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Daniel takes rightful issue with an off-hand comment of mine, that he was putting a "positive spin" on Birther nonsense:

As Aziz and other long-time readers must know, I am not normally in the business of providing positive spin for Republicans. Given my criticisms of the dangers and problems of nationalism for conservatives and for America, and considering how unsympathetic I am to partisan tribalism, I would have thought it was clear that I was not saying anything very flattering about Birthers by saying that this obsession was a function of blind partisanship and nationalism. As I thought I made clear, this obsession is a more exaggerated, bizarre expression of equally baseless fears about Obama's insufficient Americanness and his supposed lack of devotion to Americanism. These fears continue to prevail among most mainstream conservatives and Republicans, and they inform a large part of the conventional Republican criticism of Obama's conduct of foreign policy. If this is my idea of positive spin, what would the negative spin look like?

Agreed, and the implication that I thought Daniel was giving Birthers some kind of pass is regrettable. I apologize. My point of disagreement with Daniel here is that he thinks nationalist tendencies are the primary cause, whereas I think it's essentially racism (and a variant of the Obama = muslim meme). Daniel goes on to argue (read his post in full!) that my assumption of racism relies on sterotypes about southerners and conservatives, and fails to take into account post-9-11 political nationalism.

I don't dispute the existence of the Americanism he has (as a true patriot should) been warning against for years, but I think that all of what he describes can be necessary for Birthers to exist, but still not sufficient for them to exist. Again, I invoke my own counterexample not of John McCain (which Daniel raised in his earlier post) but John Kerry - had Kerry won in 2004, and had similar birth circumstances as either McCain or Obama, would the Birthers exist? How you answer that hypothetical will probably be a good predictor of whether you think racism is a primary factor in Birther-ism or not. I do not see how you can answer "No" to it and still fail to conclude that racism is their primary motivator, however - though if that is indeed what Daniel would argue, I am eager to see his reasoning.

I cant agree with Daniel that my opinion that Birthers are racist is grounded in stereotype of southerners. Yes, Birthers are geographically concentrated in the South and in predominantly Republican strongholds; my argument that Birthers are racist just means that racists find a hospitable environment therein, but that isn't a blanket condemnation of the people there as a whole. Its politically-opportunistic racism, to be sure - but Republicans are after all the party of Alan Keyes, Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele.

However, (to echo Daniel's own point about Americanism) it's not Obama's skin color so much as his blatant and proud foreign affiliation that generates the racist response. Obama is authentically Other in a way that Daniel has also acknowledged Jindal is not. I wonder if Jindal were from Pakistan rather than India, and had photos of him wearing traditional "muslim" garb in circulation, whether he'd still be immune to Birther or "crypto-muslim" smear campaigns. Obama affirms and repeatedly references his Kenyan heritage and quotes the Qur'an to the muslim world; Jindal for want of a better phrase has expunged all traces of his ethnicity from his public persona. To put it bluntly, Obama rubs his Otherness in everyone's face whereas Jindal tucks it away out of sight. In many ways, Daniel's own observations about why Jindal is immune only serve to support my primary claim of Birthers' racism - racism is sometimes colorblind, too.

This is a guest post by Dilshad A. Ali.

Returning home from any conference, there is a time of decompression and processing, as I am doing at my home in Virginia. I just wrapped up three intense days at the WISE (Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity) 2009 conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, couched between four days of exhaustive travel. Jet lag? Don't get me started.

The reach of this conference was certainly ambitious, and if I can sum it up in one sentence (which is probably doing injustice to the goals of WISE), it was to bring together powerful Muslim women from all over the world to share best practices, network, develop partnerships and learn effective ways to further the causes and improve the situation of Muslim women (through a new scholarly interpretation of sacred text, philanthropic work, leadership, communication and through action).

WISE is the brainchild of ASMA (American Society for Muslim Advancement), run by Daisy Khan, a force of nature and global-thinking leader. I've been tracking her career at ASMA for a number of years and watched the WISE initiative grow from an idea to its current formation as an agent of change. But with that wide-reaching, ambitious goals comes inherent challenges and difficulties-especially when you have nearly 200 powerful Muslim women from about 50 countries butting heads (and sharing ideas and thoughts) in the same room.

