Menjemput Beasiswa (3 tulisan)
Oleh Chusnul Mar’iyah

Dari beberapa diskusi ada beberapa pertanyaan tentang beasiswa. Saya ingin membagi pengalaman menjemput beasiswa. Paling tidak sejak SPG (Sekolah Pendidikan Guru) sampai mengambil pendidikan Ph.D saya selalu mendapatkan beasiswa.

1. Pada saat SPG (setingkat SMA) saya menerima beasiswa selama 2 tahun terakhir. Kualifikasi mudah sekali selama kita bisa menunjukkan ranking 1 sampai 3, kita mendapatkan beasiswa. Ada juga scheme beasiswa untuk norang miskin.

2. Pada saat pendidikan Sarjana di FISIP UI, saya menerima beasiswa dari Diknas sejak tingkat 2, setelah tentu saja kita menunjukkan prestasi akademik.

3. Pada saat saya menjadi anggota Senat Mahasiswa FISIP UI, dengan Ketua Senat sdr. Imam Prasodjo, kebetulan saya memegang posisi ketua bidang pendidikan. Saya baru melihat ada ketidakadilan dalam proses transparansi beasiswa. Saya memiliki teman yang kaya-raya mendapatkan beasiswa dari Toyota Foundations yang sebulannya mendapatkan 50 ribu rupiah (bandingkan dengan beasiswa dari Diknas yang 9 ribu rupiah  saja).

Biaya tinggal di Wismarini (asrama UI) hanya 3 (tiga) ribu rupiah. Saya langsung protes ke PD III, agar beasiswa harus diumumkan jauh hari ke mahasiswa. Akhirnya saya dapat pindah beasiswa ke Toyota Foundation. Maka saya sangat kaya saat menjadi mahasiswa waktu itu. Penguasa, termasuk di universitas, biasanya tidak memberikan informasi jauh hari kepada mahasiswa. seringkali tinggal beberapa hari, sehingga kita tidak dapat mengurus beasiswa tersebut karena sudah ditutup.

4. Pada saat yang sama saat di SM FISIP UI, saya juga menjadi Sekretaris Komisariat HMI FISIP UI. Saya melihat bahwa banyak anggota HMI ternyata miskin-miskin. Bersamaan dengan program SM FISIP UI, saya yang miskin dan sudah dapat beasiswa, saya panggil orang-orang miskin tsb dan membuat strategi untuk mendapatkan beasiswa. Belajar diperbaiki, kualifikasi akademik diperbaiki. Alhamdulillah kita yang miskin-miskin akhirnya menjadi pinter-pinter dan mendapatkan beasiswa.

5. Pada saat selesai kuliah saya ingin ke luar negeri. Posisi  Sekretaris Jurusan Ilmu Politik FISIP UI saya manfaatkan untuk membangun relasi dengan berbagai lembaga beasiswa. Saat itu juga saya memiliki teman  anak Menteri Pendidikan. Saya bilang bahwa saya membutuhkan beasiswa. Dia  mau bantu, tapi saya menolaknya. Saya katakan kalau 3 kali saya menjemput beasiswa dan gagal barulah saya akan meminta katabelece dari teman yang anak Menteri Pendidikan tsb. 

6. Saya mendapatkan beasiswa dari Australia Indonesia Institute untukmengambil MPhil Houners Degree di Sydney University. AII ini sebetulnya tidak tertarik untuk memberikan program beasiswa yang lama (2 tahun). Program AII menurut saya hanya untuk mendapatkan nama di media sehingga programnya lebih berupa short visit, seperti  memberi beasiswa kepada Christine Hakim, Gunawan Muhammad dkk mereka. Alhamdulillah saya mendapatkan beasiswa tersebut selama 2 tahun dan itu satu-satunya program AII sampai saat ini.

7. Saya menyadari kebencian saya terhadap bahasa Inggris, karena dari SPG Lamongan, kuliah di FISIP UI, teman-teman saya kalau dilihat tempat lahirnya, London, Washington, Manila, Maroko, Amsterdam. Nah, sebagai orang ndeso Babat tembak langsung ke Jakarta, sebel juga saya dengan Bahasa Inggris, walau di mata kuliah Bahasa Inggris tetap mendapat  angka 8 (delapan). Sangat disadari bahasa inggris yang pas-pasan tersebut. Alhamdulillah saya lumayan IELT nya. Setelah 5 bulan benar-benar
konsentrasi belajar bahasa Inggris, meninggalkan aktivitas LSM dan lain-2nya. Untuk dapat masuk di Sydney University paling tidak harus  7,5 IELT yang harus didapatkan. Saya termasuk yang tidak mendapatkan 7,5, saya lupa mungkin hanya 6,5 IElT tapi tetap dapat masuk di Sydney University (the first university in Australia).

8. Satu tahun di program Department of Government (Politics), saya ditawari untuk upgrade ke Ph.D Program yang kebetulan ketua Departemen-nya Prof. Michael Leigh adalah ahli Asia Tenggara (Malaysia) istrinya ahli Aceh. Saya tinggal dengan keluarga tersebut. Supervisor saya tidak mengerti Indonesia, karenanya saya menulis tentang Urban Politics in Australia. Secara administrasi saya tidak mendapatkan surat
dari Dikti. Saya sudah menunggu setiap hari selama 2 minggu tapi Dikti tidak memberikannya. Saya bilang ya sudah, langsung ke Kedutaan Australia, saya katakan masalah saya, dan langsung dibuatkan surat.  Saya mendapatkan tambahan 5 tahun beasiswa dari AUSAID. Saya tidak memiliki degree Master tapi langsung mendapatkan Ph.D walau pada awalnya bahasa inggris pas-pasan.

9. bagaimana dapat terus-menerus berhasil mendapatkan beasiswa? Disambung di tulisan ke dua.
     
Melbourne, 13 April 2008

Bagian 2

Menjemput beasiswa (2): Informasi beasiswa tidak merata

1. Sebagai Ketua Program Pascasarjana Ilmu Politik FISIP UI 2000-2003, saya mencoba untuk secara afirmatif membantu mahasiswa untuk  mendapatkan beasiswa dengan mencarikan melalui kerjasama maupun mencarikan  informasi dari lembaga-lembaga beasiswa yang ada. Alhamdulillah, pada periode saya enjadi Ketua Program Pascasarjana, banyak mahasiswa yang mendapatkan beasiswa. Kalau tidak bisa memperoleh beasiswa, saya punya program mahasiswa dapat hutang ke Program Pascasarjana dan kemudian membayarnya secara bertahap. Kalau tidak bisa membayar, saya memberikan pekerjaan  di Program Pascarasjana supaya hutangnya bisa dilunasi.
 
2. Beasiswa dari USAID, saya melihatnya sangat elitist. Tapi saya belum pernah mencoba. Pertama, yang mendapatkan beasiswa adalah mereka yang memiliki bahasa inggris sangat bagus. Tidak ada program untuk training Bahasa Inggris, sepengetahuan saya. Mungkin saya salah. Itu info yang dahulu kala saya akan coba. Kedua, koneksi menjadi sangat penting, sirkulasi elit sangat penting (sirkulasinya elit terbatas). Silahkan dari teman-teman yang telah mendapatkan beasiswa dari USAID dapat
share. Saya sendiri setelah selesai mendapat Ph.D baru mendapatkan beasiswa ke
Amerika Serikat untuk short course program yang 3 bulanan tentang Federalism and Scholarly Aproaches pada tahun 1997. Pada waktu itu di kantor USAID di washington saya katakan perlunya untuk memperluas  target beasiswa agar merata untuk Indonesia dari Merauke sampai Sabang.

3. Beasiswa ke Inggris, koneksi menjadi penting, selain Bhs Inggris juga penting. Saya membantu beberapa asisten dosen saya baik yang bahasa Inggrisnya pas-pasan maupun yang sudah bagus untuk dapat beasiswa ke Inggris. Alhamdulillah sebagian besar lolos.

