Saturday, January 05, 2008
Friday, January 04, 2008
Op/Ed: The Martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto - by Parvez Sharma
From the Huffington Post
The Martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto
January 3, 2007
So it is the number nine after all." I look at the cryptic text message from my friend Shazia, in Lahore and I know that she has spent the whole evening adding them up. Benazir Bhutto, the Dukhtar-e-Mashriq (Daughter of the East) who so many had condemned for so long is dead, gunned down or fatally knocked down by a metallic lever in her gas guzzling SUV, depending on who you believe.
We have been texting all night and here in Lincoln, Nebraska where I have been for the "holidays," that most ubiquitous symbol of American life-I find this new knowledge surreal. Most of what we get here is Fox and CNN - both now compete for mindless info-tainment, peppered with strong doses of all of the pharmaceuticals Americans now need to get through Christmas, the "holidays" and indeed life. As the TV cuts abruptly from new relief for those plagued with Restless Leg Syndrome to a grave looking Wolf Blitzer re-playing Ms. Bhutto's oddly prophetic sound-bite, when wearing her signature bright lipstick she talks of her own fears of "death", I feel a sense of restlessness myself. The "surreality" of network television is a part of our daily lives.
Continued...
Gay Muslims Pack a Dance Floor of Their Own
Gay Muslims Pack a Dance Floor of Their Own
Jan-Peter Boening for The New York Times
The crowd at Gayhane, a monthly party for Arab and Turkish gay men, lesbians and bisexuals at SO36, a Berlin nightclub. The event's name is fashioned from gay and "hane," Turkish for home.
The crowd at Gayhane, a monthly party for Arab and Turkish gay men, lesbians and bisexuals at SO36, a Berlin nightclub. The event's name is fashioned from gay and "hane," Turkish for home.
Jan-Peter Boening for The New York Times
Fatma Souad, a transgender performer and Gayhane's organizer, before dressing for a Gayhane party last week.
Fatma Souad, a transgender performer and Gayhane's organizer, before dressing for a Gayhane party last week.
From the New York Times
January 1, 2008
Berlin Journal
Gay Muslims Pack a Dance Floor of Their Own
By NICHOLAS KULISH
BERLIN — Six men whirled faster and faster in the center of the nightclub, arms slung over one another's shoulders, performing a traditional circle dance popular in Turkey and the Middle East. Nothing unusual given the German capital's large Muslim population.
But most of the people filling the dance floor on Saturday at the club SO36 in the Kreuzberg neighborhood were gay, lesbian or bisexual, and of Turkish or Arab background. They were there for the monthly club night known as Gayhane, an all-too-rare opportunity to merge their immigrant cultures and their sexual identities.
European Muslims, so often portrayed one-dimensionally as rioters, honor killers or terrorists, live diverse lives, most of them trying to get by and to have a good time. That is more difficult if one is both Muslim and gay.
"When you're here, it's as if you're putting on a mask, leaving the everyday outside and just having fun," said a 22-year-old Turkish man who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear that he would be ostracized or worse if his family found out about his sexual orientation.
Safety and secrecy come up regularly when talking to guests, who laugh and dance, but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.
"Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I'm a foreigner and in the other because I'm a queen," said Fatma Souad, the event's organizer and master of ceremonies. Ms. Souad, 43, a transgender performer born in Ankara as a boy named Ali, has put on the party for over a decade.
Ms. Souad came to Berlin in 1983 after leaving home as a teenager. She studied to be a dressmaker and played in a punk band, but discovered Middle Eastern music through a friend and began teaching herself belly dancing. Ms. Souad started Salon Oriental, her first belly dancing theater, in 1988, and threw the first Gayhane party — hane means home in Turkish — in January 1997.
The club was packed by midnight and still had a line out the front door. On stage, Ms. Souad mixed a white turban and white net gloves with a black tuxedo with tails and a silver cummerbund, her face made up with perfectly drawn eyeliner and mascara. Dancing, she was all fluid motion, light on her feet, expressively twisting her hands and swiveling her hips.
Under flashing colored lights, guests, some with dreadlocks and others with carefully gelled coifs, moved to songs by the likes of the Egyptian Amr Diab and the Algerian Cheb Mami. Beats from traditional drums crossed with electronic ones, as melodies from flutes and ouds intertwined. When several circle dances — halay in Turkish — broke out at once, the floor began to shake from the stomping.
One of the regular D.J.'s, Ipek Ipekcioglu, 35, said she got her start rather suddenly, when one of the founders of SO36 walked up to her and said: "You're Turkish, right? You're lesbian, right? Bring your cassettes and D.J."
Ms. Ipekcioglu spins everything from Turkish and Arabic music, to Greek, Balkan and Indian, a style she calls Eklektik BerlinIstan. She has been a full-time professional D.J. for six years and performs all over the world.
The space is decorated with bright yellow wall hangings depicting elephants, camels and even a flying carpet, with an intentional degree of kitsch, Ms. Souad said, and an intentional distance from anything Islamic. "We take care that religion is not mixed in here, not in the music either."
Outside the boom of loud firecrackers can be heard, the first test rounds for the annual cacophony here that leaves New Year's revelers ears' ringing. Kreuzberg has been home for decades to large populations of Turks and Kurds, many of whom have very conservative religious values. Yet they have had to share the neighborhood that formerly abutted the Berlin Wall with many counterculture types, artists and anarchists and also gays and lesbians.
According to the city's Schwules Museum, partly devoted to the history of gay people in the city and the country, "a lively homosexual subculture had developed in Berlin by the second half of the 18th century or perhaps earlier." It was known as an oasis for gay men and lesbians in the Weimar period immortalized by the writer Christopher Isherwood and in the period when West Berlin was surrounded by the wall. Today, the city has an openly gay and highly popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit.
But gay men and lesbians from Muslim families say they face extraordinary discrimination at home. A survey of roughly 1,000 young men and women in Berlin, released in September and widely cited in the German press, found much higher levels of homophobia among Turkish youth.
"These differences are there," said Bernd Simon, who led the study and is a professor of social psychology at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel. "We can't deny them. The question is how do we cope with them."
"The answer is not to replace homophobia with Islamophobia," he added, pointing out that homophobia is also higher among Russian immigrants and in other, less urban parts of Germany.
Kader Balcik, a 22-year-old Turk from Hamburg, said: "For us, for Muslims, it's extremely difficult. When you're gay, you're immediately cut off from the family."
He had recently moved to Berlin not long after being cut off from his mother because he is bisexual. "A mother who wishes death for her son, what kind of mother is that?" he asked, his eyes momentarily filling with tears.
Hasan, a 21-year-old Arab man, sitting at a table in the club's quieter adjoining cafe, declined to give his last name, saying: "They would kill me. My brothers would kill me." Asked if he meant this figuratively, he responded, "No, I mean they would kill me."
"I'm living one life here and the other one the way they wish me to be," Hasan said, referring to his parents. He said he still planned to marry, but when he turned 30 rather than right away, as his parents wished. "I have to have children, to do what Islam wants me to do," he said. "I would stop with everything in the homosexual life. I would stop it."
He stood up from the table and called to his two friends. "All right, boys, let's go dance," he said. "We're here to have fun." And they marched off to the dance floor, smiling.
A New, Younger Jihadi Threat Emerges
From the Christian Science Monitor
A new, younger jihadi threat emerges
By Marc Perelman
Fri Dec 28, 3:00 AM ET
With a greeting that was as telling as it was macabre, Imane Laghriss dropped her satchel on the table of a trendy coffee shop here recently.
