I recently read a fascinating and disturbing article in The New Yorker, by Jon Lee Anderson, on the rise and defeat of Islamists in Mali. I was struck by two particular descriptions of the Islamists’ behavior:

“In the central square, Idrissa had witnessed the beating of one of the jihadis’ own men, who had been accused by his comrades of raping a young girl. The spectators loudly criticized the jihadis for a double standard. “Everyone was angry because they didn’t kill him,” Idrissa said. Afterward, the jihadis had gone on the local radio station and warned that anyone who spoke badly about their men would be killed.”

The other:

“Then, on day two, the Islamists came,” he recalled. He had asked the leader what he wanted. Naming the northern towns of Mali, he had said, “Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal are Muslim towns, and we want to make Sharia in them. We are not asking. We are saying what we are doing, and we’re here to make Sharia.”

What I found so troubling was not only “the usual” Al Qaeda-related atrocities, but even more so the Islamist’s clearly voiced goal of destroying an existing social system through violence, devastation of cultural heritage (vandalizing local temples and libraries). This was tied together with the idea of creating a different social order based on sexual control, and the replacement of any traces of modern knowledge by radical interpretations of old religious texts. The irony is that these readings are just as contemporary as the lifestyle the Islamists try to erase.

In my opinion, these two quotes illustrate the power of violence combined with unquestionable certainty, able to undermine an entire civilization—its customs, morals, social order, and authorities. They fall apart in the presence of arrogant brutality. The people are too “civilized,” too cultured to defend themselves. The Islamists reject a civilization they claim is morally corrupt, and instead attempt to replace it with a modern essentialist take on an imagined Golden Age of religious purity.

The case of Islamists in Mali is an extremely vivid example of a contemporary violent essentialism we can witness in many different places and with changing force. There are the extreme right-wing nationalists and Christian religious fundamentalists in Europe and the US, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn activists in Greece, the Le Pen nationalists in France, the Tea Party in the US, as well as the Polish nationalist youth, with neo-Nazi and pagan ties, who recently tried to interrupt Zygmunt Bauman’s lecture at the University of Wrocław.

All these groups seem to play on a fantasy of a bygone era of a harmonious society formed solely by “us,” without outsiders or deviations from the unanimously accepted norms, “inventing” their traditions, as Eric Hobsbawm would have named it. The past is idealized into the present in a form deeply conservative but also modernly total, one in which men rule and women obey; the “we” are the masters, the “others” are the slaves. There is no space for sexual freedom or mental sickness. Foucault’s descriptions of these freedoms in the Middle Ages seem, on the contrary, extremely modern.

In this sense, the current fundamentalist movements are essentialized ideas of a glorious past, devoid of any ambiguity. They are definite, brutal and all-encompassing in a way only an extreme mixture of Enlightenment and Totalitarianism could lead to. They are belief systems based on a logic of the elimination of “otherness.”

The past to which they refer, never was. The refusal to acknowledge the ambiguous, heterogeneous, histories of cultures, religions, ethnicities, and civilizations, makes these movements arrogantly, violently contemporary.

During my sabbatical, I have had the luxury of reading in a leisurely fashion, without courses and writing projects in mind, going where my interests take me. It has been a pleasure and, as it happens, a fruitful practice. Without intention, it has led me to a new project, as I have already reported: an exploration of the unresolvable dilemmas built into the social fabric, the study of the social condition. Today, another example, the tensions between religion and politics in modern society: I returned to this problem reading Nachman Ben Yehuda’s latest book, Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism.

Ben Yehuda, my old friend and colleague, is studying in his book Jewish extremism in the Jewish state. He investigates deviance in the religious community as a way to analyze the conflict between the religious and secular in Israel. Central religious and political commitments in Israel as a matter of the identity of the national community pose serious problems. Not only has the recognition of Israel as a Jewish Democratic state become a key demand and obstacle in negotiations with the Palestinians: it has become a problematic challenge to the relationship among Israeli Jews. Nachman, an occasional Deliberately Considered contributor explores this. His central findings are presented in part 2 of Theocratic Democracy, on the deviance and the non-conformity of the ultra orthodox, and part 3 on cultural conflict in the media.

In part 2, a selection of “illustrative events and affairs” is presented, among many others: a 1958 affair surrounding the building of a swimming pool for mixed, male and female, bathing, in ultra-orthodox rendering the “abomination pool,” and the 1981 ultra-orthodox attack on an archaeological dig of the City of David, near the old city of Jerusalem, leading to a series of conflicts, ultimately resulting in the fine tuning of the law of archaeology. During 1985-6, there were Haredi attacks on advertising posters.  Further, there were attacks on movie theaters open on the Saturday Sabbath, and many other attacks against free secular activity understood as abominations according to religious orthodoxy. Most heart rendering are the reports on controversies revolving around the question of who is a Jew? (And therefore, who has full citizenship rights in the Jewish state). Some of the tensions have had less to do with principle, more to do with raw politics and corruption: thus, the decade long controversy concerning the Ayeh Deri. I particularly liked Chapter 7 “Themes of Deviance and Unconventionality,” which presents media reports from 1948 to 1998 in alphabetic order from ‘”Archeological Excavations to “Violence in the Family.” Using the alphabet demonstrates how broad and deep his selected examples go.