4. Beasiswa ke Australia, memiliki model target yang lebih jelas, 50% untuk perempuan, Bhs Inggris so so, karena Australia memiliki program untuk memberikan training bhs Inggris sampai 5 bulan di Indonesia. Bahkan masih dapat ditambah 8 minggu Bridging Course di Australia. Konteks dari Indonesia Timur dan Aceh (sekarang banyak sekali beasiswa untuk Aceh baik ke Australia maupun ke Amerika). Walaupun akhirnya bukan orang Aceh yang mendapatkannya. Koneksi atau rekomendasi dari dosen di Australia menjadi sangat penting untuk keberhasilan beasiswa tersebut.
Bagaimana caranya, tulis email saja langsung dengan professor atau dosen di perguruan tinggi Australia yang topiknya mirip dengan studi yang akan diambil. Kemampuan untuk membuat proposal yang akan dinilai. Apakah topiknya seksi atau tidak? Contoh, akan mudah mendapatkan beasiswa  kalau anda mengambil topik tentang politik Papua, Timor Timur atau Aceh. Ada kawan saya yang mengambil topik pemikiran politik berkali-kali tidak pernah bisa lolos. Dengan peta politik isu teorisme menjadi isu primadona untuk penerima beasiswa. Apalagi sekarang, baik AUSAID maupun USAID kelihatannya sangat senang untuk memberikan beasiswa dari IAIN
atau kelompok Islam. Anda yang dari HMI dapat menggunakan kesempatan ini. Di Australia, sebagian besar yang ambil Master dan Ph.D Ilmu Politik berlatar-belakang dari IAIN.

5. Makanya dalam Miriam Budiardjo Lecture yang diselenggarakan oleh IAIPI di LIPI bulan lalu, saya dalam lecture tersebut mengatakan bahwa profesi Ilmu Politik sudah diambil alih oleh IAIN, bahkan anggota KPU diketuai oleh Doktor dari IAIN (dari dua prof di KPU, satu IAIN satunya lagi pertanian). Mudah-2an 3 lulusan IAIN di KPU tersebut Iqra terlebih dahulu. Bagi anda yang lulusan IAIN sekarang sedang seksi sekali karena Islam dianggap  sumber “teroris” so, mereka akan memberikan beasiswa
untuk topik-2 politik Islam. Itu analisa saya. There is no such a free lunch. Beasiswa juga demikian. Penerima beasiswa harus percaya diri, jangan kemudian lupa kepada akar dan bangsanya sendiri.

6. Saya pernah menjadi bagian untuk menentukan beasiswa dari Belanda. Sayangnya saya harus berhenti karena mereka menganggap saya koruptor di KPU. Anyway, Belanda juga memiliki program untuk kelompok Islam dari Ambon, tapi tidak banyak informasi tersebut yang sampai ke kelompok Islam. Menurut mereka, mereka menyadari memberikan beasiswa hanya kepada kelompok Kristen tidak menjawab persoalan konflik Islam-Kristen di Ambon. Belanda melalui Studenet-nya cukup banyak memiliki beasiswa untuk program-program pendek yang dapat dirancang sendiri. Walaupun ke  Belanda juga harus tetap memiliki bahasa inggris minimal.

7. Dari berbagai Negara, Perancis, Jepang, Jerman, negara Skandinavia (seperti Swedia, Norwegia, Denmark, Finlandia), keberhasilan studi di negara-negara yang bukan berbahasa inggris adalah kemampuan kita untuk secara cepat belajar bahasa setempat. Seperti di Jepang, kalau kita belajar social sciences, perpustakaan yang ada dalam bahasa Jepang semua. Tentu saja mereka juga punya bahasa inggris. Kecuali bagi mereka yang belajar science dan technology. Demikian pula di Jerman, adik saya
yang katanya sebelum berangkat dikatakan 50% akan menggunakan bahasa inggris, pada prakteknya 75% bahasa Jerman. Silahkan teman-teman yang lulusan dari negara tersebut berbagi pengalamannya. saya sendiri pernah ke Jepang ke Hosei University hanya untuk program pendek saja.

8. Dari negara-negara Timur Tengah, saya tidak terlalu tahu, kecuali saya pernah berbicara dengan kedutaan Iran untuk memberikan beasiswa untuk mempelajari politik Iran. Sayang belum sempat saya lanjutkan pembicaraan tersebut.

9. Beasiswa dari lembaga-lembaga dalam negeri, dulu ada OTO Bapenas (loan sifatnya, tapi negara yang membayar). Saya pernah untuk beberapa tahun terlibat untuk menentukan beasiswa dari Ford Foundation. OSI  (Open Society Institute) juga memberikan beasiswa untuk Master ke Budapest (Central European University) dsb.

10. Masih ingat beasiswa BPPT dari sejak Lulus SMA? itu sifatnya hutang atau loan. Negara memang yang membayar bukan penerima beasiswa. Ke mana lulusannya? Menurut saya mustinya lulusan beasiswa tersebut harus dapat melakukan kerja dengan disebar ke kabupaten/kota, dan negara memberi insentif dan program untuk teknologi terapan. Bisa anda bayangkan para insinyur lulusan luar negeri membangun teknologi di kabupaten/kota di Indonesia? Dengan demikian kabupaten/kota se Indonesia akan berkembang. Daripada di kantor BPPT dan di Bandung (perusahaan pesawat terbang yang selalu demo terus-menerus). Tidak tahu bagaimana pemerintah menyelesaikan masalah tersebut? Kenapa tidak ditawarkan ke  daerah-daerah saja? Kasihan Pak Habibie terpaksa harus mencarikan kerja bagi mereka di Jerman, Perancis atau Belanda? Padahal mereka dibayar oleh uang rakyat Indonesia, bukan?
Bagian 3 (terakhir)
 
Sukses mendapatkan beasiswa dan sukses studinya

1. Untuk sukses studi terdapat berbagai factor, di antaranya dapat memilih topik yang sedang diminati oleh kebijakan dari negara pemberi beasiswa. Hal tersebut terutama untuk social sciences. Apa yang sedang diminati dan membuat topik yang sesuai dengan yang diminati serta  sesuai dengan minat kita. Paling tidak harus ada kompromi. Menulis proposal harus pula jelas dan tajam. Jangan malu-malu bertanya.

2. Bahasa Inggris, menjadi hambatan untuk kita yang biasanya dari daerah-2. Nah, kita perlu belajar dengan rajin mendengarkan berita  dalam bahasa Inggris, misalnya. Juga harus ada keinginan yang besar dan niat yang kuat untuk bisa bahasa Inggris. Saya yakin kita semua bisa.  Apalagi yang memiliki kemampuan multi bahasa, ada bahasa Jawa, bahasa  Indonesia, bahasa Arab, atau bhs lainnya. Belajar bahasa Inggris tidak sulit.

3. Saya sendiri berangkat dengan bahasa Inggris pas-pasan. Bahkan ada professor serta teman mengatakan, kamu berani sekali mengambil Ph.D dengan bahasa Inggris pas-pasan. Well .. jangan takut, EGP saya dapat beasiswa kok. Asal anda mau belajar, semua menjadi mudah. Saya punya strategi sendiri. Setelah di Australia, saya tidak tinggal dengan orang Indonesia, ya kalau orang Indonesia numpang beberapa waktu di tempat saya iya juga, tapi tidak lama. Tidak terlalu banyak bermain dengan
orang Indonesia. Maaf, walau sering dianggap sombong, wah ya biarkan saja. Ini mau belajar, bahasa Inggris yang pas-pasan itu, kalau dengan orang Indonesia ya bahasa Inggrisnya tidak maju-maju. Termasuk saya dapat memaksa para ahli Indonesia tidak berbicara bahasa Indonesia dengan saya. Masuk di kelas malam sebelumnya harus banyak membaca supaya besoknya mengerti apa yang sedang dibicarakan oleh dosennya. Harus ada minat yang kuat dan mempraktekkan bahasa tsb. Jangan takut salah. Bisa dihitung satu dua saja orang asing yang menulis tesis dalam bahasa Indonesia, kita menulis tesis dalam bahasa Inggris. Jadi masih lebih bagus kan? Percaya diri harus bisa bahasa Inggris. Tapi jangan sok pinter. Intinya belajar, belajar, dan belajar, baca, baca dan baca. Bangun pagi alarmnya, news dalam bahasa Inggris. Paling tidak membutuhkan 6 bulan proses tersebut. Setelah 6 bulan, alhamdulillah
membaca buku, artikel, berteman dengan orang Indonesia dan bicara Bhs Indonesia, sudah tidak takut bahasa inggrisnya hilang. Bahkan pada semester 3 saya sudah ditawari untuk menjadi tutor mata kuliah South East Asian Politics di Sydney University (selama lima tahun) yang memiliki mahasiswa sampai 70 orang, artinya sampai memiliki 5 kelas tutorial. Nah, terpaksa harus berbicara bahasa Inggris kan? Gramar
salah tidak usah takut, tapi tetap harus belajar. 

