Muslim Views, November 2013

Vol. 27 No. 11

MUHARRAM 1435 l NOVEMBER 2013

Fly the flags of freedom

The flags of Palestine and South Africa lead the motorcade onto Nelson Mandela Boulevard, Cape Town as the Palestinian delegation makes its way towards the city centre in preparation for the historic signing of The Robben Island Declaration for the Freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and All Palestinian Political Prisoners on Sunday October 27.

Photo BENNY GOOL

Cape Town and Robben Island host launch of international campaign for release of Palestinian prisoners – page 2 Fadwa Barghouthi after she delivered her imprisoned husband’s message on Robben Island. The International Campaign for the Freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and All Palestinian Political Prisoners is spearheaded by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.

Photo BENNY GOOL

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Muslim Views . November 2013

Call goes out from Robben Island for freedom of Palestinian political prisoners FARID SAYED ‘THIS indeed is an historic moment as we declare our support for the freedom of thousands of Palestinian prisoners… This is a call to the [Israeli] apartheid state, from this hallowed ground, Robben Island…’

With these words, Ahmed Kathrada launched the International Campaign for the Freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and All Palestinian Political Prisoners, at a ceremony on the island, on October 27.

Kathrada, who spent 26 years on Robben Island for his role in fighting the apartheid regime, first made the call for the release of Palestinian political prisoners on April 27 this year, when he addressed the Freedom and Dignity conference in Palestine.

The 54-year-old Barghouthi was sentenced to five life terms and 40 years in prison in 2004. At his trial he declared his refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli Occupation courts.

He joined the Fatah Party at the age of 15 and, four years later – in 1978 – was arrested for belonging to Fatah.

Barghouthi was a member of the High Level Committee for the First Intifada, in 1987, and was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996. He became the first Member of Parliament to be arrested by Israel when Occupation forces abducted him from Ramallah in 2002.

In a message addressed to Kathrada and members of civil society who attended the launch of the campaign he declared: ‘The struggle of the anti-apartheid move-

ment has transformed Robben Island from a symbol of oppression to a living testimony of the triumph of freedom over chains, of light over darkness, of hope over despair.

‘We belong to the same cause; the cause of freedom and dignity.

And our enemies are similar: oppression, negation of rights, segregation and apartheid.’

His message from Cell No. 28, Hadarim Prison, was read out by his wife, Fadwa Barghouthi.

Along with a high-level Palestinian delegation and representatives of South African civil society organisations, she was a guest of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, which organised the Robben Island event.

Barghouthi described the struggle of the Palestinians as ‘the most universal of national causes’ and that it drew lessons from the antiapartheid struggle in South Africa.

Here he pointed to the mass mobilisation of people: ‘It is the civil disobedience and your resistance on the ground that had the most transformative effect leading to the end of the apartheid regime.’

Referring to the International Campaign for the Freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and All Palestinian Political Prisoners, he said: ‘The international community has political, moral and legal obligations to act in defence of justice, and to uphold international law and human rights.

‘This responsibility lies on governments, elected representatives, human rights organisations, civil society movements, trade unions and each individual citizen.’

Barghouthi expressed special thanks to Kathrada and the founda-

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu serves on the International High Level Committee which will drive the campaign for the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners.

Photo BENNY GOOL

tion: ‘It is honourable to rise against injustice when you are one of its victims. It is admirable to do so when it befalls on others. Mr

Kathrada, it is a privilege to have you, and all that you symbolise, as the soul of this campaign.’

In his address, Kathrada said that Robben Island was a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit.

‘We do not want to remember it as a place of hatred or as a monument to our suffering.

‘Today, Robben Island is the place where we reiterate our support for the Palestinian cause. This place once held captive some of the future leaders of a democratic and free South Africa. Now, the call resounds from this place for the incarcerated political leaders and unity-makers of the Palestinian people to be freed.’

Drawing parallels between the Palestinian and anti-apartheid struggle, Kathrada said: ‘Most of the Western governments portrayed us as “terrorists”. They, like the current state of Israel, framed our case as a “security threat” while it was evident to civil society in those very countries that we were political prisoners fighting for a legitimate struggle for national liberation.’

Kathrada added that political prisoners were in a position to fully comprehend the ordeal of a fellow political prisoner. ‘The experience of solitary confinement, torture, separation from the outside world and the progressive erosion of the concept of time cannot be fully translated into words.’

However, Kathrada pointed out, hopes for freedom rose when those on the outside raised their voices and campaigned for the freedom of those imprisoned.

In a message from Robben Island to Barghouthi, Kathrada

declared: ‘When you hear of the launch of the Free Barghouthi Campaign, we hope and pray that your strength will be renewed.

‘And that you will know that through this launch, the call goes out to the entire world for your freedom and the freedom of all your fellow prisoners languishing in Israeli jails.’

Proceedings had begun with the signing of the Robben Island Declaration, calling for the freedom of Barghouthi and all Palestinian political prisoners, in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell.

The first signatories were exRobben Island political prisoners, Kathrada and the Pan Africanist Congress’ Kwedie Mkalipi, and Fadwa Barghouthi.

The declaration will now make its way across the globe for signatures of support.

After the signing of the declaration, an International High Level Committee was announced in support of the campaign. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is among four other Nobel Peace Prize Laureates serving on the IHLC. Amongst others on the committee is Angela Davis, a former political prisoner and an icon of the civil rights movement in the United States.

In his message of support, Tutu said that South Africans should feel proud ‘to be able to put our experience of the power of solidarity into action for the benefit of others.

‘When the world linked arms in solidarity with our struggle for freedom, we became an irresistible force. We learned that when people unite behind a righteous cause there is nothing that can stop them.’

THE ROBBEN ISLAND DECLARATION for the freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian political prisoners E, the signatories, affirm our conviction that freedom and dignity are the essence of civilisation. People around the globe, and throughout history, have risen to defend their freedom and dignity against colonial rule, oppression, apartheid and segregation.

Generations of men and women have made great sacrifices to forge universal values, uphold fundamental freedoms and advance international law and human rights. There is no greater risk to our civilisation than to relinquish these principles and to allow for their breach and denial without accountability.

The Palestinian people have been struggling for decades for justice and the realisation of their inalienable rights. These rights have been repeatedly reaffirmed by countless United Nations resolutions.

Universal values, international legality and human rights cannot stop at borders, nor admit double standards, and must be applied in Palestine. This is the way forward to a just and lasting peace in the region, for the benefit of all its peoples.

The realisation of these rights entails the release of Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian political prisoners whose ongoing

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captivity is a reflection of the decades-long deprivation of freedom that the Palestinian people have, and continue, to endure.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned at some point in their lives, in one of the most striking examples of mass detention aiming at destroying the national and social fabric of the occupied people, and to break its will to achieve freedom.

Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners still languish today in Israeli jails. Some Palestinian prisoners have spent over 30 years in Israeli prisons, making Israel, the Occupying power, responsible for the longest periods of political detention in recent history.

The treatment of Palestinian prisoners, from the moment of their arrest, during interrogation and trial, if one is held, and during their detention, violates the norms and standards prescribed by international law.

These violations, including the absence of the most fundamental guarantees of a fair trial, the use of arbitrary detention, the illtreatment of the prisoners, including the use of torture, the disregard for children rights, the lack of health care for sick prisoners, the transfer of prisoners into the territory of the Occupying State and the violations of the right to

Fadwa Barghouthi, wife of Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouthi, signs the Robben Island Declaration with anti-apartheid struggle veteran, Ahmed Kathrada. The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation is driving the campaign for the freedom of Barghouthi and all Palestinian political prisoners.

Photo BENNY GOOL

receive visits, as well as the arrest of elected representatives, require our attention and intervention.

Among these prisoners, a name has emerged, both nationally and internationally, as central for unity, freedom and peace. Marwan Barghouthi has spent a total of nearly two decades of his life in Israeli prisons, including the last eleven years.

He is the most prominent and renowned Palestinian political prisoner, a symbol of the Palestinian people’s quest for freedom, a uniting figure and an advocate of peace based on international law.

As international efforts led to

the release of Nelson Mandela and of all the anti-apartheid prisoners, we believe that the international community’s moral, legal and political responsibility to assist the Palestinian people in the realisation of their rights, must help to secure the freedom of Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian prisoners.

We therefore call, and pledge to act, for the release of Marwan Barghouthi and all Palestinian prisoners. Until their release, the rights of the Palestinian prisoners, as enshrined in international humanitarian law and human rights law, must be upheld, and

the arrest campaigns must cease.

One of the most important indicators of the readiness to make peace with your adversary is the release of all political prisoners, a powerful signal of the recognition of a people’s rights and just demands for freedom. It is the marker of a new era, where freedom will pave the way to peace.

Occupation and peace are incompatible. Occupation, in all its manifestations, must end so that freedom and dignity can prevail. Freedom must prevail for the conflict to end and for the peoples of the region to live in peace and security.

Muslim Views . November 2013

Muharram is also a time for renewed thinking MUHARRAM is typically the time for renewal and behavioural change to improve ourselves. However, in its broadest sense, renewal also includes a review of our ways of thinking. The way we think about the world is always influenced by what we perceive.

Our perception about the world is, to a large extent, informed by official government sources, the rhetoric of politicians and abstract theory of academics via the media.

When we review our thinking about a topic like global power, we should recognise fundamental truths about it and how the rhetoric by politicians or abstract theories by academics detract from these truths.

The current issue about Iran’s alleged nuclear threat is a case in point.

World media, politicians and academics talk about this in a way that effectively legitimises official US State Department versions of the alleged Iranian nuclear threat.

The US version includes the euphoric announcement that there is Arab support for the US foreign policy towards Iran.

What the US fails to announce is that this support comes from the most brutal Arab dictators, most of whom

enjoy US support.

Polls show repeatedly that it is the US and Israel that are viewed as the greatest threat to world peace by the vast majority of Arabs and by 120 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement.

However, the US does not care what the majority of Arab people think. This is typical of the contempt the US has for democracy in the Arab world in their support of client dictatorships.

Iran has been targeted for persecution by the US since the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government in a coup orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence. This occurred after Iran nationalised its oil industry.

The puppet regime of the shah ensured US access to Iran’s oil resources until he was overthrown by the Iranian people in 1979.

Since then, Iran has suffered under US-imposed sanctions and US support for Iraq in its war with Iran from 1980 to 1988.

During this time, Saddam Hussein enjoyed US support and billions of dollars in aid. Also, in 1988, the US shot down an Iranian passenger aircraft.

Given this history it is no surprise that Iran has presented the most sustained challenge to the US’s highly militarised pursuit of dominance in the Middle East.

Unlike the clients of the US, Iran has remained fiercely independent and has refused to comply with the superpower’s dictates.

Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations between Iran and the western powers, it is clear that since 9/11, and particularly since the Arab Awakening almost three years ago, there is a shift in the regional balance of power against the US and in favour of Iran.

This shift may largely be attributed to popular uprisings and the democratic empowerment of previously marginalised peoples in Afghanistan, Egypt, Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia and Turkey. Their legitimate pursuit is the ideals of peace and justice through a challenge of an imperial power supporting a colonial state.

This Muharram, and in the years ahead, let our conduct be guided by what pleases Allah in our pursuit of the ideals of peace and justice.

Our editorial comment represents the composite viewpoint of the Editorial Team of Muslim Views, and is the institutional voice of the newspaper. Correspondence can be sent to editor@mviews.co.za Publishers: BRISKTRADE 175 (Pty) Ltd P O Box 442 Athlone 7760 South Africa Tel: 021 696 5404 • Fax Admin: 021 696 9301 Advertising adverts@mviews.co.za Admin info@mviews.co.za Editor Farid Sayed E-mail editor@mviews.co.za Fax Editor 086 516 4772 DISTRIBUTION Your Advertiser 021 638 7491 Views and opinions expressed by contributors and advertisers in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the publishers.

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The Hijri/ Islamic calendar THE Islamic calendar, which is based purely on lunar cycles, was first introduced in 638 CE by the close companion of the Prophet (SAW) and the second caliph, Umar ibn Al-Khattab (592-644 CE).

He did it in an attempt to rationalise the various, at times conflicting, dating systems used during his time.

Caliph Umar (RA) consulted with his advisors on the starting date of the new Muslim chronology. It was finally agreed that the most appropriate reference point for the Islamic calendar was the Hijra.

The Hijra, which chronicles the migration of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) from Makkah to Madinah in September, 622 CE, is the central historical event of early Islam. It led to the foundation of the first Muslim city-state, a turning point in Islamic and world history.

The Islamic (Hijri) calendar (with dates that fall within the Muslim era) is usually abbreviated AH in Western languages from the Latinised Anno Hegirae. Muharram 1, 1 AH corresponds to July 16, 622 CE. To Muslims, the Hijri calendar is not just a sentimental system of time reckoning and dating important religious events (eg. fasting and Hajj), it has a much deeper religious and historical significance.

Muhammad Ilyas quotes Maulana Syed Abul Hassan Ali Nadvi who wrote: ‘…the Islamic Era did not start with the victories of Islamic wars, nor with the birth or death of the Prophet (SAW), nor with the Revelation itself.

‘It starts with Hijra, or the sacrifice for the cause of truth and for the preservation of the revelation. It was a divinely inspired selection. The Almighty wanted to teach man that struggle between truth and evil is eternal.

‘The Islamic year reminds Muslims every year not of the pomp and glory of Islam but of its sacrifice and prepares them to do the same.’

By WALEED MUHANNA, courtesy www.rabiah.com/

In this edition of Muslim Views Why am I a Muslim?

- Page 4 Karbala: a lesson for mankind - Page 6 Colloquium on racism raises fundamental issues - Page 8 Pakistan: embracing the world - Page 9 Putting the Westgate siege in context - Page 10 IPSA to tackle sectarianism at forthcoming symposium - Page 11 Inaugural Quran awards event a success - Page 12 Imam Bayanodien Saban... a legacy of ‘getting the job done’ - Page 19 Stories from the Hijaz The Trench: Salman al-Farisi’s military tactic - Page 26 Hajj Stories: So close to Arafah!

- Page 28 Ruth First and Joe Slovo, and a narrative that causes thinking - Page 31 How to determine your B-BBEE status - Page 32 Discussions with Dangor: Justice or gangsterism?

Page 39 Greed: the cause of deprivation, disappointment and loss - Page 44 The ‘second wife syndrome’: commentary based on the Quran - Page 45 Art’s for All Memoir 4: Embers that flame - Page 47

This newspaper carries Allah’s names, the names of the Prophets and sacred verses of the Holy Quran.

Please treat it with the respect it deserves.

Either keep, circulate or recycle.

Please do not discard.

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Muslim Views . November 2013

Why am I a Muslim?

THANDILE KONA WHY are you a Muslim? This is a question that I get asked a lot when people discover that I am Muslim.

I have made a conscious decision and effort never to declare my Muslimness, not because I am ashamed of it but because I think my conduct and behaviour should be a testament to my being Muslim.

It should be how I interact with people that they should, on finding out that I am Muslim, realise that my good conduct emanates from my being Muslim.

When directed to South African Muslims of indigenous African descent, that question is often tinged with a bit of disdain and disapproval as though we did something that we should not have done or we have betrayed some kind of an unspoken cultural code or rule.

We are treated as though we are ‘race’ traitors.

This is a common experience amongst many African Muslims.

The hostility is found both within families and in the general community.

Simply dismissing it as ignorance on the part of the hostile is easy but it doesn’t solve the problem nor is it entirely true.

There must be more to it.

Irritating as that question is, as African Muslims, it is the least of our concerns.

We have much more challenging things to think about.

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One of them is belonging.

It is the nature of human beings to want to belong to a group that shares the same values and outlook but also to be fully accepted as an integral part of that group, making a contribution to its evolutionary process.

Belonging is a basic human need, up there with the need for food and water.

It is such an important need that depriving a human being of the interaction with others is a deeply painful and, sometimes, damaging experience.

Ask those who have experienced physical exile from their homes and familiar surroundings.

The African Muslim in South Africa is exiled, not physically, but emotionally and psychologically.

We are neither fully part of our own African communities nor fully part of the South African Muslim community.

We have been alienated from our own communities who view us with suspicion for having embraced a foreign religion, a religion whose many adherents, especially Muslims of Indian origin (with horror stories abounding in this respect), are seen as having played a role in the oppression of Africans.

Yes, we are allowed a role in our families and communities but our Muslimness is always bandied about as if to warn others to be wary of us.

Often, these sentiments are expressed in jest but the inten-

tions are always laid bare for everyone to witness.

We are tolerated because perhaps our right to choose is respected, although the choice itself may be strange to some, even unacceptable to others.

This explains the many cases where, upon death, the family of a Muslim would not allow that person to be buried according to Muslim rites.

Instead, they would insist on the family taking charge and deciding how the deceased Muslim should be buried, often according to Christian rites.

The deceased’s embrace of Islam is therefore interpreted, by his family, as a temporary misjudgement, something that should not have happened.

The deceased had lost his or her way and now the family will bring them back to the ways of the family.

In that way, he or she has returned from self-imposed exile and is again welcomed back into the fold of his or her family.

What makes this much more tragic is that even within the Muslim ummah that we have chosen as our community, African Muslims do not feel accepted as Muslims in their own right.

They do not belong; they are on the periphery of this closed community with established norms and rules.

They dare not challenge these norms and rules for doing so is seen as challenging Islam itself.

Although, on further examina-

tion, many of these norms and rules are more cultural than Islamic.

But the expectation from us is always that we should shed our cultural norms and values on becoming Muslims.

Without even deeper examination, these are dismissed as being unIslamic.

As African Muslims, we have to be constantly seeking validation and proving our Muslimness.

If it’s not our names that are not Muslim enough, it’s how we talk, how we dress and even how we conduct ourselves.

We become a curiosity, some kind of a phenomenon, viewed as wiser than the rest who look like us in that we saw the light and chose Islam.

Over sumptuous lunches or dinners, that question, albeit in a slightly different form, comes up again, ‘Why did you become a Muslim?’

This is followed by ‘When did you embrace Islam?

‘What’s your Muslim name?’

For a moment, we command attention and some semblance of respect, no matter how patronising.

All of this while you are being egged on to eat some more of the delicious food.

Almost always, the conversation moves to being asked about our needs because the latent assumption is that we became Muslim because we are in need of something, be it money, clothes or a scholarship.

As a consequence of this, African Muslims find themselves caught between having to defend their faith, and sometimes their brothers and sisters in faith, and having to prove their Muslimness to their brothers and sisters in faith.

We live in a kind of selfimposed exile and it can get very lonely, emotionally, and psychologically draining.

We do not belong anywhere.

We are in cultural and religious limbo where we are expected to divorce ourselves from ourselves.

To the indigenous communities, we are not African enough; we sacrificed our Africanness on the altar of Islam.

And to the Muslim community we can never be Muslim enough; we have to endlessly prove ourselves.

We are caught in the cracks caused by our racially segregated past.

And the cracks seem to get wider and wider.

As is always the case in our country, discussing issues of race and our past bring out strong emotions that usually overcome people’s ability to think clearly and logically.

But I still hold out the hope that we can have a sober debate about issues of race and racism within the Muslim community.

Why am I a Muslim?

The question remains.

Thandile Kona is a journalist and social activist based in the Eastern Cape.

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Muslim Views . November 2013

UP dean fingers Islamophobe academic MAHMOOD SANGLAY

Anti-racism Network in Higher Education (ARNHE) on the theme ‘Student experiences in higher education institutions: The PROFESSOR Norman Duncan of Geography of Race’. It focused on stuUniversity of Pretoria (UP) is of the view dents’ experiences of racism and other that Islamophobia is part of social issues forms of discrimination on campuses, in like racism and homophobia that need to residences and in lectures. be addressed in order to fundamentally It also sought to change our society. highlight the extent to A philosophy lecwhich different spaces turer, Dr Louise The focus was broadened to within universities are Mabille, at UP had ‘racialised’. made racist and embrace inclusivity because Topics discussed at Islamophobic the colloquium themes of sexual orientation, remarks on Praag, included transformaan Afrikaans blog. religion, culture, language tion in higher educaDr Mabille resigned tion, constructions of after her hate speech and class ... race and racism, stuwas brought to light dent life and experiearly in September ences of race through

by Dr Piet Croucamp, an academic from University of the lens of student deans, and interventions on campuses regarding race and difference.

Johannesburg.

Prof Duncan’s presentation drew from Prof Duncan presented a paper entitled ‘Race, racism and the University’ at a col- the case of Dr Mabille who claimed that loquium at the University of Stellenbosch ‘baby rape’ was ‘a cultural phenomenon (US) Diversity Week celebrations, from among the black population groups’.

She further argued that feminists should September 30 to October 4. The celebrations consisted of a range of activities to be grateful for white civilisation and Calvinist Christianity which liberated express the ideal of inclusivity.

The Rector and Vice-Chancellor of US, women from African polygamy and MusProfessor Russell Botman, invited the uni- lim misogyny.

Dr Mabille is further perplexed by conversity community to help him ‘think and understand how we can improve the inclu- temporary feminists with leftist tendencies and who align themselves with the ‘nonsivity of our community’.

