Public Lecture Series 2008:
Multiculturalism and the Islamic Question
Speaker: Professor Ghassan Hage
Date: 13 March 2008
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This transcript was typed from a recording of the lecture. The NCEIS cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.
Compared to other nations like France or England, Muslims are really a recent problem in Australian history. If you actually remember, we had a great big racist movement not so long ago, under the name of Hansonism, and Muslims did not figure that much in the imaginary. It is quite interesting to note actually: if you go and look at some of the literature that the Hansonites produced, hardly ever did they mention Muslims. The big, bad other in Australian history has always been the Asian, as we all know, as far as immigration is concerned and the indigenous people as far as the locals are concerned. This is unlike France or England where the immigrant other has always been predominantly Muslim, and therefore, the Islamic element of immigration has always been historically problematised, though with different intensities. We can say that in Australia the Islamic problematic came with the globalisation of that problematic. It did not really emerge from within a home grown concern. Of course, this does not mean that there were no Muslims in Australia. As we all know, or some of you should know, or you’d be happy to know, there’s always been Muslims in Australian society, from day one: Afghans up north etc... Also, one can say that Indonesia constituted some kind of threat in the history of the Australian imaginary, but you have to remember that Indonesia was considered a threat because it was third world and had a big population rather than because it was Muslim. Again, it is more recently that the Islamic nature of Indonesia is becoming more fore grounded, so to speak.
So what is it? And what has happened that has led Muslims to become such an acutely problematised category within Australian society? And, very importantly, why is it that multiculturalism, which with all its problems, warts and all, did manage to incorporate all kind of minorities, is facing such a blockage when it comes to the question of Islam. Some people would like to say that, you know, every minority in history of Australia has had problems, when they first arrived. And, so when you look at the Irish, blah, blah, blah, even the Irish had a bit of a problem, the Italians had a bit of a problem, the Greeks had their bit of problem, and now, we’ve got this new wave of immigration and now they’re facing a problem. I think people who think this way might have, might be saying something right, but I think they’d be missing something very important about the nature of Islamic presence today in the world, at it is lived. I will always be repeating these words as an anthropologist because I don't – even though I might, as a slippage – say “Islam”, or “Muslims”, but I would be slipping in the sense of, there is no such thing for me as Islam, or Muslims. There’s Islamic specific modes of living in specific historical and social situations, and it is only a kind of a short cut of the mind because I cannot keep saying “what I mean is Islam as it is lived today in this specific social situation”, I say “Muslims” or “Islam”, but please remember if I slip that that’s what I mean, I don't mean some abstract Islam that is the same across nations. You know, I come from Lebanon, I left Lebanon in the 70’s, I’m from a Christian background, and at school we had lots of Muslim friends who lived in Muslim communities who were, you know, into alcohol and everything you want that is considered no, no, no today. I’m not saying before is good now is bad, or before is bad and now it’s good. All I’m saying is that things change, and dominant modes of behaviour within certain Islamic cultures change, like for everybody, so I don't essentialize any modes of Islamic living.
So, I want to deal then with some of the issues of the encounter between the Muslim presence as it is lived today, and, multiculturalism, and Australian culture, and argue that both come meeting at a particular time in their development, which has led to a difficult encounter. First of all, multiculturalism is a mode of cultural interaction, which, let me put it this way – it depends on what we might call a relation of encompassement, a relation of encompassement, that is, it is dependent on one culture being encompassed by another culture. I think this notion of one culture being encompassed by another culture is very crucial to understand multiculturalism.
Australian multiculturalism, what does it mean? It means that some of you who are into social theory might have a sense of this theoretical development today that people are pushing forward, which they call the “state of exception” and the state of exception, that is, in all societies, in all societies, all democratic societies, in all societies ruled by law, there’s places where the law does not apply, and this is decreed by the law. It’s a bit like a James Bond type reality, licensed to kill. And, the idea is that killing is of course, illegal, but the law says you can kill here, as long as the law encompasses you, that is, what you are doing should not become the norm, the law should be in control of this space where you are allowed not to obey the law. You are in the encompassed culture, the dominant culture is the encompassing culture.
