Facing up to anti-Muslim sentiment among Sikhs

So to another Pickled Politics thread. I thought I'd entered a parallel universe when I read the comments on the latest piece by Jai, titled 'British Sikh and Hindu groups release joint statement condemning EDL.' Besides the self-explanatory bit, Jai also provided some context with reference to the Sikh BNP and EDL members and set up a spiritual death-match between Guramit Singh of the EDL and Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth guru of the Sikhs.

The first comment was by our dear Rumbold:

Jai:

While it is good that Hindu and Sikh organisations are condemning the EDL, as the EDL is trying to split Hindus and Sikhs from Muslims, a fair number of ‘mainstream’ Hindus and Sikhs are anti-Muslim; in my narrow circle I know three Hindu and Sikh girls who have been cut off by their families for dating/marrying Muslims. It would be nice to see these organisations attempt to tackle this bigotry too (which is, as you point out, against the teachings of the Gurus).

This is a perfectly fair point, and as someone who came to where I am now through witnessing the stunning bigotry of self-professed 'proper Sikhs,' I do agree wholeheartedly with it. I can't even fault the wording of it, really.

Which is where the parallel universe element came in, in comments in response to Rumbold. Firstly, Leon:

@ Rumbold,

I’m not sure why you’re raising this now, if I didn’t know you I’d say your comment looked like spite at best and at worst an attempt to spike the conversation.

There are issues within the Sikh and Hindu communities but there is also some very good work done within those communities as Jai has rightly shown here.

We need to support them when they’re doing right, and put pressure on them when they are doing wrong, but doing both at the same time just confuses the issue at hand, and sadly plays right into the hands of fascists and rightwing nut jobs like the EDL.

This comment left me aghast for a number of reasons. Earwicga endorsed it, saying 'What Leon said.' With admirable composure, Rumbold responded, touching upon a point I would go on to address:

Leon:

So groups release a statement condemning an Islamaphobic group. Good. I then wonder what they are going to do to challenge Islamaphobia in the wider Sikh and Hindu communities. That seems a reasonable point given the wider battle against anti-Muslim prejudice.

To return to the problems I had with Leon's post... I can fathom why he might have responded as he did (I'm not saying I'm right, merely speculating) - Rumbold being a white, middle-class man, could be seen to be effectively appropriating Sikh/Hindu/Asian concerns and voices. It seems almost as though Rumbold is being accused of concern trolling.

However, while Rumbold certainly cannot speak as a British Asian Sikh - neither can Leon, nor Earwicga. Leon is mixed-race and Earwicga is white. One way in which allies of minority communities - whether they're white, OR of another ethnic minority community - can fuck up is by enthusiastically shooting down people they perceive to be attacking a particular minority so that they, too, end up speaking 'for' that particular minority.

I am a British Asian Sikh - still in many ways culturally Sikh, if not religiously - and I am going to speak in that capacity, with full awareness that I do not represent every Sikh. I do, however, as a woman, represent a section of my particular minority group whose voices are barely tolerated, ignored, silenced and in many cases our opinions are just assumed. Being religion-free is even an advantage here, I would say, as it means I have no overriding interest in protecting 'the community'.

I've addressed the first point in Leon's comment - the defensive reaction to Rumbold's criticism, and I'll now address the second:

There are issues within the Sikh and Hindu communities but there is also some very good work done within those communities as Jai has rightly shown here.

This lazily trades on stereotypical assumptions that Pickled Politics itself started out trying hard to combat, with its fight against self-proclaimed 'community leaders'. There are no 'the Sikh and Hindu communities.' There are no closed, monolithic groups of Sikhs and Hindus as this statement implies. The reference to 'issues' is deliberately minimising - there are many 'issues' in Sikh and Hindu communities, just like there are in all communities, and reference to 'good work' is vague - so what? Christian missionary groups do 'good work' of various kinds - does this mean that they can't be criticised? I think not. A much more honest and accurate statement would have been to say:

There are issues with anti-Muslim sentiment within Sikh and Hindu communities but there is also some very good work done to combat it within those communities as Jai has rightly shown here.

The problem, of course, which both Rumbold and myself pointed out, is that actions do not necessarily equal words. As anti-racist activists and womanists know, it's easy to release a statement condemning the most extreme examples of bigoted behaviour in a community without addressing much more common casual bigotries. We are constantly told to take white people's condemnation of the BNP, KKK, etc. as proof that we are 'post-racial', for example, which is absolutely fucking laughable when you consider that there is an established, overwhelmingly white movement in the US to discredit the black President by claiming that he was not really born in America and is not therefore American and also that a bunch of middle-class white men on an inexplicably-popular BBC show recently made the most appalling comments about Mexicans - straight out of the Republican playbook - and got away with it in the name of 'humour.'