4. Menulis disertasi atau tesis itu sendirian, lama dan lonely, makanya memang harus memilih topik yang menarik. Menulis disertasi di luar negeri harus mengubah budaya di Indonesia. Mahasiswa kebiasaannya hanya menulis pada satu tahun terakhir. Di luar negeri, kalau bisa sejak berada di negeri tersebut imannya harus kuat, topik jangan berubah-ubah namun boleh terus-menerus dipertajam, menulis langsung dalam bahasa inggris, jangan bahasa Indonesia terus diterjemahkan. Jangan menggunakan
kamus Inggris-Indonesia, tapi gunakan kamus Inggris-Inggris. Hal tersebut akan membantu anda dalam menulis dan memahami. Cintailah bahasa inggris tersebut supaya lebih cepat dapat mengerti.

5. Rekomendasi menjadi penting. Contoh, kenapa dari kelompok pemuda NU sekarang banyak yang sekolah ke luar negeri dibandingkan pemuda Muhamadiyah? Kelompok laki-lakinya tentu lebih banyak dari perempuan? Kelompok Kristen lebih banyak dibanding Muslim (secara prosentase)? Sekarang IAIN mendapatkan prioritas diterima. Kesemuanya itu adalah berhubungan dengan rekomendasi, baik dari Indonesia maupun dari team dari negara pemberi beasiswa. Saya yakin kelompok HMI memiliki akses
rekomendasi di seluruh dunia. Di sini penting bagaimana rekomendasi tersebut dapat menarik atau dapat “menjual diri” dengan baik. Saya dahulu karena rekomendasi dari Prof. Richard Chauvel, bahkan beliau sampai mencarikan siapa yang akan menjadi pembimbing saya. Prof.  Richard Chauvel adalah dosen tamu yang mengajar politik Australia di UI selama 4 tahun. Pertemanan dengan beliau sudah banyak menghasilkan lulusan Australia.

6. Menurut saya para alumni harus membangun institusionalisasi beasiswa dengan membuat lembaga pemberi beasiswa, atau dapat berbicara dengan negara pemberi beasiswa. Oleh karena itu perlu dimulai pembentukan lembaga untuk mengumpulkan dana abadi untuk dapat memberi beasiswa. Saya agak risi kalau setiap awal semester harus meyakinkan kepada senior bahwa mahasiswa ini membutuhkan beasiswa untuk membayar uang SPP kalau tidak akan di DO.

7. Alumni yang ada di pemerintahan dapat pula bernegosiasi untuk membangun network dengan negara pemberi beasiswa. Hal ini dapat dilakukan melalui kegiatan2 selain diskusi-2 seperti biasanya. Contoh, Wakil Presiden dan para direktur-2nya. Katakan, kalau AUSAID memberi sampai 500 beasiswa, kenapa tidak Wakil Presiden meminta 10 saja dengan menentukan scheme sendiri. Untuk Australia bisa ada scheme ADS, ALA, APS, Alison Sudrajat, atau yang langsung dengan universitas yang bersangkutan. Ada beasiswa lengkap dengan biaya hidup, ada yang hanya
tuition fee. Demikian pula dengan beasiswa dari berbagai departemen seperti Departemen Keuangan yang sangat kaya itu. Mustinya semua departemen melakukannya. Kenapa jadinya Departemen Pendidikan bingung menghabiskan dana 20% APBN? Saat ini Departemen Pendidikan sedang memberikan beasiswa yang sangat banyak bagi model Sandwich program 1 tahun di luar negeri untuk S3 atau S2 juga? Lembaga dapat memberikan fasilitas untuk informasi tersebut.

8. Sebagai Ketua Program Pascasarjana Politik FISIP UI pada tahun 2000-2003 dulu, saya seringkali dikeluhkesahi oleh mahasiswa yang tidak dapat uang dari senior-seniornya. Saya berfikir kenapa senior lebih suka memberi uang kepada mahasiswa sekali-kali, dibandingkan kepada lembaga yang memberikan beasiswa tersebut? Mungkin senior akan dapat membangun konstituen atau klik atau apa saja dengan memberikan uang kepada mahasiswa tersebut, semacam balas budi? Kenapa tidak dilakukan institusionalisasi untuk dapat memberikan beasiswa dengan visi dan
misinya? Tentu saja tidak dilarang tetap memberikan zakat berupa beasiswa kepada mahasiswa tertentu.

9. Beasiswa untuk program jangka pendek sangat banyak sekali. Silahkan rajin-rajin mengikuti program pendek tersebut. Bahkan saat ini setelah selesai dengan KPU, saya mendapatkan ALA Research Fellowship di  Victoria University, Melbourne. Karena seorang kolega saya (lagi-lagi Prof. Richard Chauvel) sangat prihatin dengan kondisi saya di KPU pasca  pemilu 2004. Beliau dengan Prof. Michael Meigh dan Dr. Barbara Leigh mencarikan jalan untuk dapat mengundang saya ke Australia, untuk disuruh
membaca, menulis dan memberi kuliah. Mereka sangat menghargai pengalaman
politik kita, walau saya berfikir kok bangsa sendiri malah seringnya hanya menghujat dan meremehkan ya? Itu namanya nasib dan takdir barangkali ya?

10. Semua beasiswa dari negara-negara maju dapat diakses melaluiinternet. Silahkan cek saja melalui Google, anda akan mendapatkan informasi beasiswa apapun. Jangan terlambat. Saya yakin banyak orang yang memiliki pengalaman yang sama dalam hal ini dapat share pengalamannya. Bagi mereka yang ingin mendapatkan beasiswa dan sekedar bertanya dengan senang hati dapat langsung beremail kepada saya. Selamat
untuk menjemput beasiswa dan selamat belajar.

Salam,
Chusnul Mar’iyah
www.chusnulmariyah.or.id
cmariyah2004@yahoo.com

MBA Full Scholarship (United States | Deadline : Apr 28, 2008)

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Thunderbird has dedicated a full tuition scholarship for a successful Indonesian applicant for the Fall 2008 intake. Application deadline: April 28, 2008
Details:
Covers tuition fees for 60 credit hour program (approx.. value USD 75,000)
Does not include living expenses, course materials, health insurance or Winterim/Summerim expenses (Candidate would have to prove financial ability to pay those “uncovered” costs before we could request the I-20 form needed to obtain the student visa)

Fulbright Presidential Scholarship Program (Ph.D. Program)

The American Indonesia Exchange Foundation (AMINEF) is pleased to announce the availability of approximately 40 new Fulbright scholarships under the aegis of the Fulbright Presidential Scholarship Program to pursue Ph.D. degree in the United States for the 2007-2008 academic year. The Fulbright Program in Indonesia promotes mutual understanding between the Republic of Indonesia and the United States of America through educational exchange and academic scholarship. Fulbright scholarships are available to Indonesian citizens with the appropriate qualifications as stipulated in the program descriptions listed below.

Postgraduate scholarships 2008 (United Kingdom | Deadline : May 31, 2008)

We are offering awards totalling £250,000 for 2008 entry, with each scholarship worth £3,000. These are open to prospective full-time postgraduates in any subject area on a one-year taught masters degree.

You can apply for an award if you:

* are an international student (classified as “overseas” for fee purposes)
* have an offer of a place on a course at Kingston for 2008 entry
* are not currently registered on a postgraduate course at Kingston University

Scholarships are available for both September entry and January entry (for courses with a January start date).

