The Power of Popular Culture Chapter 8 Part # 1 Islam and American Culture The question that must be asked is: Why has American culture proven to be as receptive to Islam as it has in the 21st century? This is especially vexing since much of this has happened since 9/11. Common sense would suggest that an attack against America by Muslims, especially after a series of Muslim instigated attacks preceded 2001 -as far back as Lebanon in 1983 but including the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the Cole incident in 2000 that nearly destroyed a US warship- would be met with nothing but resolve to fight back. But that is not what happened. Or only partly happened. Social psychology is at work and it can sometimes defy ordinary logic. What is also happening is that, because of media bias that favors a Left-leaning worldview, the kind of information necessary for "average people" to make smart decisions is denied them. Instead, an ideological view of reality is promoted that distorts facts to make them conform to predetermined conclusions that operate independently of facts -or that only take facts into account only when necessary. Fear can distort thought processes also. I once studied the rise of Unitarianism in eastern Europe, mostly in the 17th century. This was an era when the Ottoman Empire was still a major power and Islam was still expanding in local areas in the Balkans. Transylvania stood directly in the path of Muslim armies. And Transylvania became a center of Unitarianism. The story is complicated by the rise, elsewhere in Europe, especially Holland, of what we would call a more 'orthodox' form of Unitarianism, but developments in Transylvania fit into the overall story. Fundamental to Unitarianism in all its manifestations is the view that Jesus was not God-on-Earth. By this theology, "God" can only be identified as a heavenly being in another realm. Jesus may have been a great prophet, may have unique importance in history, but he was not God-in-person. To understand the rise of this view in the Netherlands it makes the best sense to refer to the interests of merchants and to theological debates that followed from the Protestant Reformation; Unitarianism was one outcomes of a trajectory of thought that had increasingly 'democratized' Western religion. But this was hardly the course of events in the East. A different dynamic was in play, pervasive fear that Islam would come to dominate the region. Not that, as far as my research took me, it is possible to be sure, but the feeling was inescapable that the motivation for adopting Unitarian views in Transylvania was deep concern for one's life or safety if the Turks prevailed -which, decade after decade, seemed likely. And in Islam, while Jesus has special status in the Koran, God -Allah- is regarded as completely unitary; it is an absolutist form of monotheism that will not tolerate any other view. Which is to say that even though there was no mass conversion to Islam in Transylvania, there was mass conversion to the basic theological view within Islam. Hence eastern Unitarianism, while it lasted, -mostly it ebbed away and was essentially gone no later than about 1800- was created to accommodate Islam. As such it can be interpreted as a Christianized version of Islam, or an Islamic version of Christianity, again to speak of the form known in the Balkans and not the form known in Holland and later in Britain. Fear, or at least awe, seems to have also contributed to the rise of several Native American religions, starting with the Longhouse religion of Handsome Lake of the Seneca. Elements of the same kind of thing can be seen in the religious revival that swept through what became Ohio and Indiana, in the years prior to the War of 1812. This revival eventually resulted in the rise of Tecumseh. That it was semi-Christian seems to be indicated by the fact that, while native fervor was intense and probably explains most of what happened, a number of Moravian missionaries in the area were swept along in the excitement and joined the Indian religion -which they hardly would have done if there was not significant Christian influence within it, that influence the result of a need to adjust to Euro-American advances in force. In other words, it is advisable to look to social dynamics to understand American reactions to 9/11. Many of our fellow citizens did become adversaries of Islam from that day forward, but what is of concern here is why many others did not. Indeed, among black people there was a mini-revival in favor of Islam in that time period. This parallels something similar from the WWII era when, for a minority of black Americans, the Japanese, as people of color, were seen as possible saviors of "the Negro" from "white oppression." Despite the fact that the Japanese had bombed Pearl harbor and fomented US entry into the Second World War. What occurs in such cases can be thought of as the social equivalent of the Stockholm syndrome. This is in reference to women who become captives and, anon, start to identify with their captor -no matter how unsavory he may be, nor how much of a criminal. It is a survival mechanism. Overt and sustained antagonism, women realize, would very likely provoke retaliation, punishment, or even death. By becoming someone's accomplice a woman, in effect, buys a life insurance policy. The best known example is that of Patty Hearst, kidnapped and raped by the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army, a group of violent Marxists. After some time, weeks, Patricia in effect joined the cabal and took part in their criminal activities.