White people fall over themselves to defend racism (and other bigotries) on the grounds of 'humour,' 'irony', and sometimes evoke the current trendy dead horse, of 'privacy' as in this shockingly shit piece by Charlie Brooker. The fact that the people that they are belittling are equal human beings never seems to count as a serious point worthy of consideration, should make it clear that we are not, in fact, equal human beings. I have seen and heard members of my family make 'humorous' anti-Muslim comments, but on the whole, the anti-Muslim sentiment that I've seen in Hindus and Sikhs comes from deficient self-awareness, massive, massive ignorance about Indian history and the lack of a secular political discourse in India. I probably won't elaborate just now - I'll save it for another post - but these are things which need addressing quite urgently. Since organised religion is about the religious group, not just individual belief, the signatories to the statement need to make sure that they are actively working to combat anti-Muslim sentiment in their communities wherever possible, not just by (in the case of Sikhs) pointing out how important Muslims have been in aiding the Gurus in Sikh history, but by encouraging Sikhs and Muslims to interact socially and not treating religion as a zero-sum game. Just because the Abrahamic religions all have a tortured, competitive relationship with each other, does not mean that Sikhs need to play that game - can we not just set ourselves apart, in the way that Buddhists seem to have done?

On to Leon's final point, while left me utterly enraged. I've split it into two parts:

1) We need to support them when they’re doing right, and put pressure on them when they are doing wrong 2) but doing both at the same time just confuses the issue at hand, and sadly plays right into the hands of fascists and rightwing nut jobs like the EDL.

1) Who the fuck is this 'we', and who the fuck are 'them'? Just who speaks for who here? If, as I suspect, Leon's 'we' refers to the likes of Rumbold, Earwicga etc. - then I would say - good, you see that NONE of you has the right to frame this debate. It comes across as unbelievably patronising - somewhat reminiscent of cultural relativism. We don't really understand the Other, and we don't want to be seen to judge, so let's hold our noses and let 'them' self-regulate! I thought Sunny and PP's good work combating community leaders was supposed to expose how contentious all this 'we' and 'they' BS is. Do I not belong to 'they' because I am an atheist? Or because I am a woman? It's just that, the kind of people who have the official authority to issue these kinds of media-friendly statements, don't generally get to where they are by giving a shit about people like me. They generally try to discipline and/or disown me - I have had this happen with the Sikh commenters on PP as well as in 'real life.'

2) Reading this, you would think that the EDL have some kind of direct line to every media outlet, imminently on the verge of being voted into office/picked to present Desert Island Discs/hired to write for the Daily Mail. As Jai's post points out, these are people who are so thick that, despite having a non-Muslim of Indian descent in their ranks, they couldn't tell the difference between Muslims and Hindus:

The EDL’s previous claims to be opposed “only to militant Islam” are further thrown into question by the fact that, for example, in October 2010 they held a large demonstration in Leicester, a city where the majority of British Asians are actually Gujarati Hindus. Furthermore, the rally was held during Navratri, a major annual Hindu festival which is of particular importance to Gujarati Hindus and which occurs just a couple of weeks before Diwali itself. I expect an “anti-Islam” rally by the EDL outside the Hare Krishna temple in Watford is next; and yes, I’m obviously being sarcastic, but you get my point.

While the bigotry of such a group should never be underestimated, we British Asians should also not have to carry with us the perpetual fear that 'something might happen.' This is our country too and we have just as much right to it as fuckwit bigots - our parents and predecessors took on racists more shameless and violent than this, in a public climate vastly less favourable to them (I think it was mentioned in the Sanjeev Bhaskar episode of The House That Made Me that during the Southall anti-NF demo in which Blair Peach died, the police were protecting the racists - I wouldn't be surprised). Central to that is not just highlighting the odd PR moment of 'unity' and trying to educate people about religious history, but acknowledging that people do say these anti-Muslim things in our community and taking them on. Failing to do so simply encourages a 'business as usual' approach where people provide the odd utopian soundbite and then go back to segregated lives of fear, ignorance and communalism.

