Farid Esack Muslim and Democrat

Transcription

1 Farid Esack Muslim and Democrat Farid Esack is a professor in the Study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He completed the Darsi Nizami, the traditional Islamic Studies programme, in madrasahs in Karachi, Pakistan. He earned his doctorate from the University of Birmingham in the UK and subsequently did some post-doctoral work on Biblical Hermeneutics at the Philosophisch Theologische Hochschule, Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt-am-Main. He is the author of several publications including Qur an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity Against Oppression; On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today and An Introduction to the Qur an. His current major field of interest and commitment is Islam and Aids. He is the author of a series of publications dealing with this area including Islam, HIV and AIDS Reflections Based on Compassion, Responsibility and Justice. In 2009, he coedited Islam and AIDS Between Scorn, Pity and Justice, with Sarah Chiddy. He has also published widely on Islam, Gender, Liberation Theology, Inter-faith Relations, Religion and Identity and Qur anic Hermeneutics. Formerly a National Commissioner on Gender Equality appointed by President Nelson Mandela, he has taught at the Universities of the Western Cape, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Gadjah Mada as well as at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. Prior to his appointment as a professor at the University of Johannesburg, he held a joint appointment for two years at Harvard University between the Divinity School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as the William Henry 208 Religion and Culture

2 Bloomberg Professor. He was previously a Distinguished Mason Fellow at the College of William and Mary, and the Besl Professor in Ethics, Religion and Society at Xavier University in Ohio. A veteran of the struggle against apartheid and an activist in the inter-religious solidarity movement for justice and peace, he played a leading role in the UDF, the Call of Islam (COI), the Organisation of People Against Sexism and the World Conference on Religion and Peace. In addition to his academic pursuits, he continues his activism through Positive Muslims, an organisation working with Muslims who are HIV positive in South Africa, and through the several development boards on which he serves in South Africa and internationally. Farid Esack likes to introduce himself as Farid Esack van die Bonteheuwel a bont or coloured township created by the apartheid regime, away from the newly declared white suburbs, from which his family was evicted in Today this Professor of Islamic Studies is Head of the Department of Religion Studies and an Associate in the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg. Asked to define his current identity, he says Ek is uitgebaster put me down as a hybrid who is essentially a Muslim and someone who is unequivocally committed to seeing the emergence of an integrated and just South Africa. Our conversation is wide-ranging. Esack returns repeatedly to the question of what defines democracy, maintaining that democracy is an inward process as much as the right to vote. Given his life s journey, shaped as it was by apartheid and his deep Islamic upbringing, he is adamant that inner democracy requires him to energise the political process. He also insists that he needs to be theologically engaged in the quest to be a decent human being in a cosmopolitan, multi-religious society. A primary concern for him is the need to discover the full implications of non-racism, non-sexism and non-classism to ensure that none of us ever think that we are superior to those who are different from us. Beyond the façade of difference there is a common humanity. If religion loses sight of that, he insists, it becomes a negative, if not a demonic, force in society. He argues that the need to see beyond our particular faith, tradition, culture and status in life is perhaps the toughest assignment that life can throw at us. It requires us to divest ourselves of the Conversations in Transition 209

3 presuppositions of race, gender, religion and class that sometimes make us less than human, allowing us to think we are superior to those who are different from us. Esack sees religion as having the capacity to make better human beings. He, at the same time, states that it can constitute the tentacles that hold us captive. Religion can be a source of captivity and submission as well as an incentive to liberation and self-realisation. Negatively, it can make one a bigot and a bully. It can also turn a person into a narrow-minded crusader and terrorist. Positively, it challenges us to plumb the depths of our identity and the mystery of life, through respectful dialogue with those of other faiths and traditions, in pursuit of fulfilment and a sense of spiritual truth that is ultimately greater than anything that we can ever fully grasp. At its best, religion is for him about confronting the negative and positive experiences that have shaped our lives, drawing on the faith of our mothers, the wisdom of our fathers in faith, the insights of our teachers and mentors, in an attempt discover ways of rising above the negatives that make us less than what he calls inclusively human. Theology as biography Esack returns to Bonteheuwel for regular visits. I do so as a spiritual pilgrimage, a theological exercise and a political focus in search of myself, he tells us. I walk the streets; I sometimes drive around quite aimlessly, and visit the mosque. On each occasion I rediscover how rooted I am, despite the privilege that has been mine to travel the world and live in some exotic places. My theological quest and political engagement is the story of my life that started in Bonteheuwel and never quite left that place. He speaks about the Bonteheuwel which he first encountered when he was six years old. He remembers scavenging for food and the vast windswept open fields dotted with tents and canvas structures to provide shelter for those thrown out of their homes in terms of the Group Areas Act. There were no mosques or churches. It was a forlorn and foreign place, he says. We were dumped together with people from different parts of Cape Town. In time we found a friend or someone we knew from our past and, together with new friends, began to cobble together a new community. Esack s father left his mother and disappeared from the life of the family when Esack was three weeks old, leaving his mother to raise him and his five brothers. She worked in a textile factory, leaving home well before sunrise 210 Religion and Culture