The point is survival. Compared to most men, women are at a disadvantage and are unable to defend themselves adequately. Although the Stockholm Syndrome is not universal some percentage of women are susceptible and become de facto accomplices of their abductors. They help a man and he allows them to survive. In some cases emotional bonds may even develop, presumably on the grounds that it is good policy to make the best of a bad situation. But the ultimate motivator is fear. We can see something very similar with respect to social groups, especially people at some perceived disadvantage. That is, there is a tendency under duress to identify with an aggressor through collaboration. Once more the situation is complicated; some collaborators make a mental reservati on, viz, "at the first good opportunity I am getting out of this fix and making a break." But in other cases a collaborator sees benefit from co-operation with an enemy and joins his cause -as much as that may be possible. In these cases a form of social Stockholm syndrome takes over. We can call this the social version the Terror Reaction Syndrome. It operates on the basis of fear and upon knowledge that you do not have sufficient force to adequately defend yourself. In the aftermath of 9/11 its greatest effect was upon white Americans, not black people, specifically upon white people with "liberal" values. To understand how this operates in a society, let us consider a principle of battle that every good general has known since the time of Sun Tzu: It is wisdom to give your enemy a line of retreat. Why? Because in actual battle, if an enemy needs to retreat, he will seek out genuine weaknesses in your army's lines and exploit them as much as possible and to your disadvantage. Much better, in applying pressure, to open a gateway of your choosing to allow an enemy to flee through. Because your soldiers can then prepare an ambush and can position archers (in modern terms, artillery) to cause maximum havoc and possibly annihilate the enemy force. In so many words, Popular Culture "prepares the ground" for such time as when a crisis occurs and some kind of social retreat is necessary. Of course this metaphor should not be taken literally. "Retreat" may simply mean, "hey, what just hit us? Let's think about our options." And there was a good deal of exactly that after 9/11. However, for others, probably millions of people to at least some degree, the attack was perpetrated by a dangerous and potentially superior force. Since this is to discuss a world religion with in excess of a billion believers, and since, for many people, Christianity is defunct and not worth a second thought, the scepter of Islam seemed too powerful to resist. For these people a calculus may have been part of the equation: "Islam is the future, better to accommodate ourselves to it than to wait to be dictated to by Muslims from another country." But the story is not nearly so simple as that. The question is why retreat toward Islam rather than in another direction? Why not make common cause with some other ideological or national force? The answer can be found in the way that Popular Culture was established in the early 2000s to facilitate some social options but not others. That is, some lines of retreat were open and others were not, or only open if one paid an extreme price. Which some people cannot contemplate doing because of how committed they are to their comforts or status. And haven't we all known people like that? People whose real life creed goes something like "me-me-me, me first and always." For others the future looks very different..... For them the question is "what makes the best sense in any kind of long run?" If there is a price to pay and it isn't totally unreasonable they are willing to bear the cost. But what is "reasonable"? That's where popular culture comes in. What was it about Popular Culture in America that made Islam a thinkable alternative? The fact is that Islam had been making inroads into our culture for many years before 2001. With the decline in appeal of "hard core" Christianity among so-called 'liberals' with spiritual interests, members of the United Church of Christ, numbers of Unitarians, the disaffected among