"It's stuffed with explosives, watch out!" snapped the young woman, echoing the grim humor commonly heard among Moroccan teenagers. But Ms. Laghriss's remark carried with it a degree of stark reality.
Four years ago, she and her twin sister, Sanae, were arrested for planning to blow themselves up inside Morocco's parliament. They were 14 at the time. The two were sentenced to five years in jail in 2003. After serving 18 months and nearly two years in a juvenile center, they are now free.
But while Imane claims to have forgone violence, she still holds the same radical ideology that inspired the unrealized plan. She surfs radical websites and says she wants to go to Iraq to fight US troops – "but not civilians."
The two women represent the leading edge of what security analysts and terrorism experts say is an emerging threat facing both Western and Arab countries: younger jihadis who have been recruited over the Internet or inspired to act through militant Islamist literature or videos. What's more, analysts say, these young radicals often don't belong to a centralized group and may even act on their own.
"As I speak, terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country. They are radicalizing, indoctrinating, and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism," said Jonathan Evans, the director general of the British MI5, the security service, in November.
He warned that teenagers as young as 15 and 16 have been implicated in "terrorist-related" activities as a result of a deliberate strategy pursued by radical Islamist groups.
On Wednesday, Pakistani police arrested a 15-year-old boy for allegedly trying to blow himself up at a rally for opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who was killed Thursday as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. In September, a 15-year-old killed 30 people when he drove a truck full of explosives into an Algerian naval barracks.
And, in mid-November, the US declared that Omar Khadr, a Canadian national detained in Guantánamo Bay, was eligible for trial by a military commission, making him potentially the first minor to be tried for war crimes. He was arrested in Afghanistan when he was 15 and accused of killing a US soldier and conspiring with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
Analysts say this younger, more diverse, disparate, and more unpredictable crop of operatives is a prime recruiting pool for Al Qaeda's off-shoots as the terror network becomes increasingly decentralized.
"We now face organized groups as well as individuals with no clear links to terrorist groups, some of them quite young," said Khalid Zerouali, who heads Morocco's effort to combat transnational crime at the Interior Ministry. "It makes it that much harder for us to identify them."
According to Gabriel Weimann, a professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel and the author of "Terror on the Internet," there are more than 5,000 websites "serving the global jihad," many of which are forums and chat rooms.
Ned Moran, the deputy director of Total Intelligence Solutions, a security consulting firm in Virginia, says he believes the actual number of "real, serious" Al Qaeda-inspired sites numbers in the hundreds. By "serious," he means those including four elements: propaganda, ideological debates, strategic discussions, and tactical advice.
"Bin Laden doesn't need to send recruiters to North Africa, they just come to him virtually," says Abdallah Rami, who is finishing a dissertation at Hassan II University in Casablanca on the role of the Internet in the "salafist" movement, as the radical brand of Islamist militancy is known.
For Imane Laghriss, the connection to the salafist movement was virtual at first, through her heroes discovered on television such as Mr. bin Laden after 9/11 and Mohammed el-Dura, a Palestinian boy killed in front of TV cameras during a skirmish between Israelis and Palestinians in 2000. Images of his death sparked controversy as they became linked to the Palestinian cause. In many respects, she is a normal young woman who speaks about building a family and giggles at the mention of a potential husband.
After their birth to a prostitute mother and an unknown father in 1989, Imane and Sanae were handed to their grandparents, with whom they lived until age 5. They were then separated and lived with a variety of family members. They eventually found a second family in the salafist movement.
When they reunited with their mother in Rabat, the two began hanging out with local Islamists. Imane began wearing the veil and they eventually found a spiritual guide in a militant named Abdelkader Labsir. He encouraged them to follow the example of "martyrs" who have killed themselves in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
After a dozen young men detonated themselves in Casablanca in May 2003, killing 45 people, the twins concocted a plan to bomb a liquor store, which they abandoned in favor of the plot to blow themselves up inside the parliament. But after Imane wrote to a local imam informing him about their plans, he immediately alerted the police, who arrested them in August 2003.
They were indicted of terrorist conspiracy and of plotting against the royal family. At their trial, they proudly proclaimed their intentions. They went on to write a pamphlet against the king, for which they received an additional 2-1/2-year prison term that was reduced to one year in appeal.
They eventually pledged to forgo violence and asked for a pardon, which King Mohammed VI granted in April 2005. When they were release from jail, Assia el Ouadie, a veteran human rights activist, placed them in a juvenile center in the suburbs of Casablanca "because [she] feared they could again become the prey of radical circles," she explained.
Last year, an association helping imprisoned youth found work for them at a bus factory. All went well for two months until Sanae fled the center for three weeks. They lost their jobs, but Imane eventually convinced her boss to take her back.
A couple of social workers are trying, largely on their own, to steer the twins toward a more peaceful existence. One of them, Chazira Amor, explained that the sisters had received no psychological support because Morocco has no system in place to assist young drifters and prevent them from falling prey to radical networks.
Mr. Zerouali, the interior minister senior official, stressed that the government is building some 200,000 housing units a year to eliminate the slums from which most young jihadis hail.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Egypt fights ignorance on HIV/AIDS
KEY STATISTICS Between 2004 and 2005, the estimated number of HIV cases in Egypt rose from 12,000 to 17,000 in 2004-2005 12% of reported HIV cases among 15-24 age group 30% of married women in remote rural areas of Egypt have sexually transmitted infections 20% of Egypt's population are infected with Hepatitis C, which is transmitted in the same way as HIV In Middle East and North Africa 460,000 have HIV. 68,000 people were newly infected in 2006 alone Source: Unicef
Egypt fights ignorance on HIV/Aids
HIV/Aids is still seen as a "foreign" problem by many Egyptians
By Alasdair Soussi
Cairo, Egypt
In a small room, in a modest, but well-maintained building in Central Cairo, a phone rings. The caller - a woman - is worried. She suspects that her husband has been having sex with someone else. She is concerned that she might be at risk of catching HIV.
"Where can I go to get tested?" she wants to know. "Will my anonymity be guaranteed?"
Such a call, which lasts no more than five minutes, is not unusual on Egypt's national HIV/Aids hotline.
Supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), the hotline has been providing information on the transmission and prevention of this deadly virus for more than 10 years to callers in Egypt and other countries in the region.
The disease, which has claimed millions of lives throughout the world, is still widely seen as a "foreign" problem, nothing for ordinary Egyptians to worry about.
And on the face of it, available statistics make for reassuring reading.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids), the prevalence of HIV in Egypt in 2005 was estimated at some 17,000 in a population of more than 70 million.
Worrying trends
But a number of factors - including an overwhelmingly youthful population, a lack of basic information about the virus and an increase in the number of young people engaging in premarital sex - have prompted concerns that the situation could quickly worsen unless direct measures are taken.
"Our callers phone us with a varied concerns," says Dr Ahmad Bahaa, the hotline manager, whose centre receives some 15 to 20 calls a day.
"We receive a lot of calls about modes of transmission, about symptoms, though, even now, we still get a lot of callers who hang up because they are afraid that we might be tracking them and their numbers, which, we are not, of course."
Despite world-wide attention on the issue, ignorance about HIV/Aids transmission is still a major problem in Egypt, says Nadia Sadiq Ahmad, a trained counsellor working at the hotline.
"We have had people phoning us, because they have been kissing, for example, and they're worried that may be at risk of contracting the virus in this way.
"Others have asked whether it is possible to get HIV through water; one caller told of how she was out in the balcony and a splash of water hit her hand from above her. She was worried that if the water had touched someone with the disease first, then it could be transmitted to her." 
