I’ve started work on new pages for the library within which I work — I’m going to share my catalog — and for the vocabulary, a fair part of it newly minted, with which I work.
Among the latter such and out of the cycle of assumed victimization –> aggression –> fear possessed by the target –> expressed criticism (and warnings about the true aggressor) –> aggressor self-defense of image (by the time one hits the scrawls having to do with “anti-‘Islamophobia'”, the conversation has gotten quite convoluted) comes an effect characterized by the questions it generates: what is it (e.g. blowing up innocents in suicide bombings)? How big is it? Where is it coming from? What is its distribution? How dangerous is it? How potent? How does it work? In response to all of the above, I’ve coined a use for an old term that has some overtones for curtains that shine and mirage that appear and disappear on the horizon: “shimmer”.
From The Awesome Conversation (i.e., my chatyping online):
The term I use is “shimmer”. Whatever it is looms large with a 9/11 or Mumbai . . . or an Hamas or Hezbollah . . . but there are other facets that become more quietly apparent or speak to the “better angels of our nature.” Anti-Semitism is real, and the denial of it, along with Holocaust Denial and such, underscores it. Ours is a dynamic and fast moving world in which older events occupy their space in history (in 12th Century Hungary, for example, laws promulgated to discriminate against Jews, including with the wearing of arm patches, were once signed equally applied to Muslims) and past is not prologue. Comparing casualty numbers, especially historical ones but also ones coming out of asymmetrical war does not compare morals or values involved.
Those who are not Muslim — and those who are — must nonetheless deal with violence linked to or cloaked by Islamic motivations or Islamist interpretations of Islam, and such acts — IEDs, car bombs, suicide bombs, kidnappings, etc. — seem to go hardest on Muslim communities from Afghanistan to Somalia. In his speech yesterday, Bashar Al-Assad embraced Iran and pointed his finger at Al Qaeda, KSA, and the United States as the source of his woes, and yet he had his army, under the command of his brother, Maher, unleash its fury indiscriminately against whole neighborhood and noncombatants, and while AQ is in Syria today, so are numerous other bands.
The shared faith in God and in one another moves some forces toward the margins, but those forces, whether they loom large or small, smile with friendliness at one moment and plot murder in private in the next, seem to have a presence in the world.
“Shimmer” responds also to the magical: now you see it . . . and now you don’t.
Abu Sayyaf Group, Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, Afghan Taliban, Al-Gamaat, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Islam, Armed Islamic Group, Boko Haram (“Western education is forbidden”), Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Harakat ul-Mujahiden, Hezbollah, Imarat Kavkaz, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jemaah Islamiya, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In addition to the above-named terrorist groups, each of which has an acknowledged track record, there are other entities that would seem to have broad interests in governance and human services while maintaining a permissive to encouraging view of the imposition and implementation of sharia law — i.e., by their interpretation — by all means available.
Here is a clip by Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy pitching the center’s course “The Muslim Brotherhood in America”:
Organization by organization, name by name, readers in the United States have for interest a few organizations associated with and representing Islam that from the western perspective send up caution flags at least. This is not about choosing sides or preferring one set of critics to another but rather about gathering data enough — and data that can be tested for reliability — to form an accurate impression of states of affairs.
For independent look-up, one may suggest the following acronyms or nouns:
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Holy Land Foundation
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Muslim Brotherhood in America
Other continents and states host similar organizations and movements. Sometimes merely reading about them can be a bit arch. This quote comes by way of Wikipedia’s current (01/09/2013) entry on Jamaat-i-Islami:
The Jamaat’s objectives is establishment of a Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. The JI opposes Western Ideologies such as capitalism, socialism and secularism, and practices such as bank interest and liberalist social mores but party advocates democracy as integral part of Islamic political ideals.
One may hope with both capitalism and socialism ruled out that the material needs of humans within a civil society may still be addressed. Somehow.
In whatever strident dogma or ideology it may be couched, the denial of the humanity of humanity — the loss of concern for the fate of others, the licensing of cruelty — never ends well however autocrats and their throngs may swell themselves for a while in false pride and grandiose ambitions.
Be that as it may, this “thing” that doesn’t exist but has a way of informing and motivating terrorism and war at every level, and today every day somewhere and in some way, “shimmers” at the edge of the consciousness of the good.
No Muslim who may be judged as not Muslim enough by any self-appointed “Takfiri” is safe from it, and the unbeliever, the infidel, the Christian and the Jew and everyone else provides an ample sea for those who have adopted or constructed for themselves this way of swimming in blood and trying to hide it.
Islamic Humanist, Islamic Liberalism, a less political Islam (see, for example, the American Islamic Forum on Democracy) may not be a given takfiri’s idea of Islam, but such drifts may prove more an Islam for the world and with the world.
Reference
Council on Foreign Relations. “Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood”. Updated December 3, 2012.
Graham, Michael. “The Tragedy of Islam”. Machlokes Controversy, July 28, 2005: “The question isn’t how dare I call Islam a terrorist organization, but rather why more people do not.”
Mapping Militant Organizations
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.
National Counterterrorism Center.
Shariah: The Threat to America. Project within the Center for Security Policy.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism: “The Islamic Society of North America”.
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