4 on winter mornings, returning home well after dark to cook, clean, iron and care for her family. Weeping, he explains that he is never able to speak of his mother without crying. He continues: Women were nothing. Most women were regarded as chattels. They were abused and expected to be subservient. This was a community where the man was sultan. It was also a milieu which produced a massive backlash by strong women, often at great cost to themselves, which is today personified in the tough Muslim woman who is often the de facto head of a Muslim household, the Kaapse vrou who takes no nonsense from anyone who crosses her path, who has entered politics and who is rewriting gender relations in the mosque and in broader society. Esack s mother, Fatimah, was raped crossing a field on her way home from work one night. She died at the age of fifty-three. Achmat Davids, a social worker, took the young Farid into his home in Bo-Kaap. My commitment to gender politics and the prioritising of the rights of women in theology was inspired by my awareness of the exploitation of my mother and the sacrifice she made to raise her six sons. It created a context within which I came to realise that the God of the Qur an takes sides for the weak, against the strong. This is the lens through which I read that Qur an. Esack recalls with passion and a sense of nostalgia that there were two options for survival in the environment in which he was raised: gangs and religion. My one brother, Hashiem, served a lengthy prison sentence for murder. While in Pollsmoor Prison he murdered an inmate. I turned to religion. He began his education as a young child in a traditional madrasah, where he memorised Qur anic texts, joined a revivalist group, the Tablighi Jama ah, a roaming band of preachers whom he accompanied from city to city during the school holidays. He later became chairperson of National Youth Action. Becoming increasingly involved in politics, he was influenced by the BCM and joined the South African Black Scholars Association, the only organisation mobilising against apartheid in black schools in the Western Cape. His political involvement intensified his militancy. This, he says, was as much a reaction against apartheid, capitalism and Western imperialism as anything else. I was very angry and ready to support almost any form of resistance available to me. At the age of seventeen Esack left for Karachi in Pakistan and studied at Karachi s famous Jami ah Binnuriyyah for four years. Later, he graduated from Jami ah Alimiyyah al-islamia with a Bachelor s Degree in Islam Law and Theology, and did post-graduate work at Jami ah Abu Bakr. Jami ah Conversations in Transition 211

