Categorie archief: Divers

[27]

THE GUARDIAN

A WORD ABOUT INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN BRITAIN

Dr Steve Cushion on the thoughtless use of terms like ‘plantation’ by companies

The glorification of the plantation is dog-whistle politics – a nod and a wink to white supremacists the rightwing nationalists, reassuring them that, as far as the powers that be are concerned, black lives do not matter (Plantations kept slaves. They were a place of horror. Why exploit them as a sales brand?, 25 October). This has a long history. Gone with the Wind, for example, portrayed a completely sanitised view of slavery. This is not to suggest that racism is a deliberate conspiracy by a cynical ruling class. Having presided over a system based on the enslavement of Africans in the West Indies for 200 years, they clearly believe their own propaganda and can no longer help themselves.

The thoughtless use of terms like plantation are a reflection of the generalised institutional racism in Britain. Rightwing, pro-business politicians are on the attack with their “war on woke”. The 2021 Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, chaired by Tony Sewell, formalises this approach. When looking for evidence of structural racism in Britain, one has to look no further than the Windrush scandal. It is shocking that one of the principal groups targeted by the Home Office’s hostile environment are the descendants of the enslaved Africans trafficked to the Caribbean with the full support of the British state. They would not even be in the Caribbean were it not for the slave trade organised by British big business. If we can have plantation rum, why not gulag vodka?
Dr Steve Cushion
UCL Institute of the Americas

END OF THE ARTICLE

”The Windrush scandal was a British political scandal which began in 2018 concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases^[1][2][3] wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries, as members of the “Windrush generation“^[4] (so named after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948).^[5]”

^WIKIPEDIA

^{WINDRUSH SCANDAL}

UK EMPLOYEES FACE HIGH LEVEL OF INSTITUTIONAL

RACISM: SURVEY

1 SEPTEMBER 2022

Many from ethnic minority backgrounds quit their jobs due to racial discrimination, finds survey by Trades Union Congress

LONDON, UK

UK employees from ethnic minority backgrounds face high levels of racial discrimination in the workplace, forcing many to quit, a new survey has found.

The survey, conducted by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), found that over 120,000 Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) workers across the UK left their jobs due to racism in their respective workplaces.

“This report lifts the lid on racism in UK workplaces. It shines a light on the enormous scale of structural and institutional discrimination BME workers face,” TUC Secretary General Francis O’Grady said.

“This report must be a wake-up call. Ministers need to change the law so that employers are responsible for protecting their workers and preventing racism at work,” O’Grady added.

According to the TUC, one in four (27%) BME workers experienced racist jokes at work in the last five years. The same number of people were made to feel uncomfortable at work due to people using stereotypes or commenting on their appearance.

One in five (21%) workers said they had racist remarks directed at them or made in their presence and were bullied or harassed at work due to their appearances.

For 38% BME workers, the most common perpetrator of harassment at their workplace was one of their colleagues, while 17% of workers reported it was a direct manager or someone else with direct authority.

The study also revealed that the majority of racist behavior and other discriminatory incidences faced by BME workers went unreported due to the institutional nature of racial harassment.

“It’s disgraceful that in 2022 racism still determines who gets hired, trained, promoted – and who gets demoted and dismissed,” O’Grady said.

“And employers must be clear they have a zero-tolerance policy towards racism – and that they will support all staff who raise concerns about racism or who are subjected to racial abuse,” he added.

As a result of such widespread racist and discriminatory behavior, many BME workers reported that these incidents left a long-lasting impact on their careers.

One in 13 (8%) BME workers left their job as a result of the racism they experienced and more than one in 3 (35%) reported that the most recent incident of racism left them feeling less confident at work.

Some 34% reported that such behavior had left them feeling deeply embarrassed with 31% reporting a negative impact on their mental health.

Following the deeply concerning revelations of the study, the TUC urged the government to work with trade unions and employers to ensure that employers have a duty to take action to prevent racism at work and to improve workers’ rights regardless of race and ethnicity.

END OF THE ARTICLE

NEW REPORT UNCOVERS ”INSTITUTIONAL RACISM” IN

THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

18 OCTOBER 2022

A new report by experts from The University of Manchester and barrister Keir Monteith KC has raised urgent questions about racial attitudes and practices in the justice system in England and Wales.  

Although the judiciary wields enormous power over individuals, its operations are alarmingly underscrutinised, and one area that has remained largely beyond examination is judicial racial bias. The report draws on a survey of 373 legal professionals.  

95% of respondents said that racial bias plays some role in the processes or outcomes of the justice system, and 29% said it played a ‘fundamental role’. A majority of respondents had witnessed one or more judges acting in a racially biased way towards a defendant and in their decision-making.   

Racial discrimination by judges is most frequently directed towards Asian and Black people according to the survey, with people from Black communities – lawyers, witnesses, defendants, etc. – by far the most common targets of judicial discrimination. Young Black male defendants were the subgroup most frequently mentioned as targets of judicial bias.  

The survey did find that some judges are already acting in ‘antiracist’ ways by being conscious of and knowledgeable about racism, and seeking to mitigate it – however, only a minority of respondents had ever seen a judge act in this way.

Race training is neither compulsory nor provided on a regular basis – only 49% of the respondents who have worked as judicial office holders had received race training in the preceding three years.   

The report emerges as serious questions are already being asked about the treatment of ethnic minority people in the justice system. Black barristers are underrepresented and report experiencing racism from judges, magistrates and panel members. On top of this, The Lammy Review and the Race at the Bar report found that sentencing outcomes are often harsher for ethnic minority defendants.  

Overall, the report suggests that the combination of quantitative and qualitative data presented, substantiated by the kind of reports listed above, amounts to evidence of ‘institutional racism’ in the justice system presided over by judges.  

The report is a response to the five-year strategy launched by Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett of Maldon to enhance equality and diversity in the judiciary, and finds that it does not consider the issue of racism or even mention ‘racial bias’. Researchers found a profound disparity between the conclusions of the strategy – that the justice system is basically fair and that progress has been made – when compared to the widespread views and experiences of the legal professionals surveyed.  

In addition, the report is critical of the Equal Treatment Bench Book, the textbook given to all judges on appointment, in terms of its framing of bias and racism, especially its lack of acknowledgement of anti-Black racism in the justice system.   

The evidence in the report rings alarm bells about access to fair trials, hearings and tribunals as well as to equal professional development.   

“Racism in the justice system has to be acknowledged and fought by those at the highest level, but at the moment there is complete and utter silence – and as a consequence, there is no action to combat racial bias,” said Keir Monteith KC. “It is impossible to have diversity and inclusion if the system itself unfairly discriminates. There has to be a hard reboot to protect and revitalize the rule of law and civil rights for all citizens – a good start would be to follow the recommendations in our report.”  

“Judges need to sit up and listen, because it is a myth that Lady Justice is blind to colour,” said Professor Leslie Thomas KC, who wrote the report’s Foreword. “Our judiciary as an institution is just as racist as our police forces, our education system and our health service – this is something that cannot be ignored for any longer.”

“This important report demonstrates that the very low number of Black and minority ethnic judges poses an acute challenge to the credibility and legitimacy of the judiciary,” said Stephanie Needleman from JUSTICE. “It is only by creating a critical mass of diverse judges that we can ensure that our judiciary is reflective of society and begin to combat the racism witnessed by survey respondents.”  

“We welcome, and are grateful to have been consulted on, this hard-hitting report,” said former Judge Claire Gilham from the Judicial Support Network. “My whistleblowing about racism was dismissed as me not understanding judicial culture, having come from the wrong background. There is no internal data keeping for equality complaints, which makes it very difficult for the judiciary to provide any evidence to deny the findings of this report. A severe shake-up of the system is needed.”  

“Even after 25 years as a Trade Union Official, I am shocked at the practices employed in the appointment and promotion of judges,” said Stuart Fegan from GMB. “The Judiciary is funded with public money, and the practices identified would simply not be tolerated anywhere else in the public sector. I am delighted that Labour have committed to review appointment and promotion procedures if they win the next election in order to ensure that judges are reflective of the public they serve.”

END OF THE ARTICLE

REPORT

RACIAL BIAS AND THE BENCH

A RESPONSE TO THE JUDICIAL DIVERSITY AND

INCLUSION STRATEGY (2020-2025)

[28]

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY & CULTURE

TALKING ABOUT RACE

 The world got along without race for the overwhelming majority of its history. The U.S. has never been without it. 

Race is a human-invented, shorthand term used to describe and categorize people into various social groups based on characteristics like skin color, physical features, and genetic heredity. Race, while not a valid biological concept, is a real social construction that gives or denies benefits and privileges. American society developed the notion of race early in its formation to justify its new economic system of capitalism, which depended on the institution of forced labor, especially the enslavement of African peoples. To more accurately understand how race and its counterpart, racism, are woven into the very fabric of American society, we must explore the history of how race, white privilege, and anti-blackness came to be.

THE INVENTION OF RACE
The concept of “race,” as we understand it today, evolved alongside the formation of the United States and was deeply connected with the evolution of two other terms, “white” and “slave.” The words “race,” “white,” and “slave” were all used by Europeans in the 1500s, and they brought these words with them to North America. However, the words did not have the meanings that they have today. Instead, the needs of the developing American society would transform those words’ meanings into new ideas.

The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection. The modern-day use of the term “race” (identifying groups of people by physical traits, appearance, or characteristics) is a human invention. During the 17th century, European Enlightenment philosophers’ based their ideas on the importance of secular reasoning, rationality, and scientific study, as opposed to faith-based religious understandings of the world. Philosophers and naturalists were categorizing the world anew and extending such thinking to the people of the world. These new beliefs, which evolved starting in the late 17th century and flourished through the late 18th century, argued that there were natural laws that governed the world and human beings. Over centuries, the false notion that “white” people were inherently smarter, more capable, and more human than nonwhite people became accepted worldwide. This categorization of people became a justification for European colonization and subsequent enslavement of people from Africa.

Slavery, as a concept has existed for centuries. Enslaved people, “slaves,” were forced to labor for another. We can point to the use of the term slave in the Hebrew Bible, ancient societies such as Greece, Rome, and Egypt, as well as during other eras of time. Within the Mediterranean and European regions, before the 16th century, enslavement was acceptable for persons considered heathens or outside of the Christian-based faiths. In this world, being a slave was not for life or hereditary – meaning the status of a slave did not automatically transfer from parent to child. In many cultures, slaves were still able to earn small wages, gather with others, marry, and potentially buy their freedom. Similarly, peoples of darker skin, such as people from the African continent, were not automatically enslaved or considered slaves.

The word “white” held a different meaning, too, and transformed over time. Before the mid-1600s, there is no evidence that the English referred to themselves as being “white people” This concept did not occur until 1613 when the English society first encountered and contrasted themselves against the East Indians through their colonial pursuits. Even then, there was not a large body of people who considered themselves “white” as we know the term today. From about the 1550s to 1600, “white” was exclusively used to describe elite English women, because the whiteness of skin signaled that they were persons of a high social class who did not go outside to labor. However, the term white did not refer to elite English men because the idea that men did not leave their homes to work could signal that they were lazy, sick, or unproductive. Initially, the racial identity of “white” referred only to Anglo-Saxon people and has changed due to time and geography. As the concept of being white evolved, the number of people considered white would grow as people wanted to push back against the increasing numbers of people of color, due to emancipation and immigration. Activist Paul Kivel says, “Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white.”

European colonists’ use of the word “white” to refer to people who looked like themselves, grew to become entangled with the word “race” and “slave” in the American colonies in the mid-1660s. These elites created “races” of “savage” Indians, “subhuman” Africans, and “white” men. The social inventions succeeded in uniting the white colonists, dispossessing and marginalizing native people, and permanently enslaving most African-descended people for generations. Tragically,  American culture, from the very beginning, developed around the ideas of race and racism.

