of other popular graphic artists, Thompson clearly relishes form, shape and movement.
Dodola is a raven-haired beauty, with saucer eyes, broad lips and a petite, hourglass figure. As a youth, Zam is slim and dark, catlike. Fully grown he is massive, imposing, filling the scenes with his bulk. His size and blooming desire compound his fear of further hurting Dodola, making him uncomfortable around her after he witnesses her violation.
After her disappearance he goes out searching for her and falls in with a group of hijras. During the scene of their reuniting, years later, Zam flashes back to Dodola telling him the story of Noah and the flood.
Throughout the book, well-known religious tales unspool with regularity, often before a backdrop of phantasmagorical images or flowing Arabic calligraphy. In an apparent attempt to bridge the divide between Islam and Christianity, Thompson includes several stories shared by the world’s two most popular monotheisms: Adam, Abraham, Noah and others are mixed in with quotes from the Quran and bits from the Bible.
But as one who has lived and worked in the Arab world, I was left wondering: where are the Muslims? What’s missing from the religion in Habibi are the religious. To Thompson, the Arabic alphabet is protean and pliant: a shifting tapestry of symbol and anecdote that he wields to often glorious effect, highlighting the links between Arabic script and Islamic geometry and endeavouring to make Islam less foreign to his mostly Western audience. But he approaches religion with a certain detachment – perhaps a hangover from his distasteful experience with evangelical Christianity.
None of the characters is shown in prayer. None embraces Islam as a guide to living, a moral compass, or anything other than a well of stories to be dipped into as needed. For a book so laden with religion and spirituality, it’s all a bit soulless, as if the narrative takes place in the unruly idol-worshipping era of jahaliyyah, before the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Mohammed.
The actual when and where of the story seems fluid, shifting from medieval Arabia to something resembling 21st century Dubai in the space of a few pages: a lavish apartment in an under-construction skyscraper abuts a medieval souq where slaves are sold to the highest bidder. Beyond the Bible and Quran, Habibi incorporates references to the Arabian Nights and Scheherazade, poems from Rumi and bits of alchemy and astronomy.
As in Blankets, Thompson employs flashbacks and more than 600 pages of lush, graceful drawings in the service of a long, winding tale. But Habibi is far more sweeping, covering the bonds of servitude, the shame of fantasy, the complexities of love, the fragility of the environment, the ignorant greed of humanity, as well as Allah, the Prophet Mohammed and the possibilities of Arabic script.
Thompson is a dazzling artist and a fine storyteller, ranking among the finest graphic novelists today. But Habibi sets a nearly impossible target. Too much sensationalism, too much religious mumbo-jumbo and too little of the human spirit undermines the work. And in the end, the lessons of the narrative are ambiguous and possibly contradictory.
Still, being brought low by ambition is the least damning of literary failures. Habibi is a ripping yarn, often beautifully told. If Thompson tries too hard to pass it off as a moving and important work of art, it’s a credit to his skill that he nearly succeeds. Call it a marvellous failure.
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Ran February 2012:
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/habibi-a-beautiful-journey-that-comes-up-short-in-its-message
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
8.20.2010
A Ramadan where old meets new
DOHA // This is not your grandfather’s Ramadan.
Thousands of visitors strolled through the Doha Summer Fun Park one evening this week, stopping to nibble on cotton candy and ice cream, check out some Islam-themed television serials or watch their children smash into each other on bumper cars.
Organised each year by the Qatar Tourism Authority, the amusement park is larger than ever in 2010, and starting this year, has been extended to include Ramadan and Eid.
It is all part of a new, more festive commemoration of the holy month.
“When I was little we played simple games for Ramadan, or packed up a picnic and went to the beach,” said Hamad Salman, a Doha native and marketing executive for Qatar Petroleum. He had come to the fun park with his teenage son and daughter for the second time, and planned to come again.
“This is much better,” added Salman, looking around the colourful, brightly lit, 12,000 square metre space, children shouting and laughing as they were spun around, up and down. “All these games and rides make a big difference.”
Droves of Qataris and other Doha residents attend similarly lively affairs late into the night across the city, from malls to hotels to cultural centres. Gondolania, the indoor amusement park at Villaggio mall, has extended its opening hours past 2am, so kids can bowl and ride go-karts and roller coasters late into the night.
Qatar’s only water park is set to open its doors in the coming weeks, and host Ramadan events. Fanar, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, has organised an evening to teach expatriates more about Ramadan and its traditions this weekend.
Doha’s four- and five-star hotels are hosting lavish nightly iftar and suhoor events, some with Egyptian dancers, Lebanese bands, henna tattoos, falconry exhibitions and up to 50 dishes for tasting. As part of its Ramadan celebrations, the W Hotel Doha is giving away airline tickets that enable the holder to fly anywhere in the world on Qatar Airways.
The fun park is one of the more popular events, with some 4,000 nightly visitors to the cavernous Doha Exhibition Centre. “Breaking away from past events, which were held in shopping malls, Doha Summer Fun Park takes full advantage of the space,” said Lahdan al Mohannadi, head of internal exhibitions at the Qatar Tourism Auhtority and lead organiser of the fun park. “In addition, this year the event is free for all.”
Buoyant Arab and carnival music fills the space. At one end is a souk, filled with shops offering Yemeni honey, leather purses, perfumes, jewellery and more. At the other a food court offers doughnuts, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, and shawarma. In between are a couple of dozen rides, including a choo-choo train and caterpillar coaster for toddlers, and dodgems, video games and a dozen more active rides for the bigger kids.
The al Mannai brothers – Hamad and Ahmed, 10, and Mohammad, 13 – enjoyed the Tilt-a-Whirl so much they got right back on and did it again. “That was a lot of fun,” said Mohammed as the trio walked away dizzily.
These events, most of which aim to entertain the whole family, may be bringing a sense of community back to Ramadan in Qatar. “We’ve lost some of our traditions, of course,” said Moza al Malki.
A family therapist and commentator, she has seen Ramadan change several times in recent decades, from more to less strict and back again. “But nowadays we are going back to some of these old traditions.”
For the first couple weeks after the fun park opened, on-stage performances included clowns, magic shows and games. Starting with Ramadan, the stage has been re-made into a traditional Qatari house with garden, and programming includes a series of plays, a theatre group performing folklore tales and a Syrian band playing traditional music.
“Several new activities were added to instill traditional values during the holy month,” said Mr al Mohannadi. The fun park and Doha’s Heritage Village are both hosting Garangou (also known as Karankou) events for families.
Garangou is a traditional Gulf children’s festival held on the 14th day of Ramadan. Children will play heritage games and sing traditional songs, along with other activities and competitions.