other denominations including the Disciples of Christ, and maybe latter-day New Agers, here was Islam, a "religion of the oppressed," which, by then, was widely established in various parts of the United States. And at least the Sufi version of Islam could be seen as entirely positive, no problems with antiquated customs or obsolete beliefs. And there was all that beautiful poetry, especially Rumi but also including (even if the identification is somewhat dubious) Omar Khayyam and his Rubiyyat, one of the most well known poems -in the Fitzgerald translation- in the English language. It also compares with Ecclesiastes in the Bible in many ways. The Sufi Question About the question of Sufism some background might be helpful. After all, some people have the opinion that Sufism, which usually is peaceful and tolerant, could become an alternative for multitudes to normative Islam. The view that Sufism might some day replace hard-line Salafi Islam, or that it might become dominant in areas now under influence of the Wahhabis is worth considering. However, the counter argument, that the Sufis have had approximately 1400 years to make their point and have failed is valid enough; indeed, it may be irrefutable, but things are more complex than that. In point of fact there have been attempts to resuscitate Sufism so that it might become the nucleus for a "new Islam" -throughout the history of the Mid East, India, and much more recently in the West itself. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, for instance, when the New Age discovered Sufism and its leading thinkers like Rumi, the concept of a Sufi revival seemed plausible. The big name of that era was Idris Shah, who is still widely read, but he also was sometimes dishonest, not above misrepresentation to gain wealth and followers, but he at least was someone around whom many people sympathetic with "peaceful Islam" could rally. He did have a number of redeeming qualities like a perceptive mind and an imagination that could inspire others. In our time the "big name" with respect to some version of Sufi revivalism is Zuhdi Jasser, who talks with anyone who will listen about his vision of a renewed and Sufi led version of Islam. Or is Jasser isn't really a Sufi he is close enough that a good many people make the identification. Indeed, Jasser is sort of the darling of the humanist element of the media and has appeared on a number of television shows. About Jasser, however, see the May 12, 2013 edition of The Geller Report (then still known as Atlas Shrugs) in which Geller shreds modern Sufism as not much better than standard issue Sunni Islam in terms of actual behavior in the world. About this, skepticism is in order, and in cases one could argue against Geller's view, but there has been major disillusionment with Sufis in India, which was anything but always true, because of recent historical studies that tell us about Sufi complicity in Mughal and other Muslim atrocities against Hindus, but maybe that can be set aside here. In any case, it is safe enough to say that Jasser has gotten almost nowhere and Idris Shah's day-in-the-Sun came and went. In short, while Sufi poetry has gained a devoted following and continues to have cultural influence, otherwise there is hardly any traction. Basically no Muslims are "buying it." If someone was to "put a number on it," the Sufi percentage among all Muslims in the West is no better than maybe 5 or 7%. Possibly higher in scattered locations but in others it is effectively zero. It also is important to keep in mind that there are a number of different kinds of Sufis. Some in Egypt, probably a majority of Sufis there, are little different than dedicated militant Salafis, which also seems true in the Caucasus. Those in Turkiye can be are mystics and were well known at one time for their spiritual dances, hence the popular idiom, "whiling dervishes." Those in India have (still have even while this is declining) the best reputation for peacefulness and an ecumenical spirit, but outside of India one seldom hears of them. Best known in the West have been Sufis of Iraqi and Iranian background. Indeed, one such group morphed into the Baha'i Faith in the 19th century. This is one interpretation although other Sufi sects were very much part of the picture, most notably the Sulaymaniyyah and the Naqshbandiyyah orders. However it is reasonable to say that the Qádiriyyah Order, aka Qadiri, Kadray or Qadri, was most important in this connection. These groups were known for their mysticism as well as (for anywhere in the Mid East) their open-mindedness. Not always, but sometimes, such Sufi groups were opposed to violence or any form of coercion. In the 1970s a number of Sufi leaders mostly of Iraqi or Iranian background headed West, including the Qádiriyyah Order, where they proselytized for their faith and won converts. Several became established in the United States although