Cat Stevens banned from the US

by Chris Bertram on September 22, 2004

Yusuf Islam — the former singer once known as Cat Stevens — “has been banned from the United States”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3678694.stm . And not just banned, they actually diverted the plane 600 miles to Maine to remove him from it. He’s made some equivocal statements in the past, but more recently “has been forthright in his condemnation of terrorism”:http://catstevens.com/news.html?id=00174 . Perhaps there’s something we don’t know, but, on the surface, this looks like a bad mistake. Ordinary Muslims will be bound to see this as hostility to their religion as such rather than just to extremists and terrorists.

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Crooked Timber » » Culture clash
10.14.05 at 4:16 am

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1

Sean 09.22.04 at 9:28 am

Equivocal? He said he thought Salman Rushdie should be murdered for, and I’m paraphrasing, killing the followers of an entire religion. Nice. And he was a relatively new muslim at that time. What’s the deal? I figured you lost your mind, then you converted.

2

Chris Bertram 09.22.04 at 9:34 am

“He denies that”:http://catstevens.com/articles/00236/index.html on his website Sean, FWIW. Anyway, it seems as if he was in the US as recently as May, so whatever he did or didn’t say in the 80s can’t be the explanation for banning him now.

3

Sean 09.22.04 at 9:52 am

I didn’t find his denial very clear or reassuring. Other than the fact that he felt he had been “tricked” by a “mischievous” journalist, “probably in disguise.” The best I can say after reading his commments is that “Yusuf” was in fact equivocal (Rushdie shouldn’t be murdered in England. But ask me about, say, Iran) and apparently believes that British muslims should seek out enough political power to pressure the government to censor the critics of his religion.

4

john b 09.22.04 at 9:58 am

Sean – if the Rushdie comments are true, they make him a bad person, and might even justify the US not letting him in.

They don’t, however, make him a threat – and certainly don’t justify diverting a planeload of people to the middle of nowhere as if it were under terrorist attack.

5

bad Jim 09.22.04 at 10:13 am

I’d like to think this is merely retribution for “Morning Has Broken”, else for producing nearly nothing since.

6

bad Jim 09.22.04 at 10:21 am

All joking aside, perhaps Sean is right. Cat Stevens is a risk to America, as we know it.

7

bad Jim 09.22.04 at 10:44 am

Almost anybody is a threat to America, for that matter, including a grandmother as diminutive as Bernardette Devlin McAliskey. (q.v.)

America is now so delicate that nearly no one can be let in.

8

Sean 09.22.04 at 10:51 am

I didn’t say Cat is a risk. And in fact, I liked his 70’s music. “Wild World” is a beautiful song. It’s a shame what happened to him.

One quick comment about religion. I’ve actually read both the bible and the koran and I tend to think it’s the practitioners we call “radical” who have read their books right.

Rather than pasteurize your faith to suit present tastes, people should reject them entirely.

9

derrida derider 09.22.04 at 11:42 am

Yep, Sean’s right – they are both very bloodthirsty books with an ethos of revenge and punishment that is nothing like the “gentle jesus meek and mild” version your average Anglican bishop would have you beleive. Believing them means you either have to deliberately ignore huge slabs of them or adopt a very primitive and tribal mindset.

10

Eyal 09.22.04 at 12:27 pm

Stevens was barred from Israel at the time for donating money to Hamas (or to Hamas-supporting charities, I don’t remember exactly). This could be for similiar reasons.

11

dsquared 09.22.04 at 12:35 pm

Yep, Sean’s right – they are both very bloodthirsty books with an ethos of revenge and punishment that is nothing like the “gentle jesus meek and mild” version your average Anglican bishop would have you beleive. Believing them means you either have to deliberately ignore huge slabs of them or adopt a very primitive and tribal mindset.

You guys do realise that for the last two thousand years, the vast majority of the most intelligent segment of the population, including some of the greatest geniuses ever born, have been studying the Bible? Have you really carried out the sort of long term, in-depth study that would really justify concluding with such devastating self-certainty that you are right and, for example, Thomas Aquinas was wrong?

It’s a real pity that Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard and St Augustine never had the chance to sit down and read a couple of weblogs; they would have got lots of their silly confusions sorted out in double-quick time.

12

LowLife 09.22.04 at 1:27 pm

I remember Yusef Islam’s comments at the time or the Rushdie controversy. As I recall, he was stating that Islam (the religion)does provide for the sort of fatwa that Khomeini issued and that Rushdie’s writings were the sort that would gain condemnation. I don’t remember that he personally endorsed the fatwa.