“We are staying together more, families going out together,” said al Malki. “Also generosity, giving food to our neighbours, this is also returning.”
In Al Mansoura, on the edge of Doha, the W Hotel Doha and the Islamic Bank of Qatar have set up an air-conditioned tent to provide iftar to the underprivileged.
More than 150 male labourers turn up daily to break their fast with dates, laban, fruits, rice, bread, chicken and lamb.
“These are the people that really need the full meal,” said a spokesperson for Islamic Bank of Qatar, which has done the charity tent for three years running. “A lot of the staff from the bank also volunteer – everybody pitches in.”
Back at the Doha Exhibition Centre, Mr Salman watched his children on the City Hopper ride. “Ready to come down yet?” he shouted to his son, whizzing past overhead.
The teenager smiled and shook his head.
------
Ran with photos in the 20 August 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
Thousands of visitors strolled through the Doha Summer Fun Park one evening this week, stopping to nibble on cotton candy and ice cream, check out some Islam-themed television serials or watch their children smash into each other on bumper cars.
Organised each year by the Qatar Tourism Authority, the amusement park is larger than ever in 2010, and starting this year, has been extended to include Ramadan and Eid.
It is all part of a new, more festive commemoration of the holy month.
“When I was little we played simple games for Ramadan, or packed up a picnic and went to the beach,” said Hamad Salman, a Doha native and marketing executive for Qatar Petroleum. He had come to the fun park with his teenage son and daughter for the second time, and planned to come again.
“This is much better,” added Salman, looking around the colourful, brightly lit, 12,000 square metre space, children shouting and laughing as they were spun around, up and down. “All these games and rides make a big difference.”
Droves of Qataris and other Doha residents attend similarly lively affairs late into the night across the city, from malls to hotels to cultural centres. Gondolania, the indoor amusement park at Villaggio mall, has extended its opening hours past 2am, so kids can bowl and ride go-karts and roller coasters late into the night.
Qatar’s only water park is set to open its doors in the coming weeks, and host Ramadan events. Fanar, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, has organised an evening to teach expatriates more about Ramadan and its traditions this weekend.
Doha’s four- and five-star hotels are hosting lavish nightly iftar and suhoor events, some with Egyptian dancers, Lebanese bands, henna tattoos, falconry exhibitions and up to 50 dishes for tasting. As part of its Ramadan celebrations, the W Hotel Doha is giving away airline tickets that enable the holder to fly anywhere in the world on Qatar Airways.
The fun park is one of the more popular events, with some 4,000 nightly visitors to the cavernous Doha Exhibition Centre. “Breaking away from past events, which were held in shopping malls, Doha Summer Fun Park takes full advantage of the space,” said Lahdan al Mohannadi, head of internal exhibitions at the Qatar Tourism Auhtority and lead organiser of the fun park. “In addition, this year the event is free for all.”
Buoyant Arab and carnival music fills the space. At one end is a souk, filled with shops offering Yemeni honey, leather purses, perfumes, jewellery and more. At the other a food court offers doughnuts, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, and shawarma. In between are a couple of dozen rides, including a choo-choo train and caterpillar coaster for toddlers, and dodgems, video games and a dozen more active rides for the bigger kids.
The al Mannai brothers – Hamad and Ahmed, 10, and Mohammad, 13 – enjoyed the Tilt-a-Whirl so much they got right back on and did it again. “That was a lot of fun,” said Mohammed as the trio walked away dizzily.
These events, most of which aim to entertain the whole family, may be bringing a sense of community back to Ramadan in Qatar. “We’ve lost some of our traditions, of course,” said Moza al Malki.
A family therapist and commentator, she has seen Ramadan change several times in recent decades, from more to less strict and back again. “But nowadays we are going back to some of these old traditions.”
For the first couple weeks after the fun park opened, on-stage performances included clowns, magic shows and games. Starting with Ramadan, the stage has been re-made into a traditional Qatari house with garden, and programming includes a series of plays, a theatre group performing folklore tales and a Syrian band playing traditional music.
“Several new activities were added to instill traditional values during the holy month,” said Mr al Mohannadi. The fun park and Doha’s Heritage Village are both hosting Garangou (also known as Karankou) events for families.
Garangou is a traditional Gulf children’s festival held on the 14th day of Ramadan. Children will play heritage games and sing traditional songs, along with other activities and competitions.
“We are staying together more, families going out together,” said al Malki. “Also generosity, giving food to our neighbours, this is also returning.”
In Al Mansoura, on the edge of Doha, the W Hotel Doha and the Islamic Bank of Qatar have set up an air-conditioned tent to provide iftar to the underprivileged.
More than 150 male labourers turn up daily to break their fast with dates, laban, fruits, rice, bread, chicken and lamb.
“These are the people that really need the full meal,” said a spokesperson for Islamic Bank of Qatar, which has done the charity tent for three years running. “A lot of the staff from the bank also volunteer – everybody pitches in.”
Back at the Doha Exhibition Centre, Mr Salman watched his children on the City Hopper ride. “Ready to come down yet?” he shouted to his son, whizzing past overhead.
The teenager smiled and shook his head.
------
Ran with photos in the 20 August 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
6.04.2010
One organisation's efforts to bring orphans into the family
DOHA // Western-style adoption is prohibited within Islam, which allows only a guardianship that confers neither family name nor the legal status of a natural-born child. But Khaled Kamal wanted the orphans in his care to have the same rights and privileges that other children enjoy.
He made inquiries. He travelled the region. At a conference last month in Beirut, he secured a verbal fatwa from a leading Sunni scholar, Salman al Auda.
“He said it is no problem to give the child the family name, in Sharia it’s OK,” Mr Kamal, the general manager of the Qatar Orphan Foundation, said during an interview this week in his office. “You can’t imagine how important it is to be named according to the family.”
Since its creation three years ago by the Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the Qatar Orphan Foundation, known as Dhreima after a violet flower that grows in harsh conditions, has steadily gathered steam.
Today its waiting list is growing, its average orphan stay is shrinking and its officials are working to broaden the concept of family and expand the fostering experience, traditionally seen as an important charitable act in the Muslim world.
“Yateem is a big thing in Islam,” said Mr Kamal, the Dhreima general manager, using the Arabic word for guardianship. “It helps you get to paradise.” The Prophet Mohammed said those who took care of orphaned children would be close to him in heaven, according to a well-known hadith.
But Sharia generally recognises only inheritance claims based on blood or marriage and does not allow full adoptions because they are considered relics of the pre-Islamic era of jiyaliyyah, or ignorance.