The racial identity of “white” has evolved throughout history. Initially, it referred only to Anglo-Saxon people. Historically, who belonged to the category of “white” would expand as people wanted to push back against the increasing numbers of people of color due to emancipation and immigration.

The Historical Evolution of Race (and Racism) in Colonial and Early America

Fueled by the Enlightenment ideas of natural rights of man, spurred by the passion for religious freedom, in search of property, and escaping persecution, European colonists came to North America in search of a place to create a new society. The ideals of Enlightenment spread to the North American colonies and formed the basis of their democracy as well as the most brutal kind of servitude – chattel slavery.

In the world before 1500, the notion of hierarchy was a common principle. Every person belonged to a hierarchical structure in some way: children to parents, parishioners to churches, laborers to landowners, etc. As the ideas of the natural rights of man became more prevalent through the 18th century, the concept of equality becomes a standard stream of thought. By categorizing humans by “race,” a new hierarchy was invented based on what many considered science.

Within the first decades of the 1600s, the first Africans were captured and brought to the American colonies as enslaved labor (most colonies had made enslavement legal). At this time in colonial America, enslaved Africans were just one source of labor. The English settlers used European indentured servants and enslaved indigenous people as other forms of coerced labor. These groups of enslaved and forced labor often worked side-by-side and co-mingled socially. The notion of enslavement changed throughout the 1600s. In this early period, enslavement was not an automatic condition, nor did it uniformly apply to all African and African-descended people. Very importantly, being enslaved was not necessarily a permanent lifetime status. The boundaries between groups were more fluid but began to shift over the next few decades to make strict distinctions, which eventually became law.

By the late 1600s, significant shifts began to happen in the colonies. As the survival of European immigrants increased, there were more demands for land and the labor needed to procure wealth. Indentured servitude lost its attractiveness as it became economically less profitable to utilize servants of European descent. White settlers began to turn to slavery as the primary source of forced labor in many of the colonies. African people were seen as more desirable slaves because they brought advanced farming skills, carpentry, and bricklaying skills, as well as metal and leatherworking skills. Characterizations of Africans in the early period of colonial America were mostly positive, and the colonists saw their future as dependent on this source of labor.

The trajectory of Virginia’s development of chattel slavery highlights how the system of chattel slavery and, along with it, anti-blackness (opposed to or hostile toward black people), was codified in colonial America. Labor status was not permanent nor solely connected to race. A significant turning point came in 1662 when Virginia enacted a law of hereditary slavery, which meant the status of the mother determined the status of the child. This law deviated from English common law, which assigned the legal status of children based on their father’s legal status. Thus, children of enslaved women would automatically share the legal status of “slave.” This doctrine, partus sequitur ventrem (see below), laid the foundation for the natural increase of the enslaved in the Americas and legitimized the exploitation of female slaves by white planters or other men. In 1667, the last of the religious conditions that placed limits on servitude was erased by another Virginia law. This new law deemed it legal to keep enslaved people in bondage even if they converted to Christianity. With this decree, the justification for black servitude changed from a religious status to a designation based on race. See more information about the timeline of “Slavery in the Making of America.”

Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 was a short-lived but had a long-reaching effect of deepening the racial divide in the colonial Chesapeake region. Coalitions of poor white people, free and enslaved Africans, rebelled against the rising planter class because they wanted to acquire land reserved for Virginia’s indigenous people. Elite colonists determined that they needed to amass more native lands for their continued expansion, to pacify poor European colonists who sought economic advancement, and to keep a dedicated labor force to do the grueling agricultural work. By the mid-1700s, new laws and societal norms linked Africans to perpetual labor, and the American colonies made formal social distinctions among its people based on appearance, place of origin, and heredity.

The Africans physical distinctiveness marked their newly created subordinate position. To further separate the social and legal connections between lower-class whites and African laborers (enslaved or free), laws were put into place to control the interaction between the two groups. These laws created a hierarchy based on race.

Paradox of Liberty in America’s Consciousness
Colonists’ belief in natural laws produced revolutionary political thought in the last part of the 18th century. New generations of Americans, many born in the colonies, seized upon ideas like that of John Locke’s “Social Contract” which argues that all people naturally had a right to life, liberty and property, and that any created government is legitimate only with the consent of those people being governed. Thomas Jefferson built upon these ideas in the Declaration of Independence by proclaiming that “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” were inalienable, God-given rights to all men.  After the Revolution, the U.S. Constitution strongly encoded the protection of property within its words. It is within these twin founding documents that the paradox of liberty – the human right to freedom and the socially protected rights to property – became the foundation and essence of the American consciousness. The question(s) of who could – and can – claim the unalienable rights has been a question for America through time.

Colonists’ belief in natural laws produced revolutionary political thought in the last part of the 18th century. New generations of Americans, many born in the colonies, seized upon ideas like that of John Locke’s “Social Contract.” It argues that all people naturally had a right to life, liberty, and property and that any created government is legitimate only with the consent of the people it governs. Thomas Jefferson built upon these ideas in the Declaration of Independence by proclaiming that “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” were inalienable, God-given rights to all men. After prevailing in the American Revolution, our founders created the U.S. Constitution, which contains strongly-worded property rights. It is within these twin founding documents that the paradox of liberty – the human right to freedom and the legally protected rights to property – became the foundation and essence of the American consciousness. The question(s) of who could – and can – claim unalienable rights has been an American debate since our inception.

America would come to be defined by the language of freedom and the acceptance of slavery. Along with the revolutionary ideas of liberty and equality, slavery concerns began to surface as black colonists embraced the meaning of freedom, and the British abolished slavery within their lands. The fledgling United States sought to establish itself and had to wrestle with the tension borne from the paradox of liberty. It became necessary to develop new rationales and arguments to defend the institution of slavery. How does one justify holding a human as property? Major political leaders and thinkers of American history promoted theories of difference and degeneracy about nonwhite people that grew in the late-18th century. Physical differences were merged with status differences and coalesced to form a social hierarchy that placed “white” at the top and “black” at the bottom. By the beginning of the 19th century, “white” was an identity that designated a privileged, landholding, (usually male) status. Having “whiteness” meant having clear rights in the society while not being white signified your freedoms, rights, and property were unstable, if not, nonexistent. Ironically, Jefferson and Locke also both made arguments for the idea of inferior “races,” thereby supporting the development of the United States’ culture of racism. Their support of inferior races justified the dispossession of American Indians and the enslavement of Africans in the era of revolution. It was this racial ideology that formed the foundation for the continuation of American chattel slavery and the further entrenchment of anti-blackness.

The successful American Revolution and the new Constitution resulted in fierce debates about the future of slavery and the meaning of freedom. However, the nation did not end slavery nor the uses of racial ideology to separate groups, choosing to maintain the existing hierarchy. The U.S. outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, but the institution of slavery and its connection to African descendants remained. Boosted by the Louisiana Purchase, cotton agriculture (made profitable by the invention of the cotton gin), and seized American Indian lands, a new internal slave trade reinvigorated slavery, justified by 19th-century pseudo-scientific racist ideas.

In the mid-19th century, science and the scientific community served to legitimize society’s racist views. Scientists argued that Africans and their descendants were inferior – either a degenerate type of being or a completely separate type of being altogether, suitable for perpetual service.  Like the European scholars before them, American intellectuals organized humans by category, seeking differences between racial populations. The work of Dr. Samuel Morton is infamous for his measurements of skulls across populations. He concluded that African people had smaller skulls and were therefore not as intelligent as others. Morton’s work was built on by scientists such as Josiah Nott and Louis Agassiz. Both Nott and Agassiz concluded that Africans were a separate species. This information spread into popular thought and culture and served to dehumanize African-descended people further while fueling anti-black sentiment.

By the 1850s, antislavery sentiment grew intense, in part, spurred by white Southerner’s aggressive attempts to protect slavery, maintain national political dominance and to spread the “peculiar institution” to newly acquired American lands. Proslavery spokespeople defended their position by debasing the value of humanity in the people they held as property. They supported much of this crusade through the racist scientific findings of people like Samuel Morton, which was used to argue the inferiority of people of African descent. As the tension between America’s notion of freedom and equality collided with the reality of millions of enslaved people, new layers to the meaning of race were created as the federal government sought to outline precisely what rights black people in the nation could have.

It was in this philosophical atmosphere that the Supreme Court heard one of the landmark cases of U.S. history, the Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott and his wife claimed freedom on the basis that they had resided in a free state and were therefore now free persons. The Supreme Court ruled that Scott could not bring a suit in federal court because Black people were not citizens in the eyes of the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney also ruled that slaves were property based on the Constitution, and therefore owners could not be deprived of their property. Ultimately, Taney declared with the full force of law that to be black in America was to be an “inferior being” with “no rights” which the white man was bound to respect,” and that slavery was for his benefit. Taney used the racist logic of black inferiority that saturated American culture of the time to argue that African descents were of another “unfit” race, and therefore improved by the condition of slavery. The court’s racist decision and affirmation that African descendants were mere property would severely harm the cause of black equality and contribute to anti-black sentiment for generations to come.

The nation fiercely defended slavery under the guise of property rights because the forced labor of black people was extremely profitable to the entire country. America further developed its concept of race in the form of racist theories and beliefs – created to protect the slavery-built economy. These beliefs also resulted in the establishment of widespread anti-black sentiments, which would influence the American consciousness long after slavery ended.

Reconstructing Race in the Nadir
When the Civil War ended slavery, the entire nation shifted its economic reliance to free labor. Still, the damage of anti-blackness and the hierarchy of race continued to shape how people related to one another and how the government would regard and legislate to various “races.” The U.S. came to depend on the exploitation of cheap labor, especially that of those considered nonwhite people, but also that of poor whites, including women and children. White society, particularly in the South, were reluctant to shift their views of black Americans and sought ways to continue exploiting the labor of African descended people while simultaneously remaining privileged. The debt-bonded labor system called sharecropping and hierarchical social order of segregation called Jim Crow would lay the foundation for a deepening racial divide.Expand / Collapse Aside

Keeping the Concept of Race Alive

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, many localities and states enacted laws and social norms that would re-establish the social order where whiteness was supreme. The U.S. legally affirmed the practices of segregation through the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case [see video below]. By law, Americans could lawfully separate people in society and discriminate against black Americans based on race. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision of “separate but equal” legitimized the idea of white supremacy in America as well as the de facto segregation already occurring in the nation outside the South. It resulted in the creation of a multitude of new racist laws and practices whose ramifications are still impacting the country today. American society drew upon centuries of racist ideas to justify this new form of exclusion and exploitation, especially that of scientific racism and Social Darwinism. Newly elaborated racist concepts reinforced the societal belief in supposedly inherent differences between black and white people – helping keep alive the concept of race and racial difference for all people in America.

Backed by the scientific racism of the mid-19th century, a branch of pseudoscience called eugenics contributed to further legitimizing societal belief in the biological superiority of those people considered white and the subjugation of other groups in descending order as skin tones darkened. Eugenics argued that people could be divided up into various races of people according to their genetic descent and were predisposed to be either superior or inferior by nature and in culture. As the 19th century drew to a close, one of the most elaborate displays of this new scientific belief was the Anthropology Exhibition at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. In this very public forum, people were displayed in various arrangements of progress and reinforcing to the general and visiting public the racial hierarchy of the time.

Similar to earlier decades, the category of white expanded or contracted during the early 20th century to include various groups of people such as the Italians and the Eastern European immigrants that were coming to America. Other groups, such as the Chinese, Indigenous people, and black people, would remain outside the world of whiteness. As a result, they would struggle to gain the same privileges afforded to whites, such as voting, education, citizenship, and a share in the nation’s wealth. Acceptance into American culture was closely linked with the assimilation of whiteness, thereby creating an unconscious connection between who is American and whiteness.