Now, multiculturalism has always worked with this notion of exception in the sense that it has always said to incoming cultures, unlike ideologies that preceded it which said to them “you cannot do”, “you cannot eat your salami”. Multiculturalism said “Okay, we’re going to open a space for you where you can eat your salami, as long as it doesn’t muck up the meat pie, but the space will exist for you where you can eat your salami, the space will exist for you, we are going to create a state of exception where you can exercise your culture as long as that space is encompassed by the national law. We have to keep an eye on you because we don't want your laws to become the national laws, we want to be clear about this. We’re letting you live your law, but we’re clear what is the national law. And, within that national law, we’ll open a space for you”.
This is the relation between encompassing culture, encompassed culture. There’s many reasons why this relation of encompassment has been subverted through the Islamic presence today in a way that no other immigrant minority has subverted this relation. Once, and again, I’m not saying this is how it is for all Muslims, or for Islam, but, there are what we might call today, seriously religious Muslims, and it would apply to seriously religious anybody. But, it so happens today, that there’s a lot of seriously religious Muslims, and the seriously religious Muslims are seriously religious, more than anyone else I’ve seen in my lifetime, about being serious about their religion! If you are a seriously religious Muslim, you believe that you are subjected to the law of God. Now, the law of God has to rule your everyday life, in all kind of ways. Now, it seems to me that it is easy for a national culture to encompass the law of eating salami, but it is not easy for it to say “the law of God has a little place here, and you can live the law of God as long as the law of Australia controls the law of God”. This is by nature problematic, the law of God cannot be encompassed, it is all encompassing, and for a seriously religious Muslim, there is a subversion of the relation of encompassment, that is, I can live in Australia, as long as the law of Australia can be encompassed within the law of God. There is no way I’m going to accept that the law of God is going to be encompassed by what John Howard said, or even, the founding fathers, God bless them.. all. This is one mode in which this relation of encompassment is subverted.
A second, more mundane, so to speak, way in which this relation of encompassment is subverted, has to do with the rise of a transnational political mode of being Muslim: a transnational mode, which is not restrained, or restricted, to the local level. And, it’s political. There’s two things here which we have to look at carefully. First, multiculturalism, despite all the wonderful feelings about cultural otherness it represents, has always been a colonial ideology, that is, not an ideology to colonise, but an ideology which has its roots in colonial culture: The way it is nice to otherness is colonial. Colonialism, as the wonderful Israeli sociologist by the name of Baruch Kimmerling, who in analysing the Israeli Palestinian question, called “Colonial Cultural Politicide”. Politicide… and politicide means that the Colonialist always aims to kill the political will of the colonised. That is, the beginning of any colonialism, the other as far as they have a political will cannot exist in the eye of the Colonialist. You have to eradicate their political will. After you eradicate their political will, their capacity to rule themselves then, if you still don't like them you might move into genocide, as many cases in history, sort of like, it has happened. But, it is not the only alternative. After politicide, you can also use the colonised of course, there’s a whole history of exploitation, not only a history of extermination, but it is important to remember that you can only exploit the colonised after you have politicided them. You can, and here we come closer to multiculturalism, you can even love the colonised other, after you have politicided them. This is what I call – it’s a bit at the edge of theory – but I call it, colonial necrophilia: the love of the dead other. You kill the other and you love them.
I don't think we in Australia need to go very far to get examples of the wonderful necrophilic tendencies that exist in our society. Soon after we have politicided indigenous people, we started loving them – loving desert painting, we went so far into our necrophilic tendencies that we even love the way they resist us. But, notice, we only love resistance after the politicide, because we know that the resistance will not challenge at all, the colonial result that has made it possible. Now, multiculturalism warts and all, and I’m not being, sort of like, sarcastic, it is very nice in many ways, but it is a variety of colonial necrophilia, that is, it is always dependant on the other not having a political will. The other can come and live their culture, but, you see, leave your problems behind, don't try and exert anything like a political will in the space of our nation. You’re welcome to come and eat salami but, don’t bring Italian modality of government, it’s crazy enough where it is, for God’s sake, we don’t need it here. This kind of logic, leave the political, so to speak, outside.