Thus Mr Kamal’s efforts to expand the concept of family. He said that the widely respected Doha-based scholar Youssef al Qaradawi had voiced a view similar to Sheikh al Auda’s. Dhreima is drafting documents for these scholars to sign into fatwa and hopes to institute the new policy by the end of the year.
If confirmed, this new stance would mark an uprecedented shift. “I do not see how such an opinion would be judged valid according to Islamic legal methodology as it would contradict the clear verses in the Qur’an concerning this very issue,” said Sheikh Musa Furber, a mufti who studied Islam for more than a dozen years in Damascus and Cairo and is now a researcher at the Tabah Foundation in Abu Dhabi. “Without seeing the actual text of these fatwa I cannot comment on their contents or evidence.”
Mr Kamal also hopes to help foster the passing down of family wealth via wasiya, or bequests, rather than meerat, or inheritance. But these proposals are in their early stages and still have to work their way through Islamic jurisprudence and various bureaucracies.
Meanwhile, Dhreima continues to assist Qatar’s most needy, focusing on four kinds of at-risk children: those with a mother but no father; those who have lost their father or both parents; the socially orphaned, which refers to financially incapable or broken homes; and finally babies whose parents are not known.
The first three, which represent the majority of children Dhreima works with, are supported with money, health care, rides to school and more. Only the last category can be fostered.
Dhreima’s facilities include three orphanages – one for newborns to seven years old, another for 7-18 year-old boys and a third for 7-18 year-old girls – and two guesthouses for those older than 18.
A key goal is integration. Dhreima’s in-house children attend normal government schools and regularly play with non-orphan children. If a local public school asks to bring their students for a visit, Mr Kamal refuses. “This is not a zoo where anybody can come to see them,” he said.
According to a Qatari law issued in 2007, police and other authorities are legally required to contact Dhreima whenever a newborn of unknown parentage is found or brought to them.
Origin is not an issue. “We don’t deal in colours, we don’t deal with income, language or religion,” said Mr Kamal. “We see orphans as human beings, and anyone within the borders of Qatar is accepted.”
Dhreima soon begins the search for a new home – such as that of Muna al Mutawa, who married in 1997 and learned over the ensuing years that she and her husband were unable to have children.
They heard about Dhreima in early 2008 and decided to apply to foster a child. Within a month they received a call that the orphanage had received a baby girl born two days prior – the same day Ms al Mutawa’s mother died.
She was one of five applicants for the newborn, but the others fell away in the rigorous screening process. The foster family must be Qatari nationals and include a mother and spouse (except in rare cases) between 25 and 45 years old. Dhreima visits the applicants’ homes and reviews family income and finances. Potential foster families also meet with a psychologist several times.
During Dhreima’s first year of operations, children stayed an average of four or five months before being placed, but now the average stay is a month or less. The last arrival was placed within 10 days. Now nearly a dozen families wait for the next orphan to arrive.
In May 2008, Ms al Mutawa took her baby girl, now named Reem, home for the first time. “Totally, completely, right away she was my baby,” she said, showing a photo of a smiling brown-eyed girl on her phone. “Now she is two years old, very naughty, very funny and very intelligent.”
Dhreima requires each foster couple to sign a contract committing to tell the child of its provenance. In the past, many families waited until high school or later to tell their children their family circumstance. “At that age, when they find out they are shocked and leave home,” said Mr Kamal, who advises foster parents to tell the child as soon as possible.
Ms al Mutawa plans to tell Reem soon. “It will happen in the coming months and years, Insh’allah,” she said. “But not until she gets a little older.”
Ms al Mutawa applauded Dhreima’s efforts to move towards full adoption. Her foster daughter is not a full Qatari citizen, like her and her husband, but rather a naturalised Qatari – a lesser standing that is reflected on passports and other official documents.
She hoped the passing on of the family name, if legally approved, would change that. “This would be great,” said Ms al Mutawa. “It was not possible when we adopted.”
He made inquiries. He travelled the region. At a conference last month in Beirut, he secured a verbal fatwa from a leading Sunni scholar, Salman al Auda.
“He said it is no problem to give the child the family name, in Sharia it’s OK,” Mr Kamal, the general manager of the Qatar Orphan Foundation, said during an interview this week in his office. “You can’t imagine how important it is to be named according to the family.”
Since its creation three years ago by the Qatari First Lady Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the Qatar Orphan Foundation, known as Dhreima after a violet flower that grows in harsh conditions, has steadily gathered steam.
Today its waiting list is growing, its average orphan stay is shrinking and its officials are working to broaden the concept of family and expand the fostering experience, traditionally seen as an important charitable act in the Muslim world.
“Yateem is a big thing in Islam,” said Mr Kamal, the Dhreima general manager, using the Arabic word for guardianship. “It helps you get to paradise.” The Prophet Mohammed said those who took care of orphaned children would be close to him in heaven, according to a well-known hadith.
But Sharia generally recognises only inheritance claims based on blood or marriage and does not allow full adoptions because they are considered relics of the pre-Islamic era of jiyaliyyah, or ignorance.
Thus Mr Kamal’s efforts to expand the concept of family. He said that the widely respected Doha-based scholar Youssef al Qaradawi had voiced a view similar to Sheikh al Auda’s. Dhreima is drafting documents for these scholars to sign into fatwa and hopes to institute the new policy by the end of the year.
If confirmed, this new stance would mark an uprecedented shift. “I do not see how such an opinion would be judged valid according to Islamic legal methodology as it would contradict the clear verses in the Qur’an concerning this very issue,” said Sheikh Musa Furber, a mufti who studied Islam for more than a dozen years in Damascus and Cairo and is now a researcher at the Tabah Foundation in Abu Dhabi. “Without seeing the actual text of these fatwa I cannot comment on their contents or evidence.”
Mr Kamal also hopes to help foster the passing down of family wealth via wasiya, or bequests, rather than meerat, or inheritance. But these proposals are in their early stages and still have to work their way through Islamic jurisprudence and various bureaucracies.
Meanwhile, Dhreima continues to assist Qatar’s most needy, focusing on four kinds of at-risk children: those with a mother but no father; those who have lost their father or both parents; the socially orphaned, which refers to financially incapable or broken homes; and finally babies whose parents are not known.
The first three, which represent the majority of children Dhreima works with, are supported with money, health care, rides to school and more. Only the last category can be fostered.
Dhreima’s facilities include three orphanages – one for newborns to seven years old, another for 7-18 year-old boys and a third for 7-18 year-old girls – and two guesthouses for those older than 18.
A key goal is integration. Dhreima’s in-house children attend normal government schools and regularly play with non-orphan children. If a local public school asks to bring their students for a visit, Mr Kamal refuses. “This is not a zoo where anybody can come to see them,” he said.
