Being Young & Muslim ..In Global South & North - L. Herrera & A. Bayat PDF
Being Young & Muslim ..In Global South & North - L. Herrera & A. Bayat PDF
Being Young & Muslim ..In Global South & North - L. Herrera & A. Bayat PDF
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Being Young and Muslim
RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLITICS SERIES
SERIES EDITOR
John L. Esposito
University Professor and Director
Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding
Georgetown University
ISLAMIC LEVIATHAN
Islam and the Making of State Power
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr
RACHID GHANNOUCHI
A Democrat Within Islamism
Azzam S. Tamimi
BALKAN IDOLS
Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States
Vjekoslav Perica
Edited by
LINDA HERRERA
aSEF BAYAT
2010
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
13. Struggles over Defining the Moral City: The Problem Called
“Youth” in Urban Iran, 207
Azam Khatam
14. Securing Futures: Youth, Generation, and Muslim Identities in Niger, 225
Adeline Masquelier
17. Negotiating with Modernity: Young Women and Sexuality in Iran, 273
Fatemeh Sadeghi
20. Heavy Metal in the Middle East: New Urban Spaces in a Translocal
Underground, 325
Pierre Hecker
21. Music VCDs and the New Generation: Negotiating Youth, Femininity,
and Islam in Indonesia, 341
Suzanne Naafs
Notes, 365
References, 391
Index, 421
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About the Authors
The Edward Said Reader (2000) and the author of How Does It Feel to Be a Prob-
lem?: Being Young and Arab in America (2008), winner of a 2008 American
Book Award.
Miriam Gazzah received her PhD from the International Institute for the Study
of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden, the Radboud University in Nijmegen
in September 2008. Her dissertation, “Rhythms and Rhymes of Life: Music and
Identification Processes of Dutch–Moroccan Youth,” was published by Amsterdam
University Press (2008). She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam
School for Social Science Research at Amsterdam University, working within a
research program called Islamic Cultural Performances: New Youth Cultures
in Europe.
and convenor of the Children and Youth Studies (CYS) Master of Arts speciali-
zation. Her research interests lay at the intersection of youth and international
development, the social history of education in the Middle East and North
Africa, and critical pedagogy. Her publications include the coedited volume,
Cultures of Arab Schooling: Critical Ethnographies from Egypt (2006), “A Song
For Humanistic Education: Pedagogy and Politics in the Middle East”(2008),
and “Education and Empire: Democratic Reform in the Arab World?” (2008).
Marloes Janson earned her PhD in cultural anthropology from Leiden Univer-
sity in 2002. Her published PhD dissertation is titled The Best Hand Is the
Hand That Always Gives: Griottes and Their Profession in Eastern Gambia (2002).
She is currently working as a researcher at Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin,
Germany, and was affiliated as a visiting lecturer in anthropology at Brandeis
University during spring semester 2009. Her research focuses on youthful
participation in the Tabligh Jama’at, a transnational Islamic missionary
movement originating from India, in The Gambia, and has resulted in several
journal articles and book chapters. She is currently working on a monograph of
the Gambian branch of the Tabligh Jama’at.
based on her research in Niger. She is author of Prayer Has Spoiled Everything:
Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger (2001) and Women
and Islamic Revival in a West African Town (2009), and editor of Dirt, Undress,
and Difference: Critical Perspectives on the Body’s Surface (2005). Her current
interests are centered on Muslim youth, romantic love, and popular culture in
Niger.
Pascal Ménoret is a postdoctoral research associate at the Institute for the Tran-
sregional Study of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia (Princeton
University). Between 2005 and 2007, he was a visiting researcher at the King
Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. He is currently writ-
ing a book on deviance and politics in Saudi Arabia.
Fatemeh Sadeghi obtained her PhD in political science from Tarbiyat Modarres
University, Tehran, in 2004 and was a fellow of the International Institute for
the Study of Islam in the Modern World in Leiden in 2008. She is currently a
member of the editorial board of the Persian quarterly Goftogu (Dialogue). Her
book, Gender, Nationalism, and Modernity in the First Pahlavi Iran, was published
in Persian, and Gender and Power: A Study of Ethics from the Third to Ninth
Century Iran is forthcoming.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS xv
Pierre Bourdieu (1993) has famously contended that youth is “nothing but a
word,” because young people of different social classes have too little in
common to warrant a single category. But Bourdieu’s contention refers
largely to the times and places where schooling was the privilege of elites, a
situation very different from the current era of mass schooling—one that
produces and prolongs “youthfulness” on a very broad national and global
scale. We are not suggesting, of course, that people from different gender
and cultural backgrounds carry identical experiences of being (or even not
being) young, because they do not. What we are suggesting is that despite
important differences, certain fundamental dispositions, a particular habi-
tus (to use Bourdieu’s own term) renders “youth” a meaningful analytical
category.
To elaborate, “youths” in the sense of “young persons” is, in part, an age
category and thus bears an essential biological attribute in the same way that
“woman” constitutes a biological category. But youth, like woman, is also a socially
constructed category that carries certain time and culture-bound sociopsycholog-
ical characteristics. In the second instance, “youth” represents a sociological real-
ity. In this sense, it describes social conditions in human development, a “life
stage” where the individual stands between childhood (as the stage of vulnerabil-
ity, innocence, need of protection) and adulthood (the time of responsibility for
self and others). Theoretically, a young person should experience a life of “relative
autonomy”—a social condition in which the individual is neither dependent nor
totally independent. Mass schooling is instrumental in the production and pro-
longation of being young, because it sets youngsters apart from the world of work
and responsibility, while at the same time generating some degree of self-reliance
where the individual makes choices and expresses autonomous ideas.
Youth, in the sense of being young, represents a kind of Bourdieuian “hab-
itus’’ that consists of a series of dispositions, mental and cognitive structures,
and ways of being, feeling, and carrying oneself that are not consciously or ratio-
nally designed, yet follow a structure associated with the biological fact of being
young. As habitus, young people are often involved in everyday practices of cul-
tural politics, exemplified in negotiating with adults, carving out their own social
and cultural spaces, rebelling against the establishment, forming subcultures,
innovating, and worrying about their future adult status. These practices and
ideas are, in the first instance, individual, expressed in families, neighborhoods,
and schools, but they also take collective form in the realms of youth slang, fash-
ion, or in the more durable subcultural activities of, for example, music.
INTRODUCTION 7
The actual expressions and the reality of being young (or experiencing
youth) are more complex and vary across cultural, class, gender, and other
divides. Although middle class youths (both male and female) of rich industri-
alized nations, the “global North,” have a chance to experience relative auton-
omy, many rural youngsters (especially female) in poor countries, the “global
South,” may have little opportunity to undergo “youthfulness.” For they have to
move rapidly from the status of childhood into the world of work, responsibil-
ity, and parenting—all markers of adulthood. Some youngsters, thus, are
excluded from the stage of youth by virtue of their lack of participation in, or
access to, education, youth leisure activities, media, and markets, key axes
around which youth cultures and politics crystallize and modes of youth
consciousness form.
Young persons would thus be unable to forge a collective challenge to
assert their youthful status and act as collective agents without first turning
into the social category of youth. Cities play a crucial role in turning young
people into youth, by cultivating a particular consciousness about being young
(Bayat, chapter 2, this volume). Schooling, mass media, and urban spaces
(public parks, shopping malls, or street corner spots, to name a few locales)
provide key venues for the formation of youth identities. Some scholars have
spoken about the formation of “rural youth” (distinct from “young people”),
without acknowledging that the rural areas to which they refer have, in reality,
assumed some major features of urban life, such as the spread of schooling,
expansion of information and communication technology (ICT), spread of
fashion trends and consumer products, specialization, and the spread of the
nuclear family that, taken together, have transformed the countryside’s social
structure and political economy. Although youth as a social category remains
an essentially urban phenomenon, as rural areas urbanize, distinctions between
rural and urban become more blurred.
What about youth movements? It is curious that social movement
theory has little to say about the nature of youth movements. The general
assumption seems to be that youth movements are those in which mostly
young people take central stage, such as the student activism or antiwar
mobilization of the 1960s in Europe and the United States. This is not to say
that youth do not get adequate attention in scholarly circles. On the contrary,
recent years have witnessed numerous websites and conferences on various
themes ranging from HIV/AIDS, new media, religious activism, conflict,
marginalization, and music that in one way or another relate to the life of
young people. Yet in these intellectual endeavors, “youth” remains acciden-
tal or at best peripheral to the central focus of these studies. Our point is
that a study that investigates religious radicalism or political protests in
8 BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM
Whereas the concept of habitus captures the spaces, dispositions, and ways of
being young, the sociological literature on generations provides insights into
how youth develop historical consciousness. Generational research, from stud-
ies on the interwar period that viewed German youth movements and cultures
as a factor in the rise of fascism in the 1920s and ’30s (Wohl 1979); to the anti-
war, consumer-oriented, and politically progressive generation of the 1960s in
the United States and Europe; to the postcolonial (Camaroff and Camaroff
1999) and “lost” generation (O’Brien 1996) in Africa, are examples of how a
generational lens can allow for an understanding of larger social processes and
the role of youth as a potential generative force for cultural and political change
(Cole and Durham 2007; Durham 2000; Edmunds and Turner 2002, 2005;
Eisenstadt 2003). To understand the features of a global generation, as well as
the subset, or “generational unit” (Mannheim 1952) of Muslim youth, requires
understanding key historical factors—economic, political, and cultural, as well
as issues relating to lifestyle and livelihood—that contribute to shaping a
generational consciousness.
INTRODUCTION 9
Among global youth in general, but Muslim youth in an even more pro-
nounced way, there appears to be a growing generational consciousness, dif-
fused in part through the new media, about issues of social justice and
human rights accompanied by a profound moral outrage at the violation of
fundamental rights. Young people blog, sing, protest, agitate, join formal
and informal organizations, and find myriad other ways to claim their rights
and assert their will for justice, livelihoods, and lifestyles. The fundamental
question that the authors in this volume address, is how does this genera-
tion of Muslim youth operate within the multiple constraints and opportu-
nities of being young, Muslim, marginalized, and subjects of social
control?
The demands and desires of many youth are simple. As Dina, a 20-
something Egyptian explains when discussing the aspirations of her gener-
ation: “The ambitions of young people are modest. We want to live at
a decent level (’ ala mustawa karim), get a job, find love, and get married.”
12 BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM
Yet for scores of youth, these simple goals seem hopelessly out of reach
(Herrera, chapter 8). Economic exclusion, political corruption, underem-
ployment, and deprivation prevail among a vast segment of youth, which
means “the transformation into adulthood is something increasingly prob-
lematic” (Simone, chapter 9).
Youth unemployment and underemployment stand among the towering
challenges of these times. Youth unemployment rates (15–24 years) are the
highest in the Middle East region, where they have reached 25% (the world
average is 14%). In Iran, for instance, the rate rose from 19% in 1996 to 24%
in 2006, while a staggering 77% of Syrian young (compared with 12% of the
total workforce) in 2002 remained without jobs (Chaaban 2008). Similar kinds
of marginalization have gripped Muslim minorities in Europe. British Asian
male Muslims, who reside in segregated and oftentimes dreary housing units,
suffer from unemployment three times higher than their white male counter-
parts; similar trends can be found among ethnic Arab/Muslim youth in France
and the Netherlands.
For an average middle class youngster, not having a job means little income,
slight chance of having an independent accommodation, and low chance of
marriage—in sum, no meaningful autonomous life. Precisely because of their
youth status and the lack of steady employment, youngsters face far greater
difficulties in securing credit to plan for a new life and marriage. Simply put,
the high cost of marriage in regions like the Middle East and North Africa,
combined with lack of jobs and affordable housing, prevent the young from
experiencing the transition to adulthood and independence (Salehi-Isfahani
and Dhillon 2008).
Most young people, then, seem to be trapped in this maze of structural
constraints and power relations. How does it feel to be in such a desperate pre-
dicament? Linda Herrera offers a taste of what is like to be part of the middle
class youth in today’s Egypt. Those in the most difficult circumstances, who
struggle without connections, means, and opportunities, can suffer from an
overwhelming sense of “being stuck,” of not being able to see a way out of the
state of liminality in which they find themselves.
To be sure, social justice issues and the right to a livelihood are not the
exclusive concerns of young people. Adults too often express similar claims,
but the young remain disproportionately more disadvantaged. The fact is that
deprivation from livelihood not only affects a young person’s general well-
being, but it also has undeniable bearing on the expression of specifically
youthful desires—for example, to have enough income to acquire consumer
goods, pursue youthful dreams, and be free from anxiety about their adult
future. The right to a livelihood—one that also secures a youthful habitus—is
INTRODUCTION 13
exclusion play a role in a young person’s choice toward radicalism? And what is
the role of Islam as a political theology? The discussion of diverse national cases
in this book confirms that the analytical links between deprivation and political
response, between youth and radicalism, and between youth and religiosity are
extremely complex and that a simple conclusion cannot be drawn. Indeed, youth
respond to similar conditions in a variety of ways, depending on the setting and a
host of other factors; they may engage in radical politics, withdraw from public life
out of frustration, or pursue a minimal life.
In Indonesia during the late 1990s, a segment of Muslim youth joined a
flamboyant armed militia, Laskar Jihad, which upheld a Salafi ideology. Even
though Indonesia emerged from the Asian crisis during the late 1990s with
more than 70% youth unemployment, the correlation between the economy
and youth radicalism remains incidental, at best. Laskar Jihad, with some
7,000 militant youngsters ranging in age from 20 to 29 years, half of them
university students or graduates, reflected, according to Noorhaidi Hasan not
simply an irrational fanaticism of the lower class young, but a “rational choice
in their attempt to negotiate identity, and thus claim dignity”. The group could
be seen to be carrying out a “drama,” a sort of “performative practice of youth
to demonstrate, in face of powerful opponents, a hitherto marginalized youth”.
These were the youngsters who saw the horizon for upward mobility to be
quite limited. By cultivating the idea of the “total Muslim,” the Salafi ideology
of Laskar Jihad provided an alternative community and a distinct identity in
which the lower class Indonesian youth found meaning, purpose, and dignity
in life.
Mounia Bennani-Chraibi’s study of Moroccan youth makes it clear that
religious positioning is less a matter of age, than a matter of education and
dispositions gained through becoming an “educated person.” Thus, educated
young and old converge in their views and stand apart from those less educated
people. Herrera’s life history of an educated but disenfranchised Egyptian
youth gives life to Bennani’s sociological argument. Karim, an unemployed
Egyptian youth waits in what seems like a permanent state of limbo. Despite
having the “profile” of a would-be radical, he opposes extremist religious ideas,
and by so doing confirms that radicalism is not the inevitable trajectory of dis-
enfranchised youth. However, he expresses a degree of understanding, if not
empathy, with those who choose an alternate path when he says: “I want to
emphasize that the young person who becomes a terrorist sees his life as a
closed path. It is closed in its past, its future, its material and moral aspects.
This person needs someone to help him but doesn’t find anyone. He doesn’t
belong to a powerful family that can protect him from failed laws. The social
and economic conditions don’t provide him with any opportunities. He is angry
16 BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM
that all the important things in his life—work and love—have failed. He doesn’t
believe in the social structure since it’s neither just nor legitimate. He
considers this system responsible for his own failures and problems of his
society. . . . This person has nothing to do but to escape”.
Yet despite these variations in attitudes toward radical Islam, there does
exist among the young in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and indeed throughout the
Muslim world, a general sentiment that they share as “Muslim youth”—an
identity that is reinforced primarily by international processes such as western
“Islamophobia” or Palestinian victimhood.
Adherence to political Islam represents only one venue that some pursue.
The fact is that beyond biographical trajectories (family background, educa-
tional level, ideological baggage, and so forth), the morally outraged Muslim
youngsters need a political opportunity—a permissible political climate and a
catalyst for social action—to be able to mobilize. Otherwise, they might opt for
exit, accommodation, or everlasting waiting for something to turn up, if they do
not pursue the path of underground activism.
In Palestine, cyber activism has provided an outlet for vigorous youth polit-
ical engagement because it functions outside physical constraints of space and,
although to a lesser extent, under the radar of surveillance and censorship.
Makram Khoury-Machool documents in this book how Palestinian educational
institutions and nongovernmental organizations, given the many constraints
they faced operating under conditions of occupation, seized the opportunities
offered by the World Wide Web for teaching, organizing, and communicating
with each other and the outside world. The Internet has become increasingly
central to everyday Palestinian life and is used as a means not only for informa-
tion, commerce, and social organization, but also for forming international
solidarities around issues of Palestinian rights and justice. Palestinian youth in
particular have became highly skilled in ICT and have been pioneers in using
the Web for emerging forms of peaceful youth activism.
How do the young operate in a society such as Saudi Arabia, where the
state imposes high social control and political surveillance, including censor-
ship of cyber space? Here, a segment of youth has joined in the radical Sahwa
movement, whereas others sympathize with Jihadi groups. An alternative form
of expression is symbolized in “fatal fun”—a highly dangerous past-time dur-
ing which the young get involved in car skidding. Called tahfit, this trajectory of
rage is seen often as a response to social vacuum and boredom, or ṭufush, in a
nation that allows little possibility of public fun and collective joy. But as al-Otaibi
and Ménoret argue in chapter 5, ṭufush “is not mere boredom and empti-
ness, but rage that overwhelms young when they realize that structures of
opportunities are violently unfair”. Coming largely from lower middle class,
INTRODUCTION 17
F IGURE 1.2. Young people shopping for bargains outside a mall in Jakarta,
Indonesia. (Asef Bayat, 2008)
INTRODUCTION 19
the current juncture, global politics has played a crucial part in constructing
Islamic identity among the Muslim youth. Whether as radical or moderate,
principled or pragmatic, the current cohort of young Muslims constitutes the
globalized generation of the post-9/11 era that has felt, experienced, and been
overwhelmed by the overbearing politics and discourse in the West that preju-
dice Islam and Muslims. Very simply put, the recent Islamophobia in the West
has rendered even “secular” youth in Muslim societies to identify with Islam.
The construction of identity of this sort is even more critical among Mus-
lim minorities in Europe or the United States, where Muslims are circum-
vented by the non-Islamic surroundings that deride them. In the United States,
for instance, young (Arab) Muslims have been compelled to come to terms
with their religious identity, as Bayoumi illustrates. Youth did not ask for Islam;
rather, in post-9/11 America, everyone defined them as Muslims. Thus, instead
of escaping from or hiding such identity, the Arab Muslim youths have visibly
and proactively embraced it, by redefining (and educating) themselves as Mus-
lims. They embraced such an identity because they had to live and get by as
Muslims in a hostile climate in which survival depended on establishing a rec-
ognition that it is okay to be young, Muslim, and American. Theirs, then, was
radically different from their parents’ generation, for whom seeking an Islamic
identity was not imbued with so much weight.
yet inclusive and open, rejectionists yet deeply concerned with education and
dialogue, Muslim and black and British/punk, and global in their concern, [the
group] provides a very different, multiplex, and more useful vision of what it
might mean to be ‘Muslim’ [and young] in today’s Britain”.
For Muslim youth in general, music is not merely the political language of
protest as noted here. Whether they make up the majority or minority, young
Muslims also show a great interest and involvement in the kinds of globalized
genres—pop, rock, rap, and heavy metal—that their non-Muslim counterparts in
different parts of the world enjoy. Global musical genres have become important
identity markers of urban youth, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Yet there are
ongoing negotiations between the use of these cultural products and the habitus
of “Muslimness.” Suzanne Naafs (chapter 21) looks at the images that circulate
through the highly popular video compact disks of popular female performers in
Indonesia. Pop artists promote not only their music, but a youthful lifestyle, and
thereby play a part in the cultural negotiations that take place over questions of
what it means to be young, female, and Muslim in contemporary Indonesia. As
young women are exposed to the global youth flows, they find new ways of incor-
porating older codes of decency and virtuosity into a modern image and life-
style.
The Turkish heavy metal bands and youth hang-out “metal spaces” that Pierre
Hecker so vividly describes, tell us how segments of Muslim youth, with their
deviant appearance of long hair, black clothing, tattoos, piercings, and drinking
habits, push the cultural boundaries. Turkish metal heads engage in a musical,
social, and moral endeavor that stands counter to traditional norms and religious
teachings. Such countercultural trends seem to be gaining ground since the 1990s
in the bustling urban quarters of Istanbul among segments of the urban youth.
Metal groups and their supporters reflect a love of music among the “unconven-
tional” youth; they engage in the kind of solidarity building among the youth of
the Middle East that conventional politics is unable to accomplish. Under the plat-
form of peace (between Arabs and Israel), several bands in the region have been
linked to one another, thus galvanizing their fans in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Dubai,
and Israel to develop transnational networks via the Internet to promote debate on
peace in the region. Hecker suggests that, in fact, Islam has played a minor role in
the uncommon practice of heavy metal in the Muslim Middle East. The source of
youth rebellion and resistance cannot be traced to restrictions arising from Islam
and the religious order, but from political repression, lack of economic opportu-
nities, and the dearth of cultural travel.
What, then, is the status of Muslim youth in these neoliberal times? In the con-
ventional wisdom, a combination of youth bulge, unemployment, marginality,
24 BEING YOUNG AND MUSLIM
Politics of Dissent
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2
Muslim Youth and the Claim
of Youthfulness
Asef Bayat
for example, are primarily about religious radicalism per se, where the young
people (like others) only happen to be involved. This is different from an
approach that takes youth as the point of departure, as the central category, to
examine religious radicalism. On the other hand, youth as a social category has
curiously been absent from the prevalent social movement debates. In general,
scholarly attempts to conceptualize meanings and modalities of youth move-
ments remain rare. At best, it is assumed that such conceptual tools as ideology,
organization, mobilization, framing, and the like would be adequate to assess
youth as a collective body. Consequently, forms of youth activism, those that do
not fall into the frame of classical social movements, have fallen into the realm
of and are viewed largely from the prism of social problems or subcultural studies.
Although historical studies and journalistic accounts do talk about such collec-
tives as youth movements (referring, for instance, to the political protests of the
1960s or the subcultures of hippies or punks), they presume a priori that youth
movements are those in which young people play the central role. Thus, stu-
dent activism, antiwar mobilization, and counterculture trends of the 1960s
in Europe and the United States, or youth chapters of certain political parties
and movements such as Communist youth, are taken to manifest different
forms of youth movements (Mao 1967).1 What I propose here differs from
these approaches.
I suggest that a discussion of the experience of youth in the Muslim Middle
East, where moral and political authority impose a high degree of social control
over the young, can offer valuable insights into conceptualizing youth and
youth movements. By comparing youth activism in the Muslim Middle East,
we can productively construct “youth” as a useful analytical category, which can
then open the way to understand the meaning of a youth movement. Rather
than being defined in terms of the centrality of the young, youth movements
are ultimately about “claiming or reclaiming youthfulness.” And youthfulness
signifies a particular habitus, behavioral and cognitive dispositions that are as-
sociated with the fact of being “young”—that is, a distinct social location
between childhood and adulthood, where the youngster experiences “relative
autonomy” and is neither totally dependent (on adults) nor independent, and is
free from responsibility for other dependents. Understood as such, the political
agency of youth movements, their transformative and democratizing potential,
depends on the capacity of the adversaries, the moral and political authorities,
to accommodate and contain youthful claims. Otherwise, youth may remain as
conservative as any other social group. Yet, given the prevalence of the doctrinal
religious regimes in the Middle East with legitimizing ideologies that are un-
able to accommodate the youth habitus, youth movements have great transfor-
mative and democratizing promise.
MUSLIM YOUTH AND THE CLAIM OF YOUTHFULNESS 29
The idea of youths as a revolutionary class is not new. The widespread mobili-
zation of young people in Europe and the United States during the capitalist
boom of the 1960s convinced many observers that youth (then active in univer-
sities and antiwar movements, and in producing alternative lifestyles) were
the new revolutionary force of social transformation in western societies. For
Herbert Marcuse in the United States and Andre Gortz in France, youths and
students had taken the place of the proletariat as the major agents of political
change (Marcuse 1969). In this vein, youth movements have often been equated
and used interchangeably either with student movements or with youth chap-
ters or branches of this or that political party or movement (Bundy 1987). Thus,
the youth section of the Fascist party in Germany is described as the German
youth movement (Liqueur 1984); and the youth organization of the Iraqi Ba‘ath
Party is assumed to be the youth movement in Iraq.
I suggest that a youth movement is neither the same as student activism, nor
an appendage of political movements, nor is it necessarily a revolutionary agent.
First, movements are defined not simply by the identity of their actors (even
though this factor affects very much the character of a movement), but by the
nature of their claims and grievances. Although in reality students are usually
young, and young people are often students, they represent two different cate-
gories. “Student movements” embody the collective struggles of a student body to
defend or extend “student rights,” decent education, fair exams, affordable fees, or
accountable educational management (Cockburn and Blackburn 1969). On the
other hand, activism of young people in political organizations does not necessar-
ily make them agents of a youth movement. Rather, it indicates youth support for,
and their mobilization by, a particular political objective (democracy, Ba‘athism, or
Fascism). Of course, some youth concerns may be expressed in and merge into
certain political movements, as in German Fascism, which represented aspects of
a German youth movement, or in the current pietism of Muslims in France, which
partially reflects the individuality (through veiling) of Muslim girls. However, this
possibility should not be confused with the situation when young people happen
to support a given political organization or movement.
But is the political ideal of the young necessarily revolutionary? By no
means. Indeed, the political conservatism of many young people in the West
after 1960, which compelled Marcuse to retreat from his earlier position, shat-
tered the myth of youths as a revolutionary class. If anything, the political or
transformative potential of youth movements is relative to the degree of social
control their adversaries impose on them. For instance, a political regime, such
30 POLITICS OF DISSENT
The spectacular activism of young people in the Islamic revolution,2 the war
with Iraq, and in the new revolutionary institutions earned them a new, exalted
position, altering their image from “young troublemakers” to “heroes and mar-
tyrs.” This was the image of the “spectacular male youth” drawn sociologically
from lower and middle class families. At the same time, the young were seen
as highly vulnerable to corrupting ideas and, therefore, required protection and
surveillance. To reproduce an ideal “Muslim man,” the Islamic regime launched,
in 1980, the “cultural revolution” program to “Islamize” educational culture
and curricula. Universities were shut down for two years, Islamic associations
were set up in schools, and all public places came under the watchful gaze of
morals police and proregime vigilantes.
MUSLIM YOUTH AND THE CLAIM OF YOUTHFULNESS 33
Openly dating had become a prime casualty of Islamic moral code, although
the young devised ways to resist. Well-to-do young boys and girls made contacts
not only at private parties and underground music concerts, but also in public
parks, shopping malls, and restaurants, often discreetly arranged by cell phone.
In such “distanciated dating,” Muslim girls and boys stood apart but eyed each
other from distance, chatted, flirted, and expressed love through electronic waves.
To seek privacy and yet appear legitimate, young couples hired taxies to drive
them around the city in anonymity, while they sat back for hours to romance or
take delight in their companionship. The popularity of Valentine’s Day revealed
an abundance of “forbidden love” and relationships in which sex, it seemed,
was not excluded. In fact, scattered evidence indicated widespread premarital
sex among Iran’s Muslim youths, despite the high risk of harsh penalties. An
academician claimed that one out of three unmarried girls and 60% in North
Tehran had had sexual relations. Of 130 cases of AIDS cases reported in hospitals,
90 were unmarried women (Mahmoud Golzari 2004). An official of Tehran
Municipality reported “each month at least 10 or 12 aborted fetuses are found
in the garbage” (Farahi 2003). Although public information did not exist,
researchers and medical professionals were alarmed by the extent of unwanted
pregnancies. Doctors unofficially spoke of the fact that “not one week passes by
without at least two or three young girls coming in for an abortion.”8 Reportedly
some 60% of patients requesting abortions were unmarried young girls. United
Nations Population Fund officials in Tehran referred to a survey on “morality”
(meaning sexuality) among young people, but the results were so “terrible” that
they had to be destroyed.9 Attention to self, physical appearance, clothing, fash-
ion, and plastic surgery became widespread trends among young females.
Clearly, sexuality among the young posed a major challenge to the Islamic
state, testing the capacity of Islamism to integrate youths, whose sensibilities
were inherently subversive to it. During the early 1990s, President Rafsanjani
came up with the idea of “temporary marriage” as an “Islamic” solution to the
crisis. It meant controlling sexual encounters through fixed short-term (as
short as a few hours) relationships called “marriage.” Ayatollah Ha’eri Shirazi
proposed “legitimate courtship” (without sex) (Payman-e Doust-ye Shar‘i), an
openly recognized relationship approved by parents or relatives (Salam
September 17, 1996). Others called for some kind of official document con-
firming the legitimacy (halaliyyat) of such relationships, meaning something
like temporary marriage in which the couple would not live together (Iran
November 9, 1996). Young men purely seeking sex were to “temporarily marry”
prostitutes to “legitimize” their encounters.
The young’s desperate cultural politics shattered Islamists’ image of
them as self-sacrificing individuals devoted to martyrdom and moral codes.
36 POLITICS OF DISSENT
By challenging the regime’s moral and political authority, the young subverted
the production of “Muslim youth.” Anxiety over the increasing bad hijabi (laxity
in veil wearing) among school and university girls haunted officials: “We are
encountering a serious cultural onslaught. What is to be done?” they lamented.10
More than 85% of young people in 1995 spent their leisure time watching televi-
sion, but only 6% of them watched religious programs; of the 58% who read
books, less then 8% were interested in religious literature.11 A staggering 80%
of the nation’s youth were indifferent or opposed to the clergy, religious obliga-
tions, and religious leadership,12 whereas 86% of students refrained from say-
ing their daily prayers.13 Official surveys confirmed the deep mistrust separating
the young from the state and whatever it stood for. The vast majority (80%)
lacked confidence in politicians, and most (more than 70%) saw the govern-
ment as being responsible for their problems (Ministry of Culture and Islamic
Guidance 1994).
Yet this distrust of the Islamist authorities did not mean that the young
abandoned religion. Indeed, they expressed a “high religiosity” in terms of fun-
damental religious “beliefs” and “feelings” (Serajzadeh 1999), with some 90%
believing in God and the idea of religion, according to one study.14 However,
youth remained largely indifferent to religious practices; religious belief and
knowledge seemed to have little impact on their daily lives. God existed, but did
not prevent them from drinking alcohol or dating the opposite sex. To them,
religion was a more philosophical and cultural reality than it was moral and
doctrinal. Although most refused to attend mosque ceremonies, they flocked to
public and private lectures given by the “religious intellectuals,” which spread
during the mid 1990s. Like their Egyptian counterparts, the globalized Iranian
youth reinvented their religiosity, blending the transcendental with the secular,
faith with freedom, divine with diversion.
Many youngsters utilized the prevailing norms and institutions, especially
religious rituals, to accommodate their youthful claims, but in doing so they
creatively redefined and subverted the constraints of those codes and norms.
This mode of subversive accommodation was best expressed in the way the North
Tehrani youths treated the highly charged ritual of Muharram, which com-
memorates the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammed.
By inventing “Hussein parties,” the young turned this highly austere occasion
of mourning into an evening of glamour, fun, and sociability. Boys and girls
dressed in their best, strolled through the streets, joined parades of mourners,
and used the occasion to stay out until dawn to socialize, flirt, exchange phone
numbers, and secretly arrange dates (Yaghmaian 2002: 61–65). In a similar
spirit, they reinvented the sham-e ghariban (the 11th night of the month of
Muharram), the most dreary and sorrowful Shi‘i ritual in Islamic Iran, as a
MUSLIM YOUTH AND THE CLAIM OF YOUTHFULNESS 37
went with it. The “mystery of firecrackers,” as one daily put it, symbolized
outrage against officialdom that the young saw as having forbidden joy and
jolliness.17
social barriers separating rural and urban youth began to crumble, giving the
country’s young a broader, national constituency. Meanwhile, the weakening of
parental authority over the young (resulting from the state’s valorization of
youth) and the reinforcement of child-centeredness in the family (an outcome
of increasing literacy among women and mothers) contributed to the individu-
ation of the young and their militancy.21
By the mid 1990s, Iran’s postrevolutionary young had turned into becom-
ing “youth”—a social agent. But theirs was not a conventional social move-
ment, an organized and sustained collective challenge with articulated ideology
or a recognizable leadership. Rather, theirs was a nonmovement, the “collective
conscience” of the noncollective actors, whose principal expression lay in the
politics of presence, tied closely to the young’s everyday cultural struggles and
normative subversion. This fragmented mass of individuals and subgroups
shared common attributes in expressing common anxieties, demanding indi-
vidual liberty, and in constructing and asserting their collective identities. The
individual youngsters were tied together not only within dispersed subgroups
(youth magazines, NGOs, peer groups, and street corner associations), but
more commonly through “passive networks”—those undeliberate linkages
formed by the youngsters tacitly recognizing their commonalities through gaze
in public spaces, by identifying shared symbols displayed in styles (T-shirts,
blue jeans, hair), types of activities (attending particular concerts, music stores),
and places (sport stadiums, shopping malls, hiking trails). Thus, the birth of
youth as a social category of national scale, operating in unique simultaneous
conditions of both repression and opportunity, drove Iranian youths to reclaim
their youthfulness in a battle within which the state became the target. Reclaim-
ing youth habitus from state control and moral authority defined Iran’s youth
(non)movement.
the flow of people, goods, and information; and increasing occupational spe-
cialization marked the shifting social structure of post-Infitah rural settings
(Denis and Bayat 2001). The spread of mass schooling provided the raw mate-
rials to produce educated youth. And urban institutions such as college cam-
puses, coffee shops, shopping malls, concert venues, mulid (celebration of
saints’birth) festivals, and street corners provided spaces for social interaction,
active and passive networks, and the construction of youth identities. In brief,
the young as social actors had emerged in both Iran and Egypt in a more or less
similar pattern.
However, the simultaneous processes of urbanization, Islamization, and
globalization had fragmented the young generation in Egypt. Alongside actively
pious and provincial adolescents had emerged new generations of globalized
youths who had been increasingly exposed to the global cultural flows. Clearly,
different class and gender experiences had given rise to multiple youth iden-
tities. Whereas harsher social control in the Islamic Republic had pushed male
and female youth to develop closer aspirations, gender distinction in Egypt
remained more evident. For example, the difference in social aspirations
between adolescent boys and girls in Egypt was so pronounced that observers
spoke of “more separate male and female cultures than a single youth culture.”
Especially crucial were the male perceptions of women, which seriously threat-
ened their identity as youths’ shared habitus. Men would rarely (in Egypt only
4%) marry a woman who had premarital sex (Khalifa 1995: 6–10). “No one
goes out with a girl and marries her. Ninety-nine percent of men would not
marry a girl they ever touched,” stated a university student in Egypt. And the
girls felt this bitter truth. “This is what we hate about the boys; they rarely marry
the girl they go out with.”22
But in both Iran and Egypt, the mainstream young attempted to assert
their habitus, to exert their individuality, to aspire for change and create youth
subculture. They did so by recognizing the existing moral and political constraints,
and trying to make the best out of the existing institutions. However, compared
with their Iranian counterparts, Egyptian youth remained for the most part
demobilized in the political and civic domains. Although they showed interest
in political participation, they lacked the means to do so. Unlike in Iran, where
ageism was breaking down and the youth were remarkably valorized, the elders
and political elites in Egypt did not trust the young in the political arena. Egyptian
politics, both governmental and oppositional, continued to remain in the grip
of very old men (average age of 77 in 2002).23 Meanwhile, the young distrusted
party politics, which happened to be the only legitimate channel for activism.24
Lack of trust in electoral games pushed the young further away from
politics, and restrictions on campus activism put a damper on youth political
42 POLITICS OF DISSENT
mobilization. The mobilization of middle and lower middle class youth in the
Islamist movement during the 1980s did not repeat itself in other political
fields. During the late 1990s, political activity on campuses was paltry, as state
security intervened to prevent Islamist, Leftist, and Nasserist candidates from
running for student unions. Only Israel’s reoccupation of the Palestinian terri-
tories in early 2000 galvanized social and political mobilization (Hammond
1998: 7). The remarkable involvement of Egyptian youths in collecting food
and medicine for Palestinians was indeed a watershed in youth volunteerism,
but it was the result of the unique political and moral aura of the siege of Pales-
tinians by Likud’s repressive incursions. Otherwise, the young showed slight
interest in public service or volunteerism. Even the youths of elite families
whose social and financial resources often make them the prime source of
donations remained indifferent. Of 20 hand-picked students of Egyptian uni-
versities, only one had engaged in any volunteer activities (Khalifa 1995: 6–10).
Genuine youth initiatives, such as Fathi Kheir NGO, were exceptions. The
prevailing notion was that the state, not citizens, was to take charge of social
provisions.
Clearly, the young were bearing the brunt of Egypt’s “passive revolution,”
in which the “seculareligious” state had appropriated the initiative for change
through a remarkable blend of concession and control. Egyptian youth were
not under the same moral and political control as their counterparts in Iran or
Saudi Arabia. Depending on their social and economic capacities, they were
able to listen to their music, follow their fashion, pursue dating games, have
affordable fun, and be part of global trends as long as they recognized their
limits, beyond which their activities would collide with the moral authority and
the state. Youths were to be integrated and guided by the state.
To do so, the state would provide the young with “scientific advancement”
or technical education to catch up and compete in the world, and at the same
time guide them into religious piety to withstand both foreign cultural influ-
ences and home-grown political Islam.25 Indeed, the 1999 presidential decree
to rename the Supreme Council of Youths (established in 1965) the Ministry of
Youths and Sports, displayed official anxiety over the “youth problem.”26 Their
protection from political and moral ills had become a matter of “national secu-
rity.” The Ministry of Youths, with its control of 4,000 youth centers, was to
help materialize these objectives. Government loans were established to enable
the young to settle down and marry by purchasing housing,27 to provide access
to information and communication technology, and to acquire technical training
through NGOs.28 Meanwhile, the youth centers, some kind of state-controlled
NGOs, would organize summer camps, debates, entertainment, training pro-
grams, religious education caravans, and sporting events. However, the deplorable
MUSLIM YOUTH AND THE CLAIM OF YOUTHFULNESS 43
beyond the well-to-do young. One out of every three students in the cities had
drunk alcohol, mainly beer.33 Although just over 5% admitted experimenting
with drugs (85% with cannabis), the problem became more severe during the
early 1990s. Law enforcement professionals warned that the use of Ecstasy, in
particular, was on the rise.34
Although in general a “culture of silence” prevailed regarding sexuality
(Population Council 1999), premarital sex seemed to be fairly widespread
among Muslim youth, despite normative and religious prohibition. In an ap-
proximate but indicative survey of 100 high school and college girls in various
Cairo districts, 8% said they had had sexual intercourse, 37% had experienced
sex without intercourse, 23% had kissed, and 20% had only held hands. In a
survey of 100 school and college male students in Cairo, 73% said they would
not mind having premarital sex as long as they would not marry their partners
(Khalifa 1995). A more comprehensive study found “substantial rates of pre-
marital sex among university students” (Ibrahim and Wassef 2000: 163).
In AIDS education classes, students posed questions about specific sexual
practices that surprised health educators (Cairo Times, May 15-8, 1997:12).35
Although comprehensive surveys did not exist, the use of pornography by
males appeared to be quite widespread.36 Ninety out of 100 respondents said
F IGURE 2.1. Youth out on a Friday afternoon in Al Azhar Park, Cairo. (Linda
Herrera, 2009)
MUSLIM YOUTH AND THE CLAIM OF YOUTHFULNESS 45
they masturbated regularly, and 70% of those 90 thought they were doing
something religiously and physically wrong (Khalifa 1995). Beyond influences
from satellite dishes or illicit videos, the changing structure of households
seemed to facilitate youth sexual practices. The father figure, once so impor-
tant, was changing even in villages. One out of three families was fatherless,
resulting from divorce, abandonment, and, mostly (20% to 25%) fathers work-
ing abroad. Children might use the home for romance when their mothers
went out. Otherwise, lower class Cairo couples found romantic solace on the
benches of inconspicuous metro stations, where they sat and talked or romanced
while pretending to wait for trains.37
Most of these young people were religious. They often prayed, fasted, and
expressed fear of God. Many heavy metal “Satanists” whom I interviewed con-
sidered themselves devout Muslims, but also enjoyed rock music, drinking
alcohol, and romance. The mainstream young combined prayer, partying, por-
nography, faith, and fun. Notice how, for instance, a lower class young man
working in Dahab, a tourist resort where many foreign women visit, blended
God, women, and police in pursuit of his mundane and spiritual needs: “I used
to pray before I came to Dahab. My relationship to God was very strong and
very spiritual. Now, my relationship to God is very strange. I always ask him to
provide me with a woman and when I have a partner, I ask him to protect me
from the police” (Abdul-Rahmna 2001: 18)
This might sound like a contradiction, but it expresses more a consolation
and accommodation. The young enjoy dancing, raving, having illicit relation-
ships, and fun, but find solace and comfort in their prayers and faith. “I do both
good and bad things, not just bad things. The good things erase the bad things,”
said a law student in Cairo.38 A 25-year-old religious man who drank alcohol
and “tried everything” also smoked “pot in a group sometimes to prove [his]
manhood.” He prayed regularly, hoping that God would forgive his ongoing
misdeeds. Such a state of liminality, this “creative in-betweeness,” illustrates
how the young attempted to redefine and reimagine their Islam to accommo-
date their youthful desires for individuality, change, fun, and “sin” within the
existing moral order. Not only did they redefine their religion, they also rein-
vented notions of youthfulness. “During adolescence,” a 19-year-old student
said, “all young men do the same; there is no haram or halal at that age.”39 Sim-
ilarly, many young girls saw themselves as committed Muslims, but still uncov-
ered their hair or wore the veil only during Ramadan or only during fasting
hours. Many of those who enjoyed showing their hair found consolation in
deciding to cover it after marriage, when their youthful stage was over.
To assert their habitus under the prevailing moral and political constraints,
Egyptian youths resorted to accommodating innovation, a strategy that redefined
46 POLITICS OF DISSENT
What, then, of youths as a political force in the Muslim Middle East? Do youth
movements possess the capacity to cause political and democratic transforma-
tion? If, indeed, the youth movements, as I have suggested, are ultimately about
claiming and reclaiming youthfulness, then their transformative and democra-
tizing potential would depend on the capacity of the moral and political
authorities to accommodate youthful claims. If their youthful claims are
accommodated, youth movements would, by definition, cease to exist, and
young people may remain as politically conservative as any other social groups.
To become political agents, the young will need to think and act politically, as
the Egyptian “April 7th movement” in 2008 illustrates. Yet, because the current
doctrinal religious regimes in the Middle East have limited capacity to contain
the increasingly global youth habitus, youth movements consequently retain a
considerable transformative and democratizing promise. Muslim youth, per-
haps similar to their non-Muslim counterparts, remain in constant struggle to
assert, claim, and reclaim their youthfulness, by taking advantage of available
venues, including resorting to religion or subverting it. Negotiating between
their youthfulness and Muslimness against the general backdrop of modernity
marks one of the most enduring elements in Muslim youth habitus.
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3
The Drama of Jihad: The
Emergence of Salafi Youth
in Indonesia
Noorhaidi Hasan
comprehensive implementation of the shari‘a (Islamic law), but they also raided
cafés, discotheques, casinos, brothels, and other reputed dens of iniquity, and
most important, called for jihad in the Moluccas.
The backdrop of the call was bloody communal conflict between Muslims
and Christians, which erupted in the islands of the Moluccas located in the
eastern part of Indonesia in January 1999, and cost hundreds of casualties
and displaced thousands of people. Facing the threats of mass killing, many
were forced to flee to adjacent provinces. In addition, hundreds of buildings,
including schools, mosques, and churches, were gutted. At the height of the
conflict, the two combating parties tried to attract wider national attention.
They circulated photos, video compact disks, and amateur movies of atrocities
committed by their respective enemies. Rumors circulated about a revival of
the old Dutch-sponsored RMS (South Moluccan Republic), now in the form of
a separatist movement supported by a Zionist–Christian conspiracy working
to “Christianize” the Moluccas islands.1
Among the groups, the Laskar Jihad might be considered the most exclu-
sive and phenomenal paramilitary organization uniting thousands of young
members, militants who call themselves Salafis, followers of the Salaf al-Salih
(pious ancestors). Active under the umbrella organization Forum Komunikasi
Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jama‘ah (Forum for Followers of the Sunna and the Commu-
nity of the Prophet), henceforth called FKAWJ, whose establishment was
officially inaugurated in the palpably religious mass gathering tabligh akbar
held in Yogyakarta in January 2000, it emerged on the scene as an undoubtedly
militant Islamic organization and impressed the public through the onward
march of its members willing to martyr themselves for the cause of God. Under
the leadership of Ja‘far Umar Thalib (b. 1961), this largest and best organized
paramilitary group claimed to have dispatched more than 7,000 voluntary jihad
fighters to the Moluccas. Deployed in different places to confront Christians,
their presence undoubtedly changed the map of the communal conflict
occurring in the islands.
This chapter examines why thousands of young men, roughly half of whom
are university students and graduates between the ages of 20 to 35 years old,
were so eager to welcome the call for jihad announced by Ja‘far Umar Thalib
and compete to risk their lives by enlisting to venture to the front lines and fight
against Christians. To what extent does this religiously sanctioned repertoire of
violence represent their attempts to consolidate identity during the contempo-
rary period of rapid social transformation sometimes described as globaliza-
tion? And in what way does their collective activism reflect a process of cultural
interactions between the local and the global, the hegemonic and the subaltern,
and the center and the periphery? Unlike the popular perception that associates
THE DRAMA OF JIHAD 51
to adopt a typical Arab–style dress (jalabiyya) and let their beards grow long in
their enforcement of religious observance.4 Nevertheless, by adhering to the
doctrine of the Salaf al-Salih of the Saudi Wahhabi model, which focuses on
the purification of Muslim belief, it avoided discussing politics, or, more
precisely, engaging questions of political power.5 Instead, it concentrated on
re-Islamizing society at a grassroots level by insisting on the correct imple-
mentation of the Shari‘a by individuals, particularly through preaching and
the establishment of Islamized spaces. This stance of apolitical “quietism”
was developed in accordance with the Saudi Arabian policy to suppress radical
expressions of political Islam, while demonstrating its commitment to reli-
gious propagation and a puritanical life style.6
The Salafi da‘wa movement had to compete with all the other movements
that had found fertile soil at university campuses to recruit university students.
Upon return from Saudi Arabia, Abu Nida, the early proponent of the move-
ment, chose to live in Yogyakarta, the city known as the main destination of
students wanting to study at a university. At the beginning of every academic
year, thousands of students from almost all the provinces pour into the city.
Here, Abu Nida began to propagate Salafi da‘wa activities, targeting university
areas with the goal of attracting students. Supported by Saefullah Mahyuddin,
the then head of the DDII branch office in Yogyakarta known for his close re-
lations with the Jama‘ah Shalahuddin (Shalahuddin Community), a religious
activity unit attached to the Gadjah Mada University, one of the largest univer-
sities in Indonesia, Abu Nida lectured at Islamic study forums organized by
the community and promoted Wahhabite doctrines among students.
Abu Nida believed that the growth of the Salafi da‘wa movement in Indo-
nesia was dependent upon successfully recruiting university students into his
circles. To him, university students are the most educated and, thus, the most
important layer of the younger generation of Indonesian Muslims that can
serve as agents of change to direct Indonesia into a more Islamized country.7
As interest in the Wahhabite doctrines spread, Abu Nida expanded his
influence by independently organizing Salafi halqas and dauras both inside and
outside university campuses. In developing his activities, Abu Nida gained
support from his colleagues who had also completed their studies in Saudi
Arabia, including Ahmad Faiz Asifuddin, Aunur Rofik Ghufron, Dahlan Basri,
Abdul Hakim Abdat, Masrur Zainuddin, Muhammad Yusuf Harun, Ahmad
Zawawi, Yazid Abdul Qadir Jawwas, Yusuf Usman Baisa, and Ja‘far Umar
Thalib. The efforts made by these new graduates to spread the Salafi da‘wa
proved fruitful. Salafi communities, with a membership that consisted mainly
of university students between the ages of 18 and 30, proliferated. The
multiplication of the Salafi communities led seamlessly to the emergence of
54 POLITICS OF DISSENT
The plea of the Salafi da’wa movement—a strict religious organization that
demands sacrifice and forces members to suffer from social stigma as a result
of an unwavering belief and rigid adherence to the distinctive lifestyle—among
Indonesian Muslim youths can be seen as one of the consequences of the fast
current of social changes set in motion by the processes of modernization and
globalization. Even though this accelerated process has opened up social,
THE DRAMA OF JIHAD 55
Needless to say, youth emerged as the group that felt most directly the
impact of development. Having completed their basic and secondary educa-
tion, many of them had the opportunities to migrate to big cities for a better
education. The growing opportunities for youths coming from either small
country towns and rural areas or from the urban lower middle classes to migrate
to big cities for a better education have created certain problems that continue
to trouble those young people who make the attempt. As appeared in a dozen
case studies I collected among the Laskar Jihad members, in contrast to the
students from the urban upper middle class, those from rural areas usually do
not receive sufficient support from their families to enable them to cope with
the heavy burdens of living as university students in the cities. Forced to rely on
their own resources, they shoulder not only academic burdens, but also respon-
sibility for their own basic living costs and tuition fees. Hampered by economic
constraints, they are prevented from enjoying the “real” campus life that
remains the prerogative of affluent students. Some have been forced to board
in cramped quarters with limited facilities, located on narrow streets. Indeed,
most of their parents generally live as peasants who own limited farmland.
Because the economic policies of the state have tended to neglect agricultural
development, it has become increasingly difficult for this stratum to improve
their socioeconomic status (Hasan 2006).
Other village youths who had no hopes of undertaking a university
education followed in their footsteps. Attracted by portrayals of cities dissem-
inated by electronic media (most notably television), these youths came to
find jobs in the cities and formed something resembling a new proletariat
class, trying their luck by working as factory laborers, petty traders, shop-
keepers, tailors, or artisans. They usually live very simply because of their
ambition to transfer as much money as possible to their families in the coun-
tryside or to save for the future.11
These two segments of newly urbanized youths who came from slightly
different social backgrounds had to experience a multiplicity of delicate, unset-
tled problems. By migrating to urban settings that strike them as unfriendly
and intimidating, these people have become detached from the community of
their villages. This heightens their sensitivity to psychological shocks and
weakens their ability to deal with them. They have been used to living in a rel-
atively predictable manner within the bounds of a community with members
who could easily communicate with one another. Kinship ties are particularly
useful in providing solidarity and protection, and their ubiquitous presence in
a village means that problems are not carried on a single individual’s shoul-
ders, but are resolved collectively. In cities, on the other hand, a person is more
likely forced to live independently in relative isolation. They are forced to live in
THE DRAMA OF JIHAD 57
overcrowded urban neighborhoods that the state has failed to organize either
with respect to infrastructure or in terms of cultural or political structures, but
at the same time witness unattainable modern luxuries in the shop windows of
stores located in vast impersonal super- or hypermarkets.
It is apparent that the inequitable conditions that pervade the cities have
disturbed the habitus of the newly urbanized youths. Habitus is a concept intro-
duced by Bourdieu (1977: 78-79) to refer to a “system of durable, transposable
dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment
as a matrix of perceptions and actions, and makes possible the achievement of
infinitely diversified tasks.” Bourdieu contends that people experience a partic-
ularly comfortable sense of place through sharing a habitus. Calhoun (1995)
points out that one of the crucial features of habitus in traditional societies is
that it radically limits the range of options available to rational actors. From his
point of view, every increase in a person’s range of options creates greater com-
plexity and unpredictability for a person’s decision making, a circumstance
that is antithetical to the maintenance of stable traditional patterns of social
relations. Habitus thus informs the selective act of choosing and determines
the relation between social conditions of existence, the formation of the
person, and the practice of consumption as a construction of a life-world
(Friedman 1994; Sweetman 2003).
Exacerbating the feeling of dispossession is New Order Indonesia’s climate
of widespread corruption, economic stagnation, and bureaucratic incompe-
tence. Shortly after taking power from Sukarno through a drama preceded by an
abortive communist coup, Suharto began the construction of an extensive
patronage system that, by the 1980s, distributed benefits and bought support
throughout the country. In such a system, corruption from the top down was
not only a temptation, but also the essence of political strategy. Bureaucrats were
kept on board through job-based patronage, and military officers found it easy
and lucrative to go into business. In the absence of an autonomous, effective
state framework, personal political networks became the key institution of the
New Order regime (Johnston 2005: 178–179). As a result of the corrupt system,
many were alienated and were denied entrance into the central corridors of
power or were disenchanted by the New Order arbitrary rule and by rampant
corruption (Robison and Hadiz 2004: 120–130).
The government has seemingly failed to balance the supply of and demand
for workers, engendering increasing competition in job markets. Although the
majority of Indonesians achieved a higher standard of living under Suharto’s
New Order, problems of equity and distribution remain on the horizon, arising
primarily as by-products of growth—a greater concentration in urban areas and
the increasing expectation of the better educated. With the labor force growing
58 POLITICS OF DISSENT
by more than two million a year, the government faces an uphill struggle finding
them jobs. About 600,000 university graduates could not find employment in
1988 through 1989. More than 60% of the labor force between the ages of 15
and 19 with a high school education were looking for work during the same
years (Vatikiotis 1998: 57–58). In fact, youth appeared to be the most vulnerable
social group that represents three quarters of the total unemployed population.
Those working are forced to work in the informal economy, where they lack
adequate income, social protection, security, and representation (Abdullah
2004). Predictably, this problem will get worse during the next 10 years because
the bulk of the 11 million unemployed will be between 15 and 24 years old.
Indonesia’s unemployment rate could even increase to 20% of its roughly 150
million person workforce by 2015, whereas the number of poor families,
currently estimated at 19.2 million, could double.12
All these problems have undermined the more conventional anchors of
social life that provide a measure of reassuring stability for the youth. They
experienced a sort of identity crisis, or more precisely, a relativization or fluidity
of identity, when identity can be gained or lost, depending on individual volition
and accomplishment. As a source of meaning for social actors, identity organizes
meaning by determining how the purpose of certain actions is symbolically iden-
tified. Melucci (1989) refers to the “homelessness of personal identity” when
describing the sort of alienation people experience when identities are relativ-
ized, and he proposes that this condition requires individuals to reestablish their
identity and thus their “home” continually. In a similar analysis, Castells (1999:
20) suggests that the need to reconstruct an identity shaken by the swift current
of social change encourages global, modern people to return to a primary identity
established by working on “traditional materials in the formation of a new godly,
communal world, where deprived masses and disaffected intellectuals may
reconstruct meaning in a global alternative to the exclusionary global order.”
The Salafi da‘wa movement and other exclusive Islamist organizations came to
offer an alternative channel and protective cover for the Indonesian Muslim
youth who migrated to cities for education and employment, through which
they had the opportunity to consolidate their basic identity and thus find more
security in facing the future. More than any other movements, the Islamist
organization provided an alternative communal system and offered illusory
social security and protection. It introduced a new vision of Islam that empha-
sized the formalization of religious expressions and provided a channel through
THE DRAMA OF JIHAD 59
Transforming Frustration
The readiness of thousands of young men, roughly half of whom are university
students or graduates, to participate in the jihad mission in the Moluccas pio-
neered by the Salafi leaders cannot be disassociated with the global Salafi da‘wa
campaign that deliberately targeted youth. Thanks to the financial support from
Saudi Arabia, this campaign succeeded in establishing an exclusivist current
of Islamic movement and in recruiting dedicated young followers into its core
circles. The government attempts to accelerate the process of modernization
and globalization provided the opportunities for youths to pursue a better educa-
tion, thus opening the chances for them to attain social, economic, and political
mobility. Yet, the modernization the government initiated stumbled and failed
to achieve the promised economic development. Instead, it created not only cor-
ruption, nepotism, poverty, and unemployment, but also society’s alienation and
dependency. In view of this situation, youth felt threatened and insecure toward
their fate and their future. They thought that to get out of this delicate situation
they need to seek an alternative channel that offers a remedy. One such alterna-
tive is to join the exclusive Salafi da‘wa movement and similar organizations that
found fertile soil among university students. The exclusiveness offered by these
movements facilitated youths’ attempt to consolidate their identity and achieve
some sort of certainty about their future. In tight-knit exclusive communities, they
developed a passive resistance against the existing—hegemonic—world order,
and this resistance ends in failure as the walls of the order remain stout. Caught
in this situation, it was not a difficult decision for many of them to join the Laskar
Jihad mission in the Moluccas, because jihad provided an opportunity to break
out of their own frustration and, at the same time, claim identity and dignity.
4
Moroccan Youth and
Political Islam
Mounia Bennani-Chraïbi
whether they are really different from their elders in this domain. To address this
issue, I use the data from several qualitative surveys conducted in Morocco. Dur-
ing the past 20 years, I have conducted interviews (ranging from 90 minutes to
3 hours) that have systematically contained questions on religious aspects
(Bennani-Chraïbi 1994). Those interviewed were educated urban people, age 15
to 56 years. I will specifically analyze the repeated interviews conducted between
1998 and 2007 with young people from Casablanca, age 16 to 28 at the time of
the first meeting. When they were first interviewed, the vast majority lived in
working-class areas and had a general education. All were single, some were
high school students, others were university students, and still others were
unemployed. I met them near their schools, in youth community centers, in
neighborhood associations, or during the electoral campaign in 2002.
By youth I refer to the phase of transition during which a person becomes
more autonomous in the domains, for example, of housing (the fact of leav-
ing the family home), on an emotional level (building a new family group by
marriage or having a child), and at an economic level (integration into the
labor market). It should be emphasized that with the phenomenon of
extended youth, the thresholds are not necessarily simultaneous. For exam-
ple, in Morocco, the average age for a first marriage has been pushed back; it
is currently 26.3 years for women and 31.2 years for men.
First of all, I would like to show the diversity of the Moroccan political–
religious scene. In quantitative surveys, certain Moroccan youth express a
favorable opinion concerning religion in politics, even supporting the “appli-
cation of the shari‘a.” I will focus on this category of young people. Next, it is
not evident that opinions translate to political actions. Political Islam is not a
flag behind which the masses of young Moroccans would be ready to move as
one homogenous and united group. I will present data questioning the idea
that “youth” are necessarily more sensitive than their elders to political tenets
with an Islamic reference.