Now, what has happened today, is that we are facing a situation where it is becoming harder and harder for the political to be left outside by many Muslims. Not only Muslims, but it is particularly the case among Muslims, to leave the political outside. One of the reasons is that one of the core politics, which is supposed to be left outside, which is Arab-Israeli politics, is not outside. It is every nation there, Muslims go to the very nation they go to is itself quite actively involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict in some way or another. How can you tell a Muslim, leave Arab-Israeli politics outside and celebrate in parliament the 60th birthday of Israel? You can’t, it is – you’re not leaving it outside, it’s here. So there are certain forms of transnational political conflict which exist with or without the Muslims, and so the Muslims in some way are activating their political right as citizens to agree or not agree with what is happening in parliament, to agree or not agree with the foreign policy of the state. You say I agree with you or I don't agree with you about how you are supporting Israel – these appear at one level as debates being imported in Australia, but they’re not really. I mean, they’re not dependant on Muslims for them to exist in the Australian realm.
And so, this kind of mode of Islamic politics is starting to exist and it’s subverting the politicidal presumptions of Australian multiculturalism, saying look these people are getting too political for my taste, how am I going to encompass them for God’s sake. Worst, increasingly, the Muslim political will starts developing as a will coming from the outside, acting within the space of my nation. This started to happen gradually, but especially with the rise of Ayatollah Khamenei, and especially during, I don't know, most of you should remember, the Salman Rushdie affair, when Ayatollah Khamenei decided to, listen carefully here what he decides to do, he decided to grab a person living under British law, and say, “I don't care which law you’re living under, I’m going to let Islamic law operate on you. I don't care what national law you’re under, the Islamic law say you’re a baddy, baddy, baddy, I’m going to get you”. And, poor Salman Rushdie was sitting there in England and say, “What’s going on here, I thought I was a British citizen and suddenly there’s the door of the other operating on me”. To make things worse, all these Muslim people in Britain who started coming down the street and saying, “Not only we agree with Khamenei, are saying okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do it”. Notice, I’ll do it means here, not only is Islamic law operating on British law, but a guy who’s supposed to be under the law of Britain says I will act in the name of the law of Khamenei in the domain where British law should apply. Notice how this – now, what I’m talking about here, it doesn’t matter if, and it is a fact that only a minority did this, we know that – but the fact is this is how it grabs the imaginary of people and you start to think and developing a sense of Muslims as not just a cultural presence, not just a different cultural presence, but another law in my space.
This is where problem starts for multiculturalism, when the other starts to represent another will, another law acting in my space. What does that mean? It means when a racist looks at a scarf, at a Muslim scarf today, they no longer see cultural otherness, anyone who once sat down and debated about scarfs in terms of cultural otherness missed the point completely. Today, all the citizens of Western nations, even in Wagga Wagga, I hope no one’s from Wagga Wagga here, but, wherever you want in the country, sort of like, they’re blasé enough to cope with cultural difference, let me tell you, they’ve seen enough in life, cultural difference does not annoy anybody. What annoys somebody is the law of the other. When someone looks at a scarf, they don't see another culture, they see another law. That is, and more specifically, going on the mind of the racist, they see another patriarchal law, whether it’s patriarchal or not, you can work it out but, the fact is, they are saying, “This woman is living in my nation, where my law should apply, and what is she doing? She’s saying I am happy to subject myself to another law”. This is how they say. So what does it mean here? What it means basically, an old, sort of like, anthropologically well known law. Which is, one nation, one patriarchy, and we never like the patriarchy of another operating in our spaces. We want to control our women, we don't want men from elsewhere come in and controlling – it’s tribal, the law, the women in my space, I want to control them. These guys come here and say, “Hey, you live here, you’re our women” this is tribal and this is how it operates. You can put all kinds of sophisticated stuff on it, but, bottom line is, this is what it is, who controls the women. And, it is so in Papua New Guinea, and it is so in here.
So, another important dimension of this transnationalism, however, is a failure of multicultural anti-racism. A failure of multicultural anti-racism, especially in dealing with second generation Muslims. There’s two forms of racism which Multiculturalism tried to address more or less. Two forms. One form is what we call non recognition. Non recognition, racism as non recognition means the cultural other comes and there’s no space for them, no one recognises them, they’re invisible, it’s a racism of invisibility. They say, “Hey we exist, come on, notice”. And, multiculturalism has been good in dealing with the racism of non recognition, precisely because they say, “Okay, stop whinging, come here, we’ll look at you, encompass you, you can do your culture here. Fine, we recognise you.”