The event aimed beyond transforma- western’ world, with black people and with tion, which too often is focused on racism Muslims when they should instead be only. The focus was broadened to embrace aligned with right-wing Afrikaner and inclusivity because themes of sexual orien- Calvinist traditions.

Prof Duncan used the case of Dr Mabille tation, religion, culture, language and class to argue for an urgency to transform the were also addressed.

The colloquium was organised by the higher education sector.

He proposed that this be done by means of an explicit anti-racist stance, embedding Professor Norman Duncan, dean of Humanities at Pretoria University, recognises Islamophobia anti-racism and pro-social values in curricas equally undesirable as homophobia and ula, transforming staff and student demoracism. He recommends that the university take graphics and transforming the institutional proactive steps to combat these anti-social character. phenomena.

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IPSA Spring Symposium to tackle sectarianism NAFISA PATEL THE International Peace College South Africa (IPSA), in association with the Shahmahomed Trust, will be hosting its Annual Spring Symposium on November 23.

As one of the leading purveyors of Higher Islamic Education in South Africa, and the first and only institution of its kind to be accredited by the Council of Higher Education (CHE), IPSA is fully committed towards playing a meaningful and catalytic role within the broader South African community.

IPSA’s Annual Spring Symposium is aimed at creating a vibrant and robust space for dialogue between various role-players on many varied and key issues that affect the South African Muslim community.

Now in its fifth year, the annual symposium has provided a platform for stimulating, impor-

tant conversations between leading academics, thinkers, Muslim leadership and the broader Muslim community.

Some of the topics that have been covered in the past include, ‘Muslims in the Media in South Africa: Beyond Hype and Conspiracy’; ‘Charting the Middle Way in Islam Today’ and ‘Depth, Flexibility, Diversity: The Hallmarks of Wasatiyah (the middle way) in Islam’.

Continuing with the theme of Wasatiyya, this year’s symposium is entitled ‘Dealing with Sectarianism: A Middle way Reflection’.

There is no denying that sectarian conflict has been wreaking havoc in the Muslim world.

Whether Iraq, Syria, Pakistan or Somalia, differences of interpretation have seen Salafi pitted against Sufi, Sunni pitted against Shia.

The result has often been carnage, destruction and the loss of many innocent lives.

In this atmosphere of heightened tension, it is almost inevitable that South African Muslims too become emotionally involved in these conflicts, take sides on an issue and find themselves pitted against each other.

How does the ummah respond to this situation?

What are the roots of the current sectarian conflict?

What are the factors that demand consideration in the continuing unfolding of that conflict?

Is there a way to manage the very real differences within the ummah?

This year’s symposium seeks to shed light on some of these issues.

It will strive to understand the reasons for the current sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

The symposium aims to provide an informed analysis of the conflict within the broader picture of the modern Middle East.

But it also seeks to provide a response to that conflict from a

South African Muslim perspective.

This year’s symposium, importantly, aims to provide an engaging space where local government and representatives of international governments, specifically within the MENA regions together with academics, Muslim leaders and the broader Muslim community can come together in conversation and in a spirit of mutual cooperation on the critical global issue of sectarianism and its local impact.

The keynote address will by delivered by Shaikh Ighsaan Taliep, principal of IPSA. Guest speakers include researcher and scholar, Mr Aslam Faouk-Alli, Dr A Rashied Omar, Imam of Claremont Main Road Mosque, Deputy Ministers of International Relations and Cooperation, Ebrahim Ebrahim and Marius Fransman, diplomats from various Middle Eastern embassies, Dr Ibrahim Saleh of

the Media Studies Department at University of Cape Town, Moulana Ighsaan Hendricks, president of the Muslim Judicial Council, and Professor Fadiel Essop of the Shahmohamed Trust. mediators will be The Dr Auwais Rafudeen, lecturer at University of South Africa, and journalist, Shafiq Morton.

The symposium will be held at IPSA’s Conference Room, corner Duine and Johnston Roads, Rylands Estate, on November 23.

The programme begins at 9h00 with registration from 8h15. The cost is R150 per person, which includes tea, lunch and a symposium pack.

For further information or to pre-register for the symposium please email Nafisa Patel, npatel@ipsa-edu.org or call the IPSA office on 021 6381121.

Nafisa Patel is a member of the IPSA Spring Symposium Organising Committee

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Muslim Views . November 2013

Book-Review The Study of Islam @ UJ Book Review Women, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia.

Author: Anne K Rasmussen.

Publisher: University of California Press 2010.

NNE K Rasmussen’s book, Women, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia considers a text – the teaching about, learning and reciting of the Quran – of a religion (Islam) within a country, Indonesia, in great detail.

Rasmussen considers, and demonstrates, in comparison to other musical forms that the recitation of the Quran together with related aspects – teaching and learning thereof – to be a humanly generated musical art.

The main contribution, therefore, of Rasmussen’s text is in relation to musicology and its value in determining what the author terms ‘soundscapes’ which is sound as information, and hearing as knowing.

For the author, understanding soundscapes adds an important and vital dimension to the way in which humans mediate religious symbols, and how these continue to constitute religious meaning.

Rasmussen’s work significantly also touches on the study of religion in contemporary society.

The book highlights many dimensions and fissures into which investigations into religion can branch. The main aspects are

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the nature, construction and reconstruction of authority over foundational texts.

In addition, how authority over foundational texts intersects with past and existing geopolitical power structures, ethnicity and gender become central components of Rasmussen’s work.

The title provides a clear illustration as to whom the book will appeal. Those interested in women, Islam, music and Indonesia will find the book invaluable as well as interesting.

Those partial to either one or any combination of the issues she concentrates on would also not be disappointed.

While the book focuses, specifically, on how Muslim women in Indonesia contribute – through teaching, learning and reciting – to the presence of the oral Quran in Indonesian society, the book comments on features of Indonesia’s politics and economics.

In other words, the book’s scope far outweighs its specific focus.

Rasmussen’s book forms part of a body of literature on Islam which is many times motivated by contemporary geopolitics around which Islam is central.

Rasmussen’s study is however not intended, directly, to lead this debate into a particular direction.

What she does, because of a longstanding relationship to her research site and rigorous ethnographic research, is add richness

and complexity around debates surrounding the place of Islam in contemporary social research.

She comments, notably, on notions of the global, local, traditional and modern and how these emerge, not without tension, in her study of religion and music with respect to women in Indonesia. For example, Rasmussen argues that traditional modes of Islamic practice in Indonesia present women with greater opportunity to engage religious symbols and activities in public than modern modes do.

As with any text about women and Islam, the book comments on the place of Muslim women in relation to power. Rasmussen, therefore, comments on the difference between feminism and Islam womanism where the latter is determined to reconstruct foundational texts without the overlay of patriarchal power structures.

In other words, womanists are determined that Islam is for women as much as it is for men, and that there is no reason to change it. One merely has to locate where men have interpreted foundational texts to their advantage. Rasmussen suggests that womanists have already unearthed sufficient evidence to illustrate that this is possible.

Less engaging but also important, the book points out the lack, despite recent exceptions, of attention to Indonesian Islam as a vernacular of the practices of this

religion in favour of Middle Eastern Islam.

The book therefore offers readers wishing to engage critically with religion and social life more than their fair share.

The text, refreshingly, does not proceed to admonish and present caveats related to Islam and things Islamic or the practices of Muslims. Rather, the text demonstrates what passionate, meticulous and serious research can mean for understanding society – anywhere – in meaningful ways.

Rasmussen demonstrates perfectly her expertise in this field, which no doubt was gained from serious study over an extended period.

If forced to critique this text it would have to be on the level of technical aspects with respect to music for a lay person. In the same breath, however, one does not need to have prior knowledge of the technical aspects of music to fully grasp the argument Rasmussen makes or the importance her work has for coming to grips with the Quran as a musical art form among women in Indonesia.

Review by DR ZAHRA McDONALD Dr Zahra McDonald is an assistant lecturer in Critical Issues in Contemporary Islam at the Department of Religion Studies at University of Johannesburg.

31

Muslim Views . November 2013

Reading books we don’t normally read: Ruth First and Joe Slovo, and a narrative that causes thinking YUNUS OMAR ALLO (Jordan) was adjacent to her and Bridget (O’Laughlin) stood near the door. The four continued to chat and Ruth began to open her mail.

Helena Dolny, still in her office, was startled by a large explosion. ‘O’Laughlin, who was pregnant, heard three blasts and saw Ruth “lying straddled on the floor, facedown and motionless. She was not moving and lying totally still. (Bridget O’Laughlin’s testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission)’” footnote 455 in Alan Wieder’s Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid.)

The extract above, from Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, appears on page 250 of the book, and continues a few sentences later: ‘Ruth First was dead. She was fifty-seven years old and had been assassinated by the apartheid regime... Ruth’s killing (in Maputo on August 17, 1982) followed the regime’s murders at Matola and the killing of Joe Gqabi, as well as the assassinations of Rick Turner, Petrus and Jabu Nzima, and Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge, and the “hanging” of physician and trade unionist Neil Aggett in a Johannesburg prison cell.’

The last time Muslim Views reviewed one of Alan Wieder’s books was on the occasion of the passing of teacher-stalwart Richard Owen (RO) Dudley on May 31, 2009.

Wieder’s Teacher and Comrade: Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy in South Africa, published in 2008, followed some 200 hours of interviews Wieder had conducted between 1999 and 2005 with the Livingstone High School legend.

While Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid can be read in isolation from Wieder’s other works, it is the oral historian Wieder himself who connects

‘P

Professor Alan Wieder engages during a discussion of his latest work, an oral history of Ruth First and Joe Slovo. The discussion took place at the University of Southern California during the last week of October.

Photo MUSEUM OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

the works for us.

In outlining the reasons for writing the book on Ruth First and Joe Slovo, Wieder informs his readers (Introduction: page 29): ‘In 2008 my book on Unity Movement stalwart Richard Dudley was published as Teacher and Comrade. I learned in my research that Joe Slovo was forever critical of the Unity Movement and viewed it as a do-nothing theoretical organization...

‘That said, Richard Dudley was first and foremost a human being, as was Joe Slovo.

Sometimes, worlds even coalesce. In early February 2011, I went to the University of Cape Town to interview Gonda Perez, who was an Associate Dean of Health Sciences

and had been the dentist for the underground struggle in Lusaka during the 1980s.

‘As we greeted each other, she informed me that we had met at the launch for the Dudley book and that she and I were the only people in the world who admired both Richard Dudley and Joe Slovo. For Perez, they were both examples of the Yiddish term “mensch”.’

So why would someone not particularly interested in ‘politics’ or ‘apartheid’ or ‘the past’ or ‘communists’ read this book?

