37. The European Union and the Balkan (2)
15 november 2019
36. Food For Thought : Folke Bernadotte on Palestinian Refugees
10 november 2019
From a statement by Folks Bernadotte, Chief UN mediator for Palestine, published on 18 September 1948. Bernadotte was killed by a Zionist terrorist organization on 17 September 1948.
“It is … undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which… was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes, while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees, who have been rooted in the land for centuries.”
35. The Western-European Demos exists
10 november 2019
A lot of pundits often defend the statement that a political entity “Europe” is an impossibility because there is no common language in Europe and therefore no common public opinion.
While I have defended this point of view in some other place, it is time to make an observation which to a certain degree contradicts this proposition.
If we look at the themes that determine the political agenda in Western Europe it will quickly become clear that the issues/challenges are to a great deal the same in the whole of that part of Europe. (1) How to deal with migration ? Can we choose our migrants ourselves ? Should there be more strict rules to obtain access to social security ? (2) How to deal with (radical) islam ? What about the nikab and the headscarf ? Quid separate schools for Muslims ? Should imams preach in the local language ? How to deal with European IS-fighters in Syrian prisons ? (3) How to transform the existing economy into a climate-friendly one ? Nuclear energy, cars, green taxes ? (4) How to deal with the Chinese presence ? 5G and Huawei, Chinese investors… (5) How to deal with the impact of the longer longevity of the populations on the finances of the state ? Evidently also other items are common to these societies.
But notwithstanding that the same issues fill the public domain, they are not discussed at the same moment and the solutions chosen might be different. They are discussed in the national parliaments, newspapers and the national magazines but these are closed “national” worlds although the issues and arguments are basically the same.
It must be possible to use this basic fact to organize a Western European public opinion in a more formal way.
34. Feast of Sacrifice
4 november 2019
The Feast of Sacrifice is one of the two most important Islamic feasts. It relates to the story in the Qur’an according to which Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Ismael at the request of God. But at the moment that Abraham was to sacrifice his son, God sent a sheep and allowed Abraham to sacrifice the sheep instead of the son.
I have always been puzzled by this story which I know of course already since my youth in the version of the story which can be found in the Old Testament (and where Isaac has the honour of taking the place of Ismael). But it is confusing (or not at all) that Islam gives this story such a central place. What are we actually celebrating ? That God is so good to save Ismael ? That Abraham, as the example for all true believers, was willing to sacrifice his son at the simple request of God ? Or the combination of both : that God is good for the ones who are fully submissive ? I suppose the last explanation is the most accurate. The core of Islam is blind submission to Allah. A horrible message for a humanist.
One could argue that the same message can be found in the Old Testament and thus in Christianity. They are completely wrong. Christianity is not based on the Old Testament but on the New Testament. And a key difference is exactly that in the Old Testament God asks Abraham to kill Isaac while in the New Testament God sacrifices his own son to save the human kind. Islam goes back to the logic of the Old Testament.
Given the essential concept of submission to Allah in Islamic belief, we can question if there even exists something as ethics in Islam. Or if it exists, ethics is reduced to the question of obedience versus non-obedience. For Islam the believer is obedient or not. There is however no room for “real” ethics ; there is no room for an individual that has to take an autonomous decision following an internal moral compass.
33. Book Review : Götz Aly ; “Europa gegen die Juden” (2)
3 november 2019
At the end of his book Aly concludes with a small chapter with the title “Das Gute begünstigte das Böse”. On the last page of his book he writes :
“Das Böse entsteht nicht allein aus dem Bösen, sondern auch aus dem prinzipiell Guten. Gute, niemals zu missbilligende Bildungspolitik und der staatlich geförderte Willen zu massenhafter Aufwärtsmobilität, also die größten Erfolge im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts, steigerten den Hass. Dieselbe Ambivalenz muss für die schönsten, gleichfalls bewahrenswerten politischen Ideen der europäischen Neuzeit im Betracht gezogen werden. Sie heißen: Demokratie, Volksfreiheit, Volkswillen, Selbstbestimmung und soziale Gleichheit…
So betrachtet steht das größte Verbrechen des 20. Jahrhunderts, der Holocaust, im Zusammenhang mit der größten Leistung derselben europäischen Epoche, dem massenhaften sozialen Aufstieg. Unter dem extremen Druck des von Deutschland begonnenen und geführten Krieges begünstigte der zivilisatorische Fortschritt den Zivilisationsbruch.”
