by
being_there
@ 2008-09-17 - 22:42:20
Peace Be Unto Those Who Follow Right Guidance.
In what follows, I will offer some brief reflections on Sherman [Abdul-Hakim] Jackson's essay, "Islam and Affirmative Action" (Journal of Law and Religion 14 (2), (1999-2000), pp.405-431.)
According to Jackson,
Islam's support for Affirmative Action is rooted primarily ... not in a concern for African-American's economic or political interests qua economic or political interests. It is rooted, rather, in Islam's emphatic opposition to white supremacy, as a system of domination, whose daily assaults on black consciousness bludgeon the human spirit and simultaneously undermine and abuse the fact of black humanity [emphasis added.]" (pp.410-411.
Jackson qualifies his reference to "Islam's emphatic opposition to white supremacy" by insisting that "this includes all systems of supremacy as legitimizers and instruments of domination, including Arab supremacy and domination [i.e. tribalism/complexionism], or even male supremacy and domination [i.e. sexism/masculinism]." (p.410) It might be argued that Jackson is here identifying white supremacy - more correctly, White Supremacy (Racism) - as a specific instance of the more general phenomenon of supremacism.
Jackson goes on to explore the [contingent] link between domination and the Qur'anic term fitnah which, as he correctly states, is characterised by The Qur'an as being worse than murder. According to him, fitnah is
a test, trial, provocation or act of oppression that seeks to draw on or expose human weakness. Fitnah from God seeks to expose human weakness for the purpose of nurturing a positive humility and a will to overcome. Fitnah from human beings [by contrast] is based on self-interest and aims at exploitation. (p.414)
Jackson maintains that "The Qur'an's preoccupation with domination is ... grounded in the fact that regimes of unbelief (kufr) (as opposed to individual acts of unbelief) require domination in order to sustain themselves." Importantly, on his view,
fitnah shows itself to be not only central to the Qur'anic message but far more sinister than brute injustice (zulm), persecution or even murder (qatl). For tyrants and murderers receive limited to no psychological cooperation from their victims. Institutionalised domination, on the other hand, is an all volunteer system. While the victims of oppression habitually fight against their oppressors, the victims of domination only fight against their selves. (p.415)
While Jackson might indeed be correct about the self-destructiveness of fitnah/domination, his assertion that "institutionalised domination ... is an all volunteer system" is problematic in that it could be construed as implying that the victims of domination (as opposed to oppression) are wholly and solely responsible for this domination.
Is Jackson saying this? I don't think he is because he goes on to say that "while [The Qur'an] holds individuals ultimately responsible for the choices they make, it never questions the impact of environment [emphasis added]." (p.418)
I wholeheartedly agree. While it is indeed the case that the system of White Supremacy (Racism) is responsible for physically and mentally enslaving non-white people, victims of White Supremacy (Racism) have a duty/obligation to "break free from the mental chains" of domination (fitnah) as well as from the physical chains of oppression (zulm), to use his terms of debate.
Peace