With perfect comic timing, Newsweek published its current cover-story, Muslim Rage, just when, in the northern Iranian city of Shahmirzad, a cleric got the beating of his life from a woman who was unimpressed by his repeated demands to cover herself modestly.
There is an irony about reaching for ‘Muslim rage’ as a blanket explanation of the Islamic world and its relation to the West- Ranier Fsadni
The cleric, Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti, told his story to the state-run Mehr news agency. He said he was polite to the woman. She responded by telling him to cover his eyes. When he insisted, she decided she had had enough unsolicited wardrobe advice.
“Not only didn’t she cover herself up but she also insulted me. I asked her not to insult me anymore but she started shouting and threatening me. She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me.”
How does that incident fit in with the Newsweek article by the Somali-Dutch anti-Islam activist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali? She claims that the kind of paroxysms of anger displayed by the two Muslim men on the magazine cover represent the Muslim mainstream. The term Muslim rage itself is famous for having been used in the title of a 1990 article, by the historian Bernard Lewis, where the idea of a ‘clash of civilisations’ was first broached. It has since served as a major plank of the neo-conservative approach to foreign policy.
Newsweek, which wants to have it both ways – to bait Muslims as well as claim to give them a voice – invited comment by creating a Twitter hashtag (#MuslimRage). The response has been a lesson in style. Predictably, readers responded with humour, sarcasm and irony, giving their own examples of ‘Muslim rage’.
Having a good hair day but no one around to see it, wrote one. My mother finding that a pudding cup had been put in the microwave, wrote another. “No beef pepperoni at Pizza Hut?!” mock-snarled someone else, ‘outraged’ at the lack of consideration given to the Muslim prohibition of pork.
One of my favourites is by Hijabi Girl: “You lose your nephew at the airport but you can’t yell his name because it’s Johad.” (Jihad is as innocent a boy’s name as Adolf once was. It means striving and struggle and the Arabic word for diligent is related.)
Others lampooned the idea of Muslims the world over being in a permanent state of rage. Alice Fordham in Tunis wrote of “Terrifying Muslim Rage everywhere. Furious Muslims angrily drinking coffee in sun, crossly browsing markets”.
She was probably inspired by the Gawker website’s hilarious spoof, “13 powerful images of Muslim Rage”. They include “violent angry Egyptians” blowing bubbles in a city square; Iranian Muslims in an imminent act of “snowrage”, as they put the finishing touches to a snowman they presumably are soon to fling snowballs at; a “wrathful Jordanian girl” gleefully rising high on a playground swing...
My favourite is a picture of a young man and woman holding hands and staring deeply into each other’s eyes, with the caption: “Irate Egyptians taking a break from their Muslim Rage.”
One might retort that a story about rage isn’t out of place when Muslims all across the globe have been out in the streets, attacking embassies and burning flags. However, the real story for veteran watchers of such demonstrations is the exact opposite. It’s about just how small the numbers have been and how relatively quickly – in comparison to the Danish cartoons controversy – the protests have faded.
Even that controversy, six years ago, had more far more to it than met the eye: rivalries between preachers elbowing for position, state regimes inciting demonstrations to push their interests against those of their regional rivals.
Iran and Saudi Arabia could not permit the other to beat it in the Islamic credentials stakes. In the Palestinian territories, the secular Fatah, having just lost the election to Hamas, decried the cartoons more loudly than its Islamist rival. In Lebanon, the rioting crowds contained a striking number of Syrians...
To understand the Danish cartoons controversy, one needs to know more about regional politics than Islam.
The same goes for this month’s demonstrations. In each country, local issues were at play. In Yemen, there is general anger at US policies. In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah needs to draw attention away from his unpopular position on Syria. Often, the violence has involved young toughs rather than Islamist ideologues.
Middle East specialist Mark Lynch has offered an explanation for the more muted, short-lived demonstrations. First, the Arab uprisings have thrown up so many local political issues that it is difficult for one to dominate. Last time round, it was the only issue on which one could stage a protest without instant savage repression.
Second, in Egypt the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood have changed. Before, it had to be seen to lead the opposition. Now it is a party of government. It needs to accommodate foreign and domestic pressures, to keep an eye on the country’s image if foreign investment is to be attracted; so it denounces violence rather than foments it.
There is an irony about reaching for ‘Muslim rage’ as a blanket explanation of the Islamic world and its relation to the West. The explanation is meant to be hard-nosed, an appeal to reason and evidence. In fact, it avoids real analysis and is encrusted in myth.
ranierfsadni@europe.com