It’s an interesting question, and one that I found myself posing to myself over and over as I read the book over the past weeks.

Quite unremarkably, I got hold of a copy of the book because of an abiding interest in Wieder’s work on oral history, and more so because of Wieder’s book on Richard Dudley.

The question I posed myself was: If I had

had no previous interest in the author’s other works, what would be the reasons to encourage others to read the book?

Many years ago, in a university session during my initial teacher-education, my English Method lecturer (he says being a ‘teacher’ is all he needs to be) passed on what has been of great importance in my own learning. I paraphrase: ‘When you browse the magazine titles in the bookshops, pick up a title you wouldn’t normally read, and read its contents. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.’

This book will trouble (for various reasons) those, like me, who hold strong personal views about the nature of South Africa’s political and economic choices, challenges, histories, personalities and alliances.

But I am so glad that I came to read this book. It has challenged me in relation to what has always been a personal theoretical ‘truth’: read what will trouble your cherished beliefs, and see how you emerge on the other side.

It is easy to pigeonhole those we don’t agree with, and to ignore books and other media that represent aspects of their lives.

Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid forces its readers to confront the reality that people we routinely dismiss as ‘communists’ (or ‘liberals’ or ‘reactionaries’ or whatever other label we choose) have led lives of commitment and integrity, hand-in-glove with contradictions like Joe Slovo’s Stalinist positions. Differ we can, and should. But when Wieder recounts Slovo minutes after seeing his wife’s broken body on that Maputo floor, it should (could?) awaken a human empathy.

This book, available at ‘most good bookshops’ according to Jacana publisher Russell Martin, is one of several books we should be reading as we attempt to chart our ways to a just life for all.

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Muslim Views

36

Muslim Views . November 2013

LeTTeRs To The ediToR Many sides to a story AS an active councillor I am often insulted for issues over which I have no control. For example, I have been accused of being liable for increasing the rates, electricity and water to augment my salary.

That I am one of the lowest paid councillors is irrelevant to the accuser as people generally regard all politicians as the same.

Even educated people do not readily know the difference between local, provincial and national spheres of government.

Thus, I was intrigued when President Zuma recently said, ‘Those who insult leaders in position of authority will be cursed.’

Years ago, as a councillor for the DA, I was often accused by Muslim leaders of being a white lackey, a stooge and a Jew lover as Tony Leon was the DA leader at that time.

That I was diligent, accessible to the community and focused on service delivery and not ideology was considered irrelevant by my critics.

Within my broader family I was a pariah as politics was personal. Sharing my experience with DA party elders were futile as the basic response was that ‘politics is not for sissies so buck up’. Ironically, nowadays, my historic critics socialise with the mayor, and most Muslims vote DA. When the Anglo/ Boer war broke out inside the DA and a whispering campaign was started

against me by fellow DA councillors, I decided to leave. Whispering campaigns are usual in internal party matters and are an effective method of removing those ahead of you in the party hierarchy.

Jessie Duarte, who worked in the presidency, also fell victim to a whispering campaign and left with public anguish.

Life as an ANC councillor was worse as any act of corruption or ineptitude at any level of government was somehow also my burden.

During the electricity blackouts, residents contacted me, as if I were liable. On occasion, I consulted the late Hasan Solomons who was an ANC parliamentarian about the infinite blame and insults. He responded with, ‘In South Africa, when a bicycle gets a flat tyre people look for a politician to blame.’

I recognise some of the president’s anxiety when he said, ‘If you do not respect those in leadership if you do not respect authority then you are bordering on a curse.’

In this, the media has a role to play. Every day, society is saturated with scurrilous, wall-to-wall, generalised character assassination of politicians.

In my opinion, any system of leadership (political, social, business etc.) should be open to critique. However, this must be done when the scrutiny is valid and can be verified and not in an indiscriminate, derogatory manner.

I believe that vague insults are miserable as there is no value in

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Muslim Views

for the new Islamic year of 1435

degrading the quality of the current political debate lower than it already is.

Like nursing and teaching, I believe that some people are intuitively drawn to the realm of politics. Before council, in 2000, I had great prospects and financial security in the employ of the National Department of Environmental Affairs.

On my return to council in 2011, I was working in the province where I also enjoyed superior financial security. Oddly, I am often accused of being ‘after the money’. What money that is, I am never told.

When asked why I remain in politics, I recall the words of Plato, the Greek philosopher, ‘One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.’

May God help us all the day when those with inferior mindsets govern the world.

Councillor Yagyah Adams Cape Muslim Congress

activism. A grounding in community work invariably makes one more politically conscious.

While the context of a democratic order presents a different terrain than that which mobilised Biko and Haron, young people have a historic responsibility to seek out meaningful roles in their communities.

An old adage is instructive: ‘If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.’

Kiru Naidoo Musgrave, Durban

Honouring apartheid sports IT is ironic but typical of (our)people’s mentalities that while the Western Cape Government authorities are frantically busy changing street names throughout the Cape to rid the province of apartheid memory, at the same time staunch supporters, and fellow travellers of the apartheid system, like Springbok captains Dawie de Villiers, Naas Botha and numerous others, are honoured in a rugby museum in the heart of Cape Town.

Sulaiman Martheze Mitchells Plain

Why the decline in activism?

A hundred khatms!

THANDILE Kona’s article on Steve Biko and Imam Haron made compelling reading, (‘Solidarity as a source of strength for the oppressed’, Muslim Views, October 2103).

A timely question to explore would be the reasons for the decline in activism, more especially among young people. This need not necessarily be political

MY family and I would like to send our heartfelt congratulations to Mr Osman Harneker on completing his reading of 100 khatams of the Holy Quran.

What a tremendous feat it is to accomplish at the ripe old age of 82; an endeavour which has been six years in the making.

It was with great admiration and wonder that we followed his

progress, reading daily with such devotion and forsaking so many worldly distractions in his quest to complete the 100th reading before his 82nd birthday.

He has inspired all of us to be closer to our Quran, if not to complete 100 khatams then at least to read more often and complete khatams of our own.

May Allah grant him the best of health and many more years with us, perhaps even to complete another 100 khatams, Insha Allah!

Mr F Osman and family Athlone

Congrats to young haafidh WE congratulate Haafidh Mubeen Zalgoanker from Grassy Park for achieving the third position at the international Quran competition held in Indonesia during September.

Haafidh Mubeen, the son of Maulana Mohsin Zalgoanker of the Ahmadi Masjid in Victoria Road, Grassy Park, was among some proficient contestants from 20 different countries.

Being only 16-years-old, he was the youngest reciter in the competition and also the only South African to achieve such a high position in the memorisation section of an international event.

We pray that Allah bless their teachers, family, friends and supporters, and make them true servants and protectors of the Holy Quran.

At the same time, we commend and applaud the 55 male and female contestants of South Africa’s first international Quran contest that took place in Belhar, Cape Town, during September.

Muntahaa Ebrahim Kenny Chairman SA Qur’aan Union

Muslim Views . November 2013

Exhibition celebrates three Abdullahs’ resistance to colonialism and apartheid IMAM Abdullah Qadi Abdus Salaam, popularly known as Tuan Guru, Imam Abdullah Haron and musician Abdullah Ibrahim not only share a first name but also a firm grounding in Islam.

Together, they have plotted a course of resistance to colonialism and apartheid with Islam as their vehicle. The three Abdullahs’ lives have become salient points within the trajectory both of Islam in South Africa and in the story of South Africa itself.

Three Abdullahs: A Genealogy of Resistance, which opens on November 8 and runs until November 18 at the Centre for African Studies Gallery at University of Cape Town, celebrates and reflects on this history by examining the visual representation of these figures in the public imagination through an exhibition format.

UCT Honours in Curatorship student, Justin Davy, has invited Weaam Williams, Igshaan Adams and Haroon Gunn-Salie, artists who deal with the theme of resistance in their work, to respond individually to the archive of the Three Abdullahs.

Williams presents Medora: Ancestral Omega, a performative installation which centres around the practice of pinning a medora – a turban-like headdress – onto a

Imam Abdullah Haron... resistance to apartheid celebrated

Muslim bride’s head on her wedding day.

The practice of crafting and pinning medoras is closely linked to the history of Williams’ family.

At one stage, her great-grandmother was the only person in Cape Town able to make a medora.

Furthermore, the work embraces women’s stories and responds to a male dominated history, including that of the Three Abdullahs.

Fresh from a solo show entitled Have you seen Him? at Blank Projects, Adams presents a ritualistic performance in response to the idea of legacy or ‘what we leave behind when we die’.

Gunn-Salie is a 2013 Sasol New Signatures finalist. He

37

JEQ to go on pledge drive with iTV JAM EYYATUL QURRA (JEQ) will be undertaking a pledge drive on iTV on Saturday, November 23, from 7pm to 11pm.

Founded by the late Shaikh Yusuf Booley, JEQ is a registered non-profit organisation dedicated entirely to the teaching and memorisation of the most noble and true of all religious books, the Holy Quran.

It started off in the home of Shaikh Booley where he would sometimes have up to 200 learners at a time gathering to be taught by him.

His single-minded dedication and total commitment to teaching the Quran has had an enormous impact on the community, his peers and the generations of students he taught and mentored.

Approximately 90 students completed the memorisation of the Quran over the 15-year period during which he taught from home, where he received the unwavering support of his wife and family.

Although the JEQ Institute was founded in 1973, Shaikh Booley’s brainchild of establishing a formal campus became a reality and JEQ Boys Haafith School officially opened in 2001, followed by the opening of the Girls Haafith School in 2006 and the pre-primary school in 2008.

Here learners are first taught the correct pronunciation of all huroof (Arabic letters), the rules of tajweed and then given the tools needed to facilitate memorisation.

Over the many years that he taught, Shaikh Booley had perfected his tried and tested methodology of the recitation and memorisation of the Quran, which is still being used today.

To date, JEQ has produced many credible describes being named after Imam Abdullah Haron as ‘a narrative I have been coming to terms with throughout my life’.

For the exhibition, Gunn-Salie will be digging deeper into the Imam Haron archive and, simultaneously, adding to it by documenting new stories throughout

hufaadh and hafidhaat, thereby becoming the leading hifdh institution in the Western Cape, if not South Africa.

Many graduates have gone on to further their Islamic studies throughout the world and have also competed in many international hifdh competitions.

In doing so, they have flown the JEQ flag high as a testament to the life-long ambition and dream of the late Shaikh Yusuf Booley (may Allah Almighty be pleased with him).

JEQ’s greatest challenge is to be financially selfsustainable. They have to raise approximately R1 million per year to keep the three campuses functioning optimally, which is no easy feat. The budget supports 300 full-time students and a full-time complement of 25 teachers and support staff.

