Friday, 30 November 2007
Thursday, 29 November 2007
An old-fashioned feminist on the religion vs atheism debate
Andrew Sullivan links to an interesting article by Katha Pollitt in The Nation, on 'the current vogue for atheism'. Pollitt is at pains to offer balanced coverage of recent debates on the role of religion. For example, she attempts to understand what lay behind Ian Buruma's now-notorious description of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an 'Enlightenment fundamentalist', while maintaining her own admiration for the latter, 'despite her conservative associations'. As she says: 'Not every feminist has to be a social worker or a grassroots organizer. I'll bet plenty of women, Muslim and not, have been given courage by her books and example. Just to speak out is a feminist act.'
And while Pollitt is critical of the decision to ban Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States, she is clear that 'he is no friend of women's rights'. She adds: 'If Hirsi Ali is too alienated from her former community to speak for it, Tariq Ramadan strikes me as the latest edition of the elder who claims to represent the community but actually represents the interests of fathers, husbands and brothers.'
Still, wonders Pollitt, why do discussions about Islam in the modern world always revolve around people like Ramadan:
I'd rather hear from Marjane Satrapi, whose 'Persepolis,' a brilliant graphic memoir of growing up under the Ayatollah Khomeini, has just been made into a dark, tragicomic and equally brilliant animated film. And from Pakistani-born Mohsin Hamid, author of the hilarious novel 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'.
But Pollitt's main argument in the article is that tirades against religion by atheists are unlikely to cause Muslims or other believers to 'wake up one morning and abandon their ancestral faith':
Even if you are a ferocious Sam Harris-style atheist who thinks religion is completely stupid--the province of shysters and fools--you have to admit it would be quite astonishing if that view persuaded the devout anytime soon....
...if all you can offer people is reasons to quit their religion--which also often means their community, their family, their support system and their identity--you're not going to have many takers. For every brilliant angry teenager you strengthen in doubt, there's a mosque- or churchful of people who'll choose the old-time religion if the only other choice is nothing.
Pollitt comes to the conclusion that it's 'pointless' for non-Muslims to weigh in about Islam: 'Why should Muslims care, any more than a Jew cares what a Hindu thinks about Moses? It's their religion, and they'll figure out what they want to make of it.' She doesn't claim to offer an alternative, except for encouraging the media to feature a more diverse range of voices to represent Islam - including writers such as Satrapi and Hamid. As she concludes: 'Maybe art can go where atheism cannot.'
Katha Pollitt's writings (she's a prize-winning poet as well as a regular columnist) are little known in Britain. I came across her name for the first time quite recently, when a collection of her essays was discussed in the New York Review of Books. Reviewer Cathleen Schine describes Pollitt as 'a good old-fashioned feminist and leftist' who is also 'an exquisite observer' of life, love and politics, as well as being a very funny writer - 'a sort of M. Hulot of the feminist left.' The extracts that appear in Schine's review certainly whet the appetite for more.
Footnote
Since writing this I've discovered Katha Pollitt's blog, which links to articles and reviews of her work, including this and also this from the Guardian.
And while Pollitt is critical of the decision to ban Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States, she is clear that 'he is no friend of women's rights'. She adds: 'If Hirsi Ali is too alienated from her former community to speak for it, Tariq Ramadan strikes me as the latest edition of the elder who claims to represent the community but actually represents the interests of fathers, husbands and brothers.'
Still, wonders Pollitt, why do discussions about Islam in the modern world always revolve around people like Ramadan:
I'd rather hear from Marjane Satrapi, whose 'Persepolis,' a brilliant graphic memoir of growing up under the Ayatollah Khomeini, has just been made into a dark, tragicomic and equally brilliant animated film. And from Pakistani-born Mohsin Hamid, author of the hilarious novel 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'.
But Pollitt's main argument in the article is that tirades against religion by atheists are unlikely to cause Muslims or other believers to 'wake up one morning and abandon their ancestral faith':
Even if you are a ferocious Sam Harris-style atheist who thinks religion is completely stupid--the province of shysters and fools--you have to admit it would be quite astonishing if that view persuaded the devout anytime soon....
...if all you can offer people is reasons to quit their religion--which also often means their community, their family, their support system and their identity--you're not going to have many takers. For every brilliant angry teenager you strengthen in doubt, there's a mosque- or churchful of people who'll choose the old-time religion if the only other choice is nothing.