I have also come to have a major bee in my bonnet about this 'you can't do two things at once' bollocks. It reeks of culturally-relativist arguments, as I said above, laden as it is with the sense of giving cookies. Let me explain the feminist concept of 'giving cookies' (WARNING: no actual cookies involved):

A feminist cookie is the term for the reward some men seem to be seeking for saying or doing something feminist. (There are equivalents for, eg, white people and being anti-racist or straight people and being anti-homophobia.)

In short, when people ask for cookies, they are essentially seeking credit where it's not really due. It's like when my brother thinks he should be thanked for loading the dishwasher, when my mum has done it every day for over 20 years. Even when people/groups aren't or don't seem to be seeking cookies, that doesn't mean they should be given. This goes back to what I was saying about Leon's comment being patronising: why t-f should we give these prominent Sikhs and Hindus cookies for releasing a statement?! How many people in their congregations are going to actually read or process it? Furthermore, how does effectively saying 'Islamophobia is bad, it hurts us all, I despair of it' actually translate to standing with our Muslim brethren? If there are actually going to be efforts in place, from here, to increase understanding between people, then great. My parents and family know that anti-Muslim sentiment is bad, which is why they get so defensive when I contend that Muslims are people too - it doesn't stop them from making bigoted throwaway remarks and going on lengthy rants about how Muslims are 'taking over' which verge on BNP/EDL rhetoric.

As a result of the way I was raised, I had a lot of pre-conceptions about Muslims and apprehension about social contact with them. A co-worker and students at my university helped me to start dumping the dirt from my mind, and then I met ACTUAL MUSLIMS via another job and Pickled Politics and a former Islamist is now one of my best friends. I still have my issues with Islam, but I have TRIED to challenge what was presented as reality to me. That is the kind of thing we need if we want to make a difference.

Ironically, given the reference to 'divide and rule' in the statement itself, Leon employs that classic tactic against dissent when he says that:

doing both at the same time [praising and criticising Sikh and Hindu groups for their reaction towards anti-Muslim sentiment in their ranks] just confuses the issue at hand, and sadly plays right into the hands of fascists and rightwing nut jobs like the EDL.

As I said in my angry comment in the thread - this tactic was used against women during the nationalist movement. Indian men emotionally blackmailed women in the emergent women's movement, presenting them with a choice between rights for women and rights for the nation as if the two were incompatible with each other. The idea of women as a transcendent political grouping threatened the oppressive edifice that nationalism was built on - the bodies of women imprisoned within the home, Indian clothes and domesticity. Thus Gandhi could present himself as being on the side of the suffragettes, while he promoted deeply regressive ideas about women that reduced them to a male-created ideal of femininity even whilst fetishising this ideal. The result, as Geraldine Forbes points out, was 'the development of [...] 'feminist nationalism'' in which female activists and their energies were co-opted to the national cause - exactly as happened with British feminists during the First World War.

Furthermore, it is not the '70s and '80s any more. A lot of British Asians feel comfortably settled here now, and the urgency that drove them to overcome their prejudices and unite with people they are normally so dismissive of - blacks, Muslims, etc. - isn't pressing any longer. There is never a 'right time' for criticism, as the Egyptian protests show - you just have to seize your moment, and a moment when cookies are uncritically being given to organisations for being seen to be 'doing' something is just perfect for me. Shocking though it is, I think we are all adult enough to handle the idea of communities as being permanently complex and multi-faceted, not lurching between 'doing right' and 'doing wrong' and capable of doing only one or the other at once. Implying that questioning - not even criticising - the groundwork beneath a PR gesture, is somehow selling everyone out to the racists, is rather low.

I'll try and return soon to elaborate on the problem of anti-Muslim sentiment among British Asian Sikhs (and Hindus), and consider the misunderstandings that fuel it.

'Feminist betrayals'

I have new glasses. No, wait - New Glasses. This means everything looks all super and awesome and slightly higher than usual, and sometimes even 4-D.

Yeah, that's right. 4-D.

If anyone was worried by the last post - I will just reiterate that writing about suicidal thoughts is my standard way to free myself of them. To quote The Golden Notebook yet again - 'Literature is analysis after the event.' To blog my fears is to seal them in the syntax-coffin and push 'em off to a Viking burial of publication. They shrink to Roman characters and stop being fuzzy visions of potential futures in my head that might grow and grow until I find myself inside.

My dear oldest sister was fool enough to attempt undertaking the topic of my brother's general bumassery with my parents (specifically, my mother) this evening. Much as I care about her, it was a fool's errand. Firstly because it was SO not the time to pick a fight and secondly because, well, he's TWENTY YEARS OLD. It's a bit late to institute miracles of parental authority, especially when now more than ever, they're huffing about being old and selling up and moving somewhere in India (ha! Yeah right. Dad would end up getting BARBECUED) and how they just want to be left alone.