Aly understands that his key message might be difficult to digest for the average reader. This average reader has to accept that something evil can take place as part of an overall positive project. In the West we believe in general that evil can only result from evil and good only from good. Aly’s description of the events requires a twist of the western mind.
The paradox that Aly sees is very similar to the one I’m confronted with in my book “liberal quicksand”. In my book I claim that Europe has an exceptional opportunity to create a political entity “Europe” thanks to the twohundred years of struggle which led to the creation of linguistically homogeneous nation-states. I do not glorify this struggle to create these nation-states but I see how the bad makes the good possible. As such I even considered to include the image of the waterlily in my book as a philosophical image of the transformation of the ugly in the beautiful.
32. Book Review : Götz Aly ; “Europa gegen die Juden” (1)
2 november 2019
When I wrote my book “Liberal Quicksand” an important decision I made was not to include the story of anti-Semitism and its disastrous consequence, the Holocaust, into my book. I had two reasons. First, the story of the near destruction of the Jewish population in Europe was sufficiently known. Second, this horrible story was, as I saw it, a matter of racism and as such an aberration of the processes I described in my book : formation of the different nations and democratisation in one movement.
Just recently I finalized reading “Europa gegen die Juden 1880-1945” by Götz Aly. In this excellent book Aly makes the point that to understand anti-semitism and the Holocaust, the ideas that these events are driven by Racist theories or Christian revenge theories (Christians eliminating the Jews because they killed Jesus) are no good starting points. Aly demonstrates rather convincingly that the events are, certainly in Eastern Europe rather related to (1) the modernizing transition of societies, (2) the fact that Jews seemed to make better use of the opportunities offered by the new circumstances, (3) the intention to create nation-states in which the people belonging to the nation should make sufficient social progress, if needed by holding down the Jews who prospered too well. Anti-semitism was futher (4) formalised politically by the introduction of universal voting rights. In pre-democratic structures anti-semitism did not find a political outlet.
Understood like this, the story of the near elimination of the Jewish people in Europe certainly fits the story I described in “Liberal Quicksand” better. The way Aly tells the story anti-semitism is a formative power of the European nation-states working together with democratisation, and this certainly in Eastern Europe and Central-Europe.
But of course Aly cannot deny that the whole story presupposes that the Jews were clearly identifiable and were indeed identified as Jews and that therefore, even if the history is told as he does, the racist basis is a necessary element of the explanation of what happened. Aly makes even the assumption that the jealousy against the success of the Jews was based on the fact that Jews dealed better with the ermanent flux in modernising societies.
And then of course, the conclusion must be that these forms of anti-semitic nationalist processes are not inclusive, while I, in my book, focus on linguistic nationalism which is capable of inclusion.
31. Armenian Genocide
1 november 2019
End October 2019 the American House of Representatives recognised the Armenian Genocide. As is well known the Turkish Government denies such Genocide took place.
I do not intend to discuss wether there was a genocide or not; Whether a Turkish government gave the instruction to perform a genocide or not ; Whether the regular Turkish army performed that genocide or was involved ; How many Armenian died during the genocide.
What I want to discuss is the story that the Armenian genocide was the first genocide of the modern times. This is certainly not true. The first systematic ethnic cleansing took place during the liberation wars of Eastern Europe and Greece and during the Russian occupation of Ukrain (the Tatar territories) and the Caucasus. During these wars a lot of Muslims or Turkish speaking people were chased and resettled within the smaller territory of the Ottoman empire, where they sometimes ran into conflict with local populations like e.g. the Armenians. If there was a genocide, it was not a Turkish invention but a Turkish reaction to the ethnic cleansing that took place in Europe and Ukrain in the hundred years of the 19th century when nationalism took the lead in the liberation of the people’s of Europe.
30. The European Union and the Balkan
29 oktober 2019
On 15 October 2019 the French President Macron blocked the start of negotiations with the candidates North-macedonia and Albania that should lead to their admission to the European Union. He was criticized by many, included by the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who called it a historic mistake. Overall Macron believes that the Union should first strenghten its institutions before it can expand further. His opponents state that his refusal will drive the Balkan-states into the hands of Russia, Turkey, China and other.