END OF THE ARTICLE

[29]

””I was just out with my younger brother and younger sister, and I think, probably pretty young, I was probably a mid-teenager, and we were out at a fast food restaurant and I was just looking after them. There were people sitting nearby, it was the first time I’d experienced it, just saying some very unpleasant things. The ‘P’ word.

“And it stung. I still remember it. It seared in my memory. You can be insulted in many different ways.”

BBC

RISHI SUNAK: THE STAR WARS FAN TURNED POLITICAL FORCE

25 OCTOBER 2022

At just 42, Rishi Sunak is the youngest prime minister in modern times – taking the record held by his old boss David Cameron, who was 43 when appointed.

His rise to the top has been fast. He only became MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire in 2015 and joined the Cabinet in 2019.

“I showed up and people were surprised,” Mr Sunak said about being selected to represent Richmond, with its overwhelming white population. But his “Yorkshire values” of hard work resonated with people and he won them over by showing an interest in what mattered to them, he said. Seven years on and he has made history as the UK’s first British Asian prime minister.

Mr Sunak joined Boris Johnson’s cabinet in 2019 as chief treasury to the secretary working with chancellor Sajid Javid, and his career rocketed from there

A self-confessed “huge Star Wars fan” with a sizeable collection of lightsabers, he tweeted a photo of himself and his “Jedi Master” Mr Javid at a screening of The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. A few months later, the apprentice became the master when he replaced Mr Javid as chancellor, and was plunged into pandemic crisis planning and budgeting.

For quite a few people, Mr Sunak appeared to be a reassuringly steady hand at the tiller as chancellor.

When he pledged to do “whatever it takes” to help people through the pandemic in the spring of 2020 – and unveiled support worth £350bn – his personal poll ratings went through the roof.

But the UK continued to be buffeted by stormy economic weather, and Mr Sunak himself had to deal with the fallout of being fined by police for breaking lockdown rules in Downing Street in June 2020.

In July, he resigned from the cabinet, saying he felt his own approach to the economy was “fundamentally too different” to that of the PM, Boris Johnson. The move was instrumental in ousting Mr Johnson, which some of the former PM’s allies will not have forgotten.

Just 16 weeks later, he has become leader himself.

His appointment as PM came on the day millions celebrated Diwali, and as a practising Hindu he has said one of his proudest career moments was lighting ceremonial diyas (oil lamps) outside 11 Downing Street while chancellor. A traditional Hindu red bracelet, meant for good luck and protection, could be seen on his wrist when he posed on the steps of 10 Downing Street for the first time as UK leader.

Rishi Sunak: The basics

Age: 42

Place of birth: Southampton, Hampshire

Home: London and Yorkshire

Education: Winchester College, Oxford University, Stanford University

Family: Married to businesswoman Akshata Murty with two daughters

Parliamentary constituency:Richmond (Yorkshire)

There is no denying that Mr Sunak’s wealth is a world away from that of most. Together, he and his wife Akshata Murty have an estimated worth of more than £700m – a sum which supersedes the personal wealth of King Charles III.

Critics of Mr Sunak have raised the question of whether the millionaire can grasp the scale of the cost-of-living squeeze facing struggling households.

In April, the finances of Mr Sunak and his family came under intense scrutiny, with the tax affairs of his wife – the daughter of Narayana Murthy, Indian billionaire and co-founder of IT services giant Infosys – placed in the spotlight. Headquartered in Bangalore, Infosys reported revenues of more than $11.8bn (£9bn) in 2019, $12.8bn in 2020, and $13.5bn in 2021. The company’s latest annual report shows Ms Murty owns a 0.9% stake in Infosys.

She announced in April she would start paying UK tax on this income to relieve political pressure on her husband.

Mr Sunak’s appointment as prime minister has made his own wealth and tax affairs a hot topic again. He has been tight-lipped about his personal wealth and maintains that he has never benefited from funds based in tax havens.

It remains to be seen whether he and his family will split their time between Downing Street and the £4.5m five-bedroom townhouse in South Kensington, London where they currently reside.

The Sunaks are understood to own a further three properties: a Grade II-listed manor house in the village of Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, in his Richmond constituency, was bought for £1.5m in 2015. The couple also own a flat in South Kensington and a penthouse apartment with views of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California.

• Rishi Sunak: What we know about his family’s wealth

Mr Sunak won the approval of 202 Tory MPs to replace Liz Truss as prime minister. Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt says his colleagues find him “very personable”, but also someone who is “very clear and certain in what he thinks”.

For example, in the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum – in which he campaigned to Leave – he was called into Downing Street and asked for his support to remain in the EU but he refused.

“He said ‘No, I think Brexit is the right thing to do’ – which is quite a thing for a newly elected MP to say to Downing Street.”

Mr Sunak told the Yorkshire Post he believed leaving the EU would make the UK “freer, fairer and more prosperous”.

He said changing immigration rules was another key reason for his Leave vote: “I believe that appropriate immigration can benefit our country. But we must have control of our borders.”

Before entering politics Mr Sunak was an analyst for the investment bank Goldman Sachs and then worked for two multibillion dollar hedge funds.

His supporters hope his eye for statistics and data will be an asset in making the right economic decisions.

Mr Sunak’s parents came to the UK from east Africa and are both of Indian origin.

He was born in Southampton in 1980, where his father was a GP, and his mother ran her own pharmacy.

“In terms of cultural upbringing, I’d be at the temple at the weekend – I’m a Hindu – but I’d also be at [Southampton Football Club] the Saints game as well on a Saturday – you do everything, you do both.”

In the interview he said he had been fortunate not to have endured a lot of racism growing up, but that there was one incident that had stayed with him.

“I was just out with my younger brother and younger sister, and I think, probably pretty young, I was probably a mid-teenager, and we were out at a fast food restaurant and I was just looking after them. There were people sitting nearby, it was the first time I’d experienced it, just saying some very unpleasant things. The ‘P’ word.

“And it stung. I still remember it. It seared in my memory. You can be insulted in many different ways.”

However, he said he “can’t conceive of that happening today” in the UK.

He attended the exclusive private school Winchester College and worked as a waiter at a Southampton curry house during his summer holidays. He has attracted criticism from Labour for donating more than £100,000 to his former school, to fund bursaries for children who could not afford to attend it.

After finishing school he went on to Oxford to study philosophy, politics and economics, before studying for an MBA at Stanford University in California. There he met his wife, and the couple have two daughters.

During the previous leadership campaign, he often mentioned his daughters in the context of climate change. Answering a question on climate change during a BBC TV debate, Mr Sunak said he took “advice from my two young daughters, who are the experts of this in my household”.

END OF THE ARTICLE

[30]

BUSINESS STANDARD.COM

”DOGS AND INDIANS NOT ALLOWED”

IN THE CLUB: ASSOCIATION LIFE IN COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA
Benjamin B Cohen
Orient BlackSwan
211 pages; Rs 695

One of the abiding mysteries of India’s horrific 200-year colonial encounter with England is the near-total absence of rancour between the peoples of the two countries. It is as if the depredations by the British never happened. The British have forgotten all about it, as they well might; and the Indians have decided to let bygones be bygones. Indeed, there is fairly large body of opinion in India that believes that the colonial experience was actually a good thing for the natives, what with all the mod-cons that the British kindly left behind – railways, ports, army, schools, hospitals, the judiciary, police and administrative apparatus and so on.

I have often sought an explanation for this and one of the best I ever heard came from a newspaper baron who said Indians and the British understand each other perfectly because both love to exclude people from social groups to which they belong. India, he said, had the caste system. The British had their own equivalent of it in England. And in India, well, they had their clubs.

These, as Benjamin Cohen points in this excellent and tidy little study with its fascinating bibliography, were designed to create islands of succour for the expatriates. Social homogeneity was the virtually sole requirement. The government types had their own clubs, and these were at the top of the totem pole. The businessmen, known deprecatingly as boxwallahs, too had their clubs, as did the Anglo-Indians and other persons of lesser social standing. The lines were clearly drawn and everyone was supposed to know his place.

They had, and still have, idiosyncratic rules. Women were not allowed until the late 19th century. Even then, they could only come as guests and not become members. They responded in the first few decades of the 20th century by forming their own clubs where no males were allowed to set foot.

You could not bring your own alcohol to the club. If you did you had to pay a fine before you could drink it. The process of becoming a member was typically designed to exclude the “wrong” types. A member had to nominate you; then another had to second you. Then all the members would vote whether or not to take you in. As in all voting there was politics and personal enmity. The means by which you voted against someone for whatever reason was the black wooden or ivory ball. You dropped it into the urn and your vote remained anonymous. White balls were used for saying yes. As the years went by the rules became more and more cumbersome.

The codes of conduct were strict and often silly. For example, a member was severely castigated and almost expelled because he sat on the bar. Mr Cohen provides a most entertaining account. Another didn’t become a member because he was foolish enough to call for a bearer while in the reading room and then, when he stepped out, whistle in the corridor outside it.

The clubs relied heavily on servants. The term extended from the club secretary to peons, masalchis and markers. There were scores of them in any decent club. They took care of everything that the members might need, including loans. In many of these clubs, although the practice was strictly forbidden, the servants used to lend money to the members. Clearly, when it came to money, the sahibs were not as picky as when it came to receiving reprimands sent by the club secretary or president. The markers were a special breed available to play tennis or billiards with a member who found himself alone on the court or at the table.

The food was and is generally awful, being fake British cooked mostly by Indians who had been taught how to make things like omelettes, cutlets and puddings. Some clubs tried to import chefs but the experiment didn’t work and the attempt was abandoned after a while.

The real problem, however, was warm alcohol. Members liked it to be cool, if not cold. But in the absence of refrigeration, the only way out was to keep the bottles covered in wet cloth covers, known for some reason as “petticoats”. Then in the mid-19th century, an American called Frederic Tudor appeared on the scene. He came to be known as the “Ice King” because he carted ice all the way from the east coast of America to India for sale to clubs and others, like the railways, which used it in tubs to cool the first class. These carriages were running till the mid-70s, minus the ice of course.

By the time the British left, there were over 500 clubs in existence. In most of them, dogs and Indians were not allowed. This practice was not very different from upper caste Indians not allowing Dalits into temples. And just as with the temples, the rule about the dogs could be relaxed but never about the Indians. It was only in the 20th century that this changed.

END OF THE ARTICLE

[31]

THE PRINT

FOR INDIANS REJOICING RISHI SUNAK, HERE’S SOME

CAUTION: ANCESTRY & LOYALTY AREN’T THE SAME

27 OCTOBER 2022

Unlike Barack Obama who made much of being an African-American, Sunak wants to be seen as just another Tory politician.

When it became clear that Rishi Sunak would become Prime Minister of the UK, many Indians felt a sense of vindication — validation, even. That old Winston Churchill quote was repeatedly retweeted, the one about how Indian leaders were “rogues, freebooters, men of low calibre….They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.”

This was deliciously ironic because the Conservatives, Churchill’s old party, had just elected their third leader in six weeks among endless political squabbles and fights for power. And the man they had chosen was of Indian origin, though he was neither a ‘rogue’ nor a ‘man of low calibre’.

Churchill said many other things of a similar nature. He had a visceral hatred of Indians —though he quite liked India itself as long as it remained British property. According to his colleague Leo Amery, he referred to Indians as a “beastly people with a beastly religion.” So the sound we heard as Rishi Sunak, a Hindu, walked into 10, Downing Street was Churchill’s body spinning violently in its grave.

As someone who loathes Churchill’s views on empire, I am delighted to pull out those quotes. But let’s remember that Churchill’s objections to Indians had less to do with our culture and more to do with our race. In common with many champions of the British Empire, he doubted whether non-White people could be trusted to govern themselves. In that respect, he was like Rudyard Kipling, who wrote famously of the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ regarding colonialism as a means of civilising the natives, a “divine burden to reign God’s empire on Earth.”