MPhil/PhD Studentships in Humanities and Social Sciences (United Kingdom | Deadline : Jun 13, 2008)

Join our internationally recognised research community and benefit from cutting edge research facilities and great funding opportunities. We are currently offering 11 MPhil/PhD studentships
worth £40,200 over three years across our humanities and social sciences disciplines.

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* Maintenance allowance for accommodation and living expenses
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Research Studentship in Drama (United Kingdom | Deadline : May 31, 2008)

Applications are invited from prospective and current MPhil/PhD students for a postgraduate studentship in the Department of Drama. The value of the studentship will vary progressively from year to year. For a UK/EU student this will remit fees and provide a significant contribution towards maintenance. For an overseas student (non UK/EU) this would go some way towards covering the cost of fees and maintenance. In the case of overseas applicants, application to the ORS fund is required.

A Democratic Islam?

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
April 17, 2008

There’s an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen – and it’s accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly (“Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?“) concludes that “In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights.”

The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy.

I disagree with that conclusion. Today’s Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than innate features of Islam. Put differently, Islam, like all pre-modern religions is undemocratic in spirit. No less than the others, however, it has the potential to evolve in a democratic direction.

Such evolution is not easy for any religion. In the Christian case, the battle to limit the Catholic Church’s political role lasted painfully long. If the transition began when Marsiglio of Padua published Defensor pacis in the year 1324, it took another six centuries for the Church fully to reconcile itself to democracy. Why should Islam’s transition be smoother or easier?

To render Islam consistent with democratic ways will require profound changes in its interpretation. For example, the anti-democratic law of Islam, the Shari‘a, lies at the core of the problem. Developed over a millennium ago, it presumes autocratic rulers and submissive subjects, emphasizes God’s will over popular sovereignty, and encourages violent jihad to expand Islam’s borders. Further, it anti-democratically privileges Muslims over non-Muslims, males over females, and free persons over slaves.

For Muslims to build fully functioning democracies, they basically must reject the Shari‘a’s public aspects. Atatürk frontally did just that in Turkey, but others have offered more subtle approaches. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, a Sudanese thinker, dispatched the public Islamic laws by fundamentally reinterpreting the Koran.

Atatürk’s efforts and Taha’s ideas imply that Islam is ever-evolving, and that to see it as unchanging is a grave mistake. Or, in the lively metaphor of Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo, the Koran “is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn’t want.”

Islam’s problem is less its being anti-modern than that its process of modernization has hardly begun. Muslims can modernize their religion, but that requires major changes: Out go waging jihad to impose Muslim rule, second-class citizenship for non-Muslims, and death sentences for blasphemy or apostasy. In come individual freedoms, civil rights, political participation, popular sovereignty, equality before the law, and representative elections.

Two obstacles stand in the way of these changes, however. In the Middle East especially, tribal affiliations remain of paramount importance. As explained by Philip Carl Salzman in his recent book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, these ties create a complex pattern of tribal autonomy and tyrannical centralism that obstructs the development of constitutionalism, the rule of law, citizenship, gender equality, and the other prerequisites of a democratic state. Not until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched can democracy make real headway in the Middle East.

Globally, the compelling and powerful Islamist movement obstructs democracy. It seeks the opposite of reform and modernization – namely, the reassertion of the Shari‘a in its entirety. A jihadist like Osama bin Laden may spell out this goal more explicitly than an establishment politician like Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but both seek to create a thoroughly anti-democratic, if not totalitarian, order.

Islamists respond two ways to democracy. First, they denounce it as un-Islamic. Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna considered democracy a betrayal of Islamic values. Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb rejected popular sovereignty, as did Abu al-A‘la al-Mawdudi, founder of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami political party. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Al-Jazeera television’s imam, argues that elections are heretical.

Despite this scorn, Islamists are eager to use elections to attain power, and have proven themselves to be agile vote-getters; even a terrorist organization (Hamas) has won an election. This record does not render the Islamists democratic but indicates their tactical flexibility and their determination to gain power. As Erdoğan has revealingly explained, “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.”

Hard work can one day make Islam democratic. In the meanwhile, Islamism represents the world’s leading anti-democratic force.

Private Accommodations for Islam

by R. John Matthies
FrontPageMagazine.com
April 18, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1885

When is it appropriate to critique the policies of private enterprise? Private institutions are clearly permitted to carry out their business in a manner appropriate to their market, so long as they operate within the boundaries of the law. However, these institutions – commercial, educational, or the media – also play a major societal role, and hence carry great responsibility. For this reason, the practice of criticizing these institutions is an established tradition, as illustrated by book reviews, theater criticism, Hollywood gossip columns, sports talk, consumer reports, and others. Acknowledging that the critique of private institutions is different from the sort directed at government, we engage private sector entities in consideration of the influence they peddle and (indirect) power they wield.

There are now many cases of Islamists in the West demanding accommodations – and of these demands being met. These range from trivial cases of employee accommodation to cases of gender segregation. While state and local authorities have often bent to the designs of political Islam, it is to private institutions that one turns to examine the most egregious examples of accommodation.

Still, it is more difficult to censure private institutions – given their greater freedom of action – than it is to censure lawmakers and public institutions, which are directly charged with serving the public good. Private entities have the right to run their own affairs, but the public cannot condone exceptions that result in exclusion or promote a regime of segregation. Merchants are free to choose the services or products they offer to target consumers and hence maximize profit. But to deny service to one group – or create hardship for select employees – to accommodate the wishes of another is unacceptable. Those policies that dismiss the rights of others – whether in a place of work, study, or commerce – must not be tolerated. For this reason, it is fitting to explore cases of accommodation with an eye both to the exceptional nature of the concession (in light of existing practice) and the degree to which group accommodation results in restricted movement, hampered speech, or great inconvenience to the majority.

In the case of Britain’s Sainsbury’s convenience stores, for example, Muslim employees who prefer to avoid contact with alcoholic beverages for reason of religion are asked to raise their hands so a colleague can replace them at their post or scan the item for them. And those who object to stocking shelves with wine, beer, and spirits have found alternative positions within the company. A similar example is credited to Target, where Muslim employees at a Minneapolis store have been dispensed with handling pork products, for fear of contamination.

Sainsbury’s and Target have elected to satisfy employee wishes; the pertinent question is whether management has enacted these policies because it feels it’s the right thing to do, or simply because no other options exist to fill the positions presently occupied by recalcitrant employees. (A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s admits as much, saying: “At the application stage we ask the relevant questions regarding any issues about handling different products and where we can we will try and accommodate any requirements people have.”) If the latter is the case, it is difficult to imagine what these vendors can do or what suggestions we might offer. And so we tolerate exceptions of this kind – with the caveat that one must guard against those accommodations that infringe upon the rights of others (and do not merely inconvenience).

Both state and federal law are clear that employers are obliged to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs where these are “reasonable” and do not detract from profitability. But this test fails to account for the inconvenience brought upon employees, which goes to the heart of the fairness issue. At the same time, it is clear that inconvenience extends to paying customers, who are forced to wait while another is found to handle the transaction – to say nothing of the degrading sort of treatment to which the customer is subjected, who must appear to create a disturbance for wishing to purchase an “elicit” product. All told, these examples speak to the question of the degree to which Islam may be allowed to disengage from society.

At the same time, it is also unacceptable for private concerns to enforce Islamic space of their own accord. Consider Harvard University’s decision to institute women-only gym hours to accommodate the modesty requirements of campus Muslims, for example. Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary says: “These hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female population that is not found in gyms not because they don’t want to work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way.” But Harvard administrators explicitly noted that the new policy has less to do with gender than religion; and one reports that the Harvard Islamic Society itself was unaware of the change “until it was being formalized and in its final stages.” It is one thing for young women to make their own private arrangements to accommodate a requirement for modesty, but it is quite another for a university to make these arrangements. Harvard must be asked to imagine where policies like these might lead (which others might be excluded), and to consider the motives of groups in support of such a program.

As one explores cases of accommodation and abuse of influence across the private sphere, one must judge each according to a scale that accounts for both the exceptional nature of the concession and the degree to which the majority is inconvenienced, restricted as to movement, or hampered in expression. Private concerns may be compelled by situation and environment to alter established practice; but for these same concerns to impose a program of segregation or apply select “Islamic” standards constitutes a grave abuse of influence.

