Economic power vs political power & Muslims in the Western periphery

Well, I mean, my content is in English because that's my language. I mean, if I were proficient in Arabic, then my content would be in Arabic. My content is in English because I have dismally failed to become a polyglot. You know, it's like the old joke about, what do you call someone who who speaks many languages? Multilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks only one language? American. My content back in the day, when I was on Facebook, it spread across Egypt and across the Arab world because there were people who were kind enough to volunteer to translate it for me.

This is really a a blameworthy and guilty shortcoming on my part that I don't speak or I'm not fluent in any of the languages in the Muslim world. I mean, I'm somewhat passable in Arabic. I know a little bit of Urdu, a tiny bit of Turkish, and a tiny bit of Bahasa Malayu. Other than that, I used to be conversant in Spanish when I lived in The States, but that's mostly lost from lack of practice. So no, I don't consciously target my content to western Muslims or, Muslims in the West.

I mean, even the videos that are, directly critiquing the West, you know, and verbally directed at the West, I'm not specifically aiming at a Western audience. I'm aiming at a Muslim audience, primarily in the Muslim world, but I'm just handicapped by the fact that I can only properly express myself in English. But I've gotten some feedback that basically because my content is in English and I discuss the West and I discuss Islam, so then Muslims in the West think that I'm talking specifically to them. I think that's partly why they think that. And then another reason why they think that is just because I think that they have absorbed into their own psyches some of the characteristics of westerners.

One of which being that they think that the West is the center of the world. It's that same sort of insular self absorbed quality that just permeates western thought processes. But okay. If I was going to address Muslims in the West specifically, that's probably where I would begin. I mean, you need to understand, brothers and sisters in the West, that you are in the periphery, not the center.

Your issues, your views, your opinions, your perspectives, your priorities are not of any particular interest to the rest of the ummah. I'm not saying that as a put down. It just is what it is. And I think it's important to understand. I think it's important for you to understand, just to get some sense of where you stand in relation to your brothers and sisters in the Muslim world.

I mean, the general standard of English language online Muslim content is quite low compared to other languages like Arabic or Malay or even Indonesian for example. And the general subject matter that, Muslims are covering in English, is mostly irrelevant to most people in the Muslim world. It doesn't resonate. I mean, you like it or not or whether you're aware of it or not, it's very western centric, both in terms of the subject matter itself and in terms of the mentality or the approach to the subject matter. No one can relate to it in the Muslim world.

There's a disconnection between Muslims in the West, Muslims in the Western periphery, say, and Muslims in the center. And this is, you know, common. It's very similar to the disconnection between any diaspora community and the community back home. And I think this is partially due to the fact that diaspora communities struggle more to have an identity that is distinct from the people where they are and aligned with their people back home. And ironically, this just makes them a little more awkward, you know, and even more unrelatable to their origin communities back home.

And I think this is particularly the case when the diaspora community is in the West. But then the thing is, part of trying to maintain an identity and a connection for a diaspora community is to take some kind of interest in what's going on in their origin countries or in the center, I should say. Because obviously, you know, there are many many Muslims in the West who don't come from Muslim countries, aren't immigrants or the children of immigrants, but are, people like me, who are westerners by origin. So better to say that there's a tendency in the periphery to take an interest in what goes on in the center as a way of trying to feel connected to the center. But you see that's problematic because the reality is you're not connected to the center and the center is not connected to you.

You know? It's like if the Arab Bedou, the Bedouin who embraced Islam but did not make Hijra thought that they could opine about matters in Medina. You're not in the loop, And you only wanna be in the loop for your own personal identity reasons, not because you have any real stake in the societies that you're, you know, opining about. You don't have a stake in them. You don't necessarily understand them.