their exact status is unclear at this time. Some are in the news when the media wants to cover alternative views of Islam, and leaders of these groups may openly disagree with the Salafists, the militants, despite the dangers this exposes them to. These Sufi groups are also the most "modernized" or Americanized of any Muslims. Indeed, if I understand this correctly, the Qádiriyyah are almost an independent religion since each Qadiri center has freedom to adopt and adapt its teachings according to its own needs and insights. There is one other factor or consequence which may explain why Sufism has had no more than limited success. Exactly what is Sufism? One plausible view is that it began as an attempt to preserve something of indigenous religions of the Mid East in the era when Islam was sweeping all before it. Hence some Sufi groups today are de facto Zoroastrian survivals, others, much more numerous, are de facto Christian or Hindu survivals. There is even one in the Caucasus that is Mithraist under the surface. For me this is all for the good, or mostly all for the good, and my interpretation isn't far from a standard Sunni interpretation. But the Sunnis definitely do not put a good spin on it. This means that Sufis are under a cloud as no better than semi-Muslims, hence nearly heretics. To the extent this is true, how far is it possible for Sufism to go? Not very far -unless Muslim orthodoxy collapses. Of course, if that happens, the door would also be wide open to mass conversion to Christianity, or Buddhism, or almost anything else including a revival of Zoroastrianism. Indeed, some reports suggest that an "underground" version of Zoroastrianism has survived into modern times in parts of Central Asia and among local populations of Kurds. It has existed all these years in the form of family traditions and folk customs, it has been diluted in the course of time, but starting some time around 2000 it has begun to come out of the shadows. Some estimates of the numbers involved have it that this is to discuss a million or even two million secret Zoroastrians although no-one can be certain about the actual totals. For the story on Kurdistan see Alaa Latiff's article in the Daily Beast for May 31, 2015, " Fed Up With Islam and Sectarianism, Some Iraqis Embrace Zoroastrianism." The point being that the concept that at least a few Sufi groups are semi-Zoroastrian is not fanciful. The point is also that Sufism has chameleon-like characteristics. There is no such thing as a Sufi 'orthodoxy.' Most Sufis definitely are Muslim but the nature of Islam as they understand it can be almost anything, hence some Sufi groups who are as militant as Muslims ever get. But, generally, this is to discuss a heterodox version of Muhammad's religion. Sufi influence is also widespread, in large part because many Sufis seek to be inclusive. Which has been true in the Mid East as well as in the West. As such, Sufis often are associated with new religions as various groups were with respect to early Baha'i-ism. A good number were also involved in New Age religions in the 1960s. And Sufis were very much a part of things during the rise of Subud in Indonesia early in the 20th century and extending into the 1970s. In America, Sufis took part in the rise of Theosophy as well as the Baha'i Faith. To be sure, Theosophy has become a footnote to religious history now, but in the early years of the 20th century it was fairly important. See page 51 in the Summer / Autumn edition of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Dan McKanan's article, "The Dialogue of Socialism," tells us that no less than Madame Blavatsky (author of Isis Unveiled, among other Spiritualist best sellers) worked with American socialists of the era toward the goal of a religious rebirth in the United States, which was also the objective of the Left. Then. Obviously not now. But at the time Socialism was a species of religious reform mostly based on Christian principles, but open to other faiths. From this same era, with similar values, came the Fellowship Of Reconciliation, still very much with us. Now gone were such organizations as the Federal Council of Churches, connected to the Social Gospel movement, and the Baptist Brotherhood of the Kingdom, and other such groups. There was also a newspaper called the Christian Socialist which proclaimed that "Socialism is not a religion, it is religion" [emphasis added]. So much for the Jonah Goldberg thesis, in other words, with its completely secular interpretation of early Leftism in America. Until the WWI era Socialism in the United States was mostly a matter of religious activism. It is necessary to make this clear in order to understand just how important the early 20th century Theosophists really were. Remember that Eugene Debs won over a million votes in 1912, better than 5% of all ballots cast that year. By then Marxism was definitely on the rise on the Left