Will Geert Wilders Show His Film on the Koran?

by Daniel Pipes
Weblog
December 29, 2007

By my count, there have been six major episodes in modern times in which Muslims rioted and killed in protest to some Western-based person making comments about Islam:

• 1989 – Salman Rushdie publishes his novel, The Satanic Verses.
• 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to remove a 1930s frieze showing Muhammad as lawgiver.
• 2002 – The American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell calls Muhammad a “terrorist.”
• 2005 – An incorrect story in Newsweek, reporting that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, “in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet.”
• February 2006 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons of Muhammad.
• September 2006 – Pope Benedict XVI quotes a Byzantine emperor’s views that what is new in Islam is “evil and inhuman.”

Every one of these cases shares one particular feature: the persons who set off the ruckus had little to no idea that their views would lead to riots and deaths. Muslim disapproval, yes, not upheaval.

That’s about to change with the expected television premier on January 25 of an un-named film by a leading Dutch politician Geert Wilders dealing with the Koran. Wilders in the past has compared it to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and wants it banned; the film will likely make arguments along these lines: “With this film I’m trying to show not only in words but also images exactly what I mean,” he says.

Unlike the British, American, Danish governments or the Vatican, the Dutch government has prepared. It has adopted a two-track policy of (1) trying to stop the screening and, should that fail, (2) getting ready for crisis mode. An article in today’s Volkskrant, “Vrees voor rellen rond Koran-film van Wilders” (translated as “Fear of riots over Wilders’ Koran film“) provides some details. First, the government is trying to shut things down:

• The Justice Ministry is investigating whether anything can be done to prevent the film from airing.
• When it was leaked that Wilders was coming out with an anti-Koran film, three ministers warned him of the possible consequences.

Should this not succeed, preparatory steps are underway:

• Security around Wilders, which was already heavy, is being beefed up.
• The Amsterdam police have had interviews with imams and other influential persons in the Muslim community this month to prepare for their reactions. A scenario is being prepared for major public order problems. Similar measures are being taken in the Hague and Utrecht.
• Investigations are also underway to see whether Wilders will have to acquire a specially secured residence and whether his fellow party members will require security.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has since informed all of its diplomatic posts … to explain to other countries that the Cabinet has distanced itself from the film.

Comments: (1) That a lone individual, a Rushdie or a Wilders, is in the position of driving a state’s policy makes this situation so fascinating and anomalous. I addressed this unprecedented situation in my 1989 book, The Rushdie Affair:

In a strange reversal, governments waited on the statements issued by a private citizen. Never before had this happened. Nor had an individual’s choice of words ever borne so directly on the course of international relations. The situation was especially anomalous in Great Britain, where the authorities at one point felt compelled to deny that they had cleared a pronouncement made by Rushdie. As a news item reported it, with reference to his February 19[, 1989] apology,

Whitehall sources said the Foreign Office had not asked to see the statement in advance. It was volunteered by the publishers. The Foreign Office had not taken any initiative or tried to influence the publishers in any way, nor was there any question that the Foreign Office had “cleared” or “approved” the statement, or taken any view about it.

The absurdity of the situation was caught by a cartoon in Le Monde which showed Rushdie at his typewriter, surrounded by fifteen harried bobbies all keeping an eye on him; one of the policemen barks into the walkie-talkie, “Close the airports!! He wants to write volume two!!!”

(2) When a citizen holds his government hostage, the latter is inevitably tempted to shut down his freedom of expression. Indeed, Wilders has complained of “pure political intimidation” by the cabinet and “unacceptable” pressure being placed on him to desist, including sending the public prosecutor after him. Thus does the Islamist challenge test the principles of Western governments as never before. Put differently, will Westerners resist dhimmitude or succumb to it? The outcome is by no means assured. (December 29, 2007)

Jan. 5, 2008 update: Wilders’ original intention was to show his film in the time-slot on Dutch television available to the party he heads, the PVV. But as tensions rise and the authorities become increasingly skittish about showing it, he is considering the idea of first showing the film on YouTube.com.

Jan. 19, 2008 update: A “Wilders film roundup” at the Islam in Europe website reports: The Dutch cabinet has met in top secret sessions [though apparently not top secret enough] to talk about possible repercussions and measures to prevent them. These include quick evacuation of Dutch citizens from Muslim countries. The government is expecting riots, flag burnings and boycotts, and has informed municipalities and police to be ready for such eventualities. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende expect a serious crisis situation, though he says there is “no reason for panic”. Balkenende says Wilders is responsible for the film’s contents and the job of the cabinet is to be ready for possible consequences. There have been reports from Dutch embassies in Muslim countries saying that things might get critical. The Dutch embassies have warned their citizens of possible negative reactions.

Jan. 21, 2008 update: Tehran has now spoken:

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, promised widespread protests and a review of Iran’s relationship with the Netherlands if Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders’ work is shown. “If Holland will allow the broadcast of this movie, the Iranian parliament will request to reconsider our relationship with it,” Boroujerdi said, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency. “In Iran, insulting Islam is a very sensitive matter and if the movie is broadcasted it will arouse a wave of popular hate that will be directed towards any government that insults Islam.

Jan. 26, 2008 update: The threats are coming in, right on schedule. Chris Caldwell sums up a couple of them: At the European parliament in Strasbourg last week, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, Grand Mufti of Syria, warned that Mr Wilders would be responsible for any “violence and bloodshed” that resulted from his film – and that the Dutch people would, in turn, be responsible for reining him in. Noor Farida Ariffin, the departing Malaysian ambassador, told De Volkskrant: “Compared to what I’m expecting, the riots over the Danish cartoons will look like a picnic.”

Caldwell also quotes the foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, saying about the dreaded film that “freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend.” Should he be right, then of what value or interest is freedom of expression?

Feb. 29, 2008 update: The Washington Times quotes Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, director of the Washington-based Center for Islamic Pluralism, who offers a common sensical and helpful response: “My advice to Muslims is to ignore such trivial provocations, maintain their dignity and faith and work to improve their communities. Mr. Wilders has a right to make whatever films he wants and Muslims have a right to ignore them.”

Mar. 3, 2008 update: The Dutch government, undeterred either by its country’s distinguished history of freedom of speech or the reach of the Internet, is trying to shut Wilders down before his film gets out. A newspaper reports that “the coalition government was divided on the film, with the Christian Democrats leaning towards a ban but Labour favouring freedom of expression and calling on Muslim countries to prevent violence against the Netherlands.”

Mar. 5, 2008 update: A survey of threats to the Netherlands, should the film be shown: “Iranian Justice Minister Gholam-Hossein Elham asked the Netherlands to ban the film. Hundreds of people protested the picture at the Dutch embassy in Indonesia and Pakistan briefly blocked access to Google Inc.’s YouTube site because of reports of a trailer for the film.” A poll shows three-quarters of Dutch fear the film will worsen relations between Muslims and non- Muslims, while two-thirds expect the film to prompt boycotts of Dutch goods. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen demands that Wilders not go forward: “I find it irresponsible to broadcast this film because Dutch companies, soldiers and citizens outside the Netherlands will be in danger.”

Mar. 6, 2008 update: The Dutch government – which Wilders accuses of exacerbating the problem by its dire warmings – has raised the terrorism alert level to “substantial”, the second-highest alert level. It did so even though the Ministry of Justice acknowledges “there is no concrete evidence” of an attack.

Mar. 7, 2008 update: No Dutch television station will air Wilder’s 15-minute film Fitna on his terms, which is to say no censorship or editing. “I had hoped that a television broadcaster would say: ‘You have the right to do this, we will give you a podium’,” he told NRC Handelsblad.

Mar. 27, 2008 update: Fitna appeared today, not on a television station but on the internet, where within hours millions had viewed it. The film shows how aggressive verses of the Koran correlate closely with the actions of Islamists today, implying that Islamists are doing nothing more than being good Muslims. Now that the film is done and out, the question is, how much of a furor will it in fact raise?