Since 2014 the European Union is negotiating with Serbia its admission to the Union. On 15 February 2016 Bosnia- Herzegovina formally asked to become member of the Union. Beginning 2018 the European Commission stated that Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North-Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo had a “perspective” on membership around 2025. It was clarified that “perspective” did not include a “deadline” and that every country would be assessed on its own merits.
We believe Macron has a point (or many points) :
First, the whole Balkan was a powder keg in the far away past, the recent past and still is a powder keg today. It’s inclusion in the Union will not automatically remove the risks from the region. On the contrary, it would introduce the Balkan instability into the Union. Enemies of the Union must love especially this scenario.
Currently, and based on on going discussions with states like Hungary and Poland, we see that the European Union has difficulties in imposing sanctions on some countries if needed. This kind of governance has to be brought to a higher level. The Union must be able to punish if needed.
Referring to Hungary and Poland we might question if the Union has already sufficiently absorbed the previous flow of entrants into the European union (the generation of 2004 and 2007). It is probably not wise to already add a new load of newcomers to the Union, which would also further shift the overall balance further to the East.
Yes, Russia, Turkey, China, the Saudi and the Qatari will try to strenghten their influence in the Balkan. They are doing that already today and they do not need a Union to proceed. If the Balkan states were members of the Union, there is no reason why external powers would be less energetic in striving for influence in these states. On the contrary, it would be an evident way of obtaining leverage in the Union. The Union should have instruments to deal with unwanted influence in its member states.
29. Turkey, the Kurds and Syria
16 oktober 2019
Last week Turkey invaded Syria to elimate the threat posed by an autonomous Syrian-Kurdish region and to resettle a certain part of its 3,5 million Syrian (?) refugees. Hereby some key points for consideration and central questions.
1°) Turkey says it looks for a solution for its 3,5 million refugees and wants to create a buffer of 30 km in the North of Syria to resettle a part of these refugees. Europe is in a difficult position to condemn Turkey for trying to find such a buffer-zone; in practice Turkey is for the European Union a gigantic buffer zone to settle (=keep) refugees.
2°) One might of course object that the idea to artificially create a border zone of 30 km and to settle people in that area who did not live there before, is a very bad idea. BUT : ARE THERE BETTER IDEAS ? When will the Syrian refugees who are in Turkey OR Europe go back ? Can they actually go back to the Assad-controlled area without the risk of being persecuted ? Does Assad want his Syrians to return ? Here we arrive at the fundamental point that refugees in need should according to many international treaties obtain protection in receiving countries. But there seems no clear agreement on obligations to enable the return of refugees. Already for generations, Palestinians are not allowed to return to Israel. Will we now see a new gulf of permant refugees ; Syrians who will never go back to Syria ?
3°) Trump mentioned that the Kurds did not fight in Normandy (and by exception this time he was correct). But also the Turks did not fight in Normandy and what is more, they did not fight IS in Syria. There were always suspicions that they sympathized more with IS than with the Kurds in Syria. And now suddenly when the war against IS is finished (again, according to Trump – and now he is probably wrong) the Turks invade Syria (what they did not do when the Yezidi’s were slaughtered). And they bring with them what is called “jihadist” groups and we can only wonder who these jihadist groups might be. Is that the remnant of Al-Nusra, a grouping linked to Al Qaida ?
4°) The international press has insufficiently devoted attention to the situation of the Kurds in Turkey. In that respect we can refer already just to the fate of the Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, head of the HDP party and imprisoned for already more than two years in Turkey.
28. Are the Thirties back again ?
14 oktober 2019
An important question which is often asked nowadays is whether our times are a copy of the Thirties. The answer I believe is No for 80% and Yes for 20%.
It is a clear and loud “No” because in the Thirties of the previous century Europeans concluded to exterminate a part of their European population and started to do so.
Today, “right-wing” thinking is mainly concerned about (floods of) immigration, be it from related EU-countries or from outside the EU. The motives why people are reluctant are irrelevant. Essential is that there is a big difference between an ideology that aims at eliminating part of its own population (Thirties) and trying to control the inflow of immigrants (Today).
Overall I believe that the average European would support the following statements :
1°) People who need political asylum should obtain that.