Ben Yehuda’s careful analysis of how these various events and affairs were reported differently in secular and the religious mass media is especially important. He shows how the tensions between subgroups in the society are perpetuated by how the groups perceive their connections and conflicts and how these are reported. Thus, for example,

“In 1987 Yeduit Aharonot reported:

‘A yeshiva student spat on a woman soldier because of an immodest dress and called her ‘slut.’ A police officer arrested the offender….About 30 other yeshiva students ….attacked the police officers in order to free the arrested yeshiva student. Police arrested 10 of them.’

Hamodea’s version was that the yeshiva student was arrested because he ‘was badly offended when [he saw] that near the [Western Wall] a woman soldier …offended the holiness of the place in public. The yeshiva student was arrested when he expressed his protest.’”

Agency and responsibility are reversed, confirming each side in its attitude towards the other. I am struck by how in this, and the many other media accounts Nachman reviews, the fundamental tension in the Democratic Jewish state is reinforced by the media, and this is not necessarily the result of bad will or tendentiousness (though it may sometimes be).

Many critics of Israel take from this situation proof that the secular Zionist project is fundamentally flawed, moving religious Zionists to emphasize the religious side of the Jewish state and secular critics to post or anti-Zionism (especially when considering the Palestinian problem). My friend is less radical, more moderate and modest in his appraisal.

Ben Yehuda believes that the conflict in “a theocratic democracy [by which he means “a democracy with strong theocratic colors in some areas”] … can be managed, mitigated and handled, but it cannot be ‘solved’ at a reasonable social price.” And that this implies “instability, never-ending negotiations, and chronic tensions, and requires politicians to have the dexterity and skills to keep such a political structure viable.”

As far as the Israeli case, I remain perplexed.  Considering that the fundamental tragedy includes the Palestinians, I think that the conflict may be beyond the dexterity and skills of any politician, that the relationship between democracy and religion is truly complex. But as I read Theocratic Democracy, a difficult title naming a very difficult political situation, I think that my friend is exploring a very important general issue, his is a case study of the inherent tension between religion and politics, an important element of the social condition, and he is right that the only way to understand the social condition is by theoretically and politically muddling through. There are no easy answers.

On the one hand, societies in general are based on common cultural commitments and understanding, and these are quite often religious, while on the other, the conflation of politics and religion makes an autonomous politics impossible.

Israelis struggle with this, as do many political communities. Tocqueville considered this social condition in the opening chapters of volume 2 of Democracy in America. It is a fundamental problem in the Muslim world, obviously in Egypt today. Perhaps the case of Turkey demonstrates that political leaders with dexterity and skills can address it. But even in the U.S., which Tocqueville believed had resolved the religion – politics dilemma long ago, the conflicts persist, sometimes as comedy, as revealed in the season of the “war on Christmas,” but looming as a tragedy, as Catholics, Jews and Muslims, among others, have been excluded by some from full citizenship in our society’s history.

I particularly appreciate that Nachman addresses an important case of the social condition revealing complexity, eschewing easy theoretical and political answers.

When analyzing politics and society in the Arab and Islamic world, it is admirable and important to break away from a Western-centered analysis. This move is not sufficient though. There is a temptation to continue to fall back on theories and rhetoric that have emanated from the west and have informed exactly that from which one attempts to break away. Furthermore, when discussing public discourse in the Arab world, it is imperative that one addresses the importance of Islam and its continuing vital role in Arab and Middle Eastern politics, despite Western scholarship’s tendency to suggest a historical end that involves the marginalization of religion. I appreciate Professor Challand’s posts in Deliberately Considered and the admirable move of breaking away from Western-centered analysis, but I think his posts suffer from theoretical temptation and an insufficient appreciation of the role of Islam.

It is true that civil-society is more than “NGOs and the developmental approach which imagines that the key to progress is when donors, the UN or rich countries, give aid to boost non-state actors, in particular NGOs, in the ‘developing south'” as Professor Challand asserts in his post “The Counter-Power of Civil Society in the Middle East.” I believe, though, that one must also conceive of civil-society and democratic institutions as more than a source for “collective autonomy” using other than secular slogans in the tradition of Tocqueville and Hegel.

Writing a history of democracy would have to include analysis such as de Tocqueville’s, but we should also remember that de Tocqueville wrote:

Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Quran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.

Tocqueville criticized Islam for allowing no deviation from its laws which to his mind covered all aspects of private and public life. But he failed to recognize the diversity of civil-society and the capacity for democratic institutions embedded in Islam’s structure and its ability to adapt to changing times, in part because it does not possess the characteristics of Catholicism. Ernest Renan later argued that Islam is not able to develop its own modernity, diverging from Tocqueville, but making the same mistake of essentializing Islam in a static history, laying ground for much of today’s claims that Islam and democracy are incompatible. These assertions often mobilize a rhetoric that promote tired tropes of “separation of church and state” and that democracy is contingent on secularism.