It has often been emphasized that the Moroccan religious arena is fundamen-
tally dominated by the monarchy. However, the religious “legitimacy” of the
Moroccan monarchy is not “natural,” but has been the product of struggle,
work, and a process of “naturalization” (Hammoudi 2007). In Morocco, a
complex “religious field,” to use Bourdieu’s concept (1971), has enabled the
Moroccan religious arena to be perceived as a terrain in which a whole series
of players (monarchy, religious scholars [ulamâ], brotherhoods, political
66 POLITICS OF DISSENT
“the Islamic features of the country must be preserved.” Indeed, one should
not forget the religious discourse of the “self proclaimed” ulamâ, who are
sometimes close to the groups responsible for attacks like those of May 16th. It
is also important to emphasize the importance of the Islamic satellite television
channels, often quoted by my interviewees.
This short summary would be incomplete without mentioning the political,
associative, and cultural actors who have no Islamic reference, but also play an
important part in the configuration of Moroccan “Muslim politics.”10 They
indeed contribute to its heterogeneity and to the number of dissonant voices.
Moreover, this arena is far from being closed to what occurs outside its geograph-
ical borders. Neither the government nor its opponents are indifferent to what
the U.S. State Department may think, to the possible reaction of the foreign
media, and to the support or the withdrawal of international organizations.
If I have taken the time to set the arena, it is, first, to show that there are
many hegemonic narratives about Islam, but there is no standardized produc-
tion of Islamic meanings. It would be remiss to leave out the “ordinary” actors
(the ones I interviewed), and dissociate them from this scene to which they
have differential access and do not perceive uniformly. Nevertheless, I do not
imply complete determinism, nor insinuate a boomerang effect between the
meanings circulating in the Moroccan religious arena and the representations
of those interviewed.
When one extols the virtues of the presence of religion in the city, how are its
boundaries and modalities drawn? The implementation of the shari‘a (reli-
gious law) does not mean the same thing to each individual. Likewise, the
positive a priori assumption regarding this law does not automatically refer to
the same content. Furthermore, when a student at the Faculty of Law states, “as
we are Muslims, we cannot refuse something that is in its dogma,” one must
not immediately deduce that he wants to abolish interest rates, cut off the
hands of thieves, or stone adulterous women. Behind the same declaration of
principle, several constructions of meanings are possible.
In my sample, the hard-liners are represented in two ways. First, there are
those who sympathize with Islamic movements, such as the JDP or Al-Adl wa
Al-Ihsân, and, more generally, those who could be termed as ordinary Islamists—
that is to say, those who share a similar vision of the world without necessarily
translating it into political affiliation or commitment. For both of these groups,
Islam is a total system that follows the principle of ijtihâd (the authority to
MOROCCAN YOUTH AND POLITICAL ISLAM 69
interpret religious questions). This allows religion to adapt through the course
of time and to acclimatize to all environments. From their point of view, the
“gray areas,” the legislative “loopholes” of the shari‘a are indicative of a great
deal of flexibility in legislative matters. In addition, this process of interpreta-
tion must be progressive. It is necessary to convince rather than impose.
Second, there are interviewees who maintain weak religious practices and
are distinguished by a high degree of accommodation, pulled between several
“programs of truth” (Veyne 1982). During the course of our discussions, they
sometimes advocate a strict Islamization imposed from the top, while also
expressing regret at being born Muslim! They present themselves as products
of a corrupt society, eaten away by “debauchery” and decadence. In other words,
Muslim male interviewees consider that if they consume alcohol or hashish, if
they chat up girls coming out of school, it is the fault of society. In order for
them to reform themselves individually, the state must safeguard their moral-
ity: close bars, veil women, prevent them from exhibiting their charms, apply
“the laws of God and not those of the slave” in courts, in banks, in “all areas.”
Furthermore, to reconcile with themselves and society, these young people feel
the need for a “totalizing” structure (embracing all aspects of their life) that
would be imposed from above.
An intermediate position consists of considering the shari‘a as an ideal, while
noting the obstacles that face such a project. Some emphasize that Morocco is part
of an international system and cannot opt for an Islamist economic approach in
the context of globalization. In the same spirit, suppression of interest rates,
closure of bars, as well as the eradication of cannabis production—which are all
sources of revenue required for the survival of the country—would plunge the
kingdom into an even more critical crisis. Also, the high levels of poverty and
unemployment in Morocco do not provide favorable conditions for the implemen-
tation of the law of God, or the harsh hudûd punishments (for example, amputat-
ing the hand of a thief or the stoning of adulterous women)—an argument that is
shared by the Islamists of the JDP and the Al-Adl wa Al-Ihsân.
The minimalists state that the shari‘a is already implemented. For them,
the issue consists of progressing on a path to democracy that preserves the “fun-
damentals of Islam” (at-tawâbith). They define democracy in terms of respect
for differences and pluralism, and advocate that others establish a democratic
system based on the Islamic principle of shûra (consultation),11 a concept that is
used in a vague, fluid manner and carries different meanings. Some inter-
viewees consider the profession of faith as the “zero grade” of the belonging to
the nation. The national motto “God, homeland, king” implies, in the words of
one interviewee, “Respect the dimension of Islam, the state religion, and respect
its fundamentals; there is only one God and the religion of God is Islam.”
70 POLITICS OF DISSENT
In social movement theory, the distance between the spread of ideas and their
crystallization into collective action is far. According to the approach developed
by William Gamson (1992), three dimensions of collective action frames should
be articulated: the existence of feelings of indignation when faced with “injus-
tice”; “identity,” which designates the constitution of an “us” in opposition to
“them” in relation to values and interests; and “agency,” which is the feeling of
being able to settle the problem by collective action. On the other hand, mobi-
lization occurs at the intersection of several variables located in space and time
(local, national, transnational) through “recognition circles” (Pizzorno 1986).
In other words, the inscription of different actors in the same “political oppor-
tunity structure” does not necessarily produce a similar impact. Of fundamen-
tal importance is the way actors perceive the world. Social movement theory
throws light on the diversity of paths and the variability of intensity with regard
to identification and political commitment. I shall illustrate this point by giving
some profiles of “hard-liners” from my sample.
MOROCCAN YOUTH AND POLITICAL ISLAM 71
Mahfoudh was 28 years old at the first interview (1998). He was living in
the same popular area in which he was born and belonged to the first gener-
ation of his family born in the city. After studying physics and chemistry for
two years at the university level, he became a technician. He presented his
trajectory as a continuity; his was a conservative upbringing in a neighbor-
hood “still” soaked in religious values, and especially by the spirit of solidar-
ity. He claimed to have an “Islamic orientation,” but expressed worries about
religious “extremes.” He read publications on Islam from Morocco and else-
where in the Arab world. He especially admired Youssef Al-Qardâoui,12 who,
according to him, considers democracy as compatible with shari‘a. On the
other hand, he disapproved of violent groups as well as movements like
al-Adl wa al-Ihsân who “exclude the others” (he met some of them at univer-
sity). Convinced by the necessity of legal, organized, and gradual action, he
identified himself with the ideas of the JDP. One of his friends introduced
him to Mustapha, a teacher of Arabic literature who was especially active
when their area was flooded two years earlier. Mahfoudh had already seen
him in the mosque. When Mustapha ran as the JDP candidate for the legisla-
tive elections of 1997, Mahfoudh campaigned with him. On this occasion, he
had the opportunity to admire him more closely. When provoked by adver-
saries who unfairly treated him like a “terrorist,” Mustapha stayed calm and
dignified. Once elected, Mustapha founded a social development association
and Mahfoudh “naturally” committed himself to it. In the frame of this asso-
ciation, Mahfoudh met other members of the JDP. In 2002, he converted his
sympathy for the JDP into party membership. In this case, several circles and
experiences consolidated (readings, friends and neighborhood circles, elec-
toral campaigning, and association), without being experienced as a break
either with the familial background or with the national and political context,
because the JDP enjoyed legal legitimacy. Before his commitment to the
party, Mahfoudh already had political markings, but his political orientation
materialized only after microexperiences grounded in ties of action and trust.
In this case, Mahfoudh experienced a strong identification with actors in a
movement that was articulated to a feeling of being able to change the situa-
tion through collective action. However, this articulation between ideas and
commitment is far from systematic.
Khadija was 26 years old when I first met her in 2002. An accountant,
she is from the same social and geographical background as Mahfoudh. The
charismatic Mustapha was her teacher and played a central role in her ado-
lescent life. Thanks to him, she abandoned love stories in favor of religious
books. Under his influence she adopted the headscarf. When Mustapha was
a candidate in the 1997 elections, she gave him her vote. When he founded
72 POLITICS OF DISSENT
the association in 1998, she, along with her high school friends, joined him.
She recognized herself as having an “Islamic orientation,” but under the
influence of her parents, expressed mistrust toward “politics.” By “politics,”
she meant both the official and underground movements. In the frame of
the association, she became more politically sophisticated. For the first time,
she took part in demonstrations (first against the reform of the Code of Per-
sonal Status in March 2000 in Casablanca and then in support of Palestin-
ians in April 2001, in Rabat). These forms of participations constituted an
interlude of socialization. During the initial stages, her interest was aroused
by the events and discussions preceding collective decision making. The
later experience of demonstrations, the atmosphere, the slogans chanted
were all elements that contributed to uphold and unify a distinct vision that
was unfocused and vague up to that point. Even so, during the elections of
2002, she left her ballot blank (Mustapha was not a candidate in her constit-
uency). She was not ready to transfer the faith she had in a person involved
in the JDP to the whole party. Moreover, she was convinced that a large
distance separated the world of ideas from the world of action. In 2007, she
once again left her ballot blank, because she did not personally know any
candidate. Once again, she did not vote for the JDP. Following her experi-
ence in the association, she observed that the JDP members were “good peo-
ple,” but not sophisticated enough politically, that “we don’t do politics only
with good intentions.” She formed this opinion while observing the associa-
tion’s breakup, which she attributed to a lack of experience and of “long-
distance vision.” Furthermore, she expected that members of government
should exhibit “sophistication in all fields” and efficiency in developing the
country, which included struggling against unemployment and corruption; it
did not matter what their ideology was. After she left the association, she
stopped being interested in “politics” and even stopped following the news.
She justified this decision by saying, “as I am not in position to bring any
solution, I don’t need to get worked up about it. If I can offer something, I do
it; if it’s far from me . . . .”
Khadija was influenced by her former teacher and her involvement in the
association, but in a precise field—what she framed under the “social” label (in
the promotion of the Islamic Moroccan family, in solidarity at the neighbor-
hood level, and in solidarity with Palestinians). These experiences contributed
to increasing her political sophistication, without making her want to engage
directly in politics. Her relationship to politics seems close to what Nina Eliasoph
observed in some American associations: “They wanted to care about people,
but did not want to care about politics. Trying to care about people but not poli-
tics meant trying to limit their concerns to issues about which they felt they
MOROCCAN YOUTH AND POLITICAL ISLAM 73
had the same feeling of injustice as Ali about transnational conflicts, and legiti-
mized the jihad, defined as a defensive war act against those who attack Muslim
majority territories. Furthermore, they had just taken part in high school strikes
in support of Palestine. Nevertheless, they did not have faith in themselves:
“[Our relation to religion is] very marginal. Few of us pray, even though
praying is a foundation of religion. To tell you the truth, all of us lie. . . .
Do you know what striking means for us? It means not studying from
Monday to Monday [laughs]. Sincerely, it isn’t solidarity . . . making the
jihâd, not being afraid of death, submission to God. . . . Nobody from our
group is ready for the jihâd. . . . Killing oneself isn’t easy. You need strong
self-confidence, faith in your homeland.”
“No, sorry, some people do want to go to heaven.”
“So what? Even a junkie wants to go to heaven, but we have not the
faith, the strength of faith; we haven’t been raised in it.”
“I, I want to go [to the Jihad].”
“You, you want to go?! Do you think your mother is going to let you go?”
“I swear she will encourage me.”
“She should tell you to go to the port to jump [the frontier].”14
“If your mother loves you, do you think she would accept to let you
die? . . . You do not have the strength of faith which would push you to
go. Personally, I am not a true believer. We are too attached to material
goods, to here below (dunyâ).”
Conscious of the disharmony in their discourse and of the variety of their
“programs of truth,” the majority of these high school pupils asserted their
preference for “life’s pleasures”; they expressed, with derision, their weak
self-esteem. In this case, too, there is a big gap between supporting an ideal and
passing to action.
A year later, I met one of these high schools pupils who was considering
Jihad as the only possible weapon for Palestinians. The attacks of May 16, 2003,
constituted a turning point for him, an intense moment that contributed to
transform his frame of values. The violence stopped being abstract, virtual,
only watched on television, after it entered his physical space. Terrorized, he
finished by rejecting the whole idea of martyr operations, even those conducted
in Palestine.
Thus, beyond the identification with formal political Islam, there are many
degrees and materializations of Islamic identity. Furthermore, the socializa-
tion of this youth has not occurred once and for all; it is in process. It remains
to be seen whether these configurations and attitudes are particular to young
people.
MOROCCAN YOUTH AND POLITICAL ISLAM 75
During my fieldwork, I did not observe any real cleavages between the youn-
gest and the oldest of my sample regarding the relations between politics and
religion, political commitment and noncommitment. A recent representative
survey conducted with 1,156 persons spread over the 16 regions in Morocco
gives a more precise vision (El Ayadi 2007). First, the family appears as the
main locus of socialization. Next, contrary to what was asserted by the media
and by some academic studies, it seems that “the assertion of religious values
and practices is a general phenomenon, which concerns all categories: age,
social, and economic” (El Ayadi 2007: 105). Moreover, according to this survey,
“the Islamist expression is an undeniable reality within youth . . . , it is not the
majority, nor more pronounced than in the other categories of age. [It] is never-
theless more radical among a minority of young people” (El Ayadi 2007: 160).
Tables 4.1 and 4.2 illustrate these results numerically.
At the level of declared intentions, religious action within the associative
frame is valued by all age categories. Nevertheless, concerning the segment of
persons 60 years old and older, it comes in first position (23.4%); and, for the
18- to 24-years-old, it is in the third position (15.7%), after charity associations
and human rights (El Ayadi 2007: 159).
In fact, the variable of education seems to be more deterministic than age.
Effectively, the answers of educated people converge, whatever the age. They
contrast with noneducated people who answer the question concerning poli-
tics and religion, with high rates of “do not know,” “indifferent” (El Ayadi
2007: 174).
TABLE 4.1. “In your opinion, should religion guide only personal life, or also
political life?”
18–24 26 28.8
≥60 23.4 17.9
TABLE 4.2. “Do you agree or not with the Jihadist movement?”
Age, y Agree, % Disagree, %
Conclusion
follow his fans who had gathered and urged him “to throw the iron” (siff
al-hadı̄d) and to “domesticate” it (ta’dı̄b al-hadı̄d). He instead preferred to drift
around in his car with another mufahhat, “Shaytani” (“Diabolical”). His fans
then organized a procession of several dozens cars and drove at top speed in
Riyadh until they eventually caught up with him. Won over by their enthusi-
asm, he performed daring skids and figures (fig. 5.1) for spectators who turned
up in the hundreds from all over the city (fig. 5.2).
He eventually died. His car somersaulted several times, crashing into some
of the fans who were clustered on the sidewalk, before bursting into flames.
The car’s four occupants were burned alive before the gaze of his powerless
public Deeply moved by Sharari’s screams of pain, five of the mufahhatin in
attendance repented and decided to become pious Muslims.
On that evening, a local legend was born. From the poignant details relayed
by witnesses to the cold and impersonal comments conveyed in the local press,
the death of Sharari became a narrative of major proportions.4 The elements of
the story included Sharari’s initial refusal to satisfy the desire of his admirers, the
mass of fans ultimately catching up with their hero, even the name of the fatal
avenue (“al-Ghurub” [the twilight])—all elements of a good plot. Everything
F IGURE 5.2. “Al-Sagri” greets his fans before getting back on track. Tafhit
emerged out of the suburban landscape of the postoil boom in Saudi Arabia.
(Pascal Ménoret, 2006)
was present except the love story. This indispensable ingredient of any good
session of taf h.ı̄ t., for mufah.h.at. ı̄n are expected to address younger boys with
feelings approximating chivalrous good companionship or Greek love. But on
that day, the drama itself was sufficient, and no one felt the need to color the
story with the paintbrush of passion.
This chapter is dedicated to understanding some of the dynamics that are
made clear by this and other events related to the world of taf h.ı̄ t. . It aims at
drawing a clear picture of the Saudi disenfranchised and urban male youth
who cope with the reality of being young in Riyadh today. The least one can,
indeed, say is that the academic interest for youth in the Middle East has had
more to do with Islam and variously described processes of “Islamization” than
with the issues confronting youths and the many responses to them youths try
to invent on a daily basis. This main trend explains why studies focus less on
youth practices than on the institutions that deal with youth (family, school,
association, club, party, and so forth), and less on deviances than on the sup-
posedly straightforward processes of inculcation of norms. In particular, politi-
cization of youth is understood mainly as a process of normalization and
socialization, be it through official education or Islamic institutions—hence
the somewhat exaggerated interest in the issue of school curricula for instance.
80 POLITICS OF DISSENT
We show here that politicization may also result from processes of deviance and
desocialization. We, therefore, describe taf h.ı̄ t. in Saudi Arabia—its dynamics,
its challenges, and the variety of players involved in it—to propose another way
of dealing with the wider issue of the politicization of youth in Saudi Arabia.
Becoming a Mufah.h.at.
The taf h.ı̄ t. milieu in Riyadh is not homogeneous. It mainly attracts young
men whose ages range from 15 to 30, who dropped out of school and/or who
are job seekers, and who come from lower middle class, lower class, and Bed-
ouin backgrounds. It is also the gathering ground of sometimes older, well-
educated people who have not lost touch with the world of the street, and may
as well fund some of the mufah.h . at.ı̄n, when they do not themselves steer the
wheel. One of the most revered mufah.h.at.ı̄n of Riyadh, Badr ‘Awadh (nicknamed
“al-King”) was in his mid 30s when he retired from the street and started a
new career as a religious preacher. But taf h.ı̄ t. also attracts well-off people,
such as young princes and offspring of the bourgeoisie, who like to fill their
lives with some feeling of danger and occasionally fund this or that street
hero. Nevertheless, the majority of my interviewees are young countrymen
whose families have recently settled in Riyadh or who themselves came to the
capital for study purposes or to find work opportunities. They usually come
from marginalized regions such as the South or the Bedouin areas, and their
brilliant tribal heritage strongly contradicts their poor housing and urban liv-
ing conditions. The opportunities of the big city have often proved to be mere
mirages, and many are those who either have quit studying or who are long-
term job seekers. Bedouins hold also a heavy burden—namely, their more
“liberal” and nomadic identities toward townspeople who claim to be more
religious and less kin oriented, and who have benefited in a more direct way
from the modern Saudi state.
At a crossroads between the countryside and the town, taf h.ı̄ t. gathers many
deviances and is seen by many families as the final stage of a relentless process
that leads ineluctably from consumption of tobacco and alcohol to car robbery,
then to homosexuality, drug addiction, trafficking of drugs, and sometimes to
death in a car accident. From a once innocent pastime, taf h.ı̄ t. has thus become
an important public issue related to the emergence of criminalized practices
(trafficking and consumption of drugs and alcohol, car robbery, homosexual-
ity). Since the end of the 1990s, the taf h.ı̄ t.’s prevention has become a socially
and politically resonant issue and is the object of articles, criminology studies,
preaching efforts under the guidance of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 81
F IGURE 5.3. Mufahhatin and their fans have adopted an odd dress style. For
security reasons, and out of coquetry, they veil their faces like Jihadists—and
women—do. (Pascal Ménoret, 2006)
82 POLITICS OF DISSENT
what young low-class people say when they talk of t.ufush. Rather than
vacuum or boredom, t.ufush denotes the feeling of social impotence that over-
whelms young people when they realize the incommensurable distance
between the economic and social opportunities of Riyadh, the capital of the
richest state in the region, and their own condition (unemployment or low
income, split-up families because of rural migration, poor housing, and so
on). Ṭufush may then be understood as the feeling of being deprived of social
or relational capital (Bourdieu 1980) in a city where all opportunities are
within reach, provided that one has a good “connection” (wāsta). If boredom
is “vacuum, nothing,” t.ufush is “what drives you to do anything, what drives
you into being an ’arbajı̄ (hooligan)” (interview, Riyadh, March 2006)—in
other words, “to sell the entire world for a bicycle wheel’s price” or “to take
the whole world as a [cigarette] butt and to step on it.”9 This malaise seems
specific to the lower class youth, who experience much more difficulties in
terms of education, jobs, and housing than the other sectors of the Saudi
society. Being t.ufshān, experiencing t.ufush is to experience in one’s everyday
life a discrepancy between subjective hopes and objective opportunities
(Bourdieu 1997: 336). Ṭufush therefore is not mere boredom or emptiness,
but the rage that overwhelms young people when they realize that structures
of opportunities are violently unfair.
Joining a taf h.ı̄ t. is an easy task. Pupils living in a mainly Bedouin neighbor-
hoods compare the group of Islamic awareness (jamā’at at-taw’iyya al-islāmiyya),
which had been set up in their high school by the Saudi Islamic movement
(.s ah.wa), with the groups of taf hit that recruit from the street, neighborhoods,
and schools. The Islamic group is extremely selective and recruits primarily
good pupils, described in a pejorative way by their schoolmates as dawāf ı̄r
(nerds). Taf h.ı̄ t. groups recruit every kind of pupils and effectively utilize various
means of communication—flyers, mobile phones, and the Internet—to gather
their public and organize their shows. The Islamic groups themselves can
hardly compete with the attractiveness of taf h.ı̄ t. . “We were all obsessed by it:
you had to become a skidder!” says a ninth grader in a Riyadh high school. He
(and others) continue:
First pupil: I feel like 1% of the people are destined for the preaching
group. [ . . . ] As for taf h.ı̄ t. groups, they are larger. At the beginning of
middle school, taf h.ı̄ t. fans distribute master keys to the pupils, the
keys we use to steal cars. I remember this one day, I was walking
back home and I saw two pupils, new ones. They said they wanted to
steal a car; they had a key. That’s their way of recruiting people; they
distribute keys to the pupils. And they gather important groups.
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 83
Second pupil: Entering taf h.ı̄ t. is easier than joining a preaching group,
though. I mean, you watch them from your window, maybe you
gonna get down in the street and there, in front of the door, you find
a guy, you chat with him, and this guy, maybe, he’ll let you in his car
the day after. It’s easier! (Interview, Riyadh, March 2006)
For their shows, mufah.h.at.ı̄n use stolen or rented cars, which explains why it is
so simple to join a taf h.ı̄ t. group. By the nature of their activities, mufah.h.a.tı̄n
need the assistance of many little hands who will manage the material aspects
of taf h.ı̄ t. and “borrow” the main instrument of hajwala. Contrary to low riders
or drag racers, mufah.h.at.ı̄n do not customize their cars. They work on raw ma-
terial. They love, in particular, banal cars such as regular Japanese sedans that
are seen everywhere in Saudi Arabia, and did not develop the sort of car-orient-
ed youth subculture one may expect of them. Mufah.h.at.ı̄n are more interested
in the figures and the skidding techniques than in cars, whose management is
abandoned to younger newcomers. At the lowest echelon, the master key is a
challenge to the pupil. Were he to accept it, he should soon be confronted with
other challenges to get closer to the mufah.h.at.ı̄n himself and his circle of close
attendants. Should the pupil decline the offer, he would immediately be con-
fined to a subordinate position in the peer group. From the first step onward, a
series of tests leads to the constitution of clear hierarchies inside the group.
Islamic groups and taf h.ı̄ t. groups do not have much in common. Pious well-
organized elitist young people belonging to the middle classes—or aspire to
it—on the one hand, and young deviant people addicted to drugs and alcohol and
who come from a lower class background, on the other, clearly do not have the
same interests or the same goals. The Saudi Islamic movement, better known
inside Saudi Arabia as the .sah.wa islāmiyya or “Islamic awakening,” appeared
during the 1970s as a preaching movement dedicated to resist the unexpected
consequences of an anarchic modernization of the country. After many failed
attempts at influencing the local political status quo—namely, in 1979, 1991 to
1993, and 2002 to 2003—the .sah.wa took refuge in a prudent and elitist pietism
that would protect it from repression. Islamists and mufah.h.at.ı̄n cannot be fur-
ther from each other than they actually are. Yet this does not mean that both
universes do not cross. At least, both groups share the same chasing ground
(i.e., school and neighborhood). It is true that the .sah.wa cannot gather as many
partisans as the taf h.ı̄ t. group, which is explained by the somewhat severe mode
84 POLITICS OF DISSENT
of socialization and the ascetic ethos of the Islamic groups. They try, neverthe-
less, to bring back pupils on the right path, or to prevent them from falling into
the many moral traps of the street and the neighborhood, even if they frequently
fail to do so. Football matches and desert excursions are indeed not attractive
enough to divert the pupils from the more adventurous games of taf h.ı̄t. .
Taf h.ı̄t. and .s ah.wa developed during the same historical period, one of
tremendous change for Saudi Arabia: the economic and social boom (t.afra) of
the 1970s and 1980s (al-Ghazzami 2004: 149–173). Moreover, these youths
grew up in the same places, around the newly built schools and streets of
Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam—those places that had been devastated and
dehumanized by the sudden increase in oil prices.
There was a huge gap between the construction of the place and the
construction of the man; the spatial development hindered the
human development. The human aspect had been overlooked in a
way that makes you feel the inhumanity of the place. Visit our
large, asphalted streets, with all their hoardings, signs, lights, and
skyscrapers, and look for the man: you will only find the noise of cars
and the swish of tires. Who looks for a place of his in this chilling
splendour will feel alone. (al-Ghazzami 2004: 172)
This inhuman place has been invested both by the .s ah.wa, on the one hand,
which has been trying to bring up the youth despite the anarchic changes, and
by the taf h.ı̄ t. groups, on the other, which have grown up with the urban boom
and the massive imports of cars in the country. The .s ah.wa developed in schools
around the extracurricular activities, in mosque libraries (maktabāt), and
Quranic circles (mufah.h.at.ı̄n al-Qur’ān) (Ménoret 2008: 156–167). The politici-
zation of extracurricular and Islamic activities was the result of an overt strat-
egy of the many Islamic groups. They aimed at investing any space left available
by political repression on the one hand and the banning of any political activity
on the other.
The .sah.wa was clearly aiming the category of “youth” that the economic
and social boom had newly constituted. Young males had been freed from
absorbing and tiring daily tasks by the economic boom, and freed from the exig-
uousness of space, and the social and familial surveillance by the urban boom.
They represented an energy that could have been invested in political or union-
ist activism, had political parties and unions been authorized and popular.
Since it was—and still is—not the case in the country, a whole generation, the
“boom generation” (j ı̄l al-.s ah.wa) was hanging out in streets and empty neigh-
borhoods, overwhelmed by ṭufush and intensely trying to find a way out. Taf h.ı̄ t.
and .s ah.wa, although being totally different and even antagonistic ways of
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 85
Tafḥı̄ṭ and .sah.wa have not only developed in the same places and during the
same period, they also are the products of the same socioeconomic conditions.
In very specific circumstances, the .sah.wa attempted to influence the Saudi po-
litical scene. From 1992 to 1993, and 10 years later from 2002 to 2003, Islamic
intellectuals and activists presented petitions to the government. Yet this activ-
ism did not do much to enhance the socioeconomic conditions in which a major-
ity of Saudis live; it did not manage to modify even slightly the effective
structures of power in Saudi society either. After these outbursts of political
awareness, the economic power was still in the hands of the princes, the real
estate investors, and the car dealers.
Since the 1973 oil boom, real estate has been the main arena of distribution
of the oil-generated wealth, through the allocation of lands and the attribution
of public loans (Bonnenfant 1982: 682–693). Connections (wāst.a) with the
royal family have proved the more effective means of enhancing one’s eco-
nomic position, since the princes literally own the country and may delegate
this possession to their circle of flatterers—and sometimes to perfectly
unknown brokers whose only merit is to be there. This anarchic distribution
of wealth has led to the formation of what popular voices in Riyadh call “the
six families who own the city.” When the son of one of those six real estate
pioneers, Badr bin Saidan, runs for municipal election on the theme of “decent
housing,” people quickly recall how he and his family have contributed for 30
years to the burst of the real estate market in the capital, and thus to the inde-
cent living conditions of many household in Riyadh (interview, Riyadh, Febru-
ary 2005). Public life is thus made of repeated real estate scandals and of
popular impotence about them, as made clear by the following scene. One of
my interviewees—a lawyer with an activist Islamic background—brought
with him one day the property act of lands located in one of the fastest grow-
ing neighborhoods of the city. The lands, which had been seized years ago by
one of the sons of the late king Abdelaziz, had now incredible value and “could
welcome the population of Kuwait.” Hearing this, one of the Islamists who
were with us evoked the name of the second caliph Omar bin al-Khattab,
grumbling: “Those were real Arabs,” while the lawyer said: “What can we do
against this?” Of course, nobody answered the question, and the feeling of
ṭufush, of political powerlessness, became tangible in the room.
Real estate is but one of the sources of enrichment in Riyadh. In a city
in which only 2% of trips are made using public transportation and 93%
with personal cars12 the car is nearly the only mean of mobility, and the car
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 87
In the eyes of one of the Islamic activists who founded, in 1993, the Committee
of Defence of the Legitimate Rights,16 taf h.ı̄t., despite its obviously deviant
nature, represents “the zero degree of political activism” (interview, Riyadh,
March 2006), because of its rebellion against the residential and consumerist
philosophy or “bourgeois utopia” (Davis 1992: 169–170) of the Riyadh bour-
geoisie and middle classes. Similar to the bread and food riots in 18th-century
England, taf h.ı̄t. is thus directed toward the source of economic power and social
injustice. This rebellion against monopolies may even be seen as a contempo-
rary version of older mob actions and popular indignation—as a true car and
land riot.
Taf h.ı̄t. and .s ah.wa developed during the same period and in the same place,
reacting in various ways to the same socioeconomic conditions. Some who
repented mufahhatin also became influential Islamic preachers, sometimes
after a fatal accident they provoked while doing taf h.ı̄t. . The first well-known
“hooligan preacher” (zāh.if dā‘iya) was Abu Zegem (photo 6), who started doing
taf h.ı̄t. in 1986 and repented at the beginning of the 1990s.
He quickly became popular among youth for his radically new style in
preaching: “He was always joking, and people rushed on to his taped lectures,
because he was funny; he was not as serious and moralizing as the other
preachers, who were always talking of death and hell and the afterlife, of stuff
that really break your heart” (interview, Riyadh, July 2006). This youthful
preaching style and his paradoxical identity as former mufah.h.a.t and Islamic
preacher allowed Abu Zegem a nationwide reputation as the redeemer of
deviant youth. He soon joined the al-Amal psychiatric hospital as a religious
consultant, and his taped sermons became best-sellers. Abu Zegem created a
group of preachers and attempted to gain the other mufah.h.a.t ı̄n in order to attract
their fans. Through public lectures organized near the taf h.ı̄.t sites in itinerant
tents, Abu Zegem and his disciples led some very famous mufah.h.a.tı̄n to repen-
tance. Al-King, Bubu, Wiwi, Sirri li-1-ghaya (aka Top Secret), and al-Mustashar
(aka The Councilor) became preachers after having “thrown the iron” for some-
times as long as 16 years. Yet despite the increasing number of fatal accidents
and the subsequent augmentation of those who repented, Abu Zegem’s strategy
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 89
was not totally successful, perhaps because the fans soon found new mufah.h.a.tı̄n
and followed them. Sometimes the mufah.h.a.tı̄n and their fans organize taf h.ı̄t.
shows around the preaching tents, in order to have a ready-made excuse in case
they were to be arrested by the police: “When they come for taf h.ı̄t., they don’t
have any way out and they are caught immediately by the cops. [Imitating the
policeman:] ‘Why did you come around here?’ While if they say they came to the
lecture . . . .” (interview, Riyadh, July 2006). Formerly, the fans requested their
star “to domesticate steel”; now it was the star who requested his fans to follow
the right path—but with limited success.
Having failed to attract as many young people as they first hoped, the
repented mufah.h.a.tı̄n soon became brokers between different people and insti-
tutions, such as the taf h.ı̄t. milieus, the police, Islamic charities and organiza-
tion, and sometimes even the prisons, where they propose activities and
lectures. They are known to help the traffic police to design effective anti-taf h.ı̄t.
strategies: “Abu Zegem is considered to be the head of a very powerful network,
a network better than the traffic police or even the secret police [al-bah.th]. They
know everybody, who is doing taf h.ı̄t., who is a beginner, who is a fan, who is
filming taf h.ı̄t. . . .” (Interview, Riyadh, July 2006) Preachers failed in their
peaceful and religious combat against taf h.ı̄t.; if they could not manage to work
in Islamic or health institutions, they were soon driven to become mere police
informants. If taf h.ı̄t. eventually decreased, it had more to do with the more and
more violent accidents—such as the one in which Sharari died—and the offen-
sive strategies of the traffic police than with the preachers themselves. Yet some
of the repented are the best analysts of taf h.ı̄t.. If Bubu states briefly, for instance,
that “the rich provide cars and play on us” (interview, Riyadh, April 2006), the
argumentation of Abu Zegem is more detailed. In a conference on video, he
shows how Abu Hasan, his preaching buddy, “former hooligan and addict,”
started following his path of deviance at primary school, when he was expelled
for stealing a sandwich. At the age of 10, he was subjected to the falaqa (basti-
nado) in the school. Abu Hasan would later declare that “the school was the
beginning of perdition.”17
Go fast, burn tires! Cars make you the Antar21 of this time
For your time has betrayed you
The beautiful boys applaud you and prove your value
The cop beats you
No wonder he insults you, humiliates you
Since you failed in everything
Nothing betters your position
You left school and roam with bad boys
You did not obey your father when he cried because of you
Nor your mother when she shouted and exhorted you
You neglected her, you turned your back to her and you
wanted her humiliation
Go, vanish and let your Lord dissolve your crises
Go fast, burn tires until your ears explode.22
The mufah.h.at.ı̄n are thus indefinitely re-playing the tragedy that has been, for
the Bedouin tribes, the establishment of the modern Saudi state by the seden-
tary oasis dwellers of lower Najd. The raids are not launched any more for the
beautiful eyes of the Bedouin ladies, but for those of some fine young man. If
some fearless girls dare to attend the taf h.ı̄t. meetings, they are a rare exception.
Bubu “threw the steel” for Sultan’s eyes (li-’uyūn Sult.ān), whereas other
mufah.h.at.ı̄n beat asphalt for one of the attending young fans. The passive boy
(wir’) occupies a central place in the taf h.ı̄t. phenomenon. It is for his eyes that
death is challenged, for his eyes that crowds are put into motion. Badr ’Awad
once made turn a whole mawkib (procession) of 70 cars around his boyfriend’s
house, in a popular and narrow southern district of Riyadh (interview, Riyad,
July 2006). It is also to charm high-school pupils that the mufah.h.at.ı̄n bring
their fans and show around schools, particularly after the end of the examina-
tion period. If t.ufush is regularly taken as an excuse for falling into hajwala, the
wir’ān (passive boys) provide a positive reason to do taf h.ı̄t.: “We know taf h.ı̄t. is
bad, but it gives you the sense of time and space. And there are the boys (wir’ān)”
(interview, Riyadh, January 2006).
Hamad asked me and told me: Why?
Why do beings fall into taf h.ı̄t.?
I pointed my finger at him and said, Look at you!
A beautiful boy stretching at the rhythm [of the tires]
The love of younger boys is frequently used to stigmatize the mufah.h.at.ı̄n as
both Bedouins and homosexuals. “Their aspect is frightening. They look like
crap, as if they came out from under the earth, with their standing hair and
their moustaches. I know that I am not very handsome or attractive, but I would
92 POLITICS OF DISSENT
not like to find myself alone with one of them,” declares a young man who is
passionate about drag racing and comes from an upper middle class back-
ground. He adds: “Us, we have goals; we know what we are doing. Them, they
are acting like fools; it is total confusion (hamajia) and accidents” (interview,
Riyadh, May 2006).
The apparent confusion about taf h.ı̄t. should not be misleading. There is art
in its madness. Its rules are published on the Web (in the form of technical
advice to young mufah.h.at.ı̄n), its figures are carefully codified and judged by
“referees” during competitions between mufah.h.at.ı̄n, its songs (kasrāt) are
recorded and diffused by informal bands, and its poems are published on the
Internet and memorized by a very large number of young fans. The apparent
disorder of a moving procession corresponds, in fact, to a meticulous organiza-
tion, managed by a pivotal character—the “guide” (muajjih)—whose task is to
coordinate the movement of the cars, to centralize information on the deploy-
ment of police patrols, and to modify the trajectory of the procession if necessary.
In opposition to the police as well as in rebellion against the family, the appar-
ent disorder and extreme speed are tactics to combat against the partitioning
and monitoring of an urban area that has become a disciplinary space, a space
where visibility plays a central role (Foucault 1979: 187). Becoming a mufah.h.at.
therefore means having to acquire a true discipline through the acquisition of
certain techniques in an environment characterized by the omnipresent risk,
an intense competition between individuals, and an informal but overwhelm-
ing publicity. The senior mufah.h.at. does not drink or smoke, and does not fall in
love with boys. Dedicated to his art, inhabited by it, he is devoted only to his
self-improvement. This self-control explains why Badr ’Awad has been unchal-
lenged for 16 continuous years, whereas other less ascetic mufah.h.at.ı̄n have
been seriously wounded or have died. The discipline required for a career as a
“.sarbūt” (hooligan) is sometimes justified in a more practical way:
These sentences encapsulate the essence of the movement that is taf h.ı̄t.: giving
up oneself to a higher cause to achieve one’s ends, putting oneself at risk to
prove one’s control, forgetting about the boys in order to conquer them. There
REBELS WITHOUT A CAUSE? 93
is such thing as an “ethics of taf h.ı̄t.,” and it is an ethics of despair. The words
they use to describe their lives tell a lot about the current condition of Saudi
youth: Ṭufush, according to the origin of the word, means the random move-
ments of a drowning man. Taf h.ı̄t. is all but a provisional and desperate way to
stylize these movements, to accelerate them, to magnify them into collective
enthusiasm and popular art. One is supposed to drown in the end—death,
prison, accident, or unemployment. Salvation is not desirable, because it would
mean a long life of social and economic paralysis or marginalization. Taf h.ı̄t. is
thus the last burst of the drowning man—a way to express one’s rage before
being swallowed up and overcome.
Conclusion
It is not so much Islam that defines the way young people are politicized as
it is the features of the social and economic situation in which they find
themselves. Extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Riyadh reveals that, besides
the much-studied expressions of Islamic defiance toward the state and its
foreign sponsors, many other acts can be recognized as intelligent political
behavior. Even practices that at first sight seem self-destructive and patholog-
ical can rightly be described as political protest, although their degree of
political consciousness as well as their political impact may be limited.
Despite their propagation efforts, Islamic groups are not open to everybody,
and remain closed to the majority of young people who lack the social or
cultural qualifications to join. In our view, more than Islamic defiance, devi-
ance from the norms imposed by a fast-changing society thus provides a
means by which ordinary young people can relate to various, albeit seem-
ingly modest, spheres of power. As a violation of multiple Saudi norms and
values, taf h.ı̄ t. is no less political for being oblivious to grand schemes of
power. On the contrary, for:
when the poor rebel they . . . often rebel against the overseer of the
poor, or the slumlord, or the middling merchant, and not against the
banks or the governing elites to whom the overseer, the slumlord,
and the merchant also defer. . . . Simply put, people cannot defy
institutions to which they have no access, and to which they make no
contribution. (Piven and Cloward 1979: 20–23)
Crime, riot, and mob action may well be means to fight a class war; yet, when
social institutions are inaccessible, this war sometimes results in the self-
destruction of the less powerful members of society. It can also generate
94 POLITICS OF DISSENT
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Dr. Yahya ibn Junayd and Dr. Awadh al-Badi (King Faisal Cen-
ter for Research and Islamic Studies), and to Dr. Bernard Haykel (Princeton
University), who have been very supportive of fieldwork that was deemed by
some to be “foolish” and “useless.” Many thanks to all those who have agreed
to speak with us about their experience in taf h.ı̄ t. .
6
The Battle of the Ages:
Contests for Religious
Authority in The Gambia
Marloes Janson
Muslims, showing respect for the older generation is one of the most impor-
tant cultural obligations. The Gambian Tablighi youth, however, actively
question the moral legitimacy of parental authority, through their insistence
that a son’s primary allegiance is to God rather than to his father (Eickelman
and Piscatori 1996: 82). A zealous Tablighi told me: “We must profess Islam
in a proper way, because Allah is going to judge us on the Day of Judgment,
not our fathers and mothers. I care only about Allah and His Prophet.” Once
a Tablighi quarreled with his mother because he did not agree with her
choice of a wife for him, and he told her: “You don’t have the right to talk to
me like this since you are not Allah.” When I asked his friend whether it is
not morally sanctioned in the Quran that a child should obey his or her par-
ents, he responded: “The Prophet incited us to respect our parents, but
when they become like a millstone round our neck, we have to be on the
alert.”
Gambian Tablighi youth are largely dissatisfied with the Islam of the older
generation because they are aware that the Islam of their parents was learned
in a different sociocultural setting and during a different era. Therefore, they
dismiss much of what the elders see as Islam as aadoo (tradition) and criticize
especially those indigenous elements that have become an integral part of
local Islamic life, such as visiting marabouts (local Sufi clerics) for healing,
practicing divination, wearing amulets, and ostentatious gift giving during the
life cycle rituals associated with Islam (Masquelier 1996, 1999). The Tablighi
youngsters whom I interviewed argued that instead of paying a marabout to
make a charm, one should pray to God directly. In their opinion, visiting mar-
abouts is similar to idol worshipping (shirk). In addition to putting an end to
maraboutage, their ardent wish is the performance of life cycle rituals accord-
ing to the Sunna. This implies that, for example, the naming ceremony is
reduced to its essence: The baby’s hair is shaved, it is named, and a ram is
sacrificed. All the other activities taking place at naming ceremonies—such as
singing, drumming, dancing, spending a lot of money on food, intermingling
between the sexes, and the like—are considered to be bid‘a, deviations from
the Prophet’s path.
This chapter investigates, on the basis of the Gambisara mosque crisis,
Islam’s role as a source of identification and a political instrument for Gambian
Tablighi youth.8 This mosque crisis, a conflict that is associated with the prolif-
eration of the Tabligh Jama‘at in The Gambia, played a major role in reconfig-
uring the generational categories youth and elder. Attention is paid to the
Tabligh Jama‘at as a youth movement. This case study will allow for insights
into what it is like to be young and Muslim in the current moment in The
Gambia, where many youth are marginalized and have little opportunities.
98 POLITICS OF DISSENT
The emergence of the Tabligh Jama‘at as a movement for the revival of Islam
can be seen as a continuation of a broader trend of Islamic resurgence in India
in the wake of the collapse of Muslim power and the consolidation of British
rule in the mid 19th century. One manifestation of this trend was the rapid
growth of madrasas (Islamic schools). The Jama‘at evolved out of the teachings
and practices of the founders of the orthodox Dar-ul ‘Ulum madrasa in Deoband,
a town near the Indian capital of Delhi. The scholars affiliated with this school
saw themselves as crusaders against popular expressions of Islam, as well as
Hindu and Christian conversion movements, and they aspired to bring to life
again the days of the Prophet’s companions (Ahmad 1995: 165; Masud 2000:
3–5; Metcalf 2002: 4, 8–9; Sikand 2002: 16–17, 66).
Mawlana Ilyas was a disciple of the leading Deobandi scholars, who, after
his graduation, taught the Meo peasants—a marginalized group regarded as
nominal Muslims—from Mewat in northern India about correct Islamic beliefs
and practices at mosque-based schools. However, he soon became disillusioned
with this approach, realizing that Islamic schools were producing “religious
functionaries” but not zealous preachers who were willing to go from door to
door to remind people of the key values of Islam. He then decided to quit his
teaching position to begin missionary work through itinerant preaching
(Ahmad 1995: 166).
Throughout the years, the Tabligh Jama‘at has expanded from its interna-
tional headquarters in India to numerous other countries around the world,
and has grown into what is probably the largest Islamic movement of contem-
porary times. Despite its worldwide influence on the lives of millions of Mus-
lims, scholars have paid almost no attention to its spread in sub-Saharan Africa.
This indifference could be explained by the fact that this region is frequently
perceived as the “periphery” of the Muslim world. Here I focus on The Gambia,
which, despite its small size, during the past decade has become a booming
center of Tablighi activities in West Africa (Janson 2005).
South Asian missionaries, Pakistanis in particular, reached West Africa
during the early 1960s (Gaborieau 2000: 129–131), but their ideas did not find
a fertile breeding ground in The Gambia until the 1990s. During the country’s
British colonial rule, which lasted till 1965, English became the national
language—a factor that has undoubtedly facilitated the spread of the Tablighi
ideology, because the Pakistani preachers were able to disseminate their mes-
sage in The Gambia in English. The appearance of the Pakistani preachers
coincided with the recent political Islamic resurgence in The Gambia. Captain
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 99
Yahya Jammeh assumed power in 1994 and invoked Islam to enhance his
legitimacy (Darboe 2004). This provided a fresh scope for the creation of a
public discourse on Islamic doctrine in The Gambia, as a result of which a
growing number of Gambians seemed to be receptive to a new interpretation
of their faith, a factor seized upon by the Tablighi preachers (Janson 2006).
The genesis of the Tabligh Jama‘at in The Gambia can be traced to
Karammoko Dukureh, the son of a respected Islamic scholar from Gambisara,
a Serahuli village in eastern Gambia.9 Karammoko’s name reveals that his
father, who had given him this name, wanted him to become an Islamic scholar
(karammoo means “Quranic teacher” or marabout). He indeed became a scholar,
but another type than his father had hoped for. When Karammoko Dukureh
was in his early 30s, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and afterward studied
Islamic theology in Saudi Arabia. Although he was inspired by Wahhabi Islam,
it is wrong, as I explain later, to call Dukureh a Wahhabi.10 In fact, he was the
founding father of Tablighi Islam in The Gambia. During the early 1980s,
when Dukureh returned to Gambisara, he set out to make the villagers more
aware of their religion by denouncing their traditional ways of worship and
popular forms of piety. One of his former students told me that Dukureh espe-
cially condemned marabouts. In his opinion, these Sufi clerics were charlatans
who exploit their clients. Aside from a few sympathizers, the villagers—many
of whom were marabouts—feared that Dukureh wanted to introduce a “new
religion” and did not agree with his reformist ideas. Dukureh’s sermons
became increasingly antagonistic toward the traditions of the village elders and
he was eventually exiled. Until his death in 2000 at the age of 80, he continued
spreading his ideology in the Gambian city of Serrekunda, in the mosque that
later came to be known as Markaz (center), where he was appointed imam.
After Dukureh’s exile from Gambisara followed a conflict that came to be
known as the Gambisara mosque crisis (Darboe 2004: 78–79). Because of a lack
of firsthand information on this conflict, I decided to set out for Gambisara
myself. Remarkably, several villagers did not respond to my greeting “salam
aleikum” (peace be with you). A Tablighi posted in Gambisara explained to me
that in order not to be termed a Wahhabi, it is better to greet the Muslim
villagers in the local language of Serahuli. It was then that I realized that there
is an ongoing conflict between Dukureh’s followers and the majority of the
villagers, most of whom belong to the Konteh lineage, a renowned family of
marabouts.
Because Dukureh studied for a long time in Saudi Arabia, his followers are
disparagingly called Wahhabis. The sign of the so-called Wahhabis’ deviant
identity in Gambisara was that they, following Imam Dukureh, insisted
on praying with their arms folded on the chest rather than, in the Maliki style
100 POLITICS OF DISSENT
of praying, with the arms besides the body, which is most common in West
Africa. In their opinion, those who prayed with straight arms were not follow-
ing the Sunna, and as such were not “real” Muslims. Because the Wahhabis
were beaten when they prayed with folded arms in the central mosque of
Gambisara, they decided to build their own mosque. Funds were donated by a
Senegalese reformist movement called Al-Falah11 during the early 1990s and
a Kuwaiti sheikh, Jarsam Muhammad al-Ai Nait, who was the president of
the African Continent Committee of the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society
(Jamiat Ihia Al-Turath Al-Islamiya) (Foroyaa: September 20 – October 5, 1995).12
Most of the villagers believed it was improper to have two mosques in the same
community and sought for state intervention in 1993. The local authorities
decided that those in charge of the mosque could continue building it because
one is free to construct a mosque in one’s own compound.
After the military coup in 1994, the conflict in Gambisara regenerated
again to the extent that many feared the outbreak of a civilian war between the
alleged Wahhabis and the other villagers. The vice-chairman of the Armed
Forces Provisional Ruling Council, the party that had taken over power, person-
ally paid a visit to Gambisara. He called a meeting with the village elders, whom
he let sit for hours in the hot sun on the ground. In this way he wanted to make
clear to them once and for all that sanction was given for the construction of the
mosque. The elders felt insulted by this display of power by the young officer
and enlisted the help of the new president, Yahya Jammeh. Jammeh’s official
intervention in the conflict may be explained by both his age and ethnicity. At
the time of his takeover, he was only 29. Being from the Jola ethnic group,
which was generally regarded as not being closely affiliated with Islam, did not
help his position. To consolidate his power he needed the support of the mara-
bouts who had been the most loyal followers of his predecessor Sir Dawda
Jawara, and who objected to the idea of a young Jola soldier holding power. In
what appears to be a purely politically expedient decision, President Jammeh
decided that the mosque should not be built and he arrested his vice-chairman.
Eventually, four of Imam Dukureh’s most prominent followers were also
arrested and their mosque ultimately demolished by decree of the state. Because
of this trial of strength, Jammeh was no longer considered a “kid” by the village
elders in Gambisara, of whose support he was now ensured.
Shortly after the imprisonment of Dukureh’s followers, a number of
affluent traders from the Gambian Serahuli community, of whom some had
migrated to France and Sierra Leone, bought a plot of land in the city of Ser-
rekunda. They started by building a structure made out of sheets of corrugated
iron in which they established a small madrasa, and Imam Dukureh was
appointed to instruct the neighborhood children in Islamic principles. This
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 101
structure was later replaced by a brick building and gradually expanded to its
current form as a Markaz, a center in which large numbers of young men13
gather on a daily basis (discussed later). Although the Gambian branch of the
Tabligh Jama‘at started as a loosely organized rural movement that was not
associated with a particular age group, through the years it has grown into a
strong urban movement in which young men, in particular, take part, striving
vehemently to transform Muslims morally and to implement “true Islam” in
The Gambia.
knowledge of the Wahhabi teachings, for his followers, the Pakistani preachers
who visited The Gambia during several missionary tours were more influen-
tial. As seen in the next section, many of these followers were not literate
in Arabic but only in English, the language through which the Pakistanis
preached. It seems that Dukureh’s followers strive to “authenticate” Islam in
The Gambia not by falling back on the alleged center of the Islamic world (that
is, Saudi Arabia), but by involving a conscious assertion of a set of Islamic
values that are derived from a South Asian setting.
Instead of Wahhabi, Dukureh’s followers used the term Ahl al-Sunna,
“people of the Sunna,” or simply Sunnis, to describe themselves. As men-
tioned earlier, Tablighi was also used as term of self-identification. There is, of
course, difficulty in using the general expression Ahl al-Sunna to identify the
followers of Imam Dukureh. The historical Wahhabis, and even the mara-
bouts from Gambisara, also call themselves this way in that their doctrine
requires that they assert and demonstrate their ability to enforce the Sunna
(Brenner 2000: 167). The self-identification of Tablighi, which was translated
by Dukureh’s followers as “conveyer of Allah’s words,” is more specific. It
shows that they indeed consider themselves part of the transnational Tabligh
Jama‘at.
The Gambisara mosque dispute has not only been described by my infor-
mants in terms of a conflict between Wahhabis and Sufis, but also between
“youth” and “elders.” The president of the Supreme Islamic Council, who
acted as mediator between the two parties, explained it to me as “a dispute
between the father’s generation and that of the sons.” At first sight, this
description in terms of age and generation seems to be less problematic,
because these terms have a more neutral connotation, but appearances are
deceptive. Although the actors in the marabouts’ camp referred to Imam
Dukureh’s followers as youngsters, they turned out to be of the same age, or
even older, than the marabouts.17 Marabouts stand to lose the most, both
economically and socially, from the Tablighis’ attempts at purging Islam
from local customs, such as divination and wearing amulets. In addition to
losing clients, the marabouts may lose legitimacy and authority, and this fear
may explain the rather insulting tone adopted when talking about Dukureh’s
followers. The marabouts attempt to discredit or undermine the latter by
referring to them as youth—as people whose Islamic knowledge is incom-
plete and who are not entitled to speak in public because local power rela-
tions are of old, embedded in gerontocracy—seemed to be a strategy used to
guarantee their hegemony. The followers of Dukureh, on the other hand,
were rather unconcerned about the marabouts’ insults, equating being “old”
with being “ignorant of Islam,” rigid and holding on to sinful customary
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 103
My research assistant, a young man who at one time in his life had wanted to
join the Tabligh Jama‘at, had a clear view of the situation in The Gambia:
ideology not long ago explained the Jama‘at’s appeal among Gambian youth
as follows:
The other Tablighis agreed that youth are more able and willing to sacri-
fice for their religion than the older generation. Although Ahmad (1995:
169) claims that in South Asia the Jama‘at has minimal influence on college
and university campuses, in The Gambia, the majority of Tablighis had a
modern, secular education. Because of this type of education, they are
referred to as English students in local idiom, a designation that highlights
that they have not attended formal religious education and are, as such, not
literate in Arabic.
Although Tablighis are proliferating in The Gambia, especially among the
young student population, it should be noted here that they still form a relatively
small group. The Islamic Student’s Association estimated that Tablighis consti-
tute about 45% of the student population at the University of The Gambia.
Although Tablighis constitute a large part of the student population, the “elders”
in the Jama‘at estimated they constitute only 1% of the Gambian population of
about 1.5 million, but in the absence of membership records it is hard to calculate
this number exactly. Just to give an indication of the Jama‘at’s size, the Tablighis
estimated the average number of believers attending the Thursday program in
the Tabligh Jama‘at’s mosque (described later) at about 1,000, and I was told that
during the annual congregation last year, 5,000 people—including Tablighis from
Mauritania, Pakistan, and even France—participated. According to the Tablighis,
it is, however, not quantity but quality that matters. As noted earlier, the Jama‘at
has been quite successful in bringing about a religious transformation in Gam-
bian society, especially in the performance of the life cycle rituals. Furthermore,
the movement has raised religious awareness. A young man who was known as a
regular customer of marabouts, for example, told me that after having attended
Tablighi sermons he decided to remove his charms because he realized that wear-
ing them was a form of superstition, and the only one who could grant his wish
of getting a visa for the United Kingdom was Allah.
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 105
It seems that the infrastructure of the Tabligh Jama‘at, with Markaz as its
pivot, provides male Tablighi youth with new modes of sociality and support
outside traditional family structures. A Tablighi of long standing compared
Markaz with a “petrol station,” where he meets his “boys” and is “fueled with
new ideas and energy.” Markaz is the place where large numbers of young men
gather daily to perform prayers, immerse themselves in constant remembrance
of God, talk about the faith, and sometimes even spend the night. Thursday
evenings are set apart for the weekly gathering in Markaz. This congregation
starts with a joint prayer, followed by an inspirational talk reciting religious prin-
ciples, instances from the Quran and hadith, delivered by an experienced
preacher. The night ends with a call for volunteers for missionary tours both in
and outside The Gambia. In addition to the weekly and annual congregations,
the Tabligh Jama‘at’s main form of activity is khuruj, or missionary tours, which
every Tablighi man is expected to make at least three days per month, 40 days
per year, and three months once during his lifetime.23 Different roles are
assigned to the participants in the tour. Prominent among these roles is render-
ing domestic service (khidmat). The Tablighi men with whom I worked talked
with great enthusiasm about the tours, elaborating on the mutual support
among the members with doctors by profession now engaging in cleaning and
the sense of brotherhood existing between them. A young Tablighi man recalls:
106 POLITICS OF DISSENT
When I set out for khuruj for the first time I was affected by how kind
the brothers were to me. They hugged me and performed du‘a
(supplications) for me. On the way I wanted to buy food, but before I
could take out my money a brother had already paid for me. I felt like
a baby who was cared for by everybody. It was a wonderful spiritual
experience.24
Despite the Tablighis’ withdrawal from traditional family life, the strict rules—
derived from the Quran and hadith—imposed by the Jama‘at for every conceiv-
able action, from worshipping to dressing, sleeping, eating, and, according to
two Tablighi men, even such a trivial act as “removing a fly from one’s food,”
reinforce the movement’s cohesiveness to such an extent that it is sometimes
compared with a surrogate family (Sikand 2002: 255). Interestingly, in this con-
text, the Tablighis address each other as brother and sister. Mamadu, a male
Tablighi who joined the Jama‘at a few years ago, noted: “Tabligh brings real love.
The brothers in Markaz love each other, care for each other and help each other.
We treat each other as relatives, while our blood relatives sometimes even ref-
use to participate in our ceremonies.”25 The cohesiveness of the movement is
an important explanation for its successful appeal in The Gambia, a country
that is characterized by socioeconomic and, increasingly, political instability.
Although the Tablighis have created for themselves an Islamic youth cul-
ture centered around Markaz, their contemporaries hang around in so-called
urban ghettos— that is, meeting places at street corners—spending their time
drinking tea; listening to hip-hop and reggae music; playing football or the
boardgame draughts (see fig. 6.1); meeting their girlfriends; commenting
on local, national, and international news; and dreaming about going to Baby-
lon (i.e., the West).26 The link between youth culture and locality, the mosque
versus the street, confirms Massey’s argument for the spatial construction of
youth cultures. In her opinion, strategies of spatial organization are deeply
bound up with the social production of identities, and she concludes that “the
control of spatiality is part of the process of defining the social category of
‘youth’ itself” (Massey 1998: 127).