They were on top form, interpreting it as an attack on their parenting, attempting to obfuscate the heart of the matter by fixating on technical details ('Have we ever forced either of YOU out of bed?' etc.) and finally, my mother squawked, her natural rougeur heightened by sunburn, 'WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?' My dad echoed this earlier (less forcefully) and sort of wandered in and out being 'righteous' and basically accepting his role in the argument enthusiastically. I actually told my sister to give it up and told my mother not to drag me into it when she attempted to. I did, however, laugh cynically. Which was not necessary, I guess.

Earlier, my sister and I had a spin class. No, not the New Labour kind, but this fucking insane bike-astride form of exercise which kills about a thousand calories at a go or something and is SO not the thing to do if you have any sort of problems Down There. I neared weeping 20 minutes in, but somehow lived through to the thirtieth minute. My crotch was most unhappy, and I think I may have saddle burn. Good freaking God. The surreality of the experience was heightened by the fact that we were in a pitch-black room lit with electric blue here and there so that everyone was all teeth, eyes an' T-shirts. The speakers weren't working so the instructor basically turned down the (shit) music every now and again to yell incomprehensible instructions, which were then transmitted to me by the sororal teeth to my right. Just remembering it is making my crotch get mad at me.

Onward, to pastures less private-related! I was almost amused to see that the usual crock of shit about Western feminists not doing enough for Muslim women was doing the rounds. I went on to Heresy Corner to hit back, but guys - I'm pissed. Why the fuck do feminists keep taking flak for not 'saving' Muslim (or non-white) women all the time? Why is it exclusively our job? Given all the talk about liberating the women of Iraq, the American government doesn't seem to have bent over backwards to avoid a similar fate (i.e., things going backwards) in Afghanistan.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a little Red Mist moment, so to those who argue like the Heresiarch has, can I just say: um, fuck you? I could care less whether swearing is big or clever right now, I am really fed up of (often male) people who don't normally go out of their way to support women's rights or racial equality fucking telling women how to behave. The post on HC - 'Silence of the Fems' should REALLY have been thought out more, because - yes, rich white Western feminists (or a few renowned ones anyway) perhaps SHOULD highlight these things more.

However, there are plenty of us Western feminists who aren't white and we know better than anyone how hard it is to save ANYONE from a deeply patriarchal culture, let alone Muslim women. Also: do 'Muslim women' as a group have the monopoly on oppression? You'd think it judging by that post. Whereas a middle-class Indonesian woman is obviously NOT going to be as oppressed as an Indian hindu chamar (untouchable) female. Also, what about the oppression of poor migrant women (frequently non-Muslim) by Muslim women in the Middle East?

Obviously, things aren't as wonderfully simple as HC would like to make out. It mentions Geraldine Brooks's Cif article, launching an attack on the first few lines and missing the point spectacularly. The whole HC post pretty much boils down to 'But OMG! Western feminists didn't ADOPT AYAAN HIRSI ALI! How dare they? Traitors!'

Which is clearly utter cack. I'm sorry, where does it state that 'Hirsi Ali' and 'all Muslim women' are one and the same? Where is the proof that Western feminists rejected her and 'left' her to be bankrolled by neo-cons? Furthermore, why is it not society at large's responsibility to bankroll her (rather than just feminists') if Western liberal democracy is so loving and tolerant and all of those other things it claims to be? Shouldn't everyone be signing her up to advertise, or something?

I demonstrated the appalling lack of research to some extent, by linking to a recent F-Word post calling on suggestions from readers for how to help the women of Mali in my comment on the post. Check out this bit of pathetic emoting though:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose unforgivable crime is to be black, a woman, an immigrant AND a believer in the liberal principles of the Enlightenment

This coming from a blogger who was among those thinking that Henry Louis Gates might have been 'imagining' racism, and I quote:

That Henry Louis Gates should have interpreted Crowley's challenge as racist isn't surprising, though. Gates isn't just black (African-American, if you insist). He's a professional analyst of the black experience. And he has always been a politically-engaged scholar. He is, perhaps, primed to see racist behaviour where there is none.

That's right kids, he was one of those uppity negroes. Not like good old Ali, who has been playing the victim alongside neo-cons to HC's satisfaction! He made the mistake of showing the ugly racism, the Dark Side of liberal democracy.