According to a Qatari law issued in 2007, police and other authorities are legally required to contact Dhreima whenever a newborn of unknown parentage is found or brought to them.
Origin is not an issue. “We don’t deal in colours, we don’t deal with income, language or religion,” said Mr Kamal. “We see orphans as human beings, and anyone within the borders of Qatar is accepted.”
Dhreima soon begins the search for a new home – such as that of Muna al Mutawa, who married in 1997 and learned over the ensuing years that she and her husband were unable to have children.
They heard about Dhreima in early 2008 and decided to apply to foster a child. Within a month they received a call that the orphanage had received a baby girl born two days prior – the same day Ms al Mutawa’s mother died.
She was one of five applicants for the newborn, but the others fell away in the rigorous screening process. The foster family must be Qatari nationals and include a mother and spouse (except in rare cases) between 25 and 45 years old. Dhreima visits the applicants’ homes and reviews family income and finances. Potential foster families also meet with a psychologist several times.
During Dhreima’s first year of operations, children stayed an average of four or five months before being placed, but now the average stay is a month or less. The last arrival was placed within 10 days. Now nearly a dozen families wait for the next orphan to arrive.
In May 2008, Ms al Mutawa took her baby girl, now named Reem, home for the first time. “Totally, completely, right away she was my baby,” she said, showing a photo of a smiling brown-eyed girl on her phone. “Now she is two years old, very naughty, very funny and very intelligent.”
Dhreima requires each foster couple to sign a contract committing to tell the child of its provenance. In the past, many families waited until high school or later to tell their children their family circumstance. “At that age, when they find out they are shocked and leave home,” said Mr Kamal, who advises foster parents to tell the child as soon as possible.
Ms al Mutawa plans to tell Reem soon. “It will happen in the coming months and years, Insh’allah,” she said. “But not until she gets a little older.”
Ms al Mutawa applauded Dhreima’s efforts to move towards full adoption. Her foster daughter is not a full Qatari citizen, like her and her husband, but rather a naturalised Qatari – a lesser standing that is reflected on passports and other official documents.
She hoped the passing on of the family name, if legally approved, would change that. “This would be great,” said Ms al Mutawa. “It was not possible when we adopted.”
4.05.2010
Visa row over, Muslim scholar to visit US
Just as Tariq Ramadan was preparing to take up a professorial post at the University of Notre Dame in August 2004, the United States government revoked his visa, denying him entry on ideological grounds.
The US State Department lifted the ban in January, and the Swiss scholar is set to arrive on American soil later this week for a series of speaking engagements – his first visit since losing his visa.
“It was a mistake by the Bush administration, to prevent intellectuals from being critical,” Ramadan said during a recent interview in Doha. “The main thing is for me to go there and build bridges.”
It can sometimes be difficult to tell if Ramadan – rigorous scholar, champion of Islam and outspoken advocate for the rights and assertiveness of Muslims in the West – is building bridges or burning them.
Born and raised in Switzerland, the 47-year-old is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He is often named among the world’s most influential public intellectuals yet regularly excoriated in both Muslim and Western media for a seeming lack of commitment to their respective values: he regularly denounces global capitalism, for instance, and says women should decide for themselves whether to wear the veil.
Last week he lectured in Doha at the request of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, where he will teach a course on contemporary Islam later this year. Before delivering his speech he considered the tensions within Gulf societies.
“You have some people that are very reactive to anything that has to do with the West, saying ‘this is the end of Islam,’” he said. “And you have some others saying, ‘No, we have to follow in the footsteps of the West because this is the way to be developed and modern,’ and in between you have people trying to find their way.”
In his next book, to be titled The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy for Pluralism, Ramadan writes about the shared values between Islam and the West.
“My understanding of Islam makes it clear that there is no contradiction in the Islamic values and the Western values,” he said. “To deal with modernity doesn’t mean that you lose your Islamic background.”
Yet since Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, DC, in September 2001, signs of a clash have been near-constant. After a unanimous parliamentary vote last week, Belgium inched closer to becoming the first nation in the world to ban the full Islamic veil in public. Ramadan's home country, Switzerland, recently voted to prohibit the construction of minarets.
And in the wake of Farouk Abdulmattalab's attempt to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the United States has increased background checks on visa applicants from Muslim majority countries.
But in US President Barack Obama, Ramadan sees a leader with a considerable grasp of the situation. Though impressed by Obama's speech to the Muslim World in Cairo last June, he thought the time for words had passed.
He pointed to Iraq, where despite elections terrorist attacks, such as Saturday's massacre of two dozen members of a single family in Baghdad, are still common and society remains fragmented along sectarian lines. He cited the lack of progress with Israel, which has continued to announce settlements in East Jerusalem despite the Obama Administration's repeated calls for a freeze.
“Netanyahu is sending a very strong message: 'we don’t care,'” said Ramadan.
Despite what he sees as Palestinians' continued suffering and the marginalization of many Muslim communities in the West, Ramadan believes Muslims must look forward, not back. “We need to stop nurturing the victim mentality,” he said.
This is among the key points of Ramadan's 2009 book, What I Believe, that Muslims living in the West need to engage positively and work to become full partners in Western democracy.
“As citizens it is our Islamic duty to abide by the law of the country as long it does not contradict with our religious beliefs,” he said during the Doha lecture. “We must criticise the government while remaining loyal to the law – this is critical loyalty.”
Dr Basma Abdelgafar, a professor of public policy at the Faculty of Islamic Studies who has read several of Ramadan’s books, attended the lecture and came away impressed.
“It’s a very useful type of contribution to our understanding of Muslims in the West,” said Abdelgafar, a Canadian of Egyptian heritage who was looking forward to having Ramadan as a colleague. “It has nothing to do with a person’s creed or belief, it’s that they are representing something that’s right.”
Ramadan's critics, however, see him as a dangerous radical. “I don't see anyone today who is as effective as Tariq Ramadan in furthering fundamentalism in France,” French journalist Caroline Fourest, the author of an anti-Ramadan book, said last year. She accuses him of double-speak – saying one thing to Muslims and another to Western audiences.
Paul Berman, a journalism professor at New York University, goes further. “The problem lies in the terrible fact,” he wrote in a lengthy 2007 article, “that Ramadan's personal milieu -- his grandfather, his family history, his family contacts, his intellectual tradition -- is precisely the milieu that bears the principal responsibility for generating the modern theoretical justification for religious suicide.”
That may be going too far. Ramadan has distanced himself from Al-Banna's political opinions and denounced radical violence. His website prominently displays a large banner ad supporting non-violent resistance in Palestine.
Still, he does have some views unlikely to sit well with some Westerners.