What this secular and Tablighi youth culture have in common is not only
their link with a particular locality, but the “ghetto boys” and Tablighis also
share what Bourdieu (1992) calls a habitus, in that they inhabit an urban space,
belong to the middle class and lower middle class, are acquiring or have
acquired a western-style education, and react against the moral and political
establishment. Furthermore, both groups are characterized by a specific dress
code. The ghetto boys wear baggy trousers, sports shoes, and baseball caps or
grow dreadlocks (depending on their music choice), while the Tablighis wear
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 107
F IGURE 6.1. Urban “ghetto” youth in The Gambia playing draughts. (Marloes
Janson)
ankle-length trousers and caftans, turbans, and grow beards. Both groups are
not only visible in everyday life, but also are audible, with ghetto boys listening
to music on their ghetto blasters and Tablighis listening to tape-recorded ser-
mons. Finally, both groups are Muslim, but in distinct ways. The ghetto boys
consider their Islamic identity “natural,” in that they were born as Muslims,
whereas the Tablighis regard it as something they have to prove by observing
the Sunna. A Tablighi who joined the Jama‘at a couple of years ago, expressed
it as follows: “Before, I prayed and fasted, but I did not know much about
Islam. I conceived Islam as my right and not as a favor from Allah.”27 Paradox-
ically, although the ghetto boys’ parents complain about their sons’ religious
laxity and their loitering, the Tablighis’ parents reject their sons’ religious radi-
calism and their idling in the mosque.
The ghetto boys and Tablighis not only share a habitus, they are also
related in other ways. Like my research assistant hinted at in the beginning of
this section, both youth cultures spring from what he called poverty. The con-
temporary Gambian economy finds itself in a downward spiral. The rate of
unemployment increased and, because of rampant inflation, living costs rose
sharply during the late 1990s. Furthermore, the production of peanuts—the
only cash crop—fell and the government could not raise the capital to buy what
was produced, and tourism—the only other industry—was in an unprece-
dented decline (Darboe 2004: 81). Youth especially are hit hard by the current
108 POLITICS OF DISSENT
Many Gambian young people do not have an easy life. They want to
work, but there are no jobs, or they want to travel to Babylon [the
West], but they don’t have papers. It is not easy for them to get what
they want. Some start smoking marijuana and go mad,29 whereas
others start praying more regularly. The preachers tell them that they
will be rewarded for their prayers. These youth fall in love with the
new religion; all they do is follow Allah’s commandments and say
“ma sha’ Allah.” My old friend is a good example. He worked as a
manager for a bank, but lost his job. He got a loan, but, because he
couldn’t pay the money back, he was arrested. To overcome his
problems he became a Mashala, a hard-liner.30
This narrative suggests that Gambian youth have found in the Jama‘at a frame-
work that allows them to cope with social wrongs (see also Khedimellah 2002).
The movement’s ban on conspicuous consumption and its emphasis on an
austere lifestyle fit in with the economic realities of its members.
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 109
The previous quote indicates that Tablighi Islam does not provide all youth
with a way out of their difficulties and a reassuring sense of their place in
Gambian society. Although a number of them do pray (irregularly) and fast
during Ramadan, religion does not seem to bring the ghetto boys moral relief.
Instead, they spend their days dreaming about traveling to Europe or the United
States, whereas for most of them the gates to “Babylon” remain closed. Although
Tablighis invest in missionary work as a way of getting rewarded in the hereaf-
ter, the ghetto boys do not want to wait; they strive for a better life in this world,
but on another continent.
Although the current socioeconomic crisis may be a factor explaining
Gambian youth’s entry into the Tabligh Jama‘at, it does not explain why, under
similar circumstances, some youth resort to Islam and others to more secular
means for reshaping their lives. From my research assistant’s narrative it
seems that the choice for religion or the “material world” is rather arbitrary:
“Some start smoking marijuana and go mad, whereas others start praying
more regularly.” The biographies that I recorded during my field research
illustrated that before their conversion to the Tablighi ideology, many of my
informants had indeed been ghetto boys themselves. Ahmed, a young Tablighi,
told me:
At that time I didn’t know the blessings involved in tabligh, and I was
another person. I was a sportsman, interested in only dunya (secular)
things such as football, nightclubs, and games, and I didn’t pray five
times a day. Finally, I decided to talk with the preachers in the mosque
and I was so impressed by them that I decided to engage in tabligh.31
In this case, like in that of many other Tablighis, the meetings with the
Tablighi preachers, whether local, from other African countries, or Pakistani,
seemed to be the decisive factor in changing their lifestyle. Through these
meetings they realized that, in the words of some converts, “drinking tea would
not change our situation,” and that tabligh could bring them self-respect. What
turned out to be important in winning the youth over was the preachers’ low-
key attitude.32 A Tablighi of long standing, told me that itinerant preachers even
visited him in the ghetto. Unlike his parents, they did not tell him to turn down
the volume of his ghetto blaster: “Although the music did like boom boom
boom, they kept calm and they were so kind to me that in the end I felt embar-
rassed to decline their invitations to pray with them in the local mosque. I
finally went to the mosque and became enlightened.”33
Once they embrace the Tablighi ideology, the converts become role models
for their peers. Lamin explained to me:
110 POLITICS OF DISSENT
Although preachers and converted peers may persuade the ghetto boys to
convert to the Tablighi ideology, I also heard examples of converts who later fell
back into their former lifestyle. Because it has grown into a youth movement, a
certain turnover seems to be ingrained in the Tabligh Jama‘at in The Gambia.
Conclusion
Although still in a rudimentary state, the Tabligh Jama‘at in The Gambia repre-
sents a new expression of religiosity among young Muslim men that can be
seen as a form of resistance against the traditional sources of moral and reli-
gious authority of the older generation and marabouts. These youth are no
longer objects within the religious structures ordained by Muslim elders, but
are religious agents who are bringing about a religious—and indirectly also a
political—transformation in Gambian society (Last 1992: 375).
The Tabligh Jama‘at was described in this chapter as a venue to study the
dimensions of generation and power in The Gambia. A frontier between elders
and the young have long characterized West African cultural values, which
favor the authority of elders. Gambian Tablighi youth, however, perceive follow-
ing the Prophet’s traditions as more important than upholding traditions that
simply strengthen the power of the local gerontocracy (see also Masquelier
1996: 246, note 21). By discarding the religion of the established Muslim elders
as “cultural Islam,” and by terming their own faith as the only “true religion,”
the Jama‘at valorizes youth’s quest for religious authority and power. Tablighi
Islam, as a new form of social identification, has become the site through
which young Muslims jockey for space in a web of established power relations
(LeBlanc 2000: 104).
By means of a case study of the Gambisara mosque crisis that underlays
the proliferation of the Tabligh Jama‘at in The Gambia, I have reexamined the
concepts of youth and elder, analytical categories that are usually taken for
THE BATTLE OF THE AGES 111
granted, and I illustrated that age and generation are linked with other social
classifications such as religious and ethnic belonging, as well as authority and
power. It emerged that the principles of seniority and gerontocracy have
become the basis for a generational conflict in The Gambia, in which the urban
young claim for themselves, on the basis of their knowledge of “true” Islam
and their “proper” Islamic practices, the position of religious authorities.
Through Islamic reform, a reconfiguration of the traditional power system, in
which seniority, wisdom, and authority are closely connected, is thus taking
place in Gambian society.
It is intriguing that a classic theme of social science literature on youth
culture—youth’s rebellion against the elderly—is couched here in religious
terms. Although the young accuse the older generation of being rigid in their
religious views, it could also be said that the Islam propagated by the Tablighi
youth is, in fact, more rigid than the Islam professed by their parents and the
marabouts. It remains to be seen which impact the more rigid social order,
which has been implanted by the Tablighi youth, has in the long run on their
peers, who are involved in a more secular youth culture. Does it urge them to
convert to the Tablighi ideology, or do they invent other ways to negotiate their
youthful identity, with “Muslimness” not being a factor? Moreover, how do the
Muslim elders react to the situation in which their children try to read them a
lecture, now that it seems that age can no longer be used by them as a tool to
fight against religious change?
Acknowledgments
Bir Zeit University, which was established in 1972, has been known for its
politically active student body. During the first Palestinian Intifada, it acted as a
focal point of resistance to the post-1967 Israeli occupation. One of the most
advanced educational centers in Palestine2 in terms of budgets, learning
resources, and curricula, BZU became one of the first Palestinian institutions
in the West Bank and Gaza to launch a website in 1994.3
The juxtaposition between politicized and information technology
(IT)-skilled students led to the first proactive event in September 1996, when
students and youth participated in political events using new technology. This
was demonstrated by the creation of the “On the Ground in Ramallah” website
at BZU, as described here by its webmaster:
CYBER RESISTANCE 115
role in the lives of Palestinian youth. Bir Zeit University signed the “Across
Borders Project” with PalTel one year into the Intifada, in September 2001.6
Aware of the distribution of the Palestinian population across the globe, and
with little possibility of these disparate groups ever meeting, this special project
was designed “to empower and improve the situation of Palestinian refugee
camps, through the introduction of Internet technology within the Palestinian
territories and the diaspora.”7 Information and communication technologies-
assisted connectivity between Palestinian youth in the Occupied Territories and
their peers, friends, and relatives in the diaspora has empowered those under
occupation and given a sense of interconnectedness to all Palestinians across
the globe.
Numerous other ICT-based initiatives and projects have taken place
during recent decades in this and other Palestinian universities, which have
attempted to nurture the concept and practice of a mobilized Palestinian infor-
mation society resisting or bypassing occupation through its youth. To date,
there are 43 higher education institutions in the 1967 Palestinian Territories, 11
of which are traditional universities, whereas the rest are university colleges
and community colleges.8 By 2002, most universities were already using the
Internet to communicate with students, and an estimated 8,000 users were
using the Internet from university campuses or their satellite offices. In addi-
tion, young people were accessing the Internet from other locations, such as
Internet cafés or the home.9
As part of the endeavor to transform Palestinians into an information
society, a government decision was made on May 10, 2005, to adopt the
“E-Palestine” initiative, part of which is the Palestine Education Initiative,
which was launched in summer 2005. One of the targets of the national
strategy is the completion of a project to connect all Palestinian academic
institutions and schools. This initiative is designed to maximize the number
of pupils acquiring IT skills from humanities subjects, in addition to the
existing 30.15% of pupils in high school specializing in a scientific subject
(Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2005: 28).
The formal education sector has been a key facilitator of Palestinian youth
activism by playing a substantial role in allowing Palestinian youth to develop
their ICT skills. This has thus led to transformations in resistance activity,
going hand in hand with “the increasing use of [ICT] as enabling technologies
for education and learning” (Mansell and When 1998: 66). The Internet has
become increasingly central to everyday Palestinian life, acting as a tool for
information, commerce, recruitment, social organization and political activ-
ism. Universities and schools have played a major role in the support of the
community network.
CYBER RESISTANCE 117
Youth E-Resistance
On September 28, 2000, exactly five years to the day after the signing of the
second Oslo Agreement, Palestinians protested at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon’s march on al-Aqsa mosque (al-haram al-sharif ) in Jerusalem, marking
the start of their second uprising against the Israeli occupation. This time, a
new facet emerged in the resistance of Palestinian youth: unlike in the first
Intifada, when military siege had meant the control of news from an occupied
geographical area, Palestinian youth were able to use ICT to bypass so-called
“undesirable areas” (Castells 2002: 144).
Since the second Intifada began, Palestinian youth have been at the
forefront of the impact of the Israeli occupation and siege, be it in their homes,
their neighborhoods, or their educational institutions. As a consequence, con-
nectivity in schools and at home has become a major tool for keeping informed
about events, and reporting on matters that affect them personally, or affect
their friends, families, neighbors, classmates, teachers, schools, and other
youth facilities. In particular, the volume and severity of violent incidents to
which Palestinian youth have been exposed in their schools and universities
carries a broader significance. Statistics indicate that the total number of
Palestinians killed in the occupation from September 28, 2000 to March 31,
2008, is 5,512, with 32,569 injured.10 Of these, the number of young people
killed in the 1967 Occupied Territories between September 29, 2000, and
June 30, 2008, is 2,967, of whom 994 were younger than 18 years of age.
Between September 2000 and January 2006, among school pupils and other
students, 801 youths were killed. As for teaching staff, 32 were killed (Palestinian
Central Bureau of Statistics 2006: 64). Furthermore, at least 4,783 people in the
educational system (schools and universities) were injured, including 3,471
pupils and 1,245 university students, 54 teaching staff, and 13 other employees.
As for detainees, 1,230 were detained (720 university students, 405 pupils, 76
teachers, and 29 other employees). Between September 28, 2000, and May 28,
2004, hundreds of incidents of shellfire and damage caused to schools and
universities occurred, along with the transformation of schools into military
bases, closures of schools and universities and schools, and vandalizing of
colleges and universities. This is in addition to the general disruption of
educational activities in 1,125 schools.
Palestinian youth began using the new media as a political tool just 48 hours
after the outbreak of the second Intifada, when a Palestinian cameraman working
for the French Channel 2 (Antenne 2) filmed a schoolboy, Muhammad al-Durra,
being shot while his father tried to protect him. An immense wave of photos and
118 POLITICS OF DISSENT
clips of the incident were sent mainly by Palestinian youth to every possible address
on the Web. The immediacy of reporting through the Internet via independent
youth “journalists” showed the Palestinians the hidden potential of new media for
counterhegemony of old bias in the mainstream media. The slain schoolboy’s
iconic image not only portrayed the conditions under which Palestinians live in
general, but the helplessness of Palestinian youth before the occupying machine.
Uncensored access to new media has emerged as a form of empowerment for
the traditionally weak, disempowered youth. Equipped with ICT skills and
technology they had acquired at school or university, Palestinian youth soon
learned that they could resist the Israeli occupation without the use of force alone.
Furthermore, the fact that the film of Muhammad al-Durra’s death was shot by a
Palestinian cameraman opened horizons for Palestinian youths to aspire to
become journalists. The utilization of ICT skills by Palestinian youth from the very
start of the second Intifada can be divided into two phases. The first phase, which
lasted until October 2000, was when Palestinians used all their existing skills and
facilities to “tell the world” their story. The second phase, from October 2000
onward, has been characterized by all new-media activism by Palestinian youth.
The second Intifada saw the economically and politically weak rise up against the
technologically advanced and militarily powerful other. As pioneers of the IT
sector, it was Palestinian youth who carried out the first acts of cyber resistance to
the Israeli technological superpower.11 Although geographically besieged to a
greater degree during the second Intifada, the Internet provided a new means of
resistance to occupation. One of the most salient extensions of the outbreak of
the Intifada was the emergence of the first cyber war within the Middle East con-
flict, when Palestinian and Israeli/pro-Zionist groups (predominantly youth)
engaged in “hacktivism,” attacking and, in some cases, paralyzing their oppo-
nents’ websites (Khoury-Machool 2002). The shift of the Palestinians to the
media domain was largely unexpected by the Israelis. By and large, developments
in ICT among Palestinians have been influenced or controlled by Israel. None-
theless, the situation as it now stands has meant the potential for equalization
between the two opposing sides, and has since led the Israeli IT sector to seek a
“truce” with its Palestinian counterpart, as a result of economic losses arising
from hacked and damaged websites.
Since the very outset of the second Intifada, Palestinian resistance has
been conducted electronically, and has taken the form, among other things, of
mass e-mail calling for demonstrations and meetings, mass e-mail with media
CYBER RESISTANCE 119
Being physically cut off from one another as a result of the siege, curfew, and
checkpoints, and unable to come together physically in the campus or at school,
Palestinian youth have been quick to adopt the new technology at home as a
way to stay together and to stay connected. Connectivity at home has become a
peaceful—and safer—mode of resisting or fighting armed occupation. This
explains the increase in the number of landlines in Palestinian households and
the sharp increase in personal computers at home. The most recent household
survey on ICT carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics shows
that, in 2006, 32.8% of households in the Palestinian Occupied Territories
owned a computer (with 33.9% in the West Bank and 30.8% in the Gaza Strip),
up 24.2% from 2004 figures. In terms of Internet access, the survey shows that
of these households, 15.9% have access to the Internet (15.7% in the West Bank
and 16.2% in the Gaza Strip), an increase of 72.8% since 2004. The main rea-
son for owning a computer was for educational purposes, with 62.7% of house-
holds citing this as their main motivation. Similarly, the purpose of accessing
the Internet was mainly for education (19.3%) and knowledge (15%) acquisition
purposes (www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/CommTec06e.pdf ).12
Inasmuch as this may be seen to foster geographical isolation, this phe-
nomenon of engaging in cyber communication from the home in fact increases
the possibility for communication between youths and their teachers, who are
in constant contact with one another on matters relating to their studies. It also
allows youth to stay in contact with other unknown virtual friends or oppo-
nents, and permits them to express themselves and perhaps report their exis-
tence and experiences to the world. Internet connectivity has allowed Palestinian
youth to communicate with their fellow youth across the globe as part of a
“transnational community,”13 something that was much more difficult during
the first Intifada when the use of facsimiles was restricted by the Israeli occu-
pation, and the postal service was subject to delays and censorship. Finally, it
has given them a new channel of peaceful resistance.
120 POLITICS OF DISSENT
Within the context of religion, it is important to note that the only difference
among Muslim and non-Muslim Palestinians, is that devout Muslims use religious
websites based on confessional features (those that deal with Islam as religion or
that are restricted to devout Muslims). These websites can also serve social func-
tions, such as finding a partner for marriage, for example. However, some religious
websites can also be political in nature, with particular websites defining or restrict-
ing the type of user. For example, Hamas’ website is only likely to appeal to a certain
type of user—namely, those who share the religious or political ideologies of
Hamas. Websites belonging to Palestinian political factions or any other social web-
sites can and are being used by all, because such websites contain common con-
cerns regardless of religious affiliation. For example, although Muslims are the
majority in the Palestinian society, an educational website that both Palestinian
teachers and students might access would not be restricted to Muslims.
Conclusion
The Internet as a global network has been localized and appropriated to suit the
particular conditions of the Palestinian youth as part of a stateless people in
1967 Occupied Territories. This appropriation could not have been as wide with-
out the donations of international bodies to local projects and initiatives, with or
without political agendas and interests. It is also highly likely that, in making
these donations, these international agencies and NGOs were fully aware of the
peaceful and educational potential of activities arising from these projects. The
emergence of new youth culture and electronic resistance raises the question of
whether the transformation of Palestinian youth toward an information society
will assist them in the developmental realms (economic development and its
trajectories) in terms of the global economy or the local job market and employ-
ability. Given the conditions of the Palestinians under occupation, it will remain
fairly difficult to look at ongoing projects in the field of ICT from a purely
economic–developmental perspective.
Information and communication technology is being used to empower
Palestinian youth in general. The political culture of Palestinian youth may be
seen to have increased with the availability of the Internet, and has become
more varied in terms of its methods. A large proportion of youth resistance is
now nonviolent. New media in the Palestinian context have evolved as a result
of the combination of ICT with the local needs of Palestinian youth. New media
as used by Palestinian youth have acted as a mobilizer for social movement in
resistance to the occupation, and have also generated new opportunities for
low-budget and alternative media on the periphery.
CYBER RESISTANCE 123
The Internet has been the only true boundary breaker under siege condi-
tions in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Palestinians have turned to tele-
communication as an antidote to checkpoints, curfews, and military occupation
on the ground. The Internet has widened the participation of Palestinian youth
in the resistance movement, whereas various Internet forums foster not only
subtle forms of civic participation in the absence of established democratic
venues, but also new sociopolitical solidarities. Bands of youth coming from
particular classes who did not formerly participate in Palestinian resistance can
now participate in online resistance. The Internet has also made Palestinian
youth activism wider, speedier, cheaper, less time-consuming, and more focused,
in the sense that the so-called “virtual community’” meets for a certain activity
at a certain time.
Wittingly or otherwise, the various Internet strategies in Palestine have
given space to youth from different backgrounds who, for many reasons,
could not or did not previously participate in the physical confrontational
struggle against the Israeli occupation, allowing them to channel their
resistance via the Internet. Hence, in the short term, passive resistance will
continue for as long as the international community continues to allocate
funds through the Palestinian government or independent NGOs, during
which time Palestinian youth will continue to nurture their ICT skills to
full effect. It would also seem, in the short term, that the psychological–
educational angle will continue to be given priority over the developmental–
economic and employability angles, although these must be considered at a
later stage.
Electronic political activism among youth, particularly among the
Palestinian student body, has thus far performed a clear function in counter-
propagating against the Israeli occupation’s media hegemony. For this peaceful
resistance to have crystalized as it did, it had to have not only a concept and a
medium, but most important a borderless media organization with the finan-
cial viability to support the various activities.
In a positive future scenario, ICT-skilled Palestinian youth may emerge as
leaders in their field, and in the Arab world in particular. On the other hand,
the evolving pattern supporting the establishment of a Palestinian youth infor-
mation society may serve only to sustain the gap between Palestinians on the
periphery and Israel as an information center. Simply put, the budgets that
have thus far been allocated by international donors are designed to reduce the
use of force against Israel and improve the representation of Palestinians in
public opinion.
However, as a result of the particularity of the Palestinian situation, it is
very difficult to predict whether the Internet will effect a lasting change on
124 POLITICS OF DISSENT
Palestinian youth culture. It is quite possible that the efforts of some interna-
tional NGOs to transform Palestinian resistance into a peaceful one will change
in the future, resulting in part from the policies of the Palestinian government
if the occupation should end. Only then, will we see the extent to which this
emerging knowledge society will further its achievements.
PART II
Livelihoods and
Lifestyles
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8
Young Egyptians’ Quest for
Jobs and Justice
Linda Herrera
In the Muslim Middle East there has been growing concern since the
1980s, but more intensely since September 11, 2001, with Muslim
youth. Within a climate of increasing unemployment, repressive
regimes, a youth bulge, and an escalation of regional geopolitical
conflicts with no resolution in sight, questions and speculation about
youth have entered debates about democracy, security/radicalization,
citizenship, and economic reform. Much attention has been placed
on three general areas of inquiry: the challenges youth face in
making the transition from school to work and in contributing to
economic growth (United Nations Development Programme 2002,
2003; World Bank 2004); on youth religiosity, especially in light
of the burgeoning piety movement (Deeb 2006; Mahmood 2005);
and on security and the spread of Islamist politics and youth
radicalization (Kepel 2003). Youth tend to be treated either as
subjects to stimulate neoliberal development, or as essentially
religious and ideological beings with either politically radical or
benign tendencies. Youth themselves are rarely consulted about
their struggles for a lifestyle and livelihood or about the type of
citizens they are or aspire to be. They have been allowed little scope
to question, reject, or offer alternative visions, demands, and
arrangements for societal change and economic and social justice.
128 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
Arab states that are characterized by a youth bulge contain among the
highest regional average of young people in the world, with 65% of the
population younger than 25 years old, 20% of whom are in the 15- to 24-year
age bracket. The Middle East and North Africa region holds the inauspi-
cious distinction of being the fastest growing labor force, which, since the
1990s, has 25% youth unemployment—the highest regional average and
almost double the global average, which is 14%. In the coming decade,
some 34 million jobs need to be created in the region to absorb the emerg-
ing labor force (World Bank 2008). In Egypt, unemployment is highest
among the young (youth unemployment accounts for 80% of the country’s
total unemployed population), and among youth, it is proportionately high-
er among females and the educated; a staggering 95% of unemployed youth
have secondary or university education (Assad and Roudi-Fahimi 2007: 3,
19; World Bank 2004: 92).1 Of Egyptian youth who find employment, 69%
of them labor in insecure circumstances with no formal contract, and nearly
half (46%) are in temporary jobs not related to their desired careers (Silver
2007: 9).
It has been pointed out that the youth bulge poses not only a development
challenge, but potentially an opportunity, a “demographic dividend” (World
Bank 2007: 4) or “demographic gift” (Wolfsensohn Center, The Brookings
Institution 2008). A youth bulge becomes an advantage when human capital
policies effectively channel the energies of youth for jobs and economic growth.
There is evidence, for example, that the economic boom of the Asia tiger coun-
tries from 1960 to 1990 was possible, in part, because of education and
economic policies that capitalized on its youthful population and turned its
human capital to an economic and social advantage (World Bank 2007: 4–5).
At the current juncture, there is scant evidence of advantages—economic or
otherwise—being reaped from the youth bulge in Egypt, but potentials are
clearly there, especially in the realm of youth cultural politics, which allow for
new forms of communication and collectivist action.
The economic marginalization of youth has given way to no small degree
of concern by the older generation, power holders, and international commu-
nity that if youthful energies are not harnessed productively, trouble will loom.
Part of the concern is economic; without regular work, the young will remain
dependent on their families, on the state, on what little remains of welfare pro-
grams, and on charity, all of which bode badly for economic growth. A lack of
youth economic independence also translates into difficulties with regard to
marriage and forming families. With housing costs high and employment low,
it can take many years for a couple, usually the man, to save enough to secure
housing for a marital home. The age of marriage will likely continue to rise,
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 129
Karim, a Muslim male of 22 years, like growing ranks of young men in the
country, spends his time in a combination of hanging out, worrying, some-
times working, indulging in drugs, and hoping. He is both living his life in the
present, taking pleasure when and where he can, and at the same time hoping
for a better future. But he worries that he is embarking on a transition not to
adulthood, but a transition to nowhere.2 Following a long spate of unemploy-
ment and a recent breakup by his girlfriend, he sees his chances at a “normal”
life of love, marriage, and a family moving further out of reach. He spends
much of his time in a coffee shop waiting to get picked up for short-term con-
struction jobs. Wavering between desperation and hope, he says, “They are
saying there are opportunities. Where are these opportunities? Where is the
starting point, the beginning? If only I could start I could continue my life. But
where is the starting point? Tell me; where can I begin?”
As a young boy Karim never imagined he would be in such a rut. He is still
trying to understand his family’s fall from rapid social mobility and relative
prosperity down to poverty in the space of just a decade. He remembers as a
child when his family was enjoying mobility from the ranks of the urban poor
to the middle classes. His father worked as a low-paid but resourceful construc-
tion worker in the 1970s. During the mid 1980s, when Karim was a small
child, his father seized the opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia to work in the
country’s booming construction sector. He made a good sum of money, much
of which he duly invested in property and the education of his children,
although he himself had no formal schooling. His father built two houses,
132 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
one for Karim’s paternal grandmother, the other for his family, and enrolled
his four sons and one daughter in private schools in Alexandria. He believed in
the promise of the education system to raise the social status of the family and
to prepare his children for middle class professions. But at the same time, as
the family patriarch, he did not want his children to “flaunt” their education in
the home where he, the father, was unschooled and unlettered.
Karim’s mother, who completed her education through the preparatory
stage (grade 8), possessed knowledge of the school system and enjoyed a decent
standard of literacy. Karim’s father, jealous of his wife’s schooling and fearful
she would use it to try to exert her superiority over him, put a moratorium on
the mother’s involvement in their sons’ studies. She was only at liberty to assist
their daughter with schoolwork, because the girl was not perceived as posing a
threat to the father’s standing and authority. When the mother so much as
asked her sons about school he would shout at and berate her. As Karim recalls,
“In our home the father was everything and everyone was expected to obey
him.”
The brothers all attended an all-boys private school that, before the July 23
revolution of 1952, was the bastion of the elite. It now caters to a social mix of
students belonging to the financially strapped middle classes and upwardly
mobile working or laboring classes; the latter category is often chided by
teachers and students alike as being “uncultured” and the cause of the school’s
decline. So ingrained is class discrimination that Karim himself—a victim of
it—complains that the school’s environment has deteriorated and become too
“lower class” (bi’a).
Karim displays a keen intelligence and interest in politics and social issues,
yet he deeply dislikes school. His memories of school, and especially his
teachers, are bitterly painful. “Teachers used to beat students badly and I got a
good share of the beatings.” He recalls the first day of class in 9th grade when
his teacher began the lesson by warning him, “I’ve heard about you so you bet-
ter beware.” This was “a really black day,” he sighs. His school career was spot-
ted with failures and bare passes until finally, sometime during a repeat year in
secondary school, he left school for good. Despite his own contentious relation-
ship with schooling, his greatest regret is not having made it to the university
and the knowledge that he will go through life as with the labels of an “uncul-
tured” and “uneducated” man.3
All three of Karim’s brothers also dropped out of school before completing
high school. Their low performance at school could be attributed in part to the
lack of parental support and their father’s policy not to hire private tutors. The
vast majority of secondary school students rely on the support of parents—
especially mothers—and private tutors to prepare them for their examinations.
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 133
are those who fill their time with a combination of drugs, prayer, surfing the
Internet for hours upon end, and sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a truck that
might pick them up for a short-term construction job.
Feelings of despair mixed with boredom have led him in two directions.
Sometimes he turns to the Quran and prays for solace, but more recently his
preferred activity is to escape his woes through hashish. He justifies his hash-
ish smoking by explaining that it provides him with some moments of gratifi-
cation and peace, and, however fleeting, some moments are better than none at
all. “I haven’t managed to do one thing in my life. I haven’t achieved any of my
goals, so I got into hashish. The best thing about it is that it kills free time
(al-faragh al-taam). I burn away six to seven hours in a state of happiness. It
takes you away (biya’azzil) and I can find myself, achieve everything I ever
wanted without moving from my place. Do you understand what I’m saying?
You find yourself having done so much when you haven’t done anything. It’s a
way to escape from reality.”5
When trying to understand and rationalize his situation, Karim returns
repeatedly to the question of rights (haq or huquq [pl.])—the denial of rights, the
importance of rights, and the devastating effect the lack of rights and political
corruption has on the morale of youth and their ability to earn a livelihood and
enjoy a decent lifestyle. He views the twin elements of justice and jobs—or
injustice and unemployment—as intricately interwoven. He stresses that
opportunity and advancement come primarily through connections, bribes,
and dishonesty, not through merit or hard work. Because he does not have the
family connections to boost him up, he thinks his best option is to build a
future abroad in the West, because, as he understands it, “abroad you can take
your rights; here you cannot.” But the path of legal emigration is closed to him
because he cannot so much as obtain a passport until he completes his military
service, something he is categorically opposed to doing as a result of his dis-
trust and abhorrence of the regime. He explains, “I can’t serve in the military
forces of this country. Why? Because it’s just like Adel Iman says in the movie
Terrorism and Kebab (al-Irhab wa al-Kabab), ‘I do not serve the country; I serve
the respectable Pasha’ and this is very bad. I cannot do this.”6
He describes the Mubarak regime (1981–present) as fundamentally cor-
rupt, squandering the country’s human and natural resources and serving the
interests of a small inner circle of cronies. He also takes issue with Egypt’s
most important ally—the United States—and regards its military presence and
development aid as highly dubious, divisive, and self-serving. He asks,
Where is this U.S. aid? No one sees or benefits from the aid and
it divides us. Why can’t Egypt undergo any real development
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 135
without foreign aid? The US took its opportunities. It had its dreams.
But now she’s going around starting wars and is driven more and
more by [greed] and evil. I can’t accept this way of doing things.
Were Egypt to have a regime that operated on some basic principles of fairness,
the country could, he believes, enjoy prosperity and pursue a very different
course. He explains:
When young people are unable to secure a livelihood and live a life of dig-
nity, it is often thought they are more susceptible to populist politics or fringe
movements that promise them a sense of power and belonging. Although this
is the case for some, Karim is categorical that he would not get involved in Isla-
mist or other extremist political movements because he views them as oppor-
tunistic and fundamentally corrupt. He is distrustful of Islamist political
movements, whether those of the illegal al-Qaeda variety or the more main-
stream Muslim Brotherhood, because their leaders tend to misuse the teach-
ings of the Holy Quran for their own political gains. And, more important for
him, such groups and parties fail to provide a viable solution or approach to the
problems of the youth.
Despite the barriers, Karim lives with a hope that a big change can tran-
spire and his life can take a turn for the better, but he needs to find a way out of
his current predicaments and is not sure how to proceed. He says:
The language of religious piety that permeates Dina’s life is mixed with a
liberal discourse about freedom, rights, and justice. For instance, she depicts
her home life as a setting in which freedom and fairness are the norms. She
says, “Our parents give us a lot of freedom. They let us express our views freely
and ask our opinion.” That she refers specifically to freedom of expression and
consultation indicates that she has absorbed a particular understanding of free-
dom rooted in a liberal democratic discourse. Interestingly, when she speaks of
restrictions she faces from home, such as the rule that she cannot stay out past
sunset, she does not frame this as a lack of freedom. She views her curfew,
which sometimes displeases her, as a judgment her parents make about safety
and the reputation of girls. Freedom, on the other hand, relates to human
respect and dignity.
She juxtaposes her home life, which is built around relations of piety and
fairness, to an external environment of corruption and decay. Her principle
138 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
point of contact with social institutions has so far been through her participa-
tion in the education system. From an early age Dina performed at an extremely
high level at school, but she does not mince words about the flaws of the
education system. She describes it as “broken and sinking,” and in dire need
of reform, beginning with the need to change the “phantom of the examination
system.” She views school simply as a gateway to the university and credits
her mother—not her teachers—for her good grades and educational success
so far. She scored high on the secondary school-leaving exam, which deter-
mines university admissions, the Thanawiyya Amma, but not high enough
to enter the faculty of medicine. She settled for joining the school of veterinary
medicine and is currently a second-year student in this highly regarded
faculty.
As a university student, her immediate gripes have to do with lack of
fair play in the education system and concerns about whether, after years of
dedicated study, she would ever have the opportunity to apply her hard work
and ambitions to a career. The more awareness she gains of the functioning of
the education system, political system, and outlying society, the more she
becomes demoralized about the role of connections (wasta) in getting ahead.
She has been dismayed at the degree of nepotism in higher education as
she witnesses the children of professors and those with parents in positions
of power get the highest marks and job opportunities (apparently unwar-
ranted), whereas those with no connections go unnoticed, underrewarded, and
underemployed.
The lack of fairness in the university parallels what she regards as a more
endemic problem—the prevalence of corruption and connections (wasta) in
the everyday functioning of Egyptian society. “Egyptian society is thoroughly
based on connections. It leads to corruption, which spreads like fire from dry
leaves.” The root of the problem, she argues, emanates from a government that
denies citizens even its basic rights as it promotes the interests of the rich and
powerful. It uses the entire security apparatus to safeguard the few as it neglects
and persecutes the many. She explains:
The police protect the wealthy people and lock up the poor people
who fill the state prisons. In the old days we used to say “the police in
the service in the people” (as-shorta fi hidmat as-shaab). Now we say,
“the police and the people in the service of the nation” (as-shorta wa
shaab fi hidmat al-watan). What I want to know is what, actually, is the
meaning of the term nation (watan)? Isn’t the nation supposed to be
the people? Or does nation mean something else? Does it mean the
president?
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 139
The Mubarak regime’s close association with the United States further
reinforces Dina’s judgment that the political elite look out for themselves at the
cost of the interests and rights of an entire nation. She strongly criticizes the
government’s tacit acceptance and complicity in the policies of the “imperial
US,” which she views as a “thug nation,” especially vis-à-vis Iraq, Palestine, and
Lebanon. She considers the U.S. interference in national economic policies for
liberalization and privatization through the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank a central cause of the economic insecurity and unending hard-
ships for the majority of Egyptian youth. Most upsetting to her is how the
Egyptian government ignores the plight of its own people and punishes those
citizens who agitate for political and economic reform. She stresses: “The gov-
ernment should start trying to listen to the problems of the people, and especially
the youth, to give us our rights. We need our rights! Every citizen should have
justice and the right to an honorable life.” Despite her strong political views,
Dina deems Egypt “no place for political ambitions,” because on-the-street
activism can carry heavy risks like torture and imprisonment.
Given the deep distrust with which Karim, Dina, and presumably scores of
Egyptians, young and old, view politics and their government, the question is:
How do they respond to their situation? Youth, because of their life stage, par-
ticular habitus, and their generational location,7 respond and pursue strategies
that are, in a large measure, grounded in their youthfulness and the cultural
politics of their generation.
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, new information and com-
munication technology has changed the landscape of youth culture, youth
sociability, and political engagement (see Bunt 2003; Etling and Palfrey 2009;
Maira and Soep 2004; United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs 2005). The rate of Internet penetration in the Middle East is 28.3, high-
er than the world average of 25.5. In Egypt, which has the highest number of
140 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
Internet users in the African continent and a penetration rate of nearly 16%,
the number of mainly young users continues to rise at a meteoric level. In the
year 2000, there were a mere 300,000 Internet users in Egypt, a number that
increased to six million by 2006 and to roughly12.6 million in 2009.8 The
Egyptian blogosphere and social networking sites like Facebook (launched in
2004) constitute a veritable cultural revolution mainly as a result of the rapid
increase and innovations of youth Internet users. The ways individual youth
use new media invariably differs considerably, but it would not be off the mark to
suggest that most youth use it for some form or another of subversive activity.
Like growing cadres of youth in the region, Dina views and uses the Inter-
net as an alternative outlet for socializing, academic research, getting informa-
tion about current affairs, and what can loosely be termed political involvement.
She has been a dedicated Internet user for the past three years, when she start-
ed using it to support her academic work. Being a student in a university with
outdated and understocked libraries, the Internet has been an indispensable
tool for research. She joins the growing legions of Arab youth who initially
turned to the Internet to aid them in their studies (or at least their parents
bought or leased computers with the idea that it would serve as a tool in their
child’s educational advancement), but quickly became adept at the plethora of
opportunities and access it offered.
It did not take long after getting a computer for her to discover that she
could bypass the local media and access alternative sources—from political
blogs to foreign newspapers—about politics, the economy, and world affairs.
She considers staying informed a moral duty and a political act, a way to resist
being controlled by a government that has historically tried to use the media as
an arm of power and suppression. Yet she does not feel entirely at ease using
the Internet as a tool for direct political action, as a number of mainly youthful
activists have done.9 She is well aware of state retribution against its citizens
who, whether through blogging, online social networking, or other means,
agitate for political change.10 She acknowledges the potential of the Internet for
what can loosely be called civil disobedience. She herself exercises civil disobedi-
ence not by joining organized strikes or political movements, but by deliber-
ately shunning semiofficial news media and spreading information that she
deems valuable about national politics, regional politics, and economic devel-
opment. She confirms the adage that knowledge is power, and feels her gener-
ation can use the Internet as a means of empowerment and truth seeking so
that justice can prevail.
Yet she acknowledges that the Internet is a double-edge sword. On the one
hand, she considers the virtual and uncensored space that provides seeming
limitless access to information and communication liberating. On the other
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 141
hand, she worries that Egyptian and Arab youth misuse the Internet and imi-
tate the “morally bankrupt” (munharafeen) aspects of western youth culture.
Many young people, she argues, use the Internet purely for salacious means
like accessing pornography, lowbrow entertainment, and flirting and forming
immoral relations with their peers (gratuitous flirting is distinguished from
respectable match-making websites that exist for Muslim singles). Despite her
low regard of the morally corrupting influence of western youth culture, she
admits that if given the chance she would go to the West to study and work,
because these are “open societies” with strong economies where youth can
“have their rights” and gain financial independence.
Dina grapples with ways of “doing the right thing,” of living a virtuous life
while also having her voice heard and her actions count toward some meaning-
ful form of change. She tries in whatever ways she can to inform and influence
others, to “transfer her [social and political] consciousness to family and friends”
by circulating and forwarding news items and engaging in debates. She is espe-
cially keen on interacting with peers, in person and through the social network-
ing sites, because, as she explains, “Once they have consciousness of their rights
and their ability to correct social wrongs, they have a duty to act for change.”
When discussing the ambitions of her generation Dina explains, “The ambi-
tions of young people are modest. We want to live at a decent level (’ala mus-
tawa karim), get a job, find love, and get married.” Although seemingly simple
desires, these goals appear hopelessly out of reach. Arguably the two greatest
impediments facing youth in the Arab states are not the spread of Islamist
movements or radicalism, but the scarcity of jobs and the absence of justice.
Injustice, whether measured as a lack of fair treatment in schools, the role of
connections in gaining employment, absence of accountability of the govern-
ment and international actors in regard to economic and political policies, has
a direct bearing on the current lives and future prospects of Arab youth.
Although the socioeconomic situations of Karim and Dina differ in significant
ways, their stories provide a lens to understand what it is like to be young and
Egyptian at the current global moment.
When trying to understand and rationalize his situation, Karim, who suf-
fers from a sometimes incapacitating feeling of “being stuck,” returns repeat-
edly to the question of justice, rights—the denial of rights and the importance
of rights—and the devastating effect of corruption on the morale and life
chances of youth. Karim alludes to the fact that although he is alive, he does not
142 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
feel he is living; he does not possess what he considers a life. Living would
require certain choices, conditions of freedom, opportunity based on fairness,
and respect, which he finds generally lacking in society. A system that runs not
on merit, but on favors, bribes, and nepotism, can lead youths on a path of
radicalism and terrorism, but it can also lead them to withdraw and resort to
drugs or apathy. After periods of despair, Karim regains hope and the desire to
overcome his difficulties. He maintains belief that his situation will change,
that the dysfunctional political and economic order cannot continue indefi-
nitely. He waits for an opportunity to prove himself, to show his worth and to
claim his rights.
Dina emphasizes that young people are enormously frustrated by a lack of
fairness and ethics in Egyptian institutions and within the government. Her
own time in the university has reinforced her already skeptical view about the
place of corruption and connections in the everyday functioning of Egyptian
society. She believes that youth should strive for a just order, maintain their
ethics, and agitate through gaining knowledge and spreading information,
against a corrupt regime. Like many youth, she is finding ways of using infor-
mation and alternative sources of communication to stir a generational con-
sciousness. The Internet and new media have become tools that allow youth to
communicate, organize, think, and socialize above and below the radar. Collec-
tively and individually, youth confront and resist a restrictive and unjust order
and attempt to construct an alternative to it. In the absence of attaining their
goals, they dream of going abroad, where it is believed that young people, even
if they might be influenced by morally corrupting elements of western culture,
can have a fair chance at success if they are willing to work hard.
The life stories of a young man and woman in Egypt in decidedly differen-
tiated situations both identify the intertwining issues of jobs and justice as the
preeminent problems youth face. Both draw in a remarkably similar way on a
language of rights and the need to create a situation either to claim or to wait
for rights. Whether a new generational consciousness can lead to economic
justice and livelihood opportunities is yet to be seen. However, it does appear
that rights, more than religion, whether Islam or otherwise, very likely
embody the shared values of a generation, and the basis on which it will
endeavor to change an unjust order.
Acknowledgments
The life history research on which this chapter is based was initially under-
taken as part of a larger comparative studyat the International Institute of Social
YOUNG EGYPTIANS’ QUEST FOR JOBS AND JUSTICE 143
particular, Islam in their view becomes an instrument with which one can ven-
ture certain risks.
Because making prayer five times a day is a minimal investment—with
potentially great rewards—reducing one’s life to a minimal series of actions
potentially leaves one free to be ready for something else, whatever that might
be. Instead of encumbering oneself with cultivating social connections, going
from office to office looking for work, of biding one’s time waiting for sufficient
funds to start a small business, or of making long journeys overseas to jobs that
pay next to nothing, the key is not to pay attention, not to let these consider-
ations crowd out what could be a profound reconfiguration of who one is and
what value one has. Despite their inability to adhere to all the requirements
usually associated with being a Muslim, these youth, nevertheless, seek within
Islam a way of attaining self-value, of becoming a real person. But it is a tenta-
tive identification. Instead of using it as a platform through which to engage
confidently in a wider world of economic activities, family responsibilities, and
social exchange, it is almost as if all “the decks are cleared” to live a rudimen-
tary understanding of a “Muslim life.” The notion of tawhid, for example, is not
so much the sense that Allah is what encompasses all that exists, but is rather
the ability to find a mechanism that “flattens” out the hierarchies of status and
privilege that permeate Cameroon. Here, the assumed minimalism is not so
much a way of not only refusing the conventional practices of individual suc-
cess, but a means of not being intimidated by it, of having to take it seriously,
and of making it ordinary and mundane.
For many youth in New Bell now, the interface with the market appears
sometimes reduced to the most petty of initiatives. Many youth with no job or
trade get up early in the morning to intercept small items from those on their
way to the market to sell, or during the early stages of opening their stalls or
shops. This prolific but gentle looting never aims to amass large quantities, but
is just enough either to make the items taken that which will be consumed for
the day or sold for any price available. To do the minimal is what can be guar-
anteed and anticipated, in a merging of necessity and expectation that puts
aside the ever-increasing gaps between these two notions that have character-
ized so much of urban mentality. After the looting, there is a ritualistic recita-
tion of the items acquired, a roll call where they are then bartered or matched
to running lists to which neighbors are the usual contributors: “If you happen
to come across a broom [ for example], would you let me know?” Without wages
or large bankrolls or scams behind them, the “minimalists” are forced to make
every opportunity count. In a country like Cameroon, where economic success
is largely viewed as a matter of grand theft, the focus on a minimal life is often
viewed, then, as a means of keeping theft itself to a minimum. Even as youth
REACHING A LARGER WORLD 149
acknowledge that Islam strictly forbids stealing, many simply see that these
minimal thefts are the closest they are going to come to adhere to such a
prescription.
In fact, for the youth who make up the majority of these quarters, there are
few apologies for the extent to which theft constitutes a daily living and the way
the market itself seems to concede to this thievery as a kind of excise tax. As
more players use the market, there are more participants that slip from any
effective control. As more items are smuggled from loosely controlled borders
and docks or are dumped in large volumes at neoliberalized ports of call, profits
are reduced for many entrepreneurs, in turn reducing the ability to maintain
adequate control and storage. An indifference to theft escalates; but the more
thieves there are, again, the smaller the takings, the lower the expectations. It
is not uncommon to see middle-age men still residing in the house of their
parents, even subletting out their rooms for a little cash, while sleeping by the
side of the house. In a country where barely 2% of school graduates will find
formal employment, in these neighborhoods in particular, school attendance is
a rarity; the minimal can be attained for minimum effort.
When New Bell was first designated as the primary site for permanent
African urban residence by the colonial regime, it was an intense laboratory of
entrepreneurship, as the convergence of peoples from different towns and vil-
lages of the exterior gave rise to new forms of collaborative effort that largely
remained opaque to the scrutiny of the authorities. Artisans, traders, tailors,
vulcanicians, and mechanics of all kinds helped secure an economic platform
on which many households were able to secure land, build homes, and invest
in a so-called modern urban future for their children (Schler 2003). Although
Muslims were included in such accumulation, the emphasis on maintaining
strong community cohesion meant that few set up operations or residence in
other parts of the city, and investment in secular education was not a strong
priority. There was almost a symbiotic attachment to the market, as if venturing
too far away into other territories and occupations would pull at the entrenched
rhythms of publicly visible trade and prayer.
Today, New Bell remains full of entrepreneurship and improvised making-
do, but there are simply too many making too many demands on available
resources. Physical, built, and social environments are progressively eroded by
overuse, the lack of money for repair and rehabilitation, and the incessant
shortcuts and improvised uses of objects, tools, and spaces, with little being
replenished or renewed, and where the discarded remains in plain sight. In a
market area with a protracted history of countless performances, where so
many have attempted to make their existence relevant to so many others, a
density of actual or potential interference has become a legacy. For everything
150 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
that is attempted, it is not clear just who the endeavor will implicate, and it is
never certain just who has to be looked out for, who will demand a cut of the
proceeds, or who will see it as their duty to remind the enterprising individual
of his or her obligations.
In economic sectors that have become vastly overcrowded, and thus where
the need to come up with something new is incumbent upon anyone who
wants to emerge from the crowd and eke out a little bit of profit, the improvisa-
tion stands out like an ambulance on a choked highway, where everyone subse-
quently tries to follow the path-breaking move. Again, under such conditions,
it is difficult for youth to make plans, to project into the future, to pace oneself
with a series of advancing steps geared to some overarching objective, particu-
larly when the state, at all levels, no longer cares what happens, and where
politics is itself the pursuit of parasitism.
Still, in the scores of neighborhood markets that operate with small mar-
gins across the rest of the city, the indiscriminate valuation of goods that has
emerged from the daily thefts rampant in the central market has generated
certain expansive effects. Intended or not, the reduction of livelihoods by youth
to a certain bare minimum, undertaken in order not to be cluttered with or
boxed in by social mores, institutional norms, or work with little payoff, in a
small way accomplishes the very opening up and expansions they say they want
to be ready for. If not necessarily directly applicable to their own individual
lives, a practice has emerged whereby, in addition to the sale of the usual array
of commodities, various items, services, and prospects are bundled together
and sold as such. For example, boxes of pasta are bundled with reparations of
household water taps as well as with opportunities to acquire aluminum roof-
ing materials that are purportedly on their way to the area after “falling off a
truck” at the Nigerian border. Different materials—commodities, information,
services, commitments, affiliations—are converged into a single unit of sale
and, as such, markets are opened up to the participation of a wider range of
actors looking for opportunities, proclaiming skills and insider information, or
looking to be that extra person needed to complete transactions when some
kind of labor is involved. By removing things from set, privileged positions or
removing them from accustomed frameworks of use and regard, there is
potentially greater latitude to get whatever exists in the market into more expan-
sive and intensified circulation. Here, things and services try to “piggyback”
their way into wider dissemination through their often highly unconventional
associations with other things.
Although defying economic common sense, both excess and scarcity are
brought together to get what can be marketed—which is now nearly every-
thing—to move. Hoarding and profit taking, of course, continue to exist, yet
REACHING A LARGER WORLD 151
this dispersion of the minimalist sensibilities of New Bell youth, which results
in a freeing up of the conventional relations of value between goods and things,
enables, by default, a kind of mediation between two problematic tendencies:
on the one hand, the tendency of urban residents to narrow the scope of their
social worlds to the familiar tropes of ethnicity and family as the arenas through
which some kind of trust can be guaranteed; on the other, the tendency to try
and seize chances opportunistically to involve oneself in scenarios, deals, and
networks that do not obligate any particular course of action or responsibility.
Here, being in the “right way” demands a sense of invention, not just adher-
ence to the rules, but also not simply any kind of invention, but rather one
that takes what others are doing into some new kind of consideration, that
attempts to find value in what they are doing so that their lives can be “bundled,”
however momentarily, to one’s own.
Whether such a practice may be just a momentary holding pattern, as
Service sociale faces either implosion by depending too much on too few
people and resources, or dissipation altogether as its residents rampantly
become small pieces in the games of much more powerful others, remains to
be seen.
Bangkok
In New Bell, Islam was popularly referred by some youth as the instrument
through which one could risk doing the minimum as a means of keeping one-
self available for something big and transformative, even if there were no guar-
antees that such change would ever come. In the following story from Bangkok,
Muslims do something of the inverse; they focus on Islam as the instrument
for a collaborative entrepreneurship with expanded scope as an essential
feature of the ability to sustain the minimal identification of themselves as
Muslims, where such an identification has a semblance of efficacy.
Soi Sukhumvit 3 is at the heart of the Middle East quarter in Bangkok. With
its restaurants and shish cafés, its mosques lodged across from apartment
buildings and profligate telephone bureaus, the quarter anchors the intersec-
tion of Arabs and Africans from all over the world. From young men filling the
550 rooms at the Grace Hotel, in both temporary and prolonged respites from
the sexual constrictions of home, to the black chador-clad women with a pas-
sion for shopping, the area harbors a plethora of agendas and proclivities. The
quarter is firmly ensconced in the Sukhumvit district—a large area of tourists,
multistory condominium developments, upscale and nondescript hotels, com-
mercial sex zones, and a vibrant street economy that shifts character daily,
152 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
impose their will, and in a city that guarantees little security amid incessant
change, there is little basis from which to determine who is being threatened or
excluded. Although there are no places that make room for all, Sukhumvit
remains a district where almost any identity can find a room.
This brief exposition is offered to situate what is to come: On the night of
the Qana massacre in Lebanon, July 2006, a large crowd gathers at the glittery
Egyptian al-Nasir restaurant—which wraps itself boldly around a key passage-
way on Soi Sukhumvit 3—and is glued to one or more of the four large televi-
sion screens tuned to Al Arabiyya and Al Jazeera. The grisly images dampen
the usually festive atmosphere that prevails, as people seethe in yet another
reminder of humiliation and helplessness. Black plastic nose and mouth cover-
ings are dropped to permit some of the older women to bleat out their anguish,
pipes are inhaled more deeply as in an act of fortification, and hands shaped as
pistols are pointed to Condoleezza Rice and the assortment of Israeli officials
paraded in front of the cameras.
I am sitting at a large table to which individual customers are often directed,
with two Jordanians, a Togolese, Somalian, Nigerian, two Indonesians, and
three from Bahrain, all men. Because the place is open until five o’clock in the
morning, it is a convenient place to be out in public. The only language every-
one at the table has in common is English and a little bit of Arabic, mostly
derived from Quranic studies for those not originating in the Middle East.
The conversation began awkwardly, a few stray comments stemming from the
obligation of the entire restaurant to pay attention to the images being screened.
I am clearly the eldest at the table—no one else older than 30, I initially sur-
mised (and later confirmed). The obligation to speak in face of what was being
shown, coupled with the rapid exhaustion of the obvious expressions of anger
and cynicism, led to several mundane queries regarding what people were
doing in Bangkok—a process always subject, itself, to a kind of obligatory dis-
simulation. Even if one is engaged in the most boring of forthright formal
work, the reputation of the city as a smuggler’s paradise (not really deserved)
usually means that individuals want to lend some sense of excitement and
possibility to their existence in the city.
The discussion quickly picks up a sense of urgency, punctuated with invo-
cations of the need for something to be done. But here the something to be
done is not in the form of revenge or the customary litanies of the need for the
umma to come together to exert its power, or to overcome sectarian differences.
Rather, it is how those gathered at the table could use this opportunity that
a particular city provided—as one concretization of its “cityness”—to do
something that would enable them to keep going. The aspiration at times as-
sumed strong overtones, such as, “Fuck this shit; we always have to be bothered
154 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
by what is done to us, well let’s do something that shows that we are not
bothered.”
During the course of several hours, it was evident that each person had
moved a great deal through various cities and that Bangkok was not a necessary
haven, intended or final destination, nor preferred outpost of opportunity. For
most, it was an almost accidental arrival, a chance taken for cheap commodities
or a job as an accountant. For others, the stories were highly peculiar. For one,
it was a place to wait out clearance for “refugee placement”; for another, a famil-
ial enforced apprenticeship with an uncle following a mishap with the law in
Jordan; and for still another, the absconding of funds intended as a scholarship
for a university far away.
Almost all had arrived in the city via places other than home, as if passed
on by the uncertainties of other circumstances. Each claimed a range of small
troubles—being too or insufficiently religious, refusing the imposition of
prospective spouses, familial jealousies, and intractable problems with more
powerful elders. Nothing had specifically prepared them for what they were
currently doing, and, with few exceptions, livelihoods were completely oppor-
tunistic. A brief liaison with a woman had left a more enduring friendship with
a brother who worked in a travel agency that often needed freelance photogra-
phers to take shoots of resorts for Arabic magazines, a third party was needed
to hold different consignments of gems being hedged against other transac-
tions outside Thailand for which these consignments were a kind of collateral,
and an uncle had come to Thailand in the 1970s to invest in a factory that pro-
duced waxed cloth and had left a few commercial and residential properties to
be managed when he moved on to China. Instead of identifying and consolidat-
ing particular occupational specializations, each had used initial footholds as
ways of speculating on other activities.
New coworkers, settings, patrons, neighborhoods, or cities did not offer
necessarily more money, but different opportunities and networks. To expand the
circumference of possibilities, any modicum of security in the present had to be
relinquished and forgotten, even if the speculation was directed to what could
be gained by articulating disparate jobs, identities, and locations. In other words,
each conveyed a curiosity and determination not to stay put, to see what else they
could do, where else they could go. Such maneuvers were not to substitute a more
promising life for one perceived as lacking, but rather to extend experiences
and skills outward into new “neighborhoods” and uses. Their perception was
that this objective could not be a matter of explicit planning, but of a willing-
ness to eject themselves out of whatever constituted their current conditions.
Of course, such transitions were not often so smooth. Some were waiting
for money to be sent from elsewhere; almost all had some debts to pay and
REACHING A LARGER WORLD 155
obligations to get out of. Yet in all of this, there remained in our discussions
during the course of the next several weeks a willingness to incur new respon-
sibilities and to intensify a sense of being implicated in the lives of others. This
was the case even when it came to an abstract offering of friends and relatives
as possible resources for those who, before this night, were complete strangers.
Someone knew of a shipping company who had “special” relationships with
various customs authorities, someone else had contacts with agents adept at
acquiring highly cut-rate airline tickets, someone had a warehouse of auto parts
with nowhere to go, and still someone else had a sister in Rome looking for
flat-mates. The Somali guy had once worked as a janitor in Dubai and would
find unused and underregulated spaces for Senegalese money merchants to set
up shop, in turn financing Nigerian electronics transactions, which brought in
Nandi merchants from Bunia who did mineral concession deals with Malay-
sian holding companies, which in turn brought in other Somalians to drive
trucks from Mombassa to the Great Lakes. Someone else had ideas about how
to set up a Web order cut-rate provisioning system for migrant construction
crews across the Middle East. In this inventory of “possessions,” the mundane,
sinister, and singular are collapsed in a running list looking for a frame that
could cohere a means in which everyone gathered could somehow be enrolled
in some conjoint project.
After several weeks, preexisting travel plans and other responsibilities
made it difficult to sustain these conversations in their prior form. The Black-
berries and address books of each participant increased significantly in volume,
and agreements were made to try out a small number of different trading trans-
actions involving Lagos, Dubai, Rayong (Thailand), and Udjung Padang (Indo-
nesia) among small clusters of the participants, eventually to see how these
could be concretely broadened to involve the interests and resources of others.
Because I was really the odd one out in this grouping, in terms of age, profes-
sion, and place of residence, I could really only offer limited support to the
number of ventures to be tried, and so do not know how the subsequent
mechanics will unfold. But the point here is not in the details of the deals, but
in the sentiments that underline them, and the motivations professed for their
undertaking.
Because the participants wanted to be “smart” about what they did—not
only in terms of getting away with shortcuts or working in risky commercial
environments—but to exude to some larger abstract audience that being Mus-
lims was itself something “smart.” That being Muslim was neither the embodi-
ment of a history of commercial proficiency or an impediment to be overcome,
but an opportunity to do business in a way that was creative, daring, and suc-
cessful. It was being smart at a game that did not necessarily belong to Muslims,
156 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
to the exclusion of others, but whose practices and efficacy could be felt as an
extension of the practice and efficacy of Islam itself. As one Jordanian partici-
pant liked to say, “I have to make the right moves five times a day, and the right
time is always right on time.” Still, the game necessitated, unlike those “mini-
mal” youth in Douala, a need to be further out into the larger world as a means
of being able to “hold oneself together.”
