No Flags, No Slogans
Sorting the intricacies of an impossible debate.
Is Palestine a “Muslim” issue? I regularly see some variation of the question these days—with predictably passionate, and sometimes acrimonious, responses.
In short: yes, it is.
Continue reading “Is Palestine a Muslim Issue?”Bad things happen when Palestine is treated as a symbolic geography rather than a site of material struggle.
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf was recently in the news again. Yusuf, born Mark Hanson in 1958, is probably the best-known Muslim leader in the USA. (I know the word “leader” is loaded, so substitute “cleric” or “theologian” or “scholar” or “imam” or “hype man” if you wish.) Controversy is an inevitable feature of that position, so a journey through the social media cycle isn’t unusual, but Yusuf exhibits a talent for empty provocation. A good controversy pushes people to rethink common assumptions; those provoked by Yusuf impose orthodoxy on audiences who crave daring and meaningful ideas.
Continue reading “Hamza Yusuf and the Religion of Palestine”Reactionary pundits are infuriating, but we should reserve much of our anger for the media that generate their fame.
A recent Intercept article about Mohamad Tawhidi, the so-called “imam of peace,” a rightwing, Zionist, Islamophobic Shia cleric (no, seriously), sheds light on his rapid emergence as a media darling:
Tawhidi’s public career began, as he recently told “intellectual dark web” star Dave Rubin, when he “was discovered” by a producer for a tabloid news show on Australia’s Channel 7. “I got a call from Channel 7,” Tawhidi told Rubin, “and apparently they Googled ‘imam,’ ‘Adelaide,’ ‘Muslim,’ just to get a comment.”
He speaks with pride where shame is appropriate:
Continue reading “It Ain’t Merit”“So they came in wanting a three-minute comment on a certain issue and I gave them a 30-minute talk about the Muslim community,” Tawhidi continued, “and the director gets in touch with me and [said], ‘We can do a lot with what you’re saying.’”