So, much more than his heritage, it was Sunak’s colour that was the most unusual aspect of his election as prime minister. With the UK in a mess, he was finally going to pick up the Brown man’s burden.

Sunak is proudly British

But, a few qualifiers. Let’s accept, first of all, that Sunak is not Indian. He is proudly British. Even the ‘Indian origin’ thing is a bit of a stretch: His parents are East African Asians. He seems more Indian to us because he is married to Narayan Murthy’s daughter, but let’s not forget that while she has held on to her Indian passport, he has always been British, a national by birth.

Let’s also dispense with the Barack Obama parallels. Obama made much of being an African-American (in his case, literally), talked about racism and often focused on racial issues. Sunak, on the other hand, is eager to be seen as just another Tory politician. He does not seem to think (or at least, admit) that his race matters much.

Many Tory politicians of colour follow a racial agenda that is no different from that of White, Right-wing politicians. As the writer and journalist Sathnam Sanghera wrote perceptively in The Times (London), when Sunak had to campaign in the shires for votes from Conservative party members (many of whom are Right-wing and possibly racist) he used the same rhetoric as the traditional Tory Right—attacking “Left-wing agitators” for trying to “take a bulldozer to our history, our traditions and our fundamental values.” At a time when many in the UK are taking a critical look at the country’s imperialist past, he announced that “vilifying the UK” should be an offence.

Sanghera quotes Sayeeda Warsi, the former chairwoman of the Conservative party who told him in an interview that “it’s almost like ethnic minorities in the Tory party have had to be more Right-wing than the most extreme Right-wing to be accepted.”

Anyone who has followed the statements made by the appalling Suella Braverman, the India-baiting Home Secretary who is partly of East African-Asian heritage, will know what Warsi meant. Braverman referred to her parents as “proud children of the Empire,” defended it and spoke of her “dream” of deporting potential refugees to Rwanda by Christmas. No surprise then that though Braverman was sacked by Liz Truss over a security breach, Sunak quickly reinstated her on his first day in office.

Ancestry does not determine loyalty

But two things need to be said in Sunak’s defence. First, he has never been as craven as Braverman or her predecessor, Home Secretary Priti Patel. And second, why should he let his ethnic origin or colour define his politics? He regards himself as British. Let him act like a British politician. Yes, some of his ancestors were born in India. But then, so were the ancestors of all of Pakistan’s politicians. Ancestry does not determine how pro-Indian you are.

It is understandable for us to feel proud of Brown people who succeed in politics abroad, but we need to recognise that while the Indian diaspora has strong cultural (and sometimes religious) links with India, its members owe loyalty not to the land of their ancestors but to the countries they have chosen to call home.

At some level, we do accept this. We know that people of Indian origin have risen to the top of the political structure in say, Mauritius. But we never doubt that their loyalty is to Mauritius, not India. So it is with the Caribbean. We don’t regard people of Indian origin in say, Guyana or Trinidad as being Indians or expect them to be pro-Indian.

It is only when it comes to some Western countries that we have different expectations. Kamala Harris has cultural links with India because of her mother. But she is entirely American. Why should we expect her to lean towards India? And so it is with Sunak and the current generation of UK politicians. They are British. Cultural and ethnic identity does not make them Indian. And yet, we had people on Twitter hoping that Sunak would return the Kohinoor!

Why do we find it so hard to accept that politicians of Indian origin in the West owe loyalty to the countries they live in and not to India? Perhaps because the rise of Indian-origin politicians in the West is still a relatively new phenomenon. And mostly because we have been so scarred by the Empire, with the abuse hurled at us by the likes of Winston Churchill and the institutionalised racism of the Raj, that we are thrilled by the spectacle of Brits being led by Brown men and women.

And partly, it is because not all people of Indian origin with foreign nationalities who live in the West are ready to fully commit to the countries whose passports they carry. Many of them keep offering opinions on Indian politics, telling Indian nationals who actually live here how India should be run. When it comes to politics, the bright ones—like Sunak—rise in the countries they now live in. The not-so-bright ones merely interfere in the politics of the country they left behind. Those who can succeed in politics, do. Those who can’t, tweet.

So yes, I am pleased that a Brown man will lead the UK. But no, I don’t have any expectations of him from an Indian standpoint. He has chosen his country. And now, he must serve its interests.

END OF THE ARTICLE

MIDDLE EAST EYE

RFISHI SUNAK MIGHT ”LOOK LIKE US”, BUT HE IS

LOYAL TO HIS CLASS

31 OCTOBER 2022

Momentary romanticism over ‘being seen’ will not save us from Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, presided over by a prime minister wealthier than the king

Britain last week welcomed a new prime minister, not elected by the people. Yes, you read that right: a select few from the Conservative Party lent their backing to Rishi Sunak, constituting enough support to replace Liz Truss.

Yet, the general public’s attention was not so much on a new Tory leader who the people did not elect, but on the background of the new prime minister. This is, allegedly, a historic moment being compared to former US President Barack Obama’s win – although he won via the mandate of the people, not a select few. 

The events of the past few days should force us to ask some urgent questions. How is representational politics, based solely on sharing the same heritage as someone, a helpful measure of political consciousness? What does it mean for economically marginalised citizens to have the wealthiest MP as our prime minister? It has been duly pointed out that Sunak is richer than King Charles III, with an estimated fortune of £730m ($845m). 

Indeed, this moment will not necessarily entail any form of tangible economic change to help those in dire need during a massive and widespread cost-of-living crisis. This momentary lapse of asserting that we are in a post-colonial, post-racial world is little more than denial, exposing how racecraft is understood through acquiring higher positions of power. It shifts the focus away from political deceit, deepening inequalities and social breakdown that will take decades to rebuild. 

Sunak, in this sense, represents his class – those at the very top. Class is a variable that stratifies Britain in a multitude of ways; a form of social engineering that none of us can escape. His presence as the country’s leader is what I would call a mythic racial nightmare. 

The merging of economics with race here is an acute way of emphasising how the leader’s aesthetics mark a cosmetic change, while the same fiscal policies are retained, benefiting those in the same economic position as Sunak. Just this year, Sunak gave a speech in Tunbridge Wells where he boasted of diverting public funds from “deprived urban areas” to more affluent constituencies.

Easing white anxiety

Sunak is committed to the Rwanda plan, wherein refugees arriving on the shores of Britain are deported to Rwanda to have their paperwork processed. He has also expressed his desire to widen the definition of extremism, targeting those who “vilify Britain”. 

This is an intriguing point. A day before Sunak accepted his premiership following a meeting with the king, he articulated how he wanted to give back to the country to which he owed so much. He thus not only declared himself the leader of the country, but also asserted that he is not a danger, emphasising his utmost loyalty. Such a public admission exculpates him of being the “Other” and eases white anxiety. 

Sunak as the grateful immigrant who remains deferential to the metropole of empire is the only way to reassure the insecure, affirming the notion that Britain cannot possibly be racist. The making of the servile sahib with access to the head of the table is not an unknown tactic. 

Amid Britain’s colonisation of India, the famous “Minute on Education” speech was delivered by Thomas Macaulay in 1835. He shared his ambitions on how to advance the British empire, noting: “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.”

Expansion of capital

I would propose that things are no different today, albeit without the British Raj. A similar machine is at play: the expansion of capital within the upper echelons of society, with the crumbs littered among those at the bottom, the working class. 

Sunak’s ascension has been hailed as an advance for other South Asians in Britain, despite their immensely different experiences. Unlike the vast majority of South Asians in the UK, Sunak’s personal migration story is often referred to as one of the “twice migrants”. Originally from Gujranwala (in today’s Punjab in Pakistan), his family moved to Kenya before migrating to the UK in the 1960s. 

The belief that most South Asians in Britain, who are working class, will somehow feel elated at seeing someone who “looks like them” in power – that this should be sufficient to reduce their economic anxieties – amounts to a subtraction of race from economics. This is what I call abject politics: a politics incapable of critiquing state actors, because representational politics is weaponised as a distraction. 

The South Asians who had already settled in Britain before the arrival of East African Asians forged politically radical movements that fought vehemently against assimilationism and encouraged pushback against those in power.

A momentary romanticism of “being seen” will not save us from the cost-of-living crisis. Indulging this moment obscures and erases the damage that the Conservative Party has done to the country for 12 years.

Now is the time to build collectively from the ground up. It is time to smash the egregious policies passed by government actors and stop masking the violence of those in power simply because they “look like us”. 

END OF THE ARTICLE

[32]

BUSINESS STANDARD.COM

”DOGS AND INDIANS NOT ALLOWED”

SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE

[33]

[33]

UK GOVERNMENT

RISHI SUNAK’S FIRST SPEECH AS PRIME

MINISTER: 25 OCTOBER 2022

SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 1A

NOTEN 1 T/M 62

NOTEN 1 T/M 8

NOTEN 9 EN 10

NOTEN 11 T/M 15

NOTEN 16 T/M 20

NOTEN 21 T/M 23

NOOT 24

NOTEN 25 EN 26

NOTEN 27 T/M 29

NOTEN 30 T/M 33

NOTEN 34 T/M 36

NOTEN 37 TM 39

NOTEN 40 T/M 42

NOTEN 43 T/M 48

NOTEN 49 T/M 51

NOTEN 52 T/M 55

NOTEN 56 T/M 58

NOTEN 59 T/M 62

[59]

ZIE NOTEN 54 EN 58

[60]

”Wanneer gaat u namens profeet Mohammed, Ottomaans rijk, en latere islamitische landen excuses aanbieden voor slavernij. Dat was en is toegestaan volgens de sharia. Uw hoofddoek is symbool van sharia, dus ook van regels omtrent slavernij’, schrijft Ellian. ”

”Wilders houdt er een soortgelijke mening op na: ‘Het is de hoogste tijd dat u excuses aanbiedt voor de eeuwenlange slavernij van de islam, voor het dragen van uw hoofddoek als symbool van de onderdanigheid van de vrouw, voor de islamitische haat naar joden, christenen en afvalligen. Het is de hoogste tijd dat u ontslag neemt.’

NIEUWRECHTS

WILDERS EIST EXCUSES VAN GL KAMERLID

VOOR ISLAMITISCHE SLAVERNIJ

20 OCTOBER 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 45

[61]

EXTREEM-RECHTSE HETZE TEGEN KAUTHAR BOUCHALLIKTH

EN DE SLAPHEID VAN LINKS

ASTRID ESSED

[62]

HET FASCISTISCHE KARAKTER VAN DE PVV/BRONNEN,

ONDERZOEKEN

ASTRID ESSED

[56]

VOLKSKRANT

OPINIE:

JA, HET CHRISTELIJK GELOOF DRAAGT OOK BIJ AAN DE VERGOEILIJKING

VAN DE SLAVENHANDEL

13 JUNI 2021

De rol die de kerk speelde in het slavernijverleden blijft onderbelicht in het debat om van Ketikoti een nationale feestdag te maken. Berouw was er al wel, in 2013.

Burgemeester Femke Halsema bood onlangs excuses aan voor ‘de actieve betrokkenheid van het Amsterdamse stadsbestuur’ bij het slavernijverleden en een petitie om Ketikoti een nationale feestdag te maken werd al 60 duizend keer ondertekend. We worden ons in Nederland steeds bewuster van de rol die de staat speelde in deze zwarte bladzijde van de vaderlandse geschiedenis. De rol die de kerk speelde, blijft echter relatief onderbelicht. Draagt het christelijk geloof ook verantwoordelijkheid voor ons slavernijverleden?

