laura.fo

The PMU seems to be imploding. Though, if you ask them, I'm sure they'll say "is temporary, is temporary," which is what the guy who fixes my car on the cheap always says when he repairs my rear view mirror with duct tape. Rather than taking a good hard look at how far they've come and where they want to go from here — finding the screws and bolts and putting the mirror on properly — I'm seeing a lot of blame directed at particular individuals (from "he just wasn't the right fit" to "apostate!") and almost no attention to group dynamics, the challenges inherent to collective organizing, or any reference to the long tradition of work that's already been done in this field, particularly by women's groups and Black Americans, going back at least 30 years, if not 150. Why the need to reinvent this wheel?

I wasn't privy to any of the early discussions that took place when they were getting off the ground last year; I'm an outsider, just a lurker and observer (and I, like other mere members, am reliably reminded of that fact by the leadership whenever I raise questions, which I find irritating since the questions were asked in good faith, but I can also appreciate their corresponding annoyance with having their motives second-guessed by people who weren't in the room when Issue 34543.b(ii) was being discussed originally).

However, what is the internet if not a vehicle for spewing uninformed positions? and so, here is mine: I believe the PMU made the same mistake some friends and I made when we started a nonprofit organization a few years ago, namely, that we thought because we had the same basic position on politics and world affairs we would naturally share the same views about strategy and tactics, group dynamics, the division of labor, finances, hierarchy in the workplace, "careerism," and all the other mundane details that go into running an effective organization. We turned out to be very, very wrong, and spent a lot of time blaming each other and defending our competing positions on minutiae like job titles and workflow, issues we should have hammered out before we went into business in the first place. These are problems in any company or organization, but since we were a progressive activist group our differences took on a higher level of indignation. I'm still upset that my assumption we would not organize in a hierarchical fashion wasn't respected; on the other hand I did nothing to promote that view or educate myself or others on how that model works in practice. I simply labeled people who disagreed with me reactionary, capitalist, status quo, opportunistic, etc. Some of those friendships have been irreparably broken; either way it took time out from doing our real work.

I should say, emphatically, that this is not a generic whiny plea, i.e. "Why can't we just get along?" I know it's not that easy. But that's the point. Because it's not that easy, you have to give the structure of your organization (not just its mission) a lot of thought, and figure out how divergent views will be addressed within it. Right now what I'm seeing is that the dog who barks the loudest keeps getting the bone. Members railroad each other on the listserv, those who moderate it have the power to deny the most argumentative members posting access and utilize that power liberally, those shut out go on to denounce the moderators elsewhere on the internet, and the cycle of in-fighting and ad hominem attacks continues. I realize ideology is at the bottom of so many of these arguments, but you'd never know it from the conversations I'm seeing. It's all names, names, names. He did this, then she did that. Meanwhile bombs in Iraq continue to fall.

I don't blame those who've resigned their positions on the Board (see here and here) — to sign on for that kind of headache is masochistic — but I'm also deeply disappointed that this movement is not turning out to be the utopian garden of acceptance I naively hoped it would be back in 2002 when I first discovered it. I'll say again that I'm here because of the PMU and its earlier incarnations, so any criticisms I have come from my own sadness at recent events. I've seen several blogs that are overflowing with glee and Schadenfreude at this situation, even from other progressives; this bothers me even more. I feel invested in this movement, and I want it to succeed.

For that to happen, though, they need to decide what they are, not just who they are. I was shocked when one Board member defended the PMU's decision to adopt unified position papers rather than open dialogue (in other words to have zero transparency, even within the membership, much less the general public) by saying GE doesn't discuss its internal affairs on a public web site, so why should they? It's not that I think a corporate model is inherently unsuitable. The ACLU has that kind of model; you can reliably expect there to be "an ACLU position" [singular] on all kinds of issues. But to get there I'm sure they have a rigid and elaborate internal mechanism for consensus-building, since it's unlikely that every single ACLU member agrees with every single ACLU position, down to the letter. Even the editorial board of my college newspaper would vote on their various editorial stances and someone from the "winning" side would be assigned to write the piece. It was simple and imperfect, but it worked. Or we all knew what we'd signed on to, at any rate.

