I read today that Saleh al-Luhaidan issued a fatwa saying it is okay to kill the owners of television networks broadcasting "depravation and debauchery". I would like to put Saleh al-Luhaidan in the same category as Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. I know that Fred Phelps is the head of a very small fringe church with only 71-member. He is more of a nuance than an actually American religious authority. The problem is that Saleh al-Luhaidan has the title of chief justice of the supreme judicial council of Saudi Arabia. I am not sure if that is an official title or just a title someone gives themselves.
I think this is one of those fatwa's that make the west nervous. I think this is one of those things that make us a little scared of Muslims. Yes the Muslims I have met in real life do not see like they would agree with him, but some of the ones I have seen on YouTube might. I am a big believer of freedom of speech. Threat of violence to stop free speech is over the line to me. It goes well past the legal freedom of religion.
I know I should not judge Islam by fatwa offered by one person. I might need to judge individual Muslims by the way they react to this Fatwa. If you think I have this one wrong, please leave me a comment.
I wanted to keep Eric Laine's comments so I put them in an entry.
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"24" will not change because its creator, Joel Surnow, is a radical right-wing torture enthisiast. He is capitalizing on Americans' fear of terrorism to make money AND advance a militaristic political agenda. Anyone who is "entertained" by watching a man torture his own brother to the sound of agonizing screams should seek counselling. "24" was good for about 6 hours in 2001; in 2007 its tired, predictable rhythms combined with its reactionary message make it suitable only for those who would slow down to ponder roadkill.
From the New Yorker:
"The series, Surnow told me, is “ripped out of the Zeitgeist of what people’s fears are—their paranoia that we’re going to be attacked,” and it “makes people look at what we’re dealing with” in terms of threats to national security. “There are not a lot of measures short of extreme measures that will get it done,” he said, adding, “America wants the war on terror fought by Jack Bauer. He’s a patriot.”
For all its fictional liberties, “24” depicts the fight against Islamist extremism much as the Bush Administration has defined it: as an all-consuming struggle for America’s survival that demands the toughest of tactics. Not long after September 11th, Vice-President Dick Cheney alluded vaguely to the fact that America must begin working through the “dark side” in countering terrorism. On “24,” the dark side is on full view. Surnow, who has jokingly called himself a “right-wing nut job,” shares his show’s hard-line perspective. Speaking of torture, he said, “Isn’t it obvious that if there was a nuke in New York City that was about to blow—or any other city in this country—that, even if you were going to go to jail, it would be the right thing to do?”
I was thinking about Jack Straw veil comments and a story about a veiled women who has lost of job as a teacher. I was wondering what would happen if one of the women I work with converted to Islam and started to wear a niqab. How would people react to her? Would it get in the way of her doing her job? I wonder what my co-workers would say.
What would happen in your work place? How would you react?
I have been thinking about Jack Straw comments on the veil. I know that a lot of Muslims have been taking this as an attack. Jack Straw is an MP and how else can they see his statements. The last few years have been full of statements that some Muslims have seen as offensive.
I read the article and seen the interview. I think that people have to read all the comments and see the interview before talking about the debate.
This quote really stuck in my head.
Would she, however, think hard about what I said - in particular about my concern that wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult.
It was such a visible statement of separation and of difference.
I thought the whole point of a women living in the west wearing a niqab is to be separate and different. I thought it was a statement making it clear they are a Muslim, and how they feel about men and women mixing. I would think that wearing a Niqab is a clear rejection of some of the values of our cultures.
If that is true, it leads us to the really important debate. It is not if a woman should be able to wear a nijab or not. The real debate is about how much duties do these women have to participate in society. In the BBC interview Jack Straw talks about parallel society and the cohesion of community. I am going to give Jack Straw the benefit of the doubt and not look for hidden motivations. I think there is a debate here.
From where I stand, one of the great freedoms of western liberal democracy is the right not to participate. We have the right to withdraw from society. We have the right to make clear visible statement of separation and of difference. Everyone in the West has the right to say "I am not like you" and choose to be apart.
Doing this comes at some peril. Groups of people who disengage from societies are easy to paint as "The Other." It is easy to scapegoat them and they often have few allies in the society. I can see that it is worth it to do what is right for your religion and let the societal things work themselves out.