Islam has long been a locus of business—a means of cohering disparate local-
ities and actors into collaborations that sought expanded reach for the activities
in which they were engaged (Ho 2004). Local specificities—in language, social
practice, and geopolitical positioning—could be articulated through the elabo-
ration of a series of practices and discourses that could be shared across various
divides, constituting a platform of mutual recognition. What such a common-
ality could do—in other words, its generative possibilities—would far outweigh
any experience of rootedness or a need for a definitive reference of belonging
(Abaza 2002; Hassan 2002). Although the concrete possibilities and supports
for disparate localities being able to have this something in common had to be
fought for when threatened, such commonality was to be deployed as a means
of extending the reach of localities into territories where they would be inevita-
bly compelled to come up with revised versions of themselves—in other words,
that held in common was deployed to generate difference. Efforts on the part of
others to sum up, apprehend, and confine the capacities of Muslims would
always be “one step behind,” always partial in their understandings and antici-
pations. In a not dissimilar set of sentiments, the urgency of this group to do
something was motivated by a desire not to succumb to the images others
might have of them, not to do what was expected, and to undermine the plans
and apprehensions of those others through the intricacy of dealings that had no
clear outcome other than to keep things open.
It is hard to predict just what skills and performances will be necessary to
eke some kind of advantage from territories that are both under more profi-
cient surveillance yet, at the same time, often off the maps of policy makers
and developers. Yet, if long-term change of lives and creative engagement are
to be viable, these singular local operations must be articulated across plat-
forms of mobilization and belonging that value these singularities, and at the
same time network them in coordinated actions and investments (AlSayyad and
Castells 2002; Saint-Blancat 2002). In this way, Islam operates as a gestational
form of urban correspondence—relating the initiatives, styles, interpretations,
REACHING A LARGER WORLD 157
Say: If your fathers, and your sons and your brothers and
your spouses and your clan and the worldly goods which you
have acquired, and the commerce whereof you fear a
decline, and the dwellings in which you take pleasure—[if all
of these] are dearer to you than God and His Apostle and the
struggle in His cause, then wait until God makes manifest
His will; and [know that] God does not grace iniquitous folk
with His guidance. (9:24)
He sits back on his plastic chair and, under the glare of the doughnut
shop lights, the smile on his face is obvious. For the last four years,
the young man has been trying something quite new to him: a
proper Muslim life. This way of living, which offers him guidance,
solace, and community, has become especially important now
because Rami no longer lives with his father, who was picked up for
immigration violations in Brooklyn under the law enforcement
dragnet directed at Arabs and Muslims in the United States following
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Rami’s own circumstances then help explain why the young man
finds this verse particularly meaningful. Worldly goods, worldly
162 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
pleasures, and the comforts of family have been disrupted. On Mondays, for
example, he drives three hours each way to visit his father in a New Jersey
detention center. His family has spent thousands of dollars on lawyers, trying
to get his father out of jail. After the latest round in immigration court, they
believe the saga will finally end soon, but not well. The lawyers have told them
to expect that the father will be deported back to Jordan. Since his father’s
incarceration, Rami has turned more deliberately to Islam.
When Rami recited this verse to me, it was a Sunday night in July 2006.
I was in a Dunkin’ Donuts with him in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home to one of
New York City’s largest Arab American communities. Israel had just begun
bombing Lebanon a few days earlier. With us was Rami’s friend Ezzat, a portly
young Lebanese American who was born in the port city of Tripoli and who is
one of several informal mentors to Rami. Ezzat is well informed about Islam
and about Middle Eastern politics, and Rami looks to him for knowledge and
guidance. We were joined later by three more young Lebanese American men
and an Egyptian American, and the night’s discussions swung easily around
Hezbollah and Lebanon, around Israel and politics, and around cars, work, and
school (but not women). Islam, however, remained central, especially for Rami
and Ezzat. Our evening, as is often the case, didn’t end until after 2 AM.
Rami’s recitation from At-Tawbah didn’t come out of nowhere. Ezzat and he
had been telling me about his and Rami’s devotion to Islam, and he related how
he had been studying aqeedah (theology) for a year and a half now. He then told
us about the time that his more secular father had screamed at him in anger.
The devout son had been reading the Quran when the time for prayer descended.
Ezzat prepared for his prostrations and asked his father, as he often did, if he
would join him in prayer. This time he was finally successful. But his father told
him that, with Ezzat’s superior knowledge of Quran, Ezzat should lead the
prayer, and so he did. Aloud, he read the ninth sura, which includes this key
verse: “O you who have attained to faith! Do not take your fathers and brothers
for allies if a denial of the truth is dearer to them than faith; for those of you who
ally themselves with them—it is they, they who are evildoers” (9:23).
The men finished their prayers. Ezzat’s father silently turned his head
from side to side and then exploded. “Are you saying I’m a kaffir [nonbeliever]?!”
he yelled at Ezzat, who defensively replied that he was just reciting the Quran.
When he told us the story, Ezzat laughed, and this prompted Rami to
remember how much he admires the next verse. The conversation led me to
ask them if they believe their generation is more pious than the last. Ezzat
answered, but with the air that I had asked an obvious question. Of course, he
replied, but not because of the faith of individuals. This is a historical trend,
he explained. Each generation for the past 50 years has been getting more
BEING YOUNG, MUSLIM, AND AMERICAN IN BROOKLYN 163
religious, he said, but still they aren’t religious enough. Satellite television
provided him with his evidence. “Look at all those Egyptian movies from the
1950s,” he said, explaining how “everyone is drinking whisky” in them, and
how the characters all look like they’re trying hard to mimic westerners. He
described the progression for me. His generation’s parents are more religious
than their grandparents, and today’s generation is more religious than its fore-
runner. But still it’s not enough, according to the young man. “There are a lot
of Muslims,” Ezzat says, “but there is no Islam.”
Since 2005, I have been spending time with people like Rami and Ezzat while
researching a book I had been writing on Arab American youth (defined for my
project as those between 18–29 years of age) from Brooklyn, New York (Bayoumi
2008).1 I spent three years in regular contact with scores of young Arab
Americans, especially young Arab Muslim Americans, in an attempt to under-
stand their lives. (My access was facilitated by the fact that I, too, come from an
Arab and Muslim background, although I am older by at least a decade than
those I spent time with.) I chose Brooklyn as the location for several reasons. For
one, New York City has the largest Arab population in the United States accord-
ing to the 2000 U.S. Census (de la Cruz and Brittingham 2003: 7). The city has
approximately 70,000 Arab Americans (de la Cruz and Brittingham 2005: 7),
and more live in Brooklyn (approximately 35,000) than in any other borough
(U.S. Census Bureau 2000).2 The U.S. Census does not tally religious affiliation,
but one study puts New York City’s Muslim population at 600,000 (with Brook-
lyn and Queens having the largest Muslim populations) (Beshkin 2001).
Brooklyn’s Arab and Muslim populations also tend to be made up of newer
arrivals to the country. According to the 2000 Census, for example, 46% of
Arab Americans nationally arrived between 1990 and 2000 (de la Cruz and
Brittingham 2005: 9).
As with most immigrant populations, both Arab and Muslim Americans
are younger than the general population. Twenty-one percent of the American
public is between 18 and 30 years of age; 30% of American Muslims are (Pew
Research Center 2007: 16).
The median age of Arab Americans is 31 years, compared with 35 years for
the whole of the United States (Samhan 2003).3 What this means is that many
young Arabs and Muslims have no significant adult experience of the world
prior to September 11, 2001. And, although nationally Arabs and Muslims are
generally more affluent than average Americans, many in Brooklyn come from
164 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
Rami’s father. And racial profiling against Arabs and Muslims was essentially
legalized in 2003, when President Bush ordered a ban on the practice but
included “exceptions permitting use of race and ethnicity to combat potential
terrorist attacks”.4
The degree of animosity against Muslims in the general culture has also
been studied. A 2004 Cornell University study found that 44% of Americans
believe that some restrictions of civil liberties by the government is necessary for
Muslim Americans (Nisbet and Shanahan 2004: 6). A USA/Today Gallup Poll
from August 2006 discovered that 39% of Americans admit to holding “at least
some prejudice” against Muslims. And the 2007 Pew study found such preju-
dice affects Muslims younger than 30 more than those older than 30.5 Forty-two
percent of American Muslims age 18 to 29 (compared with 29% of older
Muslims) report having experienced “verbal taunts, been treated with suspicion,
been physically threatened or attacked, or been targeted by police because they
are Muslims” during the past year (Pew Research Center 2003: 38). Notably,
40% of younger American Muslims also report that they received expressions of
support because they were Muslim (Pew Research Center 2003: 37–38).
For many American Muslim youth, the new landscape is daunting and
defining. They are in the eye of today’s security storm. The state apparatus
increasingly encroaches on their lives and lays suspicion on the most mundane
of their activities. The New York City Police Department, for example, released
a report in August 2007 titled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown
Threat,” which claimed that the “emerging threat” to law enforcement resides
with “unremarkable” Muslim men younger than 35 years of age who visit what
the reports dubs “terrorism incubators”: mosques, “cafés, cab driver hangouts,
flophouses, prisons, student associations, nongovernmental organizations,
hookah (water pipe) bars, butcher shops and book stores” (Silber and Bhatt
2007: 20). By focusing not on probable cause of criminal activity, but on ordi-
nary and unremarkable behavior, the report essentially criminalizes any and all
young Muslim males who congregate together.
How have Brooklyn’s young Muslims responded to this inhospitable envi-
ronment? There have been several reactions that I witnessed during my
research. Some young people have downplayed their ethnicity and their
religion, and have sought to “pass” as non-Muslim and non-Arab.6 In Brooklyn,
that often meant assuming a Spanish-sounding name and passing oneself off
as Latino (Bayoumi 2006a: 23). (Some Muslims have gone so far as to seek
legal name changes to escape discrimination.) Others have already left the
country or are considering leaving the country when the opportunity arises
(Bayoumi 2008). Because the U.S. government does not tally migration out of
the country, we do not know how many people this includes, although one
166 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
(Arab and Muslim women can be found there as well, but in much smaller
numbers, and the very pious tend to avoid the shisha cafés. Their absence, how-
ever, is not absolute. Rami, for example, occasionally visits a shisha café if some
extended friends are there.) When I ask the young people why they come to the
shisha cafés, the answer is almost always the same. They report that it is much
better to be there than in a typical American club, as they (or their older brothers,
if they are too young) used to do before 9/11. In a shisha café, they also spend
only $5 or $6 for the evening (compared with the $40 or so that a dance club
requires). Moreover, they aren’t breaking any religious precepts by being there,
and they are learning about themselves through conversations with other Arabs
and Muslims.
This is what Fadi, a young Palestinian American, told me one night at
Meena House, one of the popular shisha cafés in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He also
described to me the conflicts he has in his day-to-day college student life and
offered his explanation as to why he identifies now more forcefully with his
Arab identity and his religion. “We get into arguments all the time with people
who say all kinds of things against Islam and Arabs,” he said, “so we have to
know where we come from.” At Meena House, the young men talk about how
to frame their debates with their schoolmate interlocutors.
And university campuses, as in years past, are also central locations where
young Muslims congregate (each campus in New York City has a Muslim Stu-
dents Association [MSA].) There are other locations as well. In Brooklyn, the
Muslim Youth Center, in the neighborhood of Bensonhurst, offers a similar
space, as do the mosques of Brooklyn and the various conferences and lectures
hosted around the city on an almost weekly basis. In all of these locations,
college-age Muslims play a dominant role, from organizing to participating in
various functions, as they create a platform from which to understand them-
selves as Muslims and from which they exhibit and project their ideas of Islam
onto American society.
More important than geography, however, is the function that these spaces
enable. Largely away from the older, immigrant generation, these locations are
where young American Muslims are coming together and finding solidarity
with each other. In this context, young American Muslims are separating them-
selves for the purposes of taking charge of their own definitions of their faith
and identity, and forging their own individual and collective futures. Through
their efforts at solidarity and community building, they are producing leaders
among their own, where leadership is based primarily on one’s ability to dem-
onstrate a command of Islam and its scholarly traditions and one’s ability to
communicate successfully in an American Muslim idiom.7 (And although an
earlier generation, namely my own, generally measured social success and
168 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
status by one’s ability to achieve a reputable career and earn a high income, this
specific generation of young people often emphasizes levels of piety as a
measure of individual achievement.)
Most important, these young people are self-consciously young, American,
and Muslim. They understand that they have advantages that their parents
didn’t have, that they live in a period of heightened stereotyping against Islam,
and that they are forming and leading a multiethnic and multicultural Mus-
lim community in the West. They do not see their youth as a by-product of
their circumstance. Rather, they understand their youth as a responsibility.
Young Muslim Americans, in other words, constantly and self-consciously
create and recreate their youth by seeing themselves and by functioning as a
vanguard generation.
A Vanguard Generation
One can hear this sense of a vanguard position in their own words. Rami
explained it to me this way on another occasion:
Thirty years ago the Muslims were more cultural. They were new to
the country and it was their way of fitting in. The masajid [mosques]
didn’t do anything. When [the earlier generation] first came, they just
stayed in the masjid. But now [with] the second generation, the kids
have grown up here, their English is good, and they interact with
people as Muslims. . . . the generation before us wasn’t into the deen
[religion] at all. They were more cultural. But now, my generation is
coming up, it has a sense of pride, a sense of a big movement.
The youth understand themselves, in other words, not just as Muslims, but as
young Muslims with “pride” and with the responsibility inherent to being part
of a religious “movement.”
Rami and many in his generation explicitly see their participation in this
movement as being part of a growing global revival of Islam (see also Cainkar
2004). They pay some attention to Muslim communities in the Middle East
and South Asia and, as Ezzat stated, they believe that Muslims across the world
in their generation are increasingly raising their deen (becoming more
religious). They attribute the global revival to the fact that “people are asking
questions now, more than ever before,” as Rami put it. (He was including both
Muslims and non-Muslims in his category of people asking questions.) For
Muslims in the United States, he told me, a major reason stems from the
current inhospitable environment:
BEING YOUNG, MUSLIM, AND AMERICAN IN BROOKLYN 169
When you’re being attacked and you don’t understand why. . . . And
you don’t know what Islam says about terrorism, [then] you go to the
masjid and ask, and you sit down and hear, and [discover] you like the
masjid, and you come the next day and the next day, and all of a
sudden, you’re like, oh! You’re learning and you’re into it.
This kind of group solidarity also reinforces several aspects of young
American Muslim identity, which in Brooklyn is generally suspicious of con-
temporary reformers and apologias that appear to collapse “Islamic” and “west-
ern” values into essentially the same thing. “A lot of modern scholars today will
tell you crazy stuff,” Rami told me. (And I heard similar responses from many
others along the way.) “The secularist kind of Muslims tell you that homosexu-
ality is okay, that hijab, don’t wear it, whatever.” He reported that most Muslims
he knows will not accept such arguments. Instead, he said, “people are swinging
the other way, the way the deen [religion] was, and that’s the way it should be.”
That these young American Muslims have little patience for self-described
“progressive Muslims” should not be interpreted as indicating opposition to all
aspects of American culture, however. In fact, many young Muslims repeatedly
emphasized to me their acknowledgment and appreciation for American multi-
culturalism, because it mirrors the diversity of the umma, the global Muslim
community. This generation feels bound far less by the ethnic and national
divisions that they feel limits the older, immigrant generation. National origin
matters little to the young Muslims, and race and ethnicity even less. Although
doughnut shops and shisha cafés are found primarily in ethnic enclave neighbor-
hoods and thus draw a largely ethnically homogenous crowd, campus MSAs and
citywide Muslim events tend to be extremely multiethnic and very multiracial.
Moreover, many young Muslims explained to me (after I asked about their
futures) that marrying a good Muslim of any background was more important to
them than marrying someone from their own ethnic or national background. (It
is likely that cross-ethnic marriages among American Muslims will only increase
in the years to come.) Young Muslim Americans repeatedly refer positively to the
multiculturalism of their faith, interpreting it as evidence of Islam’s universal
appeal within all contours of American society. Thus, although easily rejecting
what they see as western-style innovations or apologetics for Islam, young
American Muslims are defining their Islam within an American context even
while accepting and rejecting specific aspects of their American society.
Their self-consciously western Muslim identity is further emphasized
through their own educational endeavors. Many young Muslims in Brooklyn
today are seeking an Islamic education that speaks to their experiences. They
constantly reported to me that the immigrant generation preceding them
could not speak to the young people in a language and idiom that spoke to
170 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
their lives. The ability to speak Arabic well, and English fluently and idiomati-
cally has become highly prized. Because leadership roles are also often assigned
to peers who are judged more knowledgeable than others, a formal Islamic
education is increasingly seen as an essential component of participating in
the Muslim community.
What has become increasingly popular in recent years, then, are seminars
by burgeoning Islamic educational organizations. One such initiative is
AlMaghrib, an Islamic studies institute that “has dedicated itself to providing
courses on Islam in a six-day, two-weekend, intensive seminar format.”8
AlMaghrib is directed precisely at these young, western-born and educated Mus-
lims (hence the name, meaning “the West,” in Arabic). Founded by Muhammad
Alshareef, a 32-year-old Egyptian Canadian and staffed largely by younger Islamic
scholars who have been educated at least partly in the West, AlMaghrib has a
growing following among New York’s young Muslims. The institute offers sem-
inars and full courses in more traditional topics such as theology, ethics, hadith,
law, legal theory, tafseer (exegesis), Islamic history, and dawah (propagation of the
faith). They also run a seminar series. Popular seminars include “The Light of
Guidance: Fundamentals of Faith 101,” “Fiqh of Love: Marriage in Islam,” and
“Rules of Engagement: The Islamic Code of Ethics” (Smith 2007). AlMaghrib
describes its approach as a way “to help the average [w]estern-raised Muslim
to appreciate the complexities of the classical sciences of Islam in a practical
and pragmatic way,” explaining that its “methodology of fiqh [Islamic law],
respect[s] . . . all of the classical madhabs of Islam (primarily the Hanafis, Shafi’ees,
Malikis, and Hanbalis [i.e., the classic sources of Sunni Islamic law]) . . . [and]
wishes to instill in its students the spirit of tolerance regarding legitimate differ-
ences of opinion. Recognizing that AlMaghrib Institute will not produce mujta-
hids [renewers of the faith], and appreciating the dynamic and multi-cultural
milieu of the Western Muslim situation, it shall try to combine traditional mad-
hab-based fiqh with comparative fiqh.”9 This recognition of Islamic scholarship
within the framework of the “multicultural milieu of the western Muslim situa-
tion” goes a far way in explaining AlMaghrib’s popularity with the young
Muslim Americans I have encountered.
Dawah, or propagation of the faith, also plays a central role in the way
young American Muslims construct themselves as the vanguard of Islam in
the United States. Many connect dressing along Islamic lines with efforts to
call others (nonpracticing Muslims and non-Muslims) to the faith. In this, too,
they find a difference from the older generation to the younger. Consider
Muhammad, for example. A friend of Rami’s, he is a 22-year-old Egyptian
American who is very knowledgeable about Islam and aqeedah (theology).
Muhammad has assumed one such leadership role among young American
BEING YOUNG, MUSLIM, AND AMERICAN IN BROOKLYN 171
advertise their activities. When the time for prayer came, the Muslim men
transformed the space by performing their prostrations out in the open air (the
women meanwhile tended to both tables). Similar to how Jouili (2007) describes
the situation of French Muslim women, visibility here may also be understood
as a way of claiming one’s rightful space among the many groups that make up
the culture of the college.
During Islam Awareness Week, the college’s MSA also hosted a week of
lectures. With titles such as “Terrorism, Fundamentalism, Extremism: Fact and
Fiction,” and “Islam: Is It Too Great to Believe?” the lectures again illustrate the
ways that young Muslims are responding to the demands established by the
culture at large (namely, discussing terrorism), but nevertheless seek to establish
the discourse around Islam on their terms (“Too Great to Believe?”). Members of
the association were asked to bring at least one guest to the events for dawah
purposes. During the lectures, the audience was separated by gender, with a
physical divider running down half the room. One lecture focused on why Islam
is a religion attracting many new followers, and the lecturer explained to the
assembled group that non-Muslims carry “a right” to know about Islam and that
“the Muslims have an obligation” to let non-Muslims know about the faith.
Dawah is not limited to campus activities. Muhammad and a few others
host a website called FreeQuran.org, which, as the name promises, is an orga-
nization that sends Qurans to anyone, Muslim or non-Muslim, who wants
one. Housed in a small office on Staten Island, the organization is supported
by private donations (including the collections Muhammad receives for his
Friday lectures) and sends approximately 3,000 Qurans a month to people.
New Muslims who visit the website are asked to fill out a brief questionnaire,
after which they will receive their free Islamic literature package. The website
naturally also receives its fair share of hate mail, but what mostly arrives are
inquiries from individuals who are thinking of converting to Islam (or who
have converted) and from various prisons around the country seeking Qurans
for their own libraries. The organization also distributes Qurans and literature
at various lectures on Islam held around the city. During the warmer months,
it also commonly sets up a table on the street or in a park to reach the
American masses.
Rami and Muhammad often spend several hours a week here. When I was
with them, they would leave the office energized by the work, and enthusiastic
about the possibilities of dawah in the United States. Their optimism is further
buoyed by an appreciation for the postal service and for technology. The work of
the organization is predicated on the mail, and Muhammad frequently illus-
trated to me his understanding of mechanics of the postal system and his admi-
ration for it smooth functioning. (He’s a known customer there by now.)
BEING YOUNG, MUSLIM, AND AMERICAN IN BROOKLYN 173
Conclusion
Prior to September 11, 2001, young American Muslims certainly had already
established networks across the country. College campuses frequently hosted
lectures by Muslim scholars, and organizations such as the Islamic Society of
North America held national conferences annually. However, today’s young
American Muslims, based on my research in New York City, understand their
role differently than young Muslims did prior to September 11, 2001. This is
true in the way today’s generation has drawn a difference between themselves
and the older generation, seeing themselves as part of a narrative of progress in
the spread of Islam globally.
But the difference is not limited to the progress narrative. Today’s young
American Muslims in fact understand themselves as the vanguard of Islam
in the United States, and in their vanguard role, they do not live in opposition
to the larger American society, nor do they see themselves as being opposed
to American society in general. (They do oppose its foreign policy, however,
and feel the brunt of the surveillance arms of the state.) To the contrary, they
frequently take advantage of specific elements of American culture that can
further the aims and expansion of the Muslim community. Young Muslims
in Brooklyn do, however, often separate from the mainstream, and this
separation enables them to seek out and support each other, endowing this
generation of young American Muslims with a strong sense of group solidar-
ity that appears to be, at least in part, born out of hostility from the general
culture that have they encountered since September 11, 2001.
But 9/11 also energized these young American Muslims, who feel a newly
invigorated sense of obligation to represent Islam properly to both Muslims and
non-Muslims alike. They are self-consciously creating a Muslim community, a
community that places young people at the center of that experience and that
understands youth as being a bearer of responsibility for an Islamic revival.
Dawah plays a central role in their lives, and they affirm their own sense of being
174 LIVELIHOODS AND LIFESTYLES
Muslim when they invite non-Muslims to Islam. Global and national politics
may have specifically caused today’s hostility to and interest in Islam, but the
youth are not interested in arguing politics with non-Muslims. Rather, they are
dedicated to capitalizing on the current attention given to the religion and in
producing a version of Islam that is consistent with their multicultural and
globalized vision of the faith.
PART III
The schooling of Muslim youth in France does not cease to capture the
public imagination.1 How Muslim youth are schooled, how and where
they are educated, and how they are clothed when they show up for
school choreograph competing media narratives of France as a
nation-state. For some French politicians, officials and activists
(including some Muslim ones), the establishment of Muslim schools is
perceived as promoting communautarisme—that is, the ghettoization of
ethnic communities and the fragmentation of the Republic’s social
fabric and political ethos. For others, protests by Muslim activists who
seek the licensing of a Muslim school are perceived as a threat and a
“plot against the Republic” (see Morvan 2008: 205, 208).
The current chapter addresses four intersecting aspects associated
with the debates concerned with the schooling of Muslim youth in
France. First, it positions these debates in relation to the shifting bases
of political power that operate under the Fifth Republic. Second, it
examines how the (hyper) mediatization of Muslims and those of
immigrant background constructs the schooling of Muslim youth as a
fulcrum in approaching issues of integration, social diversity, and
multiculturalism. Third, it examines initiatives to establish Muslim
178 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
schools against the backdrop of shifting class stratification and spatial segregation
of cities and their banlieues (suburbs). Fourth, it positions the schooling of Muslim
youth against the larger backdrop of European political integration and the
emergence of a “European space” of praxis in relation to which new forms of
citizenship and political action are possible. The concluding discussion offers a
reflection on the role schooling plays in the construction of competing notions
of Muslim youth within the wider context of a transnational “European” space.
Laïcité represents a “founding myth of the French Republic” (Gunn 2004: 428),
“perhaps the strongest normative pillar of French political philosophy” (Limage
2000: 79).2 Laïcité refers to the struggle over separation of church and state
since the early 19th century with the introduction of free, compulsory, and public
primary education operated by the state. In the field of education, this separa-
tion is enshrined in laws, notably in a 1905 legislation that banned all religious
orders in France and introduced the principle of “freedom of instruction” from
clerical intervention along the lines of secular humanism (Wykes 1967: 219–220).
According to Gresh and Tubiana (2005: 7), to the extent that the values of
Catholicism and laïcité were perceived as incompatible in France of 1905, the
same would apply with regard to public perceptions of Islam in relation to edu-
cation in France of 2005. French public opinion has come to construct Islam as
a new “threat” to long-standing republican traditions (Bowen 2007b: 31–32).
In debating the schooling of Muslim youth, the notion of laïcité is deployed
as an immutable attribute of French political philosophy. Little is said about the
fact that French governments have continued actively to fund and support
Catholic schools overseas, in what was at the time France’s colonies or zones of
influence. Within France, following the 1905 legislation, the gradual rapproche-
ment between the state and Catholic schools means, as Limage (2000: 80)
points out, that “further advantages were granted to Catholic schools without a
demand for reciprocal responsibilities.”3 A series of laws enacted during the
1950s through the 1970s, and referred to by some as “lois anti-laïques” (anti-
secular laws), consolidated the operation of private (church) schools and con-
firmed the state’s commitment to their existence and to their teaching staff
alongside their public counterparts.4 For instance, the Debré law (1959) frames
the reciprocal relations between the state and private (mainly Catholic church)
schools as part of a contrat (contract). The latter recognizes the autonomy of
private schools while securing the implementation of state-mandated curricula
and the granting of public funding.5 The Guermeur law (1977) affirms the
“ALSO THE SCHOOL IS A TEMPLE” 179
J’irai jusqu’à dire que l’école aussi est un temple. I would go as far as to say that also the school
Ce n’est pas seulement un sanctuaire, c’est is a temple. It is not only a sanctuary, it is also
aussi un temple. Et on enlève son foulard dans a temple. And one takes off one’s headscarf
ce temple, précisément pour se rendre disponible in that temple, precisely to become available
aux grandes œuvres de la culture, aux œuvres qui to the great works of culture, to the works that
font l’humanité. Si l’instituteur, le professeur est le make humanity. If the instructor, the teacher
représentant des poètes, des artistes, de la culture, is the representative of the poets, the artists,
rien ne doit s’entremettre entre sa représentation of culture, nothing must come in between his
et la réception par l’élève. Or le foulard est quelque representation and the student’s receptivity.
chose qui s’entremet, il s’agit même d’un rideau Yet the headscarf is something that comes in
que l’on tend devant la culture. Voilà ce que l’école, between, it is even a curtain that one pulls in
en tant que temple, se doit de refuser. L’école est un front of culture. This is what the school, as a
espace séparé qui obéit à ses propres règles : temple, must refuse. The school is a separate
la laïcité (Finkielkraut 2003). space that obeys its own rules: laity.
social and institutional cleavages associated with the marginalization and exclusion
of youth on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, sexuality, locality of residence, and
disability. This imbalance contrasts sharply with advances in the sociology of edu-
cation, one of the most thriving and productive critical fields of research in France
since the 1960s (Vasconcellos 2003: 554). Duru-Bellat and Kieffer (2000: 334)
observe that “empirical studies on equity issues have remained scarce in France.”
More particularly, research on the public school’s catchment area map (la carte
scolaire), and the extent of its effectiveness in ensuring equality of educational op-
portunities by “mixing” students from various geographic locations, still face seri-
ous challenges when it comes to exploring the schooling of Muslim youth. Data
that account for students’ ethnicity—not just citizenship—are not available,
because of legal and other constraints imposed on their collection. This leads some
researchers to account for ethnicity, for instance, by inferring it from students’ first
names (Felouzis 2003). Felouzis et al. (2003: 128) report that, for instance, in the
Académie of Bordeaux,8 10% of the middle schools (collèges) enroll 40% of all youth
found in families who have immigrated from the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa,
and Turkey, and who are among the most disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. In
popular parlance, these educational settings are referred to as collèges ghetto. Felouz-
is et al. (2003) estimate that to achieve an equal distribution of these students
across all collèges in the Académie de Bordeaux, 89% would have to transfer to an-
other institution. These authors conclude that “the ethnic segregation observed in
the collèges is tightly linked to urban segregation” (Felouzis et al. 2003: 129) as well
as to strategies practiced by the more powerful parents to circumvent catchment
areas by obtaining special “derogations” (Felouzis et al. 2003: 130–134). Catchment
areas are thus seen as reinforcing spatial ethnic segregation associated with the
emergence of the banlieues—or suburbs—as ghettos (Giblin 2006; Oberti 2007).
Some critics on the conservative Right capitalize on these spatial dynamics
in order to legitimize and promote an agenda of educational deregulation,
decentralization, and ultimately privatization. They point out that the logic
underpinning catchment areas exacerbates spatial sectoralization and operates
as “an instrument of segregation”.9 They call for the revocation of the catchment
area map and its replacement with parental choice and competition between
schools. This position was expressed, several months ahead of the 2007 presi-
dential elections, in an opinion piece authored by the then French Minister of
the Interior and currently France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy:
[La carte scolaire] est contraire aux principes les [The catchment area map] contradicts the most
plus essentiels de l’école républicaine, laïque, essential principles of the republican school, lay,
gratuite et égalitaire. La carte scolaire se voulait un free, and egalitarian. The catchment area map
instrument de justice. Elle est devenue le symbole was intended to be an instrument of justice.
“ALSO THE SCHOOL IS A TEMPLE” 183
d’une société qui ne parvient plus à réduire ses It has become the symbol of a society unable to
injustices parce qu’elle n’ose pas s’interroger sur reduce its injustices because it does not dare
ses outils. . . . Certains demandent: ‘Si l’on supprime question itself on its instruments. . . . Some
la carte scolaire, par quoi la remplacera-t-on?’ Je ask: ‘If the catchment area map is canceled, by
leur réponds: ‘Mais par rien! Ou par un système what will it be replaced?’ I answer them:
d’inscription dans, par exemple, trois ‘But by nothing! Or by a system of registration
établissements au choix.’(Sarkozy 2006). to, for example, three institutions of choice.’
Sarkozy’s call to revoke catchment areas, and his support for competition
between schools, aims to promote parental choice as the penultimate expres-
sion of a reclaimed sense of social “justice,” which he considers to stand fully
in line with republican egalitarian heritage.10 This position also opens up the
possibility of operating private schools, and by implication Muslim schools as
well, funded directly by parents and communities rather than by the state,
following the charter school model, for instance.
Deregulation is opposed by the far Right and the socialist Left, albeit for
different reasons. The far Right considers educational deregulation, and the
endorsement of “confessional” schools, as signaling the disengagement of
the state from its commitment to “Frenchness.” It also fears that private
Muslim schools would eventually challenge the hegemonic position held by
Catholic schools, of which they are supporters (Deltombe 2005: 102). In
contradistinction, as Laronche and Rollot write in Le Monde, the Left and its
allied professional unions perceive a deregulatory policy as irréaliste and
dangereuse, and as a blow to the social democratic underpinnings of a unitary
republican system, ultimately leading to “a competitive system similar to the
one practiced by the English.11 Cornered, some activists on the Left admit
that the catchment area is “generating inequalities.” Yet, they oppose its
complete revocation because they believe it will introduce “a savage liber-
alization of the system, with, as a consequence, a two-tiered education”.12
Instead, politicians and union leaders on the Left suggest a contained reform,
or “assouplissement” (relaxation) of catchment areas. Such reforms would
commit greater state investments in “centers of excellence” in schools
operating within socioeconomically weaker communities, alongside some
constrains that limit parental flight.
Between 2001 and 2007, three secondary Muslim-run schools were launched
within metropolitan France: the Collège La Réussite in Aubervilliers (founded
184 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
Within the wider French political spectrum, vocal opposition to the opera-
tion of Muslim schools is more vehemently heard on the far Right. The latter
considers that these institutions contradict France’s republican ethos. Explicit
or implicit support for Muslim schools is voiced from other quarters within the
French political system, although for different reasons. For some of those aligned
with the conservative Right, private schools are perceived as an opportunity to
bring Muslim organizations under the aegis of state influence and co-optation
through the contrat system. For others, more often situated at the center of
the political map, the operation of Muslim schools is perceived as facilitating a
market-driven and voluntary model of social and economic integration. Still,
those who support economic liberalization and educational privatization do not
perceive private schools as reflecting communitarian initiatives. Rather, they
point out that private school initiatives are also taking place, for instance, among
Sikh communities whose children have also been affected by the 2004 legisla-
tion on the banning of overt displays of religious signs in public schools. A
report published in Le Parisien (Saint Sauveur 2007), and which reflects this
position, disputes the assertion that the rise of “confessional schools” signals
“the grand return of God into the schools of France.” It presents Muslim schools
within the wider context of increasing parental involvement in education against
the backdrop of a profound dissatisfaction with the state’s coping with the chal-
lenges posed by immigration, shifting class inequalities, economic deregula-
tion, and protracted hopes for social and economic mobility.
The schooling of Muslim youth enrolled in public and private schools is subject
to a myriad of institutional and constitutional arrangements that vary consider-
ably across the European Union (EU) (Shadid and van Koningsveld 2005). The
emergence of a European educational “space” transcends the territorial bounds
of a particular nation-state, in this case France, raising new issues and chal-
lenges. As a “transnational” or “supranational community” (Soysal 2002: 55),
“Europeanness” “is presumed to be what naturally united and makes Europe-
ans and what distinguishes them from others” (Soysal 2002: 56). Yet, on the
one hand, constructions of Europeanness are largely based on what Nóvoa
(2002) calls “geographical forms of citizenship.” These emphasize the locality
and the nation-state and do not account for citizenship in terms of “new journeys
and itineraries (by refugees, exiles, illegal aliens, migrant workers, intellectuals,
etc.) that encourag[e] non-territorial forms of affiliation and solidarity” (Nóvoa
2002: 139). Current conceptions of citizenship promoted in school textbooks
186 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
Conclusion
The heated debates over the schooling of Muslim youth reflect not only power
relations between and within the Right and the Left in France. They are also
indicative of representations that transcend the territorial bounds of the
nation-state (France) and its transnational articulations (EU). These debates are
symptomatic of the multilayered discursive ruptures operating between what
may be labeled as two “European” transnational “scripts.” The first is associated
“ALSO THE SCHOOL IS A TEMPLE” 187
It goes without saying that the label young Muslims can mean many
different things. It can imply identifying oneself with Islam without practic-
ing it in a day-to-day manner. Islam, for both young and old, can even
signify a loose reference to a background that only implicitly influences
daily life practices. Such versions of Islam might even comply with what
has problematically been labeled the “silent majority” (Broder 2007) of young
Muslims living in Europe today. In this chapter I focus on versions of
belonging to Islam that assert particular forms of piety,1 and in which Islam
serves the believer as a guideline for daily life practices and moral conduct.
Moreover, the subject’s relationship to Islam extends an individual relation-
ship to God and fashions a sense of belonging to a wider community, how-
ever plural and fragile this might be. More specifically, I focus on young
women, participants in Islamic organizations, who have opted to don the
Islamic headscarf in two European settings: France and Germany.2 This is,
I claim, the issue that has caught the most public attention because it
challenges a gradual acculturation of forms of religiosity through genera-
tional shifts.
I structure my arguments around two interrelated questions. First, I
analyze the ways in which Muslimness is shaped by the young generation
of Muslims through a particular focus on dominant notions of youthfulness
and its challenges for and by young Muslims. I use the term youthfulness here
as conceptualized by Asef Bayat (2007b). There are two main aspects of his
work that I consider important to retain. The first concerns his distinction
between being young as an age category and youth or youthfulness as a social
category (Bayat 2007b: 64), the latter implying a self-consciousness about
being young. The second and related aspect concerns the common denomi-
nators that youthfulness as a social category comprises: idealism, individuality,
spontaneity, joy, and fun, to cite only a few (Bayat 2007b: 59, 63). Although not
necessarily neglecting these “youthful dispositions,” the young women I talk-
ed to seem to challenge or redefine some of them by confining themselves
to forms of piety that consciously attempt to overcome certain youthful
temptations.
Second, I argue that these emerging forms of pious youthfulness among
young Muslim women are intertwined with a particular way of situating them-
selves within a non-Muslim secular3 context. In other words, they do not stem
from an Islamic tradition alone or in any isolated way, but have to be related to
a broader secular context. Through the comparative focus on France and
Germany, I illuminate that this engagement takes different forms in different
national settings, and is shaped by dominant narratives on citizenship and the
management of (religious) plurality.
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 191
because I assume that they probably emerge from a serious concern about the
oppressive character of patriarchal systems, even if they, too, often result in a
problematic goal of obsessively liberating the oppressed by imposing one’s
own norms (Guénif-Soulimas and Macé 2004; Scott 2005). What I find more
relevant to focus on here is the specific conception of youthfulness that state-
ments like Kebir’s reveal. Or, to put it another way, what is relevant here are the
divergent rationalities behind the conceptions of youthfulness exemplified in
the conversation between the young covered women and the journalist.
Similarly, the proponents of secularism and opponents of the headscarf in
various heated debates on the Islamic headscarf (Amir-Moazami 2005; Bowen
2007) not only seem to be generally ill at ease with the forms of public religios-
ity that this particular Islamic dress asserts, but they are especially irritated
about the fact that, in particular, the young generation of Muslim women, who
have been socialized in secular educational institutions deliberately choose to
cover themselves. In other words, the wearing of headscarves by the older gen-
eration of immigrants was not even considered problematic because it was
socially more or less invisible and fell under the category of “folklore”. How-
ever, when young women born in Europe cover their hair it disturbs public
opinion to the extent that political authorities feel obliged to codify legal regu-
lations to ban them from state schools (Mazawi, chapter 11, this volume).4 I
argue that the student veiling, a “voluntary adoption of stigma symbols,” as
Nilüfer Göle (2003) puts it, is so contested because it presumably deprives
these women from what is considered, according to the dominant understand-
ing, an adequate and legitimate “youthfulness.”
In this respect, I do not see any major differences between France and
Germany. Also, in France, scenes like the one I witnessed at Künstlerhaus Bethanien
are common. If we look, for example, at the arguments put forward by a number
of commentators in the controversies on the headscarf, a similar understanding of
freedom and autonomy associated with sexual permissiveness is prevalent (Scott
2007). Many French authors associated the unveiled body with women’s liberation
and equality, while at the same time revealing the limitations of the underlying
notion of freedom, which required specific dress codes and norms detached from
any religious affiliation. The French discourses on the headscarf reproduced a logic
that equates external appearances with particular (i.e., Muslim) identities, while
associating the visibility of feminine sexuality superficially with belonging to
French society. The indicator for Muslim girls’ integration into French society was,
accordingly, to lie “at the beach with naked breasts”, as anthropologist Emmanuel
Tood put it (cited in L’Express 2004). Also in the French mainstream discourse, the
purported submissiveness of women with headscarves is mainly based on the fact
that these women are perceived as completely lacking personality and autonomy.
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 193
Similar to the women in the audience of the round table, the covered women
whom I interviewed put forward a quite different understanding from what the
mainstream discourse on youthfulness seeks to make normative. For them,
searching to please God, fulfilling religious duties, and cultivating piety are the
touchstones of their way to adulthood. Although these women simultaneously
negotiate freedoms within intergenerational conflicts with their parents or the
extended family, it is not sexual liberation that is meaningful for them; on the
contrary, the avoidance of the temptations of dominant sexuality norms outside
of the framework of matrimony is important. I illustrate this in the following
pages by focusing on the implications of veiling for these women as one impor-
tant element of the creation and externalization of a particular kind of youthful-
ness as Muslim piety.
Looking at veiling of the young generation of Muslims in France and
Germany from an intergenerational perspective, what I consider important to
stress is that, for most of the women, being covered does not result, in the first
place, from a family tradition that has been transmitted to them regardless of the
new setting. Often their mothers were not initially—and still are not—covered.
Consider, for example, the statement of Nura [name changed], the director of an
informal group for young Muslim women in Marseille: “[My mother] put on the
headscarf after me. By the way, when I started to practice Islam, people said to
me: ‘Oh, your parents made you do it.’ And I said: ‘Why do you want them to
make me do it? My mother doesn’t even wear the headscarf. My parents don’t
even practice.’” Such statements not only illustrate differences in the versions of
religiosity between different generations of Muslims, they also elucidate that the
transmission of religious traditions and knowledge does not seem to work in a
unidirectional, linear way from one generation to the next. It can also work the
other way around, meaning that the children encourage their parents to reinforce
religiosity and to accumulate religious knowledge—and to don the headscarf.
Even if they similarly negotiate spaces of freedom, these women do not
seek to distance and emancipate themselves from their parents by struggling
for freedoms in the name of being young, and also not in domains “typical” for
young people (like going out at night, experimenting alcohol, experiencing sex-
uality, and so forth). The intergenerational struggle in their case rather works
according to different notions of Islam. That is to say that they often consider
the version of their parents as “traditional,” anchored in prohibitive norms and
actually “un-Islamic”. Meanwhile, they regard their own version to be the “true
Islam,” based on religious sources (Jacobson 2004; Jouili and Amir-Moazami
2006). This is also translated into the different versions of veiling—their own
“correct form,” and the wrong way of their mothers (i.e., leaving some hair
visible), which they consider an unreflected reproduction of custom.
194 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
The choice to wear the headscarf for these women is not only an external
marker, which displays their belonging to Islam, nor is it a mere inherited cus-
tom. It also signifies their attempt to abstain from seduction. Referring to the
Quranic meaning of veiling, the women interviewed commonly stressed that a
Muslim woman should preserve modesty toward unknown males. The head-
scarf is a tool for hiding female sexuality and attraction in public domains,
because women’s hair is considered particularly seductive. Moreover, donning
the headscarf for these young women is also a matter of “distinction” in the
sense of Bourdieu, in that it comprises a whole set of cultivating virtues that
distinguishes them from other (i.e., uncovered) women. Although these women
naturally interact with both covered and uncovered peers, for them, exposing
(female) sexuality is a sign of weakness, which they try to overcome through a
continuous work on the self.
Especially the women enrolled in higher education emphasized how
important it was for them to be regarded as “intellectual beings,” detached
from external beauty and from the body. Contrary to the public discourse that
especially in France considers sexual liberation and the freedom to be “naked”
as one of the most important achievements of women’s emancipation (Guénif-
Soulimas and Macé 2004), the women I interviewed reversed it into a sign of
female oppression. Moreover, they turned their own choice to cultivate and
externalize modesty into a sign of female liberation. Even if the interviewees
did not necessarily put forward a discourse of superiority toward non-Muslim
women, sometimes a quite black-and-white image of them, as reduced to the
visible body, emerged. The following comment by Farida [name changed], a
woman active in Jeunes Musulmans de France, demonstrates this:
[W]e are not obliged to follow the media, we are not obliged to be like
Claudia Schiffer, for example, because our husbands don’t see this. . . .
In the moment in which you are a Muslim woman, what does he
see? He sees that I practice my religion well, he sees that I educate
my children well according to Islam . . . that’s all.”
Cultivating and displaying modesty for them is a sign of one’s strength, whereas
exposing femininity in public domains is regarded as an abusive reduction to
the female body.5 The women not only distinguish between the “sacred” and
the “aesthetic” body (Göle 1996); But, for them, the headscarf becomes a means
of making visible invisible characteristics (i.e., inner virtues) that they oppose
to external beauty.
Although the public discourse constantly puts pressure on them to be
young like “everybody else,” and to fit into dominant sexuality norms, these
women consciously and deliberately impose limits on themselves, adjusting to
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 195
conduct becomes a source in the struggle for greater equality in those contexts
in which the parents’ generation increases the scope of the haram for women.
Here, the stage of adolescence, in which these women are confronted most
heavily with restrictions and constraints, seems to be crucial. Most of the
women to whom I talked, indeed marked adolescence (which is again not a
fixed category) as the period during which they started to question and at the
same time challenge certain gender norms transmitted and/or imposed by
their parents or by the extended family. The effects of this conflict are, of course,
multiple and can also lead to a complete neglecting of normative religious ties.
However, the women I interviewed were encouraged to search for a alternative
approach to Islam than the one that was transmitted to them, without denying
normative components of Islamic sources but ascribing different values to it,
as the statement by Bahia (name changed) most tellingly shows:
Moreover, self-imposed modesty does not prevent the women from actively
participating in public domains, just as it also does not prevent them from
enjoying youthfulness in domains specific to youth (dancing, listening to
198 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
music, meeting peers, and so forth). Instead of limiting contacts between the
two sexes, the women commonly emphasized, for example, that the headscarf
facilitated their encounters with young men, because these relationships
occurred within certain preestablished rules and within the limitations imposed
by their own understanding of modesty and sexual restraint. What arises from
this is an understanding of female sexuality, and in particular a notion of free-
dom that lies in blatant contradiction with the public discourse, as exemplified
by the statements of the journalist Kebir.
The experience of youthfulness, for them, occurs within certain limits of
what they consider halal. In this regard, also the organizational life plays an
important role, because it provides and strengthens a sense of belief and
belonging to a wider community beyond the level of the individual Muslims.
Islamic organizations in both countries increasingly provide activities tar-
geted specifically to youth within a legitimate Islamic framework to guide
young people in an “Islamicly” correct life and often with a religious touch
(in leisure, gender separated sports, Islamic music festivals, coffee shops
where no alcohol is served, and so forth). Rather than necessarily expressing
“ghettoization” or the rise of “parallel societies,” as is most often assumed in
public discourses, one could simply interpret this creation of Muslim youth
spaces as one among many other forms of youth domains, or even as one
among many other forms of youth subculture—at least if we understand
subculture in terms of creating spaces outside of mainstream culture.
Although the women clearly do not confine to the standards of what is pre-
dominantly associated with youthfulness (especially with regard to sexual
norms and bodily practices), they nonetheless create their own version of
youthfulness within a normative Islamic framework.
Looking more closely at the ways in which these emerging forms of piety are
reclaimed in the public spheres of France and Germany, we can detect some
major differences that reflect, from the perspective of the believing subject, the
different citizenship traditions, as much as different modalities of dealing with
religious plurality. Although we can clearly see convergences between the
French and the German women with regard to their relationship to Islamic
traditions, their self-positioning within these societies as full citizens (France)
or not-yet-citizens (Germany) reveals signs for their self-understanding being
shaped by dominant discursive patterns, which are characteristic for the
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 199
even if they do not associate this identification with their status as citizens.
Many of the women admired, for example, the principle of religious freedom
and—related to that—the tradition of “tolerance.” A sizeable number of my
interviewees spoke about the “tolerant” and “liberal” character of German soci-
ety, emphasizing the openness in regard to the ways in which Germany deals
with religious plurality and diversity in more general terms. In France, on the
other hand, public piety is offensively rejected. The women with whom I talked
in Germany stressed their positive assessment toward the fact that “here every-
body can live as she wants” (Sabiha [name changed], member of the largest
Turkish-Islamic organization in Germany, Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt
für Religion e.V.). Although some of the women had encountered difficulties
because of their headscarves, they generally expressed sympathy for the possi-
bilities to show religious confessionalism in public spaces in Germany. The
relatively privileged status that the Christian churches maintain in Germany
and the tradition of a strong cooperation between religious and political
domains seems to have opened paths for Muslims to institutionalize Islam in
more visible ways than in France.
The women’s positive assessment of the tolerant character of German
society should, of course, be problematized, in that it simultaneously confirms
their self-understanding as outsiders. Here we are confronted with a more
general problem of tolerance as a frequent positive self-referential virtue of
liberal societies. Political theorist Wendy Brown (2006) is one of the most
outspoken critics of “tolerance discourses” and, indeed, points to some prob-
lems inherent in this concept in contemporary liberal democracies. Brown
(2006) continues, most notably, a line of thought that Michael Walzer (1997:
52) already traced with his assumption that “to tolerate someone means to be
in the position of power, to be tolerated implies a position of weakness.” In
other words, tolerance always has to be related to questions of power and
authority. It is less of an innocent act or virtue pointing to any neutral stance,
but more often a practice “concerned with managing a dangerous, foreign,
toxic, or threatening difference from an entity that also demands to be incor-
porated” (Brown 2006: 27).
This assumption can indeed be concretized through a cursory look at
approaches on the tolerability of religious (i.e., Islamic) practices in Germany,
where tolerance has worked as a paternalistic gesture openly revealing the
power position of those who set the normative lines according to which toler-
ance is regulated. The recurrent markers of the limits of the tolerable, often
articulated in terms of “wrong tolerance” or “false tolerance” (e.g., in the debates
on the Islamic headscarf [Amir-Moazami 2005]), indicate the hegemonic power
positions with which the implications of the tolerable are produced. This has
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 201
recently also expanded the level of public discourse and reached the domain of
governmental and legal practice, considering, for example, the regional laws
banning headscarves at state schools or the attempts to “test” Muslim’s adapt-
ability to German norms, before being entitled to German citizenship. In light
of this, the recourse to tolerance discourses by these women can be interpreted
as a sign for them having arranged themselves with their position to be the
ones who to ask for toleration, exactly in this sense of being “suffered” or tacitly
ignored.
With or despite this conception of tolerance, and with their reliance on the
state under the rule of law, Muslims in Germany have been quite efficient in
achieving rights, particularly rights of young people. Back in 1992, the
Supreme Administrative Courts in Münster and Lüneburg decided, for exam-
ple, in favor of Muslim girls abstaining from coeducational sports lessons.
Similarly, young students’ absence from swimming courses in state schools
has frequently been accepted by teachers on the basis of religious freedom.
This confirms a general phenomenon of Muslim’s claims making in Germa-
ny, which has so far predominantly been carried out in the courts and thereby
indicates a “juridification” of questions related to religious plurality questions
(Reuter 2007). Only recently have such cases started to be discussed on broad-
er public and political levels. As a matter of fact, recently the courts have treat-
ed Muslim’s claims for particular rights much more reluctantly and less
liberally than before.6 More generally, the processes of “juridification” has
more recently been paralleled by processes of “governmentalization” of Islam,
in which both the state and civil society attempt to regulate and control
religious practices of Muslims. The field of gender is of particular importance
in this regard (Ismail 2008).
If we now take a look at France, a quite different picture emerges. There,
the women I interviewed articulated a much more outspoken critique on the
modalities in which Islam has been managed so far. These women all defined
themselves as “French” citizens and often rejected any affiliation to the coun-
tries from which their parents emigrated. At the same time, they did not con-
fine themselves to the dominant request to privatize their religious ties, and
thereby went beyond the dominant notion of citizenship as a religiously neu-
tralized category. Their discourse reveals clear signs of their incorporation of
dominant principles, even though they put forward interpretations outside the
mainstream discourse. What these women are doing could be described as
“politics of redescription,” which is, in particular, translated into a redefinition
of the premises of citizenship.
The most interesting example for this is their recourse to the notion of
laicité. The laic principle can have many different meanings, ranging from a
202 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
more space for the expression of cultural difference within it, often making
clear, however, that this is an expression of culture not politics.”
The emerging understanding of citizenship is characteristic for the young
generation of Muslims who, through their embeddedness in and familiarity
with French society, are empowered to speak from “within,” while simulta-
neously criticizing and challenging dominant normative standards. Faith-based
citizenship clearly differs from the guidelines implied in the recent shift from
“Islam in France” (Islam en France) to “Islam from France” (Islam de France), as
proposed by French politicians, which ultimately confirms the French assimi-
lation policy of the past decades (Bowen 2004; Caeiro 2005; Kastoryano 2003).
Religion, instead of its declared absence from matters of civic life, becomes an
integral element of citizenship. This is, furthermore, something that irritates
public opinion, because it contradicts the hope for a gradual assimilation of
young Muslims into dominant norms, inviting them to “become French
citizens,” as anthropologist Emanuel Todd (L’Express 1994) put it during the
second phase of the headscarf debate.
The young generation of pious Muslims thus advocates an interpretation
of laïcité, that contradicts the dominant discourse while still relying on an exist-
ing discursive tradition—namely, an understanding of the laic principle as a
tool for religious plurality and freedom of consciousness (Baubérot 2000).
They ask to adapt certain principles to the transformed religious landscape
through immigration, while neither following the common demand of their
one-sided assimilation into dominant norms nor necessarily establishing
“separate units” detached from mainstream society. On a symbolic level, this
was made visible, for example, in the demonstrations against the law banning
headscarves in French state schools, where a number of young women were
covered with headscarves colored in the French flag.
Contrary to the women with whom I spoke in Germany, the interviewees
in France did not signify in any sense to be willing to leave things as they are,
but rather emphasized their capacity and even their duty to fight for their rights:
“We are in a republican state—liberty, fraternity, equality; there was the French
Revolution, and everyone can do whatever he wants. This is not me who says
that; the French people themselves say it. Well, or they have to change the
constitution” (Zeynab [name changed], secretary of a mosque in Marseille).
Their claims for more representation as publicly visible Muslims in the
name of their belonging to France should therefore be interpreted as an expres-
sion of their awareness to be legally members of French society. The demands
for equality and participation are articulated in the name of French norms and
less in the name of a distinctive religious community (as mostly criticized in
the polemics on “Islamic communitarianism”). This must be emphasized,
204 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
Conclusions
The snapshots from the discourses of young covered women in France and
Germany are only a few among many other examples of a wider phenomenon
that can be observed in other European countries. Accordingly, young pious
Muslims in European settings increasingly demand space for religious practice
by referring to norms anchored in the “recipient” societies in which they live
and interact, and thereby adopt notions of membership that are shaped by
national or supranational European traditions.
Although in both cases (in France and Germany) young Muslims confirm
their anchorage in the respective citizenship traditions, their discourses simul-
taneously reveal clear challenges to the management of religious plurality and the
policies of integration. Even in Germany, where the women did not explicitly
AVOIDING “YOUTHFULNESS?” 205
Since the early 1990s, the issue of the booming young generation has been
placed at the top of the public agenda of the Iranian state. A national center,
The Youth Organization, was created for the analysis and the forecasting of
problems of concern to the youth. In part, the topic has been cast as a crisis.
By the end of the 1980s, much of the Iranian economy was in ruins following
a decade of international sanctions and a devastating war with Iraq. Poverty
was up and standards of living had plummeted well below the prerevolution
years. Furthermore, Iran had experienced a demographic revolution. With
estimated population growth rates of around 3.8%, the number of Iranians
had increased from 34 million in 1976 to 49 million in 1986 and 70 million
in 2006(Markaz Amar Iran 1387/2009). However, the most significant
increase had been among the demographic category of young adults between
15 and 24 years of age. (Throughout the rest of this chapter, my reference to
“the young generation” refers to this age group.) By definition, this young
generation is in a state of transition to adulthood, entering the labor market
and forming independent families. With the voting age set at 15 years of age,
and with relatively high electoral participation rates in Iran, this population
group is also of great political significance. Furthermore, by the end of the
1980s, this young generation had been completely socialized under the
Islamic Republic, during the fervent and trying first decade of the revolution
and the war with Iraq.
Technocratic authorities at the time cast the issue as a looming crisis, argu-
ing that the baby boom of the early eighties had significantly increased the
young population, from 6.5 million in 1976 to 14.3 million in 1996 or 24% of
the total population. In large part, the crisis was framed in terms of the enor-
mous burden of providing social services for this group which increased to 17.7
million in 2006, nearly triple the amount prior to the revolution.
Education was the more challenging problem. As a result of postrevolution
grassroots developmental efforts, literacy rates among this age group increased
from 56% in 1976 to 93% in 1996. Although education had expanded after the
Revolution, the gains were most noticeable at the primary and secondary levels.
According to the Public Census, in 1996, about 50% of male and 66% of female
youth were out of school and a majority of them had a primary or secondary
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 209
certificate. At a critical time in their lives, when they needed to acquire skills
and work experience, 33% of youth (9% of males and 58% of females), were
neither in school nor at work.
Higher education has become a prestigious path by which urban youth
aspire to establish their future economic status and lifestyles. However, the gap
between supply and demand for higher education is daunting: Of the roughly
70% of youth who graduated from high school in 1996 and took the general
university exam, only 20% gained acceptance.1 Only 12% of 19- to 24-year-old
urban youth were university students or graduates in 1996. Student migration
to the West and, more recently, to Turkey, Cyprus, Malaysia, and Dubai, is an
alternative choice for upper middle class youth who can afford migration.
Others look for scarce, low-paying jobs available in the unstable economy.
In a country like Iran, where the state dominates much of the economy, the
main factors shaping the life opportunities of this age group, such as access to
training and education; employment; social and leisure services such as recre-
ation, sports, and cultural facilities; health and insurance services; and, finally,
obligatory military service, are fundamentally affected by government policies
and state resources. In 1996, the official rate of unemployment for those
between 15 and 24 years of age was 19%, and has reached 24% in recent years.
Before the revolution, the unemployment rate was 13%. The unstable economic
210 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
situation has constrained opportunities for job creation. During the second
decade of the Revolution, the public sector provided only 23% of new employ-
ment opportunities, compared with 80% during the first decade. Youth in
lower classes are pressed to look for jobs in family-owned business where they
find temporary low-paying work.
By the mid 1990s, the vast majority of young adults were literate, urban,
and had professional and middle class aspirations, but were highly frustrated
by the scarce resources available to them. Youth blamed the government for its
exclusionary policies such as admission policies based on Islamic/non-Islamic
criteria. Many view the government’s Islamic cultural policies as responsible
for their social marginalization.
