Thread 1: Against the Conservative Grain

I wish I had written on Kruth's article---link and excerpts are in post just previous to this--- while I had its whole argument fresh in mind. This lack, however, has the advantage of forcing me to read closely the excerpts and ‘recover’ another politics from them. I’m not sure that Bruce would consider what he does with Friedman reading “against the grain” and hope that he gets a chance to answer that question himself. Whatever its name, it seems to have struck both of us because I too thought “How can we read this against itself?” when I stumbled on the article. Methodologically, this mode of recovery is predicated on very close reading; so, let me offer a few possibilities.

“These communities already perform functions essential to the economic system, and within the next decade, they are poised to become an important part of the political system.”

Taken alone, this sentence seems more analytic than critical and is perhaps even sympathetic to the need for political representation of Muslim communities. Despite the apocalyptic context, moreover, Kurth’s sensitivity to the link between economic power and political representation sets aside the question of religious difference for the moment. Instead, Muslims become something like unions and are united along economic (if not class) lines, which in turn serve as the axis of their power. Contrasted with fears of “turning Turk” and other religious notions, Kurth’s logic figures economic integration as the mode of attack; they take our jobs then they take over our country. In this way, Kurth is also ‘blaming’ capitalism and the drive for ever cheaper labor. If there wasn’t a demand for cheap, even illegal, labor power then the Muslim hoards wouldn’t have the economic power they have (or will have); if they don’t have economic power within our state then they certainly won’t have access to political power.

“The first will be a Western civilization or, more accurately, given Europeans’ rejection of many Western traditions, a post-Western civilization comprised of people of European descent. It will be secular, even pagan, rich, old, and feeble.”

This is a very odd statement and I have no idea what “Western traditions” Europeans have rejected. Kruth relies on a tautology; What makes Western civilization is its practice of Western traditions. Despite his free use of blanket signifiers like “Western,” Kruth implicitly recognizes the heterogeneity of those terms, so that Europe can be synonymous with “Western civilization” but also reject “many Western traditions.” More can and should be said here but time is short and I want to take up another phrase.

“It will be a kind of overseas colony of a foreign civilization, a familiar occurrence in European history, but this time the foreign civilization will be the umma of Islam and the colonized country will be Europe itself.”

This is Kruth at his best. By positing the inversion of European colonialism he (crudely) historicizes the present situation and reminds us that there might be political reasons why people are angry with the ‘West’. This sentence might even elicit shame or empathy for (the still) colonized peoples whose fear of, and anger with, invaders becomes understandable. Finally, because other work beckons, staging Europe as a future “colonized country” Kruth performs the grand gesture of colonialism, flattening out all differences of people within a continent so that it becomes a single space, a single state to be dealt with.