“The neo-liberal economy, the way it’s now impacting lives and killing people every day because of the injustices of the economy, this is a'anam al harb (the world of war),” Ramadan said during the interview in Doha. “This economic order is killing people, and this is why we need ethics in our economy, and this recent global crisis is telling us exactly this.”
Taking an anti-capitalist, even socialist, stance is neither illegal nor in opposition to the West. But his position on certain huddud punishments may be more problematic.
Ramadan was asked if he saw any contradiction between his stated commitment to Western values and his calling, on French TV in 2003, for a moratorium on the stoning of adulterers in order to debate the merits of the punishment.
“As long as we don’t have answers to these questions we have to open a debate,” he said last week in Doha. “It’s not a contradiction, because Amnesty International, a Western organization, is calling for the same thing on the death penalty. So why is it not a contradiction for them and it is for me?”
In truth, the New York-based rights advocate takes a rather less equivocal stance on legal executions. “Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances,” according to their website. “The organization works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.”
-----
an edited version appeared in 5 April 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
The US State Department lifted the ban in January, and the Swiss scholar is set to arrive on American soil later this week for a series of speaking engagements – his first visit since losing his visa.
“It was a mistake by the Bush administration, to prevent intellectuals from being critical,” Ramadan said during a recent interview in Doha. “The main thing is for me to go there and build bridges.”
It can sometimes be difficult to tell if Ramadan – rigorous scholar, champion of Islam and outspoken advocate for the rights and assertiveness of Muslims in the West – is building bridges or burning them.
Born and raised in Switzerland, the 47-year-old is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He is often named among the world’s most influential public intellectuals yet regularly excoriated in both Muslim and Western media for a seeming lack of commitment to their respective values: he regularly denounces global capitalism, for instance, and says women should decide for themselves whether to wear the veil.
Last week he lectured in Doha at the request of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, where he will teach a course on contemporary Islam later this year. Before delivering his speech he considered the tensions within Gulf societies.
“You have some people that are very reactive to anything that has to do with the West, saying ‘this is the end of Islam,’” he said. “And you have some others saying, ‘No, we have to follow in the footsteps of the West because this is the way to be developed and modern,’ and in between you have people trying to find their way.”
In his next book, to be titled The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy for Pluralism, Ramadan writes about the shared values between Islam and the West.
“My understanding of Islam makes it clear that there is no contradiction in the Islamic values and the Western values,” he said. “To deal with modernity doesn’t mean that you lose your Islamic background.”
Yet since Al Qaeda's attacks on New York and Washington, DC, in September 2001, signs of a clash have been near-constant. After a unanimous parliamentary vote last week, Belgium inched closer to becoming the first nation in the world to ban the full Islamic veil in public. Ramadan's home country, Switzerland, recently voted to prohibit the construction of minarets.
And in the wake of Farouk Abdulmattalab's attempt to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight on Christmas Day, the United States has increased background checks on visa applicants from Muslim majority countries.
But in US President Barack Obama, Ramadan sees a leader with a considerable grasp of the situation. Though impressed by Obama's speech to the Muslim World in Cairo last June, he thought the time for words had passed.
He pointed to Iraq, where despite elections terrorist attacks, such as Saturday's massacre of two dozen members of a single family in Baghdad, are still common and society remains fragmented along sectarian lines. He cited the lack of progress with Israel, which has continued to announce settlements in East Jerusalem despite the Obama Administration's repeated calls for a freeze.
“Netanyahu is sending a very strong message: 'we don’t care,'” said Ramadan.
Despite what he sees as Palestinians' continued suffering and the marginalization of many Muslim communities in the West, Ramadan believes Muslims must look forward, not back. “We need to stop nurturing the victim mentality,” he said.
This is among the key points of Ramadan's 2009 book, What I Believe, that Muslims living in the West need to engage positively and work to become full partners in Western democracy.
“As citizens it is our Islamic duty to abide by the law of the country as long it does not contradict with our religious beliefs,” he said during the Doha lecture. “We must criticise the government while remaining loyal to the law – this is critical loyalty.”
Dr Basma Abdelgafar, a professor of public policy at the Faculty of Islamic Studies who has read several of Ramadan’s books, attended the lecture and came away impressed.
“It’s a very useful type of contribution to our understanding of Muslims in the West,” said Abdelgafar, a Canadian of Egyptian heritage who was looking forward to having Ramadan as a colleague. “It has nothing to do with a person’s creed or belief, it’s that they are representing something that’s right.”
Ramadan's critics, however, see him as a dangerous radical. “I don't see anyone today who is as effective as Tariq Ramadan in furthering fundamentalism in France,” French journalist Caroline Fourest, the author of an anti-Ramadan book, said last year. She accuses him of double-speak – saying one thing to Muslims and another to Western audiences.
Paul Berman, a journalism professor at New York University, goes further. “The problem lies in the terrible fact,” he wrote in a lengthy 2007 article, “that Ramadan's personal milieu -- his grandfather, his family history, his family contacts, his intellectual tradition -- is precisely the milieu that bears the principal responsibility for generating the modern theoretical justification for religious suicide.”
That may be going too far. Ramadan has distanced himself from Al-Banna's political opinions and denounced radical violence. His website prominently displays a large banner ad supporting non-violent resistance in Palestine.
Still, he does have some views unlikely to sit well with some Westerners.
“The neo-liberal economy, the way it’s now impacting lives and killing people every day because of the injustices of the economy, this is a'anam al harb (the world of war),” Ramadan said during the interview in Doha. “This economic order is killing people, and this is why we need ethics in our economy, and this recent global crisis is telling us exactly this.”
Taking an anti-capitalist, even socialist, stance is neither illegal nor in opposition to the West. But his position on certain huddud punishments may be more problematic.
Ramadan was asked if he saw any contradiction between his stated commitment to Western values and his calling, on French TV in 2003, for a moratorium on the stoning of adulterers in order to debate the merits of the punishment.
“As long as we don’t have answers to these questions we have to open a debate,” he said last week in Doha. “It’s not a contradiction, because Amnesty International, a Western organization, is calling for the same thing on the death penalty. So why is it not a contradiction for them and it is for me?”
In truth, the New York-based rights advocate takes a rather less equivocal stance on legal executions. “Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances,” according to their website. “The organization works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.”
-----
an edited version appeared in 5 April 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
2.13.2010
Doha's young poets step into the ring
In the Arabian Peninsula of the sixth century, the emergence of a talented poet was an event, ensuring a tribe’s renown as well as its future posterity. Seven of the more revered poems from the era – collectively called the Mu’allaqat, or Suspended Odes – are said to have been written on tapestries and hung from the Kaaba, Mecca’s sacred cube, before the arrival of Islam.