2°) If economic migrants fill needs in our job market, then they are welcome.
3°) Other migrants (than 1 and 2) are not welcome and should be expelled (by force if needed).
4°) Migrants should integrate. This means that they should at least learn the local language.
5°) Migrants should obtain access to the social security systems in a gradual way, linked to the contributions they’ve made to the society in which they are received.
I would not call the sum of these statements right-wing. I believe they are reasonable and fair, even if some of them might even go against certain principles of the European Union when applied to migrants from within the European Union.
But there remains a Yes of 20%. I’m afraid that because leftists quite (too) easily argue that people who are concerned about immigration are fascists or racists, these people might indeed start to search for inspiration in the Thirties.
26. Abiy Ahmed – Nobel Peace Prize 2019
11 oktober 2019
On 11 October 2019 the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize for peace to Abiy Ahmed, who is Prime Minister of Ethiopia since April 2018. He received the prize because in his short period as Prime Minister he succeeded in making peace with Eritrea, thereby ending a war that lasted 20 years, and because he initiated liberal reforms in Ethiopia itself.
The case of Abiy Ahmed and of Ethiopia is of great interest to us because now already the comment is made in the press that the liberal democratizing reforms seem to unleash etnical strife which was suppressed under the dictatorship of the military. Oromo and Amhara and other names of tribes might become familiar in the coming months and years.
Ethiopia might become the most recent proof that “plural societies” which democratise, fall apart in many pieces, which was the main proposition of my book “liberal quicksand”. My hart hopes that I’m wrong ; My brain already knows I’m right.
25. Arend Lijphart – On consensus democracy
9 oktober 2019
Arend Lijphart is a political scientist. Central in his work is the distinction between majoritarian democracy (MD) and consociational democracy (CD). To be clear : in both kinds of democracy a majority is required but in a CD the ambition is to have more than a majority; The ambition is to have all important “segments” of society included in the government. According to Lijphart “elite cooperation is the primary distinguishing feature of consociational democracy” (Democracy in Plural Societies ; 1977 ; page 1). In his 1977 book Lijphart starts by referring to what he calls a well established proposition in political science, namely “that it is difficult to achieve and maintain stable democratic government in a plural society” before making his key point that the application of CD makes it “not at all impossible to achieve and maintain stable democratic government in a plural society.” In a well functioning CD “the cooperative attitudes and behaviour of the leaders of the different segments of the population” counteract the “centrifugal tendencies inherent in a plural society”.
In his 1984/1999 book “Patterns of Democracy” Lijphart details further the political structure of 21 countries (in 1977) and 36 countries (in 1984) in terms of consociational versus majoritarian. Further he investigates the “efficiency” of the two regimes and concludes that (1) majoritarian democracies are clearly not superior to consensus democracies in providing good governance, managing the economy, and maintaining civil peace; (2) Consensus democracies “have a better performance record than majoritarian democracies, especially when performance is measured by the five Worldwide Governance Indicators and the ICRG domestic conflict risk assessment and also with regard to inflation.” (p. 273)
Lijphart’s work is of interest to us because
(1) his core theme is the difficulty of the plural society ;
(2) the solution he sees in Consensus Democracy (which I would consider under certain circumstances as an overruling of democracy);
(3) he wrote his books over a long range of time (1977 – 1984 – 1999) and it is interesting to see how the political contexts have changed over that period ;
(4) it is further interesting to see how the viewpoints of Lijphart changed as a consequence of the changes of the facts on the ground over that long period of time.
As mentioned before, in his 1999 book Lijphart analyses 36 different democracies. He splits them in three different groups : plural societies, semiplural societies and nonplural societies. Evidently, it might be an inspiration for an interesting debate how such a taxonomy was achieved. This is how Lijphart distributes the countries over the three groups :
Plural Societies : India, Spain, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Israel, Trinidad, Mauritius.
Semiplural Societies : United States, Germany, France, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Luxembourg.
Nonplural Societies : Japan, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Costa Rica, Ireland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Jamaica, Botswana, Malta, Bahamas, Iceland, Barbados.
