Bargaining Without Labels Is a Step Towards Freedom

Bang! The carpet hits the dust! Flop! Another. We are in the Old City again. Here the prices are not fixed. Here we must negotiate, must discuss, must take our time. One size definitely does not fit all.

Negotiation requires some effort in communication and the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, while striving to obtain a satisfactory outcome for oneself. This system seems logical and fair to me, though I am a stranger who must prove his place in the scheme of things. This is not like shopping at Costco.

Seller and buyer, each tests the other. As buyer, you let him know how poor you are, and how uninterested. But don’t overdo it. If the seller is clever, he may try to confuse you with names and imaginary labels. This carpet is a Strawberry Kilim from Khorasan. This dirty one is antique. And this expensive one is special silk, woven in the cave Medrasas of Tora Bora.

This is interactive theater. But despite this, both buyer and seller seek the Real, seek Agreement, beyond the tricks and strategies of communication. Each remembers that, even when accurate, mere labels and names are not reality, or ultimate value. Reality is something else.

But you and I have been schooled to label everything—including each other. This usually limits our full understanding. We reduce each other to size, to resumed utility, perhaps to opportunity. But labels are like the tag you attach to the toe of the corpse. It can record a statistic, but cannot indicate the complex individual soul. A human Being is not a thing to be labeled, or compared in value. Yet in this global economic system you and I are considered commodities. As such, we are either slaves in production or slaves in consumption.

We Muslims are called to seek knowledge even in China; but instead we seek cheap plastic kitchenware, socks and underwear, things with a low price tag. Of course, I am happy with my cheap vinyl gloves that warm my hands. Yet I am also uneasy with the system of global capitalism and exploitation. Whose hands made my gloves?

The Quran illuminates, but the Signs it tells us about are not made of neon. Most Signs are found in nature and not in an economic system. So let us not forget the natural world, which is not some Social Darwinist construction of Survival of the Fittest, but includes greater mystery, as well as ecological checks and balances, the logical and beautiful harmonies of creation. To understand this at all, we must take our time to reflect—in nature, mother of human nature.

And yet, living in a society in which the average urban resident sees 5,000 advertisements per day, instead of reflecting, our judgmental mind has a tendency to fix labels on everything. As if everything has its price. But imagine how it would be to be more like the Ahl al Suf, the woolgatherers and mystics seeking a higher quality material to weave into their souls. For with faith, that carpet can fly. Or perhaps we good capitalists think that faith is a form of “positive thinking” or a skill like a good sales pitch? Are you sure you know what faith is? Defining it is not the same as knowing.

Do we see each other in terms of Racism? Religion? Do we demonize our enemies? Who are they? We humans oversimplify the issues, we label others, and this prevents effective negotiation. Instead, we turn round and round in a cycle of violence and injustice and misunderstanding.

For example, many Jews call all those critical of Israeli policies “anti-Israel”—which conflates those who are constructively critical, those who seek the destruction of the state and people, those who hate all Jews and those who carefully critique the policies of the state. Others call Muslims they don’t understand or agree with “extremist”, which seems to gather conservative, literalist, traditional, authoritarian, militant and cult-like assassins all in one basket. Not helpful!

On the other hand, many Muslims mix Jews and Zionists and Racists all together in one basket. But there are important differences. Similarly, Democrats and Republicans are not all the same, despite what some of us like to say. The more specific we are the more chance we have to be accurate. Besides condemning injustice, we have also got to communicate more effectively. It is not enough to be right—that approach is infantile and narcissistic. Our words must lead to effective action.

Because the social and economic system is a more and more complex machine, we try to analyze what small part can be fixed. Some of us may dream of throwing out the motor and starting over, but we must remember that the machine is in motion. Muslims can work to adapt the machine to the needs of the human spirit.

Muslims and Arabs and people of good will need to look carefully at each situation in order to bargain for peace. In Israel, for example, there are many issues that need fixing. What of the marginalization of the Bedouin in the Negev? What of the Israeli settlements around Ramallah, built largely by Palestinian labor? Will Saudi mediation shame the factions to set aside their feuding in Gaza? And what are the different points of view among the Israelis? Understanding such details can help all players solve problems instead of throwing slogans around.

It is fair for free men and women to question the dictates of a "religious state", whether Saudi or Israeli. Recently, a group of 40 Palestinian intellectuals gathered by the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel wrote a series of recommendations, “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel” which call for “proportional representation between groups as in Belgium.” But while polls show that most Palestinians seek reform of the Israeli state, which has been called an Apartheid system, many Jewish Israelis are still frightened of the “demographic threat” of the “Arab birthrate.”

If there was less violence, multicultural third parties could play a role in redefining the tribal terms of this dead-end situation. And as Muslims, we should welcome a multicultural state, or society, as an opportunity for Dawah, instead of wishing it into the sea.

Multicultural, secular states can protect the rights of minorities. The secularists think they can do so better than religious states. That is not always true. But if laws do not interfere with (of course, non-violent) religious practice, Muslims should not object to secular states. It is true that even in the USA there is some interference, as with polygamy. However, in time, laws can be changed. Despite the authoritarians in Washington, the machine is still under construction. We need to understand it. We don’t need to throw the whole thing away. We don’t need to attach a label to the whole thing and walk away, waving our arms in the air and shouting.