The pledge drive on iTV serves to rally support and raise funds for JEQ to assist hufaadh who cannot afford to pay the requisite fees. Please spread the word to get as many people as possible to pledge on the day so that the target of R1 million can not only be reached but surpassed, InshaAllah. iTV may be accessed on channel 347 on the DStv platform.

For further information, contact Shahied Dollie (secretary) 082 468 7484, e-mail: S45dollie@gmail.com or Achmat Siers (JEQ male campus) on 083 365 1151/ 021 703 9324, e-mail: jeqboys@telkomsa.net Zakaah may be deposited directly into the JEQ account: Jam Eyyatul Qurra Waqf Trust, First National Bank, Acc. No: 6238 226 6841, Branch Code: 203 109

the course of the exhibition.

Special guest James Matthews, the acclaimed poet and icon of the struggle against apartheid, will collaborate with Gunn-Salie on a performative piece conceived for the exhibition.

The Centre for African Studies Gallery is situated in the Harry

Oppenheimer Institute Building, Engineering Mall Road, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town.

For more information or to arrange a visit after the opening event please contact Justin Davy on 083 212 0702 or justinjoshuadavy@yahoo.com

write to: editor@mviews.co.za • fax: 086 516 4772 • Po Box 442 athlone 7760 • Please supply full contact details • keep letters to a maximum of 500 words

Muslim Views

Muslim Views . November 2013

discussions wiTh dangoR

Justice or gangsterism?

T seems that in its zeal to demonstrate that it is the most powerful nation on earth and none dare challenge it, the US is prepared to go to any lengths to kidnap or assassinate individuals guilty of or suspected of targeting US interests anywhere in the world. Let us reflect on its recent track record.

In 2011, US Navy Seals secretly infiltrated Pakistan – violating its sovereignty and ignoring international conventions – to kill Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaidah, whom they then buried at sea. Osama is believed to have been the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks in the USA. The Pakistani government made some protests at the time and claimed it had no prior knowledge of the operation.

In the same year, US drones killed Anwar al-Awlaki (an American citizen) in Yemen. As a member of al-Qaidah, he was said to have influenced Muslims in the US to become radical while he was resident there, and planned to kill foreigners and plotted terrorist attacks on Americans from his base in Yemen.

The Yemeni government welcomed his assassination and had, in fact, put out a call to have him captured dead or alive.

US Navy Seals (the same group that assassinated Osama bin

I

Does the US have the right to ‘invade’ any country at will to kidnap or assassinate those it labels ‘terrorists’, asks Emeritus Professor SULEMAN DANGOR.

Laden) launched an assault on the al-Shabaab headquarters in Barawe, Somalia, to capture one of its commanders, Abdul Kader Muhammad Abdul Kader, who is suspected to be the mastermind behind several ‘terrorist’ plots.

Al-Shabaab is said to have links with al-Qaidah which claimed responsibility for the attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya, in which 67 people were killed.

According to other sources, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr was the target of that raid. The Navy Seals failed in their bid and had to beat a hasty retreat.

Somali prime minister Abdi Farah Shirdon welcomed the US operation against what he dubbed ‘terrorists’.

Subsequently, the US army’s Delta Force kidnapped Abu Anas al-Liby who is assumed to be responsible for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 220 people. Apparently, they by-passed the Libyan government and ignored all protocols in the operation.

While the Libyan government has demanded an explanation from the US, al-Liby’s son claims that Libyan security was involved in the kidnapping. The government refuses to confirm or deny the claim.

US secretary of state John Kerry asserted that the seizure of Liby complied with US law, that the suspect was a ‘legal and appropriate target’ for the US military and that he would face justice in court.

Similarly, the US justifies the assassination of Bin Laden and alAwlaki and the attempted kidnapping of the al-Shabaab leader.

So, while Muslims have to contend with extremism in their midst, and may co-operate with others in dealing with the problem, extrajudicial killings and kidnapping cannot be countenanced. Apart from being illegal, extremists might well feel that resorting to these methods is justified.

The incidents mentioned above raise a number of serious ques-

39

Are Muslim governments complicit in the kidnapping or assassination of their citizens by foreign nations? tions: What about the rule of law?

Does that not apply in these cases?

Does the US have the right to ‘invade’ any country at will to kidnap or assassinate those it labels ‘terrorists’?

Are Muslim governments complicit in the kidnapping or assassination of their citizens by foreign nations?

If targeted assassinations and/ or kidnapping are legitimate, as the US claims, will it be justified for Iraqis to assassinate or kidnap American leaders since the US invaded their country under false pretenses and caused untold damage to Iraq’s infra-structure besides killing thousands of its people?

Will Afghans whose family members have been killed by US drone attacks be acting within the law if they assassinate the American president who has sanctioned the drone attacks?

Dr Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in South Africa, declared that while it was in the interest of African governments to fight terrorism, he does not believe that ‘the heavy-handed and unilateral way the US acts is helpful and it risks causing further instability, especially where there are weak governments like in Libya and Somalia’.

Some would say that the US is acting more like a mafia than a modern democratic state that respects the rule of law.

Muslim Views

40

Muslim Views . November 2013

Arabic calligraphy ijaazah in Cape Town MAHMUDAH BEGUM JAFFER THIRTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD Shaikh Nazmie Paulsen, born in Heideveld, Cape Town, studied the art of Islamic calligraphy in Egypt at the hands of Moroccan-born Shaikh Hamidi Belaid who visited Cape Town in 2009 as one of the team of master calligraphers with the ‘Ink Routes’ exhibition.

Shaikh Nazmie has attained ijaazah (distinguished certification) in the Maghribi, Diwaani and Jalli Diwaani scripts. The ijaazah normally comes with the completion of a hilya.

A hilya could be described as a portrait painted in calligraphy, with words describing both inner and outer qualities of Almighty Allah’s SWT Beloved Prophet Nabi Muhammad (SAW), and is often written in more than one Arabic calligraphic script.

Shaikh Nazmie currently runs Arabic calligraphy classes in Cape Town. He may be contacted at 071 716 0057 or nazmiejones@yahoo.com For more information on the hilya, please visit www.zakariya.net/resources/hilye .pdf Mahmudah Begum Jaffer is the author of the children’s book Doorways to Islamic Art. Shaikh Nazmie Paulsen at work (left), and with the draft of the hilya which he prepared as part of his attaining ijaazah. (right) Photos MAHMUDAH BEGUM JAFFER

Backing vocalists come to the fore at fundraiser IN recent years, Islamic nasheed albums by artists in South Africa have been arranged and produced by musician Jeremy Karodia.

Artists such as Hussein Kalla, Waleed Bata, Passion to Care and Nujumul Layl had their albums produced by him.

Unknown to most is that various backing vocalists do the vocals of each artist’s harmonies, enhancing their songs.

Now, these artists – Mohamed Haneef Comroodien, Waleed Bata and Muhammad Yaseen – will come to the fore by performing at a fundraising event for Al Huda Orphanage, at the Suleiman Nana Memorial Hall in Crosby, Johannesburg, on November 30, 2013.

There will be supporting acts by many more artists.

Known to many, the nasheeds/ nazms that will be rendered are from the title albums The Scarf, Peace & Harmony and Light Upon the Earth.

In 2013, Comroodien, Bata and Yaseen, under the guidance and production of Karodia, each released new albums, which will be available at this event.

‘Nasheed gives us the freedom as young individuals to express our feelings and emotions as Muslims and about Islam where we welcome people to the oneness of the Almighty. It’s about using our creative talents in a positive, educative and uplifting manner,’ said Comroodien.

He added that the aim of the nasheed project was to grow on the national and international stage, to encourage and inspire youth and get them to listen to the word of Allah.

By supporting the programme on November 30, patrons would not only be backing the project but also be contributing towards a worthy cause such as Al Huda Orphanage.

To purchase tickets please call 011 837 2477. Booking is essential as the venue can only accommodate 200 people.

For more information about the nasheed project you may contact waleed.bata.75@facebook.com, Yaseen555054607@facebook.com, https://www.facebook.com/mohamed.h.comroodien

The draft of the hilya prepared by Shaikh Nazmie Paulsen on his attaining ijaazah.

Deen TV on Africa’s first free-to-air HD platform IT’S official! OpenView HD – Platco Digital’s free-to-air satellite TV platform – is now operational, and South African viewers can take advantage of this offering that requires nothing more than a once-off payment with no monthly subscription fee, ever.

Maxwell Nonge, MD of Platco Digital says: ‘By switching on OpenView HD, we are allowing every South African to be part of the digital/ satellite TV revolution, and offering a viable alternative to this under-serviced market.’

Deen TV, also on channel 355 on Top TV is now also available on OpenView HD as channel 152.

Deen TV vice-president and talk show host, Faizal Sayed, said, ‘The inclusion of Deen TV on a major free-to-air platform like OVHD means that Islamic media is developing in South Africa and has become a major component within the media democracy of this country.’

Deen TV is a lifestyle TV channel with an Islamic ethos. The core focus and mission of Deen TV is to display the tenets of a balanced and moral society within the context of the Muslim Views

Photo MAHMUDAH BEGUM JAFFER

South African democracy, and worldwide.

The channel’s programming covers a myriad of genres, including news, actuality, documentaries, series and community, amongst others.

Programming also includes lighthearted entertainment in the form of cooking and lifestyle shows. The Islamic content comprises recitals, lectures, educational programmes and much more.

Platco recently revealed OpenView HD’s channel offering which consists of over ten new channels as well as SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and etv. This latest addition to the satellite TV scene, OpenView HD, boasts an offering of a variety of genres catering to South African viewers’ needs. etv has launched four additional channels, eKasi+, eAfrica+, eMovies+ and eToonz+. eMovies+ and eKasi+ will be broadcast in High Definition (HD). eKasi+ launched with a brand new Zulu news service, eNews Izindaba.

Nonge concludes: ‘Our OpenView HD offering is a testament to our commitment to developing an alternative Direct-To-Home (DTH) broadcast platform in South Africa in an effort to contribute to the increase in the number and quality of the TV channels for the viewers.’

OpenView HD Decoders are available at all major retailers in South Africa.

For more information, contact the Deen TV National Help Desk by calling 021 828 2040 or emailing info@Deentv.co.za

44

Muslim Views . November 2013

Light from the Qur’an

Greed: The cause of deprivation, disappointment and loss IBRAHIM OKSAS and NAZEEMA AHMED HERE are two diseases that abound in the world that is harmful to the life of Islam as well as to communities at large. These are enmity and greed.

Enmity and greed are the root causes of almost every conflict and war in the world today, while greed is at the heart of corruption, a practice that seems to have become endemic in modern society.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, in his contemporary Quranic tafsir Risale-i Nur, discusses in detail the pernicious ways in which these two diseases corrupt individuals and societies.

