Dr. Farid Esack from South Africa is considered one of the most prominent activists and scholars on Islam, teaching, researching and actively participating in the growing transnational movement known as “progressive Islam.” With the sponsorship of the Mead-Swing Lectureship and the support of the Religion Department and Office of Chaplains, Dr. Esack graced the Oberlin community with a two-day trip, packed with class visits, interfaith gatherings and to end it all, a painfully honest lecture on the state of Islam in today’s war driven world.
On April 1 at 7 p.m. Dr. Esack presented his talk on “Re-presenting Muslim Communities: The North American Colonization of Islam” in the West Lecture Hall of the Science Center.
Esack began by critiquing the way in which Islam has been presented in North America solely as a religion of peace, in a mode which reduces and essentializes the religion in totalizing ways.
He remarked, ironically, on President Bush’s statements about Islam at a press conference soon after Sept. 11, and wondered why the president wasn’t a Muslim himself.
Continuing his criticism of essentialisms which efface Islam’s progressive, activist heritage and prophetic models, Esack recalled that when he was arrested at 13 years of age his inquisitor had asked him why he was not more like the Tabliqs of South Africa — pious, devout Muslims, taking no sides because of their belief in God taking care of all problems in life.
He began to question the meaning of this silence or non-participation, realizing that silence is also a way of complying with the oppressive regime of apartheid. The creation of this “peaceful Islam” becomes, he said, a molding of the form of Islam practiced in the United States. “After September 11 Islam [became] something nice and warm like an apple pie…as a religion that fits in without asking ‘into what?’” Esack said.
He questioned whether the war is really about the weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s possession. Esack responded to that notion by quoting the British politician, Robin Cook, who in his resignation, stated that of course Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction — the West sold them to him. But Dr. Esack dismissed the idea of this war being about a war against Islam. He said that it is not so much that the Muslim world feels the direct oppression and subjugation of the Western powers but rather, many Muslims feel that it should be the Islamic states being in that position of power.
A significant part of Esack’s talk addressed the North American Muslim community’s tendency to feel it needs to solve the problems of the entire Muslim world. The internalization of power by the North American Muslims leads them to believe they have a solution to Islamic extremisms and other civil-society flaws in the Islamic world, Esack claimed. He discussed the controversy that soon followed the break-fast gathering during the month of Ramadan, which some of the prominent figures in the American Muslims had with President Bush after the Congress had passed the bill on war against Iraq. The subsequent controversy was not over breaking fast with government officials when war has been waged, but over why some individuals’ names were not mentioned in the publications about the event.
Esack also urged his audience to not forget the atrocities and civil liberty violations occurring not only in the U.S. but throughout the world, where thousands are dying of the AIDS virus and millions live under repressive governments.
Esack drew upon many examples of South Africa and the inclusiveness of the South African constitution of minorities. He said that no one can ever rise by repressing another. “I am not a man by having my foot to a woman’s neck,” Esack said.
He stressed the necessity for minority groups all over the world to be lifted and be provided with power and agency. Esack remarked on how privileged he felt having grown up during the times of the apartheid when he was an active participant in resisting the government and constructing a new South Africa.
After his talk, Esack answered questions on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the meanings of extremism and gender. He ended his speech by stating that what people do not understand is that our problems with each other do not arise out of our differences of religious faiths, but it is the market system that has “stolen our souls sometime during the night.”
“Esack presented an opinion we don’t usually hear,” junior Audriana Lincoln said. “There is a lot of arrogance and egoism in Americans about our needs especially in the case of September 11 when world policy had to accommodate for America’s problems.”
“There were times when I was uncomfortable because what he said was so blatantly true in respect to Muslim society in North America and how they construct other Muslims around the world as well as their relations relative to the wider American society,” sophomore Lina Elbadawi, MSA Co-chair, said.
Elbadawi appreciated the critical stand Esack took on Muslims and the way Islam is used, “making him more credible.” Both Lincoln and Elbadawi called Esack a brave man for having said what he did.
“Especially after September 11, this was an important opportunity for the Oberlin community to recognize that ‘Muslim issues’ are also universal human issues,” Professor of Religion Professor Anna Gade, one of the event’s organizers, said.
“Presenting Islam as a human communication in addition to making an academic ‘translation,’ as a part of a lived conversation alongside an analytical ‘explanation’ is essential for the project of apprehending difference within and among global communities, including of course the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims,” she added.
“To have a speaker of Esack’s distinguished stature at Oberlin, speaking on current conditions and events in a time of war and crisis, is one of the things that the Mead-Swing Lectureship is all about.”