Since the revolution, public cultural policies of the Islamic Republic have affected
young Iranians, forming the image of the Islamic state in their minds through
everyday confrontations, resistance, and negotiation on codes of conduct in
public life, especially in urban areas. Since the early 1990s, young people have
played a major role in the resistance against official attempts to reshape the
cultural and even the physical space of urban areas along monolithic moral
guidelines.
The increasing obsession of the political elite with the youth crisis was not
the result of youth socioeconomic needs only, but also a matter of visible socio-
cultural trends among the young population. During the postwar years of 1989
to 2000, the young generation, who had been brought up and socialized under
the Islamic Republic, displayed and expressed distinctly non-Islamic ideals,
aspirations, and representations. Young urbanites created new, customary,
public, cultural codes (urf ) to resist officially imposed, and often coercive,
moral codes of conduct. This cultural agency manifested the power of the urf as
one of the sources of legitimizing the public moral codes and challenged the
fundamentalist homogenized approach toward sin and crime in social life.
Debate on the legal connotation of “sin” has been one of the controversial
debates among different Islamic trends since the Revolution. Different inter-
pretations of social codes in Islam have been involved in the debate of limits of
government intervention in public morals. Some of the reformist figures define
“crime” on a societal base, as the violation of social order and security, and call
for limits on forceful government interventions on crime. They suggest that sin
should not be criminalized but treated as a personal or spiritual shortcoming.
The conservatives tend to make sin and crime equal, referring to the negative
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 211
implications of “apparent sin” for public morals and extending the sphere of
“moral crimes.”2
The cultural agency of youth intensified this debate because of widespread
legitimacy of urf-based norms among them and the creation of new social
imaginaries about moral codes. Comparative national research on religious
faith among Iranian youth before and after the Revolution indicates a drastic
decline in religion as a collective identity and commitment to a set of public
obligations and norms. However, there is a high degree of personal religious
beliefs, with religious practices performed in individualized ways (Kazamipour
2003: 35). Youth cultural agency, the power of urf, was the main barrier to the
imposition of the monolithic cultural policies of the 1980s.
It is important to note that since 1979, there have been at least two distinct
and parallel cultural projects within the Islamic Republic. The first project was
concerned with the public life of the general population, whereas the second
project focused on shaping the intellectual, educational, and cultural elite of
the country. The executive mechanism of the former was the Amr-e be Ma’ruf va
Nahy-e az Monkar project (which I henceforth refer to as Amr-e be Ma’ruf ).
(Translated, this means “Commanding what is just and forbidding what is
wrong” one of the basic tenets of Islamic jurisprudence and the moral task of
any Muslim). The second project was institutionalized as the Islamic Repub-
lic’s Cultural Revolution, launched in 1980, which closed the universities for
three years, only to be reopened after extensive purges and Islamization of the
faculty, administration, and student body. The Cultural Revolution was later
extended to all cultural centers and activities.3 Because of limited space, this
chapter does not address the Cultural Revolution, the project directed toward
the activities of the cultural elite. This chapter focuses on youth and public
cultural policies of the Islamic Republic.
Looking at the trend of activities of Amr-e be Ma’ruf from its beginning,
three distinct phases of varying intensity can be distinguished. The first and
formative phase was linked to Ayatollah Khomeini’s directive to the Revolu-
tionary Council in April 1979 to create a morality bureau (Dayere Amr-e be
Ma’ruf) to uproot prerevolutionary corrupt cultural habits. The second
phase was initiated with volunteer militiamen (the Basij) returning from the
war with Iraq, directing their revolutionary zeal toward the domestic battle
front. This second phase of Amr-e be Ma’ruf ’s activity, from 1988 to 1996,
was a long, repressive, and intense period that peaked in 1993 with the com-
mand of Ayatollah Ali Khamenehei, Khomeini’s successor as Supreme
Leader, to confront the “cultural invasion” of western, secular, nonrevolu-
tionary, and non-Islamic influences. The target groups changed from the
antirevolutionary and secular groups of the 1980s, to the masses of urban
212 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
middle class youth and women. Patrolling units of Amr-e be Ma’ruf would
harass, humiliate, and arrest young men and women in the streets, work-
place, universities, and other public places, accusing them of moral miscon-
duct. Even private homes were raided to punish partygoers, alcohol drinkers,
illegal video watchers, the owners of satellite televisions or sex workers and
drug users. The social backlash against the cultural oppression of the post-
war years was a main factor contributing to the reformist movement. From
1996 to 2005, there has been a marked decline in attempts at moral polic-
ing of public urban space. This relative relaxation has been correlated with
a markedly greater access of young people of diverse class and cultural back-
grounds to the public arena; their increased resistance against enforced,
rigid religious codes; and, at the same time, a growing discord and fragmen-
tation among government factions over cultural control and state interven-
tion in public/private life. Finally, the third phase of Amr-e be Ma’ruf activity
was launched by new conservative groups after their takeover of Tehran’s
city council elections in 2003, the national Parliament in 2004, and the
presidency in 2005. During the third phase, regular urban police (Niroie
Entezami) took the main responsibility of implementing the project, as
opposed to the Basij. Special patrolling units of police (gasht vijeh ershad)
would pursue and arrest young men and women in the streets, shopping
malls, and other public places.
During each of these stages, radical calls for imposing rigid Islamic ethics
have been raised against the claim for a more flexible interpretation of Islam.
Although the reformists and moderates never entered into an open confronta-
tion on Amr-e be Ma’ruf, they have created a distinct cultural discourse by mak-
ing references to more moderate Quranic verses and hadiths concerning ethics,
the tolerance and mercifulness of God, and the Islamic safeguards for the sanc-
tity of the private sphere.
The first phase of activities to discipline the public culture in the Islamic
Republic lasted from 1979 to 1982, when the Dayereh Mobarezeh ba Monkarat
(the Department to Combat Immoral Behavior) was established in Tehran. At
the time, there was a high degree of consensus among revolutionary leaders
on cultural policies aimed primarily at creating a moral society and eliminat-
ing sinful practices affiliated with the prerevolutionary era. The first activity of
the Dayereh was to demolish the Qal’eh, the old red-light district of Tehran,
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 213
removing 2,700 prostitutes. In a single month, some 160 brothels were shut
down in Tehran, and an average of 800 to 1,500 people were arrested every
month for moral crimes, with a few being imprisoned and many receiving
corporal punishment by being lashed.4 The offenders’ average age is not
known, but it seems they came from different age groups. About one in every
four arrested was female. The punishment for some female crimes, like pros-
titution, could be very strict. Of the 650 persons who went to court in March
1982, only one was sentenced to death, and she was a prostitute. Crimes mainly
consisted of illegitimate sexual relationships, rape, alcohol consumption, gam-
bling, and pederasty. The head of the Dayereh announced, “We want a spotless
society and people should help us to realize it.”5 These remarks are reminis-
cent of Crane Brinton’s (1965) comments on the puritanical streak within
modern social revolutions:
The second phase of Amr-e be Ma’ruf is marked by the end of the Iran–Iraq
war in 1988, and the return of thousands of Basij activists (voluntary militia)
from the front. Even during the final stages of the war, prominent conserva-
tive figures took the line that the struggle over moral issues should not take
backstage to the war. In 1986, a new plan was formulated to make Amr-e be
Ma’ruf a greater priority. This call was embraced by rallies following Friday
prayers in many cities, demanding greater government attention to moral
issues, and was accompanied by a pervasive surveillance program. The peak
of this period was the leader’s public decree of July 1990, calling for the
struggle against “cultural invasion,” and demanding the support of the Basij
forces.
This second phase had two particular characteristics. First, it was supported
and implemented by a large organization like the Basij, with 3.5 million mem-
bers. The Basij, initially created to shield the Islamic Republic from internal
security threats, was now assigned the role of ensuring that Islamic ethics were
observed. Many Basij volunteers, mostly young people from lower income urban
groups, had joined the organization for the war effort. Some of them left the
organization to find a job. Those who didn’t, were involved in new task of polic-
ing the streets. Basij checkpoints in the streets gradually turned from security
issues to imposing Islamic codes. In March 1993, the commander of the Basij
stated that “from now on, the mission of the Basij is to implement Amr e be
Ma’ruf va Nahi az Monkar”
Second, the target groups of the project had changed during this second
stage, from combating affiliates and sympathizers of the previous regime to
young people who were born and raised under the Islamic Republic, and sup-
posedly had internalized and been shaped by revolutionary Islamic ideals.
During this second phase, the discourse of Amr e be Ma’ruf was articulated as
an attempt to forestall the dangers of external “cultural invasion” through
new communication technology and mass media, and also as a reaction to the
resistance of middle class youth to the dominant cultural ideology.
This is a period of fragmentation in public opinion on cultural values, with
the families of the martyrs of the war and the revolution on one side, willing to
fight to maintain the moral promise of the Revolution, what was supposed to
be the cause of their sacrifice; whereas on the other side were the modern
middle class and professionals, eager to make a clean break with the “Republic
of Piety.” Furthermore, the gap within the government, between pragmatists
and conservatives had been enlarged.
216 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
During the 1990s, breaking the “public secret” turned out to be an important
element of joint experience of the young generation from different classes. A
generation becomes a significant social force if its members share a common
habitus (Bourdieu 1993: 95). Although the upper class youth has more openly
challenged the restraints and rigid moral values denying their perception of
freedom as personal autonomy in access to amenities of modernity, the middle
and lower classes who are eager but unable to simulate an upper class lifestyle,
disappointed from a proper economic and social life, show more aggressive
indirect reactions. Soccer games have been one of the reflected scenes of this
social anger. A research on riots in Azadi stadiums in 2001 indicates around
70% of spectators show their dissatisfaction of the game result through some
kind of destructive behavior like breaking seats and damaging buses (Safa-
bakhsh 1382/2003: 10). Gerhardt (1383/2004: 50) points to the “stadium
discourse” as it has emerged as a venue for foul language and a kind of protest
against the obsession with discipline and moral order: “The attractiveness of the
stadium for some men lies in the fact that it is the only place where foul words
can be used relatively freely in public.” Celebrating for victories of national
soccer teams in the street is another example of popular youth’s contribution to
breaking the “public secret.”
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 217
within the context of the law, but which we implement and pursue as
if they were part of the law. (Jahad-e Daneshgahi 1378/1999: 138)
Indeed, there was not any collated law for Amr-e be Ma’ruf. Reformists had
ignored the pressures for passing new laws to support Amr-e be Ma’ruf and at
the same time did not enter in an open legal or political challenge to decon-
struct semi- military para-state forces who were behind the project. In his last
days, Khatami proposed Layehe Hefazat az Harime Khososi (The bill to protect
private fringe) to Parliament. The bill was mainly focused on political rights
and was distinguished as a late response to the chaotic situation of individual
rights in the Islamic Republic.Yet the ascendancy of the reformist bloc in
Parliament, and the associated intellectual and cultural ferment, effectively
ended the second stage of moral policing in the name of Amr-e be Ma‘ruf.
From 1996 to 2005 the Basij checkpoints were fewer and further between,
the government told the setad it lacked legal authority for its indiscriminate
patrols. Amr-e be Ma‘ruf authorities also lost their control over believers in
faraway cities. The discourse of “cultural invasion” through communications
technology and mass media was replaced by Khatami’s talk of the “dialogue
of civilizations.” People expressed their will for cultural change through
street celebrations, starting with the victory of the national soccer team over
Australia in the 1997 World Cup qualifying match. These celebrations were
a cultural turning point, since such ‘non-Islamic’ emotions of jubilation had
not been expressed in public since the revolution. Yet the hardliners did not
simply acquiesce in their marginalization. Renegade ‘operational teams’ of
the Amr-e be Ma‘ruf meted out ‘Islamic punishment’ in such instances as the
serial killings of women accused of being prostitutes in the cities of Mashhad
and Kerman in 2002 and 2003.
The conservative victory in the Tehran city council elections of 2003 led to
increasingly vocal demands for greater governmental intervention in cultural
public codes, reaching its zenith after Ahmadinejad’s presidential victory two
years later. The hardliners consolidated themselves in a coalition of more than
18 groups, some of which had been active since the 1990s, and others of which
were new associations organized by clerics and officials. Although the coalition
had ties to traditional conservatives in the bazaar and among clergy in Qom
and Tehran, it aimed primarily to give voice to the less privileged among Isla-
mist ranks, including the radicals marginalized under Khatami and the urban
low-income strata. The hardliners turned Amr-e be Ma‘ruf into a mobilizing
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 219
slogan for radical Islamist forces as the reformists’ moment waned. Eventually,
the unprecedented political ground for finally approving strict regulation and
the full implementation of article 8 of the Constitution was laid.
From their first move back into power, they upped the volume of
their demands for aggressive policies to control public life. The judiciary
announced another initiative to create a force responsible for policing
“moral crimes in November 2004. Committees answering the force’s
national command were to be formed in each mosque, neighborhood,
factory, school and government office, with the task of implementing
A mr-e be Ma‘ruf . Independent lawyers who criticized the plan pointed to
the clear conflict of interest, as well as the lack of parliamentary approval
for it. However, this plan established the idea of shifting moral policing
from the Basij to a regular police.
As the 2005 presidential campaign got underway, the leader of the hard-
line coalition, Ahmadinejad, promised his followers a new age of economic
justice and Islamic piety. The two components of his populist platform were
harmonious, even if they aimed at different political targets. With his denun-
ciations of corruption and promises to put the fruits of oil wealth on the
humblest of dinner tables, Ahmadinejad cast himself in subtle, but clear
opposition to Islamist power brokers such as former President Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founder of the Islamic Republic who wound up as his
rival in the presidential runoff. At the same time, he stoked resentment of
the reformists among the more ideological sectors of his base, such as war
martyrs’ families and Basij members families, by decrying reformist disre-
gard for Amr-e be Ma‘ruf and vowing as well to crack down on conspicuous
consumption. This was the first presidential election after the revolution
which candidates had to announce a ‘mild’ position on veiling. Wary of being
labeled a fundamentalist, Ahmadinejad promised that he would not “inter-
fere with the choice of hairstyle of young people.” But after he won, and all
the branches of government were back in conservative hands, the conserva-
tives resumed attempts to discipline public behavior with the language of
Amr-e be Ma‘ruf.
In May 2005, Tehran’s conservative city council called in the police com-
mander and blasted him for excessive tolerance of “inappropriately veiled” women
in public. Afew days later, special morality patrols reappeared in the streets, for the
first time employing women officers. In August of that year, the arch-conservative
newspaper Keyhan demanded that the government step up its efforts to enforce
Amr-e be Ma‘ruf: “Why do secular states expend such great effort to protect their
youth from moral decadence while our Islamic state is painfully indifferent and
silent toward the degradation of ethics among our youth?”
220 STRIVINGS FOR CITIZENSHIP
The same month, the city council ratified a document called Rahborhaye
Gostaresh Efaf (Strategies to extend chastity) mandating still more bureaucratic
organs, including a coordination committee drawn from various ministries
and executive bodies, that would cooperate with police to punish violators of
moral codes. By the spring of 2006, the morality police were once again ubiq-
uitous, arresting or intimidating young women and men for their dress and
conduct, confiscating satellite dishes and punishing shop owners who were
selling ‘inappropriate’ articles of clothing. At the same time, several cultural
institutes formed during the reformist period were closed. Others were severely
restricted; the budgets of cultural centers in Tehran were cut by half, while
more funding was provided to religious institutions. Within the conservative
coalition, there were disagreements over Amr-e be Ma‘ruf. The director of the
parliamentary cultural commission mounted what he called a “fundamentalist
critique of fundamentalism,” pointing the inefficacy of past attempts to police
morality. Another conservative said enforcement efforts should be “soft, not
hard.” As conservative intellectuals left the coalition in protest at the morality
campaign, more power accrued to the radicals.
In the spring of 2007, the most extreme conservatives in the Tehran courts
designed Tarh-e Amnit-e Ejtemaee (public safety program) aimed at soothing
public fears about increased consumption of drugs, thuggish behavior among
youth, rape and burglary—but also at enforcing Amr-e be Ma‘ruf. As it was nom-
inally a normal anti-crime initiative, the program was assigned to the regular
municipal police by the president. The move was in keeping with Ahmadinejad
“stealthy radicalism” during the campaign, for he sought to assure Tehranis
that the regular police, not the notorious Basij, would be the enforcers. As a
police commander told the Fars News Agency, “We didn’t use Basij forces,
because we assumed there would be more resistance on side of people.”
The Basij, however, criticized police for their “mild” methods. By August, the
Basij had been invited to take over operations targeting drug dealers and gangs of
robbers. Basij commanders, embedded in the state bureaucracy, used the chance
to proclaim themselves the saviors of political stability of the Islamic Republic in
the cities. They inveighed against a “cultural NATO” and a “conspiracy of foreign
forces” seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic through the propagation of
“non-Islamic” behavior among youth and women. The mix of cooperation and
competition between the Basij and police ended in a kind of military occupation
of cities in the spring of 2008. Patrols crisscrossed each of Tehran’s 23 main
thoroughfares, where confrontations between police and citizens over “moral
issues” were a daily occurrence.
The fresh campaign was vicious in its treatment of young people dressed in
“non-Islamic” fashion and its harassment of alleged arazel va obash, a derogatory
STRUGGLES OVER DEFINING THE MORAL CITY 221
phrase meaning drug dealers, addicts and thieves. In the first four months,
nearly 1 million people were publicly humiliated, or “instructed,” in the streets
and 40,000 were arrested. Of those detained in 2007, 85 percent were youths
aged 16 to 26, and 10 percent were accused drug dealers and thieves, 35 of whom
were executed within a month of their arrest. Reports on the program’s progress
were released to the press as a warning to all. Investigative reporters revealed
that “instruction” center for addicts in Kahrizak, on the southern fringe of
Tehran, was turned into a temporary prison, where “criminals” were severely
tortured for one or two months, without trial, to terrorize them prior to their
release. This is the notorious place where some of the youth active in presiden-
tial election of 2009 would be tortured and killed.
In the summer of 2008, human rights lawyers and women’s rights and
student activists started a round of protests against the Tarh-e Amnit-e Ejtemaee.
At the same time 20 independent lawyers took a complaint against police to the
highest supervising court on governmental bodies (divan e edalat edari) claim-
ing the ‘public safety program’ is illegal because it is not included in routine
police tasks and it lacks any other legal instruction or sanction by parliament.
In the summer of 2008, the main independent student organization, ‘tahkim
vahdat’ initiated a series of public meetings on violations of human rights by
Tarh-e Amnit-e Ejtemaee in Tehran and other cities. In most of these activities,
there were references to the principles of human rights and the protections of
personal freedom outlined in the constitution. At the same time, Basij com-
manders and others among the arch-conservatives dream of institutionalizing
the agencies enforcing Amr-e be Ma‘ruf as a separate ministry and turning it to
the basis of the penal system. Already, toward the end of 2008, the Basij had
declared that its enforcement activities would intensify as a result of the “retreat”
of the regular police.
The constant failure of the Amr-e be Ma’ruf project is only one piece of evi-
dence for the proposition that present-day Iran is de facto a post-Islamist soci-
ety, a place “where, following a phase of experimentation, the appeal, energy
and sources of legitimacy of Islamism get exhausted even among its once ardent
supporters”(Bayat, 2007). The campaigns for the tenth presidential elections
and the events after the election mark both the beginning of an important phase
of youth political activism in post revolution Iran and an unprecedented degree
of political fragmentation within power centers of the Islamic Republic.
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PART IV
Navigating Identities
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14
Securing Futures: Youth,
Generation, and Muslim
Identities in Niger
Adeline Masquelier
Nigériens and, particularly, elders. Although it is largely true that many Nigérien
youth do not exemplify virtuous Muslim conduct, it is nonetheless problematic
to state uncritically that youth are not “real” Muslims because they neglect
prayers and would rather go dancing than attend a wa’azi (sermon). Such a
statement implies that because they do not visibly express piety, youth do not
concern themselves with Islam. Heeding the warning of those who have cau-
tioned against privileging religion as the primary foundation for Muslim iden-
tity (Abu-Lughod 1989; Silverstein 2004), this chapter aims to complicate the
equation of Nigérien youth with irreverence for Islam by exploring the place of
Muslim identity in the lives of young men in the provincial town of Dogond-
outchi. Dogondoutchi is a town of about 38,000 Hausa-speaking people, the
overwhelming majority of whom identify as Muslims.1 In discussing what it is
like to be both young and Muslim in rural Niger, I find it useful to distinguish
religious identity (a sense of belonging to a religious community) from religi-
osity (the performance of religious acts). As Roy (2004) points out, the two do
not necessarily go hand in hand. Some people perceive religion to be an integral
part of their cultural identity even though they do not regularly engage in acts
of religiosity. For others, conversely, religiosity is more important than religion.
A significant proportion of the Nigérien male youths whose values and vision
of society I discuss here belong to the former category; that is to say, they iden-
tify as Muslim despite the fact that they do not engage in the explicitly pious
actions that, in the eyes of their more religiously inclined counterparts, mark
people as Muslim. As I hope to show, this shared sense of Muslimhood has
important implications for the way that young men relate to both the Nigérien
state and the West as they struggle to gain a purchase on the newly emerging
sociomoral as well as economic realities of the post-9/11 world.
As they negotiate their youthfulness through the adoption of distinct styles
and practices, young men are often at odd with elders who complain that youth
should listen to religious sermons instead of rap music and exchange their
foreign-made T-shirts and jeans for the less expensive jaba, the modest tunic of
devout Muslims. To such admonitions, unrepentant young men generally reply
that being Muslim has little to do with one’s choice of radio program or ward-
robe. In exploring the generational basis of emerging disagreements about
what Islam is or is not, I focus on youth as a “social shifter” (Durham 2004)—a
category that exists independently of the particular environment in which it is
used at the same time that it is understood anew in relation to each specific
situation in which it is invoked. Summoning the notion of social shifter helps
us recognize not just the transitional nature of youth in structural terms, but
also the ways in which youth as a category is “always in the process of being
remade in sociopolitical practice” (Durham 2004: 601).
SECURING FUTURES 227
During the past two decades, an anti-Sufi movement of Nigérian origin, the
Society for the Removal of Innovation and the Restoration of Tradition,2 com-
monly referred to as Izala, has gained prominence in Niger through its ability
to channel discontent and oppose both the state and existing Muslim traditions
(Grégoire 1993; Loimeier 1997; Masquelier 1996, 2009b; Niandou-Souley and
Alzouma 1996; Umar 1993). Believing that the ills of the present are a conse-
quence of the failure to follow properly Quranic teachings, Izala reformists
urge all Muslims to return to what they believe is authentic Islam, devoid of
heathenism and innovations.3 They frown on the vain pursuit of pleasure, the
westernization of local values, and the display of ostentatious consumption,
promoting instead moral discipline, self-restraint, and frugality.
In the face of recession and downsizing, many young men hoping to secure
a future embraced Izala’s vision of a new moral order. They agreed with Izala
that Sufi scholars were greedy, questioned the ascendancy that fathers held
over sons, and criticized the practices of supposedly unenlightened Muslims.
Overall, the 1990s saw a significant rise in young Nigérien men’s participation
in Islamic associations, a process that produced a key moral discourse by
which youth challenged the authority of both government and elders.4 In a
country that was, until then, ostensibly oriented toward Sufism (Meunier 1998),
those who opposed Izala reformism have become loosely identified as ’yan
darika (members of a Sufi order) despite the fact that few of them are actually
228 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Sufi.5 Because of their religious divergences, those who reject Izala cannot be
defined as a collectivity, however. As a largely heterogeneous population
that includes both Muslims who pray and nonreligious observant Muslims,
they acquire coherence as a group largely by defining themselves in opposition
to Izala.6
During the past decade, Niger’s already troubled economy has worsened.
Seventy-five percent of the population is under 25 years of age, a situation that
has resulted in severe shortages of educational and employment opportunities.
The massive reforms brought about by structural adjustments, the dismantling
of the state as provider of public services, and the collapse of patronage and
other social institutions that had ensured resource redistribution have further
curtailed job opportunities and access to marriage7 (Masquelier 2005). Literate
or not, few young men in Dogondoutchi can hope to make a living through
farming as their fathers had, and yet fewer, among those who graduate from
high school or university, will find permanent employment as civil servants.
Unable to find work and marry, a growing number of them spend their lives as
“social cadets” (Argenti 2002).
F IGURE 14.1. Male youths in their best hip-hop gear attending a dance party
in Dogondoutchi, Niger. (Adeline Masquelier, 2004)
230 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
marriage) they face in today’s unforgiving world. More so than other forms of
popular culture that have become ubiquitous dimensions of everyday life in
Niger, rap music is for and about youth. Thus, although parents bemoan their
children’s choice of entertainment, many of them nevertheless leave youths to
their own devices, hoping that they will eventually move on.9 On this issue,
young men partially agree with elders, noting that when they grow up—and
produce children of their own—they will leave rap culture behind to focus on
more “serious” things. Like Islam.
Situational Ethics
If parents worry that rap-centered practices might threaten their sons’ spiritual
future, youth, on the other hand, are more worried about their material pros-
pects. As awareness of their bleak predicament sinks in, they look for means to
take charge of their future. Islam figures prominently in these strategies of
identity making and empowerment, even among those who are not religiously
inclined. Muslim youth see themselves as belonging to a worldwide commu-
nity whose members are united by their submission to God. For Izala mem-
bers, the notion of global Islam implies the emergence of a “new universal
community that can bypass and transcend the failure of past models” (Roy
2004: 13) and provide an alternative to the West’s morally bankrupt values.
Other Muslim youths, too, emphasize the unity of Islam rather than its frac-
tious nature, pointing out that all Muslims are inspired by the same Quranic
message. Yet few, among the older generation, have forgotten the terrible clash-
es of the 1990s, provoked by Izala’s efforts to discredit local Muslim traditions.
Today, past verbal assaults and physical confrontations have nevertheless given
way to more civil interactions and a recognition that people must coexist peace-
fully despite religious differences. Although Izala-led riots have broken out
elsewhere to denounce, for instance, the immorality of western dress (Cooper
2003; Masquelier 2009a), in Dogondoutchi intra-Muslim disputes remain
confined to the “aurally saturated” (Hirschkind 2006: 21) environment within
which mass-mediated sermons are delivered, circulated, and listened to.
Having come of age at a time when tolerance is the order of the day, male
youths want nothing to do with the “petty” sectarian disputes that once absorbed
their elders’ attention. Their own recognition of Islam’s transcendental unity is
more literal and assertive. In the previous generation, the swift rise of Izala and
the concomitant emergence of public debates regarding the authenticity of cer-
tain religious practices (such as the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday) con-
fused those who were unprepared to question previously immutable Islamic
SECURING FUTURES 231
truths; but today, youthful Muslims are confident in their identities. The vio-
lence that once engulfed Niger is for them a thing of the past. Youth see the
criticisms that preachers on both sides still occasionally level at each other as
frivolous and of no consequence. As well as insisting that they had better things
to do than argue about praying styles, university students periodically remind-
ed me that Niger was a secular state where everyone was free to practice their
religion. Nigériens, I was repeatedly told, are tolerant people.
What this means, concretely, is that although they retain a self-conscious
sense of doctrine, young Muslim men no longer feel the need to legitimize the
sectarian roots of their faith as visibly as their parents did. If the older genera-
tion of reform-minded ’yan Izala have retained their turbans, their ankle-length
pants, and their beards, their young successors are less eager to don so visibly
the mantle of piety. Few wear beards or turbans. If they put on a jaba to pray, so
do countless other male youths who do not claim to be part of Izala. As a result,
it is difficult to identify Izala members from other Muslims who do not embrace
the reformist message based on their appearance. Male youth, in my experi-
ence, rarely argue about religious issues. Nor do they challenge each other over
the superiority of one style or schedule of prayer over another. Indifferent to the
sectarian distinctions that once provoked deep enmity among their elders, they
forge friendships, professional ties, and even political alliances across religious
affiliations on the basis that Islam should unite, rather than divide, Muslims.
This is not to say, of course, that young members of Izala no longer attempt to
rally every Muslim to their association or that the piety minded among them
have stopped condemning music listening as a sinful, Satan-inspired activity.
Rather, mindful of how earlier disagreements over what constituted “true” Islam
tore the town apart, young Dogondoutchi residents are consciously opting not
to focus on what separates them religiously, sartorially, or even socially.
Some young men interrupt their activities to take part in the performance
of daily prayers, but many others are widely suspected of forgetting their reli-
gious duties. Local clerics routinely berate young men for ignoring the call to
prayer when their favorite television shows or musical programs are on. I was
often told that if prayer coincided with a popular television series, young people
would opt to turn on the television. The issue of the timing of prayer flared
up when ’yan Izala insisted that the prayer schedule adopted by their Muslim
opponents was incorrect. They created a prayer schedule of their own, in which
daily prayers took place roughly 15 minutes before the conventional times of
worship, and warned followers and foes alike that exactitude in worship was a
good way of ensuring one’s place in paradise. For those for whom punctuality
now determined one’s eternal fate, young men’s reluctance to pray on time, or
at all, was a distressing sign of their characteristic impiety.
232 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
most pragmatic of reasons for wearing such “wicked” headgear. Muslims rou-
tinely invoke their health to justify what might otherwise seem to be a violation
of some Quranic principle. Thus, breaking one’s fast is not a sin if one does it
to preserve one’s health, and drinking alcohol can similarly be justified if it is
done for medicinal purposes. By cleverly invoking the need to protect his face
from the sun, the young enthusiast of western fashion was eschewing any
suggestion that the baseball cap he wore could be construed as un-Islamic.
His choice of words was not fortuitous; maganin literally means “medicine
for.” Like his contemporaries who routinely pointed out to me that the Latin
American teledramas they watched on television were often more useful than
Islamic sermons because they were educational (Masquelier 2009a) and more
in tune with the concerns of contemporary youth, he provided an eloquent
demonstration of how Muslim youths combine piety with pragmatism in their
struggle to participate in the definition of Islamic modernity. If he remained
unconditionally committed to Islam at one level, at another, more practical
level, his participation in Islam, like that of many Nigérien youths I met in
2004, was largely situational, informed by a pragmatic knowledge of the exi-
gencies of life on the margins of the Islamic world.
Among male youths who pray regularly, some, rather than remaining faithful
to a particular mosque, regularly attend salla (prayer) at the mosque that is
nearest to where they find themselves when they are summoned by the call to
prayer—regardless of which religion faction claims that mosque. They gener-
ally justify themselves by invoking convenience; it is easier simply to walk
to the nearest mosque. Yet it would be a mistake not to see this practice as an
explicit effort to demonstrate the extent to which the youthful Muslim commu-
nity has transcended internal divisions.10 Because the mosque is the place of
God, I was often told, it matters little what affiliation one has. What matters is
the actual act of prayer, not the place where that prayer takes place.11 That a
number of male youths consciously opt to transcend factional boundaries
through their choice of prayer sites as well as friends speaks to the compro-
mises they have made as they negotiate their participation in what they hope
will be a renewed moral order.
For a majority of male youths, the notion of a common Islamic identity
also means that, regardless of whether they engage in pious activities, they are
“for Islam.” More often than not, they are unconditionally so. Thus, at a time
when the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the invasion of Iraq have crystallized
234 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
anti-U.S. sentiments among many Muslim youths, young Nigériens find them-
selves loudly cheering for Osama bin Laden, who has become the hero of the
Muslim world. After September 11, many in Dogondoutchi celebrated the end
of the “evil empire,” and T-shirts bearing pictures of the infamous terrorist sold
quickly. Boys and girls enthusiastically purchased flip-flops whose upper soles
were adorned with a picture of the World Trade Center’s burning towers,
so that they could stamp on the graphic symbol of America’s financial hege-
mony a thousand times a day. Today, numerous male children born since
9/11 bear the name of Osama—a name that, although not in use before, sounds
very Hausa.
By providing (through its dual role as the global bully and the victim of
retaliation) a blatant confirmation that the world is starkly divided into
Muslims and their enemies, the United States has emerged as a new focus of
Muslim anger—something it was not before the events of 9/11, except in the
moralizing discourses of Izala reformists who have long perceived the West as
a cradle of impiety and decadence. Being “for Islam” sometimes has little to
do with faith and religiosity, and everything to do with solidarity, as this
comment by an 18-year-old shows: “When bin Laden attacked America, all the
Muslims of Niger were happy. They think that all Americans are pagans, and
since bin Laden is a Muslim, they like him; they like everything he does. They
support him.”
From this perspective, joining the al-Qaeda movement, even if only in
spirit, has become the duty of every Muslim, for Muslims must unite against
their aggressors. Predictably, young men routinely justified their support of bin
Laden by an appeal to Islam. It was all, they said, because of Islam.
In the eyes of many Nigérien youths, 9/11 is the well-deserved punishment
the United States received for its tyrannical domination of Muslim lands. At the
practical level, the jihadist cause promoted by al-Qaeda is largely irrelevant to
the struggles of ordinary Muslims for a better life. Yet, as De Waal (2004: 50)
notes, jihadism’s “failures as a positive political project do not undermine its
appeal as a banner of resistance.” This is why some young men assured me
that if bin Laden ever called on them to fight for the Muslim cause, they would
follow him. However, even if bin Laden’s spectacular terrorist acts and his “rhe-
toric that pits the dispossessed Muslim world against America and its puppets”
(De Waal 2004: 19) have captured the political imagination of Muslims the
world over, they have not, at least in Dogondoutchi, provoked a widespread
emigration to Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq. Ironically, among the young men
I met in 2004, those who most vocally articulated their hatred of the United
States on the grounds that Americans were “against Muslims” were often the
first to express a desire to emigrate to America. How, then, do we reconcile this
SECURING FUTURES 235
manifest loathing for U.S. moral and political values with the widespread
aspiration to emigrate to America?
What seems like a contradiction may not be one if we focus once more on
the concept of “situational ethics.” For young Nigériens, emigrating to America
has nothing to do with expressing moral convictions and everything to do with
economic survival. Now that the Nigérien state can no longer guarantee eco-
nomic security to its citizens, it behooves them to try to make a future for
themselves, even if that means temporarily living in a country of alleged unbe-
lievers. For a generation of young Muslims who have grown up in the shadows
of America’s growing dominance over world affairs, such a strategy may require
adjustments, but it should not compromise their moral integrity. Although
every young man dreams of finding prosperity in the United States, few have
thought of what such a move might entail at the practical level. They are none-
theless profoundly ambivalent about what the West, and the United States
in particular, has come to represent. Although they hope to emigrate to the
“land where everyone is rich” and see America as a vital source of cultural
capital, they are also keenly aware that, as Muslims, they belong to the umma,
and must therefore unconditionally oppose the hegemony of the morally bank-
rupt United States. In the end, as they consider the choices they must make,
practicality prevails. There is a time to express Muslim solidarity and denounce
the American oppressors, and then there is a time when economic survival
and a chance of earning a social position become more important than moral
solidarity.
To make sense of the surge of enthusiasm that Osama bin Laden and his
attacks on U.S. soil generated among Nigérien male youth, one must situate it
in the context of youthful discontent with the national policies of a secular gov-
ernment that is widely blamed for the crisis in which the younger generation
finds itself. Regardless of religious affiliations, young Nigériens are thoroughly
frustrated with the state’s failure to improve the country’s troubled educational
system and to provide jobs for the emerging cohorts of high school and univer-
sity graduates; the civil service sector is facing drastic budgetary cuts. Hoping
to have an impact on the political orientation of their country, a substantial
number of Dogondoutchi youths became involved in the presidential campaign
of 2004.12 Youthful members of Izala rallied around Mahamadou Issoufou, the
Socialist candidate and leader of the PNDS (Parti nigérien pour la démocratie et
le socialisme), whom they saw as more concerned with the predicament of youth.
236 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
perceived to flout basic Quranic principles, young men feel justified in oppos-
ing the state. With the state largely unable to enforce legislation and provide for
its citizens, Islam is an ever more central source of moral order and political
engagement for Nigérien youth.
Conclusion
For male Nigérien youths confronted with the state’s failure to provide employ-
ment and educational services, the quest for a prosperous future has been
increasingly imperiled despite Muslim reformists’ concerted efforts to purify
society of its allegedly wasteful practices, promote resource conservation, and
generate new forms of social services. As they struggle to make something of
themselves, some young men end up breaking moral rules and circumventing
conventional circuits of exchange to ensure economic survival (selling drugs,
stealing, and so on), whereas others opt for political activism to enhance their
economic prospects. Regardless of how they capitalize on new possibilities,
many have made significant social and moral compromises that rarely meet
with elders’ approval, especially when they are perceived to threaten Islamic
values. Yet, even as they selectively adhere to some tenets of Islam while reject-
ing others (or ignore most of them altogether), their search for a viable identity
is inescapably rooted in a sense of Muslimhood. Besides pointing to the com-
plexities and contradictions involved in Muslim self-fashioning, these trends
illustrate how Islam provides a moral framework for scrutinizing contempo-
rary society. They also show the extent to which, through a process of objectifi-
cation (Eickelman and Piscatori 1996), religion has become an object of
individual scrutiny. At a time when the state no longer controls the definition
of public interests, and the production of a Nigérien citizenry has become
fraught with ambiguity, Islam emerges as an important source of identification
for young Dogondoutchi residents struggling to redefine themselves.
For male youth, the shared experience of crisis has created perceptions of
a radical disjuncture between inherited traditions and lived reality, heightening
generational tensions. By focusing on generation as the new axis of difference
that has replaced class as a principle of consciousness, I have highlighted the
pivotal role of youth in processes of social transformation. Through their
embrace of hip-hop style and values, young Nigérien men invoke the right to be
different from their elders. Although elders often lament these permissive sar-
torial, musical, and social practices, youths contend that they do not contradict
the basic tenets of Islam. What this means, as we focus on the imaginative
ways in which young Nigériens avidly “consume” (Appadurai 1996) modernity
238 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Acknowledgments
Islam in Mali
specialists, many of whom promise good health, wealth, and success to their
followers, clients, and sometimes even the nation-state. My focus here is on a
group of self-styled Sufis, a young charismatic Muslim religious leader and his
followers in urban Mali. They are new social actors who provide valuable insight
into changing modalities of religious expression among youth in Mali in the
current era of liberalization and increased global interconnections.
By the late 1990s, groups of young Muslims who had a rather distinctive
appearance came to have a much more visible presence in Bamako, the capital
of Mali and its largest city. Most notably, many of these young men sported
dreadlocks or they wore their hair in braids, sometimes shoulder length.
Although young male urbanites, especially those who have studied in state
schools, including the university, and those employed or seeking employment
in modern sectors of the economy, usually wear some sort of western-style
clothing, the young men sporting braids or dreadlocks tend to wear attire that
is not considered western, but is rather unambiguously Muslim, African, “tra-
ditional,” or some combination of these. Instead of the western-style trousers
with a shirt or T-shirt or even the professional man’s two-piece garment with
three pockets made of matching fabric (commonly referred to as the trois
poches—literally, three pockets) worn by many male urbanites, these young
men wore long flowing robes—that is, the African boubou—over the “tradi-
tional” draw-string trousers, a caftan, or a burnoose. Their headgear also set
them apart from most of their peers and included turbans, the keffiyeh, and, in
the case of a leader of one of the new groups, a fez—something Malians do
not ordinarily wear. While in public, these young men also usually wear
around their necks large, conspicuous prayer beads adorned with bright, col-
orful tassels. In addition, some of them wear badges of various sizes, which
feature laminated color photos of their “Sufi” leaders with the name of that
person and his organization spelled out in French, the official language of
Mali. These young men refer to themselves as Sufis. Many Malians associate
the wearing of braids and dreadlocks by young and adult men either with non-
Muslims (who sometimes historically had long hair, which they invariably
shaved off upon conversion to Islam) or Rastafarians, who are present in small
numbers in West Africa (Savishinsky 1994). Given these young men’s braided
hair and dreadlocks, which Malians frequently call “Rasta hair,” many eventu-
ally referred jokingly and sometimes even mockingly to these young men as
“Rasta Sufis.” Although “Rasta Sufi” is not ordinarily a term of self-designation
for the young men in question, they do not seem to find it disparaging. During
the past decade, some of these new Sufis and their youth culture have come to
assume a rather prominent place within the social and religious landscape of
urban Mali.
“RASTA” SUFIS AND MUSLIM YOUTH CULTURE IN MALI 243
training available in Mali ill-equips most graduates with the skills to manage in
a liberalizing economy where the state in accordance with neoliberal prescrip-
tions is not supposed to be the country’s main economic actor. At the same
time, there are greater and greater obstacles to migration to Europe as well as
to some other favored countries of migration in Africa—most notably, Côte
d’Ivoire, where hostility against foreigners has been a feature of the ongoing
recent conflict (Marshall-Fratani [2006]). In recent years, numerous Malian
youth have been among the thousands of Africans who have been making often
desperate attempts to cross the Sahara and eventually the Mediterranean to
make their way to Europe and beyond.
Youth Politics
In the years following the coup and the era of multiparty elections, Bamako, the
main center of economic activities in the country, has continued to draw in
young people in search of a better life. During the period of hopefulness imme-
diately after the overthrow of Moussa Traoré, migration to Bamako from rural
areas and smaller towns and cities elsewhere in the country surged. Such
migration to Bamako continues apace. As elsewhere in Africa, many of the
young people moving to Bamako face considerable difficulties, including
limited possibilities of gainful employment. Many are students who have
dropped out of school or failed to pass examinations, which would have allowed
them to continue with their studies. Faced with so many disappointments and
failed expectations, many youth are indeed restless. But not all young Malian
men living in urban areas are, of course, idle tea drinkers. It is clear, however,
that many youth have become disillusioned with formal politics and multiparty
elections, which many hoped might help bring an end to the economic malaise
of the Traoré years. All reports seem to suggest that most young Malians do not
even bother to vote in elections. This seems to have led two otherwise astute
observers of Malian society to make the following claim:
Although it might be true that few Malian youth are actively engaged in politi-
cal activities, conventionally understood as secular politics, this does not mean
that they are not enthusiastically working toward what they see as a better
future. Like many other young Africans, many Malians are actively involved in
creative cultural production in areas such as rap music, which frequently offers
a social critique of the injustices that many youth face.4 However, it is in the
realm of religion where many young Malians have been involved in building
new communities and dreaming of a better world than the one in which they
find themselves.
The youthful turn to religion has been both broad and much discussed in
Mali. The same parents who might decry youths’ avid consumerism frequently
remark that Malian youth today often take their religion much more seriously
than they did when they were young. One can see many youths’ attention to
the practice of the religion in regular ritual prayer, frequent visits to the
mosque, assiduous fasting during Ramadan, and other signs of public piety
(Soares 2004). One can also see this turn to religion in the way many Malian
youth invoke Islam in their collective actions, particularly through activism in
some of the various new Islamic associations. If many young Malian students
have been involved in formal student organizations such as the Association of
Students and Pupils of Mali or AEEM (Association des élèves et étudiants du
Mali) that has planned demonstrations, organized strikes, and lobbied the
government on behalf of students, other students have shifted their attention
from such secular to more religious organizations. During the 1990s, many
young Malians got involved in Ançar Dine, which was to become the country’s
largest modern Islamic association. Chérif Ousmane Madani Haïdara, the
founder of Ançar Dine, inspired many Malians, including many youth, to
practice Islam with greater commitment. In his view, this requires more than
the simple outward signs of religious practice such as regular ritual daily
prayer.5 A modern-style preacher and media star whose sermons circulate on
cassette, video, and DVD, Haïdara’s highly successful career has been depen-
dent upon his skill as a media-savvy orator who frequently broaches such
controversial topics in his sermons as pre- and extramarital sex, artificial
contraception, and drug use, all of which are of great interest to youth.
Haïdara’s rise to prominence has also been dependent upon his use of the
model of the “traditional” charismatic Muslim religious leaders and leaders of
Sufi orders who are often seen as closer than ordinary Muslims to God, as well
as potential intermediaries with God. Born in 1955, Haïdara is no longer con-
sidered a youth, although he himself has clearly been a model for younger
Muslim activists, including some of the new Sufis, who, following him, have
also sought mass appeal.
248 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Despite the long presence of Sufism and organized Sufi orders in this region of
Africa, most Malian Muslims today are not formally initiated into any Sufi order.
“RASTA” SUFIS AND MUSLIM YOUTH CULTURE IN MALI 249
In fact, the number of young Malians seeking formal initiation into a Sufi order
had been on the decline for decades (Soares 2005). This does not mean that
Sufism has become any less important or that reformist Islam or Islamism for
that matter has become any more appealing to Malian Muslims. Among ordi-
nary Malian Muslims, including many youth, there is great interest in Sufism,
as well as in some of the past and present charismatic Muslim religious leaders
with reputations for exemplary piety and miracles who have been invariably
associated with Sufi orders. As indicated earlier, in the late 1990s, groups of
young Muslims calling themselves Sufis, with their distinctive hairstyles and
clothing, started to have a much more visible presence in Bamako. One of these
was Bilal Diallo, who now refers to himself as Cheick Soufi [pronounced Shaykh
Sufi] Bilal (see figure 15.1). Born in 1974 to a rather modest family, Bilal attended
state schools until early in 1992, when at the age of 17, while in his ninth year
of school, he did not continue with his studies. This was around the time of the
coup when such an interrupted educational trajectory became typical for many
young Malians. After ending his studies, Bilal lived in his hometown of Ségou,
Mali’s third largest city and an important Islamic religious center.
Unlike many youth who were to join the ranks of the urban unemployed or
even become thé-chômeurs, Bilal, like many of his generation, developed a partic-
ular interest in religion. The city of Ségou, where Bilal was living, has a special
place in the social and historical imagination in Mali, not least for its particularly
important role in the region’s Islamic history as a capital of the large precolonial
polity founded by al-Hajj Umar Tall in the wake of his jihad in the 19th century.
In addition to being a major Islamic religious center with some of the
country’s oldest and most prestigious private madrasas, where students combine
an Islamic religious education with the study of modern subjects using western
pedagogical styles, Ségou has historically been an important center for Sufism.
In fact, the most widespread Sufi order in Mali (and in West Africa more gener-
ally), the Tijaniyya, has long been associated with some of Ségou’s leading
Muslim religious figures, including the descendants of al-Hajj Umar Tall and
some of his entourage. Several different, rival branches of the Tijaniyya are
present here and in the broader region. Since the mid 20th century, Ségou has
also been an important hub for the branch of the Tijaniyya that Ibrahim Niasse
(d. 1975), the shaykh from Kaolack in Senegal, propagated in large parts of Africa.
In fact, Ségou is one of the few places in Mali with significant numbers of
followers of Ibrahim Niasse, including some who are rather high in profile.
There are also adherents of the Qadiriyya in Ségou and the broader region.
While in Ségou, Bilal apparently did not frequent any of the city’s
madrasas, where some of the country’s most prominent and respected Muslim
religious leaders, including Haïdara, have studied. Instead, Bilal began to
250 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
F IGURE 15.1. Cover of book by Soufi Bilal. (Soufi Bilal Diallo, n.d.)
associate with some of the young men involved in more “traditional” forms of
Islamic education, as well as Sufism.8 In the 1990s, Ségou had become known
as a place where some young men who were engaging in “traditional” Islamic
education had started to sport dreadlocks or braided hair. Some Malians called
these men “the Ségou Rastas,” even though their direct ties to Rastafarianism
were tenuous at best. Since the 1980s, reggae music and the images of such
reggae stars as Bob Marley and Alpha Blondy from Côte d’Ivoire have been
enormously influential among Malian youth and West Africans more gener-
ally. Many youth, especially those in urban centers such as Ségou, integrated
certain Rastafarian elements of style, particularly the idea of long hair, into
their youth culture.9 Although some youth also took up the smoking of canna-
bis, which is associated with Rastafarianism, most young Muslims in the
“RASTA” SUFIS AND MUSLIM YOUTH CULTURE IN MALI 251
circles in which Bilal moved did not. Bilal began to wear his hair long like other
Muslim students nicknamed the Ségou Rastas. It is important to note that Bilal
and his peers specifically associated this element of style with Sufism and youth
culture, not with Rastafarianism. In this way, Bilal was exhibiting his affinities
with contemporary urban youth culture, but also with the new fashion in Sufi
style. As suggested earlier, this new style indexed a shift in what was considered
acceptable appearance for Muslim men, as well as Muslim youth.
While in Ségou, Bilal came into contact with Lassana, a charismatic Muslim
religious leader who is best known as Soufi Lassana. Although Lassana was also
young, he is quite a bit older than Bilal. Over time, Lassana has developed a
reputation as a Sufi and is known for the many astonishing things or miracles
associated with him. In Ségou, Lassana had become a prominent Muslim reli-
gious leader to whom many Malians have turned to ensure wealth, success, and
good health. He has many followers who have gathered around him in Ségou.
Those who go to see Lassana to have a problem of love, marriage, health, or
money resolved range from ordinary Malians to the country’s political and eco-
nomic elites, including former government ministers. Some claim that Lassana
is the person who initiated Bilal into Sufism while he was in Ségou, and that
their relationship was that of Sufi master and disciple or teacher and protégé.
Although Bilal denies the existence of any such relationship, the exact nature of
their relationship remains unclear. After moving to Bamako, Bilal seems to have
cut all ties with Lassana and his circle and he subsequently started to position
himself as a religious entrepreneur in his own right.
In Bamako, Bilal moved to a modest home in a neighborhood not far
from the city center. While he was still relatively unknown, Bilal apparently
attempted to associate with some influential Muslim religious leaders in
Bamako. Indeed, the preacher Haïdara has told me how Bilal used to pay visits
to him at his Bamako home. In 1999, Bilal published a short pamphlet (in
French and Arabic) about the Qadiriyya, in which it is claimed that he was “a
sure source of knowledge, a luminous source of divine energy” (Bilal n.d.a: 5).
It is unclear how well Bilal was known or how widely accepted such lofty views
about him were at the time of publication of this first pamphlet. Be that as it
may, in the decade since Bilal moved to Bamako, he has developed a reputation
as a Sufi, and for exemplary piety and numerous followers.
In addition, Bilal has become particularly known for hosting large celebra-
tions of the mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, in Bamako.
Although historically the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday has been celebrated
in various places in Mali and with much fanfare in certain parts of the country,
especially in some of the long-established Islamic religious centers, there have,
in recent years, been rather heated debates about the legitimacy of doing so.
252 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
his image on promotional materials ranging from posters, lapel buttons, print-
ed fabric, and banners to wall clocks. In this religious marketing, Bilal is
offered as a potential key to attaining success in both this world and the next.
Such religious marketing is directed to his existing followers, as well as to
the broader general public—potential new followers and clients—in Mali’s
increasingly competitive but also diversified religious market.
Equally significant perhaps is Bilal’s attempt to speak directly to his own
generation. Bilal has told me that he wants to spread Sufism quickly, and his
main target audience seems to be youth, many of whom are avidly interested in
Islam and Sufism. In contrast with the main Sufi orders in Mali, which have
had numerous and often intractable succession and leadership disputes
between the sons of the deceased head of a branch of a Sufi order and the
deceased’s brothers, Bilal presents himself as independent of all main Sufi
groups in the country and, therefore, more autonomous to act and to innovate.
Unlike most Sufi leaders who usually make their followers wait for years before
advancing in Sufism and getting closer to God, Bilal claims he is able to help
people progress very quickly along the stages of Sufism.12 In conversations
with Bilal, he has suggested that the Sufi way he offers is much faster and more
expedient than other available Sufi ways. As he explains, although each person
who becomes a follower is different, some might be able to advance very quickly.
He has, indeed, named many deputies, muqaddams and khalifas, estimated in
the many dozens, most of whom are his peers or younger in age than him and
ostensibly able to progress quickly as Sufis. This is all in sharp contrast with the
existing Sufi orders in Mali in which there seem to be few and limited possibil-
ities to be formally named a deputy. Many Malians Muslims actually do com-
plain that it is very difficult to advance within the established branches of
the Tijaniyya and the Qadiriyya in the country. This allegedly quick path to
advancement within Sufism that Bilal offers is very appealing to many Muslim
youth, many of whom have been eager to associate with him and his deputies.
In addition to drawing youth into the Sufi order by directly naming them
his deputies and giving them such leadership positions, it is striking—indeed
remarkable—how Bilal has been actively incorporating elements of youth cul-
ture into religious practice, which is most apparent in the distinctive way he
celebrates the mawlid. This seems to stem from Bilal’s idea that religion is not
to be limited to readings of the Quran, sermons, and devotional acts—that is,
the kinds of activities associated with most celebrations of Islamic holidays
such as the mawlid in Mali. In fact, during the celebration of the mawlid, Bilal
has inaugurated a week of activities clearly targeted toward youth. During the
mawlid, there is actually a soccer tournament called la Coupe Maouloud—the
Mawlid Cup—as well as displays of juggling and martial arts, such as Kung Fu,
“RASTA” SUFIS AND MUSLIM YOUTH CULTURE IN MALI 255
which are very popular among West African youth. When Mali hosted the
Africa Cup of Nations in 2002, some Malian Muslim religious leaders actively
condemned the state’s involvement in the soccer tournament on religious
grounds. In contrast to such Muslim religious leaders of a more conservative
outlook for whom sport is suspect if not explicitly illicit, Bilal eagerly
embraces and even celebrates sport and such youth culture as martial arts, as
well as the long hair and colorful dress of his peers.
Many of Bilal’s initial followers were clearly socially marginal youth—
dropouts from public schools, university, and “traditional” Islamic education
(although not modern-style madrasas), low-ranking temporary clerical workers
in offices, and poorly paid casual laborers. Indeed, when I first came in contact
with Bilal’s followers in 2003, the overwhelming majority of those around him
seemed to be members of the young, urban poor, many of whom were recently
urbanized. These are the Malian youth who are trying to make ends meet under
very difficult conditions. There are, of course, exceptions. One of Bilal’s closest
deputies has a degree in economics, but this person never managed to land a
job before meeting Bilal in 2000.
In joining Bilal, Muslim youth actively devote themselves to religious prac-
tice and Sufism, and, in doing so, they are also able to make a living—often a
much better and secure one than before. Drawn by Bilal’s charisma, Muslim
youth have worked to build a movement and his Islamic association, CMS-
Mali. Bilal’s fame has spread quite rapidly, not least by way of the sophisticated
religious marketing that has developed around him. During the past few years,
as Bilal has become much more well known and indeed even influential, the
powerful now seem to want to associate with him. Bilal has recently constructed
a large multistory compound in Bamako, the kind of urban housing that
requires large sums of capital. He has also acquired some of the other outward
trappings of success, such as new cars. As his resources have increased, he
seems to provide for the many more people who have gravitated around him.
Indeed, following the model of a charismatic Muslim religious leader, Bilal
redistributes some of what he receives as gifts from followers or those seeking
to have a problem resolved. According to press reports, the wife of Mali’s current
president, Amadou Toumani, runs a charity that has given large gifts to Bilal
(Haïdara 2008). But there are also widespread rumors that the first lady is one
of his main patrons.
Like most of the other young Sufis, his anti-“Wahhabi” statements not-
withstanding, Bilal generally does not make public pronouncements about
politics. This is possibly part of his appeal for some Malians among segments
of the political class who prefer religious leaders not be involved directly in
politics. With youthful exuberance, Bilal remains committed to Islam and
256 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Sufism, but also to such pleasures as football, as well as such alluring elements
of urban youth culture as fashionable hairstyles and dress. This helps us to
understand why more and more people—and not just youth—are paying
attention to Bilal. Interestingly, the former president Moussa Traoré, who was
released from prison a few years ago, is reported both to eschew politics and
to devote himself to Islam. Traoré has been publicly associated with Bilal, and,
he has actually been the guest of honor at Bilal’s celebration of the mawlid
in Bamako (Haïdara 2007). Although this might seem surprising, there has
recently been an increase in nostalgia for Mali’s authoritarian past and even
the formerly much despised Traoré regime. In fact, at the time of writing,
many Malians openly long for some of the certainties of that period, which are
so obviously lacking today.
Conclusion
As I have suggested, the young Muslims in Mali who are self-styled Sufis are in
certain respects rather similar to the “traditional” charismatic Muslim religious
leaders and leaders of Sufi orders in the country. In numerous cases, certain
Muslim religious leaders in Mali, through gifts of inherited charisma, have
been able to draw people to them, and they have been able to exhibit the signs
of fame and success: wealth and many followers.
However, the rise of a figure like Bilal and his marked presence in the
public sphere allow us an opportunity to reflect upon the changing cultural
politics of Muslim youth in a place like Mali, which has experienced momen-
tous changes since the early 1990s. During this period of political, economic,
and media liberalization as well as increased global interconnections, new
unconventional figures like Bilal have been able to operate and flourish in ways
that have defied the expectations of commentators in and outside of Mali (cf.
Soares 2007b). At a time when many are talking about post-Islamism (Bayat
2007b; cf. Osella and Osella 2008; Otayek and Soares 2007; Soares and Osella
2009), Bilal and the movement around him show some of the complexity of
the ways some Muslim youth are refashioning how to be young and Muslim
that challenge conventional understandings of Muslim youth and their
assumed proclivities toward Islamism. Some Muslim youth in Mali who are
disillusioned with or uninterested in secular politics or activism have been
turning to religion. Many of those who have gathered around Bilal are social
marginals. With youthful enthusiasm, they have embraced a new Sufi move-
ment in which they have ostensibly been able to progress very quickly, but also
share in some of the signs of success that Bilal and his movement seem to hold
“RASTA” SUFIS AND MUSLIM YOUTH CULTURE IN MALI 257
out to them. Although not completely sui generis, Bilal is actually quite an orig-
inal religious entrepreneur in contemporary Mali. He has been able to take
advantage of and flourish during the current neoliberal era. This success comes
despite the fact that many in the older generation have been disparaging about
what these youthful Muslims know and are doing, as so clearly indexed in the
moniker “Rasta Sufis.” Not unlike post-Islamists, Bilal and some of his fol-
lowers are pragmatic; they advocate the importance of ethical behavior without
necessarily being secular in outlook or orientation. In this way, Bilal is rather
similar to many similar budding religious leaders in contemporary Mali. Like
other Muslim media stars in Mali, such as Haïdara and elsewhere, Bilal has
been particularly adept at employing the media to spread his message and
fame. In addition, his active incorporation of youth culture into religious prac-
tice has been quite innovative and has been a key factor in the making of suc-
cess of this religious personality and his fellow Sufis, particularly among Mali’s
youth who have been consistently marginalized politically, economically, and
religiously.