Aids counsellors offer absolute anonymity to patients
Targeting the young
The presence of Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres in Egypt, has taken the fight to increase HIV/Aids awareness to the next level.
The hope is that the promise of anonymity will encourage those most at risk of contracting the disease - such as commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users and gay men - to go for testing.
"The testing centres work through a process of guaranteeing confidentiality," says Dr Tariq Bahaa, a doctor and counsellor at one of the centres in Cairo.
"The person, who could just be coming for counselling, or counselling and testing, chooses a code name, and then we give him/her a code number. No personal details are asked for and nothing about them is divulged to anyone outside the centre. But everything about their needs and their behaviour is explored before any testing is done."
Meanwhile, HIV/Aids peer education programmes have been introduced by a range of NGOs dealing with young people.
Particular attention is given to those most at risk, such as Egypt's estimated one million street children.
At a reception centre run by the Cairo-based Hope Village Society, HIV and the risks associated with the disease are a regular topic of discussion with groups of street children.
"HIV is a very dangerous disease, so because of the training, I'm more aware of risks, and it's influenced my behaviour," says 15-year old Emad. "I look after myself better now when I'm on the streets than I ever did before."
Despite the presence of other positive factors, such as the recent founding of the Egyptian NGO Network Against Aids (ENNAA), and growing media coverage of the epidemic and programmes addressing it, significant challenges remain.
"There are many HIV/Aids related issues that we have not yet tackled, but intend to tackle over the coming years," says Dr Wessam El Beih, Unicef's officer for HIV/Aids.
"One thing that we will be engaged in very soon, is providing care and support for people living with HIV/Aids. This would be in terms of trying to give these people a voice, and help them live positively with HIV. And through this, we would be able to make real efforts at combating the stigma attached to the virus, which is still something that is quite prevalent in Egypt."
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Saudis Confirm Detention of Blogger
From the New York Times
January 2, 2008
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An outspoken Saudi blogger is being held for "purposes of interrogation," the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday.
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman reached by telephone, said the blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, was "being questioned about specific violations of nonsecurity laws." Mr. Farhan's blog, which discusses social issues, had become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent.
"I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me," read the letter, which is now posted in English and Arabic on Mr. Farhan's blog.
Since his arrest, friends have continued to post entries on his Web log (www.alfarhan.org) on his behalf under a banner that reads "Free Fouad" and features his picture.
"The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I'm running an online campaign promoting their issue," the letter continued, saying that Mr. Farhan had been asked to sign a statement of apology.
"I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that," he wrote. "An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is a liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?"
Ahmad al-Omran, a blogger and a friend of Mr. Farhan, said that Mr. Farhan had been the first Saudi blogger to be detained by state security. The arrest created widespread anxiety among other Saudi bloggers and advocates, he said.
"An incident like this has its effect," Mr. Omran said by telephone. "It's intimidating to think you might be arrested for something on your blog. On the other hand, this means that these voices on the blogosphere are being heard. But it's really sad that a blogger who is writing about important issues out in the open would get arrested, while there are extremists who call for violence and hate, and the government is not doing much."
Mr. Omran said Mr. Farhan was one of the first Saudi bloggers to post items in Arabic and to use his real name. At the top of Mr. Farhan's blog is a call in Arabic for "freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and the other lost Islamic values."
The Interior Ministry would not say specifically why Mr. Farhan had been arrested.
"The violation is not a security matter," General Turki said. "He is not being jailed. He is being questioned, and I don't believe he will remain in detention long. They will get the information that they need from him and then they will let him go."
Pakistan: A View from the D.J. Booth - Video
Pakistan: A View from the D.J. Booth
A Radio Host in Karachi
Munizeh Sanai, host of "The Rush Hour," in Karachi, Pakistan discusses the current unrest in the country.
From NY Times Video. Click here to view the clip.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Reflections on defamation of Prophets
Jamaal Zarabozo
When it comes to the relations between "the West" and the "Muslim world," there is no question that we are currently living in an environment of heightened fear, hatred, anxiety, violence and extremism. We are living in a time in which the prudent and wise person will think about what he will say or do. It is obviously not a time in which we avoid speaking the truth and working for justice-as that is always a given. However, it is a time for reasonable people to avoid anything that can be used in a negative way to further destabilize the situation and cause senseless harm.
In particular since 9/11, one often hears the following question being posed by the people of the West, "Why do they hate us?" It is interesting to observe what behavior is occurring at the same time that they are asking this question-and, in fact, what behavior has been occurring for centuries, as shall be noted later. At the same time that they are, it must be presumed, sincerely asking the question, "Why do they hate us?" many of their societal leaders and many in their media continue to disrespect and ridicule Islam, Muslims and even the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)-doing acts that seem to be intended only to hurt the feelings of the Muslims. Most recently, one can point to the cartoons in Denmark that depicted, for example, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) having a bomb in his turban.
These classless and offensive cartoons were later republished in other newspapers throughout Europe, demonstrating support for the original publishers. Even before these events, one can find Christian leaders and social commentators in the United States making antagonistic and hate-provoking statements about Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), calling him a terrorist or even a child molester. The situation has not been much better in Europe, although they have much larger Muslim minorities. In this environment, beyond asking "Why do they hate us?" perhaps another important question needs to be asked by all: Is our own behavior leading us in a positive or beneficial direction? Maybe the answer to this question may shed some light on the answer to the aforementioned question.
Those who engage in the practice of defaming Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) have claimed that they are simply exercising their rights of freedom of speech, opinion and belief. Within the Western framework, they may have an argument. At the end of January 2006, the Blair government was defeated in attempting to pass a law that would have made ridiculing faiths and religious leaders a type of hate crime. In an interview with BBC on February 1, 2006, a Member of Parliament who opposed the bill said that the law must protect life and property but need not protect "feelings."
Thus, as long as a person's "life or property" is not physically attacked, one should be free to express what one wishes. This approach reflects the currently accepted Western emphasis on individual rights as opposed to social welfare. Indeed, in the aftermath of the dispute concerning the cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), some in Europe are proudly-actually, arrogantly-proclaiming that they have the right to insult God if they want to. Whatever the man-made legal rights may be and ignoring the gravity of the manner in which such insults have been done, what if such statements do eventually lead to harm and attacks on life and property? What is the logic behind permitting "causes" that lead to "harm" while prohibiting the act of harm in itself?
For example, is there anything reprehensible about drunk driving in itself or is it prohibited by law only due to the harm that it can result in, the loss of life and property? In any case, of course, simply because something is legal by law does not necessarily imply that it is moral or even wise. In the current environment, this is the more important issue. One should never invoke one's "rights" in defense of harmful and hateful actions that could eventually even lead to bloodshed. Thus, it is not a matter of passing new laws, as was attempted in England. Instead, it is a matter of recognizing the morally correct path to follow and the prudent path to follow. No one can doubt that images and stereotypes presented in the media are very powerful. In many cases, they form a person's perception of reality. In particular, many of the West, more so in the US than in Europe, do not have first hand experiences with Muslims and therefore they must rely on the media to develop their perception of Islam and Muslims. Nacos and Torres-Reyna write, "Some 55 years ago, before the advent of television, Walter Lippmann observed that what people know about the world around them is mostly the result of second-hand knowledge received through the press and that the 'pictures in our heads' are the result of a pseudo-reality reflected in the news."