We will share Bediuzzaman’s thoughts on the issue of greed.

He expresses the conviction that greed ultimately brings about disappointment, deficiency and humiliation. He says that greed demonstrates its evil effects throughout the animate world, from the most universal of species to the most particular individuals.

To seek out one’s sustenance while placing one’s trust in Allah Almighty will, by contrast, bring about tranquillity.

In this regard, Bediuzzaman cites the ayah in Surah AdhDhariyat: ‘Verily, it is Allah Who gives all sustenance, Lord of Power, and Steadfast.’ Bediuzzaman then addresses the people of imaan and exhorts them to see this reality.

T

He says that fruit trees and plants, which are a species of animate beings insofar as they require sustenance, remain contentedly rooted where they are, placing their trust in Allah Almighty and not manifesting any greed. It is for this reason that their sustenance hastens toward them.

Some animals, by contrast, pursue their sustenance greedily, and for this reason are able to attain it only imperfectly while expending great effort. Within the animal kingdom it is only the young who, as it were, display their trust in Allah Almighty by proclaiming their weakness and impotence.

It is well known that all babies and young, who are the most weak and impotent creatures, receive their sustenance easily through suckling their mothers’ milk. They have to expend no effort to obtain their sustenance as their sustenance comes to them.

Bediuzzaman gives these two examples to demonstrate that greed is the cause of deprivation, while trust in Allah Almighty, and contentment are the means to Allah’s Mercy.

There are so many instances of a greedy person being exposed to loss that the saying, ‘the greedy is subject to disappointment and loss’ has become a universally accepted truth.

Bediuzzaman cautions that if you love wealth, you should not seek it with greed but with con-

tentment so that you may have it in abundance.

He says that even in the smallest matters, everyone can experience the evil effects of greed.

For example, everyone knows that when two beggars request something from someone, he will be offended by the one who pesters him, and is likely to refuse the request whereas he is likely to take pity on the agreeable one and give him what he asks.

Bediuzzaman addresses those people who become giddy in their singular preoccupation to secure their livelihood as if they are drunk on their greed for this world.

He asks those people: how is it that you commit all kinds of wretched deeds for the sake of your greed; how do you accept all kinds of wealth without concern for whether the means by which you obtain it is licit or illicit?

He cautions that doing these things results in one sacrificing much of the hereafter.

Furthermore, on account of greed, some people even abandon one of the most important pillars of Islam – the payment of zakaah, although zakaah is a means of attracting plenty and repelling misfortune.

Bediuzzaman conveys that the person who does not pay zakaah is bound to lose the amount of money he would otherwise have paid, as he will either spend it on some useless object or it will be taken from him by some misfortune.

He says that when comparing modern civilisation with the principles of the Quran, it is apparent that all immorality and instability in the social life of man stems from two sources: first is the attitude reflected in: ‘Once my stomach is full, what do I care if others die of hunger?’

The second is reflected in the attitude, ‘You work, and I will eat.’

He concludes that what perpetuates these two social diseases is the prevalence of usury and interest on the one hand, and the abandonment of zakaah on the other. The only remedy for these two diseases lies in implementing zakaah as a universal principle, and in forbidding usury. Zakaah is an essential of happiness, not merely for individuals and particular societies but for all humanity.

Bediuzzaman shares with us the reality that if zakaah is not given purely for the sake of Allah Almighty, there are a number of harmful effects.

The act of giving zakaah may have no benefit for if you do not give in the name of Allah Almighty, you are in effect imposing a burden on the recipient to be obliged to you as the giver.

One of the results of this is that you will be deprived of the recipient’s duah, a duah which would be most acceptable in the sight of Allah Almighty.

We have to understand that, in reality, we are nothing but officials entrusted with the distribution of Allah Almighty’s bounties

among His servants.

Thus, if we imagine ourselves to be the owners of wealth, this is an act of ingratitude for the bounties we have received from Allah Almighty purely as a divine favour from Him. If, on the other hand, you give zakaah in the name of Allah Almighty, you will be rewarded since you will have offered thanks for the bounties received from Him. The needy person will then not feel the need to fawn in front of you; his self-respect will not be harmed, and his duah for you will be accepted.

Bediuzzaman advises that it is necessary to see how great the difference is between, on the one hand, giving as much as one should in zakaah but earning nothing but the harm of hypocrisy and the imposition of obligation; and, on the other hand, performing the same good deed in the name of Allah Almighty, and thereby fulfilling a duty, and gaining a reward, the virtue of sincerity, and the duahs of those whom you have benefitted.

We conclude with a hadith cited by Bediuzzaman of our beloved Nabi Muhammad (SAW) who said: ‘Contentment is a treasure that never perishes.’

We ask Allah Almighty to grant blessings and peace to Nabi Muhammad (SAW), his family and his Companions. All praise be to Allah, the Sustainer of all the Worlds.

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Muslim Views . November 2013

45

From Consciousness to Contentment

The ‘second wife syndrome’: commentary based on Quran JASMINE KHAN T is becoming more and more prevalent in the community for men to take second wives, and their defence is always that the Quran permits it.

This is a very sensitive issue so I consulted prominent scholars from the community for their expositions of the two relevant verses (4:3 and 4:129) from the Quran. These are their opinions, in their own words.

Shaikh Sadullah Khan (chief operations officer, Islamia College, Lansdowne): In the Quran, the entire chapter, an-Nisa/ The Women, was revealed in the period following the Battle of Uhud when many Muslims were martyred in battles waged against the Quraish.

As a result, a number of men lost their lives, many women were widowed and numerous children were orphaned. The chapter deals with matters pertaining to the welfare of the community, issues of society and its reformation.

The foremost sphere in which directives in the verses under discussion (4:3 and 4:129) were given was in the context of the well-being of the orphans.

‘If you fear that you will not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four but if you fear that you will not be able to deal justly with them then marry only one.’ (Quran 4:3) The three primary implications of this verse are abundantly clear: 1. The revelation pertaining to polygyny was related to some social need. Polygyny is neither mandatory nor encouraged but merely permitted and falls under the category of mubah/ permitted actions not fard/ obligatory nor mustahab/ recommended; it is neither mandatory nor encouraged but allowed. Polygyny is thus never the rule but rather an exception. The permission to practise polygyny is not associated with mere satisfaction of passion but rather associated with compassion toward widows and orphans.

2. In the event of marrying more

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than one wife, the number of wives should not exceed four under any circumstances (as the practice at that time was unlimited wives). Dealing justly with one’s spouse is an obligation and if a man cannot maintain balance and do justice to his wives, he must restrict himself to one. This applies to housing, food, clothing, kind treatment etc., for

vide.

Maulana Zakariyyah Philander (director: Discover Islam Centre, Lansdowne) commented: Quran (4:3) concedes polygyny as a legitimate Islamic practice which is for the ultimate benefit of society. However, the injustices that women might endure in polyganous relationships should not be ignored. The ethico-legal aspect is effectively dealt with.

treatment of orphans and polygyny simultaneously after giving a stern warning with regard to the misuse and abuse of the property of the orphan.

This can refer to two scenarios: 1. Fearing injustice to the orphan, one may marry them, if they are of age, in order to grant them the status of wives, and all the rights and privileges that that entails in Islam.

The chauvinistic notion that some men have the right to marry multiple wives as a so-called ‘right’ and as a means to excuse themselves from the preferred monogamy is a self-serving attitude and totally misplaced. which the husband is fully responsible.

3. Justice and fairness are the primary conditions attached to plural marriage, with the Quran admonishing further: ‘You are never able to be fair and just between women, even if it is your ardent desire: But do not turn away from a woman altogether, so as to leave her hanging (in the air). If you come to a friendly understanding and practise selfrestraint, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.’ (4:129) If one is not sure of being able to deal justly with wives then the direct injunction is to stick to the norm, ‘then marry only one’ as Adam (AS), the forefather of all humanity, was granted one wife.

So, these verses are less about men demanding rights from wives and more about treating wives and orphans with special care and consideration.

The chauvinistic notion that some men have the right to marry multiple wives as a so-called ‘right’ and as a means to excuse themselves from the preferred monogamy is a self-serving attitude and totally misplaced.

It often leaves many women in these unconventional unions in a state of desertion, neglect, emotional distress and without the comfort and security that an Islamic marriage intends to pro-

Polygyny is allowed but with a built-in safety mechanism. If this ethical standard is not adhered to or there is doubt that it will be enacted, the act may be taken out of the realm of permissibility.

While the ethical standard of justice has been pinned down to certain acts such as maintenance and adequate accommodation by jurists, justice is an ethical concept that has many permutations.

So, while a male may consider himself legally ‘qualified’ for a polyganous relationship, justice as a broad ethical concept remains an important consideration. Some of the higher objectives of marriage, such as ensuring legal paternity, protecting lineage of offspring and safeguarding against loss of dignity through sexual immorality are major factors that impact on the permissibility of polygyny.

These objectives feed into the prized Quranic concept of justice, ‘So if you fear that you are unable to do justice, then (marry) one.’

The converse then also applies that if the legal requirement that ensures justice is found as well as the confidence to enact justice in its broader sense to a reasonable degree then polygyny is acceptable.

Shaikh Faaik Gamieldien (imam, Masjidus Sunni, Rondebosch East) explained: The verse deals with both the

2. Or it may mean that one may marry more than one wife to assist in caring for orphans.

All the scholars agree that the verse is of general import and allows a man to marry up to four wives with the proviso that a man would be precluded under all circumstances from marrying more than one wife if there is any doubt that he will be able to deal justly with all of them.

Therefore, although a man is allowed more than one wife, such a facility is clearly defined and circumscribed. A person wishing to enter into a second marriage needs to show that he is by the means to at least materially be equal to all his wives.

Most importantly, from a contractual point of view, a wife is allowed to expressly state that she refuses to be party to a polygamous union, and if the husband should marry then she will have the right to demand a divorce or to pronounce divorce upon herself.

In verse 129, Allah confirms that man, because of his nature, can never keep a perfect balance in how he treats his wives, i.e. it is not humanly possible.

Love being a matter of the heart, a husband cannot be expected to love his wives equally but he can certainly treat them equally with regards to matters of money, time etc. and this he must

do. This is the interpretation the Holy Prophet had assigned to this verse, both in words and deed.

Ayeshah (RA) reports that the Prophet dealt with all his wives equitably in all matters in which man is in control, and having done this he used to pray: ‘My Lord, these are my dealings in matters over which I have control, so blame me not for that which is in Thy power and not mine (i.e. feelings of the heart).’

[Dawud] Quraysha Ismail Sooliman (assistant lecturer: Dept of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, and freelance journalist) noted: The core principle that governs Islamic values is that of justice.