As the setting for a youth poetry recitation contest, then, Aaqol Atrium – a broad, high-ceilinged space in the community centre of Doha’s Education City – seemed appropriate. The event, officially titled the Aspiring Youth Poetry Slam, had been organised by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP), a non-profit subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation with a publishing arm managed by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing.
At the event’s 5pm start time, the room was all but empty, and the proffered coffee, juices, cakes and sandwiches sat untouched. But as the sinking sun’s rays filtered through the entrance, so too did a trickle of anxious poets and their guests. “I’m not staying here, go back,” a headscarved girl whispered to a friend, who then pushed the whisperer towards the front. “Come on, let’s not be shy,” said another girl, urging her friends to sit.
Outside, darkness fell. After a few introductory remarks by a BQFP staffer, the readings began. Gothic and purple verses flew.
“His image viciously tears the ideas in my mind,” intoned Walaa Quisay, a dimpled Egyptian student from the International School of Choueifat. “His eyes penetrate my corpse and contaminate the blood of my heart.”
Salima, a Northwestern University-Qatar freshman in skinny jeans, canvas trainers and a sky blue headscarf, furrowed her brow and tightly gripped the page from which she read – “So you’re tired of dreaming / And breathing / And looking for reasons to smile at the spotless sun” – then beamed at the audience’s burst of applause.
She was followed by Sundus Sardar, a Weill Cornell freshman and, to judge by her writing, a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. “Darkness rolling... churning... eyes blinking no more,” she began, punctuating each phrase with a pause, as if her poem, The Unheard Screams of Death, were stalking its listeners. “Existence burning... screaming... flesh feeling no more.”
At the end of the evening’s English-language portion, the poets stood in a line before the audience, which indicated its favourites with applause, then chose a finalist with a show of hands. Two high school girls tied for the top honour and were given some writing paraphernalia; all received praise and thanks.
“We chose poetry because it has a strong Arab foundation,” Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, BQFP’s director of reading and writing development, said during a break in the readings. “It also offers a natural platform for youth involvement.” A couple of weeks ago, the organisation held a poetry contest over Twitter. Next month they’ll hold a competition for the best text message poems.
“We want to show people there is a lot of creativity in Doha, across nationalities, across age groups,” said Rajakumar, who hopes to improve the image of Arabs in the western world. “We also want to keep that connection to the language, that love of Arabic.”
After the break, the evening’s Arabic recitation commenced. “Qatar, the home of glory,” read Abdullah Saeed al Muraikhi, a 16-year-old student at Omar Iban al Khatab Prepatory School. “Qatar, the home of close friends. The country of glory that passed from father to son: Abu Meshaal, the symbol of our pride.”
Perhaps the evening’s most lively performance was delivered by Mohamed Saeed al Marri, a classmate of al Muraikhi’s, who arrived at the last minute, hurried onto the stage and launched into a passionate reading of his poem Shedding Tears.
“Your love is deep in my heart, not affected by blowing wind. The only thing that could wound me deeply was your abandoning me. I hoped to step in your way and shout, Damn your exaggerated pride, of position and reputation.”
The 16-year-old, who wore a bright white thobe and ghutra with his oral (the black ring that keeps the headscarf in place) at a jaunty angle, punctuated his phrases by peering heavenwards or gesturing with his left hand, which was wrapped with prayer beads. “For lovers, desertion is the ultimate. I will struggle to live without you, though it is so difficult. I have tried to control my tears but they help me by coming out.”
Later, as the half-filled room emptied, Mohamed spoke of his love for Gulf poetry, his support network of writers and readers, and his new-found confidence.
“You see how I come in late, things are a little crazy, but still it works out and I am able to read my poems and get things done,” he said in English. “Maybe this habit has given me a good strong persona. I feel like I can do anything I want – nothing is impossible.”
As the setting for a youth poetry recitation contest, then, Aaqol Atrium – a broad, high-ceilinged space in the community centre of Doha’s Education City – seemed appropriate. The event, officially titled the Aspiring Youth Poetry Slam, had been organised by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP), a non-profit subsidiary of the Qatar Foundation with a publishing arm managed by London-based Bloomsbury Publishing.
At the event’s 5pm start time, the room was all but empty, and the proffered coffee, juices, cakes and sandwiches sat untouched. But as the sinking sun’s rays filtered through the entrance, so too did a trickle of anxious poets and their guests. “I’m not staying here, go back,” a headscarved girl whispered to a friend, who then pushed the whisperer towards the front. “Come on, let’s not be shy,” said another girl, urging her friends to sit.
Outside, darkness fell. After a few introductory remarks by a BQFP staffer, the readings began. Gothic and purple verses flew.
“His image viciously tears the ideas in my mind,” intoned Walaa Quisay, a dimpled Egyptian student from the International School of Choueifat. “His eyes penetrate my corpse and contaminate the blood of my heart.”
Salima, a Northwestern University-Qatar freshman in skinny jeans, canvas trainers and a sky blue headscarf, furrowed her brow and tightly gripped the page from which she read – “So you’re tired of dreaming / And breathing / And looking for reasons to smile at the spotless sun” – then beamed at the audience’s burst of applause.
She was followed by Sundus Sardar, a Weill Cornell freshman and, to judge by her writing, a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. “Darkness rolling... churning... eyes blinking no more,” she began, punctuating each phrase with a pause, as if her poem, The Unheard Screams of Death, were stalking its listeners. “Existence burning... screaming... flesh feeling no more.”
At the end of the evening’s English-language portion, the poets stood in a line before the audience, which indicated its favourites with applause, then chose a finalist with a show of hands. Two high school girls tied for the top honour and were given some writing paraphernalia; all received praise and thanks.
“We chose poetry because it has a strong Arab foundation,” Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar, BQFP’s director of reading and writing development, said during a break in the readings. “It also offers a natural platform for youth involvement.” A couple of weeks ago, the organisation held a poetry contest over Twitter. Next month they’ll hold a competition for the best text message poems.
“We want to show people there is a lot of creativity in Doha, across nationalities, across age groups,” said Rajakumar, who hopes to improve the image of Arabs in the western world. “We also want to keep that connection to the language, that love of Arabic.”
After the break, the evening’s Arabic recitation commenced. “Qatar, the home of glory,” read Abdullah Saeed al Muraikhi, a 16-year-old student at Omar Iban al Khatab Prepatory School. “Qatar, the home of close friends. The country of glory that passed from father to son: Abu Meshaal, the symbol of our pride.”
