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Manji
 Blogging from Ottawa, Canada
Saying NO to war, occupation, racism, secret trials, gov't/media lies
Irshad Manji: Israel/Islam/Diversity...huh?

September 19, 2004

By YayaCanada

Irshad Manji held forth at Carleton University this evening, under the sponsorship of the Jewish Students Association, a Gay/Lesbian group, the Persian Students Association, and the Carleton Ecumenical Chaplaincy.

It hadn't been advertised that there would be an admission fee of $7.00.  I said to the ticket seller that I was there to do a report for YayaCanada.com and did I really have to pay, and after a little discussion it was decided that the media could get in free.

Shows how easily convinced some people can be if you say things in a sufficiently authoritative manner.

The auditorium was jam packed, but I managed to get a wooden chair and squeeze myself into the furthermost corner behind the last row of seats, close to a woman who said she was there because her University of Ottawa religion prof had bribed the class to attend Manji's talk with the promise of extra credit.

"Manji's not a religion scholar," I said.  The woman just looked at me quizzically.

Manji, when asked outright, will admit she's not an Islam scholar, but she chants over and over that she "studied the Quran for 20 years", so it's not surprising some people imagine more than is really there.

Manji no doubt thumbed through the Quran and a few related books and articles in her spare time, but she did a ton of other things as well during those 20 years, much of which was plain old self-promotion, at which she is extremely skilled.

Manji doesn't like anybody telling her what to think.  Fair enough; neither do I.  So if she had been raised in Christianity, she would have felt exactly the same resentment, and caused exactly the same discomfort for her teachers.  I certainly did in Pentecostal Sunday School, and my daughter certainly did in a United Church youth group.

But had Manji written a book called "The Trouble with Christianity", it would never have garnered her the notoriety that her book about Islam has.  And that's because it wasn't Christians who were blamed for 9-11.

Manji's talk this evening was titled, "Islam/Israel/Diversity" which right off the bat revealed some strangely muddled thinking.  And in spite of her assurances, when the microphones at first gave trouble, that it would "only get better from here on in", it didn't.

Throughout she spoke of Islam and Israel, a religion and a country, as if they were comparable.  Israel has Diversity, she crowed, but Islam doesn't.  And so Islam needs a major overhaul, but Israel should be supported.

Besides, it's just one little country, and there are 22 Arab countries, so shouldn't it be allowed to exist?  "Shouldn't it?", she pleaded.

Well, first of all I don't know who of any consequence these days says that Israel shouldn't be allowed to exist, except for a few Ultra Orthodox North American Jews who believe they follow the true Torah message.  Pretty much the rest of us, who think at all, accept Israel as a given.  But should the occupation be allowed to exist?  That's a question Manji didn't venture near.

Instead she glowingly expounded on her visit to Israel, and how everybody there has freedom of speech, and how there is a "raging" freedom of the press.  And how surprised she was that the guy who interrogated her at the entry point was a Jew who had been born in India of all places.  What a shocker; she had thought that all Israelis were of white European descent.

What else does this self-described Islamic Messiah not know about the rest of the world she compares Islam to so unfavourably?

No, she didn't actually claim to be a Messiah, but "Why do I bring this burden on myself," she asks dramatically, arms moving outward as if about to be nailed to a cross.  "I'm a journalist known for opening windows and minds, and if I ruffle enough feathers so that people begin to ask questions, then my work is done."

By golly, she may just be the Messiah that the religion she calls "Israel", and some of the more extreme elements in Christianity have been waiting for as well.  Especially if she succeeds in re-creating Islam in her own image, so that it more closely resembles "Israel".

Israel, the magical land whose religion is Cultural Diversity.

Oh sure, Arab-Israeli citizens sometimes have a bad time of it, but they can always take their grievances to an independent judiciary and win, says Manji dismissively.  That's like saying North American abused gays or battered women can sue and win in court; which Manji, of all people, ought to know doesn't change the reality of their day to day existence one iota.

Manji says she also paid a little visit to Gaza, but she was pretty mum about that, except to tell the worn out tale that titillates so many western males.  You know, the one about how an Imam told her that the suicide bombers have the...you know...the sexy pleasures of heaven to reward them.