Thus, the press bears a great responsibility. What and how the press presents something can ultimately lead to decisions of life and death or war and peace. Indeed, political cartoons and yellow journalism can be sufficient to drive a country into a war frenzy-as they appeal to the emotions of the masses. Anyone familiar with the Spanish-American War is well aware of this fact. There were powerful forces in the United States who were determined to go to war against Spain, fearing the "Spanish threat" on the Americas. The New York Morning Journal (headed by William Randolph Hearst) and The New York World used yellow journalism to depict Spanish oppression in Cuba. Even though President McKinley wanted to follow a hands-off policy, the effect of the media was such that it led to great popular support to come to the aid of the Cubans. This put great pressure upon President McKinley, leading him to send the Battleship Maine to Havana in 1898. The Battleship Maine exploded. The Navy at that time was unable to determine the cause of the explosion-although more recently many have concluded that it was due to mechanical problems. At that time, the Spanish offered to turn the issue of responsibility over to an arbitrator. However, even without being able to identify the exact cause of the explosion, the media pounced on the opportunity, spread the slogan "Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain" and continued to depict the evil Spaniards in their cartoons. The United States was now definitely going to war.
The lessons of those events should not be lost on the world today. Another example of the influence of the press is discussed in the following passage: "The racism that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was created partly by the motion picture industry, which for years typecast Orientals as villains, and partly by the press, especially the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst." Today, of course, the internment of the Japanese is something that we Americans remember with shame. The result-if not the goal-of blatant defamation and ridicule is the dehumanization of the enemy. When the enemy is dehumanized, one no longer cares how much they suffer. One can then do things to them that humans would, under normal circumstances, completely shun-such as all forms of horrendous torture and humiliation.
Inexcusable defamation is occurring. Before discussing who may be pleased with such occurrences, I would like to first discuss who should not be participating in such activities. First, it seems to me-and only God knows-that those who want to display the Christian witness to humanity certainly should shun and oppose any such behavior. It is the Christian who usually claims that Muslims do not understand that "God is love" and that one should love one's enemy.
Thus, they should be at the forefront of putting an end to such harmful statements and defamation of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). These shameful acts certainly do not demonstrate grace and love. Second, those who are truly interested in peace must also take a stand. You cannot simultaneously allow and support hate-provoking messages and ridicule while at the same time claiming to be working for true peace among the different peoples. True peace cannot come without some form of mutual respect and understanding. Certainly immaturely attacking the icons or beliefs that are dear to millions living on the planet could not be seen as a means of respect and understanding. Third, those who are interested in human rights and human dignity should also be outraged at what is done in the name of freedom and human rights. If the concept of human rights is going to mean anything it should at least mean respect for humans! To unjustifiably ridicule, attack or defame others should be considered a violation of one's right to a decent life without unwarranted aggression and attack. When will the paradox of humans being dehumanized and humiliated in the name of human freedoms and human rights ever be solved? Indeed, when will secular humans finally realize that such is a paradox for which they may never have a solution? Muslims also should never engage in false or ridiculing propaganda against others. Even if there is great hatred between the Muslim and others, a Muslim is never allowed to deviate from what is truthful and proper.
This is because the ultimate goal of a Muslim is the pleasure of God and God is pleased with truth and justice. The mere ridicule of others resulting only in increased hatred-not to speak of hatred between individuals but, indeed, even a hatred for God's religion-is not part of the character of a Muslim. The following verses of the Quran should make all Muslims alert to these points: "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, be he rich or poor, Allah is a Better Protector to both (than you). So follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you may avoid justice…" (al-Nisaa 135); "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah and be just witnesses and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that is nearer to piety, and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do" (al-Maaidah 8); "And do not insult those [objects of worship] whom they worship besides Allah, lest they insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all that they used to do" (al-Anaam 108).
The question then remains: Who is it that could possibly be pleased with and support such rude and ill-mannered behavior as the defaming of the spiritual leader of almost one-fifth of the planet? Unfortunately, there are a few categories of people who are actively pushing and promoting a phenomenon described as "Islamophobia," putting the fear of Islam and Muslims in the hearts of non-Muslims. It is hoped that no rational, sincere person would want to be from these different groups of people who foster such hate and, eventually, violence. First and most obvious are people who are simply racists. These people have a hatred for all "others" and see them as inferior, untermenschen. They want their own people to also hate the "other" and therefore they are happy to spread any slurs or insults. The whole basis of racist thought is that someone is superior not due to anything that he has actually done but only due to something given to him by God and over which the individual himself had no control or choice. It seems that this would appeal most to persons who have no individual redeeming qualities of their own! Be that as it may, it is amazing how prevalent racism and racist feelings are in the West.
It is the people of the West, in general, who are saying that they want the Muslims to become modernized, claiming that Islam and Muslims are barbarians, backwards, uncivilized and un-modernized. Is it any wonder that their message has been unappealing to so many Muslims? Unfortunately, there are also many strong political factors behind the current demonizing of Muslims. There is a political-philosophical belief that one's country needs a well-defined and dangerous enemy. Especially since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, that enemy has more and more been identified as Muslims and Islam (sometimes referred to in more politically correct terms as "fundamentalist Islam"). One can return to the example of the Soviet Union to see how an enemy can be created and made as giant as can be. During the 1950s, the children of the United States were repeatedly going through drills in case the Soviets should attack the US with nuclear weapons.
Looking back, the reality seemed to be very different. Former US statesman George Kennan, who had originally proposed the policy of Russian containment, admitted that he knew that Russia did not want to go to war. He stated, "The image of a Stalinist Russia poised and yearning to attack the West, and deterred only by [US] possession of atomic weapons, was largely a creation of Western imagination." A report in the Guardian also states that British military and intelligence chiefs believed that, "The Soviet Union will not deliberately start general war or even limited war in Europe," so said a classified paper marked "Top Secret, UK Eyes Only." One of the leading proponents of the concept of the clash of civilizations, Samuel Huntington, is himself one of the believers in this outlook. Among the many things he stated pointing to this view of the world is, "We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against." Finally, those Muslims who might hold some extreme views in regards to the West are also very happy with such practices that demonstrate the West's lack of respect toward Muslims.
In turn, they use this as an argument that the people of the West, therefore, are not deserving of respect. They want no limits to the manner in which they fight-and it is only a small step from quoting non-Muslim disrespect for Muslims to convincing a person that civilian non-Muslims, therefore, are also not deserving of respect. Hence, those people who defend acts of defamation and ridicule in the name of "rights and freedoms" are simply playing right into their hands. These are the main categories of people who would be pleased with such acts of defamation and ridicule of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), of Muslims or of the "other" in general. As stated earlier, it is hoped that rational and sincere people would not wish to be counted among such groups of people.
However, there is another important point that needs to be made. This has to do with those who defend such hate-producing acts, again probably in the name of free speech, liberty and so forth. What, though, is the difference between defending acts like this-that lead to more hatred and therefore more violence-and directly supporting known terrorists? Yes, one can argue that there is a difference. But to the person who truly wants to take responsibility for the ramifications of his actions (what he does as well as what he advocates), he should consider what occurs when he supports or sees nothing wrong with denigrating and defaming others in such a manner that will only produce more hatred. There is no question that this hatred may easily lead to more violence, bloodshed, turmoil and suffering. Certainly, he cannot truly believe that his hands are absolutely free of any guilt.
