Into the Deep has been on hiatus since the end of May, but re-launches for the 2012-2013 school year with a profile of a former Memorial English graduate student, Jacqueline O'Rourke and her new book Representing Jihad: The Appearing and Disappearing Radical, recently published by Zed Books.
From the book's press release:
The jihad has been at the centre of the West's securitization discourse
for more than a decade. Theorists constantly use the jihadist as a
discursive tool to further their neoliberal, military and market
agendas, perpetuating massive gaps of understanding between 'the West',
Muslims and jihadists themselves. They are helped by Muslim
interlocutors, who all too often play the role of 'good' Muslims
explaining the motifs of the 'bad' Muslims.
This timely book argues that Muslim theory and fiction has been
significantly commodified to cater to the needs of western ideology. It
skillfully critiques the ideological contradictions of the debate around
the jihadist by offering a comprehensive analysis of Muslim and
non-Muslim cultural critics. Ranging from Edward Said to Slavoj Zizek,
from Don DeLillo to Orhan Pamuk and from Mohammed Siddique Khan to Osama
bin Laden, this vastly heterogeneous discourse produces a
multi-dimensional Muslim response. O'Rourke examines some of its
critical fault lines in postcolonial theory and literary analysis.
Jacqueline O'Rourke completed her PhD, M.A., and B.A at Memorial as well as a
MEd and BEd at Saint Mary's and Dalhousie universities, respectively. She has
worked as Consultant in Research and Communications for the Office of Her
Highness Sheikha Moza bit Nasser Al Missned where she was responsible for speech
writing, messaging, media training, and research and policy advising which
involved setting up various social organizations in the region such as Al
Fakhoora, a humanitarian organization for Palestinian students, various projects
connected with the U.N.'s The Alliance of Civilizations, as well as various
youth initiatives and debate venues. She has also taught composition at various
universities in the Middle East and Canada and authored a book of poetry,
various articles of politcal and cultural analysis, academic materials for
writing students. Her book
Representing Jihad: The Appearing and
Disappearing Radical grew out of her PhD thesis supervised by Dr Noreen
Golfman. She recently returned to Newfoundland and works as an independent
consultant offering the following services: speech writing, media training,
messaging,designing communications plans and strategies,policy advice and
research services.
The following interview is excerpted from a longer article about Jacqueline and her book in the online journal
Jadaliyya:
What made you write this book?
I was living in Canada in 2001 when the
9/11 bombings occurred and shortly after moved back to the Middle East, where I
remained for 10 years ( I had already lived there for 5 years previously). Throughout this period I was often befuddled
by the diverse and multi-layered uses of the figure of the jihadist in virtually every discussion on the Middle East and
contemporary Muslim cultures. I was further interested in how this figure was
permeating Western cultures, in fiction, music, theory, and even fashion. As an
avid student of culture, post-colonialism and Orientalism, I watched sometimes
with amusement and sometimes despair, how this figure was being used to
demonize Muslims even further and to justify the militarization of Muslim
lands. The proliferation of works by
“good” Muslims explaining the motifs of the “bad” Muslims seemed to create only
more misunderstanding as the jihadists
demonstrated they were quite capable of articulating their demands and
representing themselves. It was this disjuncture, of Muslims of various political
persuasions and ambitions, vying for media attention and public sympathy, as well
as the rebirth of a Western neo-Orientalism from both the neo-conservatives and
the left that led me to explore the figure of the jihadist as a possible launching point of a critique on the state
of ‘theory” today. As such, my book
maintains that the appropriation of the figure of the jihadist, whether it be contained within neo-Orientalism,
anti-Orientalism, the globalization debate, media studies, post-colonialism or
post-secularism demonstrates the deafening silence of genuine interaction
between Muslims themselves, and Muslim theorists and their Western counterparts
in thinking through some of the critical social and political issues of our
times. The contribution of my book is to
bring into dialogue works of Muslim and non-Muslim writers, secularists,
moderates and radicals, to demonstrate how a genuine contrapuntal discourse is
required to understand complex issues of global cultures.
What particular topics and literatures
does it address?