Het Oude Testament geeft de lezer een hoop geboden, bevelen, bepalingen en leefregels – 613 om precies te zijn. De bekendste daarvan zijn te vinden in de Decaloog, oftewel de Tien Geboden. Deze verbiedt zonden als moord, diefstal, afgoderij, overspel en het afleggen van een valse getuigenis. Echter, een specifieke zonde wordt vreemd genoeg achterwege gelaten: slavernij.

Nergens in de Bijbel wordt slavernij dan ook ondubbelzinnig afgewezen, veroordeeld of verboden. Integendeel. De Heilige Schrift lijkt deze misdaad tegen de mensheid vaak stilzwijgend toe te staan en soms zelfs expliciet te steunen.

Meerdere passages in het Oude én Nieuwe Testament bevestigen deze veronderstelling. Zo stellen de Tien Geboden dat u uw zinnen niet moet zetten op het huis van een ander ‘en evenmin op zijn vrouw, op zijn slaaf, op zijn slavin, zijn rund of zijn ezel…’ Eén bladzijde verder, in Exodus 21,

bepaalt God dat je je slaaf onbestraft mag geselen, zolang de slaaf in kwestie ‘enkele dagen in leven blijft’. Wanneer de Israëlieten de stad van een vijandig volk veroveren, zoals in Numeri of Deuteronomium, moeten alle mannen ter dood worden gebracht, maar de vrouwen, de jonge meisjes die nog nooit met een man hebben geslapen ‘en het vee en alles wat er aan goederen in de stad is mag u buit maken’. In Numeri 31 werden er op die manier 32 duizend jonge meisjes ‘buitgemaakt’.

In Leviticus krijgt Bijbelse slavernij ook nog eens een etnisch gehalte, want ‘als slaven en slavinnen kun je mensen kopen uit de omringende volken, of de vreemdelingen die bij jullie wonen’. Deze slaven werden gezien als eigendom en konden als erfelijk bezit nagelaten worden aan het nageslacht.

En het wat heeft het Nieuwe Testament te zeggen over de (on)rechtvaardigheid van slavernij? Jezus zelf repte nooit een woord over deze gruwel, maar zijn apostel Paulus wel. In zijn brieven aan de Efeziërs, de Kolossenzen en Timoteüs roept Paulus slaven op vooral gehoorzaam te zijn: ‘Slaven, gehoorzaam uw aardse meesters in alles, niet met uiterlijk vertoon om bij de mensen in de gunst te komen, maar oprecht en met ontzag voor de Heer.’ Zelfs het vermogen de slavendrijver met afgunst te dienen, werd ze afgenomen.

Tot veel verbazing kan het dan ook niet leiden dat veel vrome christenen de trans-Atlantische slavenhandel steunden of gedoogden. Neem de 18de-eeuwse jezuïet Raymund Harris. Deze gewijde priester publiceerde in 1788 een traktaat waarin hij de rechtvaardigheid van de slavenhandel beredeneerde vanuit een Bijbels perspectief. Hij maakte hiervoor onder meer gebruik van het voorbeeld van aarts-­vader Abraham, de Wet van Mozes, het Bijbelboek Jozua, de brieven van Paulus en zelfs de Bergrede van Jezus. ‘Hoe meer ik vorder in mijn Bijbelonderzoek’, schreef hij, ‘hoe meer bewijs mij bereikt ten gunste van de slavenhandel.’

Daarom toonde de Nederlandse Raad van Kerken in 2013 – 150 jaar na de afschaffing van de slavernij – berouw voor het in stand houden en legitimeren van de lucratieve slavenhandel. Het spreekt voor zich dat de meeste christenen slavernij vandaag de dag verachten, maar het verleden kun je niet zomaar wegpoetsen.

Draagt de kerk medeverantwoordelijkheid voor het slavernijverleden? Als de Nederlandse staat verantwoordelijk was voor het implementeren van de slavenhandel, dan was de kerk zonder meer verantwoordelijk voor het vergoelijken ervan.

Kaj Brens is religiewetenschapper.

[57]

WIKIPEDIA

AFSHIN ELLIAN

WIKIPEDIA

AFSHIN ELLIAN

[58]

VOLKSKRANT

AFSHIN ELLIAN PRAAT DE EXTREMISTEN NA

30 MAART 2016

Islam Afshin Ellians analyse van islam en terreur is eenzijdig en historisch ongefundeerd.Michiel Van Der Padt en masterstudent religiestudies aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.30 maart 2016, 02:00

Afshin Ellian tracht in het interview met hem een overzichtelijk beeld van de islam te schetsen waar de werkelijke islam gelijk is aan een politiek systeem gekenmerkt door repressieve religieuze wetten. Vervolgens zou deze manier van leven zijn vervalst door westerse, koloniale ideeën over soevereiniteit en individuele rechten. Conclusie: hedendaagse extremisten proberen vandaag de dag met geweld dit westerse systeem van zich af te werpen en daarmee terug te keren naar de ‘echte’ islam van voor de koloniale corrumpering.

De inaccurate historische onderbouwing is nogal bezwaarlijk. Ten eerste onderstreept hij de essentie van islam als een politiek repressief systeem door de profeet Mohammed ervan te beschuldigen dat hij een islamitische staat zou hebben gesticht met gedwongen bekering en een shariawetgeving.

Binnen Mohammeds geringe politieke macht, gedragen door zijn trouwe volgelingen, was hun vrijwillige toetreding tot het geloof essentieel om überhaupt een stem te kunnen hebben als een religieuze buitenstaander. Zijn moslimgemeenschap was rond Mohammeds dood nog verre van wat een islamitische staat kan worden genoemd, een concept dat sowieso onbekend was in de tribale samenleving van het Arabië uit de 8ste-eeuw. Verder was er van een nauwkeurig gedocumenteerde wetgeving en bijbehorende jurisprudentie als de sharia geen sprake.

Altijd al verdeeldheid en onenigheid onder moslims

Ten tweede haalt hij het werk van Ibn Taymiyyah erbij als ‘bron van de islam’. Deze soennitische, hanbalitische rechtsgeleerde uit Syrië leefde in de 13de eeuw en is inderdaad voor bepaalde islamitische interpretaties van de jurisprudentie erg belangrijk geweest. Echter, het feit dat hij gedurende zijn leven meerdere keren gevangen is genomen omdat zijn ideeën door zijn tijdgenoten vaak als te letterlijk en te radicaal werden beschouwd, maakt zijn gedachtegoed alles behalve representatief voor een algemene islam. Dat was toen niet het geval en nu al helemaal niet.

Het probleem met de analyse van Afshin Ellian is dat hij een bepaalde homogeniteit of ‘ware’ islam veronderstelt die pas later door Europese machten is opgeschud. Maar in werkelijkheid is er vanaf de dood van Mohammed altijd al verdeeldheid en onenigheid geweest onder moslims, met name wanneer het ging over de politieke en wettelijke rol van de islam. De enige echte stabiele factor die moslims wereldwijd verbindt, is hun persoonlijke overgave aan de ware God, de erkenning van Mohammed als zijn profeet en de acceptatie van de Koran als de ware openbaring van Gods woord. De rest is interpretatie.

Militaire staat

Daarnaast is het ook een gevaarlijke analyse. Door te spreken van een ‘ware’ islam die in vergetelheid is gebracht door westers kolonialisme verdeel je moslims onder in twee groepen: de ene groep is zich bewust van de verderving van hun geloof en pleegt een bijna nobel verzet, de andere groep blijft in hun onwetendheid bereid om een vals geloof te praktiseren.

Afshin Ellian praat hiermee zowat letterlijk de denkbeelden van de extremisten na. Het is dan opeens niet meer zo verwonderlijk dat hij in het interview openlijk zijn respect uit voor jihadisten die zichzelf durven op te offeren voor hun onbaatzuchtige geloof in de ‘goede zaak’.

Het resultaat is dat hij in zijn kritiek naar de NCTV en de Haagse politiek verwikkeld raakt in een retoriek over de islam die nog het meest overeenkomt met wat hij de ‘giftige sekte’ van het salafisme noemt. Als je op deze toon vervolgens betoogt dat diezelfde mensen zonder een strafbaar feit te hebben begaan een enkelband of meldingsplicht dienen te krijgen, zal de militaire staat waar hij zo voor vreest snel genoeg volgen.

^{Michiel van der Padt is masterstudent religiestudies aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.}

^{BOVENSTAAND ARTIKEL IS GESCHREVEN NAAR}

^{AANLEIDING VAN HET HIERONDER VERMELDE}

^{INTERVIEW MET ELLIAN}

^VOLKSKRANT

^{”WE MOETEN HET SALAFISME BESTRIJDEN,}

^{NU HET NOG KAN”}

^{26 MAART 2016}

^{Rechtsfilosoof Afshin Ellian hekelt de houding van de politiek, veiligheidsdiensten én de moslimgemeenschap in de strijd tegen terreur. ‘Als moslims het willen, kunnen alle terroristen worden aangehouden.’}

De voorspellingen die hij tien jaar geleden over de dreiging van het islamitisch terrorisme deed, ziet Afshin Ellian (Teheran, 1966) steeds meer bewaarheid worden. Hij dacht in Nederland verlost te zijn van dat ‘achterlijke gedoe’, maar ziet zich ook door de aanslagen in Brussel genoodzaakt zich te blijven verdiepen in de radicale islam.

Wat dacht u toen u van de aanslagen in Brussel hoorde?

‘Ik moest denken aan mijn eerste jaren in Nederland. In 1989 kwam ik als uitgenodigde politieke vluchteling in Nederland. Eerder moest ik vluchten voor het regime van Khomeini. Nederland was zo vrij. Met een groep studenten bezocht ik op een dag het Binnenhof; geen controle, niets! We liepen gewoon Kamerleden tegen het lijf, verbazingwekkend. In Iran had je minstens drie checkpoints moeten passeren en als je levend terugkeerde, was je blij. Later zag ik zelfs de minister-president op de fiets: wauw!

‘In die tijd schreef ik veel brieven aan mijn zus die in Iran was achtergebleven. Ik vertelde haar hoe ik vaak om drie uur ’s nachts door de stad fietste; over de nacht en de vrijheid zonder politiecontrole en zonder criminaliteit! Ik schreef haar met tranen in mijn ogen, omdat ik wist dat zij dit niet voor mogelijk zou houden.

‘De aanslagen in Brussel maken me heel verdrietig. Op het Journaal zag ik militaire trucks door de straten rijden, dat deed me denken aan het militaire regime in de laatste dagen van de sjah. Ook de Nederlandse samenleving militariseert. De Tweede Kamer wordt nu beveiligd met automatische geweren en de marechaussee op Schiphol is zwaarbewapend. Frankrijk en België zijn al volledig gemilitariseerd. Mijn verdriet is een dubbel verdriet omdat ik mijn inmiddels overleden zus geen brief meer kan schrijven. ‘Alles is veranderd’, zou ik haar geschreven hebben. ‘Waar we ook naartoe gaan, ze komen achter ons aan en veranderen de wereld’.’

Wie zijn ‘ze’?

‘De islamisten: zij die willen terugkeren naar de zuivere islam. Om hen te begrijpen, moeten we naar de bronnen van de islam. Kijk, dit boek maakt het duidelijk, De politiek van de sharia, geschreven door Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), een grote Syrische geleerde. Hij boog zich na het instorten van het grote islamitische kalifaat over de vraag waarom moslims in korte tijd zoveel verloren hadden. Ibn Taymiyyah was de inspiratiebron voor Khomeini en Al Qaida; Bin Laden voerde hem op als autoriteit en nu is hij de inspiratiebron voor IS.

‘Ibn Taymiyyah wees erop dat volgens Mohammed zelf, Allah alleen aan hem de gave heeft geschonken van overwinning door middel van terreur en dat het alleen Mohammed – en niet de andere profeten – is toegestaan buit te maken.