Most of the inhabitants of the West are non-Muslims. Many of them are not Muslim because they feel that there is something unacceptable in Islam. Hence, it is to be expected that they would have thoughts about the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that Muslims would not share. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) himself debated with Jews, Christians and polytheists who did not believe in him and even after discussions with the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) himself they remained true to their own faiths. Thus, no one, Muslim or otherwise, should be surprised if a non-Muslim has a lesser opinion of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) than a Muslim has. The Quran welcomes discussion and dialogue with the non-Muslims: "Invite (mankind, O Muhammad) to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and fair preaching, and debate with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided" (al-Nahl 125). In fact, more than once, the Quran even asks the non-Muslim to, "Produce your proof if you are truthful" (al-Baqarah 111; al-Naml 64; al-Qasas 75). Thus, the objection is not to non-Muslims-especially in their own lands-expressing their view about the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). If what they state is sincere and rational, then they can be spoken to on a rational level with sincerity. Indeed, Muslims welcome such discussions and, in reality, such discussions are best for Islam, because, to this day, most of the people in the West have distorted views of Islam. If they wish to express their views honestly and discuss them honestly, they can be presented with the truth of Islam. This act in itself may reduce the tension and discord that exists between non-Muslims and Muslims.
In fact, after the events of 9/11, many Americans took the effort to find out more about Islam and there was much more exposure of Islam and Muslims. Thus, in comparing surveys before 9/11 and after 9/11, Nacos and Torres-Reyna found that "the American public in general viewed Muslim-Americans more favorable after September 11, 2001." One can respond to rational arguments with an honest and straightforward rational discussion. However, there is no real response to something that is meant only to ridicule, insult or harm. In sum, if non-Muslims want to debate and discuss the real issues of religion and belief, Muslims are more than ready to do that. If they resort to defamation and ridicule, then they should not be surprised if they are in turn responded to with hatred and disrespect. There is no need for them to then ask, "Why do they hate us?"
The answer should be clear. Actually, there is one author who makes the point that those in the past who attacked the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did so in an attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. Minou Reeves writes in a work entitled Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making, The trouble started with early medieval Christian polemicists. They chose not to attack Islamic theology, which was too seductive in its simplicity and clarity, and which raised too many awkward questions about Christian dogma. Nor could they cast doubt on the pious practice of ordinary Muslims. Instead, anticipating the worst excesses of tabloid journalism, they personalized the issue and attacked the Prophet of Islam, dispensing with all but the barest knowledge of any facts and inventing falsehoods. Muslims could not reply in kind, since they are told by the Qur'an to revere Jesus as a holy prophet. It seems that not much has truly changed over the centuries.
In conclusion, I think all in the world can agree that mutual understanding, mutual respect, peace and justice certainly will never result from defamation, ridicule and insult. Therefore, there is no real benefit from defaming or denigrating the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) in a manner like the recent political cartoons in Europe. The only result that one can expect from such practices is more hatred, violence and fear. Certainly, if you disrespect someone else, you cannot expect that he will show great respect for you in return. If this hatred does turn into more terrorism, the longer term result may simply be more restrictions on civil liberties and freedoms in the West. Those who are supporting such cartoons in the name of rights and liberties may, in the long-run, find their liberties restricted because of what these disrespectful acts produced. In essence, nobody wins in the long-run. There is simply no rationale for such behavior. At the same time, we have to call upon all interested parties to show restraint and to consider what ramifications anything that they say or do might have. Muslim scholars should take the lead, as they have done in the past, to stress to the Muslims that the actions of the non-Muslims should never anger them so much that it leads them to do something that contradicts the Law of Islam. It is time for leaders in the West to realize that the "freedom" which is very dear to the Western conscience should not be an unwise or harmful freedom. I believe it was Milton Friedman who stated, "My freedom to swing my fist stops where your chin begins." In today's turbulent environment, perhaps it should be said-not as a law but as moral behavior-"My freedom of speech ends where your personal dignity begins."
When it comes to the relations between "the West" and the "Muslim world," there is no question that we are currently living in an environment of heightened fear, hatred, anxiety, violence and extremism. We are living in a time in which the prudent and wise person will think about what he will say or do. It is obviously not a time in which we avoid speaking the truth and working for justice-as that is always a given. However, it is a time for reasonable people to avoid anything that can be used in a negative way to further destabilize the situation and cause senseless harm.
In particular since 9/11, one often hears the following question being posed by the people of the West, "Why do they hate us?" It is interesting to observe what behavior is occurring at the same time that they are asking this question-and, in fact, what behavior has been occurring for centuries, as shall be noted later. At the same time that they are, it must be presumed, sincerely asking the question, "Why do they hate us?" many of their societal leaders and many in their media continue to disrespect and ridicule Islam, Muslims and even the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)-doing acts that seem to be intended only to hurt the feelings of the Muslims. Most recently, one can point to the cartoons in Denmark that depicted, for example, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) having a bomb in his turban.
These classless and offensive cartoons were later republished in other newspapers throughout Europe, demonstrating support for the original publishers. Even before these events, one can find Christian leaders and social commentators in the United States making antagonistic and hate-provoking statements about Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), calling him a terrorist or even a child molester. The situation has not been much better in Europe, although they have much larger Muslim minorities. In this environment, beyond asking "Why do they hate us?" perhaps another important question needs to be asked by all: Is our own behavior leading us in a positive or beneficial direction? Maybe the answer to this question may shed some light on the answer to the aforementioned question.
Those who engage in the practice of defaming Islam or the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) have claimed that they are simply exercising their rights of freedom of speech, opinion and belief. Within the Western framework, they may have an argument. At the end of January 2006, the Blair government was defeated in attempting to pass a law that would have made ridiculing faiths and religious leaders a type of hate crime. In an interview with BBC on February 1, 2006, a Member of Parliament who opposed the bill said that the law must protect life and property but need not protect "feelings."
Thus, as long as a person's "life or property" is not physically attacked, one should be free to express what one wishes. This approach reflects the currently accepted Western emphasis on individual rights as opposed to social welfare. Indeed, in the aftermath of the dispute concerning the cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), some in Europe are proudly-actually, arrogantly-proclaiming that they have the right to insult God if they want to. Whatever the man-made legal rights may be and ignoring the gravity of the manner in which such insults have been done, what if such statements do eventually lead to harm and attacks on life and property? What is the logic behind permitting "causes" that lead to "harm" while prohibiting the act of harm in itself?
For example, is there anything reprehensible about drunk driving in itself or is it prohibited by law only due to the harm that it can result in, the loss of life and property? In any case, of course, simply because something is legal by law does not necessarily imply that it is moral or even wise. In the current environment, this is the more important issue. One should never invoke one's "rights" in defense of harmful and hateful actions that could eventually even lead to bloodshed. Thus, it is not a matter of passing new laws, as was attempted in England. Instead, it is a matter of recognizing the morally correct path to follow and the prudent path to follow. No one can doubt that images and stereotypes presented in the media are very powerful. In many cases, they form a person's perception of reality. In particular, many of the West, more so in the US than in Europe, do not have first hand experiences with Muslims and therefore they must rely on the media to develop their perception of Islam and Muslims. Nacos and Torres-Reyna write, "Some 55 years ago, before the advent of television, Walter Lippmann observed that what people know about the world around them is mostly the result of second-hand knowledge received through the press and that the 'pictures in our heads' are the result of a pseudo-reality reflected in the news."