Comment: I disagree with the one-to-one correlation of the Koran with Islamist behavior, as though 1,400 years had not passed in between, but I concede the film’s simple, powerful argument.

Apr. 1, 2008 update: Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Manfred Gerstenfeld explains the ironic reason how the Wilders film achieved such international notoriety:

The main contributor to the tremendous attention the movie has received internationally is Dutch Prime Minister Hans Peter Balkenende. Wilders has remained largely silent since he announced its preparation last November. Balkenende, however, went on record saying that due to the (not yet existing) movie, the Netherlands was in major crisis. The government informed municipalities on how to prepare for possible riots which might erupt and which could last several days.

Dutch embassies were given emergency instructions. Trade unions asked the government to protect Dutch employees in Arab countries, including KLM Airlines flight personnel. Concerns were also expressed regarding possible increased attacks on the Dutch NATO forces in Afghanistan. All this and much more was made public and led to an enormous media hype, turning Wilders into the best-known Dutch politician worldwide.

Will Europe Resist Islamization?

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
April 3, 2008
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5503

[JP title: "A movie and a conversion: Europe begins to resist?"]

Some analysts of Islam in Western Europe argue that the continent cannot escape its Eurabian fate; that the trend lines of the past half-century will continue until Muslims become a majority population and Islamic law (the Shari‘a) reigns.

I disagree, arguing that there is another route the continent might take, one of resistance to Islamification and a reassertion of traditional ways. Indigenous Europeans – who make up 95 percent of the population – can insist on their historic customs and mores. Were they to do so, nothing would be in their way and no one could stop them.

Indeed, Europeans are visibly showing signs of impatience with creeping Shari‘a. The legislation in France that prohibits hijabs from public school classrooms signals the reluctance to accept Islamic ways, as are related efforts to ban burqas, mosques, and minarets. Throughout Western Europe, anti-immigrant parties are generally increasing in popularity.

That resistance took a new turn last week, with two dramatic events. First, on March 22, Pope Benedict XVI himself baptized, confirmed, and gave the Eucharist to Magdi Allam, 56, a prominent Egyptian-born Muslim long living in Italy, where he is a top editor at the Corriere della Sera newspaper and a well-known author. Allam took the middle name Cristiano. The ceremony converting him to the Catholic religion could not have been higher profile, occurring at a nighttime service at St. Peter’s Basilica on the eve of Easter Sunday, with exhaustive coverage from the Vatican and many other television stations.

Allam followed up his conversion with a stinging statement in which he argued that beyond “the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.” In other words, the problem is not just Islamism but Islam itself. One commentator, “Spengler” of Asia Times, goes so far as to say that Allam “presents an existential threat to Muslim life” because he “agrees with his former co-religionists in repudiating the degraded culture of the modern West, and offers them something quite different: a religion founded upon love.”

Second, on March 27, Geert Wilders, 44, released his long-awaited, 15-minute film, Fitna, which consists of some of the most bellicose verses of the Koran, followed by actions in accord with those verses carried out by Islamists in recent years. The obvious implication is that Islamists are simply acting in accord with their scriptures. In Allam’s words, Wilders also argues that “the root of evil is inherent” in Islam.

Unlike Allam and Wilders, I do distinguish between Islam and Islamism, but I believe it imperative that their ideas get a fair hearing, without vituperation or punishment. An honest debate over Islam must take place.

If Allam’s conversion was a surprise and Wilders’ film had a three-month run-up, in both cases, the aggressive, violent reactions that met prior criticisms of Islam did not take place. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Dutch police contacted imams to gauge reactions at the city’s mosques and found, according to police spokesman Arnold Aben, “it’s quieter than usual here today. Sort of like a holiday.” In Pakistan, a rally against the film attracted only some dozens of protestors.

This relatively constrained reaction points to the fact that Muslim threats sufficed to enforce censorship. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende denounced Fitna and, after 3.6 million visitors had viewed it on the British website LiveLeak.com, the company announced that “Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, … Liveleak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.” (Two days later, however, LiveLeak again posted the film.)

Three similarities bear noting: both Allam (author of a book titled Viva Israele) and Wilders (whose film emphasizes Muslim violence against Jews) stand up for Israel and the Jews; Muslim threats against their lives have forced both for years to live under state-provided round-the-clock police protection; and, more profoundly, the two share a passion for European civilization.

Indeed, Allam and Wilders may represent the vanguard of a Christian/liberal reassertion of European values. It is too soon to predict, but these staunch individuals could provide a crucial boost for those intent on maintaining the continent’s historic identity.

Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, is the Taube/Diller Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University during the spring semester.

The disillusion of Muslim reformers.

by Radwan Masmoudi & Joseph Loconte
04/09/2008 12:00:00 AM
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/960lvsno.asp

WHATEVER THE ACTUAL results of Egypt’s municipal elections yesterday, the fix is in: President Hosni Mubarak made sure that even the most moderate and reform-minded candidates would be shut out of the process. The charade of democratic elections in Egypt typifies the Bush administration’s faltering freedom agenda for the Arab world.

When President George W. Bush delivered his first major speech on democracy in the Middle East, it seemed as if the United States had turned a page of history. “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe, because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty,” Bush said in the fall of 2003. “Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.”

Never had an American president so openly admitted his country’s failure to advance democratic ideals. Never had a Western leader so boldly asserted that democracy could and must take root in the Middle East. This profession, joined with a promise of a fundamental shift in U.S. policy, raised the hopes of Muslim reformers in the region. In an open letter to President Bush, “Support Freedom in the Arab World” (published in the Washington Post on October 11, 2006), 105 Arab and Muslim democrats framed the challenge this way: “Freedom and democracy are the only ways to build a world where violence is replaced by peaceful public debate and political participation, and despair is replaced by hope, tolerance and dignity.”

Many of the signatories, however, already had begun to doubt the seriousness of the administration’s vision. Today the aspirations of many have succumbed to cynicism. The question we hear too often from Muslim reformers is this: What has become of the Bush democracy agenda?

Following the historic elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, there was dramatic talk in early 2005 of an “Arab Spring,” the stirrings of real democratic change. In Lebanon, Christian and Muslim protestors marched together to bring down the puppet government installed by Syria. In Damascus, over 140 Syrian intellectuals signed a statement opposing their government’s occupation of Lebanon. Demonstrations in Egypt forced Mubarak to allow a multiple-candidate election for president for the first time. Tunisia released hundreds of political prisoners, and even Saudi Arabia held unprecedented local elections.

These developments were real and important–and easily reversible. Indeed, Arab dictatorships have not loosened their grip on political power, nor begun to embrace democratic ideals. They continue to thwart the rise of a strong and independent civil society. In many countries, the status of women, press freedom, and the independence of the judiciary remain appalling. None of this is likely to change without prolonged engagement, and pressure, from the United States.

This kind of tough and strategic diplomacy has never really been tried, however, and the consequences for Muslim democrats have been dire. The retreat from political reform, now evident throughout much of the Islamic world, is especially significant in Egypt, the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the region apart from Israel. Over the last two years, Mubarak has arrested liberal-minded activists, cracked down on political parties, further muzzled freedom of the press, and restricted the activities of non-governmental organizations. Political repression extends well beyond the orbit of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. More than 800 political dissidents–most of them committed to non-violence–have been arrested in the past six months alone, in the run-up to this week’s local elections. Ayman Nour, who founded the liberal al-Ghad and challenged Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections, still languishes in prison on phony charges.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government manipulates Islam to preserve its uncontested authority. On the one hand, Mubarak’s regime portrays itself as the only “moderate” alternative to the forces of extremism. On the other hand, it ignores constitutional protections of religious freedom and equal justice under the law. If the government abuses the rights of its majority Sunni Muslim population, how can it respect the rights of minorities? In fact, severe restrictions on freedom of worship, in conjunction with the use of religious identity cards, are feeding a culture of intolerance toward religious minorities. The end result: Disfavored groups–including Coptic Christians, Shia Muslims, and Baha’is–are becoming the scapegoats for society’s ills.