So you see it's from a it's it's a very western mentality. It's a very entitled and presumptuous mentality that actually belittles the importance of being there in those societies, immersed in those societies, understanding those societies, being invested in those societies, and actually being affected by what happens. You know, in some ways it's like it's like foreign investors who can move in and move out. Diaspora interest in the Muslim world is like capital. It can flow in and flow out and flow all over the place without ever taking root, and it never has to deal with any consequences.

Again, I'm not trying to say this in any way in in an insulting way or as a put down, but I think it's a concern. I mean, very fact that many Muslims who do make hijra to the Muslim world, then feel almost immediately disillusioned. That shows the extent of the chasm between Muslims in the West and Muslims in the Muslim world, and the chasm between their understandings, and how they live Islam in their daily lives, and what Islam means to them. And I'm not saying, by the way, that I think Muslims in the West have to make Hijra. I don't think that's a clear issue at all.

I mean, there's a there's a sound religious argument to be made that as long as you are free to practice in the West, you know, practice the most important pillars of Islam like the salah, then you're not obliged to leave. I mean, even the demarcations of Darul Islam and Darul Kufr or Darul Harb in the classical Ijtihad has become very blurry in the current era. So I'm not saying that. But you are out of touch with the Muslim world. Generally speaking, by and large, with the global ummah, you're out of touch.

And frankly, this impacts your own conceptions, your own understanding, your own character, and your own identity as Muslims. And you are impacted by Western society, and it's not a healthy impact. Obviously, you are the best people in the West. No question. But you're also not immune to the pollution that's all around you.

And I'm not just talking about the haram that's all around you. I'm talking more about, the psychological and intellectual damage that Western society inflicts on their people. How it normalizes very abnormal approaches to life, abnormal ways of thinking and being. You know. The depths of things are reduced in the West.

It makes everything shallow. It is a trivializing culture. The West is allergic to profundity and to maturity, and this is, very hard to protect yourself against. So in my opinion, I think it's important for you, to try to develop connections with the Muslim world, real connections. I'm not really sure how to do that except by living there.

But if you're not going to do that, if you're not going to make hijra, if you're not gonna spend time in the Muslim world or if you can't do that, but you still wanna show an interest in the Muslim world or positively impact the Muslim world, then obviously, I think the best way to do that would be to focus on building influence in the West. I mean, the problems that are plaguing not only the Muslim world, but the planet as a whole originate there. And Muslims around the world expect you to do something about it. We don't need you to be involved, in the issues in our countries. You know, whether it's about getting, outraged over raves in Saudi Arabia or some girl eating pork in Indonesia.

Nobody really cares what you think about that. I'm sorry to say. I mean, I've talked about this before. There's the story about the drowning babies in a river floating by a man, and he goes into the river and tries to save one baby at a time. And another man, tries to go upstream to prevent whoever it is that's throwing the babies in the river in the first place.

He's going to where the problem come is coming from. Well, that's where you are. You're already there. You're at the port, from which the sickness is being exported to the rest of the world. So we don't need you to worry about the people in the Muslim world, who are getting sick or who are getting infected.

We need you to try to stop the disease from its point of origin. I mean, if Muslims had stood up against the LGBT agenda ten years ago, for example, we wouldn't have its tentacles reaching into the Muslim world today. I mean, I said that you are in the periphery, but that's just another way of saying that you're on the frontiers. You're on the front lines. All the forces that are reaching into the Muslim world to cause fitna are reaching into the Muslim world from where you are.

So if you're gonna get mad at Muslims in the Muslim world for being influenced by the West or for being subjugated or or for capitulating to the West, then actually you're only indicting yourselves for failing to protect those Muslims in the Muslim world from the West. Now just to be clear, I'm not talking about, any sort of violence. I'm not talking about, you know, expecting people to make some sort of individual improvised jihad against the West or any nonsense like that. But I mean you are in countries that do provide a lot of mechanisms for participation, and not just political participation, but activism and protest and organizing and so on. I mean think about that consumer spending, consumer spending power of Muslims in America is worth roughly $200,000,000,000.