24. Thierry Baudet and the nation-state
27 september 2019
IN 2012 the Dutch politician-philosopher Thierry Baudet published “The Significance of Borders”. In that book he intended, as the sub-title of the book mentions, to demonstrate “why Representative Government and the Rule of Law Require Nation States”. While I believe that that proposition itself might be correct, the argumentation or “proof” provided by TB is not convincing, even wrong.
But first this. In his preface TB explains that the current mainstream idea that the challenges posed by globalisation require a supra-national response and therefore the abolition or dampening of nation-states, is wrong. Yes, global challenges exist and they require global responses, but these responses will have to be pre-discussed, agreed upon, defended and executed at the level of the nation-state. He calls this “international cooperation on the basis of accountable nation states” sovereign cosmopolitanism. I agree with this sovereign cosmopolitanism and it explains why safeguarding and strenghtening nation-states is essential in order to manage globalization.
Back to our main topic. For Baudet, the Representative Government and the Rule of Law have in common that “the people” have to be represented in respectively a parliament and a Supreme Court. This requirement pre-supposes the existence of a “we”, a coherent mass, a nation. He quotes Paul Scheffer who wrote in 2007 : “Without a ‘we’, it won’t work.”
This reasoning does not convince me at all. The classic liberal democracy is precisely an institutional structure which enables conflicting views and interests to interact and clash. The strength of the liberal democratic model is that it allows diversity to live together. Was there a “we” in the past ? There were Catholics, Protestants, Liberals, Social-Democrats and Communists. In that sense there has never been a “we”. And at least in theory we can simply enrich this system without changing it fundamentally : we can add new branches or pillars next to the existing ones : a green branch, a Muslim branch and a nationalist party. Also the Supreme Courts never represented a “we”. In many cases the decisions by Supreme Courts are transparent about who voted in favour of and who voted against fundamental discussions in society.
Having said this, I do not exclude that our societies need to maintain a minimum of cohesion but I am (certainly at this moment) hesitant to state how much cohesion our societies require. Based on my own book I believe that a minimum level of cohesion requires at least a common language, at least to be able to have a discussion on important items.
In this context I also present the following quote by Paul Morland at the end of a book review (FT of 24AUG2019 – The new demography) :
“For liberals who are relaxed about immigration and ethnic change, it is now incumbent upon them to come up with ways in which a coherent society can be formed from people of different backgrounds. Just as a nationalist sentiment was required to form the warfare states of Europe over the past two hundred years, so something new will be needed in its place if the welfare states of today are to survive in anything like their current form.”
Evidently, Paul Morland is mistaken. “Relaxed” liberals will not take any initiative because they do not see any problem at all and believe in the self-organising forces in society. The initiative to ensure a minimum level of coherence of society will have to be taken by less “relaxed” people.
22. Food For Thought – F. Fukuyama in foreword of “Political order in changing societies” (S.P. Huntington)
24 september 2019
Page XVI-XVII
“One factor in particular is the peculiar nature of the contemporary international system, one that despite good intentions arguably promotes political decay.
If one examines historical cases of state formation and state building in the regions of the world that have strong states (primarily Europe and East Asia), the uncomfortable truth emerges that violence has always been a key ingredient…
Today’s international system does not look kindly on interstate violence and the kind of wars of conquest and consolidation that as recently as the 1870s produced the present-day countries of Italy and Germany. Africa, for example, was saddled with an irrational political map upon decolonization, one that corresponded to neither geography, ethnicity, nor economic functionality…
Today, we have a situation in which things that weaken states and promote political decay – like weapons, drugs, laundered money, security advisors, refugees, and diamonds – can cross international borders with relative ease, while the world’s normative structure and the institutions built around it … inhibit the kind of muscular state-building that was necessary to political development in other parts of the world.”
20. Food For Thought – European Values
19 september 2019
After Ursula von der Leyen presented her new Commission, the function of commissionary Schinas caused some uproar because of his task description “to defend the European way of life” and because this task was linked to the management of the migration flows, suggesting that migrants were a threat to the so-called “European way of life”.
Therefore von der Leyen thought it was useful to remind the European public of the European Values and she had a statement on this published in a set of important European newspapers on 16 September 2019. In that statement she referred to Article 2 of the European Union Treaty. Since we agree that this basic reference to formally validated European Values is a useful clarification we publish it also on this website.
How the linkage between “European Way of Life”, “European Values” and migration has to be understood will be debated in detail in the European Parliament in the coming weeks.