Banning people is what the party of punishment loves to do. They banned Farley Mowat for being too Canadian or something back in the Reagan years. They banned Bernedette Devlin for having too many opinions. They put Edward Kennedy on the do not fly list, for God’s sake!

13

Leo 09.22.04 at 1:36 pm

No, no. The really intelligent realised the vicious shortcomings of Abrahamic religion long ago but have been too afraid to say so. They have all been members of a secret foundation designed to preserve the secret knowledge and shorten the time of darkness as much as possible. The final rapture may be coming now which is why the organisation has been appearing in public but they have had to tell many noble lies so there may be a big gap between its real and ostensible motives. All of the secret history is not out in the open yet so there remain many unknown unknowns but no one will be left behind.

14

John 09.22.04 at 2:26 pm

Anybody know what a Deist is? A number of our founding fathers did, because they were. Look it up, it’s interesting.

15

cleek 09.22.04 at 2:27 pm

Umberto Rumsfeld, is that you?

16

Zak Catem 09.22.04 at 2:56 pm

Daniel, you’ve never been more wrong. All the great thinkers of the past thought exactly as I do, but were afraid to say so. Those who can be shown to have disagreed with my beliefs both publicly and in secret must clearly not have been as great as common superstition holds.

17

dsquared 09.22.04 at 3:47 pm

Of course, if Zak has been right according to the lights of the great thinkers, that means he must agree with me, so “Daniel, you’re wrong” has to be interpreted in an esoteric, hidden Straussian sense.

18

Dr. Weevil 09.22.04 at 4:41 pm

‘lowlife’ wrote: “They banned Farley Mowat for being too Canadian or something back in the Reagan years. They banned Bernedette Devlin for having too many opinions.”

As I recall, “they” banned Farley Mowat because he boasted about firing his gun at U.S. Air Force jets flying over his summer home in Nova Scotia, jets that were doing so with the permission of the Canadian government. That’s quite a step beyond merely being Canadian.

And it’s not the multiplicity of Devlin’s opinions that got her in trouble. Nor is her diminutive stature or being a grandmother at all relevant, as ‘bad jim’ implies. Some of the more dangerous terrorist leaders of our time have been blind or had hooks for hands.

Why do so many people feel entitled to lie when criticizing U.S. policy?

19

Sean 09.22.04 at 5:40 pm

I’ll trade you a Lebniz, Descartes, and Schmuley Boteach for one Darwin and a Nietzsche. The thinkiers you cited were operating with only a partial knowledge. Speculating in the dark. Not to mention, as others have stated, if you didn’t believe you either starved or were hanged.

20

Sean 09.22.04 at 5:59 pm

Edit: The “you” I refer to above is dsquared.

21

john b 09.22.04 at 6:04 pm

Some of the more dangerous terrorist leaders of our time have been blind or had hooks for hands.

Name four.

22

Matt Weiner 09.22.04 at 6:56 pm

D-squared, are you sure you want to include Kierkegaard on the list? It seems to me at least prima facie plausible that he saw the Bible as incompatible with moral codes–though that’s based only on what Johannes de Silentio says in Fear and Trembling, and if I were to read & understand Climacus and Anti-Climacus I might change my mind. (But yeah, what you said.)

23

james 09.22.04 at 6:59 pm

john b – He is specifically referring to the former leader of Hamas.

Cat Stevens has been denied entry due to his donates to several Islamic charities accused of supporting terrorism.

24

Amardeep 09.22.04 at 7:06 pm

As I understand it, Yusuf Islam has been put on a list because of money he’s given to certain Islamic charities. If that’s so, it’s the charities that are the issue, not Yusuf Islam. The charities could indeed be fishy — but what are they? Does anyone know?

Merits aside, this smells like a minor PR disaster for the Bush administration. Few people remember what Yusuf Islam said about Rushdie (admittedly, it wasn’t too nice; but then George W. Bush said that non-Christians would all be going to hell as late as 1993 — who remembers that?).

What the late-night comics will do is juxtapose the gentle folk musician named Cat Stevens with the absurd, color-coded histrionics of the war on terror. The jokes practically write themselves.

25

fyreflye 09.22.04 at 7:49 pm

What makes dsquared think that any of his exemplars actually “studied” the Bible? These days most of the Christian academics who really do study it have admitted that it’s a mass of contradictory interpolations.