Another form of racism is the racism of negative recognition. Negative recognition is not invisibility, but it’s visibility, but negative. That is, “I can see you alright, but I hate you. I can see you alright, but I think your culture stinks, you’re shit, blah, blah, blah”, whatever you like. So here, you’re sure enough recognised, but you’re negatively recognised. And, multiculturalism has tried to deal more or less successfully with this problem of negative recognition, by saying, “well, we value your culture”. There’s all kinds of problems with this, but at least it’s saying we value your culture, it’s important to value the culture of the other, as opposed to under value it, or not recognise it.
Now, that’s all fine, except that there is a far more complex and far more traumatic racism, which is the racism to which the second and third generation have been subjected to, which is neither the racism of non recognition, nor the racism of negative recognition. It is the racism of misrecognition. Misrecognition is a very complex racism. We also use the more technical term, call it the racism of misinterpellation. Interpellation is a very famous concept used by a French Philosopher called Louis Althusser and the notion of interpellation meant that you get called by society. That is, you find society… it’s like when parents are discussing a new born before a new born arrives on the scene. They know, maybe the sex and they build a room for it and they say we’re going to do this and that and start talking about it and they create a space, and so all that is left is for the baby to pop out and occupy the space which has already been constructed for him or her because already, everyone talking about we’re going to do this and this, blah, blah, blah, social space, symbolic space. Interpellation is this, interpellation means that society has a space for you and it calls you and says, “Hey you come here, you’re going to be a good Australian, hey you, come here”. Me? Okay, pop, sit and you start enjoying yourself as a lovey dovey Australian. Now, what happens with misinterpellation is quite traumatic because, remember, it’s neither non recognition nor negative recognition, we can call it neither non interpellation nor negative interpellation. Misinterpellation is when you hear the call and someone says, “Hey you, Australian”, and you say “Yes, me!” I say, “Piss off, I’m not talking to you”. That is you hear the call and then after you come to occupy your space, someone tells you that’s not your space. That is, as you are constructing yourself as a subject, as you are constructing your well being into a society, society turns and tells you no, and shatters you. And so, it is quite traumatic because the person who experiences misinterpellation has to pick up the pieces and try to construct themselves somewhere else.
Another dimension of this is, what I called a long time ago, assimilation fatigue. Assimilation fatigue is… what it means – people get sick and tired of trying, of trying to assimilate, because the game of assimilation, even under multiculturalism – you have to remember that assimilation as a sociological fact, regardless of what the state policy is, is a fact on the ground, if you are a kid in the school you’re trying to assimilate, regardless of whether you have assimilation or multiculturalism or whatever. You want to fit in with the people you are operating with. And, many research, my own, have shown how people will say, look I was born here, I did all the things with my friends and I thought I was just one of them, and then one of them made this comment and made me feel that, no, I thought I was part of them but in fact, they still think of me as not part of them. Assimilation fatigue is, you enter the game of assimilation means you keep saying am I Australian, and the people who love assimilation are the people who consider themselves already assimilated and are in a position to judge you as to whether you’re assimilated enough or not. And so, you say, “Okay, have I got this accent, yeah, but you know, etcetera”.
And so, the people who enter the game of assimilation enter in a never ending game in which they are always trying to become fully Australian, but, they will never become fully Australian, someone will always say yes, good, good boy, good girl, try a little bit more here. And so, what has happened is that people en masse started suffering from assimilation fatigue and started looking for spaces where they constitute themselves away from assimilation and away from the trauma of misinterpellation, and try to constitute themselves as full human beings without having this super ego that is always judging you negatively, “No you’re not civilised enough, no, you haven’t done enough to become Western, no, you haven’t got the groove well”, whatever. No, you haven’t. And, a lot of people who… like I… I was recently in this youth conference in Brisbane, and this guy, this rapper was telling me, “When I’m rapping, that’s the only time I feel I’m whole person, and I forget all the racism I’m subjected to.”. He was telling me this, and another guy says “That’s exactly how I feel with Islam, I go to Islam and I feel I have a space where no one is judging me, where no one is telling me no, no, no, you haven’t, you’re not enough, etc. And I reconstitute myself.”. So, part of the move to Islam then is the struggle to reconstitute the self without a Western superego always judging you negatively. I’ve got a talk superego but he’s not Western, it’s Shahram, he’s just told me 2 minutes. Okay..