Pollitt comes to the conclusion that it's 'pointless' for non-Muslims to weigh in about Islam: 'Why should Muslims care, any more than a Jew cares what a Hindu thinks about Moses? It's their religion, and they'll figure out what they want to make of it.' She doesn't claim to offer an alternative, except for encouraging the media to feature a more diverse range of voices to represent Islam - including writers such as Satrapi and Hamid. As she concludes: 'Maybe art can go where atheism cannot.'
Katha Pollitt's writings (she's a prize-winning poet as well as a regular columnist) are little known in Britain. I came across her name for the first time quite recently, when a collection of her essays was discussed in the New York Review of Books. Reviewer Cathleen Schine describes Pollitt as 'a good old-fashioned feminist and leftist' who is also 'an exquisite observer' of life, love and politics, as well as being a very funny writer - 'a sort of M. Hulot of the feminist left.' The extracts that appear in Schine's review certainly whet the appetite for more.
Footnote
Since writing this I've discovered Katha Pollitt's blog, which links to articles and reviews of her work, including this and also this from the Guardian.
Iranian activists save rape victim from gallows
After the recent case of the Saudi rape victim sentenced to 200 lashes and a prison term, there's better news from Iran. A young woman who was sold into prostitution at the age of nine, and who had been sentenced to death for incest after her brothers confessed to raping her, was saved from the gallows by the intervention of human rights activists, including Shadi Sadr, a lawyer who was herself imprisoned earlier this year for taking part in human rights demonstrations.
But the verdict in this case should not be taken as an indication that Iran is a less misogynist country than Saudi Arabia. Sadr points out that the Iranian judicial system remains deeply conservative and unfair to women: 'These male judges have not had any training about sexual charges. They all have a chauvinistic point of view and they see the woman as guilty'. And she points out that in many poor Iranian families 'a girl is considered one of the first commodities or properties that can be traded or sold in the eyes of a parent'.
More optimistically, Shadi Sadr believes that constant pressure from human rights campaigners is making Iran's judges more sensitive to public opinion: 'There will be so many protests or so much complaints from the human rights activists that the judges are under pressure not to issue a death sentence.' So, perhaps those Amnesty letter-writing campaigns do have an impact, and change is possible, even in Ahmedinejad's Iran.
But the verdict in this case should not be taken as an indication that Iran is a less misogynist country than Saudi Arabia. Sadr points out that the Iranian judicial system remains deeply conservative and unfair to women: 'These male judges have not had any training about sexual charges. They all have a chauvinistic point of view and they see the woman as guilty'. And she points out that in many poor Iranian families 'a girl is considered one of the first commodities or properties that can be traded or sold in the eyes of a parent'.
More optimistically, Shadi Sadr believes that constant pressure from human rights campaigners is making Iran's judges more sensitive to public opinion: 'There will be so many protests or so much complaints from the human rights activists that the judges are under pressure not to issue a death sentence.' So, perhaps those Amnesty letter-writing campaigns do have an impact, and change is possible, even in Ahmedinejad's Iran.
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
More archiepiscopal antics
Following the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent tidings of woe about western modernity, vicar and regular Guardian commentator Giles Fraser endorses his boss's cultural pessimism, reducing modernity to consumerist materialism in the process and making the sweeping suggestion that religion offers the only alternative to market forces. Fraser argues that following the collapse of Marxism 'the only people offering a genuinely countercultural critique of western modernity are to be found in churches, mosques and synagogues'. Norm disposes of this fallacious argument here. Fraser's article is further evidence of its author's trajectory from thoughtful liberal Christian to tub-thumping anti-secularist.
Meanwhile Fraser's fellow theological pugilist Theo Hobson leaps to Rowan Williams' defence in the row over the Church's attitude to homosexuality. Hobson is responding to the accusation of another archbishop - Desmond Tutu - that Anglicans are 'obsessed' with the issue of gay priests and that Williams has failed to demonstrate that God is 'welcoming'. According to Hobson:
when a liberal cleric attacks Rowan Williams, it is really the worst sort of hypocrisy. When Tutu became a priest, he pledged to uphold the church's teaching, and to respect the authority of the hierarchy. When it became apparent to him that official Anglican teaching was homophobic, he was free to resign. By remaining a priest, he actually became complicit in the homophobia. Instead of honestly confronting his guilt, Tutu wants a scapegoat.