“To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is
like littering the streets with loaded guns.” -Richard Dawkins

26

old maltese 09.22.04 at 7:59 pm

Regarding the diversion to Maine, TSA must respond strongly to a security breach. Would you forgive their not doing so?

Do they have (do we *want* them to have) discretion to say, ‘Oh, it’s only Cat Stevens, it’s not that Zarqawi guy. We think.’

The question of who should be on ‘the list’ is a good one.

Questioning the diversion of the airplane is not.

27

Keith 09.22.04 at 8:34 pm

It was always my understanding that Yosef Islam going along with the fatwa on Rushdie was a result of new convert enthusiasm- a test to show the Imams he had Muslim credability. After all, how many Catholic singers go along with the Pope’s idiotic ramblings about Birth Control but don’t really mean it? Or maybe I’m simply giving Stevens too much credit and he really is just a useful dupe for Theocrats. I seriously doubt he’s a terrorist though, given that he’s one of the few Muslims to actuall publically denounce the use of terrorism as rightious tactic.

28

JRoth 09.22.04 at 8:37 pm

Your point is taken, maltese, but perhaps we need two lists – one for people we simply don’t want in (funders of terrorists) and people whom it would be dangerous to let in (terrorists).

I know Mr. Bush equates the two, and morally there may be no real difference, but I think that practically there is a large difference. Unless DHS had evidence that Yusuf had intentions more nefarious than dropping a check in the mail, they overreacted.

I might add that it’s exactly this sort of bullheaded overreaction that will probably lead the US to cut short its security measures at some point in the future, when too many Americans have experienced these cock-ups without any accompanying sense of real security.

As a quick mental experiment: do you think a single passenger on that jet thought, “Oh thank god they got Cat Stevens off this plane – to hell with my plans.”?

29

Ikram 09.22.04 at 9:43 pm

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens views have changed quite a bit over the past few decades. When he started off as a Muslim, he was pretty austere. He considered music unIslamic, and preached this view to Muslims who have had musical religious traditions extending back a thousand years.

These days, he’s not as much of a nut — he no longer thinks music is prohibited. He’s even released some Muslim-style music! Put his early religious extremism down to the vehemence of a new convert? Perhaps, but not all new converts go that route. He could have done better.

(By the way, his news Islamic music really stinks compared to his old stuff.)

As for being banned in the USA, it is a new development. He used to be able to enter without any problem as recently as 2000.

30

kram 09.22.04 at 9:44 pm

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens views have changed quite a bit over the past few decades. When he started off as a Muslim, he was pretty austere. He considered music unIslamic, and preached this view to Muslims who have had musical religious traditions extending back a thousand years.

These days, he’s not as much of a nut — he no longer thinks music is prohibited. He’s even released some “Islamic” music. Put his early religious extremism down to the vehemence of a new convert? Perhaps, but not all new converts go that route. He could have done better.

(By the way, his new Islamic music really stinks compared to his old stuff.)

As for being banned in the USA, it is a new development. He used to be able to enter without any problem as recently as 2000.

31

old maltese 09.22.04 at 9:54 pm

jroth — You’re absolutely right. The one-size-fits-all mentality at TSA leads to citizen frustration, which leads (with Congressional pressure) to compromises with security.

But what can they do? Profile? Yikes!

32

james 09.22.04 at 10:08 pm

fyreflye – How do you reconcile that idea with the higher body count of atheistic beliefs such as Marxism?

33

Jack 09.22.04 at 10:33 pm

James, if we carry on like this Islam and fundamentalist christianity may even the scores.

As things stand I can see two good arguments for Fyreflye.
First there weren’t so many people around to kill when religion was at its most murderous.

Secondly atheism isn’t an all encompassing belief system, nor is it monolithic. It’s like saying most killers didn’t drive Fords so driving Fords is morally superior. For example, which other atheistic belief systems like Marxism have high death counts?

From my atheistical (actually just so potestant that am unable to take any organised eligion seriously) point of view, Marxism in its murderous Stalinist and Maoist incarnations shares so much with religion that it is hard to tell the difference.

34

John Isbell 09.22.04 at 11:41 pm

I actually heard they were going to divert the Saudi princes next time one of them tried to land here. You know, because of their connections to terrorism. Not to mention Mr. “nuclear proliferator” Musharraf. Or did he sneak through somehow?
It reminds me of the Queen’s corgis, which never went through Customs, while alll the rest of the animals got their 6-month rabies quarantine. It’s good to be the King!

