Lulu Schwartz (born Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, September 9, 1948) is an American
Sufi journalist,
columnist, and author. She has been published in a variety of media, including ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''. She served as the director of the "Islam and Democracy Project" and as a senior advisor at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States.
The group's political leanings have been described as hawkish and neoconservati ...
, a think-tank based in
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. She is the founder and executive director of the
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
-based
Center for Islamic Pluralism
The Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) is a U.S.-based Islamic think tank challenging Islamist interpretations of Islam. It was founded in 2004 by eight people including the Sufi Muslim author Stephen Suleyman Schwartz and officially opened o ...
. In 2011–2012 she was a member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board.
She has been an adherent of the
Hanafi
The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named a ...
school of Islam since 1997.
[ She was a major intellectual figure in the ]neo-conservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and cou ...
movement that held considerable influence in the administration of George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
. Her criticism of Islamic Fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a puritanical, revivalist, and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists are of the view that Muslim-majority countries should return ...
, especially the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, has attracted controversy. Alongside fellow neo-conservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and cou ...
writer Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American historian, writer, and commentator. He is the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its ''Middle East Quarterly'' journal. His writing focuses on American foreign policy and the ...
, Schwartz has been a major critic of Islamism; which she accuse of being the new ideological nemesis of the West after the fall of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
Schwartz is a major critic of the AKP government in Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
, considering it as a hostile pan-Islamist
Pan-Islamism ( ar, الوحدة الإسلامية) is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles. Pan-Islamism w ...
threat and calls for US government to cut ties with Turkey. She has also condemned the Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
stating that American academia is under threat of infiltration by radical Islamist state agents of Iran.
Early life
Schwartz was born in Columbus, Ohio to Horace Schwartz, a Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
independent bookseller. Her mother, the daughter of a Protestant preacher, was a career social services worker. Schwartz later described both of her parents as "radical leftists and quite antireligious", her father a "fellow traveller
The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
", her mother a member of the Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
. She was baptized in the Presbyterian church as an infant.
The family moved to San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
when she was young, where her father Horace became a literary agent. She attended Lowell High School and she became affiliated with Leninist
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
communism until 1984.
Labor activism and literary career
After college, Schwartz became a member of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific
The Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP), founded on March 6, 1885 in San Francisco, California,
is an American labor union of mariners, fishermen and boatmen working aboard US flag vessels.
At its fourth meeting in 1885, the fledgling organizati ...
. With others, she founded a small semi-Trotskyist group FOCUS
Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to:
Arts
* Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film
*''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore
* ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...
. In 1985, the S.U.P. commissioned Schwartz to write ''Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific'' as part of its of 100th anniversary commemoration.
The ''San Francisco Bay Guardian
The ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'' was a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1966 by Bruce B. Brugmann and his wife, Jean Dibble. The paper was shut down on October 14, 2014. It was relaun ...
'' wrote of Schwartz in 1989: "As he himself readily admits, Schwartz has made a lot of enemies over the years as he performed a series of dizzying ideological leaps: from the Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
to meeting with Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Secu ...
and the Outreach Group on Central America in the basement of the White House, from minuscule Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
sects meeting in North Beach cafes to serving as a U.S. press representative for a Contra
Contra may refer to:
Places
* Contra, Virginia
* Contra Costa Canal, an aqueduct in the U.S. state of California
* Contra Costa County, California
* Tenero-Contra, a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland ...
leader.
In the 1990s, Schwartz spent a decade as a staff writer for the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
''. She was a member of the local union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
at the ''Chronicle'', a branch of the Newspaper Guild
The NewsGuild-CWA is a trade union, labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933. In addition to improving wages and working conditions, its constitution says its purpose is to fight for honesty in journalism and the news industry's busin ...
. During the NATO bombing of Serbia
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...
, Schwartz published a piece in the ''Chronicle'' accusing the Serbs of countless crimes while absolving the Albanians and the KLA of all responsibility and brushing all Serb arguments as mere propaganda. The article was criticized by journalist Robert W. Merry for being tendentiously biased and highly inaccurate.
At the end of 1997, she converted to Islam.[ In 1999, Schwartz left the ''Chronicle'', and moved to ]Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
, where she lived for the next 18 months.
While in Bosnia, she published the pro-Albanian book "''Kosovo: Background to a War''". It was criticized by historian Robert C. Austin for weak and polemical writing and for being "decidedly biased in favour of the Albanian community in Kosovo", who concluded that "When e is attempting to be an historian, Schwartz is at his worst".
Schwartz also supported the Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
.
On March 25, 2005, Schwartz launched the Center for Islamic Pluralism
The Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) is a U.S.-based Islamic think tank challenging Islamist interpretations of Islam. It was founded in 2004 by eight people including the Sufi Muslim author Stephen Suleyman Schwartz and officially opened o ...
. The center is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, with Schwartz as executive director.
In 2017, Schwartz came out as a transgender woman.
Political career
In 2020, under the name Stephen (Lulu) Schwartz, Schwartz ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in District 3. She came in fourth, with 1,374 votes (4.82 percent of the vote). The winner was Aaron Peskin
Aaron Dan Peskin (born June 17, 1964) is an American elected official in San Francisco, California. He serves as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 3, and is currently Dean of the Board. He was elected in ...
.
Published works
* ''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. .
* ''Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism: A History of the P.O.U.M'' (with Victor Alba). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988. .
* ''A Strange Silence: The Emergence of Democracy in Nicaragua''. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1992. .
* ''From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind''. New York: The Free Press, 1998. .
* ''Kosovo: Background to a War''. London: Anthem Press, 2000.
* ''Intellectuals and Assassins: Writings at the End of Soviet Communism.'' New York: Anthem Press, 2001. .
* ''The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror''. New York: Doubleday, 2002. .[Note: The subtitle on the paperback version was changed to ''Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism''.]
* ''An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America'' Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Popular Culture, 2003
* ''Sarajevo Rose: A Balkan Jewish Notebook''. London: Saqi Books, 2005. .
* ''Is It Good for the Jews?: The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby.'' New York: Doubleday, 2006. .
* ''The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony''. New York: Doubleday, 2008. .
Notes and references
External links
Center for Islamic Pluralism
*
;Interviews
Q&A with Schwartz
from ''National Review Online''
from ''Telegrafi.com''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Stephen
1948 births
21st-century American historians
21st-century American writers
American Muslims
American Sufis
Neoconservatism
American journalists
American non-fiction writers
American nonprofit executives
American people of Jewish descent
American women historians
American women journalists
American women non-fiction writers
LGBT people from Ohio
Converts to Islam from Christianity
Critics of Islamism
Former Marxists
Historians from Ohio
Living people
Transgender Muslims
Transgender women
Writers from Columbus, Ohio