In fact, secularism has a much different meaning in the Arab world than it does in the West for two reasons. Islam never had a clerical hierarchy (although this phenomenon developed in Shi’ism later, albeit in a much different way than Catholicism) and therefore never had to answer the same questions regarding state-church relations that were prevalent in European political history. Despite this fact, Islam and the state did evolve separately due to negotiations of autonomy and the political domains of Islam and the state. “Secular” as European vocabulary to describe the dichotomy between Christ’s heavenly body and earthly body, once represented by medieval kingship and later by the Church, is not the same in Islam. In fact, the lack of a hierarchical authority in Islam and its partial reliance on consensus, or ijma’, is precisely what lends to it the ability to foster civil-society and diverse political groups, as well as various “schools” of law. An example is the mass proliferation of diverse Sufi brotherhoods in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. According to Richard Bulliet, “By the eighteenth century, there were thousands of Sufi brotherhoods reaching into every Muslim community and spreading knowledge of Islam into new lands.”

Furthermore, “secular” as a modern political concept in the Islamic world has come to mean the marginalization of the clergy and Islam in favor of modern military organizations, state-run schools, and state-sponsored religious institutions. The secular Arab dictatorships, which are currently undergoing fundamental changes, have implemented these practices and have been some of the most brutal regimes in the world. The attempt to relegate Islamic politics to the sidelines, a process which included the state’s co-opting of previously autonomous religious institutions, such as Islamic universities (al-Azhar University in Egypt is an example) and charities (waqf), only resulted in the alienation of segments of society that have been forced to take up alternative political methods, which sometimes include violence.

It is also untrue that the language of current opposition movements in the Arab world is a “secular re-imagining of the people as a united nation,” as Professor Challand calls it, presumably meaning that religious language is abandoned in favor of modern political vocabulary. Currently in Jordan, protests involve a number of groups, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood (or the Islamic Action Front, as it is called in Jordan), as well as many other opposition and counter-opposition groups. Many of these parties use discourse that is couched in Islam and ethnicity (especially Jordanian vs. Palestinian ethnicity and nationality).

In closing, Castoriadis’ analyses and modern political thought that relies heavily on Marxist theory, though they make valuable contributions to interpreting revolution and revolt, are simply inadequate to explain Islamic politics. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 serves as a lesson as to how intimately connected revolution, democracy and religion are now connected in the Muslim world. While secularism supposedly goes hand-in-hand with the development of democracy and the modern state, it was Islam that opened revolutionary potentials, democratic and anti-democratic. The Iranian experience revealed how transformational potential can be and has been heavily steeped in Islamic political theology. The revolution was not only a watershed in Islamic and Iranian politics but also a wake-up call for critical observers, who previously expected an unfolding of modern history that would increasingly push religion out of politics. In order to effectively understand the Islamic world, scholars and analysts must not only re-evaluate the theories on which they rely, as well as history and historiography, but also their rhetoric and the words that they mobilize.

These days, as I reflect on the explosive aftereffects of the incineration of copies of the Quran in a US military base in Afghanistan, I find myself re-reading chapters 1-11 of Book Two of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where he offers his treatment of the passions (the Greek is pathē, from which we get all those “path” terms, like sympathy, empathy, apathy, pathetic, and so on). This “theory of moral sentiments” comes in the context of “a theory of rhetoric”: a reasoned discourse offering analysis and advice concerning the political use of composed speech in situations where persuasion is based on something other than “purely” rational conviction. Central to what Aristotle has to say  is that human beings experience anger on those occasions when they: (1) believe that they themselves or something that they hold dear (or, especially, most dear) has been belittled and (2) cherish a wish for revenge. The paradigmatic example is Achilles, who believing himself to have been robbed of his honor (which is what was most dear to him at that time) by Agamemnon, displays his anger precisely by predicting and praying for (and then enlisting the gods’ support for his predictive prayer) the devastation of the Greek army as a punishment to Agamemnon. This is especially exemplary in that, among other things, it shows why what we euphemistically call “collateral damage” is so endemic to “the work of anger.”

The terrible events that have followed the burning of the Qurans by insufficiently sensitive and ill trained personnel, sadly, were entirely predictable in terms of Aristotle’s account. The anger, with its destructive thirst for revenge, that a believer feels in seeing the testament burned unceremoniously as refuse is immediately understandable for someone who has taken the slightest moment to conceive of how a Muslim relates to the sacred word, and how it differs from the way in which a Christian relates to the sacred word. With just the smallest degree of education—precisely the kind of education Aristotle is trying to provide in his Rhetoric—one could see at an instant the grounds for the anger.

But wait, have I presumed too much? Have I, as Newt Gingrich recently asserted,“surrendered” by claiming that it was, in fact, an error to burn those Qurans—assuredly, in an entirely non-inflammatory and “instrumental” manner?” Am I hasty in suggesting that this is a sign of insufficient sensitivity and improper training on the part of the military and its contractors? No. And Aristotle points us to the reason why. Whoever steps into the public sphere and asks their fellow citizens—or the citizens of other lands—to listen to what they have to say about matters of public concern must have in mind what the character of those listening is like and also what kind of character they can be inspired to want to have. When our leaders uncritically respond to the inflamed and violent protests that have been going on (and make no mistake I find crimes against persons that have been committed in the aftermath of the original burning absolutely unjustified beyond any shadow of doubt), they are in effect telling us: yes, in fact, we are the people who burn Qurans with the rest of the trash, and we are going to continue being those people, and that is in no way in contradiction with our being lovers of freedom who wish to bring to the whole world the possibility of self-determination. Indeed, for some who subscribe to the “clash of civilizations” narrative, these events prove that it is precisely because we are the people who burn Qurans (in the service of removing “radicalizing materials” from a detention facility, and let’s not forget that piece of this tale) that we are the people who are on this democratizing mission.

