Stephen Schwartz (journalist)
Encyclopedia
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz (born September 9, 1948) is an American Muslim
journalist
, columnist
, and author. He has been published in a variety of media, including The Wall Street Journal
. He is the executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism. In August 2011 he was elected as member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board.
His background is on the traditional political left
, and much of his journalism has focused on Marxism
, Communism
and anarchism
, but Schwartz now describes himself as a libertarian
.
He has been a student of Sufism since the late 1960s and an adherent of the Hanafi
school of Islam since 1997.
He is a critic of Islamic Fundamentalism
, especially the Wahhabi sect
of Sunni Islam
.
. His father, Horace Schwartz, was Jewish, and his mother was raised Protestant, though the family was not religious. His mother was a member of the Communist Party
, and Schwartz described his father as a "fellow traveler". Schwartz was initially a Communist, and supporter of the Soviet Union
; later he would call himself a "red diaper baby
". His father was an independent bookseller, and his mother was a career social services employee.
The family moved to San Francisco when he was young, where Horace Schwartz became a literary agent while Stephen attended Lowell High School
. While there, he made his first serious writing attempts, focusing initially on poetry. In college his views began to shift, favoring a Trotskyist
view of Marxism over Stalinism
.
, and then the AFL-CIO
. He, along with others, founded a small semi-Trotskyist group FOCUS
. As Schwartz focused increasingly on making a career as a writer, he returned to these roots to write Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, commissioned by the S.U.P. as part of the commemoration of its 100th anniversary in 1985. By this time Schwartz identified as a member of the Social Democrats USA
, following a path similar to other Trotskyists who shifted from left to right-wing politics.
In 1988, while a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, Schwartz wrote in the New York Times Book Review that a member of Freud's early circle, Dr. Max Eitingon, was a key figure in a group of Soviet agents who conducted assassinations in Europe and Mexico. The essay drew a blistering, lengthy response from the historian Theodore Draper
, who was acquainted with Eitingon's relatives in the United States, arguing in The New York Review of Books
that Schwartz had defamed Max Eitingon by mistaking him as the brother of a Leonid Eitingon associated with the Soviet KGB
. Their continuing debate drew in historian Walter Laqueur
, supporting Draper.
In the 1990s, Schwartz spent a decade as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle
. He was also a member and local negotiator in the union
at the Chronicle, a branch of the Newspaper Guild
. Later he told of his dissatisfaction with the union’s national leadership, particularly its president, Linda Foley
, for emphasizing political concerns such as ethnic diversity and concentration of media ownership
, over traditional union issues of wages, job protection, and working conditions.
In 1998, Schwartz turned his background in studying the labor and radical movements in California
into his book From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. This book was panned by critic Michiko Kakutani
of the New York Times, who called its title deceptive for a book "so narrow and so selective that one comes away with a warped caricature of California as a hotbed of radicals, bohemians and New Age eccentrics," and a "reductive and highly dogmatic book." She argued that it ignored the significant conservative side of California thought, as reflected in figures like Richard Nixon
and Ronald Reagan
. California state librarian Kevin Starr
was more sympathetic, suggesting that the title and marketing were an awkward attempt by the publisher to give national significance to an otherwise legitimate history of the radical left in California. Starr praised the book’s account of the utopian ideals that spurred the early California left; the rest he saw as a personal quest to show how the Soviets corrupted these ideals. Harold Meyerson
also found it to be heavily focused on anti-Stalinism, fused with a hatred of Los Angeles
, which Schwartz held responsible for transforming the utopian left into "elitist but mediocre left-liberalism". Meyerson felt this, and speculation about Stalinist conspiracies, undermined the value in the book’s account of the San Francisco Renaissance
centered around poet Kenneth Rexroth
, an associate of Schwartz’s father.
In 1999, Schwartz left the Chronicle, and moved to Sarajevo
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
, living and traveling in the Balkans for the next 18 months. He had previously visited the area in 1990 to do research, and maintained ties through an Albanian Catholic institute connected with the University of San Francisco
.