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16
Performance, Politics, and
Visceral Transformation:
Post-Islamist Youth in Turkey
Ayşe Saktanber
Every Friday afternoon just after prayer time, in one of the far corners
of the expansive Middle East Technical University (METU), a
beautifully designed green campus university located in Ankara, the
capital of Turkey, a fairly large group of male students coming from
somewhere that does not appear to be a mosque is a common sight.
It is not possible to see even the point of a minaret from any corner of
the university, as the mosque that the students unassumingly attend
is actually located in a small village annexed to the campus. These
young male students—in their regular outfits of colorful shirts,
shabby jeans, and casual haircuts with heavy school bags on their
shoulders—seem to be coming from a crowded engineering class
from one of the several popular engineering departments, which are
mostly comprised of male students. Whether male or female, these
students who have managed to attend METU are the most successful
among the many who pass a highly competitive general university
entrance exam that must be taken by every high school graduate in
Turkey for admission to both state and private universities. The
students come from almost every geographical region of the country,
especially from the well-developed urban centers of the different
provinces, but not necessarily from the largest metropolises. There is
no doubt that their families invest a considerable amount of
260 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
emotional labor and financial capital in them to allow them to receive a better
education and, hence, a better career.
For many, especially those who either belong to secular, westernized sec-
tions of society or call themselves Muslim in name only, it is quite unusual to
think of these students giving precedence to their Muslim identity. It is even
harder to imagine them as observant Muslims who perform their ritual prayers
and/or go to a mosque for Friday prayers, because they do not seem related to
the Islamist students who were active at METU throughout the 1990s. As stu-
dents at one of the most prestigious international universities in Turkey, METU
students are expected to be rational, enlightened young individuals who put
scientific thinking above all else. Therefore, they are also assumed to be closer
to western and/or universal/secular values and norms than local ones, includ-
ing all kinds of religious persuasions.
Regarding this particular example, it is worth asking from a broader per-
spective why it is so unusual to think that high-achieving university youth
would consider themselves as Muslims first in a country such as Turkey, in
which 90% of the population is said to be Muslim and 50% of the whole popu-
lation is younger than the age of 25. Furthermore, the age group between 14
and 24 constitutes 31% of the whole population.1 What is the meaning of being
a Muslim in Turkey? More specifically, what does it mean to be both young and
Muslim when these two terms—young and Muslim, as distinct from young and
Islamist—together create such a paradoxical effect? Can such “paradoxical”
situations be explained only by envisioning Turkey as a unique case (Hermann
2003)? The case of Turkey in general, and the case of youth in Turkey in partic-
ular, deserve a critical analysis that focuses on the complex relationships
between the specific modalities of youth, the changing interpretations of both
religion and secularism, and the rapidly globalizing Turkish social context.
Turkey has a longer history of secularism than any other Muslim country,
and religious politics contained in the parliamentarian democratic system are
carefully controlled by state forces. Even the head of the pro-Islamic Justice and
Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), Tayyip Erdoğan, promptly
declared himself and his party to be thoroughly loyal to the principles of the
secular republican regime. During the subsequent years of the AKP’s rule,
some other prominent members of Islamist circles, once known as Muslim
intellectuals who had been ideal role models for youth with Islamic leanings,
started to reassess their Islamist identities and issue self-criticisms.2
The emergence of self-confident Muslim intellectuals who were strongly
against justifying Islamic principles from a western perspective, and who
attempted to create a sense of authenticity for Muslims in Turkey, set the model
for Muslim youth throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Yet during the 2000s, not
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 261
only did everybody start talking about a process of change that could be observed
among Islamists, but the agents of such change have also been designated as
“post-Islamist” intellectuals who no longer argue that Islam and western
democracy are incompatible. On the contrary, as some observers have pointed
out, they have started to demand a genuinely liberal democratic regime in
which principles of a just and egalitarian society will no longer be grounded in
Islam and Islamic values, but also will be embraced by the universalistic values
of modernity (Daği 2004: 136–139). How, then, can this process of change be
connected to the situation of youth in Turkey, particularly to the condition of
the pious youth? Today, even the most religious activist young do not want to be
referred to as Islamist, which would have been perfectly acceptable before;
instead, they prefer to call themselves and to be called dindar (that is, pious or
devout) as opposed to dinci (religionist), which is usually used interchangeably
with Islamist. In addition to these terms, a third one, mütedeyyin, stands between
the two in colloquial Turkish, denoting elderly, wise, and apolitical pious
Muslims. Religious or not, being labeled both young and Muslim still presents
a difficult situation in Turkey because of the ways in which both secularism and
modernity have been understood by large sections of polity and society, despite
emerging trends of reconciliation between the two.
youth, mostly by getting involved with either religious politics or Islamic intel-
lectualism, or both. In all three of these cases, religion turns out to be a matter
of negotiation rather than an inviolable set of normative rules when being
young is at stake, despite the fact that different youth groups tend to interpret
religion and incorporate it into their ordinary lives in their own ways, with con-
siderable similarities among them.
Muslim youth in Turkey, as in many other Muslim societies, no longer
rely solely on religious authorities to understand and make sense of their reli-
gion. But, there can be little doubt that religiosity and identification of Turkish
youth with Islam is widespread. A rare representative survey published in
1999, which aimed to explore the place of religious values in the process of
shaping the worldviews of youth in Turkey, found that 27% of all respondents
use “Islamic faith” to define themselves (Konrad Adanauer Foundation 1999).3
Religion seems to form the main axis through which youth construct an iden-
tity outside the modernist project of Turkey (Konrad Adanauer Foundation
1999:80). A total of 21.1% of the respondents indicate “religion and faith” to
be among the top three values that impart meaning to life. The highest per-
centage of respondents who associate religion and faith with the meaning of
life is found in the clusters that are concentrated by the cities located in the
southeastern and central Anatolia regions, which constitute, respectively,
economically less developed and moderately developed regions of Turkey. This
percentage drops below average in Istanbul (the largest and most developed
metropolitan city in the country), declines sharply in Izmir (the biggest port
city on the Aegean Coast), and in the cities that are in the third cluster of this
survey—that is, Antalya and Edirne. The former is located on the Mediterra-
nean coast, one of the most famous cities in Turkey among foreign tourists,
and the latter is in the northwest of Turkey, at the gate to Europe. Moreover, a
similar pattern is observed in the distribution of references to religion as a
virtue acquired from the family (Konrad Adanauer Foundation 1999: 45).
What is the significance of such findings for understanding youth, religiosity,
and generation in Turkey?
In her essay on changing conceptualizations of youth, Linda Herrera
argues that the term youth simultaneously refers to a cultural group, an age
cohort, and a sociopolitical category (Herrera 2006a). For the Islamist youth in
Turkey, the emphasis has always been on the last categorization, and their
emergence as a social collectivity has been associated with those episodic
instances of Islamic revivalism. On the other hand, young people are regarded
as “youth” as long as they develop and express a consciousness of themselves
and act upon this consciousness across various lines of divisions (United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2005: 117). Envisioning
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 263
youth as a collective identity that bears a collective consciousness fits well with
Karl Mannheim’s classic work on generations, in which he suggests that mem-
bers of a generation are held together by the experience of historical events
from the same or similar vantage points. For Mannheim (1997), generations
can transform society by challenging customary thoughts and by offering new
political and cultural visions when radicalized by traumatic experiences.4 To
explain how generations act strategically to bring about change, June Edmunds
and Bryan S. Turner (2005) suggest that the way in which generations shift
from being a passive age cohort into a politically active and self-conscious one
must be understood. For them, this can only be possible when generations are
able to exploit political, economic, and educational resources to innovate cul-
tural, intellectual, and political spheres (Edmunds and Turner 2005).
Although all of these discussions can provide a productive perspective with
which to study how Islamist youth have developed a collective identity and con-
sciousness that also forms the basis of their collective action, this chapter argues
that, in addition, self-criticisms and reassessments of Islamist youth regarding
their collective identity can constitute a very important aspect of the orientation
of the sociopolitical and cultural change that they can cause. Cultural dilemmas
and paradoxes that Islamist youth have experienced throughout one or two gen-
erations caused them to break with their collective identity and allowed at least
some of them to develop a new discourse of reflexive subjectivity.
To see the ways in which the boundaries of the identity of Islamist youth in
Turkey have shifted from a thoroughly communal identity to an individual one
via self-reflexivity in a constantly changing political and cultural Turkish social
context, some of the textual and audiovisual literary and factual autobiographi-
cal accounts of the once Islamist young activists who now identify either as
dindar democrats or as liberated individuals will be examined.
The first novel under review, The Saint of Incipient Insanities (Shafak 2004), is
written in English by Elif Safak, a young female writer and a rising literary
star, particularly among Turkish youth.5 It is based on the stories of three
young male and three young female graduate students whose lives cross
paths in Boston. Considering the differences of the place of religious values
in the worldviews of Turkish youth depending on the socioeconomic level of
their place of origin, it is not at all surprising to see that all the male charac-
ters have some religious cultural repertoire except for the Turkish one who
264 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
has been raised in a secular, highly modern, upper middle class urban family
originating from Istanbul.
The three young men share the same apartment. One is a peaceful,
good-natured Spaniard with deep Catholic leanings, obsessed with cleanli-
ness and sharp objects. One is a Moroccan with considerably well-developed
Islamic cultural capital, deeply attached to his local cultural values yet quite
modern; he is a highly conscientious character with slightly paranoid ten-
dencies. The third one is a Turk with many sharply drawn characteristics,
such as his heavy addiction to coffee and alcohol; he is a sophisticated music
freak, a fast womanizer, a witty intellectual, and a charming friend with no
religious identity whatsoever. In terms of religion, this Turkish character,
Ömer, is depicted—deliberately or not—as if he comes from a planet whose
inhabitants are not even aware of religion or religious cultural codes. This
very accurately reflects the essence of one segment of youth in Turkey, sketched
out in the earlier classification about the ways in which they acquire religious
identity in modern Turkish society. The fictional identity embodied in Ömer
can also shed light on another situation related to those observing METU
students described earlier and the reasons for the bewilderment these stu-
dents create among the secular Turkish elite. The fact is that “the Ömer type”
has been construed by the secular elite as almost “the way it should be.” For
them, characters such as Ömer represent normalcy; types like some of the
METU students who are practicing Muslims and also have an elite university
education background, do not.
As always, there is another side to the story. The new Islamist youth in
Turkey put great effort into the reconciliation of Islamic intellectualism with
popular culture, through which they can find different ways to express them-
selves and their subjectivities in all walks of life in a secular, highly fragmented
postmodern context. In this respect, since the 1990s, new radio stations, televi-
sion channels, newspapers, magazines, music groups, novelists, and film-
makers that cater to Muslim youth have become ordinary players in the market
for popular culture, as well as the publishers of Islamic cartoons and comic
strips, and all kinds of “small media” such as postcards, stickers, and posters
(Saktanber 2002a: 262–269). Public spaces and performances such as fashion
shows, concert halls, fancy restaurants, coffee shops, tea gardens, and summer
resorts are no longer merely construed as the domains of modern secular
public life in Turkey.6
Similarly, by the end of the 1990s, with the advent of computer-mediated
communication technologies, the construction of new websites and web blogs,
and thus communication through the Internet, had become quite widespread
among Muslim youth in Turkey, as has been the case in the entire Muslim
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 265
had denied her wish to walk with him on the streets hand in hand, how he had
forced her to cover her head, and how he left her and his first daughter alone
for years back home while he pursued his own political career and education by
traveling between different towns in Turkey. Nevertheless, it can be understood
in between the lines of his narrative that during those lonely days, especially
when pursuing a life in Istanbul surrounded by his young Islamist fellows to
whom he almost became a mentor, he could not prevent himself from the dic-
tates of sentimentalism. He listened to the sad love songs of the most famous
and popular female music star in Turkey, Sezen Aksu. But, he hid this from his
roommates, who would probably have thought of listening to such music, and
particularly the songs of a liberal woman like her, as almost an infidelity. It
seems that romantic love and sentimentalism as a transformative force did not
played a significant role in the self-development process and the questioning of
subjectivity of this young Muslim man of cause.
In his prize-winning and best selling novel, Kar (Snow), the 2006 Nobel
prize winner Orhan Pamuk also points out the ways in which the conflicting
nature of falling in love can make everything much more complicated for Isla-
mist young men and women, forcing them to take unusual steps in their lives
both in political and personal terms, particularly within the limited cultural
confines of a provincial town (Pamuk 2000). Actually, in this town, Kars, which
is located in northeastern Turkey and often cut off from the outside world by
blizzards, neither Islamists nor atheists take a clear-cut side against anything,
including belief in God, but lead their lives as being caught up in passions,
politics, and groupings.
Among the emerging voices of self-criticism and reflexivity, the novel
Mızraksız İmihal (Book of Manners without a Lance) by Mehmet Efe (1993) has
been particularly popular among various circles of Muslim youth. The novel,
usually considered autobiographical, is based on the story of the transforma-
tion of a young Islamist university student into a moderate young Muslim man
by the power of love (Efe 1993).7 Being a child of a small town with a modest
family background, he is the first in his family who has access to higher educa-
tion and urban life. In Istanbul, where he attends university, he not only
becomes an Islamic activist, but also has the opportunity to mingle with the
“opposite sex,” although he is careful not to lose his sobriety. He is convinced
that a Muslim does not fall in love with a woman, but only with Allah. Then,
quite unexpectedly and immediately, he falls in love with a covered girl—a
fellow university student—who is critical toward the roles assigned to covered
female university students not only by the secular authorities, but also by the
male Islamist students who seemed to support those girls mainly for their own
political purposes.
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 267
own destiny, he finds the testament of his late best friend, who had inspired
him to take a more critical stance toward the conformity of the brotherhood
with which he had been affiliated throughout his university years. He also
manages to assure himself that there can be different answers to the questions
of life and death, as well as different patterns of sacrifice and dignity for the
human cause other than the ones that were once suggested to him by the reli-
gious community in which he had sought the meaning of life.
The struggle of youth in acquiring a coherent subjectivity by freeing
themselves from the dictates of restrictive religious ties does not always end
with the acquisition of a confident self and a peaceful state of mind that also
signifies a transformation into moderate Muslim practice. It is especially
difficult for those who actually challenge the overall gender role that has
been assigned to them as young Muslim women by society. Notwithstanding
the rhetoric of freedom and equality among educated Muslim youth, covered
female university students are severely criticized, especially by their male
fellows, if they, for instance, insistently frequent newly established coffee
houses that cater to Muslim youth and show “loose” behavior there, such as
smoking, laughing and talking loudly, playing backgammon, using its jar-
gon and cursing while playing it, and getting physically too close to male
friends, as has been clearly indicated by a newspaper article published in a
Turkish daily on the changing cultural meanings of coffee shops in Istanbul
(Çizmeci 2005).
Much more sophisticated and philosophical sufferings can be observed
among some young Muslim women as a result of the social pressures they
experienced in their family lives and close environments. The frustrations may
have gone so far as to make them lose their faith in God and religion. A short
1995 documentary shot and produced by Jeanne C. Finley in Istanbul entitled
Conversations Across the Bosphorus, is a rare example of an attempt to explore
how women’s relationship to religion might influence their identities. It also
focuses on the narrative of the radical transformation of a young woman who
has decided to uncover her head during her late teens, although she has been
brought up in a highly devout family.9 Her parents migrated to Istanbul at the
beginning of the 1960s from a southeastern Turkish town and settled at Fatih,
one of the oldest districts of Istanbul, which was populated mostly by highly
devout, conservative families and Islamists, facilitating her father’s becoming
an extreme religionist. The reasons behind her radical change were not unpre-
dictable, but the action she takes to this end is not so common at all.
At quite an early age she started to question the secondary role that was
assigned to her not only by her family, but also, according to her own convic-
tion, by her religion. Although she did not stray from any code of modesty and
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 269
Conclusion
To be both young and Muslim has never been an easy condition in the Turkish
context, regardless of whether these two states of being taken together have
been politicized. Furthermore, Turkish youth have always had some diffi-
culties in sharing their experiences with youth from other parts of the Muslim
world at the global level because of Turkey’s highly secularized background.
However, following the emergence of a global youth culture, which has enabled
youth to share their experiences in many different ways regardless of their
national origins, this situation has started to change. It seems particularly so
for the Muslim youth who started to be exposed to similar kinds of social and
political pressures all over the world, particularly after September 11, 2001,
despite the differences they carry in their cultural baggage.10 In this context,
further elaboration needs to be made regarding the extent to which not the
national but the subjective identities that have been pieced together from var-
ious sources of communal ties, ideals, and worldviews will overlap with the
subjectivities of the Muslim youth at the global level, compared with the ones
who, despite living in the same society, may have completely different experi-
ences as young Muslims. So far, the cultural dilemma faced by Muslim youth
in the Turkish context mainly stems from the ways in which secularism has
been handled in this society, through which the relationship between the two
has been seen as if they were inevitably irreconcilable. This situation seems to
have started to change, however, as secularism and democracy are open to
public discussion more efficiently than ever before and are proliferating
through the participation of various social actors coming from different
ethnic, religious, and class backgrounds with different political affiliations.
What has to be asked now is to what extent the new experiences of Muslim
youth will contribute to the development of individual freedoms, tolerance,
and mutual understanding. Only that enhancement can help solve the youth’s
cultural dilemma, which stems from the tension between the imperatives of
communal identity and the urge felt for reflexive self-expression. Although the
shifting of Muslim identity from the highly politicized “Universal Muslims”
(Zubaida 2003: 95) to mainstream Muslims of various lifestyles seems to be
the growing trend among Muslim youth in Turkey, the fact that new genera-
tions may tend toward new forms of religiosity distinct from that of their
parents and religious authorities as well as from their earlier generations
should not be disregarded. Thus, they are constantly open to producing new
forms of cultural dilemmas and visceral transformations. After all, trying to
understand the problems, expectations, and aspirations of youth at one
moment in history means no more than to suggest making social and political
PERFORMANCE, POLITICS, AND VISCERAL TRANSFORMATION 271
Acknowledgments
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, many changes have occurred in the
political, social, and cultural, as well as the private and public, aspects of life
in Iranian society. These changes so deeply reshaped the face of the country
that except for some explicit manifestations such as women’s veiling, today
Iran seems less Islamic than it used to. More than any other aspects, these
changes are visible within youth culture and the younger generations’ atti-
tudes and behaviors. In practicing new lifestyles, which are different in many
ways from the previous generations,’ the new generation by and large does
not seem as Islamic as the ideological government had expected it to be
(Kurzman 2005).
Iranian youth culture is a heterogeneous phenomenon, consisting of dif-
ferent dimensions, including new styles of dress, makeup, language, music,
weltanschauungs (world view), beliefs, and identification; longer life expec-
tancy; different heterosocial relationships; drug use; and leisure time. Despite
this heterogeneity, the differences between the generations are so big as to be
referred to as a generation gap (Ministry of Islamic Guidance 2001). The gen-
eration gap includes the misveiled girls as much as it does the chadori girls
(Moruzzi and Sadeghi 2006). Although in most youth studies, chadori girls
are excluded and are assumed to be religious and loyal to the Islamic Repub-
lic, it is worth considering their experiences and the differences that exist
between them and their parents regarding private and public aspects of life.
To understand the significance of the changes in contemporary young
Iranian women’s lives, it is necessary to put their generation’s experiences
within the historical national context. The consistencies and social transfor-
mations within more than two decades of postrevolutionary formal political
NEGOTIATING WITH MODERNITY 275
Along with all these changes was a shifting in the feminine symbolic
models of the Islamic Republic, which has encouraged women to be domesti-
cated objects rather than political agents. In this shift the model of Zeinab, the
Prophet’s granddaughter and a female warrior figure, was gradually replaced
by the model of Fatima, Zeinab’s mother, whose image as represented on
Islamic Republic television, in religious books, in speeches, and so on, is of an
utterly domesticated woman, completely docile under the demands of her hus-
band and father. Fatima’s position as a model of tradition, as reproduced by the
Islamic Republic, is totally different from the position of today’s young women,
and she seems incapable of offering something progressive to them. Despite
this, there are some strong similarities between Fatima and the young women
of today’s Iran. Both the traditional and the contemporary reinforce a sexual-
ized femininity and the domestication of women.
It was during the postwar era, during Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency
(1989–1997), that women began to wear more fashionable, colored dresses
rather than chadors, long dark mantels, formal head scarves, and maghna’ahs
(dark-colored head and neck coverings). In Iranian historical memory, these
years are linked with the sudden reappearance of romantic love and the impor-
tation of some Japanese (nonwestern) sentimental series on state television, all
of which constituted a breakthrough for a society that had just come out of a
war. The license for temporary marriage, a controversial issue during this
period, was also among the major reforms promoted by Rafsanjani. He raised
the issue in a Friday prayer ceremony as a solution for the psychosocial
problems of youth, who nonetheless mostly continued to regard it as legal
prostitution. Temporary marriage continues to be a legitimized, if unpopular,
option to solve the sexual needs of young people, and every once in a while it
is still encouraged by the bravest officials.3
The support for temporary marriage was also a recognition of the class
distinctions that appeared during the postwar era, because it was supposed to
be a solution for poor people—both men and women—who faced economic
obstacles in making a family through a formal marriage (Haeri 1993). Apart
from all those policies, Rafsanjani’s neoliberal policies have been criticized for
providing the economic foundations for the prevailing ethics of consumerism,
self-interest, and increasing individualism that seem to constitute the younger
generations’ major attitudes toward life. For instance, the revolutionary slogans
on public spaces gradually disappeared and were replaced mostly by new com-
mercial advertisements. The elimination of the slogans from public spaces also
meant a distancing from the revolutionary period’s desexualization of public
spaces. In the meantime, Tehran and other major cities were changing rapidly
as they became major draws for employment and educational opportunities for
278 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
The Islamic discourse in Iran has been a response to the cultural aspects of
the modern world, challenging certain facets of modernity while at the same
time wittingly and unwittingly engaging in some of the essential elements of
the modern culture.
—Vahdat 2005: 650
New intrusions into family and private affairs tended to take people’s affairs
out of traditional private or familial supervision and subjugate them to
NEGOTIATING WITH MODERNITY 279
benefit more than the women, as even within a sexual relationship, both part-
ners may still place high ideological value on the woman’s modesty, no matter
what their practical relations. In addition, the domestication of sexual affairs
within private spaces and the household actually increases the risks for young
women, including the possibility of sexual violations, unwanted pregnancies,
and unhealthy precarious abortions (given the legal restrictions on its medical
practice).
The loss of virginity in a premarital relationship is not irretrievable, how-
ever, thanks to underground clinics that repair the hymen. For people with
higher economic and modern social capital, virginity seems to be less prob-
lematic than it is for people with little economic capital and/or with tradi-
tional social capital. However, on this issue, there is more pressure from
Iranian social conventions than from the government, which encourages
temporary marriage as a solution for the sexual needs of youths. The result is
a complicated situation, which is the outcome of a threefold phenomenon:
the surveillance and limits placed on public spaces, which in turn have led to
domesticated and precocious affairs among the youth, putting pressure on
traditional family values.
Many young men, who are capable of having their own private space, tend
to privatize their affairs, keeping their relationships entirely within the con-
fines of their own spaces. In any case, the male members of both secular and
religious families are free enough to have their own affairs within the family
boundaries or in their private apartments. Compared with boys, girls from both
secular and religious families are less capable of hosting boys, either because
they are economically less independent or because they are worried about los-
ing their reputation and honor.
The internal realities of these relationships indicate that although many
contemporary young women seem to be more liberated and modern in their
behavior than the traditional ones or the previous generations, they may also
experience more dishonoring violent behaviors, given the fact that private
spaces are mostly masculine and that these spaces are much less controllable
either by the girls or by conventional social norms (Hoodfar 2000). The
domestication of affairs therefore seems to be more costly for young women,
who are socially and economically less privileged than young men. Such inti-
mate relationships are nonetheless power relations, in which the male mem-
bers are active sexual partners, expressing their sexual desires, whereas female
members are mostly passive and respond to their male partner’s demands.
This is the paradoxical duality that many modern Iranian girls face. On the
one hand, the male-oriented society expects them to be sexually more open
than traditional girls. On the other hand, this more open female sexuality is
282 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Few misveiled girls describe this kind of dressing as being in direct opposition
to the Islamic government. Rather, they stress taste and personal choice, in-
cluding competition with their peers, as their real motivation.
Some of the girls believe, however, that misveiling is not an appropriate
means of self-presentation in public spaces, saying: “In my opinion, this kind
of dressing is worse than wearing nothing. I don’t want to dress like this,
because of attracting attention. When I dress so, I feel bad. Everybody has to
have the rights of being veiled or not veiled.” In phrases like this, misveiled
girls make the government responsible for making them do something they
otherwise would not do.
NEGOTIATING WITH MODERNITY 283
According to many of these girls, the chador makes them feel secure, although
for many of them, wearing the chador is completely conditional. Having
been asked what she would do if she were forced to choose between hijab
and personal progress, a veiled girl answered: “In that case, I would choose
my progress, not veiling.” Having been asked what they would do if they
were someplace where nobody cares about veiling, many chadori girls
answered that they would remove their chador and would choose a more
comfortable hijab.
Unlike their parents, who regarded veiling as the obvious sign of recogniz-
ing a good woman from a bad one, chadori girls express doubt and believe that
according to God, being a good or a bad woman has little to do with hijab. Many
who have misveiled friends also criticize the compulsory veiling mandated by
the government, noting that it is “the worst way to force people to believe in
Islam, because it will result in the contrary.” According to one chadori girl who
believes in hijab but not especially the chador:
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. If hijab is important, then
why is there no punishment for that in the Quran? In the Quran
there is no verse saying that when a woman doesn’t preserve hijab
she has to be forced to do it. Nothing says that in that case she has to
be isolated.
Although chadori girls are vague about whether they, themselves, have
chosen to be veiled, they recognize the difference between the way their mothers
wear the chador and the way they do:
What is the difference between you and your mother in wearing the chador?
She believes in it. I do not. She has to do that; I do not.
So, why do you wear the chador?
For girls it is a matter of being forced. Girls do not believe in it, but
they’re forced to do that . . . because they’re in religious families. They’re
known as religious, so it’s not easy to break the rules. People’s judgment
matters. My mother can’t decide to put aside her chador. My father was
capable of breaking norms. My mother never was.
Regarding the social and political changes of Iranian society and the differ-
ences between younger and older generations, one may expect the youth to put
a political alternative on the table. The younger generations’ reaction toward
the unwanted consequences of the Islamization of society, including compul-
sory veiling, however, is mostly the day-to-day “quiet encroachment” by indi-
viduals within the public and private spheres (Bayat 1997: 7). This quiet
encroachment includes individual behaviors that are breaking the limitations
and rules of traditional familial spaces while also defying the desexualization
of public spaces imposed by the Islamic government. Such individual informal
actions have been resorted to after many struggles between society and the
state. Hidden language (slang or jargon), dress, makeup, hairstyles, music,
and the body and sexuality have been shaped as a response to an intransigent
political atmosphere.
286 NAVIGATING IDENTITIES
Similarly, political jokes are the main instrument of criticism and are
popularly disseminated throughout the virtual spaces of the Web, on mobile
phones, and in ordinary public conversation. Like the youth culture, such
exchanges are mixed with ordinary pleasantries, including banal dirty jokes
poking fun at provincial and ethnic groups as well as women.
The “third way” is neither secular nor traditional. It tends to mix all tradi-
tional and modern aspects of Iranian life in a more pleasant, accessible way. A
good example is the appropriation in Iran of the Ashura street ceremonies,
which were traditionally commemorated by religious (male) participants. In
recent years, many boys and girls, wearing fashionable dresses and makeup,
attend different public Ashura celebrations in Tehran. During these “Hussein
parties,” as the ceremonies are called, the boys act as the ritual participants,
whereas the girls are involved as spectators (Yaghmaian 2002: 62).
Practicing not only different styles of language, dress, and behavior, while
also using different political instruments, they blur the borders of belief and
disbelief, which were so apparent for the previous generations—that is, for the
main supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini and for his dissidents. Yet the question
of whether this kind of informal practice is able to change the unwanted struc-
tures of society remains open. In the current situation, one may doubt whether
the private practices without formal strategy are really enough.
them are not interested in pushing for more formal individual rights, mostly
because of a lack of interest in organized or collective actions.
Contrary to Islamic discourse, which aimed to desexualize bodies in public
spaces, bodily representation matters very much to girls. Young women strug-
gle to construct their bodies through dieting, dress style, and makeup. In so
doing, many spend a good deal of time and effort managing their bodies to
make them socially presentable. More so than the older generations, many
Iranian girls are by and large shaping their identity through negating or accept-
ing conventional and legal sexual discourses mixed with some modern repre-
sentations. Therefore, although Iranian youth have been quite successful in the
ongoing battle over the appropriation of public space, their presence has been
accepted at the expense of reinforcing certain traditional power relationships
within both the public and private spheres. In particular, conventional gender
relations have maintained their inequality, especially in sexual relationships,
despite the apparent ability of some boys and girls to engage freely but un-
equally in premarital affairs.
Acknowledgments
Musical Politics
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18
Fun^Da^Mental’s “Jihad Rap”
Ted Swedenburg
to withering media attacks, especially from the tabloid press. A headline in The
Sun declared, “The Jihad Rap.” The article’s first line read, “Album’s sick sui-
cide bomb and Laden [i.e., bin L.] rants,” and it went on to claim that the album
“promotes the ‘benefits’ of jihad, or holy war”.1 An Evening Standard headline
proclaimed, “Muslim rapper defends his suicide bomber lyrics,” but the article
contained no defense by Aki and instead quoted some lines from the song “DIY
Cookbook,” which appeared to evoke 7/7: “I’m strapped up, cross my chest
bomb belt attached/Deeply satisfied with the plan I hatched/Electrodes con-
nected to a gas cooker lighter” (Singh 2006). The Sunday Star labeled the album
a “hate-filled rant that glorifies suicide bombers” (Chandler 2006). Such arti-
cles also typically raised objections to another song, “Che Bin Pt. 2,” which
features spoken words by Osama bin Laden. Labor Member of Parliament
Andrew Dismore called for police to investigate Fun^Da^Mental and to consider
prosecuting them under Britain’s antiterrorism laws passed in 2005, which
make it an offense to “glorify” an “act of terrorism” that has occurred anywhere
in the world, if this encourages others to emulate the act (Bhattacharyya 2006).
The commotion forced Fun^Da^Mental to create a new company to put out All
Is War and to have the CD pressed at a “secret location” outside Europe.
The uproar eventually subsided by late August, after the publication of
some serious reviews that discussed the actual content of All Is War (see, for
example, Campion 2006), and after the media moved on to other matters. The
hubbub about the album is symptomatic, however, of larger fears in Britain
surrounding British Muslims, and particularly Muslim youth.
BrAsian Muslims
Who are Britain’s Muslims and what are the sources of the worries about them?
About 1.6 million Muslims reside in Britain today, of whom one million are
BrAsians, as I will call them here, following Sayyid (2005: 7),2 or British of South
Asian origin, mostly from rural areas of Pakistan and Bangladesh. These immi-
grants and their offspring are the products of Britain’s post-World War II decision
to import a labor force from its colonies and ex-colonies to man industrial sectors
that were in decline. South Asian Muslims entered at the bottom tier of the
British labor market, and have mostly remained there. Living chiefly in deindus-
trializing mill towns in the North, like Bradford, as well as London (Abbas 2005:
9–10), BrAsian Muslims are the most economically marginal of all ethnic minor-
ities in the country, with unemployment rates for BrAsian Muslim males nearly
three times that for white men, and high rates of residential segregation (mostly
enforced), in the most dilapidated housing (Kundnani 2001: 107; Peach 2005: 28).
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 293
The background of Fun^Da^Mental leader Aki Nawaz (given name Haq Nawaz
Qureishi) is rather typical for a BrAsian Muslim of his generation. Born in a small
village in Punjab province, Pakistan, in 1964, Aki’s parents brought him, at the
age of three, to Bradford, where his father worked as a bus conductor.
BrAsian and especially BrAsian Muslim working-class communities were,
for decades, an invisible ethnic minority in Britain. In part, this was a product
of how race has been constructed in Britain during the past three decades. Un-
derstandings of race in Britain have very much been informed by hegemonic
U.S. analyses, according to which race is a matter of skin color and revolves, in
particular, around black/white differences. Within the British antiracist move-
ments, especially in their heyday during the 1980s, activists and radical intel-
lectuals attempted to mobilize Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians together
under the category “black.” Although many progressive South Asians embraced
the designation, in practice, this politics of naming served to marginalize South
Asians. According to “black” movement logic, South Asians shared political
blackness with British Afro-Caribbeans but not cultural blackness, which was
defined by Afro-Caribbean culture (Hyder 2004: 19). Moreover, according to
conventional racial understandings of the time, Afro-Caribbeans (the stereotyp-
ical “blacks”) were the “problem” minority who bore the brunt of racist and
anti-immigrant assaults. South Asians were, by contrast, seen as largely passive
and law abiding, and possessors of an exotic and alien “culture,” in contrast to
black Britons, who were considered lacking in culture. This skin color model of
racism does not account for cultural racism and has been unable to explain why
racial prejudice has tended to be greater, sometimes much greater, against
South Asians, and especially Muslims, than against Afro-Caribbeans—
especially of late (Modood 2005b: 67). The antiracist mobilization’s effort at
black unity was ultimately unsuccessful, and since the late 1980s, South Asians
have mostly abandon the “black” label in favor of mobilizing and self-identifying
as Asians or as Muslims or both.
Aki Nawaz, however, is a product of the era of joint mobilization of Afro-
Caribbeans and South Asians as “blacks,” and in certain senses remains loyal
to it. His cultural–political formation, however, cannot be reduced to this man-
ifestation of blackness. The first band Aki saw in concert was the Sex Pistols,
and this was by his account a formative experience. It is important to recall that
even though the primarily punk subculture was largely white, it did include
progressive elements who played leading roles in the antiracist mobilization
connected with the Rock Against Racism organization of the late 1970s
(Hebdige 1981). From 1982 to 1983, Aki (using the name Haq Qureshi) played
drums for the post-punk proto-Goth band Southern Death Cult, whose leader,
Ian Astbury, later formed the legendary Goth band The Cult.
294 MUSICAL POLITICS
Aki organized Fun^Da^Mental in 1991, and the band was very involved in the an-
tiracist campaigns launched during the early 1990s in response both to an upsurge
of racist attacks orchestrated by the British National Party (BNP) and to expanded
BNP electoral activity. Along with other progressive Asian bands like Asian Dub
Foundation, The Kaliphz, and Hustlers HC, Fun^Da^Mental performed and deliv-
ered speeches at various antiracist benefits, carnivals, and rallies. The political–
cultural work of Asian bands and grassroots organizations helped push BrAsian
issues to the forefront of antiracist organizing during the mid 1990s.
During this same period, “Muslims” (taken to mean, in conventional un-
derstandings, South Asian Muslims) came to replace Afro-Caribbeans as the
“problem” minority in Britain, and young BrAsian Muslim males came to
assume the new role of “folk devil” (Cohen 2002/1972). The media and police
increasingly highlighted the “dangers” that young inner-city Asian Muslim
males posed. They were “pathologized,” racialized, stigmatized, depicted as
gang members, and held responsible for ostensibly rising rates of inner-city
violence, crime, and illegal drug usage and dealing. Alternatively, Asian
Muslim youth were represented as dangerous and criminal “fundamentalists”
(Alexander 2000, 2005: 258, 266).
At the same time as they were being vilified as Public Enemy Number One,
Asian Muslim youth were left vulnerable to racist attack. As a result of the he-
gemony of the color racism model, when antiracism legislation was passed in
Britain it failed to include protections against physical attacks, discrimination,
or libel against Muslims based on their religion. By contrast, Sikhs and Jews are
so protected. The legislation did, however, offer legal protection against racist
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 295
attacks visited upon them as South Asians. The extreme Right has exploited
this loophole, and during the past several years the BNP in particular has
repeatedly published incendiary attacks on Muslims, which would be liable to
legal prosecution as racist incitement if leveled against blacks or Asians.
It is in this context of increased visibility and notoriety for BrAsian Muslims,
of moral panics over Muslim youth, of an upsurge in racist violence, and of anti-
racist mobilizations, that Fun^Da^Mental released its first album, Seize the Time,
in 1994, whose title “samples” that of Bobby Seale’s (1970) famous account of
the rise of the Black Panther Party. The album, mostly composed of rap numbers,
conveys a “state of emergency” by means of an aggressive and dense sound mix.
It blends, in a very striking fashion, the musical sounds and beats of the Asian
subcontinent with the funk of the Black Atlantic, seasoned with samples of
speeches from Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, dialogue from the film Gandhi,
a recorded hate message from a British neo-Nazi group, and so on. The album’s
atmospherics, urgency, and militancy recall Public Enemy’s celebrated rap re-
leases of the late 1980s and early ’90s. Seize the Time’s lyrics promote militant
antiracism and community self-defense, pride in (South Asian-based) Islam,
race consciousness, anti-imperialist sentiments, connections between black and
Asian struggles, and the teachings of the Nation of Islam (considered heretical
by many Orthodox Muslims), mixed with a strong dose of punk provocation. The
song “Meera Mazab” (“My Religion”) includes the following lines:
The song also includes a comment on the Israeli army’s slaughter of 17 Pales-
tinians in October 1990 at Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif: “Massacre in the
mosque, suicidal frame of mind/Take a look, can’t you see, look at Palestine.”
Seize the Time, therefore, articulates a complex array of political and
cultural concerns having to do with the religious, racial, and postcolonial
dimensions of BrAsian Muslim experience, the upsurge of racist attacks and
Islamophobia; transnational Islamic attachments; anti-imperialist politics; and
Asian–Afro-Caribbean solidarities. Its sound and messages, moreover, reflect
the band’s multiethnic character. Afro-Caribbean Dave Watts, who is not a Mus-
lim, joined Fun^Da^Mental in 1993 and served as the band’s other core member
until moving to Spain in 2007. The band’s revolving personnel over the years,
moreover, has included BrAsian Sikhs and Hindus and white Britons, in addi-
tion to Afro-Caribbeans and BrAsian Muslims. It should also be underscored
296 MUSICAL POLITICS
Nation Records also helped create and foster the cultural phenomenon known
as Asian Cool. During the mid 1990s, somewhat paradoxically, even as
antipathy toward BrAsian Muslims was on the increase, things “Asian” (food,
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 297
fashion, music, and film) suddenly became very trendy—after decades of invis-
ibility during the mid 1990s. In the music scene, blacks (meaning Afro-
Caribbeans) have been regarded as far back as the 1950s as the epitome of cool
by hip white habitués of the British club and music scene, whereas Asians, in
contrast, were viewed as the essence of uncool—nerdy, unfunky, and culturally
conservative. Asian men were seen as decidedly nonmacho in contrast to the
aggressively masculine and rebellious black man so admired by white bo-
hemians. Asians, therefore, were regarded as essentially incompatible with the
glamorous world of pop and rock music (Hyder 2004). Such stereotypes began
to be undermined in the mid to late 1990s as BrAsian musicians like Corner-
shop, Asian Dub Foundation, Bally Sagoo, Talvin Singh, Apache Indian, Black
Star Liner, and Fun^Da^Mental began to enjoy a certain amount of mainstream
popularity and to gain critical acclaim.5 (The musical phenomenon was known
variously as the Asian Underground, Asian Dance, or Asian Massive.) The
Asian Cool moment also coincided with the Blair government’s “Cool Britan-
nia” project, an attempt to rebrand Britain by emphasizing its multiethnic
composition. The last third of the 1990s, therefore, witnessed both a surge in
racist attacks and racist policies aimed at BrAsians and particularly Muslims,
and, say Hesse and Sayid (2005: 27), a “mainstream passion for all things cul-
turally diverse.” Hesse and Sayyid go on to call this phenomenon a kind of
“ethnic love and hate fest” (Ibid). Hutnyk (2005: 77) notes a parallel tendency
in recent monographs on BrAsians, which, he observes, do an “‘exotica–
fanatica’ two-step,” depicting Asians as either or both a people of curious cul-
ture and/or a people of fanaticism.
During this period, Fun^Da^Mental moved away from rap, and its music
evolved in exciting and provocative ways. The band’s 1998 release Erotic Terror-
ism, on the one hand, includes songs featuring vocal tracks from Pakistani qaw-
wali singers like Nawazish Ali Khan set to hip-hop beats (qawwali is the Sufi
devotional music of the subcontinent). It also includes screamingly explosive
and abrasive metal/industrial numbers that are reminiscent of the work of Nine
Inch Nails and Napalm Death. The lyrics, often hard to make out, rail against
oppression, but the emphasis is more on sound than words. A hostile review of
Erotic Terrorism in Melody Maker called the industrial noise tracks “aural torture”
(Roland 1998)—which, arguably, was precisely the point. 2001 saw the release of
There Shall Be Love, which (as the title suggests) has a more positive and upbeat
feel than earlier recordings, less focused on militant politics. As products of
Fun^Da^Mental’s extensive global travels, most of the tracks involve collabora-
tions with artists from outside England. Some tracks were recorded with qaw-
wali, classical, and Baul (Sufi mystic) musicians in Pakistan; others with a Zulu
choir (Zamo Mbuto and comrades) in Johannesburg; and one with Huun Huur
298 MUSICAL POLITICS
Tu, throat singers from the Tuvan Republic (Russia). The overall emphasis of
There Shall Be Love is on exploring and promoting traditional musical genres of
Pakistan as well as forging Asian–black global musical connections and solidar-
ities, particularly involving South Africans.
Contrary to what has frequently been claimed, Fun^Da^Mental was not a
“Muslim rap band,” but rather a kind of mobile political–cultural coalition,
whose members, according to Aki, were united musically and politically by a
“hatred of inequality” rather than a common religious faith. “We ain’t pushing
no Islamic ideology,” says Aki. “Our message is more, ‘Man, lose your igno-
rance’” (Chu 2001). Aki calls Fun^Da^Mental’s genre of music “global chaos,”
endorsing a kind of tear-down-the-boundaries globalism that is the antithesis
of western-driven globalization. Dave Watts, meanwhile, has labeled what
Fun^Da^Mental does as “political folk music” (Hyder 2004: 111).
More recently, the moment of Asian Cool has peaked, but has left British
Asian music, cinema, fashion, and food with a higher profile than before.
Meanwhile, local antipathy toward BrAsian Muslims has continued to inten-
sify, as illustrated by the events of July 2001, when a series of so-called “riots”
broke out in several northern mill towns with Asian communities. Essentially,
these were battles between Muslim youths and police, provoked by attacks from
gangs of extreme Right hooligans, and police responses that came too late and
that targeted Muslims, the victims of aggression, rather than the white perpe-
trators. Media and government commentary tended to blame the Muslims for
these events and to ignore the underlying causes—in particular, racist struc-
tures and racist provocations (Allen 2003; Kalra 2005; Kundnani 2001).
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and more recently of July 7, 2004,
have further raised public fears in Britain that Muslims in the country not only
possess an alien culture, but also pose a serious security threat as well. More
than ever, Muslims are subject to racial profiling and community repression,
with police using measures from newly passed antiterror legislation—legislation
with a legitimacy among the general public that has been enabled by all the
successive “moral panics” surrounding Muslims. Far Right extremist organiza-
tions, in particular the BNP, now make Muslims their special targets. Far Right
propaganda invariably describes British Muslims as “immigrants,” despite the
fact that about half are born in England (Peach 2005: 169), and it takes pains to
distinguish them from other ethnic/religious minorities, including Afro-
Caribbeans and Hindus, who far Right organizations now consider legitimate
British citizens who are more readily assimilable than Muslims. (The antiter-
rorism act passed after 9/11, however, now affords Muslims protection against
physical harassment based on religion, but still does not protect against incite-
ment to religious hatred [Modood 2005a: 130].)
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 299
they have given Muslims too much cultural freedom, and that if Muslims are
to be accepted as legitimate British subjects (and if the terrorist threat that they
embody is to be eliminated), they need to integrate with British society and
embrace its values rather than insisting on cultural difference. (Fun^Da^Mental
comments: “Reject your concept of integration.”) Sivanandan (2006: 3) notes
that such policies and sentiments, originating from political leaders and main-
stream opinion makers, have exacerbated Muslims’ feelings of being besieged
and thereby reinforced the sorts of self-segregation that the government says it
wants to prevent.
All Is War
The title of the latest Fun^Da^Mental’s 2006 album, All Is War (fig. 18.1), refers
not just to the heavy policing, surveillance, and crackdowns on Muslim com-
munities in Europe, but to the post-9/11 global environment, where it’s war
everywhere—the war on terror, the invasion of Afghanistan, Israeli offensives
against Palestinians, the occupation of Iraq, Russia’s repression of Chechnya,
and so on. The album’s political orientation is shared by many Muslims as well
as non-Muslims, in Britain and abroad (Krastev and McPherson 2007), and
responds directly to widespread feelings in the West, orchestrated by agencies
of public meaning, that it is Europeans and North Americans who are espe-
cially threatened by assault from a global network of Islamic terrorists, based
not just overseas but also within, inside western minority communities.
All Is War intervenes in characteristically complicated and multidimen-
sional ways. It makes no effort to “reassure” the western audiences at whom its
messages are aimed and it declines to adopt the sort of “moderate” posture that
mainstream commentators so insistently demand of Britain’s Muslims (Meer
2006: 50–51). Instead, Fun^Da^Mental responds to the global war atmosphere
aggressively, hurling accusations with characteristic punk bravado. Here I will
examine the most arresting and effective tracks, beginning with the one that
sparked much of the furor in summer 2006, “DIY [do it yourself ] Cookbook.”
Media attacks on “DIY Cookbook” limited their discussion to the first part of a
song that has three parts: to the part that presents a suicide bomber who makes
his device on the cheap with everyday materials, with the aim of “hitting back
at the vice.” “DIY Cookbook,” however, in no way endorses his actions, but
simply presents his point of view along with those of two other bomb pro-
ducers. Part two describes a PhD holder who produces a dirty bomb with black
market materials, which he will sell to the highest bidder. Part three presents a
“legitimate” bomb maker, a U.S. government employee, working on a neutron
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 301
bomb that will kill people but leave buildings intact. He has all the resources
he needs at his disposal, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The song deliberately de-
livers an incendiary message, particularly in evoking the July 7, 2004, bomb-
ings that killed 52 London commuters and four terrorists. Its true purpose is to
relativize the July 7 (colloquially known as 7/7) attackers rather than in any way
sanction their actions, a goal that is arguably more subversive than the “crime”
the media originally charged Fun^Da^Mental with (endorsing suicide bomb-
ing). Should we regard the actions of the July 7 terrorists as pure evil, “DIY
Cookbook” suggests, although we consider innocent the states that finance
the making of bombs that have been responsible for the deaths of tens of
thousands of civilians in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the
Israeli assaults on Lebanon in summer 2006 and Gaza in winter 2008–2009,
and so on?7
Then there is “Che Bin” parts one and two. Part one features a speech by
Che Guevara, set to an understated accompaniment of flute and acoustic guitar.
Here Che explains the difference between sabotage and terrorism in the course
of revolutionary struggle, calling sabotage a “revolutionary” and “highly effec-
tive method of warfare,” and describing terrorism as generally “ineffective and
302 MUSICAL POLITICS
Who said that our children and civilians are not innocent and that
shedding their blood is justified? That it is lesser in degree? When we
kill their innocents, the entire world from East to West screams at us,
and America rallies its allies, agents, and the sons of its agents. Who
said that our blood is not blood, but theirs is? . . . More than one
million children died in Iraq and others are still dying.9 . . . They
react only if we kill American civilians, and every day we are being
killed, children are being killed in Palestine.
Bin Laden concludes: “We kill the kings of the infidels, kings of the crusaders,
and civilian infidels in exchange for those of our children they kill. This is per-
missible in law and intellectually.”10
Fun^Da^Mental states on their website (www.fun-da-mental.co.uk/) that
the purpose of “Che Bin” parts one and two is to provoke discussion. “What
makes one a symbol of resistance and the other a terrorist?” they ask. “What do
they have, if anything, in common?” Aki suggests elsewhere that although Che
is a “revered cultural icon” in the West, bin Laden is “vilified as a monster.”11
But is bin Laden entirely wrong, Fun^Da^Mental seems to ask, to say that
Americans care very little about the shedding of Iraqi and Palestinian blood
and only mourn American casualties?12
“786: All Is War” is a sci-fi revenge fantasy, in which the war on terror ends
with Muslims liberating the United States, the Statue of Liberty falling prostrate
before Allah, and “citizens build[ing] . . . a mosque on Ground Zero.” Futuristic,
counter-Hollywood images of Islamic warriors and weapons abound in this lyri-
cally clever song: “Sufi surfing on boards of steel” (Silver Surfer mystic?); “Jihadi
jet-skis Hudson River”; “Deen (religion) machines replicant Sufis”; “Sunnah
troopers”; “Ibrahim tanks”; “cyborg mujahids”; “AI (artificial intelligence) imams,”
and so on, all part of the Dream Team Salahuddin, a supremely hip-hop-esque
formulation (Salahuddin is Saladin, the Muslim hero of the struggle against the
Crusaders). These mujahideen, unlike bin Laden’s, don’t attack “infidel” citizens,
but liberate them from the oppressors, from the riba (usury or usurers), “the mon-
eylenders, the bank elite,” and “the Pharaoh’s sons,” in a futuristic jihadi apocalypse
that puts end to a United States held guilty of genocide, theft, and mass murder.
^ ^
FUN DA MENTAL’S “JIHAD RAP” 303
Conclusion
communities in Britain (particularly blacks and Asians), but they also very
much inform understandings of the present, having to do with definitions of
terrorism, the continued importance of western (especially U.S.) imperial-
ism, and so on.
Third, and particularly in its more recent work, a critique of western
liberalism and secularism is of great concern for Fun^Da^Mental, which at-
tempts to expose liberal–secular hypocrisies and to highlight the intolerance
of a supposedly tolerant Britain. By “foregrounding” Muslim beliefs and in
advancing a defense of Muslim communities, in Britain and around the
world, they challenge current resistance in Britain to public displays of piety
and religiosity. In this they are in line with BrAsian critic Tariq Modood
(2005a: 112), who asks: “Is the Enlightenment big enough to tolerate the
existence of pre-Enlightenment religious enthusiasm, or can it only exist by
suffocating all who fail to be overawed by its intellectual brilliance and vi-
sion of Man?”
Fourth, and despite the language of “rejection,” Fun^Da^Mental is very
much engaged with European culture, politics, and values. All the provocation
and belligerence are cast in very British terms, in the idiom of punk. Aki
Nawaz has also claimed the right to artistic freedom of expression, in defense
of All Is War:
We see people writing books about the global conflicts, we see films,
documentaries, everybody’s on about the issues so why can’t I sing
about them? . . . But people are saying to me, “Everybody else is
allowed to say what they wish but Muslims are not allowed to say
what they want because they face being arrested.” . . . This is a
democracy—is it such just for white folks, and fascism for everybody
else? (Damien 2006)
In a time when Muslims in Britain, and particularly its youth, are being
vilified and stereotyped, Fun^Da^Mental serves as an important correction to
mainstream views. Militant yet inclusive and open, rejectionist yet deeply con-
cerned with education and dialogue, Muslim and black and British/punk and
global in their concern, they provide a very different, multiplexed, and more
useful vision of what it might mean to be “Muslim” in today’s Britain.
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19
Maroc-Hop: Music and Youth
Identities in the Netherlands
Miriam Gazzah
Moroccan immigrants have been part of Dutch society for more than 30
years. Currently, in the Netherlands there are more than 329,000 people of
Moroccan descent, of whom 161,000 are part of the second generation.1
The Moroccan community is the third largest minority community after the
Surinamese and the Turkish communities. The first Moroccans came to the
Netherlands as “guest laborers” during the 1960s and ’70s. As a conse-
quense of a crisis in the Dutch labor market. Moroccan and Turkish guest
workers were contracted do manual labor in Dutch factories and in other
such sectors. These guest workers were supposed to stay in the Netherlands
only temporarily. However, during the 1980s, it became clear that these
workers would not return to their native countries, and most of them had their
families join them in the Netherlands. As a result, many Dutch Moroccan
youth were either born in the Netherlands or came to the Netherlands at a
very young age. This is called the second generation. Most of the second-
generation Dutch Moroccans have Dutch citizenship. The third generation
of Dutch Moroccans is in the making, because many second-generation
Dutch Moroccans are getting married (to other Moroccans) and starting
their own families.
It is estimated that most people of Moroccan descent belong either to the
Dutch middle or lower classes. Educational levels of Dutch Moroccans have
improved during the past couple of years, in which Moroccan girls of the second
generation increasingly attend and complete higher education.2 Yet, in general,
many Dutch Moroccans still find themselves in a social and economic marginal
position. As a result of low or no education, and sometimes poors skills in the
Dutch language, unemployment among Dutch Moroccan youth is quite high. In
addition, poor housing circumstances and the lack of financial backup cause a large
portion of the Dutch Moroccan community to be financially and sometimes socially
isolated. In addition to this, Dutch Moroccans, and especially Dutch Moroccan
young males, continue to be associated with unemployment and crime, and more
recently with Islamic radicalism and terrorism.
A majority of the Moroccan guest workers arriving in the Netherlands dur-
ing the 1960s and ’70s originated from the Rif area in northern Morocco, and
spoke a Berber language (Douwes et al. 2005: 29). It is roughly estimated that
60% to 80% of the Moroccans in the Netherlands trace their roots back to the
mountainous Rif area (Benali and Obdeijn 2005: 211). The rest of them origi-
nate from various other regions in Morocco. This has produced a rather hetero-
geneous Dutch Moroccan population, which consists of Moroccan Berbers and
312 MUSICAL POLITICS
fact, the rising visibility of Muslims in the Netherlands is the result of two trends
taking place simultaneously. First, large parts of second-generation immigrants
prioritize their Muslim identity over their cultural or ethnic background. Second,
this inclination to be represented as Muslim is also triggered by government
policies and public debates in media imposing a Muslim identity upon them.
Besides the term Muslim, the term allochtoon is often used by journalists,
politicians, policy makers, and the general public in political debates on
integration. The word allochtoon comes from the Greek root word allochtonos,
which means “of foreign descent.” The official definition of an allochtoon,
according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics, is someone who has at
least one parent who is born abroad.5 The word allochtoon has become the
catchphrase for Dutch Moroccans and Dutch Turks, and is increasingly used as
a synonym for the label Muslim. Usage of the term allochtoon is ambiguous,
because the reference to “foreign descent” in many cases refers to people who
are born and raised in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the use of the term as a
synonym for Muslim is not accurate, because the term allochtoon, in principle,
could refer to a wide variety of people with roots outside the Netherlands who
are not necessarily Muslim. Nevertheless, the term allochtoon has become a
very popular term in the public debate on integration, and has also acquired
negative associations, connecting the term allochtoon to people who are not
willing to integrate, who do not speak Dutch, and who are Muslim. Again, sim-
ilar to the label Moroccan, the label Muslim itself also evokes negative connota-
tions and is often used with a negative undertone. The objectification of Dutch
Moroccans as Muslims and allochtonen, defining them consequently as non-
Dutch, continues to highlight the distinction between Muslims and non-
Muslims, and between Dutch Moroccans and the autochthonous Dutch.
The imposition of the labels Muslim and allochtoon, and the prominence
of the Dutch Moroccan community in the public debate, could give the naive
and indifferent Dutch citizen the impression that “it is all about those Moroc-
cans.” The highlighting of religious and ethnic differences created a hardened
climate, which has become a hotbed for some factions in society to express
freely racist and prejudiced opinions against Muslims, foreigners, Dutch
Moroccans, or anybody who is different and perceived as a threat. In this situ-
ation, when boundaries between “us and them,” on the face of it, seem to be
ever more important, studying Dutch Moroccan youth and their musical activ-
ities and identities could provide interesting insights into their attitude toward
Dutch society and their own position in it. To come to a better understanding
of Dutch Moroccan youth, analyzing the social significance of two popular
genres among Dutch Moroccan youth—Shaabi and Maroc-hop—is an excel-
lent starting point.
MAROC-HOP 315
The Arabic word shaabi literally means “of the people.” Shaabi is also the term
used for popular Moroccan folk music. Sung in either an Arabic Moroccan
dialect or in Berber, and with North African rhythm patterns that allow people
to show off their typical Moroccan dancing moves, Shaabi holds especial appeal
to the Moroccan community. Within this musical category several subgenres
exist, such as Reggada from the region of Oujda en Berkane in northeastern
Morocco and Rewaffa, Berber music from the Rif region.
In the context of the Dutch Moroccan community, Shaabi originally dom-
inated the private setting of family celebrations such as weddings. It has since
spread to and gained a central place in the public parties for youth who identify
with both the rhythm and lyrics. The traditional lyrics describe family celebra-
tions such as weddings or the harvest. More recently the lyrics have shifted to
themes around the experience of emigration and immigration. Many newer
Shaabi songs that have proved popular outside Morocco are about separation
and loss of a loved one, in many cases the loved one being an immigrant. The
song “Bladi kif yansak al bal” (roughly translated: “My Country, How Could I
Forget You?”) by Yahia is about the difficulties of living far away from your
native country and is dedicated to “all the [Moroccan] immigrants.” The song
glorifies all the beautiful cities and places of Morocco, and the singer remem-
bers the weddings and pleasant times spent there with family and friends.
The continued and growing popularity of Shaabi music in the
Netherlands can be attributed to many factors. To begin, the popularity of a
musical genre is maintained through a complex interaction between supply
and demand. Shaabi would not survive in the Netherlands if it did not have a
growing audience and a set of mechanisms by way of markets and events to
feed the demand. The presence of several Moroccan music shops in major
Dutch cities, which predominantly sell Arabic and Moroccan music means
that the product is locally available and publicly present. All four major Dutch
cities (i.e., Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague) have at least one
music shop specializing in Moroccan and Arab music. A good deal of this
music is produced in Morocco and exported to Europe, yet there is also a grow-
ing market for Arabic music that is produced and distributed in Europe,
especially in France and Belgium.
Dance events are also key to Shaabi’s popularity among mainly second-
generation Dutch Moroccans between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Organizers
of these events attempt to create a Moroccan and Arab Islamic environment by
providing, for example, Moroccan food and the famous mint tea, stands where
316 MUSICAL POLITICS
people can sell Moroccan and Arab music, books on Islam, or jewelry. At most
occasions there is no alcohol sold and people who are intoxicated are refused
entrance. Dance parties, festivals, and concerts of famous Shaabi artists such
as Najat Aatabou, Senhaji, or Daoudi commonly attract crowds of up to 3,000
people.