But that, in this context, is exactly the problem. With rare exceptions (the re-emergence of Rick Santorum into the limelight has provided an instance), our political leaders, from left to right, prefer not to admit a basic fact. America is not (yet) a pluralist and universalist democracy based on ethical-humanist values. Nor is it, by any means, a secular country. Nor yet is it one “founded on Judeo-Christian” values, a hyphenated horror of a phrase I feel I have heard (well, seen) one thousand times in the past weeks. America—and forgive me, President Obama, as I know you’ve tried hard to make the opposite case—is a Christian land. It may be on its way to being something else, something more. Or it may be, actually, becoming more so a Christian land. But at this point it time, it is a Christian country.

In fact, I would claim that if it were “Judeo-Christian” (whatever that would actually mean), then this would not have happened. Why? Because to the extent that that “Judeo” part was in there, I mean was really in there, it simply would not have been possible for folks to be so deeply tone deaf to the significance of burning the word. A Jewish congregation lives in and through the Law; a community of Jewish believers without a building, without a Rabbi, without an institutional structure are all entirely possible. Without the scroll, without the Law, which is itself sacred, with highly ritualized rules for one’s conduct when holding it, or even in its vicinity, there is nothing. For Jews, as for Muslims, there is only God and only those with whom God has seen fit to work on earth, namely the prophets.

The roster may differ, but the structure and the theology remains the same. For this reason, though politically impossible at the moment, it would be much easier to imagine a Islamo-Jewish or Judeo-Islamic political community than a Judeo-Christian one. Theologically, Islam and Judaism are much closer to one another than either is to Christianity. But I digress.

The trace of the divine in the world, then, is to be found in the letter of the law, for Jews as much as Muslims. For this reason, a Jew might very well, and well we know it, burn a Quran. But never in what seems to have been the genuine ignorance at work in this instance.

Let me speak a bit more carefully. I do not know, and I suppose it is not currently known, precisely how far up the chain of command the order to burning these sacred (to some) texts went. Thus, it is irresponsible to speak about the faith traditions to which those individuals belong, or their nationalities. What I mean to address here is not the activity of the burning itself, and its causes, so much as the way that activity is understood by those in whose name it was carried out. And in this respect, I hope to have given us reason to consider the possibility that it is because the United States is a Christian country, and leads its allies in world affairs as a Christian country, that something like this “public relations disaster” could happen. If that is so, or even if it just might be so, then I think we have reason to consider the possibility that it is time for us to have some genuine religious education in the American, so that any (say) 12 year old would know what they would have been taught to believe about the sacred had they been brought up in (to begin with) each of the other Abrahamic faiths.

I have a very hard time imagining that in such a possible Christian—but self-consciously Christian—America, you would find very many 18-25 year olds who would not know that burning a Quran is for a believing Muslim very much unlike burning a “remaindered” King James Bible is for a believing Christian. And, for that reason, I find it fairly likely that in a world in which that America, rather than our current “Judeo-Christian” America, was active in world affairs, not only would Americans be better able to anticipate what makes others angry, but we might actually be able to help bring about a state of affairs where there was at least a little less anger in the world. Which would be a good thing.

Ahmad Sadri is Professor Sociology and James P. Gorter Chair of Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College. Today he offers his reflections on the approaches to religion in Iran as the revolutions in the Arab world proceed. -Jeff

Iran’s religious tyranny is not the result of blind subservience to religious tradition. On the contrary, it was born of a bold innovation by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that reversed the quietist bent of the Shiite political philosophy. Khomeini claimed that in absence of the Mahdi (the occulted savior) Shiites must work to create a righteous state. After he was firmly established at the helm of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini went even further and argued that the qualified Islamic jurist is the all powerful Muslim Leviathan who can suspend even the principal beliefs and practices of Islam (including praying, fasting, going to Mecca and even monotheism) in the name of raison d’etat

Thirty years later a decisive majority of Iranians want out of that secret garden of medieval religious despotism, and they showed their collective will in the uprisings of the summer of 2009. The “Arab Spring” that is blossoming in the Middle East might have been inspired by that uprising, the “Green Movement,” but Iranians have not been able to emulate the Arab model by overthrowing their robed potentates. The Iranian religious autocrats possess both the means and the will to mow down potential crowds of protesters in the name of Khomeini’s powerful imperative to preserve the Islamic State.

As a result, the critique of religious government is slowly turning into the kind of radical anti-religious sentiment one could only find among eighteenth-century enlightenment philosophers, nineteenth-century Latin American positivists and twentieth-century Marxist Leninist countries.  I fear a narrow minded secularism is replacing a narrow minded “religionism.”