I begin with the Arab revolutions and
the desire in the early days of these revolutions to make the figure of the
radical jihadist disappear - as
irrelevant to progress in the region. As
I predict in the opening chapter and as the title of my book indicates, the jihadist is made to disappear and
reappear at will, and we can see this, of course, in recent discourse on both
Syria and Libya. The book covers this fascination and usage of the jihadists in
various “fields” such as Orientalism, particularly the use of the jihadist in
popular literature, for example, in justifying the militarization of Iraq and
Afghanistan, as well as the impending confrontation with Iran. Culture and politics are inseparable here as
books such as Reading Lolita, The Kite Runner, and even lesser known
works such as those by Yasmina Khadra serve to humanize the “good” Muslims who
need to saved from the “bad” Muslims by imperial partners. My book also
examines how post-colonial theory, though formed through case studies of Muslim
societies by Edward Said and Franz Fanon, whose works I nevertheless deeply
admire, often largely left Islam out of their theoretical and revolutionary
formulations. For example, I look at
intersections in the thoughts of Shariati and Fanon ,often ignored by
post-colonialists, as well as examine Said’s secular bias which has been the
cornerstone of post-colonial theory. Recent growth of post-secular theory such
as the work of Ẑiẑek and Eagleton,
though sympathetic to Muslim causes in intention, also display a lingering
Orientalism, Ẑiẑek moreso than
Eagleton. I also examine the tendency of
media studies to view the jihadist as
a purely performative function and refute this by demonstrating some
fault-lines in the seminal work of
Giroux and Devji for example. I
also highlight what I call the growing field of “Muslim cultural theory”,
the work of Sardar and Ramadan, for example, who explicitly identify themselves
as Muslims, intent on using indigenous Muslim vocabulary, in discussing various
aspects of post-colonial and post-secular thought.
How does this work connect to and/or depart from your
previous research and writing?
For the past number of years, from 2002
to 2011 I worked as a consultant in communications and research at the Office
of her Highness Shiekha Moza bint Nasser Al Missned in Qatar. At the same time
I was working on my PhD focusing on cultural theory. My work in Qatar, especially with
organizations such as the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, as well as
various other organizations with which I was involved which confronted problems
of youth in the region, such as Silatech and Al Fakhoora, consistently
illuminated to me the huge gap of both understanding and interlocution between
Muslims of the region and the rest of the world. I found the whole arena of interfaith dialogue,
for example, to be incredibly disappointing, as only certain voices are heard
and the radicals ignored or considered a lunatic fringe. I was also disappointed to find Muslims
fragmenting themselves in groups such as “moderates” and “radicals” with each
one claiming a monopoly on truth, and each one, at differing historical
moments, becoming ploys in the hands of superpowers and their imperial designs
on the region. It is my contention that radicalism, in various forms, not only
the jihadists, contains, perhaps in a
more dramatized form, the fears, concerns and genuine contentions of the people
– even though people may not agree with the actions of the jihadists, their arguments regarding imperialism and oppression are
felt in a very real way by Muslims all over the world. At the same time I have
been inspired by the rejuvenation of Muslim thought and vocabulary and the
insistence on the usage of this vocabulary, for example in the work of Tariq
Ramadan, in addressing questions of global concern.
Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of
impact would you like it to have?
I hope this book is hotly debated. I would like those whose work I admire and
critique to read and comment upon my analysis.
My goal in writing this book is to open a space for discussion between
worlds which normally do not intersect- the theorists of contemporary Muslim
thought and those of contemporary Western , both secular, and post-secular
theory. I think it is time that theory recognizes its deep indebtedness to Muslim
thought from Ibn Khaladun to Ali Shariati, to the influences of Muslim writers
in the works of Said and Fanon, and the growth of fascinating theorists such as
Anouar Majid, Zia Sardar, Tariq Ramadan, and Faisal Devji, for example. I was
particularly pleased when Sardar called my book “ground-breaking” and Ramadan
recognized the contribution my book has made to a new area of “double critical
analysis” as he has put it - in-putting Western and Islamic works into
dialogue. My goal is to encourage others
to engage in a truly contrapuntal (cross
disciplinary and cross cultural ) discourse on the “present”, to advocate for
the growth of a vibrant thought culture in Muslim communities at large and to
promote greater interaction between Muslim and non Muslim authors, beyond
traditional Orientalist or area studies disciplines.
What other projects are you working on now?
The projects I am working on now have grown
out of Representing Jihad in many
ways. I am interested in continuing an
analysis of the appearing and disappearing radical by focusing on the
figuration of the radical in recent global movements such as the Arab
revolutions, Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous, Kony 2012, the growing celebrity
philanthropy movement, etc. This will probably take the form of a new book on
contemporary radicalism in general. Since I have relocated to Canada within the
past year I am also interested in exploring the self-representation of Muslim
“revert” organizations and particularly the music and literature which it is
generating. A few years ago I had
published a collection of poetry, and I intend to publish another collection as
well as attempt a novel. I like to blur the distinctions between the critical
and the creative and to challenge myself with working in a variety of genres.