“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”
19. True Religion
19 september 2019
In religious debates, there always exist people on the one hand who want to stay close to the source texts, be it the Quran, the Thora or the Bible, and others, who believe these sacred texts require a “smart” reading. According to these people the sacred texts were written in a very specific context and when using them today as guidance for the Faith, readers should only focus on the part which is relevant for the core of the religion.
Although I have a great deal of sympathy for what I will call “the interpreters” or “modernists”, the truth is that I see an important epistemological problem for them. Do these modernists have a procedure available to distill the everlasting truth from a religious text or do they take what they like and throw away what they do not like ? Do they have an algorithm or a direct connection with God that gives them the appropriate inspiration to make the distinction between the Truth and a simple human-made story ?
18. The Headscarf
17 september 2019
In English the word “respect” can be used in two different meanings. It can be used to refer to “accept/tolerate” ( as in “I respect their choice” ) but it can also be used to refer to a more positive feeling of admiration (as in “I have a great respect for their decision” ). The word is the same, the meaning is different.
This introduction allows me to express my opinion about the headscarf. I respect the choice of women who want to wear it but I have no respect at all for their decision.
With great regularity states in Western Europe are confronted with legal cases against prohibitions to wear the headscarf. Unfortunately these discussions remain at a “formal” level. The discussion is then whether women are free to choose to wear the hijab or not. Personally I’m in favour of the French concept that the state should be neutral and that therefore a headscarf is not acceptable for people working for the government. Next to that I believe that the principle of freedom of religion should reign and that therefore women should be free to decide whether they want to wear the headscarf or not. I respect their choice.
But the question of freedom of choice only skims the surface. It does not ask to the muslima why she wants to wear the hijab or believes she has to wear the veil. I assume here that she wants to wear the headscarf for religious reasons. If not. the Muslima would not be able to defend wearing it based on the principle of freedom of religion.
But then, why does her religion impose the wearing of the hijab?
In general, reference is made to two different soera’s in the Quran.
First, there is soera 24 (“Light”), verse 31 :
“And tell believing women that they should lower their eyes, guard their private parts, and not display their charms beyond what [it is acceptable] to reveal; they should draw their coverings over their necklines and not reveal their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their womenfolk, their slaves, such men as attend them who have no desire, or children who are not yet aware of women’s nakedness; they should not stamp their feet so as to draw attention to any hidden charms.”
Next, there is soera 33 (“The Joint Forces”), verse 59 :
“Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garments hang low over them so as to be recognized and not insulted…”
In his famous novel “Snow”(chapter 2), Orhan Pamuk depicts how a Muslim kills the Director of an institute because he prohibited the wearing of the veil. This extremist refers to the two soera’s mentioned above and states that “a woman who has covered herself is making a statement. Through her choice of clothing, she is saying, ” Don’t harass me. “” and he adds “The veil saves women from the animal instincts of men in the street.”
In their book “Finalement, il y a quoi dans le Coran?”, Rachid Benzine et Ishmael Saidi also focus on those two soera’s. Overall they mention that the wearing of the hijab was not introduced by the Quran but was already in use before the arrival of the prophet and was the habit of non slave women. As such it was an indication of a social status. The use of the hijab was only confirmed by Islam.
It’s time to draw some conclusions :
Assuming that the hijab is a religious phenomenon (and not a merely cultural one), we take note that :
> it serves to differentiate and therefore polarize between good women and bad women; between women that should not be harassed and women who are allowed to be harassed. Sometimes it is stated that it is more important what is in the head than what is on the head. According to a more conservative interpretation of Islam, this statement is highly questionable.
> it assumes and insinuates that men cannot control their instincts when confronted with a non veiled woman. Such an assumption should evidently be considered an insult by any modern man.
At a more fundamental level two additional concerns should be raised :
> The veil is sexist and there is no valid argument why only women should wear it. Tariq Ramadan himself claimed to be irresistible to (some) women but did not consider to wear it.
> Further, it requires a twisted mindset to want to hide beauty. From a hedonistic perspective it would be reasonable to hide (male or female) ugliness.
Evidently, The veil is therefore not in its place in the 21st century and while I respect the choice of women to wear it I have no respect at all for their choice.