To return to Geraldine Brooks though; her article grated with me at first, but once I had finished reading it, I was hard pressed to argue. I mean, what excellent advice:

I'm not saying here that a human right is what the local despot says it is. I find the kind of moral relativism that justifies practices such as female genital mutilation disgusting and fatuous. What I am recommending is a little humility. Western feminists with a genuine desire to raise the status of oppressed women in Afghanistan or elsewhere should call their nearest mosque and make an appointment to talk to the sisterhood there.

Sadly, such logical and non-patronising advice is wasted on the likes of Nick Cohen and the Heresiarch who clearly feel that feminists should simply be seen to be doing something. Do they have any fucking idea how patronising it is that they, white people with very little awareness of the day-to-day realities of growing up in another culture, are telling feminists with experience on the ground what to do? We should launch a feminist Iraq War mark II, should we? Geraldine Brooks actually provided a suggestion on what to do to get Muslim women engaged with Western feminism - precisely so that they can be 'saved' as the Heresiarch so patronisingly put it. I haven't seen that from any of the men sounding off.

I grew up in another culture, and guess what, wannabe neo-cons? Them darkies are not that different to you. People everywhere just want to belong, just want the safety of a group identity and freedom from individual angst. For people juggling more than one culture, it is really confusing. In the same way that you so-called liberals (because it's not authoritarian at ALL to scold feminists for not executing your will, oh no sirree) clutch your 'liberal secular democracy' and English breakfasts and beer at the pub (or whatever) like a comfort blanket - so too do they clutch their separate language, customs and religions like a comfort blanket. That doesn't mean that we should leave them to it if what they're doing is wrong - but I'm fucked if I can see how shouting in their faces about how they need to stop being medieval and telling them that their way is wrong is effective. You don't want to let go of your 'liberal values', why on earth should you expect them to want to get rid of theirs as if by magic?

Even if you believe it (and I must confess, it didn't take me too long to get sold on atheism and Western liberalism), people take a very long time to deprogramme. When they're not even of your country, and you throw in a shared inglorious history of colonialism and imperialism - well, you can expect a lot of shuffling away and a lot of failure. It's better to work like that renowned Western politicker Machiavelli - through discreet fanning of the flames of rebellion. These Muslim women that get tossed around and routinely consigned en masse to oppression - they too are people with agency. They need supporting and encouraging - not to be trampled on so that we can make way for Liberal Democracy 2.0 or whatever.

I mean ferChrissakes, I come from an educated middle-class Indian family who have lived in this country since well before I was born, and I'm a British national. I have tried the full-on approach with female relatives quite a few times and it was like they simply tuned me right out. Women living under oppressive regimes are very often so floored by the fear of taking the hard road and standing up for themselves that they simply concede. It is easier to surrender oneself to low expectations and run from reality. I myself had decided that I would rather die than follow my mother in becoming the sort of person that thinks a domestic violence-free marriage is 'successful.' There's the grey area around what exactly constitutes DV in our culture anyway - it seems to be an unspoken thing that if it's not frequent, then you shouldn't really leave. Thankfully, that's changing but it's taken at least 20 years to start changing! So... to reiterate what I was saying earlier - busybodies, kindly take a hike and get a reality check already.

Sex and slavery in the M.E

Or: A Bit More on Cultural/Moral Relativism... and why it sucks.

There is an extensive exposé of the awful abuse suffered by women leaving their countries to work abroad in places like the Middle East on the Grauniad website today. It is very sad (unsurprisingly), but it puts a lot into perspective and shows how urgently the world needs to take a more feminist/egalitarian approach to how we view each other.

For example, why is it that women are expected by default to go out and earn and support families which, in the case of eldest daughters, they're not even directly responsible for?

Why are mothers expected to abandon their kids and go abroad just to make money to survive? I am fully aware that this happens with men too, but I'm asking this Q specifically in response to the article.

It's almost like there's a penalty for motherhood. As if the women should pay - yes, you, you women, for carrying the children to term. This is, of course, present still in 'enlightened' Western culture, because women who may be 'child-bearing' are seen as less desirable, and are paid less than their male counterparts. Just the bloody NAME of a recent BBC doc on this issue sums it up neatly: 'The Trouble With Working Mothers.'

Note the subtle blame there. Why is the trouble 'with' working mothers? Why should they be stigmatised for struggling to balance kids and work? I thought that conception happened when a sperm FROM A MAN fertilised an egg in a woman. As in, y'know, the man and the woman made the child. TOGETHER.