35

Zizka 09.23.04 at 5:15 am

D-squared — during most of the Christian era most good Christians didn’t read the Bible. They listened to heavily interpreted homilies loosely based on the Bible. Thank God. During the Reformation mass Bible-reading began, and the results were pretty bloody (30 years war, etc.) Without a system of interpretation derived from non-Biblical sources, the Bible IS bloodthirsty. The Hebrews were punished by God at least once for not massacreing enough people.

And I jsut read Descartes’ Discourse on Method, and while I realize that he probably did identify “God” with some functioning concept in his actual serious thinking, there weren’t any serious Bible echoes that I remember, and there were lots of explicit admissions that he was trimming his thought to orthodoxy in fear of the Inquisition.

36

Sam 09.23.04 at 7:41 am

Banning Cat from the US is clearly after Israeli wishes, nothing to do with the US really.

If he is a danger for the US, he is a danger for the UK too, isn’t he?

Sam

37

Eric the Unread 09.23.04 at 10:09 am

Since Crooked Timber fell at the feet of Juan Cole on the issue of Dr. Al-Qarawadi, they may be interested in 0his views on Cat Stevens.

38

Chris Bertram 09.23.04 at 10:50 am

I refer you to my colleague D^2’s comment over at Harry’s Place.

39

Eric 09.23.04 at 1:00 pm

Fair enough, one can only hope his views really have changed. His views on Jews in 1988 seemed a bit off:

“The Jews seem neither to respect God nor his creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who consider themselves to be ‘God’s chosen people.’…There will be no justice until all the land is given back to its rightful owners… Only Islam can bring peace back to the Holy Land.”

Hands up who can spot the democratic nation left off his map of the world?

40

Steve 09.23.04 at 9:26 pm

As for being banned in the USA, it is a new development. He used to be able to enter without any problem as recently as 2000.

Actually, he entered the US without any problem as recently as two months ago.

41

Harry Spider 09.24.04 at 9:57 pm

Are some of you actually saying we have the right to BAN people from the US for what they SAID? Many comments here refer to Stevens’ remarks about Rushdie. Unpalatable, sure, but do such remarks warrant ex-communication? Some commenters here seem to be saying “well Stevens said bad things in the past, so his banning is justified.” I don’t agree with that. Seems a country claiming to value “free speech” shouldn’t be so quick to condemn a guy citing not his actions, but his words.

Now I’ve heard that they banned Cat because he gave to charities, which IN TURN funded terrorism. I’d like to see the evidence for the causal chain there, and I’d like proof that Cat knowingly gave that money specifically for the cause of terrorism, before I’d support banning him from the US. My taxes buy tanks, which are occasionally used for actions that I don’t support. I am guilty?

Perhaps I’m misreading this discussion, but I’m a little alarmed at how quickly many here seem to be buying into the Terror State, the doctrine stating that the giving up civil rights is a necessary part of security. I’m not seeing the crime here proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

And turning the plane around in mid-flight, just because they discovered Cat Stevens? That seems like an over reaction to me. Now, if I found out Barry Manilow was on my plane, yeah I’d want off ASAP…

Moon Shadow… Peace Train… Wild World… great songs that are still great songs, despite what has become of the soul who created them.

42

ruralsaturday 09.25.04 at 10:34 pm

Mercantile hedonism didn’t get through the Middle Ages on its own wheels. Actors and singers starved and whored their way at the bottom of what little society there was at a time when “medieval religion” was the sole carrier of scholastic knowledge.
Islam is in it for the long haul, a claim that this culture whatever its current brand-name might be can’t make, unless a desperate conscienceless lunge for physical immortality at any cost can be considered “in it for the long haul”.
Islam is fierce, it was born in a fierce environment, one in which even slight weakness meant death. We seem to have got beyond that for the moment, but I wonder.
Nothing in Western culture seems capable of bearing us through what’s coming, which bodes fair to make the Dark Ages seem bright indeed.
It’s that growing uncertainty that makes harsh traditional discipline seem more viable, and the adolescent sneering of well-fed and essentially helpless Americans seem increasingly weak.
Religion isn’t a consumer choice to devout Muslims, it’s life, in opposition to death and the selfish darkness of evil. That devotion can seem dangerously ignorant to modern liberated minds. Kind of like the superstitious Christian church must have seemed to the more sophisticated, logically superior Romans, toward the end there.

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