Epilogue: Equality and the Future of Muslim Identity Politics in Britain

ADALAH ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahrotunnimah Zahrotunnimah

Abstract:The discussion of this simple article was inspired by a book entitled The Politics of Identity and the Future of Our Pluralism. The problem in this book is whether the identity politics in Indonesia will jeopardize the nationalist position and pluralism in Indonesia in the future? If dangerous in what form? How to handle it? The source of this book relies on the opinion of L. A Kauffman who first explained the nature of identity politics, and who first introduced the term political identity which is still unknown. However, in this book explained substantively, identity politics is associated with the interests of members of a social group who feel blackmailed and feel alienated by large currents in a nation or state.Keywords: Identity Politics, Nation, ReligionAbstrak:Pembahasan artikel sederhana ini terinspirasi dari buku berjudul Politik Identitas dan Masa Depan Pluralisme Kita. Permasalahan dalam buku ini adalah apakah poitik identitas di Indonesia ini akan membahayakan posisi nasionalis dan pluralisme di Indonesia di masa yang akan datang? Jika berbahaya dalam bentuk apa? Bagaimana cara mengatasinya? Sumber buku ini bersandarkan pada pendapat L. A Kauffman yang pertama kali menjelaskan tentang hakekat politik identitas, dan siapa yang pertama kali memperkenalkan istilah politik identitas yang masih belum diketahui sampai saat ini. Tetapi, didalam buku ini dijelaskan secara substansif, politik identitas dikaitkan dengan kepentingan anggota-anggota sebuah kelompok sosial yang merasa diperas dan merasa tersingkir oleh arus besar dalam sebuah bangsa atau negara. Kata Kunci: Politik Identitas, Bangsa, Agama   


Author(s):  
Yanwar Pribadi

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.


Gamer Trouble ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-170
Author(s):  
Amanda Phillips

This chapter argues that we should understand identity in video games as a way to value incommensurable difference rather than organized diversity. It focuses on FemShep, the female version of the Mass Effect trilogy’s Commander Shepard, who became an icon of diversity and inclusion in conversations about video games. FemShep is not a fully realized woman in her own right, but a character designed as a man and minimally altered to become a “woman.” The chapter explores the ways that Mass Effect betrays these origins through improbable animations and relationship choices, comparing it to similar oversights in Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2, and then suggests that it is the fact that FemShep is not a fully realized character that makes her a useful rallying point for political gamers. The chapter closes by drawing from Black feminists Kara Keeling and Audre Lorde to propose that “unity in difference” is the future (and past) of identity politics, and that the individualist war hero so popular in video games is no way to implement a politics of coalition and justice.


2014 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Abbink

This essay discusses the continued importance that religion holds in African life, not only in terms of numbers of believers, but also regarding the varieties of religious experience and its links with politics and the “public sphere(s)”. Coinciding with the wave of democratization and economic liberalization efforts since about 1990, a notable growth of the public presence of religion and its political referents in Africa has been witnessed; alongside “development”, religion will remain a hot issue in the future political trajectory of the continent. Its renewed presence in public spheres has also led to new understandings of what religion means and how it figures into both “world-making” and identity politics. This will prolong the challenges associated with the role and status of religion in the “secular state model” found in most African countries. Can these states, while “besieged” by believers, maintain neutrality among diverse worldviews, and if so, how? The paper discusses these issues in a general manner with reference to African examples, some taken from fieldwork by the author, and makes a philosophical argument for the development of a new kind of “secular state” that can respect the religious commitments of African populations.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilwar Hussain

This article is a reflection on some of the discussions around faith and public life, within the context of Muslim communities and their interaction with public policy. It looks at the gap between popular debates on Muslims and the actual lived socio-economic reality of most people of Muslim background, and then goes on to look at aspects of identity formation and Muslim identity politics in the UK. It also considers the idea of integration and looks briefly at emerging Islamic discourses that are grappling with some of the challenges presented by modern British society. Finally, the article explores the role of faith in the public sphere and if it can help to build social capital and play a role in ideas such as the Big Society. The article concludes by emphasising the need to move beyond identity politics and communitarianism and asks where the real divides in society are – between religious and ideological groups or within them?


Author(s):  
Edward E. Curtis IV

The future of US democracy depends on the question of whether Muslim Americans can become full social and political citizens. Though many Muslims have worked toward full assimilation since the 1950s, it has mattered little whether they have expressed dissent or supported the political status quo. Their efforts to assimilate have been futile because the liberal terms under which they have negotiated their citizenship have simultaneously alienated Muslims from the body politic. Focusing on both electoral and grassroots Muslim political participation, this book reveals Muslim challenges to and accommodation of liberalism from the Cold War to the war on terror. It shows how the Nation of Islam both resisted and made use of postwar liberalism, and then how Malcolm X sought a political alternative in his Islamic ethics of liberation. The book charts the changing Muslim American politics of the late twentieth century, examining how Muslim Americans fashioned their political participation in response to a form of US nationalism tied to war-making against Muslims abroad. The book analyzes the everyday resistance of Muslim American women to an American identity politics that put their bodies at the center of US public life and it assesses the attempts of Muslim Americans to find acceptance through military service. It concludes with an examination of the role of Muslim American dissent in the contemporary politics of the United States.


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