*'Urbanism'

After listening to a talk on 'Religion and Urbanism as a New Way of Life' I was struck with the construct of 'Urbanism.' The speaker, a professor from Nottingham, discussed the complexity of identity and the role of religion in an inner city area of Birmingham called Alum Rock. An area that has been labeled as a "no-go" area and where the dramatized notions of "terrorism" has given tangibility and reality as an immediate threat to homeland security in the UK. The area is composed of south-east Asians, Pakistani, and a small demographic of Irish. According to the media, there have been several "terrorist" related arrests in the area and it has been labeled as a brooding ground for the radicalization of Islam. Upon hearing these things, two things struck me initially. How "ghetto" could this area be? The "inner-city" has been a phrase to describe the areas of American cities that were truly insulated areas of African-American and Latino-American communities. Namely, Harlem in the 70s, 80s, Crenshaw, Oakland, South side of Chicago, and other areas where it was truly dangerous to walk around at night. Giving lables such as "little Vietnam" and times when police truly turned around once the trail led into the area. This was the "inner city" associations that I was familiar with. The birth place of Hip-Hop, break-dancing, and a culture that has now become trivialized as pop music. And secondly, the term "radicalization" was problematic. But I will return to these initial thoughts later on. The phrase "Urbanism" came from the Chicago school in Sociology. And now, being revived in a different by the "Los Angeles" school. The professor was utilizing the term "Urbanism" as an operative term for a "glocalizing" context and a "globalizing" world. However, I couldn't help but think that the paradigm and operative utility of the concept of "Urbanism" was useless when extending to a broader global context.


So three things: How "ghetto" can it be here in the UK? Is radical really radical? And thirdly, how useful is this term "urbanism" especially when we are looking for a paradigm that can constructively consider a "globalizing" world, either in terms of a westernizing process or an economical one. 

My first, is really my own skepticism of the school of hard knocks in the UK. The grits and ghettos of the US was a product of socio-political processes that insulated people in such a post-colonial manner that it gave rise to a culture stemming from a history of oppressive violence, racism, and social insulation. One of its major products is hip-hop. When I think of the UK, I think of the gritty nature of the north where workers work hard at a mine and enjoy a pint at the pub contrasted with the "tea time" and seemingly refined elocution of the south. The Irish, the Scottish, the English, and later on with post-colonialism, an incorporation of Indians and Pakistanis. However, the culture does not strike any resonance in the same way that is evoked when we hear about the hard knocks of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Chicago, Watts, and so on. It just isn't "gangster." Now, this isn't to say that there aren't forms of thugs in these other cultures of Pakistan, India, the Irish, and so on. But it's a different type, if you will. A different kind of "thug," a different kind of "gang," I am talking about a qualitatively different way people have reacted and formulated systems of localized gangs and criminality. And now to use the term "inner-city" to Birmingham, England simply does not strike the same kind of resonance. Although there may be similar patterns in which authority reacts to them and in turn how they react to authority, politics, and religion, it is simply not the same kind of rebellion. But nevertheless, I understood why the phrase of "inner-city" is being used. We are seeing similar phenomenas, which are products of socio-cultural and political influences in shaping socially insulated communities. Kids are still going to be kids, the anger of the adolescents are still going to be there in any culture and society. Rebellion against the system will be there in all shapes, sizes, and forms. So I can accept the term "inner-city" with a grain of salt but acknowledge what it is that they are getting at.

My next reaction is to the term of "radicalization." Is it really "radical"? To have a group of people through their religion to get angry and violent because of what they see as injustice and oppression? The term "radicalization" is from a particular standpoint and interpretation of religion, one that regularly forgets its own history. Radicalization today has meant a return to a fundamental interpretation of religious texts and mobilizing it for political purposes and justificatory acts of violence. In this the radicalization of Islam is very much like the radicalization of the evangelicals. Both have committed violence against what they think is wrong and have used their religious/sacred text to find justification for these acts and support for them. We see the dangerous application of the classic of Sophocles and the beginning of Antigone: God's law vs. Man's law. Where the law of convention and society is negated for what is interpreted and believed to be "God's law." But apart from this phenomena of justification. The labeling of something as radicalized is only used for Islam. It has never been referred to for the Evangelicals. Is this not a politically laden word to pacify? To divide and distinguish from the "bad muslims" and the "good muslims"? Oh, yes they've been "radicalized." This comes from a perspective of white christian pacifism. The radicalization is really a reaction and interpretation of sources to combat against modernity. What they think is "wrong" or "unjust" with contemporary society. The evangelicals did it, and now the muslims are doing it. And of course I am thinking of specific groups that have rallied around these forms of reasoning and justifications from religious texts. But what I am saying is that this "radicalism" isn't really that radical. Perhaps, even typical.

The third thing was this notion of "urbanism." I will keep this in brevity. How useful is this term? And can it be applied outside of the U.S. and, in stretching it's semiotic content to, the UK? Does "Urbanism" still apply when we talk about China? India? Korea? Brazil? The middle-class "suburban sprawl" doesn't translate so well to some of these other areas. The poor tend to be pushed to the outskirts away from the city. So in what sense are we talking about "the inner-city" and "urbanism"? Does it refer to the insulation of communities within big cities? Or are we talking about the insulation of the poor? If it is, then doesn't "urbanism" simply denote the culture that rises out of these socio-politico forces that have created these insulations? Is it referring to the creative growth that come out of these communities? Is U.S. urbanism the same as the country folk? Or the "slums"? Do the Native American reservations count as the same "urbanism"? The concept simply does not translate well as a sociological paradigm for interpretation. If anything, it denotes a particular socio-political spatial product that is particularly in the U.S. and arguably, some parts in the U.K.