The institution of marriage is underpinned by protective measures that secure justice before it addresses the values of mawwaddah and rahma. This is apparent from the concept of mahr to the female and the necessity to establish the female’s consent prior to marriage.

Islam is the only religion that prescribes specifically one wife but allows up to four, conditionally.

With regard to Surah 4 verse 3, the permission is not an obligation or recommendation to marry more than one but a concession that seeks to address the realities of human weakness, error and social challenges which, because they exist, must be accommodated rather than shied away from, and safeguards put in place to ensure that justice is maintained.

The criterion for this permissibility, therefore, is the protection of the woman. Men are commanded in verse 129 to acknowledge their limitations.

It is obvious that one cannot love equally but expressions of love, whether material or emotional, as an external manifestation must be executed with justice. Hence, the comment that the obligations on the men are multiplied with the aim to protect and nurture the woman.

Next month the focus will be on the voices of women who have experienced or are in polygynous marriages.

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Muslim Views . November 2013

Positive and Effective Parenting

Assertiveness and engaging co-operation FOUZIA RYKLIEF SSERTIVENESS involves two parts, namely, becoming aware of and managing your feelings and, secondly, the art of delegation.

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Managing your anger, expressing your feelings, needs and expectations Parents become desperate, frustrated and very angry when their children are consistently uncooperative.

Often, when children constantly ignore our requests and expectations, our natural reaction is to give ‘you-messages’ such as ‘you left your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor again!’ or ‘you are so untidy’. You-messages are put-downs because they usually focus on the child’s character and not on the behaviour.

Children tend to ‘tune out’ and become ‘parent deaf’ when they hear their parents repeating the same old tune over and over again.

We need to let our children know when their behaviour is unacceptable. How can we do this in a way that is real and effective? We are entitled to have strong feelings about the behaviour but we need to express ourselves in a more respectful but assertive way.

We can confront assertively by giving the child an ‘I-message’ It’s not the child who’s unlikable, it’s the behaviour. Sentences that start with ‘I’ subtly shift the emphasis of your displeasure from the child to the action.

Compare ‘You slob! You forgot to put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket again,’ with ‘I don’t like it when you leave your dirty clothes on the floor because they make it hard to walk in your room.’

More examples of I-messages ‘I feel frustrated when the kitchen is left untidy because I cannot start cooking,’ instead of, ‘You children are so lazy. Look at the mess you’ve made.’

‘I’m afraid somebody will trip over your school bag,’ instead of ‘You are so inconsiderate, leaving your school bag in the doorway.

Do you want me to break my neck?’

I-messages are invitations to children to change their behaviour, and help children to see their behaviour in a social context.

They learn that their behaviour has consequences for others (e.g. your work in the kitchen is delayed).

Sometimes a parent may feel so angry and out of control that calmly thinking up an I-message is impossible. In such cases, send short, strong ‘feeling messages’: ‘I am furious!’

‘I am so angry that I can’t talk right now!’

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Sometimes an I-message can wait until the parent is feeling more in control.

What if I-messages do not work?

When I-messages don’t work ‘change gear’ and listen to the child’s feelings about the situation and say something like, ‘I can understand that you do not like what I have just said’ or ‘I know you feel that you are not the only one who leaves clothes on the floor; that you feel it’s unfair…’

Now repeat the I-message.

Getting help from your child in solving your problem is more likely to occur if the child knows that you are taking her feelings seriously. Children who experience their feelings being considered, will, in turn, learn to be considerate.

Assertiveness, the art of delegation and saying ‘No’ Many parents do not ask for the help they really need and end up feeling resentful, taken for granted or angry.

We often continue to do things on our own, and hope or hint that someone will notice how hard we are working, and will rescue us without us asking. If this does not happen, we accuse others of being selfish and get to a point where we can no longer cope.

Then there are also times when we have to say ‘no’. This can be difficult but is part of being assertive. Many parents, especially women, find it difficult to say no to requests.

The ECA assertiveness formula can be used when one needs to delegate, make requests or when

it is appropriate to say ‘no’.

The ECA has three parts: expressing empathy towards the other’s position; delivering the content of your message; calling to action, expressing your desires in a given situation.

Here is an example of using the ECA to delegate: ‘I understand that you are busy reading… (empathy) but the table needs to be laid… (content) so please help lay the table now.’ (action) Here is an example of using the ECA formula when you want to say no: ‘I can see you’re really keen to go camping with your friends this weekend but as there will be no adult accompanying you, the answer must be ‘no’.’

It is especially helpful when

Many parents do not ask for the help they really need and end up feeling resentful, taken for granted or angry

children ask for something you cannot afford. Instead of saying, ‘Where do you think I must get the money from?’ you can say: ‘I can see how badly you want it but it costs too much so the answer has to be no.’

It will not always go plain sailing when we attempt to be assertive. What if a child says ‘no’ to a request or attempts to distract you by arguing? Find out why. Listen to their reasons.

Accept them. Don’t attack. Say, ‘I hear you but …,’ or ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, however, I really need your help now.’

When a child is rude and disrespectful Send a strong I-feel sentence.

Do not take resistance personally and don’t allow yourself to get side-tracked into giving a lecture.

Simply say, ‘I do not want to be spoken to like that. I can see that this is not a good time for you but the groceries need to be packed away and I need your help now.’

Talking is one way we socialise our children (being a good example is the other way). When it comes to discipline, the words we use – and the way we use them – play an enormous role in shaping our children’s behaviour.

The same goes for how carefully we listen. If your child feels that you respect her, she’ll be more likely to respect you.

Fouzia Ryklief is a departmental manager at the Parent Centre, in Wynberg, Cape Town.

Muslim Views . November 2013

The cover of one of Dr D’arcy’s prizewinning books, and still being read in many of our schools.

FoR aLL

Memoir 4: Embers that flame Thomas still doesn’t know that his nickname, Tolly, is immortalised in print, writes Doctor M C D’ARCY. RITING seldom starts with a cartoon-like spark; it often smoulders for many years, flaming only when true inspiration strikes. My authoring epiphany wasn’t fired by magic, its ignition spluttered into life only after many years of dogged determination.

In 1987, a small advertisement from Maskew Miller Publishers calling for book submissions by South Africans for its Young Africa Competition aimed at ‘Young Adults (between ten and 17 years)’ caught my eye.

Despite my age (47 years), I was resolute that if others could write, so could I. I completed the novel Tolly, Hero of Hanover Park in one week, while I was working fulltime in my medical practice. I lost a few kilos in the process.

Tolly (Thomas) is just in his teens and, as is common these days, it is his grandmother who raises him in the tenements of Hanover Park, near to where I live and practised medicine.

Hanover Park is a forlorn, subeconomic housing project which was specifically built on the sandy Cape Flats to house the people of District Six uprooted and dispossessed by apartheid’s racist Group Areas Act. Tolly gets embroiled in the fight against a vicious drug-lord.

The story is fast-paced and exciting.

The competition assessor stated that she could not put the book down until its breathtaking denouement.

Out of more than fifty entries, Tolly won third prize (R300) and an offer of publication. Twentythree years on, it is still being used in schools.

A young fan of the book, Yusuf Omar, once told me he had read the book eleven times! That was certainly a wonderful accolade for me.

Tolly, Hero of Hanover Park is an odd title.

But then, at primary school, the real Tolly (Thomas) was my hero.

He was short, thin with beautiful, tortoise-shell eyes and, most of all, he could outrun the wind.

In races I always puffed in stone last.

Nightly dreams of breaking the winner’s ribbon like Tolly always did, vanished at dawn; my asthma squashed that reverie.

Then, in one race, a miracle happened: I came in second last!

The heady elation of that attainment served me well throughout my life; practice and perseverance does pay.

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Sixty years later, I turned around in a local butcher shop and right behind me stood Tolly, still short and thin, and his eyes were still beautiful.

In shock, I was silent. Thomas still doesn’t know that his nickname, Tolly, is immortalised in print.

One of the most emotional encounters regarding Tolly occurred when I was invited to a primary school in the southern suburbs during a book-week. I was touched when a troupe of youngsters, dressed as the characters in Tolly, performed a short extract from the book.

The teacher told me that the learners had enjoyed the book so much that they were excited to perform an extract especially for me. I felt a tear in my eye. At that performance, a tiny female learner told me she had discovered the only mistake in the book.

In one scene, I had written that Tolly, who lives on the second floor of a tenement flat, ‘took the back-door keys with him’ when he went on an errand. The little girl told me in no uncertain terms that ‘second floor flats have no back doors’.

At a school for ‘special-needs’ learners in Sea Point, the principal told me that when she went on her inspection rounds and found a particular class very quiet she

The teacher told me that the learners had enjoyed the book so much that they were excited to perform an extract especially for me. I felt a tear in my eye. At that performance, a tiny female learner told me she had discovered the only mistake in the book.

Similarly, at a Jewish primary school in Constantia, a class teacher told me that Jewish primary school classes were always noisy; pupils all chattered loudly at the same time, even when no one bothered to listen to them but they instantly switched to silent mode when she read Tolly to them.

A year later, another of my entries, The Golden Kris, won second prize. The adjudicators, famed Richard Rive and popular author Chris van Wyk commended me for the amount of research it must have taken to write this historical novel.

The story, the first word of which was penned in the sun on St James’ beach, depicts the Dutch invasion of Indonesia and the enslavement of the captives

An evil Doekoen (medicine man) wants the dagger and relentlessly chases down Dain, a young man of noble lineage, for the dagger and its powers.

The book was very popular and crowned with the longest waiting list ever at the local, Athlone, library.

An adult reader commented: ‘I read The Golden Kris in prison and it inspired me to change my life for a more ethical path on my release. It made me realise that our religion, culture and moralvalue systems, have great merit, substance and inspiration despite our history of slavery and disadvantage at the Cape.’

He now runs a successful business.

The Golden Kris adjudicator, Richard Rive, was born in 1931 in District Six, Cape Town, and came from humble beginnings.

He wrestled against disadvantage and racial discrimination but it scathed him with a bitter chip on his shoulder over his dark complexion, regarded as somehow loathsome in an apartheid society.

Despite this, and other personal demons, he became one of South Africa’s premier writers. A fine athlete, a talent that he could not foster because of apartheid’s

Man at work: Our columnist, Dr D’arcy, weaves his enthralling yarns while stationed at his trusty computer. The days of writers like Hemmingway and their favourite typewriters might be long gone but the art of weaving a riveting tale is kept alive by those who are inspired to entertain and conscientise through the magic and power of words.

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knew that the teacher was reading a chapter from Tolly.

The teacher used Tolly as a potent weapon that they understood: she threatened not to read further chapters of the book if they misbehaved.

they brought to the Cape. It is a fast-moving page-turner.