This is strong stuff, especially given the status of semi-sainthood generally ascribed to Tutu. The BBC's trailers for the Radio 4 interview (broadcast last night) in which the South African churchman makes these criticisms have been reverential in the extreme - 'when he speaks, the world listens' kind of thing. No mention of Tutu's hamfisted condemnation of Israeli 'apartheid' or his participation in dubious international conferences. Tutu is right, of course, about the Church and homosexuality, just as he was right about South Africa. But that doesn't mean he's infallible. In fact, he shares with Rowan Williams a naivety about global politics, and particularly about events in the Middle East, that seems endemic among Anglican prelates.
Meanwhile Fraser's fellow theological pugilist Theo Hobson leaps to Rowan Williams' defence in the row over the Church's attitude to homosexuality. Hobson is responding to the accusation of another archbishop - Desmond Tutu - that Anglicans are 'obsessed' with the issue of gay priests and that Williams has failed to demonstrate that God is 'welcoming'. According to Hobson:
when a liberal cleric attacks Rowan Williams, it is really the worst sort of hypocrisy. When Tutu became a priest, he pledged to uphold the church's teaching, and to respect the authority of the hierarchy. When it became apparent to him that official Anglican teaching was homophobic, he was free to resign. By remaining a priest, he actually became complicit in the homophobia. Instead of honestly confronting his guilt, Tutu wants a scapegoat.
This is strong stuff, especially given the status of semi-sainthood generally ascribed to Tutu. The BBC's trailers for the Radio 4 interview (broadcast last night) in which the South African churchman makes these criticisms have been reverential in the extreme - 'when he speaks, the world listens' kind of thing. No mention of Tutu's hamfisted condemnation of Israeli 'apartheid' or his participation in dubious international conferences. Tutu is right, of course, about the Church and homosexuality, just as he was right about South Africa. But that doesn't mean he's infallible. In fact, he shares with Rowan Williams a naivety about global politics, and particularly about events in the Middle East, that seems endemic among Anglican prelates.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Defend adult education: sign the petition
There's another excellent post on liberal adult education and the threats to its continuing existence from the Fat Man here. It's ironic that a political party that arguably owes its existence to the adult education movement of the late 19th and early 20th century has done so much to undermine it since coming to power. First there was the ending of support for 'non-vocational' adult classes, and now we have 'ELQ': the decision to remove public funding for the teaching of students studying for qualifications equivalent to, or lower than, qualifications for which they have previously received an award. This will restrict the opportunities available to mature students who wish to change direction, or make up for missed opportunities, and runs counter to the government's rhetoric about 'upskilling' and 'widening participation'.
The Guardian published a letter the other day, protesting against the move, from the great and the good in higher education. Here's a snippet:
Widespread unintended consequences are likely, particularly in relation to widening participation. Significant numbers of adults will discontinue their lifelong learning because they cannot afford it. Their withdrawal will make large tracts of university continuing education unviable - often in the very institutions criticised for not doing enough to widen participation.
You can sign the petition against the ELQ policy here.
The Guardian published a letter the other day, protesting against the move, from the great and the good in higher education. Here's a snippet:
Widespread unintended consequences are likely, particularly in relation to widening participation. Significant numbers of adults will discontinue their lifelong learning because they cannot afford it. Their withdrawal will make large tracts of university continuing education unviable - often in the very institutions criticised for not doing enough to widen participation.
You can sign the petition against the ELQ policy here.
Sunday, 25 November 2007
The Michael Foot of Anglicanism
We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control.
Who said that? John Pilger perhaps, or Seamus Milne? And what about this:
Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.
Sounds like Madeleine Bunting on a bad day.
In fact, both statements are from an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 'Muslim lifestyle' magazine, Emel, in which he contrasted America's foreign policy with the heyday of the British Empire:
It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.
It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.
Needless to say, the archbishop had little to say about America's role in liberating Kuwait from Saddam, protecting the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo, or rescuing Afghanistan from the repressive grip of the Taliban. Nor did he explain how these actions compared unfavourably with Britain's century-long occupation and exploitation of the Indian subcontinent.
The kindest explanation for these remarks is that Rowan Williams is a bookish theologian who has been thrust into a leadership role, in which academic evenhandedness comes across as weakness (witness the gay clergy affair) and an eagerness not to offend translates as political naivety. In other words, he is the Michael Foot of the Anglican church.
