The Construction of Islam

As an erstwhile student of Sociology I often think that I never really understood it. Either it was very easy, even trivial, or very difficult!
Some sociological writings seem so dense (double entendre intended) that they are almost incomprehensible. Prof J J (George) Smolicz of Adelaide University wrote extensively on Florian Znaniecki’s Sociological Theory and Memoir Methodology. Znaniecki’s texts, admittedly written in Polish, seemed almost incomprehensible to me.
Though one thing remains.
And that is that we construct values with the way we use language and with the choices we make. I am sure I am doing this a disservice by oversimplification.
We are witnessing many examples of this at the present time.
Islam
The Australian Government is being roundly criticised for a forthcoming anti-terrorist summit with some Australian Moslem leaders. The critique centres around who exactly has been invited. Some key Moslem leaders say they do not even know some of the names on the list. Others are bitching about being excluded.
How much of this is Howard’s machinations is open to speculation.
He has an history ……now there’s a case in point, what am I saying to you by saying ‘an history’ rather than ‘a history’……any wayHoward has an history of choosing to define interest groups in the way that he wants them defined, which may not necessarily accurately represent everyone’s viewpoint, or indeed an objective reality.
What we are witnessing, I would suggest, is the PM getting into trouble because the Government want to create the Islam that they want to deal with, and the Islamic community rightly objects to this overt manipulation.
Isn’t this precisely what Australian Governments (of all persuasions) have done with Aboriginal people and why, in the end ATSIC had to be dismantled. The very vehicle that the white government put in place failed to deliver genuine consultation. It failed because it was set up only to deliver outcomes on the Government's terms. In the end even the moderate blacks could tolerate this no longer.
Those powerful images of aboriginal people standing with their backs to Howard spoke volumes to us all of how simply keeping on talking and spouting the same old rhetoric does not mean that people will keel over and accept its shallowness.
It didn’t work with ATSIC why should it work with Islam.There are many more examples and I shall cover some in later posts