You know that back in, 2010, they thought that the American Muslim population was going to possibly reach 6,200,000 by 2030. Okay. It's 2023 now, and you're already 7,000,000. That's the same size roughly, as the Hispanic market was back in 1983 in The United States, and you're growing at an even faster pace than they did. Corporations are gonna care about the Muslim market in America, in the West.

That's power. You can get the attention of the owners and controllers of global financialized capital. You can negotiate with them. You can use the leverage of the importance, the growing importance of your consumer power in The United States and in the West generally. I don't think that there's better potential anywhere for democratizing the private sector, democratizing private sector influence.

There's no better potential for that anywhere in the world better than America, better than in the West. And if you can connect and coordinate with the Muslim world, it would be even more powerful. I mean, that's an economic force in the trillions of dollars, not millions, not billions. And you don't have to use that power just to get, you know, Nike sports hijabs or halal fast food, you know, or Muslim, you know, so called representation in like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or what have you. You don't have to even work for those things.

The importance of your market will already make those types of things inevitable. Those types of things, should show you that the business sector recognizes your importance. So don't squander that importance on trivial things. These companies are political entities. I mean, political parties in the West are just front organizations for the business sector, and the business sector is trying to win you over.

You matter to them. You matter to the business sector. So show them what matters to you. Don't just be like some other minority group in the West who just get happy, when big business notices them. Approach them as Muslims.

Approach them like a Muslim would. Approach them like they are the that they are, and use their interest in you to influence them. You know? Sure. We'll buy the your new Reebok sports hijab as long as it's 100% Muslim made, and as long as your factories in Indonesia and Pakistan and wherever else pay fair wages and have good working conditions.

And as long as you don't use your paid lobbyists to support legislation and policies that are harmful to the interests of those countries, and as long as you use your lobbyists to support legislation and policies that align with our values and our priorities, sure, then we'll buy your products. But earning Muslim consumer dollars is going to take or it should take more than superficial gestures to our community. We expect for you to use your power in ways that align with our interests and priorities. In fact, we don't even need you to make, Islamic oriented products. We don't care about that.

We want, substantive support for our interests and concerns. That's the price of our brand loyalty. You know that there are only about 50 companies, that have stayed on the fortune 500 list since it was first published seventy years ago in 1955, and most of those are consumer companies. They survive because they can read market trends, and they're responsive to market trends. Well, there's no market in the West that they're looking at right now more than they're looking at Muslims.

We're gonna be 30% of the entire global population by 2050. And if our consumer behavior can be, coordinated, even loosely, as a mechanism for influence, we'll be able to bend the power of the private sector to our will. There are a lot of things you can do in the West, and that's to say nothing about building your own companies and private sector power, your own private sector power, Muslim private sector power, and developing connections with the Muslim world through those activities, trade, investment, and so on. If you're active in the economic sphere, then you will automatically be more effective than if you're focused on being active in the political sphere. Decisions made by the boards of directors of corporations are more impactful than decisions made in the House of Representatives.

I mean, let's be honest. The decisions that are made in the congress are dictated to them by corporate boards anyway. I mean, you could send 500,000 letters to your congressman, and they won't count as much as one telephone call from a CEO. And I think that Muslims in the West are in the best position, to pursue these kinds of things. And you don't have to ally with anybody, you know, the right wing or the left wing.

You just have to, ally with each other and with Muslims abroad in other western countries and in the Muslim world. You know? Don't let them fool you into thinking that you're a minority. That's a a mental construct. And the only thing that makes it even, real in any way is your own disconnection from the rest of the ummah.

I mean, the owners and controllers of global financialized capital don't care about nation states and borders. They don't think like that and they don't operate like that and neither should you. But again, that doesn't mean focusing your attention on the Muslim world and what happens in the Muslim world. It means working from where you are with a sense of solidarity, knowing that what you do over there can help us over here.