Abdolkarim Soroush © Hessam M.Armandehi | Wikimedia Commons

Consider what happened last month. Abdolkarim Soroush, a renowned Islamic reformer who lives in exile, wrote a bitter letter exposing the Iranian security forces’ arrest and torture of his son in law. Soroush quotes his son in law in the title of his letter: “There is no God, I swear by God, there is no God.” His letter also contains a counter-theodicy. Soroush is puzzled about an omnipotent God who allows injustice in his name but seems not to brook apostasy by the victims of the injustice that has been committed in his name.

Mahmoud Morad-khani, himself the son of a dissident clergyman, immediately published a response claiming that without denouncing Islam, root and branch, Soroush’s protest is meaningless. Morad-khani, like many others, argues that the injustice in Iran is not the result of a revolutionary mutation of Iranian Islam, but rather the direct consequence of delusional religious beliefs.

The discourse of Iranian “laic” (secular) elites uses the word religion in general, but its frame of reference is limited to the politicized Shiite Islam of the last thirty years. Iranian philosophers’ discourse has been unable to offer comparative perspectives or place the experience of Iranian Islamism in its proper historical niche. Iranian intellectual discourse on religion has become a parochial soliloquy. It is a symptom of the theocratic rule rather than an analysis of it. This discourse relegates religious intellectuality to dogmatic subservience and claims that only by liberating oneself from religion can one join the dynamic flow of secular thought. Islam in Iran shed its quietist mantle in one generation and aggressively turned itself into a modern theocracy. It is curious that despite this, they are still labeled as subservient to tradition.

Hussein-Ali Montazeri © Unknown | Wikimedia Commons

Let us take the career of Ayatollah Montazeri (1922-2009), a lieutenant and heir apparent of Ayatollah Khomeini and one of the architects of the Islamic Republic. Montazeri had departed from the tradition of Shiite jurists and opted for a revolutionary reconstruction of Shiite political philosophy. Then he parted ways with Khomeini, objecting to the mass executions of political prisoners in 1981. Subsequently, the dissident Ayatollah was relieved of his position and put under virtual house arrest for the rest of his life. In this period, he continued to support the Khomeinist theocracy, but objected to its misuse by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In the last year of his life, Montazeri issued a subversive legal opinion to undergird the uprising of Iranians in 2009. This revolutionary fatwa spells out the conditions for the dissolution of not only the Islamic Republic but indeed any polity.

Montazeri’s fatwa is a radical political theory for revolutions of all stripes. He likens the relationship of people and their government to that of a lawyer and his/her client, where a simple suspension of trust by the client automatically dissolves the covenant. Here the burden of proof is on the lawyer, the government, to prove its innocence and regain the trust of the client, the people. In other words, Montazeri ruled that the Islamic Republic was already dissolved as a legitimate entity given the dissolution of people’s trust. Using religion, he develops a democratic theory.

Montazeri, who was the Thomas Hobbes of the Iranian Revolution, lived to become its John Locke. Such a change of positions is unprecedented in the history of political philosophy. He used legal ratiocination to make a case for creating a just, Islamic government in absence of the savior (Mahdi). Thirty years later he once again utilized the same legal skills to justify a revolt against that Islamic state. The point of this historical vignette is not to praise Montazeri as the grandfather of the Green Movement. The point, rather, is to demonstrate that religion is a stagnant pool of unreason and intellectual subservience.

Religion changes and mutates. Some of these religious mutations could be positively harmful to democracy as indeed Khomeini/Montazeri theory of “Mandate of the Jurist” was. But it is also true that other religious innovations help religion accommodate and support modern ideals of freedom and democracy. It doesn’t matter whether a society has or does not have religion. What is important is what kind of religion or irreligion pervades in that society.

Last week Pope Benedict XVI brought delightful news for the Jews. In his new book the pope personally exonerated Jews for being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, denying that Jews shared collective guilt for the death of Their Lord. In this, he reiterated the repudiation of collective guilt by the Vatican, nearly fifty years ago, in 1965. On this matter, at least, there is to be no retreat.

Those of us who can remember the earlier repudiation will also remember the brilliant conniptions of Lenny Bruce. As Bruce admitted, “Alright, I’ll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said: “We killed him, signed, Morty.” Tonight Morty can rest serenely.

The debate over Jewish complicity in the death of Christ, in contrast to the complicity of certain Jews, is a matter of no small significance, even if, as Bruce slyly commented the statute of limitations should be running out. Ultimately the issue is not about Jews and Jesus, but about the assignment of blame for creating a climate of violence.

When I teach freshmen, I begin my seminar on Scandal and Reputation by explaining to these students that sociology is the most dangerous of disciplines. We are the academic subject that through its very birthright trades in stereotypes. Our lineage demands that we discuss race, class, and gender. We do not – or do not only – talk about one black barber, a wealthy stockbroker, a woman of ill-repute, or some malevolent rebbe. Our call is to talk about people, and not persons. Social psychologists push the discipline to gather data from persons, but we analyze what we gathered as if it came from people.

This means that when Jared Lee Loughner went on a shooting rampage, we asked how he got that way. And when Jesus was nailed, we ask who is responsible for a climate of crucifixion. As a sociologist, I believe that our task is noble. It might have been Lenny’s Uncle Morty who was responsible, but the broader question is which social forces contributed to the climate in which the crucifixion was conducted, just as we asked about the shooting in Tucson.