5 Binnuriyyah is today regarded as among the leading Muslim fundamentalist institutions for the study of Islam in the world. This, he explains, was and still is the spiritual home of Bin Laden-type ideology and Taliban theology. He continues: It is perhaps only in hindsight that I am aware what a dreadful place it was. He now also realises that it was this exposure to an extreme nexus between Islamic extremist theology and politics that awoke in him the beginning of a reaction against all brands of fundamentalism whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu. He contends that it was here that my rejection of narrow, closed notions of religion began to be formed. My formal studies exposed me to dogmatism of the worst kind, and I began to meet with other non-muslims who were working in prisons and engaging in the struggle for human rights. At the lowest level of my existence I encountered dissident Christians through the Student Christian Movement and later through the Breakthrough Movement in Karachi. I met Brother Norman Ray. There is a sense in which he saved my soul. My encounter with him took me back in my mind to my days in Cape Town and a marginalised but shared existence under apartheid Christians, Muslims, Hindus, respecting one another and working together in pursuit of a better life for all and a fuller, inclusive understanding of humanity. Esack returned to South Africa in 1982 as a trained Mawlana. He became a leading member of the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) in the Western Cape, served on the National Executive of the Muslim Youth Movement (MYM) and became the National Coordinator of the COI. Both the MYM and the COI sought to broaden a restricted and narrow understanding of Islam, while drawing Muslims deeper into the struggle against apartheid. Together with others in the COI, including leaders such as the late Imam Hassan Solomon and Ebrahim Rasool, the current South African ambassador to the USA, he was at the forefront of persuading Muslims to join the UDF an inclusive, secular political front against apartheid. He became a formative figure in the Organisation for People Against Sexism and was later appointed by President Mandela to serve on the Commission for Gender Equality. He was a founder member of the World Conference on Religion and Peace and other interfaith organisations. He was throughout this time also becoming increasingly involved in scholarly work, obtaining a doctorate from the University of Birmingham. He later taught at several universities in the US, Europe, Indonesia and Pakistan, establishing himself as a leading scholar of Islam. This was never, he tells us, without opposition from more conservative Muslims. A controversial person in Muslim circles, Esack is determined to 212 Religion and Culture

6 show that Islam is big enough to be part of the struggle for human rights in a complex and changing modern world. My political engagement was grounded in my faith as a Muslim. My theology was, in turn, an expression of my lived experience in an apartheid society, he says. My present endeavour is to keep this nexus between faith and practice alive, without collapsing the one into the other. A third way of being Muslim The inner workings and relations of Islam, like all religions, are a complex and confusing reality for the uninitiated. Esack stresses that he is neither a fundamentalist nor a secularist. He is committed to the democratisation and broadening of debate both within and in relation to Islam, while probing how to make a meaningful contribution to being a responsible South African in a multidimensional secular state. He is part of a group of international scholars who reach beyond the academic world by grounding their theology in active commitment to overcome that which undermines the human dignity of those who are victims of religious and social abuse and of economic exploitation. Their endeavour is the quest for a third way of being Muslim, located between fundamentalism and secularism. Esack s commitment is to read the Qur an in the light of the contemporary needs and the challenges of society that require Muslims and others to coexist with people of other faiths and ideological persuasions and to act in solidarity with others to create a more just world. It is to grapple with the multidimensional thinking and practices of global politics. From his perspective this requires the simultaneous rethinking of Islamic traditions as well as the questioning of western individualism and its notions of so-called universal values and human rights. He wants to open up Islamic debate to question the dominant ideas of globalisation, thereby challenging the means through which the West imposes its ideas on a heterogeneous world. This practice alienates people and nations that are morally and spiritually bound to ancient beliefs and practices. My concern, he argues, is to find a balance, a third way, between the extremes of ultrasecularism that are supported and promoted by crass forms of materialism and narrow forms of Islamic fundamentalism. This fundamentalism refuses to engage in the global debate or to face the needs of those who are alienated by dominant Islamic social values in a serious manner. We live in a cosmopolitan world, not in a universal one. If we refuse to accept this and fail to find a formula that unites us in our diversity, the tensions that we face in South Africa and the Conversations in Transition 213

7 successive wars between the West and Muslim countries that threaten to tear the world apart will continue to occur. Esack shifts with ease in discussion through his personal struggle for a liberating faith at the time of his youthful engagement in Islamic revivalist groups, his theological training in Karachi, his encounter with Islamic dogmatism on his return to South Africa, and his present engagement in intellectual and moral debate on the nature of Islam. He engages with scholars at home and abroad as well as imams and others who seek to defend the traditional teachings and structures of Islam in mosques and madrasahs. Critical of reformist intellectuals who are often removed from the social and economic concerns of grass roots Muslims, he seeks to discern the message of Islam regarding personal and social concerns that traditionalists often regard as taboo. These include a range of gender-related concerns and debate on sexual orientation. He insists on addressing social and health-based issues such as HIV/Aids, and environmental justice, always insisting on the need for critical participation in theological debate. His work has been translated into about twelve languages. His publication HIV, AIDS, and Islam: Reflections on Compassion, Justice and Responsibility constitutes a major contribution to a global awareness of the pandemic. His On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today is now in its seventh edition and is arguably among the most widely-read alternatives to traditional Islamic teaching in the West and his Qur an, Liberation and Pluralism, first published in 1997, remains the foundational text on Islam and Liberation theology. Esack is under no illusion that the democratisation of religious knowledge and debate will succeed in Muslim communities. Conservative forces have succeeded in obstructing reformist intellectuals in Muslim countries. The interpretation of Islam continues to be the domain of the `ulama both in Muslim majority countries and in South Africa. Let us be blunt on this one, says Esack, it is not in their interest to concede too much space to those who challenge their interpretation of the teachings of Islam. He refers to a coalition of forces between the `ulama, sheiks and princes of dominant Muslim countries, while pointing to the toenadering between some mosques and the South African government. This, he sees, as a form of longing for acceptance by some Muslims that is reminiscent of the synergy between church and state in colonial and apartheid history. This, he argues, is a relationship that includes self-interest, the pursuit of social status and personal ambitions, promoted through a religious veneer that is a social carrier of 214 Religion and Culture