Thus, the press bears a great responsibility. What and how the press presents something can ultimately lead to decisions of life and death or war and peace. Indeed, political cartoons and yellow journalism can be sufficient to drive a country into a war frenzy-as they appeal to the emotions of the masses. Anyone familiar with the Spanish-American War is well aware of this fact. There were powerful forces in the United States who were determined to go to war against Spain, fearing the "Spanish threat" on the Americas. The New York Morning Journal (headed by William Randolph Hearst) and The New York World used yellow journalism to depict Spanish oppression in Cuba. Even though President McKinley wanted to follow a hands-off policy, the effect of the media was such that it led to great popular support to come to the aid of the Cubans. This put great pressure upon President McKinley, leading him to send the Battleship Maine to Havana in 1898. The Battleship Maine exploded. The Navy at that time was unable to determine the cause of the explosion-although more recently many have concluded that it was due to mechanical problems. At that time, the Spanish offered to turn the issue of responsibility over to an arbitrator. However, even without being able to identify the exact cause of the explosion, the media pounced on the opportunity, spread the slogan "Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain" and continued to depict the evil Spaniards in their cartoons. The United States was now definitely going to war.
The lessons of those events should not be lost on the world today. Another example of the influence of the press is discussed in the following passage: "The racism that led to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was created partly by the motion picture industry, which for years typecast Orientals as villains, and partly by the press, especially the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst." Today, of course, the internment of the Japanese is something that we Americans remember with shame. The result-if not the goal-of blatant defamation and ridicule is the dehumanization of the enemy. When the enemy is dehumanized, one no longer cares how much they suffer. One can then do things to them that humans would, under normal circumstances, completely shun-such as all forms of horrendous torture and humiliation.
Inexcusable defamation is occurring. Before discussing who may be pleased with such occurrences, I would like to first discuss who should not be participating in such activities. First, it seems to me-and only God knows-that those who want to display the Christian witness to humanity certainly should shun and oppose any such behavior. It is the Christian who usually claims that Muslims do not understand that "God is love" and that one should love one's enemy.
Thus, they should be at the forefront of putting an end to such harmful statements and defamation of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). These shameful acts certainly do not demonstrate grace and love. Second, those who are truly interested in peace must also take a stand. You cannot simultaneously allow and support hate-provoking messages and ridicule while at the same time claiming to be working for true peace among the different peoples. True peace cannot come without some form of mutual respect and understanding. Certainly immaturely attacking the icons or beliefs that are dear to millions living on the planet could not be seen as a means of respect and understanding. Third, those who are interested in human rights and human dignity should also be outraged at what is done in the name of freedom and human rights. If the concept of human rights is going to mean anything it should at least mean respect for humans! To unjustifiably ridicule, attack or defame others should be considered a violation of one's right to a decent life without unwarranted aggression and attack. When will the paradox of humans being dehumanized and humiliated in the name of human freedoms and human rights ever be solved? Indeed, when will secular humans finally realize that such is a paradox for which they may never have a solution? Muslims also should never engage in false or ridiculing propaganda against others. Even if there is great hatred between the Muslim and others, a Muslim is never allowed to deviate from what is truthful and proper.
This is because the ultimate goal of a Muslim is the pleasure of God and God is pleased with truth and justice. The mere ridicule of others resulting only in increased hatred-not to speak of hatred between individuals but, indeed, even a hatred for God's religion-is not part of the character of a Muslim. The following verses of the Quran should make all Muslims alert to these points: "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, be he rich or poor, Allah is a Better Protector to both (than you). So follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you may avoid justice…" (al-Nisaa 135); "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah and be just witnesses and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just: that is nearer to piety, and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do" (al-Maaidah 8); "And do not insult those [objects of worship] whom they worship besides Allah, lest they insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all that they used to do" (al-Anaam 108).
The question then remains: Who is it that could possibly be pleased with and support such rude and ill-mannered behavior as the defaming of the spiritual leader of almost one-fifth of the planet? Unfortunately, there are a few categories of people who are actively pushing and promoting a phenomenon described as "Islamophobia," putting the fear of Islam and Muslims in the hearts of non-Muslims. It is hoped that no rational, sincere person would want to be from these different groups of people who foster such hate and, eventually, violence. First and most obvious are people who are simply racists. These people have a hatred for all "others" and see them as inferior, untermenschen. They want their own people to also hate the "other" and therefore they are happy to spread any slurs or insults. The whole basis of racist thought is that someone is superior not due to anything that he has actually done but only due to something given to him by God and over which the individual himself had no control or choice. It seems that this would appeal most to persons who have no individual redeeming qualities of their own! Be that as it may, it is amazing how prevalent racism and racist feelings are in the West.
It is the people of the West, in general, who are saying that they want the Muslims to become modernized, claiming that Islam and Muslims are barbarians, backwards, uncivilized and un-modernized. Is it any wonder that their message has been unappealing to so many Muslims? Unfortunately, there are also many strong political factors behind the current demonizing of Muslims. There is a political-philosophical belief that one's country needs a well-defined and dangerous enemy. Especially since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, that enemy has more and more been identified as Muslims and Islam (sometimes referred to in more politically correct terms as "fundamentalist Islam"). One can return to the example of the Soviet Union to see how an enemy can be created and made as giant as can be. During the 1950s, the children of the United States were repeatedly going through drills in case the Soviets should attack the US with nuclear weapons.
Looking back, the reality seemed to be very different. Former US statesman George Kennan, who had originally proposed the policy of Russian containment, admitted that he knew that Russia did not want to go to war. He stated, "The image of a Stalinist Russia poised and yearning to attack the West, and deterred only by [US] possession of atomic weapons, was largely a creation of Western imagination." A report in the Guardian also states that British military and intelligence chiefs believed that, "The Soviet Union will not deliberately start general war or even limited war in Europe," so said a classified paper marked "Top Secret, UK Eyes Only." One of the leading proponents of the concept of the clash of civilizations, Samuel Huntington, is himself one of the believers in this outlook. Among the many things he stated pointing to this view of the world is, "We know who we are only when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against." Finally, those Muslims who might hold some extreme views in regards to the West are also very happy with such practices that demonstrate the West's lack of respect toward Muslims.
In turn, they use this as an argument that the people of the West, therefore, are not deserving of respect. They want no limits to the manner in which they fight-and it is only a small step from quoting non-Muslim disrespect for Muslims to convincing a person that civilian non-Muslims, therefore, are also not deserving of respect. Hence, those people who defend acts of defamation and ridicule in the name of "rights and freedoms" are simply playing right into their hands. These are the main categories of people who would be pleased with such acts of defamation and ridicule of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), of Muslims or of the "other" in general. As stated earlier, it is hoped that rational and sincere people would not wish to be counted among such groups of people.
However, there is another important point that needs to be made. This has to do with those who defend such hate-producing acts, again probably in the name of free speech, liberty and so forth. What, though, is the difference between defending acts like this-that lead to more hatred and therefore more violence-and directly supporting known terrorists? Yes, one can argue that there is a difference. But to the person who truly wants to take responsibility for the ramifications of his actions (what he does as well as what he advocates), he should consider what occurs when he supports or sees nothing wrong with denigrating and defaming others in such a manner that will only produce more hatred. There is no question that this hatred may easily lead to more violence, bloodshed, turmoil and suffering. Certainly, he cannot truly believe that his hands are absolutely free of any guilt.
Most of the inhabitants of the West are non-Muslims. Many of them are not Muslim because they feel that there is something unacceptable in Islam. Hence, it is to be expected that they would have thoughts about the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that Muslims would not share. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) himself debated with Jews, Christians and polytheists who did not believe in him and even after discussions with the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) himself they remained true to their own faiths. Thus, no one, Muslim or otherwise, should be surprised if a non-Muslim has a lesser opinion of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) than a Muslim has. The Quran welcomes discussion and dialogue with the non-Muslims: "Invite (mankind, O Muhammad) to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and fair preaching, and debate with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided" (al-Nahl 125). In fact, more than once, the Quran even asks the non-Muslim to, "Produce your proof if you are truthful" (al-Baqarah 111; al-Naml 64; al-Qasas 75). Thus, the objection is not to non-Muslims-especially in their own lands-expressing their view about the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). If what they state is sincere and rational, then they can be spoken to on a rational level with sincerity. Indeed, Muslims welcome such discussions and, in reality, such discussions are best for Islam, because, to this day, most of the people in the West have distorted views of Islam. If they wish to express their views honestly and discuss them honestly, they can be presented with the truth of Islam. This act in itself may reduce the tension and discord that exists between non-Muslims and Muslims.