I do not think Jack Straw was smart to make these comments. I think that his comments get lost in ideas of power and power-plays. People are going to talk about his motivations. Other people are going to use the comments for their own motivations. The substance and the debate will get lost in people being insulted and feeling under attack.
If I am making a mistake here please tell me. For this entry I am willing to republish any relevant comments in another post. Now I just wish I had a way to get Muslim women to read this blog and comment on it.
Like other mainstream Muslims, she struggles with how best to convince people that the faith does not condone terrorist violence. She detects what she calls 'Muslim fatigue' among North Americans weary both of the extremists who use the religion to justify their attacks and of the moderates who seem powerless to influence them.
It is the 5th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It feels like we are still in that moment in time. September 11th was the start of something and we are still in that event. It does not feel like I am really looking back at those events. There is so much going on that is still connected with these attacks. I feel like I cannot really look back, because there are so many things that are not over.
I cannot remember the last week that I have not heard about 9/11. I think it has to get to this state before it becomes the past. It is hard to get to a place where you are not thinking about it all the time but it is not forgotten either. I am worried that is going to take us a long time, longer than is healthy.
I am not sure when these things will feel like the past and not the present. I am not sure if it is the Iraq War, Middle East Conflict, al-qaeda, or the general feeling of conflict between Islam and the West that keeps this feeling going. Maybe the feeling will change once we have a new President.
For now I am looking back, but it does not feel like the past. I will let everyone know when it feels like the past to me.
I have no rooting interest in this debate, but here is an interesting quote.
"There is a sense that there is a crusade out there against Islam, that Islam is under siege and we have to hold steadfast to our righteous ways more than ever,' said Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a prominent Islamic jurist known for his moderate interpretations.
Dr. Abou El Fadl said the practice began in 18th-century Saudi Arabia, where the austere Wahhabi sect of Islam started walling off or banning women from mosques. (He added that the modern spread of Wahhabism is one facet of the pervasiveness of Saudi financial support for Muslim institutions worldwide.)"
I was listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation last week and they were talking about a Belgian Woman who was a suspected suicide bomber. The woman was born in Belgium and converted to Islam. There are lots of stories about the shock and surprise of the people from her town. People are shocked that someone they know could do this.
Experts said converts to Islam like Degauque are often easy prey for extremists because their search for a new identity can make them impressionable.
I was thinking about this woman and Jose Padilla, a.k.a. the Dirty Bomber. It is easy for me to see how someone from the West could be sucked into something like this. You look at life in the West and it is easy to see why someone might reject it. No matter where you stand, you have to compromise often just to live day to day life. Depending on what you are looking for in a new religion. I could see people I know rejecting the West. If someone rejects the West it is easy to see how someone could decide to fight the West.
Tonight is the premiere of Sleeper Cell on Showtime. I wonder if they are going to do justice to this topic or not. I want to see this show. I think this is something we will see more of and not less of.
Today a friend of mine asked me what I thought about the American Man they found fighting for the Taliban. My answer is that I am surprised that they have found so few. I would expect that there are more Americans who have taken up their cause.
When I look at America, I can see why it is easy for some people to get lost. It is easy for me to see why some people might be disenchanted with the life that Americans live. There is search for values and meaning that American Culture seems to laugh at. Just look at the ways that the people from his old neighborhood view him. It is easy for me to see why someone will look for answers in other places.
For the last couple of years I have seen how people can be radicalized and moved away from American society. I say that they can be radicalized because it is easy to make the case that the only change is going to come from revolution. I think that radicalized is a better term then brainwashed. I think that when people think about brainwashed, they see someone is a zombie or not thinking. I think these people have clear value systems. They are just not the value system that most Americans have.
There are lots of places where people can make arguments against American Society. Unless we do something to see these places and fix them who knows what might happen. I think the first place where American is foreign policy. We say that we are the defenders of democracy, but we will let dictates stand if they are friendly to our policy. How many crimes have CIA carried out in our name? How did we let Afghanistan fall into turmoil after they fought a proxy war for us? I can rationalize these things, but it is easy to understand why people in many parts of the world think they are wrong.
The second weakness it our government. There is an old saying that the appearance of a conflict of interest is as bad as a conflict of interest itself. If our government is not a series conflicts of interests, it at least appears that way. People are feeling more and more disconnected from the government all the time. I think it would be easy to exploit that in the mind of many. American Government should stand on the values of great men. Many times it seems it stands on the values of the business world.
