Category Archives: FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation
If — in my own head — I hit a universal note just about right in Facebook or other conversation, I may simply wrench it from context and publish it here in this category as a mix of observation and, I hope, a writer’s wisdom.
As a species, we may not know what we’re going to need by way of new concepts and insights drawing on our inventory in languages across distance and tunneling back through time, so we may wish to be careful about what we would dispose of or, for various reasons, may be losing.
The overarching, broad, and recurrent themes may be — should be — assurance or restoration as regards supporting an inherent dignity and integrity for mankind worldwide, a common enemy being discovered in those who have set out to humiliate others and rise to power or steal it on seas of lies.
Here I have been idealistic, perhaps Jewish with that “inherent dignity and integrity” business, but what other path in human affairs — and international affairs — would serve all across the great arc of Homo sapiens sapiens time yet to come on this planet?
This “assurance and restoration” for ourselves and others is what we need to do, and the key to doing it may lay in the development of a new cross-cultural and integrating poetry.
In the Jewish tradition,M., questioning is more than admired: it is required and it had better be tough. My rabbi and I got into it yesterday over the origins of a liberal Judaism, he arguing for 19th Century thought and forward, I for Hillel’s response to Shammai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_and_Shammai) — but just having that argument may be more within the soul of the civilizational way. Approaching your position: Felix Adler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Adler_(professor). Whether with the idea of God or a unifying natural universe or a mysterious “humanity of humanity” (a Rumiesque notion, that last), the drift toward a better world may be part of the faith and at the core of that is the consideration of others as well as ourselves.
The fact of the matter is the world is a dangerous and wild place full of invention and never more so than where people are isolated from one another by either natural features or social processes. I’m coming to think that the ideas planted in a mind by either an oral or written tradition may serve as barbed wire fencing too.
That “language has a power” is given.
That it’s power is to dream us, if you will, into cultural and personal self-concepts suspended in space and time with others may be less remarked.
Those noises we make and on which we agree in the world’s separable “mouth –> ear –> mind –> heart systems” become also the essential music of the cultural mind.
We love our litanies — those stories we tell ourselves about ourselves each morning; those legends and poems we believe to be ourselves — although some may not have been devised to love us back.
Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief.
I have to wonder what Raif Badawi wrote or otherwise said that may have been so egregious in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as to have the kingdom throw him in jail and the court sentence him to seven years in prison plus 600 lashes.
While the kingdom modernizes — “Related Stories” dredged up on the New York Daily News page include such titles as “Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah grants women seats on the nation’s top advisory council” and “King Abdullah: Saudi Arabia women can vote, hold elected office” — the persistent throttling of expression, the disproportionate sentencing, and the medieval cruelty of lashing to boot (imagine having that to look forward to each week for, say, 30 weeks) tell of a willful egomania thundering atop a fragile surface of faith.
Every tyrants first concern in power has to do with making a convincing case for authority and maintaining it.
Perhaps with that in mind, we say in the United States with regard to the famous Freedom of Speech principle, “Without the First Amendment, all of the others are worthless.”
The Mellow Jihadi reports, “Raif’s site discussed the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, and he has been held since June 2012 on charges of cyber crime and disobeying his father – a crime in the conservative kingdom.“
About eight months ago, Reuters reporting on the Raif Badawi case noted, “Judges base their decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written legal code or on precedent.” That is, if I may interpret, responsibility for this ethical and moral confusion may not rest so much with King Abdullah as with an archaic clerical class, but also, alas, that which doubtlessly supports his authority.
Following Reuter’s latest on the case (published two hours ago) back to Human Rights Watch, this wrap may sum the Saudi state of mind:
Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief. The judge ordered the closure of the website and added two years to Badawi’s sentence for insulting both Islam and Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, in comments during television interviews.
Even while King Abdullah presses for reforms and aspects of modernity course through or make their way into the cultures of the Arabian Peninsula, the Anachronisms cling to a power today deeply mocked and reviled among the educated worldwide, and whether by way of “listening posts” or the perhaps guilty indulgence of going solo online, one by one, logged on and searching the world’s largest information mirror, that is how they will see themselves.
By way of the design in human nature, for which one might credit God, God being God, what Saudi Arabia’s most dogmatic clerics and judges had wished to avoid for want of pride has become precisely that which they must encounter in the feedback supplied by the World Wide Web.
For the biggest form of blasphemy that we all almost always commit is to force another to live in fear for believing, speaking, thinking and sometimes even existing, as we justify it in the name of our faith or stand silent as we bear witness.
No videos, sketches or hate speeches have hurt Islam more than the reckless army of blood thirsty goons justifying vandalism in the name of religion.
As I have said in previous articles, a devout government must always support such principles as libertarianism, modernity and valuing women, beauty, art and science. It must not allow the slightest pressure or measure or reference reminiscent of pressure. It must turn its back on the possibility of radicalism and, as a “devout” administration, must apply democracy in the most perfect manner. We must admit that Mohamed Morsi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have made errors on this.
The World Wide Web has turned out a global mirror. Signal sent — signal returned: in language, we see ourselves as others (not always remote) may see us.