Perhaps the evening’s most lively performance was delivered by Mohamed Saeed al Marri, a classmate of al Muraikhi’s, who arrived at the last minute, hurried onto the stage and launched into a passionate reading of his poem Shedding Tears.
“Your love is deep in my heart, not affected by blowing wind. The only thing that could wound me deeply was your abandoning me. I hoped to step in your way and shout, Damn your exaggerated pride, of position and reputation.”
The 16-year-old, who wore a bright white thobe and ghutra with his oral (the black ring that keeps the headscarf in place) at a jaunty angle, punctuated his phrases by peering heavenwards or gesturing with his left hand, which was wrapped with prayer beads. “For lovers, desertion is the ultimate. I will struggle to live without you, though it is so difficult. I have tried to control my tears but they help me by coming out.”
Later, as the half-filled room emptied, Mohamed spoke of his love for Gulf poetry, his support network of writers and readers, and his new-found confidence.
“You see how I come in late, things are a little crazy, but still it works out and I am able to read my poems and get things done,” he said in English. “Maybe this habit has given me a good strong persona. I feel like I can do anything I want – nothing is impossible.”
11.28.2008
Mumbai Attack's Success Could Spawn Copycats
NW DELHI // Wednesday’s night-time assault in Mumbai is just the latest and loudest in a steady drumbeat of mayhem across India.
Since September 11, the number of terror attacks in India has steadily increased, slowly at first but all in a rush of late: from 2002 to 2005, two attacks each year; in 2006, three attacks; in 2007, four attacks; and this year, at least seven major attacks since May, resulting in more than 300 killed and about 1,500 injured.
With the latest attack, two aspects stand out. The first is that a handful of young, presumably inexperienced men – in some of the grainy photos the attackers look like teenagers – were capable of executing such a sophisticated attack. Such brazenness underscores the lack of security in Mumbai and across much of India.
More worrisome still is the tactical shift the attacks suggest. Traditionally, Indian terror attacks spring from long-standing Hindu-Muslim tensions, which have been simmering and occasionally boiling over since before partition. Terrorism in India has for decades been little more than an increasingly deadly game of communal tit-for-tat. But this assault was aimed at foreigners.
American and British foreigners were targeted in particular, according to witnesses – and this may mark a reorientation away from religious animosity and towards a more diffuse, al Qa’eda-style anti-westernism.
Just look at the targets. The 137-year-old Leopold’s is one of Mumbai’s longest-running restaurants, and deservedly popular. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is the city’s largest train station and is frequented not just by locals but also foreign travellers who come to gaze in awe at the stunning Gothic exterior that has made the former Victoria Terminus a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Oberoi Trident hotel at Nariman Point is often filled with foreign business travellers. Senior executives from personal goods behemoth Unilever and members of European Parliament were among those holed up there on Wednesday night. Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, finally, is not only a world-class hotel popular with high-end tourists and businessmen, it is also an iconic landmark.
Considering the success of the attack – at least 101 killed, nearly 300 hurt, the Mumbai stock exchange shutdown, the city stopped in its tracks – it is likely to inspire more. Hundreds of locals, tourists and foreign businessmen have already begun recounting the horrors of what they assumed would be a pleasant night out.
As word spreads and the message sinks in, foreigners are sure to raise questions about visiting or doing business in India. What precautions should I take? Will I be safe? Are Indian authorities capable of protecting all of their monuments, lodgings and transport and business hubs?
So the pressure is on Delhi, where terrorism has become a political football, tossed back and forth depending on the latest news. New, harsher legislation is tabled but rarely passed, as blame is laid at the feet of one among a clutch of shadowy, acronym-bearing terror groups. The names hardly matter as little is ever revealed about their infrastructure and not a single conviction has been handed down.
After Wednesday, however, the concern might become less political and more sincere; India’s international reputation – among this budding power’s most prized possessions – is at stake. Despite a wealth of experience dealing with terrorism – after Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, India has suffered the most terrorist attacks in the world over the past two years – Indian authorities do not appear up to the task.
At 126 per 100,000 inhabitants, India’s police-to-population ratio is less than half that of most developed nations.
They respond slowly to attacks and do nothing to prevent them. Note how the Mumbai attackers, armed to the teeth with machine guns and hand grenades, were comfortable enough to calmly stroll around undisguised, controlling some of the most high-profile sites in the country for more than a dozen excruciating hours.
Further, these attacks came months after a known terrorist organisation had warned of a major attack on Mumbai. Even with ample time and motivated by clear intent, India’s intelligence personnel were unable to find any warning signs.
This may be the result of a severe shortage of information-gathering personnel, as found by a government-sponsored intelligence assessment in 2001 – the recommendations of which have yet to be implemented. But it is more than a matter of numbers. India’s police and intelligence forces suffer from inadequate training, equipment and technological support and a misguided mandate.
To combat the Maoist insurgency raging across the Indian heartland – which Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, has repeatedly called India’s “greatest internal security threat” – the best and the brightest are often steeped in guerrilla warfare. Thus they remain unfamiliar with the slow, methodical cat-and-mouse of counter-terrorism.
Ajai Sahni, the director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a security think tank, think that combating India’s growing terror menace, “demands a transformation, a virtual reinvention, of how we look at and practise policing in this country”.
For the time being, India has little chance of preventing any future attacks, thus endangering its 1.2 billion citizens and millions of foreign guests – along with its rising international profile.
-- ran on page 1A of The National, www.thenational.ae, on Nov 28.
Since September 11, the number of terror attacks in India has steadily increased, slowly at first but all in a rush of late: from 2002 to 2005, two attacks each year; in 2006, three attacks; in 2007, four attacks; and this year, at least seven major attacks since May, resulting in more than 300 killed and about 1,500 injured.
With the latest attack, two aspects stand out. The first is that a handful of young, presumably inexperienced men – in some of the grainy photos the attackers look like teenagers – were capable of executing such a sophisticated attack. Such brazenness underscores the lack of security in Mumbai and across much of India.
More worrisome still is the tactical shift the attacks suggest. Traditionally, Indian terror attacks spring from long-standing Hindu-Muslim tensions, which have been simmering and occasionally boiling over since before partition. Terrorism in India has for decades been little more than an increasingly deadly game of communal tit-for-tat. But this assault was aimed at foreigners.
American and British foreigners were targeted in particular, according to witnesses – and this may mark a reorientation away from religious animosity and towards a more diffuse, al Qa’eda-style anti-westernism.
Just look at the targets. The 137-year-old Leopold’s is one of Mumbai’s longest-running restaurants, and deservedly popular. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is the city’s largest train station and is frequented not just by locals but also foreign travellers who come to gaze in awe at the stunning Gothic exterior that has made the former Victoria Terminus a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Oberoi Trident hotel at Nariman Point is often filled with foreign business travellers. Senior executives from personal goods behemoth Unilever and members of European Parliament were among those holed up there on Wednesday night. Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, finally, is not only a world-class hotel popular with high-end tourists and businessmen, it is also an iconic landmark.