but its base remained religious for another decade and more; Norman Thomas, who became the leader of the Socialist Party was, in fact, an ordained Presbyterian minister. It was a different world that cannot be understood if you use secular and /or Atheist categories of thought. It was through the Left, or mostly through the Left, that Theosophy became popular as did, at similar scale, various Sufis and the Baha'i Faith. The leader of the Baha'i cause, Abdul Baha, during his tour of the United States in 1912, spoke several times at Theosophical events, most notably in Evanston, Illinois. Which meant that Sufi voices were also being heard. We should not overlook the World's Parliament of Religions at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the fairgrounds lit by something new, electric lights. That conclave was to have long-lasting effects on its own. But most of new American interest in non-Christian religions was, so to speak, "channeled" through the Left -hence the Democratic Party. A good indication of this was the popularity of a book by Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet. Originally published in 1923, it sold in the tens of thousands annually for a while, then "took off." By 1957 it had reached the 1 million sales mark; as of 2012, the tally was 12 million and growing. The story is based on the life of the founder of the Baha'i Faith, a Persian sage named Baha'u'llah, but is filled with Christian and Sufi ideas and values. Through popular literature, in other words, something of Islam was entering Popular Culture and gaining traction. This preceded the 1950s boom of interest in Buddhism by at least three decades. What should also be remarked on was the rise of interest in Islam, per se, among black people in the 1930s. And this was not Sufi, or only occasionally had Sufi inspiration. The Rise of Black Islam The best date for the beginning of this development is actually 1913. In that year Noble Drew Ali organized the first Moorish Science Temple -in New Jersey. The idea was that African Americans, then known as "Negroes," supposedly were descendents of the Moors of North Africa. Exactly how this concept was arrived at is unclear, and it happens to be historically false, but it appealed to some people at the time and gradually took root. The New Jersey beginning was pretty much a non-starter but then Noble Drew relocated to Chicago and found fertile ground for his new religion. He also found fertility as more commonly understood and in due course had a harem of several wives along with his burgeoning faith. In 1928 Moorish Science opened its first actual temple and gained high visibility. The new religion had its own version of the Koran, totally unlike Muhammad's rendition from Arabia, based on a synthesis of several faiths, which also taught a doctrine of love and brotherhood -with the object of uplifting the black race and giving its people pride they had not had before. All of this arranged around Drew Ali's understanding (misunderstanding) of Islam. It had the desired effect and converts streamed in. Chicago was on the way to becoming, as a prophecy of Noble drew said, "a second _Mecca_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca) ." However there was an undesired development as some members saw Moorish Science as a way to gain personal power and privileges, and maybe money as a side benefit. There were also theological disputes and rival views about race. By 1929 several schisms were in progress and one of the leading schismatics was murdered, a crime unsolved to this day. Drew Ali had no part in this event but it was used by the police, under pressure to do something about the rise of Moorish Science, to arrest the prophet. Exactly what happened while Drew Ali was in detention is also unknown but not long afterward he died and some followers suspected foul play. The official cause of death, though, was listed, as the Wikipedia article on Moorish Science says, as "_tuberculosis_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis) broncho-_pneumonia_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonia) ". Noble Drew Ali was 43 years old. The new religion continued to expand but leaders of breakaway factions now began to erode its reputation and one sectarian in particular was to rise to prominence of his won, namely _Wallace Fard Muhammad_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad) . He did not do so in Chicago but in Detroit, where he organized the Nation of Islam based on reverse racist principles. By this time, the early 1930s, he became known as Elijah Muhammad. NOI denies any connection to Moorish Science but Fard Muhammad is on record as a member who had taken the cult name, David Ford El. All of which provides still more evidence that some level of understanding of Islam was growing in America among each major population group. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