Let me be clear, these questions should not lead to a drama of rebuke, punishment, and attack. But surely it is fair to consider how we should understand responsibility. Let us leave Jerusalem for the streets of Memphis. Forty-three years ago next month an assassin, James Earl Ray (surely admired with grim satisfaction by too many) murdered the Reverend Martin Luther King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. If the Jews are washed of responsibility for Jesus, are white Southerners as well? Do they, too, receive a pass? Did the climate of racism and hatred in the former Confederacy contribute to the assassination of Dr. King or does the blame adhere to James Earl alone? Is there any responsibility to be shared for creating a climate in which violence occurs?

Collective guilt is a strange concept. It can’t be passed along like some genetic mutation. Surely no guilt adheres to unborn generations, but should a climate of hostility be forgotten or forgiven? Collective guilt is not the right term, but the beliefs and attitudes in Memphis 43 years ago deserve our consideration.

This week a committee of the House of Representative is considering the radicalization of Muslims in the United States. Not all, but some. The attacks on the World Trade Center are not the responsibility of Muslims in the United States and abroad, but we can ask whether the beliefs within radical Islam permitted these men to operate within a community, even while, like James Earl Ray, keeping their plans to themselves.

Individuals must be held responsible for their freely chosen behaviors, but they operate within communities that hold beliefs and provide the infrastructure for action. The man who pulls the trigger or who hammers the nail deserves blame. And no community deserves blame for the act itself. However, when we realize that acts depend on social climate, assigning responsibility to groups is both necessary and proper.

As Pope Benedict asserts, the “temple aristocracy” – a small coterie of elite Jews – was at fault for Jesus’ torment. But if we focus too tightly on any small coterie, we ignore those who listened with rapt attention and whose consent gave these elites their moral authority. Jerusalem, Memphis, Jiddah, Tucson: communities shape the action of individuals in ways that they may not even recognize. If we focus on the deed of the man, too often we miss the voice of the crowd.

When I first found out about the Rabbinical letter banning the sale or rental of property to Arabs, I noticed that my old friend and colleague, Nachman Ben – Yehuda, was quoted condemning it in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I then wrote to him asking for more extended reflections for DC. I received this post from him over the holiday weekend. He took his time, he explains, hoping for consequential official response. He offers his sober deliberate considerations. -Jeff

There are times and places where people like to stick together with their own flock, in defined, sometimes confined, geographical locations. In these locations, they live their own life style, with their own dress codes and eat their own foods. The Amish in Pennsylvania and the Jewish ultra-orthodox in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem are two examples. People outside of these communities and non-members may find it difficult to move and live in such social habitats. Moreover, in the case of ultra-orthodox communities, strangers who live in their neighborhoods and practice a non-religious life style may find themselves facing aggression and violence. I am writing about this to contrast it with the call of some rabbis in Israel not to rent apartments to Arabs in Israeli cities.

Israeli Arabs are just that – citizens with full and equal legal rights, and Israeli cities are not confined communities with a uniform worldview and way of life. Israeli cities, like most other cities of the world, are centers of diversity, including the religious and the secular, Jews, Christians and Muslims, old and young, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, etc. These cities are open. Renting an apartment is basically an economic issue. Making and publicizing a general call not to rent apartments to Arabs (or to any other culturally defined group) is quite simply racism.

The rabbinical pamphlet received very critical comments from some Israeli politicians and others, but this did not prevent activists from the Israeli right and religious right to stage a large demonstration on Thursday, December 23, 2010 in Jerusalem where public support was openly given to this pamphlet.

What can, or should, be done? I think two roads are open. First, the police could reasonably open investigations aiming to bring the pamphlet writers and their supporters up on charges of instigation or other relevant violations of the law. This is a route that will probably last for a very long time (investigation, charge, court, appeal). Those sticking to the idea of not renting to Arabs would probably invoke issues of freedom of speech and of Jewish identity (right wing religious “identity” to be sure). And, because tens, maybe hundreds would be investigated and charged, this is probably not an effective way. On the other hand, the public arena can and should be used. Many of these rabbis are paid with the taxpayers’ money and as such represent the state of Israel in at least some religious and moral issues. The state should demand that they retract their statement within a very short period of time, or else risk their employment. Moreover, the state should make it very clear, officially and unofficially, that such statements are unacceptable.

I have waited, deliberately, to respond to this issue, waiting to find out what would happen. Unfortunately, nothing has. In other words, those Israelis spreading hatred, intolerance and racist views against about 20% of the citizens of Israel may have learned that that they can do it and get away with it.

It is inconceivable that such a pamphlet or public demonstration would have taken place in, say, the 1960s. To my mind, this pamphlet and demonstration is a reflection of the increasing influence of the politics of hatred that is pervading this region. For many years, the common ideal here, if not the practice, was of peace, co-existence and togetherness between Jews and Arabs, we now hear more and more about separation and living side by side, with each side barricaded. The movement within Israel to the political right, and to the religious right, is the ground upon which such pamphlets of hatred, fear and racism have developed.