Less kindly, the archbishop's disillusionment with 'western modernity', combined with his expressed admiration in the interview for Muslim piety, and the fact that -as the Sunday Times comments tersely - he 'makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world' - can be seen as yet another example of liberal Christian fascination with (and unconscious envy of?) Islam.
Update
There's more on this from Bob here (thanks for the link), including an excellent demolition job on the Archbish's comparison between US and British 'empires' . He concludes:
The fact is, Williams is not alone. An insanity has gripped Western elite opinion, rendering it unable to see with any proportion, unable to make moral judgements. America, Israel and Blair are magnified into the worst possible monsters; all other crimes are relatavised away; all good things America does are literally invisible and unthinkable for these people.
Who said that? John Pilger perhaps, or Seamus Milne? And what about this:
Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.
Sounds like Madeleine Bunting on a bad day.
In fact, both statements are from an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 'Muslim lifestyle' magazine, Emel, in which he contrasted America's foreign policy with the heyday of the British Empire:
It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.
It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.
Needless to say, the archbishop had little to say about America's role in liberating Kuwait from Saddam, protecting the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo, or rescuing Afghanistan from the repressive grip of the Taliban. Nor did he explain how these actions compared unfavourably with Britain's century-long occupation and exploitation of the Indian subcontinent.
The kindest explanation for these remarks is that Rowan Williams is a bookish theologian who has been thrust into a leadership role, in which academic evenhandedness comes across as weakness (witness the gay clergy affair) and an eagerness not to offend translates as political naivety. In other words, he is the Michael Foot of the Anglican church.
Less kindly, the archbishop's disillusionment with 'western modernity', combined with his expressed admiration in the interview for Muslim piety, and the fact that -as the Sunday Times comments tersely - he 'makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world' - can be seen as yet another example of liberal Christian fascination with (and unconscious envy of?) Islam.
Update
There's more on this from Bob here (thanks for the link), including an excellent demolition job on the Archbish's comparison between US and British 'empires' . He concludes:
The fact is, Williams is not alone. An insanity has gripped Western elite opinion, rendering it unable to see with any proportion, unable to make moral judgements. America, Israel and Blair are magnified into the worst possible monsters; all other crimes are relatavised away; all good things America does are literally invisible and unthinkable for these people.
Two excellent music documentaries from BBC4
BBC4 has screened two excellent music documentaries in the past week or so. First we were treated to a retrospective exploration of the life and work of Ella Fitzgerald, to mark the 9oth anniversary of her birth. The programme was illuminating about Ella's early life - including new information about her early experiences as a street child and reform school inmate, before success in a singing competition dramatically changed her fortunes. There was some fascinating archive footage of Harlem in the 20s and 30s. As someone who came to jazz fairly late in life (brought up on a diet of rock and pop in the 60s and 70s), I've been slow to appreciate Fitzgerald's genius, initially preferring Billie Holliday's languid and tortured voice to Ella's more mellifluous sound, which can easily be mistaken for superficial smoothness. One of the contributors to the documentary claimed Ella had the best jazz voice ever, and on the evidence of the clips shown here, he may well be right. The programme sent me back to the recordings, and especially the great 'songbook' albums recorded with Norman Granz, with renewed enthusiasm.
Last Friday saw the first in a three-part series, Brasil, Brasil, tracing the history of the country's musical culture. The first instalment was good at demonstrating the mixed African and European roots of samba, and again there was some excellent archive material - this time of Rio and Sao Paulo in the early years of the last century. The programme took us up to the arrival of bossa nova in the early 1960s and included great clips of Jobim, Gilberto, Stan Getz et al. The series is shaping up to be as good as last year's South Bank documentary about current Brazilian star Seu Jorge. Can't wait for next week's instalment.
Last Friday saw the first in a three-part series, Brasil, Brasil, tracing the history of the country's musical culture. The first instalment was good at demonstrating the mixed African and European roots of samba, and again there was some excellent archive material - this time of Rio and Sao Paulo in the early years of the last century. The programme took us up to the arrival of bossa nova in the early 1960s and included great clips of Jobim, Gilberto, Stan Getz et al. The series is shaping up to be as good as last year's South Bank documentary about current Brazilian star Seu Jorge. Can't wait for next week's instalment.
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