In fact, after the events of 9/11, many Americans took the effort to find out more about Islam and there was much more exposure of Islam and Muslims. Thus, in comparing surveys before 9/11 and after 9/11, Nacos and Torres-Reyna found that "the American public in general viewed Muslim-Americans more favorable after September 11, 2001." One can respond to rational arguments with an honest and straightforward rational discussion. However, there is no real response to something that is meant only to ridicule, insult or harm. In sum, if non-Muslims want to debate and discuss the real issues of religion and belief, Muslims are more than ready to do that. If they resort to defamation and ridicule, then they should not be surprised if they are in turn responded to with hatred and disrespect. There is no need for them to then ask, "Why do they hate us?"
The answer should be clear. Actually, there is one author who makes the point that those in the past who attacked the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) did so in an attempt to avoid discussing the real issues. Minou Reeves writes in a work entitled Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making, The trouble started with early medieval Christian polemicists. They chose not to attack Islamic theology, which was too seductive in its simplicity and clarity, and which raised too many awkward questions about Christian dogma. Nor could they cast doubt on the pious practice of ordinary Muslims. Instead, anticipating the worst excesses of tabloid journalism, they personalized the issue and attacked the Prophet of Islam, dispensing with all but the barest knowledge of any facts and inventing falsehoods. Muslims could not reply in kind, since they are told by the Qur'an to revere Jesus as a holy prophet. It seems that not much has truly changed over the centuries.
In conclusion, I think all in the world can agree that mutual understanding, mutual respect, peace and justice certainly will never result from defamation, ridicule and insult. Therefore, there is no real benefit from defaming or denigrating the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) in a manner like the recent political cartoons in Europe. The only result that one can expect from such practices is more hatred, violence and fear. Certainly, if you disrespect someone else, you cannot expect that he will show great respect for you in return. If this hatred does turn into more terrorism, the longer term result may simply be more restrictions on civil liberties and freedoms in the West. Those who are supporting such cartoons in the name of rights and liberties may, in the long-run, find their liberties restricted because of what these disrespectful acts produced. In essence, nobody wins in the long-run. There is simply no rationale for such behavior. At the same time, we have to call upon all interested parties to show restraint and to consider what ramifications anything that they say or do might have. Muslim scholars should take the lead, as they have done in the past, to stress to the Muslims that the actions of the non-Muslims should never anger them so much that it leads them to do something that contradicts the Law of Islam. It is time for leaders in the West to realize that the "freedom" which is very dear to the Western conscience should not be an unwise or harmful freedom. I believe it was Milton Friedman who stated, "My freedom to swing my fist stops where your chin begins." In today's turbulent environment, perhaps it should be said-not as a law but as moral behavior-"My freedom of speech ends where your personal dignity begins."
Gay Muslims Pack a Dance Floor of Their Own (in Berlin, Germany)
Jan-Peter Boening for The New York Times The crowd at Gayhane, a monthly party for Arab and Turkish gay men, lesbians and bisexuals at SO36, a Berlin nightclub. The event's name is fashioned from gay and "hane," Turkish for home. (Jan-Peter Boening for The New York Times)
Gay Muslims pack a dance floor of their own
By Nicholas Kulish
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
BERLIN: Six men whirled faster and faster in the center of the nightclub, arms slung over one another's shoulders, performing a traditional circle dance popular in Turkey and the Middle East. Nothing unusual given the German capital's large Muslim population.
But most of the people filling the dance floor on Saturday at the club SO36 in the Kreuzberg neighborhood were gay, lesbian or bisexual, and of Turkish or Arab background. They were there for the monthly club night known as Gayhane, an all-too-rare opportunity to merge their immigrant cultures and their sexual identities.
European Muslims, so often portrayed one-dimensionally as rioters, honor killers or terrorists, live diverse lives, most of them trying to get by and to have a good time. That is more difficult if one is both Muslim and gay.
"When you're here, it's as if you're putting on a mask, leaving the everyday outside and just having fun," said a 22-year-old Turkish man who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear that he would be ostracized or worse if his family found out about his sexual orientation.
Safety and secrecy come up regularly when talking to guests, who laugh and dance, but also frequently look over their shoulders. To be a gay man or lesbian with an immigrant background invites trouble here in two very different ways.
"Depending on which part of Berlin I go to, in one I get punched in the mouth because I'm a foreigner and in the other because I'm a queen," said Fatma Souad, the event's organizer and master of ceremonies. Souad, 43, a transgender performer born in Ankara as a boy named Ali, has put on the party for over a decade.
Souad came to Berlin in 1983 after leaving home as a teenager. She studied to be a dressmaker and played in a punk band, but discovered Middle Eastern music through a friend and began teaching herself belly dancing. Souad started Salon Oriental, her first belly dancing theater, in 1988, and threw the first Gayhane party — hane means home in Turkish — in January 1997.
The club was packed by midnight and still had a line out the front door. On stage, Souad mixed a white turban and white net gloves with a black tuxedo with tails and a silver cummerbund, her face made up with perfectly drawn eyeliner and mascara. Dancing, she was all fluid motion, light on her feet, expressively twisting her hands and swiveling her hips.
Under flashing colored lights, guests, some with dreadlocks and others with carefully gelled coifs, moved to songs by the likes of the Egyptian Amr Diab and the Algerian Cheb Mami. Beats from traditional drums crossed with electronic ones, as melodies from flutes and ouds intertwined. When several circle dances — halay in Turkish — broke out at once, the floor began to shake from the stomping.
One of the regular D.J.'s, Ipek Ipekcioglu, 35, said she got her start rather suddenly, when one of the founders of SO36 walked up to her and said: "You're Turkish, right? You're lesbian, right? Bring your cassettes and D.J."
Ipekcioglu spins everything from Turkish and Arabic music, to Greek, Balkan and Indian, a style she calls Eklektik BerlinIstan. She has been a full-time professional D.J. for six years and performs all over the world.
The space is decorated with bright yellow wall hangings depicting elephants, camels and even a flying carpet, with an intentional degree of kitsch, Souad said, and an intentional distance from anything Islamic. "We take care that religion is not mixed in here, not in the music either."
Outside the boom of loud firecrackers can be heard, the first test rounds for the annual cacophony here that leaves New Year's revelers ears' ringing. Kreuzberg has been home for decades to large populations of Turks and Kurds, many of whom have very conservative religious values. Yet they have had to share the neighborhood that formerly abutted the Berlin Wall with many counterculture types, artists and anarchists and also gays and lesbians.
According to the city's Schwules Museum, partly devoted to the history of gay people in the city and the country, "a lively homosexual subculture had developed in Berlin by the second half of the 18th century or perhaps earlier." It was known as an oasis for gay men and lesbians in the Weimar period immortalized by the writer Christopher Isherwood and in the period when West Berlin was surrounded by the wall. Today, the city has an openly gay and highly popular mayor, Klaus Wowereit.
But gay men and lesbians from Muslim families say they face extraordinary discrimination at home. A survey of roughly 1,000 young men and women in Berlin, released in September and widely cited in the German press, found much higher levels of homophobia among Turkish youth.