Considering the success of the attack – at least 101 killed, nearly 300 hurt, the Mumbai stock exchange shutdown, the city stopped in its tracks – it is likely to inspire more. Hundreds of locals, tourists and foreign businessmen have already begun recounting the horrors of what they assumed would be a pleasant night out.
As word spreads and the message sinks in, foreigners are sure to raise questions about visiting or doing business in India. What precautions should I take? Will I be safe? Are Indian authorities capable of protecting all of their monuments, lodgings and transport and business hubs?
So the pressure is on Delhi, where terrorism has become a political football, tossed back and forth depending on the latest news. New, harsher legislation is tabled but rarely passed, as blame is laid at the feet of one among a clutch of shadowy, acronym-bearing terror groups. The names hardly matter as little is ever revealed about their infrastructure and not a single conviction has been handed down.
After Wednesday, however, the concern might become less political and more sincere; India’s international reputation – among this budding power’s most prized possessions – is at stake. Despite a wealth of experience dealing with terrorism – after Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, India has suffered the most terrorist attacks in the world over the past two years – Indian authorities do not appear up to the task.
At 126 per 100,000 inhabitants, India’s police-to-population ratio is less than half that of most developed nations.
They respond slowly to attacks and do nothing to prevent them. Note how the Mumbai attackers, armed to the teeth with machine guns and hand grenades, were comfortable enough to calmly stroll around undisguised, controlling some of the most high-profile sites in the country for more than a dozen excruciating hours.
Further, these attacks came months after a known terrorist organisation had warned of a major attack on Mumbai. Even with ample time and motivated by clear intent, India’s intelligence personnel were unable to find any warning signs.
This may be the result of a severe shortage of information-gathering personnel, as found by a government-sponsored intelligence assessment in 2001 – the recommendations of which have yet to be implemented. But it is more than a matter of numbers. India’s police and intelligence forces suffer from inadequate training, equipment and technological support and a misguided mandate.
To combat the Maoist insurgency raging across the Indian heartland – which Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, has repeatedly called India’s “greatest internal security threat” – the best and the brightest are often steeped in guerrilla warfare. Thus they remain unfamiliar with the slow, methodical cat-and-mouse of counter-terrorism.
Ajai Sahni, the director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a security think tank, think that combating India’s growing terror menace, “demands a transformation, a virtual reinvention, of how we look at and practise policing in this country”.
For the time being, India has little chance of preventing any future attacks, thus endangering its 1.2 billion citizens and millions of foreign guests – along with its rising international profile.
-- ran on page 1A of The National, www.thenational.ae, on Nov 28.
7.21.2008
Up From The Ashes
SRINIGAR, INDIA: Surging China is a dragon, roaring India a tiger. But what is Rising Kashmir? It's a sleek new daily newspaper, for one, launched here last Monday with all the pomp of the latest Apple gadget. Despite predictable jeers, the hopeful moniker might apply.For 18 years this emerald-green Himalayan valley has been ravaged by fierce conflict between the Indian Army and independence-seeking insurgents, resulting in over 50,000 dead. But the uprising lost steam last year, with a third fewer violent incidents leading to 777 conflict-related deaths, a steep drop from the 4500 of six years prior. Indian authorities estimate only 450 insurgents remain, down from about 4000 a decade ago. And that number is dwindling as nearly every week a few haggard militants clamber down from mountain redoubts to surrender for lack of manpower and funding.
Meanwhile the siren song of progress has gained voice. Protest marches remain frequent, but these days locals cry for development as much as azaadi, or independence. Just last week hundreds of road transport employees demonstrated for increased wages and benefits and dozens of doctors marched for enhanced security and better-trained assistants. Both won a measure of success.
Kashmir's economic growth – 6 % and gaining speed – is slower than that of broader India but impressive for a disputed region. “The change is quite obvious and visible,” says Kashmir University Business Professor S. Fayaz Ahmad. High-profile national banks HDFC and ICICI recently opened Srinagar branches. Sleek mobile phone shops have popped up in the central business district. Construction of commercial complexes as well as overpasses and apartments has real estate prices soaring. A 500 sq. ft. space along increasingly posh Residency Road now sells for $250,000, about 80 times what it cost before the violence flared and double the rate of just a few years back. With its hopeful new flying-dove logo, the J&K (Jammu & Kashmir) Bank is the flagship of the local economy and one of India’s fastest growing financial institutions. Its $75m profit through three-fourths of fiscal 2008 points toward 35 % annual growth.
For students, the lure of lucre has overtaken the appeal of militancy. Prof. Ahmad points to a sudden keen interest in business courses, and with good reason. The first graduating class of KU’s popular new two-year Master's in Finance course recently passed out with 100 % high-level job placement, against 10 % for all graduates.
For aid and development organizations the region is safer and more responsive. NGO's Save the Children and Action Aid India ramped up their local efforts last year and the Asian Development Bank recently began a $250m Valley-wide infrastructure rehabilitation program.
For outsiders Kashmir is a paradise reborn. A 1970’s Bollywood film was not complete without a giddy duet set against a vertiginous Kashmiri backdrop. But Indian filmmakers shunned the Valley during the conflict – only two major productions visited from 1989 to 2003. Now Bollywood is returning, with five films shot locally since 2004 and more in the works. Perhaps consequently, Kashmir welcomed nearly 420,000 tourists in 2007, the highest total in nearly twenty years. In Kashmir, tourism is the tide that lifts all boats. Lodgings, restaurants and handicrafts all feel the boon, and a gorgeous early spring points toward a banner 2008.
One boat may be taking on water. The livelihoods of thousands of locals are under threat as India’s Geographical Indications Registry debates whether to award Kashmir sole ownership of the pashmina brand. Sheared from the downy coats of Himalayan mountain goats, the impossibly soft fabric originated in Kashmir and is now among the world’s most coveted. With increased global demand over the past decade -- annual sales now approach $125m – production has proliferated. Pashmina is made across the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as well as in New Zealand, Nepal, and China, often with automated machines that undercut the time-consuming labor of Kashmir’s expert hand-weavers. Without a Kashmir-specific patent a significant segment of the local economy remains under threat.
Local spirits seem unbowed. Rising Kashmir, that new daily, flew off newsstands this week; several downtown hawkers were sold out by noon. Could be a passing fancy, like many signs of progress here. Could also be a phoenix taking wing.
-- sold to Economist in April 2008.
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