Different types of Shaabi events take place, among which are women-only
parties, or Hafla Annisa. Mothers, friends, daughters, children, aunts, and nieces
find in these women parties a space where they can enjoy themselves, dance,
sing, and interact with other women without any kind of male interference.
Although the main attraction of these gatherings is the performance of Shaabi
music by both female and male musicians, the ingredients of these parties are
somewhat different from the regular Shaabi events. For example, there might be
a fashion show demonstrating the newest Moroccan fashion or a workshop on
how to apply henna.6
Why does this music mobilize such large crowds of young people, sometimes
up to 3,000 visitors? If you ask young Moroccans why they go to these parties or
listen to Shaabi music, the answer often includes explanations such as,
Rif, and the others a mix of mainly Arab-speaking peoples from different
regions. Historically, the Berber-speaking population has had a strained rela-
tionship with the Arab population. When Dutch Moroccan youths come
together in these musical contexts, internal differences seem to disappear
temporarily.
Besides creating a community, music can also be used to create bound-
aries between groups of people. Implicit in the theory that music unites peo-
ple and creates communities is the idea that it also excludes people. In this
case, Shaabi concerts function as a tool to exclude any “Dutch” influences.
Rarely can “native” or “white” Dutch be spotted at these dance events, which
are one of the few meeting points within Dutch society where the vast major-
ity of the visitors have a Moroccan background. The role of Shaabi within
Moroccan youth culture in the Netherlands, then, is aimed at retrieving a
Moroccan identity—that is, of expressing a “Moroccaness” and creating
bonds of affiliation with other Dutch Moroccan youth. These events repre-
sent a space where young people who might otherwise be on the margins of
the host society can freely be Moroccan, and can behave, dance, sing, and
interact like “a Moroccan.” In this way, Shaabi music also allows young peo-
ple to incorporate elements of their parents’ culture into their own youth
cultures. Infused with nostalgia for Morocco, Shaabi plays a significant role
in the assertion and preservation of a Moroccan identity among Moroccan
Dutch youths, some of whom have never even been to Morocco. By means of
music and events, these youths can express an identity that focuses more on
being Moroccan in the Netherlands than on being Moroccan in Morocco. In
addition, they can glorify part of the culture of their parents without actual
interference from their parents, and thereby retain their autonomy and inde-
pendence.
Shaabi clearly plays a significant role in the identity construction of Moroc-
can youths in the Netherlands and allows these youths to interact and connect
with each other. When playing Shaabi music in the privacy of their home, they
can relive the experience they had at a social event they visited in the past, rein-
forcing the solidarity expressed there. On a symbolic level, this music allows
youths to integrate a part of their parent culture into their lives. At the same
time, it serves as a direct, nonaggressive, and nonprovocative way to make a
distinction between the Moroccan community and overall Dutch society. Many
Dutch Moroccan youths perceive these dance events as social spaces created for
Moroccans only, even though they are always public events and accessible to
anyone. Still, these events and the subculture that has emerged around them,
have the tendency to air a certain kind of exclusive Moroccan character. This
subculture is, as it were, “something for Moroccan youths only.”
318 MUSICAL POLITICS
Hip-hop music occupies another important arena of popular music for Dutch
Moroccan youths. Hip-hop is an eclectic music known for its bricolage of sounds,
beats, and text fragments. It originated in African American neighborhoods in
New York when, in the 1970s, youths started the genre by rapping over drum-
beats. Fans and historians often credit Kool Herc and Africa Bambaata as the orig-
inal hip-hoppers (Rose 1994: 51). Hip-hop often incorporates fragments from
other songs, films, television programs, commercials, and street sounds—a tech-
nique referred to as sampling (Rose 1994: 2–3). Hip-hop can be divided into several
subgenres, including the so-called boast rap, which thrives on materialism, and
message rap. Boast rap deals with themes such as fast cars, money, women, and
jewelry, thus conveying the message that getting or being rich is the ideal way of
life. Message rap, on the other hand, is characterized by social engagement and
social criticism. Minority groups worldwide have found in message rap a vehicle
to articulate frustration about their oftentimes difficult positions in society.
Music critics and scholars agree that what attracts minority groups to hip-
hop music is its expression of dissatisfaction and the way it allows a form of
direct social engagement. This explanation alone does not tell us why certain
minority groups are more prone to producing and utilizing hip-hop as a form
of social engagement than others. In the Netherlands, second-generation
Moroccans in particular create hip-hop; second-generation Turks, for example,
are not as active in this milieu. In France, Maghrebi youth are also highly active
in the hip-hop scene, whereas in the United Kingdom many young people with
African or Caribbean roots are involved in hip-hop (Androutsopoulos and
Scholz 2003; Heijmans and De Vries 1998; Mitchell 2001; Wermuth 2002).
Equally interesting is the way that each of these groups interacts with and
creates new forms of hip-hop in their own identity-specific way.
In the Netherlands, Dutch youths with strong identification to their Moroc-
can roots have started a subgenre of hip-hop that I call Maroc-hop. Maroc-hop
appropriates and adapts many elements from American hip-hop culture in
specifically local ways. Even though Maroc-hop associates itself musically with
the United States, it is a medium to reject and express disapproval of the poli-
tics of the United States, especially the foreign policies of the Bush administra-
tion. Musically speaking, Maroc-hop uses “ordinary” hip-hop beats, but
frequently mixes them with Arab rhythms. In addition, Maroc-hop uses many
Arabic melody fillers and sometimes samples of old classical Arab songs. On
Raymzter’s latest album, Rayacties (2005), several songs include samples of old
Egyptian songs.
MAROC-HOP 319
Islam and Muslims in the Netherlands takes place “over the heads of the Dutch
Muslims,” with limited input and involvement of the people in question. A
great deal of Maroc-hop’s repertoire could be seen as a reaction to this exclusion.
The songs could be considered as contributions to this discussion of Moroccan
youths who feel disenfranchised, to a large degree, by the Dutch. Their songs
are their contribution to the national debate. The use of foul language is, on the
one hand, an integral part of hip-hop culture and, on the other, an effective way
of getting the attention of the media and a wider public.
Maroc-hoppers defend Islam wholeheartedly, although it remains to be
seen to what extent they are practicing Muslims themselves. It is especially
the political Islam that is defended in a national and international context.
Regarding the rappers’ own religiosity, their lyrics remain often vague. It
seems that their identification with Islam is more political than cultural. The
paradox that is created through rapping in one song about how they hate
Pim Fortuyn because of his anti-Islamic attitude and in the next song about
how they “crack a crib” or “smoke a joint” is not recognized by the Maroc-
hoppers themselves. Maroc-hop’s approach to Islam differs greatly from
how other hip-hoppers incorporate Islam in their lyrics. In America, Islamic
hip-hop is much more about experiences of being American and Muslim at
the same time (Abdul Khabeer 2007), whereas Maroc-hop is a rebellious
genre voicing rappers’ frustrations about discrimination against Moroccans
and Muslims, about Dutch policy regarding allochtonen, and about geopoli-
tics in the Middle East.
Music of a Generation
as a cultural reservoir from which young people can select their “favorite” iden-
tity. Moroccans are often stigmatized by the majority community as Muslims,
thus denying other identities. Youths use hip-hop as a cultural repertoire from
which they can express multiple identities, even when they may appear contra-
dictory. Maroc-hop has attracted a growing audience because of its music and
its ability to offer its listeners a collection of identities as a hip-hopper, a for-
eigner, a Muslim, a young Moroccan, or just a young person in the Nether-
lands. Maroc-hop can simultaneously support, strengthen, and deny all these
identities, offering listeners the choice to select whichever identities suit the
mood or the times. In its ability to adapt, respond, and innovate to the present,
it is the music of the times, the music of a generation.
Acknowledgment
A shorter version of this article appeared under the same title in ISIM Review
(2005 (16): 6–7).
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20
Heavy Metal in the Middle
East: New Urban Spaces in a
Translocal Underground
Pierre Hecker
Weinstein (2000) ignored the fact that as far back as the mid 1960s, Turkey has
had an indigenous rock tradition.
The emergence of local metal scenes in the Middle East has taken place
within a wider context of globalization. Two aspects are central to the follow-
ing investigation: the aspect of lifting out social relations from local contexts
(Giddens 1990: 21),1 and the aspect of making cultural resources globally
available through the dissemination of modern media and communication
systems (Hepp 2004). More specifically, the advent of the Internet and the
evolution of technological means to convert sounds and images into digital
data files that can be easily sent along a worldwide data highway signifi-
cantly facilitated the global availability of cultural resources. New communi-
cation technologies further created the possibility to establish social relations
beyond spatial or temporal boundaries. The communications revolution
that gathered speed in the latter portion of the 20th century has far-reaching
effects on the formation of knowledge in everyday life. Socialization can no
longer be understood as something that happens primarily at the local
or national level, for a considerable bulk of codes and meanings appropri-
ated by the social subject are derived from sources that lay far beyond
local reach.
In his recent work on media networks and globalization, Netzwerke der
Medien: Medienkulturen und Globalisierung, Andreas Hepp (2004: 163) argues
that locality, despite constant discussions on disembeddedness, deterritorializa-
tion, and delocation, remains a significant sphere in the study of globaliza-
tion, because the social subject will always be physically embedded in a local
context. Localities, then, do not dissolve, but provide a reference point for
ongoing globalization processes. The global finds reflection in the local or,
more precisely, the global availability of cultural resources is reflected in the
form of locally appropriated cultural codes and meanings. Besides placing
emphasis on the local embeddedness of globalization and the mutual impact
between the global and the local, Hepp (2004: 143, 163) proposes a focus on
aspects of translocality—that is, the increasing connectivity between differ-
ent localities all over the world. In that sense, he comes close to Giddens
(1990: 64), who defines globalization as “the intensification of worldwide
social relations.”
The appropriation of cultural codes and meanings is also a matter of con-
stituting new social spaces and drawing boundaries in everyday life. The global
“metal space,” with boundaries that are made of distinct codes and meanings,
is comprised of local scenes that constitute locally embedded, translocally con-
nected social spaces. In other words, the codes that demarcate the metal space
from its social surroundings consist of a specific set of symbols, sounds, and
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 327
styles that include long hair, piercings, tattoos, black clothes, violently aggres-
sive and distorted sounds, and symbols of human decay and evil. The codes
and their meanings, however, are contextually dynamic and changeable.
This chapter, based on two case studies from Turkey, explores the impact
of newly emerging metal spaces on already existing social spaces. It considers
aspects of local embeddedness and of translocal connectivity, an investigation
that illustrates how boundaries are negotiated in everyday life. The study is also
a testament to the vitality of heavy metal in the context of the Muslim Middle
East. The first case study focuses on the emergence of Turkey’s very first rock
bar; the second case sheds light on the connectivity among metalheads of dif-
ferent ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds.
The invasion of public space by young rockers and metalheads since the second
half of the 1980s manifests in the form of rock bars, record labels, music shops,
festivals, and groups of long-haired guys hanging around in the streets in cer-
tain parts of the city. This development, which signals the appropriation of new
cultural concepts, does not come out of the blue. It is embedded in a wider
transformation of public space in Turkish society that already began during the
19th century. The impact of this development is important to understand the
presence of local metal spaces in Turkey today:
With an almost wistful longing, Şanver Ofluoğlu, who has been involved in
quite a number of underground fanzines and radio shows during the past 15 to
20 years, portrays a nostalgic picture of the small and shabby place under the
old Galata Bridge, which became known as Istanbul’s very first rock bar, the
Kemancı Körpü Altı (The Fiddler under the Bridge). The story of the Kemancı
and how it evolved from an ordinary beer house to a rock bar represents a key
narrative for the collective memory of Istanbul’s local metal scene. The “golden
times” of the old Kemancı are even remembered by those who never set foot in
328 MUSICAL POLITICS
the place, either because they were too young or because they were not living in
Istanbul at the time. One would be hard pressed to find an Istanbul metalhead
who has never heard about the Kemancı (fig. 20.1).
The Kemancı’s evolution into a rock bar is symptomatic for the changes in
the concept of public space under the influence of European modernity. The
European impact on the transformation of public space can be traced back to
the era of Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876) and the incorporation of the Ottoman
economy into the capitalist world market during the 19th century. The free
trade agreements with Britain and France of 1838 mark the beginning of Euro-
pean economic penetration of the Ottoman Empire. British and French
businessmen were granted an exemption from customs duties, bolstering for-
eign investment and imports throughout the second half of the 19th century
(Raccagni 1980: 10; Zürcher 1993: 66). Along with the free trade agreements,
F IGURE 20.1. Wall painting at the Kemancı rock bar in Istanbul. (Pierre
Hecker, 2005)
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 329
foreign investors also benefited from the capitulation treaties that had been
signed between the Ottoman Empire and a number of western European states.
The “capitulations” granted judicial immunity to foreign nationals, exempted
them from the Ottoman tax system, and opened the internal market to foreign
private investment. All this created a situation favorable to the emergence of a
strong western European business community and the influx of previously
unknown cultural concepts.
In terms of public space, modernization manifested in new forms of night-
life and entertainment activities that became visible by the end of the 19th cen-
tury. In the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, European–style coffeehouses, so-called
Kafe Şantan (Café Chantant), cabarets, casinos, and beer gardens opened up.
These places also introduced new forms of alcoholic beverages, such as cognac,
liquor, whisky, champagne, and beer (Zat 2002: 139–148). This development,
however, was mainly limited to the district of Pera (Beyoğlu). Here, on the
northern shores of the Golden Horn, modernization efforts could be felt most.
Not only was it home to numerous European businesses, embassies, and
schools, but also to Istanbul’s large Armenian and Greek Orthodox communi-
ties.3 The latter maintained close ties to western Europe and were exempted
from the Ottoman prohibition on alcohol, which applied to the Empire’s Mus-
lim citizens. The area alongside the main road Cadde-i Kebir, today’s Istiklal
Caddesi, saw the construction of modern European–style buildings that soon
became home to Istanbul’s middle and upper classes.
Up until that time, Istanbul’s urban landscape in terms of public space and
leisure activities was dominated by coffeehouses (kahvehane) and, to a lesser
extent, wine houses (meyhane). Although today considered integral to Turkish
tradition, the coffeehouse had once been an innovation that brought significant
change to urban life. Coffee consumption in Anatolia dates back to the mid
16th century, with the first Istanbul coffeehouse opening in 1554 (Arendonk
1990: 451). Until then, leisure activities were largely confined to the private
space; exceptions included the public bath and religious institutions such as
mosques, churches, and Sufi orders. Nightlife was limited to taverns that were
infamous for reckless alcohol consumption and gambling (Hattox 1985: 125).
The coffeehouse soon attracted men from all levels of society who made it a
common activity to go out, chat, and socialize within the new public atmo-
sphere. The emergence of coffeehouses considerably changed men’s social
lives, everyday habits, and social relations. From early on, coffeehouses were
also perceived as places of oppositional activity and immoral behavior, particu-
larly for some clerics who considered coffee as a substance prohibited by Islamic
law. This touch of subversiveness resulted in temporary bans and persecutions
by the Ottoman authorities (Arendonk 1990: 451–452; Hattox 1985).
330 MUSICAL POLITICS
With the beginning of the Kemalist era new public spaces such as theaters,
opera houses, cinemas, restaurants, and pastry shops emerged as the favorite
symbols of modern Turkey. As a result of the new modernist ideology gradually
affecting people’s minds and thinking, the traditional concepts of meyhane,
kahvehane, and birahane started becoming contested. From an urban middle
class perspective, the coffeehouse was increasingly linked to the lower, unedu-
cated classes of society and therefore associated with attributes of traditional-
ism, provincialism, ignorance, and vulgarity (Kömeçoğlu 2004: 157–158).
Particularly since the second half of the 1980s, Istanbul’s old coffee and beer
houses began being replaced by modern-type restaurants, bars, and cafés.
Istanbul’s first rock bar, the Kemancı, can be seen as an indicator as well as
an impulse for the transformation of public space in urban life. The 1990s saw
modern, European–style bars, clubs, and cafés pop up all around Istanbul’s
modern city center, first and foremost in the districts of Taksim and Beyoğlu.
In this area, modern bars and cafés have gradually been replacing the traditional
coffeehouses and beer houses, which have almost vanished from that part of the
city. Most of the new places deliberately adopted the label bar or café to
separate themselves from the traditional, male-dominated birahane or kahve-
hane.5 The intention of drawing this linguistic line is to separate clearly the
modern urban space from the traditional urban space.
The new bars and cafés stand apart from their more traditional counter-
parts in how they dissolve the spatial line between the male and the female, for
in them young men and women can meet, sit, and drink together in public.
The traditional meaning of public space in Turkish society is based upon the
moral principle of separating the masculine from the feminine. According to
that, the public space of the coffeehouse as well as of the beer house is an
exclusively male space; women are confined to the private. From that perspec-
tive, the opening of “beer houses where girls and boys drank together”
(Ofluoğlu 2005: 19) must be seen as morally subversive.
In the streets of Istanbul, young metalheads became visible for the first time in
the mid 1980s. Their presence caused many controversies among the Turkish
public. Because of their deviant appearance and behavior, they were mostly per-
ceived as an epitome of moral subversiveness. Young men with long hair, weird
beards, black clothes, and the habit of drinking lots of beer came as a challenge
to traditional notions of morality. Countless media reports depicted metal as a
threat to Turkey’s national and religious identity. Although most of these
332 MUSICAL POLITICS
There was no other rock bar then except the Kemancı, which was
under the bridge. Actually, it was a small and totally run-down place,
where you used to sit on barrels; and there were some kind of trays
on them [instead of tables]. Everything constantly fell down; the guys
fell into the sea because they were drunk and quarreling. . . .
Concerning the stereo, there was only a very bad tape player with very
bad loudspeakers. We used to listen to heavy metal there and all the
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 333
The Kemancı was run by two young men in their mid 20s who had bought
the place by chance. Zeki Ateş and Ilyas Gürel were already regular guests of
the beer houses under the bridge when they heard about one of them, the
Yudum (Gulp), being for sale. The Yudum was one of the notorious localities
where men frequented with the aim of finding cheap beer and getting drunk
quickly. Although Ateş and Gürel wanted to start something different, they did
not initially intend to open a rock bar when renaming Yudum to Kemancı. They
opened a beer house that, under the influence of its customers, transformed
into a bar. The Kemancı attracted a combination of local fishermen, artists, and
intellectuals; some of the latter listening to rock and metal music. Its cosmopol-
itan atmosphere as well as its location within close proximity to Istanbul’s mod-
ern city center was critical to the flourishing of rock and metal culture.
In retrospect, the area under the bridge makes an ideal location for a rock
bar. Situated in the middle of the city’s two most busy areas with thousands of
people crossing it every day, a constant flow of customers was widely guaran-
teed. Sheltered under the old bridge and surrounded by the sea, the Kemancı
lay at the center of public life, yet at the same time was hidden from curious
eyes. One could easily sit down and have a beer without running the risk of
being spotted by family members or feeling bothered by the open disapproval
of passing pedestrians. During the daytime, a considerable percentage of the
Kemancı’s customers were (male and female) high school students heading
from Beyoğlu, the location of some of the city’s most prestigious high schools,
to Eminönü, the city’s main transportation center. Crossing the bridge on their
way home to catch the bus, boat, dolmuş (minibus), or taxi, many students took
the chance and stopped by the Kemancı for a beer.
The Kemancı’s transformation started slowly with the rockers and metal-
heads bringing their own cassettes to the beer house. It was the first place in
Turkey to play rock and heavy metal music publicly, an act that was seriously
frowned upon by neighboring beer houses. Unlike the Kemancı, the other
establishments under the bridge played Turkish popular music and its propri-
etors were not familiar with the intense sounds of heavy metal. Even more
suspicious than the deviant music, was the deviant behavior of the Kemancı’s
clientele. The young rockers and metalheads, long-haired guys dressed in jeans
and leather jackets shaking their heads to a violent noise of music, did not fit
into any common category to which others could attach meaning. Moreover,
334 MUSICAL POLITICS
the Kemancı, unlike other places in the area, provided a space where males and
females were spotted sitting together, chatting, and drinking beer. With a com-
bination of sound, style, and symbols, the young metalheads invaded the public,
creating a new social space in the middle of Istanbul. The initially hostile
reaction of local coffeehouse owners illustrates the audible and visible tangibil-
ity of space and boundaries. The tense situation, however, eased after a period
of mutual acquaintance and noninterference.
An important impulse in the Kemancı’s transformation process came
from local metal bands. Thrash metal bands such as Pentagram and Kronik
used to draw crowds of people to the Kemancı in aftershow parties. Özer
Sarısakal from Kronik puts it the following way:
After a concert at the [Harbiye] Open Air [Theater] the guys in the
audience said, “We get out of here now, out of the concert and go to
Kemancı.” There was a place called Kemancı under the bridge; back
then, there was a bridge. . . . It was nice there; a place that belonged
to us. . . . After that, the Kemancı became very popular. We went there
after the concert and it was pretty crowded. Later on, other places
opened up. Then, the bridge burned down and they went to this area,
to Taksim and to Beyoğlu. Here is Gitar and Caravan. A number of
places opened up. They opened and closed, opened and closed.8
The Kemancı under the bridge represented a kind of safe haven for the
metalheads who were exposed to considerable pressures and animosities in
everyday life. With the Kemancı they had a public space of their own where
they could meet, listen to music, and drink beer without being bothered
from the outside. Until it opened in 1986, metalheads did not have a place
to go and collectively share the music and its culture. As Zeki Ates, the
owner of the Kemancı, puts it: “People were in need of something like that.
I mean these people were listening to music, but at home or at concerts.
That time, there was no such place—a place where you could listen [to metal
music].”9
The mere existence of the Kemancı strengthened the social cohesion of
the metal scene and brought about a sense of community. When the old Galata
Bridge burned down in 1992, the Kemancı relocated in Taksim on Sıraselviler
Street at the northern end of Beyoğlu’s main shopping road (Istiklal Caddesi).
Emphasizing its link to the past, it officially adopted the name Kemancı Köprü
Altı (Kemancı under the Bridge). Only a short time after relocating to Taksim,
Zeki Ateş and Ilyas Gürel split their business. While Ilyas continued to operate
the Kemancı Köprü Altı, a small, shabby, and smoky place, Zeki opened the
new Kemancı, a bigger, three-story rock club in one of the neighboring
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 335
buildings that provided different kinds of music and a concert stage on each
floor. Because the new Kemancı directly opened as a rock club, it appropriated
distinct codes from the very beginning. The hallway and staircase were com-
pletely covered with adaptations of the paintings of Swiss artist H. R. Giger,
whose morbid images have been popular motifs in metal. Other paintings
depict a barely dressed woman on a motorcycle or an adaptation of the Last
Supper with Jesus and the disciples sitting a around table filled with a guitar
and empty beer cans.
During the early years, the Kemancı had to cope with a notoriously nega-
tive public image. Rumors of drug abuse and prostitution gave it the stigma of
being a den of immorality. Although this did not have much to do with reality,
the bar became widely famous and infamous. According to Zeki Ateş, there had
been almost constant trouble with the local authorities on issues of morality.
Throughout the years, however, the authorities have fundamentally shifted
their attitude towards the Kemancı. Local officials even started bringing inter-
national visitors to the place to show them Turkey’s modern, European face. In
that sense, the Kemancı turned from a morally unacceptable no-go area into an
appreciated symbol of modern Turkey.
Well, I think it was back in ’91 or ’92. There was Laneth Magazine,11
you know, and I think I saw some demo reviews of Turkish bands. . . .
I wrote them a letter, sent money, and got the demos. I received a
couple of flyers of foreign bands, then, and I just wondered, if the . . .
foreigners would write [back] as well. I just wondered, you know. I
wondered about more underground acts. So, I just wrote my first
letter . . . . I asked them for demos, prices, and [information], and
336 MUSICAL POLITICS
when I got some response I was shocked, because I didn’t expect it!
You know, for the first time, I got in touch with foreign bands. And I
started to buy their demos; and later . . . you know when you got a
demo back 10 years ago, you received tons of flyers and lots of
addresses; and I started to write to everyone.12
Güray describes a common activity, at least, for those metalheads who had a
sufficient knowledge of English. Throughout the years, he established contacts
with metalheads around the world, getting access to musical and informational
material of bands that never made it to sign an official record deal. He
explains:
Well, first of all, it was good to have some stuff from really weird
places. You know in the beginning, you just know that there is metal
in Europe and America, but later I received flyers from Panama, from
South America, South Africa—Groinchurn,13 I’ve been in touch with
them. And then, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia. So, it was really
good. I just wanted to have at least one contact per country. So, I tried
to write to everyone, to Israel, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay,
Argentina, everywhere.14
Within that context, he also tells about the initial contact with a then-
unknown Israeli metal band called Orphaned Land: “I think I got a flyer of their
demo. So, I wrote them and got their demo before they signed to Holy Records.
So, I only knew it by the underground way of flyer. And I was surprised when
they sent me a CD from Holy Records. It was strange.”15
Orphaned Land, which had been an underground band until recently,
developed close ties to the Turkish scene and, despite widespread political
resentment in Turkish society toward Israel, they became one of the most
popular and respected bands among Turkish metalheads. Asked about the
band’s relation toward Turkey, Orphaned Land’s vocalist Kobi Farhi responded:
“We have many friends in Turkey. It is like our home . . . . We are bonded in love
with Turkey,”16—a love that the band expressed by playing cover versions of
Turkish music stars Ibrahim Tatlıses and Erkin Koray, and by printing T-shirts
depicting a patchwork of the band’s logo and the Turkish national symbols: the
star and the crescent. In fact, Orphaned Land’s general concept goes beyond
establishing social relations with fellow metalheads abroad. With their music
they propagate a reconciliation of the three monotheist religions. The band
released albums that were consequently appropriating symbols of all three reli-
gions. Later, Orphaned Land put emphasis on local embeddedness. Defining
their music as Oriental Doom Death or simply Middle Eastern Metal, they are
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 337
merging metal sounds with traditional tunes and instruments (e.g., oud, saz,
buzuki). Actually, the music and concept of the band is appealing to metalheads
throughout the Middle East.
When the band, in the aftermath of the second Intifada, initiated an online
platform entitled Protest the War, fans from around the world left notes joining
the protest. The following entries, among many others, were marked as com-
ing from different Middle Eastern countries:17
Hi there I am from syria, and I like O-L so much, and this band is
loved in our country SYRIA, . . . I hate not jews or christians or any
other religion, and we are all working together for peace. [sic] (Homs,
November 2003)
Dear brothers kobi, yossi and all orphaned family . . . . I’m muslim,
you know but i call you as friends . . . . It’s not important to be a men
from different language, RELIGION, RACE . . . for me . . . I LOVE U
ORPHANED LAND, GOD SAVE YOU . . .” [sic] (Istanbul, April
2002)
Turkey plays a key role in the dialogue between Israeli and Arab metal-
heads. It is the only country of the region that, during the past couple of
years, has been regularly organizing metal festivals in summer and has been
easily accessible for metalheads from the Arab world as well as from Israel.
Meeting on “neutral ground” with some Arab fans after a show at Istanbul’s
Rock the Nations Festival in 2004, Kobi Farhi (Orphaned Land) stated with
enthusiasm:
338 MUSICAL POLITICS
We are in contact with Arabic fans for years . . . and it was a fantastic
sight to see people from Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Dubai, Turkey, Greece, and more singing together the lyrics of the
same band together without any problem. . . . A lot of fans from
those countries came to me after the show to say hello. I’m so happy
about it.18
After talking to Orphaned Land at the festival, Rawad Abdel Massih from the
Syrian–Lebanese band The Hourglass gave a statement that is quite similar to
that of Kobi Farhi:
I met them here. I can tell you so honestly, I’m not faking anything,
these guys, they are the nicest band I met over here. Really, these
guys are so nice! . . . In music there is no politics! . . . We are not
Bush or anyone else. I don’t fucking care . . . my problem is music,
and as I wrote a song about Palestine, I can write a song about the
Holocaust. . . . I don’t believe in nationalism at all. I believe in
universality, in globalization. I believe in the unity of human beings,
not Arabic nationalism or so.19
All these words of warmth and friendship exchanged between people who are
supposed to hate each other as a result of a long history of political and religious
conflict in the region illustrate a new dimension of social relations within the realms
of global metal. In that sense, the lines separating different religious, national, and
ethnic spaces from each other are being transgressed and contested.
Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter was to prove that metal is a global culture. Its dissem-
ination does not follow any essentialist categorization along religious, ethnic, or
nationalist lines. Global metal appeals to the young in a Muslim context in the
same way that it appeals to the young in any other religious or national context.
Talking about global metal also means that young metalheads establish social rela-
tions across religious, ethnic, and national divides, fostering the emergence of
transnational communities. I do not claim that global metal is free of political con-
troversies, but it provides a separate space for common identification and mutual
understanding. The example of early tape-trading networks also gives insight into
the translocal connectivity among metalheads; it proves that cultural globalization
is not solely bound to the realm of economic interests represented by the cultural
industry. There is a world beyond MTV and the multinational record companies.
HEAVY METAL IN THE MIDDLE EAST 339
These influences do not always correspond with prevailing norms about proper
behavior and clothing styles for young Muslim women in Indonesia. It is often
through style of dress and the body that they set themselves aside from the
adult world and may challenge “dominant forms of moral regulation and sex-
ual containment” (Giroux 1998: 28–29). VCDs, therefore, provide insights
regarding how the politics of the body and sexuality are gendered, changing,
and contested in contemporary Indonesia. Among the questions posed are:
which lifestyles for young women do the clips in music VCDs refer? How are
these images, drawing on both westernized and local influences, adapted to a
Muslim society? How are the contradictory images in these VCDs interpreted
by both youth and adults?
The introduction of VCDs in the mid 1990s quickly added a new dimen-
sion to popular culture in Indonesia and many other Southeast Asian coun-
tries.1 The music VCD, a disc that combines audio and visual capabilities, is
closely tied to two other phenomena found in this part of the world: the region’s
pirating industry and the popularity of karaoke.2 Most VCDs in Indonesia are
pirated, which means not only that they are made without the consent of the
artist or its producer, but that their distribution and market are not regulated.
Almost all music VCDs are produced as karaoke videos in which the lyrics of
the song are printed on the screen for sing-along karaoke style.3
New technologies such as VCD, the Internet, and mobile phones form a
means for young Indonesians to express their desire for modernity
(Barendregt and Van Zanten 2002: 91). For youth who have access to these new
kinds of media, these technologies provide new opportunities to connect them-
selves to a wider world in ways that their parents often do not understand.
VCDs do not carry an entirely positive connotation. Since their appearance,
Indonesian authorities have battled against the circulation of pornographic
films and images that often circulate via pirated VCDs.4
Despite attempts at censorship and regulation, VCDs have rapidly become
part of the daily lives of people from many different backgrounds. In the city of
Padang on the island of Sumatra, VCDs had pervaded many parts of public
space. Padang is a moderate-size provincial city with a population of about
800,000 people and is the capital of West Sumatra, the homeland of the Mus-
lim Minangkabau people. The city has its own harbor and airport, a large cement
factory, as well as several universities, shopping malls, cinemas, and a museum
of Minangkabau culture. In Padang, VCDs are sold at the market, in cassette
stores, and shopping malls; rented through video rentals; and played in karaoke
clubs, public buses, and at home. Consumers of VCDs from a stall at the central
market ranged from becak drivers (bike cab drivers) to bank personnel. Although
some mall stores and VCD stalls (fig. 21.1) at the market specifically target
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 343
students and teenagers, others appealed to a much broader market with their
selection of western pop and rock, pop Indonesia, pop Minang (Minangkabau
pop music produced in West Sumatra), and dangdut (Indonesia’s most popular
music genre), as well as VCDs with cartoons and nature documentaries, which
cater to the taste of families with young children.
The three music genres highlighted are pop Indonesia, dangdut, and pop
Minang, the more popular music genres in Padang, in addition to western pop
and rock. Clips in these VCDs are often directly aimed at teenagers and young
adults; the artists portrayed promote not only their music, but a lifestyle as well
(Andsager 2006). Even though the appropriation of trends and influences from
abroad is nothing new in Indonesian pop music,5 these VCDs are breaking
new ground by combining images of global youth culture in a distinctive Indo-
nesian context, thus adding a visual dimension to the music that previously
was not there.
This research is based on fieldwork conducted in 2003. It includes 35
in-depth interviews with middle class teenagers, students, and adults, most of
whom had a higher education, and interviews and ethnographic observations
among VCD sellers and consumers at the market, cassette, and mall stores. I
went to karaoke clubs and video rentals, and regularly rode in city buses that
almost continuously screened music VCDs. Whenever possible, I tried to watch
344 MUSICAL POLITICS
VCDs with people in their homes, but because many people did not own their
own VCD player, I was not able to talk about the content of music VCDs directly
with them as often as I had wanted. I worked around this by asking VCD ven-
dors at the central market in Padang (Pasar Raya) to put on VCDs of female
artists so that I could ask customers their views about the images of young
women in the clips.
Images of young women in popular media are not created in a vacuum, but are
closely linked to broader developments in the national arena, such as political
and economic change, the reduction of censorship by the government, the
introduction of new technologies, the current Islamic revival, and the often
contradictory gender ideologies that confront young women.
During the 32 years of president Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime
(1966–1998), media in Indonesia were regulated from Jakarta through a body
of state censorship laws. During the post-Suharto era, the strict regulation of
the media has been largely abandoned, as a result of the removal of a number
of restrictive censorship and licensing laws (Hill and Sen 2005: 6). The dimin-
ishing of centralized rule from Jakarta combined with the emergence of new
technologies such as the Internet and VCDs in the 1990s, have provided open-
ings for many ethnic groups to express their identities, as long as they do not
strive for independence from Indonesia. In West Sumatra, this has led to dis-
cussions about what it means to “be Minang” and what Minangkabau culture
should look like. For instance, discussions have focused on drug use, pornog-
raphy, crime, and the question of whether Islamic law should be installed in
West Sumatra. Apart from these discussions, Minangkabau identity is increas-
ingly expressed through popular culture, including specific Minangkabau
websites and Minangkabau pop music (pop Minang). This locally produced pop
music has become a booming industry and is distributed to Minangkabau living
in West Sumatra as well as those living in other parts of the world (Barendregt
2002: 416; Suryadi 2003: 63).
The increased freedom of expression during the post-Suharto period cre-
ates new opportunities and tensions in the realm of gender representations.
Suharto’s New Order held up a gender ideology in which women were taught to
support their husbands, raise children, and safeguard society.6 Popular women’s
magazines of this period that targeted a middle and upper class public
offered Indonesian women a range of lifestyle possibilities, such as “the happy
consumer housewife, the devoted follower of Islam, the successful career
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 345
woman, the model citizen of the nation-state and the alluring sex symbol”
(Brenner 1999: 17). These lifestyle choices were not just considered a personal
matter, but a public one as well. Discussions in the media about what it means
to be a young, modern Indonesian woman often reflect anxieties about the
future of society (Allen 2007: 101; Warburton 2007) as the attitudes and behav-
ior of (young) women are considered to be symptomatic of “the moral climate
of the nation” (Brenner 1999: 32).
Although these images remain during the post-Suharto period, alternative
representations have emerged. Indonesian women in their teens and (late) 20s
are presented with a range of conflicting images of femininity. Popular teen
magazines7 and films offer increasingly less dependent female role models for
teenage girls, by showing young women who have boyfriends and who have
more autonomy in decision making. Apart from the earlier mentioned ideal of
becoming a good wife and mother, with connotations of chastity and submis-
siveness, films and magazines feature the popular image of girl power, project-
ing an image of independent and sexually liberated young women (Sastramidjaja
2001). In literature there is the recent trend of sastra wangi literature (fragrant
literature) in which young female authors write about the sexual emancipation
of women (Garcia 2004). At the same time there is a growing Muslim youth
culture, which combines global trends in popular culture with Islamic faith.
Ranging from music sung by Islamic boy bands (Barendregt 2006), to halal
makeup and Muslim girl magazines, this hybrid youth culture offers images of
young women who veil and adhere to their religion, but also engage in flirting
and having fun (Nilan 2006: 94–104).
The array of lifestyle choices in the media reflects changes in youth lifestyles
and morality. During the past 15 years, as young men and women spent longer
amounts of time on education and training, the period between puberty and
marriage has been prolonged in many (urban) parts of Indonesia. Dating and
having a boy- or girlfriend have become more common, but this puts many
young men and women at odds with the widespread notion that sexuality
should be limited to marriage. Smith-Hefner (2005) has illustrated how young
educated women in the city of Yogyakarta on Java see themselves confronted
with contesting views about “western-type” and “Islamic-type” sexuality. On
the one hand, “modern social change offers young women new opportunities
and an important degree of autonomy, while at the same time they are expected
to control themselves, limit their desires and remain chaste” (Smith-Hefner
346 MUSICAL POLITICS
The clips under discussion belong to several music genres, but can be roughly
divided into two main categories: that of national pop music and that of
regional pop music, in this case pop music produced in West Sumatra, pop
Minang. The two most well-known genres that appeal to a nationwide audience
in Indonesia are pop Indonesia and dangdut.
Pop Indonesia refers to Indonesian pop music that is (strongly) influenced
by Anglo-American pop music and global trends in current rock and pop music.
Pop Indonesia, which features male and female bands and singers, is sung in
the Indonesian language and is produced in Indonesia. The music is primarily
meant for the national market, even though many pop Indonesia artists dream
to “go international” (Wallach 2002: 16–17).
Agnes Monica, a 17-year-old soap opera actress, was gaining fame as a pop
Indonesia singer in 2003.8 Musically, her style resembles that of young western
female artists such as Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. She is especially
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 347
popular with teenagers and students, although opinions about her differ. Most
of the songs on the album deal with themes such as falling in love, having a
boyfriend, or suffering from a broken heart. Recurrent themes in these clips
are urban backdrops,9 trendy haircuts, stylish teenagers, cell phones, fast cars,
attractive people drinking cocktails in a bar and enjoying themselves, and boys
and girls walking hand in hand.
Agnes Monica herself has adopted various styles of dress. Overall, her
image appeals to a cosmopolitan, self-reliant, and hip lifestyle in the big city.
On the cover photo of her album, both her hair and clothes seem to be styled in
a punk and urban street style. But, she can also adapt a more hip-hop style
when she wears, for example, purple hair extensions and is dressed in cargo
pants and a short tank top that reveals part of her belly. This effect is enhanced
by the male dancers surrounding her, who resemble rappers. In fact, her cha-
meleonlike ability to change her image is one of the qualities that appeals to
many fans. Dewi, 22, a female student and a genuine fan of Agnes Monica
commented:
Agnes Monica is only 17, but she’s already rich. Despite her young
age, she knows how to perform. She is a presenter, acts in a soap on
TV and in several commercials. She is not afraid to choose her own
style and she is a trendsetter with her hairstyle. I like to read about
her profile in magazines. She is already well known in Indonesia and
wants to go international.
But when I asked Dewi if she would wear clothes in the trendy style of Agnes
Monica in Padang, she had reservations: “Agnes Monica is from Jakarta, where
there is more freedom compared to Padang. I don’t expect her clothing style to
become a trend here. People would find it strange and I wouldn’t dare to go out
dressed like that. I usually wear jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers.”
Iwan (18, male student) says of the clip in which Agnes Monica dances to-
gether with a few male dancers: “A girl on a stage surrounded by only men is
jelek.” When asked to clarify this term, he explained that a wanita jelek is a girl
or woman whose clothes are too vulgar and clash with local culture, who
exploits her body, smokes, and/or uses drugs. Nineteen-year-old Budi was more
moderate in his comments, saying that Agnes Monica is of Chinese descent
and that he therefore could not tell for sure what a proper clothing style for her
would look like.
Budi and Iwan’s remarks imply that notions about what is considered
inappropriate for girls in Padang might be considered normal for other parts
of Indonesia—for instance, in Indonesia’s capital (Jakarta), in other social
settings (show business), for people of another religion (non-Muslims), or for
348 MUSICAL POLITICS
people from other ethnic groups (girls and women of western or Chinese
descent). Although teenage girls and young women such as Agnes Monica
are often portrayed in media wearing sexy outfits, in everyday life Muslim
fashion is becoming popular (Champagne 2004). The more popular every-
day dress code for many female teenagers and students in Padang consists of
tight jeans and T-shirts with a headscarf (jilbab). Variations on this style occur
as well, ranging from not wearing a jilbab at all (like Dewi), to more covered
forms of Islamic dress. This might explain Dewi’s reluctance to wear clothes
in the style of her idol, because she is part of a Muslim society that teaches
young women to keep certain parts of their body covered (their aurat) and
that monitors the interactions between unrelated boys and girls, because
premarital sex is taboo (Smith-Hefner 2005: 442). An open display of her
body and sexuality would defy local norms. Moreover, in some ways, Agnes
Monica’s independence and rebelliousness, more commonly associated with
masculine youth cultures, do not match with prevailing notions of feminin-
ity, which emphasize qualities like caregiving and modesty (Kearney 1998:
149). Yet female students such as Dewi liked her music and were attracted by
her independent and trendy image, rather than her sexy appearance. The fact
that this type of imagery appeals to young women such as Dewi could be a
sign of changing lifestyles and aspirations, because most Minangkabau
parents would not raise their daughters to be independent at such a young
age. Male students did not object to Agnes Monica’s music, but rather to her
performing while surrounded by men only. At the same time, one wonders if
some of the young men watch her as a kind of sexual fantasy in a society
where they are supposed to be modest and where sex before marriage
is taboo.
One of the most popular music genres in Indonesia, dangdut—an ener-
getic mix of Indonesian, western, and Arab sounds—attracts large audiences of
both youth and adults in villages and cities throughout the country. In addition
to nationally well-known dangdut artists such as Rhoma Irama10 and Anisa
Bahar, many regions in Indonesia have their own dangdut groups who sing
in their local language, such as Javanese, bahasa Medan, or bahasa Minang.
Dangdut has become a regular item in the selection of VCDs displayed at
market stalls in Padang.
Dangdut’s most celebrated and notorious female artist is Inul Daratista.
Her dancing style, characterized by dynamic and sensual movements of her
hips (referred to by the Indonesians as ngebor, meaning “drilling”), stirred a
national controversy when she rose to fame in 2003 at age 24. Since then, con-
servative Muslim authorities have condemned Inul’s shows as being porno-
graphic and banned her from performing in several cities. Her erotic dancing
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 349
has been cited as one of the reasons for a much-contested antipornography bill
that captured the national debate in 2005–2006 (Allen 2007: 103) and was
passed as a law in 2008. At the same time, feminists, human right activists,
and intellectuals have defended Inul’s right to artistic freedom (Suryakusuma
2003). Despite this controversy, dangdut in all its varieties continues to be
widely popular.
Inul’s videos are characterized by bright colors and rich stage decor, as
exemplified in her VCD Karaoke Goyang Inul. Inul’s band consists of male
musicians who play at the side of the stage. She often records her music in
front of a studio audience, which includes women wearing the jilbab (head-
scarf) in the front rows of the studio audience. Perhaps they are strategically
placed there to suggest that Inul’s live performances are not that controversial
as some might think and that it is all right for people to watch her shows.11 Yet
Inul never interacts with the audience in front of her, but directly addresses the
viewers of her VCD through the lyrics of her songs. In the first song on one
VCD she asks them not to become upset by her sexy dancing style: “Para
penonton . . . Bapak-bapak, Ibu-ibu, semuanya. Jangan heran kalau Inul sedang
goyang. Rada panas, agak seksi. Ma’afkanlah” (“Viewers, ladies and gentlemen,
all of you. Do not be surprised when I am swinging my hips. Rather hot, quite
sexy. My apologies.”).
The clothes of female dangdut artists not only differ greatly from everyday
dress, but also from the styles of pop and rock stars on MTV (Wallach 2002:
297). Inul is always wearing tight tops and trousers that are decorated with
fringes on her waist, rear, and upper legs, that twirl when she shakes her hips.
Inul’s dancing, more so than her singing, forms the attraction of her perfor-
mances. Each time Inul shakes her hips, the camera zooms into this part of her
body. This is probably the reason why this VCD is considered inappropriate for
young viewers.
Many people I interviewed about this VCD had strong ideas about Inul and
her performances. Ricky, a 27-year-old man who worked for a nongovernmen-
tal organization in Padang, was one of the few people I met who readily admit-
ted to being a huge fan of Inul:
However, most people were less positive about Inul. Ibu Siti, 56, female
and owner an aerobic center, comments:
350 MUSICAL POLITICS
I like Inul’s voice, but not her dancing. I think sex is too dominantly
part of her performances. Because of their background in Islam and
adat (local custom), most Minang would disapprove of Inul’s perfor-
mances. I think that many people with a low level in education, such
as becak drivers, would like Inul’s style, but that higher educated
people with strong faith don’t like her.
Achmad, 22, an economics student, was very strict in his remarks about
Inul: “It is wrong for someone to desire Inul, but it is OK for someone to think
of her music and style of dancing as art. But for Muslims, Inul is not art.”
Although some watch Inul merely as entertainment, others are offended
by her erotic dancing or find the music tacky and lower class. However, the
many claims from people who said to disapprove of the erotic dancing of female
dangdut artists did not always precisely reflect reality. Elements of dangdut-style
dancing were occasionally incorporated in the aerobic classes in which I partic-
ipated.12 The number of disapproving comments about Inul or dangdut in gen-
eral forms a striking contrast to the many dangdut shows on national television
or the presence of local dangdut imitators in Padang.
A third form of locally produced pop music is pop Minang, “a cover term
for various popular music genres from the West Sumatran region that utilize
songs, melodies and tunings from a huge reservoir of older genres” (Baren-
dregt 2002: 415). Pop Minang encompasses everything from more or less tradi-
tional songs to trendy Minangkabau–style dance music. Because of this variety,
an analysis of some of the subgenres in pop Minang reveals much about gener-
ational shifts as youth and adults select and respond to different aspects of
lifestyles portrayed in this music.
Pop Minang is sung in the Minangkabau language and functions as a
means for expressing and discussing notions of Minang culture (Barendregt
2002). Because of the phenomenon of merantau (going abroad) and the large
numbers of Minang migrants who live outside West Sumatra, many pop Minang
songs cover themes such as longing for home (Barendregt 2002: 430), love,
hope, and unfulfilled expectations. Visually the “sound of longing for home” is
evoked through images of well-known places in West Sumatra. An example of
this kind of pop Minang featuring a female artist, is a VCD called Saluang Talem-
pong Minang, Volume 3. This Misramolai series is produced and recorded by a
local record company named Minang Record.
The clips in this VCD show a young woman (the female singer) filmed in
various locations in West Sumatra, ranging from lake Maninjau to Istana Pagar-
uyung, a replica of the palace of a former Minangkabau king. The girl in the
video appears calm and reserved, either sitting or slowly walking while
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 351
performing the song. Her dress as well as those of her female background
dancers is neat and covered, but not necessarily traditional. A typical outfit the
singer would be wearing is a red shawl with golden embroidery, a little makeup,
and a golden hair ribbon. The tempo of the music and the dancing is relatively
slow, with a lot of repetition. Keyboard and the saluang, a bamboo flute that is
often used in Minangkabau music, are the main instruments in this VCD.
This VCD is an example of a semitraditional genre of pop Minang music in
which more classical songs are mixed with modern influences, such as key-
board, and contemporary clothes and choreography. This type of pop Minang
VCD seems to be aimed at an audience of mostly adult or elderly Minangkabau.
Most teenagers and students I interviewed did not like this type of pop Minang
and told me they found it boring, old fashioned, or kampungan (backward,
something for the lower classes). For that reason this type of music was never
played in the public buses en route to Andalas University.
In general, many young people thought this type of Minang clip was out-
dated compared with the clips in national pop music. A female VCD seller at the
market remarked: “Maybe the people here are less modern. In Jakarta there is
money to make modern clips by using computer effects. That takes a lot of finan-
cial investment. Here in West Sumatra there is less money available for such
things.” Agus (19, male student) told me: “The pop Minang music that is released
on VCD is already more modern than it used to be. VCDs are more modern than
cassette tapes. The songs sound less monotone because other ‘colors’ (warna)
such as keyboard are added to traditional instruments such as the flute.” But
still, the text, lyrics, and the images in this type of VCD were too old-fashioned
for him: “Minang culture is a habit and habits are hard to change.”
With regard to the images of women in this VCD, most people I inter-
viewed (youth as well as adults) agreed that the woman in the clip looked pretty
ordinary and not too sexy. They noticed that the director of the clips had used a
mix of traditional and contemporary elements to accompany the music. Because
the music contains a mix of both traditional and contemporary music styles
and instruments (for instance a more upbeat tempo compared with traditional
Minangkabau music), most people thought the appearance of the female singer
did fit the music. They recognized her clothes as a variation on traditional
Minangkabau dress and felt that although the clip was not “real” (asli) enough
to feel completely authentic, it was accurate enough to evoke a feeling of
“Minangness.”
Record companies in West Sumatra also release VCDs with other
subgenres of pop Minang. Next to following trends in national pop music, pro-
ducers of pop Minang also incorporate international elements in the music to
create a more trendy sound. Although VCDs such as the Misramolai series
352 MUSICAL POLITICS
make use of clear symbols of Minang identity (for instance, specific instru-
ments such as the saluang [bamboo flute], traditional or semitraditional dress
and dancing styles, tourist locations in West Sumatra, lyrics in the Minang
language),13 the other end of the spectrum of pop Minang music contains sub-
genres like Minang house or triping music, in which these markers are less
clearly pronounced. The musical style of these genres might best be described
as house music, but the lyrics are sung in the Minangkabau language. This
type of music is sometimes played in the small taxi buses (angkot) that ride in
Padang and occasionally in the Andalas buses, but sometimes also at weddings
and parties in West Sumatra.
An example of Minang triping music is the VCD Triping Dangdut. What
is striking about this VCD is an odd contradiction in the layout of the cover. The
front side of the cover shows a picture of the four female artists that perform on
this VCD. Combined with the bright colors of the layout, it almost seems one
is looking at the cover of a VCD with children’s pop music. However, the back
side shows the silhouette of what appears to be a naked woman wearing stiletto
heels. Clearly, this sends a whole different message than the innocent images
depicted on the front side of the cover.
The clips in this VCD are recorded in a disco, a cave, and in the open air.
Overall, the images evoke an atmosphere of nightlife, partying, and triping.14 In
all clips there are two young men and two girls dancing. The girls wear tight
jeans and short tops or skirts and dresses with high-laced boots underneath.
Their hair is loose and they wear bright-red lipstick. The men are dressed in
jeans or trousers with a short blouse or T-shirt. One of them is wearing a T-shirt
printed with the whiskey brand Jack Daniels. This stands out, because the vast
majority of the people in Padang is Muslim and not allowed to drink alcohol.
He has loosely put a pair of black sunglasses in his hair, adding to his noncha-
lant appearance. The clothes of the girls also differ from the type of dress peo-
ple wear in everyday life. Although tight jeans are normal dress for teenagers
and students, it is regarded inappropriate for women to show their bare shoul-
ders. The ultrashort skirts in the clip, but also the way these girls dance, is
controversial for Indonesian standards. They move their hips, twist their bodies,
and look sensuously into the camera. The camera is often filming their bodies
in close-up.
Pak Nurdin, a male resident of Padang and owner of a foundation that
produces local documentaries, has a clear opinion about this type of Minang
VCD: “This VCD is only meant to sell erotic images, the lyrics of the songs
are not much. The technical quality of the VCD is very good. This producer
might be the best in Padang.” After having watched the first clip, Pak Nurdin
continues:
MUSIC VCDS AND THE NEW GENERATION 353
This VCD is not at all relevant for Minang culture, but the paradox is
that this type of VCD sells a lot, also outside West Sumatra. The
producer of this VCD knows the market well. Triping music is
controversial, but there are also a lot of people who like it. Triping
music is also increasingly used as live music, for instance at
weddings. The clothes of the girls in the videos look just like in
Jakarta. I do not consider this Minang and I do not like it.
Triping videos like these mostly seem to be intended for youth who like to
party. According to Pak Nurdin, this type of clip underlines the difference
between two cultures: that of the older generation and that of cosmopolitan
youth. However, this is not to suggest that all youth would like this type of clip.
Two high school girls whom I interviewed during a bus ride to Andalas while a
triping video was playing said they were annoyed by the pornographic images
of the sexy girls in the triping and disco clips. They would rather just listen to a
cassette instead of having to watch these clips. Personally they preferred VCDs
with Indian music that showed women in pretty clothes or the VCD of the pop-
ular teen movie Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? (What’s up with Love? ).
Music VCDs in Indonesia are not just part of a thriving commercial industry,
they have a cultural impact as well. Drawing on a wide variety of westernized
and local images, the videos in these VCDs portray different youth lifestyles, at
times defying local norms about proper behavior for young Muslim women.
Presented with images of female artists that range from modest and innocent
to very erotic ones, young women in Padang choose selectively what they can
and cannot incorporate into their own lives, while in the process negotiating
what it means to be young, female, and Muslim in contemporary Indonesia.
These young women maneuver between images of female artists who openly
show off their body and sexuality, and Minangkabau values that prescribe
Minang girls and women to dress neat and behave politely. Some of the more
erotic images of female artists in the VCDs under discussion were a source of
anxiety to youth and adults who perceive these videos as being “not authentic”
and portraying the “wrong” kind of youth culture, breaking with local cultural
and religious values. Although sexy images are an important part of music
VCDs, because they help establish an artist’s image and advance the sales of
her music (Andsager 2006: 31), this was not necessarily the aspect young peo-
ple picked up from these videos. Notions of self-reliance and financial indepen-
dence, the cosmopolitan and flashy lifestyles portrayed, or the modern computer
354 MUSICAL POLITICS
effects used in these clips were sometimes more interesting to them, because
these aspects could be incorporated in their own lives.
Even though young people choose selectively what they can and cannot
copy from these videos, lifestyle choices for young women (not men!) continue
to be discussed in highly moral and political terms, reflecting anxieties about
the future of the nation. Debates in the national arena, such as the debate about
the controversial antipornography bill (Allen 2007) in 2005–2008 and the
upheaval about the introduction of Playboy magazine in 2006 indicate that the
politics of the body and sexuality are gendered and contested in Indonesia.
Critics who blame these sexy images on the West seem to forget that “nearly all
traditional dances in Indonesia feature sensual movements, bare shoulders
and tight-fitting costumes, and many traditional visual art works allude to fer-
tility and physical beauty” (Allen 2007: 107–108). Meanwhile, in an attempt to
counter a range of social ills including “immoral behavior,” the mayor in
Padang has issued legislation that prescribes Islamic dress for men and women
(2004) and compulsory Islamic education for children and youth (2007), which
is “designed to equip them for life with the values of Islam” (Hooker and Huda
2007). These developments suggest that the last word has not been said about
youth lifestyles, proper behavior for women, Minangkabau identity, and the
future of West Sumatra. Further research into this dynamic area could enhance
our understanding of the complex ways in which the global, the national, and
the local are linked when it comes to the construction of youth lifestyles, moral-
ity, and generational change in Indonesia.
Acknowledgment
intentions. . . . [T]he nation-state plays host to forces that it can no longer ade-
quately rein in” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2005: 22).
A good deal of youth-related policy and research coming out of establish-
ment institutions—such as United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the U.S.
State Department, European Union, and U.S. think tanks—that work closely
with nation-states place a strong emphasis on the economy (i.e., trade) and
security within a discourse of democracy and human rights. In much of this
framework, youth are treated as a group that needs to be understood and
trained for purposes of political containment, ideological monitoring, and
economic reform. Massive projects of social engineering, from global educa-
tional reforms and related human capital planning, are imaged by their architects
as the way to move human societies on paths of poverty alleviation, international
security, and economic and political liberalization (Herrera 2008).
The Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs), for instance, derived from
the Millennium Declaration adopted by 189 nations in 2000, are part of a
United Nations–led global process of poverty eradication and sustainable
development in which children and youth in the global South are at the core.
The eight goals, which are supposed to be achieved by 2015, are: to eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote
gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve
maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensure envi-
ronmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development (see
the United Nations Web site at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.
shtml). Whereas MDG projects and policies make an effort to involve youth as
advocates, the young are allowed little to no scope to question, reject, or offer
alternative visions, demands, and arrangements for sociopolitical, cultural,
and economic development.
A similar prescriptive approach to youth and development can be found in
the highly influential World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next
Generation (World Bank 2007). Despite the report’s abundant reference to
youth agency and participation, youth more often than not are treated as objects
rather than as agents of development. As a critic of the report sums, this
approach “does a disservice to the authentic concerns of young people who
seek a better world—the report offers no hope in this direction and instead
positions young people as a valuable resource that nations can leverage to build
competitiveness in the global economy” (Kamat 2007: 1216). In the above
grand development narratives, the young are supposed to join, not question, a
consolidated global framework for economic and political development.
In the post–September 11, 2001, period, security issues joined poverty
eradication as the global development concern. Muslim youth, especially
CONCLUSION: KNOWING MUSLIM YOUTH 357
Muslim males, were thrust onto the international stage. As raised in the intro-
duction, much of the mainstream policy analysis and research on security has
focused on Islamic extremism and terrorism. Terrorism is often understood as
a pathology of the individual, of a culture (Muslim or Arab for instance), of a
demographic situation (i.e., the youth bulge), or a condition of poverty. The
subsequent field of terrorism studies, which has proliferated since 9/11, in
many respects parallels the 1960s sociological work on youth deviance and
delinquency, the difference being that it is not concerned with urban crime in
the West, but with international security in an interconnected global order.
Alternative approaches to security studies are emerging, as evidenced by the
incipient field of Critical Studies on Terrorism (Jackson et al. 2009), with a
new journal by the same name (est. 2009). This critical approach of inquiry
is primed to take up the issue of youth with a lens to deconstructing the dis-
course of security and to investigate the “youth threat” in a context of power,
inequality, and geopolitics in a global order, and hopefully with deeper under-
standing of youth lives, conditions, and trajectories.
Much of the grand planning and development narratives about youth are
informed ideologically by the normative economic and political liberalization
frameworks noted above, and methodologically by statistical analysis, economic
models, and quantitative methods. To be sure, quantitative data such as socio-
logical surveys can be extremely useful in providing a more comprehensive
idea about the identity features (e.g., gender, class, ethnicity, location) in rela-
tion to employment, housing, leisure time, political participation, crime, atti-
tudes, media use patterns, and many other important domains of youth life. Yet
youth can also be objectified and treated as passive objects of policy objectives,
exhortation, or guidance; they can get stripped of having an authentic voice of
their own, and denied the right of setting the terms of the discussion about
their current lives and future aspirations.