8 the values of the dominant classes in society. Stressing the subtleness of the synthesis, he speaks of it as an unconscious persuasion and a habitual practice that is frequently entrenched through the social practices and belief systems of mosque, church and temple. He notes: My task as an intellectual and social activist is to encourage those who grapple with questions of truth and morality through religion to be vigilant in their endeavours as they relate sacred texts whether the Qur an, the Bible or the Torah to the world in which we live, lest we slip into the trap of using religion to legitimate and promote the interests of the dominant classes rather than the weak and the vulnerable. Committed to critical religious debate, he prioritises the need to counter the argument that religion is ultimately an exercise that legitimates the strong, offering opium to the poor. He, at the same time, argues that it is important to avoid absurd ways of negating all that the government or any religious institution does that result in romantic notions of revolution and anarchism, and submission to the secular authority, which constitutes the theological justification of the ruler. He insists that the relationship between the prophet and government is a complex one that requires the deepest theological and moral reflection: Let me be blunt. Those who have influence and power in this relationship whether in government, mosque or church don t like too much debate around such things. The instigation of such debate is, however, the task of intellectuals and activists. This is what makes restless activists with an intellectual bent so unpopular in the circles of religious and political power. My task, as a believer and scholar, is to challenge government, to resist complacency and to stretch the goals of society beyond what seems to be possible at any given time. This, in essence, is the challenge that Islam, Christianity and the world s great religions bring to the secular state. Past failures and future hopes Esack is a controversial figure. That s who I am, he says. I am critical of religious and political structures, primarily because I know how difficult it is for me to rise above the controls of the political and religious institutions of which I am a part. I, like most people, have internalised these religious and political controls and struggle to be an honest person within the mosque and the state. I am at the same time determined not to be intimidated or held captive by the reactionary dimensions of these structures. In religion, I seek to counter fossilised myths and traditions that are devoid of Qur anic textual authenticity. In politics, we all need to counter the crass materialism that Conversations in Transition 215

9 contradicts the essential teachings of the Freedom Charter that gave so many of us political birth. The abuse of religion Esack recalls with deep anguish how, during the eighties, he and others in the COI had joined in and even led the attacks on some of those whom the Islamic establishment had declared to be heretics. He speaks of his own involvement in violence against those who differed with mainstream Muslim theology, being driven by a mixture of religion, politics and a personal agenda. Hesitant to talk of these activities he observes: The truth is it happened. I am deeply ashamed of what I and others did and I am at loss to know how to make an appropriate mea culpa. I have spoken with some of the victims of our inquisitions and witch-hunts and with others who opposed them. They tell me to simply forget and to let the matter rest. Memory, however, eats away at my conscience and I need to take some kind of action, as much for my own sake as in an attempt to restore relations with those whose humanity I undermined and whose property I destroyed. In the bigger scheme of things, my actions also portray the manner in which religion is so often used as a cloak behind which other forces are hidden. In this instance it was manipulated by a political agenda and the pursuit of political power and control. Arguing that he has stepped back from direct involvement in party politics, his concern is the promotion of inter-relations between people of different political persuasions and beliefs, in pursuit of a quality of human relations that prioritises mutual respect and human dignity. Given our conflictual past, we need to look deep into our respective pasts, question our deepest theological and ideological convictions and, in interaction with those with whom we may not always agree, begin to imagine a new and different kind of society. Religion has an important role to play in this process. At best, it touches on the need to live in harmony with others, even those whom we may regard as our enemies, under the one God who, I suggest, probably takes our petty theological differences less seriously than we do. Religion is, in essence, about the quest for a fuller sense of humanity. Its involvement in politics, aesthetics, art and philanthropic work needs, by definition, to be in pursuit of a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of a common humanity, of interwovenness with our only home the earth and of inseparable links with all other living beings. Surrounded by books, art and symbols of the Muslim faith in his office, Esack speaks of religions and cultures as different realms 216 Religion and Culture