After his return, Schwartz gained some attention for a speculative theory that the Jewish Marxist intellectual Walter Benjamin
might have been assassinated. Writing in The Weekly Standard
, he proposed that Stalinist agents in Spain might be responsible, questioning evidence that Benjamin committed suicide to avoid being handed over to the Nazis. He had little evidence to support his speculation, and critics noted that unlike other assassination victims, Benjamin was never a Communist Party
member. Schwartz defended the article as "just asking questions that should be asked."
As he continued writing for various publications, Schwartz strongly supported the Iraq War, identifying with other former Trotskyists who supported the war, including Christopher Hitchens
and Kanan Makiya
. Schwartz found support for this, among other reasons, in Trotsky’s internationalist outlook.
during his early years, and he now describes himself as a disciple of Ibn Arabi
. His biography at the Center for Islamic Pluralism adds that he's been "an adherent of the Hanafi
school of Islam since 1997." As his religious choice became publicly known, Schwartz complained that he was sometimes seen as "a Trojan horse for Islam," despite his support for American policies in the Middle East.
Schwartz published a book on the subject called The Two Faces of Islam. The book blamed Islamic terrorism on the religious establishment fostered by the Saudi government, and also criticized Bush administration officials for their associations with Saudi Arabia
. Shortly before it came out, Schwartz was dismissed from his position as a news writer for Voice of America
. The stated reason was that his work was not competent, although his sympathizers claimed the real motive was his differences with the news director and official concern about his increasing criticism of Saudi Arabia. Schwartz's personality was also said to have alienated colleagues. He then became a senior policy analyst, and the director of the Islam and Democracy program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. Schwartz annually leads a protest at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC with notable Shiite Muslims such as Maulana Dr. Sakhawat Hussain Sandralvi, to denounce the destruction of Janaat-ul Baqi, a graveyard in Medina, by the Wahhabis in 1925.
The Two Faces of Islam received mixed reviews. Paul Marshall, in the Claremont Review of Books
, described it as an "otherwise good book...marred by Schwartz's almost Manichean approach wherein all bad things in the Muslim world are ascribed to the work of the Wahhabis." New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein said the book demonstrated "a comprehensive mastery of history and historical connections, as well as a deep humanistic concern for those who have been oppressed by Wahhabi ruthlessness." However, he also questioned whether Schwartz had not overstated its significance compared to other extremist elements in Islam, such as the Iranian role in supporting terrorism. Clifford Geertz
described Schwartz as "a strange and outlandish figure" and concluded that the book was founded upon a "conflation of Wahhabism with Islamism
generally".
Schwartz followed this with a pamphlet, An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America, written under the name Suleyman Ahmad al-Kosovi. This covered a number of organizations he identified as being part of the "Wahhabi lobby" in the United States, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
, the Arab American Institute, the Muslim Student Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
, the Muslim Public Affairs Council
, the American Muslim Council
, and the Islamic Society of North America
. According to Schwartz, these groups were "crafted in direct imitation of the leading American Jewish organizations." However, he contended that they lacked the diversity of the Jewish groups because they were all dependent on Saudi money, and their ideology made them see the Jewish groups as "all controlled and coordinated by a single, commanding power, i.e. the Israeli embassy."
To counter this perceived influence and promote "moderate Islam", Schwartz launched the Center for Islamic Pluralism on March 25, 2005. The Center is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.
, with Schwartz as executive director.
is "historic, sacred land of the Jews ... given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by the Almighty as their eternal home."
He bases his view on "the following unequivocal statements" from the Qur'an
:
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
, and author. He has been published in a variety of media, including The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
. He is the executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism. In August 2011 he was elected as member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board.
His background is on the traditional political left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
, and much of his journalism has focused on Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, but Schwartz now describes himself as a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
.
He has been a student of Sufism since the late 1960s and an adherent of the Hanafi
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...
school of Islam since 1997.
He is a critic of Islamic Fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
, especially the Wahhabi sect
Wahhabism
Wahhabism is a religious movement or a branch of Islam. It was developed by an 18th century Muslim theologian from Najd, Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abdul Al-Wahhab advocated purging Islam of what he considered to be impurities and innovations...
of Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
.