It would be my hope, however (as contrasted with my expectation), that an activist organization would take a different approach. Last March, Mona Eltahawy wrote an article for MWU! criticizing the British decision to allow a student to wear jilbab rather than hijab, which she followed up with another piece about the student's background and relationship with Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Mohja Kahf followed this with a piece of her own in which she calls Mona "a dear friend" but defends the student and the court's decision. Together the three articles generated over 450 comments.

I found the exchange fascinating, and a perfect example of the dialogue that can take within an organization or group of people who share common goals. Both of these women are Muslims, feminists, opposed to extremism, and both, like the student in question, wore the hijab in their teens. Yet they took these shared experiences to arrive at different conclusions, and were generous enough to share those conclusions with the world. As someone who had originally framed the issue in the most basic terms (feminism, or multiculturalism?) I found the back-and-forth instructive and eye-opening, far more so than I would have found a generic position paper.

But the PMU is not a web site or a newspaper, and I understand it wants to be something more than a forum for discussion. But what is it, then? Even the ACLU does more than adopt positions; it raises funds, lobbies politicians, and defends people in the courts. So does ADC. AMIDEAST offers educational services. MERIP has its own publishing company.

My sense is that the PMU wants to situate itself as an alternative to CAIR and related organizations, but that might be my own cynicism. "Cynicism" not because I think that's an unworthy goal, but because it would explain what I feel is an extreme and distracting focus on recruiting big names and attracting press attention at the expense of real work and thoughtful discussion. The other day someone on the list asked for members' input on Fareed Zakaria. That was fine, and led to a nice chat. Several messages into the discussion, however, one of the other Board members mentioned in passing that this was a good example of the leadership asking for members' opinions before adopting a position on something.

Wait, I thought — why is anyone developing "a position" about Fareed Zakaria? Perhaps I misunderstood and they only wanted member input on this subject in order to frame their positions generally. Okay. But I also know there was some talk of asking him to be on the Board, which I do not understand at all, and that makes me skeptical. As far as I know he has never aligned himself with this movement, doesn't identify as a Muslim (progressive, cultural, secular, or otherwise) except via the accident of his birth, and is plenty busy with his own projects as it is. The only advantage he would bring is name recognition, and even that's a little sad. Other groups have Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon. The PMU would have… Fareed Zakaria. Does no one else find this kind of depressing? Alienating hundreds of potentially enthusiastic members in exchange for getting to use the name of a guy who has a show on PBS? And if he did indeed rebuff the Board, what happens now? They come up with a position paper criticizing him for his politics, which are exactly the same as they were back when he was being recruited? I really hope that's not what's going on. I really hope I'm being cynical.

What I would like to see is a progressive Muslim organization that – yes – could be a public relations voice that mainstream news organizations could approach for soundbites and background information, but one that also serves as a one-stop networking space for:

• those who want to become active in their local communities,
• those who want to do MoveOn-style lobbying and internet slacktivism,
• a place for Muslim writers and artists to meet and possibly develop collaborative projects,
• identifying progressive mosques throughout the country (or the world),
• links to interesting and controversial articles elsewhere on the net, whether or not they've been stamped with anyone's official approval,
• shopping (books, clothing, software, toys, language resources),
• point/counterpoint editorial pieces of the Mona/Mohja variety described above (Brain, Child does something like this in every issue)
• links to charitable organizations in need of funding or volunteers.

The MWU! site has succeeded because politics aside its execution works: it's dynamic, diverse, and updated regularly. Not because its positions are uniform and perfectly articulated, and certainly not because it attracts famous names. People become well-known because their work resonates with others, not the other way around. The PMU approach reminds me of the Bush administration walking into Iraq and thinking it can sprinkle American Fairy Dust around the desert and suddenly, wow, there will be democracy.

As if.