Society condemns absent fathers, while encouraging conditions which prevent even those men who would like to spend more time with their children from doing so, in many cases.

Meanwhile, it emerges that women are very much complicit, and often even directly responsible, for much of the abuse suffered by Filipinas and other migrant workers in the Middle East. This doesn't surprise me at all. What it DOES do is show the need for a more feminist approach in society.

Morons tend to argue that feminism, by its very name, discriminates against men. I have neither the time nor the patience to comprehensively engage with the falsity of this assertion. For many women, it is feminism because it tends to have women at its heart. It begins with women in its quest to balance out the world. Naturally, the sort of privilege-greedy types who argue this will either want attention, or simply want to divert attention away from themselves, by claiming victim status.

Fuck the Oppression Olympics. Shriek all you want, your privilege is showing. Only someone in a higher societal position could respond like that, essentially saying 'Oh my God, it is so unfair that a movement exists, which challenges the existing social structures! Being a white male is so hard, I have to erm, like, drive my own car to work.' Er, riiiiiiiight. I get it. Being asked to listen to, and engage respectfully with, people who are not you is SO OMG HARD. It's so hard, in fact, that it's comparable to being pushed off a tall building for being in possession of a mobile phone while working far, far from home. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

To now return to the idea of cultural relativism; in my last post, I mentioned the wonderful sonia. At the last PP meet-up, she spoke to me a great deal about some of the dark moments within Islamic history, most notably sex slavery in the Caliphate. I am just going to quote this:

The British Empire and all the rest are rightly not allowed to forget their slavery days, and so it should be with the Islamic empire’s history. We need to be open with our past, basically, otherwise, all this ‘oh poor us, we don’t like your foreign policy’ doesn’t really hold any water. Because - the question is why? why are you objecting to imperialist foreign policy - on what basis? universal Human rights? Especially if you can’t condemn your own imperial past which made the same mistakes, its just as hypocritical as the politicians.

What a woman.

I mention sonia's point about sex slavery in particular, because the thing that crops up repeatedly in the article is that many migrant women were employed by other women - whose husbands then saw them as their property.

Rephrase. My wife employs you. However, I am a man, in a society where men are best, and not only are you female, you're not even Arab. You're worthless. Fuck you. In fact, that's EXACTLY what I'll do:

"Many women who come to the centre talk about how they are treated as sex objects by the Arab men... It starts off with simple groping, but in most cases ends up in full rape."

Gee. So, you used to have your kept wife at home, all delicate and veiled to show her superior social status, as someone who didn't have to work, whilst you had your slaves who were your property and thus at the mercy of your desires, sexual or otherwise. Now, you have your wife at home, who employs migrant workers to do the work for her, who are your property and thus at the mercy of your desires! Spot the difference...

These women are viewed not as workers, but as slaves. Slaves, to which the owner's husband has a right. The truth of what sonia says about needing to confront history is apparent here. The behaviour of the Arab world in the past has not only not been criticised, but is no doubt still lionised by many. Most noxiously, it has been able to continue, unchallenged. Men and women within the Middle East who mistreat these women obviously have no conception of feminism or human rights. Waiting for them to condemn such behaviour is obviously tantamount to waiting for hell to freeze over. Their ancestors did it! Ergo it must be right!

And there's nothing like the all-too-common nostalgia to obscure the truth. I fully agree with sonia, and am going to repeat what I said last post. The truth now, please. History laid bare.

The article also deals with women present here, in London, of course, and it's equally important that we remember how far from perfect this society is, too. I want to do SOMETHING with my life to help people like this. I'm not quite sure how, yet, but I will.

MAKE A DONATION, FOLKS!

http://www.kalayaan.org.uk/

Cultural Relativism: Fuck It.

As Raphael Saadiq once falsettoed urgently: People! Somebody's gotta tell the truth (ooh-ooh-ooh).

(Except it was more like 'Pih-pul!').

The lady-goddess that is sonia left some absolutely awesome comments on a Pickled Politics thread that radiated so much emotion to me, I almost developed a headache. Hoo boy, it was ugly.

Seriously, she was so sterling, I wanted to print off what she said and stick it up somewhere, to fill my brain full of good thinky-juice whenever I feel tired and slightly insane, like right now at almost 03.22 a.m. as I type, high off of menstruation and wearing a pyjama top over a dress.