Early life
Schwartz was born in Columbus, OhioColumbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
. His father, Horace Schwartz, was Jewish, and his mother was raised Protestant, though the family was not religious. His mother was a member of the Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
, and Schwartz described his father as a "fellow traveler". Schwartz was initially a Communist, and supporter of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
; later he would call himself a "red diaper baby
Red diaper baby
Red diaper baby describes a child of parents who were members of the United States Communist Party or were close to the party or sympathetic to its aims.-History:...
". His father was an independent bookseller, and his mother was a career social services employee.
The family moved to San Francisco when he was young, where Horace Schwartz became a literary agent while Stephen attended Lowell High School
Lowell High School (San Francisco)
Lowell High School is a public magnet school in San Francisco, California. The school opened in 1856 as the Union Grammar School and attained its current name in 1896. Lowell moved to its current location in the Merced Manor neighborhood in 1962....
. While there, he made his first serious writing attempts, focusing initially on poetry. In college his views began to shift, favoring a Trotskyist
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
view of Marxism over Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
.
Labor and journalism career
After college, Schwartz became involved in the labor movement, first in the Sailors' Union of the PacificSailors' Union of the Pacific
The Sailors' Union of the Pacific founded on March 6, 1885 in San Francisco, California is an American labor union of mariners, fishermen and boatmen working aboard U.S. flag vessels....
, and then the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
. He, along with others, founded a small semi-Trotskyist group FOCUS
FOR Organizing Committee of the United States
The FOR Organizing Committee in the United States or FOCUS was a small group of leftists in the United States. It was the US section of the Revolutionary Workers Ferment, known by its Spanish initials FOR ....
. As Schwartz focused increasingly on making a career as a writer, he returned to these roots to write Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, commissioned by the S.U.P. as part of the commemoration of its 100th anniversary in 1985. By this time Schwartz identified as a member of the Social Democrats USA
Social Democrats USA
Social Democrats, USA was the principal association of U.S. social democrats from 1972–2005.SDUSA was founded in 1972 when the Socialist Party of America renamed itself Social Democrats, USA...
, following a path similar to other Trotskyists who shifted from left to right-wing politics.
In 1988, while a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, Schwartz wrote in the New York Times Book Review that a member of Freud's early circle, Dr. Max Eitingon, was a key figure in a group of Soviet agents who conducted assassinations in Europe and Mexico. The essay drew a blistering, lengthy response from the historian Theodore Draper
Theodore Draper
Theodore H. "Ted" Draper was an American historian and political writer. Draper is best known for the 14 books which he completed during his life, including work regarded as seminal on the formative period of the American Communist Party, the Cuban Revolution, and the Iran-Contra Affair...
, who was acquainted with Eitingon's relatives in the United States, arguing in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
that Schwartz had defamed Max Eitingon by mistaking him as the brother of a Leonid Eitingon associated with the Soviet KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. Their continuing debate drew in historian Walter Laqueur
Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
, supporting Draper.
In the 1990s, Schwartz spent a decade as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. He was also a member and local negotiator in the union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
at the Chronicle, a branch of the Newspaper Guild
Newspaper Guild
The Newspaper Guild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933 who noticed that unionized printers and truck drivers were making more money than they did...
. Later he told of his dissatisfaction with the union’s national leadership, particularly its president, Linda Foley
Linda Foley
Linda Foley was president of the Newspaper Guild and vice-president of the Communications Workers of America from 1995 through 2008.She was a reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky before turning to full time work at the Guild in 1984. She was elected its...
, for emphasizing political concerns such as ethnic diversity and concentration of media ownership
Concentration of media ownership
Concentration of media ownership refers to a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media...
, over traditional union issues of wages, job protection, and working conditions.