And it is difficult to change these people’s behavior. It is induced by two very powerful motivators: fear and hatred. The level of fear and hatred has not been counterbalanced by politicians who have real peace and mutual co-existence in their hearts and do their best to create or sustain the conditions, ambiance and situations where Jews and Arabs can live here peacefully together. The social and cultural change reflected in a pamphlet like this is a direct result of years of mistrust, hostility, terror, propaganda, and first and foremost a continued failure (some of it probably intentional) of regional politicians to exercise their primary responsibility to their people, to negotiate a peace or some political settlement to the conflict, to the benefit and well being of both Jews and Arabs.

Worse yet, as the top to bottom approach is not working, attempts to better the situation in daily life, a politics of small things as Jeff puts it, suffers a serious blow with such hostile steps as calling for, and actually not renting apartments to Arabs, and “explaining” why such a call is “justified.” Fear and hatred wins at the local level as it is winning at the summit.

The Translation:

In response to the query of many, we respond that is forbidden, by Torah-law, to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a non-Jew. As Maimonedes wrote: “as it is written (Deuteronomy 7:2) ‘thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them’ which means you shall give them no title to land. For if you do not give them title, their staying shall be temporary.” (laws: 77; 10, 4). And on that topic, the Torah warned in numerous places, that it causes evil and make the many sin in intermarriage, as it is said “For they will turn your sons away from following Me” (Deuteronomy 7:4), which is blasphemy (Maimonedes, 12:6). And it also causes the many to otherwise transgress, as the Torah has warned: “They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me” (Exodus 23: 33). And the sin of he who sells, and he who profits from it, is upon the heads of those who sell, God shall have mercy.

And evil upon evil, that he who sells or lets them rent an apartment in an area in which Jews are living, causes great damage to his neighbors, and for them it is said “and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” (Numbers 33: 55). For their way of life is different from that of Jews, and some of them harass us and make our life hard, to the point of danger to our very lives, as has become well known on several occasions. And even outside of Israel they have forbidden to sell them in Jewish neighborhoods for this very reason, and all the more so in the land of Israel, as it is elucidated in the [Jewish book of law] Shulhan Aruch (Yoreh Deah, 151) that it is a prohibition that pertains both to the realm of actions between man and God and that between man and his fellow man.

And it is well known that renting or selling even one apartment causes all of the neighbors’ apartments’ prices to go down, even when initially the renters or buyers seem nice. And he who rents or sells first thus causes his neighbors great loss, and his sin is too great to bear. And who let him do such a thing? And he causes others to sell their property after him, to take flight from the place. And those who follow him in selling to non-Jews, they compound the grave sin that is the responsibility of all.

And if this foreigner is violent and harasses his neighbors, then it was already elucidated in the Shulhan Aruch that all who sell to him should be excommunicated!! And that until the seller undoes this evil, even if that costs him much money. (Yoreh Deah 344: 43). And in our days, as it is well known, we do not excommunicate, as excommunication is of grave consequence.  However, his neighbors must talk to him and warn him, first in private, and if that doesn’t work, they are then allowed to make his name public. And to stay away from him socially, and to avoid having any business relations with him, and not to give him any honors in reading the Torah in synagogue, and other such measures. And that until he changes his decision on this issue that causes great harm to the many. And those who listen to us shall dwell in peace. Amen, may it be God’s will.

Reflections

You may ask why it is important to know exactly what the rabbis wrote. We know the gist of it already. However, there are a couple of things that I think could be noted if you actually do pay attention to it:

The letter begins in ordinary rabbinic fashion, with quotes from the Bible and from Maimonedes (and later from the “Shulhan Aruch,” which is a compilation of laws based on major interpretations of the Talmud). As many have opined based on this, the fact that these rabbis decreed that it is “prohibited” to sell to a non-Jew is not that surprising. There are plenty of sources they could use. Indeed, there was actually a short letter written a few years ago, that somehow did not make it to the news, that said basically the same, signed by 5-6 major rabbis. This does not make it less racist of course.

But now note the third paragraph. Here, suddenly, the rhetoric slightly changes to talk about real-estate prices, and the dangers of Jewish-flight (seems like this could be written by any white supremacist, just change “non-Jew” to Black, and “Jew” to White). Interesting that the rabbis’ letter so seamlessly articulate the presumably religious with the patently racist.

Last, and perhaps most troubling, the rabbis note that though official excommunication does not exist anymore in the Orthodox world, they recommend that people basically cut all social ties with those who sell or rent to Arabs. This, from people who receive their salary from the state (though not hired directly by the state, but through the rabbinate).

There are other things in the letter that deserve attention, but I leave the readers with the following: a week after the publication of this letter the following text appeared on posters all over Bat-Yam, a city adjacent to Tel-Aviv:

They will not hit on my sister!!!

What would you do if an Arab would hit on your sister?

We Make an End to it!

We became aware that of late there is a rise in a saddening phenomenon:hundreds of girls from Bat-Yam and the center are seeing Arabs. They assimilate into us, and their confidence is rising.

Let’s make an end to it!

Let’s shatter their confidence!

Jews, let us win!

A religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling property to Arabs and other non-Jews is a most recent example that has caused great controversy.  My Israeli friend and DC contributor, Nachman Ben Yehuda, was quoted about the Rabbis edict in The Globe and Mail of Toronto: “Their ultimate goal is a theocratic state….In the meantime, they want to enforce division between the ultra-Orthodox and everyone else.”

