The Internet is the Real World's Diaspora

So I just watched the, brotherly discussion slash confrontation between Sohai Webb and Daniel Haighidcu. And what I kept thinking while I was watching it was about how there's a fundamental difference between people who are actually, you know, active in the community and dealing with people face to face, one on one, person to person, having to grapple with different age groups, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different classes, different ideologies, different socioeconomic strata, all different types of views and perspectives and opinions and priorities. Mhmm. When you're dealing face to face with people, grassroots, it's kind of a minefield or it can be kind of a minefield that you have to navigate. And people who don't do that can't really fathom it.

They can't really understand what those people are what their circumstances are, what the conditions are that they're dealing with. People who are, you know, actively involved in their communities, in their diverse communities, and who are trying to be involved in some kind of so called, you know, civic work or, you know, civil society, whatever you wanna call it, activism. If you're not involved in that, you can't really fathom what those people are dealing with and the kind of sacrifices and compromises that they have to make. And now, I believe that, you know, the majority of them are making those sacrifices and those compromises with good intentions. With a sincere intention to do something good and righteous and useful and productive and helpful to the Muslims and to society.

But unquestionably, they are putting themselves into fitnah, unquestionably. And this is why, you know, we have the hadith that the person who mixes with the people, and deals with their fitnah gets more of a reward than the person who secludes themselves because you are putting yourself into a fitnah to try to deal with people sometimes. And it can destroy you. You may not be able to deal with the fitna. It may overcome you.

That's the danger that anyone who is involved in that kind of work, faces. But there's no getting around the fact that they're dealing with the fitna. And if you are not dealing with the fitna, you are someone who has secluded himself or herself from the fitna of people and mixing with people and engaging with people on a grassroots level, like I said, can't fathom the fitna that they're dealing with and how they're trying to navigate it to to hopefully try to make things better for the Muslims and for people in general and for society. So the evaluation has to be different. And the way I see it is that you know how any diaspora community tends to be more zealous than the community that lives where that diaspora community came from.

Jews in inside of Israel, are living inside of Israel have a completely different set of concerns and interests than more radical extremist settler minded Zionists in New York or Florida. It's totally different, you know. And it's the same like say in Ireland for example, for years, for decades. The most radical supporters of the IRA were in Boston, not in Belfast. So the diaspora community tends to be more radical, tends to be more extreme, tends to be more rigid, tends to be more zealous because they can afford to be.

They can afford to be. And it's the same, you know, with the, like, leadership in exile of some sort of a rebel group. They're always calling for for fighting, for armed struggle, for, escalation and all of that because they don't pay the price for it. They're not dealing with it. They don't deal with consequences.

They don't deal with the fallout and the aftermath. They're wherever they are safe and sound, and they can call for the most radical things. So radicalism and extremism are kind of luxury conditions. You have to be in a sort of a position of privilege to be radical, to be extreme because you can't really go on with your daily life in a normal way, work your job, make your salary, you know, buy groceries, pay bills, take care of your family, if you're really radical and extreme. It doesn't really work.

If you're someone who can't compromise, who can't make sacrifices, who can't get along with people and you're very rigid, it makes your life very hard. So you have to kind of be privileged in order to, maintain any level of radicalization or extremism. So it occurs to me that the Internet has kind of created a virtual diaspora. There's a whole set of people who more or less only exist online and all of the work that they do, so called, all of their activity is online and the only community that they really interact with is online. It's all virtual.

It's an online diaspora community. And you will tend to find that those people are the more extreme, the more radical, the more rigid and very often the most ignorant from whatever community you're talking about, whether it's Muslims or or any other group. But it certainly seems to be true of Muslims that the people who exist in this online diaspora indulge in the most radical, the most extreme types of positions and behavior that they could not get away with in real life. And they're generally not known in the community. They don't actually interact with the community because partly they've they've they've also radicalized so much that they can't get along with the community and they look down on the community.

They themselves will isolate themselves from the community because they think that that the community is a straight. So for example, in that video, I mean, Daniel Hakegichu lives in Houston, but he was clearly not particularly familiar with that masjid and the people at the masjid weren't particularly familiar with him except for him being online. The imam of the masjid doesn't seem to have a relationship with Daniel. So Daniel Hakigaju lives online. All of the so called work that he does is on the Internet.

He's part of the diaspora. He's part of the Internet diaspora. So Hip Webb is someone who deals in the community. So Hip Webb has been around for a long time. I remember him from twenty years ago.

He's somebody who is an active person on the ground. You know, he was an imam. He's dealing with a Jama'ah. He's dealing with people face to face, interpersonal. And that puts him in a fitna for sure.

Someone who is trying to navigate all of the different interests and the different factions that exist. You have to deal with people with all kinds of different opinions, are coming from all different kind of background, who have all different types of personalities, who have all different types of priorities, who are at all different stages in their development mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and in terms of their maturity, and in terms of their knowledge of the deen. So you have to figure out a way to to deal with all of these people in a useful and hopefully helpful and beneficial way, and that will almost always require some sacrifice and compromise on your part. You can't afford to be very strict, rigid, very extreme if you're actually dealing with the community because you won't get anything done. You'll be isolated.

So if you've already chosen to sort of exist online, you have the luxury of being very extreme. You have the luxury of being very radical. You have the luxury of being very obnoxious, being very arrogant because it doesn't come at any cost. There's no consequences. Then Hakiguchu is just online.

You know, he just he lives in his house. We get the impression that he doesn't go outside and mix very much with the Muslims. He doesn't seem to be active in the Houston Muslim community. And I could be wrong, but I don't get that impression. I don't remember seeing any videos of him giving the Friday khutba in the masjid or, you know, any activities that he might have been involved in at the local masajid there in Houston.

The the thing that they were talking about was this sister who was in Playboy, was interviewed in Playboy and had a picture in Playboy. Now, incidentally, it happens to be that she appeared in that magazine after they had stopped, publishing naked pictures. So Daniel could have actually gotten the magazine looked at and he wouldn't have seen anything, lewd. The point is she did an article, she did an interview, in this magazine and unfortunately, it was part of the marketing strategy of Playboy over the years, to have a very high quality interviews and have very high quality articles and high quality writing. Some very notable and famous and important, and respectable people, were interviewed in Playboy magazine.

If you're not actually dealing in the community, all you'll do is hear Playboy and think naked ladies. That's that's all you that's all you think about. And so, oh, Haram, you can't do this, you can't talk about this, you can't, you know, blah blah blah. And so you you you have the luxury of taking a very ununderstanding position because you can afford it. You're in a in a position of privilege to be able to do that.

But someone who's actually active in the on on the ground and in the grassroots and dealing with people, everybody's making compromises and sacrifices. And like I said, it's definitely a fitna and people will definitely make mistakes. But you have to have a different evaluation of what people do. If if someone is actually actively involved in their community, dealing with so many variables that you're not dealing with in the Internet community, you have to have a different evaluation of them and be a bit more charitable and understanding and has not done for what they're grappling with and what they're dealing with. Actually dealing with all of these different people and it can be incredibly irritating and frustrating and tedious and exasperating.

And all of this is you don't deal with that in the in the diaspora. In the diaspora, you can you can be very absolutist, utopian, idealistic, and naive and unrealistic. What really stood out to me from the video that, Hagiguchu posted was just this massive chasm between people who actually work on the ground versus people who are on the Internet. It's the home country versus the diaspora.