In 1998, Schwartz turned his background in studying the labor and radical movements in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
into his book From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. This book was panned by critic Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani
is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...
of the New York Times, who called its title deceptive for a book "so narrow and so selective that one comes away with a warped caricature of California as a hotbed of radicals, bohemians and New Age eccentrics," and a "reductive and highly dogmatic book." She argued that it ignored the significant conservative side of California thought, as reflected in figures like Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. California state librarian Kevin Starr
Kevin Starr
Kevin Starr is an American historian, best known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream."-Life:Kevin Starr was born in San Francisco, California....
was more sympathetic, suggesting that the title and marketing were an awkward attempt by the publisher to give national significance to an otherwise legitimate history of the radical left in California. Starr praised the book’s account of the utopian ideals that spurred the early California left; the rest he saw as a personal quest to show how the Soviets corrupted these ideals. Harold Meyerson
Harold Meyerson
Harold Meyerson is an American journalist and opinion columnist. In 2009 The Atlantic Monthly named him one of "the most influential commentators in the nation" as part of their list "The Atlantic 50."...
also found it to be heavily focused on anti-Stalinism, fused with a hatred of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, which Schwartz held responsible for transforming the utopian left into "elitist but mediocre left-liberalism". Meyerson felt this, and speculation about Stalinist conspiracies, undermined the value in the book’s account of the San Francisco Renaissance
San Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
centered around poet Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
, an associate of Schwartz’s father.
In 1999, Schwartz left the Chronicle, and moved to Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, living and traveling in the Balkans for the next 18 months. He had previously visited the area in 1990 to do research, and maintained ties through an Albanian Catholic institute connected with the University of San Francisco
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...
.
After his return, Schwartz gained some attention for a speculative theory that the Jewish Marxist intellectual Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
might have been assassinated. Writing in The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
, he proposed that Stalinist agents in Spain might be responsible, questioning evidence that Benjamin committed suicide to avoid being handed over to the Nazis. He had little evidence to support his speculation, and critics noted that unlike other assassination victims, Benjamin was never a Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
member. Schwartz defended the article as "just asking questions that should be asked."
As he continued writing for various publications, Schwartz strongly supported the Iraq War, identifying with other former Trotskyists who supported the war, including Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
and Kanan Makiya
Kanan Makiya
Kanan Makiya is an Iraqi academic, who gained British nationality in 1982. He is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University...
. Schwartz found support for this, among other reasons, in Trotsky’s internationalist outlook.
Schwartz and Islam
Schwartz's exposure to Islam began with the study of SufismSufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
during his early years, and he now describes himself as a disciple of Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...
. His biography at the Center for Islamic Pluralism adds that he's been "an adherent of the Hanafi
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...
school of Islam since 1997." As his religious choice became publicly known, Schwartz complained that he was sometimes seen as "a Trojan horse for Islam," despite his support for American policies in the Middle East.
Schwartz published a book on the subject called The Two Faces of Islam. The book blamed Islamic terrorism on the religious establishment fostered by the Saudi government, and also criticized Bush administration officials for their associations with Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
. Shortly before it came out, Schwartz was dismissed from his position as a news writer for Voice of America
Voice of America
Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...
. The stated reason was that his work was not competent, although his sympathizers claimed the real motive was his differences with the news director and official concern about his increasing criticism of Saudi Arabia. Schwartz's personality was also said to have alienated colleagues. He then became a senior policy analyst, and the director of the Islam and Democracy program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank. Schwartz annually leads a protest at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC with notable Shiite Muslims such as Maulana Dr. Sakhawat Hussain Sandralvi, to denounce the destruction of Janaat-ul Baqi, a graveyard in Medina, by the Wahhabis in 1925.
The Two Faces of Islam received mixed reviews. Paul Marshall, in the Claremont Review of Books
Claremont Review of Books
The Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
, described it as an "otherwise good book...marred by Schwartz's almost Manichean approach wherein all bad things in the Muslim world are ascribed to the work of the Wahhabis." New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein said the book demonstrated "a comprehensive mastery of history and historical connections, as well as a deep humanistic concern for those who have been oppressed by Wahhabi ruthlessness." However, he also questioned whether Schwartz had not overstated its significance compared to other extremist elements in Islam, such as the Iranian role in supporting terrorism. Clifford Geertz
Clifford Geertz
Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until...
described Schwartz as "a strange and outlandish figure" and concluded that the book was founded upon a "conflation of Wahhabism with Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
generally".
