Malala Yousafzai and the post-9/11 politics of gender and governmentality

Abstract: Malala Yousafzai was catapulted on to the global stage after she was attacked by Tehrik-e-Taliban militants while on her way to school in the Swat valley of Pakistan in October 2012. The attack against Yousafzai ignited debate around her status as a Muslim female school going-child and led to a global campaign for education rights for Muslim girls. This essay examines the conflicting narratives around Yousafzai in the international public sphere in order to develop a critical narrative on the politics of gender and governmentality after 11 September 2001. We locate Yousafzai within the frame of the global War on Terror and its relationship to Pakistan as a proxy state in global hegemonic politics and argue that as much as her entry on the global stage was presented as a victory for Muslim women that (a) nothing significant has shifted for them and (b) her celebration as an icon of freedom for Muslims is, in fact, intrinsically wedded to a discourse which utilizes gender equality in a utilitarian fashion to maintain a larger hegemonic system

Progressive Islam – A Rose by Any Name? American Soft Power in the War for the Hearts and Minds of Muslims

The aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States brought into sharp relief the leading role of that country in shaping contemporary Muslim discourses to create discursive urgencies that meet its ideological needs. Reflections on a short but very intense battle for the term “Progressive Islam” between a small group of international activists in the Network of Progressive Muslims (NPM), on one hand, and the US organization, Progressive Muslims of North America (PMUNA), on the other, is one manifestation of how this battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims as part of a larger ideological contestation has played out. This article examines the rupture between the two claimants to the term “Progressive Islam” within the context of (a) the varying historical usages of the term, (b) the need for Muslims to be dealing with intrareligious matters, and (c) the instrumentalization of such reform by the US-led empire as part of an uncritical liberal Muslim response that views Traditional and Fundamentalist expressions of Islam as their primary contradiction rather than Global North-driven imperialism and neo-colonial hegemony. The article argues that in the case of the United States, while recognizing the historicity of all expressions of religions, the projecting of rethinking and reconstructing religious tradition should not be undertaken as an extension of an externally driven “religion-building project” but instead by believers who both own Islam and share their own complicity as citizens of the empire

On being a muslim = menjadi muslim di dunia modern

Daftar Isi : 1. Bersama Allah2. Bersama diri sendiri3. Bersama denganmu4. Menjadi mahkluk sosial5. Bersama gender yang lain6. Diri kita dalam dunia yang penuh dengan yang lain7. Menjadi muslim Afrika Selatan yang baru239 hlm. ; 20 cm