‘Alle moslims krijgen met de pap-lepel ingegoten dat ze superieur zijn en het voorbeeld van Mohammed moeten volgen. En wat is dat voorbeeld? De profeet dwong mensen tot bekering, voerde de sharia in en stichtte een islamitische staat. Want alleen in een islamitische staat kun je de islamitische wetten toepassen.’

U heeft het nu steeds over de radicale islam. Er zijn ontzettend veel gematigde moslims.

‘Nee, dit ís de islam. Deze leerstellingen gelden voor alle moslims. Als zij die niet allemaal in praktijk brengen, lijden ze aan vergetelheid. Dat is precies het punt. Islamisten geloven dat de Europeanen tijdens het kolonialisme de islam hebben vervalst. Zij hebben met hun Verlichtingsidealen moslims doen geloven dat de islam een individueel geloof is; dat een beetje bidden en aardig zijn voor anderen voldoende is, maar dat de islam verder geen politieke ambities heeft. Islamisten geloven dat die vergetelheid ervoor heeft gezorgd dat zij als moslims worden vernederd en niet meer kunnen functioneren in de wereld, dat ze slaven en knechten zijn van ongelovige westerlingen. Daarom moeten ze volgens de islamisten worden gereïslamiseerd.’

Wat leert dit ons over de huidige terreur? Kunnen we ons niet beter bekommeren om zaken als discriminatie op de arbeidsmarkt die moslimjongeren gevoelig maken voor ronselaars?

‘Door discriminatie word je geen jihadist. Als je dat denkt, is dat niet alleen een kinderachtige, maar ook een gevaarlijke misvatting. Jihadisme is extreem gewelddadig. Een echte jihadist bewandelt die weg voor de beloning die Allah hem geeft, niet omdat je daardoor opeens wel burgemeester van Haarlem kunt worden. Weet u wat in sommige gevallen het moment is waarop iemand radicaliseert? De dood van zijn moeder. De Koran vult de eenzaamheid op die de moeder achterlaat.

‘Uiteenlopende omstandigheden kunnen duwtjes in de richting van de radicale islam zijn, maar ze verklaren niet waarom iemand jihadist wordt. Waarom zijn Marokko en Tunesië, waar je als moslim niet gediscrimineerd wordt, grootleveranciers van jihadisten? De meeste strijders komen nog altijd uit islamitische landen. Jihadisten zijn geen losers en criminelen. De lichtste en kleinste categorie, die de meeste aandacht krijgt van de media, bestaat niet uit islamisten. Dat zijn avonturiers, mafkezen, die al snel huilend terugkeren uit Syrië.

‘Om écht jihadist te worden, is veel meer nodig: een grote mate van innerlijke zuiverheid en overgave aan Allah. Echte jihadisten huilen en bidden de hele dag. Het zijn diep religieuze mensen, zoals ook Khomeini en Bin Laden diep religieus waren. In alles wat ik tegen hen heb, wil ik u wel zeggen: ik heb respect voor ze. Zij waren bereid hun leven te geven voor wat zij dachten dat goed was en hebben zichzelf nooit verrijkt. Als je de waardigheid die de vijand toekomt, niet erkent, ga je de vijand en hoe hij de mensen achter zich krijgt nooit begrijpen. We onderschatten de rol van ideologie en zolang we dat doen kunnen we deze terreur niet bestrijden.’

De Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV) is daar toch al lang mee bezig?

‘De NCTV? (Lacht.) Die heeft in de tien jaar dat hij nu bestaat, volledig gefaald. Kijk naar de cijfers. In 2004, toen Theo van Gogh werd vermoord, hadden we ongeveer 140 geregistreerde radicalen, waarvan dertig à veertig werden betiteld als zeer gevaarlijk. Drie jaar daarna schrijft minister Guusje ter Horst van Binnenlandse Zaken in een Brief aan de Kamer dat er tussen de 20- en 30 duizend mensen in Nederland te beïnvloeden zijn door het salafisme en dat er ongeveer 2.500 potentiële radicalen zijn. In 2004 hadden we één bloeddorstige Mohamed B. en nu, twaalf jaar later, hebben we 240 mensen die in Syrië vechten; 240 Mohamed B.’s die niet hier doden, maar wel die arme Syriërs het leven zuur maken. En kijk naar al die haatpredikers die worden uitgenodigd. Het salafisme is booming business.

‘Intussen gedraagt de NCTV zich als een gesloten club en weert ze alle mensen die de politieke islam kritisch analyseren. Hun eigen experts willen simpelweg niet geloven dat het salafisme gevaarlijk is. Ze zijn een meester in het maken van onzinnige onderscheidingen: ‘We hebben drie typen salafisme: apolitieke salafisten, politieke salafisten en jihadi-salafisten. Het politieke salafisme is onwenselijk. Jihadi-salafisten zijn héél gevaarlijk!’ Ja, dat weet iedere gek inmiddels. Maar dat is allemaal onzin: het salafisme is uiteindelijk altijd politiek én gewelddadig.’

Maar wat zou u doen als u het voor het zeggen had?

‘Het salafisme bestrijden omdat het een giftige sekte is waaruit alle jihadisten voortkomen. Je kunt het salafisme niet strafbaar stellen, omdat je gedachten nu eenmaal niet kunt verbieden. Maar je kunt genoeg maatregelen nemen om het te bestrijden. Zo moet je het privilege van religieuze verenigingen zoals moskeeën, dat ze nooit door de rechterlijke macht kunnen worden ontbonden, uit de wet schrappen. Dan kun je een salafistische vereniging of moskee ontbinden. Verder moet je haatpredikers niet meer toelaten en moet de AIVD salafisten verstoren, zoals ze vroeger deden met extreem-maoïstische groepen: infiltreren, onrust veroorzaken of quasi-groepen opzetten.

‘Radicale salafisten moet je behandelen als voetbalhooligans. Geef ze een meldingsplicht, houd ze in noodgevallen in detentie, doe ze een enkelband om, of geef ze een gebiedsverbod. Over die maatregelen brengt de politie ambtsberichten uit en de rechter kan ze toetsen. Zo breng je die radicale types in de openbaarheid. Je maakt duidelijk dat ze gevaarlijk bezig zijn.

‘Het belangrijkste voordeel is dat je moslimouders een instrument in handen geeft. Een moeder van een jongen die radicaliseert, kan dan zeggen: niet alleen de overheid en Ahmed Aboutaleb, nee iederéén vindt salafisme fout. Je moet jongeren het gevoel geven dat het niet koosjer is als ze een moskee als de salafistische As-Soennah in Den Haag bezoeken. Nu voelt dat legaler dan het roken van een grammetje hasj. Als Asscher het echt wil, verandert dat morgen.’

Maar dat doet hij niet?

‘Asscher houdt altijd stoere verhalen in de media, maar als puntje bij paaltje komt stuurt hij een brief naar de Kamer en zegt hij: we doen niets aan het salafisme. Hij doet een beroep op de vrijheid van meningsuiting en van godsdienst, terwijl hij prioriteit moet geven aan het veiligheidsbelang. Ook voor de moslimgemeenschap. Het beeld over moslims kan alleen kantelen als je die hele salafistische intolerante groep gaat isoleren.

‘Alleen het CDA en Halbe Zijlstra lijken bereid er iets aan te doen. Terwijl je toch zou denken dat de vrijheid van godsdienst meer in het dna van het CDA zit dan in dat van Asscher. Dat laat opnieuw zien dat mensen die geen godsdienst hebben, denken dat alle religies ongeveer hetzelfde zijn. Bij het CDA begrijpen ze beter dat de islam een sterk politieke, radicale component heeft. Eenzelfde gebrek aan inlevingsvermogen zie je bij de topambtenaren. Die denken dat de wereld slechts behoefte aan één ding: geld. Zij kunnen zich niet voorstellen dat een jongere salafistische geschriften leest, de hele nacht huilt en Allah om vergiffenis smeekt omdat hij tot nu toe geen goede moslim is geweest. Zij denken dat je terreur kunt bestrijden met uitkeringen en subsidies.

‘Alleen het plan voor een luchtbrug van Diederik Samsom vond ik helemaal niet dom. Onbegrijpelijk dat iedereen die arme man begon aan te vallen. Mensen die illegaal komen, worden teruggebracht, en je hebt zelf in de hand welke vluchtelingen je opneemt. Natuurlijk moeten we een aantal Syriërs opvangen, maar het uitgangspunt moet zijn: het beperken van de immigratie. Alleen bij een bescheiden en beheersbare immigratie kun je de nieuwkomers goed begeleiden bij hun integratie. Beperking van de immigratie is ook noodzakelijk vanuit het oogpunt van terreurbestrijding. Waar de moslimgemeenschap groeit, groeit ook de kans op jihadisten.’

Met die kritiek schaadt u de hele moslimgemeenschap.

‘Tegen die gemeenschap zeg ik: doe iets aan het jihadisme. Waarom hebben de inwoners van Molenbeek Abdeslam niet uitgeleverd? In heel Europa zijn gewone moslims die jihadisten helpen. Zolang moslims te laf zijn om tegen hen op te treden, gaan ze meer lijden. Natuurlijk nemen zaken als discriminatie dan toe. Maar de moslimgemeenschap moet optreden en kan dat heel goed. Als zij wil, kunnen alle terroristen in de wijken worden aangehouden, want ze kennen elkaar allemaal. Uit lafheid, angst of lichte sympathie doet ze dat niet. Met aanslagen zoals in Brussel wil IS spanningen veroorzaken. Als de moslimgemeenschap jihadisten gaat aanpakken, neemt de kans op interetnische conflicten juist af.

‘Het gevaar bestaat dat we volledig gaan militariseren. Dat moeten we uit alle macht voorkomen. De bestrijding van het salafisme moet mede de inzet zijn van de verkiezingen volgend jaar. Ik denk dat Halbe Zijlstra en ook Sybrand Buma dat gaan doen. Als het salafisme echt groot wordt, is het steeds moeilijker te bestrijden. Dan bestaat het gevaar van gewelddadige conflicten. En daarom moet je ingrijpen nu het nog kan.’

[52]

”In his lifetime the Prophet introduced the following rules about slavery:

• Stated that freeing slaves was the act that God found most acceptable
  • Zakat (charity – the third Pillar of Islam) was often used by the state to free slaves
• Stated that freeing a slave was the appropriate way to gain forgiveness for certain wrongs
• Ordered that those who committed certain wrongs should be penalised by having to free their slaves
• Stated that slaves should be allowed to buy their freedom, and if necessary should be given the opportunity to earn money, or be lent money by the state, in order to do so
• Allowed slaves to be freed in certain circumstances
• Stated that slaves’ contracts should be interpreted in favour of the slaves
• Stated that the duty of kindness towards slaves was the same of that towards family, neighbours and others
• Stated that when a slave owner had a child with a female slave, the child should be freed and could inherit from their father like any other child (as in the case of Ibrahim)

There are a number of hadith that show that the Prophet treated slaves well and expected others to do the same…

He will not enter Paradise who behaveth ill to his slaves. The Companions said, ‘O Apostle of God! have you not told us, that there will be a great many slaves and orphans amongst your disciples?’ He said, ‘Yes; then be kind to them as to your own children, and give them to eat what you eat yourselves. The slaves that say their prayers are your brothers.

Be kind to slaves as to your own children…and those that say their prayers are your brethren.

They (slaves or servants) are your brothers, and Allah has put them under your command. So the one under whose hand Allah has put his brother, should feed him of what he eats, and give him dresses of what he wears, and should not ask him to do a thing beyond his capacity. And if at all he asks him to do a hard task, he should help him therein.’

‘There are three categories of people against whom I shall myself be a plaintiff on the Day of Judgement. Of these three, one is he who enslaves a free man, then sells him and eats this money’.

al-Bukhari and Ibn Majjah

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari: “The Prophet said, ‘Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom).'”

