‘Religion, Stereotyping and Mass mobilisation’

This is my reply in an email string in ‘Language in New Capitalism’ (LNC) email list on the topic of ‘religion, stereotyping and mass mobilisation’. It is a bit out of context but I still thought it might still be useful.

‘I see a methodological paradox here. It seems that on one hand some people here are “allowing” or even “encouraging” the “incorporation” or rather "exploitation" of religion (Islam) when this process is supposed to be used against "injustices” or “imperialism" e.g. in India Latin America, Palestinian struggles against Israel or the context of present Iran and Iraq (though with different conditions). While on the other hand, they are also infuriated by hegemonic negative representation of Muslims and stereotyping of Islam as an aggressive, violent, and evil religion in USA and the West.

In criticising the latter, I obviously agree with the arguments that, for example relate the roots of violence in Israel not necessarily to differences in religions or what some people would like to see as "inherent violent nature of Islam", but rather to social, political, economic or even racial practices in the region which results in widespread inequalities and injustices of different kinds.

While we all may believe that injustice and inequality must be fought against, such unification and mobilisation under Islam on the side of “oppressed people” - as useful as it may be in popular mobilisation- is bound to create a super- simplified black and white dichotomies in the world ; Islam vs. USA (West?), Muslims vs. Jews or even Islam against the rest of the world and on the other side of the conflict, the same processes create the same categories e.g. Muslims Vs. West, Muslims Vs. Christians, USA Vs. Muslims, “civilized world vs. Muslim world and a set of prejudiced myths which read in their opening sentence as; "All Muslims are/do..."

These super-simplified categories may come very handy when used in the times of struggle especially in more “mass” societies of ‘Muslim world’ rather than “civil” societies as popular appeals of the type fit in well in lack of intermediating civil society layers of power in mass societies where the arguments do not face any real challenge in public discourse. On the other side of the game, the same goal of simplification and stereotyping is pursued through a much more sophisticated strategic media practices as the societies on the other side of dichotomy happen to be more “modern” (philosophical notion) and more “discursive”.

Whatever the process, the outcome is stereotyping religions or geographical regions and such an outcome obviously does not do justice to many individuals and groups who may live in those "bad zones" on either side e.g. many pro-justice groups and activists in USA and Israel, or on the other side when for example, an "all-Muslims-are-terrorist" policy is adopted, it comes down as purely unfair for a person to be treated differently in an-lets say- American airport just because of his religion or the region he comes from! (an incident of the kind happened in J.F.K airport recently when 15 Iranian engineers and lecturers were repatriated and deterred from attending their scheduled conference while they all had valid American visas!!).

In essence I do not believe that we are ethically allowed to treat people in terms of extremely sided categories in whatever domain, neither do I believe that any religion or "national security" measure can justify the enforcement of such ready-made judgements.

I see a paradox when some people, though very correctly here, oppose strong unilateral stereotyping of Islam as "the' enemy" by “Western” media and along with many others call for an approach which emphasizes the socio-economic reasons in creating conflicts but at the same time when a vast mobilisation against West or USA takes place under Islam they can not help getting excited.

I have to play a nasty devil's advocate role here and ask if this basically means that exploitation (incorporation of!) Islam in stereotyping against, let's say- an 'oppression' is allowed while the 'oppressor' party is ethically bound not to do the same?

Is it not correct that using Islam in struggles will give the signal to the other party that they are also allowed (or forced to) assume that ‘the enemy is Islam’ and that they can do the same and employ the very convenient process of stereotyping the religion rather than the much more complicated task of exploring the real problems?

When super simplification of complex processes of the world on the Muslim side help establish a common ground for action; e.g. When it is promoted that the Muslims should be doing what they do in a struggles (be it a classic war like Iran/Iraq war -interestingly both sides there thought that they were killing the other group in the defence of Islam- or be it a suicide bombing) because of Islam and that this is a fight between Islam and the West (a general macro theme of propaganda in Iran after 1979 revolution especially during the 8 years of Iraq/Iran war), is it not rather explicitly indicating that the other side (USA, West, Non Muslim world?!) should/can do the same?

Forgive me if I am wrong but are we (you?) suggesting a double standard in approaches towards the role of religion (Islam) in current struggles of the world?