Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam was published by Stanford University Press in November 2009. But the story behind the book dates back five years to November 2004. It was then that Donald K. Emmerson and Daniel M. Varisco agreed to disagree.

Emmerson spoke on "Islamism: What Is to Be Said and Done?" (video link and discussion) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC on 30 November 2009.

Varisco, a Hofstra University anthropologist with expertise on Islam and the Middle East, had invited Emmerson to join a panel on "Islam and Political Violence: The ‘Ismhouse' of Language" at the 2004 annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association.

Emmerson was pleased to accept. Not since graduating from high school in Beirut had he lived in the Middle East. He had specialized instead on Indonesia, famously known as having more Muslims than any other country, yet spatially and spiritually peripheral to the Middle Eastern locations of Mecca, Medina, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Emmerson relished the chance to interact with experts whose knowledge of Muslim societies had been acquired mainly in Arab settings. He also shared Varisco's interest in discussing the controversial and contested meanings of the words "Islamism" and "Islamist." Since 9/11 these terms had become increasingly common in English-language discourse on Islam, Muslims, and violence by Muslims claiming to be acting in the name of their religion.

On the panel, before some two hundred MESA attendees, Varisco and Emmerson politely disagreed. Varisco argued that "Islamism" and "Islamist" were invidious terms that falsely linked Islam to terrorism. For the sake of consideration and accuracy, he said, they should not be used. Without advocating self-censorship, he defended his refusal to use "Islamism" or "Islamist" in his own writing and teaching.

"Inventing Islamism: The Violence of Rhetoric" is the title of Varisco's MESA paper as it appears in the book. "Why," he asks, "do we need a term that uniquely brands Muslims as terrorists rather than just calling them terrorists and militants, the way we could easily do for followers of any religion or any ideology? As scholars and students of religion, should we not be doing all we can to refute the notion that Islam is intrinsically more violent than other religions?" (Islamism, p. 33.)

Emmerson agreed with Varisco that the terms "Islamism" and "Islamist" were often used to conflate Islam, Muslims, and violence. But Emmerson argued that the words were not so uniformly and falsely invidious as to warrant their deletion. In his view, in addition to referencing radical views and acts, the terms usefully named a variety of mostly peaceful ways of expressing and advancing subjective interpretations of Islam in public life. Phrases such as "democratic Islamism" and "moderate Islamists," hr argued, were already fairly common in scholarship and the media. His chapter is entitled, accordingly, "Inclusive Islamism: The Utility of Diversity."

After the session at MESA, Varisco, Emmerson, and copanelist Richard C. Martin, an Islamic studies professor at Emory University, spoke of someday turning the discussion into a book. Busy with other projects, they postponed this one, but eventually took it up again as an experiment with an unusual format: As a neutral party, Martin (with the later addition of one of his graduate students, Abbas Barzegar) would edit the book, which would open with chapters by Emmerson and Varisco stating their views. Scholars of Islam from around the world would be invited to comment briefly on the dispute. More than a dozen experts in or from the Middle East, North Africa, North America, and Southeast Asia contributed remarks, which fill the middle of the book. Varisco and Emmerson end the volume with chapters that update and extend their respective arguments in response to each other's and the commentators' views.

An anonymous reviewer of the manuscript for Stanford University Press suggested that Islamism as a phenomenon was on the decline, implying that the relevance of Islamism would follow suit. In Emmerson's opinion, this may not happen soon. Juxtapositions of Islam, Muslims, and violence continue to occur in a range of Muslim-majority countries. At the same time, a great variety of Muslim leaders and organizations committed to peace, dialogue, and democracy continue to demonstrate the civility of Islam as they understand it. This rich spectrum of motives and associations will continue to challenge analysts around the world -- scholars, journalists, and policymakers alike.

Is Islam a religion of peace? War? Neither? Both? In the case of those Muslims who do carry out acts of violence or intolerance in the name of Islam, should their claims to have been motivated by religious imperatives be accepted as true, rejected as false, or bracketed as subjective? How considerate and how accurate is it to assert that any Muslim who engages in terrorism must not be a true Muslim? What is a "true Muslim"? By whose standards?

Is it appropriate to argue, with Emmerson, that to speak of "Islamic terrorism" wrongly and hurtfully implies that terrorism is intrinsic to Islam as a religion, whereas the notion of "Islamist terrorism" merely links such violence to one among many possible ways of interpreting Islam as an ideology? Or should these distinctions about words be ignored in favor of actions, including possible revisions of American policy, that can help to diminish the incidence of supposedly religious violence, whatever its actual nature may be?

In months and years to come, Muslims accused of having planned or committed violence against American targets will be judged in a series of civilian and military trials here in the United States. The defendants will likely include high-profile individuals such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, charged with plotting 9/11, and Nidal Malik Hassan, accused of the November 2009 rampage at Fort Hood. Some of the accused may admit responsibility for acts of violence and portray what they did as required by Islam. Some may accuse the US government of waging war against Islam. Some may claim innocence, or attribute what they did to personal reasons unrelated to religion. Stimulated by these proceedings, commentators on the Internet, in the press, and on talk shows can be expected to debate "Islamic terrorism" versus "Islamophobia."