Schwartz followed this with a pamphlet, An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America, written under the name Suleyman Ahmad al-Kosovi. This covered a number of organizations he identified as being part of the "Wahhabi lobby" in the United States, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee states that it is the largest Arab American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States. According to its web page it is open to people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities and has over 40 chapters in 24 states and members in all...
, the Arab American Institute, the Muslim Student Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
, the Muslim Public Affairs Council
Muslim Public Affairs Council
The Muslim Public Affairs Council is a national American Muslim advocacy and public policy organization headquartered in Los Angeles and with offices in Washington D.C...
, the American Muslim Council
American Muslim Council
The American Muslim Council is an Islamic organization and registered charity in the United States. Its headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois....
, and the Islamic Society of North America
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America , based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America.-History:...
. According to Schwartz, these groups were "crafted in direct imitation of the leading American Jewish organizations." However, he contended that they lacked the diversity of the Jewish groups because they were all dependent on Saudi money, and their ideology made them see the Jewish groups as "all controlled and coordinated by a single, commanding power, i.e. the Israeli embassy."
To counter this perceived influence and promote "moderate Islam", Schwartz launched the Center for Islamic Pluralism on March 25, 2005. The Center is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, with Schwartz as executive director.
Schwartz and Israel
Schwartz contends that IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
is "historic, sacred land of the Jews ... given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by the Almighty as their eternal home."
He bases his view on "the following unequivocal statements" from the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
:
- Children of Israel, remember the blessing I have bestowed upon you, and that I [the Almighty] have exalted you above the nations. [Chapter 2, verse 47]
- Bear in mind the words of Moses to his people. He said, 'Remember, my people, the favor which [the Almighty] has bestowed upon you. He has raised up prophets among you, made you kings, and given you that which He has given no other nation. Enter, my people, the holy land which [the Almighty] has given you. Do not turn back, or you shall be ruined.' [Chapter 5, verse 21]
- [The Almighty] said to the Israelites, 'Dwell in this land. When the promise of the hereafter comes to be fulfilled, We shall assemble you all together.' [Chapter 17, verse 104]
Publications
- A Sleepwalker’s Guide to San Francisco: Poems from Three Lustra, 1966–1981. San Francisco: La Santa Espina, 1983.
- Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1986. ISBN 0-88738-121-9.
- Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism: A History of the P.O.U.M (with Victor Alba). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988. ISBN 0-88738-198-7.
- A Strange Silence: The Emergence of Democracy in Nicaragua. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55815-071-4.
- From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. New York: The Free Press, 1998. ISBN 0-684-83134-1.
- Kosovo: Background to a War. London: Anthem Press, 2000. ISBN 1-898855-56-0
- Intellectuals and Assassins: Writings at the End of Soviet Communism. New York: Anthem Press, 2001. ISBN 1-898855-55-2.
- The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. New York: Doubleday, 2002. ISBN 0-385-50692-9. (Note: The subtitle on the paperback version was changed to Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism.)
- Sarajevo Rose: A Balkan Jewish Notebook. London: Saqi BooksSaqi BooksSaqi Books is an independent UK publisher co-founded in 1984 by author and feminist Mai Ghoussoub to "print quality academic and general interest books on the Middle East". It now claims to be "the UK's largest publisher of Middle Eastern and Arabic titles"...
, 2005. ISBN 0-86356-592-1. - Is It Good for the Jews?: The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby. New York: Doubleday, 2006. ISBN 0-385-51025-X.
- The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ISBN 0-385-518196.
Articles
- Schwartz, Stephen. An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America.
- Schwartz, Stephen. "Defeating Wahhabism". FrontPage Magazine, October 25, 2002.
- Schwartz, Stephen. "A Different Kind of Filial Piety". Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1999.
- Schwartz, Stephen. "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection". The Spectator, September 22, 2001.
- Schwartz, Stephen. "Spanish Revision". The Weekly Standard, June 1, 2009.
External links
Interviews
- Q&A with Schwartz from National Review Online
- Interview with Schwartz on C-SPAN's Booknotes