But in spite of her reticence about Gaza, it's clear that what Manji has going for her is the gift of  gab; she knows how to seduce an audience.  "Didn't you enjoy that," asked the woman in front of me, with eyes shining, when it was over.

Well, that's the important thing isn't it; that we're entertained, and if our anti-Arab sentiments are validated at the same time, so much the better.

But nobody appreciates Manji like Manji does.  She especially loves how wittily she handles abusive callers and emailers, and just had to show a film clip of the types of stupid things people say about homosexuality and how humourously she responds.  What all this had to do with Islam, I don't know, because a lot of the callers sounded like fundamentalist Christians to me.  Thing was, though, the audience found the detractors' statements funnier than Manji's responses.

They laughed at everything, no matter how crude or of obviously low intelligence.

They even laughed at the people who wrote and called to support Manji, saying things like, "If you don't like what Manji has to say, why don't you go back where you came from." and "Immigration needs to be more careful who they let into this country."

Nobody seemed at all shocked or embarrassed at the level of racism these comments revealed, least of all Manji, who grinned along with the crowd.

One of the callers, I have to admit, cracked me up when he said he didn't mind homos as long as they didn't wake him on a Saturday morning by knocking on his door.

Wow, how time flies when one is having a good time learning very little about Islam and still getting credit for it at Ottawa U.  All of a sudden it was time for questions.

"I understood everything right up until question time," I heard a young woman say on her way out. 

I can almost identify with that.

Manji wouldn't allow anybody to ask her a question until they each had answered hers, which was, "Do you support Diversity?"  Kind of a mom and apple pie question, don't you think?  Naturally, everybody assured her they did, and nobody thought to say, "It all depends on what you think Diversity is."

I couldn't get out from where I was sitting so I had to hope someone would ask Manji to explain how she had made the Islam/Israel connection.  And somebody, an articulate, thoughtful sounding person, did ask it - but they may as well not have, because it was right there that it became apparent that Manji was not only a smooth talker but also a fleet-footed dancer.

Maintaining a perfectly reasonable and confident demeanour, - the source of which she says is her "faith" -  she proceeded to trip the light fantastic, and then ended by saying, "Thank you, ma'am.  It's very complex.  We'll talk more about this later, outside."

Fred Astaire, move over.

She also knew what to do when a member of the audience said he had found the Sufi branch of Islam to be inspiring, and didn't she think it held some promise.  This bordered on pointing out that there actually was some Diversity in Islam - otherwise why would there be so many different sects - so Manji wasted no time in trashing Sufism.

She said she knows Sufis who are quite comfortable with the idea of killing, and warned in the direst tones her reasonable and confident manner would allow that Sufism is not immune to fundamentalist influence.

In the interests of full disclosure, which Manji doesn't seem to bother her head about, allow me to point out that no religion is immune from extremist influence.  Not a one.  Why, God recently told born again Christian George W. Bush to murder thousands of Iraqis.

I personally wouldn't be averse to getting rid of all religions, but since we've got them, why trash one over the other?  They all, equally, have the potential for good or evil.  It's people who do evil; not religions.  I just think religions are useless in finding the way to "God".

But maybe when Manji's finished overhauling Islam, she can do something about Christianity.  And you can't tell me that the religion "Cultural Diversity" aka "Israel" doesn't have a few holes that need mending also.

Manji did her best dancing when a young Muslim woman said that she had found great comfort in the clear guidelines provided for her in Islam, and that she had not found her teachers to be in any way offended by her questioning, and that she felt that Manji may be acting irresponsibly in her condemnation of all Islam, even though some of her questioning of interpretation might be valid.

Oops.  Manji had clearly told the crowd that young Muslim women worshipped and revered her, and wanted her book translated into Arabic so that all Muslims could learn from it.

Nothing to do now but somehow make it seem that she and this young woman were in total agreement.  "Thank you for raising this, " she cooed.  "I'm like you, and wouldn't have missed my religious training for the world."  And that's when she said that if she had ruffled a few feathers and got people thinking, then her work was done.  Talk about your non sequiturs.