Some highlights:

• The introduction of the WISE portal, a fabulous website (in beta version, but will be live in the next two months I'm told) that will feature WISE projects, information about the developing Muslim Women's Fund and the WISE Shura council, projects Muslim women are engaging in, training models, and how to reach the "WISE women."
• Case studies from the "Change through Interpretation" session that reflected some of the amazing work Muslim women are doing to better the live of women through proper scriptural interpretation (about marriage, family life, gender equality).
• Some truly useful skill-building sessions (how to run for political office, how to get your story/organization heard by the media, how to balance work with the rest of life).

And then were the areas needing improvement, which is indicative of these sorts of conference where you are trying to create a global initiative for change. When you're trying to rally women from around the world around grand ideas and grand goals, it's a difficult process that begets lots of expectations and ideas on how things should be done. Post-conference feedback was expected by the WISE organizers. But what they additionally got was a signed statement by a number of WISE participants on the last day citing a many concerns and suggestions for change, such as:

• Greater transparency in all WISE projects, including what the new Shura council would be doing, how they would be doing it, and who would be involved, and how the Muslim Women's Fund would function (and how money would be generated and disseminated).
• A more diverse representation amongst the makeup of the Shura council and the case studies and panelists at the conference.
• A more thorough vetting of who would be funding the WISE initiative (with some objecting to partial funding provided by the Rockefeller Brothers).
• A more sophisticated, well-planned and organized strategy for agents of change that better incorporated the ideas and criticism of all invited participants.

I also came away from the conference with thoughts of what was great, what was useful, what needed further explanation, what should change, and what could be different. And perhaps if the WISE organizers had built in more time just to explore feedback and criticisms (as well as what worked), some of the participants wouldn't have felt compelled to put forth a signed statement of concerns.

Looking at the hard work of Daisy Khan and her staff (as well as an incredible group of volunteers), I knew it was hard to hear this list of concerns. The women behind the statement were very respectful and appreciative of all the hard work the WISE organizers had put into the conference, but nevertheless there were some strong concerns.

It's a delicate balance when you go forth with something of this magnitude involving such powerful women who are dealing with tough issues and are sometimes wary to put their name on something without knowing everything they are getting themselves into. Do you just, at some point, go ahead and do it, or do you seek more and more information and advice and work on perfecting the initiative before launching forth?

I came away learning lots, seeing how Muslim women are improving the situation for themselves in various countries and finding models that may be replicated in other areas. I also came away with a lot of questions and the need for clarification on what I could exactly do to help, and how everything would work. But that's how it is when you launch an initiative of this magnitude with such huge (but necessary) goals.

WISE wants to help Muslim women help themselves. May Allah (SWT) help this initiative to work in the best way and reach women around the world. As Daisy said to me on the last day, "God does not compete against Himself. If we all want the same goal but have different ideas on how to achieve that goal, we are not competing against each other."

Dilshad D. Ali is a writer and former editor for Beliefnet, where she wrote a previous article on last year's WISE conference in New York City. See the official WISE 2009 website for more details.

This is a guest post by Dilshad D. Ali.

In 2006 I received an invitation from Daisy Khan, founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement to attend the first ever Women's Islamic Initiative in Equity and Spirituality Conference (WISE) in New York City, where about 170 prominent Muslim women from more than 20 countries gathered to discuss issues important to them and figure out ways to better the situation of Muslim women the world over.

I left that conference overwhelmed by the power of what I had witnessed and by the collective intelligence and influence of those women. I wrote a story for Beliefnet and moved on with my life. Occasionally I heard from WISE about what they were working on, but the group remained just a blip on my radar, until I got the invitation to attend the 2^nd annual WISE (with the "E" now standing for equality rather than equity) conference in Kuala Lumpur.

So here I am in Kuala Lumpur attending the WISE conference (where I presented a case study the cache of content Beliefnet had developed on the topic of hijab and Muslim women's dress code), and once again I'm overwhelmed by the more than 200 important Muslim women from more than 50 countries who have gathered to share their work, learn from each other, and learn what WISE has been up to in the field of Muslim women's causes. It has been an enlightening two days thus far.

Instant polling on the first day revealed that these women felt that the biggest barrier to Muslim women's advancement was harmful religious interpretation. And that point was driven home on Saturday during a session held about "change through interpretation, in which two women presented case studies about how they are working to improve marital rights and gender equality through scripture interpretation.

Laisa Alamia from the Philippines presented a very compelling case study of how her group, Nisa Ul Haqq Fi Bangsamoro is working to promote and train gender-sensitive Muslim religious leaders (or MRLs) in the Muslim province of Mindanao. Through her group's painstaking efforts with some of the MRLs and other experts, they wrote 15 khutbas (sermons) that tackled issues of gender, domestic violence, marital rights of women, and reproductive health, which were then used by numerous imams and muftis in their Friday sermons. Currently Alamia is conducting on-the-ground data-taking to gauge the effectiveness of these khutbas on the dire condition of Moro Muslim women in Mindanao.