Young Muslim men, including converts to Islam, have to deal with omni-
present stereotypes and images of them as dangerous and prone to extremism,
and of being unproductive members of society. In the United Kingdom, for
instance, Muslim men in the 16- to 24-year-old age group reported an unem-
ployment rate three times higher than the national average—and Muslim
women twice the national average—even though they participate in postcom-
pulsory education at higher than average rates (Hussain and Choudhury 2007:
6; Modood 2004). On the point of extremism, there is no denying that Muslim
men were perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorists attacks in the United States; the
March 11, 2004, Madrid train attacks; the July 21, 2005, London subway bomb-
ings; and the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh, all of which were not only dev-
astating on national levels, but spectacular global media sensations. But it
needs to be better acknowledged that these events, while they clearly point to
serious problems in certain circles, should not be understood as embodying
the culture of the Muslim minorities who make up large and heterogeneous
populations. For the most part, Muslim youth exert their energies in pursuit of
education, jobs, stability, justice, family, fame, and fortune—the stuff of ordi-
nary youth in most parts of the world.
Are moral panics by the dominant society and power holders about Mus-
lim youth justified? When confronted with a population that is perceived to be
trouble, we must always ask: trouble for whom? Who is defining the problem?
What political, economic, cultural, or moral order is this group perceived to be
disturbing? A “problem” cannot be investigated solely by dissecting the pre-
sumed objects of the problem—namely, the youth themselves. More critical
research where Muslims are a minority is needed on the majority societies to
investigate how discourses about and representations of Islam and youth get
formed, whose interests they serve, and their historical basis (see Mazawi, this
volume).
Whether in New York, London, or Berlin young Muslims are responding to
and asserting roles in the whirlwind of events and politicized gaze on their
lives. The research in this volume demonstrates that young Muslims are act-
ing on their worlds in meaningful ways, but their lives, especially when they
do not fit into dominant representations about Islam, identity, and develop-
ment, often get overlooked. Some fuse a politics of piety and group solidarity
with a “version of Islam that is consistent with their multicultural and global-
ized vision of the faith” (Bayoumi, this volume). Others assert themselves in
the minefield of identity politics. They take ownership of how they are repre-
sented through means of creative expression, whether in the realms of fashion,
literature, film, comedy, or music. As we have seen in the case of music,
rappers from London to The Hague repackage Muslim stereotypes with acerbic
360 MUSICAL POLITICS
wit and irony. The “Jihad Rap” of Fun^Da^Mental serves as one of the many
avenues through which counternarratives are spreading about not only what it
is like to be young and Muslim in the UK, but of the underlying inequities of
the dominant society from a minority vantage point. Musical groups often use
their public platform as a pedagogical space to “provide a very different, multi-
plexed, and more useful vision of what it might mean to be ‘Muslim’ in today’s
Britain” (Swedenburg). The popular arts, grassroots movements, Arab and
Muslim student associations (figure 22.1), and cyber communities represent
some of the avenues where youth are taking a more proactive stance and set-
ting the terms of debates, thereby bringing about an alternative consciousness
and action about issues of citizenship, justice, and multiculturalism.
In Muslim majority countries of the global South, whether in West Africa,
Asia, or the Middle East and North Africa, youth are shaping identities, form-
ing communities, and taking action more around issues of employment, polit-
ical and economic marginalization, and intergenerational conflict with the
older generation, all while struggling to assert their youthfulness. Ben Soares’
observation in this volume about youth in Mali as often being “marginalized in
relation to an older generation in the interconnected realms of politics, eco-
nomics, and religion” rings true for youth throughout the postcolonial states.
FIGURE 22.1. Students at San Francisco State University dancing the Dabke
during Arab Culture Week. (Shiva, 2008)
CONCLUSION: KNOWING MUSLIM YOUTH 361
The chapters in this volume testify that youth coming of age in the post-
colonial global South, in already difficult circumstances brought about by
poverty, fragile economies, conflict, authoritarian and corrupt governments,
globalism, and intergenerational strife, are highly critical, frustrated, and
sometimes overwhelmed by powerlessness. They speak of the ubiquity of
political corruption and cronyism, economic exclusion, moral discipline and sup-
pression of lifestyle, and the gross injustices and aggressions associated with free
market economics. The conditions of contemporary life can lead youth to
display extremist, inflexible, and conservative tendencies when compared
with their parents’ generation. In the West African country of The Gambia,
for instance, traditional generational relations are being inverted as the youth-
ful male members of the Tabligh Jama’at challenge the authority of their
elders. In their pursuit of power, opportunities, and religious authority, the
young shun local practices in favor of more rigid interpretations of religion
and social practice.
Similarly, as Hasan argues in his portrait of male youth who took part in
the Lakshar Jihad in Indonesia, some educated youth try to confront conditions
of contemporary life by challenging the power and authority of the older gener-
ation. The Salafi movements, with their transnational reach, attract youth and
offer them, if not hope, a sense of pride in belonging to an Islamic brother-
hood. Some youths, by joining these groups, may satisfy an immediate need to
“establish identify and claim dignity,” and thereby feel relevant and powerful,
but in the longer term these movements do not transform structural forces or
bring about the conditions that will lead to livelihoods, economic opportunities,
and secure futures. Such movements in actuality are not an alternative to a
socioeconomic and political order, but a reaction to it. At a point in their lives,
these young men in The Gambia and Indonesia considered that the only way to
access opportunities was to establish an alternative cultural and political order,
even if that meant supporting a project that was repressive, exclusionary, or
politically regressive.
But many other young male youths, such as the “Rasta Sufis” in Mali and
the globalized Muslims in Niger, are experiencing new avenues of cultural
expression, openness, and awareness as their economic opportunities and
chances at securing a future are constricting. Male youth in Niger embrace and
experiment with “anti-Islamic” cultural products and lifestyles by listening to
hip-hop music and dressing in ghetto fashion, as they simultaneously identity
with the “global umma.” But while they experiment with and assert multiple
identities, they face barriers of being unable to earn a living. Like scores of
youth in similar situations, they live the impossibility of being “connected to
the world, yet excluded from it” (Masquelier).
362 MUSICAL POLITICS
At the same time, masses of other young people experience a kind of over-
mobility in search of livelihoods, or as political and environmental refugees
escaping conflict and persecution, or environmental degradation. They move to
and between cities, nations, and regions, below and above the radar, in the
pursuit of survival and some future stability. But with the many barriers they
encounter, they are no longer seeking a path to adulthood in the traditional
sense of attaining future stability and a decent standard of living. They are,
rather, struggling for “a means of envisioning a future that enables youth to
become something other than youth, but without relying upon the customary
means for resolving this transformation—particularly as the transformation
into adulthood is something increasingly problematic” (Simone).
In both the global North and South, Muslim youth navigate between assert-
ing their youthfulness and oftentimes their Muslimness. But this maneuvering
is mediated by a host of social, economic, and political settings within which
these youths operate. The expression of identities and realization of youthful
dreams are affected and profoundly complicated by a plethora of global,
national, and local processes that render the reality of Muslim youth much
more complex than is often portrayed. However, this complex identity forma-
tion is by no means peculiar to Muslims, nor is Muslim youth an exceptional
entity. We have argued against essentializing Muslim youth, as treating them
as a unique group that might somehow be trapped in a maze of a supposedly
stagnant culture and religion while the rest of the world changes. As the chap-
ters in this volume unequivocally demonstrate, Muslim youth, located in pro-
cesses of globalization in this period of late neoliberalism, share many
significant points of convergence with their global generational counterparts,
especially when it comes to concerns about livelihood, struggle for political in-
clusion, intergenerational conflicts, coming of age in an era of global discourses
about human rights, and rapidly changing new media and communications
technologies. But it cannot be denied that certain structural factors and condi-
tions of the contemporary period have brought Muslim youth into the interna-
tional spotlight, thereby making this group important actors and a category of
inquiry in its own right.
Future Directions
Even though this volume covers diverse critical themes pertinent to contempo-
rary Muslim youth, we do not claim that it is exhaustive. The field is in its for-
mative phase and many issues still need rigorous scholarly attention. We have
already emphasized the importance of transcending an exceptionalist approach
CONCLUSION: KNOWING MUSLIM YOUTH 363
to the study of Muslim youth, while at the same time understanding the
features that might differentiate this population from others at this historic
global moment. Much of the current research stems from a problem-centered
approach (culture, social, security, health, economic, or demographic). It is,
however, important also to look at the young on their own terms, as a partic-
ular social group that is increasingly becoming the “new proletariat” of our
times. It may appear that youth are merely reacting to difficult situations of
poverty, unemployment, political exclusion, corruption, and Islamophobia,
but this is not the whole story. They are also shaping the terms of debate on
issues and structures that affect their lives, and they are creating and dis-
seminating messages and images to define themselves on a public stage.
Finally, the new information and communication technologies, especially
“mobile communication,” is transforming our working life and life-worlds
(Castells et al., 2007), and youth are the most avid recipients, producers, and
innovators of such technologies.
Tackling these themes requires innovative methodologies and compara-
tive, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational collaborations. There is a real need
for anthropologists, sociologists, political economists, social historians, scholars
of cultural studies, development studies, media studies, and law to undertake
research around common pertinent questions. Qualitative research should
provide an understanding of the everyday practices, negotiations, and decisions
at the micro level, while remaining attuned to the larger tensions associated
with neoliberal development and the paradoxes of globalization. Our approach
in this volume has been largely under the rubric of cultural politics. However,
it is important to delve into and complement such studies with a political econ-
omy approach. Other macro analyses that look at large processes defined as
globalization, development, and modernization are important, provided they
are grounded in a micro understanding of everyday lives and realities of young
people. There is also a need for more cross-generational research to be able to
better understand if, for instance, attitudes about religion, politics, and society
are a product of a particular time or life stage, or if these are more an outcome
of educational background and environment. Finally, research in the area of
youth necessitates not only research about the young, but collaborations and
initiatives with the young.
These studies have affirmed that young people are highly discerning about
issues of justice and equity and that they agree on the need for change. But
awareness of an issue is not enough to stimulate change. As Bennani-Chraïbi
argues in her survey of Moroccan youth, “action comes about as the result of a
particular type of socialization, involvement in networks, and experience in
micro events that allow ideas to translate into actions.” Today’s young people,
364 MUSICAL POLITICS
CHAPTER 1
1. One of the authors explored issues of youth politics from an
intergenerational perspective in relation to Africa in some depth while
supervising the Masters of Arts thesis of Eyob Balcha at the International
Institute of Social Studies on youth and politics in Ethiopia. See (Balcha 2009).
2. For a video explaining the introduction of Google Knol in Arabic, see
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDXmcMj8KQY.
CHAPTER 2
1. For Mao Tse-tung, youth movement meant the political participation of
students in the anticolonial (Japan) struggle (Mao 1969: 241–249). For a listing
of such youth organizations and movements, see www.youthmovements.org/
guide/globalguide.htm.
2. See Ashraf and Banuazizi (1985). Out of a sample of 646 people
killed in Tehran in the street clashes during the revolution (from August 23,
1977, to February 19, 1978), the largest group after artisans and shopkeepers
(n = 189) were students (n = 149) (Bayat 1997: 39).
3. See Rahnavard in daily Bahar, June 18, 2000: 2). A one-day symposium
was organized to discuss why the youth showed such a disinterest in
religious lessons.
4. See http://dailynews.yahoo.com, July 25, 2000.
5. According to a July 2000 report authored by Muhammad Ali Zam,
the director of cultural and artistic affairs for Tehran; see daily Bahar, July 5,
2000. This became a highly controversial survey, because the conservatives
disputed its authenticity and negative impact on their image.
366 NOTES TO PAGES 34–42
27. The Ministry of Social Affairs reported to have extended some EL30 million
between 1997 and 2000. See Al-Ahram, July 14, 2000.
28. The Ministry of Local Development was to extend some of these loans. See
ibid.
29. I have especially relied on Muhammad Shalabi’s, “Egypt’s Youth Centers:
Between Ideals and Reality,” unpublished, AUC, Spring 2003.
30. They often represented prestaged shows where the young attendees were
carefully picked, questions rehearsed, and the oratory and flattery by which students
addressed the president left little genuine interaction.
31. Hoda’s statement in response to my question: What is it like to be young in
today’s Egyptian society? (Spring 2003, Cairo, Egypt).
32. The ticket costs ranges from LE75 to 150, with alcohol drinks for LE20 and
water, LE10.
33. The figure for the country was 22% (based on a survey of 14,656 male high
school students in 1990 [Soueif et al. 1990: 71–72]).
34. Reportedly, the quantity seized by the police jumped from 2,276 hits in 2000
to 7,008 hits in 2001; see Cairo Times, March 14–20, 2002, p. 16.
35. Active sexuality of youth is also confirmed by al-Dabbaqh (1996).
36. Interviews with youngsters by Rime Naguib, sociology student, AUC (Spring
2002).
37. Ironically, the partially segregated trains made the traditional young women
more mobile. Parents would not mind if their daughters took trains because
segregated trains were thought to protect their daughters from male harassment.
See Seif Nasrawi, “An Ethnography of Cairo’s Metro,” unpublished, Fall 2002, AUC.
38. See Rime Naguib, “Egyptian Youth: A Tentative Study,” unpublished, Spring
2002.
39. Rime Naghib, interview with youth, Spring 2002, AUC.
40. CAPMAS reported more than 5 million bachelor boys and 3.4 million girls
caused uproar in the media about the moral consequences of the state of these
unmarried adults. Indeed, the age of marriage reached 30 to 40 years for men and 20
to 30 years for women. See Al-Wafd, January 1, 2002, p. 3.
41. For an analysis of the Amr Khaled “phenomenon,” see Bayat (2007b:
151–155).
CHAPTER 3
1. For a further account on the conflict, see, for example, International Crisis
Group (2000), Trijono (2001), and van Klinken (2001).
2. DDII is a da’wa organization established in 1967 by former leaders of
Masyumi, Indonesia’s first and largest banned Islamic party, as a strategy to deal with
various political impasses that had blocked their ambition to reenter the political arena
of Indonesia during the early years of Suharto’s administration (see Husin 1988).
3. Ikhwan al-Muslimin (The Muslim Brotherhood) is a multinational Sunni
Islamist movement and the world’s largest, most influential political Islamist group.
368 NOTES TO PAGES 52–59
Founded by the Sufi schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928, the movement
claims that it seeks to instill the Quran and Sunnah as the sole reference point for
ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community, and state, and
ultimately to reestablish a Caliphate or unified Muslim state (see Mitchell 1993:
260–261). Another influential political Islamist group, the Hizb al-Tahrir was
established by Taqiy al-Din al-Nabhani in Palestine in 1953 and actively espoused the
creation of the khilafa islamiyya (Taji-Farouki 1996). Unlike the two movements, the
Tablighi Jama’at is originally a nonpolitical Indian Islamic movement that was
established by Maulana Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandahlawi in the 1930s and actively
encouraged members to conduct khuruj, traveling around to advocate da’wa causes
(Masud 2000).
4. The term Salafi generally refers to the reform movement in Egypt
introduced by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–1897), Muhammad ’Abduh (1849–1905),
and Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935). Yet, unlike any reformist, modernist
Muslim organizations that emerged across the Muslim world, the Salafi da’wa
campaign is squarely within the puritanical classic Salafi–Wahhabi tradition, marked
by its concern with matters of creed and morality, such as strict monotheism, divine
attributes, purifying Islam from accretions, and anti-Sufism, and developing the
moral integrity of the individual. To a large extent, it can be conceptualized as a form
of reconstituted Wahhabism, the official religion of Saudi Arabia. In fact, its
proliferation has directly been sponsored by this kingdom. The term Salafi has been
used as the banner of the movement because of the pejorative connotation of the
term Wahhabi among many Muslims in the world, thus crucial for political
convenience (see Hasan 2007).
5. The Salafi doctrine has one primary concern: to urge a return to the Quran
and the Sunna in accordance with the understanding and example set by the Salafi
al-Salih (pious ancestors) to steer Muslims away from various forms of polytheism
(shirk), reprehensible innovation (bid’a), and superstition (khurafa).
6. Despite the fact that the rebellion had targeted the Saudi royal family for its
corruption, it reflected a more general backlash against the effects of the oil boom
during the 1970s on Saudi society. As a result of the boom, westerners had poured
into the Saudi kingdom, threatening the conservative Wahhabi way of life (see Gold
2003: 108).
7. Interview with Abu Nida, Yogyakarta, December 2002.
8. Concerning the al-Haramayn Foundation and the Jam’iyyat Ihya’ al-Turath
al-Islami, see Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan (2003: 36, 73).
9. The passing of this bill reinforced the existence of the Islamic courts within
the Indonesian legal system. Previously, it ranked the second-class court after the
public, military, and administrative courts.
10. On the concept of risk society, see Beck (1992).
11. Interviews with Abdul Fatah and Mohammad Sodik, members of the Laskar
Jihad from nonuniversity backgrounds, December 2002.
12. See the Jakarta Post article (November 7, 2006 by Max Ridwan Sijabat, “Youth
Unemployment to Get Worse over Next Decade”).
13. For a detailed discussion of this term, see Cook (2001).
NOTES TO PAGES 61–68 369
CHAPTER 4
1. Pascal Ménoret (2007) used the expression “dangerous classes of
globalization.”
2. These attacks occurred simultaneously in several places in Casablanca (e.g.,
restaurant, hotel). They were attributed to kamikazes, belonging to the Salafiyaa
Jihadiyya, close to the Qaeda. There were 45 deaths (33 civilians and 12 kamikazes).
3. Morock refers to a Franco Moroccan film, produced by Laïla Marrakchi and
debuted in 2005, filmed after the attacks of May 16, 2003, in Casablanca. It represents
a wealthy youth who attends the French Lycée in Casablanca and transgresses religious
prohibitions. On one hand, it recounts a love story between a Muslim young girl and a
Jewish adolescent. On the other hand, it suggests the “return of religion” for the
heroine’s brother, which is a worry for her. This cinematic event provoked an
extremely stormy public debate.
4. This is a counterelite that intervenes in the political field by making an
ideological reference to Islam.
5. After consultations that began during the early 1990s, the members of the
al-Islam wa at-Tawhid (Reform and Uniqueness) movement were integrated by
Dr. Khatib, a close associate of the palace, into the Popular Constitutional and Democratic
Movement, an empty shell he had been leading since 1967. Following the general
elections of 1997, the party was renamed the Justice and Development Party in 1998.
6. The Justice and Development Party won 42 seats in Parliament. Nevertheless,
in a spirit of self-limitation, it only presented candidates in some constituencies. In
2007, it became the second force in Parliament.
7. The most important points were raising the age of marriage from 16 to 18 for
both men and women, abolition of matrimonial guardianship over a woman and her
duty of obedience to her spouse, the possibility of making marriage contracts, the
establishment of joint responsibility for the family, a limitation on repudiation and
polygamy, the possibility for a woman to ask for a divorce, the care for children being
made a prerogative of both parents, and protection for children born out of wedlock
(see Le Matin du Sahara: 11 October 2003).
8. The National Plan of Action for the Integration of Women into Development,
initiated by the feminist movement, was proposed by the Secretary of State for Social
Welfare, the Family and the Child of the government under the left-wing leader
Abderrahmane Youssoufi.
9. Malika Zeghal recalls that Mohammed V left the domain of education in the
hands of both the “modernists” and the ’ulamâ (Zeghal 2003: 9), but it seems that
religious education was totally entrusted to ’ulamâ. This situation is currently
changing. Following the example of the Charfi reform in Tunisia, a reform of the
educational system occurred in Morocco in 2000.
10. According to Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori (1996), it is not necessary
to have Islamic references, nor even to be a Muslim to be in “Muslim politics.”
370 NOTES TO PAGES 69–88
CHAPTER 5
1. Previous Grand Mufti of the kingdom and a highly popular figure, he died in 1999.
2. According to a poll published by the website www.camrynet.com and quoted
by Al-Sharq al-Awsat (December 13, 2003) “taf hit, a mortal hobby in Saudi Arabia.”
3. The colloquial bedouin verbs fah.h.at.a, hajja, and t. afasha denote flight or
running. A mufah.h.at. is literally a fugitive; taf h.ı̄.t also means the shrilling of skidding
tires, as well as the shouting of young children. Hajwala is still used as a synonym of
confusion, anarchy. A muhajwil is a tramp. Young people reverted the term; a muhajwil
is a tough guy, a street hero.
4. See, for example, “4 Youngsters Burnt Alive after a Mufahhat’s Car Collides
with Another Car,” (Al-Watan, March 16, 2006).
5. “The Leaders of the Taf hit Dissent Arrested in Riyadh,” (Al-Jazira April 11,
2006).
6. Tawfîq al-Zâydî, Al-Jarı̄ma al-murakkaba (The Composite Crime), documentary
movie, al-Ikhbariyya national news TV channel, December 2006.
7. Personnal observation during a conference on taf h.ı̄t., Riyadh, April 2007.
8. See www.alamal.med.sa/.
9. Anonymous, “Akhı̄ ran, al-kitācb al-mamnū’: Al-hajwala f ı̄ ’ilm al-’arbaja” [At
Last, the Forbidden Book: “The taf h.ı̄t. in the Science of Hooliganism], http://maqhaa.
com/forums/showthread.php?t=1561.
10. See “A Leader of the mufah.h.at.ı̄n Calls His Followers to Avoid Certain Places
in All the Kingdom’s Provinces,” (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 27, 2005).
11. Rakan, “Al-’arbaja, nash’atuhā wa namūhā” [Hooliganism, Its Genesis and
Evolution], January 8, 2004, www.alqasir.net.
12. See “Nah.wi tat. wı̄ r niām naql ‘amm āmin wa fa‘‘āl f ı̄ madı̄ nat al-Riyā d.”
[Toward the Development of a Secure and Fast Public Transportation System in
Riyadh], High Comity to the Development of Riyadh, 2000, p. 3.
13. Rakan.
14. The kasrāt are songs young people write and sing during their reunions. They
probably get this name (derived from the verb kassara, to break) because the young
people who write them break down the traditional versification. Another explanation is
that kasrāt singers perform vocal competitions in which they are supposed to retort to
one another with wit and eloquence to tear their challenger into pieces.
15. See www.t2bk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=272.
NOTES TO PAGES 88–95 371
CHAPTER 6
1. To guarantee my informants’ privacy, most of the names used in this article
are pseudonyms. Names of prominent religious leaders, however, have not been
changed because they are public figures.
2. Worldwide, Mashalas are known as Tablighis, adherents of the reformist
Islamic movement Tabligh Jama‘at. Because Mashala has a negative connotation and
because my informants called themselves Tablighis, the latter term will be used in this
chapter.
3. A well-known hadith (account of what the Prophet Muhammad said or did)
reports that the Prophet was displeased with men wearing long garments (Sahih
Bukhari, vol. 4, book 56, no. 692, www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchhadith.
html).
4. Although many of the “traditionalist” Muslims whom I interviewed did not
formally affiliate themselves with any Sufi brotherhood, I take them to be part of a Sufi
tradition, because they involve themselves in mystical practices and use special litanies
of prayer and techniques of invoking God’s names as ways of approaching God (see
Soares 2005: 37). Most of them have been trained in traditional Quranic schools in
which the emphasis is on the recitation of Quranic verses by heart. Knowledge is
structured in this system in a hierarchical way, and its dissemination is restricted to a
few specialists. The reformist tradition, represented by my interpreter’s cousin, calls
much of the Sufi tradition into question and seeks to change the way Islam is practised
locally. In the reformist tradition, knowledge is theoretically available to everyone, and
the individual’s intellectual development is no longer associated with divine
intervention (Brenner 2000: 7–8; Soares 2005: 9–10).
5. Meeting in Brikama, April 24, 2005.
372 NOTES TO PAGES 96–101
orientation, the Tabligh Jama‘at borrowed from Sufi practices such as dhikr, the
remembrance of God.
16. This difference in perception between Tablighis and Wahhabis leads to
different da‘wa (call to Islam) methods, see note 32.
17. I did not ask Dukureh’s followers how old they were because elderly people
normally do not know their exact age. Birth certificates did not exist when they were
born, but I took them to be in their late 60s.
18. Although the Tablighis lay claim to the marabouts’ power, I do not think they
want to lay claim to their resources. I heard several stories of marabouts who were
rewarded with cars and even compounds by their customers. However, wealth is not
something the Tablighis aim for. Their lifestyle is characterized by simplicity and
austerity, because in their opinion only poverty and hardship can bring them closer
to God.
19. Interview in Siffoe, April 20, 2005.
20. A survey conducted in South Africa indicates that middle-age persons are the
age group to whom the Jama‘at holds the most appeal (Moosa 2000: 212).
21. Interview in Sukuta, March 26, 2006.
22. Interview in Brikama, April 1, 2006.
23. For women’s participation in missionary tours, see Janson (2008,
forthcoming). For more information on the Tablighi activities in which Gambian youth
are involved, see Janson (2005; 2009).
24. Interview in Gunjur, April 12, 2006.
25. Interview in Serrekunda, May 7, 2006.
26. During my field research I came across a great number of ghettos with
sometimes very creative (English) names, indicating the activities they are engaged in
and the ways the members see themselves. To name just a few: L. A. Ghetto, Outlaw
Ghetto, One Love Ghetto, Arsenal Ghetto, Rasta Crew Ghetto, and Ganja Ghetto (ganja is
the local term for marijuana).
27. Interview in Brikama, May 9, 2006.
28. The demonstrations went ahead despite a refusal by the authorities to
grant the Gambian Students Union a permit, and became violent when the security
forces used excessive force to break it up. At least 14 youth were killed (Amnesty
International 2001).
29. The desire of leaving the country for Europe or the United States is so strong
among numerous youth that there is a special word for it in Gambian slang: “having
nerves.” Out of frustration with visa rejections, some start to drink or, more often, use
drugs, and I have seen quite a number of youth contending with serious psychological
problems because of this. When my research assistant consulted a doctor because of a
stomachache, the first thing she asked him was whether he “had nerves.”
30. Interview in Gunjur, April 16, 2005.
31. Interview in Banjul, March 29, 2006. For Ahmed’s full conversion story, see
Janson (2009).
32. According to my informants, Wahhabis use a more direct da‘wa method,
which explains why they are less successful in “converting” youth to their ideology.
374 NOTES TO PAGES 109–117
CHAPTER 7
1. The population of the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories reached 3,761,646
inhabitants divided into two major areas: the West Bank with 2,345,107 and the Gaza
Strip with 1,416,539. A total of 48.8% of the population is younger than 15 years of age.
The percentage of persons 10 years and older who use the Internet is 49.5%.
2. In July 2006, BZU ranked “third . . . among all universities” (http://www.
birzeit.edu/news/16627/news) in the Arab countries according to a webo-metric
ranking, and ranked 1,781 among the top 5,000 universities in the world (www.
webometrics.info/top3000.asp-offset=1750.htm and http://www.birzeit.edu/
news/16627/news). BZU is the first Arab university and the “third university
among universities in the Arab world” (http://www.birzeit.edu/news/16627/news./
http www webometrics info top3000 asp offset 1750 htm) in the realm of “web
publications and in its commitment to open access to knowledge. The American
University in Beirut (AUB) came first with the rank of 1325 followed by the
American university in Cairo (AUC) with the rank of 1518.” (http://www.birzeit.
edu/news/16627/news)
3. See articles by BZU’s first webmaster Nigel Parry at www.birzeit.edu/web also.
4. The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a partnership between Cisco
Systems and education, business, government, and community organizations around
the world. The Networking Academy curriculum centers on teaching students to
design, build, and maintain computer networks.
5. www.birzeit.edu/news/news-d?news_id=5328.
6. First launched in February 1999, by students in partnership with BZU’s
computer center.
7. This includes the Dheisha refugee camp in the West Bank and the Khan
Yunis camp in the Gaza Strip (www.palestinian-rights.org/projects/media.html).
8. See www.mohe.gov.ps/Factsfgrs.html.
9. Data taken from an internal memo circulated by Maan Bseiso of PalNet
CHECKCommunications Ltd., via Palestinaian Information Technology Association
(PITA), on September 16, 2002.
10. See www.pcbs.gov.ps/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabID=3951&;lang=en.
NOTES TO PAGES 118–113 375
11. For a 2003 report on Israeli high technology and investment, see www.
ishitech.co.il/0403ar5.htm and www.export.gov.il/Eng.
12. These figures are from the most recent household survey on ICT, which was
released in August 2006 (www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/
CommTec06e.pdf ).
13. See, for example, the initiative for Palestinian youth managed by UNICEF
(www.unicef.org/voy/discussions/member.php?u=4730).
14. See www.infoyouth.org and www.pngo.net.
15. See www.palestinian-rights.org/projects/media.html.
16. See www.it4youth.org and www.nextbillion.net/archive/activitycapsule/2583.
17. Seewww.enlighten-palestine.org/pdf/information_pack.pdf.
18. See www.pyalara.org.
19. Contributors include Glenn Kalnasy, Cord Aid, TAMKEEN, the Canadian
Representatives Office, Brains Unlimited, UNICEF, the European Commission,
Ragdoll Ltd., Dalhousie University, P.G. MEYER VIOL, Willy Brant Center, Save the
Children-UK, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and others. To support and perhaps
influence the way in which the Palestinian ICT sector and policy are evolving,
numerous international donors, NGOs, and governments have been cooperating
with the various sectors pertinent to ICT among Palestinians.
20. See Ministry of Youth, www.wafa.ps.
21. See www.pyalara.org.
22. See www.shabab.ps.
CHAPTER 8
1. According to Assaad and Barsoum (2007), from the British mandate period
to the present, unemployment has been “primarily a problem of educated youth.”
But the problem has become more pronounced during the past decade. They note:
“Youth with a secondary education or above made up 95 percent of youth
unemployment in 2006, up from 87 percent in 1998. . . . In fact, university
graduates are the only educational group whose unemployment rates increased
since 1998” (Assaad and Barsoum 2007: 19).
2. I first came across the phrase a transition to nowhere by International Institute of
Social Studies (ISS) PhD student Rekopantswe Mate in her research design paper (2009).
3. For accounts of the everyday practices in Egyptian schools and ethnographic
descriptions of some of the abuses and struggles that take place in classrooms, see
Herrera and Torres (2006).
4. A nationwide survey of 6,006 households in Egypt found that children in
64% of urban households and 54% of rural homes attending both public and private
schools take private lessons (Egypt Human Development Report 2005: 55–56).
Egyptians spend the equivalent of 1.6% of the gross domestic product (LE4.81 million)
on private tutoring at the preuniversity level (World Bank 2002: 26). See Mark Bray
(2009) for a comprehensive analysis of the effects of private tutoring on education
systems worldwide.
376 NOTES TO PAGES 134–163
5. In his work on middle class Indian men, Nisbett (2007) calls this phenom-
enon of the ways young men use escapist means to pass their time as “timepass.”
6. Adel Iman is a celebrated Egyptian comedian who starred in the
enormously popular comedy Terrorism and Kebab, directed by Sherif Arafa in 1993.
The film is a hilarious satire of the frustrations of an everyday Egyptian man who
takes the Mugama, the symbol of state bureaucracy, hostage, only to demand kebab
for everyone.
7. By generational location I refer to Karl Mannheim’s seminal essay on
generations. He writes: “Individuals who belong to the same generation, who share
the same year of birth, are endowed, to that extent, with a common location in the
historical dimension of the social process” (Mannheim 1952: 105).
8. For detailed country-specific and regionwide statistics on Internet users
worldwide, see Internet World Stats at www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm 2009)
9. Some youth use their newly acquired consciousness and daring that the
Internet seems to have provided to get involved in organized movements for democratic
and economic reform. The Egyptian Movement for Change, more popularly referred
to as Kifaya (Enough), formed in 2004 with a prodemocracy, antiregime platform. It
carried out rare and daring anti-Mubarak demonstrations during which slogans such
as “No to extension [of Mubarak’s presidency]; No to hereditary succession” were
chanted (see http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/759/eg8.htm). Kifaya attempted to
build a national opposition coalition based on a platform of action for mass civil
disobedience. Although it has lost momentum since 2007 for a number of reasons,
not the least being a state crackdown on it, Kifaya provided an important example that
confronting the regime head-on is possible.
10. At the time these interviews were conduced in 2006, there were some
high-profile cases of Egyptian bloggers who suffered arrest and persecution for
publicizing unsavory opinions about the government and Islam (Sandals 2008). Since
then, Internet users have increased by the millions, and the social networking website
Facebook was used for an act of mass civil disobedience in support of the April 6,
2008, strike of textile workers in Mahala al-Kubra (Benin and el-Hamalawy 2007). The
two 20-something masterminds of this action—Israa Abel-Fattah (dubbed the
president of the “Facebook Republic”) and Ahmed Maher—were both arrested and
jailed. Israa’s Facebook activism abruptly came to an end after being released from an
ordeal of 18 days in jail. Ahmed, who has by now had a few encounters with state
security, including hours of vicious beating by the police until he disclosed his
Facebook password, remains committed to continuing a Facebook-facilitated political
movement (El-Sayed 2008).
CHAPTER 10
1. I have changed the names of some people who are in my book to protect their
privacy.
2. Also, see the population demographic pamphlet titled New York by the Arab
American Institute (2003), which estimates a population of 405,000 Arab Americans
NOTES TO PAGES 163–179 377
CHAPTER 11
1. About 10 million Muslims live in western Europe, half of them in France,
with the majority of North African origin.
2. The term laïc (from which laïcité is derived) originates from the Greek
word, laikos, which means, according to the Petit Larousse (2003: 581), “which
belongs to the people” and “which does not belong to the clergy.” In the field of
schooling, laïcité refers to a mode of organization that aims to administer schools in
a “neutral” and “nonpartisan” way with regard to denominational or communitarian
affiliations, avoiding reference to any judgments in relation to faith-based
knowledge claims.
3. The secular humanist traditions associated with laïcité were also revoked
during the Vichy government during the interlude of the occupation, and religious
instruction in public schools was reinstituted (Wykes 1967: 224).
4. These are the lois Marie (1951), Barangé (1951), Debré (1959), and Guermeur
(1977) (see Poucet 2001).
5. The reference here is to the loi Debré (loi no. 59-1557 from December 31,
1959). Two major types of “contracts” are defined under this law (and its subsequent
amendments introduced since the early 1970s): “simple” (for elementary schools)
or “by association,” mainly for postelementary schools. The law establishes
“reciprocal” principles that regulate the relations between private schools and the
state (see Poucet 2001).
6. About 17% of the French school population studies in private educational
institutions, a total of more than two million students enrolled in about 10,000 private
educational institutions (Catholic schools are the majority), 26,000 in Jewish schools,
378 NOTES TO PAGES 179–184
together Muslim citizens and public authorities and society in general” (see Charte du
CMF, www.lecmf.fr).
CHAPTER 12
1. I rely, here, mostly on the work of Saba Mahmood (2005), who has theorized
on the emerging forms of piety within female mosque movements in Egypt. Her
approach is particularly challenging because she critically engages with (liberal)
feminist thought, and more generally with some of the founding principles of political
modernity, especially individual autonomy. Mahmood’s notion of piety as observed in
the mosque movement in Egypt most notably contains the self-willed obedience to
certain religious conventions anchored in a constant cultivation of virtues and
practices.
2. I conducted my fieldwork between 2000 and 2001 and in autumn/spring
2006/2007 with women who were part of a Muslim organization either as “simple”
members and users or who held leading positions as teachers or as representatives
of the administrative body within female sections of the organization. The examples
provided for Germany are taken from the Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüs, the
Verein der Islamischen Kulturzentren, and Anstalt für Religion e.V./Diyanet Isleri Türk
Islam Birligi. The young women in France were predominantly part of the Institut
Musulman Français, a center for Islamic instructions, located in Marseille and/or
engaged in the Jeunes Musulmans de France.
3. I use the concept of the secular here not primarily in terms of a separation
between political and religious spheres but rather as conceptualized by Talal Asad
(2003) as a practice that regulates religious sensibilities in public realm.
4. In France a law prohibiting “ostentatious” religious symbols in sate schools
was adopted in 2004 after a long process of public discussions and knowledge
gathering in the so-called Commission Stasi (2003). In Germany, several federal
departments gradually adopted laws legitimizing the ban of covered teachers from
state schools after the decision of the Constitutional Court in 2003, which, although
relying on the principle of religious freedom, opened the path for distinctive laws by
the federal departments.
5. It goes without saying that this kind of discourse reproduces an inherent
contradiction. Although articulating the attempt to overcome the dichotomy
between body and mind by hiding the female body and thereby getting closer to
the mind, which is implicitly associated with the other sex, the women, in fact,
reinforce these boundaries by following dress codes that are exclusively attributed
to the feminine sphere: The headscarf incorporates the taboo of displaying
femininity, whereas it is itself a strong expression of femininity. On the other
hand, the attempt to “return” to the noblest dimension of the person, the mind, by
hiding markers of one’s sexuality, presupposes the existence of a certain essence
“responsible for the reproduction and naturalisation of the category of sex itself”
(Butler 1990: 20).
380 NOTES TO PAGES 201–227
CHAPTER 13
1. According toYear Census Book (Salnameh Amari), Markaz Amar
Iran.1375/1996 A. 552,000 students graduated from high schools in 1996 (including
those who got diplomas or preuniversity certificates) whereas admission to BA and
college-level programs at all higher education centers was limited to 170,000,
regardless of their age.
2. See interviews with Moghadam (2006) and Pour Mohamadi(2007) for the
different approaches to mandatory veiling.
3. There were also other important efforts to indoctrinate the ethical Islamic
vision, including the education system, state-owned radio and television, and
war-related cinema known as “Holy Defense Cinema.”
4. According to Etelaat newspaper (Bahman, 11 1360/February 1 1981), in 800
cases followed by the Mobarezeh ba Monkarat court in January 1981, 629 person were
released, 24 were prisoned, 390 were lashed and some were sent to work in special
workshops for criminals.
5. For this interview see (Keyhan 1360, 12 Azar /1981, December 12: 4. “Goft-
e-go ba reeis-e dadgah Mokerat” [Interview with the supreme judge of Mokarat court])
6. As cited in Etelaat 1358,15 Farvardin/ 1979, April 4, Khomeini, Roohollah,
Farman-e tashkil-e daereh mobarezeh ba monkerat [Order to form mobarezeh in
mokerat court]).
7. See Etelaat 1358, Ordibehesht 3/1979, April 23, Qotbzadeh, Sadegh.
Mosahebeh ba Qotbzadeh [Interview with Qotbzadeh]).
CHAPTER 14
1. The great majority of Dogondoutchi residents are Mawri, a local subgroup of
the larger Hausa ethnolinguistic entity.
2. The official name of the reformist Muslim association is the Jama’atu Izalat
al-Bid’a wa Iqamat al-Sunna.
3. Aside from encouraging personal mystical experiences, Sufis approve the use
of amulets and the performance of certain rituals (such as the celebration of the
Prophet’s birthday), and promote, along with the veneration of saintly figures, the
redistributive ethos around which much of everyday life is ordered in Nigérien
communities. Izala followers reject these practices as innovations (bidea) that have no
place in Islam.
4. By focusing on Izala as a counterdiscourse to mainstream Sufism, I do not
mean to say that these are the only two alternatives for Nigériens in search of a
Muslim identity. Nor do I imply that there is a clear opposition between ’yan Izala and
NOTES TO PAGES 227–235 381
thanks to the gift of a boom box or cash for a thatched shelter, they thought this
individual was particularly sensitive to their predicament.
CHAPTER 15
1. There is an expanding body of literature on youth in contemporary Africa
relevant to this discussion (see, for example, Abbink 2005; Argenti 2002; Diouf 2003;
Hansen 2008; Weiss 2005). On the current neoliberal era in Africa, see Ferguson
(2006), Otayek and Soares (2007), and LeBlanc and Soares (2008).
2. On Mali’s student movement in the early to mid 1990s, see Smith (1997).
3. See the statistics from UNICEF (www.unicef.org/infobycountry/
mali_statistics.html#46).
4. Although such popular culture in Mali has not received much scholarly
attention, see the Malian youth magazine Grin-Grin. See also the appeal of rap music
and culture in neighboring Senegal (Niang 2006) and Niger (Masquelier 2007).
5. On Chérif Haïdara, his career, and organization Ançar Dine, see Soares
(2004, 2005, 2006), on which this section draws (cf. Schulz 2006).
6. On similar modernist Islamic organizations in Côte d’Ivoire, see LeBlanc
(2006).
7. However, after September 11, 2001, there have been attempts to identify
presumed Islamists and radicals in Mali, as elsewhere (Soares 2006).
8. On these “traditional” and modern forms of Islamic education in Mali, see
Brenner (2000).
9. Such elements of style may have also come from the presence of small
numbers of the Muslim Baye Fall, a subgroup of the Mourides, a Senegalese Sufi
order. On the Baye Fall, see Roberts and Roberts (2003) and Pezeril (2008). On the
Mourides, see Diouf (2000; cf. Soares 2007a).
10. I have analyzed some of these pamphlets elsewhere (Soares 2007b).
11. The Web site was defunct for several years, but it has been recently revived
and is much more sophisticated. See http://soufibilal.org.
12. This is reminiscent of Ibrahim Niasse and his method of tarbiyya (spiritual
training) in the Tijaniyya (Seesemann and Soares 2009; Seesemann 2010).
CHAPTER 16
1. According to the 2000 census data, out of a total population of 67,803,927,
the median age in Turkish society is 24.83 years. That is, half the population is
younger and half the population is older than this age (see Turkey’s Statistical Year Book
2004, p. 37, www.die.gov.tr/yillik/03-Nü;fus.pdf).
2. The ways in which a group of the young intellectuals who became known as
Muslim intellectuals during the 1980s and particularly during the first half of the
1990s, how they set the stage both for fellow intellectuals and Muslim youth in Turkey,
and the characteristics of their works, as well as their socioeconomic and cultural
backgrounds, were discussed extensively by Michael Meeker (1991, 1994). Meeker
NOTES TO PAGES 260–267 383
focuses only on male Muslim intellectuals and hence omits the importance of their
female counterparts. For a different account, see Ayş e Saktanber (2002b: 261–262).
3. This survey was conducted in 11 provinces of the country in 1998. Its
sample size was set at 2,200 and was distributed among selected provinces
according to population size. These provinces were also clustered on the basis of a
series of economic, social, and cultural variables. Consequently, in addition to the
three largest metropolitan areas—Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir—two provinces were
selected from each of four clusters. These were Denizli and Trabzon, Sivas and
Diyarbakır, Antalya and Edirne, and Gaziantep and Tokat. Among these 2,200
respondents, 48.9% were female, 51.1 male, 75% single, 20.2% married, and 4.5%
engaged. About 51.3% of all the respondents were in the age group of 15 to 20, and
48.7% of them were between the ages of 21 to 27. The survey used face-to-face
interviews of respondents in their home environments, in addition to some focus
group discussions conducted in Istanbul. For further information about how this
survey was carried out and, in particular, the details on the basis of which economic,
social, and cultural variables the clusters were selected, see Konrad Adanauer
Foundation (1999: 2–4).
4. Regarding Karl Mannheim’s arguments on the role of traumatic events in
creating generational consciousness, June Edmunds and Bryan S. Turner (2005) argue
that political generations identify themselves in terms of historical and cultural
traumas, which are created and recreated through a variety of social processes by
members of national, social, or global groups (see also Mannheim 1997).
5. Turkish novelist Elif Safak is a graduate of METU, where she received her
PhD in political science. She signs her name as Shafak in this novel, which was
originally written in English and published in the United States. This novel is
published in Turkish under the name of Araf (Safak 2004).
6. For more on Islamist fashion shows, see Yael Navaro-Yashin (2002). For
more on newly emerging restaurants, coffee houses, tea gardens, and summer resorts
that basically cater to religious people, particularly in Istanbul, see Christopher
Houston (2002), Alev Çınar (2005), and Mücahit Bilici (2000).
7. For example, Nilüfer Göle is one of those who evaluates this novel as an
autobiographical account. Göle also sees this novel as an indication of the prevalence
of multiple modernities through which changing Muslim subjectivities are usually
evaluated as an outcome of a mutually productive relationship between Islam and
modernity, placing the following question into the core of her arguments: How do
Muslims situate themselves vis-à-vis modernity? However, here, as a subtext, she also
assumes that, in epistemological terms, Muslims actually experience an entirely
different life-world than westernized secular people. Nevertheless, within the
framework of this specific novel, Göle traces such a relation of compatibility between
Islam and modernity within the resistant attitude of young Islamists towards the
deindividualizing effects of Islamist political ideology when they come to terms with
love and intimacy, with which the I agree (Göle 2000: 103–108).
8. Izniki’s ancient book of manners was anonymously called the “book of
manners with a lance” among the people of Anatolia, for it is believed that there was a
384 NOTES TO PAGES 267–301
figure of a lance on the cover of the original book. For a contemporary Turkish version
of this book, see Kara (1989).
9. Conversations Across the Bosphorus, is a film by Jeanne C. Finley, in
collaboration with Mine V. Ternar, Gökcen Hava Art, and Pelin Esmer (1995).
10. See, for example, a highly sensible discussion about how Muslim students have
navigated their own and others’ sense of them at a college campus in northern Califor-
nia, dealing with being seen as potential threat and with negative stereotypes about
Islam, such as “Muslim terrorist” or “oppressed woman” (Nasır and Al-Amin 2006).
CHAPTER 17
1. The generation gap includes items such as youth self-identification, lifestyle,
life expectancy, different visions toward history, collective action, familial relationships,
politics, religion, and many others (Ministry of Islamic Guidance 2001, 2003).
2. Information obtained in interviews with Iranian women by author in 2005
through 2006; all translations are by author. See also Miriam Cooke (2001: xi).
3. In June 2007, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s
government declared that this kind of marriage must be strongly encouraged
4. However, it is very surprising that despite the huge advertising of Fatima, none
of the religious interviewees in my research mentioned Fatima as their role model.
5. Camron Michael Amin (2002) similarly argues that Reza Shah’s unveiling
was an attempt to remove the supervision of women from the men in their family and
to transfer that supervision to the men of the state.
CHAPTER 18
1. See The Sun article (June 29, 2006) by Grant Rollings, “The Jihad Rap.”
2. The term BrAsian “refuses the easy decomposition of the British and Asian
dyad into its western and nonwestern constituents. BrAsian is not merely a conflation
of the British and the Asian, it is not a fusion but is a confusion of the possibility of
both terms” (Sayyid 2005: 7).
3. The clear reference here is to the traditional U.S. folk song, “She’ll Be
Coming ’Round the Mountain.” Interestingly, some claim that the “she” in question is
Mother Jones, coming around the mountain to organize the miners.
4. African-American slang for “authentic” blacks.
5. The (standard) account of this phenomenon, exemplary for an analysis that is
as attentive to the political as it is to the cultural dimensions, is DisOrienting Rhythms
(Sharma et al. 1996).
6. See the New York Times article (October 22, 2006 by Alan Cowell, “For
Multiculturalist Britain, Uncomfortable New Clothes”).
7. It should be noted that Aki has made it clear in interviews that he doesn’t
support any kind of terrorism, including state terrorism (Damien 2006).
NOTES TO PAGES 302–306 385
8. The interview, conducted by Taysir Alluni, was broadcast on January 31, 2002.
It can be found online at archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/02/05/
binladen.transcript/ and in Lawrence (2005: 117–118).
9. Mohamed M. Ali et al. (2003), in Population Studies, estimated that between
400,000 and 500,000 Iraqi children younger than the age of five years died from
1991 to 1998, during the United Nations (UN) sanctions regime. A UNICEF survey,
issued in August 1999, estimated half a million deaths of children younger than five
during the same period (UNICEF 1999). The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine
Albright’s response when asked about the UNICEF figures by Leslie Stahl, responded,
“We think the price is worth it.”
10. I quote the translation of bin Laden’s words as provided on
Fun^Da^Mental’s website (www.fun-da-mental.co.uk/), which are substantially the
same as those on cnn.com (see note 7). The translation in Lawrence (2005: 117–118)
reads as follows: “Who said that our children and civilians are not innocents, and
that the shedding of their blood is permissible? Whenever we kill their civilians, the
whole world yells at us from east to west, and America starts putting pressure on its
allies and puppets. Who said that our blood isn’t blood and that their blood is blood?
More than 1,000,000 children died in Iraq, and they are still dying. . . . How is it
that these people are moved when civilians die in America, and not when we are
being killed every day? Every day in Palestine, children are killed. . . . We kill the
kings of disbelief and the kings of the Crusaders and the civilian among the
disbelievers, in response to the amount of our sons they kill: this is correct in both
religion and logic.”
11. See The Times (London) article (August 4, 2006), by Stephen Dalton, “Angry
in the UK.”
12. Bruce Lawrence (2005: xxiii), in his introduction to Messages to the World,
also compares bin Laden to Che. “If captured alive he will doubtless be killed on the
spot, as Che Guevara was forty years ago. . . . His posthumous legend will live, like
that of Guevara, to inspire other such knights, until such time as different, more
humane heroes can attract the idealism of Muslim youth.”
13. Mental’s website does not provide translations of the two songs from All Is
War that are sung in Zulu.
14. According to a study by University of New Hampshire Professor Marc
Herold, 3,800 Afghan civilian died between October 7 and December 7, 2001, during
the course of the U.S.-led occupation (BBC News 2002).
15. Not only did the U.S. and western European powers stand by as these
massacres were taking place, but it now appears that the United States, the UN,
and NATO may have been complicit in permitting Serb forces to occupy
Srebrenica (as well as Gorazde and Zepa), and hence complicit in the massacres,
and that ever since they have been covering up their complicity (Perlman 2008).
16. See Joan Scott’s (2007) very important discussion of these issues in the
French context, in her The Politics of the Veil, especially chapter 5.
386 NOTES TO PAGES 311–322
CHAPTER 19
1. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics),
Voorburg/Heerlen, (www.cbs.nl).
2. Integration Map 2005 (www.cbs.nl, pdf).
3. It is estimated that 40% to 50% of the Dutch Moroccan community speak a
Berber language (Chafik 2004: 129).
4. Halal and haram are Arab Islamic terms referring to things that are
permissible (halal) and forbidden (haram). Halal often refers to meat coming from
animals slaughtered according to Islamic regulations.
5. www.cbs.nl.
6. Henna is a coloring product used in northern Africa but also in African and
Indian cultures to adorn the body, usually the hands and feet.
7. The author translated the interview fragments from Dutch to English,
summer 2004.
8. The movie Scarface, directed by Brian de Palma and written by Oliver Stone
(1983), has inspired more rappers. The song “Kogel vangen voor je mattie” (“Catching
a Bullet for Your Homie”) by the Tuindorp Hustler Click (Tuindorp is a district in
northern Amsterdam) includes several samples of scenes from the movie Scarface.
Other maroc-hop songs and rap songs from other genres feature references to this
movie as well.
9. Dutch Somali politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali used to be a left-wing politican,
but in 2002 she made a controversial shift to right-wing party VVD. Together
with Fortuyn, she dominated much of the political debate on Islam in the
Netherlands from 2002 to 2006. Her views on Islam, and especially Dutch
Muslims, were highly critical. Although she claimed that her political aim was
to emancipate Muslim women in the Netherlands, she was not liked by Dutch
Muslims, who, most of the time, disapproved of the way in which she wanted to
“help” Muslim women. Dutch Muslims were suspicious of her ever since it
became clear that Hirsi Ali had forsworn her religion (i.e., Islam). She was thus
not a Muslim herself anymore. After she had insinuated in an interview with the
Dutch newspaper Trouw that the Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile, describing
him as “a pervert” in January 2003 (Douwes et al. 2005: 150), she lost all her
credibility among Dutch Muslims. Her cooperation with Theo van Gogh in
2004 resulted in the production of a controversial film about abuse of Muslim
women called Submission, which only added to her bad reputation among
Dutch Muslims (Moors 2005: 8–9). This controversial film showed naked
women dressed in see-through burqas with Quranic writings on their bodies.
It was meant to make public how women in Islamic communities are oppressed
and abused, linking Islam and Muslim men with aggressive and inhumane
behavior.
10. The song “Couscous” was released in 2003.
11. Dutch news program NOVA aired reports on the “Hirsi Ali Diss” on June 29,
2004, and July 5, 2004.
12. Interview fragment from Dutch to English translated by the author in July 2004.
NOTES TO PAGES 326–336 387
CHAPTER 20
1. Anthony Giddens (1990: 21) subsumes this process under the term
disembedding, which he defines as “the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local
contexts and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time–space.”
2. This paragraph was originally published in Turkish (English translation:
Pierre Hecker.
3. To the present day, Beyoğlu houses the British, Swedish, French, German,
and Russian consulates as well as Istanbul’s French and German high schools
(Galatasaray Lisesi, Özel Alman Lisesi).
4. Today’s meaning of meyhane can hardly be compared with the meaning of
meyhane in Ottoman times. In present-day Turkey, meyhane has a wider meaning in
the sense of restaurant or bar serving all kinds of alcoholic beverages and food. The
traditional meyhane generally did not serve food.
5. Uğur Kömeçoğlu (2004: 158), in a recent study on Islamic cafés in Istanbul,
also pointed toward the phenomenon of adopting the term café rather than kahvehave
in order give the place a modern touch.
6. The bridge connected the Karaköy Square in the north with the Ragıp
Gümüşpala Caddesi in the south (a main road surrounded by the Egyptian Bazaar,
the Mısır Çarşı, and the New Mosque, the Yeni Cami). The old bridge was replaced
by a new one in 1994; its remains were moved upstream and relocated to an area
between the districts of Balat and Hasköy. Even though the bridge is inoperative
still, it, meanwhile, hosts the annual Istanbul Design Week, which offers an
international platform for all sorts of artistic design (fashion, architectural, graphic,
and so forth).
7. The interview with Seyda Babaoğlu was held in Istanbul November 28, 2003.
Originally conducted in German, I later translated it into English.
8. The interview with Özer Sarısakal was originally conducted in Turkish in
Istanbul on June 14, 2004 (English translation by the author).
9. Personal interview with Zeki Ateş conducted in Istanbul on December 12,
2003 (translated by me from Turkish to English).
10. The term tape trading stands for the nonmonetary exchange of demo tapes
among bands, independent labels, and distributors. Turkish record labels specializing
in metal music, such as Istanbul’s Hammer Müzik, still apply this strategy to distribute
their recordings and get (cheap) access to the outputs of foreign labels. This, however,
happens on a small scale.
11. Laneth was one of Turkey’s first metal fanzines sold in a number of local
shops around Turkey. It started as a do-it-yourself project that required only a small
budget.
12. Personal interview conducted in Istanbul in August 2004.
13. Groinchurn was a South African grind core band from Johannesburg formed
during the early 1990s and later signed by the German independent label Morbid
Records.
14. Personal interview conducted in Istanbul in August 2004.
15. Ibid.
388 NOTES TO PAGES 336–346
16. Taken from a personal interview with Kobi Farhi conducted via e-mail in July
2004.
17. All entries from Orphaned Land’s Web site (www.orphaned-land.co.il).
18. Personal interview with Kobi Farhi conducted via e-mail in July 2004.
19. The interview with Rawad Abdel Massih was conducted in Istanbul on
July 4, 2004.
CHAPTER 21
1. VCDs are widely available in most Southeast Asian countries except for
Japan. They are also popular among Chinese communities living in Australia, Canada,
the United States, and other western countries. In addition to these countries, India
and Pakistan increasingly appreciate VCDs as well (Hu 2004: 206).
2. Karaoke means “empty orchestra” and is nowadays most commonly known
as “commercially produced and marketed equipment, with a microphone mixer,
that provides prompt selection of prerecorded instrumental accompaniment,” but
can also refer to the act of “singing to recorded music for entertainment” (Mitsui,
2001: 31–33).
3. In addition to VCDs, music videos are also broadcasted on MTV Indonesia and
other television channels. It is only in music videos on VCD that the lyrics of the song
are printed on screen, implying that these VCDs are specifically intended for karaoke use.
4. Reports about police actions against the sale of adult magazines and pirated
porn VCDs and DVDs in markets in Jakarta and elsewhere regularly appear in local
and national newspapers. See, for instance, (The Jakarta Post, April 13, 2006, http://
www.thejakartapost.com/news/2006/04/13/protesters-attack-039playboy039-editorial-
office.html. and November 19, 2005, http://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2005/11/19/police-raid-centers-pirated-vcds.html.).
5. This point may be exemplified by looking at the careers of two of Indone-
sia’s most well-known male performers, dangdut singer Rhoma Irama, and
singer–songwriter Iwan Fals, who both have used influences from outside the
country to produce their music styles. During the 1970s, Rhoma Irama created his
style by mixing “Middle Eastern and Indian musical elements . . . with [w]estern
rock, modern electric instruments and stage effects, Islamic morality, and an
exoticized Arabic style of dress.” A decade later Iwan Fals “drew upon [w]estern
folk and country music along with the ethos of the Indonesian ngamen (itinerant
street singer) tradition” in his songs that criticized social injustices (Bodden
2005: 15).
6. See the International Herald Tribune article, (May 14, 2003 by Julia
L. Suryakusuma, “A Singer’s Gyrating Rattles Indonesia.”).
7. For a discussion on the types of images of women in teen magazines, see
Perempuan (2004); and Swastika (2004).
8. Agnes Monica’s second album Whaddup A?!, released in 2005, was an even bigger
hit than her debut and won her several awards in 2006. After gaining popularity in
southeast Asia, she now wants to go international (see The Jakarta Post of January 24, 2008,
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2005/11/19/police-raid-centers-pirated-vcds.html).
NOTES TO PAGES 347–352 389
9. This resembles a preliminary analysis of the relation between image, text, and
sound in pop Indonesia VCDs (Barendregt and Van Zanten 2002: 91).
10. See Frederick (1982) for a detailed account of the rise of Rhoma Irama and
the history of dangdut in Indonesia.
11. Especially, pirated VCDs with registrations of her live performances added to
Inul’s fame and notoriety. However, the VCD described here is an officially produced
VCD aimed at a national audience, showing a registration of a studio performance.
12. Inul used to work as an aerobic teacher herself.
13. See Barendregt (2002) for a discussion of the expression of Minangkabau
identity through popular music.
14. The term triping carries connotations of drug use (mostly Ecstacy) in nightlife
and at parties (Sastramidjaja 2000: ix).
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