The threat of religious extremism is real enough in the Middle East. Yet Arab governments use the specter of Islamic fundamentalism as a proxy to justify thuggish and autocratic policies. It is a self-defeating strategy. The cocktail of repression, economic stagnation, and social unrest–over half of the 320 million Arabs in the region are under 20 years of age–invites political radicalism.

As various human-rights organizations report, Egypt’s political regression is being duplicated in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Jordan, and beyond. What especially galls Muslim reformers is that all this is happening with hardly a whisper of protest from the Bush administration. (Yesterday the State Department declined to condemn Egypt’s rigged elections.) Under different circumstances, America’s sacrifices in Afghanistan and Iraq might have persuaded many of its commitment to political reform–but not today. Numerous conversations with Muslim democrats make one thing clear: They
are increasingly scornful of a democracy agenda that seems selectively applied to suite narrow U.S. interests.

During his Middle East trip earlier this year, President Bush gently referred to “some setbacks” to democratic reform. But he avoided any direct criticism of the brutality and corruption that passes for political leadership in the Arab world. Meanwhile, U.S. aid continues to flow unhindered to the region, supporting unprincipled and undemocratic rulers. The administration’s Middle East Partnership Initiative, aimed at strengthening grass-roots reformers, remains woefully underfunded and saw its budget cut from $150 million last year to less than $50 million for fiscal 2008.

What can be done diplomatically to challenge the illiberal regimes of the Middle East and embolden democratic reformers?

First, the Bush administration should loudly insist that the Mubarak government release Ayman Nour and those political prisoners–academics, journalists, human rights activists, and others–arrested in the latest crackdown. If public pressure fails, the administration should threaten to withhold a portion of its economic support to Egypt until it complies with international human-rights guarantees.

Second, U.S. diplomats must seriously engage with leaders of moderate Islamic parties, those who reject violence and endorse democracy, about how best to promote democratic governance and human rights in their countries. This will require the State Department to abandon its almost exclusively secular approach to political reform in the region–a tone-deafness to matters of faith that has frustrated would-be reformers.

Third, the United States should establish an annual fund of at least $500 million to support Arab and Muslim non-governmental organizations of all kinds that are genuinely committed to representative government and political and religious freedom. As Tocqueville once observed of America, it is the religious organizations of civil society that “direct the customs of the community” and are “indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.” The same will be true of any long-term democratic reform in the Middle East.

Finally, the administration should support, much more robustly than it has to date, American Muslims and American Muslim organizations to promote democratic freedoms from within an Islamic perspective–to develop a modern interpretation of Islam that puts the principles of self-government and human dignity at the core of its moral theology. These groups can become a vital resource for Muslim democrats in the Arab world and beyond.

In a speech at Abu Dhabi in January, President Bush again raised expectations of U.S. support for democratic change. “You cannot build trust when you hold an election where opposition candidates find themselves harassed or in prison,” he said. “You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government.”

We agree with the president’s words, and we’re grateful for them. But the qualities of trust and hope have taken a severe beating in recent years, and will require much more than words to be revived.

Radwan Masmoudi is the president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which conducts democracy workshops throughout the Muslim world. Joseph Loconte is a senior fellow at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Turkey’s Turning Point
Could there be an Islamic Revolution in Turkey?

by Michael Rubin
National Review Online
April 14, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1882

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Few U.S. policymakers have heard of Fethullah Gülen, perhaps Turkey’s most prominent theologian and political thinker. Self-exiled for more than a decade, Gülen lives a reclusive life outside Philadelphia, Pa. Within months, however, he may be as much a household a name in the United States as is Ayatollah Khomeini, a man who was as obscure to most Americans up until his triumphant return to Iran almost 30 years ago.

Many academics and journalist embrace Gülen and applaud his stated vision welding Islam with tolerance and a pro-European outlook. Supporters describe him as progressive. In 2003, the University of Texas honored him as a “peaceful hero,” alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama. Last October, the British House of Lords and several British diplomats celebrated Gülen at a high-profile London conference. Later this year, Georgetown University scholar John Esposito will host a conference dedicated to the movement. As in 2001, Esposito will cosponsor with the Rumi Forum, an organization Gülen serves as honorary president.

The Gülen movement controls charities, real estate, companies, and more than a thousand schools internationally. According to some estimates, the Gülen Movement controls several billion dollars. The movement claims its own universities, unions, lobbies, student groups, radio and television stations, and the Zaman newspaper. Turkish officials concede that Gülen’s followers in Turkey number more than a million; Gülen’s backers claim that number is just the tip of the iceberg. Today, Gülen members dominate the Turkish police and divisions within the interior ministry. Under the stewardship of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of Gülen’s most prominent sympathizers, tens of thousands of other Gülen supporters have entered the Turkish bureaucracy.

While Gülen supporters jealously guard his image in the West, he remains a controversial figure in Turkey. According to Cumhuriyet, a left-of-center establishment daily — Turkey’s New York Times — in 1973, the Izmir State Security Court convicted Gülen of “attempting to destroy the state system and to establish a state system based on religion;” he received a pardon, though, and so never served time in prison. In 1986, the Turkish military — the constitutional guardians of the state’s secularism — purged a Gülen cell from the military academy; the Turkish military has subsequently acted against a number of other alleged Gülen cells who they say infiltrated military ranks.

In 1998, according to Turkish court transcripts cited in the Turkish Daily News, Gülen urged followers in the judiciary and state bureaucracy to “work patiently to take control of the state.” The following year, the independent Turkish television station ATV broadcast a secretly taped Gülen telling supporters, “If they . . . come out early, the world will squash their heads. They will make Muslims relive events in Algeria,” a reference to the Islamic Salvation Front’s overwhelming 1991 election victory in the North African state. After party leaders spoke of voiding the constitution and implementing Islamic law, the Algerian military staged a coup leading to a civil conflict that killed tens of thousands.

Because of his statements and veiled threats, the judiciary in 1998 charged Gülen with trying to “undermine the secular system” while “camouflag[ing] his methods with a democratic and moderate image.” Convicted in absentia, but free to run his organized from his U.S. exile, Gülen continues a rather inconsistent approach to tolerance and secularism. He often equates the separation of religion and state with atheism, an assertion many of Turkey’s most secular officials find offensive: Believing that religion is best kept to the individual rather than state sphere does not equate with any lack of belief in God. In 2004, Gülen equated atheism with terrorism and said both atheists and murderers would spend eternity in Hell.

Gülen has received a legal break, however. In 2002, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kakınma Partisi, AKP) won a plurality in parliamentary elections and, because of a fluke in Turkish election law, was able to amplify one-third of the popular vote into a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Erdoğan used this advantage to enact reforms which had the net affect of stacking not only the civil service, but also banking boards and the judiciary with his political supporters and religious fundamentalists. Erdoğan’s judges wasted no time. They placed liens against political opponents’ property, seized independent newspapers and television stations including, not by coincidence ATV, and assigned sympathetic judges to hear appeals against earlier decisions levied against Islamists. On May 5, 2006, the Ankara Criminal Court overturned the verdict against Gülen. While a public prosecutor — a secularist hold-out — appealed the court’s action, the process is now nearing conclusion. Gülen’s supporters are ecstatic. His slate wiped clean, Gülen has indicated he may soon return to Turkey.

If he does, Istanbul 2008 may very well look like Tehran 1979. Just as Gülen’s supporters affirm his altruistic intentions and see no inconsistency between a secretive, cell-based movement and transparent governance, too many Western journalists also give Gülen a free pass.

If this sounds familiar, it should: Three decades ago, the same phenomenon marked coverage of Iran. “I don’t want to be the leader of the Islamic Republic; I don’t want to have the government or power in my hands,” Khomeini told a credulous Austrian television reporter during the ayatollah’s brief sojourn in Paris. In November 1978, Steven Erlanger, the future New York Times foreign correspondent, penned a New Republic essay arguing that Khomeini’s vision for Iran was essentially a “Platonic Republic with a grand ayatollah as a philosopher-king,” and predicting the triumph of an independent liberal left worried more about labor conditions in Iran’s oil fields than pursuing any theological tendency.