The neat thing about lecture question periods is that the speakers can say any inane thing they want to without being seriously challenged, because the questioner can be easily cut off, and anyone foolish enough to persist will be removed. 

Which is much the same sort of setup that Manji complains exists in the teaching of Islam, but which she takes full advantage of, anyway, in her lectures.

Still, there was one other thing I would have asked if I could have gotten to the mike.

You see, Manji is always reminding people of the great sacrifices she is making for the good of Islam, and of how brave she is in spite of emailed threats on her life - which she automatically assumes come from Arabs.

So I would have told her about the threat I received this week after writing a criticism of her in response to a post in the Reporters Notebook online forum that contained an excerpt from one of her newsletters.

The exact words of the message I received were, "You are a tiny fragment...tic toc!"  It was sent by someone who represents "The Abe Foxman Army" - alluding of course to the Director of the ADL, Abe Foxman - and using the screen name "Kreplach", a tasty little Jewish dish, indeed.

No question it was a death threat - death by being bombed to smithereens, no less - but in spite of the name given I didn't automatically assume it came from a Jew - and it obviously hadn't come from a Muslim.  Instead I did a little investigating, and discovered a post that outed this guy as a white Aryan supremacist who clearly enjoys inciting racial hatred amongst those he hates best.

Sort of like watching ugly women mud wrestling, I guess.

I would have asked Manji if she'd be disappointed to find out she's not been threatened by Muslims after all.

Footnote:  I was able to find out later from the woman to whom Manji said, "We'll talk more about this later outside" that when she attempted to take her up on the offer, Manji was abruptly whisked away by her handlers for book signing.  And, of course, Manji knew full well that would happen.
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Reader Comments

From Stephen R.

December 19, 2004

Just a couple of commets. Why should where Manji's career started be a reason to offset claims of legitamate concern? Aren't good ideas and questions still valid even  if it comes from a person who started her career under the banner of Izzy Asper's private empire?

Second, to wit big ideas are not the domain of an exclusive list of 'legitimate' reform andI should think that the fact someone is asking questions despite threats of physical harm would offer its own  form of legitimacy. Why is asking questions dangerous? Simple; it threatens the base of power built by powerful people looking to keep a solid grip on what they have and want evermore of.

Critiscism of Manji not having the solutions to her questions seems strange to me. She did not claim to have all the answers but then tearing her logic apart with veiled alllusions to some kind of private 'shame' seem petty to me. Manji seems a reasonable and well taught person to debate serious issues with, so why not engage her on that level? Her logic tracks clean and is easy enough to follow even if you dont agree with her. To simply toss her off as less than a scholar is unworthy.

I do admire though that you present your arguments well and that at least you are thinking over what she has to say as opposed to relagating her to some category of dreamer and idealist whose views aren't valid simply because you and Ms Manji dont agree on every topic. That kind of open-minded dialogue is something that is sorely lacking these days. The major point though is that by asking questions she seems genuinely interested and curious as to what or where the possible answers may be. Why criticize her for not having the answers? To start people thinking about such matters seriously seems a very honorable position to fill and in any case I doubt that Ms Manji has stopped thinking over and refining her questions. Maybe shes developing very big ideas on where the answers may lie.

Happy holidays to you and yours.

Hi Stephen:

I'm posting your comments here because I have a feeling you haven't yet read my most recent piece about Manji (above).  I think it clearly demonstrates that Manji cannot be engaged.  She does not respond to emails - at least not to any that challenge her -  but will take small excerpts from an email and post it on her website and then let her fans rip the writer to pieces on the strength of an out of context statement.

If you were to see and hear Manji's dreamy-eyed descriptions of Israel that come off like travelogs for a desert paradise, you might not wonder what makes the Asper connection important.  A person's bio is always relevant to their current work.

Manji doesn't really ask questions; she does setups to make accusations against an already vulnerable group - kicking them when they're down, so to speak.  We didn't hear a word of this from her until 9-11 made Islam-bashing fashionable.  Naturally, when one is seeking fame and fortune, one must be careful not to be seen to be a member of a pariah group.