In Indonesian lore, the Golden Kris, a golden dagger with a snake-like blade, is imbued with special powers and has a soul of its own.

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constraints, he went on to great academic heights.

He won a prestigious Fulbright-Scholarship for further studies in the USA and earned a doctorate at Oxford University, in the UK.

I first met Richard Rive in the early 1960s at the Simonstown home of a medical-school colleague, Dr Arafie Manual. An unknown then, he read to us extracts from a manuscript (probably his banned book, Emergency) that he had with him.

Strangely, it was in the dark winters of my medical internship in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1964, that I became aware of Rive’s prodigious talent when reading his searingly brilliant and prize-winning 1960 short-story, The Bench, in a collection of South African Short Stories.

The Bench flayed the incoherent dogma of apartheid in which it was illegal and forbidden for a ‘person of colour’ to sit on a ‘Reserved for Whites’ railway-station bench.

(In the USA, Rosa Parks in 1955 defied segregation laws and sat in the forbidden, reserved for ‘whites’, front seats of a bus. This act sparked the crusade for human rights for African-Americans in the USA.) His later novel, Buckingham Palace, District Six, was acclaimed and prescribed in schools. It painted District Six as a place where all ‘races’ and social classes interacted with reasonable harmony and much humour.

Chris van Wyk was a young, former winner of the Maskew Miller Competition when I met him. An affable person and Johannesburg writer, we had long conversations when he was appointed as the editor of Tolly, Hero of Hanover Park.

Later, he apprised me that Tolly had hardly needed any editing. Chris became wildly popular for his later publication, Shirley Goodness and Mercy.

My next effort, The Rage of the Sea-wind, was entered for the Sanlam competition run by Tafelberg Press.

Published in 1991, it was, out of more than 10 000 entries from over 40 countries across the world, selected for the prestigious White Raven Collection for youth literature in West Germany as one of the best published in the world that year.

Its storyline recounts the hard life and dangerous travails of the impoverished fishing trek-netters of False Bay. It mainly plays out on the raging sea and in a shed on Glencairn beach, near to Simonstown’s naval base.

Sulaiman ‘Boere’ Achmat, trek-netter and owner of several fishing vessels, including the green-painted boat ‘Bayaan’, moored in Kalk Bay, recently told me that he had built the shed which still stands there.

Extracts from all my books are being used in English grammar school textbooks. All three books mentioned have been transcribed into Braille for the blind. Some of my books have been used at universities (UCT, UNISA) for Higher Education degree courses.

Never be discouraged by book publication rejections. I’ve had five other novels that reached the top-ten shortlists of these competitions but they are still unpublished.

In the 1990s, one of my manuscripts was rejected because it focused on the violence inflicted on children in Hanover Park. The adjudicators didn’t want young minds to be aware of violence, never mind that, in real life, children are sometimes shot and killed in and on their way to and from school.

I moved on to write more and, as shall be seen in the next memoir issue, in many other exciting genres.

Muslim Views

48

Muslim Views . November 2013

sPoRTs-TaLk

Those players who play through great pain are heralded as heroes and those … who intimidate and revel in the violence and hyper-aggression are feted by fans and awarded with trophies.

Football’s dangerous masculinity IAN SINCLAIR S the UK’s unofficial national sport and with the season running for nine months a year, it often seems like it’s impossible to escape from football.

It’s the default conversation topic from the office to the barbershop; the latest Premier League happenings round off television news broadcasts and large portions of our newspapers are dedicated to reporting and discussing every minute detail of ‘the beautiful game’.

This cultural supremacy has been demonstrated by the recent retirement of Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United for the last 26 years.

Treated in a similar manner to the death of a member of the royal family, it was the top story on the BBC website and splashed across the front page of all the next day’s newspapers.

Even Nick Robinson, the BBC’s Political Editor, felt the need to comment, gushing that Sir Alex was the ‘greatest living Briton’.

However, considering football’s importance to many people and society more broadly, progressives have remarkably little to say about it.

Certainly, there is ongoing concern about the ever-increasing capitalist nature of the game but what is almost completely lacking is an honest discussion or critique of the ideology of the game, in particular, football’s relationship with men and masculinity.

As Mariah Burton Nelson notes in her 1994 book The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports, ‘We need to take sports seriously – not the scores or the statistics but the process. Not to focus on who wins, but on who’s losing.’

As Men’s Studies scholars have noted about sport generally, the hierarchical and highly competitive world of football is one of the key sites for the construction and reproduction of masculinity today.

Through playing and watching

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IAN SINCLAIR examines the gendered nature of toplevel football across the world, traces its patriarchal roots, and finds that the consequences of going counter to the prevailing mindsets can have devastating consequences. the game, boys learn what it means to be a man – which values and behaviour are manly and which are unmanly. ‘Be tough’, ‘be strong’, ‘play to win’, ‘get stuck in’, ‘don’t be intimidated’, ‘don’t cry’, ‘don’t wimp out’ – all are common encouragements and admonishments to young footballers.

And when they return home to watch Match of the Day, they hear commentators praising their idols for ‘dominating’ their opponents and ‘controlling’ the game.

Those players who play through great pain are heralded as heroes and those, like Roy Keane, who intimidate and revel in the violence and hyper-aggression are feted by fans and awarded with trophies.

‘I’d waited long enough. I *** hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ***. And don’t ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries,’ wrote Keane in his autobiography about his premeditated revenge take-down of Manchester City’s Alf-Inge Haaland in 2001, which effectively ended the Norwegian’s career.

‘My attitude was, *** him.

What goes around comes around.

He got his just rewards. He *** me over and my attitude is an eye for an eye.’

A subsequent investigation led to Keane being banned for five matches and fined £150 000, although sceptical readers may wonder how long a prison sentence Keane would have received had the incident occurred outside of a football stadium.

Three years later, Keane was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame.

While Roy Keane was Manchester United’s enforcer on the pitch, Sir Alex ran the club like a dictatorship.

‘Fergie’s rule was absolute,’ notes Channel 4’s John Anderson.

‘Loyalty was a quality to be demanded and repaid in equally unswerving fashion, and his word was law.’

Pundits marvelled and chuckled at his ability to discipline his players and play macho psychological mind games with his opponents. On several occasions he has been banned and fined for using abusive language to match officials.

In a widely reported dressing room incident, he kicked a boot in anger that hit David Beckham in the face, requiring stitches.

Never mind that this bullying management style would get him immediately sacked from every other workplace in the UK – Sir Alex, we have been told repeatedly in the last week, is the greatest manager ever to have graced the English game.

His ‘achievements demand not just respect, they deserve to be studied and learned from’ argued Robinson.

Tony Blair’s own enforcer Alastair Campbell may look up to Ferguson but what has any of this got to do with those working for democracy, justice and equality, except to serve as a guide about how not to behave?

As these representative examples show (I could easily have cited countless others) the type of masculinity constructed and reinforced in the footballing world shows football to be an important, highly conservative influence on contemporary gender relations, largely working to reproduce existing inequalities in society.

And nowhere is football’s resistance to contemporary gender norms more obvious than when talking about the total absence of openly gay players in the professional game.

The first openly gay footballer was trailblazer Justin Fashanu – also the first one million pound Black player. ‘A bloody poof!’ was how his manager at Nottingham Forest Football Club, Brian Clough, described him.

Justin’s own brother disowned him when he came out in 1990.

‘He has come out publicly and stated his sexual preferences, so now he will have to suffer the consequences. I wouldn’t like to play or get changed in the vicinity of him,’ said John Fashanu.

John went on to present the hit TV show Gladiators. Justin killed himself in 1998.

While sports scholars like Ellis Cashmore and Jamie Cleland argue homophobia among football fans has significantly decreased since those dark days, the lived experience on the ground gives less cause for hope.

In January 2012, Robbie Rogers left Leeds United by ‘mutual consent’. A month later, he announced he was gay. In a statement, Rogers said that remaining in football after declaring that you were gay was ‘impossible’.

Football is also stuck in the stone age when it comes to women. This shouldn’t be surprising when you consider sports scholars have long explained that professional, organised sport as we know it emerged in the late 19th century in response to a number of challenges to men’s traditional power, not least the rising consciousness and power of women in society.

As Michael Messner, Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at University of Southern California, notes: Sport was a male-created homosocial, cultural sphere that provided men with psychological separation from the perceived ‘feminization’ of society, while also providing dramatic symbolic ‘proof’ of the natural superiority of men over women.

More than a century later, and ‘the locker room’ continues to be ‘the last preserve of the all male world’, according to Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology at State University of New York.

Football’s endemic sexism hit the headlines in 2011 when the Premier League’s top commentating team, Sky Sports’s Andy Gray and Richard Keys, were caught making disparaging and sexist comments about a female linesman and to a female colleague in the studio.

Gray and Keys were dismissed

by Sky Sports but it’s important to note their behaviour only became an issue when a (presumably disgruntled) colleague leaked the footage to the media.

What should be clear from all these examples is that the type of masculinity promoted and reproduced in the footballing world is

not an aberrant masculinity which can be dismissed as the way other men – criminal and psychopathic men, perhaps – act.

Rather, it encapsulates many of the values and behaviours that make up mainstream, perhaps even the dominant, form of masculinity today.

The problem, as Cynthia Cockburn and Ann Oakley cogently argued in 2011, is that these ‘widespread masculine traits and behaviours are dangerous and costly both to individuals and society’.

According to Government figures, in 2009-10 men were the perpetrators in 91% of all violent incidents in England and Wales: 81% for domestic violence, 86% for assault, 94% for wounding, 96% for mugging, 98% for robbery.

2009 Ministry of Justice figures show men were responsible for 98% of sexual offences, 92% of drug offences and 89% of criminal damage. 99% of child sex offenders are male.

On the road, men commit 87% of all traffic offences, 81% of speeding offences, 97% of dangerous driving offences and 94% of motoring offences causing death or bodily harm.

To summarise, the sport that so many of us support financially and emotionally, and the players we idolise and cheer on, promote a highly conservative version of masculinity that is damaging, sometimes deadly, to women, children and society more generally.

Where, then, are the progressive and feminist voices raised in protest and anger at the gender politics of football?

Where is UK Feminista? Where is the Fawcett Society? Where are the critiques in the Guardian’s women’s pages?

And where, most importantly, are the men who say they are feminists who want more equality between men and women?

As chef and Norwich City fan Delia Smith once shouted: ‘Where are you? Where are you? Let’s be having you! Come on!’

Sinclair is a freelance writer based in London and the author of The march that shook Blair: An oral history of 15 February 2003 published by Peace News Press. ian_js@hotmail.com and https://twitter.com/IanJSinclair.

This article, originally published

by New Left Project, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.