"These differences are there," said Bernd Simon, who led the study and is a professor of social psychology at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel. "We can't deny them. The question is how do we cope with them."
"The answer is not to replace homophobia with Islamophobia," he added, pointing out that homophobia is also higher among Russian immigrants and in other, less urban parts of Germany.
Kader Balcik, a 22-year-old Turk from Hamburg, said: "For us, for Muslims, it's extremely difficult. When you're gay, you're immediately cut off from the family."
He had recently moved to Berlin not long after being cut off from his mother because he is bisexual. "A mother who wishes death for her son, what kind of mother is that?" he asked, his eyes momentarily filling with tears.
Hasan, a 21-year-old Arab man, sitting at a table in the club's quieter adjoining cafe, declined to give his last name, saying: "They would kill me. My brothers would kill me." Asked if he meant this figuratively, he responded, "No, I mean they would kill me."
"I'm living one life here and the other one the way they wish me to be," Hasan said, referring to his parents. He said he still planned to marry, but when he turned 30 rather than right away, as his parents wished. "I have to have children, to do what Islam wants me to do," he said. "I would stop with everything in the homosexual life. I would stop it."
He stood up from the table and called to his two friends. "All right, boys, let's go dance," he said. "We're here to have fun." And they marched off to the dance floor, smiling.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Gay in Iran - Part 1
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims there are no gays in his country. This documentary was the first to reveal the little-known plight of gays in Iran, where beatings, flogging and death are everyday
risks.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Indian Newspapers Reflect the Shock of Bhutto's Assassination
Indian newspapers reflected the shock that spread across the globe.
Photo: Harish Tyagi/European Pressphoto Agency
Radical Islam: The African Front (Kenya)
From the New York Times Magazine
By JOSHUA HAMMER
Published: December 23, 2007
One hot, cloudless afternoon in October, I sat in the members' salon of the Kenyan Parliament as the guest of Joseph Lekuton, an M.P . from the desolate bush country to the east of Lake Turkana. Around us a dozen other Kenyan politicians sat in comfortable armchairs, sipping tea from silver services and gliding from English to Swahili to tribal languages and back again. The décor — dark wood paneling, white concrete pillars and a flying-saucer-like brass-and-steel chandelier — suggested both the Soviet Politburo and a Las Vegas lounge in the Rat Pack era. Lekuton (pronounced LEH-koo-tone), an animated man in his late 30s, had dropped by to catch up on developments in the country's election campaign
Continued...
Egyptians wearing their faith on their foreheads
The zebibah, a mark created by pressing the head to the ground during prayer, is seen as a sign of piety.
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, New York Times
Last update: December 22, 2007 - 4:14 PM
CAIRO - There is a strong undercurrent of competition in Egypt these days, an unstated contest among people eager to prove just how religious they are. The field of battle is the street, and the focus tends to be on appearance, as opposed to conviction.
It is not that the two are mutually exclusive, but they are not necessarily linked. As Egyptians increasingly emphasize Islam as the cornerstone of identity, there has been a growing emphasis on public displays of piety.
For women, that has rapidly translated into the nearly universal adoption of the hijab, a scarf fitted over the hair and ears and wrapped around the neck. For men, it is more and more popular to have a zebibah.
The zebibah, Arabic for raisin, is a dark circle of callused skin, or in some cases a protruding bump, between the hairline and the eyebrows. It emerges on the spot where worshipers press their foreheads to the ground during their daily prayers.
It may sometimes look like a painful wound, but in Egypt it is worn proudly, the way American professionals in the 1980s felt good about the dark circles under their eyes as a sign of long work hours and little sleep.
Two decades ago, Egypt was a Muslim country with a relatively secular style. Nationalism and Arabism had been the foundation of identity. But today, Egypt, like much of the Arab Middle East, is experiencing the rise of Islam as the ideology of the day.
With that, religious symbols have become the fashion.
"The zebibah is a way to show how important religion is for us," said Muhammad al-Bikali, a hairstylist in Cairo, in an interview last month. Bikali had a well-trimmed mustache and an ever-so-subtle brown spot just beneath his hairline. "It shows how religious we are. It is a mark from God."
Observant Muslims pray five times a day. Each prayer involves kneeling and touching one's forehead and nose to the ground. All five prayers require placing one's head on the ground for a total of 34 times, though many people add prayers and with that, more chances to press their heads to the ground. Some people say the bump is the inevitable result of so many prayers -- and that is often the point: The person with the mark is broadcasting his observance, his adherence to one of the five pillars of Islam.
But the zebibah is primarily a phenomenon of Egypt. Muslim men pray throughout the Arab world. Indeed, Egyptian women pray, but few of them end up with a prayer bump. So why do so many Egyptian men press so hard when they pray?
"If we just take it for what it is, then it means that people are praying a lot," said Gamal al-Ghitani, editor in chief of the newspaper Akhbar El Yom. "But there is a kind of statement in it - sometimes as a personal statement to announce that he is a conservative Muslim and sometimes as a way of outbidding others by showing them that he is more religious or to say that they should be like him."
There are many reasons for the Islamic revival that has swept Egypt and the Middle East, from the rise of satellite television, which offers 24 hours of religious programming a day, to economies that offer little hope of improving people's lives, to the resentment of Western meddling in the Middle East.
But there is also peer pressure, a powerful force in a society where conformity and tradition are aspired to and rewarded.
"I will learn more about someone when I get to know him, but the appearance is the first impression," said Khaled Ashry, 37, a security guard at a private school.
Hanaa el-Guindy, 21, an art student in Cairo, covers her head and wears a long, loose-fitting dress to hide her figure. "The outward appearance is important," Guindy said. "It says, 'I am a good person.' This is a good thing. On judgment day, this sign, the zebibah on their forehead, will shine. It will say, 'God is great.'"
In much of the Arab world, symbols of extreme observance are fairly standard and tend to stem from the conservative religious cultures of Persian Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia. There is the long beard. In extreme cases men wear a loose-fitting robe that stops at their ankles, just as the Prophet Mohammed wore his own gown at ankle length.
Those symbols have seeped into Egypt and are growing in popularity. More and more women, for example, are covering their faces with a niqab, a black mask of cloth that has come to Egypt from the Persian Gulf. The zebibah, however, is 100 percent Egyptian and does not carry the negative connotation of imported symbols.
Men with long beards can still find it hard to get a job. The zebibah, on the other hand, can open doors.
"The zebibah can help," said Ahmed Mohsen, 35, a messenger for a law firm whose own mark was pinkish, bumpy and peeling. "It can lead to a kind of initial acceptance between people."
There are no statistics on the zebibah's prevalence. But today, perhaps more than any other time in recent history, Egyptians are eager to demonstrate to one another just how religious they are.
"In Egypt, it's the way we pray; we probably hit our heads harder than most in order to get one," said Ahmed Fathallah, 19, as he played dominoes one evening in a Cairo coffee shop.
There are many rumors about men who use irritants, like sandpaper, to darken the callus. There may be no truth to the rumors, but the rumors themselves reveal how fashionable the mark has become.
Not everyone has a zebibah. For plenty of Egyptians, faith is still a personal matter. But the pressure is growing, as religion becomes the focus of individual identity, and the most easily accessible source of pride and dignity for all social and economic classes.
"You pray, but it doesn't come out," said Muhammad Hojri, 23, as he gently teased his brother, Mahmoud, 21, recently while they worked in a family kebab restaurant. Muhammad has a mark. Mahmoud does not.
"I pray for God, not for this thing on my forehead," Mahmoud shot back.
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