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Home is in this village
Al-Qalam A few days ago, I was chatting to a friend who had just returned from the USA and we were reflecting on how different Muslim experiences are in South Africa and in that country. We noted how astounding is the brazen manner in which Muslims advertise themselves in this country, despite being such a small section of the population, in ways that do not happen in other parts of the world. He laughed about how, as he emerged at the arrivals lounge at Johannesburg International Airport, one of the first signs he saw was one that said: ‘Muslim Prayer Room’. There’s something peculiar about being a South African Muslim. It is particularly about the sense of ownership and belonging that South African Muslims – of whatever ‘race’ group – feel towards this country. In general there is a sense of rootedness that would not easily be seen among most Muslims in the US (with the obvious exception of African-Americans) and in many other parts of the world. Some of us here might be referred to as ‘Indian Muslims’ or ‘Malay Muslims’ but one would be hard-pressed to find a South African Muslim who looks to India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia or any other Muslim country as her ‘homeland’. Home is here, for better or worse. Some people prefer to reject the ‘minority’ label in reference to the South African Muslim community because ‘we are a majority in Africa’. This is true in many respects and our Africanness is a part of our collective identity that we need to cultivate. However, for South African Muslims in general, our brashness with being of this land is not related to the size of the Muslim community on the continent but related to what we feel is our place in this country. We have a feeling of belonging and a feeling of ownership to South Africa, its struggles and – even for the many in our community that are racists – all of its people. It is the kind of confidence that means that many among us are able to walk around our international airports or shopping malls with big beards and long kurthas or niqab and not feel out of place or not feel like we have to be constantly looking over our shoulders. This feeling of being out of place is very strong for Muslims in North America, especially in the US. One reason for our confidence is the role that some Muslims played in the anti-apartheid struggle. (Let’s be honest, it was only some Muslims. Today, it seems that no Muslim supported apartheid – which is patently untrue. Too many supported apartheid; too many more wanted to have nothing to do with ‘kufr politics’.) Another reason, as much as we might not want to admit it, is the ghettoisation that resulted from apartheid, with many Muslims – particularly in the Western Cape and the old Transvaal – feeling as if they were living in a Muslim country. But, whatever the reasons, the fact is that Muslims in this country do not face the same kind of multiple alienations that many other minority Muslim communities do. For many such communities, there is an alienation from the state, an alienation from their fellow citizens, an alienation from the political systems in their countries. Many of them still regard the countries in which they live as their ‘adopted’ countries; home is still in some Muslim country across the ocean. These alienations have contributed to the fear among Muslim communities that we have witnessed in the past three years – since the infamous ‘9/11’. And these alienations have allowed Muslims in these countries to easily be painted as foreigners who need to be feared and controlled. It is important that, for us in South Africa, the realisation of our place in this country is linked to our explicit acknowledgement that we do have identities that are multi-layered and enmeshed. I am a Muslim, and I am also a South African. The two are not separate and, in fact, cannot be separated. I understand and live my South Africanness as I do because of my Islam. By the same token, the way in which I understand Islam is profoundly influenced by my being South African, being Black, having lived through and been part of our liberation struggle, having interacted with non-Muslims who have been part of that same struggle. Important, too, is that this sense of belonging not be taken for granted. It comes with a number of responsibilities. Chief among these is that the Muslim community – or communities – in South Africa must be part of the broad reconstruction and development of this country and her people. Just as Muslims have a lot to gain from being South African, so too do we have lots to contribute to this country. Muslims must continue to be part of South African struggles that still seek resolution: the struggles against poverty, against the ravages of capitalist globalisation in our country, against corruption, against privatisation, against the dehumanisation that so many in our country still face, against the injustices faced by women, against racism. Unlike for many Muslims in countries like the US, our solidarity with Palestine od Kashmir is not because we see ourselves as Arabs or as South Asians; it is because we see ourselves as part of a global community. But our notion of solidarity must begin with solidarity for the downtrodden and poverty-stricken in our own country, as much as it is about oppressed Muslims in Iraq or Chechenya or any other Muslim country. It is easy to feel comfortable in this sense of belonging, to ignore the responsibilities that it implies. But such a neglect is immoral and unIslamic. The great Islamic scholar Ibn Hazm argued that if a man in a village dies of starvation then the entire village is accountable for his murder. If we want to be part of (and to be accepted as part of) this South African village, then the death by starvation of any person in this village should make us feel as culpable as if we had participated in his murder. Otherwise, we too will end up feeling alienated and fearful.
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