Islam then, because of its transnationalism, because of its history is increasingly perceived as a threatening will within the domain of multicultural acceptability, it is not encompassable, it is not willing to be non political, it is not willing to play the game of assimilation, all of these are perceived as putting it outside. But, the notion of threat, you have to remember, is a subjective one. Nothing is by its nature threatening. Threatening – if you are 200kgs and someone sort of like that little come to you, you won't find them threatening. If the same person comes to me I’ll find them threatening, depending on – threat is relative to your sensitivity, so to speak. And so, it is important to remember that if we say Muslims are perceived as threatening, it’s not meaning they’re threatening, it means that they’re threatening relative to Western sensitivities that exist today. And, what is important to remember is that Western sensitivity regardless of Islam, is very fragile.
Why do we say this? First, one core crisis in the West today, not only in Australia but in all Western countries, but to a variety of degree is the fact that the integration, integration of Western citizens to their nations is no longer something structural. I’ve put it the right way now I’ll explain. The integration of Western citizens into their nation is no longer something structural. It’s not something like economic for instance, before I didn’t need, I or whoever, did not need an ideology to feel part of their nation, they felt part of their nation just by having a job, because the economy was nationalist. Today, if you have a job, it’s not necessary at all that having a job will make you feel part of the nation. It can make you feel part of whatever, part of a transnational, sort of like institution, etc, but, there is a detachment of economic belonging and national belonging. Economic belonging thus no longer secure national belonging. This is a generalised part of globalisation. This has meant that ideology, nationalist ideology has to do a lot more work to secure the integration of Western citizens to their nation. It is far more today, when the nationalist say to you, “We must have Australian values”, in the 1950’s, this used to be addressed to the immigrant, today, don’t make the mistake, it is addressed to mainstream citizens, to the core citizens it is saying to them, “We will have values for you because if we don't have values there’s nothing else that will make you stick to the nation”.
So, the values etcetera, all of these ideological domain, the ideological domain becomes crucial for the survival of Western nation, and because it is ideological, it becomes, and I’m finishing, it becomes what I call phallic. Excuse me for introducing this notion at the end, but it is important to understand how civilisation becomes phallic. Civilisation becomes phallic when it becomes a possession and it becomes a competitive thing, “I’ve got values”. There’s a difference you see between, “I live my values” and “I’ve got values”. When the dominant mode of thinking about democracy, values, etc, is “I’ve got”, this mode of living becomes what we call, technically, phallic, that is, “Look what I’ve got, and what I’ve got is so good compared to what you’ve got. Look at my democracy, my democracy is so super duper compared to your shitty democracy. Look at me”.
Now, phallic modality is, you know, “Look at my patriarchy, my patriarchy is so groovy compared to your patriarchy”. Phallic logic of civilisation is when everything you experience as part of your culture you see it competitively. You see it as, “I’ve got it and the other doesn’t have it, and not only the other doesn’t have it but they should have it but there’s no way they’re going to have it because I’m the only one that has it, it’s so groovy”. This is phallic logic. Whether it is whiteness, whether it is blue eyes, whether it is democracy, this is how you live a phallic modality of living. Now, what is also quintessential about, as every psychologist knows about phallic experiences is that any phallic experience has in it, inherent in it, the fear of losing it. Castration complex. The fear of losing what you have. You say you have it, but you always scared that you don't have it, and you... so it creates a paranoid culture where you always feeling, “I’m going to appear, look, I my democracy is fantastic”, but you know deep down, the person who is saying it, deep down knows that they are on brittle ground, and they want reinforcement, they want you to say, “Yeah, I love your democracy, I wish I had it”, but if someone says, “No I don’t”, they feel immediately undermined, etcetera, and this kind of sensitivity, phallic sensitivity, makes modes of Islamic association even more threatening than they are today. And, in order to ensure that the chair does not become more threatening, I’m going to stop.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
QUESTION: I basically agree with your argument and I might read your book. I come from Indonesia and I think in your presentation you didn't distinguish between Islam as an ideology and Islam as a religion. And, I think in multicultural society, Islam as religion is quite acceptable. But, Islam as a political ideology, even threatens Islamic nations like Indonesia and Malaysia. Even President Suharto send Abu Bakar Bashir to Malaysia, exile, because.. Can you make a distinction between Islam as ideology or religion.