If the latest sentiments out of Pakistan and Turkey prove sustained, that thing called “The West” may have to resign itself to following rather than leading in the realm of ethical and moral investigation and righteousness, no doubt, however, while welcoming the competition.
I have altered the provocative voice to maintain only the line of thought pursued.
The answering voice, and more at length here, enough so to justify my noting that I have Martin Pembroke Harries’ permission to reprint his views here, takes an atheist’s stance in the formulation of ethics. We’ve had some back-and-forth about circumcision, Abraham, obedience, and conscience, but here the topic around which the notes weave is grrrrrl power, which he defends well.
Other editing: I’ve added line breaks for readability and italicized the “point” voice to Pembroke’s counterpoint.
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Women are shy in the Koran and won’t perceive the crime the way a male would.
Is this a wind-up? I can’t decide whether you’re serious or a master of sarcasm.
If you are being serious, when you suggest to, say, Sheikh Hasina the prime Minister of Bangladesh, or Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the prime Minister of Argentina, or Hilary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, that their testimony would be worth half that of yours simply because you are a man, you would be well to stand well beyond their swinging fist distance!
While the Koran authorizes beating a wife after other steps have been tried, it tells us not to maim them. In the west, it seems there are no rules.about how to beat one’s wife.
Again, is this for real?
If so, this is what religion can do to a nominally decent man, it forces him to justify the indefensible.
Do you think that because Sharia states that you can’t break her face when you beat your wife, that is some how a reflection of the nobility of Islam?
That is so sad first of all, but monstrously embarrassing soon afterward.
And let’s be honest, there is nothing in the Quran that states you can’t break your wife’s face when you’re beating her – If you actually read the Quran 4:34, you’ll find that there is no restriction at all.
Please don’t tell me I can find on the book shelves of my local mosque library “101 Halal ways to beat your wife!”, or “How to lovingly protect your wife from the shame of her disobedience through the use of a good timely thrashing” or “Sharia Wife-beating made simple and with a Smile – avoid the face, and Carry On!”
A woman in Islam may be a wife, mother, sister, or daughter. There is no disrespect in that.
I’ve read numerous Muslims state that there is this nominal respect for one’s OWN mother and one’s OWN sister, but once your average MENA Muslim male leaves the house, that’s where respect for women, in general, ends.
Women lead in the percentage of Muslim reverts in the United States. If the religion was so bad for them, why would they revert?
Yes, This is the case because non-Muslim females are marrying Muslim males – for love no less!
It’s probably to please the groom’s parents more than actually believing Mohamed’s story; whereas Muslim females are forbidden to marry non-Muslim men – often at the threat of her life. Again, this a shameful example of not giving equal rights to women. If Muslim men were forbidden to marry non-Muslim women the number of ‘converts’ would plummet.
Lastly, have you got the statistic of how many ‘converts’ have subsequently unconverted? Or how many have converted only nominally in order to facilitate the marriage? Those numbers would be far less flattering wouldn’t they?
Islam disallows Muslim daughters from marrying non-Muslims. If you have a problem with that, it’s your problem.
Well, first of all it’s the daughters’ problem.
I respect your atheism. I want you tor respect my belief in Allah.
No. I respect *your right to believe* what you want, but there is no way you should expect me to automatically respect *what you believe*. Nor should you expect me to automatically respect your right to practice your religion if the tenets of the religion are anathema to rational social harmony – and on those grounds masking the face would be contrary to those ideals. I’ll respect what you believe with respect to Mohamed’s story and social mores only if it reflects justice, morality and rationality – and there is your problem. But it shouldn’t be a big problem, it’s only unsubstantiated religion – folklore – after all.
There are probably a number of non-religious issues upon which we might agree. For instance, I reckon chicken biryani is a food of the gods!
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Harries is entitled to his opinion, but I myself never regard folklore as trivial: language is always (always) a cultural tool and what is invented in it, whether out of necessity and the need for useful signals or out of desire or play or the want of excitement and greatness (even if only in our own heads), each language and its lore and literature becomes a suspension for cultural self-concept.
With that, I’ll take this post a little further.
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Surat 4:34:
“Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.” (Pickthall’s version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
Dr. Shafaat gets into the matter of entangled loyalty well with this statement on the violence involved:
“Beat them”. If even separation fails to work, then it is suggested that men use beating. To this suggestion of the Holy Qur’an there have been two extreme reactions on the part of some Muslims. The first reaction is being apologetic or ashamed of the suggestion. The second is to use it as a justification for indulging in habitual wife battering. Needless to say that both these reactions are wrong. The Quran as we believe is the word of God and is thus every word in it is full of wisdom and love. To be apologetic about any part of the Quran is to lack both knowledge and faith.
