I was recently able to reflect in a book report on the book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim by Mahmood Mamdani. I wrote that Good Muslim, Bad Muslim has enhanced my concept
of the major stereotypes that have infected the American Society that I
currently live in. From our concept of a holy war, to what we see as
fundamentalism, and Islamic terrorism, Mamdani redefines these concepts and
places them in the political context in which they have always existed. A good
quote to explain why we have these views goes, “What horrifies our modern
sensibility is violence that appears senseless, that cannot be justified by
progress.” In other words, when we try to understand violence, most Americans
are ignorant of the Political movements that have constructed political Islam.
Therefore, we attribute the violence we see to acts of evil and religious fundamentalist terror. A good example Mamdani brings up
is the way we see the holocaust as evil. We fail to notice that two traditions
that marked modern Western Civilization: “the anti-Semetic tradition and
genocide of colonized peoples” perpetuated a political structure that Hitler picked
up throughout his life. Another great example of politics forming American views is
how our own American Political Christianity forms how we see other nations.
With the civil rights movements, Roe vs Wade, Gay Rights, Political
Christianity sought to counteract these things as they fought for the
collective soul of America. This concept of a collective soul allowed for nations to have
good or bad souls. Although, there is a problem with making a statement like there are good Muslims
and bad Muslims. By saying there are good Muslims, we are presuming that all
other Muslims are bad until proven good. This invasive view is bound to lead to
conflict.
Professor Leigh pointed out that in order for America to change the way we talk about culture, and change the influence of Political Christianity on how we see other nations, we would have to start all over from scratch in light of how American politics has been formed. Do you all agree and do you think American politics will ever stop being a Political Christianity and instead be a politics of freedom and true equal rights?
Chigozie, you ask a nearly impossible question, which means that it is probably a good one. My initial response is no. In our national political landscape, christian politics are not differentiated from conservative politics. In fact, getting the terms and appellations correct seems fundamentally contradictory. All of these signs have become essentially ambiguous. Not in the sense that through close examination they cannot be narrowed down or at least approximated, but in the sense that as a country people for the most part do not differentiate between them. The slippery-ness of these terms creates a situation where a large number of self-identified christians can be coerced, through a simple misunderstanding, into do what ostensibly appear to be really un-christian things; for example, denying human rights to marginalized groups, not re-alocating through taxes wealth accrued by the highest earners, and generally supporting a system grounded in individualism as opposed to community. The bottom line is, the self/other divide is supported by the outer/inner divide, which comes from this very notion of soul that you speak about. On the soccer pitch last night, I heard an self-identified American, whose family probably immigrated within the last two hundred years, curse a new Irish emigre. Of course, the Irish-American, or Irishman, or American, or whatever, responded in kind by mocking the stereotypical southern American--trailer park trash, ect., ect. Neither recognized their situation. Both men, clearly living in America and benefiting from the privileges of being American, failed to recognize that they both are part of a larger frame work, and inter-subjective situation. Clearly, the Irish-man understood himself to be other than American, and the American considered himself wholly-American. In fact, both figures are a synthesis of several factors that cannot be reduced to a national frame-work. From what I have understood about christian doctrine, nationalism makes no sense. The urge to reinstitute these other projects into a christian category, without actually being christian in nature, obscures the truth of the situation. I think the end to this crazy, pre-logical, xenophobic, christian politics will come about when actual christians come into power.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, I am in a religious studies class focused on Muslim-Christian relations. It was really interesting to hear this presentation while I am taking that religious studies class. The question you ask is so important and very difficult to answer. In my religious studies class, the general consensus is that it will be hard for America to ever distance itself from identifying and being identified as a politically Christian place. In a way, I think this relates to our previous discussions about America being seen as white. Just like America is historically (and still) seen as a white country, America is also seen as a Christian country. I definitely do agree with Dr. J that in order for America to change the influence of political Christianity, we would have to start all over because we are so far into what we've already constructed. Perhaps it would be possible to create distance but in order to eliminate the influence, a clean slate would probably be the best hope. However, starting from scratch does not seem feasible.
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