Er... anyway. There is a hell of a lot of cultural relativism around these days, y'know. I have noticed it before, but I thought it was starting to become less fashionable, especially given the increasing awareness and condemnation of things like 'honour'-based violence, forced marriage et al. If nothing else, the work of the Forced Marriage Unit has brought about important and very useful changes in the law. It's REAL empowerment - now, if a person is perceived to be in danger, almost anyone can request a FMPO (Forced Marriage Protection Order). That means friends, teachers, lovers - some sort of involvement has to be demonstrated so that it's not just for busybodies to intervene, but it is a life-saving change.

Hence y'see, I was getting some bona fide hope. Thankfully, sonia reminded me that there is work to be done in combatting cultural relativism. She also reminded me, unintentionally, of something I've been vaguely aware of for some time now, yet unable to express.

Cultural relativism, as we generally understand it, 'is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture.' Thanks, Wikipedia! From what I can see, scrolling down a little, 'many anthropologists began to criticize the way moral relativism, in the guise of cultural relativism, is used to mask the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism.'

Stop press. STOP PRESS - we have the winning phrase: 'moral relativism, in the guise of cultural relativism.'

It is good to have an awareness of the place of a person within wider society, yes? Undoubtedly. As social animals, we live this way by default. A good alternative way to think of it is as context. It's the anthropologists' way of saying: 'Hold up, context. Everything happens for reasons.' This is both commendable and necessary.

What is dangerous, is when this attitude is grossly misunderstood and misappropriated by non-anthropologists. Then, as remarked, we have the wolf of moral relativism that lurks within, all too often. It is lazy, illogical and downright fucking dishonest.

I mean, come on. Let's square the logic of that: 'It is good to understand the importance of context... ergo, I am not going to judge something because it's not 'of my culture.'

What the fuck??!!

I am Asian. I am also British. Indian culture interests me greatly. Let me make a distinction here, which is a necessary one: I like Indian CULTURE. CULTURE, as in music, books, films. SOCIAL TRADITIONS are a different thing altogether. I feel that those can, and should change.

The lazy shorthand that is often used for 'social tradition,' is what...? That's right, you guessed it - 'culture.'

It's probably OK for anthropologists to use the word 'culture' more generally, because they understand it fully. They're aware of all its meanings and applications. We lazy modern plebs, however, are not. By describing a social tradition as 'culture' in this day and age, you are doing something very dangerous indeed. You are saying that it is a product of a society. That people of a particular society produce it, as they would literature, cinema or music.

Does anyone see the flaw in that logic? Timid people, afraid of putting a foot wrong, don't want to pass judgement on 'other cultures' out of fear of racism, accusations of neo-colonialism/imperialism/etc. Yet ironically enough, when you employ moral relativism, you are doing exactly that. You are playing God, you are effectively saying 'I have the power to make a difference here, but this appears to be a product of the people, this social tradition. They obviously want it, because it goes over there. Why should I intervene?'

I am very much aware of the need for collective individual responsibility in challenging modes of thought. However, that doesn't change the fact that we grow up, and enter into a world that is almost always made for us. The traditions of the society I inhabit are hardly a product of my beliefs; they pre-date me, and I choose whether or not I fit with them. So, my choice is already slightly restrained - I cannot make the world as I wish through wishing alone. Do you see the disingenuousness of 'culture-as-product-of-society'-constrained thinking?

This also betrays a deep ignorance and, you might even say, a sense of superiority. If you assume that culture reflects society, you are thinking democratically. You are thinking in terms of your world, where life for the most part reflects art. Where, for the most part, you can behave as you like. Whereas obviously other places aren't democracies. Saudi Arabia, to give a great example. When I say 'superiority,' I doubt that it applies to all people who have indulged in moral/cultural relativism. However, for some this is true... maybe, just maybe somewhere in them, they believe that things are 'like that' 'over there' because secretly, they deserve it. Being inferior.

You may pause to scoff, blowing your tea or whatever out through your nose with derision. I will only say that the depths to which irrational prejudice can submerge itself, would surprise anyone. After seeing 'religious' people frequently damn victims of natural disaster to their fate with the rejoinder that 'they must have done something in a previous life,' I am not discounting the superiority. Remember, if fear is present, superiority is very likely present too. You don't know what 'they' are like. What if 'they' are like you? What would that say about you? Why should you know about them anyway? It's about being the better person... but maybe you are the better person. That'll teach them to scare you with their weird differences!

The worst thing is when you see moral relativism employed towards ethnic groups who are of the same nationality. When people react uneasily to events occurring within their own country, and decide that they won't pass judgement because 'it's not my culture.'