This session was followed by the WISE Shura Council's launch of the "Jihad Against Violence" campaign-a global campaign to bring awareness to and help eradicate violence against Muslim women. Although conference participants debated hotly on the name of the campaign (Was the word "jihad" too fiery to use? Should it be called "Jihad for Peace"?), all joined in taking a pledge to campaign against violence towards Muslim women.

With so much coming out of day two, I am eager to see what happens during the rest of the conference. Stay tuned for more.

Dilshad D. Ali is a writer and former editor for Beliefnet, where she wrote a previous article on last year's WISE conference in New York City. See the official WISE 2009 website for more details.

The oppression of the Uyghur in China's Xinjiang province has been getting a surprising amount of media coverage. The first reaction most people have upon hearing about the Uyghur is to ask, "who?" so it's worth reviewing some basic information about who these people are and why their struggle is worth paying attention to.

In a nutshell, the Uyghur are an ethnic minority in China who practice Islam and speak the Turkic language. They are thus both an ethnic and a religious minority, unlike the Hui, who also practice Islam but who are culturally and physically identical to the Han majority. The Hui comprise the vast majority of Chinese muslims, so the Uyghur are a minority within a minority in that regard.

The Uyghur's ancient homeland in central Asia was previously known as East Turkestan, and has been variously ruled by khanates, dynasties, and warlords throughout history. The region was also named Xinjiang ("New Territory") during the Qing dynasty. The Uyghur did establish a short-lived East Turkestan Republic between 1944 and 1949, albeit with Soviet help. That ended when the People's Liberation Army took control and the area was renamed the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The Uyghur are persecuted by Beijing in much the same way that the Native Americans were for almost two centuries by the United States, in that they face a relentless and systematic campaign to wipe away their cultural heritage and erase their religious identity. The primary vehicle for this is the immense immigrant influx by Han Chinese into Xinjiang, a deliberate resettlement by the Chinese government to change the demographics of Xinjiang. Over the past 50 years this immigration wave has changed Xinjiang from being 94% Uyghur in 1949 to 45% Uyghur now, with Han comprising 40%. The capital city of Xinjinag, Urumqi, is 75% Han and the Han dominate all levels of civic society and government in the province. It should be noted that Uyghurs, like all minority groups, are exempted from the one-child policy, but there are vastly more Han than Uyghur in China, so the balance in Xinjiang is unlikely to be countered by birthrate.

In addition to the deliberate dispossession of the Uyghur from their own land, the Chinese government engages in active religious persecution of the Uyghur, with believers forced to use state-approved versions of the Qur'an, a ban on beards and headscarves for any men and women who work in the state sector, and direct management of all mosques by the central authorities. Uyghur men are fined for performing prayers, muslim schools are closed down, and fasting by children or teachers is forbidden during Ramadan. In general, the state interferes in almost every aspect of Uyghur culture and religious observance that it can, in an attempt to make even simple observances and acts of piety too difficult to perform. The history and heritage of the Uyghurs are likewise under assault, with historic buildings and sites demolished and razed, and the Mandarin language is being imposed in rural schools to the exclusion of the Uyghurs' native tongue.

All of this is intended to eradicate the identity of the Uyghur, but at the same time the Uyghur are also the victims of discrimination and economic marginalization. Uyghurs are explicitly excluded from jobs, with signs stating bluntly that "no Uyghurs need apply". Massive investment by the central gvernment has led to the creation of huge farms and construction projects called bingtuan, at which an estimated 1 in 6 Han in Xinjiang is employed, but Uyghurs are rarely hired. In urban areas, increased development has led to rising rent, pricing Uyghurs right out of the market (as noted above, Urumqi is 75% Han). In almost every sphere, Uyghurs are second-class citizens with limited prospects and unable to take part in the modernization and development of Xinjiang.

This, then, is the context for the riots last week in Urumqi, which were actually triggered by a hate crime incident in eastern China. The resentment they feel is a serious threat to Beijing, which is why the response was so disporportionate and brutal. It is clear, however, that the heavy hand of Beijing is only making things worse.