In Tehran then as in Ankara now, U.S. ambassadors preferred garden parties with the political elite and maintained contacts with only a narrow segment of the population. They were blind. As the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency remained clueless or belittled concerns about Khomeini’s intentions, millions of Iranians turned out to greet their Imam at Tehran’s international airport. Turks now say that similar crowds might greet Gülen when his plane touches down in Istanbul.

Gülen is careful. He will not order the dissolution of the Turkish Republic. But, ensconced in his Istanbul mansion, he could simply begin to issue fatwas prying Turkey farther from the secularism to which Erdoğan pays lip service. As Khomeini consciously drew parallels between himself and Twelver Shiism’s Hidden Imam, Gülen will remain quiet as his supporters paint his return as evidence that the caliphate formally dissolved by Atatürk in 1924 has been restored.

The secular order and constitutionalism in Turkey have never been so shaky. The government now controls most television and radio stations. Erdoğan has gained the dubious distinction of launching more lawsuits against journalists and commentators than any previous Turkish prime minister.

As Erdoğan discourages dissent, his and Gülen’s supporters among prominent Turkish columnists and commentators equate Islamism with democracy, and secularism with fascism, a line too many Western diplomats eager to demonstrate tolerance with an embrace of “moderate Islam” accept. Erdoğan himself has argued that it was secularism which led to Hitler; that Islamism would never produce such a result.

Last month, after one of the few independent judicial authorities filed a lawsuit against Erdoğan and the AKP for violating constitutional provisions separating religion from politics, the prime minister responded with a midnight round-up of leading academics and journalists who had criticized him. Even Erdoğan’s supporters were shocked to wake up on March 21 to learn that İlhan Selçuk, the bed-ridden octogenarian editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet described by Turks as their Walter Cronkite had been arrested in a pre-dawn raid on charges of plotting to launch a military coup; the police have yet to provide any evidence. Nor is Selçuk the only victim in the most recent intimidation campaign. A Hürriyet columnist, Ahmet Hakan, has received threatening phone calls from lawyer Kemaletin Gülen, a relative of Fethullah.

When Islamists pursue campaigns of hatred, Western officials not only pretend nothing is amiss but also, as in the case of Palestinian leaders, often increase their support. This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the judicial case against Erdoğan and the AKP. Members of her staff suggest she will lend subtle support to the prime minister. Indeed, it may be tempting to condemn the court action as a political stunt: The prosecutor’s legal brief is shoddily written and poorly argued. Despite its faults, however, the underlying legal issues are real.

Rice should be silent. Any interference will backfire: Turks, already upset that U.S. ambassador Ross Wilson seldom meets with opposition leaders, will interpret any criticism of the case as White House support for the AKP. Secularists will ask why Turkey’s liberal opposition should not have the right to all legal remedies. They already ask why the West applauds legal action taken against Austrian populist Jörg Haider and French demagogue Jean Marie Le Pen, but the same U.S. and European officials appear to bless Erdoğan’s legal exceptionalism. By undermining judicial recourse, Rice may accelerate violence and lead support to those who argue — wrongly — that the government’s disdain for the law and constitution should be met with the same. On the off-chance, however, that Rice accepts that the court case should run its course, Turkey’s religious conservatives will accuse her of masterminding the approach.

Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has made many mistakes. Bush was correct to recognize the importance of democratization; bungled implementation has turned a noble ideal into a dirty word. By equating democracy only with elections, the State Department and National Security Council fumbled U.S. interests in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. One man, one vote, once; parties that enforce discipline at the point of a gun; and politicians who seek to subvert the rule of law to an imam’s conception of God do little for U.S. national security. Never again should the United States abandon its ideological compatriots for the ephemeral promises of parties that use religion to subvert democracy and seek mob rather than constitutional rule.

Turkey is nearing the cliff. Please, Secretary Rice, do not push it over the edge.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

UNDANGAN KELAS JURNALISTIK 2008

Dengan hormat,
Sejak April 2008 ini, Divisi Pengembangan Profesi Aliansi Jurnalis
Independen (AJI) Jakarta berencana mengadakan kelas jurnalistik secara
rutin setiap bulan sekali. Adanya kelas ini diharapkan bisa mewadahi
minat belajar wartawan, terutama anggota AJI, dan kebutuhan untuk
terus berdiskusi mengenai isu-isu jurnalisme mutakhir dan prakteknya
dalam kerja jurnalis sehari-hari.

Kelas akan diformat dalam suasana informal, dengan menjaga kualitas
diskusi dan pembelajaran bersama. Setiap pertemuan akan menghadirkan
satu jurnalis senior atau yang dipandang berpengalaman dalam bidang
yang digelutinya, untuk bertukar pikiran mengenai satu aspek tertentu
dalam jurnalisme. Kelas pertama April ini mengangkat tema “Blog dan
Jurnalisme”. Dasar pemikirannya tak lepas dari makin banyaknya
jurnalis yang serius menuangkan karya jurnalistiknya di blog pribadi.

Apa batas antara blogger dan jurnalis dalam konteks Indonesia? Apa
pentingnya mengembangkan blog sebagai bentuk jurnalisme
kewarganegaraan (citizen journalism)? Dua pertanyaan itu adalah
sebagian yang ingin dijawab lewat diskusi ini. Tak hanya itu, sejumlah
tips dan trik soal bagaimana menulis blog yang efektif sampai kiat
memanfaatkan blog untuk keuntungan komersial, juga akan didiskusikan.

Kelas Jurnalistik perdana ini akan diselenggarakan pada :
Hari/Tanggal : Sabtu, 19 April 2008
Waktu : Pukul 10.00 wib – selesai
Pembicara : Budi Putra, blogger pendiri Asia Blogging Network, mantan
jurnalis TEMPO
Tempat : Sekretariat AJI Jakarta, Sekretariat AJI Jakarta, Jl. Prof.
Dr. Soepomo No. 1A,
Kompleks Bier, Pancoran, Jakarta, Telp. 021-83702660

Kehadiran kawan-kawan jurnalis amat diharapkan. Terima kasih.

Jakarta, 17 April 2008

Wahyu Dhyatmika
Ketua Divisi Organisasi dan Pengembangan Profesi
AJI Jakarta

PELATIHAN JURNALISTIK PERWAMI-DEWAN PERS

Hal : Ralat

Kepada
Yth. Kawan-kawan Jurnalis
Cetak, Radio, Televisi, Internet, Blogger, Freelance

Salam Persahabatan,

Persatuan Wartawan Multimedia Indonesia (Perwami DKI Jaya) bekerja sama dengan Dewan Pers mengadakan pelatihan jurnalistik multimedia. Pelatihan diadakan yang sebelumnya diadakan dua hari kini dipadatkan hanya satu hari dengan narasumber dan materi pelatihan yang sama, yakni pada:

Hari/Tanggal    : Senin, 21 April 2008
Jadwal/Pukul     : 08.00 -09. 00 WIB untuk registrasi (untuk
kepentingan sertifikat)- Dilanjutkan pelatihan
hingga pukul 16.45 WIB.
Tempat         : Kedai 63 Bali Coffee Gedung Pers Pancasila Jalan
Gelora VII No 32 Jakpus, Samping Gedung KOMPAS
(telp 0215357602)

Narasumber :
Pembukaan oleh Ketua Dewan Pers Prof. Ichlasul Amal
Nara Sumber:
1. Bambang Harimurti
2. Abdullah Alamudi
3. Bekti Nugroho
4. Wina Armada Sukardi

Materi :
1. Dasar Teori/ Praktik Jurnalistik dan Liputan di Daerah Konflik
2. Bagaimana Investigative Reporting dan Teknik Menulis Laporan
Investigasi
3. Jurnalisme Radio, Televisi, Internet dan Tantangan Konvergensi
Multimedia
4. Delik Pers dan Problematika Kode Etik Jurnalistik (Mencegah dan
Menghadapi Tuntutan Hukum Pers)

Biaya Pelatihan : Gratis
Peserta     : Jurnalis Cetak, Televisi, Radio, Internet, Blogger

Kami berharap, teman-teman jurnalis dapat memanfaatkan acara pelatihan ini. Kuota peserta hanya sekitar 100 orang dan telah terisi. Demikian undangan dan ralat acara pelatihan jurnalistik multimedia ini.

Salam Panitia