Bukhari

BBC

SLAVERY IN ISLAM

[DERDE ARTIKEL]

MOHAMMAD AND SLAVERY

Muhammad and slavery

Muhammad and slavery

The Prophet Muhammad did not try to abolish slavery, and bought, sold, captured, and owned slaves himself. But he insisted that slave owners treat their slaves well and stressed the virtue of freeing slaves.

There are two different ways of interpreting this:

• some modern writers believe that Muhammad intended his teachings to lead to the gradual end of slavery by limiting opportunities to acquire new slaves and allowing existing slaves to become free. This idea doesn’t appear in early writings.
• others writers argue that by regulating slavery the Prophet gave his authority to its continued existence, and that by having slaves himself he showed his approval

Muhammad treated slaves as human beings and clearly held some in the highest esteem.

For example, he personally ensured the freedom of Bilal, an African slave who had converted to Islam. Bilal was chosen as the first muezzin of Islam because of his beautiful voice. A muezzin is the person who calls the community to the daily prayers, and is a position of great prominence and responsibility.

Zayd was a young boy who had grown up in the household of the Prophet as a slave, and remained with the household, almost as an adopted son, even after he was freed. He was amongst the first four people to adopt Islam. Indeed when Zayd’s father (a wealthy nobleman) tracked his son down and offered to buy his freedom from Muhammad, Muhammad told Zayd that he was free to go with his father with no money changing hands, and to his father’s astonishment Zayd chose to stay with Muhammad.

The Prophet also married a Coptic Christian slave girl.

In his lifetime the Prophet introduced the following rules about slavery:

• Stated that freeing slaves was the act that God found most acceptable
  • Zakat (charity – the third Pillar of Islam) was often used by the state to free slaves
• Stated that freeing a slave was the appropriate way to gain forgiveness for certain wrongs
• Ordered that those who committed certain wrongs should be penalised by having to free their slaves
• Stated that slaves should be allowed to buy their freedom, and if necessary should be given the opportunity to earn money, or be lent money by the state, in order to do so
• Allowed slaves to be freed in certain circumstances
• Stated that slaves’ contracts should be interpreted in favour of the slaves
• Stated that the duty of kindness towards slaves was the same of that towards family, neighbours and others
• Stated that when a slave owner had a child with a female slave, the child should be freed and could inherit from their father like any other child (as in the case of Ibrahim)

There are a number of hadith that show that the Prophet treated slaves well and expected others to do the same…

He will not enter Paradise who behaveth ill to his slaves. The Companions said, ‘O Apostle of God! have you not told us, that there will be a great many slaves and orphans amongst your disciples?’ He said, ‘Yes; then be kind to them as to your own children, and give them to eat what you eat yourselves. The slaves that say their prayers are your brothers.

Be kind to slaves as to your own children…and those that say their prayers are your brethren.

They (slaves or servants) are your brothers, and Allah has put them under your command. So the one under whose hand Allah has put his brother, should feed him of what he eats, and give him dresses of what he wears, and should not ask him to do a thing beyond his capacity. And if at all he asks him to do a hard task, he should help him therein.’

‘There are three categories of people against whom I shall myself be a plaintiff on the Day of Judgement. Of these three, one is he who enslaves a free man, then sells him and eats this money’.

al-Bukhari and Ibn Majjah

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari: “The Prophet said, ‘Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom).'”

Bukhari

[53]

”’Wanneer gaat u namens profeet Mohammed, Ottomaans rijk, en latere islamitische landen excuses aanbieden voor slavernij. Dat was en is toegestaan volgens de sharia. Uw hoofddoek is symbool van sharia, dus ook van regels omtrent slavernij’, schrijft Ellian. ”

NIEUWRECHTS

WILDERS EIST EXCUSES VAN GL KAMERLID VOOR

ISLAMITISCHE SLAVERNIJ

20 OCTOBER 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 45

[54]

VOLKSKRANT

BESTE AFSHIN, HOE KOMT HET TOCH, DAT JIJ ALTIJD

ZO FEL BENT OVER MOSLIMS?

1 NOVEMBER 2012

De op 18-jarige leeftijd uit Iran gevluchte jurist Sander Terphuis verwondert zich over de felheid waarmee zijn eveneens gevluchte landgenoot Afshin Ellian spreekt en schrijft over de islam. ‘Hoe komt dat toch?’

Beste Afshin,

Jij en ik zijn allebei gevlucht uit Iran. Wij wilden niet leven in een land dat wordt beheerst door ayatollahs. Familie en vrienden lieten we achter, omdat ons verlangen naar vrijheid heel sterk was. Jij en ik weten wat de prijs van de vrijheid is.

Wij hebben allebei in het vrije Westen rechten gestudeerd. Op één punt verschillen we van elkaar en dat betreft het denken over de islam en moslims. Ik ben geen moslim. Wel geloof ik heilig in godsdienstvrijheid.

Er zijn in de wereld ruim een miljard moslims. Velen van hen gaan dagelijks naar hun werk, doen hun boodschappen en leiden een normaal leven, net als jij en ik. Mijn moeder kuste iedere avond voor het slapen gaan de Koran. Zij liet haar kinderen vrij zich te ontwikkelen en verafschuwde geweld. Van dit soort moslims zijn er heel veel in Iran en andere islamitische landen, én in Nederland. Dat weet jij ook.

Grote bedreiging voor de wereldgemeenschap vormen de extremisten, ongeacht hun geloof. Waar in de islam is een rechtvaardiging te vinden voor de moordaanslag van de Taliban op het Pakistaanse meisje Malala?

In Nederland leerden wij dat je niet iedereen over één kam mag scheren. In jouw kritiek op de islam en moslims mis ik echter vaak de nuance. Ook in je column in Elsevier van deze week suggereer je weer dat in feite alle moslims haat koesteren jegens het Westen. Je schrijft: ‘Het Westen moet minder gevoelig worden voor de symbolen van de islam en de vrijheid verdedigen. (…) Objectieve islamitische gevoeligheden bestaan niet. Wat wel bestaat is haat. Veel haat tegen de westerse cultuur, de cultuur van de vrijheid.’

Je kwetst met je generalisaties vele moslims die in Nederland de schouders eronder willen zetten. En je reikt mensen als Geert Wilders een stok aan om mee te slaan. Hoe komt het toch dat jij altijd zo fel bent over moslims?

_{Sander Terphuis is staatsrechtjurist en actief binnen de PvdA. Hij vluchtte in 1990 uit Iran en nam na zijn naturalisatie in 1995 een Nederlandse naam aan. Twitter: @Terphuis}

GROEN LINKS

WIJ HEBBEN OOK VERSTAND VAN DE ISLAM!

6 SEPTEMBER 2006

In het debat over de islam worden vluchtelingen als Afshin Ellian omarmd als kenner van deze religie. Maar vervolging leidt niet automatisch tot het veroordelen van de héle islam.

De Nederlands-Iraanse rechtsgeleerde Afshin Ellian roept regelmatig op door te gaan met het polemiseren van het debat over de islam. Hij bevindt zich daarbij in het gezelschap van andere liefhebbers van de Verlichting, die de islam onverenigbaar vinden met de Nederlandse beschaving.
Voor sommigen kan het niet hard genoeg. Wilders wil geen moslim meer het land inlaten, Nawijn vat het harde beleid van dit kabinet zelfs samen als ‘eigen volk laatst’. Moslimbashing is in Nederland in korte tijd een populair gezelschapsspel geworden, maar voor de moslims in de polder is dat al lang geen spel meer.

De Amerikaanse Midden-Oosten-des-kundige Graham Fuller ziet de politieke islam als een zeer breed pallet. Je kunt de islam niet op één hoop gooien en tot de vijand van het Westen verklaren. Hij rekent Iran, Saoedi-Arabië én de huidige regering in Turkije tot de politieke islam. De dramatische situatie in Iran is dan ook niet per se gelijk aan dé politieke islam, zoals Ellian steeds beweert. Het is evenmin mogelijk om alle misstanden in de islamitische wereld (van terrorisme tot vrouwenonderdrukking) terug te brengen tot de essentie van de Koran.

Olivier Roy, één van de belangrijkste kenners van de hedendaagse ontwikkelingen binnen de islam, zegt:

,,Het enige wat telt, is wat moslims zeggen dat er in de Koran staat; en bij gebrek aan een gecentraliseerde kerk blijkt uit de verscheidenheid van hun antwoorden hoe volkomen zinloos het is een eenduidige waarheid te zoeken.” De liberale strijders tegen de islam geven met al hun generalisaties blijk van weinig kennis van de belevingswereld van moslimimmigranten in ons land. Laat staan dat zij iets snappen van de drijfveren en mechanismen die een deel van deze moslims verleiden tot radicalisme.

Zulke opinies kan men beter niet te gemakkelijk volgen. Ook al heb je geleden onder een fundamentalistisch islamitisch regime, je hebt de waarheid over de politieke islam niet in pacht. Toch nemen veel Nederlandse intellectuelen en politici de opvatting van deze ‘ervaringsdeskundigen’ als leidraad. Die sympathie is nogal selectief en gestoeld op opportunisme en populisme. Zij zeggen namelijk wat een deel van Nederland graag wil horen. Immers, we leven in een land waar de islamofobie twee keer zo hoog is als bijvoorbeeld in Spanje. Terwijl het islamitische terrorisme daar veel meer slachtoffers heeft gemaakt.

Hoe selectief de bewondering voor bijvoorbeeld Afshin Ellian is, blijkt wanneer je bedenkt dat er ruim 25 000 Iraniërs in Nederland leven. De meerderheid is net als hij gevlucht voor de Iraanse mollahs. Velen van hen zijn hoogopgeleid en succesvol geintegreerd in dit land. Ze vertonen dus veel overeenkomsten met Ellian.

Je zou denken dat er veel meer Iraanse Nederlanders rondlopen met soortgelijke radicale tirades tegen de islam. Dat is echter niet zo. Andere Iraanse Nederlanders hebben geleerd van de Nederlandse tolerantie en van hun ervaringen met de islamitische tirannie in Iran. Die wordt alleen maar sterker wanneer de voedingsbodem ervoor niet serieus wordt genomen. Een arrogante seculiere houding ten aanzien van religie heeft de fundamentalisten in Iran vrij baan gegeven om gefrustreerde jongeren te mobiliseren. Wie religie belachelijk en achterlijk noemt, draagt bij aan de polarisatie waar extremisten garen bij spinnen.

Het is goed mogelijk om geloof en emancipatie te combineren. Ook dat is in het hedendaagse Iran te zien. Zonder die nuance kan de dynamiek in de islamitische wereld niet begrepen worden.

Er is ook niks democratisch aan het uit willen bannen van verschillen.

Niet iedereen hoeft seculier en gek op de Verlichting te zijn. Democratie is meer dan je stem uitbrengen: democratie gaat om een cultuur die diversiteit insluit. Polariserend zwart-wit denken is daarom weinig democratisch.

In Nederland staan moslimjongeren voor een dilemma. Kiezen we voor de Nederlandse samenleving waar we als ‘achterlijk’ en ‘gevaarlijk’ worden afgeschilderd? Of kiezen we voor een terugkeer naar onze eigen achtergrond? Het afgeven op de islam van de laatste tijd heeft deze jongeren ontmoedigd hun best te doen deel uit te maken van deze samenleving. Hier ligt een belangrijke voedingsbodem voor de mobilisatie door extreme groepen.

Een ander belangrijk onderdeel van die voedingsbodem zit in het buitenland: de onrechtvaardige situatie in het Midden-Oosten, Tsjetsjenië en de rampzalige oorlog in Irak. De voorstanders van de harde confrontatie met de islam versterken deze voedingsbodem. In dat opzicht staan wij pal tegenover hen. Juist omdat wij het extremisme serieus nemen en uit willen bannen.