The third and maybe greatest weakness is American Consumer Society. The symbols of American Consumer Society are SUVs and Cell Phones. There is not one image that a business will not use to try to sell a product. There is not one product that Americans are not clamoring to buy. I do not want to just blame business for this. I feel that almost every American has fallen into this trap. We buy things to make our lives more fashionable. We are sold lifestyles, beauty, and a sense that we are good people. We tell our daughters that they are not beautiful unless we are perfect, our sons that they have to own everything and ourselves that if you are not having lots of sex you are a loser. We dress our kids in Nikes, hour homes in Ikea, and our lives in consumer debt. We do all these things while schools are falling apart and homeless people sleep in the streets.
I see American life as a series of trade offs. I know that our government is not perfect, but neither is anyone else's. I know that America had to do things in its own interest. I know that things all over the world are not perfect, but they could be worse. I know that people have to solve their own problems. Handouts from the government will only make things worse. I can also see how these facts can be used to turn people away from America.
This might not be the most coherent rant in the world, but it is late and I was tired of these things before I even sat down to write it.
While I was in Chicago Jeremy asked me If I pray. He was asking because he has been praying lately. It is kind of odd. Another part of this trip Jeremy described himself as a "Militant Agnostic." He said that even if there is no God, he can get something out of praying. He can hear a voice while he prays. He thinks it is his internal voice of God. I think I understand it, but I might not be describing this correctly. You can ask him if you like.
It means something that he asked me this. Jeremy knows as much about my life as anyone in the world. I might have to fill everyone else in on this. I was raised Catholic. I come from a long line of Catholics and it was important to my parents to bring me up in the faith. We went to mass every week. I went to public school. That means I spent my Tuesdays in CCD for during my school age years.
In college I stopped going to Church. I never got into the Church Scene at college. I had a lot of Catholic friends in college, but I did not feel anything for church at the time. I stopped taking comfort in the mass. I still considered myself Catholic, but I was moving further away from the Church. I did not see the glory of God in listening to a Priest every Sunday. About this time most of my friends who went to Catholic School also started to reject the church also.
When I got out of college I started to go to church more often. For a while I would go about every other weekend. I felt that I did not have much faith. I believed in God, but I was unsure about the word of God. I would see a lot of people around me who seemed to have a lot of faith. They seemed to get comfort from their faith. I could never seem to find that.
There are other things that made me start feeling apart from the church also. I agree with the Catholic Church's stance about abortion, the death penalty, and sex before marriage. I do not agree with the church about homosexuality, woman priests, and general ideas about sexuality. I would sit in a church and listen to the homily. I would feel that I agreed with nothing the priest was saying.
In this time I also became bothered by way other Christians treated Christianity. I would see bumper stickers that say "Christ died for your sins" and I would wonder if those people missed the lessons of Christ's Life. I wonder if these people turn the other cheek or if love they enemy. All over the place people abuse the idea of religion. I know is should not effect me, but it did.
I have an image of God in my head, but it is not of him micro-managing my life. I used to work with a woman who would thank God for every little thing. She would thank God for getting to work safely everyday. She would thank God not having car problems. I can see the idea that God has a plan for everyone, but I do not see got running people's lives down to the smallest details. To me that would take out the whole idea of free will.
When I moved to Portland I really stopped going to church. I went to church a couple of times, but I really felt out of place. I kept on telling myself that I wanted to go, but I would get around to it. I have not gone to Church since I moved to San Jose. Currently I live six blocks from the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, but I never go there.
In the past six months I read a lot about Islam. There was something that caught my eye on the web one day and I kept on reading about it. For about three months, everyday I spent about an hour reading storied about people who converted to Islam. I was not sure if the religion interested me or it was the stories about people finding something that transforms them. The people in these conversation stories seem to radically change their lives. Both the ideas of finding religion and transforming seem equally as powerful. There was something that bothered me about Islam. I have put those ideas down for now, but they still linger somewhere in my mind.
Right now I can say I believe in God. There are too many things that point me to God's existence. If I am asked about my religion, I will say that I was raised Catholic. I do not know if I am still Catholic or not. I am not really sure about my faith. I will say that I pray. I will address the idea of prayer in part two of this post. It I do not break it up, I will be up until dawn writing about it.