PROF. HAGE: Well, I think it depends which Islam you’re talking about. There’s no doubt there are places where Islam can be more ideological, and there are places where it is more religious, and there are places where you cannot distinguish between the two. I know, like the same goes for Christianity. In Lebanon there used to be a lot of people who would say to you, “I’m Christian, but I’m Atheist.” And, the idea is that you know, I belong ideologically to Christianity, to the community of Christians, etcetera, but, others would see this as a total aberration. But, this takes us into the domain of identification and how historically certain categories come to mean certain things, you know. But if you say, “I’m Catholic” in Northern Ireland, it means all kinds of things, that it does not mean when you say, “I’m Catholic” somewhere else, and likewise with Islam. When you say, “I’m Muslim” it depends on the social and historical situation.
QUESTION: You were talking about this notion of the phallic and how we sort of associate ourselves with something that we believe is more superior than someone else, and that’s definitely present in the West but, when it’s also present amongst Muslims that creates the conflict, so what do you say to that?
PROF. HAGE: Well, you know, let me tell you one thing. I have learnt long time ago that being subjected to oppression has never made anyone fantastic. Being subjected to racism does not make you non-racist. Being subjected to colonialism does not make you anti-colonist. I mean, it is a fact that, you know, the people who are subjected to all kinds of ills can exhibit those ills at the very same time they are subjected to them, and so, there’s nothing about phallic logic which is Western, it is human, and I mean, there’s no doubt that Islam itself can be experienced phallic, and say, “Look at my Islam, people can’t do that.”
QUESTION: I just wanted to know, you talked a lot about how it’s become more difficult in our society with globalisation and things like that, for finding some common ground. What do you suggest in order to bridge the gap between Western communities and Islam?
PROF. HAGE: Thank you, that’s a good final question, it allows me to go into proscriptive mode and define how society is going to become wonderful and how everyone is going to live in peace! Well, I think definitely that when we look at the issue today, which is, whether, as I said, it’s the will of the other. The issue today is, can we live, not just with the other, the culturally different, but can we live with the other as another will facing us. There is no doubt that the whole institutions of cultural difference based on the scheme of recognition are not useful. All the element of recognising the other, tolerating the other, valuing the other, all of these schemes of recognition are not useful because they don't involve facing the will of the other, or you might put it also, the sovereignty of the other, and colonialism cannot cope with the sovereignty of the other, colonialism operates with a kind of logic where any sovereignty that the other has is lost. It’s a zero sum game. Now, the trick is to think of new ways in which sovereignty is not a zero sum game, which is something I have been, as an anthropologist, I’ve been interested in ways and varieties of ways cultural situations, where the sovereignty of the other is not threatening to me, not just in other cultures, but, like one quick example, parenting, what does it mean between a culture of command and a culture of negotiation within a family, where, sort of like, if a child says to you, “I want an ice-cream”, you have a choice of saying, and you feel they shouldn't have an ice-cream, you say, “Well no”, or you say “Look, I don't think that’s reasonable, let’s talk about it.”. Okay, now notice, if you opt for the second one, which means you’re a very cosmopolitan kind of person of course, it also means that you have an interest in developing the sovereignty of your child. You have an interest in your child, you say, “I want my child to become autonomous. I don't see any sovereignty or autonomy that my child is going to gain as a loss of my sovereignty. I have an interest in fostering the sovereignty of my child.”. Now, I am not saying that’s the model we have to adopt, but I’m saying, it points to the fact that there are ways of living sovereignty which is not a zero sum game, and the concept of negotiation is very attractive to me, can we negotiate with the other. Forget about recognising the other, because negotiation always entails looking and seeing the other as a subject, never as an object. If you look at recognition, toleration, all of them can be broken into recogniser, recognised. Tolerator, tolerated. Valuer, valued. Negotiation can’t, there is no such thing as negotiator, negotiated, negotiation is a relation which always assumes that the other is a subject, negotiator. And so, can whether we move to a society where it is a culture of negotiation rather than a culture of recognition is an interesting question.