But things look even more critical from the Palestinian point of view which became apparent to me when I came across an email note from Amal Eqeiq, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who is studying in Seattle.  We worked together planning a research project on the politics of small things in Israel-Palestine.  In her note, she makes clear that the democratic legitimacy of Israel is at stake. I present her message today, unedited, hoping it provokes serious deliberations.

So, 50 Rabbis signed up a religious call- Psak Halacha – asking Jews to NOT rent for Arabs. Yes, I understand that they don’t represent everybody, and that they are taking advantage of religion for political gains, and that there are different opinions, and that it is not legally binding, and that some lefties will protest in the name of human rights and for keeping face, and, and, and…”Amal, don’t take it personally,”  BUT, WHAT THE FUCK?

Here is my observation about the (always guilty) Israeli media.

Haaretz says the letter is addressed for non-Jews (link) …they don’t say Arabs only…and I ask “really Haaretz?! 3anjad!! Thank you for watering down apartheid rhetoric. As a non-Jew, I feel much better now.

And of course, there is Yediot Ahronot with its more populist, yellow and sensational attitude. This time they called things in their name, because news about racism sells. In their article there was a sub-heading: “Bad Timing!” (link) And I am so curious to know when is a “good timing” for apartheid? Ya’ani, I want to know how to organize my life around that!

I checked out the list of the cities where Arabs (aka Palestinians, but it is probably blasphemous for these 50 Rabbis to so say this in the Biblical Hebrew they used in writing their petition) are not allowed to rent.  7 of these cities are within 15-20 minutes of my hometown Al-Taibeh. And of course there is Natseret Elit- built on the lands of Nazareth as well as Jerusalem. All the way from Seattle, I send a huge salute with the magnitude of Mount Rainer, to all my Arab-Palestinian family members, men and women, neighbors, friends, former students, ex-lovers and random folks who work in construction, plumping, water installation, remodeling, house cleaning, floor polishing and other maintenance jobs in Jewish towns. No, it is not Kosher for you to rent there, but your hard work and underpaid services are Glatt Kosher certified.

CNN: I will be waiting to see how you are going to cover this Jewish “fatwa.”

A Conversation Remembered

He recalled our conversation:

The mosque. If I remember correctly our conversation, my argument was that officially and legally, there is no doubt that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the initiative to build the mosque where planned and that President Obama as defender of the American constitution did the right thing when he made his speech and supported it. My concern was as a hopeless symbologist and on the symbolic level. Hence, having said that legally Muslims are within their constitutional rights, I was concerned whether it was absolutely necessary or wise to have a Muslim mosque so close to where radical Muslims massacred thousands of innocent Americans. You put my concern there to rest.

In our discussion, I essentially made the argument I have been making in posts here, most crucially my first one considering the raw facts , but also my more recent post The tragedy of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. My key point, which convinced Nachman, was that the Cordoba House was actually a respectful initiative, made by people of good will, who sought respectful dialogue between Muslims and their fellow Americans.  Yet, Nachman still was uncertain, having to do with his own expertise.

My other symbolic concern was with the name chosen for the mosque…”Cordoba House.” Now this raises another complex issue. Cordoba was a name of a Muslim battalion that won – fair and square – a battle against Christian armies. But, the emirate of Cordoba was also a showcase of Islam’s ability to promote cultural growth. This growth was under a religious-political regime of a caliphate (that is non-democratic), but that is how things worked at those times. Contemporary Christians were not democratic human rights lovers either at that time. Thus, the name Cordoba could have three historical meanings: one, a decisive Muslim military victory over Christian armies and another, a place and period of significant cultural growth and blooming. My concern was which one of these historical and symbolic meanings will be made dominant? And in whose mind?  A third possibility is an implicit implication that cultural growth follows Islamic military victories, under an Islamic rule.

These potential complex meanings of the name “Cordoba House” caused me to ponder. I suspect that it is possible that these symbols will not escape radicalized Muslims and I was just wondering whether it was not a good idea to have the mosque being built some decent distance from the 9/11 site, plus, perhaps re-consider a symbolic complex tell-tale name of the mosque. I am not sure, of course, and as I wrote – there is absolutely no legal problem with either building the mosque where planned or calling it “Cordoba House.” My only symbolic concern was whether it was wise doing it in this way and whether an initiative whose aim is to promote peace and inter-religious dialogue is not rolling on a track that can be interpreted in a contradictory fashion and that raises so much negative feelings.

Deliberate Considerations

Nachman’s concerns are serious. Clearly Feisal Abdul Rauf, in his statements about the community center, does not use the term as Nachman fears:  “Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims. Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures,” Rauf explained in his op-ed piece.

But there is always uncertainty about the meaning of symbols, and perhaps for this reason, while Rauf continues to use Cordoba as the name of the community center.  The developer behind the center prefers Park 51, so that the activities of the community will define its meaning, rather than a historical reference with possible contradictory historical meanings.  This is the sort of accommodation to community sensibilities that make sense to me.  And I would love to hear a discussion between Rauf and Ben Yehuda about the meaning of Cordoba, best would be at Park 51, when it opens.  I hope in the not too distant future.