10 within which we live and through which we reach towards an understanding of the mystery of life s ultimates. The allure of power The lure and seduction of power preoccupies Esack. He sees the enticement of power as the biggest challenge facing institutionalised religion in contemporary South Africa. As the edifices of apartheid began to crumble in the 1980s it became increasingly popular to oppose the ruling forces and institutions of the apartheid era. The battle lines were clear and religious leaders found it increasingly difficult not to resist both the brutality of the state and the overtures made by the more adventurous spokespersons and spin doctors on the side of white domination. Today our political leaders are our friends. Their ideologies and policies, unlike those of apartheid times, are in principle intended to serve the common good. The problem is that power is seductive and often becomes a vehicle of corruption. He speaks of the great religious leaders and prophets, extending from the Hebrew prophets, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Steve Biko and others. Religious gurus, messiahs and prophets invariably challenged the political and social elite of their day and were often required to pay the ultimate price for so doing. None of them ever had fitting in with power as their primary quest. Troubled by the role of religion in society, Esack speaks of the importance of outspoken, spiritually-driven prophets and secular critics of the existing order. This commitment plays out in his leadership role in Peace for Life, an international network of religious leaders striving for global justice and peace. He also stresses the need for religious leaders to be more than critics of government. They need to play a constructive role in addressing the stubborn problems that confront society, providing political counsel, seeking realistic ways of ensuring that the needs of the poor and marginalised are taken seriously by government. He sees the role of religion to be a bold and prophetic one. This, he insists, is infused into the major religions of the world It is part of our DNA. We are at the same time required to face the immensity of the problems in the world, offering practical, step by step ways of addressing these problems. He argues that religious leaders all too often either legitimate the political order, or seek to merely debunk it. The need is also to engage it. We need to convince our political leaders that we have a serious contribution to make in resolving the problems we face as a country, without allowing Conversations in Transition 217

11 ourselves to lose the prophetic task of calling them to book when they fail to serve the principles that they so easily espouse on public platforms. Taking sides with the marginalised and oppressed Esack s upbringing, the sacrifice of his mother, the indifference of religious institutions to the abuse of women especially their appeal to the scriptures in Christianity and Islam as a justification of male domination and his own complicity in the persecution of others, are the impulses that drive his theological and moral endeavour. Given his theological and social location in Islam, he argues, my contribution to the needs of the poor and marginalised can best be served through my engagement in the Islamic theological debate. Esack alludes to what he calls the deep-seated conservatism in Islam which he believes needs to be challenged through teaching and debate as a way to overcome Muslim extremist views on global politics, the fight against HIV/Aids, gender justice and what he describes as sultan values that undermine the humanity of both men and women in Islamic countries as well as minority Muslim groups in countries across the world. It is here that Esack sees a sense of continuity extending from Bonteheuwel to the University of Johannesburg, and from his political activism in the struggle against apartheid to his public intellectual engagement today. There was always an intellectual or cerebral dimension to my activism and there is still today an activist in me. Common sense and political analysis tell us where we can be most effective. I have never been as fulfilled as I am at present in the classroom, in my research activities and in public debate on religion, ethics and democratic values. My assessment of where we are as a nation today also suggests that we may well, however, need to resort to the overt forms of struggle and activism that were part of our lives in the seventies and eighties. This will, of course, demand that we do so as concerned South Africans of different religious, racial and cultural identities. There can be no plan for narrow-minded sectarianism. 218 Religion and Culture