We moeten af van de simpele karikaturen van de islam en van moslims. De islam en de islamitische wereld zijn divers en volop in beweging. Daarbij horen helaas ook zeer zorgelijke en explosieve ontwikkelingen. Die moeten we niet alleen nauwkeurig in de gaten houden, we moeten ook passend handelen.

Ook in Nederland. Met ongeveer één miljoen moslimburgers is de islam een interne aangelegenheid geworden. We komen daar niet verder mee als we allemaal blijven mopperen, generaliseren en ons onbegrepen voelen. We moeten verscheidenheid de ruimte durven geven en elke vorm van extremisme en intolerantie bestrijden. Dat is de enige manier om verdere escalatie en radicalisering te voorkomen.
 
Farah Karimi, Halleh Ghorashi en Shervin Nekuee

VOLKSKRANT

AFSHIN ELLIAN PRAAT DE EXTREMISTEN NA

30 MAART 2016

Islam Afshin Ellians analyse van islam en terreur is eenzijdig en historisch ongefundeerd.Michiel Van Der Padt en masterstudent religiestudies aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.30 maart 2016, 02:00

Afshin Ellian tracht in het interview met hem een overzichtelijk beeld van de islam te schetsen waar de werkelijke islam gelijk is aan een politiek systeem gekenmerkt door repressieve religieuze wetten. Vervolgens zou deze manier van leven zijn vervalst door westerse, koloniale ideeën over soevereiniteit en individuele rechten. Conclusie: hedendaagse extremisten proberen vandaag de dag met geweld dit westerse systeem van zich af te werpen en daarmee terug te keren naar de ‘echte’ islam van voor de koloniale corrumpering.

De inaccurate historische onderbouwing is nogal bezwaarlijk. Ten eerste onderstreept hij de essentie van islam als een politiek repressief systeem door de profeet Mohammed ervan te beschuldigen dat hij een islamitische staat zou hebben gesticht met gedwongen bekering en een shariawetgeving.

Binnen Mohammeds geringe politieke macht, gedragen door zijn trouwe volgelingen, was hun vrijwillige toetreding tot het geloof essentieel om überhaupt een stem te kunnen hebben als een religieuze buitenstaander. Zijn moslimgemeenschap was rond Mohammeds dood nog verre van wat een islamitische staat kan worden genoemd, een concept dat sowieso onbekend was in de tribale samenleving van het Arabië uit de 8ste-eeuw. Verder was er van een nauwkeurig gedocumenteerde wetgeving en bijbehorende jurisprudentie als de sharia geen sprake.

Altijd al verdeeldheid en onenigheid onder moslims

Ten tweede haalt hij het werk van Ibn Taymiyyah erbij als ‘bron van de islam’. Deze soennitische, hanbalitische rechtsgeleerde uit Syrië leefde in de 13de eeuw en is inderdaad voor bepaalde islamitische interpretaties van de jurisprudentie erg belangrijk geweest. Echter, het feit dat hij gedurende zijn leven meerdere keren gevangen is genomen omdat zijn ideeën door zijn tijdgenoten vaak als te letterlijk en te radicaal werden beschouwd, maakt zijn gedachtegoed alles behalve representatief voor een algemene islam. Dat was toen niet het geval en nu al helemaal niet.

Het probleem met de analyse van Afshin Ellian is dat hij een bepaalde homogeniteit of ‘ware’ islam veronderstelt die pas later door Europese machten is opgeschud. Maar in werkelijkheid is er vanaf de dood van Mohammed altijd al verdeeldheid en onenigheid geweest onder moslims, met name wanneer het ging over de politieke en wettelijke rol van de islam. De enige echte stabiele factor die moslims wereldwijd verbindt, is hun persoonlijke overgave aan de ware God, de erkenning van Mohammed als zijn profeet en de acceptatie van de Koran als de ware openbaring van Gods woord. De rest is interpretatie.

Militaire staat

Daarnaast is het ook een gevaarlijke analyse. Door te spreken van een ‘ware’ islam die in vergetelheid is gebracht door westers kolonialisme verdeel je moslims onder in twee groepen: de ene groep is zich bewust van de verderving van hun geloof en pleegt een bijna nobel verzet, de andere groep blijft in hun onwetendheid bereid om een vals geloof te praktiseren.

Afshin Ellian praat hiermee zowat letterlijk de denkbeelden van de extremisten na. Het is dan opeens niet meer zo verwonderlijk dat hij in het interview openlijk zijn respect uit voor jihadisten die zichzelf durven op te offeren voor hun onbaatzuchtige geloof in de ‘goede zaak’.

Het resultaat is dat hij in zijn kritiek naar de NCTV en de Haagse politiek verwikkeld raakt in een retoriek over de islam die nog het meest overeenkomt met wat hij de ‘giftige sekte’ van het salafisme noemt. Als je op deze toon vervolgens betoogt dat diezelfde mensen zonder een strafbaar feit te hebben begaan een enkelband of meldingsplicht dienen te krijgen, zal de militaire staat waar hij zo voor vreest snel genoeg volgen.

^{Michiel van der Padt is masterstudent religiestudies aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.}

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^BBC

^{SLAVERY IN ISLAM}

^{[TWEEDE ARTIKEL]}

^{SLAVERY AND ISLAMIC LAW}

Slavery and Islamic law

Law and slavery

Islamic law and custom provided no basis for the abolition of slavery or even for the curtailment of the slave trade.

Bernard Lewis, The Shaping of the Modern Middle East, 1994

Although the vast majority of contemporary Muslims abhor slavery, it remains part of their religious law.

‘Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Shari’a and Basic Human Rights Concerns, in Liberal Islam, ed Charles Kurzman, 1998

Context

Islamic sharia law accepted (and accepts) slavery, as did other legal systems of ancient times such as Roman law, Hebrew law, Byzantine Christian law, African customary law and Hindu law.

The world was very different in those days, and practices that seem profoundly unethical to modern minds were common and accepted.

During the formative stages of shari’a (and for the next millennium at least) there was no conception of universal human rights anywhere in the world. Slavery was an established and lawful institution in many parts of the world throughout this period…

‘Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Shari’a and Basic Human Rights Concerns, in Liberal Islam, ed Charles Kurzman, 1998

Slavery was too fundamental to the structure of Arabian society in the 7th century to be abolished easily. Doing so would have estranged many of the tribes that Muhammad sought to bring together, and severely disrupted the working of society.

Prohibiting slavery in the context of seventh-century Arabia apparently would have been as useful as prohibiting poverty; it would have reflected a noble ideal but would have been unworkable on an immediate basis without establishing an entirely new socioeconomic system.

Jacob Neusner, Tamara Sonn, Comparing Religions through Law: Judaism and Islam, 1999

But this was a problem, since Islam placed a high value on human dignity and freedom.

The fact that slavery is a major concern in Islamic law no doubt stems from the prevalence of slavery at the time when Islam was instituted combined with the fact that the Qur’an clearly presents universal freedom and human dignity as its ideal society. Its recommendation that slaves be freed is on the same plane as its recommendation that the poor be clothed and the hungry be fed.

Jacob Neusner, Tamara Sonn, Comparing Religions through Law: Judaism and Islam, 1999

So the early Muslims restricted and regulated slavery to remove some of its cruelties, but accepted that it was legal.

… The most that shari’a could do, and did in fact do, in that historical context was to modify and lighten the harsh consequences of slavery and discrimination on grounds of religion or gender…

Shari’a recognized slavery as an institution but sought to restrict the sources of acquisition of slaves, to improve their condition, and to encourage their emancipation through a variety of religious and civil methods.

Nevertheless, slavery is lawful under shari’a to the present day.

‘Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Shari’a and Basic Human Rights Concerns, in Liberal Islam, ed Charles Kurzman, 1998

Is slavery still legal in Islam?

The answer is that slavery is legal under Islamic law but only in theory. Slavery is illegal under the state law of all Muslim countries.

Theoretically Islamic law lays down that if a person was captured in a lawful jihad or was the descendent of an unbroken chain of people who had been lawfully enslaved, then it might be legal to enslave them.

Nonetheless, should the legal condition for the enslavement of anyone be proven (because he had been taken prisoner fighting against Islam with a view to its extirpation and persisted in invincible ignorance in his sacrilegious and infidel convictions, or because there did exist legal proof that all his ancestors without exception had been slaves descended from a person taken prisoner conducting a warfare of such invincible ignorance) Islam would be bound to recognize such slavery as legal, even though recommending the freeing of the person and if possible his conversion, in this modern age.

Tabandeh, Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, quoted in ‘Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Shari’a and Basic Human Rights Concerns, in Liberal Islam, ed Charles Kurzman, 1998

In practice, it seems virtually impossible that there will ever again be a jihad that is lawfully declared according to the strict letter of the law, and there are no living descendants of lawful slaves, which means that legal enslavement is unthinkable.

The law on slavery

Islamic law recognises slavery as an institution within society, and attempts to regulate and restrict it in various ways.

Different Islamic legal schools differ in their interpretation of Islamic law on slavery. Local customs in Muslim lands also affected the way slaves were treated.

In the merchant cities of South-East Asia the sharia helped forge a legal distinction between slave and non-slave unknown in the rural hinterland.

More frequently, however, the application of the sharia outside the Middle East was tempered by local customs. This allowed Muslims in regions as distant as Somalia, India and Indonesia to argue for the maintenance of pre-Islamic and other local structures of slavery even if these ran counter to the prescriptions of the sharia.

Gwyn Campbell; Frank Cass, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 2004

Islamic law clearly recognises that slaves are human beings, but it frequently treats slaves as if they are property, laying down regulations covering the buying and selling of slaves.

It encourages the freeing of slaves, which has the good effect of diminishing the slave population of a culture and, paradoxically, the bad effect of encouraging those whose livelihood depends on slave labour to find new ways of acquiring slaves.

Who can be enslaved

Under Islamic law people can only be legally enslaved in two circumstances:

• as the result of being defeated in a war that was legal according to sharia
• if they are born as the child of two slave parents

Other legal systems of the time allowed people to be enslaved in a far wider range of circumstances.

The sharia limits were often either ignored or evaded, and many instances of slave trading by Muslims were in fact illegal, but tolerated.

The following groups of people cannot be made slaves:

• Free Muslims, but note that:
  • Slaves who convert to Islam are not automatically freed
  • Children born to legally enslaved Muslims are also slaves
• Dhimmis

Slave rights

Islamic law gives slaves certain rights:

• Slaves must not be mistreated or overworked, but should be treated well
• Slaves must be properly maintained
• Slaves may take legal action for a breach of these rules, and may be freed as a result
• Slaves may own property
• Slaves may own slaves
• Slaves can get married if their owner consents
• Slaves may undertake business on the owner’s behalf
• Slaves guilty of crimes can only be given half the punishment that would be given to a non-slave (although some schools of Islamic law do allow the execution of a slave who commits murder)
• A female slave cannot be separated from her child while it is under 7 years old
• Female slaves cannot be forced into prostitution

Slave rights to freedom

Islamic law allows slaves to get their freedom under certain circumstances. It divides slaves with the right to freedom into various classes:

• The mukatab: a slave who has the contractual right to buy their freedom over time
• The mudabbar: a slave who will be freed when their owner dies (this might not happen if the owner’s estate was too small)
• The umm walid, a female slave who had borne her owner a child

Slaves must accept

• Owners are allowed to have sex with their female slaves

Restrictions on slaves

Islamic law imposes many restrictions on slaves:

• Slaves cannot carry out some religious roles
• Slaves can have only limited authority
• Slaves cannot be witnesses in court
• Killing a slave does not carry the death penalty in most schools of Islamic law
• Slaves are punishable under Islamic law if they commit a crime – although for some major crimes they only receive half the punishment of free people