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The
Trouble with Islam:
A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change
By
Irshad Manji
Published
by Random House Canada
"My
fellow Muslims,
I have to be honest with you. Islam is on very thin ice with me. Through
our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, Muslims are
conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis and we're dragging the
rest of the world with us."
So
begins The Trouble with Islam, journalist Irshad Manji's passionate
plea for religious reform. In blunt, provocative and deeply personal
terms, Manji peers beneath the disturbing cornerstones of mainstream
Islam today.
"In this letter, I'm asking questions from
which we can no longer hide: Why are we all being held hostage by
what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? What's
with the stubborn streak of anti-Semitism in Islam? Who's the real
colonizer of Muslims – America or Arabia? Why are we squandering
the talents of women, fully half of God's creation? And what's our
excuse for taking the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and
ambiguous?"
While investigating these questions, Manji traverses the fascinating
history of Islam in both the East and West. She reveals the "Jew-bashing"and
"conspiracy-mongering"she experienced at her madressa just
outside of Vancouver in the 1970s –attitudes that persist, she
shows, among many Muslim Canadians to this day. Manji explores the
Golden Age of Islamic scholarship and wonders, "ìWhen
did we stop thinking?" Not only does she dig up the answers;
along the way, she explodes the myths that Europe, Israel and America
are to blame for Muslim misery.
Above all, Manji introduces us to the concept of "ijtihad"(ij-tee-had),
Islam's lost tradition of independent thinking. She offers a practical
vision of how Islam can undergo a reformation that empowers women,
promotes respect for religious minorities and fosters a competition
of ideas. Her non-military plan of action is called Operation Ijtihad,
and it can work now where Islam;s independent thinking ended a thousand
years ago ñ in Iraq.
"But," Manji says, "the West is where the – Islamic
reformation can start immediately because it's here that we Muslims
already enjoy precious freedoms to think, express, and dissent –
all without fear of state reprisal. Are we leveraging those freedoms?
And are non-Muslims challenging us to do so?"
Salim Mansur, professor of political science at the University of
Western Ontario, applauds "the freshness of Irshad Manji's perspective.
She exudes the joy of a young Muslim woman liberated of all cant and
willing to encounter God on her own terms, as it should and must be.
What courage."
Says Manji, "I love my faith enough to risk a lot in healing
it. And I love the West enough to give it my best shot at reforming
Islam. Of course, some will claim that I am the trouble with Islam.
Let the debate begin!"It has already begun on the book's companion
website, www.muslim-refusenik.com
.
In this incredibly informative, thoroughly researched, yet playfully
conversational book, Irshad Manji dares Muslims worldwide to take
responsibility for their role in what ails Islam. She also dares non-Muslims
to ask the important questions without worrying about being deemed
"racists." In more ways the one, The Trouble With Islam
is a clarion call for a fatwa-free future.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Irshad Manji is an acclaimed broadcaster, author, public speaker and
media entrepreneur. She produced and hosted Citytv's Gemini Award-winning
QueerTelevision, and is currently host of TVO's Big Ideas. She is
also writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto's Hart House.
This
website: Copyright © 2004 Dream
World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved.
The opinions expressed in Urban Mozaik Magazine are not necessarily
those of Urban Mozaik Magazine and the publisher cannot be held responsible
for them. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be
reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
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World
On Fire
How
Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Violence and Global Instability
By Amy
Chua
Published
by Doubleday
In
the pathbreaking tradition of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,
The End of History, and The Clash of Civilizations, Yale Law School
professor Amy Chua's WORLD ON FIRE: How Exporting Free Market Democracy
Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability powerfully illuminates the
shortcomings and pitfalls of the wholesale export of unconstrained democracy
and capitalism.
In
light of September 11, Chua's perceptive look at ethnic hatred's role
in global instability could not have come at a better time. The
anti-globalization movement fails to see the whole picture - viewing
wealth and poverty only in terms of class conflict, not race conflict.
And, much to the chagrin of globalization enthusiasts, exporting free
markets and democracy has not increased peace and prosperity throughout
the developing world. Chua explains that just the opposite has happened
- when global markets open, ethnic conflict worsens and politics turn
ugly and violent.
Starting with a very personal story of her aunt’s death at the
hands of her Filipino chauffeur and drawing on examples from around
the world - from Indonesia to Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe to Venezuela, Russia
to the Middle East - Chua shows that free market democracy produces
highly unstable and combustible conditions. Markets concentrate enormous
wealth in the hands of an “outsider” minority, fomenting ethnic
envy and hatred among often chronically poor majorities. Leaders like
Boliviaís El Mallku, Venezuelaís Hugo Chavez, or Mexicoís
Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos are using ethnic identity to mobilize
the great numbers of poor, frustrated, long degraded, dark-skinned masses.
While the world celebrated the global spread of democracy in the 1990s,
ethnicized political slogans proliferated: “Georgia for the Georgians,”
“Kenya for Kenyans,” “Serbia for Serbs,” “Hutu
Power,” “Jews Out of Russia.” Chua explains the role
of ethnic resentment in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the rising tide
of anti-American sentiment around the world. America has become the
world’s leading market-dominant minority, enjoying wealth and economic
power widely disproportionate to our numbers. This, perhaps more than
anything else, accounts for the visceral hatred of Americans that we
have seen expressed in recent acts of terrorism.
Chua’s bold, groundbreaking look at the far-reaching effects -
and the devastating, potentially catastrophic results - of exporting
unrestrained capitalism with democracy is sure to spark a firestorm
of debate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School. A graduate of Harvard College
and Harvard Law School, she lectures frequently on the effects of globalization
to government, business, and academic groups around the world. She lives
in New Haven, Connecticut.
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