I'm sorry? Since when did we start living in giant, fenced-off glass domes? If we share this country, we share this country. We're all responsible. It would be far more honest to take the apathetic angle, than the relativist angle: 'Frankly, I don't know about it/them enough to understand it/them, so I don't really care.' Relativism is often little more than a blend of cynicism and laziness. Yet it tries to claim some sort of moral high ground for itself, by wearing the clothes of cultural relativism? RUBBISH. Call time on it, now!

Personally, I think moral relativism is generally the defence of those who don't quite have the courage to admit their ignorance out loud. It is a ploy to make oneself look tolerant and liberal; what I really think lies behind it, in many cases, is fear of the mirror.

Because, as any fule kno, we do not live in a perfect, equal society. There is just as much suffering and injustice in 'enlightened' Western societies as there is elsewhere, and things like championing of 'human rights', tolerance and education often happen in spite of, not because of, the majority. If you're Jenny or Johnny Conformist, the sort who blithely laughs at a sexist joke here and there, or occasionally agrees with something 'un-PC' without thinking about it - you are compromised already. Your moral compass is reeling, and you know it. Though we are all, of course, compromised to some extent. You can criticise Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or whatever, but somebody will strike back at you before long. Then, you won't be able to win the argument. No more point-scoring. No more winning, because from then on you live on the knife-edge of sensitivity, always reflecting, always on jealous guard of your newly-discovered integrity.

Unless, of course, you're Paris Hilton.

This, I think, is why Daily Mail readers (and the BNP) hate Islam (and Muslims) so much. They're like kin under the skin in quite a few instances. Both disapprove of homosexuality, both are dubious about feminism (to say the least), both are uncomfortable about the visibility of sex and nostalgic for times past, both believe in the values of violence as a punishment as well as a deterrent... Naturally, this doesn't apply to all interpretations of Islam, or all Muslims. However, the enthusiastic Failite will view all Muslims as though they are derangedly conservative reactionaries, whilst fundie Muslims will view all Westerners as loose infidels. The Fail (and other outlets of the MSM) choose the ad-hominem line of attack for the most part, taking on Muslims rather than engaging critically with Islam itself. Fundies, equally, will disseminate angry rhetoric about over-sexualised society, baby-killers (the Luton protest, remember?) and the like. At the most extreme end, they blow themselves and others up. Attacking, yet again, the person (although in a direct physical sense) rather than the system or the institutions to which they ascribe so much of their anger.

Clearly, a very honest discussion of race, religion and history is long overdue in this country. In the meantime though, I will say this now: things like basic respect for women are not 'moral relativism.' A pox on anyone who tries to make out that they are. The rage over MPs' expenses has resurrected a notion of which I am dearly fond, and which had suddenly slipped peoples' minds previously. Public service.

Public service. What we want from our politicians. What we want the BBC to do. What our libel laws so often work against. There have always been lies on sale, but since Thatcher made it OK to be greedy, things are reaching a serious point. I don't hold Thatcher personally responsible for all that came after her; that would be ridiculous. It must be said though, that by legitimising the idea that everyone can - and should - pull themselves up by their bootstraps, she effectively endorsed a particularly ruthless and isolationist view of others.

Living and working in an area filled with people who originate from other countries - like me myself - I see how stupid and destructive that idea was. No-one's advocating a socialist utopia, but at the very least in a democracy, there must be engagement. Public service, right? The public broadcaster and the public servants should work to reflect the interests of the people?

It hasn't happened. Getting more black/brown faces on, what has it done, apart from give Fail readers more reason to complain? It is 2009 and we are facing an actual threat of increased BNP support here in Britain - in London - even though the National Front was supposed to have died in the '80s.

The truth must be told. History must be laid bare. The BBC can just bloody well dumb down some of it and/or work it into an episode of Eastenders. Put it in as a series of subliminal messages. Put it in the news. Suspend secondary school 'Citizenship' lessons - for at least once a week - and make the truth known. Drive down the fucking streets with a loudhailer and blare it into people's plate-glassed office cubicles.

A party that wants to deport me is looking to gain power. Its London Assembly member has been invited to the Queen's party. ON MY BIRTHDAY. You want me not to take this personally? Too late. I'm sick of the Oppression Olympics. I'm sick of the lies. I'm sick of hearing how other people actually have it worse because they're more thick-fucking-ignorant than me.

PUBLIC SERVICE. THOSE WHO CAN - TEACH.

Thanks to The Libertarian, I am now obsessed with a song about a dove. God, even the short clip of Sonam Kapoor with aforementioned dove is cute enough to make me want to cry.