17. Book Review ; Francis Fukuyama – “On Identity”
17 september 2019
Francis Fukuyama, well known as the author of “The End of History and the Last Man”, devotes his attention to “Identity” because he notes that identity, as a consequence of the ongoing globalisation, becomes more and more confused while a clear identity is needed to underpin a nation, which is itself required to ensure the functioning of democratic institutions.
It is possible to read this book in a very efficient way and to go directly to chapter 14 (the last one) with the title”What is to be done ?” If you do this you will miss how the meaning of identity changed over time, from Catholicism to Luther, to Kant, to Rousseau, and so on, but you will have more time to consider the relevant statements FF makes about the problem of identity in our times, both in the USA and in Europe. Essential is, according to FF that at the basis of identity resides “dignity”; The search for identity is a search for Dignity (thymos). Hereafter I only focus on chapter 14.
FF sees currently three main ways identity is clarified (dignity is obtained).
The more traditional liberal one in which individuals are free to express their individuality and are not hindered by the state.
Next to this interpretation he notes that some groups, define their identity in function of ethnic background, race or religion. This leads to potentially illiberal forms of nationalism and politically organized religion (e.g. Islamism).
A third way to deal with identity is the leftist approach which supports different smaller groups of under-evaluated people, and glorifies diversity as such. FF is definitely not happy with this leftist approach : First, diversity is itself no “Creed” and FF is convinced of the need to have a Creed, a joint moral platform as a basis for the nation; Second, because the Left rejects the Creed of the superiority of the foundations of the System of Liberal Democracy ; Third, because they no longer support their initial public, the workers.
Therefore, according to FF there is a need to propagate the essence of the Creedal message to all involved. This must be the glue that holds the unavoidable diversity together. I believe that this Creedal element is similar if not equal to Bassam Tibi’s concept of “Leitkultur”. In both cases the Creed/Leitkultur will propagate the essence of Liberal Democracy and ideals like Freedom and Equality. And while the right-wing refuses newcomers and the leftists claim open borders, FF stresses the need to make a difference between citizen, documented immigrant and undocumented immigrant and states that the real focus of all, both left and right should be “on strategies for better assimilating immigrants to a country’s Creedal identity.” (p. 171)
FF makes separate recommendations for the European Union and for the United States. Hereafter we follow this logic :
The European Unit should:
> create a “single citizenship whose requirements would be based on adherence to basic liberal democratic principles” ;
> invest in a European Identity “through the creation of the appropriate symbols and narratives”;
> better controls its borders by a better staffing of Frontex, the border control unit.
Individual member states :
> who base citizenship on ius sanguinis should introduce a citizenship based on ius solis;
> should reject dual citizenship;
> should deconstruct their systems of pillarization (as exists in Holland and Belgium);
The United States on the other hand :
> has already a Creedal identity but this identity is under attack by both the Left and the Right;
> has a system to teach “basic civics” but this is in long term decline;
> has installed different educational programs which aim to speed up the acquisition of English but have led by now to the creation of “constituencies of their own” with their own bureaucracies;
> should hold on to the meaningful distinctions between citizens and non-citizens and between documented and not-documented non-citizens;
> should consider the introduction of a national service as a requirement to obtain the nationality;
> should continue its enforcement policies, but a Wall is not needed to ensure enforcement. What is required is a national identification system that would allow employers to verify the citizen-status of the employees;
> should set-up a path to citizenship for undocumted persons;
> should devote more attention to social policies.
16. Food For Thought – Quote; Orhan Pamuk in “The Red-haired Woman”
17 september 2019
In “The Red-haired Woman” (p.219) it comes to a confrontation between a father and his son with the following dialogue as a result. I dare to assume that for Pamuk this dialogue does not only reflect on father-son relations but also, if not mostly, on the relation between the believer and his God.
“What is a father to you?”
“A father is a doting, charismatic figure who will until his dying day accept and watch over the child he sires. He is the origin and the center of the universe. When you believe that you have a father, you are at peace even when you can’t see him, because you know that he is always there, ready to love and protect you. I never had a father like that. “
” Neither did I, ” I said impassively. “But if I’d had one, he’d have expected me to obey him, and he’d have suppressed my individuality with his affection and the force of his personality!”
15. Atheism
17 september 2019