Related reading: The Uyghur Human Rights Project website is an aggregator of news stories about the struggles and oppression of the Uyghur. The Council on Foreign Relations has a very detailed backgrounder on the Uyghurs and Xinjiang that should be essential reading. Razib had an extensive post last year about the Uyghur, noting that "the Han Chinese push into Xinjiang brings to mind a different dynamic, while the Hui are Jews among gentiles, the Uyghurs are like the Sioux being encircled by homesteaders." More recently, the New York Times had a nice history piece about Uyghur history and heritage, as well. Finally, a summary artricle in EurasiaNet discusses the tensions and grievances of the Uyghur in more detail.

A post-racial politics means being able to talk about race rather than ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist. The clearest indicator of a (non-white) politician's approach to racial issues is their name. Consider that Barack Hussein Obama once went by the name "Barry" in his identity-confused youth, but took the oath of office as President of the United States using his full name. Obama has matured and grown comfortable in his identity and ethnic origins, and that confidence in himself and his heritage is part of his appeal.

What, then, of Bobby Jindal, the Republican answer to Obama and hailed as the rising star of the GOP? His response to Obama's non-SOTU was widely seen as "weird" and invited comparisons to the gangly character Kenneth the Page on 30 Rock. The case can be made that the reason Jindal's performance was off-putting was not because of racism (a card that conservatives seem as eager to play as liberals), but because Jindal seems uncomfortable in his own skin:

of course, he is Indian-American. It was only a matter of time before race came into the picture. Christopher Orr of The New Republic theorized that Americans can accept a nerdy black man, but not a nerdy Indian because Indians were never cool anyway. Ann Althouse of the University of Wisconsin Law School suggested yesterday that the reaction to Jindal and his speech might be racist: "If there's someone of a different race, and you just have this gut feeling that something's not quite right, why are you so confident that it's not coming from racism?"

But if we are uneasy with Bobby Jindal, it is not because we're a nation of racists, it's because we are observing a man who seems to be uneasy with his own race.

While it hasn't stopped him from taking campaign money from South Asians--I attended an Indian-sponsored fundraiser in Los Angeles some years ago when he was running for governor for the first time--Jindal has downplayed his ethnic background throughout his political life. He changed his Indian name during childhood and, against his father's wishes, he converted from Hinduism to Christianity. When the Times-Picayune tried to go to India to cover his Punjabi roots, his family did not cooperate. And on Sunday night, when Morley Safer asked Jindal if he experienced racial tension growing up in Baton Rouge, the governor responded, "Not at all. You know, this has been a great place to grow up. The great thing about the people of Louisiana is that they accept you based on who you are." Safer pointed out this was hard to believe in a state where 40% of the population voted for Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke not so long ago. "We were raised as Americans. We were raised as Louisianans," said Jindal's wife, Supriya when Safer asked them both if they maintained Indian traditions in their home. "Not too many," they both agreed.

...

"By changing his name from Piyush to Bobby and by converting from Hinduism to Christianity, Jindal has repeatedly distanced himself from his Indian ethnicity and his family's Hindu faith," says Varun Soni, Dean of Religious Life at University of Southern California, and the first Hindu dean of a major American University. "But now that Jindal is being touted as the 'Republican Obama,' his identity as an Indian-American may suddenly be politically advantageous." Maybe this is why Jindal awkwardly wedged in the canned comment about his family "from a distant land," and at least part of the reason he's become the golden boy in a party of white Christian men.

So now the GOP wants to update his image, and, by association, their own. With President Obama peppering race issues with elegant introspection, Jindal suddenly has to answer questions about something he has long glossed over. Perhaps this is the disconnect--the weirdness--that people are sensing. There may be valid reasons why Jindal has changed himself from Piyush into Bobby, but people can sense the ambivalence, and that ambivalence was on full display last week in his speech. In the Obama age, a brown man who cannot or will not articulate his relationship to his heritage (aside from vague platitudes about the American dream) makes Americans uneasy. Today, transparency is touted as a virtue. But Bobby Jindal creates confusion in the minds of Americans who watch him: they sense self-deception.

Now, I just lauded the fact that the muslim American community is among the most assimilated of religious groups. However that assimilation was not at the expense of religious or ethnic identity. It seems that Jindal has not just assimilated but has rejected his old ethnic identity outright. There isn't anything wrong with this, though the sudden GOP embrace of his ethnicity reeks of tokenism. However, in comparison to Obama, the contrast is clear as day - for Obama, race and ethnicity are issues to be acknowledged and embraced, whereas for Jindal they are things to be denied. People noticed.

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