Quite apart from whether fresh acts of terror occur, interest in the questions that Islamism features seems, at least to Emmerson, unlikely to decrease.

We are pleased to bring you the second dispatch of the year in our series of Shorenstein APARC Dispatches. This month's piece, "Forced Labor Redress in Japan and the United States" comes from Matt Augustine, the Northeast Asian History Fellow for 2009-10 at Shorenstein APARC.

Last month, on October 23, the Nishimatsu Construction Company reached an agreement in the Tokyo Summary Court to set up a trust fund for Chinese who had been forced into labor in Japan during World War II. According to the Asahi Shimbun, the trust fund—worth ¥250 million—will compensate 360 Chinese citizens who were compelled to work at a hydroelectric power plant in Hiroshima Prefecture. Under the terms of the summary settlement, Nishimatsu acknowledged that these Chinese workers were forcibly brought to Japan and apologized for their suffering.This outcome was both overdue and unexpected, particularly since Japan's Supreme Court in 2007 rejected the original lawsuit that five Chinese plaintiffs brought against the construction company in 1998.  Nishimatsu officials maintain that they want to set a new precedent for "social responsibility" in the wake of the corporation's recent scandal involving political donations.  The timing of Nishimatsu's decision coincides with the rise of the new Hatoyama administration, which has promised to improve Japan's relations with China and other Asian neighbors.

Former forced laborers and their bereaved families have pursued litigation against the Japanese government and the corporations that employed them, not only in Japan but also in the United States. The Hayden Bill, which passed the California State Senate in July 1999, opened the door for Chinese and Korean victims to sue Japanese corporations and demand compensation for their hard labor in inhumane working conditions. Although the U.S. Supreme Court thus far has rejected such cases, the unresolved issue of Asian forced labor redress has now been introduced into the U.S. legal system, indicating that the United States has become involved in Japan’s historical disputes.

In fact, the United States was intimately involved in the issue of Asian forced laborers during the Allied Occupation of Japan between 1945 and 1952. U.S. Occupation forces initially attempted to retain Korean coal miners until Japanese repatriates replaced them, but riots in Hokkaido and elsewhere forced authorities to abandon this policy in November 1945. Responding to strong Korean demands, in May 1946 a military government team in Hokkaido gathered over ¥3 million worth of wages, bonuses, and death benefits owed to Korean miners. This amount was but a small fraction of the more than ¥215 million that corporations throughout Japan deposited into an account at the Bank of Japan by 1948. Occupation authorities made several unsuccessful attempts to persuade unwilling Japanese officials to pay back the financial assets owed to Koreans, while U.S. policy gradually changed to oppose reparations demands against Japan. Article 14(b) of the American-drafted San Francisco Peace Treaty signed in September 1951 waived all reparations claims, and the unpaid wage deposits of forced laborers remained a well-kept secret of the Japanese government.

When former forced laborers from South Korea and China began appearing in Japanese courts in the 1990s, their lawsuits helped to clarify the historical record of wartime abuse and postwar cover-up. Lawyers, journalists, and researchers supporting the redress movement dug up hidden official documents, such as the voluminous reports by the Foreign Ministry on Chinese forced labor and by the Welfare Ministry on the unpaid financial deposits of Korean laborers, both compiled in 1946. Although the Japanese government refuses to make such ministry reports public, the Tokyo High Court in 2005 confirmed that the state continues to hold the ¥215 million deposits, which have never been disbursed. While Japanese records remain largely closed, declassified American records can help to answer important questions, including how closely the United States was involved in the process of postwar Japan’s forgetting and neglecting Asian victims of forced labor.

An Asahi Shimbun editorial on October 24, 2009 admonished the Japanese state to take action in the wake of Nishimatsu settlement, since other corporations facing litigation have vowed not to pay reparations unless the government becomes involved. The new Hatoyama administration should first make an unambiguous apology, the editorial contends, then propose a new framework whereby the government and corporations can establish a joint trust fund to compensate former forced laborers and bereaved families. The United States can support this reconciliation process by revisiting the unresolved issue of forced labor—which also included Allied POWs—and reinterpreting the San Francisco Peace Treaty to enable these victims to file legal claims in American and international courts. Proactive U.S. involvement at the government level should also be matched by an enhanced effort toward nongovernmental cooperation between researchers in the United States and Northeast Asia. Shorenstein APARC has been contributing to this effort through its Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project, now in its third year. The Center will also host a colloquium series titled “The American Role in Northeast Asian Reconciliation” during the 2010 winter quarter.

 

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Shorenstein APARC Dispatches are regular bulletins designed exclusively for our friends and supporters. Written by center faculty and scholars, Shorenstein APARC Dispatches deliver timely, succinct analysis on current events and trends in Asia, often discussing their potential implications for business.