For every word to be “full of wisdom and love”, some additional exegesis seems necessary, for Dr. Shafaat continues:
In regard to the suggestion about beating, the following further points should also be noted:
a) According to some traditions the Prophet said in his famous and well-attended speech on the occasion of his farewell pilgrimage that the beating done according to the present verse should be ghayr mubarrih, i.e. in such a way that it should not cause injury, bruise or serious hurt. On this basis some scholars like Tabari and Razi say even that it should be largely symbolic and should be administered “with a folded scarf” or “with a miswak or some such thing”. However, to be effective in its purpose of shaking the wife out of her nasty mood it is important that it should provide an energetic demonstration of the anger, frustration and love of the husband. In other words, it should neither seriously hurt the wife nor reduce it to a set of meaningless motions devoid of emotions.
That power continues to reside in the man (this is a locus-of-control issue) and not in the woman (how should one of the fair sex respond to or treat a “rebellious man”?) seems less an issue than the management of the degree of violence expressed, either physically or symbolically.
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In working with thought as language behavior subject to modification by context in time plus the relative insularity of minds and the language-inventing cultures that create content and self-concept as well as a righteous sense of both license and prohibition, there’s much conversation needed about what I’ve started calling the “humanity of humanity”, i.e., mankind’s better potential in character, and in relation to that, a reconciled psychological outlook.
It’s worth a look, especially to men who may have doubts about how tough may be the “rebellious” woman they have been otherwise so licensed to beat, they themselves having been so pandered to as to have been granted by power on high exclusive control over what many other humans might as fervently and justifiably believe ideal as an equally empowered and inclusive love and partnership.
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One more note on the laying on of hands by either partner in a marriage: when it has come to that, somebody, one or the other, please, leave the home, call a lawyer, and arrange for a separation.
The first job for everyone involves producing a system capable of separating unfounded accusations, innuendo, propaganda, and rumor from responsible reporting. https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/06/05/when-the-second-row-seat-to-history-aint-so-hot/ Developing information with integrity — in empirical terms, “valid and reliable” data — is an enormous problem wherever social relationships determine what is believed and obscurantism determines what is absent or unknown about subjects (including incidents) of interest.
The subject came up this morning in a Pakistani-oriented Facebook forum in a post motivated by anti-Saudi sentiment. The poster referenced an update or slantwise take on the above referenced story (about a prince who allegedly rapes and murders a woman and dumps her body on the street) and I responded with my findings that first and foremost found no initial congruent local report on the discovery of the body.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23085736 — “”He is much better today than he was when I saw him last night,” Mr Zuma said after speaking to the 94-year-old’s medical team.” — We must put a stop to guessing and rumors when dealing with observable phenomenon!
In the BBC article, Nelson Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe castigates the international press for wanting to get to Heaven’s Gate and the great obituaries ahead of time.
If a family’s “death watch” may be has hard and uncertain as it is natural and beautiful in its human way, that involving an elderly international political celebrity may be that much harder. Mandel’as journey has been Big News for Big Media since the 1950s, at least, and any moment approaching the end becomes a part of that epic.
Still, we should be careful.
The rumor of Mandela’s death came to me by way of a Pakistani friend and perhaps on his side from a part of the mouth-to-ear quarter of it. A fast look-up on the web tells the truth: web-based media, large or small, has no incentive for painting a false picture.
May patience — and fact checking — abet integrity in the news online.
Regarding what we think we know and what we know we know: the world has a huge black market going in military arms. You should know the name Viktor Bout and then imagine that personality recapitulated for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the FARC (Colombia), the Sineola people (Mexico) and so on. The small stuff, like the Kalashnikov the Russians overproduced to keep factory employment high, and the RPGs and other small, transportable arms seem to have zero issues getting to these small conflicts. Even when Al Shabaab were kids running amok in Somalia, they were able to fire an RPG into a living room (they didn’t like the man watching a soccer match on his television). To say the U.S. Government supports Al Qaeda in Syria is an “iffy” supposition.
However, let’s look at the kind of curtain suspended everywhere in Islamic and related tribal states — also in states dealing with other insurrection or organized crime: it’s curtain sewn of privacy in communication. A wink, a nod, a slip of paper, a promise, a signal can do untold damage anywhere in the world at any time predicated on the will of those colluding to do evil.
It is natural for the United States to oppose dictatorship of any kind anywhere in the world, but the realpolitik also involves enormous sums in cash, hard assets (like landing strips and naval ports), and investments, and the states of the Arab Peninsula have made fortunes on energy sales, essentially, and reinvestment: there is no one surprised that they would use that financial power to expand their combined political-spiritual enterprise. Whatever officialdom may say, OBL showed the power of the individual to act in accord with the sword verses and sally forth into the infidel world.
If General Idris could get his grip on the loose collection of rebel forces reporting to him and exercise true western-backed control, the Al Qaeda presence in Syria would be marginalized, but because of religious fealty and motivation, which may be misguided (you heard that from a Jew) but is powerful, that Al Qaeda presence may be holding its own in the Syrian — soon to be Syrian-Lebanon — theater
The story is complicated and more so than Facebook “bilge talk” (or international cocktail-type chatter) allows.
To bring freedom to parties who fear it and constituents whose information environments have been managed specifically to engender the fear and hatred of others on one hand and an immense “civilizational narcissism” (check in with Mobarak Haider’s on that) on the other proves difficult — one may stop to look over the Iraq story on that.
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