She touts herself a brave pioneer in Islamic reform - dramatizing the threats against her as if we don't all out here receive threats from time to time - without seeming to be aware that Islam already has a strong reform movement based on a much deeper knowledge of its theology than she will ever possess.  She imagines that Islam is inherently prone to fundamentalism while ignoring that Christian fundamentalism has been around for 100 years and is currently rampant in the United States, supporting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of God, and electing a mad man simply because he claims that God talks to him the way God talks to every sleazy TV evangelist on the tube. She complains the Koran is full of ugly things as if the Bible is not.

She talks as if Islam were the only religion that keeps women subordinate to men, while ignoring the fact that in my mother's lifetime women had to fight to be able to vote, and in my own lifetime have had to fight to remove the stigma of "working mother", fight to be able to leave their parents' home if they weren't married, fight to get free of hobbling clothing such as hats, gloves, long skirts with obligatory stockings and girdles - and still many women can't get a man to do "women's work" in the home.  In fact it's been so difficult for women to succeed in general that we now have the reactionary Real Women movement - women who have given up the battle against the restrictions perpetuated by Pauline Christianity and are now rationalizing their situation.

Sorry, but I don't think Manji's logical at all, nor is she particularly knowledgeable, and therefore in all honesty, she should not be encouraging people to think she is.  In fact, I think she thinks the world began the day she was born, and continues to revolve solely around her.  I also don't think a person can ignore the tenets of a religion and still pretend to be an adherent of that religion.

Thank you for writing.  I agree it's important to keep an open dialogue.  I sincerely hope your holiday is a pleasant one as well.

September 20, 2004

Thanks for forwarding your recent piece on Irshad Manji's lecture at Carleton University. I enjoyed it.

I have often worried that the Internet has a tendency to show us what we want to find; e.g. those of us who are distrustful of the state may Google for "9/11 and conspiracy" while those supportive of the state may try "9/11 and al qaeda". And so we are not exposed to alternative points of view as much as we could or should.

So I applaud you for attending and listening to Manji's speech even though you clearly have a disdain for her. This shows that you truly value free speech: you not only want to speak unpopular truths. You want to hear others speak as well.

" ...to have it said once, and once for it to be heard."  (I wish I knew the source for that. I heard it first from Lenny Bruce, but he was quoting some U.S. Supreme court decision on freedom of speech.)

Sorry to hear about your death threat. This is an area I know little about, thankfully.

Brian O.

YYC: Thanks so much for your comments, Brian.  Sure I want to hear what Manji has to say; but I didn't want to pay for it.  Haha.
I really enjoyed this piece Corinne it was great.  I was curious about that lecture, I wanted to go see it, but I didn’t want to feel that revulsion at the same time.  I’m glad you were able to sit through it.

That Manji is an interesting paradox.  At first I thought she was a genuinely being reflective, but with time after reading some of her comments it was quite clear to me that she was talking out of her ass.  Pardon my French.

May I however make one recommendation?  I would remove the comment in parentheses "(or framed) for 9-11.”  It detracts from the rest of the article and I think will take attention away from it.

Well that’s my recommendation, but I enjoyed it immensely.

George - Ottawa

YYC: Okay, just for you, George, I've taken it out.
Congratulations! A job well done. It must have been a painful exercise. I have long suspected that Irshad has a closed mind and have found listening to her tedious and frustrating.
Keep up the good work!

Leslie - Ottawa

YYC: Thanks Leslie.  I know you.  You're extremely intelligent and very knowledgeable about a lot of things, and I'm not surprised you can see so easily through Manji.
Excellent and entertaining.  I've sent it around.

Linda - Ottawa

Related:
ZMag/Podur: A Multifaceted Fraud - Reviewing Irshad Manji's 'The Trouble With Islam'
Manji, the 'Muslim Refusenik' who spent time in Israel, seems never to have heard of them.  Perhaps this is because these refuseniks, like their Soviet predecessors, suffer jail terms and state repression for their views, while Manji is profiting handsomely from hers.

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